For My Amusement

This kid entertains the snot out of me.

While we were pretty much homebound for two days due to snow (and, more specifically, my municipality's complete and utter inability or unwillingness to deal with weather events that happen EVERY.DAMN.YEAR. around this time), she managed to find ways to amuse herself, even when she wasn't playing in the snow.

I managed to capture this picture at lunchtime on Wednesday, when we were only about 6 hours into the latest Storm of the Century of the Decade of the Week. Little did either of us know that it would be another day and a half or so before we would be leaving the house for alternative sources of entertainment.

My God, this child. She put on her "super-spy glasses" to eat frozen pizza and gulp down a tumbler of milk and watch "Ghostbusters" YET AGAIN. You know, "just in case." In case of what, I have no idea, but JUST IN CASE.

That's a pretty good rule of thumb, actually. Just in case.

Promises, Promises

Oh, hey, remember how I kept saying that there would be more pictures from swimming class last weekend? And then I went and lost my mind, and THEN it snowed, blah blah blah? Yeah, I didn't forget, I just re-prioritized.

We did a much better job at swim class last weekend. G was home sick so it was just me to wrangle Shae, and I thought it was going to be disastrous, but she was great. She is still a highly excitable child ...

... but at least this time she listened to her teacher more, and mostly did what she was told, even if she did make a bit more noise and cause quite a bit more excitement than the other kids did.

For example, most of the other kids try to keep their heads above water as much as possible, only putting their faces in the water when the teacher tells them to. Not my kid -- if she doesn't look like a drowned rat in the first two minutes of class, you can tell she thinks she is doing something wrong.

But whatever she is doing, it looks like it's catching on, because much as I suspected, she is something of a ringleader. All the other kids gather around her and follow her lead, so I expect increasing levels of anarchy as the weeks progress. You know, typical stuff for my kid.

Out From Under

So we continue to be snowed in around here -- I think the grand total was 13 inches of snow in 24 hours, which is not as much as what we got last year when it snowed like the End Times were coming, but they were only expecting about 8 inches, so we got quite a bit more than was expected. We spent two hours digging out today and only got one of the cars uncovered, but fortunately my husband doesn't have to work tonight, because his plant is closed due to the "weather event."

We've been watching tons of movies and TiVo'ed shows, and eating granola bars and peanut butter sandwiches, and we did go out to play some, but the snow piles are so deep and unruly and our yard is so small that we're kind of limited. Not that I let it stop me from taking over 300 pictures because hello I am insane.

Yesterday we went outside while it was still snowing -- it was between the morning snowfall and the big afternoon-into-evening storm -- and all Shae wanted to do was catch snowflakes on her tongue and make snow angels.

I also managed to take a whole bunch of little video clips which I spliced into this film, which is one of the best ones I've ever done, somehow, even if I did put the wrong date on it. (Okay, wait, maybe I didn't -- what day is it again? How long have I been here? Have I always been wearing these long johns as pants?)

Today Shae mostly kept us company while my husband and I took turns shoveling the walk, or sweeping the snow off the cars, or salting, or whatever we were doing. Shae and I went for a walk at one point because she kept managing to be right where we were throwing the snow. She made herself a little snow fort that she called her "private baby school" (?) and she sang and yelled and basically had a grand old time all by herself.

And she tried to eat as much snow as possible, even though we kept telling her to not eat the snow because it's gross. She pretty much doesn't care. At least we don't have dogs, so the snow wasn't yellow.

I hate the winter, but it's been a pretty great couple of days.

Fun Fab Five

Curious about which bloggers made my Fun Fab Five? Click here to find out!

Geek the Girl

I was going to write about our continuing adventures at swim class today, but that can wait for another couple days, because I need to tell you the following:

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOWZA!

And also: SQUEE!

I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I have known how to write, I think. I don't know when I started wanting to be a writer, but I know I haven't ever stopped. All those plans that I have made for the day when I eventually win eleventy bajillion dollars in the lottery? Most of them revolve, in some way, around me basically being able to sit somewhere quiet (with all the necessary distractions, like television and internet and rum and pedicures) and just be a writer for the rest of my life, because that is what I really want to be when I grow up.

