The Glamsterous Life

Going to places like the library on his bike instead of by car may be at the very top of Liam’s list of Best Spring Things, and thanks to this year’s crazy 80s in March we’ve already made several trips.  Granted, I always end up hauling the Big Bag O’ Books, but I’ll take the good weather tradeoff any day.  Last weekend’s bike-not-car trip produced a delightful bag of reading material including Glamsters, the story of hamster sisters Harriet and Patricia.  In an effort to expedite her adoption/purchase, Harriet decides she needs to glam it up a little bit.  To get there she ends up rubbing all kinds of questionable substances on herself and puts on a bad outfit, which are things I’ve been known to do frequently.  Quite honestly, I’ve never found a hamster so relatable.  In the book, things go horribly awry for Harriet, (don’t I know?) but the happy ending comes down when she decides to hose herself off and just play Harriet.

Perhaps I haven’t noticed it because I’m not looking for an adoptive home at present, but  it dawned on me during the reading that I could probably stand to get a little more glamster too.  Even though it didn’t work out so well for Harriet, it’s important to remember that she and I aren’t working with the same raw materials.  I don’t have her good fortune when it comes to all of that lovable fluffy fur or those adorable buck teeth, nor do I have the ability to crawl into a pile of cedar bedding and disappear.  In fact, there was no cedar bedding to disappear into when, about midway through the book, Liam moved from my lap to the space just in front of me and turned so he could still see the pages.

“What are you doing, sweetie?” I said.  After all, the niceness of book time is mostly about the niceness of lap time.

“Your air is mixing with my air.”

Translation = Mom, you have ass breath.

Further translation = Taco Night

Now, it’s one thing to embarrass myself in front of a five year old, but the incident immediately made me flash back to the day before, when I bounced off to the gym in the first t-shirt I grabbed from the drawer.  Since gyms are so silly with their “mirrors” for “checking your appearance” which I understand some people even do before they “leave the house”, I caught a glimpse of myself just as I was making tracks to the cardio machines.  My entire midsection was dotted with little spots of grease, making it appear as though I’d been in a nasty stab battle with a bottle of olive oil.  If you’ve never been, let me save you the trouble.  Yes, it’s super cute.

Actually, the stains were part of a salad incident earlier in the week.  I’d solicited my husband’s help in opening a stubborn bottle of Trader Joe’s Balsamic Vinaigrette (ab fab, by the way), which he opened with his hulking, bulging, manly kitchen counter.  He opened it with such force, in fact, that the cap cracked along the side.  The important part was that it opened, and since I still found the cap serviceable I made my salad and tucked the maimed bottle back in the refrigerator.  Unfortunately I filed those important details away when I made another salad a day or so later, and I took that bottle out and shook the living sh*t right out of it.   Needless to say, the cap left the party early.  Scrubbing the entire kitchen floor must have made my balsamic t-shirt seem less important, so I just threw it in the laundry basket and didn’t bother to do whatever it is people do with their cottons when they pour salad dressing on themselves.

Like a hamster who won’t get off her wheel, I wasn’t about to leave the gym just because I started to smell more and more like the Olive Garden as my body temperature rose.  It won’t be the last time I end up in a bad outfit covered in a questionable substance.  If I’m really lucky, it might even happen on Taco Night.

If You Give A Mom A Week Off

Exciting news from the House of Freckles and Fickle.  Because the stars aligned and my mother in law is some sort of saint, next week I will spend seven whole days both child free and out of the office.

I’ll admit, it’s taken me some time to come to grips with the potential in this opportunity.  Think of all the things I can do!

Omigod, what will I do?

What in the hell did I do before kids?

After pondering the question for a few days, I found some inspiration in one of Liam’s favorite books, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.  If you haven’t read it, it details a day in the life of a mouse who skips around in a frenzy making merry, leaping from one ball of fun to the next because life just has so much to offer.  With any luck, that’s my week too.  (And cookies can’t hurt either)

Click to read!

Children Without Borders

Adieu, Borders.  I have to be honest now that your run has ended.  I prefer the cozy stacks and passionate staff of an independent bookseller, and we all know it’s far more complicated than just saying goodbye.  But I will miss you.  At the end of the day, when I’m reading them alone or reading them to my kids, books are books.  I buy them at independent stores, I buy them used, I buy them online, and I bought many at Borders.  If I feed my kids garbage at a McDonald’s Playland, the guilt I feel comes with good reason.  It has never really mattered what kind of bookstore/library/used sale it was, when I’m shuffling around with them looking at new things to read, guilt just isn’t on the radar.

