Jellybean Mama

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

2011-12-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, whatever you celebrate I hope you have a safe and wonderful end-of-December type thing with lots of over-indulging, minimal squabbling, season-appropriate weather, and above all, some damn sleep.

I know, right?!
She's so effing awesome.

Sir Jelly

2011-10-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Just stopping by long enough to remind you all that I TOLD YOU this new job was going to destroy everything. Lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, laundry, blogging - there's no time for any of that nonsense now. It's been over a MONTH since I've been here! That's disgraceful. So many exciting things to report, and no time to tell mah stories. And don't expect that to change any time soon - we're in the snowball-to-New Year's as far as our weekends go, where there are festivals and birthday parties and parades and Polar Express train rides and Trans Siberian Orchestra tickets... well, if you've read my blog for longer than a post or two, you know how I like to plan things out. And planned they are!

But check out the bravest knight in the house...

She was so effing cute. The photographer thought she was a boy and kept calling her 'buddy', it was hilarious.

And now I must run off to another client call, and more project timelines and budget updates. Apologies for being so neglectful, please forgive me. And Happy Halloween!

The Bravest Mama

2011-09-22T11:41:00.001-07:00

I have skied black diamond runs in the mountains of Colorado. I have dived the depths of St. Maarten, surrounded by sharks. I’ve flown in a private jet, and I’ve danced on the stage in a strip club. I’ve ridden a horse, a camel, an elephant, and an Ohio River steamboat. I’ve been stuck in a cave twice, once underwater off a small Columbian island, and once trapped by ice. I’ve sipped tequila in Mexico, eaten lobster in Nova Scotia, and bought strappy heels in New York city. I’ve been spit on by Shamu, lost money in Vegas, and ridden the trolley in San Francisco. I got kicked out of Graceland.

Last Saturday I ate a cricket.

Oh, the things you’ll do to show your child it’s good to be brave, and try new things.

The cricket was awful, all legs and antennae and the stuff nightmares are made of.

Jenny loved the worms. To be fair, they were crunchy and Thai-flavored, so it wasn’t exactly a hardship.

We both had a blast, and despite the pathetic drizzly weather enjoyed BugFest immensely.

My precious bug.

We are crossing our fingers hoping the rain stays away this Saturday so that we can go to Pride 2011. We do love a parade, and since a kindly gay man gave me my Jellybean, I want us to get out and show our support. Especially with all the insanity going around with laws being revised and rights revoked and all those things.

Can you believe it's Fall already? Yes, it's still warm here, but I am ignoring it. I am still going to make chili for dinner, even if it's 83 degrees. We have already got one farm visit under our belts, in preparation for the month-long Halloween season. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have already carved a little pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds. Look, if the stores can have Christmas stuff out already, you can't judge me.

Plan C

2011-08-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so the whole post-migraine treatment plan wasn’t working for me, and the preventative Topamax was a little disappointing, so here we are at Plan C. I figured since most of the baddies are hormonal, I’d see what happens if I can level out that hormone shift that happens twice a month. I finally got in to see my gyno, which was just as pleasurable as I expected, and not only got a scrip for the have-a-period-once-every-three-months Seasonale, I got a bonus estrogen patch. Crazy! The biggest side effect of the patch is, well, cancer, but I’m only going to wear it a couple days/month, since it’s not like I’m going through the change and wearing seven at a time every day. Or licking them (seriously, one of the warnings is not to ingest them. WTF is WRONG with people?!).

So I’ve got the patch on, and I’ll let you know how that goes, and will be starting the pill in the next few weeks. Statistics give me a 33% chance of success – 1 in 3 people get worse, 1 in 3 people don’t experience a significant change, and 1 in 3 feel more like rock stars. And, you know, they note a decrease in migraine occurrence. We’ll see how this works out.

If you’d like a work update, well, it’s a shitload of work. The team is so shorthanded that I’m thrown a new project pretty much hourly, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for the whole ‘product training’ thing. You know that annoying phrase, ‘fake it til ya make it’? Yeah – that. But interestingly, there are some things about project management that I really did miss, so it might not be as terribly horribly nightmarish as I anticipated.

This weekend is the Labor Day holiday, so that’s pretty cool. And then the weather will start to be a little cooler, and Jelly and I have a few little camping trips already planned, and her Halloween costume is already in her closet (hello, I’m a planner, remember). We’ve had a few pleasant mornings that are 68 degrees, it’s quite the teaser. I’ve prepared by joining a Crock Pot group on Facebook, I think I’m ready.

Someone else is, too.

Summertime

2011-08-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, let's put this summer thing to bed, shall we? I know, I know, going to the beach and the lake is fun and all that, but I'm over this heat. This morning it was 67 degrees and I almost wept I was so damn happy. All I want to do is wear jeans and start making soup and using my oven again; I'm tired of shaving my legs every five seconds and of blow-drying my hair in 115% humidity (ok, that last one is a lie, I NEVER blow-dry my hair anymore).

I love summer, don't get me wrong - it's when my birthday is, and I love to swim and be blonde and tan, and have pina coladas by the pool, and all that. It's just that I'm ready for the next thing. This time of year always makes me anxious - maybe it's part of growing up in a household with teachers, and then being one; I'm anticipating change that I don't get any more as a Project Manager. Although I did just start a new job, so that ought to count. And yes, I DO habitually change jobs at summer's end more than any other time of the year.

How about you nice people? I know my mum almost slapped me when I said it was only four months til Christmas, but that's because she lives in the land of 7 months of winter, and it's not the wear-a-heavy-sweater-outside kind of winter like it is here, it's the wear-a-parka-and-still-freeze-your-effing-ass-off kind. Do you guys want to hang onto summer, or are you ready for pumpkin patches and corn mazes, a ridiculous slew of Halloween parties and thick hearty stews, snuggling in bed on a crisp morning?

We do have one last warm-weather beach trip coming up, don't freak out. The Ta did some more traveling, and got some more points, so it looks like we'll be returning to Wilmington for our annual Labor Day event. This is totally awesome, don't get me wrong, I am sure it will change my mind and make me want summer to hang around a little while longer.

But man, could I ever go for some molasses cookies and a cup of cider.

Oh, Canada! My favorite pics from our trip, in absolutely no kind of order:

My mum and my Jelly. My parents live in a little itsy bitsy town that is so damn cute, they have free weekly concerts in the park in the center of town. It's one block from my parents' place. We walked over one lovely evening and enjoyed some music. Things like this make me really miss living in town. And, you know, Canada, where you can sit outside in August and not pray for death because of suffocating heat.

Jellybean and her cousins. They are all nut bars, and this pic captures them quite nicely. My mum got them matching shirts and threw them on this bench, desperate for a cute picture of the three of them. I was upstairs working so missed the fun, but I know Jelly was having a great time. She misses them lots - she refers to them as 'my friends' when she talks about them.

Jenny has a special relationship with her uncle, my brother Jim. When she was a baby he would do crazy dance moves to make her laugh, so he was nicknamed Uncle Dancey, and that's what she calls him. He plays with her, and is patient with her, but also doesn't let her push him around. I love that she's got him for a male role model. His illness is a little confusing to her, since his schizophrenia meds mean he can't usually get out of bed til noon and I have to correct her that he is not 'having a lazy day'. He has good days and bad, but is always awesome with her.

My sisters. I am the eldest of four; my sister N, on the left, is three years younger, and my sister M, on the right, is 13 years younger. My brother is the youngest, a year younger than M. We are about as different as three sisters can be, and have gone through a lot in working through how we relate to each other. But I have never once doubted they'd have my back. Or, you know, 'support' me. Ha ha (this was funnier at the time).

Only in Cottage Country, the tourist region known as the Muskokas in Northern Ontario, would you find a kid in an elf hat and a life jacket. This look says, 'I love Christmas, and boating'. There's a little theme park a couple hours from my hometown called Santa's Village - there are only about a dozen mostly lame rides, a few food vendors, and some prize stands. But there's also Santa, and his 'summer sleigh', this crazy boat that does 360s in the water, and you know what, that amount of rides is perfect for this age group. And they have reindeer! She freaking loved it.

My girl, the cowboy. We put her up on a nice brown pony, and he took 15 years off my life by spooking and bolting, throwing my kid off. She handled it like a champ, no tears, and got right back up on this much calmer pony, Fancy. I play a LOT of games with Jelly now where one of her toys is Fancy, or she is, or god forbid, I am. The horseback riding fund may replace the beach trip fund next year.

I like this picture because it sums us up nicely - there's my sister's bra hanging right there, and my mum is outside in plain view of several neighbors in her bathrobe, and we're missing half the people because they're running around doing other stuff. But there's a great breakfast on the table, and eventually we'll all be seated eating together, and the kids are now at their own table on the deck below hollering at us. And it's a beautiful day! Look, my sister is even wearing a sweater! Seriously, sooooo ready for cooler weather...

Three Little Things

2011-08-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Every night before Jellybean goes to sleep, I tell her three things. Well, four, if you count the obligatory ‘I love you’, more if you count the stuff she demands I repeat back after she’s said it, like ‘sweet dreams’ or ‘see you in the morning’. And god forbid I forget to use her name, she loses it. She’ll sit bolt upright in bed and sternly command, “Say, ‘sweet dreams, JENNY’, mama!” Like I’m saying it to someone else?! Sheesh, that kid is so damn bossy, I have no idea where she gets it. Anyhow. Three things. I tell her she’s smart, I tell her she’s pretty, and I tell her she’s a nice person. I always say those three things, in that order, and here’s why.

I tell her she’s smart first, because I want her to value that above being pretty. Since she’s smart, she knows she’s smart, so I don’t need to go much beyond that, because I don’t want her to get a big fat ego and be that kind of smart where she thinks she’s smarter than everyone, because that can get you into trouble. If she’s struggled that day with a new skill or been frustrated by something, I will remind her of her successes – a new word she used, a problem she solved, a joke she told.

I tell her she’s pretty second, because I want her to be confident, and because society values appearances and I want her to be comfortable with not just who she is, but how she looks. And it’s not just ‘you’re cute’, either, I tell her she’s strong, and healthy, and does a good job brushing her teeth. I also sometimes tell her she’s got a fat head or a big butt and we laugh about it, so that she doesn’t take her flaws too seriously. But then I also let her know her hair smells nice, or that she has pretty eyes. We talk about how everyone is different, and how cool that is.

Lastly I let her know how proud I am that she’s a nice person. I always try to point out specific examples – good helping or listening, sharing with or being sympathetic to a friend (person or animal), a small kindness, or even just recognition of good manners. I value this above being pretty, but I know that she’s three and the last thing she hears is likely to be the thing that sticks with her. The big cruel world is filled with jerks and is going to knock her around plenty, but maybe if she can learn to acknowledge that and still see the good, it won’t seem so unfair. Plus, basic good citizenship seems to be underrated lately, and that makes me crazy.

Jellybean is lots of other things – she’s hilariously funny, crazy dramatic, an enthusiastic singer, a budding chef. She’s stubborn, and sunny, and much more patient than me. I do my best to let her know throughout the day that those are all the things that make her ‘her’, and that I love her for them. But at nighttime, while the house settles and we’re chin-to-chin under the covers, I like to take a few minutes to impress upon her what really sets her apart and makes her special, because I want her to grow up believing it just as much as I do. I think it’s one of the greatest gifts we give our kids, other than simply letting them know they’re loved every single chance you get. It’s similar to how you shouldn’t want someone to depend on you for their happiness – you want them to be happy just because. While I want Jelly to know that I think she’s awesome and the shining star at the center of my universe, I want her to likewise wholeheartedly think Hey – I AM awesome. Not just think it, but know it. And I hope this helps.

We're Here, It's Hot, Get Used To It

2011-07-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

We made it! Jelly added another 2-day roadtrip to her list of accomplishments, and I am going to take some time to rave about that kid. She was a freaking rockstar, no surprise - good as gold in the car, played and entertained herself even when she wasn't watching a DVD (and by noon on the second day, she was definitely TV'd-out). The only time she asked to potty that wasn't a scheduled stop ended up being right before we hit Toronto traffic, so her timing was great; I realized it's almost been a full year that she's been potty-trained! I can't believe how much she's changed, and that it's been that long.

I got up at 5a on Friday and we were on the road by about 5:40, so we had a nice early start and avoided all morning rush hour traffic. The weather was gorgeous, hot and sunny, so the mountains were a breeze (literally). The only problem was, we made such good time that we hit our favorite lunch stop at New River Gorge at 10 am! So we had to keep going. We stopped for the day at the hotel around 3:30, and although I would have liked to have driven a little further, it ended up working out great because we got a swim in before the thunderstorm hit, in Cranberry Township PA. We had a terrific dinner at Max & Erma's, a favorite Northern chain, and were in bed early to get up at 5a and do it again. We were at the Buffalo border at 9 am and cruised on through, stopped for some quick poutine (french fries with cheese curds and gravy), and were at my parents' by around 1:30.

No rest for the weary once we arrived - after unpacking the car into the scalding hot house (no A/C, and they're having a heat wave like everyone else) we quickly re-packed the car with towels and bathing suits and sand toys, and headed to the lake. My parents have a little trailer in a park on the water - it's their cottage. It's the perfect getaway. And yesterday we got up in the morning and went straight back. So I unwound post-trip in my favorite inflatable chair with a Creamsicle Vodka Cooler (sorry, they only sell them here), and Jelly played with her cousins.

Played with her cousins. Man, you should see how happy this little girl is. When they meet in the family room in the morning she says, 'Hi, friends!'. She is full of hugs and smoocheroos for her grandparents, and is pleasant and agreeable and sweet. I need to remember this, when I get closer to moving and am feeling melancholy about losing my friends and having to sell the @#$%! house. I need to remember the way her eyes light up when she sees her favorite uncle, and how good it feels to go to lunch with my sister, and how she hopped up and made her way to the couch to have snuggles with her Boppa. Yes, my parents are bickering and I am sure we are all getting on each other's nerves in 100 ways already, but being in the little town I grew up in is oddly soothing to me. Despite living in NC for all this time, I'm still a Canadian, and it looks and feels and smells like home to me.

This week I am working remotely, and then next week is my summer vacation - I can't freaking wait. After all the work stress I am excited to get a break before I start the new role. Yes, I know we've had like a zillion beach trip weekends so I can't complain, but it's different when other eyes will watch the kid, take her on walks and play playdough with her. And, um, cook me dinner.

Prepare yourself for the onslaught of pictures that will follow soon. There is major cuteness happening continuously.

With Glowing Hearts

2011-07-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

We leave tomorrow, wish us luck! First day Raleigh to Cranberry Township, PA. Second day, across the border in Buffalo and home to Lindsay, Ontario. A town that still looks pretty much like the above picture. Happy sigh!

Carolina Beach - Again!

2011-07-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

Who's a pretty girl and loves the beach?

I think you know.

Next stop - Canada on Saturday!

Lazy Eyes and Suntans

2011-07-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

Thank you, loyal fans, for your kind birthday wishes. Wasn't I an effing adorable baby? Yes, my kid resembles me slightly, it's true. Lucky little thing.

We picked up Ol' Left Eye's glasses earlier this week, and she's done remarkably well for a three-year old. Heck, she's done great for an adult. She hasn't lost them or broken them yet, and there have only been a few mild complaints. My reaction to them has been interesting in a step-outside-of-myself kind of way; it hurts me that she has to wear them, yet I can't describe why, and I worry that people will look at her differently. Like, that she's less cute or they'll think something's wrong with her or something stupid. It's utterly irrational and lame because I have friends who have much, much bigger issues to deal with (like, hello, Jelly is not in a wheelchair or something actually serious). Just weird how that mother instinct wants your kid to be perfect and have an easy life, neither of which can be true for any child.

How is this anything less than perfection?

So for my birthday celebration we spent a totally freaking awesome 5 sun-soaked days in the air-conditioned oceanfront comfort of the Carolina Beach Courtyard Marriott, courtesy of The Ta's hard-earned points. The Ta cracks me up, because not once did her pedicured toesies touch sand - she is definitely a pool girl. Jelly and I braved it a few times, where she insisted on body surfing (because she thinks she's a teenager) but decided the pool was definitely the place to be. There were frozen drinks there! And they did some sort of ice cream or cookie thing every afternoon.

The 4th of July fireworks were spectacular from our 7th-floor hotel balcony, although Jellybean was not a fan of the booms and sizzles. She spent most of the time hiding in her precious little rollaway bed and asking for more snacks. Hey, she was in the pool for 10 hours, she needed the energy.

The best part of the trip was that we get to go back again next weekend; it's The Ta's birthday (she's a year older than me!), so fingers crossed that we have the same weather luck. 90 degrees and sunny every day is the way to go when you're in the water the whole time.

In work news, I interviewed for and got a job as a Project Manager within my company. That's good, because it means I don't have to register Jenny as a panhandler and send her out to stand at the stoplight with a cardboard sign. That's bad because it sounds like a whole lot more work, longer hours, and back to traveling. Not good things for a single mama. So we'll see how that goes. At least the Canada trip is still on, since I made sure to mention that. So three weeks til a big drive!

JR practices her surfing moves in the local Wings. I reluctantly buy the stupid board.
New friends at the Fort Fisher Aquarium. Tick tock.
My sister saw this pic and said we made a nice gay couple. The Ta is so not my type.
She's one in a million girls, she's a beauty! (sing it with me, now, '80's style)

Forty!

2011-06-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, my childhood nickname was 'Cupcake', have a good laugh and get it out of your system. June 30th, a beautiful sunny day (of course) because it's my birthday! And check me out - things may be a little tumultuous right now, but if I compare it to 30, I'm still way happier where I am. I've got great friends, loving family, at least 3-4 blog fans who aren't one of those first two things, and a Jellybean. What more could a gal-who-still-feels-28 want?

Backyard Campout #Win

2011-06-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

The backyard camp-out was a success! For once the temperature dropped when the sun set, so I actually got to snuggle in my sleeping bag, and the sky was clear and filled with stars (or planets or planes, don't get all scientific on me) so I could take the fly off. I did still have to sleep with an ear plug in because the homies in my neighborhood were rollin' at 4:30 am and we don't have the same taste in nighty-night music, and I had some drinkies so had to keep getting up to pee (but did not yammy, unlike an unnamed member of my party, ah-hem).

The best part was that I made two new camp recipes, a hobo dinner thing where you simply throw ground beef, baby carrots, onions, and red potatoes in heavy-duty foil; and this -

which is the most adorable and delicious little Mini Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (a cake donut, some butter and brown sugar, and a pineapple ring - gave up looking for my bar fruit, so sadly no cherry). Since I decided it was better for my resale value and the wildfire situation not to build an open fire in my backyard, I just threw 'em on my grill. SO GOOD. And they'd be wicked easy to make up in advance and throw in a cooler for when I'm, you know, not in my backyard camping. I've already got my next Hobo Dinner planned - I'm going to adapt my favorite Naked Chef recipe, Tray-Baked Porkchops with Herbey Potatoes, Parsnips and Pears (in lemon/rosemary); how awesome will THAT be?! And yes, it's mid-afternoon and I haven't eaten lunch yet, can you tell?

The pool was once again a big hit with the visiting friends, two little blond boys who weren't keen on the Hobo dinners but were big fans of the BBQ S'Mores.
And now there's a crazy thunderstorm probably flooding those cute little toys all over my yard. That's ok, get it out of your system, Mother Nature, as The Ta so wisely said. Because in just four days - 40th BIRTHDAY/4th of July BEACH TRIP!!

Camping with a Kid

2011-06-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Great Backyard Camping something-or-other is coming up, an event I only found out about because I happened to finally catch up on some blogs, and since it’s an excuse to finally put the tent up in the backyard and thus clinch the deal on my neighbors forever thinking I’m a nutjob, I think it’s a great idea. I wasn't even going to bother registering but then my curiosity got the better of me and I did, but then the website confused and irritated me (how do I set my Team Name? where's the template for inviting people to camp with me instead of asking for money?) so I'm going to ignore if for a little while. And, uh, the weather forecast is calling for rain anyhow.

Jordan Lake Park, NC - Jellybean eats bacon. Friend looks at bug in bottle. Life is good.

People assume that growing up in the wilds of Northern Ontario meant I camped practically every weekend, nay, lived in a tent more likely. And I’m sure that there are families who are like that in Canada, just as there are families like that all over the US and Europe and everywhere else in the world. However, the area I’m from is fondly referred to as ‘cottage country’, which means the more sensible people on vacation go to their cottages. This is because, while the wilds of Northern Ontario are beautiful, they are vicious. Yes, there are bears and poisonous growy things and whatnot, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about blackflies. Nasty, nibbly blackflies. And the mosquitoes are bigger there, too, I think. And it gets COLD at night.

Armed with her backpack o' gear, Jelly sets off in search of adventure. It does NOT get cold at night here.

My parents were not the sort of folk who could afford a cottage, and despite being dirty hippies, they weren’t into battling blackflies with a pack of obnoxious children. Keep in mind that was the 70’s, when tents were made of canvas and weighed approximately 846 lbs, and took about four days and eleven people to assemble. There weren’t luxuries like collapsible marshmallow toasting forks and Kelty camp sinks (just got mine, can’t wait to use it, it’s freaking adorable!). My mother and sister shake their head in disbelief when I talk about camping – I’m not exactly the outdoorsy type, and they have no idea where my love of this activity came from. I admit I will never be the person strapping on a backpack and hiking into a site, and Jelly and I definitely like our air beds and a flush toilet within walking distance. But it’s relaxing, and cheap, and I dunno, I can’t explain it, I hate washing dishes at home but man, I love to wash dishes in a tub on a picnic table.

Pitching in like a good camper (get it? 'pitching' in?)

We’ve officially camped twice now, both times in the pouring rain, so even though it’s only twice I think those two experiences should count as much more. My $40 BJ’s tent (there was a $10 rebate when I got it!) performed amazingly and was the perfect size for us, and the camp stove from my mum is like an Easy Bake oven, only way better, because, you know, it can cook bacon for reals. Jellybean had a blast – she was ridiculously patient waiting for me to do all the boring stuff that I never understood what took parents so long to do, and was a good helper, and had fun running around with her friend who was camping with us. She slept great, and napped great, and the sky cleared up and we swam and went for walks and looked at interesting bugs and made pancakes and sang camp songs and lit sparklers at twilight. This upcoming weekend the same friends will come over and we’ll put up the tents and get out the hot dogs and marshmallows, and there won’t be any television or bath time or internet; there will be fireflies, and contraband drinks in plastic cups after the kids are abed, and an open sky overhead.

Overcast, but not rainy!

I just really, really recommend ear plugs. You never know what the campground is going to be like. Our first trip, the location was quiet, but there were some crazy-loud snorers in our Single Parents group. This trip, well, it was a long weekend, I don't know what I was thinking. Par-tay! I don't worry about sleeping with ear plugs in with a kid in a tent, the kid is right there and is going to smack me in the face if I don't respond to her. And yeah - bathroom. Unless you're hardcore, and especially if you're potty training, make sure to get a site near the facilities.

But I say, do it!

In Like a Lion?

2011-06-16T09:13:00.001-07:00

So the day came, as I knew it would. Yesterday morning, on our 10am status call, my boss gave a little laugh and said, 'We need to talk', and I knew the day was here. It went pretty much like I expected, although it was a little more open-ended than I had hoped; although I was definitely pointed in the direction of the door, I wasn't pushed through it. They are willing to work with me to find something that is a better fit within the company, if that is what I want. It was nice that it wasn't a disciplinary action, because that means there's no mark on my permanent record, and my boss made sure to explain that I shouldn't take the whole thing personally; that, in fact, she rather liked me an awful lot, and there were lots of things that I did well. I finally told her about the Topamax issues, which I probably should have told her about months ago, and embarrassed us both by bursting into tears, and then I had to pull myself together because I still had to finish a day of work like nothing had happened.

I spent most of the rest of the day crying while on Mute on conference calls; despite the fact that it wasn't a big surprise, it was still a shock. And it was still scary, because there were a lot of questions left unanswered. What happens if I can't find something else? There's only one open job posted on our internal site that's a 'maybe' for me, and I wasn't given a timeframe or deadline in which to find something else. I know it behooves my manager as much as me to have a little wiggle room; to get another person in, and up to speed. But they've got to be able to post for my job and start interviewing - there's a clock running, somewhere.

The lousy thing about the timing is that it's going to mess up the Canada plan. The go-to-Canada-this-summer plan, probably, but the move-t0-Canada plan, definitely. Even if I do get the other job within my company it's not something I'll be able to do permanently; it's project management, which will be a pay cut AND make me go out of my mind. So I still need to be hustling to find something else. I put the word out to my awesome mommies group, who were incredibly supportive and helpful as always, and submitted a few things yesterday afternoon/evening. I got a call from a recruiter today that sounded like a solid lead, so that cheered me up a little. And I know that I'm lucky because even if my parents aren't local, they'd still help in any way possible. The Ta is looking for stuff for me, and Cousin J sent me some links, and even the terrific MsD offered to give my resume to her techie hubby.

I've been through this before, and I know it's hard. I know it's scary. I know that things work out, because, well, they have to. But from the first moment I considered becoming a mom on my own, this was one of my greatest fears. This thing right here. The What If things don't work out. What if I don't get something right away; what if I have to sell the house for $140K instead of the $170K I owe on it because I can't pay my mortgage any more? What if I lose my health benefits, and something happens to Jenny? The college fund will dry up; the 401K will disappear. Say good-bye to that deposit I put down already for the Thanksgiving beach trip.

The last time things were bad I had to get two jobs to make ends meet. I would drive to a support job in the morning, 8:30a-5p, at NC State University, then hop in the car and race to my next job across town at a market research company where I would walk the floor as a call center supervisor from 5:30p-11:30p. It was awful. I did it because I had to. I couldn't do that with Jelly.

I know that this needed to happen, and there's a teensy part of me that is almost relieved that it did, because once this round of stress is over hopefully I can find something that is a little easier and things will get better and healthier and all those good things. And my mum pointed out that Jelly is too young to know anything is going on, and will bounce back from whatever change happens, which are good points.

And it's two weeks before my birthday. Can you imagine if she'd done it ON my birthday, without knowing?! That would have been awesome. You know, in a horrible way. Maybe I'll get a new job for my birthday. Oh, 40, you are going to be an interesting one!

Time's Up

2011-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Just so y'all are up-to-date, here's the deal.

