The Importance of Meditation

Inhale, hold it.......... and exhale. Push ALL that bad air out. Now, in again and hold it....... and exhale one more time.





Okay. Now we're ready. Ready for what? Anything! I must have had a bulls-eye painted right square on the center of my back for the past two weeks, because anything that could have hit me pretty much did. Fortunately for you, you get to kick back with a tall, cold one and relive the breathless highlights with me.





First, the new job. It's fun and keeps me mostly out of trouble and interacting with other humans who don't bite (at least so far) for just a couple of hours at a time two to four days per week. Second, Hubby and I had a date on Wednesday night. We went to the movies and saw Batman. There was popcorn but no handholding because, alas, Hubby's apparently lost that lovin' feelin. Too bad for me. Niki came over and fed the Beans dinner and put them to bed. I was worried about separation anxiety. Niki sent me this just when I was considering leaving Hubby there and coming home, about thirty minutes after we left:





Yes, I know that pretty much all of my worry is energy spent in vain but unfortunately, I've been really keyed up and off-kilter for the past couple of weeks and everything boiled over this past Friday. As the Beans slumber peacefully in the next room doing that spastic little twitchy thing babies do while they sleep, I sit here at my messy messy desk (I could very well have a family of feral ferrets inhabiting my desk and no one would EVER KNOW) still unwinding from Friday's fantastic fun.



Now, there are myriad things I want to do before I get to that big chocolate factory in the sky: learn Italian and then go somewhere I can speak it (like New York), learn to fly an airplane all by myself and drop a humanitarian load of shoes over a poverty-stricken nation (but no socks because I HATE socks-- but that's another post), watch Katie dart around in glee herding some sheep, see my kids really, truly, honestly and with all their hearts fall in love (after grad school), and the list goes on. And as a mom it's been a super-crunchy fun ride to experience all the things I never even dreamed to anticipate having had one baby at the way-too-young age of twenty and then the double-whammy surprise at thirty-two, most of it having to do with poop, barf and screaming (mostly me-- the screaming, I mean).



And so it was on Friday. Biscuit was at his dad's house last week. The Beans are making admirable headway in the locomotion department and we were honing their skills when my phone rang on the dining room table (which, if you've been paying attention, you'll remember is NOT in the plushly carpeted dining room but rather in the laminate-floored kitchen).

The Beans and Hubby and I were playing around said table and Pipsi was over by Hubby, just about standing against the playpen. I turned to answer the phone and SPLAT went Pipsi-- right on her beautiful blue-eyed little face. This is not unusual. I answered the phone and heard Biscuit speaking but realized that I wasn't hearing Pipsi howling as she is given to do in these frequent situations. I told Biscuit I'd call him back and started back around the table to Pipsi who, by this time, was getting picked up by Daddy. I got over to her and pulled her up the rest of the way and she was just limp. I turned her over and her face wasn't screwed up in the mad / sad frown she wears when something displeases her and she seemed to be gasping jerkily for air with her eyes closed. I think that was the moment we went on autopilot.




Before the girls were born Hubby and I had a birthing plan that sent him along with the Beans if the babies and I had to separate for whatever reason. Hubby, you'll remember, enjoyed a brief stint as a firefighter and generally stays calmer during moments of crisis than I do. Anyway, things went exceptionally well during the Beans' delivery and we were all together in our room the next day when Pipsi went blue during a test. The nurses whisked her away and ran her down the hall to the nursery before we even knew what was happening. The four days that Pipsi spent in the NICU were the most intense of our lives together and I remember when I was finally home with both of my babies thinking while holding Piper, "I'm NEVER letting go of you again." I can't remember any other moment in my life when I'd felt so helpless and powerless and like a failure than when I had to ask others for permission to hold my own child. But I also remember the look Hubby gave me as I struggled to rise in the instant between the nurses jetting out with one of our babies and me shooing him out after them (go go go!), leaving me to get my c-sectioned self out of bed and down the hall with the other baby. And it was that look, I think-- quick, composed, confident, full of calm reassurance even as I stammered, "Should I call 911?"-- that compelled me to hand over my little baby to him on Friday while I ran for the phone and dialed those three scary little numbers. That and a little voice in my head that said, "Guess what? You're about to lose it, so turn over the kid to the capable hands and go do something useful with your own."




