Me: Kids, we need to talk.
The Girl: Yes, I have been meaning to tell you that I want to go to Michaels and get stuff to make foam fairy monsters.
Me: Uh, yeah. That's not exactly what I wanted to talk about. Kids, here's what I need to tell you: my company had to lay some people off, and I lost my job.
The Boy: Does this mean we're going to lose our house? Are we going to live in a tent somewhere?
The Girl: No, dummy. It just means we shouldn't be using our allowances to buy a bunch of junky stuff. We should save it for things we NEED, like food and clothes.
The Boy: I have two five buckses, Mommy. You can borrow those!
The Girl: And I have plenty enough of clothes, Mommy, so you can just worry about buying me food. But [The Boy] doesn't like most food so maybe you should buy him a new shirt instead.
Me: Thanks. Now, don't worry, kids, because things are not going to change THAT much. It means that instead of going to your afterschool program, I'll pick you up from the bus. And that we'll cut out some of the things that we do that we don't love, so that we can try to keep doing the things that are really special.
The Girl: Are you going to start cooking more? I hope that we can still get the two-for Tuesday specials at Dominos's.
(Sudden thought causes her to shout) I DON'T WANT TO EAT TONGUE, MOMMY!
Me: What are you talking about?
The Girl: When Beezus and Ramona's dad lost his job their Mom started making them eat tongue with gravy.
Me: I can promise you that I will never, ever, EVER serve you tongue.
The Boy: (horrorstruck) Does this mean we won't get to go to Disneyworld ever again?
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Conversation
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Come Smell The Magic!
Hey, Manager Mom! The economy’s in the crapper, your 401K is down by 20%, and companies like yours are laying people off left and right! So, what are you gonna do?
I’m going to Disneyworld!
Yep, with my usual impeccable timing, I managed to schedule this trip to happen right when the stock market is dropping faster than virgins on prom night. (Also a great time to ask people to donate to disadvantaged kids' educational projects in this 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge contest I’m participating in.)
Six months ago, I was trying to figure out kennel coverage for Spawn over the October school closings. There were three days we’d have to cover around the Columbus day holiday. Using my best George Bush math based on the going vacation day program rate of $100/per kid/per day, I somehow convinced myself that it make more financial sense for us to just go to Orlando instead.
We waited to tell Spawn until a week ago because I didn’t want the trip to become one more thing that I threaten for punishment (e.g. “if you don’t start behaving RIGHT NOW we won’t go to Disneyworld after all!”) and then never follow through on, further undermining my limited credibility. Also I didn’t think I could take hearing “WhenarewegoingtoDisneyworld?” twenty times a day for the next six months.
(Not to worry, they found many other subjects to Rain Man about instead).
But when we finally broke the news, their reaction was NOT what I was expecting. In fact, The Boy started crying.
“I don’t want to break my arm!”
Of course, I had forgotten that their friend Caitlin broke her arm on one of the rides when she went last year.
And now that we're here, the excitement level is still on the mild side, somewhere between yellow and orange. I’m slightly annoyed that Spawn has as of yet failed to acknowledge the full extent of my awesomeness for planning this trip.
But we’re heading out to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party tonight. The Boy is dressing as Anakin Skywalker. The Girl is dressing up as an artist. I think once we hit the pearly gates I might finally get some props.
And trying to look on the bright side…maybe the shitty economy means we won’t have to wait in long lines.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Catch Me If You Can
I just got home from a business trip. Focus groups in Rosemont, Illinois.
My plane was basically a flying Greyhound bus, allowing me to experience the full glory of moderate-to-severe turbulence, with the added bonus of a seatmate that spent the whole flight vigorously rearranging his man bits. To be fair, I ate a bean burrito before I got on the plane, so sitting next to me probably wasn’t any picnic either.
I hadn't traveled in a while, and before I left I was on this kick where I was trying to be a more hands-on mother, although I think I've succeeded mostly in annoying the Spawn, who made it clear that they would MUCH rather be watching the latest rerun of The Suite Life With Zack And Cody than play Chinese Checkers with me for the "twenty hundredth" time.
Because when I left for the trip, they did not appear to be devastated.
The Boy barely looked up from the Wii game he was playing, although Manager Dad said that two hours later, he put down the nunchuck and looked around, eyes glassy and bloodshot, and asked, “Where’s Mommy?”
The Girl walked me out to my car, claiming that she wanted to spend every last second with me before I left. But I’m pretty that she wanted to make sure that I was REALLY leaving, so that she could have Manager Dad all to herself.
