I live to share my embarrassments
As if blogging my day-to-day maladjustedness isn’t enough (huh, my spellcheck is insisting that’s not a world, but spellcheck, I can assure you that I am living proof that it CERTAINLY IS), I really have to give a big ol’ shout-out to Off Our Chests for giving me the weekly opportunity to dredge up the many embarrassments from my past, as well.
Because, really, what’s the point of being a completely mortified dork time and time again unless you can share it with the whole Internet? Exactly!
So my offering today is all about how I once ended up unintentionally flashing my entire class. Because of course I did. Come on over and cringe with me, I don’t mind.
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid (or not)
Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. Now, on the one hand: Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. In fact, Monkey has received no less than four birthday party invitations since beginning his time at Hippie School, and if you’re a longtime reader I probably don’t have to spell this out (but I will, anyway, because saying it out loud makes me marvel all over again), but four birthday party invitations is… oh… roughly FOUR MORE than he received in the previous couple of years combined.
Hippie School is terribly tolerant and inclusive, and I love and cherish that so much, even if it means we get an invitation to a 5-year-old’s party and Monkey’s response is “Why would I want to go to THAT?” (Answer: Because you’re all one big happy family now, DAMMIT.) Of course, this opens up a whole new avenue for us, because now instead of him always being left out we actually have to PICK and CHOOSE from the MANY party opportunities. Which is weird. And wonderful.
Parties can be a little overwhelming for him, so we’ve turned down several invitations. But this weekend was Luigi’s party, so off we went. read more…
Actually, right now it’s delighted
So remember how I was all “Grrrrr, people make me mad and we need more girl power in the world!” and so I was going to go audition for The Vagina Monologues basically because my daughter asked me to? And then I didn’t say anything else about it and several of you emailed me and were all “Oh hey, whatever happened with that?” And I sort of did the email equivalent of “Hmmm, yeah, I dunno, OH LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY!” and didn’t really tell you?
I was waiting, see.
The audition itself was quite brief—surprisingly so, I thought—and I was left wondering if I was so awful they cut me off to save themselves or if I was so awesome that they decided to cast me on the spot and no further reading was necessary. (I have NO IDEA where my son gets that whole black/white assessment of the world from. Curious.) I went away and agonized for a few days, then later got a general “welcome to the cast, more info to follow” email.
More info arrived this evening. I read for the Angry Vagina monologue and that’s what I got! Apparently I am totally believable as cranky genitalia. I choose to take this as a compliment.
[Related: HOLY SHIT I haven’t acted in two decades and I thought a good way to reacquaint myself with the stage would be to get up in front of a bunch of people and bitch about tampons and pap smears?! Of course I did.]
The 27 Days of Sockmas
December is, traditionally, the month of the year wherein I am most likely to wish to die in a fire. It’s not that I don’t love the holiday fa la la la blah blah or whatever, it’s that:
1) Work is crazy. (See also: the glamorous life of a freelancer, no such thing as paid vacation.)
2) The children are crazy. (Monkey is crazy because everyone else is crazy; Chickadee is crazy because traditional public schooling mandates that December is a DANDY time to assign projects in every single class, plus have finals, plus do standardized testing, plus start doing competitions for several activities in which she’s involved.)
3) Travel makes me crazy, and the only thing that makes me crazier than traveling is PLANNING for travel, and December is the hallowed month of WHEN WILL YOU BE HERE FOR HOW LONG LET’S PLAN EVERYTHING and as much as I love each and every person who wants to see us, really, I do, I would also rather punch myself in the face repeatedly than try to figure this out every damn year.
and
4) It’s possible I’m just crazy anyway. MAYBE. I admit to nothing. Other than December bringing out my special brand of… me-ness. read more…
Moral of the story
You get one day to stay home from school when you tell me you don’t feel well, even if you don’t necessarily have a fever. I’m willing to suspend disbelief for one day.
When you refuse to go to school on the second day, I will inform you that in the absence of fever or vomiting a second day home must indicate pernicious, invisible illness which needs to be diagnosed RIGHT AWAY, and therefore I will be scheduling a visit to the doctor.
