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Happy late Pi Day. I hope you ate pie, you free-as-the-wind-gluten/sugar-eating free spirits of freedom. Can you tell this gluten-free/sugar-free thing is bringing me down, man? It is. But the good news is, I don’t feel a ton better off gluten, so bread may be coming back into my life. And pie. And things that taste good.

Sometimes I don’t post because I have nothing to say and sometimes I don’t post for a while because there’s too much to say and I can’t write it all so I get overwhelmed and watch Project Runway instead. It’s been one of those weeks.

I do have something that needs sharing though. Sharing, but with no visual aids. It’s about Drinking Things.

Wanda is my youngest. She is oh-so-three and she is fascinated by body parts, especially taboo body parts. Bums are raucously funny, for one. For another, she’s fascinated by all my friends who nurse their babies. Milk coming out of their bodies?!!?!?!?1!?! Genius!

Well, she’s never seen me nurse, and if all goes according to the plans that feel right to me and my brain and pelvic region, she never will. But the other day, we were taking a shower together and she looked up and her mouth fell open and she pointed up at me accusingly.

“YOU HAVE TWO DRINKING THINGS!” she yelled, shocked. She could not believe I had been holding out on her. All those times in the car when she asked for a drink and I said, “I don’t have anything to drink. We’ll get some water at home.” All of those times were lies, dangdable, dangdable lies.

She looked up at me skeptically.

“When did you get those Drinking Things?”

“When I grew up big like a mommy, I got them so I could feed my babies.”

“You didn’t let me drink your drinking things. Can I drink your drinking things?”

“Oh, you sure did, but you were too little to remember it. Towel please.”

She then looked down at her own chest, massaging it gently in circular motions, and hung her head. “My drinking things are not big. At all.” She looked like she was going to cry.

I assured her that they would grow someday, and that seemed to satisfy her. Until that night. And the next day. And the day after that. And every time we find her standing naked in front of a mirror inspecting them and lamenting. “My drinking things are still not growing big like a mommy. At all.”

She’s genuinely sad and I’m pretty sure it’s all about hydration. With her own set of Drinking Things, or jugs, as they are called in the vernacular, she could carry around milk wherever she went. It would be so awesome. It would be like me having a cheesecake machine growing out of my hip, only to find out that the dang thing was out of service and no one, absolutely no one, could fix it.

FRUSTRATION! SADNESS!

But she soldiers on. And one day. The Drinking Things will come. And hopefully, by that time, she will find more compelling and efficient ways to meet her liquid dietary needs. Because I’m not ready to break it to her that the jugs don’t come full of milk, chocolate or otherwise.

Magoo’s hair had sprouted into this huge, massive muffin puff that could look cute and current, if every hair were arranged just so. BUT. If one hair were arranged not so? Bam. Street urchin.

So tonight I decided to de-urchinize him. I’d never done a real boys’ haircut with shears myself, or even a Pinocchio’s haircut. But still I pulled out the scissors. I was super nervous and he could smell my fear. The scent of my fear became the seed of his terror and he began to tremble exceedingly.

He did not want me touching his luscious locks, not even coming near them. And eeehhheeeheeee. Stop! The water spritzer tickled. And the scissors hurt his hair as I cut. Actual pain. Apparently, he is a mutant with living hair.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I won’t give you a mullet.” Although I wasn’t sure what I would give him. I was just cutting things and spritzing and cutting more things and combing like a hair stylist might do if she were in my kitchen of a Sunday evening.

“What’s a mullet?”

“It’s the worst haircut in the entire world.”

Without missing a beat, he grimaced and said, “You mean like Dad’s?”

“Please blog that,” was all Dan said as he left the room.

Julie Meulemans has posted some great ways you can directly help the survivors and families affected by last week’s unspeakable events. Please pop over there and see if there’s something you can do.

We used to slide our ballots into electronic vote-counting machines. Several years ago, King County moved to an absentee ballot system to save money.

I miss the camaraderie of standing in line at a fire station with my whiny kids and a bunch of other concerned citizens, voting for our future.

