Sorry.

So since I can’t share any shiny pictures with you, I’d thought I’d share some of my parenting tips for summer so that you can feel better about yourself as a parent. You may thank me later…or take me off your reader, your call.

Summer always starts with the best of intentions. We will get the children out of bed at a reasonable hour, we will take them to do one fun thing each day, we will work to ensure numerous playdates and above all, we will encourage them to partake in the endless bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables available this time of year. It’s nice to dream. Below is a list of what summer really turns out like around here:

• Starting off with that “endless bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables” nonsense….we think it’s a great idea.    The children, however, would beg to differ.   The only fruit they are eating is strawberries and the occasional watermellon.    Miss G will happily snarf down cantelope if I can muster up the energy to cut it into just the right size bites but will think twice after her brother pronounces it “slimy”, “gross” and “weird colored”.   (Did I mention he is color blind?    We call it orange, he calls it a shade of “blech”.)
• Bathing is optional.    Days can go by without these children meeting a bar of soap.   We know we’ve let them ripen past their due date when they begin to smell slightly like stale corn chips.    Then it’s a one hour negotiation session to get both of them to shower and wash their hair.
• The pool counts as a bath.   But only before they smell like corn chips so like days 1 and 2 of not bathing.    And sometimes day 3.   But never 4 because that would make me a bad mother.   Oh wait.
• Prior to summer, the bottom half of our house is all mine.   Things must be neat and tidy, crumbs from cookies, pretzels and pop tarts are not allowed in my area.   Neither are sadly deflated juice packs.   In summer, you could forage for a week in our den and manage to gain weight eating the leftover bits left on the floors, thirst would not be a problem either because there is absolutely no reason to drink all the juice in the Capri Sun package even if your Mother reminds you that there are children who would love to have a luxury like a cold juice.
• Regarding above guilt trip, it doesn’t work in the summer.     Or any other time of the year for that matter.
• Bedtime?  What bedtime?    At some point, The Man and I are laying half dead on the floor covered in cookie crumbs and exhausted from trying to force them to eat when they finally migrate upstairs….which I might add is neater than downstairs now.    (Trust me, the visual is frightening….)     It’s never before 9:30 or so which leads me to my next point.
• Early to bed and early to rise.    We’ve covered off on the early to bed thing, let’s talk about mornings.   Or mid mornings.   Or whenever they manage to migrate back down to the bottom of the house, smelling of corn chips with dragon breath and demanding a sugar coated breakfast.    Shortly after breakfast, the sugar crash sets in and mayhem erupts right outside my office door and usually when I am on the phone with a client.
• We have a general rule in this house that after you whine eleventy million times, “I’m booooored” all fun is immediately halted.   I’m happy to announce that they reached their limit on week two of summer break and we are now officially giving the finger to any form of entertainment that might present itself.    We may revisit this again in a week or so.

So there you have it, a partial list of my summer parenting skills.   Now…go give yourself a pat on the back,  print out this post and use it as a threat against your children should they start to act up.    I promise you they will straighten up at the thought of going to live with  Aunty Stiletto for a week or so.

You’re welcome.

You decide.

Got up to gorgeous Texas weather….blue skies, 70 degrees.

Took the kids for a walk on the nature trail around our neighborhood. After a few minutes of fighting, they were able to agree on a name for it, The Amazing Full Moon Forest. I almost burst with pride, the words “stupid” and “Jeez” were only used once or twice. And we were off…

There were trees to climb…

And sticks to find….

Oddly enough, this particular time the sticks were not used as weapons of destruction between Mr. C and Miss G…they were used to make “leaf snow”. One stick bearing child would hit the branch of a tree of his or her choice while the other one stood under it and leaves fell all around them giggling with delight.

After an hour or so, it was time to head home….

Whatever is in the Amazing Full Moon Forest needs to be bottled up and sold in the open market because I have never seen two such well behaved children. And especially not mine...

I got to school on picture day and after enduring an awful lot of laughter over my stylish dress green polyester frock, I looked around and realized all the “popular girls” had bangs while I did not. My mom prided herself on not having given in to cutting my bangs despite my begging her…I had long wavy brown hair that she could do all sorts of things with to make me look even more like a middle aged 70′s housewife. (And not that there is anything wrong with housewives, but honestly, do any of you want to look like your Mom did then? Hip and cool were so not in vogue then in middle America…)

Well, I showed her a thing or two. Everyone, please meet Stiletto Mini, the 6 year old version of The Stiletto Mom.

