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Fairly Odd Mother

Frantically waving my magic wand to make wishes come true.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Be my friend?

I have a secret: if I like you, and you tell me I should try something, I probably will unless it will make me bleed or scream in terror.

So, when Her Bad Mother said that she loved a community site called Maya's Mom and thought we, her dear readers, should check it out, I did. And got thoroughly confused. I wasn't really sure what this site was or what I'd need to do if I became a member.

I was so confused, I almost just clicked off and ran away. Instead, I created a profile and now have an account on Maya's Mom! My profile is pathetic and puny.

Imagine my surprise when, four hours later, I checked my email and had nine new emails from Maya's Mom members! They were mostly 'shout outs', meaning people just saying 'hi' and 'welcome', which is pleasant enough. But a few were asking me to be their 'friend' and I'm not sure what that means. How much of a commitment is this? What if we do not get along?

Like, what if she thinks that I'm some Uber-Christian because she sees that I homeschool; what happens when she finds out I'm a (gasp) Unitarian Universalist and I homeschool mainly because I don't want to get up early in the morning to get the kids on a school bus. Does she 'unfriend' me?

And, then, what if I get a 'friend' who speaks the language of myspace: Y/K, B4YKI it's all: "CYT!" and "HAK!". I don't know if I could ever unfriend anyone! Oh, the guilt!

Plus, now I have this new website to consider in the context of my week. C'mon kids, say something cute NOW! I need to update my page!

Oh, Maya's Mom, I hope we can work this out.

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Monday, February 26, 2007

2 Quotes in 2 Hours

First quote at about 5:30 Sunday:

Fairly Odd Father and Jilly were snuggling on the couch, watching Noggin together. FOF was twisting the very flexible Jilly into little pretzel knots as she sat in his lap. Then, to the tune of Franklin, she began to sweetly sing,

"Hey it's daddy. . . .
Comin' over to hurt me".

Second quote an hour later, as we cleaned up the dinner dishes:

I told FOF that I hoped that my sister-in-law's boyfriend is fun, since they are coming to spend the week with us.

FOF remarked,
"It won't be hard to be more fun than us".

Cheerful times in the Fairly Odd Home, eh?




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Friday, February 23, 2007

How to Eat a Kiwi



Best way, courtesy of the California Kiwifruit Commission:


Cut a California kiwifruit in half,
then scoop the delicious goodness right out of the skin.



The other way, courtesy of Jilly, age 3:

Get your little fingers into that kiwi and do whatcha gotta do, sister (note little pile of kiwi carcass to her left).

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Confession #2

There are times I worry that I am the worst homeschooling mama in the whole wide world. Last night, I wondered this again.

I was at a moms' meeting for a local homeschool group. I like this group a lot; nice, normal people who just so happen to enjoy homeschooling as a way of life.

Someone said they felt guilty when they let their preschooler watch TV while they taught their older child. I made a quip that if you just turn the TV to Noggin, it's just like sending them to preschool!

After noticing some blank faces, I described the Noggin commercial from a while back where a mother says, "Honey! It's time for preschool!", and the little girl, wearing her backpack, walks out of the kitchen, into the living room and sits down about 5 inches from the television set which is set to Noggin.

The women giggled but one said, "what is Noggin?" and more heads nodded along with her. "What IS Noggin?" "We don't have cable". "We don't have a TV". I got the same feeling when I was at this meeting a few months ago and several mothers mentioned having never seen an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. (Not only have I seen this show, I know every character and can do a fair impression of Patrick Star).

I am a mother who lets her kids watch television. All kinds of television: Noggin, Nick Jr, PBS, Disney, Sprout, movies, 'educational' videos, America's Funniest Home Videos. For some reason, this makes me feel a bit ashamed, especially when I am among other homeschooling mothers. Aren't we supposed to be using every waking moment reading to our kids? Doing educational crafts? Teaching them how to make bread from scratch? How to knit? Quantum physics?

Then again, this mommy needs some time to herself, to think, to decompress. Some may have a glass of wine at a playdate, some may go outside for a quick smoke; I find happy, quiet bliss in a half-hour (or hour, if we're being honest here) of electronic entertainment.

Now excuse me while I go peel my children off from the front of the television screen and attempt to engage them in a little quantum physics.




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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

She wants to Rock and Roll all Nite. . .

