The Watermelon Fairy of 2011

Around August of every year, Cali and I sit down and she picks out the costume she wants me to make for Halloween.  This year?  A jacked-up watermelon fairy (see above).  Really, Cali?  A watermelon fairy?!  Not only that….I’m gonna have to make a pettiskirt.  Chiffon.  I hate sewing chiffon.  I curse the chiffon.  I’m not quite sure how I’m going to make those watermelon wings either.  I’m thinking wire, pantyhose and craft paint.  There’s a good chance she’s going to hit the streets looking like a hot mess on a tin plate.  Stay tuned for future progress.

Here are some of the costumes she passed on…thank gawd!  Don’t you wish you could dress like this every day?  I do.  I’d totally go to Publix dressed like a magical mermaid.  The majority of these costumes are available for purchase at Chasing Fireflies.

Parental Irresponsibility

I love Katy Perry.  Seriously…I do.  Her tunes are bouncy, she’s beautiful in that classic sort of way and she can rock a night brace like none other.  But did you know she used to have blonde hair, a different last name and sing Jesus songs?  Talk about the cross-over of all cross-overs!

Anyway…if you have a small kid you know that out of 5 million words in a day, they’ll hone right in on the nasty inappropriate ones…repeating them loudly in church, school and grocery store check-out lines;  meanwhile, you’re left standing there trying to defend your pathetic lack of parental monitoring.  When this happens, I usually blame the public school system.

For Cali’s first three years of life, the only television channel she watched was Noggin (pre-commercials).  It was also during this time that she ate oatmeal and eggs…and never begged for stupid toys that squirt cookie dough and glow-in-the-dark paint.  I can’t really pin-point the exact time we exposed her to the other televised programming for children.  All I know is that after that, she started swilling Bubba Cola, walking like a hunchback, picking her nose and wearing peculiar things upon her head.  She also refused to eat roughage.  Truth be told, she became plumb ignorant.

(See pics below for verification)

So back to Katy Perry.  My kid is also a big fan because I have my iPod chuck full of her tunes.  We’ll have the sunroof open, cruising down Slappey Boulevard, singing about extraterrestrials and fireworks.  It was during one of these jaunts that my iPod’s battery died and we were left with nothing but talking space.  So she’s back there, slurping on a Slurpee, looking like a hillbilly when she asks:

“Mama.  What’s a menage a trois?”

A WHAT THE WHAT?!

“A menage a trois.  Katy Perry talked about that’s what she could have might have did last Friday night.”

*crickets*

And in my most brilliant parental save-a-scene to date, I replied:

“Chinese food.  It’s Chinese food.  She had Chinese food last Friday night.”

Katy…consider yourself censored.

All Hail Dale. Genius Dad!

I’ve already got a list of things I plan to do when Cali hits the tweens.  Things that will make her question her origin.  Like pretend to be deaf at parent teacher conferences.  Laugh if you want….but the “Deaf Ruse” is one of the most popular tools in my manipulation tool bag.

Picture it.  A full flight, crammed in between a mouth breather and an elderly woman with a colostomy bag.  The oh-so-not-perky air attendant swears to holy god that there aren’t any pillows left, all the blankets are in first class and no more snacks for coach.  Enter in the Deaf Ruse.  I call the air attendant over, nodding quickly to let her know I was a wee bit challenged, then commenced to making jacked up hand signals and mouthing, “May I please have a pillow?”

Oh hark, the change in demeanor!  I got a pillow, a blanket, two more snacks and liquor.  If the air attendant had been paying attention, she would’ve noticed that I was listening to my iPod.  They don’t screen ‘em like they used to.

Anyway…let me tell you about Dale.  He’s a stay-at-home dad who came up with a genius idea that would humiliate his 16 year old son down to the ground.  Every morning when the bus would come to pick up the kid….here’d come dad.  All dressed up in crazy stuff.  CRAZY!  Every single day…waving at the bus!  Some major news outlets caught wind of his shenanigans and invited him to come on down…Inside Edition, Good Morning America, Fox News.

Dale had the good sense to blog about all this mess.  You can see all 170 costumes over at Wave At The Bus.  Dale…you’re one helluva guy!  Enjoy your Daddy Day!

Bouncy Ball Kit: I Approve!

About a year ago, Cali picked out a $5 “activity kit” from Hobby Lobby.  The box claimed you could make bouncy balls in just a couple of minutes.  Really? I highly doubted it.  But it worked….and it was AWESOME! (I said that in a sing-song voice)

So awesome, in fact, that Santa brought her the deluxe mega kit for Christmas.  Since it’s 103 degrees outside today, we pulled out the balls and let the good times roll.  Here’s how we did it.  If you want some of your own, go here.

