One of my super-secret mental illnesses, one of the so very many I have but definitely one of the less visible, is my absolute love -- LOVE! -- for wrapping presents.

Yes, really.

No, I am not making this up.

Although I've never talked to a therapist about it (because, let's face it, the fact that I am a Type-A paranoid borderline schizophrenic with half an Electra complex, inappropriate rage issues and an obsession with LOLspeek tends to take up a lot of lot of time on the couch), I believe this is part of the reason why I start shopping for Christmas presents so early, and why I buy so many.

It might be part of the reason why I became a retail terrorist, hunting high and low for the absolute best bargains anywhere, so I can get the most things for the least amount of money, so there are more things to adorn with shiny paper, curling ribbon, gift tags, and 47 metric tons of Scotch tape. (When the Grinch looks down on Who-ville and notices that Christmas "came without packages, boxes, and bags?" I always think, deep down in my heart, that this is bullshit, because while I believe that World Peace is a beautiful thing, I am also smart enough to know that it's even more beautiful with a little bit of sequins and a gift tag.)

And if you know me even in passing, you're probably vaguely aware that I am something of a grown-up Garanimal: everything must match. So it will come as a surprise to approximately no one that I spent more than a hour in a T.J. Maxx store back in October, trying to find three rolls of gift wrap that matched this year's wrapping theme. (Note also that I was doing this in a store where I wouldn't have to pay full retail.)

When I'm shopping, I am often drawn to gifts that come in weird, strange, odd, or oversize packages, so that I can challenge myself when I wrap them. Wrapping is not an obligation to me, a traditional formality; I believe that it is the thought that counts, and I want the thought to be: "I care enough about you to fold this paper with hospital corners and match the patterns and tape every single seam and make you earn this present, dammit."

Of course, the problem with this is that I go through something that is maybe like postpartum depression when people open their stuff. I watch them tear into everything that I took such time and care to prepare. Not because I am afraid that they won't like their gifts -- sometimes I honestly believe I might not even care about that. But because I put a lot of work into wrapping those things, and I want my family and friends to stop for a second and say, "Hey, wow, this really looks too pretty to open." Admire my craftsmanship. Call me an artist.

And then: gimme gimme gimme. Pass the loot. Because even crazy people like presents, you know?

Let Them Eat Those Little Whaddaya-Call-'Em Italian Cookies

It's Friday, y'all! Whoo hoo! Let's wrap this week up and then commence with the heavy drinking, shall we? It's what all the cool kids are doing.

Do they still have those alligator wrestlers in Florida? The Seminole ones? I wonder if they ever recruit from out of state, because I think we may have a live one here. Assuming that Seminole alligator wrestlers ever wrestle polyvinyl pool toys, of course. Everybody's got to start somewhere, don't they?

Caption this. No, I mean it: caption this. Because I got nothin'. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of preschool primal-growl-roar-scream thing going on, maybe even a barbaric yawp, but from the right angle ("right" being "correct" or "proper" here, and not the geometric 90°) it looks like it could also possibly be a yawn. Maybe. If you've been drinking enough (or maybe if you have not been drinking enough).

Oh hey, how did this little bit of delightfully delectable deliciousness get in there? Om nom NOM! Look at those CHEEKS! Look at those ARMS! Look at those ADORABLE LITTLE TEEFERS! Also: she has my mother's eyes, and the same missing upper lip that the rest of the women in my family have. This one is definitely related.

As promised (and expected, at this point, because there ALWAYS has to be a picture of my kid eating something on this blog every week or else I feel like a complete and utter failure as a human being): those little whaadya-call-'em Italian cookies. They probably have a fawncey-sounding name that ends in "i" or "o" or possibly "ei" or "ie." Cookie, maybe.

BONUS! Juice box hero. Have a great weekend.

