P., age 3, has a plastic dinosaur named Michael Jackson, on account of his nose having been melted off during a pellet stove “incident”.

Every morning, Michael Jackson takes several spins around the living room on his fire truck.  P. supervises.

This morning:

N. (age 12):  When Michael Jackson is done riding his fire truck, can I take him to school?

P.:  No.

N.:  Please???

P.:  NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!

N.:  Mom!  P. won’t let me take Michael Jackson to school.

Me:  What do I care?  What do you care, for that matter?  It is a maimed plastic dinosaur.

E., age 9:  Today is Thursday?  Oh, man.  Has anyone seen my violin?

N.:  I have to bring him.  I wrote an essay about him.

Me:  What are you talking about?

N.:  You never listen.  I told you about this yesterday, but you were too busy trying to get chocolate truffle off the dining room wall, so you just ignored me.

Me:  You can’t have Michael Jackson.  He’s riding the fire truck.

E.:  Mom?  Can you make me a turkey sandwich?  The kind with the turkey?

P.:  NNNOOOOO!

N.:  I have to bring him in with my essay.

Me:  It is 7.25 in the goddamn morning.  No one is ready to go, and you are fighting with your brother about a freakish toy.  Get your shoes on and get in the car.

N.:  MOM!  Did you hear me???  I W.R.O.T.E   A.N. E.S.S.A.Y. about Michael Jackson, and I have to bring him in with my paper. Or I get an F.  Mom!  I am going to flunk!

Me;  What possessed you to pick your brother’s toy?  You know he won’t hand over the damn thing.

N.:  The assignment was to write about an object that represented our family life.

Me:  Give me strength.

P.:  NNOOOO!

Me:  Can’t you just take a damn photo of Michael Jackson to accompany your essay?  Has anyone seen the turkey?

N.:  I have to bring him because I have to put him in a box.

E.:  Hey, Mom!  Look at my new dance move (and proceeds with what looks like a rhythmic seizure)

Me:  Why do you have to put Michael Jackson in a box?

N.:  I am sending him to Australia. It is for my Australian pen pal.

P.:   NNOOOOO!

E.:  Mom!  You aren’t watching!

Matt, age 42:  You want to ship your brother’s favorite, albeit twisted, toy to New Zealand?

N.:  NOOO.  Australia.  Doesn’t anyone listen around here?

Me: Am I seriously having this conversation???? I went to grad school, for christsakes.

So,  in my underwear, while bagging a turkey sandwich, I pushed back a dancing kind, dug around in a toy box, found an unused plastic dinosaur, rubbed his little face against the hot pellet stove until it partially melted, handed him to N. and said:

“There. Meet Michael Jackson, II. A perfect representation of our family life.”

How do some women NOT escape to work?

Bonus picture of Michael Jackson, with melted nose, waiting for P to come home from pre-school:

Part of our holiday hoopla included a trip to New York City.

It is 6 hours without three children in a confined space. With three children in a confined space, it is the seventh circle of hell for hours and hours.

Matt and I decided to document this.  As with all good anthropological field work, it is best to not interfere with the subjects. In a video segment of two minutes, I only yell once.  That is a tremendous testimony to my fortitude and saintliness.

What is testimony to our stupidity, is that we let the girls “share” a smoothie they paid for:  25%/75%.  (Please note:  the child who paid for 75% is never actually in possession of the damn smoothie.) Learn from our mistakes.  Don’t be idiots.

As we approached hour 16 of our 6 hour drive, there was an emergency.  After much screaming and a full fledged meltdown, we realized our oversight.   Despite the temperatures sinking below 10 degrees, we forgot to offer someone the opportunity to take his shirt off and stop for french fires.

Happy New Year.

I am not high maintenance in what I am grateful for:

• While it is my most burning desire to live near a Target, I am grateful it is NOT the one in Brooklyn. The passion and violence displayed by shoppers there bore striking resemblance to drunk fans at a British soccer game.
• I am grateful I actually left the aforementioned Target with my 11 yr old.  I was so busy watching a toddler during the mayhem, I erroneously assumed an older child with a stand out IQ would be smart enough to stay near mom.  15 minutes of “missing” and a “Just looking at iTunes cards.  Relax.” later, I aged a decade.
• I am grateful I resisted the urge of beating her and then setting her on fire.
• I am grateful (but relieved may be a better term) that the Target clerk who was extremely rude to me didn’t get violent when I called her, well, a bad name.  Not my finest moment, to be sure.  Wherever you are, I am sorry and thanks for not beating me and setting me on fire.
• It warms the heart to see that even stone faced New Yorkers smirk when a toddler shouts “I want hot fuckwit.  FUCKWIT!  NOW!” (hot chocolate).
• I am grateful that when the inevitable toddler tantrum happened and he threw himself on the ground because the people he was with JUST DON”T GET IT, it was not where the blue slushy had just been spilled.
• I am grateful that while I was stupid enough to bring two children on this fateful shopping trip, I was smart enough to leave the third with her cousins.

Feel free to share your contemplations of gratitude.

My hair grows faster than a chia pet.  I need a haircut every 4-5 weeks, or I look like those awful uncoiffed women from the Woodstock pictures.  Because of this frequency, I can’t afford $80 haircuts.  Add to that my brows, a tip, and that’s about 100 bucks a month for maintaining a modicum of civilization.

