I Wanna Be In The Room Where It Happens
Posted: March 21, 2016 Filed under: family, kids, parenting | Tags: Barbies, family, Hamilton Broadway, Ken doll, kids, Leslie Odom Jr., parenting, theater, toys Leave a commentThe Princess, who is now ten years old, has been asking for an African American “Ken” doll for a couple of weeks now. When I asked why she needed another Ken doll at all, she said that it was so she can “pretend that he’s Aaron Burr.”
Yes, I know that Aaron Burr was a white man, but she thinks he’s black because Leslie Odom, Jr. plays him on Broadway.
I don’t know whether to feel super proud of her for further diversifying her Barbie collection or to have some kind of white lady guilt for not already having a African American Ken doll.
Anyway, African American Ken dolls do not just materialize for no reason. Maybe she will find one in her Easter basket, or as a reward for having blood drawn, which she needs to do this month.
Yesterday she told me that while she’s waiting for the doll, she’s just going to “pretend Leslie Odom, Jr. is sick,” and the Ken doll she has “is his understudy”.
I think my induction into the Theater Mom Hall of Fame might be imminent
Oh, no he didn’t.
Posted: January 28, 2015 Filed under: family, kids, Media, parenting, Politics | Tags: Back to the Future 2, Carls Jr., cruelty to animals, GoDaddy, hoverboards, income inequity, kids, parenting, pay gap, Paycheck Fairness Act, PETA, sexism, stay-at-home-mom, Super Bowl ads, teaching moments, women's rights Leave a commentThis morning I read about the controversy surrounding GoDaddy pulling its Super Bowl ad because of a kerfuffle about puppy mills and animal cruelty. Which of course, is something we should all be concerned about, yes, yes. I hear you. But what bothers me about this, whether it’s actually true or just a GoDaddy-staged publicity stunt is that while you can get this kind of action for the rights and dignity of animals, you can’t really say the same thing about the rights and dignity of women. Seriously, just try complaining about the objectification of women in ads like the ones for
Greased, in a bikini. You don’t see them eating Big Macs or Whoppers like this, let me tell you. Plus, that position…hope someone is right off camera who knows the Heimlich maneuver.
Carl’s Jr. or any of the other myriad Super Bowl ads, or almost any ad (one of my favorites is the one where the guy is watching the game on his phone under the table because obviously it’s more interesting than anything his woman has to say from across it…but I digress…) for that matter, and you won’t hear anything about the ad being pulled for a reason like that. If anything, what you will hear is the sound of crickets chirping.
I could go on, but that ‘s not really the story I wanted to tell you. No, this is a story about parenting. A story about how I would like for my boys to grow up understanding that women are human beings, not slaves or sex objects, and that the way women are portrayed in the media has an immediate effect on how men view them in the real world. And I made my point, in the car on the way to school this morning, by relating it to Congress’s recent refusal to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and the fact that women in the United States of America on average earn seventy-eight cents for every dollar that a man earns, even if they are doing the same jobs with the same amount of experience. It’s 2015. The 21st century. The new year came and 
everyone was bitching about how we weren’t getting the hoverboards that Back to the Future II had promised us. I’d just be happy if they gave us the 22 cents. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if people whined more about pay inequity than they do about the injustice of not getting hoverboards??
But again, I digress…I’m a stay-at-home mom. Basically, as I’ve said before, that means I am a cook, a laundress, a chauffeur, a judge, jury and jailor, janitor, a pet sitter, a nurse, a cop, a safety monitor, a teacher, a gardener, a comptroller, head of purchasing, a cruise-director, appointment secretary, and all-around shit-doer. So when I mentioned to my sons this problem of the pay gap, I was a bit incensed when the one in the back seat said, “Yeah, but you don’t work.”
That’s right. He said it. After asking me this morning where he might find his freshly laundered gym uniform, and then packing the lunch I had prepared for him into his backpack, this son of mine had the stones (though admittedly not the brains) to say to me, “But you don’t work.”
