Underdog is Here

Underdog is asleep in my bed. While I'm having an important talk in the kitchen as I make cookies and soup, Lilly is running around singing "There's no need to fear, Super Dog is here." While wearing a Las Vegas crown on top of her pink baseball hat and a long sleeved shirt tied around her neck like a cape. She spent alot of today under the big table in the living room playing with coin roll wrappers like they were people.

We collected $624 in coins so far from school and I know because I just spent the last 24 hours counting the coins with the kids. I never want to see any change again. Change is not good, I don't care what anyone says. And it's also heavy. See, there's a reason why everyone hates change.

Emma played her first basketball game as the only girl on a team, and she is dogged. Even when she doesn't know what she's doing, exactly, she tries hard, she's calm and driven, and she looks amazing in dark blue. She's the girl we all think we are in our hearts, except she actually IS.

Nathan spent five hours playing basketball in the park and then came home and was grumpy from playing too much basketball. He felt better after counting money for about five hours.

I got to dress like Clifford the Big Red Dog and go classroom to classroom on Friday. I never wanted to hit kids until I was in the dog suit. And there's nothing sadder than being excited to be Clifford and then have kids say "You're not real. Who's in there??" I WAS Clifford. Why can't kids believe? And being crowded by thirty kids while wearing a confining giant dog costume is really scary. I could never work on a submarine. It's like being mauled by dogs, and you're in a fat suit so you can't really breathe. The best experience I had was with the handicrapped kids, they actually loved me and hugged me and didn't care who I was inside. They believed. I probably shouldn't call them handicrapped, but it's such a fun word, no offense.

I also accidentally groped Emma's teacher in the boob as Clifford. You can't see anything in those suits, I thought her arm was her boob (it was squishy) and she jumped about a foot and squealed which kind of makes me worry what she's like with her boyfriend. Was kind of a highlight. I've never been Clifford AND I've never molested a teacher. So it was sort of a bonus day.

Counting all this money has been kind of fun because I haven't felt like stealing any of it, which isn't how I am usually. I think cause there's so MUCH of it, I just want it all out of my house, like NOW. My house is cluttered enough. Also, since I created the contest, I'm kind of excited to see who's going to win. These kids brought in like $60 in change just so they could win a 5 cent cupcake party reward. Kids will do anything for cupcakes.

But back to Underdog. The kids are still counting coins in the living room, the split pea soup got made because my friendwife Katie gave me a hambone at the park (is that even legal?), we made oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies (we have about a MILLION), so putting Lilly to bed is like a relief. A little oasis, the sigh at the end of the day. She's still wearing her hat. She tells me "I love everybody in the whole wide world. Everybody likes me, but I'm shy to them. I love everybody. And you and Emma."