Dear Tooth Fairy, Please Go The Hell Away

Two weeks ago, baby boy lost his first tooth, a momentous occasion in any child's life. I was actually the one to tell him he had a loose tooth when he smiled and his tooth looked like it was laying sideways. Once he knew, however, he wouldn't leave that sucker alone (typical boy!) until one day he came home from school with a plastic tooth shaped necklace. I said, "Oh, it finally fell out at school?" He replied, "No, I twisted it."

Oh, he's one of those kids then. My daughter was the type of child that would wiggle it unless there was any sort of pain involved and there was no way she was yanking it out until it plopped out all by itself. I was always afraid she was going to end up eating it with her dinner one night. Of course, she would also whine if she bit into dinner and it hurt, but she was absolutely leaving it in her gums until it finally cried uncle and gave up and jumped out.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering what the tooth fairy's going rate is these days. I've read stories about kids getting 20, 50, or 100 bucks for a tooth. Uh, no, not in this house. The tooth fairy respects our middle class budget. She leaves $5 for the first tooth (that one is special to her for some reason) and 2 or 3 dollars for any successive teeth. The amount varies because in this digital age, the tooth fairy uses her debit card for everything and hardly carries cash except when she needs it. (You'd think, with her profession, she's have an emergency stash for tooth collection!) Sometimes that $2.00 is made up from couch coins, lone singles found in a back pocket, and dryer lint but she always gets the job done.

Two days after losing his first tooth, baby boy informs me that the one right next to it is loose too! Awesome! A two-fer in one week! He's thrilled to finally have a steady source of income all by giving up his old teeth which, face it, aren't much use to him once they fall out anyway. (Since this is the kid who loves to buy things, hubby and I hid all the pliers just in case he gets any bright ideas.) Now that he's an old pro, this one didn't even last half the time the first one did and he came home with another tooth necklace from school.

He looks adorable with his bottom two front teeth missing though. It's too bad it wasn't a few more months away and we could teach him the song, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". Until he tells me that the one next to that one is now loose too. (I admit, it gave me a mental image of him doing daily teeth checks for any sort of give among his firmly planted teeth. And maybe wiggling until there is some.)

Now all I have to say is, "WTF tooth fairy?" (And if you don't know what WTF stands for, it's: What the fudgecicles?!) Don't you have a kid in Argentina or Texas or Beijing who's awaiting a visit from you? You're starting to become such a frequent visitor that we've debated setting a place at the table for you. There are other children in the world, so go harass their parents, I mean, those children.

He needs some teeth to be able to eat. I hear pureed lasagna doesn't taste that good.

The Jerkwads in Charge at Our School

So, remember when I was lamenting the inevitable dreaded fundraising that was coming to a house near me? Well, it did in fact come to pass. Not once. Not twice. But THREE times. That's right, the third fundraiser came home today. THIRD. FUNDRAISER. In less than 2 weeks.

I don't know who had the bright idea to have every school in our district do a fundraiser this year (I thought they alternated) but they are complete d-bags. That's right, I said it. Do you know why? Because that third kid who brings home a fundraiser might as well just bring it back to school right now. We've already tapped our potential suckers, I mean buyers, in friends, coworkers and family twice already. This third kid gets screwed out of a potentially okay prize (let's face it, they were probably never going to get the iPad mini from selling 125 items even if they were the only fundraiser in the house) and has to settle for the lame pencil or googly eyed eraser. The prize that says, "Yes, you're not even mediocre in your selling efforts."

Which lovely child of mine earned the poor, pitiful third place in the fundraising wars? My daughter. Yes, the one who's chock full of girly hormones and sensitivity is the one who loses this race. Not the 16 year old who probably has to be reminded 12 times that he has a fundraiser. Or the 6 year old who would be entertained with a googly eyed eraser for hours. It has to be the volcanic mass of estrogen just waiting to explode.

Ultimately, the parents have to be the biggest supporter of their kids. I have no problem with this. Until the third fundraiser comes home. Because what happens is the parents get to buy the same over priced junk that they are making their little angels hawk to others. We get to drop a crap ton of cash on doo dads that we really don't need, magazines we don't have time to read (because that gem was the oldest kid's fundraiser), and candy that costs $9.00 for 7 pieces in a box. I can make candy cheaper than that for cripes sake.

