The day her marbles went rolling down the rainy street

Let me just tell you a little something about us. Something you may not know. We live outside in the warm months. We come in to sleep and eat. That's it. Even these are occasionally done outside. All of our play and most of our summer cooking are done out there. We have a big backyard. We make the fullest full use of it during this time of year. The kids thrive on the fresh air and sunshine. And so do we. We fall into bed at night in exhausted heaps for all the fun we have had during the day. We rarely hear a peep out of the kids once their heads hit the pillow.
Now let me tell you something else you may not know. Here in my section of upstate NY we are having a record rainy year. It rains. All. Day. Every. Day. For weeks and weeks it has rained. OK so it's been week and week. About two weeks. But still that is a lot of stinking rain. That is a long time to find indoor stuff to do. And let me tell you, we have completely exhausted our list of rainy day activities.

Color pictures-I have a stack of pictures 3 inches high.

Work on our catching skills-Mark can now catch a ball with about 85% accuracy. That says nothing of my catching skills. I am at about 55% accuracy.

Rock/feed/cuddle/change/put to bed baby dolls-Yes to all of the above. A. Lot. (As an aside, why, in the world, do they make baby dolls smell like cheap awful vanilla? I hate that. End aside)

Run around acting like maniacs-we do that all the time anyway. So no change there.

Yesterday we had a reprieve. The sun shined all day. We basked. We basked to the fullest. Baseball, frisbee, catch, swinging, running, walking, jumping. We did it all. Oh the fun we had.

This morning I woke up and guess what. IT'S RAINING. I'm crying.



Yes, we have enough Legos to go all the way to the ceiling. We wondered.

Dear Tonka,

Are you out of your mind? Whose genius idea was it to manufacture this truck.
Now the truck itself isn't so bad. But it makes this unholy noise. What parent is going to let their kid play with this and still keep their sanity. Do you, Tonka, want to be responsible for the unhappiness of kids and parents. Apparently that is exactly what you want inflicting the world with this product. For shame.
I am not above welding a screwdriver to "fix" one of the kids toys. In fact I do it all the time. Do you know what I found in there. A DRUM!!!
The drum is beaten/flicked by the sprocket on the tire axle. (Are you proud of me? I used big technical car terms. Go Me!)
Tonka, I realize this may have been a decision made by one of the lowly engineers in your toy design department. Maybe he/she was having a bad day. Maybe this person doesn't have children. Maybe they had a bad childhood themselves and are just trying to make other people as miserable as they are. No excuse. Some one should have caught this and stopped at some point during production before it got to my Christmas Tree.
You know the worst part. This wasn't even going to be a gift for Mark originally. It was for a kid at my family's Christmas party. That's right. I almost had to walk in there with the toy every parent hates and give to my cousin's kid. Luckily we had a blizzard. So we didn't go. (He probably got a perfectly normal toy.) Do you know what the parents of that kid would have done to me. I wouldn't have made it out alive. You are lucky Tonka. A blizzard saved you from having a murder on your hands. That was a close one.
I will give you one guess to tell me where this is going. Go ahead. Guess.

You can only hope I don't see any of you in a dark alley late at night.
Sincerely,
A Mad Mama

A Letter

Dear Top of Anna's Hairless Head,

I am writing today to bring something to your attention. I am not sure you realize your role in this little scenario. Your job is to grow hair. I have to tell you lately you have been falling down just a little bit. You did a pretty good when she was born. She had more hair than her brother upon arrival. Don't give yourself airs. He had no hair and you gave us about three hairs. Really it was nothing to sneeze at.

Now I present to you Exhibit A:
If she were a boy you would be in there. But she isn't a boy. And let me tell you I am very tired of people saying things like, "What a cute little boy you have." It probably has a little to do with her big brothers hand me downs. But if she had more hair people wouldn't question her sex no matter what she was wearing.

Next I present Exhibit B:
You see that five miles of forehead. I know she has her Dad's hairline but if you grew some cute little bangs it wouldn't matter. That great expanse of vast emptiness would be covered up.

Then maybe we could use these.
Exhibit C:
I will admit that my Mom was thinking just a teeny bit ahead when she bought these before Anna was even born. But it is time for you to step up to the plate here. Show us what you got. Go for the gusto. Give it your all.

I will give you credit. You are doing OK back here. Exhibit D:
But, here is the thing, it is starting to look a little like a mullet. You haven't been around long so let me explain. Business in the front, fun in the back. Yeah, it kind of went out with the 80s. It isn't cool. So stop it.

And finally I would like to present to you Exhibit E:
Look at that face. Doesn't she look sad. She wants hair. All the other babies pick on her. OK, OK, it wasn't about the hair.I took a pointy stick away from her and made her mad. But she cries about her hair a lot. (I love the contrast in this picture between her face and her shirt.)

Signed,

The Mom who is sick of saying "She is NOT A BOY!!"