1. I'm quitting the Topamax. I gave it a full six months, which I think is more than fair. In that time I only had a small number of headaches, which was nice, and a smaller number of migraines, which was really super terrific. However. I am close to being fired because of work incompetence. I can't remember anything. I can't retain any new knowledge. I'm fuzzy all the time. There's some serious depression issues.

So.

Plan B.

I've made an appointment to get on some sort of pill where I'll only have a few periods a year (the earliest physical appointment was August, HA! Awesome). I'll take a migraine pill preventatively when I know I will be prone to getting an attack (cost-wise, it will only be slightly more expensive than the Mr. T). I'll drink more water, be very serious about avoiding migraine triggers during That Time, and since it's summer, do everything I can to avoid heat exhaustion.

And we'll see where that gets me.

That's Plan B, part 1.

The reason this whole bad cycle of increased migraines kicked off in the first place was the work stress. And the work stress is, in fact, worse now that my boss is so totally pissed at me for being the mental equivalent of a cod for the past 6 months. Imagine how awful each week's status call is when I can hear in her voice how angry and frustrated she is. Now imagine it as even worse. Feel your stomach knot up with the thought of talking to her. Lay in bed and worry about it. Can you taste the bile in the back of your throat? Yeah, it's not something I think I can recover from, and even if so, even if the stress gets better - I am not sure if that will be soon enough. So I think I need to look for something else. Even telling myself that makes me feel a little better. I know I don't have a lot of hope of finding something, at least not something that is in my salary range where I can work from home and have 10% travel. But we'll see.

In the meantime, I need to kick off some sort of exercise routine, because I know that's proven to help. Eat properly, keep sugar levels appropriate. Get good sleep (ahahahahahaha).

Could be better.

Could be worse!

I just know I'm never living through a Spring like that ever, ever again.

Wanted: Time to Stop

2011-06-03T05:55:00.001-07:00

I moved to Raleigh 16, wait, almost 17 years ago now. Yep, 17 years at the end of this summer. The first year I worked in daycare, that was 1994. 1995 I was back in Canada, for Teacher’s College. 1996 I came back to Raleigh, and was substitute teaching, and working part-time at JC Penney’s in their jewelry department. There was a Mother’s Day sale, and because of my employee discount, combined with that great deal I decided to buy a ring.

All of you who have been reading my blog for a while now know that I am a planner, but you may not know just how much of a planner I really am. It’s true that I am already looking forward to a future event when the next one has not yet arrived, and that I get little shivers of delight when I open up a Word document to create a brand-spankin’ new checklist for a trip or a task. I like things to happen the way they are suppose to happen – a schedule to flow like clockwork, nothing to be forgotten, everything to be in its place. We all know that real life intervenes and things rarely turn out that way, but I do everything I can to ensure that the rules are followed in strict accordance, arbitrary rules that I make up based on my own childhood experiences or just the way I think things should be in my cute little crazy head.

I tell you this long and boring background story so that you have some idea of just how tense something like a happy child’s birthday party makes me. Yes, it’s a fun thing, but even though I know it’s not going to be perfect and things are going to go wrong and there will be things I can’t control that will make me insane, I still carry around this vision of the ideal day, and the pressure of trying to deliver to it makes me sick to my stomach. Yep, I totally bring it on myself, I know that. Doesn’t help.

As you know I’d been planning Jelly’s Third Birthday Extravaganza for some time. Despite the fact I swore after last year’s exhausting event to NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN, and that this year would BE DIFFERENT, I again found myself up at 6 am the morning of the anniversary of the day of her birth, sighing heavily at the gorgeous little girl (WHO SLEPT IN TIL AMOST EIGHT!!!! EIGHT!!) and lugging various ridiculous party accoutrements into my backyard. An inflatable pool. A bounce house with a water slide. A 3-person slip 'n slide. Another inflatable pool. Coolers. Tables. Stop to sweat and curse my stupid ideals.

The weather, oh the weather! Totally cooperated. Sunny and beautiful, hot but with a nice breeze. With a few minor hilarious hijinks, the bounce house and crazily fun pool went up. Everyone came. The pizza arrived precisely on time. The cake was delicious. I wanted to die every single second, but Jenny had a complete and utter blast, and her friends cried when they had to leave because they had so much fun, and that’s a good party.

Somebody may have poisoned the water hole, but there are no snakes in this cake! I was traumatized because it was not enough, but I thought the kids would go for the cupcakes. Silly me. Oh well. That's what happens when you put a pack of chocolate fudge pudding and an entire bag of chocolate chips in a cake.

Yee-HAW! Whatever you do, don't call her a cowgirl. She's a cowBOY. Hilarious. Check out that three-year-old-Bean, can you believe it?!
There were lots of good lookin' cowboys at the party. The Ta totally rocked it.

Aunt Jen, the official party photographer, giving us some guns.

My Jellybean. A very, very happy little girl, who spent 548 hours in this fantastic Intex pool purchased on Craigslist for $40.

The ring I bought? I bought for my future daughter. My mother doesn’t have a lot of jewelry, and certainly no family heirlooms to speak of. I sure as heck didn’t have anything, I had just come out of college. So I decided to buy one. A stunning set of opals (because, you know, it’s bad luck to buy them for yourself). Yes, so what I’m saying is that 15 years ago, 12 years before Jenny was even born, I bought a ring that I could give to her on her 16^th birthday that would already have a story. It could have turned out badly, and I could have ended up with a sad little ring buried in a drawer in a box forever bringing me bad luck. Sometimes being a crazy compulsive planner works out, and sometimes it backfires. I got lucky with her birthday this year, again. But, yeah. That's how messed up I am. Just so you know the kind of therapy I SHOULD be getting.

The camping trip? Oooh, wait til you hear about THAT. I'll give you a hint. There was lots of rain, but rain didn't fit into my plans, so I chose to ignore it.

Happy Birthday, my 38-inch, 43.5lb 3-year old girl!

Literacy - It's What's For Bedtime

2011-05-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

Since I prefer ~~stealing~~ borrowing other people’s good ideas rather than going to all the effort of coming up with creative ideas of my own, I figured I’d take DannieA’s totally cute idea and share what we’re reading right now. This is a book house, through and through. When I was young, until I was in about the third grade, I lived in the small town my parents currently reside in again (they actually live in a house one block away from the house I fondly remember on Wellington Street). When I was a little girl the train still ran through town, and the public library was walking distance from our house, a small circular brick building, now engulfed by a much larger addition.

When I was in college working on my English degree I worked in that same library and then my college library, which meant I got first dibs at the annual book sales to paw through the dusty donations of inappropriate joke books and endless incomplete encyclopedia collections. During Teacher’s College in Ottawa, I took every opportunity to buy books, figuring I was building what would one day be my classroom collection. And when I was working in daycare, well, who could pass up those Scholastic deals? Then preparing for single motherhood – you can imagine I might have gone a little overboard in purchasing the ‘you may not have a dad but you’re still most likely going to be normal’ type stuff. So needless to say, Jelly has quite the varied collection.

Right now on the nightstand;

So Many Bunnies. We just rescued this one a few weeks ago from a local used bookstore, Pauper's Books. Tata wins for telling us about it, the place is awesome. So Many Bunnies is cute because it's both a counting book AND an alphabet book, and Jellybean likes that one of the bunnies sleeps in a trellis.

Bats at the Library (she’s getting Bats at the Beach for her birthday, and I can’t wait to read it. ALSO she's getting a little stuffed bat! Squee! So cute!). Beautifully illustrated, this is one of those books where the rhythm of it is so perfect it's a joy to read aloud, and I love a story that sucks you in ABOUT stories sucking you in. Maybe it's the librarian in me that finds a secret pleasure in teaching children to love and respect books, I'm not sure. But if you are one of those people who knows the statistics about reading to your kids and how they're going to be smarter, better, faster, solve all the world's problems, take care of you in your old age - you'll love this book.

J is for Jellybean (this)

The Z Was Zapped, a wonderful alphabet book where horrible things happen to all the letters of the alphabet. I collect children's picture books in general, but especially alphabet books. This is one of my very favorites.

And, finally, Sam Sheep Can't Sleep. I like this one because it's phonics-friendly, she likes it because it's repetitive and she thinks she can read it because she's got it memorized. There are also some fold-out flap pages, which is neat. You gotta love Usborne books.

She’d have me read 20 more a night if I’d let her. Every few weeks I make her rotate them out. If it was up to her we’d read a Clifford or Berenstain Bears book every night, but they make me insane after a while. I love Robert Munsch books, but I’ve found she’s still too young for them, so they’ll have to wait a little while yet.

She's also getting a couple more pop-up Bug books for her birthday;

And this - look, so cute;

I'm a sucker for books for kids with their names in the titles. I try to find books like that for my niece and nephew.

I'll let you know what she thinks.

The Eagles Have Landed

2011-05-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

The parents are here! Is there any sight more beautiful than a very, very worn-out little girl who sleeps in til SEVEN O'CLOCK AM for the first time in like, a zillion years, then positively BOUNDS out of bed to race into her room where her grandparents are (she's sleeping in the playroom on her old crib mattress, which I smartly kept) to greet them with several cheery 'Good mornin'!'s while telling them what each and every item in her room is? Like, 'and dis is is my bunny, and deese are my Dora curtains, and here's my slippers, dey are too small, haha!'. Most entertaining.

After my dad made us all coffee and oatmeal, I trotted off upstairs to my room to work (my brother is in my office/spare room, he sleeps til noon since his meds make him tired) and my ever-patient mother sat down to play -wait for it - playdough. What a nice Nana she is. I, personally, would prefer to be working, I think.

Tonight we will all go to her little soccer practice, which will be very exciting for Ms. Bean, especially since she will get an early birthday present beforehand, and it's a Toy Story 3 soccer ball. Then tomorrow is Thursday, and I have to find last-minute extra party favors and sheriff badges, because apparently there are going to be 18 children here Saturday, who knew? And just think, that's me being tough with the invite list. I'm just excited I got the rope I was hoping to find at the AgriSupply place. And a coffee percolator. Did I mention we're going camping the weekend after the party? Eh, why not. It's an excuse to make another list right away, hurray!

All is Calm, All is Bright

2011-05-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

I feel like some sort of pioneer woman. Not the kind who has to get up at 4am and milk a cow without even the distraction of playing Angry Birds, or The Pioneer Woman, who is crazy awesome, but the kind who each day has a set chore. Monday, dusting*. Tuesday, vacuuming. Today was laundry. See, if I did this kind of thing everyday, shit wouldn't totally fall apart like it did. Well, and also there was that bone-crushing winter/spring of migraines and Topamax and allergies and depression and such, but still. I see now why those women did it this way. The tackle-one-thing-at-a-time, grinding routine of it is manageable and soothing.

Since today was Laundry, I caught up on Jellybean's billion little dirty socks (why do they ALL have to be inside out? Every single one? Argh.), switched over all my summer stuff (STOP BUYING GREEN CARGO CAPRI PANTS), filled a bag for Goodwill, and filled a Rubbermaid bin for consignment. Sweet! My deal is, if I didn't wear something at all last season, I have to get rid of it. Harsh, but fair.

Jelly will be coming home soon with her extra clothes from preschool, since Tuesday will be her last official day. My parents and brother will be here after that, so she'll be out next Thursday, and then the following Tuesday is the end-of-year picnic. It's going to be a hard adjustment when she realizes it's done. Even worse, I realized there are only 3 soccer classes left! WTF?! 10 weeks has FLOWN by. I love Coach Josh, and I adore the Canadian dude who owns the company. But summer means swimming, so it's time to move on. Will one of you please tell her no more soccer either?

The forecast for the next week is nothing but rain. Because I am compulsive, I have of course looked at the 10-day forecast for her birthday party, and as of now it is a 40% chance of rain also. All you internet fairies must clap your hands very, very hard, because it MUST NOT RAIN for her party. There is to be no end of the world on May 21st, and there is to be no rain. It is to be sunny, and 80 degrees, and all will be well.

*I did not dust.

Just So You Know

2011-05-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

... how seriously crazy I am. I am bleaching my toothbrush holder. Yes, people, that is the level of cleaning I feel I have to do. And it isn't that my mum is judgmental. True, she once cleaned my oven WHILE I WAS BAKING SOMETHING. But she's been a lot better, and would never in a billion years actually say anything to me. I bring it all entirely on myself.

My toothbrush holder. Like, the green glass cup I keep my toothbrush in. Really.

Well, at least it will be nice and clean and, uh, hygienic.

Mother’s Day Your Way

2011-05-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

That was the title of the daily Parenting email-spam-that-I-need-to-unsubscribe-from-because-I-never-read-them thing that I received last week. Why did I even bother reading it? I knew it wasn’t going to apply to me, because they never do. Mother’s Day is a day for the Typical Mother, the one in the Ideal Family. You know, woman + man + child. Not single mom. Not mom + mom, or dad + dad, or divorced mom, or desperately trying to become pregnant woman, or adoptive parent, or, god forbid, mom-who-has-lost-a-child. Or any of the other wonderful or sad or bittersweet combinations that exist out there that people may identify with that may mean they see or hear the words ‘Mother’s Day’ and cringe, because for them, it is not exactly a happy day.

Some women wake up on Mother’s Day and receive burnt toast in bed, with handmade cards and flowers, and they smile with an ‘Oh, you!’ look. There is a dinner, later, in a restaurant that they don’t have to pay for themselves (the dinner, not the restaurant), and maybe a gift that they will gripe about to their friends because it is an appliance or ill-fitting lingerie. If they are really lucky, there is jewelry. And, you know. Sex stuff.

This is not the life of the single mother.

The single mother does not bemoan the fact that she only gets one celebration a year, because she still wakes up, feeds and dresses a little person, and cleans up all the messes. If there is dinner in a restaurant, she makes the reservation, and drives herself there and sits alone amid all the couples, and fights with a waiter to order something that is not a ‘For Two’ special, and pays for it herself (the same is true on Valentine’s Day). She still does the laundry and the cleaning, and there is no gift or bouquet or handmade card, at least not until the kid is older.

I have a newly separated friend who I went to dinner with this year, and I hope she avoided the propaganda. The Mother’s Day Your Way email suggests ‘giving your husband a list of “services you crave” so your kids can create coupons for you, like getting a manicure, sleeping in, soaking in the tub for an hour etc., the kind of stuff you kind of need a husband around to do. I think I just look at Mother’s Day differently than the Typical Mother, I guess. I don’t look at it as my one day a year where I am pampered, or where The Dad does everything or whatever. I order myself flowers (this year it’s a bouquet of Thai basil! I read from my online supplier that if you get it with long stems, it will continue growing in a vase for weeks, who knew?! They had some special for Mother’s Day flown in from Hawaii, it’s gorgeous and smells amazing), and sometimes I go out to dinner, and basically am just happy to be a mom. I know that’s not very special from any other day, but I don’t need a calendar to tell me that I’m lucky to have Jellybean, or to remind me that I’ve got a great mother myself.

Whatever kind you are, I hope you had a good one.

I am in pre-birthday planning hell. My parents and brother will be here a week from tomorrow, which means the house that didn’t get cleaned for basically, well, all winter, has been getting chipped away at the past few weeks in every spare second. In between stress migraines. Yes, it seems work is the source of all my woes, including the IBS issues. I am now on a totally dairy-free diet, which, in addition to giving up drinking, caffeine and nitrates because of the migraines, is making me a very sad camper. So the job will be the next thing to go, because life just cannot continue in this manner. But I don’t know the right answer there. Sooooooo… I’ll get through the next few weeks and think about it some more then.

Photo Book

2011-05-09T07:18:00.001-07:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Hippity Hoppity

2011-04-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

We're counting down - this time tomorrow we should (c'mon, Delta!) be in the 'Nati, on our way to a long weekend of cousins and too much to eat and staying up too late and belly laughs and some drinks with a high alcohol content. And lots and lots of 'choklit' for one little girl.

This one.

Who, an Easter not so very long ago, was this one.
Her Easter basket will be filled with utter ridiculousness. I bought one of those little baby Build-a-Bear creatures, a panda bear, RANDOMLY, with two little outfits. One of them is an Easter outfit. Yes, they saw me coming. But yesterday morning, when Jelly was getting dressed, wouldn't you know it, talking about Easter she said, NO LIE, 'The Easter Bunny will bring me treats and choklit and a panda!'. Toddlers are strange, strange creatures.

I also got one of those electronic eggs that calls out to the kid when you hide it. I played with it for a little while and found it pretty annoying, so we'll see how that goes over with The Bean. There are some soccer-ball plastic eggs, and a little egg that you put in water and it hatches into a little duck, which I REALLY wanted to play with, and some little baby chocolate chicks because DAMNIT 'Max and Ruby', if there wasn't a chocolate chicken in that basket there was going to be hell to pay come Easter morning. I figured I'd wait til I got to Cincinnati to get the actual basket and anything else, like an accordion or live pony (actually, I really need to get a replacement harmonica, but those are unsurprisingly hard to find). Oh, and I got one of those inflatable bunnies. They're hard to find! I bought two, an extra for next year just in case. That was my fondest memory of Easter. I hope it squeaks.

I feel silly, but it seems like parents go all out for Easter nowadays. I was totally taken aback by the Valentine's stuff this year; it's like we have to make every holiday Christmas. To be fair, my parents gave us toys for Easter, but that's because they were hippies so we didn't get chocolate or candy, so we got toys to make up for the lack of delicious sugar surprises. I would have much preferred a giant hollow chocolate bunny to a skipping rope or kite. Although I really did love that red satin baseball jacket, I would never have traded that for jellybeans or crappy Peeps.

Anyone else going crazy, or am I the only one?

**Note: I actually bought 3 Build-a-Bear outfits for the stupid panda. That I am going to have to dress.

I think they're calling it bipolar now

2011-04-19T06:18:00.001-07:00

I received a blog award from the very sweet DannieA over at It’s You and Me Kid!, where she blogs about being a single mama to her adopted daughter whom she refers to as 'Tigger', which I think is freaking adorable. Like winning any blog award, there are rules you are suppose to follow, like graciously thanking the person who nominated you (thanks!), and then blah blah blah. Which I am not going to do, because OMG there are way too many things to do this week. Sorry. You already know more than 10 things about me, and there’s no way in hell I could come up with 15 recently discovered bloggers, because I only read the same people over and over, because who has time for those kinds of shenanigans? Hello, I have a toddler, I fall on my lumpy filthy couch with an equally dirty blanket half-covering me at 8:20 pm and lay there, comatose, paying attention to really neither my laptop nor the TV on Law & Order SVU until 10pm, at which time I crawl upstairs to my bed filled with mismatched slippers shaped like either dogs or Santas and die. Err, fall asleep. But I will still take the damn award, since I am obviously a versatile blogger; I can write lovely, happy posts, and I can write moody, self-pitying posts. Look at my range. Do you think Jelly will know her mother is manic depressive? Eh, I figure as long as there are more highs than lows, or at least more middles, things are still ok.

All the World's a Sunny Day

2011-04-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

Having a penchant for carnival-style birthday parties means tightening my purse strings in other areas (no, really; when I close my eyes and picture Jellybean’s Third Birthday Party there are entertainers on stilts riding unicycles juggling flaming batons, and those people don’t come cheap). Since I obviously can’t cut back on beach trips or extravagances like toilet paper and deodorant, I was looking at doing Jenny’s 3-year pictures myself. Then my good friend Scattermom, who has taken many an awesome informal playdate pic of The Jelly, came up with a deal I couldn’t refuse; if we would be her guinea pigs, she would do our pics. See, she is doing a photography class here and there with some sort of ADHD-attention to it that I don’t understand but really want her to finish, because she has incredible talent and I think she could make a lot of money (even though that’s not suppose to be important, screw it, it’s always important, hello, it’s money). Anyhow, I gave her permission to use our pics however she wants; for her portfolio, for Facebook advertising, for French modeling, whatever; and she does all the work – for free.

AWESOME deal for me, how could I refuse? Also, she brought me breakfast. She's a really good friend, did I mention that?

So that’s how Jellybean and I ended up spending a totally great, relaxed, gorgeous morning yesterday at a beautiful park with a wonderful friend, playing and talking and having the occasional cup of imaginary tea. And getting some absolutely beautiful pictures of my soon-to-be three-year-old girl.

I think the local folks should comment about how they’d love her to do their pics and how she needs to finish the damn class and start her own business. Except for my usual photographer, who has a right to want to have some sort of Photographer Fight Club thing. Except that Shannon is extremely gracious and would probably instead offer to sell her old equipment for a great deal or something like that, or give her tips. Hmm, now that I think about it, Scattermom did say she would want to do this with a partner, so maybe an introduction is in order…

Look at this gorgeous, great big almost-three-year old girl. She IS a Rock Star.

How old are you going to be in May, Jenny? Ah, ok.
Two ladies, enjoying some tea. She has a paint-your-own china tea set coming her way for her birthday that I think she is going to enjoy VERY much.

She wanted to do some fishin'. Her grandfather (and great-grandfather, and several uncles) would be very proud.
Friday is Cincinnati – time to start packing! Just kidding, you know I’m already packed.

Hope everyone has a good week. Jelly is at Miss Nicole's while MsD is on vacation at a fabulous beach house. Spring Break here for many. I hope she does ok. It's a four-day week for me, so that is exciting.

Oh - and a tornado almost hit my house Saturday. Yes. It was kinda scary here Saturday in NC. I have to call the city and see about getting a new garbage can, so I'm one of the lucky ones. Something like 91 tornadoes in all touched down around the area, I think, setting a new record. Yeah, tell me again we're not doing anything to the environment. So apparently now we need more money in the budget to get more snow plows AND some air raid sirens in Raleigh.

And finally, some last bits of pretty for your week.

Look how lucky that lady there is. Don't worry, she knows it.

Also, I bought that outfit a year ago. I'm so compulsive. It's from Gymboree (online) if you love it as much as I do. Or, I have one that's gently worn for sale that I'll give you a deal on.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2011-04-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Okey dokey, folks, where were we. Had some sleep, doing a little better. You can tell because I started this post with ‘okey dokey’ and not hysterical sobbing. Also, because I actually wrote something. Although, interestingly, you could tell things were starting to get bad because I started writing a lot and I got really funny. I get punchy when I’m tired, and I want to avoid real life. So while you were probably entertained, it was a bad sign. So if you’re enjoying my blog in the future – call for help.

So, yes, the awesome MsD took the kid for a night so I got two extra scoops of sleep which apparently was what I needed to catch me back up and make me feel more like a normal person and less like someone who eyed the vodka a little too lovingly. Work is still making me pop the Tums, but nothing I can do about that for the time being except keep treading water and gulping air when I can, so that’s the short-term plan and maybe when my parents are here and I have even MORE sleep, I can take some time to look at the whole thing a little more objectively and see if I can’t patch some holes and get things back on track a little better.

In the meantime, it’s almost Easter.

And you know what that means.

Since last year you got The Bunny Cake, this year I give you – Jellybean Mama’s Easter Cupcakes. Yes, it’s true, I do not like to do anything the easy way. I like to do things the cute way, or the funny way, or the irritating way. But never the quick or easy way. Especially not when it comes to making a splash in the preschool classroom. That class has the worst parent participation I’ve ever seen. But it makes it that much easier to ~~show everyone up~~ provide a nice special treat for the kiddies.

You start with your basic cupcake. This year I went with Cherry Chip. It felt Spring-y. And look how cute those little papers are! To be honest, I may have bought several different varieties. I have LOTS of baking supplies.

So then you tint some coconut. And then you tint your fingers. Then you tint your counters and floor, and your socks for weeks to come. A year from now, you’ll wonder why something has green on it for no good reason, but by then it will be St. Patrick's Day and time to dye something green anyhow so it won't really matter.

See where I’m going with this?

Ok, yes, it is kind of easy.

But then – what’s this? Hopping down the bunny trail?

I was kind of tired by the end, so got a little careless with snipping the marshmallows, so some of the ears were a little devil-horn looking. And the Twizzlers were dirty sticky bitches, so you may have noticed that some of the devil bunnies do not have whiskers. I appreciate that you kept silent about that. Regardless, the little preschool children were all very happy with them apparently, although I did not get to attend the party because my evil job meant I had to fill in on an important call for my boss who got called out of town.

So cute, she did not want to let go of her basket for an instant.

I'm saddened because tomorrow, the Day of 1000 Easter Egg Hunts, is also SEVERE WEATHER WARNING day. Hail, seriously? This time last year we were berry picking and going to the lake and doing all kinds of awesome much-warmer-weather things. I mean, I know I complain when the weather is too hot too soon, but some places are still getting snow. That is just silly. But I gotta tell you, it was nice to not sweat at the Ren Faire last weekend.

My fairy princess - with a sword. Mama is so proud. Hit mama on her arm guards, sweetie.

Next topic, please.

2011-04-07T07:19:00.001-07:00

That was it, I swear. I will post about something different next. Like, something actually about the cute kid, or this @#$%! pollen, or the horrible job, or the fact that I'm suppose to be planning a 3rd birthday party but this year, I just can't find the energy or motivation to do it, and people that attended last year's extravaganza tease me about how it's going to be so big and awesome and I want to cry. Or that maybe the meds are causing a teensy bit of depression after all. Who knew?! So that's interesting. The good news is we're coming into summer, which is the Jellybean household busy season, so there will be lots of things to keep us ocupado, and I know a lot of the problem is I'm super behind on sleep. But my parents will be here next month, and my awesome caregiver has offered to keep Jelly for a sleepover when cousin J and I celebrate her birthday next month, so I just need to pull it together a bit and then beg my mum to help me clean the house before people show up. Or have it at the McDonald's up the street.

I have no words

2011-04-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

SW Kangaroo Seeks Same

2011-04-04T06:51:00.001-07:00

There I was, feeling all sorry for myself. Not only did I get sent a Grab Bag where all the gum was stale, the toys were broken, and the jokes were unfunny, but when I did try eating the candy I broke a tooth. Then a wonderful thing happened.

Please see #4 of this post. Go on. I’ll wait. I didn’t go to the spa, have a good meal, or get good news. But The Ta did get an email with HER matches. Oh boy. Boy oh boy oh boy. Yes, I got matched with Dude with Dog, and George Costanza. But I didn’t get this. What was he thinking? ‘If I post a pic of me with my hot sister, maybe the ladies will think that this is my last girlfriend/ex-wife/victim, and they will look past the unforgiveable moustache and they’ll go out with me’. His handle I assume is suppose to be ‘Where’s Cupid’ but he misspelled it, so it’s ‘We’re’s Cupid’, which doesn’t has the same cute charm but kind of makes sense when you then look at his profile pic. He wants you to know you must love dogs and being in or around water and he misses a woman’s soft wet passionate kissing, but I may have mixed that up; he may miss being in or around water and kissing soft passionate dogs.