So to all my friends and family who are starting to screen their calls and avoid eye contact when they see me booking in their direction with an order form, I'm sorry. I don't want to harass you as much as you don't want to be harassed. But here's the thing: If I don't get other people to buy this stuff, that means I'm stuck buying it. And we haven't finished paying off the loan we took out for last year's fundraisers.

I Want To Be President of Magazine Menu-ing

Have you ever read one of those magazines that offers some sort of helpful menu planning? "1 Meal, 5 Ways to Use the Leftovers", "10 Recipes Under $10", "How To Get Your Picky Ass Family To Eat What You Put on the Table Without %*^%$@* Complaining For Once". (Ok, they don't have that one, I just wish they did.)

This magazine that I get, and occasionally even read, had one of these articles. It was "1 Week, 5 Easy Meals". Alright, so far I'm liking the sound of this. With 3 kids and their crazy schedules, we could use some more easy in our lives. So, what delicious things are on this list? Let me tell you.

Meal 1: Chicken and Cabbage Fried Rice. Yup, let me repeat that more slowly for you. Chicken. And. CABBAGE. Fried. Rice. What the hell magazine? Do you think that my six year old is going to calmly sit and eat cabbage? The kid who boycotted grilled cheese sandwiches one day, even though he totally ate them for the 3 years prior? Yeah, I'm not seeing that happen. Even if that miracle somehow occurred, I don't think I can coerce the husband into willingly eating cabbage OR fried rice (he's only an occasional Chinese food fan) and the older two might, maybe in an alternate universe, eat this but not without a healthy dose of face making, gagging, and grumbling.

Meal 2: Pork Cutlets with Apricot-Mustard Sauce. Yes, they actually said apricot mustard sauce. Um, I'm not sure I could eat this, let alone sell it to the rest of the fam. Plus, I don't see how this qualifies for a meal as the recipe is just the meat. Well, duh, any meal is easy when you're only making one thing! The hard part comes when you're trying to cook everything  so it's all ready and hot at the same time. Its a culinary ballet if you will. If I just fed my family pork chops, they better be huge or there better be 20 of them to fill my brood and their hollow legs.

Meal 3: White Bean, Kale, and Sausage Stew. Admittedly, I'm not even sure I could find white beans or kale in my grocery store. Are they special items? Are they in that section of the store that I consider off limits because it has all the 'exotic" foods and I'm just a regular, 'ol cooking cooker? This recipe calls for 8 cups of kale. Eight. Cups. Seriously? I couldn't even fool my kids into thinking "it's just oregano honey!" with 8 cups worth. Not to mention the turkey sausage might get a raised eyebrow or two.

Meal 4: Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes with Cheddar and Bacon. This is the closest to normal recipe I've seen in this list. Except....yeah, I'm not a big fan of sweet potatoes. I want to like them because they're supposed to be healthier or some crap like that, but I just can't. I don't want my potatoes to be sweet. I want them savory. But you can keep the cheese and bacon. Although, again, if the only thing  served my family was baked potatoes for dinner, they better be BIG. Or have half a pig worth of bacon on them.

Meal 5: Cajun Blackened Tilapia. I have a hard time getting worked up over anything that has blackened in its title. Call me old school, but when your meat is black, it's usually time to throw it out or hand it off to the dog under the table. Also, I'm not a big Cajun fan either, so already this dish has two big black marks in my book. I'm not sure I could convince my kids and husband that I didn't accidentally leave the fish on the stove too long. They'd be nodding with their, "Yeah, sure Mom" looks on their faces as I earnestly exclaim, "It's supposed to be blackened, it says it in the name!"

After they give you the recipes, they have a shopping list for you to use when you shop for these "easy meals". They break it down into sections and the top says "Meat, fish, and poultry" (because just meat wasn't accurate enough I guess). The first item is 4 slices of bacon. Yeah, how do I do this? Do I have to go to the magic meat counter to buy 4 slices of bacon? Because I'm lazy and usually just buy the all ready to go packaged bacon. Under dairy they have 13 Tbsp. unsalted butter. Not 14, not 12, but 13 people. Get it right.

I've decided I want to be the president of the menu committee. I would only approve helpful menus for the magazines geared towards real people. (I will let the frou frou culinary magazines keep their feta and tofu encrusted veal chops.) I would offer such helpful menu tips as: "5 Meals to Make With Kraft Macaroni and Cheese" and "How To Make Yourself Eat Hot Dogs...Again". My menu plans would never include feta cheese, goat's milk, or flax seeds.But they might include a preparatory glass of wine for the chef.

