Memory Lane

Theo and I ended up watching Tootsie last night. I found it on Netflix's Instant Watch choices. I've always loved Dustin Hoffman; but I was born 20 years too late to be the love of his life. So in this movie, he's just the right age for me. Good lord, he is something, isn't he? I mean, just look at him! If I had secret boyfriends the way mrs. g does, Dustin would be first on my list. What's not to like?

And the movie is still funny, even 26 years later. So go! Rent it! Download it! What are you waiting for?

I think we'll see Diner next. No, wait, Dustin Hoffman isn't in it. How about The Graduate?

Today I had the fun of finishing up my root canal. I'm feeling okay, thanks; but I think I'll help myself to that codeine anyway. I deserve something for those three shots of Novocaine I had to endure. By the time the endodontist was done, my eye felt numb. And then I came home and the kids and I all hung out in the basement. Because our area (which is most definitely not in tornado country) was under a tornado watch and there were wild thunderstorms and trees whipping around in the wind and all sorts of fun things. We couldn't convince Brian to come out of the basement bathroom, even when the worst had passed. He figured it was an interior room with no windows and he wanted to optimize his chances of survival. And when we finally emerged from hiding, we found the tops of trees snapped off all along our road for about half a mile.

So maybe Brian was right.

What was interesting was what everyone chose to bring with them into the basement. As in, if you can only save one thing, what would it be? Anna brought her flute; Benjamin his comic book (to read while sitting in the bathroom); I wanted to bring the computer, but I knew I couldn't disconnect it in time. I would have taken the flash drive (is that the right term?) that holds all my backed-up documents, if I had had any idea where it was. The whole scene reminded me of the Mary Tyler Moore episode when her apartment building is on fire and she grabs the big letter "M" hanging on the wall as she runs out the door.

What? You don't remember that? Mary Tyler Moore was a popular sitcom that people my age used to watch; it was groundbreaking, in fact, as it featured a career woman who wasn't married and didn't even have a regular boyfriend. People would stay home on Saturday nights just to watch this show, along with All In The Family and Bob Newhart. You see, kiddies, we didn't have messing around with our cellphones as a way to waste time, way back in the technological dark ages of the 70's. We had to watch TV, instead.

No one carried a cellphone in Tootsie, by the way; and people were using typewriters. That is, when they weren't talking on telephones with big, bulky cords. Jessica Lange's character had an apartment decorated in shades of blue and mauve. Remember that? Even McDonald's in the 80's were those colors.

I'm rambling. You want your money refunded, or what?

Hissy Fits And Tantrums Always Get Me Down

This is the week of our NPR station's semi-annual pledge drive, which usually drives me up a wall. Sometimes I don't even listen the whole week. But this year, something is different. Listening to them beg for money over and over again, and describe the "thank you" mug in detail, and talk about how much it costs to buy body armor for their foreign correspondents - I don't know, it's sort of soothing. I like it. This worries me.

Anna regressed today. She'd been doing pretty well for a few weeks, doing her chores without throwing hissy fits and refraining from using the death glare on her hapless siblings. Today, it all came back. Wow. To top it off, she sat around complaining how cold it was and was not at all amenable to my suggestion that she put on more clothes, or at least some socks. In fact, the sock suggestion earned a double death glare. It was rather unreasonable of me. After all, if I would just hike that thermostat up to 75 degrees, she wouldn't even have this problem.

The little girls and I went to a local supermarket today to get away from their possessed teenage sister and to eat all the samples. One of the salespeople thought she was being helpful by giving each of my girls a balloon. Rachel's balloon popped shortly after we reached home, causing her to howl in rage for a full 15 minutes, while Susie, fearful that Rachel would confiscate her balloon, cried and screamed at me, "Go back to store!" In the meantime, Brian was crying that he hadn't gotten a balloon at all (he hadn't wanted to go to the store with us). Even by my warped standards, it was quite a scene. So, in order to take people's minds off the damn balloons, we played a game of Trouble which involved my pinning Susie in a sort of wrestling grip so that she couldn't grab everyone's pieces off the board. The game was fun, despite my having to yell repeatedly, "Hurry up! Go! I can't hold her much longer!"

