The hot and cold of the road trip

We’re planning a short car trip this weekend out to Albany to see old friends.  I have a list of 27 things I need to do before I go to work for a bit – Beta Dad and the kids will pick me up and we’ll drive straight from there.  

I ride the organizational pendulum to both extremes.  I’m usually uber-prepared for such an adventure, or not at all.  Beta Boy and I went on a school field trip to Ellis Island last week, and the night before I stayed up pressing and putting out our clothes, prepping the coffee maker, pre-slicing our bagels and stocking my backpack with every item needed for entertainment and the unforeseen emergency.  If someone had a sore throat – I had a lozenge.  Car sickness?  Dramamine.  Bored?  Mad Libs.  Cut? Band Aid.  Hungry?  Thirsty?  Dyslexic?  Anemic?  I was a machine ready for anything.

Today, not so much.  I’ve been up for an hour, and so far I’ve spent most of my time pondering my next move in several VERY CLOSE Facebook scrabulous games, staring at the open fridge for a few minutes considering the nutritional value of left-over macaroni and cheese, and writing this very entry.  

It’s not to say I’m totally unprepared.  I DID spent about an hour last night making Sangrias to take with us.  This particular recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger juice.  (For those of you taking notes, ginger is not terribly juicy).  So….clean underwear?  No, not really.  Drinks to die for?  I’m all over it.

Here’s my plan – while everyone sleeps, I’ll goof off.  In about a half an hour, I’ll rush into our room looking very busy and overwhelmed, wake up Beta Dad, and say, “Look I JUST CAN’T get ready for this trip all by myself!”.  If all goes according to plan, and he wakes up the same generous human being he went to bed as, he’ll say “You don’t have to do it all, what can I do to help?”  

hmmmmm…..

“Well, I hate to ask, I mean, there’s not even that much left to do, but since you INSIST, could you clean the house, pack, finish up the dishes, organize the car, charge the computer, pick a movie and confirm with the dog sitter?”

But only because he INSISTED!

 

WordPress wants me to name this entry “Hello World!”

But I’d rather go with “’s’up?”.

I’m setting up a new house.  I used to play on Blogger Street, but then all the cool kids moved to WordPress Avenue, and I was the geek left playing all alone talking to the squirrels and eating paste.  So here I go.

Will I write on a regular basis?  Who knows.  I do know that, contrary to popular belief, Practice does not make perfect.  It does, however, make permanent.  

So here we go again.  It’s messy.  It’s funny.  It’s frustrating.  And it’s all good enough.

 

 

 

Thith ith a thtory that’ll till ya!

As you may have grasped from my last post, I have gladly said goodbye to the clumsy confines of infancy and welcome with open arms the delightful “middle age” of our children. Just young enough not to have attitude, old enough to hold up their end of a fantastic conversation. Young enough to still bend to our will, old enough to use the bathroom on their own. Young enough to still sneak in a good snuggle, old enough to see movies we actually like.

However, I have found myself, as of late, feeling some sadness and nostalgia as the last bits of their early childhood slip away. There are things I am truly sorry to see go. Rocking my kids to sleep. Splashing at bath time. Sippy cups and little Ziploc bags of cheerios.

One of the favorite things I will miss is the simple idiosyncrasy of our children’s speech. Our son has outgrown his sweet lisp, which shined magnificently as he rocked out to his favorite song, “Hey now, you’re a rock thtar” by that band, Thmathmouth.

In the case of our daughter, all of her “K” sounds would come out as the letter “t”. “Goin’ to the park to fly a tite” “Gonna have some birthday take” etc. etc.

What would bring us and anyone within earshot to tears is when she would get on a rant about her absolute favorite subject.

Kitties.

“We have two titties in our house.”

“Do you have any titties?

“My mommy had an orange titty, but it died.”

“My titties names are Ella and Dizzy.”

“Ooh, I like your titties.”

“Can I pet your titty?”

Quite frankly, I’m not that comfortable typing any more examples, but let me tell you there’s no better way to get to know a stranger than to have your youngster engage them in a conversation about the friendliness of their titties.

And I will miss it.

Beta From The Beginning

We celebrated Beta Boy’s tenth birthday this past week. He spent the day reflecting on his “first decade” and contemplating life in the “double digits”. (He then went down to the club to play bridge with Marty and Sol; they hit the early bird and called it a day.)

I’ve been looking back and thinking about how daunting his first few months were. I had no idea at the time how common my fears and insecurities were. I was not a graceful new mom. I wore motherhood like a wool sweater that had gone through the dryer. It didn’t fit right, it was itchy and uncomfortable, and I felt as though I was always struggling with it.

