Please know that I intended to respond to each and every comment via email (and I actually started to do this), but then this horrific cold/flu/ick I have started to really kick in on Wednesday and Thursday. Basically, my congestion and body aches were increasing at the same rate as your kind comments, and seeing as how I was barely able to sit upright to submit my (many, many) job applications, I opted for a blanket thank-you instead, by way of this post. I hope that’s not lame. In fact, you may all end up getting emails from me now that I’m feeling a little better, because now I feel really lame for thanking you all so generically, seeing as how my gratitude for your support is anything but generic. Thanks for proving that the Internet is not just a bunch of assy trolls. And I hope I can lift your spirits in the same way someday if you find yourself in the midst of a crap situation.

Some of you I know IRL, and some of you (Liz!) I met for the first time last night when you graciously came to my play and watched me struggled to perform from beneath my fog of germs, but all of you deserve my thanks. Hmm — it’s becoming clear to me that words aren’t just going to cut it here. I think we all know what I need to do.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. From my weird crocodile-flossing mouse fever dream to yours.

Word.

I don’t think we’re all collectively pissed off because we have to go back to work (which we mostly all accept as a necessary evil for procuring food and shelter and whatnot), I think we’re all collectively pissed off because the workweek/weekend ratio of 4 days/3 days feels SO RIGHT, and we know we won’t see another until Labor Day, and FUCK. THAT. SHIT. So if we can all agree that the 4/3 week is AWESOME and NECESSARY, then…why can’t it just be that way ALL THE TIME?! Change starts with you, bosses of the world! Make that shit happen! I guarantee that productivity would not suffer, because who wouldn’t work a whole hell of a lot harder starting down the barrel of a three-day weekend every week? Also, let’s just be frank: if you add up all the fucking-around time of most employees, it would equal an entire workday. Cut that extraneous day, I say, and improve morale and the quality of life all around! I AM A GENIUS! A genius who wants another motherfucking three-day weekend, DAMN.

As you may have gathered, my weekend was amazing (and I hope yours was as well). The awesome times started on Friday night, when Brad & I headed downtown for the Ben Folds concert. Brad is the bigger Ben Folds fan in our house, so he bought our tickets a few months ago, but I was more than happy to tag along, enjoy some outdoor drinking beforehand, then cry like a fucking maniac listening to Ben Folds sing “The Luckiest” with the entire Pittsburgh Symphony backing him up.

I LIT-RALLY do not allow this song to play while I am operating a motor vehicle, that is how deeply IT DESTROYS ME.

After that lovely and romantic evening, we all woke up early on Saturday to begin a busy weekend of haircut-getting:

Ice cream eating:

Outdoor market browsing:

Ridiculous Hello Kitty/tiara visor-purchasing-and-wearing:

And dress and shoe shopping for a certain costume jewelry-sporting princy-ess who apparently has an affinity for gladiator sandals (that she has not removed since picking them from the clearance rack on Sunday):

I’M DYING. AND NOW I’M DEAD.

Suffice it to say, the weekend was wonderful, and now the three members of our little family are trudging through the first day back in the work-and-school routine in that cloudy haze that always accompanies the end of a fun stretch of time together. Sadie was quiet and morose on the way to school this morning, and I am quiet and morose(-er than usual) here at my desk. I am quite aware that I have no real reason to be sad today, but DAMN. I miss my buddies.

Brad & I were repeatedly stunned over the weekend by the constant reminders that Sadie is such a little girl now. She wasn’t necessarily doing anything new (she’s been pretty independent in a lot of areas for a while now), but it’s just the things she says these days. She understands and can articulate so much, and I just have no idea where this WHOLE ‘NOTHER PERSON who lives in my house came from, you know?

(I mean, I know. But it’s still pretty awesome that a romantic dinner and a bottle of cheap red wine can reap such lasting and amazing results.)

When I took her shopping for some more summer dresses on Sunday (as you can see, she has been wearing that pink and white sundress OUT, and because it was purchased as a solitary test dress for this former dress-hating child, there was much need for a few more in the rotation), I suddenly realized how different it is to go out with her these days. Besides the (poorly-working, detestable) folding potty seat cover in my purse (not a diaper bag, a purse), there’s no longer a need to drag sippy cups and toys and extra clothes and snacks along on a simple trip to the store. As we walked through the racks of bathing suits and flip-flops, my tiny baby was suddenly transformed into one of my girlfriends, out for some afternoon shopping: “Oh, Mama, look at this dress real quick!” “I don’t like that dress, though.” “I love the flowers on this dress.” “I don’t think I need this one because I already have a pink dress.” “I like these shoes, Mama, are they my size?” “This one has sparkles! I think maybe I should get it.”

Everything we purchased (including that headband that I think is actually for infants) was hand-selected by my little side-braid-wearing fashionista. And I purchased way too much because LOOK AT THAT FACE. NO REGRETS.

Although I fear that Sadie’s growing sense of style will translate into another reason for her to roll her eyes at her LAME, NO-STYLE-HAVING MOM in her teen years (she already harshly deemed my brown flip-flops “not pretty”), her interest in clothing is a welcome (and adorable) change, especially considering that this is the child who would only willingly wear sneakers for the first 2.5 years of her life.

Pictured here exactly two years ago in her very first pair OMG MY HEART. 