Look: I remember reading books when I was very wee, making up my own stories to go along with the pictures that I already knew so well -- that was a kind of writing, in a way. I used to have many terribly exciting adventures with my once-and-future imaginary friend, Elizabeth Tony, effectively scripting my way through many days of my childhood. I was writing poems in the fourth grade for my teacher, Sr. Patrick, to deliver to another nun at her convent who was ill. I kept journals upon journals, some of which I still have, filled with sonnets and scribbles and angst in prose form. I wrote essays and short plays and screenplays and dozens if not hundreds of papers in college, some academic, some philosophical, some just outpourings of emotion. I've been kicking around no fewer than three different novels for the past fifteen years, starting and stopping and scrapping and scrubbing and storing the details in different files over approximately eight different computers. I have a blog. I am, is, are, was, were, and have always been a writer.

And now, finally and kind of accidentally, I am a published writer. Not self-published, either, but actually commissioned. Someone read my stuff, liked it, and dedicated space somewhere for me to be read by other people, people who are not necessarily related to me and therefore not obliged in any way to read me if they don't want to.

It's kind of really awesome.

So, yes, anyway: effective yesterday, I have a new "side gig," as a Lifestyle Contributor on 40MomsClub. Probably it's a bit tacky for me to keep going on about this, but this is kind of a dream come true, and I want to relish the moment for a little bit. This is for real, you guys. I have an official bio on the website and everything. I'll be doing a few columns every month, stuff that you won't see here, that I will be writing specifically for 40MomsClub because somebody asked me if I would. I will be in good company, I think -- the site is growing and already they have three great regular contributors, plus the founder, plus ... well, me. (I am mostly there for comic relief, but still.)

I'll link to new stories when they go live, either here or in my Twitter feed, or you can push the fancy new button I put over in my sidebar to go right to the site homepage. Poke around over there, say hi.

And then, if you'll excuse me: now is the time on Sprockets when we do the dance of joy.

Hoping, Waiting, Wishing

Look into her eyes.

Look at her pout, her raised eyebrows, her expectant cock of the head.

She is silently pleading, waiting for me to tell her that it is okay, that she can go swimming before her class starts.

And up until the moment that the lifeguard blew the whistle and told her no, I was going to let her, because I can't stand it when she looks at me with those eyes.

Little Girl Winter

It snowed again last night, another 2-3 inches or so -- and by the way, screw you, Almanac, for getting it completely wrong about what this winter was supposed to look like -- so this morning my personal snow removal team was out in force to shovel the walk and clear off my car so I could go in to work.

I assure you, it was a different snowfall. See Exhibit A, from January 9th:

And Exhibit B, from today:

Shae seemed to have an equally good time in both cases, though.

I complain a lot, because that's kind of how I roll, but you know what? I have a great life, and great people to share it with.

Kindhearted Woman

I don't know how it happened -- maybe some kind of pheromone or special sound, or perhaps cats can read hobo code -- but it seems my house has become the Official Union Hall for Neighborhood Strays Local #36. Because every day, all the time, there are cats that are not ours hanging out on our front porch.

Image from Kindheartedwomen.com

I feel both thrilled and horrified by this. On the one hand, I like cats, and yet my own remaining cats don't seem to like me very much except at bedtime when I have the electric blanket on, so it is satisfying to know that it's probably just them. They are rather haughty and spoiled, after all, as domestic felines are wont to be.

But on the other hand, it's been really cold lately, and some of the cats that have been hanging around are actually NOT strays -- two of them, in fact, belong to our neighbors on either side -- and it makes me so sad and angry that people are so awful as to leave their PETS to fend for themselves outside when the weather is so bitter and nasty.

I feel particularly sensitive to this lately because my husband is working nights and I seem to have a lot of alone-time. I've gotten somewhat beyond being the hysterical codependent mess that I was a few weeks ago, but I still find myself thinking of the great late potentate, the O-Bert, because when I was home alone before he would always keep me company. The girls just lay on my bed, puddles of fur and cat-food-breath, waiting for me to settle so they can cozy up against me and warm their bellies.

But these neighborhood cats, they're all like Owen was when we found him -- almost aggressively friendly. When I go outside to get some fresh air or check the weather, at least one of them is out there waiting. Two in particular, one named Tabitha ("Tabby") and the other that we call "Grizz" because he looks like a cat would would be called "Grizz," they're always there, and they saunter right up to me, tails in the air, waiting for skritches and the occasional treat that I manage to smuggle out the front door. (Okay, maybe not so occasional.)

