Leanna Kay

There must be something in the water my children are drinking. Something like acid or maybe excessive sugar. Something that’s making the kids’ teeth fall out. They’re losing them almost hourly.

The tooth fairy has been to our house three consecutive nights. Chris lost two teeth and Lauren lost her very first one. The tooth fairy is going to have to get a paying job.

Lauren was comparing notes on the school bus about the going rate for the tooth fairy. She got five dollars because it was her first tooth. After that, it’ll just be a dollar. Why? Because between the three kids, that’s a boatload of teeth.

Well according to Lauren, Hunter somebody’s tooth fairy gave him ONE HUNDRED dollars. Are they kidding? A hundred dollars for a tooth? I’d be willing to part with a few of mine for that kind of loot.

The only explanation I have is that Hunter somebody’s parents were so rip roaring drunk the night the tooth fairy came that they confused a George Washington for a Ben Franklin. Or else they’re just stupid. Or maybe they got caught up in the excitement of the first lost tooth and forgot that kids have a zillion baby teeth and they start falling out like leaves on a dead tree.

So to Hunter somebody’s parents, I have something to say. Stick with the presidential dollars. But if you decide to keep giving out those hundreds, send me a mapquest to your house. I have a pillow with my name on it and my eyes on a new leather purse.

So the tooth fairy forgot to fly by our house and pick up Chris’s lost tooth. I wish I could say it was because she was passed out after a drunken night of hot sex with her husband. After being married for fourteen years, that’s just wishful thinking. The truth of the matter? The tooth fairy fell asleep watching t.v.

The next morning, the forgetful woman woke up to sobbing.

CHRIS: (running into our bedroom carrying his tooth). The tooth fairy didn’t come!

Even though I was half asleep, I could detect the worry in his teary voice. What next? SANTA CLAUS?!!

ME: She didn’t?

I glanced at Bob hoping for some help out the situation. After all, he’s just as forgetful of a tooth fairy as me. He just shrugged.

ME: I bet she was just busy. It’s probably because our last name starts with W. She probably just didn’t get here yet because she goes alphabetically.

BOB: Yeah, Chris. Think about the poor Zimmerman children.

Chris ran back to put his tooth back under the pillow with assurances that the tardy tooth fairy would arrive.

And she did while the kids and I were eating breakfast and Bob was in the shower. She swooped in, knocked over a stool and off she flew. We didn’t see her, but we sure did hear her. And Chris was thrilled. Because how many kids actually get to hear the tooth fairy?

So we’re not forgetful parents whose inattention will someday result in our kids needing therapy. Nooo. We’re the kind of considerate parents who give their kids something to brag about at school.

I just read about an Indiana man who is suing McDonald’s for putting cheese on his Quarter Pounder because he specifically instructed the McDonalds’ workers to hold the cheese on account of his milk allergy. After biting into the burger, he discovered that his ‘hold the cheese’ request had not been honored, prompting an allergic reaction which sent him to the hospital.

Let me get this straight. You’re so allergic to cheese that one bite will send you rushing to the ER. Yet you fully entrust your life to the minimum wage worker at McDonald’s who took your order through a garbled drive-through intercom system? And it never once occurred to you to lift the bun before taking a bite just to make sure there was no life threatening cheese lurking beneath the innocent looking sesame seed surface?

Give me a break.

And it gets better. The cheese allergic idiot was driven to the hospital by his ‘friend’ who’d visited McDonalds with him. I use the term ‘friend’ loosely because in my book, true friendship means you protect your buddies. The ‘friend’ should have knocked the cheese allergic idiot in the arm as he opened his mouth to take a bite of the death burger and said, “Hey, doofus. Aren’t you going to check under the bun for deadly substances?”

At least that’s what I would have done because I’m a truly caring person. But that’s just me.

At any rate, the friend is suing McDonald’s too. Apparently he was so traumatized by his buddy’s injuries that only a million dollars or so will make him feel better.

Actually this whole story has made me feel a little bad too. I think McDonald’s should pony up a few bucks for poor me. Hey, I’d even settle for a free order of french fries. But that’s just me.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that Lauren’s greatest anxiety is the fact that she, and she alone, has a bedroom to herself. The boys have each other and of course mommy and daddy share a room. Apparently a girl needs a companion to help chase away the darkness of the night. So Lauren has become convinced that she needs a sister.

ME: “A sister, huh? Honey, Mommy’s too old to have more babies.”

(Technically the too old part isn’t true as my eggs probably aren’t all shriveled yet. But considering Lauren thinks I’m older than Methuselah, it was an easy answer.)

LAUREN: “I know you’re old Mommy. Besides I don’t want a baby. I want a sister my age.”

ME: “I can’t magically produce you a six-year-old twin.”

LAUREN: “We could buy one off the internet like you do paper and pens for your office.”

I explained that this plan wasn’t going to work, and no, WalMart doesn’t sell sisters either. So Lauren came up with another scheme. She marched off and got a piece of paper, cut it in a long strip and colored it.

LAUREN: “Here, Mommy. It’s a magic wand. Now you can magically make me a sister and it won’t even cost any money.”

She explained her parameters. The sister had to be six. She had to be nice. She had to like playing the same stuff as Lauren. And she could by no means touch any of Lauren’s stuff (including Mommy) without Lauren’s permission.

Believe it or not, no amount of wand waving and ‘bippity boppity boos’ produced a perfect sister. We couldn’t even make the thing conjure up something simple … like a chocolate chip cookie. Lauren added more pink and purple coloring to the reverse side of the paper wand and still nothing. Nada. Zipperooney.

