Another Top 10 Tips to Survive & Thrive at SXSWi
March 10, 2010
Everybody has their tip list. Heck, I read them all and take what sounds good myself. But some friends of mine who are first-timers to SXSWi this year asked me for my best tips and so, why not put them here for anyone who could use them?
It’s by no means comprehensive. What list of 10 things can be? Nor will it work for everyone. It’s just a few of the things I pass along when my friends ask.
So here there are – in no particular order… aside from that last one.
10 Tips
1) Don’t ever, ever count on making it to more than 2 events/parties/dinners per night — you can RSVP for any & everything because there will be so much you will want to make it to – and who knows? You might be the one to make it to 8 events in 3 hours. (I know people do, but I just set my limit at 2… that way if I make it to 3 or 4? I’m really rockin’ it!!) But remember that going with the flow is more important. If you let it happen? You’ll end up being where you’re supposed to be. Which is hopefully not hoofing it half-way across Austin to wait in an hour-long line to get into the shoulder-to-shoulder, screaming-volume-only, uber-High-Profile event when a lot of the most amazing folks are someplace else in small groups talking and being happy they are where they are and who they are with.
2) Bring REALLY good shoes – the average person walks at least 10 miles a day during SXSW, sometimes more. If it weren’t for George Smith saving my feet with cute non-traditional Crocs (last year when he was doing social media for them)? I would’ve been down for the count by day 2. Everything is “just a couple of blocks from here” even if that means it’s really 3 miles and you’ll be walking the whole way because the cabs are full. The one night I sacrificed sensibility for fashion in the name of ‘cute shoes’ was the night I got blisters.
3) Stick the following in your laptop bag/purse/whatever:
- A couple of BandAid Advanced Healing Blister Ampoules (if you need these? You’ll NEED these. If not, be someone’s hero)
- Small bottle of hand sanitizer
- A couple of pens & business cards (even if you have them somewhere else) – lojack is sometimes faster
- A bottle or 2 of 5 Hour Energy – you can’t always find coffee when you need it. This will get you through w/o dying by 3pm.
- Chapstick
- Excedrine/Tylenol/Advil… something for headaches
- Colgate Wisp toothbrush, gum, mints – something that keeps your breath from being toxic 1/2 way through the day… trust me, you won’t get a chance to go back to brush your teeth.
4) Bring your powercords everywhere you go before 6pm — because you will never really get back to them once you are out for the day and nothing sucks more than dead laptop/phone syndrome. But you’ll probably want to ditch them before heading out for the night. If your hotel is too far away, see if you can drop them in a friend’s room that you’ll be out with.
5) If you use an iPhone? Make one specific page for your Twitter client, Foursquare, Whrrl, Gowalla, Flickr and whatever everyone else tells you on Day 2 that they are using — but don’t count on getting ANY reception from AT&T inside the convention center – it’s major hit or miss there. Last year they had to upgrade their hardware mid-conference and still most of us could only get reception on 5th floor or higher of our hotels.
6) After you check in, find a place in your hotel room that you can hang your badge (easily visible!) The minute you walk in – take it off and hang it up. And put it on the minute you walk out. Pretty much everything you want to get into day or night will require your badge. You might as well just wear it all the time when you’re out and take it off when in. Nothing worse than missing something because you can’t find your badge.
7) Speaking of badges? Plan on getting your badge on Thursday night if you get in early. The line will still take 30m-1h, but that’s better than the 3 hour wait on Friday or Saturday!! :\
Make a point of going to the Techset Blogger Lounge at least once (room 19a this year.) It’s where you will see people you never manage to run into the rest of the conference and it’s a good place to get caught up on email and whatnot while still networking – if you get there first thing in the morning instead of afternoon? You’ll get a better spot to plug in. Also, make sure to thank your hosts Steph Agresta & Brian Solis if you see them. TechSet & Microsoft Phone makes an oasis that you will really appreciate.
9) If there’s someone you really want to see/meet/hang out with? Make a concrete plan. With 30k people in attendance, you may not ever see them otherwise. Even if the plan is “we’ll both for sure be at TechKaraoke” – make a rough time and location like “meet you at the bar furthest from the singing on the first floor around 9p?” And then of course, ask your friends if they are on any panels or core convos. You can always meet up at a session and then head out for coffee or cocktails afterward.
