It's a Major Award!

Do you all read Rachel at A Reservation for Six? You really should. She's funny, honest, and clearly an excellent judge of fine writing. So fine in fact that she's bestowed on me...an award:



It's actually called The Premios Dardo and is "given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing... created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web". Pretty impressive, huh? Rachel nicknamed it the Smoking Typewriter Award. So that is what I too shall call it.


Rule One of accepting this prestigious award call for me to put my name in a Google image search and share the results. Much like Rachel, the search results were unfit for publication on my blog (we're a family show). Rather, I am copying Rachel by Googling the words "Unfortunately Christine" and supplying the first ten results:


1. Unfortunately Christine's go-go boots are out of camera range. (Damn straight baby, Christine rocks the (Uggs) go-go boots!)

2. Unfortunately, Christine's case was quite severe and she had only a fraction of the normal length of small intestine. (Um, eww. Sorry, real Christine.)

3. Unfortunately, Christine was not Babe in the sequel, "Babe: Pig in the City," for "personal reasons." (Wait a minute. Am I the pig in this scenario??)

4. Unfortunately Christine’s story was no exception to the rule. (The first rule that came to mind was 'no good deed goes unpunished'. Awesome. Next!)

5. Unfortunately, Christine just so happened to have a voice that was stunning and mesmerizing. (You know how both of these words have more than one meaning? My singing would be the other meaning of stunning and mesmerizing.)

6. Unfortunately, Christine has retired from skating for a variety of reasons. (No sense of balance or skating talent being chief among them.)

7. Unfortunately, Christine doesn't mesh with the Stepford moms, and an awkward situation gets worse. (This could happen. This Christine doesn't do well with The Muffia).

8. Unfortunately Christine, I do not have room down here in Hell because I'm trying to save plenty of space for the gays. (The actual author was being facetious. Please don't send me hate mail.)

9. Unfortunately, Christine is ready for him and pulls a blaster on Power, who is without his Power Suit. (I'm working on my own super hero name. Andy suggested Neurotica.)

10. Unfortunately Christine has filled it with the same dribble she puts here. (Shouldn't it be drivel? Anything filled with dribble sounds quite disgusting. Either way, it seems like a proper ending to Part One.)

Rule Two of award acceptance calls for me to pass the award along to 10 worthy bloggers who (I pick because I like them) also exemplify the spirit of the Premios Dardo. And so I present The Smoking Typewriter award to 10 women that I don't think of merely as bloggers, I think of them as friends.

Julie at LLOL (Literally Laughing Out Loud) for sharing her wit, wisdom, and perseverance in raising boys.

Kate (k8) at The Big Piece of Cake makes me laugh out loud. One of the many reasons I'd move to DC.

Stacey at Is There Any Mommy Out There? makes me think and makes me laugh.


Sue at My Party of Six should definitely meet Rachel. I think they would be friends.

Natasha the Exile on Mom Street. I think Natasha is one of the prettiest names there is. I love sharing her road well-traveled.

Rachel at Diary of a Mad, Mad Housewife. My fellow Masshole, full of sarcastic wit and funny observations.

Sarah at In the Trenches of Mommyhood. Tales of her boyz keep me laughing and make me want to travel out to the 495 belt for a glass of wine with my bloggy friend.

Jean in Stimeyland truly shares with us the ridiculous and the sublime. I am so buying Jean a drink in Chicago.

Always, my friend Katherine at Where's My Cape who presented me with my first award and with whom I'm bunking at BlogHer (even though she says she snores).

And lastly, to Jennifer on her Thursday Drive, who actually spends as much time on Facebook as I do. She makes me long to be a better writer.

Cheers, my friends!

The Potty Whisperer - A Fable

You know how our brains forget the pain of childbirth as a way of ensuring the propagation of the species? There are some other things that our brains hide from us because if we remembered the trauma, we'd never willingly go through it again. For me, it's potty training. I suck at it. It's been two weeks and one day and as I look at RC dancing around in yet another pair of Diego big boy underwear, I think it might be okay to talk about without fear of breaking the spell.


