05.12.08 Motherless Mother’s Day (Day 4)

Day four of Motherless Mother’s Day weekend in bullets:

1. A few too many of my fingers presently smell like poo on account of them recently being submerged in poo.  The sink is too far away.  I’m not getting up.

2. Penelope (age three) swam underwater for the first time today.  I was there.  I saw it.

3. Gabriella (age seven) says I cut apples better than mommy.  Heck yes I do.

4. I read a book that did not rhyme and contained no pictures for half an hour while Redneck Neighbor’s kids played with mine in the cul-de-sac.  I zoned out for a minute or two pondering what words rhyme with “corpse.”

5. Redneck Neighbor’s wife made us tortellini for dinner, with home made alfredo sauce so good I wanted to put it in my pants.

6. Spellchecker doesn’t know the word “tortellini” and underlined “put it in my pants” just because it might break a commandment.  My computer’s periodically illiterate and often a bit self-righteousness like this.

7. McDonalds employees are bewildered when you play on their indoor glassed-in playground without eating their food.  And, on topic, playing on their indoor glassed-in playground and breathing their indoor glassed-in playground air makes me long for an anti-bacterial wipe the size of a beach towel - or a bed sheet - and a replacement set of lungs. Perhaps something to consider in the next Happy Meal-toys-we-should-dispense-like-immediately meeting.

8. Ice cream is addictive for preschoolers after only two simultaneous days of consumption.  “Cotton Candy” flavored is the worst offender.  Withdrawals are ugly.  Fruit leather - and anything else “edible” and unfortunately named after dried out animal parts - is not a recommended step-down substance.

9. “I’ve been in prison since I was three and my mommy put me here...” sung with much melancholy in the bathtub by Gresham (age five) while strumming an invisible “cooter” guitar.  All country label A&R guys can contact me through this site.

10. Spellchecker doesn’t know the word “cooter.” Just added the definition to its dictionary: Gresham for “acoustic.”

11. Teleconference with Compassion folks about the new CompassionBloggers.com site launch (coming soon) while finding lost blankets for Penelope, turning an aerobics step and two folding chairs into a playable facsimile of an airplane’s cabin, passing out fruit leather (See #8), and putting a princess dress on a miniature flight attendant (like you do).  Thank God and Panasonic for the mute button.

12. Going now to wash poo off my fingers and alfredo sauce out of my pants and then make my bed on the couch in the den.  The princess/flight attendant, future country singer and apple-slicing-appreciator are asleep in my bed.  And are possibly - at this moment right here - the cutest small people on the planet.