Black Friday Art Sale

Dear Laney,

You've taken a serious, bordering on obsessive, interest in painting lately. I keep the door of the fridge covered in blank paper, and when the impulse strikes, you open your case of Crayola watercolors and go to it. It is not unusual for you to go through a case a day. I know that Walmart is single-handedly killing the "little man," stomping on women's rights and is probably responsible for untold human rights violations in China. Still, I want to thank them for offering the 8-color palette of Crayola watercolors for 97 cents, since I have to buy at least three of 'em a week.

You're creating so many works of art that I have them coming out of my ears. While I think each one is a masterpiece, I can only hang on to so many...

So, "Letters to Laney" is announcing its first annual pre-Black Friday Art Sale. Attention kinfolk! Are you looking for that certain something to accentuate your kitchen decor? Need a little something kicky hanging in your office? Well, choose your favorite(s) below, and I'll put them in the mail to you post haste. First come, first served. Send me an e-mail or leave your picks in the comments below and consider it done.

#1

#2 (SOLD to Peggy Spjut)

#3 (SOLD to Peg Peg)

#4

#5

#6 (SOLD to Granny Jack)

#7 (SOLD to Tex)

#8

#9 (SOLD to Connie Mercer)

#10

NOTE: Even if you ignore this offer, a painting will be chosen for you, and you will receive it in the mail against your will. Seriously, we're at maximum capacity here.

Love,

Mom

The Dance Craze Sweeping Our House

Dear Laney,

Here's another thing I can blame on Dora The Explorer, and her infernal friend Squishy the Squid:

There are certain things in this world that make me irrationally angry. And somewhere in the top ten of that list, you'll find, "People who get the lyrics wrong." One of the greatest movies ever written (in my opinion) is Bull Durham. There's a scene in that movie where rookie baseball player Nuke Laloosh is on the bus with the rest of the team, strumming the guitar and attempting to sing Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness":

NUKE

(singing softly)

Oh she may get woolly, women do get woolly,

because of all the stress...

CRASH

It isn't "woolly" it's "weary" and nobody's got stress,

they're wearing a dress. I hate people who get the words wrong.

...And Crash takes his guitar away.

I've always loved that scene.

You and your dad refuse to sing the second "Boom Boom" in the Squishy the Squid song. So last night, I passive-aggressively queued up the song and played it over and over, thinking one of you would look at the other and say, "Hey! It would appear that we've been missing the second 'Boom Boom' that the writer intended." But no - this exercise just gave you guys more opportunities to sing it the wrong way. I think I'm missing some hair now.

It's moments like this I begin to suspect we're God's sitcom.

Boom Boom Shake-A Shake-A,

Mom

How Your Dad Went About It All Wrong

Dear Laney,

It's no secret to anyone who spends any time at our house that you're tough on your dad. To make him feel better, I tell him all the time that you're as mean to me as you are to him, but this is the very definition of a "little white lie." (Another example of a little white lie: When your dad tells me I don't waddle when I walk).

I've been puzzling over what I might be doing that your dad isn't. I mean, we both agree that you're basically a tiny lunatic, but why am I better at coping with that than your dad is?

And I think I've figured it out.

For twelve years, your dad served in the Navy, where people are rewarded, praised and promoted for being reasonable. Sure, this keeps our country safe and blah blah blah, but it's terrible preparation for having a toddler. By contrast, for twelve years, I worked in Los Angeles - two of those years at a talent agency, where I was an agent assistant. This was an environment where people were rewarded, praised and promoted for being Crazy. As. Hell. A girl I once fired for being too incompetent to operate a Xerox machine is now running a medium-sized cable network. True story. The people in charge threw tantrums, shouted verbal abuse and hurled phones at their underlings.

This, my friend, is the perfect preparation for parenting a two year-old.

Your honorary uncle Brian and I worked at this agency together, where he was the assistant to a man who was so famous for being bonkers that he served as the inspiration for an equally bonkers television character. I remember sitting near Brian as he was on the phone with his boss one afternoon. From ten feet away, I could hear his boss' screaming on the other end of the line. I remember Brian calmly repeating over and over:

What plane would you like to be on, Ari?

