Don’t. Stop. No, really–don’t stop!
I am being shamelessly flattered by the Mommy Bloggers today. I don’t know how much they had to pay all of those pretty, pretty people to say such lovely things, but I’m in favor of it.
There will be an interview with me posted there later today, in which I attempt to not sound too much like the self-conscious, blurting nitwit that I am. Should be fun.
EDITED TO ADD: As of 4:53 Eastern, Jenn informs me that I’ve crashed the Mommy Bloggers server. Well, not ME, personally, but it’s down due to too many people eager to see me make a fool of myself, apparently. It will be back as soon as they can fix it!
UPDATE, 7:05 Eastern: Temporary mirror site is up here. And I’m starting to take the server crash personally. Was it something I said??
UPDATE, 9:00 Eastern: My head continues to swell, OR bad karma bites me in the butt–you choose. The mirror crashed. Jenn says I’m grounded. Damn.
“Should not admit” = I tell everyone
Do most people have a filter between their brains and their mouths? I was born missing this regulatory device, I think. It is perhaps the sort of thing you can cultivate, but the end result is not the same as a genetic predisposition.
Like, you can have a perm, if your hair is straight. But even the most amazing, most expensive process isn’t going to result in something the same as if you truly have curly hair. At the very least, eventually your hair will grow back (straight) and you’d have to re-perm.
For me, I’ve managed to figure out enough awareness to avoid most painful social situations born of my chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Sometimes I fail miserably, regardless. But then there’s this wonderful thing where I can let all of my warts and dorkitude hang out here and it’s sort of like a steam release valve. For every embarrassing revelation here, my chances of humiliating myself in real life are slightly reduced! Everybody wins!
read more…
Nourishment
So I was sitting here tonight, feeling kind of blah. The children– somehow sensing that I had written some sentimental glop about them yesterday–rewarded me today by looking me squarely in the eyes when I informed them that there would be no lunch until the playroom was clean and saying, “Fine, we’re not even hungry.”
That was at 10:00 this morning.
Lunch was at… 2:30. Not because the playroom was clean. But because they had whipped themselves into a hysterical froth over how starving they were, and the playroom was… cleanER… and I didn’t want the neighbors to call CPS. (“WE’RE STAAAAAAAAAAARVING!!”) Plus, I was hungry, and it would’ve been two against one and I fear they could’ve taken me.
So today was… trying. And once the kids were in bed it was just me and the TV, again.
read more…
So that I can tell them in 20+ years
Tonight the pre-bedtime routine went smoothly, because I bribed the kids into their pajamas before dinner. That’s easy to do when dinner = cereal + movies. I really go all out for those kids, don’t I?
Friday nights have the advantage of being less frenzied than school nights. There is no scramble to pick out the next day’s clothes, no constant checking the clock and mentally calculating exactly how cranky everyone is going to be in the morning if I don’t manage to make lights out happen in the next ten minutes.
And it’s amazing how just an extra half hour of television buys such increased cooperation.
read more…
Doctor, doctor…
Gimme the news!
I’ve got a… BAD CASE
of realizing that the medical industry may be just a tad out of control even as I rely on them for my very sanity!
(Damn, that doesn’t rhyme or anything.)
[But it does remind me to share this helpful parenting hint: If you have a child who gets really terrified when she has to have a shot, just pull her close, don’t allow her to look at the nurse, and start belting out “THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN, THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN, THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOOOUUUUUNTAAAAAAIN! TO GET A FLU SHOT AND NOT EVEN CRY BECAUSE HE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE BECAUSE HIS MOM WAS BEING A TREMENDOUS DORK!”]
{Holy parenthetical remarks, Batman. Gimme a sec… are there any other brackets on my keyboard I could maybe use?}
Ahem.
Offered as an antidote to yesterday’s post:
“Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.” Read the whole thing. Just put down your beverage, first.
(Shamelessly stolen from the lovely Snowball, because some things are just too good not to be shared.)
Ancient Rome suddenly makes a lot more sense
Admittedly, I shouldn’t be watching–or then, admitting that I watched–Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy.
I should be ashamed. I am ashamed. Would you like some cake? I just baked it. You need cake with trash TV.
Anyway.
This two-part episode where they swapped a new-age hypnotherapist with a devout Christian was a neat idea, I guess. I mean… dramatic tension and all that. I certainly understand why they thought it would make good entertainment.
And swapping a new-age hypnotherapist with a devout Christian WOULD’ve been good entertainment, I think.
But this show was just a little bit different than that. Just a tad. See, this show was swapping a new-age hypnotherapist with a batshit crazy FREAK.
read more…
Alright, boot critics
I feel the need to share this with all of you, since you were SO CONCERNED about my feet, taste and/or spending habits, earlier.
How do these grab you?
Does your answer change if I tell you that…
read more…
From the pages of the DUH files
I had a rollicking good time on the phone with someone, earlier tonight, (and I have not–to my knowledge–rollicked previously, so you KNOW it was a good time in a whole new way!) and at one point she commented on how I am “always so positive.”
There was a slight delay while I laughed until I cried and then continued laughing until I peed my pants, and then just a bit more of an interruption while I went and changed my pants.
I am really not a positive person, unless you mean that I am positive that I would rather laugh than cry. In THAT case, I am the most positive person you know. Also, in that case, you really need to be making some other friends.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything. I just thought you might like to know why my pants don’t match my shirt.
read more…
I am not buying the boots, sheesh
So, uh, thanks for everyone’s deep concern about my footwear. I am not buying those boots. Or any other boots. Oh look! Here is the most expensive article of clothing I have ever purchased! And yet, I would need the equivalent of several of these, plus a lot of alcohol and also perhaps a crash cart to revive me from the ensuing heart attack if I were to spend that kind of money on shoes. Or, really, anything that doesn’t either use electric current to accomplish a household task or somehow facilitate the getting from point A to point B.
You know how they say that when you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all? No?
Me neither.
In the immortal (if slightly mangled) words of Maurice Sendak: Let the wild grumpus begin!
read more…
So many superballs
It’s that time of year, again!
No, not time to whine about raking the leaves. No, not time to start going to the mall. No, not even time to put your flannel sheets on the beds. (Well, if you live somewhere with winter, it IS time to do that. But that’s not what I’m talking about.)
It’s time to put together the shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Yes, it’s time to buy all of that small crap from the Dollar Store and Christmas Tree Shops that your kids always want but you know will just end up underfoot and/or discarded; only now, you get to buy it for children who will actually appreciate it. (Or as a friend of mine was kind enough to point out–as I picked up some travel Chinese Checkers games–“Those marbles are all gonna end up in your carpet.” I reminded her that they were for shoeboxes, and she corrected herself to “Those marbles are all gonna end up in someone’s dirt floor.”)
Yep, it’s that time of year, and my inner child runneth over.
read more…