Damn you, Goldfish

Oh Goldfish, why am I so drawn to you? So many days you have thwarted my best intentions to eat sensible, regular meals with your crunchy, salty, cheesy goodness. Sure, I wake up and start my day with some nice fruit salad and some eggs, and as I am making my plans to have a nutritionally balanced, produced-based lunch in a few hours, my offspring request a bowl of you. Pouring out their little bowls of joy, jealous that their hummingbird metabolisms allow them to eat you and french fries with abandon without the associated self-flagellation, a few of you make your escape attempt and jump onto the counter. "It's just four of us", you whisper, "Go ahead." So I jam you in my mouth, telling myself that is all I will eat, but as usually happens, I start with four and wind up, twenty minutes later, head tilted back, mouth agape, shaking the last crumbs out of the pouch into my orange crumb-coated mouth.

Alas, my willpower crumbles with one glance at your smiley visage. Bloated and thirsty, I throw your package away, swearing to myself that if I can not control myself around you then perhaps we should break up. I hear your mocking laughter, Goldfish. You know, like divorced parents, we have to peacefully coexist for the good of the kids. I know, I know, it's my issue. Perhaps if I committed to a small bowl instead of trying to eliminate you from my life entirely, I wouldn't find myself eating you in such quantities, as if I were going to the electric chair. But we all know moderation has never been my strong suit.

So I will try, Goldfish, to resist your siren song as I open up your plain-on-the-outside-but-disco-shiny-on-the-inside-package. You will not throw me off track and force me to eat such a nutritionally void meal, standing at the counter, ever again. I will forget this ever happened and move on.

But I hear you, sniggering from the garbage can, whispering, "Pepperidge Farm remembers..."

A Day in My Life, by Little Man

Hello there. Since my mother is so exhausted by having all three of us home all day every day, even though it's only the third day of summer, I thought I would take the reigns today and tell you what a day in my life is really like, instead of having you read more slander from this redheaded giant.

Generally, I start the day off by waking up and pissing myself. My mother is continually perplexed at how I wake up soaking wet and smelling like a Port-A-John when my sisters managed to keep all of their urine in their diapers through their infant days. Well, good for them, but they were working with an entirely different set of equipment and even Mom's feeble attempts at pointing my junk south when she puts on my diaper each night do not prevent the inevitable overflow of wizz that creeps up the front of my torso each morning, making it impossible for me to be removed from my baby jail (read: crib) at anything closer than an arm's length without soaking my liberator's front with pee.

After I am freed, I am whisked to this raised platform, where I drink my morning cup of milk, am stripped of my wet clothes and, while my mother would like me to tell you she puts me straight in the tub, she really only wipes down my front with baby wipes, making me whine, because, damn woman!, they're cold, after which she dresses me for the day. Of course, my shoes are put on immediately, since I am obsessed with footwear and if I am not shod, I will find whatever pair is by the door, slide my feet into them and clomp around the house before I trip and knock my head against something. I especially enjoy Daddy's shoes. They smell like my wet pajamas do in the morning. I wonder why? And what is this "wear them on public transportation" Mommy is always screaming about as she rips his shoes off my feet?

After my footwear situation is handled, I make my way to the living room and find Da Gas (read:The Girls). I need to hug them both before I begin the important task of emptying the toy box of its contents. Once that is successfully completed, I usually visit Mommy in the shower since Daddy is very considerate of my need for bathroom access and never shuts the door, so I can pull back the shower curtain to say hello to my mother. This is usually followed by her screaming some word I do not know, but Daddy responds to, and he comes to get me. Foiled again!

Daddy departs after Mommy gets dressed and at this point I stand at the living room window crying and hoping my pathetic cries of "Da!" will bring him back because the redhead does not wrestle and there is a marked decrease in the bowls of Goldfish I am permitted to eat before breakfast when he is gone. Speaking of food, my mother plops me in my chair after I give up on my father coming back and feeding me inappropriate snacks and it's time to eat. Most days, I start with a banana, which I recently had been boycotting because, little tiny pieces? Come on, lady, I'm almost two, peel the thing and fork it over. I will then break said fruit in half and shove one whole piece in my mouth at which point Mommy comes rushing over to pry most of it out. Calm down, woman! I could've managed just fine. It was a just little tough to breathe. The rest of breakfast passes uneventfully, and I signal the end of my meal by throwing the remaining contents of my tray to the yellow, hairy one who sits under my chair. Rah-yee, I believe he is called.