What plane would you like to be on, Ari?

What plane would you like to be on, Ari?

This came back to me like a bad flashback yesterday as you were screaming at me in the living room and I heard myself repeating:

Where would you like your chocolate milk, Laney?

Where would you like your chocolate milk, Laney?

Where would you like your chocolate milk, Laney?

The difference, of course, is that you don't generate millions in revenue for our house... so ixnay on the razy-cay.

Love,

Mom

"Dear Katie" - Part 2

Dear Laney,

It looks like you're working on another letter to your cousin Katie in Georgia, with a shout-out to her sister Hope.

Last night, I was sitting in bed, working on a crossword puzzle, when you climbed up next to me, flipped over your Dad's thesis, and started writing. So I filmed it. Dad tried to help with the filming, but... well, you'll see. Someday, you will make an excellent producer.

I was going to add subtitles, but I think it's more fun to let the people guess what you're saying. I'll give them a clue that you seem to think Katie needs to know the lyrics to "Ring Around The Rosie," and needs to pull a rope of some sort. We couldn't figure out what rope or why, but I do know that Katie better start pulling that dang rope.

When you were finished, your side of the paper was filled with tiny little scribbles and swirls.

Dad's side read:

THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES

ON PREDICTING RARE-PLANT HABITAT

IN THE NEZ PERCE NATIONAL FOREST

I understood them equally.

Love,

Mom

The Dark Side Of Daughters

Dear Laney,

Nothing in the world is as funny to you as when you and your dad are playing, and he pretends to get seriously injured. He is the Larry and Curly to your Moe.

Most recently, you've developed a game called "I ZAP YOU!" which entails "zapping" your dad with your evil magic wand, and then your dad pretending he just got seriously electrocuted. It doesn't matter that you've done this a jillion times, your dad still falls over, pretending he was hit by a substantial amount of voltage. And every single time, you laugh like this:

[Production note: For this performance, the role of Evil Magic Wand will be played by a tire pressure gauge]

Last night, I went to bed a little worried about the width of your mean streak.

Then, this morning, I woke up to discover that it had snowed about ten inches at our house. And at first - per my usual - I was despondent.

But my next thought came almost immediately: My mama is going to be here next month, and she's going to be sooooo mad when she sees this.

And that's going to be soooooo funny.

And I giggled, just like you in that film clip.

Love,

Mom

Self Portraits - A Series

Dear Laney,

Throughout history, artists have been drawn to the concept of self portrait.

I can only assume it's this same innate artistic instinct that has compelled you to repeatedly steal my iPod and take - according to my computer this morning - about 600 photographs of yourself. Once again, I am the big dummy for assuming that every time you yelled "TAKE PICHER!!" you weren't actually taking a picture. How many times do you have to tell me before I finally pick up on your clues? 601, apparently.

Signed prints are available in the gift shop for $100.

Love,

Mom

Perspective

Dear Laney,

It's been a good few weeks for your mom professionally. I wrote a script for an episode of network TV and scored my biggest production credit ever from our kitchen here in the boonies (also from a hotel room in Georgia, and a little from Granny Jack's dining room table).

I have a little illustration hanging in my bedroom that reads, "Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life." I was on a business trip to Miami back when I was still dating your dad when I saw it in a gift shop. As cheesy as it sounds, it made me stop and think about what was important. And it was obvious to me - even in that gift shop - that the most "important thing" couldn't be found in Los Angeles - it was in the Navy, stationed in San Diego.

I bought the picture. I quit my job. I married your dad. I moved to Montana.

Five years later, I wouldn't change a thing. I just wanted to tell you that of all the things I write, these letters to you are my favorite.

TV may be fun, but you and your dad are Important.

Love,

Mom

My Mama's Gonna D-I-E.

Dear Laney,

We are seven weeks away from your brother's arrival, which should fall sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve. I'm sure he will be mad forever that he has a birthday so close to the holidays, because each year, the whole world will be saying, "Happy birthday to you and Jesus... but mostly Jesus."