Dear Belly (boy, I wish you could read more than the Bob books),

It's your mom here. Your very tired mom.

Here's the thing, and this is important: You need to stay in your bedroom at night.

I know it's hard. Maybe we've made it too hard on you by always giving you an out in the past----you could sleep in my bed or in a sleeping bag on my floor----but now that you are six, and about as tall and loud as most eight year olds, I have had enough.

Enough waking from a sound sleep to find a dark shadowy person standing over me, breathing on my cheek. You are so lucky I didn't karate chop you right there. And, why did you have to wake me at 3am? To say, "Hi Mommy! I love you!", and then kiss me and scoot off to bed. While I continued to lie there, heart beating 100000000000 beats per minute, unable to relax enough to fall asleep until about 10 minutes before my alarm went off.

Last night, you had to wake me up, yet again, to tell me----get this----that you couldn't sleep! Well, why not add two people to this party?!?! Maybe there are parents who have special 'magic medicine' for moments like this, but I really don't want to go there.

So, here it is, 8am, and I'm nursing a cup of coffee while you sleep off your late-night escapades. You will wake up, fresh as a daisy. I, on the other hand, will stumble through the day ingesting more and more caffeine.

I think it is time for payback: shades up, bright sunshine in, music on--it is time to face the morning, my darling child.

With Love, Mommy

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

No More Words

I drive Fairly Odd Father crazy with questions such as, "could you get me that thing in the thing?" or, "did you remember to put it in the whosiewhatsit?" (and no, that is not our dirty talk).

I don't mean to be so annoying, it is just that my mouth moves much faster than my brain. Trying to figure out the actual nouns is such a drag! It is almost as if English is not my native language and I haven't quite figured out all the words for things (there is 'thing' again). This must be my mom's influence.

So, anyway, when I saw this shirt, I fell in love with it. I emailed a link to Fairly Odd Father, but I guess I wasn't clear that I wanted him to BUY IT for me. Go figure.
Being Vague is Almost as... - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Have a Happy .

(first a note to my brother-in-law: you may want to skip this entry since it involves a whole bunch of words you do not want to think about with regards to your sister-in-law)

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Last night, as I was about to put on an Always Ultra Thin pad (I blame the toxic shock scare of 1980 for my fear of wearing a tampon to sleep), I noticed some writing on the little piece of paper you pull off to expose the adhesive strip.

On this paper was written: "Have a Happy Period" (along with the lovely sounding, "Bonne et heureuse semaine.").

What an odd little greeting! I wasn't sure if I should be flattered that Always would care so much that I have a happy one, or concerned that I never seem to have a happy one, no matter what. Oh, yes, I do remember those days when the arrival of my period was met with great sighs of relief and a promise to "never, ever do that again", but I can't say that I ever had a happy period.

Is this a way for Always to build brand preference? "I'll only buy the brand that wishes me a happy period because maybe, by golly, I'll have one someday!"

Or maybe I'm missing something. Do the rest of you regularly have happy ones?

I must be doing it all wrong.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

6 Weird Things about 1 Odd Woman

For the longest time, I have wanted to be tagged to do a meme (I was schooled that this word should rhyme with 'scream' and not my previous thoughts of either 'mee-mee' or 'meh-may', as in 'grandma').

Much love to Liz, who has tagged me to spill a half-dozen weird factoids about myself. I feel a little naked writing all of this, but I've never had much of a problem with public exposure, so here goes. . .


1. I love to be scratched. I mean L-O-V-E to be scratched, and not just on the back. Arms, legs, fingers (especially the webbing), feet, head. The only off-limit place is my front torso which is way too ticklish.

In college, I was fortunate to have a roommate (and friend) with good nails, and she would scratch my arms whenever I asked. My sister (Mrs Q) and Fairly Odd Father know how annoying I can be about this. Just writing this makes me want to find a good tree against which I can rub my back.

2. Before I had kids, I had a cable show. It was called "Pet of the Week" (catchy title, huh?) and aired on a local access cable channel to a tiny part of Massachusetts. Along with some of my fellow animal shelter volunteers, we would show off animals up for adoption, often with hilarious results. For example, there was the time I squatted down next to a little beagle and had him hump my back as I spoke. Or the many times a dog chose to poop on camera.

