Little Bits

Every night, before we go to bed, one of us makes a patrol to make sure all lights are out, no one is conducting a midnight comic book marathon binge, and that any electronic equipment is turned off. The other day, it was my husband’s turn, and all was well as he approached the last room, the room of our two toddlers, the R& R girls, Rest and Relaxation…what we don’t get.

Rest had cried out.

Tucking in Rest, Relaxation rolled over and opened one eye. “It’s not my fault.” She said and fell back into deep sleep.

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Only four weeks left of pregnancy and I’ve discovered that language is something I need to monitor. At dinner, I mentioned I had felt a contraction. My third grader looked at me puzzled. I asked him if he knew what a contraction was.

He looked disgusted at the question, “Of course I do, it’s where you use an apostrophe to shorten two words, like can’t.” He then asked me how I could feel a contraction and I decided I couldn’t. “Figure of speech.” I said.

Just not ready for any further discussion about that, or at least, not at dinner.
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This week John McCain nominated Sara Palin to be his Vice Presidential candidate and my husband took four of our girls to see her speak in Pennsylvania. My husband had shown them pictures on the internet of Palin with her children. While there, my fiver (I guess I should call her sixer now but Fiver fits her personality better), called me on the cell, her voice filled with joy. “Mommy! Daddy took us to Pennsylvania and we saw the President and she looks just like she does on your computer!”
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A question I get asked every day by someone out in public, "How do you do it?" I didn't realize how jaded I'd become until one of my daughters, the (Sixer), answered for me. "Well, she divides us into the sentients and non sentients, she has us each do chores. She makes us clean for a whole hour on Sunday."

"Do you get allowance for that?" the older woman asked as she listened intently.
"Yes. We hold a wolf council and everyone howls and we light the wolf candle and she gives out our money for the week. Plus we vote for the kid of the week. I never get it."

"Uh, excuse me, you won it last week."
"Oh yeah. I forget."

By this point, the woman was moving on...but my daughter kept going. For the next ten minutes as we grocery shopped, she laid out every system we had ever created in an attempt to manage our horde. People knew we made menus on Sunday, had individual laundry bins, breakfast for dinner one night of the week, two nights of pasta and Sundaes on Sunday.

I considered saying to her, "Dim your lights." but so far, I haven't the nerve.