Go, Shorty

Occasionally one is tasked with ordering one's own birthday cake. Fortunately, one easily entertains oneself.

DL on PiG

In summary, I have been very busy getting stupider. I just caught up on a couple of old blog friends from my blogroll there. Damn, I miss you all, and the too-short blogging heyday. That was a good run.

Miss Thang is seven. SEVEN. Fuck me, that went fast. (Well, the first year didn't. The first year was slow as fuck, what with all the colic and reflux and INABILITY TO SLEEP.) Fortunately, I adore her with the core of my being, even while I annoy the very core of her being. She is going to be an excellent teenager. I am upping my wine game even as we speak. (Falsehoods. I suck at drinking these days. BUT I HAVE AMBITIONS TO IMPROVE.) Point is, Miss Thang is fabulous, smart, savvy, highly sensitive, and kind. 

Cupcake is about to be three. She is a pile of cuteness, rolled into a ball of skeelz. She is competent, and competent at kindly manipulating everyone to her will. She says it all with a sweet smile, and a bat of her unfairly long lashes, and then she's like, "Please can you get my water?" referring to the bottle that's LITERALLY touching her toe while you are in the process of cleaning up cat pee upstairs, wearing nothing but a towel, because why would you ever get to finish a shower peacefully? 

I still don't get enough sleep, and it is still the bane of my existence. I mostly enjoy being a stay-at-home mom, and while it's a lot of work, it's also a lot more trips to the farm than I ever took as a non-kid-having adult, and you know, I love the farm. They have goats there. (That's still a thing! So, you know. Continuity! Plus, I don't really think you have to have an exceptional IQ for goat herding.)

The Funasaurus is pulling a weird Benjamin Button thing, lost a bunch of weight and runs a 5K once a week, and works out other days, started wearing nice clothes made this decade, and looks hot AF. Which is great for me. I am on the regular trajectory with time, and body-after-babies, and so maybe I occasionally feel a little intimidated, but mostly I am enjoying having a hot husband, and occasionally make him take me out on a date into the real world where he converses quite smoothly, what with it being the world he works in, while I attempt to totter around in shoes that are not fuzzy slipper boots, and wear non yoga-pants and talk about not-poop things. (Poop's still a thing, too.)

All that to say, I still don't have much to say. But I am going to write about it more.

I Know My Options

Given the choice between getting some fresh air and being productive or sitting inside eating processed foods and panicking about the current state of the world, I will choose Oreos every time.




FYI, abyss! *mwah*

A Poem for Today

While I was outside
Hanging ten
(Little onsies
Clean and fine
Upon
The clothesline)
The fucking cat
Shat
Upon
The bath mat
Again

* * * * *

Spanx for Nothing

Yo!

I had a baby, she is so cute and calm and I don't know what to do with a baby who actually eats and sleeps, it's so easy and I know the other shoe will drop someday, but holy do I know to enjoy it now. So I am. Enjoying every piece of her, minus the recent cold she picked up, which is so sad and pitiful, but still she is as sweet as a cupcake. I admit to having got a little too comfortable with the reclusive lifestyle. We had to quit a lot of Miss Thang's activities while I was on bed rest, and she didn't seem to mind, and neither did I. Then I had a baby, and sweet or no, newborns are tricky to trot around on a whim, they require much accoutrement, including your naked top half of a recently-savaged body, which, while great for some people out in public, I prefer in the privacy of my incredibly messy home. Where I don't have to wear a fucking Hooter Hider, because yes, that exists.

Going out means the schedule gets disrupted, and I LOOOOOVE our schedule, deeply, with all of my being. I know when my Cupcake is going to eat and sleep, and I can go through four diapers at a time if she continues pooping after I change her once. I know which books Miss Thang likes to read, I know which TV shows she likes to watch (because all of my ideas about progressive parenting and very limited screen time went out the window like a caged bird the second I had another baby, shout-out to you, Sesame Street, and your hour-long episodes!) and I like walking around with my muffin top holding my Cucpake, encouraging Miss Thang to PAINT MORE PICTURES OF RAPUNZEL LANTERNS! (read: watercolor splotches.) while I graze on avacados and embarassing amounts of pepperoni because Cupcake happens to disagree with all things dairy, so I am now dairy-free and that has led to a vegan diet plus lots of meat.

