by Jen Logan | Jan 16, 2018 | Life, Parenting
Getting zen
In our house we meditate. We practice both individually and together. If you have met me, I know this is probably hard to believe – but can you imagine what a spaz I would be without meditation? At night before my daughter goes to bed we all meditate together in her bed. We take turns choosing the guided meditation nightly. Whenever it is my daughter’s turn she chooses this really bizarre guided journey about a child with an angel friend that looks like a rainbow.
It starts out okay enough, even if the main character is named Sarah and “could be a little girl or a little boy”. I’m thinking maybe if the main character was unisex that a name like Alex or Logan could have been used. I mean, SNL gave you Pat and Google is right at your fingertips, yet Sarah was the chosen name for the little girl or boy. So right away, the poor little boy Sarah has some issues that a rainbow angel may not be equipped to handle.
The guide explores scenarios where the rainbow angel could help Sarah with her physical ailments. She goes through the colors as she talks about blue fixing her boo boos and green making her feet feel like they are in cool grass. When she says that when she has a tummy ache her rainbow angel fills her stomach with the color red to make her feel warm and relaxed my logical little mini-me turns to me and says “red is the color of blood. Filling her stomach with blood would NOT make her feel better!” I’m glad I am not the only one who thought this.
By the time the guide has made it through the colors of the rainbow I am a little annoyed that she didn’t do any research as to what each of the colors represents. They seem so logical to me, but maybe she just went with her gut, which is apparently full of blood. Somewhere in the middle of the mediation I hear a loud “VROOOOM VROOOOM” from Sarah’s rainbow angel. After hearing this meditation at least five times, I still have no idea why this is happening. Maybe the guide thinks this noise is a color.
She goes on to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” after the rainbow angel fills Sarah with the color silver. By this time I am fairly certain this woman is on drugs. In fact, this meditation may have been written by Hunter S. Thompson on a bad acid trip. By the end my head is more garbled than when it started, which is, from my understanding the exact opposite of the desired result. Instead of feeling zen, I feel confused and a little annoyed. The thing is, my daughter is totally relaxed and ready for bed. So, I will listen to crazy lady with the color blind rainbow angel every night if that’s what it takes. My mind is clear as soon as I see that tiny little face sound asleep.
by Jen Logan | Jan 12, 2018 | Life, Parenting, Screwing Things Up
Riley explaining technology to Grandpa!
Like all good parents we have password protected our devices, including my daughter’s Kindle, to prevent her from online shopping and/or purchasing apps or games by herself. You wouldn’t think a six year old is able to online shop, but she sees a lot of it going on in our house as well as her grandparents’ house. Quality grandma/granddaughter time consists of searching different legos or barbies and scrolling through pages and pages of product photos. Mini-me can even find where the toy is sold for the best price. I don’t give my Mom a hard time about this because I know that intelligent shopping is in fact a skill that will benefit my child later in life, namely when she needs a pair of knee high black boots that are appropriate for both the office and a night out. It is a skill I acquired from my Mom before there was even such a thing as online shopping!
The password also keeps her from being able to pick up her device and use it without our permission. I am awoken on most weekend mornings by a tiny finger poking me in the middle of the forehead. When I decline to jump out of bed within ten seconds a pink Kindle is shoved in my face with a shake. I type in the four digit password and am left to sleep for an additional half hour.
My husband and I both have the code and we have also shared it with my parents so they can unlock her device when she is with them. This was clearly a mistake. My Mom remembers the code and uses it when needed. My Dad can’t remember the code from one day to the next so he has to consult my Mom for the code every single time my kid asks him for help logging on.
Yesterday, I heard my husband ask my daughter how she was able to get on his phone. She had picked it up on her own and was watching videos. His code is the same as the one we use for her devices. She proceeded to tell us that Grandpa told her the password. I was unclear as to how this would happen since she shakes her Kindle in my face with her password demands when she wants to use it to play a game. I was under the impression that my parents got the same treatment. I was immediately concerned because I thought she had figured out a way to outsmart the Old Man and weasel the password from him. This is not at all what transpired.
My Dad had taken my daughter out to their lake house to do some work. When they were driving home she asked if she could play on her Kindle. I can only assume that she was being persistent or she had worked really hard because he allowed it (which is unusual in the car). Since the four digit password is something that just will not stick in his head, he called my Mom to give it to him yet again. As she recited the digits over the phone he repeated it to my daughter and let her type it in herself. He didn’t pull over and stop the car. Part of me just shakes my head at this but the other part of me completely understands after having witnessed my Dad entering the password on his own. It is similar to watching a monkey use tools, all of the anticipation of wondering if he can do it and all of a sudden he is in!