Peekaboo! God is watching you!

Now, this dude actually messaged me several times yesterday. It made me mad enough to post to my Atheist Moms group, because my profile clearly states I am not religious. I know that several of you are, and I respect that, even if it may seem at times I do not. The majority of my extended family is Catholic, and while my immediately family are non-believers, I think it’s important, like everything else in life, be it sexual orientation or people who drink Diet Coke or whatever, to be open minded. Except for damn hippies, I mean, even wolves let their children eat meat, c’mon. (*I’m joking, JR and I eat several vegetarian meals, and as long as you eat healthy protein substitutes I support your choice, don’t freak out and get your crystal-sweaty-pits all worked up). It’s just that I’m pretty firm in my non-belief, and if someone is firm in their belief-belief, then we’re just not going to see eye-to-eye. So don’t message me. It’s like if you don’t like kids. I finally added a separate line, in case they skipped past the ‘Religion’ and ‘Children’ section, that says, ‘If you love Jesus and hate children, please don’t contact me’. I figured that was simple and polite, and would save some people some time. But still, people like our friend DJ KJ-Spin here (does working in a karaoke bar count as being a DJ?), they don’t get it. Or maybe they think they’re going to convert me. I do love ‘Spirit in the Sky’, so I dunno, maybe there is some wiggle room there.

But the very best part. The pants-wetting part. Was this.

This, my friends, is a rare treat. This is an unemployed (SHOCKER) 43-year old who lists ‘Graduated from Space Camp’ under Education and was apparently an Alter boy. I guess that’s what they use to call Emo kids back in the day? I didn’t even realize kangaroos were so homophobic. And yes, this is his only picture. I’d go into more details, but nothing else is going to surprise you.

And THAT’S when I discovered I was accidentally logged into The Ta's profile. Somehow clicking on the photo link she’d sent me had given me full unlimited access. I rubbed my hands together and made a ‘mwah ha ha!’ noise, because that meant I could check out all kinds of freaky dudes and they would think it was her doing it. Also, I learned that she had a message in her inbox from someone who looked exactly like Paul Reubens, which made me a little jealous until I read his extremely creepy profile. I was tempted to start Winking all over the place at random transvestites and guys who had hand puppets featured prominently in their profile pictures, but doing things like that almost always tends to backfire on me. Plus, chances were I would accidentally fall in love with one of the creepy guys, and that was NOT a story I wanted to tell a lap full of grandchildren who looked suspiciously like Pee Wee Herman.

So I spent a little time looking up the creepy dudes who messaged her, but they were similar to the creepy dudes who messaged me, just older and more Christian but looking for women even younger and more blonde, so it just depressed me even more, and she doesn’t have her Chat feature disabled, so I started to get a little concerned because dudes were pinging her and getting kind of irritated the ‘she’ wasn’t answering them, and I didn’t want stalkers showing up at her doorstep all angry for no good reason, so I figured I’d better log out.

But the drama continues, because the Nice Jewish Boy (NJB now for short) has messaged me back. It turns out he had his daughter last week so was busy (totally believable and understandable, so I’ll give him a pass on that one). He said there is no religion issue (we’ll see on that one). Will continue to keep you posted. Also got a message from ‘Damien Eternal’. Everyone, let’s all groan together. UGHHHHHH. And, DELETE.

Happy Monday! It’s a gorgeous, sunny warm Monday here. I want to slit my writs from the slutty allergies that are making me and JR want to die. It was otherwise a very pleasant weekend. Hope everyone has a lovely, kangaroo-free week.

Update

2011-04-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

A quick update since this day is getting away from me and I wanted to round out my highly successful week of posting. I can't stop reading that last post, it cracks even me up. Seriously, look at those guys. Ahh, you gotta laugh.

The dude I messaged was scared off. He probably peed himself in fear and went and messaged some nice quiet girl and they went to dinner at Applebee's and drove off in their separate beige Camry's and had a very pleasant time.

However, our nice Bottom Left messaged me. He didn't enrage me with an offensive opening line like 'hay u r an extremely sexy lady' or 'coffee, tea, me turned over your knee, or all three?' (to that dude I wrote back, 'sadly, there is no fifth option, so I decline') and seemed reasonably literate and coherent, so I wrote him back. I was straight up and pointed out the whole no-church-y thing again, though, just in case he'd missed it. And I can tell by his logon time that he saw my message. But no response. Better now than later.

There's still Dude with Dog.

EDIT: OMG YES I hate it when fat guys are like, 'No fatties'. WTF?!!!! Are you all muscle mass over there or something? Do you think I got this gut from pounding beers, no, I HAD A BABY. So at least I have an excuse. Also, I went through a period when I ate cheese fries a lot when I was depressed. A LOT. BUT STILL. Sheesh.

By Request Only

2011-03-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine suggested I devote a post to internet dating, but the very thought of it depressed me. Why? Because internet dating depresses me. The whole thing is sad. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there, wonderful people, with lots to offer. Good cooks, great lovers, wonderful parents; men and women who, given the chance and right circumstances, would make a terrific partner for some lucky person. So they sit themselves down and do their best to sell themselves in so many words or pictures, then sit back and are judged on their likes and dislikes, their income and weight, and their spelling and grammar. Some people lie, and some people neglect to share important bits of information about themselves, and some people are covered head to toe in tattoos and are recovering meth addicts who use to weigh 490 lbs. But most of them are just lonely, and hopeful, and a bit desperate to be happy, and I hate being one of them.

However, since I was sent an email today with a rather innocuous-looking collection of photos of single gentlemen, I figured there was no time like the present. Plus it meant I could sneak in another post today. Check me out!

So here. Let’s look at my latest offerings. Luckily I did not have to weed anyone out immediately due to an unfortunate hat (cowboy, top, or crown), hand puppet, or inclusion of latest kill in their profile pic.

I only trust two people out of all these guys. Can you guess which two? No cheating. Write down your guesses on a piece of paper before we begin. Look, it's like a little game, how exciting. You didn't think you'd get all this from my blog now, did you. If you don’t have a piece of paper, feel free to use whatever’s handy. Old receipt, dirty napkin, used tissue, I’m not particular. And now you’re starting to understand more about why I’m using online dating.

Alright, ready? Let’s break it down, starting with Top Left.

First of all, we’ve got Non-Smiler, Slightly Angled. He is trying to show he’s serious, but a little wacky, I guess. He dropped out of a PhD program and hasn’t found much more motivation since, apparently. He lists his favorite shoes. He shares a foot fungus story. If you are wondering why his main photo is one where he isn’t smiling, well, the photos where he IS smiling are worse because he looks like a serial killer. He plays guitar (DEATH! Why do guys on internet dating sites think this is hot to girls?! Is it 1962 again?!). Let's move on quickly, the foot fungus story was the highlight here.

Next up is My Future’s So Bright, My Face is Eating My Sunglasses. He wants to know if you are ready to submit your “flight plan” (his air quotes, not mine). I give him kudos for having the balls to list the Spin Doctors under his musical faves, but then take the points away because now I’ll have that shitty song in my head for the rest of the weekend. I take more points away because he lists ‘the smell of a woman’ as one of the things he couldn’t live without and I went ‘ewwwwwww’ in my head. Obviously he doesn’t know what a woman really smells like. He has a realistic age range, so he got points back, and we actually had a fair amount in common as far as TV shows and that kind of stuff. I was searching his quiz answers, wondering why he was hiding behind the shades and therefore setting off my alarm bells when I found the answer – this dude does NOT like the fatties. No ma’am, not one bit. Therefore we shall keep going.

Finishing off the top row with a snazzy black and white photo op is Mr. GoodFellow. Mr. GF does not realize how many guys online have online profiles where they are nicknamed ‘GoodFellow’ or variations thereof. The worst ones are the ones like ‘Ilovemykids’. You know, I didn’t call myself ‘BigTits’ or ‘WillHelpYouMove’. Ugh. Bait. I hate bait. So anyhow, Mr. Marketing Himself here with his Glamour Shots photo is 40, but looking to date someone between the ages of 32-39, so sadly I’m out of his age range. He’s a short, balding Christ-fearing man who does not drink. Quite the catch, George Costanza, I’ll be crying into my drink all night over the loss. With my gorgeous, luxurious hair.

Moving to the middle row and Dude with Dog – Now, this is a good one. Innocent-seeming enough, 43 years old, Research Scientist, likes playing World of Warcraft. Married. Polyamorous. Looking for some more friends to play games with. I just knew something was off with that one. If you picked him for me – SHAME ON YOU. SHAME!

Ok, Mr. Middleman. He’s one of the two I trusted. Ummmm... yeah. I have nothing bad to say about him. I would propose to him tonight if I could be sure I could get him on the phone. I'll work on that one. I even like his shirt.

Phone Dude – He looks like he’s in an AT&T commercial for Unlimited Nights and Weekends. Look how happy he is, talking all he wants, free from worry about paying for those nights and weekends. In his profile he talks about how he likes to ‘smile at babies’ TWICE, just in case you missed it the first time, so you know he’s sincere. He’s a lawyer, so the high-maintenance catalog-looking photo may be real. Says he likes chick flicks. Mentions his 3-lb Maltese an awkward amount. Uses the word ‘metrosexual’ and you can hear the pride in his voice. My lifestyle upset his lifestyle just by reading his profile. I can't even be angry. Look at him! Sell me something!

Bottom Left is the total opposite. This is the other dude I trusted, 41, looking for women 28-42. He’s a Jew who loves his 5-year old little girl and has a couple of dogs. He makes a decent salary. He’s a bit of a schlub but I respect that. Not a lot there for us, but at least he’s not going to try to vacuum me with a dust buster, or make me give him a blow job to the Spin Doctors.

That brings us to Bottom Row Middle, and I just have to heave a heavy sigh when someone’s profile starts out with, ‘I am a paradox in many ways’. In his other pic he’s wearing a Superman t-shirt. He’s 40, looking to date women 25-40. Scratch that, not looking to date, looking for ‘activity partners’. *sigh* again. I bet most of you would have picked this one for me, right? Kinda nerdy, you thought you had this one pegged. Nope, I knew this one was trouble. That smile is too eager, it's dangerous. Guess what – he also likes DESSERT! This type would shyly ask you if you wanted to take a shower with him, then you’d turn around and he’d have an empty beer bottle in his hand. True story. Horrible, true story.

Aw, Grandpa! Hurray, I’m in his 40-53 age range! This is a great example of the kind of guy who is always messaging The Ta. The old dudes LOVE The Ta. Sadly, his profile has been updated that he is currently dating a cute blonde, so he is off the market. Of course. See, all the good ones are taken. He’s so precious. His profile says he’s trying to learn Crystal Reports, and that he likes fresh tomatoes and biscuits. I seriously giggle when I get messages from guys like this because it feels so wrong. I’m like, 28 in my head. That is just gross. Then I sober up and want to die, and look longingly at the profiles of the 22 year old dudes, and realize I better meet someone before Jenny starts bringing boyfriends home.

In the process of writing this, I was messaged by a number of guys. The danger of accessing your online profile is that it refreshes, meaning, it shows you are online or active. I received a very tempting email from a Fabio38. No lie. Fabio is in town only a short time. He knows we probably don’t have a whole lot in common, but thinks we’d have a lot of fun together. I at least like that there’s no pretense, that he is upfront about not wanting anything more. I don’t think he needs to sign it ‘hugs’, I would prefer he be honest and sign it ‘roofies’, but hey, whatever.

I did get mad enough to go back through my old messages and find a semi-decent guy I’d ignored in the past, and sent him a scathing message practically demanding he meet me for coffee and a lap dance. I figured it’s been a while since you guys have been entertained with a good blind-date story, and I want to prove that I really am not totally closed off to dating, and so picky and particular that no one is good enough, despite my incredibly harsh review of the Island of Misfit Toys above. So I’ll let you know if the poor unsuspecting victim bites. Or just nibbles gently.

Much Ado About Nothing

2011-03-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

I know, right, ANOTHER post from me this week! Can you tell it’s a really, really bad work week? Let’s all say ‘procrastinate’ with Jellybean Mama, ok? Pro-cras-ti-nate. Because, you know, that HELPS get all the nasty work done. I was tagged earlier in the month by a lovely blogger over yonder. The Rules Are:

Rule #1: The tagged person must write their answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

Rule #2: Tag 4 people to do this quiz; they cannot refuse (OK, so nothing bad will happen if you don’t participate but I would love to see your answers). The tagee must state who tagged them.

1. If you have pets, do you see them as merely animals or are they members of your family?

Nemo is NOT a member of the family. Nemo is a fish that, based on my track record with fish and the fact that Jenny loves to hug things, I thought would most definitely be dead by now, enabling me to have a nice discussion about life and death with Jellybean, having a respectful grieving period, then moving along in the chain in a year or so to the next repulsive adorable pet she begged me for.

2. If you could have a dream come true, what would it be?

Husband, more kids, stay home.

3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
I was actually thinking about this on the way home from drop-off this morning, because I would love to put a hedge maze in my backyard. It’s just so darn big and barren. A hedge maze would be awesome. But then, so would a pool. And a pool would be more realistic, and better for resale value. But since I’m going to move anyhow, doing either would be kind of silly. So I’d do what anyone else would do – pay off the debt, invest, get lipo. Then I’d take my mum to Costa Rica, open a children’s bookstore, and hang out there when I wasn’t in the Caribbean. I might throw some at charities and other family members/friends also. If they suck up accordingly.

4. What helps to pull you out of a bad mood?
Hearing about other people’s misery. The spa. A really good meal. Good news.

5. What is your bedtime routine?
Watch TV after kid is down around 8:10 while checking email etc. on laptop with Salt & Vinegar chips. Bed around 10:30pm. Bo-ring.

6. ~~If you are currently in a relationship, how did you meet your significant other? If you~~ ~~aren’t, what have you tried in the past few years to meet someone?~~ Don’t like this one. Sick of talking about it. Hmm, a new question…

6. Name something that has surprised you this week about motherhood.

The mistakes I make over and over. This week I both a. Tried to rationalize with a toddler and b. Positively reinforced negative behavior. It doesn’t matter what you know – when you’re tired or off your game, the little f’ers can get you. I knew sooooooo much before I had Jelly, and always stood by my convictions. Now I have to let myself be much more flexible in some ways, but in others, remind myself to be firm when it matters.

7. What kind of books do you read?
Ugh, none, anymore. Since getting pregnant I haven’t had the attention span. I read Entertainment Weekly magazine, and Parents. The occasional book if my mum says I’ll die if I don’t (like the Hunger Games trilogy).

8. How do you see yourself in 10 years?
Back in Canada, probably at this same company if not in the same role. Oh gawd, Jenny will be a teenager. Scratch that, I’ll be in the loony bin. Mental assistance facility.

9. What’s your fear?
Laid off. Injured at home on a Friday night and Jenny is alone all weekend and no one realizes something is wrong til late Monday/Tuesday. Something happens to Jenny and I am expected to live the rest of my life without her. My mum gets Alzheimer’s. Something happens to my parents and one of us needs to take care of my brother.

10. Would you give up all junk food for the rest of your life for the opportunity to see outer space?
Weird question. I don’t think so. I like chips an awful lot, and it doesn’t really define how long you’d get to hang out in space for, or what the conditions would be like. Like, if chips would be served.

11. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
Pee. Then I go into Jelly’s room and crawl into bed with her. Since the time change, I’m having to wake her up, and I’m finding it’s easier if I set an alarm and wake up a little earlier and wake her up very, very slowly. So I do a little ‘snuggle time’ in bed with her before I start poking at her. Then we get up and start the day.

12. If you could change one thing about your significant other, what would it be? Or, if you’re single - if you could choose a significant other who looked like anyone in the world, who would it be?
Jake Gyllenhaal

13. If you could pick a new name for yourself, what would it be?
I would keep my name, but I really wish people would call me Cate. I love that.

14. If you had to choose between six months of sun or six months of rain, what would you choose?
SUN. I think I have some mild seasonal/weather depression. The rain. Sometimes it gives me the blues. Do people really pick rain? I guess some people choose Coke, so stranger things could happen.

15. If you could only eat one thing for the next 6 months, what would it be?
My first instinct was bacon, but my stomach clenched at the thought of 6 months of bacon. Blergh. Probably PB&J is about the only thing I could face that long. Which is technically three things. So then, rice.

16. What is the thing you enjoy about blogging the most?
Gettin’ it all out.

17. Do you prefer salty or sweet foods?
SALT. Did you not see that whole chips thing?

18. What items are in your purse right now?
Wallet, Kleenex, used Kleenex (JR's), parking passes for various Myrtle Beach hotels, Burt’s Bees, Goldfish crackers, a Mickey Mouse purse, an empty sippy, camera, Flip, sand, sunglasses, child’s sunglasses, pad, pirate bead necklace, cookie

19. If you had to choose between vacationing at the beach or in the mountains where would you go?
Oh, do I even need to say it…

20. What do you watch on television that you know you shouldn't?
I shouldn’t watch any of what I watch – Law & Order SVU, Hoarders, The Soup, it’s all crap. But oh, I love Raising Hope. Watch that damn show if haven’t, it’s great.

But now I get to tag so would love to hear from:

Scattermom

Jen

Bun in the Oven Please!

Dannie A

Tuesdays with Jellybean Mama

2011-03-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I had played through the scenario in my head many, many times. Different versions, different angles. Different locations. His parents’ reaction upon discovering they had a grandchild they did not know about. In my head, of course, it was always like a Hollywood movie. Their house was always spotlessly clean. Jellybean was always clean. My hair was brushed, and I was wearing something other than yoga pants for once. For some reason the TV wasn’t blaring, and there were fresh flowers on the table. No one was fighting, and they were unexpectedly at home when we showed up on their doorstep.

I don’t know why this time was different. What in the scenario had changed. For some reason I was thinking about his sister. Maybe meeting her for lunch, and how nice that would be, for Jelly to see her Aunt R, another real flesh-and-blood local relative. And then I was thinking no, that would not be nice. That would be an immense burden. She would probably call and want to see Jenny, and I would be busy, or she would want to go someplace awful where I wouldn’t want to go, or she would make me drive all the way out to see her and it would be horribly inconvenient. She would be obnoxious, and I would be irritated, because that’s how R. is, and that’s the reality of family.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. But that’s how family is. You love them because you have to, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can be friends with them and also like them. I am lucky, because I do like several members of my family. In fact, I’m very excited that I just booked the Easter trip to Cincinnati again this year, largely because Jelly has talked about NOTHING ELSE for ten months straight, but also because I adore the Cincinnati cousins so much. They’re good people. Hilarious, sarcastic, and take-no-crap. That’s what I come from. No shock there. My Cousin J, Jelly’s substitute local aunt, is another great example of all those things.

However.

As soon as I had that thought, that whole ‘I really would not want to hang out with Quiet’s sister after all’ thought, this huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I kid you not, the car swerved a little bit. Honestly, I don’t know why I had never thought about it from that perspective before. That it wasn’t just my family that sometimes might be a teensy bit annoying. That his family wouldn’t be all fresh baked cookies and smiles and hugs and extra presents at Christmas. Family means obligations and burdens, and doing things you don’t want to do. Family is inconvenience. And especially now, at a time when I’m getting ready to potentially move to Canada? Can you imagine what this would be like if there were all this other family in Jellybean’s life and I had to tell them? It would be horrible. Omg, I would never hear the end of it. It would be awful for them, it would be awful for her. It’s hard enough with The Ta. Just the thought of it is exhausting. How grateful am I at having avoided THAT?!

I don’t know if that’s part of what he had the foresight to avoid, or if it really was just for his own self-preservation; either way, I’m just glad that now I can finally, if not fully, let go of it (because there’s always going to be a little bit of the ‘what if’). But I don’t think there’s going to be that crushing heartsick pain of it that I’ve carried for such an embarrassingly long time. Which is good, because that means I’ll be better prepared when Jenny starts to ask the tough questions. I wish I could have come to it sooner than, you know, FOUR YEARS into it, but to have come to it at all I guess is good. Like, before she was 18. And now I can worry about more important things. How to knock down that kid at soccer without getting caught. I mean, what the heck I’m making for dinner.

Hello, Darkness

2011-03-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

You know how it is, the first few days go by. You’re nervous, hesitant. You’re still on guard.

Where is it? Your hands tumble past bottles. One crashes to the ground, but you don’t even care for once that you might wake up the sleeping toddler. Where is it? There’s not enough time, you’re already too late, you know your attempts are futile. You look anyhow.

The days turn into weeks. Do you dare hope? The weeks turn into months and you get really lazy. You get lax in your ways. You forget the old, scary routines. The things that were once so second nature. The things that were always in sight, always in the same place, get shuffled around. Get misplaced, pushed to the back, pushed underneath, packed and never unpacked. You just don’t need them anymore. It’s such a sweet relief. Who knows when you’ll need them next! Will you ever need them again? Who knows! You’re so carefree.

Your hands knock random toiletries into the sink. Hairspray. Perfume. Toothpaste. That’s not it, that’s not it. Where was it? Where could it be? It took it to Boston. I took it to the beach. Was that it? Was that the last time? When did I last see it? A sob catches in your throat. Don’t cry! You hiss at yourself angrily. That will just make it worse, don’t cry. But you cry anyhow, unbidden and unwanted.

How did it come to this? You know exactly how it came to this. You started messing around with your dosage. You thought you knew better than the nice doctor who wrote your prescription. You figured things were going pretty well, other than that whole little problem. But was that one nasty little side effect worse than this? To be fair, non-stop diarrhea is pretty lousy. But was it worth this? Was it worth the chills and the shakes, the pain and the aches that you’ll have tomorrow, the time that you’ll lose, the lack of sleep and ensuing irritation that you’ll have with Jelly?

You finally stop yourself. Just stop. And think. You close your eyes and try to remember where you saw it. Your dresser. Your messy, messy dresser top. Strewn with clothes, toys, jewelry, a plastic toy baby bottle. You run to the bedroom, but you know it’s already too late. You stand there for a moment with the pill bottle in your hand, one brief moment of success, then turn around and run back to the bathroom, the bile already in your throat, the dinner you just finished eating less than 20 minutes ago ready to escape. You crash to your knees and heave into the toilet, splashing vomit into your hair like it’s the first time you’ve done this.

You heave until nothing else comes up. You wipe your mouth, your forehead, and crawl down the stairs. You repeat the familiar old process that you haven’t done in so long. Hands shaking and teeth chattering, you force yourself to go through the motions, reminding yourself that doing it now will make all the difference later. You pour yourself some ice water, drag the almost-forgotten electric blanket from underneath the couch, dim the lights, quiet the television, and curl yourself into a ball. The headache is roaring now, an angry monster. You can’t believe you didn’t recognize it earlier, at Jenny’s first soccer practice. Maybe you just didn’t want to.

The good news is, this time it’s not as bad. It doesn’t seem to last as long, or be as awful. You tell yourself that no matter what the side effects are, to go back to the regular dosage immediately. You are NOT a doctor.

And now –

SOCCER.

It's the socks. They do it to me, too

She's so sporty! She gets that from neither her mother, nor her biological father.

Mostly she was just happy to run around, which is why I signed her up. Yay!

That kid in the pink and I are going to have a fight. She kept kicking her own ball onto the other side, then would take Jelly's instead of getting hers. She's also a whiner. I think she might generally just be an a-hole, her parents certainly seemed that way. She's going to get accidentally knocked down one of these evenings. Not that I would ever do that to a four-year old. Nope, not me.

One quick note. This is soccer skills. I am not one of those crazy people who puts their very young child in soccer where they are expected to compete in games where a coach screams at them to ‘Get their head in the game!’ and that kind of thing. Although I did totally screw up right out of the gate, because I didn’t realize they had mistaken Jellybean for a four-year old. Yes, a FOUR YEAR OLD. So they kind of had some high expectations for her at the first class. But she did great, and will have even MORE fun at this week’s class because, you know, she’ll actually do two-year old stuff.

Also, I believe this qualifies me as a soccer mom. Please send me bumper stickers, for I am officially true evil. Srsly, you should have seen some of those other parents. I'm not ready for that.

Raise Your Glass

2011-03-21T12:22:00.001-07:00

The problem with a totally awesome event like the Choice Moms Workshop last Saturday is twofold. One, it was SO DAMN EXHAUSTING. Omg. So tired, still. And on so many levels. First, you meet all these totally awesome woman, so if you’re like me you are talking for basically 8 hours straight. And you have your kid there, so even though she’s with the fantastic Miss D for most of the time, you’re still popping over to the neighboring conference room to check on her and sneak Miss D Diet Cokes and brownies, and then drag the kid out to see the pretty dirty lake, and then go out with all the lovely ladies for a late dinner. And also, it’s emotionally exhausting, because at least 17 times during the event you burst into tears for VERY GOOD REASONS. Like, you meet very nice people who haven’t had their Jellybean yet and they start to cry, and they introduce themselves right after you introduced yourself all gloatily, and you realize you are a terrible, horrible, smug single mother, and that not all the people there are happy endings. Yet. And that makes you really, really sad, because there are some terrific people out there who should have a Jellybean, already, damnit. Just let them have one!

My happy ending. Effing adorable. Eating 114 lbs. of raisins while I'm in the workshop. A total rockstar celebrity, most people recognized her from the blog before they recognized me. Must post more pictures of me. In make up. Maybe get Glamor Shots done.

Two, you listen to a very nice speech from the very nice man from the California Cryobank. And he talks about how far banks have come, and the women talk about how reasonable the rates are, and you meet other absolutely adorable little donor babies, and the nice man gives you a free light-up sperm pen, and you meet another woman who has two kids on her own and you let yourself think – hmmm. Two. Light-up sperm pen! How can I argue with that! Seriously! If I moved to Canada, I’d get Canadian maternity benefits. I didn’t even THINK about that before Saturday. And that whole closer-to-my-parents-thing, right? Right?