10) Don’t forget to experience SXSW. If you’re a geek? You’re probably trying to twitter, check-in someplace, post a pic, make a video, write a blogpost, check your email… It’s easy to get TOO wired and to forget that you really should take this time to get some quality realspace interaction on. Scale back the social media and get with the social. Next week you can go back to interacting only online.
10 1/2) Come to this because you love me – even though it’s right smack-dab in the middle of All Hat No Cattle 2… 
Okay, seriously, don’t YOU want to know what I’m going to tell you to ditch? Sure ya do. I’ll see you there.
Did I forget to mention bring duct tape? You never know when you’ll need duct tape. And have fun. Seriously. HAVE. FUN.
Getting There is Half the Fun – Part 1 of 3
October 12, 2008
A week ago on a Sunday afternoon, my family dropped me off at the airport. I got on an airplane thinking I was headed to Detroit… only to go nowhere pretty fast for the better part of an hour & a half. Sitting on the smallest commercial jet I’ve been on in years, watching the rain stream down the windows and the pilot and flight crew attempt to charm a planeful of cramped, cranky, unhappy passengers armed only with a microphone and their wit* I thought about taking out my laptop to start this first post and realized that there was no way I was going to get it unwedged from beneath the seat in front of me.
You’re probably thinking ‘well, at least it would’ve been posted sooner’ and I’d reply yeah, but I don’t usually post that many curse words. So instead, I sat there reading People magazine and thinking about how I had gotten there.
This is the first of 3 posts I’m going to write about this. I decided to break it down into three for what seem to me to be very plausible reasons. Reason #1? Because if I didn’t break it into multiple posts my usual long-winded tendencies might overwhelm even the most dedicated of readers – there’s so much to write about after what I experienced in a short 24 hour period. Reason #2 – there are really 3 different types of posts. This first one is all about the trip itself. My usual rambling narrative (for those of you familiar with these little jaunts of mine) that talks about the trip itself, the adventures and mishaps, how I ended up going – you know… GeekMommy’s life as brought to you by the fine folks who keep the Internet up and running for us!** The second one will be one of those ‘all facts, all tech, all wicked cool! Wish you could’ve been with me to hear this in person’ posts. Because honestly – if you got to this site from a search engine query related to Ford Safety Media Forum keywords the last thing you’re going to want to hear about is my travel drama and you’re just going to want to hear all about the cool safety features they were introducing. The third and final post? Well that’s my opinions. Yes, technically, I could be all journalistic and just leave it at number two – but the thing is? I’m not a journalist. I was there with dozens of really talented, really professional journalists and I know that some of them have already done some amazing writeups on the information so you can Google away and read those if you want impartial. Me? I’m a geek, a parent, and blogger – you ~know~ I’ve got an opinion (or 3) so I’m going to express them here. But I will be putting that in its own little post. Again, because not everyone cares to hear what I think… (yeah, I know, right? heh!)
So where were we? Oh yes. Sitting on the plane, in the rain, not writing.
You see, last week, I got a contact from Zoë Siskos – an amazing woman who works at The Social Media Group and whom I happen to follow avidly on Twitter. She wondered if this event that Ford was having Monday would be something I’d be interested in covering. She sent me a brief overview of some of the new features. I wiped the drool off of my keyboard and emailed back that of course I’d love to go!
Since we were short on time and since I had a bunch of other stuff on my plate, I didn’t really push for too much information. I knew that @QueenofSpain (Erin Kotecki Vest) had attended a similar Ford event and had really enjoyed the experience so I signed on board and trusted that the folks at Ford & the Social Media Group knew what they were doing inviting me. I suppose that turns out to be for the best, because otherwise I might’ve been too intimidated to go. There were a couple of other parent/tech bloggers there – Dave Banks from Geek Dad, and Daddy Troy and Daddy Brad from Dad Labs were there as well. Which made me feel a bit less overwhelmed when I found myself in a room full of serious automotive journalists… but only a bit.
Fortunately for me, the amazing @scottmonty (Scott Monty) was along for the ride and he put me at ease right away – as did every person I met from Ford during the experience. So I kicked over into “interested parent mode” and “avid driving enthusiast perspective” quickly and watched as the event rolled out around me.
I will back-track a moment to say though that I did experience my moment of panic. Thanks to the storm, I didn’t get in to Detroit until just past 11pm and didn’t get into my hotel until nearly midnight! Which meant when I found myself without the next day’s agenda in my room, I didn’t dare bring myself to wake someone else up to hold my hand and reassure me that I was in the right place. Again fortunately for me, Tony McCloud from Ford and the aforementioned Scott Monty got me thru the rough bit in the morning without reacting negatively at all to my sleep-deprived mildly hysterical antics.
