Miscellany

So here's a coupla things.

1. Grace hates the car. I think I've mentioned that before. She is sweet as sugar with icing on top and a caramel center. But when strapped into her car seat she becomes a tiny, vengeful, bitter little girl. One night several weeks ago, I was driving home with just the two of us in the car. She was getting cranked up and my efforts at placating-while-driving were falling short. So I just gave up and turned up the CD I was listening to, thinking, "Oh well, I'll just try to drown her out." (Does that sound heartless? Such is the lot of the third child, I suppose. One can't make everything a life or death issue.)As soon as the music was turned up, she stopped. And then when the song ended, she started wailing again. So I played the song again. And again, until we got home. It's a song called "Stronger" by Hillsong United.

Now, we play it in the car whenever she starts to fuss, and about 70% of the time, she calms down. Trust me, this is progress. It doesn't work for any other song, just this one. It's funny--cause Ava was actually like this in the car too. And in the same random fashion, one day we found "her" song, as well. And listened to it every day for the rest of our mortal lives. Or that's what it felt like, anyway. We have now listened to Grace's song approximately eleventy million times. Give or take. I know more about its production and chord progression than the people who recorded it. And I think I've learned to play bass.

2. I am eating an apple right now at my desk. A seed just fell out and rolled under the desk. I am too lazy to crawl under and get it. But I think I remember reading something about apple seeds containing trace amounts of arsenic. Have you heard this? Perhaps I am endangering my children by leaving it. But I am hoping that they will be too lazy to crawl under there, too. Plus, there are far more interesting things on the floor that are within reach.

3. One of these items on the floor is an animatronic cat that I bought for Ava at a garage sale. It moves at random intervals and meows.

(Ours is much grungier than this one!)
It freaks me out a little bit. Like, if I feed it after midnight, will it come alive and stalk the earth? It was funny, though--the lady at the garage sale wanted 6 bucks for it. I asked if she'd take 4. (Aussies don't like to bargain at garage sales, but I do it anyway. It's how God intended it.) She rolled her eyes at me and sighed. Like I was a moron. "Well, it is a proper cat and all," she huffed, "But fine." And I wanted to say, "No it isn't a proper cat, weird lady. It's a stuffed animal. This isn't an auction at Sotheby's. Take the 4 bucks!" Is it me or is it her? It's her, isn't it?

4. My apron is working, y'all. It's working! I am like a machine. A machine that bakes things. Yesterday, the kids and I made chocolate chip cookies (another attempt to distract from the rain--this time a hailstorm).

They have a funny little routine now when we are mixing the ingredients. The chocolate chips are little people in a world that is fraught with calamity. They narrate it as I pour all the ingredients in. The brown sugar is a flood of sand down from the sky. The flour is a snowstorm. The melted butter is sun that melts the snow, and the egg is lava that has all the little people screaming. It's pretty funny to listen to them carry on.

But the real horror begins when the cookies all have to go into the oven. Oh, the humanity! I think this is the culinary equivalent of the kid who burns ants with a magnifying glass. Ava and Nate are positively gleeful in watching the chocolate chips suffer.

Can you tell I've been indoors for too long? Well, the sun is out today, so here's hoping that we can all go out and get a life. Hope yours is good! And get back to me on that apple seed thing, will you?