Monthly Archives: April 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Coney Island Blues

April 25, 2012 – 9:11 am

About a year ago I put up a bunch of photographs of one of the many trips to Coney Island Lotte and I had taken. That post was later selected to be Freshly Pressed on WordPress and brought in thousands of hits, which was really pretty thrilling. While Coney Island is a little decrepit- I like to call it well-loved- there’s something about its kitsch and charm that holds a special place in my heart.

Lotte’s former music teacher, who was like the Pied Piper of Park Slope, put out a phenomenal children’s album 2 years ago. Since the big move, every time the song Coney Island By the Sea pops up on shuffle, I have to turn away so LJ doesn’t see me nearly sobbing in the corner. As far as kid’s music goes, I highly recommend the entire album: it doesn’t make parents want to shoot themselves in the face, and I consider that a good thing.

This video though, that someone shared yesterday on Facebook, really struck a nerve. By nerve I mean it also made me cry. It’s called Coney Island Love Letter and was created by a Brooklyn based production house called The Land of Nod, Inc. It’s gritty, breathtaking and hauntingly beautiful, all wrapped up in 3 minutes. Swoon.

*****THIS IS POST #100!!! AH YEAH. BIG UPS TO OVERSHARING.*****

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Linking up with the Wordless Wednesday mamas over at Angry Julie Monday, By Word of Mouth Musings and Seven Clown Circus

Tags Brooklyn, Coney Island, Wordless Wednesday | Permalink | Comments (3)

Parenting Tales

Please, for the love of God, don’t ask me to read these books.

April 23, 2012 – 8:00 am

If you’re a children’s book hoarder like I am, and can be found scouring every $1 book bin at every flea market in the universe in the hopes your kid grows up to be a literary wunderkind, sometimes you end up with some duds. These are the books that make me grumble when Lotte gleefully requests them at bedtime.

1. I know people adore her, and I’m pretty sure I adored Amelia Bedelia as a child. Seriously, though: what the hell is wrong with her?

2. This book evokes a visceral reaction in my body. The weird voice, the fact that it calls pee, “wee-wee”, all of it. I mean, this

…makes me gag. I’m so sorry, Prudence:

maybe you wouldn’t have shit on the floor if Grandma didn’t expect you to pee into some sort of milk pitcher. I wouldn’t want to sit on that either.

3. This song will now be in your head for the rest of the month. You’re welcome.

4. I’ve already written about the horrifying stereotypes in this otherwise well-meaning book. Mr. Pellegrino, shown flipping a pizza, is “the color of pizza crust”? Mr. Kashmir sells spices and is “the color of ginger”? Cringe-worthy.

5. Yup. That’s right. I went there. Stop kidding yourselves: this book sucks. I mean, please…

…the illustrations blow. Gee, thanks for this extraordinary artistic effort! Also, I know I’m not the only one that gets agita when I reach this page:

Uh huh. I get it, the book is really old, phone numbers were wacky back then, and we should appreciate the story because “it’s vintage”. Stop it. You know it’s overrated.

6. A few months ago I was elated to find this crusty old book from my childhood in some dank corner of my parents’ basement. I remember pouring over this book as a little kid, with its charming illustrations. Just look!

Look at those little cute spiders and Wanda’s crazy amazing hair! AWW! Except, no. I read the book to Lotte the second I got home and HOLY SHIT is it sad and maybe even an example of child abuse. It’s child endangerment, at the very least.

Wanda is a little witch happily practicing spells in her house when she gets distracted by friends and goes out for a broomstick ride, without reversing the spell that brought a few spiders and flies into the home. Her bitchy mother sees the spiders, gets pissed she didn’t clean up after herself and dumps her daughter in a land far, far away where the humans live. She literally ditches her kid in this place where everyone picks on her ratty hair and tattered clothes and basically treats her like shit. See?

She’s fallen into a deep depression because HER MOTHER ABANDONED HER. Days later (Weeks? Months?) she peels a zillion bushels of potatoes and her shitty mom picks her up to bring her home… and she never forgets to clean up her mess again.

7. I hate Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I hate everything about him, from his voice, his high-rise shorts and white gloves, to that tail. OH, THAT RAT TAIL! Rest assured, I never let my daughter in on my ill feelings toward this magical mouse. It’s my secret.

8. This is another one from my childhood. Here’s a quick summary:

Lassie and his family go camping in the woods, only to find that it’s covered with trash because people are horrible, selfish assholes. Some deer slashes her leg on a broken bottle and almost bleeds to death by the side of a waterfall.

