Sunday, December 29, 2019

Homemade Wrapping Paper 2019






Homemade Wrapping Paper:
Does it redeem mediocre gifts?

Perhaps not this year, but I remain optimistic about the future.

This year I drew the kids wrestling with their heads replaced by animals. 

Why? You may ask. 
Because last year I drew zombie Santa, sharks, and animals wearing reindeer menorah hats....so those topics were already done.

I usually try to not leave too much time to make wrapping paper because then I fuss over it too much, which does not improve it, and is perhaps inappropriate for something that is meant to be crumpled and removed.

But this year I did not have time to make enough and things were unwrapped...and the paper I did make was not exactly up to the already very low wrapping paper standards....

But.....there’s always next year, right?

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Santa Yoda


Merry Christmas 2019

I promised Baby Yoda wearing a ugly Hanukkah sweater this week, but Christmas was today, and we still have a few more days of Hanukkah to work with.

Friday, December 20, 2019

Happy Ugly Christmas Sweater Day


The Season To Be Jolly ‘Tis 
And apparently nothing cannot be improved by Baby Yoda

Next week: ‘The Child” wearing unattractive Hanukkah sweaters? 

Friday, December 6, 2019

Faux Furries in December


Some Faux Fur is More Faux Than Others:

It’s Faux Fur Friday
(The first Friday in December, according to the National Day Calendar)

I was thinking that we should have a napkin about upcoming December movies...the latest and much anticipate Star Wars saga finale is looming.... And then there is “Cats.” On the way to school in the morning, we squint in the glow of giant screens in the Union Square subway station,  playing clips from the Cats trailer.

When I suggested a furry team up of a Star Wars character and a Cats character, our younger son warned me that we would surely lose a lot of followers on Instagram.

That sounded like a challenge to me.

I picked Ian McKellen’s character, Gus, “the theater cat,” because Mr. McKellen has appeared in other movies the kids have seen. And his cat personage was perhaps not quite as disturbing as some of the others.

I always though Chewbacca’s lips were troubling.

But in this context, maybe not so much. 

(And, National “Kiss a Wookiee Day” is June 15th)

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Ok Boomer Baby Heads


“Ok Boomer”

I have to admit that in my basic boomerishness, I did not initially understand the intense appeal of this phrase for my kids. 

They enjoyed using it on one another. And of course it can be gleefully applied to any older person (parent) who might be trying to tell you something useful or offering any implied criticism. 
It is a verbal eye roll...an offhand dismissal of age and authority.

Of course our kids have been dismissive since toddlerhood. Arguably, even since infancy. 
I am not sure how we managed to produce such bizarrely empowered  small people. 

(Though I do have my theories about the difficulties of parenting without fear or the threat of physical pain in the toolkit....and then there’s the genetics of it. My husband and I used to often joke about where on the chromosome was the default no setting?) 

When both kids were quite young, strangers and educators often remarked on each one’s abilities to say no to adults. 

One son told his nursery school teacher that he could not do what she asked because he was too “dehydrated.” On another occasion, he could not comply because he was “too depressed.” She was quite effectively derailed by these statements. 

And they have always been particularly good at saying no to their parents. I am not sure what the evolutionary advantage of constantly verbally antagonizing one’s parents might be while one is still totally dependent upon them even for basic toileting and nourishment, but there is it.

In one memorable incident, as my husband was haranguing our younger son, age three or less, for some terrible toddler crime, our son replied casually, “Oh, take a shower, old man.” “Ok boomer” is an improvement I guess.

(These are the kids’ infant heads on their teenager bodies, if that needs to be said. We don’t own the shirts, but there seem to be widely available online)