Irish Daisy

For just a few minutes last week I actually wished that gender stereotypes were true. It was a fleeting wish that popped into my brain while Badger and I were waiting for the nurse to put a cast on her arm. Because, you see, if the stereotypes were true, I wouldn’t be sitting in an Orthopedic medical office having my little girl’s arm put in a cast for the second time...this year. She wouldn’t have abrasions running down the side of her face from her hairline to her jaw. She would be sitting somewhere, looking pretty and clean, acting sweet and gentle. Yeah, uh, no…not so much. The Rise of the Action Princess I mean, I wasn’t a wilting lily as a kid –most people labeled me a “tomboy.” Not ever really liking that label, I coined a new one for my ferocious girls, “Action Princess.” Why did I feel the need to make up a label, and one that included the word ‘princess,’ you might ask? Couple of reasons. First, the number of people, mostly older people, who refer to little girls as...

So, we’re shopping in JoAnne’s Fabrics for Halloween costume supplies and I see this incredible, one-pound skein of fluffy yarn. It’s glorious – and HUGE. I grab it up, whirl toward the three puffs following me, and chirp, “Come here!” The older two instantly scatter. Quokka jumps backward and runs three steps. Athena dodges to the side and runs ahead. Sweet little Badger, who’s still only six, steps up, “What?” And then stumbles to the side under the solid thump from the enormous skein whapping her shoulder and side. I laugh like mad, hug her and toss the yarn back into the bin. The other two warily approach once they see I’ve disarmed. “Two things are clear right now. One, I’m a terrible mother because I like whacking you guys with fluffy things so much you instinctively dodge away as soon as I pick it up. Two, poor Badger is too young to have learned not to trust me.” Athena rushed over to hug and reassure me, “No, you’re a great mom!” “But you don’t trust me?” “Not...

I love fall – it’s one of my favorite seasons. I love pumpkin spice. I love pumpkins. Gourds make me happy. The days are less hot, which is nice, and the evenings cool off quickly, which is nice. Cool evenings are the best because they coincide with pumpkin-spice season and I can bear to turn on the oven again. Which means I can bake pumpkin bread again. Which means baby puffs are ecstatic – when they’re not in an all-out brawl over the loaf. One Loaf to Rule Them All It all started five years ago, my kids’ obsession with pumpkin bread. Five years ago I had to abandon store-bought loaves and mixes, and come up with my own recipe to accommodate Badger’s allergies. ( This is also when my sister’s gift of a KitchenAid stand mixer saved all our lives – making cakes and breads from scratch requires a ridiculous amount of mixing ) After a lot of experimentation, and some questionable results, I found a solid recipe that yields moist, yummy pumpkin bread – two delicious loaves at a...

It’s pumpkin season, so I was going to write about pumpkin bread…but, you know what, screw it. I’ll write about pumpkins later because there’s something else going on right now that’s a little more important. What’s going on has a lot of feelings clamoring inside me, it’s brought up a lot of things that I don’t look at very often, things I don’t take out and examine. But it’s all here right in front of us now and the fear, anger, worry and long-festering rage can’t be ignored – so, I’m writing about this instead. Not Okay In response to a now infamous tape of two men casually discussing, and one boasting about, sexual assault, author Kelly Oxford started a conversation on Twitter under #notokay . She tweeted about her first sexual assault at age 12 and invited other women to share their experiences. She said she intended to erase the tweet if no one responded. Hundreds of women replied within hours, thousands in a few days. It’s in the news, it’s all over social media, bu...

I’m decrepit. Seriously, I am. Actually, I’m amazingly strong and reasonably fit for a woman of my age – which is a combination of the legacy of being an athlete in high school, stubbornness and an insistence on using hand tools, because they’re so much cheaper to buy than power tools, for all gardening functions. Toned arms are not indicative of overall fitness...at all. I mean really, there is nothing that matches the full-body workout of using manual tools to dethatch and aerate your lawn when you live in a place with rocky, clay-based soil. To hell with cross-fit or weight lifting – get a dethatching tool, a rake, a loop-hoe, some loppers and a pair of leather gloves. I can thank cheap gardening for my arms, my sore, painful, toned arms. At one point, I put together a slide show of gardening projects for my employees to explain why I arrived whimpering and limping every Monday. Window Dressing You know what’s not in great shape? My back – which is kind of the...

