Often, the obvious eludes me… June 1, 2011

Warning: this is a ridiculous, trivial rant about social media and my own stupefying lack of logic. I can’t believe I was wasting brain space on it (and now making YOU read about it–ha!), so maybe typing it out will get it off my mind.

I had a moment earlier this week when I realized I was stewing over something one of my friends (not someone I see in real life anymore) posted on facebook. It wasn’t even a right/wrong issue, more of an opinion/observation, but it was all I could do not to fire off a response to what I saw as a small-minded, elitist statement. The fact that it was followed by lots of comments from obviously like-minded people didn’t help my stewing. Here’s the best part–this was DAYS later, and I was STILL thinking about it.

And then, it hit me.

What in the world was wrong with me?

Hide all posts from _____.

Remove from friends list.

Unfollow.

Unsubscribe.

Duh.

There’s a reason we have those buttons, people. WHY it didn’t occur to me to do it sooner is beyond me. Here I was, rolling my eyes to myself every time someone posted something that annoyed me (and hey, I’m the one who picked these people in the first place), I was just letting it happen to me. The kicker was that the things that were annoying me were so, just…dumb–atrocious grammar, pompous opinions like the one that sparked this post, just things that make me cringe. When people post opinions/beliefs that are in total opposition to mine on issues that actually matter, that doesn’t bother me. It’s the small, silly things (like the statements that make me realize I might be “friends” with a jerk). I’m not friends with anyone on facebook I don’t know in real life, and that group has a wide range of opinions for sure, but I was completely ignoring the fact that I had complete and total control over the situation.

NEWSFLASH: I DON’T HAVE TO READ IT.

I know that’s not exactly a revelation, but for some reason I had to take a winding road to get there this week. I spend way too much time on the computer for work already, and then I CHOOSE to spend even more time online just for fun. This is often a waste of my emotional energy, if I let it get out of hand. Social media is fluff, a time-waster meant for enjoyment, right? If you find yourself (over)reacting like I did this week, it’s time to prune your lists. Clean out your friends lists, people you follow, blogs you read, etc. You’ll feel much better, I promise!

That makes it sounds like I really, really need to go outside and play a lot more often. I promise to do that, too.

As soon as the cicadas DIE.

Weirdness ’round here April 29, 2011

I know I keep saying this, but it keeps BEING TRUE: having a kid around is a very weird thing. It makes you think weird things, it makes you SAY weird things, it makes you think you are just a little bit unhinged…

Here’s a recent sampling:

• After putting Baby Girl to bed one night this week, we hear coughing and pitiful noises over the monitor. I yell  tell her to go get a drink of water, which she does. I hear her just standing in the bathroom coughing, so I go to investigate. After a VERY long time of trying to understand what she was saying about a tooth (she’s obsessed with loose teeth right now, and I was actually afraid for a minute that she’d tried to pull out one of her teeth!), I realized that she was trying to tell me that she’d swallowed part of her “dinosaur tooth” (actually a large piece of driftwood she found) AND WAS APPARENTLY CHEWING ON as she tried to go to sleep. Why??? Harvard, here we come. For the record, she’s fine and I’m reasonable sure there aren’t any splinters in her throat. Good grief, Charlie Brown.
• Wait–does your kid NOT keep piles of rocks, leaves, lumber, dirt, and random assorted trash in her room? Mine definitely does.
• She’s been screaming, “KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!” as she runs full-force in circles around the house. She wants to know if she sounds like a firework.
• And in near-tragedy news…our poor fish. His tank needs to be cleaned, which BG thinks is the best activity in the world because she gets to try to catch him with the net (I only give her two tries before I step in and do it–I’m not into animal cruelty). I was in the kitchen doing something (probably carving some radish rosettes or baking a perfect chocolate souffle or something–who can remember these things?) when she came in to ask me if she could get Zim out of his tank. She already had the net in her hand. I said no, that we would clean his tank together after dinner, and went back to what I was doing. Something about the way she was standing made me look again. Good thing, because she was hiding the net behind her back WITH THE FISH IN IT. I freaked. All I could think of was that scene in Finding Nemo where the poor gasping fish are lying on the pier. I grabbed the fish from her and ran him back to his tank. He seems fine. He’s probably going to seek out new owners, though.

