A friend of mine was kind enough to throw some last-minute tickets to the Harlem Globetrotters my way. I'm a big fan of cheap and cheesy entertainment, so The Spouse and The Spawn and I braved the most dangerous stretch of Connecticut highway to get ourselves to graffiti-laden Bridgeport, Connecticut (motto: yes, some people actually LIVE there) to catch the show.

I first saw the Harlem Globetrotters back in the 70s when they were quite simply, THE SHIT. Times, they have a-changed, and with videogames and the NBA and the rise of the Jonas Brothers, they're not quite as much of the excrement nowadays. So the whole event had a rather quaint feel, thanks to the iconic whistle-y theme song and an unexpected smattering of vintage Three's Company-style gay jokes.

But the show was surprisingly entertaining, and I was so transported back to my childhood that when I spilled my Diet Pepsi on my lap I almost expected to see it soaking through a pair of styling kelly green polyester pants (hand-sewn from McCall's #4337 pattern).

Amidst the throwaway homophobia, there was some basketball-playing and also some sort of plot about a bet between the coaches, the outcome of which was that if the Globetrotters lost, the Head Trotter (Special K, a nickname that I hope was derived from his love of the cereal and because of any sort of lingering ketamine habit) was going to have to go and play for the hated Generals.

At one point the coach of the Generals got caught cheating, so everybody in the audience was encouraged to razz the Generals coach. In the midst of all the booing, The Boy turns to me, eyes ablaze with delight, and says, "I know what you're supposed to yell, Mommy," and jumps to his feet and screams, "YOOOUUUU SUUUUUCCCCK!" which had the immediate effect of producing a) a spit take followed by b) uncontrollable laughter, even as I knew that I should be delivering a Teaching Moment about politeness and good language and sportsmanship.

The Spouse and The Girl didn't hear a thing because of the crowd noise; they thought I'd completely lost my mind. And of course my laughter encouraged The Boy to shout it a second, third, and fourth time, with each repitition making me laugh until fat tears were washing away all of my mascara.

It was a proud, proud moment.

Me: Kids, we need to talk.

The Girl: Yes, I have been meaning to tell you that I want to go to Michaels and get stuff to make foam fairy monsters.

Me: Uh, yeah. That's not exactly what I wanted to talk about. Kids, here's what I need to tell you: my company had to lay some people off, and I lost my job.

The Boy: Does this mean we're going to lose our house? Are we going to live in a tent somewhere?

The Girl: No, dummy. It just means we shouldn't be using our allowances to buy a bunch of junky stuff. We should save it for things we NEED, like food and clothes.

The Boy: I have two five buckses, Mommy. You can borrow those!

The Girl: And I have plenty enough of clothes, Mommy, so you can just worry about buying me food. But [The Boy] doesn't like most food so maybe you should buy him a new shirt instead.

Me: Thanks. Now, don't worry, kids, because things are not going to change THAT much. It means that instead of going to your afterschool program, I'll pick you up from the bus. And that we'll cut out some of the things that we do that we don't love, so that we can try to keep doing the things that are really special.

The Girl: Are you going to start cooking more? I hope that we can still get the two-for Tuesday specials at Dominos's.

(Sudden thought causes her to shout) I DON'T WANT TO EAT TONGUE, MOMMY!

Me: What are you talking about?

The Girl: When Beezus and Ramona's dad lost his job their Mom started making them eat tongue with gravy.

Me: I can promise you that I will never, ever, EVER serve you tongue.

The Boy: (horrorstruck) Does this mean we won't get to go to Disneyworld ever again?

Hey, Manager Mom! The economy’s in the crapper, your 401K is down by 20%, and companies like yours are laying people off left and right! So, what are you gonna do?

I’m going to Disneyworld!

Yep, with my usual impeccable timing, I managed to schedule this trip to happen right when the stock market is dropping faster than virgins on prom night. (Also a great time to ask people to donate to disadvantaged kids' educational projects in this 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge contest I’m participating in.)

Six months ago, I was trying to figure out kennel coverage for Spawn over the October school closings. There were three days we’d have to cover around the Columbus day holiday. Using my best George Bush math based on the going vacation day program rate of $100/per kid/per day, I somehow convinced myself that it make more financial sense for us to just go to Orlando instead.

We waited to tell Spawn until a week ago because I didn’t want the trip to become one more thing that I threaten for punishment (e.g. “if you don’t start behaving RIGHT NOW we won’t go to Disneyworld after all!”) and then never follow through on, further undermining my limited credibility. Also I didn’t think I could take hearing “WhenarewegoingtoDisneyworld?” twenty times a day for the next six months.

(Not to worry, they found many other subjects to Rain Man about instead).

But when we finally broke the news, their reaction was NOT what I was expecting. In fact, The Boy started crying.

“I don’t want to break my arm!”

Of course, I had forgotten that their friend Caitlin broke her arm on one of the rides when she went last year.

And now that we're here, the excitement level is still on the mild side, somewhere between yellow and orange. I’m slightly annoyed that Spawn has as of yet failed to acknowledge the full extent of my awesomeness for planning this trip.

