And to think I wasted all that time going to grad school

The last week or so I really made an effort to be the consummate housewife. I began wearing an apron. I met my husband at the door with a freshly made cocktail. That last one wasn't true. I did however, make several meals: a roast (though we allege to be semi-vegetarians), pea soup, chicken spinach lasagna, and (wait for it; getting all fancy) tortellini with asparagus and peas in a tarragon cream sauce. We only had nachos ONE TIME all week. But today, I totally fell off the bandwagon. As fast as I made the bed, Frankie tore the pillows off and wanted me to bury her. As quickly as I pureed bananas and squash for Molly's breakfast, she threw Cheerios off the high chair and smeared them in her hair. By the time Dean got home, there was no dinner, Frankie was coated in a becoming combination of red popsicle and dirt, and Molly had been kept up too long and had fallen asleep literally sitting up, biter biscuit crumbs ringing her nostrils. When I turned on the video monitor, she was bent completely in half, her elongated noggin resting on her ankles in a pose she was no doubt able to achieve thanks to the genes of her preternaturally flexible father. He is able to put his legs behind his head in a manner which I find decidedly unmasculine.
I eventually gave up on the 1950's Good Housekeeping illustration I had in my mind and, to save further damage to the interior, hustled the kids outside to hang out in the neighbors' driveway. Frankie rode her Harley round and round the yard and Molly grabbed large handfuls of the cat's fur in ecstatic feline adoration. Everyone was relaxed, dirty, and lazy until Elliott, our two-year-old neighbor, ran around the house yelling "Da bee trying to get me. Da bee trying to get me." The problem is that whenever a flying insect is anywhere within a fifty yard radius, Elliott yells that a bee is trying to get him. He also comes to us, greatly concerned, with baseless accusations: "Da kitty in da road" (when he lounges belly-up on the front porch), "Frankie say bad words" (we liberally sprinkle our conversations with normally toddler-verboten words like poop, stupid, and knucklehead). So, pegging him for little boy crying wolf, I grabbed him and pulled him into my lap and teased him about thinking bees were following him. Unfortunately, he sprang from my lap like a hot poker had stabbed him, which in fact it had, since the bee was clinging to his right butt cheek. That brought the party to a halt right quick.

How does she make it through childbirth?

I think Frankie is giving up naps. This is almost the equivalent of someone saying to me "every one of your dearest loved ones has just perished in a fiery inferno." The last three days I have put her in her room and listened to her play for a half an hour and then she is busy yelling that she is all done sleeping. I have resisted telling her that she doesn't have to sleep, that she can just stay in her room and play, because I didn't want her to realize that was an option. I'll guess I'll have to give in and stock her room with the cardboard bricks that Aunt Molly sent to her for her birthday that required approximately eighty-five hours of manual labor, tedious folding and tucking of unwieldy cardboard edges, to put together (you actually owe me about $2400 based on my hourly wage, Molly).
Speaking of hourly wages, I am seriously underemployed. I haven't worked in about three weeks. Where are the sun-freckled, age-spotted women hiding? I suppose the current economic situation is not fostering an environment where people are eager to smooth their brows when they are worried that apple juice has gone from 99 cents to $1.65. But the less I go to work, the less time I am in the medical spa, and the less time I can spend my after-work hours giving myself various procedures. For those of you who have not invested in laser hair removal, let me be the first to feel deeply sorry for you that you cannot don large goggles, slather yourself with gel, and shoot laser beams into the recesses of your armpits. It is good times.
Once, my boss kindly said that I could give my sister a photofacial when she was in town. A photofacial, for those whose age or lack of vanity has kept them in the dark thus far, is a procedure where pigment in your face is zinged so it will come to the surface and flake off. It feels a lot like a hot rubber band being snapped on your face. Hurts, but tolerably. Molly, being a blue-eyed fake blonde, has lots of freckles so she jumped at the chance. I laid her down on the table, gently frosted her face with gel, and put the goggles in place. Immediately she began with the complaining. "Don't hurt me, Saskia. Wait. WAIT. I'm not ready." Deep breathing. "Wait. Don't do anything. Are you doing something? WAIT." Meanwhile, I fire up the machine and get ready to start. Soon long spindly white arms are waving indiscriminately in the air, batting at the handpiece. "Hold on. I'm sweating. SASKIA, HOLD ON. HOLD ON." Finally, with the aid of Lamaze breathing, I give her the first zap. She begins bucking off the table and tearing away the glasses. "I NEED SOME TIME. HOLD ON. I am sweating. Just wait. Saskia, NO, NO, NO. Just wait." She eventually began getting full body shakes, like she was in transitional labor, and kept trying to knock the thousand dollar handpiece out of my hands so many times I had to give it up. None of this is hyperbole. Let her progress to looking like leather, so help me I will never go near her face again.