I should mention that I discovered a neat Catch-22 about traveling by plane these days! You see, as we were boarding, there was a storm looming… we would’ve made it out in time, except that the one lavatory on the jet needed to be serviced before we left. That 10 minute delay meant that we were sitting on the plane waiting to back up when the lightning storm hit. In a lightning storm out on the plains, the Airport Manager (a job my sister-in-law’s Dad used to fill at DIA for many years) can and usually does call for the ground personnel and ramp attendants to come off the tarmac. This is apparently because there have actually been incidents where someone was struck by lightning. So, when this happens, there’s no ground guy to back the plane up – so the plane can’t leave the gate. Additionally, the gate agent isn’t allowed down the ramp, so there’s no way to deplane the passengers. This means that you’re officially stuck in limbo. Can’t fly out. Can’t get off.
Yes, yes – I know “passengers bill of rights… yadda yadda…” but honestly? Nothing the crew can do about it. They’re just as stuck as you are. In this case, they tried to make the best of it, but we sat there in the rain for an hour and a half wondering if the 3rd engine that powered the lights, air conditioning, etc was going to use all the gas before we could take off.
So then. Now that we’re done with the plane drama – back to the event itself.
I found myself getting on a shuttle and going over to the Ford Product Development Center with many other badged folks… most of whom were asking each other if they ‘were in Paris last week? ‘ A bit of Googling that night let me know that they were all abuzz about the Paris Motor Show 2008. As I said – these were some very serious automotive journalists. Fortunately, there were a number of women amongst them. So although I was the only non-Dad blogger there, I didn’t stand out simply due to my gender. Which was a welcome surprise that told me not a little bit about my own preconceived bias.
photo by Erin Kotecki Vest
They started out by feeding us. Then gave us a presentation on the new My Key (which as I mentioned earlier will be covered in the next post!) and an overview of what safety features we were going to be seeing and testing that day. The overview included rules of the track – because yes, we were allowed to drive (under the supervision of some very helpful and knowledgable engineers) on the actual high speed test track in order to experience some of the features in action – and what we were going to be testing for the time we were there. Then we piled into vans by colored bands (mine was blue… and when the blue group was merged into the remaining purple and green groups I noted that I could be either by the simple addition of a different primary color! Yes, I know… ubergeek) and headed out to the facility.
After the tests we were fed yet again – Lunch! And most excellent, I might add – while listening to a more in-depth presentation on My Key showing us a computer simulation of the programming of a key.
It all ended way too quickly. Personally? I wanted to go badger the engineers more, asking geek question after geek question… but that’s not really what I was there for. Shortly afterward we were whisked back to the hotel, then I got in a car with Dave from Geek Dad to head to the airport as we said goodbye to the guys from Dad Labs while they did the same.
The way home saw me stopping over in O’Hare – where my flight to Denver had a wait list of 100 people and a ‘confirmed but not seated’ list of a couple dozen. They were asking for volunteers for a bump to the next flight with flight voucher – and since I can always use one of those, I called up GeekDaddy and let him know I was going to volunteer and would be in a couple hours later. Unfortunately for me, the 2 unhappy gate agents got distracted at the wrong time by the most inebriated woman I’ve ever seen in an airport… and they took my name off in order to bump me, but then forgot to, so they ended up putting me back on the flight. Given that the woman in question was passing out in the ‘premier’ carpeted line and that she didn’t know her own name or the name of the party that had her ticket? I can kind of sympathize. While waiting, I did hear the senior agent they called in to handle her figure out that she was a) in the wrong terminal, and b) at the wrong airline, and c) going to be taken away in a nice wheelchair now…
The flight home from there was relatively uneventful. I was in the exit row of a 757 tho, so I had leg-room for the first time in awhile. But I was happy to be home, yet thrilled to have been included. It’s not every day you get to see life-changing technology being introduced to the public. But as I said – that’s for the next couple of posts – which I fully intend to get to you tomorrow. Sort of a 2-for-1 since it’s late deal.
*apparently, when he announced initially that ‘at least we had free snacks’ the pilot wasn’t aware that United had cut back in that regard just recently and there wasn’t even a stale pretzel to be had in the galley… he retracted it and politely asked us not to mutiny
**and of course, the wonderful folks who host my site – lunarpages.com – and the fine folks at Ford who made the whole story possible.
Well, At Least She Learned Something in Pre-K This Year!
