Owner: sweatpantsmom URL:http://www.sweatpantsmom.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:33:15 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Wife. Mother. Expert sock-folder.
Seasoned Bleatings from a woman on the edge. Site statistics:Click here
Don't Even Think About Getting Me That Knitted Toaster Cover. 2006-12-06 07:45:00 The holiday season is here and all the excitement that comes with it: The parties! The shopping! The buffets! It's all over so quickly, but there's one thing I can count on to be with me even after the season has ended, something that will remind me of the holidays long after the tree has been unceremoniously thrown to the curb and the last piece of gingerbread has been inhaled.I'm talking of course, about all those bad Christmas gifts.It's not that I'm ungrateful - I'm definitely from the 'It's The Thought That Counts' camp when it comes to gifts. It's just that I can't help but feel bad for the tree that had to die in order to make those wooden boxes adorned with cat portraits that I got one year, or the underage Thai children that worked at a knitting machine for hours to turn out that beaded, sequined, mauve vest a friend gave me.So I thought as a service to anyone in the midst of their shopping this year I would put together a gift guide, something to help you figure Read more:Cover
, Knitted
, Toaster
Losing My Tradition. 2006-12-01 10:45:00
A few years ago I bought this beautiful wooden advent calendar. It's not a traditional one, but works in much the same way to count down the days until Christmas, except without the Bible story and with small compartments for each day that hold gifts. In other words, it's a cheap commercialization of a lovely Christmas tradition. Just what I was looking for!
I saw The Box as a way to start a tradition with my girls. Instead of constantly asking me how many days were left until Santa's arrival, I imagined them excitedly opening the door for each day to find the small trinkets I would hide in there. They would pass it on to their children, who would pass it on to their children, and so on until years from now my great-great-great-great grandchildren would be retrieving their time-travel vouchers from The Box's tiny alcoves. As you can see, I put a lot of thought into this.
When I showed The Box to Rigel he reacted like a typical male, skeptical about us needing any more holiday tr Read more:Tradition
Grandma Helen February 25, 1905 - November 23, 2006 2006-11-27 11:06:00
Rigel got a call during Thanksgiving dinner that his grandmother had died. My girls called her GrandmaHelen
, and she would be turning 102 this February
.
She had only recently become ill, and even though her condition was serious we thought there was a good chance she would surprise us and pull through. Up until a few months ago she had lived on her own in a small house in Wisconsin where she cooked for herself, tended her garden and even occasionally looked in on her elderly, though younger neighbors. We were concerned about her living alone, especially when we heard stories like the one she told last summer, about locking herself out of her house. Not to worry, she said, since it all worked out after an elderly neighbor forced open a small window and then gave Grandma a boost so she could crawl through, head first.
She loved to fish and would do so regularly until she gave up her fishing license a few years ago. At 97-years-old she felt it was time to exercise a little caution and Read more:November
Big Love. 2006-11-21 02:40:00
I was feeling pretty good on Friday and fully recovered from our two-day Disneyland adventure - I managed to scrape that last piece of gum off my shoes and I'd finally stopped answering every question with, "Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me!" So I decided to splurge and take the day for myself. I gassed up the van, hit the ATM and headed for the land of free food and cheap booze, the place where time flies and money flies faster.
Vegas? Ha!
I'm talkin' bout Costco, baby.
I've never been a big warehouse shopper, but since Rigel's company pays for our membership I thought it was about time I started taking advantage of it. When the kids were small I had a hard time picturing us as a Costco family. It wasn't often I thought to myself, "I sure could use a wheel of cheese the size of a manhole cover" or "Let me go pick up a twenty-gallon drum of milk." That was for the Osmonds, or those women you see on TV that gave birth to twelve babies at one time. I was fine buying my eggs, vegeta Read more:Big Love
The Happiest Place On Earth. The Happiest Place On Earth. 2006-11-15 08:51:00 For our two girls, a day at Disneyland could only be matched in excitement by the sight of Santa Claus eating ice cream in our living room. I'm not as thrilled by the place, and Rigel even less - crowds, long lines and the close proximity of pasty men wearing tube socks with sandals never fails to put him in a bad mood. In fact, there's only one thing that could possibly make him crankier than a day at Disneyland.
