Cup Holders

The inside of my car hasn't smelled right for a week or so.

This morning, I followed my nose to the third row cup holder, where I found this:



After poking the two largest objects with a stick, my husband determined that they were the semi-liquid remains of a fresh pear.

"This is disgusting," I told the person who sits in the seat next to the cup holder.

The person responded by asking with hopeful anticipation if the pear was still edible.


***
Makes you curious about what tasty treats are hiding in YOUR cup holders doesn't it?

Happy New Years!

The Dentist Waiting Room

Last night, I went to the dentist. Much to my dismay, I was called back to a room almost immediately.

"You seem disappointed by our prompt service," observed the dental hygienist.

I explained that my husband was home with the kids and that I was actually looking forward to spending a half hour in the waiting room with a stack of tabloid magazines.

The woman--a mother herself--smiled out of the corner of her mouth as she took my x-rays. She returned to the exam room a few minutes later with an armload of magazines and some bad news.

"Your film is going to take at least 45 minutes to develop," she told me with a wink. "Maybe more."

I fell to the floor in gratitude.

Christmas Morning

Predictably, Christmas morning at our house was filled with highs and lows.

High: Santa brought a Zhu Zhu pet.
Low: The Zhu Zhu pet was the wrong color.

High: Santa brought Transformers underpants.
Low: The underpants were two sizes too small.

High: Everyone found bags of gummy bears in their stockings.
Low: Someone ate all of his in one sitting and threw them up an hour later.

High: The first present that Kellen opened was a football.
Low: Always the good sport, Cortlen expressed his enthusiasm for his brother's good fortune by crawling under the sofa and crying for ten minutes.

High: Tim's parents gave the boys baseball helmets.
Low: Immediately after putting the helmets on their heads, Cortlen and Kellen head butted each other (on purpose). Cortlen spent the rest of the day complaining of a headache.

High: Tim's parents gave Camber a bottle of sparkly nail polish.
Low: She accidentally spilled it on the kitchen table.

High: I put the kids to bed at 6:30pm that night.
Low: They got up at 5:30am the next morning.

How was YOUR holiday?!

The Christmas Miracle

My daughter's Christmas list contains only two things: a candy jewelry maker and a battery-operated hamster.

As much as it pained me to purchase item #1, I did it because I felt very confident that I would not be able to locate item #2.

"None of the stores around here are selling Zhu Zhu pets right now," I said, pointing to one of many empty toy store shelves.

Just when my first grader had finally resigned herself to being hamsterless, the mall Santa threw me under the bus.

"Of course I can!" replied Saint Nick when my daughter asked if he and his troop of industrious elves could make her a litter of Zhu Zhu pets.

"Problem solved," said my daughter, as she hopped off the bearded man's lap.

"Thanks a lot," I hissed in the direction of the velvet throne. Santa replied by giving me a wink, a coloring book, and a miniature candy cane.

That was two weeks ago. I've been back to the mall a handful of times since that day and each time I spot Santa perched inside his candy cane cottage held together with duct tape, I give him the evil eye.

Clearly Santa knew that he was on my naughty list because this morning at 8:17am he granted me a Christmas miracle. I was shopping at a local super center when all of sudden I heard several fellow shoppers scream the words "hamsters" and "OVER THERE!!!!" The object of their gaze and pointed fingers was an elderly man with a single cardboard box.

Fifteen of us waited with baited breath as the man cut the box open.

Screams of jubilation ripped through the store as the man held up a handful of electronic rodents.

I snatched a white one.


I had big plans to steal Santa's thunder by wrapping up the glorified mouse and attaching a gift tag that included the phrase "From Mom and Dad."

My husband's role play of Christmas morning changed my mind.

"Aww nuts! I wanted a black one! Where is the hamster car? And its tunnel? And its friends?"

It's hard to be six in a world without enough hamsters and hamster accessories to go around.

It's even harder to be Santa.

Q&A

Q: What is more awesome than a blizzard the weekend before Christmas?

A: A blizzard + 4 children + husband with the stomach flu


The Plague struck the first of my offspring at exactly the right time (one hour before my husband's work Christmas party on Friday night), though not in the most desirable place (on the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic).

I got hit on Sunday morning.

P.S. After much hair-pulling and wandering aimlessly through the mall, my husband did manage to rustle up some holiday gifts for his employees, or at least so he claimed. He wouldn't tell me what he ended up buying, and I probably don't want to know. Innocence is bliss.

See you tomorrow.

