What’s that old saying- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished? Well, it oughta be amended to include the words And It’s Probably Gonna Be Public, Too. The other night as we were tucking in Nora, she looked up from her laundry list of prayers (people she loves/cupcakes/apples) and asked if we could go to church soon. P.J. and I exchanged a look. Oh yes, that. Ha HA! Now, my girls are no strangers to church, but our recent weekends have included {Read More}
Bad Mom; June Edition.
June 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment
It had not been a good morning. I would have settled for “mediocre.” “Rather lousy.” Even “trying.” Instead, it was ramping up to be a No Good, Very Bad Day of downright Alexander proportions. Every single thing the girls did was Bad; dunking random things into the cats’ water bowl and the sink and the [open?!] cup of milk, shoving and pulling hair and whining about who was blocking whose view of the [third] TV show, and dumping entire plates {Read More}
3 Year Olds Have A Lot Of Ever-Changing Rules.
March 21, 2013 By 8 Comments
The Scene: Our kitchen table. Midday. (Nora -3- and Susannah -1- are sitting at the table and eating lunch, mostly without incident.) Nora: Mom, let’s play an imagination game. (Keely has a brief moment where she imagine all of the creative, Montessori-like professionals giving her a high-five.) Keely: Sure. What do you want to play?Nora: Let’s talk to each other. With our imaginations.Keely: That sounds awesome. Can I start? (Keely presses her fingers to her temples and grins at Nora. {Read More}
The Perfect Day (Doesn’t Exist).
February 7, 2013 By 4 Comments
“No, please, tell me more about your Plan For The Day.” Some mornings I wake up with A Plan. And I know exactly how the day will unfold: I’ll finally finish that scene. That one that’s kinda holding back the progress of this, the latest draft of twenty for this godforsaken play, and it will All Make Sense. (The success of this show, of course, will catapult me into crazy Financial Comfort. Because let’s be honest: I really don’t want {Read More}
Give ‘Em Some Wigs And They’re Practically Barristers.
January 31, 2013 By 4 Comments
This is what happened the other day. Here is the story behind it. They were playing so nicely- so nicely- the kind of playing where they actually held hands and spun and sang made-up language songs and I felt- if only for a moment- that we were rather Von Trapp-ish. And in that moment, I decided to put away some laundry I had been folding. Specifically towels. Their destination
Sick Day/Night/Weekend.
January 7, 2013 By 7 Comments
…And then there are the nights when your youngest child wakes up simply covered from head to toe in vomit. (And you fail to realize this for a goodly ten minutes, seeing as you and your husband- both hanging out on different floors- thought that the other one got her. This, in particular, makes you feel like a special kind of monster.) When you [finally] see your drenched, shivering, and
Crummy Crumbies.
December 6, 2012 By 10 Comments
…And then there are the days when you realize that you are actually too tired for coffee. Like, too tired to make yourself another cup, too tired to consume it, and too tired to acknowledge the caffeine (which, let’s be honest, would be like putting out a forest fire with a squirt gun). So you have another cup of coffee. And you sit on the floor while drinking it because- again- you’re on borrowed energy, here. And you look at {Read More}
Mother Of The Year, Milkshake Edition.
November 8, 2012 By 3 Comments
I got this. On the eve of Birthday Weekend (P.J.’s birthday, followed by Nora’s birthday party, followed by Nora’s actual birthday), I decided to take the whole fam out for milkshakes. It was a Friday evening, I had already baked a gazillion and two cupcakes, and Peej happens to think milkshakes are the answer to everything. It was an obvious choice. We went to Margie’s Candies, a pretty durned famous Chicago institution of Ice Cream Awesome. We got a booth. {Read More}
