Is Ipecac the only over-the-counter medication that sounds like its intended result? Perhaps not, but it is the most fun to say out loud.

I guess I should be glad this isn't necessarily a trend in the industry, where products like Senokot might be named... well, okay. I'm sure we're all creative enough to fill in our own blanks.

In my lunch today:

3 slices of prepackaged deli ham
1 slice processed American cheese
1 tomato, sliced
1 hamburger bun…

354 calories.

1 Cortland apple…

80 calories.

1 package Nabisco Dora the Explorer fruit snacks…

Priceless.

Shazzaam, baby! I just put the final stitches on my very first sweater for Youngest. And it feels good. So good, in fact, that I'm not even going to let the buzz fade before starting on Sweater #2 for Oldest.

You see that little girl in the pink and grey sweater? That's what Oldest still looks like to me when I think about her. She's this chubby-wristed, wispy-blonde toddler with huge blue eyes and eyelashes that any mascara diva would envy. She pronounces "r" like "ahwa" and thinks toe fuzz is serious business.

That kid started fourth grade today. And man, is she cool about it. Except one little moment this morning when the cool broke at 6:15 am, a good chunk of time before she was supposed to wake up. I opened my eyes to her standing beside my bed grinning down at me, about to pop with excitement.

Unlike all the other kids at the bus stop, Oldest did not have a new backpack this morning. She decided to blow her school supply budget on nifty accessories, while "re-upping" her old backpack with glittery fabric paint and artistic flair.

It gave me a moment of guilt to see her beside all the kids with new bags. I would have bought her a new bag. Never mind that the old one was still in perfect shape, if she'd really wanted a new backpack I would have bought her one. I just hoped she really was pleased with the creative option, and wasn't secretly standing there wishing hers was new.

"That's your old backpack," said one of the little boys. "I have a new backpack, and you have your old one."

"Yeah," said Oldest, in her you-are-a-moron tone. "Only, it's not old. I painted it."

And then all the kids gathered around her work of art as Oldest proudly showed it off.

She is not me. I have to remember that.

Because I'm feeling bitter and angry today, and because some bee-otch newsletter editor in the UK is trying to UK-ize ("-ise") the article I wrote, I just feel like complaining.

I'm not going to say who, but someone is this room had a baby right out of high school. She went to college, worked two jobs, and so on. The male component went right on collecting Magic: The Gathering cards and working as a lifeguard for a hotel pool.

Now, I should be glad about one thing. Oldest's biological father has always faithfully paid child support. With the exception of, well, a period of 18 months where he was just sort of, you know, unemployed. But hey, as soon as he got back on his feet living in his mother's basement, he started writing checks again! And they have always been for the same amount. You know, the amount he could afford to pay. When he was a hotel pool lifeguard.

And he still plans to pay back the period of support he missed.

When he can afford it.

You know, after he gets married, goes on a honeymoon, takes a few supplemental trips to various parts of the country, buys a house and some new shoes.

Last time I asked him about the missing support checks, he told me, "I'm working on it. I've been putting it into a savings account for her."

That's great! I said. But I'd prefer you just to pay us back as you get the money.

He said, "Okay." And since then, nothing.

I try not to be angry about it. We all do the best we can with what we have. We're not all born with common sense.

Have I mentioned he filed for bankruptcy after opening a credit account in my name, and then stuck me with a $10,000 charge-off on my credit report? Hhh.

I asked him to buy Oldest's Girl Scout sash and troop number patches. She also needs khaki pants and a white shirt as part of her uniform, I mentioned. We probably have a white shirt. Perhaps he could pick up a pair of pants since she's outgrown her old khakis. He hesitated, but agreed.

Instead of buying a normal pair of khaki pants from K-Mart like a normal, cost-conscious adult, he bought the official Girl Scout khaki pants – you know, where they sew a logo on the pocket and charge twice as much. AND he got her a white GS logo shirt – which cost more than I would ever spend on a single article of clothing.

That was awfully nice of him. Or, it would have been if I didn't feel like it was such an unnecessary waste of money when he's acting like he can't afford to pay the support he owes. Every time he buys her shoes she doesn't need or a shirt she'll never wear, I can hear my own voice screaming in the back of my head: That's nice…Pay Your F-ing Child Support!

Plus, when I told him she wears a size 10 pants, I assume he heard a loud buzzing and some noise where my voice should have been.

"You'll have to hem them," he said. "But they should fit for a couple of years. Right?" he said, nudging Oldest.

She smiled and nodded in a way that spoke to how much she really didn't care to be part of the conversation.

At this point, neither do I.

