I Will Not Say This On Record Again

Dear Noah,

You were right. I left the coffee pot on for four hours and then came back for a second cup.

Sludge.

Love,
Vesuvius

The Fears of Ayla

1) That her teeth will all fall out and she won't be able to eat anything anymore.

2) That her skin will wear off and she will become a skeleton ("I don't want it to", she says plaintively).

To be continued. . .

Princess Brittany

Boy did we have one crazy weekend.

First, we were piling into the mini on Saturday for a trip to the movie store when I was calmly informed by my daughter that a seven foot, ninety pound fairy with giant, fragile wings was lurking right behind me.

"Mom," Ayla said. "You need to get out of the way so Mariposa can get in."

I obliged, because that's what one does when being stalked by a giant, invisible, agitated member of the fae.

I did, however, risk an eternity of compulsory underground dancing and reveling subject to the whim of the Fairy King by telling Mariposa to put on her seat belt.

"She can't," Ayla told me. "It will break her wings."

Mariposa: 2. Mommy:0.

Things with Mariposa went downhill quickly when we learned what a knack she has for narrowing in on one's insecurities. "Mariposa doesn't like Daddy," Ayla informed us. "She doesn't like his hair."

Then she said, "Mariposa thinks mommy is a terrible writer and even Stephanie Meyer has better skills than mommy AND Mariposa thinks mommy could stand to lose ten pounds and her homemade cookies suck."

(Just kidding about that second part).

We pulled into the left turn lane, a motorcycle roared by, and wouldn't you know: that hoity-toity Mariposa saw fit to vanish herself right out the window.

"Brittany," Ayla said, in the superior tone of those who can see the fae, and know their ways, and are immune to their enchantments, "You have to call Mariposa back or she won't come. The noise scared shes and you have to call shes back." (Aside: Ayla still occasionally switches 'her' and 'she'). (And yes, she called me 'Brittany').

I leaned my head out the window and summoned the blue-winged witch back. She came to my beck and call.

Mariposa: 2. Mommy:1

We went into Blockbuster and Mariposa flew to perch herself atop the giant orange building across the street. (Like cats, the fae enjoy looking down on humans). She came back when we were ready to drive home without much fuss. Until daddy dared to ask:

"What do Ayla and Mariposa want for lunch?"

Utterly sure of herself, Ayla answered: "Mariposa doesn't eat anything at all."

Mariposa: 500,000,000,000,002. Mommy:1

Mariposa left after nap and even though she can fly and doesn't eat anything, I wasn't too happy to see her go. You never knew what she was gonna do next.

Without the company of the fairy, and thus without the fear of the Will-o'-the-wisp, we set out to the park. Not the Orange park, or the Joker park, but the Blue park. Where I learned this: Turns out all a mommy has to do to get a little respect is don a princess crown.

For the next hour, I was Princess, daddy was Prince/Monster, Ayla was Mariposa, and Indy was Dragon Slayer. Apparently Ayla's main impression of Princesses is that they can't do a damn thing themselves. She spoke gently to me. Calmly she would take "Princess's" hand and say "C'mon, Princess, you have to hide over here now", or "This way, Princess, hurry up now, so the monster won't get you." Monster Prince chased us around the monkey bars. Indy was terrified and clung to me until I thought to arm her with a sword.

She knew exactly what to do.

Promptly, she whipped Monster Prince across the back.

Later, at dinner, Ayla told Princess to tell Prince to fetch Us Our royal mangoes.

I told Prince that We do not hold to insubordination and that a disobedient Prince should not be suffered to live.

Ayla said, if Prince does it, we won't kill him. But if he says no, we will.

Prince fetched Our mangoes.

Then Princess decided We shall have dancing, but Ayla could not be obliged. So Princess herself gave a demonstration.

"That wasn't very beautiful dancing," sniffed her royal heinous Mariposa-Ayla.

And that was the end of that.

The Girls in the Trees

Grandpa came to visit. Thus we drank good wine.

In Case You Are Not My Family

If you are not in my family.

If you have stumbled upon this blog by googling "picasa" or "stick ponies" or "dr. horrible blog", be forewarned: You will not be very interested by all this.

Sorry.

I am working on a book right now that I hope will entertain you greatly. When it's done, I'll let you know.

Until then, I intend to keep sharing anecdotes and pictures because this blog is for my family. And my daughters, one day.

Not that I mind you poking around.