(Yes, I still have them. Shush up.)

She’ll always be my baby, but now she also my little friend. My shopping pal. Brad’s movie buddy. The little girl who tells me to act afraid just so she can pat my back and say “It’s OK, Mama.” The kid who held Brad’s face in her hands last night and told him “You’re my Prince, Daddy.”

Just FYI, in case you’re looking for a pony today, you will not find one, as Brad has  purchased all of them for Sadie.

(Also, this pony is a real thing. There’s a company in Indianapolis that will apparently bring real live sparkle ponies to your child’s party. Ponies who I’m sure are totally loving life.)

In sum: three-day weekends every week, heart-exploding love for this kid every day, and metallic gladiator sandals 4 lyfe. If I was your annoying Facebook friend, this is where I’d tell you that life is good.

(But I won’t, because you already know it is (all the asstastic bullshit withstanding), and because no matter how fantastic my mood, I always want to throttle those “LIFE IS GOOD!” Facebook people good and hard. LIFE IS GOOD AND MISSING FIVE TEETH NOW, BRAH.)

Ugh. Shut up, assmunch.

So I registered her with a quickness, bolstered by the fact that–according to the nice lady I spoke to on the phone–the pre-ballet teacher is fantastic with shorties and will probably bring Sadie around to the idea of wearing tights. Uh, good luck with that, lady. I’ll be over here with a glass of Chardonnay for you.

BUT YAY! for ballet class! And YAY! For you, for taking the time to leave me thoughtful and sympathetic comments, because I kind of really needed to hear all of that. I needed that big slice of truth with a side of wisdom in order to step back and realize that I desperately needed to breathe and slow my motherfuckin’ ROLL already.  For fuck’s sake, the child just emerged from my business three short years ago — there is still PLENTY OF TIME for her to develop and pursue her interests. But because I am me, I had whipped myself into quite a frenzy over this dance class thing, and, well, thanks for being there to read about it, roll your eyes, and dole out some kind words for my benefit. I promise I haven’t been drinking today, but YOU GUYS: I love you guys. I have been blogging for almost five years now, and I have always received the nicest, most thoughtful comments, and for that I am enormously grateful. (Cue inevitable tidal wave of horrific Internet drama and name-calling.)

At any rate, I hope you all have a marvelous holiday weekend. Enjoy yourself, relax, do some drinkin’ (but stay away from the drinkin-and-a-drivin’), and I’ll meet you back here next week and we’ll all have some more fun.

Well, maybe not all of us.

No need to pick the lock, friend! Just waltz right in. Also, did you know that I had a cereal bar for breakfast three years ago on my birthday? Isn’t my memory fascinating?

My nostalgia has been in overdrive this week, spurred on by a friend’s Facebook photos of her new baby girl. I met this friend during our year in New Jersey, which was also the first year of our marriage, which was also nearly twelve years ago, holy FUCK.

My friend, K, now lives with her husband and two kids in a small, quaint town that’s just a few miles down the highway from where our old apartment (in the highly sketchy apartment complex) still stands. I started browsing through her photos and had that weird feeling you get when you revisit a place that’s only existed in your memory for the past several years: Oh. Huh. That place and those people are all still there. I guess August of 2000 through September of 2001 really did happen after all.

It’s not as though I assume that places up and disappear when I’m not in them (I’m not quite that self-absorbed), I just don’t think about them on the reg, and when I do take a minute to remember, really remember, what life was like twelve years ago, it’s all at once shocking and bittersweet (and also just plain sweet) how things have changed.

And how long ago it all seems now. Again, HOLY FUCK and WHO ARE THESE MERE BABIES?!

I think about our newlywed life in New Jersey from time to time (whenever K posts a photo, whenever I run across an old photo, whenever someone mentions Bruce Springsteen), but I haven’t ever acknowledged how close our New Jersey life came to being a much-longer-than-one-year life, and I never stopped to think about what that life would look like had we never gotten that wild hair to move to New York City on the spur of the moment in August of 2001.

We arrived in New Jersey in August of 2000 after a HELLACIOUS road trip that involved both sets of our parents, torrential downpours, confusing New Jersey highways, and a moving truck so ridiculously large I suspect it was used in Maximum Overdrive.

Coincidentally, that’s also what my face looked like after a weekend spent refereeing two sets of parents through a very stressful relocation OMG DID I EVER NEED SOME BOOZE.

I remember the day our parents left: mine departing in the morning, and Brad’s later in the day. With the last of the real grown-ups back on the road to West Virginia, we were finally alone in our very first home as two married adults. I remember feeling completely giddy (and just a tiny bit homesick), and eating a dinner of beer and take-out fried chicken that night, because…that’s what adults do, right?

It’s also what GENIUSES do, OMG I want this in my face right now.

I have very sweet memories of all those little nesting activities I’d waited to do for so long: a big grocery shopping trip to stock our fridge, painting our tiny kitchen bright yellow, decorating the apartment with all our new furniture, cooking for each other with all our new dishes, drinking martinis out of the many (MANYMANY) martini glasses we received for our wedding (martini glasses were seriously in that year, holy shit), and…wondering what the fuck we were doing in New Jersey.

