What My Kid Says

Kids Are Murder

2014-09-28T20:56:00.003-07:00

It's a jungle in our household. Enter at your own risk.

The last thing I remember is a blinding white light. I don't know if that means I passed out, but I do know it knocked the wind right out of me and I found myself on my butt.
When I "came back from the light", I was sitting on the floor, legs spread out in a V and a searing pain emanating from my left knee and making every part of my brain throb. When I could form a thought, I remember realizing that it seemed so oddly sweet and strangely terrifying at the same time that my 4-year-old daughter was stroking my hair, whispering "shhhhhhh, you're OK. It's OK Mommy" and kissing my forehead.
It took me a while to process exactly what was happening, but then it finally hit me. I had broken my leg by slipping on an errant shoe on the floor, and my young daughter had been there to witness it all and deal with the aftermath. Imagine her trying to help me up off the floor and prop me up as we hobbled to the car. I'm sure it was hilarious if you weren't screaming inside from the pain.
Before you get all sympathetic about my little accident, allow me to explain that it was 30% my fault for being so clumsy, and 70% the fault of that mini Florence Nightingale. I had asked her repeatedly to put her shoes on so we could leave for daycare/work. I had begged. I had pleaded. I had threatened. I had screamed like a shrew who could not be tamed.
Finally I stomped across the floor like a giant in a blind rage to grab the kid's shoes and forcibly put them on her. That's when it happened. I slipped on my own shoe that had been waiting patiently by the front door, hyper-extended my knee, the lights got brighter and then those lights went out. The bright side of the situation is that this child knew instantly that the situation was dire, and believe me those shoes were on her feet before my mouth started to work again.
I relay this story not to garner sympathy for my poor, battered leg (although I still am able to hobble and whimper if the need arises, like if I am faced with having to help someone box up and move).
No, really this story is about how for me this was the big one that almost caused the big sleep. As with many maladies, Chris is the one who caused me to have a broken leg, which incidentally created a blood clot that later dislodged and almost killed me.
Truth be told, this wasn't the first time that this kid gave me a close up and personal brush with death. She came out of the gate this way, forcing an emergency c-section when my blood pressure dropped dangerously low from the trauma of trying to evict this child to leave my warm and cozy womb.
And I suspect it also won't be the last time I almost shake hands with Mr. Reaper. Visions of teenage driving lessons are dancing in my head, not to mention the sleepless nights during which I'm out of my head with worry and nearly overdose on chamomile tea (or wine should the situation require it) to soothe my frazzled mother-of-a-rambunctous-teenage daughter nerves.
I foresee dangerous times ahead.
So instead of being nice to my child because someday she will pick out my nursing home, I use a different strategy of guilt, guilt and more guilt. And then I'll throw in a little more guilt to jab her conscience.
I remind her of her murderous streak quite often and sometimes out of the blue, just as we're laying down and the world is quiet and hazy, she will whisper to me in a creepy melodramatic voice, "I'm sorry I made you break your leg and that you almost died." And when she says this, I smile and say, "You should be sorry. Next time you should just do what I tell you."
Horribly shocking? Yes. Therapy-inducing? Probably, and most likely not the only reason she will need a therapist to get over her time with me. So why would I blame a little child? Why would I remind her of it whenever she gets out of line? How evil and mean!

I can't specifically blame this one on her....but
I'm sure she contributed. Positive of it.

Yeah, I'm not as sweet and nice as I look. But there is also an underlying reason that I keep this incident at the forefront of our memories. It's because we both need to remember how much we almost lost in a split second.
"Yes," I tell her. "I almost died. And you're the reason. And it's also because of you that I will have this ugly scar and stretch marks across my belly for the rest of my life. And it's because of you that I carry around this extra 10 pounds (along with a few other ones that really don't have much to do with you, but that is not the point). And it's because of you that I have these deepening wrinkles around my eyes from sleepless nights and a hoarse voice from yelling at you to go back to bed. And it's because of you that I have this irritable stomach that knots with worry."
I also blame my daughter for making me sicker in the 8 years since her birth than I was in the previous 30+ years of my life combined. She must have sucked out every single bit of immune system I had inside me and in the past few years I dealt with near constant sinus infections, sore throats, flu-like illnesses, pink eyes, bronchitis, etc. You name it, it seems like I just can't fight it off any longer.
You see what she does to me? I have to let her know what kind of havoc such a child has wreaked on my life.
And I have to tell her all of this - repeatedly - so that I can also let her know I would endure all of this and worse in a heartbeat. I would break every bone in my body. I would take a bullet for her...maybe not gladly, but a bullet nonetheless. I would gain so much weight and so many wrinkles that I might as well create an online dating profile substituting Jabba the Hutt's picture as my own.

Concocting a mother-killing poison perhaps?

Although I can't blame EVERY physical accident or ailment on her, I can point to quite a few in which she at least set the ball rolling. But I think any mother would withstand a little bit of pain, fear and scarring just for a few minutes of joy. Otherwise we would certainly eat our young within minutes and not go through any of this misery.

So in the tradition of generations of mothers before me, I use guilt as a weapon. I remind her often, "This is what you have done to me and what I have had to endure because of you."
It does sound sick and wrong. But I remind her because how else would I be able to remind her that I would do it all again?
Is it too much to ask, though, that she just put on the freaking shoes the first time I ask?

Bribery Can Get You Everywhere - If It's Done Right

2013-08-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna type you this love poem. And when I'm done, you'll be in my power

Because my life is so exciting, I was engrossed in a Dateline NBC special the other day when the doorbell rang. Before I could pick myself up off the couch, the bell was followed by frenzied knocking. My lovely daughter was away driving the next door neighbor crazy at a birthday party, and I assumed she was making another visit home to update me on the awesome toys her neighbor friend was receiving that I must match in a few months.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and found not a giggling, dancing, greedy child, but a tasty looking piece of chocolate cake on my front doorstep. Hmmm. Weird. But tantalizing nonetheless.

I looked left – nothing. I looked right – no one.

I assumed it was meant for my daughter. Like most kids Chris doesn’t eat cake at parties because she’s too busy playing and mainlining full-sugar candy from her goodie bag. Then she later complains that she didn’t get a piece of cake as if drinking half your body weight of fruit punch isn’t enough of a head start on diabetes. So, I figured she finally learned to snag a piece for later and was giving it to me for safe keeping. By the way, that would have been a huge mistake.

Breakfast in bed? No. Movie ticket bribe.

Still, I was making no assumptions. There was no name on it. I mean, who could resist a free piece of cake that’s apparently been delivered by the angels at the most perfect time? So I picked it up and had the fork half-way to my mouth when I figured I should probably make sure this cake wasn’t one big fat joke. Not that it would stop me from enjoying it, but it might make me pause long enough to brush it off if I knew it had recently made contact with dirt or bugs.

So I yelled for Chris and heard giggling. I yelled again and she popped her head around the side of the house.

“Hi Mommy! I got that cake especially for you because I know how much you looooooove cake,” she said with a smile. Then she skipped away to go play and inhale some more sugar.

So with the green light I inhaled the cake, which had the wrong kind of frosting but was tasty just the same. But the entire time, I also had an uneasy feeling. Something didn’t sit right and I could feel the chocolate confection sitting like a ball in my stomach.

I know my kid. And I know this was no gift cake brought to me with loving joy. This was most likely bribery cake. You see, whenever Chris does something good, I’ve learned from experience that there is usually another shoe waiting to drop.

Yep, right after my birthday dinner Chris begged for her friend to spend the night.

For example, she doesn’t just clean her room to earn her allowance or so she doesn’t have to live in filth. She cleans her room in a pre-emptive strike against my list of reasons why she can’t have a sleepover. And Chris doesn’t eat her vegetables because she’s so happy to be eating healthy. She gags them down because she believes that will put her in good standing to enjoy dessert.

So you can imagine my unease knowing that this sugar bomb was left at my door with me specifically in mind. There was something up and it wasn’t long before I knew the real reason behind the cake. An hour or so later Chris showed back up at the door with her friend Kayla in tow (knowing from experience that it’s harder to say no when they’re ganging up on you) and asked if I would drive them to a park across town.

When I laughed and said she must be crazy, you would have thought that blood was dripping from the knife in the child’s back and creating bloody frowny face drawings on my chalk-covered stoop.

“But I brought you caaaaakkkkkkeeee!” she cried.

Of course. Bribery cake.

If you have kids you’ll understand. There comes a point when a hug, a kiss and ‘I love you’ makes you instantly cringe and wonder where the broken vase is hiding. An offer to help unload the dishwasher is a clue that a bad report card is just around the corner. There always seems to be an ulterior motive involved.

Chris still hasn’t got it quite right yet because she always seems to break the first rule – don’t let the bribee know that you are trying to bribe her. Just like the kid she is, she can’t hold onto a secret long enough to make the bribe do its intended duty. Like on birthdays, for example, when she tells me days in advance that she’s working on something special for me. Oh and, by the way, maybe I should remember just how much I love her present when she asks me if she can stay outside a little later with her friends. Fail.

She’ll get it soon enough. As a friend pointed out to me, she’s still learning the nuances of a good bribe. Until then, I’ll enjoy her failures and fear the day when her skills will be so fine-tuned that I won’t know her loving kindness is all a ploy.

She learned from example. The only way we could get this thumb sucking to stop was by bribing her with pierced ears.

How Much, Exactly, Is Too Much?

2013-07-17T23:01:00.001-07:00

Fancy a spot of tea? We've got you covered.

My mother emailed me yesterday with a quick message that read, “Chris decided she wants to host a tea party after you get off work tonight. Sound good?”

“Of course,” I replied, smiling at the thought of cookies dipped in lukewarm tea in plastic cups and maybe a feather boa draped across our necks with big earrings dripping from our lobes. Duh. I should know by now that such a party is lame for the females in our house. We do theme parties. On steroids.

Last night I walked into Grandma’s house where Chris has been spending her summer days and immediately felt a flowery hat being plopped on my head. A flowing scarf was draped around my neck where it clashed with the gym clothes I naively thought I would sweat all over after an obligatory few sips of tea. That did not happen since I ended up too stuffed with tea party goodies.

Even Grandpa has to suffer through our craziness.

I was escorted into the kitchen and given the fancy rundown. The table was set with a lovely vase of flowers on a dainty tablecloth and surrounded by fine china and decorated napkins. Bowls of Strawberry Romanov graced each setting. Nearby was a tray of homemade scones with clotted cream and lemon curd topping, a plate of cucumber finger sandwiches, and a fancy teapot filled with steaming liquid. Undoubtedly the teapot was one Grandma carted back from her trip to England – because it NEEDS to be authentic.

As we nibbled on the delicacies Chris had slaved over all day, Grandpa remarked that if only it wasn’t 104 degrees outside we could make the afternoon more authentic by dining on the lawn as a cricket match played in the background. Or maybe cheer on some polo players.

It’s not the first time we’ve had such a tea party. Mom and I stayed up into the wee hours to watch Will & Kate’s nuptials a few years ago. We enjoyed some biscuits (that’s cookies to you uncultured folk) on that long night and laughed at how fun it was to have a full-on British feast.

See, we don’t just clink our teacups and call it a day. We go completely overboard and fall into every stereotype imaginable. That’s how we roll.

Please enjoy the train ride and excuse us while we beat the birthday train theme like a dead horse.

It doesn’t stop with the London loving. We go overboard with every party we have. It seems like once we get a theme in our heads, we can’t stop the fabulous ideas. For instance, Chris’ last birthday was a BBQ party in the yard. So of course she had a hamburger-shaped cake complete with matching “Chris-py Fries” made out of cookies and invitations shaped like a BBQ grill.

A couple of years ago when her birthday was at a train park, of course she got a train cake complete with cars of toxic waste, gold nuggets, logs and circus animals.

Then there was a flip flop birthday with a flip flop-shaped piñata, a beach scene cake and flip flop picture frames in goodie bags decorated with…flip flops.

It may be a bit much, but it's the
coolest pinata you will ever see!

It’s not only Chris who gets a full-fledged theme shoved down her throat.

When my niece turned 16, we had an Academy Awards/movie party for her birthday. The glittery event featured a red carpet leading to the front door where her movie poster face welcomed guests, star-shaped cookies, theater popcorn containers and Oscar statue party favors.

When my nephew graduated from high school he didn’t just get some Star Wars plates and streamers. No, no. He got a Millennium Falcon-shaped cake, Chewbacca cookies, a Death Star piñata and Light Sabers made out of pool noodles. Plates and streamers? Those are for wimps.

I know it all sounds utterly delightful. And it is. Really if you enjoy being bombarded by a theme until you think you may throw up from all the matchy matchyness, we are your party planners.

But I can’t help but wonder if I’m saddling my child with another therapy-inducing personality trait. Will she spend the rest of grade school thinking a book report about the civil war isn’t complete without a period costume and hardtack snacks? Can she imagine a Halloween in which the entire family, including the dogs, isn’t trick-or-treating in an outfit that would be found in the Bee Movie (yes, last year we were worker bees, a honey bee, a queen bee and a bee keeper)?

Not just a cool cake. But thermal detonators too.

It all hit home the other night when Chris told me, incredulously, that one of her friends didn’t have a vocabulary quite as large as her own. In fact, she told me, she had to explain to her friend what the world “overboard” meant. “Say it’s my birthday and instead of just buying me a cake my mom makes me a special cake that’s really huge and she decorates everything with tons of balloons and stuff and it’s all the same theme, that’s going overboard,” Chris explained.

Oh.

Does that mean we should reign ourselves in? I’ll work on that. As soon as we finish this year’s “Cats! Halloween Extravaganza!”

Car Horrors

2013-06-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Don't want to disgust you with pictures from my gross car. So here's a cute baby picture of Chris to distract you.

Raise your hand if, like me, you’ve found these puzzling and frightening things in your car. Or maybe something even worse:

One CheezIt Cracker, circa “your guess is as good as mine”
One black Sharpie marker with lid miraculously snapped on
Handful of random McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, most broken, jammed between the seat cushions
A $5 bill that would have come in handy yesterday at Starbucks
One balled up, dirty sock from when my kid who wears a monstrous size 4 shoe used to be a size 2
Various KidzBop CDs, all of which have a scratch on the one song which is semi-tolerable
One pair of toddler sunglasses missing one lense

Sound familiar? I could go on all day about all the interesting science experiments that have been found underneath the seats of my car. You may even have heard the screams not long ago and worried that there had been a volcanic eruption nearby and people were running for their lives. Mainly because you heard the shouts of “Run for your liiiifffe!”

