Aargh

*migraine*

*migraine*

*migraine*

In Case You've Been Getting Lonely

In case you've been missing me the past few days, I've been putting my blogger boot camp training into action on a new blog dedicated to my personalized gift web site, FeeFiFoto.com. Visit me there at: http://feefifoto.typepad.com/feefifoto/. Eventually I'll transition to the new blog exclusively, but for now I'm maintaining two bases until I can get this place painted and on the market.

My House Is A Shrine To My Family

The Kinder Studio has come up with a way to flatter our kids and recognize their artistic accomplishments in a way any parent can appreciate:

"As parents, we strongly believe that children's art, however crude or fabulous, deserves appreciation. We also know how challenging it can be to show the proper respect for each and every creation while maintaining some semblance of grown-up home decor.

After layers of tattered paintings and drawings threatened to take over our walls, we got the idea to turn our favorites into digital files which could then be reproduced as easy-to-frame prints."

When I bought FeeFiFoto last year I thought it would be fun to sell personalized gifts, but I never anticipated picking up anything for myself because I see my kids all the time anyway. I designed a photo calendar just to see how the site worked, and a photo handbag as a conversation starter, and discovered a warm feeling I hadn't expected from looking at things with pictures of my own kids, similar to the feeling I get when I hear the greeting my daughter recorded on our voice mail.

Turns out that the personalized photo items mesh well with my home decor theme of "shrine to my children." I've framed drawings and paintings; I even framed the papers on which each of them first printed their own names. Nearly every room in our home is decorated with:

a pastel,

a self portrait,


or a map of the United States my son drew free hand from memory in thefourth grade. No kidding -- by the time they finish sixth grade kids at his school map the entire world from memory.

Here's one more just for fun. Can you figure out who this person is? Take a guess, and then click on her to see if you're right. Go ahead -- I'll wait.

My most unusual mementos/artworks, are each kid's first Jack O'Lantern. It might sound peculiar but actually it was ridiculously simple although, admittedly, inadvertent. After my son's first Halloween I couldn't stand throwing away that cute little pumpkin with his lopsided smile, so I popped it in the freezer and forgot about it. Nine months later I found it to be almost entirely freeze dried; I put the pumpkin in a very low oven, turned the oven off and left the pumpkin in there overnight. The next morning the little fella was dry and firm. I did the same thing for my daughter's first pumpkin, and they both occupy a place of honor in the dining room.

At Least It Tires Her Out

Setting:

Scene 1: Autumn, one acre property entered via steep, 180 foot driveway
Scene 2: Autumn, interior

Set Decoration:
Well over two hundred (200) trees

Cast of Characters:
One (1) Mom (hereinafter referred to as "Mom"), one (1) medium sized puppy (hereinafter referred to as "Pup")

Props:
One (1) push broom

Costumes:
One (1) belt, one (1) six foot (6') leash

SCENE 1:
Leaves fall from trees, forming a creeping glacier of leafage all the way down the driveway.

Mom: "Hey Pup! Let's go clear the driveway."

Pup: "Arf!"

Mom attaches leash (see above) to Pup's collar, threads leash handle through belt and puts on belt. Pup and Mom are now literally joined at the hip. Mom picks up broom and begins gathering leaves from corners of the driveway and pushing them in piles down toward the street.

Pup, meanwhile, trots in circles around Mom, tangling Mom and broom in leash.

Mom: "Watch out, pup."

Pup: "Yarp!"

Mom continues to clear a path on the driveway, pushing more piles of leafage toward curb. Pup trots along beside broom, hopping in and out of leaf piles and scattering leaves.

Mom: "Cool it!"

Pup: "Rowf!"

Mom continues sweeping leaves, as Pup prospects in leaf stacks for interesting sticks and treasures.

Mom: "You're not making this any easier."

Pup: "Woof!"


Scene 2:
Mom in bathtub, Pup in personalized puppy enclosure.

Mom: "Aahhh."

Pup: *sigh*

Sure The Kids Are Cute, But Have You Seen Our Dog?

Cute puppy, huh? I carry a small clutch made by FeeFiFoto that has a picture of our dog, a Tibetan Terrier
named Violet, on each side. My kids are cute too, but I hesitate to put their photos on a purse, not only for security reasons but also for reasons of practicality. First, the kids will change: teeth are lost and replaced, hair is shorter or longer, fashions evolve. Not that I carry the same handbag year after year, but if I put the kids' picture on a purse it'll obsolesce as soon as I drive it off the parking lot.

The second reason comes from pure public relations. I carry a photo handbag partly to promote FeeFiFoto, and it's astonishing how much attention this puppy purse generates. Especially when Violet's with me, people look at the purse and then at the dog and then back to the
purse and their faces light up. Seems hokey, but the joint appearance of the dog and the purse with a picture of the dog makes people smile. And somehow, no matter how cute your kids are, photos of them never seem to have the same effect. Even if the dog's not with me people still comment on the bag, and charming them is a slam dunk when I say that's not just any dog on my purse -- it's my dog.

Unusual Ways Of Looking At Usual Things

When your business involves photographs you regularly witness astonishingly creative approaches to the same old square or rectangular format.

When I had portraits taken of my kids I'd baffle the photographers by insisting on keeping the unusual photos like this one:

The woman who took this shot had her finger on delete, but I stopped her; this photo shows the essence of my son when he was six months old, with the fingers in the mouth and the little smile behind them. I once insisted on a portrait of my daughter taken from the back.

