Category Archives: Treasures from the Archives

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Oh My God!

Leave a comment


No, that exclamation is not because my girls did something amazingly incredible or amazingly stupid. No, those words came directly from Sophie’s mouth.

It’s her most recent favorite saying, whenever she makes a new discovery or sees something that bothers her. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Over and over and over. Pretty soon she’ll be sending herself text messages: OMG! OMG! Over and over and over. But for now, she’s limited to expressing herself out loud.

Sophie wore a skirt for the first time in months the other day. She was very proud of her new look – and asked to view herself in the mirror. When she saw her image, she smiled. Broadly. Gleefully.

I guess the skirt thing goes hand in hand with the Barbie obsession I wrote about the other day. Come to think of it, however, she hasn’t asked to play with them since Saturday, so maybe the fad is on the decline. One can only hope.

In the meantime, my big girl is wearing lip gloss every chance she can (while hoping I won’t notice), and my little one outfits herself in sunglasses and skirts, and proclaims her favorite color is pink. Oh my God.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Oh, the Horror!

Leave a comment

Sophie has discovered Chloe’s old Barbie dolls. It’s appalling. But I’m going to keep as calm about it as I can. If all goes well, Sophie will know (and will be repeating to others) that I don’t approve of that ridiculous doll. But for now, I’m cool.

She wanted to play “dolls” earlier. That’s her newest thing – to play dolls. Where she got that from, I have no idea. Perhaps from Monday visits with her friends at her babysitter’s house. I’ll have to find out if the other little girls talk about playing dolls. It’s certainly not from Chloe.

I tried to keep the Barbie episode lighthearted – the Ken and two Barbies danced and shook their booties to a silly made-up song. But inside, I was a wreck. She’s a girly girl. Her favorite color is pink. She has taken to looking at herself in the mirror when she’s wearing a skirt, admiring herself and exclaiming, “I’m beautiful.”

Have to give her credit – she’s developing a good self-image. And it certainly is endearing when she says, “Look in miwah…I’m bootiful.” But Barbie? I’m thinking it might be time to inaugurate the fireplace. It’s a little late in the season, but I’d wager that Barbies make great kindling.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

The Toilet

Leave a comment

Sophie is getting better and better using the toilet. In fact, she’s dry most of the day now. And she tells us in advance when she needs to go.

Chloe was less interested in making the potty her friend. She was well over three years old before she started to get comfortable with it. And yet, for all their differences, Sophie has a lot in common with her sister when it comes to the toilet.

When Sophie sits on the throne she likes to get naked. That’s odd in of itself, except that what’s stranger is that a few years ago, Chloe used to do the same thing. It must be in the genes (not my genes, but maybe their Papa’s).

Sophie also likes to spend an inordinate amount of time on the toilet. Waiting and waiting. Even after she’s already done her business. She stays glued to the seat, while we’re twiddling our thumbs waiting to be able to wipe her butt.

She’s wearing real underwear (Dora the Explorer, of course) over her training diapers now. She will be completely trained in time for the pool club this summer – I know it. I just hope we don’t spend the summer in the pool club’s bathroom…

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

A Whale of a Time

Leave a comment

These muscle shirt photos crack me up. The girls look so funny in them.

Anyway, Chloe and Sophie made their daily pilgrimage to visit our babysitter in the attic after dinner (our babysitter sleeps over a couple of times a week). They do this every night she’s here – and they proceed to spend time running around the room, jumping on the bed, pretending to fly (not such a great thing to encourage in Sophie’s case, since I don’t think she really understands that people can’t fly. We wouldn’t want her to test it out from a perch that’s taller than she is) and having pillow fights.

But they were having so much fun tonight – they were euphoric, really. Simple play, simple fun. Care free and happy.

And Sophie is a really good jumper. We have a little ottoman in the attic, and she jumped off of it and landed on her two feet every time. Chloe never did things like that when she was Sophie’s age. Sophie is much more of a risk-taker than her big sister, who has always been cautious. It’s a first-born thing, I think.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Silly Geese

Leave a comment

These are my silly geese. My father used to call me “silly goose” all the time, and now my girls are the silly birds.

This is a photo of Chloe and Sophie being particularly silly. Shaking their booties, and dancing on the coffee table to music playing solely in their heads.

They were also playing “ghost” that evening. It’s a new game, a variation of running around the house. Papa has to participate because he’s the ghost. He puts a blanket over his head and chases after them. If I watch them too intently, especially Sophie, who is like a whirling dervish, I get dizzy.

Sophie apparently has a beau. He’s a bit older than she is, but they had a date at the park today. According to our babysitter, it went very well. They hit it off so well, in fact, that the chaperones accompanied them to McDonald’s for lunch. Sophie enjoyed sharing her chicken nuggets with him. It sounds like they’ll be seeing more of each other. I think we’ll meeting his parents soon.

