to keep (shoo-wop) your pre- (shoo-wop) cious loooooove

The kids and I went to the Krazy Daze (I do not approve of this novelty spelling) sale at R&R, and like every trip with all of the kids it took years off my life. But everybody got some glorious piece of crap that they were excited about. It's the American way! Ike bought a cheap little flashlight with his own money, and he was tickled pink. He was so cute and excited about getting change back that I just wanted to pinch him. I like when he's happy, because a lot of the time he isn't. I don't know what happened--he was such a smiley, laughy baby. Maybe he has cirrhosis.

I bought Grant a Leatherman for his birthday a month early at the sale. He was pretty jazzed, as well he should be, because it was the most money we're going to spend on him until the next time he needs sixty bucks. He wants to take it for Show & Tell, but I think we all know how well that would go over in our new wussified Zero Tolerance world. I ask you, what is a grade-school education without witnessing at least one knife fight? What is this world coming to?

Emmett planned and helped cook the meals today to pass off some requirement for Scouts. He did a good job, too. He is very useful in the kitchen, and I was even able to offload some of the mushroom slicing, since he was champing at the bit to use his new Old Timer knife (also Krazy Daze).

Willa is sort of terrible all day long, with occasional spurts of being not awful, but story time is the golden hour. She is happy and engaged in the story and basically makes up for every rotten thing she's done that day by being thoroughly charming. Tonight it was that Richard Scarry word book, and I think everyone should have a chance to listen to her say "bear." It's turrible cute.

mud, mud, glorious mud

This past weekend we went to watch John be in The Music Man. He did an excellent job, of course, because I don't know if you knew this, but he is in a promising local band. The two leads were great, but in the kissing part they seemed really, really into it, if you know what I mean. Like, in a Not Acting kind of way. It was quite uncomfortable, and it just went on and on.

Emmett almost had to stay home from school today, because he didn't like how his yogurt looked. LOOKED, not tasted, because he refused to even try it. I gave him some chores to get started on, since he was choosing to stay home and be a servant rather than eat his breakfast and be educated, and he went downstairs and sulked for a while while he "cleaned" the bathroom. Then he came upstairs and respectfully asked for some fruit and yogurt without sucanat in it, so I gave him plain, unsweetened yogurt and fruit, which is of course healthier, and he pridefully pretended to like it better, but it was sour as can be and I know he was faking. But because he ate it he was able to go to school after all and not miss St. Valentine's Day.

but you are, blanche! you are in that chair!

I'm reading The Glass Castle right now, and it is utterly horrifying. Among other things it is the reason I vacuumed this morning.

I worry sometimes that my kids are going to write a tell-all book about me and how the laundry was never, ever put away, and they had to claw through overflowing baskets to find their clean clothes. Or how I bought all of our furniture secondhand because I didn't want them ruining anything expensive. The scary thing to me is that I have all these high-falutin' ideas about how decent people should behave, but I don't mop my floor, and maybe I'm just like the mother in The Glass Castle. The kids couldn't chew gum because it was a low, disgusting habit, but they ate food from garbage cans because the parents refused to work.

It scares me.

I should have fought them off better, but the kids were insistent that they wanted to buy their valentines. So we bought them, and they put them all together and left them in shopping bags lying around the house, and now Willa has stolen an undetermined number of Jolly Ranchers off of Ike's valentines.

spaceman says everybody look down

Last night we finally watched the new Karate Kid movie. Grant has been earning a DS (120 days of good behavior) and movies with John and me (every 10 days of good behavior), and ladies and gents, it has been worth every single penny. Every other year of school has been a nightmarish hellscape up until Christmas, with pink slips and phone calls and conferences with his teachers, and privileges revoked, and essays being written about What He Did Wrong and How He Should Change, and nosy neighbors who volunteer at the school telling my parents with great relish how bad Grant is, and me spending a lot of time sobbing on my knees. It's been a real party.

So at the beginning of the school year we devised this solution and discussed with Grant how we would like to be purveyors of carrots, instead of sticks. He had a couple of roughish days right out of the gate, before we added the interim movie rewards, but ever since then he's been fantastic. Focused, dedicated, all that jazz. It has been surprising to me how well it's gone. I think part of it is due to him being older, but I think we also finally discovered a currency that matters to him. Of course, once he gets the DS it will no longer matter, but I hope by then that his good habits are internalized and he'll be in the habit of behaving well. If not we can at least take away the DS and smash it in front of him to show him how he has brought shame and dishonor to the family.

Speaking of which, I wasn't expecting to like The Karate Kid, but I did. It was much better than I anticipated. Nothing beats watching little kids kick each other in the head.

I've been a clean livin' boy, I promise you

I cut the boys' hair tonight. They hate it and complain endlessly when I cut their hair, because for some reason I guess it's not a horribly itchy living nightmare at the salon? Like official "hairstylists" have magic powers or something? Bull. They just like to make me sad. But I couldn't put up with their raggedy selves any longer. Emmett looked like an actual, living cat had taken up residence on his head, Ike looked like a toothless redneck, and Grant just needed to not think he was better than the other two. I appeased them by letting everybody watch Spongebob during the haircuts. Spongebob solves many problems.

Ike and Willa and I ate lunch at the Bombay Grill with Aleece and Lucy today. I put on a good show, but I didn't like my food as much as I usually do. Ever since I smashed my brainpan food hasn't sounded or tasted good to me. This is an alarming development that I hope is temporary. I've lost five pounds since Thursday, so I'm basically like a waif/model now, but I'd rather have lamb saagwala taste good again. I didn't even want to eat Lucky Charms at John's parents' house this weekend. Oh, it is distressing to me.

I used to live alone before I knew you

I just got a message from the school that was nothing more than a fuzzy recording of the principal's announcements over the PA, and random kids in the background telling the secretary about another kid who's always being a jerk to them. But because I have a Mother Heart I was able to deduce that the message was from Emmett, and he's calling to let me know that he left his lunch on the dining table and wants me to bring it to him.

Because I am headed out to do errands I am going to take it to him. Otherwise, tough nuts. Did I mention the Mother Heart?

UPDATE
Another message. This one goes:
Emmett: ". . . or Willa probably stole it." (Disgruntled breathing.) (Slamming the phone down.)

I think he started talking before the voicemail started recording.

possession is nine-tenths

This morning I was reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Pinga, and I was only trying to use it to open a dialogue about accepted behavioral norms regarding trespassing and owner's rights, but Pinga was not on board.

Pinga: "Mom, don't say that. Don't say, 'Naughty. She shouldn't have done that.'"

I like the version of the story where Goldilocks gets eaten.