Lawyer Mama

Caught in the Act

...of hiding.

...of nose picking.

...of being a grandpa.

...of watching a plane go by.

...of losing a shoe.

...of flying.

...of ... who knows, but he certainly looks guilty.

...of smiling.

By the way, I've gone red. What do you think?

Jealousy on Toast

Me (having a conversation with Grandma): "Blah, blah, blah, something about jealousy."

Hollis: "Mommy, we're not supposed to say that."

Me: "Say what, Hollis? Jealousy?"

Hollis: "Yeah. Jealousy's a bad word."

Me: "Says who, sweetie?"

Hollis: "Miss 'Rie." (His sitter, Marie.)

Me: "Is it that you're not supposed to say jealous, or you're not supposed to get jealous."

Hollis: "I'm not supposed to get jealous."

Me: "Oh."

For a moment I contemplated the maturity of my 3 year old, who could apparently somewhat comprehend the complicated emotion that is jealousy.

Hollis: "Jealousy goes on bread and peanut butter."

Oh well.

What's Up With All the Photos?

I know many of you are wondering why my posts have been lacking in substance lately. I've been neglecting all of the blogs I write for lately. There are some things going on with me that I haven't been brave enough to share here yet. Partly because I'm a 'fraidy cat and partly because I feel like I'm whining whenever I complain about anything in my life. When other people share their troubles, I'm awed by their honesty and ability to open up and share their feelings. When I do it, I'm whining. I'm my harshest critic.

So until I ball up, I give you yet another photo series. This is another one from our trip to Yorktown with Lauren from Not Exactly A Princess, who has also been neglecting her blog lately. (No pressure, Lauren.)

How to Exhaust Three Toddlers in Two Hours:

Before

The task? To exhaust these children into compliant little Stepford tots.

The secret? Running, running, and more running.

Lauren engages in man-to-man defense.

Lauren quickly switches to a zone defense. Why? Because Lawyer Mama was too busy taking photos to mind the children.

Off they go.

After.

Mission complete.

At the Playground

I have a new review up for personalized books for children on my review blog.

I've got more photos from the Mommy-Hollis play day to share. I'll be back tomorrow. Enjoy!

Heard from the Boys

Scene: Family sitting in Cracker Barrel restaurant, near the fireplace.

Hollis spies deer head with large antlers over the fireplace.

"Look, Mommy! It's a reindeer!" Begins singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer while his parents pray that he won't ask why Rudolph has been decapitated and placed on the wall.

The kid is obsessed with Rudolph. Oh, the therapy he will need.

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Scene: Family sitting around kitchen table eating dinner. Daddy passes around rolls he was supposed to let thaw and rise overnight, but actually just stuck in the oven frozen.

Holden tries to bite into his beloved carbohydrate unsuccessfully.

He tries again.

He knocks on the outside of the roll.

"Daddy, it's a rock!"

Mommy busts out laughing.
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And more cuteness:

Cutest Reindeer Ever

I'm off to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the weekend visiting friends. Hollis wants it to snow so badly while we're up there, Mother Nature better make it happen! While I'm gone, I'll be regaling you with cuteness. I spent Thursday morning at Hollis's pre-school Christmas party and then we had a Mommy and Hollis afternoon. Of course, I took 5000 photos, but I'll only make you suffer through 10 or so over the weekend!

I give you the cutest reindeer ever:

That's Hollis with the football on the back of his red and blue sweater.

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Look what Emily nominated me for!



And apparently this nomination from Queen of the Mayhem from last year carried forward:



Go vote for me. Please???

Reach

"I think I'm too big, Mommy."

Christmas in Omaha

I've been strangely silent about what happened in an Omaha mall last week. Some of you know that I lived in Omaha for 10 years and that my parents still live there. It's where I met and married T. We moved from Omaha to D.C. for law school at GWU.

But what you don't know is that I worked at Westroads Mall during college. I'm intimately familiar with the mall. In fact, I remember when the Von Maur department store opened and how excited we all were. I would go sit in the atrium and listen to the piano player in the store, which, at the age of 20, I thought was the height of elegance. Yes, the atrium where people died.

You also don't know that my husband's family knew one of the victims. A man originally from their small corner of Southwest Nebraska, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing some Christmas shopping at the end of a business trip. His funeral was earlier this week.

Honestly, I've been struggling with what to say.

The fabulously honest DD wrote about the Omaha shootings earlier this week and she said many of the things I want to say. This kind of random violence can happen anywhere. The Omaha metropolitan area has more than 1 million people. There are drugs, and gangs, and poverty, and social problems that would curl your toes in Omaha. Just like there are in every city and town in America. Midwestern town does not equal problem free town. People of America, particularly those of you who are in the media, please stop acting so damn surprised.

There are many more things about the media coverage of the shooting in Omaha that anger me. Just as there are many things about sensationalist media coverage of any tragedy that anger me. But what has been unexpected to me is how frustrated I am at the attempt of every community, national and local, to "own" this tragedy.

Now in some ways, feeling personally touched by a horrible event half way across the country or half way around the world is wonderful. Americans follow the news anxiously if a child falls down a well or a country is overwhelmed by a tidal wave. This support can be wonderful for parents, communities, and countries. It can motivate politicians, presidents, and policy.

But this support has a dark side.

The night of the Omaha shooting, our local news channel ran a lead story about the shooting, followed by a segment on protecting yourself at the mall. I have no doubt that news stations across the country ran similar stories. Of course local stations and the broadcast networks are going to cover the shooting. Of course, they are going to address issues that come up peripherally. But they don't have to make it sensationalist. They don't have to put the fear of God in every viewer. They don't have to lead with "Can it happen here? We ask local experts." We shouldn't have to experience 5 straight hours of CNN coverage that makes us think, "Oh. My. God. I will never enter a mall again without an Uzi to protect myself and my children!"

