Rachel Callahan

What Did You Get That You Didn’t Want?

December 30, 2013December 29, 2013 Rachel Callahan Photographical Oddities, Shopping: A Girl's Best Friend, Weird Strange and True

Apparently American culture is more self-centered than ever.

Starting Christmas evening and continuing through the night, I received dozens of emails from online retailers. And they all began their subject line with,

“DIDN’T GET WHAT YOU WANT THIS CHRISTMAS?”

Yes. Let’s encourage ungratefulness and materialism ON CHRISTMAS DAY, giving us all every opportunity to feel entitled to more stuff.

But despite their obnoxious underpinning message, I began to ponder.

What did people get this year that wasn’t what they wanted?

I had a few guesses based on my sightings during the holiday shopping season.

For instance, if you received Disney Princesses: Zombie Apocalypse.

Look at the little girl in the next packaging. HOW CAN SHE BE HAPPY?? Because I KNOW she can’t sleep with this doll sucking out her soul faster than a dementor on a joy ride.

Then there’s My Little Pony: Creepster Edition.

Hasbro has taken our precious childhood memories and mutilated them, ladies!! It’s time we storm the castle with our pitchforks Beauty-And-The-Beast-Style and demand justice!

I mean, there was no need to do this to our sweet, innocent Ponies. Why couldn’t they have just created a new freak of a doll like these people?

(But really – how is she any different than what we all did to our Barbies in 1988? Morphing her into a brunette, painting her horse a creepy color, and pre-popping her head off does not an original product make.)

Okay. Let’s try again. Why couldn’t they have just created a new freak of a doll?

That’s better.

In other news of presents we didn’t want, I believe that Jackie Evancho makes the cut.

“Yes, let’s make a figurine of the nine year old girl who won America’s Got Talent a few years ago.”

“And then let’s put her singing button right in her tiny groin.”

Whichever of Santa’s Elves designed her should be subjected to a background check immediately.

There’s always that year that you ask your Granny for a Rapunzel Doll and she gets confused and buys you this.

Then sometimes your kids may get gifts you wish they hadn’t.

Sometimes you may wish this purely because of appalling product names.

Or because you really prefer for your children not to be able to videotape you without your knowledge. (I might have some firsthand experience with this issue.)

Sometimes other people buy your kids clothes. Sometimes those clothes seem suspiciously like they’re trying to tell you something.

But if you’ve been looking for a more literal way to label your children, those bloomers are the way to go.

And then there are those people. Who go in those stores. And say “Yes, I think she would love a pair of leopard print skinny jeans for her toddler son!”

Thank you, Gap, for always outdoing yourself.

And then a well-meaning Aunt somewhere has at some point said, “Oh I bet she’d ADORE matching her little one at the beach next summer!!”

It’s one thing to be in a wedding with a skinny bridesmaid.

(You know. That one that makes everyone else look lumpy in comparison.)

But do you have any IDEA how beached whale-ish I’d look in the same outfit as my daughter??

Horrors.

Speaking of horrors. There are the people who try to buy you clothes based on your personality.

“Oh, she’s trendy. And likes graphic patterns.”

“She loves going on dates with her husband…”

“She HATES Mom Jeans!”

Just because she hates Mom Jeans doesn’t mean she wants a Star Trek Alien attacking her crotch.

Or her butt.

Don’t miss the original price on those beauties. Or the fact that three sizes are already sold out.

I shudder to think of those Christmas Mornings.

But my favorite Christmas “Gift Suggestion” all season were hashtag necklaces.

Yes, hashtag necklaces.

Perhaps the least classy thing to be created since writing on the butt of pants, hashtag necklaces really underscore the underbutt of social media.

The only people I can imagine buying these are:

1. The Cast of Jersey Shore.
2. Ke$ha and other equally classically sophisticated young ladies, and
2. A relative somewhere who thinks to herself, “Hashtags! Isn’t that something that kids these days are into? I’ll just buy them all. I bet #lmao can stand for “Love My Aunt Odella.”

And really. Is there a better way to let the world know how very #undesirable you are than these two?

And this pair goes together so well that I don’t know how you could wear one without the other.

So.

If YOU were the recipient of a hashtag necklace this Christmas, then by all means. Go by yourself something pretty.

Top Ten Moments of Christmas.

December 27, 2013December 26, 2013 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., Kids: The Experience., The Blissfulness of Life, Toddlers: The Experience

It was a good Christmas.

Many of our past Christmases have contained moments (or longer) of frustration and unmet expectations, which became exponentially blown out of proportion because of the fact that it’s CHRISTMAS DAY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD and ALL IS SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLETELY IDYLLIC.

You know, like a kid busting her head on her brand new bed.

Or another kid having a tiny moment of ungratefulness which makes a parent’s insides boil at the ludicrousness of Christmas Day Ungratefulness.

That kind of thing.

And so, this year, Chris and I began talking weeks beforehand.

“Let’s ratchet down our expectations.”

“Agreed.”

“Whatever happens on Christmas day, we won’t get frustrated.”

“Yes. We’ll plan on everything being a complete disaster. Kids screaming, presents breaking, lunch burning, people puking, emergency room trips – the whole thing. Then we won’t react when things go wrong.”

“Perfect.”

We repeated our mantra nightly.

“We will not become frustrated on Christmas Day. We will not become frustrated on Christmas Day.”

And to help us in the lowering of our expectations, we both contracted the stomach virus the weekend before. And I didn’t get better (due to my other health stuff I guess.)

So we went into Christmas Day with me sick (but seemingly not contagious), all plans in tentative mode, and completely grateful for any joyous moment we might come upon.

And as such, we had the best Christmas Day ever.

So if you, like us, struggle to not let the little things get under your skin on major holidays, I highly recommend a deep sickness leading up to each one.

Anyway, here were a few of our favorite moments.