What I may have forgotten to mention until shortly before said appointment is that there are now two options: Either the doctor agrees that you are quite sickly, or the doctor says you look absolutely fine… and then you will be getting your flu shot. I mean, as long as we’re there, and have paid our co-pay, and I’ve lost half my work day. Because I wouldn’t want you to be any SICKER, you know. (INSERT MEANINGFUL EYEBROWS.)
In short, Day 1 is a Mental Health Day, but Day 2 is Mama Don’t Play That Day.
(P.S. I suspect tomorrow will be Miraculous Recovery Day.)
If wishes were horses, I’d be walking
It’s Tuesday, and that means that today I’m over at Off Our Chests. Partially inspired by Otto’s birthday (and subsequent match-stuck-in-the-cake), I’m thinking about wishing, today. And wondering if I’m weird.
I once had a friend who tried to convince me that if I didn’t have an entire list of things I wanted (not necessarily THINGS, but experiences, goals, etc.) it meant I was somehow not as spiritually enlightened and forward-thinking as she and her actively-working-on-their-lists cohorts were. It was a sign of stagnation and thinking small, she said. (We’re not friends anymore. Surprise!)
Nevertheless, I know some might find my position odd. So naturally I’m going to lay it all out there and wait for someone to tell me I’m wrong and possibly also that I’m stupid and my dog is funny-looking. (People are like that, you know. Joke’s on them, though—I already KNOW Licorice is funny-looking!)
I hope you’ll come on over and tell me about your wishes, or lack thereof.
Insert various/sundry fawning here
Yesterday was Otto’s birthday, and lo there was much celebration and rejoicing!
Except… there was no way I was going to manage to top last year’s surprise (and subsequent party and extravaganza), plus Otto was out of town for most of the weekend, plus life is completely overwhelming right now for various mostly uninteresting reasons, plus I just generally sort of suck.
So, we love him to bits and all, but I’m afraid that as birthdays go, it wasn’t a terribly exciting day. I mean, there were presents, and we went out to dinner, and I told him I love him about a billion times, but I still feel like I kind of dropped the ball. And that is only partially because I discovered we were out of candles and made him blow out a match on top of his cake so he could make a wish. read more…
Thursday at home with Monkey
I kept Monkey home from school yesterday because they were having one of their fantastic hippie field trips where they spend the entire day in the woods connecting to nature
These field trips are great, but even when Monkey’s doing okay, we have determined that I need to go with him as he pretty much requires one-on-one support for them, because if he decides to melt down in the middle of the wilderness that’s kind of a pickle for the teachers there who are dealing with other kids, too.
And right now, Monkey is maybe coming down with a cold. Maybe! I mean, who knows? How would we know? He looks a little “off,” but he’s also the kid who never knows when he’s sick, he just starts being a jerk and we’re left to puzzle it together. So. I dunno, but the day BEFORE yesterday was kind of a disaster, so I kept him home, and he was MAD. read more…
The update that isn’t an update
I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting to give you an update on the incident at school because I just knew that the triumphant day would come when the parents of the boy involved would either call or show up on our doorstep to talk to us.
Because if my child did what this kid did—or anything even remotely like it—the first thing I would do would be to rain down a fiery wrath unlike any seen before in our house, and the second thing would be to march said child over to the house of the family that was affected by my child’s unspeakable behavior so that apologies could be issued. And yes, that’s apologIES, plural, because the first apology would be to the other kid, and the second one would be to the parents.
I was waiting to tell you about that. The vindication. The relief of knowing that yes, kids do stupid things, but it’s Been Handled and this kid has learned from what he did. But it’s never going to happen. read more…
Lashing out less
Oh, man. The way kids make you reflect on your own childhood and your own foibles and various experiences and thoughts was not something I was prepared for when I started this gig.
So much of what we’re working on with both kids, right now, has to do with being proactive rather than reactive. And I was being a Good Mom And Role Model about it all until I realized that my little apples didn’t fall far from the tree.
(I hate it when that happens….)
So I’m over at Off Our Chest today talking about my claws, both physical and metaphorical. I’m still working on it.