Watch Out, Tiny Town

Th

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No, seriously. That was my attempt at an entry yesterday. I sat down with the best of intentions and at least seven different topics rattling around in between and I did that dramatic arm-stretch-finger-wiggling thing and typed two whole letters. The? That? They? I don't even remember.

Despite officially taking his first tentative steps a couple months ago, Ezra -- driven by the urge to either keep up with Noah or avoid getting trampled by him -- still mostly crawled everywhere. Until, like, Monday. Now he really and truly walks, FrankenThriller-style, all over the place, shrieking gleefully at the top of his lungs. LOOK AT ME, he says, HOT SHIT COMING THROUGH.*

 

*Sounds more like AY YI WOW ZA EEEEEE, but I'm a pretty good translator.

**Also, yeah, that's our recalled Maclaren lurking ominously in the background of those photos, still waiting for the replacement hinge cover doohickey things. I told Ezra if he touches the Christmas tree the stroller gets to eat his fingers.***

***OH, that wasn't funny at all, I know. And yet I am leaving it there, because I am a horrible person.

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Since I spent my actual birthday in the car, in traffic, coming home from Pennsylvania, Jason decreed Tuesday to be my Birthday Celebration Day and made me a couple spa appointments (using a dusty old gift card I've had since last Mother's Day, such is the force of my procrastination). The highlight of this outing was me mistyping my locker code before closing it, a mistake I did not discover until I was done and relaxed and oily and awkwardly crouched in a too-big robe, cursing the tiniest keypad you've ever seen, trying every likely typo I could think of, while other women attempted to help. "DID YOU HIT THE C BUTTON? WHAT ABOUT THE ONE WITH THE LITTLE KEY ON IT? TRY THE NUMBERS NEXT TO THE NUMBERS YOU THOUGHT YOU TYPED. SEE, THAT'S WHY I JUST USE 1-2-3-4 FOR EVERYTHING NOW."

And as if the luxury of a massage and facial weren't enough, afterward I indulged in the ultimate in personal pampering: I did not go straight home, but instead went out for lunch and shopping all by myself. Which, before the sans-offspring among us get too excited, really just meant a burrito bowl at Chipotle followed by some halfhearted browsing of the clearance racks at Banana Republic and getting upsold on my moisturizer at Sephora because "this one has anti-aging benefits!"

But still. No stroller. No diaper bag. No looking down at your only half-finished stone cold burrito bowl because you've just spent 20 minutes keeping your toddler's hands out of the sour cream and imploring your preschooler to just eat the tortilla shell already, you PROMISE that brown part is just part of it and not a microscopic trace of salsa or black beans okay fine I'll just tear it off completely there ARE YOU HAPPY NOW. No pleading in the dressing room to no stay here stay here don't touch that don't crawl there, oh Jesus, I'm sorry, Very Shocked Lady In The Stall Next To Us Of Who Probably Didn't Need My Son's Input On Those Pants.

And yet. No kids. No babies. Another mom apologizes for her screeching two-year-old in line at The Gap and I immediately rush to over-explain that Oh! I understand! I have been there! I am like you! One of us! I just don't have them with me right now, but hey! This stain on my jeans? Totally very likely barf. God, I miss those little mutants.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, he says. IMMA GONNA DESTROY SO MUCH STUFF NOW.

Thrilling! Christmas Recap! But Only Kinda!

THINGS I DID:

1. Dyed my hair red.
 
 

2. Like, seriously red.

3. Like Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog red. Like mentally ill ginger with eyes like a bush baby red. Like I have been clearly watching too many geek-friendly musicals red. 

 

DONT STOP BELIEEEEVIN.

4. Cursed out a jolly plastic toy rocking horse using a slightly different interpretation of the words "insert" and "slot A" and "slot B." Drank way heavily.

5. Confronted childhood fears. Drank way heavily.

 

(Trust, you'll be reading MUCH MORE ABOUT THIS LATER OH YES.)

6. Instilled all-new childhood fears in the next generation by letting Noah watch The Wizard of Oz.  

7. Ensured another barn-burner of a Christmas season for the fine folks at Energizer and Duracell, discovered that I suck at Tinker Toys, made (and ruined) Christmas breakfast with help from the Top Chef cookbook.

