Oy! Motherhood.

i'm in love!

the car, she is here! the CAR! the CAR! OH MY GOD, THE CARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

it's gorgeous and new-smelling and burgundy and shiny. shiny shiny shiny. and new. and i just want to pet it and sleep in it and run around yelling about THE CAR!

and the TECHNOLOGY in there. and the no key factor and ALL of it! push button start, push button park, the totally unnecessary and distracting screen in the middle of the dashboard that shows how the hybrid engine works and you still can't understand it, but it's COOL. and quiet. way way quiet. and it feels quite large even though it is really quite wee.

i LOVE her. she is the best car EVER. and tomorrow i will post a picture.

tonight i will rest because the girl has a cold and kept me up all night. the boy is HYPER because of the loss of the old car and the excitement about the new car. he cried when i told him we would be getting rid of the old car today. poor boy. well, it was the only car he'd ever known, really. aside from the other toyota, which he never rides in because J uses it entirely for work.

i can't wait to do errands tomorrow!

whatever.

i’m feeling a little whiny today. and it’s not even wednesday. maybe grumpy. so if you’re not in the mood to read a whiny, grumpy post i suggest you stop at this period. (speaking of which, i think i have pms).

i’ve been invited to dinner with some friends tomorrow night, which would be nice, except that one of the friends has not been much of a friend of late—more precisely, over the last oh, six months or so. and we weren’t really speaking at all until her husband nearly drowned in a freak boating accident and landed, with great fanfare, in the hospital for a week. after much difficulty i finally reached her. we chatted for an hour and that was that. she’s come to my car a couple of times to ask about getting the kids together for play dates, but hasn’t once followed up.

it’s a long story, but we were basically inseparable for a year and then she got jealous that i had a certain person over to my house and didn’t invite her. it escalated from there in all its stoopidness and she adopted a new best friend and behaved badly towards me in spite of my attempts to patch things up. it’s impossible to convey here, in a concise way, everything that happened, so i won’t even try.

the thing about tomorrow night is that i feel like it might be a set up. i know that she asked the person hosting the dinner several times over the summer to host a girls’ night out so that she and i “could get back together.” what pisses me off about that is that she has, with that maneuver, turned the tables and made me look like the bad guy. on top of that, her new best friend will be there, which makes me uncomfortable, especially if there is some kind of confrontation. and this new best friend is also now teaching at the boy’s school, something which was kept quiet from me until the week before school started. that was a job i had discussed taking at one point, and hadn’t yet been ruled out for the future, so it all just feels really odd—like this new best friend person is replacing me in this little tiny group of women. i care and yet i know i shouldn't even waste a second on it.

this person has made our issue a public one when all she needed to do was pick up the phone or drive over for a chat and that pisses me off to the point where i don’t feel like going to the dinner and i hate that because i love these other women and enjoy their company. it just all feels so yuck.

the other thing that’s bugging me is my co-author getting all the credit for writing these books when, in fact, she hardly writes a single word for any of them. it’s not her fault completely (although she could be more forthcoming about my existence during interviews and the like). a lot of it has to do with the fact that i have these two kids. i can’t travel because we’re not financially stable enough to hire people to take care of our kids while i globetrot, nor do i think i even want to hire anyone to take care of these little peeps. so, i’ve made it clear that press tours are out of the question for me. the co-author is more than fair about sharing advances and royalties and she likes working with me and lets me take the reigns all the time, but i just feel so…detached—that’s exactly it, detached. it’s like i never get to see anything through to completion.

i’m beginning to feel like i need to do something closer to home. even if it’s mindless busy work.

and i just got an email about three more books she wants to do with me.

i think i’m just tired and need a good long break. of course she’s being very understanding and is willing to take a several months long hiatus. six months would be nice, right? i mean, i’ve been going at a crazy pace for over two years and barely even slowed down to push the girl out before finishing up the last book. that doesn’t even take into account all the drama with J’s last depressive episode and his job change.

right now i just hope i can summon enough energy to finish this book in a timely fashion.

whine. grump. whine grump. bleh.

assmom

i'm tardy today because it was salon day and because the only person i trust with my tresses is an hour away it takes literally the entire day.

after checking email i started thinking about today's blog entry while i checked the site's keyword analysis. turns out the number one search term that brings people to this site is "assmom." for a while, in fact, it was the only term that brought people here. i dunno, it just struck me as odd. maybe i thought i had cornered the market on that term or something. i knew the people searching assmom probably weren't looking for the assmom i had in mind, so i googled it. and it turns out that there's a whole assmom culture that has nothing to do with bad parenting. um, well, nothing to do with a mom having a bad day and behaving like an ass anyway.

more like a mom taking it in the ass. or mature women and young men, but not boys, no, not children--they all claim their "models" are 18 and older. i didn't bother to click through even though the hubby urged me forward whilst asking how it felt to be part of an entire sexual culture.

what an assworld we live in.

boob

oh. my. god, internet, i am crazy.