Oh, that part was easy–at first–because I was going to grad school at Rutgers. I had a week or so after we moved in before starting classes, and Brad wasted no time getting hired by an ad sales company in Manhattan, which meant he had about a 45-minute bus ride each way. I have very specific memories of driving him to the bus stop every morning, and returning to our empty apartment (which smelled like freshly brewed coffee and his cologne) and feeling instantly sad. That place without him wasn’t quite home just yet.

Ours was the upstairs apartment, accessible by the door on the right. Please note our lovely balcony, from which we witnessed many domestic disputes unfold at our neighbor’s place across the courtyard.

The fall progressed and I got busy with classwork. Brad was doing well at his (SUPER-DEE-SUPER SHADY) job (it was seriously similar to the shit that goes down in that terrible Boiler Room movie), and we often took the train to the city on the weekends (which sounds so bizarre to me now — we just…WENT? Without having to think about bedtimes or sitters or ANYTHING?!). We had family visiting pretty often to help with residual homesickness, and with each visit, things felt more and more settled. This was our life — me in school, Brad doing…things to make money in the city. We were doing it! We were surviving! GO US!

Gee, what are those DARK OMINOUS CLOUDS OF FORESHADOWING doing here?

Sometime after Halloween, I started to wonder if maybe I hadn’t made a huge (expensive) mistake enrolling in grad school. This was an enormously terrifying realization for many reasons, but mostly because WHAT THE FUCK, I had dragged myself and my poor innocent new husband hundreds of miles away from everything and everyone we knew to LIVE IN NEW JERSEY so I could pursue my education, so WHAT THE FUCK, if grad school isn’t my plan, then what the hell is?

One sunny afternoon as I was standing outside the Fine Arts building on a short break from acting class, my (giant, 2000-era) cell phone rang. It was Brad, who was audibly upset. The strain of the shady dealings at his workplace had gotten the best of him, and he had quit. He was freaking out because he was now unemployed, I was freaking out because I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE DIRECTION-LESS ONE HERE. I didn’t react very well to the news at first (something I feel bad about to this day), because I saw in Brad what I was seeing in myself for the first time in maybe ever: complete and utter confusion about what the fuck I was supposed to be doing with my life.

Things settled down; Brad found work as a reporter for the local paper, and I immersed myself in classwork and decided not to make any rash decisions until the end of the semester. We drove the long nine hours back to West Virginia for Thanksgiving (I remember absolutely nothing about the holiday that year, for some reason), and on the way back, we got stuck in a horrific traffic jam in the middle of Pennsylvania. Pulling into our apartment complex back in New Jersey, exhausted after what ended up being a ten hour drive, Brad uttered a phrase that we still repeat to this day (albeit under happier circumstances): “Ahhh, home crap home.”

Coincidentally, I took up cross-stitching around this time.

The short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a total blur, as it always is. Highlights included me getting a cavity filled at the most terrifying dentists’ office I have ever seen (he had pictures of celebrities he’d ripped out of magazines TAPED TO THE WALL — I actually almost left when I first arrived because I thought I’d made a mistake and was in a TATTOO PARLOR)(Why didn’t I leave?!), Brad covering a tragic shooting for the newspaper which involved him being inches from a freshly killed gunman (’tis the season!), and putting up our very first family Christmas tree.

That part was actually nice.

After another epic holiday journey to WV and back, we welcomed another family member into the fold, and for a while there, things seemed better.

DAWWWWWWWWWWWW.

But then classes started up again, and with the beginning of the new semester, it became abundantly clear to me that I wanted (and needed) to get out of there. In a move that still hurts my grade-grubbing Nerd Pride, I dropped out of grad school at the end of January.

I don’t really remember the terror that must have been (or SHOULD have been) filling my gut at that point, but I do remember applying for a jobs at Hallmark and Pier One. I started working at Pier One around Valentine’s Day — our first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife! — which we celebrated by getting really drunk on house wine at the Olive Garden.

Shut up, we loved that place. Unlimited soup, salad and breadsticksissimo!

Working at Pier One was…OK. It was a shock to be in the working world again after I thought I would be mostly in the academic one for a couple of years, but hey, I had an employee discount and got to go home to Brad & (tiny sweet wee) Tootsie every night, so I wasn’t complaining. We bought a used car for me (my first ever car JUST FOR ME, eeee!), and I wasted no time purchasing sweet fuzzy dice for my ride. In March I even auditioned for a musical and got a lead role along with K, the person who would become my very best New Jersey friend.

After Jersey-born-and-bred Tootsie, of course.

Feeling more like myself after completing a successful run of the show (and with my mood bolstered by the emerging spring weather), I interviewed for a job with a software wholesaler that would take me out of retail and boost my earnings, and I was happily offered the position. The commute was longer than the one to Pier One, but the extra money (and distance from papasan chairs and wicker furniture) was worth it. I ended up taking an 11am-8pm shift that meant I avoided most rush hour traffic, but MAN, do those hours sound CA-RAZY to my 35-year-old mom ears now. I remember having to SET AN ALARM to wake up for an 11:00 START TIME at work, and I also remember meeting Brad at the gym after work (and BEFORE dinner/meeting friends for drinks). When the fuck were we eating dinner those days? 11pm? I do not understand you, crazy young version of myself.

And you were also apparently really into white t-shirts. Ah, youth!