Gah. It still doesn’t magically take 5 years off my almost-40. I don’t think 60 is a cool age to be fighting with a teenager, I think 60 is a cool age to be done paying for college and going on cruises. It’s interesting how people who have more than one are so hardcore about how important it is to have siblings; it’s just yet another parenting decision that can really split the camps. I would love to have a sibling for Jelly, but I don’t think she’s going to be a lesser person or worse off without one, and while I admire those who are able to do it, I shudder at the thought of feeding and bathing two small people without any help. Especially if Jenny is going to be three for a whole year. But oh, man, was it ever tempting to take one of those damn flyers.

See, I don't look almost-40, right? Ugh, I was tired already and it was barely 1p, who am I kidding.

So it was great to finally meet Mikki, one of the founding mothers of the Choice Moms movement and a terrific inspiration and resource for single-moms-to-be. There’s not a whole lot out there for us, or at least there wasn’t 10 years ago when I first started looking, and one of the reasons there are now Meetups and movies and reality TV shows (yes, there are several in the works, we’re told) is due to the work of tireless women like her, who travel around talking to women about what they can do in their lives and their communities, helping them find the strength and the resources to make their dreams come true. How many people can say they do THAT for a living?

Mikki is the one standing up. She's awesome. Go buy her book if you or anyone you know is considering the single mom path, or just to confuse people.

I have to admit, though, that as great as the workshop sessions were, my favorite part of the day was the dinner event, when over a dozen of us hauled our brood to a local eatery and blocked every safe exit with a variety of strollers and musical instruments (you don’t mess with single moms, we are very busy and very hungry). I am pretty sure that one of my dining companions hollered ‘live action sperm roll play’ or ‘orgasm’ pretty much every single time the waitstaff came near us – I adored her, and wanted to hang out with her forever. And the lovely English girl, raised by a single mum, now on the single mum path herself. And the woman across from me, watching country after country close as she tries to get paperwork completed to adopt…

Yes, Jellybean makes me insane. Yesterday, driving home from The Wal-Mart, where she made me buy $150 in flowers for the front yard that she then refused to help me plant, she asked what was for dinner. I told her we were making delicious Thai Drunken Noodles, which she loves. ‘What in dat?’ little precious asked. ‘Um, peppers and onions and noodles and chicken?’ I said cautiously, aware I was walking into a trap but unsure what it was. ‘Ohhhhhh I don’t like chicken! Too yucky!’ sobbed Jelly hysterically. ‘YOU ARE A CRAZY PERSON!’ I screeched back, totally unhinged instantly, ‘You LOVE chicken! You LOVE Drunken Noodles!’ She proceeded to cry. So I turned on the radio, which is my new thing when she has a tantrum in the car, because it just makes her more angry since she knows she’s being ignored. Of course they were playing ‘Raise Your Glass’, because my favorite radio station is apparently sponsored by Pink, so I cranked it and sang along very loudly and poorly while Jellybean screamed and bawled at the top of her lungs and I occasionally hollered in the direction of the backseat, ‘You are crazy!’ until she eventually said, ‘Ok, I stop cwyin’, mama’, very tearfully and somewhat angrily. And then asked for seconds at dinner. BECAUSE SHE IS CRAZY.

But I love her very, very much. And I tell her so every single day. And I am grateful for her every single day. And Saturday’s event was a nice reminder of that, you know, in case I was tempted to forget.

Crazy.

Happy Single Mother's Day to all you single mothers out there, no matter how you got that way. Happy Single Mother's Day to all you single ladies who are trying to be mothers, considering being mothers, or are on your way to becoming mothers.

Here, here.

2011-03-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

Gone But Not Forgotten

2011-03-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

We are still here. Just, ah, suffering.

Jelly kindly shared her ick with me. Then I took it to Boston, to corporate, to share it with others. Then I came back to an explosion of spring, which meant allergy season was upon us, and a whole new level of sinus pain and suffering. Also, I haven't yet found something that plays nicely with the Topamax, so I'm kind of all over the place with a variety of headaches and weird out-of-body experiences, which would ordinarily be kind of interesting, but with my current workload just has me kind of panicky and waking up at all sorts of hours from stress nightmares because I can't focus, and thinking makes me throw up. So. There's that.

But the good news is, Jenny had a check up from her tube surgery last fall, and she's doing great - the doctor said that she should come back in another four months, and they'd probably be out! Kind of crazy and short-lived for surgery (cough, expensive), but I guess the way The Bean grows that's just how it is. She's up to 44 lbs (yes, the size of your average 6-year old), and is almost as tall. People who thought I was out of my mind for buying 5/6 sizes for a 2-year old at the last consignment sale aren't laughing any more, and she's hitting yet another growth spurt. The first thing she asks every morning is what we're having for dinner. Gal is going to be tall! I'm amusing myself by considering signing her up for kiddie soccer to work out some of the energy - there's a 10-wk program starting in a few weeks extremely convenient to the house at a really good time. I think it would be hilarious.

I'll try to get my crap together to post some pics and get a decent post together soon - lots of stuff coming up. Big St. Patty's Day parade this weekend (our favorite one!), then the following weekend I'm pretty excited about a Choice Moms Workshop that will be held locally for the first time. I'm helping moderate, so should probably pull something together for that. I'll get to meet a longtime penpal and terrific author for the first time, plus some other moms like me, so it's pretty cool.

Hope everyone else is surviving the changing weather, or winter's last hurrah in some cases.

I Really Would Not Have Done Well in 1812

2011-02-25T08:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Diary,

How quickly things have fallen apart. It’s only day 4 here in the trenches but it feels like it could be day 14, or 54. The air reeks of Vick’s and sweat and phlegm breath. I barely have the strength to check my boots at night before collapsing, half-dressed and almost already asleep, only to be awoken a handful of hours later by the machine gun patter of toddler feet in the hazy night.

I have been fighting for days on little sleep, subsisting on frozen convenience foods, and last night one of my companions became grievously wounded. Succumbing to the injury, she collapsed across me, pinning me in place.

Exhausted, hungry, I had no recourse but to huddle immobile and keep my spirits up as best as I could, thinking thoughts of home at Christmastime. She regained consciousness long enough for me to grab a few cold bites of a stale sandwich, then together we began the journey of another long and painful night. She tossed and turned in a fever delirium, up and down, sleeping no more than a handful of hours at a time. I fetched cooling cloths and medicine, and tried not to think too longingly of my own pallet.

I had no idea the common cold could be so crippling. I had no idea the words ‘I no feel good’, said enough times and at disgusting enough hours, would cause me to want to turn my weapon against my own, or myself. I have entertained several fantasies about what I would like to do to the enemy who parks their tank immediately in front of our tents at 3 am, blaring their radio and engaging their tank alarm, waking up a sick child which then causes a coughing fit and 45-minute awake period. The fighting this week has been hard, made more so because of the lack of sleep, but we had several critical pushes I was forced to endure, despite the fact my distraction was more a hindrance than a help in several cases. My communiqués to superior officers have suffered, and I know I have fallen short of my troop.

In three short days I will be shipping out to colder climes, abandoning my stricken comrade to take a post north of the city of Boston. I’ve heard tell the rations are much better, and there are not nearly as many nightly air raids, although by day the fighting will be even more grueling, and I am ill-prepared for the hand-to-hand combat that is sure to ensue. The young soldier will be in good hands with the local medics, and although this does little to assuage the guilt of leaving a fallen man behind, I am hopeful that the worst of it should be over by then.

This damn war can’t last forever.

How to Beat the Winter Blahs

2011-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

It’s laughable, really.

This morning is a typical seasonal ‘straddle’ type of day, cold and drizzly, where you aren’t sure whether to wear a winter coat or rain slicker, and you huddle with your hands around a warm mug of something steamy.

The day before yesterday Jenny trickled warm sand over me while I watched the sun sparkle over tumbling waves, and I got a little hot so I grabbed an icy drink and Jenny ran back and forth with her shovel under the shrill call of the gulls.

My cousin can only shake her head at my all-powerful mastery of the weather, that meant in between snow and rain we got 80 degrees of sun in the middle of February at the ocean. Jelly, the ungrateful wretch that she is, was disappointed that I couldn’t heat up the ocean a few more degrees. I’ll work on that for next time. The hotel was pretty crappy, now that we’ve been spoiled by Dunes Village; the room was obviously meant to be a 1-bedroom with a living room rather than a 2-bedroom, so both me and MommieV were in close quarters, luckily for only a short stay.

It’s always interesting, meeting someone IRL whom you’ve developed an internet friendship with. It’s not the first time I did something like this, although finally might be the last (I’m really getting too old for this sort of thing). It’s interesting because despite the fact you have never met them in person, you already know things about them; you have something of a ‘shared history’; some bits and pieces of conversation may come easier. It’s interesting because although you have ‘talked’ to them via blog or email or text for months or even years, you still don’t really know them; there are still going to be things you learn about them, and things they learn about you.

I had all kinds of fabulous blog ideas, like doing a ‘Stupid Questions with MommieV’ interview, where I even got so far as to come up with a few stupid questions. But in between all the trying to catch up on freaking sleep (I saw every @#$% sunrise) and chasing a very happy ‘I go Myrtle Beach!’ (‘yes, sweetie, you are, in fact, AT Myrtle Beach’) toddler, I found it kind of hard to actually find time to sit down and, you know, do the actual question-asking part. But I guess the good news is, we didn’t run out of things to talk about. I learned lots of exciting interesting things that I didn’t know about her sordid dramatic past. Neither one of us turned out to be pervy middle-aged balding men, as the hotel towels did not leave much to the imagination. The girls got along swimmingly, although I think Jelly may ease up on asking for a brother for a while now.

So I think the MOST interesting thing about a trip like this is observing how someone else Does It. You know, another mom. And not just another mom, another Single Mom. Because I don’t hang out with too many of those. Being around a (relative) stranger means getting yourself reflected back much more clearly than normal, because you’re paying more attention to how you look through their eyes. And you are also paying more attention to them, because you’re trying to figure them out. There are lots of things that MV and I have in common, yet as moms we are completely different people. It’s just fascinating to me. I’m going to write a separate blog post about it, because I have a perfect example, but it warrants a whole separate discussion. I come off looking like a crazy person, but that should be no surprise to anyone.

So it was an interesting experiment, one that I will never in a bazillion years repeat in a room that size, and I will never again force Jenny to go back to that hotel with the ‘too yucky’ Lazy River. Poor little princess. As you will see from the photos, she was totally miserable. The check-in experience was interesting, though. I went totally blank on MommieV's last name, and when the receptionist raised an eyebrow, I hurriedly explained, "No, you see, we haven't actually met in person, I only know her from the internet..." then I kind of trailed off because I realized I was just making things much, much worse. To make it BETTER, I THEN said, "This isn't some seedy internet hookup, I bet you get all kinds of crazy things", to which she just kind of said, 'uhm hmmm' like she didn't believe me whatsoever. And then she asked if it was ok to give her the room number when she checked in, and I was like, yeah, of course. And felt kinda dirty. So then I told her a story about when The Ta and I were in Vegas, and asked the maintenance guy to tell us stories about the kinds of stuff he'd seen. That did not help my case any. So I finally just shut up and grabbed the 'I go Myrtle Beach!' dancing kid and left.

On Your Mark, Get Set

2011-02-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

Jenny, jubilant at 5:30 am when she raced headlong into my bedroom in the dark,

“Mama, we go on beach trip today! I swim in pool!”

Jenny, swinging her legs happily at the breakfast table at 6:55,

“We go Myrtle Beach, I go swim in pool, eat cwab legs.”

Jenny, cheerily from the backseat of the car at 7:40,

“Mama, I like to swim!”

Me, grumpily, under my breath,

“Really, you don’t say. If I’d known that, I would’ve booked a beach trip or something.”

Jenny, shocked and concerned;

“Oh, yes, mama, I LIKE to swim!”

Then, 5 minutes later.

Sobs.

Me –

“Jelly, sweetie, what’s the matter?”

“Oh mama – I don’t want to go Miss Dawn’s. I want to go to Myrtle Beach NOW pwease.”

“Jenny, I know that you are a very, very excited little girl, but sometimes, there are things that you have to wait for. This is something you have to wait just a little bit longer for. I will pick you up after lunch, and before nap. It is a very special day, and it will be a very fun day, but you have to take a deep breath and CALM THE HECK DOWN.”

“Mama, I a wittle bit sad.”

“I know, Jelly. It will be all better soon.”

Don't photograph me when I am having hysterics! I just want to go to the damn beach!

Things Are Getting Hairy

2011-02-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

If you are a purveyor of both this blog and My Little Slice of Mommie Heaven, you are probably ready to stab two people right now, and are sick to death of hearing about Myrtle Beach. Sorry. BEACH TRIP IN ONE DAY! If you read only my blog, well, you're probably still pretty tired of hearing about it. But you should probably start reading hers, also, because we are apparently going to tag-team vlog about the trip (vlog, who knew that term existed?).

During my shower the other night (so many discoveries in the shower of a non-body-parts-type, I know, right?! this is what happens when I'm trying to focus on something other than my kid hollering because the soap is too sticky, or the water is too cold/too hot (at the same time), or the toys aren't being nice to each other) I also realized that it had been a very long time since any, uh, business travel. That is not a euphemism. At least, not right now. It will be later on. So no business travel. Which equates to very grody feet, for some reason. I guess because when I travel, nasty scaly heels and troll-like toenails are bad for delicate trouser socks and uncomfortable shoes. Also, something about business travel just screams mani/pedi excuse.

So, after a truly horrible day yesterday, during which people yelled at me and I cried a little bit, and people said horrible things, and my boss told me several times to breathe deeply and drink and calm down and do my job better and other awful things, I did what any sensible work-from-home person would do and today scheduled a faux appointment in my calendar, printed a hard copy of the software release notes I absolutely positively had to review, and toddled myself off to get a pedicure. Ohhh... so nice. So very, very needed. I actually squealed when Fan, who I'm now a #1 err, supporter of, finished his work. The girl in the chair next to me talking on her cell the entire time was clearly not impressed in the slightest, with her monstrous dark-skinned toes twice as long as mine and her simple clear acrylic finish. I am embarrassed to admit that I said out loud, wiggling my little pink toes in delight as the only Caucasian girl in attendance at the salon, "Oh, they look just like little jellybeans!". Well, they do, so please try to refrain from nibbling on them should you happen to encounter me on the street or the beach.

So yes, no business travel of that kind, and no business travel of THAT kind means there is significant yard work that needs taken care of as well. I don't have that kind of time. MommieV messaged me about cleaning out her car, but that I could do in 1/2 hour or so - I don't have enough razor blades in the house to do the other clean up that I need to do. C'mon, people, it's February. I'm single. It's times like this I like to think of what my sister said to me last summer, at the lake up in Canada. I had a 2-year old, and had realized about 15 minutes too late that I'd forgotten to take a little off the sides (15 minutes too late meaning I'd walked down to the lake, removed my wrap, and was standing, exposed, for all the happy Canadians to assume I was a nice lesbian). I'm the sort of person who shaved my arms all through high school because I loathe body hair, although now I'm a little more lax about it. My sister, a mother of two herself, instantly put me at ease. "You know, I figure if they're looking there - they get what they deserve". It's kind of cruel, but kind of true. If someone is going to be pervy enough to stare at my crotch in a lazy river in February, I'm not too worried about them being scarred for life by a biscuit muppet. Except for all those small children at that level, and it's not like there's sideburns or 'fro action going on. Maybe I can get away with some touch-up work. Why isn't there a Groupon or Twongo special for THIS?

I am mostly packed, and by mostly I mean entirely, of course, as you all well know. The weather is so ridiculously gorgeous that I plan to wash the car after I pick up Jelly this evening, and then I think we are all set. I even remembered that I had bought some sand toys at the end-of-summer clearance sale (like, 4 months ago), so threw those in the car. I have procrastinated enough projects to make my life really, really awful next week, so I am going to simply pretend that time does not exist past Monday, which I think is a very reasonable and realistic plan, as well as assume that I will never have to pay another bill so that I can spend whatever I want this weekend.

Thanks, Presidents! Happy weekend, everyone!

Psycho

2011-02-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

Not AGAIN!

I had a brilliant product idea strike me the other night in the shower. Get ready to open your purses and throw gobs of money at me, ladies, because you are definitely going to want to invest in this one.

My master bedroom en suite has the perfect bathroom. I am going to miss it massively when I move. There is a double sink, which I thought would be wasted on the single lady but ended up being great, because now I have one sink for brushing my teeth, and one for storing my hair dryer and various hair products that I no longer have any use for, since the other parents at play dates don’t often comment on my hair volume. There is a standalone shower, which when push came to shove ended up being my only real requirement for buying a house, since I lose my mind when a shower curtain touches my leg. And there’s a nice, big, room-enough-for-a-Bean-and-a-mama tub. When she was a baby I’d line it with towels and lay her in it, but now that she’s older she can take her bath, and I can take my shower, and still be able to see her. It’s a good system.

Except.

That now she’s Almost Three.

People warned me about Almost Three. I didn’t listen to those people. I thought that it was the Terrible Twos I needed to be worried about. I thought that the twos were pretty decent, and that I’d made it through largely unscathed, and that Jellybean was a perfect, wonderful, sweet child, and that I was a largely perfect, wonderful mother. But now that she is Almost Three, and can transform into a crazy person at the drop of a hat, and I never know what I’m getting, I know what those people were talking about.

I very, very seldom get a bath anymore. I took a gazillion baths pre-Jellybean, long luxurious baths with bubbles and salts and colors and flavors and music and candles and ice wines and fondue and guys shaving my legs for me and all kinds of stuff going on. Now I am just grateful if I get a 7-minute shower and there’s hot water left after her bath, the dishwasher has run, and I’ve done 746 loads of laundry. My fastidious daughter hates, HATES when there are toe lint floaties in her bath water, and two nights ago when I was mid-shower began shrieking because she was having troubles scooping them out. I guess there was one that was particularly elusive.

It suddenly dawned on me that I was washing my face for the third time, because I kept stopping to shriek back at Jenny to stop shrieking, and then I got distracted and lost track of where I was in my routine. And that’s when I added up the reason I was going through a lot more shampoo and face wash in the past few months; it wasn’t because my personal hygiene had improved, it was because I was tossing stuff around in there randomly like some kind of circus act as a result of all the back-and-forth Beaniness. And THAT’S when I got my brilliant idea. Brilliant, but kind of mean.

So we package face wash, shampoo, conditioner, soap, body wash, whatever, and market it to a Certain Age Group, and the commercials are all directed at harried mothers of toddlers. Make it a crossover product (sensitive, safe for kids, body-building for mom, safe for color-treated hair (for that grey coverage)). Can you picture it? Make it cheap, smell nice, not tested on animals, pro-gay, in recycled materials, 5 cents goes to save the dolphins or gets you a Starbucks coupon, I dunno. I think it would make us a bundle. If we could also do toothpaste that would probably be good, too. Because I am pretty sure I’ve brushed my teeth more than absolutely necessary.

Two more days til Beach Trip! (just ask Jellybean, who asked me at 5:30 am)

I think the best part is that MommieV will be able to recognize me by the enormous welt and bruise on my shin. You know, from, uh, falling in my bedroom garbage can. Attractive! We are sure to pick up the dudes.

Roses Are Red, Pity is Unnecessary

2011-02-14T13:08:00.000-08:00

I have a new friend, who is a single Choice mom who went a slightly different route. She is a mom who adopted, a beautiful little smart girl. She is much braver and stronger and financially practical than I am to have been able to do this, and I am in great awe of her. I don’t know her very well, as we met through a friend-of-a-friend kind of thing, and have only been on handful of playdates together, but she’s a good mom and her daughter is very well-behaved, and as long as... well, I couldn't come up with anything, I don’t have a whole lot of other standards. I know she's a bit Catholic, but I can get past that, and she wasn't wearing a Tea Party t-shirt, and she wasn't wearing socks with sandals, so, I think we're ok.

We are, of course, Facebook friends, since she has yet not made fun of me for feeding Jellybean fried bologna cut in the shape of a heart for Valentine’s Day, instead of a healthy nutritious bowl of hot oatmeal with dried cranberries in the shape of hearts or whatever the hell the hippies did this morning (for the record, I do actually make oatmeal a lot, we both like it, although we try to refrain from putting chili powder on it). She posts super-cute pics and videos of her precious daughter almost as often as I do, and I often check them out to see ~~how JR measures up~~ what they are up to.

Today she posted some early pics of E in the orphanage that were breaking my heart. She had told me stories, of the time that elapsed. Not just the time between when she knew E was going to be hers, but the time that passed between when she got there, and when she was allowed to take her home. How cruel, to watch E grow up long-distance via photographs, without a mom. How awful, to be there, to only be allowed to visit her, to have to leave her every night, to have to say good-byes constantly, to have to re-do pages and pages of paperwork because of one missed word (seriously, this happened to her). I look at her story as terribly, horribly sad.

But then I realized, she has this wonderful, sweet little girl. I bet you she doesn’t see her story as sad. I bet she doesn’t look at those pictures and feel unhappy. And I was like, whoa, does she look at ME and think MY story is sad? Because I tend to bum people out when I talk about the whole Quiet thing. So I guess it’s all perspective. For some reason I was thinking about it when I was driving home from drop-off this morning. It’s like those people you see in the airport, who are all dressed up in some crazy outfit, wearing stilettos and skin-tight clothing and they’re all made up and not a hair out of place. They can’t be comfortable. They have to be miserable. They can’t be happy people. There I am, in yoga pants, who knows when I showered last, or at least when I last washed my hair. But I think I’m a pretty happy person.

So I guess I’m saying this. On a day like today, when other people celebrate more traditionally with a partner, say what you will but Bossy Pants made me buy her fresh flowers, and I got up early to make her a special breakfast. Also, I had to bake cookies for her class party. She had a special outfit to wear, and there were special books to read, and NickJr ran never-ending commercials for the Dora ‘Grumpy Old Troll Gets Married’ special that I swear, Jelly was going to HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE if I didn’t ‘Mama, you Tivo dat, ok? Ok, mama? You ask Tivo?!’ while she waved her hands in the air and hopped from one foot to the other, eyes glued to the screen just like NickJr had intended. Brilliant marketing bastards. So that’s what we’ll be watching on TV tonight. I’m sad that I’m not parenting with someone, and I’m sad that I don’t have a partner, but not in a woe-is-me, I’m-going-to-lay-here-and-cry-thinking-about-it-while-watching-this-stupid-movie-eating-chocolates-I-bought-for-myself kind of way. I don’t need a special day for self-pity, I can catch up on that whenever. Today for me is just another day, with a spunky almost-three-year old Valentine. Who told me this morning that I was ‘just a little bit bossy’. Oh, man, the teen years are going to be fun with this one.

Happy Valentine’s to the single ladies out there. And you married unhappy ones, you deserve a break today, too. The rest of you, I don’t want to hear about it.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2011-02-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

Today’s story is not for the faint of heart, nor the weak of stomach. It is going to mention girl parts, and the ‘p’ word, and since that word is neither ‘popcorn’ nor ‘pirates’, any male readers who may have happened to accidentally stumble upon this blog should run away quickly. Here’s some help – either here, or, depending on your interests, here.

Last week was a rough week. I kicked it off, quite literally, by dislodging the AC power supply from my LaCie external hard drive and breaking off two of the mini pins in the process. Cost to replace it and have another Fed Ex’d to my house, $30+. Cost to my pride, as I had to explain a week delay in a deliverable to my boss – well, difficult to measure. The week ended with me getting trashed, but not in a pleasant way. I thought it would be a brilliant idea to hang a blanket over my window, to try to block out some of the street noise and help with the 5:30 am sleep issue. WITH JENNY WATCHING, I stood up on my chaise, immediately got dizzy, stumbled backwards, fell off the chaise, caught my leg in a garbage can on the floor beside the chaise, teetered awkwardly and painfully for a while, then finally fell between my bed and end table. Jenny mostly just looked embarrassed for me, which was the right expression. Do as I say, kid. Man, those Bed, Bath and Beyond plastic garbage cans are STURDY. Oh, and I then discovered that the OTHER window in my room has been open 2-3 inches all winter, which explains both the noise AND my unusually high electric bill. So I’m winning fewer than usual smart points, if I had any at all after that last story.

Saturday I was feeling a little grumpy and irritable. So was Jenny, surprisingly. I figured we were a little PMSy as my period was on the calendar for Thursday. Jellybean went off to The Ta’s for a pizza party while I had a blast at my Lucky 32 cooking class (mmmm Gumbo). Both of us exhausted, we crawled into my bed for naps, but I was unable to sleep, oddly – crampy? Well, check that out. I pulled out my phone (because isn’t that where everyone tracks AF nowadays?) and instead of being early, I found that Mr. T has realigned me. I’m back on track. Also – in case you hadn’t noticed. No. Migraine.

Did you catch that?

No.

Migraine.

None.

Zip.

Zilch.

SQUEEEEEE!!!!

I had a bitch of a headache for most of yesterday and popped Ibuprofen all day long. But that is a heckuva lot different than shaking and sobbing and barfing and shuddering, and muscle aches and spasms and unable to focus or care for my child and spending an entire following day feeling like I’ve been hit by a car. So again – cautiously optimistic. Especially since this is Monday of Week Four on Mr.T, and I’m heading into the 100mg final lap. Most of the nightmares are gone, and I can live with the extremity tingling and the occasional bouts of nausea. Some minor occasional forgetfulness, nothing severe. I’ve made a follow-up appointment with Dr. Jones for next week, so we’ll see what he says, but I feel pretty good about the whole thing. This is something I can live with. This is manageable. This is livable. So what do you think - do I mess with it just a teensy bit more and make a gyno appointment and go on the Seasonique?

These Boots Are Made For Slidin'

2011-02-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

The Oscars are making me nostalgic, in the same weird way that hearing Lady Gaga makes me both happy, and oddly sad. The year before Jenny was born I saw 15 of the Oscar nominated movies. I have seen exactly two of this year’s contenders, and one shouldn’t really count because it’s Toy Story 3, and I saw it because The Ta rented it for Jelly on Pay-Per-View on a beach trip. And also, because I have seen it a approximately one trazillion times since. Yes, I still cry every single time when Big Baby says, ‘Mama’.

If I open my dresser drawers, there are folds of black yoga pants, in varying state of presentability, the uniform of the work-from-home mom. But if I open my closet, hidden beneath linty hooded sweatshirts and fading long-sleeved tees, are row upon row of suede loafers in browns and navys, saucy black sharp-heeled boots with narrow toes, pink patent leather slip-ons, fur-lined clogs, shoes for going out or staying in or dancing or dining, but definitely not for catching a small child as she tumbles down a slide in a slightly damp backyard. The appropriate footwear for that are the dirty Skechers by the back door, worn almost daily for the past year. I’ve already got the next pair lined up, worn once a week or so for the past few months to start breaking them in. Work horse shoes. The others up in my closet, forlorn and slightly dusty, taunt me every time I push past them for something unstylish and more forgiving to mud and boogers.

