The Perfect Mom

 She does not exist. If she does - and I'm not holding my breath - she's not me.

I was really proud of myself for not losing it when Abby came home from the first day of girl scout camp with broken glasses. Even a reparo spell would not have done the trick, as the lens was missing. There was a little cut by her eye. And I wasn't even angry. Barely annoyed. Just relieved that Abby was okay in spite of face-planting on her glasses and resigned to another round with the insurance companies.

Then there was today. When every. Little. Thing pissed me off. Lizzy had done great on the potty front all day... until she sat down on the girls' gym mat and apparently let go. Abby was alternately whining that she never gets to play late and her friend Kiki had to go in early and it wasn't fair, and freaking out over having touched Lizzy's pee (apparently shrieking is better than washing one's hands. Who knew?) And poor Leanna, here for the night before going back to her camp, was just looking perplexed, like what just happened here? Poor kid. I'm not always a bitch of course, but Leanna has the misfortune of seeing me a few days a month at my worst, without the mitigation of witnessing days on end of my best. Leanna herself has told her mom that I'm not a Wicked Stepmother, but I yell a lot when I get stressed. She's right.

My mom's not perfect either. She's pretty good though. And she is a Pretty Great Grandma, if not a Perfect Mom.

Of course, even the Perfect Moms aren't actually perfect either. They just put on better fronts. And they probably don't out themselves on their own blogs either.

Of Kids and Camps and News

Abby and Leanna are both at (different) camp this week. These are day camps, not sleep-away camps. Leanna's is - thankfully - near here and Abby's is - sadly - not. Oh, as the crow flies Abby's camp is about thirty miles away, but by the streets not so much - it takes upward of an hour to get there, more if one gets lost.

Which we did.

You see, there are two camps at this site - day camp and overnight camp. At opposite ends of the camp site... which is at least eight city blocks long and the county-rangers-only-know how wide. And the directions I had directed us to 24th street... which is apparently the overnight camp... rather than 32nd, where the day camp resides. But we got there and we weren't the only folks there late; one lady even said she just didn't have the heart to wake her daughter - who is a couple years younger than my 8yo Abby - after the late night last night. I can understand that, and I imagine Abby will be a total wreck tonight. And a total of three children have already knocked on our door, having apparently forgotten that Abby will be gone all week. I got home from taking Abby to camp, logged into my computer to look for a job, and got sidetracked into the Caylee Anthony verdict.

I don't know what to think about this. My Mommy side has the urge to hunt that woman down and kill her myself. My rational side understands that this is why we have laws... because we as humans are just as likely to go for revenge a la lynch mob given the chance. Do I believe that Casey Anthony killed her daughter? Actually, I do. But if the State of Florida could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, then it's done, and my opinion does not matter one whit in the greater scheme of things. That's how the law works in this country. I don't have to like it and in fact, I don't like it. At all. But that is the law; a lynch mob isn't going to bring little Caylee Anthony justice.

There's a fine line between justice and revenge, and that line is where the law comes in.

BSU, or Happy Independence Day!

Not this BSU. I'm talking about Blowing Sh... er... Stuff Up.

Last Friday Abby asked me about Independence Day (not this Independence Day) and why we got to blow things up. I gave her the second grade level chapter and verse... independence from England, Tea Party (not that Tea Party), one if by land, etc... it's a celebration. I sang her The Star Spangled Banner, I referenced Liberty's Kids. When asked if she could explain it in her own words she said, brightly, "oh, like Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Jr... you know, being allowed to do what you want instead of what someone else tells you. When you're like, a grownup and stuff."

Indeed.

So my plan was to have them watch the America Rocks section of Schoolhouse Rock tonight when we got home; there would be too much noise for them to sleep, so they may as well have this in their room tonight:

So we had our BBQ (my mom is a great cook) and we blew up a number of pretty things that went bang! or wheeeee! or both (interjections show excitement and emotion; they're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong..." whoops, sorry; that's a different Rock altogether) and saw some pretty lights and Lizzy put a punk out in her ear (she's fine; it just stung a little) and we came home and I was all set to put the DVD in, and... I can't find their freakin' remote so I can't play it for them on their DVD player (Darn!) so they're watching something that auto-plays and trying to sleep through the bang-bangs of locals setting off fireworks illegally (city ordinance, or do I mean ordnance?).

We'll watch it tomorrow night after Brownie Camp. along with some other Schoolhouse Rock treasures. Fun.

Sundays are Nice

Laston is home today - he got Sunday-Monday-Tuesday off for the holiday weekend - and he's using the time to do some stuff around the house and play League of Legends. Abby's outside with a friend; the weather is cloudy but not wet and they are reading the Poison Apple series together. Lizzy is "westing" in her "woom", watching Backyardigans DVDs for her rest time. I'm folding laundry and playing old video games.

I've also spent some time applying for work - holiday weekends are slow on that front though - and doing basic housekeeping chores. Tomorrow is more of the same until dinner-and-fireworks time, with the addition of packing Abby's bag for Girl Scout Day Camp this week. And after rest time + tomorrow I plan to take Miz Liz out to ride her trike; she can pedal or steer, but both at once completely stymies her.

This is my idea of what a weekend should be.

Lizzyisms

She is full of them today. Here are a few examples:

‎"Dad telled me that wegalah TV was bad because it was costing us too much money so we maked it go away. I'm wowwied it will nevah come back!" (yes, we did ditch our "regular TV"; we haven't even checked it more than a couple times in months)

"I hit you on the knee with this wand-hammah and yoh leg jumps. I'm Doctah Wand" (she couldn't use her actual toy reflex hammer, no, she's using a weighted (due to sensing electronics) plastic wand from a Dora toy)

"You can be the tea guy, Mom. The tea is safe because I took the Chemical X out." (thank goodness; I don't want to turn into Mojo Jojo)

"Is it still the day before the day after this day?" (Uh, yes. Yes it is)

It's only ten AM. I'm not sure I can handle the rest of the day at this rate.

Comic Books and Lunch Dates

Yesterday, Laston was feeling generous (and did not want to do the cleaning himself) so he hired Abby to do it. Usually this earns her a Treasure Box Pick, but in this instance he wanted the cleaning done to closer-to-adult-standards, so he bribed paid her with an offer of a lunch out, just the two of them. She wanted "sushi belt" (she now likes three kinds of sushi - kappa maki, inarizushi, and tamago sushi), so they did that. Nice.

When they came back, she was all excited because she not only got caffeine (green tea ice cream) but her step-dad also took her to the comic book store and got her an issue of Young Justice (to complement her existing collection of Teen Titans Go! graphic novels). I fretted about this choice when he first got the TTG for her for her birthday last year, because of the stigma of comics as "not real reading". I was wrong; she loves to stay up late and read the comics and hey, reading anything for fun is okay by me. Also, when she first got them, it was hilarious listening to her ("Mom, what does Kay-Ay-Bee-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Em spell?"). And her 2nd grade teacher, whom I love, was saying things like, "short declarative sentences with characters she already loves? Go for it," so my doubts were assuaged pretty quickly.

And Laston also set up a box for her at the Comic Stop, so when new issues of the two comics above come out, one will be put aside for her. He said the woman at Comic Stop showed great customer service skill, especially as she was dealing with an excited 8yo... who kept explaining that she was on caffeine.