TheMommyBlog

Thursday, July 24, 2008 Familybits

I got in a little trouble this morning for painting without calling my friend to come and help…

Her: don’t tell me you finished painting D’s room !.....
Me: I did the walls in the corner and the one over the closet! I had to! I had to get the room back together before the cleaners came or I would have shot myself
Me: BUT
Me: I got a call from Daph this morning
Me: “Mama?”
Me: “I was at the park, and I fell on this… um, brick wall?”
Her: oh no ....
Me: “and I got seven stitches in my chin!”

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Me, Me, Me

In my twenties, I painted many a room to perfection, applying up to six coats to get coverage (especially if there is a thin sheen of nicotine on everything), making sure the trim is clean and the edges straight, only to put down the brush and spend the next several years never looking up there again.

This year, I painted Daphne’s room without a drop cloth (well, there was one in the room, I could just never find it to stand on), quart-sized mug-o-paint in hand, squinting at edges and corners to see if I’ll ever care about later.

And then? I took a shower, shaved my legs, and cleaned the dried paint out of my razor.

Monday, July 21, 2008 Familybits

UGH. I’m exhausted from the crying, whining, and begging to be allowed to stay home from camp. This is the last of five weeks we booked so we could work (HAHAHA, yes, I wish I had a job), and the kids are fed up with the counselors who enforce rules but don’t follow them and who don’t know when to stop with the teasing and bossing around. I have to keep reminding myself that the camp director is maybe 23, and everyone under him is even younger than that.

Anyway, everyone claimed stuffy noses, sore throats, burning foreheads (I could have kept potato salad cool on their heads, the little weasels), and poison oak. Well, Dylan actually HAS poison oak, but it’s not contagious and there isn’t much to do while waiting it out other than keep it protected and put hydrocortisone on it when it flares up. (Which happens at approximately four-thirty each morning. He comes in at that time with flaming rashes consuming his legs so I whip out the 1% and slather it all over the ten or so patches all over his body. By the time we wake up, the rashes look all docile and harmless again.)

And then, because the boys each lost a tooth this week, Logan did his best to sap all of the mystery out of the Tooth Fairy. He said his tooth was still there this morning (I forgot to do it last night but got in there when he got up to pee), but then Daphne ran and looked, and found a dollar.

Unimpressed, he said, “That wasn’t there this morning, everyone knows it was Mom.” My eyes bugged.

He kept going and I was making slicing motions across my neck, and then kicking his shins, and he’s all, “Why are you kicking me, Mom?” I finally got him into the other room and explained that once he gets old enough to start thinking that things like the Tooth Fairy aren’t real, it’s part of his job to help keep it going for the little ones. Jiminy.

He finally got it, so I went to check email. When I came back, he was holding forth at the breakfast table, saying, “And she’s got to drink tons of coffee to stay up all night! It’s unbelievable! This one time, she spilled coffee all over my pillow! And—”

I said, “OK, everyone! Enough talking, let’s finish getting ready!”

There was renewed begging to come back home once we arrived at camp, but I smoothed it over with a candy orgy at the general store. Mom of the Year.

I’m so exhausted.

Thursday, July 17, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Other people who write

See the new article in Advertising Age on P&G’s inviting 15 influential mommy bloggers to headquarters in Cincinnati. Disclaimer: I’m one of the 15!

Thursday, July 17, 2008 Familybits

First, a national women’s magazine, is doing a story for the holidays (yes! Already! These things take time, you know.), and has asked me to see if anyone here fits the bill. You know you do. Interested parties can reply directly to .

For our holiday issue, we are looking for women who found a way to feel better about themselves and particularly their bodies with a holiday or family tradition. For example, volunteering at a food shelter, handing out toys to the needy, going ice skating with the kids, etc. Women who are selected for this story will likely be professionally photographed, which means professional hair styling and makeup application. If anyone is interested they can email me their name, age, city/state, current photo, and a paragraph about their story.

Obviously, I can’t reply. Remember the last time I took the kids ice skating? Or even better, roller skating? Hoo boy, that was fun. Whiplash on Christmas Eve. And then me, three kids, and a deranged woman in the ER all night 48 hours later.