Class of '88 in the House!

Two tank tops (1 with sequins), two wraps, a very chic jacket = $150 on sale
Choosing instead an old glam rock blazer and tried and true jeans = $0
Cash for babysitter = $70
Minutes off life spent with flatiron = 35
Swear words muttered while searching for missing high heel shoe = 8
Miscellaneous junk removed to find shoe in daughter's closet = 12
Two delicious lite beers in back seat of an SUV on the way to the big city = $3
Gas wasted while making way through throngs of Red Sox fans = 1/8 gallon
Text messages sent to husband to make sure he got there in time = 6

Walking into 20th HS reunion to find only FOUR other people =

(say it with me now)

PRICELESS!

(That being said, they were four very well-adjusted, interesting people and I was happy to see them.)

Queen Bees, Mean Girls and Wait, What?

Our PTO meetings are held at a local yacht club at 7:30 pm with a full bar. We used to get like 2 people when we held meetings in the gym at 8 am, but now, it's all mascara and sunsets and boats out the window and did I mention a cocktail and lo and freakin' behold, the seats are filled. But besides the hooch in the million dollar setting, it's the fact that we added a speaker series to the agenda, instead of just the usual finance and volunteer opportunity reports, that has really upped the attendance. And I mean that, I swear. Because, honestly, everyone's old enough to drink at home (and we know you are), but to drink while also listening to something that might actually make an impact on how you parent? Hell yeah.

So, anyhoo, last night featured a discussion on "relational aggression" which pretty much means: boys act physically, girls talk. And little girls talk not so nice sometimes. In fact, girls talk very, very nasty-like, about all kinds of nasty girl topics -- body type, clothes, friends -- and it seems like some of 'em are talking that talk pretty much right out of the womb. Or at least in Kindergarten. And surely in Third Grade. If the wonderful teacher speaking hadn't mentioned that this kind of aggression was more sophisticated than what boys typically do, I might have been all down on chicks, all down on having been born one and down on having to raise two. But at least, I thought, at least we are sophisticated in the ways we damage each other. And we're pacifists. Kinda.

I am familiar with this kind of girl talk. In fact, I might have been at the bullied end of it from time to time, and I might have sometimes been the bullyer. And maybe all of this happened when I was 9 and maybe it happened six months ago. What's the diff, really? It all hurts -- the having been done to and even the doing -- whether you are 8 or 38. Sometimes, for only reasons those with ovaries will know, it gets very confusing to be a girl.

Take for instance this exchange between my 8 year old and two of her friends that I heard desperately strained to hear when they were playing in the backyard.

G1: "She's just mean!"
G2: "I know, she told me I was fat!"
G3 and G1: "That is just mean, meany meany mean."
G1: "And she shows off with her cartwheels which is mean --
G2: "Especially when says you are fat."
G2: "I know. She is mean. I don't like her."
G3 and G4: "Me neither!"
G3: "And she's also kinda weird anyway."
G2: "She is?"
G1: "She must be. She's mean."
G2: "Yeah. I don't think I like her."
G1 and G3: "Me neither!"
G1, G2, and G3: "Let's jump her after school tomorrow, take her backpack and kick her ass!"

(Alright, so the last comment WAS NOT REAL which should also serve to remind you that I am paraphrasing a conversation that happened a few days ago, and doing so to the best of my flimsy memory, but you get the gist.)

The girls barged inside looking for juice boxes and I busted them (which is seriously the. best. thing. ever. about being a Mom) on the chat they were having, and they all stood there, cheeks flushing as I spoke and freaking the fuck out and acting all WTF mom? and I didn't care. I got a lot of "but she is mean" and "we weren't being mean" and so I reminded them that their badmouthing of the bitch classmate was um, yeah, kinda mean too.

Which they pondered.

"How does a right make a wrong?" they thought, and so I reminded them that life is bitterly unfair and skinny, pretty girls will always win and just forget about it anyway and study, study, study, because someday you might invent some amazing new drug or device or Oprah show to change this phenomena.