Pipsi was SOOO tired on Friday. She and Parki both were totally off-schedule and just out-of-sorts, and neither one was too happy to suddenly see a bunch of strange men in their house staring at them, particularly Pipsi. And Hubby and I were glad of it, because she voiced her displeasure at great volume and length and seemed just like her usual self after about three minutes. Mommy, on the other hand, took a little longer to chill out.



"How old is she?" asked the nice firefighter.



"Eleven months," shaky shaky shaky Mommy said.



"When's her birthday?"



"Ummm," God, I should know this. They didn't tell me I'd have to know this! "August 20th." There! See! I told you I knew it!



"And how old is this one?"



"The same, eleven months,"


"What, are they twins?" Oh, Jesus Christ, not this! Can't you see I'm freaking out?!? Hubby and Pipsi are on the sofa talking to a guy wearing purple gloves (I can't believe they let such a ridiculous guy who wears purple gloves graduate from med school! Did he go to med school? Hey, Clowny!! Did you go to med school?!?! What the hell is the story with those ass-hatty gloves?!?!?!?) oh, they're all wearing purple gloves and Pipsi has gone from shy to screaming, so that's good.



"Mm-Hm, yes, yes, they're twins." Move along, move along, next question please.


"Oh, a boy and a girl?" Seriously? Parker, hanging out with me and the nice firefighter and surprisingly quiet throughout the entire ordeal, is wearing a pink skirt and a flowered top and looks quite cute and delicate, actually. Pipsi is wearing a pink top and a green, pink, yellowy-striped skirt. The guy holds out a purple finger and Parki backs away a little bit but still flashes her trademark big-blue-eyed, long-eyelashed, slightly flirty smile.



"No, they're both girls," please, please don't display incredulity.



"Really?" Said while looking back and forth between the babies, as if one will object and confirm what he thought all along, that I'm a liar or maybe just haven't noticed that one of my little girls actually has a ding-ding and not a cha-cha.



"Yeah, we get that all the time. It's the hair," Rattle off the stock reply which frequently leaves people looking a little mystified because, after all, what does the hair have to do with it? But then again, the twins are both wearing pink as usual, so I've already given him all the help I can without drawing a diagram. The rest is up to him. Next question?



"Last name?" Oh, that's easy.



"And what's her name?" Pointing at Pipsi.



"Piper."



"What?"



I turn and look him square in the face and repeat myself and wonder, "Biscuit? Is that you in there?"



"Piper,"



"Spelled just like it sounds?"



"Yes," I say blankly, just barely stifling the urge to add, "DUH!" onto the end of my declaration He is, after all, here to help. He holds my gaze for a minute and writes on the page attached to his clipboard.



I look over at Pipsi and then glance down at the paper where he's written:



"H - Y - P - E - R"



And suddenly I get it, that this is a COSMIC PUNCH LINE and I have just been, like, totally PWNed. Somehow, something I did set this chain of events into motion maybe five or ten or thirty years ago and every moment since then has been leading to this. And you know what? I'm totally cool with it because it's funny as hell. I look over at Pipsi, now screaming her seemingly fine head off and acting not like a brain-injury or apnea victim but rather just like she always does when an unknown man gets too close to her, and Purple-Gloved Firefighter kinda-sorta trying to touch her to check her out and Pipsi trying to climb over Hubby to get away and I just know that whomever or whatever has been watching eternally over us is absolutely rolling on the floor laughing right at this moment. Bravo! Perfect execution.