Here are some more unusual photos I found while browsing the net:

"The following shots are all of moving subjects where the photographer has made the choice to set their camera to capture the movement as blur rather than freezing it. This is in all cases by choosing (or letting the camera choose) a ’slow’ shutter speed (although by slow you’ll see that the speeds (noted under each image) vary from anything from 1/30 second to up to 40 minutes)."

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Photo by Sara Heinrichs - Exposure Time: 20 seconds

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Photo by Mr Bones - No exposure settings supplied

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Photo by Amnemona - No exposure settings given

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Photo by Ben McLeod - Shutter Speed - 8 seconds

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Photo by WisDoc - Shutter Speed - 1/30

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Photo by Wam Mosely - Shutter speed - 4/5 of a second

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...And one of my own. Taken at Disney World, shutter speed I-Have-No-Idea, while riding in a slowly moving pedicab. In case you can't tell, it's a plain old plant.

---

Next Time Read The Recipe FIRST

My kids are rather adventurous eaters, and who am I to deny them their favorites? Of course, one of their favorites is McDonald's and I deny that all the time, but still -- I suppose you could say I indulge them when their requests are healthy. Anyway, they're particularly fond of an Italian white bean soup they order every time we eat at a particular restaurant (they also like the chocolate shell this place puts on top of ice cream; consequently they refer to this restaurant as "Gold Brick"). The owner graciously gave me a list of ingredients but no measurements or instructions because he figured, correctly, that I'd rarely need to produce a bathtub full of soup; I knew I could figure it out.

Yesterday I put a package of white beans in a huge pot to soak overnight. This morning I drained the water, replaced it with chicken broth, and simmered the pot on the stove for an hour.

This afternoon, after looking up a white bean soup recipe on the internet, I strained the broth into a bowl, filled the pot with water, and put it back on the stove so the beans could cook correctly.

hmph.

If I did everything perfectly the first time life would hold no surprises.

Bet These People Don't Get Many Girl Scout Cookies

Holy Smokes!! How do you think they get up their driveway in the winter?

Get The Door...

This is my week to bring the "healthy morning snack" to Cleo's second grade class. Yesterday we brought three colors of grapes, and today I promised pizza (I'm setting the bar kind of high, I guess). Pizza was especially appropriate because yesterday they surveyed each other and made graphs showing everyone's favorite topping, so I knew I'd be a hero by 10:15 am.

Except.

Did you know that most pizza places don't open until 10 or 11? I didn't either.

I called Domino's at 7.30 am and got a recording about business hours. An hour later I called again from my cell phone and got a recording about placing orders, but nobody ever picked up the phone. Meanwhile I drove to the nearest Domino's, which is just off the university campus, figuring hey, college students keep odd hours and eat pizza for all meals, so of course a Domino's next to a college campus would be open.

The sign on the door said they opened at 10.00.

Uh oh.

A little background here: for some reason I seem to drop the ball when it comes to Cleo more than with Robey, or maybe I just feel that way because she takes things much more seriously than he does. She nearly ran away from home this summer when she missed the High School Musical 2 Premier Party Sleepover Extravaganza Wingding, because we were on a trip I'd planned ten months earlier, before she'd even heard of High School Musical. Consequently, if I had to switch the pizza snack to Thursday and bring bagels and cream cheese today, I was going to have lots of splainin' to do.

I borrowed a yellow pages from a drugstore and began calling every pizza place I could find; only one person answered the phone and he said he could cook it but didn't know how to take my order so I'd have to call back later and speak to an order-taker (okay, this didn't make a lot of sense to me either, but he was very gracious, so I just thanked him and let it go).

Despair set in and I began preparing my speech about how two days really don't amount to much and sometimes things just don't work out as you'd planned, as I headed back to my car to drive to a bagel place.

Just as I put the key in the ignition a little car parked next to me and out came: SUPERMAN! Okay, not really -- it was the Domino's guy.

What a trooper he was. He set up for fifteen minutes and then raced through preparing four pizzas: two cheese, one pepperoni and one sausage, because that selection most closely reflected the previous day's survey results. I was out of there and on my way by 9.50.

The pizzas were an enormous hit and for one day, at least, I was the World's Best Mom in the eyes of 24 second graders and one pixie.

For future reference, you can order from Domino's as much as a month in advance.

I'm Doing A Giveaway!

Drill Sergeant Kristen has ordered -- I mean encouraged me to participate in some giveaways to build traffic to my site, and my first one is:

... which is being run by b5media.com on their Family and Relationships channel.


And here's what I'm giving:

FeeFiFoto.com has donated a Bucket Bag, Single Photo Mia Cameron handbag made from an extremely sturdy microfiber fabric, trimmed in microfiber or leather. They don’t use an iron-on process, which produces high quality colors, image quality and life. This prize will be handmade to order, and takes 3-5 weeks for delivery. Just in time for the holidays! Value: $100.00

In addition to the handbag from my site, prizes include skin treatments, supplies and services for organizing your home and life, toys, gifts, books, craft kits, and coffee.

Please visit the contest, and the donor sites.

Winning The Disgusting Trifecta

Some days you have to wash your hands so many times you just want to hang it up and take a second (or third) shower. Today was one of those days. First, and sincerely struggling not to be too graphic, I had to plunge a toilet, a job I hate hate hate and would never ask the kids to do because that would be cruel but my real reason is they'd surely mess it up and then I'd have an even bigger mess on my hands. Besides, it's important my kids see me using tools because I'm their only parent, and they need to understand that girls and women can do most of the same things men can do. So I got out the plunger and the scrubber and the bleach to eradicate one of the worst clogs I've ever seen, and carried everything out to the garage in a bucket to a chorus of "Ew ew ew eeeww!"