The Great Houdini Garage Experiment

Since we lack storage space in our house, our garage becomes the catch all for the crap that we can't cram into the house. (What? Put our car in there? Who uses a garage for that?) Every once in awhile it starts getting to "Hoarders" level of mess and needs to be cleaned out so this was the weekend the hubby and I decided to make it disappear. Not the whole garage, just the mess that had become the garage.

For some reason, I didn't anticipate this project being as big as it was.

The biggest problem is that the garage not only holds all the stuff we know we want to keep, it also holds the maybes. As in we know we aren't using this item now, but we don't want to get rid of it just in case we might need it again. This leads us to hold onto a bunch of crap that we are probably going to end up throwing out another two garage cleanings from now because no one has, in fact, used it since it left the house and entered garage land.

The second biggest problem is that it also holds the stuff that we aren't keeping. Throwing out that broken fan? Chuck it in the garage until the husband takes a run to the dump to get rid of it. (It beats leaving it in the yard and making our yard the dump, right?) The only problem with that is eventually stuff is buried by other stuff and then it take 3 months for that fan to make it to the dump because, hey, out of sight, out of mind, right?

This is usually what my garage looks like. Pictures have been copied from anonymous garages to protect the innocent.

We started "The Big Garage Showdown" after lunch. I figured by 4 I'd be back in the house working on our mountainous piles of laundry. WRONG! At four I'm still sorting through clutter asking, "Are we saving this?" "What is that?" and "Why do we need this again?" The driveway, where we have been moving the stuff we are "definitely getting rid of this time", is really starting to look like a junkyard now. If we heap it any higher, I might lose sight of my car parked at the end.

Finally I had to leave to start a load of laundry lest my Sunday be turned into "The Day That I Was a Slave to My Washing Machine". I'm dirty, tired, and my feet hurt because I'm not usually on them for 3 hours in a row. (I blame my cushy desk job.) And worst of all, the mental image of how the garage would look in the short two hours it took to clean it out resembles in no way what it actually looks like four hours later.

See, this is why people take Prozac. To soften reality's harsh edges. Maybe I should sign myself up.

What I imagined my fabulously organized garage would look like.

The Job I Wish Someone Would Invent

Okay, so here's the thing: I LOVE to read. Even on days when I'm soccer momming and don't have time to squeeze more than ten minutes of reading in, I still love it. The problem that I have is that I don't have time to obsess about my books AND read them. (I barely have time to read traffic signs some days.)

What do I mean by obsess? I mean, of course, tracking down every single scrap of written work published by my favorite authors and noting titles and release dates of said upcoming written works. Sometimes I find that beloved authors fall through the cracks and I find out, days, weeks, or months later, that a new release has been out and (gasp) I don't have it yet! For example, the Richard Castle books (which coincide with the television series Castle which I also watch) has a new book out that was released this week. This was a series that had fallen off my radar and therefore, I was not stalking the book sites for knowledge on when the next upcoming release would be.

This lead me to think that I really need someone who will write down all my favorite authors and series and notify me of new releases. It could be on a monthly basis. I would get an email from my "Book Assistant" (or Senior Literary Investigator if you will) telling me of everything I'm going to want to get that month so I have time to buy them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Oh, but I don't mean a paid position because I'm a mom to three money grubbing children and the proud owner of one money gobbling house. No, this would have to be a volunteer position. Maybe as practice for how to be an assistant to someone who is actually important. Or to improve one's organizational skills by starting on a small project like this. (Although my list of favored authors is growing quite large so it's no small task anymore.)

That lead me to think: Maybe it could be a profitable position and maybe that's my calling. Think how fabulous it would be if my day job was keeping a spreadsheet of favorite authors and their new book releases. For someone who loves to read, it's like winning the employment lottery. (But only if it pays well. Otherwise it's the employment pipe dream.) For someone who loves to read AND organize, it's like winning the employment lottery and the regular lottery on the same day that you won a new car and received a Pulitzer for your work.

So until then, I'm my own Book Assistant. (No, I think I really do prefer Senior Literary Investigator.) It's not as exciting, and the boss is a nightmare to work with, but it pays the bills. Oh wait, no it doesn't. Um, it nourishes my bookworm soul? Yeah, that sounds about right.