10. Making Christmas Eve Gingerbread Cookies – mainly so I didn’t feel like such a schmuck for doing nothing Christmasy with the children for the prior five days.

But despite my selfish motives, they adored it,

right down to…listening to the cookies?

Maybe they expected to hear tiny Gingerbread screams, I don’t know.

9. Ali’s interpretation of leaving Milk and Cookies for Santa.

Clearly, he’s a Hipster.

8. Noah’s traditional refusal to take a decent Christmas Eve Jammies Picture.

7. Christmas eBay Purchases. WHY doesn’t Lego make Bob the Builder Duplos anymore? Whatever the reason it’s not good enough. But thanks to the lovely invention of Online Auctions, we were able to gift Noah in this combination of his two favorite things.

(Oh. The train tent in the background? That was Santa’s best interpretation of Noah’s only Request – a “Tall Tall Train.” However, Noah refused to enter into the Holy of Holies for the first twelve hours, but will now not come out. So I guess it passed the test.)

At any rate, when Noah saw the Bob the Builder Duplos, his reaction was to scream, “WHO brought these to me?!?!?!”

So we’ll call that a win.

6. Ali’s first Christmas to request books. LOTS of books.

There’s nothing more exciting than raising a little literature geek.

A geek who also methodically opened,

then sorted all of her presents. And was quite nervous when her brother came to inspect her stacks.

5. Excitement,

Concentration,

Thankfulness,

And a sugar rush.

4. Ridiculous Messes.

3. Ali being a volunteer gift-bringer and Noah being a complete squealing narcissist when finding photos of himself in other people’s presents.

2. Contortionist Cousin Eli and his annual attempt to fit into my Grandmother’s Tiny Dog’s crate.

Another successful year in the books.

(And then the attempts to unfold him out of the crate.)

He’s gotten more rubber than last year, when we had to disassemble for removal.

1. My sadistic mother and her hiding of the children’s gifts, making them answer questions about The Christmas Story to earn puzzle pieces,

and work as a team to piece together the puzzle and find clues to hunt down their presents.

Nobody would ever accuse her of being a Veteran Homeschool Mom.

(But the children loved it, of course.)

(After they were assured that their presents were safe and unharmed.)

0. (Yes I can have a 0 it’s my blog post!)

The children declaring at least thirty times each that it was the best Christmas EVER.

And I absolutely agree.

What were your top moments this Christmas?

How The Disney Stole Christmas.

December 23, 2013December 22, 2013 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Deception: A Parent's Best Friend, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Parent of the Year, The Cartoon Age, Weird Strange and True

“Pick something from Disney,” Chris said. “It’ll be a safe choice.”

I was desperately thumbing through NetFlix, looking for something, anything to entertain our children for the last hour before bedtime on the worst parenting day of our lives.

Chris and I had both woken up with the stomach virus Saturday morning. We were incapacitated, aching, nauseated, floating in and out of consciousness and the bathroom, and giving the bacteria in our septic tank an entire day of very generous Christmas presents.

Our children, however, were fine. Earlier in the week they’d both had much milder symptoms – Ali had a day of tummy-aches and Noah had a day of Inferi-infested Lake Diapers. But neither were affected like us, and both were now at 100% energy levels. Because clearly this virus was targeted at parents.

I could have picked any number of Christmas specials that night, even after Chris suggested I go with Disney – they have as many Christmas movies as Amy Grant does Christmas Albums. But as the fates allowed, I randomly chose “Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas” right before I passed out again.

It was a trio of Christmas stories, and the children were mesmerized as they ate their Pizza – perhaps the first real food offered to them that day.

The first story was a charming one about Huey, Dewey, and Louie and a wish that every day could be Christmas day. After a few dozen repeats of the same day, they grew tired of their Great-Aunt’s kisses, became foie-gras-ready from eating Christmas dinner every day, and bored with opening the same presents.

A nice, timely moral – every day can’t be Christmas, kiddies. Especially when your parents are having their guts tilled with John Deere Industrial Strength Machinery.

But then. The next story.

We should have known it would be a train wreck because it was about Goofy being a FATHER.

Who allowed that to happen?

I feel like there must have been some “taking advantage” happening in that situation. No way that Goofy knows how babies are made.

Anyway. Goofy is a single Dad (I told you – she used him and left) and has this son named Max who is clearly more intelligent than him (as if there were another option.)

Their next door neighbor, the ever-villanous Pete, starts out the movie by ridiculing Goofy AND Max for believing in Santa.

Chris and I looked at each other.

WHAT the WHAT??

We had chosen not to watch Elf with the children this year because we didn’t want to answer questions! After all, lying to the children doesn’t come naturally to us – and we had no desire to play Lie Jenga about Santa. And yet, here was a Disney cartoon, being even more direct than Elf?!

Pete goes on to imply that Goofy is mentally impaired, and that’s the reason why he believes in Santa, and poor Max, stuck with such a stupid Dad – of course he’d believe too.

YES.

PETE JUST INFORMED OUR CHILDREN THAT BELIEVING IN SANTA IS FOR THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED.

We laid there – sick, horrified, and wondering what to do.

Meanwhile, Pete continued.

“Max – think about it. An old guy, in a red suit, cruisin’ the entire world in one night, usin’ reindeer that would fly – why it’s practically impossible!!”

Our children were entranced and silent and not running circles around us for the first time that day, so we let it go.

And after all, if we turned it off at this point, it’d be more suspicious. So what is a parent to do? Surely. SURELY. SUUUUUUUUUUURELY Disney would redeem this nightmare of a toon.

Max pulls out his dictionary, pondering these things in his heart, then finds Goofy and shares all of the logical reasons that Santa can’t possibly be real.

“Did you know that there are over two billion children in the world…”

Disney!! What are you DOING?!?!

“That means Santa would have to make like…800 visits a second! NOT including bathroom breaks…”

WHAT THE FRICK!!

