After several months of leading the kids around our new and blessedly quiet neighborhood hoping to find some children running about, the spring temperatures have brought them out of hiding like little hibernating bears. We have both two little girls and a little boy within the block, and now the kids self-eject from the house as soon as their little feet can take them in the morning to go bike riding. As an added bonus, the little girls have a 12 week old Golden Retriever who comes by on his ... Read more »
Mother of the Year
Gaming the system
Raising kids is a lot like raising dogs. There's a lot of responsibility, a lot of poop, ridiculous amounts of cleaning, and no small amount of frustration. Regardless, the benefits far outweigh the costs, and with a little consistency and training, it's all good. Training being the key component. My son likes Legos and chihuahuas, two things I kind of like but wouldn't really say are my "thing". He is his own kid. I realized he was fascinated with mechanical devices more than biological ... Read more »
Not featured in the Martha Stewart Home Fragrance Collection: eau de Koa butt
As you may or may not recall, we've had our house on the market for a while. It has been a horrible experience, if I'm being honest, and it's turning me into an unpleasant person. The last five months of constant chasing around after two kids and two dogs, keeping an immaculate house for strangers to paw through at whim before dismissively walking away, has taken its toll. We've decided that this is the last week, and after that we're taking a break and pulling the place off the market until ... Read more »
Using snakes to light a fire
I think I could have been very happy as a biologist. It was the direction in which I was headed, though always with the intent of turning my bachelors degree in biology into a professional degree. I chose to ignore the fact that I really loved biology as its own pursuit, fascinated with taxonomy and utterly enchanted with the concept of sitting on a smelly pile of rocks in a harbor by Marina del Rey counting mussels. I understood this, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, trying to get a ... Read more »
Pie eatin’, dog and kid abandoning mom here
I opened Facebook on Mother's Day morning, shortly after my chubby fingered kiddos brought me (and Brody) toast and eggs in bed, and saw this oft-repeated quote: "A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." And I sighed. I really don't like that quote. It's like what we talked about on Friday all over again. Hey, unless you're cutting off your limbs and giving away all your pie and raising free range ... Read more »
Have a Happy Mother’s Day- and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise
A few days ago, my friend Dorian at Catster pointed out a rather mean-spirited post over at Huffington Post entitled, "Pet Parents are NOT Moms." I am trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt here; maybe she intended it to be sort of tongue in cheek. She starts by pointing out all the sometimes over the top things we do in the name of love- and I get that, been there, bought the membership card- but the overall tone of the post just skewed off left and went straight to mean. And that ... Read more »
Never work with children or dogs. And especially both at once.
My daughter has joined the local youth theater's production of Annie. As a seven year old, one of the youngest in the cast, her role is to stand in the back and look cute. This is good. A good intro to theater. While I was gone, my husband got to attend the parent meeting. We learned that there is no sliding scale of parental volunteer requirements based on the number of lines in the play, so the parent of the silent kid picking his nose in the back has to do just as much as the parent of the ... Read more »
A restful weekend
Normally I take the weekends as a time to unwind, refresh my brain, and get ready for the next week. Usually this is a doable thing. But, sometimes things get kind of nutty, and in those times there's not much to be done except deal with it and let all the other things you're supposed to do- like blog- fall by the wayside. My husband left on Friday for a weeklong business trip overseas. It happens, that's part of his job description. But it certainly provides for certain, shall we say, ... Read more »
Dr V, purveyor of poisonous crafts and ideas
I like spending time with my family. We do crafty things, because they're fun and everyone enjoys them. One of our traditions, started back when my daughter was in kindergarten, is to make little Valentine's Day trinket boxes to send to school on Valentine's Day- a craft I found on the Martha Stewart website and immediately fell in love with. It's a cute craft- you take empty matchboxes, cover them with scrapbook paper and ribbons, and fill them with conversation hearts. It's simple, sweet, and ... Read more »
Them cookies are serious business, people.
