Mom to the Screaming Masses

Watch Me! No, Wait - That Wasn't It! Now, Watch This!

It's going to be an entire summer of that refrain, in order to see something like this:

Emma taught herself to flip off the board today. Much like last summer, when she taught herself to jump off the board, and the summer before when she taught herself to swim alone underwater. She's pretty fearless.

I hope everyone had an AMAZINGLY AWESOME Memorial Day. Ours was filled with parades, picnics, swimming, sunburns, mixed drinks, dancing, family and FUN.

An unbelievable amount of gratitude goes out to the Men and Women of our Armed Forces - Past, Present and Future. Without you and all of your sacrifices, today just wouldn't exist.

Yet Another Post Where I Ramble on About My Body and Its Many Flaws (And Strengths)

Let's not forget the strengths.

Hi. This is going to be rambling and depressing and I almost certainly should have placed it on Elff - but that site is no more, unless I decide to revive it. And I'm too lazy to do so right now, so you get my insane ramblings here. Aren't you glad you stopped by? This is all directed AT ME, so please, don't be offended. Seriously.

I think I'm body dysmorphic. I have no idea, no REAL idea, what I look like.

Well, no. That's not true. I know what I look like. I just don't know if it's good or bad.

Grilled Pizza

The Visa gift card giveaway ends very, very soon. Have you entered? Also, tickets to see the new CUTE movie Babies!

So, I've seen it online more than once in the past two weeks.

Grilled Pizza.

It's something that I never thought was possible, and wondered, indeed, how one would ever grill something so gooey.

And then I tweeted an inquiry (are you following me on twitter @mttsm?) and asked Facebook, and opened Blogher and an entire POST on the topic fell into my lap. And it seemed not only doable, but preferable, and so Tuesday night I decided I'd grill something.

I just wasn't certain what I'd grill.

Willie Wonka Who? Chocolate Factory What?

When I was a kid - ages and AGES ago - there were two movies that I waited for all year long. One, of course, was The Wizard of Oz. I clearly remember having a sleepover with a girlfriend, one that had we planned forever and ever, in order to watch it - we had dance class and then went to her house and ate pizza and stayed up late to watch it. We shivered with delight to see the Wicked Witch melting when hit with water, and we stayed up late to discuss the movie.

Another such movie was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The old one, starring Gene Wilder, natch. NOT the newer Johnny Depp version. He creeps me out.

VCD

HEY! Want a chance to win a $125 gift card, AND enter to win a $500 gift card? I've got a review posted over at Scrutiny for Powerade Plus, sponsored by Blogher, with a small number of entrants. Go, go GO!

The first time that she fell to the field gasping for breath during a game was scary. The second time, I wasn't there, so it bothered me in a less visceral way. After all, what you can't see isn't nearly as off putting as what is right in your face. It scared her, though, and when we went for her checkup with the allergist, I discussed it. We both thought it was asthma - she had difficulty breathing, and when I gave her the albuterol it seemed to help. But the allergist had a different thought.

VCD. Vocal Chord Dysfunction. Go to Occupational Therapy, meet with a Speech Pathologist, teach the kid to breathe.

HUH?

The Woman with The Dog

It started about a month ago.

My little girls share a room, and it's very difficult to get them up in the morning. When it started to get warmer - thank you GOD! - and lighter earlier, I began to open the blinds when I woke them, thinking that the sunlight could help them move a bit quicker. They love to sleep and every morning it's the same argument. I don't wanna get up, I'm cold/having a good dream, don't wanna go to school, no, no NO!

And then, one day, I saw the woman and her dog out the window.

My Three Things

It's no secret that it's been a rough week.

Maybe a rough month, but this week was especially brutal.

And so today, I was so damned nice to myself that I even made myself sick of me.

I walked on the beach with my husband - where we had a RIDICULOUS "discussion"about which I will be blogging next week - and got some sun. I came home and showered and my mom took me to Panera for lunch. LOVE. I went to the bookstore where I did not buy anything, but wrote down several titles to check out on Kindle.

I laid on the hammock for a little while. I picked up my kids and sat at the playground with a friend, slushies and my camera for 2 hours - good for the soul.

 

And, after I put the littles to bed, I made 3 pieces of bruschetta and 2 lemon drop martinis - and I sat down with a new book that Mom loaned me. Bruschetta, martinis, a book - 3 things just for me.

Sometimes, I need to be babied as well as my kids.

What are your "three things" that you would use to make your life complete right this minute?

I'm Pretty Sure This Isn't the Meaning of "The Counting of The People"

So, sometime in March, I think, I received my official paper in the mail. You know the one I mean, the counting one. The one that counts everyone in the whole country. Wanting to do my part, I got it out of the mailbox and sat in the van to fill it out. I then dropped it into the big blue mail box not ten minutes later, on my way to boxing class.

I did my part. I was confident and secure. If you fill out the form, honestly and accurately, all of the radio and tv commercials say that's the end of it. And it was easy. I understand why they need to count it, and it really was easy. I was glad to do it.

So why did I start getting phone calls from the "Official Counting People" organization, two and three a day, starting in May?

The Longest Week in Recent History

Today is Wednesday. It should, by all reckoning, be AT LEAST Thursday - of two weeks from now.

I blame the weather. We've had about a hundred zillion days of rain/cold/wind/rain/cold/rain/RAIN and it's not making me a very nice person.

Let's take yesterday as a prime example. NO, PLEASE - let's take yesterday. I don't want it.

Sometimes My Life is Just a Riot

About a month ago, I noticed that the bottom of my freezer, a side by side Maytag, was iced over.

We bought this fridge/freezer combo for one reason - it's wider on one shelf to allow for the storage of a pizza box. Not like we order pizza all that often, but I'm an easy sale and that option seemed really nifty.

Doing a Google search containing the words Maytag, side by side, ice on bottom of freezer told me that the something or another was clogged and needed to be cleaned. Right, whatever. I just scraped the ice out and went on my way.