...that Duck spent the night at school last night but it's OKAY because he was there with Franklin, the classroom turtle? And Franklin stays awake at night because he is noc-turtle and he and Duck played in the classroom and had an adventure.
Open Letter to the Closing Shift at Ski Shores
My dears (Mr. Levy and all the late-night teenaged wait staff),
I know when my husband first called you Saturday at 8:49 p.m. to inquire about "a lost yellow duck blanket that really means a lot to our four-year-old daughter," you looked around while you collected deck chairs and swept up the place. Naturally, you didn't find it. But thanks for looking.
And then, when I called back at 8:56 p.m. to ask about "something that looks more like a dishrag with a duck head attached. Like, you'd be wiping down a table one day and look down and think, dang why does this rag have a duck's head" you looked a little harder. You seemed genuinely sorry when you didn't find it, especially when you could hear my daughter sobbing in the background. Thanks again for looking, and for seeming sorry.
When I showed up at your lakeside burger joint at 9:49 with my flashlight, you rallied. Thank you for turning on the lights and hunting around the parking lot, thank you for digging with me through your trash and dirty laundry. Thank you (especially Georgia) for finding Lucy's sad little dishrag of a Duck.
I will spread the tale of your heroism (and delicious food and cold beer) far and wide.
Sincerely,
Kate D.
Pisces
The girl can really swim. In El Paso, she was jumping off the diving board and surfacing all on her own, using me or Uncle Adam as a buoy, then swimming to the ladder and getting out by herself. Over and over and over again.
Got Lemonade?
The other night Lucy informed Baga and Jason's Aunt Chris that she was planning to open a lemonade stand so she could save money for her trip to Disney World, where she is going when she is five (even though I told her we wouldn't go until she is six, and was hoping she'd forgotten. I should know better: remember gum?) She told them not to tell her mom or dad about the plan because it was a secret.
What she doesn't yet realize is that she will sell a hell of a lot more lemonade if she enlists the help of her parents, who work in advertising: we will do a lemonade brand campaign, complete with lemonade print and online ads, as well as a lemonade Facebook page. We will not have budget for lemonade TV, but we should at least be able to do a couple of lemonade viral videos.
Awareness of lemonade will go up, as well as intent to purchase lemonade, with an eventual increase in lemonade sales.
It's Always Princess Weather
I just went into her room to wake her and the first thing she asked me, yawning was, "Mom, can I have a princess jacket?"
A) It's too hot to be thinking of jackets. B) Good Lord. "Well, babe, it's too hot for jacket. Why are you thinking about it?"
Lu: "Because Alex has one and I she is my best friend and I need to have one too."
Not only are we deep into the Princess Period, she is also obsessed with doing whatever Alex is doing, which deeply troubles me, although Alex is a perfectly lovely little person. Who wears twirly pink princess dresses. Every single day.
"Pie and I don't wear the same thing or do the same thing. I wear what I like and she wears what she likes."
"Well, Alex and I both like princesses and that's why I need to get a princess jacket. Can I?"
"Maybe."
Then, an incisive rhetorical move, "Mom, can you look in our closets and see if you have a princess jacket from when you were little that I could wear?"
"That would make it a vintage princess jacket. I don't think we have one here, but I can ask Granny to look in the closet in my old room."
"Yeah, vintage," she said. "Let's go call Granny right now. Or you can send her an email."
Just now, as I was finishing this post, she asked me, "Mom, now are you ordering me a princess jacket on the Internet?"
The Dress Proclamation of August 2008
Whereas We have taken into our Royal Consideration the matter of getting dressed each morning, We do hereby authorize, enjoin and require of our loving subjects making any purchases of clothing on behalf of the Princess or aiding in the dressing of the Princess to henceforth avail themselves only of Dresses. These Dresses shall be Twirly in nature, preferably in the Pink colour family. All Dresses presented to the Princess should be to her complete delight. We do hereby strictly forbid, on pain of our displeasure, all our loving subjects from making any purchases or offerings of clothing other than Dresses.
This Royal Proclamation is issued at the Court of Princess Lucy Elena, at Austin in the State of Texas, this 26th Day of August 2008, in the Fourth Year of our Reign
GOD SAVE THE PRINCESS
Good Dog
Lucy really wants some new pets. Ones that are younger and smaller and smell better. Like a kitty or bunny or some little yippy dog. She sees our dogs as hand-me-downs. What she doesn't see: Clifford, who is lying next to her bed as she sleeps. Clifford, who'd jump into the car as I was buckling her into her car seat, just to be next to her, and look at me in his nervous way, as if to say, "Hey, don't hurt our baby, okay? Do you love me now? Just checking." Guinea pigs and Yorkies don't do that.
My Two Favorite People
How can anything be that bad with these two clowns around?
Why People Invented the Stork, the Cabbage Patch and Other Reproductive Myths
This morning as I am strapping her into her car seat, she asks, "Mom, what did you and Dad do before I was in your tummy?"
I freeze. Is she asking what I think she's asking? Surely not. "What do you mean?"
"Right before I was in your tummy, what did you and Dad do?"
Um, right before? Holy smokes: she's asking where babies coming from. I give her a quizzical look, stalling.
She takes a new tack: "Did you know I was in there before I came out? Were you missing me?"
That was a close one. "I did know you were in there. And yes, I did miss you. I was so happy when you came out."
Confidence Floats
Lucy has been taking swimming lessons, and today she swam the short length of the pool BY HERSELF. Maybe. Jason wonders that the swim instructor may have had a single finger under Lucy...which means it doesn't count? I'd argue she did swim by herself. How much can a finger be doing except giving her the confidence to do what she knows how to do?
All of our accomplishments require the buoy of confidence. Sometimes, my entire job is holding a finger under a bunch of bright creative people who don't quite realize they know how to...swim.
Watching the Olympics echoes this sentiment for me. Sure, there's the years of training and sacrifice, but confidence: that's the extra something.