i should be straight-jacketed and sent away somewhere.

but the straight-jacket wouldn't fit because my boobs are so big and i am so crazy that i felt the need to prove that to one of my very very good internet friends (read: someone who hasn't seen me in real life, ever) who didn't seem to be grasping the enormity of it all (but then again, who really can?). anyway, so i had taken a picture of the boob with the tiny infant girl nursing and the boob was bigger than the girl's head. i mean, really. bigger. and i thought no one would believe it later when i go back to my normal C cup self, so i snapped a picture one night and stored it on the old hard drive. for posterity. or something.

now, yes, i do know that peeps all over the internet send pictures of their boobs to each other. i KNOW that. but their boobs aren't big nursing boobs with babies attached. or at least i don't think they are. i've never actually seen one. (and, no, please don't start sending them to me to prove that they're out there).

but that's not really the crazy part. the crazy part is that i'm sitting her obsessing about the fact that the picture has got to have changed her entire view of me. even though last week i sent her a picture of my head next to the girl's head and we are cute in that picture and normal looking. i wanted to illustrate the horror of the giant boob. but not to the point where all she would think about is the horror.

oh internet, i am too crazy.

i need to go think good thoughts and pretend it never happened. hopefully she will do the same.

a pocketful of danger

all day long i collect items that could be dangerous to my active, very orally curious girl and i put them in my pocket. today we found a sharp pointy thing, a string of beads, a piece of hard dog food, a pebble, and a small shard of wood.

when i was emptying my stash i started thinking about a pocketful of danger and that got me to thinking about ring around the rosy and how that little ditty came out of the bubonic plague. ever since i discovered its origins i can't sing it to my children.

instead i think i'll sing my grandmother's version. she often mishears things. it goes like this:

ringa ringa rosa
pocka pocka posa
asha asha
we all fall down!

she's 87 and she even does the falling down part. the kids, they love it.

notes from scallop fest

scallops and fries mmmm...mmmm...good. but they're haunting me still.

J ate scallops, fries, AND fried dough. yeesh.

the boy went on rides and won a big colorful fish.

the girl, she gnawed on a hunk of french bread for an hour, clapped, and squealed with delight.

many thanks to the slice of humanity i saw at scallop fest for showing me that i'm in better shape than i thought i was.

notes to festival go-ers:

a lot of us have them, especially those of us who have had kids, but muffin tops are not attractive. get a shirt that fits.

wiggly muffin tops with stretch marks are too hideous to contemplate, let alone actually have to see, so please, please, for the love of GOD get pants AND a shirt that fits.

and to the lady who was wearing the hot pink t-shirt and hot pink and white mini skirt--just don't. don't, don't, don't.

the end.

network bad, wedding ok, scallop festival yet-to-be-determined

my wireless network is screwed up because i was trying to set it up for my brother who has been working here and now i can't get online with my computer. i'm on J's computer now, which, miraculously, still works. hopefully i'll be back up and running shortly.

yesterday we went to my cousin's wedding. it was ok. not more or less than that. and my dress looked good but i felt like i was about to burst right out of the bust. maybe that's why it's called a bust. and i'm lopsided due to one-side-nursing baby, but i'm sure it was more noticeable to me than anyone else. my aunt clo, the one with no filters, told me that my dress was nice and i was then able to breathe a huge sigh of relief because if something looks bad she'll be the first to point it out. one of my cousins told me i lost weight, so woo hoo for me!

you know what? come to think of it, it wasn't actually a wedding, it was just the reception because they got married ages ago in vegas.

the boy had a soccer game right before the wedding and then a meltdown at the end of it all because he lost a teeeeeeeeeeny weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeny pink piece of wood. it was practically microscopic. after he finally calmed down he said, "i guess i was out of control." uh, yeah. i guess. the girl fell asleep during the musical portion of the reception, which was sort of amazing because it was incredibly loud. i think she had to shut down because she was being overstimulated. she looked adorable in her peach dress and bloomers and her wee mary janes. her platypus feet barely fit in a size 3.

today is the scallop festival. we'll undoubtedly eat too many fried things.

sorry for the hurried and quite unfunny post--i just hate it when people refresh and find nothing new on my site!

hope everyone is having a great weekend!

rita

everything started out normally today and i even luxuriated in the seaside drive this morning both going to the boy's school and on the way home from dropping him off. i'd decided to get a little grocery shopping done and was ka-thunk thunking into the parking lot when my cell phone rang. it was my mother and she was in a full panic. my father was out and my brother and his family were hopelessly stuck in the houston evacuation traffic. they'd barely moved ten miles in over three hours and were realizing they weren't going to make it to austin by car. they needed traffic information and were considering getting on a plane. my mother had no idea how to navigate her way around the internet and needed my help.

