The Swearing 7 Year Old

So I have a problem. Zach, my seven year old son, has taken to saying the "F" word in front of small children. Most recently it was at my cousin's house on Easter. Nothing like a good four letter word to end the brunch in a hurry. Lindsay's three year old daughter Lyla was playing "Memory" with my boys. Zach turned over a duck (not a match) and said "Duck - fuck."
Now don't get me wrong, under other circumstances I might have chuckled at this little faux pas, but only a few short weeks before we were playing bridge at our friends' house and he called Alex an "F-er." We'd had a long talk about how it's embarrassing and inappropriate and made him apologize to our hosts, went home and lectured some more (thanks dad - you really helped me master the art of beating a dead horse)...and we figured the F bomb had hit its last target for a while, right?
WRONG!
SO what do you do? I realize my inclination to ask what the fuck is wrong with him might have been on the wrong track, but really, how do I emphasize that it's really not okay? Taking away video games seemed to work its magic the first time, but apparently that punishment was only effective until it was forgotten (Oh, say, five minutes after it had ended)...so I am now just sitting here wondering when that ugly word is going to rear its head again.
Suggestions for effective punishments that don't spark the notice of Social Services are greatly appreciated.

Lawyer-Mom...sounds like a real Super Hero to me!

The year I started law school marked the first in which there was an even split of men and women in the classroom. Like so many other fields, most of the faces coming to interview us were older men (almost exclusively white), wearing suits and talking about the promise of a great career in law. They kept telling us that things had finally evened out - thank God for Title 9 we'd think - we're actually going to be "equals" in this field. We young wannabe lawyer women really felt like the world was at our feet - glass ceilings be damned, we're rocketing up there with our helmets on ready to smash through any barrier you put in our way...or so we thought.
Now, some 15 years later, I reflect back on all the women I graduated with and I wonder - how many of you are still out there practicing law and fighting the good fight? NOT MANY!
I don't have a scientific study to back this up, but my own non-scientific research tells me that being a lawyer is not a good career choice for women who "want it all." The balance of work and family life people talk about - that doesn't exist for lawyers. And so, at this point in my life, only a small select few of my female law school colleagues are partners in firms pulling in the big bucks. Let me explain why.

Law firms based their expectations and salaries and bonuses and entire worlds around the "billable hour." There's always a yearly minimum - call it 2000 hours - that attorneys are required to meet to keep their jobs. At first glance, this requirement seems rather reasonable - 40 hours a week for 50 weeks out of the year - no problem, right?

WRONG - the "billable hour" bears little resemblance to its distant cousin the "actual hour." Actual hours consist of bathroom breaks, lost pens, texts about where to have lunch, coffee, phone calls from your mom and even the occasional drop-in from your office neighbor complaining about the fat guy who always seems to pass gas right in front of her door. The actual hour contains the 15 minutes it takes to remember exactly how long it took to finalize the draft of the memo you were working on to complete your last "billable hour." The actual includes a few minutes between billable hours to remind yourself that there is a world outside your 10 x 10 office that does indeed contain sunlight, breezes, changing weather, non-lawyers, and even fun! The billable hour contains none of the above!

Hey Mom - Why do we celebrate Easter?

Diet Coke...The price would suggest they've gone back to the original recipe??

Am I the only one who's noticed, or does it surprise everyone to go into the grocery store and see a 12 pack ON SALE for $4? Apparently the "regular" price is now approaching $5, though I did see it at Walmart for something like $3.89. But still, this seems like a colossal bump (I swear it used to be like $2.50 and the regular sale price would be like $2) and it's got me wondering - did they start putting coke in Coke again?

So, out of protest to the price, I am now officially (recall the sarcasm font) "trying to drink less diet coke" (you can see I really stretch myself!) Instead I bought a 160 pack of green tea for $7.29. I can make a whole pitcher of iced green tea for about 30 cents. This is much more to my recessionista liking!

Lo-prah's Book Club

Oh I admit it, I'm green with envy for Oprah and I want my own Book Club too! So this is the first in a series I like to call Books I Liked and if You Have Good Taste You'll Like Them Too.

1) The Help by Kathryn Stockett -- I really loved this book. It's the kind of book that you actually slow down reading when you get toward the back because you just don't want it to end...but you need to know what happens too, so you'll find yourself turning pages faster and faster again, only to curse yourself when you realize you're 60 pages closer to not having it anymore. The story is set in the South in the early 60s. The "Help" are the black maids of overprivileged white women. The only white woman who really has any redeeming qualities at all is (of course) destined to the life of a spinster. The book is very well written. It's touching, and funny, and at times will raise your ire. It's a fast read that I found myself missing when I got to the end. (It's ok - you can throw up if you need to. This kind of effusive rant is really beneath me, I will try to do better in the future!)

2) The Glass Castle & Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls -- Both of these "memoirs" are very good and well worth the read. I actually read them in reverse order to their writing (Half Broke Horses and then The Glass Castle), but this made for a chronologically correct read. I hadn't actually heard anything about either of these books and I saw HBH on a display table at the library, so I checked it out. It's the story of Walls' maternal grandmother who was a rancher living off the grid in Arizona in the 1930s. It's a story of hardship and triumph and, and, and -- and now I'm starting to sound like web-critic for Barnes and Noble so I'm going to stop! The point is it was good. I read The Glass Castle after reading HBH. It was equally good, though it certainly raises those James Frey inspired questions like: "Did this really happen?" But, from what I can tell, unlike Frey, her Million Little Pieces seem to be substantiated by verifiable truth. Maybe you (I) just want it to be fiction because her life sucks so badly that you can't believe anyone from those circumstances would actually make anything of herself. I don't know - but it's good.

3) Devil in the White City by Eric Lawson - This is not a new book (I think it came out about 10 years ago or something), but I find myself recommending it again and again. It's the only book that I can think of that both Paul and I really enjoyed. It's a historical book (not really a novel, but certainly there are imagined elements) with parallel stories from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Half of the book follows the architects and landscape architects commissioned to build the fair, and the other half follows the story of America's first (known) serial killer. It's fascinating. The serial killer aspect is at least somewhat fictionalized, but it's based on the trial transcripts, letters, and a lot of other first accounts, so it's certainly grounded in fact. The details, however, are imagined. It's a heftier book than any of the others that I recommend, but it's well worth the read.

Please comment with your own suggestions!!

Sarcasm in Cyberspace

To know me is to hear me, and to love me is to appreciate my sarcastic sense of humor. This is one of the problems I have with blogging -- how do I adequately convey the level of disdain, exasperation, "botheration" (this, according to ask.com, is an actual word - a synonym for exasperation) or just plain annoyance that I'm feeling in cyberspace? I suppose I could just hit it head on with an "isn't it annoying that..." but this really goes against my inner nature. I want tone, inflection, and phrasing to say it all, and I'm troubled by the fact that someone might actually take me seriously if I were to say something like "Sarah Palin is a real modern American mom. She's out there everyday showing us regular gals that we really can have it all - and lipstick too!" So I am instituting "Lolo's Sarcasm Font." Whenever you read something on this blog in plain-old typewriter Courier font, please add snark, cynicism, and just a touch of superiority to your tone. Thanks! No, that should really say "Thanks"...I think.

Watch out Denver, Here We...Stay???

So our plans for Spring Break have suddenly changed and it looks like the Weissman clan will be enjoying (in true 2009 Recession form) the new classic "Staycation" here at home. I'm sure there are plenty of exciting adventures we could find right here at home, but I know we're all looking forward to countless hours of video games and Lost...um, I mean, hitting all the local museums and really getting to know our city better...right!