"No, no. Piper. P-I-P-E-R." and now I laugh a little bit.



"Oh! Okay, I thought maybe you were just cuttin' to the chase, you know? I thought it was kind of... you know,"



"Oh, yeah. I never thought about it but they totally sound alike," and it is true, I must admit.



We had the fire guys call off the ambulance. Pipsi was fine. They offered to transport her to the hospital just to be safe but Hubby and I saw that it was fatigue more than anything. After all, it's not easy, bein' Bean and learning to walk. Hubby and I loaded the Beans up into their carriers, Parki on Hubby's back (where she had a gay ole time smacking the back of his head and yanking on his hair-- my perfect little minion) and Pipsi strapped up against my heart, and we trekked over to Starbucks. Hubby half-caffed and I indulged in some brownies, sharing with my girls and giving them their very first taste of chocolate and they were pleased indeed.



The past two weeks have been worse than hectic-- frenetic, maybe? There is simply more to do in the same amount of time and it's taking its toll on our little family as we adjust-- pushing and pulling us in places and times when we weren't before. It's stressing us out. But (and here it comes, the "what I learned" bit) even though I find myself feeling more like myself again but less like I used to (and if you understand that you're probably a baby eater too, just like me-- if not, forget about it and let it go), the ways Hubby and I have changed together have made those aspects of our relationship stronger. Super-strong. I still know that if I get stuck somewhere and need him to check my email or bring me a tampon he's going to pitch a hissy fit and be a pain in the ass about it because he thinks I'm being a pain in the ass and after all, fair's fair (BTW, thinking back on that little thing now, Hubby, I am keeping the purse and that's that), even through all of that I know --down to the mitochondria-- that I can count on him and that doing that doesn't make me helpless or powerless or a failure. It makes us a great team.



So Hubby, I forgive you for not holding hands with me on our date. But don't let it happen again. Because next time they won't call off the ambulance-- and it won't be for the Beans...

Why I Love NERDS!!!

Siiiiiiiiigh. I don't like cleaning stuff. I don't like doing laundry. I don't like doing dishes. I don't like Swiffering (not that it's even a real verb / gerund). I don't like ironing and I DEFINITELY do NOT like vaccuuming.

Don't get me wrong-- it's not as though I would go so far as to say that I hate doing any of that stuff (unless I'm redoing it immediately after just having done it the first time because some penis-bearing member of the household just walked in from outside and screwed it all up, but that's another post entitled, "All The Different Ways The Peninses In My Life Bug Me"). And there are a few chores I can't complain about too loudly because, as any good mom knows, once kids get to be around ten years old, we get a break from some of the chores around the house by "teaching our kids about responsibility". Yes, we have to rewash the pans a few times and scrub the toilet bowl a little harder to demonstrate the concept of the idea of "clean". But vaccuuming... Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Right this moment as I type away, centering my usually manic, unfocused mind on anything other than disdainful loathing for Eureka Betsy, she sets silently in her corner giving me the ol' Stinkeye. You see, a couple of weeks ago I was cruising the web and saw an article on child development and one of the sentences in the article was:

"Consider vaccuuming more frequently now."

It stuck. So I considered it and started taking a closer look at the floors and, sadly, realized yet again that Eureka Betsy is a pitiful excuse for a vaccuum cleaner. For some reason she leaves an unclean streak behind her everywhere she goes. No problem for me, though, since I'm used to picking up her slack after all these years. I have become accustomed to vaccuuming east-west across the room, then pivoting and going north-south over the same patch of land. Alas, my attempts to keep carpets free of Katiehair and other gross debris seem to be failing as Eureka Betsy climbs ever higher into old age and on toward that great vaccuum-cleaner retirement home in the sky.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. OK. Here's what's going through my mind:

