"Much Too Good For Children"

I've never felt any kind of guilt in denying my children top shelf stuff. For example, when having a barbecue, I don't hesitate throwing on some hot dogs for the kids while the grown ups have rib eye-steaks. At restaurants, kids order from the lame children's menu which invariably offers wooden-like chicken nuggets, overcooked mac and cheese and possibly a limp "cheese" pizza as their choices while we adults sample their $15 a plate specialties. They can have the Yoplait fat free yogurt and I get the thick, creamy, Australian yoghurt. Yes, it's even spelled differently, it's THAT good. I know that sounds like I'm a bad parent, but I was given carte blanche to continue in this vein earlier this week.

Our lovely friends from England, the Martins, sent some Hotel Chocolat for the kids. For us peasants who've never heard of Hotel Chocolat (please say with me, "Ho-tel Sho-ko-LAUD"), it is not made in a candy shop. Noooo, the artisans who create these edible miracles are bona fide "chocolatiers"... I know, fancy. Allow me to put this in lay man's terms, it is like high grade crack to those who know their way around premium chocolates. Anyway, I handed over these confectionery masterpieces to the children and Hannah came back to croon, "These are SOO good! They're just like Hershey's chocolate."

Bam. I'm in the clear. I could have kept the high dollar, black label chocolat for myself, handed over a Hershey's bar and they would have never. known. the difference. So parents, keep the steaks, the expensive entrees, the gourmet yoghurt to yourselves and give the kids the sorry substitutions, they are completely oblivious.

A Thanksgiving Story

So, now that it's November, the 2nd grade curriculum has included the Thanksgiving story to share with their impressionable, young students. You know the one, about how the Native Americans befriended the helpless Pilgrims, teaching them how to survive in a strange, new and hostile world (it was pre-Starbucks, if that helps you set the harshness of the environment into perspective).

Logan came home with a picture of what he had learned. I asked him to narrate it for me and he pointed out the pentagon shape and told me this was the house. Inside, one stick figure had lines coming out of his head, which he informed me was an Indian. Okay, I can imagine that those lines are the feathers worn by an indigenous person. Logan then pointed to the other stick figure which hadn't any lines on its head, and I was told that this was the human.

Of COURSE I told him that Indians and Pilgrims are both humans, but he didn't buy it. He looked at me like I was terribly and tragically under informed. After all, he is the one attending school and I am the one who grew up without cell phones, Internet or electronics with an "i" in front of their name. What could I possibly know?

So Children, as you read this when you become older and realize how RIGHT I was and how MISTAKEN you were, please apply that understanding to when we tell you that a certain person is all wrong for you, or that continuing your education is more important than getting a job right out of high school or any one of a number of things we're going to disagree upon. The proof is in this Thanksgiving Story pudding.

A Post Where I Write about Someone Else's Writing

I hate clutter. If it is not vital to my life, it will probably end up in a land fill. I don't save kids' art projects or test papers; anything come to think of it. If there is any scrap or shred of memorabilia in our home, it is because Dan has snatched it from the trash can. However, as I was plowing through the latest pallet of children's school work that threatened to engulf the kitchen counter, I found a paper written by Hannah dated October 10th entitled, "Early Jamestown: Why Did So Many Colonists Die?" I may not ever throw this one out because one day, those people who write Social Studies books will be paying me a king's ransom for the original to put on display in a glass case.

Here it is for your enlightenment:

"In 1607, some colonists from England decided to settle in a place they called Jamestown. It wasn't long before things started to go wrong.

One of the major problems was the water. Because of the way the stream flowed, when human waste was dumped, it flushed away, at first. Then later in the day, the tides came in, bringing the waste with it. Another reason why the water wasn't good, was because, since the stream flowed into the ocean, the water became brackish, which means that salt water and freshwater mixed to make brackish water. Therefore, you couldn't drink it (Mom's observation: Never mind that tiny issue of the water having poop in it).

Another problem; those colonists had NO skills. As in zip, zero, NONE. The(re) was [sic] NO females, and back then the females usually treat(ed) the sick and wounded. They didn't even have FARMERS, for Pete's sake! No farmers, no crops.

There is yet ANOTHER reason why the colonists died. They had a TERRIBLE relationship with the Powhatan Indians. When the Powhatans (Po-HAT-tuns) offered friendship, the colonists declined, then attacked, slaghtering [sic] a chief as well. That is NOT the best way to introduce yourself!

I hope this info answered all your questions!"

I never learned so much so easily! Despite minor glitches with grammar and spelling, the teacher recognized the value of this concise, hard-hitting report and gave her the 100% it deserved.

Public Law Number 843

I know you're busy, so I won't bog you down with the details of how this conversation with the kids started, but trust me, there was just cause. I was expounding a new rule, Pub. L. No. 843 Sec (a)(1)(A) which states:

Any unemancipated party must conduct a full visual search of all interior areas before exiting the residence for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of any adult party, including but not limited to, mommy.

