Last week, I had my most successful moment as a parent. I was dropping Dylan off at school and as I handed her her backpack, I immediately knew something was amiss.

I could tell the weight of the backpack was about 11 ounces off. I looked inside and quickly realized that she didn’t have her water bottle. I handed over mine (because I’m extremely selfless and now of course, dehydrated) and sent her off to school.

Wow. Did anyone see that?! I just kicked some mom ass. And as a bonus, I’m now making some extra income guessing weights at local carnivals.

So you would think that she would immediately repay the favor by sculpting a ceramic World’s Most Awesome and Beautiful Mom trophy or leaning over to me after her dinner with a quick, “Mom, I’ve got the dishes tonight and I’ll put the twins to bed. You relax. I just poured you a frosty glass of Chardonnay.”

Can a wine glass be frosty? I’m not sure. But not the point here.

The point is there was no trophy. Or grand gestures. In fact, she and my other kiddos let me hang out for about two hours on Sunday morning (which included a walk to the coffee shop) looking like this…

What is up with the leftover eye makeup from the night before? And NONE of my kids mentioned this?!

I’m going to give the twins, who are only 19-months-old, a pass since they only know a few words and they definitely don’t know how to say, “There’s some weird crap under your eye.” Although I’m being very nice because Harlowe can say, “mama” and “look” which really would have been sufficient.

But Dylan and Summer? Come on. There is really no excuse.

Then I took a nap later in the morning and woke up with some fabulous cheek creases….

Which lasted about three hours.

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed these glamour shots, stay tuned til next week when I post pictures of myself wearing a night guard in high school!

mama bird notes:

Thank you to Kiddicare for sponsoring this post!

Check me out at The Mouthy Housewives today where I’m giving advice to a woman who is expecting her first child and admits she might be a little crazy. Find out why.

We all have weird things we do. Things that we may not exactly tout at cocktail parties. Instead we focus on other things. Like if I met you at a party, I might brag that I once won a typing award in high school or that I was insanely close to being on “Real World San Francisco” or that there was a time when I actually liked mock turtlenecks.  You would obviously be quite impressed by these things.

But I might leave out the fact that I wear my slippers in bed. Like under the covers.

I frankly don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do this. With slippers, my feet can be warm yet they don’t get claustrophobic. Yes, feet can suffer from claustrophobia.

I know because my father-in-law is a podiatrist. And he told me it’s true. Or maybe I dreamed that he said it which could be the case because right after he told me about the feet claustrophobia thing, I married my super hot 5th grade math teacher and then I turned into a mermaid. Either way, I think we have our confirmation.

I hate wearing socks to bed. My feet feel all hot and they can’t breathe. With slippers, they feel toasty and then I can easily remove them when my feet get overheated.

Now some people and I don’t want to get specific (my husband and everyone else I have ever mentioned this to) thinks this is a strange habit.

Frankly, I don’t think that anyone who sleeps with one leg under the sheets and one leg over the sheets and again, I don’t want to mention any names (my husband), should be criticizing another person’s sleep habits. I mean, how cruel is it to allow one leg to be comfy and warm under the covers and make the other leg hang out on top of the comforter, enduring terrible drafts.  It’s a heart breaking scenario isn’t it?!

Every morning, while one of Rick’s legs is trying to recover from another bitter cold night, I hop out of bed and always inadvertently leave my slippers under the covers. Later, when I make the bed, I obviously remove them.

However, if Rick makes the bed, he just leaves the slippers in there which gives the impression that there are two husky chipmunks living in the bottom of our bed. It kind of annoys me but not as much as pulling out the slippers and remaking the bed, so I just let the chipmunks live peacefully and go on with my day.

Personally, I don’t think of wearing slippers to bed as a strange habit. It’s just something that no one else has had the foresight to try.  I think of myself as sort of a slipper visionary.  I look forward to the day when others follow my lead and we all can sleep with warm, happy feet.

mama bird notes:

Check out “Drooling Over This” for the five things I am loving right now.  Slippers are not on the list.

I finally gave up this week. It happened at 8:23 am on Thursday morning.

I had vowed to wear my light weight short white coat for as long as possible. (By the way, white coats are as dumb as white couches.) As long as I’m wearing that coat, it’s not really winter. I mean, how can it be winter if I’m wearing my lovely autumn jacket?

When I was a TV reporter, I used to work with this cameraman who would wear shorts practically all winter long.  It was pretty impressive because we would spend most of our day outside. We were usually knocking on people’s doors until they invited us in for some hot cider.  You know that might not be quite right.  I think they actually answered and then slammed the door in our faces. People who allegedly commit crimes are enormously cranky.

It had to be a raging blizzard before that cameraman threw on a pair of jeans. I personally stop wearing shorts in mid-September but I just refuse to pull out any serious winter wear until I’m freezing to death.