Then I washed my hands and washed my hands again.

After dinner my son decided to clean out the aquarium recently vacated by two very sad little fish. In his youthful impulsiveness -- er -- enthusiasm, yeah, that's the word -- he scooped eight gallons of seriously fermented aquarium water into a huge bucket and then couldn't lift it, so I carried it through the kitchen and dumped it in another toilet, which I then had to clean inside and out because you try dumping eight gallons of nasty water without splashing or spilling and then let me know how you accomplished it.

I washed my hands a few more times, this time well past the wrists.

Then I noticed the aquarium pump, coated with green schlucky stuff, abandoned on the kitchen counter next to the sink -- a perfectly functional pump which I was tempted to pitch because I'd been grossed out enough for one day, but I just couldn't because I hate wasting anything, so I scrubbed off the green glop, dumped the pump in the fish bucket in the garage, and went back to the kitchen to scrub the sink, again, and wash my hands, again and again and again, this time well past the elbows.

If I'd had the stomach for it I could also have cleaned out the robot vacuum brushes but geez, that's enough for one evening.

Thank You Solo Mother -- Man! I Love The Web!

I'm thoroughly enjoying hearing my son play Hava Nagila on the clarinet. He's pretty good -- nice mellow sound, good rhythm. Think of all the money I'll save on a band if I can persuade him to play his own Bar Mitzvah.

Thanks to SoloMother for referring us to this hilarious piece to which we can all relate, whether we've been the victim, the perpetrator or both.

It's funny -- when my niece (now nearly 18) was a baby my sister noticed that most of their books had to do with sleepy time, nap time, rest time, time for bed, time to go sleep, time to be quiet... yet that kid never slept. You could pat her on the back for 45 minutes and just as you'd nearly made it to the door, tiptoeing backwards and not even blinking, she'd rear up in bed with a gummy grin and that was the end of nap time.

Don't worry -- she's making up for lost time now.

Look for this book:


Once Upon a Time, the End (Asleep in 60 Seconds) by Geoffrey Kloske and Barry Blitt

... a fresh approach to fractured fairy tales: take one small child's insatiable demand for Just one more story and add a sleepy parent's wish to get the bedtime ritual over with as quickly as possible. The result is this collection of eight condensed folktales. For example, Goldilocks and the Bears begins, There were some bears;/It doesn't really matter how many./There was a bunch./Let's get to the point: and ends, When the bears came back,/They found her asleep./She woke up, screamed, and ran home/So she could sleep in her own bed./Just like you. A few nursery rhymes (Hickory, dickory, dock,/A mouse ran up the clock./The clock struck eight./Oh, my, it's late!/So the mouse went straight to bed) and jokes round out the book... The cover shows an intensely alert toddler on the lap of a sleeping father, surrounded by several dozing characters (Goliath sucking his thumb, for example, and Red Riding Hood conked out next to the wolf dressed as Grandma). The sometimes sly, sometimes outrageous, sometimes simply silly humor will go over the heads of most preschoolers, but it's right on target for their older siblings (and tired parents, of course).–Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Let's Talk About Entitlement

(I started this post about ten days ago. Then I had to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, answer the phone, drive eleventy million places, and I'm just picking it up again because it's been on my mind. So, please pardon my tardiness.)

Chili over at Don't Try This At Home (btw -- love the Groucho glasses!) writes about teaching kids to save and appreciate money:

What about allowance? I'm torn here. I want to teach my kids NOW how to deal with money. I don't want them figuring out at 20 what happens if you make a regrettable purchase. At the same time, where do they get said money? From allowance? Should I be paying them for things that are necessary to the family's well-being? Shouldn't these chores be done simply because they need to be done? It's a catch-22 as far as I can tell.

Periodically Cleo and Robey try to finagle me into giving them an allowance, for what I can't be certain because they have everything they need, most things they want, lots of things they don't need, and I almost never require them to pay for anything themselves. Well, there was that Webkins...

They don't need money, but they still wish for piles of it to count and sort over and over. I think it's that childlike compulsion to squirrel away stuff and measure by volume instead of value. When I was about Robey's age I earnestly declared my intention to take all the money out of my savings account in nickels; my mother wisely rolled her eyes at me noncommittally. I haven't progressed much; if I could I'd stuff every dollar I own under my mattress.

I know some of their friends get allowances because their parents don't understand or accept the word "no." I know other friends receive allowances because they're expected to cover some of their own expenses, especially for indulgences. But neither of these issues seems to apply to my kids. First, I am the Queen of No, armed with an endless loop of speeches about how computer games rot your mind, Polly Pockets are a waste of money, and authentic baseball jerseys are outgrown so quickly that it simply makes more sense to buy the plain tee shirt. And second, I don't require my kids to pay for their own stuff. Well, there was that box of Pokemon cards...

So why should I give my kids an allowance? When I was a kid my parents tried bribing us to fulfill daily responsibilities by offering an allowance of a nickel a week (I'm not that old -- my parents were being stingy) with the understanding that our pay would be docked for not, say, getting out of bed in the morning (yeah, they set the bar pretty low). It doesn't take long to deplete a nickel; soon we owed them money, and in less than two months the allowance was just a memory.

