Things are pretty crazy here and there’s no real reason why. I need to do some shifting and reorganizing and maybe think about exercising a teensy bit of self control and time management. Maybe I need the Fly Lady. Maybe I need Lara. (Does anyone know what’s happened to the Lazy Organizer? Her site’s down all the time.) Maybe I just need to go to bed.[read more at parenting.com]
Archives for November 2007
Christmas Tree Rulz
Tonight Laylee educated me in the ways of childish yuletide arbor dressing. Gah! I adore her.
1. Pull each ornament from the crumpled newspaper. Gasp and squeal because of the sheer beauty of it all.
2. Ornaments get lonely if they’re spread out all over the tree. Each ornament must be touching at least 3 others or “that’s just mean.”
3. You must group them according to color and style. Reds like reds. Candy canes like other candy canes. Shiny disco-like balls like other shiny disco-like balls.
4. Ornaments that like each other should touch… else the sadness.
5. Pretty little girls should be the ones to hang all the pretty little ornaments on the tree.
6. Little boys get nothing.
7. If it’s Dad’s job to put the star on the top of the tree, that means that it’s his job to hold the pretty little girl while she puts the pretty little star on the tree. It’s common sense really.
8. The prettiest ornaments should be well hidden within the centermost branches of the tree “so they can be private.”
9. Glass is better.
10. Magoo did it.
11. Place several of the best ornaments at floor level so that the “mice and bugs” have something festive to look at. Make your mother feel fabulous about her housekeeping abilities.
So You Think You Can Date…date…date…date? – Updated
***Update – Eve has posted some awesome pictures and description of SYTYCD Live over at Seattle Mom Blogs. If you’re like me, the pictures will make you SCREAM!!! But then, you may be normal.***
Dan and I are on a dating spree. We dine. We movie-go. We hold hands. We send the babysitters of our town to college while draining our own children’s inheritances.
It started a couple of weeks ago with an 8-hour datestravaganza to a marriage seminar in Tacoma. The event was a little creepy and commercial but looking on the bright side, Dan says, “At least we have the memory to laugh about.” When the speaker feels the need to provide his own continuous repetitive soundtrack on a grand piano, you know you should have stayed home and rented Home Alone 3 again, instead of driving for an hour to listen to a guy sing-talk about marital bliss.
Alas, we’ll always have that memory emblazoned in our minds.
Then last weekend we snuck in dinner and a movie with Dan’s brother and his wife. Dan in Real Life was a big fat step up from personal soundtrack guy. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who loves Steve Carrell and can see the romance in bad dancing and burnt pancakes. Seriously. It was one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen in months.
But tonight. Tonight was the big show, the date to remember, the 3 hours when Dan earned King Shuggy-Puddin Husband status for life. Tonight he took me to SOYOUTHINKYOUCANDANCE — LIVE!!!!! And he clapped and cheered and remembered the routines from last summer when I made him watch it with me every week until he was hooked and then he’d ask me to tape it for him when he had to work late and analyze the choreography and either really enjoy it or pretend to in a way that makes me want to just squidge him really hard and then learn a romantical Shane Sparks hip hop routine with him.
So we thought we could park… park…park…park?
So we thought we could wait… wait… wait…wait?
So the women thought they could take over the men’s restrooms… restrooms… restrooms… restrooms?
Dan had to walk all around the building to find one that hadn’t been commandeered by the ladyfolk, but being the only male in Everett Events Center tonight, he had no trouble finding a free stall immediately. Okay, he wasn’t the ONLY male. There was one extremely happy young man sitting behind us squealing, “OhMyGosh, OhMyGosh, OhMyGosh!!!!” and one other husband who was carrying a large beer and appeared to be heavily sedated.
So we thought we could use binoculars… binoculars… binoculars… binoculars?
So I thought I could squeeze Dan’s arm harder than I ever have during child birth… child birth… child birth… child birth? While screaming like a tween… tween… tween… tween.
It was an amazing show, amazing. I cannot explain how amazing it was and I got to see it with my shmoop who knows the names of all the dancers and didn’t think I was nuts… nuts… nuts… nuts when I cried tears of joy through the first half and then was the only person on the balcony to give a standing ovation when the show was over. I really thought they deserved to be ovated. I still do. In fact. I’m standing as I type this. Squee!!!!!!
So this weekend we will explore Dan’s higher taste for the arts with a trip to Jazz Alley for the company Christmas party and a performance by the legendary Chick Corea and a chance to wear my high-heeled black leather boots and some red lipstick without raising questions about my career choices or hours of employment.
DAN!! I enjoy dating my husband!
The Upside of Deafness
I’M SORT OF TIRED OF LISTENING TO MYSELF YELL BUT LAYLEE’S TEMPORARY HEARING LOSS HAS ITS UPSIDES. [read more]
Your Face is Made for Washing
If on the journey from the sink to your bed you forget whether or not you’ve washed your face, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to go back and wash it again… or for the first time, just to be on the safe side. You could also rub it briskly and thoroughly on the wrong side of your pillow case. If your sheets are less than 200 thread count, you’ll get some nice exfoliating action that way as well.
Do not use the same pillowcase for your teeth as you use for your face.
On Deprivation
Laylee says, “Sometimes I think it’s good that poor people don’t have any toys or things because then their house will always look clean.”