• The Beans will soon escape the confines of their Cages for good and then the whole house will be their Playground.
• Katie (who is a people) will not tolerate living outside and therefore will continue to shed her hair in the house unless I shave her.
• Penis-bearing members of the household, who have until now steadfastly refused to remove their shoes when they come inside, will probably not change their behavior and if I cut off their feet to solve this problem I will simply make more work for myself.
• Eureka Betsy weighs about 2,500 pounds or so and will not take kindly to being pushed around much longer as it is.
• If I continue to push around Eureka Betsy I will either pop a disc in my back so hard it will likely shoot through my skin and lodge itself tw inches deep in whatever happens to be near, or I will develop freakily huge muscles on one side of my upper back and neck, giving me the appearance of a hunchback and making me repellant to my children (Katie included unless I buy her different dog food), thus rendering my efforts at maintaining a clean house pointless because I will derive no happiness from playing in it with my children (who recoil from me in terror and disgust).
• I should eat a big blue box of Nerds to improve my outlook on this situation.

See? No way to win. If I don't clean my house, my children will die from dog-hair/ yard debris-stuck-to-the-soles-of-men's-shoes poisoning. If I do clean my house, I end up a loveless, deformed freak. What should I do?

Common sense says vaccuuming wouldn't be so bad were it not for Eureka Betsy's heavy inefficiency. And I know there are pretty pink vaccuums made by elves that glide effortlessly along, leaving the air in each and every room of my house tasting like candy and making my hair shiny and beautiful-- I've dreamed about them but can never seem to find them at Sears. And now that the Nerds are doing their job, I'm going to smile, unplug Eureka Betsy, roll her on her casters into Biscuit's room (and hope the Penis-Bearer gets the idea but not hold my breath), giggle a devious giggle and go play a prank on Hubby and forget all about this dilemma until either the sugar wears off or until the other Penis-Bearer sets foot into the house. Good day toyou-- I'm off to cavort with the fairies until Happy Nappy #2 concludes!!!!!

One Small Step for Beans...

Today at approximately 3:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time (such gravitas!) Hubby informed me that Pooki took her first solo step today. Yay Bean!!!

The Beans have been cruising around like '55 Cadillacs down Main Street on Saturday night since we returned home from vacation. They cruise all around their room, the Playgrounds (both of them-- did I mention we just replaced the Exersaucers with a little PlayZone in the family room? No? Well now I have) their cribs, and everywhere else they call pull themselves up or even just stand up from sitting (since they suddenly do that now too). I'm so proud. Soon they can get jobs and help pay for gas.

I have to admit, I was a little bummed to have missed it with my own eyes. All those poopy diapers and spoonfuls of food in my hair didn't earn me that, huh? I guess that's why everyone calls it a thankless job, this motherhood gig. But then, Hubby has missed waaaay more firsts than he's seen. So good for you Hubby! And I'm glad you had fun on Bean Duty today-- especially doing Doody Duty.

The Tables Have Turned

There's a common theme running through our little family: For Biscuit it's shiny objects and chores, for Hubby it's the A/C constantly running, for Katie it's the ball or frisbee getting stuck under the sofa or thrown over the fence, for Pipsi it's, sadly, her sister pulling objects out of her hands (or mouth), and for Pooki, it's The Table.

The Table is cute. It sings, counts, plays music and lights up the Beans' dreary days in the Playground. It also thwarts Pooki on an infuriatingly regular basis. Toys, Binkies and bibs somehow find their way under The Table and when Pooki's big blue eyes spy them, she can't resist their lure. So she goes after them.

And gets stuck. She gets her little Bean head, shoulders and arms smack in the center beneath it and then, elbows sticking out between two of The Table's legs, she begins to wail. She can't go forward, she can't go backward, and I imagine she thinks she's going to die there, like I did when I was five and locked myself in one of my brother's rabbit cages in the backyard (I was very small for my age, although I don't recall that I was bunny-sized... but then again I also remember that it was pretty cramped in said cage for what felt like hours but Mimzi swears was no more than fifteen minutes). ANYWAY, most of these moments are short- lived but Pooki seems entirely willing to hold a grudge against The Table, refusing to go back and play with it for at least a few minutes unless Pipsi immediately goes to play with it.

