My 40th birthday wish

As it so happens, I am now 39 and three quarters.  (That is, if adults still said their age the way kids do, but that stopped being the in thing somewhere around age 13, didn't it.....)  Suffice it to say, then, that I'm in the sunset of my 30s.  Well, more like the mid-late evening of my 30s.  If my 30s were a day, I'd be in bed already by now.

Now, in a perfect world, I'd be celebrating my 40th birthday by sitting in the front row, center seat of the theater for this.  But, it isn't a perfect world, and that isn't going to happen.  I mean, not only is my birthday during one of the craziest times of the year (11 days before Christmas), but this year, my birthday is on a Wednesday.  Also? Broadway is about six hours away from my house by car, and nowadays, the cost of one ticket is more than it used to cost my entire family to see a Broadway show back when I was a kid.  (Which, granted, was way back in the Olden Days, especially to hear Kiddo talk about it.)  I don't even want to know how much a front row ticket would be.  Probably way more than I spend on groceries for our family for an entire month.

So, clearly this is not a perfect world.  (A fact which has been made abundantly clear over and over again in the past year, le sigh.)  That's why I've come up with an alternate plan to celebrate my birthdayweekmonth.  Best of all, it's something that YOU, dear reader, can help me with!  So, win-win, right?  I mean, I just know you were wondering what on earth you could get me for my big 4-0.  Right?  (Humor me and nod enthusiastically, if you don't mind.  Thanks!)

Here's what I'm hoping we can do for my birthday: I want to have a worldwide celebration* of helping others.  Paying it forward.  Doing good deeds.  If I can get 40 people to do 1 Good Thing between now and my actual 40th birthday, that would be just about the best present ever.  (Or 20 people to do 2 Good Things.  Or 10 to do 4.  I'm not picky.)

It doesn't have to be a BIG Good Thing, either.  I'm not asking y'all to turn into Mother Teresa/Ghandi/Ryan Gosling here.  Just, you know, do something good.  Spend an hour or two helping at a soup kitchen or food pantry.  Pay the toll for the guy behind you on your way to work.  Offer to watch the kids for that mom who never gets a night off.  Stop by a nursing home and visit with someone who is lonely.  Overtip the waitress at the diner.  Mow your neighbor's lawn or rake their leaves or shovel their snow (hey, I live in upstate NY - we'll have snow before I'm 39 and 5/6ths).  Send your mom some flowers.  Make a point of looking everyone in the eye and smiling at them for one day.  (Everyone - this is harder than you'd think.  Believe me, I've tried.)  You get my drift.

Now, I've been fighting a losing battle against the interwebz all day.  So, I'm not going to attempt to do a Mr. Linky thingamabob because then I might just break the internet once and for all, and I don't want that on my record.  Instead, if you do do a Good Thing in honor of me getting old (heh heh heh, I just said "do do") (what? I am getting old, not mature), please comment here, if you would, and let me know.  I haven't broken my blog comment email notifications yet, so that'll work.  If I get to 40 things by my big 4-0 on December 14th, I'll be beyond thrilled.  And since it is my birthmonth, instead of my usual birthweek, I'd be beyond thrilled if we got to 40 good things by December 31.  Like I said, I'm really not picky.

So, there you have it.  What I'd really love to get for my 40th birthday.  Please consider playing along - it would mean more than you know.

*(Worldwide could happen - my stat meter tells me of blog hits from all over the world!  They aren't all from weirdos searching for the word "boobs" either.  I know real, lovely people who live as far away as Australia who read my blog....)

Now *this* is the life...

That?  Right there?  The picture of contentment and the warmest, toastiest bit of belly fuzz you've ever scritched.  Crazy Cat doesn't usually allow the belly of the beast to be exposed in such a manner, but she just could. not. resist! the magnetic pull of the afternoon sun.  (Outside, it may only have been 49 degrees F but on her pillow with the sun beaming in, it was positively equatorial.)  Note to self: if ever I take another spin on this globe, make sure I come back as a thoroughly spoiled house cat.


(Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our Crazy Cat, who turns 9 years old tomorrow!)

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: "Spring" (<-- those are great, big, honking air quotes there)

These were my crocuses as of Monday morning, the first morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

These were my crocuses as of *this* morning, the third morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

And these were my crocuses as of 4pm today, and I am really wishing that my computer had a function to adequately depict great, big, honking air quotes to put around the word Spring:

It is of small comfort when our local meteorologists cheerfully remind us that the official "snow season" (<-- more GBHAQ there) doesn't end for our area until June 1st.  Or that there was snow last year on Mother's Day.  Small, cold, white comfort indeed.

Call me Grace

Remember how I posted recently about being nominated for a Major Award - an SPD Blogger Award in the Humorous Blog category?  (If not, welcome to my world, and I'm glad to have company that probably, like me, gets in the car and drives directly to the grocery store for three things you need and then, upon entering the store, forgets at least two of those things.  And yet, can still sing *every last word* of any number of pop songs from the 80s.... Also, check out the post preceding this one, 'cause that's the one I'm talking about.)

Well, I have tried to be, as Jane Lynch put it while accepting her own Major Award (that one being a mere Golden Globe, since she's not an SPD Blogger as far as I know), falsely humble, but as the clock winds down to the end of the voting period and I see my fellow nominees campaigning on Twitter and the like for their own blogs, I find myself reverting to true form.


That form being Grace.  Of Will & Grace fame.  Yes, I admit it.  I have a teeny-tiny bit of a competitive streak in me.  (It is also true that I once aspired to have a huge head of red, curly hair a la Debra Messing in W&G or, more accurately, a la Julia Roberts circa Mystic Pizza.  But that is neither here nor there, as my painful, Wolverine Van Beethoven recent history and present "the heck with it, I give up"ish Mom 'do can attest.)  (Also, that "teeny-tiny" qualifier is the same as saying I have a "teeny-tiny" crush on George Clooney and/or Hugh Jackman, or that I have a "teeny-tiny" love of popcorn and naps.  And as longtime readers may recall, I once made a video of myself singing an ode to George in order to win a contest for an autographed picture of the man.  Which, by the way, I won.)