TWO days at Disneyland.
__
Kira has a friend, D., a boy she has known since the second grade. He's a great kid, and we've become friends with the parents as they are nice normal people who don't have personality disorders and make me want to kill them. This is always a good thing.
D. is an only child and his parents naturally dote on him, and one of the things they love to do is have a special birthday celebration for him every year. Last year they invited nine children and their families to an all-expenses paid day at Universal Studios. Rigel and I marveled at their ste Read more:Earth
, Place
Rigel's Most Excellent Lesson On How To Tame A Control Freak. 2006-11-08 10:31:00 Me: Can you help me put these juice boxes away?
Rigel: Sure.
Me: Oh, not in that cupboard. In that one.
Me: Oh, don't take those out of the box. Stack the other ones on top.
Me: Oh, don't put all the Berry ones in the back. I mix them up. I have a system.
Rigel: How about I just pee all over them?
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tags: control freaks | people who don't stack juice boxes correctly
Read more:Control
, Freak
I Wish You Were Around When I Got A Perm. 2006-11-06 21:09:00
I love you, crazy blog people. Thank you for your uplifting words, your advice and nuggets of wisdom. Thank you for reassuring me that helping M. is the right thing to do. Thank you for sharing with me stories of being 'that girl' who benefited from a neighbor's welcoming arms. Thank you for encouraging me to continue to nurture Kira's friendship with M. Thank you for cautioning me to keep my guard up when dealing with M.'s mother. Most importantly, thank you for preventing me from driving over to that freaky broad's house and smearing her front steps with dog poop and then yelling "Fire!"
All of your thoughtful, supportive responses got me thinking about what a great community we have here in the blogosphere. If I had had such a wealth of information available to me ten years ago when I had my first child would I have even needed to drop fifteen dollars on What To Expect When You're Expecting? Or Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems? Or Green Poop Does Not Mean They're Dyi
Somebody Tell Me I'm Doing The Right Thing. 2006-11-02 09:01:00
I've written here before about this woman. To recap, she has:
Accused me (falsely) of standing up at a dinner party and announcing her divorce. (I know, try not to laugh after that one. Especially since everyone knows that I only stand up at dinner parties to loosen my pants.)
Fed that accusation to her daughter, who in turn relayed it to Kira, who was understandably upset at the thought that her mother was a secret-spilling liar.
Tried to get me to provide free babysitting for her while she toned her abs at her daily 3-hour workout.
Told me that I had "gained some weight!" when I ran into her one day, obviously unaware that I was wearing a fat suit for my role in an upcoming Lifetime movie.So why am I wasting valuable blog space even talking about her? Because her daughter, M. is one of Kira's best friends. I love this girl. She's polite, smart, funny and a good friend to my daughter. And I can tell she's been scarred by her parents' divorce and now is trying not to get lost Read more:Right
, Somebody
, Thing
Nice To Meet You, Please Don't Kill Me. 2006-10-26 17:28:00
Yesterday someone knocked on the door and when I opened it there was a package on the steps. It was a small box, with my name clearly typed on the label but no identifiable return address. I then did what any normal, rational human being would do - I decided that it was a letter bomb, and set about deciding how I could open it without losing a limb or even worse, scorching my eyebrows.
I took the package outside onto the front porch. I saw a documentary on letter bombs on TV, and knowing that my blood and severed digits had the possibility of shooting several feet, I decided that detonating the box inside the house wouldn't be smart - you're looking at a few hundred dollars just to clean the walls and hardwood floors. That's me - always thinking ahead!
I pointed the box away from my body and slowly opened it, pushing it away from me after each rip so that once I reached the fuse I would have at least a few seconds to hurl my body out of danger and minimize the carnage. If any Read more:Please
This Little Scribe Of Mine. 2006-10-23 20:55:00
Edited 10/24: Kiyomi regrets the omission of the Aries horoscope. She claims the error was because she wasn't able to finish the newsletter due to the unreasonably early bedtime imposed by her parents. Here is the missing forecast:
aries: you will be interested in animals.*
*Sweatpantsmom assumes no responsibility for any aberrant actions or risky behavior as a result of the above forecast.
