Dear Parents

September 30, 2013Leave a comment

Dear Parents of School Age Children,

I know for a few parents, this is your first year of your kids being in preschool or kindergarten. I leave out the parents of older kids because they’ve clearly gotten the memo on what I’m about to tell you.

No matter where your kids go to school, public, private or charter, you are going to be asked to make a donation to the school or the classroom. Now, when I say donation, I don’t mean that it’s optional, I mean that it’s tax deductible. If you need a receipt for the $30 that the teachers of your child’s class are asking for so that they can develop film and hand you a beautiful book at the end of the year with pictures of your child through out the year, that’s just dandy. But please, under no circumstances should you think you are going to get the beautiful book without the donation.

Why? Because it is not up to the other parents in the class, the room parents, the teachers nor the school to provide the “extras” for your child. The donations is what makes those adorable and fun extras possible. It should be noted that I am not talking about parents who are in difficult financial positions. In my experience, those with difficulties in cash flow are the first to respond. I’m talking about the rude parents who refuse to donate and go as far as sending nasty emails regarding the donations because they don’t like being required to make a donation and thus leaving the teachers and volunteers to cover the costs.

Listen, if you’re fine with leaving your kid in another classroom for the day while the entire class takes a field trip, that’s fine by me. I would suggest putting the $5 you should have spent on the field trip towards future therapy, but that’s just me.

So as one of the volunteers who “keeps sending you annoying emails” please note that your name will be left off the Christmas, birthday and end of the year gifts to the teachers. Even if that means I have to write out 25 names so that I can leave yours out, I’ll happily do it. Because you are what is wrong with our school system. You are the reason that our teachers are underpaid, under appreciated and most likely why your kid is a jerk.

Also, please don’t be surprised when my response to your emails is in the same nasty tone as your original email. I’m a volunteer, I don’t paid to be nice to assholes. And please expect that I’ll continue to send you those “annoying” emails, notes in your kids cubbie and in the check out folder – I think it’s important that you’re reminded of what a jerk you really are.

Kisses!

Beth

Uh Oh…

September 26, 20131 Comment

As of Monday, the Wands have a new member of the family. Name, details and more ridiculously cute pictures to come.

My sanity is SO overrated.

It’s the Little Things

September 25, 2013Leave a comment

Robert Earl Keen got it right. It is the little things that piss me off.

We were getting to a point in our house where the list of things that didn’t work was greater than the list of things that did work. Ok, not really, but you know what I mean. Every night I had to look at the hole in the wall that I created in a fit of frustration trying to re-install the curtain rod that Auggie had managed to pull completely out of the wall. I got a little over zealous with the drill and anchors….and well the result was not good. Peter finally stopped me and mysteriously fixed it all (I think there was some glue involved judging by the stain on the curtains…). But the holes and white patch remained.

Similarly, the weather stripping around the back door that had once been painted and was now chipping off was equally as taunting. All of the little things were easy enough to fix, if you had an hour or so of uninterrupted time. Which let me tell you how many of those hours I have.

I lamented to my friend Beth M about it and explained what I really needed was an older relative with a lot of time, know how and love for me who would come and putter around and fix stuff for free. She agreed she too needed such relative and we agreed to start looking through our respective family trees for candidates.

During a full there is too much to do and not enough time in the day Jessie Spano level melt down, I made a decision to just call the handy man and get some of this stuff fixed. Thankfully, our handyman has become family friend too – he’s a great guy who is wildly trustworthy and just really good at fixing just about anything (he just doesn’t work for free – so close to the dream!!). I made Rick a list and turned him loose with a box of paint and weather stripping. Two hours later, he was done, the house was cleaned up and he mentioned that he had fixed about 5 other small things (like the fact our front door wouldn’t stay shut unless it was locked) for me too. And his bill didn’t make me want to throw up, so that was a nice bonus. Thankfully he has known us long enough to know that I’m not entirely insane so when I got so excited about the painted wall, he doesn’t immediately call in the men with the giant butterfly nets and padded rooms.

The moral of the story? Life is too short to live with ugly weather stripping and to loose your sanity by trying to do everything yourself to save a dollar. Throw a little money at the the little stuff and enjoy some playtime with the kids.

