Friday, May 18, 2007

Toddler Etiquette

Here's a list of important social lessons I've had to teach my own Sweet Baby Girl:

1. Don't spit on Grandma's kitchen floor. No, really, I don't care if it's fun.

2. Don't point at someone you've just been introduced to (or even just happened to notice in the supermarket checkout line) and announce dramatically, I DON'T LIKE HIM!! It's ok not to like people, but it's not nice to tell them in a really loud, tragic voice.

3. Don't spit in the swimming pool. Again, even if it IS fun. Don't.

4. Watching TV while buck nekkid is fine, and so is playing in the kiddie pool. But we wear clothes to the bank.

5. Don't pick your nose and hand the result to Mommy. Give her a little warning, at least, ok?

6. Don't lick ketchup directly out of the shiny little cup that the waiter brought it in. And don't put that cup over your mouth and inhale so it stays there, looking like a little silver pig snout. No, it's NOT funny, Mommy was laughing at, um, something else.

7. We don't drink sauce directly out of the little cup, either, dear, we dip food in it first. No, not your napkin. And eat the food, too, dear, don't just suck the sauce off the food and dip it back into the sauce.

8. Use a spoon for ice cream, not chopsticks.

9. No, I don't care if the dog stole your ice cream when you dropped it. Let her have it, sweetie. No, you can't get it out of her mouth, it's Lucy's now.

Mother's Day, Looking Better

Last year I complained about Mother's Day being a drag for the nominal honorees: crowded restaurants, cranky kids at same, blah blah blah. This year was better because we eliminated the restaurant part.

See, my mom's in Mexico with her Young Man, who takes her nice places,and we stayed here and I had biscuits and gravy prepared by my own personal Young Man. Plus, he said I could call him Pool Boy all day, as in "Dance, Pool Boy, Dance." Which was fun, too.

Lunch was less fun, as we had it at Costco: a quarter-pound hotdog at Costco, with mustard! Whoo hooo. Plus, I had to tell Pool Boy to go get me some flowers, dammit. Like, now. And hand him my Costco card.

Heh. Anyway, we go celebrate my own personal mom next weekend at her lake house. Where I intend to spend my time laying about calling, refill my drink, Pool Boy! And dance, while you're at it! You hear me? Dance!!

The worst part? I had a hideous migraine yesterday, almost certainly caused by the champagne in my mandatory Mom's Day Mimosa. Dammit. It was Piper-Heidseik! That's some seriously tasty (and not cheap) stuff.

Pool boy was out of town but managed to line up a babysitter before he left (thank God for the neighborhood kids) so that I could sleep off the drugs, which eliminated the nausea but not the actual pain.

Still, a very nice mother's day, especially now that I've lowered my expectations appropriately.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Snails


What you see here is proof of how weird and obsessive we are at my house: I've been waging a personal War on Snails, OCD'ing my way around the yard (and the neighbors' yards) gathering snails in my little orange bucket so I can feed them to the chickens.

The chickens are getting less enthusiastic about the whole thing. Typically, when I approach the coop with the bucket, they cluster around the door, clucking happily. Household leftovers make them happiest, especially the leftover muffins. They also like anything leafy and green. When I dump snails, though, they all cluck, Aaw, snails again? Hmph. I have watched the girls eating the snails, and I love the clever way they grab the fleshy part and shake them out of their shells. (Stanley the Rooster, by the way, has shown zero interest in the snails, aside from a brief glance when I accidentally bounced one off his back.) Besides, it's free protein (and the chickens are providing us with lots of protein, five or six eggs a day, total).

Most of all, though, I loathe snails. I hate it when I forget to watch where I step and crunch on one (barefoot is really nasty) and I hate they way they have proliferated in the recent wet weather and have been everywhere, stripping plants and leaving slime behind. I loathe them almost as much as slugs, and count myself immensely lucky to have not been enduring the kind of slug plagues we saw now and then in North Carolina. I used to keep slug tongs handy (no lie) to pick them off the plants. But now I get to feed their repulsive cousins to creatures who are much more deserving. Even if the deserving are getting tired of the constant Escargot Supplement to their usual pellets and grain.

The other weird part? Is that my husband set up a tripod and took a dozen lovely photos of a bucket of snails. Whatta freak.