Glad to Be You

Of course you don't have two warts on your foot in the first place because lovely, kempt people don't have warts is what I'm thinking. You didn't need to Google image-search them and then spend a half an hour examining the divergence of your footprint in order to diagnose yourself with, well, warts. Of course even if you did have two warts on your foot and you bought the Dr. Scholl's Extra-Strength Medicated Wart Removing Pads, you would have understood within at least the first couple of days that something was wrong. You would have noticed the warts persevering unheeded instead of happily applying the sticky cushioning donuts to your sole day after day only to shake the box weeks later and say to your partner, "What's this?" Your partner would not have come over and taken the sheet of dots from your hand, would not have patted your head and said, "Um, honey? Those are the medicated disks." And you would not have groaned, with two wholly untreated warts on your foot and no more cushioning donuts, "Maybe that's why they weren't working."

Then you wouldn't have opened your bread box to find no fewer than 20 molding heels of bread because over time your family would have learned that, if nobody's going to eat them, you should toss them out to the birds instead of preserving them like a museum exhibit curated around the theme of your own ineptitude.

Nor would you have lain in your children's bed while said children piled eleven sticky little glow-in-the-dark bugs into your belly button, holding your tummy in two fists and shaking so that the bugs looked like they were erupting from a volcanic navel.

Because you have a little self respect, right? So you also would never engage in a conversation with your seven-year-old son about how much money someone would have to pay you to throw a poopy diaper in your face. You wouldn't say "It depends what kind of poop," because, of course, you wouldn't do it for any amount of money in the world. A poopy diaper in your face! Who would talk about such a thing with a child? Let alone entertain various sums! You would certainly never say, "A thousand bucks? Just a regular turd, but sealed up inside and the tabs stuck down and everything? Sure." And when your daughter finally chimed in, jumping up and down on the mattress with excitement and glee, "What about poop smeared right in your nostrils for fifty dollars?" you wouldn't need to draw the line there because you never would have had the chalk in your hand to begin with. Even if your daughter fell to the ground laughing and cried, "I would do it for free!"

This daughter, here.

Wabbit Season

Hey, for a great debate on cartoons check out the comments going on over at wondertime. Oh, I do love a great debate.

But holy clam and cuttlefish! (as Boris would say in Amos and Boris.)

Go weigh in, please.

And your comments on Birdy's valentines are cracking me up--thank you. Also be sure to check out other people's links to their own craftstravaganzas. You guys rock.

xo

Why You Might Not Want Your Preschooler to Make Her Valentines Out of Mexican Bingo Cards

Why not, right? I mean, they're so beautiful and also hip--perfect for every occasion. Which ones will she choose? you might wonder: the beautful green pear? A juicy slice of watermelon? A bird or tree or the "Sirena" mermaid? No. Give her some blank cards and a glue stick, and she will think romantically of hearts:

Happy Valentine's Day, fellow three-year-old! Enjoy these antique buttons and blibs and blobs of glue, and also this picture of my bulging and veiny corazon stuck through with an arrow like something you might get as a shish kebob at a Brazilian barbeque restaurant. I especially like her elegant touch of trimming the heart with fancy scissors. Or:

Sweet Valentine! You're so cute you make me think of the cutest little frog EVER! Also, oddly, of a pioneer bonnet. Oh--and of el Diablo, chipped apart with a pair of scissors into tiny, devilish, decapitated pieces. I love you! And you! I love you so much that

I thought immediately of Death! La Muerte, arriving with his romantic and murderous sickle! With also some scrippy scraps of paper, a die, and a wedge of doily. Happy Valentine's Day, my dear, doomed one.

Nothing Makes Me Feel More Like My Own Grandma

than when one of my kids complains of a stomach ache and I hear myself say, "Maybe you need to use the bathroom." All that's missing is the Russian accent. Also the expression "move your bowels." "You khev to move your bowls?" That would be more like it. And maybe the diagnosis: "Too much stuffed cabbage."

I have columns here and also here.

And I don't think I actually can reprint that NYT bread recipe here, but I swear it's worth the $4.95. I swear it. And you guys? The ones who said that it sounds like too much work? It's not. I actually put up some dough on the weekend, but then around the time I should have been baking it, made a plan with my friend Nicole to take the kids to a concert. So she--she, goddess of breadmaking--said, "Bring it with you. We can bake it at my house later." And so it sat in my car in the arctic morning for 5 hours. And then it sat in her house for another 3. And then, after its allotted rise time, was found mysteriously smashed flat with fingerprints matching those of her rascal two-year-old. And then her oven wouldn't turn on--not even after several whackings with a wrench and/or screwdriver. And then I finally dumped it back in its (dirty) bowl and drove it back home, like a yeasty hostage. And you know what? I baked it and it was fantastic. Don't you love a dough story with a happy ending?