Category Archives: glamorous life

promping

Posted on by

Getting ready for Prom?

One does not simply primp.

No.

Absolutely not.

At least not if one lives here under the Big Top.

It all started while watching the Red Carpet before the Academy Awards.

Because great minds think alike, Jodie, Hollie and I all thought Reese Witherspoon’s classic, Hollywood glam style would be a perfect look for prom for Jodie. So from there we began to plan. Jodie was part of the prom planning committee for her school so of course we had to start to plan. I swear I never ever put any thought into my prom and having helped (just a little) with some of my girls’ proms, part of me feels like I might have missed out just a little. Then again I don’t think I could handle Mommy Dearest helping me plan at all. But to be fair, given that Hollie never went to prom herself, I imagine she couldn’t handle me helping either. But we do make a pretty good team helping her sisters in the past and present.

First, find the dress.

Hollie and I concluded that Jodie is like a hanger effortlessly wearing the smallest size off the rack of every single dress she tried on. These are just some of the dresses that she tried on. So many dresses! But she could only choose one.

Decisions…decisions…

Fallon proved to be no help being awestruck by her princess auntie every time she floated out of a dressing room wearing something shiny, glittery or sparkle-ly. But Jodie soon made her choice…the first dress she tried on.

At last the day had come! Time to start getting promped. Hollie was in charge of this.

She got this!

She’s totally got this!

Oh yeah! Jodie’s happy face was proof enough.

Ta-Dah!!! And on the arm of her handsome date, a friend whom she has known since the third grade she was all promped and ready.

Okay humor me now while I pause and then state, “Damn! I made some gorgeous babies!” I can say that because it is true. This one, this shiny, golden-haired child looks so much like my Mommy Dearest as a young lady, before kids, before me, before everything that stole her youth and her health that it takes my breath away.

I can’t believe that my youngest baby girl-child is all grown up, gorgeous and going to the prom!

Have fun my baby, my love, my heart, my joy!

her routine

Posted on by

Preparing for Hazel’s first dance competition was a bit of a struggle. Okay, fine! It was a big struggle. I mean have YOU ever put false eyelashes and rhinestones on a four year old?

There were tears. She quit. Her mommy reasoned, bargained, bribed to no avail. So Mima had to come in and have a come to Jesus talk with her…because I somehow knew what to say? Well, turns out I did because she agreed…very reluctantly…to let her mother finish the stage makeup and to dance at least that competition, that day. Of course she had fun and soon forgot how weird the eyelashes, eye makeup and rhinestones made her feel.

I told Hollie that it will get easier. At least she has one thing I never had…skill…so she won’t likely ever glue her little girl’s eyelashes shut.

AHEM!

And it was a little bit easier the second time around this weekend There were no tears, no quitting. Mommy didn’t have to reason, bargain or bribe. There were no come to Jesus talks with Mima either. Thank goodness! No this time while Mommy got her stage ready, Mima had to sit on the bathroom floor hold her hands and sing with her…the ABC song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…oh and Teenage Dream and That’s What Makes You Beautiful…as loud as we could.

Hey, you have your getting ready routine and Hazel has hers!

The acoustics in a hotel bathroom are amazing!

post-partum snark

Posted on by

Hurray for awards season! Time to let our clever snark fly on down the Red Carpet because who better to do that than those of us who cares (or doesn’t care) who wore who than us plain folk who likely will never, ever walk down a Red Carpet someday…

although I am counting on Jon Walkup getting nominated for an Academy Award and remembering that he promised me that I could come to cheer him on. Sure that honor should go to his mom, but I did ask…on Twitter no less.

But yes, the stars are walking the Red Carpet and we are calling them like we see them. I was cool with it until I saw on Facebook last night this photo of the lovely Claire Danes with the caption,

“Six weeks postpartum. Fuck you, Claire Danes. Fuck you.“

What followed was 326 comments of nothing but snark and post-partum haters hating new mother Claire Danes for being a skinny woman just six weeks after birthing her baby boy. Soon followed the arguments that it was easy for her with an army of nannies, doctors, nutritionists, cooks and personal trainers…an army of them…as well as the fact that she was breastfeeding and she is a skinny bitch anyway. Then the counter arguments joined in pointing out through proper diet and exercise before during and after pregnancy or good genes or (glob forbid!) hard work we too can return to our pre-pregnant body just six weeks after giving birth!

