A winter trip to the Poconos to celebrate Chloe’s 9th birthday. Can’t wait to get there. Will watch the kids from a nice toasty room and drink hot chocolate while everyone freezes their asses off outside.
Category Archives: Frazzled Working Mom’s Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)
Too Tired to Write
Just got home from work. A day that started out innocuously enough turned into a crazy afternoon. I’m beat. And have no energy to write anything. Other than to mention that little Sophie was exceptionally cranky this evening. She’s overtired. Just like her mommy.
Anyway, I filmed this little video when she was in a better mood earlier this week. She LOVES this song and has since watched “A Nightmare Before Christmas” several times after discovering that the song was in Tim Burton’s great movie. If you look closely, you’ll see that she’s working on her lip-synching.
Did She or Didn’t She?
My dear little Sophie. When I picked her up at school on Friday, she grabbed my hand and dragged me to a wall in her classroom, where the days of the week poster hangs. She pointed to the poster, apparently to show me where the staples attaching it to the bulletin board had started to pull away.
She seemed a little upset by the whole thing and I reassured her that it was easily fixed. I asked her if she had done it and she told me she hadn’t. OK, no big deal. She was evidently relieved to have shown me what was bothering her and we the left the school. She skipped all the way to the car.
All was seemingly forgotten until last night, when she started crying and whimpering “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” When I asked her why, she mentioned the poster. And she started crying harder. I asked her if she knew what had happened to it. She started to cry harder and after first responding “no,” she confessed that she did it, but that it was an accident.
No more than 30 seconds after the confession, she realized what she had done and adamantly recanted, claiming that her friend was the guilty party. I told her I was a little confused, and she continued to cry and said that she was confused, too. All she wanted was for me to let one of the teachers know so it could be fixed and I promised that I would tell them when I dropped her off at school.
This morning, she was very eager to go – apparently determined to get the whole sordid mess off her chest. But this is Sophie we’re talking about. She had no intention of doing the talking herself, so when I saw one of her teachers I mentioned that Sophie had noticed the staples were loose. The teacher thanked us for letting her know and wondered aloud why Sophie didn’t tell her herself. But after 5 months with shy little Sophie (shy little Sophie with her teachers, that is), the teacher knew the answer to that question.
I don’t think the teacher suspected Sophie of any criminal wrongdoing. But as for me, the jury’s still out. As I said, the episode was weighing on her. She seemed a little guilty. But until I purchase a lie detector test for family use, I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Paris
I’m watching “Julie and Julia” and feeling homesick for Paris. Have I mentioned that as part of retirement fantasy, we rent a house in France for several weeks over the summer? My husband would join us for at least three of those weeks, and my mom would come too.
The girls would finally experience the culture that makes up half of their DNA. Perhaps they’d even get comfortable conversing in French. Speaking of which, Sophie put two and two together today, and started exclaiming, “je t’aime!” Ok, she thought it was Spanish, but no mind. Papa and I were thrilled nonetheless.
We need to find a way to start introducing Chloe and Sophie to their heritage. We need to find a way to get to France more often. I’m not sure how to accomplish that. Airfares are outrageously expensive. And we’d need to rent a place to stay because our family over there doesn’t have enough space for all of us. In sum, thousands of dollars for my family unit to spend a couple of weeks en France. It would be worth every penny, I’m sure.
It’s a vicious catch-22. In order to have enough money to take that kind of trip, I need to continue working. But if I continue working, I don’t have enough vacation to take the trip. So, in addition to playing the lottery every once in awhile, I’m also hoping that my husband gets a promotion. He’s waited years for that to happen – so I’m not holding my breath. But – you never know, do you?
Alubus’s Butt
It’s been awhile since we’ve shared Alubus with our friends and family. Here he is, getting comfortable in his newly cleaned cage. Except he evidently isn’t a fan of the video camera and didn’t hesitate to let us know it.
Broccoli!
It’s only taken us about nine years. But we’re finally realizing that our kids are super malleable and impressionable. You read about it all the time – kids will imitate their parents, but we’ve always been a little skeptical.
Yet, if mom and dad use bad words, the kids will let them slip as well (but hopefully not in front of the teacher). If mom and dad read a lot, the kiddies will read a lot. If dad is addicted to his iphone, the kids will steal his iphone and become addicted to it, too.
Yesterday, we had broccoli with dinner. I’ll admit that it’s not the most popular side dish in our house. But my husband and I have recently noticed that our little Sophie is a copycat, and she’s been displaying more interest in tasting whatever we have on our plates. So we went the broccoli route last night.
And because Sophie seems to be a little more attached to me than usual, when she saw me grab a spear, she pointed to it and asked to have some. I happily gave her a piece (I’m really not a big fan of broccoli, but hell, I’ll do what it takes for my girls) and she ate it. And asked for more. And more. It was a win-win for both of us.
She now proclaims that she likes broccoli as much as carrots. Whoopee.
Miniature Mardi Gras Float
Chloe’s latest school project was for French class – to create a mini Mardi Gras float. This is where Grammy comes in handy. Grammy likes to help the girls with the projects I can’t stand.
And she’s chock full of the perfect supplies. Chloe’s float consists of a shoe box, some dinosaurs, beads and a clown juggling naked babies. Descriptively entitled “The Silly Dinosaur-Infested Circus,” it’s a true work of art.
Chloe has another project that’s due next week. Won’t be as much fun, but it should get the creative juices flowing, at least a little bit. Creating a coat of arms for a biographical figure – Chloe is likely going to pay homage to Thomas Edison or J.K. Rowling. I think I’m stuck helping her with that assignment. One out of two ain’t bad.
The Saucer Eyes
The girls hosted a tea party for us last evening. Replete with milk playing the role of tea, and Oreos filling in for scones. No matter that the teapot leaked. It was quite fun, especially since it was one of the only (if not the only) times the girls served us some food.
Everyone was in a happy mood after our treats so I figured it was high time I caught up on some photos. I was starting to run out of pictures for the blog. Sophie had fun making faces, one of which was this ‘deer in the headlights’ shot. Her eyes have never looked so large.
I Hope the Silliness Never Ends!
We expect silliness from Sophie. She’s only four. But Chloe, who turns 9 in a couple of weeks, is not likely to enjoy silliness for much longer. Her tolerance for ridiculousness is likely to wain within the next year or so. But luckily for us, Chloe still likes silly. Here, she can’t resist joining her sister for a few seconds of fun.
Sophie is Still Talking Dirty
“Penis! Penis! Penis!” That’s Sophie. At least once a day. Just because it sounds funny. Her poor Papa doesn’t know what to think. Every time she bursts out in penis shouts, he looks at her a little sheepishly. Not that sheepishly, mind you, because the French don’t get embarrassed that easily.
By the way, if you don’t see this post in a few days, it’s because weirdos surfing the web looking for x-rated stuff stumbled across this blog. We don’t want that (and believe it or not, it has happened before).
Our strategy right now is to let Sophie get the p-word out of her system. She might replace it with the female equivalent, but somehow I don’t think she’ll find it as amusing to pronounce over and over again. It just doesn’t have the same sing-song quality to it.