lines written while trying in vain to satiate my son

subtitled, they could all be status updates if I felt that comfortable telling the people I knew in the third grade about my daily life.

1. Silas is a bottomless pit, God love him. I started this post while, ahem, trying in vain to satiate my son, as I said. He ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, two oranges, and a shameful amount of animal cookies (Cars cookies, actually, but the same concept) at 2:00 this afternoon, and we had an early dinner, so I erroneously assumed beans, apples, and crackers would suffice for him (the rest of us had chili and cornbread, but chili has tomatoes in it, and cornbread is made with milk, so I was trying to punt for Silas). After two helpings of beans, two helpings of apples, two helpings of cantaloupe, a handful of crackers, and another three handfuls of MORE Cars cookies, I finally cried uncle and made another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He took three bites and pronounced himself All Done.

2. Asher had HOMEWORK - HOMEWORK, I SAY - from his first day of 3-year-old preschool. The 3-year-old class is way different than the 2-year-old class, as we discovered today. He'll go to chapel and music, wait in line for the carpool and walk himself to his classroom. He's responsible for his own folder and for hanging up his own backpack. He was definitely ready to move up, but I feel a little like I just enrolled him in a college prep class, not in the 3-year-old room of a local church preschool. I guess some would argue that I did ... but that's a conversation for another day. Even his teacher seems so no-nonsense. I would so NOT talk back to her if I were three. I'm not terribly inclined to talk back to her now, and we're the same age.

3. Silas' curls have fallen along with the humidity, and the effect is that he now looks prepared to fill in as a bass player for either an 80's punk band or the Charlie Daniels band, depending on the day. It's time for a haircut.

4. If you are as exposed to germs as much as my family is, and as averse to the idea of the entire family sharing another 7-day stomach virus (the grossest week of my parenting life, and even though it was almost a year ago, it was the kind of week a person doesn't forget) as I am, I have two products for you. 1. Airborne. Since Zicam swabs were taken off the market (something about people losing their sense of smell as a side effect. but Zicam swabs worked so well, Brian's response was, "Who needs to smell anyway?"), I've had to branch out a little. Airborne works. Mikkee had a cold the whole time we were traveling - we were in close spaces, getting little sleep and eating weird food at odd times, and I still did not get her cold. I also spent all of Monday in the wide wide world, with all of the wide world's germs, and still came home healthy. Yay Airborne. And 2. Gold Bond Hand Sanitizer. I can't use most hand sanitizers because the alcohol is TERRIBLE for excema, but this is like lotion. Good lotion, that heals excema instead of aggravating it, while killing germs from the wide wide world around me. From me to you. You're welcome.

5. Of all the opinions I contend with in a day, it is my dog who is the most defiant. We just had the kind of bedtime that requires a recovery period - Asher screaming for easily 45 minutes, and Silas, confused, occasionally echoing his wail, as one gorilla screeches to another in the jungle - a warning? a sign of comradery? of competition? hard to say - and in the midst of it Taylor snuck a wet diaper from who-knows-where and slunk off to his bed to chew it up in peace. That damn dog. If I wasn't so attached to him ...

That's the kind of day I've had. How was your day?