In Honor of The Demon Dog's Birthday

Dear Buffy the Wonder Puppy,

if only you didn't defecate
or urinate
you would be so great

The End

And it Begins

I came home from dropping the kids off at school Wednesday and found a piece of notebook paper on the floor. I figured my daughter the princess of disorganization had dropped a page of her homework.

Nope.

It was a MASH game.

My husband had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned it to him. Please tell me that you all know what I'm talking about.

You know...

Mansion
Apartment
Shack
House

This kind of thing is extremely new for her. But she has a new best friend who has a sister who is in Middle School. So it begins.

I'm actually thinking...well...it's about time.

We had the kids' teacher conferences yesterday.

Side note: Both kids are doing really great at their new school. They are both a little behind in specific disciplines of language arts because of the crap schooling they got last year, but both of their teachers couldn't say enough good things about their personalities, work ethic, or manners and that's the most important thing. (Yeah!) Plus, both of their report cards were very good.

(Why does every fucking blog post devolve into me bragging about my kids? Remember when I blogged about other stuff? Yeah. Me either. Oooh! And remember when I hated parents who could do nothing but brag about their kids? Yeah. Me too.)

But anyway...

My daughter's teacher assures me that this is the best group of kids she's ever worked with. Not a Mean Girl in the bunch. And she sees my daughter in a way we never had. Outgoing. Gregarious. Theatrical (well okay, we see that one, but usually we're the only ones). Competitive.

She said, "You daughter is exactly the kind of student this school serves best."

Yeah, we know. Hence my desperate need to get her in the place.

She also said that she's never seen a new child adapt so quickly. And as happy as we are to be a part of this new school, they are just as happy to have her as a part of their community.

This is an incredible load off of my mind and soul.

Plus, the girl hasn't cried at school once this year. Not once! Last year I was looking for a good therapist to diagnose what I thought might be an anxiety disorder. And this year I never even have to look over the kid's homework. Or drill her about what went down at school. Or beg her (and yell at her) to please, for the love of god, tell me why she is crying AGAIN!

She's found a place where she's comfortable enough to play MASH and hang with a whole gaggle of nice girls who tell her they like her clothes and can't wait to see her in the play.

All is right with the world. Even if we do start having to worry about boys calling.

Sometimes "normal" is the most beautiful word of all.

If this is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I feel really, really wrong and sick for checking out the president's ass.

But not wrong enough not to do it.

Keep on keeping on, Big B.

p.s. Are those shorts from Target?

p.p.s The picture is blatantly stolen from darling Nicky.

A Star Isn't Born

My son very seriously wants to be a movie star when he grows up. He doesn't understand why people laugh every time he mentions it.

He was just telling us the other day that he wants to live in New York after college because he thinks there are lots of acting jobs there. My brilliant husband told him that if he wants to be a movie star he really needs to move to Hollywood. So, now that's what he wants.

Thus far our declarations that our kids can do whatever they like, as long as they go to college first have been completely accepted. But my son had a sudden realization today.

"Hey," he said out of the blue. "There are kid movie stars too. Why can't I be an actor now?"

Oh, man. Here it comes.

My daughter is enthusiastically involved in the Young People's Theater Program at school and she absolutely loves it. She was cast as "woman" in The Pied Piper. This cracks me up. She is actually playing the comic relief townsperson but she tells everyone she is playing "woman".

I'm pretty proud of her. Her teacher says that it takes someone special to play comedy. It takes timing, of course, but also a complete disregard for looking stupid.

She has no problem looking stupid.

But it is my son who has the highly developed sense of humor. So far it is the kind of sense of humor that teachers and adults enjoy and occasionally goes over other kids' heads. I'm very okay with that.

So I think I have him convinced. Wait until third grade when he can participate in the theater program at school. Wait until he graduates from speech therapy (for god's sake). And then we'll talk about acting professionally.

I don't have it in me to be a stage mother. (Has anyone read Hell is Other Parents?) I'm hoping he'll forget it by then and decide to be a doctor or something.

What? A mother can dream.

Too Bad, So Sad

So, last May 38 kids tried out for the super fancy travel soccer program. 36 kids made it. My kid wasn't one of them.

Now, their goalkeeper broke her arm, and all of a sudden they want my kid.

Ha. We might say no just out of spite. *Harumph*

Well, hello there!

Well, hello, October! Don't you look smashing.

The last couple of posts I wrote here on the ole' blog were so negative, I've been meaning to write something, just to move them down a bit.

I was down for a little bit. But I'm fine now. Well, I'm cranky and moody and sleepy and nuts, but, you know...fine.

I've decided I won't worry about the future and just live in the moment. It's how I made it through the last twenty years. Why change now?

In the meantime, I have been busier than I've been in years. I've been volunteering at the kids' new school. I've founded a parent group for violin moms and dads. I'm learning to play the piano. And I'm shuttling the kids around to a ridiculous number of activities.

Those damn kids keep getting better and better at their stuff, and so their stuff keeps getting more and more demanding.

This weekend I'm taking my daughter to the Shenandoah Valley for a fiddle camp and violin performance. I was supposed to take my son too, but I decided that he and daddy just needed a weekend to chill. They'll be chilling at the hockey rink being all manly man together.

Now I'm off to come up with an art project for the second grade boys to auction off at the school's big gala. Because I'm good at that. Yeah. *ahem*