Monthly Archives: June 2009

It would have been fine if there were NO instruction…

I am completely confused by this ant bait by Walgreens. It should have been very simple, until I decided to read what the sticker says:

“This surface is TOP. Bottom should be placed against floor or stuck on wall.”

The problem is, according to the photo on the package, the bottom is supposed to be the top, and the TOP here, flat surface and therefore why the sticker is conveniently placed there, should be the bottom.

I started humming this Mother Goose rhyme after I was sufficiently confused and amused to take pictures of the Ant Bait. (I can’t believe I took pictures of Ant Bait procured from Walgreens!)

Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
he had ten thousand men,
he marched them up to the top of the hill,
and he marched them down again.

When they were up, they were up;
and when they were down, they were down;
and when they were only halfway up,
they were neither up nor down.

Sunday breakfast: somebody loves me!

Mr. Monk surprised me with a nice, healthy breakfast, much healthier than I prepare for them…

He has been trying to mother me lately:

Are you driving over the speed limit?

Why do you drink so much coffee?

You should have brrrkfast every day you know.

And, this is the best one:

Why are you returning those shirts? I bet they look lovely on you!

“Mommy, is tweeting bad?”

Nope. Didn’t make this up. This came up in my conversation with my 6 year-old, Mr. Monk, in the car today.

Most of our conversations happen in the car now, it seems. Could Mr. Monk be that smart so as to figure out that when I am driving, I am cornered and hence have to provide some sort of answers to the hard questions he throws at me?

“Mommy, why do you tweet?”

Gee. He got the lingo right. Many adults are still struggling with when to use Twitter and when to use Tweet…

“Hmmm. Why SHOULDN’T I Tweet?”

That’s a complete cop-out. I know.

“Is Tweeting bad?” See? He got that it’s a VERB!

“No. Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“I am just wondering why you do it.”

Hmm. Why did he assume it’s bad just because I am doing it?!

“….. Ok. It’s just like how you and your brother play on Runescape? it’s just something fun that mommy likes to do. Mommy enjoys talking to people on Twitter.”

Suave move, mom. Comparing Twitter to Runescape?! Let me turn the table on him…

“Now, why does it bother you so much that mommy is on Twitter?”

“I don’t know. Because you get to do it all the time, without having to ask. We have to ask you or daddy when we want to play Runescape…”

I wonder if I HAD a regular hobby like sewing or knitting whether he would have been so bothered by it.

Now the Fedora is gone, we are into Berets…

For the longest time my youngest had a Fedora, and he did wear it throughout the last winter despite my initial prediction that it would only last one week. It was adorable when he tipped his hat to greet the ladies,
"How'd you do, Ma'am?"
You are allowed to do all these things when you are only 5 or 6. Even wearing a beret…
Since we left our fedora behind on our trip to Taiwan, Mr. Monk has been on my case of getting him a replacement. Recently, he started a campaign of acquiring a beret.
"Mom. I want to be an artist when I grow up. How am I going to be an artist if I don't have an artist's hat?"
Finally I capitulated since I did not want to be the mother who stifles her children's artistic aspirations. Thank goodness we found one on Amazon.com for $5 that he deemed acceptable.
Now he has been wearing that hat every single day. At first he also insisted on wearing his black turtleneck, complete with a plastic, colorful, "pipe" that came with the "bubble blowing kit".
Like I said, when you are 6, you get to do all these role-playing make-believe things, even in public.
I did finally put my foot down and said NO! to the turtlenecks when it was so hot this weekend that his face was all red from the heat…

VeggieTales: Faith + Clean Sense of Humor sells OR Marketing Lesson 101

Ah, VeggieTales. After more than a decade, I am still marveled at their success. I am sure a lot of people watching their explosive success, have banged their heads against the wall, wailing, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Since 2006, the animated veggies (with very expressive eyes and mouths since they have no limbs!) have also been part of the NBC network Saturday Morning Cartoon line-up.

