She Can Can

I took the kabibbles today and went to Tyson's Corner. We had a mission which was to find Uncle Eric a birthday present. Who knew that sometime between leaving my house and entering the department store that I'd become one of those incredibly pasty frumpy mall moms that teenagers roll their eyes at and store owners abhor. You know the pesky store workers who follow around those poor exhausted moms anticipating their stroller (or the limo as I like to call mine) sideswiping merchandise and continuing to do same until half their shit is broken?

That was me today; I was that mom this afternoon. I guess that was even me yesterday but I don't know how this came to pass! I'm thinking it was sort of there with my firstborn but time hadn't yet taken the big poop on my physicality. It waited until number two arrived. THAT'S when all attempts at self preservation(and decoration) became muted by the sheer will to not scream and yell and become that kind of parent. Somehow making sure there isn't a constant pool of urine on the backboard of our toilets (potty training would be so much easier with a urinal) is taking precedence over me plucking my eyebrows or hiding blemishes (read: entire face) with foundation.

So, as we entered Macy's, Grayson announced that he'd like to walk. Like hell you will. You will not walk. You will keep those gangly legs immobilized and neatly tucked on their foot post thing for the duration of this shopping trip. I simply cannot make this work any other way. But what he heard was, "Hey look, Auntie Anne's pretzels! Let's get one!" I'm nothing if not the world's most unhealthy distractor. But it worked! Those little hands were so busy fumbling around with said huge twisted dough that he continued smacking at pretzel with all he had for over 45 minutes! Genius for a day. Ha, one for Mom.

So the cat-nappy baby and the carbohydrate-high boy were good as gold for me; sitting dutifully in their stroller, watching the fluorescent world go by. I totally took advantage of their graciousness by chatting on the cell phone for over one hour (it was a dear old friend but still- an hour!) while they were held hostage strapped in hot nylon seats staring at the trunks only of people walking by. It must've been one solid hour of belly overhang, exposed knees, and an occasional swishy floral skirt. Who am I kidding, we were at Tyson's and everybody was impeccably dressed. Think New York black and California coiffed. My first thought was, "Man, I need to go back to Target where my people are." And my second thought was, "Why are you people even here? You obviously already have some serious wardrobe to work with!"

After finally hanging up with my dear friend, I caught a glimpse of myself in one of those mall store mirrors. Jesus! Who WAS that? That woman didn't even look at her own reflection before leaving the house! She has not one ounce of make-up on that blemished and ohsofreaking spent face. That hair, OMG that hair. She obviously raked her fingers through that lifeless train wreck and called it done. Defeated before leaving her driveway! I can't even look at the pitiful rest of her. If those raggedy black flip-flops make it out of her house one more day I'm going to call Stacy and Clinton myself to remedy this situation. 2007 spring flip flops people. Need I say more?

Has that ever happened to you?

The sad thing? I was feeling pretty good about myself before starting out that morning. All of us had on clean clothes. We all had sparkling fresh teeth. Nobody had foul smelling socks. We even took the time to eat something not processed, drink something not apple juiced, remove the trashcan from the kitchen so it wouldn't be Sadie's last meal, and be on our merry way. Not bad for the three of us-and all before 2pm! Life was chipmunks and BRAVO until I passed that motherless mirror.

Wow, that's me. That really unattractive baggy bodied woman is really who I am right now. And what's worse? I'm all shiny from sweat. Sure I'm pushing 50 lbs of kid and pretzel but how unlady like to be profusely sweating all over these pretty and primped up mall go-ers?

So leaving myself no choice, I deny the urge to bolt from the mall entirely and own myself as I am. I am here, a shvitzy mom of two who needs to purchase a nice gift for her brother. I walk into Brookstone to buy some cool and useless stuff for Uncle Eric and the young guy at the register watches as I throw my hair up into a hideous nestwad because now I'm just marinating in the ugly. He smiles because I probably remind him of his own mom and I feel free.

