The Stiletto Mom » MR C

The One In Which I Make You Feel Better As A Parent

Mary Anne — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:12:08 +0000

It seems that while I was on my little blogcation, my blog decided to break itself. Or go on strike. I firmly believe the latter is true. Since coming back, I’ve been unable to upload a single picture and a blog post without nice colorful pictures? Well, that would mean you would just have to read my drivel with no visual breaks. Today, my blog is still broken so that means one thing for you….oodles and oodles of drivel.

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.

And Now A Break From Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Mary Anne — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:21:42 +0000

Yeah, yeah…Cowboys and Gunslingers…I’ll get to part two. Yesterday I got a little surprise.

Not a bad one, and not one that was unexpected…just…just…I wasn’t quite ready for this one.

Granted, I’ve had the unmitigated pleasure of having not had to face this line of questioning for far longer than I thought I would. We had a few near misses with this delicate issue, I’ve danced around it as best I could. But finally the statement I didn’t want to hear…

“Mom, there is no Santa Claus.”

OH. MY. GOD.

I was so not prepared for this though I should have been. Mr. C is ten years old, how we avoided this topic for so long astounds me. But there it was, and I had to deal with it. His very best friend shared this information with him yesterday. He had heard it before, but never from such a trusted source.

I remember when I started to question. I was about his age, maybe a little younger. My Santa wrapped the gifts, because in the 70′s, he had time to do that. (Why did he have more time then? Because he wasn’t on facebook or twitter all day, that’s why.) But one day, I was looking for a misplaced toy or something in my parents bedroom and I looked under the bed…only to discover the wrapping paper that Santa had used the year before, because obviously he wouldn’t have the same paper in the North Pole as the rest of the gifts under the tree in Texas, right?

Right.

So I walked out into the den with the wrapping paper in hand, lip quivering, thinking I had been lied to all these years about a jolly fat man sliding down the chimney and you know what my Mother said?

Nothing. Nothing at all. She refused to admit or deny the fact that he existed. She just sort of blinked a few times then wandered off, lit a cigarette, and poured herself a stiff drink. (Hey, it was the 70′s…) Finally after pressing her for weeks like a tiny Perry Mason and brandishing the suspect wrapping paper in her face, she came up with this gem: “To receive, you must believe.” And trust me when I tell you the look on her face let me know we were not to speak of this particular incident again.

So when my oldest child came to me yesterday and said that his best friend had told him that there was no Santa, and that in fact it was Mom and Dad who put the presents under the tree, I immediately morphed into my Mom (sans alcohol because sadly it’s not the 70′s anymore, and also, it was only 3:30) and said,

“To receive, you must believe…”

Sure, he has doubt in his mind much like I did so many years ago standing there with nothing but a roll of wrapping paper as evidence. I guess I want him to believe in the spirit of Santa still more than anything. I want him to understand that at times people will give you gifts for no other reason at all than you are a good and loving person and even sometimes when you don’t deserve them at all. These gifts can come in a varying array of fashions…compliments, hugs, friendships out of the blue or just a simple pat on the back. I’m not ready for him to let go of that thought. And I hope he never does. I never did.

Of course, the good stuff on Christmas morning doesn’t exactly suck either.

You say there is no Santa?

I say I don’t believe you.

The One Where My Son Sits In The Stanley Cup

Mary Anne — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:16:00 +0000

This is The Stanley Cup.

This is Mr. C sitting in The Stanley Cup.

The year was 1999…the Dallas Stars won The Stanley Cup in one of the longest final games in history. We had a bunch of friends over and I have no idea what time it was when the game ended…all I know is I was the only one left awake in the room and I whispered “GOAL!!!!!!” at the top of my weary lungs at which point a middle of the night party ensued.

When a team wins The Stanley Cup, each player is allowed to take the cup home or on some type of adventure for a day. I’ve heard stories of roller coasters, spaghetti feasts, all sorts of things. Brian Skrudland, who played for The Stars that year, lived two doors down and he was a total family man so he was all about bringing The Cup home. Such an amazingly nice guy, and I will always remember his little daughters swimming when it was 40 degrees outside because this whole Texas winter thing where we all sat around shivering? For them, not so much. The would literally laugh at us as they ran down the street to a friends house with a little pink towel wrapped around them. Canadians, I love ‘em.

A few weeks after the big win, were minding our own business one afternoon when he unleashed his three adorable girls on the street to tell everyone The Cup had arrived. None of us knew he was going to do this so it was pretty shocking to hear his little girls yelling, “The Cup is here! The Cup is here! Party at our house!!!!” We all ran outside to watch it being unloaded from it’s crate, complete with VERY. HEAVY. SECURITY.

Needless to say, yet another party broke out with everyone posing for pictures with The Cup. In the picture above, Mr. C was six months old and I’m going to go out on a limb to say he may never have a cooler moment in all of his sporting life. We took tons of pictures, many with me in them but if you think for one moment you are going to see a picture of me six months after having that fat baby? You….are insane.

