Archive for the 'Haven't been hit by lightning yet!' Category
Yesterday was a whirlwind of travel, putting us at one friend’s house for the afternoon, then shuffling off to another friend’s house for the night. I guess Otto hadn’t been entirely clear with this group of pals as to when we’d be where, so although they were delighted to have us (and OH MY GOD I had the best meal of my LIFE last night; I am thinking of asking his friends to come move in with us, because: EMERIL’S POTATO CASSEROLE), the hosts who were keeping us for the night hadn’t actually made up the guest bed yet.
So we’d watched the first half of the Patriots game at the first house (actually, they watched while I glanced up between working, which they were remarkably tolerant of) (that’s why I write for a living, because me write pretty, what with ending sentences with “of” and such) and then driven to the next town over during halftime to the other house. When we arrived, our hostess was making up the bed, and we brought our stuff in and I started to help. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:44 am |
A few days ago Chickadee kept saying GORGONZOLA over and over, until Monkey started doing it, too, and before long they were both in the kitchen, bouncing up and down, chanting “GOR-GON-ZO-LA! GOR-GON-ZO-LA!”
“Why are you doing that?” I asked. (Because I am foolish and expect my children to make sense, even though nearly ten years of experience has never borne out this hypothesis in the slightest.)
“I don’t know,” Chickie replied. “It’s just fun to say. GOR-GON-ZO-LA!”
“GOR-GON-ZO-LA!” Monkey added, for good measure.
“Do you even know what gorgonzola is?” I pressed.
“Yes,” retorted Chickadee, full of indignation. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
11:35 am |
I am sincerely afraid to open my Discover bill this month. Oh, it’s true that I never spend much on anything. But a little here, a little there… it adds up, particularly when getting ready for Christmas. And a 1,000 mile car trip with two kids. And when finding such awesome deals at Amazon that I cannot possibly let them pass by.
At this point I am pretty sure that my UPS man curses my name every time he pulls up at my house. (But, hey, it’s not MY fault that when you order a tub of Legos from Amazon, they send each brick individually, for a total of 750 boxes on the doorstep.)
This is, of course, why the bathroom pipes staged a coup; because it’s a truism that you never find yourself in the middle of an unexpected home repair when you have some extra money lying around. It’s as if the appliances sense that you’re low on cash, and suddenly BOOM! everything breaks. I have been stopping on every trip through the kitchen to whisper sweet nothings to the washer and dryer, so great is my fear at this point. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:15 am |
I am home just briefly inbetween church services—this is the morning the choir is doing our cantata at church, and in addition to the service for which we usually sing (the NORMAL PEOPLE service), I had to go sing at the early service (the BUTTCRACK OF DAWN service).
Part of my problem really embracing this church has been that I am terribly homesick for the choir I sang in at my old church, for various reasons. I had thought it was mostly because I miss my friends, but there’s more to it than that.
Like today, for instance. We’ve performed the cantata once and we’re about to go do it again… and I have to say, I think that with a month or two more of rehearsal, we’ll really have that puppy nailed.
Yeah. (”Dear Jesus, Sorry for making your birthday tuneless. We tried. Love, The Choir.”)
Posted by Mir @
9:57 am |
Otto and I stayed up past midnight last night, and I probably shouldn’t tell you what we were doing, but I can tell you that it involved a lot of licking.
Oh my GOD; what is WRONG with you???
We were doing our Christmas cards. Sicko. Sheesh.
It has generally been my policy to do Christmas cards only on alternate years when Mercury is in retrograde and I’m able to dig the money for the cards out of the sofa cushions, and then I take some pictures of the kids and Photoshop them beyond recognition or transplant a head from one picture onto the body of another or something, and then I send them out bearing some terribly personal message like “Happy holidays from our home to yours!”