‘Bad Romance’ comes on the radio station I listen to only slightly less often than that Pink song, ‘Raise Your Glass’, which I liked at first because it includes the lyrics ‘what’s the dealio?’, which I say with embarrassing frequency to the annoyance of all my friends. Then I heard it 847,345 more times and it lost a significant chunk of appeal. Anyhow, I still find myself tapping my hands, feet, eyelashes, whatever is handy, to ‘Bad Romance’, because it is a party starter and has a great hook and Gaga is a genius no matter how crazy she is, and she makes me want to do some booty-shaking. But it also reminds me of the person I use to be, and makes me wonder what Loud thinks of her, and how fun it would be to have that song blasting while putting on ridiculous amounts of sparkly eye makeup with a glass of something rum-heavy, disgustingly sweet and achingly cold, sloshing precariously on the edge of a too-small sink. I want to force various unwieldy body parts into too-tight age-inappropriate spandex and polyester and anything else that doesn’t breathe or flatter, with fasteners I can’t reach but can’t close anyhow so it doesn’t really matter. I want a Friday night to be open with possibilities of Who Will Be There and What Will Happen rather than What’s on Tivo or Should I Make Popcorn.

I could do those things. I have lots of very kind friends who would babysit. They would think it’s hilarious. They would love nothing more than to see me shimmy into Spanx and tart myself up. I even know other single gals who would brave a local dance floor, toss down some overpriced watered-down cocktails, not give a shit that we’re cougars and damn proud of it. But I can tell you how that story ends.

In the old days, it would end with me hilariously drunk. Once in a while, me and my roommate would drag some poor hapless boys back to our crappy apartment, or worse yet, hop in their car and go to their place. Nine times out of ten he’d end up talking about his girlfriend, or worse yet, wife. On some occasions there would be blacking out. Twice there were attempted rape situations. Most of the time there was barfing. There was almost always sadness at some point.

I will stay home with Jelly tonight, and will watch The Soup, and will maybe make some popcorn. At no point will I barf, or have to sit on someone else’s pee on a grody bar toilet seat. I won’t be told how cute I am except maybe by Jellybean, but at least I know it will be sincere. I will be comfortable, and when it gets close to 1am I won’t start to get a panicky feeling because everyone is hooking up and once again I’m alone, because I will be blissfully asleep, and tomorrow morning I won't wake up filled with acid and regrets. My old life was fun a lot of the time, but when I feel boring and old and sad and nostalgic, I need to remind myself that underneath all that sparkle and loud music was a cute pair of shoes on a very lonely person. Now I'm all dirty shoes and happiness.

Jenny is Awesome. And Tolerant. And Has Good Hair.

2011-02-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

Yes. You're all absolutely right, as usual. She is awesome. And perfect. Which, of course, she knows, because she is The Bean. If you can find her, that is, in that pile of stuff that use to be a train table. Poor child. You are all now taking back all those nice things you said about me being a good mother. I do like to harass her. Keeps her on her toes.

Here's the New Stylist. She would NEVER tell me she loved me. She would definitely call me 'girlfriend!' in a very, very Southern drawl. She tells me my baby is the sweetest, most beautiful, most well-behaved little girl in the entire world. And that's just how I like it.

Wash That Gal Right Outta My Hair

2011-02-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of different ways I could have chosen to start off this post. I could have started off by admitting once again that yes, I was aware that there was an obesity epidemic amongst our youth and that yes, I absolutely positively was guilty of not giving Jenny a 100% balanced healthy meal each and every day. I could also go back to the post where I wrote about Facebook, how there were good things and bad things about being a part of a social networking site. Or I could take us all back to the posts we know and love, about how as moms we get judged from the very moment a bit of belly starts to poke out (ok, this is actually true of just about anybody). Or I could tell a story about my first truly professional haircut, almost 12 years ago now, how I walked into a salon and was handed a glass of wine and breathed in the smell of Bed Head products and thought I might actually die of happiness.

Some parents gracefully accept it with humor – your child, beautiful in your eyes, is not perfect. They may be smart, they may be funny, they may be able to curl their tongue and know their colors and enjoy singing questions to you instead of simply asking them, but they are far from perfect. Some parents turn a blind eye to their child’s imperfections, refusing to see, or even acknowledge, that what makes them less-than-perfect also makes them them. Who would want a perfect kid? That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone. I already worry about how many times a day I tell Jelly I’m proud of her for being so damn awesome. I don’t want her to crack under all that pressure of being so freaking cool. It’s why I also once in a while call her dopey when she does something stupid, just to make sure she can laugh at herself and relax (but OMG my dad got soooooooooo mad at me when he heard me say it).

I know that Jellybean is stubborn. I can quite clearly see that she is easily frustrated, and a people pleaser, and at times, quite moody. When she gets her mind made up about something, that is it. She was a chunky baby, a chubby toddler, and only now as an active preschooler is beginning to lose the baby fat and slim down.

However.

You do not.

Tell me my baby is fat.

In a Facebook message.

Ok, you may be struggling a bit to keep up. Let me give you a little background.

Years and years ago, I went to Great Clips. Sad, I know, right? It’s ok, shh, the story gets happier. Well, a little happier. At least I make better hair choices now. When I finally got a job that didn’t pay me in kitty litter and toupee glue coupons, I was introduced to the wonder of the professional salon. Glittering, fast-talking, slick-magazined. It was glorious. My stylist had her scissors sharpened by someone who had apprenticed in Europe. With a Scissorsmith. No, seriously. That’s why it cost $10 per strand of hair. And the color! Omg, the color. She would individually mix 147 different shimmering shades that would catch the light when I shook my head in slow-motion. But little by little, over the years, the appeal, much like my highlights, began to fade. Now that I had Jellybean I didn’t have the time to spend 6 hours of my day in a chair. I didn’t have extra cars to sell for a simple trim. I didn’t want to hear about Loud and Quiet, customers referred from me that she had kept despite my protests (well, fair enough, tough economy and all), but customers I definitely did not want to discuss.

So I started to sneak around behind her back. It started with a little over-the-counter Feria here and there (look, I love a multi-faceted shine, what can I say?), some bang-trimming at home. But then she saw pics online and I definitely had shorter hair, and she knew something was up. She totally called me out. I was honest with her, mostly. I told her I had tried out someone new and cheaper. There was no way I was going to tell her that I was sick of hearing about her cats, and that the last few cuts were actually pretty disappointing. We had a history. Yes, I was a paying customer, but after such a long time it becomes awkward. She would say ‘I love you’ on the phone. I don’t need that. I say that to 4-5 people, tops, and yes, one of them is ribeye steak but the others are all family members. One may be an alcoholic beverage, but you get the point.

So my ex-stylist-only-she-hadn’t-really-accepted-it-yet was getting more and more pissy each time we corresponded, which was mostly in little comments she left on my Facebook wall. And they were more and more frequently some criticism about my parenting. Let’s keep in mind a few things here; firstly, that Ex-Stylist is not a parent. Secondly, the last time she saw Jelly was at least a year ago. Thirdly, she fancies herself a nutritionist for some reason (don’t ask). Fourthly, I can’t remember what I was going to say. Oh, right, that when I post a pic of Jellybean eating dinner, it’s not usually because she’s eating something boring or the norm or whatever, it’s because it’s hilarious and a good photo op and I think it’ll embarrass her later in life. So. Ahem.

What sparked the latest drama was a comment I made about cooking up some chili and tortillas. Ex-stylist remarked, ‘What kind of veggies are you doing?’, and apparently did not like my reply (standard tomatoes, onions, garlic) because she then commented, ‘Get some veggies in that kid!’. So a few nights ago, when I made Thai Drunken Noodles (chock-a-block full of nice veggies), I took a picture solely for her and posted it. Her comment? ‘I can sort of see them thru all those carbs’. My own fault, really, I know. At least I had the sense not to rise to it. I just calmly blinked twice and unfriended her. Before I did that, I sat very still for a few minutes thinking about whether or not I was still getting anything out of the friendship, whether I thought I would regret my decision/action, whether I thought it would hurt anyone else (another mutual friend of ours), and what the adult thing was to do. Then clicked. I knew instantly I’d made the right decision because I got the following almost instantaneously in a new Friend Request from her;

I'm sorry that you have de-friended me. All of the pics you post are of her eating unhealthly food. I am your friend and am looking out for YOUR child. You can be mad at me....that's fine...I care about you and Jenny. I have no personal gain for this. Stop sticking your head in the sand. She is CLEARLY overweight!

I know the statistics. I know that a fat mom more often than not means a fat kid. But I also know that eating a family meal, prepared together and eaten at a dinner table at the same time every day, with pleasant conversation about the day’s events, gives us a good check mark. She may not like a lot of veggies, but she’ll eat the hell out of any fruit put in front of her. Check. She eats breakfast every single day, usually an egg and/or toast, milk or diluted juice, or a whole-grain breakfast bar. Check. She gets a protein, a grain, a serving of veggies, and milk each day at lunch at the sitters. Check. I’m not big on sweets, so the poor thing never gets dessert or cookies or anything – I just don’t think about it. I snack when she naps, so that’s one less unhealthy habit. I’ll see what my pediatrician says at her three-year check up, but until then I refuse to freak out about it. I really don’t think my head is up my butt or in the sand or anywhere else. Do you freak out about your child being overweight? I know I have a good friend who freaks out 98% of the day about her child being underweight, and I think that is a billion times worse.

What makes me mad is that she thinks I’m a bad mom, and it makes me want to defend myself. I lay in bed that night formulating different responses that I would have written back to her if I were 10 (heck, 5) years younger and less mature, but they all ended with me shrieking BITCH!! STUPID BITCH!!! FUCCCKKKKKK!!!!!! So they weren’t very effective arguments. I know we don’t always eat great, but I do know that a really good portion (see? Food joke there, keepin’ it light after dropping the f-bomb) of the time I at least feed HER really, really well. She’s active, and healthy, and we do lots of running and jumping (much to my chagrin), and I try to model that lifestyle even if I haven’t lived it in the past. Screw her and her stupid cats. Jealous cow says meow.

Also, if you agree with her, please don't tell me. Because I'll cry.

Eat Less Chikin

2011-01-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

Accidental Test #1: Passed!

Jelly and I went and got haircuts last night, our twice-yearly venture. Some people go every six weeks; I find it more thrifty to go every six months. I don't care enough about my hair to go more often (ok, that's a lie, let me rephrase - I'm too cheap to pay to cut my hair more often), and I like to cut hair so in between I trim us and do a passable job at bangs maintenance. But every once in a while I pass a mirror and shudder, and grab the phone and get us into a chair ASAP. My latest stylist is a full-bottle-of-hair-spray-each-time, gum-smacking, as-seen-in-'Steel Magnolias' wonder. She has a boyfriend who is only slightly older than Jellybean and is unexpectedly pregnant, and likes to talk shit about various people while saying 'bless their heart!'. I adore her. I really don't care that she doesn't do as great a job as my last stylist, I love that it's half the price and that she takes half the time and that I sit with my mouth half-open in shock listening to what she's dishing out. I've lived in this small part of Raleigh for three years as of March, and I've learned more since in the two visits to her than in all that time.

So anywho, after that (during which Jellybean was GOOD AS GOLD, and everyone in the salon was absolutely beside themselves with how quiet and still and sweet she was, and how polite and adorable, and how lovely her raincoat, and how beautiful her mother, and everything except for that last part DAMNIT!) I decided we both deserved some fast food Inside, because if you are a mother of a toddler you know how exciting that is. To, you know, Go Inside. Where there is a play area. So instead of Old McDonald's, where we go every single frickin' time, I decided to live it up a little and we went to Chick-fil-A. Since for once I was driving past and it wasn't a Sunday. To make a really boring story short, we had a lovely time at the God-lovin', gay-hating, chicken-cookin' establishment, went home, had a bath, read stories, sang some songs, JR went to bed, and I almost pooped my pants. Sorry, should I have warned you that was coming?

The exciting thing about having a severe MSG allergy is that I get not one but two very strong reactions. The first is a migraine. I talk about that one all the time here, ad nauseam. The second I try to shelter you from, because, let's face it, Everyone Poops, but Everyone Doesn't Want to Hear About Your Poops. Since it's still early in the day today, and depending on when you read this, quite possibly around a mealtime or a time when you might still want to enjoy life, I will spare you all the details. Suffice it to say, I was quite suddenly and violently made aware that I had eaten MSG in the very recent past. My initial anger at stupid Chick-Fil-a, and my own anger at myself for turning a blind eye to their abhorrent politics to partake in delicious waffle fries and lemonade, suddenly turned to a realization that I had NOT had a migraine, or even a headache of any kind! Hallelujah!

So - that's totally freaking awesome. Mr. T, I salute you. Despite the fact I had some minor tingling in my fingertips this morning.

And chick-Fil-a, I'm very, very disappointed. I loved you long time, but it looks like we finally have to break up. I was suspicious of you before, but after some internet research into your shady ingredient doings my suspicions have been confirmed. If your recent anti-same-sex marriage proclamations hadn't made you my enemy, your bowel-scouring would have.

Dollar Store Dinosaurs

2011-01-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

Work in Progress

2011-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

I've got another post partially started, partially finished (what's well-begun is half done, as Mary Poppins would say), so I figured I'd drop in to say hey and make sure you didn't wander off and find someone much more interesting to follow instead, who blogged much more frequently and didn't have a penchant for run on sentences or words you weren't quite sure how to pronounce.

Look how cute that Bean is. I hit my once-favorite consignment sale last weekend, and that was her favorite thing. I knew it would be, because it's a real hard hat from a company construction site. It cost me one whole shiny dollar. In her hands she's studying a battery-powered drill that is part of a @#$% playdough set that I also got her. It's a dentist thing, that comes with molds where you make playdough teeth, you get the idea. I hate playing playdough like death. Yet I keep buying her stuff because she loves it, forgetting that she then wants me to play with her. Ugh.

Here's another picture for you.

This is what your iPhone photo album fills up with when you let your toddler play with it. This, and pictures of Elmo from the 'Monster Maker' app. What is this? I have no effing clue. But I have lots more like 'em. If the darn thing didn't make her so freaking happy I wouldn't let her touch it. She may love it more than me. Well, maybe just slightly less so since I discovered Cover Orange.

Medical Update: Yesterday I ramped up to 50mg/day of Mr. T. Today I learned that my dentist is likewise on the generic, so had a nice chat with her about some of her side effects and experiences. I'm still having the 2p dull headache and lots of sleeplessness, thirst and some mild nausea. And the severe stupids. I got a raging headache at a toddler birthday party on Sunday but hey, toddler birthday party. I'm not going to count that one.

The Kids Are All Right

2011-01-21T09:25:00.001-08:00

I still can't believe a dude commented on my blog. Do you think he reads it all the time, or just surfs around doing searches for people who beat on their kids? I should probably talk about my period less, just in case. At least I don't talk about my dirty dreams all the time like MommieV (this is hysterically funny to me not only because I would likewise be mortified, but also because I have been having the exact same dreams/egg white/come-hither feelings, but since it's been SEVEN YEARS since I've had action I can repress it all a little easier. Also, I can't deal with the fact that my mum would probably read it, I don't care that I am 40 years old).

So let's move on, shall we? I am so damn tired I could throw up. It must be a combination of the Am-I-going-crazy? and the nightmarish sleep disruption that Mr. T delivers. Also, I get a weird, dull headache every afternoon around 2-3pm. I am trying to be better about drinking water to see if that helps. I mixed up an important date that screwed up plans for not just me, but The Ta and my sitter. I'm seeing some weird little flashes of light occasionally, like my eyes playing tricks on me. This is on the lowest introductory dose? Man, this stuff is going to kick my butt. My new favorite website, www.AskaPatient.com, had all kinds of horrible things to share with me. But that, oddly enough, made me feel better. And you know, this stuff so far is fine, if it’s going to keep the migraines away and keep me from waking up with headaches. You know what it’s like? It’s exactly like being in my first trimester all over again; thoughts keep slipping away from me, the only thing I could stomach for dinner last night was oatmeal, and I’m exhausted and just want to nap ALL THE TIME. Except thankfully, no newborn after this experience.

A few more friends had babies recently, and I feel like a bad person because I haven’t met the new arrivals yet. Hopefully they know me well enough to assume it’s because of my standard single-working-mama schedule, and not assume that I’m a jerk who hates their baby. Quite the opposite. If I were to hold a baby right now with the drug playing havoc on my system, I’m afraid I’d cry and never stop. You people out there with 2+ can laugh all you want, I know how it is, I laugh at new parents also. But as much as you tell yourself you’ve let go of a dream, it still surprises you when you find bits of it tucked into nooks and crannies that float up unexpectedly. I know there are plenty of single mamas out there with plus one, and I admire them immensely. I could never do it, not physically or financially, at least not on purpose. But that doesn’t mean I can’t wish that things weren’t different, that I had a husband and could have a whole mess o’ kids and a house in shambles and no money for beach trips or Skechers or spa days. Seeing new babies makes me go insane with jealousy and regret (but, happily, not vengeance). Don’t worry, those of you still trying, I’m not attempting to take away your right to fist-gnawing hysteria upon encountering soft white sweet skin and sleepy tiny toes – you definitely have first dibs. No way in hell will I ever forget what it’s like to want something like that so bad, much like I will never forget the reality of back labor. I’m just saying, as much as I would hate, HATE to face the journey of parenting a soon-to-be-3 (ohh, it’s going to be fun, I can tell already) with an even smaller needy person in-arms, I still also hate the idea that there really is never to be an Alistair. But look, I can't even take care of myself right now, let alone Jellybean. Can you imagine?!

Additional Note: Yep, Pepsi tastes funny also. Like, the shelf date has expired. And that it’s New Coke or something equally awful. Clear Coke, maybe. My good friend S. told me that yes, starting to experience side effects on day 2 was par for the course for her as well, so to keep track of the score and see where I end up. It’s so nice to have friends who have been-there-done-that. Also, they have a trampoline.

Can't Touch This

2011-01-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Much like the generation before mine, and the one before that, and so on and so on back to the beginning of time, I shake my head when I look at the next crop of kids. I am pretty sure that there was a morning many, many years ago when a cave woman looked at a kid playing in the dirt and said, ‘Ug, we no have rock to play with when me kid’. That’s just the way it is. Technology advances, and money keeps getting made, people live longer and are healthier and then all of a sudden there are holographs and instant food machines and I finally have a teleporter. We struggle a little less with each baby boom, and while this is a good thing, it’s also a bad thing. It’s part of what is keeping kids inside, contributing to not only an epidemic of obesity but an alarming lack of vitamin D (as if rickets are back!). It’s part of what is giving your average kid that obnoxious entitled attitude, a complacency and laziness born of no farm chores at 5 am, hot Totino’s Pizza Bites for snack, and a cozy car ride with a personal DVD-player.

The other part of the problem is this issue with parents thinking they’re hurting their kids’ feelings by disciplining them, by enforcing boundaries and encouraging respect. Good manners and common courtesy are a rarity nowadays. All these things are hard, and take work. They upset the child, which upsets you. It makes life a lot less fun. But they also guarantee a happier, healthier child, just like small amounts of sunlight and exercise and a strictly enforced bedtime routine.

Just like everything else with parenting, there are lots of differing opinions on what ‘appropriate’ disciplining is. For some, this means time out or lots and lots of counting. For many of my friends, it was wooden spoons on their backsides when they were kids. Personally, I think there is a happy medium. I know that the threat of counting works for some people, but it drives me crazy. I’ve seen it overused and used ineffectively way too often. Smacking a kid with a spoon is abusive, to me, especially when you get pissed because you break your spoon and so you make your kid go get ANOTHER spoon and you smack ‘em even harder (no, seriously, true story! People are crazy).

In case you hadn’t caught on yet, since I was dancing around this topic quite a bit (bought it a drink, told it that I liked its dress, talked about the weather), this post is about spanking. I’m a bit of a spanker. If you are horrified and need to leave right now, I understand. I know there are people who are totally, utterly opposed to physical punishment of a child in any form, and just like many other parenting decisions that I may not follow, I support that. I am aware that many places have begun arresting people who spank children, especially in public. And let me say upfront, I do not agree that ‘what goes on in someone’s home should stay behind closed doors’.

Before you freak out more, please allow me to share my self-imposed spanking rules. Bottom only, over the pants, one smack, never in anger. Why? Because it’s not about hurting the child, so I’m not waling away on a bare tush. I’m not kicking or knocking her in the head. I am in control, so there is no chance of things getting out of hand. A spanking is a last resort, an everything-else-has-failed. Threats, bribes, time out, counting, you name it. A spanking says THIS IS SERIOUS. It says I am The Boss. I worry that a lot of parents today don’t like to say that, for whatever reason. You can say it without spanking, you just have to find a way to do it that works for you and your child. If your child is laughing and running away from you, they are not getting the message. Jelly has been spanked probably 5 times at most in her life, so don’t think I’m waking up and spanking her every morning to start the day.

However.

Last weekend we were playing, and she got a strange look on her face, and said, ‘Now, Mama, I am going to give you spankins’!’. She proceeded to hit me several times, with an angry scowl. I was quite startled. ‘Was I naughty? Why do I get spankings?’ I asked her. ‘You need ‘em!’ she replied, continuing to smack me. The violence was surprising. Even though this wasn’t what I was doing, this was how it was perceived. So somewhere, some analyst or specialist was right. I have never seen any sort of demonstration of violent play before, so I’m not sure if it’s an age/emotional maturity thing that’s starting to happen now or what. It did definitely make me stop and think about it though. I really try to reserve spanking for major issues, for example, touching the stove or running out into the street. Something that requires, as my father loves to say, a Significant Emotional Experience.

Discipline is similar to successful potty training in that it requires hurting a child’s feelings to really get the message across. They have to feel a little bit of shame and embarrassment in order to correct and adjust their behavior. Some kids do this better than others. Some kids never learn to do it at all. As a parent, the last think you want to do is intentionally make the light of your life unhappy. Media venues taunt us with ‘proof’ of emotional scarring every day; it’s just another one of the zillion things you can accidentally do right or wrong that shapes your child for better or worse. Will I give Jellybean an extra chance next time before I raise my hand? Absolutely. But will I give her a swat if I think it will help her to learn respect, self-control, and ultimately, self-discipline? Absolutely.

Worth a Shot

2011-01-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

If you were told something could cause memory loss, depression, and nausea, would you still take it? What if I told you it could also cause HAIR LOSS?! I know, as if, right?! Well, my friend Mr. Topamax and I have recently started hanging out. I researched and debated and considered long and hard, but getting one more migraine made up my mind for me. I'm only on day 2 and already I've got heartburn, can't sleep, and have a weird metallic taste in my mouth. Fingers crossed I encounter the weight-loss side effect, although I could do without this agonizing thirst. Even water tastes good, which for me is weird. I'll keep y'all posted, although the real test is going to be in approximately two weeks, when I'm due to get my next hormonal migraine. A totally headache-free day is worth a heck of a lot to me right now, so I'm hopeful.

I have a more Jelly-centric post written in my head, but that will have to wait til I'm bored on conference calls tomorrow. I just wanted to stop in so that I could tag a post as 'Mr. T'.

One Month Til Mini Break!

2011-01-17T08:52:00.000-08:00

In a month Jelly and I are going to be going on a Beat-the-Blahs Beach Trip to Myrtle. Yes, we did just return from Canada on Saturday, I know, but what can I say? The rates are ridiculously cheap in February, and - Lazy River! I get President's Day off, and hate to waste a perfectly good long weekend cleaning my house or doing laundry, so that will be our next adventure. To make things even more exciting, we are going to meet up with a fellow Blogger, MommieV. She's a fellow single mama with a little girl. No, we've never met IRL, that's what makes things more exciting - maybe she's a nice, normal single mama with a little girl, and maybe she's a middle-aged creepy dude who has been writing about cloth diapers for the past year in an attempt to lure me into a sense of complacency so that I would suggest a trip and she could molest my incredibly sexy mid-winter pale flabby hairy body.

Maybe we'll hit it off, or maybe we'll instantly despise each other, who knows? But we've each got our own room to go cry in if there's a worst-case scenario, and at best our girls will have a friend to occupy them and maybe won't be hanging off us the entire time. Another set of eyes, and someone to talk to, is the single mother's dream. That and, you know - sleep.

Since my parents have long given up on me doing anything sensible they are not that worried, but MommieV's mum understandably has some concerns. I thought it would be funny to make a little video for her so she could see how normal I am, but I come across as kind of weird and sing-songy. It's an incredibly unflattering angle, and I have both cold sores and period acne, so despite my good hair I look extremely unattractive. I'm also worried that my neighbors are watching, so I'm very self-conscious and spazzy. Jellybean of course looks terrific. If you choose to watch the terrible video please keep in mind that the camera adds 150 lbs and an extra chin. And I don't really talk like that. At least, I hope not. Is my nose really that sharp? Ugh. This is why you only ever see the kid.

S'no Problems

2011-01-11T08:06:00.001-08:00

Greetings from the Great White North! G’day, eh!

If you are a little taken aback in an am-I-reading-the-right-blog? kind of way, don’t be worried. Yes, I am chipper for once. And relaxed. Still sleep-deprived, of course, because I have a TWO YEAR OLD WHO WAKES UP AT 5 AM. Ass. But yes, I am at my parents’ house, so that means I am well-fed (did not cook the meal), have coffee (did not pay for it), and someone else is playing with the cute but irritating little person. I also have someone kiss ME good-night and tell me to have a good sleep, which sounds goofy but is really, really nice.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll be happy to be back at my cold dirty house this weekend. I miss watching ‘Hoarders’ while eating chips (gross, I know), and I miss my car and I miss, uh, that’s about it. The Ta is on that list, definitely, especially for Jelly, and maybe plentiful underpants, but there really isn’t a whole lot I’m missing out on. Not watching hours of garbage TV means I’ve read two books (‘The Hunger Games’ YA series, check it out, it’s awesome) and gone to bed earlier. And not snacked because I’ve had a filling, hot, balanced dinner. Sleeping in the icy dark basement means I lay in one position, dreamless and weighted down under piles of sleeping bags and comforters, safe and sound and snug. Did I mention my mum is doing our laundry right now?

