My almost 13-year-old daughter stands a good 4 inches taller than me now - no great feat, since I'm 4-11 on a good day, but still.

She got her hair trimmed this last weekend, finally agreeing that perhaps the Jan Brady wasn't the look she wanted, and ended up allowing our long suffering stylist to cut chin length layers that taper to the full length in the front. As we were leaving the salon, the stylist mentioned that she could use a straightener to get a smooth, polished look.

Now, I have a straightener. And I can only successfully straighten about 1/4 of my hair before I get bored or lazy or make the ends go crazy or burn myself. My daughter knows this. She's seen the fallout before. She's smelled the singed hair before. She's on to me.

When I ambushed her in the bathroom a few nights ago, wielding the straightener and wanting to show her how it worked, she cringed away from me.

I demonstrated on my own hair first. "Look, it gets all smooth and shiny, like Barbie Hair!" I told her.

She scoffed at me. "Like I want synthetic-looking plastic hair that smells burned, Mom."

I talked her into letting me try it. I did one or two small sections, and didn't scorch anything. The next section, I decided to show her how she could introduce a bit of wave by slowly rolling the straighter over as you make you way down the strand of hair.

Except, you know, I turned it the wrong way, and ended up giving her a nice crimp right at the level of her eyebrow. By the time I released the hair from my smoking hot torture device, she was hooting with laughter and mocking my skills.

We laughed for a good five minutes.

Posted by Jenny at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, I stayed up until midnight watching episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. I don't know why exactly, but there I was, watching bride after bride try on multi-thousand dollar dresses. Sticker shock aside, what struck me was the fact that these women would put on a dress away from the eyes of family and friends, smile, preen a bit, and then parade out onto the store's runway, where their assembled nearest and dearest proceeded to tear them down and make them feel unlovely in a dress that made them feel pretty moments before.

It was painful to watch. It made me so glad that I never shopped for a bridal dress (and that I never shop by committee.) Dress after dress, criticism after criticism, from mothers, sisters, friends, relatives, while the bride-to-be stands on a pillar, deflating and despairing of ever finding something that will please the crowd.

As with reality TV, there's always some backstory on these women designed to pull your heart strings or provoke a reaction of some sort. Mostly, I just felt anger and frustration.

Would I benefit stylistically from having others telling me "Oh honey, no." on a regular basis? Yes.
Would I benefit emotionally from being tough-loved into a kinder silhouette? No.

I don't know if I had such a visceral, negative reaction to the Bridal Smackdown show because of my own issues with the extra 60 pounds I'm carrying around with me, but I do know that although I can take constructive criticism about my appearance, I could never endure what those women were dealing with from people who were "just trying to help."

Like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, I just want everyone to tell me I'm gorgeous. Or say nothing. Save the constructive criticisms for people who are less likely to poison you for your trouble.

Posted by Jenny at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My oldest daughter spends a lot of time looking at herself in the mirror these days. Sometimes, she's primping and preening, but sometimes she stands there making funny faces at herself. She invites her siblings to join her at the mirror, and they all get in the act.

When I look at her, I see beauty, intelligence and humor spark across her features as she pouts and snarls into the glass. I wonder what she sees?

While watching a movie last night, my daughter identified herself with the ditzy afghan hound that gets beaned in the head and goes, ow, Frisbee! (at 49 seconds on the video)

She also sees a lot of herself in Katie, the, uh, charming yellow fluffball in the following:

I look at her and I see smart, pretty, funny, stubborn, talented and outgoing. And yet, she sees herself as the goofball in the scene. The socially awkward one. The ditz. She identifies with the quirky characters. She considers herself to be quiet.

At home, she's the outgoing alpha sibling. At school, her teachers call her shy, and tentative. With me, she's got either a thousand things to discuss or absolutely nothing to share.

I know what I see when I look at her, but I wonder. What does she see?

Posted by Jenny at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My son, he of the beige foods, has a love affair with pierogies. While I can't blame him, I had never actually eaten a pierogi until I was in my 20s, and thought they were the same thing as piroshky. Mmm. Piroshky.

Anyway, they've somehow become part of our breakfast menu around here, sauteed in butter for a crispy, crusty finish. I am telling myself it is no worse than toast or cereal for breakfast.

Also, milk mustaches FTW!

Posted by Jenny at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My son was off on one of his monologues about dinosaurs the other day, and he got slightly derailed by some pointed questions from my oldest daughter.

He's totally the acknowledged family expert on all things dinosaur, like, duh. So when my daughter started nit-picking his information sources, he got a bit peeved.

"Look, I have studied this, and I know I'm right and I'm so right I could teach a class on how right I am. I could found a whole dinosaur university. In your face!"

My husband seized on the whole "University of In Your Face" right away, and we had a good time for a minute, discussing possible ways you could work that into a conversation.

Oh, I graduated with honors from the University of IN YOUR FACE. Me? Oh, I had a double major - dinosaurs and IN YOUR FACE.

My oldest announced that the rival school was Your Mama University. Of course it is.

Look how lucky I am. My kids want to name their Sarcastic University in honor of my stellar parenting. IN YOUR FACE.

Posted by Jenny at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chai always seemed to me to be blatantly extra in my world of beverage choices. I already had coffee and tea - why some weird hybrid beverage? I've blissfully bumped along with my Chai-free worldview intact, until I bought a canister of powdered Chai from Trader Joes on a whim on New Year's Eve.

Oh. Now I know why people drink this stuff. And while I'm sure that this Trader Joe's Chai is like the International Flavored Coffees in a tin that were my introduction to exotic coffee beverages (for which I still have a soft spot) in that it is laden with artificial crap, and totally not "real" chai, it's good.

Also, I'm wired now.

Posted by Jenny at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ice Skating!

IKEA!

These photos brought to you by the letter I, and also by meatballs. And snowballs.

Posted by Jenny at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)