Happy New Year!
I am watching the babies eat Pringles. First they crumple each chip into 112 tiny pieces and then they stand on my new crockpot box to stuff the tiny shreds through a big hole in the pantry door where there used to be a doorknob. They unscrewed that weeks ago.
They are crafty, these babies!!
Must go vacuum. Be back in a sec.
Hahaha. The girls like to sit on the back of the vacuum canister, like tobogganers, and say, "Chooooochoo!"
So, we're back from Christmas break!
The highlights:
Snow! Of course I forgot to bring the children's boots. So I scrambled to Wal-Mart at 2 inches deep with my lovely niece. ugh, Wal-Mart! You can't provide health insurance to your employees, but you can charge $22 for stiff boots with Disney crap on them? Back home, 4 inches on the ground now, they don't fit!? so now we must find Target (5 inches), grab two pairs of too-big Hello Kitty rain boots and rush home (6 inches) to play in the backyard for exactly... four minutes.
Antipasto: Sopressata, fresh ricotta, squid salad (not as good this year), tiny green Sicilian olives and big fat red ones, Asiago, marinated mushrooms, roasted red peppers, Italian table cheese, and mozzarella salad with sun-dried tomatoes and capers.
Parties: One Hanukkah (latkes!) and one Christmas (cookies!) Margaret bossed around my cousin's dog. "In! In!" she scolded, holding open his cage door. ahahaha! The funniest thing ever: At the same party, we met my cousin's new girlfriend, who is a very nice and very pretty African-American woman who runs a hospice down in New Orleans. On the way home, my niece exclaims: "I didn't know we were part-black! I can't wait to get to school and tell my friends!!"
I swear to God, if I'm not invited to his wedding, I am going to go back to New Orleans and dump a whole fried fish on his doorstep.
Speaking of Margaret, which I was, way back there, she was the victim of a drive-by slap at the Peabody Museum in New Haven! Some little hooligan (red hair, age 2) tripped over his feet by the T. Rex and fell to the floor. Then he jumped back up, looked around, and slapped Margaret!
Needless to say, because I have frequently documented my craziness in this particular department, I half-lost my mind, bent over and yelled, as close to his snotty little nose as possible, "What are you doing?? You do not hit other children!" (My father totally backed me up with a very angry bellow. My husband, on the other hand, was wandering blithely around ocean fossils.) Then, as his mother swept in and ran for minerals and gems, I shouted to their disappearing backs, "And you should say you're sorry!" I hoped she brought him home to think about his naughtiness, but we spied them in dead birds later that morning. I do not like dead birds. And I do not like naughty children.
Oh so, speaking of naughty children, which I definitely was, Margaret again!! David says to me yesterday, "Do you think Margaret is going to be one of those children who has fits on the sidewalks?" "Ha! She already is!" He sighs. "It's just so embarrassing." "Whaat?! I'm not embarrassed! Margaret should be embarrassed! She's the one throwing herself on the floor?" He sighs again. "Honey. Margaret is not embarrassed."
(Feel free to advise, although know I probably will ignore you: When the crazy curly-haired child throws herself on the ground, most likely because her so, so mean mother wants her to actually walk the 13 feet to the car, should that mother just stand there and probably say something like, "Margaret. You look nuts." Or should the parent pick her up and carry her the 13 feet to the car?)
Best presents: "I got a makeup table!" Lucy whispers, twisting her fingers in excitement. "And it has real makeup. Not fake makeup!" The babies unwrapped new orange ninnies and went absolutely crazy. They are ninny addicts. "Ninnnnnyyyy!" They got hooked on these pacifiers in the NICU in Arlington, and now I have to order them from a medical-supply company in Boston.
What else? Lucy cried the whole way home (okay, not the whole way...exit 7 to 8, NJ Turnpike), "I need Gigi! Gigi, gigi, gigiggigigiiiii." Then she woke up the next morning and said, "Where's Liam?" It is so sad to be just one of three children with semi-attentive parents. She needs adoring grandparents and cousins too. Of course, when Gigi calls, she refuses to take the phone. "How come, if you miss Gigi, you don't talk to her?" David asks. "I don't want to talk to her! I want to see her!"
And what else else? I could not finish John Updike's new book. Blah-blah-blah. It is possible that I am not as smart as I used to be. But I did really like Richard Price's new book about gangs. Pow!
Okay. New Year's resolutions to come later...
They are crafty, these babies!!
Must go vacuum. Be back in a sec.
Hahaha. The girls like to sit on the back of the vacuum canister, like tobogganers, and say, "Chooooochoo!"
So, we're back from Christmas break!
The highlights:
Snow! Of course I forgot to bring the children's boots. So I scrambled to Wal-Mart at 2 inches deep with my lovely niece. ugh, Wal-Mart! You can't provide health insurance to your employees, but you can charge $22 for stiff boots with Disney crap on them? Back home, 4 inches on the ground now, they don't fit!? so now we must find Target (5 inches), grab two pairs of too-big Hello Kitty rain boots and rush home (6 inches) to play in the backyard for exactly... four minutes.
