Watch out, Aimee Mann

I want you to be my first rat
want you to be my horse
yeah, I can do it

You're gonna get scratched by the cat
want to be this way
you can
yes, sir, you can

Singin' in the shower again

-Lyrics by Bugglegirl, July 2009

Beauty school dropout

I know what you're thinking. But no, I'm not having a Britney moment. And my new vacuum cleaner, even though our romance is tenuous at best, is performing acceptably.

This, dear readers, is what happens when you entrust a four year old with a pair of child-safe scissors during quiet time. Fortunately, the hair is not her own; rather, Bugglegirl sheared it from the mane and tail of the fancy American Girl horse that she got for Christmas. She'd tried to conceal the evidence in her secret stash spot behind her toy basket, but the little tufts of black hair strewn about her beige carpeting betrayed her.

Me: What have you done?
Bugglegirl: Nothing, Mommy.
Me: Did you cut your horse's hair?
Bugglegirl: I made it pretty, see?
Me: Give me the scissors. Where is the hair?
Bugglegirl: Here.
Me: You know this hair will never grow back.
Bugglegirl: I know, Mommy. It will never grow back. It's OK.

Surprisingly, there's still a good deal of hair left on the horse, though now it's styled in an unattractive, asymmetrical blunt cut that might set Kelly Osbourne back a few hundred bucks.

Hmmm. . .beauty school. A double bonus: Not only could I blow the college fund on a downpayment on a Tuscan villa, but I'd have great hair - for free - doing it.

He's definitely Irish

The other day while cleaning my desk I came across this artistic specimen. I'd written on the back and set it aside to upload here back around St. Patrick's Day. Which was, alas, in March.


Bugglegirl: Look, Mom, he's coming down!
Me: Yeah! The leprechaun is sliding down the rainbow.
Bugglegirl: No, that's God.
Me: That's not a leprechaun?
Bugglegirl: No, that's God. And there's the pennies.
Me: God is going to slide into the pennies?
Bugglegirl: No. He's going to jump off right here.
Me: OK.

FREE: Super cute offspring

I'm sorry, did I have the audacity to imply that I was having a bad day, sitting around on hold with the insurance company?

AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T SPIT ON ME. OR SWAT ME IN THE EYE.

One of Bugglehub's cousins has this clever little saying about living with preschoolers:

"You've got the terrible twos, the horrible threes and THE FUCKING FOURS."

Then you've got the assholes who volunteer to combine any of the above, then complain about it.

Let's have them two years apart - it's ideal. It all seemed so quaint at the time.

Sushi, anyone?

I know I said that there would be additional installments of the other day's CSI: Buggletown entry. I lied. Well, not so much lied - more like changed my mind. I realized that there really isn't much suspense or intrigue inherent in the barf bash that gripped the Bugglehouse last week.

I thought we were going to get off easy, after Bugglegirl upchucked bits of clementine all over her bed in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago. Miraculously, nobody else got sick. That is, until five days later, when Buggleboy spent last Tuesday morning puking on every spot on the couch that wasn't covered by a towel.

Wednesday was my turn. I'm still not sure how I managed to pick up Bugglegirl from the co-op and fix her lunch without falling down. I kept having to take breaks every thirty seconds or so, crouching randomly in the parking lot and assuming the fetal position on the floor of the den. Really, you haven't lived until your kid peers right down into the toilet bowl while you're in mid-vomit and exclaims, Mommy, you throw up just like I do!

Even Buggledad, a.k.a. Stomach of Steel, succumbed on Thursday night. But like a true warrior, he rallied Friday night for martinis and steak. It's mind over matter, he gloats. So I have this idea: next time you see him, sidle up close and whisper gently in his ear, Canelloni Porcini and see what happens.

She lives on love street

This is the medical night, oh, this is the medical night
This is so much time, oh, this is so much time
Early in the morning, early in the morning, early in the morning (repeat)
When she got the kittens for the parade,
Oh, you're not having so much spiders
Oh, have a beautiful night
Dee da lee, dee da lee, dee da lee dee (repeat ad nauseum)

I know what you're thinking, people. I delved deep into the Elektra archives and discovered some of Jim Morrison's unpublished and arguably, most haunting early lyrical poetry.

Then Bugglegirl memorized it. And belted it out from her bedroom during "quiet time" this afternoon.

We are so dead

I need to get one of those handy (and stylish!) belt attachment things for my iPhone, or maybe just keep a Post-it note stuck to my pant leg, so that I can faithfully reproduce herein the outrageous emanations spilling daily out of Bugglegirl's mouth. Considering that I am now middle aged, I find myself forgetting much, in particular those things that I vow, in the moment, to commit to memory and thus foolishly fail to write down.