On most days, we go somewhere. I do not enjoy places with big parking lots since that usually means I will be strapped into the prison on wheels and the redhead will attempt, unsuccessfully, to bribe me with graham crackers - give my a cupcake and I'll think about sitting quietly. Parks are the best. Mommy and I play this really fun game where I try to run out of the play area and she chases me, pretending to be mad, yelling, "GET BACK HERE!" It cracks me up every time. You know what else is hilarious? The look on her face when I throw myself down the big slide head first. The woman is a comedienne. Two other popular games are What Can I Put in My Mouth? and Pull Stuff Out of the Park Garbage Can.

After our morning out, we come home and we play a game I love called Wash Hands. The fun part is when I get to turn on the water full-blast and wave my hands around in it. The sucky part? When Mommy turns off the water and drags me screaming from the bathroom. Never fear though, my sisters share Daddy's considerate nature when it comes to bathroom door closing, or lack thereof, and I will have ample opportunity, usually when Mommy has run downstairs to put the wash in the dryer, to play again, this time, soaking myself and the entire bathroom. After we are all clean, it's time for lunch where I repeat the morning's performance, this time shoving in my mouth, in it's entirety, the whole string cheese I was begrudgingly given after rejecting more of those accursed tiny bits.

Apres luncheon, comes another stint in the slammer. Although this one is shorter and I wake up drier than in the morning. Sometimes I like to mix it up though and take a huge dump so I can roll around and make sure it gets all smooshed to the very edges of my diaper. Sometimes I save that for later though.*

Afternoons are usually spent at home. Until a few weeks back, my oldest sister and I would play this game in the afternoons called Be Really Loud in the Kitchen So My Sister Can't Do Her Homework or sometimes it was Refuse to be Distracted by Sesame Street and Stay Out of the Kitchen and Try and Grab Her Papers Off the Table. Mom makes more of those "pretend" angry faces. She's a comic genius, that one. But as of this week, there's been no homework, so we have been going out a lot. This afternoon, for example, we went to storytime at the local bookstore. That place is awesome since it has a train table, but I do not enjoy being dragged away from it every five minutes so my mother can check that my sisters, who are listening to the boring story, have not been abducted. Relax, stress-case. What I love the most though about our afternoon outings is it gives me a chance to interact with the rest of the world. Why Mommy freaked out when the nice Hasidic woman tried to sidle past me in the Early Readers aisle and I reached out my index finger, E.T.-style, to poke her in her behind which was, literally, inches from my face, I have no idea. Mom's muttering, "Of all people you had to poke in the ass..." did nothing to clarify it for me either.

Dinner, blah, blah, broccoli, various proteins, same scenario as the two previous meals, except at this one I get SUGAR! Cupcake, what cupcake? I never had a cupcake, lady. Do you see one? Sure you think you handed me one, forty-five seconds ago, but that was a figment of your sleep-deprived imagination. Ignore the delighted shrieks of my siblings as they cry out, "Look how fast he ate that!!!", and the telltale frosting all over my maw and make with the baked goods. Seriously.

Now that I am entirely covered in frosting, I need to be cleansed. Although I do not understand the need to remove my clothes before hurtling myself into the tub, I will allow my mother to do so. Once I am in the warm water, what is this stream of liquid shooting out of my body? My GOD, that is hilarious and I must touch it! Aaaah! Got some in my eye. No more? OK, well let me begin the first of twenty rounds of Stand Up and Plop Down on My Ass to Make a Splash. Mom, those angry faces never get old, I tell you. And dirty, tub water? Delicious! They should bottle this stuff. Or maybe I'll just continue to thrust my face into it and come up sputtering and laughing.

Mommy finally wrestles me out of the tub and it's time for pj's. Of course, we must also brush my teeth, which I will make as difficult as possible by clamping my jaws shut once said toothbrush enters my mouth and then bite my mother's finger when she tries to pry my mouth open. In a burst of bedtime energy, I will also kick my legs vigorously, in order to make even more difficult the squeezing of my body into the second skin called my pajamas. I know the tags say "Ensure snug fit for fire safety", but I can't feel my toes.

After books, kisses and hugs, it's back to my cell and it's lights out. Really, it's been a good day. I did some playing, I did some eating, I went a few cool places. Life ain't too bad. And that one with the red hair? Well, she's pretty fun. She's my whole world and I hope she knows that and I am thankful for everything she does for me all day. Even if this whole post is a figment of her imagination and it is really quite pathetic she is putting words of gratitude into the mouth of her soon-to-be two year old son. I said she was fun, I never said she wasn't crazy.

*As I did today. I took a nice big crap at the train table during storytime. Mommy had to pretend she didn't smell it since the extra diapers and wipes were in the van and she didn't want to rip the girls away from the craft the storybook lady had started, but I heard her loud and clear when she bent over me, carefully pretending not to check what she knew was my very full, and very foul, diaper, so as to not alert the other moms as to the source of the vomitous stink, as she whispered, "Oh Jesus..." This ultimately resulted in my being put back in the stroller after storytime and dragged away from the train table - curses! - to the van. I then proceeded to thrash my legs violently to repay the red-haired demon for her cruelty and get poo all over myself and the van while my sister's shrieked with both disgust and glee.

