The Pigeon books by Mo Willems are THE favorite books around here, bar none. My girls quote vast stretches from The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog regularly. And so imagine their delight when they saw these “How To Draw the Pigeon” instructions! (in PDF format)
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Add comment August 29th, 2006
Love, LOVE the clean lines and stark graphics on these porcelain vases by Anne Black! Someday — when I don’t have three little ones rampaging through my house — I will fill a window with these.
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1 comment August 29th, 2006
Ahhhh, time to foist my childhood upon my own kids again. This time in the form of Tomy’s wind-up games. I *loved* these games as a kid. Come on, what’s not to love? They’re fun, they don’t take batteries and they fit in their own little case, so you can take ‘em with you.
Yeah, all that was good times 30 years ago. It may not be so appealing to the jaded kids of today. We’ll see… as I’m sending the Kindergartner off to a birthday party with the gift of Sumo Smash.
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1 comment August 26th, 2006
It’s my make it vs. buy it dilemma. Here are the contributing factors:
• I see LOTS o’ cool things out there that I’d love to have for my kids (or myself!).
• I can be annoyingly picky and often want to “improve” on said things.
• I have moderate-to-good crafting skills.
• I don’t have a ton of extra money laying about.
Throw these all together and this often pops to mind: “well, I’ll just make that myself.” These shirts fall into this category. While I do *heart* the idea, so far I’m unwilling to give up the $26. Plus I’d want to put my own monsters on there.
Yes, it’s hard to be me.
Add comment August 25th, 2006
I want to repaint my boy’s room. Because I love these alphabet flash cards. And when I say “love,” I mean, “lovelovelove gottahavethem MUSTbuythem loveloveLOVE” them. They have tikis! They have robots! They have the Eames lounge chair!
I love them so much, I wouldn’t actually let him use them as flash cards. Oh no — he can just gnaw on the old, dinged-up Baby Einstein set. I want these framed. Or maybe used as a border. Wait, nah, they’re too expensive to use as a border. Plus that would be too much like wallpaper and wallpaper is evil.
So now, hmmmmm, back to that painting thing… his room is aqua. And I just painted it last year, so I’m not too hep on doing it again. Perhaps I could frame them and use them in the family room. Will people laugh at me for having flash card art in my house? Very likely. But these same people probably have Thomas Kinkade “art” in their houses. And so we’re even.
3 comments August 24th, 2006
A hobo! A hobo! I drew a hobo! More specifically, the 300th hobo in the fine list of 700 hobo names from The Areas of My Expertise.
Hoboes are funny. What could be more entertaining than a hobo? LOTS of hoboes! So grab yerself some corn pone and a jug o’ moonshine and go see ‘em all at e-hobo.com.
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1 comment August 21st, 2006
Ok, I thought this was funny. Some of you will be appalled. If you read it, and are indeed appalled, just please go away quietly and delete any bookmarks to this site. Don’t send me any stupid e-mails about how horrid I am to my children because I will just laugh at you. And perhaps mail you a cat poop.
That said…
Yesterday, at dinner, I asked the 3-year-old if she wanted anything else to eat. She nodded. “What would you like?” And then came the answer: “Poop.” And a grin. And a daring look. And a big ol’ giggle.
Fine. I can play that game. “Ok,” I said, “I’ll go get you a cat poop from the basement.” Here’s a quick primer on our cat: Her name is Schmatt; she was neurotic before we had kids; she’s clinging to the edge of sanity now that there are three kids to harass her; she is loved, but not doted upon anymore like she used to be; this makes her very cranky; she poops all over our basement. Yep, it’s the best. @@ So 99.9% of the time, it’s gross and maddening that we have cat piles laying around in the basement. Today, that 0.1% of the time, it’s handy.
So I go downstairs, pick up a cat turd (in a NAPKIN, I’m not that gross!) and bring it back upstairs to show the girls. The 3-year-old giggles and looks at me like, “I wonder if I’m going to really have to eat that now.” The 5-year-old starts whining, and then yelling, “Noooooooo, don’t make her eat it. Anna, DON’T EAT IT!” I tell them that I’m going into the kitchen to warm it up, since it’s a little hardened.
In there, I scavenge for a Tootsie Roll but curse me! I’ve eaten them all. So I chop a little piece off a chocolate bar, nuke it and smooth it down so that it looks vaguely turd-like. Put it on a different napkin, and serve it up. The Kindergartner is still screaming. The Poop-Girl eyes it suspiciously, sniffs it a couple of times, and asks me if it’s really chocolate. I nod yes. The Screamer is oblivious to this exchange because she is still screaming. And then it gets eaten. The Screamer screams more. The Poop-Eater thinks it’s all the most hilarious thing ever. This makes The Screamer even more upset. So we talk her down off her ledge and explain. After I show her the wrapper, she finally believes us.
And then she laughs and laughs.
2 comments August 18th, 2006
And when I say, “I hate you,” what I mean is, “I love your clothes. I think. But since you won’t take that little step to put your stuff online, and the nearest store is like 6 hours away, I guess I’ll never know, now will I?!” Sneer.
Instead, they taunt me by sending me occasional Janeville e-mails. There is always something I want pictured in these. Always. And yet too damned bad for me.
I don’t understand it. Gymboree owns them, so it’s not like they’re unfamiliar with the workings of an online store. And I would think with that experience, it would be more economical to put up a web site, than to keep building bricks-and-mortar stores. What’s the deal? Someone explain the reasoning to me.
Sure, I could just unsubscribe from the e-mails and save myself a lot of anxiety. But I still have that glimmer of hope that one day I’ll get a message that, lo and behold, I’ll actually be able to order something.
Plus I just like to bitch about random things.
Add comment August 18th, 2006
Made it through the first day of school. And I didn’t even cry. Well, ok, I didn’t even cry AT SCHOOL. I may have teared up a little this morning at the house before we left. I may have done it again, after we got back from dropping her off. I may have done it yet again after she got home. But damnit, I didn’t tear up at school!
But you know what the worst part of this hormonal failure of mine was? I made the Kindergartner cry. What a shit I am! I surprised her with a little bracelet this morning and told her that we were both going to wear them today. And if either of us got sad because we missed the other, we could just look at our bracelets and know that the other one was thinking about us. (ha, ha – I’m a dork!) Anyway, of course, I teared up telling her this. And then she did too. And I thought to myself, “You complete ass! Let this poor girl have her fantastic day.” Sometimes I want to kick myself.
Oddly, the whole first day of school thing has been hardest on my 3 year old. But then, many normal days are hard on a 3 year old. First off, she’s a bit of an attention hog, so she’s not loving that the focus has been on her older sister. And even with that jealousy going on, she seemed to desperately miss her sister today. We played, but it is just. not. the. same. A little while after the Kindergartner came home, I heard the 3 year old timidly ask her, “Helena… are you still my best friend?”
Say it now with me, “awwwwwww.”
1 comment August 18th, 2006
All hail Kipiis. No more remembering to renew the stash of Bibsters in your diaper bag. No more stuffing a napkin in their collar, hoping (in vain) that it’ll deflect at least some of the red sauce. Just keep a pair of these in your bag, and you’ll have a big wherever you go. I love the colors, I love that it’s compact, and I love that you can throw it in the dishwasher when it starts topping out on your gross-meter.
What I don’t love is the name. Because other moms always ask about these when they see ours and I feel like a dork telling them. And it’s not a name that’s easy to remember the correct spelling, so how will they look up the website? But I’m not here to nitpick their marketing and branding strategies. Or am I?
Add comment August 17th, 2006
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