Sheepish Grin: It's been too long

Fun and exciting, August has been. And now, late on September 3, I find myself speaking Yoda.

I had to run a full disk recovery on my com-poo-ter three weeks ago because Things 1 and 2 developed a love of You Tube. Granted, they spend their time on Potter Puppet Pals and Powerpuff Girls DMZ, but between the slowed down system and the popups that would not go away, well I had no choice. I don't have sound anymore, but then neither do I have exciting offers to get dates or free ipods, so in all it is a win.

Thing 3's mullett. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the mullet right after she cut it, so you cannot get the full effect, but here goes:

Wet Mullet

And here's the after:

Most fabulous, I'm sure.

New topic: Is it wrong that my 11-nearly-12-year-old turns heads? Mine is the one in the black top. I try to ignore it, but goodness if I'm not going to have to beat boys (and men???) off with sticks. It is hard to get the full effect with the Fairy Princess in frame, but Monica/Stephen -- help me out here. I'm thinking of lecherous 40 year olds checking out your eldest when she was barely 13. How did you resist the natural and deserved desire to punch them in the mouth and/or give them the willy-inducing knowledge that they are lusting after a baby? I may be safe as long as she's got braces on, which necessarily screams "underage", but after that I'm screwed.

Next: is it wrong to teach my kids fake French curse words? I can't see how it hurts, but it is awful funny. Thing 1 is starting French this year, which I studied in college. I tried teaching her a real French curse (excuse my spelling, it's been 15 years, but "peigne cul" - ass comb, the French equivalent of "asshole"). Her pronunciation was, well, sacre bleu horrible, so I tried some other "French curses", like "l'autobus rouge" (red bus). When she couldn't pronounce that, I tried "poisson tasse" (fish cup).

She and Thing 2 mastered poisson tasse, but I just couldn't go through with it. I envisioned parent-teacher conferences and took the zero. "Mrs. X, Thing 1 is a delightful student, quite engaged in the subject. Her vocabulary is increasing and her diction improving. But I'm concerned about her word choice. Do you have any idea where she might have gotten this?" Uh. No.

It did get quite a laugh, though. Things 1 and 2 could barely finish dinner when I told them the horrible curses I shared with them. This is good because Thing 1 is in that "special" point in her development where I never know if I'm embarrassing her horribly, insulting her unforgiveably, or just having fun. Since I figure I've got a 2/3 chance of being wrong anyway, I may as well have fun... freaking puberty.

Anyway, I expect that Thing 2 will call her classmates "fish cup" anyway, just because she can. . . I can see envision the conference with her principal. "Mrs. X. We appreciate that Thing 2 is a creative, intelligent child, but we have a zero tolerance policy against using words I don't understand. It is not tolerated at our school..."

This is, of course, the same principal who decided not to suspend Thing 2 for a second time in the Third Grade , after she punched some doofus in her class who threw sand at her, because Thing 2 threatened to "throw" the standardized test that year.

I love that girl.

More pix: