You should know that I love to rearrange furniture. Makes me feel like I’m living in a new house. My mother has the same love–she says it’s because she never had a doll house to move stuff around, so she’s stuck moving all of her life-sized belongings to new places and angles. So I decided that putting a new face on the blog might give me some creative inspiration. It’s still home, just with the sofa on an angle and now the bed is opposite the window. Live with it for a few days and tell me it doesn’t make you feel new and improved. Plus, green is supposed to be energizing. Who needs caffeine?
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It’s all my own fault, and I know it. I’ve been staying up too late at night and that makes me so tired in the mornings. After I got all the big kids out the door to school this morning, BabyGirl was still asleep so I laid back down with her in my bed. I woke up to noises in the bathroom. (No hate mail to me, now, I have a baby gate blocking the bedroom door and the bedroom and bathroom are pretty well baby-proofed.) I guess I fell asleep deeper than I expected because BabyGirl had woken up, climbed out of bed, and decided to start her daily activities. Apparently, she stood in the toilet (thank Heavens that the big kids flushed after they used it this morning–that’s not a skill they’ve developed well) because her socks and pants were sopping wet up to mid-calf. Her hands and sleeves were wet to the elbows, too. Eeeeewwww.
It reminded me of one of the more interesting stories about the DearQuads when they were little. They were probably a little over two years old. We were moving to a new house just a couple of miles from where we were living. I left the Baghdaddy with the kids at the new house and went back to the empty house to clean it in hopes of getting the security deposit back. When I got back to the new house, all of the babies had been bathed and were wearing clean clothes. I was immediately suspicious. With four toddlers, bathing is not something you do on a whim. It is an operation executed with military precision. When I asked what happened, the Baghdaddy told me that he’d tell me later. Hmmmm, something so horrific that he’s worried about telling me? Suspicion gave way to fear and I demanded to know what had transpired during my absence.
Apparently, the Baghdaddy decided to surprise me by hooking up the washer and dryer in the garage. (What a sweet gift! He knows how much I adore doing laundry.) He thought that the downstairs of the house was baby-proofed and that he could just check on the kids every few minutes. What he didn’t realize was that the door handles at this house made it easier for the kids to open doors–including the pantry. While he was busily working, the kids checked through the pantry to find the GIANT-size bottle of syrup (hey, I have a lot of kids, I buy GIANT-size everything.) They proceeded to pour it all over each other and the kitchen floor. This was the scene that greeted the Baghdaddy when he next checked on them.
Men are problem solvers. They can take the required action quickly and diffuse the situation. The Baghdaddy assessed the problem and decided to move the kids just outside the sliding glass door in the kitchen to the fenced back yard. At first the kids were crying at the door wanting to come back in, but they settled down and Baghdaddy could hear them playing happily together. After he had cleaned up the syrup, he went to the door to bring them back in. During their play time, they had found a large bag of (clean, thank goodness) kitty litter. They pulled it open and dug through it like sand. At this point, the litter was stuck to all the syrup with which they had already covered themselves.
Again, man problem-solving. Baghdaddy grabbed the garden hose. I’m sure he thought this would be over quickly, no harm, no foul. As soon as the water hit the kids, they started screaming like they were being branded. Remember, new house, new neighbors. The Baghdaddy was horrified that the neighbors would think we were beating our kids in the backyard. So he stripped each one and ran them up the stairs to the dry tub, returning for another until he had four, nekkid, crying babies ready for a bath.
I have to say, I’m lucky that this happened to the Baghdaddy and not me. He’s so much more even-tempered and laid-back in a crisis. In the days before my happy meds, this may have been enough to put me in a fetal position with a bottle of Chianti. The kids don’t seem scarred at all. But they love to laugh about it while they have the syrup out for breakfast.
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“What’s that?”I’m watching a movie with my kids. In this particular scene, someone is putting a record on a record player. This is not high-brow stuff. What could they not understand? “What’s
what?” I ask.
“What’s that black, round thing?”
Oh . . .no . . .she . . .didn’t. She did not just ask me what a record was. These kids are 11 years old. How could this have happened? Unless. . . Crap, I knew I shouldn’t have let them swallow all that toothpaste when they were toddlers. It’s gone and dumbed them down.
“Uh, you mean the record?”
“Ohhhhhh, that’s what a record is.”
These are the people we are trusting to take care of us when we’re old. They’ll be running the country and deciding the fate of the world. If any of that involves vinyl, we’re screwed.
