Blowin' in the Wind

The answer my friend is blown' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.

song: Blowin' in the Wind • artist: Bob Dylan

Edge of the Ledge

C threw up on H Monday night. Just leaned over the rail of the top bunk and let go.
H slept through the whole thing; even the part where we had to peel off his puke-saturated sheets and get him another blanket.
Later C said that the reason he leaned over was to avoid throwing up on his sleeping bag.
So the lesson to be learned is that given the choice between barfing on his younger brother or on his sleeping bag, the average seven-year old boy will choose his brother.
Maybe that's where the dubious term of endearment "little puke" comes from.

song: Edge of the Ledge • artist: Holmes Brothers

Dang Me

When you have your toddler on the changing table avec stinky diaper and you realize that all you have is one single diaper wipe with which to do the job, and no back up package on the shelf, the feeling is akin to being given an eyedropper and being asked to drain Lake Superior.
Of course even if you had the back up package you'd still be screwed because darned if you don't need a pair of scissors to open the thing and you can't leave your toddler on the changing table while you rummage around for a pair and you can't put him down of the floor cause he'll immediately drag his hand through his own excrement and then, oh I don't know, wipe it on his head. You can only curse under your breath and wonder why you ever thought having kids was a good idea in the first place.

song: Dang Me • artist: Roger Miller

Bouncing Round the Room

So we were on the way to the second birthday party of the day and I hadn't remembered the little slip of paper upon which I'd written Cole's address. I wonder if it was lonely left there in the kitchen tacked to the bulletin board. All I could remember was that it was a street starting with the letter "O."
We turned onto the road that I was pretty sure is the road and I said, "C, I think this is the road but I don't know the house number. Look for a house with a bouncy castle outside it."
And he said, "what kind of bouncy castle?" As if we might have just entered the magical land of the bouncy castles and the street is bound to be lined with them on either side.
It turned out to be the bouncy castle with the big shark on top.

song: Bouncing Round the Room • artist: Phish

Pinch Me

I could hide out under there
I just made you say "underwear"

I can't believe it! The Barenaked Ladies stole my son's line!

song: Pinch Me • artist: Barenaked Ladies

Let's Just Kiss And Say Goodbye

It's funny when you tip toe into your sons' bedroom at night and try to put their wastepaper basket back in its proper place except you drop it (twice!) and then you turn off the lullaby CD that, for some reason, has decided to go into endless loop mode (House at Pooh Corner again?). Next you try to switch the nightlight from power save mode to "on" so you can turn off the closet light but you drop the nightlight, which is a large clunky thing and then you start laughing -because how can you not be waking them up? And all the while you are brushing your teeth with your electric toothbrush because multitasking is the name of the game, baby.
And what was with that couple up at the top of Highfield Drive yesterday? The one making out for what seemed like hours on end? An ordinary middle-aged couple, not teenagers who can be forgiven for dubiously placed public displays of affection at least by those who remember their own indiscretions.
I could see if they were at the bottom of the hill - at the bus depot, but up by the trail head?
What's that all about?
"I'll miss you so much while you walk the dog?"
Just walk him already!

song: Let's Just Kiss And Say Goodbye • artist: The Manhattans

I Write the Book

I think I'll title my memoir, "Why Is There Half A Banana Under The Coffee Table? And Other Nonsensical Things That Mothers Say."

song: I Write the Book • Elvis Costello

Digging in the Dirt

song: Digging in the Dirt • artist: Peter Gabriel

Green Green Grass of Home

Someone has mowed the beach grass outside the windows at work. That creepy beach grass that's growing in a perfect pattern, like some sort of enormous hair weave.
It's strange because I've never seen anyone mow the beach grass that grows – at the beach.
I thought the whole point of xeriscaping was that it required no maintenance.
I'll tell you what's low maintenance - the brush (if you lived in England you might call it a thicket) that was outside our office windows before some landscape company decided to butt in, do the town a favor, and "beautify" it.
Not only was the brush maintenance free, it was diverse; it attracted birds and butterflies. The only thing misplaced beach grass attracts is the occasional empty Poland Spring bottle.
And while I'm on the subject of inane human interventions - how about them osprey? I like how we humans are all slapping ourselves on the back over the helping hand we've extended in their spectacular recovery from the brink of extinction. Of course if we hadn't poisoned their food supply and chopped down the big dead trees they liked to nest in perhaps they wouldn't have been endangered to begin with.
So yes, we banned DDT and put up platforms; but it's a bit like throwing a man overboard and then tossing him a life jacket.
The least we could do under the circumstances.

song: Green Green Grass of Home • artist: Curly Putnam

I'll Never Find Another You

Who needs to search for Easter eggs when at my house we have find-the-lost sippy cups (before they get rancid) hunts every morning?

song: I'll Never Find Another You • artist: The Seekers

c is for cookie (and everything else I eat)

a list poem by s and n.

cookie! \ku -ke\: noun - 1. cookie 2. cup cake 3. English muffin 4. foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs 5. granola bars 6. a banana

Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop

Is it ironic or uncreative that the local coffee shop tunes its satellite radio to channel 30 - The Coffee Shop?
I'm leaning towards uncreative.
Good thing they have Gene playing live music on Saturdays.

song: Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop • artist: Landon Pigg

Casey Jones

A little something for opening day.
In case you can't tell, he's wearing his baseball pajamas.

song: Casey Jones • artist: Grateful Dead

Cherokee People

First I thought it was inappropriate that H was standing on top of rocks in the yard throwing bamboo "harpoons" at white whales only he could see. Aren't we supposed to be saving whales?
Then I was worried that our read aloud book, The Indian in the Cupboard was possibly setting my kids back light years in their understanding of Native Americans.
"Why does the Indian talk funny, Mommy?"
"Because English isn't his first language Honey."
"What's scalping?"
"Ask your dad."
But I know it's politically incorrect to take the fashioned-into-a-cross Palm Sunday frond and use it as a pretend gun.

song: Cherokee People • artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders

Fool In The Rain

As if it's not enough that we have to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, the first day of spring, April Fools' Day, and Easter all in the span of two weeks - today is Crazy Hat day at preschool as well.
All these holidays are getting confusing. Was it the Easter Bunny who put jello into the juice cups this morning and tried to pass it off as cran-grape?
Yesterday the twins dragged a dirty diaper out of the trash, smeared poop across the bathroom floor, and deposited the diaper in the toilet. Or was it, as H suggested, leprechauns?

song: Fool in the Rain • artist: Led Zeppelin