As a parent who is also still a person, I’m very conscious of people not necessarily wanting to hear my cute kid stories.  In fact, the only person I tell them to no-holds-barred is my husband who is actually (coincidentally) also the father of my (at times) cute kid.

I was at lunch with my friend Lizzie a few weeks ago and she told me a story about her nephew. Usually these are even worse than parent’s stories —more along the line of grandparent’s stories or the inane Metropolitan Diary stories –often told in a “kid voice.”  And you feel compelled to respond with a chuckle, shaking your head, “Out of the mouths of babes!” Or worse, they are stories that the party telling is unaware show them in a creepy light, (“After I locked him in the closet for an hour he said, Mommy, I’m not a coat!”) Or they can be gross or too personal. I know you know what I’m talking about.  But Lizzie’s story was really cute and explained in a charming way.  It was simple and fast and told while we were getting up from lunch in a throwaway time-slot. Perfect. In fact, it came back to me later that night and I smiled. I told her that and she said, “I know, I am anti-cute kids stories and curate mine rigorously!”

Now, cute dog stories, on the other hand, bring ’em on!

You’re all going to get a nice break from me plugging my book until after the holidays when I will start beating you over the head with news of the release of my paperback.

I just came from a holiday performance by Violet’s kindergarten class where they did such wintertime classics as Alligators All Around, This Land is Your Land, and The Chicken Dance (in Italian!) It was painfully cute.

We had kind of a hard time getting going this morning because she insisted on wearing a red velvet dress from 2 years ago–we had to do a whole Scarlett O’Hara thing of squeezing her into it, but she triumphed! And the boy in her class who she loves deeply complimented her on it first thing so her instincts were correct. I can’t believe we’re in this already. She talks about this boy all the time and has these elaborate ideas that they are going to have a playdate that will involve acting out the part in Sleeping Beauty where Aurora is sleeping and Prince Phillip kissing her awake… Oy.

She came home yesterday looking like Sally Van Pelt with a cloud of hearts around her because of this: she was in the auditorium and “a boy in a yellow shirt and a new hair-cut [our prince] came up behind her and said, ‘Excuse me, excuse me…'” And the reason he was saying excuse me? Violet was in his way. “Isn’t he the cutest thing?”

I haven’t posted in a while because it’s been wicked busy. I have a new foster — a ten year old with a mess of issues (fatty masses, rotten teeth, bald spots, warts). She’s been sad and not eating. I told her she should be happy because this is a top adult living facility. So far, she just sleeps a lot. Poor girl was dumped in a shelter in Brooklyn by some heathens.

In other news, Violet starts kindergarten next week. She has to wear a uniform of light blue shirt and navy blue jumper. In case you haven’t sensed it, neither of those colors are pink. We are hoping to get a reprieve from the Governer.

Here’s the old girl, we’re calling her Dahlia (Paul calls her the Black Dahlia after the gruesomely murdered LA call girl — I looked her up on wikipedia and she had bad teeth, too.)

For the past week my niece Pixie has been in town –she’s my brother Matt’s 3 year old daughter. She and Violet have been hanging out; they’re crazy about each other — pretending to be sisters. My mother got them matching dresses that they wear together everyday, even though they’re kind of filthy and tired looking. Violet is pretty big for her age and Pixie is rather small, but Pixie calls all the shots. Violet is so compliant with Pixie; she’s not like that with anyone else. And little Pixie has kind of a gruff young-Tatum O’Neill in Paper Moon voice.

Today at the playground they kind of reminded me of George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men. (I know, I know Violet is a genius, it was just a thought…)

We don’t know if we’re keeping Sherlock yet. He and Bea are still fighting and he’s taken to occasionally peeing on places that are in our house (like the bed), yet he’s so cute and of course, fat, which I love. Of all the dogs he reminds me the most of Otto and Violet really wants to keep him but she wishes he’d stop barking so much. The other thing she told me this morning is that after this year (Pre-K) she’s not going to school anymore, definitely not Kindergarten regardless of how enthusiastically her teacher tries to portray it. She knows it’s the beginning of the end, because she asked me what comes after that? And I had to admit, 1st grade. And then, is that it? She wanted to know. No, I said, 2nd grade. She nodded in that knowing way she has… no more questions, your honor.

As I’ve said before, Violet can’t get enough of them Disney princesses. We now have every Disney princess product that has ever been conceived (including the Disney Princess conception kit, complete with Disney Princess Ovulation predictor).

But I digress. Violet has never watched a single Disney princess movie. Why? Because she doesn’t like the villains (who are pretty straight across the board old, ugly women). Anyway, our most recent acquisition is a box set of Disney Princess books called The Friendship Box (we got it on a trip to Costco, thank you Mattie). The books are all the Disney Princess stories sans any of the bad news. It’s just happy and good. Cinderella ends when she gets her dress from her friends, the animals, the mean stepsisters never rip it off her; Little Mermaid ends when she gets back to the concert before she gets yelled at, Snow White isn’t sent in the woods to be killed, she’s just sent to “live with the Dwarves” and then she meets the prince (no poison apple). Isn’t that great? Why didn’t Walt think of that? Then they really could’ve had a franchise!

I had my parent teacher conference with Violet’s teachers yesterday. It turns out she is unbelievably gifted in the alphabet recognition department and various other areas. The other outstanding comment was that Violet has an excellent sense of humor –the teachers said when they make jokes to each other, none of the other kids react but Violet cracks up. I knew what it meant to kvell. My work has not been in vain.