More On Shutting Up and Looking Pretty

It’s undeniable: the cuter you are the more people pay attention to you. Oh yeah, you can try to make up for what you lack in looks by being funny. You can be just a little smarter than the pretty girl next door. Maybe you sing like nobody’s business, but if you don’t have the right look, there’ll be no record deals (with a very few notable exceptions, of course). Unfortunately, conventional wisdom is that it takes a whole lot of content to totally compensate for your form. You gotta be cute.Which is why I decided to have a little work done.

In the spirit of all things Hollywood, it’s time for Mommy Tracks (the blog, NOT the Mommy) to get a makeover. And while she has some Bloggy Botox, I will be taking a little vacation from posting for the holiday season to free up some time for focusing on cooking, eating, shopping, decorating, wrapping, eating, singing, playing and relishing the holidays with my babies … before they grow up. If it’s not too early for NORAD to start watching for Santa, it’s probably not too early for me to start thinking about hanging lights. I’m going to give it my all this season to actually stop and smell the pine needles.

During the hiatus I intend to consider a number of life issues – including whether to start 2007 blogging outside the closet.If you just found this blog, I hope you’ll read some old stuff (my favorite posts are conveniently linked over on the left! ;-0) And if you’re one of the four or so devoted readers, I do hope you’ll pop back in the New Year to see how it all turns out.
Here’s wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and peaceful holidays filled with love.

Posted in Biography of a Blog |

Oh Just Shut Up and Look Pretty.

I know when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are going to get married. I know what kind of mattress he sleeps on and his opinion on the legalization of all drugs.

How do I know? Well, I am pretty well-connected, and I’m psychic.

But it’s actually because he answered all these questions in Esquire magazine in October. My crush started back in Thelma and Louise, and it’s survived a lot. I think it’s officially over. Is it just me or he is taking himself just a wee bit seriously?

Posted in Notes on News |

Sabotage by Omission

It’s Hunting Season. Around these parts, hunting is a tradition passed from generation to generation in which apparently normal working men assemble into groups, wear coordinating orange and green outfits and pay homage to the days when men brought home the gamey-tasting-deer-bacon and women … piled it up in the deep freezer.Every year in November, my husband, as the provider of food, ventures forth into the wild to hunt and gather while I stay back and mind the home. This year his travels have carried him to a place where the temperature dips so low he has to wear special, insulated covers over his winter boots. He doesn’t get cell phone or Blackberry service, and he is rendered blissfully unavailable to the routine troubles of both work and home for several days. Usually his group returns victorious, carting with them enough venison to feed a small country (or at least to fill the freezer until we guiltily throw it away next fall to clear out room for more).

While the idea of spending the whole day in a deer stand in subzero temperatures with nothing but my Hand Warmers and Boot Blankets to keep me company as I wait in stealth to bring an untimely end to the lives of Bambi’s parents doesn’t really appeal to me personally, I do appreciate the draws: the tradition, the relaxation, the natural quiet, and even the challenge of sport. So I support the hobby – entirely – for my husband and all those who partake.At least I did. Until it occurred to me that this is a tradition that might get passed down to my children. In which case the only vision I can conjure is my babies wandering lost in the wilderness with weapons. There may be several years of peace before the option presents, but already the idea causes me panic.I blame the panic for my act of early sabotage. I had no intention of planting seeds of resistance, at least not yet. It just sort of happened.

We were just driving along, and I heard a little voice pipe up thoughtfully from the back of the minivan.
“When I grow up, I don’t think I want to go hunting with Daddy,” he mused, and my heart leapt with happiness.
Can it really be as easy as that? I thought, One down, two to go. I knew I had to choose my response carefully - too much anti-hunting enthusiasm would be noted and repeated.“Well, that’s ok, honey, you don’t have to hunt if you don’t want to. It’s your choice,” I said. (No one can argue free choice.) He thought a moment, then continued, “Yeah mom, you know, I just don’t want to kill any reindeer. Reindeer are my favorite animal. And Santa needs them.”I thought about correcting the mistake. I thought about explaining that Daddy wasn’t out plotting to assassinate Dasher and Dancer (certainly not this close to Christmas). But I couldn’t. A mother will do whatever it takes to protect her young.

“Yeah, I suppose that would be kind of sad,” I replied.

Posted in Ranting and Whining |

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Today is an important day. The results will haunt us for a lifetime – there’s no going back, no changing our decision if we don’t like the outcome. There’s no reviewing and revising our strategy once we commit. It’s today and today alone that matters. So it’s imperative to get this right.Yes, that’s right, it’s School Picture Day. (What? You didn’t expect me to deliver on my lofty principles and write about something unrelated to motherhood?!)Today marks my third year of school pictures. The last two years, with my oldest son, didn’t go well. Too much pressure to perform landed me with choices that included – messed up hair, a blurred photo snapped mid-fit, a blotchy red face, a fake forced smiled and some, I kid you not, actual snarling.

Luckily, I’m a quick study.

This year, my 3 year old daughter started preschool. It’s been lovely. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings she gets dressed without incident, brushes her teeth and even lets me fix her hair. She’s that excited about school.

So I didn’t mention one single word about school pictures today.

Unfortunately, kids have a sixth sense for when something’s amiss. My daughter emerged from her bedroom this morning, still clad in her pink Barbie nightgown, stretching and yawning. She sauntered, rather happily, into my room and crawled up on the bed. She noticed right away that something was strange.

“What’s that thing?” she asked, mid-stretch, nodding toward a unique device, a contraption she’d not seen in her three years of life.

“Oh, this is an iron.” I replied, nonchalantly, “I’m ironing.”

“What does it do?” she asked, her curiosity rising.

“Well, it makes it so your shirt’s not wrinkly,” I said.

“I want my shirt to be wrinkly,” she stated matter-of-factly, employing the contrary, irrational and completely unwavering logic of a three-year-old.

“Oh, silly, you want your shirt to look nice for school,” I offered quickly and with as much total indifference as I could muster.

She looked at me with narrowed, dark brown eyes, sizing the situation up, determining how to proceed. I might have been able to change the subject to breakfast, or turned on PBS Kids for a distraction. We might have made it through unscathed, but her big brother was listening, as usual, from the bathroom. He chose that moment to join the conversation. He burst into the room, eager to convey his advanced knowledge, “Yeah, you have to look nice today – it’s SCHOOL PICTURE DAY,” he reported.

There was a quiet pause. It was the slow motion calm you get right before the storm. You know – the eery quiet that exists in that moment during which the child can’t make any noises because her body is sucking enough air into her lungs to successfully transform her into what we call “supersonic” mode. Then the quiet ended and some words came out.

My dogs might be more equipped to decipher what the words were, as the pitch was such that my human ears could only grasp a wailing of something like “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopicurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre
taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaken.”

I’ll spare the details that followed. There was arguing, bargaining, begging, pleading, wrestling and wrangling. We finally arrived at school, late, blotchy-faced with messy hair and a pretty big shoulder chip. But, amazingly enough, I think the pictures turned out okay.

With pictures behind us and preschool underway – I took the boys and headed to the polls because today really is an important day.

Posted in Mistakes in Motherhood |