Mondo Dork

Do you know any 10 year-old girls? I do. Man, what complete dorks. Honestly. Leila had no fewer than three different friends over at our house this weekend, and all of them, including my own darling daughter: dorks.

I say this in the most loving way. The TV that they like, the music that they like, what they think is hilarious, so pure, so innocent, so pre-pubescent, so dorky. While we were in bed listening to the giggle fest happening in her room on Friday night, I turned to Rob and said, "This is just where I want her to be. Total, age-appropriate dorkiness."

In some ways it is an annoying age. The back talk, the mess, the petulance, the constant fights about TV and junk food and clothes (wearing them, wearing them correctly, putting them away, separating dirty from clean, really anything having to do with clothes.) But then there's this sweet spot; the dorky spot. They are almost done playing with toys and playing pretend, and kissing all their stuffed animals so no one feels bad. They are too young to be cool and insecure and have terrible body images. Too young to spend a sleepover playing with make up and talking about boys and calling those boys on the phone. Too young to stay awake until 11, even if they try hard. They're too young to try to sneak out of the house. Walking to the corner store to buy a candy bar is a completely novel thing.

It wont last much longer, this wonderful, dorky age. One of her friends will go first, and be cool. Too cool to make up dance routines in her pajamas and make up silly songs about dogs and make little movies of themselves making funny faces. Then some other friends will go, and then Leila will go, too. She'll hold on for dear life, but she'll succumb to the tween coolness. But I know her well, and she will pine for her Littlest Pet Shop animals.

For now, I just have to enjoy it. I have to remember to not roll my eyes, and to be patient with her, and loving. I can tell she sees the future, and she is none too keen on it. Neither am I. Being cool is totally overrated, and it is such a relief to be back at an age where being cool is the least important thing in my life. Like mother, like daughter: DORKS.

More About Rob and his Awesome Parenting Skills

So we are sitting around our dinner table tonight, and I ignite some conversation about what was the best and worst part of everyone's day, and the conversation moves on to crushes, and Leila's face is turning beet red, and I ask Rob the same question she asked me a week or so ago, "How many crushes did you have in the fourth grade?" Most of Rob's childhood has been completely wiped clean from his memory, replaced by useless facts about sports no doubt, so he rubs his temples, searching for an answer, and comes up empty. Seems girls were a ways off when he was in fourth grade. I think he's almost ready for puberty though, so moody!

Anyway, conversation goes on and I start making fun of him for something that I will tell you about in a future blog post because its so goddam funny, and he starts telling Leila how when I was in fourth grade I made out with a tree. Now, this is completely untrue, and how you all know its untrue is that if I had made out with a tree in the fourth or any grade, I would totally tell you about it and I would be hilarious in the process. I vehemently denied making out with a tree, mostly because it impugned my candor, but I did tell Leila about how I made out with the back of my hand.

Did you ever do that? I would either make out with my own hand, alone, for practice, or, when my friends and I were playing Grease or Love Boat or something, and I would inevitably have to play the part of the man because my mom made me have the infernal short Dorthy Hamill haircut, we would put our palms together and kiss the back of our own hands instead of actually kissing each other, which would have been grody.

I also told Leila that my barbies kissed all the time. I didn't tell her that they got knocked up, just that they kissed, and Leila's all, "Well, what else would you do with Barbies?!" At this point my mind goes back to the Barbie Sex youtube videos, and I have to silently remind myself that Leila has no Barbies in her toy chest right now. Phew.

Being the amazing parent that I am, I see this as an opportunity. One of Oprah's teaching moments. So I say, "You can do a lot more with a Barbie than pretend she's making out with Justin Bieber, you know. You can pretend that she's a veterinarian, or that she's curing cancer, or that she's an artist, or is writing books..." at which time Rob says, "Or that she's working at Rite Aid."

Me: "You know, I try to use these little opportunities, and you just manage to flush them down the shitter." No disrespect to the fine employees of Rite Aid intended. "At least you could have said Barbie could be a pharmacist."

Leila thought this was the funniest thing she'd ever heard in her whole life, and threw herself on the floor laughing.

For another example of this type of Rob's parenting prowess, click here.

This Story has Teeth!

I forgot to tell you all how awesome I was recently! Leila lost a tooth. She's been losing them like crazy since we moved in to my parents house, and this is only a problem because she still believes in the tooth fairy. Her bed is crammed between my dad's desk and the wall, and there's no way to elegantly swipe the tooth and leave the cash without crawling under the desk like a dog, and even then, if the tooth isn't in a good place under the pillow, or the kid has wedged it between two pillows, you can't get to it anyway.

This was the case with the last tooth; I just couldn't get to it. Actually, now that I think about it, I think that was a different tooth. The tooth I'm speaking of, I actually forgot about. It happens sometimes; kid goes to bed, puts her tooth under her pillow, I say goodnight, and then I drink some wine, and watch some TV and go to bed and completely forget about the tooth. I have a lot on my mind, people!

So I got up in the morning as she was just waking up, and I hid the nine quarters in my hand. (tangent: The tooth fairy gives nine quarters because with the first tooth I meant to give $2 and I miscounted, so now I always have to count out nine quarters.) Leila went to turn on her lamp, and I said, "Don't turn it on yet! I want to snuggle!" and I crawled up on the bed and hugged her and while I was hugging her, slipped the quarters under the pillow. Step one complete, but I did not find the tooth.

Then Leila remembered that the tooth fairy should have been there so she lifted the top pillow to see if the tooth is gone. The light was still off, so we couldn't see the tooth, but I brushed my hand gently over the pillow, looking for it, felt it, and squeezed it between two fingers and said, "tooth is gone!"

Cargo delivered, payload retrieved, I told her to get her ass out of bed and get ready for school.

Actually I went back into my room where I stashed the tooth in the secret tooth collection receptacle where I keep all of her teeth, and did a little dance because I was so awesome.

