The Negligent Mommy

In which I wonder how Mormons and Baptists manage bedtime.

Because I swear, there are nights when a nice glass of pinot grigio seems like the only alternative to beating my children senseless.

In which we pretend it hasn't been months since I blogged.

You know your kids have been bad when the waitress gives you a sympathetic smile on the way out of the restaurant and says, "Good luck."

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch Chuck

See that picture?  Do you know what it is?  A toy-infested corner of a typical suburban living room, natch.

Do you know what it is not?

A corner of a typical suburban living room adorned with a Christmas tree.

Because evidently, somebody around here thinks that having the Christmas tree up for a whole 24 hours after Christmas day is really too much holiday cheer.

Bah, humbug. 

And.... we're back!

Sorry for the unscheduled hiatus, folks.  There was lots going on (primarily the ending of my 13-year stint with Judge Wilkins), but nothing I felt like blogging about. I just felt like being quiet for a while.  It happens.

I am also crushed by the loss of my digital camera, which seems to be well and truly FUBAR.  I tried to wheedle a new one out of hubby before our vacation, but he just muttered some irrelevant stuff about the cost of said vacation and me being unemployed for two weeks.  I totally do not see the connection.

So anyway, I'll attempt to blog without a camera, which is like, sooooo early 00s.  I have the most gorgeous tomatoes EVER growing in my garden.  Just picture them in your mind.  Or maybe, as my brother suggested, I could do a charcoal drawing on slate.  Except I don't have a scanner.

Ditto for the cukes, and for my zinnias, which are freaking GORGEOUS.

You see where this is going, don't you?  Right--pictures by the end of the week.

********

I bet you can't guess what I was doing last night at 11:30.  I was removing a shred of koosh ball from the interior of a glow-in-the-dark Hot Wheels car.

Don't you wish you had my life?

Charlotte's WTF

Andy's first grade teacher, Ms. B, rocks it hard.  First off, she's cute as a button--curly black hair, porcelain skin, apple cheeks.  Cute, cute, cute.  Even better, she's a great teacher, and she is all about the parent-teacher communication.  She is all that and a bag of chips.

So it's really too bad that I totally hate her guts.

Lemme 'splain.  Ms. B employs the "jewel jar" as one of her cat-herding discipline techniques.  Fill it up, get a party.  The kids love it.  So Andy tells me on Tuesday afternoon that they have filled the jar and are having a party on Friday.  "We're going to watch Charlotte's Web." 

"That's great, honey."

"And have farm snacks."

"Oh, really?  What is a 'farm snack'?" And am I required to provide one?

"I don't know.  And we're supposed to wear costumes!"

Watch it, Kir, your child does not need to learn a new expletive today. "Costumes?"

"Yeah!  I want to be a spider, like Charlotte!"

So I pull out the cheerful little note from Ms. B, and yes indeedy, there are supposed to be "farm snacks" and costumes.  On Friday.  But Ms. B says not to stress out about it.

Okay.  Telling a Type-A person with a working-mother guilt complex not to stress out is akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull in a china shop.  Or something.  It would have been much better if she had written, You know what?  This really, really matters.  If you screw this up, your kid will be a social outcast, will require thousands of dollars worth of therapy, and will not get into Harvard.  Because then I could be all, "Well, hell.  The first two are pretty much inevitable anyway, and what's so great about Harvard?  Here's a bandana, kid. You're a farm hand."

But no.  I am enjoined not to stress, which means I am required to actually come up with something cool.

So here you go, one spider costume.  Harvard recruiters, just pop me an email, I'm available all weekend:

Black pants, black t-shirt, black socks stuffed and sewn to said t-shirt.  Andy loves it.

Oh, and I delegated "farm snack" to the husband. 

Because they grown corn on farms.

SOTU Summary

Just in case you missed it last night, here's what I heard....

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, remember that speech a week or two ago, where I kind of said I was thinking about turning Iran into a parking lot?  I'm totally going to do it.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Really, I mean it, I'm going to turn Iran into a parking lot.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, PARKING LOT.

Lovely.

Wednesday Newsdesk

Oh, I'm sorry.  Did you come here for knitting?  There is no knitting today.  The crazy busy lady might have knitting on Friday, since Grey's Anatomy is on Thursday.  You'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, a new item here on Res Ipsa.... the newsdesk.

1.  "Hi, Kettle?  This is Pot.  You're black."

2.  Just because you got into Harvard Law doesn't mean you're not an idiot.

3.  Prior to yesterday at about 2:00, I had no idea who T*u*cker C*a*rlson was.  Now I do, and I think he's kind of a jerk.  Enough so that I put the asterisks in his name to avoid him finding me next time he Googles himself.

I'm serious about that.  I was composing this post in my head last night while cleaning the kitchen, and I started to think about what might happen if he-who-shall-not-be-spelled-out should come across it, and the mental picture that arose was really not pretty.  I mean, I'm on safe legal ground and all that (public figure, my own opinion, blah blah blah), but the guy still kind of scares the crap out of me.

Seriously, though, T*u*cker, if you do come across this, no hard feelings.  Come to Greenville and I'll buy you a beer.  Heck, you can have my husband's car.