Yes, these are (very young) adults and not teenage girls. However, teens are going to see this ad and assume it’s for them. They just are. Just like when we started reading Seventeen magazine at 13. Or was I the only one sneaking peeks at that at the dentist’s office?

Yes, this is a commercial for a costume store. Of course they’re going to show homemade costumes in an unfavorable light. They want you to plunk down $40 for an Alice in Sluttyland outfit, not make it at home!

Yes, Sexy Witch, Sexy Cop, and Sexy Pirate are your results when Googling Women’s costumes. Actually, I Googled “top women’s costumes” and got Sexy Cleopatra, Sexy Oktoberfest Girl, and – no lie – Sexy Freddy Krueger.

But: I do not like this ad, Party City. Besides perpetuating the Sexy Halloween epidemic, it’s just mean. I want to hug poor Alice. She does not deserve ostracization just because of a half-assed outfit. Actually, let me rephrase that: She does not deserve ostracization JUST BECAUSE SHE DOES NOT HAVE HALF HER ASS HANGING OUT. This makes me sad. It also makes me really, really proud that my daughters are going as Hermione Granger and a werewolf.  However, the sexy costumes are here to stay. So, in the spirit of embracing modern Halloween…

Submitted for your approval: My favorite “Sexy Halloween Costumes That Didn’t Need to Be Sexified”.  I will take votes as to which one I should buy and wear while I walk my kids around in suburbia.

And, sorry, but you can’t un-see this one…

I’ll take your votes in the comments.

Also, if your kid is going as something you’re particularly proud of this year, share it here! 

1.  I was really sick and I didn’t know it. Always tell your parents and go to the doctor when you feel like you can’t breathe right.

2. My heart doesn’t pump very well right now. (My phrase for this is “wussy heart syndrome”. They eat that up.)  It might get better and it might not, but either way there’s no reason to think I won’t be ok. I am tough.

3. I have to take medicines that  will hopefully help my heart get stronger. But, they make me very tired sometimes, and dizzy. If anyone ever faints, we do NOT touch them. We find the nearest adult to help. This is not likely to happen to me at all, so relax.

4. I have to wear a special undershirt that has little circle things in it to check how my heart beats, day and night. It’s connected by a wire to this box I’m wearing like a purse. If my heart stops pumping right (“wusses out”), the special shirt will zap me with electricity so my heart will work again. The black box might ‘ding’ sometimes when the shirt isn’t working right. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

5. This is not something that is likely to happen to you, or anybody else you love.

This has been a nice time to sit down and just talk to my 500+ kiddos. Their concern has been real and their questions and responses have been a little too real.

But hey, if you can’t laugh at cardiomyopathy, what can you laugh at, right?

So these are questions and responses I have gotten from my 5 – 11 year old students when I explain the above list to them. I started writing them down to share, because I love these little nutjobs.  My responses are italicized.

“Will your heart tell you when it’s fixed?” No, they will take pictures again, but that would be cool.

“Do they let you keep the pictures?” I doubt it but if it’s good I’ll frame it.

“My grandpop had a heart attack because he ate too much red food. Did you do that?” You mean did I eat too much red meat? No, I –  “No! Meat is brown.”

“Did it hurt when you died?” Um…No. I’m good.

“Will it hurt if it zaps you?” No. I would have probably fainted by then. “But it will zap us if we’re touching you?” Possibly, but you’re not going to touch me or anyone who has fainted, you just get an adult. “Will it reach out and like lightening, and zap us?” NO. You’re picturing Return of the Jedi.

“Can you use the box to save somebody else’s life? Like the school’s one? [Defibrillator]” Yes, I’m going to be the new super hero, Defibrillator Woman. Zap zap. Just kidding. But cool question.

“What are you gonna do if you can’t go swimming in the summer!?!?!?!” I will most likely be done wearing this, one way or another, by summer. Hopefully. Otherwise, I will cry.

“Um…it [the box] blinked red. Are you OK?” That just means it’s on. I’m good.

“What would happen if ALL the adults in the school fainted at the same time?” I’d say we would leave (extremely unlikely, quiet student) in charge.

“So, like, you can’t take it off? Are you not gonna shower?! For months?!!” Um… I take it off to shower. EW.

“What happens if you faint in the shower with the shirt thing off?” Well this is getting personal. It’s not likely that I’ll faint at all. But I guess then it would turn into taking a bath.

“What happens if you faint when you’re going to the bathroom?” Well that would be bad, but wouldn’t I have worse problems, at the time?

“What happens if you drop it [the monitor box] in the toilet?” Thanks, now I’m going to worry about that, too.

BUT the winner is:

“Did you know that the hospital is where they take babies out of your tush?” Yes. Yes I did.

“2000 years ago a baby is born in a stable; the poorest of the poor. And yet during his lifetime, he says things that are so astonishing, that millions of people are still living their lives by them today. He said, “Love thy neighbor.” He told us to turn the other cheek, whatever people might do to us.”