Don’t worry. There wasn’t a natural disaster nearby. But unfortunately, there was lots of screaming coming from the vicinity of my garage that morning.

A few car items that make you wonder why: plastic lei, lottery ticket,
bee pillow from Chris' baby crib, ballet outfit from 1 1/2 years ago.

You see, we took the dogs for a ride to the dog park last week and they had trouble wading through the piles of trash in the backseat so they could get out of the car to go run. And seeing how I could now write my name in the dust piled up on the dashboard, I knew that time of year was upon me – car cleaning time.

Most of the car wasn’t horrible. I made piles of toys, random child leggings, and bags of gum wrappers and other miscellaneous trash. Then I set about giving the dustbuster a workout by vacuuming out months of gravel, French fry bits and dog hair.

After a while of cleaning, I could put it off no longer and I steeled myself for the horrors I knew were about to come. I know you probably think I’m embellishing, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see how I had to dance around the garage like a prizefighter trying to psyche myself up for the main event. There was lots of deep nasal breathing and lots of positive talk like, “Come on Osborn, you can do this! It won’t be that bad! Just get it over with!”

After a while, even I started to think I was being ridiculous and reasoned with myself. “I mean, come on? When was the last time she even ate any food in the car?”

Well. That soon changed. As soon as I moved Chris’ car seat to take a brave look underneath, it was more like, “Gross! When was the last time she even ate in the car? Dear God! What is that? Is that…is that…moving?”

I danced around some more and shook off the heebie jeebies and ran into the house to search for some gloves with which to peel the melted gel fruit snacks off what were once gray fabric seats. Now they're spotted gray and black seats. And I’m really just guessing here when I say fruit snacks. There’s really no way to know without the benefit of a microscope.

Guarantee you whatever is in this lunchbox is now
embedded in my fabric car cushions.

Honestly, the only reason I can think of that there is not a constant line of ants marching from the garage door to the car door is that pest control is a little luxury I will scrape together my last dimes to purchase. I’m sure when the pest guy makes his visits to our house he peeks into the dirty car windows and knows that he must give us the high strength stuff because the bugs will be attracted to the half-eaten chicken nuggets we’re carting around in the backseat of our automobile.

I know I sound disgusting for driving a portable trash can. I really do have good intentions of keeping the car clean. I really do. Every time I go through the totally gross-out stuff I swear up and down that it’s never going to get that bad again. And then I lecture my kid all the way to school to take a good look around the car and see how clean it is and to make sure she does her part to keep it that way. And then when we get home after school I tell her to pick up her junk out of the car and usually get the exhausted response, “But I’m so tired,” as if she’s just run a marathon and I’ve asked her to run another 5k.

I understand the feeling of exhaustion. I get it. So I give myself a pass and give up on the car save for the few times of the year when the dogs are in danger of sticking to the seats.

I live by the proverb “kids will remember the quality of time you spent with them, not the cleanliness of your house.” Sure. That’s why I don’t clean all the time, not because there are too many good books to read. Frankly, keeping an uberclean house is not at the top of my priority list. In fact, if my kid gets a vegetable or two with her meals I count that as a pretty stellar parenting day. I can’t do it all!

Nevertheless, I do wish our car never gets to the state that it was in on that particular morning last week. Honestly, I can’t describe to you the fear always I feel before pushing that car seat to the side to see what’s underneath.

I don’t really know how to justify all this filth. All I can say is I don’t think it’s going to get better until my daughter goes to college. And I don't think they can create a CarFax that can fully describe the horrors my car seats have seen. So when the time comes my plan is to just torch the sucker and start fresh.

Someday she will drive herself. And I can have a clean car.

It's Not Bragging When It's A Fact, Right?

2013-05-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sure very soon we will have to invest in a trophy case with a kid who is just this fantastic.

We had a particularly rousing game of Just Dance 4 on the Wii the other day. After spending a good 10 minutes proving just how white and out of shape I am, I handed Chris the nun chucks and sat down on the couch to see where my hundreds of dollars of dance lessons have gone – spoiler alert – Chris must have skipped the dance lessons and spent the money on candy because she’s nearly as uncool a dancer as her mother.

Anyway, while I was watching her awkwardly and robotically “dance”, I noticed something I had never seen. Just Dance prints the words to the songs at the bottom left of the screen! It’s like karaoke sans the microphone! And we actually have a microphone at home! Of COURSE I’m going to sing along to that stuff now. Look for me soon singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” at your neighborhood karaoke bar now that I’ve learned the tune from a kid’s video game.

After belting out the 80s disco hit, I looked at Chris and said what we were both thinking, “Wow! I sang that song really, really well! Oh, and you danced pretty good too.”

Hands on knees as she tried to catch her breath, she rolled her eyes at me and retorted, “Mommy, don’t brag.”

Don’t brag? Helloooooooo, Pot….I am your mother….I am a kettle….and we’re both a little on the dark side. Ha! Get my Star Wars/Old-timey Idiom Mashup? Yes, my child has a little bragging problem at times. No idea where she picked up the dirty little habit.

Sometimes Chris has a little trouble looking in the mirror. She can instantly point out a braggart without understanding that she does it just as well – so well! In fact she is so much better at bragging than you!

Even in the backseat she's a rock star. Of course.

I suppose part of it has come from her parents and teachers who offer nothing but good will. We only want her to have a healthy self-image and grow into a strong and confident young woman, so we heap on the praise when she does something spectacular. In Chris’ case, there’s no denying that she’s fairly smart. She will definitely surpass me one day in the brains department, but right now she is just a slightly-above-average 7-year-old who has somehow gotten the impression that she’s a genius. And it’s not bragging to make sure everyone knows it, she informs me. It’s not bragging when it’s a fact.

During a visit with Urgent Care doctor a few months ago, I learned exactly how far Chris’ self-image had come. Not content to sit on the sidelines, she tried answering all the questions the doctor had directed at me.

“How long has she had these symptoms?” the doctor asked me, the educated parent.

“Well,” Chris interrupted, “At school I was trying to listen to the teacher and my stomach kept hurting so I asked to go to the bathroom but I didn’t have to poop so that’s not why it was hurting so I came back to class and told the teacher that my stomach still hurt and she sent me to the nurse and I told her that my stomach still hurt and she called my mom and told her that my stomach still hurt…..”

The doctor’s eyes glazed over. That may be why she made the mistake of saying, “Well! You’re very well spoken for a 7-year-old.”

“Yes,” Chris affirmed without a blink. “I am the smartest kid in my class. I am already reading chapter books that are for third graders and my Grandma said that I know lots of big words.”

Flummoxed, the doctor had no choice to reply, “Well, that’s really great. Keep up the good work.”

She then called Chris to the examining table to take her blood pressure, look in her nose, etc. You know all those things that somehow affect a stomach ache. As she prepared to peer past the ear wax that undoubtedly clogged Chris’ ears, she fingered a ringlet and said, “You have very beautiful hair.”

The curls that brought down the doctor.

Instead of doing me proud and murmuring “Thank you” as I have instructed her a thousand times, Chris instead knocked the wind out of the doctor when she said, “I know. I get that a lot.”
The doctor actually asked her if she had a dictionary at home so she could look up the word "humble."

Oh geez! If she didn’t think we were a conceited family before, it’s now been fully confirmed.

Recently Chris competed in her first ever team event for cheerleading. I had seen these girls at practice and thought that unfortunately they didn’t have a shot in the dark at winning. Because that’s unusual for Chris so far in her charmed life, I tried to prep her on the drive there by reminding her that sometimes you don’t win things and you have to remain a good sport. Sometimes you try hard and you’re just not good enough but you should be happy for the winners.

By some stroke of luck, the kids placed second, earned a medal and a trophy and a chance to compete at the state level. Of course Chris was certain that she carried the team and seemed pretty put out when she told me her trophy was made of plastic and that she had thought a winning trophy would be made of solid gold.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being confident in your appearance and abilities. A little bit of conceit is a good thing, in my opinion. But it can go too far when you start believing that things are always going to come easily to you. Fortunately I don’t think all is lost with Chris yet.

Last summer I had a conversation with my cousin after Chris had had like a day of swim lessons. She told me she would never be able to play water polo because she just couldn’t get swimming. She sunk into a deep depression as she hung out at the shallow end of the pool and I told my cousin I was worried she would be one of those kids who is always a quitter when things got too hard. Then I left him to babysit and drag her around the pool while I went shopping.

Keep your eyes peeled for your newest
Olympic swim team member.

When I returned, though, he surprised me by showing me how well Chris could swim across the pool after one afternoon. He told me she must have overheard me and decided she was going to show me. So with severe determination Chris forced my cousin to spend the entire afternoon in the pool turning pruny until she got it down. So she’s not a quitter after all. That’s fantastic news that she can rally and give it some effort when it’s required.

But unfortunately, we’re back where we started. According to Chris, all that hard work has paid off and she is ready for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team. She’s just that good. Get used to it.

Slow Down!

2013-04-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

We're not ready to stop the ride or get off. We (and by we I mean mom only) just want it to slow down!

It's 4 a.m. on a Wednesday and I jump out of bed as usual with good intentions of stretching, and watching the sun rise with a cup of coffee in hand while inhaling deeply and smiling foolishly as if I'm in a Folger's commercial.

But you know that doesn’t happen.

What really happens is that I trip over a pillow that has been kicked to the floor during the precious few minutes I’ve had to sleep, swear quietly so as not to wake the little giant known as my daughter and pray I can have just a few freaking minutes to myself before she demands cereal we don’t have in the pantry. So instead of using this time to meditate and garner my strength, I tiptoe downstairs where I begin to lovingly stroke my Chinese boyfriend - otherwise known as "remote control".

It seems like yesterday, but time
is going much too quickly.

“My precious," I think.

I could spend this time doing some yoga like poses and becoming a better person. But as I am going through withdrawal from being forced to watch kid-friendly programming 90% of the time, I decide instead to rot my brain. I time it just right so that I can quickly hit the volume down button as the TV is powering up because you know my child must blast the Disney channel at ear-splitting setting #25 so as to be able to hear the oh-so-important programming over her own constant commentary on how much she loves "Just Kickin' It" and that despite never setting foot in a dojo she could totally ‘kick it’ herself.

It’s not long before I start to feel guilty and it’s not because I’m using this rare down time to drool on the couch while an episode of "2 Broke Girls" softly murmurs in the background. I’m feeling little pangs of guilt as my eyes flick constantly to the stairs and my ears strain to hear the pitter patter of little feet on said stairs.

I am feeling guilty because I should not be watching such a show in my house with a child around. Hilarious as it is, this particular episode is about HERPES and I can’t concentrate and enjoy the single gal hilarity as I am contemplating how I might explain STDs to a 7-year-old should she wake up.

I am feeling guilty because this is yet another thing a young kid should not have to think about or even hear about.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time remembering way back to when I was Chris’ age. I don’t know if I am blocking some trauma or if I was really naive, but I really don’t remember knowing as much about the “real world” as my child does now. Ultimately I have decided that things just move much faster these days.

Chris is very tall for her age and at seven she could easily pass for 10. As funny and amazing as it is to watch her growth spurts, we’ve joked often about plying her with coffee and cigarettes, and piling bricks on her head to stunt her growth. Add to this height the fact that she has been raised around adults and talks (or fakes it) like she is wiser than her few years, and I wonder what kind of supersonic roller coaster ride we’ve boarded.

These cute two-pieces used to be much
more cute and a lot less scary.

Recently we had to go swim suit shopping. First of all, this is yet another area in which things are moving much, much too fast. Chris gravitates – as all the other young girls apparently do – towards the string bikinis that barely cover her private bits. So buying a suit is understandably an epic battle to balance age-appropriateness with size availability. Because of her size, very soon we will have to leave the Hello Kitty section and shop in the junior department. If you're not familiar, let me just point out that as the girl’s sizes get larger the amount of fabric shrinks in order to ensure that young teenagers appear as cute and sexy as possible. Fantastic.

It is a Herculean task to find a kid-friendly swim suit that fits Chris’ very long torso. This leaves me simultaneously overjoyed and dismayed that she can’t fill out the top of a larger suit that is long enough for her body. And I refuse to buy one of these itsy-bitsy bikinis that have ruffles strategically placed to accentuate curves.

We finally found a two-piece that I agreed wasn’t too racy because it was a sporty suit for athletic-type pre-teens, which is perfectly fine in my opinion. As she tried it on, Chris proved that her mouth is older than her years when she said, “This top feels funny. I don’t like the way it fits. The bottoms, however, feel delightful.” She's spending too much time with Grandma.

All I could do was stifle a snicker and tell her we’d have to try another store with other one-piece suits.

The adult choices for much-too-young children don’t end there.

The other day I found myself ranting in the children’s shoe department because roughly half of the girl’s summer sandals have wedge heels. These are basically high heels, and in my opinion there is absolutely no reason a seven-year-old should be wearing high heels unless they are the dress-up plastic kind she wears with a Disney dress for Halloween and cause her to complain about her aching feet and thus give me hope that she will forego the future pain for sensible footwear.

Of course Chris is gagging for a pair of these sandals and I have told her no so many times that even I am not beginning to understand why she is the only kid she knows who doesn’t have a pair. I was beginning to wonder if I might have Amish tendencies when I noticed a mother lingering nearby with her infant in a stroller and was convinced she was gathering evidence to report me to the fashion police.

But when Chris began her begging anew, the woman slowed her stroller and shocked me with some solidarity.

“I wouldn’t buy you those high-heeled sandals either, honey,” she told Chris, who fortunately didn’t roll her eyes at a stranger’s unsolicited advice. “You’re much too young for those shoes and they will make your feet hurt anyway. I won’t buy them for my little girl either.”

Granted her little girl was probably around 12 months, but I appreciated her words nonetheless.

In fact, I wanted to jump up and down in relief that I wasn’t Amish after all. I am just a mother who realizes that time flies much too quickly. One second they’re wearing an adorable princess two-piece suit with a swim diaper, and the next you’re praying the strings don’t pop off when they dive in the pool.

It’s too fast.

Let’s turn back the clock about 30 years so Chris can get a little taste of what real childhood is like. We can start with the sandals. Then we’ll talk about my TV programming.

Until then, I will continue to wake up at 4 a.m. so I can keep her from the real adult truth.

Maybe she can wear high heels for this event. Maybe.

Fremdschämen - Look It Up

2013-04-01T17:21:00.001-07:00

Yes, living a life this way can be embarrassing. It's even worse when your parents write about it.

