[ Something Witty Should Appear Here ]

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH.

It's hot and humid and I have a sinus headache and my kid is watching some trippy "educational" programming on HBO that involves talking dancing shoelaces (!!!) and I have an 8-page Canterbury Tales paper due at 3:00 on Monday and my brain is basically completely fried.

So here: have some random, almost completely decontextualized pictures!

This is from before 4th of July. I may be alone in this, but I think there is basically nothing in the world more adorable than a wet child in neon colors who smells of Coppertone and chlorine screaming for joy. This is pretty much my happy place, right here. The only thing that would making this picture better, IMNSHO, would be if (1) this were my own kid, and (2) neons were not involved. I lived through the original mid-1980s neon fad, and I am not so excited about this day-glo revival, because I have eyeballs, and I'd like to keep them.

I would like to find the bozobrain who taught my kid the word "chillax" and punch them in the neck (unless it's a kid, in which case I'd like to punch his parent in the neck). Otherwise, camp has been a rousing success so far -- even though (1) Shae doesn't quite understand the words "boa" and "constrictor," although she DOES understand the concept of one, and (2) this picture was taken at my grandmother's.

This bubble is approximately 8,000 years old. Shae used to wear it. Of course, I can't find pictures of Shae wearing it because I never tagged any photos or blog posts with "bubble."

These pictures are actually from July 4th. And, it's a good thing my sister is teaching my niece to play pinochle now, at a very young age, because I am 39 years old and I still don't know how to bid. I am basically the world's least competent card shark. (I'm great at spades, though.)

This what July 4th looked like -- an ENTIRE DAY of my crazy kid being crazy. It was pretty awesome, actually, although it was too damned hot.

I included this picture for no particular reason except that I love these two.

Nuttin' For Christmas

Merry Christmas, Internet.


See you in a few days.

Star Light, Star Bright

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Our Christmas tree isn't "ours" any more. The Christmas trees my husband and I used to have we very simple, elegant, Martha-Stewart-approved affairs, with all white lights and gold and silver ornaments and only things found in nature: pine cones, acorns, snowflakes, apples. Those trees were beautiful, worthy of being feature in a decorating magazine.

Now our tree features a purple hippopotamus and a Perry the Platypus ornament. Our kid is responsible for that. I'll be honest, but don't tell anybody -- we like her tree better.

We're still creating our family decorating traditions, and we're adding new stuff to our tree every year. When I was a kid, our family tree reflected all the stuff that was important to us: Phillies ornaments, Star Trek ships, handmade craft projects, hand-me-downs. We're trying to incorporate that into our tree as well.

Our daughter is kind of the star of our lives, and so there are a lot of stars on our tree. Shae loves them, and so do we. One of her favorites is one that was made especially for this year's Heart of Haiti campaign. I love that she loves it because it basically features all the things I love in an ornament that will featured on our tree for many years: it's artisan-crafted, it's made of recycled and sustainable materials, and it's going to directly help someone provide a better life for their family.

Mostly I love this ornament, though, because it represents everything that we wanted our tree to say this year: "HOPE." And I hope that she will always love this ornament as much as we do.

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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own. #CleverHaiti

Frosty the Snowman

I can't speak for anyone else, but my week has been absolute BUTT, except for my niece's impromptu birthday bash at Chuck E. Cheese's yesterday -- I KNOW -- so I am sharing this with the world because it gives me so much joy.



I hope it does the same for you.

Building The Perfect Beast

Do you realize how difficult it can be to get the "perfect" (HAHAHAHA) Easter portrait of your kid? Completely disregarding all the general tomfoolery associated with "staged" photo shoots, like having props and bribes and actual kid at the ready? And never mind the fact that you have to get the kid to even agree to cooperate in the first place, which is as probable as winning the lottery while being struck by lightning at the same time?

First attempt: too squinty. Also, the shadows are falling across her neck weird. Let's try this again.

Second attempt: more weird shadows. And for some reason now her skin looks a different color than it did before. I blame jellybean consumption.

Third attempt: wrong angle, and that POSE. I thought it would be cute, in theory, kind of like a faux-school-picture kind of thing, but obviously something went wrong here in the execution. (Plus, that isn't quite how I wanted her to pose, but it was the best I could do at the time.)

Fourth attempt: almost great, except for the shadows again. And I swear, I had her turning and spinning and moving all over the yard to try to get the right light angle. I think we had trouble because it was right at mid-day in the early spring and the sun was in Aquarius and Mercury was in retrograde. It's kind of obvious, really.

