Stepford in training

It's 10:30 on Friday night and Peach has a stomach virus. As I leave the apartment carrying my fourth load of laundry to hang up on the roof, a 20-something-if-even-that woman leaves the apartment next door. She's wearing make-up and a dressy coat. "Have a nice night!" She says cheerily in the tone of one for whom the adventure begins at 10:30 on Friday night. And then, "Oops", in the tone of one who accidentally just wished a paraplegic "Good luck" in the Boston Marathon.
I have one thing to say and I'll even take the clothespin out of my mouth to say it clearly.
"Chiquita, in ten years I will attend your Stepford induction ceremony. I will hand you your regulation sweats. Dismayed, you will run home to shower, where you will discover that all but the last three drops of your expensive salon shampoo has been used as bubble bath."
Oops.
Chiquita, Stepford is out there.
In the meantime, buy stock in Procter & Gamble, makers of Tide. We're on our second load today and we've run out of laundry lines on the roof.

Made in China

Daddy's in Hong Kong this week.
Let's see what we know about Hong Kong ...
It's a big city with very tall buildings.
It's Chinese.
It's night time there at inconvenient times.
The toys all say "Made in Here".

So far, by the way, so good. Everyone is handling Daddy's absence with aplomb.
Much to everyone's surprise, we can get two kids and a dog out the door before the school bell rings (Thank goodness school is two doors down the street!) and back home in one, reasonably cheery piece.

Well except once.
While Patoot was at kung fu, Mommy and Peach stopped for coffee and a rogelach respectively.
After kung fu, Peach announces "Let's have a secret. Let's not tell Patoot what you got me from the coffee place."
Except Patoot was right there. And except kids who stop for coffee always get rogelach. So it wasn't much of a secret. And Patoot immediately demanded "fairsies" - that he get rogelach on a day Peach doesn't. And he had the day planned.
And then we get "Why did you tell him? It was a SECRET!!!"
Tally for after school activites: gymnastics = 1, kung fu = 1, tantrums = 1 all the way home.

Bridges, overpasses and exit ramps

We had promised Patoot we would add a knight to his collection (Sir Peres, I presume?).
In the car home from Savta's house, Patoot was explaining in great detail exactly which knight this would be. The explanation was very involved. It was taking quite some time. What knights were acceptable, what knights were not, right down to the minutest detail.
"You can stop explaining just know," Daddy begged for mercy. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
Surprisingly, the car ride continued in blessed silence.
Nothing.
Nada.
Not even a peep.
Probably ten whole minutes of just plain silence.
Until we went under an overpass.
"We came to the bridge. Now we can talk about the knight again."

Confessions of a shopaholic

And no, I don't mean me.
With just one day of being five under her belt, Peach showed us today what a five-year-old shopaholic is all about. We went to buy winter shoes. The saleslady measured her feet and showed her what shelves she could pick from.
The first pair fit perfectly, met some vague criteria for practicality and appropriate-ness, Peach liked them, Patoot was dying to get out of the shoe store and go buy aquarium fish, and I said "Thank you. We'll take these." As I was getting up to leave, Imelda Junior announces "Oh noooo! I wanted to try on lots more pairs."
I know when I'm beat. We examined the boot shelf too, tried on three pairs and left with boots too.

Tally for mall trip: pairs of shoes = 2, fish = 7, tantrums = 0. Yay Mommy.