I have always been competitive.  It's not that I'm not a good loser, because I can be gracious in defeat.  Really.  I just hate to lose.  Ever since I was a small child, I relished the opportunity to beat anyone, anytime, at any game.  It started out with Candyland, Chutes & Ladders and my favorite - Missing Match-Ups.  I particularly adored Missing Match-Ups.  It was a "Memory" style game, with several different combinations available of several different boards.  I, with the freakishly good memory powers of my youth, memorized all the possible combos of each board and became unbeatable.  My parents (and any other grown-up unfortunate enough to cross my path or face me over a game board) quickly gave up the pretense of "letting the kid win" and would play all-out in an attempt to keep the game close.  Didn't usually happen.  (In fact, I was often admonished by my parents to let my younger siblings win sometimes, because I was that competitive.  Didn't matter that my competition was still in Pampers, though I preferred to beat grown-ups over a drooling toddler....)  By the age of 5, I had graduated from the kiddie games and was playing cribbage against my Dad.  It had been one of his favorite games and he was happy to teach it to me.  At first, anyhow.  MWAH HA HA HA HA.  Once I began playing crossword games like Scrabble, it was Good night, Irene for the vast majority of my opponents.  Trivial Pursuit?  Pictionary?  Taboo?  Scattergories?  I killed in 'em.  Games that revolved around words, like Balderdash?  Oh yeah, right up my alley.  When computers became commonplace in the home and the first, majorly pixelated Jeopardy* home game became available, I'd disappear for hours on Christmas day, parked at the PC up in my dad's office and waiting for new victims - erm, opponents - to take on.  At work, we started a lunchtime Scrabble thing, where we'd play a round of 9-tile "speed" Scrabble (4 players using 9 tiles each can knock a game out pretty quickly - plenty of time to finish a game in one lunch break).  For over a decade now, my own beloved Hubby refuses to play Scrabble with me except on my birthday, because I always win. 


So, yeah, I'm competitive.  And, as I feel the end of this Awards voting period drawing to a close, I'm starting to twitch.  To panic.  I didn't want to be one of those bloggers who begs and pleads for votes, really I didn't.  But, now I am.  Begging and pleading.  Pretty, pretty, pretty please, wontcha hop on over and cast a vote or two (really, you can vote twice according to the rules - I like to win but I don't like to cheat) for me?  Please?

Pretty please?

Okay, I'll stop begging now....

(That one's a vintage Kiddo shot)


So, for the last time, please click the conveeeeenient link below and vote for me!







I might even be convinced, should I win, to repost my Clooney song video for your entertainment.....







* PS - I once, back in the early '00s, appeared on the actual TV show.... My coworkers, they of the "we lose at Scrabble to Heather on a daily basis" variety, signed me up to try out for the show.

Sure, it really is an honor just to be nominated, et cetera and so forth...

So, the ever-fantabulous Hartley, amazing author and tireless champion of parents with SPD/ASD/special needs kiddos, has a little awards shindig going on over at her blog.  Nominations have been going on for the past few days, and I just received the news that my blog has been nominated for an SPD Blogger Award!!  In the category for "Humorous Blog" no less! (I've checked out the competition and it is fierce, *gulp*!)

This is literally the first good thing to happen to me this year so far.  Yes, I know we're not even 3 weeks into 2011 but so far? It has bitten the big one.  We're in the midst of another major battle with the school district regarding Kiddo's current IEP and have further heard that it is 99.9999999999999% sure that Kiddo will not be granted an aide for next year (or ever again after this year) when her CSE meeting rolls around in March.  Kiddo has now been examined by a pediatric pulmonologist, who confirmed what her pediatrician has been suspecting for several months now - Kiddo has asthma, and with the relatively "late" onset of symptoms, it is likely that she will have asthma for the rest of her life (as opposed to kids who have it as toddlers and then outgrow it).  Have you ever seen a major sensory seeker on not one but two asthma meds simultaneously?  Holy bouncing off the walls, Batman!  We're working out an appropriate med regime that controls the inflammation with the least amount of disruption to her life, but the working out phase involves dealing with issues like difficulty falling asleep/restless sleep and other fun stuff like that.  (If you think a major sensory seeker hopped up on two stimulant asthma meds is a scary enough sight, add to that a lack of adequate rest and we have a new horror movie franchise in the making.)  On top of that, Kiddo has just been more challenging than usual behaviorally.  I won't go into details, but she was Majorly Grounded for almost a week, which effectively killed our wedding anniversary date night out plans (and on top of that, it's never fun to have to be the Grounding Enforcer/Prison Warden anyhow).  Last but not least, she's been sick for more days this January than not, so we're stuck inside with playdates and birthday parties falling by the wayside thanks to those evil, evil germies.  (Side note: someone told me that the odd years are always more challenging than the even years.  Six was pretty dang delightful around here, especially in light of how seven has been.  I'm willing to believe that at this point, especially if it gives us a light at the end of a tunnel that will only go another 5 months... Anyone else ever hear that one?)

So, like I said, 2011? Not the best year so far.  (Isn't this the big Mayan Apocalypse year?  Are all these issues actually harbingers of the impending doom - and if so, where the heck are Dean and Sam and Castiel when I need them?  Will I start dreaming of Phyllis Diller again?  Did I mention that coming up in December, I turn the big 4-0?  Isn't that bad enough for one year in and of itself?)  

