They're calling it the Great Pumpkin Shortage, but there's nothing terribly great about it in my book.
'Tis
the season when I begin to crave all my foods pumpkin-ized. Pumpkin
donuts. Pumpkin cookies with little raisins. Pumpkin roll with a cream
cheese filling. Pumpkin flavoring pumped into a fresh cup of hot
chocolate to take off the chill of fall.
If I'm making your mouth water, perhaps you'll understand.
I'll say this for writing on the Internet: it gives you a look at what people really think about life like nothing else. In a world where people can be completely anonymous, they have no problem telling you exactly how they fell . . . and how.
I just never thought it would be SpongeBob that got them going. Really, folks? SpongeBob? He lives in a pineapple under the sea. He wear a tie. . . and has no neck. HE'S NOT REAL!
And when I dared say that I wouldn't let a 4-year-old watch him -- in response to a study that cast him as the devil because he made toddler a wee bit frantic -- the claws came out.
There's a moment every parent must come upon, face, and move past. It's
the very second when you realize that your kid is better at something
than you will ever be.
We're there.
It's a soccer field, and frankly, she plays like a 6-year-old. Which means not that great.
I have to give my husband all the credit (mark this on the calendar). The kid was standing in just her underwear "bowling" on the Kinect with him when she asked if they could upload the video of their progress to Facebook.
His answer came before mine. "No," he said. "You're not wearing a shirt."
There's a running joke in my childhood home that I had a magic toothbrush. I'd stand in front of the bathroom mirror, my mom says, and yell "Magic toothbrush, brush my teeth!" Needless to say, I hated the actual brushing of the teeth.
The apple doesn't fall that far from the tree. Try as we might, toothbrushing is not fun. And my kid is much too intelligent to convince her that is. So we've reverted to the old-fashioned, "if you don't do it, your teeth will rot out of your mouth." What? It's the truth, isn't it?
This is what you learn at 9 o'clock on the night before the first day of school.
She's hungry. Even though she had a good dinner. And a snack. And a glass of water.
On 9/12, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This is not to say that I don't have an incredible amount of respect for the people who died on 9/11, especially the emergency responders who sacrificed their lives rushing into the World Trade Center. They were, they are, our heroes. But in the days after 9/11, I walked around my Virginia home wondering not if but when another tragedy would come about. This is an American story.
High school was tough. Won't go back there for $1 million tough. Wouldn't pull a genie out of a bottle and take three wishes tough.
Growing up in a small town has enough advantages that I chose to come back and raise my kid in one. And yet, I had just 34 kids in my graduating class. That meant 34 choices for friends. And when you ran through them all, well, you were, for lack of a better word, SOL.
Hurricane Irene tested our resilience. She tested our patience. But I
have to be honest. The big test was the power of my deodorant.
How many days could we go without power - or showers for that matter - and mix with polite company?
I may have done an
evil "toy cleanse" or two in my day, but you won't find me culling through the ginormous bookshelves in kid's room any time soon. This is not a cute little "ooh, I want to raise a reader" story. This is the story of an addiction.
I love books like a crackwhore loves the pipe. And I may share a wee bit of their mania. But it's legal!
Disclaimer
I realized I had to add one of these because people let their minds run away with them sometimes. Wait, where was I?
The reviews I put up on this site are NOT paid for by any company. They come from my little ol' head. Some of the products I found myself - on the 'net, at the store, or from other moms. Some were sent my way by publicists. Usually they didn't fit the mold of another project I was working on, but I thought they were so cool I couldn't help sharing!
As for what happens to the products I didn't care for - you'll never know! Because I won't write about them on here. So if you see it, I liked it. 'Nuff said!