Where are they staying when they're not in their owners' homes, if they even have owners? I wonder about this. Whenever I go out they're already there waiting for me. I never see them when they are sleepy-eyed and yawning (eternal vigilance from the elements and the wildlife, no doubt). I think that at least one cat, Tabby, sleeps in my side flower bed sometimes, the one where the baby bunnies were. The bunnies are long gone now, out having bebeh bunnehs of their own no doubt, but there are still telltale signs of something hanging out there -- trampled leaves, suspicious depressions in what's left of the hydrangeas, spots of mulch that look like they have been dug and re-dug. All these spots are near the dryer vent, of course; these kitties are transients, not stupid. I wonder if they're sleeping on a secret stash of missing left socks that never came back out of the laundry.

I like these little four-legged creatures; I feel like they stop by to give me the news of the day, to let me know what's going on in our little plot on the map. I just wish I could do more for them than sit on the bench on the front porch, rubbing them behind the ears and listening to their purrs and meows, watching the cars go by, hearing the snow fall, before I go back into my own house where it's warm and cozy and ... where they cannot go, because they are my little friends, but they are not Mine.

And to think that I used to say I'd never be a "cat person," but now here I am, the neighborhood Crazy Cat Lady. Personally, I don't think I'm crazy, not really, just a soft-headed, bleeding-heart, hippie-dippie, kind-hearted woman.

Happy Birthday Nana!

Today is My Anonymous Mother's birthday. She is ... older-than-me years old.

This picture is totally gratuitous, but it's adorable, so it stays.

Happy Birthday, Nana / Mom!

Worrywart

I don't know when it happened, specifically, or if this has been an ongoing thing for me more than usual, or what, but lately I've really been starting to worry. Again. Some more. A lot. Enough that it ... well, it makes me worry about my worrying.

There's an A&E reality show in there somewhere, right? They do shows about hoarders and parking wars and interventions -- shouldn't there also be a show called "Dr. Strangemom: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fact That Absolutely the Whole Entire Universe is Conspiring Against Me"?

Or are we now stepping out of the worry zone and wandering directly into the minefield that is paranoia? Even more so than usual, I mean?

Some of the stuff I worry about is completely ridiculous and self-defeating: for example, I worry that I don't get enough sleep at night. Why? Because I work too much, or read too much, or watch too much TV. I actually lay in bed when I should be sleeping and worry about this stuff. See? Self-defeating. Ridiculous. I also worry about my husband driving home at 2:00 in the morning when the weather is bad. I worry that he doesn't get enough sleep. I worry that telling him about the things I worry about somehow suggests that I don't trust him to take care of himself, which is absolutely not the case. I just, you know, worry about stuff.

I worry that Shae isn't eating enough. I worry that she eats too much of certain things. I worry that she isn't getting enough exercise and intellectual stimulation. I worry that she is smart in all the wrong ways. I worry about what she thinks of my answers to some of her most common questions these days -- "Why didn't I grow in your belly?" and "Why don't you have a baby growing in your belly?" These are normal pre-school questions, right? But I worry that the actual answers to these questions will damage her, somehow. I worry that some of my psychological damage is communicable, somehow.

I worry about myself, too. Am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting enough exercise? Am I developing some kind of eating disorder, with all this dieting? I think what I'm doing is healthy and reasonable, but is it? Is it really? Do I look any better? Why don't I feel like I look better? Do I feel any better? Why don't I feel like I feel better? When will I feel better? Should I find a therapist? Do I just need a vacation? Should I go tanning? Start taking better care of myself, or at least different? Are these the kinds of questions that only highly insane, emotionally fragile, mentally unstable, psychologically damaged people ask?

Will I feel better if I just give in and eat a Tastykake? Tastykakes make everything better, don't they? Why do I keep doing this to myself? This can't be healthy, right?

And why do I worry that if I stop worrying about this stuff, even for a minute, that I might suddenly cease to exist?

Back in the Saddle

Or, maybe it would be more precise to say: back on the bubble. For now, anyway.

We had our first "real" swimming lesson on Saturday. To say that Shae was excited about it would be the biggest understatement in the history of ever -- she was pretty much like a racehorse at the post, champing at the bit, practically vibrating while she waited to get in the pool. And once she did, she was almost out of control. The teacher put a bubble on her, for her own safety, because she just wanted to gogogo the whole time.

And, well, she kind of did. It was a little embarrassing to be her parent, of a kid who was obviously new to class, because she didn't really listen all that well, or pay attention, or sit still, or stay with the group. I did speak to the teacher about it, and she said it was obvious that Shae was excited (duh) and that she didn't "judge" at all. That's okay, lady -- I did. I was plenty mortified for the both of us. We know what to work on for next week.

