There’s a certain TRADE-OFF here…

Homework accomplished, Danger Mouse appeared at my elbow this afternoon.

“Mommy, can I have some pie?”

“Whaaat? You want pie?”

“Yes. I want pie.”

“I have some carrots, you know.”

“No, just pie.”

“Onions? Mmmm, raw onions…”

“MomMEE. I. Just. Want. Pie.”

“Eggplant? Tomatoes? Bell pepper? Just picked this morning…”

“{long-suffering sigh}”

“So, pie, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Wait. You’re telling me, you’d rather have chocolate pie, than eggplant?!”

“{eye roll} Yesssssssssss!”

“That’s just plain weird, dude…”

She gave me A Look. An exasperated look. An irritated look. A look which clearly said, How come *I* had to get the crazy parent?! A NORMAL mother would just give me some danged pie, already, how come *I* always have to go through a three hour barrage of teasing before I get what’s coming to me?!

Yeah, well. I tell you what, kid: Only crazy parents bake chocolate meringue pie while their kids are at school, expressly for their Precious Babies’ after school snack. (Well, that…and perhaps because she’s been craving chocolate meringue pie for, like, two weeks and finally decided that if she made it for you all for your snack, whatever slivers she got out of the deal would have no calories due to that whole ‘if you share your dessert, all the calories disappear’ rule.)

It’s the price you pay, babe. You want the kind of mother who bakes pies and bread and cookies all day while simultaneously making potato chips, popcorn and crackers for your lunches?

You’ve got to put up with some crazy.

That’s just the way it is.

(I burned the last batch of crackers this morning…it made for epic amounts of smoke, and the fire alarm went off, and the cat almost puked up her spleen because it startled her so badly…do not startle an aging cat, they puke rather easily…and then after I swept them off the tray onto the cooling rack I got tickled about it and I sat there at the kitchen table laughing until I almost cried and forgot all about them [they were kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind – my kitchen is rather cramped and counter space is limited, so the cooling racks tend to be relegated to the front room or even the office], so when they came home and started offloading their backpacks and such into the front room, there was this pathetic pile of charcoal-black crackers that made them think Uh-oh…please dear God tell me THAT isn’t supposed to be our after school snack…my poor Denizens, they really do have a mother who borders on certifiably insane, don’t they?!)