I realize blog posts have, ironically, gotten a little thin on the ground now that I have this free time since vacation started. Apparently I need my outside job to stimulate my brain - if I blogged about my thinking these days, my blog posts would consist of me whining about how much of stay-at-home momery consists of tedium and repetition. Not that I don't love being part of my girls' lives, of course! I love it! Every minute of it! Because no one has a more significant influence on a child than a mother, and every fiber of my being wants to ensure that my girls are the most well-adjusted, lovingly nurtured, - oh, forget it. Basically, my day consists of being the doorman for a petulant cat and the sounding board for two of the most talkative creatures who ever breathed air on this planet. The soundtrack of my days sounds something like this:
Mommy! Mommy! Is this a joke? What did the bunny say to the tree? Come here because I'm going to
The wheels on the bus go wound and wound! Wound and wound! Mommy, will you sing wiff me?
eat you! Is that a funny joke, Mommy? Why isn't it a funny joke? Can you tell me a joke? You know
Mommy, can I have a wamwich for lunch, Mommy? I want a wamwich. I want a wamwich WIGHT NOW.
what, Mommy? Know what? The fairies told me a secret and they said I can't tell Ceecee. Wanna hear it?
I dropped my 'lip-'lop, Mommy. Mommy, I dropped my 'lip-'lop. Can you get my 'lip-'lop, Mommy?
Lather, rinse, repeat from wake-up until way, waaaay too late at night, because of course bedtimes have gone all to hell now that it's summer vacay and the sky is still light at late-thirty o'clock. Meantime, here are a few thoughts that have been kicking around the ole cranium of late. Enjoy!
Great Minds Think Alike
We are at a local amusement park/kiddie zoo with my friend and her two girls, who are of an age with mine. The eldest girl has anointed herself Queen and India as Princess as befits their age and status as big sisters. We are in line for the Ferris wheel, which is moving only slightly more rapidly than the post office stamp line at tax time, and the two older girls are lording it over the little sister like Mean Girls Junior.
Oldest Girl: Hey! You can't get ahead of us! We're royalty.
Me (to myself): You're royal all right.
Friend (laughing): Hey, that's just what I was thinking!
Me: A royal pain in the neck, that is.
Man in front of us (clearly a veteran of the parent wars): The lower neck.
News of the Weird, Political Edition
So Sarah Palin upped and quit her job as a way of proving that she's, um, not a quitter. Now aren't you glad you listened to me and didn't elect this lady as Veep? She's nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake and battier than a New England barn. Even Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot himself, Mr. Say-It-Ain't-So Joe Biden would have to get up pretty darn early in the gosh-dang patriotic mornin' to be nearly as wackadoodle as Her Gov'ship. What I particularly love about Palin's resignation is how she's put on this wounded-yet-brave act about how the evil, evil media has treated her and her family. In response to that, I present Exhibit A:
Now I ask you, does this look like a woman who's been victimized, misrepresented, and hounded out of office? No, this looks like a woman who's competing for the local Mrs. Patriotic America title, replete with American flag and military offspring banner. Clearly Palin never saw a camera she didn't love, especially when she knows the story's going to be complimentary. The circa-1983 pep-squad pose she's striking is a wee bit cringeworthy in a woman in her 40's, I have to say. C'mon, the last time I vamped like that was in 1985, for the basketball cheerleaders' yearbook photo (if memory serves correctly, I had enough AquaNet on my head to crack the ozone layer my very own self and so much mascara on I could barely see, but that is another story). This picture is from a photo shoot La Palin did for Runner's World, and Sarah being Sarah, she waxes enthusiastic about how much she just loooves runnin' because she can just be her gosh darn ol' genu-wine 100% ordinary Amurrican self, while all the pictures show someone who is far too well-groomed and absurdly cheerful to have just finished doing anything as painful and boring as running. Well, you can take the woman out of the pageant...
