Next week, bring this list and pompoms
Creative ways to cheer on six-year-olds during a soccer game:
“That was a REALLY GREAT KICK! Next time you’ll get the direction right, too!”
“Good hustle! Let’s keep the stealing of the ball from teammates to a minimum, though!”
“That’s okay! Shake it off! Next time try standing somewhere near the goal, since you’re the goalie and all!”
“Spread out so you can pass! Spread out! No, not out of bounds! Just… oh… nevermind.”
“That’s it! Go after the ball! The BALL! Over THERE!”
“GET OUT OF THE POISON IVY!!”
“Everyone who can remember which goal is ours for the entire quarter gets a fruit roll-up!”
And then I said, “No wire hangers!”
I haven’t been the mom I wanted to be this week. But, hey, that’s okay, because I haven’t been the PERSON I really wanted to be this week, either. This entire week got away from me, somehow, and became less about doing or even being and more about just surviving.
Which is a fairly cruddy way to live, and a crappy way to parent.
Fortunately, the children, they are sproingy. (Monkey picked up a Slinky at the doctor’s office the other day and said to me “What does it do?” and I said, “It walks down stairs, alone or in pairs” and then the doctor and I laughed and laughed while Monkey looked at us like we were crazy.) (What does that have to do with this? Very little. But sproingy, like a Slinky.) They go about the business of tearing up the house and tormenting each other and once I’m back on my game, they’ve forgotten I was ever off.
Me, I’m old. I don’t spring back so quickly. read more…
*waving as I run past*
So, um, it’s not that I don’t want to leave you all to really enjoy that guest post by Otto, below, but I thought I’d pop my head out from this mess on my desk and point out a couple of news items, as well.
(Hey, just be glad I’m not making you read the PTA newsletter, clipart and all.)
First: The Ty’s Toy Box Blog is running again, so if you’re somehow not getting enough of me OR if you have kids and want to stay abreast of relevant television and toy news, you might want to come hang out with me over there. It’s News You Can Use! Well, it’s Beast Boy doing karaoke, today, but whatever. Come on over.
Second: Maybe you read this when I first posted it to BlogHer, but a recent piece of mine has been cross-posted to The Huffington Post. DUDE, I’m on HuffPo. I can die happy now.
Kill the martyr! Kill the martyr!
Your pretty Mir is busy. Deal with it. read more…
Teddy bear, teddy bear, you’re a ho
My daughter has developed a new fixation. Apparently she spends every recess with a group of girls, jump roping.
That’s fine with me. More than fine, actually—I recall a similar period in my own girlhood where jumping rope was pretty much the pinnacle of all that mattered to me. It’s good exercise, it’s a useful social construct, and very few parents have received phone calls asking them to come immediately and tend to a child who had a tragic jump roping accident.
Truly, it has the potential to be the perfect recess activity.
Perhaps this is why I find myself so conflicted, today, upon hearing more about how this time is typically spent. I mean, I’m aware that many of our children are growing up way too fast, but this is just something I never expected. read more…
Dare me? Bet him!
Or, no good can possibly come of this….
I am beginning to realize that I have a thing for men who view everything as a challenge to be conquered. Now, a certain amount of pioneer spirit, I admire. I do. But I also think there’s nothing wrong (or unmanly) about admitting limitations.
Clearly I feel this way because I do not have a Y chromosome.
Tonight Otto drew a line in the figurative sand and the game could’ve been on, if only I could’ve stopped laughing. read more…
And here are the questionable cookies
Because you’re being such good sports about my last post, which in point of fact actually put ME to sleep, I thought I’d share the cookie recipe. [Also I decided to do this and then my hosting provider had a massive service crash and I was just GONE for a while and now you surely need cookies to recover.] And then you too can listen to your children whine “But I wanted CHOCOLATE CHIP!!”
This recipe started out as something else and I tweaked it here and there because that’s what I do, either because I’m making do with ingredients on hand or because I’m just being wild and crazy. (That’s me, WILD and CRAZY with BAKED GOODS. I’m the sort of person your mother warned you about.) It is now my very own recipe, so I’m not crediting anybody else.
Unless you hate them. In that case? This recipe totally came from someone else. Someone ugly and mean, in fact. read more…
These are the things I do
I am a logical person, except when I am not. Obviously.
What?
I had a moment on the phone with Otto tonight where I stepped outside myself and listened to whatever it was I was nattering on about and felt a pang of sympathy for him. The words, good lord, the SHEER VOLUME OF WORDS, and most often about NOTHING AT ALL. It’s like I’m my own personal Seinfeld show, minus the funny.
Also minus the shirts tucked in, and running shoes.
I do things that make me insane and then I make Otto listen to it and you read about it. You ALL must be very bored. read more…
Planet Pillowless
Today was rainy and grey and gross and so I decided we should take a trip to the happiest place on earth.
No, not Disney. (Have you ever BEEN to Disneyworld? Or for that matter, Disneyland, which is where I spent my pseudo-honeymoon (that’s another tale entirely) and where I encountered a whole lot of hot, impatient, and generally obnoxious people? Disney is not a happy place. It’s a place where people paid a lot of money to stand in line all day and eat overpriced food.)
We went to Target. Obviously. read more…
Well, she probably wishes she does
The background: We have two soccer coaches, one of whom is a friend of mine. She happens to have pneumonia (!!) this week, and so missed practice and will likely miss tomorrow’s game.
Chickadee was on the phone with her father tonight, and he must have said something about seeing this friend/coach at soccer tomorrow.
Chickadee: No, she won’t be there, Daddy. She has amnesia.