Yesterday, Chicken Noodle got a flu shot. Afterwards, I took both chickens out for ice cream. We sat together in a booth in a very quiet restaurant, relaxing for the first time in a frantic day. After a moment my mind started to churn with all of the things I still needed to accomplish, one…
Friday night, I took the chickens to the local brewpub for dinner. As is common to the genre “casual American restaurant”, the BBC boasts televisions perched above diners like rocks on a cliff, threatening to fall on your head or at least your nachos. We have a TV at home, but it sits in the…
Chicken Little is potty training. This means that I’ve been carrying pants and panties in size 2T in my purse everywhere I go, scanning new environments for bathrooms as a claustrophobe would scan for exits, and muttering “do you need to go potty?” in two minute intervals like a paranoid schizophrenic with bad childhood memories.…
The day before I left for Hawaii, I sat with a cup of coffee in front of my computer at 6:30 a.m. trying to come-to after a sleepless night. Suddenly Chicken Noodle burst in, arms aloft, and declared with delight, “Everything’s better, Mom!” About what happened next Noodle later recalled, “Mommy went (palms to face,…
Yesterday I took the chickens to the beach park. Because there are only a couple of places along the river that function like beaches, with sand and water access, this place is a city-population magnet. One of the things I love about it is that it makes for great people-watching. There is also the risk…
Last night I said, “If anyone spills their milk, I am going to cry.” I was absolutely serious. Only moments before, in the frenzied aftermath of unloading two children, two bikes, two backpacks, a pink reusable grocery sack full of fresh-from-the-Earth produce, my purse, my work notebook and a handful of smashed crackers from the…
Chicken Little is extraordinarily articulate for the recently-turned-two, as well as uncommonly considerate, which means that she asks permission in eloquent English before doing all of the fabulously experimental things that cross a small person’s mind. Take for example these recent questions: Can I throw my cheese down the stairs? Can I walk on the…
One of the nicest thing about having kids in your life is that, as a grownup, there just aren’t that many people who say to you, “Oooo, I like your panties.”
Yesterday at the park we ran into a classmate of Chicken Little’s and his mother. We got to talking about the preschool, how the kids like it, which days they attend. Hers—Monday through Thursday. Mine—Monday and Friday. “How does that work?” she asked. It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. I…
The pressures of parenthood seem to congeal around a holiday like grease on a ham. We *should* put the chickens in their matching dresses. We *should* achieve a lovely family picture. We *should*dote on the kids (at least not park them in front of a video). We *shouldn’t* let them eat too much sugar. The…