We’ve had some issues with homework lately. Delays, stalls, kvetching, rinse and repeat.

Yesterday I came up with the brilliant idea of letting the kids watch “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on tape — but only after Wacky Girl had finished all of her homework. (Wacky Boy does not have homework until kindergarten, thank God.)

Ha! So this meant having her younger, pesky brother parked at the table with her, drawing self-portraits with markers (his “homework”) and asking her approximately every minute and a half, “Are you done with your homework yet?”

Hey, why should I be the only bad cop around here?

If you’re trying to remember the planet names, you’ll remember them if you can remember this:

My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

M: Mercury

V: Venus

E: Earth

M: Mars

J: Jupiter

S: Saturn

U: Uranus

N: Neptune

That’s it! Oh, and my friend P is very mad that Pluto is no longer a planet. He is mad at the scientists. Our teacher told us that they call Pluto a “dwarf planet” because it’s so small. P thinks that it should still be a planet. I think it’s OK.

WG

I can’t wait to get into bed with my husband at night. No, really. I cannot wait.

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Great article in this week’s New Yorker — “Little Hotties,” by Margaret Talbot — about the Bratz dolls phenom. Talbot describes them as having “…the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos.”

Oh. My God. Nailed it. And the toy industry folks have made up a new expression: K.G.O.Y. — Kids Getting Older Younger, “…and talk about it as though it were a fact of modern life over which they have no control, rather than one which they have largely created,” Talbot says. Bastard toy execs. My daughter — my son, too, but my daughter, especially — needs to stay a kid for as long as humanly possible. Let her be a kid. I didn’t get to be one for long and y’know — it was too bad. It was too bad that I looked like an 18-year-old at age 12. It was too bad that by age 13 or 14, grown men were trying to play grab-ass and grab-tit with me and asking me for my phone number. Make that, handing me their phone numbers because of, you know. My mother. (No father = wolves lurking. When I meet fatherless girls I want to bring them to my house so Hockey God can do some hockey slashing techniques on any predators that come around. We could call it Wacky Mommy’s Home for Fatherless Chicks.)

Writer Naomi Wolf, She Who Speaks For All Things Feminist, is quoted as saying “If I were betting on culture as a form of stocks, I would get out of Skinny Barbie and into multiethnic, imaginative Bratz dolls.” Oh. Please. “Imaginative”? The kids like them because they’re slutty. And slutty girls get the attention, you know. And the phone numbers. Barbie’s problem always has been that she’s not slutty enough. I mean, poor Ken. Barbie, the tease. Always so busy being a vet. Or a doctor.

Wacky Girl requested a Bratz set last Christmas that came with its own bar. Its. Own. Bar. What the hell happened to Barbie’s Dream House? Camper? Damn.

“No,” I said, “You do not need to play dolly bar.”

“It is not a ‘bar’ bar,” she patiently explained to me, her stupid, non-understanding mother, “It is a karaoke bar. Where they sing karaoke.”

Yeah, AND DRINK MOJITOS.

This Christmas she still wants a Bratz doll. And now, being depraved on accounta she’s deprived, make that IS DESPERATE FOR A BRATZ DOLL.

“You just think they’re hootchie-mamas, don’t you? Don’t you, Mom?”

“Maybe next time I see you I’ll have a little one strapped to my chest. I’m looking forward to it — I really need a vacation from work. I’m taking three weeks paternity leave.”

— dad to dad, overheard by WM at Sohbet Coffeehouse

FRIDAY ADVICE COLUMN, ON SUNDAY, FOR WACKY MOTHERS AND OTHERS

Dear Wacky Mommy,

Frantic

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Grey’s Anatomy, I love you so. Especially when I have insomnia and you, on tape.

Meredith: “Guilt never goes anywhere on its own. It brings its friends, doubt and insecurity.

McSteamy, to Callie, when her cell rings while they’re in bed: “That your boyfriend again?”
Callie: “I do not have a boyfriend.”
McSteamy: “Then why the guilty face?”
Callie: “You were sexier when you weren’t talking.”

A disclaimer: While I am a professional writer, I am professional in no other areas at all, medically, socially, academically or career-wise. Just ask the other PTA parents. Thus, this is not medical advice. Please check with your doctor or analyst if you need to.

If you have questions, please shoot me an e-mail. It’s not like I’m sleeping.

Love,
WM

Dear Wacky Mommy:

Signed,
Happy Mama

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Start with: One riotously fun outing to Chuck E Cheez for D’s birthday party. Both kids: “THAT WAS FUN! CHUCK E CHEEZ IS FUN! WHY DIDN’T YOU EVER TAKE US THERE BEFORE? YEAH, WHY MOM? CUZ CHUCK E CHEEZ IS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN. WHEN CAN WE GO BACK?”

Next day, combine: Pinkeye and runny nose in one Wacky Boy.

Following day, add:

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Let’s say you have a dad who is, eh, for the most part pretty nice. Takes you to ice skating lessons, teaches you to ride a two-wheeler, makes you chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. But he has this habit of saying, “Drink your milk. The whole glass. Drink all of it. All of it. Now. Do not pour it down the sink. I said don’t pour it down the sink. I can’t believe you just poured that down the sink after I told you not to.”

A solution?

How about you stand up at the breakfast table, pretend to pour the entire glass of milk in your ear, then douse the front of your nightgown, the chair and the rug with it. Problem solved! Now you’ve just got to clean up the mess.

“What were you thinking?” HG asks.

“I. Don’t. Knoooooooooooow!!!” she trills, jitterbugging around the house.

I (heart) Wacky Girl and her sheer, unbridled enthusiasm for life.

A request from Wacky Boy:

“I want you to blog about monster trucks. I want you to say that monster trucks can jump on cars. Also say ‘monster’ means ‘big’ and monster trucks are big. Monster trucks are in demolition derby. My favorite monster truck is my toy ones. The ones we bought at the store. My second favorite one is Bigfoot. The toy. My other favorite one is Bigfoot, the real truck. Some people like monster trucks.”