The worst for me were the grocery store visits.

Grocery store visits with my newborn had to be timed with the precision and skill of a military manuever, as he was nursing every hour and a half or so. And if the bar wasn’t open when he was thirsty, well he was going to raise holy hell, and I would have to suffer the angry glares of other shoppers, who clearly had NEVER HAD CHILDREN. Oh no, that would not do.

So I would feed him.

One hour, thirty minutes to go.

Then change him.

Then get him in the forty-seven layers he had to wear because it was winter.

One hour, fifteen minutes.

Then he’d poop.

Undo layers, change diaper, redo layers.

One hour, five minutes.

Run to bathroom and pee (knowing that this might be my only chance for the remainder of the day). No poop for mommy. No time. Make a mental note – remember to poop when baby’s older.

One hour to go.

Untangle straps on baby carrier. Strap baby in.

Baby poops.

Take precious minute weighing the pros and cons of letting him stay in his poop.

Conscience wins, take baby out, undo layers, change diaper, redo layers, strap baby in.

Fifty minutes to go.

Grab diaper bag, make sure it has the following contents:
Diapers (the need for which I think we’ve already demonstrated)
Wipes (good god, are there ever enough?)
Binky – take extra five minutes looking for a binky. We DO NOT leave the house without a binky.
“What to Expect The First Year”– should my baby come down with cradle cap, whooping cough or thrush during our shopping expedition.
A change of clothes – in case we are invited to dine with the captain at his table and we need something more appropriate for evening. Or if his diaper leaks.
AT LEAST five different developmentally stimulating baby toys.

Forty minutes to go.

Put carrier in car and drive to store. (Let’s not even think about how I look in my Winnie the pooh sweatpants, glasses, sneakers and baseball cap.)

Arrive at store – take carrier and bag out of car, find a cart, spend a good couple of minutes trying to figure out how exactly the carries fits into cart.

Thirty minutes to go.

Try to remember what it was we needed. Wading through sleep deprivation, looking for clarity. I think I started a list. Where was the list? What was on the list? Food. Yes, there was food. What food? What to cook? How to cook? We need meat, yes meat. Look, there’s some pepperoni – that’s meat! More protein. A dairy product. Look how pretty the Wispride Cheese Spread is, all orange and yellow and pink. Perfect. Oh, how proud Beta Dad will be that I am shopping. I am AWESOME. What else? Vegetables – we need vegetables.

Baby gets restless – my heart starts to race – must go faster. Twenty minutes to go.

Where was I? Vegetables. Oh, look, there’s a whole end cap with canned olives. Olives – plants – vegetables, right. Good. What else?

And so forth and so on. Baby fusses. Lactation begins. Time runs out.

I race my cart full of pepperoni, cheese spread, canned olives, not to mention cool aid, taco seasoning, macadamia nuts, and applesauce through the check-out and race home.

Un-strap screaming baby. Leave groceries in car. Feed screaming baby. Change diaper. Remember that there were groceries in the car. Get groceries. Wonder what to make out of pepperoni, taco seasoning, olives, Wispride and apple sauce.

Order take-out.

If I blogged every day…month…I wouldn’t be a Beta!

Well, I did it! I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but I am proud to announce I just finished NO-BLO-FO-MO-MO, otherwise known as “No blogging for a month…month”. It was grueling, and there were times when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I was sure there was no way I was not going to think of anything to write for an entire month, but I did it.

Now, I know there were doubters out there – un-supporters who checked my blog every day, thinking “There’s just no possible way she’s going to go another day without posting!”. To those of you who didn’t believe that I could generate a total lack of creativity, well, I think the words of Gandhi expressed it best when he said, “Be the change you wish to see in your blog”.

And to those supporters who ditched my blog never to look back because you believed in my total lack of inspiration, let me just say, “Thank You”.

Now that’s enough of that.

So, I’ve gotten a few tags, a little bit of bling and a lot to catch up on. I’m going to start with a softball today, however. It’s a little photo montage I like to call “Getting the Christmas Card Shot”

ps – Big bonus reader points to anyone who can tell me how to get the link button back on my blogger text bar – it’s dissapeared, and I can’t get it back!

When Bad Cookies Happen to Good People

Sometimes I forget I’m a Beta mom.

Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur and become totally convinced that I can do everything and be everywhere.

Sometimes I forget to give myself permission to let good enough be good enough.

And there’s where things go wrong. Very, very wrong.