June 4, 2008
The following exchange happened earlier this evening…
(Buttercup, with crayon in hand, writing on a manila folder)
Buttercup: “Mommy, what’s the next letter in ‘the’? I’ve got T-H.”
Me: “E, honey.”
she writes an E
B: “Mommy, how do you spell ‘egg’?”
Me: “E-G-G, honey.”
writes it
B: “Mommy, how do you spell ‘by’?”
Me: “B-Y, Buttercup…”
writes it and starts writing her name
Me: “I’m guessing you know how to spell your name…” smiling.
B: “Yes, but Mommy? How do you spell ‘illustrated’?”
I burst out laughing in surprise
Me: “Um, that one is a little longer honey.”
Yes, she actually had me spell the whole thing out for her and wrote it on there… but wow.
I mean, I realize they talked about that sort of thing at school, because we spent a month singing the praises of “Eric Carle” and “Leo Lionni” but I wasn’t expecting ‘illustrated’ to come out of her mouth just then.
Kindergarten should be fun next year!
Old MacDonald Had a Farm… Or Was It a Zoo?
May 30, 2008
It’s Friday.
It’s also the first day of ‘Summer Break’ for Buttercup – or from my perspective, the first day of ‘you get no break until camp starts.’
We played. We went to McDonald’s. We went to Target. We played. She’s said “Mommy…” about 3 gazillion times at intervals no greater than 3 minutes at a time. Even when she was out playing in the backyard, she’d come back and open the door to tell me her random thoughts every 2 minutes.
Did I mention that thanks to Mother Nature it’s also the first day of that monthly curse of mine, Extreme-Bitchitude-Brought-On-By-PMS? (If I didn’t, well, you would’ve figured it out quickly enough if you had to spend more than 5 minutes in my presence.)
So it has been um… challenging – that’s a good word – yeah, it has been challenging today.
GeekDaddy came home at long last and relieved me of child duty. This would normally mean I sighed, relaxed, and took just enough time to turn normal again before her bedtime. Instead, due to the E.B.B.O.B.PMS, it meant I could be bitchy by myself in the corner for a few minutes while he fielded the new slew of “Daddy… Daddy… Daddy…” utterings.
But just now, one of those moments happened that made me laugh so hard that I almost snorted, despite my foul little, black mood. It’s probably not funny to anyone outside of me and GeekDaddy, but I’m sharing it because if you have kids, you’ve had these moments yourself with yours – and it’s the WTF? moment that lightens you up despite yourself.
GeekDaddy: “say Buttercup, what vegetables would be good with dinner?”
Buttercup: “Carrots… like a bunny, I want carrots.” (hop, hop, hopping around)
GD: “Bunny Carrots? and how about Bunny Corn?”
B: “No, Daddy, it’s not Bunny Corn.”
GD: “It’s not?”
B: “No, Daddy, it’s Piggy Corn.”
GD: “Bunny Carrots and Piggy Corn… and what animal do you suppose likes edamame?”
B: (thinks for a second) “Raccoons.”
Yeah, it’s probably not as funny to you – but it cracked me up so hard I just about spit water on my laptop. Because you know – raccoons… they’re huge edamame fans. Heard they like sushi too.
Seriously, my daughter’s brain is so much more complex than mine.
Raccoons?
GeekDaddy says we must have a bunch of heart healthy raccoons around here. I just wonder who their soy supplier is.
Not the Best Ambassador
January 25, 2008
Presidential politics and Private school… what have they got in common?
Well, if you’re me, then you’ve been having this frequent conversation about how the next President of the United States must be someone who can restore America to a position in the International community wherein we aren’t perceived as just as scary as “the Bad Guys” and who can somehow regain the trust and good will of our allies.
Foreign policy is a big deal these days – but it’s not as focused on as some of the other political hot topics. Health care, the War in Iraq, taxes, education, economy… those are the buzzwords on the political campaign trail.
But we also all know how much damage the U.S. has taken with regard to our reputation the past 7 years. Not unlike Britney Spears, when the U.S. messes up, it makes all the news sources – worldwide. Life on the front page means that there’s less room for error.
So even though it might not be a good topic for “campaign sound bites” – it certainly is going to be critical for the next President to address the Foreign Policy issues ASAP after his/her inauguration. That means if s/he doesn’t have the most extensive background in International Relations, getting the best ambassadors and advisers in that arena to help out.
Now let me backtrack to my original question – what does that have to do with private school?