Someday maybe I will write the post about my re-occuring dream about eating pizza, full of its cheese-y, dairy deliciousness, and feeling wretchedly guilty about it.

But, inevitably, the real world demands your presence in the form of birthday parties and preschool end-of-the-year (say WHAT?!) potlucks. And so I have attempted, a few times, to become somewhat presentable. Not to the extent of shaving my legs, or anything like that,



but I caved and bought a control-top something-or-other for the first time, just because the muffin top is still kind of extreme, for which I am not apologetic but self-conscious anyway and I gave it a whirl today. The stuffing the sausage dance to get the thing on was horrifying enough, the result was kind of what I was hoping for, right up until I sat down and the whole thing rolled down to create some sort of muffin top enhancer belt. Purpose: utterly defeated.

My question is this, why why why do those things exist? You can have a smooth belly assuming you don't sit down or walk too much? How is this different from a corset? I did kind of feel like I was going to faint. Verdict = never again. I just won't ever leave the house again ever, and that suits the hermit version of me just a little too well. Send wine and possibly a muumuu.

A Detailed Report of My Couch

If I thought I was boring before...oh. I laugh at my Starbucks-going, yoga-y, traveling old self. I WAS LIVING SUCH A LIFE!

Now I mostly rotate between my bed and couch. I am on modified bed rest because I have an irritable uterus. Which mostly reminds me of Charlotte's depressed vagina on "Sex and the City," and I wish my doctor would prescribe Xanax for my effing uterus, but noooo. I am to drink lots of water and rest, which is easier said than done with a normal four-year-old and a Funasaurus who is currently traveling weekly for his stupid job.

So far, I am having lots of contractions but they don't seem to be changing anything other than my mood. Baby is safe, and that is a relief, but I am getting a little annoyed that going all the way to the bathroom causes my stomach to seize up. Getting Miss Thang to preschool requires an hour or two of recovery time from the tightness.

I do try to appreciate that I otherwise have a healthy pregnancy (did I tell you it's another girl?) and a great support network.

Sometimes I still like to kvetch.

We moved Miss Thang upstairs to her big girl room over the weekend. That was a project that I mostly participated in from an ordering-pink-and-purple-decor from my phone stance, seeing as how I could not really help with the heavy lifting or even the climbing of stairs. It turned out to be very Lisa Frank-inspired, with the bright colors (Miss Thang does not do pastel, which is a fairly accurate description of her personality, as well) but she is happy, so we are happy. Then The Funasaurus left for a work trip and Miss Thang keeps calling me to come check on her. I told her through the monitor that I could not climb the stairs again so soon after she kicked me out, when I tried to lie down in her room. She wailed. I failed. But now she's asleep and I am nursing some Halloween candy and trying to type this from a reclined position. Here's hoping she sleeps through the night.

It's really too easy to buy shit from your phone these days. I have about doubled our Christmas ornament collection whilst simultaneously contracting arthritis in my thumb. Also, I know a lot more about celebrity gossip than I ever did before. I need to go back to a simpler time with a clunky old Nokia phone that is only capable of making phone calls and a stack of trashy magazines.

I read a good book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and would recommend it to anyone, although after 368 pages I am still not sure what I really classify as. I think it boils down to, do you draw your energy from being around other people, or do you recharge by being alone? Because apparently there can be some very gregarious introverts and shy extroverts. The problem is, I would have to answer "yes" to both of those questions. I miss social contact desperately, but then I get out and around occasionally and I find people annoy me more now than they ever did before. I believe bed rest is turning me into a certified curmudgeon. Get the fuck off my porch, ruffians, and please come back with Starbucks and a witty recounting of what those ol' Kardashians are up to these days.

That's all I've got. I am lame but grateful to be healthy. There is no reason I shouldn't be updating this thing daily at this point, except for the whole, I'VE GOT NOTHING to write about-thing. But when did that ever stop me before?

What I Did Over MY Summer Vacation

Hmm. So. Guess what I did.

I went and got myself in a family way, again.

!

