Honest Abe (Abby)

How's this one for raising an honest child. Last week was vacation week so we painted my daughter's fingernails. She's not allowed nail polish in Catholic School - must channel the devil or something - but we forgot to take it off Sunday night.

Now, when I tell you you could BARELY see it, I mean BARELY is not BARE enough.

Her: "Mommy! Look what you forgot!!" Holding all ten fingers in my face.

Me: "Oh yeah. We'll take it off tonight."

Her: "Well, I told my teacher about it."

Me: "Why?"

Her: "Because, we forgot to take it off."

Me: "What did she say?"

Her: "Not to show the Principal or her secretary."

This summer I'll have to teach her life's most important lesson - how to keep your mouth shut until you're caught!

Smile for the camera - or not.

My kids will never know what their friends looked like as youngsters, because I suck at taking pictures. Tops of heads. Back of heads. Heads without faces. I have a fabulous portfolio of hairstyles of our young friends, from the back! Case in point - a little BBQ over the weekend with 100 kids running around my house and this is the best shot I could get of them redecorating playing in our playroom:



And here is our cute friend Andrew in his cool pajamas at the end of the day:



At least I'll never have to blur out their faces for privacy purposes!

I know there was a professional photographer snapping photos at one point - hey, Fairly Odd Father, where are those pics cuz mine are USELESS.

End of Experiment

I'm impressed. 48 hours after the children returned home and this is our kitchen counters:


But I contribute it to the lack of schoolwork coming home this week. Now, if I can only figure out the best way to keep up with actually seeing the top of my countertops for longer than a week??

GET OUTSIDE NEW ENGLAND. It's going to be the best weekend of the year. Boooyah!

An experiment

Ready, this is what my kitchen countertops looks like today after the kids have been away for 48 hours:



They return tonight - let's see what it looks like by Friday.

Am I the last People subscriber?

Thank God Samantha Ronson is not seeking a restraining order against Lindsay Lohan. I mean, they were in love, right? It seemed real to me when I saw all those pictures of them going in and out of clubs and at the Los Angeles Airport. My husband NEVER whisks me away to London on a whim so I figured they were pretty solid the way they were traveling the globe together. Who knew their relationship was in trouble?

See... Who cares, right? I don't care. Really. Could care less. However, every Friday I sit by the window like a child waiting for Santa Claus so I can leap out of the my office chair, run to the mailbox and see who got the cover spot on People magazine each week. I can.not.explain.it I promised myself MONTHS ago I'd stop this foolish behavior.

I figure I quit smoking 8 years ago (THANK GOD since the guy in front of me at the gas station charged $15 on his credit card for two packs of Marlboros!), and I've significantly cut down on my wine boozing and lead a pretty healthy lifestyle these days which includes jaunts to the gym. So I deserve one small vice - celebrity stalking - right? In fact, I've recently joined the "million" following Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. And I also follow Demi Moore, Rob Thomas, John Mayer, The Real Shaq.... Unfortunately, I'll find myself out a function and instead of talking about the healthcare package in front of the President, I'll somehow throw in an analogy to the scandal brewing around whether Britney Spears is miserable under her Dad's care.

What is it that you can't give up, no matter how ridiculous you know it is?

What did the bunny bring you?

Thankfully for my waist, I'm not a big candy or chocolate fan so I don't dive into the kid's baskets when they are at school and consume my weight in chocolate. Their loot is pretty safe with me.

Funny enough, they didn't really dive in yesterday, either. In fact, they opted for our pathetic looking mini-bunny cakes at breakfast instead of a handful of chocolate.



When asked by family and friends about their Easter Baskets (The Bunny was on a tight budget this year so not NEARLY as exciting as years past), the two things they told everyone about were the new water guns and the pack of gum. We aren't talking super-soakers here. They are the small, leaky kind you get at Wal-greens, if The Bunny were to get his stuff from Wal-greens which he doesn't. And the gum...I've held off for a long time and lately they have been introduced to this sugary treat outside the house, so I'm trying to stay in control of it. It will be my pocketbook that is hit when those cavities start showing up!

They didn't mention the chocolate bunnies, the chocolate lollipop, the huge KitKat bar or the roll of Sweettarts. It was all about the gun and the gum. Weapons and Bubbalicious - should make next year a lot easier for The Bunny. Hand grenades and Juicy Fruit anyone?

