The Baby-sitters Club #5: Dawn and the Impossible Three
I don't like that the title of this book implies that the Barrett kids are nightmares. They're not my favorites, by any means, but they're not terrors. Their mother is the impossible one, and I just can't stand her.
It's a fact. I really freakin' hate Mrs. Barrett. I've been straddling the fence for a while, but frankly, she just takes it over the edge. I get that divorce is hard. I get that single motherhood is not an easy thing to adapt to. But Mrs. Barrett? GROW UP. DEAL WITH YOUR LIFE. (For the record, these are the same things I tell myself when I start to have a flip-out. In fact, I should just tattoo the words "Deal with your life." on my forehead, I repeat them to myself so often.)
Okay, so Dawn is sitting alone at the Pikes for just Mal and the youngest three. Mal is a nosy parker (nose Pike-r? Ha! I pun!) and wants to know all about Dawn's "new-old" house (Mal's wordplay is not nearly as clever as mine. Ha! Take that Mal.) and her mother's relationship with Mr. Spier, which is a just a little creepy to me. But then Buddy and Suzi Barrett come over, and Suzi is crying 'cuz she skinned her knee, so Dawn has to take care of her and then Buddy and Suzi stay at the Pikes' house the rest of the afternoon. That's six kids. Why is that okay? Mrs. Pike always has two baby-sitters for more than four kids. And anyway, why should Dawn have to take care of extra kids? Send them home Dawn! You're not going to get paid any extra for watching the neighbor's kids (especially when that neighbor is the abominable Mrs. Barrett.)
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Dawn is falling for a California boy!
The Baby-sitters Club #37: Dawn and the Older Boy
Oh, Dawn. Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn. What are we going to do with you? Was I this clueless about guys when I was 13? Answer: Probably, but I must have hidden it better. At least, I hope I did.
So I endured multiple issues with this book, not least of which was the fact that I chose it because I was sure it was the one where Dawn starts trying to make herself over as a "wild child" and one of the things she does is put half her hair in little tiny braids before she went to bed one night and then the next morning she took them out so that half her hair was way frizzy and half of it was straight, and then she goes to school and talks back to the teacher, and informs us that sometimes, you have to take a bad grade in exchange for being cool. Of all the lessons I could have chosen to take from the BSC, that is the one that has stuck with me most vividly. Also, I totally tried to do that to my hair one morning, but my mother freaked out and made me wash my hair before she let me go to school. Unfortunately, none of that awesomeness took place in this book, damn it. Someday, somehow, I will find that scene and relive it. And it will be glorious.
But anyway, back to this book...
The BSC is slumber partying at Kristy's when they decide to go downstairs to breakfast the next morning in pajamas looking like death warmed over, because apparently they all fell asleep while doing makeovers and not a single one of them was smart enough to wash her stupid face? What about brushing their teeth? I mean, they were pigging out at that slumber party and if they all fell asleep without washing their faces, I think we can assume they didn't brush their teeth, and EEEW. Also, Claudia, sleeping with make-up on? Good luck keeping that perfect complexion your friends are always raving about in Chapter 2 of every single book. And Mal, maybe this behavior is part of why you have zits? Maybe stop complaining and instead break out the Neutrogena, hmmm?
Oh, Dawn. Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn. What are we going to do with you? Was I this clueless about guys when I was 13? Answer: Probably, but I must have hidden it better. At least, I hope I did.
So I endured multiple issues with this book, not least of which was the fact that I chose it because I was sure it was the one where Dawn starts trying to make herself over as a "wild child" and one of the things she does is put half her hair in little tiny braids before she went to bed one night and then the next morning she took them out so that half her hair was way frizzy and half of it was straight, and then she goes to school and talks back to the teacher, and informs us that sometimes, you have to take a bad grade in exchange for being cool. Of all the lessons I could have chosen to take from the BSC, that is the one that has stuck with me most vividly. Also, I totally tried to do that to my hair one morning, but my mother freaked out and made me wash my hair before she let me go to school. Unfortunately, none of that awesomeness took place in this book, damn it. Someday, somehow, I will find that scene and relive it. And it will be glorious.
But anyway, back to this book...
