When Babies Find Markers

The budding artist's first masterpiece. Her own face. It's like one of those tribal tattoos.

I couldn't pick just one photo 'cuz she's just that cute! And brilliant.


And yes, the marker was washable! Hooray!

Signs That I AM My Mother

1. Quin cannot find one of her favorite high heeled dress up shoes. After she asks me six times where it is and I tell her each time that I do not know, I finally tell her that I have eaten her shoe and she will have to wait until I poop it out before she can play with it again. (Now she keeps asking me to go to the bathroom and get her shoe out of the toilet. Ruh Roh!)

2. Peevers loves to nurse when we take a bath together. I subversively try to keep my breasts under water and laugh at her when she repeatedly dips her head into the water while trying to get ahold of my nipple. Good times. Good times.

3. Gabe became insanely emotional when I told him he could not have a piece of fudge after school. He told me that he was very very sad. I told him that being sad about fudge is good for his heart and will make it grow big and strong. Then we had a contest to see who could make the saddest face. I won.

4. Both of my older children know that making up new words to a song is a sure fire way to make new friends and gain influence. Even Quin, not even three yet, can sing a great alternate to Twinkle, Twinkle involving her potty chair and her brother's favorite toy that is clever enough to win her an audience at the White House.

5. The kids were fighting over which seat they sat at the kitchen counter. Without even pausing, I implement a system in which their assigned seat is determined by even and odd days on the calendar. Gabe gets the pole position on odd days and Quin does on even. (What they hell am I gonna do when all three are fighting over something?) I tell Gabe that he gets the odd days because he is so odd.

6. You have probably heard half these stories from me already because, like my mom, I think every good story bears repeating. And repeating. And repeating.


* I should say that neither my mom nor I are half as evil as this post may seem to indicate. All of these examples should be seen in a light of the good natured ribbing the kids knew they were all along. If you still don't think it's funny then..I wouldn't joke that way with you. Gosh!

The Best Thanksgiving Snake

It was a quiet Thanksgiving. The after dinner entertainment was provided by Otto.


He's "The Best Snake Ever" according to Quin and now even according to Cynthia, who was initially a bit nonplussed by the after dinner program.


We ate. We drank. We played with a snake.

Who wants to come next year?

Mermaids Don't Wear Underwear

Quin has recently discovered the joy that is Walt Disney's Princesses. I have tried to channel this interest into more alternative ass-kicking Princess types but alas, the marketing geniuses at Disney have Quin's number. She pretty much embodies their demographic for girly girls.

So I relented and dragged out my favorite Disney Princess classic, The Little Mermaid. Quinlan's immediate rapt response to the under-the-sea sugarfest: "She's a mermaid mama! She's so pretty!"

Hubby has always enjoyed this film as well. In fact, we watched it together on one of our first dates. The movie prompted a long standing feud between us in which I insist that the Little Mermaid was washed ashore stark naked after her transformation by the Sea Witch. Hubby insists that the Little Mermaid must be wearing underwear at least, since she has a sea shell bra thingy. This makes no sense because in her normal mermaid form, she has no damn legs and therefore, no CROTCH. I'll admit there is some confusion as to where merpeople hide their most private nether-regions. Obviously, they must have some naughty tingly bits somewhere or there would be no little merpeople, but I still contend that you need a crotch in order to wear underwear. I mean, what's a little mermaid to do as she dresses; scrape off her scales, slide legless underwear over her flippers and then reapply scales? I think not! The girl/fish has no underwear. Period. Hubby is dead wrong on this one.

Hubby seemed to have a generally different take on the film now that he is a parent to three and a father to two girls. Gabe remarked that Ariel father was being mean and Hubby staunchly defended Triton and told Gabe that Ariel should be in BIG TROUBLE for disobeying her father and chasing after boys and what not. I'll bet he'll insist all the more blindly that Ariel is wearing underwear because he cannot stomach the image of his innocent little girls running around after "princes" sans drawers. It's always tough being confronted with your daughters' inevitable sexuality. Poor Hubby.

But Quinny loves the Little Mermaid now and wants me to sing the "Mermaid Song" to her daily, if not hourly. She also has latched onto the song "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music, so we watched part of that yesterday too. Gabe just likes the Goatherd song but Quin calls all the girls and Maria "princesses" and asks to watch Leisel dance around the gazebo with the telegram boy over and over.

