Welcome to Tiny Wamey Crackdown Week. I’m your host, Sandy Duncan’s Glass Eye.

Yesterday I snapped. Again. I am always doing that, aren’t I? Maybe I should just call it “living my life.”

Ahem.

Anyway, ever since Franny, my big kid, could talk she has been telling me how little she enjoys my cooking. In fact, there seems to be an obvious relationship between how much time I spent chopping and braising and twaddling, and how little she enjoys the food.

I try to tell myself I’m not cooking for her, which is true–I’m cooking for all my jerks. But it gets me down. I used to tell myself that this is just what kids do, but you know what? I demand a little common courtesy here. Six-and-a-half is not too young for common courtesy.

Yesterday I popped some fish fillets in the oven and made some peas for lunch–a pretty classic quick kid lunch. “What are we having for lunch, Mom?” she said.

“Fish and peas,” I said. Her face sort of collapsed into a sneer. And then she gobbled it all and asked for seconds. I only made one for her because of the sneering, though.

So last night after dinner I told her that she would be on her own for the next two days, completely. She could prepare her own meals anyway she liked. The only rules are: 1. No dessert, because I’m not keeping track of exactly how well she’s eating; and 2. You must wash all your own dishes, or put them in the dishwasher.

“Please yourself,” I said. “You are free of my nutritional tyranny.”

She burst into tears.

“Do you want to tell me why you’re upset?” I asked.

“Because all I know how to make is BREAAAKFAAAST!” she wailed. Not true.

Anyway, I came home from yoga this morning to pick her up, and she had made a perfectly reasonable snack for art camp. She had made herself breakfast. And she came home and made herself lunch.

Lunch was tricky; she tootled around the kitchen, repeatedly opening and closing cabinets and muttering to herself, “I could be eating by now!” She finally settled on peanut butter and crackers.

I think she’ll be fine. I feel a little guilty about the fact that I’m making delicious scratch pesto tonight, because I know she’ll want that, but she needs to see what she’s missing out on.

I do have one other little hinky guilt feeling. When I was eleven I ran away from home to become a card sharp in New Orleans, and when the cops caught me, my mother didn’t include me in family dinners or acknowledge me for about a month, because she was so pissed at me.

So this is making me think of that a little. But I tried to frame it as a good, independence thing, rather than an asshole thing. And she doesn’t know this, but I am helping her because I went to the store today and bought a bunch of easy fruit and some pistachios and crap. I love that little moron so much I could fucking throw up sometimes. Really, My Love Makes Me Nauseated. Which is the name of my next single.

And I am also realizing that I never told you about the time I ran away, so I better get cracking on that.

In Other News

1. Companion got his blue on, right before his seventy-two-year-old father came out to visit us on Father’s Day. I showed him the picture of C. with blonde hair.

“He looks gay,” he said matter-of-factly about the picture. I KNOW! You all knew that too, didn’t you? Oh my cute little gay babydaddy.

Gaydorable!

2. On Friday we had a nice time with Janaya and her monkey squad. I’m all over here with my head up my butt all the time, so it was nice when she emailed me a couple of months ago and said, “Let’s bang our monkeys together.” Because we all bang together very well.

Strudel is very fond of her new friend. They jammed at the Zoomazium.

3. Companion got the baking urge on Sunday, and made loaves from the best bread cookbook ever, The Bread Bible. I think it’s a sign that I have been watching Battlestar Agalag on every spare evening that I took one look at these loaves and said “Hmm, looks like one of them mineral ship thingummies.”

4. Finally, we actually had a grown-up date for once, and ended up in Lake Forest Park. I can never get enough of the giant chess set. Before the security guard kicked us out, he pointed out that there is actually an explicit rule about frenching the knights. I guess it’s an ongoing problem.