Thinks By Me

Like many moms, I am in constant battle between micromanaging every aspect of the Short Peoples' existence and letting them handle things appropriately on their own. Since I have two kids at opposite ends of the independence spectrum, this is somewhat of a challenge for my control-freak nature. Brainy Boy is completely happy letting me fulfill my management needs by picking out his clothes and combing his hair. In his mind, if it fits, it matches. And as long as he can see through his bangs, his hair is tidy enough. And he'd just as soon let me bother with it all as bother with it himself. Little Chic, on the other hand, has long considered herself a fashionista and as such, takes all matters of personal appearance into her own hands. That's scary when said fashion maven is three years old. And when she has one favorite outfit that she considers her uniform. So early on, we had to establish a few ground rules. The clothes need to be clan. The clothes need to fit. ...

I substituted as a lunchroom monitor at the Short Peoples' school today. Some helpful things I learned were.... 1) You can be eight years old in fourth grade. You can also be 11. That can't be good if you're in the same class. 2) Kids are fascinated by seeing people out of context. Several who have visited our house on play dates were flabbergasted that the same adult is qualified to fix them Easy Mac at their friend's house and officially supervise on the playground. 3) There are a zillion and one rules to soccer, and they change depending upon who is being the bossiest. If you make enough rules, the other kids get sick of it and will leave you and your little posse to play with the ball yourselves. Which was the original point. 4) Friends are good, but only if they are nice. As one very average-sized fourth grader told me, "That's my mean friend over there. She starts rumors about me. She tells everybody I'm chubby and that I only eat meatloaf....

You Are 50% Normal While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself How Normal Are You? You better believe I keep the weird to myself!

I know, I know. I'm keeping the world in suspense as to my whereabouts for the last few days and ya'll are just too doggone polite to invade my privacy by asking. And where, O where did I get that weird road sign pointing both north & south in one direction? If you must know the truth, the Fam and I took us a little jaunt up into the Adirondacks for a night of fall colored bliss. We just love us a little jaunt now and then. The Short People had a Friday and a Monday off school so we decided to get away. From what, I can't say exactly, but it was a good excuse nonetheless. I vetoed the idea of hauling the camper and insisted on a hotel with a hot tub. The pool was optional. I was the hero of the Short People. It turns out that it wasn't too much of a fuss with Muh Main Man once I promised him he could do the driving in my new Explorer. So we were all happy. We trekked up to a garnet mine which turned out to be the largest garnet mine in the world. It'...

I think it's that way... No, I think it's this way...

This gives new meaning to after school tutoring.

Ok, People. I got desperate. Since my deal-e-o with Mr. D fell through, I am now officially obsessed with getting Garrison Keillor tickets for my dad. The show is October 20 at Ovens Auditorium in Charlotte, NC. I need those tickets. Bad. Here was my desperate attempt to get sympathy from Craig's List today. I had the great idea to be my dad's hero and get him tickets to see Prairie Home Companion for his birthday. He listens faithfully on the radio every Saturday and he even got me hooked on the guy. I marked the ticket sale date on my calendar and got up Saturday morning feeling all smug, thinking about how great it would feel to be his favorite daughter when I presented him with those coveted tickets. You can imagine how depressed I was when I realized they'd sold out within SEVEN minutes of going on sale. After skimming the web and realizing that ticket scalpers had bought them all and were unloading them for $300 apiece, I got the bright idea to try Craig's L...

With any luck, I won't have many days like today. It actually started at nightfall last night when I got home from church, checked my email and had a nice note from Mr. D who was going to sell me tickets to a show for my dad's birthday. Apparently he found somebody else to sell his tickets to before he made arrangements for my brother to pick them up. I take it back. Mr. D is no longer my hero. Then, because I get a bit obsessive when I'm into a good book, I stayed up a second night until 2:00am finishing a book. I turned off the light only to wake with a start at 5:00am realizing that Muh Main Man was violently ill from an egg salad sandwich he had at a church staff member's going away party. I did what I could to help him out, went back to bed and woke at 7am to get the Short People going for the day. Needless to say, a joyful morning was had by all. Then, since it was weigh-in day for my Biggest Loser contest that I'm in, I decided DogSpot and I would tr...