Um. So. On my way home from work today I was sort of planning this whole long post about how on the day before Thanksgiving, November 21, a day that shall live in infamy forever and ever, amen, G and I had this interview for a potential adoption placement and we finally got an answer and the response was, basically, FUCK NO YOU CRAZY GODDAMNED LUNATIC AND WE'RE SORRY MR. G BUT DO YOU KNOW YOUR WIFE IS INSANE AND UNFIT?, quote-unquote, and how now I'm all spiralling out of control because the whole entire world and parts of Mars are conspiring to commit this whole nuclear complete annihilation of my soul and all that rot, but ... well, I'm just not really prepared to deal with it right now, so I won't.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm hurt and angry and pissed off and tired and I want to rend my garments, hypothetically speaking, but then again I just bought this sweater on Friday and it really reminds me of this sweater I had back in the day from the United Colors of Bennetton but then my boobs and my ass got too big to fit into it any more and now I don't know where it is, somewhere in the black hole of my mother's house, I think, but anyway this particular sweater is new and I just wore it once and I only have the one stain on it so far, so maybe I'll rend something else later, OK? Not right now.

It's tiring being told over and over again that things just aren't going to work out for you. Never in my life, not seriously, have I ever had to take "No" for an answer, and something just does not compute. Now matter how many negative pregnancy tests I take, no matter how many times different counties or caseworkers tell us that we are denied, no matter how much blood and hormones and money and sweat and tears and actual tiny little pieces of my heart the doctors take month after month, week after week, day after day, even two years after I've stopped giving myself shots in the stomach literally one day before I'm supposed to get on the plane for my sister's wedding, no matter how many times and how many days and how may tries and how many ways, I just can't figure out how to let it go.

Some people, they keep telling me, are just not meant to be parents. Their purpose is broader or wider or higher or different, but I just can't wrap my head around that. I don't care. Even though I know, somewhere deep down there where all my primordial feelings live and breathe, that this thing I want so much is just not going to happen for me, I can't give it up. And it is killing me. I am killing myself, and I can't stop it. It makes me ridiulous, irrational, irritable, eleventy kinds of crazy, and I just can't shut it off.

And I am just not prepared to talk about it. Not right now.

Christmas Wrapping

Incidentally: I was at Kohl's the other day, shopping for assorted nonsense and also this giant 2-pound bedazzled "S" Christmas ornament, and I heard a REALLY BAD COVER of The Waitresses' classic tune. And I swear to God, I right about had a heart attack in the store, because I could tell from the singing that the "artist" is a kid. I mean, like, an actual kid, not just someone younger than I am (although I am feeling so old these days that I am practically my own grandmother). Can't tell exactly who sang it -- once I realized about 5 bars in that this was not MY version of the song, I sort of stuck my fingers in my ears and starting singing "lalalalalalala" to myself to drown out the racket, and get off my lawn you damn kids! -- but as far as I can tell, it is someone called Miranda Cosgrove, from some Nickelodeon show that I have never heard of called "iCarly," and this person was literally not even born when the original version of the song came out.

Bah humbug, indeed!

Anyway, this is not about this kind of Christmas wrapping:

Although, hooray! I finally got some stuff wrapped! Of course, I have these ghetto-ass dollar-store gift tags? And they're like all waxy or something? So I can't write on them with just regular pen? But instead I need to use a Sharpie? And I can't find one? So nothing has a name tag on it yet? And I hope I don't accidentally give my father any of the gifts that I got for my nephew? Because that would be awkward? But anyway?

This is about this kind of wrapping:

Where your kid takes some reusable Target shopping bags and decides to wrap herself up in them to turn herself into a "wild thing" and why oh why did I spend all that money on presents when it's already evident that she's going to be more interested in the shiny things and wrapping paper? Sigh. She reminds me of someone or something, wish I could remember who ...

Oh yeah. The cats. Boogers.

And seriously: what the hell is an iCarly? Get off my lawn! And stay out!

Nature v. Nurture

We're five months into this Great Parenting Experiment of ours, and while I have already accepted that my life has become an endless parade of diaper changes and sippy cups and tantrums and missing shoes and furtive hours of World of Warcraft snuck in between meals and baths and "Daddy Time," and while we are slowly but surely adjusting our schedules to constantly be on toddler tape-delay, and while I am gradually learning to unclench and relax and go with the flow ...

... while all of this is happening, the thing I think I'll never be able to get over, never be able to fully comprehend, never be able to wrap my primitive little unevolved reptilian brain around, is how someone who is totally biologically unrelated to me can still be so completely my child.

Little Mermaid from rockle on Vimeo.

This is what we were hoping for, of course, back when we decided to give adoption a shot. We were given information on and links to various websites where we could look at available children, see if we were interested in any of them, and to us it was always: "Eww, no thanks." Like, we're not buying a car, we're building a family here, and when the right kid becomes available, we'll know it -- all of us, everyone, the Universe at large, will know it -- and we will swoop in like Mario and Luigi to rescue Princess Peach, and we'd all live happily ever after.

