Two And A Half Women

It's a family picture. But the rest of us are nonexistent.

           Our house got decidedly more female a couple of weeks ago when my 18-year-old niece Riley came to stay with us for a while. Words can’t begin to express how excited Chris is to have her older cousin living with her. I’m pretty happy too since it relieves me of having to explain why she can’t have a sister or brother.

            One thing I have noticed is that I was quickly replaced as the cool older person in the house. Not that I ever dressed cool, but my clothes seem even more mom-like when Chris sees her teenage cousin’s wardrobe. Chris’ whole goal in life, right now, is finding the perfect game that Riley will want to spend hours playing with her.

            Now pretty much nothing I say means anything at all unless it’s given the Riley stamp of approval. I could beg Chris for days to clean her room but until Riley says in her party voice, “Let’s clean your room together!” does it ever get done. This phenomenon was proved recently at our Girl Scout Christmas party.          During the Secret Santa gift exchange Chris drew the last number and got to either open the last gift on the table or steal another girl’s gift. While she did love all the other gifts, I suspect she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so she opted to open the last gift on the table which hadn’t been chosen yet because it was the smallest bag. In slow-motion, the mother next to me placed her hand on my arm and said, “I’m soooooo soooorrrrrryyyyy.”

            Before I had a chance to ask why, she was interrupted by dogs barking outside, car alarms pealing, glass shattering and girls covering their ears with cookie-stuffed hands. Turns out Chris really, really, REALLY liked what was inside – fake fingernails.

This is truly something Chris has begged for off an on for about four years. Yes, I know she’s only six herself but the obsession started early. We can’t walk through the pharmacy without the constant volleying of “Pleeeze? No! Whyyyyy? Because I said so!” I am so against these fake fingernails that this is one area where I have successfully been able to tune out the begging.

            When Chris called her father later to tell him excitedly about the gift, he got me on the phone and asked just “Why the heck would some genius braniac buy a six-year-old fake fingernails?” This is one area where we agree. But I did have to inform him I don’t blame the Girl Scout mother who purchased those fingernails. After all, she has two kids so I’m sure the constant barrage in stereo is even more difficult to resist. Besides, she probably figured it is better to give than to have her kid walking around looking like a chain-smoking cocktail waitress.

            So here we were, stuck with fake fingernails – albeit “child-friendly” ones with Minnie Mouse decorations – that Chris ripped out of the package on the drive home where they immediately stuck to the car floor mats. Correction, they stuck to the food particles and dirt ground into the car floor mats and guess who had to pick them out?

            Anyway, I staved her off for a few days, explaining that these were to be saved for a special occasion. I also reminded her that her teacher wouldn’t relish finding fingernails all over the classroom and she certainly didn’t want to find one in her lunch or lose one at the monkey bars. Each day, though, she asked me if it was a special occasion until I finally couldn’t put her off any longer and I had to allow her to wear them to a family get-together. What better special occasion could there be for a manicure than grandpa’s birthday?

            I figured at least we were among family and not out where the general public could judge me for hussying up my kid. Since there are no instructions for these dang nails, we applied what we could only assume were the correct nails to the correct corresponding fingers. Immediately Chris needed help pulling up her jeans and pushing the hair out of her face.

I told her right away I didn’t like them. They made her hands look like she was pushing 35 and I was having mini-nightmares about those long fingernails getting in the way of her holding onto a stripper pole.

            Soon my 19-year-old nephew and his girlfriend showed up and Chris greeted them with “the claws”, as she so aptly named her new fingertips. They screwed up their faces and Jacob told her he didn’t like those nails and they looked weird.

            She gave a humph and ran for the door where her precious Riley had just entered and showed her “the claws.” Riley gave a little laugh, looked at me strangely and said, “I thought you told her she couldn’t get fake nails until she was at least 18?” Yes, she had already told Riley about her obsession. I replied that they were a gift so I really didn’t have a say in it. But like a trouper Riley said loudly, “I don’t like those. She looks like she’s one of those…one of those….pageant kids. You know, the ones whose parents dress them up like creepy dolls?”

Creepy. Am I right?

            Yes. I am aware. And I agreed wholeheartedly. So here’s what happened next.

            Despite years of me telling Chris fake nails were creepy and that she couldn’t have them, despite her male cousin and her grandparents telling her they were weird, all it took was her cousin Riley to tell her they were strange. No less than five minutes later Chris asked to take the nails off because they were making her hands feel funny. She tried to play it off like some funky fungus was already taking root and making her fingertips itch, and to my credit I didn’t point out the obvious that she loved them until Riley said they were strange. I just thanked my lucky stars that Riley walked in the door at that point and saved the day.

Not sure who is giving makeup lessons.

            I guess one could look at the bad side of having a teenager around, but so far my liquor cabinet has remained untouched and I haven’t had to kick any boys out of her bedroom. So all is copasetic and frankly I’m thrilled that someone else will get off the couch to go outside and play so I can watch NCIS in peace. I’m going to ride that gravy train as long as I can.

