Friday, December 31, 2004
 Another Christmas come and gone. Hundreds of dollars spent on gifts of books, toys and clothes for Little Girl, and as it turns out Sophie was most enamoured of the bubble wrap from the packing. It held her attention for up to 10 minutes at a stretch, definitely a record. Next Christmas we'll just have a truckload of bubble wrap delivered directly to our house.
So here we are at the curtain call of 2004, the final leg of which was a mad dash here at Cheezwerks HQ. Both Sean and I found ourselves working for small businesses this year, with the obvious associated drawbacks but also some unexpected fringe benefits. I have fewer coworkers than the Pope has ex-girlfriends, so my office - along with spouses, significant others and children - went to a Japanese restaurant for our end-of-year celebration. It really was a lovely time, right up until Sophie winged her sippy cup across the table at the company president and overturned a glass of ice water into his daughter's lap. NOT SO COOCHIE-COO-CUTE NOW, IS SHE?!
Despite the horror of having my kid sprout demon horns and a tail in front of my unsuspecting coworkers, the dinner thing was far better than past office holiday events. There's something to be said for not having to attend a huge "formal" corporate holiday party with booty call music and the Big Boss' drunk wife feeling up one of the IT guys on the dance floor. (Yes. In 1996, during an otherwise unmemorable chapter of my employment history.) The dancing expectation in itself more or less represents my own personal episode of Fear Factor.
The Long, Sordid, Chronologically Arranged Tale of Me and The Not Dancing
Toddlerhood: My mom tells me now that I didn't really dance to music the way most babies do. You'd think this would have been a sign.
Preschool - Early Middle School Years: I'm enrolled in ballet, tap, jazz and pointe classes through County Parks & Recreation. I completely miss Saturday morning cartoons from ages 4 through 11 in favor of hours of dance instruction so that every May I can turn out a stunning recital performance that basically boils down to copying the dance steps from other more diligent students. Speaking of the recitals, they were characterized by REALLY STUPID costumes. Can anyone identify those things on our heads in the photo below? My best guess is that they're two-dimensional green plaid butts.
The year I'm 10, our ballet dance routine is supposed to look like waltzes, so we're organized into pairs. I'm stuck with a girl who is a little strange, much in the same way that Donald Trump can be said to be kinda successful. Things come to a head the day she blurts out "EAT ME, BUTTERFLY! I'M AN APPLE!" during the opening curtsey/bow sequence. After class I complain to our teacher, who gives me some lame-ass school counselor type of stupid lecture about the importance of being kindhearted to the mentally unbalanced. I (1) feel that this is pretty easy for her to say considering that she's not dancing with one of them, and (2) commence a long aversion to paired dances. And being kindhearted.
For reasons that completely escape me, at age 11 I enroll with a different dance program. They favor modern and "ethnic" dance, which includes an African move that looks like a ribcage detaching from a spine. I'm so busted: that TOTALLY can't be copied off the nearest girl during the dance recital! At some point into my horrified silent ride home after class, my father turns to me and says, "It's okay if you want to quit." People, I cannot TELL you how rare it was for my parents to allow me to quit anything! I gratefully jump at the offer. This should have been YET ANOTHER CLUE.
Seventh Grade: I'm going to be AN ACTRESS when I grow up! I enroll in performing arts school, which features instruction in acting, voice and dance. Unfortunately, the dance instructor is a middle-aged man who wears tights. Exclusively. To teach a class. Of 12-year-old girls. Not surprisingly, there is much snickering and commenting amongst us, so much so that nearly 20 years later, the thing I remember most vividly about the performing arts school is Katie Newton stage-whispering, "BALLS!" at the start of each dance class.
Also, at my uncle's wedding this year, one of his friends takes pity on gawky 12-year-old me and politely asks me to dance. I grudgingly accept. The experience does nothing to improve my outlook on dancing, but it does launch my career of being every gay man's favorite straight girl escort.
High School: After avoiding nearly four complete years of various school events, I go to my senior prom. With a date. Who still holds a grudge. Ah, good times.
My Wedding (Post-College): I get as far as hearing my mom suggest that the Macarena be on the DJ's playlist before making the decision that there will be absolutely no music and therefore no dancing at my wedding. In a bizarre act of boomerang karma, the Macarena is played everywhere we go during our honeymoon in Mexico.
A few months ago, we went to the wedding of longtime friends. After a couple of hours of Sean giving me sad baby seal looks, I agreed to ONE DANCE, figuring that all of our friends would either be too cool to make a big deal about me breaking my long-standing, well-known anti-dance policy, or be altogether too sloshed to notice.
That dance was the longest two minutes of my life. Fortunately, I was right about people not noticing. (God bless open martini bars!) Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the wedding video. My metronome move is preserved for all posterity, along with my odd expression that visibly communicated the fact that if Sean had suddenly developed a gaping chest wound, I would have crawled inside it to hide.
