marching through the wilderness

This Year's Girl - Elvis Costello

2012-01-28T21:29:00.001-05:00

Hey. Remember that resolution post from last year? Yeah, neither do I. Oops. I didn't run that marathon, which I will blame on hip issues. I didn't correspond with anyone very well, and I certainly didn't step up the blogging. THIS is exactly why I think making resolutions is stupid. Because you fail at them and then you feel shitty. So no resolutions for 2012. I KNEW I should stick to not making any, but now i have proof that they're a bad idea for me.

But wait, you say. What about the one you didn't mention? The gray hair one? Aha! The lazy option. The resolution that required me to do absolutely nothing except let my hair grow and fight the urge to change it. Yes, that one I stuck to. Because it was inordinately simple. Here are some photos of the carnage.

Look at all that gray hair. I swear it's at least one-third gray at this point, because every time I wear anything black and notice hair that's shed onto my shirt, about one-third of the time, that hair is long and thick and wonky and gray. The good thing is that my hair's curly, so it almost looks like highlights. That hair is such a different texture, it's sort of incredible, actually. It's really thick and sticks out in all directions. My father's hair is all silver and it's like a brillo pad sitting on top of his head. I think this is what genetics has in store for me: the human brillo pad, female version. RAD, I know.

It started out mostly at the temples, but it's spreading like wildfire, and now it's pretty much all over. But you know what? I almost kind of like it. I mean, I'm not young any more. not really. I look back at all those facebook photos posted of me from when I was in my early 20s and realize that I'm really not that girl any more at all. not even close. she was really pretty and thin and nice and naive and all of those things that 20-somethings should probably be. I'm a lot less of all of that. weighted down by literal extra pounds and the weight of experience. The laugh lines, frown lines, and all the lines in between. The hair is just an extra step in making me look like a WOMAN.

Some days, I embrace it. I love Alice's post about feeling sort of intimidating and enjoying it. She was, of course, the person who inspired me to let the gray go. I have days when I want to cry about how much I've changed, and I wonder if it's for the better or for the worse.

The day I took this one, I guess I was feeling better. You can see the streaks really starting from a distance, and I guess I felt fairly ok about it.

Are you going gray? Do you color your hair? Why or why not? Also, do you spell it gray or grey? I must know.

Sooner or Later - ZaZa

2011-12-12T00:18:00.002-05:00

word to the wise:

do not leave your prescription drugs within reach of toddlers, as you will never see them again. my antidepressants are gone. i'm not sure if this is just one of the universe's sick jokes or if eliot's trying to tell me something. but he CAN'T tell me ANYTHING. and now he can't tell me where the pills are.

this is not a fun game.

any guesses?

No Sign of Life - OK Go

2011-12-06T21:39:00.004-05:00

hey. how are things? i'm currently in a hotel room all by myself with quietness and no legos and no squished blueberries to clean up and no asses to wipe and no cat vomit to mop and, well, you get the picture. it's kind of blissful, actually. oh, i'm not totally heartless. i miss my boys a lot. but don't think for a SECOND that i'm not enjoying the hell out of this little work vacation.

where to start? i think i'll ease back in with a shortish post. you know that asperger's kids aren't supposed to have much of a sense of humor? mine is one of the exceptions. i mean, he's no comedy genius, but he makes me laugh. he is gaining some confidence, and really flourishing at his new school. more on that later, but i think that's one thing that is helping with his humor.

today's song title brings to mind an exchange we had in the car the other day.

me: what were you looking at on the lego website earlier?

em: ninjago stuff. they have some cool new things on there. editor's note: NINAJAGO. holy shit.

me: like what?

em: oh, like these snake temples, and a helicopter, and a card holder. editor's note: i am paraphrasing. i have no idea what the hell any of this stuff is.

me: a card holder? you mean, like a lego holder for the ninjago cards?

em: yeah. pretty cool.

me: dude. a holder made of legos for the cards? why would you need that? can't you just hold the cards in your hands?

em: yeah, i guess you can. probably they make them for zombies with no arms, then.

words of wisdom, folks. words of wisdom.

Black Wave - The Shins

2011-08-25T21:38:00.001-04:00

oh, y’all. i think almost every day about writing here, and then i have all this other crap come up, and, well, here we are. it’s hard to work all week and deal with mundane shit at home like laundry and dishes and dinner and cleaning and DAMN, i’m tired. i mean, who of us isn’t tired? jebus, it’s insane. and, like all of you, i heard all that crap about how tired we’d be when we became parents, but who REALLY listens to people who say that? yeah, not us. or not me, at least. i’m pretty sure dave listened, because he always does.

so…i need to write about eliot. because he’s freaking awesome. unfortunately, true to the whole second child deal, i’m going to put that post on the backburner and talk about me. well, this IS a blog, and isn’t the whole point to make people listen to me drone on and on about MYSELF? probably not. too bad, suckas. you’re stuck reading this now.

where to begin? the last few months have been hard. wait, let me restate. 2011 has been a big pile of suck, and i would like to kick it in the crotch. due to all the shit with ems and school and asperger’s and autism spectrum and weirdness, i spent a great deal of 2011 year-to-date crying. i mean, a lot of crying here. trust me, i know that everyone has their shit to deal with, and i’m just venting at you guys. i guess i just want to explain to the few of you who read this why i have been absent lately. absent from blogging, from facebook, from email, from phone calls, from get-togethers, from shindigs, and any other form of social interaction i can think of. i’ve been a total incommunicado asshole. why would i call anyone if all i’m going to do is cry at them? why would i post shit on facebook when all i’m thinking about is how fucking sad i am?

plus, em just keeps getting weirder. and this means that his behaviors can get more difficult/annoying/infuriating. this boy is one of the brightest lights in my life, but sometimes, i just feel like i have no idea what the universe was thinking when it decided i should be his mother. i don't have a goddamn idea what i'm doing most of the time. i feel so stupid and small in the face of his challenges which, by extension, are my challenges, too. there are days when i have no idea what he needs or how to give it to him. on those days, he probably feels the same way. i have just put him to bed and cried. or cried all the way to work.

and then, one day, it hit me. like the proverbial ton of bricks, it hit me. NORMAL PEOPLE DO NOT CRY THIS MUCH. and normal people don’t feel so freaking sad all the time. and gee, when was the last time i felt like myself? i honestly couldn’t remember.

so, with sweaty palms, i dialed a shrink. i don’t know what took me so long, considering that this is my brother’s chosen profession. i guess i didn't want to admit to anyone that i couldn't handle things. and that i wasn't strong and fine and super. but i wasn't. i spent an hour or so with her, and she declared that i was depressed, and had been for some time. and you know what? she was right. i realized it, and i hate to admit it. my family didn't know. my closest friends didn't know. hey, i'm an actor. i acted ok.

so i'm on drugs now. i fucking hate it. i didn't want to be on drugs. i didn't want to admit that i was weak. but i think that by telling you guys, it helps me own it. perhaps i'm stronger now that i've admitted it. whatever. all i know is that i'm starting to feel like myself again. i'm less tired all the time and more engaged. or something. the second i filled that prescription, it was as if i got better all of a sudden. as if, just by knowing that i'd feel better, i started to feel better. does that make sense?

there's no shame in this - none at all. i did this for me, yes. but i did it for dave. and i did it for these boys. and for my friends. and my family. i did it for everyone.

i'm terrified to post this. my palms are sweaty now. i pressed post and put a future time on it to give me time to take it down. will i? fuck. i don't know.

I Would Like to Call It Beauty - Corrine Bailey Rae

2011-06-13T20:42:00.002-04:00

i am about to impart to you a little theology with my son. let me first say that he may have been to church 6 or 7 times in his life. yes, we're THOSE people. we have the occasional religious book given to him by my mother, and when we see her, she sings songs like 'jesus loves me' to the kids. i'm not aware of any further indoctrination, but clearly, em has been thinking about this. if i had one wish, i think at this point i'd like to live in my elder son's head for a day.

em: god is always watching over us.

me: um. really?

em: yes. he can see us everywhere.

me: wow, buddy. where'd you hear that?

em: oh, i don't know. i just know it, i guess. god's a man who can see us.

me: did mimi tell you that? or nana? or did you read it in a book?

em: no, mama. i just know it.

me: really? what else do you just know?

em: god's a man who lives in outer space. he's made of cold air.

me: oh. that's really interesting.

em: yeah. i think it is. he was made in the big bang. and he lives in outer space and watches over us.

me: watches over us? what does that mean? does he help us?

em: no, he just watches us. that's all. and he controls the weather. and whatever color the weather is, that's what he looks like. so if it's raining, he's kind of blue. if it's sunny, he's yellow like the sunshine.

me: what if there's a rainbow?

em: well, then, he's rainbow-colored, mama. and since he's made of cold air, if he touches you, it feels cold. oh, and you know what else? when you die, he dies, too.

me: and how do you know all this again?

em: MAMA, I JUST KNOW IT. why do you keep asking me that?

yep, folks. this is the end product of not taking your kid to church and having grandparents who wish you would. he's cobbled his own little ideas together and VOILA. em's own little religion. are we totally going to hell for this? the jury's still out, i think.

I Know There's An Answer - The Beach Boys

2011-04-07T21:30:00.005-04:00

so. school. here’s the thing. back in the summer, we knew we’d have to move emerson from his sitter’s, but WHERE? see, she wasn’t going to keep kids on full-time basis any more, and we had no idea where he could go. i mean, what the fuck do you do with a three-year-old who reads voraciously but won’t qualify for kindergarten until he’s nearly six? we kicked it around for a while. he obviously couldn’t go to daycare. i mean, daycare’s equipped for typical kids. our kid? not so typical. we checked into some schools, and settled on a montessori school near where we work. their website was the first lure. they talk about “integrating students of diverse backgrounds” and allowing “children to learn independently in an environment specially prepared by the teacher to respond to individual needs and tendencies” and having “respect for individual characteristics” and all that happy bullshit. we totally bought it. it sounded so freaking GOOD.

at the first parents’ meeting, i was 8 months pregnant. as the meeting wore on, i started feeling more and more panicky. i couldn’t put my finger on why, but i was feeling so overwhelmed. there was SO MUCH to absorb, particularly all of the little rules for us. no rainboots. no clothing or lunchboxes with animated characters from tv or movies. dress child only in clothing he can put on by himself. label every item just so. only pack healthy lunch items. get a backpack, but it has to be this particular size. remember, no animated characters. oh, and here are some guidelines about organic gardening at home. and how you child needs x hours of sleep per night. and here’s some parenting information. and on and on AND ON.

i wrote dave a note halfway through the meeting that said, “i am totally overwhelmed.” he nodded and agreed, but i chalked a lot of my panic up to hormones. i called my mother on the drive home and cried about what terrible parents we were because our child doesn’t like to eat raw veggies for lunch and how he has seen TELEVISION and how we don’t have an organic garden in our yard and on and on AND ON.

and you know what? my gut reaction had nothing to do with hormones. i was straight up right about that place. it was exactly what i feared, and it took us seven months to figure it out. it’s hard to sum up seven months, but here’s the gist of it. i got emails from his teacher, which detailed tantrums, accidents, and just generally odd behavior. we chalked it up to adjustment issues, and left it at that. however, these things continued, and we started to get concerned. the whole time, the school seemed helpful and patient. we made appointments (side note: if you have a kid with ISSUES and those ISSUES may be AUTISM-RELATED, prepare to wait almost SIX MONTHS for an appointment with a reputable doctor. JEBUS.) and tried to talk to him and work with him and get a diagnosis and holy shit, we tried.

finally, the DAY AFTER we were told that it was asperger’s, the school basically said (not in these words) GET HIM OUT. i cried and tried to reason with them, saying that we couldn’t see progress if he left and we didn’t know where else he could go at this point and just give us some time. they agreed to do it, but they then basically forced us to move him to ½ days. they gave us very little time to make this change, so i had to freak out and find a nanny, do background checks, et-fucking-cetera. asked if he could please at least be picked up after time on the playground so he could have a little fun, was told NO. yet still, we persisted. after all, every time we picked him up, he told us what a good day he’d had.

we started him in occupational therapy and sought a psychologist. we found a nanny who is amazing. we looked to alternate therapies and attempted to get a second opinion. and after the psychologist observed him at school for 2 hours, she read her notes to us. i could have been knocked over with a feather – i did not recognize the description of my own son. the way he was acting and interacting at school was NOTHING like what he was doing at home or with us and his friends outside of school. i was SHOCKED. he was sitting under tables and performing any number of nervous mannerisms, strange sounds while he walked in circles around the room. he couldn’t choose anything to do, and actually preferred to wander around while humming to himself. who was this child?

the final straw was last sunday night, two days after our visit with the shrink, when i asked him how he felt about going to school the next day. he told me that school made him nervous and that he didn’t want to go. after all the times he told us that he loved it and had such a good time, i guess he figured that we were ready to really listen to him this time. we talked more, and it was so clear to me that he just couldn’t deal with it. i called the school the next morning and said that he wouldn’t be back. we couldn’t do anything about the school not wanting to accommodate him or try to help him or work with him. they’re a 100% private school and take no federal funds, so no iep or 504 plan could be mandated. all of this was cloaked in nicey-nice language, like “we just don’t think it’s the right environment for him” BLAH-DE-BLAH. they COULD have tried, but didn’t feel like it.

i have heard lots of parents who have aspie kids say that montessori was perfect for their kids, since they focus on the individual, so i’m sure there’s a montessori school out there that might be ok. but this one? rigid, inflexible, and intolerant. they allowed him to be ostracized. they allowed him to feel stressed out. they didn’t tell us all of the problems he was having – we had to send a shrink in to see it with her own eyes. i TRIED to see it, but he acted ok when i was there. i guess my being there made him feel comfy and act calmer.

we’re really lucky that dave’s employer has flexible hours, and that we have the most amazing nanny in the world. we’re really lucky that emerson decided to tell us how he was feeling. we’re really lucky to have found a psychologist who wants to observe and talk to him for longer than an hour or two to be sure he’s diagnosed correctly. we’re really lucky that he functions as well as he does. all in all, life is pretty good.

he'll start a new school in the fall. one that's used to kids with issues, but not one specifically for kids who are special. one that focuses on PLAY. one that has chickens in the yard. one that seems to get him. in the meantime, he's just having fun. he has t-ball and reads and runs around pretending to be a mako shark and makes his brother laugh. and that's what a four-year-old kid should be doing: having fun. asperger's or not. FUN.

Can't Get There From Here - R.E.M.

2011-03-09T22:36:00.003-05:00

i love getting parenting advice from friends. i really do. i hate it from well-meaning strangers and other like types, but i love it from my friends. i remember everyone talking about the terrible twos, and how we had to brace ourselves for two, because it would kick our asses. strangely, we didn't have that experience AT ALL. i started to feel like we were so lucky. i mean, two? no problemo. definitely not terrible. two was freaking amazing. ems was such a sweet, charming two-year-old child. rarely had a tantrum, communicated so well, all of those amazing things. three hit, and it was a little harder. in fact, it became a LOT harder.

three was a pretty difficult age for us, especially compared with the loveliness of age two. three brought with it tantrums and defiance, nerdiness and social awkwardness. three did bring us reading and an excellent sense of humor, so i can't be too cranky at it. but three made sure to kick is square in the nuts before it left us when four arrived.

four? holy shit. four. four came along a month after eliot did, and four has been insanely difficult. four brought even more defiance. four also thought it would be fun to add rigidity, even more pronounced hyperactivity, and bigger, angrier tantrums. yay.

now, before you get all over my case for complaining, please let me refer you to this post. and this one. and generally every post i've ever written about my older son. you KNOW i freaking adore this child. that is what makes it so difficult to deal with the fact that he has, for lack of a better word, issues. he is a sweet, loving child. he really is. he's funny as heck, and smart like i can't believe.

but he can be defiant like the best of them, and throw a screaming tantrum like you wouldn't believe. his amazing memory only causes problems if you ever forget saying something or contradict yourself. his insistence on some things happening only a certain way can be annoying at best. sometimes he's been known to lash out by hitting when he is especially angry.

why do i write these things? because i need to vent. more importantly, though, it's to admit to being human. there's a cult of perfection in parenting these days, more now than ever, and especially true when it comes to mothers. you know this if you've ever read even one comments section of a blog or column. people are so judgmental on the web, thanks to its anonymous nature. i have forbidden myself from reading most comments any more, as i tend to come away weepy or furious or a combination of those two things plus some. so many people have all the answers and are more than happy to pass judgment when someone admits that he or she fucked up or doesn't have all the answers.

well, guess what? i have fucked up numerous times. and definitely don't have all the answers. i don't even have a few of them, it seems. i've yelled at my kid. i've cried. i've sworn (no shit) (but not AT him). i've begged and pleaded with him. i've begged and pleaded with every deity i can think of. i've made excuses for him. i've made excuses for me. i've done things totally wrong. i've also done a few things right. i have purchased books. and more books. i've made appointments. we've paid a lot of money. i've made more phone calls. and more when those calls go unreturned.

do we have any answers?

not really.

do we have a cure?

nuh-uh.

do we feel like any fucking progress has been made? at all?

nope.

do i feel hopeless and sad?

a lot.

do i love my kid?

more than ever.

he's not fucking broken. HE IS NOT BROKEN. this has been my mantra over the past few months, and will continue to be forever, probably. he's different and special and is helping me learn that i have to look at things in a different way. i don't have all the answers and never will. humility? CHECK.

What a Day That Was - Talking Heads

2011-02-01T23:42:00.005-05:00

once, i had a whole post planned about the private school ems attends, because i felt like it was so great. but i guess the second you have a kid with a few problems, all that happy bullshit goes out the window. we’re being told that he has asperger’s syndrome. for the record, i disagree. i think it’s more complicated than that, but i’m not a shrink or a doctor or any such thing, so who cares what i think? the second we met with the folks at school to discuss, they were ready to cut him loose. and so now, what the fuck do you do with a four-year-old kid who reads at a jr. high level but who can’t draw a circle and is emotionally squarely four years old? he’s wonderful and sweet and tries so hard to please, but just seems so anxious during the day and thus, is DIFFICULT, because he disrupts his peers and acts WEIRD.

fuck. FUCK. what are we supposed to do? we got some really helpful links to other private schools that cost, and i am really not kidding, anywhere from $18,000 to $25,000 per year. WHAT THE FUCK, right? and we’re in that awesome category of not making enough to pay for that shit, but making too much to qualify for financial aid. and he’s still not eligible for fucking pre-k, because of his stupidass birthdate. you guys. do NOT have children right after the cutoff dates for school. you will forever feel shitty about it. want to know what’s super fun? oh, any number of things:

wondering if you filled out the questionnaires incorrectly, which is what led to him being diagnosed with asperger’s.

trying to call or email every private school in the greater atlanta area and asking if they’ll take my kid or if we can afford the place.

deliberating ad nauseum about whether or not we should file an iep with the school system so he can get services. because if we do this, he’ll be labeled for life as a fucked up aspie kid. if we don’t do this, we won’t get free services from the school system, like occupational therapy and whatnot.

crying all day.

begging him in the morning to please listen and please not interrupt the other kids and please rest when he’s supposed to and please do this and that and this other thing and then remembering that he is FOUR. and that he’s feeling totally overwhelmed by all of this and probably feels just as shitty as we do, if not more so. poor kid.

trying to decide how we will explain to him why he won’t be able to go to school any more, when he loves it so much.

taking it out on him when i see him doing something weird at home and i’m all what the fuck, kid? stopit.

trying to figure out whether or not we should sell the house and move to another school district.

calling around for nine thousand therapy appointments, all the while thinking, he’s not THAT fucked up.

writing about it. i’m having a hard time with it, but i want to GET IT OUT THERE. and let you guys know. and maybe direct some blog traffic this way so that someone, ANYONE, with any answers might find their way here and, like a magic fairy, tell me what the hell to do.

i know that it will all be ok. I KNOW it will. but it’s hard and it hurts and i have to talk about it to someone. so it’s you. i promise i’ll write about fun things again sometime soon, but i’m just so goddamned consumed by this shit. it’s like the problem is eating me alive. upside of all this? at least the stress has gotten me back down to my pre-eliot-pregnancy weight. keep it up, stress! i might just make it to pre-emerson levels. woohoo.

i love this kid so much it hurts me. he's amazing and we'll get through this.

edited to add: they're not kicking him out per se, but it's been strongly suggested that he's not getting his needs met there, and the teacher is having a hard time working with all 28 kids when he's a distraction, ETCETERA. but he's not hurting anyone, for chrissakes. we're trying to get nine thousand therapy appointments scheduled. maybe they'll give us meds that will fix his issues. I DON'T KNOW YET. sigh.

