Thursday, April 27, 2006

when books go bad

There have been an alarming number of recently released books dedicated to the occupation of motherhood. Books detailing the "war" between stay-at-home and working moms, the agonies of raising a child in upper middle class society, and so on, and so on, and so on.

I've made the executive decision to neither purchase nor borrow any of these mommy books because all they will do is cause self-doubt. Parenting is hard enough without the background chorus calling into question your every decision. The best feedback? Hearing your babes laugh every single day, and really laugh.

In other news, Mr. O is now the proud owner of one emerging bottom tooth. We have lift-off! He loves the outer space sticky on his wall. I was delighted to see that it had glow in the dark stars. It rocks the free world.

I caved and bought Zee a Dora the Explorer dvd. This one features a pirate episode with tons more music than usual. It's pop opera for the minis.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

okay, now back to the house

we did buy a house! I was going to chronicle the process, but there really wasn't much to talk about. We're moving to a neighborhood in the city called Portage Park, which no one knows about and there's not a Starbucks in walking distance. So what it lacks in sheer hipness, the house more than makes up for it. It's a 1909 American 4-square - well-proportioned, a tasteful blue-grey in exterior color and with some original woodwork inside. It's not a huge house at 1400 sf or so, but it's just enough house for us and it felt good.

We've been talking up the blue-grey house to Z, and though she seems excited by it, she'll probably bunk with us for a week. She's been more clingy than usual lately and gave the new (and probably never returning) babysitter a lot of hell yesterday. D-money thinks she was disappointed that she wasn't spending the day with Mommy and was acting out. Good grief. Can I do anything without her freaking out?

The unfortunate, or maybe not, thing is that she is so dialed into my moods that they affect her more than I'd like. I've been tired and pensive lately and probably not the fun mommy of legend and lore.

I made some little Easter baskets for Z and O. Very modest with a few toys and books and candy that D-money and I are going to pilfer for ourselves. For D-money, I got a chocolate Peeps egg, which has to go down in history as one of the best ideas EVER. Did you hear me? EVER.