I will look back fondly on all this, right?

Any childless person reading this blog is no doubt scheduling a permanent contraceptive procedure right now. So, to scare them even more, I will admit that, with the exception of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Groundhog's Day," I missed every single movie released in the 1990's. (I was busy having babies, all right?) Diesel recommended Office Space, which we recently viewed and enjoyed; were there any other good ones I missed? I'm trying to catch up.

Weigh-In? What Weigh-In?

So, I weighed in today, and somehow I managed to gain 2 pounds this week. While starving to death. Personally? I feel that the woman at the desk was jealous at how the pounds are just slipping off me and fudged the figures....either that, or the scale is off. But what do I care? I don't need no stinkin' weight loss. Round can be cute, so the hell with it.

What? Why, yes, I did have some chocolate when I came home. How did you know? And I just may have a little more, right now. It's okay so long as I write it down, right?

Larry came home, ate dinner, and took David to Cub Scouts. At some point this evening I may get a chance to speak with him, but it will probably be one of those conversations where I end up pointing out the zillion and one things we need to do around the house this weekend. He loves that.

The children started talking at dinner about our having another baby, and I explained to them that I am probably too old to have any more. Rachel agreed, saying, "You would die before it could grow up." Thanks, dear. And who do I have to thank for my premature aging, anyway?

Anna is interested in boys. I knew this already, and I was pretty much taking it in stride. I even gave her a funny book about dating that she actually bothered to read. But it has lately transpired that there is a specific boy who likes her. And e-mails her. And every time I think about this, I start hyperventilating. Anyone remember Kevin Bacon in "She's Having A Baby," right after Elizabeth McGovern says, "I stopped taking the Pill 3 months ago"? That whole scene where he imagines himself in the path of a powerful locomotive? That's me. I am so not ready for this.

Excuse me, I have to go breathe into a paper bag again.

By the way, I really appreciate all the comments on yesterday's post. I am relieved to hear that I am not mean (or, if I am mean, I've got lots of company) for shutting my kids in their rooms by 8 o'clock every evening. Either I do that, or I scream uncontrollably; and I do hate to frighten the children.

Movies, Mice, and Miscellany

The movie The Spirit of the Beehive was recommended to me by Netflix because I "enjoyed Annie Hall and Modern Times." Here is the description:

"In this mesmerizing allegorical tale set in post-Civil War Spain, precocious young Ana ... becomes obsessed with finding the spirit of Frankenstein's monster after watching director James Whale's 1931 classic. When she happens upon a wounded military deserter, Ana believes that she's evoked the cinematic creature."

Yeah, that just shouts Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin, doesn't it?

A neighbor just called because she and her husband are hearing what they assume are squirrels in their attic. The question is, Why did they call me? I mean, do we look like Rodent Central over here? Anyway, I explained to her that we don't do squirrels, we do mice (everyone specializes these days, you know) and I gave her the number of the neighbor who owns his very own squirrel trap (the humane kind). I like to be helpful when I can. Which isn't often...

Larry took the teens out to a meeting about "summer workcamp" this evening. Sounds great, doesn't it? But the "camp" only lasts a week. I figure, if you're going to call it "summer workcamp," it should last all summer. Otherwise, why don't they just call a spade a spade (and what the hell does that mean, anyway?) and call it "way-too-short workcamp" or (better yet) "not-nearly-long-enough-to-make-you-appreciate-the-comforts-of-home, you-spoiled-brats-you, workcamp"?

Maybe the organizers felt that was too wordy.

I know I've been greeting a lot of people lately, but tonight I would like to give a wave to those people heading over here from MadMad's blog. I may not be as uproariously funny as she is, guys; but I do grow on you. Stick around.

I Don't Think So....

