Blah, Blah, Blah. I Still Think They're Ugly.

I don't care what anyone says, Crocs are fugly. Actually, that would be an insult to the fugly of the world. Crocs are hideous, horrendous, awful, and quite possibly the most repulsive shoes ever invented. I'm sure Lady Gaga could find something even uglier, but if we're limiting the conversation to shoes worn by actual humans, Crocs win the Ugly Contest. By a mile.

But.

I do see a purpose in them. Not for me, of course. I'd rather wear concrete blocks shaped like Dora's head on my feet than a pair of Crocs, but they do make sense for people who work on their feet all day. They also make sense for kids. They're comfortable, they can be cheap, and the whole thing where you can take a hose to them when your kid yaks on her feet after overdosing on Tootsie Rolls is pretty darn sweet.

Last year Alexis pretty much lived in a couple of different pairs of Crocs. They were outlet store clearance acquisitions, so as much as looking at them made me sporky, my cheap side won out on the deal.

This year I returned to the Crocs Outlet with Alexis in tow, figuring I would let her pick out a few more pair. This is the first summer that she has been full-time with the "big" kids at daycare, so it's the first time I've really had to worry about the no open-toed shoes rule that was instituted after some wonderful child managed to rip a toenail off while playing on the big kid playground. As much as it drives me nuts that the answer to one little accident is to ban open-toed shoes completely (Gee, I heard a kid once fell off a swing and got hurt--maybe we should just ban all swings everywhere. OR NOT.), it's not really a rule worth fighting. If kids show up wearing open-toed shoes, they are banished to staying indoors with the little kids. I may enjoy letting my kid torture other people, but I don't enjoy it that much. It's simpler just to make the kid wear close-toed shoes. Crocs fit the bill.

Somehow the stars aligned and those new Crocs weren't really making it into the daily shoe rotation. Instead, tennis shoes and ballet flats seemed to be getting the kid through summer. At some point, I even went so far as to pack up the Crocs while I was packing up shoes that weren't actively being worn. A few days ago I finally unpacked them.

Holy strong reaction, Batman!

Alexis looked at the Crocs.

Alexis looked at me.

Alexis looked at the Crocs.

Alexis looked at me.

Alexis started bawling.

"I don't wanna wear Crocs!" she wailed.

"Why not?" I asked. I don't really know why I ask these things. Usually they answer is just plain ridiculous.

"I don't wanna wear Crocs!" she wailed again.

"Your friends like to wear Crocs," I replied. (Yeah, I know. I need punched for that line. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. Besides, it's 100% true. Trouble, for example, wears Crocs almost every day.)

"I DON'T WANNA WEAR CROCS!" Alexis repeated. Louder.

"Your tennis shoes are dirty and I can't find your ballet shoes. Just wear the Crocs," I insisted.

"But they make my feet ugly," Alexis wailed.

She has a point, but how did she get to be so smart?

I'll Be the Chick with the Two Black Eyes

I fell asleep next to Mr. Husband, but when I woke up, I realized I had gone to bed with The Devil.

Tom Brady.

Just typing that name gives me the shakes. Not the Oooooh, He's So Cute! Shakes, but rather the I Don't Have Enough Sporks to Dull the Pain! Shakes. Right now, I hate myself.

A lot.

Yes, I drafted Tom Brady in one of my fantasy football leagues. I don't know what came over me when that moment of insanity seared through my blood, but this morning it hit me: I suck. Hard. I am now going to spend football season alternating between wishing for Brady to be crushed under a bloody pool of humanity and squeeing after he throws a touchdown.

I might have to punch myself in the face for squeeing after a touchdown. True story.

So, here's the plan: The Patriots are going to have this amazing high-scoring offense this year, but their defense is going to suck harder than a Dyson.

Shoosh. It could totally go down like that.

Trouble Comes in Threes

On one shoulder sits an angel whose sole responsibility is to direct Alexis to do good. That angel strongly resembles The Rock. On her other shoulder sits a devil who squawks out bad ideas made of chaos and mayhem. That angel strongly resembles David Spade. More often than not, The Rock kicks David's ass all over the place. The kid is 3-years old, so of course once in a while David manages to squawk out some terrible, no-good idea, but it's only a matter of moments before The Rock shows up and smacks him around.

That is to say, Alexis is a goody two-shoes.

I'm OK with that. REALLY OK with that.