Hubby is so screwed when her hormones kick in.

Why I'm A Humongous Slacker (At Blogging That Is)

They say that most bloggers just bonk out/blog out/poop out within the first year. I am ashamed to say I can see how that happens. I think of myself as too good of a writer with too much to say to let that happen, but just look at my thread count for the month; pitiful!

I've been feeling plenty guilty for blogging so infrequently lately (and not just because some of you have been nagging me with pleas for new entries). Here is the list of reasons (excuses) I've been compiling in my mind:

1. I assume ya'll are tired of hearing about poop and vomit. It is a recurrent theme in my life but it seems so frequent and redundant lately that writing about it seems a bit boring and would be like rubbing my own face in it (figuratively). So, I haven't been writing about the many poop and vomit related escapades in my life recently (and always). It has nothing to do with squeemishness over poop and vomit, just its ubiquity.

2. I'm not totally freaking out for once. This may seem backwards, but freaking out feeds me or something. The more I freak, the more I write. So, now I just stay home and clean up poop and vomit and I have nothing to rant on about. Go ahead and call me Drama Queen. I will smear some poop on you.

3. I now have a TiVo in my bedroom and I can chill out and watch Starting Over or some other silly guilty pleasure to numb my brain. Okay. That's totally pitiful. But honest.

4. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE DAY GOES! I swear, I have a list of projects and books to read and my birth initiative to get off the ground here in Georgia and yet every day flies by with my being proud if I just managed to feed the kids a healthy dinner, read to them before bed, or empty the freakin' dishwasher, much less paint the bathroom (also on The List) or blog.

5. You've heard all my standard rants already. I've been known to repeat myself. To excessive lengths. Just ask Hubby. So, I'm trying to actually have something to say before I sully the internet with my ramblings. Maybe I'm setting the standard too high.

6. Since only like three of you comment with any frequency, I don't really feel like I know what you guys want me to blog about. I mean, I don't blog to please anyone, BUT it is gratifying to write things that you know others are enjoying. So gimme some love, people!

7. I have been a lot of trouble with my internet connection and frequently get booted off mid post, so I am anxious about writing some huge and definitive essay on, say, The Quality of Poop Expressed by a Potty Training Two Year Old, only to find it lost to the ether forever. Heartbreaking, I tell you.

8. The worst thing is: THE CONSTANT INTERRUPTIONS! Seriously, since I started this post, two and a half hours ago, I have been delayed by the neighborhood children arriving (damn school holiday breaks), the phone ringing, the dog barking to be let in, the neighborhood children ravaging my house, changing a poopy diaper, kicking the children out of my house, the dog barking to go out with the kids, an adult neighbor arriving to chat, making lunch for my children, kicking the neighborhood children out of my garage, putting Quin (already asleep on the sofa, naked, amidst the bedlam) in bed for her nap, the dog barking to come back in, nursing Peevers to sleep, and trying to get Gabe occupied working on some school work. So, I need to REALLY REALLY have something to say in order to break through the chaos and interruptions and write a nice juicy blog entry.

So, inspire me, hire me a doorman, or comment already, and maybe you'll get some sugar from me in the form of more frequent posting. And quit sending me harrassing emails. I have access to copious quantities of poop and vomit.

Cutest Photo Montage Ever!

The kids and I went to Ellen's house, which is more "in the country" than my subdivision in order to take the kids tromping around in the woods behind her house. It was raining all morning but we decided a little water wouldn't hurt them (our kids are tough, I tell you) so we put them in galoshes and headed into the woods.


All the way to the creek, we wove a tale about the "Root Children" who live in the forest and kept a look out for signs of their presence. We entered their territory through a secret arbor and saw other signs that they had been there in the placement of fallen trees and little nests.



The kids were loving the story and kept looking for "Root Children" as they played.

They splashed in the creek. They fell in the creek. They filled their galoshes with water. They picked up trash (Ugh, yes, even in the deep woods there was trash). The babies watched them contentedly. The big kids got drenched up to their waists (up to the neck in Quin's case) and still continued to giggle and play. My kids acquitted themselves well as the backwoods rednecks we secretly are and I was proud. There is nothing sweeter than filthy clean-living munchkins in my book.