“And…how can a reindeer fly?”

STUPID TRAITOROUS DISNEY!!!

“But it just doesn’t…quite make sense, Dad.”

I HATE YOU FOREVER EVIL DISNEY!!!!!

A full day of parenting with the stomach virus can make one very profane, so I will leave it up to you to imagine what Chris and were mouthing back and forth as our children sat underneath our television set, soaking this pile of feces in.

Meanwhile, Goofy continues to make himself look stupider and stupider, playing an exponential, magnified version of the stereotypical TV parent.

Then Max starts telling other kids that he doubts Santa exists.

“But…have you actually ever SEEN Santa??”

So Goofy dresses up as Santa to try and convince Max that Santa does exist.

Max is saved!

“I am SO glad you came! I almost didn’t believe in you anymore! But now everything is okay.”

Until Goofy’s beard falls off.

“Dad?! You TRICKED me!! How COULD you??”

Max is mad. Nearly as mad as Chris and I are. All we wanted was one last hour. ONE STUPID HOUR.

If Disney Junior is where the magic begins, then Disney Christmas Specials must be where it ends.

Max and Goofy get into a large fight about whether Santa is real. Goofy camps out on the roof, trying to snap a picture of Santa to prove it to Max.

We watch Max’s clock turn from 12 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, as a depressed Max can’t sleep.

At 4:39, Max checks in on his Dad again, ending in an angry rant. “Why doesn’t he just GROW UP and face the facts?”

Goofy even carves “DON’T FORGET MAX” in the snow, desperately and sadly trying to conjure Santa.

AND HE DOESN’T COME.

WHAT FRESH DISNEY HELL HAVE WE FOUND OURSELVES IN?!?

Then, in a shocking lack of continuity, it’s 3 am again. Goofy is yelling.

“Max! Wake up! Wake up, Son! It’s him! It really is!!”

Chris and I regain hope, thinking this is the moment Disney will redeem themselves for this crapload of a cartoon.

Goofy goes to snap a picture – and then floodlights hit Santa. Or not. It’s a robber going down someone’s chimney.

Dear Disney, DIE.

THEN DIE AGAIN.

Goofy falls off the roof and it looks like accidental death will join robbery on the front page of the Christmas Day Gazette.

He finally sits up. “You were right about everything, Max.”

At this point, Chris is ready to storm the headquarters of Disney and provide them all with the gift that keeps on giving – a nice crystal bowl full of bodily fluids containing our special concoction of germs.

Max tries to comfort his poor, dejected Dad.

“Hey Dad. It’s OKAY! Santa didn’t show. No biggie! Since he’s not coming, at least we can eat all his cookies!”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Let’s play!”

“Maybe later.”

Max tries to fake Goofy out by dressing up like Santa, tricking the stupid Dad, and of course then his costume falls off too, dejecting Goofy once again.

“I just wanted to make you happy, Dad.”

THEN FINALLY FREAKIN’ FINALLY AFTER THEY’VE REPEATEDLY TRIED TO DASH ALL OF OUR CHILDREN’S HOPES AND DREAMS, Santa comes.

The end.

And no one’s heart grew three sizes toward Disney that day.

Epilogue: Thankfully, the kids haven’t asked questions so far. And I do still love Disney. Half my kid’s presents are Disney-Character-related and we’ll probably go see Frozen sometime next week. But if I could have a Christmas Shoes moment and get just one wish, it would be that this Christmas Special be burned. Repeatedly. Well okay – after I rid the world of the stomach virus.

How to End a Plague of Bats.

December 20, 2013December 20, 2013 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Blogging: the therapy., I embarrass myself just for your amusement., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck

November is a costly month for our family.

In 2012, on the fifth day of the ill-fated eleventh month, Ali had a slight bathroom flood. That created 184 days of construction, renovations, and water damage mitigation.

In 2013, on the seventeenth day of the eleventh month, a mutantly giant bat invaded my son’s room, alerting us to the fact that he had a vast extended family living in our attic. Thankfully, this led to a mere 30 days of chaos.

I told the story here, but really, Ali portrayed and illustrated it in her diary much better than I.

Here were her pictures that went with her entries on Day One and Day Two of Bat Discovery. She wanted to make sure I pointed out the highly literary expressional dichotomy between the two scenes:

Happy bat = Sad us;
Sad bat = Happy us.

I’m sure she’ll get angry letters from PETA supporters over this, but she is not concerned about political correctness – only about properly documenting her life.

And I can vouch that this portrayal is proper.

Her narrative is as follows:

Bat uh oh
In Noah’s room
I soll a bat
I thot it was a bird
Mommy scream’d
Noah crid
Ali (me) ran to my bed
lad dawn
Next Day:

Bat man cam.
Pop came.
Silvertron yesterday.
Aftor school Car’s Two.
Then otsid
I learn’d to play soocr with Mommy.

Clearly, she moved on quickly to other interests after Enemy Number One had been properly delivered to the authorities.

And this simplicity of understanding is why we’re all shocked when we become adults and realize how complicated life actually is. Because documented below is the 20 step process you will take if you ever find a bat in your home.

1. Capture the bat. If anyone was exposed to the bat, this is the most important step of the whole process. If you do not capture the bat and prove that he isn’t rabid, the government WILL hold you down and force you to get painful, recurring, and extraordinarily expensive (after insurance I heard it cost one family $6,500) rabies shots that have untold numbers of possible side effects including death and/or lifelong misery.

WHATEVER ELSE YOU DO IN YOUR LIFE, CAPTURE THE DANG BAT.

2. Read the Internet. Realize how rabies-ridden bats are and how seriously your local government takes any bat-to-human exposure. Ramp up your already boiling panic by 400%. However, try to avoid reading about bat bugs.

3. Seek solace from anyone who will offer it. Call your Mommy. Email your Pediatrician. Text your nurse friends. Text your non-nurse friends. In all caps.

