Society of Stamp & Scrap-aholics

Yes, Gigi, People Know You

Because I am certifiably insane, I went to Walmart last night. It wasn't horrendously crowded because I went at my secret time: 5:30 p.m. (It's amazing how calm the place is at this time - I think it's because people are actually eating dinner before they return - things start picking up again an hour later.)

So I bought all this stuff for the Big Dinner and headed home with twice as much as I needed because I have this phobia called Oh-No-We-Need-[fill in the blank]-To-Make-Aunt-Myrtle's-Three-Bean-Fruitcake-And-All-The-Shops-Are-Closed!-ism.

That, and they were having a killer sale on the yogurt that me and Gigi and Puddin' like. (Have you ever seen a cat fight over yogurt? Come to our house and see what happens when you crack open a container of Yoplait Whips! Key Lime Pie - it's the only thing that makes Puddin' stick her paw into your plate.)

I got home and, of course, the refrigerator was already packed to the max.

Terrific. I've been out fighting the masses for hours and now I have to fight the masses in the fridge.

Massive - and sometimes unpopular - relocation efforts ensued. There was some dissension in the vegetable crisper over the zucchini's expulsion to the counter top, but they're all doomed to execution tomorrow, so they can just get over it. (Controversial, I know, but there's not gonna be any Christmas Miracle for those puppies - they're all going to a better place... namely, my tummy via a succulent casserole.) 

But no matter how much I shifted produce and dairy, there just wasn't enough room. And then I discovered that the current, opened milk carton had very little left inside of it. So I poured it into a travel mug - which left enough room for the gallon of the all-important cider! Ha-HA!

Nothing is quite so satisfying as putting a bunch of uncooperative inanimate objects into their place. Literally.

I collapsed onto the sofa for just a few moments of rest before I started the next round of preparatory activities, and - lo! - a star arose in the East.

Actually, it was just Gigi with the flashlight.

(She likes to play with the flashlight - which is why we're always stumbling around in the dark when the power gets knocked out.)

Anyway, like all children, she sensed a disturbance in The Force when her weary mother sat down on the sofa (this also happens when her weary mother attempts to go to the bathroom) and came to right this wrong immediately. Something was Amiss, obviously! Mama was not doing anything! This will never do!!! Must... get... Mama... up...! Think. Think! THINK!!!!

"Can I have a drink of milk?"

I grinned in wily pleasure for I had outsmarted the little whippersnapper! (Unwittingly, perhaps, but that still counts.) "There is a drink already poured and on the top shelf in your cup."

She goes to the fridge, and I hear her open the door and pull out her cup. And then, in a voice filled with wonder and awe...

"Wow... people know me around here!"

Yep. We sure do.

Puddin' insinuating herself between Gigi and her yogurt.

Gigi's Latest Language Laughs

I've been busy running the "Kiss the Frog" contest over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group, making cards for the HA 2010 Stamp Premier Blog Hop (see blinking notices in the margins here), making cards for Christmas, shopping for Christmas, wrapping presents for Christmas, and I'm thinking of trying to squeeze in Spanish lessons when I'm in the shower because, you know, this will help get me into that padded cell all the quicker....

Even Gigi has noticed that I'm running around like a maniac and stopped me short when she asked if she needed to make an appointment to play Barbies with me. 

!!!

Oh, it gets better. She whips out her little notepad and says, "According to my agenja, I think I can pencil you in after i, Carly...."

Another thing I do is help Gigi with her school work - which includes memorizing Bible verses for school on Wednesdays and Fridays. 

I wish I could tell you what Wednesday's verse was, but I can't. I've slept since then. Only 3 hours, mind you - and this may be part of the problem - but I CAN remember what she said when she recited the source of the verse:

Philipity.

I can't wait to see what she does with Ephesians....

(I turned around as we were winding down from decorating the Christmas tree and discovered she had fallen asleep on the end of the recliner and had slo-o-o-o-wly sunk down to the ground.)