There’s nothing quite like having a demanding oblivious needy person to make you appreciate everything your parents do. The first time I came downstairs after giving Jelly a bath, and realized the dinner dishes had been done, I felt like I’d won some sort of contest. Relief, a little guilt, and thankfulness is largely what I’m feeling here this week. It makes me want to try harder to be a better hostess when they visit me, for this gift of a nice, quiet, peaceful week. There are precious few times I really truly feel off-duty, largely a result of help from either The Ta or Miss D. Despite the fact that this week is still a work week, the evenings are slower-paced. I don’t have to rush and pick up Jellybean, hurry to make dinner, fight with her because we’re both tired and want attention, feel a need to have a few hours to unwind before doing it all again. JR has different toys to play with (my mum kept all the classic Fisher Price sets; she is going to have some serious Sesame Street Little People withdrawal when we leave) and a different routine (lunch with mama! Playdough with Nana!), and it’s interesting when she and I are together in a room, and she startles because there are sounds upstairs. Two people alone together in a house don’t get that much, I realized.

The trip here was gross, but such is air travel in January. With a toddler. A toddler who was woken up at 3:30 am to get to the airport. Fingers crossed the trip home will be easier, mostly because I can check the @#$% car seat all the way through. Don’t worry, it’s the spare, I don’t care if they break it into a hundred zillion pieces. Stupid 876 lb. Britax. Now if only I had some sort of electronic handheld device loaded with movies and games to keep us both entertained... no, wait, I left that in the @#$% American Airlines seat pocket. A Sony Playstation Portable, gone. 10 years I've been flying for work and have never once left something on a plane, undone by a tantrum-y toddler who made me hiss, 'I am going to call Santa RIGHT NOW if you don't stop that this instant!' Ugh.

As much as family can sometimes stress me out, I knew I’d made the right choice yesterday when I watched Jenny holler, ‘Nana!’ and dive onto her lap for snuggles. My parents are knocking themselves out to be awesome, and it’s working. The Move-to-Canada propaganda doesn’t affect me because I’m totally sold. It’s just a matter of when. And how to convince The Ta to move with us.

Nights of 1000 Soups

2010-12-29T07:14:00.000-08:00

When the snow starts flying, whether you live in the wilds of Northern Ontario or halfway between the beach and the mountains in sunny North Carolina, it’s time to bunker down. For the Southerners this means freaking out and racing to the store with a false sense of safety in their SUVs, buying stores out of water and milk and bread and sausage biscuits. For those of us raised miles from the closest Piggly Wiggly or equivalent, taught to keep a fully-stocked pantry of dry goods and at least 7 or 8 different freezers chock-a-block full of assorted meats and vegetables, it means time to make soup. Because nothing keeps the howling winds at bay like, well, some nice bay. Leaf, that is.

First understand that it’s just me and Jellybean living in the house. There are no hungry woodsmen or field hands or hockey teams. Plus, Jelly is a toddler. This means she doesn’t like any vegetable, even the simple unassuming potato. If she were ever to deign to eat a vegetable, such as a perfectly cooked tiny carrot, if it happened to have ANY part of it even TOUCHING another vegetable, like the lonely tasty potato, the carrot would be immediately ostracized for the association. Poor, bad influence potato. This means that Jenny will eat no soup. None at all. Not Mulligatawny, with crunchy apple bits and a hint of curry. Not White Bean, slow-simmered with a smoky ham bone. Not Minestrone, with fun-shaped pastas, nor Avgolemeno, simple and salty and just a bit tart. I love to make soup in winter. I love a cheesy Cream of Potato, started with a basic white sauce and sometimes jazzed up with a bit of roasted garlic. I like Roasted Squash, swirled with a hint of exotic truffle oil and served with toasty brioches.

I give you - The World's Best Veg Beef. Why the best? Because if you poured a spoonful in a bowl and added a can of water it would taste exactly like Campbell's, and it would taste like childhood, and that rocks. Also, check out how thick it is with all that nice barley. Some onions and garlic were sauteed in a touch of butter and olive oil, and made nice with celery and carrots. There's plenty of happy potatoes, and even a turnip just to mix things up. I slow-roasted a chuck roast then diced it in little chunks - they melt in your mouth. Some frozen mixed veggies, because that's just what you're suppose to do when you make soup. And that broth! It's practically gravy. The only thing missing that other people might like is some nice meaty mushrooms. Because mushrooms are the devil.
Then there was was a decent enough Italian Meatball. Too heavy and red for my taste though. I thought Jellybean might like it. I thought wrong. Let's go back and eat some more of that other one.

The closest Jelly will come to touching soup is chili. And that’s only if it’s spooned onto rice and wrapped in a fried corn tortilla, in which case it’s not really part of the soup family any more but a freaking taco, which she adores almost as much as McDonald’s French Fries. Alas, poor Jenny was forced to endure not one but TWO meals of soup, slow-simmered while we played in the snow and watched movies and explored Christmas gifts. I think she’ll pull through.

Luckily she's got a Canadian Nana who sent her an inflatable sled. And her resourceful mama fashioned a handle (because of course I don't have rope or clothesline or anything stronger than cooking twine laying around the house) out of - wait for it - this crazy stuff that is meant for wrapping plants on posts. It was bendy, and sturdy, and didn't hurt my hand, and stayed on the sled handles. And could haul 40+ lbs of Beans.

Her reward for not screaming and sobbing too much during the Soup Trials was to make Maple Syrup Candy. This is something Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me how to make, and made sound crazy delicious. I guess for kids who never get candy or sugar this would be a pretty big deal. Jenny didn't really think so, but still enjoyed the idea of eating snow. I used up all of the little souvenir bottle of real syrup I brought back from my last Canada trip - Aunt Jemima just wouldn't give you the same results.

Melt a little butter with some real syrup.
Make sure you have a helper and taste-tester, preferably one who is going to sneeze without warning in everything you are cooking.
Get things rocking with a nice rolling boil.
Keep it rocking for about 5 minutes. Test occasionally by spooning over the snow.

See, this isn't quite done

But this - this is the money. The candy cools instantly in the snow and hardens to make either a toffee-like chewy candy (my favorite stage), or a harder suck-on-it candy.

Make sure you eat your fill before the snow melts, because then all you'll have is a bowl of goo.

Then, when you're done screaming at your kid for refusing to eat dinner, get the leftover snow and pick out some of the veggies from the untouched soup and build yourself a nice little snowman. Check out his saucy biscuit hat - so debonair.

Well, you have to play with your food SOMETIMES.

Yes, this is what being snow-bound does to me. It's not a pretty thing.

I got a night out for New Year's, which was nice, but then Jelly refused to allow me to go anywhere today so used the time wisely, for once. I got every last speck of Christmas, including the glow-in-the-dark window snowflake stick-ons, packed away. Jealous much? Yes, it is a little early, but hey, Christmas is over. Let's move on. Plus, I leave for Canada in a week and don't want it to be March and there I am all white trash with a tree still in my single wide.

Happy 2011 Jellybean Mama fans and stalkers! Love you, mean it. Also - I turn 40 this year. Gulp.

Moving Right Along

2010-12-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

When Jellybean was a baby and I tried to sing her lullabies, she wept. I figured it was because she didn’t want to go to sleep, but as she got older I realized no, she just really, really did NOT like lullabies. She thinks they are too sad, and she’s got a pretty fair point. They’re slow, and quiet, and sometimes a baby falls out of a tree. As a result, I sound like a mental patient when I sing her to sleep. She frequently requests ‘Down By The Bay’, or something with a train in it, like ‘She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain’. ‘On Top of Spaghetti’ is a big hit. I was extremely grateful for Christmas because it meant I could sneak in carols like ‘O Little Town’, ‘Silent Night’, and ‘Away in a Manger’.

Last night I figured Christmas was over and it was time to go back to the Top 100 FUN! Songs for Toddlers That Make Me Insane, and I made one more go of that old classic, ‘Nighty Night’. There was silence for a moment after I finished, then heart-breaking sobs. “Jenny!” I was frantic with apologies, “I’m sorry! Mama did not mean to make you cry!”

“Mama,” Jelly wailed reproachfully as tears streamed down her face, “Now I gots sad cheeks!”

Since I’d committed the unpardonable sin of attempting to sing something other than a very white girl rendition of “Zippity Doo Da”, Jelly lay in bed for a whole 10 seconds before appearing at the top of the stairs. “MAMA!”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Mama, I sleep in your bed?” “Yeah, I guess so” (there goes my freakin’ back again). I trudged up the steps dutifully and helped her into my mile-high pillow-top that may very well be part of the cause of the back pain. Is 10 years about when you should replace a mattress? Jelly scampered up happily.

“Oh, thank you mama! You such a nice lady!”

Well, you're most welcome, ma’am, glad I could help after making you bawl your eyes out.

- - - - - - - - -

If you hadn't heard, Raleigh got dumped on with snow. Not like, New York amounts of snow, but there was almost a foot of the fluffy white stuff on our piece of the cul-de-sac pie. I panicked and made 476 gallons of soup, because I'm Canadian and that's what I do. Jelly was thrilled to be able to finally make a real snow angel, but then was disgusted by the fact that she had snow on her mitts that then got on her face.

Jelly's favorite Christmas gifts were definitely the 'Wonder Pets' fly boat, her Puppy Playdough set ('from Nana!'), and the MobiGo handheld video game system. Dear VTech people - I heart you so freaking much. You are the Sony for Toddlers. The Dora TwinsDay game is brilliant. Jenny has learned more letter recognition in the past 48 hours than in the past 6 months.

It's cute, she calls it her 'dideos', which sounds kind of like a breakfast cereal that aspiring young rap artists would eat. 'Hey mom, can I have some more great-tasting Diddy-O's?' 'No, son, you should have some fruit instead, you're looking a little puffy'. The best thing about the system is that she can CHANGE THE GAME CARTRIDGES HERSELF. Yes. You read that correctly. And each cartridge has a bunch of different game options. AND you can download free games online and save them to a special cartridge! So it's not like you're shelling out constantly for new games. This, combined with the fact that she received a Trunki from my sister N, means we had no choice but to immediately book a flight somewhere. Since my parents would murder me if we took off on a cruise after not going home for Christmas, we are going to Canada. Like, next week.

So what did we do this holly holiday season? Let's not talk about it. Flu and family. 'Nuff said. But girlfriend LOVED the train...

One More Sleep Til Christmas

2010-12-24T06:19:00.001-08:00

We are moving forward with Christmas plans, despite the weather forecast calling for a white Christmas for the first time since 1947 or thereabouts. Really, how awesome will that be to be on a train with the snow falling? It will be less awesome if we get trapped at the train station and I have to give sexual favors to hobos for Christmas dinner for Jelly, and still less awesome if we are stranded in Charlotte and Cousin J and I end up cage fighting for the bed. However, I am adventurous if not a little bit thickheaded, and have decided on this plan for the holiday so therefore, it MUST BE SO. And I do think it will snow, just because I have willed it to, and because it will make Jelly so happy. But I need to send thoughts of 4-5pm, because I would prefer to be safe and snug and warm either at home or at Ta's, where there are several crockpot meals and no urine-soaked homeless people.

I hope you have all enjoyed your special Jellybean Mama gift of several days in a row of posting. As my Grandma said about my enormous check this year, 'don't expect it to happen again'. We Jellybean family members are generous but like for you to know where you stand.

I hope you have an enjoyable holiday, whatever you celebrate. The days are going to start getting longer again, and those of us who have a touch of seasonal depression should start to see the light, literally and mentally. Hopefully this means at some point I'll feel motivated to both tear down decorations AND put them away, as well as steam mop whatever sticky stuff is on my kitchen floor that keeps snagging my socks. I hope Santa or Black Peter bring you and yours what is deserved, be that iPads or the Puppy Playdough set or time outs on the steps, and that family doesn't make you too crazy, but just crazy enough so that you are reminded where you came from and that it all makes the world go 'round.

Happy Holidays from Jellybean and Mama!

Hurry, Christmas, Hurry Fast

2010-12-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

Seriously, is it Christmas YET?!!! I am dying here. Not in a super sad, the-holidays-will-forever-be-ruined way, but in an OMG I AM SO IMPATIENT!!! way. I am ready to have a few days off work, I am ready to not have to worry about meetings with my boss, I am ready for some extra peanut butter and JELLY time, I am ready to eat too much and laugh too much and watch junk TV and delight in watching people open presents.

I've been reading people's status updates and blog posts about their favorite Christmas memories and favorite gifts. It's made me want to play with a Lite Brite really, really bad. My mum made the best lite brite peg holder for me one year - she covered all kinds of little boxes in shelf paper, and they all fit securely in a little hinged case. For someone just a teensy bit compulsive it was fantastic. And very smart of her. I can't imagine letting loose anything like that in my house any time soon. Although Jellybean is really good about not putting toys or anything stupid in her mouth, those little peg thingies would be EVERYWHERE, and I don't particularly want to roll over in bed onto a fistful of them.

I don't know what my favorite memory or favorite gift would be. I know I was really stoked when I got my tape recorder; my sister N and I would read stories out loud ('Little Orphan Annie') and sing songs, and I'd tape stuff off the radio ('Tainted Love'). My favorite memories are of Christmas mornings in Cincinnati at my grandmother's farmhouse, waking up when it was still dark because I'd rolled over in bed and the bell on my stocking had jingled, and I would lay in delicious torture trying to go back to sleep or wait til a more decent hour to bound out of bed and join my cousins at the tree.

It's crazy to think that I'm helping Jenny build her memories.

Unto Me a Child

2010-12-20T12:14:00.001-08:00

I was working as an Application Consultant at a small software company when I first met Loud. He was brought in by our Engineering VP, who also happens to be buddies with Loud and was an awesome mentor to me until he started hitting on me too frequently. Right from the start I adored him (Loud, not the pervy VP). He was funny, self-deprecating, smart as a whip, well-dressed, and liked to drink scotch at lunch time. It took me a while to catch on that he was gay because I’m just really kind of oblivious sometimes, and it took even longer for him to admit that he had a long-term partner sitting at home while we were out partying and passing out in Mexican restaurant bathrooms.

The first few years of our friendship were a blur of crazy roadtrips, video games, and fast food. I hit it off with his Quiet, funny, smart, well-dressed partner almost immediately, despite the fact he was not the outgoing party monster that Loud was. We went to New York, Ottawa, Myrtle Beach. We attended weddings and funerals and Rocky Horror events (not all at the same time), devoted weekends to City of Heroes and Final Fantasy Online, drew straws for who had to run to Wings to Go. It was a fun time. We had money to burn, crazy stressful jobs, and annoyed pretty much everyone who knew us.

I’m not sure what came up first, the idea of asking one of them to be a donor or us slowly starting to live together. We lived in neighboring cities bordered by massive snarls of commuter traffic, and I was spending over three hours a day just getting to and from work. It simply made sense for me to stay over at their place once in a while to save the almost 2-hr drive, as their place was just a few miles from our office. It was easier for them to stay over at my place on the weekends, where the food was better and the house was cleaner (I know, can you believe someone could be dirtier than me?!). We settled into a comfortable routine, but my Baby Plan, first considered in my 30’s then laughably tossed into a drawer when I looked at diapers and daycare, was always at the back of my mind.

I knew that while Loud would be more than willing, he was not the ideal candidate. Too much like me in all the bad ways (stubborn, crazy, Type A, covered head to toe in furry black Italian hair) and too erratic, I had my eye on Quiet. Rational, artistic, sensitive, and with totally awesome hair, Quiet seemed like the perfect baby daddy. However, he immediately said no when asked. As you know from the second sentence in this paragraph, I am nothing if not stubborn. I mounted a ‘Make Me a Baby’ campaign that eventually wore him down. I promised no strings, no involvement, no commitment, no financial or emotional responsibilities of any kind.

If I knew then what I knew now, would I have done things differently? I don’t think so. I still wouldn’t have listened to all the good advice I ignored. I wouldn’t want to give up the great times the three of us had together. I think a lot about what I’m going to tell Jellybean about her biological father, and how she’ll feel about him. I wonder if, years from now, enough time will have passed that Quiet can be in a place where he can take her calls or write her letters or send holograms to see her, or whatever the heck it is we’re doing in the future. I still have dreams where we’re friends. I still have nightmares that we’re trying to sell the The House. This is only my third Christmas since moving out, but it feels like much, much longer. There’s still a lot of hurt, and anger, and bitterness, but three years ago right around this time I learned that I was expecting a girl, and I have never once stopped being grateful for that. You know I’m not religious, and certainly don’t believe in miracles. But I am a woman who did not lay with a man nor did I give birth, yet I have a child of my flesh and blood dancing around my house at all hours STILL singing Frosty the Snowman. And that is a Christmas blessing, plain and simple.

Top News - Most Recent

2010-12-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying that Facebook is a great invention. Brilliant, even. I love that I can check in on all my ex-boyfriends and delight in their miseries, snicker at the mean girls from high school getting divorced, and tsk at the questionable behaviors of some of my distant family members. Yes, I use Facebook mainly for evil. I have been very honest with you all that I love hearing tales of unhappiness, because nothing makes me happier faster than realizing someone else has it worse off than me. Especially now, when I have a filthy Hoarders-style house and zero motivation and bought even MORE, dinosaur-shaped, nuggets to feed the Bean instead of a wonderful balanced and nutritious made-from-scratch brilliant hot meal. When I’m working the week of Christmas. Isn’t there a law against this?! Living so far from my family has always meant I’ve taken at least this week off to go up North. Except for this year, when it would have cost me $1400, which is prohibitive and mean.

So yes, I am the voyeur on Facebook, peeking into everyone’s little day-to-day musings and pictures and declarations. There's nothing better than Failbook, a blog dedicated to sharing all the idiotic things people do and say. And there are plenty. But sometimes it's not the crazy things that make me, well, crazy. It's the everyday things. So here for your child/work/in-law-avoidance pleasure is a list of...

My Facebook Pet Peeves

1. People who constantly bitch about it. Yes, it is far from perfect. There are security holes you could fly a sleigh through. Stuff keeps changing. Other stuff is slow to load. But you know what? IT IS FREE. And if that changed tomorrow? You would have a choice – pay a subscription fee, or don’t use it. We wouldn’t all die if it went away. Once upon a time, there was no Facebook. It’s nice to have, but it’s not oxygen or Pepsi.

2. I think in status updates now. Like, when I’m driving Jelly to the caregiver’s in the morning, or watching something that I think is funny, or enjoying a good meal. Jellybean Mama quite often catches herself thinking in the third person, trying to sum up her current experience in a brief and witty format. Twitter is just a shorter (and, for most, more frequent) version of the status update. Same thing. What started with blogs now has more far-reaching powers; what I think and what I do is potentially observable by an audience, and I want that audience to be amused and entertained. Is this changing behaviors? I’d be willing to bet yes. I'm trying my best to do something really wacky right now, just for you.

3. This one time, a friend of mine didn’t repost that she supported dinosaurs, and all the dinosaurs died. True story. If only she’d changed her status update, there would be no more cancer or lost puppies or child abuse or socks lost in a dryer. I’m as guilty as the next person as riding a current wave of ‘change your _____ to _____ for ____’, but it’s mostly because I hate to be left out of anything. We can’t save the polar ice caps by getting a whole bunch of people to type it in that little box. Let’s come up with a more results-oriented solution instead of an electronic chain letter, shall we?

4. Because we don’t pay a fee and Mark has to be a bazillionaire SOMEHOW, there is some questionable targeted advertising. Which I can largely ignore, even though It thinks I live in Boston and keeps trying to tempt me with nice restaurants and nicer single people in that area. The other big revenue source is the games. Games aplenty on The Book. I am currently in the final phases of my detox program, having been hooked early on Farmville and Pet World and Café World. I weaned myself off them by focusing on Frontierville, the methadone of FB games, and by the new year should have kicked that. They’re fun time-suckers, but I don’t like the way they reward you for spamming your friends. Giving you heroin to hand out to other people is just not nice. I also hate that people are pumping so many hard-earned dollars (or more accurately, parents’ dollars) into the net.

5. I’d like to let you know I’m excited for you. I want to show you I support you and wish you the best. I love that your child/pet/parent/vehicle/garden is doing well, and I would comment to that effect. But. I don’t want to hear from your Aunt Ingrid, and I can do without your husband’s coworker’s terrible grammar, and that side conversation that’s happening is just kinda inappropriate for me to be included on. Is there an option somewhere that you don’t get notified every time someone else Comments after you, without disabling all email? I’m just going to Like what you said, to save myself some trouble. It doesn’t mean I’m lazy or didn’t even really read the whole thing. I just don’t care that 14 other people also wish you virtual hugs. With lots of smileys and exclamations points.

6. Look folks. It’s a public forum. Online. Everything, EVERYTHING you type is permanent and forever and seen by the entire world. So don’t be a jerk. Don’t be dirty. Don’t spill secrets or update while driving or in class or in bed with your sister’s husband. Be smart about your kids. You know, the ones who can’t read yet? One day they will be able to, and that posted custody battle you’re having is going to be a really nice treat for them to find. Do try to be polite. Research your facts first. Quit telling us when it’s damn Friday, or Monday, or Hump Day. And drop the @#$% passive-aggressive behavior. If something is wrong, deal with it or work it out, don’t make us guess or play the martyr. Don’t friend coworkers or strangers, and if you do, learn enough about your setup options to put them in a special little group so they can’t really see what you’re doing, or when. Which leads me to the final and most important one.

7. Facebook is not your friend. Facebook does not care about you. Many of the people you Invite or Accept probably feel the same. It’s great to catch up and stay connected with long-lost folks and far-away family, but don’t get lost in it. Try not to destroy lives or jobs, and try to keep a little focus.

End rant.

Also, we had a freaking awesome weekend. Swimming, a playdate at Aunt Jonesy’s with new friends, a Karate Birthday Party, and lunch with The Ta. AND IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!

With Royal Beauty Bright

2010-12-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

People who have children (I hear they are calling them ‘parents’ nowadays) often like to wax poetic about how their little ~~monsters~~ loved ones change their lives. Like, for the better. Constantly. They speak eloquently about beauty as seen through the eyes of a child, share ~~agonizing~~ hilarious little cute things that kids misinterpret or explain in their own precious little words, and swear that every day is enriched and filled to the brim with wonderfulness and sunshine and Christmas cookies that you bite into without fear of toddler saliva or boogers. In fairness I will admit that I do laugh out loud (that’s LOL for anyone younger than 20) a lot more than PJ (pre-Jelly), but I will also point two centrally located fingers at the reason I have more frustration and stress and general man-I-wish-I-could-sleep-in-ONE-DAMN-DAY-ness.

Every parent of a toddler knows who’s really in charge, no matter how brave they act. You live and breathe for the happiness of the little dictator, watching what makes them happy and cooking what they’ll eat and reading the same damn Berenstein Bears ‘Go to School’ book every single damn night. You tell yourself you’re still the boss while you watch Wall-E for the 84^th time and eat another chicken nugget meal, while struggling to maintain enough sanity and strength to fight the big battles when they come.

Christmas propaganda has been in full force in this house since December 1^st. Books, movies, songs, and toys are filled with the jolly man in the red suit, the gameless glowy reindeer, and the cold dude with the magic hat. Jelly has learned the words to Jingle Bells, Mary’s Boy Child, Jingle Bell Rock, Frosty the Snowman, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. She studies the books like she’s cramming for Christmas finals, and has watched more than one seasonal favorite well, more than once. And there are lots of Christmas trees throughout the wilderness of the media maelstrom; small Charlie Brown trees, wacky Seussian trees, trees with lights and ornaments and balls and bows. You may be interested, or politely feign interest, in the fact that there are VERY FEW TREES WITH ANGELS. I don’t think it’s a PC trying-to-avoid-Reason-for-the-Season-controversy thing. Apparently, the general public feels that their Christmas tree is a starry one.

I am an angel girl. I have been for at least 15 years, if not longer. The earliest angel I had was a slightly creepy hand-me-down that my then-roommate and I nicknamed ‘Frieda of the Tree’. It was a very formal name for a mid-1970’s homemade-looking gal with a plastic head and a few cheap fire hazard lights. I loved Frieda, and still have her, although she has definitely seen better days. Over the years I upgraded to newer, bigger, brighter shinier models. Frieda 3.0 has fiber optic wings and holds a light and has a pretty sash on her dress, and I would have probably had to install some elaborate strut system to get her to stay on my lightweight artificial tree this year. That is, if a toddler wasn’t the boss of me.

It was a fight I was destined to lose from the beginning. Jellybean believes that Santa will bring her a choo-choo and new playdough on Christmas morning. She believes that Swiper shouldn’t be on the naughty list. And she believes, with absolute 2 1/2-year old certainty, that a Christmas tree has a star on the top. Absolutely and positively NOT an angel. So I dug out a cheap crappy white plastic silver-garland trimmed star and dutifully placed it on the tree. It lit up only sporadically, when I jiggled the crappy wires, and was a constant source of irritation for both of us. I finally gave up and unplugged it yesterday, fearful of coming home to flames and fireworks (I never used that whole bag of stuff I bought in Georgia last January, I wonder if they’re still good? And where I put them?). I dug out Frieda 3.0 and commenced trying to sell her to Jelly. I showed her the beauty of the fiber optic wings, the delicate china head and hands. I asked if she wanted to touch her pretty dress or look at the book the angel held. Jenny was immoveable. She refused to touch her or look at her. She shrieked at me to get that abomination off the tree. She brought me a yellow construction paper star she’d made at preschool, and ordered me to put that up instead.

So this morning we were at the Wal-Mart running errands on our hell-no-we-won’t-stay-inside-because-of-a-little-snow day, and I asked if she wanted to pick out a new star. Yes, I know it was a stupid thing to say, I was giddy with skipping work and the holiday music playing and the promise of McDonald’s for lunch. We hit the tree toppers aisle and Jenny saw her star. Was it the gorgeous silver star, or the cheap white plastic star exactly like the one in the trash at home? No, I'm not that lucky. It was a red star. I repeat. Red. It was probably the last thing in the entire aisle that I would have chosen. A promise is a promise, so I bought the damn thing begrudgingly and waited til she napped to put it on the tree. And oh my god (that’s OMG for those of you having to read this for a school assignment or something) the damn thing is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL, I say! I didn’t think it even lit up, but it does. I didn’t think a red star had any place on a Christmas tree, but let me tell you, when you apparently have a tree that is all white lights and 85% red ornaments, a red star is freaking STUNNING.

