Incentive plan for sprited girls

Incentive plan, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Bribary.

Red: Combing her hair

Green: Eating her dinner

Pink: Brushing her teeth and putting on her pajamas

Yellow: Going to bed

... without whining, crying, carrying on, causing a ruckus or stalling for days past her bedtime. You know, because she's afraid ... of snarls and pasta and cotton and missing any of the fun.

If she somehow manages to make it through the rest of the month getting at least three stickers a day she will get to choose her own "special."

She wants a cat.

We've determined that she CAN HAVE A CAT when she lives IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER by herself.

So she's agreed to a trip to the toy store instead.

I wish there was an incentive plan for spirited mommies.
I would happily brush my hair every day for a month if it would get me a trip to the camera store.

You see, my camera decided it has had a nice life but it is too tired to keep up with my kids. So it's making sad little spitting sounds when it should be making clicking sounds.

** I'll let you know when I decide to part with some squirreled-away savings. Until then, I'm afraid you'll be seeing stuff from the archives.

Um ... wasn't he just, like, a BABY or something?

crawl, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

That's what I thought, too.

So while I had him in the sling and was busy ignoring him trying to keep the kid with the big mouth his big sister from peeling off her skin happy, the baby learned to really move. A little bit, anyway.

DRAT! YAY!
My evil plot has been foiled. Next stop, bouncy seat.

Just keep swimming

pool, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Papa's been taking Annabel to swim lessons at the Y. It's been quite an experience for them, to be sure.

However, this week Papa had to have a minor medical procedure and wasn't able to get into the pool with her. So while he held the baby I got a good horrifying look at myself in my favorite swimsuit and had to figure out a way to get from the locker room to the pool without a cloak of invisibility.

The trip from the dressing room to the pool was worth the embarassment, though, once the water was hiding all my insecuries.

With a life preserver strapped around her waist, Ittybit kicked her way from one end of the pool to the other. All by herself. It was something to see.

When she noticed me swimming alongside of her she stopped and wondered aloud: "Mom, who's holding me up?"

"Well the floatation device is holding you up, but you're swimming all by yourself."

It's such a shame all the warm fuzzy feelings evaporated when we had to emerge from the tepid water and make our way back to the changing room.

"MOM! You're LEAKING!"

Can't wait for next week. I just hope Papa's all healed.

Party Animals

oy, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

We returned from our second annual Please Send Vodka extravaganza largely unscathed. (Although, as you can tell from the photograph, I've not taken any future psychological breakdowns into account for that assessment).

Please Send Vodka (or PSV) for those of you wondering is a kind of a moms' group that meets 'round the clock in the wide open space of the internet. It's a bulletin board-type forum where people post and run or post and read as time permits.

For many of the group's members the place is a lifesaver. We show up with questions, concerns and our feelings of complete inadequacy, and we leave with answers and reassurance and enough confidence to try it again or attempt something new.

Although I can't really adequately describe all that went on at Party Central because I was drinking heavily only one small cog in the wheel of many conversations, I can give you an overview of what the experience leaves me thinking:

* First and foremost, the MEN (husbands, fathers, others) who make random guest apearances on the boards as they are often featured topics in multiple occasional complaint boxes (shush ... we dole out credit, too) deserve nothing but props for making the trip to meet people who are, to them, total strangers. Although we women feel like we're all friends because we chat online and we drop names that you have picked up in passing, you guys are the real troopers for smiling, making small talk and generally being the supportive people that you are without really knowing a soul.

* The women are all more beautiful in the flesh. And the kids are positively edible.

* Children who eat lollypop rings for breakfast, lunch and dinner can bounce in an inflatable house ALL. NIGHT.

*Beer consumption doesn't make parents equally as athletic ... but an hour long session inside the house (along with copious amounts of alcohol) makes one think 'why hasn't someone made this into the latest fitness fad before?'

*Any party involving children will be made better if there are at least two realistic looking baby dolls that can be placed in precarious locations.

*If all kids are wearing the same clothes you might go home with the wrong kid.


*Bringing temporary tattoos and teaching my kid how to apply them to others? Two words: Ice. Breaker. Also, made her not climb up in the sling with her brother or attach herself permanently to my leg. All good.

*** We've got scads of leftover tattoos. So if you missed out, drop me a line and I send one your way.

The big squeeze

Lunchtime walks, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

We interupt this "Baby Book Gone Wrong" to send the following message: Hell has frozen over.

The home fires and work flame have intersected, at least for the moment. It seems I'm getting whatever the opposite of DOOCED would be. ... perhaps we shall call it JUICED.

The newspaper where I work is trying to find its niche online and is asking me - apparently the only blogger in the office - to try and jumpstart them into the 21th century by getting reporters up to speed on what it means to keep a Web blog, not to mention get our Web site all decked out to show all these inner monologs off.

As a bumbling idiot myself when it comes to the nuts and bolts of computing (for all I know a squirrel on a wheel really does run things inside the whirring black box that sits on my desk), I've finally figured out how the twain shall meet technically if not thematically.

It's going to feel a little like walking uphill for a while though. Maybe I'll have to institute a Bring Your Kids (and Dog) To Work day once a week you know for laughs at the damage they can cause just to bring the whole mixing of lives thing full circle.

... Stay Tuned.