June 11, 2008 | I'm an Idiot, TV, Uncategorized

I may or may not have told you this story before but for some reason I feel like telling it. (If you already know this story feel free to skip this post.)

I went into labor at the 28 week mark of my pregnancy. It wasn’t hard labor but the contractions were causing my cervix to dilate meaning that if at any time I were to actually start having major contractions the babies could be born very quickly. Because of this I was put on hospital bedrest.

I was in the hospital for the very last episode of “Friends” ever. I used to love that show. For a while (back in 1995 - 1996) I wouldn’t miss an episode. I used to get mad if people called me between 8:00 and 8:30 on a Thursday night. But truth be told by 2004 I was completely over it and I had absolutely no intention of watching the finale.

I was happily watching an NBA playoff game when one of my nurses came into my room. She was very excited. She couldn’t wait to watch the stupid “Friends” finale. I really liked this nurse and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I knew she didn’t have a television at the nurses station and that she was stuck monitoring my contractions for at least 30 minutes. (I had to do that twice a day. If I had more than six contractions in any hour I was given a shot of terbutaline to stop the labor.) I felt sorry for her and I turned on the much hyped show.

I hadn’t watched “Friends” in a while and I did not know that Monica and Chandler were expecting to have a baby though a surrogate.

Somewhere during the episode the twist came into play. There were two babies. Monica and Chandler were going to have twins.

So while this episode is on I am having contractions. I am having a lot of contractions. My nurse gave me the shot and they didn’t stop.

But I’ll tell you this - I was damned if I was going to have twins on the same day as Monica and Chandler did. How lame would that be? They weren’t even real people.

I was panicked. It didn’t seem fair. I was going to live the rest of my life as the person who had her multiples at the same time as the Geller-Bings.

Screw that.

Somehow I managed to keep the Goon Squad in my body for seven more days. As unpleasant as the delivery was, at least it was ours alone. No one even mentioned “Friends”.

And now you know how my mind works.

May 7, 2008 | Friends, My Soapbox, Other Bloggers, TV

How great is it to turn on The Today Show* and see your friends on there?

Kristen, Jill, Mir and Heather all did great jobs.

I enjoyed the segment even if Kathie Lee Gifford is pretty much a tool and obviously hasn’t spent much time reading blogs. Did she actually say she was afraid of the computer?

She is worried about Dooce exposing her child to people, yet I know what Kathie Lee’s kids names are and what they look like too. What is the difference between talking about your personal life on a blog or talking about your personal life on a morning talk show. Oh, right. People are still reading blogs on a regular basis.

Photo used with permission from Mir.

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* Fine, you caught me, I never would have just turned on The Today Show by myself. I find it mind-numbing, but I got the tweet from Kristen that they were airing the segment this morning and so I set up my DVR.

April 28, 2008 | TV, The Blue One

Does anyone have any idea why a three year old boy would want to watch “Extreme Dating” on Fox Reality Network?

Or why he cried when I tried to change the channel?

Or why such a show exists?

April 11, 2008 | Confessions, Kids Shows, TV

I’m not really a violent person but I would love to beat the crap out of Caillou.

Full apologies to PBS Kids and Sprout (and especially my friend Jeannine) whom without this blog would not be possible. Not that they give me any money or anything. I just get most of my writing done while my kids are glued to Sesame Street or Caillou or (help me Jeebus) Barney.

February 8, 2008 | Confessions, Sports, TV

I don’t do this a lot, but I wanted to cross post my piece from BlogHer this morning. It explains in greater detail why I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year.

Fear not. I have it on my DVR and I plan on watching the third and fourth quarters sometime this weekend.

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I have a confession to make to you guys. Even though this year’s Super Bowl was the most watched game ever, with about 97.5 million viewers, I was not one of those people watching.

I know. I can’t believe it either. I LOVE the Super Bowl. I love Super Bowl parties. I even had one planned. Ack! I even called my buddy Beth un-American for scheduling her twins birthday party during the game. In fact, I am still in favor of making Super Bowl Monday a national holiday.

So you probably want to know what earth shattering event caused me to miss the big game.

Well, first my husband got sick. He was so sick that on Sunday morning I contacted all of the people that were supposed to come over for the party and I told them it was off. There obviously no way he would be in any shape to have anyone over. At about 2:00 I went to the store to get him some orange juice and soup.

By the time I got home from the grocery store I felt so bad that I had to lay on the floor for an hour. By six o’clock my eyeballs hurt individually.

You know what I think happened? I think I kissed that boy and got cooties.

So here I am with cooties or the plague or bird flu or whatever you want to call it, and the Super Bowl is starting, and as much as I love the NFL and the Super Bowl and the commercials, I just can’t bring myself to care.

Oh, I tried anyway. I even opened (read as, opened and didn’t actually drink) a beer in the spirit of things.

