the mommy day planner

6 am - alarm goes off

6:04 - alarm goes off

6:08 - alarm goes off

6:12 - alarm goes off; get up

6:12-6:30 - check bank balance (still solvent), check e-mail, check people.com

6:30-7:25 - make breakfasts and lunches, rouse and clothe child a, unload and reload dishwasher, break up fights between children, make beds, shove husband and child a out the door

7:25-7:30 - eat

7:30-8 - play don't break the ice, read books with child b

8-8:30 - reassemble basement office post construction

8:30 - ready child b for walk around lake: pack doll, snack and water; sunglasses, kleenex, hand wipes and lap robe already in stroller

8:35 - wait, more breakfast!

8:45-9:45 - walk around lake, engaging in metaphysical discussions with child b ("our ground is the sky for the earth underneath the ground"; "when you climb up to space, you're in outer space")

9:45-10:15 - help child b create and assemble fourth of july wreath (why? why now?)

10:15 - soothe child having nervous breakdown over operation of scotch tape and glue stick; feed child snack

10:20-10:45 - shower, dress, ask child b to dress, allow child b to remain in jammies, exit dwelling

11-11:15 - pick up prescription refills (antidepressants - yea!), grocery shop

11:15-12:15 - have four pairs of eyeglasses adjusted, two each for self and child b

12:15-12:45 - return home, prepare lunches, feed child b, eat

12:45-1:30 - play don't break the ice, read books

1:30-1:40 - ready child b (still in jammies) to leave, head out

1:40 - pick up child a from school

1:50 - remind child a we're not staying to play after school today; argue

2-2:30 - go home, get child b's allowance of 6 quarters, return to school to purchase tiny plastic squishy animals and cheap-ass bling jewelry from vending machines in park building, go home for real

2:30-3:30 - adjust insurance policies, make cutout bunnies with cotton tails for child a (why? easter is over), help child a create fourth of july wreath (parity)

3:30-4 - children watch tv downstairs; blessed, blessed silence

4-4:20 - spiff up child a

4:20 - take child a to birthday party

4:40 - return home; check to make sure present is wrapped for child a's next birthday party tomorrow

4:40-5:45 - make dinner with 4-year-old jammie-clad sous chef

5:45-6:15 - eat dinner with sous chef; more metaphysical discussions and many fart jokes

6:15 - leave to pick up child a, pass returning husband ("hi") in the garage

6:30-6:45 - attempt to wrest child a from birthday party venue

6:45-7 - return home, dump children on husband, engage in 5 minutes of marital discourse, flee the dwelling

7-8:15 - walk around lake with friend

8:15-9 - wrangle children into bed, stare glassy-eyed at computer

9-10 - bath (blessed, blessed silence)

10 - pass out

here comes peter bushy tail

the mystery of the 13 missing easter eggs has been cracked (ha) - it was the squirrels. we actually spotted one eating a gummy bunny yesterday.

extremely casual friday

pantless, in fact.

it had to happen

now thing two's dollhouse people are arguing with each other. it sounds like i have a schizophrenic 4-year-old:

"i want to sit on the big part of the merry-go-round!"

"no, i do!"

"no, i do!"

why do you hate both the babies?

in the latest food allergy news for kids newsletter: two brothers, ages 3 and 5.

names? mercury and lincoln.

perhaps they're expecting little baby chevrolet.

a series of unfortunate events

1. going to target the monday after spring break ended for all minneapolis public schools

apparently every other mom in minneapolis had the same idea. and apparently we all shop at the same target location.

2. three coins in the toilet

our toilet is having some kind of personality crisis and has begun to imitate a fountain. actually, it imitated a fountain once, last night. since then, we've been steadfastly avoiding it until bob the plumber shows up. i suspect it's going to take significantly more than three coins to fix.

3. why do you hate the baby?

from the archives of bad baby names: foley schmidt. over a loudspeaker at a ball game. "FOLEY SCHMIDT!" say it out loud a couple times.

4. "mom, keely just barfed!"

self-explanatory.

the love affair with worms continues

the girls just poked their heads in the back door from playing outside in the drizzle.

"want to see my worm pockets?!" asked thing one.

she had filled her rain slicker pockets with water (darn impermeable plastics), and thing two had then filled the pockets with...worms.

masses of writhing worms, some of them seeming to reach up to me with their plaintive little heads. (butts? who can tell?)

and of course, i had to do the good, modern mommy thing and say, "wow, that's really interesting - what an unusual application for your pocket" while my brain was screaming, "WORMS! AIEEEEEEE! WORMS! GET THOSE FUCKING WORMS AWAY FROM ME! MOMMY IS FUCKING FREAKED OUT BY WORMS! WOOOOOOORMS!"

they just came back in. i made sure the pockets were empty before i let them pass through the door.

