Halloween Attire

Halloween was a good one at our house this year. It only required one costume change for the daughter which is approximately 5.5 fewer costume changes than a typical day. However, it must be pointed out that despite the frequent costume changes, the daughter is also quite thrifty. In fact, if she finds an outfit that screams to be worn three weeks straight, day and night, church, home and store to get the full investment value out of the purchase, then, by gosh, she will keep it on, apparently to help the family and country understand that you don't need a lot of stuff to be happy. Unless, of course, something better comes up and she changes her mind which takes place at roughly twice the speed of light.

So, accordingly, the Pumpkin Princess appeared right after Halloween when the princess garb was 90% off and I mistakenly thought it might be a cute dress up outfit. For a day. Or two. A week max, especially with the pumpkin headband that, from a distance, resembles an orange tick gorging himself on princess blood. Heck, had I known I was creating the Permanent Pumpkin Princess of Alpharetta, Georgia, I might have rethought the $2.49 purchase. A week and a half after her Permanent Pumpkin Princess coronation, which had occurred well before we hit the Target checkout line, I tried explaining that we had certainly gotten our full investment value out of the garment and she was going to freeze her butt and other parts off given the frigid weather if she insisted on continuing to wear the garment without any accommodations.

Some change in day wear was strongly being called for and was known not to violate her Pumpkin Princess oath which, as I informed her, I had carefully read on her behalf and would never let her violate. However, the princess clearly communicated in her very special and amazingly loud way that any outerwear or alterations in her garb would, in her opinion, not only invalidate her princess status but would also not be fair to her constituents and she just couldn't have that. Nope, not under any circumstances. Period and Amen. And, if she needed to demonstrate that she meant it by ripping off her tights and jacket to fulfill her duties, by gosh, she would. And did. In less than 30 seconds. All while strapped into her car seat. Have to admire the devotion to her cause. But I am sure hoping that the Houdini clothing skills disappear well before she is in her teens.

I Married a Clown

Really. Enough said.

He Put them in the Trunk?

So, this guy somewhere in America decided to lock his two children in the trunk of his car so that he could go shopping. Black Friday Specials from what I understand. When questioned by the authorities, he declared that "the kids liked to play in there." Now, I was shocked by this story, to say the least.

The glaringly obvious question - Who is this guy that apparently loves shopping? What gene did he get that the rest of the men on the planet do not share? Can this gene be shared?

Oh yeah, and the kids in the trunk thing. From the vantage point of the mother of a very opinionated and incredibly vocal three year old, I'm suprised I didn't think of that angle first. Just saying. Not like I would do it. My kids do not like to play in the trunk of the car.

The Great Biblical Tradition of David vs. Gloria

At dinner, the son let me know he was really excited about reading his bible tonight before bed because he was going to read his favorite story, that is, David vs. Gloria. Pretty sure I was playing hooky the day we went over that one at bible school. Sounds pretty Kramer vs. Kramer to me so I'm thinking this one should be interesting.

Odd that he would come up with that bit of confusion as I don't quite recall reading the story to him that way before he could make out the words on the page. It wouldn't have saved any time or otherwise amused me. Well, probably not a lot. And, if that did happen by some cosmic error, it certainly wasn't because someone interpreted the bible to me that way. Then again, my parents were the responsible type. I, on the other hand, have a plaster pope as my strongman. But, it works by gosh. I'm thinking of seeing if Buca de Bepo restaurant will sell him to me. Stealing him just seems wrong on so many levels.

"No Pope, No Pope"

So, my folks took my entire family to Buca de Beppo for dinner to celebrate my birthday which God also celebrated by sending 15.5 inches of rain to Atlanta in 24 hours. On our way to the restaurant, in addition to discussing which of us knew how big a cubit was should we need to start building, we also wondered aloud if there would be a lot of other waterlogged diners in the restaurant and, if so, how long would the wait be given the birthday Queen, otherwise known as the stellar mother of two outstanding children, is not know to be a terribly patient person when hungry. Or fully fed, take your pick. But, in fact, due to the rain gods, there were no other diners. Nada, Nessun, Keine. Now, I must assume that this was the result of most road transportation that day being via barge and not due to any advance warnings being posted that our party, to include the son and daughter,would not only be in the area but also in the building. However, I did not personally observe the traffic management signs on the freeway that day so who knows. Word could have gotten out.

So, we had the entire wait, cook, bar and valet staff at our disposal. And, we got a great table with great food. But one of us refused to cooperate as it is against some personal policy of hers to actually sit in a chair and/or booth to eat. Ever. Apparently, she subscribes to the belief that one must actually jump up to get food to go down versus just swallowing it. So, she was enthusiastically launching herself in the air repeatedly and rebounding off the booth while working on a spaghetti noodle. Despite my whispered threats of the dreaded "time out" she carried on. And on, and on and on. So, with my normal copious limit of patience worn out, I made the executive decision that it was time for time-out and since it was my birthday, and I still had food to eat, it wasn't appropriate for me to just disappear and take my time-out with a good book. Nope, had to take the human spring with me and in good parental fashion put her in a chair, explain the situation and what she needed to correct and so on. Yep, time out by the book. And that is what I started to do when opportunity presented itself and when opportunity knocks, by gosh, I answer.