Employee Gifts

My husband has known for 365 days that he has to buy holiday gifts for his colleagues at work. I reminded him of this fact last month, as well as every day last week (in a nice, non-nagging way of course). For reasons unknown to man, the realization didn't hit him until yesterday afternoon during his lunch hour.

"I have to buy holiday gifts for the people in my office!" he screamed in panic over the phone.

"Where are you right now?" I asked.

He was slow to reveal that he was checking out flat screen television sets in Best Buy.

Sensing my annoyance, he feigned disbelief that a store that big doesn't sell Harry & David gift baskets.

"Half of the people in my office aren't going to be in next week!" he wailed. "Tomorrow is my last day to give them something!"

"That sounds very distressing," I replied. "What would you like me to do about it?"

The line got very quiet. "Can you at least think of ideas for me?" my husband wanted to know.



Of course, I was happy to oblige. I rattled off a long list of excellent suggestions. When I got to wearable blankets and Stephen Covey's latest book, he hung up on me.

****
Sound familiar? Anyone?

Man Troubles

Cameron is starting to recognize people he knows. Whenever I ask him where Camber is, he points to his sister. He also can correctly identify his brothers and dad.

Things become a little more difficult, however, when I ask him to identify his primary caregiver.

"Where's mommy?" I ask pointing at myself.

Without fail, Cameron responds by looking out the window or staring off into space.

"I'm right here!" I hoot as I do jumping jacks and metaphorical back flips in my living room.

Eventually my son's eyes shift to the cat, who is sleeping on the arm of the sofa. He giggles and points at the animal.

"Little stinker," I mumble under my breath.

It's as if the harder I try to get his attention, the more he ignores me.

Clearly dating taught me nothing about men.

The Guest Appearance

Remember when my family was on vacation in Los Angeles last summer? While we were there, I got a call from one of my hometown friends, a gal named Liane. She wanted to know if I was interested in meeting up for lunch while I was in town. I told her that I could do it, but that I would have to get a babysitter. She sent me directions to her office and told me to bring the kids.

"They'll be fine," she said.
"Where do you work these days?" I asked.
"They'll be fine!" she said again and hung up the phone.

Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Disney Animation Studios in Burbank.

The next hour was a jealous blur. After showing us her super cool office which was filled with toys, Liane took us upstairs to meet some of her animator friends, who just happened to be sketching the last scene of The Princess and the Frog. A nearby vending machine stocked with candy bars and gummy Lifesavers prevented my children from appreciating the magnitude of what they were witnessing. While they dug through my purse for loose change, I tried not to act how I felt, which was like a six-year-old on a sugar rush.

"This is the coolest thing I have ever seen," I said a million times.

After I repeated this phrase a few million more times, the man smiled politely and got up to use the bathroom.

I must have made quite the impression on the animator because when I went to see the movie on Saturday with my kids, I saw that he had drawn me into the last scene. If you squint and cover your right eye and play the scene backward and in slow motion, you'll see a more modestly dressed Meanest Mom avatar sprint across the bottom of the screen.

At least that's what I'm telling all my friends.

Lost Library Books

School libraries are magical places filled with bookshelves overflowing with unexplored treasures.

My children are seemingly blind to these riches, as evidenced by the fact that they spend their library time searching out books that we already own.

"Look!" said Cortlen in stunned amazement as he retrieved a copy of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs from his backpack. "The library has the same book as us!"

"That's crazy!" I replied.

"I got The Cat in the Hat!" screamed Kellen, holding up an equally unfamiliar text. Not surprisingly, my daughter came home later that afternoon with the library's second copy of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
"Next time, why don't you guys choose books that we don't already have?" I suggested.

The minute that I offered up this suggestion, I remembered that it was irrelevant. My children never actually read any of the library books that they bring home from school. The purpose of checking out library books (other than to marvel at the existence of duplicate copies) is to ruin my life. This happens when books are left unattended on the kitchen counter long enough for someone to spill something on them, or when they are inadvertently stashed away in secret places until I receive emails like this:

Dear Parent,

The following item is overdue. Please return it as soon as possible to avoid being charged a book replacement fee:

LIBRARY MATERIALS

Due: 10/8/2009
"The great Waldo search"
Call #: F HAN
Barcode: S 6d6236
Price: $14.95

Normally emails like this generate a frantic search through my house. In this case, such an exercise was unnecessary. Just after Thanksgiving, I dropped a bunch of books into the donation bin at my local Salvation Army. Both of our copies of The Great Waldo Search were among them.

