About when two-year-olds email

The two-year-old hacked into my email account over the weekend, and sent a message to a friend of mine, whom she loves.
I intercepted the message in my "sent" folder, and and hung my head in disgrace. Plus now I'm a little worried about the memories I'm helping create.
Here it is:
Dear Miss Beth:
Please come hep me with my Mama D. She has had a particularly bad weekend as our gramma.
First, Miss Beth, if you fixed us a meal of sloppy-joe-from-a-can and a box of mac-n-cheese, would you say served us a "home-cooked" meal? Because that's what she told my mommy she did, in a failed attempt to impress her. If frying a pound of hamburger and stirring in the sauce is "cooking," I think Julia Child is turning over in her grave. And, Miss Beth, if "homemade" macaroni and cheese means boiling some macaroni for 10 minutes and stirring in some fluorescent orange cheese, then, we had it. In spades. Rachel Ray's recipes are more complicated than that! Miss Beth, about all I can give her passing grades in is the milk in our sippy cups!
It gets worse. She told me I was too little, but let Caroline help "bake" cookies! Miss Beth, here is how she taught Caroline to "bake": she sliced up some sugar cookie dough and had my sister put the slices on the cookie sheet! What a baking cheater! She tried to disguise it by having Caroline put some red sprinkles on top, but I knew! Even the good baking smell couldn't cover up the fact that those cookies had been whipped up at the cookie factory in Sugartown, State of Somewhere.
And Miss Beth, our so-called "bath." Not that me and my sister don't enjoy playing in the bubble water for half an hour. My gramma has all the right toys. But is letting us "soak" just as effective as a good scrub? Because she was awfully busy sitting on the potty with the lid down, reading the paper. Miss Beth, she didn't even wash our hair! She said it was the "weekend"! And we could "let mommy wash it tonight!"
Now, Miss Beth, I don't mean to sound harsh. I do have to give my Mama D. top marks in her preschool library collection. I don't know of many people who would read "Where the Wild Things Are" seven times, especially with those sound effects. I like the roar. And that counting book with the M&Ms is especially fascinating to me, as it lets me both learn to count and learn my colors at the same time! Who knew six red M&Ms could be so riveting!
And she did take me for a walk and let me push my stroller, and did not make me ride in it, even though it took us half an hour to go around the block.
And really, it was nice of her to stay with me a minute when I was just a little anxious about going to bed, even through I had my teddy, my blankie, and my books. She didn't have to sit there more than three minutes, I'm sure, because I was really tired from that walk.
And Miss Beth, even though she stayed up until 2 a.m. Sunday morning, which was a really stupid thing to do because sometimes me and my sister just can't help getting up early, well, she didn't get cranky one bit all day. But that was probably because the Indians won. And, we slept 'til 8, probably because of all those carbohydrates.
Well, Miss Beth, if you could just help her with those little culinary and personal hygiene issues, I think we might be able to whip her into some kind of shape.
(But I don't have much hope. Last time you were here I heard you mention "take-out" and "quick ... something" a few two many times.)
Anyway, Miss Beth, just talk to her and maybe we'll be eating that organic baked chicken, organic fresh spinach, and whole-wheat bread every visit. And me and my sister's hair will be shining like the sun on Lake Erie after a Tribe win.
Sincerely, Taylor H.
Well, what about you? What shortcomings are you working on?

About herding cats

Well of course I don't mean literally. The one cat I have won't be herded.
No, it's these little girls,the grandpeeps, that I keep trying to herd. They don't cotton well to being herded, either.
For example, last night at football practice. C-dawg and Tay playing with another little sister of a boy on Julian.
Of course the little girls do not stay put for any length of time. They sit on the blanket a minute. They get up and go back on the sidewalk. They go over to talk to Papa. They come to me and want ... snacks.
Oh yes, I am the keeper of all things snacky. One little red golf bag cooler filled with water (sometimes juice), fish crackers, teddy grahams, gummy fruit snacks, and the piece de resistance ... the soft-cheese-and-stick-cracker kits.
I think those girls could LIVE on those things. They LOVE them.
Once we crack open the snack cooler, the evening enters cafeteria mode.
The first thing they want is the cheese and cracker kits. Do they eat the little stick crackers? Not so much. They dip. And lick. And they will even skip the crackers entirely and just lick the cheese out of its little well.
Oh, the calories! However, it's just want these skinny little peeps need.
When the cheese and cracker things are gone, they deign to eat the fishies, the gummies, and the grahams.
Then, they run some races, they are taken to see the cattails by their dad, and they get on and off our laps 1,000 times each.
They are incredible.
However, when practice is over, and it's time to go, it's like cleaning up after Woodstock: I imagine Yasger's farm was not much tidier than the area around our lawn chairs. Maybe more muddy.
A hug goodbye and a blown kiss, and they get herded into their car seats. To snack another day.
Well, how 'bout you? What cats have you been herdin'?