The Oral Report

Standing up in front of the class was never so much fun!

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Location: River City, United States

The rantings and ravings of a mom of three wonderful girls as she finds new love while working like a dog and shaking her fist at the system. You know. Pretty much like everybody else.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Getting Girly

It's getting harder and harder for me to blog on the weekends. Weekends when I have the kids, there's always something going on with them or someone needs my attention or I'm doing laundry (ALWAYS) or cooking or cleaning something. Once in a while there is sleeping. Weekends when I don't have the kids, there's always something going on without them or I'm doing laundry (ALWAYS) or cooking or cleaning something. Man, it's hard to work full time and keep a family running.

Not that I would ever trade it.

As hard as it gets sometimes, there are moments that make it all worth it, plus put some in the bank for the times when you are looking up the number for gypsies in the phone book while packing some kid or another's stuff.

Want a confession? (Heh. Like I haven't made enough of those around here!) I'm about the least girly girl I know. A couple of my female "real world" friends who read this blog are laughing out loud and saying "No Shit!" I know lots of things. And I know some girly stuff, too. But, it's not my forte'. Not by any stretch.

My fingernails are kind of longish right now and I was thinking, last week, that maybe I'd polish them over the weekend (yeah, that's how NEVER I do that) and do [Kid 3]'s at the same time. Toenails, too. When I mentioned it to her, she decided that we should do each others' nails. Uh huh. [Kid 3]. Who is six years old. Hard to back out of that one.

Now, [Kid 3] is the queen of fashion shows and hair styling and all things girly. I shan't argue that. But [Kid 3] (who tried to cut her own hair at school last week, btw) is NOT a licensed cosmetologist and has never worked in a nail salon one day in her life. Not one.

As I said, I'm not particularly girly, so my expertise at doing my own nails is quite limited, anyway. Her enthusiasm was so contagious that I simply couldn't decline her very sweet offer.

So, Saturday morning, she started. "Are we gonna do nails now, Mommy?" "Not now, Sweetie. Probably late in the day. We've got a lot of running around to do today and I need to get that done before we'll have time to do nails."

I had to get a few more items of school clothes and some medical items and the grocery shopping and I can't remember where else we went, but we didn't get back to the house until 3PM.

(Oh, hey! One of the errands involved me getting my VERY OWN, really cool, sphygmomanometer!!)

As soon as we got back home, though, "Is it time for makeovers, Mommy?" "Sweetie, believe it or not, I've got to start cooking dinner. It's a dinner that takes a lot of time today and I think the best time for us to do nails is gonna be after that. I don't want to mess them up cooking after you've done them for me. Why don't you help me cook tonight?"

She's actually an excellent sous chef. Following in the footsteps of [Kid 2]. She rubbed the dry spice rub on the ribs for me, as I got the eggs and potatoes boiling for my potato salad, and together we started on the chocolate chip cheesecake I was making for dessert.

I was in the kitchen for about 3 hours non-stop on Saturday. She didn't hold out quite as long. As [Kid 2] doesn't like potato salad, and had been asking me about potatoes au gratin for a couple weeks, I threw together a small batch of that for her. I thought it would work with the bbq ribs and corn on the cob I was already planning. You've no doubt heard the legend of my potato salad...LOL!

After dinner was finished, the kitchen, as you might imagine, was a disaster area. I would say that FEMA was knocking on my back door, but we all know they won't be there for another week or so. Anyway, I wasn't even up from the table and she started another round of "Is it time, YET???" "Let me clear the table and start some dishes and then we can do it. Why don't you get things together in the living room and I'll be there in a few minutes?"

By this point, the manicure/pedicure plan had turned into a full-blown makeover. [Kid 1] and [Kid 2] thought it sounded like fun, too and wanted to join in. Before I knew it, I had a girly glam party on my hands. The kids asked me if I thought I could talk Highlander into letting us make him up. (There is something that girls find quite mischievously joyous about putting make-up on a man. Why is that?) In any event, I had to shut that down before it ever grew (hairy man) legs.

With one of Highlander's comfy afghans on the floor, my girls and I sat in a circle and [Kid 2] decided that we could work on each other's hair in one direction and then we'd switch and work on each other's make up in the other direction. Of course she thought that sounded like a marvelous idea. [Kid 2] wasn't going to have a six year old working on her in either direction.

