Stop me if you’ve heard this. I have come late to the genius which is Anita Renfroe‘s Mom’s Overture, a complete roundup of everything a mother says in a day, performed in just under three minutes, to the tune of the William Tell Overture.

from Les Is More via MasterCowfish

And the lyrics, so you can sing along and perform it at karaoke nights:

“The Mom Song”

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepyhead
Here’s your clothes and your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now! Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where’s your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat
Don’t forget! You gotta feed the cat
Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it’s the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today
Don’t forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play

Don’t shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, don’t play rough, will you just play fair?
Be polite, make a friend, don’t forget to share
Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare
Get along! Don’t make me come down there
Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away
Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone! Get off the phone!
Don’t sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table
No more computer time tonight!

Your iPod’s my iPod if you don’t listen up
Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you’re coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You’ll appreciate my wisdom someday when you’re older and you’re grown
Can’t wait till you have a couple little children of your own
You’ll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate
Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate
Use your fork, do not burp or I’ll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, get the door, don’t get smart with me
Get a grip, get in here, I’ll count to three
Get a job, get a life, get a PHD
Get a dose of,
“I don’t care who started it!
You’re grounded until you’re 36″
Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven’s sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said at least a thousand times before
That you’re too old to act this way
It must be your father’s DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straighter when you walk
A place for everything and everything must be in place
Stop crying or I’ll give you something real to cry about
Oh!

Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on
Get in bed, get up here, say a prayer with mom
Don’t forget, I love you
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom’s work never ends
You don’t need the reason why
Because, because, because, because
I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so
I’m the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!
Ta da!!!

You know how it works. Behind one door is the lady, behind the other, the deadly tiger.

Oh, sorry. Wrong blog.

What I meant to say was that we fight not for individual glory, but for … well, we don’t actually fight, either. We just make funny captions for the following picture, for which task I am sure you will be well up, particularly if you’ve had as much caffeine as I have.

from bitter purl via Fracas

As usual, if you’d like a pic of your own child featured in our Friday Caption Contest, email it to me as a jpeg file no more than 400 pixels wide: raincoaster at gmail dot com. The glory of immortal fame shall be yours…and your kid’s.

What not to wear when you’re pregnant? What the lovely and apparently very fertile Cindy Margolis is wearing right here:

Actually, don’t wear it when you’re not pregnant, either.

And the winner is: gamma, for the following gem.

“Absolut Americana” …I don’t think I’m legal to hawk this…

If you would like your little darlings to feature in future Friday Caption Contests, please save the picture as a JPG (400 pixels wide or narrower, plzthx) and email it to me at raincoaster at gmail dot com.  Soon, the glories of immortal fame and the indignities of being captioned (and perhaps even LOLed) will be theirs!

Belated congratulations to the Dicks of Spokane. 20 1/2 inches is pretty impressive!

Seriously, the kid may get teased in gradeschool, but I think that the post-pubescent payoff will be worth it. Once he’s a grownup, he is going to OWN every honky-tonk he walks into.

From Name of the Year, via Bridlepath who also passes along the delightful Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing. See our previous remarks on no-no’s of nanonomenclature here.

I see it’s an outie. Here’s the lovely Milla Jovovich, your basic immigrant megasuccess story. If I can make a wee confession here, I was always jealous of her; the international modeling career at eleven, the really quite sophisticated album at eighteen, the ice-blue eyes, the fashion line, the men, the movies, the millions.

And now, I have one more thing to be jealous of: how good she looks pregnant. You can see by her arms that she’s put on a bit of weight all over relative to her acting weight, but not vast, Fergie-like amounts. And she is living proof that your looks won’t go to pot when you do that. She feels no need to cover up those decidedly un-stringy arms. Those sexy female hormones need some lipids to work their magic.

One must confess, however, that an eight-months-and-looks-about-to-pop woman watching a horror flick like Resident Evil:Extinction isn’t exactly an advertisement for how gut-wrenchingly horrifying the movie may be. Sure, sure, she’s starring in it. She knows how it ends. I’m just thinking that, if Mama Jovovich’s nerves were less steely, the future Milla Junior’s rebirthing sessions could have been very interesting.