I swore I'd never do that, but the parental amnesia is strong. You forget all the tears, all the scary trips to doctors, and pediatric ERs in the middle of the night, you forget the sleep deprivation (or, I think possibly the sleep deprivation fucks over your memory completely and forever), the annoyances, the poop in the carpet. YOU FORGET IT ALL, and you're like, my kid is so awesome with her coloring skeelz and ability to hold a fork now, we should totally have another!

So off we go on this little adventure. The Funasaurus is psyched. Miss Thang is (fortunately) psyched. I am getting psyched-er, having intentionally gotten myself in this way but then spent the better part of July either prostrate on the couch or barfing into the nearest convenient container, and kind of had a little, "What have we done?" moment. But YAY, that seems to have mostly passed, now I can just look forward to the heartburn and cankles.

I haven't had many other symptoms, no weird cravings or uncontrollable bathroom issues. And I have mostly stayed sane, leaving my crazy craze channeled solely into a neurotic compulsion to avoid the microwave and turn off my phone at night, lest the magic, invisible ray-things that come out of said electronics do unhealthy things to my baby, and also a family of birds that took up residence on our porch. Mom and dad were vigilant with the nest, mom sat on those eggs for so long, and we weren't sure anything would come of it. Then Miss Thang spotted the babies, and we watched mom and dad take turns going to get food and watch over the youngsters. Mom would sit on them, tuck them in tightly, all paranoid, until the last second. Dad would often chillax on the side of the next while they doodled about in the nest, and I don't speak bird, but I believe he got a stern Talking To once or twice from mom. I agonized over the feedings, it looked like one baby was more aggressive about getting the worm vomit from the parentals than the other, and I was afraid the other was getting neglected and hungry, but they both grew well and got chunky and fluffy. Then one day this week both parents were gone at the SAME TIME. I had never seen the babies unattended. I fretted that they were abandoned. Then dad came back with food and all was well. Until the next day when one baby and half the nest was missing. I didn't know what to make of it, DEAD BABY? Or all grown up? Effing teenagers. Mom came back with food and tucked the remaining baby under her, in what was left of the nest, and that was quite a feat because the baby is pretty big, honestly, and as a I mentioned, not much nest left. And then yesterday they were all gone. I CRIED. They grow up and fly away forever and WHAT IS THE MEANING OF IT ALL IT'S SO SAD.

Fortunately Miss Thang demanded I come wipe her poop, so that was a...distraction, and I am recovering from the trauma of it all.

And that's me. How are you? Is there any you left?

A Pleasant Lack of Story

Hello! I am still here. Still a mom, not much else to report. My life is happy and boring, which leaves me nothing to write about because mostly I am content with the day-to-day but when I try to describe it to someone I get all depressed because, wow, I could have saved a lot on that college education I got and continue to not use.

(I did get a husband out of it, though, and via him, Miss Thang, and certainly no one could put a price on that, especially given how many of our material possessions we have forsaken due to her darling bodily fluids at various times over her three+ year life, so clearly worthwhile. ... Maybe I should have hit the bars a little harder and not stressed about the test, man, after all.)

I just read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story, which is the most terrible title ever, but gave me a bit to think about. I miss having good (un-poop-related) stories to share, and I like the idea of seizing control of the story of my life and taking it in a more...directed? direction. However, I feel like there is rarely much time between the meal planning, bill paying, car maintenance, weeding, and laundry, if I still want to attempt to sleep at all. Which I do. I love sleeping. I would take a little more sleep over most stories. I realize this is not a new argument, I am guessing the point of the book was to examine all the weeding and peanut butter and jelly-spreading and carve out more time for storytelling, but it seems insurmountable to me.

Which isn't to say we haven't been having fun. We have. We are traveling three out of four weekends this month, and usually traveling makes for some good stories. Like how Miss Thang liked to pretend to die in front of her great-grandmother (husband's estranged father's mother), repeatedly, as her chosen form of imaginative play, on that trip. So that was awk-ward.

As was pulling a splinter out of her tush on a picnic table in the middle of Rocky Mountain National Park with swarms of tourists walking by.

Oh man, she better hope her father forgets that story before her prom date shows up.

(At least it wasn't me...?)

