About the fifth thing Matilda said this morning was, "Where's my pony?"

Followed shortly thereafter by, "I want to see Lily again."

best not let mac meet Matilda. He feels compelled to tell all children that I do not believe in Santa et al.

My kids don't seem to have trouble accepting that not everyone believes in Santa and the tooth fairy without it undermining their beliefs. Of course Franny didn't believe in the tooth fairy herself until she decided to change her mind.

In other words, kids can be OK with things that adults are not.

In me news, I caught my kids' cold and can now accurately judge how sick they are. I am bummed because I wanted to go to brunch with Perkins et al, but I don't want to expose any wee ones to this chesty cold.

Hec, we really need to arrange a b.org 2.0 F2F for all the kids. It would be such a blast.

Hec, we really need to arrange a b.org 2.0 F2F for all the kids. It would be such a blast.

Y'know... Abby's almost at babysitting age.

rather than doing the touch up trim work that needs doing, I have spent hours cleaning up years of messy painting over door hardware and plugs. really only got one plug clean and about half another plus half of one know. slow ass work. I just think clean lovely brass doorknobs might be a help with showing this place, rather than ones that are half paint black half brass.

Hec, we really need to arrange a b.org 2.0 F2F for all the kids. It would be such a blast.

Totes!

(The one point where I find myself violently disagreeing with him is that he takes his kids to as many different churches as possible so they can get exposed to different religious ideas. Which is fine if you're an atheist with a Christian background, but not really helpful to anyone trying to raise a family of secular Jews.)

I'll look that up, Jessica. Thanks. I actually did this when I was in high school. I started attending every single religious observance I could find, including Buddist prayer meetings to research for myself.

Boneless Chicken Ranch totally took me to "Best Little Whorehouse" place and made me think "Kind of a waste," so if I have any thought on parenting stuff, you probably don't want them. I have to say, though, the death conversation was one where my dad really did step up. Maybe one out of a million, but I've gotta give him points on it.

On the other hand, I've heard a few stories about kids who were told this and then totally freaked out about going to sleep for weeks afterwards because they were afraid they wouldn't wake up. So I guess it depends on where your kid's mind tends to go with things like that.

I still regress to this when anxiety sets in. Not often, but it does happen.

I've just started watching the exhibition skating. Based on Joannie's performance, I'm assuming some of them change their music last minute. I didn't realize you could do that.