I'm okay. Really I am. Just remind me not to try having a meaningful conversation with my teenage daughter ever again. It's too frightening.

My best friend took her daughter and another girl to see Juno. My friend told me that the 2 girls were puzzled that the stepmom didn't just raise the teen's baby (please note: this option wasn't even discussed in the movie), along with her own 5-year-old (Juno's half-sister). I said I was sure that Anna didn't see it that way. Anna walked into the room just then, so I said, "Anna - did you think Juno's stepmom should have offered to raise the baby?"

Anna immediately said, "Oh, yes!" And then, seeing my own shocked look and my friend dying of laughter behind me, she added, "I mean, [and right here she did this weird little forward-and-back hair flip thing that teen girls do] if I had a baby, you would raise it."

Obviously, there are a few things I need to make clear to her. But not today. I'm too shaken up.

So, I take it back. Don't take your daughters to see Juno. Now that I am trying to view the movie through my daughter's eyes, I realize she thought the whole thing was pretty cool and dramatic. Teenage girls love nothing better than being in the center of all that drama. And they have no concept of all the pain involved, both emotional and physical.

My best friend didn't stop laughing for almost half an hour, by the way. Every few minutes she would stop to take a breath and say, "Here, Mom! You're not doing anything! You raise it!" and then she'd start laughing again. And I think she was laughing at me, not with me.

Heaven, I'm In Heaven....

I had grand plans for this blog today; but first Larry had to hook up the new CPU and install all the virus software and then sit at the keyboard muttering "Crap" to himself periodically for hours and hours and hours. And now I've forgotten what I had wanted to write. I'm sure it was brilliant, too.

So instead let me sing the praises of a large computer screen, one big enough that I don't have to constantly scroll down to read a single paragraph; and also the praises of an up-to-date computer mouse with that little roll thingie on top, so that when I do have to scroll down, I don't have to go click-click-click-click forever. And best of all, let me extol the virtues of a computer with enough power that I can click on 2 pages in succession without freezing the whole thing up for 15 minutes.

Yes, we've been roughing it here with our antiquated 2001 computer; but it was almost worth it so that we could appreciate what everyone else takes for granted - the ability to surf more than 5 pages an hour on the web.

Oh, and while I was exclaiming over the improved visibility available on our 19-inch screen, Larry boasted, "I have 2 28-inch ones at work, you know." I think it's a guy thing.

I took Anna to see Juno today. We met a friend of mine and her daughter there, and of course the girls chose to sit far away from us in the theater. But that's okay, because if they had been nearby, I would have been embarrassed as heck. Really. And you know how a trite movie review will say, "I laughed, I cried" about a film? Well, I laughed. I cried. I'm surprised my friend didn't move elsewhere also. It was a great movie. Go see it. Now.

And judging by the comments from the last post, I'm guessing that none of you have ever seen Operation Petticoat. You need to go to Netflix immediately and put it at the top of your queue. I forget who is in it, but it's someone famous. Wait, I just checked. Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. Go. You won't be sorry.

I'm feeling bossy tonight.

And a final word of caution to you menfolk out there: don't be tempted by Petticoat Planet, which appears on the same search page as Operation Petticoat - it looks pretty trashy. How trashy? Here's the synopsis - Steve Rogers, a blue collar space jockey, crash lands his corroding craft onto a desert planet. But his luck is about to change when he finds himself to be the only man in a wild western town inhabited by beautiful whiskey drinkin' women. I wonder whether those whiskey drinkin' women care what size his screen is.

Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me

I've been tagged! Here are 6 inconsequential facts about myself (or a me, me, me meme) (as ordered by Fannie Mae) (Fannie Mae, by the way, is one blogger who knows how infuriating a teenager can be).

That's easy! Everything about me is inconsequential.

