springity-ding-dong

a few happies from the House of Chaos

growing, growing....
















SPROING!

this house

People are moving out of this neighborhood in droves. It's a great area, so a surprising number of folks are moving a whopping few blocks away... well, building and THEN moving a few blocks away. This little neighborhood is kinda what you might call "starter homes" mostly built by one particular builder within the past five years...and our house was actually one of the cheapest of the selection that they offered. The homes that are going in a few blocks away are nicer and larger.

I have a few big gripes about the house... like the kitchen is at the front of the house with no window to watch kids play in the backyard. The kitchen has the tiniest skrids for counter tops and minimal storage (drawers and cabinetry). The only way to get to the backyard from inside the house is via the garage, so I have a visual of kids walking or running past the van parked inside on their way to the backyard and in their hands they have, well, it's the Chaos Girls it could be anything, and the anything is gouging a long scratchy crevasse in the paint job... the end. And the laundry is downstairs I don't care for that.

Dadguy and I have talked about doing what everyone else is doing, and upgrading to larger and nicer. But the time just isn't right, and my main dissatisfaction's with the house are outweighed by the way that I love the vaulted ceilings in the front room, the large bedrooms and the fact that we have only lived here for four and a half years. Sheesh... we have yet to even paint!

I don't really have a beef with the size of the house overall... there is a little less than 1200 finished upstairs and almost the same amount unfinished in the basement. The plan is to finish at least a family room, stairwell and a hallway with doors so we can shut the doors to the unfinished bits down there... and we have the dough socked away for it if we are careful and do most of it ourselves... ooops!

Yesterday I remembered another thing about the house that I love... the way that it feels when you step into it from playing or working outside. The way that it smells. It's kind of similar to the sensation of coming home from a long trip, similar only stronger. I don't know how or why, but I love the way it feels and I love the yard that Dadguy and I agonised over. I love the flowers and shrubs most of which are freebies from the yards of various family and friends. The few precious plants that came from my Granny's yard. I love the trees that came to live with us last year.

The Iris are sending up stong looking green blades, the periwinkle has popped in a couple of protected nooks and the flox had two wee blooms before surrendering to the Chaos. It is finally starting to resemble something close to springtime around here... and I feel like I have room to breathe again. Move? Not on yer life!

Ummmm... tsk!

Every night, well most every night for the past few weeks... could it be a month? Two months? who knows.

Let's try this again for the sake of simplicity. Every night for the past month I have asked the Chaos Girls as we are finishing off "bedtime procedures" what was their favorite thing about that day. Birdie will hem and haw and then give me an answer like "school" or "maked a cake with daddy." Every night LaLa will answer...

"Ummmmm... tsk, pony dash."

First off, as far as I can tell a "pony dash" is an amalgamation of all the My Little Pony's, games and pretend involving said plastic characters, video, online website and games and the coloring books to boot. Her answer for everything used to be "pony dame," which we finally translated as "pony game." But now? Now... it's "pony dash." There is a pony named "Rainbow Dash," that was a favorite of Birdie's for a while. Dadguy and I think that has some part of the "pony dash as the meaning of life," thing. That, and it's fun to say.

"Pony dash."
"Pony dash."
"Pony dash."

the "Ummmm, tsk" part? Apparently that is a verbal quirk of mine. That's what I say when I am thinking. I only know this because both of The Chaos use it as a conversational place holder for when they are thinking or deciding something.

"Birdie where the ever-livin' crap are your shoes?"
"ummmm.... tsk, they're inna van."

"LaLa, which shirt did you want to wear today?"
"Ummmm... tsk, dithh one!"

Oh, yeah! Mom, I looked up "Meme" and found the following.

meme
/meem/ [By analogy with "gene"] Richard Dawkins's
term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with
the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating
them much as viruses do.

Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas
can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some
ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through,
for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to
produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.

Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans
(and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts)
cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has become
more important than biological evolution by selection of
hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for
tolerably obvious reasons.

Holy Pump Up The Volume, the truth is a virus! My favorite is the "parasitising people" part, it's all so very ghastly for such a wee blogger jogger, it seems much more apt for those horrendus forwards that clog my email in-box. Gadzooks! If I have to wade through one more blasted cute-sy, semi-animated, inane and quasi-Christian forward that promises good luck if I forward the ponydashed thing to fifteen of my friends within the next ten minutes...!!!

