Tricks are for kids

Some parental trickery -- Spousette took B2's Noo Noo (as he calls his blankie) and cut it in half without him knowing it. This was to make it easier to launder the thing, since any time we'd take the Noo Noo, B2 would squawk. So, magically, we now have two Noo Noo's, one of which we use and the other we keep in reserve. Come laundry day (Sunday), I take the dirty Noo Noo and replace it with Noo Noo 2. B2's none the wiser.

Another trick: B1 doesn't like the crusts on his bread, so I slice the crusts from them. Then I dice them and put them in a little baggie for B2, who thinks because they're in a baggie, they're somehow a treat. In the past, if I put those diced crusts on his feeding tray, he'd just ignore them or throw them away. But in a baggie, why, suddenly they're special, and he's happily munching on them! Muahaha! So, no wasted bread, and children get fed!

Still another one -- B1, ever the diva, won't willingly eat the heels of the bread. Sometimes, though, that's all we have left. So, I take the heels and put peanut butter or Nutella on them, and stick them together. That way, he can't see the heels! Muhahahahh!

Our boys love "Between the Lions" -- muppettish kids' reading show, on at 6:30 a.m. CST on PBS, if you must know. And they do a great job with it, except for a couple of shows that kind of weird me out -- there's Cliff Hanger, this benighted soul who's always hanging from a cliff, never seems able to escape.

And then there's Chicken Jane, who occupies this twisted world where she's always getting reamed somehow and saving the kids (modeled after Dick and Jane) from peril. Here's a representative episode of it. I always feel bad for poor Chicken Jane, forced to protect these idiot children from all sorts of things. When the little ditty starts, I'm always saying to Spousette, "Poor Chicken Jane!"