But the funny part was that he had said this as we were pulling into the parking lot of his school, and not a minute later, he realized that he had actually left his gym uniform back at home. “Can you bring it to me before 8:30?” he asked. (This was at 7:50, and I still had his brother to drop off at another school.)
“But, Clooney,” I said, “I don’t work.”
There Goes Peter Cottontail
Posted: April 19, 2014 Filed under: family, kids, parenting | Tags: Easter Bunny, holidays, kids, Santa, secrets, The Bachelor Leave a commentWarning: Contains Spoilers
So, I Just had “the talk” with Clooney, confirming his suspicions about the Easter Bunny and Santa. He took it much better than Edison, whose response a few years ago was the dramatic accusation, “You LIED to me!” before storming up to his room and slamming the door.
Clooney said that he had been “testing” his theory about Santa and the Easter Bunny for a while. This testing entailed not writing a letter to Santa, and not telling me what the Easter Bunny should bring in his basket. Overall, he took the news well, and before he went on his way, he said “Wow. You and Dad should really think about doing some professional acting because you guys are good. Dad keeps secrets better than that guy on the Bachelor .”
We don’t watch The Bachelor , so I’m not entirely sure what that means, or where he got that concept, but still, that kid makes me laugh.
Run for It
Posted: April 2, 2014 Filed under: Day-to-Day, family, kids, parenting | Tags: kids, parenting, running, track Leave a commentJust want to start this off by saying (in case you don’t already know) that parenting can often be a soul-sucking experience. Don’t get me wrong, of course sometimes it’s great; they make you laugh; they make you proud. But mostly they just wear you down to a little nub. At least until they’re in college (and even then, only if you’re lucky).
And that’s just before your first cup of coffee, mind you.
Anyway, basketball season ended, and since Clooney is the kind of kid who needs some structure and activity to his days, I suggested he try running track this season. He’d never done track, but he’d done a couple of cross-country kind of activities in the past. He’s long and lean, so I figured track would be a good outlet for him.
Clooney’s kind of artsy. I mean he loves art, but more than that, he’s into music. He can talk about music these days the way he could talk about cars from the time he could speak. Not that he can’t still talk about cars. Generally speaking, he can talk about anything. In fact, his rambling
Clooney’s clarinet idol, Squidward Tentacles
conversations could talk cats off the back of a tuna boat. But anyway, he plays three instruments: electric bass, the clarinet, and cello. He also sings in the school chorus and has a part in the drama club’s spring play. He’s plenty busy, but I still worry that he will be sucked into that iPad, that Minecraft will turn his brain to pudding, that he needs more stimuli. I’m a mom. I worry…
His school doesn’t have an elementary track program, so when I went looking for a program, choices were kind of limited in our area. I finally found one through the Catholic Youth Ministry, but our church doesn’t have a track team, so I had to sign him up through the diocese website, and then get a dispensation to put him on the team of another parish. Already I was jumping through hoops, but hey, a mom does these things.
After we got signed up, we were able to get more information about the team. The first sign that perhaps we’d made a mistake, was the practice schedule: Tuesday and Thursday nights from 5:45 until 7. Not ideal, since he has bass lessons on Tuesdays until 5 and drama climb on Thursdays until 5 as well. But again, I’m Mom. If he wants to run track, I will make it work.
His first practice was cancelled because of late-season snow, so the first practice he actually attended was on Thursday. Thursdays are a bit crazy for us, because I signed The Princess up for a dance class this season, thinking that she could take a school bus one day a week to the school that offers this after-hours program. However, I was mistaken on this point, and didn’t find out until after I had paid for the class. So, every week, I pick up the Princess from her school and drive her to this other school, about 15 minutes, for the class. It’s not really a big deal, but I have to pick her up at 5 as well. The dance school is only about a mile from Clooney’s school, so it actually kind of worked out, in terms of picking them up around the same time.
On a normal day.