Jeez

Today was a good day. I was really nervous about how much it was going to cost to fix my car. I feel like I'm just bleeding money these days. I went to pick it up, and IT COST NOTHING! The problem was two cracked spark plugs which they replaced free of charge. Not even $20 for the labor or anything! And the car runs great! I love when stuff like this happens. You grow to expect a certain amount of buffoonery from people, a certain amount of unscrupulous business practice, but not at Larkspur Gas and Service, I tell you!

Tomorrow is the last day of third grade. I have had a number of not-so-subtle reminders that the kid is growing up so fast, like the earrings in her formerly un-adorned ears, the baby shoes I found in the garage last weekend and cried over, and the fact that, in my head, third grade started about a week ago, and I am just getting up to speed. Tomorrow she will go to an assembly in the gym where the third graders are handed the proverbial baton from the outgoing fourth graders, and I just can't believe it. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN????

So, a word to all you parents out there with kids younger than 9. THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU! You will also look back on your young childrens' lives and wonder what the hell happened to 9 years, and it will scare the living shit out of you just like it is scaring the living shit out of me. Everyone tells you to savor every minute while your kids are little, and it is unbelievably hard to do. I'm too busy savoring peace and quiet! And naps! And reruns of Sex and the City! So I will not tell you to savor every minute. Instead, I will tell you to do your best.

How the hell did this happen? How did I get all weepy? This always happens at the end of the school year. I always get sentimental. Would you feel better if I told you my 'rhoids were acting up today? Or that I let a fart rip in the library, and it was a stinky one?

Tick, Tick, Tick...

This day is just passing me by.  Much like yesterday.  I have a ton of things to do, but my mind is a jumble and I can't decide where to start, and the internet is just so interesting!  Prince William is engaged?  The Beatles are now available on iTunes? a Kardashian posed nude for something?  I ask you:  how am I supposed to move forward through my day in the face of such information??  No, if I don't get started first thing in the morning, the day is just over.  If I come home from school and don't get on the phone, don't sit down at the time-sucking machine, and don't take a nap, I can get a lot done and keep up some momentum until at least 2 in the afternoon.  But if I veer from the program, its just over.  The other day I sat sideways on my desk chair and rested my head on the back of it and just stared off into space for an absurd amount of time.

I need to make a list.  Lists are helpful.  They can also be soul crushing reminders of all the stuff you still have to do, but if I put Breathe in and out, and Get dressed on the list, I know I will accomplish something today.

I'm also having an EAT day.  All I want to do is eat.  I just ate, like, seven crab appetizers that I popped in the oven, and I'm hungry again.  It is lunch time, though.  I had wonderful sushi the other night, and its all I can think about. 

In other news, Rob and I had our parent/teacher conference this morning with Leila's teacher and I am showing enormous self restraint right now because I really want to brag, brag, brag.  It was a good meeting.  I wasn't expecting any surprises, but it is so nice to hear that your kid is doing fine in school, is well liked, and that there is no cause for worry.  Was that bragging?  Braggety brag brag brag.  That's all I'm gonna say.

Okay.  I am now going to make a list.  But first, I will quickly check facebook to see if anything earth shattering has happened in the last five minutes.

Am I a Douche Bag?

This is what happened tonight.  I think I should feel like a douche bag about it, but I don't.

Leila borrowed what's called a Newton's Cradle from a friend today.  It is supposed to look like this:

Kids seem to like to borrow crap from each other.  Before we left her friend's house, the thing got all tangled up, and I diligently and calmly untangled it.  So far, not a douche bag.  When we left, Leila forgot it on the table and I thought, oh good, she forgot about that thing.  One less piece of crap in my house.  Then she remembered, and ran back in and got it.  Shit.

So, of course, what happens next is that she effs around with it in the back of the car, and it gets all tangled up again.  Let me also add here that I don't feel very well, I have very limited patience, most of which has been used to untangle this stupid thing the first time, and the rest wandering around Joanne's fabrics looking for something that I don't even know the name of, to finish off her black widow costume.

We get home, and I am sitting at my desk trying to get the thing untangled.  I have pulled over my touch light so I can see better, but my hand keeps hitting the light and turning it off.  Then as I'm working, the whole shebang falls off the desk and any progress I have made is reversed and the thing looks like hell again.  Cue the boiling blood.  I am trying to tell Leila that she shouldn't borrow stuff like this.  That she should look at something cool in someone's house, and leave it where it is.  That when you borrow something, you are responsible for it, and I really don't feel like having to be responsible for other kids' crap.  Cue the impulse to throw the wretched thing across the room.

Finally, I give up.  It now looks like this:

Its either the Newton's Cradle or what's left of my sanity, and I choose me.  I tell Leila that she will just have to buy her friend a new one.  Now Leila is crying and saying I should never touch things like this!  I'm so horrible!  I hate myself!  Now here come the douchey part, but I still don't feel that douchey about it.  I say to her, "Don't say another word like that, because I don't have the energy or patience to make you feel better about yourself right now."

So she goes into her room to lick her wounds and do what she always does when I'm the meanest mom in the world: make a sign that says KEEP OUT!  with red marker.  That's how I know she really means it.  Then I make her come back out and feed the animals and have dinner, and while she's eating I try to lighten things up by lecturing her again, but in a funnier way, about how people's crap should just stay in there own house, and her crap should stay in our house, and that everyone should just hang on to their own crap and not borrow anyone else' crap.  At first she's laughing, but then she starts crying again, and accuses me of calling all her stuff crap.  Well, most of her stuff is crap, especially that Shaggy figurine from her Scooby Do action figure set that I had to glue the arm back on today, but I go on to explain that I am crabby enough that I am just swapping the word crap for the word stuff and she shouldn't take it personally.

Now she's reading on the couch, and I just realized I haven't had any wine!

So am I douche bag or not?  I think not.  I think its good for kids to see the whole spectrum of human emotion, and boy did I put on a show for her tonight...

