This month I’m participating in NaNoWriMo. Since I won’t have as much time to blog, I asked some of my favorite bloggers to guest post for me – and some of them were actually willing to do it. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do; they have become my friends through this crazy little thing known as the internet, and I’m grateful for their support. -Tricia
By Tracy Beckerman
When you have a daughter in the house, there is always the chance that you will end up covered in glitter.
I’m not sure why little girls are such fans of glitter, but they are. Maybe like big girls, they like pretty, shiny things. Glitter could be like training-bling, or something like that.
I suppose the retail industry must know this, which is why they put glitter on everything for girls these days. However, the problem with glitter, as everyone knows, is it comes off. Everywhere. On everything. And when you have a kid who likes to wear things that are covered in glitter, it is likely that the rest of the family will end up wearing it too… whether they want to or not.
“Why is the dog glittering?” my husband asked as we noticed the dog sparkling in the sunlight.
“Oh, it’s the new dog glitter I bought him,” I said sarcastically. “Doesn’t it make him look fancy?”
My husband gave me a dubious look.
“Really?”
“NO! It came from our daughter’s new shirt that she got from a friend for her birthday.” I held up the offending article of clothing that I had just retrieved from the wash. I thought perhaps that washing it might loosen some of the excess glitter. I gave the shirt a shake and glitter fluttered into the air. Lots of glitter. It looked like Tinkerbell had just swooped in and showered us with Fairy Dust. I wondered if I should think happy thoughts to see if I could fly. My first happy thought was to burn the glitter shirt.
The problem, of course, was, it wasn’t just the shirt. She had glitterfied jeans, a glittered pocketbook, glitter socks and glitter sneakers (I admit, I bought her those… but that was before the rest of the glitter epidemic). She even had spare glitter to add to her other glitter items in case they became less glittery over time. This seemed to be a distinct possibility since clearly, much of the glitter had fallen off the original glitter items and had settled on everything else in the house.
As I surveyed the increased glitterness in the room, it was clear that the washing theory didn’t hold up. After I shook out the shirt there was more glitter on the couch, on my husband and on me. I tried to brush the glitter off the couch and it flew back up into the air. My husband sneezed as glitter flew up his nose.
I wondered if Irreconcilable Glitter was grounds for divorce.
While my husband and I picked glitter off each other’s faces, my daughter entered the room and looked around.
“Why is everything all sparkly?” she asked.
“It’s glitter,” I said.
“Oh! Are you redecorating again?” she asked enthusiastically.
“Yes,” I responded. “Do you like it?”
She looked around. “I like it on the couch and the rug. But I don’t think it works on the dog.”
Tracy Beckerman writes the syndicated humor column,LOST IN SUBURBIA® which is carried weekly by the NJN Publishing Group, the North Jersey Media Group, The Mahopac News, and the Gatehouse Media chain. In total, her column is carried by over 450 newspapers and more than 250 websites and reaches an audience of nearly 10 million readers in 25 states.
She is also the author of the humor book, “Rebel without a Minivan: Observations on Life in the ‘Burbs,” and is a contributor to a new humor compilation called, “See Mom Run: Side-Splitting Essays from the World’s Most Harried Moms.” Beckerman also writes this daily blog which features her musings on marriage, and motherhood, and offers tips for being a cool mom in the suburbs. Her next book, a “momoir” will be published Spring 2013 byPerigee Books.
In addition to her column, Beckerman has written for the New Jersey Jewish News and wrote the bi-monthly cover story for two years for the Home and Garden section of New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger. She has also contributed to many online mom sites, including Today’s Mama, Role Mommy, and NJ Moms Blog, and is an official blogger for Lifetime Television’s hit show, The Balancing Act. She also blogs for the new Jewish humor site, I’m a Jewish Mother, What’s Your Excuse? and writes for the online syndicate, Associated Content where her columns have appeared online in USA TODAY
Beckerman has appeared on The Today Show on NBC, the CBS Early Show, LX New York, Better TV, and numerous radio and print interviews speaking about motherhood and life in the ‘burbs. She also does stand-up comedy and has appeared at venues including The Comic Strip Live in NYC and The Erma Bombeck Workshop in Dayton. She was also recently featured in a story about Erma Bombeck on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.
Before she became a columnist, Beckerman was a writer and producer in the television industry for ten years, managing the Advertising & Promotion department at WCBS-TV New York, and creating award-winning TV and radio scripts for such clients as Lifetime Television, WCBS-TV, CBS and NBC. Her numerous honors for writing include the prestigious Writer’s Guild of America award, a CLIO, an International Film and Television award, and a New York Emmy®. In 2010 she was voted “America’s Top Blogger” by The Balancing Act and in 2011, she won a National Society of Newspaper Columnists award for humor writing. She is a member of the Erma Bombeck Humor Writer’s Group, and is the on the board of directors of The National Society of Newspaper Columnists
Tracy is married to a very understanding guy. They have two children and live in New Jersey where she writes, does battle with woodchucks, and avoids, at all costs, driving a minivan.
2 Comments on "All that glitters"
I’m pretty sure that glitter uses asexual reproduction to make more of itself which is why one child-sized glitter shirt can produce enough glitter to cover an entire 2000sqft house AND its dog.
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