Well, if you were bored enough to read my previous lengthy post on the process of applying to private/parochial preschools (seriously? you read all of that?) then you probably got the impression that it’s pretty much a one-sided decision. That would be my error, because the truth is that many folks forget that just like in a job interview, the candidate is also ‘interviewing’ the company and the applicant is ‘considering’ the school.
When trying to narrow down schools to apply to, one of the biggest considerations aside from academics, cost, and location is “would we, as a family, like being a part of this community?”
Now, private schools run the gamut when it comes to student population these days. Gone are the days of strictly white, financially well-off, homogeneous student bodies comprised of offspring wearing the same uniform and using the school campus as a way to avoid the ‘other classes and ethnicities’ by hiding in their enclaves. Most schools strive for diversity and depth. All ethnicities, cultures, and economic classes are represented. Of the schools we opted to apply to, approximately 15% of the students receive financial aid. Even so, it’s still school-to-school when it comes to feeling like you will ‘belong’ there as a family even if you don’t fit the ‘traditional mold’.
The moment of truth, as it were, for finding out where you fall on the spectrum of parental types for each school usually comes during either the school tour, an open house, or the ‘parent socializing’ during the time that your offspring is off interacting with the other potential classmates and the teachers.
The reasons parents opt to send their children to private schools are as myriad and varied as why they choose one vacation over another or why they choose one pediatrician over another. Some actually send their kids there for the status “My Suzie goes to Academy X!” they also tend to drive cars based on name and clothes based on label. Some are academically motivated, some religiously, and some just want to give their children opportunities they didn’t have.
Standing around drinking coffee out of paper cups and ignoring the outlay of pastries while making smalltalk is the best way to find out what the other parents are like. I mean, barring relocation or something, you are likely to spend at least the next 9 years, possibly 13 if it’s a K-12 school, interacting with these folks. If they’re all devout members of a church you don’t attend, or if they all were Debutantes and East Coast preppies, you probably want to know that in advance.
Today was Buttercup’s 5th birthday (yay!! But I’ll address that separately.) This morning was Kindergarten Roundup number two of three. Before today, this school was top on GeekDaddy’s list and doing well on mine. If customer service alone determined where we sent her to school, this one would be it. They have gone over the top with communication, enthusiasm and positivity. She even received a birthday card from them!
But today we got to the campus in freezing temperatures and shuttled Buttercup off to her hour plus of ’roundup’ time and then plunged into the mid-morning parents-trapped-in-a-room-waiting social opportunity.
Oddly, there was no one from the school in the room with the parents. Every place else we have done this, at the very minimum Admissions folk were mingling about keeping tabs on everything. Here, we were just sort of thrown in a room and retrieved an hour later when the kids were done.
Now, I’m used to working rooms socially. Despite a touch of agoraphobia that is ever present, I’ve learned through my past experience how to bring people out and mingle and include the fringes so that eventually everyone is chatting – and that’s exactly what I did. In the absence of a hostess, my little light-switch clicks into the “on” position and I get down to being the social hostess my Nana raised me to be back before I turned down the opportunity to be a Deb. Most of the parents seemed relieved that someone was willing to start the ball rolling, so GeekDaddy (also amazingly good at this, despite his innate geekitude) and I separated and started working the poorly set-up room. Note to the organizer: putting a couple of dozen people in a room with 4 conference tables forming an impenetrable square in the middle of the room is a bad idea. This forces groups to clump in the corners and get stuck unable to go around.
About half way through this process, I was talking to one of the nicest women, who had just moved to the area from Louisville KY. Before I could even get to the point where I mentioned that we had almost ended up relocating there a few years back for GeekDaddy’s company, we were joined by Her.
Her has a name, and while I’ll leave her last name off to respect her privacy, it was oddly inapt that her name was Stephanie. She was the least stereotypical Stephanie I’ve ever met.
What I know, after 30 minutes of being literally trapped by Stephanie is that if I have to spend 9 years in the same school community with that woman, I’m likely to end up criminally liable for something.
If I thought that maybe there was a chance she wouldn’t be there, or that she might not stay if she were, that hope was dashed when she told us repeatedly that she was there for her third son. The other two were in 8th and 4th grade respectively, and the 8th grader had been there since Kindergarten. She has every intention of being there until the 3rd one is off to high school. Ugh.