I call this the Fox News Effect.

I know that media outlets are responding to interest in a tragedy when they run segments like this, but these stories do two things: (1) they make us more fearful than is necessary; and (2) they trivialize the tragedies themselves.

Can it happen to you? Or you, or you, or you? Yes, of course it can. Is it likely? Um, no. Instead of focusing on the fear, why can't we have a rational discussion about mental illness? Even better, why can't we talk about how yellow journalism can drive people to do things like this in an attempt to become "famous?"

This focus on fear also moves the focus of the story (and the support of the viewing public) from where it should be - support of the victims, their families, their communities, and the underlying social problems that cause this sort of violence - to us, the viewing public, and what we can do to protect ourselves.

I know that if we stopped watching and voiced our displeasure, news outlets would stop. They run these stories because we watch them. But these stories play into our personal fears. Fears newly awakened by watching frightened and crying customers shivering in the parking lot in the aftermath. We start to think about ourselves instead of others.

In some ways, I felt the same after 9/11. I lived in D.C. I worked at the Pentagon during law school. My friends and colleagues were in that building. So were some of T's. We, and pretty much everyone we knew, were touched by death and despair. We knew the families, the wives, husbands, and children left behind. We drove past the gaping hole in the side of that imposing building every day. We saw the smoke. We felt the impact. We lived with the aftermath. We picked up the pieces and struggled to get on the Metro every day without fear. We boarded planes and pretended to be nonchalant as we prepared for take off.

Meanwhile, every small town in America started fighting over Homeland Security funds and freaking out about guarding the local water supply for a town of 500.

I'm not entirely sure why this made me so angry. But whenever I heard stories about things like that I just wanted to scream. It made me feel as if what had happened to my world was not important. As if what had happened in New York and D.C. was not as important as some hypothetical attack on Kansas City.

This is not to say that the rest of the country had no right to be scared or that no support was rallied. I think we all know how wonderful it was to live in the United States in the wake of 9/11, despite the fear. Americans pulled together in a way we rarely do. I also don't think everyone should act as if another 9/11 scale attack couldn't happen again and do nothing. But for God's sake, when I hear someone from a tiny town in the Northwest talking about the possibility of a terrorist attack at their local Piggly Wiggly, I just want to shake them. I want to shake them until they see the world beyond their personal space.

I know that the people of Omaha will pick up the pieces and move on. But I also know that they'll remember the victims this Christmas while they're in church and while they're gathered with their families, despite the lingering stories.

I know that many people in Omaha will be thinking of those families that are now missing a loved one. They'll be pulling together in support, true support, of those families. That is a facet of the Midwest that I know will always be the same, no matter how many journalists descend on the area.

What also gives me comfort is the knowledge that, despite what happened, the next time I go into Von Maur, or any store in Westroads Mall, I'll be greeted again with a sunny smile and a warm welcome. Because that's just how the people of Omaha roll.

This is for Julie's Hump Day Hmmm for the week. She tasked us with writing about our unique pet peeves.

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I have a new review up of the Autolite Flareglo on my review blog. If you're safety conscious, you'll want this for your emergency car kit.

Southern Snow

Here in the land of Dixie, we don't see much snow. At least not in our corner of Southeast Virginia. We live right on the coast, so the weather is just too mild for the white stuff, although we did get a couple sprinklings of night time snow last year. It's usually gone by 9 or 10 am.

Unfortunately, the kids have started to notice that they're missing out on some Winter fun here in Virginia. Last week in the car, Hollis decided to interrogate me about that white stuff he sees all over the Christmas specials on TV.

Hollis: "Mommy, you know my movie Toy Story? Not the one with the horse, the other one with Buzz?" (Never mind that Buzz is in both of them.) "Woody and Buzz got snow, right?"

Me: "Yes, sweetie, it does snow at the end of the movie. It's Christmas."

Hollis: "When Santa comes?"

Me: "Yes, sweetie."

Hollis: "In his sleighdd?"

He's not quite clear on exactly what a "sleigh" is yet. Right now it's all mixed up with sled. Understandable, I think.

Me: "Ummm hmmm."

Trying to figure out where this is going....

Hollis: "Where's our snow?"

Me: "Well, it's usually too warm to snow here, sweetie, but it might snow this year. We usually get a few sprinklings of snow every year."

Hollis: "Sprinkledings?"

Ooh, too complicated. Simplify, Steph, simplify.

Me: "Yes, sweets, we just get a little bit of snow that melts right away. But if it snows this year, I promise you can go out and play in it."

And then I immediately started praying to God that I wouldn't have to get up at 4am to let him play in some snow before it melts.

Hollis: "Santa lands in the snow. Right?"

Ooh, crap. Now I see where this is going.

Me: "Yes, babe, but he can also land just about anywhere."

Hollis: "Can he land in sand?"

Me: "Of course he can, sweetie."

Hollis: "OK."

I guess Hollis will have a white Christmas no matter what.

Southern Snow:




This is my first try at Painted Maypole's Monday Mission. This week the task was to get creative with photo shop. All of these photos were edited with Photo Shop and I added a "glow" to the photos. If you want to know how, just let me know.

Breaking the Rules

Sign? What sign?

Holden, Hollis, and The Pumpkin on the (closed) Yorktown pier.

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I have a new review of the That Baby DVD and That Baby CD up on my review site. If you're looking for a happy medium between canned kids' music and songs about drugs, sex, and other fun behaviors currently on the radio, check it out!