So now they have expanded to selling seeds in the gardening section. Amazing! But if you think about it, this is probably one of the few marketing / branding efforts that actually make sense. Who better to sell vegetable plant seeds other than Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber?!

Even though I am not Christian, I can see the draw of morality tales cloaked in cartoons full of catchy songs and silly jokes for parents who are at a loss in finding a moral compass in this world dominated by mass media. (Wow. That’s a long, and probably grammatically incorrect sentence….)

Plus it really does help that Larry the Cucumber is completely insane and the champion of non sequitur humors, as can be witnessed in his perennial favorites: Silly Songs with Larry. The song that always makes me laugh and want to dance is Barbara Manatee…

Others collect snow globes or coins. I collect airline barf bags…

Actually, my collection started as a joke from my husband . I had asked him to bring souvenirs back for me from abroad. He decided that a barf bag is just as exotic and representative.
"Honey! I have NO space in my carry-on bag!"
What's very exciting is that someone reached out to me who actually DOES collect barf bags, and he is not alone (just do a google search: it's eye-opening!) He has as of now 281 bags in his collection. Very impressive. It does seem that he somehow does not have American Airlines barf bag in his collection. I think we should try and get him one!

Mother fail

Mr. Monk (my 6 yo boy) and I got into a fight tonight. The source of it is as always: his need to be close to me whenever we are home. Especially when it is close to bedtime and he’s tired and I am exhausted. I finally lost my marble today and lashed out at him. Yup. Lashed out. I am still feeling shame and guilt from it, and am absolutely convinced that I will go to hell for hurting a 6 year old’s feeling so deeply…

The funny, sad, guilt-inducing thing is? He still asked for mommy when it’s time he go to bed.

In the midst of crying, sobbing, hiccuping, he said, “I am going to run away tomorrow.”

Hell. Is. Waiting. For. Me.

I apologized for being really mean and we were on our way to reconciliation.

“Please don’t run away. I would be very sad and worried if you do. How about the volcano of love?”

“It’s shattered.”

Those were his exact words.

Hell. Is. Waiting. For. Me.

“Oh honey. I am so sorry…”

“There is only one left now. But I am rebuilding them.”

Sometimes I believe that I do not deserve Mr. Monk as he is more mature than I am. He is an old soul. It awes me and worries me at the same time. He seems to know how his mind works is different from his peers. While crying about how he’s going to run away from home, he made this statement,

“I don’t fit in. I am different. I don’t fit in anywhere.”

Other than holding him very very tightly, I was utterly lost for words. Motherhood fail.

In praise of “Fallen Princesses” Photography Project by Dina Goldstein

Courtesy: JPG Magazine: Snowy

.

I am absolutely in amour with this picture and actually, all the pictures by photographer, Dina Goldstein. She is currently working on a project, sort of like an alternative story telling, “Fallen Princesses.” In her own words:

“These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

“I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.”

This is one of the best examples for:

Motherhood does not make you stupid. It makes you THINK!

.

p.s. I found this picture via @god, thank goodness he has a great sense of humor!

p.p.s. For a critique on how these pictures do not deliver the expected Punch, not subversive enough to destablize the stereotypes, please see Bitch Magazine

Cough cough, though I do love Bitch Magazine‘s “Feminist Response to Pop Culture” and agree with the perspective here, I have to say I haven’t found anything subversive enough to do exactly that, i.e. destablizing stereotypes substantially long enough to have the destablizing take roots, other than cutting off our own tits… even at that, we would still be labeled as “Suffering from hysteria”. The world will continue to stereotype any group with less power at will because that’s how power is gained and maintained. Ever wonder why stereotypes come in pairs?…

The Ability to be Oblivious OR Is there a manual for the multicutural world we envision?

