Adlani: “Do you know there’s a monster in the bushes?”
Me: “No, there are no monsters.”
Adlani: “Yes there is – the green monster! My teachers told me about it. It’s in the Sox book.”
He’s got me there.

Aliya: “I don’t think I’m going to have kids. It looks too hard.”
Me: “What part looks hard? The birth, or the everyday parenting?”
Aliya: “Well, the birth looks hard…plus when you go to the hospital you can’t even enjoy the time without kids because you’ve got another one coming.”

Me, to the waiter at the Melting Pot Restaurant: “If I drink too much wine -“
Aliya: “You’ll vomit.”
I’m sure the waiter thinks I pray to the porcelain god every Saturday morning but Aliya has NEVER seen me hung over so I don’t know where that came from.

Norah, as we walk through the snack aisles of Target: “More! More! More!”
(She has a limited vocabulary, although not bad for 13 months, but I thought I should at least mention her in case it looks like we sold her to the gypsies.)

Let’s see if I can think back that far…Friday night Victoria came over for a sleepover. It went much better than the last one when Vic stayed up until 2 a.m. and said she had a belly ache. I asked her what her mom does when she has a belly ache and she said that she gives her a “special cookie.” I had no idea what Karen’s idea of a special cookie is (although I AM familiar with “special” brownies), so I stalled until Vic fell asleep. It turned out to be a Metamucil wafer. The girls are much older and wiser now, so they were both asleep by 10ish. Vic has revived an old trend in our household, by insisting that she can’t sleep without a sleep mask, and then rejecting the unadorned airline mask I dug up. I think she had something else in mind, but Aliya has once again started wearing it out in public. Yes, in the daytime, on her head like a hair accessory.

Saturday morning the girls had a soccer game. While we were there a little girl was apparently approached by a man wearing a yellow shirt and black pants, who ran off into the woods when she started making a scene. The police came but I don’t think they found anyone. I told Ben it was a good thing he didn’t wear yellow that day. As it was, when one of the mothers heard about the guy and realized that her daughter was playing near Ben, she reeled her in. I don’t know why anyone would be crazy enough to try to do something with so many people around…I think it could have just as easily been someone who innocently tried to talk to a kid and then got scared when she freaked out. I guess we’ll never know.

After bagels with the Fonsecas, we went home to start preparing for breakfast (served at sundown to break the fast) for our friends and Ben’s sister and brothers. There were 16 of us but we literally had enough food for 50 people. I made a few dishes, Sok made harira, Najet made a cake, and Naima stayed up until 4 a.m. the night before making tray after tray of food. I feel bad that she goes to such trouble but I haven’t been able to slow her down yet. I’m grateful that everyone helps with the Moroccan dishes I haven’t mastered, but it felt a little like inviting guests for Thanksgiving dinner and having them show up with the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and assorted pies, while I provided the cabbage salad. Thank you Naima!!

On Sunday, Aliya and I went to see Wicked. It was fabulous!!! Aliya seemed so grown up! We went to Bennigan’s for lunch first, and then walked to the Opera House. The show is about the witches of Oz before Dorothy came along. It’s really clever and funny, and the music is unbelievable. The woman who played Elpheba brought tears to my eyes when she sang. We have the soundtrack so I told Aliya before the show that she couldn’t sing along. She only slipped once, during “I’m Not That Girl”. She was really good and she wasn’t afraid during the scary parts. I think she enjoyed the one-on-one time with me and she knew that it was a special day.

Yesterday Ben stayed home from work which was a huge gift since I have a big deadline this week. I got a lot of work done and he had a fun day with the kids. It was a cold rainy day but it felt good to have fall weather instead of the extended summer we’ve been having.

