I'ma Gonna Breaka You Face! (NYC style)

OK, so I think I'm a pretty calm mom in general. However, I have the capacity to boil over with seething rage when I feel like someone has mistreated my kids. You parents out there probably know what I mean. It is an extremely rare occurrence for this deep-seated maternal aggression to manifest itself, but it does happen. Take last Saturday, for example!
A week ago, Nicole and I took the train to New York to visit American Girl Place. I had told Nicole that we would do something special for her 10th birthday, and New York was what she wanted. The three of us (me, Nicole and Kit, the American Girl doll) spent Friday night at my parents' house and my dad drove us to Union Station at 5 AM on Saturday. Nicole, Kit and I hopped on the 6:20 Amtrak and arrived at Penn Station three hours later. We walked about 20 blocks to American Girl Place and proceeded to have an awesome time. Kit "got her hair did" at the doll hair salon and then Nicole had a photo session with Kit at the picture studio. After that, we enjoyed a gourmet lunch at the cafe and purchased some items in the store. So far, so good! We left American Girl Place at about 2 PM, which gave us plenty of time to do some sightseeing before our 6:05 train back to Union Station. Since the Empire State Building was on the way back to Penn Station, we decided to go up and check it out. I purchased a package that included an IMAX simulator ride and access to the observation deck on the 86th floor. The simulator ride came first. The setup was similar to a movie theater, with the main difference being the roller-coaster-style safety bar over our laps. I was settling down into my seat when Nicole started whimpering and stifling tears. I asked her what was wrong and she said "HE'S SITTING ON MY FOOT!" I looked in front of us and realized what was happening. Nicole had inadvertently placed her foot in between the two sections of the unused seat in front of her, so when the guy in front of her sat down in the seat, the bottom section of the chair came up, crushing her foot in between the sections. Nicole's moans of distress were getting progressively louder and the guy in front was clueless, so I said, "EXCUSE ME! YOU'RE SITTING ON MY DAUGHTER'S FOOT!" Everyone around us turned to look. The young-ish guy with a buzz cut got up, apologized and sat back down. At least I think he apologized. He mumbled something incoherent that sounded like "Srmmmrmrm." He didn't ask if Nicole was all right and didn't seem to give a crap that he had hurt someone, much less a young child. He just plopped his arse back down in his seat and stared straight ahead. Meanwhile, the young woman next to Nicole was more empathetic than the guy up front, looking over at her with a concerned expression more than once. By this time, I was furious. I wanted to get up and take that kid's Buddy Holly style glasses and cram them up his nostrils, but only after stomping the glass out so he wouldn't be able to see the movie. "I'd like to kick that guy's ASS" I hissed to Nicole through clenched teeth. Yeah, I'm a great role model, I know. Moments later, the show started, which helped to take my mind off of things. The pretend helicopter voyage over Manhattan was pretty rough for a simulator ride, but Nicole said she didn't like it because "there wasn't enough action." Huh? At least she wasn't crying about her foot the whole time. After the ride was over, we lined up for the elevators to the observation deck. I saw Buddy Holly dude several times while waiting in line, and I made sure to give him nasty looks out of the corner of my eye. Nicole said several times that she wanted to leave because she was still upset about what had happened, but I made her go up the elevators anyway. She wasn't too pleased with me, but we got some great pictures and I think she did enjoy the observation deck in retrospect. Her foot wasn't permanently damaged, although there was an indentation and bruise where the back of one of her croc jibbitz had been forced into the skin. Her foot looked much better the next day, and now the whole thing doesn't seem like as much of a big deal to me, in spite of how I livid I was at the time. So, guy with the Buddy Holly glasses... someday when you have kids, I'm sure you'll understand why that lady in the Empire State Building was acting like such a bitch. I'm just sayin'. :)

