There's No Such Things as Monsters:

Giuliana's response when I told her Frankenstein wasn't real: "Carolyn, if the Easter Bunny is real then so is Frankenstein!!!" Not sure about her logic, but she spoke with great conviction.

Untitled:

Giuwels begins a sentence to me one morning with the words, "Fifteen years ago when I was four...." She is currently 5.

Giuwels asks me, "You know what's scary?" What? "The house of a nudist!" (She is trying to say The House of Anubis, which is a teen thriller TV show on Nickelodeon that she's seen commercials for, and has scared her half to death.)

Michael runs upstairs wearing socks, gym shorts, no shirt but a thick red flannel jacket, a beanie, and carry an Indiana Jones style whip that he has just discovered in the vast caverns of stuff that fill his room. He spends the next 15 minutes violently whipping the air for the entertainment of me and Vinny (and trying not to accidentally whip himself in the face, which, unfortunately, happens a few times. Michael informs us, "Now you can see why the job of whipping would be dangerous!").

Later, Recycle Boy makes an appearance. Recycle Boy fights pollution, runs in slow motion, and can even levitate--which provides no end of laughter for much of the evening.

One day, while leaving the park, Vinny threw his shoe into someone's backyard. He was trying to knock a pine cone out of a tree for Giuwels, but that didn't happen. We knocked at the front door for a few afternoons, hoping they'd let us go out back and get the shoe. No one was ever home, so finally, Cheryl suggested we jump the fence. Vinny had arrived home that day with a canister of neon yellow slime called "Atomic Goo" which he had made in school. He fitted this into the front of a rolled up old pizza box, and we stormed the backyard with an Atomic Goo Gun! Sadly, the shoe was gone. We left a note on the man's door, and later he called and told me in an exasperated voice that he'd thrown the shoe away and that he found all kinds of stuff thrown into his backyard by kids, and could he really be expected to keep all of it??? I suppose not.

Last Friday, the two fish died. Squirt and Shamu, may the rest in peace. The circumstances of their death are, forgive the pun, fishy. It is believed that Giuliana accidentally killed them by either transferring them into chlorine water or flooding them with Ammo-lock (a solution that, in small amounts, makes tap water safer for them but, in large amounts, may prove fatal). We literally watched the fish die, as they slowly turned on their backs, fought less and less vigorously for life, and eventually sank to the bottom of their tank. Horrified, I changed their water as soon as we realized what was happening, did everything I could think of to save them, but it was too late. I was devastated; took it far worse than the kids did. Vinny said, with the wisdom and resignation of someone much older than 8, "Well, fish don't last forever, Carolyn." Ah, not much lasts forever, but thank God for the few, precious things that do.

Hopefully, we will buy new fish soon.

Late Night Phone Call:

I was sitting in the airport terminal at my gate, waiting for them to finally begin boarding my already delayed red-eye flight to Florida when my phone rings. Receiving a call from Michael. My first thought is that something is wrong--why else would he be calling me? I answer and Michael says, "Carolyn? You haven't left yet? Scotty won American Idol!!"

I've been pulling for Scotty ever since the poor, tasteless people of America voted off Casey. So I was happy to hear the good news. But I was, by far, way happier that Michael--who hates talking on the phone (and will do just about anything to get out of having to make a phone call) had called me of his own initiative.

I hung up thinking, "I am officially family." Not immediate family, of course. Those are sacred boundaries that I would never want to traverse. But family--comfortable-be-yourself-seen-the-best-and-the-worst-of-you family.

I like it.

Something that makes me sad:

Sitting in the Hermosa Beach Dance Studio, watching a mother play around on her iPhone and chat with her friends while the nanny feeds the newborn baby his bottle.

Vinny Saves the Day!