I'm happy. Work, for once, is being good to me. Plus, there's chocolate in the studio.

And tonight, we knit!

I'm disappointed that by not keeping up with the blogging community I missed an opportunity to meet other area knitters. This is because I secretly think that many of the area bloggers are cool, and I want them to like me.

Knitting is cool. People who think knitting is cool… are also cool. The other day, I had my knitting with me at the doctor's office, and the receptionist said, "Hey, I knit too! I love knitting." See, and that made me think, "She's cool! I like her."

A funny thing happens to me when I knit. It's a strange, happy, peaceful thing. I stop freaking out about stuff. I quit thinking I need to lose twenty pounds. I'm not worrying that no one likes me or that I'm a terrible wife and mother. When I'm knitting, all the things I want to do or be are either reachable or irrelevant. Why else would we waste time wrapping yarn around needles in a time-consuming, often frustrating process of creating textiles? Why do runners run? Why do painters paint? There's got to be some chemical change going on in the brain of a knitter.

Whatever it is, knitting makes me want to befriend people.

That's a big deal. No, trust me. I think I've had like four friends in my entire life.

And now this has just turned pathetic so I'm going to stop. And knit! Mmmmm, serotonin...

"Hey ma, come here," Husband called from Youngest's bedroom. I looked in on the two of them sitting on Youngest's toddler bed, grinning.

"Tell her," said Husband to Youngest.

Tripping on a giggle, Youngest told me, "The sun is in your eyes on a string."

"Oh!" I said, and looked at Husband for a translation.

"Hold on a second," he said, and cupped his hands around her ear.

Youngest listened to his whispering, with the gleeful look of a co-conspirator. She said, "My mistresses eyes…"

More whispering. "…are nothing," she said, "…like the sun."

Later, he lined up both girls at attention, popped quackers into their mouths and quacked orders at the newly formed Duck Brigade to march – march! – into the living room and pick up any toys they found on the floor.

Not only did they pick up their toys, they brushed their teeth when they were done.

While his methods may be unorthodox, his genius is incontrovertible. And you can quote Shakespeare to me anytime, Cpl. Mallard.

Just so you know, inanimate objects make great pets at my house. The kids have turned just about everything into a piece of their imaginative world, and most of it is alive.

My skeins of yarn are all cats. Specifically, they are "yarn-spinning cats" and they are all named Sophia.

I find the girls in my closet pawing through my stray yarn skeins, each looking for just the right Sophia. They wrap their Sophias in baby blankets. They rock them to sleep. They push them in strollers. They make leashes and take them for walks. They feed them "treats" made of rocks from our back yard.

The skeins without labels are the orphans, which is all very sad, and those poor Sophias are rounded up to live in the orphanage on our living room couch.

The other night, I was sitting on the couch with my knitting, and Youngest crawled up beside me.

"Can I hold your Sophia?" she asked.

"I'm using it to knit," I told her.

"I will be really careful?"

"Well, all right." I lifted up my needles for access to the bundle of yarn on my lap. She held it out in front of her in both hands, gazing at it lovingly.

"Aww!" she said, after a moment. "My Sophia is falling asleep in my arms!"

My kids are sweet, but they're all completely whack.

This weekend we finished unpacking.

Yes, I know we moved into the house more than a year ago. Shut up.

We also cleaned out the garage.

I've decided to paint the living room red, and it shall be fabulous.

Four of my tomato plants have blossoms.

Yes, I know I was supposed to plant them in April, not July. I get it.

The dog ate:

A ballet shoe

A stuffed animal

Some base board

A mauve colored pencil

Several paper napkins

Part of a rug

I finished knitting my first-ever knit hat.

I wore it in public.

I wore a knit hat out to walk the dog around the block in July.

Boy, was I sassy.

How is this for fun?

You throw your knitting into a bag, grab your eager, nine-year-old daughter, and head over to the new coffee place that's agreed to host a weekly knitting meet-up.

Oldest settled into her seat, content with a cookie, while her mother and friends envied each other's yarn and proficiency. I know every parent hopes their children will learn more than they have, reach higher, achieve more, etc. But Oldest impresses me. "Do you want to learn to crochet?" asked one of the needlecrafters. Oldest nodded and watched her weave a crochet hook in and out of a knot.

"Okay, I get it," said Oldest, taking the yarn and instantly mastering the technique.

When we stood up to leave an hour later, her chain of green yarn spilled down into a coil at her feet. "You are amazing," I told her. She grinned.