I'm going to be a grandmother

Little man is on a ROLL this week.

On the way home from school today he shouts out,

"Mommy! I can.not.believe.it! I have hair."

Me: "What do you mean buddy. Of course you have hair."

Him: "No, here, look!"

He points to his fluff on his arm (thankfully it was on his arm). And with a sense of true pride he sighs,

"I'm going to be a Daddy."

Great. Haven't hit 40 and he's trying to make me a grandmother!

On the way to bed

My cutey petuty was singing:

"Oh when the Bunnies come hopping in, Oh when the bunnies come hopping in"

"Oh I want to be in that garden. Oh when the bunnies come hopping in"

I just wanted to squeeze him.

I'm a skydiver

Sometimes I forget that kids want to be, well, kids. I often rush to fill up "free" time with projects and playdates and schoolwork in an attempt to keep them out of the way while I squeeze in my own projects happy and entertained. That's what they expect, right? Total, regimented, planned out, playtime? Hmmm...this weekend I realized that maybe all they want is to be a skydiver.



Wondering why I have a picture of my little man in the tub? On Saturday night, after a rainy, cool, project-filled afternoon, my little guy whacked his head somewhere (never did find out where) and came to me in tears. But more important than the tears in his eyes was the fact that his eyes were barely open. He was EXHAUSTED. I bundled him up and we laid on his bed together and quickly quietly fell asleep. Hard part was it was 5:30 p.m. And I know he still rests/naps at school during the week, but if he does it at home, he's up til midnight.

Saturday, I didn't care. He was tired. I was sleepy. It was rainy. I never sleep with him so this was special.

My DH woke us up around 6:30 and I told him to take our daughter out to eat...Momma wasn't making dinner and wasn't waking little man. She squealed in glee because she's a restaurant addict and off they went. Five seconds after they pulled out of the driveway, our friendly canine was on a mission to see if anyone was left in the house.

After body (doggy?) slamming his way into the room, he managed to jump right up into the bed and wake our slumbering bliss. We laughed, woke up, and went down to the kitchen. I offered a special Mommy/Son night out but he didn't want to leave the house. He wanted cheese sticks wrapped in ham and for me to sit with him at the table. Done.

Then, I asked if he wanted to take a warm shower. In the hustle and bustle of the weekdays we've abandoned the bath for the faster and more efficient scrub-down in the shower.

Then, for some reason, I changed it to "take a bath". When he heard "bath" his smile was bigger than I'd seen in a while and up the stairs he flew screaming,

"Mommy! Help me figure out what toys I can bring in the tub! I know it can't be wooden."

We collected some plastic items from his toy box and found bubble bath hidden away. The whole 20 minutes in the tub he kept exclaiming, "I'm a skydiver!" and would hold his nose and go underwater. I kept repeating, "You mean scuba diver" but it never caught on, so he was a skydiver in a tub of bubbly water.

That night he was all fresh from his bath, in his pajamas, cuddled in my arms on the couch and it really hit me. He's only 4. And at 4 you don't always need much more than a warm bath and some Mommy-time!! Maybe it's time to slow down and smell the bubble bath. After all, kids just want to be kids...or skydivers.

Secret Agent Mom

Leading a double life is tough. While I may not be an "official" secret double agent, there are times when I'm not sure who I am. That's weird because I like to think I'm pretty comfortable in my skin - but jumping from Mom to Employee to Mom to Employee has it's moments.

The past two weeks I've been to several functions. Maybe it is the rebirth at spring, or the longer nights, but for some reason the social wagon hitched up and got moving, so I jumped on.

I started by attending a great launch party last Tuesday for a national group called Girls in Tech, which falls under the Employee category. Then, the next day there was lunch with two former colleagues and their gorgeous little girls, which falls into the Mom category. The following night hubby and I had a little reunion with some former colleagues and that was a hard mix of Mom/Employee/PersonIUsedToBeBeforeKids category. Last night was a scrumptious dinner at Smith & Wolensky's for an invitation-only event and that was DEFINITELY in the Employee category.

But after all this driving in and out of Boston, awkward handshakes and chit-chat, one thing I've come away with while leading this secret agent lifestyle is that no matter where I am or who I'm with, at some point during the event I talk about my kids. My wonderful, funny, witty, entertaining, sweet, loving, beautiful kids. So, I guess that just goes to prove you can take the Employee out of the Mom, but you can't take the Mom out of the Employee!