But, since this is me we are talking about, of course there were doubts. Riddles, enigmas, questions that cannot possibly have an answer. What if Peach is a good-for-nothing rotten brat? Or has adjustment problems? Or learning disabilities? What if there is something going on there that we are just ill-equipped to handle? What then? Even worse, what if our child just doesn't like us? Not in the angst-ridden angry adolescent sense, but in the "I know that you are not my real mother and I hate you for breaking up my family and I'm never going to love you" kind of way? You hear horror stories. They can't all be urban legends.

Alas ... no such problem so far. I'm sure that someday, maybe sooner than later, but not tomorrow, or the day after, but one of these days, when Cupcake actually understands what is going on, we'll have questions. None of those questions will have easy answers except for one: "Do you love me?" And the answer will be: "Oh my God, yes! We loved you before we even knew you." I will show her the blog posts, and the journals, and the notes and the cards and the letters, and the secret messages to ourselves that we have tattooed on our hearts, tucked away for no one to see, afraid that if we admitted to our feelings, they would stop, they would fade away, they would cease to be, and so would we.

She will look at me then with her hazel eyes, trying to figure out whether I am angry or sad or scared or tired, just as she always does, chewing on her lip the way I do, squinching her nose up at me, trying to figure out the right thing to say, and then she'll touch my face, and ask me to kiss her zombie, and all will be perfect.

The Three Faces of (Almost Christmas) Eve

We went to the mall yesterday, because Shae needed shoes for Christmas and for the wedding we have coming up on New Year's Day. And even my lame little local mall was a mob scene. People everywhere. Screaming parents screaming at their screaming children. Bad covers of songs that were crappy to begin with. And no parking.

I can't believe that I used to love being in the mall at Christmastime. When I was in high school and college, I used to make arrangements with friends to meet up at the mall on Black Friday and Christmas Eve, when we could, just to roam around in packs and eat junk food all day and watch other people and be around the teeming masses during the busy time of year.

Of course, that was 15+ years ago. Somewhere between high school and parenthood, I developed a kind of combination claustrophobia-enochlophobia that manifests itself most assertively in malls during the holidays. Or perhaps it is just that I hate people -- especially rude, pushy, nasty, hissing people who don't say "please," "thank you," or "excuse me," and who seem to be made entirely of pointy elbows.

But I'm done now; it's all over. No more mall for me until after Christmas. My shopping is done, except for lottery scratchers and gifts that can wait until after the holiday proper. I am still waiting for one package to arrive, and I have a handful of things to wrap, but other than that, it's all over but the crying and the spiked egg nog.

* does the Snoopy dance from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" *

Nevermind

Gladys debuted one of her new swimsuits this weekend. She's kind of secretly hot, for an old woman. I never suspected.

That Herb, he's a lucky man ... most of the time.

Shae is getting to be a better and better swimmer every weekend. She's starting to reach the point where she feels more confident on her own, more willing to test her endurance.

We can leave her "alone" in the water now -- not unsupervised, of course, but once we wrap her in floation devices, we let her swim as far as she is able by herself.

She loves jumping right in at the deep end and making her way to the swim-out on her own. And we love letting her do it -- we are very proud of how determined she is to do things by herself. By the end of the summer, she wants to be off her floaties, and she might actually do it.

I can't believe how unafraid she is, but it's super-awesome. Watching her in the pool, I know that I am doing something right, as a parent.

Passing the torch is very, very cool.

Here Comes The Bride

Over the weekend I was looking for my Syracuse sweatshirt that I got from "Santa" that one year that my husband had to spend the week before Christmas in Rochester, because it has been cold lately, and I hate being cold. Mostly I've been wearing this gigantic housecoat that is big enough to wrap around myself twice and was also a Christmas gift from a different year, because I never did find that stinkin' hoodie, but what I found instead was my veil from my wedding.

My husband says he doesn't even remember my veil. I do, but I can't remember whether I wore the blusher over my face or not. I think I did. Most of the pre-"I Do" portion of the ceremony is a blur, except for the part where my Dad stepped on the hem of my dress at the top of the stairs and I tripped and said, right out loud in a Catholic church in front of God and the Monsignor and my grandmothers and everybody, "OH SHIT." And then I freaked out because, oh shit, I just said "SHIT" in church!