Strange

I came across these pics last night and just shook my head.  They were taken when Cali was about a year old….and I’d noticed her light was still on after I’d put her to bed.  When I opened the door, this is what I found:

Four years later and not much has changed except her shoe size.  God love her….

Hot Coffee. What’s That?

I would love to sit here and sip on my coffee and write a leisurely post on why I couldn’t get in to Vassar college…..but I can’t.  Because I have a naked 5 year old standing in front of me hollering about a house being on fire somewhere in the vicinity because she can smell smoke and will drop dead of smoke inhalation if I don’t get up and do something about it NOW.

So I threw a waffle down the hall for her to chase while I post some pics of what I’ve been making/painting/photographing here recently.  Everything is available for purchase at Whimsy Dreams…except for the photography.

My Kid is a Liar

All kids lie.  I know this.  But when it becomes pathological and blatant…it’s disturbing.  For instance:  The pictures above?  Yeah, I found those on my camera after my kid swore on her American Girl’s life and a stack of bibles that she had NOT touched my camera.  Like I wouldn’t find this out?!  And look at her snide little face!  It’s insulting and condescending.

What’s it going to be like when she hits the tweens?  I know I need to prepare for it…but most of my brain doesn’t want to imagine the type of lying scenarios that will likely go down.

“No, mom!  I swear to Granny that I didn’t sneak out of the window last night and go hang out with a homeless man, who was NOT a stranger because he offered me something to drink.”

I take minimal comfort in knowing that I’m smarter than her.  I think.  But will I be one of those Mama Snoops?  The ones who root through their kid’s drawers and pockets while they’re away at school.  I don’t want to be that mom.  But over the weekend, I came upon something while cleaning her room that jarred me to the bone.

She’s a slob.  I won’t deny it.  So I expected to find the usual junk.  Stale cheerios, lip-gloss smeared all over the bookcase, Gushers with no gush in the middle.

What I did NOT expect to find were sugar packets hidden like bags of crack cocaine.  I found close to 15 of them…hidden in the trunk of Strawberry Shortcake’s car, in the Squinkie gum-ball machine, up Tinker Bell’s dress, inside of a Happy Meal toy that was inside an old Christmas tin that was at the bottom of her toy-box.  A few of them were shoved under the flaps of her Fisher Price pop-up book and I found the last few in Polly Pocket’s horse trailer.

I was appalled.  Frightened. Befuddled.  So as I’m standing there waving a sugar packet in front of her face, all I’m thinking is, “In a few years, this sugar packet is gonna be a fat bag of weed.”

Of course, she reminded me that these were mere allegations and ran outside to harass the cat.  I used to worry about her being imprisoned for life due to her committing some whack and heinous crime.  After witnessing her not-guilty plea to Mom vs. Liar, I’m convinced she could hoodwink the most experienced and seasoned prosecutor on the circuit.  With aplomb.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love my kid.  But she’s killing me, people….and there ain’t nothin’ soft about it.

Online Parental Surrogates

Here’s my theory.  Kids these days are born with some bio-cryonic freak gene that makes them computer-savvy at the ripe age of fetus.  I’m just about sick of my 5 year old making me look stupid.  Sometimes I want to get in her face like a Marine drill sergeant and call her names like “Maggot” and “Meat”.  I know that sounds harsh, but the kid is a smack-talker.

So much so, in fact, that her Daddy and I have stopped playing Wii with her.  I don’t have to sit there while some punk kid yells “Boo-Ya!” in my face every time she makes a hole-in-one or knocks me off a horse.  So I got up and walked.  I figure eventually Cali will run into another smack-talker in the wide world of sports and she’ll get what’s coming to her.

I know there are some hard-core moms out there who have made a vow to god and all things holy that their child will never come within 3 miles of a video game.  I’m not one of those moms.  I’m the mom who puts her kid on a leash in the airport.  Don’t judge me.

So anyway….I decided to post my top 5 websites that act as surrogates when I’m bloated and PMS-ing.  I promise you, they’re all kinds of clean and educational and violence-free.

1)  AGKidzone (American Greetings):

2)  Hub World:

3)  Fisher Price (ideal for the wee ones):

4)  Barbie:

5) Funbrain (mucho noggin stiumulation):

I Like Jello

“Children are living beings–more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore

My husband and I both agree that our daughter is teaching us far more than we could ever teach her.  Things like patience, endurance, restraint, anger management.  Those are the prime lessons she’s teaching us these days.