By 8:00 (somewhere after the two minute warning to end the first half and Tom Petty and his halftime show) I just gave up. I hit “record” on my DVR and I went to bed.

I am so ashamed.

Of course the underdogs won in an exciting comeback in the last minute, and from what I understand even the half-time show was worth watching this year.

Fortunately for you, me, the NFL, FOX and all of the advertisers some people (like I said before, about 97 million of them) did watch the game.

Amie from Mamma Loves live blogged the commercials (starting here).

Heather from No Pasa Nada gloated.

And Kay - well, she credits the New York Win to her troll and super natural powers. You never know.

December 17, 2007 | Parenting, TV, The Blue One

The bedtime ritual in the House of Goon Squad involves bathing, the brushing of teeth, the putting on of pajamas and then watching a TiVoed episode of “Futurama“.

It is fun for the whole family. All four of us like this show.

Most of the time, even though the humor might be a little bit over there heads, most of it isn’t too inappropriate. Except for Bender repeatedly saying ‘bite my shiny metal ass’ there isn’t that much that a three year old shouldn’t be seeing.

Usually.

So last night I let them watch an episode called “Xmas Story“. This particular episode features the Evil Robot Santa.

He is a little bit scary and it could easily crush their Santa fantasies forever.

(Of course, I’ve always felt sort of weird about lying to the kids about there even being a Santa, so if they found out there wasn’t I wouldn’t be too crushed.)

They didn’t seem scared at all when we watched the show.

When the show was over and we were getting ready to go to bed Ian said to me “I hope Santa doesn’t try to kill me”.

Oops.

So I explained that there wasn’t really an Evil Robot Santa and that was all in the future anyway.

Oh yeah, and it was just a cartoon. 

I’m really not that good at this parenting thing. 

(I got this picture by Birdbot form here)

December 11, 2007 | Questions For You, TV

You know that show Heroes?

Okay, well don’t say anything about any plot points because I am way behind, but we are currently Netflixing (It’s a word if I say it is) season one and I have a question for all of you.

Is it just me, or does that show make you feel really fat?

November 29, 2007 | TV

I have a lot of traditionally masculine interests. I love football. I love beer. I used to be in a garage band. I have a lot of guy friends. I (along with Kemp) started a sports blog.

In fact, as I type this I am watching “Inside the NFL” which I TiVo every week.

Keeping this in mind, (as well as the fact that I am addicted to Bravo reality television) last night we stayed up late watching “Project Runway” (which Gabe says he watches in hope of seeing side boob). Last week the special guest judge was Sarah Jessica Parker who I cannot stand, so when they said there was another celebrity this week I rolled my eyes. Then the designers walked into the room and there was Tiki Barber.

I squealed.

Like a girl.

I was so ashamed.

I couldn’t help it. I love the Barbers.*

And all of those designers that cried when they saw Sarah Jessica Parker didn’t even know who Tiki Barber was! The only one who recognized him was the one straight guy. I guess that helped me feel a little bit tougher.

* Even though they are identical twins I think Ronde better looking, but that is only because he is wearing a Bucs jersey.

October 12, 2007 | Open Letters, Parenting, TV, The Goon Squad

Dear Nickelodeon/Nick Jr.,

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you from the bottom of my exhausted heart.

My kids have been absolute nightmares all day long. It took me two hours to get Claudia dressed this morning. Then the doorbell rang and it was DHL bringing me this:

Your timing could not have been more perfect. My children saw this and were falling all over themselves to be well behaved. Suddenly “NO! AAAAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” became “Mommy, may we please watch Dora and the Mermaid? Dora is my favorite. Oh, I love Spongebob. Why, sure I’ll put some pants on. Which pants would you like me to wear today?”.

Thank you.

Your #1 Fan,

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah

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Cross posted on my review blog Sarah Reviews Stuff Here.

August 1, 2007 | Parenting, TV, The Blue One

I never really considered what kind of reaction my children would have to seeing somebody they knew on television until today. Devra was on the Mike and Juliet show this morning.

I said - “Hey, look guys! Devra is on tv.”

So Ian started talking to her.

Can Devra hear me?

No, Sweetie. Devra can’t hear you. She is in New York. She is on the tv.

So he kept talking to her.

I thought that this was a strange reaction. In a way I figured that they wouldn’t even react. We look at pictures of the kids on the internet all of the time. I have uploaded videos of them onto YouTube and we have watched those ad nauseum.

Then it occurred to me.

Webcam.

We talk to my parents on the webcam about once a week. I don’t think they understood that Devra was just on television. I think they (or at least Ian) assumed that Devra could hear then and then talk back to them.

It kind of made me feel old. I remember when we didn’t even have a VCR and my children have never known a life without webcams and TiVo and YouTube.