This was when life in New Jersey really started to settle for us: we both had jobs we liked (enough), we had friends we liked to hang out with, we knew our way around the area, we got to hang out in the city whenever we wanted. We even spent some time looking for houses to actually purchase, if you can believe that shit (I can’t — real estate prices were RICOCKULOUSY high and WAY beyond anything we could afford, but what the fuck did we know, we were 23 years old). We ended up renewing our lease in our (questionably safe) apartment complex over the summer of 2001 and prepared for another year in Jersey.

Where you can’t pump your own gas — did you know that? I did not, but became hip to the fact after getting screamed at by my fair share of Middle Eastern gas station owners.

That second year in Jersey didn’t happen, of course. Brad started doing stand-up in the city and we both decided that it was now-or-never time in regards to taking a chance on life in NYC. Brad sweet-talked the rental company into letting us back out of the lease, we found an apartment in Queens, I put in my two weeks at the software company, September 11th happened, and suddenly we were New Yorkers (if by location only).

But unlike living in New Jersey, New York never felt like home to me, not really. I never once thought we’d stay there forever (or even for more than a couple years), whereas New Jersey felt…do-able. And looking through my friend K’s photos of her central Jersey life this week, I let myself imagine what things might be like had we never moved away.

In the middle of August 2001, before we decided to take the leap and move to New York, I took a pregnancy test on my lunch break at the software company. It was negative, of course, but what if it had been positive? I know for a fact that if I’d gotten pregnant while we were living in New York, we would have hightailed it back to WV in a full-on panic, but if I’d gotten pregnant in New Jersey, where both of us had friends and insurance and solid, full-time jobs, chances are good that we would’ve stayed.

And I would have a kid who’d be turning ten right about now. Shit.

It could have been me in some of my friend K’s pictures of her July 4th cookout, her son’s first birthday party, the Halloween parade down the main street of her quaint little town. Brad and I might have been her neighbors there (assuming we’d managed to conquer the crazy real estate market), and I might be writing here to complain about our NINE hour road trips to West Virginia instead of our four hour ones. Or I might not be writing here at all.

I would still be with Brad, but we might not have Sadie. I might have found some success commuting to Manhattan for an acting career, or I might have given it up altogether. Brad & I might be the pretty much the same people we are now, or we might have grown in a completely different direction.

I am of course referring to spray tans and hair gel.

All the different permutations just never stop being completely fascinating and terrifying to consider. But the important thing to remember is that we made all the right decisions, lived the exact life we were supposed to, and ended up precisely where we are supposed to be.

Good luck, crazy young people. I barely recognize you, but you are in for one hell of a fun time.

C’mon, man. You know how I roll.

So, Easter weekend. That happened. Holy shit, did it happen. Let’s dive in:

JEERS:

• The fact that Sadie screamed for a solid hour during the drive to WV Friday night, complaining that her “butt hurt.”
• The fact that we have been dealing with “butt hurt” complaints for, like, a month now (who is she? the Internet?), and after taking her to the doctor a couple weeks ago and having everything tested, we were told it was probably a yeast infection from the antibiotics she was on AGES AGO, so we purchased and applied the requisite cream, so WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Actual pain or preschooler drama? (Please note that butt hurt never happens at school, only at home, only around me, and only when she’s tired/doesn’t want to do something she’s supposed to be doing, like GOING TO SLEEP ALREADY, GOOD LORD.)
• The fact that she woke up at 2am later that night squirming and crying and experiencing obvious discomfort, SO NOW what the fuck do we do?
• The fact that she was up until 5am in this manner. Sorry, brother-in-law, who opened his spare bedroom up to our charming family! Hope you didn’t plan on actually, you know, sleeping tonight.
• The fact that–after a call to a very awesome pediatrician friend–we discovered that we had been applying completely ineffectual lotion to Sadie’s infection.
• Because I bought the wrong kind all those weeks ago.
• Because the RIGHT kind (Lotrimin) is shelved with the fucking JOCK ITCH products and marketed as “FOOT CREAM,” and how the fuck was I supposed to know that it was OK to put that shit on my small child’s tender nether regions?! Where is my kid-friendly version with a fucking teddy bear on the package?
• The fact that my HURR DURR caused my poor kid to suffer unnecessarily for weeks.
• The fact that I am talking about yeast infections on my blog.
• The four hours of sleep we all got before Sadie’s big birthday party.
• The overtired tantrum she threw at bedtime on Saturday, when she literally cried and screamed herself to sleep (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY).
• The cold (and cough! don’t forget the cough!) she woke up with the next day.
• The broken furnace and subsequent COLD AS FUCK house we came home to late Sunday night.
• The kidney stones Tootsie was diagnosed with Monday morning.
• The $420 vet bill that came along with it.
• The hefty furnace repair bill, that was nice enough to come along and keep the vet bill company.
• FUCKING A.

CHEERS:

• Looking in the rear view mirror and seeing the sheer excitement on this face as we headed south to visit her relatives and have a Big Girl Birthday Party:

• The party outfit I bought for Sadie, who loved it just as much as I did:

You guys. That face. My heart.

• The party, attended by so many cute shorties, after which Sadie said, “That was the best birthday I ever had.”

• The Easter pants! That arrived on Friday! And totally fit! And looked criminally adorable!