As for me, of course, I missed the little buggers...but...
A hotel room.
With a king-sized bed and a high-speed internet connection and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Two on demand.
A restaurant where I got served a hunk of tuna so rare, they must have just waved it over the stove before they put it on the plate.
Mints on the pillow and little green leaf-shaped soaps.
*Sigh*
Oh yeah, I had to work and stuff, too. But I don’t really want to talk about that right now.
Not until after October 16th, anyway.
If you're tired of hearing about corporate fat cats that are living off the teat of the shareholders, why not take a moment to donate to Mrs. W's "Excited To Read" classroom project? All donations go directly to buying books for her special ed students.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Puppies And Rainbows And Soft Billowy Clouds
It's Saturday. OJ Simpson has been convicted. The $700B bailout package has been passed.
The universe is starting to inch towards sanity.
Let's keep making the karmic gods happy. By throwing even a $5 donation to my 2008 Donors Choose giving page, you'll support worthy classroom projects like Mrs. G's effort to help her her high school students learn Spanish.
By doing that you'll help me reach two goals: one, to fully fund all of the school projects on my page, and two, to win in the Mommy Bloggers category for the challenge. Right now, I'm in fourth place, losing to Finslippy, who (deservedly) has a jabillion readers, and a couple of west coast blog consortiums, who have about two hundred contributors each.
Back Manager Mom, the maverick in this competition. Let's give those Silicon Valley and LA Moms an East Coast generosity smackdown.
So please, my friends, on a day where my local newspaper somehow deems a Britney Spears sighting worthy of front page news, help keep the world in balance by supporting something that might actually promote intelligence.
No need to click for more today, all of the begging is front and center.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Always Blurb Before You Read - A Cautionary Tale
We're in Day 2 of the 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers competition - and one of the projects on my donation page has already been fully funded! Proof positive that the people who read this blog are the smartest and most attractive people on the planet.
And your ass looks GREAT in those pants, by the way.
Since education is the theme of the day, I thought I'd review a book that Spawn and I read together recently. It's called "Tell Me Again About The Night I Was Born."
And despite the fact that it reeks of celebrity vanity (it's written by Jamie Lee Curtis) it's actually a charming and lovely book to read aloud with your kids.
If, that is, said kids are adopted.
If they're not, and you're like me and don't bother to read the blurb to find out what the book is about, trust me, the grilling that ensues will make you long for the relative pleasure of a full body cavity search conducted by your friendly neighborhood TSA screener.
Scene: The three of us in my room at bedtime, snuggled in my bed, The Boy (5) and The Girl (7) on either side of me. I get to Page 3: "Tell me again how the phone rang in the middle of the night and they told you I was born."
Me: (gears slowly starting to grind in my head) That's not where I was expecting this story to go. Hey, Spawn, how about we read Goodnight Moon again?
The Girl: No, I like this book. Let's keep reading.
Page 8-ish. "Tell me again how you got on an airplane with my baby bag and and flew to get me and there was no movie, only peanuts."
The Boy: My friend Andrew says that peanuts could make him and lots of other people die until they're dead. Why does the airplane want to kill those people?
TG: I thought babies lived in their mommy's tummy before they were born. You said WE lived in your tummy. Were you lying?
Me: (sweating slightly) You and your brother DID live in my tummy. But some children go to live with a different family after their mommy has them. It's called "adoption."
TB: Why would anybody would give their kid away? Was she bad?
TG: How much does it cost to buy a real baby? Can I save my allowance and get one of those instead of a guinea pig?
Me: Um. You can't buy babies. But sometimes mommies or daddies aren't able to care of their children, and they want to give them to a nice family who will.
TG: Then why would they make a baby in the first place?
Me:
Me: (second try) Sometimes people make mistakes.
TG: Were WE mistakes? Is that why you told [neighbor] Mrs. X the other night that you were "fishing" because [The Boy] was born only two years after me?
Me: What? No - OF COURSE you weren't mistakes. And I said "efficient," not "fishing." What I meant was, we wanted to have you born three years apart but we were more efficient than I thought, because your brother was conceived right away.
TB: What does CON-SEEVED mean?
TG: You don't want Mommy to tell you about that.
Me: (loudly) Who wants a pony?
The Boy: Are you going to sell me to another family so that you have enough money to buy one?
Please, don't let future generations of mothers grow up to be as stupid as I am. Support public education projects with as little as $5, and help me win the 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers challenge. Click here to visit my Donor Page and fund real projects in real schools.