I got tagged by Mary to post 7 random things about myself, so here goes... 1) I was hit by a car while doing a bike-a-thon in high school. I was standing in the median waiting for traffic and an old lady pulled into the median behind me and knocked me off my bike. Her eyes got wide, she put her hand over her mouth and....peeled out into the road and took off! I was sore for weeks. 2) I often get in an eating rut and will eat the exact same thing for breakfast or lunch over and over again. Currently, I've been eating a brown sugar & cinnnamon Quaker Oatmeal-To-Go bar for breakfast for the last three months. Well, unless I go out to breakfast. 3) I read something in bed before I go to sleep ever single night, no matter how late it is. If I don't have a book, I'll read a magazine or newspaper. I much prefer fact to fiction and in desperate times, I've resorted to hunting magazines (belonging to guess who). In hotels, I've been known to read the little menu a...

YEAH, I'm pretty sure they'll notice...

DogSpot has completely an utterly gone back to her normal lifestyle, apparently not needing any recovery time from her ordeal on Tuesday. I could use the rest myself as I've vigilantly "watched and observed" as instructed by the vet and my eyes are tired. The only hint of limiting her activity is that I have not taken her on our daily 4 mile walk and I've kept her from jumping into the back of our Explorer for rides. That's about it. Also against orders, she has taken to licking and chewing at the stitches on her phantom back toes. I decided to put some vinegar on the stitches so that she wouldn't pull them out...kind of like when your mom put pepper polish on your nails to keep you from biting them. It didn't work. Apparently vinegar is like Hershey's syrup to dogs because she furiously licked it all off my hands before she started back in on her feet. That's just great--I've made the wound taste like food. She'll probably have her f...

DogSpot is back home where she belongs. It's clear that she is a different species from the human variety. One would never know that she had her female parts removed just 24 hours ago. She completely blew off the low activity advisory and began jumping and running around the minute I saw her. How nice it would be if human females bounced back this quickly. Another big difference between dog and man was the cost of the surgery(thankfully). Brainy Boy's recent double foot surgery cost over $20,000 when all was said & done and he didn't even have any extra toes removed! DogSpot cost me a mere $200 in comparison and that included the toes. MonsterPaw is back to her miffed self and has retreated once again to the comforts and safety of her loft apartment. She hasn't so much as poked her twisted whiskers over the balcony to check on the wicked step-sister. Fortunately for DogSpot the Short People were overjoyed to have her back, so she didn't even notice the c...

Poor DogSpot went in for her surgery and the house is now empty of her furriness and devoid of her activity. MonsterPaw would be in her glory if she would but come out from under my king-sized bed. It seems that all the activity of getting DogSpot's blankie and toys together made kittycat think that something was up. It was. But she hasn't yet realized that the activity was to her benefit. Generally when we take DogSpot out for the day, MonsterPaw prowls around the house sticking her feline tongue out at everything that DogSpot owns. Then when DogSpot comes back, MonsterPaw returns upstairs to the territory that she has claimed as her own. But today, it must be the eerie quiet that is freaking her out. Probably like two kids who fight constantly but then cry their eyes out when one of them goes on a sleepover. I wish. For four months I've had high hopes that MonsterPaw would eventually realize what a sweet one our DogSpot is. It seems not to be. I'm sure by th...

If you read Saturday's post, you know I was in the depths of despair...figuratively speaking, anyway. Hopefully I garnered a little sympathy from ya'll. After I realized that my dad was not going to see Garrison Keillor as I had promised, I decided that I had to have those tickets. I was prepared to beg, borrow or steal for them. Almost. That is until I realized that there were many tickets to be had by scalpers from all over town. I could easily get a $30 ticket for $150 or more. Then I got a little irked. Only a little. But mostly I got stubborn. I began to stew & fret, fuss & fume. It was a day of distraction. I did not get a lot done--in the productive sense anyway. I did get a lot done in the realm of surfing the web trying to get those tickets. I was on a mission. And I was not finding success. About 10pm I got the bright idea of checking Craig's List. I put down my magazine, crawled out of bed and booted up the computer. And there he was. Mr...