I don’t know much else, but 1:05 – 1:35, especially? It’s comforting to hear something that I get, and am very good with. Another awesomer-than-awesome story I stumbled upon just this morning, belonging to the superb blogger Allie Brosh is a post at Hyperbole and a Half. Here you go:  The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas. If you’ve never heard of this creator of the “Do all the things” meme graphic… Do your brain a favor and go read her illustrated narratives. Her Christmas Story is the best thing ever. I woke the husband up by laughing in bed this morning. So, religion, explained by Ms. French so I can get it, and a freakin’ funny story: My Christmas gifts to you, my throngs of devoted readers.  

PS: Yes I’ll blog more in the New Year.  

 No idea what this chick is smiling about. Being Santa is hard work. 

Enjoy…

Moments later, baby Emily was tragically crushed by the ostrich returning to its nest.

Sure, but if a grown man wears this cute outfit, everybody assumes he’s a stripper.

Because she wanted the happy, incident-free life of Daisy Buchanan.

The bow says “I’m Mommy’s princess!”, but the face says “No more Jager for me…”

Red Fraggle wore it better.

If God didn’t want us to wrap the baby in masking tape, he shouldn’t have made him so damn wiggly.

You realize “Black Swan” is not a children’s movie, right?

Now I’ll just take out this trash…

Get me a Mai Tai, biotch.

Oh yeah. This looks totally safe.  #babyslingshot

What a fun way to mortify the kid before he’s even born!

“Mommmmm, that damn stork dumped another one!”

First of all, screw you, that you looked this good while pregnant.  And where are you hanging this tasteful work of art, exactly? Men’s bathroom?

This would be a better metaphor if the husband had a baseball bat and an OB/GYN had that glove. Homerun!

Did you guys leave your shirts at the hospital?

Disclaimer: I have done stupid stuff like this, including matchy Halloween costumes and digitally scrapbooked greeting cards.  But I didn’t paint baseball stitches on my tummy, so…winning.

Besides, what else am I gonna do on Pinterest, find kiddie crafts? Ok, I have done that too.  Actually I love Pinterest, and not for the recipes. My board of infantile snark is called “Baby Poser: Bad Baby Photography”, username is Meggyrd.

10 points if you tell me your favorite one.

20 if you give it a new caption. GO!

In teacher world, the last week of summer means one thing: DO ALL THE THINGS.  It’s an understandably huge checklist of Must Do This Before September, so as to delay the inevitable transformation into a tired, crazy person once the year starts throwing its punches.

Being an immature and slightly irresponsible person (my husband patiently calls it “spontaneous”), I get a different urge that last week: Go places and do fun stuff, because life is for the living and the tired crazy person thing is gonna happen anyway.  It’s like Jekyll and Hyde for educators.  We rode the train and ate and drank in Philly, went to playgrounds, went out, had friends over, swam, slept in, did absolutely nothing, went on a pirate ship…

(Did you think I was kidding? This is my new mental happy place to go to when in-service meetings run long…)

So here we have this, From Parent Further, Back-to-School: A Parent’s Checklist. Isn’t it great?

“One month before school starts, do this…Three weeks before school starts, do this….”  Yeah. “Great”, as in, “Haaaaa, I laughed so hard, that was ‘great’!”

I have my own special check list for you, guaranteed to bring you back-to-school happiness. Feel free to print and post on the fridge for your own convenience, as we return to school this week in New Jersey. If you’re already back… my condolences.

• Children who watch a maximum of 2 hours of TV and eat a balanced diet including 5-7 fruits and vegetables a day do better in school. Encourage your child to sit near one of those kids.

• Enjoy a high protein, child-friendly lunch together, while they’re home: the classic peanut butter sandwich. Because tomorrow, it’s contraband. 

• ‘Help’ them with an early draft of the “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” essay. Edits should include many trips to museums and libraries. This will also improve your child’s skills in writing fiction. Example: “My family spent four hours on Independence Mall in Philadelphia this summer, soaking up history.” A lovely way to say “playing in the dirt, in the bocce court, in the beer garden across the street from the the Liberty Bell”.

• The week before school starts, maintain contact with your child’s teacher via regular emails and phone calls. Why delay her dislike of you and your child till September when she could start hating you now?

• Clear out an organized space in your home for optimum homework completion. Make sure there’s an extra chair there for your kid, too. 

• Check the school calendar for important dates, like “Back to School” night and Parent/Teacher conferences. Now schedule meetings at work that you’ll have to attend instead. To avoid all that unpleasantness. 

• Shop for school supplies early and pack up their backpacks ahead of time. Don’t forget a little present to make their teacher feel appreciated on that important first day.

Happy B2S week to all, and to all a quick good year!

Give us another one: What would you add? Other than ONE MORE WEEK. Comment below.

She was wrong at the time. I hated him.