But... then I received the news from Hartley that I've been nominated for an SPD Blogger Award - and it's a MAJOR AWARD, you know.  I'm hoping the prize looks something like this:

And yes, it's just an honor just to be nominated, especially since I didn't nominate myself - someone out there likes me!  But then again, if you really do like me, please drop by the voting page starting tomorrow at 6am and help me stuff the ballot box, mmmmkay?  I mean, George Clooney and Hugh Jackman have presented Oscars and Golden Globes before, so what if it's one of them presenting the SPD Blogger Awards?  Do you want to be the one to make me miss out on that?  Let's reverse the trend of craptastictude for 2011 by landing me a Major Award!

I promise I'll mention you in my acceptance speech - maybe even give you a shout-out from the red carpet when Ryan Seacrest stops me to find out who I'm wearing..... "Microfleece yoga pants from Target, Ryan, of course!  Mind the sparks, now..."

A little spy FYI

Earlier today, I came across the following piece of paper, tucked amongst a pile of books and magazines on the family room coffee table:

Now you know that if you happen upon a person wearing funny glasses, fake paper mustaches and old costumes, they just might be a spy in disguise.

You're welcome.

Ah, the tortured angst of youth

My brother-in-law has been reading the Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia with my six year old nephew.  Specifically, he's been reading the boxed set that belonged first to my older cousins, then to me.  I discovered them around age 9, on a shelf in my grandparents' house, and read the series through a few times over the next several years, leaving the books behind at my parents' house when I went off to college.  Well, that set found its way to my sister's house, and thus, a new generation has begun to enjoy the stories.

One night, while reading one of the Narnia books to my nephew, my brother-in-law turned the page and out fell two sheets of paper.  Technically, they're not paper paper, but computer punch cards for the NYSE, which came in books and which my grandparents had in abundant supply, as my grandfather was a vice president at the NYSE back in the day.  The one side has lots of different boxes for bid size, ask size, sold, cash, close quote, etc, and the reverse was blank, that side being the one my family used for note pads.

Well, two such sheets fell out, and my brother-in-law immediately called for my sister, as he had no idea what in the heck he'd found.  Turns out what he discovered was a poem that my sister quickly identified by the chicken-scratch handwriting as being a Heather original creation.  She called me the following morning, giggling like a fiend, and told me of the discovery.  She promised to send up the poem to me, but as life tends to get in the way of such things, she didn't have the chance to, until I saw her in person earlier this week while the kid and I were on our annual summer trek to New Jersey.  (More on that later.)  There we stood with our kids on a blindingly sunny, hot beach and she handed over to me this relic of my youth.

And what a tortured youth it was, apparently.  Now, bear in mind that I've always fancied myself something of a writer and poet (also a lyricist and composer - oh, to have properly transcribed the melody lines of the songs I wrote as a teenager... alas, I have naught but the occasional fragment of verse and chord notations from which to recreate my attempts at emo 80s pop).  Obviously, one is never more Angsty and Tormented than when one is going through the hell that is puberty and adolescence, and I was never one to suffer from a lack of an overactive imagination or delusions of grandeur.  It was the pitfall of being a kid whose nose, more often than not, was stuck in a book and whose ears were typically covered with headphones through which music, that food of love, played on and on and on.  What I'm trying to say, basically, is that I tended to the dramatic and the melodramatic.  In my mind, I was Catherine on the moors, Scarlett in Atlanta, Anne in Avonlea and the leading lady of every Shakespearian drama, Eva Peron and Grizabella and Sally Bowles and Cosette, Katie in The Way We Were, the Baroness in Out of Africa, Etta Place hanging out with Butch and Sundance and Sophie with her horrific choice......

This is all a means to attempt to explain - justify? - what I'm about to transcribe.  Yes, dear readers, I'm about to give a Lost Work of Staggering Genius its decades-belated, long overdue public debut.  I'd save myself the transcription effort and scan them in, but my handwriting has never been beautiful and was even less so as a Tortured Teenage Artiste.  Go ahead, laugh, I sure did.  I think, reflecting back on this piece of what surely can only be rightfully termed dreck of the greatest magnitude, that it is eminently clear why I never became the Next Great American Writer, the female Jay McInerny, the 80s Sylvia Plath that I once aspired to be............

*deep breath* Here goes.  The poem is untitled, and I honestly do not remember what traumatic event caused me to write this in response.  More likely than not, it was some fight with my parents.  Perhaps my mom had gone into my room (as she was wont to do) and gone through my belongings, finding something I didn't want her to find.  I'm transcribing this verbatim, mightily resisting the urge to edit as I do:

Walking down a winding path

of darkness patched with silver

sewn into the shadow-filled

billowing

darkness by the

far off

distant moon

High above this forest-topped hill

Bravely gleaming all alone

for the host of stars are very faint

The ground below my feet dips and swerves

it is foreign to me, and evil

I yearn for a friendlier path

One through a meadow I have walked before 

worn smooth over years of travel

But somehow

I have entered this

secluded wood

full of unknown dangers and challenges

I fear I am not

experienced enough a traveller

but now

I have no choice

Gone are the easy days, days

when the path was wide and clear

and home was waiting

at the end of the lane.

The wind blows

sharp and icy cold

The old door is barred.  It stands welcoming

ajar

no more for me.

It is no longer the end

no longer my destination.

This path

leads not to what once was my Home

Now I must press forward, through the black,

the unknown

I must safely make my way,

alone and unguided

to a clearing in this strange, new wood

And with no background, no past

Nothing of old to call my own

I must build myself

a new Home

in the shadows of these trees

Send down my own roots, create

my own history

build up new walls, as these old crumble down

And protect myself from the past, from the future and its 

unknown frights

Make my own hearth and lay my own fire

to warm myself by.

What I once thought was my own

is no more.

Now I am alone, to begin

here

in the darkness

When I do build my new Home

will you share it with me?

 
I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to find a better example of my teenage writing, to prove I wasn't always as horrible a writer as this would lead you to think.......