I am so irked right now. My dad just had his birthday. And as you probably know, dads are hard to buy gifts for. Especially once you hit the 50 or 60 year old age. I mean, hey, they've had an eternity to basically buy whatever they want for themselves. So I was feeling smug when I realized that A Prairie Home Companion was going to be broadcasting live from Charlotte, NC in October. That's just a hop, skip & a jump away from Dad-e-o. He listens to the show faithfully on NPR but has never been to a live show. Perfect gift. Hero daughter. Cause for smugness. The tickets didn't go on until sale today. I had my laptop at the ready and logged on to buy two tickets this morning. And they've sold out. Of everything. How is that possible?! There are no tickets available in any seat? What is wrong with all these people who are prepared to buy the tickets out from under me. Don't they know that Saturdays are for sleeping in?! My next stop was the local NP...

In my OCD style, I've been watching the Dog Whisperer on National Geographic TV like a maniac. I don't know why I do this to myself, as if I don't have enough psychoanalyzing to do on the Short People in my life. Now DogSpot is subjected to my regular experimentation in the practices of studying dog behavior. Since watching this new favorite show of mine, I've convinced myself that I need to take my proper place as the leader of my pack. DogSpot was vying for this position by jumping on the furniture, chewing on the kids and basically calling the shots around the homestead. In the last couple of weeks, I've been assertively claiming my territory. So far I have resisted peeing on the carpet but I am making her follow me in to and out of the house (rather than bolting in front to knock us all down) as well as taking her on walks with her heeling. Of course, she doesn't take to this at all since we have 2 acres where she to roams free. After the most recent...

Mom calls her "Sweet Pea", Dad calls her "Chickadee", you know her as Little Chic. She turned the big 1-0 today! She's kind of past the toy stage and she didn't really have any big wishes for her birthday. But I remembered that the last few times we've been in Lowe's, she has drooled over a cute little chandelier for her bedroom. "Sensible Mom" has always told her that chandeliers are for entryways and great rooms. "Desperate-for-a-'WOW' gift-Mom" thought this would be just the ticket to mark the entry to the tween years. Muh Main Man came to the handyman rescue and installed it at lunch time while the Short People were still at school. Little Chic was duly impressed when she finally figured out what looked different in her bedroom! Excuse me now...I'm gonna go cry into my latte'. Actually, that won't be necessary. Friendly's serves a killer Jim Dandy Ice Cream Sundae. That's where the birt...

....I'm not pregnant! Nah, I didn't really think I was -- but that was the official verdict at my appointment for the Flu Vaccine research study that I'm doing again this year. The other good news is I got $100 for participating! I suppose the only bad news is that I don't know whether I got the flu shot or a placebo, but since I don't usually get a flu shot anyway, it's not a big deal to me. The rest of the day was spent running around preparing for Little Chic to turn the big 1-0 tomorrow. She hasn't let us forget for a minute that her big day is coming up. Seriously, is it even possible that I'm old enough for my youngest to be ten?

As a mom of two, I travel the road of parenting pretty much like any other parent--kind of "winging" it as I go. Of course I hope that I've gained some wisdom and insight from my own life experience and from watching others who have done a successful job of parenting. But times are a-changin' and there's a lot out there that my mom didn't have to deal with when I was a kid. Enter the book Logged On and Tuned Out to offer some 21st century practical advice to parents of kids growing up in this technologically booming society. When I received the book, I recognized the author as one I've read before. Vicki Courtney has authored several books on parenting and is the founder of Virtuous Reality , an organization that encourages girls to develop a heart and character that reflects moral excellence, worth, purity and strength. Vickie has also been featured on CNN and Fox News discussing child safety on the internet. Now, although I don't consider m...

Today was a day that Little Chic has been living for. We registered her to participate at a local clothing store in their annual fashion show. The deal was that she could choose any two outfits she wanted to model. As compensation, whatever we bought for the day was 40% off. When we arrived, we were just as excited as we were when we showed up last Saturday. We didn't get the date of the show wrong or anything like that. It's just we wanted a dry run. Little Chic stood in the massive line of excited people and waited her turn to get her show clothes on. When she was done we realized that shoes and accessories were included in the show so I convinced her to find some shoes to go along with her outfit. I had seen some cute ballet flats over on the racks. She was reluctant until she saw another girl teetering around on a pair of 3-inch heel boots. When she discovered they had that kind of shoe, she made a beeline and found a pair that were only 2 sizes too big. They rea...