Sorry. Those stories are way too long for bullet points, but there you go. It’s been a WEEK. In case you can’t tell from all my CAPITAL LETTERS. Baby Girl also threw the most spectacular tantrum I’ve EVER seen her throw, followed the next day by the SECOND most spectacular tantrum she’s ever thrown. No kidding, it was reminiscient of my most challenging behavior kids. I was totally looking for my walkie and my designated crisis response team to come to my aid. Turns out, that only works at school. I won’t even bore you with the details of that–I think she’s sufficiently deprogrammed now from whatever glitch in her brain made her think THAT was going to get her what she wanted. She’s been a peach today, despite the fact that I’ve had to only half-pay-attention-to her for a large portion of the day so I could do some emergency report writing and dragged her over the school next door so I could score a test. Let’s not even get started on that to-do list…overwhelmed to the max, in summary.

This day can end ANY TIME now. I’m sort of over it and ready to trade it in for some weekend.

You know what’s great? March 18, 2011

When you decide to test out someone’s sense of humor, and it turns out…

HE (or she) HAS ONE.

That’s always a lovely thing.

I was recently horrified to discover the children’s book (IS it a children’s book?) ”Everyone Poops” at my friend’s house. One glance at her face confirmed this was a daddy purchase and that her child knew that she would never, evereverever be reading THAT book to HIM. So, anyway, I guess that’s their thing for them to grunt and bond over. Wonderful. Fine. Whatever. Never mind that I needed to go take a shower just from looking at the illustrations. Children’s literature CAN be too realistic, people.

At the time, we joked that I should totally out him on his Facebook wall (my, how times have changed) and make a crack about it. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t think of the right funny thing to say. Well, and then I sort of forgot. I was still firm in my stance that it was fine to have such a wretched book.

Fine for THEM, you see. I do understand not everyone shares my general aversion for any jokes related to bodily functions. I once threatened to quit a perfectly nice babysitting gig because the children wanted me to read them Walter the Farting Dog.

I was firm UNTIL my child starts quoting the text (I think–I’m blaming him regardless of what the facts may turn out to be concerning the source of her sudden poop fascination).

So, good morning Mike:

And, then…

Win.

I’m very sorry to all of you who have come here hoping for something good, and all I gave you is a story (BARELY a story) about a dead bird and then THIS. I’m afraid this post isn’t much of an improvement. My sincere apologies. I’ve been making lots of both boring and exciting grownup decisions over the last few days (exactly how much do YOU clean your house for a health insurance salesman/underwriter to sit at your kitchen table, just out of curiosity?), and I’m all out of blog fodder at the moment. This is what serves as mindless entertainment for today. Everyone needs a little of that on occasion.

Sweet girl (most of the time) February 20, 2011

This is her "making a vacation." Apparently, that involves packing ponies into a guitar case.

Sidebar: Are all four-year-olds like this? My child’s personality has a distinct hyperactive leprechaun-like quality today. It is endlessly entertaining!

Many days, I fear I’m raising a little clone of myself.

I do NOT look forward to the teenage years if this is so.

But here’s a precious tiny memory I want to keep: I put Baby Girl to bed last night, and we were doing the whole “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, just one more thing puh-leeeeeeze”/”I’m only coming in there ONE time so you better actually need something!” song and dance. I was tired and exasperated and out of patience, frankly. So I go stomping in there, growling and grumbling. And her little voice said, “Mommy, I love you as big as the whole world. May you please sing me a song to help me go to sleep?” And I know she was just trying to stall, and I did stick to the rule of only coming back in there once for the night (because you have to win that one hard and early!)…but I just melted at the thought that she’s not going to want me to sing to her and hold her in the middle of the night for very much longer. I sang her the song (“Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” of all blasted things–soooo tired of that one) while she patted my hair (which reminded me I need to start bribing her to brush my hair–nothing more mood-changing), kissed her, and she was already half asleep when I tiptoed out.

Now, we have lots of sweet little moments like this, but we also have been spending a lot of minutes in time-out, dealing with a smart-mouth attitude (already?!?) and a total inability to WAIT FOR ONE SECOND, and on-the-fly deciding with each new behavioral scenario whether it’s a Love & Logic teaching moment or a “because I’m the mom and you’re the kid” teaching moment. Keeps me on my toes for sure.