Still, it was great to see her back in the water, where she is clearly happiest and most comfortable. We know she had a great time because it was all she talked about all weekend, and she even said yesterday that she "can't wait" for school to be over this week, because that means she gets to go back to swim class. I'm just glad we haven't been banned from the Y for life yet; we might be social pariahs among the Pike-B-Parent set, but at least we're still allowed back.

Operation Dolphin

Shae's first official swimming lesson is tomorrow morning at 9am at the Y.

We have to go in and get her picture taken for her ID badge, and then she's officially a "Pike B."

She has about 17 bathing suits and only two of them still fit because she sprouted since Labor Day.

And she's TOTALLY READY to get off her floaties, but I'm not. I also think it's weird to see her without a tan.

Tree Meet Apple

These pictures are kind of a gross, unfair violation of my kid's personal space. (Just these? Snerk.) I mean, really, what kind of parent takes pictures -- FLASH pictures, no less -- of their three-and-three-quarters-year-old in the middle of the night like this? (Well, it's 10:00 -- middle of the night to her, anyway.)

A bad parent, that's what kind. And a bad photographer, too. Yes, yes, I already know -- these are TERRIBLE pictures. Just wretched. The wrong things are in focus, it isn't framed well, the lighting is godawful. All of it is just wrong. But I had a revelation last night, one that I found it urgently important to document.

Other kids have security blankets, but mine has security books. Every night, when I tuck her into bed, she asks for a book or two to cuddle up with. Last night it was A Crazy Day at the Critter Cafe and Tea for Ruby. When I go back up to check on her before I go to sleep, 95% of the time her light is on and she has fallen asleep, the book still open or right next to her face, with other books strewn about the bed among the random stuffed animals and Pillow Pets.

And it occurred to me: what I was seeing wasn't just my daughter. I was also seeing myself. This must be what my husband sees when he gets home from work these days, when I've read myself to sleep and end up passed out diagonally across the bed with the bedside lamp still on and the pages of my latest Terry Pratchett damp with drool.

What is that they say? About the apple not falling far from the tree?

Cool Like Dat

I went to college in Syracuse, New York, which I believe is the coldest and most miserable place on the face of the Earth that does not actively contain any Palins of the non-Michael variety. (What? He was my favorite of the Pythons, and also the very best thing about A Fish Called Wanda, and there are few circumstances that would not be instantly improved by the presence of a certain shopkeeper.)

Anyway, my point is: Syracuse is cold and miserable and clearly inside the Arctic Circle, and I spent four winters there, and for a while I was very smug about the whole thing. Like, look at these tiny fools, pretending to suffer in the cold. (Granted, that post-collegiate-early-twenty-something-punk-ass-itude could have had more than a little to do with it.) I didn't wear a proper coat for quite a long time; I made it work with layers and turtlenecks and flannel and scarves and warm gloves and the occasional Nana Beanie. Gradually, I worked my way back into down vests and polarfleece and preheating my car for at least 10 minutes before I get in it.

I don't like the cold any more, is what I am saying. Right now I would be perfectly happy if I could chunk myself up on potatoes and pasta and cheese, crawl into a cave somewhere under an electric blanket turned to "Furnace," and hibernate until at least the middle of April, when most of the danger of snow has passed (unless you are in Syracuse, where it snowed six inches on Mother's Day in 1996, the weekend I graduated from college).

Not my kid, though. She wants to be outside, all the time, no matter the weather. Yesterday we had to clean the sidewalks and dig out my car so I could go into work for some year-end overtime, and she not only volunteered to help -- she insisted.

One second we were snuggled in bed together, she and my husband and I, and she heard me mention that someone (read: HIM) needed to go outside to take care of the snow removal, and she jumped up, ran into her room, and was completely naked and ready to get dressed before I had a chance to figure out what happened.

If only I could figure out a way to get her that excited about cleaning up her room, or her toys, or the sofa after she's been lounging all afternoon. Perhaps I ought to put everything out on the porch.

Heart of Haiti

It’s been almost a year since the ground shook and the world as we knew it almost ended for the country of Haiti. I remember following the news so closely, riveted, spending countless hours poring over the Internet or lying awake in bed, wondering what I could do to help.