Borders was about a kids’ section with galaxy print carpet, a place for me to sip a 700 calorie latte and drop to a cushion on the floor while my boys shuttled back and forth from the shelves with books we had! to! read!  It served as my savior in a strip mall more than once, when wintertime cases of cabin fever were making us all just a little stabby.  It was the place where Jack first put down his hard earned allowance and bought model volcano kit, and it was the place where I explained to him that he wouldn’t be buying any more model volcano kits.

Reading to my kids is roughly 30% material and 70% bonding.  This is the only reason my four year old can appear captivated by an article on embroidered cat saddles in Martha Stewart Living.  Reading is lap time and touch and pictures and goofy voices.  It’s one of the few things we can still do that freezes out all the other noise, which is true whether we’re under a night light, in a doctor’s office with a snot faucet, or even in a place like Borders.  It’s sad to me when we lose any of those spots, since places to get away from the noise seem to be disappearing every day.

To say thanks and goodbye, I wanted to write about a few of the books that are on our shelves because my kids and I sat on some galaxy carpet and had a moment.  Big box book stores may a dying business model, but Borders was one of the spaces I was able to get closer to my children–30% location and 70% bonding.  My favorite material (with serious spoilers):

Chameleon’s Colors, by Chisato Tashiro.  Just as Chameleon is growing tired of blending and being overlooked, he meets a bummed out hippo who is tired of being gray.  Chameleon decides to crush some flowers and help the hippo out, and paints him a groovy pink.  When the other animals get a load of Chameleon’s work, and they rush to get painted too–stripes and dots all around!  Suddenly Chameleon is more popular than the flag pin vendor at the Republican National Convention.  All too soon, the animals learn that they can no longer hunt or hide, which as you can imagine leaves them a bit chapped.  They go off the rails and chase Chameleon to the edge of a cliff in a pulsing, pissy rainbow horde.  Just before Chameleon meets his end, a sudden rain (nature’s Kenny G song) calms the animals and removes the paint that had them in such a dangerous huff.  Cooler heads prevail, and the animals apologize to Chameleon for being complete dicks.

The illustrations in this book are so gorgeous, be warned that it’s easy to spend  more time picking out favorite animals than reading the story.

The Robot and the Bluebird, by David Lucas.  A friend of mine recommended this book, saying it made her cry while she read  it to her daughters.  I do big fat sap hard, so I probably should have done a few dry runs before reading it to my own kids.  Unfortunately there was no such pre-planning.

The story is of a robot who falls into disrepair, and eventually finds his way to a junk heap.  A bluebird approaches, and the robot offers it shelter.  The two hit it off, but the bluebird needs to scoot before things get too cold.   Since the match works so well, they decide to head south together.  The journey is long and the robot barely makes it.  At their final destination, the robot finds a permanent usefulness and the bluebird and his friends find a permanent home.  Do you have a tissue I can borrow?

Again, breathtaking pictures.

Hooray for Diffendoofer Day, by Dr. Seuss with Jack Prelutsky.  I cry at this one too, mostly because it’s a story that Dr. Seuss never got to finish or see.  It’s a work carved from several of the good Doctor’s sketches, made beautifully complete by Prelutsky with more amazing art from Lane Smith.  Janet Schulman, who turned the sketches over for completion, could not have picked a better author/illustrator pair.

Hooray begins with serious test prep in Dinkerville, where the students of the Diffendoofer School have to prove their academic skills or get bussed to Flobbertown where everything is boring and colorless.  It leaves the already nervous principal Mr. Lowe beside himself with worry, but Ms. Bonkers (homeroom teacher and Mr. Lowe’s secret crush) is not worried:  “We’ve taught you that the Earth is round, That red and white make pink, And something else that matters more, We’ve taught you how to think.”  They pass the test with flying colors, and Diffendoofer is spared.  Must be all that thinkin’.

How I Became A Pirate, by Melinda Long.  The opportunity to use pirate voices is an automatic win, yes?