And as a coda to the Webkinz scam story of the other day, the assistant principal at Chloe’s school spoke to the girl’s father, who promised to mete out punishment. In the meantime, the girl freely admitted what she had done, and apparently saw nothing wrong with it. She simply needed to replenish her Webkinz dollars and was obviously too lazy to play Webkinz games to earn her own money.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Muscle Shirts

Leave a comment

Sophie struck the perfect pose in this photo – the “muscle shirt” pose. They’re both wearing new pajamas – and had I known they looked like that, I might not have bought them.

And by the way, I did not instruct Sophie to pose in that manner. She thought of it all by herself.

When I saw her do that, the Village People immediately came to mind. Except her arms aren’t as toned as theirs were.

She had her biannual checkup the other day and she’s doing well. Needs to eat more iron-rich foods – spinach, anyone? – and gained a little more weight than she should have, but otherwise she’s perfect. We’ve put her on a diet. Just kidding. But we are watching her daily intake a little more closely. She’s much more active than Chloe was at her age, so I’m not too concerned. But still, we do want to be careful.

When we told the doctor we weren’t planning to start her in nursery school in the fall, the doctor (whom we adore) could barely contain her disappointment. “She’ll be three, you know. It’s important for her to start socializing…” We didn’t tell her that we weren’t ready to spend money both on a babysitter (which we’d still need pretty much all day) plus preschool – even if it were part-time. Sophie is getting plenty of stimulation when she spends time with her little girlfriends at our babysitter’s house on Mondays. And God knows, she’s getting more than enough stimulation from Chloe. And from TV (but we won’t mention that).

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

The Things We Do For Love

1 Comment

Tomorrow morning, I will have the pleasure of waking up at about 6:45 AM in order to prepare myself to go register Chloe for summer camp. My neighbor, also a dedicated mother, is joining me to register her son as well. We are leaving at 7:30 AM.

It’s a YMCA day camp, and if you don’t register on the one day of their open registration, you’re basically screwed. With a bit of luck, we get there early enough to avoid the huge line, and we’ll be in and out quickly. And our dear children will have marvelous, enriching summers. Because, god forbid, if we don’t provide them with entertaining, unforgettable summers, our kids will end up in therapy for the rest of their lives.

Truthfully, the number of camp options is overwhelming. There are fancy-schmancy day camps that cost upwards of $5K, there are reasonably priced Y camps, there are the camps run by the town and the public schools. There’s the local art museum day camp, there are dancing and acting camps. There are enough local camps that if we lived in a warmer climate, and we didn’t care about whether Chloe attended school, she could go to a different camp every week of the year.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

The Invasion of the Chloe Monster

Leave a comment


Chloe invaded our marital bed last night. At about 3 AM. And woke us up. Except my husband fell right back asleep and I, of course, did not.

She sprawled out between us. And between the constant squirming, and the noise of her mouth sucking on her thumb, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was extremely frustrated, as you can imagine. I had been fast asleep. It was pleasant.

After a 1/2 hour of doing my best to refrain from kicking her – intentionally – I threw off the covers and got up to leave to sleep elsewhere. Chloe sensed I was getting up, and kindly invited me to sleep in her bed. Gee, thanks. Why are you sleeping in your bed, I wanted to yell.

But I’m the mommy, and I can’t kick my lovely offspring – intentionally – and I can’t yell. So I moped out of MY bedroom at 3:30 AM, and into her cold bed (her room is always a few degrees cooler than ours). I still couldn’t fall asleep, so I read a little. Until 4 AM or so.

Little miss princess Chloe slept cozily in our bed until 7:15 AM and woke up happy and rested. I had dark circles under my eyes. The joys of parenting.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Spelling Bee

Leave a comment

Chloe has her first-ever spelling bee on Friday. She’s supposed to study the spelling words she’s accumulated in class over the last few months, and we started our preparations this evening. She spelled word after word after word. And in a tribute to the movie “Akeelah and the Bee,” which we watched together a couple of weeks ago, we stuck to the most difficult words from her lists.

But she was more interested in singing the spelling than actually spelling the words correctly. So she spent most of her time misspelling and then respelling. But she had fun, and I did a good job of maintaining a calm demeanor (the spelling coaching does get kind of boring after a few minutes, but I will admit to enjoying that more than some of her arts & crafts projects).

In the meantime, we’re making good progress with Matilda by Roald Dahl. We haven’t laughed out loud as much as we did the first time, but we’re enjoying it a whole lot. The downside is that Matilda’s precocious reading hasn’t really inspired Chloe to read much on her own, but that will come with time. I just know it will.

Frazzled Working Mom's Fleeting Moments (2007-2013)

Ode to the Baby Bottle

Leave a comment

Could it really be true?
A plethora of bottles, green, purple and blue.
They’ve been a part of our lives since 2001
But since March 29, 2008 we are finally done.

Sophie has spent the last three nights

Reading books instead of setting her sights
On her bottle. The going has been a little tough,
but tonight was the first night she seemed to say “enough.”

There were no tears, she went to her crib with a smile.

And I think we can finally donate the bottles to the recycling pile.
They served Chloe and Sophie well, for seven long years,
But it’s time to say Au revoir, Auf wiedersehen, Good riddance and Cheers!