To help open their innocent eyes, just a little peek at a time, I decide to show them some videos that were popular when MTV actually showed music videos. We used to have to sit for hours waiting on our favorite video and soak it all up for those short three minutes or so. Now, I can Google “Wang Chung” or “Kajagoogoo”, and can watch as many times as I want. Freaky. I showed them Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. They wanted to know who the guy was that was dancing. “Duh! That’s Michael Jackson!”
My sweet, innocent children all exclaimed, “But that guy’s got dark skin. Michael Jackson’s not black!” We’ve got some serious educating to do here. Made them watch part of The Wiz. Never thought that would be required viewing. And nowadays MJ looks more like Dorothy/Diana Ross than she does. Was Lisa Marie Presley doing crack, or what?! But I digress.
I guess most of us grew up with certain assumptions– air conditioning, television (even the black and white kind with the broken dial that you had to use needle-nose pliers to change the channel–and don’t tell me my house was the only one with a TV like that), telephones. You were lucky if you had one of those extra-long cords that let you walk a 5 foot diameter around the phone. My kids think it’s hilarious to see corded phones on TV now. They think those only exist in hotel rooms and movies.
My kids will have the same attitude about mobile phones, email, and DVD players in the minivan. Not to mention pizza brought hot to your doorstep in 30 minutes. And that’s when we’re too lazy to microwave something for dinner. (Somewhere, my grandmothers are rolling over in their graves.) One Dear Daughter told me last week that she loves Lean Pockets, but hates waiting 2 minutes for them to cook. Poor, disadvantaged children I have.
And BabyGirl will grow up thinking that everyone has always had a blog! I guess time and technology march on, as well as parents’ sob stories about life being so hard “when I was a kid”.
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Hard to believe we’re already in March. St. Patrick’s Day is here! For an Irish dancer, this is the busiest time of year. I started Irish dancing six years ago when we lived in Germany. (Irish? Germany? I’m a complicated woman, just roll with me here.) In Europe, Irish dancing is big among adults as well as the kids. Over here in the US, however, it’s harder to find adults who dance. When I first started at my current school, I was the only adult. None of the other dancers stood taller than my shoulder. We danced at several pubs around St. Patrick’s Day last year, and I was the only one headed to the bar after we were done.
Last fall, I decided to start teaching a beginner dance class for adults. If you haven’t done something like it before, I gotta tell you that it takes a lot of nerve to start something considered a “kids’ activity” as an adult. Where kids have the flexibility and energy to pick things up so quickly, adults feel like complete dorks for weeks (or months?!) before we get comfortable. It feels like our knees and heels are swinging out at all angles, and we have learned to be inhibited about looking like a dork. So we become very self-conscious. Plus, we have to take a lot of Motrin to eliminate the aches and pains an adult dancer has. Old dog, new tricks, sore puppies.
I had four brave ladies show up and start Irish dancing in October. They each learn at different speeds and have different strengths, but they all work hard at learning their current steps. I have tried to make it a low-stress, but challenging class.
In January, the ladies at my church started planning a fun night for everyone to get together for coffee and fellowship. In the past, a guest speaker has come in for the entertainment portion of the night. This year, however, I was asked to dance with my adult students. The dancers started working on our performance early so that we’d be ready to dance on February 28th. Two weeks before the show, one of the church ladies said she was going to make fliers advertising me as an American champion Irish dancer. She’s a real joker, so I teased back, “Well, not American, but I have won a European championship.”
I actually have won the “Euro Trophy” at a European competition. There are several qualifiers attached to said trophy, however. It was a competition for dancers who started dancing as adults, only dancers over the age of 30 were included, and only dancers at an intermediate level. Not quite so impressive once all the particulars are laid out, eh?
The next week at church there were fliers on all the chairs–touting the dancing of a European champion and her “troupe”. Oh. Dear. Heavens. This is one of those times you want to rewind and erase.
My students and I went and danced our hearts out, even bringing our six kids with us to dance, too. Everyone loved it. We taught the crowd a group dance and all had a great time. I think there were some closet dancers in the house. I wish I were going to be in the area longer–I would have been recruiting students. And, of course, everyone thought we were fabulous, in spite of any mistakes we made. My adults dancers got a great ego boost, and I didn’t tarnish my Euro champion status.