If you’re an avid WhatMyKidSays reader, you may have had a hard time getting out of bed because you noticed I haven’t blogged in the past few weeks. I suppose I’ve hit a bit of writer’s block. And possibly since Chris hit her 7^th birthday she’s not nearly as funny as she was the first six years of life. Or possibly since she hit her 7^th birthday I’ve hit a funk realizing the time is going by too quickly.

We also had a discussion in the car the other day about the blog and Chris told me flat out that she hates it and wishes I never wrote another word about her because it’s sooooooooo embarrassing. I lied a little and said nobody was laughing at her – just laughing at the funny things kids say – but she wasn’t buying it and made sure I knew what a horrible parent I was becoming.

So cute. But she seems
more angry than humiliated.

Honestly, I did pause for a minute and wonder if I was causing irreparable emotional and mental trauma to my child. In fact, I’m sure since the internet is pretty much here forever there will be all kinds of trauma in about 10 years, right around Prom time when she might sit down and actually read some of the crazy stories about her life.

Ultimately, though, I decided this is my revenge. People keep telling me that with a mouth and personality like Chris’, I am going to be in for some serious trouble in a few years. So, yes, this is my pre-emptive revenge and despite her protestations I probably won’t stop.

It can be humiliating when you
don't know how to eat cake.

I do completely understand Chris’ feelings of embarrassment, though. In fact, I feel a little embarrassed myself sometimes that this child is what I created. I recently learned a new word – fremdschämen - which is a German word meaning external shame. In essence, it stands for the embarrassment that others feel on your behalf, vicariously even, for the humiliating things you may have done or said.

For instance, I am fremdschämen that Chris loves to paint her fingernails in bright prostitute colors (no other color description is available or even necessary because you get the picture – her nails look like a hooker’s talons). But it's not like she cares that much about her appearance since I have to beg, plead and threaten to get her to brush her teeth. And she has worse gas than a sailor living on a ration of canned beans.

I am fremdschämen that when she took her first swimming lessons Chris swallowed so much water that the instructor couldn’t help but sarcastically comment that she would never drown because she could burp so well. Chris didn’t get it and replied, “I know. I’m really, really good at burping.” It’s a skill she might not find embarrassing, but which causes me much embarrassment when she’s in the middle of an important book report in front of her class. I have visions of her giving a valedictory address and turning it into a rendition of Will Farrell’s ‘Elf’ on soda.

I am fremdschämen that when I sent Chris with money for her school’s book fair, she returned home with “Bieber Fever”, a pictorial about the life and times of Justin Bieber. Complete embarrassment. Again, she has no idea that 7-year-old girls are pretty much the only people in the entire world who don’t recognize the humiliation factor of crushing on The Biebs.

It should be embarrassing to be in love with a frog. But, alas, she's not embarrassed.

I am fremdschämen that because Chris has lived her entire life in Arizona, she does not believe that snow falls from the sky, but that it gets trucked in to areas where kids play, like the zoo. On a trip up north last year she was so devastated that no white stuff was on the ground that she begged me to “call them and tell them to bring the trucks!”

I am so, so fremdschämen that I duck down in the driver’s seat on afternoons when I pick her up from school because Chris can’t leave the circle drive without hanging halfway out the car window yelling goodbye to all the friends with whom she has literally just spent the last eight hours. And if they don’t hear her she will yell louder, wave her hands in the air, and hang farther out the window until her mostly clean shirt is covered with a layer of dirt that once covered our traveling trash can.

Speaking of clean shirts, I’m fremdschämen that Chris can’t eat a meal without dripping something onto herself and am sad to inform her that I know from personal experience that she might as well purchase a bib to carry her through the next 50 years. I can always tell what she has had for lunch but she doesn’t seem to care that her clothing is usually a walking abstract painting.

And I’m fremdschämen that Chris is stuck in this family, where we think it’s hilarious to point out one another’s embarrassing habits. My mother always had this saying about adversity, “it builds character.” I always used to tell her, “I have character coming out of my ears.”

I believe blogging about things that Chris finds embarrassing, or the things that she doesn’t find embarrassing but make me cringe on her behalf, is going to help her builds tons of character too. She should be thanking me, right? Right? I will keep telling myself this until the therapist asks her to confront me for ruining her life.

The first bikini will probably be a source of embarrassment soon.

It's So Insulting

2013-03-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

We always hurt the ones we love.

The other night, Chris was sliding in her socks across the tile floor, slipping onto her stomach and flying precariously close to the corner of the kitchen island. I closed my eyes and could see her demise perfectly – because it happened to me.

“You know when I was your age,” I started out the way all fantastic advice begins, “I was doing the same thing at a neighbor’s house. She was waxing the hardwood floor, and it ended up not so fun for me. I had to go to the doctor and got a scar on my face after I accidentally slid into the coffee table.”

Not sufficiently frightened, I dragged her into the bathroom light to prove how her beautiful face could be scarred for life. Rather than being afraid, she was curious and I’m sure if a magnifying mirror were available she would have examined every inch of my skin for youthful injuries.

“What are these scars from?” she asked, moving her fingers lightly across my forehead.

I wracked my brain. Was that the time my sister threw the swing at me and I was too slow to duck? Scars from skin a dermatologist callously froze off while lecturing me about the dangers of redheads in the sun?

“Which scars?” I asked Chris for clarification.

“These ones!” she said. “These ones right here. The ones you get when your forehead moves.”

Ohhhhhh. Not scars. Wrinkles. The darn kid not only noticed, she felt the need to point them out.

“Wrinkles!” she screeched and laughed. “You’re old! Do you have grandchildren?”

Yeah, she went there.

This is one of the many situations that those parenting books don’t discuss. One thing that I have learned along my motherhood journey is that you have to have a pretty thick skin.

I mean, I grew up in a family that traded constant practical jokes and teasing. And I spent four years in hell otherwise known as high school. But nothing can bring tears to your eyes faster than when the angel you have lovingly cared for blurts out in front of the bank teller, “Mommy, your breath is really stinky.”

Chris is already a master at the personal jab. Sometimes, though, what she states as fact can seem pretty insulting if you’re not prepared.

The big story making the rounds at the family dinner table is the one about Grandpa and Abraham Lincoln. Turns out Chris and Grandma were reading a book about Abe and came across a picture of our former president. Grandma pointed out to Chris that ol’ Mr. Lincoln wasn’t a handsome man. In fact, she said, some people thought he was kind of ugly.

Chris looked up and said, “Oh! Like a skinny version of Grandpa!”

I’ve been at the receiving end of Chris’ comments before so I imagine that suddenly Grandpa felt that he needed to put back the cookie in his hand and go shave. And he was probably a little bitter about it too.

Like I said, I’ve been there. I can’t tell you how many times Chris has pushed against my belly with a knowing look in her eyes and I’ve had to quickly change the subject before the words made their way from her little brain to her big mouth. I know I’ve been a longtime resident of the husky category, but I could do without my daughter announcing at megaphone decibel, “My mommy said she needs to go on a diet but I saw her eating ice cream last night.”

Brace yourself. I have something to say and it's probably mean.

Even Grandma is not immune to Chris’ sharp tongue. The other day Chris brought home a school paper that read, “When I am 100 years old I will look like my grandma.” At least I’m not the only one who looks old.

I suspect someone – probably grandma - had a conversation with her at one point to try to impress upon her that it’s offensive to say things without regard to another person’s feelings. One thing you can say about that kid, she’s a quick learner. It wasn’t long before her insults morphed into, “No offense, Mommy, but your shirt looks kind of weird. No offense though!”

Somehow, I think you do mean to offend!

Of course, most of the time she really doesn’t mean to offend. It’s just a kid’s way of figuring out the world and what she states as fact – because it really is fact – just seems mean because we’re so self-conscious as adults. We all know the truth, we just don’t want that bathroom magnifying mirror held up to show it to us.

Or maybe the reason Chris is so insulting is her defense mechanism to keep the ugly truth from happening to herself.

Last night she told me, “There’s no way you can be my mother. You don’t like onions and I do, but I like sloppy joes and you don’t.”

I responded back, “Hate to break it to you kid, but you look just like me.”

“That’s just wrong,” she replied. “The only thing the same about us is the color of our eyes. And we both burp a lot.”

See, even when she doesn’t want to be like me she finds a way to insult me!

So I got her back. When she asked if I had grandchildren I gritted my teeth and gave her a little smile and sweetly told her the answer.

“No dearie, I don’t have grandchildren. And at this rate I never will…because you won’t live long enough to give them to me.”

Ahhhh Young Love

2013-02-19T03:14:00.001-08:00

It's cute now. Ten more years and he'd better run fast.

When I was Chris’ age, my Grandpa Don would put his hand on my leg, just above my knee and squeeze. If I laughed or squealed, that meant I was boy crazy. I was so ticklish that he barely had to make the hand-squeezing motion and I would dissolve into a pile of giggles. Oh, and I was also majorly boy crazy.

In Chris’ case no leg-squeezing test is necessary. I think she popped out of the womb primping for her first date.

More than once I’ve eavesdropped on conversations between Chris and her much, much older friend Jasmine who is “like 8, Mom, and she still spends time with me!” The first time I heard it I had to choke back my guffaws because you’d think those two were a couple of stay-at-home housewives killing time over a cup of coffee until their soap operas started.

“Sooooooo, tell me about the boy you like,” Jasmine asks as they ride their scooters past the bench where I’m not hovering. Just taking the dogs for a little walk. I swear.

“Well,” Chris replies, waving her hands around excitedly. “He’s IN THE SECOND GRADE and his name is Jake.”

“He sounds cute,” Jasmine says. Well duh, he is an older man.

Not long ago Chris told me about three of the guys she currently likes – two she likes at the same time as her friend Mikayla because your friend's approval is necessary criteria. When I prod her to explain why exactly these boys have caught her eye she just gets embarrassed and says, “You know!”

“Because he’s cute?” I ask.

“Yes!” she yells. “Now leave me alone! You’re embarrassing me!”

Well that is in my job description.

First love triangle. Don't worry it worked out well. She chose the cake.

But she can’t help it. She’s so boy crazy that she must drone on about all the boys she likes, even at the risk of embarrassing herself. One boy, she tells me, is a mystery to her. She and Mikayla don’t even know his name but they see him all the time in the library (smart boy – Mommy approves) and they get so scared that they just go “tee hee, tee hee” because they don’t know what to say. Those are her words, not mine.

I feel kind of bad for the kid because she’s not used to having to work for what she wants. Like many girls with only-child syndrome, she can’t fathom a world in which men don’t swoon at her feet as if she were Cleopatra.

That’s not to say the love-bug doesn’t bite the boys too. Not long ago Chris and I spent the day with Landon, who is two years younger than Chris. The next day Landon told his mother he wanted to see Chris again and when she told him it wasn’t possible he said very matter-of-factly, “But I love her.” I imagine it was much the same way he might say he loves waffles or the Power Rangers, but nevertheless it’s difficult to resist her gravitational pull. One day was all it took for him to fall under her spell.

Already feeling the heat. Feels like choking.

The “more mature” boys that Chris does drag into her web seem somewhat dazed by her overwhelming personality. She’s already learned how to be bossy and nags them into submission. So it’s usually the ones who don’t have a shot that will put up with her tyranny. The ones Chris likes are fortunately out of reach. And fortunately they are also oblivious to her charms.

A few months ago at a parent’s lunch at her school, Chris proudly pointed out her crushes on the playground. As they were firmly ensconced in a game of kickball they never looked her way, which is how I remember it going down all those years ago when I was so boy crazy.

And that’s just fine with me. Right now it’s all so sweet and innocent too. It’s funny to watch, if not a little pathetic since I know a little bit about what her future might hold. I know there will be lots of heartbreak down the road. I know there most likely will be pimply boys ringing our doorbell and voices breaking up over the telephone. I know there will be a LOT more giggling and excited whispering with her friends.

Right now, though, I’m happy that she loves from afar. Very afar.

Still Daddy's Little Princess. Let's just leave it that way for now.

The Scent of Broken Promises

2013-02-03T18:03:00.005-08:00

She smells like strawberries. I, however, do not.

Did you ever wonder how broken promises smell? Wonder no more! I can tell you from personal experience that broken promises smell like a sweaty linebacker who has attempted unsuccessfully to cover the stench by bathing in cheap cologne.

Allow me to explain.

You see, my kid talks a lot. Yes, yes, soon we’ll make the leap together from motor mouth to migraine-inducing odor. As I was saying, my kid talks a lot. At home I can tune it out, but in class with 23 other kids also vying for attention, I’m sure her teacher is keenly aware that Chris is one of the loudest. So far every single correspondence we’ve had with a teacher since the beginning of her education has read, “Chris continues to excel academically. But she still needs to work at not talking during quiet times.” They might have just printed up a whole stack of these reports at her birth.

I know she’s smart and it’s tempting to blame her big mouth on being bored in class. But what my father drilled into my own developing skull years ago is that there simply is no excuse for not following classroom rules. If he had raised her, it would be “respect your elders and speak only when spoken to.” I don’t go quite that far, but I have tried to impress upon her that it’s incredibly disrespectful to distract the teacher and the rest of the class that is trying to learn something you may already know.

At heart Chris is a good kid. She knows there are certain times she is supposed to be quiet in class but for some reason she just can’t help herself. Must….talk…can’t….keep…mouth…closed.

So we’ve tried grounding. We’ve tried withholding TV and toys. We’ve tried the disappointment speech and the angry speech and come pretty close to begging. I mean, I don’t want her to be branded the kid who won’t shut up, because you know those teachers warn one another about their little, uh, angels.

Finally, we resorted to bribery. Yeah, I admit it, I bribe my kid.

“If you can make it through one whole month with good behavior reports, we can do something special that you choose,” was my final resort.

“Ooooh, maybe I can have Icees every day for a month!” was Chris’ first choice. Since I’m so smart I realized that daily frozen colored sugar water would only compound the problem and I nixed that idea. Instead, I urged her, she should choose an activity like a movie, or a zoo visit, or even a trip up north to go sledding.

“OK, stop!” She said. “I know exactly what I want to do. I’ve wanted to do it my whole entire life. I want you to take me ice skating. Pinky promise.”

Uh, what? Ice skating? Not something I imagined I’d ever do again in my life after the one feeble attempt in high school in which I couldn’t even stand on the skates and gave up after about three minutes. Plus, I suspect she really only wants to go ice skating because she thinks that means she will be wearing a sparkly outfit like those girls she saw in the Olympics.

I don't smell like this either.

