Name

I've been thinking," said Zizza, "about what I'm going to name my kids...I mean when I grow up."

This was about a month ago. The name she had in mind? Aurora

Today she told me she made a new friend. A friend named Georgia "Oh, I really love that name," I told her. "yeah," she said "I do too it's on the list of names for my kids."

The earliest I can remember thinking about baby names I was around eleven years old. I wanted twin girls called "Spring Rain" and "Summer Breeze." Zizza's taste in names is much better than mine was.

Ziz is named after the Mr's Grandma. She hates her name and forbade anyone use it. So, we asked her, "Grandma, if you had picked for yourself what would your name be?" and crossed our fingers that it would be something we liked.

"Well," she told us, laughing, "when I was a little girl I thought someday I'd name my baby Virginia." Oh dear, I wasn't keen on Virginia even as a middle name. Luckily, Grandma wasn't done talking yet. She said truly if she had her wish she'd bear her mother's name. So that's how Zizza wound up with her great great grandmother's name. Which. I'll have you know was neither Spring nor Summer.

lullaby

Ah Friday, no homework for Zizza. Just a quick run through to see what we're up against with next week's spelling words and we were free to do as we wished with our time while the others napped. We settled in and I began to read to her.

Duke, who napped late in the morning was not quite ready for another. He lay wiggling contently on a blanket.

As I read he cooed and chortled and conversed with himself happily. He grew louder and louder as the chapter wore on and my volume increased with his to ensure that Ziz could hear me. I was reaching the upper limits of my speaking voice, getting close to a yell when in the middle of a particularly enthusiastic gurgle, the babe fell silent.

I looked up from my page and saw this.

He'd sung himself right off to sleep.

Dispelling dastardly deeds

On more than one occasion I've found myself thinking about super heroes and villains. What would be my super power if I had one, and would that power be better suited to the hero or the villain?

My formula for a super power is this: Identify a talent or a quirk that you posses, now figure out a way to wield it as a weapon. This is your super power.

I tend to think that physical attributes better befit heroes where mental ones are more at home with villainy. That's not a hard and fast rule, of course both sides of the coin need to have bounty in both brains and brawn, but I see it as a trend.

Here are a few character's I've assembled using the method.

Case number one:

Years of playing the trombone have left The Mr with the ability pick out the bass line in any song he hears. Now, imagine that he's nurtured that ability to the point where he's constantly picking up a bass hook in the everyday sounds of life. Take it one step further and each thump of the bass becomes a blow. Now you've got your self a villain. I call him Bass Clef.

Oh, sure he could be a hero. You could get all Dumbledore on me with talk of choice vs. ability but I'm going to skip the debate and name this one a villain just because I think it makes a cooler villain power.

When dealing in the day to day of petty crimes, Bass Clef pulls from that underlying rhythm of life we talked about to supply the muscle behind his will. For big heists though, he's been known to hire a few shady musicians (not your regular henchmen) to come along and lay down a beat his villainy can jive to.

Case number two:

Recently I've been enduring the joy of postpartum hair loss. There's a patch above my left temple, about one inch in diameter, that looks like I shaved it. (I didn't)
Last week as I cleaned the mesh drain guard in my shower (what could pass for a month's build-up of hair was collected in the space of a single shampoo) I thought about what kind of super power this could shape up to be.

Postpartum Woman has taken her ability to waken instantly from deepest slumber at her infant's first coo of discontent and broadened it to apply to any cry of distress. When she picks up such a signal, she speeds in her tricked out station wagon* to the crime scene.

Once she arrives and takes stock of the situation, she nonchalantly runs a hand through her hair. With that one swipe she'll have armed herself with all the fiber she needs to deftly fashion the rope she'll use to lasso and bind the bad guy, saving the day.

Her tag line is: "Postpartum woman-Single headedly clogging the drain of villainy,"

What would your super power be? Are you a hero or a villain? Maybe we can all get together and wite ourselves a comic book.

*Earlier today I saw an amazing Chevy Malibu wagon. Probably mid-sixties, all gleaming turquoise paint job and shiny chrome. I've never been more impressed at the sight of a stay-wag.

