ADHD Playdate

My dogs both have tracking transmitters. While our family doctor may raise all sorts of weird, fussy "ethical" objections, I'm hoping the vet may be an easier sell on my proposal to have one placed on my daughter.

Diva is ten - ten - and I haven't seen her for three days and perhaps only a dozen times since the start of summer. Oh, she's not missing, or anything. She just sort of has a life of her own which, at present, has taken her to a marathon sleepover/playdate. What the hell... it's summer, right?

Mashed Potatoes and Twigs

There is a phrase that I find so hysterically funny that merely uttering it in my presence will cause me to go into convulsions of helpless laughter; the breath leaves my lungs, my face spasms, something seismic rolls through me and I can't stop. It can go on and on — waves of laughter — for upward of fifteen minutes. Look at me funny at any point during an episode and it can start all over.

Perchance to Dream...

I'm having some difficulty sleeping. Oh, blame it on the heat, or my propensity for drinking coffee until very late at night, but I have another theory. I'm a night owl by nature; I get bursts of inspiration and tend to do my best thinking sometime after midnight, so on a typical night, the rest of my family is already in dreamland when I finally stumble up to bed (this time of quiet solitude may account for the timing of my inspiration, but there you go). Only the dogs snooze by my side or underfoot waiting for me to call it a day.

Wild Child and the Diva

My daughter is a rock star. That is to say, take away the wealth, the fame and the trips into and out of rehab, and whatever it is that makes someone a rock star, she has it.
The "new girl" in school doesn't typically have an easy time making a friend and fitting in, but when Diva started a new school mid-year, the girls (and boys) began competing for her friendship. She's not popular; rather - and we make much if this distinction at home - she is well-liked. She's funny and fashionable, she likes everyone by default, and she's kind.

First Person Shooter

One of the things we agreed on even before we had children was no “war toys”. Now, understand - I spent my childhood days with the neighborhood boys, all of us armed to the teeth, playing war. My evenings were typically spent in front of the TV watching coverage of the real war. My spouse was ROTC and a crack marksman. One would think that it might have occurred to us that our own childhoods, steeped as they were in violent play, nevertheless produced the kind of adults that, well...ban war toys.