Category Archives: Monkey

Monkey, parenting
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde…

Have come home to roost inside my daughter.

Yes, the child who so lovingly embraced sisterhood, who loves to hold and sing to her brother, and is “so happy” to have him here, is at times replaced with a screaming, stomping, crying psychopath.

For example, “The one with the messy room”:
I asked Marlena to pick up her disaster of a bedroom, to put some toys away and throw out some trash. Basically clean it enough for me to vacuum and pack some of her stuff. All day yesterday she didn’t do it. Now, to be fair, she had friends over for a good portion of the day, during which I did not expect her to clean. However, the time before and the time after was intended as cleaning time. Instead, she spent the time in her room drawing line after wavy line in a notebook.
Sigh.
I came into her room with some boxes and packed up some toys and books around the mess. Then I told her to clean her room. When I came back in to check on her, she was once again drawing wavy lines in a notebook.
Sigh.
Last night I informed her that she needed to clean her room today. She went to bed with a massive crying screaming fit about how poorly she brushes her teeth and how she is going to start brushing them for six minutes every morning.
Sigh.
This morning she asked for TV with breakfast and I reminded her about the loss of TV caused by last night’s massive screaming fit. After breakfast I told her to clean her room. She whined about not wanting to. I explained that I had already spent an hour in there last night, and that now it is her turn. She started yelling.
Now here is the clincher, I am keeping Hannah and Simon overnight tonight for Ellen and Dan. It is not the type of overnight you can cancel. So while I would normally just say, you can’t have your overnight if your room isnt clean, I can’t.
So instead I tell her that I will clean her room by throwing everything on the floor into the garbage. She begins to scream.
Finally I tell her, I may not be able to cancel the overnight, but I can ground her and let her friends have a movie and such without her.
None of it had any effect on her. When I left her in her room she was screaming about a new deal, how she wasn’t going to clean her room, etc.
Ugh, Where did I get this explosive maniac?
Finally, after calling Lee in desperation and having his help climbing down off my ledge, I calmed her a little, gave her a CD to listen to, and told her there would be no further negotiations until the room was clean. THEN, and only then, would we talk.

Boy, there is not enough alcohol in good parenting.

Monkey
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Field Day… or not.

So Marlena was supposed to have Field Day today at Camp Arrowhead. She was very excited about running races and winning prizes (maybe, as she kept adding). Sadly, there was rain, lots of it, so they just went on a nature hike and played on some camp playgrounds. What really annoyed me was the attitude of the camp personnel. Her school had a rain day on Monday, but there was a scheduling snafu and Monday is a half day, so they wouldn’t have been able to go at all. The principal therefore insisted they do what they could today, rather than miss out altogether, but the staff was pretty snippy about it. One would think they would be able to get past that to give a great day to the kids despite the disappointing weather, but we are not all adults, regardless of age.

Marlena had a lot of fun though, Oliver and I came along for a little while to shoot some pictures:
Marlena shows some muscle:

Go Sister!

Marlena outside of school:

Marlena pushes the swing:

Marlena and Mr. Brown:

Sadly there was more rain at the end of the day, so the kids had to leave a little early and ended up watching movies, but they did get a lot of running around time and outside time, and all in all Marlena had a lot of fun. She is such an adaptable kiddo, always good at figuring out a way to be happy with what she has. She gets a blue ribbon in my book anyway!

Monkey
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Putting your best face out there…

Okay, so Marlena has a new favorite TV show. It is campy, and cheesy, and the special effects are much closer to soap effects than they are to movie effects, but Marlena thinks “Charmed” is the end all be all of afternoon television. Having indulged in the guilty pleasure of watching that show (positive all the while that liking it meant I had burned all my brainpower or was suffering from some sort of head injury), I know it does not contain inappropriate language, sexual activity beyond kissing, or realistic violence. It does have demon vanquishing, and the witches wear some skimpy unrealistic outfits, but there is little for me to complain about. It has the added benefit of strengthening her belief in magic and magical creatures, a belief I still desperately hold onto myself, as the workaday world does it very best to violently wrest it from me.

SO… I am letting her watch it. It is the only thing she is interested in watching. She will forgo every other show or movie for a chance to watch “Charmed”. She will often suggest forgoing any other activity, including seeing friends, if there is a small chance “Charmed” is on. She often laments having missed it when we return from some other type of activity. She is officially addicted to “Charmed”.

I am not particularly upset about this addiction so much as I am bemused. However, yesterday we were in the car and she was muttering to herself in the backseat while I concentrated on navigating the route home from school. After a while my brain began to notice what she was muttering and tune into it…

Marlena: “mutter…mutter… the drama continues on TNT with Charmed…. mutter… brought to you by Jergen’s lotion, Put your best face out there.”

Hmmm…..

Maybe I should watch the commercials in between “Charmed” to see if there is anything inappropriate there. We have already had to stop watching the Simpsons, as Network TV execs seem to think 6:00 is a good time to show gruesome advertisements for all the latest hack and slash and horror movies. Boy did she not need to see any of those!

Happily, the commercials during the day aren seemingly not inappropriate, and while I am disturbed with the power of the TV to convince my child that she needs to use a particular lotion or she will not be putting her best face out there, I have to admit it is better than having her beg me for the barrage of toys shown on other channels. (Channels we have never watched, preferring ones with children’s programming and no commercials.)

This did bring me to two commercials commonly seen during the day that I think are potential bombshells. Commercial One: KY warming and personal lubricant lotion. What exactly do I tell her when she inevitably asks me what a personal lubricant is used for? Commercial two: Erectile dysfunction medication. Yeah, so making her dad explain that one when and if she asks. But why are these ads on our daytime programming along with all the tv considered appropriate for young people?

Okay, so most kids do not prefer “Charmed” to Noggin. Marlena is not most children. But still, these programs are not rated in way that warns parents not to let their children watch them, unlike most evening programs, and I believe the commercials should match the friggin programming! KY lubricant belongs with Jay Leno, not “Judging Amy”!

Anyhoo… here are some cute chubby baby pictures, as I have chastised for failing to post them more often.

This one is doctored to censor… but I had to share with you all his cute pudgy thighs! And you just can’t see those baby thighs with a diaper on.. so here he is, with frogs.

Look at those creases in his thighs! Look at that balloon belly!! And those chubby little arms!!! There is absolutely no failure to thrive in this house!!