“But what the hey,” I thought. “It’s not like I have to worry about it. I mean, it’s been a year and a half and we haven’t made it through three weeks without a negative behavior report because of talking.”

I should have had more faith in my kid, because lo and behold, she did it. The month of December sealed the deal and filled me with terror. Can you imagine me on ice skates? You’ve seen my version of walking (tripping) and I can’t afford any more ER visits. Plus, I can just imagine the Richter scale baffling local scientists every time I hit the deck. Double plus, I really have no desire to look at the ceiling of the ice rink that many times.

So I put it off. Then put it off some more. Then Christmas and New Year’s came and went. Suddenly I had no more excuses and felt like a pretty crummy parent when Chris wailed in the car, “When are you going to take me ice skating? You pinky promised!”

Ugh.

But then fate stepped in with the perfect excuse. Bronchitis! I honestly tried to get up the gumption to take her ice skating, I swear. But I couldn’t make it on a short walk with the dogs to the mailbox without a major coughing fit. So, reluctantly I told Chris we’d either have to put off her ice skating dreams another week or two, or she could choose something else.

“Choose something else!” I silently willed her.

After a lot of back and forth, she finally chose a girl’s day – lunch out with just the two of us and maybe a little shopping. This I could handle. Besides, the kid desperately needed new shoes of the unscented variety (she has chronically stinky feet).

So today we waited impatiently for the mall to open and then hit the road. She counted out her savings of nickels and dimes for a pair of ice cream cone earrings. We agreed after much arguing on a pair of non-high-heel shoes (Seriously! She’s 6! Why on EARTH are all the kids sandals made with wedge heels?!)

As we were making our way out of the department store, I told Chris to hang on while I made a quick glance around the purse clearance section. No problem, she said, as she wandered an aisle or two over and unbeknownst to me sampled not one, not two, but at least five different varieties of perfume.

Let it be a lesson to you, if you remark, “Whew! Someone really went overboard with the cologne!” and your normally vocal child doesn’t comment, you are in for some trouble. It’s not your imagination; everyone in the checkout line really is staring at you and talking about you – or rather your kid’s aroma. It hit home for me when she touched me on the cheek to get my attention while we were waiting for the cashier and my eyes began to water.

“It was you!” I spat out. “You’re the one who sprayed the perfume!”

“Only a little bit,” she said. Yeah right.

Give it up. A bath won't turn back time.

I got her out of there and into the car before a HazMat team was called. Big mistake. I rolled down the windows but Eau De Everything had already permeated the fabric seat cushions. I plugged my nose and pulled into the Target parking lot where I drug her into the bathroom and told her to wash her hands. Meanwhile, I soaked four paper towels with water and rubbed at her neck.

“You know, it only takes one squirt of cologne,” I told her as I tried to hold her down. I guess it tickles when you rub a paper towel on your neck.

“I did do one squirt. Just of a lot of different kinds. I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best so I tried them all,” she replied. No duh. I could smell “them all”.

After all that, I assumed we had solved the problem. But we barely made a dent and I had to chew gum since the scents were making me sick. When we finally arrived home I quickly agreed that she could ride her bike, thinking the fresh air might blow off the stink. But it was apparent that wouldn’t work either as a kid on his skateboard constantly kept moving upwind from her.

Soon, I could take it no longer and drug her inside to shower. I scrubbed her neck again with a rag that I constantly had to keep wringing out since it was drenched with toilet water. Eventually we got the job done. But after all her protestations that she didn’t need a bath that she already smelled good from all the perfumes, I had to come out and say it, “No you don’t. You really, really stink.”

Chris looked me square in the eye. I thought she might cry or be offended. But she simply blamed it all on me.

“It’s all your fault,” she said. “This never would have happened if you had taken me ice skating.”

A Foot, Some Firemen and a Frantic Family

2013-01-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

All my babies. In happier, less-painful times.

First some background.

This blog is usually devoted to the actions and words of my human child Chris, whose sassy mouth has yet to be matched. But I often leave out the just-as-interesting adventures of my two less vocal children: our dogs Millie and Viggo. Millie is our sweet little diva who loves to wear dresses – I promise! I only had to force them on her the first time and after that she was excited to wear clothes. Ask anyone, I swear! She is a cuddly girl who preens when told how pretty she is and who stares adoringly into the eyes of whomever strokes her silky fur or lets her lick the ice cream bowl.

Viggo with the big button eyes

Viggo is our skinny, adventurous boy who is full of character and whom we’re convinced is part deer. While he sometimes seems a little crazy, like when he barked uncontrollably at Chris’ Hello Kitty backpack as it hung on the doorknob, he is also in touch with his inner cat and lounges across the back of the couch or bats at toys while laying on his back. He will also fetch a ball, chew toy, sock or piece of trash no matter how many times you throw it across the room. It never gets old for him.

Just like a human child, it’s tough to see either one of my canine babies in pain. Viggo tested this last week.

The following is a chronicle of events as they occurred on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. It is a true and accurate account of the medical emergency we faced with Viggo, although slightly exaggerated to illustrate the comedic atmosphere surrounding said events.

4:16 p.m.- After dragging Chris inside the house because none of her friends were available to play, which is somehow my fault because I am indeed a horribly mean mother, I bribed Chris into submission with the promise of bathing her dogs in the kitchen sink. She’s only 6 so she still loves to do chores.

4:23- Millie was sufficiently washed and performing her drying off ritual of running circles while rubbing up against the couches. I told Chris to catch her to towel dry off while I started working on Viggo.

4:25- I was immediately reminded of the difference between my two hairy kids. Millie loves to be bathed and will gladly stand still under the faucet of warm water. Viggo is a much different story. He clings all four paws to the sides of the sink with a look of sheer terror on his fuzzy face, as if I have every intention of drowning him.

4:25.30- Viggo’s bath is abruptly interrupted by the most pitiful, high-pitched yelping imaginable. It soon became apparent that he was flailing with only three legs and I quickly realized his fourth foot was caught in the sink drain. I tugged gently. He yelped. I tugged a little harder. He yelped louder. I sucked in a deep breath and tugged once more. He YELPED! And snapped at me.

4:27- While already sweating from anxiety, I yelled to Chris to call Grandma and Grandpa to come over and help. I’m sure they could hear Viggo in the background as I tried to calm him down and keep him from flailing. I whispered in his huge ears that Grandpa would be here soon and would surely be able to free him.

Millie: Please save my brother!

4:38- We learned that I lied.

4:39- Millie danced around our feet, knowing something was wrong and begging me to free her brother from his possible watery grave. It seems that in one horrible split second Viggo’s middle toe had become stuck in the hole of the sink drain. Grandpa began ripping apart the pipes under the sink thinking we could push Viggo’s toe back from the bottom up. Our hearts all sank when we realized that wouldn’t work either so we set about trying to unhook the entire drain.

4:43- Grandpa realized he would need a pipe wrench and looked at me imploringly. My brain worked in slow motion as I thought, “Do I look like I sit around wrenching pipes on lonely Friday nights?”

4:45- Chris was dispatched to the neighbors on the off chance that they would have a wrench. Alas, they did not so Grandpa made another trip back home to bring his back.

4:52- While waiting for the wrenches, Grandma and I took turns whispering sweet nothings at Viggo, covering him with blankets to stave off shock, pouring cooking oil down the drain in the hopes of lubricating his toe, and pushing ice up through the bottom of the drain to try to numb it. Any time he moved slightly the yelping began anew, so he mostly still in the sink and shivered with big eyes.

5:11- Grandpa returned with the pipe wrenches and set to work.

5:16- The wrenches were no use so we broke down and called the fire department, hoping they had a tool to cut the drain off Viggo’s foot. While I dialed 911 I tried not to panic while equating the situation to fables of firemen rescuing cats from trees. But my heart sank as I relayed my crazy story of the dog stuck in the sink to the dispatcher and she sighed her answer, “We don’t really do that.”

How can you NOT save this face?

“Well who do I call?” I begged. “I mean, a vet doesn’t have tools to cut people (or dogs) out of tight spaces.” She said she would call around to nearby halls to see if anyone was free and I said a quick thank you prayer when she replied, incredulously, that the hall around the corner was interested in checking it out.

5:23- They didn’t sound the sirens or use the lights, but five muscle-bound firefighters did show up in their big red truck and curiously entered the house. Not embarrassing at all. They immediately set about assessing the situation and offering suggestions. One dropped to his back on the (probably) filthy floor to look under the dirty sink and popped up to ask, “Uh….how did this happen?” The show “Animal Planet” and the phrase “one in a million situation” were bantered about while I chewed my fingernails and finally noticed my other kid, Chris, was beginning to cry. I guess the sight of the firefighters brought about the seriousness of the situation and she exclaimed, “I’m just so worried! Is he going to die? Is he going to have to wear a cast? What’s going to happen?”

Sink Drain of Doom

5:47- After discussing the possibility of finding an on-call vet to sedate poor Viggo, and after what seemed like hours of me trying to stay out of the way, Viggo was finally pulled out of the drain, slightly damp and wrapped in a towel. He mewled like the newborn baby he looked like as he was wrapped in a towel and handed over to Grandpa. It was then that I looked down and noticed the sink drain, which probably weighed half as much as him, was still attached to his foot.

5:49- While most of the other firefighters high-tailed it back to their truck, undoubtedly discussing the filthiness of my floor and the idiocy of a lady who washes dogs in the wrong side of the sink, one pet lover hung back. Instead of leaving us to our own devices, because we obviously couldn’t be trusted alone with pets, he not only found an emergency veterinary hospital but apprised them of the situation and our impending arrival. I will always be grateful to the Avondale Fire Department for their assistance and we waved goodbye as we jumped in the car to drive our sink drain – oh! with a dog attached – down the street.

5:54- I drove while Grandpa cradled an exhausted Viggo in his lap. On the drive we discussed the possibility of amputating Viggo’s toe or even his whole foot. By that time the area was nearly black with non-circulation.

Groggy Doggy

6:01- We hopped out of the car at the animal hospital and the receptionist said, “Ohhhh, you’re the people with the dog stuck in the sink drain.” Already we were infamous. I asked if she had ever seen anything like this and she replied excitedly, “No! And after I talked to the fireman I got off the phone and said, ‘You guys! You’ll never guess what we have coming in!’” A nurse took Viggo from Grandpa’s arms and transported him to the back and we paced during what we assumed would be a long wait.

6:10- We were shocked to see the nurse return so soon and wiping off the sink drain in her hand. My first thought was, “Wow! They don’t take long to chop off toes around here!” Instead she said, “Viggo did excellent. We barely had to sedate him and then were able to slip the drain right off.”

7:20- The hospital ran my debit card for a $227. For a stupid bath. Gulp.

7:35- After monitoring him for a reaction to the medication, the nurse brought a groggy Viggo out to us with a bag of pain medication, an antibiotic to avoid tetanus, and instructions for rest and an Elizabethan collar.

7:49: We arrived home to a grateful Millie, Chris and Grandma, all who wanted to kiss Viggo at once.

Not a fan of the cone.

12:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 21- Time for Viggo’s pain medication. It was wrapped in cheese and kisses. Millie had cheese too to avoid jealousy.

5 a.m.- Viggo wears the collar for the first time. Millie growls at the intruder who looks a little like her brother. Viggo bangs the collar on the ground and gets one foot stuck inside it in an effort to break free. He gives me dirty looks. I know what he’s thinking. “First the sink, then this collar? You’re the worst parent ever.”

Footnote: After only two days Viggo was collar free and running and jumping as if the whole ordeal never happened. He is, however, keeping a wide berth of the kitchen sink.

Off to dreamland. Now how do we get back?

2013-01-03T04:27:00.002-08:00

See that picture up there above? That’s Chris on New Year’s Eve. The time stamp is 11:55 p.m. after an unsuccessful hour of trying to wake her up. She didn’t make it in time to see the ball drop. The sad news is the one person in the house who was most excited to ring in the New Year is the one person who couldn’t hang.

Here's another NYE shot. Mean we are.

The funniest part is that we tried everything on earth to wake her up for the big countdown. Three noisemakers – and those suckers are loud! – were going off in unison inches from her head. I propped her up and stuck a glass of sparkling cider in her hand. And just like Weekend at Bernie’s, she made like a sack of potatoes and fell limply back onto the couch. So we did like all giddy party revelers and covered her body in party hats, blankets and dogs, and then laughed and took pictures. We weren’t drinking, we were just being mean.

Friend's kids could hang. Not Chris.

You might think Chris had simply worn herself out from trying out her Wii dance moves earlier in the evening, or took a nosedive from her candy sugar high. But the truth is it’s not all that uncommon for her to sleep so hard that a bomb could go off and she would wake up hours later asking why the world was littered with debris. Many a time I have been startled from my own sleep by a shaking thud that left Chris sprawled on the floor unaware that she’s fallen out of bed.

Fortunately in the early days Chris was an excellent sleepy baby. Now that more than six years have passed it’s beginning to get a little fuzzy. But I distinctly remember calling someone – possibly my sister the nurse – asking if it was normal for a newborn to sleep through the night and being yelled at to never wake a sleeping baby. Once I got over my own claustrophobic fears and realized babies really do like to be swaddled, we rarely had a lick of trouble getting Chris to sleep.

For years I felt pretty smug when I heard new mothers complain about colicky babies who didn’t allow them to sleep more than an hour or two at a time. Then my own reality sunk in and I had to figure out how to wake my daughter up for school. I fear that when the teenage years hit I will have to invest in a spray bottle of ice water since air horn alarm clocks apparently won’t work.

It’s baffling to me that someone could sleep that hard and not be comatose or faking it. I’m exactly the opposite in dreamland and generally wake up at the slightest sound. I have been known to wake up in an almost instant upright position, often standing on the bed with my heart racing and wondering where the whisper of sound is coming from.

Even playtime can't be enjoyed when you're tired.

With Chris, we must have taken the baby books a little too much to heart. You know, the ones that suggest you don’t tiptoe around your child but make everyday normal sounds and they will learn to sleep through most anything. I can attest it really does work. But the major problem with it is that when you need then to wake up because you’re running late for work, you have to move heaven and earth to do so.

And when you don’t want them to wake up, say on a weekend that you could sleep in, that’s usually when it does happen.

A couple of years ago our air conditioner was on the fritz and we had to spend a sweltering night until the repairmen could fit us in to their busy Arizona schedule. So as not to bake, Chris and I spent the night downstairs barely clothed on the couches.