So without further ado:

Our life in film

A typical day in the life of my family. Someone plots revenge. Someone sings. Someone makes a penis joke.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

If we are forced to go in and wake Indy up from her nap, we find her in a certain mood.

She is grumpy. She is feeling a bit sorry for herself. In her heart of hearts, she is willing to be made cheerful--but she is not willing to let us know that she is willing to be cheerified.

So she pouts prettily and hides a creeping smile. Like so:







Ayla and Indy would like to thank Grandma and Papa for their Valentine's day gift cards, with which they picked out Play-Dough and a flute, and a winged fairy dress, respectively.



Vesuvius and the Brewmaster would like to thank Grandma and Papa for almost an hour of peaceful, uninterrupted play between the Goblins, whilst Mr. and Mrs. Vesuvius were able to battle it out on the Wii, and sip manhattans.



In case Auntie Mercy and Uncle Bandman were wondering, Ayla still thoroughly enjoys the massive feline predators you felt were an appropriate gift.



I know many of you were wondering about the view from underneath Ayla's bed during naptime. Ayla thought we should not hold out on you any further. She took the camera while mommy wasn't looking, and did her thing. Thus, you are enlightened:





I don't know what this is. Ayla maintains it is "the bish" (fish). I suppose they have been appearing to her all along during afternoon dreamtime, and she has simply neglected to mention it.



Still not sure how she managed to take this one of herself. Maybe one of the bish obliged her. Maybe someone else appears during dreamtime, other than the bish:




Ayla enjoys reading to JasminePlutoEvaWallEZeldaKid.




Yesterday she told me "I don't want my teeth to fall. Then I won't eat anything!"

In case you've been wondering how those little "Rainbow Cakes"--pink, green, and yellow with chocolate frosting--that have appeared at King Soopers taste: like marzipan.

There you have it.

Better or Worse

This morning Ayla drew a circle with a tuft of black hair, stick legs, and stick arms. Three fingers per arm. "That's my boy," she said. "My brother. I'm gonna have a brother cause I like boys. His name is Mella."

We are not having a third child. Every time the idea of a third child comes up, Noah points out that as a family, we would then have an uneven number for amusement park rides. "But on the rides," he says, unfailingly. "One person would always be left out."

Yesterday she moaned and writhed in pain from an earache. I had never seen her in such pain. It was incredibly distressing. The doctor's office got her in within an hour. By the time we got there, they Tylenol and ear drops had kicked in, and she was feeling better. Thank God.

Is anyone else feeling like maybe we need to start stocking our pantries full with tomatoes and citrus and beans? I don't think I'd be feeling this way if I never checked cnn.com or watched the news. They have a terrible story every day. Last week on Oprah, they did a feature on Tent Cities--cities springing up made of people, former middle class people, who have lost their jobs/home/everything. It reminded me, of course, of the Great Depression and Hooverville in Central Park.


I dreamed of High School again last night. More accurately, I dreamed of the people I knew in High School. People I thought I had forgotten, but there they came, swimming up through the dream debris. Faces from 1996. They were all pretty much the same. The person that used to make me feel left out was making me feel left out again. Why can't I dream of pleasant things? I don't have nightmares often, but my dreams are seldom good. Sometimes I go back to Paris in my dreams. I am always achingly happy to be there in the dream. I wake up sad. The other night I dreamed of Firefly. I was part of the crew and had to pull a one-over on the enemies, Alias style. I was required to go undercover and lie and trick to complete the mission. I did and it was great.

That was sad to come out of as well. Maybe that's why my dreams are usually not highly enjoyable. I wake up from those ones sad and yearning. I wake up from the high school dreams relieved.

I've been sitting here staring at this post for a long time. It's not really anything worth posting. But I need to post something, and here's this. Blogging is a curious thing. Very self-indulgent, it seems to me. Very easy to come of smug and self-obsessed. Two more things:

I checked out a book called "The Worst Hard Time" from work. It's about the Dust Bowl. I thought reading about people who had it worse than we do might be perversely comforting. I don't think I"m the only one who thinks this way. A lot of books about World War II are out right now. All about people who were worse off than we are (Jews in Concentration camps, German girls whose homes are bombed, German refugees on the run from the raping, murdering, blood thirsty Russians, Americans and Brits stuck in Hong Kong when it was taken over by the Japanese).

I am worried about getting Ayla into Bradley Elementary for preschool. Bradley is ideal because we could walk there, and because it is an IB school. IB schools are really good. Please let it not be full. Please let there be a spot for Ayla.

That's it. For better or worse, I'm hitting "Publish Post" now.