Guess who is my favorite right now?

by Mir on December 17, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Oh look! Something furry!!

Without compromising the privacy of the underlings in my household, I can tell you that the three little ones ’round here have VERY different reactions to impending travel.

It’s funny, really, to watch them all exhibit such different behavior. An interesting anthropological study, you might say. Because there’s that whole nature/nurture thing, plus two of the three share DNA, yet they could not be more striking in the various reactions they have.

And I, of course, just have to deal with it all. With a smile. When I can manage it. So, yes: The kids head off for vacation with their dad, today, and here is what my morning wrought: (more…)

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Comments { 30 }

It’s… educational!

by Mir on December 15, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, I'm dating the television, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

You guys. I… I can’t even. Because words fail.

A couple of weeks ago someone posted this on Facebook, and I watched it with a mix of horror and delight. Because LOOK:

And I made Otto watch it, too. And Otto said, “No. YOU ARE NOT WATCHING THAT WHEN IT COMES ON TV.” And I argued, and he kept saying no, and then last night I was channel-surfing and it was on and he was upstairs, so I watched it. With Chickadee. (more…)

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Comments { 56 }

My many first-world problems

by Mir on December 14, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, What do I do all day?

Sometimes I sit down to write something and I feel like such a colossal douche I consider just skipping the blog entry and ridiculing myself internally, instead. But then I realize that’s no fun at all, and I share it all with you.

YOU ARE WELCOME.

Here at Casa Mir I am fraught with THE BUSY, because time is running out, school vacation and The Big Trek North are almost upon us, and there are a million things I have not done, cannot do, must accomplish, blah blah blahbbity blahhhhhh and all of it is unimportant, I mean mostly, and yet it’s eating up my head space. I’m forever exhorting my children to USE ALL THAT BRAIN POWER FOR GOOD RATHER THAN EVIL, and perhaps I should take my own advice. Except in my case I should probably use that brain power for the betterment of humanity instead of for middle-class minutiae. And I will. As soon as I take care of this other stuff. (more…)

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Comments { 29 }

I live to share my embarrassments

by Mir on December 13, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

As if blogging my day-to-day maladjustedness isn’t enough (huh, my spellcheck is insisting that’s not a world, but spellcheck, I can assure you that I am living proof that it CERTAINLY IS), I really have to give a big ol’ shout-out to Off Our Chests for giving me the weekly opportunity to dredge up the many embarrassments from my past, as well.

Because, really, what’s the point of being a completely mortified dork time and time again unless you can share it with the whole Internet? Exactly!

So my offering today is all about how I once ended up unintentionally flashing my entire class. Because of course I did. Come on over and cringe with me, I don’t mind.

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Comments { 5 }

You’ll shoot your eye out, kid (or not)

by Mir on December 12, 2011 in Aspi(e)rations, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. Now, on the one hand: Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. In fact, Monkey has received no less than four birthday party invitations since beginning his time at Hippie School, and if you’re a longtime reader I probably don’t have to spell this out (but I will, anyway, because saying it out loud makes me marvel all over again), but four birthday party invitations is… oh… roughly FOUR MORE than he received in the previous couple of years combined.

Hippie School is terribly tolerant and inclusive, and I love and cherish that so much, even if it means we get an invitation to a 5-year-old’s party and Monkey’s response is “Why would I want to go to THAT?” (Answer: Because you’re all one big happy family now, DAMMIT.) Of course, this opens up a whole new avenue for us, because now instead of him always being left out we actually have to PICK and CHOOSE from the MANY party opportunities. Which is weird. And wonderful.

Parties can be a little overwhelming for him, so we’ve turned down several invitations. But this weekend was Luigi’s party, so off we went. (more…)

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Comments { 30 }

Actually, right now it’s delighted

by Mir on December 10, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Woohoo!

So remember how I was all “Grrrrr, people make me mad and we need more girl power in the world!” and so I was going to go audition for The Vagina Monologues basically because my daughter asked me to? And then I didn’t say anything else about it and several of you emailed me and were all “Oh hey, whatever happened with that?” And I sort of did the email equivalent of “Hmmm, yeah, I dunno, OH LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY!” and didn’t really tell you?

I was waiting, see.

The audition itself was quite brief—surprisingly so, I thought—and I was left wondering if I was so awful they cut me off to save themselves or if I was so awesome that they decided to cast me on the spot and no further reading was necessary. (I have NO IDEA where my son gets that whole black/white assessment of the world from. Curious.) I went away and agonized for a few days, then later got a general “welcome to the cast, more info to follow” email.

