Seriously.  Why don’t mothers have soundtracks to their lives? I want one.  Right now.

I’m not talking about a soundtrack of my life.  I already have that. It consists of the theme song from Dora, the theme song from Diego, every Veggie Tale silly song known to man, and Primary Songs from our CD sung by little kids who sound just slightly creepy enough to make you wonder if they are really vicitms of some bizarre brainwashing scheme and are wandering about with their arms outstretched and a blue light shooting out of their eyes.  (more…)

Sometimes I sit in my car, and think about all of the things I could wish for.  Like today, driving back from D.C, I wished I could be Superhero, a person who could wear kick-butt knee high spike heeled boots and shoot fire from her hands.  That way, I could blast through all the traffic, and blow all the cars off the road, making way for my supermobile.  As the people are swept off the road in my powerful inferno, their last thought could be, “Wow.  Cool boots.”

My friend told me today that J hates her.  He loves her son, but clearly does not like her.  Having never heard word one about this woman from my child’s lips, I asked her why she thought that.

“Because.  We have more rules in our house than you do.” (more…)

My oldest girl has a pink blanket that she has slept with since she was a newborn.  It is not called “wubzy” or “lovie” or anything like that.  It is called “pink blanket”.This thing has billions of holes, the edge has been sewed and resewed, and it looks like a blanket a refugee would leave behind, since it would provide no actual warmth.  Yet she loves it with all her heart, and it is in her bed every night.

My second daughter has a yellow blanket, but she’s not quite as attached.  She sleeps with unicorns, giant care bears, or pretty much anything soft and cozy.  Mostly unicorns.

 My son sleeps with a hammer.  And we’re not talking a plastic, toy thing here.  We’re talking a real hammer that he could actually do some damage with, given enough time and manpower.  He’s also been known to take his trains to bed with him. Or rockets, which would impale him in his sleep, should he choose to roll over in the wrong direction.  I guess sleeping isn’t always about coziness, at least for my kid.

The other day my son climbed up in my lap, grabbed my cheeks, and looked earnestly into my eyes… “Mama, when do you have a day-off like Daddy does?” 

Hmmmm. Good question, darling son. When do mama’s get a day off? When do we get a break, get to lie on the couch all day at watch football the Food Network? When do mama’s get that recharge time we all so desperately need? 

There are some women who are very good about taking time for themselves, making sure their own “oxygen masks” are on securely before trying to take care of others. But most of us do not. Mothering is not a job, it is a lifetime, and one we have all embraced lovingly, with open arms. But it never stops- even with the very best of husbands and home situations; mothers are never “off”. No matter how great my husband is, our children don’t want him at 2:17 a.m. when they’ve had a bad dream. (more…)

Ok, as someone who has been accused of being married to Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, (although he does NOT spend all day chatting with babes on-line)  I found this video hysterical.  My apologies if you’ve seen it before.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1384277706451157121&pr=goog-sl

My oldest son started Kindergarten two weeks ago. Admittedly, I am something of a Kindergarten know-nothing- but, there are some things I have found quite surprising and am not sure what, if anything, needs to be addressed. 

Kindergarten is WAY more academic than I remember; there is no art, painting, hammering, singing, rhythm games, or anything else that might stimulate the right side of the ol’ noodle. The entire emphasis of the class appears to be academic- the kids are already bringing homework in their little backpacks each night, they skip recesses in favor of more study time, and there isn’t much bright or colorful going on in the classroom. I’m a little dismayed. 

But here is the cherry on top: My five year old came home today, and told us he was walked to the principal’s office today for “having a bad attitude”. Huh? What? I was stunned, and my husband and I questioned him at length- but he consistently maintained that he “Had a bad attitude and Mrs. So-and-So marched him down to the principal to have a talk”. And the principal talked to him about his “bad attitude”.  Am I off my rocker to think this is wacky?  (more…)

I know, I talk about Gilmore Girls a lot, and, BTW, I’m so excited for the new season to begin, but there was a line in the rerun I was watching the other day that made me laugh out loud.  Lorelai said ”Children should shoot us for the things we make them do.” (more…)

Reported by DH:

J: “Dad”, he said, brandishing some plastic packing straps from a big box,”I’m Jelly Fish Man!  These are my tentacles!  Don’t touch me, or I’ll sting you!”