Fifth attempt: Almost perfect, except THERE IS A STICK GROWING OUT OF HER HEAD NOW. How long have we been outside at this point? (No more than 15 minutes.) And it looks like something might be missing, now, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Sixth and final attempt: THERE WE GO. Thanks, kiddo, you're done here. Now why don't you run off and change into your play clothes, but not before stopping in the kitchen for 2½ seconds? That's plenty of time to get hot bacon dressing on your sweater. (That totally happened.)

Good Riddance

I don't know about you, but I am just about ready for this damn year to be over. 2011 hasn't been the worst year ever, but it's not been one of our best, either, and I'm so looking forward to turning the page and starting anew.

I mean, really: this year we had a leaky roof, we had to bail water out of the basement no fewer than 835 times, we had vacatus interruptus when my husband had to come home during Hurricane Irene to make sure the house didn't float away, the Kardashian-Humphries marriage turned out to be a sham (although that one was not much of a surprise), I've been suffering from outdoor mold allergies pretty much constantly since August since it hasn't been dry enough or cold enough for long enough for whatever I am sensitive to die off, the Post Office went practically bankrupt, my kid lost her first tooth, Mondo was totally robbed on his season of Project Runway, there has been all kinds of tomfoolery and shenanigans at work, and my grandfather passed away.

It hasn't been all bad, of course -- just off the top of my head I can think of our trip to Disneyland and getting into graduate school as banner moments, not to mention all the time I get to spend eating my niece and nephew's little faces -- but this has definitely been one of those years where it seems like there was a lot more on the negative side of the scale than there was on the positive.

So during this last week of the year, when I should be making resolutions that I already know I'm not going to keep anyway, instead I am asking for suggestions: what do you do to clear the air and get rid of all the bad mojo going into a new year? Burn some sage? Change your bed linens? Pop Xanaxes like Tic-Tacs? Drink tequila buy the bucketful? Switch to decaf? What? What can I do to say good riddance to 2011 and welcome 2012 with open arms?

Help me, Internet Kenobi. You're my only hope.

Three Minutes

Man, Christmas is the longest damn day of the year, isn't it? And yet there isn't enough time to do everything and see everybody and eat all the things, especially when it comes to cherry cordial flavored M&M's, amirite? AND YET. We're going to be cleaning up shreds of wrapping paper for like the next week and a half, at least, and that's just the stuff we know about. (We do have cats, you know, and God only knows what they did with all that balled-up paper. Oy vey.)

But I'll be darned if the longest damn day of the year isn't one of the best, though.

Pretty Little Liars

I never told you the story about how we ended up with this year's Christmas card picture. Probably because it involved bribery, subterfuge, jerry-rigging, and outright lying. And also, I barely got away with it, so it definitely wasn't one of my proudest moments as a parent.

I tried to learn from last year's photo shoot. I really did. I made a mental list of all the things that drove me nuts last year -- the not sitting still, the general unpreparedness, the chaos. More than half an hour before I started taking pictures of my actual kid, I rearranged some furniture beforehand, switched some ornaments around, took pictures of just the tree, tested angles and lines and foci and lighting.

Except, I lost a part to my tripod, so I had to try to do all those things with the camera balanced on a precarious configuration of boxes, toy bins, shoes, and keys. It worked out about as well as can be expected. Well, better, I suppose, since I managed to avoid both breaking the camera and setting anything on fire.

When it finally came time to sit Shae down to take the actual pictures, I had everything ready. The chair was in place, I had all the props -- all one of them -- ready to go, and I had my Big Fat Lie all set up.

"Shae, I want to take pictures of the Christmas tree, and I need you to sit in this chair so I can test the light, okay?" And here is the true Christmas Miracle of the season: SHE ACTUALLY BOUGHT IT. She sat in that chair and moved when I asked her to and posed like a pro for 293 FRAMES before she caught on, and by that point we had it narrowed down to four possible photos.

I gave G the final vote, and as you can see, we went with the fourth picture above. All in all, I am very happy with how our cards turned out this year. And if you're not already on the list and you want one, send me an email or DM me on Twitter and I'll get one out to you, too.

Happy Holidays, yo. Sparkle and shine, and all that.

Haul Out The Holly

Our tree, she is UP, you guys.