I'm really trying very hard to concentrate on work things during work hours, and to avoid spending all day looking at knitting blogs. Particularly, these:

Carrieokie
Crafty Snargle
Chicknits
Frecklegirl
Knit & Run
Cat's Corner
Xtreme Knitting
Green Girl

and others!

And Knitty!

Someday I will feel worthy of calling myself a knitter. Maybe I'll even have a knitting blog. Maybe I'll post pictures of my cool projects and say clever things that only knitters understand, like "Gauge is 16sts/20 rows over 4" on #8s."

As of today, I've finished my Long Thing. Of course, I'm not going to post pictures of it, because I keep holding it up at different angles and asking family members if it looks like I meant it to turn out this way. When you have to ask, the answer is no.

But it's soft and long, and I love it.

Next I'm going to make this for our babysitter's new baby girl. I'll have to buy circular needles and learn how to decrease. Luckily, I've purchased this book for Oldest, which is fabulously colorful and inspiring, and simple enough for even me to understand.

It taught us a little knitting rhyme that we love:

Through the gate
Catch the sheep
Back we go
Off we leap!

In fact, it moved me to invent one of my own that more accurately describes my knitting efforts:

What's that loop?
Must be a glitch.
F@&*$ing hell
I dropped a stitch!

On behalf of my entire female household, I would like to thank FP for showing us the proper procedure for “casting on.”

By this I mean knitting.

Our house has been completely taken over by knitting. I’m knitting. Oldest is knitting. Youngest is pretending she’s knitting with her own pair of “knitting noodles.” The three of us sit on the couch after dinner like a church group, wiggling our needles and unwinding yarn while Husband shakes his head at us.

We knit in front of the TV. We knit in the car. I knit on my lunch hour.

When I’m not knitting, I’m thinking about knitting.

When I’m working, I think about how much I’d rather be knitting.

We’ve got it bad over here.

So I've been knitting the same three-inch wide piece of fabric for a while now. It's getting long. I can't tell you how satisfying that is. Husband finally broke down and asked me what exactly I was trying to make.

"A long thing," I said.

Oldest has decided to knit a long thing also.

We have dubbed them our snuffleupaguses.

To be honest, I have never considered myself a dog person. After all, dogs are stinky and noisy and demanding. But the picture of the dog I've always had in mind that I didn't want wasn't this dog.

Finnegan is smart and clean and gentle, and he thinks I'm a cool chica to hang out with. He sat by my feet last night while I balanced the checkbook, and he confided that he's actually quite good with spreadsheets and wouldn't mind reconfiguring our budget for me. I was tempted to take him up on it, but by then we decided it was time to run outside for some leaping Frisbee catches.

I am terrible at Frisbee. But Finnegan thinks that adds to my charm.

As husband and I were congratulating ourselves on bringing the World's Coolest Dog into our home and elevating ourselves to World's Coolest Parents status, we realized that with adoption fees, registration, vet visit, crate, food, leash, toys, etc… the set-up cost of Finnegan was well over $700.

Incidentally, $700 is the amount I recently decided to postpone spending on furniture for our living room because we couldn't afford it. And so, here are the top five reasons why Finnegan is better than a living room couch.

Top Five Reasons Why Finnegan is Better Than a Living Room Couch

1. While both have mastered "sit" and "stay," we're convinced that the couch would never "roll over" without assistance.

2. Both may swallow coins, but only Finnegan will return them in the end.

3. A couch does not wake me up at 6 a.m. and remind me to exercise. In fact, a couch encourages me to remain sedentary.

4. If spaghetti falls on the kitchen floor, a couch wants no part of cleaning it up.

5. No couch has ever gazed at me with big puppy eyes to tell me it thinks I'm a cool chica.

My 10-year high school reunion was this past weekend. Did I attend? For five minutes after receiving my invitation, I did entertain the idea. I mentally went through the checklist of things that keep people from going to reunions.

Have I gained a grotesque amount of weight or had a piece of my face surgically removed? No.

Am I unemployed, or employed by a gas station or government agency? No.

Have I been married more than four times? No.

Do I live with a family member? No.

And maybe I misjudged some of the people who served as a continual source of irritation. Maybe the people who made me miserable were just as immature as I was in high school, and now that we're grown ups we'll meet again as totally new people and have something to talk about.

So I basked in that idealized notion for a few moments, and then I read further on the invitation. The event would be held at a casino. A block of rooms would be reserved "for anyone who wants to hang."

Jesus, I thought. It's prom night.

And then the reality of it all came back, and I had a very strong urge to extend my middle finger to the entire high school experience, dye my hair black, skip dinner, and read complicated literature.

