My Favorite Goat

Not only did Jay send us the coolest holiday card ever (who doesn’t want a candy cane in their martini glass?) but she wrote one of the best holiday posts I’ve ever seen.

“The day is dismal, and you know your shift will end before the line runs out. But not before a young woman walks in, whom you instantly recognize.

She was the very good friend of your younger sister. She spent days swimming in your pool, nights eating at your table. At birthday parties, she’d throw her fishing pole over the staircase banister chanting “Here, fishie, fishie” while you sneakily attached a prize and gave the line a tug to let her know that she’d caught a big one.

She recognizes you too, and you can see in her eyes that she is wrestling between her pride and her need, and you know that she can tell by your hot cheeks that you are wrestling too.

How can you keep it professional when you’ve seen her dancing around the toadstool at Brownies? What is there to say?

Well, I’ll tell you.

I said hello.

She said hello.

Then she cried.

And then I cried. Because this is how I help people, by crying with them. Because I couldn’t take away her poverty, I didn’t know how.”

Go on over to Jay’s site. Read the entire post. Make sure you spread the love this holiday season.

And a reminder to go over to www.readysetholiday.com for last minute shopping. They are letting you donate to military families via their site. Let’s not forget all those families with Moms or Dads in that hell on earth overseas.

Reindeer Food


Last Year's Reindeer Food Fun
You need:

Oatmeal

Glitter

ziplock bags

Printed tags that read: On Christmas Eve sprinkle this magic reindeer food on your lawn. The magic glitter sparkling in the moonlight, and the smell of oats, will guide Rudolph to your house.

She’s Crafty

Whenever I do anything even slightly crafty, I get so excited that I am hopelessly lame. Behold, the recent IM conversation with my husband:

[17:20] JackandHalasMom: and I would just like to say, that I am so FUCKING proud of the bow I made, with my own ribbon, that I bought, all by myself, that I could just pee
[17:20] JackandHalasMom: and if someone doesn’t tell me how beautiful my plate is I will cry
[17:21] AaronatD2: wait…so my choices are you cry or pee yourself? I think peeing yourself would be funnier in the long run.
[17:22] JackandHalasMom: yeah, but since I’ve had kids I pee myself all the time. so that’s really not all that exciting anymore
[17:22] AaronatD2: ew.

She's crafty

…and it doesn’t end there. Oh NO BITCHES! Not only can she make chocolate covered pretzels and put her own bow around it…she can make 13 bags of REINDEER FOOD for her son’s classmates.

Suck on that you giftcard bringing, cell phone yapping, store bought, heartless preschool Moms! How does the mug you picked up at Target for the teacher look now, biznitch! Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. That’s right. HOMEMADE by the KID and Mom!!!! Top that you WHORE!

Shopping Sucks. The End.

I’m the kind of person that finishes her Christmas shopping before Halloween.
Which is why finding myself at Target this morning at 9am, with 7000 other shoppers made me want to kill myself. Right there in the holiday aisle. Dead.
As an added bonus, the Starbuck’s inside the Target was closed. Some crap about some broken machines or something. Yeah. Right. So now there are 7000 uncaffeinated, pissed off shoppers at 9am. Most with non-school aged children still in Pj’s. Mine included. Although Princess Peanut upped everyone by adding her pink monster slippers to the mix instead of regular shoes.
After braving the hell on earth that was a store this close to the holidays, I can only tell you that all you need is http://www.readysetholiday.com. The nice people over there gave me a gift card to make my life easier and guess what? It worked. I got my Dad his gift in all of 20 minutes. Shopped, shipped, and done. Without setting foot in an evil, crowded store.
Normally I’m not a fan of Sears or Kmart, but this time of year, you just can’t go to Pottery Barn for everyone. And as it turns out, they have some really good deals. I like to pretend I can get everyone expensive electronics and all brand name everythings, but who are we kidding here?
If you are stuck for something, they’ve got it all in one place over at www.readysetholiday.com and you won’t have to fight for a cart or walk around aimlessly or spend too much money. OR carry your pink footed, cranky, PJ-wearing toddler while you push a cart through hundreds of other caffeine-needing mothers just trying to grab those few last stocking stuffers and rolls of paper.