1. I always feel as though I am getting away with something because no one is making me get up and go to work in the mornings....I mean, how cool is that?
2. I think Lysol Wipes are the greatest invention since sliced bread.
3. I used to be in the Navy, and I really miss having a uniform. I liked always knowing what to wear.
4. I majored in History in college, and therefore I was completely unemployable when I graduated. In fact, I had one prospective employer call me long-distance (back when such things as "long-distance" mattered) just to tell me that he had received my resume and that history majors were a dime-a-dozen. I don't know why he bothered to do that. Maybe he was having a bad day and needed company.
5. Before I joined the Navy, I thought that everyone who volunteered for the military liked to kill people. But that's not why I joined. I joined because I pictured myself being a cute Navy sailorette like the nurses in Operation Petticoat. Also, I needed a job (because I was unemployable - see #4, above).
6. My favorite line in all of moviedom is near the end of Operation Petticoat. It is "The Japanese have nothing like this!" If you don't know what I am talking about, rent the movie. You'll understand.

Hmmm....who shall I tag? Bloggers already tell each other so much of the minutiae of their daily lives, it's hard to imagine wanting to know more about any of the people I read regularly. But I'll tag MadMad, because that will make her write another post and I love her posts; and Diesel also, in the hopes that Grundir the Implacable will do the job for him; and, let's see....Mrs. Smith, because I'd like to know more about her life before she dragged her 7 kids off to India for 3 years; and mrs. g., of course, because she always cracks me up with her effortless wit.

Holy cr*p, that's only 4. I don't have enough blog friends to pull this off, I'm afraid. Oh, I know, I'll tag Motherwise (because she was the first blogger to "friend" me, before I even knew what the heck that meant - I felt so popular!) and Planet Nomad, a new blog friend, because she seems to live an interesting life (i.e., a life totally unlike mine). Whew! That was hard. And now I have to figure out all those hyperlinks....

Here are The Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

I am signing off now - Larry is due back any minute, and I need to be able to give him the impression that I did something this week beside hang out in the blogosphere.

A Wonderful Life, Indeed

Larry didn't paint the living room today. He spent the morning catching up on his charity disbursals for the year. He started having trouble with his credit card after a bit, so he had to call the company. Seems they had put a stop on it because of suspicious activity - i.e., someone using it for several online "purchases" within the space of a couple of hours. They deemed the activity suspicious, even though the money was going to places like the Red Cross and Children's Hospital. "Okay," Larry asked, "who the heck do you think is using it - Robin Hood?"

I thought that was sort of funny.

Then we spent the afternoon watching It's A Wonderful Life. Larry noted that Donna Reed (in the movie) managed to have 4 little children, wallpaper her fixer-upper of a house, and still find time to run the local USO. I told him that if he could only stammer in that cute way that Jimmy Stewart had, I would be inspired to run a household as efficiently as Donna Reed did. In a skirt, too. So he's working on it.

Maybe he wants me to paint the living room? Do you think that was a hint?

Time to sign off - I promised to watch my friend's children tomorrow morning (because that's what friends do), which means that I need to roll out of bed earlier than 8 o'clock, for once. I don't really understand what's happened to me, but I did use to be a morning person. I blame the children for my newly formed slug-a-bed habit. Because they'll probably blame me for anything amiss in their lives when they're older. I might as well beat them to it.

Are We Done Yet?

Yesterday we had our annual gingerbread house party, otherwise known as the "Sugar Extravaganza." By mid-afternoon, I could no longer see straight and was thinking of calling some EMT's to bring me a dose of insulin. The kids, of course, were fine. They had a blast creating all sorts of graham cracker structures and plastering them with Skittles and gumdrops and marshmallows and....now the headache is coming back. Oy.

I was preparing to take snapshots of the finished houses when I realized I needed to take a closer look. You see, I could tell that David had added a little "garage" onto his edifice, but what was that mess in the driveway? A dramatic scene unveiled itself: a graham cracker car with a green gummy bear caught halfway underneath it and (get this) a yellow gummy bear (apparently the driver) standing next to the victim, looking as puzzled as a gelatinous piece of candy can look.

