Sassafrass

Mithing: one tooth

For more than a year, Lil E and I have been having a conversation about when in the world the baby teeth were going to fall out of his head. His dentist smiled sweetly and whispered that it'd be at least another six months to a year, and that was long after his friends were spitting out of the gaping holes framed by gums and more wiggly whites.

"Just think!" I said like I was waving pom pons and doing high kicks. "Everyone is going to be SO BORED of losing teeth and you will be waiting patiently until...PA-DOW! You lose a bunch and remind them how incredibly awesome it is! Their tooth fairy money will be long spent but you will have yours. It's going to be great."

He bought it. Sort of. Or at least until this fall when kids in his class were losing teeth as fast as Nickelodeon re-runs today's episode of "iCarly."

It's only Wednesday and I'm already embarrassing myself

My reel is gone. Or mostly gone. My many, many clips of appearances on local and national television shows has been wiped off the Internet somehow just when I was so ready to finally collect them all into one pretty little pink package for all of the world to enjoy in three-minute segments for all time. I'm left scraping up morning-drive radio clips where I called in to discuss five ways to avoid the swine flu and some MP3s from a Christian XM station where the nice, conservative announcer man always addressed me as "Mrs. Ashley."

It will be OK. No, really, I am sure it will be just fine. If the grad school thesis -- a one-hour documentary that took three years and countless sobbing hours in an edit bay to complete can sit ignorantly and blissfully on twelve VHS tapes packed into the back of my basement storage space -- has somehow survived time and technology, then surely this will all work out.

Or else you will find me in my bathroom with a small child dressed up as an aging anchor in pleated dockers and stain-resistant button-down, trying desperately to recreate a two-minute hot-topic piece on what sleep positions say about your personality.

Yeah, it should be fine.

While I trove for those gems out there in the land of erased reels and neglected thesises (thesi?), I thought maybe you'd enjoy this one clip I did dig up while doing some investigative Googling of myself. It's Flip Cam review I did of Yummie Tummy shapewear at a BlogHer conference a few years ago. It's brilliant work, you've got to see it.

It is such an in-depth analysis of slurper-inner tank tops that you probably won't notice the gray roots waving at you from my red hair(ohmahgaw was totally 2008). You won't judge me for my sleep-deprived, martini-nurtured eye puffs or spackled-on concealer or the god-awful lighting in the crazy-huge conference hall. What you will notice is that my boobs are not flattened out (I kind of make it impossible with hand gestures and blatant discussion of the uplifted ladies for you to look away at all) and that I got not one but two degrees in communication.

When the world and Diane Sawyer warned us all that whatever we put online WILL LIVE THEIR FOREVER, I really thought that would include the post I wrote about feeling a certain kinship with Kate Gosselin and status updates that wax nostaglic about $1.19-bottles of Boone's Farm Kountry Kwencher "wine" from the Kum 'N Go convenience store in college. I really did not believe in my heart of hearts it would be a clip about sucking in my pooch of pooches.

But here it is. And right now, it's exemplary of my fine journalistic skills. So enjoy. And please, let me know if you'd like me to introduce you to my agent. Or my shapewear dealer. Either is good.

 

 

One or 255 words of thanks

• Merci. Charlene and the crew of super-savvy ladies over at GalTime really know how to take a grrrl and whip her into a presentable package. Look at the wonders they worked on my post about gifts for kids of divorce! So grateful for the love (and pretty little spruce-up) you gave me.

• Do jeh. Mommyfriend finally admitted (out loud and not just on a barrage of texts to me in the middle of the afternoon) that she's been nursing a little girl crush on me. It's all sixth-grade and whatnot with us, because I totally have been crushing back and just was waiting for the right moment to tell Amy and hope that she might whisper it over to Sarah who will just get up the nerve to tell Katie because...well, damn, we all know Katie makes things happen. More updates as soon as the note with thirteen crease-folds and lots of tiny boxes to check off on the inside comes back.

• Grazie. The people of America, or at least of Shine, reminded me that the XXL polyester yoga pants my ex-husband once got me for Christmas are not the worst gift on the planet. Oh, no. A can opener is the worst gift on the planet. And so is a Chucky doll. Also? Wind chimes, pot, a teddy bear intended for an ex-girlfriend and a creepy doll lifted from a grandmother's collection all rank really high for present-giving suckage.

Can you top those, kittens? What are you grateful for this week?

 

This? This is wonderful

At first, I wanted to put my giant, wonderfully clunky pink suede platform wedge heels right up on my desk somewhere in between the seven notebooks of to-do lists, three half-empty cups of coffee with puddles of sugar and cream at the bottom, and very disorganized-looking pile of thumb drives with a meticulous catalogued system of saving random things on them. I wanted to lean back and close my eyes for just a minute too long and then just stare back at my computer screen and nod knowingly. Yup, yup. That's what I'd be thinking.

Or I wanted to force out a few tears and thank God, my manager and all my mother's friends in the audience who read my blog.