Not wanting to miss out on the birth of Baby #2, Peg Peg and Tex are planning to spend the Christmas holiday with us. This is the same woman who thought it was so cold here IN MAY that she wore my bathrobe over her clothes, and did her crossword puzzles in the parked Subaru with the heater and the seat warmers cranked up to eleven.

For fear that she won't get on the plane, I haven't told her that the temperature here has already fallen into the teens, and we've had intermittent snow flurries.

Unlike your South Florida relations, you and your dad and especially the dogs are loving this new cold weather, and are going out on lots of "abenturs" a.k.a. "adventures."

Basic sled dog math says that a husky can run 15 mph for up to 15 miles. There's a wild rabbit that lives on our road that always likes to dart out in front of the bike, then scurry away. Your dad calls him, "The Widowmaker." When you and Dad come back from your bike rides, you always say, "Mom! We go SO FAST!!" 1) No kidding. 2) I don't want to know. 3) No way are you going to catch my butt in that thing.

Last weekend, you came downstairs and woke me up by holding on to my side of the bed and announcing, "Mom! Mom! MOOOOM! Is snowing 'gain." Let me direct you to the other side of the bed where you might find someone who's interested in that news.

As for me, I'll live in a state of denial from Oct - May, just like every other year. But y'all go have fun.

Love,

Mom

What You Learned At Swim Class (Hint: Has Nothing To Do With Swimming)

Dear Laney,

About a month ago, we got a "report card" in the mail from your swim instructor. Befitting her personality, it featured multiple colors of marker and excessive use of exclamation points.

I don't know what bugged me about this - probably that we had already moved on from the swim class experience, and I didn't need someone to send me a multi-hued reminder that you refuse to get your face wet or blow bubbles. This is still true, by the way, even though we always practice in the bath tub. No, you prefer to lick the bathwater, even right after confessing, "I just tee tee 'gain."

So, what did you learn in swim class, if not the basics of swimming? Answer: You learned an unconditional love of running/jumping/splashing in a circle to "Ring Around The Rosie." And what's the last thing a hugely pregnant woman wants to do? Answer: Run around in a teeny tiny circle while bending over to hold your hands and then being forced to "fall down." Because the only thing worse than falling down these days is having to get back up. I'm like the fallen best friend in every shoot-'em-up movie... yelling "Leave me! Go on without me!" from the living room rug.

Not for the first time, I've found myself saying, "Thank God for Cedar." It seems she developed the same love of "Ring Around The Rosie" that you did, only she calls the song "Ashy Ashy." And she seems happy to run around in a circle with you all day long, even though you 'bout- near give her whiplash every time y'all do it.

Here's the two of you in ashy ashy action:

Say what you will about Cedar, girlfriend is supportive.

A final note about that report card: You are so hard-headed, it wouldn't surprise me if you grew up to swim the English Channel without once in twenty-one miles putting your face in the water. Just in case, I will save this progress report as a potential illustration for the New York Times piece.

Love,

Mom

First Golf Lesson

"Such a pretty girl to have such an ugly swing"

-Clint, Tin Cup, 1996

"The crowd has gone deadly silent. A Cinderella story. Outta nowhere.

A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion.

It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"

-Carl Spackler, Caddyshack, 1980

My Baby Don't Bluff

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

When my baby tells you once...

twice...

three times that she's leaving?

Mister, she's gone.

Pen Pals

Dear Laney,

Like I promised, we sent a letter to your cousins Katie and Hope, thanking them for keeping you from plummeting off the Crazy Bus at the Georgia National Fair. Just this week, you got a letter back from Katie, which was maybe one of the cutest things I have ever seen:

It reminded me of when Katie's mom Heidi and I were kids, and the best way we had to keep in touch was to write each other letters - it was always VERY exciting to get a letter from Heidi in the mail. Keep in mind, this was the early '80s and there was no such thing as the internet, and a long-distance phone call (to hear our parents tell it) cost roughly the same thing as a monthly car payment on a Plymouth Valiant. We'd have to take turns begging our parents for permission to dial long distance. Now, of course, you can become facebook friends with someone in Outer Mongolia while Skyping someone in the Ukraine, and it's all free. But back in 1982, getting south Georgia on the phone was a big honkin' deal, while a first-class stamp was only twenty cents.