8. Went to Pennsylvania. Confronted crazy family, wooden cows, frizzy hair, bangs doing That Thing. Thoroughly traumatized mother with opening montage from Pixar's Up. Drank way heavily. 

9. Turned 32. More of the same.

THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. Take any photos of our holidays except for photos of my hair, just in case there was a Facebook emergency that required 400 slightly different bathroom mirror self-portraits.

Merry Merry

 

Pimp My Track

BACK THE FUCK UP. IS THAT THE ISLE OF SODOR ALL OF A SUDDEN?

IS THAT A RAMP? AM I TOTALLY MESSING WITH YOU RIGHT NOW?

FUCK, IT'S A RAMP, MOTHERFUCKERS. WITH DUPLO BLOCK COLUMNS.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THESE DUPLO BLOCK COLUMNS? IS THAT GENUINE FAUX COBBLESTONE DETAILING ON THOSE DUPLO BLOCK COLUMNS?

SERIOUSLY. LOOK AT THOSE FUCKING TRUCKS. THEY'RE ALL, WHO LIVES HERE? THE POPE?

WE'VE GOT COWS.

WE'VE GOT MILK THAT IS DISPROPORTIONATELY LARGER THAN OUR COWS.

ALL THIS, AND WE'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKERS.

HOLY SHIT, IT'S A BRIDGE.

AND LIKE THREE OR FOUR OTHER BRIDGES AT LEAST AND THE TRACK GOES AROUND IN LIKE A LOOP OR SOMETHING CRAZY LIKE THAT, OH MY GOD BECKY.

HOLY SHIT, IT'S A WINDMILL.

AND A CASTLE. I KNOW YOU CANNOT EVEN FUCKING BELIEVE YOUR EYEBALLS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE GENUINE FAUX COBBLESTONE ON THAT CASTLE TOTALLY MATCHES THE DUPLO BLOCK COLUMNS.

EVEN THOMAS IS ALL, CONGA LINE, THEN WE GO FIND SOME BITCHES.

SNOW DAYS BE BALLIN'.

 (They canceled school tomorrow, too. Then it's winter break until January. I'm kind of afraid. There's still a lot of extra track down here.)

Life at the Overlook Hotel

Obligatory Kids Out Cavorting In The STORM OF THE CENTURY Photos

When you're only three feet tall, two feet of snow is downright magical. Once you're over five feet tall, it's mostly a pain in your chapped-up ass.

 

Especially if you are like me, and thus woefully unprepared for this sort of nonsense. This was my plan to protect my Ugg boots. I think the bags may actually be an improvement, aesthetically speaking.

 

We mashed Ezra into a size 6-12 month hand-me-down snowsuit and dropped him into the nearest snowbank...

 

...failing to notice that he managed to lose his mittens within the two freaking feet between our front door and this very spot.

I would like to point out that those mittens are hand-me-downs from an entirely different child and source. And yet they match! This is so very deeply satisfying for reasons I cannot fully articulate.

 

Noah's mittens totally match his coat too, but you can't tell. SO WHATEVER. The Hanna Andersson catalog is a load of photographic LIES.

 

Daddy = jerk

 

Ezra = highly amused

Then = vaguely disgusted

Noah would've stayed outside until he was a preschooler popsicle.

 

Ezra was mostly all, EFF THAT, IMMA STAYING INSIDE. He gets it from his mother.

Outerwear was actually just one example of our general unpreparedness for the blizzard -- we live in an area that loves to panic over snow predictions that never actually materialize, so I have become a total asshole about it, almost willfully ignoring the warnings and assuming that 20 inches of predicted snow will probably be about 1/4 inch in reality. And I steadfastly refuse to be one of Those People at the grocery store, frantically buying milk and eggs and stepping on toddlers in preparation for the End Times. 

You know what Those People had this weekend? That we did not? 1) Milk, 2) Eggs, 3) Any food whatsoever that was not in frozen nugget form.

