Bragging, Lice, and Taylor Swift

I'm doing something sort of exciting next week.

Well, okay. It's really exciting- so exciting that despite the fact that I knew better, I totally bragged about it to a friend on Twitter in the process of telling her why I was going to be in New York City next week and therefore could not get together for a playdate.

"I'm walking a catwalk and Kelly Ripa is hosting the show," I wrote to her happily. "SERIOUSLY."

"Perfect!!!" she wrote back. "You better post photos of your catwalk!"

That's my friend for you. So nice. So supportive. So you can imagine how I felt when I found out just a few hours later from someone ELSE that this same friend had just appeared in Taylor Swift's new video. You know, the one that premiered simultaneously on MTV, VH-1 and CMT last week? THAT ONE.

That meant she'd had an incredibly easy opportunity to counter my braggy DM (which, I believe, could appropriately called a 'BM' if anyone wants to help coin a new term for braggy DMs) by writing something like, "I can't make it either- Just got back from appearing in a video with my friend Tay-Tay! EXHAUSTED."

But she didn't.

Why?

Because SHE'S A BIGGER PERSON THAN THAT.

And I?

I am a braggart.

Why am I telling you all this? I really don't know. But after much soul searching about why I felt the need to brag on Twitter (at least I keep it to DMs, though, right?!), I managed to have an ENTIRE conversation with a new mom friend last night in which it came out that one song she wrote just won a MAJOR music award and another one is about to be featured in its entirety on one of the most popular prime time shoes on television.

Listening to her talk about all this, it was hard, so very hard for me not to squeak out,

"WellI'MgoingtobeinaFASHIONSHOWinNEWYORKnextweekandKELLYRIPAishostingit!!"

But somehow, through some miracle of God, I managed to keep my mouth shut. I may have had some painful fingernail indentations in the palms of my hands afterward, but I said nothing! Not a word! As far as my successful songwriting friend knows, I'll be doing ironing next week. And maybe baking a cake.

No! I don't need to brag to my friends. But I did need to brag to someone, and it didn't take me long to think of the perfect person to help me out...

My mother.

I mean, that's what moms are for, right? In fact, they may be the only people in the entire world who LOVE to hear us brag!

Plus, I knew that Mom would be particularly excited about my news because she loves Regis and Kelly and has watched it since before Kelly was a host.

"Kelly Ripa," she said admiringly after I'd told her the details. "Oh Lindsay. You know, just a few weeks ago, she said on the show that all of her kids had had lice!"

"Ooh, lice!" I said. "Everyone says it's the pits!"

"It is," my mom said. "And do you know what all this means?"

I paused for a moment. I had no idea what she was getting at. "What does it mean?" I asked finally.

"It means," my mom said, obviously trying her best to be patient with her thickheaded daughter, "that when you meet her you can say something funny like, 'Don't get too close, Kelly! I don't want to get lice!'"

I was silent for a moment.

"You know," I said, "I'm not sure that will go over so well."

And that explains why I've now taken to my website. I've got some serious excess braggage here and I've just got to get rid of it. Forget modesty. Forget acting like I do this sort of thing all the time.

NEW YORK! CATWALK! KELLY RIPA!!!

Whew. I feel so much better now.

Emmy Fashion Recap: The Best of the Worst, 2010

Always fashion-forward, Lauren Bosworth chose Emmy night to debut a hot new hairstyle called "The Rat's Nest."

I thought Mae West was dead. I was wrong.


And now we know who wants to play Mae in the Lifetime television movie.


Was Lauren Graham on the Emmy red carpet last night, or the set of Star Trek? You decide.

Reach into Lauren Sanchez's diaphragm and you'll find a toy surprise!

All that could be discerned about Kat Kramer's dress was that it began somewhere below her hairline and ended at the red carpet.

Dig that sex-ay, sex-ay gunshot wound!

Poor Eva La Rue was one of millions hit hard by the recession. The down-on-her-luck actress couldn't afford to pay for an entire dress.


Mindy Kaling had it even worse- The actress resorted to wearing her high school prom dress in an effort to pinch pennies.