Go Big or Go Home. No really. Go Home.

Can't tell what this is? This was my day.

            Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little bitter when your kid takes credit for something you’ve done?

            At a recent Christmas cookie exchange I placed my gorgeous confections on the table for viewing. When everyone ooohed and ahhed over the reindeer cookies I had slaved over, Chris blurted out, “Those are mine! I brought those!”

            Oh really? You’re the one who was up to her elbows in flour at 11 p.m. as you peered through butter-smeared glasses at an egg-stained recipe card and said many, many bad words when you had to fly to the grocery store in your slippers because earlier you bought baking soda instead of baking powder? Cuz I could have sworn that was me.

Pre-Chaos.

            Like most of my stories, it started with good intentions. I had Norman Rockwellian visions of baking up some sugar cookie sweet memories with my daughter. She asked if she could invite her friends over for a cookie decorating party and in one insane moment I agreed. I mean, how hard could it be to invite over three or four little girls who will titter over gingerbread men and glittery sugar?

            Stupid. I am so, so stupid sometimes.

            Here’s how it went down.

            After spending the weekend lazing around at her father house while I slaved over the afore-mentioned cookies, cookies and more cookies, Chris came home refreshed and ready to party. She took one look at the kitchen table that was beginning to buckle with tasty goodness, rolled her eyes and had the audacity to say, “You went a little overboard on the cookies, don’t you think?”

            Where has she been the last six years? She should know I don’t do anything just a little bit. Besides, I usually don’t mind baking, mostly because I definitely don’t mind eating.

Don't be fooled. This is a staged photo. Chris didn't do anything close to this type of work. It was me. All me.

Anyway, only one out of eight kids RSVP’d that she would be attending. Her mother dropped her off precisely at 3 p.m. and exclaimed at the amount of baking I had done – she’s a mother, she knows who really does all the work. I assured her that we would have a lovely time and hopefully a couple of other kids would show up to join Chris and her daughter for the festivities.

Before she made it around the corner, the doorbell began to ring so often that we had our very own Carol of the Bells in the works. Soon there was something like 10 kids, even a couple who I had only briefly seen once or twice around the neighborhood, bellying up to my cookie table. Some were the male siblings of girls who had actually received invitations. Others I think blindly followed the line of kids hypnotized by the whiff of sugar in the air and were drawn to the frosting like moths to a flame.

Either way, I was a little overwhelmed as I turned around and handed out plates to swarming hands. My one intelligent move for the day was ordering Chris to usher her friends to the bathroom for hand washing. Judging from the brown sink I was left with, it was a necessity.

I wish the brown sink was the least of my worries. With so many kids it became a free-for-all with gel frosting dripping off tablecloths, red frosting knives shoved chaotically in white frosting containers, and glitter-sugar cookies being bumped to the floor. They elbowed each other and frantically grabbed at marshmallows, chocolate chips and snuck M&Ms.

And that still wasn’t the worst of it.

It didn’t take long before they tired of the tedium of decorating for 30 seconds or more. Then they didn’t even bother with the show of placing the candies on the cookies and instead placed them directly in their mouths and washed them down with squirts of frosting and giggles.

It all went downhill from there.

I made these adorable melted
snowman cookies and reindeer.
You think they appreciated them? No.
They just wanted the sugar.

The cookie table was abandoned. Kids ran upstairs and downstairs, slamming doors, tripping over dogs, screaming and chasing one another, throwing toys willy nilly into the air and jumping on beds. I had lost all control and I weakly repeated the only rule that seemed to be heard of the dull roar, “Stay out of my room.” I found a Rapunzel castle in the laundry room, a bowl of candy in the dog’s crate, a jewelry box under the kitchen sink, and I will probably find frosting in the tile grout for weeks.

            It seemed to me that hours passed in which I wrung my hands and wondered just how much the law would allow one to yell at another parent’s kid when the doorbell rang again and my fellow mother stepped into my house laughing. “Having fun?” she said with a snort, taking in my frizzy hair, smeared makeup, red and green floor, and cowering dogs. Plus, she could hear the screaming laughter coming from down the block so she knew the kind of hell of which I was currently in the midst

            Alas, it had only been about an hour since she had left me with only two sweet little angel girls.

            She drug her sugar-strung-out child out the door and I went about the task of trying to send the other demons back to their own parents. This turned out to be a Herculean task, as when kids learn that they have free reign of the upstairs along with all the candy they can jam into their chubby jowls, they aren’t too keen on giving it up. But I egged them out the door with the promise that they could take home all the cookies they decorated. One girl took home four plates and I was all too happy to ply her entire family with diabetes just to get her and a few other children of my hair. Other kids I had to literally sweep out the door with protestations that I needed my bed and they needed some non-glucose-based supper.

