I've been threatening to do this for months, but I finally wrote a counterpoint piece to all of those "HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR SCHMOOPYKINS GETS INTO HARVARD" articles. It was surprisingly cathartic. My distress over various "experts" in this area is threefold: 1) Who says you have to go to an Ivy or other generally-rated-as-one-of-the-very-best sorts of colleges in order to succeed? That's dumb. If that was true, none of the other colleges would exist, or no one who graduates from them would ever make a living. These pieces are rife with a snobbery about education that I find really...
I realize that we are probably the last people on earth to have discovered Sherlock, but OMG, are you watching Sherlock?? I've never really understood all the fuss about Benedict Cumberbatch---I mean, fine, he's an actor? Who acts well? And I have always enjoyed this ridiculousness---but now I get it. I GET IT. TEAM SHERLOCK 4EVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Seriously, if there's an evening I think we're going to watch it and then it turns out we can't for some reason, I become despondent. And I'm probably headed for a full nervous breakdown, because we're almost done with Season 3 and then what am I...
Having children just a year apart in school has its advantages, sometimes---they often do the same activities at the same time, and this year when so many things are broken into a 9th/10th night and an 11th/12th night, we only have to go once---but somehow I forgot about the whole TWO KIDS HEADING TO COLLEGE AT NEARLY THE SAME TIME thing. It's not fair, really. I am constantly gauging and assessing Chickadee's experiences this year to help us make decisions about how to handle things with Monkey. This is (surprise!) resulting in a litany of "But how come HE doesn't have to---" and "but when...
I have decided that time is a terribly confusing construct. There were years when it seemed to drag on and on and on and I was sure that my children would never grow up and we would be frozen in time, forever. Then I bought a new car and went to write about it and thought to myself, "Surely I have only owned the previous car for a few years, right?" So I went and looked it up and no, actually we bought my previous car almost six years ago. How is that even possible?? Also, how is it possible that we bought that car knowing it would someday go to Chickadee (and laughed about, at that time)...
I don't want to alarm everyone (LIES; I would like you to please be just as alarmed as I am), but it appears that my youngest precious babykins is now officially 16 years old, which is impossible, because I just gave birth to him a couple of years ago. Clearly there is some black magic at work here, and I would like it to cease and desist immediately. Part of this is my fault. Well... technically it's all my fault (Parenting! Because guilt is forever!), but one particular part of it is especially my fault. Remember when Monkey skipped a grade? That seemed like such a good idea at the time....
Hey, remember how my kid came down with something flu-ish on Christmas? Because of course she did? And then a week went by and figured it was just her, so on New Year's Eve Day when we were making vision boards and I wasn't feeling so hot, I figured it was no big deal... right up until it became clear that yes indeed, I was going to be ringing in the new year with a fever and a lot of grumpiness. Oh well. I don't know what sort of virus it is (was), but I finished up my board in bed, yesterday, and today I am up but moving kind of slow. That's fine. While I go drink a whole lotta water and...
How was your Christmas? Ours was lovely, just before the family scattered on their various journeys, and right now I am struggling to get back into "real life" mode while ALSO dealing with the fact that we're under a flash flood warning and our yard has turned into a river (thanks, Obama!). This means that the dogs are all manner of freaked out---Duncan likes to bark to let me know he heard thunder, which is SUPER USEFUL---and also because they are delicate flowers, they don't want to go outside in the rain and mud. And that's fine, if they want to learn how to use a toilet, but apparently...
In the continuing saga of Mir Gives Out Advice On The Internet Like She Knows Stuff Or Something, today at Alpha Mom I'm tackling the question of how to handle kids and parties where there may be drinking and/or drugs. Spoiler alert: I am not the Cool Mom. Also, I'll offer this addendum: These days I have to talk more often and more in depth with my kids about how to narc without being found out, as both of them have attained Snitch: Expert Level. While their friends are good kids and there's not a lot I worry about, I worry more about one of them being taken to task for narcing than I am...
Remember when I used to write here regularly? I can't decide if my life is less interesting now or if I just finally realized my life is not nearly as interesting as I once believed. It's probably best not to dwell on it. Today we are trying to Return To Normal Life, only that's working about as well as you might imagine when my entire family returned on Saturday, over-stimulated and under-rested. Otto is a pretty good sport, as you know---plus when he's tired he's not mean, because he is a fully evolved human---but the kids spent most of Saturday in bed and then grumbled around for a while...
