Girl Dad

My three-days-late-pseudo Father's Day post.  Both of our children are girls and for some reason I'm pretty damn sure if we decide to pull the trigger on a third, it will be a girl too.  Before my oldest was born, I had a dream that all of our children would be the same gender.  The first one came out girl-flavored so Team Pink it is!  Although my husband deals with a lot of comments from people assuming he wants some boys, he is just about the best "girl" dad out there. 

He knows how to take care of the girls' hair and can make a pretty respectable range of hairstyles.  Better yet, he lets the girls take a comb, brush and spray bottle and "do" his hair during those harrowing last ten minutes before dinner is ready and everyone is starving.  (It does not matter what time dinner will be ready, everyone is gnaw-an-arm-off-hungry ten minutes before I finish.)  Speaking of hair, he willingly rotor-rooters all of the girl hair out of our shower drains.  Of course "willingly" doesn't mean he doesn't make comments or take pictures and send them to me, but he does it.  He wears hats to their tea parties.  He loves princesses and pirates, gardeners and glitterers.  He tells them they are beautiful and that they are smart.  He bakes with them and cleans with them.  He keeps little girl hair bands on his keyring for hair emergencies.  Apparently being a great girl dad revolves around hair.  He handles bath-time, complete with Carmen Miranda style towel turbans at the end.  He picks out great outfits that defy the boundaries of color and pattern mixing.  I'm pretty sure the best decision I ever made in my life was choosing this man to father my children.  Happy Father's wednesDay!

Un-Pinteresting

First of all, I just let Pinterest suck another hour of my life away.  And I wasn't even pinning fun, new stuff.  I was ORGANIZING my old boards and making all of the titles and descriptions match.  There is so much wrong with that sentence.  First of all, I had a list of four crucial tasks to complete during naptime.  Pinning was not more important than 1) (finding and) Paying bills. 2) Doing another load of laundry. 3) Working for a bit on the party-planning that someone is actually paying me to do.  4) Writing thank you notes for the kids' birthday presents from the party that is oh, going on three weeks ago.  Agggg.  Also, doing some picture organizing, figuring out what the heck we are doing for a Father's Day gift and doing some dinner preparations would have fallen earlier on my list had I been looking at a list when I got sucked in.  Thirdly, I am having some kind of ridiculous existential crisis because I was trying to fill out a description for myself on the pinboard and I CAN'T THINK of one that is not overly cliched or cutesy.  Why do I let you do this to me Pinterest?  We might have to start seeing other people.

What are your time sucks?  Do you find Pinterest useful?  Am I the only unorganized OCD person on the planet?

Passive Aggressive

Dear Craigslister,
I am understanding now, by your third email, that you do not appreciate the way I have priced my item. You see, sir, that is the beauty of Craigslist.  This is currently my possession and I can price it the way I want.  You can choose not to buy it.  You can choose to get in contact with me, suggestion negotiations and make an offer.  You can also choose to send multiple emails that progress from sarcasm to ridiculousness to anger.  And again, it is my turn to choose.  I choose not to respond or reply to you at all so that you have no further way to contact me.  Had you made choice number two, I may have gladly negotiated with you, maybe even down to the sixth of the price that you offered.  Since I know that 1) my item is priced fairly competitively and 2) there are other similar items available in the same area, I'm guessing that your can't find anything in your price range and perhaps you should meditate on the old adage, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  Or something to that effect.
Sincerely,
I Started Craigslisting at Night, But Not Last Night

Dear Local Library,
I love you. And your summer programming.  However, the hoops that I had to jump through yesterday to go see a speaker was crazy bordering on absurd.  There was a line (had to arrive one hour before show) to wait in a line to get tickets (available half hour before show) to wait in a line (for half hour) to mass stampede the conference room to SRO crowd for a kids program.  Plus keeping the kids relatively quiet and well-behaved for over an hour while the non-parent patrons glared on was incredibly frustrating.  Also, I know the point of the library programming is free programming, but having half a dozen preschools and summer camps hog all of the spaces is craziness.  A few chaperones minding 15 to 20 kids in a group of 200+ kids is madness.  Surely there has got to be a better way?
Sincerely,
Taxpaying Parent Library Patron

Dear NBC,
American Ninja Warrior?  Have you completely given up on summer programming?
Sincerely,
Former Loyal NBC watcher

Any passive aggressiveness you need to get out?  Unleash it!

Lunchtime

Just finished eating lunch hiding in the kitchen hunched over the counter so the kids didn't see me eating delicious dinner left-overs whilst they were eating regular kid lunchfare so I didn't have to share wait no one else does this?  Oh, me either then.