The BSC is slumber partying at Kristy's when they decide to go downstairs to breakfast the next morning in pajamas looking like death warmed over, because apparently they all fell asleep while doing makeovers and not a single one of them was smart enough to wash her stupid face? What about brushing their teeth? I mean, they were pigging out at that slumber party and if they all fell asleep without washing their faces, I think we can assume they didn't brush their teeth, and EEEW. Also, Claudia, sleeping with make-up on? Good luck keeping that perfect complexion your friends are always raving about in Chapter 2 of every single book. And Mal, maybe this behavior is part of why you have zits? Maybe stop complaining and instead break out the Neutrogena, hmmm?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Two weeks of sun, fun--and boys galore!
The Baby-sitters Club #34: Mary Anne and Too Many Boys
Happy birthday, Ann M. Martin! If we were really friends, I would throw you a slumber party in my stepfather's mansion. We would order pizza and give each other makeovers and discuss our crushes on boys like Bruce Schermerhorn and Pete Black, and how immature Alan Gray is. We would gossip about Cokie Mason and Shawna Riverson and discuss our forthcoming trip to the mall where we would get our ears pierced and our hair permed (well, Stacey would.) We would spread our sleeping bags out in a circle with our heads in the middle and be wary in case any of our brothers tried to play tricks on us. We'd giggle at Dawn for preferring Tofutti to actual birthday cake (Sacrilege!) It would be super-fun! Someday, mmmkay? Call me!
So in one of those weird, don't think too hard about it or your brain will explode time warps so common in BSC-land, Mary Anne and Stacey have re-signed up to be mother's helpers for the annual Pike family Sea City summer vacation. Despite Mallory being a baby-sitter now, the Pikes still elect to pay for two extra sitters in an effort to let Mal "enjoy her vacation." Whatever. Are the Pikes made of money? I guess if they want to waste it on baby-sitters, that's their business. But it would it kill them to spend ten minutes of their alleged "family vacation" with their damn kids?
Happy birthday, Ann M. Martin! If we were really friends, I would throw you a slumber party in my stepfather's mansion. We would order pizza and give each other makeovers and discuss our crushes on boys like Bruce Schermerhorn and Pete Black, and how immature Alan Gray is. We would gossip about Cokie Mason and Shawna Riverson and discuss our forthcoming trip to the mall where we would get our ears pierced and our hair permed (well, Stacey would.) We would spread our sleeping bags out in a circle with our heads in the middle and be wary in case any of our brothers tried to play tricks on us. We'd giggle at Dawn for preferring Tofutti to actual birthday cake (Sacrilege!) It would be super-fun! Someday, mmmkay? Call me!
So in one of those weird, don't think too hard about it or your brain will explode time warps so common in BSC-land, Mary Anne and Stacey have re-signed up to be mother's helpers for the annual Pike family Sea City summer vacation. Despite Mallory being a baby-sitter now, the Pikes still elect to pay for two extra sitters in an effort to let Mal "enjoy her vacation." Whatever. Are the Pikes made of money? I guess if they want to waste it on baby-sitters, that's their business. But it would it kill them to spend ten minutes of their alleged "family vacation" with their damn kids?
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Stacey's building a better parent trap...
The Baby-sitters Club #124: Stacey McGill-- Matchmaker?
I SWEAR I've not forgotten you all. Summer is a busy, busy time when you're as fabulously fun as I am. Oh, ok, fine. I'm not fabulously fun at all. In fact, I'm kind of a huge loser. But I really have been busy... well, if not busy, at least "away." See, I went back to the midwest for a vacation with my family, and we didn't have internet in the cabin by the lake, and then I stayed an extra week at my parents' house because the next Sunday was my great-grandma's 100th birthday party (Happy birthday, Baba Mary! That's a feisty old lady, people. I wouldn't be surprised if she outlives us all.) and I meant to use the time wisely by reading some of my old BSC books so I could recap them for you all, but then my mother found out about this blog and that opened a whole new can of worms regarding my life choices (Why am I writing a blog about the BSC? Instead of re-reading books I read in elementary school and then wasting my time on this foolishness, why don't I put some effort into actually getting myself published? Or, you know, married, as she would really prefer)and frankly, it was just easier to put the BSC books back in the closet she kept yelling at me to clean out and spend the week drinking with my cousin. Whew!
So what better way to kick it back off than a story about your favorite and mine, that paragon of fashion and style, that hair-perming, Hard Rock Cafe-loving, math-whizzing delight, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Ms. Stacey McGill... and her mother Maureen!