(I did, at least, have more than enough pregnancy tests to last me for the duration.)

So that was fun, especially since I was planning to do all my holiday baking* on Saturday and worked myself into a state about how far behind I was on my holiday baking** and finally went through every goddamn cookie recipe I could find in search of something I could make without milk or eggs. I made these Chocolate Earl Grey Shortbread Coins, which are not really my kind of cookie but Jason swears they are awesome and is voting for another batch. And before you boggle at the idea that I had high-quality loose-leaf Early Grey tea despite having no milk...ha HA. I ripped open some fancy-looking tea bags.

AND ALSO, our TiVo remote decided to up and vanish into thin air, as we haven't seen it since Friday. Last seen: on the couch. Currently: not on the couch. Or under the couch, or inside the couch. Or...anywhere, because believe me, we had a LOT of time on our hands this weekend too look for it, including 1) the clothes dryer, 2) the vegetable crisper and 3) toilet tanks. one. Jason finally found an old one in the basement that works, thus narrowly avoiding a total Shining-type meltdown for at least three people in this household. 

AND HOLY CRAP, you would not believe what just happened, as I was trying to think of a conclusion to that story, which of course seemed like a bigger deal all weekend than it does in the retelling: WE COULDN'TNA WATCH TEH TEEVEE. Our babysitter (last seen: on the couch, on Friday) just texted to inform us that she just found our remote in her purse.

Thanks for the great weekend, Noah, you sneak.

*I hereby nominate "my holiday baking" as one of those phrases that you simply CANNOT SAY without sounding at least a little like a douchebag.

**SEE?

Shutterfly Contest Winner

(A real entry is coming later -- thanks to school closings, I'm busy playing Wii with my cleaning lady's children and feeling like the Biggest Spoiled Bourgie Asshole ever. Also, they are kicking my ass at bowling. What the HELL.)

Just wanted to pop in and announce the winner of that Shutterfly thingie. Out of 211 photo books, two were mine (I was so pleased with the first one that I ordered another, bigger, fancier, paid-with-my-own-actual-cash-money one as a gift for a few people), so I used a random number generator to pick our winner:

 
Counting up from the first book submitted, our winner is Andrew's ABC Photobook by ElizabethW378. Hooray! You win stuff. Please contact me ASAP so I can give you the prize codes for all of the said stuff.

Thanks to everybody who entered and let me peek at your photos. You're all way too adorable and stuff. Stop it.

Teh Update, Okay, Fine

POINT THE FIRST: For everyone who doubts in the existence of false positives, please go and Google "Target Up and Up Brand Pregnancy Test False Positives." Please note the dozens and dozens of testimonials describing exactly what I saw on my test: a faint but definitely-there line almost immediately (it darkened a lot by the time I took the photo, but did appear in the initial three-minute testing window), confusion and a string of negative test results afterward. Basically, if you're every in the mood for the mental and emotional ass-fuck of a false positive on a peestick, Target is the brand for you. Otherwise, DON'T BUY TARGET UP & UP BRAND PREGNANCY TESTS. THEY ARE TEH CRAP. I PEE ON THEM.

POINT THE SECOND: For everyone who was convinced they saw a second line in the third test, which, I dunno, trick of the camera or something because I assure you there is NO LINE in the actual physical test, please check out this inverted version of the photo courtesy of Ryles. Absolutely, definitively no line.

POINT THE THIRD: Sorry, everybody.

(I bought like, six dozen different tests because OF COURSE I DID. I will alert you if the tide turns at any point, but at this point three definitive NO tests are trumping one suspicious possible YES. I get that this isn't as super exciting as a SURPRIZE BEBEH, but it's really for the best, for now. I AM TIRED, YOU GUYS.)

