dr. jenkyll and mrs. wyde

here's the most interesting thing about "the change of life" so far:  the personality rupture created by the upheaval of hormones. i don't need no stinkin' potion to mutate from good to evil; it happens (semi) regularly all by itself as i ride the waves of womanlynesshood.

viz:

dr. jenkyll:  "i got up at 6 a.m. and exercised, then ate many vegetables today!"

mrs. wyde:  "cheese tortellini!"

dr. jenkyll:  "i'm going to take more care of my appearance - perfume, mascara, cute necklace."

mrs. wyde:  "oh shit, it's 3 p.m. - i guess i'd better shower."

dr. jenkyll:  "i made my family a tasty, nutritious meal and plated it beautifully."

mrs. wyde:  "hot dog for breakfast? sure kid, whatever."

answer: five

question:  what is the number of games of candyland a grown woman can play before she begins to entertain felonious thoughts?

don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there

you know it's going to be a long winter when you wake up and realize you were dreaming about asking your doctor to up your dosage of antidepressants.

uncle

it's official:  i give up.

another double-digit-below-zero day. another day spent gazing blankly at the frozen wasteland out my window. 

we didn't get out of bed until 9.

we had gummy bears and tings (think cheetos without the cheese) for breakfast.

my living room is now a blanket fort.

we're all still in our jammies and have no plans for getting dressed (yesterday it finally happened at 5 pm, but only because we had to go to a school open house).

the beds are unmade.

baskets of unfolded laundry are sitting around.

mary poppins is playing (again).

and i'm trolling the internet, looking for blogs of people who are crabbier than me (fortunately, there are plenty – thank you all).

in one word, why i don't have a dog in minnesota

poopsicles

sometimes, it does pay to get involved

hey minnesotans, did you know you can make a donation to your favorite political party or state-level candidate and get your money back?

it's minnesota law:  individuals can contribute up to $50 a year, and married couples up to $100 a year, and be reimbursed through the political contribution refund program. 

when you give to the democratic party (or the evil empire) or a candidate, you'll get a receipt. send the receipt in with this form any time; you don't have to wait until you file your taxes.

et voilà! you really can get something – like a little piece of democracy – for nothing.

murphy's law

– noun 

the facetious proposition that if something can go wrong, it will.

example:  when the handsome man takes the girls to the hardware store, who gets licked IN THE EYE by the owner's friendly doggie?  not the handsome man. not thing one. no, it would of course be thing two, miss allergy 2009. so now her eye is red, puffy and watery, she's all stuffed up, and  it took me and the handsome man working together to hold her down so we could rinse out the eye.

and the best part? right now, they're on their way BACK to the hardware store because the handsome man left the 20 cent plastic wedges that precipitated this whole chain of events on the counter.

grapefruit: the poodles of the citrus world

my kids eat like supermodels. some days all they want is cucumbers, tomatoes or grapefruit.

grapefruit, i've discovered, are high-maintenance little pissers. cut in half. take the curved knife and free each half from its peel. cut each stoooopid section out of its pithy confines. dump sections into a bowl, then wrestle out those that don't want to make the journey. 

it takes longer to prep a grapefruit than it does to eat it. too much fluffing and buffing and coaxing.

the q&a session will now begin

i think thing two will take 8 a.m. classes in college, because her thirst for knowledge is greatest first thing in the morning, before caffeine has rendered me capable of speech. 

here is an excerpt from this morning's pre-dawn barrage of questions:

• what's inside your neck?
  
• when will i be 16?
  
• why don't we wear bathrobes to bed?
  
• is there enough ice cream left for me to have an ice cream cone?
• where is my ankle bone?
  

a sure sign of the end times

cnn's new year's eve broadcast live from times square with anderson cooper and kathy griffin.

i have never been so glad not to have tv.

okay, okay

here is some documentation of the hirsute hullabaloo. 

see if you can guess which is before and which is after.

it's beginning to look a lot like boot camp

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

ev'rywhere you go

take a look at the five and ten glistening once again

with candy canes and silver lanes aglow

"mommy, i need a towel."

"why? honey, i'm up to my elbows in meatloaf mix here, and WHERE ARE YOUR BANGS?!"

"josie cut them."

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

toys in every store

but the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be

on your own front door

"JOSIE! GET OUT HERE! WHY DID YOU CUT KEELY'S HAIR?!"