Gigi and the Book Fair

Last night was the book fair at my darling child's school. (And thank goodness because if I had to hear another word about that thing, I do believe I would've run shrieking into the street.)

Yes, I have heard quite a lot about this book fair - but we did get at least one good line out of it.

I was upstairs in the Room of Shame, (this used to just be the Pile of Shame in the "guest" room, but now you'd never know there was a bed under all the debris) trying to find something (like that's going to happen). Gigi was practically on top of me chattering a mile-a-minute:

"And they gave us a shopping list thingie, and I've already written down everything I want, but I still want to see what else they have in person. And they're going to have a spaghetti dinner, AND a choir program, but FIRST I want to look at all the books. And they're going to have lots of choices and knickknacks. LOTS of knickknacks. And there will be educational aids. AND pointers. And I think maybe some stuffed animals...."

(wait for it....)

"So bring your wallet."

 

Busy, Busy, Busy (and a Gigi Moment)

If anybody has been wondering where I've been and what's kept me from posting a Wednesday Wonder, an Inspiration Morsel, and my usual yappy posts...

I've been busy. 

And I daresay some of you know what's been keeping me busy. Unfortunately, I can't mention it here because it's top secret, but those of you who are in the know know what I'm talking about. And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about... well, check back next summer.

And, NO, I am not expecting a baby....

A trip to the nuthouse, maybe, but no baby.

This weekend was Halloween, and Gigi broke with her time-honored tradition of being a princess - she decided to be a witch instead. The change wasn't a total 180; she scorned the hag accoutrements, preferring to be a good witch because, as she patiently explained it to her dimwitted mother, "Bad witches don't get to wear pink accessories." (I suspect this change in character type was a result of her friend Claire's having a killer witch costume last year - complete with feather boa, if memory serves. Clearly, these ain't yo' mama's witches of days gone by.)

Gigi was, of course, wound up so tight I'm surprised pieces of her didn't fly off as the day progressed - at the very least I expected to see some pink accessories take to the air. But she managed to keep it together.

Barely.

By the time we drove to Clarie's house (located in a much posher neighborhood with much better treat-gathering opportunities) she was talking non-stop at about 60 mph with both volume and pitch increasing at about the same rate of speed. (She really should have dressed up as a Banshee - we're talking professional shrieking here.)

I was finally forced to insert earplugs in self-defense. (Lest you think I'm a rotten, terrible mommy, I'll have you know I could still hear every blessed word that came out of her mouth. This child will live to shriek another day, so I need to protect my eardrums!)

However, before I muffled my daughter's never-ending commentary, I had to chuckle at this piece of wisdom:

"You know, Mom, Halloween is a really GREAT holiday! Kids get to wear cute clothes and grown-ups get to take pictures of them and you get candy AND you get exercise - it's a total win-win!"

And you get exercise?

Who is this person? She's got to be the only 7-year-old in the country - no, strike that - the only person of any age anywhere who sees Halloween as a fitness opportunity.

I'm warning you now. Y'all better hope this kid doesn't go into advertising someday. I suspect she's going to be capable of selling rat poison to rats - and at a premium price, to boot....

What the well-dressed witches are wearing this season.

Let's have a shout-out to Cousin Emily who handed-down these tights about four years ago (Gigi is finally big enough to wear them).

Halloween Horrors-To-Be

Oh, sure, they look all sweet and innocent now, but in about 90 minutes, they're going to be loaded up with sugar and ready to explode. Mark my words, candy-corn shrapnel's gonna fly....

The official portrait of the official Halloween Posse.

(That's a Labradoodle, by the way - goes by the name of Murphy. He may be a dustmop now, but I met him when he was just a powder puff.) 

Little Witchy Woman...

Somewhere out there is a little Spiderman or Cowboy who is peacefully collecting candy, minding his own business, completely unaware that he will someday fall under the spell of my daughter.

Poor boy. He doesn't stand a chance....