NOW I'm depressed

Am I the only one who wants to burst into tears whenever I see these Cymbalta commercials? Not only are we faced with the images of these poor people suffering from depression sitting around, unwashed, in their tatty, gray sweatpants (Where was I for this casting call? I think I missed my big break), drowning in their misery, but even worse we see their poor, neglected pets and children. I actually shouldn't say neglected, as the Weimaraner looks well cared for, as do the kids, but that shot of the children looking longingly at their mother, who stands staring blankly out the kitchen window, as they color at the dining room table is enough to make me want to slit my wrists and I'm not clinically depressed!

While I do credit this advertisement for its emphasis on the far-reaching effects of depression, I myself can no longer watch. It really kills my buzz during the Today Show. What ever happened to those adorable Paxil adds with the little bouncing ball/face? He would bounce-bounce slowly along, stopping to sigh, and then, miraculously, after he takes the medication he's practically ricocheting down the block. H and I actually named him Sad Blob. And fortunately, I wasn't forced to look at Sad Blob's bloblettes begging for him to draw with them - which would have been challenging with the lack of appendages and all.

Prescription medication commercials, in general, can be too much to take and their imagery perplexing. For example, why, in the name of God, do the Cialis people (erectile dysfunction) insist that men over fifty are really into taking side-by-side baths, meaning two tubs side-by-side, with their partners? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the pill? That set up seems riddled with logistical problems. I can just see H and myself getting into an argument over who's going to get cold and jump into the other one's tub.

Of course, the mother of all prescription drug commercials that actually drove me, screaming, from the room was that one for the treatment of toenail fungus. You know the one. The yellowy-brown guy with horns and sharp fangs (pictured above) who actually lifts up a human toenail and crawls underneath. Aaaahhhhh!!!! I want to die just thinking about it. It took every fiber of my being not ot vomit all over my keybaord searching for that image, by the way.

So I guess in the grand scheme of things, the depresion commercials aren't really so bad. But, seriously, Cialis, maybe those men can't get it up because they've been sitting, alone, in a lukewarm bath for two hours. One tub, give it a try.

The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love...

As tomorrow is the last day of school, and I prepare to begin what is sure to be one of the hardest summers of my life, with all three kids at home due to new home ownership cash deficit* and a whole family to pack, move and unpack, I am reminded, as I always am this time of year, of my own teaching days before I had kids. There is a special bittersweet feeling to the end of the year, of course for the kids, but for the teachers as well. And as I write my note of thanks to my children’s teachers, I was inspired to express, not just to them, but for all of you, what I experienced firsthand – teaching is one of the most under-appreciated vocations out there (after motherhood, of course).

Alright, let’s take the gloves off. Hit me with your best shot. “Sure, sure”, you say, “but teachers only work three quarters of the year, so their pay is actually pretty good.” Really? The average starting salary for a first year teacher with a masters degree is approximately $45,000, so even if we prorated that for a year’s salary, the number is $60,000. The starting pay for an MBA grad? About twice that. Both have high level degrees, but the difference is, MBA grads are entering a field that our society actually values - finance – while teachers are only helping educate future generations. No biggie.

“Whatever”, you say, “teachers work less than seven hours a day and the rest of us work eight. How easy a gig is that?” I agree, totally easy, if lesson plans and fully graded papers, you know, fell out of the sky. What the average person fails to realize is the “teaching day” leaves little if any time for all the preparation and planning required to run a classroom. Perhaps, back in the day, when teachers taught directly from textbooks, complete with answers in the back, one prep period (the name of the “free” time teachers have when the kids are at, say, art class) was enough to grade the day’s work and get ready for the next. But now? In the era of “experiential learning” and whole language, teachers aren’t just marking which pages the kids will read silently at their desks or they will read aloud to them, there are read-aloud books to be found, shared reading articles to be copied and math manipulatives to be laid out. Never mind, grading papers, returning parents' phone calls, putting up bulletin boards and, now, updating the class’s website. And, obviously, this can not all be done during one forty-five minute music class. I can not tell you the number of mornings I was in school by seven and didn't leave until twelve hours later, or how heavy my bag was as I dragged thirty (yes, suburban parents, pick your jaws up off the floor, I had thirty fourth graders in my class) reports on Colonial America home to Hoboken. So, in short, any teacher who's pulling into the lot a minute before the bell rings and leaves right when school lets out is the exception to the rule and ain't doing the job right.

