The heat goes on
Because what else are you supposed to do when it’s 106 degrees outside?
Doodle
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The princess and the pedicure
Yesterday I introduced Caroline to one of the best parts of being a girl.
The pedicure.
Of course I’ve never had a pedicure complete with my own personal DVD player and a wide array of DVD’s to choose from.
I’ve also never had flowers painted on my big toes.
Frankly, I feel a little ripped off.
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Faster than a speeding bullet
Last night I was getting ready to go shopping and out to dinner with some friends when I realized it had been at least ten minutes since Caroline had walked into the bathroom to comment on my choice of outfit or beg to use my eyelash curler. I walked into the living room to see what she was doing and this is what I found.
She told me that it was her new superhero costume.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Samurai Pirate Butterfly Girl.
Complete with extra large black boots.
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Chuck E. Cheese, where a kid can be a kid or get a stomach virus
Yesterday was my sweet niece Sarah’s fourth birthday. It’s hard to believe that she’s already four years old because it seems like just a few days ago that I was sitting with my sister while she was in labor as she went on and on about how easy it was to give birth to a human being. I didn’t mention the fact that it wasn’t that easy for me because I had some crackpot of a labor nurse who kept telling me I wasn’t in labor until she realized I was ten centimeters dilated.
Yes, yes I am. That’s what all the screaming has been about. I wasn’t faking.
In reality, I’m sure I did remind my sister of my experience because I am just that petty and slightly bitter about the whole thing. Even so, I am thrilled for her that her particular birth experience was basically watching “Dancing with the Stars”, getting an epidural, and having a baby. We should all be so fortunate.
Sarah’s birthday party was at Chuck E. Cheese, largely because that rat is the reason she is potty-trained. It’s all about hitting them where they live and she was willing to do anything, even something as horrible as going to the bathroom on the actual toilet, to earn a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.
Caroline was so excited about a trip to Chuck E. Cheese because it’s generally a place I avoid like the plague that can be found on every single game located therein. In fact, she asked me why Sarah always gets to go to Chuck E. Cheese and she doesn’t. I didn’t know how to explain to her that her mama generally tries to avoid all kid-themed restaurants due to all the children that eat there and the tendency of the staff to dress up as animals, so I just told her she gets to have fun doing things Sarah doesn’t get to do, like killing betta fish with a diet of pet Sea Monkeys.
As soon as we made it into the restaurant, Caroline grabbed her cup of tokens and was off in the pursuit of big, germy fun. She fed tokens into one machine after another in the quest for tickets. Her eyes began to glaze over as she discovered the high of winning a long strand of tickets and I made a note to myself to keep her away from Vegas. Thanks to her great-grandfather, she has a bit of gambler in her gene pool and apparently it’s lurking just under the surface.
After a while it was time to eat pizza and participate in all the birthday festivities. The birthday girl got a little overwhelmed by all the hoopla, but I couldn’t blame her. If a big rat in a half t-shirt with no pants walked out of a back room to sing me happy birthday, I’d be freaked out too because it would be like my 21st birthday party all over again.
Once all the kids had gotten their second wind thanks to some pepperoni pizza and pink Barbie cake, they hit the floor again to use the rest of their tokens. I followed Caroline around like a video game waitress, holding her cup of tokens and storing her increasingly large stack of tickets in my pockets.
I wasn’t sad when I realized she was down to her last two tokens. I warned her that all the big fun was about to end and she would once again be just a normal kid whose mama doesn’t take her to Chuck E. Cheese on a regular basis. We took her pile of tickets to the ticket-eating machine, which is much more efficient than the days of my childhood where you’d just pile all your tickets up on a counter while some surly teenager begrudgingly counted them.
Her grand total of 181 tickets printed out on the receipt. We went up to the counter and I showed her what she could get with her winnings. And thus ensued the most arduous deliberation process I have ever witnessed. Seriously, the jurors in the O.J. trial came up with a verdict faster than it took her to decide between a fake bug and a piece of Laffy Taffy.