When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong. I haven’t become a better person or solved world peace, but today my daughter reminded me that beauty can be found where you don’t expect it, and not in a cheesy plastic bag blowing in the wind way. More importantly, I remembered she is not a baby but a person, unique and special (as previously discussed), with likes and dislikes and tastes all of her own, and this house is not just mine. It is ours. I thought being single meant not having to compromise, but this is now officially a 2-person home. I have to remember not to impose my own style on her anymore, and at some point am going to have to take her seriously when she wants to contribute to her living space. I won’t always like the decisions she makes or the things she chooses to dye/wear/pierce, but sometimes she’ll surprise me, and sometimes it will be totally awesome.

Uh, yeah, that's an Amidala ornament. There's no judging at Christmas.

Pretty Little Head

2010-12-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

One of the many, many reasons I often daydream about a move back up North (although not on a day like today, when it’s 20 degrees out and I had to wear a coat, a COAT! The OUTRAGE! In December!) is the, uh, Southiness, of the Ol’ South. Yes, it’s nice to get a sweat-beaded glass of icy cold sweet tea on a hot summer’s day, and the biscuits are the best you can find. But there are still quiet, scary undercurrents of racism hidden in everyday polite conversations. And the men are suppose to be brave and strong and reckless (and heterosexual), and the women are suppose to be God-fearing and delicate and just a little bit helpless. And heterosexual.

I’ve never claimed to be a feminist. I’m one of the ones who constantly sets the Women’s Movement back a few paces with my fondness for cooking and knitting and baby-making. I’ve only voted once, and that was because I had a daughter who I realized needed to see her mother do it. I do appreciate the ‘hold property’ thing, though, because I despised apartment living (too light a sleeper).

However. Listening to my favorite holiday radio station this morning (the one that plays 24/7 Christmasy tunes, and had the damn Glee song on before it even aired), they had Part 1 in a ‘Point/Counterpoint’ cheesy little morning feature about Men Versus Women Drivers. Here are the three points the women said they liked about male drivers;

They can parallel park better
They can change a flat tire
They can drop us off at the front door of the mall

I had to double-check my dashboard to make sure I wasn’t in a DeLorean and it was suddenly 1952. For the record, I am an EXCELLENT parallel parker. No, ladies of the morning show, there is not ‘something in the chromosomes’ that makes men better at it. And I can also change a flat tire, as long as the damn lug nuts aren’t cemented on. And that last one just made me really, really mad. Partially because I’m lazy and would love to be dropped off at the front door of the mall but don’t have a husband, but mostly because DAMNIT MY DAUGHTER IS IN THE CAR! Ok, she actually wasn’t, because I don’t get to listen to the radio when she’s in the car because I can’t hear it over the @#$% ‘Frosty the Snowman’ DVD on repeat. But still. I’m sure there were plenty of other little girls listening, thinking, ‘Why, yes, it IS handy to have a nice man help me shop, because I’m a girl and that’s what I do’. Obviously it made me mad enough to write in my damn blog, which I’ve ignored because the only other thing I could think of to write about were the constant migraines, and that just made me depressed.

It’s not that I am deluded enough to think that this kinda stuff doesn’t still happen in Canada, or other parts of the world. I am sure there are plenty of Australian men whose womenfolk are proud of their boomerang skills and koala gathering (see what I did there? Now I’m pretending to be small-minded about other countries and cultures. Everyone knows there’s much more to Australia. Like the criminals, and Crocodile Dundee.). It’s just that it is so natural here. So assumed. I know plenty of thought-to-be-emancipated women who won’t buy their sons dolls, or trucks for their daughters. People still laugh nervously about boys playing dress-up, or a girl with a Star Wars thermos. C’mon, people, really?

I read something last week that said the average age for eating disorders to begin has dropped again. When I was a kid it was 14. In the ‘90’s it was eight. Now it’s six. Also, I’m making those numbers up, so don’t quote me, but I’m in the ballpark; it’s something totally awful. Also, there are all kinds of special ‘thinspiration’ websites, and there’s a new term, ‘pro-ana’, as in, ‘how cool is it to be someone who starves themselves’. I hadn’t thought about it much, but the article was dead-on when it said that the new crop of tween and YA actresses gave much younger girls something to compare themselves to – when I was a teen I just had baby-fat Madonna, who was like a grown-up, and therefore a bazillion years old to me.

Very few of those youthful female role models are self-saving princesses, and not a whole lot more real girls are being raised to be so. What is so bad about encouraging independence and fostering uniqueness? Why is it so hard to break from the Disney mold of sweet and pretty and seen-but-not-heard? People like to talk big about celebrating individuality but sure as hell don’t walk the walk. Look at the whole bullying thing that’s made big news lately. Our technological leaps have made it painfully easy for someone to terrorize a victim across a wide array of social media, and in much more public arenas.

I worry, like any mother. I look at a sunny, happy little girl who bounds out of bed to greet each new morning with a song, and I get a panicky feeling. She is smart, and she is a nice person, and she knows who she is. That means she is going to struggle, and be hurt, and have to fight, because the rest of the world doesn’t play by our rules. There are other little boys and girls getting out of bed who aren’t told that they are special and that someone is proud of them, who see and hear behaviors that just should not be. Somewhere out there is a little girl who someday will tell Jenny she can’t be her friend because her hair is too curly or she’s not wearing the right clothes, and somewhere out there is a boy who is going to knock her down simply because he can. All I can do is try to teach her to believe in herself, always try her best, and, damnit, do ANYTHING. Because she is a girl. In spite of being a girl. Because she is Jenny. And she is much more than just a pretty little head.

Put a Little Love in Your Heart. Or Sand.

2010-12-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas.

Like, love. Despite having a father who was a bit of a grinch as December headed towards the inevitable, who would rather be outside working on an old Plymouth or Buick than dealing with his antagonistic brothers, my mom always made a big deal over ol' St. Nick. There was always a live tree, and cookies and eggnog, and if you rolled over in your cozy sugarplum bed in the middle of the night you'd hear a faint tinkling that was the bell on your stocking, and then you'd go crazy waiting til morning. Many, many nights my mum stayed up hand-sewing miniature buttons on homemade Barbie clothes, or putting the finishing touches on a Pajama Doll (will I be a dork if I make one for Jelly?! Don't answer that).

I love the magic of Christmas. I love that a child believes in the magic of flying sleighs and reindeer, and the all-seeing, all-knowing fat man in red. I like the lights, and the music, and the cackle of a fireplace, even if it is just a DVD (seriously, I own that). I hang stockings on the mantle with care, hurl LED and glow-in-the-dark snowflakes all over every possible window, and have been considering one of those inflatable monstrosities for the front yard. Maybe an 8-foot high snowglobe. That lights up. And plays music. And can unload the dishwasher for me. I like baking Christmas cookies, and making candy, and even the hours and hours of laboriously curling ribbon on gifts. I wrap in blue and silver, those are my signature Christmas colors.

On December 1st my shopping is done. I do 80%, if not more, online. Amazon ought to spend November sending me chocolates and flowers for what I pour into that site. But I also like to find the little odd-ball places, like dylanscandybar.com and Romp. I order myself a big sampler from The Popcorn Factory, now that I sadly no longer have grandparents that do that, and damnit, I love getting that freaking stupid tin. I like to hang ornaments in a certain order that someday is going to make Jelly insane. I cannot, CANNOT decorate the tree until there are homemade cookies and eggnog, which is why mine is not up yet; this Saturday afternoon will be baking, and Sunday afternoon there shall be mayhem.

Tonight we will officially kick off the season with our first event - the local tree-lighting ceremony in the neighboring town. This weekend will be xmas card pics, and a parade, and a holiday party. Oh, and the baking and the tree, of course. Jelly will have a few more days to open on her Playmobil Advent Calendar (so darn cute), I will find more crap hidden that I bought for her a zillion years ago, and we'll meet up with my mommies group to hand over the clothes and toys we bought for a little girl who otherwise wouldn't get very much this Christmas. Yes, there is a PSA hidden in this post; if you haven't already, please consider sponsoring a child this holiday. Or, a senior citizen; I was shocked and horrified to see the wishlist of a 79-year old woman, who wanted nothing more than warm slippers, paper towels, and a few favorite treats. Yes, I know that Christmas has become overly commercialized and there's plenty of reasons to lose sight of the spirit of the season. But whether you are celebrating a religious event or not, it's still a time for togetherness; family, humanity, peace and goodwill. And that's why I like Christmas.

Although it's REALLY hard to get in the mood when I was doing this one week ago;

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving ROCKED. That right there, my friends, is why living in NC is sometimes really, really awesome.

Except now I want snow.

Shut It, I'm Comfortable

2010-11-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

Many, many years ago, when I was young(er) and foolish(er), I use to observe Women of a Certain Age and their apparent total oblivion to the current styles in denim wear. ‘How sad’, I’d think to my teenaged self, dressed in safety-pinned acid wash, ‘They don’t even realize how terrible that looks’. Ahh, young self, if I told you the secret behind the uniform of the middle-aged mom you’d be even sadder. Because I’ve learned that those women just really, really don’t care. They know. Believe me, they know. Those pants are pulled over sore feet and bruised calves and fat knees, up past lumpy thighs and ever-widening hips and over a saggy c-section gut, and there is no way anyone can pretend they’re fashionable or sexy or a trendy color.

The Mom Jean, found in many cultures, is a rite of passage for those who are past the New Mom Pants phase. The New Mom can still get away with wearing maternity jeans for quite some time, and can blame her inexplicably ever-shifting weight patterns on the baby. That lasts for approximately one year, max. Anyone trying to do this longer is in the denial phase. The denial phase can last anywhere from 1-25 years. This is the time when a mother tries panels, pleats, lycra-blends, and long sweaters, to no avail. Many, many women over 40 can be immediately recognized as being in jeans denial by sporting skinny jeans, ripped jeans, or having a massive ‘chef’s hat’ or ‘muffin top’ lapping over a low-rise waist band.

At some point, every woman who weighs more than 80 lbs must accept the Mom Jean. You will know a pair of pants are Mom Jeans if the following are true;

The legs are too wide to be fashionably skinny, but too narrow to be fashionably boot-legged
Your friends look at them, then look away in embarrassment, and can’t even mock you
They are either a little bit longer or shorter than a normal pair of jeans
The dye color is even and consistent, and is either too light or too dark to be trendy
Your butt looks like a cement mixer was overloaded with oatmeal
The waist falls somewhere above the belly button and just below the bra line
You can fit a sippy cup in the front pocket
The zipper is a solid 8 inches
None of your trendy tees look right with them, and you are forced to wear either a ¾ sleeve cotton blouse in a pastel color, a sweatshirt with a rustic snowman, or something that has been bedazzled. Or has a picture of a kitty on it.
People start calling you ma'am a lot more

I just bought my second pair. I both hate myself, and rejoice in the unrestricted comfort and lack of back fat that shows when I lean over.

Next stop – elastic-waist rayon. Grandma Pants.

Ta's Kind of Town

2010-11-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Sooo.... yeah. Vegas. City of lights, and machines that go *ping!*, and great shows and meals and shopping and whatnot. Also, city of smoke and dark and dryness, and expense and greed and timelessness. I understand the attraction, don't get me wrong. When we first stood in line to check in to our room, in the expansive lobby with the lion and the blinky things in the casino nearby and the crush of people, it was very exciting. It was someplace new, filled with possibility and adventure.

And it's not that I hate to gamble. I love to feed money into the slot machines, and pull the handle, and feel that thrill of winning. It's just that I hate the feeling afterwards, angry at myself for throwing money away on something so dumb. People who enjoy gambling say that you have to look at it the same way as spending money on a good meal or show - you're paying for the entertainment value, and as such you're not going to have anything to show for it, and you have to just accept that. I can't. I'm the kind of person who gets more happiness out of a good show or meal than kissy fish when you get a bonus at the Goldfish slots. The Ta, on the other hand, LOVED Vegas. Like, has already booked her next trip in February. She loved the gambling, and didn't feel the crushing disappointment and fury when she lost like I did. She loved the convenience of a Starbucks in the hotel, and the strip; these things were much better amenities than a pool or beachfront room for her, and she had a hard time understanding how I would prefer boring ol' swimming.

Maybe it has something to do with the different ways people unwind. On my weekends I'm a doer. I like to shop, and take Jelly places, and meet friends, and eat out. When I'm on vacation I like to divide my time between doing, and relaxing, and the beach is ideal for me for that. Some people like to just relax. Some people like to just do. All I know is, I would never choose Vegas as a vacation destination for me. And I was grateful every single second that I was there that I had decided not to take Jelly along.

It wasn't all the advertisements for Girls, Girls, Girls, or the sad bleary empty-eyed zombies still sitting at the tables at 4:30 am. It was partially the cloud of cigarette smoke that imbued everything, from the bathroom towels to the hallway carpets to my hair. It was partially the tourists, shoving past baby strollers like they were pieces of obtrusive furniture. But it was mostly the fact that, no matter what they are advertising, it is NOT a family-friendly place to visit. M&M World? There were identical items for sale at the Raleigh airport, and for better prices. None of the restaurants I saw were toddler-friendly. There sure as heck wasn't anything for short people to do in the casinos, unless you were staying somewhere like Circus Circus, and even then everything looked like it came with a price tag. And smoke. And scary clowns.

Since we unexpectedly stayed on East coast time, we were up before sunrise and in bed by 8pm most nights. This meant I missed out on some fun stuff. I also got a migraine one night, which I really tried not to let color my experience. Barfing all over the hotel bathroom wall was not cool. It meant I definitely wasn't going to risk any more drinking though, which probably impacted my fun factor. We did get to take in a Cirque de Soleil show, 'Ka', courtesy of Jonesy, which was awesome. We were so close we could feel the heat of the fireballs. There were a ton of things on our wish list that didn't get done simply because work or our bank balances got in the way, and to be fair, it was a work trip first and foremost. I'm not exactly dreading going back again next year, since there were definitely some high points. But I'm super-glad The Ta went with me for this first visit, as it would have been pretty lonely otherwise.

Also, I got a tattoo.

Can you believe it?! A freakin' TATTOO!!!

I love it.

I've been thinking about getting one for YEARS, and I figured Vegas was the perfect place to do so. I got it done on the fattest place on my body, the knickknack ledge between my waist and butt (NOT a tramp stamp, it would be fully covered by a bathing suit). Maybe that's why it TOTALLY DIDN'T HURT. No, seriously, at one point I felt very soothed by the whole thing - laying down on the table, the hum of the needle, the artist's delicate touch. I would honestly compare it to waxing - you know, that ouchy-but-short-lived pain. I was thrilled by the whole thing. Not in a 'going to get kitty whiskers tattooed on my face' way, but yeah, it was way more awesome than I expected. 'Club Tattoo', in the Planet Hollywood shops, tell Krystof I sent you.

And now my parents are here for a visit, which is SUPER awesome, because it meant that after a week away from home, Jelly gets to stay home for a full week! And then NEXT week - Thanksgiving vacation! Myrtle Beach!

Ok, right, back to this work thing...

What Happens in Vegas Will Definitely Be Shared on This Blog

2010-11-04T07:29:00.001-07:00

Hello, bloggy friends, acquaintances, family, and stalkers. Can you believe it’s November? The weather here sure is winter-in-the-South; grey and rainy, and I almost considered wearing a jacket this morning. Of course, in sunny VEGAS! this weekend, it’s going to be 83 degrees. Oh, did I mention VEGAS!? Yes, for once I scored a work trip that is not to Detroit in January, or Orlando in August. And TheTa is going with me. AND we’re staying at the MGM Grand. AND Jonesy may have scored us a real money deal. But I’ll keep that a surprise for now. Also, Cousin J gave me some sort of magical cup that I can pay like five cents to fill with some sort of alcoholic slushy. So I’m pretty stoked about that.

It’s been a zillion years since I’ve had time to sit down and write. Apparently, not posting to your blog means that people don’t comment, no matter how many times you check your blog. And I’m very comment-hungry today. I have had a whole slew of topic ideas come and go in the past few weeks, sadly because work prepping for the upcoming VEGAS! conference has been soul-consuming. Also, Jellybean was SO. MAD. that I had left her for the Boston trip, she spent a full week making me regret every second I was gone. And now I have to leave her again. That poor little Bean. A full week of MsD hugging on her and cooking for her and taking her fun places, and sleepovers with MsD’s girls and playing dress up, and getting read to a gazillion times a day. Yes, it’s a hard life for her. I think the hardest part is that she’s away from her house. That kid is a homebody like her mama, she cracks me up. I just keep telling her that I’ll bring her presents. Hopefully she likes empty Tylenol bottles.

So here are the blog posts I didn’t get to write, and you’ll never get to read. Sorry. Blame my boss, The Nice Lady Who Signs My Paychecks.

Gluteal Amnesia – Why My Butt Forgets to Not Get Bigger

(seriously, this is a real thing, and probably the reason for my chronic back pain)

Toddlers – The Worst Invention, Ever

(omg – where did that whiny noise come from, and why won’t it stop? We spent 4 awful nights fighting about the fact she refused to pull the damn plug in the damn bathtub drain, it was just STUPID)

Trip to the Farm/Fair/Boston/Trunk or Treat

(Farm with my CSM group was great, JR is definitely a hardcore hayride fan; the fair was ok, she probably liked the petting zoo the best and gave me crap because I didn’t let her ride on the rides enough times; Boston was a whirlwind, the ‘Taste of Boston’ tour freaking ROCKED; Halloween was out of control, we did too many events this year and suffered some burnout, but she was cute EVERY SINGLE TIME)

The Scientist – Yeah, I Bailed on that Shit

(Every email he sent annoyed me further. You probably shouldn’t tell an agnostic ‘I’ll pray for you’. And the pics of his Etsy stuff – ugh. Yes, I’m a mean person. Yes, I am aware this is why I am single. Yes, I chickened out on bailing outright and said something along the lines of ‘it’s a busy time for me, blah blah blah, maybe in the Spring’)

I’ve managed to squeeze in one more activity between VEGAS! and the Thanksgiving Myrtle Beach Extravaganza. My much-adored friend S and I are taking the wee wench and young knights to the Renaissance Faire. And spending the night. So we can go to IKEA the next day! You may remember how much I enjoyed my Ikea trip last spring in Cincinnati. Cousin J was embarrassed to be with me. I might have wept a little with happiness. Swedish Meatballs and well-designed children’s storage bins make me weak, who knew?

So yes, as you can imagine we are still as busy as ever. I have a few pics for your enjoyment. Hopefully I will have some embarrassing and blurry ones for you the next time I post. First VEGAS! trip, omg, I cannot wait.

No, it's not all smiles and puppies with a 2-year old. Sometimes it's kicking and shrieking and public humiliation.
Happy Halloween! Yes, I am forcibly restraining her in this pic, good catch.
She does love to accessorize, a word which my spell check refuses to acknowledge.

That's my girl.

Two Months

2010-10-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

til Christmas! Yep, can you believe it? Man, I love Christmas. Yes, it sneaks up on me because I'm Canadian and after 16 years STILL cannot deal with Thanksgiving being like, 5 seconds before the most joyous of all holidays. So I just wanted to help everyone out in case this wasn't on your radar. Or if the malls hadn't started decorating yet like they have here. CRAZY! Before Halloween! I will have a problem buying scented pine cones and cranberries to string in July. Oh, I'll do it, but I will have issues with it.

So, um, we've been busy here. Things are a bit better now that Jenny is feeling much better (albeit giving me grief for being gone to Boston for a week). I was able to handle discovering a dead car battery at 7:40 am with poise and a call to AAA instead of cursing and Southern Comfort Cheerios. I swear I will have some hilarious pics of Jelly posted soon (vague, yes, but well-intended). And I have sadly mistreated the Scientist, so I need to give an update on that.

Also.

One week from Saturday is Vegas! It's just nuts. I can't believe I'm home only two weeks before leaving the Bean again. At least it's technically work travel so I can't feel TOO guilty. And then, two weeks after that is Myrtle Beach for Thanksgiving (yes, I am keeping it on the books, screw the credit card). And I made my first Christmas reservation today - 'Milk and Cookies with Santa' at the local community center. So freaking cute. Tis the season for everything to get really, REALLY busy. Cause you know, we're all just sitting around watching our stories and eating our kids' Halloween candy.

How cute is this?

(Answer: SO cute!)

We Can't Wait For Thanksgiving

2010-10-17T10:54:00.001-07:00

Jellybean = Rockstar

2010-10-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update for all the FOJies out there - Jelly did AWESOME. Like, crazy ridiculous awesome. The surgery took like 11 seconds, she was PISSED OFF when she came to but once home was up and about within the hour. Eating, sleeping, playing, totally like nothing happened.

So, yay :-).

More later.

To Do

2010-10-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

But why, Jellybean Mama? Why are you so stressed? What is making you lie (lay?) awake nights, other than your possible bad grammar?

I thought I’d share today’s Reminders list to provide some perspective. And also because I hate leaving such a depressing post as the last thing for you to stare at until next week. I know it will be fine, I know I’ll find a way to get my shit together and my head above water, I know everything will work out and this time next week I’ll have had a few drinks and a few good night’s (nights’?) sleep and I’ll have a better outlook.

Move or provide coverage for tomorrow’s scheduled conference calls and edit out-of-office message; update any relevant documents required for the meeting status updates
Finalize and submit at least the key deliverables for tomorrow’s deadline; work late tonight to get as much done as possible, then message manager that I will not deliver the remaining items on time and outline plan for completion/how to avoid this next release cycle. Update resume.
Pack for next week’s business trip; drop off jacket at Dry Cleaners if time
Finish prep for Monday’s Annual Review and Tuesday’s Retrospective Team Meeting
Check in Sunday morning for Monday's flight
Complete, print, sign and date a Medical Consent form for caregiver
Pack bag for Jelly for next week and take to caregiver; include outfit for school picture day next Tuesday
Pick up donation items for preschool since I didn’t sell any @#$% cookie dough for their @#$% fundraiser (due last Tuesday) and I don’t want to be That Mom
Drop off and pick up post-op prescription
Complete pre-op paperwork
Pack bag of items for surgery (blanky, books, Ernie and Mickey, socks, sippy, Pull Up and underpants)
Call for surgery time after 2p; message friend who will be going with me once I have the schedule (Edit: Ha, and let her know where it is! See what happens when something isn’t on my list?!)
Get any groceries/items for post-surgery (soup, juice, popsicles, vodka)
Give caregiver a copy of post-op instructions for next week
Remember to take prescription and blanky to caregiver’s Monday morning
Re-schedule post-op appointment (work conflict)
Remember to not give Jelly anything to eat or drink tomorrow before surgery. Do not eat or drink anything in front of her so as to avoid being shanked.

So, um, yeah. That's why my head hurts right now.

Thanks again for all the well-wishes and happy positive comments, blog friends.

A Week of Mondays

2010-10-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

You know how when you wake up on a Monday, there’s a brief second as the last vestiges of sleep dissipate, when you stretch and yawn in a land between dream and reality – then, with a sudden sick feeling, you remember. Monday. You have to rush, you have to plan, you have to pack and dress and drive, there are timelines and deadlines and urgencies. If you are retired or work on the weekend, the day might not be the same for you or you may start to feel the panic and then get to luxuriate in relief, but you know what I’m talking about. The crushing, bone-wearying chatter that you know won’t quiet again until Friday.

If asked, I’d probably say I like Thursdays. Thursday means tomorrow is Friday, and that the whole weekend is open with possibilities. Friday makes me a little nervous, like I’m not appreciating the time I have or using it properly, and Saturday means the best part of the weekend is already over. Sunday is 12 hours of reminders that the following day is once again not your own, so what’s to like about that?

The past week and more has felt like one Monday after another, with a moment of calm wakefulness followed immediately by a nervous turn of the stomach and a laundry list of worries. Yes, ‘doing laundry’ is, in fact, on the list. As are about a dozen deliverables for work that I’m definitely not going to have ready for Friday, not including prep for the big meeting next week. The mortgage payment hit at the same time as the daycare check, then I was told I was late paying preschool tuition. The Ta had to cancel watching Jelly nights next week because of work, so I owe another daycare check. And this afternoon I put $578 on a credit card, just a small portion of what will be owed in a few days.

Jenny’s ENT appointment was yesterday morning, where the very nice Doc Brown told me yes, little Bean would need to have the teensiest of holes cut in her ear drums. He was mousey and mustached and made me feel very at ease, but it was still a Bad Thing to hear. Also, Jelly had to have the creepiest hearing test (scary toys in opposite corners of a tiny claustrophobic room – a terrifying rabbit that lit up and played cymbals, and a horrific bear that lit up and played a drum). But the staff were very nice, and my ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ bag from my youngest sis made an excellent conversation piece, so we were told we’d get a call to schedule the surgery and off we went.

The call came within a few hours, and despite the fact I’d gone over my calendar four times to try and find good dates, there was no good answer. The sweet Doc Brown only operates on Fridays, and that didn’t leave me with a lot of options. So then it became a question of what we would have to compromise. And then it was what we would give up. One of the hard things about being a parent is making the unpopular decisions, but one of the truly shitty things about being a parent is making the decisions that are lousy for you. Jelly has been sick for months, in pain off and on. Not sleeping. Her behavior has radically changed. So the surgery is day after tomorrow. The Yo Gabba Live tickets, purchased months and months ago for this Saturday’s show were sold to a friend, the hotel room cancelled, the third weekend trip in a row called off. I will get on a plane to Boston for work on Monday morning with extra guilt and worries. I will once again be in debt, Christmas plans will most likely be cancelled, and damn it, it made me furious to read the stupid hospital brochure where it advised to have both parents at the surgery, “so that one could drive and one could tend to the child”.

I’m not very rational right now because Jelly has not been sleeping. It’s been a few weeks now, where she’ll creep into my room in the wee hours, or wake for the day long before the sun appears. I am doing my best to NOT FREAK OUT because there is no other parent to tend to the child, so I need to at least pretend to be the strong one. Lots of nice people have told me it will be fine. I am reminding myself that I am lucky to have an awesome network of supportive friends and family, so I won’t be alone in that waiting room. I am reassuring myself that other people must take endless hours off work for sick children and appointments at times that are not ideal for their managers, and they don’t lose their jobs. I have to come up with a better way to keep it all straight – the house, the job, the budget, the commitments. I’m doing everything in a fog right now, including parenting.