"do you want to pet my worms, mom?"

oh dear god. this was not in the so, you're having a girl! brochure.

who would have guessed i'd wind up with a budding oligochaetologist?

so long, farewell

auf wiedersehen, ugly bathroom. adieu, ugly ceiling.

mississippi delta, northern tributary

spring + small children + park play date = icky tub sediment

the dingo ate my basement wall!

toro dingo, that is.

ah, home renovations. soon we will be the proud possessors of an egress window.

and my husband's new 37" lcd mistress has arrived...

27 excedrin should do it, i think

sheetrockers + air gun + hysterical, noise-averse 6-year-old = the bitch mother of all headaches.

my eye is twitching.

what not to say to your wife: the first in a new (and likely robust) series

"gee, that's a big salad. you must be really hungry."

shaddap, stick-boy. this is how i keep my girlish figure.

especially after those little sirens in girl scout uniforms got to me with their thin mints.

dear merriam-webster

for your consideration:

de•man•da•rin or•ange noun di-'man-d(ə-)rən 'är-inj - a small citrus fruit demanded by pushy children.

"i want some of those demandarin oranges we had at sierra's house!"

let's go meat!

heard coming from the basement of a friend's coworker's house, as the tv broadcasts the olympics:

4-year-old: "A-S-S! A-S-S! A-S-S!"

mom, upstairs: "olivia, what are you saying!"

4-year-old: "i'm cheering for our team, mom! A-S-S! A-S-S!"

mom: "you mean U-S-A?"

4-year-old: "yeah, U-S-A! U-S-A!"

i didn't know the pod people stopped by

but apparently they did and took thing one with them. the facsimile they left in her place was very convincing until this afternoon, when it showed up with the book it had picked out at the school book fair: math machine - a fun new way to do math! it hardly has any words, just a bunch of sliding pieces that move over numbers so you can solve equations.

this cannot be my child.

best birthday present ever

my babies, knowing how little i care for winter, made me "a box of spring" - construction paper violets, peonies, chrysanthemums, roses, tulips, lilies of the valley, daffodils, and tiger lilies.

sweet, sweet babies.

ook

a friend told me yesterday that i don't look a day over 36, and i realized that is a compliment since she shaved 9 years off my age.

when did i become the crypt keeper?

gaaah

it's great my children have active, questioning little minds, but do they have to be active and questioning so early in the morning?

thing two likes to start the day with a question-and-answer period. today's topic - at 4:53 a.m. - "what did people do before they had electricity?"

well, that helps take the sting out of turning 45

from my in-laws: $100 and a flask.

i like my husband's people.

the new math

so, if edy's slow churned ice cream has 100 calories per serving, and there are 12 servings in the carton, and you can lose weight by limiting yourself to 1,200 calories a day, then if i eat nothing but ice cream, i'll lose weight.

i see no flaw in this reasoning.

my children are weird

"mommy, can we watch antiques roadshow?"

"um, sure."

"yay!"

four-year-old logic

getting ready to head to preschool this morning, i piled thing two's winter gear by the back door and asked her to put it on while i threw on my walking clothes. when i got back to the kitchen, there she was, all bundled up.

as i walked to the door to leave, i caught a glimpse of thing two's bedroom...with her skirt laid neatly on the bed. when i asked her what was going on, she said proudly, "i took my skirt off so it wouldn't get bunched up in my snow pants!"

why do you hate the baby? installment no. 316

here's a name from a church bulletin, announcing the joyous arrival of...tennyson yosemite.

sigh.

dogs, people. this is why you get dogs. or cats. or hamsters. or start an indie band. you don't inflict something like this on a human being.

that kid is so changing his name to john someday.

negative four

negative fucking four degrees.

why. why. why?

paging merriam-webster

i respectfully submit:

at•tack•le (ə-'ta-kəl) verb: to chase, capture and then be flummoxed by.