A special thank-you to my friend Melissa, who apparently drew the short straw this week and got to deal with Baby Girl’s most dramatic tantrum in A VERY LONG TIME. The short version: this is her choosing to stay in time out rather than apologize to another child for yelling at him for placing and using the markers in the wrong color order. It took a phone call from me, a flurry of texts between me and Melissa while I was at work feeling awful about the whole thing and wishing I could drive over there to deal with it, and a period of wait-time that I will not disclose here.

I pity her husband; I really do.

Yes, that’s exactly what getting her dressed is like January 12, 2011

I love it when I read a blog post from a stranger and it just takes the words right out of my mouth. This is Melanie over at Big Mama. She wrote this post about the soul-sucking ordeal that is getting an opinionated female child dressed every day. If I was as effortlessly funny as she is, this is what I would have written (I’m very funny in my head). This is why we often sport the “clean but quite possibly homeless” fashion presentation. Go have a good laugh, and be ready to do it again when you see the photo at the bottom. If the children at my elementary school are any indication, she’s exactly right–hobo chic is the current trend, so why don’t we just GIVE already? She’ll just blend in with her “stripes and other stripes DO SO match” combos. I’m not so sure how Baby Girl’s crown is going to go over, however.

This is just what Kindergarten is going to be like for us next year.

Gulp.

As soon as she said, “It’s a girl…” January 5, 2011

I knew we were in for it.

A few years before I had a child, I remember my friend Karen (mother to an adorable little blonde girl who was probably about 3 at the time) saying that random elderly people at the grocery store were forever giving her child money, just for being cute and without asking permission first. Karen is also the mother to an adorable blonde little boy, but I think she was specifically talking about her girl. Frankly, I thought that it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard.

Fast forward a few years, and I learned for myself: THEY TOTALLY DO THAT.

It’s not just people at the grocery store, either. Every yard sale we go to, Baby Girl walks away with some toy we weren’t allowed to pay for, people always slip her quarters (or dollars!) in the checkout lane…it’s funny most of the time. I’m also forever indebted to the sweet woman who gifted Baby Girl with Diego, (oh my goodness, that was two years ago) because that guy has remained her steadfast #2 (White Bear still reigns supreme, of course) and goes everywhere we go. I never would have thought to buy such a thing for her. And, as I hate Dora the Explorer with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, Diego is at least a smidge better as an alternative. On a side note, Diego is having some gender identity issues these days and is quite likely to be wearing her pink swimsuit from last summer. Anyway, it’s pretty cute. Slash disturbing if you come around a corner and he’s sitting there looking like a life-size child.

A few Sundays ago, this really struck me all over again. It was a small thing, but I found myself stewing over it. We went to a restaurant with a humongous group of people, and we were all waiting in the lobby. There were some gumball machines (just so we’re all clear on the level of class at play here), and Baby Girl asked for some change. I (truthfully) told her I didn’t have any and reminded her we were about to eat lunch anyway. One of the servers came through the lobby (overheard, I guess), and he gave Baby Girl a quarter without much fanfare. I couldn’t catch him in time to tell him we had already said no to her, so I just smiled and thanked him (BG already had, loudly). Okay, not really a huge deal. She didn’t ASK him for the quarter or react negatively when I told her no, so I was okay with it. Not thrilled with the lesson that was just handed down, mind you, but okay.

Then, we find out our group is too large for that restaurant, and we all decide to caravan over to another Mexican restuaturant (if you ever told me you’d have a CHOICE of such things in Smyrna, I’d have never believed you). In the lobby THERE, guess what–gumball machines! We’re all milling around waiting to be seated, she starts in with a whine, and before I can even react, there’s this grandpa-type giving Baby Girl another quarter and patting her on her little red head. REALLY?

Maybe I’m over-reacting to this tiny pair of incidents, but how long do you think it will be before she starts learning that all she has to do is take up a collection from the nicest-looking grownup near her in order to get some parental-denied candy?  Look, she’s cute. I get that. She’s got the blue eyes and the sweet little voice and she tilts her head just like I do when she wants something (shut up, sometimes a girl needs to park quickly downtown and has to go to an ATM before she can pay the garage attendant). And I also know it’s just one (or two) gumballs or bouncy balls, whatever. But I don’t want her to learn to get what she wants by charming people who won’t say no to her, and I want her to understand that no means no. And while we’re at it with the life lessons, I want her to learn that people will like her for how she acts and treats people, not for being perceived as cute or pretty.