On that note, I have to go pack for our next trip. We're getting up at 4:00 AM to take two airplanes, one of which appears to be barely bigger than the PlaySkool one in her toybox, to attend a wedding and drive all over the dang east coast. Surely there will be stories in that. Keep your fingers crossed that none of them will be poop-related.

Clearly My New Year's Resolutions Had Nothing to Do with Writing More

Oh, this poor blog. Someone should shoot it and put it out of it's misery, yet here I am again, willing it into the nursing home of feeble attempts to write occasionally still. Ha ha. Take your meds, blog!

So the Crise D'Identite also kind of sputtered out, if for no other reason than I got busy with birthdays and holidays and The Crud of '12, which caused much grief and sickness everywhere, and reaffirmed that I really, really hate vomit (NEWER CONCEPTS HAVE NEVER BEEN UTTERED! JUST DIE ALREADY, BLOG!) but my kid is awesome (SUCH EFFING NEW CONCEPTS) because she managed to get all her puke into the bucket in the middle of the night, despite not having actually ever thrown up before. (Besides baby spit-up. Which she did plenty, what with the reflux. But I don't think she remembers that?) Miss Thang = So Smart, and SKEELED with the vomit control. Yay, child.

So anyway. I still feel boring, but I am mostly happy with my boringness.

We have recently had a run of Stupid Expenses, which I define as stuff I hate spending money on because it is not pretty but would not like to live without. Like my cats' teeth and our car. Sugar didn't need an extraction this time (hooray, though still insanely expensive for routine feline dentistry, which, if you think about that hard enough, is probably worth every penny paid) and the car needed new tires, so I guess it's good that we did that before attempting to drive very far again, but URG. Mama really wanted a new pair of jeans for the first time in...years.

I have developed a love/love relationship with Pinterest, because it suits me at every level. DIGITAL HOARDING! I don't even have to dust. The aesthetic is just right-brain porn. My 100% left-brained husband does. NOT. get. it, and that's fine. He gets me, and that's close enough. Pinterest doesn't intimidate me the way it apparently does some people, I just love looking at all the pretty things. If you are looking for me on the internets, that's probably where to find me these days.

xoxo (keep that lifeline going, blog!)

"S-M-R-T" -Homer

I have been going through a little crise d'identité recently. (I find it much sexier to say it in French.) It boils down to 1) I feel a lot of pressure, both internally and externally, to go back to work and 2) I don't want to.

My grand aspirations to be this awesome everything woman who juggles a brilliant career for myself with awesome parenting skills for my supremely awesome little girl is not coming to fruition because. Fuck. I get SO TIRED after crayons! and dolls! and oops-toddler-pushed-GO-on-the-blender-before-I-got-the-lid-on-mess! every day. So I do the arts & crafts, including dried-smoothie wall art and sometimes make dinner and then crash and it kind of works for our little family right now. Except it leads me to be socially incompetent (you may note that I reference poop at least 10 out of the last 12 times I posted here...make that 11 out of 13, now) and I hang out with these people with multiple children and jobs and cheery dispositions and I am like..."how?"

I think I just don't have as much energy as a lot of my peers. I have always been suspicious of this fact, it was just highlighted when the raising a kid thing came about. I have never been able to keep up with most of my friends' schedules/activities/cleaning habits. And I realize that it's all about not trying to keep up with the Joneses and not coveting thy neighbors vacuuming habits, but sometimes that is hard because I do like how my carpets look when they are clean and also when my child is not crying. And also when I think regularly about things un-fecal matter-y.

I am happy with our current routine, and I don't feel crazy stressed most of the time, which is a fairly recent development. So it boils down to the person I want to be (creative, role-model-y feminist with Martha Stewart tendencies) is not, in fact, the person I am when I am happy. Le sigh, oh the first-world problems of ME.

What else? We went on vacation, Miss Thang did wonderfully, it is brilliant when a child no longer needs special food or special beds. And when she will sleep through the night in a place that is not HER BED, HER ROOM, 72.6 DEGREES, with oscillating fan pointed at 49 degrees north whilst "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"/ocean whales white noise machine hums at decibel 2. It gets easier. I liked vacation. I told The Funasaurus I wanted to move to vacation, and he pointed out that then it would not be vacation, it would be have to work in vacation location minus our awesome mountain view and support network, and then that was a big stupid but factually accurate rain on my fantasy parade.