Walking back into Macy's I release my hair from the dollar store hair clip it choked on. I rock my head back and forth to feel how long its become since having Abby. I'd blame the growth and new thickness on the prenatal vitamins but I stopped taking those (gasp!) during my second trimester with her. They weren't agreeing with the copious amounts of Zofran coarsing through my veins and believe me, I wasn't giving up my Zofran. I let my hair down and shook it out. Just to make sure I didn't resemble something dead on the side of 495 I risk another glimpse of myself in the Macy's mirror. And wouldn't you know, suddenly there was an entirely different woman looking back at me. She wasn't frumpy; she was well-oiled. She wasn't sweaty; she was glistening. And she wasn't pale; she was pink and she was strong. I smile at her, find a sampler of perfume and spray it on my wrists as we strut out the mall. "Can Can" was the scent. Perfect for today. Perfect for right now. I don't think I'm going to wash my wrists tonight. Let myself marinate in that for a change.

IndePANTence Day

Wordless Wednesday lets me cop out in picture form. My lethargy and I thank you very much, middle of the week, you are too kind.

Explanation of picture show:
Grayson is becoming "I will do eet myseff."
Mommy is becoming increasingly entertained by the outcomes.
Little Abby is his number one cheerleader through it all. Such devotion.

Today's step into inde"pant"ence. You may have to click each picture to really see the funny.




















His determination is palpable, right?
And then there's the heartbreaking rest. See for yourself.















"Den I pull dem up yike Mommy doss."





















"I check dis side, den I check dis side. Yep, dat looks good."




















"Den I pull dem up high."

and....





















"TA DA!" I did it!"

My little boy put on his very first skirt. His father will be so proud.

Dear Cesar,

This one is a doozy.


Love, Sadie's Concerned Parents

Field Trip

On Saturday we went on our first local field trip. We decided on the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in VA. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint. For a woman who is in fast forward these days, even I slowed down enough to read the signs, learn some history, and finally get to see a MIG close up and personal. These aircraft are UHmaZING and the fact that we have real people who are smart enough to design, fly, and keep track of parts (a little love for the Major there) is astonishing to me. It's an entire hangar of achievements, breakthroughs, and a torpedo launcher or six. Grayson was a little boy body with an owl head, swiveling complete circles to see, "that big one!" or "that HUGE one!" A little boy's heaven and a big boy's playground.

While we were there, we noticed the lines for riding the simulators were short. Grayson and Daddy manned right up and they climbed in that blue R2D2 together to chase down bad guys. Here's the after shot. Grayson was a touch green but Daddy held him close during and after so he didn't have to fend off the enemy alone.













We were only able to stay a short while as Grayson's bladder outmatched his trousers but we can't wait to go back so Abby and I can ride the simulator. And not the little blue one either. We want to ride the red one that rocked and spun around so violently she will think she's back in utero and so will I! (Of course I'm only joking about Abby coming with me. She's holding out her hopes to ride in the zero gravity simulator.)
This little beauty here was called a Flying Wing. Of course I liked it because it reminded me of the Jetsons and I thought it was pretty. Daddy took the picture anyway.

The Anti Matisse

Should I...

a.) Frame it and hang it up in our living room?

b.) Take it to therapy?

c.) Enroll it in Jiu-Jitsu?

d.) Hide all the ice picks and pizza cutters?

Thoughts?

Confiscated Goods

Turns out my son's a hoarder. I found these "borrowed" items under his pillow this morning as I made his bed. His sister and I have been looking for her brand new teapot and teacup set since I plopped her down in front of an empty plastic Playschool plate late last night. This does not bode well. According to the evidence, perpetrator is armed, dangerous, addicted, and British. Use precaution when approaching. Call for backup immediately. Perpetrator will flee the scene if ambushed. K-9s will be of no use, he will probably be nakedie...or at least in a Pull-Up.

The good news? We found those missing items.
The bad news? I have no idea what will be under those pillows tomorrow morning. God help us all.

These Are the Days

Private "conversation", raspberries and spit bubbles, baby opera, hugs and canoodling that have nothing to do with me except that I caught it all happening.

Wonder if they know the companion they will have for a lifetime to come.