Gahgk!!

Lack of Personal Dignity

It's been about a week since my last real post... nothing huge has happened. Oh, except I read a book! I don't read too many new books lately, I have a very hard time concentrating and a very hard time keeping track of what all is going on... book-wise and life-wise. Huh, I used to be pretty smart. I also used to have short term memory retention. And bladder control. And actual proper sentence structure.

I feel like a freaking sieve.

Yesterday morning we awoke to an inch or so of snow accumulation... not enough to grace my blog with yet another picture of a snowman, but certainly enough to gripe my very soul down to the nub. As I walked out my front door to teach Relief Society it was still snowing. If I hadn't been desperate to try to keep company of the Holy Spirit I would have let 'er rip with the swears right then... as it was, when I showed up before class started and stood waiting in the hallway for the Sunday School class that was still going to wrap it up and leave, I noticed four women waiting as well. Older women... well, older than I but not OLD... sharply dressed... gracious and friendly. Heh, you Mormon women out there are already laughing. You guessed it, the Stake Relief Society Presidency decided to pop in for a visit on the day that "yours truly" was scheduled to teach. Those of you not Mormon? Those ladies are the big wigs for the area, and while they are the most elegant and kind women you could hope to meet and I KNOW would never judge me for a poor lesson... it would have been nice to make a good impression.

The topic of my lesson was "The Blessings of General Conference," and I have a hazy memory of likening my function as the teacher of this lesson, sandwiched as it is between last weeks "Teaching and Learning by the Holy Spirit" and next weeks " General Conference" as that of a cheerleader ... and the lesson itself ? A pep-rally. It's possible that I may have pumped my fist in the air and shouted "Woooo HOO!" but I'm fairly certain that I kept both feet on the ground and did not do any actual cheers with words in them.

"We are the crowd YEAH!
we say it loud YEAH!"

I have an all-too-clear memory of telling everyone that one of the blessings of G.C. was the fact that it was bi-annual and therefore a handy reminder to rotate the water in your food storage... and change the batteries in the smoke alarms.

You didn't! Oh. Yes. I. Did.

It's all I can do not to second guess myself. When I first got this calling to teach in Releif Society (thankfully only once a month) I received the strongest impression that I should play to my strengths. One of my strengths is that I am fairly comfortable in front of people. Possibly a little TOO comfortable yesterday, but there it is. I felt like my job was to loosen everyone up and get them engaged. To get things going, and then step out of the way of the lesson being taught.

On that front I feel like I was successful and that a wonderful lesson was taught yesterday. I know that I'm geared up for Conference... I just sometimes wish, especially when there are new folks that don't already know what's coming at them when I teach... I wish that my strengths included a little more, y'know... personal dignity.

smenita

OK... I really am still reading all y'all! I really want to comment on your blog!

Blogger has other ideas, and it can be summed up in one word verification "smenita." Yesterday at some point I commented on Mama D's blog... then I read the next post she had done and had myself something to say to that too. Only I got the exact same WV and have ever since, only blogger won't actually take it.

So I have been MUZZLED, and I don't like it. Freakin' "smenita."

Licking Rocks

Aaaaand here is where everyone gets to feel like a way better mom. At least a way better mom than me.

My two oldest girls are what I call mouth-smart. They have always had a sense of what is too big to swallow, or what would be unpleasant to swallow. Because of this I have yet to go through any choking scares with my kids. I have been privy to choking scares with other peoples kids... and it was usually involving plain old food, bread and the like. Because of my girls being mouth-smart I have been way more relaxed about some pretty big mommy no-no's. Like pop corn. Never had a kid choke on popcorn... and I know that you are not supposed to give it to babies, yet you will find us picking the hulls off of popcorn pieces and giving it to anyone with more than one tooth in their head.

I'm not 100% brain dead about it, like I don't allow stuff of any sort in a mouth when a kid is laying down... that's just plain stupid even for adults. One day we went to a friends house that was fabulously un-baby-proofed when the Bird was around a year old... unbeknownst to us Birdie immediately found the button box. She was running around with that funny face, so I stopped her and requested she "spit it out." It was almost never a fight to get her to spit stuff out because there was every chance that I would inspect the item and give it back. In front of our hosts she proceeded to spit out thirteen buttons and one penny. Alright, no... she did not get any of those back. Buttons, rubber balls, marbles, coins... I'm not a complete dolt here. But... ummm rocks?

