Today I Got Shot

Posted on March 30, 2007 by The Daring One

Do you ever spend an entire day wearing makeup and hanging out with a man who is not your husband, while your son mistakenly calls him Daddy? Continue reading →

Posted in around town, Blogging | 45 Comments

Daycare?

Posted on March 30, 2007 by The Daring One

Today at Parenting.com, we’re talking about a new study that suggests trouble for kids in day care. Please go over and weigh in on the discussion.

I stay home with my kids but I’m honestly not sure what I’d do with them if I were to go back to work. Half the time I’m not sure what to do with them now.

How do you manage childcare in your family? Share your wisdom with the rest of us.

Posted in childcare, parenting | 8 Comments

Only One

Posted on March 29, 2007 by The Daring One

Getting into the car this afternoon Magoo made a great find of a several week old animal cookie. He immediately stuffed it in his pie hole.

Laylee: Oh MOM! I want a cookie too.
Me: Laylee, it’s a disgusting germ-infested piece of cookie trash.

As she gave me the saddest face I’d ever seen since 2 hours previous, I remembered who I was talking to and responded, “And besides… There was only one.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I wish events like this still sent me silently reaching for my minivan airsick bag but at this point I am unmoved.

Posted in aspirations, driving, food | 12 Comments

Straight Up Now Dan

Posted on March 28, 2007 by The Daring One

Straight up now, tell me do you really wanna love me forever? Wo-oh-oh or am I caught in a hit and run? Straight up now, tell me is it gonna be you and me forever? Oh-oh-oh. Or are you just having fun?

When we were driving around this afternoon my, like, totally favorite Paula Abdul song ever came on the radio and while Magoo and I were rocking out, Laylee was listening to the lyrics.

“Mom? Can you please listen really well to this song and remember all the words so you can sing it to Dad when we get home?”

“Yeppers.”

I’d better do it quick and get to bed. Tomorrow morning I’ve got to get up early for an appointment with my brain professional. We’re back together and I’m moving forward with his happity-pappity pill poppily recommendations. Some people are near-sighted and need glasses. Other people are physically superior in nearly every possible way (a-hem!) but somehow end up needing a gray-matter chemistry set.

Dan met me at my last appointment and I’m glad he did because he didn’t let me downplay the symptoms I’m still having. I tend to think that if I snag a better attitude, all of my problems will just DEES-appear. And I was in a great mood on the way to the doctor’s office.

How could I not have been? I turned on the radio and Boyz II Men were singing. They’d started a group and there they were kickin’ it just. for. me. Dan helped me overcome my Motown Philly-induced euphoria and keep it real with the doctor.

So, yeah. I’ve gotta go sing Dan that song. And maybe Cold Hearted Snake. You have to admit – Paula Abdul had a lot of really great hits in her day.

Posted in around town, brains | 25 Comments

Tip Tuesday — Rock Solid

Posted on March 27, 2007 by The Daring One

Today I offer you some time-honored bits of advice that have served me well in my life. I hope they work for you and if you have some of your own, feel free to share.

1. If none of the boys are worth dating, don’t date em. If none of the food in the house is worth eating, don’t mindlessly stuff your face. If none of your kids are not having a fit of angry bovine proportions, don’t take them shopping.

2. When someone is waking up with a clean pull-up after every nap but the pull-ups are still disappearing from the drawer at a steady rate and you start to notice a strange smell in the family room, check under the crack in the slipcover before the acidic pee of death and destruction claims your couch as its final resting place.

3. Never engage in a fight with your spouse if he is still asleep.

4. When your grocery store checker asks you how things are going, don’t really tell her. Do compliment her on the gold star on her nametag and feel free to make faces behind any irate customer who may be harassing her.

5. If you grow tired of feeding your fish, leave him alone with your husband for two weeks. They will bond and begin speaking to each other in the language of fishy bachelorhoodic solidarity. Your husband will teach the fish tricks and develop a tender feeding routine. You will never need to feed or cuddle your his fish again.

6. Don’t purchase any item of clothing that you don’t feel good about dousing with poop, shredding with craft scissors, rolling in mud, scraping with sand paper, throwing into a vat of chunky yellow vomit, dipping in lighter fluid and then incinerating with a blow-torch. You can postpone taking this advice until you’re ready to start having children.

6. Don’t eat the pigs feet.

Posted in shish, tip tuesday | 15 Comments

I am One With the Dirt

Posted on March 25, 2007 by The Daring One

mudboyWe’re having some guests this Friday so I spent 6 hours on Saturday slogging through the mud in my new rain boots finding worms and pulling the hamstrings in both my legs, a little thing I like to call “yard work.” There is probably at least one worm for every blade of grass in my yard and at least 2 weeds for every worm. We like it wild.

When I went to buy rain boots, I saw some flowers that asked me to please bring them home, which I did. As I was planting them, I found several other half-chewed bulbs lying around the yard. CURSE YOU BAMBI-DEER!

I didn’t plant any of the flowers in my yard last year so I didn’t miss the ones the deer et. I’ve actually been looking around in awe, never knowing what will pop up next.

It’s fun to move into someone else’s landscaping… and scary. Under the tree stump out front is a hollow space. In the hollow space is a mushroom, a giant rock and then a deep cavernous void of slime. I did not reach my hand in there but have spent several minutes imagining what kind of creature could be hibernating under a tree stump in my yard and whether it’s hungry for little boys named Magoo who will most likely try to pull it from its lair by the eyelashes the moment I turn my back.

I bought a power washer. I wash things. Powerfully. I wash moss off my deck, paint off my railing, crud off my driveway, dirt off my flower petals, and petals off my flowers. You should try it some time.

Posted in domesticality | 12 Comments