Get well soon, Big D

I know. Totally lame, I am. But I was busy with playing Santa and then home to Chicago for New Year's and the cat ate it and I got a flat tire and blah blah blah.

So Happy New Year, y'all!

It was good to be home. I miss my family and friends and I miss Lake Michigan. It probably wasn't a good idea to ever move away from the Lake. It was my anchor growing up. No wonder I feel so rudderless here. How am I supposed to have a sense of direction when my absolute East doesn't exist?

As you can see, it's game, set and match on the girly shite with Annie. Sigh. I even let her buy The Little Mermaid yesterday at Target with the money her Grandma and Pop-Pop gave her for Christmas. Later, Brian and I had to call her Ariel. I know when I'm beaten. But I am signing her up for Spring soccer this week; the dark side shouldn't go unchecked, after all.

I still had trouble making amends with all the STUFF my girls got for Christmas. It makes my stomach hurt a little to think about it. There's the things that Santa brought, of course. Then between the 2 of us, Brian and I have 10 siblings. Plus the grandparents. Just so much stuff. I think that's why I might be overreacting a wee bit when Annie asks for ANYthing these days. I just never want her to take receiving gifts for granted. But she's only THREE, says the devil's advocate that rents in my brain. She doesn't know from spoiled. The whole thing left me feeling unsettled and I am still trying to work out why.

Dallas had surgery the day after we returned home. She had had these fatty growths for almost as long as I've known her. They might appear, disappear and reappear over a period of time, but none ever grew to be too large until recently. Three pretty big ones came and didn't leave plus one hard one, lime-sized, on her tummy that we really didn't like the looks of. The vet ended up removing 6 sizable lumps and biopsied the tummy one. I already kind of know that it's malignant, though we won't find out for sure for another week or so. I don't say that lightly, but part of loving Dallas so much has always been trying to brace myself for eventually losing her. She's a big dog and twelve years old and I can do the math. Since we had everything removed though, I think we bought (and paid dearly for, money being no object with regards to our beloved D)her a couple more really good years. OH, Plus? We got her teeth cleaned and it's a miracle...she has like no breath at all! Her breath used to smell like the inside of Nickerson's Fish Market but now it's the carbon monoxide of breath, totally odorless. But poor dear is all staples and bald spots.

Timely, then that I got Brian a woven blanket with Dallas' image on it for his birthday, which is tomorrow. Well, Dallas and I went in on it. It looks pretty good, though the picture I submitted was a little dark, in retrospect. Tomorrow I will make him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting because that's what he wants and he obviously doesn't know any better because anyone who knows anything knows that white cake wtih chocolate butter cream icing is really the finer cake.

There may be hope yet...

Where's your pink now leetle girl??

Stinky pink

This afternoon, as I watched Annie perform her umpteenth interpretive dance with vocal accompaniment, it occurred to me that I might not want to bank on her getting a basketball scholarship. Something strange has happened to her recently. Annie has become a pink girl.

For approximately half of her life, Annie has specified what kind of clothes she wants to wear each morning and those clothes had (see the past tense? It's foreshadowing) to be "cool". Annie's idea of cool, and I honestly do NOT know where she got this, was t-shirts with writing on them, shorts, or sweat pants. And I was fine with this. I grew up a tomboy and could really get behind the idea of a mini-me. So we stocked up on t-shirts and sweats and called it a wardrobe.

Then about 2 months ago a switch happened. And it was a complete, sudden switch. Cool was out, pretty was in. The only bits that could be salvaged from her old wardrobe had to have something "pretty" somewhere (a heart, bow, or the color pink). Along with the switch came a lot of princess talk. Suddenly, Annie wants to be a princess. And her bootie shaking dance moves have been replaced by a 3-year old's perception of what a ballerina might dance like. Is this what daycare is doing to her??? She sure as heck isn't getting it from me.

Attending her Halloween parade shed some light on the problem. My little black cat was awash in a sea of princesses. I thought I was going to vomit taffeta.

But Annie is conciliatory-she knows not to discuss the whole princess thing too much in front of me as I have told her that I am not a fan of princesses. She'll even allow that when she grows up first she'll be a basketball player, later, a princess. But the career of a pro ball player is short. That leaves a lot of years to deal with my daughter, the princess.

When did little girl things become so PINK? The clothes, the toys. Pink, pink, pink as far as the eye can see. I really can't wonder why my little roughian has been sucked in.

Why are primary colors the domain of boys while little girls are left with the weaker pastels? What exactly is there to admire in being a princess...what qualities does, say, a Cinderella have that I might want my wee bird to emulate beyond being pretty and liking the hot guy? I am stymied.

I suppose this is my first test in accepting my kids for who they are. And I'm not exactly passing with flying colors.