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - Cake

2011-01-25T21:28:00.001-05:00

imagine a baby who screams, loudly and ear-piercingly, every time he's happy. would you think that's strange?

what about when that baby gets older and starts to get obsessed with things? earliest obsession? spoons. that baby must have a spoon in his hand at all times, even sometimes while sleeping. is that odd?

when that baby's vocabulary is so large at 18 months that his parents stop writing down all the words he knows, would that set off any red flags?

what about when that child, who loved to draw and scribble, started to lose interest in those things as he got older?

when he got older, though, he learned to read. that's why it didn't seem strange that he lost interest in drawing, isn't it?

and is it weird that he's terrified of heights? what about the fact that he doesn't seem to be able to stop moving sometimes? only eats a few kinds of foods? throws intense temper tantrums and, when you stop to think, have really big emotions? walk on his toes?

would any of those things freak you out? probably. pat yourself on the back, please. you see, it wasn't until emerson started having tantrums at school that we really started to evaluate his other behaviors a little more. and then everything started to make us nervous. i mean, he's more than four, and it took him going to school to figure it out. HIS TEACHER was the one who noticed something off, not his OWN FUCKING PARENTS.

he was the first child we had. everything seemed normal-ish to us because we had no idea what NORMAL was. and now? jesus h. there's so much more, y'all. SO MUCH. but i can't quite get it into words.

he did have his big evaluation a couple of weeks ago, and we'll get our diagnosis this coming monday. and with the diagnosis? i'm sure they'll have some sort of treatment plan, which will cost more money and make us spend more time, and probably some sort of goddamn iep, and i don't even know how to go about even BEGINNING to ask for an iep with the school district, and this is the city of atlanta, for chrissakes, so it's not like they'll make this easy at all, and fuckity, fuck. FUCK. this sucks.

i mean, jesus. he's smart and funny and cute and loving and wonderful, but here we are FREAKING OUT, because he throws tantrums and toe walks and has now? now started hitting. i love this kid so much and hate to worry about this or tell him for the five hundredth time STOP! NO! DON'T! PLEASE! EMERSON!

sigh. tomorrow will be a better day, right?

All That I Need -Blind Melon

2011-01-19T20:57:00.006-05:00

i want to tell you about eliot. i have talked so much about the other one on here, and now it's time, friends. time to talk about the baby. i haven't said much, for fear of precipitating the drop of the other shoe, but my heart's bursting for this kid. when we had one child, i was positive that i couldn't possibly have any more love for anyone else. my heart was full to overflowing for my little family. but then. THEN. oh, how wrong i was.

i adore my little fat-cheeked boy. and magically, i don't love anyone less. in fact, i think i love everyone just that much more. our little family of four is a lot of fun. NOW, don't get me wrong. shit happens over here. i think you recall my post a couple back in regards to a certain autism center and shit going on in that department. let me make it abundantly clear that there is plenty of crapola around these here parts.

but i want to tell you about this baby. he sleeps a lot. A LOT. i didn't know that babies, in fact, were supposed to sleep a lot. emerson wasn't a horrible sleeper. still isn't TOO bad (don't get me started). but this kid? wow. sleeps so much that at first, i totally freaked out and told the pediatrician, and she was all AND? i was like BUT HE SLEEPS. ALL THE TIME. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME. IT'S WEIRD. and she was like DUDE. that's what babies do. and the lightbulb went off and i was like OHHHHHHHH. got it. so this is sort of fun. in fact, he's sleeping right now.

also, he's happy. inexplicably, joyfully, ridiculously happy. he smiles all the time. seems like he was born smiling. he has started laughing, and what fun that is. i forgot how stupid you must act, giddy and dorky, when you hear a baby laugh. we all jump around like idiots when he does it, trying to make him do it again. he laughs a lot at emerson. he freaking LOVES his big brother. his face lights up when he hears em's voice. and emerson kisses and hugs him all the time. oh, i know it's the honeymoon period for them, and i'm savoring every moment.

he's insanely good-natured. today, he had his 4-month checkup, and got three shots. he made a pouty face and cried for about two seconds, and was all smiley and flirty with the nurse again. i bumped him on the head the other day, and he just grinned at me. the universe knew that we needed a low-maintenance baby, and gave us eliot.

lest you think he has no faults, i'll tell you (and he'll totally thank me for this later) that he's supremely farty. to the nth degree. i mean, all the time. and stinky. babies aren't supposed to be stinky farters, but this one? hoo boy, he is. BIG TIME. which is nice, because we can all blame whatever issues we might be having on the baby, and everyone buys it. smeliot. you think i'm kidding? i'm really, truly not. this kid stinks a lot of the time. the rest of the time, he smells sweet and delicate as a baby should. but DAMN, GINA!

he's strong and huge and amazing and i'll stop now. guess what? i love this baby.

birth, part two.

2011-01-05T20:58:00.004-05:00

so, dave got home. and then his parents got to the house. but i was WAY happier about dave getting home so i could stop making goddamn play-doh dinosaurs. that shit is hard enough when there's NOT a baby thinking that now is a good time to make an entrance. i paced around and took a shower and called the doctor and the doula and tried to finish packing the bag.

after a while, you sort of don’t really care what the fuck is in the bag, you know? seems important at the time that you have your shit together, but when you’re in the middle of labor, the stupid hospital bag loses all sense of importance. i remember standing in the middle of our bedroom, staring at the bag, thinking, “body wash? deodorant? who fucking cares?” the one thing i DID care about was the ipod, and it was too late for the labor playlist that i had been thinking about. all i could do was throw it in the bag and hope that this baby wouldn’t be born while the strains of helmet or some other crap graced our ears. ems was born while busting up a starbucks was playing which, while awesome, wasn’t exactly what we had in mind to be the first thing our baby heard. so far, no starbucks riots. keep your fingers crossed.

dave’s parents finally got there, and after giving them emerson and his bag, we set off for the hospital. poor emerson. he didn’t want to go with them AT ALL. he just wanted to be with us, which was sort of heartbreaking. here was the last time i’d see him as an only child, and i had to tell him NO, you can’t come with us. SUCKED. he cried and hugged me a lot, but finally agreed to go with his nana and papa. i think they promised him dinosaur train and ice cream.

on the drive, i remember every freaking bump in the road, and once, dave braked really hard. i told him that if he did it again, i’d throw him out of the car and drive myself there. it was after this exchange that i started to feel like the total labor stereotype. it hurt and i was cranky, but isn’t that how everyone feels? i started to lose sight of my earlier visions of serene, calm birth. THAT SHIT HURT.

we got to the hospital right after 8:00, and dave was about to pull in the parking deck. this may have been the ONE time in history that i begged him to use valet parking. i’ve run 17 miles in a row but couldn’t even begin to think about walking a few hundred yards from the parking deck. FUCK THAT. made it in and got to a room. it seemed so disorganized at the time. they wanted to check my vitals and the baby’s, and it seemed to take forever until they finally took the monitor crap off me. i paced around for a while, but you may recall me telling you that my ankles were swollen beyond recognition. they were so bad by this point that i could barely walk. i got in the shower and hung out with dave and the doula. she had candles with her and i put on fleet foxes, which was actually pretty nice.

i remember making a lot of noise and being fairly unapologetic about it. if you know me at all, you know that this is not my m.o. i am pretty apologetic about EVERYTHING. that went out the freaking window. in fact, at one point, the doctor came in the room because he’d heard me from out in the hallway, and i (of course) didn't say anything. in my head, though, i was all, AND? who fucking cares. make the walls thicker or something if nobody wants to hear pregnant women in pain while they’re IN LABOR. jebus.

and...nothing happened, except for me being in pain. i had all these grand, brave ideas about giving birth naturally, but that shit? hurts. a lot. also, i couldn't even stand up, since my feet, legs, and ankles were so swollen. i originally wanted to try standing, squatting, and all that, but all i could do was lie there and whimper. the doctor, who is awesome, came to check me out, and it seemed that the baby was positioned on the bag of waters (which sounds SOOOOO GROSS, so sorry about that) and that my water wasn't going to break with him sitting there. did i want them to break it for me? i hemmed and hawed about it (it's not natural. NAAAATURALLLL. NAAATTTUUUUURRRRAAAAALLLL.), and decided to go ahead and do it.

wouldntcha know, that was all it took for the baby to be ready to get the hell outta there. and then, THEN? i was all - epidural, please. i want the epidural. i can't do this, i want the drugs. gimme the drugs. oh, gawd, please don't make me do this JUST GIVE ME DRUGS PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEAAAASSSSEEE. and they were all - yeah, not gonna happen. tough shit, this is what you wanted to do. side note: have you seen knocked up? it's like they took that conversation directly out of my room. i am guessing that this conversation must happen with a whole fuckload of women in the delivery room, and they're all YOU WANTED NATURAL CHILDBIRTH? BWAHAHAHAHA, YOU GOT IT!

so that was it. it really felt like i was being ripped in half, doused in gasoline, set on fire, stabbed, shot, and beaten, but i pushed that kid out with 4 good pushes, about 3 hours after we'd gotten to the hospital. it was kind of awesome that i was only in active labor for a pretty short period of time.

and i got to hold the baby immediately, and nurse him and kiss him and love on him. dave was so amazing the whole time, and i was so proud of us. the baby was so healthy and big and fat and wonderful.

now. a lot of the natural childbirth folks would like you to think that, while they were giving birth, sunshine and roses and glitter and unicorns came bursting into the room, but let me dispel that myth. BULLSHIT. i actually saw someone say on facebook that they remembered their natural delivery as fun. FUN. FUN? HARDLY. i mean, i'm really proud of myself that i did it. really proud. but let's not kid ourselves. 2nd degree tearing? not what i'd call a party, really. 10+ pound baby? all the 'natural childbirth is fun' people can kiss my giant ass.

but i've thought and thought about it. i've done it both ways. and, in the end, you get the baby. i don't think it really matters if you hurt like hell or didn't feel it because you had drugs or if you had to get a c-section or adopted a child. in the end, you have a beautiful, sweet-smelling, amazing new little person in your arms. your whole life changes no matter how that child came into the world.

world, meet eliot. he's freaking amazing.

El Manana - Gorillaz

2011-01-01T22:25:00.006-05:00

i have four resolutions for 2011. only four, but it's sort of monumental, given that i normally boycott making resolutions at all. i just feel like they're made to be broken, but this year i'm really going to give it my best effort.

1. i'm going to finally run a trail marathon. my brother says why fuck around - just sign up for a 50k. i say that the marathon is TWENTY-SIX POINT TWO MILES. another 5 might just kill me.

2. be a better correspondent. there are so many folks with whom i'm glad to be in touch/back in touch, and i really want to see you/talk to you more often. let's do this, people.

3. i plan to, à la alice bradley, stop dying my hair and see what happens when i embrace the gray. i'm not sure just how much gray i have, but it can't be that bad. right? RIGHT?

4. blog more. this should be obvious. i always enjoy it immensely when i actually get around to it, but i just don't seem to make time for it. i will this year. or else i'll just say i will and not blog again until march. we'll see.

what about you? do you make resolutions or do you think they're crap?

Will Anything Happen? - Blondie

2010-12-15T21:17:00.003-05:00

i will continue the birth story. or at least i think i will. but i've been conspicuously absent here, and on and off over at facebook. i have just been overwhelmed a bit, and i want to explain why, for the two or three of you that still check in over here.

emerson started school in august, at a montessori school, since he's still too young for public preschool. whatever, state of georgia. lame. montessori seemed to be the best fit for him anyway, and at first, it seemed like heaven. and then? not so much.

long (LONG) story short, ems has problems. several problems. and after trying and trying and trying to deal with these problems, we're still not where we need to be in terms of diagnosing these problems. i can not delve into the issues just yet. too sad tonight. but when you have appointments at the marcus autism center, well, you know that the problems are real. and scary.

can't tell you how much i've cried about this. and thanked the stars for amalah and her kick-ass blog, which is rife with stories about her charming, sweet little boy, noah, who is quirky and awesome like ems. and having read her as she's gone through every emotion imaginable with noah and his progress/setbacks, etc., i can gain a little confidence that em will be ok. more than ok. we just have to get through this shit.

birth, part one.

2010-12-09T23:32:00.001-05:00

so...hi. how are you? i have been imagining so many posts in my head over the last few months, but haven't actually sat down to do anything about that. so much has been happening, not the least of which is that we have a new son. so yay for that.

want to hear the birth story? i need to write it so that i have a record of it before i forget, and if you want to read it, go ahead. if not, don't be waiting around for actual entertainment to roll around any time soon. it might be another matter of months before i post again.

i worked the whole time. all day, every day. people kept asking me when i was going to take some time off, and i was all WHEN I'M DEAD, BITCH. no, but i was all, WHEN THE BABY COMES, BITCH. or just, heh - when the baby gets here, i think. because i'm really rather averse to confrontation, if you get right down to it.

so, yeah. due date was september 13th. and for part of the day on the 8th, i was feeling some crazy pains that kind of felt like contractions, but they eventually passed. same thing happened on the 9th. the whole weekend went by, then the due date (which was a monday), and i started to get cranky. emerson was almost a week late, but i was really hoping for a change with this kiddo. my ankles and feet were swollen beyond recognition. the only shoes i'd been wearing for a while were a pair of black teva sandals, which were a freaking size up. i would post a photo, but don't want to make you ill.

i wanted so desperately to stop being pregnant. i mean, yeah, i wanted to meet the baby and all, but first and foremost on my mind was to stop being so goddamn swollen. my ankles and feet were the worst bit, but even my face was swollen beyond recognition. i won't post a photo of that carnage, either, because i still can't believe how gross i looked. (side note: my mother-in-law had us all do family photos at the end of august. i look totally fucking unrecognizable, and now that fun memory is preserved FOREVER. awesome.)

i had a doctor's appointment on the morning of the 15th, and went to that feeling fine. he checked me out, and said that there was absolutely no progress at all. he swept the membranes, but i felt exactly the same. went back to work, and worked the rest of the day. started feeling the same pains that i'd felt the week prior, but didn't think anything of it, considering that they'd been no big deal before. i left at my normal time of 4:30, and went to pick up emerson at school. he'd had a good day, and i remember talking to him for a few minutes, until the pains started to get worse. i called dave at work and said he might need to call his parents.

emerson and i got stuck in traffic on the connector. if you live in atlanta, you know exactly what i mean. if you don't, i'll give you a quick explanation. the connector is where two interstate systems - 75 and 85 - come together for several miles. as if this doesn't suck enough, they come together just in time to go through downtown atlanta. even shorter explanation? in traffic, this is a giant clusterfuck. the pains got worse, and i think it was then, sitting in traffic, that i realized that i was really, truly in labor. i called dave back, and told him to get his parents to our house as fast as they could get there. and it really started to hurt. REALLY. A LOT. and i started to think that maybe this child would be born in traffic with only a three-year-old child as a witness.

got home, FINALLY. started packing a bag for emerson and making sure everything was all set. i had to take a lot of breaks, just to catch my breath. oh, and also to play with emerson. because nothing is more fun for a kid than playing with his mother who is in labor. seriously. he didn't want to read, he didn't want to watch a movie; he only wanted me to make stuff out of goddamn play-doh. LAME.

dave finally got home, and told me that his parents were on their way. i'll have you know that he performed some detective work in order to find them. MY parents are never far from their cell phones, but dave's folks? not so much. in fact, their phones were off. dave frantically called his brother to ask where their folks were. turned out they were at dinner with their sunday school class or some such thing. so dave had to call one of their friends who got them to turn on their damn phones.

jebus, this is boring. sorry, y'all. i'll finish part 2 this weekend, when it's possible i might be a little better rested and make this story a fraction more interesting. feels good to be writing this again, though.

But, Honestly - Foo Fighters

2010-09-12T21:37:00.000-04:00

um. hi? been a while. i am now blaming the fact that i don't post much any more on the fact that we moved the computer to a totally inconvenient location. that, and i'm hugely irritable right now, and have nothing good to say. tomorrow is my due date, and i want this to be OVER now. i'm so freaking over being pregnant. i remembered an email i wrote to diana about four years ago, when we were both pregnant with our first kiddos, and i was over it then. here is what i said:

I miss my non-swollen ankles. I miss all the cute fall-weather clothing I'm not getting to wear right now. I miss my jeans that do not have ugly stretchy panel. I miss painting my toenails without doing contortionist moves. I miss being able to sleep on my stomach. I miss the way my shirts used to cover my tummy. I miss the fact that putting a napkin in my lap was an effective way for my clothing to not get stained. I could go on all day. And I know it will all happen soon, but I had really expected this to be over by now. I was hanging up some of my maternity clothes last night, and had to fight the urge to throw them on the floor and stomp on them.

everything i said is all true this time around, too. except that i did stomp on some maternity clothing this morning. i am tired of feeling like tweedledee, and tired of heartburn. tired of only wearing tevas. tired of it nearly taking a crane just to roll over in the bed. tired of a lot. but more than that, you guys, MORE THAN ALL THAT, i just want to meet this baby.

i want to see his face and touch his hair. i want to introduce him to his big brother. i want to read him stories and play music for him and count his fingers and toes. i know it'll happen soon, but after this long, i'm pretty much ready for this.

dave and emerson and i went to the park tonight, and i nearly cried as i watched the boys run ahead of me, hand in hand. i love our little family of three, but i can't wait to be a family of four.

Museum Of Idiots - They Might Be Giants

2010-07-21T22:47:00.004-04:00

i read an article somewhat recently about facebook becoming a haven for cheating spouses. like that it creates all sorts of marital problems and facilitates affairs between people who get back in touch after 10-20 years. before i get started on this, though, i will say that i do love facebook. despite all the crap i’ve said about it here, i really do love it. mostly because i’m back in touch with some folks that i lost touch with after college. ok, college and high school. wait. college, people from all four years of high school, and also from my parochial elementary/jr. high school. and jesus camp. and atlanta theatre. and the zoo. and really everyone i’ve ever known.

but you know what else i love? figuring out that quite a few of the guys i either had crushes on or dated when i was younger are total douchebags. now, don't get me wrong. i'm back in touch with guys who were pretty awesome, and it's nice to see that they're married and have kids and whatnot. but it's also pretty fucking spectacular to look at fb and be able to say hey! i dodged that bullet.

my favorite thing is looking back at people who were colossal, spectacular mistakes in judgment. one of the best memories i have of my brother, in terms of profound shit he's said, hearkens back to a visit he made to me in college. upon meeting the guy i was seeing at the time (can't bring myself to say boyfriend. ew.), he declared him a total and complete loser. of course, i was all LOOK. you're a teenager. what the hell do you know? and my brother was like DUDE. look at his shoes. and his jeans. LOSER. and of course, i did the noble thing and defended the hell out of this guy. told my brother that he was being shallow and blah, blah don't judge a book blah blah. and doug was all DUDE. SERIOUSLY. i'm not being rude; it's just true. you can tell he's lame. just look at him.

and you know what? he was absolutely lame. 100% lame. LAME. lamety-lame-shabop. we were possibly the worst couple ever. i can't imagine that he reads this blog, but stranger things have happened. so...if you're reading, well, you know it's true. you were totally douchey to me, and your sense of style back then was fairly lacking. also, my brother was pretty much right. you CAN judge a book by its cover. don't deny it. i mean, the way the russians picked the americans out when i was there years ago was to look at our shoes. it's proven. it works. try it sometime.

i guess my point is that i have absolutely NO IDEA how, at this stage in my life, i could look at any of these guys and think 'what if?' because, well, no. in fact, FN to that. and yes, it's cheesy. but it's true. i am profoundly grateful for dave and his non-doucheyness. he is fan-freaking-tastic, and has no place in the museum of idiots who are preserved in the world of yearbooks and notes and facebook.

Peek-A-Boo! - Devo

2010-07-12T22:23:00.001-04:00

so, hi there. how's it going? holy shit, it's been a long time. let me give you excuses. i used to write stuff on here when emerson went to sleep in the evenings, but lately, he's been avoiding sleep like he avoids eating anything green. he tells me now that he hates to sleep; he'd rather play. i have multiple problems with this, but the biggest issue is that it's been taking him two hours to finally stay in his bed at night and eventually fall asleep. our typical evening has pretty much become putting him in the bed at 9:00, and spending TWO FREAKING HOURS walking him back to his bed ninety times as he gets up to ask for a drink, a hug, a book, a toy, the potty, you get the picture. anyhoo, by the time 11:00 rolls around and he's out for the night, i'm too freaking tired to do anything but haul my giant self into the bed, attempt to get comfy, and conk out for a while. at least until my organs begin to get pummeled at 2:30 or raging heartburn hits me or a cat jumps on my head. good stuff.

so i've totally neglected to tell you anything about my pregnancy, because i know you all care very, very deeply. the good news is that there's not much to report. i've been feeling pretty excellent, aside from being tired. typical ankle swelling, which isn't actually turning out to be as bad as last time, when i would have described my ankles as 'thankles' rather than 'cankles.' so that's good. heartburn is always super great, so yay for that. i haven't gained as much weight this time, but i weighed more starting out this time, so it's probably going to end up fairly similar to last time.here is a photo of me today, at 31 weeks or so. i put on the ill-advised green pants just for you. those are left over from the last pregnancy, and i actually wore them places. places other than the kitchen and bathroom. what was i thinking? also, i'm loving my facial expression in this photo. you can actually see the doubt over these pants right there in my eyes. but nine weeks left. NINE. holy shit, y'all. holy shit. also, mama is BIG. don't lie. you were just wondering what a freak i'm going to look like nine weeks from now.

what else can i tell you about? well, this kid is just like his brother already, in that he kicks and pokes and flips and punches and headbutts me ALL THE TIME. if activity in-utero correlates to energy levels, i'm screwed. i was really hoping for one super-mellow kid, but i see that is not meant to be so much. i wouldn't trade emerson and his insane levels of energy for anything in the world, but two of these may be my undoing.

in fact, over the weekend, i had a bit of a crying jag because i'm just terrified about the idea of parenting two children. i mean, i can barely handle one. what the fuck am i going to do with TWO?

wow. this is like the most amazingly boring post EVER. sorry about that. i'm going to have to get back into the groove and FAST. i do want to chronicle all of this, but my head is muddled and full of lots, including the tour de france (which is awesome this year). i'd try to fill you in more on that, but i can't stay awake to watch it with dave in the evenings, which is lame.

so lame, in fact, that i'm heading in there right now to catch some recaps. i promise to be back soon.

edited to add: you guys. i just scrolled down to look at the last photo i posted, and even MY HAIR is bigger now. what will my hair look like nine weeks from now? HOLY SHIT. which is scarier? the hair or the belly? AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!

ewoks suck, dude.