Warning: The following text contains ruminations on the color of our skins. If you feel uncomfortable discussing skin colors, wish that people would just stop obsessing over skin colors and go on with their lives, or believe that the insistence on talking about the colors of our skin makes the originator of the conversation a racist him/herself, there is nothing much I could do about it. But I thought I’d let you know since you may not want to read the following…

Like most kids, Mr. Monk, my 6 year-old, is fascinated by people that look different from him. The problem is, even though my children are half and half, Mr. Monk is able to “pass” if I am not around. His older brother, however, stands out distinctively and has experienced name-calling at school and at extracurricular activities, much to my chagrin and surprise.

Seriously. Which century are we in? BUT I also believe that my oldest will grow up to be stronger and more compassionate. It’s funny, or disturbing rather, how my children will grow up differently, shaped by how the outside world view them differently…

Despite my being an annoying PC Police, to my best intentions, I am utterly confused when it comes to educating the very young, especially my own. Even though I always wince whenever Mr. Monk refers to someone who is apparently not white by the color of their skin, I fear I may have lost my bearings…

The other day while I was trying to demonstrate to him that we do not refer to people this way and also to challenge why he does not refer to someone of Euro descent by saying, “The White Lady” for example, I asked him,

“So what color is your skin?”

“I am white.” He said without even a pause.

Shock. I did not expect this answer. Well, when we discussed this before, in the context of Crayola rainbow of colors and how we, thank goodness, no longer refer to the “Peach” color as “Skin”, we had agreed that his was “Tan”…

“Hmm. No. You are not white. You are only half.”

He started protesting. “I am white!”

“Ok. So what do you think mommy is?”

“You are white too!” (I am very obviously not and we both know it)

Now here came a moment when part of me thought, “I really should drop this. Maybe I should go back to school, take more child psychology and postcolonial theory classes, before we continue this discussion…”

Yet the other part of me insisted, “No. We have to discuss this especially when they are young and malleable and forming their self-identities.” Sometimes I think that if I were my mother I would hate me.

“Ok. Could you please tell mommy why you think you are white?”

“Because we learned in school there were slaves…” he stopped abruptly and would not go on.

Silence.

“Mommy. Are there still slaves in the world?”

Oh, gee. What is going on in that tiny head of his?

In the midst of trying to explain to him that in some parts of the world, yes, (WHY do I have to be so brutally honest with my children, I do not know. Damn liberals I guess…) but not in this country, Oh, god no, he does not have to worry about ever being enslaved, we dropped the discussion on the color of his skin.

Here is what I wish I had sometimes, with guilt of course, for myself and for my children:

The ability to be oblivious.

Nothing cures narcissistic self-pity better than a rabid case of road rage OR how I found reality

After Starbucks, which seemed to be closing since even the cops outside were leaving, I continued to wander in the night. Blasting Sarah Betten’s Scream, I mindless drove first on 53 N, which turned out to be a stupid move since it goes nowhere and ended even before the end of the album.

I turned around and moved onto 90 E, downtown Chicago here I come!

Sarah started singing

I used to know how to change the world
I lie awake at night and envy that girl.

This got me going. For the first time on this fucking crazy shitty day tears came. Flood gate. Cliche always true. I sobbed uncontrollably. Fuck fucking fuck. I am not going to be anybody ever am I ? I will never be truly happy will I ?

All of a sudden, traffic stopped. What the fuck? It is 12:30 AM!? And I was sandwiched between giant trailertrucks. In one second, road rage took over the sobbing ruminating mess. Proustian stream of consciousness self-narration is not a match for

Get out of my way you fucking brute

As I passed by the truck who cut in front of me right before the lane ended. I got in front of him just in time being THIS close to the orange cones because I drive a tiny car.

Yeah! Reality!

I did drive all the way downtown, enjoyed the moment when you get to the end of Ohio facing Sears Tower. I always love that 5 second stretch. Then I turned the other direction.

Thank goodness for highway oasis. 24/7. Otherwise wayward mothers like myself would have nowhere to go…

I could in theory check in a hotel. But I would cross some sort of line, wouldn’t I?

Wandering in the night I am just the insane me…