The Hundred Acre Wood

I love how my husband gives me credit for crap I would never do. He whole-heartedly believes I can do just about anything and it's sweet, don't get me wrong, but so very blindly sweet. Here's what I mean:

On Sunday we wanted to see the local Rec Center that is maybe 10 minutes from our house. We set out in full force with double stroller, dog'n'leash, Gatorade bottles, and the ever awful choice of footwear for a walk: flip-flops.

SO, we're approaching this dirt path that is the shortcut to the Rec Center. I am at the helm of the double double stroller stroller. Abby's asleep in it and I'm trying to keep it that way. Grayson is precariously scaling down the cement stairs next to the dirt path but he's on hubby's watch so I can concentrate on getting Abby and I down the precipice of pain. I mean, 3 foot downhill.

I am concentrating fully on not breaking myself in three as I begin to skid down the dusty hill. The dusty hill that now starts a mini-avalanche underneath the stroller's tires. The tires of the stroller that suddenly succumb to the gravitational pull of the earth. The earth who is laughing at this whole scene wondering why in heaven's name this woman just doesn't strap on a decent pair of tennis shoes.

I grab the stroller with both hands, yell to hubby who is nonchalantly waiting at the bottom for the rest of us nonMarines to get the hell there already. (Jesus do I want to strap on an extra 20 plus double D boobs on that man sometimes and watch him be so awesome. Just five minutes...)

So hubby saves the day and the stroller (or rather, the baby inside it) and lets his ridiculously awkward wife get herself down the hill sideways as if she were on the slopes in Aspen, but less cute. Finally, I'm down the hill, Abby in stroller is down the hill, and Grayson, Sadie, and hubby have been down the hill and have now crossed the bridge. Yes, there was bridge.

Before I even get to the bridge part, I have to give detail to our surroundings. To my husband, the hunter, it's a home away from home of huge leaning trees, babbling brook, and luscious brush hiding 8,9,or 10 point creatures in her flora and her tendril fauna. To me, the suburbanite, it was Michael Myers, Freddie Kruger, and the 10 o'clock news with a little poison sumac thrown in.

So the bridge: We get to the wooden bridge with iron rails. This is where Grayson decides to stick his head through two of those rails. Of course he does. He might as well have announced he was going to be bungee jumping into Niagra Falls because it was all the same to me. We weren't up that high, in all honesty, but that wobbly bridge with even wobblier trimmings was barely doing its job and my only baby boy was leaning his sweet little body over it and into a certain fate of many scrapes and stitches. (Did I tell you about the bookshelf falling on him during our move? Oh, yea, that happened.) "Keep it going, baby." I say while swatting his tush to get his little legs motoring and away from any more ideas of leaning over antiquated engineering.

And we walk. Grayson stops to look at bird poop. And we walk. Grayson lags behind to check out something brown and lumpy. Evidently his fascination with fecal matter goes beyond dogs and birds. He decides it's probably droppings from a fox or a dinosaur (I can see his confusion) and we're off again. So this is how our 10 minute walk became a 30 minute poop finding boy scout drill and we had barely crossed the bridge.

Once we get across the bridge, Camouflage Man spots a deer and Grayson spends the next 5 minutes of our lives asking question after question about its mommy, its daddy, its baby sister, what it will eat for dinner, what it wants from the Ice Cream Man and so on. His Socratic technique is impressive and even I run out of answers.

FINALLY we punch out of the woods to reach civilization again; coming into a small neighborhood of townhomes. There, holding on to her lab/rottweiler/harry potter two headed monster mixbreed was a woman who did not convince me thoroughly that she had a REALLY good hold of this crazy thing at the end of her leash. This dog was the color of caramel but that's where the sweetness stopped. It totally wanted to dive into Sadie's throat and then perhaps take a heart and lung in a "to go" box from the furless human chewtoys in the stroller. In case you don't know my history with dogs that are mean, I was scared witless and shitless. Hubby sensed this from my fingernails skimming his white blood cells. We all faced forward and did not make eye contact with the wildebeast. Unscathed and somewhat shaken, I trembled onward.