Instead of offering a pointless allowance, whenever my kids whine for one (or even worse, compensation for good grades) I remind them that I won't pay just for the pleasure of their company but I will pay for an honest day's (okay -- quarter hour's) work. Vacuum the car -- get paid. Mop the floor -- get paid. Rake leaves -- get paid. Load the dishwasher -- get bupkes (I'm not crazy -- why should I have to do all the housework?)

It works, even though they still occasionally try to argue me into the allowance. They get paid for doing jobs, the jobs get done without my having to do them, and we avoid the resentment that would come from regular arguments over who owes what.

Miracle Times Infinity

I wish there were words more superlative than all the superlatives I know, because sometimes common words seem woefully tepid, scrawny and inapplicable. I typically feel this way regarding overexposed, redundant and unimaginative profanity. We used to employ such colorful curses, and now our expletives mostly have to do with bodily functions and ancestry. It's not that I feel compelled to employ profanity regularly or that I miss the small amount of cursing I used to indulge in before my kids developed their listening ears and repeating mouths. It's just that life would be so much more interesting if we could express frustration, disdain or anger in more colorful, memorable language than most of us can muster.*

I feel the same way when attempting to describe overwhelming feelings of joy, amazement, ecstasy, pleasure or whatever, because standard issue language just isn't adequate. I've often found it maddeningly frustrating (or frustratingly maddening?) to convey sufficiently how incredible (yuk) it is to be a mom to my two kids. The best description I ever came up with was that even though mothering was the most commonplace, mundane activity out there, it still was/is the most hands down special, perfect experience one can have (even the diaper/sleepless/midnight vomiting parts).

In any case, all this long-winded introduction leads me to my point, which is this: I cannot come up with anything more appropriate than the word "miracle" to describe this story:

Kevin Everett will be transferred Friday morning to a Houston hospital to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation, less than two weeks after the Buffalo Bills tight end sustained a life-threatening spinal cord injury.

And doctors said Thursday they believe he will be walking within weeks -- perhaps sooner.

In case you missed it, this 25-year-old professional football player was as close to death two weeks ago as a man can be and not be actually dead. There was no doubt in the minds of the finest neurosurgeons in the country that Kevin Everett would never walk, never move, never breathe on his own. Nevertheless, thanks to outstanding care immediately after his devastating injury (if you haven't heard or read about it, he broke his neck during a football game and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital doctors cooled his body to about ninety-two degrees with a chilled intravenous saline solution, thus preventing the devastating swelling of the spinal cord that leads to paralysis), he will likely walk again, and while his football career is over (?) he'll have a functioning life.

Of course, Kevin Everett received the most outstanding care available; there were doctors on the premises to commence immediate and urgent treatment. Still, the fact that such treatment can be effective under any circumstances is frankly astonishing. And I'm at a loss for words.

Well, actually I'm at a loss for suitable words. I'm rarely at a loss for any words.

I'm awestruck at the implications of this remarkable accomplishment. Preventing paralysis after a catastrophic spinal cord injury is tantamount to bringing back dinosaurs or dodos, reaching infinity, or the Cubs winning the World Series (sorry -- Cardinals fan. Just had to throw that in).

It's performing the impossible, people!

I keep revisiting this story in my mind, especially when pelted by horrible news everywhere I look. Stories like this one, no matter how implausible or unimaginable, give me a sorely needed feeling of well-being which I try to protect and nurture for as long as I can.

*Here are just a few delicious Yiddish curses; whence creativity?

• All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.
• One misfortune is too few for him.
• They should free a madman, and lock him up.
• He should grow a wooden tongue.
• God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues.
• He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.
• A hundred houses shall he have, in every house a hundred rooms and in every room twenty beds, and a delirious fever should drive him from bed to bed.
• All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer.

Little Baby Steps

Fresh out of my second week of blogging boot camp, and my hair seems to be growing back already. Yesterday we talked about making connections with other sites whose eyeballs are connected to my ideal customer base; at one point we discussed offering product giveaways to get some attention ("Helloooo? Anybody out there?") to our site. It seemed so obvious once Drill Sergeant Kristen suggested it that I was embarrassed not to have come up with the idea myself.

Today, while practicing maneuvers and spit-polishing my combat boots, I came across an announcement on Solo Mother of exactly the kind of promotion I need to get my feet wet, and just in time for the Christmas season no less! They're hosting the Family and Relationships Channel Blogtoberfest (guess which month it occurs in?). Among many other cool and desirable prizes will be a Personalized Photo Bucket Bag from my site, FeeFiFoto.com.

Take a look:

It's a microfiber handbag with your favorite photo printed on each side.

I have one of these. I printed a picture of our dog, the Tibetan Terror -- um -- I mean Terrier. It's one of the few things in our house she hasn't yet managed to steal and mangle.

Anyway -- check out the contest and look for my link. I'm so proud! (snif)

Unexpected Uses for Children

Paid a visit to IzzyMom.com, one of those marvelous mom blogs that saves me the trouble of thinking my own thoughts and putting them into words. She writes about browsing internet sites looking for:

...moms to date. Well, not to date exactly but something like that. I want to meet them for kid playdates during the day and for grown-up playdates at night.

I’ve decided that I need to find some local friends as cool as the ones in the little white box on my desk (uh…that would be you guys). My closest IRL friends live in other states and my friendships here with other moms are mostly based on the friendships shared by our kids.

In other words, she's searching the internet for friends so she won't have only internet friends.

Thank goodness we have our kids to lean on! Before Robespierre was born, when I was slightly disappointed not to have someone to dress in a tutu and fairy wings (well, I could have, I suppose, but it would have attracted unwanted stares), I decided a boy might come in handy when he was old enough to program the VCR and do the heavy lifting; until that time I could use him as a paper weight.