Gigi's Leaf Collection - The Rest of the Story

The assignment was to gather and correctly identify 12 leaves.

We collected with joy and identified with trepidation. Mama was so worried about some of the leaves, she made Gigi copy all the leaf characteristics for each leaf from the website and paste it into a document, which was then cut into panels - one for each leaf's page. (She hoped that by showing one's work and the reason WHY one had decided to identify each leaf as "x" or "y", one would obtain the benefit of the doubt should that particular need arise.)

Gigi, blissfully ignorant of Mama's concerns, vowed that her book was probably going to be the best one. After Mama let her emboss letter stickers and then adhere them to the cover, there was no doubt in Baby Girl's mind that this was, indeed, the leaf collection of the season. She expressed this opinion so many times that Mama got a little acrophobic.

Because, of course, this was a critical moment in the kid's development. And, of course, Mama is now on that tightrope - that oh-so-very-fine line that lies between telling your kid the right thing and telling her the thing that is going to contribute to her needing psychotherapy later on in life.

We want to celebrate the accomplishment, nurture the self-confidence, protect the fragile ego. But we also need to prepare the kid for what she's going to see: projects that will make her efforts look small by comparison because some parents are going to do too much. And how are we going to explain that in a kindly way (even as we want to punch said parents in the nose for endangering our kids' egos)? And you can't just ignore it because your kid's not stupid, and she's going to see all those leaf collections on display in the front hallway, with all the big kids ooohing and aaaahing over a masterpiece far beyond the ken of any 7-year-old.

And she is going to feel like a Loser.

So onto the tightrope I go.

"You know, Gigi, I'm so proud of what you've done here! You worked very hard, and you learned a lot about leaves, and you really did a nice job putting together your book. It looks awesome."

"I betcha nobody else's is going to look this good!"

"Well, now, I couldn't say. Other people worked hard, as well, so I'll bet their collections look pretty sharp, too. Which brings me to a very important point. Since you're seven now, I think you're definitely grown up enough to hear this."

(Appealing to her desire to be "grown up" always gets her attention in a positive way.)

"You should know that competition with others can be rewarding, but what really matters is competing with yourself. As long as you do the best that YOU can do, that's what matters. You shouldn't compare your efforts to those of other people. No matter what happens tomorrow, you need to focus on what a good job you did - because you did an EXCELLENT job.

"So it doesn't matter if you see somebody's project and it looks fancier than yours. You don't measure your worth or effort by what somebody else did. You look to what you're capable of and whether you lived up to your potential or whether you let yourself down, okay?"

"Okay. Can I have a snack?"

Did any of that get through?

Spouse takes Gigi to school, and he returned yesterday morning with news that was not at all surprising. There were some "super" projects in evidence - large, looming, extravagant displays that were striking fear and a sense of failure in the hearts of some of the children - our daughter being one of them. After escorting Gigi to her room, Spouse examined the other projects. Gigi's book was the "smallest" at 8" x 8", but it was definitely the nicest looking (we had gone for classic simplicity: one very large Sycamore leaf with "Grace's Leaves" spelled across in black American Craft letter stickers - all atop a red SEI scrapbook with a black binding).

At least four of the parents had their fingerprints all over their kids' projects - the most intimidating being a tree sculpture with laminated leaves hanging from its branches and a large triptyche with a tree mosaic made of carefully arranged and glued-down bits of twigs. And they had taken the extra-credit to the extreme, logging some 30+ leaves. (We suspect they got on eBay and purchased leaves from Europe or something. Those posers....) 

We had prepared 16 leaves in the hope that, should we misidentify some of our leaves, we might still manage to get 12 right.

Anyway, Gigi was hurt by these enormous projects and it was obvious that her little book - the source of so much pride - was now small and mean in her eyes. At that moment, all I could think of was her teacher and how I would scratch her eyes out if she didn't give Gigi an "A." (The child's been struggling in school, and she really needed this to boost her confidence.)

But I had confidence that all would be well, dang it!

