polka dot suitcase » Fooling Around
Happy Birthday, Sir Buffalo Sushi!
It’s February 23rd, and you know what that means? It’s… SIR BUFFALO SUSHI’S BIRTHDAY! Woohooo!!!! So head on over to Sir Buffalo Sushi’s blog and wish a very, very happy birthday to this very, very special boy and blogger. … Read entire article »
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Snow! (What else can I say?)
So, by now if you were up in the Space Shuttle and looked back at the big blue marble, it would probably look more like an eye with severe cataracts. The Northeast is pretty much buried under so much snow I think the forecasters lost count. The historical storm that dumped loads and loads and buckets and buckets and…well, a whole lotta the white stuff. Here in NC, forecasters like to say we “dodged the bullet.” … Read entire article »
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Dinner conversation
I don’t know about you, but dinner conversation at Chez Polka Dot can run from non-existant to weird. As you may or may not recall, here at the Chez, 75% of our family members are male. Unless you count the dog, in which case the odds appear better stacked at 60%. But for conversation opportunities, we’re back at 75% because the dog has an extremely limited vocabulary. What does that mean for dinner conversation? Well, supposedly women … Read entire article »
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My Chuck-It List: 4 Things I’m Never Gonna Do Before I Die
I like to think of myself as a positive person. Optimistic. Glass half-full. And adventurous, too. Shoot, when I was 18, my sister (then 20) and I drove all the way across the country and back, Syracuse to California, in a Yugo. (We returned with a flat tire, no oil, and the windshield wipers stuck to the glass.) We slept in a pup tent (and being the younger sib, I got stuck with the side … Read entire article »
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Snow in North Carolina
‘Member that January campfire I was crowing about? Yeah, well…I remember it, too. Fondly. Wistfully, even. Because Mother Nature came along late Friday evening and dumped some snow on us here in the South. Then added a bit of ice for good measure. Everything ground to a halt. Now, the kids are stoked, naturally. And so was Big Fish, who hails from south of the Mason Dixon line, too. They all spent a lot of time … Read entire article »
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What’s that in your ear? A worm?
Ah, the earworm. When you get a song stuck in your head, and there it stays. And stays. It pops into your head as you’re brushing your teeth, dogs you as you toss and turn at night, and springs from your lips when you’re sitting in traffic. (Or, heaven forbid, an important meeting with the new client.) I’ve had Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in my ear ever since it popped up on Sirius … Read entire article »
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My big fat alliteration week
Moms juggle a lot of things — that’s a given. Some moms handle it better than others. Me? I’m scatterbrained…always thinking about a hundred things at once, dreaming about things, plotting and planning future events, cloud gazing. So I need a little help keeping things organized and on schedule. Back when the kids were little, I came up with my alliteration week. I divided the household chores up by day, and assigned each an easy-to-remember day. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activities, Fooling Around
Two under two
My essay originally appeared in American Baby magazine. My sons are 20 months apart in age. This means they share the same toys, pals, and interests. It also means they have to share me—and it’s a lot easier for them to share the balls and blocks. Having two under two presents unique challenges. An infant demands time, energy, and willingness to be “on call.” A toddler has the same demands, but he’s also mobile—able to get into … Read entire article »
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Can you fix it?
As a parent, it’s hard to resist the urge to fix all your kid’s rough spots. You want to go head to Reebok with the doofus kid who picks on your kid at the playground. You want to take that obliterated RC helicopter and make it fly again. You want to find the beloved Swiss army knife that got dropped in the woods. There are some things you can fix. As Mister Steel knows, I’m fairly … Read entire article »
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Big, bad media
You know how, when you’re sensitive about something, you hear or see it all over the place? It’s like being aware you’ve got a zit on the end of your nose and you’re really self-conscious about it. So, I’m a writer. And I gotta say, it gets a little old hearing about how The Media is so horrible. I never considered myself a member of the media. I was just a writer. But then a … Read entire article »
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