The first day of practice, was also the day that I took our dog to be groomed. She wasn’t ready to be picked up until 3:00, so after I got her, I took her with me to get The Princess. After dropping off my daughter at the dance class, I ran the dog back home, which was 20-25 minutes from the dance school, depending on the traffic. Got the dog settled at home, grabbed some cold chicken for Clooney to have for dinner before track, and headed back to get them both. First I picked up The Princess, and then I headed over to get Clooney, and one of our neighbors’ kids, with whom we carpool. From there, we headed back toward home (at 5:00, traffic is thicker, so 25 minutes was making good time). Clooney ate his dinner in the car, but it turned out that he had forgotten to bring his track clothes, so after we dropped off the neighbor, we stopped back at our house for him to change, and to drop off The Princess with her older brother, Edison, who was by then home from his own after school activity.
Clooney quickly changed, filled a water bottle, and we headed to the practice, which was 10 minutes away, but still in heavy rush-hour suburban traffic. Lots of cars, lots of lights. I missed a parents’ meeting with the coach, but I got him there by 6:00, which I told the coach would be a regular occurrence.
After I saw that Clooney was settled, I got back in the car, went home, fed the other two kids (because Manfrengensen was working late), walked the dog, and went back to the track to get Clooney. By that time, the sun was going down, and it was getting cold. I stood watching him run for a bit, and then he saw me. The coach told them he’d see them Sunday at the meet, and the kids were free to leave. Clooney came through the gates with the crowd, broke away to come to me and said, “You know what? I don’t want to do this. Track’s not really my thing.”
And I just kind of felt like this:
Okay, then.
Another reason why penmanship and spelling are so important…
Posted: February 24, 2014 Filed under: Day-to-Day, family, funny, kids, school | Tags: funny answers, kid's homework, kids, second grade Leave a commentPulled this out of my second-grade daughter’s “daily” folder.
Took me a second to realize how facting hilarious it is.
Tooth Fairy Face Palm
Posted: October 3, 2013 Filed under: family, kids, parenting | Tags: kids, lost teeth, parenting, the Tooth Fairy, Tooth Fairy Leave a comment
The Princess has lost two teeth in the last ten days. With the first one, she came home from school so proud, showing off the little plastic treasure box that the nurse had given her to hold the tooth. She put the box under the pillow, and nothing happened. The next morning, she was so disappointed that the Tooth Fairy had stood her up. I didn’t know what to say – I mean, I had totally spaced the thing. She is, after all, the third child, so this tooth fairy thing is kind of getting old, at least for me. But still, I felt bad, because Tooth Fairy, for her, is a rare opportunity to earn some cold, hard cash.
That night, after school, it was obvious that she’d been trying to work out why the Tooth Fairy had dissed her. She told me that her friend had said that perhaps leaving the tooth in its box 
had been a mistake, that perhaps the Tooth Fairy had missed the tooth because it wasn’t in the open space under the pillow. And I lightbulb lit up in my head. This little girl I had never met was not only a friend of my daughter’s, she was no doubt, a friend of mine — how kind of her to give me a second chance! So that night, The Princess left just the tooth under the pillow, and what do you know? The Tooth Fairy left FOUR DOLLARS. A little guilt on Mom’s part can really generate interest on that tooth investment.
Well, then within a week, another tooth fell out, and frankly, I just don’t carry around that much cash. And, to be honest, again I forgot about it. The cleaners were coming the morning after she had put the tooth under her pillow, and before they got here, I meant to change everybody’s bedclothes. I took out the sheets, laid them on the beds, and then got side-tracked and forgot about the actual changing. I guess the cleaners figured that because I had put the sheets out, I meant for them to change the linens, so they stripped the beds and put the new ones on. And, oops, the tooth disappeared.
Well, The Princess was incensed. Because she had forgotten to check in the morning, she assumed that the cleaners had stolen her Tooth Fairy booty. I tried to dissuade her from this theory, but she would have none of it. She HAD BEEN ROBBED!
Then, when Manfrengensen put her to bed, she told him about how she’d been a victim of this crime. He, of course, figured that I had dropped the ball, so after she had finished her rant about the Tooth Fairy, he said, “Let me talk to her, and we’ll see what happened.”
“You know the Tooth Fairy?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “Mom,” meaning, “Let me talk to Mom…”
And without missing a beat, she said, “Mom knows the Tooth Fairy?”
