Daring Young Mom

Things I’ve Learned Today:

1. When the sun is shining in The Seattle – in winter – after it’s been raining for 30 days, you’d better run outside and enjoy it.
It ain’t gonna last.

2. I was born to achieve grocery store parking spot super-stardom.
It is my DEN-SITY.

3. I believe in euthanasia for fish…..if Karli performs it.
Karli was over today when I noticed the mamma guppie all a-float. Her lifeless body was freaking me out so I asked Karli to flush it. She performed a tasteful funeral followed by the flushing.

I then surprised myself by begging her to flush the other one too. He’s still alive but he just lost his true love, who was probably bearing his love-children, he hasn’t eaten in days and I don’t want to watch him suffer. (Besides, what if he dies when Karli isn’t over? I am not strong enough to flush another one. I’m definitely not strong enough to save the corpse and take it in for a rebate. That is just too sick.)

Hennison will be sorely missed. Please keep Jack in your prayers. Karli refused to grant his pathetic plea for help.

4. It is patently hilarious when I hold my laptop over my head, whilst screaming like a girl, to keep fat-boy Magoo from smashing it to pieces.

5. If the power lines are on fire, call 9-1-1.
My first instinct was to call Dan and ask him who to call. His first instinct was to say, “Hang up now and dial 9-1-1.” Their first instinct was to say that I had made the right decision, especially considering the power lines were running through a forest… next to a residential neighborhood.

6. Snow White’s princess powers and identity crumble when the gown is in the wash.
My mom called today and said, “Hello Snow White.”

Laylee hung her head and admitted sadly, “No. I’m just a girl.” She was wearing a super-lame t-shirt and pants ensemble at the time. Preschoolers everywhere, ring out your derision.

By meal-time the Snow was back on and she remembered to thank the Giver of all good gifts in her dinner prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for our chili beans and table and paper towels and books and Daddy and Mommy and Magoo and a girl, um…. I mean SNOW WHITE, and our chili beans and mashed potatoes and white sauce and cheese. Jesus Christ Amen.

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Selling things made of horse-shoes…in a booth…at “the mall”
2. Piano Teacher
3. Associate Librarian over a massive media department at a public library
4. Marketing and Sales Coordinator for a digital library company

Four movies I would watch over and over (today’s choices):
1. Not One Less
2. Anne of Green Gables
3. Singin’ in the Rain
4. Gates of Heaven – a doc about a pet cemetary

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Calgary, Alberta
2. Florida Keys
3. Provo, Utah – Go Cougs!
4. Houston, TX

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Les Blogs – probably yours
2. Frugal Reader
3. Gmail
4. IMDB

Four of my favorite fattening foods:
1. Spinach/Artichoke dip
2. Two cheeseburgers at McD’s (yes, I’ve seen Super-Size Me and yes, I always order 2)
3. Nachos & Guac
4. Breast milk – but not for me. This is for fattening up other people.

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. In bed.
2. Cape May, NJ
3. With my mom in her time of need, you heartless rodent hater!
4. On a boat.

Four bloggers I’m tagging (optional, but more fun if you do it!):
Most all of my old-time blogging friends have done this, I think…….

Anyone who has been reading my blog for less than a month, please do the meme thing, tell me you’ve done it and I’ll come check out your site.

Literally. Today I post a poem I wrote as a sophomore in college.

I was always “one of the guys.” Periodically I got sick of “the guys” confiding in me, taking me out on non-dates when actual “girls” had ditched them. Sometimes I developed feelings for these “guys” and then I got dramatic and went through stages of moping.

Stage1: Write a poem.
Stage2: Write a song (actually a line, sometimes only a couple of mournful words, strung together by a chord).
Stage3. Paint an abstract depiction of my feelings.
Stage4. (this stage equals total heartbreak and only happened once) Burn abstract painting in kitchen sink, asphyxiating roomates and leaving black marks on the cabinets.

So the DYM has a whiney, self-pitying, destructive side? Umm…ye-ah!

The touch of a Fool

I know
A fool in love
With a woman
I know

Apologetic, whispering fingers
Reach
To brush my shoulder
A quivering knee creeps to meet mine

He craves the touch,
The truth of me
To remind him of

The woman
I know
He loves

White, that is.