What seemed like an hour later, we reach mecca recca center and my husband, my dear sweet honorable husband innocently goes, "So, what did you think of the shortcut?" as if I wasn't about to sit my broken spirit right onto a metal YMCA chair with my children and dog to WAIT while he jogged the path back to get the car to come pick us back up. I wasn't sure my face read this so I said, "Are you effing kidding me?" He was either toying with me or really wasn't sure and asked, "What? You don't think you could do that alone with the kids?" To which Grayson pipes in, "Yeah Mommy, you do not yike dee Hunnred Acre Wood?"

My goodness people. There are no words. Clearly, I am outnumbered here.

Meeting the Neighbors

It's amazing what leaving the house can do for your mind, body, and sense of belonging.

Yesterday we went for a walk. Not a 5 minute jaunt to the park but a real honest walkin'-the-dog, walk. It started to rain the moment we set out but we went anyway because it was cool, smelled like wet leaves, and felt good. All of us got a little bit soaked but none of us cared. We met lots of new people and all of them were friendly, chatty, and a little bit eccentric. My cup of social tea. We met a middle aged lady with blue highlights. She had a fluffy dog with the presence of an over protective older sister. Sadie was impressed, however, and danced around her in a jitterbug.

We saw a nice older gentleman walking quickly. Fist in one hand, umbrella in the other. I've seem him walking every single day since we moved in and my curiosity has been getting the best of me. Is he single? Widowed? Getting a walk in after a Physics lecture at the local college? I have to know. As we crossed paths, he wore his usual flat expression and seemed like he was all business. Something in me told me otherwise so I smiled hard in his direction. To my sincere surprise and joy he smiled even wider back at us! He even paused a moment to take the five of us in. We all uttered clumsy hellos and kept going our separate ways. What a handsome fellow he was with that captivating grin. I can't wait to see him again.

We met a nice older couple who were holding hands as they walked. They stopped us to ask about Sadie. They thought she was "such a nice dog" and of course we think they're right on. She's the greatest with people she knows and people she soon will know; a lifetime of new- friend's inquiries. She's our very own personal Liz Taylor.

Then we met a mom whom I just may have to try to meet again. She had a toddler on her shoulders, reckless curly blond hair, and some ink as I recall. She looked down when she spoke to us but at the backs of our eyes when she listened. I am trying not to get my hopes up because she probably has plenty of friends but hopefully we'll run into each other again and we can let our children run around our backyards while chatting about things that matter and things that don't.

Oh, and funky gardens abound here. Serious eye candy pour moi.

All in all, it was a great walk and I'm so glad the rain came when it did.

What IS that Smell???

P.S. I just figured out the real reason this place feels warm and snugly. Somewhere, I'm thinking it's either the kitchen or in the walls themselves, there is a distinct aroma of sugar-cookies. I smelled it the second I did a walk-thru many weeks ago and never forgot that particular happy-making scent. I hoped and hoped it would still be here (crazy, a little!!?) when we moved in but never dreamed it actually would be. Now that it is, I'm befuddled. Could it have been an incredibly potent Plug-In from the previous tenants? Perhaps they lived off of funnel cakes and cookie dough but no, she was thin and got lots of "title nine" catalogs in the mail (I only know this because we are officially "or current resident" recipients of her mail-a-logs).

In fact, after taking in one waft of this sweet goodness I even rudely inquired to the then tenant, "What is that yummy thing you are baking? Cupcakes?" To which she answered, "Ummm, nope, nothing in the oven. But we did pick up some bread from a bakery so maybe that's it?" Pretty sneaky, sister. They got away with it for a little while, with attributing that cake batter deliciousness to some French bread patisserie mais non, je ne buying it maintenant! I'm absolutely positive there is an underground tunnel leading to a small village of Keebler elves happily see-sawing on vanilla beans and teetering on vats of melted chocolate underneath this house. And there you have it. Eight days in Virginia and I'm hallucinating from Pennsylvania deprivation. Get a grip, woman. Think of the children.

Settling Down

It's been almost one week since we moved to this house here...

