Dreamweaver was developed by the devil

So I'm going through this thing. I want to be a web developer. Maybe it will pass, maybe not, who knows. But right now, that's what I want to do. Well, what do you do when you decide you would like to do anything involving graphic design of some sort? Usually, you look up Adobe.

So I downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver CS3.

At first I had trouble downloading it. But then I downloaded it into a folder other than the program files folder. You know, where program files normally go. But whatever. It downloaded. Then I tried extracting the files- the first time I got the by now infamous error code 2739. I deleted the files, downloaded again- two more times before I came across the Adobe solution, which is to install java using the command prompt. That doesn't work, because the command is telling me that it does not recognize the internal or external code or whatever.

Well, fuck.

So I googled the frikkin code and found a blog (not sponsored by Adobe- shows how much they know) with that code and an alternate code if the first one doesn't work.

BINGO!!

I'm in, the download was going great, it appeared to install just fine but when I launched it- there's that God forsaken error code. I hit the net again, and found that aside from what I've already done, no one seems to have an answer. Not for Vista, anyways. One person did suggest downloading and installing java from its website. So I do that, I verify, try it again…. No love.

I have been at this all day! Grrrr.

Searching the web it seems that this was/is a common problem not just with Dreamweaver, but many programs a part of the Creative Suite 3 software line. That doesn't make me feel any better though. What does is that I didn't pay $500 for this shit software to not install!

And while I'm at it- MS Word 2007. Could you just keep the fucking style I try to set as default every frikking time I create an entry? Is that too much to ask? And why are we suddenly single spacing EVERYTHING by default? Who does that?

By the devil, I'm telling you.

Also, if you have kids that might enjoy Hello Kitty- girls in particular but I guess some boys like her, too- STAY AWAY FROM HELLO KITTY STUMP VILLAGE! It's a stop-motion type dvd for the kiddos and it will make you CRAZY in a way that not even Barney can, I promise.

First, the menu starts at episode 6. Where's 1-5? I don't know. Maybe they ran off in sheer terror at the annoyingness of it all.

And goes to 10.

And the episodes are about 15 minutes long- or at least they feel that way.

But the worst part is that the opening song for the show is about 2 minutes long. And that is the crazy making part. 2 minute song, 15 minute show, 2 minute song, 15 minute show… and then finally 2 minute song over and over again until I get up and turn the damn thing off.

We rented it from the library, so destroying it is out of the question. However, I really feel like the world would benefit from me tossing it under the back wheel of my Mercury Mountaineer and driving over it again, and again, and again…

If I could just pull one parent from the brink of madness, it would have been a worthy pursuit. But really, I would hate to have to pay for this God awful video. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

If your kid ever approaches you with a Hello Kitty video, monkey slap it out of their hand and distract, distract, distract until you can safely get away. Seriously, it's that bad.

Your Week... in 3 words

I saw this video on another blog and just had to share.

I have no other words to describe this on my own, so I second Becki at blogmommas when she says that this is "truly beautiful."

These clips were made for a project that Good Morning America is doing. People were asked to describe their week in 3 words, and thus, the video.

For bloggers, Blogmommas is hosting a very similar project. The results will be turned into GMA by the October 23rd deadline. Check out her site for more details.

The Preschool Ninja and Porn Stars

Disclaimer: This is NOT an XXX rated entry!

Sorry to disappoint those of you who hoped that it might be.

I'm reading this book called "Mommies Who Drink". It's a memoir by some actress/comedienne that I've never even heard of before, but it's pretty funny. In it is a chapter where Brett, the MC, agrees to be in a live show that combines comedians and porn stars (the creators hoped to sell it to Bravo or HBO. The fact that this hasn't happened yet tells me how well this idea went over). They just all gather around some raunchy shag carpet and make jokes, and eventually one of the porn stars begins passing a steel dildo around. At some point, the show ends and the porn stars are allowed to turn back into real people. If they were ever, in fact, real people. After reading that chapter I turned off the light and asked DH jokingly if he would like to see my inner porn star. So we're joking around, I'm thinking of porn star names and then I think, "Shit. A. is sleeping in the living room again." The living room that is right in front of our bedroom. And the door was open. And who knew if she was really sleeping. So I call her name, waiting for a response to pierce the darkness and seconds later I hear, "I'm right here"- from the foot of my bed!

