Take your elephant to school day.

I was behind a man at Starbucks today who ordered his mocha with the whipped cream on the bottom. For some reason, this is really bothering me.

Better parenting through dementia

It’s Friday again, and you would think I could remember Friday is show-and-tell day at school. Of course, even if I had somehow recalled this fact, I would have likely still been stumped anyway because the letter this week is “I”, and what do you bring in for that one? Ice cream? Idaho potatoes? A catchy little prose written in iambic pentameter?

As usual, I grossly underestimated my children. G reminds me on the way that it is, in fact, Friday and that means show-and-tell. (Why he couldn’t have mentioned that in enough time for me to whip together a poetic masterpiece, I’m not sure.) So I mentally run through the list of everything in the car that could possibly begin with the letter “I” (I was pretty certain intravenous and/or intraossesous catheters wouldn’t be appropriate. Ditto on the bottle of Ibuprofen.) So he tells me he’s going to bring his elephant. [If you didn’t already know, we have one that occasionally rides on the top of the car because it’s too big to fit inside. Because the car is so heavy, the rhinoceros and hippopotamus have to push. We are also sometimes accompanied by a herd of monkeys, much to J’s delight.]

In my most benevolent mommy voice, I patiently explain to him that “elephant” starts with the letter “E” not “I”, so we’ll have to think of something else. [We are also have a really hard time with the fact G and J’s names start with different letters but the same sound, damn the English language.] He, in his most benevolent child voice, tells me, “No, mommy. It’s an invisible elephant. I-i-i-i invisible.”

Once again, I prove I am not smarter than a pre-schooler, regardless of how many times I slip quantum geometrodynamics into a conversation.

Why rancid cabbage restores my faith in genetics.

I did manage to obtain definitive proof last night that I am indeed the biological mother of my children, not just their incubation pod. Both kids decided they love sauerkraut. Ha! Gypsy blood lives!

The garbage man cometh.

I finally had to tell G why mommy jumps his case every time he pretends to shoot someone. [Although it is really pathetic to say, but he does an excellent impersonation of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Mr. Eastwood also strongly reminds me of my grandfather, which has it’s own creepy parallels.] Actually, he drew the lines himself, but it still made me sad to have to tell him. I wish I had a better story to give him, something heroic or interesting or brag-worthy. Hell, I’d even take pancreatic cancer over the truth. But, the truth is what it is, and I can’t change it now, and I am certainly not going to lie to either of them and give them the impression it’s something shameful.

It would have been much cooler to be able to tell him about the mortal combat against a deranged homeless person to save the patrons of Panera, but his ultimate defeat by the nefarious bullwhip-weilding villain. Sigh.

Did I mention my lecture, yet? Masochism lives, too.