2010-05-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

how much do i love this? it's hard to say. A LOT.

Bandages and Scars – Son Volt

2010-05-19T20:19:00.004-04:00

the other morning, dave was making pancakes for ems while allowing me to sleep in, which was a grand, grand treat. i was drifting in and out of consciousness when i was jarred awake by a blood-curdling scream from my child. i am pretty unaccustomed to this sort of screaming, since normally when he’s scraped or bruised, he just wants to get up and keep going. that, or when he’s bleeding, he’s inclined to postulate about what it would be like to be a vampire bat.

at any rate, this was a VERY different scream. so i went bolting into the kitchen. i should add that, prior to reaching the kitchen, i caught my big toe in the hem of my jammie pants and went crashing to the floor myself, giving my hip a gigantic bruise and causing me to expose our unborn son to some language that i’m sure is totally inappropriate for a fetus. don’t worry. popcorn’s fine. he kicks me all freaking day now just to get back at me.

in the kitchen, i found dave holding an inconsolable emerson, whose face is covered in tears. i hate when he cries like that. his lips turn down so dramatically and he’s so pitiful. plus, i’m just not used to the drama. he’s a relatively drama-free kid. apparently, dave was fooling around with him, giving him a pancake the size of my pinky nail and telling him that his breakfast was ready. emerson is still not so up on jokes, and thought dave was serious. he picked up the pancake and threw it back into the pan, burning his arm on the edge of the pan in the process. we did the ice pack and bandaged it with tegaderm to keep it clean. he was fairly cool about the whole thing, and his arm’s all nicely healed now.

as a result, he’ll have a pretty significant scar on his arm for a while, and it got me thinking. he was in a lot of pain for a little while, and they make those stove guard things, and – should we get one?

and then i snapped back into reality. HOLY SHIT, NO. i mean, yes, he wears a helmet when he gets on the tricycle, and yes, we hold his hand when he crosses the street, but the safety crap has gone too far, and i was embarrassed for even thinking about the stove guard. i mean, how’s a kid ever going to learn that stove = hot if he doesn’t figure it out for himself? in my opinion, products like this and this just take the insane safety stuff too far. if a child's noggin gets bumped from time to time, isn't that normal? and shampoo in the eyes? we have to protect our children from this scourge? what about using a freaking WASHCLOTH?

i guess i've never been much bothered by bruises and bandaids. when i see emerson's bruised up legs (and believe me, he's one giant bruise), i smile. that means he's active and exploring and having a good time. he fell at the park tonight, and scraped up one of his knees. and he'll have a fantastic blue shark bandage on it tomorrow, and a story for his friends about running down the hill at top speed when he did it. shouldn't i think that's cute? should i not want him to have any scars or minor injuries? don't get me wrong - i hate to see him hurt, REALLY hurt - but i think bumps and bruises are just a part of being a kid. hell, they're part of being human.

21 weeks, or JAYSUS H., I'M FREAKING HUGE

2010-05-04T22:04:00.000-04:00

yup. 21 weeks. it's a bit disturbing, actually. i wasn't this big last time until i was probably 6-8 weeks from delivery. sigh. yes, i weighed more prior to conception this time, and no, i wasn't running 10 miles a day this time around, either. BUT STILL. it's hard to feel this big. it's hard to know that i'll only get bigger. and yes, i'm growing a little person. but i've had issues for years, so i just slog on through.

on the upside, those of you who are not on facebook with me should know - baby #2 will be a boy. we're very excited. we seem to be doing ok parenting a boy so far, so why screw that up? also, economic bonus: no new shit required. won't this child feel special? you don't get anything new! yay!

let me tell you this, though. i'm sure babies and toddlers and preschoolers really don't give a crap about hand-me-downs. emerson barely notices what he's wearing on any given day. we could dress him up like liberace, and as long as he could jump off steps and fall down wearing those outfits, he wouldn't blink an eye. HOWEVER. as children get older, the appeal of hand-me-downs wears off, at least if you're two children of opposite sex. i have spoken of my dad's unisex clothing policy before, and am supremely happy to not have to deal with this. at least not for a while. i could be wrong - check back with me in 8-10 years.

on the whole "yay, another boy!" front, i refused to call my mother-in-law with the news. you see, she had two boys, and currently has two grandsons, a number which will become three in four short months. i KNEW her reaction would be one of grand disappointment, and i was bound and determined not to let that ruin my excitement. so i made dave call her. i think she's over it now. but BFD, that's what i say. if you want a girl, go borrow one. in fact, we have several AMAZING friends who have two girls. friends, if you're reading this, i think you know my husband's mother, or at least know of her. i bet she'd give you all the free babysitting you want. you should totally take advantage of her in this way.

this post has been all over the place. i have many thoughts about my rotundness as well as boys vs. girls, but i need to actually take some time to put them all into place. HA. good luck, right?

Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn - The White Stripes

2010-04-28T21:57:00.002-04:00

I swiped this from Pickles & Dimes a couple of weeks ago and, as per ususal, am just getting around to posting on my own damn blog. I would like to take this opportunity to alienate my few readers by letting you know that there are things you may like that I do not. Woohoo - this should be fun!

Things other people seem fond of that I cannot stand:

1. Tomatoes
2. Celebrity gossip
3. Most all reality television, with the exception of The Amazing Race, because we continue to fantasize about being on that show. Of course, not for the million bucks (which would be NICE), just so we could travel all over the place on someone else’s dime.
4. Football
5. John Mayer
6. Heavy perfume
7. Romance comedies/chick flicks
8. Dumb and Dumber
9. Twitter
10. Dogs (other people's are fine, in small doses.)
11. Window treatments
12. Neil Diamond
13. Nicholas Sparks (movies AND books)
14. Buffalo-style food. Granted, I don’t eat chicken, but I've had buffalo shrimp. Not a fan.
15. Sarah Palin. Ok, I wasn’t going to do that, but COME ON. REALLY? I have no idea why she’s popular with ANYONE. I mean, fine if you’re conservative and all that. Who am I to argue with that? But when Sarah Palin is the poster child for whatever you stand for, I think you may have problems. This is why I like to ignore the fact that Joe Biden is our VP.

Tell me yours. Please. I must know.

Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down - The Toasters

2010-04-21T17:34:00.000-04:00

holy shit, but did i have a super shitty day yesterday. i mean mega- ultra- uber- shitty. crying, sobbing, can't breathe sort of shitty.

so today, dave sent me this:

and now i feel better. lots. ska fixes lots of things. maybe not everything, but lots.

Como Ves - Ozomatli

2010-04-12T21:42:00.003-04:00

como ves apparently translates into "what do you think"? i don't speak spanish, unfortunately, so if i'm wrong, please correct me. i freaking LOVE ozomatli. if you're interested, you should totally check them out here or here. awesome.

and now is the time when i really do want to know what you think. ems got his latest summer shoes a couple of weeks ago. you may recall that last year, he got pink. this year, after my mother-in-law strongly suggested to him that he should choose blue, because THAT is his favorite color, he promptly chose purple. i think they're awesome.

so did he. he was so proud of those gorgeous purple sandals. i told him that i wanted some the same color, and he said that NO, only he could have them. but then, the other day, without any seeming explanation, we couldn't get him to put them on. no sandals at all. he only wanted to wear his rainboots, or his hiking shoes, or his cowboy boots. nevermind that it was 85° outside and he was sweating like crazy. NO PURPLE SANDALS.

tonight, i finally started to question him about it. do they make your feet hurt? no. are they uncomfortable? no. every question i could think to ask until i asked him if someone said something about them. yes, he said. warren* said my shoes were ugly. and my head just about exploded, because i very consciously do not ever use the word UGLY around him. there's absolutely no reason for it. nothing is really ugly. i always get really cranky when i hear people at the zoo calling animals ugly. and i was raised to not call things ugly. let me give you an example of my upbringing:

we used to shop at this crazy awesome store called triple r freight. i'm not sure what it was, except that clothing from all ends of the world ended up there. it was like marshall's on crack. i mean, next to a designer suit, you could find a cheap gold lamé tube top. fort smith peeps, you TOTALLY know what i'm talking about. don't deny it. at any rate, if i even tried to snicker about the lamé, my mother would say, "shhhhhhh. someone likes it." and she was right. her mother said it to her, and it's being passed on. someone likes that shitty lamé dress, and don't make fun of it in front of them. same thing with the purple sandals. so fucking what if he's a boy? boys can like purple, for chrissakes. so shut the fuck up, and leave him alone, because he likes those shoes.

ems hasn't heard anything called ugly before, at least not in this house (HELLO, HIGH HORSE), and his reaction to it was pretty violent. he was adamant that he couldn't wear those shoes any more, because warren thought they were ugly. and warren is older than he is, so he must know. to which i said, well, warren doesn't know everything. and emerson said, you're right, mama. he doesn't know how to say scaphognathus. and i'll have to teach him how to say that. and ramphorhynchus. i don't think he can say that, either. which is much kinder than i could ever have been.

i tried and tried to get him to put the purple sandals on. at long last, bribed with chocolate easter candy, i asked him to put the purple shoes on one last time so we could go get new ones at daddy's work. i called dave on the way there, and prepped him for it. and when we hit the door, every one of dave's folks complimented him on the shoes, and made him feel so special, that by the time we hit the shoe section, he decided that warren indeed didn't know everything, and that he was pretty certain that he'd picked the best shoes in the entire store. dave's a good daddy, you guys.

but here is what i want to know: what would you say to warren's parents? anything? nothing? i really want to say something, really nice-like, just to let them know. and i know that some of you may be thinking that i'm just trying to protect my special little snowflake, but you know what? he's THREE. let's just calm the fuck down on that one. i'd understand if this was third grade. but he's not in school, and i think that people that you see on a pretty regular basis should probably know that their kid is being rude. and i'm fairly sure warren didn't pick this up from his own folks, because i've never heard them talk like that; i'm sure he picked it up at daycare or something.

if my kid was calling other kids' stuff ugly, i'd sure want to know. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

*names have been changed, just in case people ever get wise to this here blog, which will probably never happen. BUT STILL.

Modern Guilt - Beck

2010-04-05T22:16:00.002-04:00

ok, i posted the other day about something pretty awesome that happened at my house. i left it up for a couple of hours, and then had 2nd thoughts and took it down. you see, i’m one of those people who worries endlessly about things that i’ve said, written, what have you, and cross my fingers and kiss my elbow that my words don’t get misinterpreted. as if i can actually anticipate and control what other people think.

oh, i know it’s silly and impossible and a little nutso, but i’m 35, and the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. so when i posted about this thing, this thing about which i am immeasurably proud, i wanted to share it with all of you. i mean, that’s what a blog is for, right? but then, i got nervous and worried and cuticle-bitey. i certainly don't want to come off as trying to act like my kid is SO awesome, because, while in my opinion, he is, i totally am of the mind that other people's kids are just as awesome as my own. i don't like the "mommy wars" and i don't like all of the one-upmanship that i see out there so often. i don't like how people intentionally make other people feel shitty because of something they can or can't do, or something their kid(s) can or can't do.

let me tell you a little story. i started reading right after i turned 3. no big deal to my folks, or anyone else. however, when i went to school, i didn't fit in with their planned curriculum, so i spent 2 years sitting in a corner part of the day, reading to myself while the other kids learned to read. so what did that teach me? that being different can really suck. it's not always something to be celebrated, but instead, it often is something of which you should be ashamed.

so that's why i was reluctant to tell you that emerson is reading now. i get worried that people will think of him as "weird" and "different." i also REALLY, REALLY don't want anyone to think that i'm trying to be braggy; it's just a fact. it's probably genetic. who knows? but i also certainly don't want emerson to think that i value him only for his accomplishments. but i'm thrilled for him. reading has always been such an important part of my life, so i'm ecstatic that it can be that way for him now, too. and while yes, he can read, he can't draw for shit, and has no interest in it. i know other people with kids who can draw and color like CRAZY. and i get a little jealous from time to time, and worried that he's not developing correctly, but then i take a deep breath (several deep breaths, in fact), and remember my own golden rule of parenting:

EVERY KID IS DIFFERENT.

and then i feel better. lots better. and i can admit that yes, my kid is freaking fantastic. and so are your kids. YAY!

16 Weeks

2010-03-28T23:22:00.002-04:00

yep, still pregnant. what i really wanted to show you, though, are my awesome jammie pants. truly, they're a sight to behold. i know you are jealous.

feeling pretty good, aside from still being as sleepy as ever. i took a 2-hour nap today with emerson, and am still tired. there are so, so many blog posts in my head, but damn if i can figure out how to sit down and put my thoughts on the screen. i promise to post again this week, at least one time.

Banana Pancakes – Jack Johnson

2010-03-20T18:54:00.004-04:00

let me first say that my kid hates jack johnson. who could possibly hate jack johnson? he's so mellow and earth-friendly and doesn't seem to inspire crazed reactions of any sort. but emerson? can't stand his music. weird. and actually, banana pancakes sound really good right now.

speaking of cravings. what the hell is up with that? last time around, i thought the stories of weird cravings and women sending people out for things at all hours of the night were just ridiculous. i mean, WHO WOULD DO THAT? i craved mexican and thai food, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. i crave mexican and thai pretty much every day of my life. that old crap about pickles & ice cream? whatever. totally stupid.

and i maintain that pickles & ice cream still sound disgusting and wrong. HOWEVER, the cravings are here. in a big way. all i wanted for like six weeks was chinese food. egg drop soup, Szechuan veggies, lo mein, all that stuff. the thing i wanted the very, very most? mu shu veggies. but you know what? i can’t find a damn restaurant in this town that makes them. i can get mu shu pork every day of the week. but veggies? SIGH. that craving has been so sad and pitiful. i think it might move on in a few weeks. i hope.

the newest obsession? lemonade. i drink a shitload of water, which is great (yay!), but aside from that, all i really want is lemonade. lots. and the other night, i did the thing i swore i’d never do. ok, well, TECHNICALLY, i didn’t force dave out the door to purchase lemonade. it was 7:45 in the evening and i just made a tiny little comment about how we were all out of lemonade and how a glass sounded SO NICE right about then and how i didn’t have cravings before, and wasn’t that funny and it’s so weird and i wanted lemonade so desperately. dave ever so sweetly offered to go to the store. we were all in our jammies at that point, just hanging out, but he changed and went and bought me two gallons of it. i don’t care if you guys get annoyed at awesome husband stories or not, but my husband? is the SHIT. i would never (um, probably) send him out in the middle of the night. but 7:45? i’ll accept that. THANK YOU, DAVE.

it’s weird, too. food aversions. i freaking love veggies, but i’ve only recently wanted to eat broccoli again. and green beans. all i’ve wanted to eat is the kind of crap my kid likes. pancakes, waffles, oven fries, bread. brown food is what i call it. the other night, i made a big, delicious bowl of cauliflower. and the second i looked at it, i wanted to gag. i threw it out and ate emerson’s easy mac instead. a thirty-something has absolutely no business eating that crap, but i ate it. and it was DELICIOUS. i’m also turned completely off coffee, with the exception of a skinny cinnamon dolce latte from starbucks.

being pregnant is weird.

well, goddamn it.

2010-03-09T18:51:00.003-05:00

so, the office named the baby the exact name (first and middle) we wanted for this child if it's a girl. the first name is spelled one letter differently, but STILL. and it's ironic, considering that, years ago, i had ALWAYS wanted to name a girl child emma, after my great grandmother. friends pretty much killed that idea. also, another name we really love happens to be the name of YET ANOTHER character on a tv show we watch. i guess we'll just have to name this child bertha, if it's a girl, after another of my great-grandmothers. don't get me started on boys' names. BLARGH. VENTING.

yeah, yeah, we could go with our first instincts, but i don't want it to be asked or assumed that we were the biggest fans ever of jim and pam. goddamn it.

Bad Days (Aurally Excited Version) - The Flaming Lips

2010-03-04T21:27:00.003-05:00

i need to state how much i hate this stage in the pregnancy. and let me also say that my hatred of this stage is magnified this time around, given that i do look like i'm a few more months along than i actually am. sigh.

see, my non-maternity clothes still fit, but they're just snug enough to make it look like i've gained some weight but refuse to buy a size up. classy. combine that with the 24-7 sleepiness and, well, i look like refried shit most days. i discussed my recent bedtime routine, but i'll now discuss my latest morning routine:

wake up five minutes before needing to leave the house;

shower;

brush teeth in shower;

throw product in hair;

throw on whatever clothing is not too badly wrinkled;

run out door;

run back in, because glasses are still in the house;

run out again;

drive with heater on high so wet hair dries (mostly) before arriving;

get to work;

slink in office and apply makeup;

thank jebus that an extra deodorant is located in drawer of desk, because that was forgotten, too;

the end.

this morning, i didn't look in a mirror until around 10:30 or so. and let me say, it's always nice when you think, "wow. i could look so much worse. this is actually better than i expected." refried shit, but still. could be worse.

combine the above with the ill-fitting clothing, and you have a recipe for complete and utter self esteem annihilation. i just feel bloated. it feels too early to wear maternity clothes, because they're all baggy and ill-fitting, but all my regular clothes are ill-fitting, so i can't win, nor can i wear yoga pants to work. i mean, I HAVE STANDARDS. also, because i looked this way much further along into my pregnancy the first time, all my maternity clothes are for spring and summer. it's in the freaking 30s, and i'm cold. goddamn, this sucks. i feel icky, and i look icky. yay, pregnancy! i have no glow, i'm tired, and my clothes are too tight. whee!

11 Weeks

2010-02-19T20:37:00.004-05:00

y'all. this is what i looked like at approximately 5 months last go-round. granted, i just ate dinner before this was taken, but STILL. holy jebus. and yes, there is only one in there. i'm in for a long 29 weeks, i think.
on another note, that is our guest bed. we do have one, folks. we even have a blanket for it somewhere. who's coming to visit?

You Gotta Feel It - Spoon

2010-02-17T22:56:00.003-05:00

oh, i have been feeling it. i do feel it. what? angela, you're right on. tired. that's what i feel. i've been sleeping a lot, and still need buckets of concealer for the dark circles.

wanna know what else i've been feeling? let me illustrate with a fantastic story from this morning. ready? awesome.

i can’t tell you how badly i wanted to quit my job today. not because of anything specific that happened at work, though. and i don't even plan to get into all of that. it all started as i was leaving the house. emerson woke up as i was walking out the door, and told me that i needed to put my jammies back on and get in bed with him. here is how the conversation went:

emerson: mama, don’t go to work. go put your jammies on so that we can snuggle in the bed.

mama: buddy, i wish i could. but i have to go to work. we can play tonight when i pick you up.

emerson: i don’t want to play tonight. i want to play now. why can’t you stay here? why?

mama: i have to work because we have to pay for food and the house and everything.

emerson: but i want you to stay here today.

mama: i do, too. i don’t want to go to work. i want to stay here with you, but i have to go. daddy’s still here, though! yay! you and daddy can play for a while!

emerson: i don’t want daddy. i want you. i want you to STAAAAAAAYYYYYY. throws self dramatically onto the bed and cries. a lot.

mama: i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, sweet pea. you’re going to have a good time with daddy – i bet he’ll make you pancakes shaped like dinosaurs and you guys can color or something.

emerson: i don’t want to! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! looks up with tears in his eyes.

mama, silently: holy shit, kid. stopitstopitstopit. begins to get tears in her own eyes.

emerson: pleeeeeeeaaaaasssseeee stay here. please.

mama: buddy, i love you so much, and i don't want to go, either. but i have to. please come give me a hug and a kiss.

emerson: no. i don't want to. i'm not going to give you a hug.

mama's heart breaks, audibly. she is on the verge of a total meltdown akin to the child's.

mama, holding it in: ok, turkey. i love you. opens door.

the child runs to his mama, and gives her a hug and kiss. the door closes. mama can her the child crying behind the door, and begins to cry as well. she cries all the way to work, where her mascara must be reapplied. she, unsurprisingly, has a shitty day.

so there it is. as if i don't have enough guilt about working, there's that. and the more you read online, the more you notice that so many people out there think that homes with two working parents are selfish and horrible and scarring their children for life, which is AWESOME reading for an already guilt-stricken mother like me. oh, gawd, how i wish i could stay at home with my boy. or even work part-time. but facts are facts: this country makes it hard for that to happen.

my mother was a teacher when i was em's age, and i went to a sitter's during the day. honestly, i can't remember shit about it and don't really feel that i am a better or worse person for it. but there is still that guilt. that horrible, gut-wrenching guilt that i'm missing out on things he does or says during the day, and that he's wishing i could play with him more. i know in my heart that he will be ok, but it's still so, so hard.

and now that he'll have a sibling, i feel even more guilty about having time with him, so that's fun. i'll expound on that more later, right after i watch some more snowboarding.

damn, you guys are smart.

2010-01-27T19:57:00.001-05:00

so, you guys are really freaking intuitive and stuff.

i'm due september 13th.

and the first trimester is freaking killing me with the sleepiness.