And that was even before Spouse told me that NOT ONE of the other projects had bothered to include a picture of the identified leaf and the list of its characteristics. Wow. That's such a no-brainer and so easily accomplished by a second-grader - at least it was the only thing I could think to have Gigi do that she really could do all by herself, thanks to copy-n-paste technology.  (We cited our source, of course!)

Spouse also noted that we were either going to get squashed or they were because a lot of folks had our same leaves but identified as something different - and that included the over-achievers.

Uh-oh.

However, Gigi came home today with her grade: 16 points for 16 leaves plus 16 points for identifying every single one of them correctly!

She was quite excited, and I praised her to no end. I also tried to do a little reinforcing about doing her best and being her own yardstick, etc.

It probably went in one ear and out the other (if it even managed to make an entrance in the first place).

And speaking of ears, she's been wanting to get hers pierced. Given her fine accomplishment, Spouse and I decided to ask her if she would like to reward her hard work with the requested self-mutilation.

"Gigi, since you worked so hard and did such a good job, you should have a reward. Do you still want to get your ears pierced?"

She was already beaming - this question lit her up like Apollo 11; and she squealed loud enough for the Man in the Moon to hear her, too.

In true Gigi fashion, she had an opinion about it all.

"This is great! I'm the only one without earrings! Now I'll have earrings, too!"

Pause...

"I'm glad I have ears... and I'm glad I have a BRAIN!"

Spotlight on Homework

Okay, there is no Wednesday Wonder today because I forgot about it in all the craziness surrounding Gigi's First Big Homework Assignment.

There is a selection of rotten fruits and vegetables next to the door - no charge. Please feel free to pelt me with same on your way out. If you want to throw rocks, however, it's going to cost you: $1.00 for a tasteful arrangement of gravel; $5.00 for a small, yet elegant, river stone that fits a woman's hand like it was made for her to hurl; and for $20, you get a hefty, small-scale boulder complete with sling.

But I get a running start with that one.

You laugh, but how else am I going to earn enough money for Gigi's college tuition? Frankly, given her parents' classic response to her First Big Homework Assignment, I fear for her future academic integrity, so scholarships may not be available.

And what is this First Big Homework Assignment that has driven all else from my mind, you might ask?

Is is something so simple and so innocent that one would never suspect that, in reality, it is a task so fiendish in nature I'm sure it was devised by Attila the Hun.

It's a leaf collection.

Twelve little leaves, identified and labeled in the presentation style of choice (a scrapbook in this case). When we got this assignment six weeks ago, I was very adamant that we not wait until the last week to do it. I was also very weak in my resolve as I fell into that classic trap of thinking, "A leaf collection? How hard can it be?"

VERY hard, my friends. Very, very, VERY hard.

You may be wondering what's so hard about gathering up a bunch of leaves. Nothing at all. That's the fun part - the part that lulls you into a false sense of confidence as you go skipping through the forest with a little wicker basket over your arm and a song in your heart!

But, eventually, you will have to identify your leaves. 

And that song in your heart will die faster than you can say, "How many flippin' types of Maples are there?!" And let's not forget the Oaks!

Now you would think that with the Internet at our fingertips, we'd be able to identify those suckers with a few mouse clicks.

Think again.

There is a very nice site recommended to us that got us all excited.

At first.

It started out easily enough. There are four major groups of leaf types, and you pick the one you think your leaf belongs to. For us, almost all of our leaves fell into the "Broad, Flat Leaf" category. This was an easy call, and Gigi was happy to make this choice.

Which lead us to determine whether we were holding a simple leaf (a single leaf hanging off the end of the stem) or a compound leaf (a gang of leaves hanging off of one stem). Again, this was a no-brainer, and the song in our hearts increased in both volume and tempo (we were definitely up to a robust cha-cha at this point).