Just about the time my head was about to explode, she decided on a fake plastic ring, a bracelet, and a clip for her hair because everyone knows there are no finer accessories to be found than those at the Chuck E. Cheese prize counter.
The best part is it only cost about $10.00 in tokens to win prizes valued at thirty-five cents.
I think I smell a rat.
In a half t-shirt.
But, seriously, it was a great party and Caroline told me on the way home it was the BEST PLACE EVER.
Happy Birthday, Sarah! We love you and your fondness for Chuck E. Cheese.
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Every party (hopefully not every pool) has a pooper
This is pretty much the same face I get every day when I tell her that it’s time to leave the pool.
I realize it’s 115 degrees and there is no better place to be than in what has quickly become a lukewarm swimming pool (please let it be due to the extreme heat wave and not little kid pee), but at some point after five hours of non-stop swimming it’s time to go home.
I believe this a look that wordlessly conveys “My mama is a big downer because she won’t let me fry to a crisp or drown due to exhaustion”.
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A better place
I’ve always heard that celebrities die in threes and that certainly seemed to be the case last week when Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson all passed away. However, there are two more deaths that need to be added to that list.
The first is Shifty Powers. If you’ve never watched “Band of Brothers” then you probably have no idea who I’m talking about and all I can tell you is that you need to get yourself to Blockbuster Video or use the Netflix that all the kids are using these days and rent it. It will make you weep at the sacrifice that was made for our freedom during World War II. They were truly the greatest generation.
P couldn’t believe that I talked about Michael Jackson and the moonwalk and neglected to mention that Shifty Powers, a great American hero, had died. I told him it was mainly because I had no idea that Shifty Powers had passed away because the mainstream media neglected to report it. Of course it could also be due to the fact that I get my hard news from People.com and Entertainment Tonight.
Anyway, there was another death that hit a little closer to home. Brace yourselves.
Nemo is dead.
Last Sunday before I left town I decided I should clean his bowl because I knew the chance of P or Caroline remembering that his bowl needed to be cleaned were about the same as the odds of going to Walmart and not seeing someone in a tank top with no bra. In other words, not good.
So I went into Caroline’s room, retrieved Nemo and his (her?) bowl from the nightstand, and brought him (seriously? how do you know?) into the kitchen to clean out the bowl. I quickly realized that Nemo was in bad shape. And I mean bad shape in like it was probably too late to call the priest to administer last rites. Of course that’s assuming that Nemo was a Catholic fish. We never really discussed religion because we only knew each other a week.
I knew I was leaving for the airport in about an hour and I was conflicted about whether or not to tell Caroline that her beloved pet of one week was on his last fins. Finally, I decided that I needed to prepare her for what seemed to be a fairly imminent demise.
“Caroline, baby, Nemo isn’t looking too good.”
“What? What do you mean, Mama?”
“Well, see how he’s just lying there. I think he’s about to die.”
Drama and tears ensue.
So I did the only thing I knew to do in this type of situation. I spun the bowl around really quickly to give the illusion of Nemo robustly swimming around the bowl and said, “Look, I think he’s fine!”.
I know.
It’s like I was Jimmy Lee Farnsworth in “Fletch Lives” and faked a faith-healing ceremony.
(P, I apologize a thousand times. I was desperate and you’re much better at dealing with faux grief than I am. I love you.)
Later that night when I was hundreds of miles away, I told P that he may want to check on Nemo because I was pretty sure he was about to die. I didn’t admit that he may have already died that afternoon and was saved only by my strategic bowl-spinning efforts.
About noon the next day I get a text from P that reads, “Fish dead. Total meltdown.”
It was a high level of drama for a fish that she never showed any interest in other than the three minutes when she fed him a sea monkey. Fortunately, her grief was assuaged when she realized she could flush him down the toilet.
We are consoled knowing he’s in a better place. If you consider a better place to be a sewage system in Texas.
It is with great sadness that I report we’re going to the pet store tomorrow to buy a new fish.
Of course I’m probably not as sad as the poor fish that will end up living in this death trap.