So no, I ditched the reunion. I stayed home with the people I actually care about and felt smugly superior to those who would look down on anyone who did not care to "hang." Hmm. Just like prom.

One of the defining moments of my childhood occurred on the evening of December 25, 1981. Like many girl children throughout history, I had both an irrational fear of the dark and a love of all things ballerina. My parents bestowed upon me a beautiful ballerina nightlight with a pink, illuminated skirt and a large DO NOT REMOVE tag affixed angrily to her panties.

"Caution," said the tag warned. "Flammable."

"What does this say," I asked my parents.

They told me.

I blinked in disbelief. "You gave me a nightlight that could catch fire?"

They assured me of the unlikelihood of such an event, provided the nightlight was used safely and appropriately. But it was too late. The seed had been sown. My world was no longer a safe place.

That night my dreams were filled with the melting faces of my dolls as they screamed and begged to be saved from the flames that engulfed my bedroom. My walls turned to black ash, my parents disappeared into a wall of smoke, and through it all I could discern the blazing nightlight ballerina, lazily turning on her toe to a tinkling tune of perverse horror.

I managed to put all of that out of my mind for twenty years. But this past weekend, we transitioned Youngest from crib to Big Girl Bed. We gave her a nightlight and a CD player that whispered gentle Good Night Music. All was well. Youngest fell asleep.

Then we noticed the distinct odor of burnt wiring.

"Unplug it all," I told Husband.

"But it's so dark! She'll get scared. It's just the funny-smelling plastic on the new CD player."

Sidenote: Husband is the one who gets up five times a night to double check the lock on the front door, turns the car around mid-trip to make sure the oven is off, and insists that all bedding be moved well off the floor vents. Paranoia is his domain.

"We can leave the bathroom light on. That's enough light. We can't leave the nightlight plugged in."

Youngest woke up crying at 3:30 AM, and I reluctantly replugged the electronics for her. And spent the rest of the night mentally working out escape routes and contingency plans.

Tonight I'll buy us each our very own fire extinguishers to keep under our pillows.

Three things I learned from watching an episode of The Swan last night.

1. It's true! Any average-looking woman can realize her dream of looking like a drag queen.

2. When you try to be something you're not, you end up as just that: something you're not. Only now it's painfully obvious to the rest of America.

3. Trying to be pretty is like trying to write poetry. It's pitiful and sad when you're not successful, and makes us think you have too much time on your hands. Here, Swan, do my laundry.

I know I was supposed to feel uplifted and inspired by these women overcoming "life challenges" and emerging from averagedom all spiffied up. Life challenges?

In fact, I found the whole thing sort of depressing, yet reassuring. I mean, this is the best we can hope for? You're going to spend thousands of dollars to reshape your face and come out looking like a different brand of average? Well okay. I'll pretend I used to look like a monkey and now I look fantasgreat! No one cares what you secretly wish you looked like.

If I lost ten pounds, not a single person would notice. Unless my left ass cheek literally fell off.

More people should have pudding for breakfast. When you can drag yourself out of bed with the knowledge that there's a container of pudding in the fridge with your name on it, that's a good day in the making.

Last night I mixed up a batch of good old vanilla cook-and-serve and rummaged through the Tupperware pantry in search of vessels. (PS, I don't actually have any Tupperware, but I have a heck of a lot of mismatched Gladware and repurposed Parkay containers.) It so happens that these little yellow tubs that once held spreadable margarine are the ideal size for individual, half-cup servings of pudding. And some of them actually have lids!

This morning I packed my lunch and dropped a homemade pudding cup into the bag. But by the time I got to work, I had convinced myself that pudding was the ideal breakfast food – creamy, sweet, and packed with vitamins A &D (or so says the dairy council).

Now I'm sitting at my computer looking a whole lot like a girl eating a tub of butter with a spoon.

Anyone got a problem with that?

Let it be known that if you are putting Youngest to bed, you must not, under any circumstances, disturb the Blanket Order.

To anyone other than Youngest, the Blanket Order is a complex and seemingly arbitrary set of rules that specify when and how each of her sixteen-thousand blankets should be utilized. It is as follows:

Big Pooh is folded in thirds and goes over the back and seat of the rocking chair. Little Pooh is folded in half and goes over Big Pooh on the back of the rocker ONLY. Shawl is used to wrap Youngest during nighttime rocking. At the conclusion of rocking, Shawl is placed over Little Pooh. Shawl is a Rocking Blanket should NEVER be used for sleeping purposes. Once Youngest is transferred to her crib for tucking, Blanket Bears must drape over the side of the crib facing her nightlight, blocking out all light and negating any effects of having the nightlight on at all (but the nightlight MUST be on). Fuzzy is then placed over her and tucked in between the edges of the mattress and crib rails. NO OTHER BLANKETS, TOYS, ETC. ARE PERMITTED WITHIN THE CRIB.

