Oh My!

At the beginning of Jon and Kate Plus Eight, the mother says "Today I very well could lose my mind." I think that sums up how I feel somedays, although the past two days with the kids have been great. I've been feeling like a radiantly peaceful feeling...with them. When I went to Old Town on my lunch hour yesterday, I had an "incident" with a mother-daughter upper class shopping team. When I told Brett about it later, I used a word I've never used before and I'm not even sure how it is spelled (starts with t, ends in t, there is a w, I'm just not sure what the vowel is, okay is that enough letters to help you figure out the word, and are you in as much shock as I am that I called someone that?!?) Anyway, the incident occurred as I stepped into my favorite store, October Moon, behind the women, and the older woman CLOSED THE DOOR IN MY FACE. Yeah, so what did Little Miss Tart Tongue do? I shoved the door, pushing her. Really. Who am I? The other night, I refused ice cream as my after-dinner treat. I think it is has to do with being 33. My Starbucks choice has changed too (don't you love the headline of the linked article?). Instead of the Mocha that I have preferred for the better part of the last ten years, I am now choosing cappuccinos. I'm even reading online cappuccino machine reviews in another tab. Yummmm.... I can just imagine having a steaming mugga mugga (bigger than a cuppa cuppa).

Happy Birthday Megan the Goddess!!!!! Welcome to 33!

Obviously, I have decided not to do any housecleaning on my "day off." No, I'm nourishing myself with the Internet and cable TV. The rain has cleared up; the sun is trying to shine. I'm eating a burrito with some tequila salsa made with real blue agave. I was leery, but it is excellent.

Oh, here is the funniest thing I have read this week. For the full article, visit Dear Parents: Please Relax, It's Just Summer Camp.

“They’ll give their child two cellphones, so if they get caught with the first one, ‘Just give it up and you’ll have the second one to talk to me,’"

The article goes on to say that the behavior the parents are engaging in is widespread and indicates a "fading parental morality. What they’re doing is entering into delinquent behaviors with their children. And what kind of statement is that to a child?” Which makes me wonder, what negative behaviors am I teaching G and B?

I'm Home Today

I'm home. Because of a nasty little summer cold, I left work early. After being there for one hour, in fact. I went in to the office only to finish a chapter and turn in my timesheet (although I'm a salaried employee, I submit a weekly timesheet to show the hours I have worked on different projects). Anyway, as I walked out of the building, I had a little feeling of liberation, kinda like I'm getting away with something a la Courtney Thorne-Smith's character in Summer School, who claims she is getting her period in order to get out of class and go surfing. Of course, now that I am home, I have a pang of guilt that my babies are not with me. I feel that perhaps I should not be lounging, but cleaning. And, I can't even listen to the NPR parlor discussion of the veep race because of the blasted web interface on michiganradio.org. Bah! It reminds me of Griffin's new favorite joke, which goes something like this:

Him: Knock knock
Me: Who's There?
Him: Boo
Me: Boo Who?
Him: Don't cry, it's only a joke!

He's getting very good at telling jokes, which I interpret to mean he's growing up.
Before I left work today I told my co-worker a story about Bela going to bed with a Scooby Doo book. She was curled up with it several hours later when we went in to check on her. I love that I have kids who like books that much. Griffin now has his own library card for the ELPL. Last night, needing some mom time, he and I went up there and came within six books of the weekly checkout limit.

Also, it appears that the email notification is not working. I dunno what's up with that but maybe I'll check into it (then again, maybe I won't :)

Blah Blah Blah

One of my favorite authors is Tom Robbins, who always manages to tie together the strangest items that he has meticulously researched. When I was writing this post in my head at work, I thought I might be able to emulate him. Now, I'll just be happy to remember my clever title.

The summer is moving too fast--the past few weeks have been busy in workland. Lots of semi-late hours. Very annoying. Although there is a certain nerdy happiness that I derive from my job. In fact, today I had an idea for a different blog. Since I so often look things up and then go off on a tangent, I thought it might be interesting to track these random roamings through the dictionary, google, etc. This is not the most interesting example, but today I was searching for on board or onboard in my dictionaries. It wasn't there but onanism was. Look that one up! Anyway, I went with onboard because that's how the NYT does it. I also found an interesting article about Fiji Waters sustainable development director. I found an interesting article this morning: Blogging's Glass Ceiling about the BlogHer Conference, and I learned of a new-to-me blog called Dooce. The NYT called it a snarky mommy website so I had to check it out. I was prepared to not like it because there can only be one funny mommy website in my world and I wanted it to be my little hidden bloggette. Certainly not the abundance mentality I am trying to cultivate. But she's funny, and by golly she has a lot of readers. One post had 42,232 comments. She's also my age with a birthday in July. Could it be that her b-day is the same as mine? How cool would that be? I've never met anyone born on the same day and year.

Blogs are great but with the new cable I am able to watch reality television. Jon and Kate Plus Eight is my new fave and Brett likes Gene Simmons' Family Jewels. Which reminds me, I got a message from the other Brett Pickett in town who added me to his Facebook friends. Even though I have known my version of BP for 14 years, I still breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that he is a 20-year-old kid. In fact, I kidded my version that technically he could be this version's father.

Now that we have gone all retro and gotten the cable, I think I want to get a home phone. There was another study last week about the dangers of cell phones, especially for young children whose brains are still developing. Robert Novak, the nasty bit who exposed Valerie Plame as a spy, has a brain tumor. Wiki-hypochondria was not to be my penultimate post about brain tumors. [ed.: I think I may not have used "penultimate" correctly here, but I am sure that my brain tumor phobia persists!]

