Hey BB, what happened to your beard?

Well see, when you go to trim your beard and the trimming attachment falls off, what happens is that you give your beard the “across the cheek sideways reverse-Mohican” look.

So in an effort to repair the damage, I’ve gone with the goatee. Not my favorite look, but it beats showing my real face.

***

THEBOY was in a fine mood last night when I picked him up from school. He said that now he gets to be “the teacher.” I asked him if he had a new job, and he said he had to help the kids with the computers, to “fix” them sometimes (I think he means fixing the computers, not the kids), and to show them what to do “cuz I been playing those games a long time.”

This morning he was practically bouncing off the walls to get to school. I’m going to say it’s too early to pronounce this problem resolved, but I can’t help but feel a lot better about it now.

***

THEGIRL, however, was NOT in a good mood. I’d dropped THEBOY and Sterling off at the shop where Heather was giving Kelli her fabulous new ‘do. The girl and I headed home for supper. She was grouchy, and not satisfied with the milk that I hoped would placate her until I could rustle up some grub…

(That last line contains an inside joke for Toland…)

I put her in the high chair with some of her favorite foods: green beans, cherry tomatoes, pepperonis and some cheese. I thought it’d buy me time to make/eat my own supper.

No dice.

She wiped out the green beans in short order. She was signing for and saying “more,” and I told her to eat her other food. I figured eight ounces of green beans were enough. She had plenty of her other favorites there.

Again, no dice. She started crying and screaming, and I was not happy about having to choke down my supper while she did this.

Finally she picked up her tomatoes one by one and started angrily SQUISHING THEM with her little fists, giving me a “how you like THIS?” glare.

I picked her up, put her in her crib and she was asleep in 30 seconds.

***

Had an agent do a “pre-screening” on our house yesterday, and she gave negative feedback. Said it was cluttered—I didn’t think it was bad at all. She mentioned the toys, and a couple were here and there, but really… we have kids.

She also cited a “bathroom pail” smell, which is ludicrous, because we don’t even own one. The damn Diaper Genie will start to reek on its own, so we ditched it before Laura was born. There wasn’t even a wet diaper in a trash can in that house. That was pure fiction on the agent’s part.

We have lowered our price though. The clock is ticking, and we need to get this done. Renee, our agent, was pretty optimistic when we spoke last night.

***

This morning, in an effort to distract THEBOY from his overwhelming desire to get to school NOW, I told him I had a job for him to do: Turn off the water sprinkler.

Now, I had it set to cover about 300 degrees in a wide arc to get the flower beds too. This meant that it would take some genuine timing to sneak in there behind it and turn it off without getting soaked. I had some good belly laughs watching him patrol the perimeter of the yard, finally going all the way over to the neighbor’s driveway and sneaking up the other side. Austin Powers has got nothing on my kid…

***

It’s Wednesday. Somehow we’ve made it thus far.