Shoe Blues

Leila told me this morning that she wanted to go shoe shopping after school.  This is significant because you have never met a little girl who is less particular about what she wears.  Every now and then she gets a wild hair up her ass about a certain skirt or something, but I pick out what she will wear every day, and lay it out on her bed.  When I ask her to do it herself, she puts on the same purple dress that is too small and looks like a nightgown.  I am sick to death of that dress, but Leila seems to be too lazy to put on anything that requires more than two steps: Step 1) put on underpants. Step 2) put on dress.  Done.  Shoes are for wimps.

She decided she wanted new shoes, and after going through all her shoes and noticing that she's grown out of most of them, I agreed.  We took grandma and her checkbook along, and went shopping.  Skip to the part where we've been to five stores, and have found nothing that Leila likes, or that fits, or that is the right color. The girl is walking back to the car, crying.  This was not the crying of a spoiled brat, though.  This was the crying of a little girl who was heart broken about not finding any shoes, was tired and thirsty and just wanted to go home.  I totally sympathized with her.  This describes almost every shoe shopping trip I've ever been on, which is why I wear flip flops every day.

I talked her in to making one more stop.  Nordstrom.  In the meantime, she decided she didn't't want "school" shoes anymore, she wants boots; knee high brown or black boots.  This is not exactly what grandma and I had in mind, but we were both so relieved when she found a pair of black boots, in her size, that fit, and didn't cost a year of college, that we bought them.   Now everyone is happy, even though I still think she needs "school" shoes.

Nordstrom was like an oasis after all those other crappy stores.  No one helps you with the shoes at those places, and there isn't even a place to sit down and try them on, let alone someone to measure your feet.  Leila was sitting on the floor wedged between two racks of clothes, trying on boots that were attached to eachother with a rubber band!  The Macy's doesn't even sell kids shoes.  What is wrong with the world today?  How about, Don't sell shoes if you don't have a place to sit down and try them on?  How about, Shoes made of plastic are not allowed to cost $85?  How about that?  Honestly.

So her first foray into self initiated shoe shopping ended happily, but some hard lessons were learned.  Shoe shopping sucks, and that's all there is to it.  When we got home she said, "I think I'm getting a mybrain headache..."

No Way, José!

A woman I barely know recently told me this story: She had two kids, the second one conceived through numerous IVF attempts.  She has the second kid, goes on the pill, all is well.  She is almost out of pills, so goes to the gyno to get a new prescription, gyno says, "You're pregnant.  With twins."  Gyno sends her directly to the hospital, because her pregnancy is considered high risk because she's been on the pill the whole time.  She gets a battery of ultrasounds, inside and out, and the gyno was wrong.  Its not twins.  Its triplets.  I swear to God.  True story.  How do you think that call to the husband went?  I'll tell you: she calls hubby from the hospital and says, "Guess where I am:"  SHE WAS ON THE PILL, PEOPLE!  And, if her attempt at a second kid was any indication, INFERTILE!

Well, I  also failed to have a second baby, after two years and more money than I care to think about, and I am on the pill, so I got to thinking: What if I found out I was pregnant?

At first I was excited.  Maybe I would have a little boy!  Whee!  Then I started to think about where this child and all his stuff (and kids have tons of stuff) would go, and I couldn't even get my arms around the heaven and earth that would have to move in order to make room for a baby in this house.  So I skipped past that part, and started doing simple math.  If I had a baby in the next year, Leila would be nine years older than this baby.  When the new baby turned nine, Leila would be leaving for college.  Leila would have been an only child for the first nine years, and the new baby would be an only child for the second nine years.  I would be in the same school district for 16 years.  The minute the first one was getting out of 8th grade, the second one would be starting kindergarten and I would have to do all this bullshit all over again (except that I would be working full time to pay for the addition to my house.) When Leila starts college, I'll be almost 50; when baby starts college, I'll be almost 60...   I got rid of almost all my baby stuff, and I doubt I could get someone to throw me a shower.  My friends are so over the baby stuff by now.  There probably wouldn't even be any hand-me-downs left.  I'd be screwed!  I'd have to re-buy car seats and strollers and baby bjorns and crib sheets and clothes, and ugh!

It was then that I began to stress.  I keep asking Rob if we would go ahead and have that vasectomy anyway, even though the chances are so remote, and he says he's not worried about it.  He says if I miraculously get pregnant, the kid is seriously meant to be, and so be it.  I still vote vasectomy.

I just had a chilling thought!  What if I got pregnant with triplets??!!  I can't even go there in my mind!  I think I'm going to have to lie down.  Vasectomy.  That's all I can think about now.  Vasectomy.  Vasectomy.  You know my fortieth birthday is coming up! That could be a good gift! Vasectomy!  The gift of reassurance that I wont have to spend my retirement savings on bibs and a breast pump and visits to the pediatrician!

Nope.  We are a one kid family.  For now and forever.  Unless...  Oh God, I can't even think about it...

Pretty cute though, huh?

Are You the Real Person, or the Vampire Version?

So last night I was being chased by vampires.  Not aggressively, but there were two of everyone, and one was the real person and one was the vampire version, and I had to use my cunning and wit not to fall prey to the wrong one.  Although, come to think of it, they looked more like zombies than vampires.  Anyway, the strange dreams continue, but I wont bore you further.

You know what I love about modern living? I love that I can turn the washer dial to Wash, turn the dryer dial to Start, press the Energy Saver button on the dishwasher, the Clean button on the roomba, and set the microwave to 15 seconds, and even though I'm sitting here chatting with you and eating room temperature leftover pizza (the best kind) I'm also doing a bunch of housework.  Isn't that awesome?  I feel like I'm working hard and being productive, but really I'm just pressing a series of buttons.  I'm like Mrs. Jetson!  Now I just need that five-armed robot that will go clean the shower tiles.  You know, if such a thing existed, I would save up all my pin money and get me one of those. I need me more robots.