Like a miracle, the Pope intervened. We had walked into his special room at Buca where they keep the Pope's head and torso in a box on a lazy Susan at a table designed to sit King Arthur's court. Have to love it. Now, my understanding is that it isn't the actual head and torso of the last great Pope as the chain obviously had a bit of drama with Rome trying to get the real one and went the easier route with a fake but it is a reasonably good facsimile in dim lighting, after drinking or if you are almost three and you haven't seen the real deal.

So, I pointed him out to Mia and told him that he was God's right hand man. And, if one had some behavioral issues, he could and would smite them if they didn't settle down. Now, I know this might not be theologically correct and I might have some explaining to do to the big guy upstairs but, what the heck, it is still quite effective, especially if one shakes the table back and forth to get the Pope to move a bit. Yep, looks pretty good. So, I explained to the daughter that she might want to apologize to the guy for jumping in his house and promise not to do it again given his smiting powers and all. But, the daughter isn't actually open to suggestions for improvement during those hours she is fully awake and/or half awake and continued to let me know how she disagreed with my proposition.

And then the miracle occurred. I could hear the harps and bells as the daughter stopped objecting and began looking at the Pope with what was clearly a sign of reverence. She gazed at the Pope with a look that I could best describe as awe tinged with slight wariness. I was congratulating myself on a job well done and a game well played when it happened and, no doubt about it, it was a sight to behold. The daughter slowly leaned down, lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table. Twice. Slowly. As she lifted her little face up to me for an explanation, I explained his legs were apparently in the next room but since he was Pope, he didn't really need them anyway given his ownership of the only Popemobile in the world. But, as she is only familiar with Barbiemobiles, she apparently didn't quite get the Popemobile reference. The disciplinary miracle continued as she quickly demonstrated to me that she no longer felt the need to jump and, in fact, wanted to return to the party with all due haste and did not, under any circumstances, want to invite the Pope along.

We returned from wence we came and continued our celebration. And, it was clearly a lesson learned as was demonstrated when I gave her a quizzical look when she was considering jumping to celebrate cake eating. She looked right back at me and then was quite clear and unambiguous in her declaration, "No Pope, no Pope, no Pope."

And, this good parenting lesson stuck. The next day, she told Cody, the mentally challenged cat, that he would "go to Pope, go to Pope" if he didn't get off the counter. He didn't. However, from what I can tell, he isn't Catholic and just didn't care.

The Cliff Notes of Our First Camping Trip Now That I'm Recovered from PTSD

All righty, I don’t have a Sunday bulletin yet because I was earning purgatory points last night boy scout camping without blankets in a flooded tent which was laid on top of a tree root. A big gnarly one. At the bottom of a hill. And this was selected with the typhoon forecast already known. Not by me, I must add.

For the record, I also did not do the calculating and/or packing of the sleeping bags or flashlights. Neither did my kids or cats. I'm just saying, you know.

Now, although my writing is generally based upon my application of some awesome parenting technique I have applied, based upon my most recent experience, I would be remiss if I didn't at least make a few helpful suggestions on camping. So, should you ever go camping, I would recommend at least one sleeping bag per person and no less than one flashlight per two people. Of course, that is pushing it should you flood or not want to be hooked to your camping partner like two convicts in chains at night who are trying to follow one little dot of bouncing light held by a 6 year old who is a little closer to the ground than you might be. Oh yeah, I’d also recommend pillows and an air mattress, some kind of pad or a huge amount of beer which can be either drunk or slept upon as beer bottles would most probably be more comfortable than my gnarly tree root.

Also, since I’m on the topic, I’d also like to formally thank the good cubs in den 5 and 13 who retrieved me from the woods and helped me back to the lightening shelter during my fine camping experience after I made the executive decision to go to the potty without three others in attendance.

So, if you do the math, you will see that we had one flashlight, four people, and one typhoon and, as the awesome mother I am, I sacrifically gave up the light. Or didn't want the screams of the daughter to disrupt the den meeting any further. Take your pick.

Can't wait to go again.

And it has come to talking to the cat..

So, you're just going on about your life which includes quite a bit of business travel when you realize it has come to this - you call home to talk to the two little people you are missing and end up having a one way conversation with Cody, the mentally challenged cat. And, you are tired enough that this seems like an okay and perfectly sane thing to you. Yep, sort of goes like, "So, Cody, how was your day? Did you do any fun cat things? Happen to kill any bugs today to earn your keep? How's the catnip hangover going?" And so forth and so on. Cody, most probably on some cat principle I haven't been made party to, refuses to speak. But that doesn't deter my excited questioning. I have his self esteem to worry about after all.

Of course, the slide down the slippery slope to cat talk always begins by getting the son on the phone first. As he is now used to me being out of town, he has found a way to get out of answering questions, which, he tells me are quite repetitive and which he clearly answered yesterday. Inquiries like, "How was your day?" "What did you talk about in school today?" etc. Yep, repetitive questions that apparently only need to be answered once in his world. So, upon answering the phone and saying hello, he first asks if he can give the phone to his sister and then reports she doesn't want to talk to me which isn't really much of a surprise given she doesn't really talk much yet, especially to Mommy trapped in a little box. He then asks if he can give his Daddy the phone. Yes, I say, after I talk to you. Nope, he says, have stuff to do but Cody the cat wants to speak to me, puts me on speaker and from what I can tell, walks away.

Yep, that is what it has come to. A one way conversation with a cat who tries to help out around the house by killing plastic bags. On a good day. If he isn't too stoned on his catnip which, from what I can tell, isn't often. Yep, the exotic world of business travel really is something.