Dustbin Blues

The worst thing about having kids?

I can handle dirty diapers, crayons on the walls, broken keepsakes, peanut butter in the VCR, apple juice all over the keyboard...

But the thing I hate most... is germs.

I've been sick more since the beginning of September (when the kids, coincidentally, started school) than I was all of last year! That's a year's worth of illness packed into three months. What do I have to look forward to for the next seven, I wonder?

Right now, it's strep throat. Yay me. *sigh* A hundred and two degree fever, an all-over body ache and a throat that's on fire. Don't ya wanna be me? Just in time for the weekend, too. Perfect.

Yesterday, I was a cleaning maniac. Today, I'm Cameron in Ferris Bueller... "I'm dying...!"

"When Cameron was in Egypt's land... let our Cameron go..."

Michael made me tea (Constant Comment, my favorite) and toast and brought me aspirin. Looks like I'm going to spend the day in bed. Which, really, isn't necessarily a bad thing, when I think about it. Would be nice to catch up on sleep.

"You're not dying, you just can't think of anything better to do!"

Well, he's got a point. What do I have to do? Hm... so much for those Christmas decorations. Oh well, there's always next weekend.

Besides, I'm still recovering from the annual room cleaning fiasco. Four hours of cleaning, sorting, holding up tiny pieces of plastic and asking, "What's this to?... Do you have that toy anymore?... Isn't that the one you buried in the sand at the old house and then forgot where you buried it?"

What did I discover? Here's the top ten:

1. Six marbles to the chinese checkers game. Glued into the underside of Legos. I didn't, however, find the actual Krazy Glue. Yet.

2. Seven socks that I've been looking for forever tied in knots and made into a "rope" hanging from Zoe's dollhouse bedroom window (which faces the wall - no wonder I didn't see it!) Apparently, she did it during "fire safety week" at school.

3. A naked Fairytopia Barbie with two amputated feet (dog victim, I believe, from the markings) but Michael said, "She's still hot."

4. Zoe had the paper punch, two pairs of scissors, the stapler and four rolls of tape. It took me fifteen minutes to vaccum all of the "confetti" she'd made out of her school library book. I wonder how much I'm going to have to pay to replace, "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends"?

5. Eight dollars and twenty-nine cents in change.

6. Four spoons, a very bent and deformed fork, and lots of peanut butter sandwich cracker wrappers.

7. The dog's leash (I wondered where that was!)

8. A line of McDonald's french fries along the baseboard behind the dresser leading up to a peach pit. It was like the perfect ant-highway!

9. A bottle of nail polish. Red. Thankfully, they couldn't get the top off.

10. Two pairs of tweezers, a slew of bandaids put on various stuffed animals, and last but not least, and empty contact case. I'm pretty sure they DID have contacts in them at one point.

Okay, I have a date with Ferris Bueller, a box of Kleenex, and a down comforter. G'nite!

Every Little Princess

Zoe and I spent the morning curled up after breakfast, snuggled under down comforters, watching A Little Princess. (It's rather cold in here, and we haven't braved turning on the heat yet...) Michael and "the boys" (Blake and Dmitri) went out to cut more wood. Testosterone and chainsaws. Estrogen and tearjerker movies. Go figure?

Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Princess was one of my favorite books when I was young (along with The Secret Garden) and while I enjoyed the sugar-coated and rather unrealistic Shirley Temple version, it didn't much follow the actual story. When my friend Kyrai did a film discussion on a newer adaptation of A Little Princess for her women's group, I was thrilled to find such a well-done portrayal!

It's now on our "girl list," the things Zoe and I watch together while Daddy and the boys are off doing their thing, which include movies like Sarah Plain and Tall, Little Women, Flyaway Home, Anne of Green Gables, My Fair Lady, Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, Sound of Music and National Velvet. They're like chick-flix-in-training. It makes for a perfect fall weekend morning, me and my daughter on the bed with the doggies keeping our feet warm and a heartwarming, tearjerking movie on the television.

My favorite part of this particular movie comes when Miss Minchin confronts little Sara Crewe about "telling stories" to the other girls. This is after Sara's father has been reported dead in the war and she's lost everything and has been relegated to servant status and is living in the attic of the girls' school.

Miss Minchin: "It's time you learn that real life has nothing to do with your little fantasy games. It's a cruel , nasty world out there and it's our duty to make the best of it--not to indulge in ridiculous dreams, but to be productive and useful. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Sara: "Yes, ma'am."

Miss Minchin: "Good!"

Sara: "But I don't believe in it."

Miss Minchin: "Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Good God, child, look around you! Or better yet, look in a mirror."

Sara: "I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics, even if they dress in rags. Even if they're not pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?"

This morning, Zoe took her thumb out of her mouth (she still sucks her thumb at home, when she's sleepy or when she's watching TV) looked up at me and asked, "How come Miss Minchin's daddy didn't tell her that all girls are princesses?"

Why, indeed?

"I don't know, sweetie."

"Didn't her daddy like her?"

"I don't know."

"I wish she had a good daddy like mine."

I was wishing Michael could hear her. "Me, too."

"She'd feel better."

"I think so."

"Every girl should have a daddy who tells her she's a princess."

"Yes, they should."

See why I love these movies?