4. Deliver the bat to governmental authorities for testing. If you call the rabies hotline on a Sunday night, they will instruct you to refrigerate the bat until morning. Do not feel guilty about said chilling – your fridge is probably warmer than your attic.

However, when said chilled bat is delivered to the testing lab the next day by your parents (because you had to stay home to deal with step six,) the same Governmental Authorities may have a huge sign saying “WE DO NOT ACCEPT LIVE ANIMALS.”

In this case, your father might pull out his pocket knife (the same one he uses to clean his toenails) and offer to step outside and expedite the process. If this happens, the Government will change their procedure and accept the live animal.

5. Be prepared to be on Big Brother’s Watch List. They WILL call you daily to make sure that you’re not out biting people and spreading disease. They WILL sound angry, suspicious, and distrustful with each of those phone calls, threatening Child Services with their tone, as if you were the inventor of rabies yourself.

6. Frantically call your local bat removal company. Beg them to come out and check your attic for family members as soon as possible.

7. Try not to faint when Batman shows you a video of your attic eaves, complete with one-foot-high guano drifts, other bat family members napping in the crevices, and a report that there are countless bats calling your attic home.

8. Agree to pay Batman thirteen-freakin’-hundred dollars to seal up all of your attic cracks, put in a one-way exit to encourage the bats to find other housing, and guarantee no critters for one year.

When Batman hands you the quote and you sign it immediately, he might ask, “Don’t you need to check with your husband before you agree to this?” If he does, DON’T sic an internet-full of Feminists on him. DO tell him that you pay the bills, and that your husband is willing to do anything and everything including sign dancing and/or being Santa at the mall to rid his house of bats.

9. Warn your neighbors that one of them will be the lucky recipient of a displaced mafia of bats.

10. Cheer when the Governmental Authorities call and say that the bat was rabies-free.

11. Wait a week for Batman to actually start his work – after all, the world is choking with bats. Because they’re a protected species and all.

12. In the meantime, stuff towels under the doors that lead to attic access through which the escaped bat traveled. Beg Batman for guarantees that they cannot get into the house any other way.

13. Dream about flesh-eating bats and brain-eating guano.

14. Endure an entire day of Batman banging on the outside of your house, sealing up all of your gutters and eaves.

15. Pray for warm days so that the bats will want to go out on the town and then cry giant BatSobs when they realize they can’t get back to their home.

16. Deal with your son announcing at your Thanksgiving dinner for sixteen people,

“HEY!”

Everyone turns and gets quiet…

“We have bats in our attic.”

17. Wait four weeks to ensure that the bats have had the proper amount of time to make their exit.

18. Invite Batman back out to remove the one-way exit, check for lingerers, and clean up the guano.

This will take hours of vacuuming, scraping, and pick-axing, but the results will make you think that your attic is the most beautiful place on earth.

[Especially notice the poop drifts under the fan. And die a little inside.]

19. Ask Batman over and over and over if he’s sure that no bats remain in your attic. Make him pinky swear.

20. Celebrate your Guano-Free / Bat-Free status that very night by taking the children to Zoolight Safari to see Christmas lights.

Where they will find these photo op boards.

They’re haunting us. I just know it.

So You Heard It’s My Birthday…

December 19, 2013December 18, 2013 Rachel Callahan NoahBlogs, Toddlers: The Experience

Hi! Noah here.

Clearly, you’ve arrived to celebrate my third birthday and wish me tidings of great joy.

And I’m totally down with that.

That’s what the comment section is for…down at the bottom of this post – after I’ve made your year with a review of mine.

But the servants have been complaining that I didn’t give them enough positive feedback in my last birthday post, so I’ve decided to write The Servant Who Calls Herself Mommy’s Entire Annual Review as a part of my birthday celebration.

That’ll teach her.

We all know that it’ll be a valuable lesson, because she is SO high maintenance.

I get the feeling she thinks just because she allowed some doctor to rip her abdomen open to pry me out, that she’s due my unconditional love and adoration for eternity future.

First of all, that’s a disgusting way to welcome me to the world.

Second of all, she’s so obviously a victim of our entitlement society.

I don’t do love hand-outs, lady.

So. Let’s talk about the stuff we didn’t like first.

Despite the fact that they don’t even manufacture them in my size, she still dressed me in rompers. Could she not hear the screams of agony from my nether regions??

The DiaperToe Travesty: Where is Child Services when you need them?

She took a short-lived but entirely unrequested expedition into the world of potty-training.

Not cool, NOT. COOL.

I had to refuse to poop for twenty days to help her grasp the girth of that mistake.

And after that twenty days was up, grasp it did she.

Instead of sending The Sister Who Calls Herself Ali to school like a normal mother so that she could give me all of her attention AS IT SHOULD BE, she kept her home and used the first day as an excuse to mock me!

AND THEN tortured me with Field Trip Nightmares.

AS IF I’M OLD ENOUGH TO WITHSTAND SUCH AGONY.

She outfitted me in a dress. Again.

And recorded my most private moments, mistakes, and words.

In her Social Media performance, she had pluses and minutes.

On the one hand, she finally loosed me from this horrible font and let me actually talk in my brilliant vlogging series, but then she used my likeness without my permission to create TWO MORE MEME POSTS. In one year.

Like this one? SO did not happen.

Because I only eat ladybugs.

I hope all those Hey Girls were worth it for you, internet.

Because she’s going to find herself slapped with a trademark lawsuit as soon as I’m old enough to write.

Now. Let’s talk about her positive performance this year.

She fed me fresh, raw and organic foods,

opened my eyes to the circus,

Took me to the real races,

(Where I played up my Fear Factor so convincingly that she let me sleep in her bed for the first time ever. Am I good or what?)