The good news is that the dance aversion doesn't appear to be genetic. Sophie dances whenever, wherever, to whatever. It doesn't even have to be music as long as it has a decent rhythm. The bad news...that metronome move thing? TOTALLY HEREDITARY.
# posted by Amanda at 3:54 PM |
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Friday, December 24, 2004
My parents - the Duke and Duchess of Holiday-Themed Odd Paraphernalia - have a set of fingerpuppets shaped like Santa and Mrs. Santa. Last week, Sophie developed a habit of telling her wishlist to the Santa fingerpuppet. In the days just before Christmas, Sophie began following up her conversations with Santa with a little chat with Mrs. Santa to inquire if Santa was working on Sophie's gifts.
Leave it to MY child to micromanage Santa Claus...
# posted by Amanda at 5:21 PM |
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Monday, December 20, 2004
With Christmas just about 4 days away, here's a glimpse at the current state of holiday preparedness at Cheezleton Manor:
- Greeting cards mailed: somewhat
- Gift packages mailed: nope
- Tree decorated: starting to
- House decorated: uh uh
- Shopping finished: mercifully, yes
- Presents wrapped: a few
- Pets humiliated in the traditional holiday way: OH HELL YEAH
"Why must I suffer so?"
# posted by Amanda at 10:28 PM |
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Friday, December 17, 2004
Doncha just hate it when you get a new perfume that you're all excited about because it's such a pretty scent, and only after you have liberally applied it for the first time do you realize that on YOU it smells like you have just rubbed an elderly church lady all over your body?
# posted by Amanda at 12:06 PM |
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Thursday, December 16, 2004
She is a Material Girl
While we snuggled in bed this morning, Sophie reminded me - as if I could have forgotten - that I'm her mommy. "Yep, you're a lucky, lucky little girl! You have a mommy!", I told her.
"And a Daddy!", she said.
"Yes!"
"And a beanie bear! And CLOTHES!", she shouted, excitedly clapping her hands.
Well, there you have it, folks. Mommy and Daddy might currently get top billing among the things that Sophie has and feels are worth mentioning, but let us not forget the increasing importance of having an overflowing wardrobe. And plenty of accessories, too.
# posted by Amanda at 8:56 AM |
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Thursday, December 09, 2004
How to Deeply Annoy Your Husband During an Interminably Long Intro for a Recently Reunited Band, a Band That Your Husband Positively Adores, a Band Whose Members Are Really Not That Much Older Than Your Husband or You, But Older Nonetheless, And You Might Be Less Snarky About It If You Weren't Feeling SO DAMN OLD Yourself:
Hiss VERY LOUDLY, "What, are they waiting for Black Francis to put his teeth back in?"
# posted by Amanda at 1:25 AM |
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Wednesday, December 08, 2004
At a mere 23 months of age, Sophie has perfected the art of the White People's Dance! You know what I'm talking about: the violent bobbing of head and flapping of arms while the legs stay firmly rooted in place. (I saw this move performed to Caribbean house music by a sea of vacationing Midwesterners in Las Vegas. Some of them had even figured out that they only needed to move one arm if the other was attached to a beer.) Here's a clip of Sophie dancing to Christmas music until she is distracted by a roaming cat.
# posted by Amanda at 8:36 AM |
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Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Know what I like best about my job? The occasional fringe benefits that occur through the business owners' tendency to allow their home life to creep up two flights of stairs, flow right on into the office suites and inflict itself upon our workdays. Today they are having the new main floor hardwoods stained. All those wonderful chemical smells are intoxicatingly wafting through our offices now.
Seriously, what other company lets employees huff on the job and also PROVIDES THE FUMES?!
# posted by Amanda at 12:48 PM |
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Y'ALL. I've been BUSY. In light of the recent flood of impatient emails---such as "Put something on the site and what the hell are flying monkeys??"---here is both an update and a glimpse into where huge chunks of my free time have been siphoned off lately:
Creating achingly adorable dazzlingly unique holiday greeting cards. So far we have only achieved the aching objective.
Evidently I enjoy adding to the stress of the holiday insanity, so this year I came up with the brilliant idea of making hand-stenciled cards with a seasonally appropriate photo of Sophie inside. Folks, the stenciling part has been easy, paint fume highs aside. The sticky part has been timing portrait sessions so that they coincide with the approximately 15 seconds each day that Sophie feels sporting enough to slow to a rolling stop and smile pretty. Unfortunately, we have full-bore entered the Terrible Twos just in time for the 2004 Holiday Season! What joy! It has brought us treats such as this lovely tableau of Sophie gleefully trying to impale Elmo on the top of a tiny Christmas tree:
Yeah, that one is SO not making the cut for this year's holiday cards.
# posted by Amanda at 12:29 PM |
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Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Topping my holiday wishlist this year: a flying monkey. Do you have any idea how handy that would be?
# posted by Amanda at 8:28 AM |
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