Jeremy Jacob is hanging at the beach with his parents when he sees a pirate ship led by Braid Beard (imagined beautifully by David Shannon).  Noting that he really has nowhere to be until soccer practice the next day, Jeremy boards the ship.  He finds that pirates are even more awesome than he imagined, with atrocious eating habits and no manners to speak of.  Yet, when he doesn’t get tucked in or receive a bedtime kiss, he begins to wonder if the pirate’s life is all it’s cracked up to be.  Just as the homesickness begins to creep in, a storm forces a ship repair.  When Braid Beard wonders aloud where they can bury their treasure, Jeremy knows just the spot.  The have it all kid gets them to stow it right in his backyard.  If I had a nickel for every time one of my kids cut a deal with a pirate for backyard space…

Walter the Farting Dog, by William Kotzwinkle.  Seriously, with the family fart obsession how could we not own this whole series?  I’ll never forget the giggle fest that went down at the first reading.  Nothing’s changed.

Walter is lovable enough, but his flatulence is bringing a family to its knees.  They try everything to remedy his “issue”, but to no avail.  When mom and dad have finally had enough and decide it’s time to give Walter up, he stuns a pair of burglars with his extremely potent weapon.  Walter saves the day, and his family resolves to love him odors and all.

Find a kid who won’t do the fart noises on this one.  I dare you.

Borders, it’s been real.  Thanks for the memories.

Tell Me A Dragon Story

“Tell me a dragon story, mama.”

 

Liam has always been tolerant of my original stories, conjured up in those moments where I’m too tired do anything but fantasize about sleeping for 72 hours with intermittent access to an unlimited supply of Haagen Dazs. It was on one of these nights when the dragon story originated, a sly trick that seemed better than saying, “I’m wiped kid, you do it.”

 

A dragon story goes like this: “Once upon a time, there was a dragon, and his name was [Liam fills this in]. [Dragon’s new name] loved to do many things, but his favorite thing to do was [you get the idea].” And on and on. Dragon usually goes through the mundane motions of a day, eating, sleeping, and dreaming about stuff. Dragon’s name is commonly “Crocodile” or “Purple”, though occasionally he’ll get a super fancy tag like “Drakkon” (On these occasions, I catch a quick flash of myself as a grandmother doting on my grandchildren, Flank and Bozor). Of course, the best part about a dragon story is that Liam digs them and they require very little effort on my part. I also get to tell myself that I’m helping him exercise his imagination muscles, so that’s, like, serious bonus points, right?

I’m always pretty awed by the delight the kid takes in filling in the blanks, even if it just involves the everyday garbage I just shuffle through day after day. When I’m hammering out a grocery list, sometimes I’ll stop and ask him what he thinks we should get. It’s like another dragon story for him, and he’ll usually come up with something totally odd and lovely, like “scrumptious bars”. Damn.  You know what, kid? I’m glad you’re around, because I never would have thought of those and we totally need some scrumptious bars.

One of the biggest perks of living with children is watching the enviable things they still do naturally and without restraint. Believing all things possible and finding joy in simplicity are two of the better skills little people have, along with the superhuman ability (and desire) to choose almost any activity over sleep. Liam is also really good at stopping to smell the roses (with additional stops to talk to an ant, ask five questions about grass, poke at a dessicated worm, ask what the next holiday is and then how long five months is, tell me where the vampires hide in his room, and show me how to hop on one foot with a quarter turn and finger snap). He still sees the very best in people, and I enjoy pretending, even for fleeting moments, that the only bad people in the world are the ones who don’t turn on their porch lights and give out candy at Halloween.

 

 

 To be clear, I’m not suggesting that all of our childhood habits would serve us well as adults. I once pulled Jack from a preschool at the age of two because I was greeted daily with the news that he’d spent the day making “bad decisions”. It was a giant downer for both of us, but the bigger point is that he was two. At that stage in life, a “decision” involves considering one’s options and choosing the one that results in a toy or something sticky. I do know of a few adults who still operate by this system, but it tends to be a costly one and not all of us have Lindsay Lohan’s money. Oh, and I’m not positive a child’s honesty filter is that great either, since telling someone they have a giant ass or funny hair generally requires that you have a small, adorable face or no aversion to fistfights.

 

What if we did tell a few more dragon stories? My kid believes he can grow up to be an astronaut or a Lippinzaner, and even if I were inclined to tell him he can’t (and I’m not) he wouldn’t hear of it anyway. On my grumpier days, I wish I could have some of that back. Perhaps if we were all too busy filling in the blanks in crazy and impossible ways, we’d worry less about the bad decisions of others. We’d have more time to eat scrumptious bars and talk to the people we love. That would be [fun].

So here goes: In the next twelve months, I will [do something about my stalled career] and [train for a half marathon]. Now if I can only get Liam to stop smelling the roses long enough to get cracking on those…