So yesterday, I was working along and minding my own business when the phone rang. It was school. Chickadee was in the nurse's office, and did I want to come pick her up? Because I am the meanest mother in the entire world, I asked if they had taken her temperature. They had not. So I offered to wait while they did. She had a fever. I thanked the caller and asked her to let Chickadee know that I would be there in ten minutes. Twenty minutes later we were back home and Chickadee crawled into bed and was asleep almost instantly. Poor thing. Ten minutes after THAT, the phone rang. It was...
So, last week my pal Foodie (remember Foodie? Perhaps I should always refer to her in context in a way that makes her sound all mysterious, like Hey! Remember Foodie and the Gazpacho of Doom?) called me up and said, "I have a friend who got a couple of show tickets she can't use for Tuesday night. Wanna go?" This was a no-brainer for me, for several reasons. 1) I was a theater major in college, and although I'm very very very glad I didn't decide to pursue that as a career, I am still a fool for a great stage production 2) I very much like hanging out with Foodie 3) Getting out of the house...
Poor Otto had kind of A Day, yesterday, and so after dinner he settled into our comfy armchair with a magazine and I just gave him wide berth for a bit. After the kids were settled into bed I decided to do a little cleaning, because my dad and stepmom arrive tomorrow and my house is a pigsty. (I know! So weird! I mean, there was just a team of maids here last month*, so you'd think the house would still be spotless! What? Oh, THAT was my blunder, clearly. Had I only remembered to lock the children out of the house in the intervening month, I suppose the place would still be clean.) Anyway, I...
I don't know that I have ever laughed so hard in my entire life as I did at the many and varied responses to my double mystery post this weekend. First of all, y'all have some excellent costume ideas (cereal killer! HAAAAA!!) for sure. And a trip to Goodwill yielded a boy-sized... well, it's not a trenchCOAT, but it is sort of a trenchJACKET, plus it wins the thumbs-up by virtue of having The Right Price, which in this case was $2.30. He desperately wants to wear sunglasses, but I am JUST THINKING that may not work for nighttime trick-or-treating, so the ol' fake-glasses-and-moustache may be...
Our weekday mornings 'round here are pretty typical: I am up first, checking email and pouring milk, and the kids eventually make their way downstairs and get themselves situated with breakfast, and finally Otto emerges from the shower and joins them at the table while I finish up packing lunches. The kids and I will often chat about various minutiae while this is going on, and then Otto will either join in or read the paper, depending on how awake he's feeling. It's not a bad way to start a day, all in all. I mean, sure, about 20% of the time the children end up having some sort of squabble...
I only watched half of the debate last night. The second half. I tried not to, because I knew it was just going to infuriate me, but then I couldn't stay away. Guess what? It infuriated me! Go figure! They're having a little problem with my section over at Scholastic, and I just discovered that my last two reviews aren't listed on the main page, although they are, in fact, there. So in case you want a little antidote to last night's lunacy---in the form of kid-sized politics---I've got you covered. Last week, we read LaRue for Mayor. And this week, we read Otto Runs for President. (Both...
Remember back about a year ago, when I was all "I am so looooooonely here! I love my husband but I have no giiiiiiiirlfriends! Woe is meeeeeeee!"? Remember that? Yeah, me neither. Lord, what a difference a year makes. Yesterday I had a local signing for Sleep Is for the Weak, and I don't know if you've ever been to Athens, but this is a town with many fine offerings in cuisine, music, cultural events, etc. In other words, many folks have better things to do with their Sunday afternoons than to pick up an anthology about parenthood and have it signed by one of the twenty-three contributing...
I don't want to alarm anyone---particularly fellow mothers to young girls---but this whole puberty thing? Does not wait until high school. I mean, if it had any manners it certainly WOULD wait until high school, so that our daughters would already be refusing to talk to us about anything, but no. "Well, how old were YOU when you started... changing?" asked a friend, in response to my detailing recent events in our house. "I don't know!" I huffed. "I HAVE COMPLETELY BLOCKED OUT THOSE YEARS!" And it's true. I have one vivid memory of pestering my mother, repeatedly, that I wanted to shave my...
I have this bad habit of jumping to conclusions. It's just that the HOPEFULNESS that lives within me---occupying not a very large area, even, like maybe only a pinky fingernail's worth---is somewhat exuberant. It's all "Dude! HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS?" And it doesn't matter if the good news has actually, honest and for true, ARRIVED. This can occasionally be a problem. Case in point: I went out to run a bajillion errands today. Ever since gas went up to whatever it is now (I'm driving on fumes and refusing to even look at gas station signs, and by the way HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS?),...
