When The House Gets Quiet...(All you moms out there know what's coming next)

Recently, the house was so still one morning, I could hear the fruit fly in the kitchen....ok, maybe not THAT still, but so quiet, it was scary. Oh, and yes - we have a resident fruit fly. He's been around for a week now. (If you're the landlord reading this - I know, I know - no pets allowed. Trust me, this wasn't planned. It's not like we went to the pet store and intentionally picked him up. He smuggled himself in on a banana from Mexico or something.) Anyhoo, I laid his brother out between my bare hands the other day. It wasn't pretty...unless you like the color reddish-brown...with a little green...and also....ok - too graphic and I'm getting off the subject.

So, I begin my ritual of scouring the house as quickly as possible. I always start in the front room because...well, it's at the front of the house. It just makes sense. So, I arrive and find John has built a beautiful robot...man...thingy out of the soft blocks. Pretty cool. I stopped to admire it. Then it hit me. I still haven't found the girls and the house is still very quiet. Not a good sign.

Alas! The fair maiden, Chloise (pronounced Klo-eeze) was sitting in a corner on her tuffet (not eating curds and whey like the nursery rhyme, though. Sorry to disappoint). My sweet baby girl was reading a book....alone....in a corner of John's room. Told ya' my girls love books. I lieth not. I sighed a huge sigh of relief. No swishing in the toilets with the hands. No pulling all of mommy's shoes out of the cubbies and dispersing them about the house. No painting baby sister's face with mommy's nail polish. WHEW! No major catastrophes today!

Well, except for maybe this getup. I've seen worse, but this was pretty grotesque. First of all - it's not swimming season. (Your lack of season recognition is an insult to this household, Miss Coppee!) And secondly, that swimsuit is way too small. I can almost see your 'squito bites'. It's like that neighbor we had when we were kids who would mow the lawn in his British flag Speedo. (We called him 'species', remember?) Not a pretty sight. And the Dora shoes are NOT helping! The only thing that could make this outfit right would be to wrap your food-encrusted blankie around yourself and accent it somehow with the mangy cat (which smells of stale ketchup, by the way). If they ever do a reality show about fashion UNconscious families - we'll be on for sure.