Yeah, I have issues. You'd have issues too, if your grandmother was born in the manger next to Jesus. But anyway, I found my veil, which I didn't even know was missing. I figured all this time that my veil was in the bag with my weddirng dress at my mother's somewhere, and not in the top of one of the office closets in a shoebox with my pocelain Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz collector's doll.

G didn't even want me to show it to Shae, because he was afraid she'd wreck it. Personally, I don't care much. My veil was pretty much an afterthought anyway, something I grabbed at the florist's at the last minute because I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my hair. It was $12. The florist made it. I can't even really deal with it right now, because my kid is only three and I am not yet prepared to deal with how beautiful a bride she is going to be. In thirty years or so. When I am ready to let her grow up.

Musikfest

On Wednesday night last week, my sister and her husband and I took the kids to Musikfest, a local festival that is as much about arts and crafts and food and getting the hell out of the house into the fresh air once in a while, for the love of all that is sweet and buttery, as much as it is about music. It's been going on since 1984, and I always have a great time, although I admit I don't get to go as often as I'd like, because it gets bigger every year, and that means it gets more crowded, and I kind of hate people.

But I do like foods on sticks, and I love it when food on sticks makes my kid make funny Popeye faces that are so adorable that I have to post the picture twice, and more than even that, I love a good polka, and more than even THAT, I love it when my kid starts dancing in the middle of the path because she hears polka music. I can't help it -- my father's side of the family is part Slovak, and we KNOW how to polka. My grandmother polkaed at my wedding. It was amazing.

But mostly it was nice to get out for a little, to check everything out, like the stand in one of the platzes that sold really adorable purses out of candy wrappers (I KNOW!), to see new faces, to try something different, like the Kenyan food that I had for dinner -- some kind of chicken masala wrap that was terribly messy but pretty much divine. I will be talking about that sandwich for WEEKS.

Got to spend some time with two of the three cutest moppets in the world.

And I tried some fancy new tricks with my camera, which maybe didn't work out the way I had hoped, but which are still kind of interesting. (Don't ask me what I did, though, because I can't remember. The important part is: Shae had fun.)

Presenting the Pirate Princess of Pottstown Port

Shae is going to be a pirate for Halloween. This is all my doing; I wanted her to be something fun for trick-or-treat, but I also wanted her to be something that had a certain degree of power along with the feminine charm. Also: badassery. And inflatable swords.

To properly get Shae into character -- oh, yes, I am a "method Mom" -- we've been watching a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean in our house. The first and second movies, anyway. We haven't seen the third one yet, but we have the trilogy on Blu-Ray and I'm pretty sure we'll be getting in a lot of viewings. Because Mommy? Loves her some Orlando Bloom AND some Johnny Depp.

At some point I'm going to need to figure out what to do with her hair, so it will fit under her tricorn hat. Somewhere in my house is a multi-color scarf that I got from my husband's grandmother, but I can't find it. To practice, I found this wrap that I got for some trip to somewhere. It's ... very big. But a lot of fun to tie around Shae's head.

I'm also going to have to start working on her skirt soon, or it will never be finished, because Mommy is a terrible sewer to begin with, and I have to hand-sew the whole thing. Probably more than once, because I don't anticipate that it will work out as expected the first time around.

In the meantime, we'll keep watching Captain Sparrow to learn how to act like a pirate. And we'll probably throw in a little SpongeBob, just because.

Easter 2011, Part Two: My Mom's Family

I already complained about Easter being the longest day of the year, and a big part of that is because we have to run around to do stuff with both sides of the family. I love my family, don't get me wrong, and I love spending time with them, but because it was a special occasion that required clean clothes and stuff for church, we had to lug like eleventeen tons of stuff along with us, plus all the extra goodies that we picked up along the way. Sometimes I really think I should join some kind of cult that doesn't observe gift-giving occasions just so I can simplify my life, but then that probably means that I won't get presents for my birthday, and that would stink out loud, so never mind. Just talked myself out of it. The Power of the Almighty Gift Wrap is just that compelling.

We did get a pretty alright family picture out of it. Even with me in it.