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Not to be outdone by
her sister's
popular
AnimeKat Weekly
, Kiyomi has come out with a newsletter of her own, the
Weekly Bunny Moon
. I know I'm partial, but the title alone is so cute it makes me want to cry.
Like Kira, she types it out on her Mac and then emails it to family and friends. (If Kira is feeling territorial at all she's not letting on, although I did catch her Googling 'creative domain' and 'sister is a copycat' the other day.) If this keeps up I may have the t Read more:Scribe
My New Best Friend. 2006-10-16 07:53:00 I'm a huge David Sedaris fan. I've read all of his books twice, eat up his occasional pieces for The New Yorker, and when I saw him live earlier this year I even briefly considered waiting in the line of two-hundred-plus people just to get my copy of Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim signed. Instead I sat at a nearby table where I drank my nine dollar glass of wine and fantasized how I would trick him into coming to my next dinner party. I had gotten to the part where he takes out a restraining order, when I was brought to my senses by Rigel pointing out that I was smashing my plastic tumbler into tiny pieces and mumbling, "But all I wanted was to be your friend!"Yesterday, as I was browsing the bookstore, lamenting the fact that it had been two whole years since his last new release, I came across this book, written by his sister Amy. I'd seen her occasional appearances on David Letterman and as Carrie's agent on Sex and the City, but had never read anything she'd written u Read more:New Best Friend
Buy, Buy Japan. 2006-10-10 03:15:00 Recently Kira overheard a friend telling me how the last three months of the year are always so hectic, and how she's dreading the big Christmas rush and the buying frenzy that it brings. "Gawd, I hate to shop. Hate it hate it hate it." While this sentiment was even a little strong for me, by the horrified look on Kira's face you would have thought my friend has just lifted her shirt to reveal a parasitic twin. On the way to the car Kira nervously whispered, "Okay, she was just joking about the shopping, right? I mean, is she some kind of weirdo?"
When a website asked me to write an article on traveling to Japan
with my girls, it didn't take me long to realize what stood out in my mind. Although their willingness to adapt to a foreign culture was exciting, what really impressed me was their ability to sniff out a retail opportunity from five miles away. To them, the ancient temples of Kyoto were merely facades for the gift shops tucked away inside, and their bizarre internal
We'll Have Our Cake And Eat It, Too. 2006-10-05 07:55:00
As you know, I'm not much for tackling any important issues on this blog. Homelessness, poverty and oversexed Republican representatives take a back seat to any narcissistic stories revolving around my latest diet, grooming habits or too-cute-for-words anecdote about my kids. But when I see something that really riles me, that just screams injustice, I am forced to take action. Because this time, it's personal.
They're trying to take away our cupcakes.
According to
this recent article
* in the Los Angeles Times, some school districts are banning any non-nutritional treats from classroom parties. That would include birthday cupcakes, Halloween candy or little Susie's mom's killer caramel brownies. Instead, one district administrator suggests parents bring carrots.
Oh, yummmmm! Birthday carrots!