And though we are all certainly homesick for PA, we're counting our blessings because we really really like the new house and the area. If we had to leave "Perfectville" I'm glad it was for a house like this (carpet, carpet everywhere!) in a place like this (15 minute drive to Old Towne, what?!).

I'd say this has been a good week for the kids too. Grayson met a new friend!! My childhood girlfriend came by with her son who is four months older than Grayson. They were hiding behind mommy legs and furniture at first but soon hit it off like mini ninjas. Sword fights and all. Mine is the one whose feet are literally off the ground. He couldn't have been more overjoyed to have another boy to romp around with until they both smelled of sweaty (yet very cute) dog.














Then there's my Lillabeth. Abby Cakes. AbbySnail. She's divine, I can say nothing else about her that could be more true. She is all smiles too plus two new teeth! She's happy until those teeth remind her that her gums aren't the invisible things they once were in utero. Poor little swollen mouth, why can't babies just have small elastic gums that yield nicely to protruding enamel like my yoga pants do for my waistline ? Such a sin for them to hurt, ever. She's a doll though, and aside from trying to eat me when I come within reaching distance (nursing= comfort for her), she is fairing just as well as her brother in her new surroundings. Sadie? Well, we haven't quite crossed that bridge. We haven't had the nerve to leave her alone with "notourhouse" yet. We'll keep you posted because eventually this mom has to fly the coop sans canine whether we like it or not. Let's just hope the tub here is to her liking, and the drywall is...not.

Tie Dye Scarves for Curtains

Phew, it's done. We've moved. And it only took:

• one giant tractor trailer
  
• three very sturdy and superhuman moving men
  
• multiple update-about-Eric phone calls to my funny, hospital-cafeteria-savvy mom and dad
  
• two extremely able-bodied and overtly vivacious in-laws
  
• one gentle and generous sister-in-law
  
• one caffeinated and adrenalized husband to get us here. (I was no help at all. Because I was an emotionally Divided Nation on Tuesday through Thursday, I was all but exempt from my typical duties as wife, mother, and mover/shaker. Thank you all for letting me bow out of so much grunt work. I promise to lift heavy children for the next 12 years to make up for my recent slackage.)

Okay, so I wasn't a complete sloth and I did contribute to the effort leading up to our move. The day of, however, just ran around me like a boa constrictor. In the end we caravan-ed and arrived in a whole different state. With not much awareness (scary) on my part, I did manage to: drive two children, a dog, and lots of crap that wouldn't fit into the gigantic moving truck four hours to our new destination. I did: keep driving after 7 month old decided to fill up the airwaves with her bone-chilling Adam Lambert wails for 67 minutes straight. I did: remember to buy a pink leash and black & white collar for Sadie since her others were packed. I did: eat lots of peppermint patties and Skittles (what baby weight?) to keep me renewed and happy.

So, we arrived late late late on Tuesday night. We got the keys to the new place from the landlord's "contact" person in the middle of the night, in the pitch-black driveway. I'm sure the neighbors were so excited to have the Shriver Cartel shuffle into town.

We then proceeded to (ill-preparedly) camp out in the new house. Did I mention we were without furniture, blankets/beds/pillows/mattress like things whatsoever? And there we find ourselves, all four grown adults (Andy, me, Nammy, & Pop), in a predicament. Well after midnight, we're stumbling around a strange house to find that perfect spot of carpet to snuggle up to. I'm talking nothing but baby blankets and bath towels. To make things that much sweeter, none of us knew how to work the new house's thermostat and for some reason it was preset at "POLAR BEARS NEED LESS AIR CONDITIONING THAN THIS." I was a skoshe cold so ended up, at some point in the early morning frost, grabbing my sleeping baby from her warm nest of attic insulation and coffee filters (kidding) and made her snuggle with me since the twelve inches of baby blanket fabric weren't cutting the chill of those early stages of frostbite. That was fun. I was glad to learn how to reset the thermostat the following morning. One button. One finger. Nevermind that we could have just turned the heat on instead of the air.

