A fever is sweeping the Glinda household.

No, really.

I don’t mean that as a euphemism. A fever really is sweeping through my household, cutting a swathe of whining, complaining, and tantrums.

And that’s just my husband.

Ba da BOOM.

Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all morning.

Last week’s poll regarding your favorite reading material came down heavily on the side of fiction, which 85% of you voted for.  I would have to say that I also love fiction, but if I really stop to think about it, between newspapers and various blogs, I probably actually read more non-fiction on a daily basis.

Here is my burning question of the day:

In a decidedly anemic round of voting, Mark Ruffalo won out over Gabriel Aubrey and his killer cheekbones.

Today I’ve got a fairly hot Hollywood property, what with being in Thor and Snow White and the Huntsman, to name just a few.

VERSUS 

It isn’t often that a celebrity death particularly affects me, but when MCA of the Beastie Boys passed away recently, I did shed a couple of tears.  He was a brilliant lyricist, a father of a beautiful young daughter, and definitely died too soon.

Screw cancer, seriously.

But this, this brought a smile to my face.  And one of my favorite songs from them, too.  Beware, kids with guns for those that don’t like that sort of thing.

Today I took my 9 and 2.5 year old to a “professional” photographer because I am a horrible mother who hardly ever takes pictures of my children.  Or, at least that is what I am basically told by the grandmas.  Well, maybe not exactly in those terms, but you can feel the disapproval at the lack of photos from a mile away.

I also put professional in quotations because I don’t think the studio we went to employs people who have MFA’s in photography, or whatever.  More like a high school diploma.  At least a GED. So it is definitely a hit-or-miss type of thing and it all depends on who you get.

My 2.5 year old, who 98% of the time shows no fear of anything, freaked the hell out at getting up on the little platform they have the children stand/sit on.  Why, of course she did.  I tried to get her individual photos first because I figured she had the highest burnout potential, but the shrieks of “No, no, no, noooooooooooooooo,” and the requisite dead man’s lift that goes with them enticed me into having her brother go first.

After brother was posed, in rather stupid ways for a 9 year old, I must say, she couldn’t wait to get up there and hog the spotlight.

Then came the challenge of getting both of them to look semi-decent at the same time, which failed rather miserably.  My nine year old was sacrificed.  He looks as if he is going to eat his sister as an appetizer as soon as the pesky camera goes away, but whatever.

My daughter doesn’t like to sit still for more than a few minutes, so kudos to the photographer for actually getting me at least three suitable photos to choose from.

And then I had to pay them over a hundred bucks for the privilege.

And, and, in this day and age of things like computers and printers, the photos won’t be ready until the end of May.  WTF?

I think I might be in the wrong business.

45% of you have faith in the public school system, which isn’t all that great of a percentage, to be honest.   25% state a firm “no” and 29% only sometimes believe in public schools.  I think part of the problem is that public schools are open and available to anyone, and it is often difficult to balance everyone’s needs with such diversity. Whereas in something like a private school, the student population is a bit more homogenous and they have the option to kick anyone out at any time, which is pretty much impossible for a public school.

Today I’m all about reading…

Some quotes from one of my favorite moms, Erma Bombeck…

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

There’s something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she’s only measured water in it.

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he’s doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, “A house guest,” you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

I would totally have asked a question of Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis.

Original source: Rookie

I live in what some would term a hoity-toity area.

Lots of very prim and proper yoga-practicin’ ladies with perfect hair and Bugaboo strollers.  They tend to have roughly the same type of hair style, roughly the same clothes, and roughly the same manerisms.  I don’t think most of them actually come from here, but there’s more of them than me.

Erm, it’s safe to say that I don’t really fit in all that well.  I’m a little too opinionated, a little too heavy, and I’ve never been the cookie-cutter type.

The other day I took my kids to the park nearest our house, and it was surprisingly empty.

Oh sure, there was one other mom (or maybe nanny, because she sure was chipper with that little boy) with a boy a bit younger than my daughter, but that was about it other than some people playing on the basketball courts on the other side.

So when my daughter wanted to climb UP the slide instead of going on top of the play equipment in the traditional manner, I let her.  I figured that since there was no one else on the play structure other than her, it wasn’t a big deal.  If there had been other children on the structure, I probably wouldn’t have allowed it.

Anyhoo, up she went on the slippery slide, with my hand hovering protectively over her back, but not touching it because I want her to do it by herself, if possible.  When she reached the top, she slid back down with a happy screech.

The other little boy saw my daughter do this, and asked his mom/nanny if he could go up the slide as well.

“Oh no, honey,” she said in a voice loud enough for me to hear and dripping with something akin to condescension.  “There are RULES about climbing up the slide.  We don’t do things like that.” And she primly took him to an entirely different section of the playground.

I looked around to see where the rules prohibiting slide climbing were posted.

There weren’t any.

I don’t really think of myself as a rebel.  But apparently I am.

Sigh.