See those crooked bangs? Yep, those were clipped by yours truly in Sister Mary Catherine Francis Angelica Margaret Elizabeth Anne Catherine’s (bc you can’t have too many Catherine’s) class with a pair of little kid safety scissors. Look at that uneven line…but more importantly, look at that evil gleam in my eyes. VICTORY! I may be dressed all wrong but man…I showed her….I totally jacked my hair 5 mintutes before pictures…take that! Also? While it looks like I have a missing tooth? I don’t…it’s a SPIT GAP. Ok, so let’s put all this together, chubby kid, dressed like a 1970′s polyester wearing forty year old, uncool hair plus spit gap equals??? You got it, six year old meltdown with safety scissors. Granted, it could look worse but there was a good four minutes spent trying to make them appear even for the picture with tremendous amounts of nun spit and I believe Elmer’s Glue…though I can’t be sure.

When my Mom came to pick me up that day, the nun stoically marched me out to the car and handed me over to my horrified Mother. I’m not sure, but I think they could hear her scream all the way up in Oklahoma, “OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what did I say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

So when Oklahoma heard these very words come out of my mouth some 37 years later this weekend, they should not have been suprised. None of this should be a shock to me either because Miss G is a carbon copy of me. (Wanna know what she looks like? The picture above, with blonde hair….evil gleam in eye is the same)

Keeping in mind tht Miss G’s circumstances are totally different…she has a the tiniest bit of a spit gap, is very fit, wears super cool clothes and is generally popular, the thing I learned this weekend is bad hair happens to all of us.

Apparently, it went down like this. She had a headband and put it in her hair. Her hair, however, did not want to cooperate and would not form the perfect swoopy on her forehead. So doing what any logical 6 year old girl birthed by me would do…she got out the scissors and went to town. While she did not create the full bangs like I did, she managed to take a huge chunk of hair out of the middle of her face and elected not to tell me but to tuck it into the headband (you know, because I’d never figure it out right?)

Well I did figure it out. While I was on the phone with my cousin (who knew my mother all too well) all of a sudden Oklahoma heard from a crazed Catholic Mom from Texas one more time…“OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what she say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

Well, of course you did. And now, Miss G, you have bangs just like Mommy did in first grade. You enjoy growing those out honey.

Last night, Miss G ran out to show us that she had literally ripped a toof out of her mouth. Blood gushing everywhere, she was so proud, bless her. Mind you, this is not the first toof, it is the third but this one proved to be especially difficult in it’s desire to stay in the mouth of the Princess forever. As she jumped up and down exclaiming, “My toof! My toof!” it was all I could do not to gag at the bloody rag hanging out of her mouth. I’m a bit of a wuss, I admit. The Man and I talked to her about how she should be so excited that the tooth fairy was soon going to make her RICH! Miss G listened very closely and agreed to leave the toof in a place that would make it easy for the magical Tooth Fairy to get in and out and leave her wad of cash as she is ever so busy with so many teef to get to.

Yeah well, Miss G is a tricky little princess. She decided to hide the toof and see if the Tooth Fairy could find it. Miss G also demanded to sleep in our room which ruined our Saturday night and added a new level of difficulty to our toof fairy operation.

The Man and I go to bed after several glasses (a bottle) of wine. A few minutes into those wonderful moments between sleep and consciousness I hear some massive fumbling going on on his side of the room. The Man is looking for the toof and it ain’t nowhere to be found. Typical. We’ve been duped again by a little blondie with green eyes and freckles. The Man searches and searches, no toof. Still a promise is a promise and said Tooth Fairy leaves five bucks.

First thing in the morning, Miss G gets up and promptly begins her search for the loot. She and The Man come running into my office where I was stalking surfing my favorite blogs, and The Man is looking slightly alarmed. We still believe in Santa Clause in our house, and the notion of a giant bunny leaving eggs throughout our house is not only accepted but embraced. We don’t need the Tooth Fairy jacking up our well constructed fantasy life with our kids. However, there it is, in all it’s glory…a grocery list in my writing attached to the five bucks. How it got there, I do not know. All I know is I quickly had to explain to Miss G that the Tooth Fairy must be really busy and she must have been the last stop on the list before her trip to the grocery store to purchase such staples as sliced turkey, swiss cheese, health nut bread, avocado, red onion and tomato. Sounds to me like the Tooth Fairy wanted her some California Club Sammies! There really is no explanation for the Dog Food as we all know the Tooth Fairy is to busy to care for a canine, right? Thank God, she cannot read my writing for this was the one answer I was not prepared to give.

After much interrogation as to where the toof was, Miss G admitted to hiding it in her blanket. She was still giving us the evil eye, we think she may be on to us and our little scheme where fat men fit through the chimneys, bunnies have opposable thumbs that can carry baskets and some winged female creature collects teeth and does God Knows What with them.

The good news is, The Man is a sneaky one and was able to distract her with some well placed sugary breakfast treats buying him the needed time to find the toof. Score one for the Tooth Fairy who lives to collect bloody toofus stumps another day!

In an effort to save my sanity and that of The Man, I entered into extensive negotiations with Miss G and am now leaving to take her shopping for a new outfit but only if she takes the questions down to 1,622 an hour.