This afternoon, Leila is hosting a dance contest.  Every year or so, she comes up with some brilliant idea for some party she's going to have.  One year it was a playground party, where all her friends were going to come to the playground and play and have snacks, another year all her friends were going to come and sing together.  These never happened.  I totally shined them on.  She didn't realize all the work I would have to do, and that all the other girls might not know or care to sing her favorite songs with her, so I just put them off until they fell off the edge of her memory.  So now we have the dance contest for which she has made ribbons and a big sign that took her all afternoon.  I feel badly enough about totally flaking on her other parties, that this one is going forward.  I have picked up the house, I have bought snacks, I have chilled wine for the moms.  Cover your ears if you don't like Lady GaGa and let the dancing begin!

The heatwave is mercifully over, and here is what happens
when you leave your candles out in the heat. 

Have a great weekend!

The Book

Remember when I gave L The Talk?  Remember I told you there was a book I told her I would get her?  I put it off, deciding that I would go get it if she ever asked about it.  Well yesterday, she did.  We were talking about putting a bunch of the story books in her room away, and she asked me, "Remember when you were telling me about your period?" (which sounds like I barricaded the door and made her listen to me alternately laugh and cry while eating microwave popcorn.) "Can you get me that book?"

I pre-read the book yesterday.  Its pretty good.  It explains all about pubic hair and zits and how to wash your hair.  Important information that every almost-9-year-old needs.  At first she said she wanted to read it on her own, but then she changed her mind and wants me to read it to her.  I guess the latter is preferable to me, so I can answer questions on the spot, but I don't know if I'm supposed to say, "Hey! You wanna read that book this afternoon?" or whether I should let her come to me.  Also, do I tell her not to show it to her friends?  Do you think I'll get in trouble with other moms if their daughter's flip through this book and land on the How to Insert a Tampon page?  Its not gross, or anything, just... specific.  I think I'll just leave it on her bed for a few days and see what happens.

ADDENDUM:
Its the next day now, and L did decide to read the book on her own.  When I was tucking her in, I asked her if she had read anything interesting, and she said, "Its private."  Um, WHAT?  But I'm super cool mom!  I'm right here, ready to be cool and hip and open!  What the hell do you mean PRIVATE?!  That's what I wanted to say, but it came out like this: "okay."  Is this where she starts having a life that is totally separate from mine that I don't get to know about?  That's already happened, hasn't it?  Damn.  They're like people that way, aren't they. Double damn.  All this coolness, going to waste.

I'm just realizing that she yelled out from her room asking me if she could circle things in the book, and I told her I didn't think she needed to.  Parenting fail.  If I hadn't said that, she would have marked up the book and I could have looked at what parts she read while she's in school.  Stupid!  Is this the part where I'm supposed to let her have that life that is totally separate from mine that I don't get to know about?  Did I just say that I was going to S.N.O.O.P.?  God help that child if she ever writes in a diary.

Where's my wine?

Bride of Chucky

Did you feel like getting up this morning? I didn't. Apparently, Leila didn't either because when I went in her room to get her up, she was a total dick to me.

Should you be held accountable for your actions in the moments after waking, especially on a Monday morning, when its raining, and you're eight years old? I say yes. So I snapped, and decided that this was the morning she could figure things out on her own, that little brat.

I've had this idea in my back pocket all year. If she's a bitch to me in the morning about getting her up and to school, then she can get her own ass up and make her own way through the morning without me on her tail every single second, and we'll see how late she is. Then, she can march herself down to the office at school for a tardy pass. According to her, there is nothing more terrifying that navigating the school grounds on her own and going to The Office. I admit to being intimidated by the place where the school secretaries sit, and the principal's offices are, but I'm almost over it. I thought this was a perfect plan. The perfect use of natural consequences.

Problem was, she wasn't late at all, and she felt crazy guilty for snarling at me and I felt like a douche bag, so my dastardly plan failed. The only lesson I taught her this morning was that mommy's affection can not be counted on on a rainy Monday. Its just so hard to drag your own ass out of bed, only to be shit on by a child that looks all warm and sleepy and snuggly. Its like the freakin' bride of Chucky. Then she told me she thinks my bathrobe is boring. Its a bathrobe, kid, not a carnival ride.

So now its rainy and dark, and I want to climb back into my bed and sleep some more, but I have to figure out what's for dinner, and go to the grocery store, and do three loads of laundry, and return some emails and phone calls, and move on with my life. Happy effing Monday, ever'body!

To cure any Monday blues you may be having,

here's a pic of a cute puppy.

Is it working?

Hm.

Readers, I've been thinking a lot about my next step this week. Not my next meal, or my next nap, although those are perfectly reasonable things for me to be plotting, but the next step in my, y'know, life.

My daughter has said some things recently that have made me wonder whether it is such a good idea to let her see me chat on the phone and eff around on the computer all day. She and a friend were once playing Mom and Dog, and when I saw her on the couch with her feet up flipping through Newsweek, I asked her what she was doing and she said, I'm the mom. She has said things like, You don't have a job. and You don't work. and it got me to thinking about why I am the way I am (read: lazy) and I came up with a theory.

I have great mom, a fantastic, generous, beautiful, healthy, fit vivacious mom. But she was also the product of her times, and although she did work when we were growing up, her jobs always seemed temporary, mind-numbing, and only necessary to bring in a little extra dough. She didn't start a career until I was 15 and my brother was out of the house, and my guess is she never entertained the idea of getting a college degree. It was clear that her jobs were necessary, but not valuable. My dad would never, in one million years, have stayed home from work to take care of a sick kid, so guess who would? As awesome as it was to have had a mom that was home when I came home from school, even if I had no idea how awesome it was at the time, I am now wondering whether not having a working mother as a role model was not such a good idea. Although, saying that out loud seems crazy; lots of people I know had moms who stayed home, and they're the same people who are ambitious and hard-working and who take fewer than one nap a day. (My mom would probably like me to mention here that, even though she was often "just" a housewife, she actually spent her days cleaning her house until it gleamed, making her own clothes, and actually cooking dinner every night. She would probably also like to make it clear that she did not raise me to be a slob, and hereby absolves herself from any responsibility for my slovenliness. I'm just guessing.)