I Was About to Cry!!! Oh Wait, No I Wasn't

Nicole, my 10-year-old, is at a sleep-away camp this week. She has never been to this type of camp before. I think it's so awesome! I'm certain she is having a great time and I am really excited about this new adventure for her. And apparently, there's something wrong with my brain. I didn't cry when she left. I didn't think it was hard. It didn't even occur to me to be sad or start crying or be worried, because I just don't think that way. I was at a birthday party over the weekend with Caitlin and I mentioned to one of the other parents that Nicole had left earlier in the day for the sleep-away camp. "That must have been so hard for you!" she said. Uhm, not really. Without fail, I love watching the "growing up" milestones - birthdays, starting/ending a school year, losing teeth, getting rid of old things the kids can no longer use - I can't understand why these sorts of events would make parents sad, because they actually make me really excited and happy for my kids. Sure, I got a little nostalgic and refused to get rid of a few baby outfits and toys, and I save a lot of the kids' artwork because I don't want to throw it away. I thought it was strange dropping my babies off at daycare after my maternity leave was over, but I didn't cry. From my experience, I'm pretty much the only mom on the planet who behaves this way. I know there must be someone else out there like me. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

GRRRRRRRR

OK, it's been half a decade since I've had to put a diaper on anybody, but this sort of thing still irritates me to death. Airline with a changing table in the lavatory? Great!! Advertising said changing table on the lavatory door so people know it's there? Awesome!! Said advertising showing a picture of a woman changing the diaper? AUGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHHHH!!!!! Now I'm the furthest thing from a rabid feminazi, but this type of illustration strikes me as beyond antiquated. I'm thinking back to the days when women only wore dresses and babies drank from glass bottles. Further, where is the baby daddy during Operation Diaper Change? Reading the inflight magazine? Sleeping? Taking a crap in the other lavatory of the airplane? Out with his mistress? Come on, people. It isn't just moms who change diapers these days, although it seems women still end up with more than their fair share of parenting duties. At least have a stick person in pants changing the diaper. Ahhhhh. I feel much better now, thanks!

Just When You Think You've Seen It All at the Gym...

OK, so we all know the gym is full of... ahem... interesting people. My particular gym is home to Scarily Thin Elliptical Machine Chick Who Should Probably Be Spending More Time in the Cafe Downstairs, Weird Skinhead Neo-Nazi-looking Dude With a Billion Tattoos and a Scraggly Beard, and last but certainly not least, Dudes Who Make Porno Noises When They Lift Weights That Are Too Heavy. I should certainly be used to the occasional strange sight at the gym by now, but I had to do a double-take when I was on the treadmill the other day and saw an excerpt of a Gym Towel Folding Contest on the TV. Yes, you heard me. A Gym Towel Folding Contest. I was too busy trying to keep from giving myself an aortic fissure (typical day at the gym) and thinking "WTF" (due to said TV programming) to pay much attention to the narrative on the contest itself, but here is what I was able to get out of it. It appeared as though the contest was open to gym employees who were given the unenviable task of folding a large pile of towels while being timed by the judges. After the towels were folded, the judges verified the aesthetic beauty of each folded towel in the pile to determine the true winner. These are just regular folded towels, mind you, not towels in the shape of swans, hearts, or other complex designs. The first prize winner received a large cash purse (I believe it was $1,000) and the second prize winner received something like $500. I wonder what other crazy things my gym dues are paying for!

An Actual Deep Thought (or as deep as it gets for me)

I was cleaning the kitchen this morning and began pondering some of the great paradoxes (paradoxii?) of life. Why is it that most things that are necessary (ie. cleaning the kitchen and other chores) have to be boring as hell? If we as humans were not interested in the end result of said boring activities, I'm convinced we would all be living in squalor, somewhat akin to those people on "Hoarders." For that matter, why does most great tasting food have to be crappy for your health? I love salads and other healthy things, but let's face it, if you put Tostitos and a thing of Frito-Lay queso dip in front of my face, the salad would lose, hands down!! SO unfair. And then let's discuss going to the gym. You know you'll feel really good afterwards due to endorphins or whatever those workout hormone thingies are called, but for some reason you just don't feel like dragging yourself to the gym! What gives? Working out is good for you, but it's still WORK (hence the name). Well, that's enough more than enough thinking for a Saturday morning. I don't want to give myself a brain aneurysm! Besides, I have more boring chores to do. :)

Must.... Do.... My.... Job.......