The light has only been off for 10's of seconds. Barely half a minute. We neither saw nor heard her sneak in during those mere seconds of darkness and conversation!

I ask her what she's doing there. "I have to talk to daddy about 2 things", she says. So we spend about 20 seconds trying to get her to go back to the living room and go to sleep. All the while I'm trying to suppress the nervous laughter that's clawing at my throat.

Me to DH: How long do you think she's been there?

DH: I don't know, but she came in like a ninja.

Just like a ninja. Probably close to the same height, too. Just without all the black and the ninja stars. We like to regulate the kinds of deadly weaponry available to her and her sister. Ha!

I am soooo grateful that that conversation was the worst she saw or heard at that moment. God, it could have been sooo much worse! I could have been acting out my inner porn star. She'd be in therapy for life, and I would never have sex again without a deadbolt on my bedroom door!

I would also like to take this moment to apologize to anyone who has children that might come in contact with my children for longer than 2 seconds (that would be you, K.). I'm sorry in advance that you will have to either find a super G-rated way to explain to your boys what a porn star is or find a way to divert their attention in hopes that they will forget all about it. For the rest of their lives. A. just blurts things out sometimes, even when she doesn't fully understand. So, again, my apologies if you or they ever hear about how she heard her mommy tell daddy that she wants to be a porn star.

BTW- Much to my husband's disappointment, I have no desire to either lovingly and temporarily sport a porn star name and/or release what might be considered "my inner porn star". I'm not even entirely sure what that would even entail. But I have an imagination, and what's in my head is still pretty funny.

And you’re outta here!

I had the most brilliant idea EVER last night. I think it's such a revolutionary disciplining tactic, therapists and book publishers would be pounding on my door, asking me to elaborate. I would happily oblige, and be offered a really sweet book deal, and parents all across America will be talking about how well it's working out for them. It would be the HOT new topic among moms groups.

 

The soccer card penalty system; each infraction is acknowledged with a yellow or red card. Yellow, being the warning, would be the obvious first step. Two yellow cards and she's off to a nice boring corner in the living room. The red card would be for BIG infractions, like throwing a rock at her sisters forehead, or smacking me on the hand to get my attention.

It would work something like this:

Objective: cleaning her room

 

Infraction #1:

Me: Hey, didn't I just tell you to go and start cleaning your room?

And at this point I would reach into my back pocket, which is where I'd keep the cards, and whip out a yellow card. And I'll get in her face just like the refs in the real games (well, adult games Not the kiddies ones. Do they even know what yellow cards are???) and I'll wave it around.

Me: Do you see this card? It's yellow. And it's sad. And that's your first warning.

A (whining): Yeah, but, cleaning makes me tired.

Me: That's great. Maybe then you'll take a nap later. Clean your room.

 

Infraction #2

Twenty minutes later

M: Hey, why are you out here in the living room? Aren't you supposed to be cleaning your room?

A: yeah, but…

A yellow card magically appears in my hands.

Me: Do you see this? You have one more chance and then you can pick a nice quiet corner in the living room and stand there for a little bit (we don't do "time-out pillows" and what not. The corner is convenient, free, and I can keep an eye on her no matter where we are. Cuz there's usually a corner somewhere. And no, I don't do this if we're out shopping. That would obviously be problematic. How would I shop?).

A: But I don't want to-

Me: you better get in there and start cleaning. You have 5 minutes.

A. would slink away. But first she would turn to face me with her hands in fists by her side and growl, "IT'S NOT FAIR!"

Not fair, indeed.