I SWEAR I've not forgotten you all. Summer is a busy, busy time when you're as fabulously fun as I am. Oh, ok, fine. I'm not fabulously fun at all. In fact, I'm kind of a huge loser. But I really have been busy... well, if not busy, at least "away." See, I went back to the midwest for a vacation with my family, and we didn't have internet in the cabin by the lake, and then I stayed an extra week at my parents' house because the next Sunday was my great-grandma's 100th birthday party (Happy birthday, Baba Mary! That's a feisty old lady, people. I wouldn't be surprised if she outlives us all.) and I meant to use the time wisely by reading some of my old BSC books so I could recap them for you all, but then my mother found out about this blog and that opened a whole new can of worms regarding my life choices (Why am I writing a blog about the BSC? Instead of re-reading books I read in elementary school and then wasting my time on this foolishness, why don't I put some effort into actually getting myself published? Or, you know, married, as she would really prefer)and frankly, it was just easier to put the BSC books back in the closet she kept yelling at me to clean out and spend the week drinking with my cousin. Whew!
So what better way to kick it back off than a story about your favorite and mine, that paragon of fashion and style, that hair-perming, Hard Rock Cafe-loving, math-whizzing delight, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Ms. Stacey McGill... and her mother Maureen!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A locked trunk and a secret diary all add up to...a mystery for the Baby-sitters!
The Baby-sitters Club #29: Mallory and the Mystery Diary
Oh, boy, I'm about to have to admit to something pretty darn embarrassing. Apparently, I didn't always realize what a dingbat Mallory Pike is. Why, you ask? Because when I read this book again, a memory that I've apparently long suppressed came rushing back to me. Mallory opens this book prattling away in her journal. Her final line was "If only I were 13 instead of 11. Life would be a picnic." I totally stole that line! I thought it was hilarious. To be fair, I was maybe 8, tops. More likely I was 6 or 7 (I was a very advanced reader. No, seriously, I was. By the time I was 10, I read Gone with the Wind, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice all for the first time.)
But anyway, here's what happened: I remember sitting in our basement playroom at home, mad about something, and I decided to make a "Hate List" as this was before I actually had a proper journal. So I took a piece of paper, labeled it "My Hate List" and wrote a list of things I hated, ending with "Not having Christmas at Grandma's." I don't remember any of the other things on the list. Anyway, I wrote all the things on my list and then added the line "If I only I were 13, life would be a picnic." And of course, my nosy mother found my list, laughed at it (Thanks a lot, Mom. Maybe if you'd taken me seriously as a kid, I wouldn't have felt the need to move across the country. Think about that the next time you start harping on me for my life choices) and then was like "What is this about being 13? Where on earth did you come up with that?" so I had to show her this book and then she laughed some more and then she showed my relatives my hate list, like it was just so funny, and I HATE being laughed at (I bet that was on the list!) and wow! I clearly have some residual anger, so I'm just going to move on into the book before it becomes even more blatantly obvious once again that perhaps reliving my childhood through BSC books is not the best idea, and it might be more prudent for me to relive my childhood with the help of a competent and licensed therapist.
Oh, boy, I'm about to have to admit to something pretty darn embarrassing. Apparently, I didn't always realize what a dingbat Mallory Pike is. Why, you ask? Because when I read this book again, a memory that I've apparently long suppressed came rushing back to me. Mallory opens this book prattling away in her journal. Her final line was "If only I were 13 instead of 11. Life would be a picnic." I totally stole that line! I thought it was hilarious. To be fair, I was maybe 8, tops. More likely I was 6 or 7 (I was a very advanced reader. No, seriously, I was. By the time I was 10, I read Gone with the Wind, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice all for the first time.)
But anyway, here's what happened: I remember sitting in our basement playroom at home, mad about something, and I decided to make a "Hate List" as this was before I actually had a proper journal. So I took a piece of paper, labeled it "My Hate List" and wrote a list of things I hated, ending with "Not having Christmas at Grandma's." I don't remember any of the other things on the list. Anyway, I wrote all the things on my list and then added the line "If I only I were 13, life would be a picnic." And of course, my nosy mother found my list, laughed at it (Thanks a lot, Mom. Maybe if you'd taken me seriously as a kid, I wouldn't have felt the need to move across the country. Think about that the next time you start harping on me for my life choices) and then was like "What is this about being 13? Where on earth did you come up with that?" so I had to show her this book and then she laughed some more and then she showed my relatives my hate list, like it was just so funny, and I HATE being laughed at (I bet that was on the list!) and wow! I clearly have some residual anger, so I'm just going to move on into the book before it becomes even more blatantly obvious once again that perhaps reliving my childhood through BSC books is not the best idea, and it might be more prudent for me to relive my childhood with the help of a competent and licensed therapist.
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