Good question.

Emma:  (examining the bottom of her foot) Daddy, what's this?

Joe:  Oh..that's just dead skin.  That's what you're skin does.  New skin grows.

Emma: WHY?? I liked the OLD skin!!

LIARS!

I bought a set of books yesterday at the hospital book fair.  I was coming back to the office after seeing a patient in the ER and I walked through the book fair area chanting "I am not buying, I am not buying".

After I lugged my arm load of books to the check out area (I can't help it, I'm weak when it comes to buying books.  It's a sickness, I swear!), one more set of books caught my eye.  "The One Minute Organizer" and "The One Minute Cleaner".  AHA!!!  Thinking of the dresser in the bedroom that has everything on it from Christmas decorations to rocks from Door County, I snatched the set up.

Last night while I watched Michael Phelps narrowly avoid defeat, I sat down with my new books just dying to know the secrets of cleaning and organizing and was disappointed to find out....

It CAN'T BE DONE IN ONE MINUTE.   

Those rocks and Christmas ornaments might be on that dresser for a while longer. Damn the book fair anyway.

Mr Thirsty.

Yesterday was Emma's first dental appointment.  Oh settle down.  Yes she's four and she has the worst diet on the planet and I wrenched the pacifier out of her trembling fingers just this past April (I kept it in a drawer in case I needed to negotiate for something BIG).   But I didn't really HAVE a dentist.   I am an Anti-Dentite (reference: Seinfeld) so I try to avoid the dentist...read as...I don't go unless the pain is severe or I can't chew chocolate or God forbid the cold Diet Pepsi is making me pass out because it hurts my teeth.

Anyway. Found a dentist that was supposed to be good with kids and made the Rat Toothed child an appointment.  She recently lost both bottom front teeth which freaked me out a little.  I thought that maybe I'd harmed her mouth for life with the orthodontically correct pacifier and it was causing all her teeth to fall out.  She had learned all about the dentist at school and she thought it sounded "fun!".....so I just let her think that.

Last night, right before we went to the appointment, I sprung it on her that she was going to the dentist.  "YAY!!!  The DENTIST!!!"  She skipped all the way to the waiting room.  I filled out all the ridiculously repetitive  paper work while she hummed happily on the floor playing with some office toy.  They called her back to the room and she hopped happily up in the chair.  They played her a couple of cute videos about two dogs who go to the dentist and Emma sat in the chair totally nonplussed like this was the best thing she'd done all summer.  The hygienist took her to another room to get her x-rays and I expected some hesitation, but nope...again with the skipping.  Back in the chair, they cleaned her teeth and she giggled the whole time and used the suction herself (aka Mr Thirsty) to suck out the saliva and tooth paste.  At one point she was laughing so hard that the hygienist stopped to ask if she was choking and Emma helplessly shook her head no and went back to giggling hysterically. It all ended with a dentist autographed picture of her x-rays to take to school, a new princess toothbrush and some dinosaur flossers.  She skipped happily back out to the waiting area and called out "I can't WAIT to come back!!"

Let's talk about MY dental experience.  The place LOOKED like we were in the Soviet Union and smelled strongly of fluoride or alcohol or some vile dental product.  My dentist was short, Greek and CRABBY.  There was no cherry toothpaste to clean teeth or smiley blond hygienist, it was funky tasting SPACKLE with extra GRIT and it was applied by said CRABBY GREEK DENTIST.  And AND.... there was NO Mr Thirsty.... it was the dreaded SPIT SINK. EWWWWW.... Okay okay... I have to stop, I'm getting all sweaty and shaky. 

Emma got into the car last night and sighed happily holding her dentist treasures.  I remember stomping to the car, slamming the door and giving my mother the evil hairy eyeball.  Emma may have a permanently damaged mouth, but at least will be well adjusted and won't hate me while she takes care of it.  I'm a good mom after all.

I'll obviously do anything for kettle corn.

Nice day today.  Weather was about perfect.   And of course we couldn't think of anything to do. Did all the usual Sunday morning things like read the paper, Joe mowed the lawn, I made breakfast.  Then I knew that if we didn't do SOMETHING I would spend the entire day staring blankly at Facebook on my Macbook like I did yesterday.  Since I'm starting to resemble some albino bat that lives in a cave and never sees the light of day, I thought I'd better get out of the house.  So I suggested (insert dramatic drum roll here)... The Gladiolus Festival.

Okay..I know...calm down...who plans a whole festival around a flower that's usually only used in funeral pieces.  MOMENCE, ILLINOIS, that's who.  Home of the Johnsonville Sausage by the way and apparently the gladiolus capital of the known world.  Who knew?   Anyway... they were supposed to be having a craft show, flea market, etc etc etc, ad nauseum.  How bad can it be?

Oh it could be bad.  As we walked onto the grounds, Joe SWEARS he heard the banjos from Deliverance playing in the background.   Everywhere I looked, men AND women looked just like Larry the Cable guy.  I kept thinking "I actually changed clothes for this?"  I tried to make the best of it as we went through the flea market/crap...  I mean CRAFT show... Emma found a Beanie Baby she couldn't live without.  There was table after table of empty Avon perfume bottles, cheap pressed glass candy dishes and Campbell's soup mugs all under the premise of being "collectable" or "antique".  Right.    So I think we spent all of 14.6 minutes there and back to the car we went.  

But we did stop at the ubiquitous Kettle Corn stand where I bought a bag of fresh Kettle Corn that was almost as tall as Emma.    Fabulous.