It appears we are over getting our picture taken.

• Tootsie did not die while we were away, and in fact should make a full recovery with the help of some special food.
• Her vet, who was quick and kind and presented me with all the treatment options and prices in a way that made me feel like he wasn’t going to judge me if I didn’t want to front the cash for stuff like cat ultrasounds.
• The furnace has been fixed. Baguettes are no longer being frozen off.
• Act Classy launched and is fucking hilarious. Seriously.
• Tonight I will be baking vanilla cupcakes with strawberry frosting for a certain little girl who turns three tomorrow at precisely 6pm.
• HOLY SHIT.
• Cupcakes for breakfast tomorrow. Recognize.
• After the cupcake baking (complete with thorough taste-testing), Brad & I will be assembling Sadie’s rad new dollhouse for her birthday morning surprise, and I ain’t gonna lie, I am so excited to play with that shit.
• I’m taking the birthday girl to the museum tomorrow, and then we’ll join Brad  for a fancy spaghetti dinner. Man — did I get lucky birthing a kid who always wants to eat pasta or what?!
• THREE YEARS, Internet. Three years of this one:

The Sadie-pillar renders all your JEERS null and void.

I hope you had a better/just as awesome Easter weekend as I did, Internet. Check this space tomorrow for incoherent weeping about the cruel passage of time!

“Say, you know how some babies are born prematurely and sometimes have serious complications and have to endure lengthy hospital stays to ensure a better chance at survival? LET’S MAKE A DOLL ABOUT IT.”

Weird popular dolls aside, things have been all kinds of premature around here lately, starting with the fact that spring has arrived insanely early, and we’ve had daytime temperatures nearing 80 degrees during a time of year that usually sees highs in the 50s and the occasional, soul-killing snowstorm.

Do not let the leafless trees fool you — that March sun is for real, and primed to crisp lily-white shorty skin.

I spent the first couple days of our weird March summer fretting about how our climate is fucked and how this surely means by next year the sun will enlarge and swallow us whole, but when I mentioned my anxiety to one of my bosses at work, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, maybe, but you might as well enjoy the nice day today.”

The other reason I am hesitant to fully enjoy this summer preview is because I know it likely won’t last, and for every beer I enjoy out on the porch in the lukewarm 9pm air, there is a 10-day string of rainy, 40-degree days lurking right around the corner.

Man, do I know how to live in the moment or what?!

This winter just seemed to zoom by, and I cannot believe that I’m already looking around for Easter dresses and birthday presents for my soon-to-be three-year-old. Ah, yes, my soon-to-be three-year-old, who, as you may recall, began acting three years old a couple of months ago. That challenging behavior actually faded away for a spell (and she was nothing but agreeable while I was on single-parent duty for five days last week), but HOO BOY is it back in full force now. Me and my eye socket that was inadvertently clubbed with my daughter’s sneakered foot yesterday during a particularly ugly tantrum would like for this prematurely three-year-old behavior to slow its roll already, thanks.

The highs, they are high. The lows, they are low. The adorableness remains constant.

Her meltdowns would be absurdly comical if they weren’t so heartbreaking. I can remember so well what it was like to be little and feel as if my world was falling apart when something of seemingly little importance happening (a favorite sticker getting torn, a magnet that refuses to adhere just right  to the fridge, being told that it’s time for bed), and when I see her lose her damn mind over these little things, I KNOW she is feeling and believing every last ounce of the melodrama. She doesn’t get away with screaming in our faces or (inadvertently) kicking our eye sockets, but sometimes after I’ve let her wallow in hysterics on her bedroom floor for a while, I know all she needs is to be held and calmed down so we can talk about apologies and what went wrong and why the bone construction of Mommy’s face will never be the same.

On the upside, I’ve never looked sassier!

Her behavior is always a little worse when I’m around. She’s less likely to entertain herself when I’m on the premises, and more likely to pout when I ask her to play in her room for a few minutes while I do some chores around the house. She prefers to follow me around like a shadow, constantly asking how she can help, and I don’t have the heart to refuse her. I know I’ll be cleaning the house all by myself soon enough.

Unless I can snag that penguin and put him to work. He looks like the sturdy type.

She may be capable of some serious fit-throwing, but she can also dress herself (with the exception of shirts — still working on those), zip her own jacket, and put on her own shoes. She straight up tells me, “No, Mommy, I don’t need your help” whenever I try to intervene with an activity she knows she can handle, and wow…those are weird/heart-pulverizing words to hear.

I have to remind myself that for every undesirable moment we have, there are about 900 phenomenal ones, including her endless stream of questions: “Why do boys wear earrings sometimes?”  “When we get wrinkles, does that mean we’re going to die?” — and my favorite — “Why do I say so much stuff?”

I don’t feel ready for spring. I don’t feel ready for three. But I am so damn lucky to be witness to both.

And FUCK YES I still have it. And know all of the words to most of those songs. Jealous?