Lassie risks his life to clean the forest of the syringes, crack vials* and other symbols of human greed and excess and I spiral into the darkest bowels of depression. *There really weren’t crack vials and syringes, just tires and shit, but it’s just as sad.

9. I’m an art teacher. I adore Frida Kahlo; have read many books on her life; hold the deepest admiration for her paintings and have written a few papers on her work. This should be my dream book, right? RIGHT?!? Maybe this book would be less terrifying if I gave my kid acid, or taught her how to rip bong hits at age 4.

Frida lives in a small town in Mexico where everything is creepy as hell.

She’s always sad, always in pain and completely ignored so she turns to painting.

Her imagination is so vivid her still life settings morph into spine-tingling nightmares.

“A trolley runs into her bus. Frida almost dies.”, and OMG THIS IS NOT FOR KIDS.

10. Just burn it. Burn it now, before it’s too late.

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Parenting Tales

That thing that makes me drink.

April 20, 2012 – 10:16 am

I HAVE TO GO PEE PEE!!!

No, sweets, you don’t have to go pee pee. You just did.

I HAVE TO GO PEE PEE IT’S COMING OUT I HAVE TO GO!!

No. Stop it! You just sat on the potty before you got into the bath, remember? You JUST PEED.

HEEELP!! HEEEELP IT’S COMING OUT I’M PEEING IT’S GOING TO COME OUT WAAAAHHHHHHH (When she’s fake crying she literally says, “Wah!”. I don’t have the heart to tell her I think it’s funny.)

Knock it off RIGHT NOW! (I attempt to grab her dirt-stained arms to wash with the turquoise cloth while she flails all her limbs and starts splashing like an insane person, soaking me.)

THERE’S POOOOOOOOOOOPYYYYYYY! POOPY IS COMING OUT NOW HELP ME WAAAAHH!

OH MY GOD, LOTTE. This is CRAZY. You’re being CRAZY. KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW YOU ARE FILTHY AND NEED A STUPID BATH! (Blood pressure now rising as I envision her future of being laughed at in school for being the greasy-haired kid with flies circling her head and dirt under her nails for every class picture.)

I’M POOOOOOOOPING WAHHHHHH HEEEELP ME WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!

FINE! FINE! I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU RIGHT NOW! THIS IS CRAZY! GET OUT OF THE BATH NOW I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE OF THIS SCREAMING STOP IT RIGHT NOW GET OUT! (I grab her out of the bath, wrap her in the oversized towel and plop her on the potty where she proceeds to dry her fake tears, smile at me, and meow like a kitty.)

My daughter is full of shit, and also a genius.

Well played, crazy child currently running with scissors. Well played.

Tags bath, crazy, LJ | Permalink | Comments (3)

NYC Livin' Parenting Tales

Oh, Lawdy.

April 19, 2012 – 11:10 am

So many changes.

An identity crisis, really.

A little over a year ago, slightly bored with the tedium of mommyhood and needing some sort of external release, I signed up on WordPress and wrote my first post defending my decision to raise a kid in the city. That was the end of March, 2011. I loved Brooklyn: anyone who knows me at all can attest to the fact that I loved me some Park Slope something fierce.

At the end of March this year, after life took some unexpected turns, I found myself waking up in a house in the suburbs of Boston. To use the term “suburb” is pretty generous since our winding, poorly paved, pot hole-ridden, semi-dirt road is in the woods. The thick woods. The preserved wetland, deer-filled, terrifyingly dark at night kind of woods where serial killers stalk their prey.

Before I write posts documenting my feelings about the move and our new locale, of which there are a million, like how every radio station in Massachusetts LOVES the song Hunger Strike by Temple of the Dog as well as the entire Bush anthology, I thought I’d give a quick photo summary of the past 2 months. I’ve been a little shell-shocked, a little paralyzed with a case of “What the fuck?” until recently, so there is much to catch up on.

On the last day in February, this happened, and I cried and cried and cried:

Two days later, we woke up here:

…and even started composting like the fake little hippies that we pretend to be!

I no longer had a stoop and the daily stimulation of the city. When I looked out the window I saw this:

…and at night it often looks like this, which makes me feel super grateful and “WOW!”:

I don’t feel “WOW!”, though, when I’m constantly picking these dickheads off my loved ones:

When not dry heaving from the tick massacre, we have been able to do and see wonderful things like these:

…and I know two beings that are as happy as pigs in you know what over our big move:

We even decided to add to our family, so we brought Minnie Bo Puss in Boots home from the local shelter to fill our lives with hisses and sweet vibrating tails:

Finally, after a month and a half of Lotte being out of school and deliciously in my face every second of every goddamn day, she started a new preschool last week, which made me feel like this: