Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater This Christmas, I created some coffee charms for a good friend of mine. He is a potter and so I used images of his work as the inspiration for three tiny coffee & ink paintings. I slipped two of them into fridge magnet frames and made the other one into a key-chain. He was pleased - especially when he recognized the work as his own. Thought I would share them with you... Happy Holidays. No, really.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Geoff and I were watching Two and a Half Men on the laptop the other night. Well, we were planning to watch it but it was a rerun - which was incredibly disappointing, even though we're not completely sure we even like watching someone as pretty as Ashton Kutcher for more than 5 minutes at a time. But that's not the point. The reality was that Geoff and I were in bed with a laptop and no plan, so we did what any other happily married couple with a 3 year old fast asleep in another room would do in this situation. We decided to Google ourselves. Literally. This isn't some sort of code for something else. Really. It isn't. Google Chrome is the default browser on Geoff's laptop and on that particular evening, a tiny little microphone appeared on the right hand side of the search bar. Of course we clicked on it and when we did, we were presented with an invitation to speak. Voice search. How cool is that? I went first and spat out...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I woke up to see Geoff staring at me. He asked me what time it was. I contemplated poking his eyes out but instead got up to go the bathroom, glancing at the clock radio as I walked by. Four twenty four. Geoff : That’s it? It’s so bright out.  He was right. Our bedroom was filled with light. I pushed the blinds away and peered through the glass. It was like daylight out there. Me : Maybe it's a full moon?  I headed to the bathroom (where I didn’t slam the door [ see Montana Moose story ]). I looked out the  windows.  Same view as from the bedroom – bright as hell. Much brighter than a full moon night. I started to feel anxious. I wandered into the living room and looked out front. It looked like the sun was trying to come out - at four thirty in the morning?  What was going on? I went back in the bedroom to re-check the clock. Four thirty six. Me (becoming frantic): This is so weird. It is so ...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I was wandering through a big box store, when something caught my eye in the toy department. I didn’t take the time to investigate but when I got home, I did a quick search using the two words that had registered in my brain. “Wipey Dipey.” When I was a kid, dolls were fairly simple. Several of them had eyes that opened and closed. Others writhed around when a string was pulled, and some had hair that “grew” when you yanked at it. Nowadays, dolls have become much more complicated.  Case in point… the Little Mommy Wipey Dipey doll. This is a toy created for ages 3 and up and just writing about it is yucking me out a little. From what I can tell, you give the doll a bottle and wait. But here’s the thing. The bottle has no actual liquid inside, and what comes out the other end is an electronic illusion. Depending on the output, yellow or brown light shoots out from the doll’s crotch – the reflection of which can be ...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I need to murder my husband.  I do. It's getting out of control, and by "it" I mean his nighttime bathroom door slamming habit. It's the little things. He's always been a door slammer. I knew it when I married him but I suppose, like most idealistic wives, I ignored the problem and hoped that it would just go away. It didn't. During the day, I really couldn't care less if a door is slammed. So long as no fingers, heads or other body parts are in involved. But at night - at night - silence is sacred and anyone who does anything to disturb it, is on my list . Me (Cautiously, to my partner as he heads for the bathroom at 2am): Hun? Please don't slam the door. Husband : I DON'T SLAM THE DOOR! Me : Um, yes you do. And it wakes everyone up. So, please? Husband : HUFMDSHSFDFUFDSH Step, step, step... SLAM ! I'm not sure what it is exactly that makes him think he needs to slam and lock the bathroom door ...

  by Andrea Mulder-Slater When my daughter was barely a year old, we zipped her into a cozy festive sleeper and hauled her to the local drug store/candy store (yeah, I get the irony) where Santa makes a yearly pre-Christmas appearance. I’m not proud of getting sucked into the holiday frenzy. I blame flashy Christmas lights. I think they hypnotize me.  This - and the fact that I don't want my kiddo to grow up and find herself searching for non-existent photos of "fun" family traditions - motivated me to stand in a line up, surrounded by farting children, greeting cards, Jelly Bellies and Tylenol PM. The crowd consisted of several parent/grandparent types with all manner of little ones. Some were on year 3 or 4 of the Santa experience and as such, knew what to expect. Others, like our girl had no clue what they were in for. She watched in fascination (fear) as one baby, toddler and preschooler after another sat on the lap of a local marine biologist/bag...