There is something about sitting on the floor with my kids, just laughing and cutting up and getting as silly as we can get, that lifts my heart like nothing else. Highlander took a ringside seat, pretending to busy himself on the nearby computer. I know he was jealous, though. Even if he was acting like he was ignoring us.

I ended up having my nails done by [Kid 3]. Thick globs of bright pink (and, yes, pink IS my favorite color...but...but...) glitter nailpolish and then she did a matching theme, coating my eyelids with a white glitter paste. It's an interesting look for a woman my age (or a man my age, I suppose). The other two girls were laughing so hard at me, that the glitter became a mandatory addition on everyone, as we competed for the worst make-over.

With my hair poofed out and my eyes stuck open from the glitter paste on the lids, I'm sure I was doing a pretty good impression of what Marty Feldman would look like as a drag queen. I'm here to testify, though, that every one of us looked pretty damned bad.

Yesterday, as [Kid 3] rode her bike out in front of our house, I spent a good half hour out on the front porch with some cotton balls and a bottle of nail polish remover. It was HELL getting that stuff off! Never trade it, though. Never. I have such fun with them. And I love knowing that they have such fun with me, too. You better believe that THAT keeps those readings on that new sphygmomanometer looking better than anything else!

5 Comments:

Blogger Doc Nebula said...

I hate it when nobody gives you any comments. Even more than I hate it when nobody gives ME any comments. And both are happening far far too often lately.

Well, I love you and I love watching you have fun with the babies. And I wish we were both home with them right now. But, alas, sometimes we have to be grown ups, which just sucks.

8/22/2006 4:07 PM  
Blogger Laurie Boris said...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry!! I enjoy reading both your blogs but I've been a bit preoccupied lately. But I'm still here!! In fact, SF, I keep coming back to my own memories of summer camp and (with your blessing) steal this idea for an upcoming blog. I'm having dinner tonight with my thirteen year old nephew who just got back from the same summer camp I went to some :unintelligible: years back and I want to do a compare/contrast.

Wish my Mom was a girly-girl sort of Mom. Every once in a while I could get her to style my hair, but she was more of a "Let's go to an auction!" or "Let's to a feminist poetry reading!" kind of Mom.

Go forth and glitter!!

8/23/2006 12:16 PM  
Blogger Nate said...

Uh, in my defense, I'm really, really lazy, and I have a crappy schedule that plays hod with my brain.

And a lot of SFs entries lately have been girly stuff, and a lot of your have been comics-oriented, and I'm not fluent in either topic very much, even if I am a faggy geek.

8/24/2006 4:43 AM  
Blogger SuperWife said...

H -

There you go. Beg them to comment. Pity comments. ::shiver::

I wish we didn't have to do the worky thing either, but you're right We're grown ups. That's our gig.

Love hanging with my girls. Love even more that my girls love hanging with their mom. And their Darren...;)

Opus -

I'd love to read about your summer camp experiences! (and I'm sure you'd do a much better job achieving the feel than I did.)

I'm DEFINITELY NOT a girly girl kind of mom, but every once in a while I have my moments. My girls and I have bonded more over board games and cooking than anything else, I guess. My own mom is more girly than I am, but she and I never really did activities together. Certainly NOT feminist poetry. In fact, thinking of her at ANY poetry reading is a pretty hysterical image.

Lastly, according to Highlander, I am still finding glitter. This morning, in my left eyebrow. That crap hangs around FOREVER!!

Nate -

er...faggy geek...you need to reach out to your feminine side and embrace her. Don't worry about not commenting. I know you're around and while I (like every other blogger, I guess) dig on the comments, I'm okay knowing that you're reading, even if you don't leave me something. Cross my heart. Plus, it's not like you don't send me notes elsewhere.

8/24/2006 9:42 AM  
Blogger Evil Genius said...

That sounds like so much fun! *sigh* alas, I have two boys.

It IS hard working full time and having a family. If only I could work part time, it would be SO much more manageable! I hope that people out there realize how hard it is and what strong women we have to be to hold it all together!

Good for you for finding time to giggle on the floor with the girls, this is stuff they will remember forever, not the clean kitchen! :)

8/25/2006 5:48 PM  

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