Monday, February 22, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Breathing

Felled by flu, but still alive. Just.

Stoopid flu.

More later, but just to prove life goes on in the pest house.

Children 1 and 3 are out back with a couple of friends having built a fire in the fire pit. One of the friends apparently was assigned a paper on piracy for some class or other and is, for reasons unknown, reading it aloud.

Which is why Child 3 just bolted through the house to retrieve its Christmas gift from Child 1 - a pirate bandanna with floppy Goofy ears attached (complete with earrings).

The fact that I was able to recognize this was standard Child 3 behavior and not a flu-induced feverish dream is, I hope, evidence that I am indeed recovering.

Monday, February 08, 2010

SuperSensitiveBowl

Watching the super bowl with Child 1. I haven't watched the super bowl in... hmmm.... ever? But this year we had a Party with Food and People (okay, two extra people) and a Large Television (not mine) with American Football on. Child 1, having recovered from its experience in the Happiest Place on Earth sat in a comfortable chair happily stuffing its gob with sweet pepper slices and meatballs (not TOGETHER mind you, at least I don't think so) and offering expert commentary on the game. Viz:

Child 1: [a bit muffled due to meat balls] See, I don't like that team because last time in that run up game they were being mean and I didn't like how they were playing.

Knowledgeable Adult: You mean, the way they were tackling?

Child 1: Yeah! They kept hitting them. Really hard. I don't like that.

Pause

Child 1: I just wish football were NICER.

Later

Child 1: Hey! He pushed him! Did you see that! He was! It was! He PUSHED him!!

KA: Yeeeessss... you see they do that in football

Child 1: I know! I just... I think... I mean, that player, he's probably going, "dude! Why did you have to do that! I mean, I am not made of metal" ... [feelingly] "I have a heart."

K.A. inhales his meatball and spends next five minutes attempting to remove it. Child 1 thoughtfully chews its sweet pepper and ponders the unfortunate message given to impressionable youth by American Football.

Later it, along with its sibling, experiments with dipping broccoli in sweetened whipped cream. Conclusions were definitive but discouraging.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Trivial

I offer, in lieu of anything of substance or entertainment value, the following utterly random and totally trivial facts about ME. Because what's more exciting than things you never wanted to know about someone you have possibly never met? NOTHING.

1. I once bit my sister. While we were in the library. Why? Because you can't scream in the library. Which I totally knew, and so when she went first through the pushy swingy bar thing when obviously she knew I wanted to go first (because my sister was evil) (and a mind reader) I focused all my rage in my sharp little white teeth and chomped my sister right in the back. And, because it was a library and you can't scream in the library my sister totally sucked it up and she did not scream, and what's more for some reason she also didn't quietly let my mum know what had happened and so I totally got away with it. Which, by the way, means you get a bonus trivial fact which is that my sister has an iron will and should never, ever be trifled with.

A few months later I bit her again but I wasn't nearly so cunning and this time did it outside in full view of a complete set of cousins who promptly tattled. I don't remember what was done to me but it probably was less than what I richly deserved.

2. I once slept through a bomb and then lied about having woken up because I missed the bomb! Missing the bomb became a sort of focal point for everything wrong in my young life for quite a while. My mum refused to buy me that nasty ice lolly thing with the red jelly in the middle that was the most amazingly fabulous thing EVER (Because? You could bite the ice lolly and the jelly oozed out and it was JUST LIKE BLOOD!) AND!! I missed the bomb. My sister told me to go pick gooseberries for her from our gooseberry bush (even though she hated gooseberries) and then told me we weren't supposed to go back there as there were wasps and if I didn't do exactly as told she would tell on me and I would probably be beheaded right there and then AND!! I missed the bomb. In fact, to be truly honest, I regret to this day sleeping like a lizard in torpor through the late-night bombing of our neighborhood waterworks.

3. When very very small I was read a story in which the young child was told, randomly, not to put beans up her nose and she promptly did so. I'm pretty sure the story went on to have suffering and tears and things before the offending bean was finally coaxed out - I'm afraid I don't remember. What I do remember is immediately going outside and shoving a small pebble up my nostril. Naturally I couldn't tell anyone what I had done so I suffered agonies instead, sure that I would go through the rest of my (probably shortened) life with a pebble up my nose. For the life of me I can't recall how I finally got that thing out but I assure you my nostrils are, right this moment, pebble free.