A Royal(ish) Wedding

Sally dug the royal wedding. What wasn’t to love? Beautiful people, military uniforms, designer dresses, hats that should have toppled several women over. Naturally, Sally then spent a good chunk of wedding day executing her own version of the royal nuptials.

Throngs of onlookers awaited a glimpse of the happy prince and princess.

The bride wore a Kleenex veil and a dress by Mattel. Her necklace is genuine China-made plastic. The groom wore a look of vague detachment.

The pool party reception (hmmm, the queen in a bikini…) ended with an exuberant–and naked–bride scaling the castle’s tallest tower. Her new husband climbed up to rescue her.

The newlyweds retired to a furnished castle built by the prince himself, where they promptly began planning a family. They are expecting their first daughter tomorrow. She will have bunk beds in her room. . . . As all princesses should.

Not Now Honey, Barbie Needs Her Margarita

I wanted to do a post about Barbie, because at Christmas Sally got her first set of double-Ds, and I felt weird about it and wanted to talk it through. So I thought, and thought, and the more I thought, the more confused I got about the whole thing. Is she good or evil? Is she teaching my kid to want a hot bod? (Sally WAS very excited that Barbie had “all the parts.”) And if so, is that all bad? I mean, I want a hot bod! Maybe Sally will be motivated to get a hot bod when she’s 33 instead of just talk about them.

And for goodness sake, we own astronaut Barbie. She’s a highly educated and professional woman. Who wears heels in space, but that’s her prerogative. Anyway, I’ve decided Barbie is okay. At her core, she’s got a pencil-sized waist a toy that doesn’t beep, sing the ABCs or scream “LET’S PLAY A GAME!” after you leave her alone for 30 seconds. She’s a simple doll. Sally has to use her imagination to come up with scenarios for her. And Sally’s scenarios are pretty awesome.

The real problem with Barbie . . . is the margaritas.

Our Barbie and Ken live in a Mattel beach vacation house. This house is puh-ritty cool. There’s a chandelier. There’s a big screen TV. There’s an adorable pink and purple kitchen where Ken makes pancakes every morning, and a shower he can barely squeeze his impossibly hard body into. Delicious. …The pancakes! Stop it. (wink)

But when Barbie gets thirsty, what has Mattel given her? A blender and two margarita glasses. WHAT?! So, okay, first of all, SO wrong. My 4-year-old is playing house and we’re gonna get everyone liquored up? After I’ve spent time hunting down wholesome handmade Barbie outfits so that she doesn’t look like a cheaper version of a Jersey Shore girl?

Ah, the pre-baby days.

Second, the margaritas (don’t worry, I told Sally they were smoothies) really, really mess up Barbie’s judgement. She met Ken randomly one night and just because the guy was in a tux, she was all leaning into him and blurting out “Lez get married and have babies!”

Ken’s nothing if not smooth, so he was like “Sure sweet thang, whatever you want.” Little did he know Sally had the authority to marry them ON THE SPOT. Short ceremony, too, consisting of: “You may kiss the bride!” [kiss] “Oh no, my baby is coming out!”

You tell me with a straight face that KEN is the dad.

And then Barbie immediately gave birth to Strawberry Shortcake. Who, A) should have those cankles looked at, and B) has red hair and doesn’t look a thing like Ken. I don’t want to break up a home or anything, but I’m just saying, Ken’s best friend is a redhead, and with all the tequila banana smoothie flowing in that house, I’m suspicious.

Then it’s time for Ken to go to work and Strawberry to go to school because Barbie can’t deal. Ken asks if SHE is going to work, too, and she always says, “No, I’m just going to stay home.” And eat the bowl of Doritos provided by Mattel. AND DRINK SMOOTHIES. Ken has to do drop-off and pick-up for a kid who’s probably not even his; go to work; replace light bulbs; and fix the stairs in a beach house they totally cannot afford on one salary–and the man still makes pancakes every morning. I’m not going to get into what all this will eventually do to Barbie’s slowing mommy metabolism. Anyhow, Barbie is content to dry her hair; go potty; move the furniture around; and make sure Ken is staying in his own bed at night.

And drink smoothies.

Is Barbie twisting my child’s brain? I think she was just born that way. Is she ruining Sally’s life? I don’t know, Sally seems to have figured out how to get a man to do everything so she can kick back, which is more than most of us ever accomplish. Plus, I’m pretty sure this blog will ruin her life way before Barbie’s size zero body does.

What Happens In Our Bed

This is what my marital bed should look like:

This is what it looks like far too often lately:

Help us. The small ones are winning. . . .

Lost Without Lost

Not since the end of Friends have I felt such desperation. Photo: wakila/iStockphoto

On Sunday, Mr. Embee and I will huddle together on the couch and watch as our beloved show of six years, Lost, comes to an end. Then we’ll comfort each other. Then we’ll sign the divorce papers.

Nah, probably not that last part. But the Mr. did point out that Lost has been on for our entire marriage. He added, wide-eyed, “What if it’s the glue holding us together?” That probably sounds ridiculous to normal people but with us, it’s totally possible. If you don’t have kids, you can get married and continue to do lots of stuff — leave the house, for example. But after 8 pm, parents are stuck. We can’t go out together unless someone babysits. Also, we can’t stay awake past 10. We know we’re pathetic, but it’s life.

So the Mr. and I are trapped in our house, leaving us with several options: Talk about how dirty the house is and how we’ll clean tomorrow night; talk about Sally and/or work; totally ignore each other and work on blogs and Sudoku puzzles; play Scrabble; or watch TV. I get a little bent out of shape over Scrabble, and there’s only so much talking and blogging one can do, so that leaves TV. And Lost is the kind of TV that brings families together. We routinely stay up hours later than we should to discuss the events of an episode. We argue over plot points, we theorize. . . . We’re nerds. (It’s not like we’re the only ones. President Obama did reschedule his State of the Union address to avoid conflicting with the Season 6 premiere. I knew I liked that guy.)

With proper TV programming, this could be us someday. Photo: lisafx/iStockphoto

And now they’re taking our nerdy toy away! We’ve been married six years, which means we’ve got 44 more until the deal is off (I promised 50 years or life, whichever is shorter) and I have no idea if we can fill up a tenth of that time without the help of a quality television show. So networks, get cracking. We’ll keep it together over the summer with Netflix, but come fall my Tivo–and my marriage–is going to be starving for something new and exciting. Give us something good. Countless couples with children may depend on it.