I'm concerned that, at eight years old, it may be too late to embed into my kid that working for a living is the default position. Of course, having to buy her own tampons and pay her own rent one of these days might give her a clue regardless of whether I have a job right now or not. She wasn't alive when I had my career and was too little to notice when I was the primary bread-winner of this family, and - am I ruining her? Is she gonna be like me? God, I hope not.

And how do I show a kid how to go after her dreams and reach for the stars if I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up? I do not want to go back to what I did before, and, hence, I am pondering next steps.

What do you guys think I should do with my life?

A Whole New Person

Dude, I know: Its been a week.

We had a great spring break. I decided that I couldn't handle being talked back to any more, so I thought that all this quality togetherness was the perfect time to crack down on the snarkiness being thrown my way every moment of every day by her highness. Seriously: it is one thing make it your mission in life that your child does not grow up to be a rude adult who can live and relate in the world in a way that does not make others want to slap her, but there is also something to be said for teaching this child that people have a limit for how much of her bullshit they will take. That people have self respect and will not allow themselves to be treated like crap. That I am The Mother, and I have ultimate power over the TV and Wii remotes, and I can make your life a living hell if I see fit by making you eat things you don't want to eat. (Actually, that last one isn't true. She pukes at the table if I make her taste something weird, like a hot dog.)

So I took away her screen privileges for the weekend, but I caved when her uncle came over to hang out and they wanted to play Wii together. So I suspended her screen privileges for two more days, and I thought I was making a dent. I also started charging her a quarter from her piggy bank every time she mouthed off, and I was making a killing, but she's the kind of kid that will look at me defiantly and go "25 cents? Lets make it 50!" What ended up working the best was telling her (after we spent the day in the snow with my mom) that "Grandma has noticed that your attitude sucks." That's all I had to say, and suddenly she was happy and grateful and loving. Like herself, only nicer.

Daddy got a couple of, "thank you so much for taking me to the Exploratorium, I had the best day, and you're the best dad in the whole world" I got "you're the best mom for taking me to the zoo, and I love you so much!" and she stopped asking me to watch TV 30 seconds after she opened her eyes in the morning, and she actually thanked me for making her "delicious" brown rice, and I have to say, it was DELIGHTFUL.

Why is it that, even though I am the main authority figure in her life, the threat of Grandma thinking she's a stinker is the thing that makes her turn the corner? When she was little, we used to tell her that The Manager of, y'know, the zoo or the bowling alley, or the airplane, said that whatever shitty thing she was doing was against the rules, and she would straighten right up. But I have to yell and scream and bust a poop string to get her to put her pajamas away without her shooting poison darts at me from her eyeballs. What do anonymous, invisible, and sometimes non-existent authority figures have that I don't have? This is a rhetorical question, but if I only had some of the magic that The Manager of every single restaurant she's ever been to has, I'd be in business.

Conquer Second Grade: Check!

You know what? I could totally teach second grade. Yes, I would probably be bald at the end of the first week from tearing my hair out, and by the end of the second week I'd be dead, but today, for 45 minutes, I did an art project with a room of second graders BY MYSELF.

I'm still kind of stunned.

I told you about the class auction project, and about how I don't really have an artsy bone in my body, but what I didn't tell you was that I worked in Leila's preschool once a week for three years and when the job rotation landed me in the Art Room, I would do almost anything, wash the dishes, do a rain walk, mow the lawn with my teeth, FILL THE BRITTA, to avoid doing art with preschoolers. They make an ungodly mess. There is glue, glitter, crayons, more paint on the floor then on the paper, and then there's the home-made playdough, and add to all of that that the art room also had a door to the outside and a half bathroom, so mixed with all the paint and glitter and playdough and glue was sand and toilet paper and probably a little pee, and since they're preschoolers you know there's snot or boogers on the floor, too. I hated that room. I had nightmares about it. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

Also, I'm not a natural at working with little kids. Surprising, I know, since I'm a patient angel all the time. I think I can have a good rapport with little kids, but when they stop being cute and start being loud or messy or snotty, I just want to run. Thank God I have a kid who is quiet and compliant and lovely, otherwise I'd be in big trouble.

TANGENT ALERT!

When Leila was two and a half or so we went to someone's house for a play group where she could play and frolic with other two and half year-olds and one of those little effers was mean to her; pushed her or something. A completely reasonable behavior for a toddler, but when you see your kid get shoved, your mother-instincts make you want to mow that other kid down with your minivan. So, about fifteen minutes later, I'm in the garage of this house where the uber-mom has set up an art room (yes, my nemesis, THE ART ROOM) and the kids have completely moved on from the shoving incident or whatever it was, and the little bitch, I mean little girl who shoved my kid looks up at me with some tube of paint or whatever and says, sweet as you please, Could you open this for me? and I look at her with disdain, like she voted for Giuliani or something and I'm all, NO. It took me a beat to realize I was being a complete jerk, so I opened the thing and decided to go in the other room and calm down with a juice box.

Which brings me back to the auction project.

I was awesome. The teacher was grading papers, and I helped 17 kids do 28 panels for the project that we're doing for the auction. The kids were even awesomer than me. They had eagle-eye focus, and were totally into the importance of the project. I even heard my own daughter say to a classmate, We have to do our best, the whole school is counting on us. Not entirely true, but I liked her verve.

So, anyway, that's it. It was good. Turns out second graders are slightly more mature than preschoolers, and way less snotty.

The Apron Scandal

I'm at home with a sickish kid today. I just made a typo where I mistakenly wrote "dickish" kid, and thought about leaving it, but, actually, she's been pretty good. Not a lot of whining about TV, just a little talk back that makes me give her the Mom Stare. I say sickish because she's not that sick. She's sick enough that I wanted to keep her home from school to watch her, and I'm lying in wait for the impending ear infection, and her temperature pops up a degree or so every couple of hours, but it pops back down to normal again without meds, and she's in her room drawing and listening to an audiobook.