Really quickly, there's something you need to know about Pooki and her ability to vocalize. I'm about to date myself, but I remember the first time I heard a Mariah Carey song. I was on my way home from school and I think I was a junior in high school and I was truly amazed at this woman's awesome range. I think I heard sometime that she covers eight octaves or somewhere in there. Pooki covers at least that much, but it'll probably never be accurately measured because I'm pretty convinced that her range goes beyond the ability of human hearing because there are moments when she stares right at me with her mouth open and no sound comes out, thus leading me to believe that either she's making noise I can't hear or practicing her Jedi mind-control tricks on me. Why do you need to know this? You need to know this because this morning, I emerged from forty-five seconds in the powder room to hear Pooki's Laugh of Triumph. Pooki's Laugh of Triumph is very distinctive. It's deep, throaty and just plain devious. It says, "I just totally got you and there's nothing you can do about it!" and the moments I am most likely to hear this laugh is when Pooki has just popped a Binkie from Pipsi's mouth and stuck it into her own. Then we hear the Laugh of Triumph.

What was odd about this Laugh of Triumph was that I heard Pipsi's This Amuses Me Laugh along with it. Pipsi's This Amuses Me Laugh is pretty self-explanatory. She first used this laugh when Biscuit made funny faces at me while I was holding her. She was about four months old and it was very cute. Anyway, these events stirred my curiosity because I wondered what Pooki was getting into if not her sister's face. So I peeked around the corner and found this:

It seemed that Pooki found a way to turn the tables on The Table; instead of being at the mercy of The Table, she was now the one doing the dominating and it suited her very well, thank you very much, take THAT, you mean old Table you! That's what you GET for THWARTING me all those times!!! And so it followed that Pipsi, who must have found inspiration in Pooki's bold assertion of her physical dominance over The Table, finally got herself onto the Car for the first time. And was she ever proud of herself!

Now the tables have, quite literally, turned. My little Beans are no longer mastered by their toys but rather, they have become the Toy Masters. And, as I've sat here, right next to the Playground chronicling their triumphs, the Beans have climbed onto the toys that are up against the sides of their plastic prison, and I know the days of their unwilling containment are numbered, and this has me worried. Why? Because now that they've triumphed over one nemesis it's only a matter of time before they feel invincible enough to take on the greatest nemesis of all: the Mommynator. And when it's two against one, what hope do I have?!?!

At The End Of The Day, It's All Worth It... Right?

I overheard someone utter this phrase today and it got me thinking. Sure, it's all worth it. Otherwise why would I do it, but when the heck does the day end? According to the computer display, it is 11:11 PM July 8th, 2008. I'm still awake and typing away, so apparently MY day is not yet at an end.

What did I do today? Let's see... Hubby had a 7:30 conference call this morning and Biscuit is visiting his dad this week, so I got the Beans up, fed, dressed (let's not forget there was a poopy diaper in there) and down for Happy Nappy #1 promptly at nine. Mimzi came over to monitor the Beans so I could run errands. I got home at about noon to find that the Beans woke up pretty much right after I left at 9:30 and had been up and about and FUSSY (let's not forget to mention poopy--AGAIN), so I fed and changed and put them back down for Happy Nappy #2 at one. One is not the Beans' approved Happy Nappy #2 Time-- that's usually at three o'clock, but today they were too tired to argue. Between one and three-thirty I ate, glanced at some news headlines, cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry and made nary a dent in the mountain of chores there are to do around here. I considered vaccuuming but we're getting the A/C and funace replaced tomorrow, so I figured rather than get all hot and sweaty (which will of course make me even grumpier than I would be just looking at dirty floors) I would wait until tomorrow (because let's face it-- are the A/C guys really going to take me seriously when I politely request that they remove their big, smelly boots before coming in the house? I don't think so. And if they did, wouldn't their feet probably stink so badly [from standing outside in 103- degree heat replacing other people's compressors or whatever so that those other people can be comfortable] that I would kick myself for asking in the first place? See, I know how to be my own best friend).