Halfway through the night, I woke up to the sound of the back door creak-creak-creaking open. Convinced someone was trying to steal my third-hand coffee tables, I immediately sprung into action. So there I was, standing on the couch with hands in karate-chop position, kicking wildly and using all the best moves I remembered from my cardio-kickboxing exercise videos. It was then that my big toe connected with a puffy blond curl and I realized Chris was the one opening the back door.

Sweet sleepy baby.

“What are you doing! Are you crazy?” I screeched, making sure any robbers or rapists standing outside would be afraid of the banshee jumping on the couch.

Contritely she closed the door, so mature as she turned the deadbolt, and returned to the couch. She laid back down and said, “I just wanted to see if it was still dark outside.”

You can guess what happened next.

She promptly fell into a deep sleep from which I did everything possible to wake her up to leave for daycare the next morning. Finally I had to promise donuts, which is my go-to move that works the best.

So now, in preparation of the high school sleeping years, I’m buying stock in Krispy Kremes. My advice to you is that you do the same.

Two And A Half Women

2012-12-24T12:55:00.002-08:00

It's a family picture. But the rest of us are nonexistent.

Our house got decidedly more female a couple of weeks ago when my 18-year-old niece Riley came to stay with us for a while. Words can’t begin to express how excited Chris is to have her older cousin living with her. I’m pretty happy too since it relieves me of having to explain why she can’t have a sister or brother.

One thing I have noticed is that I was quickly replaced as the cool older person in the house. Not that I ever dressed cool, but my clothes seem even more mom-like when Chris sees her teenage cousin’s wardrobe. Chris’ whole goal in life, right now, is finding the perfect game that Riley will want to spend hours playing with her.

Now pretty much nothing I say means anything at all unless it’s given the Riley stamp of approval. I could beg Chris for days to clean her room but until Riley says in her party voice, “Let’s clean your room together!” does it ever get done. This phenomenon was proved recently at our Girl Scout Christmas party. During the Secret Santa gift exchange Chris drew the last number and got to either open the last gift on the table or steal another girl’s gift. While she did love all the other gifts, I suspect she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so she opted to open the last gift on the table which hadn’t been chosen yet because it was the smallest bag. In slow-motion, the mother next to me placed her hand on my arm and said, “I’m soooooo soooorrrrrryyyyy.”

Before I had a chance to ask why, she was interrupted by dogs barking outside, car alarms pealing, glass shattering and girls covering their ears with cookie-stuffed hands. Turns out Chris really, really, REALLY liked what was inside – fake fingernails.

This is truly something Chris has begged for off an on for about four years. Yes, I know she’s only six herself but the obsession started early. We can’t walk through the pharmacy without the constant volleying of “Pleeeze? No! Whyyyyy? Because I said so!” I am so against these fake fingernails that this is one area where I have successfully been able to tune out the begging.

When Chris called her father later to tell him excitedly about the gift, he got me on the phone and asked just “Why the heck would some genius braniac buy a six-year-old fake fingernails?” This is one area where we agree. But I did have to inform him I don’t blame the Girl Scout mother who purchased those fingernails. After all, she has two kids so I’m sure the constant barrage in stereo is even more difficult to resist. Besides, she probably figured it is better to give than to have her kid walking around looking like a chain-smoking cocktail waitress.

So here we were, stuck with fake fingernails – albeit “child-friendly” ones with Minnie Mouse decorations – that Chris ripped out of the package on the drive home where they immediately stuck to the car floor mats. Correction, they stuck to the food particles and dirt ground into the car floor mats and guess who had to pick them out?

Anyway, I staved her off for a few days, explaining that these were to be saved for a special occasion. I also reminded her that her teacher wouldn’t relish finding fingernails all over the classroom and she certainly didn’t want to find one in her lunch or lose one at the monkey bars. Each day, though, she asked me if it was a special occasion until I finally couldn’t put her off any longer and I had to allow her to wear them to a family get-together. What better special occasion could there be for a manicure than grandpa’s birthday?

I figured at least we were among family and not out where the general public could judge me for hussying up my kid. Since there are no instructions for these dang nails, we applied what we could only assume were the correct nails to the correct corresponding fingers. Immediately Chris needed help pulling up her jeans and pushing the hair out of her face.

I told her right away I didn’t like them. They made her hands look like she was pushing 35 and I was having mini-nightmares about those long fingernails getting in the way of her holding onto a stripper pole.

Soon my 19-year-old nephew and his girlfriend showed up and Chris greeted them with “the claws”, as she so aptly named her new fingertips. They screwed up their faces and Jacob told her he didn’t like those nails and they looked weird.

She gave a humph and ran for the door where her precious Riley had just entered and showed her “the claws.” Riley gave a little laugh, looked at me strangely and said, “I thought you told her she couldn’t get fake nails until she was at least 18?” Yes, she had already told Riley about her obsession. I replied that they were a gift so I really didn’t have a say in it. But like a trouper Riley said loudly, “I don’t like those. She looks like she’s one of those…one of those….pageant kids. You know, the ones whose parents dress them up like creepy dolls?”

Creepy. Am I right?

Yes. I am aware. And I agreed wholeheartedly. So here’s what happened next.

Despite years of me telling Chris fake nails were creepy and that she couldn’t have them, despite her male cousin and her grandparents telling her they were weird, all it took was her cousin Riley to tell her they were strange. No less than five minutes later Chris asked to take the nails off because they were making her hands feel funny. She tried to play it off like some funky fungus was already taking root and making her fingertips itch, and to my credit I didn’t point out the obvious that she loved them until Riley said they were strange. I just thanked my lucky stars that Riley walked in the door at that point and saved the day.

Not sure who is giving makeup lessons.

I guess one could look at the bad side of having a teenager around, but so far my liquor cabinet has remained untouched and I haven’t had to kick any boys out of her bedroom. So all is copasetic and frankly I’m thrilled that someone else will get off the couch to go outside and play so I can watch NCIS in peace. I’m going to ride that gravy train as long as I can.

Go Big or Go Home. No really. Go Home.

2012-12-17T21:18:00.001-08:00

Can't tell what this is? This was my day.

Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little bitter when your kid takes credit for something you’ve done?

At a recent Christmas cookie exchange I placed my gorgeous confections on the table for viewing. When everyone ooohed and ahhed over the reindeer cookies I had slaved over, Chris blurted out, “Those are mine! I brought those!”

Oh really? You’re the one who was up to her elbows in flour at 11 p.m. as you peered through butter-smeared glasses at an egg-stained recipe card and said many, many bad words when you had to fly to the grocery store in your slippers because earlier you bought baking soda instead of baking powder? Cuz I could have sworn that was me.

Pre-Chaos.

Like most of my stories, it started with good intentions. I had Norman Rockwellian visions of baking up some sugar cookie sweet memories with my daughter. She asked if she could invite her friends over for a cookie decorating party and in one insane moment I agreed. I mean, how hard could it be to invite over three or four little girls who will titter over gingerbread men and glittery sugar?

Stupid. I am so, so stupid sometimes.

Here’s how it went down.

After spending the weekend lazing around at her father house while I slaved over the afore-mentioned cookies, cookies and more cookies, Chris came home refreshed and ready to party. She took one look at the kitchen table that was beginning to buckle with tasty goodness, rolled her eyes and had the audacity to say, “You went a little overboard on the cookies, don’t you think?”

Where has she been the last six years? She should know I don’t do anything just a little bit. Besides, I usually don’t mind baking, mostly because I definitely don’t mind eating.

Don't be fooled. This is a staged photo. Chris didn't do anything close to this type of work. It was me. All me.

Anyway, only one out of eight kids RSVP’d that she would be attending. Her mother dropped her off precisely at 3 p.m. and exclaimed at the amount of baking I had done – she’s a mother, she knows who really does all the work. I assured her that we would have a lovely time and hopefully a couple of other kids would show up to join Chris and her daughter for the festivities.

Before she made it around the corner, the doorbell began to ring so often that we had our very own Carol of the Bells in the works. Soon there was something like 10 kids, even a couple who I had only briefly seen once or twice around the neighborhood, bellying up to my cookie table. Some were the male siblings of girls who had actually received invitations. Others I think blindly followed the line of kids hypnotized by the whiff of sugar in the air and were drawn to the frosting like moths to a flame.

Either way, I was a little overwhelmed as I turned around and handed out plates to swarming hands. My one intelligent move for the day was ordering Chris to usher her friends to the bathroom for hand washing. Judging from the brown sink I was left with, it was a necessity.

I wish the brown sink was the least of my worries. With so many kids it became a free-for-all with gel frosting dripping off tablecloths, red frosting knives shoved chaotically in white frosting containers, and glitter-sugar cookies being bumped to the floor. They elbowed each other and frantically grabbed at marshmallows, chocolate chips and snuck M&Ms.

And that still wasn’t the worst of it.

It didn’t take long before they tired of the tedium of decorating for 30 seconds or more. Then they didn’t even bother with the show of placing the candies on the cookies and instead placed them directly in their mouths and washed them down with squirts of frosting and giggles.

It all went downhill from there.

I made these adorable melted
snowman cookies and reindeer.
You think they appreciated them? No.
They just wanted the sugar.

The cookie table was abandoned. Kids ran upstairs and downstairs, slamming doors, tripping over dogs, screaming and chasing one another, throwing toys willy nilly into the air and jumping on beds. I had lost all control and I weakly repeated the only rule that seemed to be heard of the dull roar, “Stay out of my room.” I found a Rapunzel castle in the laundry room, a bowl of candy in the dog’s crate, a jewelry box under the kitchen sink, and I will probably find frosting in the tile grout for weeks.

It seemed to me that hours passed in which I wrung my hands and wondered just how much the law would allow one to yell at another parent’s kid when the doorbell rang again and my fellow mother stepped into my house laughing. “Having fun?” she said with a snort, taking in my frizzy hair, smeared makeup, red and green floor, and cowering dogs. Plus, she could hear the screaming laughter coming from down the block so she knew the kind of hell of which I was currently in the midst

Alas, it had only been about an hour since she had left me with only two sweet little angel girls.

She drug her sugar-strung-out child out the door and I went about the task of trying to send the other demons back to their own parents. This turned out to be a Herculean task, as when kids learn that they have free reign of the upstairs along with all the candy they can jam into their chubby jowls, they aren’t too keen on giving it up. But I egged them out the door with the promise that they could take home all the cookies they decorated. One girl took home four plates and I was all too happy to ply her entire family with diabetes just to get her and a few other children of my hair. Other kids I had to literally sweep out the door with protestations that I needed my bed and they needed some non-glucose-based supper.

As Chris cried in sadness that her friends were now gone, I looked around at the war-torn living room and reminded her that this was our very first and very last cookie decorating party and that she would not be playing with her friends until she cleaned up.

That kid, she’s no dummy. She gave me a big hug and called me the best mommy in the whole world. I smiled in relief while all the while her hand snaked around my backside to sneak a cookie.

“No! More! Cookies!” I screamed while she ran to the corner to shove in as many crumbs in as she could before I smacked it out of her hand.

I needn’t have bothered. By then she was beginning to crash from the sugar high and passed out on the couch with half a cookie in one hand and a face covered in blue sprinkles.

I wasn’t far behind. Next time I have one of those Norman Rockwell moments will someone please knock some sense into me?

Dreaming of her next Party Of Terror.

The Best-Laid Photo Plans Gone Awry

2012-12-03T08:02:00.002-08:00

If it's not the hair, it's the facial expression.

This time, it was the dog that ended up with crazy hair.

You see, when you say the word “short” at the doggie hair salon, they assume you mean “shaved within an inch of his life.” So our cute, floppy haired Viggo ended up looking like an overgrown Chihuahua.

All in time for our Christmas photo.

I am saving your eyes from pee stains.
You're welcome.

It’s a nice change of pace because usually it’s Chris who ruins my best-laid photo plans. It all started with one of her first baby portraits. I had seen gorgeous photos of serene looking babies wearing angel wings with light glowing all around that brought to mind a Hallelujah chorus announcing a gift from heaven. I took a couple of photography classes in college and was confident I could recreate the scene.

Little did I know, babies take the first naked opportunity to pee everywhere as if they have horse-sized bladders that have stored up a week’s worth of urine. As I laid Chris down on a sweet blanket and arranged her glittery wings in the lazy afternoon light, she mewled like a kitten, turned her head and let it all go. So I got one – ONE – photo of her in the angel wings before I disgustedly threw the blanket in the washing machine and gave up.

Whew! It's tiring being a kid!

Then she grew hair. Oh, does this kid have some hair! And when it’s styled the correct way, I am not bragging when I say perfect strangers gush about the state of her curls. It’s just a fact. When it hasn’t been styled (or messed with by a little kid who should know better than to touch her own hair without professional tutoring) it brings to mind more of a “finger in a light socket” scenario.

I have learned through countless mornings of knots and tears that the best course of action is to brush said hair when it’s wet, throw in a dab of gel and DO NOT TOUCH. So, of course, when I send Chris to school on her very first kindergarten school portrait day it just makes sense that she would spend half the morning at school preparing by running a brush through the individual spiral curls until she made fuzz. There’s no other word for it – just fuzz. I wish I could show you an example but I’m sure the photographers posted it up in their hall of fame while laughing hysterically and sent us a note suggesting retakes.

For the professional photos we took when Chris was 3, she didn’t mess with her hair. She posed perfectly like a practiced supermodel. Everything fell into place. Until she opened her mouth in a grin and the world was exposed to a graying tooth she had fallen on and killed a couple of weeks before. We were so close to the ideal photo situation, but were derailed by that one little dental hitch.

When I flip through photo albums, I can find plenty of just-woken drugged-up looking pics. Others were snapped with Chris in the crib wearing a surprised expression that made it appear we shackled her in jail. And then there are the impromptu snaps I snuck while she chewed on her toes like a wild animal. None of those are wall-worthy, but they all serve their future blackmail purpose.

But when I actually spend money to take a special photo, I want it to be one that people ooh and ahh over; one that makes us look like the type of family that actually has it all together, even if that’s usually pretty far from the truth.

What I usually end up with is a new psychiatrist’s referral, a hoarse voice from yelling and pit stains from stress.

What a beautiful picture!
Just ignore the tooth area.

When I see those beautiful, plaid Christmas dresses I always buy them thinking, “This is the year we’re are going to get one of those pictures that look like they came right out of a portrait studio catalogue.” But my best plans are always dashed by something. It makes me want to yell out to everyone I see, “I promise! She looked fantastic before we left the house! I swear! You should have seen it!”