Sleeping Lessons - The Shins

2010-01-21T17:46:00.003-05:00

oh, holy shit. could i BE more tired? seriously, i’ve been freaking exhausted lately. due to this sleepiness, i have a new bedtime routine. here’s the part that hasn’t changed: i get emerson ready for bed, brush his teeth, read him approximately twenty-six bedtime stories, and climb in bed with him. here’s the part that has changed: i immediately fall asleep and don’t wake up.

scenario 1: dave comes in to wake me and i actually hear and understand him, and drag my sorry ass out of emerson’s bed to brush my own teeth.

scenario 2: dave comes in to wake me and can’t snap me out of the coma-like state i’m in, so he gives up and goes to bed.

scenario 3: dave says FUCK IT and goes to bed without bothering to wake me because, really? it’s a total pain in the ass.

scenario 4: dave also falls asleep, albeit on the couch, and we both stumble, bleary-eyed into the bathroom for synchronized zombie tooth-brushing.

scenario 5: dave ignores me, the cat falls asleep on my legs, pinning me to the bed, while one of my arms is caught under emerson’s neck and i’m stuck in the bed for eternity, or at least until i hear the faint drones of my alarm clock from two rooms away, accompanied by the faint mutterings of dave as he curses my existence under his breath.

but i like emerson’s bed. we got him nice pillows and he has an excellent comforter, and his bed is so nice and cozy and welcoming. also, if i’m nice, emerson lets me cuddle with pirner, which i do not get to do in my own bed. and i will give you two reasons that i am not gunning to change this bedtime ritual anytime soon. one reason is totally effing sappy, like violins and cherubs sappy, and i don’t give a crap if you think so. the other reason is completely lazy and pathetic and, (again) i don’t give a crap if you think so.

firstly, i am lazy. it feels excellent to just fall asleep instead of making myself stay awake to do lame-ass chores like dishes and laundry, and when i wake up around 2:30 am, it’s sort of luxurious and wonderful to know that i’ve already had over 5 hours of sleep and have another 4 coming my way.

second(ly), i love cuddling with my boy. he’s so soft and warm and snuggly, and kisses my cheek and tells me he loves me and grabs my arm and wraps it around him. sigh. and i know that all too soon, he won’t want me anywhere near his room, and won’t kiss me good night any more, and will be able to read himself the twenty-six bedtime stories.

i guess i’ll keep it up. because i’m too tired not to.

ways in which i am scarred for life wednesday - edition 7

2010-01-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

this morning, a bunny darted in front of my car. and then he did it again. and again. see, that whole zigzag running thing that rabbits do to evade predators doesn't work so well for them with cars. HOWEVER, i did manage to avoid killing it. jeez.

i remember my dad came home fairly upset once when i was a kid. he was driving on the highway, and all of a sudden, there was a cat. and at 65 miles per hour (or, let's be honest here - 85), he couldn't stop. he was so bothered by it. he couldn't believe there was a cat on the highway, and was so torn up about being the one to have killed it. that's stuck with me all these years.

i have only killed one thing while driving. i was probably 20, and it was at jesus camp, of all places. i used to drive a big old pickup truck with a trailer attached, which the kids sat on to be transported down to the lakes and the horse stables. it was a lot safer than it sounds. or not. probably not. at any rate, there was a turtle in the road one day. and with a trailer full of kids hitched to the back, slamming on the brakes was not in the cards. i managed to miss it with the truck, straddling it with my tires and hoping the trailer would do the same. NO. on my next pass, there it was. at least its death was a quick one, as it was squashed flat. i felt so horrible, and still do many, many years later. (JEBUS, I AM OLD).

dave has a much better roadkill story than i do, and it actually manages to be a little funny. sacré bleu! quelle horreur! yes. i will have him dictate it to me one day so you may all be disturbingly entertained.

have you ever run over anything while driving? did you cry?

Tame - Pixies

2010-01-10T23:57:00.002-05:00

i'm going to work myself back up to posting regularly. i would like to introduce you to some of our menagerie here at the house. i am generally entertained by emerson's antics with his animal friends, and am always tempted to buy him new ones, just to see what he'll call them.

for example, this one was on sale at ikea yesterday, and he did not disappoint. meet pirner, the tiger.

i googled 'pirner', and it seems that the lead singer of soul asylum's name is dave pirner. i'll have you know that i have no special love for that band, and don't think dave or i has ever uttered that word.

next, i give you nueve, the (drunken) panda bear. seriously, doesn't this thing look wasted?

and here is mudo the octopus.

and this is garden eel, the manta ray. i have no idea.

element, the elephant.

another recent purchase. this sea turtle is HUGE. freaking enormous. it's hard for him to carry, actually. i love the melissa and doug toys, because they're so realistic. the turtle's name? program.

for christmas, em's great-grandparents gave him a stuffed cave that houses 7 stuffed dinosaurs. the two you see in the foreground are a dilophosaurus and a tyrannosaurus rex. naturally, the carnivores are his favorites. the t. rex is named rexie, which is fairly normal and predictable. the dilophosaurus, however, is named different. no, i mean his name is different. wait. he calls him different. oh, forget it.

i will tell you the measure of my child's love for rexie and different. when he's being a little difficult, i generally will take away something that he likes to play with for a period of time until he can calm down and stop whatever he's doing. normally, this goes rather smoothly. the other day, though, i threatened to take rexie and different, and he stopped COLD and looked at me and said, "no, you CAN'T take them. I LOVE THEM." and he really does. they must go to bed with him every night and must dance to certain songs and must play together and all that. it's fairly sweet, even when they are killing and eating the herbivores together.

last, but certainly not least, i have to throw in a photo of my kid with one of his friends. i am including a photo of him since i'm rather thrilled that he didn't make his weird scrunchy "say cheese" face in this one. he is holding his friend, seat the pig.

i have to say that my stuffed animal naming was pretty boring. my animals were named things like lambie and duckie. i think this naming trend was passed along from my brother. you may recall a post from a while back in which i tell you he had a mark twain doll he named octomont. do your kids come up with bizarre names for their toys? if you're child-free, did you do it when you were a kid?

oh, holy shit.

2009-12-21T23:50:00.004-05:00

i just have to vent to you, my friends. dave and i have laughed about it and i feel a little better now.

i was putting emerson to bed tonight, and i probably asked him to get in bed about six or seven times. he turned from his plastic dinosaurs and said, "you don't have to say it so many times."

and then my head exploded.

he's three going on, what, fifteen?

also, i think i'm turning into my mother. AWESOME. i mean, i knew it would happen eventually, but i didn't think it would be this soon.

holiday meme

2009-12-21T20:05:00.003-05:00

i swiped this from swistle's site.

Eggnog or hot chocolate? eggnog, as long as it's spiked.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? see last post; everything is from mama and daddy. but yes, we wrap the presents. i like to make 'em pretty.

Colored lights on a tree or white? white. when i get to the part where i describe our ornaments, you'll understand why.

Do you hang mistletoe? no. i don't see the point, because i get plenty of kisses around here. also, do people actually kiss random people standing under the mistletoe? i could never do that; i'm just a little too awkward and socially weird.

When do you put your decorations up? we don't really have a set day for it, because dave's schedule is so erratic. we did, however, put the tree up the day after thanksgiving this year. dave was off in the morning, and my parents were here. my mom is currently recuperating in the hospital after knee surgery, and wouldn't have been able to put up her tree at home, so we all decorated it together. my dad's main contribution was the music, but he felt that songs like elvira and horse with no name were better than my cambridge singers christmas cds. good times. also, don't put your tree up the day after thanksgiving. the tree is done with drinking water and is so, so dry we only plug in the lights for a little while in the evenings.

What is your favorite holiday dish? marzipan stollen. my grandparents (on my mother's side) came from german families. thank goodness for world market. oh, dish, like something you actually MAKE? with your OWN hands? um. my side of the fam has veered towards christmas brunch these days, and my dad makes some pretty good scones.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? no. but we have been doing christmas early with dave's family in the last few years, so that we can travel to see my family on christmas. works out fairly well. we did it saturday, and em's all stocked up with dinosaur paraphanalia for the drive.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? animals, and only animals. we started this right after we got married, and have built quite the collection of animal ornaments. we have your standard fare, like birds and butterflies, but we have some fairly kick-ass ornaments, too. we have: cobra, meerkats, iguana, red panda, orangutan, walrus, etc. i think that elephants are the most represented animal. we've introduced dinosaurs lately. this is why white lights are best. with all the colors on the tree, the addition of colored lights might induce seizures.

Snow: love it or hate it? i lurve it. can't help it, i just think it's beautiful. and i learned to drive in indiana in the wintertime, so i am not too shabby driving on it. around here, though, driving slowly at any time will get you killed, so snow in atlanta is not the best deal.

Can you ice skate? not really. i grew up in arkansas.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? gingerbread. real, warm gingerbread with lemon curd.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? we don't really have many holiday traditions, per se. i would have to say that my least favorite is the one in which we beg my father to please, please turn off fox news and if he doesn't turn it off, to at least mute the goddamn television so we can listen to some christmas carols. holiday spirit abounds.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? uh, yuuuuuuuum. all the way. basically, if it's candy, and not orange-flavored, it's a yum in my book.

Favorite Christmas show? listening to david sedaris read santaland diaries.

and also,

2009-12-19T21:11:00.001-05:00

when i write, it's sort of train-of-thought (because i don't have as much time to edit as i'd like), and i leave things out that i meant to say. the other night, i meant to also note that i'm a horrible parent, because this is the 4th christmas that emerson has been on the planet, and we have not one photo of him with santa. i should be taken out back and beaten, right? yep. we missed the whole pumpkin patch experience this year, too. i hear a knock at the door. it's dfcs. SHHHH.

i'm just not into the whole santa deal. never have been. i don't care if my kid believes in the big guy or not. i will certainly not threaten him with no presents based on his behavior, because, well, as if the supreme commander would even listen to me. HA. no, santa's just not my thing. and emerson is fairly terrified of him. dave's mother tells me that he was the same way, so maybe it's genetic.

at any rate, dave's mother tried to bribe emerson with candy canes, hot chocolate, what have you to go sit on santa's lap. my kid has a sweet tooth like you would NOT believe, but he would not capitulate. NO to santa. and i'm ok with it, really. so we're not getting the traditional holiday snapshots. life could be worse.

what about you guys? do your kids get into santa? did you when you were young?

Hail Santa - Primus

2009-12-16T21:31:00.002-05:00

here’s the thing: i freaking hate “the holidays.” oh, don’t get me wrong. i love this time of year, especially christmas. i love the tree, i love the lights, i love the carols, especially sung by elvis. i love that families get together. i love candy canes. i love cold weather. i love it all. what i don’t love, though, what i will NEVER love, unless i am given a lobotomy, is all the gift-receiving. sounds weird, i know. and i do love to give people presents. i don’t even need an occasion half the time; i’ll see something awesome and just want to buy it for the person. i have to restrain myself sometimes, but i do enjoy giving people things. can’t help it. don’t care too much about new years’ eve, since i have no burning need to get drunk and make out with people at the stroke of midnight any more. sorry about last year, dave.

what i do hate, though, are the obsessions with lists and santa and being good and all that crap. first of all, let me tell you (if i haven’t before) that my mother-in-law’s nickname is the supreme commander. they used to call her that behind her back, and when she found out, she was not bothered at all. because she IS the freaking supreme commander. as a a result of this condition, she commands us all to produce lists every year. lists of what we would like to have for christmas and/or our birthdays. and the she promptly ignores everything we’ve recommended and buys what she wants to buy. what, i ask you, is the point of the goddamn list? and they also have to spend the EXACT same amount of money on each grandson. this drives me batshit crazy. emerson's current favorite thing is a dinosaur matching game that cost ONE DOLLAR at target. he's three. he really doesn't give a shit about who got more expensive presents.

and every year, i want to put my foot down, and say ENOUGH. let's all just hang out and listen to elvis sing blue christmas and drink hot chocolate (spiked, of course) and talk. but i'm always chicken shit, and we end up racing around like idiots trying to get all the presents and cook some damn casserole at the last minute so all nine hundred of us can cram into someone's house for dinner and emerson won't sit in his seat because he's too excited and it's hot and people get so freaking stressed out and AAARRRGGGHHH.

SERIOUSLY. what is it about christmas that makes everyone freak out so much? and not to compare families, because mine is pretty much the craziest out there, but my mother has the gift-buying thing down pat. she goes to costco and fills up the cart with dental floss and toothpaste and deodorant and lotion and body wash, and wraps it all up and gives it to us. oh, she gives us gift cards to stores at which we need things (ah, home despot. where would we be without you?), but the groceries are an insanely awesome bonus. i mean, i haven't bought myself deodorant in years. how awesome is that? and since it's low-stress, we can drink and play board games. ever tried playing operation after a few manhattans? good times.

just once, i'd like to have a christmas where it's not about stuff and stress. one time, i'd like to order out chinese, drink some wine, and donate all the money we would have spent on gifts. what about you guys? do the holidays stress you out like this? his mother actually just called. he is on the phone with her about logistics and spending exactly x dollars AS I TYPE. give me strength. if not strength, just give me vodka.

i've missed you. i promise to write more soon.

It Takes Time - Glen Phillips

2009-11-22T23:31:00.002-05:00

ahem. so. how are you guys? i’ve been, um, bored. with myself here on this blog thing. generally, funny shit does happen to me, but when i try to translate it into a hilarious story for the likes of you to read, it turns into DRUDGERY. drudgery for me to write and, once it’s written, drudgery for you to read. so. if any of you were tuning in here for ACTUAL ENTERTAINMENT, my sincere apologies for not providing much. that new show, glee? anyone heard of it? because you should all be tuning in to that for your entertainment. i don’t live up to the hype.

for example. this is a story that, if it were chronicled on facebook, would TOTALLY get me turned in to stfu parents. with good cause. so i’ll chronicle it here, because that’s why you occasionally click on my page, right? we are working on the potty training. you already know where this story is going. as a side note, i will just say that i am damn tired of wiping an ass that is not my own. and this child? well, he has been fairly uninterested in the whole deal. i think he actually likes the fact that i wipe his ass.

the other evening, he was in the shower. he loves showers, and always has no fewer than about 35 dinosaur toys in there. it’s our shower, and my feet and dave’s are fairly calloused based on the number of hard plastic toys therein. we normally stick him in the shower, wash him off, and let him play for another five minutes or so. at the end of the shower the other night, dave went to get him. a few seconds later, dave yelled, “want to dry off the boy, or want to clean up the shower?” i figured drying off the boy was the best option, but had a bad feeling.

dave later told me that emerson had pooped in the shower. fine, fine, i said. i mean, kids do that all the time, right? but not this. he’d taken some, erm, nuggets, and placed them in the dinosaurs’ hands. lots of them. they were all bearing gifts by the time we went to get him; he was busy in the 5 minutes we’d been gone. i will not go all stfu parents on you and show you photos of this carnage. i think, however, when your child uses poo as an art form, he is probably not quite ready for the whole potty training business. which? effing sucks. SUCKS.

tell me it's ok. tell me that a newly three-year-old boy is not quite ready to be potty trained, and that it'll work out ok. tell me that, so i don't go crazy.

Outsmarted - The Hives

2009-11-10T21:19:00.001-05:00

i’m getting to the point where i realize that emerson is one of those kids. you know, those. the ones with whom you have to be as specific as possible when giving him directions or you’re in trouble. if you want him to eat more dinner, you have to tell him exactly how many bites. otherwise, if you say ‘eat more’, he’ll eat one bite and say I DID.

he’s always been this way, to a degree. he has never been ok with spur-of-the-moment decisions. you always have to tell him that in five, ten, whatever number of minutes, you’ll be doing whatever you’re doing. if it’s time to leave somewhere fun or stop doing something he loves, you have to give him notice or he’ll turn into a thrashing, crying mess.

i am not this way. i have no issue stopping on a dime and continuing in an entirely different direction. or stopping one task and starting another when necessary. i’m highly flexible and adaptable in this regard. it’s great at work, but i can also recognize that it does seem that i have add at some times. who knows? maybe i do have add. dave, though? if anyone is the poster child for the OPPOSITE of add, it’s him. he can stay focused on a task indefinitely. his focus is insane. he is totally intense about projects. me? eh. not so much. i mean, i enjoy a project, but i can stop in the middle and grab a sandwich and read a magazine and then get back to it. dave? he’ll forget to eat or drink anything occasionally when he’s involved in something like that.

so. dave loves specifics and needs them in order to survive. i don’t really care too much for specifics. ‘close enough’ is the way i see it. eh. which is why i’d be the shittiest accountant on the planet. when we had accountants in our office and they’d come to me with accruals or some shit that was a few bucks off, i’d be all are you kidding? what’s a couple dollars? close enough, right? it didn’t make me lots of accountant friends, that’s for sure.

last night is a perfect example of why emerson needs specifics. he would not go to sleep. i read him a gajillion books and lay in the bed with him for a while. he was still bouncing off the walls. i gave him a book to 'read' under his covers and told him that, under no circumstances, was he to leave his room. or else there would be CONSEQUENCES (spoken in my very best mom voice). about 45 minutes later, i walked by his room, and the lights were on. he was sitting on the floor playing with stickers. now, he didn't leave his room, so i couldn't get upset, but i realized that i'm going to have to spell out everything for him. NOT don't leave your room, but don't get out of bed or turn on the lights or play with your stickers or look out the window or ANYTHING other than sleep.

oy. dealing with one of them is tiring enough. but two? jebus. i'm going to be exhausted for, oh, the rest of my life, i think.

total cop-out post. for real.

2009-11-09T19:58:00.003-05:00

so...hey. how are you guys? um, bored? yep. me, too. i'm feeling really fucking unmotivated to write here. i go through the day and occasionally have a - hey! i could blog about this! - moment, but then it passes and i forget about it.

anything interesting you want me to share? any secrets you're dying for me to divulge? any controversial topics about which you are DYING to get my opinion?

help meh.

Another Girl's Paradise - Tori Amos

2009-11-01T12:31:00.003-05:00

sorry it's been a while. this post has been consuming my brain and i had a really hard time putting it into print. it's hard to read and it's a little hard to admit, and i don't want to see any comments about how i look because that's not what i'm going for here. i just want to discuss what i see as a problem for women in society and want to see how you guys feel about it, too. also, this has way too many run-on sentences but i'm tired of trying to make it cohesive. sorry. carry on.

the other evening, i happened to look in the mirror. it was late at night, the boy was asleep, and dave was not yet back from work. kind of that glorious quiet time where i have the whole house to myself. sort of. so, of course, i was emptying the contents of emerson's potty and cleaning it out. you know, the awesome jobbies that we get to do behind the scenes in that glorious quiet time that used to be reserved for reading or blogging or whatever.

after i flushed and put away the cleaning supplies, i happened to look in the mirror. and, upon seeing my reflection, thought - hey, i actually look ok. and then i stopped dead in my tracks, because i never think that. not ever. it caught me off guard, you know?

and then i got to thinking - what the fuck is wrong with me? and, for that matter, all of western freaking civilization? why is it that i somehow believe that i weigh nine hundred pounds and am massively deformed and will turn you to stone like medusa if i even glance in your direction? and what about all the other women on planet earth? i mean, it's a sad day when we think that the dove campaign is all subversive and innovative for featuring NORMAL-LOOKING WOMEN. an issue of glamour came out a couple of months ago and featured a cute model with a little belly, and you would have thought we were on the brink of nuclear fucking war, everyone was so up in arms about it. the responses boiled down to two: yay, a real woman in a magazine that is mostly read by real women! or holy jebus, the nation accepts body fat now! we're all doing to hell, and all of you fatties are disgusting! and then some ad for ralph lauren features a model so airbrushed that her head appears bigger than her hips and that same model gets fired for being too fat? how are the rest of us supposed to deal with it?

SERIOUSLY. in a world with rampant plastic surgery and botox and ads with a 50-year-old andie mcdowell looking completely wrinkle-free, what are we supposed to think about ourselves? in a world where various a-, b-, c-list celebrities are extolled for getting their bodies back into shape so quickly after having children, and we print photos of them on every goddamn magazine cover in bikinis smiling so beatifically about their amazing weight loss and how EASY it was for them and all they ate was grilled chicken and veggies and GODDAMN, i'm over it.

and look at your televisions. every woman on the tv is about a size two, and has no wrinkles and always looks svelte and stylish and accessorized, even if she's a cop. if she is a size six or up, however, she's the comic relief or a punchline and magazine articles are devoted to how BRAVE she is for keeping her curves but then she loses 40 pounds and blames it on pneumonia or something, but everyone discusses how gorgeous she is now that she's thinner. meanwhile, men get work all over the place, nevermind that they're bald or chunky or short or old or bowlegged, which is how people look, for chrissakes! why do men on tv get to represent the entire population, but women have to measure up to some lameass ideal?

and i have no solution. NONE. because what are we supposed to do? and i'm not saying this is a necessarily new phenomenon, because women have felt this way for a long time. but it seems to be getting worse and more pervasive and it makes me want to throw the tv and computer and magazines and all forms of media out the window and live in a yurt somewhere off the grid in manitoba. and i don't even read magazines, except an occasional copy at the gym or here in the office. what would i be feeling if i had SUBSCRIPTIONS?

because we all have enough to deal with, what with the expectations that we are perfect mothers and perfect wives and i've discussed that before. but to put in perspective my reaction to my own reflection the other day...wow. i mean, i sat and thought about it rationally, and that's just disturbing. is this where we are in modern society? developing nations have to worry about other stuff, like war and hunger and rape and is this as a result of us having absolutely no worries at all? i mean, magazines like people and us weekly and the rest seem to have nothing better to do except obsess over what celebrities are too fat/too thin/too old/too ugly and whether we ourselves are the same?

i know i'm not the only woman (or possibly man - what do i know?) to have looked in the mirror and cried or cursed. and it's stupid and i admit it and am working on it. but when all forms of media beat this perfection shit into our heads on a daily basis, will we ever be free from our own twisted expectations based on it? and if you ARE someone who hasn't cried in the mirror, how do you do it?

