Does Diego look perplexed? Like he's had a rough week? It's probably because I caught him sharing cheerios with his cousin yesterday ("And one for YOU..." clued me in on what was happening). Problem was, it was the 4 1/2 week old cousin he was sharing with. (We are so lucky that cousin is a third child, or we'd be disowned). "Mama", he protested as I frantically swept my nephew's mouth, "the baby needs to EAT. Not just milk!"

Fast forward to this morning. Somehow, he managed to wedge his spoon inside his lower teeth. Yes, wedge it. Much screaming and tugging ensued, my mind flashing to how well this one was going to go over in the emergency room. The spoon finally came loose, and I extracted a promise that he would simply eat his food without any further experimentation in utensil management.

Now running late, we went to get dressed. It's costume day at school. I endured arguments that Diego does NOT wear a long sleeved shirt (it obviously isn't 45 degrees in the South American Jungle, or wherever he hangs out), he does NOT wear jeans (I decided that this one wasn't worth fighting), and that he DOES wear BROWN PANTS (!) (That one I won by pulling out a picture of Diego).

We got to preschool and I, camera in tow, began to walk into his class. "You CAN'T come in, Mama...you don't have a costume!".

I gave up, dropped him off and treated myself to a coffee and a productive morning of work for the elementary school's fall festival.

I figured the ban on costume-less mamas didn't extend to the parade, so I grabbed my camera, and got there to find (of course) that my child was the reluctant, overwhelmed parade marcher (feet-dragger? teacher-clinger? costume slogger?).