Turns out, even after all this time has passed, there are still ways to help. And, ironically, we can still help in a uniquely first-world way: by shopping.

Macy’s has partnered with the Heart of Haiti initiative to offer jewelry and art for sale, each piece handcrafted by native Haitian artisans, allowing them to use their talents and passions to help provide food and shelter, improve access to health care and education -- for themselves, their families, and their communities.

And the pieces these artists have created are really, really stunning. I took one look at the large "Feast of the Sea" bowl and I was instantly transported to somewhere bright, sunny, happy. I can hear music and laughter, smell the sea and the sunshine, and I am amazed and awed that such beauty and joy can come out of a place that, only a year ago, was overwhelmed by such sorrow and devastation.

I hope to put it in my kitchen, to remind me every day of all the things that I love and, most of all, the things I must not take for granted. And to remind us all that out of great destruction can come such beautiful creation.

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I was selected for this very special “CleverHaiti” opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity. All opinions are my own.

Happy Good Morning

The good news is: this is one of my husband's nights off, so it won't just be me trying to wrangle Shae tonight, in addition to doing the dishes and giving her a bath. I'll have help this time, and hopefully The Help will also bring me a pizza and some cupcakes and possibly a wine cooler, because DAMN.

The bad news is: that in order to get this picture of them together this morning, that means that I was home before school, and the reason why I was home that late is because of snow. So who knows when I'll get home to eat that pizza and those cupcakes and the wine cooler. DAMN.

Standoff

You might think since it's just the Boo and me at home together at night that I would have plenty of opportunities to take just absolute buttloads of pictures, but if you did think that, then I would accuse you of being an infinitely fortunate naïf who has not done a whole hell of a lot of hard time with a three-and-a-half-year-old lately.

I mean, seriously, people: I am getting ready to get myself some prison tattoos at this point. Well, ok, maybe not prison tattoos (needles, yeuch!), but I am starting to consider maybe thinking about drawing some spider-web-like patterns on my elbows with washable markers, anyway.

Now, my daughter is, by and large, a good kid, really good, but like every preschooler everywhere ever, she is stubborn as a ram. The fact the she is an Aries does not help (although it is definitely fitting). Her routine has been changed, and it seems that she'll be damned before she changes along with it. All of us will.

We are talking knock-down, drag-out, scratching and clawing and kicking and screaming here. Crying and weeping and rending of garments. She fights me leaving school. She fights me over dinner. She fights me over potty. She fights me over bedtime. She hollers and wails for her Daddy, her Nana, her Pop-pop. She tells me she hates me. She tells me she hates SpongeBob.

(My readers who also have small children [or who are My Anonymous Mother] are all like: "Yeah? And?" and also thinking: "Bitch, please." And believe me -- I know. I can feel you practically rolling your eyes out of your heads right now. I KNOW.)

None of this would bother me so much -- because hey, I am not really happy about this either, not yet, even though I completely know these are total First World Problems, like call the whaaaaaaaaaambulance already, GOD -- but she has otherwise been, for everybody else, a perfect little angel.

That little booger.

Sound of Silence

My husband started his new job last night -- well, his new shift at his new job -- and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to start taking sleeping pills and going to bed at 8:00 now, just so I can deal with the soul-crushing quiet. We have a three-year-old in our house, an HDTV, satellite service, multiple computers. So why did I spend the evening washing dishes and folding laundry just to have something to do?

It's been a long time since my husband worked nights, since before Shae and probably years before that, and I'm not used to it any more. I know how weird and codependent and neurotic it makes me sound to say that I don't really like it -- but I don't really like it.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad he has a job, bonus that it's one he actually likes, and I know this swing-shift business is only temporary. It's not even as inconvenient as it could be, because he works 3pm-2am, four nights a week, Mondays through Thursdays. He's getting up to take Shae to school in the mornings, and he'll be home at night on the weekends, so we can still do our running amok and our visiting and our catching up with all the shows on our TiVo and sitting in the same room on two different computers playing World of Warcraft.

But my house is creepy at night, especially now that it gets dark so early. It's cold and drafty and last night Shae wasn't feeling well so she basically put herself to bed at 6:00 and left me all alone. The cats kind of hang around, but it's just the girls, and they're not particularly noisy. Bossy, yes, when they have a particularly irritating itch that needs to be scratched, or if they're out of food and water. But mostly last night they just followed me around so they could be where I was and ... I don't know, stare at me, I guess.