But 20 degrees was kicking my ass this week. So yesterday, I begrudgingly dragged out my Long Black Winter Sucks Puffer Coat or as I call it for short, LBWSPC.

Of course, I immediately downward spiraled into a LBWSPC depression and had to book a week in Florida.  It’s not just about the coat. We also wanted to see Rick’s grandmother and sharpen our  Zumba skills.

We are pulling our first grader out of school for four days to go down there so if she bombs her SATs someday, we’ll be able to pinpoint the beginning of her downfall. But heck, once she finally gets into a party school, she’ll ace class like, “The Physics of Palm Trees” and “Nutrition: The Benefits of Eating at 4:30 p.m.”

Although I have lost the battle with LBWSPC, I can still say with confidence that I have yet to own a pair of waterproof snow boots. Despite living in the Northeast for roughly a million years. So this means that we are guaranteed to have no snow this winter or I will once again have very wet cold feet. I’ll keep you posted.

For quite awhile it’s been my belief that Marinka, Wendi Aarons and I are triplets separated at birth. I didn’t share this information with them because I didn’t want them to get all, “Hey can I borrow your sweater from Express?” and “You ruined my cowboy boots and bitch, stop using my hairbrush.” Because I don’t need that kind of stress.

So how do I know that we are triplets? We all have blonde hair. Obviously, you can’t argue with that kind of evidence.

But there’s even more. Wendi and I have been couch shopping at the VERY SAME TIME.  Like I’m sure there were days when we asked the Pottery Barn sales guy, “How much is this couch?” and we undoubtedly had the same expression when he said…

“2,899.00″

Well, that price seems.. uh… spirited.

Due to Hurricane Irene, I needed to buy two couches. We tried to keep an old one but three months after the storm, water was still puddling underneath it.  Which somehow seems inconvenient.

We bought the first couch, a sectional, online.  I spend more time thinking about my sushi order each week than I did buying that couch. Then it arrived. And I immediately texted my husband.

“THE COUCH IS HERE. IT’S ENORMOUS AND IT’S EATING MY LIVING ROOM. SERIOUSLY. IT’S EATING THE LIVING ROOM. I’M SCARED IT’S GOING TO EAT THE KITCHEN NEXT.”

I’ve since learned three things…

1. I’m not a sectional type of girl.

2. The couch is NOT returnable.

3. I’m learning to like sectional couches.

So now we need to buy a second much smaller couch for another room.  So Rick sent me this possibility…

Yes, a white couch.

I wrote back, “I love the couch!!! But where are the kids going to live?”

He still doesn’t quite understand why it would be completely ludicrous to get a white couch. Yet – this man could give you a detailed explanation of the tensions and history of the Middle East. Really blows my mind.

I nixed the couch. And we are still looking. We got a few promising leads at Macy’s. But due to Summer and Dylan acting like crazed jumping monkeys in the bedding department, we had to leave before making any final decisions.

Probably at this point I should just buy Wendi’s old couch. I’m sure she delivers from Texas to New York.  At least she’d do it for family like me. Although I may have to fight Marinka for it.

Oh New Year’s Eve. That time of year when you can either sit at home feeling grateful that you are not wearing a gigantic blue Nivea hat in Time Square as you try to determine what exactly is wrapped around Lady Ga Ga’s upper body…

Or you can go out.

We went out.

I did a little pre-party with the kids….

and I’ll tell you, 19-month-old Harlowe is surprisingly good at quarters. To get in the New Year’s mood, I threw on my sassy Olivia Newton-John pants…

which I’m now thinking look sort of like Lady Ga Ga’s pants. I guess I just never thought to pair them with a gigantic black sparkly light bulb shaped top.

(I have no idea why I’m yelling in that photo.)

Before Rick and I embarked on a new year together, I did have to confess to him that I recently re-watched “Sweet Home Alabama” and fell back in love with Josh Lucas. And the actor is even my age so it could possibly work out.

Anyway, I made Rick agree that I could kiss Josh Lucas if I ever ran into him at Trader Joe’s or something. And he wanted somebody in return. I think the actress from “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?” I wasn’t really paying attention because I was trying to figure out if Josh Lucas and I would live in Alabama or New York. Maybe we’ll split our time.

Anyway, Rick and I went to a friend’s party which was very fun. Here’s proof…

(This guy’s wife is having a baby on Thursday. I hope he wears the glasses in the delivery room.)

We danced. A lot. Me and Rick. Not me and that guy above. I felt a little self conscious on the dance floor because a family member recently told me that I dance like Chase. My son. Who’s 19-months-old.

This is how Chase dances….

God, I hope that’s not what I looked like.

I mean, he’s not even wearing cool Olivia Newton-John pants.