Third Person

I have a three-year-old daughter, who I have always called "Deb Jr." in my blog. However, for the purpose of today's entry, she will now be known as "Princess."

Princess is the opposite of her mommy. While I have not voluntarily worn pantyhose since 1997, reluctantly wear skirts to church, and never, ever wear dresses, Princess insists on wearing cute little cotton dresses to school every day. She usually also demands tights, since socks aren't "pretty enough." She has more shoes than I had at 18: her sparkle shoes, her red shoes, her black shoes, her pink shoes, her pink sparkle shoes, her blue shoes, her two pair of tennis shoes, and her brown shoes. She is very concerned that everything match; we had to purchase the blue shoes because she had a blue dress and nothing "matched" it.

"But Deb," you may be saying, shaking your head in pity, "she didn't go out and buy these things for herself. You created this monster."

You're right. I did. I have no defense, only an explanation: Princess came to us after a short but difficult battle with infertility, and we had some scares during the pregnancy. When we were presented with a beautiful, healthy daughter, Sven and I were so enchanted with her that we could deny her nothing. To be fair, we're trying, and she's only 3. We ought to be okay, right?

Still, she's awfully cute. And very clever. She imitates her father and me, to our delight. Tonight, for example, she handed me a paper and pencil and asked me to color. I began to color, and she put a hand on mine and said, "No, Mommy, we don't scribble. You need to trace." I obediently "traced" what she told me to, and she took my paper away. Moments later she handed it back to me. She had put a small sticker on it.

"You get a sticker, Mommy," she said. "You did a very good job. But next time, no scribbles, okay?"

I mean, say no to that. Really.

But by far, the most endearing thing she does, even cuter than the way she'll only eat the buttered side of her toast, is the way she talks about herself in the third person.

"Princess is hungry," she'll say. "Princess wants a snack."

"What does Princess want?" I'll ask.

"Princess wants a yes cheese," she answers. (We have yes cheese, no cheese, square cheese, and round cheese. Princess likes cheese. I don't know how she named it. Don't get me started on the cracker classification system.)

Or, at the end of the day:

"Princess is tired. Princess is ready to go to bed and watch her DVD player." When she goes into third person, she doesn't slip, like Suede did on Project Runway. She keeps it up.

I know she'll have to stop doing this someday, but I can enjoy it while it lasts.

It Can't Be Over!

It seems as though every year, this special season is shorter and shorter. And they spend so long building up the anticipation, starting before any rational person would think feasible: it seems for months in advance you'll be sick to death of it before it comes, and then boom! It's all over...

Of course, I'm speaking of Awards Season. The time in which the most unappreciated, underpaid, hardworking among us finally get the recognition they deserve: the entertainment industry.

No, no, I'm serious. I can only speculate how difficult it is to be an artist, wanting only to work at your craft, forced to own palatial estates in several cities and employ nannies for each individual finger of each child. I don't understand that sort of pain. They deserve something for all of their hard work, despite sinfully large salaries, love and adoration, and the ability to converse with Rob Pattinson whenever they wish.

Relax, that's my only Rob reference today.  I think the only problem with Awards Season is that it isn't long enough, and doesn't recognize a variety of celebrities.  I mean, we get show after show about actors and musicians, but what about celebrity restauranteurs?  Our current crop of award shows honor talent, mostly; where is the award for people who are simply attractive?

I'm so pleased to announce that Bravo will be airing the second annual A-List Awards: Honoring the "best" of television, food, fashion, design, and celebrity.  And the best thing about it is, none of these awards is based at all on merit!  The public gets to vote!

If I had to pick a category, it would be "Celebrity: A-List Kate."  The winner of this category will win for being a person named Kate.  Lest you believe this category to be too exclusive, they did include Cate (with a C) Blanchett.  This is truly the land of opportunity.

If you are like me, you will be waiting with bated breath for this last gasp of awards season.  Then I'll have to pack away my Oscar-shaped hat and Grammy gloves until next year brings me a new round of joy.   I hope I can make it... 

HOB WARS! (With lots of pictures)

As I have stated in my blog before, I enjoy several completely harmless, non-adulterous crushes.  These crushes are enjoyable pastimes, and nothing more.  However, as is often the case with me, my personal, harmless hobbies are being blown up into pop culture phenomena.

I am speaking, of course, of the Cougar trend.  "Cougar" has become the media term-of-the-moment for an "older" woman with a "younger" man.  Famous married couple Ashton Kutcher, 6, and Demi Moore, 97, are the poster couple for this very current trend:

While I am in no way a "cougar" I can proudly claim the less well-known but infinitely classier title of HOB, as defined by Joel McHale of The Soup as Horny Old Broad.  (I mean "horny" in the classiest way.)  One of my high school friends, Cassie, with whom I have been catching up via Facebook, commented on one of my previous posters that, while she shared one of her own minor HOB crushes with me, most of her HOB crushes were different.  That gave me the idea:  HOB wars!

Our first match-up: Harry Potter vs. Edward Cullen, AKA Daniel Radcliffe vs. Rob Pattinson.

We'll start with the photos:

In character:

Being themselves:

Just for fun, together in the same movie:

The Winner: Has to be Edward/Rob!  Come on, people!!  But it sure was a fun match-up.

Round II: The War of the Sidekicks

The Weasley Twins vs. Emmett and Jasper

The Weasleys:

(In character)

(Out of character, working the dark hair)

Emmett and Jasper:

(In character, with the ladies)

(The Real Emmett.  Yum.  My.)

(The real Jasper.  He's so pretty, it hurts a little.)

The Winner:  You know I'm going for my Twilight guys, but I'll admit that the twins are getting pretty cute.

Round III: Most Baffling HOB Fodder:

This was easy for me.  Corbin Blue, from High School Musical:

vs. The Jonas Brothers

The Winner: The Jonas Brothers, but, my friends, please remember: when the Jonas Brothers win, everyone loses.

Such is life.

A Celebrity Encounter (New Edit To Include Dramatic Reveal)

The most amazing thing happened to me last week. I had an encounter with a genuine, bona-fide celebrity.

Well, perhaps I should clarify. I didn't really meet this person, she was my substitute on Friday. However, since my absence provided the reason for her presence, I consider myself deeply involved in the entire affair.

Secondly, I should qualify "celebrity" as "former contestant on a reality show." Yes, I had a bona-fide former contestant on a reality show celebrity as my substitute last Friday.

Lest you think I am about to indulge in a snide snark-fest, let me make it clear that she was not on a lame, personality-based reality show, like Rock of Love or the nightly news. She was on a show based on talent. Her show was one of those talent-based competition shows, like American Idol or America's Next Top Model (though she was not a contestant on either one of them).

Anyway, this young lady was the substitute for my music classes last week, and she couldn't have been more lovely. She didn't mention her celebrity status to anyone, until some of our older students recognized her. She was very gracious to the kids who demanded autographs. However, what really impressed me was this: the students in the classes before and after the one full of autograph hounds had no idea who she was! She didn't bring it up at all.

In the interest of protecting our anonymity, and to keep the paparazzi away, I won't say who she is. I will say that I'd hire her any time, but I sincerely hope the next time I need her, she's far too busy.

Edit: My celebrity sub was a young lady named Charlye Nichols, from a show called The Pussycat Dolls: Girlicious, or something like that. She didn't win the show, but they picked four, and she was number five. Here's a link to one of her performances on YouTube. She sent me the nicest e-mail today about how wonderful my students were.