These images are taken from an ad campaign about domestic violence that has been running on, and inside, Dallas City buses since October 1. The young boy with the cheerful smile announces that one day he will beat his wife. The demure, sweet-faced girl shyly asserts that one day her husband will kill her.
By this I mean I am a soccer mom in the traditional sense whereby the requirements of the job are simply that I haul my children to practices and games and then park my butt on a lawn chair with a jumbo double-mocha-latte and, if the Soccer Gods are smiling, a slice of pizza or creamstick I cadged from the concession stand. If I happen to score a similarly minded fellow-soccer-mom to enjoy game-chat with as we watch, all is right with my world.
My three-year-old son is going to be a butterfly for Halloween this year. I admit, when he first told me this was what he wanted, my heart melted a little. It was completely his idea, but you can bet I jumped on it. His costume is now complete with huge red and black wings, and he is so excited to take flight on Friday.
I put my foot down with myself and made an executive decision for the family. I will only be seeing one movie this weekend and that is final. The choice turned out to be easy for the kids. Sari wanted to see HSM3 and Drew wanted to go mask shopping with Dad. Jack Skellington in 3D would just have to wait. I could have gone either way. Like I’ve said before, my idea of a good kid’s movie is one that engages my children. Their enjoyment is contagious. As it turned out, we had a great time.
It’s no longer enough to just say “thank you” after you receive candy this Halloween. Some families are in turn using trick-or-treating to publicize the child labor and poverty problems in the cocoa industry.
I have spent nearly nine years teaching my children that patience is a virtue (although sadly, not one of mine) and that there are no stupid questions.
Then, I spent 20 minutes explaining the art of making change to a first grader and all bets were off.
I hope hope hope that the stories of Tom Cruise’s parenting are greatly exaggerated.There were no freaky parenting reports about the children he adopted with Nicole Kidman (though, who knows, maybe Nicole – despite all the Botox and extreme skinniness - was the sane parent) but that was back PJOOC (Pre Jumping On Oprah’s Couch).
Could there be a correlation between increased ADD and ADHD diagnosis and the elimination of recess from elementary schools? According to “Recess or Ritalin” by Lisa Farino for MSN Health & Fitness, research is helping to clearly define the importance of children’s play, and their need for physical activity to help them focus during classroom time.
Let’s talk social life after one has a baby, shall we?
In the short fourteen months that I’ve been a mom, I’ve discovered this sub-sect of parents that I didn’t know existed: People Who Will Not Hire A Babysitter. I’m not talking about the people who don’t have access to reliable sitters, or who don’t go out that much. I’m talking about people who absolutely refuse to leave their preshus baybee with anyone other than Grandma on the basis of principle.
It’s a little embarrassing to admit that sometimes I find out what’s going on in the world by tuning in to Oprah.
I’ve actually been trying to cut back on my Oprah fix. Somedays I just can’t deal with the celebrity fawning or her growing sense of self-importance. But last week there was a very interesting show on Where Our Food Comes From. If you were to ask my kids where our food comes from they’d say “the supermarket, Mommy!” Of course, there are some steps before that carton of eggs miraculously appears at the store.
Who enforces the rule that the ability to drive yourself trick or treating means you have to give up the ghost on dressing up anyway?
I say we let the kids keep Spiderman and Barbie Princess. For those in the overage set who have moved beyond sheets thrown over their heads, “no I’m not a slip-covered sofa, I’m a ghost stupid!” but still need a little shot of fiction and fantasy, the following truly mythical grown-up get-ups might be just the thing this Halloween.
How do you divide the workload between you and your partner in parenting (i.e., spouse, domestic partner, etc,)?
Do you sometimes feel like you’re shouldering most of the workload while your partner gets the “fun stuff”? Well, according to this article from CNN, moms are still carrying the bigger basket of parenting and household chores (about 39 hours a week). However, men have added an average of nine hours to their duty roster over their fathers and uncles 30 years ago.
If you have the fortune of sharing parenting duties, where do you draw the line? Are you 75/25? 60/40? How did you define your roles and how have they evolved since? It’s likely that the work (and the fun) may not be divided evenly, but do you think that division is equitable? How are the roles in your household different than the ones you grew up with?
I ran out of things to clean this afternoon, so I kicked back and turned on “The Doctors.”
This new talk show promotes itself as doing “for health care what Dr. Phil has done for psychology – provides frank discussions in a fascinating, off-the-cuff manner.” And it’s produced by Dr. Phil’s son, Jay (the one who married one of those Playboy triplet chicks). If you think you’ve seen these MDs before, it’s because they’ve made a few appearances on Dr. Phil (probably gauging if the public would dig an ongoing medical show).