Which you really have to ask, why don’t they? You’d think, with all they do for their kids, they could at least successfully indoctrinate them into the cult of mother-worship.

Then again, there’s Oedipus Rex: he did indeed love his mother, but he’s nobody’s idea of a role model.

In any case, here we have the much more wholesome Sally Field, whose heartfelt cri de coeur at the Emmys was so unceremoniously blanked out, her beaming visage replaced by a quick cut to a steroid-inflated disco ball. Yes, Gidget Got Gagged.

We here at TeenyManolo could not let this injustice live unavenged; verily, we have conducted our own version of the Watergate break-in, sneaking out under cover of darkness, clad all in black like a New York fashionista, including the black Capezio ballet flats, returning with the actual missing words writhing in a sack. Now, we shall set them free.

If only, oh, if only Richard Nixon had chanted this as an affirmation on those missing 18 minutes of tape, the world would have turned out quite differently.

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present the censored words of the eminently right-thinking Sally Field:

“If mothers ruled the world, there would be no God-damned wars in the first place.”

The lovely reader eilish asks:

Glinda, what do you think of a covert movement to make all boys take proper ballroom dance courses? I think my son might thank me in the long run, but I’m curious what your thoughts are.

Glinda is of the opinion that Culture, with a capital C, is one of the most valuable things that we as parents can help our children become aware of.  Notice the Glinda did not say “like,” but at least some type of exposure is necessary.   Lack of  exposure may or may not lead to a dedication to NASCAR, the fondness for the bonging of the beer, a penchant for greasy trucker hats, or any number of unfortunate things.   Dance, along with art, writing, and music, are some of humanity’s expressions at their finest.   It is important that our children grow up to at least appreciate Culture and recognize its place in our society.

Ahhh, the Glinda can see it now, the handsome son dressed in the classic tuxedo, gliding across the mirror-like dance floor, leading his beautiful partner.  What mother would not love to see her son exuding such grace and elegance as he executes the perfect foxtrot?  ”Dancing With the Stars” is the ratings phenomenon for good reason, is it not?

Almost all women are smitten with a man who can comport himself with reasonable aplomb on the dance floor.  And while we as mothers may be aware of this, it is a difficult concept to convey to the young men in our lives. It seems that grace and elegance are shockingly low on the list of priorities for most boys.  Or perhaps grace and elegance while dodging the linebackers, or running the bases, but nothing that includes wearing shiny shoes with heels seems to count. 

The Glinda thinks that firstly, we should remember that dance, while still being Culture, is technically a sport.  Even if our sons do not see it that way, it is the truth. Dancers are athletes, who train and practice as much as any person with a ball of varying size and a playing field.  One cannot shuffle a few steps of the Electric Slide and call themselves a dancer. Getting the young man to see dance from this point of view may help to ease the resistance, although the Glinda is not betting on it. 

That being said, the Glinda thinks that such a thing as ballroom dancing should be treated as a sport.  Any more than you would force your child to play basketball, you should not necessarily force them to take the ballroom dancing classes.  The Glinda would suggest enrolling your child in a class for one particular style of ballroom dance, for example, the waltz.  And for however many courses it takes to master the basics of the waltz, that would be the commitment from the young person.  Just as if your child were to join a sport, you would have them finish out the season once the commitment was given.

But after that, base future attendance upon the enthusiasm, or lack thereof, of the participant.  The young man may begin by hating his dance lessons with the fire of a thousand white-hot suns.  Eventually, he may begin to like it a little, in spite of himself.  Or, depending on the young man, he may not.  This is where parental wisdom and knowledge of the particular child come into play.  At this point, you the parent can congratulate yourself on the exposure, however brief it may have been, to Culture.

However, as well-intentioned as it may be to try and attempt to forestall a lifetime’s worth of awkward chicken-like dances at weddings and parties, the lessons being given will only be as valuable as the one receiving them allows them to be.