It made me miss Owen a whole hell of a lot, that's for damn sure.

I made dinner basically in silence. Shae sprawled out on the couch and watched The Sound of Music and didn't move until it was time to eat. When we sat down to supper she just sat there, pathetically staring at her plate, sometimes poking at the scalloped potatoes, occasionally whimpering. No conversations. No negotiations. No noise. Very awkward and Stepford. I packed up the leftovers and put them in the fridge for his lunch tonight and never once had to tell anybody to get their grubby mitts out of the candy jar.

Not even mine. It's no fun to cheat on your diet if nobody is going to catch you.

Once Shae was tucked in, I kind of wandered around the house, trying to motivate myself to do some of the housework that desperately needs to be done because for yet another year I failed to get maid service for Christmas. I washed and dried and put away two full racks of dishes. I scrubbed out the chili pot and scraped the cookie sheets. I rooted through the cupboard and made a menu plan for dinner for the rest of the week. I gathered up the rest of the clothes Shae got for Christmas, removed all the bags and tags and wrappers, and folded all her laundry. I even laid out the clothes that I wore to work today so I could hit the snooze button this morning.

Well, okay, so he could hit the snooze button this morning. He's closer to the alarm clock anyway; that's his job. I didn't get married so I would have to do that kind of thing by myself.

And then I went to bed. All alone. With nobody heckling my ratty T-shirt or my old-lady slipper-socks. There were no random fits of laughter coming from downstairs, from him talking to his friends over Skype while they play video games together. No lights, no footsteps on the stairs, no bathroom sounds. The toilet didn't even run, not once. It was strange to lay there and have to rely on myself to know when to go to sleep, having to act like an actual adult and not someone who plays one on TV. I'm a bedtime reader, and when I get really into a book, I can go for hours, uninterrupted. But if my husband is lying next to me and I have the light on, he grumbles and groans and grouches and makes me settle down, instead of staying up until half-past midnight reading Catching Fire again when I should have been asleep hours earlier.

Don't even get me started on how strange it is to try go to sleep in that bed all by myself. Normally it feels like our queen-size bed is so small, when it's him and me and the cats, trying to get comfortable, staking out a section of our own, clenching the covers so someone else doesn't steal them, fighting over which setting on the electric blanket is the correct one, accidentally kicking each other or elbowing each other in the face. There was no breathing, no random bits of hours-old conversations brought back up to be rehashed, no rude involuntary bodily noises startling us awake as we drift off through the myoclonic jerks.

Instead, it was just me and two cats, and I felt like some kind of crazy spinster with her furry four-legged children sprawled across the afghan, sleeping in the middle of this great big giant queen-sized bed, all by myself. I went to sleep with an itchy back because there was no one there to scratch it for me, just in the right spot, right how I like it, aaaaaaah right there between the shoulder blades.

And I especially missed my kiss goodnight.

When he gets home from work he comes to bed and I'm sure he kisses me, but I'm also sure that I'm three-quarters asleep, grumping about having to move now that I've finally gotten comfortable, so I don't appreciate it. Plus I have my night-time bruxism guard in, so I'm doing goofy things with my mouth, and I always have some kind of sinus cold, so I'm pretty sure my breath is not so very pleasant. It's just not the same as kissing him goodnight with minty-fresh teeth just before we settle into a mutually-soothing breathing rhythm.

Today Shae is feeling better and I expect that it's going to be a completely different scene tonight. We'll fight over how many bites of noodles and sausage and vegetables she needs to eat, whether or not she can have a treat, whether I will let her stay up until the end of the rest of The Sound of Music or if I will make her go to bed right before the part at the convent. We'll wrestle over bath and hair combing and going potty and tooth brushing and saying prayers properly and lights being turned on and toys suddenly appearing in her bed. I'll wash some more dishes, fold some more laundry, diddle around in FarmVille and WoW, and probably stay up too late reading again, because now I'm reading Mockingjay and I can't stop when I get past the good part because the whole book is basically one big good part.

And I still won't get my kiss goodnight. And I don't really like it.

Happy 2011

Yeah, yeah, we're two-and-a-half days into the New Year already. Whatever, I was busy, okay? Because it looks like the end of the world might be coming sooner than the Mayans expected, and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with these three little monsters:

Goofy

Happy

Sleepy

Also, I drank too much on New Year's Eve, and I think I might still have a hangover to go with my on-going nervous breakdown. So, hey, new year, same crap!

As if you expected any different?