live from sublurbia

The six-year-old birthday girl screams as a doll that is whole only from the waist up is removed from a birthday cake, sobbing and hiccuping, trying to be understood by adults trying hard to stifle their laughter.

I do remember it being a lovely cake. Lovely. A wonderful gesture by one of the Aunt Mommies in my family. Yellow star-shape frosting squirts decorating a lovely full hoop-style skirt. Barbie’s torso sticking out of the top, smiling her open-mouthed smile as if everything is fine, that she doesn’t mind us feasting upon her lovely limbs and ankle-length finery.

“Wow,” I probably thought. “A Barbie doll of my own! With all her parts!” I did ‘own’ a few dolls of her style, hand me downs with their own enormous trunk of inflatable furniture. These were shared with a sister and several cousins; all their finery and furnishings were quite loved. The one true Mattel brand Barbie doll we did own was shy a hand; the second gone somewhere in the yard after a dog took her as a chew toy for a while.

I apparently got over it the butchered Barbie doll, though I don’t remember tucking her in my little bag after the party. Mom says that they hid what was left of her away and distracted me with other things. That Aunt Mommy had been making those style cakes for years, and I was her first terrified recipient. From then on she made the cakes using whole Barbie dolls instead of refugees from Sid’s bedroom.

The next winter, I did get my own new Barbie doll from that side of the family. She came complete with inedible yellow dress and full, bendable legs and special “shampoo” that let me set her hair straight or curly (until it ran out and she was stuck in curly mode forever).

Now adays, picking cakes for my own kids, I see that birthday cakes come from the store bakery with fully-functioning removable toys as part of the decor. I haven’t asked about Barbie-dress cakes yet; but I’ll make sure she’s a whole gal when I do.

My thanks to Wife and Mommy for reminding me of this story with her post about what is possibly one of the worst cakes ever from the Cake Wrecks blog.

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“It makes cool bubbles!”

I’m physics-challenged. I tend to, from time to time, expect the world around me to behave like a RoadRunner cartoon; I can “pick up” a rake by stepping on the tines (no), if a hill in an unfamiliar town is steep enough, I’ll simply start careening down it, end over end, until I land in a canyon or gorge or bay (maybe!!!), or feet will stop a bike that has no brakes long before I get to that garage door (I think I can still see the dents in the door).

So when I get any version of “Hey mom, watch THIS” … I get worried. Because I’m sure the kids will find some way to creatively damage themselves that I or my siblings and cousins haven’t managed yet. Continue Reading »

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“When I grow up, I want to be a FIREWORK!

I will sit on the ground and then FLY up in the sky and go

BOOM and be the biggest blue firework and then …”

(pause)

“_{I don’t want to be a firework when I grow up}”

(later)

“I want to be a PENGUIN when I grow up!”

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So I’m enjoying playing with our Wii Fit (early morning run to a big box score netted us one on opening day). A few minutes here and there while dinner cooks or the kids dress themselves (though that slows them down as they watch me play).

One of the kid’s favorite games is a sliding game, involving catching fish. The youngest will insist on having a turn on the board (a few dummy ones we made up don’t thrill her at all) and that’s about the only game I’ve unlocked we can “play” together.

She’s not quite got the hang of the game, so I usually sit behind her and tap the board to score her enough points to “win” the game. She doesn’t always notice my help, but enjoys it either way. However, she wants to “help” me when it’s my turn, doing the same move of tapping the board to “help”.

Playing these games with her has helped me discover a way to really mess with your friends’ sense of balance (and scores, all in fun) in the game …. Continue Reading »

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Ah, I love the smell of baked mice in the morning. The ruthless chef and I have been mixing up the morality of eating animals and counting games lately, playing his current favorite game, Feed the Kitty. Mmmm. Roasted Rat. Yum. The family that bakes together …

We got this game when Wolfie was still new at counting, and he didn’t quite follow the whole “rules” and “turns” concept very well. He couldn’t quite handle rolling the dice, either, so we stole the dice cup helper from my misspent young years running a fixed-dice game on the back stoop of the school playing Yahtzee.