Yeah... ever since a kid was mobile to the point of walking steadily and competently (relatively)... for Birdie around eleven months and for LaLa it was about fourteen, I have let them put rocks in their mouths. Hey now! It's not that I encourage this kinda crap, but when you are outside for a few hours each day I defy you to stop it. Especially with the Chaos Girls! Seriously, my thinking was that I could follow these kids around no-no-ing them and rock removing all day and I would at the end of the day be worn to a frazzle and they would have sampled the crud off of maybe thirty seven rocks. On the other hand if I allowed them to continue with the three small pebbles in their mouths currently, they would happily suck away and in the end sample the crud off of less than a dozen rocks. A few pebbles may have been swallowed and processed, but no harm no foul.

As I said, so far my older kids are mouth smart... I will be closely watching Pearl when the time comes and I make no assumptions regarding her skilz. I just think that you should know that I think it's funny the other day when I heard Birdie explain in all sincerity about rocks to LaLa.

Birdie is holding a smooth grey river stone from our front strip. The stone is oblong and about the size of her palm extended. LaLa inspects the rock and reaches for it.

"Nooo, La! This is a special rock!" Birdie tells her.

LaLa looks at her older sister quizzically

"See? It's a licking-rock," She tells LaLa as she puts one end of the rock in her mouth.

Chaos and "licking-rocks," these things are the warp of my day. Trying to reason with the unreasonable? That is the woof. Such is the fabric of my life right now.

S**W!

My goodness Blogger has been as grumpy these past few days as I have!


Here is a happy snowman... Do you see him in all his wintry glory? Do you see how jolly he is? Switch it up and that is exactly how grumpy I am at his very existence.

Sure he's handsome... and the girls love him to pieces, I'm just crusty that there was enough of the blasted "whitestuff" to even make him.... see? no four letter words on THIS blog site! My only consolation is that he is as bald as I am becoming. That's why he wears the hat. I need a hat. My hair is coming out by the fistfuls and it it very.dark.brown. That is... when it's not grey.

Also? I am exhausted. Pearl has been playing at sleeping the whole night through for the past two weeks. Just when I think she really means it, she gets up every two hours for a night and my body is shutting down. Oh... and the Chaos Girls all of a sudden need only nine and a half hours of seep a night. That's what they tell me anyway. I, myself have gone from needing a total of seven hours of sleep in a 24 hour period of time to needing nine or ten hours. WHAAaaaa? This sleep crap is really cutting in to my blogging habit!

On Saturday before we got dumped on again I was taking a nap. Ahhhhhh... blessed survival! Birdie wanted to go outside to play so Dadguy said she could if she got herself dressed. She did such bang-up job that he told her she just needed to grab a jacket before she went out. She did. Her two year old sister's jacket. And she wore it. As you can plainly see. It is the pink thing on her head.

The shoes? They are from last winter and I have NO IDEA how she jams her feet in them let alone how she can stand to hobble around while wearing them. Holy foot binding batman! But, y'see... they light up when she limps about in them so it is....
well, still a mystery.

Clouds of Glory

The Pearl! She changes sooooo fast.

The rolls! Aghk! The rolls must be squished....

Birdie is starting to put some things together and reading is right around the corner. Gadzooks! She sounds out words with varying degrees of success, and she tried to write her friend Madaline's name the other day by sounding it out... she spelled it MATN. She did completely succeed in spelling C-A-T to accompany the picture of a very whiskery cat that she had drawn. This she did with no assist.

LaLa, her face has changed again. Every day it's easier to understand the complete sentences she speaks in. Her darling little lispy voice can be heard singing and chatting to herself... the kid, she rarely shuts up. Which is fine... except when she screams? She shatters glass.

"wing ah-wown ah woah-theeth
pock-ah foo ah poe-theeth
ash-esh, ash-esh we ahh fahh DOW!"

This is such an exciting and happy time, but at the same time I am a little in awe and slightly intimidated by the amazingness of these girls that have come from the mix of Dadguy and I. These beings trailing clouds of glory, Children of God... my sisters.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
-William Wordsworth

Mama Nightmares

Today I was informed that one of my personal terrors has happened. Not for me, but for a local family. I switched Birdie to the morning class in her preschool because a spot opened up and because there were a few problems with a couple of rougher kids. Today when I went in to pick up my Bird the teacher, who is also a friend of mine asked if I was OK with her signing a card for the family of one of her afternoon classmates. I remember him. Quiet kid... cute little boy. Apparently my daughters name was the only word that he would ever voluntarily say in class.