Two Thursdays ago, as I was stepping into the shower HRH screeched upstairs at his most ear-splitting decibel that RC had just peed on the living room rug. Same shit, different day or something like that. I stood in the shower trying to calm down, taking deep yogic breaths, and reviewing my options.

I could-. Tried. Failed.

Maybe if-. Tried. Failed.

What about-? Tried. Failed.

Post shower and no more prepared to deal, I went into RC's room and grabbed two pair of 'big boy underwear' from his drawer. I stomped into the living room (avoiding the pee spot) and held up both pair. "Is it going to be Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Speed Racer?" Huh? "Because I'm throwing all your diapers away. We. are. done."

I then proceeded to take every diaper in the house and toss it in the trash. I wasn't enthusiastic, I wasn't encouraging, I didn't begin to address the rug incident. And I would brook no argument. I resigned myself to never entering a bathroom alone until we were done, packed up seven or eight changes of clothes, and left the house. The boy went about six hours without peeing before finally giving in - in the potty.

Initially, I thought my timing was way off. We were leaving the next day for Storyland. But wait! Daddy would be along for this ride. And so it was, like so many other projects in our marriage, I started the ball rolling and my husband, God bless him, carried it through to completion! He nagged, he cajoled, he sat on the lip of the bathtub and read endless books and offered encouragement. And in the end, my boy was trained! He got his bike last Saturday.

My husband, The Potty Whisperer.

The S-JAMM Awards

Well, Joan Rivers has crawled back into her coffin, E! is ripping apart Gwyneth Paltrow's latest disaster, and everyone's still wondering how Cameron Diaz manages to get her perfectly toned ass invited to these shin-digs.

Welcome to the Innagural Every-So-Often S-JAMM Awards. Here is your host, two-time winner of People's Sexiest Man Alive Award, George Clooney!

George: Welcome, folks! (charming, witty monologue ensues) MM, you look positively ravishing. See you later in The Green Room?

MM: ...I...um...ahhhh... (drools into the decolletage of her Carolina Herrera gown - luckily, Renee Zellweger has a spare)

George: Well, we've only just begun and the show's already run 2 hours over, so let's hand out some awards!



First up, in the category of animation, please welcome Jessie from Toy Story 2. She's presenting The You Make Me Smile Award, given to Manic Mommy last February by the colorful and flavorful KC, star of Where's My Cape.

And the winner is...Holly at June Cleaver Nirvana for her recurring role in Holly's Animated Life.

Excerpts from her acceptance speech include "maybe I can put it beside the fruit bowl."

It was a real coup for Manic Mommy to get Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson to present this next award right on the heals of their Nipplegate exoneration. Ladies and gentlemen, The Blog Buddies Award, previously presented to Manic Mommy by the lovely and lusty JCK of Motherscribe.

Justin and Janet happily pin this award to the chest of that Swanky Mama, Denise at Real. Life. Ramblings. Oh, there seems to be a delay; Denise stops three times on her way up to the stage to change shoes.


Next up, please welcome Nicole Kidman, 45 minutes postpartum wearing a size negative 2 (she's already lost all 1.3 pounds of baby weight through an all flax seed and pomegranate diet). In another S-JAMM first, The Five Blogs That Make My Day Award is a tie! And all five winners are The New Girl!

She was long considered the front-runner in this category. But the edgy/modern/informative/unique brand of humor exemplified in her blog has managed to stun even Vegas' most knowledgeable odds-makers!

Manic Mommy had previously won this award given by none other than JCK at Motherscribe.

What a night for The New Girl, The Man, and of course, everyone's favorite TLNG!


Our next award defies requires no introduction. This is largely due to the fact that none of it's recipients thus far is fluent enough in Spanish to accurately translate its full meaning. Of course ladies and gentlemen we speak of none other than The Arte y Pico Award. presented to Manic Mommy by LA's fastest rising star and spokesmodel for Best Buy, Fran from Merlot Mom.
Here to present the award are Salma Hayak and Penelope Cruz. Uh, because they speak Spanish. And they're gorgeous.

