On Saturdays Monkey goes to a social skills group. It's a nice little thing where he and five other kids who can't seem to interact with others for longer than ten minutes without having a big hairy hissy fit all work together to learn new things. Like how to read others' facial expressions! Like alternatives to screaming in frustration! Like how to complete a given task for a trip to the prize box! The sad truth is that when Monkey tells me about a kid in the group who can't grasp something that he has no problems with (for example, empathy isn't one of his issues; he can read facial...
Before I delve into recent events here at home, I feel the need to pay a bit of attention to my neglected television category. (Otto allows me to cheat on him periodically with a few select shows... he's progressive, that way.) In all seriousness: I may end up addicted to Thank God You're Here, which is filling the empty space in my heart where Whose Line Is It Anyway? went before I'd finally seen every single episode several times. Dave Foley might even be funnier than Drew Carey. With great glee: You know I've had issues---annoying, continuing issues---with my cable service here. So,...
At dinner tonight the kids asked if I have any pictures of myself from when I was little. I was impressed by their maturity, you know, because there was a time not too long ago when both of them would've insisted I sprung from a pod as a full-grown mother, never having eaten marshmallow breakfast cereal or practiced kissing on my poster of Rick Springfield in a past life. I assured them that I did, and when I was done eating but they were still flicking rice at each other, I went and grabbed my baby book. My mother gave it to me a little while ago, and I knew there were a bunch of school...
Just in case you're wondering: If you wait until Easter Day to check the supermarket for chocolate bunnies in a moment of caving (because, after all, there will be Easter baskets at Daddy's this year, and you were FULLY PLANNING to skip the whole deal, but then a certain child with big hopeful eyes and a quivering lower lip informed you that SANTA comes to both houses, so SURELY the Easter Bunny will do the same!), you will find row upon row of empty shelves where the bunnies used to be. Also, if you were wondering: The only Easter candy left which is orthodontia-approved is then a 5-pound...
Pro: I'm not hungry, so I don't have to cook/eat! Con: The children still expect to be fed. Pro: Less laundry, because I've been wearing the same clothes for three days. Con: I probably don't smell very good. Pro: I'm able to sit up for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Con: That's just enough time to obsess about all the work I'm not getting done. Pro: The spam I got about "doing it camel style" made me laugh and laugh. Con: Is there really such a thing as camel style? How does that... oh, nevermind. Time to go back to bed.
Once upon a time in a land not very far from here in a time more recent than you might think, there lived a damsel in distress. No, she wasn't locked in a tower or being held captive by a fire-breathing dragon or even being forced to clean houses in violation of her birthright. She wasn't wandering, lost, in the forest or turned into a ogre or trying to communicate after an evil sea witch had stolen her voice. She was just in the regular sort of distress. Oh, you know. The kids needed more (more time, more attention, more help) and work needed more and the house needed more and OH GOOD GOD,...
When I woke up this morning, I was planning little more than an ordinary day, albeit starting off with a coffee date with a friend I haven't seen in a long time. I didn't even have breakfast on the table when she'd called to cancel. (Damn those unpredictable children and their foolish illnesses when we have coffee to drink! Damn them to hell!) Oh, well. I'd just stay in and do my work. Then I checked my calendar and realized I had a mammogram appointment at lunchtime. Clearly I was in for a treat. This mammogram was actually a very special mammogram; after some calcifications were spotted...
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Barba: You must've been so very proud when your daughter Antonella was selected to be on season 6 of American Sellout Idol. Let's face it; she's beautiful, she's a pretty good singer, and now all the eyes of America are on her. How could you help but feel anything but pride? Even when she made the incredibly vacuous comment, upon hearing that she'd made the latest cut, that it was because "God loves good people" (that's funny, I didn't notice her taking a break to serve some Meals on Wheels, but maybe that part ended up on the cutting room floor), I'm sure you stood right...
I tasked the children's father with the annual Selecting Of The Valentines for the kids this year, in part because I hadn't gotten around to it and he had them with him this weekend, and in part because the entire exercise makes me want to shove sharp pencils into my eyeballs. When it's up to me, we go to the Dollar Store and have a choice of maybe six different kinds of cards. When the children whine that they want something that isn't there, I try to look sympathetic. Then I tell them to hurry up and pick because we have to go get groceries. The REAL stores have entire WALLS of valentines...
