Nothing too much to report. Other than the incident that my 6yo woke up screaming at 3AM the other night. There isn't anything in all the world that can prepare you to deal with something like that. This is especially true when you child hardly ever does that. (My parents, on the other hand, often told me that this was a standard occurrence for them. So much so that they were once obliged to call in some kind of Greek Orthadox witch doctor to cure me by reading candle wax drippings or some hillbilly horseshit like that [TODO, research the "science" behind this exorcism misadventure]).

Anyway, so the six year old woke up screaming and sobbing and soaked in tears. After we finally calmed her down, she reported that her dream consisted of a horrible witch who made babies so fat and ugly that their parents would no longer love them. This was positively abhorrent and inconceivable to her. It took a great long while to talk her back down to earth. We had to remind her that mommy and daddy loved chubby babies and that there is no greater pleasure in all the land than giving a baby's chubby thigh a playful squeeze. Nothing in all the universe compares to this.

Speaking of that. One time. A long time ago. During my going away party after I quit my university job, we were all sitting at a table at the local university pub. For some reason they let me bring in my kids. The youngest was about 1 year old or so. And she did INDEED have wonderfully chunky thighs. I said this to a lady I worked with. I said, for kicks, you should just give them a playful squeeze. It's delightful. So she squeezed. And she SQUEEZED TOO FUCKING HARD! My child let out a scream. And, let me tell you, this baby was famous for her exceedingly high pain threshold. I can't remember exactly how we knew this. But she hardly ever cried as a result of pain. So, if she ever did, you KNEW it was serious. So I scooped her up and comforted her immediately. And, in my head, I never looked at that woman the same ever again. How could you fuck something like that up? Did you never even own a puppy before? You don't squeeze like it's the fucking Charmin, you idiot. You don't tear into it like your breaking off a hunk of Easter bread! Jesus Christ. Yeah. Really didn't have much of a contingency plan for that one. I'm still mad...

So, yeah, my 6yo had a nightmare about a witch who made babies fat and ugly. Poor child.