Hey, here's a parenting question: how many times is too many times when it comes to listening to the same audiobook? This kid has listened to The Saturdays about 150 times, no exaggeration. Its driving me a little crazy, and she can recite the entire thing (the whole, unabridged, 117 page book, I swear to God) but she seems to like it, and she can sit in her room for long stretches of time, coloring, making things out of construction paper, organizing her Littlest Petshop pets, whatever, giving me a lot of peace. I Have the Power to take it off her iPod and replace it with something else, but should I? Please advise.

I'm a little sick, too. I have a cough and a runny nose, but other than that I feel alright. I took it real easy yesterday, but today I've been roaming around the house, doing this and that, and have not been over taken by the strong urge to take a nap, which is better than most healthy days for me. So, I organized the kitchen utensil drawer; took everything out, wiped down the drawer, sent some utensils to the Rarely Used Kitchen Tools box (yes, I have one of those, and it is labeled thusly) and put back the rest. I have these really old kitchen cabinets, probably original to the house which was built in the late 20s early 30s, and they're wood all over, no metal rollers or anything, and when you push and pull the drawers, they make a fine wood dust that settles on everything in the drawer. I routinely have to clean my mini rubber spatula before I use it because its covered in fine, brown wood dust. So I cleaned everything off and organized it by size, but I can't get the drawer back in. Seems there's an old baby proofing device in my way that I managed to negotiate when pulling the drawer out, but now I can't get it back in.

I also organized the drawer where we keep cloth kitchen things like napkins and dish towels and aprons and I'm here to tell you, my daughter has 4 aprons. For years, I had one apron. It was Rob's old Frugal Gourmet apron, like the guy on TV, who settled out of court with seven men who said he molested them (he settle with 7 out of 20 who accused him, I looked it up.) I wore this apron for years, the child molester apron, and no one believed me when I said I wanted a new apron for Christmas. Meanwhile, my daughter, who only eats five different foods and isn't allowed to use the stove has four aprons. But I did get a new apron, finally, last Christmas and now all is right with the world.

I am really in the mood for apple pie. If you are in my neighborhood, and have a spare piece of delicious apple pie, please feel free to drop it off. This worked with the Tagalongs, so you never know...

Later!

Okay, this is it. The last post before vacation. Can you handle it? Good. I'll see you in a week.

I am mentally preparing to lose my mind in pre-trip insanity tomorrow. I'm doing all the laundry, tidying up the house, paying bills, answering e-mails and returning phone calls so I can feel reasonably up-to-date by the time I leave. The silver lining of Rob not joining us until next week is that I don't have to get mad at him for letting me do all the work because he has nothing to do tomorrow but be at my beck and call. Need something from the drugstore? Right away, honey! Need the big suitcase down from the rafters? On it! Bikini wax? Consider it done! I've done this trip a dozen times now, so its not that difficult, but you know how it is: you have to pack all your stuff, pack all the electronic stuff and all the chargers, pack all the bathroom stuff, pack the kid up and all her books and toys and junk that she wants to take along. There's a lot to remember, but I have all day tomorrow to remember it.

You know what's funny? I started thinking about what to wear in a warm, balmy climate, and I had no memory of what I wear in the summer time. I had to look in my closet and go, Oh yeah! Wasn't even that long ago, and I can't remember. I am so pushing 40.

I think I'm going to lie down for a while. Leila has a friend over right now, and they are quietly drawing, so now is my chance. These little girls are getting to the age where they want to lock the bathroom door when they have to pee. This is in sharp contrast to them leaving the door wide open, not flushing, barely wiping, and going in there in teams. Eventually, they'll go to the restroom in teams again, but for now they've gotten very modest. This particular little girl has never been to our house before today. She couldn't be more polite if she carried an Emily Post book on the top of her head and absorbed its contents through her barrettes. Our bathroom door doesn't lock (old house=old doorknobs) and its so funny to hear kids try to lock it. Do they really think that I am going to come barging in? Like she didn't just pass me sitting here on her way to the john, and I'm just going to wander in. I guess if you have a little brother or something, locking the door is necessary, but its still funny.

This has been a very lack luster post for my last one before vacation. Sorry. Hopefully after a week on an island, drinking at noon with my parents I'll have some good stuff for you.

Aloha!

Vuh Rye Uh Tay!

Friday night was the school's variety show, where any kid who wants to can get up on stage and sing or dance or do gymnastics or whatever they feel their special talent is. There were about 400 people at this blessed event, and about four or five baked goods per person if the leftovers from the bake sale were any indication. Leila worked on her piano act all week, we picked out the outfit, and she was all set.

I awoke on Friday morning and did my usual run down of the day while my eyes were still closed, and when I got to variety show, my stomach lurched, my eyes flew open, and, oh the fear. When I was eight years old, you couldn't have given me any amount of gummy coke bottles or actual coke bottles to get up on stage in front of people and sing or dance. I did it alone in my room all the time. In fact, I had it in my head that I really sounded like all the different parts of The Sound of Music, even Captain Von Trapp, and I would tie scarves and towels around myself to make outfits, and I would sing into my hair brush in front of the mirror for HOURS. I still do it today, only I don't make up outfits and I use the steering wheel of my car instead of a hairbrush. Anyway, that was all well and good in the privacy of my dorm room, I mean, uh, my childhood bedroom, but there was no way I was doing that in front of people, so when Leila wanted to do it, every eight year-old nerve in my middle aged body was on high alert.

I was very good, though. I did not ask her if she was nervous, I did not tell her that I was nervous, and I went on with the day as if nothing at all was different except the amount of Tums I was swallowing. She said that, out of ten, she was two nervous and ten excited. She was a pretty cool customer. 1000 times cooler than me.

We got to the school gym, I sent her off with the parents putting on the show (they're like gladiators, I swear) and I went into the kitchen to sell baked goods. Now, you know me, normally, I would stuff my face with as many mini cupcakes as I can before anyone notices, but I had no appetite; too nervous.

