File under “It was supposed to be a compliment”:

Flora: Mama! Look at this picture I took of you, it’s really, really great!

Jane: Wow… that is actually a really good picture of me. Except for my tired, puffy eyes…

Flora: But your eyes always look like that, Mom.

And we both look at the picture for a while. And then she looks at me. And back at the picture. And at me. And:

Flora: Wow. Imagine how beautiful you’d be, Mom, if you weren’t tired.

It’ll happen. It’ll happen soon, I know. There was this one day last week…

File under “Please, add insult to injury”:

Ender: I do not want to hold your hand! You wash my bum with your hands, and they smell BAD!

Sob.

In possibly related news, if I wash and moisturize my hands any more, I might be diagnosed as having emergent OCD. Or something like that…

And finally, to everyone who contributed to “I Just Want To Pee Alone,” and in particular the brain trust behind the title:

Jane: I don’t care! Go whizz off the balcony! Take a dump in the yard like the dog! Water the neighbour’s tree! I don’t give a flying fuck what you do, just let me have the bathroom to myself for fiiiiiiiiive minutes!

Cinder: Geez, what’s up with Mom?

Flora: I think she wants some privacy.

Ender: Does she want to be alone together with me? Mama? Do you miss me already? I’m right here!

It’s good to be loved. Right?

♥

A self-indulgent moment to chastize the blogosphere: I can’t believe you all sided with Flora on the pink hair. What’s wrong with you people? Good thing I didn’t say I was going with majority vote. (Although I did sort of promise Jenn at Something Clever to go pink, didn’t I… Oops.)

Today, the hair looks like this:

And that’s its boring au naturel shade, with a rather frightening amount of grey-white replacing the platinum blonde. I’m trying to love it. I don’t even mind the grey-white, not really. The boring brown, however, is just not doing it.

Stay tuned.