Anyhoo, I love that song (‘This Place That Has Me Now‘, not ‘Choke My Chicken’, although they each have their charms) because it describes exactly how I feel so much of the time. I am finding it hard to articulate exactly what I mean by that, but…do you get me? In all the different moments of my life, from the amazingly surreal (meeting Sadie for the first time) to the mundane (the three of us driving home together in the evenings) to the, uh, borderline unpleasant (HELLO ANNUAL EXAM), it’s not me having the moment, it’s the moment that has me. And in those heart-burstingly happy times, when I feel like I can never take enough photos or write enough words to capture how incredible it is, I’ve come to realize that the best thing I can do is be still and acknowledge the fact that I’m right here, in this place that has me now.

Because I know it won’t have me forever. Goddammit.

Places that had me over the weekend included a new (to us) Greek restaurant on Friday night, that scored major points with me for managing to whip up Sadie a custom order of plain pasta & red sauce, but also brought me to the conclusion that I prefer the less-fancy Greek food served out of church basements and street festival booths. I don’t know if that makes my palate more or less refined, but I wouldn’t mind inhaling another plate of spanakopita while you decide.

All day, every day.

The weather also decided to turn crazysexycold this weekend (but will be back in the 50s by mid-week, WTF), so while Brad helped some friends move on Saturday morning, I wrapped Sadie and I up in as much fleece as we could withstand so we could venture out for a quick sled ride in the weak dusting of snow we’d gotten on Friday night.

(No pictures because that would have required taking my bare hand out in 19-degree weather and…no, thanks.)

I had big (boring) plans for Saturday afternoon that involved laundry and cleaning and other chore-related horseshit, but then I laid down next to Sadie and Brad in our bed to chill out for a while, and then next thing I knew, I had a sleeping shorty curled up next to me. The place that had me then was just a little too sweet to abandon, so I proceeded to take the longest nap I’ve taken in months. It was glorious, and afterwards, I felt a little bit like this:

After waking up and realizing that it might be nice to, you know, have some food to eat, I went to the grocery store hobo-style (unshowered and bra-less), and miraculously did not see anyone I know. Personal hygiene, shmersonal hygiene — they’ll still sell you ice cream even if you haven’t brushed your hair, my friends.

A full day of nothing much got me geared up for more activity on Sunday, and–per her request– I escorted Sadie to the museum while Brad stayed home and tried to shake off whatever cough/cold funk has descended upon him. It had been a while since Sadie and I had a true outing with just the two of us, and now that she’s older, outings with Sadie often include moments like the one we had sitting on a bench in a museum hallway, when she leaned over to hug me and said “I love going to the museum with you.”

Et tu, Sadie-cus Maximus.

We had to make a quick stop at my office, where she pinched the stuffed Chococat you see above. He’s been sitting on whatever desk I happen to have since Brad bought him for me way back in our NYC days, circa 2001, but now, instead of gathering dust in a beige cubicle, he’s cradled in the grasp of a little girl who promises to “carry him and kiss him so he will never be sad.”

Lucky cat.

This song came on my Pandora station this morning as I was sitting at my desk without Brad or Sadie. The moment that had me then wasn’t my favorite, but it was just as fleeting as all the others.

To further my point, I give you Christmas photos, finally taken off the camera after being taken nearly a month ago, holy shit:

Cookie puss.

Where have I seen that look before?

Oh yeah.

(HOLY BALLS. I totally had an infant once, didn’t I?)

Cousins, in all their holiday finery. Can I tell you how excited I was to find a cat-themed Christmas outfit for my cat-crazed shorty? My excitement was rivaled only by her extreme distaste for the entire outfit, resulting in melodramatic tantrums and a final compromise of FINE, you don’t have to put on tights as long as you wear this damn cat shirt I spent way to much money on, KTHX.

Also, you should know that the photo above is not at all representative of what it was like to be around two very excited little girls that day.

That’s more like it.

WHO NEEDS GRAVITY WHEN YOU HAVE GRANDPARENTS FEEDING YOU CHRISTMAS COOKIES ZOMG

BFFs.

Operation Get a Nice Picture of Squirmy People is going well. Look familiar?

Holy small. So containable! So sedentary! So bald!

But this age has its perks, too.

(Ouch. My heart.)

Ugh. It’s right next to me, isn’t it.

As promised, Santa Claus rewards those who use the turlet.

But Santa Claus maybe should have re-thought giving a 2.5-year-old a hard, plastic hair dryer.

OK HONEY YOU CAN DRY MY HAIR OUCH MY CORNEA.

Oh, Sade. Sometimes I cannot believe you are mine.

And sometimes it is all too obvious.

Hey, look: not all of us were born to be cheerleaders, so I was just trying to do my best. I knew I’d never make the squad because I just couldn’t master that weird, surprised OMG LOOK I’M DANCING face they make during their routines.

Anyway, NO, I’m not pregnant, despite thinking I might be for a few days last week because I really suck at math. This is the second time I’ve miscalculated and then panicked, and it’s really charming, as you can imagine.

What was I talking about?