She taught me the fine art of Selfies on a Boat,

She didn’t get mad when she caught me reading The Sister Who Calls Herself Ali’s diary,

She somehow made me FLY, and let me tell you that is an awesome memory for any boy,

She let me get my first tattoo,

She never dressed me in smock, not even on Easter Sunday,

And she let me run around in the rain with a bucket on my head.

So I guess she’s not TOO abominable, anyway.

Oh – wait. I have a feeling she’s about to subject you to a twelve-month anthology of my face. So that takes away a few points.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Then again, that much of me can’t be a bad thing, now can it?

When Santa Traditions Need to Go.

December 17, 2013December 17, 2013 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, A Day in the Life

It took Ali six years to work up the courage to actually speak to Santa, so this year, she eagerly prepared for her second visit to The Man, The Mystery, The Legend.

She began early to work on her Christmas list.

Then she trashed that list and started over. Because one can never revise their own literature too many times.

When the time came that we were to attempt our visit (with many reminders to the children that if the line was wrapped around the mall and/or if there were multiple screaming babies and/or if Santa visibly had another child’s puke on his Jolly Red Suit, we’d have to try again another night), Ali realized that Noah didn’t have a list.

So she offered to be his scribe.

At first, all she could get out of him was that he wanted a “tall tall train” – but then she started suggesting things – and after consideration of the items listed, it was clear that she based her suggestions upon looking at the items already in his room.

Except for the wep wip’s – according to Ali, that was Noah’s specific request.

(My theory is because I told him that he had to potty-train after he turns three – but it’s a valid assumption that if we had an unusually high supply of wet wipes, surely he would get an extension.)

(His fatal flaw was that he forgot that wet wipes are also my main method of cleaning the house. There’s always a counter to wipe down or a floor to spot clean for every wet wipe left behind.)

So anyway.

We drove to the mall and the Reindeer shined grace upon us – the line only had one turn to it, and no screaming babies.

In fact, we were completely surrounded by families with…adolescents.

I studied the odd gatherings of aged children intently, searching for clues. Maybe they were teenage parents and I just couldn’t see the babies…

No…no babies.

Maybe there were significantly younger siblings running around somewhere else?

No, no siblings.

Just the adolescents and their overly-excited, camera-armed parents.

One of these family units even asked my husband to take a photo of their family – mom, dad, two teenagers – while standing in line.

“It’s part of our tradition,” she explained, as the high schoolers desperately attempted to hide their faces.

Another family, directly in front of us, contained an only child, around the age of 14.

SURELY she’s not going to sit in Santa’s – oh…….nope. There she goes. Up on that lap.

Did Santa just groan?

Then it was our turn. Santa looked relieved.

My appropriately aged children eagerly presented him with their lists, which he expertly translated.

(I’m sure that all properly trained Santas study “Rosetta Stone: Children” diligently every November.)

Santa’s not-so-elf, the fussy camera operator, then interrupted their beautiful moment to grumpily instruct them to pose for a few (dozen) photos.

I half expected her to scream “You’ll shoot your eye out!!” then shove my children down a secret slide to Elf Hell if they didn’t obey her “Smile at the freakin’ camera!” barks.

Okay maybe it wasn’t that bad but still. Is visiting Santa about the children having the opportunity to tell Santa what they want or about you selling me a Flash Drive for $49.99?

Don’t answer that.

Santa very seriously instructed my kids to be good (which they found confusing, since we don’t tie Santa to good behavior,) then they hopped off to make room for the next pair of reluctant teenagers.

Then Santa realized he still had their lists, and got up to give them to Grumpy Elf. Being a good Santa, he felt the need to assist us in covertly retrieving the lists by calling Ali back up and telling her to be good again, which she puzzled over all night.

Grumpy Elf, however, did not get the memo. And didn’t hand us the lists until Ali had turned around and run back to us.

Did Santa just roll his eyes? Yes, Grumpy Elf just got a demerit.

Luckily for us, Ali assumed Santa had memorized the lists. Or taken a picture with his smart phone.

Then Teenage Boy and Teenage Girl humiliatedly drug their feet over to Santa and nearly smiled as their parents giddily waited for that annual photo op.

I had trouble concentrating on Grumpy Elf Number Two’s spew of the many photo package options because I was entirely entranced with watching the conversation between Santa and teenagers and making up the supposed dialogue that was going down.

Santa: “Ho ho ho! Parents won’t let you grow up yet, huh?”

Teenage Boy: “TELL me about it. See that table over in the food court? Yeah. That brunette is the girl I wanted to ask to Senior Prom. That is, BEFORE she saw me sitting in your lap.”

Teenage Girl: “And I can’t ever invite friends over because of the Santa’s Lap Photo Montage in the hallway! It’s SO lame.”

Santa: “I know, kids. I know. My sciatic nerve can’t take many more of your sized people, either. Parents these days, huh?”

Teenage Boy: “It’s INSANE.”

Grumpy Elf: “QUIT YOUR JABBIN’ AND SMILE AT THE CAMERA, ZIT FACE!”

I get it. Even though this is only Year Two of our Pictures-With-Santa Tradition, it’s cute to see the changes – heck, even Santa looks more rosy this year.

But it becomes significantly less cute when their voice changes.

And they grow chest hair.

Or boobs.

C’mon parents. Be better than Teenage Santa Pictures. Do whatever it takes to prevent this tragedy – I am.

50 Restaurants in Crappy Photos, Round Six.

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 Rachel Callahan 50 Restaurants in Crappy Pictures, I Love Birmingham

‘Tis the season for eating out – I declare it. Because who has time to cook?

I’m far too busy addressing envelopes for my Christmas cards that haven’t arrived yet and panicking about their ship date.

So anyway. Let’s move on to food.

21. Avo & Dram

The first thing I need to tell you is that Avo is pronounced Ahhhhvo – as in Avocado. I sadly made the mistake of assuming it was Avo with a long A and I can never undo that – it will always be Avo in my mind and I will never ever be able to say Ahhhhhvo without making a seriously strenuous effort.