At this point, I have two voting options. I can mail my ballot by Election Day, or I can drop my voting envelope stamp-free into one of several county ballot boxes. The ballot boxes are big and metal and look like library drop-boxes. They look secure. They look official.

Today, as I pulled into the turnaround at Redmond City Hall, I was greeted by several orange-clad election officials, waiting to take my ballot and put it in… the cardboard box placed in FRONT of the big, official metal drop box.

That’s right. I put my voting envelope into a highly secure, highly official-looking cardboard box. Does this look fishy at all to you?

I woke up this morning, realized what day it is and found myself overjoyed that today is Election Day. It is one of my favorite holidays because today the robo-calls will stop. Thank you, Santa. Best present ever.

Magoo thinks we should vote for Romney because he has better hair. I think President Obama has better (read this: more Dan-like) hair but that doesn’t mean I’m voting for him. This afternoon, when talking about the election, I accidentally referred to the winner as President Obomney. We’ll see how it goes. May all your fondest election dreams and wishes come true.

Today was Pirate Day at Magoo’s elementary school. Because why? Because why not!? Incidentally, it was also Bring a Stuffed Animal That’s Small Enough to Sit on Your Desk Without Being A Distraction Day at Laylee’s elementary school. Because why?
Because stuffed animals that small must really exist.

It’s days like this that I ask myself why Laylee and Magoo are at different elementary schools. Last night was STEM night for one of the schools. Last year it was math night but this is Twenty to the Twelve, yo. We’re all about STEM. Then tonight is a costume ball at the other school. There are two science fairs, two reflections nights, two PTAs, two different parent-teacher conferences in two different cities. It’s my favorite.

Anyway, as Magoo was getting ready to leave, he started removing things from his backpack and throwing them overboard.

“I’m not taking my nook to school for pirate day! I would look so stupid! Because, you know, pirates don’t really read.”

I did not know that.

“Oh, MAN!” he continued, pulling the Pokemon cards from his backpack. “Pirates don’t play Pokemon cards.” He gave me a knowing smile and shook his head.

Now, this I did know. I have never met a Pokemon-playing pirate. Uno – maybe. Go Fish – likely. But Pokemon – never. We need to keep this authentic.

Apparently a few things pirates DO are:

-Ride on a big yellow school bus, wearing a polyester backpack and a soccer shirt under their pirate vest

-Yell “ARRRRR” at three-year-olds until they cry

-Refuse to keep their pirate clothes on if all the other kids at the bus stop are dressed like civilians

There are a few new awesome recipes up on my food blog, she types humbly. I’ve had great inspriation from amazing chefs and I present to you:

The World’s Best Cornbread
Make it. I promise you’ll be glad you did. Sweet, moist, the best cornbread I’ve ever eaten, restaurants included.

Pumpkin Alfredo Pasta
I cannot oversell how delicious this sauce is, especially for being so low-calorie. You shall love it. You musteth.

Spinach Scramble
This is not so much a recipe as a way of eating a billion vegetables for breakfast and staying full for hours. I eat this several times per week.

When Magoo gets home from school each day, he doesn’t tell me squat about what’s happened while we’ve been apart. I ask him probing, thought-provoking questions and he shrugs and says he can’t remember. Like a post-traumatic stress victim, he blocks the icky school from his mind.

Today as we were walking home from the bus, he grabbed my hand almost unconsciously in front of another little boy and I closed my eyes and tried to memorize the feel of it because it won’t be long before he’s done with all that mushy stuff.

Kisses are already off-limits.

Then tonight as I got home from helping out with our church youth group, I heard his little voice from the top of the stairs, “Mom. Can you please sleep with me for just a minute?”

I can’t say no to requests like that. Every time I think, “What if this is the last time he asks me to cuddle with him in bed?”

So I marched up the stairs and laid down next to him in the spot he created for me, scooting over against the wall. He pulled out his Calvin and Hobbes book that he keeps stashed between the wall and his mattress.