OH YES! Thanksgiving! I know I’m way late telling you about my favorite, Cool Whip-laden holiday, but I’m looking to remedy that now, with this very special list:

JIVE TURKEY’S LIST OF THINGS SHE IS THANKFUL FOR, a.k.a. MARVEL AT HOW HARD I’M TRYING NOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT SHIT:

• We are alive.
• We are healthy.
• We have a house to live in and food to eat and all that shit.
• I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends, all of whom I love to tiny pieces, even when they make me want to run my car into the side of an oil drum.
• Cool Whip exists.
• So does coffee & cafe au lait.
• There was pecan pie available for consumption on Thanksgiving, and my friends, it may have eclipsed the Cool Whip when it came to pure, eye-rolly deliciousness.
• The shorty is pretty much 100% potty trained. I did not change one single, solitary diaper over the entire holiday weekend, and it was GLORIOUS.
• We took Sadie to the Muppet movie, and it was greatly enjoyed by all.
• Did I mention that pecan pie? Holy fucking shit.
• Sadie and her now three-year-old cousin Abby are the bestiest of besties, and it’s way, WAY cute.

• I had a very nice, calm, rational, mature, adult discussion with my parents, in which we really settled nothing, but things are better, and it was good to get some things out in a open without screaming. Yay, us! It only took us 35 years to get here!
• I got my hair properly did for the first time in nearly a year. Take that, fucking whore gray hairs! I went to the salon on my lunch hour, then came back to the office where I took an inexplicably solemn photo of the results to send to Brad.

This is the disturbingly intense face of a woman who is still not really sure how to take casual photos of herself with the iPhone. WHICH  BUTTON DO I PUSH OH GOD.

Also, my hair looks kind of like I just rolled out of bed in this photo but I assure you it looked more styled in real life. I think. I don’t know. Maybe I paid someone a lot of money to make me look like a hobo. Wouldn’t be the first time.

• Do you know what is sitting in my house right now? A brand new FUNCTIONAL dishwasher, which was delivered to replace our brand new BUSTED dishwasher that has been taking up space in our kitchen for the last month. I am pathetically excited to have a dishwasher again. I may eat my dinner off of seven plates tonight JUST BECAUSE I CAN.
• I am way excited to bake Christmas cookies and give gifts and drink bourbon in my egg nog even though the phrase “egg nog” is definitely one of the least-appetizing phrases in the world.
• I have the week between Christmas and New Year’s COMPLETELY OFF FROM WORK, holy fucking ass machine. (I have no idea what that last part means, I’m just excited, OK?)
• I done scored me a new freelance gig in addition to my other freelance gigs, and SWEET SASSY JEEBUS if this stuff ever leads to me being able to leave the 8-5 M-F office realm, I may never stop doing this:

I kind of feel like I’m on a roll with the thankfulness here, but just to keep myself grounded, allow me to throw in a few things that can just go fuck themselves:

Cold weather and the puffy coat in the car seat/staticky little girl hair issues that it brings, Chik-fil-A (so delicious and yet SO FULL OF HATE), the fish dinner I planned for this week that I keep putting off because it requires me to make a stop at the fish market on the way home and I NEVER FEEL LIKE DOING IT, winter weather + furnace = dry air in the house that makes my eyeballs feel like fucking craisins first thing in the morning, and let me tell you, having dry eyes HURTS LIKE A BITCH, my germaphobic self which is cringing over the fact that I will now have to place my sweet little baby on gross public toilets when we go out and there are not enough Lysol wipes in the world to make me feel better about my child being in such close proximity to a bunch of stranger’s abandoned pubes, and–last but not least–I am waiting for a cranky receptionist doctor’s office to call me back, which, as we all know, is one of the modern world’s least hopeful situations.

We care about your health LOL not really

Anyway, now it’s December, the world’s quickest month, and I cannot believe we are nearly at the end of 2011. It’s been quite a big year, what with the new house and on-stage nudity, and I’m looking forward to seeing it out from behind a big ol’ glass of spiked egg nog.

[Um. I did an image search for 'egg nog' and got a photo of a woman vomiting into a trash can, so...maybe I'll stick with wine this Christmas. Yikes.]

Or perhaps that’s just the blow talking.

I am happy to report that my llittle llama had a magnificent time with her grandparents (as did I), and our little mother-daughter getaway was almost 100% tantrum-free. We had some dicey moments yesterday afternoon thanks to a very abbreviated nap, but hey — sometimes when you’re traveling, there are more important things than sleep.

Like topless ice cream eating, for example.

(All photos in this post are courtesy of my crap phone, which you’d probably already guessed by the lovely “vaseline over the lens” effect seen above. It’s like Instagram for busted-ass hoopty technology! Petroleogram!)

Despite a decently white-knuckled late night drive to WV amidst torrential downpours and fantastic lightning, we made it to my parents’ house at around 12:30am. Sadie — who had passed out before we made it out of Pittsburgh city limits — woke up just enough to groggily acknowledge her grandparents, then fell back asleep on her inflatable toddler bed on the floor of my sister’s old bedroom. After putting her down and changing into my pajamas, I went back out to tell my parents good night, only to discover them waiting for me at the kitchen table with a giant-ass bottle of white wine open and ready to go.

In case you were wondering: yes, my parents know how to party.

We didn’t get to bed until nearly 3am, but waking up at 6:45am is never really that bad when seeing this face is part of the deal:

Pictured here: one ham sandwich with humidity curls, moments after ingesting three plates of her Pappy’s famous spaghetti and meatballs.

It’s a magical thing, being out of your own house for a couple of days. There is no constant tug of chores and no looming to-do list. For the first time in a long time, I could stop at any moment to indulge every single one of Sadie’s “I WANT MOMMY TO HOOOOLD MEEEE” requests, and with no schedule to follow, I had the luxury of letting her take her own sweet toddler time doing whatever the hell she wanted. Unsurprisingly, this put us both in a pretty awesome mood for the duration of the weekend.