Avo & Dram are two restaurants in one – Avo is upstairs and quite bright, eloquently designed in hues of blue, and much more formal, where Dram is downstairs and has more of a modern bar feel. However, you can order off of either menu regardless of your floor, so you’re choosing atmosphere only.

I went to Dram for my friend Jamie’s birthday celebration. They started us in the back corner of Avo in a square of opulent couches, then moved us down to Dram once they prepared a table.

The menu was double-sided – Avo on one side, Dram on the back. But the first item on Dram’s menu made me one part uncomfortable, one part thankful that I hadn’t brought Chris along. It would have certainly been a situation of “too soon.”

So I ordered off of Avo’s menu instead.

And it was the right decision.

I chose the Sonoma Sliders, which included ground tenderloin, melted foie gras, caramelized onions, and port wine Dijon sauce on house focaccia.

There are not enough adjectives in the world to describe how flavorful, tender, and shockingly juicy these hamburger sliders were.

I am a hamburger connoisseur (and make a pretty awesome one myself), and these were without contest the best I’ve ever eaten.

They were so good, in fact, that one of Jamie’s friends and I had agreed to swap – one of her Country Ham Sliders for one of my Sonoma Sliders – and I totally backed out on her.

She most certainly hates me to this day.

However, we did split a side of Truffle and Parmesan fries, which were also amazing. And I was pretty proud of myself for eating truffles and foie gras for under $20.

I finished off with cheesecake, an appropriate ending to any meal.

22. FLIP Burger Boutique

(That’s their ceiling – isn’t it fantastic?)

FLIP is an Atlanta-based restaurant who expanded into Birmingham a few years ago. They technically don’t count as a new restaurant since I have been there once before, but,

a) Our visit took

place right after they first opened, and we all know that’s not a fair indicator,
b) We had serious kid issues that night,
c) We were grumpy because we attempted to go to the restaurant next door (Chuy’s) but there was over an hour wait (and we don’t do waits) so we changed our plan at the last minute, and
d) It was cold and our table was directly in the doorway.

All that to say, we didn’t have a good first experience, and never went back. So when they contacted me about attending a media lunch to sample their Fall Menu, I told them my whole story, and they still wanted me to come.

I immediately forgot everything when they served me their Tomato Bisque Soup.

I do not typically like Tomato Soup, but this was spectacular. I wish I could describe it, but it had such a robust and unique mix of flavors, including a delightful red curry, that was unlike anything I’ve ever eaten before. Within a couple weeks, I made Chris take me back because every time I thought about going out, I found myself desiring nothing but that soup.

In fact, I’m really wanting some right now.

If they would sell it by the barrel, I’d be their first and most loyal customer.

Back to lunch. I took my friend Ashley along, and she tried the Beet and Goat Cheese Salad, which was also very tasty.

They gave us each a Side Sampler, which was entirely too much food, but offered the opportunity to truly try everything, including their fries, Onion Rings, Sweet Potato Tots, and Brussels Sprouts.

My favorite were the Sweet Potato Tots, which were a perfect mix of crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

I’m sure you can imagine how very unhungry we were when our burgers arrived,

But we highly enjoyed them nonetheless. Because those hamburgers deserved it.

We finished with Fried Apple Pies for dessert, which were a little too salty for my taste,

so when Chris and I returned, we ordered the Nutella + Burnt Marshmallow Milkshakes instead, a fantastically decadent choice.

I’m so glad that I had a catalyst to try FLIP again, because I will be living off of that soup this winter.

23. Epiphany

Epiphany is a Farm-to-Fork restaurant in Tuscaloosa, which is an hour outside of Birmingham and therefore again technically outside of my rules.

Good thing I make the rules.

Chris and I stayed overnight with some friends for the Alabama/LSU game, so they took us to one of their favorite restaurants.

Disclaimer: The lighting was very low. So the pictures are far more crappy than usual, which is quite unfair to the level of cuisine we were served.

Epiphany is very conscientious to procure their ingredients from local farms, and list the source under each menu item.

We started out with Bread Service, which included homemade brown sugar bread and….PORK BUTTER.

You can imagine how the men at the table felt about pork butter, and you would be underestimating. It was like melting bacon on bread, which was nearly happier for them than beating LSU the next day.

We shared small plates next, including Beef Carpaccio (I do love myself some nearly raw cow),

Homemade Berkshire Pork Sausage, again making the gentlemen gleefully happy,

And Roasted Wild Mushrooms over Caramelized Cauliflower and Pork Belly.

I was most excited about the mushrooms, but the flavor of the caramelized Cauliflower was a bit off-putting, so I didn’t enjoy that one. The Beef Carpaccio was definitely my favorite.

For the main course, I ordered the steak that had been brushed with a fascinating coffee butter (I am now quite the supporter of coffee butter),

we shared a side of Sweet Potato Confit,

and Chris tried the Short Ribs.

The ribs and steak were tender and very pleasing, and the various local greens served with each dish were fascinating and flavorful.

For dessert, I finished off with the ugliest cake I’ve ever seen.

(Okay it was actually nearly pretty in person, but wow it is NOT photogenic.)

It was a Pumpkin Spice Cake with Green Tea icing. And it was stunning. Warm, comforting, and savory, I wiped that green icing clean off of that plate.

And the winner of Round Six is…

I usually pick one restaurant as the winner, but I must divert. Since I’m already breaking the rules, I would rather create my dream Autumn meal pieced together from all three.

I would start with FLIP’s Tomato Bisque soup. Then I would enjoy Dram’s Sonoma Sliders. And I would absolutely end my meal with Epiphany’s Green Tea Pumpkin Spice Cake.

So while I’m endlessly addressing envelopes this week, get out there and eat something fabulous.

Educational Diversions.

December 13, 2013December 12, 2013 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Homeschooling: Not just for the socially awkward anymore.