"owen attackled me and selena today at recess, but then he let us go and we ran away."

things i never thought my husband would need to say, installment no. 217

• "don't rub your banana on the wall!"
• "don't rub your banana on the floor!"

my new hero

"legalizing same-sex marriage would be a recognition of basic american principles, and would represent the culmination of our nation's commitment to equal rights...the very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional...the underlying rights and liberties that marriage embodies are not in any way confined to heterosexuals...i do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness until we stop this invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

-theodore olson, life-long republican who served two republican presidents and successfully argued bush v. gore before the supreme court, and who is now preparing to challenge california's ban on gay marriage

best. christmas. ever.

when you're 6 and 4 and you get a dollhouse and plasma cars and bean bag chairs and a tea set and fairy wings and uno and blocksandlegosandbooksandartsuppliesandSOMUCHMORE.

things i never thought i'd need to say, installment no. 632

"don't put that phone antenna up your nose!"
"get out of the fireplace!"

erp

on the first day of christmas vacation, my tummy found for me:

• 12 holiday m&ms
• 11 pastel mints
• 10 white chocolate chips
• 9 shakes of sprinkles
• 8 slurps of caffeine
• 7 licks of peppermint
• 6 nibbles of batter
• 5 fingersful of frosting
• 4 broken cookie bits
• 3 hershey's kisses
• 2 giant gumdrops
• and a fat slice of gingerbread hoooooouse

back to weight watchers.

the plight of the second born

i love my babies without limits. but after an afternoon of hearing thing one boss thing two around, i can't wait until the day when little bit tells her big sister to stick it up her ass.

and dave, once again: i'm sorry.

god, i'm old

i have discovered that i really, really like all-bran. the taste of it. plain, no sugar.

sad, isn't it?

it's hard to be a hipster in minnesota

metal facial piercings + minus 5 degree temperatures = ow ow ow!

dead man snowboarding

my husband, god love him, is a cheerful, optimistic sort. still not sure what he's doing with me.

this morning, we woke up to the start of the minneapolis winter: 9 degrees, multiple inches of snow, and a nasty gale whipping it all to a balmy -23 windchill.

and the handsome man says to me, "at least it's pretty."

well. i try to be temperate and respectful in my conversations with the spouse, but really - don't poke the bear. i yelped, "pretty? yeah, like a frozen wasteland of DEATH is pretty!"

"gee, good morning to you, too, mrs. chekhov," he responded.

now i must go get blind drunk until april.

my poor little heathen children reprise

thing two is getting quite an education at her lutheran preschool. sort of.

she's stopped singing "cheesus loves me" in favor of "jesus loves me." but apparently, the way she knows cheesus/jesus loves her is the "pieble tells me so."

oh well. at least i'll be warm in hell.

i only hope the other children don't throw rocks at her during recess

it's thing two's turn to take snacks in to preschool today. other kids have recently brought in cheese puffs, fruit leathers, even skittles.

my kid? my kid wants to bring in cucumbers and carrots.

definitive proof that the internet has jumped the shark

i have been invited by my banana to "party with potassium" at eatachiquita.com.

my poor little heathen children

thing one crawled into bed with us at 6:30 this morning and triumphantly announced that she had figured out why christmas is called christmas:

"it's because the ice on the ground is crystals, and we miss seeing santa because we're asleep!"

works for me.

dear merriam-webster

for your consideration, the latest words coined by my offspring:

hicksterical (hik-ster-i-kəl) adjective – extremely amusing to country folks

"that hay ride was really hicksterical!"

imprising (im-priz-iŋ) adjective – simultaneously impressive and surprising

"look, i can jump over all my halloween candy! isn't that imprising?"

there's a new sheriff in town part deux

and indeed, the folks i called the cops on as suspected drug dealers are, in fact, my new neighbors. they move in the day before thanksgiving.

time to dust off the ol' muffin tins for a more neighborly welcome.

there's a new sheriff in town, and her name is crazy

we live in a pretty tranquil part of minneapolis, but my overprotective-mother/irish-worrying-heritage/dead-in-a-ditch mentality still gets the better of me.

viz: i recently read in our neighborhood newsletter about mobile drug dealing and how to respond if you think you see it. info duly highlighted (yes) and posted on fridge.

then this morning, as thing two and i went about our morning routine, i noticed a car stop in front of my house, drive off, and return a few minutes later to park. a gal hopped out, then hopped back in. hmmm.

about five minutes later, another car pulls up and parks. crime fighter jenny leaps into action. with my bed head and binoculars, i stand at my window accumulating all the relevant data (makes, models, plate numbers), then call 911.

within seven minutes, there were two squad cars on my street, and an officer shepherd was on the phone with me: "we see the vehicles, ma'am." (there were three cars now.)

unfortunately, also within those seven minutes i realized that the cars belonged to people who were LOOKING AT THE HOUSE FOR SALE NEXT DOOR and their realtor. heh heh.

i babbled something to officer shepherd along the lines of: "oh my god i am so embarrassed it never occurred to me someone might be looking at the house before eight in the morning my neighbors are in their 80's and frail they never leave the house this early i have little kids and i just want the neighborhood to be safe i am so sorry!"