At her suggestion, I checked out his TV special called “Hilarious” on Netflix, which was supposed to be pretty good. Hilarious, in fact.  It started out with a pudgier, red-haired guy ranting about the word “faggot”. When he was younger it didn’t mean what it means today. Why is it such an insult now? “Faggot” had nothing to do with a judgement of one’s sexual orientation; it meant your social behavior was annoying and you were being, well, a “faggot”.  And he went on like that.

Already I feel like apologizing for this ugly word, and I’m just quoting someone else.  I got tired of hearing that word pretty quickly then, too, and turned off the TV. I wouldn’t blame you if you already clicked off this post. You didn’t, did you? Still here? Well you did better than me. At the time, I completely missed the point in his opening bit: Though societal factors affect their connotation, words have only the power that we give them. I know, deep, right? I still turned it off. I just didn’t hear the message over voice expressing it; swearing like a sailor. Or a crabby, balding, 8th grade boy.

I recently gave him another chance when he came up on a comedy radio channel on Spotify (more about this addiction another day). I was driving through several states to see my sister, and there was Louis. He was explaining both sides of the spanking issue. Kids are tiny, barely-formed people who trust wholeheartedly and whose behavior is mostly our fault, and we’re BIGGER than them, yet we hit them as punishment…but on the other hand, parenting is a high pressure job that sucks you dry and he can completely understand life’s stressors contributing to someone lashing out – because he’s wanted to a billion times. Me too, buddy. Me too.

I switched off of radio and onto his albums. I was cackling so much on the George Washington Bridge that I got several “look-at-that-crazy-lady” glances – in New York!  Now, I don’t mean to assert that everything that comes out of the guy’s (filthy) mouth is golden. But that time, so much of his material resonated with me. He talked philosophy, socioeconomic issues, education, health and fitness, ethics, and more. “More” being every bit of foul language and sex joke imaginable. It all combined artfully into a little stew of screwed-up wisdom.

Why does some random comedian warrant a post at this illustrious blog? Because it seems to me that most of stand-up comedy today is about grossing you out, shocking you, or both.  This is very good fun and should never, ever stop. However, I feel like I’ve found in Louis a performer who is also using the stand-up mic to ask you to think, and challenge you to change. His content is of a higher quality.  And then he drops F bomb. Because that is also quite funny. The colorful tone of his communication may alienate people, and that’s unfortunate. But because he forever earned my respect when he used an interview with Letterman as a platform to talk about the needlessness of standardized testing.

In an article in the New York Post, he is quoted as saying, “My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks, standardized testing and Common Core!” Love!

Ok, I know: This post reads like fan mail. Comedians have taken up social issues for years. It’s very stylish. It just so happens that I agree wholeheartedly. Plus, I’m highly biased. The guy looks (and thinks) like he could be related to my sister and I.  That’s not a good endorsement of our pretty faces, is it? Whatever, we know we’re hot. Deal with it. I mentioned this when I got to sis’s house after laughing all the way to Massachusetts. After a little further study and discussion (Netflix and Oreos were our research assistants, I believe), she and I concurred with enough of his content that we (I?) decided that Louis C. K. is our unofficial long-lost older brother*. This theory can probably be attributed to her new-mom lack of sleep and my Oreo + whiskey diet that weekend. Also, when I was younger I wished for an older brother to drive me around, be funny, and help me hang up my NKOTB posters.

*Author note: We later discovered that Louis C. K. is older than he looks, and is closer in age to our dad. He resembles Dad, too.  So hey, Louis, if you ever want to come to one of our non-existent family reunions where we order take-out, drink, and talk shit, contact me.  You are of our ilk.

Here’s a smattering of what the guy has to say, in pretty little quote graphics.  I can’t agree more without committing copyright infringement:

I can’t improve on that, except to buy posters of this quote to hang in every room in my house, including my own.

In our family we pretend that our standard, polite word for passing gas is “toot”.  In reality, it is not.  When we’re down to the four of us, it’s called a FART, and it is FUNNY. Because we are raising well-bred little ladies over here.

This is a great start to a great post for another day when I feel like alienating half the people I know via blogging. But I’m good for today. 

Zen master. 

Pretty much, in every way I can think of, except I still need be able to beat them at board games.

 Spread a little comment love so everybody else can laugh: 

Who else do you like in the comedy world?

Ah, the magic of photo editing software. I hope Mo Willems will forgive me. We do love his work around here.

Besides,

Honest Pigeon Titles:

If you laughed at one of these, I count it as a win.

Now you owe me one of your own. Comment or email me; I enjoy playing with Paint.net. More of this desecration needs to go down, don’t you think?

You can play with it too. It’s a FREE, open-source software that’s easier to use that Photoshop. Get it here, and have fun screwing with your favorite children’s books! Don’t forget to share below.

Also, for the further destruction of childhood, here’s 11 Classic Children’s Books with Titles that Reflect Their Dark Message.