Scene From The Living Room

During the morning hair-combing ritual....
Me: Tomorrow, some friends of mommy and daddy are coming over. You probably don't remember them, but you've met them before. I think you'll like them. Mr. Dave was the best man at mommy and daddy's wedding!
Maya: You mean he sat still?

The Holidays.... They Are Over

And I am on my way to China. Yeah, it was a little random. :) More to come on that later. Let me tell you about Christmas.

Maya wanted a Barbie dog, and a Ken doll. No problem, I thought. Oh, how arrogant of me. That thought is the downfall of parents everywhere around Christmastime. I also waited until just before the actual holiday to do my shopping. In retrospect, that may have had something to do with it.

I arrive at the store and look for a Barbie dog. There are none that do not also come with a Barbie. Oh well, Maya will love an additional Barbie. Bonus! I pick one up. She looks great. All blonde and fabulous. I nearly throw her in the cart when I do a double take, curious what that pink stick is that Barbie is holding in her hand. And then I recoil in horror. It's a poop scoop. And then I see them. The tiny brown plastic pellets. Yes. I have very nearly purchased plastic Barbie dog crap. This is... unacceptable to me, to say the least. This Barbie dog has a strategically placed hole in its backside. Barbie feeds it the plastic pellets (yes, those same ones) and then they come out of that hole in some sort of twisted perpetual Barbie recycling program, and Barbie happily picks them up with her pink, plastic scoop, her perfect smile still painted on her face. It's just a little too much for me. I can't buy plastic poo.

There was one other choice in Barbie plus Barbie dog. This set had a mama dog and several puppies. I breathed a sigh of relief and picked up that box. Oh, look! They have cute magnetic noses and can give little eskimo kisses! How sweet. And they have little plastic bottles and you can bottle feed the puppies with real water! ...... Wait a minute. What's that little pad over there in the corner of the box? Are you kidding me? The ONLY Barbies with dogs in this whole store BOTH involve some sort of bodily function? Well, I'm not proud, but I bought the peeing Barbie puppies. It seemed slightly more dignified than the recycled foodpoo.

I still needed to find a Ken doll. Surprisingly, there were only two options for him, as well. One was a beach-theme Ken. His clothes were normal, but his hair was somewhat like a 1970s disco Ken with a heavy dose of shellac. He could surf all day and that hair wasn't going to move. Barbie was not going to be happy looking at that hair after a long day of cleaning up puppy pee.

The other Ken had stylish clothes, very nice hair, a handsome face and a really sweet messenger bag. He was entirely too well put together, actually. I'm not really sure if he was the right Ken for Barbie, either. At the very least, though, he doesn't over-use the hair products, and they can enjoy many hours of shopping for swell clothes and accessories together. Maya loved both of them. And their incontinent little dogs.

Sometimes I Rant About Car Seats

Being involved in parenting forums has its ups and downs. On one hand, hilarity and support await for the gal who lives in the middle of nowhere and doesn't see a lot of other non-family adults on a daily basis. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like banging my head against a brick wall when people argue with me about car seat safety. The following message was my frustrated attempt to explain why I just.can't.let.it.go when people challenge me on car seat issues. The discussion was about expired car seats (yes, they expire), but it has applications to other safety issues, as well.

There are many good reasons for replacing a safety device before it's absolutely on it's last unsafe breath.

The thing that gets me is this. Vehicle crashes are still the leading cause of death for kids overall (there is a window for newborns when congenital problems are a bigger risk). I'm going to be harsh for a moment here, not because I intend to sound cruel, but because there aren't many other ways to say it. We know that a lot of kids are still dying in vehicle crashes. We also know that a great many parents are using their car seats incorrectly in some way, or many ways, including using them past the expiration date. I did that, too, before I knew better. But now that I know? I will do everything in my power to shield my child from this one thing that I have the ability to provide significant protection against. If people would argue less over what CPSTs and car seat safety organizations are saying, and instead put that energy into following the advice, it's highly likely that we would see a reduction in the numbers of children who are seriously hurt or killed in vehicle crashes.