....which is no easy task after returning from the most kick-ass vacation I've ever taken since my own honeymoon. Cole and I went to St. Thomas/St. John (US Virgin Islands) and Jost Van Dyke (British Virgin Islands) to watch two of our friends get married. Obviously, one would expect that such a vacation should be pretty interesting, but this was INCREDIBLE. Awesome wedding/reception, friendly people, fantastic sightseeing and perfect weather. Can someone else please have a destination wedding and invite us? I promise we'll give you an awesome gift. :)

Check out the pictures below and you'll see why I haven't been able to concentrate at work for the past 3 days!!

10 years ago....

I am not sure why I keep thinking about it. Maybe it's the presence of numerous coworkers meandering around the office in various stages of pregnancy, or the "Welcome So-and-so's Baby!!" emails that I keep receiving from our executive assistant. Perhaps it's the sentence in a magazine article about the benefits of exercise during pregnancy that totally rubbed me the wrong way. It could be the sinking feeling I got when I saw a picture of a gorgeous new mother in the obituary pages a couple of weeks ago. Or maybe it's because almost exactly a decade ago, I could literally feel my brain rotting from the inside as I lived with postpartum depression and OCD after the birth of my first child. Should I really be blogging about this? People are probably going to judge me, but hey, whatever. If I can help another mom who is going through it, then I guess I should say something. Right?

Rubber Band Hysteria... Seriously??

If you're a parent of kids in preschool through high school (!!!), you've most likely seen some animal-shaped rubber bands floating around your house, and you probably didn't pay much attention. Well, snap out of it and get with the program, because your home has officially been Silly Banded! Yes, I think we have reached a point where we can convert the phrase "Silly Bandz" into a verb. The trend appears to be moving up the Eastern Seaboard. A Facebook friend in South Carolina reported that the riots have apparently subsided as evidenced by the overflowing Silly Bandz supply at the local Walgreens, whereas another friend from Maryland has not yet heard of them. Here in Northern Virginia, the epidemic seems to be at its peak. I am talking about stores around the region being emptied of Silly Bandz inventory in mere minutes. It's the equivalent of parents cleaning up the bread, milk and toilet paper aisles in the grocery store when they hear that a few flakes of snowfall are on the way, but hey, everybody needs to wipe, right? And if we run out of food, we can subsist for a few more days on... bread and milk. Anyhoo... I first found out about Silly Bandz at Caitlin's soccer practice. Or maybe it was right before soccer practice when I was picking the girls up from after-school care. It's all a blur. One minute they were showing me some kind-of-cool-looking animal-shaped rubber bands that double as a bracelet and the next minute I start to notice kids all over the game fields comparing collections and trading them. These bartering activities were taking place in the back of an SUV (tailgating style) and on the bleachers by the baseball field. I didn't think too much of it at the time. How naive of me! Of course Nicole's 10th birthday slumber party was coming up in a couple of days, and we had already planned to get "squishies" (don't ask) from Cici's pizza to hand out as favors. "Can we pass out Silly Bandz too?" Nicole asked. "Sure, why not? They're kind of cute," I replied. How hard can it be, I thought. Some other parents on the soccer fields had told me what stores were carrying the Silly Bandz, so I figured I must be all set. Little did I know what I had committed myself to. The Friday before the party, I drove with Caitlin to Five Below to purchase the Silly Bandz. Here's how it went down. Me: "Do you have any of those rubber bands shaped like animals?" (At this point in the adventure, I didn't yet know the actual name of the product). Five Below Employee: "No, we sold out of those in like 20 minutes. We'll have some more next week." Oh-kaaaaaay. Fortunately, I saw a Hallmark in the same shopping center, so Caitlin and I drove over to there to assess the situation. Conversation #2 went something like this. Me: "Do you have any of those rubber bands shaped l-" Hallmark Employee (interrupting): "NO! We are sold out!" Another shopper: "You're like the third person who has been in here asking for those since I've been here, and I've only been here for like 10 minutes." Well then. I had a car full of stuff from Costco that needed to be brought home and put in the refrigerator, so we called off the search and went home. The party wasn't until 5:00 the next day. Surely I could find some of these things before then. I went home and posted a desperate plea on Facebook. Many friends responded with helpful tips. Try Walgreens! Try Go Bananas (a local toy store)! I spent part of Nicole's soccer game calling around to various retailers on my cell phone. Me: "Do you have any of those rubber bands shaped like animals?" Walgreens employee: "No, we're sold out." Me: "Do you have any of those rubber bands shaped like animals?" Go Bananas employee: "Yes, we do!" Me: "THANK GOD!! Does it seem like they are going to be gone soon? Is there a riot in your store?" Go Bananas employee: "No, there is no riot." Me: "I'll be right there!" At the conclusion of the soccer game, I asked Cole to take the kids so I could complete my Mission. I hightailed it to Go Bananas and was surprised to see plenty of "those rubber bands shaped like animals" in stock. It was at this time that I learned that they are actually called Silly Bandz. I have never been so happy to see some stupid rubber bands in my entire life. I paid $10 for 2 packs of 24 and triumphantly returned home. A couple of hours later, the partygoers arrived with their squishy and Silly Bandz collections to trade, and trade they did. These girls literally spent hours comparing their collections and bartering! So there you have it. My first Silly Bandz adventure had a happy ending, which is more than I can say about the second one that ended with one of the girls losing their allowance for the week. However, that's another post for another time, because I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome now. The End!

