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.

Has retailers crying into their beers and parents doing a happy dance.

I have tried never to buy into the whole “must have” toy thing, although I know a lot of people do because of peer pressure and the like.  If the popular toy happens to coincide with the interests of my child, then great.  But if it doesn’t, I will feel not even a tiny pang of regret.

And is it just me, or am I the only one surprised to read in that article that layaway is back?

Maybe I come from a place of privilege when I say that I’m not a big fan of layaway.

If we can’t afford something, we don’t buy it.  We have had more than one Christmas when we told our son that Mommy and Daddy simply did not have the money to buy him oodles of things.  That he gets a lot from his extended family and we see no need to put ourselves in debt for some toys.  Did he get something? Yes, but one year it was pretty thin.

Again, maybe I know not of what I speak.

Anybody want to set me straight?

It seems that almost all of you are in it for the stuffing, with 48% of the vote.  Dessert and alcohol tied at 14% (imagine that) and turkey came in with 11%.  Which is suprising because I don’t know all that many people who are crazy about turkey.  NOBODY voted for sweet potatoes, which boggles the mind. Your house must not feature the ones my sister makes.

Today I wish to ask your opinion of this rather highly rated shirt from a popular tween store called Justice.  I want to warn you that it is made of polyester.

I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m never going to rise to any Doocian levels of fame.

I just toil quietly here in my little corner of the blogosphere, riding the coattails of the boss, and simply hoping to brighten someone’s day, somewhere.

But then I found out that Kourtney Kardashian has a mommy blog.

Granted it’s a video blog, but it launched only a few days ago and already almost 3,000 people have fanned it on Facebook.

I’m not bitter or anything.

But I think I’ll retreat into the kitchen and drown myself in some spiked eggnog now.

Yay or nay on the baby cursing? The internets seem to be divided.  One commenter suggested you would only hear what your filthy mind WANTED to hear.  I assure you what I heard was in no way lurking in my subconscious.

All right, 60% of you thought changing the date of Halloween was a dumb idea.  But hey, those of us who don’t live in lovely little towns that are small enough to be able to dictate when the citizens should trick or treat might disagree with you.   “Those of us” meaning me.  Well, 25% of us, anyway.  14% didn’t think it would make a difference, and boy did you guys squander your vote.  Of course it makes a difference!  These are important issues we are discussing here!

Humpfh.

Today, I want to know how you hunt for deals.

Yeah, because a sweatshirt with a fake denim jacket screened on the front of it is SO COOL!  Because everyone knows that denim in the front and sweatshirt material on the back is the new mullet!

Listen, they make ACTUAL denim everything for toddlers, so I suggest simply going that route if you are really into that type of thing.

And Jesus Christ on a stick, they want almost thirty bucks for this crap?

Just say no, ladies, just say no to the newest version of the mullet.

via

One of the unexpected pleasures of homeschooling is the ability to schedule playdates on weekdays to places you would normally avoid like the plague on a weekend.

We have a chain here in my part of the state called Boomers, which has an arcade, miniature golf, go-karts, batting cages, and lots of other kiddie fun stuff.  We met another family there last week, and being nine year old boys, they decided to hit the arcade first.

But these arcades are a far cry from the ones of my youth.  Instead of video games to play for the sheer pleasure of playing (after all, kids today have the option to do this all the time at home) they have games that you play solely for tickets.

Yup, stupid little pieces of paper.

But to the Munchkin and his friend, these tiny stubs that multiple trees gave their lives for are the equivalent of gold nuggets.  Each one is to be gloated over, hoarded obsessively in any and all available pockets,  or even better, having too many to hold in your pockets, and finally tallied up when the parental money store has put up the “closed” sign.

And such whining and begging for more chances to play!  Each game is expertly canvassed as to probability of maximum ticket winning.  Now if only they would devote as much attention and time to their schoolwork as to calculating the odds of winning these games!

My son’s playdate companion won something like 80o tickets out of one game, and I recognized the symptoms of seething envy in the Munchkin.  He frantically attempted the game next, only to win something like 12 tickets.

Them’s the breaks, kid.

So off they head to the redemption center.  I’m thinking to myself that our friend is going to get something pretty sweet with his thousand or so tickets.

Silly, old-fashioned Glinda! It turns out to get anything even halfway decent, you had to have at least four thousand tickets.  Four freaking thousand!

It took a minimum of twenty dollars to win that thousand tickets, and I assure you that you could go out and purchase any of those prizes for less than what was spent on playing the games.

I tried to turn this experience into an object lesson about how places such as Boomers are just trying to get as much money out of people as possible.  I went into how much the actual games cost versus how much was spent and…

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

My son had the glazed look of an addict who isn’t ready to hear his intervention team.  He didn’t care what I was saying, he was cradling his Tootsie Rolls, Laffy Taffys, and packages of Fun Dip as if they were the greatest treasures in the world.

You won this round Boomers.

But I promise you won’t win the war.

Mainly because I can’t afford to go back.

Last week I wanted to know if you read tabloid newspapers, and zero of you felt you were addicted.  However, not quite the same when applied to gossip news sites on the internets, where 40% of you often find yourself reading about the newest fight between Blake Lively and Leo DiCaprio.  23% of you only read the newspaper version at the checkout line, and 36% of you swear that you never do, even when the annoying lady in front of you is writing a check.

Today, I want your feedback on a post and picture that originally appeared on Consumerist.  It seems the father of the little boy posing with Chuck E. Cheese up there felt that Chuckie was giving his son the finger. He complained to the restaurant, where they insisted that wasn’t the case.  He then took it to Consumerist to “ …stir up some debate and maybe make some other parents more aware for when it comes time to take their kids’ photos with the big mouse.”

When asked last week about A & F’s push up bikini top for girls, you responded with an overwhelming “WTF!?” Only nine percent of you thought it wasn’t that big of a deal. I beg to differ with that nine percent, though. This type of product is yet another in a long line of products that sexualizes our young girls. I’m not even cool with regular old bikini tops for 8 year olds, much less padded, push up ones.

We’ve discussed this topic a bit before, but Consumerist reports that airline Ryanair advertised their intention to start “child-free” flights starting in October.  Now, this was released on April 1, so let’s take that with a grain of salt.  However, it is an interesting idea, is it not?