In July I lost my job. Layoff – a " it’s not you, it’s that the new management has no idea what you even do ,” kind of thing. And now, here I am, at home. The first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 18 years old…so, it’s been a while. Being me, I immediately set up a structure to work on what I’m going to do next – a schedule for updating the resume, polishing LinkedIn, getting my stuff out there on CareerBuilder and Indeed, networking and interviewing. The girls had a few weeks of summer left, so I pulled them out of summer camp and worked bike rides, parks and pool trips into my daily routine.  Great, I can do this! Rapid Fire School was scheduled to start at the end of August. Yay, I’ll be able to get more done without needing to shoo squabbling children out of the room. No one interrupting me to tattle on a mean sister, no one asking if they can just watch TV "N oooowwww???" , no one demanding to know what they can eat for the 20 th time in 30...

I have three girls...three girls and an irreverent sense of humor. This is why I had no one but myself to blame when I realized how much my once peaceful home resembles a constant re-run of Animal House. It's the oldest, my lovely Quokka who most often chides me for my...um...inappropriate jokes. Athena, on the other hand, joins in. And Badger, Badger lives by the credo: go big, or go home. So, the other night Badger was pouting a bit because her beloved Wubble (yes, for those of you who aren't in the know, that's an actual thing - go Google it, we'll wait) was a bit deflated and saggy. To lift the mood, I pulled up her shirt and blew on her bellybutton to "inflate the saggy Wubble." There were loud raspberry sounds, giggling, fighting to get away. Fun times! The pout was replaced by laughter and all was right across Puff land. And then my Badger decided to demonstrate, once again, that she is aptly named. She dropped her pants, bent over, pried her li...

Just when one might worry I’ve gotten complacent or that I may be deluded into thinking I’ve got this parenting thing figured out…I give you this: Driving 1.6 miles from Target to home. From the back seat, “Mmmmmeeeaaaaahhhhhh!” Starting as a low moan, rising in tone and volume to a prolonged, whining screech. Me: “What?!?! What is that? Badger? What is wrong with you? Are you hurt?” Badger: “Uuuuhhhhhh! Mmmmmwwwwaaaahhhhh! Eeeeehhhhh!” Me: “Why are you making that noise?!?!?! Girls, what is wrong with her? Is she hurt?” Middle Puff: “No, her seatbelt is tight. She can’t loosen it.” Badger: “AAAAhhhhhh! Mmmmmeeeehhhhhhhh!” accompanied by audible jerking on the locked seatbelt. Me: “That’s it? Badger, we’ll be home in two minutes, less than two minutes, you’re fine until then. Just sit up and deal for another minute and we’ll be home. We have frozens, I’m not pulling over! You’ll be fine for two minutes.” Badger: “MMMMMWWWWAAAAAAHHHHH!” louder, shriller ...

A friend’s twins are turning two next month, so she asked for some tips on dealing with the “terrible twos.” First, I had to give her the sad, sad news that the twos are not so terrible – at least not when compared to the tyrannical threes and F-U fours. [Yes folks, we've survived for a third time and we're in the clear...for two years before the oldest hits her teens...sigh] Of course, she doesn't have the perspective to appreciate that yet and parenting is pretty immediate – what's it doing now and what the hell do I do with the rampaging heathen wreaking havoc on my life? Join me, friend as we tiptoe through the minefield of a two-year-old psyche. Tiptoe, Tiptoe, BOOM!  If I can't see, you can't see me...as I have a hangry tantrum...in a spotlight. Imagine you’re in the land of Gulliver and you took two years of Gullivarian in school so you get the gist of what everyone is saying, but you can’t make your brain come up with the right words to tal...

This is my Kitchenaid Professional Stand Mixer. It is not shit, it is THE shit, and I love it. Seriously, I cannot enumerate the ways this marvelous contraption has improved my life...It is more than a mere mixing device, it is a compact, accommodating kitchen assistant, and I love it with a giddy sort of fervor. As with all love affairs, there’s a story with tragedy, drama and pain.  No, not really, more like inconvenience, sore shoulders and whining. I’ve always enjoyed baking, making cake for parties, cookies, and pumpkin bread, oh the pumpkin bread (more on this family obsession later). Baking was fun, quick, relatively easy and required only a hand mixer to whip out a boxed cake mix, or some pre-packaged bread. Then Badger came along…Badger and her irritating, inconvenient milk and soy allergies. Being allergic to milk and soy guarantee that there are NO pre-packaged mixes from which to rapidly and magically produce anything really. Well, there ARE a few allergen-fre...