"Well", you say, "sixty grand is nothing to sneeze at." Sure, if it were all being used for the teacher's benefit. Thousands of dollars of my paltry $30,000 salary in NYC (suburbs pay substantially higher), went directly to buying classroom supplies. Sure, the school provided supplies that you had to order in September, so if you ran out of construction paper before then, too damn bad. And the deep financial well from which I could draw my resources? $250 for the whole year. If I had every cent back I spent at Staples, I'd have living room furniture for the new house. It was so bad at my school in fact, I had to ask the parents to donate copy paper each year so I could make worksheets. That's right. The machine was empty. You gave your original to Gus, the ninety year old copy guy, along with your paper and he would run it off for you - eventually.

Which brings us to the point of how inconvenient a profession teaching is. Teaching lacks many of the basic benefits and amenities of a regular job. Did I have access to a copy machine like any office worker? No way. Air conditioning? Pfft, be serious. Sick days, which anyone else can take and only feel marginally guilty thinking about the work waiting for them on their desk, are exercises in self-flagellation as a teacher, since you know you are leaving thirty little souls in the hands of a mediocre sub (shout out to the good ones, you are few and far between) who doesn't know Julia needs to pee a lot and she really isn't faking or that Kevin and Chris should never stand next to each other in line and will wind up screaming at both when they start poking each other in the eye. Speaking of peeing, imagine being a woman, nine months pregnant, who can not use the bathroom at will. How was I going to leave my students unattended so I could go potty? I still thank my student Samantha, who acted as my messenger, and ran across the hall several times a day to Miss Stehle's room to ask the aide in that class (for the mentally challenged kid) if she could please come over so Mrs. B could go empty her bladder. And how about lunch? One year my lunch was at 10:50, no joke. There's no "eating when you're hungry" in teaching. Tired and need to grab a Starbucks? Too fucking bad, it's only four more hours until three o'clock. Have a cold and just want to spend the day answering email and screwing around on Facebook? Sorry, you have to make fractions fun(!) to a room of kids who'd rather be doing anything else. When I stop to think about it, teaching is actually great practice for being a mother. All of those same inconveniences still exist and back when I was teaching kindergarten, I even had kid throw up on me. Guess I can thank Kenji for my talent for dealing with vomit.

The expectations for teachers are ridiculously high as well. At its inception, the purpose of free, public, education was to make the majority of the population minimally literate - basically, we wanted everyone to be able to read and make change at the store. Now we expect teachers to turn our children into well-rounded, creatively-thinking, but still fundamentally strong learners with respect for everyone. Guess whose job that really is? PARENTS. It seems today the burden of responsibility falls on the teachers' shoulders instead of the parents'. And teachers are expected to do it with little help from home at all. Never mind the roadblocks home throws in our way like Cocoa Krispies for breakfast after a solid five hours of shut-eye that began with Junior falling asleep in front of a Sponge Bob marathon at eleven o'clock.

Teaching is such a unique profession because you build a parent-like relationship with someone else's child. I was really upset in September when I thought about #1 spending more of her waking hours with someone other than myself (shout out to Mrs. G, though, I couldn't have asked for a better sub). So why do we show these - let's call a spade, a spade here - mostly women, such little financial respect? How do we expect to attract and keep quality individuals if there is no financial incentive? I have been on both sides of this equation. You could have told me to shut up when I was a young teacher with no kids, but now that I am a tax-paying parent, I still feel the same way. I would definitely pay higher taxes today if I were guaranteed it was going straight to the teachers and not to buy more tricked out cop cars for the town (I know you never got that Iroc in high school, Sarge, but do I really need to pay now?).**

While there are many stories of bad teachers that hit the front pages, there are few stories told about how much teachers care. Believe me they do or they wouldn't be sticking around for the pittance we pay them. One example that really sticks with me is from 9/11. I was teaching in Manhattan and the city was on lock down. Parents who worked outside of the city couldn't get in to get their kids and those of us who lived outside couldn't get out to get home. There was no complaining, only solidarity. We were there to make those kids feel safe on the scariest day many of us had ever seen. Would you really want someone with your children a day like that who was ready to punch out at three and say, "See ya?" And despite the fact that there was no overtime to be had, we all stayed, because those kids needed us. That is the soul of teaching.

So thank you, thank you, to all the wonderful teachers I know, past colleagues, and those to whom I entrust my own children now. You make the world a better place and I wish you were compensated as such. Perhaps there is payback in heaven and you will all live in mansions and drive crazy-expensive cars while Plaxico Burress*** is the garbage man.
Oh, and you can pee whenever you want.