 

Ejection

Five minutes later I would hear noises. The kinds of noises you hear when a noisy toy is being played with. Hmmm, I'd think. That's not the sound of a kid cleaning her room.

So I would peek into her room to see her rocking out on her pink Barbie electric guitar. Toys are still littering the bedroom floor. There's a carpet under there, somewhere, I'll think.

I'll step into the room.

Me: What are you doing?

A.: But I'm-

Me: Come on, let's go find a nice quiet corner in the living room.

And because, after two yellow cards, the player is ejected from the game, I take her hand and extract her from her room and would escort her to her designated penalty corner.

 

How awesome would that be?? Once she's acclimated, I wouldn't have to raise my voice, just reach into my back pocket and she would start scurrying to do what it was she was supposed to do (or stop doing what it is that she's not supposed to be doing). Without me saying a word.

 

Maybe I could let her draw on the cards a bit, just to emphasize the meaning of the cards. The yellow one would have a sad face and really big hair, and the red card would have a sad face with tears and no hair. So then, whenever she saw the card, she would REALLY know that I mean business and straighten up.

 

Revolutionary, I'm telling you. I don't know why none has thought of this before.

But really, most brilliant idea EVER!!!

 

Pretend play

Listening to kids play can sometimes be pretty revealing. That being said, I don't really think that I like what these pretend playtimes sometimes reveal.

Here, let me give you a few examples:

The other day, A. noticed a dirty spot on the bathroom floor as she's doing her business on the potty. After she calls me into the bathroom to show me, I told her that I was going to get something to clean it and start to walk away. "I'll clean it when I get finished with the potty" she called after me. Umm, okay. Then she asked me to bring her the green spray bottle (it's soapy water, for the stove) and a paper towel. I'm not really sure I believe that A. will voluntarily clean the bathroom floor, with soapy water and a paper towel, no less. But I got her the goods anyways, and then stand back and watch her squat to the ground and began spraying away. "I think I'm going to need another paper towel." She remarked. So I got her a couple more. Well now, that was fun, I thought. But A. is not done. Next I heard her telling me that she was cleaning some spot of who-knows-what off the side of the pantry door. S. approached and inquired A. about her activity. To which A. replied, "I'm cleaning. Because mama needs to clean." Ouch. I'm not exactly sure what she meant by that, but I'm not sure that it was good. Like, is she saying that she's cleaning because mama needs help cleaning; or, she's cleaning because mama isn't cleaning the way she should be.

By the way, I cleared out and reorganized their closet that afternoon, so it's not like I'm a complete slacker. Just a little bit of one. Okay, maybe a lot. Whatever.

Things get done.
I'm just sayin'.

Later, in that very same evening, they were playing in their room although they should have been sleeping.

S. was apparently "daddy" (who is 10-ft tall) and A. was the baby:

A (pretend crying): Wah! You don't care about me anymore!

S: I'm right here (she even deepened her voice. Wild.).

A: Wah! But you don't care about me!

S (a little more emphatically): I'm right here.

A: **you get the picture by now, I'm sure**.

S (yelling): I'M RIGHT HERE!

I'm not sure what this means either. Maybe if I were a professional psycho- I mean, psychiatrist, I could decode the subliminal message word by precious word (btw, I'm kidding about the psychiatrist bit. It's a joke. I like psychiatrists, really I do.) But I'm not. I'm just your run-of-the-mill psycho (haha, kidding about that, too!) so I have no idea what, if there even is one, the subliminal message communicates. Maybe this is a good thing. A. was crying out of insecurity, and S. was trying to give her assurance by announcing her physical and emotional presence. Thus, indicating that the girls have a positive image of their relationship with their dad. It sounds good, anyways.

However, as nice as that is, that's kind of unfair, don't you think? I'm the slacker mom and he's the hero… I suppose I should start increasing the activity of my household duties. And I should make sure that A. sees it. And then maybe the next time she wants to clean the whole house she'll say, "I'm cleaning like mama. She's such a great cleaner. She's my domestic goddess" instead of, "mama needs to get on the ball (or off the computer, rather) and clean some more".