Hold Up - The Raconteurs

2009-10-22T19:19:00.002-04:00

dood. a store that markets to me sent me this in an email. i believe that it's supposed to make me want to run out and go shopping. but really? not so much. i fear that i have entered official old lady "get off my lawn, kids" territory. SERIOUSLY? what am i missing here?

of course, i AM the person who thinks that skinny jeans indicate the end of the world, and my fat ass would not be caught dead in them. i hate trendy shit, because then you have to figure out when it goes out of style and subsequently remove it from the rotation in your closet and WHO HAS THE ENERGY FOR THAT? goddamn, i barely have the energy to make sure that both of my shoes are the same and that i'm actually wearing underwear.

also, the farrah fawcett hair? i mean, i know she died and it was tragic and everything, but that does NOT mean that the hairstyle needs to come back, does it? DOES IT? gawd, i'm confused.

and just so you are aware, my folks are coming in for a visit this weekend. they'll be here tonight, actually. those of you who know me personally will know that this is both awesome and awful. those of you who don't know me that well...um, yeah. this could be a lot of fun or it could end up with me curled up in a corner beating my head on the floor. let's hope for option #1, shall we? because this visit coincides with a late birthday party for emerson, so this means that every last one of my in-laws will also be at our little house for this shindig.

cliffhanger...WILL my father ensure that every comment he makes is tinged with anti-obama political statements? oh, we'll just have to wait and see. actually, i think that i'll try to count the number of times he does NOT discuss his hatred for liberals in general. that'll be easier.

Go, Hippie - Fountains Of Wayne

2009-10-19T17:45:00.003-04:00

so, this is a great song. too bad i can't find any links to it for your listening pleasure.

the hippie theme brings me to a way to work in an issue i’ve been avoiding for a long time. but this whole vaccination thing? i don't get it. i just don't. and i don't know what to do. and i'm tired of all the sanctimonious bullshit on both sides of the issue. and this ire i have built up inside me extends to all facets of the 'mommy wars' as they have been so lamely dubbed, but today? today the vaccination shit is really making me crazy.

see, emerson hasn't yet gotten either his seasonal flu shot or his h1n1 shot. and i don't know what the fuck to do. and don’t bother researching anything online, because both camps have shrill, off-putting commentary and diatribes.

anti-vaccinators will have you believe that vaccines:

will kill your child
will give your child autism
will actually make your kid sick all the time
will mutate his genes
are a government conspiracy to gain power, because the government wants us all to be drugged
will actually contain stuff that will sterilize us
are the government’s way to implant us with microchips
are for stupid, sheep-like people

AWESOME, RIGHT? i won’t even link you to some of this shit, that’s how mad it makes me.

on the other side, pro-vaccination advocates will have you believe that:

not vaccinating is a plague upon society
non-vaccinators are irresponsible and evil and responsible for the world’s sicknesses
non-vaccinators are just conspiracy theorists and fear mongers

so what to do? i have read horrific stories about parents of highly verbal children at around emerson’s age who became autistic, and they’re certain it was because of vaccinations. i have read just as many accounts of autistic kids whose parents believe that vaccination had nothing to do with it. so far, no link has definitively been proven. if it has, show me that scientific journal, because i want to read it.

i want emerson to be able to go to (GASP) public school. i want to travel overseas with him. and that’s why he’s had all his regular vaccinations up to this point, because fucking polio still exists in some pockets of Africa. and the last thing i want is for us to go on safari one day, and have him end up with polio or something like it, all because of my arrogance and unwillingness to admit that vaccination might, just might be a good thing.

i remember some months ago in the (now defunct) cookie magazine, that amanda peet made a pretty controversial statement about how people who don’t vaccinate their kids were parasites who relied on the rest of the world’s people who DO vaccinate. it was definitely a strong stance to take, and she received a good bit of backlash because of it. but i think she has a point. i might not have used the word PARASITES to get my point across, but hey. i get her point.

i have an acquaintance who doesn’t vaccinate, berated me for circumcising my son (as if it were ANY of her goddamn business), won’t send her kids to public school, won’t let her kids play with the neighborhood kids because they’re not good enough, won’t use birth control, ETCETERA, and is so fucking judgmental about everything. and i’m all, wait. you want everyone to be open-minded about your weird-ass lifestyle, but you can’t be bothered to be open-minded about everyone else’s choices?

and here’s the thing. i’ve been doing research on this, and it seems that everyone recommending the h1n1 vaccine (as well as others) is a doctor or medical professional. and everyone freaking out about how we’re all idiots if we do vaccinate doesn’t seem to have any medical credentials. i mean, i understand that you have a choice not to vaccinate, and you’re welcome to do whatever you choose, but don’t get all over my case if i choose differently. i’m so tired of feeling like everything i do is judged or scrutinized, when all i’m trying to do is protect my child and my family.

i'd love to know your thoughts. please know that i don't judge you either way, because (as i've said several times before) it's not my place. but if you're vaccinating or not, why? how did you come to that conclusion?

Glad - David Byrne

2009-10-15T18:48:00.003-04:00

dear emerson,

where did this year go? on this day last year, you were just turning two. you were still almost a baby, still discovering so many things. in just one short year, you have turned into a little boy. you are so tall, and so strong. when you don’t want to sit in the naughty spot, i have to hold you there, and you give me a workout, kid. when people ask me about you, they always ask whether or not you ask why all the time. um, YES. without fail. you want to know why everything is the way it is, and usually, daddy has the answers. we don’t make up silly answers for you, because you know they’re wrong. if you want to know why thunder happens, you are never willing to accept anything less than scientific, which is why daddy has the answers. mama needs to brush up on her science.

you are still enjoying good music, and this year, you’ve added morrissey and spoon and david byrne and (FINALLY) they might be giants to your list of favorites. you especially love the song about the planets, as well as the one about the scientific method. tmbg are just funny. but as far as interests are concerned, what you are most interested in can be summed up in one word:

DINOSAURS.

truly, kid, you freaking love dinosaurs. if something has a dinosaur on it or even vaguely resembles a dinosaur, you must know what it is. and you pretty much know everything there is to know. it’ll be a real blow to the paleontological community if you decide on another career path. you know the difference between brachiosaurus and apatosaurus, between utahraptor and velociraptor, between kentrosaurus and tuojiangosaurus. you know who is a carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, piscivore. you know how big they all are and it’s not a day if either mama or daddy isn’t chasing you around the house, pretending to be a fierce carnotaurus. you scream and hide, but we can always find you because we can hear you giggling. you love to be scared like that.

in fact, you’re pretty freaking fearless. you pick up every insect you see, which has taught you a lot about bees. i think you probably won’t pick up a bee again. you still can point to the spot on your thumb where the bee stung you, and you still will tell me how it hurt and how you cried. and what the hell are slugs? insects? where’s your daddy? (daddy says it's a gastropod. okeydokey.) at any rate, you have no problem picking up slugs. you balance on our retaining wall, giving me heart failure, but you never bobble. you run so fast, and are never afraid of falling down. and even if you do fall down, it’s rare that you cry. you just get back up and keep running. right now, you’re only really scared of the trailer for where the wild things are. and even then, because you love to be scared, you cling to me while asking to watch it again, because the wild things are really quite nice, according to you. they’re just a little scary.

you’re still on the books. books, books, books, kid. we read them all the time. you have so many of them memorized that you like to sit and turn the pages while you recite the story. your favorite books now, aside from anything dinosaur-related, are the frances stories, the punk farm books, and all the richard scarry stories. however, you will ask me to read whatever book is available, no matter how lame it is. in fact, you have a horrifying knack for picking out the worst book on the shelf when we’re at the bookstore. i think it’s your special torture for me when we are there. i don’t want to censor your reading, i just want to stay sane, and if i am going to have to read a book seven hundred times, it better be good.

you’ve recently been introduced to movies, and have seen two. your mama has a real issue with disney and pixar and all the marketing crap that goes along with them, so you have not yet seen finding nemo or cars or any of those. please understand - that is because your mama has issues. you'll see them eventually, i'm sure. you have seen babe and the adventures of milo and otis. you LOVE those movies. you love the characters, and are always requesting that your daddy and i make up stories featuring the characters. you recently told me, as i was dancing around the house, that i needed to be a better dancer like farmer hoggett. i’ll work on that, buddy. i promise. james cromwell is pretty darn good.

your favorite things to eat are macaroni and cheese (which you request in a very silly voice every time), baked beans, and chips & queso. green veggies? not so much. fruit? bananas are a go, but everything else is suspect, so you drink a lot of juice and eat fruitabu. and holy jebus, do you like milk. most of our disposable income is actually spent on milk, i think.

emerson, you are funny. you are really developing your own little sense of humor. the other day, you came in with a bag on your head and announced that you were bagaceratops. and, two days ago, after you got out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and came in our room, i reminded you that there was no light outside yet and that you needed to go back to bed. and you pulled open the curtains, and pointed to the neighbors’ porch light, and announced, rather loudly for 5:00 in the morning, YES, THERE IS LIGHT. IT’S RIGHT THERE. you love to run around naked and dance and play your guitar and i can’t stop writing because i love you so much.

want to know how much? i didn’t get this post up on your birthday, which was yesterday. you see, we gave you a new movie, the land before time, and you just HAD to watch it last night. as soon as it was over, you burst into tears; you didn’t want it to be over, and you wanted to watch it again so badly. we, in an attempt to be good, consistent parents, said no and held our ground, and that’s when the tantrum began. you had such a good birthday, and you were tired and emotional and hopped up on icing and, wow, the evening devolved fast into a giant puddle of tears and foot stomping. we finally got you in your jammies, and you eventually stopped crying, but you did that horrible sniffling thing that kids do after they cry too hard and wanted me to lie down with you in your bed. i said that i’d stay for a few minutes, but you begged me to stay “for a lot of minutes. for a long, long time.” and i did. so long, in fact, that your daddy had to come wake me up, and even then, i didn’t leave. i just held on to you and watched you sleep, as you clutched your new stuffed octopus (whom you have christened mudo). you are my birdie boy, my sweet emerson, and i love you with all of my heart.

happy birthday, buddy.

*edited to add: holy shit, i'm a windbag. i have no excuses, other than the fact that i'm a total effing sap about my kid. and i think that i kind of come off here like a really braggy asshole parent. sorry, folks (that is, if you even read this far).

Don't Give That Girl A Gun - Indigo Girls

2009-10-13T22:20:00.000-04:00

i had a very interesting conversation with my boss recently. it all started over a discussion over whether or not to apply a policy in a specific situation. WAIT, WAIT! come back! i will not bore you with details. instead, i will tell you that he had a good reason to argue against application of said policy, but i stuck to my guns and said that the policy should be applied, no matter what. i mean, why do rules exist if you don't follow them?

and he and i embarked on a discussion about right and wrong and following rules versus bending them every now and then, and i started thinking. and talking. and realizing that, well, i'm a total rule follower. i mean, seriously. i don't break rules. and this not only includes laws and policies, but also unspoken, implied rules. rules of conduct and courtesy. i am a slave to the rules.

and i thought about it. i don't really speed; people accuse me of driving like a grandmother. i didn't drink until i was 21. i've never touched an illegal drug or, for that matter, someone else's prescription. i say please and thank you, i hold the doors for everyone, i let cars merge in traffic. i get nervous parking in tow-away zones, even if there's not a chance to actually be towed. my college scholarship said to finish in 4 years, no summer school. so i did. i always did my homework, and i always finish assignments on time. early, even. i hate to be late. i remember cutting class once or twice, and can still recall that feeling of exhilarating freedom and terror about breaking rules.

i wish i were more able to cut loose and not worry about the repercussions of breaking rules. i mean, ok, real, actual rules? consequences aren't super. but the social mores? dude, the nervousness about keeping my elbows off the table or whatever courtesy should be given in a certain situation? i should probably learn to calm it down a bit. but after thirty-mumble years, i just don't know if i can. perhaps that's just me.

i wonder if i'll pass this behavior on to my son. i mean, i TOTALLY want him to follow the rules, but i want him to not be so nervous and weird about it. gawd forbid he end up like me.

breaking the rules sounds fun, though. are you rule-breakers? tell me all about it. i must live vicariously.

Country Sad Ballad Man - Blur

2009-10-07T22:19:00.001-04:00

ok. so, children's stories from days of old are creepy and disturbing. i know this. i totally do. and i love them. the brothers grimm, all the old fairy tales? LOVE them. i think you probably know i don't necessarily chase after the happily-ever-after endings. at least not for myself. so many of the stories that have been disney-fied started out rather darkly. for example, the little mermaid DIES. cinderella's sisters cut parts of their feet off in order for them to fit into the glass slipper. snow white's wicked stepmother is made to dance in hot iron shoes until she dies.

you get the picture. but see, these stories aren't aimed at toddlers. they're aimed at older kids, for whom that shit is totally fascinating and weird and great.

HOWEVER, someone needs to explain these mother goose rhymes to me. they're called nursery rhymes, which seems to indicate to me that they are intended to be read in a NURSERY. to small children. and i'm noticing a disturbing trend of violence here. i just uncovered a box of books from my childhood, and this is one of them. most of the rhymes (hey, diddle diddle) are totally innocuous. HOWEVER, some are fairly sinister.

remember the old woman who lived in a shoe? i only remembered the first two lines:

there was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

she had so many children she didn't know what to do.

i forgot the rest.

she gave them some broth without any bread,

and whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.

sing a song of sixpence is fine until "along came a blackbird and snipped off her nose."

and goosey goosey gander? uh, what?

goosey goosey gander, whither shall i wander?

upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber.

there i met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,

so i took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

here's my thing. people are all oh, the kids are so sheltered now. parents are too soft. but, see, i don't get why explaining to my kid why you'd throw someone down the stairs is a good idea. all those nursery rhymes have basis in fact from hundreds of years ago. making sure my nearly three-year-old kid gets historical context seems like a waste of time.

will i read them to him one day? certainly, when he is old enough to be ok with a rhyme about a bird cutting someone's nose off. will i let him read fairy tales? ABSOLUTELY. they're still a favorite of mine. but now? no freaking way. call me soft, call me what you will, but i see no reason to make my kid terrified of blackbirds. at least not yet.

Science Is Real - They Might Be Giants

2009-10-04T21:59:00.003-04:00

so, i posted this video on my fb page earlier in the week. y'all, WATCH IT. it's freaking awesome. we've loved tmbg for years, and have all of their cds, and their latest is another for the kiddies, called here comes science.

now, some of you might think it's nice of me to share this cute little song, but others of you may have already guessed that posting this on my fb page was tantamount to outing myself as a serial killer. you must understand, probably half of my 'friends' on there are fairly hard-core fundamentalists. many of them are from the jesus camp i've discussed before. for obvious reasons, i have blocked them from seeing this blog, mainly because i really do like them and i don't want to kill any illusion they may have that i'm still a good person. you know what i mean.

anyhoo, posting a video that uses the word evolution and pretty much says that angels aren't something that can be proven by science? oh, i'm in trouble. big, big trouble. it's highly likely that prayers are being said for the state of my shriveled, lost, hardened and black soul. see, here's the deal. whether or not i go to church, and whether i believe in evolution or creationism, my friends still love me. you guys still show up to read this thing, because you have open minds and don't care that i've gone over to the dark side. SERIOUSLY. at jesus camp, i remember people trying to say that lucy, cro-magnon man, etc. were just anomolies, people who had genetic deformities. they honestly believed that. and, at the time, i remember just thinking HUH? because, what? is carbon dating a lie?

i don't have all the answers. i certainly don't pretend to. but i am still struggling with trying to appear to be a good person, even though i (gasp!) believe that evolution is real. oh, i have other stories of lost friends and broken hearts due to beliefs or the lack of them, but i'll spare you those details. at least for now.

and now, another track from the album, as sung by my child. if you want to hear the original (and you totally should), you can see it here.

singing along to 'i am a paleontologist' from alexis on Vimeo.

also, emerson has decided that i have to call him john flansburgh all the time, and he has to call me john linnell. and in the interest of full disclosure, (because isn't that what blogs are really about?) i totally have had a crush on john linnell for like twenty years. how can you not love a guy who plays the accordion? just sayin'.

Enter Sandman - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

2009-10-02T23:14:00.001-04:00

gotta love the bosstones, even though this cover sounds way too much like the original. when i hit play on this, emerson said, "they don't sound very nice." no, they don't. should've used the horn section; it makes everything better.

so, the big boy bed is ordered, but it won't be here until the end of the month. it took me forever to decide what sort of bed to get. are all purchases this hard for me? yes. yes, they are. one of his favorite books is a collection of stories by richard scarry, which features baker humperdink and able baker charlie, who have bunk beds at their bakery where they can nap. he wanted beds like that, and i hemmed and hawed over them. i just couldn't do it. as much as i wanted to, i couldn't. all i could think of was him falling over the top bunk. ok, that's a lie. i thought about that, but i ALSO thought about the fact that i'd have to purchase TWO mattresses, and TWO comforters and, well, you get the drift. we're cheap first. safety-consciousness runs a close second.

also, let me tell you that i freaking AGONIZED over what bedding to get. you see, girls' bedding is mostly really cute and can either be totally girly, or have great neutral shades, and there are a lot of options, many of them reasonably priced. but boys' bedding? jebus. most of it has sports themes, and the rest is either ugly plaid or corporate movie tie-in stuff. not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but it's just not my cup of tea. i finally found some cute stripey stuff, and that's that.

the first night, he got up around 4:45, padded into our room, and got in bed with us, because he could. the second night (MIRACLE OF MIRACLES), he slept all freaking night. and tonight? well, he's still awake. holy shit, he's STILL AWAKE. i lay in his bed for an hour, and he is still awake. i read another story to him, and he is still awake. the cat tried to get comfy with him, and he is still awake. dave and i have been trying to watch creepy serial killer shows, and he keeps marching in here and freaking us out. and he can get out of bed on his own and go wherever he wants in the middle of the night now argh. this SUCKS. not only because he's doing this, but also. also. he will be three in 12 days. and this is scarier than anything else.

GO TO BED, CHILD.

Living In Paradise - Elvis Costello

2009-09-25T21:31:00.002-04:00

in the aftermath of the monsoon here in atlanta, we are ok. we are not dead or homeless or car-less. we have a lot to be grateful for. all is well, aside from garage flooding. and, well, we had a bunch of boxes from last year's move that were "hey, we'll deal with you fuckers later" sort of boxes. and, well, we got a lot of muddy water in the garage. so now, i'm mourning the potential loss of some old books. i think they can be dried out and salvaged, so i'm trying really hard.

we are going through all the boxes in our mildewey-smelling house now, as the damp things dry and get washed. and this brings us to a major difference between dave and me. dave is a packrat. i? i am NOT. i have very little sentimental attachment to anything. i will throw away things, recycle them, consign them, donate them. i do not care. i hate clutter. i live with a clutter-er, with which i am learning to deal. my only weakness and source of wretched excess? books.

there were boxes and boxes of books in that garage. most are ok, and the majority of them are mine. i love books. i have a library card, but i don't use it often, in favor of acquiring books for my own library. i use paperback swap and frugal reader, and i go to used bookstores. books have always been my weakness. i'm working on it.

i do have a few things that i will only feel bad about getting rid of because they are SUPPOSED to have sentimental value. and that's just wrong; i know it is. so i keep them. old dolls i don't remember playing with, old clothing i don't remember wearing. things from my childhood that i'm supposed to want to keep forever. but all my memories are already inside of me, so why do i need to keep these things? what is it about people that we want to hang on to THINGS in order to be able to remember? i have photos, i have memories, i have stories to hang on to. i don't need to keep a trinket from a trip i took with my grandparents. i remember that trip well.

i have pieces of furniture that used to belong to my grandparents, but every time i sit at the table, i don't think of them. i think of them when someone mentions the corn palace, when i hear my fair lady, and sometimes when i look at my boy. the furniture and things are nice, but i don't need them.

we're getting there.

Insinuation - The Folk Implosion

2009-09-22T17:29:00.002-04:00

oooooh, good song. listen to it here if you are so inclined.

those of you who are my friends on fb (which is probably most of you who read this thing) may have noticed that my status the other day was about a nurse. and not just any nurse. a really, truly special nurse. one who was capable of changing not my day but, in fact, my entire outlook on life with the utterance of only a few words. those words were:

wow. i didn't expect you to weigh that much. you wear it well.

what the fuck? seriously, WHAT THE FUCK? i would assume that, somewhere in nursing school, they might, just MIGHT discuss how NOT to talk to patients. and by that, i mean, by not EVER, EVER commenting on a patient's weight. unless said patient is a candidate for one of the weight-centric reality shows. maybe that's appropriate. aside from that, though? off the table. say nothing about my weight. because that comment basically says, hey, you're kind of chunky. you don't look chunky, but you pretty much are. get off the scale before you break it, fatass.

ok, ok, so maybe i took it a little badly, but FOLKS. this is not ok. i do not believe it is ever ok to say shit like that, even if it IS meant as a compliment. for example, this is not ok: you look fantastic! have you lost weight? see, this implies that the person looked like shit before, but now they've lost weight, they look great. just say you look gorgeous and be done with it.

also, commenting on my child's weight? not appreciated. people comment constantly about how he's such a big boy and will likely be a linebacker or whateverthefuck pro football player when he grows up. UM, NO. yes, he's big, but SO WHAT? and he can be a concert pianist or a mime or a kindergarten teacher or a farmer for all i care (maybe not a mime). what does size have to do with it? yes, he's large. i will grant that. he is quite muscular and it scares me how strong he is on occasion. but if i don't know you very well? SHUT IT. opinions to yourself, please. i mean, you are welcome to comment on my child's hulking physique as well as he's not within earshot. but if he can hear you? why give him a freaking complex before he's even in school?

i just don't like commenting on weight or body structure. i don't. i think it's totally tacky. i mean, my nephew is super-skinny, but i don't tell his parents to feed him sticks of butter or anything, even though i might want to. it's not my business, and i don't want them or him to feel shitty or like i'm judging or anything.

why am i still writing? I DON'T KNOW. it just irks me. what are your feelings on this? this should totally have been a wednesday post, i think.

