It's been fall break here in Middle Tennessee and for parents that means one thing: kids home from school. For two weeks. All day. Now of course this is no issue if you're the kind of Mom that has lots of fun ideas, plans, crafts and play dates with Mac-n-Cheese & Capri Sun lunches. Well, I'm not really that kind of Mom...I mean, I can do stuff like that but it doesn't come so naturally for me. I'm also in a one kid world (which is quite different from a multiple-kid world). I've heard these special "cool mom" skills can improve with additional offspring. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it's been 5 years and this is still me folks. Don't get me wrong, there was fun times for Abby last week, but then she went and got the strep throat and rash which kind of sealed the deal on fall break fun. Not to mention B & M's kids came down with some sort of flu like thing - it was just a sick week!

I'll tell you one thing that I can do....PRETEND! Oh yeah, I'm a good pretender. And I have the perfect pretending buddy - Abby! She doesn't watch much TV, so her pretend-play repitoire is modeled by things that she sees at home or school. One of my personal favorites is "Office". Office is good because I'm playing, but I can also sneak real work in while I'm pretending to be office buddy. In order for you to have a greater appreciation for the operations here at Club Amaro, you must - I repeat MUST - have a deeper understanding of "Office". It's time for a photo montage...YEAH!


It's important to follow Office attire guidelines. Of course at this Office, the guidelines are very loose. Exhibit A. a leotard and skirt paired with some lovely lavender heels and matching purse (a gift from Arie P.) Nevermind you can see the unmentionables...


Next, you always bring at least one baby to the office. Today it was Aubrey. What? You don't see her in the picture? Top right corner, nestled in her stroller underneath the fleece blanket. Of course, you can't bring all four kids because that would be too much crying and disruption.


You must always have some kind of paperwork to do. Today at the Office, we are reviewing an Istockphoto.com listing from a past project of mine. Other days, I print out IRS forms or other applications. She fills them out and consults with me about the content. She'll say things like, "should I enter this into the oplication [application] or should I FTP it to the database?". Come on, she listens to two techno-geeks all day long, of course she's going to say stuff like that.


This reminds me of another important aspect of Office...you need pretend names. I mean, it's really unprofessional to call your collegue, "Mom". My name is "Amanda" after everyones favorite advertising executive from Melrose Place (come on, you KNOW you watched it!!). Abby has gone the more conservative route, using "Laura" after the modest and moral Laura Ingles Wilder of Little House on the Prarie (come on, you KNOW you watched it!!). At least she didn't pick Nellie. Also, since Mike works at home, sometimes he gets sucked into our little Office world - we refer to him as "The President"....or, "El Jefe".

It's important to note that our pretend names carry over to other pretend activities such as "Crafters" (this is where we hang out in the craft room and pretend we are artists working on our masterpieces), or "Kitchen". Actually, in Kitchen, we have different names - I am "Master Chef" and she is "Sous Chef" - but we both KNOW that behind those names we are really Laura and Amanda.

Hopefully you're not confused. Or embarrassed. For me.

I love to pretend with Abby - I don't know if this makes me wierd or dysfunctional or if my child will have to have counseling someday. But I think a little pretending is healthy. As much as I love to play these things, my favorite part about pretending is when I say something to "Laura", and she gives me this certain look and says, "let's go back to being Momma and Abby".



love & capri suns,
k

aka,
amanda

SECRET MESSAGE: Navajo Slave goes on Sev runs.