Then the Beans were up and around again. They needed new diapers and Mommy gladly obliged, then fed them again. This was another joyous meal in which Mommy not only got banana sprayed in her face and hair but also got to watch another Bean poop AGAIN. So after the meal was done we changed another poopy diaper AGAIN. At 4:30, Hubby came in to say he was done working and was it okay for him to take a quick bike ride? Sure, honey! It's still a hundred degrees outside though, so take your phone and make sure you call me before you pass out so I'll know where to pick you up. Oh, and leave your shoes on so your feet won't stink up the Starship Margaret, please. Thank you!

Another Bean pooped again (and by now the italics or caps seem silly because it would be weirder to be doing something other than changing a poopy diaper) and we played together for a while until Hubby returned home and took off his shoes-- sigh. I took a shower (since my feet probably smelled less like Chanel No 5 and more like Cheerio-banana-dog hair-Bean slobber-poopy diaper paste) and scooted out for my MoM's group meeting. Oh, and somewhere in there I ate a bowl of dinner. Don't ask what kind of dinner it was because I can't remember-- all I know is that I had to stand in front of the microwave and hold the door closed for the microwave to stay on. But that's another post entitled, "MagicChef: The Most Evilest Nemesis Of All". The microwave may very well usurp Crane of his title. Crane pretty much just bores me now. Stupid static toilet.

I had a nice evening out among adults. These fellow mothers of multiples are great to hang out with-- I guess because they understand the crazy. They understand that lack of sleep coupled with the need for constant, obsessive vigilance to prevent crawling infants from climbing the Bookcase Ladder of Doom or from Drowning in the Dreary Depths of the Doggie Water Dish or from Licking 'Lectrical Sockets leads to silly, aberrant behavior. Yes, some people without multiples might call it deviant or psychotic but hey, they're not in my shoes (which probably would stink were they not flip-flops) so they can take their multi-syllabic, important-sounding, smarty-fartypants five-dollar words and stick them in the Beans' Diaper Genie where they belong!

I got home at around 9:45 (I think). I was still a little hungry but chose instead of eating to check on the Beans, check the inbox, check the voicemail, check the kitchen (yep, he saved me the dishes and look!!! There's my half-eaten bowl of dinner-- but he did get the Beans to bed so that's fair), do the dishes, reflect on the day and engage in a little blog therapy.

Yes, it is absolutely worth it-- but it's finding a moment to reflect and appreciate it that's the challenge. But even for as harried and frazzled as I feel when I can't remember when last I bathed and when I know without a doubt I look as bad as I smell and that I look waaaaaayyy older than I am (if I can remember how old I am that day), I can't say that there's anything I'd rather have more than BiscuitandBeanslove. I've been to Europe, visited lush tropical islands, had rich boyfriends with fast cars and my own promising career-- and if I had one millisecond to choose what I'd rather have, it would be my kids every single time.

As long as they keep their stinky shoes on ;) And now that it's 12:10 AM, today would officially find its end tomorrow.

Because She's Smarter Than I Am

There are days when I truly feel the burden of being mommy to the smartest dog in the universe. And, since she's also my soul mate (as I wrote in a post that I just realized I never published-- those late-night posts get a little jacked-up sometimes) she communicates her thoughts, wishes and desires sometimes all too well.



Take this morning, for example. Katie rested her head on my knee and told me, with a look of lnging in her beautiful, bottomlessly soulful eyes, that she was hungry-- PLEEEEEASE feed her. Of course! I was delighted. She watched me intently as the kibble hit the botton of her stainless steel bowl and then she locked her border collie eyes on me and watched me walk back across the kitchen floor to the Beans' Playground.



