Ah well. There’s always Rose.

Rose has had a bit of a cough and felt sick this weekend. Charles has been on her about not coughing in our faces or food, keeping her hands off her face (including blowing kisses), and not hugging or kissing anyone. (Ok, he’s a bit of a germ phobic guy.

So tonight at family dinner everyone is full and distracted, and Rose sneaks over, wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me on the cheek. Then she says “Don’t tell Daddy.” I say, “ok.” and then she says, “no, really mom. PROMISE.” So I promised. But even if I get sick it was totally worth it.

So far my thoughts are narrowed down to:
Unsinkable
Caffeine & Crayons

Better ideas gratefully accepted. Please post in comments if you have one.

Rose: What about New Orleans?
Me: What about New Orleans?
Rose: Is it very far away if you fly in a plane?
Me: Not very far.
Rose: Can we go after African Dance Class today?
Me: Um… probably not.

This is super-tempting to me, I’ve been trying to figure out a time what we can go visit Luke, Jackie, and Oscar in New Orleans. Rose won’t let me off the hook, as she’s asked me several times a week since Christmas (when they were here) when we would be going. Unfortunately, MPS spring break is different than UWM spring break, and I might be at a conference in Atlanta over MPS spring break anyway, so any trips mean I’ll be pulling the kids out of school for a few days. Doesn’t look like Charles will be able to get off work until August, so I’ll also be going solo.

(For those of you who wonder why I don’t wait until the kids (and my) summer vacation from school, I will just point out that you’ve likely never been to New Orleans in May, when it is approaching excruciatingly hot, and I can’t even imagine what July is like.)

For a minute I looked at the kids having a long weekend next weekend and thought, maybe we could go then. And then I remembered Mardi Gras and realized that was probably not the best idea ever…

This evening, D says, “Mom, do you know that some people feel they are here on Earth to accomplish a really important purpose?” And I say that I have heard that before. “I think I am one of those people, mom, I think I am going to solve a big problem sometime.”

I ask him if he’s got any ideas about what specific problem, and he tells me he’s kind of frustrated because he hasn’t discovered the problem yet. I tell him he’s got plenty of time to figure it out.

Then he says, “Not to bring up death, but I dreamed that I am going to die fighting for something really important.” I tell him that as long as he’s 85 or older, that’s fine with me. “I might have to be a soldier though, mom, and I know you won’t like that.”

I tell him that there’s nothing bad about being a soldier except that you have to fight wars and that is pretty dangerous. He tells me, “But if you live, you have lots of honor… Actually, if you die you have honor too, but unfortunately you are dead.” I agree with his statement. “Though, I don’t think I would be the best soldier because I don’t really like to hurt people or look at blood or stuff like that.”

I ask him why he’s thinking about all this stuff. He says, “I don’t know why, mom! These things just pop into my head. Can we play Madagascar carts?”

And we do.

This morning, on my third trip into D’s room to wake him, I stand in front of his bed and say “GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!” Then, the dog, Django, jumps onto D’s bed and sits, head cocked, between me and D. I suggest to D that Django is saying that I should let him sleep.

D whispers something inaudible, and then I ask him to say it again when I have leaned in to hear. He whispers, “Why not listen to Django for once?”

In fact, the Tooth Fairy forgot our house last night and it caused a great deal of concern. The idea that Charles put forth was that perhaps the T.F. was really busy or maybe she doesn’t work Mondays.

On the way home today Dillon was trying to calculate how many teeth a tooth fairy has to collect in a night, assuming a U.S. Population estimate that I provided that perhaps there were 300 million people in the country, and maybe 50 million of them were kids who were in the teeth-losing demographic. Then we talk about how often he loses a tooth, and he estimates about one per month, but I think it’s probably more like one every other month. So that makes 25 million kids lose a tooth this month, divided by thirty for who lost a tooth yesterday… And I am totally beyond the math I can do in my head in the car while I am driving, and so I distract him by saying that it’s definitely more than 100,000 kids and ask what he did at school today.

When we get home he and Rose go to his room and I am not really sure what’s happening until Rose comes out with $5. Apparently, Dillon was concerned about her lack of savings and decided to give her something to start out with. When I got wind of what was happening I asked her to return the money and reminded them that we had just calculated what we owed them in allowance money since the kids haven’t collected it (pretty much ever) I had them figure out the parents’ debt from January 1st on…

So then they disappear again and Rose comes back, saying she never got money from the tooth fairy. Which is true. She’s never brought a tooth home. At least two of them I am positive that she swallowed in a bagel. (I know, totally gross.) So D helps her write a note, explaining to the tooth fairy “YOU OWE ME FOR FOUR TEETH THAT I ATE” in 6-year-old handwriting… I guess they figured since the TF was already coming to the house tonight she’d better settle old debts.