Antipasto: Sopressata, fresh ricotta, squid salad (not as good this year), tiny green Sicilian olives and big fat red ones, Asiago, marinated mushrooms, roasted red peppers, Italian table cheese, and mozzarella salad with sun-dried tomatoes and capers.
Parties: One Hanukkah (latkes!) and one Christmas (cookies!) Margaret bossed around my cousin's dog. "In! In!" she scolded, holding open his cage door. ahahaha! The funniest thing ever: At the same party, we met my cousin's new girlfriend, who is a very nice and very pretty African-American woman who runs a hospice down in New Orleans. On the way home, my niece exclaims: "I didn't know we were part-black! I can't wait to get to school and tell my friends!!"
I swear to God, if I'm not invited to his wedding, I am going to go back to New Orleans and dump a whole fried fish on his doorstep.
Speaking of Margaret, which I was, way back there, she was the victim of a drive-by slap at the Peabody Museum in New Haven! Some little hooligan (red hair, age 2) tripped over his feet by the T. Rex and fell to the floor. Then he jumped back up, looked around, and slapped Margaret!
Needless to say, because I have frequently documented my craziness in this particular department, I half-lost my mind, bent over and yelled, as close to his snotty little nose as possible, "What are you doing?? You do not hit other children!" (My father totally backed me up with a very angry bellow. My husband, on the other hand, was wandering blithely around ocean fossils.) Then, as his mother swept in and ran for minerals and gems, I shouted to their disappearing backs, "And you should say you're sorry!" I hoped she brought him home to think about his naughtiness, but we spied them in dead birds later that morning. I do not like dead birds. And I do not like naughty children.
Oh so, speaking of naughty children, which I definitely was, Margaret again!! David says to me yesterday, "Do you think Margaret is going to be one of those children who has fits on the sidewalks?" "Ha! She already is!" He sighs. "It's just so embarrassing." "Whaat?! I'm not embarrassed! Margaret should be embarrassed! She's the one throwing herself on the floor?" He sighs again. "Honey. Margaret is not embarrassed."
(Feel free to advise, although know I probably will ignore you: When the crazy curly-haired child throws herself on the ground, most likely because her so, so mean mother wants her to actually walk the 13 feet to the car, should that mother just stand there and probably say something like, "Margaret. You look nuts." Or should the parent pick her up and carry her the 13 feet to the car?)
Best presents: "I got a makeup table!" Lucy whispers, twisting her fingers in excitement. "And it has real makeup. Not fake makeup!" The babies unwrapped new orange ninnies and went absolutely crazy. They are ninny addicts. "Ninnnnnyyyy!" They got hooked on these pacifiers in the NICU in Arlington, and now I have to order them from a medical-supply company in Boston.
What else? Lucy cried the whole way home (okay, not the whole way...exit 7 to 8, NJ Turnpike), "I need Gigi! Gigi, gigi, gigiggigigiiiii." Then she woke up the next morning and said, "Where's Liam?" It is so sad to be just one of three children with semi-attentive parents. She needs adoring grandparents and cousins too. Of course, when Gigi calls, she refuses to take the phone. "How come, if you miss Gigi, you don't talk to her?" David asks. "I don't want to talk to her! I want to see her!"
And what else else? I could not finish John Updike's new book. Blah-blah-blah. It is possible that I am not as smart as I used to be. But I did really like Richard Price's new book about gangs. Pow!
Okay. New Year's resolutions to come later...
posted by Mary Ellen at
3:51 PM
6 Comments:
Oh Mary Ellen, how I have missed reading you!!!! I saw your blog come up on the reader and I actually squealed! LOL!
Your description of the drive by slapping cracked me up, and the description of the pringle eating was perfect.
Okay.....life gets better. Mine were snuggled up with i-pods in the back seat and said nary a word until we needed to toss a burger back at them. Hubby splurged his Christmas gift money on a GPS system and I no longer needed to read maps for him every 5 seconds. I actually read an ENTIRE book without ONE interruption on our 13 and a half hour drive back to snow. It DOES get better.
And by the way...I still want them...temper tantrums, Pringle crumbs, Hello Kitty boots and all. : )
Very entertaining read.
thanks for posting!
Jane, from Florida
Hi Mary Ellen, Happy New Year! I love this post. If you don't mind, I'm going to show it to my journalism students when I return to school Monday.
Lori H.
Fort Lauderdale
I found you through Mary, and I've put you in my reader because this is HILARIOUS! I just have to tell you that I so admire the way you handled the hooligan in the museum. I might (might!!) have told him that it was wrong to hit other children, but I totally would have clammed up when the mom came to snatch him away. Good for you for saying something!!
I don't know what a parent SHOULD do when the kid has a temper tantrum over walking a few feet, but I know what I WOULD do: pick her up and carry her.
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