I am on the couch nursing a migraine. I blame the shopping. Just do what you need to do online. Shopping sucks. The end.

Holiday Card Envy Part II

Last year I lamented how my lame holiday card never seems to measure up.

This year, I’m happy to announce we scrubbed the cheetos off the kids, pinned them down to strap on the fine duds, licked their hair into place, and then, apparently, told them Santa was DEAD

Santa is DEAD!
Just kidding. We told them Elmo was dead.

Actually, this is from a family photo shoot we took in the wilds of West Virginia. There are others, but you’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead, hands as they include some rather unflattering photos of the Kaiser looking seemingly towards heaven while I puff my cheeks and wrinkle my shirt to see how fat and white I can look.

Our REAL holiday card is so heartmeltingly adorable I can’t show it to you for fear you will implode from the fuzzy pink bunny feelings bursting from your heart.

So What Did YOU Do This Weekend?

My Weekend

He Shares! He Cuts! He Manipulates?

An excerpt from my parent-teacher conference at Count Waffle’s Pre-School:

“He’s a very smart boy! Sometimes a little too smart!”

“Too Smart?”

“Well, there are some group games we don’t let him play or the other children won’t have a chance to answer!”

“Oh. Well, that’s good, right?”

“Oh, yes…he answers before the rest of the children and gets it right every time. We just need to give everyone a chance.”

“Ok. That’s great.”

“But we do have some issues with clean up time.”

“Umm. Yeah. We are working on that at home too.”

“Well, his toys will get cleaned up, the problem is he will talk other children into doing it for him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your son is very good at getting out of working. He will actually convince someone else to do his job for him.”

Which, I guess, means he’s either an evil genius or super lazy, because I have yet to read him Tom Sawyer.

Get Our Your Wallet…

We criticize, we bitch, and we challenge. We leave comments and type our opinions on everything from gay pastors to breastfeeding mothers. We care enough to stay informed. We care enough to vote. And we certainly care enough to whine about what needs to be done. Bloggers have no shortage of ideas, but not many of us translate our complaints into action. We can write a good game, but can we take it one step further?

Love them or hate them, the ever-blog-present Mom community is kicking ass when it comes to turning posts into power. They’ve got blogging balls, and it’s time the rest of the blogosphere shows some r-e-s-p-e-c-t and supports them this holiday season.

Go ahead and dis their posts on poopy diapers and lazy husbands, but make sure you take out your wallet for their causes. They deserve and demand you attention, because they have harnessed the power of the blogosphere to not just find community and bitch, but to change the world.

What began as a typical Mommy post about family has turned into a full blown auction for Muscular Dystrophy. Her Bad Mother simply talked about her nephew Tanner, who suffers from the disease, and before you could say “Mommyblogger” a fundraiser was coordinated. Ipods, handmade items, jewelry, diaper bags, t-shirts, books, and many other items are up for auction. There is even information on how your child can send Tanner a letter of love and encouragement as he battles.

Over at BlogHer, ad network participants brought up the idea of using their adspace for public service announcements. Emails were sent, calls were made, and now TheFind.com has partnered with BlogHer to donate up to 10-thousand dollars to Doctors Without Borders. It’s easy too, all you have to do is go to TheFind.com and search for something “red.” Every “red” search means $1 for Doctors Without Borders.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Through my own Mommyblog, I’ve gotten to meet some amazing people, working for amazing causes. Seth Mazow and I found each other in the food line at BlogHer’s 2006 conference in San Jose. With a baby on my hip, a discussion about Mommyblogging began and we’ve been exchanging emails ever since.

Seth works for Interplast, the “…first international humanitarian organization to provide free reconstructive surgery in developing countries.” Interplast does what all of us Moms wish we could do across the world, help make life better for kids. They also do something very close to my heart; they help make breastfeeding possible for babies who might otherwise not be able to nurse.

As a blogger, as a Mom, and as a part of this virtual community, I challenge you to not just comment on this post but to open your wallet to these organizations and people. It’s not just that time of year, it’s time to turn all this talk into action.

Your Mom was there to wipe your nose and kiss your tears away. Be there for these Moms today, and make a difference.

Crossposted at the Huffington Post.