I’m just so tired of Monday.

*I will post as soon as I am able to let you guys know that The Bean is totally fine and that I was a moron for being so worked up.

Totally Tubular

2010-10-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sooooooo… how’s your day going? I just got back from yet another pediatrician adventure, where I learned (shock! gasp!) that BOTH of Jelly’s ears are chock-a-block full of fluid. Since what we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working, I now have a referral for the local Ear Nose & Throat Nice People (the ENTNP). I am going to refer to them as Nice People in a very optimistic manner, because hopefully when I call I’ll be able to get in right away, and get her on the schedule right away for EAR TUBES.

Tubes. Whenever I’ve heard that word from other parents, it’s been followed by ‘avoid them at all costs!’. I’ve heard more horror stories about ear tubes than bad things about bottle feeding (just kidding there, we all know that nothing is more evil than giving an innocent baby formula). I am freaking out a bit. You know how to tell I’m freaked out? I called the biological father. Yep. You know how he knew I was freaked out? He ANSWERED.

It was not a long conversation, so don’t fall off your office chairs or out of the driver’s seat or into the pool (hey, I don’t know where you do your blog reading, I don’t like to assume). I asked if he had problems with his ears as a kid, or if he knew of any family history. I just don’t know where the heck this is coming from – this would have been her FIFTH round of antibiotics since July. What kid gets ear infections in the summer? Oh, right, one who lived in the pool. Do I feel guilty now about taking her swimming so much? Why yes, as a matter of fact I do, thank you for inquiring.

Quiet answered that no, there was no likewise no history of ear infections in his family, and that he’d been just fine as a kid. I very politely thanked him for taking my call (still massively traumatized that he’d actually answered), wished him a pleasant evening, and hung up. So, either he didn’t look at caller ID (no chance, since I called his cell), he deleted me from his Contacts so he really didn’t know who I was, or he isn’t going to be totally incommunicado. So I’m oddly reassured. But, you know, still guilty about the whole swimming-in-the-dirty-lake thing. And for every single time I’ve splashed her. And also for all those baths. Damn you, cleanliness!

Please, PLEASE if you have had experience with tubing a kid, let me know. But say something reassuring, not ‘OMG it was HORRIBLE they fell out/got infected/exploded and the child DIED’. Because I would rather not hear that. I would prefer hearing something like, ‘OMG it was the BEST thing that could’ve happened and the child had no more pain and learned 3 languages and listens to EVERYTHING I say now’. I’ve had some FB friends post things like this that made me feel better already, so I’m back down off the wall, but I’m still looking at it. I called my parents, who put things into perspective by telling me to calm the hell down and think about what it would be like if I were having tubes put in her heart. Or if it were like 100 years ago, and it went untreated and she went deaf or got meningitis. They also reminded me how lucky I was that it was outpatient surgery, since they had to leave their eldest daughter as a baby overnight, alone, in the hospital, and when they got back the next morning she had lost her voice from sobbing and her legs were black and blue from kicking at the crib bars. Isn’t that freaking SAD?! And there’s why I don’t like hospitals, if you are a psychiatrist.

But still. My Jelly girl. Surgery.

A Thirst

2010-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, kids, here's fair warning that it's time for a serious post, so if you would rather come back another time to look at pics of me trying to sew a Renaissance Faire costume for Jelly, or hear about the awesome homemade Mac 'n Cheese I made for dinner last night, I understand.

My first drink was most likely as a toddler, slipped to me by either my father or one of my uncles, who still think it’s hilarious to give small children cigarettes, alcohol, and crystal meth (ok, fine, everything except that last one). It was the 70’s, and taking pictures of babies in stupid-looking hats with a stogie was acceptable, even encouraged. This is what the world was like before people had Frontierville to keep them occupied. My second drink was nipped from a crystal decanter my dad kept on the formal dining room table. Strictly for ornamental purposes – the crystal was lead. And the alcohol was scotch. I shudder thinking about it, but I felt very naughty at the time, dancing around to my Paul Lekakis single on the record player when I was suppose to be watching my youngest brother and sister (who, thank you very much, have very fond memories of those impromptu slightly-drunken-lead-poisoned dance parties).

I got a little more serious about the whole thing when I started waitressing, and everyone in my small town assumed I was of age. I had a few drinks now and then at the odd corn roast, but it was the street dances where I really threw down (I had you at ‘corn roast’, didn’t I?). And, more often than not, threw up. I was young and underage, and only knew to order what the big kids were drinking, which was usually Rye ‘n Coke. It was the wilds of Ontario, remember, so it was either that or Molson Canadian.

My parents have always been very lenient about us drinking; my house was the place to get loaded before hitting the bars. My dad was usually right there doing shots alongside us (and sometimes, still sitting there when we got home). If you can inherit a taste for the bottle, I definitely got it on both sides. The folks have likewise always been very responsible drinkers, and encouraged the same. My dad had a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ rule when I was in high school that I never fully appreciated; if I got into a situation at a party and needed him to come get me, he wouldn’t yell or force me to spill the details, no matter what. I only had to call him on two occasions, but it was a very smart rule for a parent (whose kids were largely terrified of his wrath) to make. I plan to do the same thing with Jelly, who hopefully will likewise be terrified of me beating her senseless if she does something stupid.

At the tender drinking age of 19 I went off to college. My roommate and I may not have had money for luxuries like bread and shampoo and schoolbooks, but we had a fully stocked bar. I learned that I really wasn’t crazy about beer, but oh man, I loved the girl drinks. If it required a blender, fruit, umbrellas, and no less than 14 assorted exotic and overpriced liquors, it was put in my watering hole. It was during my second year of college that I learned Drinking Can Be REALLY Bad. There was an incident involving stolen cocktail glassware that could have been even worse than it was (we liked to shove highballs in our coat sleeves, and there was a fall, and lots and lots of broken glass very close to important veins). There were other incidents, too, although less life-threatening; some curling iron burns, some green pastrami that definitely should not have been consumed, exclusion from several local establishments.

After graduation I found myself in the fine state of NC, and my then-roommate enjoyed the drink just as much as I did. Because we worked in daycare and made approximately 75 cents per day, we did a lot of ‘pre-drinking’ to save money at the bar. If you know NC you know that nothing is convenient; we had a drive that was taxi-prohibitive, which, if you’re smarter than me, you’ve already figured out meant a slightly buzzed drive to go clubbin’. And, as logically follows, an extremely drunken drive back home. How do you know you’re too drunk to be driving? Take my quiz and find out.

You can’t find the car in the parking lot, and have to wait until everyone else has left.
You have a designated ‘pull over and vomit and/or urinate’ location in a nice suburban neighborhood halfway home.
You have to evade a police checkpoint, not because you’re worried about failing the breathalyzer (which you totally would), but because you have a large ceramic burro in your lap, stolen from the nearby Mexican restaurant.
You think it’s a good idea to follow other drunk strangers to their house for a make-out session, and steal frozen chicken from their freezer.

If you are nodding your head sagely, thinking ‘Yes, yes, I have done all these things’, well, I am kind of embarrassed for you. You may be seeing a pattern here of drinking and stealing stupid things. I am much better about that now. Mostly.

Around this time was also when I had my first official blackout. It was very scary for a control freak like me. I could remember bits and pieces, but there were whole chunks of time that were just – gone. And there were some extremely regrettable activities that occurred during that obliterated time. I swore I wouldn’t drink that much ever again.

The next time I drank that much again it was at a work function. I was in charge of Sales Training at the one company I worked for, and a big part of that involved taking the team out to party. This was my first introduction to expense-account-drinking, which takes things to a whole new level. It’s almost like you have an obligation to drink – everyone else is doing it, it’s free, the stupid Sales people are utterly unbearable to be around if you don’t. There was some dancing on the bar, and I left both my driver’s license and credit card there, and there was an embarrassing Marriott glass elevator encounter with one of the male reps, Mark Who Was Totally Hot.

Then. I drove home.

I woke up the next morning, fully dressed complete with shoes, in my own bed to the shrill sound of the phone. I had made arrangements to meet one of my employees before work at the local automotive shop, where I was planning to leave my car for an oil change appointment. It was now 3 hours past that time. My recollection of the previous night’s drive included lots of grass and gravel under my tires, trees very close, and the occasional missed stop sign. Then, nothing. It was the last time I ever got behind the wheel drunk. I was very, very lucky.

In the early days of living with the guys, we’d occasionally have a few drinks but nothing too crazy. Loud and I went out a few times, but nothing like what I use to do. Now that I’m a mom I’ll go out once in a blue moon and have, well, a Blue Moon or two, but I am very aware of my limits if I’m driving.

I tell you this story because I think about drinking a lot. There are a few bottles of wine cold in the fridge right now, an icy bottle of Limoncello in the freezer, some Amaretto above the stove with the tea, and some reds on their sides in the dark of the pantry. If you wanted rum I could offer you 5 different kinds; vodka, 3. Liquors cover the common fruits (apple, banana, blueberry, melon, orange, cassis, raspberry) and the not-so-common fruits (lychee, guava, kiwi ), nuts (hazelnut and cashew), plus coffee and chocolate and honey. There are several schnapps including root beer and butterscotch, after-dinner aperitifs including vermouth (both sweet and dry), port, sherry, madeira, and marsala, and staples like brandy, gin, sloe gin, and tequila. More exotic temptations, ordered online, range from Pimms to Green Tea, Pink Lemonade to Sweet Tea. There’s beer for visitors, champagne for just in case, and convenient pre-mixed beverages like canned Bloody Caesars and frozen individual daiquiris. I’m pretty sure there’s Southern Comfort and Jack Daniel’s in there somewhere, plus I keep a little Glenfiddich around for my dad. And that doesn’t include the mixers and accessories – various juices, soda and tonic waters, nice fat green olives, swizzle sticks and straws, colas and flavored sugar and salt rimmers, fresh citrus.

I think there are probably people who worry about how much I drink. I think there are probably more, now that they’ve read this list. The truth of the matter is, I very rarely indulge. There’s something about just having it that is comforting, like I’m totally prepared for a mass Pina Colada emergency (yes, I have both the frozen Bacardi canned mix as well as coconut milk and pineapple juice). When I’ve had a really tough day, I can tell myself, ‘Ah, almost quittin’ time, I’ll really throw back then’. What usually ends up happening is, well, not that. Maybe a small flute of ice wine, on the extremely rare occasion I make it into the tub without Jelly and Dora. I think that my past experiences make me very nervous to drink by myself with Jenny in the house, and that’s a good thing; I know that one perfectly frosted dirty martini isn’t going to make me pass out with all the stove burners on and a ‘Welcome, kidnappers!’ sign on the door, but I know that sometimes when I have one, I would like another one. And another.

I hear the stories about the soccer mom loaded at three in the afternoon, smashing the minivan. My friends joke about putting away a bottle or two of wine by themselves to unwind. When I burned my hand quite badly Sunday afternoon, my first instinct was not to reach for the painkillers but for a Cosmo (which ended up being very smart, since holding the icy glass was the only thing to give me relief). I’ve never been tempted by drugs, and hate taking even prescription medications. I’ve heard that alcoholics sometimes force down the drink, but it’s not like that for me; I’m not compelled by it, I’m driven to it. The promise of a warm, fuzzy feeling, the satisfaction of clinking cubes and a flavorful refresher, the hope of a happy distraction. I sometimes think that if things were a little bit different, my drinking might be more like my nail-biting; always present, impossible to control, shameful, and unhealthy. I struggle with how to model responsible, sensible behavior to Jenny. But I think a good first step is talking about it.

Anyone else really, really like to drink, but doesn't? Anyone who doesn't really like to drink, but does? Lemme know. I promise I won't be judge-y on this one. Everyone wants to escape something.

I Was Never This Popular in High School

2010-10-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger award by an awesome blogger (interesting yet confusing info here - who the hell likes to UNLOAD the dishwasher, instead of load it?). Like so many of these crazy things, I apparently have to share seven things about myself, then nominate seven other bloggers.

Seven Things That Are Mostly Kinda Lame About Me

I’m left-handed
I have dual citizenship
I have a natural immunity to Hepatitis-B
I bite my nails, horribly, below the nail line, but can't quit
My favorite number is four
I love salt
I’ve done professional voice work

Seven Blogs That I Read Almost Every Single Time They Are Updated, Except When I Don't

My Little Slice of Mommy Heaven, who is so impossibly different yet the same as me in a zillion ways. Also, I think if I were to have a stalker, it'd be her, so that's pretty sweet.
Motherhood is Not for Wimps, because Damomma taught me that it IS possible to be an awesome mom, even if no one else sees it or thinks so
Baby For 1, another single mom making her own way one really hard day at a time.
Scattermom, a real-life friend who is stubborn, manic, driven, and creative - just the way I like 'em. Also, I want her eldest to marry Jelly. He's too sweet for words.
My virtual friend at The Next Few Steps, whose honesty makes me want to reach through the internet void and give her real hugs, not just text hugs.
The stay-at-home dad over at Sweet Juniper!, who alternates between hilariously creepy children's book reviews, weird street-fruit recipes, and winsome stories of his adventures with his kids. I want to hang out with him, even if he is a damn hippy.
Tales of a Batty Nurse, who I don't have much in common with except for understanding that all-encompassing, desperate drive to have a baby of your own, and who I admire deeply for her plan of action.

So, uh, there you have it. Two posts in one day. Don't get use to it. And thanks for the nomination! You like me, you really like me! (hey, one person counts, shut it)

A Cool and Sunny Monday

2010-10-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

Just a quick little 'Happy Monday' post. Man, I am LOVING these cooler mornings. And afternoons. And evenings. Northerner much? I feel more awake and focussed, and I get fewer headaches. Stupid heat. It's so strange, one day it was 97 and the next day it was 67, and that was that. I guess I can probably deflate the toddler pool, huh? I did manage to clear out my local Dollar Store over the weekend, they had all kinds of summer toys on clearance. I got all the little boats and balls that JR kept trying to steal from other kids, that I didn't realize were so CRITICAL to toddler pool play.

It was a pretty good non-beach weekend. Miss Bean was in a bit of a mood, which I am blaming partially on the cold and hacking cough she's still dragging around, and partially on the fact that she is just so darn, well, two. Lots of whining and dawdling and 'look how cute I am as I say 'no!'' that just doesn't cut it with a Very Mean Mama. So lots of fights. But we also found a fun new local farm, complete with requisite bounce house (you know how those cows love to bounce), made it halfway through the Sing-a-Long 'Beauty and the Beast' showing at the local theater, finished the playroom (mostly), and dug out some Halloween stuff.

Two weeks from today I'll be back in Boston for work. Sigh. Performance reviews. Blergh. More talking about how I need to step up and be more of a leader. I don't wanna be a leader, I want to keep my head down and do the minimum to get a paycheck, why can't my boss just accept that and go develop someone else? But, how cool is this - we're doing a team activity that Wednesday that doesn't suck! We're taking the whole day to do a Boston Food Tour, starting in Chinatown and ending in Little Italy. You know what that means - Dim Sum for breakfast!! Omg, I cannot wait. I've worked for my company for 5 1/2 years and have never once gone into Boston proper, so it's doubly exciting. And Jelly gets to have a sleepover party at The Ta's, so she will hardly notice I'm gone.

I'm trying to decide if we are camping next weekend. I have a feeling it's another no-go. It was just really, really nice to be at home this past weekend to get stuff done. Staying home next weekend could mean curtains. And a Renaissance Faire outfit for Jelly! (see, I told you I get an over-inflated ego from minor successes).

Look! I SEWED!! I am a 1950's housewife ROCKSTAR!! Um, I mean 1850's.

We've had some rain, but Jellybean doesn't mind one bit.

It was the place to be.

A lovely fall day to re-enact 'Children of the Corn', everyone's favorite kid's movie.

Hot Chick

2010-09-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about having a blog is that clicking on my link today made me realize I hadn't called Colony Tire back to order a part. The good news on Monday was, the hammer-out-dents dude was able to fix the rim to the tune of $140 (yay!). And the tire was ok! (extra yay!). But then when I sensibly went to get an alignment done, I was told I had a rusty tie rod (boo!). So that will be a couple hundred bucks to fix, plus the cost of the actual alignment (*sigh*). But it could've been worse, so I'll stop talking about it now.

I've been in a super-shitty mood this week and am not sure why. I think my hormones are messed up. It's been this way for a few weeks now - skin all crazy, some severe emotional shifts, irrational irritability. No wait, that last one is TOTALLY rational, I live with a toddler. But still. I don't need to be snarking at her the way I've been. I can feel myself doing it. I almost burst into tears this morning when she wouldn't keep her damn head still to braid her damn hair. Damnit. She's two, give her a freaking break. SHE DOESN'T NEED BRAIDS! As long as it doesn't look like there's a squirrel nesting in there, who cares what the preschool teachers think? So yes. The mood. Has got to change. I can't blame it on the hilarious-because-it-won't-stop rain, because I've been like this for even longer than that, if possible. Diet? Exercise? (hahahaha, this is me falling off my couch laughing and almost knocking over a bowl of chips and a Pepsi). Dunno. Have to do something.

The beach trip this weekend is a definite no-go. So that's sad. I actually looked at a few local hotels for Saturday - a friend of mine said that during the winter she and her husband sometimes do that, find a cheap place with a pool and take the kid and go. I think it's brilliant, plus you don't have the travel hassle! With the car stuff I can't get past the price tag though. I need to come up with something else that's going to be cheap, relaxing, and fun for both of us. I'll keep working on it, but let me know if you have any brilliant ideas. There are a few local festivals, so that's a last option. My aunt and uncle are hosting their annual Oktoberfest, but as much as I love my cousins I can't take my car that far, and can't be on their schedule for rides. I looked at the train but times don't work out, and SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS. For the two of us for a 3-hr trip. Um, ick. Plus, you know. My mood. Rawr. I'd like to hide and not talk to anyone, please.

Changing tracks (get it, a train joke, you know, to ease the transition), I took some pics last weekend when I made a totally delicious roast chicken dinner. 5-6lb roasters were on sale for $5, you can't beat that. Especially when it lasted for 3 dinners, 2 lunches, and there's a bag of meat in the freezer for chicken pot pie. Mmm... pie.

First, start off with a nice plump little bird. I get what's on sale, I am very fancy that way. In this case, they were marked as 'Cajun Seasoned'. There was very little of that, but that was fine. Seasoning a bird means you are limited with what you do with the leftovers; for example, I've learned that Rosemary Chicken is really, really gross in enchiladas.

Hi, poultry. Meet my friends; garlic, lemon and fresh thyme.

I had never used fresh thyme in a chicken before, and OMG was it ever freaking delicious. Salt the inside and outside of the carcass after pulling out the gizards, rinsing it, and patting it dry. I read this weekend that patting dry was actually very important, because it helped the chicken to roast instead of, you know, steam. Science! Stuff some cut up lemons, halved garlic bulbs, and herbs in there. If you have room (and, uh, aren't out of them), I usually add cut up onion as well. Some people say you should butter the skin, but when you scroll down you'll see how unnecessary this is. Tie the legs together, tuck the wings under (I never manage to get that part right), place it in a roasting pan breast-side-up. It will be plenty moist, I promise you.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Yep, nice and hot. Because the a/c is still on in my southern kitchen, guess what I used?

Look how cute! A little chicky in a little toaster oven! Ok, in all honesty my toaster oven is kinda big. But that's why I bought it. I have used my oven only twice this summer, everything else has been cooked in here. I love the thing. If you don't have a digital thermometer yet, stop whatever you're doing and go get one. Mine has a little pager, it's great. Remember not to have the thermometer tip touch the bone. See the wings there, totally not tucked under or whatever? Sigh.

Cook for about 1 1/2 hours. I think the recommendation for internal cooked temp for poultry is 165 degrees. However, my thermometer has a well-done option so I let it get up to 174. I grew up in a home where it was more acceptable for my mother to sleep with another man than to undercook chicken, so I'm very sensitive about it. Plus, pink chicken, ew.

Since you have some time to kill, you might as well make some mashed potatoes and gravy. I have tried instant potatoes twice now, and they just don't cut it. Peel some potatoes roughly, quarter 'em, cover them in water with some kosher salt (the only kind I use in cooking - but don't get me started on my collection of 'finishing' salts), bring 'em to a boil and let them do their thing for about 15 minutes, depending on your definition of 'quarter'. Drain them, saving some of the water.

My mum was a hand mixer-potatoes kind of gal, so that's what I am. Nice, fluffy whipped potatoes - ahh, heaven. Drop in a generous chunk of butter (think Paula Deen) and a few dollops of either milk or half-and-half or (gasp!) cream, and start to blend. Since I had made my gravy prior to this step (was experimenting, and poured off some of the chicken fat early), I added a little gravy - I highly recommend doing this if you can.

Some people add garlic and other stuff, but again, I like to have leftover options so I leave them straight up. Fried mashed potatoes are great with eggs for breakfast.

Now, please don't be a-scared of making gravy. It is a hundred billion times better than what comes out of a can or envelope or a waitress's hand. Start with fat from meat drippings. If you're a better person than me you do some sort of intricate let-it-sit-and-pour-off or whatever, I don't bother. Stir a few tablespoons of flour into the hot fat. Add some broth (homemade if possible, or something from a really good bouillon base). Add a little milk. Add a little salt and pepper. If you're making turkey/chicken gravy, I boil the giblets for about 15 minutes, mince some of them, and add a little of that. I also add some of the water, and some of the potato water. My mother could probably give you much better instructions, sorry.

When the chicken is done, hopefully it looks like this:

Can you smell what the Jellybean Mama was cooking?! Don't you want to just reach into that pic and get yourself a hunk of white or dark, whatever your preference? (JR is a dark meat girl, I'm a white, so it's nice).

Serve with potatoes and gravy, dinner rolls, steamed corn, and dinner rolls if you're my mum. If you're me, it's just meat and potatoes. Hello, I just did all that work, I'm exhausted, plus it's only two of us so that's plenty of food. As mentioned we ate this for dinner Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday evenings. Plus I ate it for lunch a day, and packed a cold chicken leg for Jelly for preschool (which she devoured, although not AT preschool). And there's leftovers in the freezer. Oh, and I served her Sloppy Joes on the mashed potatoes one night, she LOVED that. Yes, I make a lot of potatoes, I can't help it, I grew up with 6 people in my family. And that gravy? SO good on fries. A great cheap, filling, easy dinner.

Now I'm going to go look up pot pie recipes...

Rainy Days and Mondays

2010-09-27T07:09:00.001-07:00

WARNING: GRUMPY BLOGGER AHEAD

So... I have this post drafted (in my head) about the lovely dinner I made last night, to make you all very hungry and want to cook a la Jellybean Mama. However, I am having a bad day and wanted to write about that instead. It always cheers me up to read about other people's misery because I'm a mean person, so maybe sharing my bad luck with you will make you realize your Monday is actually going really well.

You know how when you're driving, and you're in a hurry because you're going someplace new and fun, and you're going to see people you like and miss, and you've got a toddler in the back who wants you to work her DVD player and hand her things and pick things up off the backseat floor for her and you take your eyes of the road for ONE SECOND? And then maybe your wheels hit the gravel, and you have been taught to NEVER. SLAM ON. THE BRAKES. because you grew up in the wilds of Northern Ontario, so you try your best to wrestle the car back on the road without slowing down and then **BAM**. You go from happy-excited to sick-and-terrified in a heartbeat. Yeah, that was my yesterday.

We were on our way to brunch at a little French place to meet the cousins. I had picked out a nice French-inspired little outfit (I had on makeup! And cute boots!), was on time for once, Jenny was in a good mood. Then shit fell apart very quickly. It was one of those situations where you wish with all your might for time to reverse itself, just for a handful of seconds, so you can undo your mistake. Like when I lost my camera. Or you want it to be a bad dream. One minute you're driving along carefree, the next you are remembering that cars are massive, dangerous machines that require a great deal of attention at all times. My passenger-side tires touched the gravel and pulled me over, then I hit a chunk of asphalt. The tire blew. Luckily I was on a back road so wasn't going too fast, and there was a place right there to pull over. Also, AAA came through - apparently, telling them there's a toddler in the car is the secret, the guy arrived in 20 minutes.

There are two (hopefully only two) very sad additional pieces to the story. One is that the tire was new, purchased a mere few months ago when I replaced both front tires. The other is that I severely damaged the rim, which I didn't understand until I drove to the tire place to get a replacement tire. Upon receiving a callback after my dealership opened this morning I learned that a new rim averages around $500. Five. Hundred. So I am going to run out between calls today to meet some dude who hammers out rims in the hopes that it's salvageable. Otherwise I foresee some more event cancellations in our near future. Plus, you know, I have to buy another tire.

I guess the good news is that we were fine, the spare was in decent shape, and Jellybean was happy because once I gave her my phone back she was able to play games to occupy her, plus of course I never go anywhere without juice and tons of emergency snacks. Technology is awesome (used my GPS to find exactly where we were for AAA directions, looked up closest open tire place, called cousin and The Ta, booted up Monkey Preschool Lunchbox). The Ta has generously offered up her Jeep if I have to get the rim ordered, which could take 3-4 days.

But still - ugh.

Also - the weather has finally decided to cool off. Which means that while it was 97 degrees last Saturday, it will be 67 degrees NEXT Saturday. Oh, and raining. You know - when we're suppose to be at that awesome beach house. There is nothing on this earth that will convince me to drag an already-cling-surly-toddler to a place void of toys with an unheated swimming pool that she can see but can't swim in. So that's very sad.

AND - daycare dropoff this morning was awful. Ms D is back from vacation, but I guess all the change and not feeling well has been tough on The Bean, so she wept and wept. Real tears. She told her beloved friends to "go 'way!" when they tried to say hi and bring her offerings of play food. I HATE starting a day out like that. I walked in the door of the house back home and spilled half a Red Bull on the floor. My shoes feel funny. The yard, of course, is flooded.

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH.

There you have it.

Will update after noon, when I find out about the rim. Please leave kind, soothing, sympathetic comments and your Paypal account info.

UPDATE: The rim-hammer-outer dude said he was pretty sure he could fix it. Squee! Fingers crossed for a call later today. Also, when I got up to go drop it off I kicked over the rest of the Red Bull that I had put, of course, conveniently on the floor. So I went ahead and switched to vodka.*

*I did NOT switch to vodka, although I wanted to. I switched to iced tea.