officer shepherd assured me i had done the right thing and that it never hurts to call. unless maybe you're calling the cops on the future nice young couple next door. (they were there for 2-1/2 hours and i saw a ladder, which makes me think they have made an offer and were doing the inspection. good thing i didn't send for the swat team.)

well, i'm off to fight more crime. jenny vee: keeping the neighborhood safe from...potential neighbors.

i've never been so glad that cheetos exist

as the apotheosis of michael pollan and the whole foods movement continues, i just read an article that published recipes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "lessons from an older american diet," it said.

lessons like...

calf head soup

dress the head and boil until done, remove the bones from the meat, take all the meat from the upper part of the head and chop fine, and put it into the soup, with chopped potatoes and carrots, chives, pepper, salt, parsley, sweet margery, and a little butter. stir a little flour and milk together to thicken the soup. make a hash of the meat from the under jaw. take the brains from the head, beat up eggs as for an omelet, turn this over the brains after seasoning with salt and pepper. melt some butter and turn on. set it in the oven to cook slowly. skin and slice the tongue; put into a saucepan, with butter, pepper, and salt. stew dry.

oh dear sweet fancy moses. i want to go mainline some polysyllabic chemicals right now.

could i be any more of a hausfrau?

here's a rundown of my morning plans:

• weight watchers
• target
• the liquor store

who says cocktails aren't for children?

looking for a great drink, and an even better reason to drink it? if you're in the twin cities, come to uptown's bar abilene on wednesday, november 18. from 6-9 p.m., it will be "margaritas for a cause" night, with $3 from every margarita sold going to benefit children with cmv.

what's cmv, you ask? so did i.

cmv, or cytomegalovirus, is one of those beasties that lives inside most of us by the time we're adults. it doesn't really do much, unless you're a woman who is exposed for the first time during pregnancy; then it can cause severe permanent disabilities in your unborn baby. by "severe" i mean brain malformations, seizures, feeding problems, deafness and blindness. congenital cmv is one of the leading causes of cerebral palsy, and second only to down syndrome in causing mental retardation.

how, then, does cmv fly so under the radar? i was the most paranoid freakazoid alive during my pregnancies, and cmv is the most common virus transmitted to unborn kids, yet in all my relentless reading, i never learned about it. most moms i've asked were similarly unaware, including my friend jodi, who first heard about it when she and her daughter avery were diagnosed with it.

so let's raise a big ol' margarita glass (or two) to raise money for fighting this thing.

got a hot date with a stripper

i hate wallpaper. hate, hate, hate it.

things i never thought i'd need to say, installment no. 471

• don't lick the railing at the post office
• don't put exposed scissor blades in your mouth
• flush (day after day after month after year)

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

except it's october 10.

fuck me.

what fresh hell is this?

chutes and ladders with a cheating almost 6-year-old and a flighty 4-year-old.

flighty won, much to cheater's vexation.

oh, those nutty madcap lutherans

dropping thing two off at preschool, i noticed a flyer for an upcoming church stewardship event. in addition to the usual what, where, when info, it included this enticing come-on:

youth projects!

dvd!

meatballs!

oh, and everything garrison keillor says about lutherans and norwegians is true.

information is beautiful

my new favorite web site, information is beautiful, puts difficult issues into clear visual images, like this:

the billion dollar gram

holy cats.

the lord works in mysterious ways. or maybe not so mysterious.

thing two attends preschool in a church near our house. as i was walking her in today, i saw an elegant older woman in a snazzy silver suv coming through the parking lot. the lot has big yellow posts at the end of each row of parking spaces, and as this woman rounded one of the poles, she scraped the entire side of her suv along it. we're talking a yellow striped dent two feet high and five feet long.

i felt so bad for her. then, when i came back to my car, i noticed a bumper sticker on the suv. it said:

REPUBLICANS: because not everyone can be on welfare

and then i didn't feel bad at all.

this is why i love libraries

and librarians:

uncle bobby's wedding

sibling revelry

my brother just sent my daughters matching skirts for their birthdays.

musical skirts.

musical skirts that play the macarena OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

i should have beat him up less when we were kids. or maybe more.

let's do the time warp again

and who stole my other baby and replaced her with a preschooler?

time warp

ok, who stole my baby and left this huge kindergartener in her place?

just call me ma ingalls

here's what the girlies and i have been up to lately:

• making our own paper
• visiting an apple orchard and then making pies and applesauce
• cross stitching
• making button rings

but i absolutely draw the line at blowing up any pig bladders.

remind me again why smacking them went out of style?