            As Chris cried in sadness that her friends were now gone, I looked around at the war-torn living room and reminded her that this was our very first and very last cookie decorating party and that she would not be playing with her friends until she cleaned up.

That kid, she’s no dummy. She gave me a big hug and called me the best mommy in the whole world. I smiled in relief while all the while her hand snaked around my backside to sneak a cookie.

“No! More! Cookies!” I screamed while she ran to the corner to shove in as many crumbs in as she could before I smacked it out of her hand.

I needn’t have bothered. By then she was beginning to crash from the sugar high and passed out on   the couch with half a cookie in one hand and a face covered in blue sprinkles.

I wasn’t far behind. Next time I have one of those Norman Rockwell moments will someone please knock some sense into me?

Dreaming of her next Party Of Terror.

The Best-Laid Photo Plans Gone Awry

If it's not the hair, it's the facial expression. 

            This time, it was the dog that ended up with crazy hair.

            You see, when you say the word “short” at the doggie hair salon, they assume you mean “shaved within an inch of his life.” So our cute, floppy haired Viggo ended up looking like an overgrown Chihuahua.

            All in time for our Christmas photo.

I am saving your eyes from pee stains.
You're welcome.

            It’s a nice change of pace because usually it’s Chris who ruins my best-laid photo plans. It all started with one of her first baby portraits. I had seen gorgeous photos of serene looking babies wearing angel wings with light glowing all around that brought to mind a Hallelujah chorus announcing a gift from heaven. I took a couple of photography classes in college and was confident I could recreate the scene.

            Little did I know, babies take the first naked opportunity to pee everywhere as if they have horse-sized bladders that have stored up a week’s worth of urine. As I laid Chris down on a sweet blanket and arranged her glittery wings in the lazy afternoon light, she mewled like a kitten, turned her head and let it all go. So I got one – ONE – photo of her in the angel wings before I disgustedly threw the blanket in the washing machine and gave up.

Whew! It's tiring being a kid!

            Then she grew hair. Oh, does this kid have some hair! And when it’s styled the correct way, I am not bragging when I say perfect strangers gush about the state of her curls. It’s just a fact. When it hasn’t been styled (or messed with by a little kid who should know better than to touch her own hair without professional tutoring) it brings to mind more of a “finger in a light socket” scenario.

            I have learned through countless mornings of knots and tears that the best course of action is to brush said hair when it’s wet, throw in a dab of gel and DO NOT TOUCH. So, of course, when I send Chris to school on her very first kindergarten school portrait day it just makes sense that she would spend half the morning at school preparing by running a brush through the individual spiral curls until she made fuzz. There’s no other word for it – just fuzz. I wish I could show you an example but I’m sure the photographers posted it up in their hall of fame while laughing hysterically and sent us a note suggesting retakes.

            For the professional photos we took when Chris was 3, she didn’t mess with her hair. She posed perfectly like a practiced supermodel. Everything fell into place. Until she opened her mouth in a grin and the world was exposed to a graying tooth she had fallen on and killed a couple of weeks before. We were so close to the ideal photo situation, but were derailed by that one little dental hitch.

            When I flip through photo albums, I can find plenty of just-woken drugged-up looking pics. Others were snapped with Chris in the crib wearing a surprised expression that made it appear we shackled her in jail. And then there are the impromptu snaps I snuck while she chewed on her toes like a wild animal. None of those are wall-worthy, but they all serve their future blackmail purpose.

            But when I actually spend money to take a special photo, I want it to be one that people ooh and ahh over; one that makes us look like the type of family that actually has it all together, even if that’s usually pretty far from the truth.

            What I usually end up with is a new psychiatrist’s referral, a hoarse voice from yelling and pit stains from stress.

What a beautiful picture!
Just ignore the tooth area.

When I see those beautiful, plaid Christmas dresses I always buy them thinking, “This is the year we’re are going to get one of those pictures that look like they came right out of a portrait studio catalogue.” But my best plans are always dashed by something. It makes me want to yell out to everyone I see, “I promise! She looked fantastic before we left the house! I swear! You should have seen it!”

            So I give up. From now on I plan to play to our strengths – constant chaos. This year I’m just going to go with the flow and I figure if I set out to take an intentionally crazy Christmas photo I will either get one hilarious card, or the law of opposites will work in my favor and I’ll finally achieve the holy grail of beautiful Christmas pictures.

            It’s all set to go down this afternoon. This weekend I dug out the fancy camera bought to creating lasting memories but instead ended up gathering dust in a corner of the closet, and practiced up on lighting techniques. I’ve purchased cute outfits and accessories and have actually cleaned up around here in an effort to create a backdrop not filled with junk.

            All I can say is wish us luck.

Yum, toes! I think this may be the high school graduation picture.

Would have been a great summer picture except for the "duh" face and the upside down glasses.

See what I mean. We jailed her as we do with all our 4-month-olds.