We finally dragged their sodden bodies out of the creek and up the hill to the house, dumped the water out of their boots and threw them in the bathtub.

Gabe has been telling me that he wants to go back to "Noah's Secret Woods" to look for the "Little Guys" again soon. Maybe tomorrow. Sigh. This makes me so happy.

You may also have noticed I (and the kids) have made new friends. Isn't life grand?

For more photos of the Secret Woods Adventure, click here.

Things That Go Bleargh in the Night

Last night, dark stillness was interrupted by the cry of a child.

Here's the cool part: Hubby got out of bed to go investigate.

Prior to moving to Georgia, we ALL slept in "the family bed," which was really two beds pushed together on the floor of our bedroom. But now, the big kids sleep in their own bunkbeds and seldom get up for anything. We, in turn, sleep in our own humongous bed with only Peevers to contend with (and she is way easy)! And, our bed is not even on the floor!

And the coolest thing about all these changes: When big children cry in the night, Hubby gets up to contend with them since he is closest to the door and I am attached to Peevers.

But the REALLY REALLY cool part: Hubby got up and figured out what was wrong (Gabe had puked in his bed) and then went ahead and got Gabe settled on the sofa and STRIPPED THE BED AND PUT THE SOILED BEDDING IN THE WASH AND BEGAN TO WASH IT!

What a great morning! Even though I have a puny child home from school today, I am just so thrilled that the Mommy Default Button wasn't depressed during the night, I am celebrating anyway.

Let's Have a Little Debate, Shall We?

1. Why do nerds in teen movies think they have ANY chance of getting the hot and popular boy/girl?

Remember the 1986 film, Lucas? Corey Haim was the adorable (think: puppy) nerd with hugely oversized glasses to match his hugely oversized crush on blandly lovable Kerri Green (who you will remember as the "it" girl from Goonies, NOT Martha Plimpton, who I actually adore.) Lucas was your classic undersized weakling academic misfit who hung out with his fellow outcast, Winona Ryder (!) with whom he may actually have had a slight possibility of hooking up. And yet, he foolishly goes out for the football team in order to impress the popular girl.

There are so many things wrong about this premise.

I have hung out with many a nerd/outcast/non-jock type in my teen years and we (I mean, they) hated the freakin' jockish and popular crowd. Because, as a whole, the popular sect are all a bunch of entitled jerkwads, who even if they deign to act civilly on occasion, are worthless when it comes to actually having a rewarding conversation. No self-respecting outcast actually wants to hang out with a bunch of popular assholes. I mean, give me a bunch of goth skaters and art geeks over the vapid loveliness of the richies any day. Plus, nerds are smart enough to calculate that they have no real chance to fit in with this group.

Even when they all give Lucas the big slow clap (you know, that gradually increasing, emphatic jock clap) in the end of the movie, it was more like: Man, dude, We can't believe you were stupid enough to take off your helmet right before you caught the big Hail Mary pass and then allowed the other team to tromp on your skinny neck like that just to get a stupid football jacket. We admire your admiration of our superiority and your sacrifice to us. Now please give us the space our superiority demands already. And try to stay away from our wimmin folk. That is what a slow clap means, people.

As an adult and a parent, I think I will be totally concerned if my children begin to run a bit too mainstream. Thus runs the path to Madness and Sheeple-dom. This is not something to which you should aspire, people! (Remember Mr. Pine and his purple house? Anarchy! That's the ticket.)

2. And this leads me to another point. Why are movie nerds so transparently not really very nerdy/unattractive? And why do they become "attractive" once they dress up conventionally and fit it with the ridiculous jock group? Glasses can be wicked cool people!

I am thinking of She's All That, with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachel Leigh Cook. She was this totally cool and brilliant art nerd who for some reason didn't realize that she just needed to get contact lenses and some Abercrombie clothes to fit in with the glam crowd. Of course, her makeover is delivered, My Fair Lady style, by Freddie Prinze Jr. himself, who naturally falls in love with his Eliza now that he has fixed her up. Why the hell can't he fall in love with her in her original interesting modern goth get up? For that matter, why did Eliza Doolittle have to "be a lady" before Henry Higgins found her acceptable? It's class warfare being taught to teenagers on the big screen with the main-est of the mainstreamers cast in the roles of royalty. I call bullshit! NO more elite status for Sheeple! Let's give credit and elevated status to those who are willing to be different!