I asked you if you wanted to write Katie back, and you said, "Yeah, wite Katie," and you got yourself a card and a marker. Here's hoping she knows what the heck this means when she gets it in the mail this week:

Love,

Mom

Now, I'm No Dental Hygienist ...

Dear Laney,

I'm no expert, but it seems like brushing your teeth WHILE eating a waffle might be counter- productive.

Love,

Mom

Halloween's Over. Cue The Exorcism.

Dear Laney,

It started the night before Halloween.

You woke up at 3am, hollering my name. Your dad, saint that he is, said to me, "Don't worry - I'll go up there and see what's wrong." No sooner had he stepped into your room than you yelled, "NOT YOU!!" I heard him ask, "Laney, Mom's sleeping. Is it okay if I lie down with you?" And you growled at him, "NO. YOU GO DOW-STEERS AND GET MOM." Then - and your dad has been a little sketchy with the details - you clawed at him in an attempt to remove his right nipple.

When this happened, I was actually on my way up the stairs to rescue your dad, but when I heard what you were saying, 1) I imagined you looked a lot like Linda Blair in The Exorcist right as she's about to spew pea soup all over the room, and 2) I turned around and came back downstairs because I didn't want to reward you for being 32 pounds of mean.

Every day since then has been a variation on this theme. We've been using "time outs," which seem to work, but also require me to pick you up and take you upstairs and toss you in your pack n' play. Not for the first time, I've realized that being a parent is easy, but being a good parent is exhausting.

You got mad at me on Tuesday for throwing away a wet diaper that was yours; I know it was yours, because you kept screaming, "'AT'S MYY DIAPER! I HAD FIRST!" You kept demanding to know where it was until I told you, "Laney, it's gone. Don't ask me about it again." That's when you said, "IS NOT GONE!" and hit me in the face. I popped you on the leg and you told me - without a trace of irony - that hitting was wrong.

"Maybe it's me," I thought, "and we're going through one of those crazy mother-daughter phases." But when I picked you up from school yesterday, Tracy asked me if you had been through any kind of traumatic experience since she'd seen you last... I think it was her polite way of asking if you were experiencing any kind of Halloween-related PTSD, which would explain why you were behaving like someone possessed by the devil.

Nope. You're just two.

But just to be safe, your dad and I are going to brush up on our Latin and order some holy water from ebay.

Love,

Mom

Trick or Treat

Dear Laney,

On Halloween night, you got all monkey-suited up again, and we went into Alberton so you and Cedar could go trick-or-treating together. Cedar jazzed up her monkey ensemble with a tutu, because if there's one night a year when more is more, it's Halloween.

It took you guys about two houses to figure out that knocking on doors = strangers handing you candy.

Every year around this time, news stations across the country do stories on Halloween safety - usually about how Halloween Can Turn Deadly (insert ominous organ music here). The first two tips they always give are: Don't let your children enter the house of a stranger, even if that stranger promises there's more/better candy inside AND Always inspect your child's candy before letting her eat it. You broke these two rules immediately, and at every house.

Building a rocket that can go to the moon is difficult. Explaining to a two-year old that she doesn't need to eat all the candy from House #1 before moving on to House #2 is impossible.

By the time we had made it to our fourth house, you had consumed enough sugar that you had the shakes, and were running in circles on the sidewalk in front of us, yelling, "ARE YOU COMING, GUYS?!?!?"

I shot about 70 photos and video clips while we were trick or treating, only to come home and discover that my memory card had been corrupted. With the help of a few editor friends and a file-recovery company in Denmark (seriously, I had to pay in Euros), I was still only able to save a few seconds of video:

It took you forever to fall asleep that night, and still you woke up at 3am calling my name. I went upstairs and asked, "What is it? Are you okay?" and you said, "'Es go back Cedah's How-een potty," a.k.a. "Let's go back to Cedar's Halloween Party."

Next year, baby. Next year.

Love,

Mom

I want to thank The Other Brooke for saving the day by sharing the photos she took that night so your monkey hijinks can be preserved for posterity.