{blink}

{blink}

"i dunno."

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

ev'rywhere you go

there's a tree in the grand hotel, one in the park as well

the sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow

"AHHHH! there's hair all over the bathroom! it looks like someone detonated a pomeranian in here! and are these daddy's NAIL SCISSORS?!"

a pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots 

is the wish of barney and ben

dolls that will talk and will go for a walk

is the hope of janice and jen

"hello, kids' hair? are you open christmas eve day? thank god. my 5-year-old just cut my 3-year-old's hair. the bangs are GONE, and the sides are decidedly asymmetrical – sort of a 1980s, vidal sassoon, 'say-lon' kind of thing. 10 a.m.? thank you so much."

and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again...

aloha

thanks to itunes, my kids know a huge range of christmas music. i had kind of assumed that the favorite would be something traditional and climatically suited to minnesota, like jingle bells or frosty the snowman, or even baby, it's cold outside.

but no. when thing two crawled into bed with us this -14 morning (that's temperature, folks, not wind chill), here's what she was singing:

mele kalikimaka is the thiiiing to say

on a bright, hawaiian christmas daaaaay.

that's the island greeting that we send to you

from the land where palm trees swaaaay.

here we know that christmas will be green and briiiiight,

the sun to shine by day and all the stars at niiiiight.

mele kalikimake is hawaii's way

to say 'merry christmas' to yoooooou.

science fact for the day

the human head can hold thoughts or phlegm, but not both.

or maybe that's just my head.

nice try

thing two:  "mommy, can i have a bomb pop?"

me:  "not at 10 a.m. in the morning, you can't."

thing two:  "can i have one after lunch?"

me:  "maybe. we'll see."

{pause}

{pause}

thing two:  "mommy, can i have some lunch?"

moo

totally not my business to suggest what holiday gifts folks might like to give.

but.

if you're casting about for ideas, here's one:  heifer international. it's a non-profit dedicated to ending hunger and poverty by providing livestock, plants and education in sustainable agriculture to people around the world. recipients subsequently give an animal to a neighbor, multiplying the impact of the program ("and so on and so on and so on").

we gave flocks of chicks to the preschool teachers who care for our little chick, and our parents are all receiving shares of the joy to the world collection:  sheep, goats, llamas and a heifer.

and – proving that my mother and i do indeed have one brain, as my brother once remarked – my mom made a donation to heifer in my family's name at the same time i was making one in hers. scary.

do you hear what i hear?

*sniffle*

*cough*

*[swear word]*

predictably, my stocking is going to be filled with kleenex and motrin this year. thing one debuted the death cold in our house, then handed the baton off to thing two, who is in the throes. and a few hours ago, i began to feel the soreness creeping through my throat and head.

now, if someone just lands in the er or urgent care, it'll be a good ol' family xmas. i think it's my turn this year, and i am trying:  i walked INTO THE DOORFRAME of my ob/gyn's office the other day, ricocheting my skull off the metal. apparently the girls come by it honestly.

mommies say the darndest things

oops. must remember that small children have supersonic hearing akin to dogs and bats.

i recently toured the elementary school that thing one will attend next fall, and afterward i wrote thank you notes to the teachers and principal (my mama raised me right). 

recounting this story later, i told the handsome man that i had sent off my butt-snorkeling blandishments. and now, predictably, josie delights in saying "butt-snorkeling."

welcome to the glue factory

most of my kids' clothes, toys and gear are hand-me-downs. not because i'm an eco-conscious earth mama, but because i'm a stay-at-home drain on the economy, and when someone offers something free i say yes.

i try to hand the stuff off again when we're done with it, but apparently my children secrete some sort of invisible destructo-juice because they just destroy stuff. seemingly pristine clothes that have already been through one, two or more kids by the time they reach us are instantly and irreparably stained. toys crack and disintegrate. books give a soft sighing sound and gentle shed their pages.

this weekend, when the handsome man had the girls safely out of the house, i held the annual post-birthdays, pre-christmas purge of the outgrown and outmoded. besides the stuff that was donatable and went to arc, i also threw away bags of stuff that was on life-support, including a shattered barbie camping van (dammit).

my house:  where toys come to die.

how cold is it? it's so cold that...

you know you're a minnesotan when this is the weather forecast you hear delivered in a cheery voice:

"well, it could be worse!"