Living Dangerously

I'm over at MidCenturyModernMoms today, begging people to explain how to let my teen daughter indulge in Facebook safely. There have been some pretty helpful comments, too; so any of you wondering the same thing (I mean, about your teenager, not mine, of course) should check them out.

And someone from Glencoe, Illinois, has practically been living on my blog the last few days. I don't mind, but would it kill you to comment? I feel used.

I'm late posting because I made the mistake of asking Larry to ignite the pilot lights on our 2 gas fireplaces tonight. Well, I more than asked - I threatened to try to do it myself tomorrow, because his sister is coming to visit in 2 days and I know she will not enjoy sleeping in a 58-degree basement (albeit on a brand-new Ektorp sofabed). Not wanting to come home from work to find our house blown up, Larry tackled the job this evening.

You would think it would be easy, wouldn't you? Like, maybe an on-off switch should do the trick?

No. That would be too simple, and it wouldn't provide divorce lawyers with any clients. Instead each fireplace has a big plastic card covered with complex instructions interspersed with dire warnings of what might happen if one does not follow said instructions precisely. So our evening consisted of such scintillating conversation as, "Are you sure that's safe?" and "Hold the glass up! I said, hold it up!" and "Do you smell gas? I smell gas."

This was not quality relationship time. And the children learned a few new words.

Have I mentioned this is his sister who's visiting?

Hemingway Redux

Larry went up to the attic yesterday to find his camping stuff and discovered 3 (count them! 3) full mousetraps. I thought it had been sort of quiet up there lately. As usual, he was quite proud of himself for his hunting prowess. He treated himself to an extra beer after disposing of the bodies. I'm just glad he didn't have them stuffed and hung above the fireplace.

Larry was looking for his camping gear because he and David headed off for a fun Boy Scout camping trip today, David's first. It was sort of touching how excited David was. I mean, if excited means screaming, "I'm not going! I don't want to go!" Larry practically had to carry him out to the car.

Parenting isn't for weaklings, you know.

And lest you think we are cruel for forcing our son to participate, the kid was eager to go until yesterday, when he found out that Uncle Matt was coming to stay for the weekend. David didn't want to miss a second of the visit, though most of today will consist of watching the little girls play with their uncle's cellphone (it has a camera! And fun tunes!). In fact, as of this writing, Uncle Matt is still abed (it's past noon), as he is not used to having his sleep patterns messed up by a screaming 10-year-old at 6 in the morning. No one else around here even noticed the disruption. Uncle Matt leads a very sheltered life.

I had planned to give myself a break from a solo parenting weekend by going to yoga class this morning - but instead I ended up leaving the minivan at the local auto shop for a new battery (after a kindly neighbor once more jump started it for me) and then walking back home. Oh, well - it still beat being stuck in the house on duty all day. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the kids for the rest of the day. I mean, once I stop wasting my time watching this funny video on the new trend of outsourcing childcare to India, brought to you from those strange folks at The Onion. Boy, some people can really take Idle Parenting to an extreme...