It's always the quiet kids you have to watch, you know?

I've been married to Larry for 17 years now. And I have been Christmas shopping all month. So it is a tad surprising that I found myself at a quarter to closing time in an upscale supermarket on Christmas Eve, searching frantically for a couple of Christmas presents for my husband. He is now the proud owner of a Christmas mug (4 for 3 dollars!) and a rechargeable flashlight that you have to crank. Lord knows what I would get for someone I didn't know.

A pack of batteries, maybe; those are useful.

At least Larry doesn't feel any pressure, gift-giving-wise. It would be hard for him not to top a 75-cent mug. And I did almost buy him one of those digital keychains that shows off pictures of your kids; but I didn't think he wanted the stress of figuring out how to make it work, as it involved USB cables.

Am I the only one who is glad that Christmas is almost over? We had 2 families over today for dinner, and we're exhausted. Theo has the bronchitis/cold/whatever now, so I was down one major helper in the kitchen. I still feel like hell. I hope we didn't infect all our guests. Merry Christmas! Have some Kleenex! Ricola cough drops, anyone?

Santa left little stuffed puppies for Rachel and Susie, and some rubber-band-propelled airplanes for David and Brian. Also some oranges and candy canes. And glitter glue pens. Santa is a real cheapskate around our house. But price doesn't matter, because these items were from the North Pole and were therefore very special. Now if I could just convince Larry that his mug came from the North Pole also, I'd have it made.

The children's Aunt Mary sent a Christmas card that sings "Deck the Halls" whenever you open it. Which is quite frequently, if there are little kids in the house. As in, I'm beginning to hate that song.

We meant to watch It's a Wonderful Life today, but we ran out of time. So that (and nothing else) is on the agenda for tomorrow. I can't wait.

Cocktails and Witchcraft

I just saw a promo photo for Charlie Wilson's War and all I can say is, what happened to Tom Hanks? Does he really look that way now, or is it just make-up? Granted, I'm a bit behind on movies and my reference point for Tom is about 20 years ago (I'm thinking Volunteers or Big); but still.....

This evening Larry and I actually got to act the way I thought all grown-ups acted, back when I was a kid - we went out to a cocktail party. I got dressed up and everything. There were lots of other grown-ups there, so I did my best to sound intelligent and talk about something other than housework or laundry; but once I ended up in a room with a bunch of other home school moms, our conversation veered to comparing math programs and chemistry textbooks more quickly than you can say "curricula obsession." It's an occupational hazard.

We also spent a disproportionate amount of time talking about Santa. Don't ask me why. I got bored at that point and decided to hang out by the dessert table.

We left the kids watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was Susie's first time, but apparently she wasn't traumatized by the Abominable Snow Monster. When I was a kid, I was terrified of that thing. I was very impressionable, I guess. Or stupid.

Theo had a brush with the occult today at work. A woman came up to the register with a stack of books, all bearing titles such as Wicca and Witchcraft for Dummies and Mind Control: The Ancient Art of Psychological Warfare and Necromancy Made Easy. When Theo inquired after the nature of her reading material, she claimed that her husband never listens to her and she was going to fix that. Because the books were cheaper than a divorce.

Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Well, it is almost midnight. God rest ye, merry gentlemen and ladies all!

Movie Maunderings

Warning: If you liked the movie Little Miss Sunshine, just skip this post. Go read some of the other posts listed to the left instead. We can't all agree on everything.


There's nothing like settling down with your teenagers for some family bonding/movie-watching time and right off the bat being treated to a scene where Grandpa is snorting cocaine. To add to our discomfiture, Theo said, "Oh, that's what that stuff is." Our brains did a double-take and Larry hit the pause button while shouting, "What?! Where have you seen it?!" Cool as a cucumber, that's my husband. Turns out that Theo had witnessed its use by some staff members at the Boy Scout camp where he worked last summer. How wholesome. I guess BSA figures that as long as the drug addicts aren't homosexual, it's okay. I can't believe we sent him there thinking that he'd be in a good environment. What with the smoking and the drinking and the drugs, Theo got a crash course in juvenile delinquency.

