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Go Nigel, Go!
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Would You Like To Buy My Monkeys?
Jun
24
How I Spent My Monday
by Leslie
I got the idea from here.
Jun
17
By Invitation Only
by Leslie
Julia is turning four next Tuesday and has requested a princess party with her playgroup friends to celebrate. I asked her what makes a party a princess party. She said, “A princess cake and princess balloons.”
I can do that, I think.
And so, we made invitations.
After we printed them, we dipped each paper in cooled tea for about ten seconds and dried them with a hair dryer to give them that old parchment paper look and feel. Then, we rolled them up like scrolls, tied them with ribbon and hand delivered them. “Because it’s princessy,” Julia said.
Jun
15
Not My Day
by Leslie
Today was Father’s Day.
And what do you do on Father’s Day when the father of your children has to spend the day sleeping for his night shift and money is too tight to purchase a gift? You make a sad and pathetic little cake, that’s what you do. At least that’s what I did. Of course, I didn’t believe it was going to be sad and pathetic when I started. I believed it was going to be the best! cake! ever! I felt certain that cake would be so impressive that I’d get suggestions to start my own cake-making business. At the very least, I felt confident that I’d get offers for sex.
But, the cake didn’t turn out so well.
It’s supposed to be a baseball cap. It has a ‘D’ on it for Dad. Or Dave. Or Disaster.
I’m not really even sure you can call it a cake. It’s 87% icing. The dome part of the baseball cap didn’t cook through in the middle. So, I hollowed it out and filled it with icing. Like a Ho Ho. Because Ho Ho’s are good, right? Then, I iced the outside. The cake kept crumbling so the icing is speckled with chocolate cake particles. And the red icing? Ugh. It’s no coincidence that red is the color of evil. Stupid icing.
Also, I did all of this while carrying Lucy in the Moby Wrap. And I allowed Julia to help. Julia’s idea of helping is sucking icing out of the tube when your back is turned.
The photo is blurry because she couldn’t stop moving, thanks to the sugar rush. By the time her Daddy woke up for work, she was crashing, which led to bawling, screaming, crying and stomping. And I hate it when Dave leaves the house like that.
So, Happy Father’s Day, Dave, from your less than perfect family. We really do love you. Really. We do.
Jun
14
If you’re hip to The Daily Haiku, you got the early scoop on the latest news a la Grimmett: we now have a tailless cat.
His name is Max. You may remember him from his Flickr debut last year:
A couple months ago, Max disappeared. I’d pretty much written him off as dead, because when you live out in the country with 50 gajillion cats, you learn firsthand that outdoor cats often have a short lifespan. But then, he showed up on Thursday. Without a tail.
I knew something was wrong when I first spotted him peeking out of a hidey hole in the garage. He was reluctant to come out and when he finally did after a bit of coaxing, he wouldn’t let me touch him. But he did give me the opportunity to see one of the most horrific sights of my life. His tail was almost completely gone. And it didn’t just fall off, folks. It appeared that it had been ripped off. There was a bit of bone protruding out where his tail used to be, surrounded by a lot of mutilated flesh. It was like nothing I’d seen before.
I grabbed some salmon, tossed it in a cat carrier and lured him in for a trip to the vet. The ride there was uneventful. Max was obviously hurt and scared, but very quiet and still. When I opened the door to the carrier in the examining room at the vet’s office, he cowered in the corner and refused to come out. The vet tech said, “Leslie, I’m going to leave you alone with him for a few minutes to see if you can coax him out and settle him down. I’ll be right back.” And she left.
The moment the door clicked shut behind her, Max completely flipped out. He bolted out of the carrier and around the office, yowling and screaming. He climbed up the walls, tipped a table, and jumped up onto the floor lamp. The light bulb popped and the vet tech yelled through the door, “Leslie! Come out of there!”
I ran to the door, slipped out, closed it and stood there listening to Max destroy the room. I put my hands on the door and talked into it, “It’s okay kitty! It’s okay Max!”
Then, the vet tech emerged with a large towel. She nudged me aside and entered the room. I stood there, once again, behind the closed door and listened to the crashes and cries while the vet tech cooed softly, “It’s okay buddy. It’s okay buddy.”
Thirty seconds later, it was quiet. The vet tech said, “I got him. You can come in.”
I opened the door to complete devastation. The cat had wrecked the room. The vet tech said, “He’s alright.”
“How about you?” I asked, noticing blood on the towel.
“Oh, I’m fine. He didn’t even scratch me.” The blood was his.
My hands were shaking as I helped her put the room back together. I had never seen a cat freak out like that. And that’s all I could keep saying. It was scary.
Soon, the vet came in, looked at him through the carrier and decided to give him a shot of anesthesia through the bars and take him straight to surgery.
Today he came home, looking like this.
The vet said there was extensive damage, but Max will eventually be okay. He’s been through quite a trauma and as much as his body needs to heal, so does his spirit. He’s one broken down kitty cat.
Hopefully, we can help build him up again.
Jun
9
I’m In Love And It’s A Sunny Day
by Leslie
My baby is almost two months old.
I call her Lucy Sunshine. (Actually, I sing it. Think Good Day Sunshine by The Beatles. Then, replace “Good Day” with “Lucy” and you’ve got it.)
She’s starting to smile, mostly at her Daddy.
The smiles I am responsible for occur mainly while she is sleeping off her milk buzz.
