There is No Trade-In for Kids

Whenever people say anything even remotely negative about their kids, like maybe, "My three-year-old was being so annoying in the car today!" they always hurry to add, "But I wouldn't trade them for anything!"

This is basically their way of saying, "My three-year-old was being so annoying in the car today... but please don't report me to child services because I'm not an unfit mother I swear!"

It's sad that some people really would hear an innocuous comment like that and go running to report it.  Personally, I would never judge someone for having a moment of parental humanity every once in a while.  It's refreshing, actually, to talk to people who are honest about their kids.

I would only get concerned if someone started being really creepy about it.

But I digress. 

What bothers me about people saying, "I wouldn't trade them for anything!" is that we all know you can't trade them for anything, even if you really wished you could.  There is no trade-in value for kids.

 
Maybe we could settle on a more truthful phrase to use instead of "I wouldn't trade them for anything," like maybe, "I would never sell them to Somali pirates on the Internet using a Swiss bank account."


Because we all know it's better to use cash in those situations.

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Bette Doesn't Like to Jump

If you don't see much of me this month, it's because I'm doing National Novel Writing Month, which involves writing 50,000 words during the month of November.  Toy store job, blog, the fact that I'm probably developing pneumonia because I have a cold that won't go away… I totally have time for this!  At this point, I'm only about 11,428 words behind where I should be by Day 9.  I can definitely turn that around, right?  If you're also a Wrimo, as we're apparently called, you should look me up!  My username is Haley Wolfe because I'm terribly original like that.

I guess I'm telling you all this because, as in any time of severe stress, I am going to resort to writing about my cats.

Bette is not much of a jumper, probably because she is shaped like an adorable, cuddly pear that is full of squishy, but very heavy, rocks.

I think that's why she's mystified when our other, more agile cat does typical cat stuff, like finding his way to the top of the refrigerator.

Beds, chairs, couches, and low tables are within Bette's range, but even then, sometimes she seems to forget how she's supposed to transport herself to these places.  Since jumping obviously does not come naturally to her, I don't think it's always the first solution to come to mind, or else it sounds like a lot of work and she's hoping an alternative will present itself.

Take this morning, for instance.  Her normal routine is to come back into the bedroom after she eats her breakfast and jump up onto the bed for her mid-morning nap.  But instead, she stops short at the foot of the bed and just stares up at it.

She sniffs underneath the bed.

She looks at me as though expecting guidance.

She stares at the bed some more.

I can only assume this is what she was thinking:

Finally, laziness prevailed, and she just walked away.

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