I know I’ve written some other things about Facebook on this blog.But, this phenomenon just fascinates me.Our whole techno-culture fascinates me.Like how two teenage girls can sit in the back of my minivan with my nine-year-old daughter between them and send text messages back and forth to each other.My daughter could read the messages…. So why not just talk to each other?A teen friend of ours explained why not, and frankly, while she’s bright and logical and delivered her explanation with a straight face, I still think it’s silly.
Years ago we moved into a new neighborhood in Chicago, and as it was the first floor apartment of a two flat as Halloween approached we stocked up on candy in anticipation of trick-or-treaters. We thought we had a pretty good handle on the ratio of kids in the area, but unfortunately we did not anticipate all the carpetbaggers that would show up. I didn’t even bother to leave the doorway the stream of children was so steady.
As you can guess, our candy supply quickly ran out. I didn’t feel like playing the whole “turn the lights off and pretend we’re not home” game, so I cut to the chase and put a “NO CANDY, SORRY” sign on the door. (The fact we were renters quelled any pissed off kid retaliation paranoia.) Well, if the same thing happens this year I’ll have to rethink my strategy or the neighbors might assume I like to diddle little boys.
My Daughter and I were left on our own Saturday night as Dad and Brother had a huge Halloween Party & Hayride with the baseball team. Sissy was pretty disappointed so I let her plan our day. She chose going to see “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”. I wasn’t very interested in the talking dogs and I wasn’t really up for a movie, feeling that I had been to the cinema too much lately.
In fact, I wonder if I have been taking the research portion of my new affiliation with entertainment and the IP too seriously. I have seen more movies in the past few weeks than I have seen throughout the rest of the year combined. I thought I would be doing more TV posts but between the watching of the television and the going to of the movies, I have not done much work at all! There has just been too much good stuff out there! And I am already stressed out over next week. We’ve got the big High School Musical 3 opening weekend AND The Nightmare Before Christmas re-release in 3D!!! Jack Skellington is like part of our family and “Nightmare” is one of the first movies we watched together, 5 years ago, as a new adoptive family. It was the first time we all sang and danced together in the living room. It is so special to us, it would be crazy if we DIDN’T go see two movies next weekend, right? <only answer if you are in agreement, please>.
My best friend, my BESTIE if you will is like, twenty one. She goes to college, stays up to watch the sun rise, drinks beer, and has time to sit, read, and point out typos in books [she also does this to me, and it drives me insane] She treats my daughter like she would her own, and has no problem posing for 1,853 photos so I can “get the right light” to show off my daughters beautiful face. She’s a smarty pants, has rosy cheeks, and is pretty much the most annoying hippie I know.
You see, I’ve got a toddler. I work full time. I’ve got two REALLY big dogs. I’ve got a husband for godsake and although I want to live this fruitful, eco-friendly lifestyle well, sometimes you gotta do, what you gottta do. We left our pretty, polka dot umbrella stroller at an engagement party something like four months ago, and so yesterday, since we were going to take popette out for the day, and the jogging stroller is WAY TOO HUGE for my best friends car, I suggested we stop at Target and snag another one with my coupon.
"Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways." -- Samuel McChord Crothers
Reproduction
of material from any of The Imperfect Parent's pages without written
permission is strictly prohibited. The Imperfect Parent and Tiny
Tantrums are trademarks of Prudentia Communications Group. Views
and opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of The Imperfect Parent. The Imperfect Parent
is designed for entertainment
purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for medical, health,
legal, or financial advice from a professional.
Posted
October 29, 2008 at
4:50 pm by
Tricia 
Comments (16)
Posted
October 28, 2008 at
10:54 am by
Posted
October 27, 2008 at
2:38 pm by
Posted
October 27, 2008 at
10:31 am by
Posted
October 26, 2008 at
9:47 pm by
Posted
October 25, 2008 at
2:00 pm by
Posted
October 24, 2008 at
4:33 pm by
Posted
October 23, 2008 at
7:31 pm by
Posted
October 21, 2008 at
11:47 pm by
Posted
October 20, 2008 at
2:04 pm by
Years ago we moved into a new neighborhood in Chicago, and as it was the first floor apartment of a two flat as Halloween approached we stocked up on candy in anticipation of trick-or-treaters. We thought we had a pretty good handle on the ratio of kids in the area, but unfortunately we did not anticipate all the carpetbaggers that would show up. I didn’t even bother to leave the doorway the stream of children was so steady. 
Posted
October 20, 2008 at
10:38 am by