And how about Can't Buy Me Love (1987) with the coolest nerd in history, Patrick Dempsey. He pays to get Pygmalioned by his beautiful and shallow neighborhood hottie, and she actually learns to love him, blah blah blah. I guess this one has a little twist, because they both learn to reject the "go with the crowd" idiocy of their crowd and "be themselves" and so on, but they both still end up as attractively styled blandly mainstream version of "themselves".

Pretty In Pink is the only movie I can think of where the outcast doesn't have to change into a Sheeple Girl to get the guy. BUT, they originally had her NOT get the cool guy and had to change the ending to make it happy enough to please audiences and furthermore, I still cannot see Molly pining after this dopey Rich Boy in the first place. Just because she hangs around with Duckie (which, hubba hubba, who wouldn't want a little Jon Cryer action anyway!?) doesn't mean she can't attract any interesting guys. She is a strong, interesting, attractive girl. She wouldn't be sitting home crying every day in the real world. She'd be like, "These high school guys are dorks. Let's go get coffee by the college and pick up some cool art students." I know this. Really. This is what we did in high school when the guy pool seemed to be drying up.

3. I must stop watching VH1's I Love the 80's 3D or you will be subjected to many more posts like this one.

4. Oh yeah, and why do I LOVE to watch these movies, even though they push all my buttons? Gah!

Mr. Pine's Purple House

Welcome to Suburbia! (Hell, that is.)


This is where I live. Scarier than the last week of Halloween photos, no?

This setting and home are so terrifyingly unlike my usual taste that it is taking me a while to really settle into that "homey" feeling.

I had a British book when I was kid, called "Mr. Pine's Purple House" which featured a row of identical houses much like this. The protagonist, the aforementioned Mr. Pine, could never find his house in the eerie conformity of his neighborhood and retaliated by painted his house bright purple. Of course, this inspired others near him, and soon the row of houses looked like something from the San Francisco hills. It was my early introduction to anarchy. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Sadly, I am bound by community covenances as well as strapped by a lack of cash, so my house will never be purple. I'd never go for that option anyway. I'd love to do some kickass landscaping and add a bunch of trees and shrubs (A Shrubbery!) and such out front, but that will have to wait for a bit. But in its defense, it has a nice large lot, tons of trees out back, and a great school district. So, there you have it.

The inside of the house is much more personalized. I have plans for more creativity inside eventually as well. I have prepared a flickr slideshow for those of you who want a peep inside for now. Enjoy.

THAT'S IT????

I FINALLY WIN BIG AND THAT'S ALL I (DON'T) GET???

I've got a whole freakin' bag of freakin' Tootsie Pops because it's the classic give away for cheap-os. All the public give-aways feature bags full of Tootsie Pops and freakin' nasty ass Dots! NO MORE POPS! NO MORE DOTS! I WANT MINI CANDY BARS!

Okay. I think. I've had. Enough candy. Today.



Ummm.....I knew it was an urban myth all along.

My life is pretty pedestrian these days, so I gotta take my thrills where I can.



I'm gonna post pictures of my new house tomorrow.



Oh yeah, and I went to IKEA for the first time today and that was pretty damn cool. Be grateful I didn't bring my camera and you aren't treated to photo after photo of gleaming rows of merchandise. Because it was lovely. And I am broke, so it seemed extra lovely. Sigh.

Perhaps I'll go sifts through the Dots and Pops for more chocolate now.

I'm a Wiener!

I was just eating some of the kid's Halloween candy and I was opening a Tootsie Pop. Without even thinking about it, I opened the wrapper all the way up to search for The Indian Shooting a Star on it. Weren't you supposed to win something if you got a Tootsie Pop wrapper that had The Indian Shooting a Star on it? It seemed like such a big deal when I was kid. The action is so deeply ingrained that I am still searching for The Indian in my 30's!

AND HE WAS THERE! What do I win? Tell me! Tell me!