OH NO

Oh no.
My Chia Pet widget died! I took such good care of it! I don't know what happened!
I feel like such a failure.

Emily Wants a New Post

But I don't have anything clever to write about. And I am lazy. So here are some interesting tidbits about my life:
1. A couple of weeks ago, I had a dream that I went to this person's new house for a party. I was not invited to this party, nor have I ever met this person in my life. Best of all, I wasn't just planning on going to the party, but also on staying at her house for a couple of days. When I got there, she treated me like I was crazy and I realized that I was crazy and I was very embarrassed. I still feel kind of embarrassed every time I read her blog. Which makes me crazy, I think. You know, for feeling like someone is judging me for something I did in a dream?
2. We went to the Children's Museum the other day. It was kind of cool. They had weird toilets, that will totally get their own post.
3. Today in the bathroom of the Border Cafe in Harvard Square, Emily and I were waiting in line when a lady came in and started up an impromptu dance party. We joined in. In the bathroom of Border Cafe. At least there was music.
And now I shall go to bed. Better posts are forthcoming. I promise.

It is Fun To Pretend To Be Gino The Dog

. . . Or, How I Almost Got Arrested For Child Abuse.
The girl's favorite new game is called "Let's pretend I'm Gino!" Gino is the dog who lives upstairs from her. The other day as we were getting ready to walk to the park, The Girl handed me a long piece of curling ribbon and asked me to tie it around her neck like a leash. Since I like my charges to stay alive while I'm taking care of them, I said no. Instead, I offered, I could tie it around her wrist. She agreed, and then proceeded to give me detailed instruction on exactly how to scold her when she didn't follow the orders I had to give her. ("Stay!" "Bad dog, Gino! You need to LISTEN to me!")
Once I have the directions down, and it took quite a while to understand how to do it all perfectly, we set off. She pulled at the "leash" like the bad dog she was pretending to be. (Did I mention that Gino is the yappiest dog EVER and terrifies her?). I scolded her, using exactly the words she gave me. She did it again.
Suddenly, I notice a traffic cop looking at me strangely.
"Excuse me ma'am, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course, officer!"
"Why do you have that child tied up like that?"
"She's pretending to be a bad dog named Gino! He's her neighbor's dog! She doesn't like him! He scares her!"
"Okay, ma'am, whatever you say."

After that, we untied the leash.

This is what happens when grownups get married

"The only reason I'd ever get married again would be for the health insurance."
"Isn't that romantic! Oh, let me touch your gorgeous health insurance!"

You have to make some sacrifices to have enough room for all those twinkies

"Honey, would you like some more blueberries?"
"No thanks, I'm trying to cut back."

On Junk Food

I picked the girl up at school the other day, and as she was climbing into the cab (you will recall that I don't have a driver's license, and sincer her school is not t-accessible, we have to take a cab to get there. It's quite the adventure.), I noticed that she was uncharacteristicly talkative about her day, and how Ava spilled juice and Adam cried because he didn't want to wipe his mouth at lunch. The thing that she was the most animated about, though? A twinky.
"I had a TWINKY today at school! It was yellow and crunchy! And white! I tried it and I didn't say yucky! I was very brave! It was sooo yummy! I love twinkies!"
It should be noted here that The Girl has an Autism Spectrum Disorder, and two of the ways that this manifests itself are that she is normally not very conversational (one of her most common statements is "I don't WANT to have a conversation!" whenever you try to ask her about anything), and, until recently, she had an extreme aversion to food that wasn't scrambled eggs, teriyaki-flavored vegetables or macaroni and cheese. Or vanilla ice cream. And that took me at least a month to get her to like. So the fact that she was excited to tell me about something, and that that something was food, was kind of huge.
The next day when I picked her up, she was equally talkative. This time, though, she said "I wanted a twinky today, but they didn't have any. So instead I had an oreo. It was good."
Oh, junk food, you can make a convert out of anyone.

Just Rewards

The night my sister was born, my whole family was already in the hospital. Not with my mother though; they were all in the emergency room with little 2-year-old me, who had had a febrile seizure. (Oh, fun. I just read that link, and kids are much more likely to get febrile seizures if their parents had them. Since I had them AND my mom had them, my kids don't stand a chance. I can't wait. 'Cause, you know, seizures aren't scary or anything.) My mother apparently went into labor while all the doctors were working with me, but was so focused on her two-year-old, she wouldn't admit she was in labor until one of the nurses asked her if she was. They rushed her to a different hospital, where my sister was born while my grandparents stayed with me. It all worked out in the end, but I've always gotten the sense that I kind of ruined Dewey's original birthday with my seizure-spinal tap-hospital attention-grabbing ways.
Early early early on Wednesday morning, we awoke to Dewey screaming in excruciating pain. Unsure of what it was or if it was related to the (relatively minor) bike accident she'd been in on Tuesday afternoon or the tylenol with codeine they'd given her after the cleaned out the nasty gash she got, my mother called the ambulance to come and take her to the hospital.
And thus my entire family plus Manoli spent the wee hours of my birthday in the hospital with my sister, who turned out to have a bruised pancreas.
Only fair? I think so. Twenty years in the making? Definitely.
Dewey got to have a badass bruised pancreas, though, and all I got was a spinal tap I was too young to remember.