So we're back (happily) in Colorado, talking about poop, waiting for the temperature to drop out of the 90s. Supposedly today is the last day of that nonsense. I just hope there is some fall and 60-70 degrees before the snow arrives.

Zine. Because I Miss the 90s, Perchance?

I've been toying with the idea of making a zine for a while. I need a creative outlet. I am trying to get back into blogging, but as I may have mentioned, I struggle for topics not related to toddler poop and/or sleep depravation, although moreso the poop issues, recently, thank goodness.

And whoever thought I'd say that?

Parenthetical Aside List: SHIT I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY UNTIL A TINY HUMAN EMERGED FROM MY VAGINA:

"I am not a Kleenex!"

"Knives are not for throwing."

"Please let me go to the grocery store." (Alone)

"Would you like a bite of my Nutella crepe?"

"Your love is suffocating me. *GAG* Literally. Please stop hugging mommy around her jugular with your tiny but freakishly strong toddler thumbs." (Paraphrased)

"No, we're not buying any M&Ms." *sob*

"My gray hairs ARE beautiful, thanks baby."

"No more peeing on my shoes. I MEAN IT THIS TIME."

Anywhos. Zine! I have decided I may have a chance at less poopy, more interesting things to publish if a) I force others to participate b) I have to go to Kinkos to make copies c) there is potential for glitter usage.

What do you think, internets? Am I just nostalgic for the 90s? Do I not wear enough black? Would you buy one if I made it? (If I promise to send any profit to a nice, hopefully thematic-ish charity? [And I'm talking like, $1 here, people. Girl's gotta buy aforementioned glitter.]) Should I just get a job and talk to other adults in the real world already?

#2

A number of people have asked, joked, or been giving meaningful glances at my slightly-more-bloated-than-usual abdomen (which is purely due to the re-discovery of an old high school favorite ice cream sandwich, but thanks for noticing, mother-in-law) and so I am here to relieve you of any doubt, NACHT, no more babies.

No.

Here is my deep, dark secret: I want another two-year-old so badly. Miss Thang is amazing. Full of "why's" and tantrums, but also primative jokes, terribly off-key singing, whole-body hugs, and actual conversation. I adore her. I always have. I have loved her deeply, from the second she appeared, but that first year was really fucking hard work and I struggled to keep my sanity, no joke there. Now it's (mostly) just fun. And I would love to have another, but I have not developed the amnesia about how hard it was at the beginning. (Plus, you know, all the swelling and bleeding and whatnot to get her here in the first place.)

Mostly I am terrified to have another because of darling little haikus that I would write, tears streaming down my face as I felt like my nipples were slowly being ripped off, much like this one:

Three o'clock A.M.
Death would be better than this.
Go the fuck to sleep.

But you know what? A year and a half later, I realize it was so, so worth it that I wish for another. I am glad I did it. I am just not sure I could survive it again, and that would really suck, because life is really good right now. Meanwhile, I suggest you get yourself an It's-It for a little taste of heaven.

50 Shades of OHmyGAWDIamsoembarrassedtoadmitthis

I broke. I read 50 Shades of Grey. What's that, you're living under a rock and only read Yahoo! news scrolls on your way to checking into email and have no idea about 50 Shades of Fucked Up? (Sadly, that is lifted straight from book content.) It is awful, terrible, AWFUL AWFUL housewife porn.

Porn porn porn, crappily written porn. It is Twilight for the less-educated adult set. If I thought I was embarrassed to admit I read Twilight...this shit makes Twilight look like refined literature. Remember how I felt about Twilight? I had no idea it would get SO MUCH WORSE.

Anyway. It sucks. The writing is so very bad, and I stayed up until 3:00 AM several nights in a row finishing the damn series because I was sucked in to a silly, unhealthy, pervy little world. I swore I wouldn't read another word if one more person's breath "hitched" or gave a "holy fuck," and yet I did. I read those phrases hundreds of more times (I am sending that author a frickin thesaurus as a cry-all-the-way-to-the-bank gift) just to learn how the older, completely disfunctional dude was going to sexually tease the young, hapless female who happens to have had this most eligible bachelor fall for her despite the fact that she doesn't seem to have very much to offer except an amazing ability not to get any UTIs from all the sex-ing.