[scene: the kitchen, lunchtime]

enter mom, to make sandwiches

[moments later]

enter things one and two, to fight under mom's feet

mom: "ladies, get out of the kitchen while i'm making lunch!"

the things exit; then, seconds later, thing two reappears

thing two: "mommy, will you help me draw a picture of you, and then help me write, 'you're ugly – i don't like you' on it?"

[end scene]

ewwww

behold kfc's new "sandwich," the double down:

bacon, cheese, more bacon, another kind of cheese, and (but of course) secret sauce between two pieces of BREADED, FRIED CHICKEN!

jesus christ. too bad it comes with potato wedges and a coke instead of a defibrillator.

famous last words

dad, to wife and kids, on entering target:

"remember, we're just here to look at shelving."

right. sure. uh huh.

this is why children aren't good spies

during a game of crazy 8's...

thing two: i got an 8!

me: honey, you're not supposed to tell people what you've got.

thing two: i'm not; i'm telling myself, loudly.

thing one: i've got a secret card, but i'm not telling what it is!

lazy, hazy and certainly crazy

summer may be ending, but the warm memories will stay with me. things like:

the pool bag

remember going to the pool or beach when you were single and/or childless? throw on suit, apply some sunscreen, grab a towel and a drink, and in 5 minutes you were out the door.

today, going to the pool or beach requires only slightly less planning than the invasion of normandy. my bag contains:

• 3 towels
• 3 cover-ups
• 3 sets of waterproof mesh beach shoes
• 3 different types of sunscreen (kryptonite-strength cream for first application, spray for later reaps, and gooey face stick to keep it out of delicate eyes)
• goggles
• pool membership cards
• approximately 1,746 water toys
• giant inflatable floatie rings
• sand buckets and shovels
• beach blanket
• life jackets so the girls can bob "by myself!"
• cell phone (in case of emergencies, and the need to bitch to someone)
• epipens (ditto, except for the bitching)
• band aids for the inevitable falls and scrapes
• snacks, oh so many snacks
• water bottles, with ice cubes, puhlease
• picnic lunch complete with napkins, hand wipes and utensils
• and, if i remember, perhaps a crossword or a trashy magazine at which to sneak the briefest of looks

the awkward beach guy

during one of our recent invasion-of-normandy forays to the beach, we sat near the life guards' chair, where a gaggle of guards gathered throughout the afternoon (too many for duty; i think they were just hanging out together).

non-guard friends also began showing up, including one young man who seated himself next to a bronzed beach beauty and began this exchange:

"hey, brianna."

"hey [seemingly struggling to remember name]...there. how are you?"

"oh, just trying to get a sick tan before i go back to school." (note: he was so white he practically fluoresced.)

"oh."

"yeah, i go to nyu. yeah, i'm going to be graduating this year."

"mmm."

the construsement park

by jove, i think i've got it:

amusement park rides + construction equipment = the hottest new summer entertainment

just think of it: kids (and husbands and grandfathers) would clamor to ride up and down in the bucket of a backhoe, or slide down the rising bed of a dump truck, or spin around in a concrete mixer.

and yes, i had to ask the handsome man the actual names of some of that equipment ("that diggy thing [scooping hand motion]" is not a technical term). you'd think all my years of forced reeducation would have produced some result by now, but no.

addendum, tuesday, august 18: bulldozer bumper cars!

my secret ingredient? antennae!

in yesterday's farm box we got a big bunch of basil. i took it out of the fridge this morning to make pesto, and when i was picking the leaves off the stems, i found a chilled, confused, sluggish ladybug who had tagged along for the ride.

i took her outside, where the girls were enchanted with the new visitor and made much of her before she flew off.

i went back inside to rinse all the leaves. when i dumped them in the strainer, i found lady's compatriot, who had not survived the journey. oops.

think i'll keep that discovery to myself.

but sadly, we didn't get any cheese curds

been saving now for over a year


let’s pack the kids, get outta here


we’ll leave behind our troubles for a week.

we’ll borrow the pop-up from phyllis and steve


just tell the boss I gotta leave


be the best week of our lives as I can tell.

we’ll take our dream vacation in the dells.

we've been back from our best week for over a week, and i only just now have the energy to form words about it. for 8 days, we whirled around in the vortex that is the wisconsin dells, what roadside america calls one of the country's most over-the-top tourism meccas with

"a steamy, miles-long strip of motels, tourist traps, and quirky attractions ... [that] seems like a ravenous snake, swallowing tourists whole, digesting their lump of vacation energy and disposable income slowly over the course of several days."

that's pretty much exactly what it felt like.