People get hypervigilant about their child's online safety, or whether or not to vaccinate, or whether or not to send them to public school, or whether or not to let them watch TV, or any number of other issues. And it's not that those things aren't important. They are. But why do people get so excited over those issues and then argue over a car seat expiration date when statistically, their child is far more likely to be affected by its safety than any of those other things? To me, it's like ignoring the elephant in the room in favor of screaming at the mice.

Scenes From Early Thanksgiving With My Family

My parents are heading to Florida for Thanksgiving this year, so they wanted the fam to gather early to eat turkey and be merry. We arrived earlier this evening and had dinner just a little while ago. Verrrry tasty. The following are excerpts from the evening's conversations.

*Scene* My very pregnant sister, Deb, and her husband are arriving.
Dad: (leaning out the front door) Hey! I opened the garage door. It might be easier for you to get in that way!
Deb: (coming in through the garage) We're not even carrying any suitcases. Why did he want us to come in the garage? Are we too embarrassing to use the front door now?
Me: Uh, Deb? I think he was suggesting that your current girth might make it difficult to *use* the front door.
Deb: Oh.

*Scene* Getting ready to sit down at the table for dinner.
Dad: The chair on the right side in the middle has a structural problem that I haven't been able to fix yet. So, Deb, you probably won't want to sit there.
Deb: Dad! Jeez.
Dad: (laughing) What? You can sit next to me this way!
Me: If she sits next to you, it will be so she can stab you with her fork.

*Scene* Mom is outlining drink options.
Mom: OK, I have Diet Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, root beer, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, orange soda, milk, water, tea, coffee, Capri Suns, orange juice and Kool-Aid.
Everyone: .........
G: (laughing) Could you repeat that?
Mom: I'll repeat that you can go to the fridge and see for yourself.

*Scene* The food is being passed around.
Mom: There are two types of butter on the table. I know that one person (looking at my husband) requires real butter. There is tub butter for....
Grandma: The tubby people?
(everyone looks at Deb)
Deb: I'm going to leave. Right after you pass the turkey. I would leave now, but it's for the baby.

*Scene* Maya is eating pie and drops a big chunk on her pants.
G: Let me help you with that. (picks up the pie and puts it on his plate)
Maya: Hey! Dad! Don't take my pie! I was still gonna eat that! (reaches over and steals back the dropped pie)

My Kid is Country, Y'all

Maya is reading and writing like crazy lately, as kids are known to do in first grade. She is encouraged to sound out words and write them down as she thinks they might be if it's not a word they've covered in class yet. She's pretty good at it most of the time! The other day I was looking at some of her school papers and reading some of the cute little stories she wrote, and I kept coming across a word that she spelled as "theon." I was confused. This is not a word I am familiar with, and my vocabulary is probably above average. Trying to understand it, I said the word aloud. And it hit me. "Theon" is how you might write down the word "then" if you're a little girl with bit of a drawl. Two syllables. Oh my.

Tonight as we settled down to read a few books together before bedtime, she decided that mama needed a special bedtime hair-do. "What a great idea," I said, and handed her the comb. She reached for the detangling spray, too, naturally. It's just not as much fun to comb your mother's hair without loading it up with so much detangler that it runs down her scalp and requires her to take a shower once you're solidly asleep. She sprayed and combed. And sprayed and combed more. She put a hair tie in my hair and commanded me to just try not to cry if it hurt too much. She gave me permission to touch my head if it hurt, to help with the pain. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and said, "this is fun! You're doing such a good job." I could hear some of my hair snapping off. My stylist will wonder what on Earth happened to me.

After studying her work, she took the hair tie out and started combing again. Added a little more detangler. As she combed, she said, "you're going to have something like a ponytail, only messier." I thought that would be just fine for the bedtime stories. Then she said, "Mom, this is just like when you do my hair! Only I do it neater and better. And it hurts less."

Heaven help that child if what I do in the mornings hurts more than what was happening on my head tonight. My ponytail-but-messier is pretty fab, though, which is good, because the detangler overload has dried into a stiff, glue-like substance and I fear the hair tie may never come out.