From a kids-eye view, this is the best thing on the planet. Eating dinner tonight at a family-owned restaurant, I watched the actual family have their meal along side us. A table in the restaurant, the same as all the others, except it was like that little island was their dining room.
Mom and grandma and grandpa, and the grandkid in small kid glasses, sat and passed platters — it makes sense. If you’re at the restaurant at dinner time, there’s a kitchen right there, you have family dinner at grandma and grandpa’s restaurant.
Except. Then. It gets better.
After dinner, the kid climbed down from the table and ran over to the corner, where this ice cream freezer stood and picked his treat. Can you IMAGINE if your grandparents had an ice cream freezer at their house for FREE?
“You’re going to have to tell people,” said the Bro.
“I really don’t see why it’s necessary.”
“Because when it shows up, where are people going to think it came from?”
“I was considering, ‘We got a foreign exchange student.’ Seems like a solid explanation.”
The hesitation? Expecting in the world of the internet is gross. Undignified. Photos of peed-on sticks, microwave sonar (SCIENCE) scans of peoples’ insides, incessant [s]mugshot profile photos of the “bump” progression. Be excited. But using that excitement as a nine-month ploy for attention and validation of your supreme specialness? You peed on that. And took a picture of it. And posted it on the forevernet. Examine your choices.
This doesn’t even mention elaborate stake-out videos of “telling the dad” or tasteless bakery-goods filled photoshoot “announcements.” No cinnamon buns were harmed in the writing of this, though I am currently making banana bread. Unrelated, photoshoot not required.
So can you even tell people without any of those dramatics? I bet you can. Here goes:
This is merely saying someday, when this kid we’re having learns math (on a very advanced timeline, ahead of his grade level,) we expect this fun conversation: “Wait. When is your anniversary? And WHEN is my birthday?” And that around Thanksgiving*, a very tiny “foreign exchange student” is coming to live with us.
*The onesie graphic is missing several dozen exclamation points.
*Two air signs and fire sign? This is gonna be good.
You know what it means when you’ve spent your whole life never hearing your name, let alone pronounced right, and then all of a sudden it’s ranked in the Top 100 and Top Twin Names (whatever that means)?
It means you spend a lot of time at the grocery store hearing, “NO. Zoë! Put it down!” And whipping around guilty to see someone knee-high with naughty cereal.
Just holler. You’ll either get me, or 7,000 three year olds.
I don’t really sleep. I never have. I’m in bed with my eyes closed for at least eight hours a night, but entering this state of unconsciousness that I hear so much about — do not pass go, do not collect your commemorative bumper sticker.
I dream all night long. And I remember them the next day. I live a whole different, non- (or less-) sensical life all night long, and then I open my eyes and live the one that has fewer weird celebrity cameos and much less falling-off-cliffs.
Maybe that’s why the BFG has always been my favorite Roald Dahl book. Because the dreams MUST come from somewhere. There can’t possibly be another explanation than they’re blown in through the window by a titchy, nice giant.
Look at the date on this marvelous letter: 1989. That was not so long ago. It means I could sent him one of MY dreams.
And now I shall go to sleep and dream up why on Earth I didn’t.
I have fulfilled my destiny. Precisely halfway through my Jesus Year, instead of loafing and fishing, I am finally filling the Cozy-Coupe shaped void in my spirit — by driving the adult-sized version.
SmartCars, y’all. It handles like a bumper car, has the get-up-and-go of an overhead projector and even though I actively hate driving — it’s fun. You are required to say, “Whee!” when you go over a speed bump. It takes 15 litres of gas to fill up the whole tank. That’s like 15 Diet Cokes.
This week take time to celebrate well, November 17th: Wise Owl Day.
“Come live with me in a hollow tree, little Owl,” said the Big Brown Bear.
“Though it’s cold as ice, we’ll be warm and nice with the two of us living there.”
But the Owl said as he shook his head, “Mr. Bear, that will never do.”
“For if I know my name, when the springtime came, there’d be nobody left but you.”
Wise Little Owl! exclamation mark included, is the November 17th poem from The Golden Book of 365 Stories, the story/poem/rip off (Oh Mommy ! I’ll be the only one wearing a rain coat and rubbers!) a-day book that was read in our house conservatively 17 times.
That owl gets smarter and smarter, the older I get.
![I have fulfilled my destiny. Precisely halfway through my Jesus Year, instead of loafing and fishing, I am finally filling the Cozy-Coupe shaped void in my spirit — by driving the adult-sized version.
SmartCars, y’all. It handles like a bumper car, has the get-up-and-go of an overhead projector and even though I actively hate driving — it’s fun. You are required to say, “Whee!” when you go over a speed bump. It takes 15 litres of gas to fill up the whole tank. That’s like 15 Diet Cokes.
Deprive a person the fifth-best-selling car in the US [EVEN] among real vehicles as a child, and eventually they will avenge that injustice. It’s tiny. It’s black. And it can park ANYWHERE IT WANTS. Justice served.
Just don’t ask me to honk the horn. It’s embarrassing.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvvls6QhYr1qz76xlo1_r2_400.jpg)