****
Any similar tales of library mishaps?

College Application Essays

It's that time of year again!!!

Throughout the month of December, I frequently find plates of Christmas cookies on my doorstep. Attached to the plates of cookies are cranky high school seniors from my neighborhood who don't want help with their college applications, but whose mothers insist upon it.

Approximately six weeks ago, the guest of honor was a boy named Nick. He was applying to a private college with a low average SAT score and rolling admissions. His mom thought he was a shoe-in.

Nick's application required him to write a three-hundred word essay responding to the question "What is your greatest challenge?"

The first lines of Nick's essay read: "I have a problem with self-control. When I get mad, I hit things with sticks." The essay went on to catalog an extensive list of objects damaged by fallen branches and two-by-fours.

"You can't say this," I told Nick bluntly.

"But it's true!" he protested.

"They can't handle the truth," I responded.

"But my application is due tomorrow!" he whined.

"You will not get in if you say this," I warned, escorting him to the door. I wanted Nick out of my house before he hit me with a stick.

Yesterday, the thin envelope arrived in Nick's mailbox. Nick was almost jubilant, thus confirming my suspicions of self-sabotage. Nick's mother, on the other hand, burst into tears.

"I'm so sorry," I said, trying to console the woman. "I know you were hoping for a different outcome."

"It's all your fault, you know," the woman said half jokingly. "You made him rewrite that essay at the last minute."

That's when Nick revealed that at the eleventh hour, he had seen the light. Two hours before the application was due, he abandoned the stick story and submitted in its place a touching tale about a recent fist fight that cost him one of his front teeth.

"Wise choice," I noted.

Nick's mother's face turned bright red and she began to shake. Evidently, she was not aware of her son's essay topic.

"If I were you," I told Nick, "I would back away very slowly."

Once he had eased himself off my driveway, he began to run down the street.

Playdates

Playdates are big events at our house. In order to maximize/consolidate the fun, I like all of my children to invite friends over at the same time.

That, and a pupil-free day is how I ended up with six six-year-olds at my house yesterday afternoon.

Everyone in my family is naturally blessed with good social skills and we consistently pull out all the stops to impress our guests.

Case in point: Within ten minutes of the guests' arrival, Cortlen decided to remove his shirt.

"Put your clothes back on!" I snapped. A better response might have been to ask my son, "Why in world did you take your clothes off in the first place?"

Camber waited until the group was assembled at the kitchen table to make her big announcement.

"I know two bad words," she said proudly.

For the record, the two words in question are "stupid" and "dumb."

"Don't do it," I warned. We have strict rules about unsavory language in our house.

"One of the words starts with an 's,'" she continued, ignoring me.

At that, Kellen's friend jumped out of his chair and began waving his arms wildly. "I know! I know!" he shouted with excitement. The boy could barely contain himself.

The boy's exuberance made me suspect that he was not thinking of the same word as my daughter.

I called an emergency family meeting in the laundry room, minus friends.

"If you ever want to have friends come over again," I told my crew, "You'd better knock it off."

Everyone stifled a giggle but promised to hold it together.

Less than ten minutes later, Kellen and his friend army-crawled into the kitchen. It was apparent from their appearance that they were on a special mission. The friend was wearing Kellen's plastic army helmet. Kellen's head was covered by a pair of clean (I hope) G.I. Joe underpants.

****
Do your kids do totally bizarre/out of character things when their friends are over? I am officially mortified.

Giveaway Winner

WOW. Thanks to all 983 of you who entered the Body Shop Giveaway.

The winner is.....

AMBER who said, simply, "I want to win."

Since there were around 50 women named Amber who said exactly the same thing in their comments, I'm a little worried about locating the right woman. The Amber I'm looking for is married to a handsome guy named Kevin and has two darling little boys. I don't know where she's from, but from the pictures posted on her blog, it appears to be somewhere significantly more desirable than Philadelphia in December. IT'S COLD HERE (and I'm a big baby).

Amber: email me pronto to claim your prize! Congratulations!

The Third Day of Christmas

Sadly, the Body Shop Giveaway is now over.

To see the original post, go HERE.

Didn't win? Don't despair! You still have 11 more chances!
Each day, a new contest will open up on a featured blog. In addition, you can visit The Body Shop site by December 12 to register to win the grand prize of $1,200 worth of products!!!

The Advent Calendar

I have an advent calendar; one of its doors is completely missing and two others are partially unhinged.