"That's all there is. Finish that and I'll get you something different. But you have to eat this stuff first," We have this conversation several mornings per week, she and I. Katie does not care for this kibble. This is the kibble that was on sale at Target and I didn't think it would be that much different. Well, apparently it is. And she keeps telling me so. Every day.



There's a lot of stuff we've trained Katie to do. She will sit, stay, lay down, play dead at the issuance of "BANG!", and she has never, ever run away. When she was a puppy and had lived with us for a mere ten days, she scaped the back yard through a gap in the fence. I was running out the door to meet a client that morning and you can imagine my surprise when I opened the front door to leave and there, on the porch sat little Katie, tail wagging and a cute little smile on her face. Funny, I always thought the dog was supposed to greet her humans when they returned home, not when they left.



What I'm trying to say is that Katie, like most Border Collies, is often too smart for her own good. She came pe-programmed to play ball and frisbee. She can open drawers and knock on doors. Really. So you can imagine that I wasn't that surprised to one day enter the kitchen and notice a dish towel covered her food bowl. It could have been an accident. It could have been unintentional. It could have been an action performed by the same mischievous little fairies that hide just one sock out of every load of laundry and come in and mess up the bed after Hubby swears he made it. But after it happened twice more, we were pretty sure it was Katie telling me she REALLY didn't like this food.



Did I listen? No. In typical arrogant grown-up fashion I heard her but refused to do anything to accomodate her perfectly reasonable request. I did nothing but tell her to finish her veggies or no dessert. So I guess I brought the subsequent events on myself. This morning I dumped kibble into her bowl in the usual ungracious fashion and she meandered over to the bowl and started pushing it around, probably hoping it would go away. I heard Hubby on his way out the door asking her if she was trying to bury her food, I'm guessing because she was trying to push a towel over the top of the bowl. Right after the Beans went down for their morning nap I jumped into the shower for a quick hose-down, dried off, got dressed and headed out to the kitchen for one last half-cup of coffee. Right away, I noticed the door to the garage was ajar. This is another (one of about a billion) pet peeve as it lets flies into the house. I felt ire at Hubby welling up inside me when I noticed that there was something at the base of the door that wasn't supposed to be there. What was it? Why, it was Katie's food bowl, dumped out over the door jamb, out the door and down the garage step, it contents scattered over the garage floor in protest of their yuckiness.



I surveyed this and considered how to handle it because, after all, Katie is one of my kids. I made two little kissy sounds and heard her nails on the laminate floor behind me a couple of seconds later, turned my head and saw her peering cautiosly around the fridge to see if she was going to be busted. Katie has a complex about getting busted. She ALWAYS thinks she's going to get busted because she went through a phase when she was younger-- anytime Hubby and I would leave, she'd get a pen from the coffee table and chew it up, leaving bits of it on the sofa, the floor the table... you get the idea . She's got a horrible Catholic guilt-complex. Anyway, she came around the corner with those big brown eyes. "Do you really hate it that much baby?" She looked at the mess and then back up at me. "Come help me pick it up," She came out the door and sat down next to me while I scooped the food back into the bowl. She licked at it a couple of times, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it.



As I've been typing, she's gone into the kitchen and finished her food, then come over to sit near me and the Beans. The Beans scream in glee every time they see her and she obliges by bringing her soccer ball (yes, of course it's pink!) over and pressing it right up against the gate so they can stick their fingers through the holes and poke it. She watches over them like a good shepherd watches over her flock. If anything ever happens to me I know she'll make at least as good a mom as I, if not better. Because after all, since she knows how bad it is to have to eat something she doesn't want to, Katie would be one of those moms who would never make her babies eat veggies if they didn't want to. And that's mostly because she's smart enough to know that if I'm not around, she would not only have to clean up her own messes, but those of the Beans as well-- and if she's going to clean up a Bean meaa, it might as well be a tasty one!