Wordful Wednesday - some serious awesomeness for Heather's Hobbity Hooves

Last summer, I was shopping at our local Lands' End Inlet store and I happened upon a display of flip-flops.  As faithful readers may recall, I have feet issues.  To wit: unevenly sized, misshapen, Hobbity, rhino hoof feet issues.  The first thing I noticed was that these particular flip-flops didn't have the dreaded "between the toes thong" which automatically would rule them out for Heather's Hobbity Hooves.  WIth my feet being two different sizes, walking in flip-flops with the between-the-toes thong becomes an instant game of How Fast Will Heather Stumble and Fall? and as I barely can keep our house stocked with sufficient quantities of bandages for the kid's various boo-boos, adding the cost of bandages for Flip Flop Fumbles by me (with my considerably larger surface area for skinning-n-scraping) would be just too much.  I don't think banks loan money to folks for first aid supplies or general klutziness.

Anyhow, there I stood, perusing the display of non-between-the-toes-thonged flip-flops.  As I gazed and pondered, another shopper walked by, and she had a pair of the same flip-flops on her feet, so I asked her if she liked them (because, you know, I'm like that with the whole "randomly yet politely accost strangers in public and strike up a conversation" and all).  Her response was instantaneous and enthusiastic.  She loved them.  Lived in them.  Most comfortable flip-flops she'd ever owned.  Now, she wasn't some Skinny-Minnie, petite little thing, either.  She looked to be about my age and was taller than I am, so this wasn't a case of someone walking around in their size 4 shoes or anything.  We chatted a bit further as she kept extolling the virtues of these flip-flops above all others she had ever worn, and commiserated with me about the discomfort that comes with most other flip-flops out there in the world.

Well, I decided at this point that if there was a pair in my size, and being on sale at the Inlet as they were, it was Meant to Be for Heather's Hobbity Hooves to find themselves shod in a pair of these flip-flops.  I looked through the display, and lo and behold, there was one pair in my size.  Snatching them up, I slipped off my trusty Birks and tried them on.  They.  Were.  Heavenly.  I walked them right over to the register, paid and wore them out of the store.

One year later, they remain my most favorite flip-flops, ever.  They've worn well, held up to the torment that comes with shoeing my Hobbity Hooves, and have generally been a delight.  As such a delight, I wear them all the time now that the weather is warm enough to put away my ample supply of woolly socks and clogs.  I've even worn them to the grocery store - they're that comfy.  My Birks don't know what to do with themselves, with all this rest they've been getting.

I wear them so often that I hardly even notice they're on, which is exactly what happened one day last week when I busted out my roller and paint tray and got to painting the living room walls.  (We're just finishing up Paintathon 2010, more on that in another post.)  I have a pair of "painting shoes" - those being a pair of mint green bedroom slippers that I wear just when I'm on the drop cloth and painting, then kick off before stepping onto clean floors so as not to track paint everywhere.  (Have I mentioned I'm a klutz?  And that if there is wet paint within 100 yards of my body, I will find a way to get it all over my body and step in it, too?)  Well, on this particular morning, I waved goodbye to Kiddo as the bus pulled away, headed back inside, picked up my roller, poured a tray of paint and began rolling away to the musical accompaniment of my Pandora Radio 80s station.

It was several moments later (well, one White Wedding and a Reflex later, at least) that I went to roll a particularly spattery load of paint, and felt it splash all over me.  No big whoop, since I had.....................

whoops.

Oh.  No.

I hadn't.  I hadn't put on my painty slippers.  I was still wearing my flip-flops.  My beloved flip-flops, which now had a glob of paint right smack dab in the middle of the top strap.

Sob.


I immediately abandoned my roller and rushed to the laundry room to try to minimize the damage.  I scrubbed and I scrubbed and I Oxicleaned and scrubbed some more, but there still remained traces of Soft Linen paint in a satin finish on my flip-flop.  I was devastated.


So devastated that I immediately took to my computer to bemoan my idiocy to the world.  I tweeted about ruining my flip-flops by painting in them, I whined on Facebook.  After wrapping up my internet whinefest, I put on my painty slippers and got back to the task at hand.


A little while later, I was back at my computer and saw a tweet to me from someone at Lands' End.  They'd read my tweet (!) and tweeted back:

Your painting efforts impressed us – let us treat you to a new pair of soon to be your fave Lands’ End flip-flops!

 !!!!!

I exchanged a few tweets and then emails with a lovely woman at Lands' End with an equally lovely name (shout out to Raija - you rock!) and before you know it, Lands' End sent me these beauties which just arrived this evening, a week to the day of my painting mishap:

Aren't they fantabulous?  Yes, yes they are.  Fantabulous and comfy and definitely my favorite flip-flop footwear.

Here's one in action on a HHH:

(Yes, I know, it's not a pretty picture.  I clearly stated I have horrible feet.  The "scratched-til-it-bled" mosquito bite, half-assed attempt at a self-pedi to help hide my damaged big toenail and glimpse of pink flamingo-n-palm-tree jammies just add to the overall beauty, too, don't they?)

Now, I've been a loyal Lands' End customer and fan for years.  I've never had an issue with their customer service or returns on the very few occasions that I've had to return something.  I have contacted their customer service either online or by phone with questions about sizes, etc several times over the years and their customer service reps have always been friendly, helpful and professional.  I've always found the quality of their merchandise to be excellent (for example, despite her best efforts, Kiddo is unable to destroy any of their Super-Ts, be they long- or short-sleeved) and they have sales often enough that it is rare for me to ever have to pay full price for any of their stuff.  All that aside, how completely awesome is it that they sent me a free, new pair of flip-flops after I was scatterbrained and klutzy enough to spatter paint on a pair through my own sheer idiocy?
 
Lands' End, thanks!!!  I was already a fan, now I'm absolutely a fan for life!