I come into work early Wednesday morning, wake up Vinny first and then Giuliana. While I'm helping Giuwels pick out her clothes for the day, I hear Vinny calling me, "Carolyn! Come here!! I want to show you something!!!" So off I go across the hallway, to see Vinny's latest favorite treasure. He hands me the silver-colored Nordstrom box that his mom recently gave him to play with, and says, with anticipation, "Open it!" By now Giuwels is standing in the room beaming because she is in on the secret. I open it and see the circular tin container for his Mickey Mouse pocket watch. "Open that too!" Vinny commands, and so I pull off the lid, and there, to my extreme astonishment and shock, lying in the small circle of black felt, is my wedding ring. I look at the ring finger on my left hand and notice that it's empty. For the briefest, most stunned moment, I feel like Vinny is proposing to me, and then I remember that I took the ring off yesterday when I was putting on Giuliana's tights for ballet. I didn't want my ring to tear the tights, and then we were in such a hurry to get out the door that I left my ring sitting on Giuliana's dresser! "Vinny! Thank you! You saved my life! Oh my gosh! Thank you! I can never thank you enough!" Vinny and Giuwels are both talking at the same time, trying to tell me how they came about saving my ring. They are both thrilled by how close the ring came to being lost--Giuwels found it in the midst of a crazy stuffed animal-throwing fight between the two of them and said, "Look what I found, Vinny!" When Vinny saw it, he knew right away that it was mine. He then informs me that he tried it on all his fingers while they watched American Idol that night, and then he decided to put it somewhere safe. And that is the story of how I lost my most expensive possession and how Vinny saved the day!

Education:

I love that Giuliana is still so young. I love how she comes upstairs at night in one-piece footed pajamas with her hair wet from the bath. I love that she wants to sit in my lap while we watch American Idol, and I love that she wants to eat peanut butter toast with Cracklin' Oat Bran for dinner. I love walking upstairs and seeing her Pillow Pets dressed in aprons and chef hats having a tea party on the kitchen floor.

One day, after getting dressed, she asks me, "Carolyn, do I look sassy?" I ask her, "Giuwels, what do you think sassy means?" "Fabulous!" she responds.

We are driving in the car one afternoon, running errands, and she pipes up from the backseat, "Evan wants to marry me!" "Oh really? Do you want to marry him?" She shakes her head, "No." "Why not?" Her nose wrinkles as she makes a face and says, "You know how boys fart? Well, he farts a lot!" Trying to keep a straight face, I ask her who she does want to marry, and she tells me, "Vinny. Because he's so funny! But don't tell him."

One night, after going to see Bugsy Malone and eating at Rocky Cola Cafe, we're driving home, and Vinny is reading the signs off the stores we pass. "Party supply store...music supply store..." he calls out as we drive past. On the corner is a lingerie shop with lots of lacy undergarments displayed in the front window, and Giuwels cries out, "Boob supply store!!!"

The family went to church for Cheryl's birthday on Sunday, and on Monday at lunch Giuwels reminds me that we need to pray. I ask her if she would like to pray, and to my amazement she says yes! So we bow our heads and her tremulous little voice begins, "Thank you, God, for our wonderful food and for the fun I have at Ella's house, and for giving....uhh, I forgot what I was going to say...That's all...Amen." And I am sitting in my chair trying not to cry because I've never heard her pray before, and because even though she's probably praying for the first time in her young life, she's actually teaching me how to pray.

Giuliana is learning not to say "Oh my God." She tells me that "Oh my God" is a bad word, and I try to explain why: Because God is a person and we want to say his name kindly because we love him, we don't want to say his name rudely, as if we don't care. She asks, "Carolyn, do you like God?" and I say, "Yes, I love him." She grins and says, "I bet God is smiling right now up in the clouds at you and me!"

And I know in my heart that Giuliana is teaching me about God in a way that all my Torrey books and theological treatises never could. She approaches God without all the baggage of fear and guilt that I've accumulated over the years, and through her childlike faith, I experience the certainty of God's warmth and love, and the assurance that God, yes even God, likes us and is smiling right now at you and at me.

Two Things, Errr...Actually, Three

I painted my nails hot pink, and it's making me so happy!

New obsession? The show HOARDERS on A&E. Intriguing. Disturbing. So horrible you have to watch.

That's all.

Except that I was having a dream this morning in which I was really mad at Sean (I can't remember why), and when his alarm went off, I woke up and punched him really hard!!!