so i turned around and headed to my parents' house. and yes, i realize i just said yesterday to remind me not to go there, but i sort of had to go. telephone connections to houston and houston area cell phones is very very spotty as you might imagine. my brother could almost always get through to us, but we could almost never get through to him. i used text messaging to get information to him. at first he wanted a flight to california (his office has a branch there). the only one we could find was departing at 9pm and they only had two seats available, which meant they'd have to lie about their son's age (he's just a bit over 2) in order for him to qualify as a "lap child." apparently they discussed it back and forth and decided to come to boston where his office has yet another branch. my parents have dial up and people were booking flights so fast that between the time i searched for and found flights and the time i decided to book them the seats had already disappeared. continental airlines' reservations number had a 230 minute wait. that's two. hundred. and. thirty. minutes. we stayed on hold for over an hour while we tried to book flights online. we considered flights with two stops and two changes of airlines. we looked for flights into every airport in a 150 mile radius. we tried one way, round trip, economy, business, and bloody well would have considered sending them as cargo if it had been an option.

it was starting to look utterly impossible when suddenly a flight departing at 3:50pm and arriving in boston at 8:58pm appeared out of nowhere. as we were booking it they were arriving at the airport. it took them a couple of hours to get through security. the sarcastic journalist has a great picture of what that looked like, and while they were busy doing that i was able to book them a rental car. there was a minor snafu with the child safety seat (they forgot to take theirs out of the car and i hadn't asked for one on the rental--did you know you have to give 24 hours' notice to get a child safety seat? i begged and pleaded and they found one for us), but they made it onto the plane and should right now be picking up their rental car.

my sister and her family, having left last night, made it safely to austin and are staying with friends. strangely, they have lots of pasta.

once all the excitement about getting people where they needed to go was over my brother mentioned that he had their wedding album in the car and thoughts of things that may be lost started creeping in.

i picked the boy up at school this afternoon and told him his cousin was coming for an unexpected visit. he nearly jumped out of his seat with joy. a bright spot in the whole mess.

and then we got home and i looked at the dead things in my window boxes and decided to go across the street to the nursery to get some mums. the boy fed the fish in the koi pond and the girl looked around with amazement and screamed with glee about the colors. we got 24 four-inch pots and plopped them into the boxes, pots and all. after we finished that i decided to weed the front bed. i asked the boy to help, which he did quite eagerly at first, but after a few minutes he began to wander off. he turned back to me and said:

"hey mom, i think you should finish the weeding. i'm too busy playing with [the girl] to help anymore."

and then he proceeded to make her belly laugh for the next twenty minutes while i finished up. it was delicious.

so delicious that i won't ruin it by telling you what horror the assdog had created in the kitchen while we were blissing out in the front yard....

it's just another whiny wednesday oh-ee-oh

things around here have been a bit nuts. both of my siblings live in houston, tx, which is under voluntary evacuation orders due to hurricane rita. my brother and his wife have a 2 year old and my sister and her husband have 9 month old twins born just two days after my own girl. my brother awaits orders from his company—he’s either going to austin, tx or somewhere in california. my sister and her husband are heading up to austin to stay with friends until the storm passes. the phone has been ringing incessantly since last night with everyone keeping everyone else abreast of what’s going on there. my sister flew into a panic when she tried to get gas at two separate gas stations and found that both had none. luckily she found some at the third station. my parents also have a house there, but they’re here for the summer, so as concerned as they are about their house they’re relieved to be here, away from the fray.

i decided, in a moment of extreme stupidity, to go to my parents’ house for the day because there is always the promise of someone to look after the girl while i work. and yet it never seems to work out that way. today she missed her morning nap because electricians were here beating the living shit out of the walls. naturally, that sent me into a full on stress panic fit during which my mother, in her infinite wisdom, thought it would be smart to tell me that i ought to hire someone to look after the girl while i work. how quaint. assmother award of the week goes to her. duh. if I could afford to pay someone to take care of my child i would not be working. get it? i guess it’s easy for her to say that since her family’s financial stability never depended upon her contribution. easy to say that when her husband took care of things around the house and fretted over the finances by himself while she trit-trotted around from one boutique to another. easy to say that when she can now afford to buy just about anything her heart desires, including help. she gets annoyed with me when i tell her that my situation is different, but you know what people? it is totally different. in fact, it’s light years different. and it bugs the crap out of me that she doesn’t see how different it is and insists on saying things like, “well, i don’t know how i did it—i had three.”

it was a different world. a totally different life. i know how she did it, i was there. believe me when i tell you, it wasn't always pretty.

going to my parents’ house does not actually give me time to work, it takes time away from work. i’m better off going home after i drop the boy off at school because the baby can meander about the house and nap in her own bed and play with her own toys and ultimately i get more work done.

please, internet peeps, please remind me to stay home next time.

shhhhhhhhhhhh

don't tell anyone, but the girl, she has slept through the night four nights in a row.

i hate to even bring it up because, well, you know....

oh, and i took her back to the peds yesterday to check her ears and she gained 10.5 ounces in 10 days. she now weighs 20 lbs.