1. Did you ever have an imaginary friend? I did, and of course, she was my twin, with a rhyming name and everything. Peanut has one too, named "Peanut." Yup, he is now trying to pass off certain behavior as that of the other Peanut. For the most part, the two Peanuts play happily, but I did have to tell imaginary Peanut to play more nicely after an incident yesterday. I set the boy up with some cups and bowls of water to play with on the deck, assuming that he'd come in soaking wet when he was done. I didn't expect him to walk back inside and inform me in a scandalized voice that "Peanut just throwded water ALL OVER ME!"

2. Owen Wilson: Sad Clown or Tragic Manchild? Discuss amongst yourselves.

3. Cleaning out my computer files, I am coming across many visual gems. Some of them are projects I started and never finished (Coloring books for grown-ups! Food allergy warning t-shirt and button designs for a friend who was worried about caregivers not being aware of her child's food allergy! Half-baked short story ideas that never got off the ground!) and some of them are just older pictures and video that need to be transferred to our back-up storage. The kids saw me checking out the files and are enraptured by their own images.

Peanut can't understand why our kitchen doesn't flash lights and disco music when HE dances after seeing this classic video of Pepper as a baby:



4. We went to Peanut's orientation yesterday, which was nice. Many of the same kids will be together again this year and they were all happy to see each other. I got a little weepy when one of the other parents commented on how much Peanut had changed, because I could see it so clearly in that classroom, with those kids. Even though I know he has developed an enormous amount this year, it is an intellectual knowledge based on the tasks and speech patterns and knowledge that he has mastered. I was caught by surprise at how overwhelmingly emotional I felt when other people noticed and commented encouragingly, by how utterly grateful I am for where he is now.

5. WebKinz: Tool of The Devil or Parent's Pal? Discuss the relative evil of the commercialization of children's play versus the need not to be interrupted every 3.7 seconds as a pre-condition for parental sanity.

6. Here is my favorite screen shot from the ultra-random Berlitz French course screensaver:



7. French Children: Genetically Pre-Determined To Steal Pastry? Discuss the role of saturated fats in determining personality traits and addictive tendencies, such as thievery of baked goods and petulance.

Yeah, I'm done now.

Labels: blogging, flights of fancy, hormonal weeping, kids, total randomness