I would explain to him why this was a bad idea, but he is so bad with technology that he has to have my daughter operate the television when he babysits. I get the impression he may not have been able to enter the password on his own even if he hadn’t been driving at the time. Seriously, he signs his text messages “Dad” on the far right of the text. So I am not surprised when he does something like this. We laugh and change the password. It could be worse, and knowing my Dad, it could really be a lot worse!
by Jen Logan | Jan 7, 2018 | Life, Parenting
“I am on a curiosity voyage and I need my paddles to travel.”
Kids are kind of creepy. Once they finally stop spewing bodily fluids out of every orifice after those toddler years, they start spitting out teeth like an MMA fighter. My six year old lost her top two teeth this week after horrifying her grandparents for the week prior when both teeth were flopping around like a pair of swinging doors. This amused me, mostly because my dad is very rarely squeamish and he was just that every time his favorite little body came running at him with her tongue pushing her teeth in and out of her mouth.
Somehow I remember losing all of my teeth within a short time period. Maybe it was because I was closer to puberty than kindergarten when I finally lost my baby teeth. My daughter lost her bottom two middle teeth a year ago and hasn’t had another wiggler since then. When one of her top teeth started wiggling a few weeks ago I was a little surprised that the other didn’t join in the fun. It took lefty a full week to get on board the getaway train.
The first of the teeth to go was pulled out by a piece of ciabatta when we decided to get a takeout from a local Italian restaurant. She immediately spit out the bread that was in her mouth and shoved it into my hand. So much for the end of wet slimy things in my hands from my kid’s body. We spent the next ten minutes sifting through the pasta, chicken and bread on her plate and even the salad that was a foot away when the tooth came out. We never found the tooth and determined that she must have swallowed it. She immediately asked how we would get it back. It was somehow confusing to her when I said we wouldn’t get it back. She was incredulous that I would not be spending the next morning sifting through her poop for the tooth. I think she may have actually been testing me a few hours later when she stood up in the middle of our Friday night movie and said “I have to poop!” Instead of jumping right up I replied “I hope that tooth doesn’t bite you on the way out.” The poor kid actually looked frightened for a minute. I told her I was just teasing her and she relaxed until her Dad jumped on board and started making jokes. Sometimes he is a little late to the party. After we promised repeatedly that nothing was going to bite her little butt she finally went into the bathroom but not before asking one last time if I was sure I didn’t want to look for her tooth. The kid is nothing if not persistent.
Mini Nanny McPhee!
The stubborn tooth stuck around for a few more days. We spent New Years Eve making jokes about our little Nanny McPhee while I tried to get my hands on the wobbly tooth and give it a good yank. By New Years Day night I was getting worried that she would be swallowing yet another tooth, this time while she slept. As we were getting ready for bed she was playing with the tiny tooth now hanging by a string constantly. I couldn’t clear my head during our nightly meditation, instead I was plotting how to sneak back into her room and yank the tooth without waking her up. Luckily I didn’t have to plan for long. Right before I left her room to let her doze off she jumped up and spit her tooth out into her hand. She said she had sucked on it until it finally came out. The fact that there was no blood at all was proof enough that it was long overdue to make it’s escape.
After getting her tooth ready for the tooth fairy she climbed back into bed and asked if the tooth fairy would know about the other tooth that was swallowed. She wanted to make sure she was going to get paid for both, even if she wasn’t going to turn over both teeth. This kid is going to be a union steward or attorney when she grows up! She went on to say “that tooth can’t defeat all that water and juice and blood in my stomach!” as if to reassure herself that the tooth would not in fact bite her. Or maybe she was emphasizing that her stomach was to blame and not her negligence, just in case the tooth fairy had any doubt. She finished with “It’s like a super storm in there!” Strangely enough, the tooth fairy not only paid her for both teeth, she also left a note saying she was sorry little Nanny McPhee swallowed one of her teeth and assured her it would not harm her in any way. Man, that tooth fairy is even better than Santa Claus – generous and observant!
I wrote most of this post while listening to:
by Jen Logan | Jan 4, 2018 | Being Awesome, Life
Nothing like a cake to feed 30 for a party of 15!