But after he came along, and then Cleopatra-Queen-of-the-Nile two years later, I discovered an unanticipated benefit to having kids: instant community! Kindermusik -- check! Nursery school -- check! Gyminee -- check! Playgroups -- check! Turns out having a kid is similar to having a cute dog -- at the very least, it's a conversation starter.

And it turns out, they really can program the VCR and lift heavy objects.

I Get It Now...

My fifth grade son, Robespierre, is exploring actual history this year instead of the more intangible "social studies." They've begun with prehistory, ie the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age (or is it Iron first and then Bronze? I was so young back then...) Anyway, he's been bringing home his assignments so I can help him, and so far the questions have to do with issues that seem instinctive to me but obviously must be learned somewhere, and I suppose fifth grade might have been where I learned about them originally. For example, he needed to write a paragraph about the effect of a surplus of food on people and society; I suggested he think about improvements in health and strength, increased population, and increased power of a community over their ill-fed, weaker neighbors.

Meanwhile I've signed up for a blogger boot camp to learn to maximize my blog exposure and help build my internet business, which was my original goal when I began blogging. As I browse other people's blogs and observe how they create their own communities, I see us engaging in the same kind of alliance development as our Stone Age / Iron Age / Bronze Age ancestors, although to my knowledge the Starbucks caves didn't offer WiFi.

I explore other blogs like eMoms at Home, 5Minutes for Mom and Mommy Haven and see a tapestry of connections whereby almost anybody can link to almost anybody else about almost anything, and I see the huge disparity between what they're building and what so many vanity bloggers do. The difference between community blogging and individual blogging is like the difference between participating in a book discussion group and standing on a street corner declaiming about your favorite book to anyone who happens by; in the first scenario you're engaged in a conversation with people whose interests resemble your own, while in the second you're throwing your thoughts out there in the hope that someone might be interested. It's an astonishingly potent tool, and those who harness it can be seen as having attained super powers.

And really, haven't we all at one time or another harbored secret fantasies of being super heroes?

Why Ever Would You Suggest I Get Off The Couch?

Where do you suppose she gets the black rubbery stuff she uses to upholster her little snout?

For Sale: New Red Kids Tae Kwon Doe Uniform Result of a Hissy Fit

For Sale: one brand new Tae Kwon Doe (or maybe Karate -- I have no idea) uniform, never worn, even though I spent hours sewing on a bunch of cockamamie patches by hand in an attempt to inspire a reluctant seven-year-old to continue taking classes long after she'd lost interest. I made her start martial arts partly because her brother had been getting really good at it and I thought it was a great opportunity to be able to drive them to the same place for the same class instead of dropping him off someplace and then dropping her off someplace else and then having to retrace my steps to pick them both up. I also anticipated the relief of not having to color with her or listen to her complain about being bored while he took a class. Besides, after she was expelled from camp for fighting I had to emphasize to her the need to solve disputes without shoving, and in Tae Kwon Doe they're not allowed to touch each other.

Sounds perfect, right?

At first she refused to yell with the rest of the class; she even got in trouble for it a couple times. That “hiii-yaaah!!” is really crucial in Tae Kwon Doe because – well, I have no idea why, but I know she had to sit in the corner a couple times because she refused to do it. I guess all my harping on using her “inside voice” had really sunk in.

After learning to scream on command she poked along for about a year, moving up through the early belts at a leisurely pace and lamenting the lack of any fun girls in the class. Meanwhile, big brother was sailing up the ranks at lightning speed, hurtling toward the black belt and taking classes for which she wasn’t yet qualified, so here I was again driving to two sets of classes but at least this time they were at the same place.

In an attempt to inspire her to put in more effort into moving up to big brother’s level, I promoted her from the white uniform to the red one. Most parents bestow the uniforms and afterwards attach the patches in their own good time, but I spent hours sewing on all the patches, stabbing myself repeatedly and shifting my reading glasses up and down and up and down. When I gave her the uniform she refused to wear it because the pants were too long, and before I could get them hemmed she decided to quit Tae Kwon Doe. So the uniform has been sitting crumpled up in a bag, along with the pink sparring helmet and gloves, which I’m also selling.

Last week we bought ballet slippers. At least it wasn’t a grand piano.

Visit my web site, FeeFiFoto.com, for personalized photo gifts. We will put your photos on almost anything. Personalized photo calendars, mugs, handbags, jewelry, ornaments and porcelain plates make great gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, birthday, anniversary, new baby and graduates.

Hi Linda!

Nothing else. Just Hi.

Grateful to Michael Vick

Before anyone jumps on me, let me explain. People (I'm using this term loosely here) like Michael Vick do us all a favor by garnering publicity for issues that mostly fly under the radar. Sure, everyone's heard about the tragedy of paralysis, but Christoper Reeve put a noble (and handsome) face to the issue. We've all heard about the traumas of Parkinson's, but Michael J. Fox gives the disease a vivid, personal quality. Similarly, the Humane Society is a well-known fixture in every state, but because of Michael Vick (ick!) they've gotten more free publicity than they ever could afford to buy.

Two weeks ago a Missouri woman sold on Ebay a handful of Vick cards chewed up and slobbered on by her dogs; she raised $7400 for the Humane Society. This week the U.S. Humane Society is auctioning a slip of paper purported to be Vick's jotted notes for his gee-I'm-sorry-but-hey-I've-found-salvation speech; in an ironic stroke of luck, the head of the Humane Society's Video Services section found the crumpled note on the podium while retrieving his microphone after the press conference.