Mindy also tried to save money by sharing a hairstylist with Naya Rivera.

Immediately following the Emmys, Feed the Children announced plans to overnight emergency rations to actress Nina Dobrev.

Just as this photo was taken, Anna Paquin realized with horror that her hemline was stuck in the waistband of her underwear.

Last night, Angela Kinsey gave millions of sour-faced, purse-lipped office snitches hope that they, too, could transform themselves into bombshell material.

The frumpy, flabby, mother-of four Heidi Klum earned many clucks of sympathy from her peers, after turning up in a drab sack of a dress that did nothing to help her lackluster figure.

There. I feel better now.

We all knew leaving Don Draper was a bad idea.

All images courtesy of Yahoo!

P.S. I NEED YOUR HELP! We're trying to help our 17-year-old learn to budget with the new Amex PASS card and well, it's not as easy as I'd hoped it would be. Any advice?

P.S. Today's your last day to enter my Kellogg's giveaway for a $100 VISA gift card. All you have to do is leave a comment- So what are you waiting for?!

I'm also giving one lucky reader two pairs of Dansko shoes of your choice- A pair for you and another pair for the special little girl in your life!

What Would You Have Done?

Yesterday was Punky's first swim lesson in about a year and she was very excited.

She has always been timid in the water, and when we enrolled her in swimming lessons last summer, she clearly wasn't ready to swim. She got to the point of being able to jump in the water and swim to the side, and she did very well swimming while wearing a training belt, so I was happy with her progress. We worked with her some this summer and I was convinced that one more round of swimming lessons would do the trick.

I was thrilled when we arrived at the class yesterday to find that Punky was one of only two girls enrolled. Her regular teacher was sick, so another teacher was filling in and she seemed very nice. She talked to the girls for a few minutes, then let Punky practice kicking down the length of the pool while she held Punky's hands. Punky was clearly very proud of herself, grinning over at me when she passed and smiling confidently at her teacher. I was smiling, too. This was a huge change from her first day of swim lessons last year, when she hardly even wanted to get in the water.

After the other girl had taken a turn, the teacher asked Punky to swim with her arms and legs, while she supported her under her stomach. Once again, Punky paddled confidently past, grinning over at me with obvious pride. The teacher circled back and then, about halfway across the pool, the unthinkable happened.

The teacher, without any warning, completely let go of my daughter and let her drop to the bottom of the pool.

It took only a few seconds for the teacher to reach down and retrieve her, but by the time she got Punky to the surface, my daughter was choking and gasping and coughing and clutching the teacher in a panic, and looking wildly about for me. Punky and I made eye contact and I saw an expression of terror on her face that I've only seen once or twice in her whole life, years ago. The teacher carried her back to the pool's ledge without looking at me and deposited Punky onto it. Punky coughed for a bit and ended up actually vomiting water on the side of the pool. She looked like a tiny drowned rat.

I forced myself to stay seated. I was sure that if I did what I wanted to do and went over and grabbed my child and took her out of there, Punky would never want to swim again. She stood coughing for several minutes, looking at me the whole time, and I smiled encouragingly and gave her the thumbs up sign. After a while, she gave me a thumbs up back. When the teacher finally made eye contact with me, I gave her a stern look and resisted the urge to draw one finger across my neck.

For the rest of the lesson, Punky was terrified. Completely terrified. After months of work, we were right back at square one. Halfway through the lesson, she ventured over to me. "Why did the teacher drop me?" she asked in a small voice.

"I don't know," I told her, "but she will never, ever do it again. I promise you." Punky went back into the pool and tried her very best to get through the lesson. But it was rough. Even doing an assisted back float, something she was good at, she lasted only a few seconds before clutching desperately at the instructor's neck, obviously afraid she was going to be dropped again.

"She's getting there," the instructor announced when they finally came out of the water.

"Did you drop her on purpose?" I asked, trying to stay calm.

"Yeah," she said, smiling.

"Well, she was terrified after that," I said. "She was on the verge of swimming alone when I brought her here. Now I feel like we've taken two steps back."

