Chihuahua: Family Pet or hors d’oeuvre?

Just one time makes a tradition

The kids asked to have breakfast for dinner last night. Harry was particularly excited about this idea-- that kid is a breakfast eating machine. In the midst of his enthusiasm I reminded him, "Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Are you sure?"

"YES!" he shouts, sans hesitation.

His answer insures that he and his siblings are about to eat pancakes for two meals straight.

But the Valentine's Day breakfast pancakes are not just any pancakes. These are special, heart-shaped-frosted-with-sprinkles pancakes. It was a tradition started so long ago I don't even remember, only that at sometime in my poverty-stricken, family-on-another-coast-all-alone-out-here-with-two-kids past, I decided we needed something like that. Some kind of special something that, even on a middle-of-the-road weekday, we could get happy about breakfast.

I think it began on St. Patrick's Day, with the green pancakes. It grew to birthdays with candles and frosting and Valentine's Day with hearts, and Halloween with candy corns. It appears that the one food I can make and never screw up is the holiday pancake.

My kids love it. They go nuts for it. In fact, last year Gabby was sick on Valentine's Day, as was Harry, and both were at my house. It was Gab's first time enjoying Valentine's pancakes. She still asks about them and was bummed that she wouldn't be at our house this year to enjoy them.

Maybe I'll have a repeat on Sunday?

Four year-old humor

She hides beside me beneath an oversized blanket, blowing raspberries, declaring "You don't see me!" On cue, I reach over and tickle her middle, or something resembling her middle so far as I can tell (she is beneath a blanket after all). Peals of laughter turn quickly into appeals for more. The game continues for a few minutes-- calls, tickles, laughter-- until the blanket lies silent. I type. I get lost in my typing.

But the blanket is not appeased.

"Steeeeben! Steeeeben you can't seeeee me!!" The person-shaped lump beside me snickers. She is chumming. PIC wanders in from the bathroom, easily caught.

"Oh gee," says the fish, dryly reciting his lines, "I think I must. Sit down. Here. On the. Bed." Hysterical laughter explodes from the blanket as it's contents are partially squished. "What the?!?! Why, what is THAT??"

Moments later the blanket is thrown back, the sunshiney little girl floats on air, so pleased with the game she's created, the attention she has captured. Humor has become her drug.

"DO IT AGAIN!!!" This partial request/partial demand is met with more tickles from me, breaking from the typing.

Each time the joke is repeated, it is just as funny. Each time it ends, sunshine begs for more.

I wonder if this is somehow a metaphor for our political system. Let's just say that it is.

My valuable time

As bleary-eyed me stumbled from bed LATE this morning (my bad), tripping over piles of unfolded, clean laundry (my bad), and sought to hound bleary-eyed children from the safety of their beds (bumping directly into sunshiney Gabby on the way-- sorry Gab, my bad), a whisper of a thought danced in the recesses of my mind, a whisper whose message rose, gaining power and force, taking voice and becoming a whirlwind, twirling and building until it ripped through my being like a tornado, tearing down the shreds of sleep, it's message leaving me quivering and exultant: it's friday, It's Friday, IT'S FRRRRRIIIIIIDDAAAAAAYYY!!!!!

Suddenly I was moving with purpose.

My petulant voice became commanding.

My body moved with the confidence of a three-star general. UP! OUT! ONWARD!

This day, this foggy, groggy, slow-moving day was the beginning of something huge in my life. Something fantastic and special and I'd be damned if I was going to let the sloth-like demeanor of six (well, five-- Gabby was already up) kids impede my purpose. Not Today. Today is amazing and special and should be treated like a national holiday and is so personal and near and dear to me that Today shall be capitalized henceforth.

Because Today is also the FIRST day of a 3 day-- BRACE YOURSELF-- kid-free weekend.

WHOOOO effing HOOOO, baby!!!! I love my runts, but for the first time in months, literal MONTHS I tell you, PIC and I will have (ohmyGAWD if I put it into words, will it jinx it? Will it somehow not happen, dissappear, be consumed by the needs of others like the last 3 dates we had planned???) time. alone. together.

NOT running-to-the-store-grocery-shopping-together alone time.

NOT finally-laying-down-at-10:30pm-OH-THERE-YOU-ARE-I-REMEMBER-YOU-and-I-LIKE-YOU -ZZZZzzzzz alone time.

But actual unfettered, weekend-long ALONE TIME.

Oh yeah, baby. No kids-- just him, me, alone in the house, some wine, a warm, crackling fire, some witty banter and you know what that leads to...

... I finally get to finish that book I've been reading.

Giddy!

There are no words