I feel terrible for those poor dogs (apparently Vick couldn't have cared less about them, as he failed to mention the animals in his speech), but the cynic in me is grateful to a man who is more vicious than any of those pit bulls ever was, for bringing this horrifying practice to the public eye. Just like Barry Bonds, Michael Vick has given millions of people something to care about that's much more meaningful than American Idol, and an avenue to teaching our kids about the right and wrong things to do.

Countdown: 5...4...3...2...1...

At the risk of appearing seriously crazed or fundamentally alienated from my children, I'm delighted to announce: SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW!!

For some reason I fail to comprehend, my kids' school begins nearly three weeks after some other schools in the area, which means that when people ask me how school's going and how the kids like their new grades I can only promise to let them know once school has actually begun. We went to a mall yesterday after a visit to the dentist and it was a ghost town populated primarily by the wraiths of recently returned-to-the-classroom squealing teenagers, snotty middle-schoolers and whiny children, as well as a few flesh and blood mall walkers evidently relieved to have the place to themselves again after three months of crowd-dodging. The same thing happened on a visit to a grocery store.

It's not that I mind having the kids off school. I love my kids and I love being around them; furthermore we had a terrific and unusually relaxing summer once we overcame the passport catastrophe. Still, those last few days are enough already: I'm tired of fighting about TV time and computer time, I'm tired of inventing entertainments, I'm tired of seeing them eat chips for breakfast because they got out of bed before I did.

I'm not sure why our school starts so much later than others. Maybe it has something to do with our unusually long school day of 7.5 hours, or the fact that we don't take a lot of miscellaneous days off during the academic year. All I know is the only schools I'm aware of that start later than we do are all preschools.

It could be worse. Last year the parking lot was being repaved and opening day was postponed until after Labor Day.

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Why Would Anyone Go To All The Trouble Of Repairing Crocs?

Because they cost thirty dollars, that's why!

See the difference?
<<<<<<

Last year I bought the kids Airwalks on Ebay for about half the cost of Crocs, because really -- who's foolish enough to pay thirty dollars for glorified flip flops for kids? Well actually, lots of people, but nevertheless, I didn't want to be one of them because I'm oh-so-careful with my money. BWAAHAHAHAH!!! I know, I know -- sometimes I can be so darn funny!

Anyway.

Robey would have worn them to bed if I'd let him (he's impulsive that way), except that he broke off one of the straps less than a week after they arrived. He still wore them broken but their usefulness was seriously limited, especially for a significantly pigeon toed kid who wears his shoes on the tops of his feet almost as often as on the bottoms.

So this year I bought him the real thing, because he'd demonstrated his irrevocable devotion to the Crocesque Airwalks, and I figured the Crocs might be a bit sturdier, right? because EVERYONE wears them so they must be good, right?

They lasted a week.

One of the buttons popped off and I was getting dirty looks from strangers and vehement lectures that my son was in EXTREME DANGER of -- well, something, maybe tripping or something. I couldn't throw them away after only a week. If I threw away everything my kids dinged or scratched or cracked or whatevered I'd have to have a landfill on retainer. So I fixed it by sewing a black button on the outside and a brown one on the inside to anchor the black one. Proud of my fixing prowess I sent him off to Sea World Camp secure in my insistent and somewhat shrill promise that as long as nobody looked too closely they'd never notice the difference between left and right.

My repair lasted a week.

Meanwhile, the shoes were still a size too big and would've lasted him another year if I could just keep them on life support long enough.

This time I used black button thread twisted with very fine nylon thread, coated in fabric glue and anchored with a liberal application of Gorilla Glue. Robey's just going to have to get used to the brown button.

I suspect my son has a future in product testing.

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Single Parenting, In All Seriousness

Having come across this line of discussion on SoloMother, which referred to this thread by Cathy Arnst at BusinessWeek, I've been contributing some serious input regarding an issue that's part of my everyday existence:

I'm a single mother by choice to two extraordinary children, a ten-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl (full biological sibs), through an anonymous donor. I’d reached an age where there was nobody special in my life (having divorced the World’s Worst Person) and had a deeply ingrained, I don’t know, assumption I guess, that I WOULD have a family. I never questioned it; in fact it wasn’t really a decision but more something I had to do that was as inevitable as needing glasses or being Jewish or reading books.

While enduring fertility treatments for my first (now there's a great irony: not only did I have to do it alone, but I needed help to get it done!) I spent a lot of time trawling Internet fertility support groups for encouragement and consolation. Most correspondents were supportive and probably couldn't have cared less that I was single, wrapped up as we all were in our fertility troubles, but a few attacked my "selfishness" in inflicting a fatherless life on some poor innocent child. In addition to foaming-at-the-mouth fury at their presumptuousness and arrogance, I felt frankly baffled that anyone could accuse of selfishness someone willing to give up freedom, stain-free (okay, relatively stain-free; I admit I’m a klutz) clothes and a full night's sleep in exchange for midnight vomiting (sorry -- too graphic?), homework help, car pooling, potty training and on and on and on. In fact, I felt it was one of the least self-centered goals I’d ever pursued.

Being a parent has been my life’s greatest achievement by far, and being a single parent is one of the world’s best-kept secrets. Although I must depend on my parents, friends and siblings for continuous advice and assistance (and thank goodness they’re always prepared to step up to the plate), I believe our lives are slightly smoother than some others’ since we don’t have to factor in parenting disagreements. Of course, I come from a background that offers me a great deal of support, in addition to which I’m mature, educated and financially secure. My situation is markedly different from that of an unexpectedly pregnant fifteen-year-old high school student. For an insightful comparison check out On Our Own by Melissa Ludtke.