*Why does camp cost more than private school tuition when it is surly, distracted teenagers "caring" for your child?
** Dad, spare me the "broken system" speech. I agree, and I'm not trying to fix it here, just shout from my soap box (of which I am very fond this week, apparently)
***Seriously, all that gun nonsense and he'll still make a mint? Retarded.

PSA brought to you by Mean Mommy

First off, shout out to Susan in NY for the Project Runway update in Friday's comments. My DVR is set, girly!

So as The Big Move begins to pick up steam, and I spend every free moment cleaning, sorting and packing every item we own, many, many items are not making the cut. This group includes, my grad school mortar board, did I really think I was going to wear it again?, pants I haven't worn since before I had kids*, and thirty, count 'em, thirty, back issues of Bon Appetit, when the most ambitious thing I cook these days is five-minute couscous.

While we did have a very successful garage sale, and pawned off the majority of our crap on some of the strangest people in New Jersey, like the guy with the mustache on the ten speed bike who pedaled off with half our cookbook collection slung over his handle bars, some of the stuff just didn't move. Namely the baby gear. So while I did get rid of my never-used yoga kit (I have become comfortable with the fact that I am way too kinetic to sit for that long and too mentally manic to "still the chattering monkeys" and listen to my own breathing without also making a grocery list in my head), I was left with two Exersaucers, a high chair, several of those useful-for-twelve-weeks-before-they actually-roll-over musical archway toys and that ridiculously expensive Lamaze brand baby mirror.

I get it, having been there myself. During my first pregnancy, if someone had asked me if I'd like some gently used baby gear from a stranger I would have looked at them like they were offering me some backwashed Yoohoo. During subsequent pregnancies, while suffering from the severe ebb in cash flow that comes with multiple children, I took anything and everything offered from acquaintances, but still, nothing from strangers. So I wasn't surprised our Ikea lamps sold, but our barely used highchair sat against our driveway wall unnoticed, like the ugly girl at the dance. But, despite Hubby's insistence I junk the stuff, I'd be damned if I was going to throw out what I knew were expensive, good quality, baby items, when I knew somebody, somewhere, could use them. And since most of my friends are already done having kids and, therefore not in need, (and laugh at me from their comfortable perches on the park bench while I chase around my third...bitches), I began my search.

So guess what? Salvation Army is really only interested in saving suburban kids the expense of having to buy real costumes for their eighties parties and hipsters the angst of having to buy anything someone else might actually wear. They are not, however, interested in saving financially struggling parents from buying over-priced baby gear. I was basically laughed off the phone when I called to inquire about dropping off my load.

I finally found two charities who would accept my items - in Manhattan - and they did not offer pick-up services. Still, I was undaunted. I had endured almost two weeks of H's doubting-Thomas looks as he stepped over my pile in the garage each day and there was no way he was going to win. So this morning, I loaded Little Man, #2, and all my booty (and the baby gear... yuck, yuck) into the van for the trek into the city. Preparing to be in the car for hours, I was armed with eighty-five juice boxes, an emergency potty in the back, a bushel of Teddy Grahams and a copy of Toy Story. The whole trip door to door? Ninety minutes. And while I'd like to credit the short trip to my mad my driving skills, (which some members of my family like to call "aggressive", although I feel liberal horn usage is the standard in NYC and I maintain the right even as a passenger, to reach over and give a good toot when a toot is needed**), traffic was light at that time of day, and the charity I chose had curbside help, who came directly to my car, preventing me from having to find parking, and drag them through the streets (ala Family Day at H's office last year), they gave me a receipt, and sent me on my way. It was so easy.

So let me urge you, dear readers, to not throw your gear away when you're done. If you're close enough, and not working during off-peak traffic hours, take a few hours to donate your stuff to one of these fine charities - Room to Grow or Baby Buggy - who both were super helpful and organized. They have affiliates in other cities as well. While I know it's a total pain in the ass, think about all the other moms out there who truly can't afford the things we consider absolute essentials and how less than two hours of your time can make a difference (while creating space in your garage and giving you the opportunity to smack that smug look off your husband's face). It can also be a learning experience for your family. While I could have made it easier for myself and found a sitter for the kids, I thought it was a real opportunity not only to teach them about charity, but also the difference between doing what is easy, like dragging all this crap out to the curb, and doing what is right.

Whoo! It's hot up here on this soap box, let me step down. I've said my peice, take it or leave it. Oh, and H? What's that all over your face? My righteousness! Ha!

*Hanging on to old, out of style, clothes simply because they still fit is dangerous because you are tempted to actually wear them out of the house as proof you still retain some semblance of the woman you were before you had kids. And nothing says "I'm trying too hard" like high-waisted, red, capris.