In an effort to illustrate the validity of this new edict, I suggested the possibility that I might be unable to answer them as they called to me from some distant part of the home... For example, I may have slipped and fallen, hitting my head on the hard tile floor and been left lying unconscious in the laundry room, thus the need for a visual inspection before conducting a house-to-house search. Logan gave that some consideration and came up with an alternate scenario. "Maybe you broke..." He paused here for a moment and I waited for him to finish his thought, "...your talking."

I broke my talking? I wonder if he was using irony to mock the ridiculousness of my law with the absurdity of his example.

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

Blue Lights

Today as I sat visiting with Hannah, I suggested that we should have a Girl's Night once a month, and the following month she could have a Daddy Daughter Night. She wanted to know if she could pick the venue, because if so, she'd choose going to the movies. Extricating myself as gently as possibly from the possibility of huge financial galas, I suggested it might be a date that involved just going to a shop and choosing a pastry to eat while drinking some chai. Wisely, she nodded, "Like the blue lights."

?

Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about and asked her to explain. "You know, like in Bosnia when we went to the blue lights," she reminded me.

If you have watched Disney's Ratatouille six and a half dozen times like we have in our home, you'll remember food critic, Anton Ego was taken back to his childhood home after one taste of Ratatouille. That totally happened to me; except instead of going back to France, my mind time-traveled to Bosnia. I couldn't believe Hannah remembered something so small from so long ago. "You remember the blue lights!" I asked excitedly. She told me what she remembered: If she was well behaved in school for a period of time, Daddy would take her to the blue lights. She reminisced how in the evening, if you looked out the window of our apartment in Vogošća, you could see blue lights upon the hill. She continued, "I remember when we went to the blue lights, looking into my cup of cocoa, and when I looked up, I remember seeing Daddy's face." Then she asked, "Mommy, what are the blue lights?"

The blue lights could indeed be seen from our apartment window back in 2005 when Hannah was only four years old. They beckoned from the hill and were as enticing as fairy lights to see. Dan and I drove out there once during the day to check it out and found it to be a nice hotel on the hill. So when Hannah had behaved at school for whatever was the required time, we took her to the blue lights one evening. The waiter had on a red jacket and there were white tablecloths and candles on each table. We had no idea it was going to be so posh and weren't really dressed for the occasion. Nevertheless, we sat at a table by the window in the nearly empty dining room and ordered hot chocolate, which, by-the-way, is aMAZing in Europe. I think they actually USE chocolate to make it. And real milk. Plus you get to add your own sugar to taste. MMMMmmmm....

So, go forth and make some "blue light" memories with your loved ones. If they happen to include chocolate, all the better!

Summer Reading for Men

Our community library has a summer reading program for kids. You know the schtick--after reading so many books, children earn various prizes; a blatant ploy to deter them from becoming mindless organisms only capable of using a joy stick before school convenes in the fall.

This year Hannah has won the "You're a Terrific Reader" certificate (coughlame), a coupon for a chocolate chip cookie (thanks local grocer), a nifty change purse from the electric company, and only recently, the ever coveted "I'm a Truly Awesome Reader and You're NOT" t-shirt. Conversely, Logan JUST earned his second prize--thanks to my gentle maternal encouragement, loving support and the timely application of a cattle prod.

Today, we spent an hour at the library reading the final five books for him to merit his "Get a Free Cookie" coupon. Of the 20 gazillion books in the library, he was able to find the first three. The process of finding interesting reading material was simply too Herculean a task, so he asked that I find the final two, with the requirement that they be, "mumble, mumble books." Since I'm not very fluent in Mumbo Jumbo, I asked him to please repeat. Restating his request in English, he said, "I only want you to pick manly books."

Ugh! There goes my chance of picking out any of those pantywaist books from the sissy shelf that I've been itching to read with him. I hate it when he limits me like that.

It Runs in the Family

Several years ago, Oprah featured a guest who had some sort of facial recognition problem. She couldn't even identify the people in her workplace. She compensated by memorizing their wardrobes and learning their gaits so when they passed her, she would know who it was. It's called prosopagnosia.

I think I have it.

I've always suspected I was a bit off, but after having introduced myself to Tina in England one day, I consistently walked right past her when we happened to be at school picking up our respective kids. She couldn't understand how I could be so friendly when visiting at her house and an Ice Witch in public. I swear, I just didn't see her! She was confident I was some sort of lunatic whose meds needed a radical overhaul. When I finally explained my dilemma, she jokingly suggested that I have all my new friends wear a little red bow in their hair so I could recognize them...sheer genius.

Yesterday at the grocery store, Hannah walked right past me. I'm thinking of getting a little red bow for my hair.