Every time I look at the object, I am overcome by the nagging suspicion that the calendar symbolizes my life in some deep way.

Last weekend, we filled each of the calendar's compartments with a slip of paper containing a different Christmas-related activity. Wednesday's paper told us to read The Night Before Christmas. On Thursday, we made cookies. On Friday afternoon, we wrapped several gifts for my husband and placed them under the tree. Three hours later, during dinner, my sons told my husband not to get his hopes up. "Unless you like church clothes, you're not going to be happy with your presents," they told him knowingly.

So much for the element of surprise.

The contents of Saturday's box instructed us to visit Santa at an outdoor shopping center. We found Saint Nick under a red-and-white striped tarp in front of a store that sells large robot dogs and other necessities. He was sitting on a velvet throne. Next to the throne was a large popcorn machine on wheels.


The relevance of the popcorn maker to holiday miracles eluded me, but made perfect sense to my children. Cortlen refused to sit on Santa's lap, as it obstructed his view of the object and its contents.

"What would you like for Christmas?" Santa asked him.

Cortlen shoved his Christmas list back into his pocket. Mouth agape, he pointed at the contraption.

"Do you want a bag of popcorn or the whole machine?" Santa asked, confused.

Cortlen didn't realize until that moment that there was an option.

"The machine! The machine!" he shouted. Dreams of popcorn on demand danced in his head.

"Thanks Santa," I replied.

In attempt to dissipate the mounting tension under the tarp, Santa's scantily-clad elf leaned in with peace offering, freshly popped and piping hot.

****
Any good tales from YOUR visit to Santa?

The Power of Music

Music is the cure-all for every negative emotion. That is what people who appreciate good music always say. Notably, people who have children who play the trumpet or saxophone in middle school marching bands rarely say this.

When you are feeling sad/frustrated/irritated/overwhelmed/scared, humming your favorite tune will put you and everyone around you in a cheery mood.

I tried this tactic this morning at the breakfast table. When my children threatened to riot over the flavor of oatmeal I served, I felt inspired to sing "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To."

Strangely, my singing did not reduce the hostility in the room, but rather increased it.

I am confused.

New Plates

My dinner plates are over twelve years old. I have wanted to buy a set of new ones for quite awhile now, but have really struggled with justifying the expense of replacing things that are ugly and dated but still function.

Allowing my children to empty the dishwasher each morning has effectively solved my problem.

It's been four days, and we're already down three plates. As we have learned through experimentation, ceramic dinnerware is not easily balanced on one finger, nor can it be slid across a shallow countertop without consequences.


*********
The Body Shop Giveaway has been moved HERE.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Open Houses

I really struggle with forms, especially those that ask me to list my interests and hobbies. I have learned the hard way that in some cases, this one included, honesty isn't always the best policy.

Potential Employer: "You enjoy reading wedding announcements of people you don't know in the newspaper and going to open houses?"

The woman asked me this like it was some kind of mistake.

The miracles of the Internet allow me to peruse the Lifestyle section of the newspaper at my leisure, but there is one insurmountable obstacle that prevents me from attending as many open houses as I would like: namely, CHURCH. Mine is scheduled from 1-4pm on Sundays, which is the exact same day and time that most home sellers in my area open their doors to total strangers.

I think about switching religions every time I drive to church and see a balloon-laden arrow at a busy street corner.


My sacrifices are great.

Two Sundays ago, my one-year-old son came down with a nasty cold. When my husband and I flipped a coin to see who would stay home with him from church, I had an extra reason to hope that fate would fall in my favor: a new listing in our neighborhood. The house has been vacant since September and was recently fitted with new carpeting, something my neighbor Tina and I noticed when we peeked through the home's windows earlier in the week.

I couldn't push my family out the door fast enough.

Tina was inspecting the contents of the kitchen cabinets when Cameron and I made our entrance.

Before I could greet my friend, I was startled from behind. "Welcome!" shouted a woman in a red suit and heels.

Experience has taught me that where there is an open house, there is also a realtor.

"Can you fill this out for me?" the woman asked, as she handed me a piece of paper and a pen.

The form didn't inquire about my hobbies, but it did want to know my name, phone number, and when I planned to move.

I intended to do the polite thing and leave all the fields blank, but Tina told me that the free house tour obliged me to write something.

Believing, falsely, that the realtor might be the only person who shares my passion for other people's property, I professed my love for open houses in the "comments" section of the form.

Sensing a serious customer in her midst, the realtor refused to make eye contact with me for the duration of my visit.