But, why, you are no doubt wondering, were we showing a movie involving cocaine to our kids in the first place? Let me say in our defense that we tend to rent older movies to watch with the kids, as we don't have time to review movies ourselves before we let them see it. However, I was willing to take a chance this one time and try Little Miss Sunshine, on the recommendation of a friend who apparently (it now occurs to me) has markedly different taste in movies than I do. She said it was hilariously funny. And to be fair, it is billed as a "madcap comedy" by Netflix. I don't know why. I think I've had dental cleanings that were funnier. Luckily, we only showed it to the teenagers. That saved us from having to explain (in the first 15 minutes) homosexuality, cocaine use, and certain colorful words to the 10 and 7 year olds. And it was funny only in the most obvious, lamest sort of way. Har, har, har - here's the alienated teenager. He's not talking to the family - isn't he a gas? Yuk, yuk - old granddad is doing drugs and swearing at the dinner table. What a character! Hee, hee - the cute 7-year-old has asked her uncle why he is in love with a guy. And let's make the father of the family the total loser, because heaven forbid there should be any strong father figures portrayed positively in the media.

I'm ranting - sorry. I'll stop. We've got The Purple Rose of Cairo coming next, and I'm sure we will enjoy it. Though it bothers me thinking how much better Diane Keaton would be in Mia Farrow's role. Unfortunately, Woody Allen kept writing roles that were perfect for Ms. Keaton long after she left him and he took up with Mia. The only role he wrote for Ms. Farrow was that last movie of his that she was in (name, name - I can't think of it), where you can tell he was starting to hate her, because he portrays her as completely passive-aggressive (come on, Liam Neeson was in it, too - what was the name?). But think about it - Crimes and Misdemeanors? Should have been Diane Keaton. That other one with William Hurt (my memory is really going here - was it called Alice?) - definitely should have been Diane Keaton.

I like Diane Keaton.

Larry's off at his Naval Reserve Drill this weekend and it is the last one! He retires at the end of the month (at the ripe old age of 40). I know that, standing at his retirement ceremony, I will have tears of joy in my eyes. And they won't be stemming from my pride in what he's done for our country or from my relief that we've made it all this way without a prolonged family separation. No, those tears will be the result of the happy thought (and I think any wife of a military retiree will agree with me here) of all that closet space that is going to open up once we can move all his uniforms into storage. Yes!

We took Larry out for his birthday (belated) last night and I decided to get dressed up - you know, nice slacks, high-heeled boots, new blouse. It felt great, and I was wondering why I didn't get dressed up more often, when somehow Brian (in true, 7-year-old-boy fashion) managed to execute some sort of weird maneuver in front of me which ended up getting the dirt from the bottom of his sneakers all over my nice new pants. And it wouldn't brush off. Serves me right for aspiring to look like a normal human being for once.

Time to stop ignoring the children. We still need to bake Larry's birthday cake. This birthday will go on record as the most drawn-out event in our family's history (well, second to the head lice infestation, anyway).

Veni, Vici, Regurgitati

Well, Larry, apparently desperate for some R and R, hightailed it out of here last week to go to some sort of "working retreat." Yeah, right...one of these days I'm going to go on a working retreat...with all my girlfriends. We'll get together at some nice hotel and talk about our favorite brand of diapers and where to get the cheapest toilet paper and how does one get vomit stains out of comforters, for all of 5 minutes, maybe...and then we'll goof off for the next 3 days.

