Party planning can be stressful business, because there are so many factors that go into hosting the perfect event. Can you manage all of the preparation on your own? Do you have the time and resources to clean your house? What food do you have planned for your guests? Well, let's face it. None of that really matters. If you want to have an evening of entertainment for a group of people, all you really need to do is make sure that you have Balderdash on hand, or---if you were lucky enough to pick one up at a yard sale for a quarter, like me---Beyond Balderdash. These games are guaranteed...
My poor father took something of a scolding yesterday for being mushy when I had really been hoping for a wacky story from my childhood. But which one could he have told? he wanted to know. What would've been the POINT of the story about the time I had my finger slammed in the car door, for example? My attempts to explain that there is rarely a point to what I talk about here seemed to fall on deaf ears. The family tales flew fast and furious last night, though, hitting on item after item where I would invariably protest, "Why didn't you write about THAT??" Because my childhood was FILLED...
We had baseball today, and Lemur wasn't there so I was braced for a meltdown. But it turns out that 1) Monkey is actually, with a bit of coaching, a pretty decent batter and 2) today was the day we got shirts and hats. 13 is Monkey's lucky number, so finding out he'd gotten it for his shirt was kind of like Christmas and his birthday all wrapped up together and topped off with a particularly chocolate-laden Easter. So that was awesome. (Coincidentally, 13 is also MY lucky number.) (Pssst! Are you a fan of Woulda Coulda Shoulda on Facebook? There may be a bonus picture from this morning over...
I turned into That Parent when I wasn't looking. I don't know if it was inevitable, or if it was brought on by these recent feelings of simply ping-ponging between the kids' needs, but somewhere inbetween finding-a-therapist-for-Monkey, now back to setting-limits-for-Chickadee, now back over here to deal-with-this-school-meeting-for-Monkey, then back again to find-a-new-specialist-for-Chickie, I became That Parent. The one who delivers a single, terrible indictment, then turns and walks away. "Please take the door off the hinges. Your bedroom door is gone until further notice." Later, I said...
I was actually going to write about this yesterday, before I read Chris' excellent post about sharing the good stuff, but yesterday I ended up in bed most of the day with a stomach thing, and that's all I'm going to say about that. (You're welcome.) So now you get it today and I totally look like a follower. Thanks a lot, Chris. Sheesh. (I kid! I am also still a little woozy, so, you know, cut me some slack.) A couple of nights ago it was just me and the kids for dinner; Otto was stuck at a work thing. We'd gotten home late from our various activities, and I threw together a quick dinner for...
Here's a real tragedy for you---this year Pi Day fell during spring break. This was quite disappointing to my nerdlings, but fortunately my son's math teacher recognized it for the tragedy that it was, and deemed the first day back to the school the Official Pi Day Celebration. They celebrated with pie, of course. Here's our contribution (click to embiggen) to the festivities; it's a chocolate cookie crust filled with chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, and whipped topping. (Mmmmm, Pi Sugar Rush!) Fueled by pie, Monkey won the day's pi recitation contest by rattling off 54 digits before...
There are days when I feel like I only exist to disappoint my kids. And not the yeah-no-we're-not-going-to-stay-up-late-and-eat-candy sorts of disappointments, which---truth be told---I rather delight in. When my kids want something unreasonable, I'm apt to say no with relish. I'll be the first one to point out that I am RUINING THEIR LIVES because I am SO MEAN and I NEVER EVER LET THEM HAVE WHAT THEY WANT! I'm not talking about that sort of stuff. I'm talking about days when I feel like I am forever saying no, justifying the things that hurt or upset them, and just generally feel like their...
I don't know where the time went, but suddenly it's baseball season again, and Monkey came back from his trip with his dad just in time to come play. The problem, of course, is that Monkey and Lemur haven't seen each other for a WHOLE WEEK, which meant that all four boys (Lemur has two brothers, remember) were much more interested in comparing Pokemon and finishing the lyrics to some song they're making up about death, destruction and farting (really, I tried not to ask) than in actually doing anything remotely baseball-like. But they ran around the field, and even kind of participated....
Yesterday was a no good, terrible, horrible, very bad day, and every time I think about it I get mad all over again. It was the sort of thing where I couldn't help just stepping outside of myself, mentally, even WHILE it was happening, and thinking, "If I wrote this up as a fiction story people would be all, 'Yeah, it's just not believable, I'm sorry.'" Like that. So I am too lazy to find the old posts and link back, but for anyone who's new 'round these parts, my darling daughter has some sort of chronic skin condition that she developed when we moved to Georgia which has been steadily...
