Swimming Pool Changing Room

Winton: "Mommy, your naked butt is like a big white TV for ghosts."

Blessed is the Dirty Bathtub

Blessed are they who have a bathtub to clean and a Morcheeba cd, for they will do something useful with their evening, and will not drink too much wine, and will not think too much.

And the point of it all is . . . ?

Hi Fans and Other Readers,

In the overpopulated world of mommyblogging, this one interjects at the intersection of humor (the kids I love do funny things) and schadenfreude (wherein you guys get to laugh at me).  Other people do an excellent job of precisely this (dooce, especially before she really got her shit together, or Jenny Lawson).  Clever people encode their children's names (Belgian Waffle): I wish I'd done that.  Still.  Here's today's disclosure:

Inscrutable humor, Clara and Winton's

C: "Winton!  What did one hotdog say to another hotdog?"
W: [long pause]
C:  [expectant silence]
W: "Toothpaste!"
both: shrieking laughter.

Referring sites: fail

Someone found their way to momosyllabic via some site called "coping with a cheating husband."  Well.  I bet they were disappointed when they arrived here . . .

A Better Dream

And THEN over the weekend I dreamt of a quaint Viennese town c. the 1800s in which the horsedrawn carriages featured horses whose rear halves were invisible.

Dreams for the therapist

1)  I dreamt Clara got left in a stranger's car on a road-trip.

2) I dreamt I had both children in my car but couldn't drive it properly and we veered off route and wound up coasting to a stop in a dangerous place in which a red haired woman with a moustache and a cigarette told me I was useless but needed to stick around to look after the children.

And, in real life, Clara and Winton discussing yesterday what they would do if I died.

Murder

I love the crows that migrate through Baltimore every fall.

They remind me of being a graduate student in Kingston, Ontario.  I had a tiny office in Stauffer library, with a small window which looked out into the branches of an oak tree.  In November, the sky would be the colour of the inside of an oyster shell, the tree would be black and stark, and the crows would mill through the sky cawing.

Here the skies are slightly more colourful in November, the temperatures not quite as cold, the trees still possessed of some scant, and bright (red, yellow) foliage, but the crows loom and wheel and yell to each other in the sky, especially at dusk.

Murders of crows.  Best part of the season.

Is it me, or?

Yesterday I re-entered life at the house at 3pm after an 18 hour spell away from it.  I was greeted by: a Peanut Butter Leaf Pony Party, staged in my room.  Then the children fought with each other.  Then Clara burst into tears and fled to the basement. Then we had a nice dog walk together.  Then another temper tantrum (collective).  Then Daddy returned.  This morning, instead of groceries with Daddy, the kids came to the gymn with me to play at kids' club, and allegedly hated every moment of it, even the watching of Scooby Doo.

I am now writing here, while the children play with cars in the (dark) living room despite the bright sun outside.   I'm hiding.

Two theories:

1)  Disturbing the weekend routine which usually involves me being with the kids on Friday night and Saturday, but away Saturday night and Sunday (meaning Saturday night and Sunday are Daddy Time) was a disaster.

2) Halloween hangovers last for longer than a day, and compounding them with a time change is a disaster.

Clara just came upstairs to request an outing to the backyard to "scoop dog poop and weed": sounds great.  This is progress?

In other news, Winton thinks his food preferences are changing with age ("Mommy!  My taste buggers are changing!")

Off we go to the rank poop field known as our back yard.

Kinda Embarassed: Clara

Clara: "Well, Mummy.  I have a secret to tell you but it's kind of embarassing."
Me: [?]
Clara: "I have a boyfriend"
Me: [??]
Clara: "But he doesn't know, and it's a secret."