Thursday Blight

It has become clear that Thursdays are my worst day.  In my journal, the entries about days in which I am irritable, tense and snippy on kid drop-off tend to occur on Thursdays.  The days in which I feel bleakly depressed enough to whine to my journal?  Thursdays.  The days when I doodle prone stick figures and bodies in fetal position?  Thursdays.

So.  It is clear that on Thursdays I am more neurotic.

OR.  It is clear that everyone is more neurotic on Thursdays and I am simply caught in the negative flux of the day's zeitgeist.

Viz.:
I dropped Clara off at 8.09 AM (school starts at 8) after a taxing morning of herding especially unwilling children and dealing with my own especial Thursday dim-wittedness (and it's  attendant desire to blame someone, anyone, for the goings-wrong I appear to cause).

And yet we were only the third people there out of a class of 27 students. We were comparatively early.  Her teacher asked "Where is everyone?"  Good question!  Thursday Blight, perhaps?

Then, while walking from Roland Park Elementary back to our car so I could take Winton to preschool, Winton stepped in a large, mustard-colored dog poo.

Random dog poo and other parents' lateness are not symptoms of my psychological inadequacies. 

Ergo: Thursday Blight. It is real, people.  Beware Thursdays.

Kevin Spacey's Dog

is a large, mixed breed, with short, shiny red fur, a forehead prone to wrinkling, the broadness of a rottweiler and the jowls of a hound.

I know this because yesterday Clara and I, exploring Roland Park on foot, came across the film set for House of Cards, which stars Kevin Spacey. 

We hung out by the food carts (as did the bees). A sound guy gave Clara a purple spider for Hallowe'en.

Sometimes there really are adventures to be had when you amble off the beaten path on the way back to where you parked.

We didn't see Spacey, but I don't care.   We saw his dog.

Seal

Winton has a cold, and a cough reminiscent  of croup.  Yesterday Husband and I laughed when, crying peevishly about having bumped his head (grizzling really because he needed to go to bed, which is where we were trying to get him to go) Winton's exhale went "waaaah!" and his inhale went "arck!".  Repeatedly.

He sounded like a very unhappy seal.

Laughing didn't make him any happier.

But we're not really callous a**holes.  I'm at work today, but  Winton is at home with Husband listening to the Ponyo theme song repeatedly and jumping on the beds.

Canadian Thanksgiving, Observed

Last Saturday (Oct 6), we managed to have an idyllic day in Baltimore: I think it was the universe's gift to me for missing Canadian Thanksgiving and not getting a day off even for Columbus Day.

We took the kids push-bike riding (bikes with pedals removed and seats way down low--I wish I had learnt that way, it looks a lot less scary) at Robert E Lee Park.  The air was crisp and cool, the reservoir mossy green, the dogs in the dog park frolicsome: lovely.

Then we stopped at Donna's in Cross-Keys Village and had dinner.  We NEVER eat out unless we are travelling (barring lattes and bacon at Atwaters some weekend mornings).  Certainly we don't go out for dinner.  With children.  To expensive restaurants.  Who attempts that kind of foolishness??

 My expensive dinner at Donna's featured a surfeit of shellfish and fresh pasta that I still feel overstuffed from (yum yum).  Husband had a kobe beef burger.  Children had pizza followed by a cupcake.

Each event fell easily after the previous: there was no rush, no strain, no disappointment.  The children behaved: there was no fighting, no whining, no embarrassing detours into ill-mannered urchin territory.

So nice.

 For contrast, consider the day we tried to go duck-pin bowling: no lanes available.  So we detoured to the totlot . . . and arrived just as it started raining.  And then everyone except Husband had an ugly screamy fit and, bereft of good suggestions, we went home to glare at each other and mutter nasty things to the equally fractious cats.

Sometimes it seems like every idea bumps up against an unforeseen obstacle and everyone just wishes they could bludgeon something to bits.  In fact, it often feels that way.

So, thanks to the Great Canadian North, for on its thanksgiving weekend we had an unusually resplendent fall day.

What Winton Said

W: [Suddenly, emphatically, in the kitchen doorway as I was making toast and fetching things for the kids to eat] "Mummy!  You are NOT a silly octopus"

Me: [??]

W: [to me, but with chastising glance over shoulder to Clara who was at that moment demanding pancakes] "You do not have 8 arms!"

Claraism du Jour

Mummy, sometimes I think of you at night because you and me are such light sleepers.  Winton and Daddy are dark sleepers, but we are light ones.

Naughty Teeth

Clara lost her 3rd tooth this week. Standing in the parking lot outside Winton's preschool, she casually reached into her own mouth and pulled it out.  "It was flapping" she said, "It was really bothering me."

The following hours were rife with speculation about the tooth fairy: How big is she?  Can she enter through a closed window?  Can she fly if it's raining?  And, what does she do with all of those teeth?

Winton's theory is that the tooth fairy recycles the teeth to make toothbrushes.

Winton then proceeded to accidentally bite his own tongue and wail.
"Oh, honey" I said (for Baltimore is seeping into me and I now say "honey" without irony).  "Oh, honey.  Did you bite your tongue?"

"No," Winton said "the naughty teeth did."

Numbers, crying

Clara: "I can count to 41."
Me: "OK, go ahead."
Clara: "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 41"
Me: "Hey! You skipped a whole bunch of numbers."
Clara: "I know.  The other numbers in my head were crying, so I didn't count them."