I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You - Colin Hay

2009-09-12T22:00:00.002-04:00

emerson and i went to a neighborhood festival recently. dave often works weekends so, many times, it's just the boy and me. we really do have a wonderful time together, and this particular day was no exception. we watched the kids bouncing on the bungee doohickey, got him a balloon elephant, looked at all the tie-dyed t-shirts (he decided he didn't want one), and got him some ben & jerry's phish food ice cream. you know, i really hate phish, but the band inspired some of the world's best ice cream, so i guess they're not all bad.

(allison, remember how much troy loved phish? jebus.)

anyhoo, he ran up the hill at one point so we could go to the playground, and as he was running, he looked back a couple of times, just to make sure i was following him. we went back to the festival, and he walked ahead of me for a little while, holding my hand. again, he looked back, to see what i was doing, to make sure i was there.

i'll never forget the way he looked at me that day. his laughing face turning back to see me and assure himself that yes, mama's still there. and yes, mama was having just as much fun as he was. he also grabbed for my hand several times that day, and told me once that he really liked holding my hand.

if i had to name one of the most perfect days in my life, that day would make the top five so far. and i've been to far-off lands and i've had some pretty spectacular days. but, at the risk of sounding wretchedly lame and hopeless, there's something pretty wonderful about having a kid think you are amazing and want to be with you all day, holding your hand and eating ice cream with you and sharing his balloon animal with you.

and one day, probably sooner than i'd like, he won't look back to catch a glimpse of me any more. he won't want or need to make sure i'm still there. he will be embarassed to hold my hand or share ice cream with me and probably won't want to be within a mile radius of me. so i want to savor these gorgeous moments and make them last as long as i possibly can.

tell me about a perfect day you've had recently. i would love to hear it!

Stop Looking At Me - Unsteady

2009-09-10T22:04:00.003-04:00

the other day, i was at target, which actually happens a lot more often than i would like to admit. jebus, i go there a lot. i was checking out the dollar bins when a mother and son walked up. the little boy was perhaps a few months younger than emerson, and was a real cutie. he started gettingreally excited about something, and his mother picked it up. "elmo socks!" she said. but then, after looking at them, she told him, 'these socks are pink, buddy. they're for girls - you can't have them."

this just hits me wrong. big time. i hear crap like that all the time. little boys just can't wear pink. it's a girls' color. and, pray tell, who cares? why is it such a big deal? i mean, are parents afraid that wearing pink will make their preshus little sons gay? and if so, why? what the fuck is the big deal, anyway? blargh. i would totally have bought emerson pink socks if he wanted them.

in fact, emerson has loved pink for a long time. he'll tell you his favorite color is blue, but pink definitely runs a close second. he picked out pink sunglasses back in the day. and at the beginning of this summer, we went to dave's place of employment to get him some kick-ass summer sandals. the keens come in a million different colors. last year, he had blue, and before that, he had green. we picked them out because they matched most of his clothing. however, this go-around, i told him he could pick whatever color he wanted. his eyes lit up, and he grabbed this pair off the shelf. PINK, he said. I LOVE THESE PINK SHOES. and that was that.

he's pretty much worn his pink shoes every day of the summer. what surprises me are the number of strange looks we get. i suppose it's not as many as you'd think, but they're still there. our friends love them. his friends love them. the majority of people don't even notice. i mean, do you notice? he's so freaky styley that the whole look is just awesome, right?

gotta love the action shots. the shoes, they are awesome, no? and also, he's TWO, for chrissakes. nobody cares if he has pink shoes. if he was, perhaps, eight, and i was afraid of him getting bullied by asshole kids, then maybe i'd be a little concerned about it. but i think he should be able to decide what he likes and wear that for as long as he can. he's TWO.

i mean, you go to the store and are instantly bombarded with BLUE and FOOTBALL and TRANSFORMERS and CAMOUFLAGE and all the crap that is meant for MASCULINE LITTLE BOYS. it just seems so wrong. why do our kids have to be wedged into these niches? why do we do it? why can't our girls and boys decide if they like pink or blue or green or lavender or whatever they want?

and why is it ok (even encouraged) for girls to be tomboys, but it's weird for boys to like pink or not like sports? serious double standard when it comes to boys and masculinity. i guess i'm in the minority when i say that i don't worry about whether or not emerson is gay or straight; masculine or not, as long as he's happy. but it's the truth.

and i still believe in him wearing pink shoes and loving every minute of it.

fire and brimstone

2009-09-04T21:29:00.002-04:00

this pamphlet was in our door the other day. we get a lot of visitors around here. they're all generally very friendly and i really don't mind their spiels, as they're fairly respectful. however, i do take issue with the below.

i mean, this certainly doesn't seem to evoke happy feelings, does it? i'm not sure, as i didn't read it. i only scanned it for your viewing pleasure. i may have been more inclined to listen to the visitor's explanation on this one.

You're Quiet - Brendan Benson

2009-09-03T06:20:00.002-04:00

being quiet is something i think about a lot, in terms of what emerson is going to be like when he grows up. dave and i are pretty introverted. if i like you, and i’m comfortable around you, and we’re talking in person, you may not get the impression that i’m all that quiet. in fact, i can be fairly chatty in those situations. dave, on the other hand, well, let’s just say that chatty is one of the last words that might be used to describe him. that, and impatient, emotional, or impulsive. those words could NEVER be used in descriptions of my husband. however, i do think that they’re probably pretty liberally applied when discussing me, but only by people who know me well. casual acquaintances would definitely not describe me that way. in fact, they’d probably call me quiet and reserved. interesting.

enough about me, though. i wonder if, by virtue of dave and i being introverts, emerson is fated to that future as well. i mean, how much is nature, and how much is nurture? both dave and i, when presented with a party and a room full of people we either don’t know or barely know, would absolutely choose to stay home. fuck that. if we were forced to be at said event, we’d both hide in corners and nurse alcoholic beverages. not our comfort zone AT ALL.

in fact, being parents has actually forced us to become a lot more social. the reasons for this are twofold, i think.

*we need to go to events with emerson. birthday parties of his friends are key. they’re actually the perfect event, because if i’m feeling awkward, i can always go laugh with my kid. i will say that all the birthday parties we’ve been to lately have been really fun, and the folks’ other friends seem super nice.

*i forgot what the other one was. i’m sure it was important.

emerson is incredibly happy and exuberant with his friends, but he’s very reticent around new people. when in a situation involving unfamiliar people or surroundings, he tells me that he wants to be shy, and i tell him it’s ok. and this makes me worry that we’re the reason for it. is he picking up that his parents aren’t comfortable around new people and thus acting accordingly? are we holding him back? or is introversion somehow genetic in nature, thereby rendering him doomed to a life of heart palpitations and sweaty palms at social events?

it can't be genetic, i suppose, since my mother is a freaking social butterfly who never met a stranger. then, are we born with inherent tendencies towards one or the other? argh. i'm rambling now. i guess what i want to know is - what are your experiences? what do you think?

nightlight

2009-08-30T22:36:00.003-04:00

this is emerson's new nighlight. the battery is rechargable, and he can take it to bed with him. it's called the spöka, which means ghost. however, when i asked him what it was, he told me it was a chicken. when i asked him the chicken's name, he told me its name was asparagus, and that she was a girl. i give you asparagus, the blue female chicken.

he loves it, and i think it helps him sleep. i'm not sure it would help me sleep, but hey. whatever works.

gah. the pugs strike again!

2009-08-29T17:03:00.002-04:00

there's nothing i can say that isn't said by the photos. i should also add that these are NOT addressed to us. apparently, a former resident of this house was a pug freak. but look! they fit in your hand! and are only $4.95 each! and you can put them on your keyboard at work! and they're seasonal! except for the shoe. that's for all the ladies.

Older - They Might Be Giants

2009-08-27T21:41:00.001-04:00

yeah, this title didn't come up on random. here is a sampling of the lyrics:

you're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're even older
and now you're even older
you're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're older still

there are other songs about getting older, i know, but this one is just silly enough to get me to stop being as pensive and reflective as i have been for the past few days.

on saturday, emerson and i were tooling around in the playroom after his nap. he's generally a bit touchy and crank-o-rific when he wakes up from naptime, so i tend to give him a wide berth. out of nowhere, he looks at me and says, "mama? i don't want to grow up." i told him that everyone grows up, and we all get older every day. even i do.

and he looked at me, with tears forming in his wide-open eyes, and said, "NO, MAMA. i don't want to grow up. I DON'T." and he hugged me so tightly and was so, so scared of whatever he envisioned growing up to entail. my heart broke a little for him, and with tears in my own eyes, i assured him that he didn't have to grow up today. or tomorrow. and i assured him that he'd always be my boy.

i hugged him like that for a little while, until he calmed down a bit, and said, "ok, mama. i'm your boy." and then we played with play-doh.

but this continues to stick with me. what makes my two-year-old son terrified to grow up? what put the idea in his head that it was scary? i've never read him peter pan. i've never said anything about growing up being weird. i mean, it IS weird, and i think about it a lot. i don't want to grow up, either.

ways in which i am scarred for life wednesday - edition 6

2009-08-19T20:19:00.001-04:00

i don’t even know what made me think of this, but i did. and now i’m stuck because it’s weird and gross and tmi. it totally did scar me for life.

back in the day, when i was a counselor at a summer jesus camp, i was in a fellow counselor’s wedding. i was 19 at the time, and i don’t think she could have been much older. all the wedding gals got together a few months before the event to get measured for (long-sleeved for a summer wedding in arkansas) bridesmaid’s dresses and chat and have some girl time. being that this was a jesus camp, we were all at least demivierges if not total-vierges, and it was assumed that none of us knew much at all about s-e-x.

so, apropos of nothing, my friend (we’ll call her roxanne) says, “hey! let me show you what the doctor gave me to get ready for the wedding.” and i’m all HUH? what the fuck could a doctor possibly give you? xanax? roofies? what?

and roxanne leaves the room and returns with a small-ish cloth bag. and then, AND THEN, she pulls out these blue plastic things. which, for all intents and purposes, are hard blue plastic dildos of various sizes.

and it was all i could do to contain myself. and she discussed them. she told us what they were for, and i can't even bring myself to do it here.

truly, it scarred me for life. can't say i ever met another person who either a.) told me that she prepared this way for her wedding night or b.) actually had to do such a thing or c.) actually discussed such a thing with her doctor.

ew.

and now you're scarred for life, too.

Path Of Least Resistance - Modest Mouse

2009-08-16T22:34:00.000-04:00

i've been meaning to write this as a follow-up to the veggie posts i did a while back. because while i could eat an entire head of cauliflower, the boy certainly could not. would not. in a boat.

here is how he stays healthy, meat or no meat. ready?

flinstones

milk

peanut butter

the end.

seriously, that is all he usually eats. occasionally, he'll surprise us with asking for eggs or baked beans, but the above three, supplemented by fruit snacks, are the bulk of what he eats. i used to go nuts over this, but i've just let go.

i've just decided to pick my battles. it is not that important to me whether or not he sits at the table with us during the entire dinner. i encourage him to eat a little, and he eats when he's hungry. anything else? why badger the kid? there are other issues at hand which seem more pressing, namely, not shitting on the rug. this is easier said than done, but i tend to spend a little more energy on it. and wearing clothing when we go to the store. that, i will also endorse with a heavier hand. but as far as eating goes? fuck it. i have enough issues with it based on the "clean plate club" policies in place when i was a kid, that i refuse to pass that crap on to him. so not worth it. he'll eat when he's hungry. i refuse to yell and wheedle and cajole and freak out and be a general asshole about his eating habits.

and if it means me throwing out a little mac & cheese or whatever every night, well, i guess that's the price we pay. YES, OF COURSE i feel guilty about it. OF COURSE I DO. because, well, you know me well enough to know that i feel guilty about almost everything. but this is working for us, and i maintain that he's growing and learning and is perfectly healthy. also, he's big enough already. can you imagine how big he'd be if he actually ate real meals?

what do you guys think? should i be pushing him to sit at the table more, or eat more dinner? what do you (will you) do?

atlanta dreaming

2009-08-05T22:00:00.001-04:00

two nights ago, i had a crazy, crazy vivid dream. i still recall the details, which is odd, as i usually forget my dreams about 20 minutes after i wake up. it had to do with me working at a restaurant and finding out that someone close to me had murdered people and expected me to help with disposal of the bodies and whatnot. really uplifting stuff, i know. but in the middle of this dream, i dreamed about a college friend. i haven't seen this person in probably 13 years (side note: i am OLD), but have caught up with her and her husband via facebook.

this friend is currently pregnant, and on monday night, i dreamed that she and her husband were expecting a boy. i woke up yesterday morning, and thought i should email her and let her know i was thinking about her and how boys are so much fun, if it did turn out that she was having one. i didn't get a chance to email her and didn't log into facebook until late last night, around 11:00 or so. and there it was - her status update. they had found out on tuesday afternoon that they were expecting a boy.

this TOTALLY creeps me out. i've never dreamed like that, and can't possibly fathom why it happened or how or anything. this friend and i were never particularly close. we ran in the same circles, so to speak, and always got along really well, but weren't bffs or anything, which makes this even stranger. i've heard of people having similar dreams, things that would eventually come to pass, and i always thought it was kind of cool/bizarre. maybe it's just a huge coincidence, but i didn't know they were having the sonogram on tuesday. i don't obsess over other people's pregnancies. i generally have a lot on my mind and i think my dreams sort of work that out while i sleep. but this is just plain WEIRD.

has this ever happened to you?

i'm a big kid now.

2009-08-03T22:09:00.005-04:00

menfolk and people otherwise disinterested in discussing bra shopping and boobs: ya might want to skip this post. wait...menfolk sometimes like boobs. carry on.

back about, oh TEN MONTHS ago, i mentioned that i'd never really owned a real bra and that i was terrified about shopping for one. i ended up, on your recommendations, going to target, and you're right! there are some really cute bras there. but after about 30 minutes in the dressing room and a lot of swearing on my part, i left, empty-handed. turns out, i had no idea what size i wore, and all those racks of undergarments were a little daunting.

fast-forward to this weekend. after discovering during the week that the majority of the elastic on my bra substitutes was failing in a gigantic way, i finally made a decision. i can't turn 35 and not have a real bra. something seems very wrong about that. also, because i failed so miserably at target, i wanted a bra fitter to basically say, "hey! you're a total freak, and you'll never find a bra that fits! good luck, wierdo." that would mean that i had a pretty damn good excuse for continuing in my pre-teen underoos options.

so i headed to nordstrom. i've seen the ladies in the undergarments department there, and they all look nice and normal and non-judgy, as opposed to some of the twenty-somethings that can be found in victoria's secret. because all i needed was to have an angsty 22-year-old girl look at me and say, "you, like, never had a bra? for real? how old are you, anyway? OMG."

nordstorm was awesome. the woman who helped me was very kind, and when she asked me what size i wore and i told her i didn't know, she didn't look all that surprised, which was sort of a relief. after measuring me, she came back with a handful of lovely underpinnings and when i tried the first one on, it fit. and she said, "just what i thought. you're a c." and i choked and started to laugh. a C? a C? HOLY SHIT. now, those of you who have seen me in person are also probably choking and laughing as well, because that just doesn't seem possible. apparently, when you wear one of these new-fangled brassiere doohickeys, you have to kind of lift and tuck all of your boobs in the bra. and VOILA. boobs. why did nobody tell me this before? i feel so cheated.

i have BOOBS.

also, i have NO SHAME. i mean, i know they're not all baywatch-y gigantic, but they actually have a shape and fill out the t-shirt sort of nicely. i ripped off the tag and wore the damn thing home. dave laughed at me because he kept catching me staring at myself. this has CHANGED MY LIFE. i mean, suddenly, my tits look kind of normal. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

but also, it feels sort of fraudulent. like false advertising. you know? this is NOT what i really look like. they're all sort of hoisted up with wires and material and whatnot. and my girls aren't really saggy, but still. it does seem strange. also, i am fairly sure that normal people dealt with this when they were about sixteen, but hey. i've always been a late bloomer.

so today, i went back to target. armed with knowledge. and i bought a few cute bras, and i even bought some trashy underwear, because it matched. and because i could.

emerson immediately got into the bag when i got home, and when he pulled out one of the mysterious objects, he looked perplexed. when i asked him what he thought it was, he said, "it's a mask. for your eyes. see?"

Catch a Wave - The Beach Boys

2009-07-31T21:41:00.003-04:00

oh, y’all. i love the beach boys. i have fond memories of listening to them with the fam, and listening to my 3-year-old brother sing barbara ann at the top of his lungs.

love the beach boys...hate the beach. i really do. and i realize that most of you adore it and find major relaxation there, but there you have it. i freaking hate the beach.

we never took beach vacations when i was a kid. my father hated the beach. i still haven’t been to disney, unless you count that one time dave and i went to animal kingdom about 11 years ago to see a friend of his who was a keeper there. her name? mickey. true story.

my family always vacationed in the mountains. colorado, utah, wyoming – rafting, hiking, skiing, exploring – that was the gist of all of our vacations, which were AWESOME, i might add. don’t get the wrong impression based on this. aside from being cold and looking lame in unisex ski gear, we loved every minute of those trips.

the first time i even set foot on the beach, i was probably 21. perhaps if i’d been indoctrinated into beachgoing at an earlier age, i might enjoy it a little more. let me outline the things i hate about the beach. ready?

sand. seriously, it gets everywhere. and it annoys the shit out of me. do i really need to explain this more? although, on the plus side, it’s a nice pumice for the feet.

random floaty things in the water. what the fuck is that? aaaaaaah! and it’s always just seaweed or some totally innocuous thing like that, but the day i stop freaking out about it will be the day my leg is chewed off by a rabid sea lion.

seagulls. leave my crackers alone, assholes.

the sun. dude. i’m a sunscreen-aholic, and it’s so much easier to only coat a few visible body parts like face, arms and hands. at the beach, you have to worry about your shoulders, back, legs, feet, SCALP. wear a hat, remember the sunglasses, apply multiple layers of sunscreen. and don’t try to do it yourself, or you will end up with bizarro handprint patterns on your shoulders where you couldn’t quite reach. i don’t want melanoma. or wrinkles. so i will continue to apply my spf-70 at all times.

shit that ends up in your bathing suit. how does this happen? and what is that? how did it make its way into the suit? ew.

there’s not much to do if you’re over, say, twelve. i’ve established before that i’m not the most likely person to be found just sitting somewhere. if i want to read, i’ll stay home. i don’t find it particularly relaxing to just sit on the beach, because the whole time i’m worrying about stuff. see above. i’d rather be doing something like hiking or running or canoeing or SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

but you want to know what i love about the beach? the look on my kid’s face as he searches for shells, or flies a kite with his mimi, sees little crabs in the surf, looks for dolphins, and builds sand castles. also, the fact that he was spellbound by the random relatively fresh head of a wading bird left on the shore. by what? we’ll never know. but he can’t stop talking about it. every time i bring up the beach, he tells me, “the bird died. that bird was dead. we saw that dead bird. what happened to its body?” and so on.

so i suck it up. he’ll never know how much i hate the beach. at least not as long as he enjoys it. or learns to read and finds my blog.

People Got A Lotta Nerve - Neko Case

2009-07-29T22:15:00.004-04:00

an etiquette question:

if you are invited to a shindig and asked to bring some food, and you bring said food - what happens to the leftovers?

now, if it's my house, i would ask you if you want me to wrap them up. if you said no, i'd offer the yummies to other people. the last stop would be my own fridge.

but is that correct? or if the shindig is at your home, do you assume that all leftovers end up in your fridge and leave it at that?

because i went to such an event and, when my child inquired after the treats, we found that our trays had been left on the table, but all the treats were secured in tupperware in the fridge. um, hello? i spent a good bit of cash on those. also, since not that many people partook, i was kind of stoked about taking them home and enjoying them.

i mean, i'm not that mad - it's just dessert. but STILL. what is the protocol?

The Way I Feel Inside - The Zombies

2009-07-26T22:06:00.003-04:00

today, we spent a completely normal sunday. dave didn't work, and we had the whole day together as a family. we didn't do anything extraordinary. made breakfast, played at home, went out for sushi. emerson took a nap, and when he woke up, we blew bubbles and shot each other with squirt guns. it started to rain, and he ran around in the rain, naked.

this is totally ordinary and boring, but i was filled with the urge to cry ALL DAY. i was just so happy.

the little moments really hit me in an amazing way today. the way he hugged me so tight after he woke up. the joy on his face as he saw that i'd made special pancake shapes just for him. the way he snuggled into my side when we sat on the couch together. the sheer glee of jumping around on the porch, popping all the bubbles i blew for him. the shine of the sun on his blonde hair. the innocent happiness on his face as he raised it to the sky so he could feel the rain.

the fact that we are a happy little family.

and as i sat at the dinner table and emerson said something cute, i started to cry. and he got so concerned and asked me why i was sad. i tried to explain to him that sometimes, people cry when they're happy. he knit his brows together until i went to him and hugged him and told him how happy i was and how much i loved him and daddy. and he said, ok, mama. and i knew that he was storing away this memory to share with his future therapist as proof of how crazy his mother is.

i just felt so overwhelmed with love; my heart was (and is) so, so full. forget all the mundane details of things that bother you for a minute, and realize how great and beautiful life can be. it's such an amazing feeling.

do you ever feel like that?

today's foray into the seven deadly sins

2009-07-23T23:05:00.005-04:00

and today, i give you...gluttony.

breakfast: chocolate cake. it's my direct supervisor's birthday today, and we didn't really want to wait around until it was socially acceptable to eat the cake. cake for breakfast? awesome. and, like bill cosby said, it has eggs and milk in it. it's good for you.

lunch: vegetarian spring roll and green curry with tofu and vegetables. hey, it was his birthday. i HAD to take him out for lunch!

dinner: halim soup (spicy lentils), aloo gobi (curried potatoes and cauliflower) and garlic naan (flatbread). this was at a bangladeshi restaurant with a marvelous friend, complete with great convo. we got to check out an advance screening of julie and julia, courtesy of my sweet husband, whose job gives him mysterious perks. meryl streep is brilliant. FUCKING BRILLIANT. we laughed so hard we nearly cried. loved it. also, neither of us had seen a movie on the big screen in quite a while, so the experience was possibly enhanced by the mere fact that we were OUT! WITHOUT CHILDREN! AT A MOVIE! AND NOT AT THE GROCERY STORE! WHERE THERE ARE MANY OTHER ADULTS! AND IT WASN'T ANIMATED! WHEE!

i'm a glutton for good food and good friends. and good movies about good food and good friends.