One of the reasons many vets give for choosing their profession is, "I like animals better than people." It's not a good reason, mind you, and those with misanthropic tendencies learn to cover it up pretty quickly or else have a rotten career, but I will tell you from experience that well, it's true. I've been working on it. I actually get along pretty well with people, as far as I can tell. But every once in a while I experience one of those penultimate human experiences that I'm supposed to ... Read more »
I’m only *kind of* violent
Ever since I was a little kid, I've been particularly sensitive to depictions of violence against animals. My mother learned early on that I couldn't handle Tom and Jerry, the Roadrunner cartoons, or Sylvester and Tweety. "But he's a carnivore!" I would cry sympathetically. "He's just hungry! Turn on the Snorks, Mom." And that holds to this day. But apparently I was much less bothered by anything involving humans wailing on each other. Shortly after graduating vet school, my husband bought an ... Read more »
I swear we have better toys here
My daughter had her first sleepover this weekend. It was a long time coming. Her very best friend, a girl she has known since kindergarten, is near impossible to arrange any sorts of playdates with. Her mom works full time. Her dad, a retired police sergeant, is busy running the older son around to after school activities but has a rule that the daughter cannot have playdates without her mom or dad there. Given this statute, let's just say I didn't even bother pursuing a sleepover with ... Read more »
Merry Christmas, kids. I poisoned the dogs.
Let me preface this by saying it isn't Christmas in my house until it looks like an elf exploded in the foyer. It doesn't excuse what happened, but it's important to the story. On Saturday, my husband and I went out to dinner while the kids spent the night at the grandparents' house. Before we left, I surveyed the mess that is "middle of Christmas prep" with some trepidation. There was trouble everywhere. Breakable ornaments, garland, boxes piled to the ceiling. Most of it is pretty ... Read more »
Everyone’s a cynic
"Come to my store!" exalted my daughter, pulling me up the stairs. I obliged, wondering which of my possessions she was going to try to sell back to me this time. That one has always been possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit. " I have bracelets," she said, gesturing to an array of beaded items she had crafted using the bead kit she got for her birthday. "And neck-a-laces," picking up a pair of Mardi Gras beads she inherited at some point. I picked up a bracelet. "How much?" I ... Read more »
Faith in humanity, restored
Among one's many obligations as parent to a school-aged child is that most universal of school experiences, chaperoning a school field trip. My number got called this week, when my second grader's class went to the zoo. She of course volunteered me, assuming- correctly- that this was the sort of thing I was up for (as opposed to the kindergarten trip to Sea World), and for the most part I was happy to do it. Until I heard it was going to be raining. Now, laugh all you want, but we San ... Read more »
Don’t leave the vet in charge
I have a new Baking With Brody post ready to go that just needs a couple more pictures. I'll have it up this weekend, just in time for Halloween. So in the meantime, a corollary to yesterday's post: One of my tasks as kindergarten room mom, a job I grudgingly agreed to despite my better judgment, is to decorate the booth at the kid's Halloween carnival. I thought we would be provided with games and we would simply be in charge of manning it, but oh, no, we need to actually come up with an ... Read more »
Underachieving Moms Club
I am possessed of the vague and disquieting sense of disease that comes from knowing you are incredibly behind in everything you are supposed to be doing. Case in point: I promised my kids a month ago I would make them banana bread. I've tried three times, and every time I go to do it someone has eaten the bananas below the requisite number needed to make said bread. So they have been eating the Frankenberry cereal that one of the grandparents bought when we were in Africa for the past three ... Read more »
That’s my Girl
Last week, my daughter's Girl Scout troop was decorating t-shirts for Halloween. Now, ever since we've gotten back from Africa the only thing my little Jane Goodall can talk about is all the animals we saw, and when can we go on another safari, and can she please come. She even made me a picture book of drawings of all the animals we showed her. She was not even scared when I told her we came across a giraffe that had been eaten by a lion on the side of the road. She is, for sure, my ... Read more »