I sat down for the first act, and when the kids came on I immediately started to cry like a big dork. It was just like when I saw Maya Angelou and I started bawling when she took the stage, but instead of a national hero of literature and poetry, these were three girls bouncing around in their pajamas to the Black Eyed Peas. God, I'm a dork. I pulled myself together. I clapped loud. All the kids were so brave, and I was so jealous that I never in my life have had that kind of bravery. Anyway, I'm obsessively looking at the program, counting down until Leila's performance, when suddenly she appears on my lap, crying. Of course I'm thinking, well, that's the end of that, but I was wrong. She insisted that she was not scared to perform, but that she just didn't want to sit on the mat without me (all the kids were seated on tumbling mats between the audience and the stage.) Well that was a load of bullshit if ever I heard one. I had to make a choice: do I wimp out and tell her that she doesn't have to perform if she doesn't want to, or do I hard line it and push her up there with both hands? I chose the latter. I agreed to go sit on the mat with her until it was her turn to go back stage. As we got to the edge of the mat, one of the show's helpers beckoned her backstage because it was almost her turn. Well. Weepy windbag says, okay! and runs up the ramp. I go with her and she's all, you can sit back down now, I'm fine. with the tone of don't let the door hitcha...

I return to my seat, and I am a nervous wreck. I want to puke, and I haven't even had a cupcake yet. Some of the other kids performed with a buddy or in a group, but my little, teeny, tiny blonde girl was going to be up there ALL BY HERSELF playing the blues in my bowler hat (from my Unbearable Lightness of Being phase) and some dark glasses that came out of the lost and found at my old work. Honestly, who wouldn't puke?

Readers, she did AWESOME! She was nervous. Her shoulders were all hunched up, and she was doing deep breathing exercises for what seemed to me like an eternity before she started to play. She played her song, flubbed up a coupla little times, did her bow with a flourish and exited stage left. Or right, I'm not sure. It was a great moment, over too fast as all these great moments are.

You know what wasn't awesome? Besides the stomach ache I had from gnawing on the program with anxiety? My decision to ask Rob to record her performance. It turns out that this was one of the top ten greatest moments of stupidity in my life, evidenced by the video below. He missed the bow! He cut off the end! He shook the camera! He zoomed in too far! The whole thing is a mess. Sorry, Leila of the future, blame dad.

At intermission I went and sold more cupcakes, and by the middle of the second half of the show I was so ready to get the hell out of there. The kids were all great, and even the Myley Cyrus songs didn't bug me, but being a nervous stage mom all day can wear you down. My favorite act was a girl who roller bladed around the stage and then played Ode to Joy on the keyboard all while HULA HOOPING! She kept three or four hula hoops going the whole time! It was a sight to see. Leila says she wants to sing in the show next year (gulp) and is bummed that she has to wait a whole nother year before getting on stage again. Atta girl! One of my friends said something really interesting: She pointed out that during school, our kids are required to sit still and be quiet with the rest of the class, and asking them to do the opposite, like sing and dance and roller blade on stage, is totally contrary to their conditioning, and that makes the fact that they do it anyway that much more impressive. You go, kids! Even if it sends your parents to an early grave!

Speaking of hula, I will be gone next week, living without a computer or internet access. I know, right? Fear not, I'll be back!

Pink and Blues

God dammit, I smell like curry. I specifically took my shower and blow dried my hair first thing this morning so I wouldn't let it slide another day, and then I made butternut squash soup with curry powder, and now I smell like effing curry. I only used a half a teaspoon! Its better than when I smelled like chili, but still. No one warned me that cooking at home would make me stink. So if you're out there, and you're considering removing take out and Trader Joes frozen food from your life, I hereby warn you, you will stink.

I want to update you on the great boil of 2010. Obviously, its not a boil, its a cyst, but boil is a much better word. Actually, I just looked up the word boil in the magical Mac dictionary, the best invention ever, and what I had on my face could almost accurately be described as a boil. I could go on about what the difference is, but it makes me want to puke just thinking about it, so if you're interested, go look it up yourself. Now, I will give you two pertinent pieces of information: The cyst did rupture as a result of the doctor poking it with a needle. The cyst is now gone, leaving only a bruised and battered looking circle on my face. There is a lot of information that I could add between those two statements, about how the stuff in the cyst got from the inside of my face to the outside, but if my husband is any indication, no one wants to hear about that because it is too gross. He's kind of a candy ass when it comes to this kind of thing. Fortunately, I do have a couple of friends who allowed me to go into great detail about it, so I was able to share the repulsiveness. I couldn't just keep it to myself, I had to tell someone, it was INSANE!

Now on to new business. Tomorrow is the school's variety show, organized by parents with infinite patience and a masochistic need to watch children sing Hannah Montana songs. Leila will be playing the blues on the piano, a spiffed up version of what I posted here a few months ago. This afternoon we have to nail down the outfit she will wear onstage. I proposed she wear this cute little pink sweater, and I was informed by her that, you can't wear pink when you're playing the blues, Mommy. Truer words were never spoken. So now she is putting together pieces of clothing that fit the dark and bluesy persona that she thinks will go with her song, but she looks ridiculous and I, as the mother, cannot allow my child to stand on a stage in front of people and look like we picked her clothing at random from a bin in the back of a dark closet. Of all the unwritten rules about parenting little girls, this is the one I'm choosing to enforce today. So far it looks like a dark brown ruffly skirt white tights, and a green shirt, but this could change at any time. She's sure she wants to wear dark glasses, though. If it was appropriate to put a lit cigarette in an elementary school child's mouth, I would totally do that.

I think my dog has OCD. He is obsessed with those balls that he kept trapping under the sofa. I almost lost an arm trying to get one out because he was scratching at the sofa and crying endlessly. Seriously, I thought I'd have to call out for help because my arm was stuck under the sofa, and I started to panic that the phone was so far away and no one would hear me, and I'd be stuck there all day, and my cats would start to eat me alive. I escaped with a little mark on my arm, phew! and now those stupid balls are in the backyard. But now Perry is crying at the back door because he know they're out there. What is wrong with him? Can't I have normal animals?