we’ll see the robot world and the water show


go anywhere you wanna go


circus world museum in baraboo.

we’ll play mini-golf at the jellystone


and we’ll finally see that house of foam


and if the kids wanna buy a t-shirt what the hell.

it’s our dream vacation in the dells.

here's a partial list of what we did:

• america's largest water park.
• america's largest water park again.
• duck boats.
• huge mini-golf (as oxymoronic and moronic as it sounds).
• circus world museum, including a full-on circus performance (an aside: there are some seriously bendy people in this world).
• mid-continent railway museum, including a train ride.
• plus the world's largest flamingo, paul bunyan and babe, a ship-shaped car wash, and dr. evermor and the forevertron.

how we missed the museum of historic torture devices, i'll never know, dammit.

and at night when the kids is all asleep


then off to the lounge for a nightcap we can sneak.

i know our lives they ain’t the stuff of dreams


but for one full week we can live like kings and queens.

so let’s board the dogs, lock the door


we’ll roll down interstate 94


be the best week of our lives I can tell.

we’ll take our dream vacation in the dells.

– "dream vacation" by the gear daddies

amazing grace

mother's little helper.

that's what i've got this summer. her name is grace, and she lives up to it. for 2 hours on thursday afternoons, i can cook, clean or *gasp* read without interruption. the girls are in heaven; they worship grace. (in fact, today thing one said, "it doesn't seem like grace is here for 2 hours because we have so much fun - it seems like it's hardly even one hour!)

and here's a key difference between an 11-year-old baby sitter and a 44-year-old matron: the 11-year-old will suggest playing freeze tag.

oink

so it appears that what i've been parked on my ass with for 2+ weeks may have been the flu (whether h1n1 or something else, who knows). super.

but at least that makes all the napping and whining seem much more legitimate.

not that you asked

but others have: with so many kids being diagnosed with food allergies, what are some tips of the trade for parents, either those just discovering they have allergic kids or those who come in contact with them through schools, sports teams, etc.?

so here is a list of my top 10...

1. It will get better. Not the allergies, necessarily, but your ability to deal with them. You’ll figure out what foods you can buy, what meals you can prepare, and how to deal with restaurants, play dates, school and other situations.
2. Carry meds. If your child has been prescribed an EpiPen auto-injector, carry it everywhere, and teach anyone who cares for your child how to use it. Many parents also carry convenient one-dose squirt packets of Benadryl for mild reactions.
3. Check out FAAN. The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network offers lots of helpful information for free, and if you join, you can sign up for e-mail alerts when foods are recalled for undeclared allergens.
4. Get wallet cards for shopping. FAAN sells credit card sized “cheat sheets” that list all the names common allergens go by (caseinates, anyone?). They are extremely handy for grocery shopping, and for checking foods at other people’s houses.
5. Always check ingredients. Every time, even if it’s a product you’ve bought before. Manufacturers sometimes change ingredients, or use slightly different ingredients in different sized packages.
6. No nuts means NO nuts. If your child is allergic to peanuts, avoid tree nuts and vice versa; there can be cross-contamination between different kinds of nuts.
7. Be assertive. I’ve told my mother-in-law to stop bringing over brownies, asked moms at music class to put away their kids’ peanut butter crackers, and made restaurant staff miserable with requests.
8. Educate your kids so they can advocate for themselves. My daughters – the one with food allergies and the one without – can tell people what’s ok to eat and what’s off limits, and they check with me if there is any question. They're 3 and 5 - it's never too early.
9. Google is your friend. Looking for an online support group of other moms of kids with food allergies? Searching for a recipe for non-dairy cream of mushroom soup? Want to order your kid a medical alert bracelet? So much of dealing with food allergies is feeling like you have a handle on the situation. Don’t just freak out – freak out, then search the web.
10. Don’t forget about the mama (or dada). Chances are this whole food allergy thing is much harder on you right now than your child, especially if he or she is too little to really understand what is going on. Try to find ways to relieve your stress. I’ve found that exercise, Zoloft and Cosmopolitans work wonders.

my new hero

"women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. it is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."