But we’re heading out to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party tonight. The Boy is dressing as Anakin Skywalker. The Girl is dressing up as an artist. I think once we hit the pearly gates I might finally get some props.

And trying to look on the bright side…maybe the shitty economy means we won’t have to wait in long lines.

I just got home from a business trip. Focus groups in Rosemont, Illinois.

My plane was basically a flying Greyhound bus, allowing me to experience the full glory of moderate-to-severe turbulence, with the added bonus of a seatmate that spent the whole flight vigorously rearranging his man bits. To be fair, I ate a bean burrito before I got on the plane, so sitting next to me probably wasn’t any picnic either.

I hadn't traveled in a while, and before I left I was on this kick where I was trying to be a more hands-on mother, although I think I've succeeded mostly in annoying the Spawn, who made it clear that they would MUCH rather be watching the latest rerun of The Suite Life With Zack And Cody than play Chinese Checkers with me for the "twenty hundredth" time.

Because when I left for the trip, they did not appear to be devastated.

The Boy barely looked up from the Wii game he was playing, although Manager Dad said that two hours later, he put down the nunchuck and looked around, eyes glassy and bloodshot, and asked, “Where’s Mommy?”

The Girl walked me out to my car, claiming that she wanted to spend every last second with me before I left. But I’m pretty that she wanted to make sure that I was REALLY leaving, so that she could have Manager Dad all to herself.

As for me, of course, I missed the little buggers...but...

A hotel room.

With a king-sized bed and a high-speed internet connection and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Two on demand.

A restaurant where I got served a hunk of tuna so rare, they must have just waved it over the stove before they put it on the plate.

Mints on the pillow and little green leaf-shaped soaps.

*Sigh*

Oh yeah, I had to work and stuff, too. But I don’t really want to talk about that right now.

Not until after October 16th, anyway.

If you're tired of hearing about corporate fat cats that are living off the teat of the shareholders, why not take a moment to donate to Mrs. W's "Excited To Read" classroom project? All donations go directly to buying books for her special ed students.

It's Saturday. OJ Simpson has been convicted. The $700B bailout package has been passed.

The universe is starting to inch towards sanity.

Let's keep making the karmic gods happy. By throwing even a $5 donation to my 2008 Donors Choose giving page, you'll support worthy classroom projects like Mrs. G's effort to help her her high school students learn Spanish.

By doing that you'll help me reach two goals: one, to fully fund all of the school projects on my page, and two, to win in the Mommy Bloggers category for the challenge. Right now, I'm in fourth place, losing to Finslippy, who (deservedly) has a jabillion readers, and a couple of west coast blog consortiums, who have about two hundred contributors each.

Back Manager Mom, the maverick in this competition. Let's give those Silicon Valley and LA Moms an East Coast generosity smackdown.

So please, my friends, on a day where my local newspaper somehow deems a Britney Spears sighting worthy of front page news, help keep the world in balance by supporting something that might actually promote intelligence.

No need to click for more today, all of the begging is front and center.

We're in Day 2 of the 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers competition - and one of the projects on my donation page has already been fully funded! Proof positive that the people who read this blog are the smartest and most attractive people on the planet.

And your ass looks GREAT in those pants, by the way.

Since education is the theme of the day, I thought I'd review a book that Spawn and I read together recently. It's called "Tell Me Again About The Night I Was Born."

And despite the fact that it reeks of celebrity vanity (it's written by Jamie Lee Curtis) it's actually a charming and lovely book to read aloud with your kids.

If, that is, said kids are adopted.

If they're not, and you're like me and don't bother to read the blurb to find out what the book is about, trust me, the grilling that ensues will make you long for the relative pleasure of a full body cavity search conducted by your friendly neighborhood TSA screener.

Scene: The three of us in my room at bedtime, snuggled in my bed, The Boy (5) and The Girl (7) on either side of me. I get to Page 3: "Tell me again how the phone rang in the middle of the night and they told you I was born."

Me: (gears slowly starting to grind in my head) That's not where I was expecting this story to go. Hey, Spawn, how about we read Goodnight Moon again?

The Girl: No, I like this book. Let's keep reading.

Page 8-ish. "Tell me again how you got on an airplane with my baby bag and and flew to get me and there was no movie, only peanuts."

The Boy: My friend Andrew says that peanuts could make him and lots of other people die until they're dead. Why does the airplane want to kill those people?

TG: I thought babies lived in their mommy's tummy before they were born. You said WE lived in your tummy. Were you lying?

Me: (sweating slightly) You and your brother DID live in my tummy. But some children go to live with a different family after their mommy has them. It's called "adoption."

TB: Why would anybody would give their kid away? Was she bad?

TG: How much does it cost to buy a real baby? Can I save my allowance and get one of those instead of a guinea pig?

Me: Um. You can't buy babies. But sometimes mommies or daddies aren't able to care of their children, and they want to give them to a nice family who will.

TG: Then why would they make a baby in the first place?

Me:

Me: (second try) Sometimes people make mistakes.

TG: Were WE mistakes? Is that why you told [neighbor] Mrs. X the other night that you were "fishing" because [The Boy] was born only two years after me?

