Flip through the photos of my kid, and you can draw only one conclusion.
Kid on great-uncle's lap on a tractor. Kid grinning out from under a
dirt-smeared face. Kid holding a balloon printed with the black and
white markings of a cow.
Yes. She's a
country kid.
And hot darn, I'm proud. I'm like a pig
in, well, you know. I have successfully gotten her to 6 years old, and
she's so used to the smell of cow manure she's more or less immune. And
she wouldn't dream of trying to walk anywhere because everyone knows it
takes a car to get where you really have to go.
The
rainbow cake has achieved legendary status in the blogosphere. You can't mention your daughter's upcoming birthday without someone sending you a link to
this one or that one. But what about those of us who just don't have the time -- or the counter space -- to bake six individual cakes in different colors?
Allow me to rescue you. Because my take on the rainbow cake came from precisely that problem: no time.
Let me set the stage. It was a dark and ungodly humid night in June. The plan
was to make a cupcake cake in the shape of a rainbow -- different color icing on each tier. Kiddo has a friend with a red food dye allergy, and this would allow her to eat a white cloud cupcake without feeling like she had been left out.
But you know what happens when you make plans, don't you?
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| My funny Valentine |
Well, it happened. I finally got the time off of the gig that pays my bills to put in some quality time at my real job.
I made it into the school to be the helper mom for a few hours on Valentine's Day.
If you have never volunteered in a first grade classroom, I suggest you
clear your schedule immediately and find one, any one that will accept a
warm body for an hour or two.
Here's one of the old Inside Outs from the newspaper up on here! Enjoy one from September 2010!
There were maps to the school available on meet the teacher night.
My husband scoffed.
I wasn't so sure.
I went to a school that was shaped like an L. There were no wings. You went straight. Then you turned left.
Or you went went straight. Then you turned right.
When the
Lady and the Tramp "Diamond" edition Blu-Ray DVD landed in my mailbox, it was technically one of those "get the blogger to write about it" deals. But for me, it was much more. It was a chance to revisit with my childhood pals.
If it sounds like a bit of overblown rhetoric, allow me to step back and explain. Of all the benefits to growing up in a house without television -- and for all the kvetching I did as a kid, I'll admit there were many -- there's one that doesn't make it onto the "OMG, you have to do this for your little one lists."
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| Sipping on that Serendipity frozen hot chocolate |
When I flew to California last summer for work, I spent my days among
women whose every moment was about their social media profiles. When
they weren't blogging, they were Tweeting. When they weren't Tweeting,
they were Facebooking, and so on.
I very respectfully declined the chance to join the party. The world
could wait to
hear my stories when I was safely at home, once again
manning my station in front of my computer and making it very clear that
the Sager residence was not going to be empty for huge spans of time.
"What's your problem with
Toddlers and Tiaras?" the comment on a blog asked. As if I could pick just one?
Well, OK, I'll try. Those gussied up little girls with their go go juice (yes, it's a real thing, no, you don't want to know) don't appear to be children so much as dolls, made up by mothers who are trying to recreate themselves -- or the childhood dreams anyway -- in their daughters.
And it isn't just the women who are trashing up their toddlers.
It's hard to pinpoint just when it happens. But one day the work-at-home
mom wakes up and realizes the phone hasn't rung in days.
And thank goodness for that.
I
am, by nature, a talker. Friends reading this are snorting at the
understatement. There may or may not have been a Victrola needle used in
the formative years by a doctor claiming to inoculate me. My parents
tried their best to reverse it, but there was nothing they could do. I
am a jabber jaws.
OK, so I've been sucked into the vortex that is
Pinterest. Go ahead. Judge me. I won't share the spanakopita recipe I found that makes the best cheesy spinachy goodness you will ever taste. So there.
Yes, Pinterest is making my ass grow.
But that's not my problem. The real problem? The
kids on Pinterest.
There comes a time in every parent's life when she (or he) realizes the
only way to truly punish her child is to punish herself. Behold:
Parent
to Kid: I'm sorry, but you are getting up entirely too early on the
weekends in order to watch cartoons. No more Saturday morning cartoons
to you.
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!
