The Park Ranger Comes to Live with the Ants; PLUS Free Parenting Advice!

Readers, I apologize. It's been too long. Really, with twins being so easy (not to mention tweens, they are also so so easy), there is no excuse for the dearth of blog posts. Trust me, there has not been a lack of trying on my part. But many a time did I find myself sitting down at the computer to write something, only to look down and realize it was time to change my shirt again because someone (not gonna mention names) had spit up on me again. And then by the time I got back to the computer, two or three days later, I had forgotten what I was going to say. In fact, I'm not even sure sentences sense that make can write I. And: am I still funny? I'm not sure. I tried telling myself a few knock knock jokes and I did not laugh, just kind of looked at myself oddly, so it could be that my sense of humor, like a good night's sleep, is just a wispy memory.

To make it up to you, I am going to give you, right now, without even any ado, a tried and tested ABA parenting tip. This is something we discovered, of course, by accident, while we were busy trying hard not to parent. (You think laziness is easy???)

"If you wait to teach your kids certain tasks until they are way past the age where they should have learned it already, when people start to look at you askance because your kid doesn't know how to X [= ride a bike, use the toilet, tie shoes], that's a good sign that it will actually take a very short time to teach child how to do that task. In other words: laziness pays off!"

In other news, we are rapidly approaching the end of Donny's paternity leave. This has been a very nice interlude in our lives in which there were two parents at home with two babies + three kids. Soon Donny returns to work and there will be one parent at home with two babies + three kids, which if you do the math - let's see, divide that, carry the one, parenthesis first - equals total madness until I grow those extra arms and head. (Look how we are doing math AND science today!)

In the meantime, it's been interesting having the park ranger come to live with the ants. The park ranger, of course, is the parent knows what's going on with the park and is in charge of its general upkeep, but could not, if his fourth cup of coffee depended on it, tell you what exactly was going on with the family of ants under that log over there. Homework? Dentist appointments? New shoes? Playdates? The park ranger is blissfully unaware. However, our park ranger got a glimpse of frantic ant life over these past few months. And he's gotten really proficient at being an ant, shouting "Homework!" "Teeth!" and "No!" at random intervals in the evenings. We are very proud.

That's all we have time for now. Cuz someone is hungry again. (Me.)