Don't try this at home.

Louie is a masterful teacher and avid experimenter. What we have discovered together:

1. Spaghetti-O's are an ineffective cellulite cream. Whether because he doesn't have cellulite on his thighs or because Franco-American is short on the ingredients remains undetermined.

2. Fifteen-month-olds do not digest green food coloring. It passes right through to the diaper and will cause Daddy to metaphorically do the same, making Mom laugh too hard to explain. The results resemble green tempera paint, but don't stain.

3. Removal of either nostril-clogging green nose goblins or mostrous earwax potatoes results in screaming akin to Egyptian brain treatment before demise. I think he's sure I'm going after his brain.

4. Dishwashing bubbles, while entertaining, are not a filling snack food.

5. An eight-year-old dog can be very patient and gentle when it comes to stealing chocolate chip cookies.

Every now and again, I glimpse it.

I have a friend who has recently re-started attending Mass. I'm pretty sure he grew up Catholic but because of circumstances about marriage he and his wife went and were wed elsewhere. Now his kids are old enough to start asking questions and he doesn't have answers. Being the kind of person I am, I invited him to our parish and he's started coming--three or four weeks running now. He'd looked closer to home but the times didn't work out, they didn't have anything for the kids, such as that.

So it's occurred to me to look at Mass, the Catholic faith, faith in God in general through the eyes of his children. And it's bizarre to think about, not to put too fine a point on it. It is fantastic and incredible, and I don't mean those as superlatives for "good." It is like a dream, impossible to believe.

The idea that a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent Being should put on flesh to bring me closer to Him. To decide to endure birth (which I've read isn't any more pleasant for the baby than the mother--think about it), hunger, thirst, cold, heat, uncomfortable shoes, and itchy clothes just as a start. Then to choose to go through the Passion--the scourging, crowning with thorns, the ridicule, carrying the cross, the very crucifixion itself. He left Heaven to do all that for... me.
And He still comes to me, to all of us, to nourish us every time we attend Mass. Not just our hearts and minds with His Word, but physically and tangibly as Food.

My husband asked me why I was a little wet-eyed at Mass this week. It's a wonder I wasn't sobbing in the pew.

Whoda thunk...

that dolphins are kufr?

Today's Hilaire Belloc quote

"What the oustanding truth which this opponent of mine had not perceived was, that between himself and a Congregationalist there was not enough difference to make education in common an anomaly or an injustice, let alone unworkable. If you were a Congregationalist rich enough to get private education for your son, you would not be horrified at the proposal to have a Baptist tutor for him; nor if you were a Baptist would you be horrified by the idea of a Congregationalist tutor, but you certainly would be startled in either case at a proposal that you should get a Catholic priest to come in and put the lad through his Latin."
The Schools, Essays of a Catholic, Macmillan 1931, TAN 1992.

So am I an elitist snob or dumbed down?

You can't answer "that's redundant."

DIA is hosting a Norman Rockwell exhibit. I really want to see it and we have plans to go and take the kids. My mom is coming; she's never been to the DIA, but she's coming for this. We've even gotten a kids' book on Rockwell to help them get something out of it. I compare Rockwell's stuff to Robert Frost's poetry--I get it. I don't need footnotes or interpretations to explain it to me. Even Wilfred Owen's stuff I sometimes need to look up, but not Frost or Rockwell. So I like it.
I remember seeing it on the back cover of Reader's Digest growing up. I was so proud when I recognized one of his works (the triple self-portrait) on the wall of a local restaurant.

In reading the write-up from the head curator/guy in charge of the DIA, one could feel his surprise at his own pleasure in hosting the show. He was just some syrupy, popular-culture illustrator; not an Artist. Right. He did a couple hundred covers for the Saturday Evening Post and made his living from it, that's all. A decade or two or more ago, Rockwell stood as much chance of a real art museum showing his stuff as your average third-grader. It wasn't considered art.

So why is it considered art now? I've railed against the dumbing down of our culture; is Rockwell's popularity a symptom of this? Or is it a recognition of art outside what the Elitist Snobs Who Know Better Than the Unwashed Masses? I mean, Vincent van Gogh sold a single painting during his lifetime and now they're worth millions. What happened with Vincent, and did the same thing happen in the art community with Rockwell?

These are the questions I think about while I'm washing dishes and pairing socks. You didn't think it took that much out of me, did you?

I have it on good authority...

that mud tastes better than Play-Doh. Given the one Lou keeps trying to eat and the one he quit after one try, that is.

Do they make toddler-size Hannibal Lecter masks?

Good thing she's cute.

While looking right at the baking tray covered in fish sticks, she asks, "What are we having for dinner, Mama?"
Lasagna, dear.

When asked to choose her bedtime story and brush her teeth, she pipes up with, "I do everything you say, Mama!"
Really? Since when?

"That's how you spell Charybdis, Daddy."
And she's right.

Is this a first?

Madonna is told "no."

Let me state that I admire the judge's courage. It takes stones to deny the kind of money Madonna has, her legions of aging devotees, etc. But he did it. Good on him.

On the other hand, I don't wish deprivation of any kind on any child in the world, whether from Malawi, Sudan, Vietnam, China or the United States. But if Madonna feels the need to adopt a four-year-old child with troubles, there are thousands--literally THOUSANDS-- here in the United States (hundreds in the Material Girl's home state alone) that won't involve passports and international flights. They would benefit even more from the best therapy money can buy, which she could put at their disposal.
If mere mortals--not million dollar celebrities--have the generosity to do this, why can't she find it in her fifty-year-old soul?

I knew there was some reason I liked Cyndi Lauper better, even 20 years ago.

Remember, he's brilliant.

Did he just send some congressional clerk to the mall? I mean, come on. And even I know to watch for this problem; maybe it's because I majored in French, though. Some "poli-sci, why try?" major might not have a clue.
UPDATE 4/2/09--It gets worse.

I could excuse my mother for not knowing this, as she's both a convert (yeah, back in '64, but still--I cut her some slack) and non-Mexican. I know Hillary isn't Catholic or Mexican either, but she's the bleedin' Secretary of State.

Somebody needs new protocol staff. Hey, I know!

Did you know...

that if you mix mashed grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup with Italian diced tomatoes, and whole milk it looks suspiciously like vomit?

It doesn't smell nearly as bad, though. And it cleans up more easily, too.