There is a family of five sitting next to me and they are SCREAMING at each other. It seems to have started with the (I’m guessing) 14 year olds inability to hold chop sticks correctly. After general mocking and belittling, it has spiraled into a discussion on some errant behavior on his part on vacation. Apparently he didn’t like being woken up at noon on vacation and forced to eat. (I can’t blame him) The mother actually said (screamed) “Here’s the deal, if we go to a restaurant and you don’t like it….STARVE.” The other two kids, a boy and a girl who look to be maybe 7 or 8, are looking down at their plates with concern on their faces. I am a little concerned for them to be honest. The discussion/negotiation has moved on to where to vacation next year. The son of course has some suggestion, which was ignored and the Dad says “SCREW THAT….WE ARE GOING TO EUROPE!” Quick, somebody call Europe and warn them. But not the French, because they deserve this family.

The fourteen year old though, really needs some coaching on his negotiation skills as he is now in a very loud voice demanding a laptop for his birthday. Mom and Dad are not buying off on this, not even a little bit, and the boy has now shifted his demands to the laptop OR THE CASH EQUIVALENT. I’m starting to see why his parents want to starve him.

They are moving on to the hard stuff now. Apparently the 14 year old took something from them that he promised to pay for yet has not so far. Threats of prison and jail are now being tossed about, and while the little girl seems really upset by this thought, the little brother is all “Also, he took my DS the other day….”

Sadly, it’s time for me to shut down and go collect Miss G. I am truly sorry I’m not going to see the portion of the programming where one of the family members (and it’s a crap shoot who willd draw first blood at this point) stabs the other one with a fork. I’m just really glad that in my family, because we are perfect you know, when we have our knock down drag outs…threats of children going to prison fights…it stays within the walls of our home. Sure it gets so loud sometimes that passing joggers look startled but then again, they sure aren’t carrying a computer and reporting on it blow by blow like I am. Pick your fights…and more importantly pick the place to have your fights…and never do it next to a girl with a laptop and nothing but time on her hands.

Miss G, however, tends to be difficult at every turn. Unless it is Mac and Cheese or Chicken Nuggets, it really need not apply. I am not going to go into what happened last week when I dared to serve a simple baked ziti because, quite frankly, I just don’t have the strength to revisit it. Here’s how it usually goes….dinner is on the table…five minutes later, we manage to convince her through a series of threats to join us. She does, for a moment and then needs to go to the “bafroom”. Comes back, sits down, picks at food and realizes whatever doll she is wanting to dine with that evening is not present. She must go get her friend, lest they feel left out. Sits back down for a moment and toys with our emotions by picking at her food. At that point, it’s time for the talent show portion of our meal which involves either a quick cheer or a dance routine. Lucky for us, we get this for free, some people pay for dinner theatre.

We’d pay not to have it.

Yelled at again, and now becoming annoyed at us for not appreciating her amazing dinner time talent, sits down, looks hard at food, and proclaims it “DISGUSTING”. This is the point where the threats of no desert start to kick in. She argues, she insists she needs another beverage, she puts a bite in her mouth and cries and the poisonous gruel we have put in front of her begins to take effect. The Man has always lost it at this point and demands she finishes eating. The crying begins in earnest at this point at which both of her parents turn against her. At some point, she will run screaming from the table to swear she does not want to eat another thing all night and we clear the table in our attempts not to create an early onset food issue of some sort. Jokes on us though as 20 minutes later when we are not looking she sneaks upstairs with one of the following: A baggie full of Goldfish, several packages of Cheetos or….if we are really lucky….a tub of chocolate Blue Bell ice cream that we find the next day after it has tuned into chocolate soup.

Now, I have to say here, had I ever acted like this once, just once, at dinner, my mother would have quietly put down the cigarette she was smoking to enhance the flavor of the food and without batting an eye sent me sailing halfway across the room. She was just that good and I was scared shitless of her.

We obviously don’t employ the same tactics, what with the whole CPS system and all, and tonight went about our usual dinner time exercise in futility. We served the ever offensive taco and quesadilla dinner and she wasn’t having any of it. Sophie, the doll joined us, (face down on the table, ass out…really not appropriate at all) then she tried to hang her Disney iPod on her Dad’s head, and before the dancing portion of the dinner could commence, Daddy called a halt to the entire thing and ended the show before the closing credits could roll. Miss G was escorted to another room, reprimanded and told not only would we lock the pantry to avoid the late night raid, no cartoons…and….she would have to go to her room and quietly read a book instead. The screams were primal and loud, and endless. I’m a little shocked the neighbors didn’t come next door to see if we were doing some type of human sacrifice, and if they could partake in it. In the end, with a whimper and a sigh, she went to her room with a book about counting bunnies and I found her there 10 minutes later quietly reading it…with her swim goggles on.

At least know I now what it takes to get her to read a book on her own.