**KK, I still defend myself on this point obviously.

I hate balloons...

Yeah, I said it. Balloons, you suck. Here's is a Friday Top 5, in chronological order, describing why we are enemies:

5. The inevitable argument over what color/character. Shut up, kid. In my day, there was no way my parents were paying ten, yes, ten, dollars, at Sesame Street Live! (for which they had already paid over a hundred bucks in tickets) for an Elmo or Bird Bird balloon. Be glad I'm not blowing air into the ziploc bag we used to smuggle in your peanut butter sandwich to avoid paying seven bucks for a hot dog you won't eat and calling that a "balloon". Take what you can get.

4. Once the selection is finally, finally made, we get to run the get-the-balloon-to-the-car-safely gauntlet. If you can survive the two minutes it take to pay for your inflatable nemesis without it floating away after your easily distractable child lets go to pick their nose, you then have to convince said child that tying the balloon to their wrist is safer and just as much fun as holding the string, which you both know really is not. Some vendors are throwing parents a bone these days by tying the balloon to some little piece of plastic that acts as an anchor when your child, inevitably, looses his grip on the string. This, of course, jacks the price up to fifteen bucks.

3. Once you leave Sesame Street Live/the circus/birthday party, you get to enjoy driving home with essentially no rear view as your children jerk the balloons around the cabin of your vehicle. This is yet another time I adore having a minivan and actually enjoy it's only drawback, the kids' distance from my seat. Otherwise I would not only enjoy rearview blindness, but also getting bonked in the head with Elmo-shaped helium vessels.

2. Arriving home safely without crashing, the real fun begins. As your children make up games to play with their prizes, you will spend the next two hours shouting, "DON'T DO THAT OR IT'S GONNA POP!" Why children think of sitting on balloons within seconds of beginning to play with one is beyond me. And God forbid you have ceiling fans.

1. Lastly, the worst, absolute worst, thing about balloons, is their slow demise. Each day they float lower and lower and each day you must explain, yet again, about the helium slowly escaping and, yet again, explain what helium is and, yet again, why you can't just open up the balloon and blow it back up. In addition, you shorter, third child can now get hie sticky fingers on the strings and pull the balloons into his needle-nailed (why are babies nails so sharp even after you cut and file them?), chubby-fingered grasp and make terrifying I-am-about-to-pop-this-sucker noises forcing you to wrest it from him and start a maelstrom of crying not heard since he emerged from the womb. And then there's the added fun for you when all the kids are napping and you round the corner into the living room with a freshly heated Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke on your way to watch four minutes of The Fashion Show*, thinking you are alone in the house, only to be startled into dropping your entire lunch by the eye-level, floating specter of a half-deflated Elmo head that has drifted out of the playroom. The pain is over with latex balloons in a few days. But, Mylar balloons? They can stick around until your kid leaves for college. Finally, weeks later, tired of them rolling around the floor, covered in dog hair (and human hair, I am alarmed by how much hair I am apparently losing), you spirit them away in the middle of the night and get to take out your frustration with a pair of scissors and pray the kids won't notice they're gone.

I know, I know I sound like a killjoy. But many's the time I have purposely been the first to leave a birthday party since I know the stragglers wind up taking home the decor. But don't worry, despite my hatred of helium-filled fun bags, my children enjoy as much of a balloon-filled existence as any other child. I still buy them at events and, in fact, bought thirty-six (!) balloons in the Dora color palette for my daughter's birthday one year. But you can bet your ass I sent them all home as party favors.

Happy Friday!

*Isaac Mizrahi is so not the new Tim Gunn, but beggars can't be choosers

The devil carries a pitch pipe not a pitch fork...

Tuesday night was a lovely "Friday" night, as Hubby was off Wednesday to attend #1's school play in which she plays Whale #3 in the chorus, following her mother and father's theatrical footsteps of totally forgettable roles (I was "Nurse" in a middle school play and H was Narrator #2 in his grade school production of Charlotte's Web). So I was further convinced I have the world's greatest husband as he agreed, on a night when the Stanley Cup playoffs were on, to watch a DVR'd episode of The Bachelorette, or as he calls it, Cockblockers. Now I could go on and on about how amazing H is indulging me in this pastime, but to be honest, I had just spent the better part of the evening chasing Little Man around the Girl Scout's end of year barbecue and hockey was being DVR'd as well (but I do own him one for answering, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!", when I asked him if I looked a lot older than the "bachelorette").

For those of you not watching as faithfully as I am, all of these guys, in the pursuit of this quirky little Canadienne, have some sort of schtick. There's Fitness Model Guy, Airline Pilot Guy and, I wish I were kidding, Foot Fetish Guy. And while they can all talk about their unusual careers and, um, interests, there is one guy I need to speak to personally to tell him, for the love of God, Country Music Guy, nobody wants to hear you sing. Or is it just me?