I hope to find some people willing to feel dorky when we get to Okinawa. I’d like to start an adult class there and get more dancers jumping into a new activity with both (aching) feet.
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My new dance dress.
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Competition in The Hague, Netherlands. That’s me in the middle.
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My impressive European trophy. The cool guy in the middle is my friend, Doug. We rocked the two-person competitions!
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I feel like I should be standing at the front of an Anonymous meeting: “Hello, my name is DolanMama and I play Webkinz.” I mean, I’m an adult, for goodness sakes. With five kids and a husband. And piles of laundry. And I teach a dance class. And I have friends–really! Why in the world am I spending my small amount of free time on a kids’ toy website?
My girls started this thing some time ago. They were totally into their pets, their pets’ houses, doing the daily and hourly activities. It all seemed safe and harmless, so I didn’t pay much attention. Then, one of my girlfriends started talking to the girls about how she played Webkinz, too. Last Christmas, she gave me one of my own. (This friend shall remain nameless, but you know who you are, you bad influence.) So here I had this little Saint Bernard with the secret code, which is really what you’ve paid for. What could it hurt to “adopt” him and play a little around the holidays?
Bonus!–I got to use one of those baby names that the Baghdaddy rejected with very little thought when we were debating a handle for BabyGirl. I went on and registered Hugh. He came with his own little room and some money and a few gifts. OK, cute, but I’ve got other things to do. Then the girls introduced me to Gem Mining. You choose to go into one of five mines every day and then choose three of dozens of rocks to “mine” and if you find a gem it goes into your gem box. I am ALL about collecting. The pretty, color-y, sparkle-y part was just gravy. I found out that once you found all thirty gems, you got to trade them for the Crown of Wonder. Well, Hugh just has to have that, doesn’t he?
I started shopping in the W-Shop to find things to decorate my room. Room, my foot! A dog can’t be happy all cooped up in one room. I wound up buying him a living room and kitchen, too. Then a bathroom and a game room. (After above-mentioned friend sent me a virtual air hockey table. You gotta have a game room for that!) And then each room had to be decorated appropriately, of course. I figured out that if you bought a yard, you can garden and grow some of your own food–you have to keep feeding your pet to keep it healthy and happy. Meanwhile, the girls and I started asking each other, “What’s this hour’s activity?” We wouldn’t want to miss the Jellybean Challenge or spinning the Wheel of Yum, would we?
I have to say, in some ways this has helped me with my compulsive shopping habit. In the real world, you have to worry about savings and retirement. In Webkinz world, I live totally hand-to-mouth. I’ll do a paper route, then immediately go spend that money on a new dining table or dresser. I can buy any furniture and decorate rooms any way I want–even in a disgusting Pepto pink color palate. And the Webkinz people totally feed into our desires to be exclusive. You get special items for additional adoptions–things that you can’t even buy.
The DearDaughters dragged me to the local Hallmark store to see the current Webkinz available. Each month, the website has a “Pet of the Month”. If you adopt that pet during that month, you get even more exclusive items. And that’s not all! Each day of that month, you have special activities that only owners of that pet can participate in. Is it me, or is this sounding like an infomercial? Or maybe sorority rush? The DDs and I each buy a little pink pig–the March pet of the month. And, what the hell, throw in that little gray kitten. I tell myself it’s for BabyGirl–she loves cats. But I know it’s really for me.
When we get home, we all rush to our computers to start the adoption process. First, I put in the information for the gray kitty, Imogen. (Take THAT, Baghdaddy! And you thought that name was too British.) Another room to decorate! More Kinzcash to buy stuff with! Exclusive items! Oh, that tingly retail-therapy feeling is taking me over.
On March 1st, we all adopted our pigs to qualify for Pet of the Month. Beatrice (I love that name, even if Baghdaddy says it makes him think of Bea Arthur) got a new room with pink and green and flowers. I added a dining room, a room decorated like a beach, and a formal garden. Even I am thinking I’ve gone over the edge a bit. I tell myself there will be no more Webkinz for me. Even that cute new Schnauzer will hold no sway over me.
So I’m trying to back off on my WK dependence. I think I have enough creatures in my real life that I’m responsible for. I don’t need to worry about feeding virtual food to virtual pets when I don’t have the meat thawed for dinner to feed my real family. But when I get the urge to spend my cash like a drunken sailor on shore leave, I know where to go. I’ll get another pink canopy bed for an imaginary animal and keep my real wallet put away.
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