Generally, this is the look I get:
Probably because I spend a lot of time looking like this:
Jun
5
Greetings Pals And Gals, From Flat Julia
by Leslie
I’m not great at geography. It isn’t due to laziness or anything, it just seems that may brain isn’t wired to retain that kind of information. Maybe it’s all that alcohol I drank in college. Once after a night of drinking ouzo, I lost the ability to juggle. So, I suppose it’s possible that one too many keg stands could have wiped out the neural pathways responsible for understanding geography. Whatever the reason, I struggle with knowing what is where in the world.
In an effort to save my daughter from the same fate, and in hopes of improving my own condition, I’ve tried to provide her with tools and experiences to sharpen her skills. We’ve spent a lot of time putting together her wooden puzzles of the world and the U.S.A. and talking about what is where. In doing this, I realized that she can easily remember locations if someone we know lives there. When I mentioned this to one of the moms in our playgroup, she suggested that we check out The Flat Stanley Project.
And so, we took a trip to the library and borrowed the book that inspired the project: Flat Stanley
We printed out a map (for free! from here) and started a journal to keep track of Flat Julia’s travels. And now, we just need to find a sweet hook up in each state in the country to send her to so we can learn and find friends and make the world a better place.
How cool is that? I’ll tell you: VERY.
If you think you could give Flat Julia a rockin’ good time, let me know. Perhaps we’ll send her your way.
May
31
My little bee had her dance recital this weekend. She was so excited about it. Not so much about the dancing part - she does that every week in class - but, the wearing her recital costume part - the recital costume I’ve been guarding like Cerberus to keep intact for the big recital. And I was proud to say it survived more than a month of attempts to snatch it for dress up play, one photo shoot, and two dress rehearsals.
Like I was saying, I was proud…
As I was getting her dressed in the waiting room before the show, she pulled her bee antennae headband out of her bag and it snapped. I couldn’t believe it. I just stood there staring at the pieces. Thankfully, one of the other mothers stepped in and helped me Macgyver it to her head, just in time for me to get back to my seat and worry through eight performances about whether or not it held up for hers.
It did.
Julia was adorable. She performed twice - a tap routine and a ballet routine. You can see them both here.
When the show was done, I gave her flowers, a balloon and some candy. I was so proud of her. And I think she felt pretty good about herself, too.
May
13
Since our snug little budget has gotten a bit snugger with the rise of gas prices and, therefore, the price of everything else, our grocery budget has us surviving on dinners of pasta and fake meat. Like hot dogs.
One of my favorite dishes to make lately is pasta shells and mixed vegetables in an alfredo sauce. And I top it with hot dogs cut to resemble octopuses (or octopi. Either is acceptable, really.) as Julia finds them much more palatable that way.
I know. You’re thinking, “Hold up there, Flapjack. That ain’t no hot dog octopus.”
I realize the octopus pictured above has only four tentacles. But I see the food I cook as a work of art. Since this is merely a representation of an octopus, I allowed myself some artistic license. I believe the four tentacled hot dog octopus conveys the true essence of the octopus whereas that essence was lost in the detail of the technically more accurate eight tentacled hot dog octopus. Plus, I’m just not good at slicing them that thin.
So, hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog, I’m splittin the scene. And I’m full of beans, They Might Be Giants.
May
11
The Most Beautiful Woman In The World
by Leslie
When she clicks the link to my blog today and sees that photo up there, she’ll make a face and groan. Because she doesn’t like looking at herself. She’d much rather look at a photo of her grandchildren. The funny thing is, when I look at my girls, I can’t help but see her in them.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.
May
6
Beware The Sleep Deprived Mom
by Leslie
I’d been through it before, but somehow I had forgotten how overwhelming the lack of sleep is with a new baby.
I can remember sitting on the floor of Julia’s dimly lit nursery during the 3 a.m. hour, holding her in my arms, rocking my body and singing,
Julia, Julia where shall we go?
The world is a very big place we both know.
To see all its wonders, the wise people say,
would take us, together, a year and a day.
- a song we still, to this day, call “ours,” though I have no idea where I learned it. (I think that memory was erased by fatigue.) I can still see her face with wide eyes, locked on mine - something that you yearn for in those early weeks when they spend more time closed than open. I remember that thrilling sensation of tiny fingers wrapped around one of mine.
What I didn’t remember was the dizzying, bone-aching tiredness and that skull crushing blow that comes when you nod too far forward, then jolt awake and think, “What if I had dropped my baby?” after which you cry and beg for that tiny little miracle to just GO TO SLEEP ALREADY.
ALL of the memories came rushing back quickly in those first few days Lucy was here and I sat in that familiar position with my new baby girl. And I’ve felt a little silly that it took me by surprise all over again.
It’s this torturous level of sleep deprivation that steals my thoughts mid-sentence and forces me to run upstairs three or four times before I actually remember what I went up there for. And it’s what Dave is blaming for my recent waffling about whether or not I should continue with my website, specifically this blog. Oh, the very dramatic waffling that culminated in a family discussion on Friday night during which I cried and even pulled my own hair. Should I keep writing? Perhaps I should continue, but make it less personal, you know, to protect the children.
My family’s advice was to sleep on it.
I did.
Then, I woke up the next morning and read this post from Dooce. And I cried. I read it to Dave. And I cried. Then, I made my Mom read it. And she cried. I think you should read it, too.
Talk about the right post at the right time! The words resonated with me and, finally, something in my new baby fog-filled brain seemed clear: I’m not ready to give this up. How could I even consider it?
It’s amazing what lack of sleep will do to you.
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I Write A Haiku Each Day
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Categories
- Daily Haiku
- Mommy’s Stuff
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You Should Do This
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Ooooooh. Aaaaah.