- jane eyre, charlotte brontë, 1847

i am insufferable, and so can you!

i cannot believe how smug and self-righteous my food has gotten.

according to the manufacturers, i am a superior, enlightened being because i eat their superior, enlightened products. here's stonyfield yogurt: "this quart container helps save money and the earth. you get more yogurt per dollar and less packaging per serving."

well, ok, i suppose that's true. and i get chicago soydairy's view: "our goal is to make delicious cruelty-free food products with taste and texture similar to their animal-based counterparts."

but then there's garden burger: "we believe in healthy eating and great-tasting foods, gardens, respect for all living things, moms and dads, independence, veggies, education, healthy kids, a good earth, and happy people. we aspire to make the best-tasting vegetarian foods, always with real good ingredients. and we promise to always treat our vegetables and whole grains with dignity and respect."

dignity and respect for carrots. carrots.

and i hate listening to myself on voice mail, too

what i like to think i sound like when i'm sick:

what i actually sound like when i'm sick:

add crème fraîche for $2

yesterday the girls whipped up a delightful concoction of berries stripped from our front bushes, old grass clippings, dirt, and dead flowers from the window box. josie presented it to me with a flourish and said, "it's strawberries and rhubarb with lemongrass and sweet flavors!"

goddam, that sounds like an $8 dessert to me. the pr/spin force is strong in that one...

customers who bought this item also bought the "my first autopsy kit"

perfect for the budding forensic examiner on your gift list! the crime lab tech set, for ages 3+.

because we wouldn't want kids under 3 to receive something inappropriate, now would we?

things my children have argued about recently

• who would turn on and off a pretend carousel (aka the dining room table pedestal legs)
• who rightfully had possession of an empty box
• who did not get a chance to lick whom (eww)

love means never having to clean up a dead bunny

forget flowers and chocolates and sweet nothings. here is what real love means: being late for work so you can clean up "roughly one-third" of a rabbit so your children don't find it and your wife doesn't have to deal with it.

thank you, handsome man.

great galloping gherkins!

just picked up our weekly farm share box to discover an 18 inch cucumber.

and yes, i measured it.

wonder if vivid entertainment has considered a joint venture with an organic farm?

my apologies

to kale, for ever maligning it. now that i've figured out how to cook it, it's good. so is chard! who knew? this may be the year i finally use everything from our farm share. (except the beets. eeeww.)

finally

after 8 months, franken wins senate seat in minnesota.

in memoriam

ok, now i'm really going to have nightmares

and not from reading all those vampire books - they barely register on the scary-o-meter compared to this.

land of the ends

just returned from our second day at the pool - not the free baby ones around the city, but the honest-to-god big pool you have to pay money to join.

it's in a kind of ritzy suburb right outside the city, and the clientele is an interesting mix. seems to be divided equally into:

1. moms who look like moms (i include myself in this group)
2. moms who look like buff-madonna armed-weight lifting-pilates freaks
3. nannies

it's pretty easy to discern the flavor, even in cases that might initially be confusing. for example: bikini-clad lovely. is she a) smooth and firm, with no ring on her finger but at least one through her navel/nose/other body part, and a phone perpetually attached to her ear? nanny. or is she b) desperately firm but with that baggy-saggy elephant skin, a big ol' wedding ring, and an eagle eye on her precious? buff mommy.

the mommy-mommies like me wear the complete lands end catalogue of "modest" bathing suits, heavily armored confections with skirts practically down to our pudgy knees and tops that cover our swaying midriffs. the buff mommies wear the lands end bikinis that showcase their hard work and hard edges, but still have a whiff of sensible about them. and the nannies, regardless of their shape or condition, wear teensy little bits of cloth and string in lurid colors that say things like "peace" or "bad girl."

i'll bet if you put 20 of them in a police line-up and just showed me their behinds (and in some cases, it really is most of their actual behinds showing), i could tell you who's who within a minute.

once bitten

i just read new moon, the second book in the twilight (cheesy, immensely popular teen aged vampire) series.

in one day.

it's 563 pages.

it's cheese, but it's good cheese.

things my children have argued about today

• who would use the checkered beach towel at the pool (note: we do own more than one beach towel).
• who would throw away a desiccated noodle i found under the coffee table.
• after snapping said noodle apart during their tussling, they argued about who now had more pieces to throw away.

things my children have argued about today

• whether or not child a would stand aside as child b ran across the couch cushions.
• who would retrieve the spare keys from the plumber.
• possession of a plastic hanger (note: we do own more than one plastic hanger).

various and sundry

item the first - reality cooking show

after hearing my mil bemoan how easy cooking on tv looks (well, duh), i came up with an idea for a real woman's cooking show: mom with weeping toddler clinging to her leg, rampaging preschooler breaking things in another room, and at least one major ingredient that is missing/frozen/spoiled. that i would watch.

item the second - dumbest product ever

candle jewelry.

because candles are so homely we need to gussy them up?

