Make Someone Happy

Sometimes, very small things can make the whole day brighter. Take this, for example:

These belong to my baby; my itty bitty baby who has never had her fingernails painted before. How I managed to neglect this critical aspect of girlie parenting, I know not. My older daughter was begging for full manicures on a weekly basis at this age. I can only say in my own defense that my brain just ain't what it used to be, full stop.I can no longer remember what I did with everyone in their toddlerhood (though I'm pretty sure I didn't do my son's nails more than once).

But yesterday, the little lightbulb went off in my head -- nail polish! We raced upstairs, Baby giggling the whole way in the same tone she uses when she's discovered the sugar bowl is unsupervised. We sat right down in Mommy's bathroom and had us a little spa moment.

The sun came out, the angels sang, and I am back in the running for Mother of the Year.

Death by Candy

See these cute faces?

Don't be fooled. They're addicts -- all three of them. They'll do absolutely anything for a hit. They're slaves to the sugar-god.

The little one is the worst.

We spent the weekend after Halloween in a crazed candy orgy the likes of which have seldom been seen outside of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Even Mom and Dad dipped a little heavily into the sugar sauce, but eventually our poor, overloaded, elderly pancreases just said "Enough!" and we quit to seek other, more nourishing food.

But the little ones, oh the little ones...

They're pancreases (pancrei?) are young and strong and they knew no limits. When the boy lay groaning in pain, muttering "Mom, why does my tummy hurt?" and his mother lovingly answered, "Too much candy, son," he shook his head in disbelief -- that couldn't be it. Yeesh, Mom, get a clue. By Sunday evening, the baby actually refused dinner and crawled around seeing what sugar she could glean from the floor. We gave up trying to make her eat and just fed her M&Ms until bedtime.

But here's the great part. The candy is now gone.

Candy. Gone.

And no, in case you're wondering, they didn't actually manage to eat all of it. That would fall under the heading of child cruelty, to allow 3 children to consume 9 pounds of candy in 2 days. NINE POUNDS. I know, I weighed it.

I have only a hazy recollection of how much candy I brought home on Halloween, but I know it never lasted very long, no matter how zealously I hoarded it. And I have a very clear, sharp memory of people handing me one piece of candy at each house -- even the houses that had the holy grail of Halloween, Pixy Stix. Remember these babies? Just a li'l tube of sugar. Wish I'd thought of that.But seriously, these are record hauls my kids are bringing in -- if I could figure out a way to preserve it all until next year, I could easily forgo buying candy to hand out and my kids would still be able to eat themselves sick on the remains.

Anyway, Daddy took the last of the candy to work so that people there can have fat tushies and cavities, too. And really, the kids don't seem that upset about it, although the baby is still on a half-hearted hunger strike because she just knows there are chocolate chips in the house somewhere. The other two asked me briefly whether the candy was, in fact, gone this morning and when I said yes, they nodded sagely and went back to writing on themselves with magic marker.

And hey, in the absence of candy, they can always go back to sniffing pumpkins.