Which brought us to the business of lobes. A simple leaf will be either unlobed or lobed, and if it's the latter, it will either be symmetrical or it will be asymmetrical (and resembling Nature Gone Wrong). This was a fairly easy choice for Gigi - I think all our leaves were either unlobed or lobed in a pleasing way. At this point, the song in my heart was joined by some sassy hip movements.

Having successfully navigated our way and selected "Lobed Leaves", we are presented with another three-sie of choices, and one of them really doesn't count because it's in a class all by itself: the Ginkgo (more on that troublemaker later). So you got yourself either a pinnately lobed leaf or a palmately lobed leaf. And the best way to explain this is also the best way to remember it. A palmately lobed leaf is very broad at the base - like the palm of your hand, and any projections would be like your fingers cut off at about the first knuckle. A pinnately leaf has a much more slender base with longer projections - like pins or fingers sticking out.

This is not really that tricky - although one does have to stop and consider one's options. However, we were up to the challenge and Gigi clicked on palmately lobed without missing a Bossa Nova beat.

Ah, now we're getting into the finer details. We found ourselves needing to determine whether our leaf had "V"-shaped notches between its lobes or "U" shaped notches OR notches that are so shallow they can hardly call themselves notches (those posers). Apparently there are only two kinds of leaves with the poser notches, so we knocked them out without any qualms. And once we looked at the illustrations, we felt that we understood the difference between V- and U-shaped notches.

The only problem is that sometimes those notches in the leaves don't know they are supposed to be either a U shape or a V shape. In fact, I would go so far as to say that several of them were really trying to straddle the fence on this physical trait. And it was at this point that our cha-cha started to lose its perky little swing.

Little did we know, but these rotten little notches proved to be the starting point in our Journey to the Center of Leaf Hell. Following closely on the heels of the ambiguous notches came the teeth - sharp, fine teeth, and "double" teeth, (?!) and rounded teeth - and once you made it through that elimination process, you're right back to lobes! Only this time we're talking about the number of lobes present: 5 -11 OR 3 ... BUT (!) sometimes with small basal lobes (which means that we could be looking at a three-lober trying to pass for a five-lober OR a five-lober that's trying to pass for a three-lober by sucking in its bottom lobes).

What the...?!

And it just gets worse because we haven't even gotten over to the pinnately lobed choices yet!  Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of thugs for you. Not only are we dealing with teeth and lobes, but now we have to determine if our leaf's lobes are deeply notched or just mildly notched. And don't even get me started on bristle tips!

And we still have the unlobed leaf group to sort out - with smooth teeth vs. ragged teeth, short stems vs long ones, alternatively placed on the tree limb or with leaves opposite one another on the tree limb (something that is impossible to tell unless you had the foresight to chop off the whole branch and drug it home with you).

Being innocent and trusting souls frolicking in the forest, we did not have such foresight. All we brought was a picnic lunch.

Then all of them start going on about hairy undersides v. non-hairy - and, as far as I can tell, the leaves we think we have correctly identified as non-hairless types are really supposed to be hairy!

Oh, the humanity!

Let's not forget the oh-so helpful photos. HA! We would get all excited about matching up our characteristics and the drawings! -  only to then see the actual picture and be filled with loathing and self-doubt. Like the Ginkgo leaf that almost sent me screaming into the night. Apparently there are male Ginkgo trees (which nobody ever talks about) and female Ginkgo trees, the latter having a cleft and being the one constantly used to illustrate that species. We, of course, did not have a leaf from a female Ginkgo tree, and our lack of a cleft drove me to distraction because a Ginkgo is one of the FEW trees I actually can recognize (thanks to my affection for William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement over 100 years ago). It was only after much searching that we discovered this whole male/female business.

Gigi, of course, does not understand her mother's ire at not being able to definitely identify most of the leaves in her collection. Gigi is also not what I'd call a contemplative sort, either. She's more of a Mover and a Fidgeter, and after awhile of Mommy having her click between various leaf possibilities, she decides it will be more fun to pretend to be Hannah Montana and sing into her pen - which, she cheerfully informs me, is actually a microphone and don't the 'coostics sound great? When Mean Mommy takes away the pen/microphone and tells her to Look Sharp and Pay Attention For Heaven's Sake, Gigi's response iss to cooperate for about 23 seconds before discovering that the paperweight on Mommy's desk iss actually a camera in disguise (!), thus beginning a rousing game of Paparazzi.

