Starshine answers for her puzzling, pony-tailed gender in The Third-Grader’s Guide to Girls.
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Charting the puzzles and peeves of kid-herding — from Huggies to homework, Pilates to pinatas.
Starshine answers for her puzzling, pony-tailed gender in The Third-Grader’s Guide to Girls.
Business trips sound enticing to this work-at-home mom, but kidlessness – it turns out – has its price.
Dearest Friends and Family, We hope this holiday letter finds you merry, gay, and all the other pleasant emotions the season demands of you.Whew! What a whirlwind year it’s been for us. The baby is quite active these days. He likes to bang his head on things and spin around until he falls down. We assume this is because he’s so smart, and he’s trying to slow his poor little brilliant mind down to a more comfortable level.
Chubby children aside, there’s a lot of weight on the lap of a shopping mall Santa.
Encased in fur and velvet, cinched into gut-crushing belts and boots that don’t breathe, these rock stars of the holiday stage not only have to hawk overpriced 8x10s. They bear the burden of keeping the season’s magic alive for hundreds of increasingly incredulous youngsters. One tug on that gleaming white wig could be all it takes to convince them that holiday wishes are for patsies. One harsh word aimed at an incompetent elf could Dasher their hopes forever. Blitzen them, even.
Who are the brave men who accept this challenge year after year? And what, with all due respect, could they possibly be thinking? I did some in-depth research this week (can I just say, how cool is this job?) and discovered there are three basic types of Santa stand-ins.
As a little girl, I lived vicariously through my Barbie. When she wore her Bob Mackie halter gown, I was a disco queen. When she rode the elevator to the top of her three-story town home, I was a lady of leisure. And when she began making out with ripple-chested Malibu Ken on a pile of polyester pantsuits, well, it was time for me to pack Barbie away and focus my attention on the cover boys of Tiger Beat magazine.
I think we can all agree that candy is the devil’s work. That’s why we, in order to be good parents, must eat our kids’ candy before they do.
As the first school bell signals the end of summer, you may think your children have everything they need to start the year off right. But some stationery designers claim a kindergartner’s pencil case is incomplete without a stack of crisp kiddie calling cards.