It’s like Cali is Hurricane Katrina…and I’m one of the looters who just stole a flatscreen TV and is wheeling it through 3 feet of water in a shopping cart.  I’m assured that her behavior and disposition  is due to her brilliantly creative and imaginative mind.  As if this should comfort me.  I don’t care…I’ll admit it.  Sometimes I wish she was a blooming idiot so I could sit down and catch my breath.  Didn’t I read somewhere that Einstein’s mother became a hardcore whino and morphine addict shortly after he turned 2 years of age?  No?  Hm.  Thought I’d heard that somewhere.

I am in NO way implying that my kid is an Einstein.

I’m just saying that she’s got the brain of a criminal.  Or saint.  It could go either way.  There are some days when I fall down on my knees, cross my fingers and shake them at the sky, chanting, “Please don’t let her go to the dark side, please don’t let her go to the dark side, please….”

Yes.  The line is THAT thin.  Then there’s that weird voice in my head that periodically reminds me that I’m 100% responsible for the way she turns out.  While I know this isn’t entirely true….I know that I’m at least 85% responsible.   This responsibility rattles me.

I wasn’t exactly born with the god-given maternal gene.  People assume that every single woman in human captivity is born to be a mother.   Lies!  That doesn’t mean that these women are unfit or “less than”….it just means we have to work a little harder.   And I’m working my hiney off over here, people!  It sickens me when I see the text-book soccer mom looking down her nose at the mom who is doing good to show up on time with the kid intact.

If I’m at a playground with a bunch of other child-bearers, I’ll usually drift towards those whose kids are running around half-naked and filthy dirty.  I like to avoid the moms who point out that your kid’s pants look exactly like the ones they dumped off at Goodwill last month then ask you what church you’re a member of.  Really?

The grossly immature side of me would like to toy with the emotions of women like this.  Like maybe come back with, “Yeah?  Well I saw your husband on the East side last weekend at the Buckle Bunny and he sho nuff wasn’t looking like a Baptist preacher to me!”    While this may be a blatant lie….it’ll make her have to call her primary physician and ask for a nerve pill or two.  Not only that, she’ll most likely avoid the playground and that’s one less snoot to deal with.

Alas….I have matured.  Sort of.  All this parenting stuff has made me look at life differently.  Like maybe I need to take off my serious glasses and put on Cali’s ignorant 3D glasses held together with a piece of elastic, then run around the front yard half naked eating a banana.  Because somewhere along the line, I was misled into believing you HAD to be a serious parent all the time in order to keep the kid in line, otherwise no one would ever be allowed to come over to your kid’s house for a sleep-over.

I’m done with being concerned about the opinions of others.  No longer will I hold my child back from being magical because I’m worried about what the neighbors might think.  Who cares what the neighbors think!  The Trice family is weird as heck!  This isn’t a secret.  Everyone knows about it.  We grill out every Friday night while Cali dances in the drive-way listening to ghetto music blaring from the car stereo.   I’m the mom on the street that is constantly hanging out the door, cussing under her breath, screaming for her kid who ran off.  Again.

If encouraging Cali to live her life full throttle means we’re the oddballs on the block, then so be it.  What kind of mom would I be if I crammed a small child into an empty pickle jar and poked some holes in the lid.  Because that’s essentially what I’d be doing if i tried to squash Cali’s spirit.

Sometimes I’ll watch her sleeping and think, “Kid.  I hope you grow up one day and become super famous so you can publicly thank me and your Daddy for the sacrificial love you were given.”

And sometimes she’ll crack open an eyelid and say, “Please, mom.  Don’t be a mommy-martyr.  It sickens me.”

Then I’ll have to go look at baby pictures to remind myself of how cute and fuzzy she used to be.

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A Bird Named Bing

Five years ago I stood in a petshop and picked a bird out of a bin of about 100 Budgies.  “I want THAT one.”  The clerk tried to catch him with her hands, but the bird was Charlie Manson crazy and wouldn’t let her anywhere near him.

“Ma’am are you sure you want this one?  I mean, they’re all the same anyway.”

I assured her that THIS was the one I had to have.  With a huge sigh she went and fetched a fish net….you know, the kind you clean out an aquarium with.  After about 5 minutes of struggle, she finally trapped him under the net.