There she is in her original, unadorned splendor: about 7½ feet of fine Fraser fir. She smells divine. I love Fraser firs the best of all because they smell piney and citrus-y and they are really good about holding on to their needles.

This year we used two strands of plain white lights and two strands of clear globe lights. I'm pretty sure all our lights will need to be replaced for next year, because they're all starting to unravel. If anyone has a line on frosted and/or pearl globe lights, let me know. I love me some globe lights.

We let Shae put the star on the top of the tree this year. I'm pretty sure that by this time next year, she'll be able to do it without even needing a stepstool. I really wish they would stop putting Miracle-Gro in all the food at school. Maybe pizza really IS a vegetable.

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches! (G says that in the original German, the words to "O Tannenbaum" translate to "how lovely are your needles," but we don't listen to him.)

We have more ornaments on the tree this year than we did last year, but we went with the same color scheme: bright aqua, lime green, hot pink, sparkly purple, gold, silver, and white, with a couple of random clears and bronzes, and that one blue sweater ornament up there near the top. We only got four new decorations this year (two aqua butterflies, a pink-and-purple fish, and my new favorite.)

Sparkleduck, ladies and gents. Isn't she lovely? Isn't she WONDERFUL? This is probably the best dollar I ever spent at Target on Christmas ornaments in the last two weeks. Shae and G did most of the decorating while I stood around and freaked out because my Martha Stewart Complex got aggravated by all the straight lines and color-non-randomization, but Sparkleduck is all me. (Oh, and yes, we hid the Hula Pickle, but I can't tell you where because I am not sure if Shae knows how to work the Internet. But TRUST ME.)

Easter 2011, Part Three: My Dad's Family

Like I said, Easter is the longest day of the year. By the time we got to my Aunt Cyndy's and Uncle Wiggy's house for the annual Egg and Keg Hunts, we had pretty much hit the wall.

See?

And she is not used to seeing non-plastic eggs, so when she found her own personalized Easter egg -- we all get an egg with our name on it, plus a toy if you're under 21 and a bottle of something or other when you're over 21 -- she tried to eat it on the spot. (I ended up putting it in a salad this week.)

Still, it's a lot of fun for a little kid to run around with a lot of other little kids and make a mad grab for everything you can reach. There must have been $200 worth of candy spread all over my aunt and uncle's lawn.

Shae said she was going to "take out" other kids who got in between her and the "good stuff," and she even had this little move to demonstrate what she was going to do -- it involved something with the legs and perhaps a little kung fu, although it looked an awful lot like Elaine Benes, honestly, only backwards -- but there was SO MUCH STUFF that we actually only brought home a small fraction of the stuff she picked up. Bubbles, we kept. Puzzles and squirt guns and tambourines and recorders were left for all the other kids. Because COME ON. Shae's plenty noisy on her own.

Also: something is not right with this kid because she picked up eleventy thousand Tootsie Rolls and I basically had to force her at gunpoint to stop and pick up the Nerds. GET YOUR MOTHER THE NERDS, KID. Mommy loves nerds.

It was a good Easter. Even if I am still recovering. (And BTW: this is just the present-and-accounted-for under-21 crowd. There are AT LEAST this many who are over 21.) The end.

Easter 2011, Part Two: My Mom's Family

I already complained about Easter being the longest day of the year, and a big part of that is because we have to run around to do stuff with both sides of the family. I love my family, don't get me wrong, and I love spending time with them, but because it was a special occasion that required clean clothes and stuff for church, we had to lug like eleventeen tons of stuff along with us, plus all the extra goodies that we picked up along the way. Sometimes I really think I should join some kind of cult that doesn't observe gift-giving occasions just so I can simplify my life, but then that probably means that I won't get presents for my birthday, and that would stink out loud, so never mind. Just talked myself out of it. The Power of the Almighty Gift Wrap is just that compelling.

We did get a pretty alright family picture out of it. Even with me in it.

And although I did not get a Fudgie the Whale cake because there were none available in a 50-mile radius, my sister got us another kind of Carvel ice cream cake, which was DELICIOUS. I appreciate her trying, though. Also: I hope I never have to live in a world where I can't get a Carvel ice cream cake any time I want one. (They are not paying me to say that, but if they want to, my rates are negotiable.)