I need to have an experience so I have something to write about. Any suggestions?

Midnight Rambler

I have been very parenty today. Very mothery. And when I say today, I mean all day, starting at midnight when L started moaning Owwwwww! in her room. Taking care of a sick kid in the middle of the night feels like something a mother would do. Most of the time, I'm just getting us through the day with food in our bellies and weather appropriate clothing. I teach table manners, make sure homework and piano practice are done, try to get her to clean her own room and hang up her own backpack. But when they feel like puking in the middle of the night, that's when the real mothering chops come out. That's when we rise to the occasion. Literally.

Here's the other thing, though: no matter how empathetic you actually feel toward your kid when they're sick, you still want to strangle them for waking you up. In L's case, I wish she would just yell Mommy! instead of moaning and groaning so she gets me in there but can deny that that was what she was trying to do. Owwwww! Oh, sorry I woke you. Do you think that could be from me stomping in there and hissing, What is it!? Also, I know this kid. She generally does not fake it (not like I did EVERY DAY) and I can tell when she is trying to fake it so she can watch more TV. She definitely does not fake it in the middle of the night. If she has a fever or pukes, my good mommy behavior is called up a little sooner, but when there is no physical evidence of illness, I get annoyed. Much like my own mother, who, when I told her I was afraid something was really wrong with me last year and I was really scared said, Oh, relax, don't be so dramatic. She didn't say that while she was sitting in the ICU with me, though, did she?

Anyway, while I'm sitting there with L in the middle of the night because that's all I can think of to do for her besides give her some tylenol, I get this huge wave of nausea, unlike anything I've ever felt, and all I can think is, Shit. We're getting the stomach flu, and it will be nothing but barf and diarrhea all weekend long, and then Rob will get it and he'll be a big baby. Luckily, that has not happened, although L did puke in my bed about an hour later. We were prepared, we had The Bowl, and she fell into a deep sleep right after. I am now a fan of having kids puke in the dark.

I sent Rob to sleep in L's bed, and she and I were up periodically throughout the night. I took her to the doctor this morning and she has an ear infection. Here's a question: how can a child be perfectly fine when she goes to bed, after a good dinner and a rousing game of Yahtzee, and wake up a few hours later with an ear infection? Little warning might be nice. She is currently asleep in my bed after assuring me that she wasn't tired and that it would be too hard for her to close her eyes. Ok, dude, whatever you say.

To top off the extra mothery feelings I am experiencing today, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Want one?

Friday, People. FRIDAY!

Hey y'all. Leila is in her room listening to the Electric Slide on repeat. Its starting to embed itself into my brain. Like a too tight leash on a junk yard dog.

I don't have a whole lot to write about today except to report that we are doing great on our money spending strike. We have eaten in every night this week, and I have not used my credit card even one time, or spent any other money since Monday. That's not entirely true; I asked for a back yard composter for Christmas and my mom gave me a check in a box of Harry and David fruit (the fruit was a regift.) Along with the fruit and the check, dampened from the fruit, she proclaimed that my wanting a composter was "stupid" and "ridiculous." She is not a native English speaker, so her vocabulary for describing things is limited. Everything that does not seem to her to have any practical purpose, anything that she doesn't understand, be it a movie, a religion or a recipe, and anything that she can not imagnine applying to her own life is deemed to be "stupid" and/or "ridiculous". My wanting a composter may in fact be stupid and ridiculous; I don't garden and I don't really cook that often, so I'm not sure what's going to go in there. I also don't really like going down into my back yard, or bad smells, or coffee grounds, so I really don't know what's come over me, but I really want to start composting. Ever since that field trip to the recycling center, where I learned all about the ever growing landfill just 15 miles north of my house, I've been convinced that all my kitchen scraps should serve a greater purpose. Anyway, my point is that I bought a composter, so I did spend some money, but it was cash from the check that was earmarked for this purchase, so it doesn't count.

This eating at home thing is getting really old, though. It just goes to show how much take-out we actually eat. I drove past the Chinese place and started drooling, and the same thing happened with the Mexican place. And there's a new Thai place opening around the corner, too, just to torture me. My friend asked me today if we wanted to go out to dinner with him and his kids, and it pained me to say no. Friday night is party night! I love to go out and have some wine and not cook, but nope, we are going to stay on the straight and narrow. The real measure will be to make it to the 16th (the last day of the credit card statement period) without another purchase. If we can do that, then I know we'll make the Valentine's day goal. Tonight, leftovers, tomorrow, the world!

Here's something totally else. Last night Leila and Rob were having Daddy Play Time where Rob, God love him, sits on the floor of her room and plays Littlest Petshop with her. Leila has what seems like 500 Littlest Petshop animals, and three Littlest Petshop buildings including the tail waggin' fitness center and the pets only clubhouse. Talk about landfill. No wonder I want to compost, I'm filled with ennui over all the plastic animals that will eventually reside in the landfill for 10,000 years. Anyway, they were playing and it was reported to me later that a milestone has been crossed: Leila was coupling up the pets and calling them boyfriend and girlfriend. This is completely new. Turn eight, enter a new era. Maybe my old Donny Osmond doll who lives in a box with all her Barbies will start getting some play again one of these days, too. Its been a long time for Donny, and he's surrounded by virgins. The Bratz dolls (otherwise known as Whore dolls) are in a whole separate box, and are definitely little sluts. If he goes anywhere near them, he better wear a rubber on his plastic man parts.

What the hell am I talking about?

I just figured out what Leila is doing listening to the Electric slide repeatedly: her littlest petshop animals are doing the dance, and she is running a contest or an aerobics class of some sort. She has now turned the song off, and is praising their performance, and handing out awards.

While I was at school this morning, checking kids heads for Lice (Class C4 is lice-free, I'm happy to report) a woman, who I didn't recognize right away walked by and said, 'I love your blog!" and made me feel like a total rock star, so this one is for you, L!