Compliments, and a contest
I usually save the contests for that other little blog o’ mine, but today I’m going to do one here. Just because. It’s at the end of this post. OH, THE SUSPENSE! Don’t hurt yourself!
It has long been our dinner tradition to go around the table and have each family member share the best and worst parts of his or her day. It’s not only a nice way to reconnect after the hubbub of daily life, but it provides a much-needed break from telling the kids to stop bickering or exhorting them to actually eat some of their food. Of course, some days it’s easier than others to come up with something to share. Occasionally a child will say “THE BEST PART OF MY DAY WAS” and then list off ten different things. This doesn’t quite conform to the rules and the standard definition of “best,” but I like it. Other times a child will say “THE WORST PART OF MY DAY WAS” and then list off ten different things, and then everyone cries. It’s an adventure, is my point.
Recently we’ve started a new game. We go around the table and pay each other compliments. read more…
Men shop on Mars, women just shop
One of the biggest lessons I’m learning about being married again is that men and women really are just fundamentally different about some things. Much of the time those differences are “cute” or “endearing” or at least tolerable, and occasionally those differences are just plain baffling.
And I’m not just talking about what baffles me, either. I know for a fact that Otto is baffled by my shopping habits on a daily basis. He does not, for example, understand why I need so many shoes. I probably haven’t done a very good job of explaining it, either (“I JUST DO!”), but that’s because I’ve never needed to explain it to another woman. I require many pairs of pretty shoes; this is something he is learning to accept about me.
Just as a FOR INSTANCE, and based on absolutely nothing at all, really, just TOTALLY RANDOM, let’s take a look at a couple of differences in the ways Otto and I approach a major retail purchase. Just for FUN. read more…
Wouldn’t have missed it
Hey, guess what! Remember about a year ago when Monkey won an award, and we went to a very long ceremony, and I realized that I have an irrevocable urge to shout “YOU DAMN KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN” at elementary schoolers who have bigger boobs than I do? Wasn’t that awesome?
We liked it all SO much, we went back again and did the whole shebang a second time when Chickadee won. It was pretty much the same.
This year I’ve sort of been living in dread of such things, because it turns out that as proud as I am when the kids do good things, I still don’t particularly like sitting through long ceremonies punctuated by hundreds of children who really are not all that interested in being quiet for an entire hour.
So I was DELIGHTED this year when Monkey brought home the notice that he’d won, but also told us that now the deal is that the ceremony just happens for the kids, and parents are invited to come in for lunch, afterward. read more…
Love breaks through
This winter has been pretty bleak, so far.
It’s the usual stuff as well as some genuinely difficult circumstances—most staunchly filed under Matters Largely UnbloggableTM—and while the bottom line is that we are all fine, I respectfully submit that T.S. Eliot got it all wrong. April is not the cruelest month, January is. Hands down.
One of the things I’m discovering, finally, after coming-up-on-two-years worth of remarriage, is that blending a family is not a linear process. It’s more like the Electric Slide gone haywire, with steps forward and back and then—surprise!—sideways at an unpredictable pace. If you’re not in tip-top shape it will sap you of your energy and your belief in a happy ending, sometimes. And when things are difficult and everyone’s got a cough that just won’t go away, nobody feels much like dancing. read more…
The miracle of life, ruined by boys
One of my friends is pregnant. Actually; wait. THREE of my friends are pregnant right now, but only one in-town friend, who I have the advantage of being able to bother daily. I mean, I doubt she’s having a baby just to make ME happy, or anything, but I think it was awfully nice of her, anyway. Smooshy baby cheeks! Yummy baby knees! I can hardly wait! (And in the meantime: Vicarious shopping! Pregnancy jokes! Better-you-than-me comments! She sure is lucky to have me as a friend, I tell you what!)
