Saturday morning...nursing a blogover

Swigging instant coffee (it was faster...) and eating the last of the apple pie from the other night straight from the pan in my lap, it is too dang early for any sensible person to be conscious. I am beat.

I swear all we had to drink last night was juice boxes (Juicy Juice Apple for the record) but the giggles -- the noise -- the Moose! (mooseses? meese? I'm so tired that the plural of moose escapes me...) It was all too much. If blogovers haven't previously been recorded on the Internet, I vouch for having the first one.

Last night was also prime display of the strange dichotomy that is my child. I know other kids who do this -- but 11 years later it still catches me off guard with my own. I know her well, but every time my daughter walks into the room I don't know if it's the child or adult-wanna be entering.

Maybe this is a more prominent problem in "onlys" -- Helen would be the third generation only child following her mother and grandmother. Onlys spend their family time primarily interacting with other adults, not siblings. From the start the learned behaviors and conversations seem (at least in the Johnson household) to take on a more wizened tone. I didn't say sage, we can be as loopy as the next guy.

Don't get me wrong -- it was silly fest central here: stuffed animals parading and wild comments like "Ew, why did you put that guy on your web site? He's so old." "He's four years younger that ME, Helen!" "Warren Brown (Food Network chef) is much cuter."

Helen sat with judicial seriousness through the blog set up process. She typed in her own stuff using touch typing (they teach that in elementary school now -- not surprising as you go to computer class every week and you won't keep up if you can't touch type and turn out rockin' PowerPoint presentations by grade 2) and carefully coordinated her color scheme, posed and snapped her plush buds, and selected illustrations. Anna Wintour would have been left in the professional dust.

Then (around 11:00 p.m.) "Helen, we gotta go to bed. It's late."

"Aw, Mom! Just five more minutes!" The 11-year-old was back.

This has been going on since the little scupper could speak. Readying for day care one morning she looked past her selection of Disney princesses summer dresses and matching rumba pants (diaper covers) to give me the head-to-toe, eagle-eye once over: "Are you sure you should wear that to work? Mommy, I think I'd put on something else. That's not appropriate for the office."

The one emergency call from kindergarten had me in a total panic: your daughter split her head open on a metal horse (one of those old-fashioned monsters on a giant steel spring we all loved to bounce back and forth on until some inevitable injury from the sharp corners occurred). Whirling into school like a dervish I confronted the school principal, applying a small band-aid and some ice to Helen's forehead. She had the weirdest look on her face that I've ever seen on an education professional. And then I heard it:

"But really Mrs. Martinez, you have GOT to rethink the playground equipment. That horse is just too dangerous for small children."