And although I did not get a Fudgie the Whale cake because there were none available in a 50-mile radius, my sister got us another kind of Carvel ice cream cake, which was DELICIOUS. I appreciate her trying, though. Also: I hope I never have to live in a world where I can't get a Carvel ice cream cake any time I want one. (They are not paying me to say that, but if they want to, my rates are negotiable.)

Also, there was a cake from the Cake Boss. Friends of the family who were visiting from out of town took a day trip to NYC and Hoboken and waited in line for 3½ hours to get this cake. It was super pretty, and tasted good. There was a nice fudgy filling between the chocolate and yellow layers which was pretty darned divine. But it turns out I am not crazy about fondant, which is a surprise. Apparently I am whipped-cream or buttercream frosting kind of gal. Or cream cheese frosting. Or my mom's peanut butter frosting. Or chocolate ganache frosting. Anything but fondant, I guess.* Although I enjoyed playing with it, like it was Play-Doh.

Oh, and there was quite a bit of running around.

Also egg hunting. My cousin Chris hid the eggs this year, with an assist from my mother-in-law, and we managed to find more eggs than we believe were actually supposed to have been hidden, so either someone miscounted, or else we found eggs that someone else hid last year. Either way, it was a good haul. And by this point we were only halfway done, oh my lands.



* Update: Turns out I just do not like that particular fondant, because the center of Cadbury Creme Eggs is a kind of fondant, and I loooooove those. I guess I like gushy fondant, and not the harder stuff. (I hope I don't get whacked for saying that.)

Camptown Ladies

There's no denying it now: I'm officially deep into one of my downward spirals, one of my heavily proto-emo moods, where I'm going to end up wearing black all the time and dying my hair green and listening to The Smiths and The Cure and Depeche Mode on repeat for six years. Just like high school, but now ... with a blog!

And this masochism is only going to get worse, because after Shae's birthday next week I'm going to have to start throwing myself into what is maybe the most passive-aggressive thing that one could possibly do, to wit: I am going to start planning our upcoming camping "vacation." There are not enough rolly-eye emoticons in the world.

We're a camping family, or at least we were once. I remember when I was a kid, and how I used to look forward to our annual trips to the 1000 Islands, in upstate New York. Although why I looked forward to it, I can't really say, because even way back then, I hated bugs and dirt and humidity. And especially worms, which are a big part of the action, because fishing figures prominently.

People think I'm kidding when I say it, but now that I have experienced the joy and wonder that is the all-inclusive resort hotel with swim-up bar and poolside beverage service, my idea of "roughing it" is staying at a Motel 6. It's been a very long time since I've slept in a tent. In the dirt. In the outdoors. With the daddy longlegs and the 100-yard trek to the public toilets in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's hard for me to wrap my head around voluntarily participating in an activity that has not gotten much more technologically advanced in the last 30 years, unless you count recent advances in air-mattress-inflation-speed technology as "progress."

I mean, really, does that sound like a "vacation" to you? To me it sounds more like a penance.

Then again, a lot of big family moments can come out of getting back to nature. Little things, unnoticed at the time. So we're going to do it, and I am going to do my best to try to enjoy myself. It's probably going to require copious amounts of toasted marshmallows and wine coolers, but these are risks I am willing to take, I suppose.

I am not the least bit concerned about whether Shae is going to like camping -- I think that is pretty much a given. She likes fresh air, she likes grass and trees, and already she is showing an aptitude for climbing over rocks, which is the second most popular activity in Wellesley Island State Park, after "fishing" (which is really just drowning worms, but let's not tell her that, okay?).

Actually, there's no doubt in my mind that she'll have a great time. There are lots of places to explore, and lots of swimming to be done, and we're making it a family reunion of sorts, with lots of my relatives coming along. There will be maybe half a dozen little kids there, and already I can hear the happy screeching and the laughter and the endless refrains of "The Littlest Worm."

I can say that camping was highly educational for me once. I learned to cook sunny-side-up eggs, I used an Epilady for the only time, I saw my very first dirty limerick on a bathroom wall, I caught minnows in a net, I kissed a boy, I watched my dad try to master the PogoBall. It wasn't always all bad.

And if they could figure out a place to put a tiki bar, and hire some hot young things to peel me grapes and bananas and bring them right to my campsite? Maybe we'll talk.

Paying It Forward

I usually read The Bloggess because she's funny, but today she inspired me.

