Want to get a babysitter so we can....

Just in case there are any of you out there who haven't had kids yet, I wanted to relate this conversation that I had with another mom today.

She was talking about how she's dropping her year and a half old son off at daycare twice a week, and how it's very exciting because one of those days is going to be "just for her." She felt guilty though, because it seemed unfair to her to drop her son off with strangers so that she could live it up without him. The thing that she did while he was in daycare? The fantastically fun thing that she was so guilt ridden about? The thing that she described as her "best day ever?"

Going with her husband to the Secretary of State's Office so that he could renew his driver's license. One blissful half hour in the waiting room of the DMV, where she could sit peacefully and knit while her husband read a new book that he'd been looking forward to. Incidentally this was also the special thing that they did together to celebrate his birthday.

Which of course prompted me to tell the story of how Manimal and I had recently had to hire a babysitter so that we could go to our insurance agent's office to get a new quote on our home owner's insurance, and how it just felt so great to relax and have a conversation with another grown-up without having to worry about my kids.

Then she told me about an a day when she was at her wits end and consoled herself with the thought that no matter how rotten her kid was being at that moment, that she would get some time to herself when she went to her dentist's appointment that afternoon.

This is what passes for fun in the world of parents with children under four. Renewing your driver's license, getting quotes on new insurance policies and having your teeth cleaned. Whoo hoo! We're living it up now!

Ragnar...party animal.

PS...Don't forget that Talk Like A Pirate Day is only two days away.

PPS...If you "like" me on facebook you'll be entered in my random crap give away. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Domestic-Piracy/124629280904163?ref=ts

Please listen carefully as our options have changed...

Hello, you have reached Ragnar's phone. Obviously I'm not available or I would have answered the phone. I'm probably having a massage or a walrus placenta facial, or possibly cleaning out three years worth of grime that has accumulated since the birth of my first born son. It will undoubtedly be days if not months before I can be bothered to return your call, so please amuse yourself with our automated phone system. I patterned it after the one that I've spent so many happy hours with at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

If you are calling from my son's school to report the fact that he has bit, punched, sat on or otherwise molested one of the other children, you are a big fat tattle tail and you can press one.

If you are the parent of some child from my son's school who is calling to report that your angel was bruised, offended or somehow inconvenienced by my child, let me be the first person to tell you that the world is a terrible unfair place...and you can press two.

If you are calling to compliment me on my son's knowledge of and proficiency with American slang and profanity then you can fucking press three.

If you are calling for any other reason, then hang up and call my real phone number because I never check these messages, it's a false account that I set up when I dropped The Destroyer off at his first day of school.

Ragnar...has to confess that her first born has so far exhibited nothing but exemplary behavior at his school.

Galley Tales...

For those of you who question the "piracy" and think I focus a little too much on the "domestic" I want you to know that Manimal came home unexpectedly a few nights ago and found me scooping weevils out of the rice cooker with a tea strainer.

In retrospect it isn't really possible to defend one's choice to feed weevily rice to one's nearest and dearest, so I know that when I say "sleep deprivation" "new school/work schedule" "two babies with stuffy noses" and "they should be happy I bother to make dinner at all, nevermind the weevils" that you will all say: "But Ragnar...bugs...in food. UGH!!"

I had just filled the rice cooker and measured out the water when I noticed something crawling up the side of the container. At first I dismissed it as a fruit fly, but then I realized that it wasn't the right shape, and that there were more of them. BUT THE RICE WAS ALREADY MEASURED! If I scrapped it then it would have meant that I'd have had to come up with a whole different plan for dinner! And the water was already in my hand, and I figured that the weevils would float (and they did!!) and that I could just scoop them out, and that what the heck the whole thing was going to be boiled for an hour anyway. Did I mention? I'M A FUCKING PIRATE OKAY? What's a little protein between family?

Which is how it came to pass that Manimal found me, tea strainer in hand, standing over the sink swishing weevils down the drain. Like six weevils maximum, maybe a dozen at the most. If this was a recipe on one of your Dear Old Granny's batter stained recipe cards it would read "a pinch of weevils."

But...as it turns out, Manimal is a bit of a pansy when it comes to weevils. Red handed, strainer poised I answered his quizzical "Just what the hell are you doing with that strainer Ragnar" raised eyebrow stare with an innocent "How do you feel about weevils?"

Green is not his color.

"So...that's a no on weevils? I'm scooping them out and it's going to cook for like, an hour."

"Uh...no...I'd rather not have any weevils."

Then I noticed that he'd brought someone home with him from work.

A Witness.

Which, of course, is when I realized that there is really no excuse for trying to feed your family weevils, pirate crew or no.

Uncooked weeviley rice does clean out the garbage disposal amazingly well.

Ragnar...eat your sea biscuit darling.