What I'm getting at is that, last week, Bugglegirl combined the words frickin' booby in a sentence and, because I'm such a booby, I can't frickin' remember exactly what she said. I do recall the following:

1) Her blatant denial of having done so, insisting that she'd said freaky something (again, the memory fails).
2) My blatant denial of having inadvertently laughed at her doing so, insisting that I was only smiling on the outside because Buggleboy was doing something funny.

Heaven help me

I'm approximately five thousand, one hundred sixty seven minutes into the first week of summer vacation from the Bugglekids' twice-a-week preschool co-op. We've already been swimming at the Grandbuggles' pool (124 minutes), frolicked at Shane's Inspiration (97 minutes) and ridden the antique merry-go-round at Griffith Park (6 minutes), trekked out to the beach (302 minutes), picked cherry tomatoes, strawberries and pansies in the back yard (35 minutes) and visited the goats, alligators, sea lions, flamingos, kangaroos and gorillas at the zoo (127 minutes). We've watched four episodes of Sesame Street, two Backyardigans, one Jack's Big Music Show, Finding Nemo, Cars and Madagascar (about 386 minutes).

Accounting for sleep (1,2oo minutes) and meals (270 minutes), that leaves roughly two thousand, six hundred twenty minutes of Wondering What The Hell Are We Going To Do Until September Time. Throughout which we've peppered Stop Screaming At Me Time, Don't Pinch Your Sister Time, The Dog Is Not A Horse Time, I Can't Do This Anymore Time and my personal favorite, I Don't Want To Be Your Mommy Right Now Time.

Yesterday I made a manhattan at 4:47. It would have been more effective if Bugglegirl (who'd been yelling and banging on her bedroom door all afternoon - yes, I lock her in for time-out) hadn't asked repeatedly if she could eat the cherry. And if Buggleboy hadn't wailed in protest for the duration of my phone conversation, prompting me to dip my finger into the cocktail and shove it into his mouth. And yes, that worked. For him, at least; I made the mistake of only having one drink too slowly and by the time I got to the cherry, I was grumpy again.

My dourness was still with me this morning, inspiring Buggledaddy to wish all of us the best of luck on his way out the door. Getting ready for our trip to the zoo, we had surprisingly few moments my kids will later discuss in therapy. And we had great fun brushing the goats at the petting zoo and eating pretzels while the baby gorilla ate her bamboo.

Ah, but it couldn't last. As we approached our car in the parking lot, hungry, tired and sweaty, Bugglegirl bolted ahead. I yelled, clapped my hands furiously and pointed forcefully at an approaching car. Bugglegirl just stood there staring at me, wondering why Mommy was leading an invisible marching band. I ordered her into the car while I tried to break down and wrestle the stroller into the trunk. Soon she was fussing and shouting whiny demands.

"My pretzel!"
"What?"
"I dropped my pretzel."
"Oh well."
"My shoe."
Just then the stroller's tire smudged down the front of my shorts.
"I want water!"
"Oh my God, Bugglegirl!"
"You should say 'Oh my gosh,' Mommy."
"Really? OK, how about this: 'Oh my gosh, you're driving me crazy.'"

Greetings from the infirmary

We're all contagious here in Buggletown. I'm finding it difficult to look down without my nose dripping onto the floor so don't expect much for a couple of days. I will say that Bugglegirl called me "the best mommy ever" today when I let her wear my purple ring to Target. Of course I didn't buy it. But of course I ate it up anyway.

The Potty Diaries: No end in sight

Lately we've been struggling with a little thing I call number two. I use the term "we" to indicate myself and Buggledaddy, since apparently Bugglegirl is completely comfortable right where she is. This exchange happened recently, on a day that ends in "y." Welcome to the world according to poo.

"Mommy." Bugglegirl is calling me from her bathroom. She's been in there for nearly half an hour and I've started to wonder if she'll grow up to be one of those people with vintage stacks of Popular Mechanics and Redbook next to the john. Anyway, I walk in there and immediately spot trouble: little wads of not-so-white toilet paper scattered about. She looks up at me like I'm Cruella de Vil and pleads, "Mommy, I'll never lie to you again, Mommy." Oh boy. She knows she's supposed to call me when she's finished and apparently I've freaked her out to the point of confusion.
"I'll never get pooey on my dress again, Mommy." Weird, I don't see any poo on the dress.
"Is there pooey on your hands?"
"No." Her fingernails aren't exactly appetizing.
"Let's wash them really good." We dry our hands and Bugglegirl pats me on the back and says, "You're not upset, Mommy?" Insert knife and twist.
"Is there pooey on your blankie?"
"No."
"Did you touch your blankie after you wiped?"
"Yes."
"You did?"
"No."
"How did you get pooey on your belly?"
"Ohhhhhhhh, it just got on me," she muses, in the same way one might casually announce one's preference for paper instead of plastic.
"But how did it get there?" Cornered, she starts to play it off with that George Bush giggle.
"Heh, I just leaned over the potty, you know, and - heh - it got on me, Mommy."