Now, I don't know about your kids, but if I were to show up in either of my girls' classrooms with a bag of carrots to celebrate their special day, I'd be beaten senseless by a mob
This Is Where I Talk About My Refrigerator And Then Provide Links To Distract You. 2006-12-10 05:35:00 It's been a plodding week over here. First Kira got sick, then I thought I was getting sick, then Rigel got sick, then I thought I was getting sick again then we woke up Friday morning to a huge puddle of water underneath our refrigerator. Never say I don't know how to have fun.The repairman showed up to look at our refrigerator and told us it would cost $450 to fix. Seeing as we had just spent $400 on it a little over a year ago to fix a similar problem, we started discussing whether or not it was worth it to fix a twelve-year old appliance. This seemed to cause our repairman great distress, all this tossing around of big words like "money" and "fix" and "old" because he started sighing loudly, rolling his eyes and checking his cell phone. Finally he said, "While YOU TWO are TRYING to decide I'm going to go outside and smoke." Charming fellow!Apparently he called his office to complain about us indecisive yuppie scum, because immediately the phone rang and when I answered it his s Read more:Refrigerator
I Went To A Concert Where I Gave Birth To Someone On Stage. 2006-12-14 05:03:00 Well, sort of.A few weeks ago I wrote about Kira and Kiyomi starting guitar lessons. They just finished their first eight week session, although on the last day Kiyomi decided to quit and walked in and announced to her teacher, "I am not a guitar player. I am a DRUMMER!" It remains to be seen whether or not Santa will be stuffing this down the chimney. I'm sure the money would be better spent on a math tutor, but who ever won American Idol by reciting their times tables?Kira, however, took to it immediately. By the end of her second lesson she knew how to tune her guitar, had memorized her chords and could play a couple of songs all the way through. Rigel was amazed that he was actually learning a few chords from her, although I think it was a blow to his ego when she called him her roadie in front of her friends.She had her first gig on Friday night, accompanying her teacher (and a seven-year-old singer) on Green Day's Boulevard Of Broken Dreams. I've seen the Stones from the te Read more:Concert
, Stage
Aging Like Fine Wine. Or Was It Old Cheese. 2007-01-15 23:59:00 I had a birthday last week. It was pretty wonderful - a few girlfriends took me out to dinner the night before, and the night of my actual birthday me, Rigel the girls and two of our best friends went out for sushi. (Is that sentence grammatically correct? Because all the holes in my aged brain are impeding my language skills.) I got so many great gifts - beautiful handmade cards, a candle and soap from the girls, bouquets of flowers, a huge basket of cookies from my sister and this awesome gadget from Rigel, as well as birthday phone calls all day long from family and friends, not one of them mentioning how much slower my metabolism seemed or the extra flab on on my upper arms.I don't really like getting older, so I'm not going to get all Lifetime Channel on you and enthuse about how each advancing year is getting me closer to the 'real me' or how I'm like a flower, a truly beautiful flower that's just about to bloom. Or how every new morning brings new insight or that old tir Read more:Aging
, Cheese
Living Mildly, Eating Fearlessly. 2007-01-30 01:33:00 I had brunch yesterday with two of my best friends, friends that I have known practically my entire life. I met J. literally on the very first day of kindergarten when the teacher asked her to help me at the coat closet and something about the way she slung my tiny plaid jacket onto that brass wall hook impressed me and made us friends for life. Two years later in the second grade I met G. while admiring her red patent leather purse with the big gold rings affixed to it, and her, J. and I became a trio, a force to be reckoned with on our inner-city-school playground. I liked to think of us as a miniature version of Charlie's Angels without the good hair, hot clothes or crime-fighting skills.We eventually went to different schools, got married, had kids and moved to different cities. J. and G. now live within minutes of each other and around an hour's drive away from me, but we all still manage to get together without fail three times a year to celebrate each of our birthdays. Read more:Living
Mother Of The Year. 2007-02-01 22:44:00 They recently created a small parking lot in back of the girls' school. It was intended for faculty use, but since many of the teachers park in the front lot it sits virtually empty most of the time and it's become a popular spot for parents, including myself, to park and drop off our kids. The administration doesn't really discourage it, since it alleviates much of the traffic in front of the school that had become a problem lately. The thing I like best about it is it saves me from ever having to parallel park in front of the school, a pathetic, hour-long spectacle that has more than once sent students and teachers running for cover.
The parking lot has it's own hazards, created mainly by those idiot parents who don't want to take the extra sixty seconds it takes to park their cars and walk their kids through the gate and onto the playground. Instead, they pull over wherever convenient, and with motor running let their kids get out of the car, not only creating a traffic ja
And Furthermore, You Can Forget About That Pony For Your Birthday. 2007-02-05 23:15:00 Every Friday I have the much-appreciated luxury of having a babysitter for a few hours during the day. This is a lifesaver for me when I've got a job in progress as it allows me to work or run to meetings without having to worry about getting home by a certain time to pick up the girls at school. When I'm not working, which seems to be more the case lately, it allows me to take care of important tasks like having three-hour lunches with friends or trolling the neighborhood for donut shops.