Best gifts for kids after a divorce

Oh, how a parent, particularly one who is going through or has just been through a divorce, wants the holidays to be magical, restorative, everything for their kids. And there's just too much that can interrupt the sweetness and snow.

I've been through a few of these holidays. I've passed by windows decorated with Harry Potter and Santa with his miles-long nice list in department stores that smell like Chanel perfume and faux fur on my way to the courtroom. I've yelled back at my ex on the porch on Christmas Day while my mother distracted my little boy inside. I've sobbed into my dad's chest after sending my son off with his father only hours after Santa visited. Those moments were tough. But the days, the actual holidays themselves, were also wrapped up in a lot of hope and calm. Maybe because, after all of that, I needed them to be, we needed them to be.

Things are better now. Mostly. What I've learned is to hold on to the time with my son that I do have. And to put thought, rather than just money, into the holidays we share together. It's easy to throw a debit card at a holiday to make it feel BIG! WONDERFUL! PERFECT!, especially when the child will head off in a Honda CR-V to his dad's house where there it will surely be BIGGER! MORE WONDERFUL! EVEN MORE PERFECT! It's easy to make the gift-giving a game, with your kid in the middle (again).

I do buy gifts. Maybe more than I should (I'm working on that). Aside from the ridiculous Lego sets with 8,000 pieces and 400th stuffed animal and play kitchen kitchen that took five hours to assemble, I've learned that the gift that really means something has always been the one that I've put my whole, throbbing, sometimes-terribly-broken, often-gushing heart into for my son. It's the gift that says, "This isn't what it used to be. And I see that means for you. I love you and I get it." 

It's the gift I make or buy that puts away a joint parenting agreement, an irrational text message, even an hour or two alone next to the Christmas tree to validate what the small child is experiencing. Of course, it's not the only time he (or your child, I am quite sure) has been the focus of love and attention during a divorce -- many of us leave our relationship with the kids' other parent because we want their lives to be better. Still, it's the opportunity to pad what can be time that's full of heartache and hope for everyone in every house.

Do you have a child you'd like to give something more than a LeapPad Explorer or American Girl armoire of outfits? Here are the gifts you can give a kid you love whose family is in the midst of a separation, divorce or big change that will tell them (and remind you) that it's all going to be OK.

Seedling DIY Family Kit ($40) - Your child's family (and many children's families) probably aren't made up of the standard dollhouse foursome anymore. This kit is an artistic, empowering, lovely way of acknowledging that's perfectly fine. You and your child can decorate the wooden people to make up the  people in your family that feel most familiar. 

Where you hang your hat

When the Not Boyfriend comes to see me, he travels light and he always carries a hat. His leather duffle is never at maximum capacity. His camo National Guard backpack safeguards only  a few items - a book, his laptop, earbuds, a small notebook where he keeps track of to-dos and ideas. Somewhere in there or upon his head, sits a chapeau. Usually a fedora.

I love his hats, not just because they are classic and dapper in a way most Docker-clad, worn-brimmed baseball-capped men don't care to be (save the hipsters...thank God the hipsters are keeping this whole granny thing a-goin', one pair of Harry Caray ginormous plastic glasses and salvaged Don Draper hat at a time). I also love that it is so him -- attentive to details, like a little wink across the room or just the right flavor of half-and-half in the fridge.

[keep reading after the jump]

Sassy Single Single Mom Style: Do not ever dress like a dinosaur

Ladyfriends, beware of this High Neck Poncho by Gracia. I was nearly lured into its nest by the super-low special happy hour price of $29.99 on iDeeli. That is, until I actually looked at the dress (or poncho...without pants...whatever) and realized that it is not really outerwear at all.

In fact, it is a size-2  Triceratops.

 

Amirite? The yolking, the pleats, the "please don't find out I taped that episode of 'I'm Secretly Pregnant' while I wore this dress-poncho to the Piggly Wiggly last week" design. All of it screams Cretaceous Style.

The good thing? There's plenty of room to hide your baby triceratops eggs. Or to pull your pretty parts up over your head so the T-rex may not see you there in the middle of the untouched field.

Nina Garrrthia would probably go on and freaking on about the pintucks and whatnot. But that does not mean shit when the off-the-rack reptilia among us don't have our giant thigh and hoof-like thingies concealed a bit more.

 

Seriously, does it come in this print?  This print is totally hot pre-Paleogene extinction event.

 

And clearly, this piece will not hold up well over time and infrequent washings. Do I spy pilling right around the saggy-knee/cankle area?

I do not care if this "designer" is hot on the club scene (ohmygoodness, that was almost an historically incorrect caveman reference) or you cannot pass up an under-$30 deal, no woman -- whether on a date or in court or at work or trying to outrun a pack of little bastard Diplodocus (doci?) -- ever, ever wants to emphasize her giant bony frill.

 

 

Now that we've covered the dresscho, someone please tell me why this Gracia creation isn't also extinct.

 

More Sassy Single Mom Style:

• Perfect DIY date-night nails
• Jesus wanted me to have these boots
• One pair I keep wearing