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Parenting

 I often think about the word "housekeeping" -- how it's not "house-improving," "house-reinventing."


"Housekeeping" means that entropy is all around us. If you continuously pick up after small children, then you get to *keep* your house. Nothing actually gets better; it's just that the house still sort of resembles a house, if you are tireless and vigilant.

Sometimes, I feel that I'm in a psychiatric hospital, because I spend my day talking to stuffed animals: Miss Bunny, Big Bear, and a large cat called Stephen Sondheim. Recently, my husband brought a plush lion back from a work trip, and he didn't even pretend to hand it to the kids; he gave it directly to me, and he said, "The name is Fuddle Wuddle."

When Marc and I had a difficult school phone call, Marc said, without smirking, "I'd like to hold Fuddle Wuddle throughout this negotiation."

What a shock to discover that FAO Schwarz has risen from the dead--and how odd that I found myself in the "galleries" last week. Marc reached out toward a life-sized stuffed giraffe. "It's only $1200," he said....Somehow, we escaped only with a Simba doll and a handful of freeze-dried Skittles candies. But I sense that this chapter of my life is not yet over.

However, that's all for now; I need to go and resolve a dispute between my daughter and Mr. Elephant.
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