Non-earth mother moments

Had to stop and reconsider my parenting style a little following a couple of incidents:

1. I taught Alice to say "text" yesterday. A child of the modern age, this is usually the sound that alerts her that to the fact Dadda is letting us know that he's wending his merry way home. I still felt a little uneasy, however, when she picked up the remote control and started pressing buttons, saying, "Hello? Text. Text. Text. Text."

2. Caught myself hatching plots on how to spend the immunisation bribe money that we'll get from the Australian government now that Alice has had her chicken pox vaccination and is immune to all childhood diseases. My grand schemes involved nails, haircuts and a posh lunch out. I guess I should probably buy something for the human pin cushion rather than for myself...she's finally paying her own way!!

Ho hum. Off to prepare some fiendishly complicated organic dish and to arrange it in the shape of a smiley face, to salve my conscience.