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Another stupid photo essay.

We took a break from Camp Sweatshop for the holiday weekend - and because I am way behind on a work project that has taken twice as long as it should because The KoH spends about five minutes per day in the house so there's pretty much no time during the day when the shortlings aren't screaming at me - I decided I'd better spend some time with them soon before they forgot what BOTH their parents look like. So I took a break yesterday and the triumphant return of Camp Sweatshop began by whoring out my children for free food.

I've spent some time chronicling our strange obsession with Chick-fil-A. So it should come as no surprise to you that when I asked The Dormouse what she wanted to do that morning and she thought about all the infinite possibilities she could accomplish in the world and the myriad of places we could go by virtue of living in this culture rich area, she said without hesitation, "I want to go to Chick-fil-A and dress like a cow to get free food!" And because it took very little effort I am so accommodating like that, I said "why not."

We printed out the Costume Kit from the Chick-fil-A website, I slapped the pieces on with some scotch tape and we headed off.

We had one very enthusiastic cow,


who walked up to the counter and told the manager, "I mooooo want mooooo free mooooo food mooooo0000000ooo!" The manager then oooo'd and ahhh'd so loud we thought she might be part cow and even though it was a costume that couldn't have been created with less effort, she said it was the sweetest thing she'd ever seen and gave me my food for free too if I promised to email her a photo. Next stop: Will Work for Food Signs on the highway.

We also had one reluctant, complaining cow who refused to keep her cow costume on for more than two seconds, requiring me to employ the quickest photography hand in the west to even document the whole affair... forget about getting a halfway decent photo. This was the best I could do.


It was way easier to get a picture of this little heifer walking away than posing for the camera.


But it still wasn't in focus.

Later, we celebrated our full stomachs (and wallets) by breaking out a bottle of shaving cream.

When I was about five, I remember coming home from the grocery store with my mother. She told us to come into the kitchen and took a bottle of shaving cream out of one of the bags. Then we all sat at the kitchen table and played with it, squishing it in our hands and making snowmen until we'd used up the entire bottle. It was a great sensory activity and one of those spontaneous parenting things that made an impression on me. In reality, it was probably winter and we all had cabin fever and my mother was just completely strapped for things to do and desperate for anything that would occupy us kids for more than five minutes. Hell, I'd let them eat shaving cream if I thought it would give me twenty minutes of respite from the whining.

Anyway on a whim, I picked up a bottle of shaving cream after our Chick-fil-A adventures and we made a complete mess of the front lawn.


Which reminded me of that Dr. Demento song:

Our baby fell out of the window,
You'd think that her head would be split.
But good luck was with us that morning,
She fell in a big pile of shhhhhhaving cream.
Be nice and clean.
Shave every day and you'll always feel keen.

And then I had THAT running through my head the rest of the day. So.... yeah... great idea.


After the Great Shaving Cream Debacle of Ot Nine, I didn't want them anywhere near the house, so we instituted a new tradition: public bathing.




We also had a little science lesson as the question is finally answered: How much will a disposable diaper actually hold or will it just keep expanding until it goes on a rampage and take over the city and then city officials have to freeze it in an ice rink to save the city?


This one split open about three seconds after taking this picture, so the answer is no, when they say twenty-two to thirty-seven pounds on the box, they do not actually hold that much.

Just in case you wanted to know.