Good Game

September 19, 20131 Comment

Four year olds are difficult. They are smart but they have few limits. They are funny but they do not have any filters. We have learned this the hard way with potty words. Basically, if you laugh when Baylor says “did you say Mini Cooper or Mini Pooper??!!” she will. not. stop. And while a good poop joke is funny the first time, the 19th time, it’s down right gross. So we’ve had to learn to be more careful than ever with our words and how we use them.

Correction. Some of us are being more careful with our words.

While playing Candy Land, Peter was doing some light trash talking. A few boos when someone would pass him. A few fist pumps when he was winning and just a hint of taunting. All pretty innocent…unless you are four and don’t know when the joke is over. As I tried to nicely tell him to knock it off, it got a bit worse because he thought I was being a sore looser.

So when it was time to say “good game” and shake hands, I licked my palm.

And because no one likes to shake a spit covered hand, he understood the joke was over and it was time to teach by example how to be a good sport.

Or at least do it when the kids aren’t listening.

I swear he does wear clothes. But it’s hot. He’s hot. He wears clothes when we leave the house and that’s good enough for me.

Double Trouble.

Little Foot

September 12, 2013Leave a comment

Bay and I like to take a good half hour after Auggie goes to bed and snuggle. We like to watch Gilmore Girls because it makes us think of Mamie and because Baylor has always loved the opening song.

She remarked the other night “look! My legs are almost as long as yours! My feet are almost as long as yours!”. I realized how long her legs really were and how big those feet were getting.

Don’t grow up too fast little lady. I need my snuggle buddy to fit on my lap a bit longer.

California Love

September 4, 2013Leave a comment

This past weekend marked our 30th something pilgrimage to Coronado, CA. It was as lovely as ever, always a family affair and always so much fun.

This guy capital L LOVED the ocean. We could not keep him out of it. Wave to the face? No biggie. Freezing cold? Not a problem.

Our view from the beach

The only place this guy looks small

Baylor is equally crazy for the ocean and sand castles. I love the urgency on her face to get the water to her sand castle.

Mason looking a little afraid. Rightly so.

We ran into her buddy Tessa – you would have thought they hadn’t seen each other in years…

If this isn’t the perfect “big sister little brother” picture

Auntie Ali, Uncle Gary and Mason looking crabby

The Noni

PW took nap shift one afternoon which left me alone. On the beach. With trashy magazines. And boat drinks. HEAVEN.

The view from our room. Noni goes to great lengths to get joined rooms, beach side, with patios. It is worth every ounce of effort!

The Del at night

Spying on the spectacular beach wedding

This wedding was spectacular. They had chandeliers hanging from the structure and table skirts that looked like beautiful seaweed. It was stunning.

Amazing sunsetAfter a full day running on the beach, playing in the waves THEN hitting the pool, Baylor rolled over and asked what I was looking at on my phone. I turned to answer her and found this:

So here’s to the end of summer, another great vacation and many many more!

Give Him a Hand

August 21, 2013Leave a comment

Just try and not smile while watching this

Hoodwinked

August 20, 20132 Comments

We’ve been had. Swindled. Conned. Tricked. Duped.

And all by a four year old.

It all started a few weeks ago. Baylor started getting up 2-3 times a night to go to the bathroom. She would come into our room and go into our bathroom. I didn’t think anything of it until the number started growing to 6-7 times a night. And then requiring a tuck in. Or a glass of water. Or to sleep in our bed. It was clustered over about 2 hours each night. Just as soon as I would decide that something had to be done, she would sleep through the night. She’s always been a sleep terrorist, but at this age, it’s unacceptable.

During a particularly ugly argument, B broke down crying and said “Mommy please. I just have to go to the bathroom”. It’s not the crying that gets me, it’s the good manners. I decided to take her to the doctor, convinced that there was something physically wrong.

After an examination, the doctor asked Baylor to describe what she does at night. Bay went into great detail about how she gets out of bed, walks by the kitchen, across the carpet in our room into our bathroom, turns on the light, closes the door….all the while the doctor is looking at me with a face that says “yeah, you’re kid’s fine. She’s just trouble”. His suggestion was to tell her that she was not to use our bathroom but rather she needed to use her own bathroom. And she did just that – six times in one night. And left the light on and the door open causing her brother to wake up at 4:45am confused about what he was supposed to be doing. Awake? Asleep? Hungry? He didn’t know. He just knew he was pissed that he was awake and everyone else would be awake too, except B who slept through it all.