In our old town, I had an awesome brow woman and a $17 haircut place.  Since our move, however, I have been searching for the right “one”.  It shouldn’t be this hard.  My hair is thick, forgiving, nearly black.  My brows are easy. No funky highlights, weird swooshy bangs, complicated brows or anything.  

“Chin length, a bit shorter in the back, and please layer it.  My brows just need clean-up.”

It hasn’t been easy:

One woman gave my left brow a Brazilian, the other simply remained cro-magnon.  I couldn’t go back.  I looked like my face was lopsided and people kept staring at me because they couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong.

Another hairdresser cut my hair it so short I looked like a coconut.  

One woman kept me in the damn chair for 2 hours and when I left I looked exactly the same.  She had pretty much just combed me.

One hairdresser got it sort of right, but my layers were all crooked, giving half of my head the look of a wild boar when it grew in, the other half was flat.

And then, this Sunday, I met Sarah.  

She was bossy, mean and wouldn’t let me drink my coffee– “I don’t appreciate hot liquids in my personal space.”  She put me in her chair, bad mouthed every cut, layer and individual hair on my head.  She trash-talked everything about my follicular appearance.  She was ruthless, like those 7th grade mean girls at the popular table at middle school lunch.  

Then started to wash my hair, and I fell in love.  The best scalp massage EVER.

She cut my hair–fast, efficient, EVEN (!!!), and gave me great shape.

When she was done, I asked her, through tears, if I could book my next appointment.

Turns out she is pregnant and I hadn’t noticed because of her floppy lab coat thingy.  I have booked myself into her life right up to her due date.

Pray that kid doesn’t come early.  it’s all about me, you know.

Families, that is.

How DO the normal families spend their Sunday night?  Packing lunches for tomorrow? Finishing the New York TImes? Playing dominos? Watching TV? Bathing sticky/filthy children?

I’d love to know, because my inmates thought it would be the perfect time to learn the “Thriller” dance. They set up “spooky” lighting and everything.

Please note, there is nothing self-effacing about them.  They are dead serious.  No giggles.  No embarrassment.  Just grit and determination as they copy the dance moves as demonstrated by Philippino prisoners on youtube.

Don’t mind the bad audio.  You know the song.

“To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?”

From this week’s New Yorker, Shouts and Murmurs. You know, the East Coast elitist rag.

Read the full article here.

The "almost" destination of a hot weekend with Matt.

Plan 1: Farm out offspring to various relatives. Get away with husband and have child-free weekend in Montreal.  Turns out we can only get rid of the anarchists for one night, so we downsize the plan.

Plan 2:  Farm out offspring to various relatives. Get away with husband and have child-free overnight in Montreal.  Turns out one set of grandparents is campaigning for Obama and also giving speech and we got out dates wrong and didn’t give enough notice. Who does Obama think he is? He lost my vote.

Plan 3:  Farm out offspring to various relatives and babysitter. Get away with husband and have child-free day hike, followed by romantic dinner.  Turns out that while I wasn’t paying attention, our Vietnamese neighbors offered to come over and cook a meal for us.  All my husband heard was “Vietnamese food” so he said “YES, we are available.”  He forgot about the romantic dinner.

Plan 4: Farm out offspring to various relatives and babysitter. Get away with husband and have child-free day hike, followed by neighbors who don’t speak a lick of English (and my Vietnamese is non-existant) coming over and eating with us.  

Plan 5: Who knows?  

If we continue at this rate, it might be a swig of cold coffee on the way to Costco? Get struts fixed on the Chevy while we wait in filthy muffler-place room with mechanic magazines?  Find the basement pipes that still need insulating and finally get it done, followed by leftovers?

Our corner store is horrendous.   I am afraid to send my kids there after dark.  You can also smell it a block away.  It has that aroma of pickled eggs, stale beer and a few other unappetizing smells that make you think twice if you REALLY need that gallon of milk.

Though I don’t have it on good authority, I am told it also sells “lucys”.  A lucy is a single cigarette–get it, a “loosey”, as in loose cigarette.  Now you can really grasp the clientele–people who buy smokes individually.

So last night we were heading to dinner at our friends’ house.  They live about 5 blocks away.  On our way, we stopped at their corner store to pick up some vanilla ice cream.  As we wait in line, a young boy, age 5 or 6, walks in with his sister and asks if the chicken they sell is “free range.”  FREE RANGE CHICKEN!  And apparently in this neighborhood, the elementary school crowd is concerned about the source of their poultry.

Talk about gentrification.

The lucy merchandise at our store.

Future free range offering in the freezer section a mere 5 blocks away.

Phips and I were in a hip cafe, surrounded by hip grad students, sporting the latest in Apple laptop technology and independent press publications. This demographic is, generally speaking, unfamiliar with breeders like me and our offspring.  

A lovely woman approached and asked my adorable son: “Hey, is that a fireman in your little truck?”

Son: “Ya”

Hipster: “Does he have a name?”

Son: “Ya.  Fyeman has name.”

Hipster: “What’s his name?”

Son: “Hiss name Fyemen Fawt.”

Hipster: “What is his name?”

Son: “Hiss name Fyeman Fawt. Fawt, like wit poop.”

Hipster, in disbelief: “Fireman Fart?”

Son:  ”Ya.”

Some days, it feels like I am raising a wild boar.

I introduce to you, Fireman Fawt, fighting raging infernos everywhere.