Alabaster Mom

There's a rumor going around that I require four pillows at night. That rumor is true. I've spent the week packing for our annual lake trip. I feel so fortunate to have a friend who lets us use his cabin every year. The place is full of so many happy memories for us. Of course, the memories were a little quieter before the curlie girlie came along. P and I used to sit and read for hours, interrupted only by the occasional call of a loon on the lake. Now, we're interrupted every 5-10 seconds by someone who is bored even though she was specifically instructed to bring lots of things to do. No WIFI = first-world problem. When we go to the lake, we basically bring everything we will need for the whole trip. The town nearest to the lake has a population of 731 people and no grocery store. There is a gas station, but you don't want to buy anything there if you don't have to, mostly because they hike up the prices for dumbass tourists who left shit at home when they...

 . . . was that authority figure really speaking? One thing I learned from spending the last week with my 11-year-old nephew: my kid is normal. All kids are crappy listeners. My husband and I also got a brief taste of what it's like to say, "Why aren't your teeth brushed???" to two kids instead of just one. My nephew is slightly more likely to comply than my daughter. When I told both of them, "Put down your iPads and get your pajamas on," he actually put his iPad down. What this tells me is that my sister has put the fear of death into him if he doesn't put his iPad down, and I need to know exactly how she has accomplished this. My kid ignores me until I'm foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Another (apparently) common trait with kids: inability to get out of the car when you've arrived at your destination. My daughter does this to me almost daily. For example, we go to church every Sunday (unless we're out of town or something). Th...

I'm on a mission. I've decided that the best way for me to lessen my "generalized anxiety" (a diagnosis I received a few years ago, which was kind of funny because before that I had spent a lot of time making fun of the commercials for "generalized anxiety" medication) is to remove some of the unnecessary stuff from my life. I decided to start with my email. I receive 50-100 emails a day. A day , mes amis. Up until now, I've been willing to slog through them and delete the junk every day, but the clutter has started to bother me more and more. So, I started unsubscribing from stuff left and right. For messages I actually want to receive (like Kohl's coupons, because who doesn't want those?), I set up various filters so that those emails are sent automatically to a Coupons folder. Do I need emails from the comedy club I haven't attended in nearly a decade? Probably not. Unsubscribe. It has been oddly cathartic to shrink my in-box so significan...

First I have to tell you about my accidental encounter with hot yoga. There is a new studio that's very close to my house. Walking distance, in fact. I saw that they have a class at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday. I already have a yoga studio that I use, but I thought, what the heck? Plus, the first class is free. So, I signed up and headed over there on Saturday morning. I felt a wave of heat hit me as soon as I walked through the door. Crap. I guess I hadn't read the website very carefully. I find yoga to be challenging enough at regular temperatures - no need to bring heat into it. The classes I usually attend are kept at a "normal" temperature. Since I was already there, I decided to give it a go. Since this is a new studio and the owner doesn't have a log of clients yet, I was the only person who showed up for this class. The studio itself is very nice. I saw the heaters attached to the walls (near the ceiling) on both sides of the room. I situated myself near the m...

My daughter has a crush on a boy who attends the same summer program that she attends. She started talking about him in the car one day. When she told me his name and described him, I reminded her that we've known this boy since he was two. His grandma used to bring him to our church sometimes. In fact, he attended my daughter's sixth birthday party - the reptile-themed one. Anyway, I guess she has rediscovered the poor kid and is all googly-eyed over him. I say "the poor kid" because apparently all the girls like him. The other day, I picked her up from the camp program and the director pulled me aside. I could almost guess what he was going to tell me. "Some of the kids have been daring each other to do things," he said. "Your daughter was involved." He went on to explain how some kid had dared my daughter to kiss THE boy. So, my daughter took the dare and kissed him on his cheek. The director made it clear that he takes the whole thing very se...

My daughter has been bugging me all summer to dye her hair. She wanted blue hair. Not her whole head, of course - just a portion of it. I finally agreed to do it. I couldn't really think of any reason not to (well, other than the possibility that pouring chemicals on my child's skull is a bad idea), and it seemed harmless enough. She's expressing herself, ya'll! Plus, I'm hoping that when she's 13 and is screaming at me about how I'm ruining her life because I'm such a horrible mother, maybe she'll remember the time I did the thing she wanted. So, I bought a dye kit with the color she desired: blue. We decided to go for it on Sunday night. First, I had to bleach the section of hair using the peroxide stuff that was provided. I have never done this before, so I wasn't sure of the best way to proceed. I pulled her hair back into a ponytail, leaving out the section in front that she wanted to dye. I then proceeded to wrap saran wrap around her hea...