Those of you who know me well, know one of my biggest pet peeves and aversions is acappella singing. This is ironic considering I went ot a liberal arts college with not one, not two, but three, acappella groups and one of my friends was a charter member of the third. It seems I was the only one on campus not trampling freshman to death in the line for The Colgate 13 tickets parents' weekend. In fact, during my term as pladgemaster of my sorority, a role I enjoyed thoroughly, I was paid back in spades at the end of hazing by my neophites, being tied to a chair, while they brought said thirteen men into the house dining room where I was serenaded personally like an auditory, liberal arts college version of that scene in A Clockwork Orange. I still get a little nauseous when I hear "Is She Really Going Out With Him?".

Now don't get me wrong (especialy you, Cunningham) I think these people are vastly talented. They have to have incredible voices and stage presence to perform an entire concert with no instrumental backup. The problem is entirely my own. I find what they are doing so daunting I sit in my seat (when unavoidble due to tight ropes) willing them to hit every note. There's no music to carry the song along, it's all them. It's so raw and personal. TMI in a musical sense. I can't imagine doing what they do and am so anxious for them I have a tension headache by the end.

While I used to think my exposure to acappella in college was bad, it wasn't until the summer of 2002 that I was really plunged into the depths of acappella hell. Two words - American Idol. In my own personal hell, AI is the only reality show on TV. If I thought I was uncomfortable with non-instrumental vocal performances before, at least the groups I knew did that whole "voices as instruments" thing, ala Andy Bernard in The Office, with singers acting as drums and horns, etc. On this show it is people, most who can not actually sing, belting it out on their own. Gaaaah! Look away! The horror is too great. If I was anxious for the talented, well dressed, suburban white kids performing for their adoring peers and parents, I almost had a full blown panic attack listening to folks like William Hung belt out "She Bangs" for the acerbic Simon Cowell.

So I will continue to mute the TV whenever Wes, Country Music Guy, starts warming up the pipes and I will turn the channel with lightning speed when American Idol is on. What is even more ironic, when H was asked recently during a dinner party what kind of college he'd like the kids to attend, his answer actually was, "one with an acappella group". I was all "Whaaaa??", until I thought about it. He's right. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all the big name schools have got groups, some over one hundred years old. So maybe acappellA singing isn't the blight I think it is, maybe it's sign of superior intelligence. But I think Willy Hung sort of debunks that theory.

Oooohh..On the TLC Tip

Five o'clock this morning found me in a desperate search for motivation to get my ass out on the road running (other than the fact that bathing suit season is upon us and a gut looks only that much better as it hangs from your midsection when you spend the entire day stooped over a two year old so he doesn't fall and smash his head open on the pool deck as he careens around its wet surface). So I went to my usual font of inspiration - iTunes. There's nothing like remembering how much you loved Rob Base's "It Takes Two" to put a little pep in your step. And while I did find a new song, my new favorite that I have listened to about a hundred times since its early morning purchase, the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" (please listen to it, your life will be transformed!), I started thinking about how songs can act like time machines and instantly take you back to different points in your life.

For example, during this weekend's smashingly successful yard sale ($200 bucks for our old crap, thank you very much!), I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that no one snapped up my copy of TLC's chart topping album "Ooooh...On the TLC Tip" (yet all H's Clapton CD's sold right away, proving garage sale patrons have no musical taste). Their loss was my gain, however, as I was lucky enough to maintain ownership of this R&B classic and listening to the opening strains of "Ain't to Proud to Beg" ...Nineteen-ninety-two...mic check, one, two, one two...instantly brought me back to Saturday nights on the third floor of the Alpha Chi house, getting ready to go out, drinking my formerly beloved white zinfandel (aka - wine cooler in larger portions), putting on my black bodysuit, high-waisted light wash jeans and shoe-boots, running into B's room to see if I could steal a spray of her Tresor or Obsession, before we headed out into the Antarctic, upstate New York, cold to drink apple-flavored, grain alcohol punch out of a garbage can at the DKE "Apple Pie" party.

C&C Music Factory (whose name would indicate they positively churned out the hits, but how many were there? three?) was brought back into my life a few weeks ago when The Office used it in an episode. It has become a fixture in the van now, as it was in my Cutlass Sierra almost twenty years ago, since #2 stumbled out or bed into the living room during this scene of the show and become obsessed with this song (and Andy Bernard's chair dancing, but then she is her mother's daughter). It's an interesting juxtaposition listening to this early 90's hit while driving my minivan, taking the kids to school, sweaty hair scraped into a bun, wearing my track pants, trying to remember if I packed #1's book report, when as the synthetic beat begins I can, in my mind's eye, be instantly seventeen again, wearing a color block, partially see-through blouse (just the back! and I wore a sports bra, such a prude was I) and white jeans - white jeans I tell you! - dancing in a New Rochelle night club with my friends on my birthday after having broken plans with the A-crowd wrestler (I was decidedly B-crowd) I was having a West Side Story senior year fling with that we were hiding from all our friends.

Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird" has two-stop time travel. Listening to that I am twenty-seven again, desperately trying to get pregnant, listening to this song down the shore, trying to put my reproductive failure out of my mind, wondering if I will ever have kids. Then, I am twenty-nine, a mother of one, driving in my Jetta (I had no need for a lame van for Christ's sake, those were for losers) thinking, "Huh. Haven't heard this in a while. I used to listen to this song when I was trying to get pregnant. Wonder if I'll hear it when I get pregnant again?" Too bad it wasn't playing two weeks later as I stared in shock at two pink lines.

Music is such a great way to see how far you've come in life and to remember good, and sometimes bad, times. And while some of the songs may be cringe-inducing (I want to smack the smug smirk of H's face whenever we come across Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting", which was my song with my first high school boyfriend - at least I had a boyfriend at fifteen smart guy, et tu?), I still enjoy being taken back to another place and time. I can imagine I am already shaping the musical memories of my children and can her them asking years from now, "What the hell was that song with that woman screaming about dancing or something??"

Oh, please

Great, now we all have somewhere else to be worried about gaining weight. Soon women everywhere will be asking, "Does this bikini wax make my vagina look fat?" And what's with the baby? I'm supposing he was the cause of her once fat, yet apparently better functioning, lady bits.

No, you didn't lose weight in your hoo-ha, lady, you passed something the size of a cantaloupe through it so you are going to have less of a lock-and-key situation down there. And from the size of that kid's noggin, I'm surprised there's not an echo. Forget the cream, do thee some Kegels, woman.

I've Got the Pow-aah!

It's gettin', it's gettin', it's getting kinds hectic...oops, sorry. No, this post is not an ode to the nineties group Snap and their power dance hit that was played more than once on my bright yellow, 20 pound, cassette Walkman, during college workouts. This post is to declare my conquering one of childhood's greatest disappointments, the missing of the ice cream man. "Oh no you di-in't!", you say. Oh, yes, yes I did.

Going to back to last week, at seven o'clock, on yet another night Hubby had called to say he was going to be late, I was struggling to hang on to the end of my rope, in the middle of Little Man's bath, when the girls start shreiking in the living room. Thinking one of them was one fire, I ran in with thirty-five pounds of wet baby in my arms, finally able to hear the words they were sceaming, "THE ICE CREAM MAN!!! HE'S COMING!!!!" Unable to grab the change jar and dry and dress the wet baby simultaneously, said purveyor of overpriced, cartoon-themed dairy products sped on by at approxiamtely fifty miles an hour, as my daughters let out cries of protest I think could be heard from space. (Cue my cursing the confines of my reality and screaming in my head, as I do on a regualr basis, "I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS ALONE!!!!"). How in God's name am I supposed to catch this icy, speed demon?

Fast forward to Saturday night, the kids are in bed, H and I are sitting on the front steps having a drink, pretending we're on the porch of the new house, when my pink and white striped, "Do You Know the Muffin Man"-playing nemesis rounds the corner and I catapult myself off the steps. He and I are going to have words. H bought some token ice cream to soften the verbal assault he was sure I was about to deliver, but seeing the tiny, little Indian man who was resposible for so much of my evening misery, I lost my steam. So I nicely said to him, "Buddy, you gotta do me a favor. Slow down. I got three kids in there and I'm usually alone. I can't take the crying." To which her replied, "You break my heart! Here take this." And that's when he did it.

He handed me a card with HIS CELL PHONE NUMBER ON IT and told me to call him if he ever passes me by when I need him.

Can you imagine? Yet another use of modern technology that my kids will benefit from and never know the difference. The ice cream man didn't have a cell phone back in my day. I'm not even sure he had a valid driver's license. I'm excited about that fact that I will never agian, or at least until we move, have to hear the ear-splitting screams of a child denied an ice-milk, Dora the Explorer pop, but at the same time perhaps this is one of those important life lessons that teaches them to deal with disappointment.

In any case, I made, what I now realize is, a huge mistake, and told the kids about the card. Never mind worrying about my children not learning to deal with disappointment, the first weeknight after my little talk with Ragi, my oldest turns to me after dinner and asks, "Can you call the ice cream man now." I have created a monster.*

*And no, I didn't call him.