If you haven’t deduced it by now, I’ll spell it out: my oldest child is a full-on geek.

This quality makes her the easiest part of the homeschooling equation (especially after installing the attitude chart.) We’re ahead in several of our books because she often asks to keep going, and the poor child is so OCD that she couldn’t handle the fact that I skipped one of her Math tests – after worrying over it for two weeks, she HAD to do it. It went something like this…

“Mom, can I PLEASE do that Math test we skipped? I REALLY don’t want it to be blank.”

“Well, ooookay…but you’ll have to do it after school.”

“I WILL!! THANKYOUSOMUCH!!!”

This is a good argument to continue homeschooling. Because if she went to “real” school in Junior High, she’d either get slushied on a daily basis or forced to do the Mean Girl’s homework or both.

And her risk-averse self would not appreciate such danger.

Plus, her idea of how to spend an afternoon does not include homework.

However, there’s also a toddler to employ during the school day.

That’s where the challenge arises.

He spends most of the morning all up in my business while I try to teach – he’s sitting in my lap, using me for a human pillow, asking me to draw him roads for his cars, and asking me to draw his actual cars.

(Nevermind my inability to not draw cars as if they’ve been flattened by a road roller.)

Every now and then I get really aggressive and try to do some actual educational stuff with him as well, letting him play games on Ali’s iPad,

(This is my favorite toddler game right now – it’s called LetterSchool and it’s brilliant.)

And writing and/or driving on the alphabet and number pages from this fantastic book.

(I laminated all forty pages. It was so ridiculously invigorating.)

When he’s not in my lap, I’ve found a few more things to keep him occupied.

He calls these building pegs his “School Project”:

I’m not saying that they always keep him happy,

But they do a real number on his Dad.

And Noah’s favorite Stuffed Animal(?), Hot Pocket, also appreciates them as a hammock.

When Legos and School Projects run their course, there’s always math manipulatives to dump,

Memory Cards to scatter,

And stale Halloween candy to raid and leave for dead.

I’ve even caught him practicing Princess Yahtzee – no wonder he always mops the floor with us.

But it’s time to get honest: Noah’s not the only one who needs diversions from school.

Thanks to Twitter ruining my brain, I find it difficult to sit still.

And Ali can be a meticulous little person, and prone to distraction – she is six, after all.

So to keep myself from constantly saying “focus” or “work on the next problem” or “keep going”, I sometimes must distract myself with something else. And it can’t always be Noah, or Ali gets her feelings hurt. So I’ve had to resort to a favorite hobby, line art.

(This is mainly because I refuse to let myself have my phone during school hours. If I had Twitter, I’d be fine. But I need to put some space between me and the internet to keep my addiction at bay, so line art it is.)

And it really does work – this well-tortured sheet represents THREE ENTIRE WEEKS of motherly patience.

But despite the yoga-like effect of this process, I still need at least 30 minutes to decompress after the school day is over.

And fortunately, so do they.

Television: An important part of any homeschooling curriculum.

DETERMINATION.

December 11, 2013December 10, 2013 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience., The Blissfulness of Life

That’s what it takes to achieve the mailing out of Christmas Cards.

I am convinced that the twenty-nine step process of Christmas Card Creation is the single most trying test of adulthood.

(At least this week.)

And, being that I have a severe aversion to being late to any function, the fact that I cannot seem to ever finish Christmas cards in a timely fashion eats away at my soul like maggots on abandoned chocolate.

(No really. This one time, when I still worked in an office for a living, we had a bowl of small wrapped chocolates, and one day, I needed it really badly, and I retrieved a piece, and right before I bit into it, I saw that there were MAGGOTS IN IT. I investigated further, and yes. The whole bowl of chocolates was being consumed by creatures from the Nether Regions of Earth.)

(And then, there was this other time at work, when a beloved vendor brought us a gigantic box of intricately decorated cookies. And one of my co-workers was so excited to get into them that she knocked the entire box into my lap while the vendors were still on the other side of my cubicle glass talking to someone else. We feverishly attempted to clean them up and make them look like we hadn’t just soiled their gift before they glanced through the window in horror at our ungratefulness.)

(That story has nothing to do with Christmas cards but I felt I needed to document it because it is a shame that I didn’t blog back then.)

(Because if I did, you would have ADORED the story of the Infamous Warehouse/Accounting Oreo Battle of 2005.)

Let’s move on before I get fired from a job I haven’t had in seven years.

After much agony and planning and twenty-nine steps and staying up until 2am last night to get my Christmas Cards ordered only to realize this morning that I ordered the wrong size, then ordering supplemental envelopes so that they’d get here quicker so I could address them and be ready to go as soon as the cards came in only to find out that they’d take longer to ship than the cards themselves, I am nearly positive that I will be able to send Christmas Cards out before the 25th.

(That is, if I stay up until 2am every night hereafter addressing the envelopes which will, I’m sure, make for some creative mistakes and more blog posts crafted entirely out of run-on sentences.)

And, as I did last year, I ordered enough cards to exchange actual, IRL, physical mail with you. It was a delight to receive all of your cards and letters and get to see your families for a change, and I would be honored to have that privilege again. So, if we didn’t exchange addresses last year or if you’ve moved since then, please email me your address at graspingforobjectivity@gmail.com, and we’ll trade.

And in the meantime, while I’m anxiously waiting by the door for my Christmas Cards to deliver, here are a few of our family photos, shot by the legendary Brian T. Murphy, who took time off from his fantastically glamorous life of playing piano for The Lone Bellow in Carnegie Hall and on The Tonight Show to snap a few pictures of us.

We met at one of my favorite city vistas, but it was coated in a thick layer of fog, making it both great and challenging lighting for photos.

Somehow, despite the fact that he is completely camera-adverse, I managed to prep Noah appropriately to actually look at the camera and smile.