I wonder what would happen if I tweeted about the scratches on my Sienna.............

Call me Marcia Brady

I know all you moms out there are hoping for something fantastic for Mother's Day this weekend (at least all you moms who live here in the US where Mother's Day is being celebrated this weekend).

Well, you'll never guess what my kid gave me for Mother's Day on Thursday.  Yes, it was a few days early so I'd have that much more time to enjoy it...............

She gave me this - a possibly broken nose.  I know I definitely heard a crunching sound as she tripped while climbing into my lap on the couch to read her homework book to me and her rock-hard skull came crashing down into my nose.


To quote the ever-groovy Marcia Brady: "OH MY NOSE!"





I confess I yowled in pain, which was a lot better than the word that popped, unbidden, into my head at the moment of impact.  *That* word would have caused a lot of trouble, so hallelujah that my record of Not Swearing in Front of the Kid remains intact.  Let's just say that the word I'd been thinking has been redubbed as "Monkey Fighting" or "Monday to Friday" in the broadcast TV version of that piece of cinematic dreck Snakes on a Plane...







So, I managed to only scream "OWWWWWWWWWW!" as my eyes began tearing of their own accord.  Of course it was entirely accidental and Kiddo felt *terrible* about it.  (She actually asked me specifically to please tell Hubby that she "felt really, really terrible about it" when I related the story to him when he got home later that night.)  I immediately went for an ice pack and after a few moments, returned to the couch where Kiddo quite gingerly set herself down next to me and proceeded to read me another scintillating book full of facts about the life cycle of a frog.


I kept icing it and took some ibuprofen for good measure, and by three hours later, it looked like this:

It was hard to tell if I was going to wind up with black eyes, but I took the lack of a nosebleed as a good sign and went off to bed.  Sleep was not restful for me, though, because I am a habitual stomach-sleeper, face down on my pillows, so although I carefully arranged myself on my side with my nose well clear of the pillows, as soon as I was deeply asleep enough, I'd automatically roll over and then OW OW OW wake myself up, wait for my eyes to stop watering, carefully rearrange myself on my side and repeat until morning.  A few times, I felt my nose running and though "Oh crap, now I do have a nosebleed" but it was just a plain, old, garden-variety runny nose, likely due to all the tears that my rolling onto my face was causing.


When daylight arrived, I did a quick survey - nothing seemed to have fallen off or swelled up to any grotesque proportions, and my pillowcase was delightfully clear of any bloody nose type stains.  I went into the bathroom to observe what time had wrought -

Whew, no black eyes and the bruising and swelling weren't too bad, either.

So yes, for Mother's Day, I get to channel my inner Marcia Brady.  She was so pretty and cool and popular - who wouldn't want to be Marcia, Marcia, Marcia? She did get to hang out with Davy Jones and have him sing to her, after all...

Now, while you're doubtless sitting there wishing your kid could accidentally be so thoughtful for you, let me wow you further - do you know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow?  What my big plans are for Mother's Day?  Well, hang on to your hats, because I'm going to be................ painting!  (Are you jealous yet?)  I'm actually rather excited about it, just because it means we're making progress on our renovation project list.  Our current To Do List has a deadline on it - we want to have everything completed before Kiddo's seventh birthday party, which we're having here at the house (eep!) and to which Kiddo's inviting her whole class, Daisy troop and a few other friends (I believe we have 30 kids total who will be invited - double eep!) and which will have a Secret Agent theme.  Speaking of the theme, I'm a bit miffed because I entered a contest to win food and beverages for a kid's birthday party through a group of organic food companies, and while I didn't win, they still posted my idea as one of their top "ideas we love" - what's up with that?  You loved my idea but don't want to give me a few cases of organic snacks?  Grrrr.  (You can find their list here, and my idea is #3 - the Kim Possible Secret Agent theme. THIRD on the list, but I didn't win.  There were multiple winners, btw.  No, I'm not bitter.  Okay, yes, I am a little bitter.  I was so hoping to win!!)  Anyway, we want to have the foyer, living room, dining room, hallway, stairways and downstairs bathroom done by then - we've got 3 more weekends before the party.  Then there's the actual party, which is going to take some planning and preparation.  There's also a bunch of school/PTSA and Girl Scout stuff going on in the next three weeks and the yard which won't stop needing mowing, just in case I thought I was going to be relaxing any time soon.

So, tomorrow when all you other moms out there are having mani/pedis or champagne brunches with George Clooney or hot stone massages or just sleeping in until noon and then watching whatever you want on TV completely undisturbed with snacks and beverages brought to you on demand, think of me, Marcia Brady with a paint roller.  I'll raise a gallon of primer in a toast to you and wish you a very happy Mother's Day!

(Okay, I should mention in all seriousness and officially for the record that Hubby has said we will be going out for breakfast tomorrow morning, after Kiddo lobbied hard for "going out to eat for all three meals" for Mother's Day.  I also know that Kiddo has a Mother's Day present for me hidden in her closet, as I've been expressly forbidden from looking in her closet before tomorrow.  So, I don't mean to imply that they're not planning on doing anything in terms of celebrating tomorrow, just that once we're done with the celebrating, lots of painting type stuff will be taking place.)

I will leave you with a short video clip that has had all three of us Smiths cracking up this weekend - 





Hee!

Alllllllllllllllmost........

Almost unfurled...

Almost open...

Almost there...

Almost the very first bloom of Spring...

DST = Darn Stupid Theory

And so it begins again.  Daylight Savings Time, aka a Darn Stupid Theory.  DST has never been my favorite time of year, at least not the "springing forward" portion of events, but now that I have a kid I absolutely loathe it.  The fact that my kid happens to have SPD just makes it worse.  She needs her schedule, and she doesn't need it arbitrarily bumping around by an hour twice a year.  It's like jetlag without the fantabulous destination.

