Fall Cleaning

I believe I have adopted a box of apples. At $6 a pop they no longer qualify as a purchase; we may as well just go ahead and set up a college fund for these little guys. With autumn in full bore we were missing Connecticut apples -- California apples of all varieties are lackluster specimens of biomass -- so we had some McCouns shipped out. Apparently a bit of stress-induced folly. I mean, they are very good, don't get me wrong -- but $6 for an apple?! WTF?

Today Aaron had to interact with his devious former employer (Yay! Ding dong, the witch is dead!) to retrieve some personal items from the office. He was not looking forward to the trip and the apples arrived just as he was headed out. He was able to tuck one into his bag as he left the house, a talisman before the big battle. Aaron is still owed a bunch of money but his previous employer's ickiness will no longer permeate our home environment.

We can already feel the difference. Our humor has returned, most of the seriousness is cast off. Sadie is fully mended and back to her daffy disobedient self. In a similar vein, our Olliepop is acquiring so many new words and concepts and mannerisms that it is getting harder and harder to discipline her with a straight face. She often comes back with some zinger phrase or gesture that will just crack one of us up. The other then tries to keep some semblance of authority, but all is usually lost.

Parenting really brings you in touch with hypocrisy. For instance, we'll say to her "don't say 'No' to me little girl!" and she hears that word from us all the time. She is, of course, really tuned in to any discrepancies between word and action and exploits them to the hilt. We are rapidly seeing both the difficulty and the need to maintain our integrity while still maintaining her well-being. Lots of times we just pull rank, but I am guessing that is not going to work in a little while.

Saturday morning she will start a tumbling class. We are curious if it will harness some of that energy or just make her more robust. At this point all we can think of to give us an edge would be to stop feeding her, but she already appears to be a breatharian. There are some days I don't know what she is subsisting on. She's healthy as a horse but still, I had no idea how anxiety-producing it is when your kid eats a few mouthfuls for days on end.

Aaron's bike is all fixed up now, so this weekend we'll probably take the apples to the beach or something, maybe grab a movie.