I might get myself a plaque, too. Something gilded that highlights my cookie-bribing achievements.

I’ve been feeling sick off and on for a couple of weeks now, and the lead-up to the holidays has been a lot more muted that I would have wanted. Aura and I still haven’t made the peppermint bark, I’m only a scary little percentage done with Christmas shopping, and the stuff on the kitchen floor and the squadron of dust bunnies lurking fuzzily in the corners look to be on the verge of mutiny. A bad, bad mutiny.

Yet the most I can seem to do is the bare minimum and then I just lie around on the couch. It has been while I am lying on the couch (I often ask for the vapors, like they always do in my Victorian novels, but I’ll be damned if a single person around here has the vapors; it’s all for better or for worse and through sickness and health UNTIL YOU NEED THE DAMN VAPORS) that it struck me that man, my standards for A Good Parent have fallen dramatically. Basically, I now suck. Cases in point:

• There was a time when Aura’s time with the iPad was strictly limited. A little Angry Birds, a little Princess Ph.D. (HAHAHA I MAKE MY KID PLAY SOMETHING CALLED PRINCESS PH.D.), then it was Off to Your Imaginative Play and Maybe One of Those Impressive Looking Shape Puzzles. This week, Aura has logged approximately two million five hundred thousand seven hundred and forty eight hours with the iPad. (That effin’ Muffin Knight, man. I can suddenly see junkies’ point.)
• Turns out you can say “Really? Don’t you want to watch one more show? Please?” with very little shame. You can even say it more than once an hour.
• Roald Dahl is getting a plaque somewhere in this house, once I get off the couch to order it. Reading aloud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory while lying-very-very-still-no-one-jostle-my-headache has bought me ample bonding time. You’d think all that talk of chocolate bars and melting chocolate and chocolate marshmallows would further upset my nauseous stomach, but nope. Apparently chocolate trumps all.
• Which brings me to my final Parent of the Year observation: Cookies and then more cookies from Trader Joe’s actually do a lot for a suddenly boring mother’s reputation. In fact, at dessert time around these parts, I may have been called the BEST MOTHER EVER.

Thank you, Trader Joe’s. Bless your packaged little heart.