two stories of parenthood

I drove Archie to work today and he told me about something he saw in the grocery store a while back. There was a woman on her cellphone, and he overheard her side of the conversation:

Woman: You spent the entire iTunes card? [pause] The whole thing? [pause] On what? [pause} Twilight? You spent the whole thing on Twilight?

This was when Archie laughed and he said the woman kind of looked around and then went back to her conversation with her teenage daughter, based on her side of the talk. And it reminded me of something that happened ages ago back before Archie and I had kids.

We were in a Blockbuster. As we walked around, looking for movies, we heard a child, whining to her mother and the mother saying no, repeatedly, and more and more resigned to the no. While we stood on line, we couldn't help but notice that the woman in front of the line was the same beleaguered mother we'd heard during our browsing -- we could tell because the whining child was next to her, continuing to whine. Finally, the daughter said, "You don't looooove me!" Now, let me describe the little girl to you. She was probably about four or five and adorable. She had on red patent leather Mary Janes and ruffly socks and a cute little dress and, from appearances, was very much loved. (Also, the fact that her mother was toeing the line and not giving in and also not tearing the child limb-from-limb was also a good indication that her mom loved her.) I couldn't help myself: I laughed out loud. The mother looked around and everyone in the line was laughing at the ridiculousness of that little girl declaring that she was unloved.

The mom looked at the child and said, "See? People are laughing at you!" And I laughed even harder.

I don't think it's very nice to tell your kid that people are laughing at them, but I certainly understand the impulse. You sometimes will grab hold of anything to help you be strong in the face of the never-ending whine. But I also love that the woman that Archie saw in the grocery store is our future. It just remains to be seen what will so captivate our future teenage daughters that they will spend an entire large iTunes card. Hopefully it won't be vampires, but who knows?

michael phelps

So now we know the REAL reason he was eating over ten thousand calories a day. Stoner had the munchies!

shoes

I took the girls to get some new kicks yesterday. Archie was less than impressed that I was headed out on a Sunday afternoon, but I reminded him that it would probably be more than fine since it was Superbowl Sunday, thus most people would be at home, drinking beer and preparing to watch the football. What better time to go out and about for a while?

We found shoes for all the girls (and I kept thinking how much easier it is -- even when they all have opinions and stuff -- than when they were younger and it was a mad dash in for measurements and me picking out shoes and trying them on and paying and hoping no one had a meltdown -- including me). Shodding three young children at the same time is not for the timid. But picking out shoes for three school-age kids? While there are still some minor snags (see above: opinions), it's mostly do-able and mostly fun, which is such an improvement, I can't even be bothered to protest most of the opinions.

So, the girls had picked out their shoes and Lou's skate shoes were so cute, I decided to see if they had them in adult sizes. And they did! And then I saw them in another color. I asked the girlies what they thought and they all piped up with, "Those are cute, too, Mama -- pick a pair!"

And I said, "Where have I gone wrong? You are not supposed to tell me I have a choice. You are all supposed to enable my love of shoes by telling me they are both really cute and I should get both pairs! Because I deserve two pairs of cute shoes, dontcha know?"

So we got a grand total of five pairs, because the girls got with the program.