Happy Halloween

Is my daughter cute or what?

I Heart SupaSaint

Miami Vice. Although, as a child of the 80's, the SupaLoose video is still my all-time fave.

Signs That I'm A Better Parent Than the Guy Who Made the Cover of Today's Metro Section

Really? Really? You tried to shoplift DVDs by putting them in your two-year-old's diaper bag and then you ran away and left him at Walmart when you got busted? Wow. Just. Wow. And also--point, Louisiana!

Other signs that I'm not that bad of a parent--I have yet to leave Emmeline in the car in August so I can play video poker. And if I did, I'd leave the windows cracked. And maybe throw the dog in there to keep her company.

City Living

K and I had a long talk over the weekend about where we'd like to be in five years. In sum, it all comes down to wishing for a slightly larger house--what we call a "grown up house," which in our minds equals a house with more than one bathroom and less scary neighbors. We would also really, really, really like to find a place to live where we could get cheaper (read, free) school tuition for our child. As Kelly commented, I'd love to be able to put some of the $800/month we're spending on tuition toward a larger mortgage instead.

As I've mentioned before, we briefly toyed with the idea of moving to Slidell about a year ago, namely due to the fact that we could buy a "grown up house" there and E could actually get a decent education at one of the public schools. Kenny brought up this idea again over the weekend--but I have to say, it really turns me off. Not because I have anything against Slidell--I just don't necessarily want to live there. If we could get a really nice house, right on the water, and have a boat and several hundred more dollars a month in disposable income? Sure--I'd be game for that. But otherwise, I'm not really interested in moving across the lake to trade free tuition for more commuting time, hassle, and gas money, wiht the only possible payoff being the chance for a slightly larger fixer-upper house.

Okay, Who Forgot to Tell Me That Hell Froze Over?

New Orleans Crime Camera Leads to First Conviction

Well then, we should definitely continue to spend millions and millions of dollars a year on them. And while we're at it, are there any more coastal Communist countries we can send C. Ray to so that he can study their disaster management techniques?

Point, Louisiana

Kenny and I have a game we like to play called "Whose Native State is More Embarrassing?" Each time your native state does something incredibly stupid, it gets a point. Bonus points if whatever your state does is so bad it makes the national news.

It all started one night when we were watching a History Channel special on the Klan. Early on in the show, they mentioned that the Klan had originally started in Louisiana; needless to say, I was all over Kenny about his racist, backward-ass state. About 20 minutes later, they mentioned that the Klan had all but died out at one point but then gained a resurgence during the Civil Rights movement.....in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

True Confessions

Tonight is the first time I've posted anything interesting (which I know is debatable) in several weeks, so I'm getting it all out of my system tonight, while the husband's at work. You're thrilled, I know.

True Confessions

I'm 40 years old, about as white bread as they come, and yet still I love "Forget about Dre" by Eminem and Dr. Dre.

I also write sentences that include "and yet still...."

True Confessions

I'm 40 years old, write and edit for a portion of my living, and I STILL cannot spell "occasionally" without having to spell check it--two c's? Two n's? Who knows?

Further Signs That I'm a Bad Parent

Emmeline's school has this thing called "happy grams." You're supposed to send notes to school occasionally, talking about something great your child did at home, which the teacher then reads aloud and posts on the blackboard. I think it's a great idea, and E really loves it when I send her to school with a happy gram--it's the least I can do, seeing as how I can't afford the tuition to send her to a school where she would by now be fluent in Mandarin or something.

Anyway--this week, I sent a happy gram to school, praising Emmeline for the fact that she had set the table all by herself one night this week. She was thrilled. Then, yesterday, when I went to pick her up from school, I stopped off at the bulletin board to peruse the happy grams. And there was E's note, praising her for setting the table, right next to the note that one her friend's mother wrote. It said something along the lines of "Sally is doing very well in the extra coursework we assign her at home. She can now count to 223, and, when using the abacus she got for Christmas, she can add sums up to 30." Our children are four. Am I supposed to be doing calculus with her at home now? How inadequate am I?