Which in fact is NOT what I said at all.

What I said was kindness begets kindness. What I said was two wrongs do not make a right. What I said was be the best friend that you can be. What I said was "girl-up", and by that I meant never talk negatively about another girl's body or clothes or hair or anything. What I said... Well, it probably went in one ear and right out the other. Because basically right now they are in childhood survival mode and there is only a small part of them that can understand compassion for another person, and I get that.

But I said it and I said it again to B the next day, alone, and I'll probably say some version of it a thousand times between now and when she and her sister and yeah, even her brother are all grown up and gone. And I'll say it to myself, like the PTO speaker advised, so that I can live up to that better example she wants us to be.

That I want to be.

Happy Mother's Day MILFs

It might be all frat-boy funny but yeah, you're a hot mom and don't deny it.

Happy Mother's Day Muthas!

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

R is going to a sleepover. Sleepovers generally make me weepy and nostalgic.

R's not going to just any slumber party. She is going to one at her school. With her 1st Grade teacher and three of her pals. She will watch a movie and eat a sundae and sleep on the floor in her centuries old school with her awesome teacher. The countdown to today is finally over, and not a minute too soon, as the excitement was nearly killing me too, too exciting.

She has packed everything on the list: jammies, sleeping bag, clothes for tomorrow, toothbrush, blankie, flashlight (no batteries, so useless) but not a wash cloth as instructed. (Does a napkin count as a wash cloth? A dish rag? Do people really use wash cloths? Anyhoo, no wash cloth for her, which is probably AOK since clearly she would not know what to do with one. I will, however, make her wash her hands before leaving the house because I am that. kinda. mom. A good one with no wash cloths.)

R will turn 7 in two weeks. She learned to ride a bike without training wheels when she was four, with no help, because her older sister had just learned and she was not going to let her be the only one to have the fun. She is missing three teeth, two of which she knocked out by mistake. Her knees are a maze of bumpy scars. She has strained ligaments in her arms from throwing too many balls and hitting too many pucks. The secretary keeps a stash of extra clothes at school for her because she has torn her own on the play ground so many times. It takes her approximately 3.2 seconds to brush her hair. She will soon look like Jason Castro but right now, she looks mostly like a scruffy baby lion. She wants an electric guitar for her birthday. I would get her a Fender if I could.

R is going to a sleepover at her school tonight, a creaky ancient old school with drafty windows and faulty plumbing that has housed the children of this old town for generations. It has surely seen the likes of her before. But I haven't. I have never ever seen the likes of her.

And I won't see her again until tomorrow at 8am. Sob.

And Then I Was a Crazy Person

There I was, minding my own business, sucking back ice coffee, zooming down the road at a safe yet swift pace, a few hours of sweet alone time ahead of me. The Man on the Radio starts ranting about Barack Obama and more specifically his lack of shall we say -- oh hell, let's just say it -- his lack of balls. I'm used to this tirade from the dude so I carry on. No running of red lights, no swerving, just more of the perfectly sane and anonymous me in my car.

Start ticking through my to-do list. Check my teeth in the rear view mirror. Notice how very blonde I look on a sunny day. Too blonde, I wonder? The Man on the Radio keeps ranting. To emphasize his balls-less opinion of Obama, he calls him a "girl."

Did he just say girl, I thought, turning it up. Did he go there? (Note to future self: turn DOWN the volume on relentless muckrakers.)

He says he looooves woman, but girls? There the whiny, bitching ones on the playground. They're the annoying, clueless, crybabies that well.. are so annoying and clueless and crying. Barack Obama is a girl. A girl! Not a wimp or a loser or a dork or a Democrat. He is a GIRL, the insult of all insults.