It's Getting Hot in the Kitchen

I think I have an addiction to cooking competition shows. Not Chopped, that one just stresses me out with it's multiple cameras flashing between contestants and angles. But Guy vs Rachel and Cupcake Wars and The Great Food Truck Race. If you make people compete with their food, I'm probably going to be interested. If the contestants are celebrities or kids? I don't even need to know the entire premise of the show, I'm already in.

I think the biggest fascination that I have with these shows is that they always seem to know what this and that are used for and the tastes that they compliment. This just amazes me because other than mac and cheese and spaghetti and meatballs, I have no earthly idea what is supposed to be paired with what. And what is with truffle oil? I couldn't even begin to tell you what the purpose of this stuff is and yet every contestant on these shows is so blase saying, "Ah yes, truffle oil goes marvelously with beef carpacio." ( I had to look up a relevant reference for that. Sadly, I don't know what beef carpacio is either.) In my world, a truffle is a delicious chocolate confection that should NEVER be paired with beef. Maybe some wine and a good book perhaps.

Or they have things I night have heard of, but would never know how to cook. Arugula and Gruyere cheese? Where would I even find those in the grocery store? What recipe would I ever have in my Betty Crocker cookbook that uses flax seed or pine nuts? Again, does it come with a map of my grocery store showing me where to find these? Is there an aisle titled "Things only found on cooking shows"?

Even if you give them regular food, they always come up with something exotic and flavorful and have the judge chefs giving rave reviews. Things that have me scratching my head and wondering if I would actually eat that combination. All the people that try the dish think it's fantastic and creative and a bold use of flavors! All I think is that my poor blue collar unsophisticated palate would probably wish it was a cheeseburger or something.

So even though I can't appreciate gourmet cuisine, I appreciate television networks who pit cooks against each other in an effort to best one another. C'mon, it's America, land of competition! As for me, I'll just munch on my movie theater microwave popcorn while these talented culinary experts wow me with foods I'd probably never eat anyway.

Where Did My Mojo a Gogo?

Have you missed me Mayhemville? I took a spontaneous week off to see if I could find my act and maybe even get it together. Alas, what I found in the time vortex that has become my life, is that there's always another activity that is willing to suck up your time. So instead of getting caught up and back on track, I'm still a chaotic mess that has lost most of her organizational skills. (If you knew me, you'd know how devastating this is to me.)

Last week baby boy started soccer. The husband is coaching. The mom (me) is spectatoring. The daughter also attends (usually forcibly). The oldest may or may not go, depending on various activities of his own. So this means that at least 4/5 of the house is out at the soccer field. Since he has to be there at 5:15 (which means walking out the door at 5) and I get home from work at 4:15, dinner becomes one of two options: Either I am savvy, organized super Mom who prepares a meal the night before that can have quick heat leftovers for soccer night, or I'm the one running around muttering, "Crap, crap, crap" while shoveling grilled cheese sandwiches on plates and looking for anything I can count as a side dish. Chips? Carrots? Half an apple and a go-gurt? Raisins? Wait a minute, we don't eat raisins....gross, gross, gross! That's where those grapes went!

This week I have soccer on Monday, open house number 1 on Tuesday, soccer again on Wednesday, and losing my mind has been penciled in for Thursday with a nice sedative scheduled for Friday. If that doesn't work, I'm building a tree fort in the back yard and hiding from my kids until December vacation. Listen, don't judge me until you race around in my shoes, probably from one activity to the next, scarfing down half a sandwich and a bottle of water because you have exactly 13 and a half minutes to eat before junior needs to be picked up/dropped off/picked up again/dropped off again.

As if that's not bad enough, we get home from soccer about 7 and now baby boy is upset that he "only has an hour before bedtime". All Mom wants to do is find a chair to support her aching feet while she tries to hatch a fool proof plan to get Daddy to rub said poor feet. Do you know how hard it is to hatch plans with whiny six year old in the background? Geez kid, have some respect for your exhausted elders who are proud of themselves for still being able to form proper sentences  at 7:30 every night. Go watch some mindless television and rot your brain for an hour. But exactly an hour of corroding brains and no more!

So needless to say, if you can't find me at home, I'm probably doing that whole damn "good supportive parenting" crap that's all the rage these days. If I can teach myself how to nap with my eyes open, I might be in business. (Although extremely creepy.)