At least he’s paying attention to the ‘Ocean Theme’ week at preschool….

…Said the 85 year old woman J and I visited today.  She is the mother of J’s Sunbeam teacher, a woman who suffers from macular degeneration and is recovering from a hip replacement.  Needless to say, she doesn’t get out much.  The RS has asked the sisters to go and visit this woman on a regular basis.  My turn was today. (more…)

My kid loves the remote.  I know, you’re all shocked at the individual he is, since I’m sure NONE of your kids love the remote.  He’s very unique in this.

Well, the other day, DH and I turned on the TV only to discover that we had, in fact, purchased two pay-per-view movies.  (more…)

It seems like a simple game, right?  The perfect game for preschoolers–no reading, some basic counting and familiarity with numbers, a few moral lessons thrown in.  Harmless, right? 

I’m here to tell you, friends, that the game Chutes and Ladders was created by somebody who doesn’t know children AT ALL.  Or at least by somebody who was never asked to play the game 5 times a day.  Or some minion of Satan who knew exactly what he was doing, and is laughing his little red bum off at all of us mothers forced to play his sadistic game. (more…)

This story about twin teenagers who are white supremacists makes me sick.  Sorry, just had to publicly condemn what they stand for.  Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

I just cleaned up our family room, and yes, it’s been a while, and no, it’s not totally clean yet, but it looks much better. (focus on the positive, right?)

When I find a pair of shoes, I stick them on the stairs to go upstairs and be put away.  At the end of 15 minutes of picking up, how many pairs of shoes do you think were on the stairs? 

15. Yes, my friends, that’s got to be some sort of record.

There’s only one bad thing I can say about fall, and that is that it ends in winter.  It would be just fine with me if fall went straight into spring, skipping all that ghastly white stuff that forces you to slip and die.  Also, it contains Halloween, which I hate, so I guess that’s two things.  But everything else has caused me to be head-over-heels, can’t stop thinking about, totally and completely in love with the season we call fall. (more…)

That’s what my mother used to always ask me whenever we went to the doctor for a checkup.  As a kid, we always had to make sure we were wearing clean underwear and clean clothes for the doctor.  Not that it really mattered, mind you, since I remember that most of the time in the doctor’s office was spent mostly naked, shivering in that silly little robe they give you.  But she always insisted. Maybe she thought the check up would go better if Strawberry Shortcake smelled like ‘Tide’. (more…)

I would so like to be able to write a letter like this, or even like this, you know, something loving, tender, kind hearted and touching.  Not going to happen.  My letter goes something like this:

Dear J,

My darling son, you started your first day of a new school today.  We had already met your teacher, we had toured the school, we had even bought new school clothes that you put on excitedly this morning without being asked.  You woke up this morning, ready to go, excited for the adventure. You climbed into the car, shouting at me, “I’m ready, come ON, Mom!”.  I pulled out of the driveway, wondering how much you would cling to me, how hard the transition would be, would you make new friends, would you…um…J, do you have your shoes on?  What?  We’re halfway there, and you don’t have any shoes on?  What’s up with that?  You took them off before we left?  Why would you do that? You told me you were ready.  No, I didn’t check to see if you had shoes on because I knew I had put them on you this morning already. Crap, now we have to turn around and go back home to get your shoes.  NO, you can NOT go to preschool barefoot! Because I said so, that’s why! (more…)

Last night I was writing a memorial to a man killed in Tower 1 at the World Trade Center on that awful day five years ago, as part of the 2,996 Project. Researching this piece was emotional, and writing was difficult: this was a real man, with real children, a family, hopes and dreams, he was senselessly killed, and I volunteered to memorialize him. Tears kept springing to my eyes as I tried to strike the right tone of respect, reverence and humility. 

While writing, my just-turned-five son Jeffrey kept coming in, being boisterous and distracting, like boys his age will- and I finally explained to him that I was writing something very important, and I needed to think, without answering questions about Transformers or Lego, just for a minute. He asked me why I was crying… (more…)

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your
breakfast (more…)

We finally made the jump, and we are pleased as punch.  Tell us what you think, and big, big hug and a THANK YOU to J. Stapley and Tracy M for working so hard on the design.  The Wiz and I said we weren’t picky.  Um, turns out we were pickier than we thought, and, like I said before, we are still in the tweaking stages, but woo-hoo, we are finally here! Thanks for the love….