Teeny Manolo

Actually, I have no way of knowing how old this fellow is. He’s just some anonymous complainer on a complaint board set up so as to allow ranters to rant in peace. But something tells me that, when he’s not hitting nails on heads w/r/t raising children, he’s holding the Venetian blinds apart with two meaty fingers and yelling “GET OFFA MY LAWN!” I love him anyway; we shall grow old together, in matching lawn chairs and Bermuda shorts, crankily waving our canes at any child who unplugs from the electric teat long enough to step foot on OUR LAWN!

From the Seattle Times:

Rant “To the couple pushing a toddler in a stroller around Green Lake on Aug. 13. Your little boy was watching a DVD on his lap, complete with headphones for easy listening. Are you kidding me? Your child does not need an activity to keep him occupied while on a walk; the walk is the activity! If your child can’t go for 60 minutes without watching TV, you have a big problem. Whatever happened to watching the scenery and talking about what you see? Please, at least give him a book to look at instead.”

The Munchkin is an almost-six-year old who definitely has a mind of his own.

And that mind has no problem letting people, including his teacher, know that he doesn’t like coloring.

He can draw until the pencil or crayon is down to a nub, or until the marker practically runs out of ink.  But coloring? Inside the lines? Madness! It is beneath him! To him, it is gruntwork, pure and simple. 

Unfortunately for him, it seems that kindergarten teachers can be sticklers when it comes to coloring pictures.  Especially when coloring the picture is part of the assignment, not just for prettification.  You know, like coloring in all the triangles red, and all the squares blue.

So, coloring outside the lines is verboten.  Ditto with leaving some white in there.  They prefer that the item in question be properly and completely shaded.  Which, I guess if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.

But didn’t I hear a while back that children were supposed to be encouraged to color outside the lines?  That insisting they color inside the lines stifled their individuality and creativity?  Say no to conformity, kids, anything goes!

Er, except that particular philosophy is not embraced at the Munchkin’s current school.

I understand that coloring is a fine motor skill.  And perhaps it comes down to committing to doing a task and doing it properly, even if you don’t find it a pleasant pastime.  Still, there is a part of me that is secretly annoyed at the notes about his lack of coloring finesse that are penned on his worksheets.

The amazing and confusing thing is that I have to sit here and beat it into him that he is to color inside the lines, when adults who have the ability to “think outside the lines” are lauded.

Maybe I should have homeschooled. 

You’re all just too nice. Or maybe you retain a fondness for our subject from all that unresolved sexual tension back when Diane shared a desk with that sexy biatch Sam Donaldson. But you didn’t really go for the jugular with last week’s Friday Caption Contest and for that we can only say: you are better people than we are. All our personalities agree.

Among the entries, only one can take the crown (pictoral evidence aside) and so it is time to choose:

Meg Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

Thirty plus years trying to be a serious journalist and this is my reward? Screw it, I’m heading for the bahamas.

As predicted by qc, Meg indeed wins. And what does she win for so convincingly getting inside the mind of former beauty queen but also highly-experienced, award winning journalist Diane Sawyer? How about this sassy, sexy, leather-trimmed newsboy cap from Nordstrom:

Last week’s poll about how you liked school came out pretty even across the board. The lowest vote getter was “I hated every second of every minute” and the highest vote went to “a lot depended upon the teacher.” So true, so true. Even subjects that you love can be ruined by the droning voice of someone who is just counting the months until retirement.

This week, our poll comes to you courtesy of the state of Nebraska. Recently, their legislature voted to enact a safe haven law, where children can be left by their parents with no repercussions. Except unlike all other safe haven laws across the country that allow only infants, there’s a big twist.

Many and varied are the sorry tales of bloggers betrayed. From Dooce getting … dooced to blog scrapers scraping the bottom of the barrel, ripping off bloggers, it seems, is the new black. Well, now this loathesome crime wave has come to TeenyManolo.

We … we feel so violated.

