Leanna Kay

Lately Lauren has become obsessed with her Barbies. Considering she’s eight, I’ve been encouraging her obsession. In this day and age where kids grow up quicker than they should, I’d rather have her role playing Barbies’ wedding a hundred times a day than playing Spin the Bottle with the boys in her second grade classroom.

Because Lauren doesn’t have any sisters, I am her designated Barbie playmate. Playing Barbies is actually one of the most challenging jobs I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something considering I once worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken where my shoes would get so covered with grease I’d have to leave them outside when I got home to keep the mess off my parent’s carpeting. Except there was this one time when a raccoon took off with one of the grease-covered shoes and I wasn’t fast enough to chase the varmint down. So I had to go to work the next day in non-regulation footwear and explain to the boss that my shoe was supper for a down-and-out woodland creature.

But that’s a different story.

Compared to Barbies, selling chicken was an easy job. With Barbies, you have to use a different voice with each doll you’re bringing to life. Not only that, but you have to remember to use the exact same voice, down to whatever weird accent you’ve chosen with each unique doll. Quite a task considering Lauren has a few hundred Barbies (I exaggerate only minimally).

Get it wrong, and you quickly hear:

“Mom, she doesn’t have that squeaky of a voice.”

“No, Mom. That’s the way the dumb Barbie sounds, not the Barbie whose sister’s cousin is a famous rock star..”

“Mom, don’t do that silly voice. No one sounds that stupid.”

We played Barbies for about two hours today. At the end of the marathon session, I felt as though I’d performed a one-woman Broadway show. I was ready to collapse as we put the dolls away. I tossed my designated Barbies in the general direction of the dollhouse much to Lauren’s dismay.

“Mom, that’s not where Susie goes. Susie sleeps in the top floor of the Barbie mansion.”

Apparently Stephanie stands in the shower. Margaret reclines on the couch. Jackson sits at the kitchen table. And so on and so on. She took ten minutes placing each Barbie in his or her special spot. I’m not sure what would have happened if the Barbies had just been flung into the house like I’d suggested. Barbie anarchy apparently.

Bob has been traveling again recently for work. When the kids were little, I would practically wrap my arms around his legs to prevent him from leaving me with three helpless beings all still in diapers. Invariably the minute he’d walk out the door, the kids would develop pneumonia or start projectile vomiting.

But the kids got older and lost their ability to coordinate the spewing of their bodily functions. So now I let Bob out the door without the usual histrionics and downright begging.

A few weeks ago, Bob spent most of the week in Canada. As a treat for the kids while he was away, I let them each plan a meal with anything they wanted. Well, not anything. After I got their menus consisting of cotton candy, ice cream and jelly beans, I made it clear that the meal had to include something with nutritional value. And no, even though some jelly beans are green, they don’t count as a vegetable.
 
Chris was particularly interested in making the meal of his dreams. He spent hours thinking about what he wanted and writing out a detailed menu. After all the planning, I was sure the kid would want something complicated. Nope. He requested hot ham and cheese sandwiches, corn, green beans and peaches. I thought this was easy enough until we sat down to eat.

“Mom, the ham’s supposed to be the thick cut. Not slices.” The critique started the minute the he peeked under the bun. “And the bun is cold. It should be warm.”

“Where are these rules coming from?” I asked. Nothing in my Betty Crocker cookbook said anything about warm buns.

“That’s the way they make them at school.”

School? The kid was given the option to eat anything in the world he wanted. Had my mom ever been stupid enough to say that to me, I would have had lobster flow in from Maine and chocolate cake ordered in from a Swiss bakery.

My kid? He wants me to precisely duplicate the school cafeteria menu. What does that say about my cooking when my children are begging me to cook more like the school lunch lady?