This morning I took Adlani to the dentist to get two fillings. I knew it wasn’t going to be fun. I really had no idea of how not-fun it was going to be. They gave him nitrous oxide to try to calm him down, which didn’t do much. I found out after the fact that the $100 charge for the nitrous isn’t covered by insurance. How do the insurance companies expect a 3-year-old to get a filling? OK…maybe it’s my fault since my bad parenting caused the cavities in the first place. It just bugs me when the insurance companies don’t cover things…like nitrous oxide and birth control. Anyway, it was hell. We did our best to keep the mood light and happy and convince him to voluntarily sit still, but by the end I was literally laying on his legs and holding his arms, while the dentist and two assistants held his head and did the best they could with the fillings. They had to use the thing that holds his mouth open. He was screaming so loud that they didn’t bring any more patients into the suite and they closed the doors to the waiting room. When the dentist said, “I’m just going to count to 20 and then we’re done.” Adlani yelled, “I think I’m done right now!!” I asked him afterward why he was crying and he said that he didn’t like having his teeth bumped (drilled) because it was too loud. He never said that it hurt…I just think he was upset about being restrained. The good news is that they put some thick flouride on the other two cavities and in 3 months they’re going to look at them. If they haven’t progressed they’re going to wait 3 more months. Eventually he’ll either mature enough to have them filled or it’ll be time for those teeth to fall out anyway. Hopefully he won’t remember today’s experience when he gets older.

With all of the excitement this weekend I completely forgot about washing the bedding from Adlani’s school rest bag. Luckily, his teachers don’t read this blog because I confess…I put the sheet, blanket, pillow, and rest bag into the dryer with a couple of Febreeze-infused Bounce sheets and fluffed them up for a while, before lint-rolling the cat hair off the outside of the bag and packing it up to go back to school. There goes my reputation.

This video of a mom singing to the William Tell Overture is so great!
What Moms Say

While drunk driving is no joke, this DUI clip is one of my all-time favorites:
DUI Arrest

And even though I NEVER swear in front of MY kids, this is a great one too:
Peyton Manning

This morning Norah was walking around very proud of herself with a mouthful of something. I gave her the open-your-mouth command which is one of her party tricks (and is also very useful), and there was a complete cocktail weenie in there. How depressing that my kid could find a cocktail weenie on the floor of my house and eat it, without it’s presence making even a blip on my radar. What else is on my floor?! It’s been at least a couple of days since we’ve even had cocktail weenies!

I used to be a very clean and organized person…a place for everything and everything in its place. Now I’ve become much more Fred Sanford than Martha Stewart. How and when did that happen?! That’s a rhetorical question because I know the exact date – October 23rd, 2001. I clearly remember hosting a girls’ weekend in 2000, and hearing Sherry say, “If your house is this clean after you have kids I’m going to kill you.” Well, I’m alive and well. My house is a disaster area and I can’t find a thing. Nothing! Ask me to borrow something and see how long it takes me to find it. I will probably go out and buy another one just so I can lend it to you.
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Sometimes I stumble across something and there’s that flash of excited recognition like meeting an old friend you haven’t seen in years…”My Mickey Mouse corkscrew!!! It’s been too long!!!” And then in a flash…just like that old friend…it disappears into the crowd until the next surprise meeting. I hope Mickey resurfaces again soon. I could use a glass of wine. Or two.

I came out of my office at 7 o’clock tonight, got in my car and proceeded to back out of a parking space. After backing out I realized that the wall of the building was too close so I pulled back into the space to back out at a steeper angle. As I backed out again I heard that sickening crunch of metal on metal…I somehow hit the car next to me. I’m still not sure how it happened. The parked car was a Dodge Magnum – just like mine. Our office has a fleet of Magnums, so I called my boss (Harris) to see if we could brainstorm and figure out whose car would have been left there at night. We eventually figured out that the car belongs to Reyn – one of the vice presidents of Ingersoll Rand. Harris was laughing and said, “It’ll cost you a lot of money but we’ll keep it quiet.” I said, “What do you want me to do now?” He said, “Leave the scene immediately!” and cracked up. So I did.

It’s not as bad as it sounds…I have known Reyn for 20 years and he is Harris’ brother and was my boss until he climbed the corporate ladder and became a VP. He’s currently in Scotland so he’s going to come home to a little surprise. Oops. Oh well…dents happen. I feel bad that he’ll have to deal with it but it really was an accident. I wasn’t eating, drinking, talking on the phone, text messaging, buckling my seatbelt, adjusting the radio, or slapping at someone in the backseat. I haven’t had an accident in 14 years. Hopefully this one will fill my quota for the next 14 years and Reyn will be gentle with me.

Update: I just received an email response from Reyn (we have international Blackberry service) and he said, “No worries…it’s only a car…we’ll get it fixed.” He’s the best!

Update 2: The estimate for Reyn’s car was $1500. Eek!