unders

As in “wear.” Underwear.

This post might not be suitable for adolescent boys, my father, stepfather, or father-in-law.

Consider yourself warned.

The Mama has a fondness for fancy panties. Not to be confused with fancy pants, fancy panties are a clandestine indulgence for my comfort and general happiness. I am boring about said panties, and have exactly one style in two colors: black and nude.

Practical, no? I never said it was exciting.

The problem with my beloved, if practical, fancy panties is that I have a tendency to leave them on the floor. And I have a dog. Who has a tendency to chew on anything made of paper or fabric that she finds on or near the floor. And did I mention that I am cheap? While I obviously throw away anything that gets destroyed, I might or might not have a few pairs of fancy panties with a small hole.

The Mama is one classy lady.

Which brings me to this anecdote. I know you wondered where the hell I was going with this one. I was getting ready for work yesterday when The Kidling noticed a small hole near the waistband of my boring fancy panties.

“Mom, you have a hole in those,” she informed me.

I pretended I didn’t know it was there and thanked her onto pointing out the deficiency. She, in turn, offered some unsolicited advice: “Maybe you should throw them away so there isn’t a hole where you pee from.” *

Throw them away? Waste not, want not, girlie. Nice try.

____________________________________

* Which, by the way, was not actually the case. But it was darned funny.

guessing game

Last week, The Mama traveled for work.

And The Dada carted The Kidling off to Nana and Papa’s house.

Before you judge (which I obviously set you up to do), this was kind of justified. The Dada stayed home with The Kidling for four of seven work days (three because pre-school was closed for conferences, and one because she was sick). Then I got sick. Then he got sick.

Oh yeah, and it was his birthday.

See? A fully justified abdication of parenting duties.

The Kidling was lucky to spend the weekend with Nana, Papa and her cousin, The Kidd-0.

And Nell. The cutest damn dog on the planet.

The Dada being a good dada-type, he drove to Nearby Town to pick up The Kidling and The Kidd-o and cart them back to Our Town.

And our car on the drive home is the setting for this story. You see, the girls spent approximately 3/4 of the drive drawing pictures in notebooks. They are both five, and you might have heard that five-year-old children do not realistic artists make.

Suddenly, The Kidling had an idea. She thought that one girl should draw a picture and the other should guess what the drawing is meant to depict. The Kidd-0 took the first turn as artist. When it came time for Alice to make her guesses, she scrutinized the drawing carefully. After several moments, she guessed.

Alice: Is that some kind of weird-looking robot?

The Kidd-o: No.

Alice: Is it a strange underwater sea creature?

“No,” The Kidd-o lamented, “it’s a sheep!”

ring ring ring

Phone calls with children are absurd. I have no idea, frankly, why I even try, as a typical conversation with The Kidling via telephone sounds like this:

Alice: Mommy!

The Mama: Hey Alice! How are you doing?

Alice: Good.

The Mama: What are you up to?

Alice: Playin’.

The Mama: Are you having fun?

Alice: Yeah.

The Mama: Tell me about your day.

Alice: Bye!

That’s if I’m lucky. Sometimes she gets bored after “Good.” and hands the phone back to a grandparent with nary a word of goodbye.

Occasionally, though, we have a real conversation. The Kidling recently spent some time with her grandparents in Nearby Town, which is about 75 miles from Our Town. When I called one evening, The Kidling was feeling quite talkative. This particularly detailed conversation included such gems as:

“Mommy, I feel badder than I’ve ever felt before.”

“Are you done talking yet?”

“Mommy, is it day time on your side of the planet?”

“Do you have anything else to say?”

“I found money at Monsters, Inc.! The round kind!”

Okay, so that first one broke my heart a little bit. Otherwise, this is why I endure monosyllabic conversation after monosyllabic conversation. When The Kidling becomes The Teen, I’ll be damn glad I did.

fool me twice

What do these things have in common? Besides, of course, evidence of my need to stay away from Sephora and our local drugstore.

12 oz. Suave Kids 2-in-1 Shampoo Smoothers in Strawberry
6 oz. Bumble and bumble Sunday Shampoo
4 oz. Bumble and bumble Super Rich Conditioner
10 squirts TRESemme Touchable Softness Shampoo
3 squirts Laura Mercier Flawless Skin Face Polish

The drain. They have  the drain in common. As in, The Kidling decided they really don’t belong in their respective bottles; rather, they belong in the drain. In our drain, specifically.

Those of you who know me in real life might recall a certain Facebook lament regarding a rather pricy bottle of shampoo. It went something like this, “Saturday lesson: don’t leave a five-year-old child alone in the shower with a $25 bottle of shampoo.”

Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I hate being shamed.

Alas, I deserve every little bit of shame you might choose to bestow for an incident that occurred one recent evening. I went into the bathroom to get The Kidling out of the shower and noticed the fill line on my super terrific, super expensive Super Rich conditioner was significantly lower than it had been upon her entrance into said shower. Before saying anything to Alice, I took stock of the situation. I observed:

• The aforementioned depleted stock of fancy conditioner;
• An overturned bottle of shampoo that was suspiciously not dripping product from its lid;
• Some grittiness in The Kidling’s hair; and
• A very, very clean shower.

Shit.

So I began the inquisition.

I asked The Kidling which products she had used. She gave me count of the number of squirts she had taken, including a confession that she had used “lots” of squirts from several of the bottles. I asked what she did with so many squirts, and she told me she had washed her hair and body as well as the shower’s walls and floor.

It is hard to be angry with a kid who did exactly what she was told to do in the shower and then decided to clean up after herself just to be nice.

So I laughed. Then I asked, “And when you were done, did you use a little more just to be sure?”

Silence.

Then, “Yeah.”

I hope she never grows up.