All I can say is thank heaven for teenage boys. While Larry was gone, Theo managed to catch no less than 3 mice (and one, um, extra(?) tail...yuck), including the obviously stupid mouse that decided to run around our livingroom one evening. That incident only exacerbated my feelings of spousal abandonment, of course. But we got Larry back for his desertion - Rachel started throwing up almost the minute he walked in the door. (Warning: non-parents may want to exit now - graphic descriptions follow) For some reason, despite my battle-hardened attitude to all forms of vomit, this incident was particularly gross. I don't think we'll ever have salisbury steak again. Rachel threw up again later, in her sleep, while we were downstairs watching a movie (we were rather desperately searching for some comic relief). The movie was Ghostbusters, as a matter of fact. Theo and Anna had never seen it, so it was fun watching it again with them. Of course, Larry and I found ourselves explaining a lot of items that were rendered confusing by the passage of 20-plus years. Remember the opening scene, where the librarian is spooked by the cards flying from the card catalogs? We had to explain what those were. We also noted, among other things, an "old-fashioned" computer on the secretary's desk, an old-fashioned phone (touchtone with a cord), and the weirdness of the protagonists' lack of cellphones. I thought I would end up reliving my youth by watching the movie; instead, I went to bed feeling a hundred years old.

Where was I? Oh, yes - Rachel threw up in her sleep. I went upstairs to check on her and found her slumbering soundly in a pool of vomit. It was so disgusting (how disgusting was it, Karen?)...it was so disgusting that I had to get a pair of scissors and cut her out of her pajama shirt, rather than pull it over her head. Isn't that nice? Just what she needed - more scissor ideas...anyway, I stripped her, stripped her bed, showered the puke out of her hair, remade the bed, dressed her in fresh jammies, tucked her in, gave her a few sips of flat ginger ale (all the while thinking, you know, that you can't pay anyone enough to do these things), and then...she threw up again. As I said, you can't pay anyone enough....

Susie barfed all over our bed soon after we finally got to sleep. By this point, Larry was looking so miserable that he was dismissed to go to bed wherever he could find a vomit-free place to lay his head. Misery loves company, but he did have to get up in the morning and go to his Naval Reserve drill. I sat up and held the baby by the computer until she fell asleep. Just when it looked safe to try to put her in her crib (no way she was going in my bed again), she woke up and threw up all over me. By this time, for those of you keeping track, I had approximately 16000 loads of puke-soaked bed linens and clothes stacked up in front of the washer, no clean pajamas left for me or baby and no spare clean blankets. The weekend wasn't shaping up too well, it was clear. I spent all of Saturday just trying to catch up on the laundry - and need I mention that by then I was also suffering from this lovely ailment? And can you believe Larry didn't even call me during the day to check up on us? Coward.

So - Larry got home from work Saturday evening and I convinced him that we needed to go out for a short, refreshing date (obviously, a trademark of parents of large families is irrational optimism). We told Anna to watch the baby for an hour and a half, and she immediately blew up and said she had too much to do and we had no right to make her babysit. Opting for a tactical retreat, we took the baby with us and fed her french fries (this was a dumb idea) and tried to pretend we were not too tired to enjoy each other's company. Then baby threw up and we had to beat a hasty retreat (a lot of retreating that evening); I vaguely remember Larry throwing a bunch of money at the waiter and grabbing the puke-covered baby and dashing out the door, while I was still messing around trying to soak up the vomit on the table with a stack of paper napkins.

We didn't let Anna get away with her mutiny, of course. She actually told Theo after we left, "See? Mom knew I was right," and then she sat down and played a computer game for a while. Funny how the next morning, when she wanted to go out and get away from us, she couldn't find her shoes. It's my version of house arrest, that missing-shoes trick. She threatened to stay in bed all day and I told her to go ahead. At least I don't have to see her glaring at me all day that way.

There! I'm sure by now I've convinced any of you who are childless (and still reading) to remain happily unblessed by offspring. See? Even though I have six children, I'm still doing my part to keep the total world population from skyrocketing out of control. So you can stop begrudging me that $6,000 child tax credit, all right? I've earned it, dammit.

You know, maybe it's time to get to bed before someone else gets sick - that way, I can pretend to be asleep and Larry will have to deal with it. Yes, an excellent idea - good night!