On Friday Kira stayed home from school so I was here most of the day, but I asked the babysitter to pick up Kiyomi since I realized that I hadn't had time to change all day and I know how upset the kids get when I show up on campus in my pajamas. The school is only a five minute drive from here, so when she hadn't returned in almost twenty minutes I called her on her cell phone. I could immediately sense an edge in her voice, and she told me that she couldn't find Kiyomi anywhere, that she h Read more:Birthday
Next Up, A Snazzy Pouch For My Dentures. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Actually, getting the girls their own cell phones was just an excuse to make these:Yes, that's right. I crochet. Because like most 80-year-olds, there's nothing I like better to do than grab my hook and yarn, kick back with a prune smoothie and turn on some Murder, She Wrote reruns.Stop laughing. Don't make me come over there and crochet you an afghan.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .tags: turning into my mother Read more:Dentures
, Pouch
Parents, Lock Up Your Sons. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 When I picked the girls up from school yesterday they were filled with Valentine's Day stories, all of them disturbingly centered around the opposite sex. Kira was lamenting the unwanted attention she is getting from boys in her class, and the rumor that she likes a certain one in her group, a rumor started by another boy who supposedly has a crush on her. Being Valentine's Day the teasing had escalated, and after one too many comments from some of the other kids she'd had enough and went to the teacher to tell him what was going on, after which he gave a stern lecture to the entire class about the consequences of gossip. Kira said she doubted that any of it mattered to either of the boys in question, as she was staring at them during the entire lecture and they appeared completely unfazed, busily playing with their ears and trying to cross their eyes. I told her to get used to it, that this is what it looks like when men are trying hard to concentrate. I was proud of her for s Read more:Parents
I'd Like To Thank The Academy. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I have a strange relationship with the Academy
Awards. For one thing, I don't like to admit I like watching them so I spend the few weeks leading up to the big night pretending I don't know they exist. Someone may mention them in a conversation and I'll say, "Oh? The Oscars? Are those coming up?" hiding the fact that I just spent the entire previous evening coming up with my own special Red Carpet cocktail or searching the internet for special Oscar-shaped cookie molds. I feign ignorance about all the nominees, even though I've already picked my favorites and spent hours going through People magazine scrawling LOSER over all the pictures of their competitors.When the actual day arrives, I'll pretend to be too busy cleaning to even notice, even though every TV in the house is tuned in to the Oscar pre-show, the Oscar pre-pre show, the live coverage on E! and the Pets At The Oscars segment on Access Hollywood. I'm secretly hoping that sometime in the near future someone comes Read more:Thank
If My Floors Are Spotless It Means I'm A Really Good Person. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 A couple of Sundays ago me, my sister and two of my sister-in-laws threw a wedding shower here at my house. My brother is getting married in a few weeks and we wanted to give a warm welcome to my future sister-in-law, something to redeem ourselves after an incident where her teenaged daughter was unintentionally subjected to a recent dinner conversation between me and some of my family members. That would be the one where we were discussing the movie Borat, specifically the naked fight scene in the hotel and about what the fat guy's genitals might possibly look like.The shower went off without a hitch, but I'm still trying to recover. Not from the event itself, but from the countless hours of prep beforehand, the frenzy that precedes any instance where people will be entering my home and in my mind, judging me mercilessly on the placement of my couch cushions and the number of scuff marks on my walls. It's as if I can hear them saying to each other after they've left, "You kno Read more:Floors
, Means
, Spotless
Dethroned! 2007-03-05 04:10:00 If anyone deserves the title of Sweatpantsmom, it's this woman:
(You can read the whole article here.)
I can admit when I've been upstaged. I mean, while my sweatpants merely serve as a lazy-person's leg garment, this woman uses hers to bring a new life into the world.
My favorite part is where she says, "I didn't know what happened until he was in my pant leg." This made me laugh, mainly Read more:Dethroned
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