Yesterday, it wasn't so bad.  Being a weekend day, we just let Kiddo sleep in and get up whenever she woke up on her own.  Bedtime last night was another matter altogether.  Despite playing hard at a birthday party yesterday afternoon (and might I digress for a moment to say that while she was looking mighty cute in her party duds as she headed off to the party......

... as soon as she got there, she immediately joined in to the rousing game of Tag that was going on with all the other cute, little girls in their party duds.  A passel of dressy outfits and carefully bowed and beribboned hairdos tearing around the party room, getting more disheveled and sweaty by the second.  You can dress 'em up, but....) Anyhow, as I was saying, despite the playing hard at the party, Kiddo had difficulty falling asleep last night.

I expected she'd have trouble getting up this morning.  Heck, *I* had trouble getting up this morning.  She was grouchy, out of sorts, and for an added bonus appears to be coming down with a head cold.  Because you want crusted over nostrils to complete the look of the grumpy, sleepy, and at least three of the other Dwarfs' names-adjectived kid scowling at you from the breakfast table.

I did my best.  I made her a hearty breakfast (including a dish that is known around here as "Egg Balls" - egg whites nuked in one of those microwave poaching contraptions) and even gave her a glazed doughnut instead of her usual whole wheat toast.  I didn't object when she played the triple audio delight of Eye of the Tiger, Funkytown and the theme from Ghostbusters over and over and OVER again on her iPod without using her headphones.  I ignored the death stare I was getting in the bathroom mirror as I de-bedheadded the newly banged hair.  I didn't even sing "I see London, I see France" when it turned out she'd put her undies on backwards and thus, there was a good inch showing above the waistband of her pants.  I was a Kind and Thoughtful Mommy, Sympathetic to Her Plight.  And this was with me being sleepy and cranky myself, plus in the final hormonal rush of PMS and suffering with the vague rumblings of a headache that I didn't quite vanquish last night to boot.  (Don't worry, I did reward myself with a doughnut as well.  That cinnamon streusel friedcake from the Wegmans bakery was the only thing that got me out of bed and down to the kitchen this morning, truth be told.)  I even let her bring her iPod out on the porch while we shivered in the damp, "oh right, it isn't actually Spring yet" upstate NY air, thus confusing our neighbors into thinking they were suddenly living in Rocky III.

Now, this isn't our first encounter with Daylight Savings Time, obviously.  We've been fighting the fight to keep Kiddo cool, calm and regulated through the time change for several years now.  That is why I know this is going to get worse before it gets better.  I'm bracing for the meltdown that will occur sometime between the bus dropping Kiddo off this afternoon and bedtime.  It is unavoidable, inevitable, like death, taxes and that weird, long, black hair that springs up on my forearm every six weeks.  Complicating matters is that today is swimming lesson day after school.  While ordinarily I look forward to the extra tiring out Kiddo gets from her swimming lesson, I'm thinking we might skip it today so as not to exacerbate the situation.  Tomorrow morning will probably be worse than today, and by Wednesday we'll likely both be weeping into our Honey Nut Generic-Os.

And for what?  Really, what good does Daylight Savings Time really do?  After a few weeks of it finally being lighter when the alarm clock rang, putting a bit of extra spring in all of our steps as we went about our morning routine, this morning when the alarm clock sounded, it was pitch black outside.  Like we'd suddenly plunged back into deepest February.  Nary a bird singing.  It was just so wrong.  As I put on a happy face and tried to get Kiddo through the horror and off to school, I wondered: exactly whose brilliant idea was this, anyway???

I  seemed to recall, in my not-yet-completely-awake brain, hearing that Benjamin Franklin "invented" DST.  I mean, didn't he invent everything back in the 1700s?  I decided my memory must be faulty, so I brushed the doughnut crumbs from my keyboard and googled good, old Ben.


The following quote from Wikipedia cleared things right up:

Daylight saving time (DST) is often erroneously attributed to a 1784 satire that Franklin published anonymously.  Modern DST was first proposed by George Vernon Hudson in 1895.

Aha!  Erroneously attributed to a satire Franklin wrote.  See, I knew Ben wouldn't have come up with such nonsense.  Of course, I immediately clicked on the link to discover the identity of the true culprit who is responsible for such folly.

There he is.  George Vernon Hudson.  Of course a man came up with such a ridiculous idea.  I mean, obviously no woman - at least no mother - would ever think of such nonsense as smart.  Facebook and the Twitterverse have been chock-full of sentiments echoing mine in the past 36 hours, and most of them belong to parents of children who still reside at home and need to be gotten off to school in a timely manner.  (Okay, so that might be slanted a bit, as most of the folks I'm friends with on FB and follow on Twitter are parents of children who still reside at home and need to be gotten off to school in a timely manner... but my point is still valid: I am not alone in this sentiment!)  

Further reading led to the conclusion that at best, DST is "controversial" and it is unclear how much actual benefit there is to the citizens of the world who are forced to deal with it.  Yep, that's right, DST is not a worldwide phenomenon, as evidenced by this map here.  This map, which gives me a brilliant idea:


We need to move to Hawaii.  Right away.  That would solve our DST struggle once and for all!


And really, having this view off the porch:

instead of this one?  

Just a bonus!


I know that, like most other struggles, this too shall pass.  By the coming weekend, Kiddo should be pretty well adjusted to a regular sleep/wake schedule.  It's just the duration of the battle that I dread and loathe.  Especially when it seems so, darn stupid and pointless.  I'd wager that folks would still do the same activities they do now in the summer even if the clocks weren't switched by an hour, dontcha think?

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade

...and when life hands you wet, heavy snow that utterly stinks for sledding, you make snowmen. Or is that snowpeople? Snowpersons? Persons of snow?