So I give up. From now on I plan to play to our strengths – constant chaos. This year I’m just going to go with the flow and I figure if I set out to take an intentionally crazy Christmas photo I will either get one hilarious card, or the law of opposites will work in my favor and I’ll finally achieve the holy grail of beautiful Christmas pictures.

It’s all set to go down this afternoon. This weekend I dug out the fancy camera bought to creating lasting memories but instead ended up gathering dust in a corner of the closet, and practiced up on lighting techniques. I’ve purchased cute outfits and accessories and have actually cleaned up around here in an effort to create a backdrop not filled with junk.

All I can say is wish us luck.

Yum, toes! I think this may be the high school graduation picture.

Would have been a great summer picture except for the "duh" face and the upside down glasses.

See what I mean. We jailed her as we do with all our 4-month-olds.

How To Dress For the Attention You Probably Won't Get

2012-11-26T12:21:00.001-08:00

I know you don't care, but this is how you do pretty shoes.

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I spent a day home from school and work babysitting a friend’s 3-year-old son. Despite the fact that he is three years her junior, Chris shot out of bed that morning and informed me she was going to wear a dress because she “wanted to look nice for Landon.” I know it’s fruitless to argue with her when she has the perfect outfit designed in her head - snowboots in August and tank tops at Christmas Eve dinner are the norm if she is out to impress someone.

Dressing up. As usual.

I texted my friend with the news that my daughter was already honing her skills of dressing for young men who probably won’t even notice. I hope Chris is prepared for the future of agonizing over her closet for the perfect date-night outfit when pretty much anything, including hole-ly sweatpants, is as good as the next thing.

I don’t really think it is the fault of the male sex that they don’t notice our attire, no matter how many sequins my mother thinks are necessary. Fortunately clothes aren’t the most important thing to everybody on the planet, especially boys who may only realize they’re wearing clothes when their mothers are yelling at them for covering them with dirt and holes.

I do believe, though, that for some girls an obsession with fashion is ingrained in our DNA. It’s possible Chris caught the fashion bug from me. But although I do like to clean myself up now and then I’ve never been known as the snappiest dresser on the planet. In Chris’ case, I believe her desire to dress up is only part Disney Channel advertising influence, and a larger part genetics.

I distinctly remember my niece Riley when she was about Chris’ age coming for a visit and talking me into taking her and my nephew shopping. While my nephew gravitated instantly towards a Spider Man t-shirt and shorts that could take a bit of rough-housing, my niece instead begged for the frilliest dress in the store. I tried to steer her towards a “play” outfit, but much like Chris my niece was able to hypnotize me with glitter until I whipped out my wallet and bought her that stinking dress.

Frilly skirt and glittery shoes and
you will get a high-wattage smile.

Once the fabric slipped over her head, Riley proceeded to twirl in front of everyone in the house and asked, “Don’t I look pretty?” Of course, everyone agreed. How could one not when it comes to a six-year-old in a fancy dress that lights up her face?

Well I could. Kind of.

When the “Don’t I look pretty?” question was asked of me, I stared Riley straight in her eyes and replied, “You look very smart.”

Crickets chirped in the background and her eyes rolled so high they nearly saw the back of her hairdo. Then my niece turned on her heels (the highest kid heels I could stand to purchase, of course) and moved on to the next adult who would fulfill her ego by telling her that her dress was nearly as beautiful as her.

With the right clothes, I will always look this cute.

I sigh every time my daughter asks me the same question. I sigh because I know that no matter how much I want to instill in her a self-confidence that doesn’t rely on a dress size or clear skin or flowing golden hair, shopping will drive those things far from her mind. She may not want to turn into a simpering idiot every time a cute boy comes around, but I can almost guarantee she will run to her room and throw on a more attractive outfit if she sees that cute boy nearby.

So back to Landon.

When he and his mother entered our house a couple of weeks ago, Chris could barely contain her excitement at showing off her new Hello Kitty dress. She preened in her chair at the breakfast table and batted her eyes as she asked him, “Do you like my dress?”

True to form, Landon chewed his pancakes thoughtfully as he looked her up and down. Then quietly came the answer, “Can we go to the park?”

What can you expect from a 3-year-old? Or I guess any man?

Don’t worry, Chris didn’t seem disappointed. She will just wear a more glittery dress next time.

The ultimate dress-up.

Get to Work!

2012-11-14T03:52:00.001-08:00

Finally earning her keep.

Chris was hit with the enterprise bug this weekend. According to her father, she had the brilliant idea that she would make bracelets and sell them to strangers passing by on the streets. She set to work feverishly creating a cardboard billboard and cut strings for 15 bracelets, but inevitably she ran out of steam and finished only two of the masterpieces. After all, ‘Drake and Josh’ was on Netflix.

You know how the rest of the story goes. The materials will sit for months, maybe even forever, until someone gets disgusted and throws it all away. That’s when Chris will throw herself on the ground and declare she could have been a bazillionaire if only evil, lazy adults didn't stand in her way.

I suspect her enterprising spirit was awakened last week when Chris’ school decided to have a “Coins for Turkeys” fundraiser in which they asked students to bring in money to help buy Thanksgiving turkeys for the needy. True to her roots, Chris decided everybody needed food for the holidays and went about a quest to find as many coins as possible to donate.

Someday Mommy can retire while Chris
actually earns allowance for something other
than just being cute.

Since most of the coins from the bottom of my purse soon end up in her piggy bank, it was a no-brainer for her to donate her own money for the cause. But problems soon identified themselves when she realized if she donated all her hard-earned allowance, she would have no funds left for much-needed toy shopping.

It’s a conundrum for an only child who has spent most of her life having everything handed to her. It’s a fine line we walk in giving her all the things we always wished for as a child, and trying to teach her about compassion, independence and the value of manual labor.

Although her father and I have talked extensively about the fact that we want her to have a job as a teenager so she can learn to save and pay for the things she really wants, this past weekend has me thinking a lot about the logistics of the whole thing. City life is vastly different than where he and I grew up as teenagers and in what is technically a completely different century.

She can’t walk home late at night like I did after a shift at the pizza restaurant, despite the fact that she is certain she will karate chop anyone who tries to hurt her. Mind you, this feat will be attained without one single karate lesson because she’s just that good. But in a big, bad city sometimes it’s not good for young girls to walk alone at any time of the day, even if you are a ninja in your own mind. And forget about a bus in the middle of the night – you know what kind of people are on the bus at midnight! (Haven’t you learned yet that I’m a continual stereotyper?)

So this leads us to either getting off the couch at very inconvenient times to deal with Chris’ work schedule in order to teach her about the value of promptness, or buying her a car of her own. Somehow I think this defeats the purpose of getting a job in the first place.

I don’t know why I’m so focused on it all right now since we have a good 8 to 10 years before it all becomes a serious issue, but pretty soon she’ll age out of the “ask Santa for it” stage and move into the “you will have to save up your allowance for it if you want it that bad” stage. Right now she only earns a dime every time she remembers to feed and water the dogs - which let me tell you must be supplemented or we’d be on a first-name basis with animal cruelty police. This doesn’t cut it anymore past the Coins for Turkey’s stage because there’s nothing left over for fun.

Chris is slowly starting to realize that just because they feel heavier and you have more of them in your hand, nickels aren’t necessarily as great as quarters or even dollars. Already it’s turning into a negotiation to fork out more of the real, cold, hard cash for chores she has to be nagged incessantly to perform.

I promise I didn't make her do this. She was one
of those weird babies who liked to clean.

Sometimes even when she does scrimp and save, the money mysteriously disappears. Sometimes it’s stuck at the bottom of the gumball machine with gumballs that are probably 18 months old. Sometimes I’m pretty sure the tooth fairy has to “borrow” funds from it whenever Chris loses a tooth because she hasn’t had time to go to the bank either and isn’t it all about the excitement of the dollar, not where that dollar has come from? That’s what I tell myself at 3 a.m.

The lack of funds is why, I suspect, that Chris has decided she needs enter the jewelry-making business. Her crudely-made beads on a string come at the low, low cost of $1 each. And the overhead, I’m certain, was covered by Daddy who was happy to have his kid involved in a craft that lasted all afternoon long. So it’s all pure profit!

Now the problem is that she assumes the world will be clamoring to beat down her door for the pleasure of owning one of her priceless designs. I asked her if she would be sad if no one that she asked wanted to buy what she was selling. After all, think how many people ask us outside the grocery store if we want to buy something and sometimes even when we do want it, we still have to say no.

Chris looked at me incredulously.

“Why wouldn’t my friends and family and everyone who knows me want to buy one of these? They are awesome!” she said.

Spoken like a true spoiled only child.

If you add feet, it looks like you have more money.

Yay! I'm not an embarrassment!

2012-11-04T07:07:00.002-08:00

To 'bee' honest, Chris is currently excited about our theme Halloween.

The back of the package of striped Halloween tights reads, “One size fits all.” I’m here to tell you this is not true. One size does not fit all – unless your all is a size 6.

Nevertheless, I struggled and strained and mostly sweated trying to pull those lying tights on to ready myself for Chris’ school’s “Fall Spooktacular” the other night. And let me tell you, when you’re sweating, those tights have an even more remote chance of truly becoming ‘one size fits all’.

I have to admit, I said a few bad words while trying to dress that night. Then I threw the stupid tights across the stupid room and yelled that I might as well just wear stupid regular clothes if I had to go to this stupid Halloween party.

You would have thought I casually mentioned that I was going to blow up a small country. The outcry was immediate, and I have to say a little flattering.

“Nooooooo!” Chris cried in horror. “You HAVE to wear your costume! I already told all my friends that you are the queen! They’ll think I’m a liar!”

Yes, I was the Queen Bee for Halloween this year. Chris was my little honey bee and the two dogs were our little worker bees. Grandma kept us all in line as our beekeeper.

But I digress.

Right now Chris is thrilled this photo is on my desk at work.

The point is that my child was incredibly upset at the thought that I might don regular, everyday, normal clothes in front of her peers. Get it? She was not upset that I was wearing a costume in public. She was upset that I might NOT wear a costume.

Somehow I pictured this inevitable conversation about my wardrobe going in a completely different direction. So far, miraculously, Chris does not appear to be embarrassed by me and my sometimes unconventional clothing choices – like the animal print my brother swears covers nearly half my closet. Like most six-year-olds Chris proudly points out, “That’s my mom” to strangers from across a crowded room. Even the good-looking strangers she meets on days when I have big pimples and a bloated stomach.

Almost on a daily basis she begs me to allow her to invite her friends over. Really! She doesn’t even cringe that I’m ‘so lame’ when I tell her friends they can help decorate cookies or when I try to snap pictures of them playing Barbies together.

She eagerly points out the family pictures of us all in Renaissance Festival gear instead of ushering them immediately to her room. She even tells her unsuspecting guests excitedly that said room was decorated in surprise for her and isn’t it sooooooo beautiful? Not that isn’t it soooooooo dumb and what were her parents thinking?

Not long ago, I had to laugh as I discovered Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” on Chris’ Disney CD that she forces me to listen to in the car pretty much every time we leave the driveway. I turned up the stereo and sang along to all the words I remembered a friend singing back in our single days when we regularly did karaoke. I refrained from the dance moves ol’ Britney did in her ground-breaking video – partly because I didn’t have the proper space in the front seat of the car and partly because I’m not smooth enough to move that way anyway.

I am THIS cool right now.

But the point is, Chris didn’t beg me to turn down the stereo or try to shrink down in her car booster seat at the thought that neighboring drivers might catch a glimpse of me. And she didn’t think my uncool was showing either! I swear her voice was tinged with awe when she asked how I knew the words to that song and could I teach them to her.

It’s amazing to me because I’m currently so old that I don’t recall the early days of my childhood when I might have actually been proud of my family. I only remember the days when I wished to sink directly into the floor when encountering a fellow family member and didn’t know most of my friends were equally ashamed of their own families.

Right now, Chris doesn’t seem to care that I’m not the youngest or thinnest mother on the block. Right now, she doesn’t seem bothered by our familial quirks and eccentricities that make us, uhhh, unique. Right now, Chris is so thrilled by visits from her cousin even that she told me it makes her shy and she has to hide behind my butt.

I’m not naive enough to think this admiration of her extended family will continue forever. One day, we are going to wake up and Chris will sneer at my comfy jammies and roll her eyes in disgust at my annoying habit of decorating the downstairs bathroom in holiday themes. There will come a day when she will swear up and down to perfect strangers that she has no idea who that old lady is waving from her car as I call out to her and wipe away a tear of nostalgia for the old days when I was a goddess in her eyes.

In light of the crazy skeletons in our closet, I anticipate that Chris’ opinion of me is going to be changing very soon. I know this like I know that when she glimpses me during her dance recital she will scream ‘Mommy!’ and knock down three other children while running to hug me as if I’m Justin Bieber. Yeah, I’m that cool right now.

So for now, I will struggle with stupid Halloween tights because that’s what Chris wants and she is still thrilled that someone who loves her showed up to represent.

When the day comes that she no longer wants to admit I gave birth to her and that physically she can’t deny our lineage, I will still struggle to wear those stupid Halloween tights because that’s when it will become fun for me. I’m already planning my wardrobe for maximum embarrassment.

The day will come when you will wonder why I can't take a normal picture. Or BE normal.

Don't yell it out. Write it out.

2012-10-29T10:06:00.002-07:00

These little hands will grow to write some funny, funny things. Not always on purpose.

As you may have gathered, our house is currently filled with females, save for one male dog who is obviously confused since he acts as if he is part cat and part goat. This means there are plenty of dresses, doll excitable giggling as our constant companions.

As you can also imagine, this means we are subject to a lot of emotional bickering amongst one another as girls have been known to do.

Yesterday after a failed bike ride due to a flat tire, we spent a long walk home sniping at each other. To demonstrate her anger, Chris reached into her pain purse and pulled out the phrase she often uses when she wants to show just how horrible I am: “I wish you weren’t my mom.”

You would be proud of me. Instead of retaliating like my grade-school heart wanted, I clenched my fists and spat out the ultra lame retort, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

We stomped home and slammed the doors to our respective bedrooms, Chris to pout and me to take an angry and exhilarating shower. Before I finished bathing and fuming, though, Chris appeared and told me she left a little something for me in my towel. I had visions of broken glass or poison or some equally evil item.

I was surprised to find, instead, a heart-shaped cut-out. I was even more surprised to read it and find that it was not a letter of apology, and was more than a little impressed at a six-year-old’s use of sarcasm when it read, “I am sorry Mommy that I heart you.” Wow. Pretty savvy to admit that ‘I’m sorry I ever loved you as you have thrown me into the depths of despair’.