I don't press the issue. Because maybe I don't really want to know. Maybe I'm going to close my eyes now and not wake up until she's graduating from junior high. When I can deal with less harrowing situations like blow jobs and braces. Please, keep the cocktails coming.

We're practically wading in it

Before our first baby was born, Bugglehubby and I made all the requisite preparations. Painted the nursery. Learned how to install the carseat. Started ignoring the dog. What we couldn't seem to decide on was what the hell we were going to call it.

I'm not talking about the baby. I'm talking about what comes out of the baby. Because along with snakes, exams with essay questions and USC athletics, Bugglehubby had this preternatural aversion to the word "poop."

Recognizing that indulging him in this bizarre, completely irrational quirk might prove advantageous, I agreed to brainstorm new ideas. But a cursory search through The 10,001 Best Poop Names left us wanting. We rose to the challenge. To his "growler," "dump" and "stinker," I added "freshie" and the old standby, "number two." We also considered the possibility of forgoing a label altogether in favor of gentle innuendo, as in "you change the f-ing mess."

In the end, we agreed to disagree: he settled on the macho, crude "dump," I on the sweetly innocuous "freshie."

But it was all for naught. There was just no avoiding the poop. The inadvertent exposure therapy eventually mitigated Buggledaddy's phobia. Today, he's able to utter the forbidden word with only a slight cringe, though he still prefers his go-to terminology.

Just the other day, Bugglegirl was gazing out the bay window, watching Buggledog in the yard. "She's taking a dump, Daddy?"

[Craving more toilet talk? Tune in Tuesdays for a freshie.]

The B-List: NAME THAT DOLL

After some initial prodding, Bugglegirl has finally embraced wholeheartedly the task of naming her dolls. At first she wasn't particularly jazzed on the idea, which yielded her Bitty Twins' fairly ho-hum monikers, Dolly and Eddie. But now she's branching out, a pint-sized linguist synthesizing culturally-sensitive names from around the globe. Some of them sound Russian. Others, vaguely scientific. I'm pretty sure at least one is an STD.

• Peta
• Chipson
• Brianna
• Crunchdents
• Ezra
• Colacha
• Katrina

I'm sorry to report that Colacha's dog recently passed. Services are being held near the toy basket, snacktime to follow.

Two (rather damp) steps back

Not that I consider myself a tragic hero or anything (often merely tragic!), but the other day's hubris definitely came back to haunt me. Barely more than twenty-four hours after bragging about my oh-so-progressive attitude toward the aforementioned pee incident, Bugglegirl struck again. This time it was blatant. This time, it was as though we'd rerouted the Euphrates. A deluge on the carpet, right in front of the leather sofa. I had started to undress her for bed when she bolted to the den to retrieve her blanket and relieve her bladder. And then she laughed.

Then today as I was crossing the courtyard to pick up Bugglegirl from school, I spotted a darkened half-moon at the bottom of her denim jumper. Sure enough, this was not the usual arts and crafts project gone awry. "Did you have an accident?" She nodded. I resisted the urge to create more drama and said simply, "Let's go get changed." And she complied - instantly, following me into the building like I was Cinderella carved out of ice cream. No doubt I'll be recanting these words soon enough, but I'm choosing to view this as a small victory rather than a soggy setback.

Fabulosipee

Right now I’m having a hard time writing anything because I’m absorbed in the Kimora Lee Simmons reality show. This episode is about her laughable attempts to “go green” while shooting a fragrance commercial in L.A. Kimora insists that her kids be in the commercial, because her “fabulosity” stems from the happiness her children generate. I’ve heard that each of her two girls has her own nanny (conspicuously absent from the program). Since I’m drinking Bordeaux I can watch it without wanting to crawl into a hole and die.

Today Bugglegirl peed on her bedroom carpet. I didn’t actually see her squatting there, but after her nap I happened to walk in there and spot the wet mark on the floor. I did a sniff test and when I asked her what it was, she looked me dead in the eyes and said she wasn’t sure. She was definitely grinning.

“I had a accident.”

Then she started in with the hand gestures and exaggerated expressions she uses when imitating the conversations I have with friends. “Actually, Mommy, I, you know, I tried to make it to the potty, see? OK? And, um, I had a accident, OK?” She flashed a conspiratorial smile. And I lost it. I had to do the turn-and-cough-into-the- crook-of-my-arm move. I was actually laughing out loud, thankful that she’s still young enough to buy the lie that Mommy was thinking of something else that’s funny; that I was in fact very upset about her lying, not to mention her peeing. But inside I was doing cartwheels and composing my acceptance speech for the Least Neurotic Mom of the Year award. I mean, I was still a good four hours away from popping the cork on that Bordeaux. I need to stop here and have another sip, lest I overanalyze.

Progress, people. It’s fabulous.