Anyhow, that's exactly what happened this afternoon when Kiddo and I, after watching big, fat, fluffy, lake-effect snowflakes steadily falling from the sky all morning, decided we were going to head over to the closest hill and do some sledding. We bundled up, which involved finding things like sports bras, thermal leggings and snowpants (for Mommy) and then wrestling and/or stuffing various body parts into them (again, Mommy - Kiddo only needed help adjusting her scarf). We went on a search for the sleds (basement? Nope. Lanai? Nope again.) and then carefully extracted them from inside the wading pool which was stacked on top of lots of pointy, sharp, poky and/or rusty things up in the loft section of our garage. This involved balancing while bundled up like Ralphie's little brother Randy upon the second-to-top step of the stepladder, leaning way out to the left of the ladder over the chest freezer and reaching above my head, then trying to lift the sleds up and out of the pool, over the ledge and pass them gently down to Kiddo who was dancing about and generally not paying much attention to the daredevil feats of bravery occurring several feet above her head. Once we got ourselves and our gear strapped into the minivan, I opened the garage door (I left it closed for the sled extraction as I didn't particularly want any of the neighbors witnessing that scene) and we began merrily backing out into the driveway. The driveway upon which it was no longer snowing flakes of big, puffy, picturesque perfection, but rather spitting down some sort of freezing rain/graupel (and if you need to click on the link to learn what graupel is, then I am most envious because obviously you live in a part of the world with a much more pleasant climate and therefore much more pleasant forms of precipitation) and generally not looking too promising. Kiddo and I gamely headed up the road anyway to the high school, where there are several hills upon which one can sled, and pulled in to the parking lot to discover there wasn't going to be any sledding going on today.

We turned the car around and headed home, the kid quite disappointed and the both of us rather warm in our bundling. I didn't want all that effort to be for naught and decided to invoke the Life Handing One Lemons philosophy and when we arrived home, I suggested to Kiddo that perhaps this heavy, wet snow would be good for snowman building. So, we did.





Kiddo has always been a fan of the "jam and pack" method of snowperson creation, instead of the more traditional "roll a snowball and stack" method. Sometimes, her jamming and packing gets a bit......... exuberant, and she then has to do snowperson body repair and patching.





We will call our snowman Ned, but first he has to have a head.......................... and a face!





His head will have to have a hat. His hat is on, just look at that!





Lemonade! Also known as Kiddo and Ned!




(By the by, the above lines and name of the snowman come from the Eastman/McKie children's book Snow, which was one of my favorite stories as a small child and now is one of Kiddo's favorite stories. This is the reason why more snowpeople created by members of my family get named Ned than any other name.............)

The perfect gift idea

This morning, as happens almost every schoolday morning, I found myself saying a variation of "Hurry up/finish your breakfast/you're running out of time/you're going to miss the bus" for the seventeen-squillionth time, to which Kiddo responded "I'm so SICK of hearing you SAY that!" in that I'm only six-and-a-half but I'm totally practicing my sixteen-and-a-half sullen, pissy 'tude way that is guaranteed to tick me off. (As she is only six and not sixteen, I cannot take away the car keys just yet, so usually I wind up taking other things away instead - iPod, whatever book she's reading instead of eating, etc.) Well, this morning when she snarked about how sick she was of hearing me SAY that, I snarked back "Oh yeah? Well I'm sick of saying it!" because neither of us are particularly morning people and if she can channel sixteen and a half, I can certainly bust out my inner six and a half year old every now and again. And truly, I am just as sick of hearing the Nagging Mom voice as she is, and nothing is quicker at getting my morning started off wrong than having to recite the Get Yourself Going mantra seventeen-squillion and three times in a ninety minute period.

That is when inspiration hit me. I figured out the perfect gift idea for Christmas.

I need someone else to be the Sayer of Such Things. The Nagger. The Nudger. The Incessant-Repeater-to-Counter-the-Terrifically-Annoying-Selective-Hearing of the kid. But who? Not Hubby, because she can tune him out almost as easily as she tunes me out. No, clearly I need bigger guns.

I pondered for a bit, as I assembled her lunch and made sure her snowpants and library book were packed in her backpack. I thought about folks who have voices I wouldn't mind hearing all day long instead of Nagging Mom Voice.

Alan Rickman!



Alan RIckman has the best voice EVER! I once listened to him read a book-on-tape version of The Return of the Native (after waiting over three months for my hold request to come through at the public library) even though the only place I could listen to the 18 tapes that comprised the audiobook was my minivan, so it took weeks of hearing a paragraph or two at a time to hear the whole thing. He's got a kickass voice. Oh yes, I'd much rather hear him than me hustling Kiddo along as she dawdles over her bowl of cereal that has turned to mush or her fried eggs that have congealed and gone glacially cold on her plate. Definitely Alan Rickman. Or Jeremy Irons!



He does sinister quite well - just think of his Scar in The Lion King... (Incidentally, a study was conducted a few years ago that concluded that the perfect speaking voice would be a blend of Rickman and Irons. So apparently my ears have a very good ear for such things.)

But would either of them work for Kiddo? Not sure. I think I might need even bigger guns to get her going and save my sanity in the mornings.

Finally, I hit upon the perfect choice.

Oh yes.



James "This....is CNN" Earl Jones. I'm pretty sure that if Darth Vader were telling Kiddo to hurry up and finish her eggs, she'd hurry up and finish her eggs, and even clear her place without reminding, too.

Do you think Mr. Jones could be here by Friday?

Oh, and as for Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons, I'd gladly take them both as well. Just for everyday reading sorts of requirements. For example, I have to read a lot of labels at the grocery store to figure out if something is a safe food item for Kiddo. "Sugar, Corn Syrup, Modified Corn Starch, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Mineral Oil, Carnauba Wax, Artificial Colors: FDC Red #40, Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Blue #1" would sound a lot more pleasant to my brain if spoken in a well-modulated, British accent. Kiddo's endless stream of school-related paperwork would sound better British, too. I'm sure I'd pay much more attention to the upcoming PTSA meeting agenda or the deadline for Box Tops in that case. I don't have a GPS thingy in my car, so I am forced to rely upon printed out directions from Google Maps (how old-fashioned, I know!) and would feel much better about finding that next exit if instructed by Alan or Jeremy.