item the third - make way for dumb asses

so we noticed a duck in our backyard pacing along our fence. turns out her 8 ducklings were on the other side in our neighbor's yard, pacing right in step with mama and quacking frantically. apparently mama had a) somehow gotten separated from her babies and b) forgotten she could fly, because this went on for a while. we tried putting a stool by the fence for her to hop from (no go), the handsome man tried to grab her (very funny, but no go), and finally i suggested he stick a shovel under her butt and flip her over the fence (liftoff!).

mama then takes off through the neighbors' yard, trailing ducklings behind her. 7 ducklings. oops. so i go off in hot pursuit of mom to keep a bead on her while the handsome man scoops up lil fluffy. by the time he caught up with mama, she had crossed several yards and a road and was heading for a nearby lake. after he returned the babe, he noticed another duckling had flipped over on its back, turtle-like, and was stuck. so he flipped that guy over and made sure he caught up with mama.

we are less than confident that the whole family made it to the lake.

item the fourth - i continue to embrace the womanly art of cross stitch

why do you hate the baby? installment no. 784

so the religious freaks (rude) at the girls' swim lessons had their third baby. he joins big sisters phoenicia and eden. his name? obadiah.

crabby old lady is crabby about...

target.

my beloved target has decided to repackage its own brand of household and personal care items, ditching its bullseye logo in favor of an arrow and the words "up and up" accompanied by a proliferation of images.

because it's not like the company had any equity in the bullseye logo. it's not like customers deliberately sought out products with the logo. and it's not like said customers will be some pissed when they spend 10 minutes hunting for the damn target sunscreen before realizing they've been staring at its new incarnation. no, that's won't happen.

oh wait...

things i never thought i'd need to say, installment no. 312

"don't lick your dresser!"

this is why i'm still trying to get the beds made at 10 a.m.

so far this morning, thing one has scraped her leg on a door, hurt herself getting into a chair to work on the computer, and - just now - fallen out of a tree on her head. that last injury took substantially more clean-up time than usual (washing all the scrapes on her legs, combing the twigs and leaves out of her hair), so i'm kinda behind on my hausfrau duties.

and i need a cocktail.

make way for octuplets

is anybody else vaguely disappointed that octomom didn't name her babies jack, kack, lack, mack, nack, ouack, pack, and quack?

i am easily amused

i amuse myself

i have embraced the womanly art of cross stitch. here is my first attempt, which now hangs in my kitchen.

others amuse me

bumper sticker seen in the preschool parking lot:

a foreskin is NOT a birth defect

target amuses me

today's tally of target clothing items on my body: 5 (shoes, socks, cargo pants, underwear, sweatshirt).

today's tally of non-target clothing items on my body: 2 ("meh" t-shirt, bra).

the wicked witch of the upper midwest

it's melting! it's meeeeeelting!

for once, a soy cheese that actually acts and looks like cheese on pizza. i can't/won't vouch for the taste, but thing two ate her entire piece so i'll take that as a thumbs up.

thank you, teese, from me and my flying monkey.

no. no, no, no. and no.

ok, i've been to graduate school (twice). i know how hard academic appointments are to come by.

but i still think it must have been a tough sell to convince today's minnesota public radio commentator, barbara brown taylor, to accept the harry r. butman chair in religion and philosophy at piedmont college in georgia.

many thanks to julie for alerting me to this story, and i'm glad you didn't drive off the road when you heard it.

the four seasons

as seen through adults' eyes:

• shoveling
• weeding
• mowing
• raking

as seen through children's eyes:

• snow!
• mud!
• swimming!
• leaf piles!

"i have hay in my pants!"

another successful preschool field trip to the farm.

o blessed art thou, mars incorporated

some days, the only thing standing between me and some serious jail time is a bag of m&m's.

bad performance art

otherwise known as two 5-year-olds and a 3-year-old making up "knock, knock" jokes. a sample:

knock, knock!

who's there?

apple fridge!

apple fridge who?

apple fridge slimy banana hair!

(all dissolve in helpless laughter.)

another one for the baby book

ah, the milestones...

first smile.

first tooth.

first step.

first medical alert bracelet in case of a life-threatening allergic reaction.

good times.

another sign of the end times

seen on a big orange road sign at a construction site:

resticted access

oh, eally?

(i need to start carrying a sharpie marker wherever i go.)

the ill-logic of motherhood

this morning, thing two told me that her imaginary friends couldn't join her for a parade because they were playing games.

and i found myself feeling pissed at the imaginary friends for slighting my kid.

may day

three sure signs of spring:

1. the rabbits have decapitated all my tulips.
2. the black, fossilized snow mountain that was mounded up in the mall parking lot has finally melted.
3. there is a layer of sediment in the tub after i bathe my children.

i heart spring.