This might also have to do with a bribery offer of Sour Patch Kids, but I’m not ashamed of it. At all.

It was mushy out from an earlier rain, so Ali managed to muddy her knees before the first photo was snapped, the humidity made my carefully curled hair straighten instantaneously, and Noah seriously enjoyed pulling on my dress the entire time. So we’ll chalk all of that up to “real life photos.”

We let Noah bring only one car along (he usually has at least four in his hands at all times), and he chose “London Bus” (which formerly answered to the name “Duggle Decker Bus”) that an overseas blog reader sent him. So see? My kids love y’all as much as I do.

The wind miraculously left Ali’s hair alone, but turned Noah’s into a Boy Band swoop (which, if you’re from around here, is called “Bama Bangs.” So apparently he has a future in a University of Alabama Fraternity (let’s hope not.))

But he definitely has a future in charming behavior.

Ali and I got our picture taken together just to silence all of the people who say she looks just like me. What are they thinking??

Okay maybe they’re right.

And even though we know that all our friends and family really only care about pictures of the children, Chris and I seized the opportunity to get a few photos of just us.

And better yet, no children fell off the side of a cliff during the capturing of the above photos.

So. If I haven’t bored you enough with family photos and you’d still like to exchange actual Christmas cards, email me. It may be the very last card you get this year (especially if you’re not in the US), but it WILL get done.

Because, determination.

A Series of Unfortunate Events.

December 10, 2013December 9, 2013 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Boy Child = Bizarre., Just My Luck, Toddlers: The Experience

He’s stinking cute.

But he thinks too much.

And also?

He’s a toddler.

And toddlers break things.

He’s actually always been a rather careful kid, though – bred from the highest of OCD stock, he had no choice in the matter. He carefully closes every door, turns out every light, sorts his toy boxes when a Lego is accidentally placed in the train basket, and straightens things when I don’t put them back just so.

(Seriously. He has issues.)

But recently, he accidentally broke a couple of things.

“Hey Mommy – look what I bwoke.”

It wasn’t entirely his fault – we put up our Christmas tree – our Christmas tree overflowing with fun, colorful, toy-masquerading Hallmark ornaments.

(I do love my Grandmother dearly and – is she reading? Somebody check and make sure she still hasn’t discovered the internet. Okay – no. She hasn’t. I do love my Grandmother and her adoration for Christmas, which she celebrates by giving us approximately two dozen Hallmark ornaments every year. And since I have all of my childhood ornaments as well, I can safely estimate that we have a collection of 636 Hallmark Ornaments. Or more. And all of these ornaments look like toys but do not act like toys when touched. All that to say, I think that my sweet, innocent-acting Grandmother is slightly sadistic and is getting her revenge (in a very festive manner) for something I did as a child. I just don’t know what.)

Anyway.

Our tree is FULL of planes and cars and Maters and Lightnings and Thomases and Light Sabers that all look fantastically enjoyable to an almost three-year-old boy.

Not to mention the dozen NOAH’S arks. How could those not be meant for him?

But the minute he drops them, they fall apart without hesitation.

“They’re not toys,” the Hallmark artists defend themselves.

Seriously. Hallmark Artists must be forced to live in a festively decorated HOLE if they think that kids won’t assume that a Hot Wheels-shaped ornament isn’t a toy.

(I bet there’s a greeting card for people who are forced to live in a festively decorated hole. And I bet I know who makes it.)

Anyway. So the droppings.

Which caused a rash of breakings.

Being that I am against overreactions to accidents, I treated Noah and the ornaments with care, reminding him that the ornaments must be treated gently, and creating a “break pile.”

Finally, something broke that effected me in such a deep manner as to urge me forward to walk the grueling fifteen steps to my office and search for the super glue.

Noah watched wondrously as I magically repaired ornament after ornament, and even breathed new life into his beloved police car plate that had gathered an inch of dust since it become disrepaired some months ago.

I was on a roll, so I did a search and rescue. And with joy in his heart, Noah embraced the newly invigorated playthings that had been creating sad toy-drifts throughout the house for months.

However.

For the remainder of that day, he somehow managed to return to me tenfold my blessings – in new breakages.

“Mommy! Look what I bwoke!”

“Look what I bwoke dis time!”

It’s not as if I just let this go on without education – each time he broke something, I would have another chat with him about being careful, taking care of his toys, and that if he broke them all, he’d have nothing to play with.

“I bwoke dis and dis! And dis!”

By the end of the day, breakages were happening at a rate of two announcements per ten seconds.

Perhaps because I was distracted with life and toy repairs or perhaps because I give my son too much credit, I didn’t put the pieces together.

(No pun intended.)

In fact, it wasn’t until after he went to bed and I was bemoaning my day to Chris that he switched that lightbulb on for me.

“Do you think it was because he saw you fix a toy? Maybe he thought it was cool.”

OF COURSE!

When one witnesses a fairy using fairy dust to fly, they’re absolutely going to find excuses to need to fly as soon as possible.

Noah was simply and quite generously offering me many opportunities to spread my wings of magic.

How did I miss it?

The next morning, he bounded out of bed and attacked the day.

No, literally.

He wasted no time in “removing” the wheels off of a Hallmark Air Mater – in such a manner that any Forensic Mother Detective could clearly see that it was a purposeful act – no way it was caused by an accidental drop or rough play.

“Mommy! Dey bwoke!”

And after a much more stern conversation and perhaps some consequences, I told him,

“Sorry kid. He can’t be fixed.”

“But – your gwue! Fix him!”

“Nope. Nothing’s getting fixed anymore.”

And that was the end of that.

…For this week.

Until he thinks too hard again.

Epilogue: Nothing else has been broken since. But being that I am possessor of half the OCD genetics that beleaguers my son, I couldn’t leave Mater unfixed. After all, I did have the glue out. I just placed Mater as high on that tree as possible – hopefully keeping him safe for the rest of the season. But probably not.