********************************
24 HOURS LATER:

My husband and I just got back from Shopper's and we both concur that it doesn't feel like we've moved. It just feels like we're on vacation. You know how you run to the store to stock up on goodies for the week while you're away? Letting yourself go ahead and get those smoked almonds, red wine, fun cheese, and extra case of G2 because you're on VACATION! Our shwooped bodies have no idea we are not going to "go home" but are in fact, already at home, in a new territory that we must learn before 495 eats us as its prey.

Oh but in case you're wondering.... yes, we do like the new house in Virginia very much. It's quite comfy and lotsa cozy already. Be certain I will name it, write about it, and photograph it until it gives me the finger and threatens me with a chihuahua and a restraining order. But I'm too spent to do that tonight. I'm guessing by Sunday I'll be over my veneer wall of sarcasm (never happen) and into an unhealthy lust to get acquainted with this new land of abbreviated merging lanes and old school volvos. Looking forward.

What a Day

So the hour is near when I must depart the place I call home.

And the hour has passed when my brother, Eric, got out of his surgery where the doctors spent a couple of hours removing his entire thyroid (plus some lymph nodes as I understand it).

Both pieces of this puzzle have been weighing heavily on my mind and I am sitting in my dear friend and neighbor's basement typing away because the only thing I have to separate my crowded thoughts is this blog. Thank you for being here, blog. And readers of this blog. I seriously want to meet you all. All four of us would have a great time at a that little cafe inside of a Barnes & Noble.

Here's a brief synopsis of today:

IN PENNSYLVANIA

• woke up in Marni and Vinny's basement (our stuff was in boxes in our house next door)
• Grayson was already watching Blue's Clues b/c my husband is that talented in his sleep and can work a remote with his eyes closed
• Abby-Snail woke up with a bang and we were off showering, filling up sippy cups, and bickering at each other because nobody really wants to leave this place, this neighborhood, this huge and totally unforgettably blessed time in our life

IN MARYLAND (or at least how I imagined things to be in MD)

• Eric showed up at the hospital and tried to make peace with separating with part of his body
• Christie (his wife) tried to make peace with spending yet another day in yet another hospital
• Eric felt dippy from awesome drugs and probably got to 8 when they had him count backwards
• Surgeons did their surgical thing and got that cancererous hunk of a yuck thyroid out of his body forever
• Eric woke up, breathed on his own and subsequently helped every single last person who loves him breathe on their own again too

Holy shit, I hope I never have another day like this again. Word.

Turtles and Lima Beans

Shopping is weird for me. There was a time when I could go into any store, find the item, walk straight to check-out, and return back to my car before forgetting where I parked it. Now, I have lost the ability to be quick about any of this. And I always, always forget where I park. It doesn't matter what item is in question- shoes, yogurt, sharpies, whatever-I'm at least a 45 minute girl, walking back out into the parking lot hours later in a fog, not making eye contact with anyone because somehow they can all see into my soul and know I had been in that store way longer than was socially acceptable.

Just today, while running errands with entire family in tow, I made my husband take me to a bead store (gift card from Christmas-we're moving on Tuesday, I'm Last Minute Mary). It's a very pretty bead store but shit, it's just a bead store. And it's maybe as large as a two-car garage. Would you know I walked in there with the knowledge that I was picking something out for "free" because the money had already been spent and is now circulating America, probably cruising the strip at Wildwood, NJ for the holiday weekend? And yet, AND YET, I still had two missed calls from my husband (who, P.S., was parked in our minivan about 50 feet away in the lot stranded with our Toddler Cranky and our Tylenol-Teething Baby Cranky) because I was in there for 45 minutes!! Doing what exactly? I'm glad you asked. One has the right to know...

You'd think I was sipping on a nice lemonade spritzer while getting a foot massage and trying on some lovely glass beaded anklets. You'd be mistaken (optimistic but mistaken just the same). You'd think I was in their back room taking in the latest Dane Cook live show while fastening wire necklaces and gem-saturated bracelets. You'd be mistaken once again. You'd think I was turning over every single last pretty little bead in my hand wondering, "What the poop can I make with YOU!" Bingo. While these beads were deliciously glossy and supremely colorful, I was terribly confused. It was no place for me and my recent inability to make a split decision out of the home to save my kidney. Probably there is a term for this. Domestic Amnesia? MommyDoesn'tDecideWellDisorder? SplitDecisionHomeMakermyalgia?