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Halloween Already?

Cleopatra's been mulling over this year's Halloween costume since the day after Halloween last year; she and Robey also usually begin planning their birthday parties the day after their birthdays. A few months ago she decided to be Lola from Hannah Montana ("Lola" is the alter ego of Miley's best friend Lilly, who dresses in disguise whenever Miley's disguised as Hannah). Normally Lilly's a blonde tomboy, but in full Lola regalia she wears funky mismatched clothes and a wig in purple, orange, green or red. Lilly's played by Emily Osment, the younger sister of Haley Joel Osment, the kid who sees dead people; wearing a wig she looks like her brother if he were, you know ... wearing a wig.

At first Cleo declared she was going to have her hair cut short and color it. This was a baaaad idea. Not because I like her in long hair since, frankly, Cleo won't let me fix her hair and when she does it herself it looks like she brushed it with an egg beater. No, this was a bad idea because, as much as I love seeing her pixie face peeking out from a pixie haircut, I had a sixth sense (sorry -- had to throw that in) that the moment the first handful of hair hit the floor she'd melt down and it would be ALL MY FAULT for, I don't know, letting her have her hair cut, which somehow would turn into making her have her hair cut. Consequently I pretended not to understand English when the subject came up.

Well, with Hannah Montana tickets ready and waiting Cleo became more determined to dress as Lola, so today I browsed Google and came upon a lime green wig on Amazon:
Actually, I came upon quite a number of similar wigs in a variety of colors, which I conscientiously showed to Cleo and here's the point to this whole story: my daughter, who always knows what she wants, and wants what she wants, and gets what she wants, insisted on RESEARCHING the exact color and style of wigs Lola wears in different Hannah Montana episodes, and debating the relative merits of each option. So I visited Google again and came upon a YouTube video featuring Lola in various states of wigness. After a good amount of debate Cleo fixed on the lime green, with a request that I save the video for when it's time to research the outfit.

Now I remember one Halloween when I dressed as a leopard in a yellow shirt and yellow tights with brown paper circles taped all over me; admittedly I looked goofy, but I don't think I debated the subtleties or symbolism of my costume choice. Is it really necessary to put almost as much thought into a Halloween costume as some women put into the selection of wedding gowns? Just asking.

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My Last Vacation Of The Summer Turns Out To Be A Guilt Trip

We're getting rid of our swing set, a nine year old redwood structure with a climbing wall, teeter totter, clubhouse/fort, slide and tire swing. The kids have liked it well enough but these days Robey is just as happy shooting hoops with friends or spray painting happy faces on the porch with the blue dye he was supposed to be using on his hair (don't ask! but let me just say, 409 is a wonderful product and yes I made him clean it up) and Cleo is satisfied drawing elaborate hopscotches on the driveway. I figured I'd have to pay someone soon either to tighten all the bolts, clean and reseal it, or to haul it off.

So I advertised it on Craig's List as free to anyone who'd take it away. And oh, man! within less than an hour I'd received a dozen responses; throughout the day I've received nearly thirty emails, some in triplicate, from people begging: Oh! Oh! Choose me! Choose me! (I'm dating myself here but anybody out there remember Arnold Horshack?).

Some of these responses are real tearjerkers: I have five kids; I've been out of work; I'm raising my grandson; I could never afford to buy one of these... Oy vay! I thought I'd do something nice for someone and now I feel like I should be sending these people substantial checks.

This is why I send money to the Humane Society but don't go there to get my dogs.

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Press One If You're Calling About Your Cable Television... Press Two If You're Calling About Your High-Speed Internet...

My internet went out yesterday. My laptop is a persnickety diva with Dell DNA; if I close it to put it to sleep the wireless will be disabled when I reopen it, so that even if it tells me wireless is up and running I have to reenable it every time. Yesterday the wireless didn't come up and didn't come up and I kept at it like the proverbial insane person who tries the same thing again and again hoping for a different result because, let's face it, I couldn't think of anything else to do, until it dawned on me that maybe the cable was down. So I tried the desktop in my office and sure enough, the internet was down there too. And I patted myself on the back for being so darned resourceful.

Then I called Charter Cable and pressed one for this and three for that and four for the other and prayed for a real person before the system disconnected me; eventually I reached a woman's recorded voice that assured me I could speak to a real person if she couldn't solve my problem, and then requested I let her guide me through some preliminary steps. At this point I was to stop pressing one and three and four and two and speak my responses into the phone, and we all know how fluidly that always works.

The voice walked me through disconnecting and reconnecting my cable, and each time she finished an instruction she treated me to some musical hold until I announced I was ready for the next step. By the end of the conversation my new girlfriend and I had succeeded in reestablishing the internet connection, including a test of the television connection, and everything was sunshine and rainbows.

At this point the recording asked if the problem had been solved to my satisfaction and I assured my new BFF that it had; she pleasantly bid me goodbye and we tearfully parted ways.

I immediately redialed Charter and pressed all the numbers which would bring me directly to a real person, a guy in Customer Service. In his best monotone he inquired what he could do for me and I began reciting the details of my failed internet and my recent interaction with Ms. Recording; as I spoke I could sense the increase in his level of tension. Then I said: "I just wanted to tell a real person that your company has one of the best voicemail systems I've ever encountered and you should tell whoever designed it that they did a great job." He was so excited I thought he might fall off his chair. Clearly customers rarely throw them a bone.