To further add to the mix, we got a notice in the mail today saying that the magnet schools in Jefferson Parish are accepting applications for next year. Kenny and I go back and forth on this idea--we're happy with her current school (my misgivings about Catholic education aside) and we don't necessarily want to move her. But, at the same time, $800/month for where she is now versus ZERO/month for a magnet school certainly makes it worth thinking about.

We applied last year, trying to get E in there this year for pre-K. We took her in for their required testing, and they said she did well. When the test scores came back, we were hopeful--she scored in the 96th percentile. Still, we knew that there were only 40 available slots for 400 children, so we weren't counting on her getting in and weren't surprised when we got the your-child-has-been-wait-listed letter.

Long story short, I called them today to see if we should even bother re-applying. I wasn't certain as to how the selection process went, as you have to score in the 75th percentile to be considered. My thinking was that if they put all of the kids' names who scored 75th percentile and above into a hat and just pulled names out until they'd reached their quota, it was pretty much impossible that she'd ever get in. But--but--if they were selecting kids based on their scores, maybe we had a chance. So, I called. Turns out, they do select kids based on their scores. But the woman said they didn't go any lower in scores than the 99.7th percentile, because the kids in the applicant pool were Just. That. Smart. So if E scored 96th percentile and they had at least 40 kids who were in the 99.7th percentile or above...yikes! Apparently, everyone but Emmeline got an abacus for Christmas last year. I don't know what we were thinking buying her that Sleeping Beauty outfit and Santa coloring book instead....

Wisdom of the Ancients

Tonight, I got to attempt to explain to Emmeline what a record player is. Needless to say, I was met with utter confusion. I can't wait until she's a teenager and I get to tell her about how I was 12 when we first got a microwave and a VCR and that I was in my mid-20's when the internet became accessible to the average person. (Of course, then I'll have to explain to her what a VCR is.) Now I know how my parents felt when they explained to me that they didn't have television until they were about eight or nine and that it was in black and white. The horror! This could be fun....

Signs That I'm a Bad Parent

Emmeline now has her very own library card. She's very excited about it, and it kept me from having to fork over the $45 in late fees that have accumulated on my card due to the Dora book that went missing in Emmeline's room for about six weeks. But kids can't rent movies with their cards, so I had to lie to E and tell her that the Muppet movie was rented out. Life's going to get a lot harder once she learns how to read and can tell when I'm lying.

I heard a news brief on the radio today that said that 75% of parents think it's important to teach their children not to lie but also admit to frequently lying to their children. I most definitely fall into this category. I will lie my ass off to E with a straight face, if it's in her (or my) best interest. Case in point? The day that Halloween costumes appeared in T.J. Maxx. There was no way in hell we were getting the sequined, bedazzled, hooker-looking cheerleading costume that she fell in love with. "Oh, I'm so sorry, honey, but they don't have that costume in your size. How about this adorable ladybug costume instead?" I'm sure you can guess what E will be for Halloween this year.

Loyalty

I love my dog, but some days, he drives me crazy. Am I the only one who has a dog that literally follows me everywhere I go? I'm serious. If I get up to go into the kitchen, he's right there with me. A side trip to the bedroom? There he is. And then he stands there and stares at me, making sure that I'm getting settled into whatever room I'm in before he'll lie down. Sometimes, just to screw with him, I'll walk into the living room, sit down, wait for him to sit down, and then walk into the kitchen, wait for him to sit down, then move on to the next room. If I'm really, really bored, this can go on for a good 10-15 minutes before he gives up. (Note to self: get a life.)

And then when he's not following me physically, he's following me with his eyes. Right now, as I type this, he's staring at me fixedly, waiting and watching. It can get kind of creepy after a while. It's like he thinks that if he just stares at me hard enough, I'll put him in the car for a three-hour ride and then stop off for a couple of T-bone steaks and an ice cream sundae for him. Either that or he's waiting for monkeys to fly out of my butt. Or maybe he's trying to figure out if there's a way that he can kill me in my sleep?

Does anyone want a dog?

The Google, Redux

Y'all know how much I love my google searches--especially since I finally connected the dots that 92.3% of the searches for "gris" that turn up are mispelled versions of "girls," aka porn.

So, here's today's search of the month: "gris naket." Not "naked girls," mind you. Not even "girls, naked." But "gris naket." Gris. Naket. I love it. Is our children learning? Is our adults stupid?