UHG. Don't read it, unless you need to kick-start your libido, in which case I say, lucky your husband! Also, factor in a day to catch up on sleep after you finish the stupid thing.

Nice

I know I suck at updating anymore, I do. I have debated about what to write, but what seems funny at 3:00 in the morning (windows! hallucinations!) is less-so when I am more conscious a few hours later.

This totally doesn't suck, however:
 

In fact, it made me weepy because, well, that's what I do.

I also pilfered it from Dooce, which I'm guessing most of you (are there any you left?) read, so it may not be new, but HEY! It is worth watching again because it is nice to see people being nice.

Go The F*$& to Sleep. It's Not Just a Book!

Hey Ya.

I'm kind of lost in the drivel of day-to-day life. Things are o.k., except for Miss Thang's sleep habits, which have regressed again. I have less and less patience for it as she gets older, but I don't think it's necessarily all her fault...some sort of mommy-intuition thinks there's more going on than her just trying to manipulate us, maybe a sensory issue or restless leg syndrome. Anywhos, I have an appointment with her pediatrician to get it checked out once the pediatrician gets back from her spring break. Sigh. Who told doctors they were allowed to have a life, anyway?

In the meantime, this made me happy:

Bento Box Giveaway

I aspire to make cute food for my child. So far my endeavors include arranging the mac & cheese in a somewhat-aesthetically pleasing way, and occasionally in a less aesthetically pleasing way. I feel there will hopefully be more options as Miss Thang starts to eat food outside of Variations on Mac & Cheese.

Anywhos, there is a lovely blog I follow, written by a woman who is much more creative than I am, and who has kids who eat starfruit. IMAGINE THE OPTIONS.

She's doing a giveaway, so shameless shout-out to Meet the Dubiens!

I'm Busy

Where I Talk About My Kid Some More

I need to get a job for no other reason than I need a source for something else to write about. Miss Thang is super awesome, and I could write novels about her antics. And poop. (Why is poop SUCH a prominent topic among parents? WHY?) But I am sure you are not here to hear about that. And if you are...yuck.

We had a lapse of warm weather and it was OHSOWELCOME, despite the unseasonableness of it. Nearly 70 degrees in January! We went to the zoo and DIDN'T WEAR COATS. So awesome. Now, of course, it is snowing. But I have stopped fantasizing about moving our entire family of fair skin to Mexico for at least a few minutes.

Miss Thang starts one half day of preschool next Monday. I am already having anxiety dreams about it. One of my concerns is that it goes until 1:00 PM, and typically Miss Thang likes to start her nap around 12:30. I believe she can be flexible for one day, and it'd be nice to push her nap time back just a little in general, but deviating from her routine = not one of Miss Thang's strengths. So I signed her up with the understanding that I will probably arrive 15-20 minutes early the first day, just to make sure she is not melting into a tatrum-y pile of exhaustion. Naturally, last night I dreamt it was her first day and I looked at my watch and it was 1:00. The place is 25 minutes away, by car. And I somehow decided that the best way to get there would be to hop on a bike. (Which, for the record, is something I do not even own.) I was making up excuses in my head to tell the director about why I was such a neglectful parent IN MY DREAM.

Sometimes I wonder if I could benefit from therapy, and/or less tonnage of refined sugar in my diet. (The whole Paleo thing is still intriguing...but hard to commit to.)

Our holidays were great, I am glad they are over. Miss Thang and I both like our routines, I suppose. Sadly, Frosty the Snowman has become a staple in our home, despite the over-ness of the holidays. Miss Thang is potty-training, and is not very motivated by sugar-y treats. (YAY!) She is, however, a TV addict (ERG), so we let her watch bits of Frosty every time there is praise-able behavior. Sometimes, after a particularly successful day, I want to thumpity-thump-thump the DVR, and that is when we switch to Elmo.

Um. That's it. I am out of stories, but hope to be back before another month goes by!

Can You Put Kale in Jello Shots?