I can leave a whole bag of candy sitting open on a table and the kid will take exactly one piece. She may be tempted by the spirit of that butthead David to partake in a few more pieces, but The Rock runs the show. He'll keep her in line.

It helps that she really isn't the biggest fan of junk food I've ever seen. (The title Queen of Junk, Crap, and Otherwise Bad Food is me. Clearly the universe has a sense of humor when matching kids with parents.)

So, it was no surprise when Alexis continuously walked right past a table full of cookies, brownies, cake, and other junk at the daycare picnic. It was even less of a surprise that she stepped right over a mountain of Tootsie Rolls that were left on the ground after a piñata experiment gone awry. Between her general ignorance of the bliss that is junk food and The Rock smacking David around, I didn't even have to think the words, "Stay out of the junk food, please."

Until Trouble showed up.

Trouble is Alexis' bestest friend in the whole wide world. She's not really trouble so much as she is Alexis' partner in fun. The two of them are nearly the exact same age, so they've been in the same classroom practically their entire lives. Every day I hear about the Tales of Trouble and Alexis. One minute they are begging to spend the night at the other one's house, the next minute they are both in time out for getting into a cat fight. One minute they are grinning at each other as they whisper plans and intentions, the next minute they are yelling, "I'M NOT YOUR FRIEND," at each other.

I seriously have no idea how they would survive without one another.

Trouble has a sweet tooth. Trouble's sweet tooth has Tootsie Rolls written all over it. When Trouble saw the mountain of Tootsie Rolls, she immediately dropped down and started cramming them in every pocket, crevice, and nook she could find. She managed to cordon off the area, her eyes darting to and fro as she worked to scoop up dozens and dozens of pieces of candy.

When she realized she was out of places to hide Tootsie Rolls, Trouble went looking for Alexis. Of course, the two of them are seldom more than two feet apart, so that was an easily accomplished mission. Then the two of them picked up another friend ( I like to call that kid Third Wheel because she always hangs with Trouble and Alexis, but she's never going to manage to get in "tight" with the two of them. It's not her fault--she started going to the daycare a year after the other two, so the bond was already impermeable.), and then headed over to a nearby picnic table.

All of us parents stood back and watched as the three of them conspired to destroy the pile of Tootsie Rolls. Trouble's parents mused at how the kid never met a Tootsie Roll she didn't want to eat. Third Wheel's parents shared that the kid never met junk food she wouldn't consume. I proclaimed that I was surprised Alexis was even eating the things. She hadn't liked the one I had given her a few months prior, and ended up spitting it out and putting its slimy remains into my hand.

"Peer pressure," we all said in unison. It seemed that the only explanation was that Alexis had just fallen victim to Tootsie Roll Peer Pressure.

She ate and she ate, working hard at keeping up with the other two, the two who were obviously pros. You could almost see that jerkwad David Spade jumping up and down on her shoulder, hooting and hollering and generally throwing a party. The Rock was nowhere to be found, so David was going all sorts of crazy.

Once the Tootsie Roll gorge session was over, Alexis sought out Mr. Husband to ask for a drink. As they bent over a bucket of iced juice boxes to make a selection, Alexis whined, "My belly hurts."

Mr. Husband replied, "That's because you ate too much candy." It was then that he noticed that Little Miss Prepared for Anything was still hoarding a huge wad of Tootsie Rolls in her mouth. She likes to see if she can make food last for hours by tucking it up into the roof of her mouth. Mr. Husband did the big ol' sweep of her mouth and cleared out the wad of candy, thinking that if her belly hurt, she really didn't need to suck down any more sugar.

Alexis walked over to me, having passed up the juice in exchange for a bottle of water. (See? I told you she's a goody two-shoes and picks healthy over junk ALL BY HERSELF.) "My belly hurts," she said.

I laughed.

She puked on me.

I stopped laughing.

She wasn't sick. In fact, right after hurling half-chewed Tootsie Rolls all over my arm, she was ready to find Trouble and Third Wheel and start causing more chaos. She was totally fine.

My dear Alexis, in about fifteen years (I refuse to acknowledge that it could very well be less LALALALALA *I can't hear you telling me you first drank when you were like 12 or whatever* LALALALALA), your friends are going to peer pressure you into a whole other kind of binge session. I think that little performance on Saturday proves that you'll be that kid. That kid who ends up passed out on the bathroom floor after several minutes of kissing the throne. Every time.

Don't say I didn't warn you.