He died in his sleep this past weekend. There HAD been a few health problems, but the family had thought they had discovered the problem and had fixed it. The thought of this boys mother makes me want to curl up and cry.

On that happy note... it turns out that another, but far less horrifying of a fear has also come to pass. I have made myself google-able for some less than friendly folks. While checking my Statcounter I see that my blog pops up as numero uno if you google "anti-mormon blogger template," because apparently someone did. On the lighter side I show up as option number three if you google "putrid baby gas," and number four for "computer generated lala tones." It's the "freak mama." and "mama licking" searches that make me laugh.

Well... I gotta go have a good cry and a life, maybe get a clue while I'm at it. Happy to you.

Tree Angel

While LaLa takes a nap, and I sit in my Chair with a swaddled and nursing Pearl, Birdie and I watch the trailers at the beginning of the Lion King Video. They are advertising George of the Jungle part two. It appears to star some Brendan Frazier look alike guy, and he does look an awful LOT like Mr. Frazier... but they do not ever actually say his name, and he is a big enough star that I think he'd get himself some billing if he were in this newest incarnation of the "George" saga.

I meander.

He does his signature "AHAHhaAAAAAHHHH!" and smashes into an enormous jungley tree trunk, and as his body falls off cartoon-like, the tree is left with the impression of a mans body.

Birdie turns to me and says, part statement part question, "he swinged on that.... leaf?"

"That's a vine honey." I say, and because I am a smugly helpful scholastamom I then ask, "what letter does the word vine start with?" Really, I promise that they did the letter "V" in the pre-school this week, I'm not always so annoying. Always.

She looks at me and I can see that I have derailed her thought, but she is a trooper and gives me a "vuh-vuh-vuh-vine, the letter "V" mama!"
Quiet a minute, she regards the TV screen which is now displaying the George of the Jungle II logo. Then she turns to me with her face alight again and says with Birdie animation "He swinged on the vine and SMASHED into the tree," here she whams a fist into her other hand, "and he made a tree angel!"

Letter "V", indeed!

Hot Dogs and Lemonade

I have learned alot as a mother... one of the greatest things that I have learned is that whenever I get an opportunity to play to my strengths, to go for it and hold nothing back. Because baby! I got me some serious weaknesses and I get to showcase those bad boys on a daily basis; patience, multi-tasking, house keeping, temper, time management, cooking mmmm... I get giddy as the list goes on.

One of my strengths is a decided want of dignity... I promise, that can be a strength! As in I am fairly unafraid to make an ass of myself if it will get me where I want to go. And my willingness to look like a dip is actually quite necessary, because I am a dip and therefore... well, y'all can do the math on that one.

In High School I had a friend who had an abnormally high threshold of pain. If say, he crashed into you during phys-ed going for the same kickball pop fly he was probably going full bore because for him to slam into a wall or bash into the bleachers or knock the spinal column out of your body was nothing... he paid no price. Sure he knew it would hurt you, and so he tried to keep track of other folks, do a little damage control. He was also black and blue alot. I think I'm like this guy only with the high embarrassment threshold thingy. Public speaking, performing and singing in front of other folks with only a passing voice and ok pitch?... well that takes a pretty high embarrassment threshold. Got me one of those.

The normal things do embarrass me... you know social stuff and real life stuff. But when it comes to getting up in front of a few hundred people and laying down an "Elephant Rap" complete with lifelike rendition of a bull elephant's trumpeting and my buddy blowing beat box on the other microphone? I say bring it ON! It's not really that I am a better storyteller than most folks, it's that I am willing to do it and do it loudly and with as much panache as I can swing.

Yup, I've got a slew of passable accents and puppet personalities. Mime? Ha! Did that too. I make up stupid words to songs the same as the next mom... you KNOW you do! You sing about...
"stinker pants pooty pants,
do a little nasty dance."
or
"New pants new pants
how-do-you-do pants.
New pants, new pant for your bum
New pants, who pants?
whoopedy-doo pant,
new pants oooo pants!
rum-pum-pum!"

