Sweet Sixteen Donuts and Other Supernatural Phenomena

With Grandma away, the children and I are left to our own devices in the afternoons these days. When Grandma is here, the highlight of the afternoon is the daily conversation that begins with Grandma saying, "Have you thought about what to have for dinner?" Then I say, "Not at all." or "Cereal." or "What do we have?" Like the entire conversation, my answer is irrelevant because Grandma has already decided what we're having for dinner and she is asking me my thoughts on it because she is trying to help me maintain the illusion that I am somehow running my own house, which we all know is simply not true. Grandma is also one of those women who can look in the cupboard and see nothing but Fudge Rounds and Cream of Chicken Soup and in 35 minutes a delicious casserole called Fudgy Chicken Surprise comes out of the oven.

So when Grandma abandons us for those fully-grown granchildren of hers in San Diego who can't possibly love her as much as we do, we fend for ourselves, or rather, I fend for myself. I also find out things about my children that I had not noticed because they are being fed their breakfast and snacks by someone else. For example, Casey eats A LOT. Tuesday morning, I made eight biscuits, figuring we'd all eat two. I ate one, Mace ate two, Joe ate none, and Casey ate the rest! He ate FIVE biscuits -- and not puny little McDonalds biscuits -- huge biscuits! And then at lunch he ate almost an entire Totino's pizza by himself, a grilled cheese sandwich, and yogurt. So he's either going to grow three inches in height this summer or he's going to grow three inches in girth. Either way, shopping for school clothes is going to be expensive.

I can't remember where I was going with this. Oh right. So to avoid wearing out our welcome at Heidi's house (we've been swimming in her pool and destroying her family room three afternoons this week already), I took the kids to the store to pick up some things. You are about to think even less of me than you did after you read that Grandma fixes most of the meals at our house. Here it is -- while I go to the store to do minor shopping and pick up whatever we're out of when Grandma is here, Grandma does all the serious grocery shopping. See, I told you. The next time you come to my house you will be much more judgmental about all the unfinished projects and dust bunnies. I realize how pathetic it is that it takes me, Grandma, and the Nanny/Housekeeper to run my house.

Anyway. We went to the store and I told the kids that we could pick out a toy for each of them as a reward for them having been so good all week. So Casey picked out a Ben 10 Alien Force Illuminator Summoner Doo-Hickey Thing. See, here he is summoning an alien to make him a snack with a lot of cheese on it:



Mace picked out a truck that has a Hot Wheels car to carry on its trailer. He's no dummy -- he knew to pick the toy that had two things in the package:



And I picked out these:



We got to the checkout line and I have to say I was a little embarrassed. I said (loud enough for the cashier to hear of course), "Casey! When did you put these cookies, donuts, and brownies in the buggy??" And he wasn't about to let me throw him under the bus and informed the cashier that, "My mother selected each and every one of these unhealthy items and probably won't share them with us." Okay, so those weren't his exact words, but that was the tone.

Sweet Sixteen Donuts, though. Do I need to say anything else? Just look at these faces -- these children will love me forever (just like I love my own Dad for this very reason) for having bought them Sweet Sixteen Donuts.



Okay -- Casey looks a little sick already, but Mace is ready for another round:



On a completely unrelated note, since we weren't talking about haunted houses . . . look at this spooky picture I took last night from the margarita porch right outside my bathroom:



Creepy, huh? It was like that stork was trying to send me a message from beyond telling me that today my broom would stand up all by itself in the kitchen.



Freaky.