It shouldn't have been The Bloggess who inspired me, but it was. I should have remembered about the Christmas soup and the kindness of strangers and taken care of "giving back" earlier, but I was so busy trying to wrap my head around my own problems that I didn't think about anyone else's.

Today, that changes.

We've been really lucky this year, all things considered. My husband was out of work for almost a year and a half, but he started a new job in September. Some people we know were laid off at the same time he was, or even before, and are still looking. Even while he wasn't working, we were fine. Maybe not as comfortable as we would have liked to be, but he was able to collect unemployment and we were careful about his severance and very good about saving our tax refund, plus I still have my job, so we were fine. We made do without a lot of stuff we probably didn't need anyway, but all of our basic needs and even most of our wants were satisfied.

We have our house, we have our cars, we have our iPhones and HD TV and World of Warcraft and Chinese take-out a couple of times a month. We have our health, we still a little bit left in the bank, and we have each other. We've got more going for us than probably 99.99% of the world, and probably more than 90% of the people we know.

I know that we are among the lucky ones. Boy, do I know it.

So as of right now -- and like I said, I really should have done this earlier, but what's done is done -- I've decided that I'm spending part of this weekend giving back. I still have some shopping to do, and while I am shopping for the people in my life who will be receiving treats on Christmas, I will also be setting aside something for those people who might not have anything at all otherwise.

On Monday morning, I will be making a $50 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank of Lehigh Valley & Northeast Pennsylvania. And you can help increase that amount: for every person who comments on this post between now and Sunday 12/19/10 at midnight ET, I will be making an additional donation of $2, up to an additional $50, for a maximum contribution of up to $100. So tell your friends to drop by, leave their names, tell me I'm a talentless hack, whatever -- as long as they leave a comment.

Every dollar buys 7 meals for people who need them. Together we can provide breakfast and lunch for almost a full year to someone in need. Let's do it. Let's pay it forward.



(Disclaimers: SHFBLV did not solicit this contribution in any way. The base donation and any additional donations per comment are purely voluntary on my part. Commenters do not need to leave full name, rank, and serial number, but entirely anonymous comments will not be accepted, and spam will not be counted. Calling me a bleeding-heart liberal or a hysterical liberal moonbat is entirely unnecessary because I already know that. If you have any questions, please contact me at the email address in the sidebar.)

Recipe: Pumpkin Dip

Or, if you prefer, "Pumpkin Mousse" or "Pumpkinny Stuff That You Can Eat Right Out Of The Bowl With A Spoon." A nice, sweet little dessert or snack that is quick, easy, and oh so tasty. Perfect at this time of year as an alternative to pumpkin pie. And did I mention good enough to eat right out of the bowl with a spoon? But use a little spoon, don't be greedy. (This recipe originally came from somewhere, I don't know where, but I modified it a little bit anyway. Of course.)

Pumpkin Dip

15 ounce can pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
5 ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix
1½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or more, to taste)
16 ounces Cool Whip, thawed

In a large mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, pudding mix, and spices on low speed (or by hand) until thoroughly blended. Add Cool Whip, gradually increasing mixer speed. Beat on medium-high for about 1 minute or until evenly mixed and fluffy. Fold into serving bowl and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

I served this at a pot luck with ginger snaps and graham crackers (when I wasn't heaping gobs of it into a cup and eating it with a spoon). You can use fancier cookies if you want, but these worked just fine. Lorna Doones would probably be tasty (but they never stick around long enough in my house to be dipped into anything).

This recipe makes about 6 cups of dip. If you want, you can divide this and freeze half for up to a month: put into a lidded freezable container, cover with plastic wrap (make sure the plastic touches the top of the dip to make a good seal when you cover), and then cover with the lid. Otherwise, this keeps for about 5 days (unless you eat it right ... oh never mind).

(No pictures, because we have access to plenty of spoons at work.)

Daddy's Little Devil

All this week, I've been dressing Cupcake in Halloween-themed and/or orange clothes -- a little "thing" of mine, to celebrate the season. Halloween is my second-favorite holiday of the year, right after Christmas, and I gotta tell you, if Halloween involved more gift wrap, I'd be much more into it.

Anyway ... today Cupcake is wearing a onesie that is TOTALLY HER, and also TOTALLY ACCURATE. She takes right after me, but she's her Daddy's girl, and she knows it. (Hey, I SAID she takes right after me.) Click on the pic to go to my Flickr photostream and see the full-length shot.