And then you know what? I freaking spaced it the second night too. Mom of the Year over here.
The Proust Questionnaire: Egghead23
Posted: August 21, 2013 Filed under: blogging, family, kids, parenting, Relationships, writing | Tags: meme, Proust Questionnaire, self Leave a commentI actually meant to write this as a post for this blog, but I accidentally wrote it on the Practice What You Pinterest site. I couldn’t figure out how to move it without ruining the format, so I just reblogged it. You get the idea.
The Proust Questionnaire: Egghead23.
Endless Summer
Posted: August 21, 2013 Filed under: family, funny, kids, parenting | Tags: edna Mode, funny meme, parenting, Summer Vacation, The Incredibles, turning 50 Leave a commentIt’s been a good summer. It’s been a busy summer. There was a good bit of traveling, a few camps, and lots of laughs. But you know, it’s time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. The school bus schedules arrived yesterday and every night this week there’s some event at each of their three separate schools to welcome back and introduce new teachers and friends. The long days of sleeping in, playing as many video games as Mom will allow and staying up late are drawing to a close.
I turned 49 this summer, and I don’t know if it’s this feeling like I’m on the downward slope of a roller coaster ride into 50, but I feel the need to make some changes, get a few things done. First thing is to get the house in order, just rearranging all the pieces that have just been sitting in places where they originally landed. Then I’m also getting myself in order, trying to exercise both body and mind more than I have in recent months…or years.
I started in the office, which looked like this:
but now looks like this:
Then, yesterday, I rearranged a junk drawer in the kitchen, though there are still two more of those left. Basically, I plan to be an organizational tsunami from one end of the house to the other, hopefully finishing the whole thing before the end of September.
But mostly, I am looking forward to the quiet that the school day brings to my life, a chance when I can gather my thoughts and actually follow through on them, or use the bathroom without hearing my name called on the other side of the door. I realize that some day, too soon, this will be the whole of my life, once the kids are grown and out of here. It’s not that I don’t cherish the moments of chaos, but I do love the quiet.
This is pretty much the story of every morning, when they are talking to me about who hit whom, who’s not being fair and what kind of breakfast they want, when all I can really think about is that first cup of coffee.
Fantasy Island Type Beds for Kids
Posted: April 3, 2013 Filed under: Day-to-Day, kids, parenting, products | Tags: expensive, kid's beds, lighthouse bed, PBTeen, Pottery Barn, Princess Coach Bed, Princess Palace Bed, Race Car Bed, Shipping, space bed, star wars bed, Surf Shack Bed, Tudor Cottage Bed 1 CommentThe Princess has always had hand-me-down mis-matched furniture in her room, so recently we decided to get her some pieces of her own. She wants a canopy bed, which is kind of hard to find if you are not looking for super-frilly, but I did find one, and some matching pieces at PBTeen. The stuff was a little pricey, but I figured it would last her until she goes to college, so I was willing to pay for the style and quality…until I got to the shipping. For three pieces of furniture and a mattress (without a box spring) it was almost $500 to have it delivered. And I’m sorry, but that’s just crazy talk. When we moved here two years ago, I had 9 rooms full of furniture, including a piano, plus a basement full of kids’ toys moved for a little over $1500. Nine rooms! So, I stopped myself, after asking if they could combine the shipping and being denied, from making a purchase.
From there, I went looking for alternatives, and was shocked to find some CRAZY outrageous kids’ beds that I thought I would share.
First of all, if I had the means, and it was available anywhere, this is the one I would buy for sure.
TweenNick The Retreat Canopy Bed $3150
But three grand is nothing compared to some of these:
English Tudor Cottage Bed – $35,000
Princess Palace Playhouse – $47,000
Fantasy Coach Bed – $47,000
But if princesses aren’t your thing, how about a bed for the little prince?
Tropical Surf Shack Bunk Bed – $16,000
Vintage Race Car Bed – $20,160
Lighthouse Bed (Which also has drawers and a laundry hamper) – $16,150
Deep Space Fighter Bed – (Though let’s face facts – it’s an unliscenced Star Wars bed) – Priced on demand, and I am sure more than my car cost.