Sigh. I have never seen a child so enamored with her own reflection. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, friends!

The saddest thing you’ve ever seen November 20, 2010

I present to you the perfect Recipe for Torturing Baby Girl:

Step 1: Wash White Bear.

Step 2: Perform surgery on him in plain sight.

White Bear ALREADY needed a bath in a very bad way, but I’d been procrastinating because I was out of Oxyclean and bleach (required elements at this point in his sad little threadbare life). Then Baby Girl tucked him inside a tire swing filled with rainwater, and it was TIME.

She wailed out her broken heart throughout the wash cycle, and then it was time to address the hole that occasionally opens up on one of his seams.

Now, the funny thing about these photos is that she is NOT crying because I am sewing on him. It’s that she is STILL CRYING because he was washed, even though that part was long over. She is saying, “And I MISSED him while he was being washed! And I didn’t WANT him to be washed and clean!” For some reason, the surgery doesn’t bother her.

Just to assauge my guilt and reassure you that she survived, this was taken about two minutes later:

And, to think, I was toying with the idea of a dog October 28, 2010

For no reason that I can ascertain, Baby Girl woke up this morning WAILING about Marlin and Nemo.

You see, Marlin and Nemo (original with the names, huh?) were two brave little goldfish who just weren’t cut out for this world. They spent some time in our household, then went to live in the Big Pond in the Sky. Many months ago. What Baby Girl doesn’t know is that the Marlin and Nemo she knew actually went belly-up more than once–mama just wasn’t quick enough one time and Baby Girl was the one to find them the last time. Don’t judge me–I know how my child hangs onto things (for years, even–just yesterday there was a major meltdown over the “white TN house” and her slide that was in the backyard), and I just didn’t have the stamina. We flushed them, said goodbye, and got ourselves a much hardier betta fish. WHO IS STILL ALIVE, thank you very much.

Well, we did lose one betta pretty much immediately, but I contend that he was sickly to begin with. The current Zim (no, I have no idea why that is his name) has been around a good long while and seems to be thriving.

However, none of that mattered this morning when she was absolutely sobbing about those two little fish. I mean, the whole deal–we were sitting in the hallway where I met her when she came screaming out of her room, rocking back and forth, stroking hair, wiping tears. LAMENTING the tragedy of it all.

We were able to move on when I reminded her that we didn’t have to go anywhere this morning and she could watch cartoons downstairs.

Honestly, I don’t know whether to be thankful for her tender heart (I am, really) or tell her to buck up. I’ll think on it.

Where nerdiness and friendship collide October 8, 2010

Amanda, I saw this and thought of you. Get your chart paper ready. We’ll get it all worked out.

BG gets an upgrade to her “box home” March 18, 2010

Due to all the moving drama around here lately (kill me, please), Baby Girl has spent a lot of time creating “box homes” with whatever box she can commandeer and scrawl all over. Well, she just got a serious builder upgrade:

Erin and BG’s Favorite Boy have the rocket ship version, and they got a gift certificate from the company when something was left out of their order. Although I know Erin would have LOVED another one of these bad boys in her house (you have a big bathroom, right?), they were so sweet and sent it to us! BG was thrilled, of course. We’re working on making it not white. I may or may not be able to fit inside with her.

Of course, that means the girl needed some markers (I’m one of those bad moms who discovers that the store is mysteriously OUT of things like fingerpaint and Playdough every time I go. Isn’t that unlucky? Also, McDonald’s is sometimes out of fries. Just so you know. It’s a sad life being my kid.). Having markers means that I sometimes try to take a quick shower and come back to a scene like this:

 She told me she needed a picture on her arm. I eventually figured out she meant a tattoo, and that she has finally noticed how many friends we have with sleeve tattoos. This is supposed to be a lobster. Matt Peterson, I’m looking at you (he does actually have a lobster on his forearm). I’ll start saving for her laser surgery now…