So now we can scratch the Momence Gladiolus Festival off our list of "Local Festivals to Visit". I think that just leaves us with the Hoopeston Sweet Corn Festival.  

I don't like Kettle Corn THAT much.

Happy Meal Hell.

It's no secret that Emma won't eat.  For a kid that won't eat, she looks pretty damn healthy and is her appropriate weight and height for her age.  Don't ask me, I have no idea.   She only has one food group she eats.  Fried.  Make that two food groups.  Fried and Pop Tarts.  I know it's not healthy, but my brother was the same way and lived on the crispy coating off of chicken and grilled cheese for 20 years.  He's fine.  Somehow she's getting what she needs and occasionally I'll actually talk her into a Flintstone vitamin.    I'm such a good Mom.  Unless you talk to the people that work at the McDonald's here in town...who see me almost every day at the drive thru.  I think they might vote me "Worst Mom on the PLANET".   I told Emma that the McDonald's people were going to think I'm a bad mom for feeding her McNuggets so much.  She said "No mom...they all like you.  I KNOW they do....I want an Orange Drink too".

Today I cleaned Emma's room.  The sheer volume of Happy Meal paraphernalia was overwhelming.   Bears, ponies, pandas, cats, dogs, rabbits, surfing roosters, giant eyed pets of all types.  It just didn't STOP!   They were everywhere.  Under the bed, in the bed, in shoes, in the dresser, on the dresser, in the bookcase, in the TV stand, in the closet, in the toy cabinet, behind the closet door.  There were crowns, necklaces, bracelets, tiny guitars that played music, and a lumpy looking guy that farts when you pull his arm down.  What the HELL.  (I do like to call people and just pull that guy's arm down to make him fart in the phone).  Then there are lots of WEIRD dolls.  Pollys, weird looking Japanime purple haired dolls, other dolls that have large heads and lots of red hair.  And the bad part is....there are doubles and triples of some of this weird shit!

So I sorted and categorized and by the end of the day....she'll have it all spread evenly all over the house again like it was this morning.  That farting guy is cool though...and who doesn't love a surfing rooster?  Emma's healthy...I have a farting lumpy guy...the room is clean for 20 minutes.  Life is good.

Strike One Matey!

Joe had free tickets to a Chicago Cubs game this past Friday.  I'm not a huge sports fan, but I'm always up for interesting snacks, so I agreed to go and took the day off. 

Heading anywhere in Chicago is never "easy".  We made the woeful decision to follow MapQuest's directions and I think it took us through seven small Chicago suburbs before we finally found ourselves in Wrigleyville.  Wrigley Field is an interesting place.  There is NO parking facility.  It's all street parking and the driveways and alleyways of wily Wrigleyville residents.  As we got closer to the field, we noticed that there were people with home made poster board signs that advertised PARKING $30.  

WHAT?????  Oh that must be three dollars...no, no, I'm pretty sure that was a THIRTY.  Like, Three Zero.  We drove closer and finally were across the street from the field.  By this time we're running late for the game...according to Joe.....it's still 40 minutes before game time but he has to get the scorecard and program and rev up his testosterone level.  It's a baseball game after all!   

So Joe pulls into a driveway and this swarthy, pirate looking guy says "Pull in pull in pull in!!" Joe asks how much and the guy says "$40 dollars....you leave your keys and you leave anytime.  $50 dollars and you take your keys".  Joe nods and the guy jumps on a BIKE and yells "FOLLOW ME!!". 

I said "what was that part about keys???"  Joe is all intent on following Bob the Bicycle Boy down a side alley next to the ball park.  There are three guys standing in a small area with two driveways on either side of the alley.  They have the area stuffed with CARS.  One of the guys comes up to the window and says "Let your passenger out and back it in".  So I get out and Joe backs MY car in and the guy says "You leave keys...40 dollars...you leave whenever you want".  I stood there slack jawed.  We're in Chicago and Joe just handed the keys to my NOT PAID FOR SUV to a band of swarthy pirate guys in a back alley.  What about this doesn't seem right to YOU?  

We're walking to the ball field and I kept saying "you left the keys".  Joe says "I know".  I say "you left MY car keys with a guy we don't know".  "I know, it's fine".  "WE'RE IN CHICAGO".

"I KNOW IT'S FINE".  I think we had the same conversation about 269 times on the way to the ball field.  I wasn't feeling any better about it by the time we got to our seats, but our seats were pretty good.  I talked myself into the idea that THIS IS WHY WE HAVE CAR INSURANCE.  It took me awhile.  I was pretty sure there was a no pay clause if you HAND the thief your CAR KEYS.  Especially if he looks like a pirate.

The game itself was a SNOOZE.  The crowd however was very entertaining.  Especially as the $6.25 beers seemed to become more popular as the temperature went up and the innings went by.  Hotdogs...$4.00.  Bottle of diet pepsi $4.00 and so on.  I busied myself with a $3.00 dollar bag of peanuts in the shell and thought about what kind of car I'd buy with the insurance money after the pirates stripped my Equinox to the bare chassis.

The game mercifully ended three hours after it started, but not until after the crowd danced to YMCA.  I might add the guy in the red, white and blue clown afro was pretty good. We went back to the spooky alley inhabited by the creepy, swarthy, pirates (did I mention they were wearing alot of gold chains?).  And there they were...the pirate guys...and there it was!!  My CAR!!!!!!  I almost hugged it.  Joe and I got in and as we drove away I said "SEE, I told you it would be fine."  

And then because MapQuest gives such stupid directions, I decided I would get us home an infinitely shorter and more direct way.  

And I got us lost.  The end.