Halloween monster bodysuit, Old Navy, regularly $9.50
Matching socks, Old Navy, regularly $2.50

Great Pumpkin Presents

Because I love buying treats for the adorable little moppets in my life, we gave my niece Makayla a little present this weekend and we said that it was from The Great Pumpkin. (BTW: Hi, Joey! Your birthday gift is going in the mail tomorrow!)

She had absolutely ZERO idea what to do with it. Clearly it wasn't food, so she just sort of looked at it for a while until Shae stepped in to "help." (Ha.) I don't remember what age kids are when they first start to love tearing into wrapping paper, but evidently it is sometime after 10 months. Maybe closer to two? (Which means next Christmas, 2012, will be a RIOT.)

What Makayla did love? Was watching Shae rip the ever-living snot out of the tissue paper and undo the curling ribbon holding the package together. (I didn't use tape on this one, because somewhere back in the lizard part of my brain, I got the idea that tape was "bad for babies." Why I thought a four-foot string of shiny ribbon would be okay is beyond me. I am admittedly not the brightest crayon in the box.)

And of course -- and I say this as an almost 40-something -- whipping tissue paper around the room is a practically overwhelming amount of fun. I still like to do it, I am not going to lie: tossing around balls of crumpled-up gift wrap is one of my favorite sources of holiday amusement. (Largely because we have easily entertained cats, but still.)

Everybody loves tissue paper and presents from The Great Pumpkin. YAY!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas Card Time

I spend an awful lot of time thinking about Christmas cards -- way more time, really, than anyone ought to. Ask my husband; he'll tell you. Probably the one thing at Christmas time that I agonize over the most is my cards. (Okay, and maybe the tree. And coordinating my gift-wrap. But we'll save that for another day.) Let's not even get into the fact that I don't even technically send out "Christmas" cards, but holiday cards, which gets me into trouble with at least half a dozen relatives every year. (Yes, I am aware that I am a lunatic.)

If you've ever gotten a card from me, then you already know what kinds of cards I tend to favor: semi-generic winterish scenes, usually featuring some kind of nature (pine cones, snowflakes, vaguely Scandinavian wildlife), generally in pastel shades. Quiet and serene. Very Robert Frost-y, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"-y. I like faded blues and purples and silvers, and of course sparkles or glitter score double secret bonus points. It's almost impossible to find holiday cards that are blank, so I go with the least offensive sentiment inside (Season's Greetings, or Happy Holidays, or what have you).

But now I have a kid, and she has changed the holidays for me. For serious. Christmas is different once you have a little one (cliché, I know, but true). I still want to send out the least-specific cards I possibly can (because some people on my list celebrate other holidays besides Christmas, and I want to wish them well, too), but now I want the cards to be colorful and bright and cheerful, exciting rather than soothing, and I want them to have a picture of Shae on them because she's the most perfect and beautiful kid that I know. So I'm doing photo holiday cards again this year.

I've gotten cards from Shutterfly before, and even though they don't usually come with as much glitter as I tend to like, they're still really nice cards. I think the Valentine's cards that we sent out to our family back in February came out really great. But even those were pretty sedate. Lovely, but definitely quieter than my life normally is. So I made a deal with myself when I started thinking about this -- well, more like an ultimatum. Make the Christmas cards as much like my real life as possible. I deliberately picked out cards with more than two colors in them. Do you know how hard it is to change that particular habit? Boy, howdy. Especially because all of the selections are really nice. No, really. They are.

Here's the short version of the story: I narrowed it down to what I think are three really super choices. These, these, and these. I like all three because they have lots of color but are still simple and nonspecific (I believe that the Project Runway judges would call them "chic"), and just looking at them makes me really, really happy. Even with pictures of gorgeous supermodel children whom I don't even know. (Don't you want to know those people in the pictures? I do.) And I already know Shae, so I know her picture will look great on any of these cards.

But anyway, here I am, still spending time wondering what cards I'm going to end up sending. I haven't really quite committed to anything yet -- and maybe tomorrow I'll see something else that I like even better. I'll take suggestions, if you are partial to any design. You can see all of Shutterfly's holiday photo card options and let me know if there is something you like better. I might even listen, if your card suggestion comes with some kind of magic spell for getting Shae to actually sit still and look at the camera so I can take the stinking picture.

