Our family started celebrating last Saturday. We've had our turkey and now we are well into leftovers. It's been a long, relaxing week. Hope your Thanksgiving is WONDERFUL, too.
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Thanksgiving In The Buff
©Lisa Barker
This year we’re going naked for Thanksgiving. I think my two-year old has the right idea. Lately he has taken to walking around with just his Nemo sandals on. That’s all he wants to wear. I hardly have the energy to make him wear a little shirt and tie and dress slacks.
Besides, we live in California and it’s been eighty degrees for the past three days. We don’t know whether to put out our inflatable snowman or the inflatable swimming pool.
You should see our turkey this year. It’s a real hybrid. There are nine wings and necks (for the cats) and five drumsticks (for the kids).
It’s a good thing that we aren’t expecting anyone to join us in the celebration this year either. It takes guts to sit buck-naked at the table and keep your eyes on the melting Jell-O salad.
I asked the kids what sides they wanted to go with the turkey. Corn-on-the-cob is certainly something Squanto and the pilgrims might have eaten, but watermelon? I think the unusual weather has gone to all the kids’ heads.
You can’t really blame them. It’s beginning to look a lot like suntans, not Thanksgiving or Christmas.
However, my husband is from Australia. This is perfectly okay with him. In Australia Santa surfs when he comes to town. There’s no such thing as a white Christmas.
At this time of the year it’s more traditional for him to be eating barbeques, with cold salads instead of hot sides. But, if you are going to do it naked, you really want to be wearing an apron – sizzling fat from the barbeque can put a real damper on your holiday spirit, if you know what I mean.
That’s why I’ve got to get to the local store and pick up all the French Maid costumes leftover from Halloween. They’re 75% off now. Of course, the two-year old won’t shed this costume. He’s got a thing for frills.
I can just picture the looks on the faces of family and friends when they receive this year’s Christmas card photo. It’s so difficult to find a greeting card that really stands out. Homemade is always the best. This one will be talked about for years to come. Especially since it’s of us sitting on the sofa in mini-skirts with my husband front and center. On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t send one to Grandma this year.
The moral of the story is this. Don’t be afraid to try new things and start new traditions. You never know which will become a keeper. Take pictures and have lots of fun. Bon apetit!
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker and syndicated through Martin-Ola Press /Parent To Parent and is available for newspapers, websites, e-zines and newsletters.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
I live!
Hi, haven't posted in awhile. Things have been hairy here with my nine-year old son. He has bipolar disorder and we were adjusting his meds.
But now all is well and all the kids are fine. My dear husband is taking a week off for Thanksgiving and we all plan to celebrate in our jammies this year and play board games...and gorge ourselves, of course and - my favorite part - eat leftovers for a week! Woo-hoo!
The flu has struck this family, but all things considered, that's not so bad.
I'm having fun reading and reviewing children's books.
There is a Jelly Mom book in the works, but it's slow going. When things settle down a bit, I'll catch up.
Hope all is well with you. And if I don't check in before Thanksgiving, have a great holiday!
But now all is well and all the kids are fine. My dear husband is taking a week off for Thanksgiving and we all plan to celebrate in our jammies this year and play board games...and gorge ourselves, of course and - my favorite part - eat leftovers for a week! Woo-hoo!
The flu has struck this family, but all things considered, that's not so bad.
I'm having fun reading and reviewing children's books.
There is a Jelly Mom book in the works, but it's slow going. When things settle down a bit, I'll catch up.
Hope all is well with you. And if I don't check in before Thanksgiving, have a great holiday!
Friday, November 3, 2006
Lazy, Thy Name Is Housewife
Lazy, Thy Name Is Housewife
©Lisa Barker
For some reason, the vacuum cleaner died the other day when I was cleaning the sofas. While I was using the hose extension, the rollers ate up and melted the throw rug we have. It left these hard little grooves in the carpet and it ate up pieces of the electrical cord.
