More responsible parenting

Munchkin is coming home this weekend...she is going to a wedding on Saturday of a girl that she worked with the last couple of years at the beach.

(And yes, the thought of her being at a non-family wedding by herself makes me want to put her in a dress that is clearly marked "I am only 17"...but that is not my point here).

Her plan was to come home Saturday morning, go pretty much straight to the wedding, and then head back to the beach on Sunday. Smoking Hot Roommate and I nixed that plan, however, and we are making her come home on Friday because we have an incredibly important matter to attend to on Friday night.

A monumentally important, potentially life-changing event that will almost certainly mark one of the seminal point or her, or really anyone's life. Magic Mike, of course...

You can admit it, I am the best big sister ever.

Ponytails

The Boy is a better parent than I am. I have no shame in admitting this, and no major plans to try and rectify it. That probably seems a little odd, since I have more experience as a parent (sort of) and because mother's are supposed to have some innate caring gene that makes them superior. Right?

But he is much more patient with them than I am, and more ambitious, too. He gets a little less frazzled when they are in one of their "rotten tomato!" moods and is better at soothing them when they are totally out of their mind. Not that they don't love Mommy, but occasionally one of them will have a total freakout and only want him (sometimes they only want me, but more often it is him).

They listen to him more (marginally) and I think they argue with him less about which clothes or shoes they are wearing that day. Sometimes they demand that only he change their diapers. I never argue about that (the only thing they demand of me is bath time...go figure)

There is one thing, however, that remains entirely my domain...hair. He is pretty good at a basic ponytail, and he understands how a hair clip works, but he has a pretty limited set of hair-styling skills. Braids? Pigtails? Two little ponytails connecting to one in the back? You gotta go to Mommy for those;-)

It is nice to feel needed...

Secrets and Marvelous Gifts

I think I have been pretty open about my love of blogland...and of the quasi-anonymous relationships that get formed. My favorite part? Being let in on secrets before real, offline relationships. And for whatever reason...the desire of people that I meet to tell me things extends from the real world into this world.

And you know what else? I have another secret! More very good news from one of my dearest "blog-friends" that the rest of you probably won't hear about until maybe a month from now or so.

Nanny. Nanny. Boo. Boo.

However, I am not one to tease you like that and give you nothing in return (I have been called a lot of things in my life, but "a tease" is not one of them:-P). Therefore, you can thank me for telling you that Old Navy sells this. Everyone should own one.

On Father's Day, I...

Woke up next to The Boy, and immediately thought about how lucky I am that he is the father of my two little girls.

Did my very best to let him know that;-)

Made him bacon, eggs and French toast for breakfast. Then watched, with melting heart, as he shared all of it with those two little girls.

Helped the girls give him his Father's Day cards.

Played with the girls on the beach.

Helped my sister with an essay she is entering into a writing contest through school.

Made a tentative plan to visit a half-dozen east coast colleges with her in August.

Ate lunch with The Boy, my very best friends and the closest substitute that I have for a father.

Gave him his father's day present, and helped the girls give him their cards.

Tucked The Boy and the girls in for a two hour nap.

Raced back to have dinner with my very dear Father-in-Law.

Put the girls to sleep early and enjoyed a couple of hours of peace with The Boy.


And didn't think once about my own father once.
I don't think I am sad about that.

Eating

Truly spectacular weekend at the beach...just the immediate pretend family and one cousin. Great weather, great company and lots of laughing.

We got most of Munchkin's stuff moved down there, although I still have a lot to bring next weekend. She got back on Thursday and got herself pretty well packed up on Friday. Both her car (the Jeep) and mine were completely packed, and there were still some clothes and stuff that didn't make it. Can't quite fit as much in my car as we used to be able to...what with the car seats and the stroller;-) I should be able to get the rest to her next weekend.

She didn't start work until today, so we had a nice weekend to hang out, debrief on her trip and relax a bit before I said goodbye again for the summer (most of it, anyway:-)). She had another great trip to Paris, and the two of them are very much talking about how nice it will be when he is here in a year more permanently. As I have written, I have slightly mixed feelings about that...but mostly, I will just be happy that she doesn't have to fly across an ocean just to see him. I will feel even better if they are not in the same city, but we will see how that goes;-)

The girls were sort of weirdly at each other all weekend. Not totally sure what was up, but they seemed to by fighting over toys and shoes and people the whole time. They still spent most of the time giggling together, but there were a whole bunch of screaming fits. I very much hope that is a phase, because it irritates me to no end!!!