I could go into detail about why I detested her so – but what’s the point? You know people you detest, and you don’t necessarily have to outline why – you just think ‘ew.’ In this case, just go with the fact that the ‘ew’ factor was strong enough that I found myself starting to goad her. Another potential mom joined us and made a somewhat innocuous comment that she replied to with something snotty. I couldn’t help myself, I found myself saying the exact thing I knew would set her off and at the same time, make her look bad. She rose for the bait and then seemed to catch what I had done and shook her head like a dog trying to get water out of it’s ear. No, she didn’t shake it off. From that point forward, it was the same pattern. She’d snark, I’d pounce, she’d fall for it and look bad, then she’d get snarkier.
No – I don’t need 9 years of that. I’m a generally nice person, but some people do bring out the worst in me and Stephanie is one of them. Best to remove myself from the temptation altogether.
Meanwhile, GeekDaddy got trapped on the other side of the room – due to the strange table configuration – but at least had a nicer conversation. When reunited, he looked at me and said “uh oh… I can tell you’ve got something on your mind. You’re not mad at me, are you?” He’s so sweet! “Nope, not mad at you – but we’ll talk about it later.”
In the end, that school has dropped to the bottom of my list. Because of Stephanie. At one point, one of the other moms asked me about the other 2 schools we had applied to, and before I could get a word in edgewise, Stephanie piped up with “oh they’re not nearly as good as this one – you’re daughter is into the Liberal Arts, right?” Trying not to go too deeply into the fact that no one really knows if a 5 year old is “into Liberal Arts” I replied with “well, yes, she’s got that creative side to her…” and was met with “well, see, then you know this is the right school – those others I’ve heard aren’t as good as this for Liberal Arts…” The Devil made me do it, I swear, as I replied with “huh, you know, my niece has attended one of those schools for10 yeas now, and actually, its Liberal Arts programs are stronger than those here, but there you go…”
True? Maybe, to a point. Define “Liberal Arts” (and no, I can’t hear that in my head without quotes around it now, thanks.)
My point is that for all of its amazing customer service and friendly atmosphere, the school kind of messed up here. Since no one from admissions was in the room – the sole ‘ambassador’ for the school itself was the one person in the room who already had children going there. Was she a good ambassador? No. In fact, I could see she had a similar impact on at least one other mom there. Had this been an event I was actually responsible for, somewhere around the point where I started baiting her, I would’ve dropped over and escorted one of us away to another group saying “Oh, have you met so-and-so? She’s got X in common with you!”
The last of the 3 KR’s is coming up next week. It’s the school my niece attends. This makes the third year we’ve done this part. One of the things I look forward to is watching their head of admissions work the room just like I described above. I’ve seen her do it. I’ve seen her direct one set of parents to another and defuse potential conflicts. Much as I’m still mildly annoyed at them for other reasons, it will be a relief to see that aspect handled professionally.
There’s a part of me that, should we end up not going to school #2, wants to contact the Admissions folk and say “you know, for all you did right, it only took 10 minutes for us to have that image ruined by an obnoxious parent. Maybe you ought to consider doing what school #1 does, and having a question and answer session with the school head and the parents rather than letting them mingle unattended.”
Then again, I guess I benefit from knowing now what I will have in store for me should we go that route.
Now if only it were as simple to figure out which Presidential candidate is savvy enough to not leave our allies alone in a room to talk about us…
It’s True – It is Another Planet
January 2, 2008
Buttercup is going through a “What if?” stage. Granted, she’s also going through a “repeat everything Mommy says to see if you can annoy her” phase, but I’ve already figured out how to defeat that strategy, and it’s not relevant to this post.
So, anyhoo… What if…
“Mommy. What if you had 20 hands and I had 100 hands and you had 20 feet and I had 100 feet?”
“Mommy. What if tomorrow the school opens but they don’t tell us and everyone goes but me?”
“Mommy. What if when I go to sleep I forget how to dream and then can’t see fairies in my dreams?”
“Mommy. What if on my birthday I don’t get older but I turn into a baby instead?”
Apparently this happens to GeekDaddy as well. Last night he was telling me about his reply to this – something to do with “Buttercup. What if white fuzzy bunnies came and took over the Earth?” Evidently her answer was that we’d have to move.
This afternoon, after a dozen or so “Mommy. What if…” statements I looked at her and said “Buttercup. What if white fuzzy bunnies came and took over the Earth?”
On cue she said “We’d have to move to another planet.”
“Another planet?” I said, “What other planet?”
Without missing a beat she replied “Mommy… California.”
Well yep, that made sense to me.
or Subscribe by Email!!
