Shirking

“Mom, Mom, the tooth fairy did not come!”

I, in my pre-coffee, just waking up state, exclaimed, “Aw, crumb.” I paused to figure out exactly how much of a whopper I wanted to tell. “I’m sure she’ll come tonight, I’ll bet there was too much noise downstairs for her to come last night.”

“Oh, okay. You need to go to bed early so there will not be so much noise tonight, Mom. You and Papa.”

“Yes, Marcus.”

I am such a horrible mother. Between the excitement of adopting Heather from Spay/Neuter, Inc. and bearings going bad in a U-joint (“Dear, is it really supposed to sound like something’s dying under the car?”) and giving Franklin (the other cat) a bath and generally riding herd on the kids, making the crucial substitution of money for tooth had completely slipped my mind.

It doesn’t help that Matthew, now that he is awake, is sitting next to me smirking and saying, “Bad Jennifer! Bad!”.

An Answer For Everything

Rebecca: “Mama, can a snowman fly?”

Me: “No, Becca. In the movies and on television and in make-believe, snowmen can fly, but real snowmen that are made out of snow can’t fly.”

Marcus: “But Mom, we can make a snowman out of cardboard and put it on a string and fly it like a kite, and then the snowman will be flying.”

Me: “Okay… but… .”

Rebecca: “Can a snowman hop?”

Me: “No, Becca, snowmen are made out of snow and are not alive. They cannot hop.”

Marcus: “But Mom, we can build a snowman on a jackhammer and then it will hop.”

Words fail me.

The one ring

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.

Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.

Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

“Yes, I’d like to make appointments for well-child checkups, please.”

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