I hate when my husband asks questions like “Can I trust you to make a reasonable decision?” I want to respond with a question of my own – Are you new here? Of course you cannot trust me to make a reasonable decision. Reasonable is not exactly in my wheel house. I’m kind of a go big or go home kind of girl. He typically asks these kinds of questions in context to shopping or party planning. I hear questions like this often during the months of November and December when I am Christmas shopping and in the spring when I am planning our daughter’s birthday party. I vividly remember him telling me not to get too crazy about our daughter’s cake for her fifth birthday. I didn’t have to get crazy at all. I am fortunate enough to know a baker extraordinaire who didn’t even blink when I asked for a seven layer rainbow cake with the My Little Pony characters climbing the side of the cake. The inside of the cake was a beautiful rainbow just like the outside and the kids went crazy for it. For some reason my husband was really against us having a kids birthday party the following year.
Because every day is a party in our house – balloon archway and all!
The thing is I grew up with parents who sometimes went a little overboard. They loved being parents and they tried to make my childhood as magical as possible. I am in my 40s and they are still trying to make my life a little magical when they can! This may be one of the reasons I act like a large child in high heels. I am the girl with the most cake.
Last time I went to spend the morning in my daughter’s class, the primary school director said to me “you are pretty popular around here!” as six little girls huddled around my chair. I explained that it’s only because they are not used to seeing kids as big as me in their class. I’m a bit like a performing chimp for the kids when I show up, so they like having me around.
The other factor in my over the top attitude is that I don’t much think about consequences until I am actually suffering them. I never thought much about using all of my vacation days by mid-June when I worked a nine to five job. This was actually a fairly difficult thing to accomplish too considering I did not take any vacation days between the third week of January and April 15. That really spoke volumes about how much I hated my job when I took four weeks of vacation days over a period of ten weeks. We used to joke in my house on a weekly basis that I was sick and would need to stay home from work. Once again, consequences have never played much of a part in my decision making. Refer back, I am much like a large child in high heels.
Yup, a large child in high heels loose in Las Vegas!
Sometimes I wonder how my husband puts up with me and then I remember it’s because I am awesome. It may drive him crazy that he can’t trust me to pick out a simple birthday cake or book a vacation without saying “HELL YES” every time I am asked if I would like to upgrade, but he can also know that no matter what I get my hands on it’s going to turn out better. Sometimes I have to remind him that he is in fact the one who chose to marry a large child in high heels. Just in case he forgets, I periodically send him pictures of me in high heels acting like a child. He is not nearly as amused by this as I am. So, no, he most definitely cannot trust me to make a reasonable decision, but he can trust me to make anything I touch ten times more awesome!
Today’s post was written while listening to:
by Jen Logan | Jan 1, 2018 | Being Awesome, Lemonade out of Lemons, Punk Rock
My attire is saying “leave me alone” almost as loudly as my expression…
I will never understand people. I would like to say it’s them, but who am I kidding, it’s me. I don’t really play well with others. I’m pretty okay with this too because truth be told, I don’t like people as a whole. I mean, I like some people, but mostly in small doses. I prefer to be alone with a book or in front of a computer tapping away at the keyboard. People have too many expectations of me. They expect me to make conversation and listen when they talk. They expect me to care about what they are saying, but they are just waiting for me to stop talking so they can get back to what is on their mind. They expect me to be empathetic but they are selfish and self-centered. It seems like when I open my mouth I get in trouble but I get in even more trouble when I say nothing. I prefer to remain silent most of the time. At least that way the disapproval is based on assumption.
I used to be a fairly social person. I also used to drink a lot so it was easier to put up with people. It’s much less of a feat to pretend that you want to be present when you are not fully present. Most of my socializing also revolved around music which is still one of the few ways I enjoy being in the same place as other people. There doesn’t have to be communication when there is a common bond. Everything I need to know about the person standing next to me has already been communicated when we walked into the same venue to hear the same band. I am content sharing those few hours with like-minded people and going back to my own space.
One of the other times I have found that I enjoy being with fellow human beings is while doing volunteer work. Last year I joined a women’s organization that does charity work. My Mom has been a member of the group since I was a little girl so I decided it was time I join her. It’s easy to tell your kid that part of being a human being is to help others, but if you want them to actually help others you need to do it yourself. Our offspring never do what we tell them to do, they do what we show them to do. I jumped into volunteer work to mold my daughter. The bonus was that I enjoy the work and strangely enough it’s one of the few atmospheres where I feel like I can breathe and be me. Maybe it’s that I learn all I need to know about my fellow volunteers simply by their action of volunteering or maybe it’s that I can just shut up and work on whatever task is at hand. I don’t care why I feel at ease, I’m just relieved that I have found a place where I feel at home.