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So Ugly It Should Be Hidden Inside A Paper Bag

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is simply one of the ugliest bags I've ever seen. It's asymmetrical, it looks clunky and unwieldy and unbelievably heavy. I can't imagine where you'd carry it (or why) and what you'd possibly be able to tote inside it.

But guess what? It costs $52,500 (guess $53,000 was just a little over the top). It's called the "Louis Vuitton Tribute Patchwork" and it's made from pieces of 14 Vuitton bags that were cut apart and sewn together. This one has been sold to an unnamed, "very sophisticated" client (according to Vuitton) in Washington D.C.; this begs the question: sophisticated people in Washington D.C.? How could that be? Has Katharine Graham been recalled to life?

But I digress.

In any case, only 24 have been made and only 5 have been offered for sale in the United States. Beyonce Knowles owns one, but the identity of the "very sophisticated" client in D.C. hasn't been revealed (because she couldn't possibly exist, DUH!!).

I suppose I can forgive Beyonce this lapse in judgment; I myself made many many ill-advised fashion decisions at her age (I know, I know it's hard to believe when you consider the sleek, sophisticated look I cultivate now). But why anyone over the age of, well, however old Beyonce is now, would think this bag was attractive is beyond me, unless it stems from -- no! it couldn't be -- the cachet of the lavish price?

Take a look at the entire article in today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/20/AR2007082001554.html?hpid=topnews

PS to my kids: in case you've forgotten, I do have a birthday coming up...

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Wherefore...

Why is it that, with so many breathtakingly delicious fruits in season we can't even decide which to buy, my kids want to open a can of peaches?

Why is it that, even though I've made thick hamburgers from scratch, the kids would rather go to McDonald's? (okay, I don't give them toys just for eating, but still...).

Why is it that, with all the enticing toys and bones I've scattered around the house, Miss Puppy still wants to eat the furniture?

Why is it that, even though she has a closet full of really cute clothes that I'd borrow if I thought they'd fit, Cleopatra-Queen-of-the-Nile wants to wear the same "Little Miss Sunshine" shirt over and over and over and over...?

Why is it that every time I try to make my bed I bang my instep on the bed frame?

Why is it that whenever I go to a restaurant I end up seated at the table leg?

Why is it that I vividly remember every single embarrassment I've ever inflicted on myself (and there have been M*A*N*Y), but I can't remember what I had for breakfast?

Why is it that the "v" key on my laptop keeps falling off and I hae to reisit eerything I write to make corrections?

Why is it that, just when I'm completely exhausted and ready to go to bed, I get some brainstorm for a blog post I absolutely MUST write so I won't forget it tomorrow?

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No Sign of Hannah Montana, But Still Trying

I'm still on the prowl for tickets to this sold out show. Nothing's turned up yet, although I did receive a bcc of the following email my father sent to someone who handles his banking:

Dear Person-at-the-Bank:

Something tells me that you and the bank could win the undying gratitude of a young client with 2 tickets to see the Hannah Montana show... Price is not the issue, but availability is. If you have any access to tickets that are already sold out or you know where they could be acquired, [Cleopatra] would love you forever.

Who knows -- once in a while it works for the baseball playoffs. Of course, the playoffs come in bunches and Hannah Montana comes only once.

I feel especially guilty because, silly me, I promised Cleo we'd get great seats and it turns out we couldn't get any seats at all. She's been magnanimous but I feel terrible. Chances are some of her friends managed to snag tickets and when she returns to school and hears who's going she'll be crushed. And we know how those seven year old girls are -- they won't be able to keep their mouths shut.

Curse those scalpers!!

POSTSCRIPT: Thank goodness for grandparents! They achieved success within one day, for which I'm deeply grateful. My kids were extremely savvy in their choice of grandparents, and I spend a good amount of time reminding them that not everyone is as fortunate as they are.

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Hannah Montana, Where Are You?

There's no joy in Ishkabibbleville tonight, as so far we've been unable to get our hands on even one ticket for Hannah Montana's concert in October.

I'd asked my mother, whose motto is and always has been: "anything for a grandchild" to talk to a friend of hers who has presented just about every concert and special event here for the past, oh I don't know, ninety-nine years, about front row seats so Cleopatra and a friend could try their luck at shaking Hannah's hand during the concert. I've always turned down her offers to approach her friend because I figured we'd get only one special favor out of him and since the Beatles had made it clear they weren't getting back together nothing ever seemed important enough, but now the happiness (okay -- temporary happiness, but still...) of my seven-year-old girl with the huge, hypnotic hazel eyes was at stake. Since Mawmaw would never fail one of the "World's Most Perfect Grandchildren" I was certain we'd be there in October.

It turned out that Mawmaw's friend is not presenting this concert. The instant she informed me I was online scrambling for the Ticketmaster web site, and finding that there were "no tickets available" for this performance. Unsure exactly what this meant (it's a 20,000 seat venue, after all) I googled Hannah Montana and the name of our city and discovered that the concert sold out eight minutes after the tickets went on sale. Sure enough, I also found armloads of tickets going for astronomical prices on Ebay and other sites.

I can just imagine dozens of scalpers simultaneously working dozens of computers the very moment ticket sales began. They're all going to make boatloads of money to the dismay of hundreds of little girls who can't shell out more than $500 per ticket (yes, that's right, and some of them are selling for way more). I hope some of them read this and feel even a small twinge of guilt for making it all about money instead of little kids. Shame!!

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