Hot Dogs and Lemonade

I have learned alot as a mother... one of the greatest things that I have learned is that whenever I get an opportunity to play to my strengths, to go for it and hold nothing back. Because baby! I got me some serious weaknesses and I get to showcase those bad boys on a daily basis; patience, multi-tasking, house keeping, temper, time management, cooking mmmm... I get giddy as the list goes on.

One of my strengths is a decided want of dignity... I promise, that can be a strength! As in I am fairly unafraid to make an ass of myself if it will get me where I want to go. And my willingness to look like a dip is actually quite necessary, because I am a dip and therefore... well, y'all can do the math on that one.

In High School I had a friend who had an abnormally high threshold of pain. If say, he crashed into you during phys-ed going for the same kickball pop fly he was probably going full bore because for him to slam into a wall or bash into the bleachers or knock the spinal column out of your body was nothing... he paid no price. Sure he knew it would hurt you, and so he tried to keep track of other folks, do a little damage control. He was also black and blue alot. I think I'm like this guy only with the high embarrassment threshold thingy. Public speaking, performing and singing in front of other folks with only a passing voice and ok pitch?... well that takes a pretty high embarrassment threshold. Got me one of those.

The normal things do embarrass me... you know social stuff and real life stuff. But when it comes to getting up in front of a few hundred people and laying down an "Elephant Rap" complete with lifelike rendition of a bull elephant's trumpeting and my buddy blowing beat box on the other microphone? I say bring it ON! It's not really that I am a better storyteller than most folks, it's that I am willing to do it and do it loudly and with as much panache as I can swing.

Yup, I've got a slew of passable accents and puppet personalities. Mime? Ha! Did that too. I make up stupid words to songs the same as the next mom... you KNOW you do! You sing about...
"stinker pants pooty pants,
do a little nasty dance."
or
"New pants new pants
how-do-you-do pants.
New pants, new pant for your bum
New pants, who pants?
whoopedy-doo pant,
new pants oooo pants!
rum-pum-pum!"

You just don't often post in your blog the lyrics to the amazingly banal songs you sing, for all of Internetdom to read and marvel at your lack of personal dignity.

and when your kids want to hear the "hot dog song" before they go to bed and you have absolutely NO freaking idea what they are talking about then you sing
"...hot DOOOooooogs and lemonade!
popcorn my teacher made,
and then we ate some cake.
Hot dogs and lemonade!"
over and over again, to virtually no tune at all. I am the Queen of whatever it takes...



This is the cake we made a few days ago...and then LaLa get's her solo in "Hot gog a lem-uh-lay, hot gog a lem-uh-lay!"

I'm raising some freaky Chaos Girls and I don't even care... much. I mean, I know they'll take some crap from other kids growing up... and I'm sure that I'll humiliate and horrify them when they are teenagers, but won't those things happen to varying degrees anyway? The only difference between the way that I will horrify my kids and Polly-go-Sweetly horrifies her kids is that my girls will be somewhat justified. Because I will be that parent who breaks into song walking through the grocery store... that behavior didn't genesis with my babies and won't spontaneously end with their childhoods.

It's good to be the Mama!