Undoubtably, it happened this way: some Hollywood assistant was trawling Google Alerts for her boss’s name and stumbled across our very own Glinda’s patented (but, regrettably, not trademarked) Celebrity Dad Faceoff series. Lightning or some other substance struck, jolting the normally torpid PA into action; TeenyManolo would be milked dry and left, dessicated and violated, by the side of the Information Superhighway.

Celebrity Dad Faceoff would be made real. But as any denizen of Oz could have told you, you do not mess with Glinda without getting your posterior put in a sling and additionally several Tupperware containers of various sizes. Yes, you can rip her off, but you will be accurst forevermore! And so it has come to pass.

How can we tell this ripoff is cursed? Just look at the only two they could find to star in it:

OK! Magazine claims Michael Lohan intends to challenge K-Fed to a boxing match. Michael tells OK! “Everyone wants me to fight K-fed because he’s a notorious celebrity dad and so am I. It’s for charity.”

…

Michael goes on to say “It’s serious boxing. You have to go get a trainer. I have to register with the Mature Boxing Association.”

One would have to have some maturity first, you’d think.

The following blog post is brought to you by Dr Boli. And before you chuckle, realize that there is a posh salon in my city that charges women $10 extra to sit outside with wet hair and one of those ridiculous facial tanning reflectors; they call it a “solar dry.”

Ahhhh! School is in the air! For some of you, including me, school days have already arrived. But, it’s never too late to enjoy a great school movie with your kids. Most of these are for older kids, so as always, parental discretion is advised. But really, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?

High School Musical Resistance is futile! This mega popular movie has been going strong for almost three years and counting. Can the star basketball player and the shy new girl become a pair? It’s a Disney movie, what do you think?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone The classic that first introduced us to Hogwarts. And who in their right mind wouldn’t want to attend Hogwarts?

School of Rock Jack Black, in probably his best starring role. He becomes a subsitute teacher at a stuffy prep school, and nothing but fun can happen with Jack Black as your teacher.

Napoleon Dynamite Follow the nerdy socially challenged Napoleon through his trials and tribulations in high school. Love those tater tots, and don’t forget, vote for Pedro!

Dead Poets Society If you did not shed a tear at this movie about a group of students at a boarding school and their special bond with their teacher, then your heart is a lump of charcoal. Go have a barbeque instead.

(more…)

Like some ambiguous, night-cloaked Drosselmeyer of the velvet underground, demented couturier Karl Lagerfeld continually brings the gift of confused, vaguely uncomfortable delight to little bloggers everywhere.

Yesterday, cougars. Today, bears. Tomorrow???

He’s made a fancypants teddy bear that will retail at Neiman Marcus for a completely reasonable $1,500. Lagerfeld is very optimistic about the ursine species “bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.”

That is probably true, although I’m only guessing. Something tells me that our dear, sweet Uncle Karl has a lot more experience with bears than I do.

Our summer of Stila continues, and if you haven’t yet submitted your haiku, I have one question for you. Why not? Ten minutes worth of exercising the brain cells could net you almost $200 in FREE MAKEUP! Do. The. Math. And, even if you don’t win, you are creating ART, and art is priceless, is it not? As well as good for the soul.

Now, onto things that are good for our face.

Another product I got to review was Stila’s Color Push-Up in Berry Flash. It also comes in Rose Flash and Blush Flash. It is a compact, moisturizing blush that you simply sweep on. No brushes, and a minimum of blending with your fingers. It is light in texture, quite sheer, and did I mention extremely blendable?

Its compact size makes it perfect for sticking in your purse. Going out to dinner after work? Use it for an instant, easy bit of color. Because we all know that even with carefully applied powder in the morning, the blush is one of the first things to go, right after the lipstick.

Good stuff, my friends. Good stuff.

Oh, the many delightful, horrifying things I thought of calling this post…the many amusing, appalling things which I shall not use so as to leave them for your deployment in your witty captions in the comments section. Here now, almost late enough to be a Saturday Caption Contest, is our picture for this week. Click to enlarge, if you DARE!

from Good Morning America and Universal Royalty