"Yeah, she was definitely more scared after that," the instructor said, still smiling like an idiot. "She started to warm up toward the end, though."

I didn't say anything else. I wanted to sleep on it. Afterward, I took the kids to McDonalds for Teacher's Night and I ran into several of my mom friends. When I mentioned what had happened, they were all shocked. They said that nothing like that had ever happened during their kids' swim lessons at the same place.

The more I think about it now, the more upset I get. Even an adult wouldn't want to be dunked in water without having a split second to hold her breath. Punky was right above the water level when she was dropped. She didn't have a moment to prepare. I know that at the time, I did what I thought was best and tried not to make a big deal of it in front of her. However, I can't help but feel like a bad mother for not raising holy hell about it right then and there.

Ugh. This mothering thing is tough.

I'm talking to the director of the program today and making sure that no lifeguard ever does that again, particularly in the preschool class (I enrolled her in the younger class because of her timidity in the water).

So I'm sorry, folks. No entertaining post today. I just needed to get your thoughts on this. I keep seeing my daughter's terrified face after she came out of the water. I feel like I really let her down.

Off the Sidelines at LAST!

After years of prayer, fasting, soul searching and supplication on the part of my soccer-obsessed husband, the stars finally aligned.

The unthinkable happened.

God heard our fervent prayers and presented us with...

A FERRIER BOY WHO WAS ON A REAL TEAM AND HAD A JERSEY WITH A NUMBER ON IT AND STUFF AND WAS ABOUT TO PLAY HIS FIRST GAME OF SOCCER.

So what if he was only three?

HE WAS GOING TO PLAY SOCCER, HE WAS. IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS. FATED. THIS BOY WOULD PLAY SOCCERFFFGGRRRR.!11!

There was only one problem.

It was really freaking hot outside. Hot enough to literally wilt a three-year-old on contact. I mean look at this poor, wilted boy.

I wanted to cry for him.

Instead, I sent him out onto the sun-scorched field, because we live in the south, where rowdy rough boys eat hot days like this for breakfast!

SOCCERRRRFFFFGGRRR!!11! WOOT.

After a few moments of total confusion getting his bearings, Bruiser gamely joined his team's starting line-up. People yelled at him, thinking he was facing the wrong way, but really he had developed a secret strategy of being ready in the event that the ball somehow ricocheted off one of the wobbly peanuts on the field and ended up behind the Burgundy Bobbleheads, at which point Bruiser would be the only one to see it, whereupon he would, with great fanfare, kick it safely back into scoring position.

That didn't actually happen. BUT IT TOTALLY COULD HAVE!!

What did happen was that for a few glorious minutes, our boy ran after the ball with an appropriate amount of enthusiasm on a hot hot hot day. And then fate intervened... and sweat began dripping into his eyes.

Time for a WATER BREAK!

It was not easy no problem convincing our fearless three-year-old to leave the shade and return to the blazing field. Miraculously Eagerly, he rejoined the small handful of other boys who had been conned into playing for a few more minutes, and proceeded to run about with the wild grace of a very short, stubby gazelle. Maybe he's got a little to learn when it comes to actually kicking the ball, but I will say this...

When it comes to throw-ins, the boy is a total genius.


He gets it from me.

Unfortunately, even geniuses get sweat in their eyes when it's freaking hot outside.

WATER BREAK!!

Bruiser is a stubborn one, and I worried that this was the end of the game for him. Plenty of other boys were in tears on the sidelines at this point, refusing to go back out on the field.


He surprised me.

Bruiser made it through all but the last couple of minutes of the game. At that point, I'm not sure how I figured it out, but I just had a sense that he was done.

Call it a mother's intuition.

Who cares whether the Burgundy Bobbleheads won or lost? (We lost.) What mattered was that my son displayed a tremendous amount of endurance in the face of adversity. I was so proud of him, I could have burst.

I was also proud of the fact that the bribery cost for this game was a mere $4. That's pretty good if you ask me....

'BRUISER'S FIRST GAME' MILESTONE...

COMPLETE.