It's Definitely Not FUNdraising

While September brings such lovely things like apple picking, balloon festivals, and crisp evenings, it also brings some not so nice things. Like the National Bank of Mom (that's me), worrying about how your little darlings will look like when they bring their school pictures home next month, and fundraisers.

Now, I have mixed feelings on fundraisers. Personally, I think they have some of the neatest little gadgets. One year I found a visor clip for sunglasses for my husband (before they were everywhere like they are now) and another year I scored a can strainer. Yes, a can strainer! No more squirting tuna fish juice trying to drain that can! (Remember my infomercial sensitivity? It comes back to haunt me with catalogs and fundraisers.) Seriously though, I use that can strainer enough every year to justify the $8.50 I shelled out for this little piece of holey plastic. But I like supporting the kids' schools AND I get a handy, dandy little trinket. It's a win win situation.

"By emptying the pockets of your friends and family!"

Now, when one of my backpack toting brood brings one home, however, I vacillate between joy over a new outlet for my catalogoholic tendencies and frustration that I now have to peddle crap for my kids. And that's exactly what you do, because it's not 1950 anymore and no one feels comfortable telling junior to hit the streets to hock his goods. So we hit up the same people. Every. Single. Time. That's grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles (and perhaps other assorted family members), and co-workers. We feel enormously guilty and yet we still make them our go to people for fundraisers.

If you're really lucky, your kid will bring home a good fundraiser with a variety of things in it. Candy, jewelry, wrapping paper, kitchen gadgets....all fodder for a fabulous fundraiser. (Like the alliteration there?) If you're not lucky, your kid gets something lame like magazines or cookie dough. When it's magazines I always try to find one for the kids or the husband because I already get 3 magazines a month that I don't read. I surely don't need any more dust collectors. If it's cookie dough (or pizza or any other food product) I'm always a little irritated because have you seen the size of my ass? I don't need any cookies. I need a vegetable peeler that doubles as an apple corer or something like that. Every year the high school band department sends home a cookie fundraiser and every year I sigh and inwardly groan.

Tomorrow is the third day of school and I anticipate any day this coming week as THE DAY. The day that one of my little heathens brings home that shiny catalog of overpriced crap that we all buy because "it's for a good cause". I can only hope that they have chocolate peanut butter cups to go with my vegetable peeling apple corer. Now that would be a coup!

Betty Crocker Married Duncan Hines and Had a Little Doughboy

I love to bake from scratch. There's something extremely satisfying in taking flour and sugar and eggs and turning it into something delicious. (I also love to eat deliciously baked from scratch goodies, which is why my exercise plan and I will never be parted.)

The thing is, though, I use white flour and white sugar and (gasp!) real butter when I bake. I know, I know, it's not gluten free or soy full or politically correct. I guess it's still pretty old school of me to want to dust off my Donna Reed mentality and bake some bread. But in this fast food, modern convenience world, isn't it nice to have a baked treat made with love and time and care? Shouldn't everyone be able to tell the difference between Chips Ahoy and the real deal?

Um, okay, these I would probably (most definitely) buy!

Okay, now before you think I'm up on some high horse here let me tell you that I DO eat Chips Ahoy and Oreos and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and occasionally (under duress) even McDonald's. I mean, I have kids and occasionally eating all that bad stuff is even their idea instead of mine. I'm not a purist who eats sprouts and makes tofu cookies and kelp shakes and balances my chakras. (Although I am trying to set up an appointment for that because who doesn't want well balanced chakras?) 

I'm just saying that I'm tired of the media portraying everything that our parents and grandparents grew up eating, yet somehow still survived, as evil and unhealthy. I shouldn't have to form a support group because I like butter. (Although I might if we could end each meeting with a recipe exchange.) I want my kids to have scratch made cakes and learn to cook using a recipe. I want them to know Sunday dinners with starchy pasta and delicious rolls. Yes, it's probably white pasta, get over it. And guess what? I'm probably spreading butter on my roll too! Probably even adding Parmesan cheese to my spaghetti. Oh, the culinary sins I'm committing!

So if you ever come over and the cookie jar is on the counter, you can be sure that I pulled out my inner 1950's housewife and made something completely sugar filled and yet completely tasty. Anything else would be uncivilized. (I now have to Google that to remember which commercial I stole that saying from.)

