How much glamour can you take?

On Sunday, my oldest girl and I had the most fun, because we hosted a make-up party! My friend Barbara, who is a Mary Kay consultant, came over and showed us all the groovy products that will make our skin healthy and beautiful, and the girls and moms did make-overs, and critiqued each other's blush, and it was awesome!

Barbara is hilarious and only has sons, so she was giddy with joy to be able to play make-up with real live girls. Look how cute she is in her Mary Kay blazer.

We ate too much food, and I show the veggie tray here to trick you into thinking that I didn't serve chips or cookies or soda -- I would never serve crappy food like that . . . .

Mascara is v-e-r-y tricky when you have a broken wrist, but my oldest girls has mad skills.

Who is she texting?!

Check out the cute little Barbie mirrors that we got to use during our glamour party. They're flippy, and you also get a tray to hold the samples of moisturizer and exfoliant and cleanser. They made me happy and I don't know why.

So here I am at the end of the glamour-fest. This, people, is as good as it gets. Pay no attention to the Christmas decorations in the corner.

Snapshot: three goofballs

The tall boy and two of his best pals bonded at church yesterday. Coleen's tall boy rocks the pink glamour hat, don't you think?!

I could be a cougar . . . .

Let's be honest -- there are aspects of Demi Moore's life is an aspect of Demi Moore's life that has great appeal. Not the twittering -- I'm not feeling the twitter love, although I should never say never. But the fabulous body, the smokin' boy-toy: this doesn't appear to suck. So, yeah -- I could be a cougar.

What stands in my way (other than my vague moral misgivings, the small detail of an age-appropriate husband, and the non-existence of any sort of line forming at my door) is the thought of how much work it would be. The whole idea wears me out. I just don't have the energy, boys.

And there is a danger that instead of this . . .


. . . my experience would be this:

Silly Haiku Wednesday

Jenn's theme this week: EDUCATION.

So, you know that I'm denying the reality that school has started, that my tall boy is a senior (so weird: he was seven just a minute ago . . . ) and that once again I have been thrust against my will into the hugger-mugger, frenetic pace of the American public school year. But I will put on my big-girl panties and proceed:

Carpool Cuties

Heading back to school,
my urchins are less than thrilled
to begin again.

My dad always said,
"Don't let your books get in the
Way of your learning."

And Dad said (a lot):

"Quick! What is eight times seven?!?"
(Times tables. They sucked.)

Here's what I love:

. . . Cookouts at Coleen's house.

Look at this roasting corn! She bought it at a roadside stand, where they were weeping with gratitude when customers bought their end-of-season produce. Funny -- she didn't buy any tomatoes . . . .

Look! A teenager doing the dishes! Coleen's tall boy was even all scoldy when I tried to put the non-dishwasher-safe vintage plate in the dishwasher. It was awesome!

Good food and even better friends --
it was a fine end to the summer.

Gearing Up

School starts tomorrow (groan, sob, whine, sniffle, gag: choose any response you like), but my high school urchins were busy last week, helping out with freshman orientation.

The tall boy is the grand pooh-bah of this club, and did some heavy recruiting among the newest Bulldawgs (always spelled this way). (Yes. It's annoying.)

Making his "Join or Die" poster, he got a little help from got completely shoved out of the way by his sister, who is all about the signage and propaganda, especially when it involves playing with art supplies. These two really rocked the stencils and rubber cement.

I showed up to help serve lunch, which turned out to be the easiest job I've had all year. You know how when you help out at the elementary school or the middle school, volunteering means running around like a crazy person trying to do twelve things at once, while also herding children who might as well be cats for all the listening they do?

Well, at the high school (at least on this day), here's what I did:

Me: Hey, sophomore strong boy whose name escapes me -- please unload all these cases of water on that table over there.
Him: OK!
Me: Excuse me, efficient-looking senior girl, where do you want me to put these chips?
Her: Oh, I'll do that! Oh -- and would you like a Coke?
Me: Why, yes! Yes, I would!

It started well . . . .

So we went to this awesome water park on Friday -- trying to squeeze those last drops of fun out of the summer before school starts on Tuesday. And we really had just the most excellent time -- me and my girl urchins and Coleen and her girl urchins. There were slides and pools and a faux lazy river. What could be better?

Coleen and her oldest girl, Jolie Blonde.

We stuffed ourselves silly with ice cream, funnel cake, chili dogs, popcorn chicken, and more ice cream. Some of us just ate ice cream. Now, that's good parenting!

Our friends, Sam and Sylvia, joined us for part of the day -- and a visit with Sam and Sylvia makes any day a little bit sunnier.

Check out Sylvia on the lazy river!

And the best news is -- once again I can be nominated for Bad Mother of the Year! This took some doing, let me tell you. Just because my oldest girl slipped and fell didn't automatically guarantee me a nomination. I also had to ignore her occasional muttering about how her wrist really kind of hurt, plus I had to badger her into taking pictures with her bum wrist, too. It takes a lot of work if you want that Bad Mother nomination, but I have always been dedicated to excellence.

Some people might have rested on their laurels at this point, but I really impressed the judges by letting her go to the high school football game that night, instead of taking her to an urgent care facility to get her wrist x-rayed. Hey! It was the first game of the season!

So you can just imagine how proud I was at 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning, when the Emergency Room doctor gave us the fabulous news -- yes! Her wrist is, in fact, broken. I'm so happy I could cry.