What Kind of Fool

Just finished scraping filling out of Oreo cookies and replacing it with toothpaste for C's lunch.
He should be immediately suspicious because: a) He's never gotten Oreos in his lunch before and b) They smell really minty.

song: What Kind of Fool  • artist: Barbra Streisand

Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)

In desperation I drove the twins around North Falmouth this afternoon trying to get them to fall asleep.
They've got 200 channels on Sirius, so where's the all lullabies all the time station?

song: Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) • artist: Billy Joel

Things Can Only Get Better

There's an unopened bag of mini marshmallows in the cupboard. Do you know what that means? It means I didn't make enough hot chocolate for my children this winter.
Bad Mommy!
On a positive note, I've now got three ski passes hanging off my winter coat.
I'm the cool ski kid I always wanted to be 30 years ago!

song: Things Can Only Get Better • artist: Howard Jones

How I hate articles and ads like this.
The text is about the positive effects of pregnancy; lower cancer risk, more effective brain, etc.
Could they please use a model who looks as if she's actually had a baby?
My improved-by-pregnancy brain tells me that this woman not look as if she's ever borne children. Not only that, she appears to have no breasts so it's doubtful she's even entered puberty yet.

song: Maybe Baby • artist: The Crickets

mourning morning (a couplet)

i wish my shower
could last an hour

Sock It To Me Baby

When will someone invent socks and shoes that stay on toddlers? Or mittens that can be put on without reducing both parent and three year old to tears?
From last spring:
I leave the house for preschool pick up with N & S, both have socks on their feet and no shoes.
I arrive at preschool and S has socks on hands. I collect H.
I arrive back at the end of our street to meet the elementary school bus and S has socks back on feet. N has socks on hands.
As we wait for school bus S puts socks back on hands. Both wave sock-puppet hands around, opening and closing sock-puppet mouths in silent song. I am reminded of Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
By the time the bus has deposited C the score stands at S with no socks on hand or feet, N with socks back on feet.

song: Sock It To Me Baby • artist: Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

Chelsea Morning

Bemoaning this morning (yet again) that it's such an unpleasant struggle to wake up my children and motivate them downstairs to eat breakfast - I thought how nice (and improbable) it would be to have kids who leapt out of bed on the first wake up call. The only real options are to have kids who don't want to get out of bed at 8AM or to have kids who get up at 6AM and expect you to get up too. There is no in between and no parent is truly happy with either scenario.
Despite the fable of Goldilocks, nothing is every "just right."
Last night I read that H.A. Rey (co-author of the ether-sniffing Curious George) used his initials instead of his actual name (Hans Augusto) because so many childrens' book authors of that day were women, it was felt that a man may not be accepted as a writer of kid's fiction by the general public.
Fifty years later, J.K. Rowling published Harry Potter using only her initials because her publishers felt that their target audience of 10-year-old boys, would not read an adventure book written by a girl.

song: Chelsea Morning • artist: Joni Mitchell

Lonesome Whistle

First snow of spring.

song: Lonesome Whistle • artist: Hank Snow

Kiss that Frog II

Damn!

song: Kiss that Frog • artist: Peter Gabriel

Kiss that Frog

I've made a pact with my son's one remaining frog that if I stop staring at it constantly, it won't die on me.
I'm afraid, though, that it's not going to uphold its end of the bargain.

song: Kiss that Frog • artist: Peter Gabriel

Catch the Wind

Did you know that, according to H, after you catch a leprechaun, you are supposed to squeeze him? Who knew there were instructions beyond just trying to catch one?

song: Catch the Wind • artist: Donovan

Purple Haze

Harold and the Purple Crayon has long been one of my favorite children's books. It's got simple line drawings and great text full of clever double entendre such as "Harold made his bed," and "he drew up the covers."
But tonight, maybe thanks to an extra glass of wine before story time, the whole Harold and the Purple Crayon-thing seemed like a bad acid trip. Not that I've ever been on an acid trip, bad or otherwise. Harold and his shaky hand drawing that ocean that almost swallows him up. Harold climbing the mountain which has no other side and then falling into nothingness. Can't you just hear Cheech and Chong in the background going, "Far Out Man!"
If that were the case though, Harold and the Purple Crayon would have to be a stoner book. And it could be that too - Harold draws himself a substantial snack, and his two friends are a "very hungry moose" and a "deserving porcupine."
Even the purple crayon seems psychedelic. It would be a whole different story if he'd of had a blue crayon.
I wonder if Harold and the Purple Crayon was written in the same year that Curious George sniffed ether after his ill-fated window-washing job.

song: Purple Haze • artist: Jimmy Hendrix

She's So Cold

Being a parent means not being able to find your car keys half the time but knowing exactly where the big magnifying glass is; which was useful this morning in checking out the frost on the grass and leaves.
We put one particularly good leaf specimen in our freezer. It's in there with the snowball, and the dead frog.