3. I can think of about 100 things I'd rather do than go to see a movie in a movie theater, or even sit and watch a video. For this reason, I have missed almost every major movie release in the past 10 years (except for Clerks II which I caught opening weekend). My husband had to trick me to see Fargo by telling me that 'no one dies' in it. I loved the movie, but had to laugh at how inaccurate his review was. I have not seen any Star Wars movie except for the first, but Fairly Odd Father still married me.

4. Given #3, it may seem ironic that our third child is named after a character in a movie. In the spirit of anonymity, I will not reveal his real name, but D is named after the lead character in the first movie Fairly Odd Father and I saw together----a rental I had seen before but he had not. I chose the movie as a test---if he liked the movie, I knew our sense of humor was compatible. If not, he was a boring drone and we would never make it past the third date.

5. I will not buy anything leather for myself. This is a leftover from my strict vegetarian days when I wouldn't touch a dead-animal product. Over the years, I have loosened up a tad on the eating thing (bacon has called my name a few times), but I still avoid leather as much as possible. In the spirit of full disclosure, I do own a leather belt (bought when I was in high school), leather running sneakers (that are never worn) and a pair of black leather dress shoes I grudgingly purchased when I failed to find a faux pair two days before my high school reunion. But, usually, pleather is my friend.

6. Wow, six already? Let's see. . . OK, here it is: I cannot do a cartwheel, serve a volleyball, hit a softball or throw a ball any more than about 10 feet. I am pathetically unathletic. When I ski, my legs are so far apart, faster skiers can just ski under me. I broke my arm trying to snowboard on a hill flatter than my driveway. I view rollerblading, ice skating and cross-country skiing as high-impact activities.

Of course I blame my mother for a lot of this. She thought that sports were not ladylike and convinced me that I was too tall, too clumsy, too awkward to be successful in sports. Not surprisingly, gym class was torture until 'walking' was introduced as an elective sport and I was able to avoid all softball games, tennis matches or dodgeball games.

I would give my right arm to do a decent cartwheel or serve a volleyball over the net, but that would be a bit problematic.

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So, that is it! I will tag Rachel and share the love.

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Dancing Queens, er, Princesses


There are times I'm with my children when I feel like I'm getting glimpses of them in the future.

Just over a week ago, I was able to see the girls in a bar.

Belly danced with abandon, arms out to her sides, keeping time with the music and giggling with a few friends. Jilly sat at the bar, looked around at the sights and waited for her ice water. She danced too, often in my arms and mugging for the camera.


We were, of course, at the first Baby Loves Disco to come to Boston. This was decidedly a kid-friendly affair, with balloons everywhere, a bubble machine, airbrush tattoo artist and juice boxes.




My kids were in heaven. They danced, got tattooed, ate their weight in snacks (oh wait, that was me), and then collapsed in the quiet lounge area. In a strange way, short of the tattooing, it wasn't all that different from one of my night's out about, oh, ten years ago.



like mother, like daughter---displaced skirt and all





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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Please pass me the Nitrous Oxide

At the tender age of three, Jilly has already had a busy dental history. This has included six cavities, one refilled three times until finally the dentist just drilled the heck out of the space between her two front teeth to form a perfect "O".

The latest adventure has been an abscessed tooth which festered for a while before I even noticed it. This morning, we went to the Oral Surgeon to have it removed.

Jilly's first encounters with dentists were pretty horrible. Imagine lots of screaming, biting fingers and kicking innocent hygienists, all occurring in the first minutes of us entering an exam room, before anyone had even seen a tooth. We are now on Dentist #3. So, you can imagine the feeling of dread with which I approached this visit, knowing full well that a tooth was about to be removed.

Amazingly, and probably because I didn't expect it, she was a champ. Not one tear was shed, even when the hygienist told me I could go sit in the waiting room as they began to fit the mask over her face for the 'giggle gas'. I gave her a quick kiss and left, feeling a little bewildered. Since when can my baby handle a medical procedure without me?

Before I could even get halfway through a New Yorker article, the nurse was calling me back into the exam rooms. There, in Recovery, was Jilly, with a bloody gauze peeking out of her mouth and her head on a pillow. She looked so little and sweet.

"Are you ok? How do you feel?", I asked her immediately. She looked at me and then spoke words that took me a few moments to process:

"I had fun."

Apparently, the nitrous oxide had done its trick. But, more importantly, my fearful girl had gained a bunch of confidence in herself and in her ability to handle a scary situation on her own.

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