Aside from the fun of playing his game, we’ve been using it to stretch his math skills. Counting mice for each player, mice going in and out of the kitty bowl, using addition, subtraction, and measuring. Recently he added another level of difficulty, requiring we rescue mice using a large cooking spoon. This also turned the game from “catching mice who eat the grain to feed the kitty” through “cooking the mice up for the kitty” to “baking mouse-shaped cookies for the kitty”.

But even without helping him exercise his brain, it’s just plain fun gaming with the boy. And the girl, though she’s still a little limited in her concepts of “rules” and “turns”. It’s just nice to hang out like we did with our family and siblings. Just a quiet snuggly laughing time. Lets us reconnect, catch up, and have fun on screen-free nights.

How do you reconnect with your family and friends? Games? Stories? Movies? Plays? Oooh, plays. He’s already making up stories for story time … I can’t wait to see what our little playwrights come up with in a couple of years. :)

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I do not like to check the box,
I do not think they’ve had the pox.

I will not bus them here or there,
I will walk them everywhere.

I do not like green forms and spam,
I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

One school year is winding down, another is spinning up. Tis the season of application packets. And we aren’t even applying for colleges yet. Old school exit forms. New school entrance forms. Allergy lists. Pink sheets, blue sheets, yellow sheets, food sheets. Continue Reading »

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It’s like a zen internet garden in here. Us grownups are clacking away on our soft-touch keyboards in our little online worlds. The children are snuggled in their beds, clutching cats and babies, imagined and real. Somewhere in the distance meditative music plays in a loop and sleep begins to roll over our neighborhood.

Wolfie thrives on routine. We somehow got him hooked on music as he went to sleep, and this ended up being the compromise for all-night music. He’s not up every time a CD shuts off to turn it back on, and we don’t get woken up at 1, 2, 3 and 4 to turn it on for him or have him complain that we won’t. He sleeps better with a little noise, it’s reassuring, and we get to sleep through the night. Everyone wins.

But hearing the music from what sounds like a wooden xylophone makes me thirsty for a pot of tea. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before it’s the latest pop wonder instead, so I should enjoy the serenity now …

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One of Wolfie’s favorite books lately has been a drawing book. How to draw a present, a house, a cake, and more, in three or four steps. It comes with its own magnetic drawing pad and stylus, and amuses him to no end because of the power he’s found in drawing a picture and telling its story.

His imagination has been cranking in high gear lately, and the 1000 words of a picture are his treasured launch pad.

Sometimes it’s a large fire, flambeing the cake. We have to blow out the fire before it burns away the cake, then feast on crispy chocolate cake. Sometimes it’s a house turning into a rocket ship, blasting away to outer space. Continue Reading »

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Think of a Something Thursday!

I have never had to label things so much as since I’ve had kids.

My last year of junior high, I needed a new coat and I found a lovely hot pink one (ah … the hot colored eighties; quite a change from the autumnal seventies). It included a zip-out black and pink fleece check-pattern inner jacket/mini jacket/liner. Mom told me to put my name on it, but I didn’t want to. I assured her I would be careful, and keep track of it; putting my name it in was so grade schoool.

I see you nodding along there on the other side of the computer. And the answer is, I’d be surprised if I had it all for even two weeks. The outer coat was “too hot” one Friday afternoon so I hung it up on the rack at my after school hangout. Sure enough, by the next Monday it was gone.

I think I still have the inner jacket - stashed somewhere in the Garage of Doom^TM.

My first trick of labeling things as a mobile pumper was the use of Post It flags. I had a TON of them from a previous co-worker who stuck them on every page to mark every change. I labeled the bottles simply, with numbers. The day-mommies fed the bottles to the kid in the order they were labeled. This was important because I’d send some fresh milk and some frozen milk, and I wanted the frozen milk to be served first. These durable, reusable labels were also great for home use and babysitters. Continue Reading »

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[Think Of A Something Thursday!]

I had a plan when it came to breast feeding and traveling for business. Don’t.

It didn’t quite work out that way, though, as an unexpected trip came my way before my youngest was on cow milk in any substantial amount.

My supply has always been sporadic at best, and she wasn’t helping the situation by refusing formula. I kept up as best I could for as long as I could, but was relieved when she finally took to solid foods. Even then, I pumped at work and home, and slowly built a little freezer stash.

Once I found out I’d be traveling in the middle of the transition to more cow milk, I burned through my stash as quickly as possible and started up a new one. Continue Reading »

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