“You wanna hear something hilarious from this book?”

“Ok.”

“You have to turn on your phone so I can use the light to see.”

I pulled out my phone and shined it on the pages as he skipped from one comic to the next, laughing and each time explaining to me why it’s funny. “It’s funny because Hobbes is scared of tigers, but, you know, he IS a tiger. Get it?” Yes I do.

When I put my light away, he laid still for a hundredth of a second and then started telling me things from his day. Lying in bed next to him is the one time I get all the scoop, what he did at recess, who his girlfriend is, why he got in trouble in class, and today – how some of his friends were putting plastic bags over their mouths and breathing in.

Me: That sounds like a horrible idea. They could get hurt really bad.

Magoo: No. They could DIE! Remember what you told me about being locked in a box and breathing out bad air until all the air was bad and then breathing in bad air and then dying? Well they could do that with the bag, only way faster.

Me: Yep.

So, then Magoo asked me what it’s called when you breathe in bad air until you die and if I could list other ways kids could die from breathing in bad air.

Me: Well, some kids get stuck in a chest or freezer and can’t breathe and then die.

Magoo: Well they’d die even faster if it were a trash can they were stuck in.

This takes me a second to process.

Me: Oh? Because the air is worse in a trash can?

Magoo (proud of himself for solving the secrets of the universe): Yeah. If it was a trash can with diapers in it, they would die SO fast.

Forget about carbon monoxide poisoning, I need to keep that diaper pail locked up ti-ight.

Wanda is a character. Often found with one eyebrow up involuntarily, she has much to say about the world. She almost speaks English.

Today as I got her dressed:

“Mom! This is the crazy shirt in the WORLD.” There is apparently only one crazy shirt in the world and I put it on her this morning.

This summer as we headed out to the zoo:

Me: What animals do you want to see at the zoo?

Wanda: The muppets!

Me: I don’t know if there are muppets at the zoo, Wanda.

Wanda: It’s okay. We just can see them.

Dan (Walking downstairs): Hey Wanda, where are you going today?

Wanda: We’re gonna go see da MUPPET SHOW!

A few weeks ago:

Wanda is whine-crying in the back of the van, the kind of crying that is high on drama, low on believability, the kind that can be stopped in half a second by a roving gumball.

Wanda: Aaaahhhhhhh. Waaaahhhhhhh!

Me: Wanda. Are you sad?

Wanda (stops crying, a huge grin crosses her face): Nope! I just whined-ed at you.

Magoo does most of his crazy while he’s asleep. I won’t get into the details, considering his closest friends and mortal enemies are all old enough to read this. But if he’s gonna do something insane, there’s a 95.3% chance it will happen while he’s asleep.

The other night I go to his room to kiss his cheek. Don’t tell him I do this because he is violently opposed to kisses in all their varieties. In fact, come to think of it, maybe the sleeping night kisses I’ve been sneaking in are driving him to madness. Hmmm… Not enough of a deterrent.

Any-who, I can’t make it to his bed that night because the trundle underneath is pulled all the way out, essentially filling the floor of his entire room. I try to step on it but it creaks and I don’t want to wake him. So I decide to close it up.

I push the trundle bed in but it only goes half way. So, I push harder. It still won’t budge. Frustrated, I put my weight into it, ramming it again and again but it only goes in a few more inches. So, I decide my lips will probably stretch far enough and I can reach over and kiss him.

It’s really dark in the room and I’m leaning over the half-out trundle, feeling around for his fluffy hair on the bed. He’s not there. Panicked, I turn on the light. Magoo is nowhere.

Then it occurs to me that something must have been blocking the trundle. I slowly pull it back out and peer under the bed. Eyes. Staring at me. Confused. Magoo is curled up under his bed, clutching his blanket and looking dazed. He probably is. From the head trauma.

We’ve all heard of shaken baby syndrome, but is there a term for that thing, where you bludgeon your 7-year-old repeatedly with the base of his trundle bed? That’s what Magoo has. I should start a non-profit in his honor.