Who knew that with advanced age, your kids would also advance in funniness? And, okay, maybe weirdness.
Laylee has been bedecked in Snow White attire for the past 2 weeks. All day, every day. Nighttimes too. I see no problem with this as long as she’s willing to wear pants under her gown when it’s cold and as long as I can launder it from time to time.

When the shell of her alter-ego is spinning in the evil torture chamber of cleanly death, she frequently checks on it and asks me if it’s done yet.

Me: Go put your hand on the washer and see if it’s still going “Rrrrrrrrrrr.” If it is, Snow White isn’t done yet.
Laylee (leaving and returning a minute later): I think it’s done.
Me: I can hear it going from here. It’s not done.

Laylee then flops to the ground, pretending to sob. I flip the page of my magazine and eat another bon-bon.

Friday night, DYD comes home from work.

DYD: Laylee! Can I have a big hug?
Laylee (turning away with a snooty expression): NO!
DYD: Oh, that’s too bad.
Laylee (turning back with a sly grin): My NAME is Snow White!
DYD: Can I have a big squeezy hug, Snow White?
Laylee: YES!

At the dentist yesterday, we enter the office and the dentist says, “Hello Snow White.”

Laylee turns back to me with her mouth and eyes open HUGE and gives me an astonished look that says, “He knows my NAME!”

We then go out for burgers and stop by the “mini-zoo” (read this – PETCO). Here we pick out new fish, guppies this time. We pick a boy and a girl, thinking it will be a riot to watch them reproduce and have little fishy babies.

Laylee names the daddy fish Jack (of course!) and the mommy fish Hennison (Don’t ask. I have no idea.). She keeps asking when the baby fish will come out. When we get home, she watches a movie with the fishies in close proximity.

We see no action. In fact, they aren’t even eating their food so we may end up taking PETCO up on their Tropical Fish Guarantee. That’s right””if your new pet bites the big one in it’s first 15 days with your family, you can bring the corpse in for a new, live one.

Dan wonders aloud if this guarantee works with the other pets they sell. You walk in, carrying your cat by the tail. “Our new kitty Buster Aloisius McFrick became roadkill last night. Can we please have a replacement?”

Snow White has been cracking jokes left and right. My current favorite is her use of a quote from the movie Cinderella this afternoon.

I was leaving for choir when she came up and asked, “Is that your dress?” flicking my wrap-around skirt open.

Me: Yes it is.
Laylee (with a twinkle in her eye): It looks like a blanket! Would you please hold my BROOM?! (breaking into hysterical laugher) That’s what the stepsister says. It’s so mean! (more laughter)

I don’t mind taking this kind of derision from Snow Laylee because:

A. She’s just experimenting with her sense of humor and comic timing.
B. She is hilarious.
C. She is barely 3.
D. Earlier today we had this conversation:

Laylee: You’re doing a good job coloring Mommy!
Me: Thanks. I like Care Bears.
Laylee: I said ‘You’re doing a good job’ and that was really nice. That’s called encourgent!
Me: Do you mean ‘encouragement’?
Laylee: Yes. I said something nice to you and you’re doing a good job. That’s called encouragement.

One last random bit of dialogue:

Laylee and I are coloring on the floor, concentrating hard on our masterpieces. A Raffi CD is playing quietly in the background.

Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin’ for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin’ for to carry me home

Laylee (laughing but not looking up): He’s TOO BIG!
Me: Who?
Laylee: Raffi. He’s TOO BIG!
Me: Too big for what?
Laylee: He says, “carry me home,” but THEY CAN’T! He’s TOO BIG! I’m little. You can carry me home. SOMEtimes. (shakes her head and laughs, never looking up from her coloring book)

And, finally – Here it is, unstyled and un-product-ed:

Let’s call a truce and dub it a “shag.”

May I direct your attention to – the new girl.

“Why?” you ask.

Okay. I will tell you.

I’m not sure how she found my site but she emailed me with Blogger questions.

When I asked her to send me her URL, she responded that it was www.shutupnoway.blogspot.com .

That was not a joke.

She calls her kids “Thing 1” and “Thing 2.”

She frequently wears a mountian climber’s light, mounted to her forehead.

She has been blogging for approximately 10 minutes.

Check her out.