You just don't often post in your blog the lyrics to the amazingly banal songs you sing, for all of Internetdom to read and marvel at your lack of personal dignity.

and when your kids want to hear the "hot dog song" before they go to bed and you have absolutely NO freaking idea what they are talking about then you sing
"...hot DOOOooooogs and lemonade!
popcorn my teacher made,
and then we ate some cake.
Hot dogs and lemonade!"
over and over again, to virtually no tune at all. I am the Queen of whatever it takes...



This is the cake we made a few days ago...and then LaLa get's her solo in "Hot gog a lem-uh-lay, hot gog a lem-uh-lay!"

I'm raising some freaky Chaos Girls and I don't even care... much. I mean, I know they'll take some crap from other kids growing up... and I'm sure that I'll humiliate and horrify them when they are teenagers, but won't those things happen to varying degrees anyway? The only difference between the way that I will horrify my kids and Polly-go-Sweetly horrifies her kids is that my girls will be somewhat justified. Because I will be that parent who breaks into song walking through the grocery store... that behavior didn't genesis with my babies and won't spontaneously end with their childhoods.

It's good to be the Mama!

...and the Little Girls Sing...

...and the little girls sing "doot doo-doot, doot doo-doo-doo-doo..."

Our household has hit survival mode... boy is this familiar. What with the hacking and puking, the snot and the trots whoooooWEEE! we are a veritable viral parade. I won't give ya all the specifics, we shall just leave it at the eternal question WHY?

Why does it all kick into high gear during the oh-so-precious night time hours?... my "can finally get it done, have some time to myself, I need to sleep too guys!" time, and it's not just the kids. Yesterday I suffered through the death-dealing gas and the most horrifying incessant burps (my own thank you) and yet, these are things I can do in my sleep. No, the exercise portion of that particular malady began at 1:32am. I know this because that is when my eyelids flew up and the "whoop whoop whoop" of my internal alarm system indicated to me that there was a fire down below. Between nursing twice, LaLa waking at 5:45 and my own sprints to the loo, that hour and a half from midnight to the moment I was hearing a strange man hollering in a Scottish accent something about how "she can't take any more Cap'm, she's gonna blow!" was the longest stretch of sleep I got. No matter how you patch it together, twenty minutes here and fifteen minutes of unconsciousness there will never a good nights rest equal. Dadguy did his level best though... bless his soul.

See? I only gave you some specifics.

The rest of the week is kinda hectic, kinda sad... it's a heck of a note that here we are with Dadguy's Grandma F, and I am just now starting to understand how very gone from mortality my own Granny is. Y'know, because I'm happy for her, I really am... it's just this hole that is left. Things can never be the same again.

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock ’n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you’re gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time"

-David Bowie
Changes

Sweet Sabbath

I would think that it was the unsettled quality of the weather of late...
it could possibly be my hormones. Some of it is just living and some of it is the dying. My heart has been especially tender of late.

Yesterday Dadguy's Grandma F. died. It was not totally unexpected, but right now when I have my own Granny so fresh on my mind...well. She will be sorely missed. Once again it is not mine to tell other than she was well loved, well lived and is once again with her sweetheart.

Today Dadguy was just not up for the whole church thing which is doubly understandable because his Sunday schedule starts with a 5:30am wake up call and doesn't end until 4:00pm. He stayed home and I got the interesting experience of taking all three of the Chaos Girls with me to church. I suppose that I could have left a kid or two home with the guy... but that's hardly a break now is it? Anyhow, it 's amazing how well things go when I just lower my expectations and relax. The only rough patch comes at the first anyway... the dreaded Sacrament Meeting, as in Shhhhhhhh! An hour and ten minutes of worship with the entire congregation present. Granted, in a Ward such as ours the expectations have already been lowered a bit from the word GO. There were twenty new babies born last year alone, and children ten years and under make up a full half of the membership. Still, as the Deacons pass the Sacrament itself every parent pulls out all the stops to have as quiet and reflective a period of time so that all the rest of the congregation do not assign the title of "Loudest and Most Unruly Brat" to one of their brood. I'm no different. Dadguy and I have a sippy cup of juice or milk held hostage to the behavior of Chaos and the girls usually comport themselves fairly well. I don't think we have the title yet... Yet.