After all the posing and cheering that went on, the men gathered to drink champagne from The Cup. That’s right…The Man has actually gotten a buzz drinking from the very Cup that about half the country is in a frenzy over right now. The party didn’t wrap up until the wee hours of the morning so when I tell you I’ve lost a lot of sleep over The Stanley Cup? I’m totally not kidding.

While The Stars rarely show up for this particular party anymore, I’m still a huge hockey fan and hope all of you that are following the final games are enjoying yourselves!

Two Headed Monster?

Mary Anne — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:52:51 +0000

Or sleeping angels?

You decide.

Grade School Math

Mary Anne — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:12:57 +0000

This…..

(Miss G’s Star Student of the Week poster)

Plus this….

(Mr. C’s Thanksgiving project where we had to help a turkey escape his untimely death by adopting a disguise…in this case, the freaking Easter Bunny)

Equals this…

…a lot of this.

Perfect Day

Mary Anne — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:39:24 +0000

My day today.

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...

Here’s The Guy You Should Vote For

Mary Anne — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:00:58 +0000

Today is the day that we go to the polls and history will be made one way or the other. All I can say is I’m tired of the politicians on both sides. Tired of the attack ads, tired of the reporting and tired of all the bashing. So tired, in fact that I’d like to suggest a third party on this last day of our election cycle as a write in candidate. He’s smart, he’s caring and most importantly he is truthful. Sure he is too young by 25 years but I figure if he gets enough votes we can deal with that small issue later.

Announcing my candidate for President, Mr. C, who I had the good fortune to sit with tonight for an election eve fireside chat where he shared with me his vision and his plans to shape this country of ours going forward.

TSM: Mr. C, tell TSM readers about your platform.
Mr. C: I fight for freedom, equal rights, lower taxes and that’s about it.

TSM: How will you handle global warming?
Mr. C: I plan to design a way to make sure that smokestacks and pollution are a thing of the past. I want it to all stop right now. I say that the ice caps melting is very bad because it is making less and less space for penguins, polar bears and seals to have homes and that is just as important as us having homes.

TSM: What types of sustainable energy sources are you in favor of?
Mr. C: I am working forward so that we can have solar and wind powered cars and that kind of energy. I say fuels we could use would be non fossil fuels and work towards fuels like water and stuff.

TSM: How would you control America’s increasing dependence on foreign oil?
Mr. C: I say we need to cut the foreign oil because we have oil and we should have the right to use it instead of buying it from other countries. We could plunge us into an economic crisis by using too much foreign oil and by not having enough money to be the country we need to be.

TSM: How would you support small business?
Mr. C: Small business owners are just the same as big business and they deserve to be just treated equally. Because both are business owners and the only difference is how big the business is.

TSM: What would you do to control spending?
Mr. C: I say we need to cut certain prices because taxes are already high enough and we don’t need to pay even more just for the regular prices.

TSM: What is your position on the Atom Fusion debate?
Mr. C: Who’s Adam?

TSM: How do you plan to unite the country?
Mr. C: I plan to unite the country by saying that all states are exactly the same. Technically, it’s all one chunk of land, just there are borders and stuff.

TSM: Wait, we are talking about uniting the people of our country, how would you do that?
Mr. C: Uniting the people is part of my platform. Equal rights are deserved for every single person in America, not just for a certain part.

TSM: Along those same lines, how would you heal the battle scars of those who feel very passionately about one candidate or the other?
Mr. C: What does that mean?

TSM: Ok, some people like Obama, some people like McCain…how do you make them get along after all this is over?
Mr. C: I say that this is an equal race and you don’t have to go around saying “oh I like my guy better than your guy”. You just have to wait and see who the president is and if you don’t like him, just get over it and wait for another four years an then you can decide then.

TSM: Finish this statement for me “If kids ran the country….”
Mr. C: …the country would be in a more stable state because kids get along much better than adults because you don’t see kids killing eachother. And kids can understand politics too, you don’t have to be an adult to understand it. So if kids ran the country the country might be in a better economical state because kids would definitely make sure that everything would be preserved that they need. Kids really understand animals and kids know about a lot of stuff too. Kids kind of know more about stuff than the politicians do now.

TSM: Describe for me your perfect running mate
Mr. C: My perfect running mate is a person who is strong hearted and not afraid to admit what he likes and very smart and friendly.

TSM: But what if he’s a she?
Mr. C: Doesn’t matter if it’s a she as long as they are strong hearted and can go out and get something that they really think should happen. If they want something they should go out and get it and that’s all I want in a running mate.

TSM: If you could change one thing in America today what would it be?
Mr. C: The economic crisis.

TSM: Oh please, stop being such a politico.
Mr. C: I say that kids deserve a longer time to break at recess because doing that gives them more time to get connected and recess helps them do better in school by getting all the stress off.

So there you have it. If you are doing a little last minute soul searching on this election day or if you are just downright undecided still, I urge you to consider writing in Mr. C as your choice for the next President of the United States of America. He will do right by you, I swear it….or I’ll take his video games away for a month.