And the award goes to Georgia Getz, best known to Manic Mommy's husband as Bossy! And the Kodak Theatre erupts in thunderous applause as Bossy arrives in her very own Saturn Vue.

It had been widely speculated that Ms. Getz would send a young Native American girl in her place to decline the award. But to the delight of S-JAMMers everywhere, she is here tonight! Bossy, please get your brilliant son to translate. Or at least put on a tux for us to leer at!


And at long last, we arrive at tonight's final award.

I just thought of In keeping with the long-standing tradition at the S-JAMMs assigning presenters based on their close (working) relationship with the winner, here to hand out the You Make My Day Award, we are hot, sweating, pleased to introduce Viggo Mortensen to give a not-so-little sumthin' sumthin' to JCK for her performance in Motherscribe.

In a near repeat of the 46th Academy Awards streaking incident, Jennifer begins her walk to the podium naked but for a pair of her signature fishnets to launch herself at accept her award. Viggo meets her halfway and the two are quickly ushered off stage by Rumer Willis.

George Clooney (throws an arm over the back of a Green Room couch as he straightens his tie to cover lipstick marks from his previously crisp white collar and unbuttoned shirt): Well folks, I hope you all had as good a time tonight as I did. God give me the stamina to do this again!

Manic Mommy: And again...good night everybody!

We Can't Have Nice Thingz - The (letter between R and T) Edition

Five Weekz. I don't know what I'm complaining about. I mean, my lovely, lovely laptop waz whole and complete with all 26 letter keyz pluzz all thoze otherz for a whole five weekz.


Now we have thiz:
And, following my attemptz at repair, we have thiz:



(Iz it juzt me or doez four piecez for a button the zize of my ring finger pad zeem a little excezzive?)





Damn you, June Cleaver Nirvana and your damn Pot Luck! If I weren't on your zite, RC might have actually recieved my attention and not climbed onto my lap to flick the (letter between R and T) right off my keyboard!

What waz that? You were zerving me up an AWARD when thiz occurred?



Um. Never mind. I'm delighted! You make my day everyday! Ezpecially thoze witty and wonderful pot luckz!

I'll Show You Mine if You'll Show Me Yours

I was over at June Cleaver Nirvana's place this morning, drinking a cup of tea when I noticed her very impressive Blog Reading Level widget sitting there on her sidebar, which graded her blog as not just college level but postgrad.

(It should be noted that in order to even get this graphic on my site, I had to save the .jpg from Holly's site.)



So being the super-duper competitive mommy blogger-cum-writer that I am, I clicked right over to this site to [validate myself] have some harmless fun. Or not. The site graded my blog as this:


Clearly there was something horribly flawed with this test. And I set out to prove it by plugging in the URLs of some of my best, brightest, and most erudite bloggy friends. Here's a sampling:

My friend, Jenn at Juggling Life, who in reality is a full-time (college) student, achieved this grade level:


Hmm. Starting to feel a little better about myself but let's continue with the test. Next, I plugged in the always eloquent JCK at Motherscribe. Her results?


Where are we in the land of No Child Left Behind?
Is George Bush administering this test?








One final chance to disprove my hypothesis. I'm pulling out the big guns, the queen, The Boss(y) :


Results: Flawed test. Bell curve blown all to hell by overachievers (must be the animation).

Still don't believe me? How 'bout this one boys and girls? http://www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html. Yeah. Him. His score:

At least we're in good company...

You Make Me Smile

I'm not sure you'll be able to hear me over my new AWARD:





That's right, baby. That topaz and emerald beauty up there (and permanently located over there to your right) is my new bling. It is my very first award presented to me by my new best friend, KC at where's my cape?, wife, mother of two (one very recent), doctor, blogger, and all-around excellent judge of character.

She is someone who most definitely makes me smile. Read this and you will not only smile, you will laugh. out. loud. If you get my sense of humor.

Which KC does.