In Spontaneity We Trust

I'm not a bad parent. I'm not a bad parent. I'm not a bad parent. (deep breath--and repeat)

So I may have run out of "healthy" snacks today and in a moment of desperation, grabbed a can of black beans and attempted to pass it off as a bowl of "bean bugs." As in "guess what kids? we're having BEAN BUGS for snack! Squish 'em with your monster teeth!" (ok give me a break, my first born is a boy...this is how we talk in relate-to-little-boy-world.)

And may have actually allowed my three year old access to a paint roller (tangent: WHAT is the official name of a paint roller anyway? what do the painting guys in the white jump suits call them? Do they just throw a hardy "hey mark, toss me that paint roller o'er there will ya?" over there shoulder when they need to switch up?) while finishing up my accent wall (sounds snazzy huh? it is, you should come see. i'm in love.)

And I maybe, just maybe allowed my 21 mos old daughter to eat a little lipstick this morning. (though in my defense, I did tell the girl it's gross, but obviously parents have NO idea what they're talking about. If it's pink and comes out of an amazing swirly container it HAS to taste like heaven...turns out, it doesn't. And the ensuing pink spittle that results isn't all that cool of a clean up item either. Ranks up there with mashed blueberries and grape juice stains.)

BUT Oregon was unusually compliant today and I scored an alarmingly compelling set of pics. (complete with almost everyone looking and smiling at the camera at the same time! a miracle, that is.)
(note the bowl of "bean bugs.")


the three amigos:)

Why I Fear My Toddlers (aka who got butt paste on my boots?)

Early this mornin' a young woman is carefully applying her black, ultimate mascara brush to those lashes that are never as full as she might wish (why is that?) when she freezes, transfixed--horror, dread and anxiety all warring within her suddenly pounding breast. For what she hears, Dear Lord, what she hears is the sound of utter and complete silence--AND she realizes, breath bordering on hyperventilation, she has heard this silence for a good SEVENISH minutes!

Why does this silence so move her? Why, you might ask, could this cause such obvious dismay? Well, my friends, because this young woman is a MOTHER. A mother of waist-high-children. A mother, in short, of TODDLERS. In parent-of-toddlers world silence= terror.

Furthermore, this mother is me. Which means there be not one but two of them!

Flinging myself from the bathroom, I steathily race down the hall (who doesn't want to catch a culprit in the act after all?) turn a corner and...

AHHHHHHHHHH! GOOD LORD! HOLY TOLEDO! BLIMEY O'RIELLY'S GREENISH TROUSERS!!! EGAD! (etc etc)

There, on the gravesite of two once fine examples of diaper-bagdom- business cards mingle w/ more wipes than could possibly have come out of a travel case, swathes of orange that might once have been a snack hidden away in one of the pockets, butt paste smeared in places butt paste was never meant to be smeared, several small squished ants (what!?) pairs of socks now matched to the wrong mate....or bathing in paste or worse-juice! And two child-sized pairs of feet edging toward the beginning of their hopeful retreat. HA! right.