Liberty ES First Graders Honor Those Who Served

This was filmed on 5/18/10 (Caitlin's patriotic school program). I have no idea why the screen is black... but it works. Just press play! :)

I would be remiss if I didn't put the same song from Nicole's program (May 2007) up here as well. Here it is! You can see her coming down off the risers at the conclusion of the song. I can't believe she was that little!! Coincidentally, Cole was not here to see the 2007 rendition. He had returned from Afghanistan a few days before but was still down in Norfolk where he was required to do some "stuff" before coming home for good. For this year's show, I made him reschedule a business trip so he could attend. :)

Has Facebook Jumped the Shark?

A lot of people are complaining about facebook these days. If you're on facebook, you probably know what I mean. Users are starting to feel like nothing is private anymore. Of course, you can put your account on "privacy lockdown," but this requires going through like a billion steps and then the user interface will change in a month and you'll have to do the same thing all over again. It would suck if people started to abandon facebook in droves because of collective trust issues. I can totally see why people would start to ditch it, and I think it would be unfortunate if such a great social networking concept eventually went the way of the dinosaur (or MySpace!!!). The management at Facebook needs to listen to users' concerns and change a few things. Remember: it takes a very long time to build a reputation but only one big misstep to lose it. Facebook users indirectly think about this all the time when deciding what to upload/post/tag, but now it looks like the leadership gang at Facebook might need to consider this advice as well.

Oh sorry, I thought I said I wasn't going to post any actual deep thoughts on here. My bad!!!

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

OK, so various people have told me that I should blog, have my own show, do stand-up, etc. Uhm, my own show or stand-up would be a colossal failure, so blogging it is! About the title...anybody who actually expects deep thoughts must not know me very well! I tried to use "diarrhea of the mouth" when signing up for my account but the URL was already taken, sorry! Anyways.... welcome to my blog, where I will hopefully get around to sharing humorous anecdotes that someone might actually read. Today's humorous anecdote: I had to take Caitlin (7) to the podiatrist for a plantar wart. Nicole (10) came along. The three of us and the (female) doctor were laughing and carrying on about wart stories and stinky feet - eventually the receptionist knocked on the door to ask if we were having a party in the exam room! Yes, we are a little strange, but we make great blog material.