Sometimes when I’m working all day and then picking up my kids and grocery shopping and getting a husband and a son ready for an opening night production and making a salad for the kindergarten pot luck that we will all go to before the opening night production and baking a batch of cookies and a batch of lemon squares for a bake sale and trying to shower because I didn’t have time that morning…

well, sometimes, when all that is happening, I get confused.

And instead of putting one egg in the cookies and three eggs in the lemon squares like the recipe calls for, I put THREE eggs in the cookies. And I end up with cookie dough that looks like pancake batter.

So rather than admit defeat, I add flour to the cookies to thicken the consistency.

Worried that I’ve created cake-like cookies with no taste, I throw chocolate chips in the batter.

Worried that my monstrosities won’t sell, while all the OTHER moms’ perfectly baked cookies will fly off the table, I search for something, anything, to add to their appeal.

In a panic, I grab some Hershey kisses. (I’ve seen that done, right? People put kisses on cookies, right? People will be dying for these awesome awesome chocolate cookies, right?)

I pull the giant, cake-like, lumpy cookies from the oven, slap on the Hershey kisses and stand back to admire my handiwork.

This is what I ended up with:

Hmmmm…..

Look familiar?

Can’t quite place it?

Here, let me help you:

Beta Mom’s Fake Dog Doo Cookies – Scoop them up at a Bake Sale near you!

Will Rhyme For Food

Well, there’s just going to be no living with me now.

On the heels of my MAJOR newspaper publication (those elementary kids didn’t know what hit ‘em), I’ve received word that I’m the winner of Creative-Type Dad’s KFC Chicken Checks give-away.

Click on the title above (where, oh where, Blogger have you hidden my tool bar with my link button?) and check out the winning entry, as well as the hilarity that is Creative-Type Dad.

Don’t Worry – I Won’t Let It Go To My Head

It pleases me to no end to announce that finally after what feels like days of hard work and patience – I am being published in a major newspaper!

It’s true! Today my article “Local Children Head “Into the Woods”” – a scintillating expose detailing the sordid lives of the children of community theater – is being published in…

Are you ready for it?

The Warrior – our elementary school newspaper!

Not only that, but it’s been syndicated.

To the middle school.

Stop cheering…no, really, your applause is too much. Settle down now.

Not to brag, but this achievment is a direct result of the dedication and commitment I show in my role as our theater’s
publicist/refreshment coordinator.

Now, I know that there are many of you out there who are still toiling away, firing off pieces for lesser know names like Parents Magazine and Time and whatnot and are wondering how you might achieve a level of success like mine. All I can tell you is – hold onto your dreams. These major publication companies can be tough to break into. For example, I had to call Isabel, the school secretary, THREE times before I got the go-ahead.

But in the end, it was worth it. There, between “Illness of the Week” and “Ski Club sign-ups” sits my brilliant debut.

I’ll remember you all in my Pulitzer acceptance speech.

Bananas is hot!

So, the witty and beautiful Jenny over at Absolutely Bananas (Click on the title above to pay her a visit!) came up with a great idea. Sort of a virtual ladies room, where we gals can get together and dish about our latest beauty secrets and finds. (No, guys, we really are NOT talking about you in there.) Once a month, we post – Bananas keeps the master list at her place – check it out for other great pointers.

After all, none of us is as smart as all of us. Or none of us is smarter than some of us. Or some is smarter than none…..Anywho – here’s my tip.

A while back to make the tedium of drinking the recommended 18 gallons of water a day easier, I began adding lemon juice. Sometimes I squeeze half a lemon into my water in the morning. Sometimes I slice up lots of little pieces and just keep them in my bottle as I refill it. (Sometimes I forget to drink water at all and drink 47 cans of Diet Pepsi instead. sigh)

Anyway, while drinking water always makes me feel better, I noticed that drinking the water with lemon made a marked improvement – to my skin, my hair, my energy level – I just all around felt better. Now, I’m not one for fancy book learnin’, but I’ve done some reading and it seems lemon juice is extremely effective in removing toxins from your system. Can’t really get into the where and why – I just know that it adds a certain glow!

So, if life hands you lemons – drink lemon juice. Then you can be pretty like this:

It’s ilove…

Instead of cleaning all of this laundry:

I’m wasting away the day playing with my new computer.

Did imention that ihave a new imac and ilove it. iwill never be without my imac again. ithink ifound true love.

By far our favorite accessory is the photo booth.

While the laundry strangles the pets and makes long distance phone calls, I’ve been doing this (hope this works):

me

me as a cartoon

me as a character from the 80’s hit video “take on me”

me as an Andy Warhol picture

and me as that kid from Mask