I showed my husband when he got home from work.
"Geez, the lengths you'll go to, to avoid housework."
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Just because I can shrink just about any piece of clothing I wash, burn up the carpet with the vacuum and clog up the sink when I wash dishes doesn't mean I am trying to get out of chores. It just means I am homemaking challenged.
And this is not what you want to be when you are a stay-at-home mom.
How hard can it be?
Like most women my age, I grew up during a period where our mothers had us avoid homemaking classes and clubs that prized those skills because they were unworthy of us. We were young women that had inherited the fruits of feminism. We no longer needed to bother ourselves with learning such things like how to care for our families and ourselves. Those were interests better suited for sissies and unenlightened young women.
At least, that was the impression I got so long ago. These skills were so easy that anybody could pick them up simply by breathing if they weren’t already born with the knowledge.
Fast forward thirty years later. I wasn’t born with the knowledge, yet my vocation is marriage and the sub-vocation is motherhood. My husband won’t let me iron his clothes because I might make a boo-boo. I’ve been practicing for twelve years now and I’m still dying everyone’s underwear pink. And I’ve discovered that learning homemaking skills by breathing is just a made up story because inhaling bleach in a small poorly ventilated room – such as a BATHROOM – makes me woozy.
You see, staying at home and raising a family is like running your own business. There’s more to it than meets the eye. We were wrong to ever think this vocation was unworthy. We were wrong to fail to prepare for it. But no one ever saw it that way until recently as moms translate the skills they learn at home to run successful home-based businesses.
I hope to follow in their footsteps. Someday this house will be orderly and organized and I won’t set off all the smoke detectors when I cook. Maybe I’ll even figure out what to so with the sewing machine I have in the back of the coat closet buried under assorted broken umbrellas.
But for now I’ll work on the laundry. Small steps.
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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!
©Lisa Barker
For some reason, the vacuum cleaner died the other day when I was cleaning the sofas. While I was using the hose extension, the rollers ate up and melted the throw rug we have. It left these hard little grooves in the carpet and it ate up pieces of the electrical cord.
I showed my husband when he got home from work.
"Geez, the lengths you'll go to, to avoid housework."
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Just because I can shrink just about any piece of clothing I wash, burn up the carpet with the vacuum and clog up the sink when I wash dishes doesn't mean I am trying to get out of chores. It just means I am homemaking challenged.
And this is not what you want to be when you are a stay-at-home mom.
How hard can it be?
Like most women my age, I grew up during a period where our mothers had us avoid homemaking classes and clubs that prized those skills because they were unworthy of us. We were young women that had inherited the fruits of feminism. We no longer needed to bother ourselves with learning such things like how to care for our families and ourselves. Those were interests better suited for sissies and unenlightened young women.
At least, that was the impression I got so long ago. These skills were so easy that anybody could pick them up simply by breathing if they weren’t already born with the knowledge.
Fast forward thirty years later. I wasn’t born with the knowledge, yet my vocation is marriage and the sub-vocation is motherhood. My husband won’t let me iron his clothes because I might make a boo-boo. I’ve been practicing for twelve years now and I’m still dying everyone’s underwear pink. And I’ve discovered that learning homemaking skills by breathing is just a made up story because inhaling bleach in a small poorly ventilated room – such as a BATHROOM – makes me woozy.
You see, staying at home and raising a family is like running your own business. There’s more to it than meets the eye. We were wrong to ever think this vocation was unworthy. We were wrong to fail to prepare for it. But no one ever saw it that way until recently as moms translate the skills they learn at home to run successful home-based businesses.
I hope to follow in their footsteps. Someday this house will be orderly and organized and I won’t set off all the smoke detectors when I cook. Maybe I’ll even figure out what to so with the sewing machine I have in the back of the coat closet buried under assorted broken umbrellas.
But for now I’ll work on the laundry. Small steps.
---------------------------------------------------
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!
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