The thing about not really being a people person is that life generally demands that you be around people quite a bit. This requires that you either figure out how to adapt or you become a recluse. I adapted (somewhat), mostly to make life easier for my daughter. She is going to do what I do, not what I say. I don’t want her to lock herself in her bedroom and ignore that she is part of the human race – even though I would love to do just that most days. Life is easier when you are outgoing and likeable. She is most definitely both of those things. I have no idea where it comes from because it certainly isn’t from either of her parents!
So this year I am going to try to learn yet another thing from my child. It’s amazing that when you have a kid you have this notion that you will be teaching them all kinds of things, when in fact they teach you something daily. My daughter likes everyone. She is kind and compassionate and incredibly charming. I may not be all of these things, but I can certainly try a little harder to emulate this amazing little six year old. I don’t make New Years resolutions because I think they are a farce, but if I did, I know what mine would be. Instead I will just say that I am really trying to be a better person, even if it usually doesn’t appear that way!
by Jen Logan | Dec 27, 2017 | Life, Parenting
The whole country wants to be famous!
Over the last year my daughter has become intrigued by YouTube. She started watching a woman who bakes and does silly challenges like “not my arms” and a bunch of blindfolded food tasting. Some of the videos are funny, some are stupid and some actually teach my kid how to do something! I became intrigued when I read that this particular YouTube star made $6 million last year. After reading this I jumped right down the rabbit hole and read dozens of articles about people who are YouTube famous. Sadly, the top earner is a guy who makes videos of himself playing video games. People are now so lazy that instead of playing their own video games they watch other people play the games on YouTube.
After seeing the ridiculous amounts of cash being handed over for these videos I, of course, had to poke around to see what kind of videos were popular. I found some pretty disturbing things including grown women playing with toys and talking in strange little girl voices, children opening toys for other children to watch and get jealous about (also known as consumerism at it’s finest) and channel after channel of people dumping food on their heads and/or eating disgusting things. If the content wasn’t bad enough, some of the videos were so shaky and the editing so choppy that I thought I might throw up if I continued to watch. My husband and I immediately subscribed our daughter to the handful of channels we found to be acceptable and told her the rest of YouTube was off limits. YouTube, like most parts of the internet, can be used for good or to slowly melt your brain and turn you into a bag of rocks with hands.
This lasted for about a week and then she wanted to start searching for her own content. She claimed she had already seen every video on the half dozen channels she was subscribed to. I had a short talk with her about what it means to exaggerate and sat down with her to find more videos after she conceded that she had not, in fact, watched every video on the channels she was subscribed to. On a side note, I don’t know where she gets speaking in absolutes from, I never exaggerate!
After watching the first ten seconds of about a hundred videos and declining to allow her to continue watching she came across a video of a little girl, not much older than herself, painting her own face like a Disney character. I was even impressed with this kid’s ability to paint her face evenly and with skill. I was not so impressed with the fact that she couldn’t find the word she was looking for when trying to describe the consistency of a product and ended up saying “texture” instead. I am thinking Mom and Dad might want to buy this kid a book every now and then instead of a bag full of makeup. But who am I to judge? My child was reading at age five but still can’t grasp the concept of an organized sport like soccer. We all teach what we know. After watching a few of these videos I realized that the Mom is also skilled at makeup and face painting so I guess she IS teaching what she knows. If only we could find a million people who wanted to watch a Mom and daughter sitting around reading we would also be YouTube famous!
Since my daughter thinks she can do anything that she sees someone else doing, her newest obsession is face painting. She has a pretty healthy ego. She started by painting my face, her Dad’s and then her Grandparents’. She moved on to painting her own face within a day and started using both face paint and makeup. Luckily I don’t really wear makeup but I own a lot of it “just in case” I ever need it. I have pallets of eye shadow with blues and yellows, silvers and gold. I have brushes and bronzers, eyeliner pencils, pens and liquids and lip glosses in every color. Most of my makeup has been relocated to the little one’s vanity table along with her train cases full of face paints. She even asked for more face paint and an 88 color eyeshadow pallet for Christmas. What she got was the paint, the makeup and a mannequin head to work on. I guess my parents were also sick of being her dummies!
She may have a future in Hollywood or Hot Topic, it could go either way…
For the last two days I have observed my daughter sitting in front of anyone who will listen pretending to be filming a video. She has been performing makeup and face painting tutorials along with inserting product placements explaining what makeup she is using and where it can be purchased. She has actually begun to explain pretty much everything she is doing, whether it be building legos or painting, in great detail as if her entire life is a YouTube video. The kid is a natural.
I have been telling my family for the last year that we should have our own reality television show. Some days it’s hard to believe the conversations my daughter and I are having are actually taking place. Throw in my parents and it would be ratings gold. I guess mini-me feels the same way!
Today’s playlist:
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