Things that have been going on:

1) Our vet told us to feed our cats more wet food. A lot more wet food. Apparently new research says that because it's closer to their natural food source (all relative, I suppose, since that meat-like mush doesn't really resemble any natural meat I've ever encountered, but I suppose more so than pellet-shaped kibble) it's better for their bodies. They're finding that this generation of cats is dying from/with completely dehydrated kidneys and livers, because apparently cats, being desert creatures, get most of their water from food-based substances as opposed to drinking fluids directly. So if you feed a cat kibble all the time, they don't necessarily compensate by drinking more water like a human or even dog would. I expressed concerns over Tatum's growing mid-section, and the vet assured me that cats are very self-regulating with wet food, it's miraculous almost, cats who need more nutrients eat more, cats who need to lose weight actually eat less.

So swung by PetSmart, sorry for the years of unintentional feline kidney neglect, and bought an obscene amount of high-end wet cat food.

Sugar, naturally, refuses to eat it. Give her Fancy Feast, or she shall starve herself.

Tatum, meanwhile, missed whatever self-regulation memo the vet was referring to, and has ballooned out to epic proportions. It would be funny if it wasn't quite so quick and swelling-y. I have to monitor him like crazy, because it took me a while to figure out Sugar wasn't eating her food because Tatum would inhale his, then mainline hers while I just thought everyone was eating a proper amount, tra-la, and why was Tatum so much fatter?

2) Miss Thang is awesome, and smart, and talkative, and already cornering me with her toddler logic, and that is kind of scary. So we are starting to discuss preschools, which leads to an even scarier issue of what the fuck shall I be when I grow up, for Martha Stewart-ing isn't really my gig. I love being at home with my kid, but just ask The Funasaurus about how many gourmet meals he gets a week (whereupon he shall laugh in your face) or stop by and see just how tidy our little home isn't. Stay-at-home mom = yes, housewife = no. Since one cannot be much of a stay-at-home mom if one sends one's Miss Thang to preschool, one might oughtta procure oneself a job.

3) I have been looking into the paleo diet a little. Not much, because I basically live off of cheese and carbs and sugar (and wine, which either is composed of or goes well with the aforementioned) and none of those are very paleo-approved. But this video

posted recently by an old bloggy-friend on Facebook, really got me reconsidering. My compromise is that I am trying to eat a LOT more leafy greens daily. This is hard, because besides some basic romaine and occaisonally spinach, I don't really like leafy greens. Kale and chard and blah de blah farmer's market stuff is too bitter for my taste. But I am trying. I try to dress it up with balsamic, which again, not so paleo, but it's going to be a slow transition, if at all. It's at least better than what my diet was, I figure.

That's about it. We are getting ready for the holidays. I am glad we don't have to travel. We are hosting our annual New Year's party, so if you're in town, looking for a party with awesome 90s hip-hop, please come by and check out my feeble attempts at something Martha Stewart-y in the form of fancy-schmancy jello shots.

Mwah, darlings.

Love Out There

Uhg. That's three. I know these things happen in three, so I'm hoping that's it for a while, that with the holidays comes some good news. I've had three different friends come out with three very different but very sad pieces of news in the last few days. I am trying to get some perspective, to appreciate my world as it is right now, and all the people in it. Lots of love to everyone everywhere. And a bit of extra love to one Shooting Star in particular.

Sorry to be elusive, but thanks for reading, and if you want to send a little love out to the universe tonight, I think it would be well-received.

On a lighter note, my current deep dark secret is that I LOVE the Christmas stuff. I know it is not yet Thanksgiving, I know there are lots of funny cartoons about turkeys giving Santa the what-fors these days. But honestly, I took Miss Miss to the mall today, and she was entranced by the Christmas trees. We admired them for quite a while, in toddler-time. (Thank goodness Santa wasn't there yet.) And her joy was contagious. It was so exciting, and we were both giddy, talking about Christmas trees, reindeer, snowmen, and jingle bells. Speaking of, I played Christmas carols the other day while it was snowing, and we both sang "LET IT SNOW" at the top of our lungs, Miss Thang at least is able to carry a bit of a tune. I'm ready. 'Tis the season for a bit of good times, already. Angela, at least I know you're with me.