After a subsequent conversation with our doctor family friend, I finally agreed that it was behavioral and not physical. But no amount of threats, attention or conversations was stopping the behavior. And my overall appearance is sketchy at best, let alone with little sleep. I was getting desperate.

While at the mall shopping for a birthday gift, Baylor fell in love with everything at the Disney store. And that’s when I settled on bribery. I told her that if she could go four nights without getting up more than once and without waking anyone up, she could pick out anything in the Disney store. She agreed and was excited. We drew out four Mickey Mouse heads on the chalkboard for her to circle each morning that she did what she was asked.

The first night went horribly. She was up multiple times and a fight broke out at 1am trying to get her back to her own bed. But the next three nights went swimmingly. Which is when it dawned on me – we’ve been had. We just bribed a kid to do what she has been doing for years and is perfectly capable of doing. We’re rewarding her for sleeping like she has always done.

And to her, I say well played Baylor. Well played.

Cheater Chicken

August 19, 20132 Comments

I’ve had an epiphany.

Every week I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts with the intention of tenderizing them, seasoning and then grilling them so that we have fresh and cooked chicken ready to eat.

And more weeks than I care to admit, it goes bad before I can do all of the above.

What happens is it gets to be 5pm and things start to get nuts around our house. It’s too soon to eat dinner, yet people are hungry. Peter’s not due home for at least an hour and kids need baths and the house needs to be cleaned up and Auggie is insisting that his little 25lbs self be held so that he gets a closer look at whatever I’m doing. So my choice is to either have a screaming, crying baby cling to my leg while I pound on some chicken and then sweat to death putting it on the grill….or I let it go. You can see why I waste so much money on raw chicken.

Last week I picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner at Peter’s request. To my utter delight, both kids dug in and devoured half the chicken. And that’s when it hit me; rotisserie. chicken. It’s cheap ($5 for a whole chicken!), it’s delicious, everyone eats it AND IT’S ALREADY COOKED. I could buy the chicken, tear it apart and have chicken ready to go for lunches and dinners with no effort. And a third of the price.

Cheaper. Easier. Healthy. And everyone eats it. A. Ma. Zing.

WINNER WINNER CHEATER CHICKEN FOR DINNER!!

Say Cheese

August 16, 20131 Comment

What do you do when your very favorite family pictures don’t include your newest addition? Why you recreate the exact same pictures. Down to the same clothes. Well, I wore the same thing anyway. Crazy? Maybe. But I’m so thrilled with the result, sign me up for a padded room and straight jacket.

Our good friends and sorority sister Gina and her husband Rene took the family pictures that have hung in our kitchen for the last 4 years. They were taken on our front patio and the colors of the teal bench and yellow flowers just so happened to coordinate with all of our decor.

Since those pictures were taken, Gina and Rene have moved to Seattle. And in addition to missing their presence, we missed their photographic skills! Thankfully I have several talented friends so I asked Natalie, another sorority sister and my little sis from our Alpha Phi days to snap some new pics for us. When she asked what I was wanted to do, I pointed to the wall and said “that. I want that. Exactly”. And so that’s what she did.

Now that I have finally gotten the right color frame, our new family photos are up! By the way – thank you Pottery Barn for changing the shade of white of your standard white frames and then not telling anyone. I bought it. Framed it. And then realized that once the sun goes down, it’s totally obvious that it’s a different color of white. Thankfully Pottery Barn knows they are nuts and happily found me the right shade of frame and exchanged the wrong color despite my lack of receipt and packaging.

So what do you think?

I couldn’t fit all of my favorites on the wall

So perfectly captures her funny 4 year old self

Natalie’s website will be up and running in the next few weeks – I’ll be sure to post a link just as soon as it’s live. If you just can’t wait to book your session, comment below and I’ll make sure to get you in touch! Thank you Natalie for capturing such great memories for us!

The Goon Room

A little of everything and nothing, all in one blog

Tag: life