He sees you when you're sleeping he knows when you're awake...is it your friendly neighborhood stalker??...noooooo it's Santa!  But he sure sounds scary!  I was helping my friend Lea potty train 3 year old Gwen, yesterday and I got her (the baby not my friend) to sit on the potty with the promise of toys from Santa if she made pee pee for me.  I was desperate, can you tell?  Lea is really anxious for baby Gwen to be potty trained because Lea has to return to work.  Gwen will be going to day care while dad re-trains.  Another victim of the recession, Lea's husband was let go from his job last week.  So, not only is this recession depressing the crap out of people it's forcing toddlers to make ones on potties too!!  Darn it!  "Job Training and Potty Training Go Hand In Hand"  You'll never see that headline in Newsweek.  So, there she was (the baby not my friend) sitting on the potty playing with her toys....but with no toiletting success.

No kidding....my 6 year old suffers....or rather her clothes do....from under arm odor.  This just started.  I was always told that young children don't have this problem because their sweat glands are not fully developed.  However, in this house that is not exactly the case.  Is this common??  Do you have any children under 10 that require deodorant?  I'm not about to put any chemicals on her young skin so I purchased one of those crystal natural ones and it's helped a great deal. It has no odor so there's no obvious scent of perfume to draw attention...and those lovely onions are gone.  Whew!!  After a day of school, gym class and then after school gymnastics she was really ripe.  She eats organic food, drinks organic milk and wears (mostly) natural fibers so it can't be that.....maybe she's just developing early.  Good lord.  What next?!....and I thought the success of Sarah Palin's book tour was the shocker of the week.

  Tonight, it's Friday and for the first time in a long time, this Funny Mom comedian doesn't have a gig!!  Yes, for a change I'm going to be home and I'm sooooo loving it.  So tonight, we've made a plan to do pizza and bowling with our 6 year old.  She's bringing her friend Madison along so it should be fun.  I know, Madison, not a fan of the name either but the kid is great.  I also don't like the name Brooklyn...I'm like really?? which neighborhood??  What's next, here's my daughter Park Avenue??  Our son Murray Hill??  Which is just an expression people there are no hills in Manhattan so get rid of all those SUVs for gods sake!  Any rate, bowling is cheap (and I have a coupon...so sexy) so it should be a fun night.  My husband can kick back and enjoy a beer.....or as our daughter refers to it....daddy soda.  We're in a recession and he just started his new part time job (there are no full time ones available yet....hello, can you say lagging economy??), so bowling with a coupon will just have to do.  No wonder Netflix stock keeps going up.  Don't our lives sound glamorous?  Just like a TV show?.....yeah Roseanne.  But it'll be fun.  As long as we're together we'll have a good time.  What inexpensive activities are you enjoying with your family these days??

Not to sound like Kate Gosselin with all her self-interviewing last week, "Could I have been nicer to John...yes."  ("Am I annoying....yes.")  But yes, honestly, my daughter's after-school schedule is jam packed with activities.  However, if you read my blog last Friday, you can understand why....there's no one to bloody play with out here!!  Like I said last week, once the kids in this neighborhood get off that bus you never see a living soul again (and play dates seem also to be an impossibility).  I call them the phantom children.  Therefore, we need activities every day to keep Lily occupied.  Luckily, she doesn't come home until 3:35 so there's not too much time to fill before dinner.  One of my neighbors with college aged kids read last week's post and was surprised at how many activities Lily participates in: horse riding; girl scouts; soccer; gymnastics; lacrosse; twirling; etc....and I signed us up for a time management class as well but we ran out of time.

  Playdates these days seem harder and harder to come by.....specifically in the suburbs.  You know, when we lived in Brooklyn, getting together with other children was much easier.  We just used to meet in the playground after school.  Easy enough.  You got to meet the other kids and their parents (good or bad) in a matter of minutes and from there it was on to the greener pastures of individual play dates....or you could just put them on your personal 'do not call list' or click your imaginary 'ignore' button on your face-to-face book.  I really miss that ease of socialization that one gets in an urban environment....it's one of the few things I do miss....the noise, the crowds, the perpetual freak show aspect of New York City, being hit on by the homeless and the constant dog poop under my shoes I do not.  

  Halloween has really become like another holiday in our culture.  This year, with it falling on a Saturday, the madness was really ramped up another notch.  Lily and her cousins trick-or-treated for hours.  The day culminated in a rousing Halloween pizza party complete with 10 screaming, costumed kids.  Here's a picture of Lily as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, her cousin as Raggedy Ann and her other cousin as the Naked Cowboy (from Times Square Fame - he's always an original this kid, no psuedo-edgy Harry Potter stuff for this munchkin).  Don't worry, he was wearing a full body stocking with long underwear underneath.....but with all that sugar coarsing through his veins he couldn't feel a thing anyway.

Lily, our First Grader, had her first assembly of the school year Wednesday.  Sounds harmless right??....apparently not any more.....scary music.....dum dum dummmm.  An official note from the school prinicipal came home in her backpack yesterday warning us that due to the potential dangers of the H1N1 Virus that Wednesday's all school assembly will be the first and the last one of the year due to potential cross-contamination of possibly, allegedly (imagine Law and Order sound track) infected students.  And the Halloween Parade is cancelled too.....and that's outside!!!  No more in school recitals either.  No Holiday Pageant in school the day before Winter Recess and no Pilgrims Parade either.  Do they really believe that keeping the different grades separate will help curb exposure to these viruses??  What about all the different grades riding the bus together in the morning, or the lunch room, or when they cross in the hallways??  Flu segregation sounds like an impossible notion and something out of the middle ages to me.  Doesn't this all sound a little drastic to you?  It's not just me right?!  Can I get a witness??

Lily and her friend Courtney are so excited about Halloween this Saturday (please don't rain) that they donned Lily's old costumes today.  You should have seen them on the trampoline....a mouse and a dragon bouncing about.  Too funny.  It was like Halloween minus the candy...a total sugar high. 

Here's a picture of Lily playing with her cousin Patrick.  Lily enjoys spending time with her cousin but she definitely has a healthy fear of him and it's well earned.  As one can tell from this photo, he likes to play rough.  So does she but boys, even at the age of 7 I find, are already exponentially stronger than girls.  No wonder why girls take Karate!  He likes to give her bear hugs and squeeze her neck (see Exhibit A).  His, is a love that kills.  However, she is about 2 inches taller than him already so he better watch out.  Pay back can be a beyotch my dear nephew.....as we found last weekend.....

  Need a time out from the kids and a few laughs, bring yourself and your girlfriends to see Mama's Night Out at the Hannaford Auditorium, Abromson Center, Portland, Maine on Friday, November 6th at 8:00pm.  Not only will you have a great time but you'll feel even better knowing your ticket purchase goes to support the Cancer Community Center of Maine.  We've been selling out theatres all over the country and we intend to do the same in Maine for the Cancer Community Center.  Look forward to seeing you there!!  The mamas of Mama's Night Out are my fellow momtourage....bring yours and introduce us to them.