News of the Weird, Celebrity Edition
So I managed to avoid 99% of the Michael Jackson memorial, until I was trapped in front of the TV at the gym and had to watch (and watch and watch) the clip of Paris Jackson extemporaneously eulogizing her dad. I found it by turns both gut-wrenching and stomach-turning: Gut-wrenching because that poor girl was so clearly completely overwhelmed by grief, and what reasonable human being can't sympathise to some extent with the profound loss all three of those children have suffered? And stomach-turning because that clip has been played over and over and over again to satiate our voyeuristic desire to feel included in a now-dead celebrity's life. Really, do we have absolutely no sense of decency left as a social unit? The ceremony was intended for broadcast, and the adults there knew that whatever happened there would be fair game for the media, but Paris is a child. Does her private sorrow really need to be fodder for the public's appetite for news?
I was also intrigued by the very Rev. Sharpton's epigrammatic statement to Jacko's kids. Here I'm referring to the oft-quoted comment that, "Your daddy wasn't strange. What happened to your daddy was strange." The man sure has a way of looking reality right in the eye and denying it, doesn't he? Okay, Michael Jackson's life was not conventional by any means, and the circumstances of growing up in enormous fame certainly are rare - but let's face it, the guy was a wee bit eccentric around the edges. I don't think it detracts from the man's reputation or the gravity of events for us to acknowledge that he was unusual. HE LIVED IN AN AMUSEMENT PARK WITH A CHIMP NAMED BUBBLES, PEOPLE. Now if your new neighbor up the street set up a Tilt-A-Whirl and a menagerie in the back yard, would you be thinking, "Oh, ho-hum, another day in the neighborhood," or would you be just the least little bit curious about how things worked upstairs? Yeah, I thought so.
Can I Be An Unreal Housewife, Too?
A friend begged me to write a post about the Real Housewives of New Jersey recently, but what can I say that wouldn't be simply stating the obvious? The whole show is so over the top, it speaks for itself. I will gild fine gold just long enough to point out that the premise of the show is predicated upon a complete falsehood. My SAHM life sure ain't no reality show fodder, and I think my experience is far more of a piece with the typical SAH experience than those ladies'. The show is about "real" housewives as opposed to "fictional," but not "real" as in "typical." I have never seen any of these women lose their sh*t because their kids can't find shoes and they're late for a doctor's appointment, for instance - that's reality. Sometimes I amuse myself by making up fake TV guide listings for episodes of Real Housewives of Some Pig:
"Caroline and India have a screaming fight about whether or not India needs to get dressed right now, young lady; Caroline's head explodes."
"Celeste pees like a racehorse all over the floor ten minutes after Caroline just told her to use the potty; Caroline utters curse words within hearing of tender ears."
"Caroline attempts to read a book at the beach while Celeste and India plot to prevent her from having a moment to herself."
"India threatens to run away because her mother is the meanest mother in the world. Caroline volunteers to drive her to the inner city and drop her off on the nearest street corner. Hilarity ensues."
As a by-the-by, I seem to spend much of my SAHM tenure feeling like my head is going to explode. Here is a typical parent-child exchange chez Pig:
Me: India, do you want some toast?
India: I don't know.
Me: It's a yes-or-no question, India, do you want some toast?
India: I guess so (heavy sigh of weariness and despair).
Me: India, if I make you this toast, are you going to eat it?
India: YES, MOTHER!
I make toast. Toast sits for fifteen minutes, untouched.
Me: India, if you're not going to eat this toast, I'm going to throw it out.
India: I don't want it!
Toast is summarily discarded. Twenty minutes pass.
India: Mommy, I'm hungry. I want toast.
Me: * head explodes *
Why does nothing like THAT ever happen on RHONJ?
Segue to Relevant and Meaningful Conclusion Coming in 3... 2... 1:
I got nothin'. Gimme some love in the comments, folks, it's going to be a loooooong summer.