Um yeah!

Oh the mommy hate was hot! Of course the intent of the original poster was sarcasm and humor, very snarky humor, because we mommies love snarky humor (especially when it is not directed at us) but it very much back-fired and a whole lot of mommies did get their panties all up in a wad.

Surprised?

Really?

I would have loved to join in offering my own opinions. I’ve been pregnant a few times and have given birth a few times as well. I wanted to offer that although it didn’t take me six weeks to lose the pregnancy weight…because it took more than six weeks to put it on…I did bounce back.

Take that the haters who proclaimed that I was going to get fat after I happily announced each pregnancy!

And double take that for making the same declarations when my first born daughter announced her own pregnancies!

I almost offered that I did bounce back to my pre-pregnant self…but I didn’t…bounce back to my pre-pregnant self…because I WAS pregnant. How could my body possibly morph back into a body that never, ever was pregnant when I was pregnant? I did indeed regain my shape, albeit a little curvier, but no, I did not get fat…sorry. But I, just like EVERY SINGLE WOMAN WHO HAS EVER BEEN PREGNANT AND HAS GIVEN BIRTH, did not return to the woman I was physically, mentally or emotionally before I was pregnant. I was changed, as is every other woman…just as is beautiful, skinnier-than-me Claire Danes.

Hate her dress.

Wonder what was up with her hair.

But mothers let’s not hate on the other mothers…whether they have the imagined army of nannies, doctors, dieticians, cooks and personal trainers, or wear their size 3 before baby skinny jeans home from the hospital while they cradle their beautiful newborn in their skinny arms or find theirselves counting Weight Watchers Points and squeezing into spanx and lycra’d yoga pants six or twelve or fifteen years after they gave birth to their baby. We did something pretty phenomenal and amazing…

we are so crafty…

we made people…

and we have the gorgeous bodies…

skinny, fat, curvy, straight, muscular…

to prove it.

twas the week after Christmas

Posted on by

Just another week, then again not. I mean it WAS the week after Christmas.

A week to enjoy a good cup of coffee. And a week to get to know your new technology.

and leave your Mommy’s alone.

A week where we enjoyed visits from baby unicorns

listening to good music

and NOT propping our dirty shoes up on the sofa.

But it wasn’t all relaxing and playing around.

We had x-rays and an MRI…planned and routine with good news…good news we have waited ten years for. Lesson learned: don’t listen to know-it-all-assholes who presume to know you and your family and the decisions you make for your family’s health and well-being better than you do….ALL the assholes!

There was time to recover from anesthesia…for the MRI.

and bad colds…and bad hair days.

Unfortunately there isn’t much one can do about the bad hair days except just power on through.

Or you just laugh about them.

Yeah, definitely laugh.

Then get back to enjoying the holidays making plans to get with your friends.

and share a little bit of cheer

and sparkle as you prepare to say goodbye to 2012 and hello to the adventures that will be 2013.

This final week of Focus 52 prompt was what we all are up to this last week of 2012.

Happy New Year everyone!

and to figure out new technology.

all hail the queen of everything

Posted on by

Christmas Day morning I was crowned by Fallon because she decided that her Baby Cinderella didn’t really need a crown.

No, she did not.

Fallon’s Mima needed to wear the pretty crown because Fallon’s Mima is the Queen…the Queen of Everything. And so I was crowned, bedhead and all and I wore it proudly. I even took a selfie of the crown resting upon my queenly head.

I should have skipped the selfie because, oh dear glob, there seems to be gray hairs upon my head…

A LOT OF GRAY HAIRS!!!

To my darling daughter and hairdresser, Hollie Austa, I am counting more than ten…as in the less than ten individual hairs that you have come across during all the years that you have been doing my hair.

GAH!!!

I need to get in to my darling daughter’s stylist chair soon….and definitely avoid wearing crowns and taking pictures of the top of my head…definitely.