And I'm not even going to mention the labeling of our [probably erroneously] identified leaves. Okay, I will mention it. There may only be twelve labels for the kid to hand print on twelve little pieces of paper, but we're still not done on account of Gigi's getting distracted by trying to sing Son of a Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield. (Three times I looked down to see "Swamp White Oak" turn into "Swamp Preacher Tree.")

I am beginning to understand now why so many parents do their kid's science fair projects and other, more complicated homework. It's self-defense, pure and simple. Seriously - think about what goes through a parent's head: "Hmmmm.... if the kid does the project, I will be forced to endure hours of mind-numbing frustration; but if I do the project, we can have it all done quickly and painlessly." There were several times during this project where I felt like giving in and saying, "Go! Go watch TV! Go play in traffic! Anything!!! - just leave me alone so I can finish this bloody thing!"

However, I am proud to say that I did not succumb. And you know why?

Because I have integrity!

I have principles!

I have... a throbbing headache, THAT'S what I have.

And no Wednesday Wonder.

But Gigi has her little book of leaves that she picked herself, researched herself, (she made the choices at each level of elimination) and labeled herself. She even copy-and-pasted the descriptions into a document which I helped her cut apart with the paper trimmer. I also helped adhere the leaves, labels and descriptions (because she's got even more glue issues than I do). When she gets home this afternoon, I will help with the letter stickers for the front cover, (there's a big Sycamore leaf involved, so we need some extra dexterity) and then it will be finished.

And maybe - just maaaaaybe - she'll walk away with a sense of pride in what she's accomplished.

And an "A."

I'd really like to see her get an "A" after all I've been through....

Gigi and Project Runway

I spent Saturday rushing around trying to get our house in order before my mother showed up the next day for Gigi's baptism. Being your typical 7-year-old, Gigi was about as helpful as - oh, I don't know - an oil slick on a staircase?

Well, that's a little harsh, actually. But she was making me a little nuts with some of her antics. Finally, I said to her, "Why  don't you go into the living room and watch TV?" (Yes, I was that desperate.) So off she went, and I later found her engrossed in Project Runway, of all things!  When I arrived, they had reached the runway part of the program, and Gigi had no problem asserting her opinion on which "on song" was good and which one was "just an embarrassment."

"Just an embarrassment...?!"

Tim Gunn, you've corrupted my child....

I was moving in and out of surrounding rooms, so Gigi proceeded to shriek a play-by-play of the show.

I was in the bedroom when I heard a new episode starting. Heidi Klum was being very coy about their guest judge - saying she was a professional model and a celebrated movie and television actress. Not being all that familiar with current shows, I figured it had to be Tyra Banks (because, no offense to Rosie and Ellen and Oprah, but supermodels, they ain't). And doesn't Tyra have a couple of shows - a talk show and something about models?) I hollered out my guess and Gigi brays back, "Is she preeeeeeegnant? Cause this lady says she's preeeeeeegnant!"

(Well, I ask you, how would I know that, for crying out loud?! I can't even keep track of all Angelina Jolie's baby-making, and SHE I recognize.)

About a second later, I hear Heidi reveal Miss Thang's name. So did Gigi, and being the self-appointed Bob Costas of Casual Wear, she bellows, "YOU WERE WRONG, MAMA! It's not her - it's REBECCA OF MAINE!"

I have to tell you that I got this picture in my mind of a Teutonic diva - straight out of Wagner - sporting braids and a horned helmet with matching breastplate - the works. And in my mind's eye, I saw Rebecca Romijn in this get-up, brandishing Maine's state flag in one hand and a lobster in the other....

And I just lost it.