Also, there was a cake from the Cake Boss. Friends of the family who were visiting from out of town took a day trip to NYC and Hoboken and waited in line for 3½ hours to get this cake. It was super pretty, and tasted good. There was a nice fudgy filling between the chocolate and yellow layers which was pretty darned divine. But it turns out I am not crazy about fondant, which is a surprise. Apparently I am whipped-cream or buttercream frosting kind of gal. Or cream cheese frosting. Or my mom's peanut butter frosting. Or chocolate ganache frosting. Anything but fondant, I guess.* Although I enjoyed playing with it, like it was Play-Doh.

Oh, and there was quite a bit of running around.

Also egg hunting. My cousin Chris hid the eggs this year, with an assist from my mother-in-law, and we managed to find more eggs than we believe were actually supposed to have been hidden, so either someone miscounted, or else we found eggs that someone else hid last year. Either way, it was a good haul. And by this point we were only halfway done, oh my lands.



* Update: Turns out I just do not like that particular fondant, because the center of Cadbury Creme Eggs is a kind of fondant, and I loooooove those. I guess I like gushy fondant, and not the harder stuff. (I hope I don't get whacked for saying that.)

Easter 2011, Part One: At Home

How is it possible that Easter is the longest freakin' day of the entire year? Can someone tell me that, please? It's exactly as much running around as there is on Christmas, and the weather is generally better, but yet somehow Easter manages to be like three times as long as Christmas is. I really am surprised we survived the whole thing, honestly, and that doesn't even count the part where we were driving home in the pouring rain and trying not to hydroplane into a ditch on the side of the road.

Maybe someone did not have enough Easter candy. (I had only two pieces, actually -- two homemade peanut butter eggs. No, really. I had cake and pie and ice cream cake and ham out the stinkin' wazoo, but not very much candy. Someone obviously did Easter wrong.)

Because I knew that it was going to be a Gift Extravaganza -- and it was, our whole trunk was filled with stuff when we came home yesterday -- Shae's basket from us was pretty small. She knows that Easter is all about candy, so we weren't able to entirely avoid it, but I kept it to a minimum, in easily parcel-out-able containers. Peeps, Good and Fruity, jellybeans, candy rings, and Goldfish grahams.

Also: plastic eggs full of money (6 eggs, $3 total), and all the Shrek movies, which as far as we know, she hasn't seen, yet she knows who Shrek is anyway. I don't know. Osmosis, maybe?

Okay, look: this kid is THE WORST "Price is Right" product model EVER. Or else she is secretly the best. I'm not really sure. Why her first impulse is to cover her face with the item she is showing, I have no idea, but she did that EVERY SINGLE TIME, with EVERY SINGLE THING.

Also: yes, my kid got Tinkerbell Band-Aids in her Easter bucket, SHUT UP. She got an EASTER BUCKET, what do you expect?

Yeah, you got me. At this point it's only 8:00 in the morning, so it's not like it's the end of a really long day or anything. She's just ... that kid who likes to put buckets on her head.

Happy Easter!

Hope the bunny gave you everything you wanted this year!

Even if your particular bunny was a little bit ... sketchy.

Shamrock Shake

We're having a couple of exceptionally nice days right now, yesterday included, and when I saw the "menu" for Shae's St. Paddy's Day party at school, I figured she would like (and I could use) some running-around-outside time after dinner to burn off some of that sugar. (They had sandwiches made with cream cheese and mint jelly, green jello, brownies, scones, and "leprechaun" gold coins for lunch. Um. I gave myself diabetes just typing that all out.)

Don't do drugs, kids. Or eat nothing but sugar on St. Patrick's Day.

(OH! They did have a vegetable -- celery. So there's that.)

Even though I hate Daylight Savings Time with the white-hot heat of eleventy suns, it was nice to be able to take advantage of the extra daylight. Nice thing about this time of year: you get about two hours of "magic hour," since the sun is still low in the sky yet.

Now if only I could figure out how to WORK THE DAMN CAMERA.

I am not sure how lying down on the neighbors' back sidewalk is immediately and directly related to searching for 4-leaf clovers and hunting for leprechauns, but I have not been four years old in a very long time, so I guess I just forget. No doubt this particular plan of attack made sense to her at the time.

Or maybe not. I don't know. I JUST DON'T KNOW.

Still and all, we had a nice little dinner -- ham, potatoes, green beans, and hot dogs, even though I prefer my traditional St. Patrick's Day meal of Lucky Charms and Shamrock Shakes -- and a nice time in the backyard. It almost -- but only ALMOST! -- made me want to get in some camping.