Finally, after chatting with the owner's daughter for a good 37 minutes over round-nose, flat-edged, and I'm pretty sure a serrated kind of tweezer/plier thing, I decided on some jewelry. Already handmade jewelry. How hard is that?

Apparently it's get-lost-in-DC-and-never-get-out-of-the-grid-city-nightmare difficult. Not that I've done that.

It must be because I'm only accustomed to doing 17 things all at once that this one single task, hell CHORE, was too much for my hyper-functioning gray matter but I did not choose wisely. Since we snuggled and spooned and logged in so much quality time, this bead store and I, you'd think I would've selected some nice accouterments as my going away gift. Not so. I picked out the worst of the best. I'm showing you. Seriously, take a look and decide for yourself.

A purple ring I like to call "Turtle" and these earrings. They don't have names yet; they are that ugly. The Cabbage Patch of danglies perhaps. Maybe I'll call them Lima Beans because if there's one awful thing it is a lima bean. My husband said it best. He says, "The ring, it's fine. The earrings? They're so busy and...well...yellow." He's right. They're yellow. In the store I had myself convinced they were classicaly sage or heirloom chartreuse. They're not. They're hideous and worse yet, pearly, and weird and not at all what I had in mind. Panic purchase.

So, to celebrate today's monumental indecisiveness, I'm keeping them. Better than that? I'm wearing them right now. Take that, right side of my brain. You have left me all alone with yet another gift card panic purchase and now you have to look at these cataract avacados all day long. That'll teach ya.

E=mc2

During a routine diaper change G was giving a play-by-play of his thoughts. Somewhere in between "...and that guy in the blue shirt had two swords...I don't know where my apple go...and the ball went waaaay up into the sky..." he stopped short. He looked me square in the eye and asked, "Mommy, how does the sun come up? Does it pop?"

Holy crap. How does one even BEGIN?! I did not realize I was going to be faced with such questions this early on in the game. Somehow I thought I had a few more years before having to be on my toes to answer complex inquiries. So I attempted an answer:

Me: "Okay, are you ready? It's complicated but I think you can get it so I'm going to tell you."
Him: "Yes. "
Me: "So we live here. (I make a fist and point to a freckle on my knuckle). It's a planet called earth.
Him: "Ersh."
Me: "Good. Yes. Sort of. So we live on planet earth."
Him: "P-anet Ersh."
Me: "Yes. Planet Earth. Okay so now, give me your hand. Your hand is the sun. (He smiles because he knows his hand is his hand and very much NOT the sun. Mommy's silly.) I move his hand around my fist in slow motion.) When your hand, the sun, is next to the us, the freckle, it is day time. We play. We skip. We shout- Hooray! Then your hand, the sun, moves away a little bit and we can't see it anymore. You follow? Then it's dark. It is getting to be night-night time. See? Day (We move his hand close to freckle). Night. (his hand away from freckle.) Day. Night.
Him: "Mommy?"
Me: (All proud of myself for successfully embarking on physics with my son through our Hands and Freckles analogy.) Yes, honey?

Him: "I want Daddy."

And there you have it. My first real deal teachable moment and I blew it. G thought about what I was telling him and wanted to get as far away from this wakadoodle mommy who thought his hand was the sun and her freckle was the Ersh.

G's thought bubble: "Okay, so I may not have combined sounds down yet and "th" doesn't come easily for my tiny mouth and crowded teeth but this whole business about my sun going around her earth? Well, that's just plain erroneous. She obviously was not a biology major in college. The earth clearly and unmistakibly orbits around the sun and not the other way around. Poor Mom. She's choking already and I haven't even asked her the super tough questions like can I wear pink or what's really in her sippy cup. I'm going to go find my apple now. I remember where I put it. I just hope Mom didn't move it from inside the big speaker hole in the living room.