Me: What? No - OF COURSE you weren't mistakes. And I said "efficient," not "fishing." What I meant was, we wanted to have you born three years apart but we were more efficient than I thought, because your brother was conceived right away.

TB: What does CON-SEEVED mean?

TG: You don't want Mommy to tell you about that.

Me: (loudly) Who wants a pony?

The Boy: Are you going to sell me to another family so that you have enough money to buy one?


Please, don't let future generations of mothers grow up to be as stupid as I am. Support public education projects with as little as $5, and help me win the 2008 Donors Choose Bloggers challenge. Click here to visit my Donor Page and fund real projects in real schools.

The other day, I got an email from a woman at Donor's Choose about participating in their 2008 blogger's charity event to benefit school programs, which is ironic because as some of you may remember, I've had a major beef with reading lately.

But I've also been on this quest lately to try to be a nicer, better mother, which is not only exhausting, it's making Spawn think that I either have a terminal disease or am getting sent to prison. So I thought that I could channel some good-deed-doing in another area of the universe, and what better time to ask people for money for a good cause than in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

So I agreed to participate in the 2008 Blogger's Choice Donationpalooza because I think that Donor's Choose is a great organization. All of the donations on my page will go to projects in the Stamford public schools, which are perpetually struggling to find resources, so much so that they almost closed Spawn's school a few months back because they couldn't afford to operate all of the schools in the district.

So if you have time for a few clicks, and maybe an extra $5 to spare, please, click here and support a project that will bring so much into the lives of schoolkids in the area. Or pick another project if you don't like mine. The projects I chose are eligible for matching funds through the Fairfield County Foundation, so right away, your donation will be doubled.

As an added incentive AND a recession insurance policy, I will randomly select twenty people from the list of donors and mail you one (1) virgin, unspoiled scratch-off Connecticut lottery ticket. Just send a email to lambira@gmail.com with your snail mail address after you donate.

Whether you donate through my blog or someone else's, please, consider this: without education, I'd be an even bigger idiot than I am now.

Thank you for your time and generosity.

So...I haven't been blogging lately. And I'm afraid to blog about why I haven't been blogging, because most of what is torturing me lately is work related and I have no interest in being Dooced. Unless said Doocing comes with either widespread fame/fortune/adoration (like it did for her), or is accompanied by the kind of severance package that causes Congress to hold hearings on the injustice of executive compensation.

But neither of those scenarios seem likely. And another reason that I haven't been on the internets all that much is that I decided that instead of spending all of my free time blogging about what a terrible mother I am, I could, oh, I don't know, try being a better mother.

Novel idea, yes?

I've been trying to stop multitasking and really focus on being present with the Spawn. Not just physically THERE, but engaged. No checking emails while they're playing in the playroom. No sorting through mail and school papers while they're refusing to eat their Boston Market. No trying to put away laundry while they're getting ready for bed. Trying to take time to do things with them, even if it's just to play a board game or read a book together.

But today, I think my efforts to be Better Mom are setting me up for a rather spectacular flop. I told the The Girl that she could have her friend over for a sleepover, and she wanted to decorate cupcakes. So I did something that I never in my adult life thought I would do, given that my family often begs me to stay OUT of the kitchen, and especially since Stop & Shop does this type of thing so much better:

I baked.

I bought three boxes of cake mix and those little paper cupcake holder thingies, and some white frosting and food coloring to make different colors and some sprinkles for garnish. I borrowed some baking tins and from the bowels of my kitchen, excavated this strange-looking wedding-gift appliance that has these twirly things that mix stuff up. I emptied the boxes and cracked the eggs and figured out how to operate my oven, and now I have approximately 87 cupcakes cooling on the counter, waiting to be frosted.

Problem is, they look really weird. They're all different heights, and some are sunken instead of rounded, and some are covered in pimply looking nubs. I'm a little worried about that. Is it possible to kill a child with bad cupcakes? Death by Betty Crocker?

My birthday weekend is over, and I'm sad to see it go. I had such a good time using "But it's my birthday!" as an excuse to avoid all of the things that I didn't feel like doing, from the trivial (fetching the newspapers from the end of the driveway) to the disgusting (doing the final assists on The Boy's butt-wiping) to the obvious (did not cook a shred of food the entire weekend.)

I meant to post these on Saturday, but I was busy lying on the couch. For those of you who enjoyed the first eight years, behold the terrible power of my adolescence, with its parade of overthought hair and questionable fashions:



















I would like to point out that my mother showed all of these to Manager Dad after he proposed to me. And he STILL went through with the wedding.

Sunday is my birthday. I will be thirty-eight years old.

"Wow, ManagerMom!" People never say to me. "At 38, you're quite the cougar MILF! Have you always been this stunning?"

To answer this question, I bring you portraits from the first eighteen years of my life, which my own mother faithfully saved in an 8 x 10 picture frame in our living room:
Having seen some of my fellow bloggers on Fug Mug Friday over at PapaTV I don't feel quite so bad.

On the other hand, there's still the adolescent years. I'll save those for tomorrow.