Stupid wand.

So Lauren stomped off to fight (uh, I mean play) with her brothers who themselves were arguing over who had the biggest piece of sidewalk chalk. It’s the end of the summer and no amount of ‘bippity boppity booing’ can make them play nice.

Luckily I have a magical fix coming really soon. It’s called the school bus and with a bippity boppity boo, the all-day fight fest will stop. Now that’s magic!

We recently laid to rest my 86-year-old maternal grandmother. My grandmother had nine children, twenty-three grandchildren and twenty-eight great grandchildren. So if anyone deserves eternal rest, it would be her.

This is a woman who lived through the Depression and raised nine kids. None of whom went on to commit mass murder or join the Taliban, so we’ll declare her efforts a success. My grandmother raised these kids in a time when there was no Nintendo, no Spongebob and no kids’ computer sites.

I don’t know what they did for fun, but I think it mostly involved string, rocks and sticks. By the way, all nine kids still have all of their eyeballs and their arms and legs. My grandmother must have done something right.

This woman could turn one chicken into a meal for a family of eleven people. As I watch my two sons gobble down meat like it’s candy handed out at a parade, I have to think it took a bit of magic to create meals on such a tight budget. During a visit a few years ago, Grandma clued me in on a bit of her secret magic. When she cooked green beans, she seasoned them with ham bouillon instead of ham because “ham costs too much.” It was tricks like this that allowed her to work her magic.

My grandma knew very few luxuries. But she learned to be happy with very little. My mom took my grandma shopping a few years ago to a thrift store. These two women bought so many bags of clothes, shoes and handbags that the owners probably renamed the store in their honor.

My grandma was so thrilled with her bargains that she couldn’t wait to show them off. “Look at these shoes, Leanna,” she bragged as she showed me a pair of loafers. “Not a mark on them and I got the pair for just fifty cents!” When she showed me the matching handbag, she almost became giddy with happiness.

When you read the obituaries, you won’t find my grandma’s name in the New York Times. You won’t read that she was the first woman President or that she flew to the moon. You won’t read that she headed up a march for Women’s rights or that she was arrested for chaining herself to a tank in a war protest. If you happen to come across the obituary, it will probably just list that she is survived by her nine children, twenty-three grandchildren and twenty-eight great grandchildren.

Read between the lines and you’ll note that my grandma did her job right. None of us are on the FBI’s most wanted list. We don’t steal candy from babies. For the most part, we eat our vegetables and clean our plates in deference to the starving children in China. And for that and much more, we can thank Grandma.

May she rest in peace.

It’s almost the end of a long summer. The kids and I have had almost seventy-five days of togetherness. My kids would defend their siblings to their dying breath. They have a strong bond of love, but right now they don’t even like each other enough to share the last chocolate iced donut. And don’t even get me started on who gets to pick the tv shows or flavor of ice cream.

I’ve seen these kids make up elaborate treaties on who gets to play what game and for how long so that they play peacefully. Right now, they absolutely cannot figure out how to share a box of crayons. I bought the NINETY-SIX pack. That’s thirty-two crayons each and yet all three of them *need* the red AT THE SAME TIME.

I know this is typical kid behavior. The summer is fun until about August when the intense heat frays already raw nerves (mine included) and boredom sets in.

So now we have a countdown going. Only eight days until the start of school. I say it with a smile on my face. The kids? Aren’t quite so excited. They’d rather be at home fighting over donuts and crayons.

My husband works at a casket company. I know, I know, he has the worst job in the world. Luckily he’s married to me so his happiness scale tips in the right direction. (Life with me is pure bliss. Just see my post from June 26^th.)

In the years Bob has worked in the casket industry, we’ve seen some bizarre casket freebies. Until today, the one which stood out most in my mind was the mini casket paperweight all the employees received one year in lieu of a real Christmas bonus.

What better way to perk up the employees than to have them place on their desks a constant reminder of DEATH. What’s next? Framed portraits of the Grim Reaper to stare over their shoulders and liven up their workday?

The casket paperweights were bad. The freebie Bob brought home today was even worse. It’s chocolate molded into the shape of a casket. Edible death. Yeah, like I’m eating THAT while staring at my casket paperweight with the Grim Reaper looking on in gleeful anticipation.

The casket chocolate bar has bad idea written all over it.

To be fair, I guess it probably is hard to market a product that no one wants to buy. I’m envisioning the marketing meeting went something like this:

RECENTLY FIRED AD EXEC #1:

Well the paperweights didn’t make people want to buy caskets. Now what?

RECENTLY FIRED AD EXEC #2:

We have to get the consumer to associate caskets with something besides death. Something warm and happy. That would make these babies move.

RECENTLY FIRED AD EXEC #1:

Warm and happy? Like kittens?

RECENTLY FIRED AD EXEC #2:

No, you idiot. Like chocolate. Everyone loves chocolate, right? So we make chocolate shaped like caskets. Then when people are picking out Grandpa’s casket, they’re thinking about sweet, delicious chocolate. It’s product association.

RECENTLY FIRED AD EXEC #1:

That’s pure genius! A hundred times better than kittens!

I’m envisioning the ad execs rubbing their hands together in glee as they rushed forward to produce these chocolate caskets.

One problem. People don’t associate death with sweet and delicious. Well, I guess some people do, but those people are called Cannibals and I’m not sure caskets sell well to people who eat their own dead.

One good thing about the chocolate bars. They’re making the paperweights seem like marketing genius.