Alabaster Mom

I have roughly 24 days left in which I can use Santa Claus as leverage. I've called him several times today. In fact, Santa has probably taken out a restraining order against me. A doesn't totally get the whole Christmas/Santa thing yet. But she does know what presents are. And she knows she wants some. If this guy wants to bring her some, she is not going to argue. So, she tries to behave from time to time. Tries. I guess she keeps forgetting, though, since she continues to carry out her diabolical plots as usual. She ran away from me at the store (yes, again) and when I found her I had to suppress every instinct to send her to the moon. (All I could think of was Adam Walsh - seriously, keeping your kid safe these days is scary shit.) I am really trying my darndest to get through this thing (and by "this thing" I mean the whole 18 years) without spanking her, but sometimes I feel like I resort to the dumbest tactics (like telling her that random strangers are going ...

On the return plane trip, shortly before I started threatening her life. We're back. We flew back on Monday night. The only problem was that I'd already reached Maximum A sometime over the weekend. So, I was not looking forward to the two flights back. She was a pill on the two flights out to DC, but my tolerance was higher then. The thing about being on a plane is that you can't exact discipline your child effectively. And said child knows it. A knew she had me over a barrel and there was nothing I could do but to hiss various threats at her. She slammed the window shade up and down. She kicked her chair. She demanded candy. At one point I grabbed her arm and she pulled out the ol' time-tested "DON'T HURT ME!" trick. On the second flight (which was delayed because of de-icing and whatever else it is they do to delay planes), there were some kids sitting nearby who are performing in a traveling production of Disney's High School Musical. I shouldn'...

It's Thanksgiving. The kid and I are at my sister's house. A's still sleeping, because she's been partying like a big dog every night. We spent the past few days at my parents' house. The kid has my parents right where she wants them. On the first day, she said, "I'm so happy to see you, Meemaw!" My mother went straight to the store and bought her a new toy. A loves my mom to pieces but she is my dad's number one fan. Every time she sees him she plows past my mom and yells, "Hi, Granddaddy!" They watched cartoons together for hours yesterday. Oh, and get this. Apparently my parental authority . . . well, I have none as soon as my parents enter the picture. I took a cup of water away from my kid because she was sticking her hands in it and my spidey sense told me that something very unfortunate was about to happen with that water. Thirty seconds later, I heard A pleading her case to my dad. And then she emerged from the kitchen with . . . ...

U-CD Lucy Annabel (CD, NA, NAJ, CGC, TT, TDI) (AKA "THE GOOSE") April 11, 1998 – November 16, 2006 For some time now I’ve been trying to muster up the courage to write about my Lucy Annabel. She has been gone for a year and I still miss her desperately. Sometimes I think I can still hear her tags jangling, or the unladylike grunt that she made just before falling asleep. She was my friend, my companion. Lucy saw me through four miscarriages and never left my side. She enjoyed hanging out, sleeping on the bed, eating, and kicking other dogs' asses (in her older years she was content with simply lifting her lip at dogs that offended her). She was smart. She was feisty. The Goose, as we called her, was a strong competitor in obedience and agility, although she really only did what she felt like doing (and didn't care how much money I blew on entry fees). She was an awesome therapy dog (despite her horrific breath) and enjoyed meeting new people. This is her story. P and...

The short one and I are leaving in three days. (My other half is staying home, in case you are reading this and thinking of burgling us while we are gone.) A brief excursion to Kohl's after work yesterday raised the spectre of just how challenging this Thanksgiving "vacation" is going to be. I just needed a few pairs of underwear, so it should have been a very brief and straightforward shopping trip. First off, we couldn't get a cart, which is a fate worse than death. We loitered in the lobby area and waited for one to turn up, while the kid greeted everyone who came in. "I got my milk and my pretznels!" she announced to one lady. She had some leftover snacks from daycare tucked under her arm because she had insisted on bringing them into the store. Finally we got a cart. She sat in it for about .0000987 seconds and climbed out as soon as we hit the lingerie section. "I don't want to sit down!" I begged her to sit in it just long enough for me ...

The other morning my adorable daughter woke up with a big booger hanging off her left nostril. Being the good mother that I am, I grabbed a Kleenex and liberated it. A has no tolerance for having things done to her or for her without her express written consent. When she asks for juice I open the refrigerator (which she calls our "fridgelator") and hand her a juice. She stomps her feet, shrieks "NO, I GET IT!" and puts it back on the shelf. And then retrieves it again. So, when I wiped her nose without her consent I heard this: "PUT MY BOOGER BACK IN MY NOSE." I can definitely add that to the list of "things I never thought I'd hear." I asked her if she seriously wanted me to dig it out of the Kleenex and give it to her and she nodded. I have to draw the line somewhere, and this seemed as good a place as any. "No, that's gross." My sweet little buttercup angel flower blossom

Watching "Toy Story" We did not know A's sex before she was born. For some reason we thought she would be a boy and we focused primarily on boys' names. (Her birthmother had had an early ultrasound but the baby was too active to get a clear view.) I have to admit I was secretly thrilled when I found out she was a girl. Don't get me wrong - I would have been over the moon if she had been a boy. It's just that I grew up with sisters (no brothers) and that's what I'm used to. I felt like I would know what to do with a girl. As my mom has often said, "We don't know how to clean poop off balls." In the hospital, I held A in my arms and in a high-pitched voice I said to P, "Daddy, I'm going to have 13 bridesmaids in my wedding! Oh, and I need 18 pairs of shoes!" I think my other half figured out pretty quickly that having another girl in the house was not going to be cheap. However, none of that mattered because he was smitten as ...

Our own personal Dracula My kid bit another kid at daycare yesterday. This is her second biting incident. She is teething, but I can't really blame it on that. She has a short fuse, pure and simple. In general she is a happy kid, always smiling and laughing (and talking, God knows she talks). But apparently if you are a similar-sized kid and you cross her in some way, you'll have her incisors embedded in your flesh about two seconds later. So now I need to apologize to a set of parents - again. And give my kid a lecture - again. And make her apologize to her friend - again. The first time it was a little girl that she bit, and that night all A heard from us was "you can't bite [friend's name]!" Now it occurs to me that maybe we forgot to say, "Don't bite anyone. " This time she bit a little boy, a cute brown-eyed guy who even came to her birthday party this year. Normally she adores him and I had dreams of him becoming my son-in-law someday. But...