song: She's So Cold • artist: Rolling Stones

Tonight's The Night

Springing forward: the best hour of sleep I ever lost.

song: Tonight's The Night • artist: Rod Stewart

Time Stand Still

The Tao of My Twins: Lesson #7

If you suddenly look up and the clock reads 3:45 and you have to be at the bus stop at 3:55 lest your children be taken back to the elementary school leaving you to look like crap mom when you have to drive in and walk down the hall of shame to pick them up at extended day, inevitably as soon as you shove your twins into their boots and coats one of them will inform you that he's got a "dirty deedee."
Crap!

song: Time Stand Still • artist: Rush

Christmas Don't Be Late

This is what it's come down to. Tonight we baited a have-a-heart trap with a dirty diaper in hopes of catching the chipmunk who's been getting into the house. We think it's a chipmunk at least though H offered, hopefully, that it could be a leprechaun.
The boys and I went walking in Beebe Woods yesterday. It was the first 60-degree day of 2011 so naturally the trails were awash in families, dog walkers, joggers, and mountain bikers. Not too far from the big rock, S and N decided that they had to go to the bathroom so I had no alternative but to hustle them 10 feet off the path and aim them towards a convenient tree. No less than a dozen people walked by while they were doing their thing and I was left performing the what-can-you-do shrug and flashing a half smile that conveyed, "it's out of my hands."
Further along, also 10 feet off the path, H announced that there's dog poop and someone should have brought a bag for it.
I tried to explain that poop 10 feet off the path is fine right where it is and doesn't need to be in a plastic bag.
I felt like adding that when I was a kid nobody collected their pet's waste in plastic bags and that whenever you went outside there was an ever-present danger of stepping into poop and that you just had to live with that kind of peril day in and day out. And eventually you did step in poop and the adults in your life told you it wasn't a big deal and that in fact it "builds character" and to go wipe you Keds on some leaves in the backyard before getting into the car.
Expect for at our house, were we just might use your dirty shoe in the chipmunk trap.

song: Christmas Don't Be Late • artist: Alvin & the Chipmunks

Because The Night

Some people put their clothes into a laundry basket at the end of the day, pile them in the hall, or, if they aren't that dirty, fold them neatly and place them atop their blanket chest.
Not exhausted mothers. At least not this one.
I prefer to step out of my clothes and leave them puddled directly at the head of my bed as if instead of disrobing and climbing into bed, I simply melted into the floor, wicked-witch-of-the-west style, leaving the days duds behind.
"You cursed brats! Look what you've done! I'm melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought good little children like you could sap all my beautiful energy? Oooooh, look out! I'm going! Oooooh! Ooooooh! ... to bed."

song: Because The Night • artist: 10,000 Maniacs

Charlie Brown

There are many other Peanuts specials besides "A Charlie Brown Christmas." There's "It's Arbor Day Charlie Brown," "You're In Love Charlie Brown," and "It's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown," just to name a few. Most of these, with the possible exception of "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," are nowhere near as good as the classic Christmas tale of the round-headed kid and the tiny Christmas tree.
But despite their failings, they all remain true to one central theme. Charlie Brown always comes up the loser. He never kicks the football. He never gets his kite in the air. He, and we, think that it's going to happen - we're used to the happy ending - but for Charlie Brown there's no feel-good final inning in which his baseball team pulls it out at the last minute - no miracle on ice, no comeback kid, no field of dreams.
Charlie Brown brings a briefcase to school and doesn't get one single valentine. He gets rocks for Halloween. When it's his turn, the Easter Beagle runs out of eggs. Charlie Brown is more lifelike that any Disney character and his story is more like reality than any of those pull-it-out-at-the-last-minute tales, even the true ones. Charlie Brown doesn't even seem to have the comfort of involved and understanding parents; and look - he's already in therapy.
Charlie Brown's chronicles drive home the point that life is not fair. It's not just that Charlie Brown lacks talent. When it comes to that darn football kick - it's Lucy who screws him every time. He can't catch a break. In "It's Your First Kiss Charlie Brown," our hero's team looses the homecoming game by one point because of a missed kick which was thwarted by Lucy - who must be some sort of double agent for the other team. Later in the locker room after the game the whole team comes over to berate Charlie Brown, led by team captain Peppermint Patty. No building up our hero. No saying, "we know you did your best, we'll get them next time." Even Lucy, who's really to blame, instead of apologizing, gives him the what for. "It's just not fair," you want to yell at your television, but I guess that's the point.
Life is more like Charlie Brown's football game than Breaking Away or Ice Castles or any of those other movies in which underdogs overcome the odds to make it to the big time.
And yet Charlie Brown keeps on going. Like the biblical Job, he rarely curses his fate. And in "It's Your First Kiss Charlie Brown," he does get to kiss the little red-headed girl of his dreams. Proving what Tom Petty has known all along, "even the losers, get lucky sometimes."
Good news for the rest of us.

song: Charlie Brown • artist: The Coasters