We got to visit one of my best and oldest friends, who is set to have her second baby (and first little boy) in a matter of weeks. Sadie had a blast playing with my friend’s daughter Rachel, who is now three and a half. You may remember Rachel from back when she was my (very tiny) houseguest back in 2008:

THE CUTE. IT BURNS.

And — as was expected — Sadie experienced a pretty harsh post-playdate crash & burn in the car.

HEE.

I knew as soon as we got back to my parents’ house she’d wake up because ZOMG GRANDPARENTS I LOVE THIS PLACE WHERE THE ICE CREAM AND MINI-DONUTS FLOW LIKE SO MUCH WATER!111!!, so I drove around a little bit to stretch out her nap. I went past my old high school (which has changed quite a bit) and junior high (which hasn’t changed AT ALL), and…wow. It’s weird how I was pretty much adult-sized during my years at both of those places, and yet they both looked so very, very small.

My glasses and perm didn’t get big, it’s the school that got small!

Sadie had another epic spaghetti dinner (with ice cream for dessert, natch) before I got her properly bathed and pajama-ed for the bedtime ride home. She was asleep before I even hit the interstate. We rolled into our driveway just before midnight, and she slept soundly until after 7am this morning. This probably goes without saying, but now that we’re separated again in our usual weekday way, I miss her so much I could claw my eyeballs out.

(I won’t. But I want to.)

Brad has reached the end of his bromantic Arizona vacation, and his flight to Pittsburgh takes off in about 45 minutes. In just a few short hours, we’ll all be reunited.

And I suspect it will, in fact, feel so good.

(I’m not sure I want to find out what “Four’s a Traffic Jam” means, though.)

(I suspect it is very sexy.)

p.s. — Last night as I was getting Sadie into her pajamas, she wrapped her arms around my neck and said “I have so much fun with you.” Too bad I couldn’t hear her over all that SPONTANEOUS HEART COMBUSTION.

This is why age two is awesome.

Of course, with the increased verbal and mental capacity comes the increased capacity to use all of her new skills for evil, meaning that we have just weathered a rather difficult week filled with tantrums, time-outs, shriek-filled car rides, and bedtimes that ate up over two hours from beginning to frustrating end.

This is why age two is CRAZY-MAKING.

The fact that these types of highs and lows occur when a kid is two is rather appropriate, because everyone involved seems to have exactly two personalities: sweet, obedient child vs. tantrummy gargoyle, and patient, cuddle-dispensing parent vs. frazzled disciplinarian with the child-snatching gypsies on speed dial.

I’ll save the tramps and thieves for the teen years.

The worst part about Sadie’s frequent trips to TantrumTown is that she knows exactly how to work me. She knows that if she cries and says she neeeeds me, I have to grip the sides of the door frame to stop myself from swooping into her room mid-time-out and holding her close to me, all trespasses immediately forgiven. She probably doesn’t know how much my heart melts when she sees that I’m angry and offers up an unprompted and sincere “I’m sorry, Mommy. Are you happy now?”

Holy shit. Of course I am.

This is an age where we’re really questioning our parenting skills in a way we never have before. This is so much different than the exhausted panic of the newborn days (“Why is she crying? Is she cold? Is she hungry? IS THE UMBILICAL STUMP SUPPOSED TO BE THIS GROSS?!) because we’re truly setting patterns here: teaching her consequences, showing her how to handle frustration and anger, imparting the importance of apologies, ENFORCING BEDTIME OMG. Of course, we know how we want to handle these issues with her, but when she throws us those toddler curveballs (telling us something hurts in order to stall before bed — do we indulge her and investigate, or ignore and run the risk of letting her simmer in pain in bed for twelve hours like horrible fucking hell-parents?) it’s hard to know what in the name of holy fuckass shitballs to do.

Case in point: The night before I was scheduled to leave for Arizona, Brad was headed out to a movie with friends, and I was excited to spend the evening alone with my shorty. She, however, was in a quite disagreeable mood, and after either saying “NO!” or otherwise finding fault with EVERY SINGLE THING I DID, I finally broke down in frustrated tears. She got very still and serious and finally said, “Do you want me to eat corn, Mommy?” — alluding to the ear of corn she begged me to make for her, only to refuse it outright when I cooked it.

Oh, you-ski.

We had a little talk about why Mommy was sad, and she seemed very contrite (until she refused to get into bed and threw another epic fit, WHEEE!), but I felt horrible for letting her see me like that. On the one hand, maybe it’s good that she sees how her actions affect me, but on the other hand, I don’t want her to see me as weak, because YOU BEST BELIEVE this kid knows each and every one of my soft spots, and she takes full advantage of them all.

From L-R: Soft Spot #1, Soft Spot #2.

We’re navigating through toddlerhood the best we can, though, and trying to find a good middle ground between the iron hand of sternness and completely snowed pushover. I’m confident we’ll strike a good balance just in time to have the whole apple cart upset by the no-really-we-mean-it-this-time implementation of potty training.

Pictured above: the child who regularly tells me that the toilet will “eat [her] butt.” Great.

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