Have I mentioned how well they eat? I hear from people all of the time that toddlers are impossible to feed, and that they don't like eating vegetables...that is not a problem in my household. They eat everything, basically. Which is not to say that they don't have favorites, but they will eat whatever I put in front of them. Saturday? Breakfast was yogurt, scrambled eggs and strawberries. Lunch was a turkey sandwich and some potato chips (they wanted more of those:-)) and dinner was swordfish, salad and grilled asparagus. THEY EAT SALAD!!! LK eats tomatoes like they are cookies!

I count myself very fortunate for this. Making their lunch in the morning is really easy...whatever we have in the refrigerator will do just fine. They eat steamed vegetables...corn, peas, broccoli, green beans and carrots...without any butter or salt or anything. Just heat them up and hand them over and they will devour them! Obviously, that makes planning a whole lot easier, too...we never have to worry about finding something for them to eat in a restaurant. If they serve food, there is something for them to eat.

I guess that isn't a terribly important topic for a Monday, but you get what you get;-) Maybe I will get more interesting as the week goes along:-P

Politics Interlude

I wanted to comment on a couple of things that I have heard lately that seemed to cause some outrage...

First, a while back, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ (and possibly a super-hero) said something about not villain-izing private equity as a campaign strategy. He was immediately excoriated by the left and celebrated by the right for making the unforgivable mistake of questioning his own party. Keep in mind, what he said was "I love Obama, I believe in him and will continue to do all I can to get him re-elected because he is the far superior candidate. I just don't particularly like the criticism of an entire industry as a campaign tool."

Then, last week, Bill Clinton had the gall to suggest that Mitt Romney was smart, successful and qualified to be President. This was largely in response to a growing effort to claim that Mr. Romney was not as successful in his prior career as has been claimed...which, frankly, is an absurd claim. And again, his message was "Romney is a fine man and has a great resume, but I believe in Barack Obama's vision for America and his plans to move us forward."

Again, this was pounced upon by both the right and left with enormous gusto as if it were somehow a politically treasonous act.

People. Seriously. Chill the fuck out. It is actually possible to support a candidate for office without proclaiming his or her opponent the Anti-Christ. What Bill Clinton said is that a guy who made a fortune and defined an industry, lead a difficult turnaround of a quasi-government organization, served as Governor of a medium-large state and now secured the nomination of a major political party has met the criteria of "qualified" to be President. Not that he should be President, would be a good one, or has a good plan to be one...just that he has met what any reasonable person considers to be "qualified."

Honestly, I love what they both said because it is miles above the normal political discourse that we get. We should vote for people because we want them to be in office and we believe in their ideas, not because they did a better job of telling me how crappy the other guy is.

To take Clinton's statement a little bit further...there are 100 Senators, and maybe 50 living retired Senators. There are 50 governors and probably 100 living ex-Governors. If you exclude the ineligible (Jennifer Granholm and Arnold Shwarzenegger, for example), and then add in maybe 30-40 each of military leaders and business leaders, plus some others, and maybe the 50 most important Congresspeople, you get a pool of probably 500 people who are pretty objectively "qualified" to be President.

But we should be looking for a better standard than that. We should be looking for the 1 out of those 500 that would make the best President. No one should win election by essentially arguing "I meet the minimum standard and he doesn't!"...they should win it by telling us why they are the single best person.

And if it is somehow controversial for Bill Clinton to say "Of course Romney is qualified, but let me tell you why Obama is better," then we have no hope of ever getting to the sort of real, substantive discussions that we should be having.

There...done ranting!

Are you hiring for "Queen"?

I could write about divine weekend that resulted from The Boy's parents taking the girls to their house Saturday night...and the overwhelming amount of sluttiness that said visit inspired...but instead, I am going to skip that entirely and ask a question.

I know I have some British readers...can anyone tell me what on earth Jubilee is? And more importantly, how do I get one?