When I got home tonight, Bela came over to me and whispered some secrets in my ear. The kind that go "ssssswwwwwsssss." Then she wagged her little finger in my face and said "No, no, no." She is one silly girl! Another interesting thing I read about today in my editing job was the Boppidi Bippidi Boutique at Walt Disney World where little girls can become divas or princesses.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is on FX. I think Angelina Jolie's character is driving my car!!!!!! Oh no, it's a mercedes wagon. I do wonder how someone so slim can have such large bosoms. Anyway, there was a comment last week on Judith Warner's polemical blog about the truth behind women who have "opted out" that made me want to defend AJ. Some nonsense about how she has inspired a certain maniacal motherhood. Anyway, I thought it was very unfair as she has made it clear in every interview I've ever seen that they have loads of help because they make a ridiculous amount of money. Plus, she has two movies at the theater right now and is a UN Goodwill Ambassador.

33 and the SuperManny

I am blogging from my office. It is very uncomfortable, despite the fact that I have 11 minutes left on my lunch hour. I'll try to catch you up, dear reader, on the happenin' happenings in my life over the past 14 days.
First, I am officially 33 now, which means that if I live to be 100, a third of my life is over (or, more optimistically, a new third is beginning). Besides getting cable tv as a gift, Brett and the chitlins also gave me the new Vampire Weekend cd and a Flip camera. Woohoo! I will certainly have to post some video soon, particularly the one of Griffin impersonating a piece of bacon frying in a pan!
This past weekend, the fam and I met up with our friends, the Babcocks, in Muskegon to go to the beach. Lake Michigan was cold and choppy but the most wonderfully peaceful thing I have experienced since last summer when we went to the beach for a day.
Supermanny is the name of Griffin and Bela's new, three-day-per-week caregiver. He goes under many aliases including Scott, Uncle "Cotti," and Dr. Pickett. Yes, even for a college town, we have the most educated babysitter in the land. The kids are loving the extra time with him and so are Brett and I.
Okay, I have three minutes of "lunch" left. What else is there to say?
Did I write not too long ago about seeing Griffin and Bela as Thing One and Thing Two from the Cat in the Hat? I did. They were pulling apart the house as I was trying to clean it.
Bela's new habit is to "check diapers"--she walks around each of us, pulling on the back of our pants, and looking down inside. When I informed her recently that I am a big girl and don't have a diaper, she clapped her little hands and said "yay mommy!"
I guess I'm a big girl now!

Monday, Monday

We had excitement here on the homefront this past weekend. Water and fire. There was a leak under the kitchen sink that Brett fixed on Friday night/Saturday morning. Then a rogue element burned our yard waste bags the next night. On Sunday morning, I found a pile of burning embers where the bags of clippings had been hours before.

Griffin had a nightmare last night, and afterwards I dreamed of sleep being tiny scraps that I could put on and wear.

Brett and I have watched some great movies recently: I Am Legend and Invasion (a modern version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers). I Am Legend will be screened at Valley Park later this month. I would love to go see it under the stars but the 9:30 start time is a little late for a Thursday (is that not pathetic?!?) Invasion starred Nicole Kidman as a mom who would do anything to save her darling son, Oliver.

We'll go see the new Batman movie this weekend. Yay for the marketing of the movie; we're able to find lots of Batman merchandise for Griffin that we ordinarily never would have found. Grandma Beth is going to bring us batman shoes when she comes over this weekend. I'm even hoping to find a little batgirl shirt for Bela when I go out shopping.

The birthday swag has been coming in. I have to decide how to spend $20 at World Market, DSW sent me a $5 coupon for new shoes, and Beaners mailed me a voucher for a free coffee.

I've recently added a profile on Facebook, and tonight went searching for friends. Oddly I found my friend Megan (who sent me a wonderful birthday card!) but under her maiden name and living in Ohio. The strangest discovery was someone with my husband's name, living in our town. I suggested that if he has a double life, this may be the time to let me know.

Tomorrow is the day my birthday present comes! I'm getting cable. The sheer joy of having DVR and the Daily Show is delighting me to no end! We'll even be able to record the new PBS show, Martha Speaks, based on the books about the alphabet soup-eating dog, when it begins airing on Labor Day.

I'm working extra long hours, reading loads, but at home I have been reading the same book since April. For tonight, I'll go read another page or two in the Audacity of Hope and maybe finish it before the election.

I'm a People Person

So I have this, shall we say, habit that makes Brett cringe. He thinks it is because I am from a small town, however, I believe that it is something else. Anyway, I am fairly convinced that I met one of my neighbors when I was a teenager. "Met" is a strong word for the instance. I was a teenager, she was a college student. We were at the mall. She was wearing a very cool leather jacket. I, as teenagers tend to do, wanted one just like it and asked her where she bought it. She was incredibly kind but did not know. The man she was with was on the move. She had to go. Could it actually be my neighbor? Brett would scoff. But, you would be amazed how often this intuition of mine is dead-on accurate. The only facts of which I am certain are that it was more than 15 years ago and we were in Kalamazoo. How do you ask that question??? If I figure it out, I'll let you know. If you're out there, dear reader, please comment on whether you think this is crazy/silly talk.

By the way, the email function works! Check out this site to sign up to receive notifications by email http://www.shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php. Copy and paste this address into the url line: http://thejollymama.blogspot.com/atom.xml. Thanks to my friends AMy and John for teaching me this nifty trick!