TheMommyBlog

Monday, October 06, 2003

Omg this makes me laugh so hard every time I open it.

Dear Abby,

I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love.” It offered advice to grandparents with respect to misbehaving grandchildren those whose own parents let them run wild.

I have followed your advice, and enclose a picture demonstrating the technique I employ on my grandson when he just won’t behave. His parents do not allow me to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.

Sincerely,

Tough Love Grandma

Click to see photo

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Helping Daddy in the yard:

Helping Mommy in the yard:

Actually, I lied. Gil was doing actual work in actual dirt the day the first one was shot. My pic was just after a pleasant lunch outside. She ran off with a pot of dasies and it turned into a photo shoot.

Saturday, October 04, 2003

I once went on a blind date with a Hungarian springboard artist. A friend was working at the Medinah Shrine where the circus was performing, and she gave me a tour of the place and then we went to the circus train to meet Atilla. (I wish I were making this up. Mom, go look at pictures of the kids or something.) In his room (car? compartment? caboose?) was an old modelling photo of me that my “friend” had showed him when she said she’d like to set us up (oh, I think she set me up, all right). I started to feel understandably freaked out at the sight of this guy grinning at me up there on the wall, in a swimsuit and big 80’s sungalsses, and so I said hey! Why don’t we go meet the rest of the troupe? They were wonderful, though we had to converse in Spanish because they didn’t speak English and I, incredibly, didn’t have any Hungarian. They taught Jen and me to swing from the trapeze, though I was really bad at it and made a miserable dismount that left rope burns on my ankles. I’m aware that not only are there about seventeen jokes that could be made right about now, and that you may be beginning to suspect I’ve made the whole thing up.

Well, I didn’t. I haven’t even thought about that incredibly short and misguided acquaintance with Atilla and his satin shirt unbuttoned down to here for years, but for some reason the whole episode flashed into my head when I saw this.

Saturday, October 04, 2003

So what did I think about all last night while I couldn’t sleep/get comfortable/convince my dd that I was not going to be her all-night binkie?

The Internal Revenue Code.

Can you not hear chuckling from above? (Cut it out, Murphy.)

I lay awake for long stretches last night, trying to remember the exact phrasing in regard to out-of-compliance grantees--and just how much room was there to interpret “reasonable period of time??” When is a uncooperative recipient truly a deadbeat, and when is there merely insufficient communication? Guess I’ll find out this fall as I sift through the remaining 427 expenditure responsibility grants piled in the next office. What with being in NY for a week and have the most disease-ridden, high-maintenance home in history, I have keep doing recalculations on how many I have to get through each day in order to be done by December 31. Elissa--quick--I need a glass of Veuve.

Friday, October 03, 2003

OK I am NOT firing on all cylinders. I’ve been sleeping just a few hours a night for the last week, rotating between each of my children’s beds--they cry for comfort, I drag myself out of [???]’s bed, bark my shin on some fresh obstacle, feel my way towards the source of the whimpering, slide in and let my head crash to the pillow....begin to drift off....ahhhh this is nice....finally....then “moooooommy.....moooooommy!” from another room. Slither off the current bed, stagger to the next, eyes squeezed shut and hands in the mummy posture...hoping to get 45 minutes this time before the next Chinese fire drill. It’s a bit disorienting and does nothing for my wit and charm.

However, everyone seems to be better this morning, and now that we have discovered that I DO have strep, I can chug antibiotics and start getting better myself. In fact, if things were going more smoothly, I’d be asleep in bed instead of typing this, but I’ve already showered and dressed with the idea of going to work (because the children knew I was home and couldn’t resist coming to wake me up). But the gods are mischievous, and while I was drying my hair my dh took the kids to run errands. And here I sit, caffinated, clean, wide awake, house to myself, and exceedingly grumpy.