Yeah, that'll happen.

Three cheers for the unnamed angel at Target

There was a crisis this afternoon as the girls and I were out and about town. S. brought with her this Womans major league soccer tiger I bought when a friend and I went to see Washington United play back in 2004, after A. was born. Somehow I never seem to notice them bringing toys with them into the car when we go places. It's only when I have to convince them to keep them in the car that I even realize I've been had. On with the story. She has the tiger. Her "cat", and we're at Target. She was strapped into one of those two seater carts for most of our trip, so I was pretty surprised when she starts crying about her lost cat while we were looking at those adaptable potty seats. Because I just let her out of the cart a few minutes before, and she had the cat with her. I look around the cart and in my purse, nope, no cat. So now that I know that cat is, in fact, missing, we retrace our steps to look for it. Thank God that we hadn't hit many places at all! But it didn't matter. No sign of cat.

Meanwhile, as we look, A. is insisting that S. left the cat in the car. I kept telling her that I was pretty sure S. brought it in with her. We argue about that. Then we pay for our stuff and head to the car. I look around. No cat. So I toss our stuff in the back of the car and head back into Target. I thought customer service might be of help, so I stopped there. No such luck. I grab their hands and we start retracing our steps again. As we're passing the girls' aisle, this wonderful angel wearing a red shirt and a name tag which I forgot to look at, appears and asks if there was something she could help us find. "Well," I say. "Not really, unless you happen to come across a black and white tiger." She asks for a description and offers to help. I tell her where we went (at this point I'm dealing with S.'s shoe. She keeps crying about her shoe and I take it off to see if there was a rock or something). When I finish up with S. we head back toward the baby section and here comes this ethereal figure adorned in red, floating towards and waving a black and white tiger in her left hand. S. squeals, and I am in awe. I asked her where she found it, I mean, she came out of the very aisle we were in when the tiger was lost. And I looked. Twice. "Where a two year old would leave it." She replies as she hands S. her cat. I have an idea about what she meant by that, but I still cannot fathom exactly where she meant by that. But it doesn't matter, because S. is happy. And quite frankly, so am I. I have a sentimental attachment to that tiger. It can't exactly be replaced, especially since the WMLS folded. S. thanks her, I thank her profusely, and we leave.

I have since, tried to make it clear to S. that she CANNOT bring her toys with her when we go places. And I make a mental note to buy some kind of radar that will detect stow-away toys and beep very very loudly. It will have a robotic voice that says, "Warning! Warning! Stow-away in left passenger seat."

Something that will mount to the dashboard would be perfect.

And the moral of the story is- I must buy or invent that toy-detector. And most importantly that un-named savior-ess at Target is my hero. I hope that karma follows her in kind.

The Worst Secret Agent Ever

S. is turning 3 on Sunday. 3!! I can't believe it. Anyways, S. is turning 3. So dh took A. out to get a birthday present for her sister. And A. has been telling S. all day about how she's going out with daddy to buy her a birthday present. We've been telling A. that it's a secret, and that she's not supposed to tell her sister what she's getting her. She's just so excited about it! So far, she's been pretty good since they got home from Target. DH took me into the garage to show me what they got for S., and we had to remind A. that she can't tell her sister what her present is. I did hear her telling S. about how we're taking her somewhere special for her birthday though. But that's ok. That's not supposed to be a secret.

Last December we went to one of A.'s friends' birthday party. He was turning 5 I think. Anyways, I let A. pick out the present at Wal Mart. We wrap it and everything and the first thing that she says when she sees the birthday boy is, "We got you a present. It's a spiderman and it's really cool!" But it must be a preschool thing, because all the other kids were spilling the beans too.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it may be a bit much to expect a kid to keep the lid on a surprise. I guess that's why more preschoolers aren't being recruited to be secret agents…