Sweetness Follows - R.E.M.

2009-07-22T21:34:00.002-04:00

i need to vent. then perhaps, sweetness will follow.

things of which i am tired:

needing to correctly place my prepositions within the sentence. really, who does that? the above should just say - things i'm tired of. but, yet, i just can NOT end a sentence in a preposition. it's just wrong. WRONG, I TELL YA!

stalling tactics newly employed by my child are killing me. but mama, i need one more drink of milk. just wait for me to finish playing with this train. wait until this song is over. and, my personal favorite, when asked to return to the table after watching goldfish at a restaurant: mama. i will come sit down when the fish are all finished swimming.

people bragging about their kids eating vegetables. oooh, my kids are so great, they don't even like sweets. in fact, they hate chocolate. they beg me for veggies, especially spinach and salad. and broccoli. my kids are so much better than yours. or something to that effect. you get the picture.

that we haven't gotten dave's folks to sit with emerson so we (read I) can go see the new harry potter movie. holy jebus, i gotta get there!

that everyone is so cotton-pickin' busy that i haven't even seen our friends' new baby, who is not really all that new any more. ARGH. he's adorable, from what photos i've seen. i feel like such a loser, especially considering that they live so close.

the beach sucks. i hate the beach.

the jon and kate media frenzy must end. i have never seen the show and don't care to. i am sick to death of it. i feel terrible for the kids, and i am sure those two people wish they'd never gone on television. what a pathetic, crude, gross situation. and the media? ew. just, ew.

also, sick of angelina jolie and brad pitt. i don't care.

the fact that i don't post here as often as i would like. now, if someone would pay me to blog, you'd get well-written, well-thought-out blog posts every day. maybe even twice a day.

the fact that there is a pool party coming up at our boss' house. um, i am most uncomfy about this. the idea is really nice, and the concept is great, but i just don't want to see my coworkers in bathing suits. nor do i want them to see me in mine.

what's bugging you?

ways in which i am scarred for life wednesday - edition 5

2009-07-15T11:56:00.005-04:00

y'all. look at this shit. now you're scarred for life, too! (insert evil laughter)

we got this in the mail, and were struck speechless by the fact that these actually exist. these are flags. flags that you hang from your home. flags that are 28" by 40". that is HUGE. i want to know the person who flies these proudly. i also want to know if people actually make money by selling these.

i think my favorite is the leprechaun. pugrechaun. leprepug. i think it's time for a trip to garden ridge.

a follow-up to the veg post

2009-07-14T22:23:00.005-04:00

i tend to write my entries rather quickly, instead of lingering over them and editing them to death the way i'd prefer. yesterday, i left out a couple of things:

the number one reason i am a veg- pesca- whatever- arian? I LOVE VEGETABLES. seriously. i could eat like an entire head of cauliflower in one sitting. the only vegetable i don't like is a tomato. and really, it's a poseur. it's not really even a vegetable. so there.

sometimes, it really comes in handy. say, at family events or holidays. i NEVER have to cook the turkey, or the roast, or whatever the fuck. and veggies are much easier. just throw whatever veggie you want in the oven with some cream of mushroom soup, and PRESTO! CASSEROLE! if anyone even thinks about asking me to cook the turkey, i'll just quietly mumble tofurky and that will be that, methinks. or i'll ask them if they all want food poisoning, what with entrusting your meat-cookin' to a person who hasn't touched it in about seventeen years. genius. even if you're not a veg, lie to your families! tell them you are! save yourself time and effort! (see #5 from yesterday)

going to college in texas was aces for me. i subsisted on cereal from the cafeteria, and salads and fries when we went out. oh, and chips & salsa. and whatever that green sauce was at casa ole. man, i miss that place.

also, being a vegetarian makes me want to try new things. things that normal people might not want to eat. like seitan. and various other strange meat substitutes. and facon. and riblets that dave refuses to even taste. but i love them. LOVE.

i think that's it. there's always tomorrow if i have forgotten more, which i'm sure you're hoping has NOT happened.

Pork Soda - Primus

2009-07-13T22:33:00.001-04:00

a good college friend of mine who was a vegetarian for something like 16 years now eats meat again. she actually posted on fb about steak the other day. and a couple weeks ago, when discussing dinosaurs, emerson asked me exactly what meat was. i deflected the question, and was successful at doing so until last night. he kept asking, and finally, i told him that meat is eating animals. like cows, i said. he knit his brows together as he always does when something perplexes him. like uncle alan, i said. he eats cows, and he likes them. to which emerson said, HE DOES NOT EAT COWS. WHY WOULD PEOPLE EAT COWS? THAT'S SILLY. and as i tried to convince him that, actually, some people do actually eat cows and pigs and whatnot, he grew more and more convinced that i was joking. hmmmm.

but i thought about it. why don't we eat meat?

1. i hate the way it tastes. seriously. when i was a kid, i would ALWAYS end up sitting at the dinner table half the night, because my dad was a clean plate sort of guy. and every freaking time, it was the meat i didn't want to eat. that, and brussels sprouts, because no self-respecting kid eats those. my mother would sneak away little bites as she invented reasons to walk by the dinner table so i could eventually go to bed. i had a boyfriend in high school who was a vegetarian, and i was all you can DO that?

2. dude, cows are cute. i don't want to eat them. i will drink their organic non-bgh infested milk, and eat ice cream and butter and whatnot, but i do not want to eat them. also, see #1.

3. factory farming is hard on the environment. i will not harp on this, because i realize that i run the risk of sounding totally obnoxious and alienating approximately 85 percent of my readership. also, this is why i'm not posting my alternate essay on why going to church yesterday was not the most fun time of my life, and when emerson said WHAT IS CHURCH? i had a hard time explaining it to him. i'll stop now. i love you guys.

4. we get protein in plenty of other places. my dad is totally concerned that emerson will not grow properly because his diet lacks meat protein. yes. that is why he's bigger than most kids who are older than he is. because his diet is lacking.

5. i am lazy. seriously. cooking meat takes so freaking long. and if you don't do it right, you get what? salmonella? campylobacter? e.coli? i don't take that risk with tofu. lazy. that's right. keeps you healthy.

6. don't get me wrong. we are not vegans. aside from loving dairy products, i also LOVE eggs. love 'em. don't care about the cholesterol. love eggs. i could eat them every day.

7. also, vegans don't eat honey and other animal-made products. and don't wear leather. can't do that. being a vegan takes a lot of work. see #5. however, i totally respect vegans. i think they are super awesome and wish i had enough fortitude to commit so well. however, see #5.

8. i guess the technical term for me is pescatarian. i love seafood. sushi, in particular. dave sneaks turkey sometimes when he thinks i'm not looking.

i'm not sure, really. i guess that the bottom line is that i don't like meat, i don't like the way some farms treat their animals, and i don't think you have to eat it to be healthy. however, i have no problem with people that do eat it. i'm not all self-righteous about it and don't get all icked out at other people eating meat in front of me. i don't judge, because that's totally lame. not my place at all.

if emerson grows up one day and wants to eat meat, i'll probably be cool with it. it'll be his choice. but for now, he's not going to have it.

are you guys veg? non? why?

I Don't Wanna Know - Indigo Girls

2009-07-06T22:28:00.004-04:00

so, this weekend, we were faced with not one, but two separate instances of trying to protect the boy from witnessing child abuse. awesome, right? DUDE. what are the fucking odds? i guess it was a 3-day weekend, so the odds went up a bit. damn you, 4th of july.

first up. aquarium. i took the boy there on friday. i gotta tell you, i am a city dweller now, through and through. we were on our way to target, when emerson asked me, apropos of nothing, if we could go to the aquarium. no problem. we went, and checked out his usual favorites: garden eels, beluga whales, moon jellyfish, palette surgeonfish, and what he calls the broken squid. we took a little breather to eat some fruit snacks and drink some milk. at a table right next to us, i watched as a maybe five-year-old boy acted typically as a five-year-old boy would when he was tired and worn-out, and his mother took that as a perfect opportunity to hit him on the head with an empty plastic coke bottle. she then proceeded to threaten him with it, as well as various and sundry other household objects, and when he, in what i expect is typical five-year-old boy fashion, expressed discontent about this option, she smacked his head with it again. twice. at this point, i scooped up my child, and carried him, his fruit snacks, and his milk (protesting all the while) to another table. when he asked me, crying, WHYYYYYYY DO WE HAVE TO MOOOOVE? i explained that he had done nothing wrong. there was a lady being mean over there. and when he asked me WHYYYYYYYY was she being mean? well. i had no response.

so then yesterday, dave and i took the boy to the zoo. we saw a few of his favorites: snakes, poison dart frogs, warthogs, and then were on our way out. we were looking at some awesome tortoises when i noticed a guy snapping a branch off a tree. now, my first reaction was: hey, asshole! i know the people who planted that tree. back off, fucker. and then, i watched him strip the branch of its leaves, and heard him tell his, perhaps, four-year-old son how he was going to use said branch (i believe he referred to it as a switch) on said child's hindquarters. and the child's mother just stood there, as if it were the most normal event in the world. after i got over the initial SHOCK and RAGE, i asked emerson to race me down to the bottom of the hill. again, the flight response.

the whole fight/flight thing? as much as i wanted to kick these assholes square in the nuts, i wanted to get my kid out of there as quickly as i could. i didn't want to have to explain why these parents were hitting their kids, or threatening to do so. i always tell him that dave and i will keep him safe and not let anything hurt him, but yet he will very likely be exposed to assholes hitting their own kids in public. and how to explain? hey, your parents will protect you, but these other kids? yeah, they're on their own.

so...pray tell. is there a correct response in this situation? is there a good way to tell these asshats that physical violence against small children is entirely inappropriate? should i have called the police? i hate, hate, hate that i did nothing except run away. these kids are probably abused worse in their own homes. and let me be perfectly clear: i'm not railing on parents who use spanking as a punishment and clearly lay out the rules to their children and deliver the punishment in private. i am railing on parents who have no qualms about hitting their kids in public, with random objects, and very little/no explanation. please understand the difference. this isn't judgment over parenting techniques. this is shock over what looks pretty ugly to me.

forty-three is a lot of years, y'all.

2009-07-02T20:37:00.002-04:00

so, my folks have been married for forty-three years today. FORTY-THREE. i haven't scanned any of their wedding photos, yet, which sucks, because their photos are pretty stellar. and i mean that without an ounce of sarcasm. truly, very pretty pictures. so here are photos of them approximately 33 years ago. which is still a long time. you may be asking yourself who that darling, beautiful, clever little baby is. yeah, i have no idea either.
when i called my folks to wish them a happy anniversary today, they were typically underwhelmed about the whole thing. my mother's biggest contribution was, "you know what? you could be a lot older than you actually are. you need to be thanking us, because you're not that old right now." also, they are not going to celebrate until saturday, when they have a free entree coupon at ruby tuesday. my parents, ladies and gentlemen.

so, thanks mom and dad, for putting off that whole kid thing in favor of travel. were it not for that, i might now be over forty. also, happy anniversary. you guys are hilarious.

Punky's Dilemma - Simon & Garfunkel

2009-07-01T21:44:00.003-04:00

we'll instead call this post potty's dilemma. now, i understand that my son is only two, and thus perhaps not fully ready to be potty trained. i also want all of you to know that we are absolutely NOT pushing him at all. we ask if he wants to go peepee in the potty, and if he says yes, YAY! and if he says no, hey, whatever, it's just another diaper to change.

that said, i have made the COLOSSAL mistake of googling potty training tactics. people are either as clueless as i am (yay!) or just total assholes. please, please, people. tell me all about how your kid was potty trained in one day. in fact, i would love to hear about how your child didn't even need to be trained. he practically begged to be out of diapers and wanted so desperately to sit on the potty that he needed no rewards. yes, yes, google! feed me full of that bullshit! whee!

seriously. folks, if all you have to contribute to a potty training discussion is that it took your child only 4 hours to figure it out after a heartfelt discussion at age 16 months, GET OFF THE WEB. NOW, IN FACT. and EFF YOU, while i'm at it.

one woman actually said something like, "just give your child underwear. that's what i did, and my kid didn't want to get the underwear dirty, so that was it. he was potty trained from that moment. and everything that came out of his orifices smelled like lilacs. and he started reading at 18 months and recited shakespeare soliloquies at age 3. he's the sweetest boy ever. also, he makes me breakfast in bed every morning, and vacuums like a dream." or something like that.

SRSLY. what the fuck? GET OFF THE INTERWEBS, YOU HOSER.

my kid shits on the floor, and THEN decides to tell me that he might need to go poopoo on the potty. and i smile, and get the carpet cleaner out, because that's what real parents do. i bribe that kid with m&m's or yogurt raisins or fifty dollar bills, because that's what it takes, y'all.

where are the parents with the kids who pee in their big boy underwear while they're playing with their trains and are all, oh hey, mama? i guess i peepeed in my pants about 15 minutes ago. huh? you want to change my pants? nah, it's cool. i like to be all wet and stuff. where are those parents, and why aren't they posting and lending me moral support? I NEED TO KNOW.

tell meeeeeeee. give meeeeeee your potteeeeee storiiieeeeessss.

The First Taste - Fiona Apple

2009-06-25T22:53:00.003-04:00

vacation, continued. let me just say that i've been fighting with blogger, trying to get these photos up. i win, sucka. anyhoo...next, we went to shenandoah national park. neither dave nor i had been there before, and were pretty stoked to check it out. of course, our old mode of exploring national parks was backpacking for miles, camping under the stars, cooking on a jetboil, digging a hole for a bathroom, tying our food up in a tree so the bears won't bust in the tent and eat it, and having 0 running water. you get the drift. and yes, we think it's fun.

toddler in tow, the most hiking we can get done at a stretch is maybe two miles. maybe. so we set a nice, leisurely pace on a one mile loop just off a parking lot. we found all sorts of bugs. here we are looking at spiders. emerson likes me to do voices for them, and i think this particular one was named samuel.

at about mile 0.9 of the mile loop, i saw something dark scamper up a tree. you know how your mind sort of goes all different ways when it sees something that doesn't quite compute? my brain said raccoon? porcupine? binturong? and then i realized. OH. bear cub. and oh, hey, there's another! and then, as emerson walked in front of me, i did the crazy-ass protective thing, because i realized i didn't know where the mama bear was. i grabbed that kid in my arms so fast he didn't know what had happened. and i hissed STOP at dave, and just froze. if you don't know the bear rule, it's fairly simple. don't fuck with bears. also, never, never, never get between mama bear and her babies. and i had no idea where she was and got scared. sans emerson, i wouldn't have batted an eye. brown bears are relatively small, and don't generally attack full-grown adults. howevs, emerson is slightly snack-sized, and i was ready to sprint, 34-pound toddler on my back, and pull out some of those amazing adrenaline-fueled feats of bravery - the kind your grandparents read about in reader's digest. dave finally saw her at the base of the tree, so we breathed a sigh of relief and walked the 0.9 miles back around the loop so as not to perturb her. i have NEVER seen bears that close on a hike before, so it was a real treat, though, once i got past the heart pounding.

the next day, we took some more walks, and got so close to some deer that emerson was convinced he could pet. aaaaaalmost. also, i realize that you can't see much of me in the below, but you can see enough to understand that i will be getting rid of the khaki shorts. when your legs are the same color as your shorts, it's not a good sign. it's either that or get some self-tanner, and i think we all know how that will turn out.

more hiking, this time on the appalachian trail. he was absolutely fearless. didn't want to be held or carried; wanted to hike the whole way. he discovered little bugs and plants and sticks the entire time.in the tent, reading by headlamp and glowstick light. he loved the tent, and wants to keep putting it up. looks like more camping is definitely in our future.

on the way home, we missed seeing mandy and collin, since they were visiting family, but mandy's husband, eric was there. eric and dave are excellent, excellent friends. i was feeling like shit at this point, and the small hypochondriac inside my head had convinced me that i was dying of tick fever or something, so i was absolutely no fun as i lay on the couch, comvinced of my impending doom. but the boys had a great time playing with legos and whatever else boys do. i have no photos of this, since i thought i was dying and taking photos seemed like it wouldn't have been the best use of my final moments on the earth. it was fun. trust me.

i recovered.

last stop? allison's house. dude, on that old post, it's nuts, because you can see just how much our kiddos have grown since the last time we hung out. maggie and emerson were just thrilled with each other, and it was FANTASTIC to spend time with allison and her husband. they are some awesome, freaking hilarious people, which always makes for excellent convo after the toddlers are asleep. here is allison, patiently reading a dora book to the kiddos, who sit in rapt attention. i'm not sure exactly why emerson is holding a drumstick to his ear, but there you go. he's two. allison is a brilliant actress, and made that dora book seem like great literature. i am not sure how many times it was read, but i can tell you that they totally preferred her rendition of it to mine. allison, you rule at voicing inanimate objects (backpack!) and menacing cartoon pirate pigs. nice work.

now that i have EXHAUSTIVELY described this trip for you, in all its excruciating detail, i will sum up to say this: vacations are good. friends are even better.

THE END.

Experimental Film - They Might Be Giants

2009-06-19T20:31:00.000-04:00

oh, i almost forgot about this. on our way out of dc, we stopped at the national museum of the american indian. not that we thought emerson would be into it at all, because - hey, birdie! let's go talk about genocide! really not the topic for a 2-year-old. i'll hold off on that until he's at least 3. ok, maybe 4.

dave and i really wanted to see the museum for multiple reasons, but knew that we'd only really get a chance to gape at the architecture, which did not leave us wanting. it truly is a gorgeous, masterfully designed place. maybe one day, we'll actually get to go back and learn some stuff.

anyhoo, i wanted to let you know that emerson really enjoyed the museum, much more than i gave him credit for. he really seemed to get a lot out of the experience, and maybe even learned something new. here is what he did the entire time we were there. see? he really liked it.

(If You Were) In My Movie - Suzanne Vega

2009-06-18T23:19:00.007-04:00

ok, so the trip. THE TRIP. holy shit, but it was good. not that i didn't love all the family-visitin' trips we've taken in the past oh, three years, but wow. it's nice to go at your own pace and hang with friends and talk and swear and actually agree on politics and whatnot. wow. i'll get to that part in a mo; i promised photos and now, will deliver. our first stop in dc was the museum of natural history, and all of us adored it. we probably could have spent a week in that place, just devouring every bit of knowledge in there. now, you might think that the fact that it's filled with dead, taxidermied animals would put us off, but NOT AT ALL. in fact, just the opposite. the animals are so gorgeous, it just appears as if they're suspended in motion. amazing. like this.

there are also live animals, mostly small and of the insect variety. here is emerson, concentrating so, so very hard on the bees. the bees were badass. there was an opening in the window that connected to a tube, so the bees could come and go as they pleased. when they wanted to come inside, they just flew in, crawled through a tube, and went into their giant manmade hive that was in the faux tree right behind the boy. you can watch them with the pollen on their legs and making honey and bee dancing and whatever else it is that they do.

also, and most importantly, there are dinosaurs. many, many dinosaurs. emerson was a little disappointed that there was only one real dinosaur, which is what he called the stegosaurus replica. but he got over it, and here he is, bonding with the triceratops skull. can you tell he's deep in conversation? what you can't see is that he's holding a tiny triceratops in his hands and trying to introduce them so that they can also have a conversation. oh, mah gawd, but he was happy.

inexplicably, here is a photo of us sticking our tongues out in front of the oceans area. i can't remember why he thought it might be important, but it was. and so we did.

and more sticking out of tongues. hee - i love my boys.

and here he is after the museum, entirely exhausted. you know how kids will NEVER admit to being sleepy? occasionally, they'll catch you off guard, because he, when asked if he was tired, said YEAAAAAAAH. I'M VEEEEERY SLEEEEEEEPY. and put his head on my back and tried to sleep during the whole walk back to the metro. oh, so sweet. and heavy. on a hot day, sleepy piggyback riding toddler = insanely heavy sweaty backpack substitute.

and now, have arrived at the best part of this post. the FRIENDS i referenced on monday. so, about 3 years ago, i met diana online, on one of those pregnancy boards where first-time pregnant ladies go to freak out about the THING living inside them and to commiserate about flatulence and swollen ankles and uncontrollable itching and hemorrhoids and all that jazz. not that we would know, because we were dainty, gorgeous, sweet-smelling pregnant ladies.

our kiddos were, amazingly, born just a few hours apart on the very same day. we have kept up over the three years, but never actually got a chance to meet in person. i've always wanted to go to dc, and never quite made it. most kids apparently take a trip in jr. high or some such to see our nation's capital, but my jr. high years were spent at a parochial lutheran school in arkansas, and the biggest trips we took were to bell's amusement park in tulsa, and the spiro mounds in (where else?) spiro, oklahoma. i lived the dream as a kid. anyhoo, when i told diana we were coming to town she, without any hesitation, offered us a place to stay. which was AMAZING for someone who had actually never met us. at least, not in person. but her family opened up their home to us, and it was more fun than i thought possible.

miss lulu is a joy to be around. she is such a happy, sweet, smart girl, who shares like a dream and totally goes with the flow, even when a cranky emerson threw a tantrum on the floor. also, her cat pajamas are even more awesome in person. seriously. lulu is an absolute DOLL, and emerson just loved her. look at these kids.

ems even broke out in spontaneous hugging.

as for diana, well, she's truly wonderful. she is as funny and as real and as great as her blog suggests, and just as gorgeous in person, too. we got along famously, and her husband is a complete riot. i laughed so hard that i cried on occasion. we felt totally comfortable and welcomed at their place, and hope that we can host them in the ATL sometime. i only hope that our hospitality can measure up to theirs. it's amazing to have friends, y'all.

especially friends who go to the zoo with you when it's about nine million degrees outside. i was going to try to add photos, but it seems as if blogger is telling me that is a bad idea and it will not agree to do so. bastard. at any rate, just trust me when i tell you that dc was AWESOME, for numerous reasons, not least of which was the funk family. they RULE.

adventures in shenandoah and charlotte to come at a later date. stay tuned.

good times.