So imagine my surprise when she threw her arms around me in a hug and kissed me on the cheek. Twist the dagger a little more, why don’t you?

I must have looked confused since Chris then took the note from me and read it aloud. “I am sorry Mommy that I hurt you.”

Oooooohhhhh, that makes more sense. And it makes me feel better.

“I’m sorry I yelled too,” I told her, laughing, and as nicely as possible told her that she had spelled out heart instead of hurt and it was unintentionally funny. Phew!
The instance did remind me that Chris has already learned that sometimes it’s good to write out her feelings. And sometimes it’s pretty hilarious, especially because she’s so earnest about her subjects.

This was a three-page card! Note that once again Chris
and I are both wearing crowns. Some kind of theme here.

I recall that one of my favorite bits of her kindergarten homework was one in which Chris was asked to create her own planet. Her description read like this, “This is my planet Isabella. It is made of glitter and feathers.” It was accompanied by a shiny pink orb with rays of happiness emanating from it. What else can you expect from such a girlie girl?

My favorite note to date, though, was delivered to me by a haughty child when I returned from work one night last year. I had skipped most of the morning of work that day to attend a vocal concert at Chris’ school but slaved the afternoon away shoving eight hours of work into a five hour day. But during the morning I watched her with pride from across a gym filled with about 200 parents and kids. I laughed as she grinned a toothless smile, bounced her curly pig tails and waved at me no less than 30 times.

After her portion of the concert was over and her class sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the stage for endless announcements, I took my queue from other parents and snuck out the door. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do since I received the following note at the end of the day. I will translate for you with slightly better spelling and punctuation, but please note that for a kindergartner Chris was already accomplished at making a serious situation a hilarious read for her mother.

“To Mom from Chris Brown,” (in case I forgot which of my only children might be writing). “When you were at the concert, I cried because you left without doing anything to me.”

Her later explanation told me that I left her school without telling her goodbye, because my 30 waves from the audience weren’t quite enough. When she cried all the way back to her classroom that I cared more about my job than my own child, her teacher told Chris to draw a picture about what she was feeling. I especially love how the picture depicts her (labeled ‘me’) with a frowny face and tears. It also shows me (labeled ‘Mom’) underneath a smiley sun, a huge grin plastered on my face and my arms raised as if to say, “Yes! I can finally go to work as I have dreamed about all morning instead of spending time with my kid!”

Chris "Kride". Mommy Laughed.

Her father, grandparents, extended family, friends, Santa and even teachers have been on the receiving end of one of Chris’ notes of love/anger/irritation/congratulations/etc. at one time or another. Fortunately for all of us, they have often been unintentionally funny and worthy of recording for future laughs. I am doing my best to continue to antagonize her so that I will have a novel full of hilarity with which to torture her in her teen years. After all, she deserves to feel the dagger at one time or another too, and I plan to make title my dagger ‘Embarrassment’.

"Dear Mom. I love you because you olwas make me dinr. And you prite. Love Chris"
Translation: "Dear Mom. I love you because you always make me dinner. And you are incredibly, awe-strikingly, so very gorgeous."

Holiday Happenings

2012-10-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm here! Bring on the holidays!

It was just about this time last year when Chris, Grandma and I were taking a walk in the “cool” fall weather, which in Phoenix means mid-80s, to look at Halloween decorations. Among the blow-up ghosts and witches who can’t fly straight, we ran across a neighbor who had a fake skeleton half-buried in their yard. Chris stopped in her tracks and said, “That is literry a whole skeleton.”

“Don’t you mean ‘literally’?” I asked. I explained to her that litter is trash and that literal is probably the correct word she was looking for, although maybe the bones were trash that someone just threw on the ground.

For my English lesson, I received a haughty stare that clearly said I know nothing at all. Then Chris flipped her ponytail and said in the iciest voice she could muster, “You are littery driving me crazy.” When Grandma and I started to laugh, she stopped again in her tracks and reminded us that, “It’s not nice to mock kids, you know!”

As a side note, I think it was just luck that she got the usage right, because like most Americans she uses the word “littery” literally all the time, even in the wrong exaggerated context. Often, it’s when she claps her hands, jumps up and down and says she “littery” can’t wait for the holidays. OK, I admit that she says literally now like a grown-up kid. But it doesn’t change the fact that we are starting to gear up for all the wonderful holidays.

Miss Piggy Meets Tinkerbell (AKA Mommy & Chris)

First comes Halloween, of course, where Chris will tell me no less than four times that THAT is the house where the boys scared her two years ago. “And,” she will rant, “What kind of teenager would try to scare a little kid? They are not nice boys.” But she will get over it as soon as that candy is in her bucket.

Soon, we will head into Thanksgiving and the house will be packed with hand-shaped turkey pictures. Least year our Thanksgiving motto was brought home from kindergarten by Chris. As we walked by frozen turkeys at the grocery store she looked at me seriously and said, “My friend Maddie told me that you smack a turkey on the butt. I told her that’s not nice. You’re not supposed to smack people…..Or turkeys.”

I don’t really know what Maddie meant, but from here on out whenever the turkey comes out of the refrigerator on its way to the oven, it should expect a big ol’ smack on the hindquarters.

Ready for 'Chris'-tmas

In our tryptophan haze we will head directly into the Christmas season. For a good three or four years, our only child was certain that Christmas was a holiday created specifically for her. After all, try as we might we couldn’t convince her that there is a ‘T’ in ‘Chris’mas. And she does have the most presents of anyone under the tree. Now is the age when she finally is starting to understand the true meaning of Christmas and is very excited to get to that story about the baby Jesus in her children’s bible.

Meanwhile, she isn’t ready to give up her childhood dreams of Santa Claus. When discussing the tooth fairy (who had to make an emergency visit and was probably glad to give up four heavy, slightly lint-covered quarters instead of a crisp dollar bill), she told me that she’s not quite sure she believes in things like that anymore.

Those were her exact words: “Mom, I’m not quite sure I believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus or anything like that anymore.”

When I asked her why, she offered the dreaded explanation that she’s “heard things” at school and on TV. She tried to trip me up by asking what I believe in, but I stood firm, telling her I still believe in all the wonderful holiday mascots – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and all the rest. I did have to dance a little when she asked me about ghosts and witches and turkeys and I don’t think she believed my concession that I just believe in the good ones that are nice to kids. In fact, I think she was already, sadly, pretty skeptical about the whole holiday situation.

She was quiet for a while and I assumed she was trying to come to some sort of decision about how she would react to holidays in the future. She knows, deep down, that they’re not real but she isn’t ready to give up the magic quite yet.

After a while, she sighed and said again, “Hmmmm, I’m just not sure what I believe anymore. But, I’m just going to forget about it for a while. At least until Christmas is over.”

She’s no dummy, that kid.

Bring the presents and nothing changes. Yet.

Lies. All Lies.

2012-10-15T12:28:00.001-07:00

"Belle, do you know what it means when you point your middle finger at someone?"
"No, I'm sorry sweetheart. Princesses don't talk of such things."

As a single mother, my mornings usually resemble a marathon run at a break-neck pace from the bed to the office desk. They usually start with calisthenics at 4 a.m., which consists of hurdles jumped over dogs desperate for the back yard, stretches from trying on eight different outfits to find the least-fattening attire, and vocal stair-mastering in which I run up the steps no less than three times to yell at the kid to get out of bed.

It’s no wonder that last Friday, as usual, I had no choice but to blast the air conditioning full blast on our short drive to school. Even in the 6 a.m. dark, I could feel two big blue eyes observing me.

“Mommy,” she finally says. “Why are you always so sweaty every morning?”

My voice vibrates from pressing my face as close to the AC vent as possible while still keeping one eye on the morning traffic. I answer, “Probably because I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

“What does that mean? Chicken with its head cut off?” Chris asks.

“Oh, you know the chickens on the farm? When they chop……..”

Uh oh. Wouldn’t you know. For once she is actually listening closely to my words. Being a city kid such things are not a matter of course and she honestly has no idea what it means.

I frantically wonder if I should really be telling a 6-year-old how nuggets are created? I have a feeling she would be the type of kid who would then refuse meat on principle alone, and I know her tastes mean a vegetarian lifestyle would consist of black beans and Sunny D.

I don’t want to have this conversation ever - let alone at 6 a.m. So, two hours into the morning, I tell my first lie of the day (unless you count the one I tell myself about exercise).

“I don’t know why they say that,” I backtrack. “I guess it’s just one of those weird things that people say and nobody knows why.”

I add a quick plea in my mind, “please, please, please let it go.”

Tattoos are taboo.

It’s not that I want to lie to my kid. Call it the desire to preserve childhood innocence. Or blame my inability to stare confrontation in the face without stuttering or breaking down in tears. Whatever the reason I find myself lying to her a lot.

Often my lies revolve around money and me telling Chris that we don’t have enough of it to go out to a restaurant for supper or to buy her the newest toy. Sometimes it’s true. Sometimes it’s not. It never stops her from asking exactly how much money I do have in my wallet so she can calculate on her own and me screaming at her to leave my purse alone. I can see no earthly reason why a grade-schooler should know how much money I make and when that paycheck lands in my checking account unless she’s going to take over my car payment.

Most recently Chris has exasperated me with her nearly daily request to know what the middle finger means when you point it at someone. If she had been paying close attention she might have deduced the meaning from the time that one guy cut me off on the freeway. That day she must have been oblivious to me like most of the others. She has since begun trying to break me down with consistent begging to know the gesture’s origin.

My answer of, “It’s something very, very bad that even I’m not supposed to say and you should never, ever do that to someone,” only seems to fuel her curiosity.

“But what does it really mean?” she pleads. Then she gasps. “Does it mean poop? Or stupid? Idiot? Oh no. Is it …is it…butt?” she asks and covers her mouth.

“No, it’s worse than all of those,” I tell her. “It’s so bad that we never, ever say it.”

I feel a little like a Hogwarts teacher.

We'll have to have the big talk before this happens.

I always hoped for a smart child and by most accounts so far I have gotten my wish. But I guess since I’m not as smart, I never thought about the practical side to a child’s intelligence. She doesn’t ask why the sky is blue, but rather focuses on all the difficult matters that shouldn’t be on a first-grader’s agenda.

It didn’t take long before I could no longer lie to her and tell her that, sorry, Hannah Montana isn’t on TV right now because it’s not on the TV listing. Now that she can read and run the remote control herself, and is allowed out in public with her peers, the questions are coming faster and faster.

Thinking about all the things I DON’T want to tell my kid about wears me out.

I believe the whole “where do babies come from?” conversation won’t be played off easily with the stork theory. We have discussed at length why she must stay where I can always see her, but I dread the day she wonders just what could happen to her if a stranger snatched her. Having conversations about important issues like abstinence and racism gives me a headache.

I can just imagine the endless streams of “why” that will follow when I try to bumble out an answer to any of life’s serious issues.

I’m sure I’m not the only one stuck with this problem. So here is my business proposal for someone who is not as faint of heart as me. If someone has acceptable answers to a child’s uncomfortable questions I believe he could have a lucrative career by being on-call – at usually the most inconvenient times - when those questions arise. I guess it would be like those people hired out by large corporations to fly around the country laying people off. It’s the delivery and the readiness in which the explanation is accepted by said child that really makes all the difference.

I will need said services very soon as I am fairly certain that Chris’ middle finger will be exercised in the hopes that someone else will tell her what it means, since I’m obviously trying to put one over on her. She’s on to my lies.

But what does it mean?

Dashed High Society Dreams

2012-10-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Won't ever wear it. Might as well eat it.

If you had asked me right up until the time I found out the news, I would have sworn up and down I was having a baby boy. But when the doctor confirmed (99.9% - but don't sue me if you buy the wrong clothes) that Chris was going to be a girl, I immediately switched gears and started imagining all the joys a little lady would bring. I say little lady because, much like Kate Middleton's mother, it took nanoseconds for me to shift my childhood dreams onto my daughter. I was already planning our alignment with the royal family.
But I’ve come to the harsh realization that it’s just no use.

You see, we come from a very long line of people who, try as we might, always end up quite the opposite of royalty. Translation: we have very little class. Second translation: we can’t help it, we love our fart humor. Yeah, we’re a lot like teenage frat boys around this place and giggle about who is the loudest or stinkiest. Spoiler alert: it’s not me.

I suppose I should blame myself that Chris didn’t break the uncouth cycle. I have never seen a baby nearly as gassy as she was. I didn’t understand that a farty baby is a happy baby because if that bubble of gas is stuck inside it causes baby intense pain and makes baby scream bloody murder.

But Chris was clearly a happy baby and earned herself the nickname “Toots McTooty Pants.” She knew instinctively she had to get it all out. And she learned quickly that if it’s accompanied by a funny face, or is done at the most inconvenient time around company I want to impress, adults can’t do much but laugh about it.

Guess what I probably just did.

She also learned that the heaviest diapers earned the loudest, ‘Whooooo wheeeee!” and kicked her little baby legs in glee whenever she met the mark. I do have to say that some of the fascination with excavation is the fault of pediatricians who made us keep a diary of what time she pooped, how much she pooped, what the poop looked like, what she ate to make her poop, etc. New parents have no choice but to constantly talk about pants contents and, if you’re cool like us, joke about it.

I will never, ever, in a million years, forget the screaming phone call I made to her father in which I had to tell him Chris had “dropped the kids off at the pool” during her bath time. Then screamed some more when I had to scoop out the floatie to flush it, then give her a second bath because she had bathed in poop water.

The laughter backfired on us a few times. Early on at preschool we had to have “a little meeting” with the school administrator about how Chris kept trying to cause a ruckus by blurting out “poop” and “fart”. We had to drop the hammer quickly and declare all those words “bathroom words” that are only allowed to be used in the restroom. Lots of running to the loo with yelling out disgusting words immediately ensued.

It wasn’t long before Chris began to try to lure me into the bathroom so she could shock me with her vocabulary. Recently she asked me to step inside and take a deep breath, promising that it smelled “fresh and clean.” I, in my stupidity, tentatively checked it out only to have my nose hairs confirm what I should have known was a trick. I yelled, “Oh my God! It smells like something died!”

“I’ll tell you what died,” she countered. “My dignity. That’s what died.”

Of course, she had no idea what dignity meant. She simply heard the phrase on TV and figured it must apply in this case. But I agree, there is no dignity in trying to kill your very own mother via gaseous poisoning.

The onesie says it all. Poops. I did it again.

Her bathroom humor isn’t always intentional. Sometimes it’s the most innocent remarks that are the most hilarious.