Today LaLa was getting restless as the bread was being passed, and she was starting to poke and pick at Birdie who was otherwise staring off into space thinking little Bird thoughts about flying pony's. I grabbed LaLa, plunked her on my lap and began whispering into her ear. In case you didn't know, whispering is a highly effective way of getting a two year olds attention. It's loving and intimate and they have to shut their own pie-holes in order to hear what you are whispering to them. I was going for a teaching moment.

"LaLa, do you see that boy passing the bread? That bread symbolises the body of Jesus who died for us," I breathe past her sweet smelling wisps into her ear.

"Oh!" She pipes in her piccolo voice, "I YIKE da body of Dee-thuth!"

Her voice is a pebble in the relative silence of the Sacrament reverie as the congregation shuffles, shifts and coughs to cover snorts of mirth. Ahhhh, sweet chaos.

Saturday Smiles

My wee Pearl is a watcher. It's more than a little scary because she will watch TV... actually watch it. Although you may be increudulous at that statement when you hear that she really likes professional basketball. I'm serious, Dadguy found that out and he is the KING of whatever works when it comes to screaming babies. Maybe she likes all basketball on TV, I dunno, we aren't going to try that kind of experiment. It comes down to her enjoyment of a good show, and yesterday I realised that is why she is such a content baby. Around here there is always a good show going on and the costumes are lovely. It's like that Madness song "Our House"...

"Our house, it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud"

Here is a short lil' show that you shouldn't miss... picked it up at Animal Crackers and Cocoa.
She found it at Danielle Bean's.

Family Rocks

Just this past Sunday we had a family gathering... it was truly a hoot! We all packed into my oldest sister's house. Of my immediate family there was only her and her family of five, my little brother Freakboy, his wife and their two redheads. Daguy and I brought our total household of five and the rest were some of my cousins and their broods. An Aunt and a couple of Uncles rounded out the whole affair and is there such a thing as a step cousin? 'Cause if so, we had two of those. Total I think there was around eighteen kiddos aged ten or younger plus a handful of teenagers in attendance. I know this is so much minutiae, it just struck me that I grew up like this. Not so much the second cousin factor, but the feeling of loud and loving family and the tons of kids. The enchilada's, the pot of beans and a whole lot of popcorn. My Granny called us all "turd-munkles," and though it may sound odd it's name I bear with pride. Collectively we were and are "Grand-brats."

Right now I miss my Granny and Pa so bad... please stay with me just a minute while I swallow past this rock in my heart. I have never begrudged them their passing until now. My Granny had cancer and was more than ready to go, and Pa followed her nine months later. I think he was ninety seven? They both left this world in the bed they shared in their own damn house. They passed with dignity.

My Mom had three sisters and one brother, and while my Uncle Sam has never married, his sisters have more than made up for it with their kid totals ending up at 6,6,5 and 11. I'm not kidding, she popped out eleven kids...wheeew! I have many memories of family "do's" with packs of snot nosed cousins roaming and tumbling and beating on each other. It was good and I want that kind of love and security, that sense of family and belonging for the Chaos Girls. I think they get a good solid dose on both sides...

I make a point of filling all prescriptions at the downtown pharmacy here, it was owned and run by Dadguy's Grandpa. Now it's owned by Dadguy's Uncle Mike and while I'm pretty sure we get a family discount on the scripts, that's not why I go. I go because the place has a lunch counter/soda fountain that hearkens back to the day when Dadguy's dad and his buddies would stop by after dropping off their dates and make themselves a burger and malted. They could do this because he had a set of keys to the place and his dad trusted him to clean up the grill after. This was back in the day before it would occur to a Dad that there might be a problem with giving some teenage boys access to a drugstore unsupervised, and there never was a problem. This is the same lunch counter that Dadguy grew up at. These are the stools that I get an inordinately peaceful feeling seeing my own girls perched upon, licking a soft-serv cone while we wait for our prescriptions to be filled.

Family. I've got a rock in my heart today, or is it in my throat? I'm not trying to be mysterious, I just have been at it for this whole naptime and half a box of Kleenex and can't type out what has eaten my lunch in a publishable way. It's just so much raw and painful crap, all tied up in the not-so-mysterious or unusual self destruction of a cousin, a nephew, a brother or a friend. Drugs, alcohol...I have had my fill of them and their destruction. I have a rock in my heart and today the keyboard can't seem to dislodge it.