2009-06-16T22:38:00.002-04:00

am studying for my phr. am glamourous and exciting.

test is tomorrow...

am sure it will provide wednesday fodder.

Little Triggers - Elvis Costello

2009-06-15T22:47:00.006-04:00

man. just got back from a little vacay yesterday, and it was AWESOME. this was the first vacation we've taken since the boy was born that didn't involve visiting family. so imagine my sheer delight at the trip when we got to visit FRIENDS! woohoo! it was fabulous. more on that later. let me just tell you briefly, though, that our friends are AWESOME. beyond that, actually.

i want to instead share something that i learned, because nothing says vacation like insight into your own soul. and parenting. and all that crap.

so, i think it's well enough established that i'm incredibly hard on myself. i won't wallow in that any more, because i know it gets old. however, i am starting to wonder if i'm too hard on emerson. we had an amazing time away, and we had a loverly time with our FRIENDS' kids. adorable little girls, those. he threw tantrums at each home, and i was just mortified. beyond. each time, parents were mercifully kind and understanding, and assured us that it was no big deal. but it bothered me to no end. he was grabby and tantrum throw-y, and yell-y, and...what's that you say? he's two?

WAIT. HE'S TWO. and then i realized that hey! everyone's two-year-old, and three, four, five, etc. year-olds go through this shit. hell, i go through it when nobody's looking. i need to stop expecting him to be perfect and all that, because he's a). a boy, and b). 2. this is what happens. but it's hard sometimes. no?

because emerson is a good kid. a really good kid. he's mostly very polite. but at TWO, he gets sick and tired of the rules every once in a while. hey, don't we all?

i think i need to go a little easier on him. because even though i want him to be sweet and non-grabby, he is two, and just because he may understand quantum physics, it doesn't mean he has a complete understanding of human emotion and how to control himself. he'll learn eventually, right?

tell me. what do you guys think? even if you don't have kids - help meh.

more on the vacation later. i want to post photos, too, and that takes me a little while.

i missed you guys.

uh, ok, small-town north carolina

2009-06-13T15:59:00.002-04:00

seen on a church sign in bfe, north carolina:

They tell me that my femur
May have come from a lemur
But I know that evolution
Is just a big delusion

okey, dokey.

have been en vacances all week. will restore your regularly scheduled programming very soon. the above was just too awesome not to post right away.

Walk Away - Indigo Girls

2009-06-05T21:41:00.001-04:00

the other day, emerson was being so, so good, and i had a coupon for borders, so i took him there to get a book as a treat. we had a great time, while he picked out book after book for me to read to him so he could figure out which one he wanted to take home.

and then he pulled this number off the shelf. as i read it to him, i came to the realization that i was supposed to get all weepy and lovey about it, but instead, was TOTALLY creeped out and annoyed. this mother sings a sweet little song to her baby, and then, as he grows up, she literally crawls into the room while he's sleeping, rocks him, and sings to him. even after he is grown up and has moved out of the house - y'all, she totes a ladder with her to basically break into his house and crawl across the floor and EW. folks, i love my kid and all, but that's just not my speed. i mean, wow.

i apologize if this is one of your favorite books, because the thought behind it totally seems sweet. and it's quite possible that i had the reaction i did based on the wicked pms i'm having right now. but i just don't get it. this is the same reaction i'm having lately to the giving tree. which i have always loved, but now am starting to see it in a whole new, cynical light. i mean, the tree gives and gives until she has nothing left, and the boy never even says "thank you." what is the deal? i LOVE shel silverstein, but suddenly i'm just not so sure about this book. am i overthinking?

yep. gonna blame the pms.

are there any kids' books that creep you out or make you irritated?

Midnight Rambler - The Rolling Stones

2009-06-02T22:24:00.001-04:00

so, i've been out for a while. and all the excuse i have is that i'm freaking tired. we have been sleeping on a 20+ year-old bed since we got married, and it has not been doing the trick. if you want to sleep on the edge of the bed, it's physically impossible, as the bed slopes towards the middle, so you inevitably end up rolling around all night long. it's not as fun as it sounds. we got a new mattress set delivered today. a disgustingly expensive luxurious-seeming mattress set that we mortgaged our veritable souls to purchase, but it will be TOTALLY worth it when these fucking black circles around my eyes magically disappear after a good night's sleep.

so all i have for you are recent emerson anecdotes. take 'em or leave 'em, that's what i say.

we still have a mylar balloon from mother's day. my mother-in-law got one for each of her grandsons and taught them to say "happy mother's day." emerson has presented me with the balloon and a very enthusiastic HAPPY MUVER'S DAY every day since may 10th.

we have the new-ish puff the magic dragon book, and the pictures are just gorgeous. it comes with a cd of the song, sung anew by peter yarrow and his daughter, bethany. it's lovely, and there are a couple other songs, jimmy crack corn, and froggie went a-courtin'. emerson is 100% convinced that the lyrics to jimmy crack corn are: jimmy cracked car and i don't care, the monsters are gone away. i can see how this works in his little brain. it's funny to see him mull things over and fit them into his own experiences.

i brought home a new pink t-shirt last night, and emerson wore it around the house and declared that he was also mama. NOW THERE ARE TWO MAMAS, he said emphatically. i had to call him mama as long as he was wearing my t-shirt, and we presented each other with the aforementioned balloon all evening long.

over the weekend, i gave in to the ubiquitousness of the maxi-dress, and purchased one at target. man, those things are comfy. it's like running around in your nightgown. IN PUBLIC. now, don't get me wrong - i used to run around in my nightgown during college, but still. this is socially acceptable, and i lurve it. it's a testament to how often i wear skirts and dresses that emerson was completely mystified by this new article of clothing. he asked me several times what it was called, and hid under it for a while. he couldn't stop touching it or looking at me. finally, he said, MAMA, YOU LOOK REALLY COOL IN YOUR DRESS. my life is now complete.

also, and most importantly, as i was letting the child run around naked on sunday i was reading a book. he was pretty quiet for a while, and then burst into the room, yelling MAMA! I WENT PEEPEE ON THE POTTY! clearly, this was cause for much jubliation. and then i went to check out the potty, and...there was MORE than just pee in that potty. holy shit, you guys. i did a totally insane dance of joy and asked him what he wanted. i told him he could have whatever he wanted. if he had said he wanted a monkey, i might just have broken down. fortunately, he just wanted some licorice. but HOLY SHIT, you guys! (indeed. holy shit.) he hasn't done it again, but he's getting the peepee thing down pretty well i'm not holding my breath, because he's TWO, but still. exciting business.

and now? i'm tired. after a massive sleepy tantrum this evening, i finally got him back on track. he told me that the big bad wolf was outside the window, and after i told him to tell that wolf to go away, he did so. then, he told me a story in which the big bad wolf ran away, met a dinosaur, went to the park, played on the slides and the swings, went on a walk, and became the big good wolf.

the end. i am now off to try out the new mattress. ahhhhh.

The Crane Wife, Pt. 3 - The Decemberists

2009-05-26T21:54:00.002-04:00

there are a lot of polarizing issues in the world right now, and i don’t typically like to get into them, simply because i don’t like to. i have my views, and others have theirs, and that’s fine with me. HOWEVER, i will ask a question which has been bothering me for a long time, and which continues to bother me on an almost-daily basis. it is especially bothering me today, given what happened today in california.

what the fuck is the big deal with same-sex marriage?

i mean, seriously. i kind of get the abortion debate. without expressing my views on the matter, i can say that i can pretty much see why both sides get all hot and bothered about it. but i can’t, for the life of me, figure out why people are so opposed to same-sex couples wanting to get married. how would this hurt me, as a straight person in a traditional marriage? my college friend, michael, who faced enough crap for being gay at the world’s largest baptist university, got married pre-prop 8, and is very in love with his husband, who sounds like a really sweet guy. until this morning, they faced the possibility of their marriage being voided, based on prop 8. i can’t imagine someone telling me that the status of my marriage (into which i entered in good faith) was in jeopardy. thankfully, their marriage is still valid.

but answer me this, please. how does michael’s being married to a MAN (gasp! the horrors!) affect my marriage in any way? i just don’t see it. there are groups out there devoted to protection of the family or some such nonsense, and i’m thinking, oh, and this is just a WILD HAIR UP MY ASS, that they might want to be focusing on getting our 50% divorce rate down a couple of points rather than banning a group of people who love each other from having legal privileges. i mean, because REALLY. let's protect the sanctity of marriages like those of britney spears and various other hollywood celebrities. that's what matters. i mean, anna nicole smith's marriage was held up in the freaking supreme court. there are so many wrong reasons people get married. why can't we let people get married for the right reasons? all people?

can you imagine your life partner in the hospital and you being barred from seeing him/her just because you don’t have a piece of paper? and you WANT that piece of paper, but you’re not allowed to have it? that is just wrong. and when same-sex couples adopt and then break up, there’s no divorce (in most cases), so the children oftentimes end up in a sort of limbo. WRONG. the legal system should protect everyone in that situation, and not just those of use who happened to be born straight and decided to get married and procreate.

and while we’re on it, this group of people thumps the bible and tells us that it says homosexuality is wrong. dude, the bible also says that menstruating women shouldn’t touch anything because they will make it unclean, and that you can NOT make your clothing out of mixed fibers. OR ELSE. and that adulterers should be punished by public stoning, and any number of arcane business. and i’m NOT saying that the bible isn’t true, and i don’t want to start that argument, either, but i think there is something to be said for picking and choosing here.

blargh…i don’t even know what i’m saying any more, because this gets me so fired up. i guess what i want to know is if any of you out there can give me some concrete evidence/facts/reasoning as to why same-sex marriages threaten straight marriages. because that’s the line that i keep hearing, and i just don’t understand. and don't give me the, "that's the way it's always been" crap. because i bet back in the 1860s, a lot of people said that slavery was "the way it's always been."

and please know, friends, that i am in no way impugning anyone’s spiritual beliefs. as i’ve stated before, i respect everyone’s religious beliefs, no matter how different they are from mine. i just get really, really upset with judgment and condemnation based on them. i mean, i have met some excellent buddhists and sikhs and muslims in my lifetime, and i don't feel that it's my place to question their beliefs, especially since they didn't question mine.

i just want to understand where all this angry shit is coming from. please. help me.

I Will - Radiohead

2009-05-20T13:01:00.002-04:00

many years ago, i put a list together of all the qualities i wanted in a man. mostly it was in my head, and it was pretty huge. the person to whom all of those adjectives applied would have to be pretty freaking spectacular. i mean, we're talking about a person who:

loves the outdoors
wants to travel the world
doesn't think not eating meat is weird
loves music A LOT
is creative
has a good moral compass without being churchy
is silly and doesn't mind if i act silly, too
will go to plays with me and at least act as if he enjoys it
loves cats/does not want a dog
helps with housework because i am a slacker
wants kids, but not seventeen of them
enjoys ethnic cuisine
acts goofy to make children laugh
does not have a favorite pasttime that includes strip clubs/general malfeasance
plays scrabble

i could go on for hours. suffice it to say that this was a tall order. i am picky - what can i say? imagine my surprise when i realized that such a man existed.

i will add one more qualification to this list: loves me as i am.

9 years ago today, dave said he'd love me forever. and guess what?

HE STILL DOES.

and he still kicks my ass at scrabble.

Modern Guilt - Beck

2009-05-17T10:04:00.001-04:00

i hate, loathe, and despise play-doh. yet, for easter, i bought emerson a special 20-color package of the stuff. he LOVES it so, so much, and it was just an irresistable impulse (thanks, TARGET). and he was 100% thrilled with it. he asks to play with it as often as he can, which is basically every minute of every day.

this is all fine and well, because it's fun and keeps him occupied. he has only ground it into the rug on one occasion, and it quickly washed out. however, one thing that annoys me to no end is that little bits seem to turn up everywhere. EVERYWHERE. on the bottom of my foot, in the cuff of my pants leg, in my purse, in the cats' dishes, tiny, radioactive-colored pieces of dried play-doh are freaking everywhere.

the worst part about play-doh, though, the ABSOLUTE WORST, is that i suck at making things. at the beginning, this was fine, because emerson didn't know the difference. so when i was all - hey, look! a snake! and a ball! and another snake! and an egg! he thought it was the coolest thing ever. that is, until my arch playdough nemesis, daddy, came along. i believe i have mentioned in a past post just how un-artistic i am, and how marvelously artistic dave is.

one night, i went out with a friend, and dave watched emerson. the next night, ems wanted to get the play-doh out, and asked me to make an egg. i was stoked, because i TOTALLY have the egg thing down. and then he said, " now make a dinosaur hatching out of the egg." and i was all HUH? yeah, that's not going to happen on my watch. and he got a little upset. and i told him i'd make a snake instead. and he asked me to make a snake eating a pig. and then, THEN i understood.

this was my reaction.

goddamn it. seriously. what the fuck? i can't make any of those things. here is a herd of dinosaurs eating broccoli, courtesy of khan.

and this is exactly what happened with the bathtub crayons. one day, all was fine and dandy, and i was drawing stars and hearts and letters, and the next day, the boy wanted me to draw him a pterodactyl. and it was all over for mama.

i am mostly pretty satisfied with being the parent who runs and screams and pretends and reads out loud, but sometimes i'd like to be the artsy one who can create things that make him happy. anyone up for giving me play-doh lessons?

Something Good This Way Comes - Jakob Dylan

2009-05-14T22:36:00.001-04:00

after a particularly shitty weekend, one during which i was sure my child must have been possessed by evil spirits, he has gone back to being himself. don’t get me wrong. he does misbehave. just not to the epic proportions that he displayed this past weekend. i mean, i was fairly miserable most of the weekend, and decided that i must be the worst mother in the world and that my child was suddenly incorrigible and i’d never be able to take him out in public again and waaaaah.

but in the evenings this week so far, he has been a veritable angel. don’t get me wrong – he has his moments. what two-year-old doesn’t? but he’s back to his sweet non-yelly-screamy-kicky-pissy-funky self.

the other night, he held my hand almost all the way to the park, and we sat and watched a heron spear fish in the pond for a long time. this heron is new to the pond, and i have a feeling he’ll be back a lot, since this is a pond in a residential area’s park. i think that either the park conservancy thought it would be nicer if the pond had fish, or some pet owners decided that they’d had enough of their goldfish and dumped them in the pond. regardless, the pond is TEEMING with what look to be garden-variety goldfish. and DUDE, that is a pretty sweet setup for any sort of fishing bird. maybe emerson and i will go help the heron pick out some deck chairs this weekend.

later, a duck swam by, with her one remaining duckling, and he told me, “that’s the mama duck, and that is her baby duck. she keeps her baby duck safe.” and then i told him that she did keep that duckling very safe, but she didn’t actually do a very good job of keeping her other ducklings safe, since ducks rarely only hatch one egg, and that meant that the other ducklings were probably eaten by hawks or other predators – maybe even our cat, edward. and because they can’t fly, they’re easy pickings, which is why ducks and other prey animals have lots of babies, since most of them end up getting eaten before they’re full-grown. hey, man, it’s the circle of life. it’s never too early to teach kids about animals killing other animals.

when i was getting ready to settle him in for the night, i told him that he was my sweetie boy, and he said, “mama, you’re my sweetie girl.” and then he asked me to give him “ten and twenty kisses.”

sigh. it’s evenings like that when i remember how sweet it is to be a mother. and thank jebus for them.

Burning Down the House - Talking Heads

2009-05-09T14:21:00.003-04:00

dude. it was one of those mornings today. where do i start? how about all the swearing i've had pent up all freaking day? i mean, all fucking day? FUUUUCCCCKKK. seriously, i've been holding that in for about seven hours. fuckity fuck, fuck. that feels better.

anyhoo, where do i start? how about the part where emerson peed all over the bathroom? or then the part where he kicked me in the chest when i was trying to get him in a diaper? or the part when i was putting him in the naughty spot and he peed all over me? sound like a good place to start?

wait, i have it. i should start where i broke the carafe for the coffee pot, rendering my quest for coffee nearly impossible. i brewed it anyway, then burned my fingertips trying to get it to go into a mug. perhaps i should tell you about the tantrum emerson threw when i suggested that he get dressed. hey, but you know what worked? i told him that if he didn't want the shirt i was trying to put him in, i would just give it to his cousin. i have never seen a shirt go on the boy so fast. he told me right then that it was his very favorite. i guess that was a small victory - i'll take it.

i opened the fridge and found that one of the four gallon jugs of milk (what can i say? we get our calcium around here.) was leaking. fucking sweet. i took out the suspected gallon, tried to save as much as i could, cleaned the effing fridge, put it back. got a load of laundry together, threw it in the new-ish gajillion dollar washing machine, which would not turn on. THANKS, EFFING SEARS. we've had it repaired once already, by a lovely gent who threatened to do grievous bodily harm to our cat. can't wait until they come back out again.

needed some real effing coffee, so i drove us over to caribou, and as i was walking out, carrying emerson, i ran his arm smack into a rock column. he was brave about the whole thing, but i felt like shit. went to the park for a kids' fiesta, and felt like a lameass because i have very few friends in the neighborhood. everyone seems to know each other, and i am just shit at meeting new folks. then, i got introducted to a gal who seemed pretty cool, and then i called her son a little girl. AWESOME. sorry, liam's mom! in all fairness, he WAS wearing a dress. got home and discovered that the milk was still effing leaking all over the fridge, because i got rid of a non-leaky container. got to clean the fridge all over again! HOORAY!

the boy is napping now, and i'm getting us ready for the perfect close to a perfect saturday: heading up to the in-laws' for an early mothers' day shindig. whee. looking forward to the part where emerson doesn't sit at the dinner table, and also the part where he is generally loud and excited, which will inevitably lead to comparisons to his cousin. i will end up cursing under my breath and wishing i was at home watching reruns of america's next top model.

how's your weekend going so far?

edited to add: the doings at the in-laws' house surpassed my expectations. wildly, i might add. it's awesome when you're in a room filled with 10 other people, several of whom feel the need to tell my child how to behave. HE ALREADY HAS PARENTS, FOLKS. BACK THE FUCK OFF. oh, holy shit, i need a drink.

Backyard - Guster

2009-05-02T22:34:00.003-04:00

listen closely, actors. here is a monologue that will get you through any audition. i'll give you a few tips. the person delivering the monologue has serious bedhead, and is wearing orange lion jammies. he is holding his mankie and fingering the tag, while he lies in bed with his mama. he cannot say 'th' or 'l', so in place of 'th', use 'f', and in place of 'l', use 'w'. he has a very earnest look on his face. and...action.

emerson: mama, i dreamed about dinosaurs. there was a triceratops and a stegosaurus and a girl styrachosaurus, and they were eating grass outside and then they climbed a tree and ate leaves on the tree and they tasted really yummy. mama, can i nurse?

nurses.

emerson: mama, i forgot to tell you about the t. rex. i mean the tyrannosaurus rex, he is a terrible lizard. and he was eating all the leaves and it was not very nice. and then there was a brachiosaurus and he was so big and he helped everyone get good things to eat because he is their friend like the apatosaurus. and then they climbed the tree so they could give the pterodactyl five because he doesn't go on the ground because he flies like a bird. and the nicest dinosaur is the parasaurolophus even though he has a funny head but he is friends with all the dinosaurs and they can all play soccer together. they all like to kick a really very big soccer ball and they can kick it so far. did you dream that, too?

you guys. i remember going through a dinosaur phase, but i was like, five. also, i honestly didn't know that there were that many types of dinosaur. freaking parasaurolophus? they look totally bizarre, which is why he likes them, i suppose. all i really remember about dinosaurs and my childhood is that i was obsessed with the idea that a t.rex lived in my closet at night, and was going to come out and eat me as soon as i fell asleep. so i slept with the blankets over my head, except for my eyes. if that t. rex was going to eat me, i wanted to see it coming, i guess.

actually, i'm still this way, to a lesser degree. i can't sleep with my back to the door, because then i wouldn't see the T. REX about to EAT ME, or whatever various and sundry other scary things might be coming through that door. wait, this isn't wednesday. damnit. should've saved that for another time. guess i was scarred for life by the dinosaur books. shit. guess that means the boy is in for it.

oops.