One morning, when Chris was around 3 years old, she crawled into the warm space beside me. She snuggled up, sighed horrible morning breath in my face, and admitted in a weary voice, “Mom. I have butt crust.”

I wasn’t familiar with the term but tried to maintain composure.

“Uh, do you think maybe you didn’t wipe very well last time you went potty?” I asked.

She seemed to consider this for a few moments and conceded that maybe “we” should go check.

Still half asleep, I followed her to the bathroom where she proceeded to pull down her pajama bottoms, bend over and spread her cheeks with both hands. Trust me. This is definitely not the first thing you want to see in the morning. I still have nightmares.

Turning away I handed her some toilet paper and told her to wipe again, frantically trying to make an escape. Alas, she followed me out of the bathroom with the toilet paper in her hand to prove to me that she missed nothing while wiping. I agreed there was nothing there and I’m afraid I yelled for her to get it out of my face and into the toilet.

Ignoring my disgust, she stared at the toilet paper in wonder for a few seconds. Finally, a light bulb must have gone off.

“Ohhh! That must be because it’s magic butt crust. When you can’t see it, it’s magic.”

Yes, our bathroom antics are simply magical! Cue the fairy music and glittery dust.

I wish I could blame her father for the fact that Chris will probably never rise above her common roots. He does have a lot of friends who enjoy crude humor when they get together. Or probably any other waking moment because like attracts like, right?

I do have to take responsibility for a big portion of it though, and blame the failure mostly on my own crude roots. My grandfathers on both sides of the family loved to sing, “Beans, beans the musical fruit! The more you eat the more you toot! The more you toot the better you feel! So let’s have beans for every meal!” And we do like those beans.

But I will say that I realized just a couple of days ago that her father’s influence did seal her fate. The other day I looked at my sweet girl, dressed in a pretty little dress, hair curled just so, eagerly helping me make supper. Suddenly she dropped the stirring spoon and announced, “If you’ll excuse me. I gotta go hit the can.”

Yep, I doubt her crowned photo will ever grace a postage stamp.

Yet another crown we will never wear for reals.

Why We Can't Eat At McDonalds

2012-09-24T15:12:00.001-07:00

Trust me. You don't want to find this in your cart.

After 40-plus years, my mother recently revealed that my grandmother was a pioneer in the kid-harnessing industry. It seems inspiration hit during one trying shopping trip at the old Woolworth’s store where my mother “played tag” by circling a table just out of grandma’s reach. Once mom was caught, grandma marched back to the pet department and bought a dog harness and leash to keep mother from running off again. It got to be such a habit when they were going out that mom would always put the harness on, much like a dog will gladly go get its leash when it’s time to go for a walk.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the idea of strapping a leash onto your kid, I can certainly understand the reason behind it. Here’s how our own shopping trips usually go:

“Chris put that down. Chris hold my hand. Chris stay where I can see you. Chris we don’t need a chainsaw. Chris let’s go. Chris you can’t have a guinea pig. Chris use your inside voice. Chris don’t hit that little old lady with the cart. Chris if you want that you should put it on your list to Santa. Chris we don’t say grown up words like that! Chris stay with me.”

You get the picture. Instead of perusing my coupons I spend the entire time trying not to pull out my hair.

I want this. And this. And this. And this.

It was cute when she was really little. My aunt loves the story where Chris was riding in the cart and filled it up by grabbing things right and left off the shelves. When I asked what she was doing her reply was matter of fact: “It’s OK mommy. It’s on sale.”

It was easy back then to put everything back and appease her with a baggie of Raisinettes (there are healthy raisins under that chocolate – see I AM a good parent!). Once she got so big I couldn’t carry her anymore and she started running away from me much like my mother did back in the 50s, I seriously considered a trip to the pet store.

One memorable trip to Marshalls left me red-faced and apologizing to random strangers on the way out the door. Strolling through the after-Christmas aisle Chris spotted a lone package of Christmas cookies that she decided she must have. Yes, she was the demon screaming “I want the cookies” and hitting and kicking me as I bypassed a line of no less than 100 post-Christmas sale shoppers.

When you see the Willy Wonka character Veruca Salt sing her little ditty, “If I don’t get the things I am after, I’m going to SCREAM!” you have the perfect vision of Chris’ Marshalls meltdown.

I’m fairly certain that our photo is posted in that store with the words, “Do not admit. Ever. Even if her mother wins the lottery and can buy out the entire store.”

The same goes for one McDonald’s play area where I nearly became stuck like a sausage in the tunnel while trying to drag Chris out a full hour after I started the warnings that it was time to go home. But it’s probably a good excuse when I remind her we’re not allowed to eat that food because they told us never to come back. It’s not a huge stretch because I sprinted out the door with her thrown like a sack of potatoes over my shoulder before the manager could give us the sad news.

If I don't get the candy I will scream!

One time at Kohl’s we narrowly missed a visit with Child Protective Services. See, as we were walking in the door I explained to Chris that she would be required to ride in the cart THE ENTIRE TIME. Immediately the screaming began, so I picked her up, turned around and headed back to the car. I put her back in her car seat while dodging fists and toddler sneakers and explaining in an increasingly louder voice that we would shop when she calmed down.

As I took a deep breath and walked around the car, I noticed a couple of women who had stopped to stare at me, obviously poised to dial 911. I glared back and said, “What? You want to shop in there with her screaming like that?”

They never did call the authorities. I think they realized it wasn’t an abduction or child beating they were witnessing, but that I was instead saving my fellow shoppers from pierced eardrums.

I wish I could say that since Chris is now 6 ½ that she’s grown into an awesome shopper. But it’s simply not true. No, she doesn’t throw herself on the floor in a temper tantrum anymore, but she does do the whiny, “Please, please, please, please, please, (to infinity)” thing while following me around until I want to blow like Mt. Vesuvius.

I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed. It happens to us all. But I do miss those chicken nugget Happy Meals.

Just add candy and a stuffed toy and we can shop. For now.

Ouch! Don't Worry, a Band-Aid Will Fix It!

2012-09-17T16:55:00.001-07:00

Chris falls. We take pictures then help. Stellar parenting.

I made a new friend the other day who told me that all within a span of a few weeks her 3-year-old son swallowed a quarter and required surgery, then broke his arm and needed cast. All I could think was how grateful I am that I don’t have to follow around a boisterous boy all the time, wincing constantly at his daredevil antics. My brothers were like that - the type that tried to see if they could fly by jumping off the garage roof.

Bruises by Mommy.

While Chris is pretty brave and would be happy riding the tallest, fastest roller coaster at the amusement park, she is definitely more girly when it comes to possible pain-inducing playtime. We’ve been very lucky that she’s never been seriously hurt, and the one time she did have to go to the emergency room it was totally my fault. See, I made the major rookie parenting mistake of setting the kid on the counter and letting go for a split second to throw away a diaper, resulting in a sickening thump on the tile floor and a mad dash to the hospital to examine what fortunately turned out to be a bruised cheek.

Believe me when I say, though, that it’s really been sheer luck that we haven’t made more friends in the ER. Chris inherited my grace and had the misfortune of losing her front teeth pretty early compared to the other kids. Turns out she was tripping constantly and kissed the ground quite often. Her father actually had to give her “falling lessons” to teach her how to break the fall with her hands instead of her face.

Until she picked up that little tidbit, Chris’ instability led to the first of many dental visits to examine dying teeth. One the dentist decided to pull when she was three years old, while commenting over and over that it was against his better judgment because she would probably just do the same thing again (she did soon fall and kill the other front tooth, but that’s another story). Frankly, I was thrilled for Chris to lose that tooth because it was so gray that I was afraid people would think we didn’t have the slightest regard for dental hygiene. Sue me, I sometimes care that people might think we’re white trash because we’re loud and use coupons. No need to add more fuel to that fire.

In the end, the dentist said Chris was the best 3-year-old patient he’d ever had. No, I don’t think they say that to ALL the parents. But everyone did agree it was the just about the cutest thing in the world when the dentist numbed Chris’ tooth before pulling and she told him her mouth felt dizzy.

I hope I’m not jinxing us by revealing this, but the lack of broken bones or other major medical issues is not from lack of trying. Not long after Chris had the training wheels taken off her bike she did a total Wayne’s World reenactment. Remember the part where the crazy chick is stalking Wayne while he and Garth are playing street hockey? And while staring at him longingly and saying, “Hi Wayne!” she rides ride into a parked car?

That could have been Chris, only there was no high school crush involved yet, and it was group of trash cans waiting for pickup that jumped in front of her moving bike. A group of teenage boys did give me the slightest hope for future generations by asking if Chris was OK before they burst into a fit of giggles.

THIS one is not Mommy's fault. She's just allergic.

Like most kids, I’m sure Chris does exaggerate her boo boos some times just to get attention. The kid honestly believes a Band-Aid will cure just about anything and has even suggested I apply one to my head when I complain of a headache. I’m not sure why that headache keeps happening when she’s around, I say sarcastically.

Once she fell down and instead of saying “ouch” like a normal child, she told me she hurt her ulna. That was the result of a party game we had played where we tried to name parts of the body that contain four letters and out of the blue Chris blurted out “ULNA!” The room went dead quiet as we all stared at the kid in amazement. So for a long time, she tried to recreate the excitement by dropping the ulna bomb whenever anything was hurt. Until it just wasn’t funny anymore.

I do have to say I believe it was my divine inspiration in signing Chris up for ballet lessons that has led her to stop falling down quite as often. Slowing down to concentrate on dance moves in time with music has given her, thank God, just a little bit more grace.

This may or may not help. But she looks pretty nonetheless.

But we’re not out of the woods yet. I’m sure we will have our share of frantic doctor visits over the years. However, I believe those times will be from lack of coordination rather than Chris pushing the limits like a reckless boy-child.

If and when those days ever come, I can bet that Chris will be the talk of the hospital because she certainly gets her point across no matter what the situation. The other day riding her scooter in the park she fell down and no fewer than three adults rushed over to ask if she was OK. While dusting sand off her knees she said to everyone in general and me in particular, “Does it look like I’m OK?”

A woman watching her grandson play chucked and told me, “I just love her personality.”

“Hmmm, yes, it’s a strong one,” I agreed. “Obviously she didn’t fall on her mouth again.”

Curly Tales

2012-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

This is about as curly as curly can get.

I remember it well. It was almost two years ago during the Christmas season. Chris and I were rushing into the grocery store for supper and for once I had change for her to give to the Salvation Army bell ringer.

Predictably, the African American lady touched Chris’ plethora of curls and couldn’t help commenting on it.

“I’m bi-racial too,” she told me, “but she looks like she could pass for white.”

I hope my response sounded less offensive and more dumbfounded like I felt when I sputtered, “But she is white.”

The woman wasn’t fazed and actually cackled when she replied, “Oh honey! You don’t get hair like that unless you have a little black in you!”

It wasn’t the first or last time someone questioned my child’s racial background, and not the first or last time I questioned if we were the victims of a hospital baby switch. Unfortunately for her Chris is an exact mix of her dad and me, and there weren’t any other 10-pounders in the hospital when she was born, so I’m fairly confident we brought the right kid home.

Still, I actually queried my cousins on Facebook as to whether Grandma had some explaining to do.

Hard to tell. But I was rocking a curly mohawk.

In six years I still haven’t lost my surprise at the inevitable question we always hear, “Is Chris’ dad black?” Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but anybody who knows him would tell you my ex-husband is nearly as far from a person of color as I am. He has a slightly deeper tan than my marshmallow complexion, but that comes from the glow of the computer screen and not from his ethnic heritage.

Frankly, though, I do have proof that Chris’ incredibly curly hair comes from my side of the family. I tried to dig up some pictures of myself as a child, but most of them show my hair as a halo of fuzz because Mom tried to brush the curls out, or in pig tails because Mom said that was the only way to tame it. My sister actually had curlier hair than me but it wasn’t that noticeable because she had the chubbiest cheeks you’ve ever seen. And I tried to find the picture of my brother with an actual ‘fro in high school but we believe he might have stolen the pic and burned it. He calls it the Cork County Curl and blames it on our Irish background (which is actually a couple of generations down the line) and conveniently forgets our non-Irish father had a bit of ‘fro going on himself.

So you’ll have to take my word for it that Chris comes by her hair hereditarily. However, she has more of the curl than anyone else in my family – a fact of which she is not always pleased.

I often find myself recreating my childhood as I try to “style” her hair in the morning, snapping “Stop moving! That doesn’t hurt you!” Alas, I swore I would never say that to my kid like my mean mother did, but I had no way of predicting just how curly her curly hair would be. Indeed, you can’t run a hand through Chris’ hair without having an extraction team on call.

I never did perfect the “Don’t touch me stranger!” look because I was one of those pregnant ladies that gets fat all over and people didn’t know FOR SURE that I was with child and therefore didn’t rub my belly unsolicited. But Chris has the look down pat. She learned the evil eye at an early age because complete strangers find nothing wrong with approaching a child who moves away from them in fear while they reach out with God-knows-what on their hands and yank on her hair.

First ever haircut. Looks
like a different kid.

Even I, myself, have a hard time not playing with her hair while watching TV. With those perfect spirals, it’s so darn tempting to pull on them and make the “sprooooinnnng” noise.

One positive spin to the curl debacle is that it saves us money on haircuts. Because cutting it might just add to the light-socket effect, Chris didn’t have her first haircut until she was almost five years old. That was an hour long process to straighten it just to make sure it was cut evenly at the bottom, although it sprung back to life the second we applied water so I’m not sure why the stylist was concerned with evenness.

But for one whole day, Chris could see how the other, straighter half lives. She spent the day running her fingers longingly through the silky smoothness and flipping it over her shoulders the way we women do when we’ve had our hair styled professionally. Now, she begs and begs to get her hair straightened but I can usually talk her out of it because that was an awfully long time for her to sit still in a chair.

I think after all this time that Chris is starting to embrace her uniqueness and knows not everyone gets called Shirley Temple, Little Orphan Annie or Curly Sue.

In a kindergarten exercise the students were asked to write three things they like about themselves and Chris’ #1 was her hair. I don’t know if it was because that’s the one thing she identifies about herself after being constantly reminded of it, or if she thinks she should like it because people tell her so often how grateful she should be.

Either way, she’s stuck with it. I tell her when she’s 18 she can do whatever she wants with her hair and her life and as a typical girl she can’t wait for that day of freedom. I will always hope, though, that the first thing she does is NOT to make a hair-straightening appointment at the salon.

Started out bald. Then straight. Then the curls just wouldn't stop.