reruns

My life this week has been one long rerun.

My daughter has been sick for 4 days.  Every single day I think the next day will be the day we will finally get a new episode: health.  I'm desperate for some original programming around here.  This rerun jag we're on is getting old, old, old!

Not only does my small feel miserable (tonsillitis), but I'm not sleeping.  Small in bed + necessary ibuprofen doses = one tired Mommy.

Late last night I finally decided to call a spade a spade and accept my lack of sleep.  I headed downstairs for a little TV.

Why is it, that now, in my fourth decade on this planet, I'm just realizing that it's true -- if you wear a red shirt on Star Trek you're guaranteed to not have a re-curring role.

Middle-aged IQ test?

lists

My lists have lists.  Really, I could condense my life down to a vertical list of to do's, or at least that's how it feels sometimes!

My kids have an endless desire for newer, bigger, and better toys, it seems.  Sometimes it's because the thing they want is really cooler than something they have, and other times, well, it's just cuz they like getting new stuff...

So, when one of my smalls says, "Mommy, I really want one of these...", or "Mom, this is so cool, can I get one for Christmas?" I tell my kids that I'll put it on the list --  and I have the same response to all similarly posed questions.  "No problem, sweetie, it's on the list."  "Sure, I'll remember to put it on the list." You get the drift...

Now, for the details:

This particular list isn't real -- it's an imaginary paper filled with wants from here to Timbuktu.  I just placate my children by making them think their wants and desires are actually being recorded somewhere.  Interestingly, my kids have never requested to see said list -- and I don't think it's just because they trust their Mama -- it's more like they're comforted just knowing it exists.

Perhaps, just maybe, there is something I could learn something from this.

Or,  I'll just wait until that thought passes.

we all want a porsche

  My male small is into cars.  That's a prerequisite for the male part, right?  Anyway, he's into them, and even at the ripe old age of 6 he knows the difference between a jalopy and a "nice" car.  Apparently this is where the car-as-penis-extension thing starts with men, and we have to feel sorry for them, really.  Such an awful disease to start at such a young age...

But I digress.

On the way to school the other day, my boy was commenting on all the many cars he saw on the road.  We saw a Porsche.  Then we saw another...  Finally, after seeing the third Porsche my son asked if it was true that they were really fast.  I told him it was true; they're super speedy.  This was met with silence, as my boy contemplated.

"If they're so fast", he asked, "how come everyone doesn't drive them?"  This caught me a tiny bit off guard, as I didn't want to get into the whole $$$$ of it...  So, I talked about how they were small and that a lot of people liked to have bigger cars to fit more stuff in them.

I thought I'd made a clean getaway, until he brought up that new bigger Porsche -- the Panamera (I had to look up the name), with it's 4 doors and back seat and all...  The bastard!  I played it off with a parental, "hey look, no hands!" maneuver to change the subject.

Suddenly, we both heard approaching sirens, and, as if with perfect timing, two police cars went speeding by -- I mean really hauling ass to try to get somewhere.  I made some annoyingly clumsy comment about how fast they were going, opening the door for my son to walk through...

"Hey Mom, if Porsches are so fast, and police have to be fast to get the bad guys, how come the police don't drive Porsches?"

I was stumped.

"Well, uh, they want to, or I mean they should..."  I stumbled -- aw, screw it.  "Ya know honey, life isn't fair.  There are more people who want Porsches than there are Porsches to go around, so not everyone gets one."

"But they wish they did, right?  They like them, right?" my sweet boy asked, trying to understand...

"Yes, love, they like them.   Everybody wants a Porsche."