Three years ago today, I got a phone call

It was Friday. I was leaning against the counter in my kitchen chatting with my sister-in-law who had brought over dinner. (I don't remember the occasion but I do remember it was delicious sweet pork tacos,and on her way to my house it spilled in her(new) car)

We'd been licensed foster care providers for 9 months but had only had one placement and that only lasted three weeks. Based on this we had decided to let our license lapse when the year was up.

On the phone was our licensing worker. Earlier that day a baby girl had been born and she needed a place to go when she was released from the hospital. I said "We'll take her," The worker asked me if I needed to talk it over with my husband. I said there was no need.

When I hung up, I called him and told him we were having a baby.

On Sunday.

And we did.

Happy birthday baby.

(I've been ruminating over something and I'd appreciate your thoughts. Do I take her birthday picture the minute she was born as I do with the bio kids, or do I take it at the time we first clapped eyes on her? This year at least, I'll be going with the second option and taking it at about 3 pm on the 14th because I forgot to look up her birth time before the day came and missed it. Funny how you don't remember that sort of thing (meaning the birth time) as well when you weren't the one reveling in the mixture of love and the relief of a baby birthed during the moment in question)

Cheesecake

I made a cheesecake for dessert this evening...sort of.
A more apt description of what I made would be cheese soup. The recipe calls for a two hour chill before serving, you see and I only gave it about forty five minutes. The results were not much to look at but very tasty.

The last time I made cheesecake it was lovely. See for yourself

The polk-a-dot cheesecake was a vision. Sadly, it tasted awful.

The chocolate graham cracker crust used regular grahams and cocoa powder with not quite enough sugar to take the cocoa edge off ( in my opinion) but that wasn't the real problem.

My crust tasted stale for some reason I couldn't figure out. I wrote off the possibility that my graham crackers were stale because I started with a brand new package. Not even a package from storage that had been freshly opened, but brand new fresh from the grocery store, freshly opened box.

A few days later I noticed that the kids weren't eating their crackers when I distributed them.

The brand new crackers were indeed stale and ruined my pretty pretty cheesecake.

Jerks.

I feel bad for myself but I feel worse for the guests to whom I served that lovely, stale confection.

The moral of this cheesecake story is this: looks aren't everything especially when it comes to dessert.

P.S. Remind me to discuss the meaning of the phrase "singed cat cake" at some future interval.

That's...not a dress

It was bath time and Enzo was last in line. He had just gone potty and Moo was finishing her final rinse off, then it would be his turn. "I can just wear this cuz it covers all my things down here," he said, smoothing the hem of his t-shirt to achieve maximum length. Then, patting his round little bum he added "This too."

...

Today as I was leaving Joann (no, I didn't find what I needed but thanks for asking) a girl walked in. When I saw her I thought I was witnessing an instance of the "denim underwear" phenomenon that was so prevalent within the walls of my high school. You know, denim shorts so short and snug that they have more in common with underpants than outer pants? Denim underwear were all over the place in the late 90's. Thankfully, styles shifted (also I spend a lot less time with teenagers now that I'm not one) and I haven't seen any in awhile.

Wish I'd seen them today.

What I actually saw was worse.

Much worse.

The girl was wearing a long t-shirt. Not over-sized, just long. It was one of those light weight numbers, not totally transparent but still a bit shy of opaque. The sight of her triggered the denim underwear thought but before said thought could completely register I realized my error.

There was no denim involved. Nor were there any pants.

It was the long not opaque t shirt and...a thong. Black. The thong was black. The shirt was white. This is how I know I was not mistaken about the presence of pants as part of the ensemble.

Now, it is HOT here yo. There is something to be said for keeping cool. I have to give her that. But it seems to me any thermal benefit of doing your shopping sans pants would be counteracted by the direct contact between the seat of the car and the bum cheeks. I'm just sayin'... I hope, for her sake, that she didn't spring for leather upholstery.

...

When I heard Enz defending his choice to wait pants-less for his bath I chalked it up to coincidence. As I wrote this though, I began to wonder...maybe I wasn't the only one in my family to notice what the girl forgot.

Wa hoo!

Zara will be entering the wonderful world of online shopping as of September seventh. That's only a week away folks!

All summer long I've had a storm cloud of frustration over the inaccessibility of Zara. So many of my wardrobe needs could have been filled if only there was a way for me to shop there.

And now

I can

I am beside myself.