Please note that these opinions are soley those of Mr. C and were transcribed verbatim…he is just that smart.

This post was written as part of the the ever brilliant Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper. Go check her out and read what other bloggers are thinking this election day!

Happy Halloween!

Mary Anne — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:05:14 +0000

Last night marked the official start to the Halloween weekend in the Stiletto house and that can only mean one thing…time to carve the pumpkins! The kids carefully selected the designs they wanted and then we went to work. And by we, I mean me and The Man because beyond picking the designs the kids didn’t really want much to do with it unless it involved very sharp tools which we generally find to be a bad idea. We were able to momentarily enlist the talents of Miss G who really enjoyed digging the guts out…

…and there are no pictures of Mr. C because he was more interested in watching Total Drama Island and popping in and out ocassionally to supervise myself and The Man.

Almost two hours later with sore arms and covered in pumpkin guts “the kids” had finished their pumpkins.

Not bad, huh? And it was all worth it too, because now I am a hanging with the cool kids over at Sprite’s Keeper in her weekly Spin Cycle. Happy Halloween you guys…hope it is a safe and happy one with lots of treats and not too many tricks!

Show Me The Money!!!

Mary Anne — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:59:14 +0000

So putting Mr. C to bed tonight, he laid out his career path for me.

Mr. C: You know that song I wrote for your birthday?
Me: Yes.
Mr. C: I’m going to record it and make millions!
Me: That’s great, what will you do with all that money?
Mr. C: What do you think I should do?
Me: Buy me a yacht and fund my early retirement.
Mr. C: Wrong. I’m going to use the money to write another song, record it, AND get the copywright on it so I can make EVEN MORE MILLIONS. What should I do with the money then?
Me: Buy me a yacht and fund my early retirement.
Mr. C: Wrong. Mom, you need to think this through.
Me: How so? What’s wrong with buying your mother a yacht and funding her early retirement?
Mr. C: You have to think about the future.
Me: Well, I am, hence the future early retirement upon my yacht.
Mr. C: No, think long term investments and smart buys.
Me: Okay, I’ll bite, like what?
Mr. C: Well, you want to save some for sure…but…you also want to buy things that will be valuable in the future.
Me: A yacht would be valuable.
Mr. C: Ok, Mom, you are so not getting a yacht.
Me: Ok, so what is valuable in the future and why?
Mr. C: (Thinking….) Well, Mom, video games so my kids can see what my life was like when I was a kid, that’s value right there.
Me: Sigh….

* The picture above is of Mr. C at about 6 months in 1998 when we were rolling large in the stock market. He is lucky now if we throw pennies at him. Also? One day I will be smart enough to figure out how to put this in PhotoShop with a cute comment…I am not that smart and today is just not the day.

Looking For Volunteers To Hit Me In The Head With A Shovel…Line Forms To The Left

Mary Anne — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:11:10 +0000

Today? Hideous. Horrible. Awful. But enough about my hair.

I seriously have had one of the most crushing days in advertising I have had in 20 years. My entire Q4 just fell right out from underneath me. For Christmas, the children will now be receiving one Nutri Grain bar each and possibly should the situation turn, an eraser. But only if it gets a lot better.

But in true fashion, no pity party for me as the shit storm also hit Mr. C as well. He got off the bus with a litany of complaints.

Mr C’s List:
1.) Only got five minutes of recess and was therefore unable to “de-stress”. (his words, not mine). And yes, fourth grade can be a kick in the ass. This happened because:
*He had to spend 5 minutes in study hall for not doing his work because he was talking.
*He had to walk around the “thinking track” 5 times because they ran out of time to punish him yesterday for talking too much. (See a pattern developing?)

2) Only got 10 minutes of time at lunch to eat due to massive overcrowding problem. (Again his words) I’m picturing the line looking something like this:

(…and no, these aren’t my kids, nor are they your kids, they are Internet kids meaning I found them on google. I just love the WTF look going on with the two little girls…apparently they found out the cafeteria ran out of chocolate milk just like Mr. C did today. Or….they are afraid of what they are serving….sort of a crap shoot which one, but I’m leaning towards number two after looking at the food on the trays. I would be concerned as well. That mound with the brown stuff on it? I don’t think I want to know.)

3) Assigned seats at lunch due to above referenced over crowding problem and resulting mob mentality (translation, can’t keep hands to self and unable to stop yammering incessantly.)
4) Best friend made fun of his book cover because it had skulls AND ROSES on it. Authors note: Do not find best friends critique off base…what WAS The Man thinking when he bought that?
5) Got in trouble because everyone was talking to him and he kept answering them. Hey, he’s just being considerate. Important to note here that other children did not also get in trouble for talking. Was he talking to the little voices in his head caused by stress and massive overcrowding resulting in mob mentality? Possibly. (Again with the pattern that I see but he does not.)
6) Foot Pain.

Tomorrow may involve duct tape on his mouth and a podiatrist….just sayin’.