Needless to say, I am continuing my search for the perfect bed for our Princess. Let me know if you found anything here for your kids…or self.
Playing Catch-Up With ThinkIt
Posted: December 6, 2012 Filed under: blogging, Day-to-Day, family, friends, kids, parenting | Tags: 2012, Book of Mormon, End of Year meme, George Clooney, memories, Potter Puppet Pals, Thinkit Leave a commentOne of the problems I have every year with these prompts is that it takes me a day or two to think of an answer. That being said, I’m sure you will look at a few of these and think, That took her time to come up with? Jeez. Click!
So, without further adieu…
December 3 – If you could meet someone new in 2013, who would it be? Or would you rather spend more time with someone you already know?
No, I do a pretty good job of socializing as it is. I’m kind of making a career of it. Who would I like to meet in 2013? Anyone but my maker.
December 4 – What was the wisest decision you made this year?
They ask this one every year, and if I can think of anything, it’s stupid material stuff. I got a minivan that has made it easier to load the kids into the car and has cut down the squabble factor. I bought a new toaster oven that seems to do the trick. I started Practice What You Pinterest, but I can’t say that has turned out to be wise. Decisions? I didn’t really make any major ones this year, and I make too many little ones every day to single any out.
Oh, wait! I decided to avoid MSG. It’s made a world of difference with my migraines. That counts as wise, right?
December 5 – Interview 3 people about their favorite moments of the year. Share what you heard.
This was a fun one, and I actually got several good answers:
Michelle H. said that her best moment was her sister’s wedding and seeing her own daughters all dressed up for the event. She also enjoyed a moment the day before the wedding when she threatened to bitch-slap her sister.
Nadia had two as well. First was the day (May 23, 2012) when she had lost enough weight to fit back into her wedding gown. (Way to go, Nadia! I’ve kissed my gown goodnight until my daughter can wear it.) And October 31st, when she had officially lost 100 pounds.
That is one FINE looking man. I bet he smells better than cinnamon.
Robin said the day after Election Day was the best moment for her. (Yes, many of us felt we could breathe easier that day…)
Meredeth gave some silly story about her daughter becoming potty trained, until she remembered that she had met George Clooney. Not to belittle A’s milestone, but duh, M. I would deal with diapers for a decade to have that guy press his shoulder into mine like that.
Michelle M. enjoyed seeing her daughter graduate high school to go study veterinary medicine.
Several friends said that their moment was when Notre Dame beat USC to go to the National Championship.
Three friends had babies this year, so those moments trumped all the others for them.
Kelly’s daughter underwent surgery that changed her life for the better.
Bill got pulled onstage during a concert to sing and dance with the band.
Kevin had a great one too. He said his moment was seeing his wife present their son with his high school diploma on a stage, where they shared an affectionate whisper. It was a message. “Tell Dad,” the graduate said, “the Phillies are tied in the tenth.”
For me, there were a million little moments. Edison’s excitement waiting in the audience at Asbury Lanes for the Potter Puppet Pals to begin; watching Craig, one of my fellow 
wizards “bonding” with two “gnomes” made out of potatoes, while sitting on a bench looking serenely at the lake; laughing with Manfrengensen until tears came out of our eyes; asking Clooney whether I tell him I love him enough and his response, “Uh, duh”; laughs with my lady friends who lunch/and/or/breakfast at Panera; hearing my son referred to as “a ringer” during a Quidditch match; meeting our new niece and our new nephew; almost passing out while driving Manfrengensen to the hospital after his bike accident; holding my daughter’s hand; watching her try on the shoes I wore to my wedding; The Book of Mormon. I’m surrounded by magic every single day.
December 6 – How do you want get involved in your community this year?
I did a lot this year to get involved in my community. I still cook once a month for a local soup kitchen, and I started teaching Sunday school. I will continue to do those things in the coming year, and I will look for other opportunities, chiefly ones that involve aiding the poor in our area.
So there, all caught up…now let me get to the myriad other things I have on the docket today.
egghead23's world 