I should feel virtuous

I'm sitting here at my desk eating my 'midnight' snack. For once, I'm eating a salad. Fresh romaine lettuce and caesar dressing. I should feel good that I'm eating something reasonably good for me, but I do not. Because earlier tonight I made date nut muffins and I ate two of them for dinner. My children ate chicken and spinach and potatos. I ate date nut muffins. I suck.

Have you ever had one of those conversations with your kids that you just didn't really understand. Like, you tried and tried to explain how things are, but they just didn't understand your point and you both ended up totally confused? I had one of those moments today with the Girl.

We were sitting in the waiting room at the PDoc's office waiting for the Boy's appointment. He was reading MotorTrend magazine and looking at all the cars he thought would be perfect for me. He was comparison shopping the minivans and we priced the Sienna, Odyssey, and Caravan. The Girl, who wasn't really paying that much attention, asked what kind of car we had. I told her it was a Caravan, a Dodge Caravan.

"Dodge?" she asked.
"Yup, it's a Dodge"
"I've never heard of a Dodge. What is that?"
"It's a brandname", I tell her.

The boy breaks in and says "It's like Ford. Do you know what Ford is?"
She says "Yeah, they are trucks."

We both tell her that Ford is a car manufacturer, like GM. She's never heard of GM. She is very confused. I try to further explain.

"GM is General Motors. They're a huge company and they make many different brands of cars. Just like Ford Motors."
"But doesn't Ford make Chevys?" she asks?
"NOOOO," we say. "Ford doesn't make Chevy. Chevy is a brand of GM."

She is now so confused that she's almost got tears in her eyes. So I go back to the beginning. The "there are three major American automobile manufactures. Ford. GM. And Chrysler. Ford makes Fords, like the Mustang, Lincolns like the Navigator, and the F10 trucks. GM makes Chevys and Cadillacs. Chrysler makes Dodge and Plymouth."

Her eyes are glazing over. "But what about Volkswagon?" she asks.
"Volkswagon makes the Beetle (her favorite car), but they also make Audi and Porsche."

"Forget it" she says. "It's too confusing."

And she's right. It is confusing. And I didn't even get into the Mercedes owns part of Chrysler, Lexus is Toyota, Nissan owns Infinity, and I don't know who the heck owns Saab anymore. I think it's GM.

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