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Do you want 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly? Click here to go to Shutterfly for information on how you can get 50 free cards this holiday season, and make sure to select Clever 1000 as the referral source.

This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Spent

I've been quiet the last few days, and I'm sorry, but it's been a big roller coaster and I just can't process everything. It's too much, too overwhelming. I really try not to be a whiner, and I really try not to use this blog as free therapy, but sometimes you need a brain dump, you know? And this is one of those times.

The Good News:
My husband finally found a job. After 17 months and a huge deal of wondering and worrying and kind of aimless wandering in the wilderness, and I don't even know how many interviews at I don't even know how many places, he finally found a job. He starts on the 27th. I am happy for him, and excited, but more than anything, I am relieved. We've made do on his unemployment and my paycheck, and we've been as smart and as frugal as we could so we haven't been hurting as much as so many other people have been, so the money was never really the issue. But already I can sense a change in my husband, a subtle and slight regaining of his confidence, and I glad he's getting his groove back, so to speak. I think the job is a restart for him, a basically entry-level job in his field, especially considering his experience, but I also think it's going to be a great opportunity for him, and he's going to be getting out of the house again, which is more fantastic than I can possibly tell you.

The Bad News:
Somebody stole the bistro table and chairs off our front porch overnight. I have absolutely zero idea why anybody would want it -- it's just some cheap little metal set from Wal-Mart that we got ten years ago -- but sometime between my last cigarette yesterday and my first cigarette this morning, someone took our stuff. All things considered, it's no big deal; nobody was hurt, nothing major was taken, nobody broke into our house or keyed our cars or anything like that. It's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I felt like a major tool having to call the police first thing in the morning. The cops were here before it was even fully light out. It's just -- somebody stole our stuff, you know? I would have sold it for next to nothing.

The Worse News:
We were at my parents' for a yard sale today (made $50 selling my kid's outgrown clothes, whoo!) and while we were there my uncle wandered off. My great-uncle, actually, my grandfather's sister's husband. He's 81 and has Alzheimer's, and he's staying at my parents' with his daughter while his wife, my great-aunt, is in the hospital under psychiatric evaluation. Her diagnosis is Lewy body dementia, which I've never head of before now, and I am not sure about the prognosis but I am not sure it's good. Anyway, sometime around lunchtime, my uncle went out for a walk and ... never came back. He was gone for more than hour, and we had four people out looking for him at one point. We called the police and they found him one township and about 5 miles away. Thankfully some nice lady saw him wandering around, lost and confused, and she brought him inside and gave him water and called the police herself. Apparently he decided that he was going to walk to the hospital to visit his wife. God bless his heart. I can't imagine how upsetting all of this must be for both of them. My husband's grandfather was right: getting old ain't for sissies.

The Worst News Of All:
The closed my grandparents' pool today, and we were not expecting it. We thought we had until next weekend. We packed our suits and everything, and were planning to go swimming this afternoon after the yard sale was over. I didn't even get to stick my feet in the water one last time. All day I was feeling this weird, vague sadness about the whole thing, and I just now realized why it bothers me so much: we might not get to go in that pool again. Ever again. I've been swimming in that pool for like 25 years, and last weekend might have been the last time I got a chance to do that. My grandparents are getting older every day, and their health is getting worse, and every time I see them, it might be for the last time. Probably I shouldn't say that, but the facts are what they are. They are old, and they are ill, and there is no way to know how much time they have left. I am not prepared for this, for what this means. I don't have many pictures of Shae with my grandparents, and we forgot the camera today. What if next weekend ... I don't want to think about it, and I know I have to, and I just can't. Right now I have pictures in my photostream that are ready to be posted, and I don't want to put them up, because I can't bear the thought that those could be the last pictures of my daughter in that pool. It's not just the pool, of course, but that is the only concrete thing I can wrap my head around. The pool might not be opened next summer, because. Because. Because of things that are entirely possible but just too horrible to think about. And now, after only a couple of nights of really relaxed sleep in 17 months (see: "The Good News"), I am going to go back to not sleeping at all again, and I am just so tired. I am an hour away, I only see my family for one day on the weekends, it already makes me crazy because I feel like there is more that needs to be done and I just can't do it, and I feel so guilty all the time, and ... I just can't. I'm exhausted. I'm spent. And tomorrow it will start all over again.