Good Morning, Sunshine

Whew! I went missing. I didn't run away from home with my gambling winnings, in case that is what you were thinking...but I did fall asleep early, directly after informing Anna that she wasn't going to her ensemble rehearsal in the evening as planned. Because, if she's gonna make me feel like crap all day, I'm gonna make her life miserable.

Then I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

It amazes me how teen daughters think that they can out-b*tch their mothers. Don't they realize that we've had way more practice than they have at acting that way?

For those of you with only cute, younger children - I apologize. 5 years ago, I would have been as shocked to read this as you are feeling right now. Obviously, I have done something wrong with raising my offspring.

Ha, ha, ha, ha! That was a joke! For mothers of teen daughters to share! We've done nothing wrong - it is merely a case of demonic possession amongst our young. Why don't you 20-somethings go off and make some more playdough for your darling tots, all right? You can leave us old witches here to discuss how to torture the ungrateful teens that we cherished and nurtured all through their early years, just like you are doing with your small children now.

I don't know what's wrong with me this morning. Maybe 10 and a half hours of sleep isn't good for my psyche. It felt good, though. That is, until I staggered downstairs to find the dishwasher unrun, and the kitchen smelly, and the "left over" dishes scattered, willy-nilly, here and there. (My kids, as I have mentioned before, are union workers; they only wash the dishes that are in the sink - any left on the counter, no matter how dirty, are outside the terms of their contract)

Did you click on that link? Why not? Trying to rush off to some other blog? Don't be rude, click on it! It's funny, dammit.

Anyone want to go upstairs and wake Anna? The younger kids won't do it for me anymore. Even little Susie says it's "scary." I could save myself the trouble of dealing with her and let her sleep in, but she might like that. So forget it.

I have a dentist appointment today. Did I mention that? It's at one o'clock. Because I was smart this time and didn't let Larry make the appointment for me. If I had let Larry make the appointment, I would be there already.

Which may not have been such a bad idea, actually - because then he would have been stuck with the job of waking Anna...

Blogrolls and Banality

I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the blogroll over there to the left. It's short, because I don't do that "You blogroll me, I'll blogroll you" stuff. I read other blogs (lots of other blogs - this whole blog thing is slowly taking over my life, but let's not go into that), because I like them or the person writing them; but, in an effort to keep the blogroll useful, I try to keep it short. Today I couldn't resist adding a new member - finslippy. I have no idea what that means, but she is breathtakingly, seemingly effortlessly funny. Enough so that I briefly considered throwing out my keyboard and never attempting to be even mildly amusing again.

But, I came to my senses. Some of us need to be willing to be second-rate. It makes everyone else feel good about themselves.

Anna hates me again (don't you love roller coaster rides?). I mean, it's been over 24 hours since I've done something for her, which is an almost intolerable situation to her befuddled teenage brain. She also hates David. He was standing in her general vicinity today, which annoyed her greatly.

She hated him when he was born, too. I remember holding him in my arms one day and Anna saying, "I hope you drop that baby and break his head." We used to regale her with that funny anecdote from time to time after she turned into a sweet little girl who wouldn't dream of saying anything like that about her little brother. But, nowadays, the story seems just a tad too realistic to be amusing.

Susie spent over an hour screaming this afternoon because she needed a nap and I wouldn't give her one because then she wouldn't go to sleep in the evening and I would start hating my life. Tolerating tantrums is exhausting. But I prefer 2-year-old tantrums to 14-year-old ones.

Truth? You want the truth? I wouldn't be posting today if it weren't that NaBloPoMo made me. Nothing happened today. Larry took the car to the garage, so we couldn't even go out. It ended up costing us a thousand dollars to get it back, so now I can't even afford to go out.

In my attempt to ingest as many carb goodies as possible before I head back to Weight Watchers in January, I baked bread this afternoon and I let David make cookies; that was probably good for another pound or two. My jeans finally arrived from Lands End, but I'm scared to try them on, as they probably won't be quite, um, roomy enough at this point.

I got stuck doing all the dishes tonight. I think we broke a family record by using almost all the pots and pans today. I'm talking 3 cookie sheets, 3 mixing bowls, 6-qt pot, 12-qt pot, 3-qt steamer, square pyrex pan, and the colander. Oh, and 4 loaf pans. The pile in the sink when I came downstairs after the meal was almost breathtaking. You would think that after 16 years I wouldn't find this situation that remarkable, but I guess my youthful capacity for wonder remains undiminished.



Minutiae, folks, that's all you're getting here tonight - the stultifying minutiae of an average suburban mom's life. Scary, isn't it? Maybe the educational powers that be should use this blog in high school sex ed classes as a powerful motivator to use birth control. I can see the poster now: "Do You Want Your Life to Turn Out as Banal as This?" or "Condoms Can Prevent Things Even Scarier Than STD's."