More info arrived this evening. I read for the Angry Vagina monologue and that’s what I got! Apparently I am totally believable as cranky genitalia. I choose to take this as a compliment.

[Related: HOLY SHIT I haven't acted in two decades and I thought a good way to reacquaint myself with the stage would be to get up in front of a bunch of people and bitch about tampons and pap smears?! Of course I did.]

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Comments { 71 }

The 27 Days of Sockmas

by Mir on December 9, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

December is, traditionally, the month of the year wherein I am most likely to wish to die in a fire. It’s not that I don’t love the holiday fa la la la blah blah or whatever, it’s that:
1) Work is crazy. (See also: the glamorous life of a freelancer, no such thing as paid vacation.)
2) The children are crazy. (Monkey is crazy because everyone else is crazy; Chickadee is crazy because traditional public schooling mandates that December is a DANDY time to assign projects in every single class, plus have finals, plus do standardized testing, plus start doing competitions for several activities in which she’s involved.)
3) Travel makes me crazy, and the only thing that makes me crazier than traveling is PLANNING for travel, and December is the hallowed month of WHEN WILL YOU BE HERE FOR HOW LONG LET’S PLAN EVERYTHING and as much as I love each and every person who wants to see us, really, I do, I would also rather punch myself in the face repeatedly than try to figure this out every damn year.
and
4) It’s possible I’m just crazy anyway. MAYBE. I admit to nothing. Other than December bringing out my special brand of… me-ness. (more…)

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Comments { 34 }

Moral of the story

by Mir on December 7, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Health is overrated, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

You get one day to stay home from school when you tell me you don’t feel well, even if you don’t necessarily have a fever. I’m willing to suspend disbelief for one day.

When you refuse to go to school on the second day, I will inform you that in the absence of fever or vomiting a second day home must indicate pernicious, invisible illness which needs to be diagnosed RIGHT AWAY, and therefore I will be scheduling a visit to the doctor.

What I may have forgotten to mention until shortly before said appointment is that there are now two options: Either the doctor agrees that you are quite sickly, or the doctor says you look absolutely fine… and then you will be getting your flu shot. I mean, as long as we’re there, and have paid our co-pay, and I’ve lost half my work day. Because I wouldn’t want you to be any SICKER, you know. (INSERT MEANINGFUL EYEBROWS.)

In short, Day 1 is a Mental Health Day, but Day 2 is Mama Don’t Play That Day.

(P.S. I suspect tomorrow will be Miraculous Recovery Day.)

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Comments { 22 }

If wishes were horses, I’d be walking

by Mir on December 6, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

It’s Tuesday, and that means that today I’m over at Off Our Chests. Partially inspired by Otto’s birthday (and subsequent match-stuck-in-the-cake), I’m thinking about wishing, today. And wondering if I’m weird.

I once had a friend who tried to convince me that if I didn’t have an entire list of things I wanted (not necessarily THINGS, but experiences, goals, etc.) it meant I was somehow not as spiritually enlightened and forward-thinking as she and her actively-working-on-their-lists cohorts were. It was a sign of stagnation and thinking small, she said. (We’re not friends anymore. Surprise!)

Nevertheless, I know some might find my position odd. So naturally I’m going to lay it all out there and wait for someone to tell me I’m wrong and possibly also that I’m stupid and my dog is funny-looking. (People are like that, you know. Joke’s on them, though—I already KNOW Licorice is funny-looking!)

I hope you’ll come on over and tell me about your wishes, or lack thereof.

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Comments { 2 }

Insert various/sundry fawning here

by Mir on December 5, 2011 in Ottomatic For the People

Yesterday was Otto’s birthday, and lo there was much celebration and rejoicing!

Except… there was no way I was going to manage to top last year’s surprise (and subsequent party and extravaganza), plus Otto was out of town for most of the weekend, plus life is completely overwhelming right now for various mostly uninteresting reasons, plus I just generally sort of suck.

So, we love him to bits and all, but I’m afraid that as birthdays go, it wasn’t a terribly exciting day. I mean, there were presents, and we went out to dinner, and I told him I love him about a billion times, but I still feel like I kind of dropped the ball. And that is only partially because I discovered we were out of candles and made him blow out a match on top of his cake so he could make a wish. (more…)

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