It was an early birthday gift for my husband because he’d mentioned he’d always wanted a bird.  But it became quite clear that the bird was to be mine.  Not necessarily because he preferred me….more like I was the one stuck doing all the cage-cleaning and feeding.

I didn’t know a thing about birds.  Quite frankly, pet birds have always scared the beans out of me….with their sharp little beaks and feet.  After about a week of his incessant singing, we decided on a name.  Bing.  As in Bing Crosby.  I sat by his cage for at least an hour every single day…for close to four months.  Talking to him, easing my hand into his cage.  I can remember the day he stepped cautiously onto my hand, his eyes skeptical.

I’d read somewhere that Budgies were very smart birds, so I set about testing this theory.  He had hanging bells in his cage….so I started telling him, “Ring your bells, Bing!  Ring your bells!”  After about a week, dang if he didn’t start ringing those bells!  When he saw how we reacted, he started showing off even more….putting this bells on his head and squawking like an avian comedian.

My daughter has taken Bing to school for the past two years…and Bing never failed to put on a show for the kids.  He would actually pout when it was time to go.  Yesterday morning, he joined Cali in singing “Oops, I did it again” and kissed her hand through the slats of his cage.  His happy singing filled the house all day yesterday…just like it did everyday for the past 5 years.  I always said, “How can you have a bad day when a bird is singing in your house all day?”

This morning we found Bing….dead.  He lay peacefully below his bells….eyes gently close, his wings wrapped snugly around his body.  He must have died in the early morning hours.  I fell apart.

Bing was more than just a bird to me.  He’d come into my life just as I was beginning to fight this bipolar.  He taught me patience.  He taught me about trust.  He taught me that fear was unnecessary.  As my five year old sat on the floor, wailing right along side of me….all she kept saying was, “Bing brought me so much happiness!  He made me happy!”

But then to hear her begging God to make Bing alive again…I mean, what do you say?  Cali immediately grabbed her crayons and paper and began drawing a picture she wanted Bing to have when he was buried.  A couple of weeks ago, a squirrel got fried on the transformer behind our house, and it nearly traumatized Cali.

I was so unprepared for the whole “Death” conversation.  So I just told her what I believe to be true.  That every living being has a soul.  And each soul is here for a purpose.  We may not always know what that purpose is.  We may go to our graves still not knowing.  We may shake a fist at God at the unfairness of certain deaths.  So I tried to explain that even though the body gets sick or hurt, the soul continues to live.  Always.

We lived in a mint chocolate green house before we moved to our new one.  Cali loved that house.  She took her first steps in that house.

“You know how you loved that green house?  It was sad to leave it, wasn’t it?  But even though we’re not in that house…we’re still alive aren’t we?  We just live in a new house.  Well, Bing lives in a new house now.”

That seemed to make sense to her.  But then she promptly pointed out that she was able to still drive by the green house to make sure it was still there.  She couldn’t do that with a dead bird.  No.  You can’t see Bing with your bare eyes.  But when you have a happy memory of Bing….he’s there.  Or when you see another bird hop up onto your window sill and give you a knowing look…he’s there.  When you hear bells ringing…he’s there.

In explaining this to my child, I realized I was also telling it to myself.  Because I’m just as lost and sad as Cali.  I don’t understand it either.  I’m angry that our beautiful bird is dead and our stupid mean cat is still alive.

As the three of us sat huddled together on the floor beneath Bing’s cage, my husband said, “Bing finished what he was here to do.”

So all morning, I’ve been thinking about how far we’ve come in the past five years.  I’ve successfully kicked bipolar’s butt and become a published writer.  Cali is starting Kindergarten in the fall…a whole new world.  We’re in a beautiful new home.  In a failing economy, Matt has a thriving and stable job.  And through all of this, Bing stood singing.  He never once stopped singing.  And maybe…even though we didn’t know it….it was Bing’s song that gave us hope when we felt like we were drowning.  Maybe Bing’s wordless song urged us to get up and keep going.

Today is Ash Wednesday and across this nation, people are kneeling in front of their priest and are being reminded, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return”. A painful reminder of our mortality.

We plan to bury Bing later today under our Dogwood tree….with his bells and Cali’s pictures.  The Dogwood tree has historical symbolism.  That being divine sacrifice, triumph of eternal life, resurrection and regeneration.

Like a child, I’ll be watching to see signs of Bing’s presence.  Because even though I’m pissed and in pain right now…I know Bing’s soul is still with us.

His final lesson?  Teaching me that I don’t need eyes to see….I need vision…and a fearless trusting heart.