The Littlest Grump in the House

School starts in two days and while I'm inwardly doing the parental touchdown dance, Baby Boy is pissed! This kid is only six years old and already he's decided he doesn't want to go to school. He must be a child prodigy because it took his brother and sister until 4th or 5th grade to decide they hated school. He's stepping up the process.

Since I was a nerdling my whole life (true story), I don't understand how any child cannot love school. You get brand spanking new supplies, new clothes, shiny new sneakers and besides, all your friends are there. What isn't to like about school? Especially first grade. When your school supply lists still include crayons, how rough can you have it? Doesn't he know that most adults would love to be able to spend a day sipping juice boxes and coloring by numbers?

His biggest complaint about going back to school though, seems to stem from the earlier bed times. Every parent probably remembers the last 2 weeks before school starts when you start making them go to bed earlier in preparation for the regular schedule that's resuming. The groans, the pleas, the wheedling for ten more minutes. Baby boy has a future in lawyering since every word out of his mouth is usually a bargain for something. Later bedtime, one more cookie, one last snuggle before bed.

Did you see that? How the first and third in that list are bedtime related? Because he's a smart lawyer. He knows that he can probably tug at the heartstrings of one or both of his parents because who would say no to a sweet snuggle with that precious face? Bam! He's got you just where he wants you and it usually involves staying up later than his bedtime.

In the good old days (when he was an infant) he would sleep like a normal child. But once the toddler bed was introduced, he developed a severe allergy to sleeping and bedtimes. Getting this child to stay in his bed took 3 years. He'd get up, come out, lay on his bedroom floor, play in the hall closet...anything to keep from laying down and actually (gasp!) going to sleep. As the parents, it was (ironically) an exhausting process for us.

So basically, he's decided that school is the crux of the problem and therefore, doesn't want to go to school anymore. Stupid 8:00 bedtimes! Who needs 'em?

His father and I, however, need a nap. Arguing with six year old lawyers is tiring work!

Coveting The Flinstone's Choice of Footwear

When you live in New York, Labor Day is a bittersweet moment. On one hand, there is only a few more days of insanity before you finally send those heathens of yours back to the school system. (Ha! Now they're your problem for 6 hours a day!) But it also heralds the end of summer. So while I get to stop pulling my hair out refereeing fights and wiping spills, I also get to add sweaters and socks back into my wardrobe. Sigh. I will miss seeing you my happily painted toenails!

I am, however, more than ready to be done with school shopping with twelve-but-this-close-to-thirteen year old daughters. This summer has been renamed "The Summer Of The Horrible Shoe Search". Yes folks, apparently eighth grade is when I lost the ability to choose shoes for my daughter. No, let me correct that. I apparently lost the ability to choose shoes that my daughter wouldn't look at me in horror as if saying, "You expect me to wear those? In public? Where people will see me?"

I've seen the inside of so many shoe stores that I can probably tell you who has the better selection, price, and quality of shoes. I can tell you this because we spent copious amounts of time sequestered in these building whilst thou daughter of mine subsequently turned her nose up at all but 2 pairs of shoes. Neither pair were available in her size of course.

It was getting quite desperate in my house as we were getting down to the wire and the oldest two didn't have new shoes for school yet. This is how hard shopping for my 16 year old son was:

Me (showing pictures of sneakers online): Do you like any of these?
Son (points to 2 pairs): Either of those are fine.

Done. In 5 minutes. The youngest was just as easy.

Me: Do you like this pair or this pair?
Baby Boy: I like that one better but both are good. Can we go look at the toys now?

Again, done in 5 minutes.

This is me, shopping with the almost teenaged one:

Me: What about this pair?
Daughter: (Gives slight head shake with a look on her face that makes it seem as if she just walked into someone's fart cloud. Which is to say part horrified, part disgusted.)

Lather, rinse, repeat. For 5 stores. Four separate times. Over the course of a month. If I hadn't been done in by the constant bickering because they've had way too much togetherness and need to go back to school, then shopping for shoes with the girl probably pushed me over the edge.

Even now, after finding her size online in the only 2 pairs of shoes that she would consent to being seen in public in have been ordered, the memories of the ordeal are enough to make me shudder.

Next year I'm sending my husband out shoe shopping with her. It might be the only way I survive it.