And then I became a crazy person. Then I became that insane woman screaming in her car. Then I was that woman waving her hands all around, grabbing for her phone so she could call out this a-hole, dropping her phone, nearly driving off the road trying to find her phone, getting a grip of the wheel and of her civic duty (not to crash) but still, but still... that insane lady you saw on the road? That was very likely me.

In some miracle of auto safety, That Man called just as I was seriously considering embarrassing myself on the radio and/or driving straight into a wall. So I parked instead. And I vented to him. Which was safer and probably wiser, but he was busy and just needed my license plate number (why? had someone phoned me in?) and while he was empathetic, he also really, really had to go. So I sat there in the parking spot all pissed and vinegar and just let the "girl" comment resonate. I listened a little more. I tried to be zen. I sipped my coffee. I grabbed the edge of my sanity and yanked it back in.

And after some thought, this is all I have to say:

Listen mister, I've spent some time on playgrounds and from my perspective, crybabies come with penises too. And as for whining and crying? They don't discriminate based on gender either. And bullies wear pigtails sometimes. A "girl" after all is just a woman who hasn't grown up yet. And with some luck (thanks to all us "girls"), the "boys" won't grow up to be you.

Me, All Classy-like

Seriously, how jealous are you?



So what if I don't do this



like most of my wicked posh friends? They can't even touch my fancy and stylish drinking accessory. Who's laughin' now, muthas?

Then again, they do have this.

8 Things

The nice lady at Completely Me is playing this fun little game (aka: a meme) where in you must divulge 8 little known facts about yourself. And Lordy! How I love a good game! Even ones that don't include this:



(I kid, I kid...)

So, here goes:

1) I cannot whistle. At all. Not one bit.

2) I once stole a ring on a play date when I was nine. I returned it the next time I was there, but I still feel bad about it and have never told my friend, who I still see from time to time.

3) I drive the long way home sometimes. I love being alone in my car.

4) I do not recycle everything I should. (Do not tell Al Gore, but he probably reads the site and so, presumably, I have outed myself.)

5) Despite my mortgage, my three kids, my marriage, my garden, my last will and testament: I do not feel like I'm at all old enough to have any of it and I wonder when the world will find out.

6) I still wish I was Joni Mitchell. Or Carole King.

7) I have my high school soccer jacket in my closet.

8) I am convinced my dead grandparents visited me from the Ever After and played coochie coo with B when she was 6 weeks old. Like totally, completely convinced. It lasted about twenty minutes and was one of the coolest, happiest experiences of my life.

Wanna play? Go for it. You're it!

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

I decided to make wise use of the 45 minutes I had after dropping the girls at jump rope. I needed to (re)visit the grocery store to get the 5 (or 12) things I'd forgotten to get during the morning run. Eight of those things necessary for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. Poor Giant Four Year Old: he's all, "peanut butter? aisle three. duh."

I returned 43.5 minutes later to find the inhabitants of the building hovering outside the main doors. With fire trucks. Three of them. And a police car. And here's where my brain went from the benign (pulled alarm) to the insane: my child has tripped over the rope, spun to the hard floor in some sick twisted hurl toward hurt, cracked open her skull and it's so incredibly serious and BAD, that they have EVACUATED the whole. entire. building and sent not one, not two, but three crack teams of paramedics in to put the Humpty Dumptress back together again.

"Run!" I said to the Giant Four Year Old.

"Why?" he said.

"I don't know!" I said, "But for the luvvaGod, let's go!"

It's only about 25 feet from the spot I slammed my car into to where my kids were waiting, so the drama was short lived. And the panic-induced sweat on my brow (note to self: more exercise needed) was humiliating at best. Even the Giant Four Year Old was embarressed for me.

"Fire drill," shrugged B.

"And I didn't even get my turn," moaned R.

Who had the good idea for that ladybug rhyme anyway? "Your house in on fire and your children are gone"? Seriously man, that shit is evil. I'm thinking there was once another line, lost to history now, that went "just kidding, crazy lady; it's just a frickin' false alarm."