It could go even further - Facebook! Twitter! Status updates and tweets sure would sound more posh, if not funnier, if read by one of them. (I could even get James Earl Jones in on the action, since he'd be available during the schooldays when Kiddo is gone and doesn't need the Maternal Nagging.) Clearing my blog reader would be more entertaining (and less eye straining) with one of those gents reading aloud. But then, a lot of the blogs I follow are written by women, and have a distinctly female voice. So, I'd need a chick, too. How about



Emma Thompson? That'd keep it classy...

So there you have it. The perfect gift idea for my house this Christmas. I'd better go get the spare room made up...

Tug, tug, tug

Will it ever stop tugging at my heartstrings to see my kid taking her leave of me?

Don't get me wrong - I am perfectly happy to let her go. Thrilled, most mornings. I couldn't wait for her to leave this morning, as she was cranky and copping a major attitude. I can confidently assure you of my heartfelt wish that the bus arrive NOW after an hour and a half of the eye rolling, selective hearing (seriously: she was looking right at me as I clearly and crisply enunciated the words "Please clear your plate right now" and all she did was continue to look at me, utterly blankly, as though my mouth had not just opened and her native language poured forth) and "Whatevering" that was tossed my way, not to mention the hands on the hips, dramatically heaved sighs coupled with mutterings under her breath and the occasional "Mo-ooom!" for that final, finishing touch to completely stomp all over my very. last. nerve. Hoo boy, was I ready for her to head off to school and leave me in the relative peace and quiet of the house.

And yet... watching those skinny, little legs poking out from under the ginormous, Princess backpack disappear up the steps and onto the bus, and then seeing the tiny, tiny hand waving goodbye and flashing the "I Love You" sign out the window, even as her face turned away and she began merrily chatting with her seatmate.... tug, tug, tug on the heartstrings once again. Gets me every time.

So, she's in first grade now. I'll be totally over the tugging at the heartstrings by middle school, right? High school? College? *sniff* I'm the tiniest bit afraid I won't be, and also the tiniest bit afraid that I will.

Breaking News for Harry Potter nerds like me!

Have you heard that Universal Studios theme park down in Orlando is opening a whole Harry Potter-themed section next year? Well, they are, and the details about the Harry Potter world were released today. You can read about them right here!

How cool does that sound? I totally want to go there when we're down at WDW next August! Chilling out in Hogsmeade for real? Learning about Hippogriffs from Hagrid? Going into HOGWARTS CASTLE?! Woo-hoo!

Friday Freakout: In which Heather has entirely lost her shizzle

Have you seen my shizzle anywhere? Because I've lost it. Now, I thought I had lost it yesterday, after being forced into playing Let's Kick Up Some Major Drama For No Reason Other Than I Feel Like It with a member of my family that ended with me hanging up the phone on the Drama-Producer (though not until I said, as calmly as I could, "I am getting very upset and cannot talk to you any more right now. Goodbye.") and said family member is now Shunning Me With a Stony Silence, by all accounts and appearances. Yee-ha. Yep, thought that was where I waved goodbye to my shizzle as it packed up its belongings in a little red bandanna, tied it to the end of a stick and went whistling off up the road out of our subdivision for Parts Unknown.

Nope. Turns out I still had some last shards of shizzle left. And I've lost them today. It seems that the simple and easy transition we were going to have for Kiddo's services in her new school? Not going to be that simple and easy. Also, the evaluation the school psychologist was supposed to do at her old school sometime between January and June? The one that she just never quite got around to doing? (Kiddo's triennial review, for those of you In The Know about the world of Special Ed.) The one that I specifically made a point of asking the head of SpEd in our new district about whether I needed to push to have done and she told me no, it wouldn't be necessary? Well, it might be necessary after all. The entire "classification, qualification and determination of services" wheel, it might need reinventing. I'd had such faith and confidence in what I'd initially been told, way back in mid-May when we were only 2 days into living at our new house and I'd started making phone calls to the Big Cheeses here in the new school district. Silly, misplaced optimism. Now, it seems that we are facing a a whole new set of hurdles, albeit it lovely, freshly painted ones as befitting our posh, new district.

So, there you have it. Shizzle fully lost with no GPS system able to track it. And, in my current shizzle-lost state, I also still have the fun of Will Kiddo Need Eye Surgery? and its partner Will the Insurance Company Pay for Vision Therapy in Lieu of Surgery? to tango with. It takes two to tango, and that is two plus one, so I don't know how that will work. I mean, I've never been Ginger Rogers... Maybe I can convince them to do a line dance instead. I'm a Chicken Dancing ace, and also quite good at the Macarena, and Kiddo's now taught me the Tooty Ta, as she has learned in summer camp........

....and some late-breaking news from Hubby. This just in: as his current company was bought out a few months ago, he has just learned that our health insurance will be transitioning from what we have now to the new company's insurance carrier instead. We'll learn the pertinent deets in September and coverage would switch (if it has to) come January. So, all the fighting with the insurance company over coverage of potential vision therapy? Could be moot. Could be a wheel that will need reinventing and a tango that will need to be redanced after the first of the year.

So, I've lost it. Freaking out. Freaking out and PMSing and I can't take one, tiny, little additional thing. No thank you.

I think I'll move to Australia. Or just bury myself at the bottom of a jumbo bag of Cheez Doodles, with a pint of Ben and Jerry's in the other hand.

Le sigh.

/whinging, ranting, raving, yelling, screaming, crying