I spent an hour of my morning arguing with my three year old over a photo of a rodent. She said "hamster" and I said "gerbil." And then we kept going just like that, back and forth, with occasional high pitched screams (hers) and swigs of coffee (mine) thrown in for good measure.

I haven't quite managed to dismount from my high horse yet, but I am so, so grateful that the older two were back in school today. I would have taken the time to do something fantastic, but there was a rodent to argue over, and blogkeeping duties to attend to, bills to pay and laundry.

I'm thinking that the whole family needs to wear disposable paper clothing. It isn't very enviromentally friendly, but the laundy, she does not accumulate. Ooh! Or maybe some of those plastic clean room suits! Yes.

I recall what my blue, plastic, Disneyland-issue rain poncho did to my chubby head and pretty much, plastic hoods are an unkind look for me. So maybe not.

Anyway. I did some laundry, washing from the pile on the floor, and heaping the clean clothes into another pile on the bed. Sigh. I'm just shifting piles, people. I'm just shifting piles.

I fetched the older kids from school in a downpour, and returned home to find that I've managed to forget that my sister is returning from Mexico today and I'll need to pick her up at the airporter late tonight. Whoops. Mercifully, my mom called with the updated flight info, so I'm not going to be shocked at 10:00 when my phone rings.

I bet my sister is tan and rested. I'll be more than a little jealous while I'm driving her home tonight.

The last few weeks, it feels like I'm an overambitious juggler. In my moments of health and energy, I've been seizing anything that's not nailed down, and tossing it aloft. Things pass in and out of my hands, sometimes easily leaving my palm, and sometimes needing a little extra bicep to get them airborne again.

I'm pretty good at judging things, and although I'm known to drop a ball now and again, I'm still taking bites out of the apple as it goes around and around. I've dribbled a bit of juice down my front, do you see? I'm telling you. Paper clothing. It would save me a lot of laundry.

One of the clubs smacked me extra hard today, and I tossed it away again, hand stinging. I screamed "ow!" at it, and threw it hot potato style, back into the air. I don't think that will help matters. Who knows? Next time it might knock me cold.

In other circus news, my detail-obsessed six year old has lost both her front teeth. Oh, the wide-open real estate in that kid's mouth is making me swoon. It's so funny and cute. I'll post pictures later on.

**edited to add**

The tooth fairy brought her a silver dollar for one of the front teeth right before Christmas. Last night, the tooth fairy panicked again, and *gasp* re-used a golden dollar from a previous tooth fairy visit. She was in a pinch, and the golden dollars are kept in a ceramic piggie bank, no way to see them, right?

So the tooth fairy borrowed a coin, and took the tooth (and added it to the jewelry box) and this morning, my girl says "Hey! This is a coin I got before! See this smudge? This was from my third tooth. Why did the tooth fairy use the same coin?"

Color me flabbergasted. I'm sputttering something about "oh, honey, no really, that must be a different coin" and she DEMANDS TO SEE ALL HER OTHER COINS.

MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEP

Red. Freakin. Alert.

How could I weasel my way out of this one? I sent her to fetch a baggie, to hold the coins from the bank, and then I made a mad dash for some leftover gelt from the holidays. I grabbed a sack of golden coins and threw them under her bed right as she returned. I sat there all sweaty and out of breath and said "So, uh, hmm. I was, uh, looking at your coins the other day, and maybe I, uh, just dropped that one on your bed. You know. Maybe. And, maybe, when the tooth fairy came, you turned over really quick, right after she grabbed your tooth, and so she sort of dropped your coin, and it bounced off the bed? Or something like that? Should we look under your bed?"

She had the look on her face. The look of "oh my GOD, Mom, puh-LEASE" while I was flapping and gesturing and pointing, but her eyes widened and she cracked a big, toothless grin when we unearthed the bag of golden chocolate coins.

Saved! The! Day! We are still bee-lee-vaaaaahs!

That was a close one. I almost lost my b.s. license with that one.