I have thus far really been enjoying my peek into impending-third-child-dom. For example, her daughter—who is in kindergarten—is absolutely ECSTATIC. She was announcing that her mommy was having a baby to random people at the supermarket, even before it was visually obvious. On the other hand, her son—who is Monkey’s age—was completely disgusted and dejected at the news… until he found out that he’ll probably be getting a new bedroom, and then suddenly he was extremely pro-baby.
Granted, this may not be quite as amusing to the mom-to-be as it is to the rest of us, but I appreciate her taking this particular bullet for our enjoyment. read more…
Maid, cook, eyeball wrangler
Wasn’t I just waxing nostalgic about how I miss the helpless baby days, but saying how great it is now that the kids can do lots of things themselves? I think I was. Which is tantamount to holding a sign up to the universe and inviting it to please come show me the error of my ways, preferably in the most humbling way possible.
Ah, yes. There is nothing that says PRECARIOUS CUSP BETWEEN BABYHOOD AND SELFDOM like the tween years, and nothing that says WELCOME TO PURGATORY like that tween with a new pair of contact lenses.
You do remember that Chickadee was all jazzed to try contacts, right? And I said I wasn’t sure she was old enough, but then all of you left comments about how young you were when you got contacts, and because I like to take advice from people on the Internet, I figured, “How bad could it be?” read more…
Better and better
I was wasting time on Facebook earlier today when I really should’ve been working (and not just in a “gosh, I should probably be working” kind of way, but in a “OH MY HOLY HELL I HAVE A DEADLINE AND I’M NOT DONE AND THE ONLY CURE FOR THIS PARALYSIS IS MORE SCRAMBLE!” kind of way), and —like everyone else in the world—I’ve been reconnecting with people I haven’t seen since childhood, and I came across someone’s picture of her toddler and commented on it that I miss toddler bellies.
Because I do. There is nothing quite like the proud pot-belly of a toddler. My lips twitch with the urge to zerbert such abdomens whenever I see them.
My children have bellies that I will still occasionally zerbert—I’m not made of STONE or anything—but my daughter can wear my shoes and my son’s mouthful of braces sets off metal detectors within five miles. (Let’s not discuss the smell issue. Ahem.) In short, their baby days are long gone. read more…
Love is always number 1
I love how many of you remember your own Spelling Bee come-to-Jesus moment. And I even love how many of you were so concerned that I was going to use my kid to make a statement, to buck the law, man, like I regularly trot around using my offspring as body armor as necessary. Heh.
Sometimes I vent, people. Like when I’m given two days to come up with an outfit because the school said it was optional-compulsory-required-justkidding!
We found a mostly-blue skirt in the back of Chickadee’s closet (purchased when she was 7, and yes, this size 7 skirt is STILL too big around on her), and—yes, put down the phone, no need to call DFACS—I bought her a white blouse. We played by the rules. Like the good conformers that we are. Woo. I was only a TEENSY bit bitter when we arrived at the Spelling Bee and most of the kids were wearing (forbidden) jeans. read more…
None of this is important
Watching CNN yesterday, I felt simultaneously utterly insignificant AND an integral part of something bigger and more important than I can possibly comprehend. The last time I felt that way was right after 9/11, and needless to say, the last time it didn’t feel particularly GOOD. Yesterday felt good.
So all of this other stuff, this minutiae going on in my life… I realize that it’s just filler. I don’t have any illusions about it. Still, it’s My Stuff, and if I don’t talk about it, WHO WILL? (No one, that’s who. I mean, I hope. That would be kind of weird, otherwise.)
All of which is a looooong way of saying that my life is still completely insignificant, but not everyone can go to the Inaugural Ball or be sworn into the highest office in the land. Some of us have to do everything ELSE. Like stay at home and eat Sun Chips and pretend that they’re healthier than potato chips because, dude, they totally have fiber and, um, STUFF! read more…
Breathless
I know, I know; I have been slacking, I owe you a real post, and I was going to write one, I swear.
But I’m watching the inauguration on CNN and I’m just… overcome.
Me. With my tiny little shriveled, blackened heart. I can’t catch my breath.