Really, as long as you don't touch the blankets at all during the day, it's fairly simple to follow. And we all recognize the obsessive compulsiveness as a developmental stage necessary to Youngest gaining a sense of mastery and control over her environment.

Something happened recently that interfered with the Blanket Order and almost caused a bedtime catastrophe and the collapse of our household as we knew it.

Youngest peed on Fuzzy.

It wasn't her fault. I put her down for a nap without realizing she was wearing underpants instead of a diaper.

I took Fuzzy and her sheets down to the laundry room, intending to run the load later that afternoon. Then I promptly forgot all about it until bedtime.

I knew Fuzzy was going to be a problem, so we took it slow. We talked it out, weighing the pros and cons of sleeping with a wet, smelly pee blanket. She decided that Shawl would do as a temporary Sleeping Blanket until the return of Fuzzy.

But little did I know that sheets also factored into the Blanket Order.

I pulled out the crib sheet that matched Blanket Bears, riddled with pastel little teddy bears, and stretched it over her mattress as Youngest watched suspiciously.

"What that?" she asked.

"It's your new, fresh sheet!" I declared. I thought this would put me on her good side, since she's just emerged from a fixation on fresh sheets that had her demanding "new fwesh sheets" every single night.

"But I want my Pooh sheets!"

"Well this is your Blanket Bear sheet. It matches, see? Pooh sheets have pee on them like Fuzzy."

"But…I don't want Bear sheets!"

She protested a few more times, but I sidestepped and suggested a story to see if avoiding the issue would resolve it.

So we entered the ritual. We wrapped in Shawl. We sat on the Pooh blankets and rocked. We read. We talked about our day. Then I carried her over to her bed and started to lower her onto the Bear sheets.

When she looked down, she screamed and planted her feet on the rail, clawing her way up onto my shoulders like a cat about to be dropped into a swimming pool. "NO! I don't WANT the Bear sheets! Get them off!"

I saw then that there was no way to pretend I was in control here. I rummaged through her closet and located another Pooh sheet while Youngest sat on the floor with tears in her eyes telling me that she hated the Bear sheets and didn't want them in her bed.

When she finally settled down with Shawl tucked around her, I staggered out of her room and sank down on the couch beside Husband who had just kissed Oldest goodnight.

"Rain Man's having a rough night," I explained.

"At least she didn't make you drive to K-Mart for new underwear, too."

"Yeah. 400 Oak Street."

Add comments to your blog, they said. Well, all right. There. I don't know how to use it or what to do with it, but now if you feel moved to comment, an appropriate venue has been provided for you.

First, three promises to myself about the comments feature:

1. I will not check back to my site every five minutes to see if someone has left a comment.

2. I will not stop to consider whether a post is comment-worthy before posting it.

3. I will not have my feelings hurt when no one comments on my posts.

This I do swear and doubly make note of, so help me, etc.

Summer wardrobe essentials for the approaching-thirty mom.

Well-padded bras.
Because nipples that have breastfed two children have no shame, and most buildings nowadays are enthusiastically air-conditioned.

Hip-hugging shorts.
Not because I'd like to flaunt my hips at you, but because my stomach doesn't like to be reminded that it's supposed to fit inside a waistband.

Capri pants.
Because the less leg I have to shave on a hot day, the better. Actually, forget it. No one's looking at my legs anyway.

Sleeveless tanks.
Because arm flab likes its time in the summer sun, too, you know.

Now it's time to go flip through the Urban Outfitters catalog and pretend I'm a bulimic suburban teenager with daddy's credit card in hand.

Sorry.

I know, I know.

I haven't been posting.

If I had time today to post, it would go a little something like this...

Youngest is distraught about a certain coloring book page that she colored for me and then attempted to tear out of the book. It ripped in half.

"I so sorry, Mom," she told me, handing me one half of an Easter bunny's head, scribbled with deliberate strokes of yellow and green crayon.

"It's okay, really," I assured her. "I love it! I love how you colored just above the bunny's ear with this little swirl here. Looks like a butterfly."

"I was making you a present," she explained. "I ripped it."

"I don't mind that it's a little ripped. It's beautiful. Thank you!"

More to herself than me, she went on, refusing to let it go. "I colored it for you, and then I ripped it. I so sorry."

"It really IS okay, honey!"

Jeez. We really are our own worst critic.