Boy, are you lucky if you’re on my list. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:20 am |
You’d think that with the extra hour of sleep we all supposedly got, that yesterday would’ve gone completely smoothly. Of course, I let the kids stay up later, because the only thing that sucks harder than being woken up at 6 on a weekend morning is being woken up at 5 on a weekend morning. (And you know, Monkey would totally be the rat who keeps pressing the bar for a food pellet, getting shocked, and pressing the bar again, totally bewildered by each successive shock. He never understands why we are not overjoyed to see him hours before dawn. “I had a good sleep!” he declares, jumping on the bed. “I am ready to get up now!” And then when I snap at him—in my defense, maybe on the second or third trip into our room when the clock hasn’t even made it to 7 yet—he is horribly wounded.)
Anyway, I had high hopes for yesterday, but I am a fool. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:17 am |
In our old town, at our old school, I confess that I never went to a single PTA meeting. Even though one of my very best friends was the PTA president. Hey, I was a single mom on a budget, and paying a sitter to go to a boring meeting just wasn’t very high on my list of priorities. I compromised; I did the newsletter for a while, so that I could say I was contributing. And really, there was an entire contingent of people who positively LIVED for the PTA, so it’s not like they needed me there.
(I do loves me some justification. Hooboy.)
Anyway, here in our new school, I’m more involved. Part of it is that I don’t need to get a sitter, and part of it is that I really want to know what’s happening here because this is a school with issues. Oh, and, um, I’m just a really spectacular mother! Whoops, there go my eyes again. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:46 am |
One of the things that appeals to me about homeschooling is that you get to decide WHAT and HOW your child learns. Now, I know one of the complaints often leveled at homeschoolers is exactly that, that they can (purposely or not) end up educating their children in an incomplete manner, and whether or not that’s true (I mean, I think the majority of homeschoolers strive for—and achieve—a better education than one ends up getting in a public school), at least the parents are doing the selection.
Of course, I would never ever in a hundred thousand million YEARS elect to homeschool my kids, for all sorts of reasons, but the primary one being that I like them a whole lot better when I don’t have to spend every single minute of every single day with them. (Oh, how horrible! some people are now thinking. Whatever. I call this KNOWING MY LIMITATIONS and also BEING HONEST.) I, personally, am a better mother when my children get the majority of their book learnin’ elsewhere.
Besides, this frees me up to be dissatisfied with the public school system. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:16 am |
There are many things which I believe it is my job to teach my children. I should teach them right from wrong. I should teach them to be kind to others. I should teach them how to get along in polite society and remember the Golden Rule and how to use their utensils properly and match their clothing and cook a decent meal and do their laundry without turning everything pink. It’s my job to teach them the things they need to know so that they can grow up and become productive, useful members of the society in which they live.
It is also my job to teach my children to take pride in the the areas where they excel, and to learn to cope with sub-standard or even (GASP!) failing performance in the areas in which they fall short. That also includes teaching them that they are likely NOT the best (and even in the areas in which they ARE the best, that may be a fleeting thing), and that that doesn’t entitle them to begrudge the folks who are.
It is ALL OF OUR JOBS to help our children reach their potential. Can we agree on that? I think we can. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:29 am |
There are things in this life I hope that my children will learn, but due to the various laws of parenting and physics, if/when I share these nuggets of wisdom with my cherished progeny, all they glean from it is “WAA WAA WAA WAA.”
While I hope to stick around on this mortal plane for a good long time, it is my one sincere and true hope that IF I happen to make an early exit, certain important lessons—those which just sounded like maternal nagging whilst I was still among the living—will finally seem worth learning through what I was able to leave behind.
Plus, if these children don’t start shaping up, I’ll be dead soon, anyway. That throbbing vein in my forehead can’t hold up forever. My guess is that I’m just three or four transgressions away from a stroke, so I’d better get this off my chest while I can still communicate clearly. (After this, I’m going to go practice tying my shoes. Just in case I survive the stroke but have trouble with my laces afterwards, it seems like a good idea to get in some extra practice.) (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:54 am |