Fifty Shades of Red, Part II

I am, or was, a voracious reader. In the years post-college, but pre-kids, I regularly made it through 100 books or more a year.  Even after the kids were born I had plenty of reading time during feeding sessions and made pretty good use of it.  What brought all that to a grinding halt you ask?  A phone.  Yep, that's right, my smart phone is making me dumber.  Instead of staying up late trying to power through a few more chapters, I am busy trying to scribble a new Draw Something or puzzle out a triple word score in Words with Friends.  I've been paring those silly (but enjoyable!) games down to the people I really enjoy playing with, but it is still taking me a bit to get back to my books.

So I read almost everything, especially at someone's recommendation.  Probably my main bread and butter is current fiction, but I also read quite a few biographies/autobiographies, historical fiction, a few mysteries, a little bit of sci-fi, a tiny bit of YA.  I don't know what the genre is called, but lately I've been reading a lot of those books about where our tomatoes/olive oil/bread comes from or the history of cadavers or whatever.  Those are fun, especially for trivia nerds.  I've never really gotten into true crime novels and I haven't read romance novels in decades.

Until recently, I never even knew there was a whole genre of books I wasn't reading - risque/erotica.  So when the book Fifty Shades of Grey hit the lists/blogs/news, I was a little surprised.  I am not usually the last person to hear about a book trend, by the time people are talking about books normally I've checked it out, read it and a year has passed.  When my sister-in-law asked if I had read the book a few months ago, I thought she was referencing the book Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde (which is frickin' fantastic by the way, love that author!).  I said yes and SIL gives me a knowing smile then starts talking about bondage.  WTH?  I had no idea what was going on, so I just nodded along.  Later I did a library search and realized I was clueless.

Haha, after three paragraphs I will tell you that my book reviews rarely have to do with the books.  I don't mind having the conversation with people, but I rarely take the time to analyze the plot and characters.  I just jump right into the next book.  But here goes a few tiny thoughts.  Putting aside the BDSM (uhh, I still don't know what that stands for) part of FSoG because I don't have any other experience with the genre, I thought the writing was awful.  It was cliched and inconsistent. The main character of Anastasia was at some times a smart and composed young woman and at others a whiny, immature teenager.  And the suspension of disbelief required to believe that Christian Grey would act like he did in the book is too great.

That being said a couple of people asked if I would recommend they skip this book.  I almost never do that.  I almost always think a book is worth reading, even to figure out if you don't like the author/topic/writing and to make you think.  The only time I hesitate is when I know someone only has the time to get through a few books a year.  Then I don't want to feel like I've recommended their spare reading time be spent on crap.  Will I read the two sequels?  I don't know yet, but if I do, it will probably be in e-book form ;)

What are your thoughts on reading/bondage/Fifty Shades of Grey?  Any must-read books for me to look into?

One.

My beautiful baby, Squish, is one today.  I've been doing that parent thing where I think back to exactly what I was doing a year ago, up until she was born at 3:38 p.m.  We have had such a sunny and fun first year.  It's amazing how much more relaxed I was with the second.  Even in just two years though, baby contraptions and raising ideas have changed.  Squish is just gorgeous, all incredibly soft skin and rosy cheeks.  She still has tiny feet with delectable toes.  Her hair is super-soft, but it is also very thick in the back - I think it might be a different texture than her sisters.  She murmurs mama and dada, but I don't think she knows them yet.  She makes noises that my mom and I can her pterodactyl noises.  Sometimes she will look at me and seem to repeat a word I just said, but surely that can't be.  She tries all foods, but at various times has rejected bananas and kiwis.  She loves cheese, crackers, strawberries, carrots, squash, eggs, pasta and many, many other foods.  She ADORES her big sister  - when they first get up in the morning they shriek at each other.  I don't know what they are saying, but they are clearly having a conversation.  Her face lights up when she sees her daddy and she loves to roll around on the floor with him and when he tosses her in the air.  She likes to chew on bath toys and stack blocks.  She isn't moving much yet, but when she wants something she finds a way to get to it.  She, like her sister, isn't much of a snuggler once they gained head control.  But every once in a while she'll nuzzle in and it is the sweetest.  She smells like sweetness all the time - strawberries mostly.  Probably because a chunk is caught in her neck folds.  She has this crazy method of getting around.  A combination of roll-sit-flinging that is terrifying and hilarious at the same time.  I am deeply, madly in love!  Happy Birthday my sweet Junebug!