I wonder if she’s been reading my blog.
She spent a good part of last night shaking and twitching with the pain of a sudden ear infection. So at about 2am we had the free on-call doctor out to our house to check on her and prescribe some antibiotics. It was the 3rd time we’d used the service.
Dan’s lucky enough to work for a company with phenomenal benefits, 100% health insurance coverage for EVERYTHING imaginable, including on-call doctors available 24/7 when you can’t get in to see your primary care physician, no deductibles, no copays.
As I was putting Laylee down to bed, clutching the Tinkerbell sticker the doctor had given her, I told her how lucky she was to have a doctor who could come out to her house anytime. She seemed surprised. “Not everyone has doctors who will come to their house when they’re sick,” I explained.
“REALLY?!” she gasped, “Like who.”
“Well, like almost everyone. Grammy, Papa, all your aunts and uncles and cousins.”
“WHY!?”
She gave me the same look she’d given me when I told her that not everyone had a house to live in and she said we should give all our money to them so they could buy a blanket that’s not made out of trash.
I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have a doctor who can come visit them. I wish we all did.
Two Loves
Dan is the love of my life. Today I pay tribute to the love of my inner neat freak. [read more]
Problem Solved
I have a problem. Every 10 or 12 years, I prepare and serve a platter of festive deviled eggs. Periodically, I’d say at least one of every two times I make them every 10 or 12 years, one or two of the eggs will roll over, bumping into other eggs and ruining their perfect spacing.
Well, now I’ve found the answer. I can buy and store this gorgeous Christmassy egg tray for 10 or 12 years until I need it to serve nothing but deviled eggs. Hey I bet I could even get one for Kwanza, Flag Day and Diwali.
Okay. Fess up. Do you have one of these? Did you pay actual money for it or did you get married a week after Christmas?
Setting Fire to All That’s Precious
Does your kid have special things? A duck? A blanket? An infinitesimally miniscule bracelet that is of mind-boggling importance to her little preschool world?
Sometimes, when you’re visiting Daddy at the maze of a complex that we call MEGACORP for a reason and you can barely find your car again when it’s time to leave, does your daughter REPEATEDLY drop her prized one-of-a-kind beaded bracelet from Grammy and Papa that they bought at the Zoo store because they are the only adults in this family kind enough to take the kids inside the Zoo store and actually spend $4,000,000 buying a life altering trinket? Mine does.
When she drops the bracelet on the 3 mile walk through corridors, up and down stairs and around the cafeteria, does she suddenly make a sheepish face and say, “Uh-Oh! My bracelet’s gone again. We NEED to find it?” Mine does.
When this happens for the third time and Daddy goes back to search for the bracelet while you wait in the car with the sniffling child, only to discover it’s right next to her on the seat, do you secretly want to dispose of the bracelet in a sinister display of parental pyrotechnic power? I do.
I was thinking about it today and I decided that with all the crying my kids have done in their lives over lost treasured items, we could provide much-needed rainfall to a mid-sized African country. Now as cool as it would be to have a cistern in Ghana named after Laylee and Magoo, I’d really rather just stop the madness.
If I gathered up every toy, scrap of crumpled paper, gold fish cracker and sippy cup that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT, even the ones that they don’t yet know that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT but that they will discover that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT the minute they’re missing, stacked them all on the bamboo pile out back and lit a match, they would probably cry. And scream. And bonk their heads on the ground while screaming, “Why, oh WHY?!!! I NEEEEED that!!!! Erp. Angelina Jolie please adopt me now and save me from this heartless mother who never drives back to the mall to search for the precious rubber band I was saving in my shoe that my she told me 10 times to leave in the car because I’d probably lose it and halfway home I noticed it was MISSING and did I mention she wouldn’t go back for it??!!!!” Once.
They would have the fit once and then in would be over. All the special things would be gone and they wouldn’t have anything left to lose or whine about or make me feel guilty over my callous disregard for EVER AGAIN… until I gave them an apple to eat… and they discovered a seed inside it… THAT COULD BE USED TO PLANT AN APPLE TREE IN THE BACK YARD after being carried to preschool and back and across 12 or 13 continents until they noticed it had fallen out of their pocket somewhere between Minsk and Oshawa.
But at least when they asked about the seed, I could tell them, “Don’t you remember? I’m pretty sure it was lost in ”˜the fire’.”
Hunks of Chicken at a Stoplight
It was THAT kind of day, the kind of day when dinner rolls around and you’re returning dishes to Linens and Things, dishes you bought earlier THAT day, while your Costco rotisserie chicken gets cold on the front seat of your van.
On the bright side, it’s a good thing the chicken’s cold because when the kids start begging for food, you can tear off chunks with your bare hands and toss them into their little mouths without burning them.
And now I can’t sleep but I can’t think clearly either. I can think clearly enough that the list of things I didn’t accomplish today and likely won’t accomplish tomorrow play over and over in my head in vivid detail, but not clearly enough to actually do any of them.
My kids ate raw spinach leaves and Costco chicken shards in the car for dinner because apparently we are on the mobile Atkins diet. For breakfast tomorrow I think I’ll load them onto a ferry somewhere in the Puget Sound and throw sausage, eggs and chicken livers at their heads.