tangled

I think the divine ms. Jenn took the movie a little too seriously. I want to climb her hair, or lasso somebody with it. Photos tomorrow! 

(For the record, this was my cheater post for the contest with Nat where we blog every day. We didn't have wi-fi at the condo and it seems that you can't do great blog posts from an iPhone. And I thought those things were perfect in every way!)

i scream, you scream...

...we all scream for ice scream! Well, Tagg just concentrates on eating, licking, devouring it. With serious enthusiasm. Tagg really digs his ice cream. (Who doesn't, right?) But really...the ice cream won out over pizza. And the water? Never had a chance.

*Please don't judge the nutritional content of this meal. We were at the zoo. I did not realize that packing a lunch was the only way to avoid over-priced crap-tastic vittles. Note to self.

This is a face I'm not looking forward to seeing in his tween or teenage years. I would like to think he's pissed about the hat, but he was the one who demanded to wear that hideous thing. Stupid Disney Pixar Cars empire. It's killing my...I mean, Tagg's...fashion statement.

supermom defined

I was in a workshop today where we were defining personas. Those are kind of amalgamated descriptions of the person you develop products or campaigns for. One of our personas was "Sara Supermom." I helped develop her. It was interesting. She had a tiara and a cape and soccer mom hair. Other than the cape and the 2x4 hairdo, she was frighteningly like me...and pretty much every mom - working or otherwise - that I know.

She's 30-40, married with kids (maybe married more than once, in which case you double the trouble), probably a professional of some sort who is also the head of household, family business manager; employer of nannies, cleaning people, lawn boys, doctors, dentists, etc; list-maker; delegator; schedule master; micro-manager; tutor; relay racer (have you tried passing the kid baton back and forth between parents?); super-wife; mega-mom; sex bomb; craft-do-er; home-schooler; house-keeper; fitness buff; family historian and documentarian; super-model-wannabe; aspirational organic chef; not to mention someone's daughter, niece, sister, friend. Remember, that's all in addition to a full- or part-time job.

Good hell, ladies! How on earth do we keep it all together?!

I know I'm not alone here. I've seen the mommy blogs, the Parents magazine articles, heard the cafe conversations. Being a mom is some tough shit. The most rewarding thing ever, hands down. There's no argument or question there. Sure, I may be a little biased here based on the fact that I'm just lucky, lucky, super uber lucky to even be a mom at all...but still. It is, hands down, the most difficult, rewarding, special, crazy thing you'll ever do.

Frankly, being the case study for "Sara Supermom" made me a little (a lot) anxious. Based on the speed of my speech, the tenor of my voice and some stress signals in my body language, not to mention the reaction of the men in my workgroup who were all instantly stressed and anxious based on my description of poor Sara...maybe more than a little stressed. When you hear the list of things you do every day, it's nuts. Nuts! You want to celebrate all that you achieve and get a valium or something to help you deal with all the stuff you don't quite get to. Laundry? I'm talking about you.

It's a ton of pressure. Can you ever be good enough? creative enough? wonderful enough? there enough? do enough? Who knows?

Can you ever be mom enough?

summer lovin'

 It was such a lovely weekend. Perfect weather, perfect days, perfect kids. It seems like now that summer is finally here we're trying to pack in as much fun as is humanly possible. Hey, what do you expect? It's practically July and it just barely got warm!

 It was summer solstice on Tuesday, the longest day of the year, which means every day from here on out is a little bit shorter and soon it will be winter again. How depressing. So we're doing as much as we can outside, in the sun, with the flowers and the water and the butterflies. And the baseball bat. Why is she always carrying a hammer or a bat? This dainty little flower with beating devices.

Sloane and I put on our sundresses and our hats - gotta protect her lovely skin so she doesn't end up with all the skin damage mommy has. Although, I have to admit...I do love a good summer tan. It makes me happy. Don't tell Sloane I said that.

Sloane has always been photogenic, since day one. But in order to get the full toothy grin Scott did the most ridiculous spaz dance behind me while I snapped photos. It's nice to know he's got the giggle-making skills but I can't imagine what the neighbors thought.

Our little princess. Somehow after climbing up the slide (yep, the big one), tightrope walking on the little picnic table and attempting to scale the ladder she had lost a shoe and ended up with grass stains on both knees. Better than band-aids, I suppose. How cute is that dress? It's a Wal-Mart special. A place I swore I would never shop at until I had kids. I bought it at the end of last season and couldn't fathom how she would ever fit in it. A year later...perfect. And it was only like 4 bucks! Take that, bargain shoppers!

Our little dimpled devil. Tagg got a new t-ball set and he's figuring out how to bat. It's pretty cool. It actually shoots the balls up in the air so he can practice hitting them. Once he figures out that he doesn't have to actually chase each ball after he hits it, it will probably be a little more efficient but he has about as much fun running after the balls as he does trying to hit them.

This is one of my favorite Tagg faces. He looks like he knows everything, and then some. Like deep in the mystery of those cool gray-blue multi-faceted eyes, there's this old soul who's just waiting for you to figure it all out.

And, when you don't, you get this face.