Much Like the White House Party Crashers, This Is All Reality Television's Fault

Yesterday, 2 pm, after a combination of 1) mild yet persistent stomach issues, 2) boob weirdness, 3) overwhelming craving for an entire can of black olives in spite of said stomach issues, 4) the realization that condoms DO INDEED have an expiration date, hellooooo May of 2008, and 5) entirely way too many episodes of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, better known in our house as The Oops You Had a Baby In Your Pants Show:

 

Better known as Exhibit Wait What Squint Squint No Way Squint Oh Shit

Yesterday, 5 pm, after my plan to wait until morning to retest failed miserably in the face of Googling for pictures of other people's store-brand peesticks with very faint second lines but not like, a real second line and I totally didn't actually think I was pregnant, I was just checking, because taking unnecessary pregnancy tests is kind of a hobby of mine:

 

Better known as Exhibit That's More Like It

Today, 7:30 am, after a restless still-unconvinced night of boob-poking, attempts to imagine life with THREE OF THEM, followed by fits of maniacal laughter:

Better Known as Exhibit Well Now We Know How We Really Feel About THAT

My fellow peestick aficionados: Total false positive/defective test, yes? Proof that Discovery Health is a front for pregnancy test manufacturers to ensure that you always, ALWAYS opt for the three-pack over the single test? I can believe those two negative tests, yes? Is okay to go soothe my stressed-out nerves with wine? Should I still cancel that combination amusement park/camping/cross-country tour of public restrooms vacation we had planned in about eight months or so?

For those of you who have no idea but would simply like to tell me what I want to hear: Yes. Total false positive/defective fluke of a test. We've decided to hold off on any talk of a third baby for awhile, because it turns out that babies turn into children. (I know! The FTC should look into this.) Anyway, I thought we were being quite responsible but apparently my husband thinks condoms are everlasting like Twinkies or something. And seriously, this one woman on that show had a baby in an amusement park restroom and it fell on the floor and was just lying there and about 10 people opened the stall when they heard her screaming and were like, "WAIT HERE. I'LL GET HELP." Like she was going to wander off and get on the goddamn Tilt-a-Whirl or something, and I sat there screaming at the TV for someone to GET THE BABY OFF THE BATHROOM FLOOR FOR THE LOVE OF GOD and so that's why I had to take a pregnancy test. I had to. You wanna read a lame blog post about peesticks or you wanna walk into a bathroom stall and have to pick my baby up off the floor next summer? HUH? YOU WANNA?

The Loop

The Hardest Part, at least from a day-to-day basis, the rigid, inflexible thinking. Things that must be done the way they've been done before. No variation, no deviation, from morning (and the order that breakfast items get set on the table) to night (pants come off first but socks come off last and books must be read while sitting on the right side of the bed RIGHT SIDE RIGHT SIDE!). Routines become rituals and the rituals are a religion.

It's all CONNECTED, of course, we're told. I fret about OCD but am assured that no, it's SPD. Dyspraxia is a motor-planning disorder, but when you add in tactile and auditory hypersensitivity and fine and gross motor delays and receptive and expressive and pragmatic language delays and whatever-the-fuck else we've been diagnosed with at some point or another...well, you've got a child who can't sequence day-to-day problems, or recognize patterns in events and behavior, who can't reason things out to their logical conclusion, who doesn't understand the order of the world and other people and basically exists in a tensed-up state, minutes away from fight-or-flight mode at all times.

Okay, not at all times. But just enough for it to feel that way some days. Some little inconsequential details doesn't go as planned and a mental wire gets tripped. He goes from a happy, smiling chattering little boy to...well, something else. Something I'm getting weary of describing, because I still can't seem to get it right. Please to reference EVERY OTHER POST EVER.

So lately we (with help and guidance from his teachers and therapists) have been working hard on improving Noah's problem-solving and abstract-thinking skills. You do this, in part, by deliberately creating problems and then pretending to be a complete moron.

Problem One: Oh no! You need to get dressed for school and Mommy put on your bathing suit! And now she's trying to put your socks on your hands! And your underwear on your head!

Solution: STUPID MOMMY.

Problem Two: You come downstairs for breakfast but your chair isn't at the table. It's in the middle of the kitchen. When you say you want your chair at the table, Mommy pushes it in the wrong direction.

Solution: STUPID, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MOMMY.

Problem Three: You get permission to go play in the basement, but the baby gate is closed. Mommy suddenly can't get it open, insists on making wild dramatic gestures about WHATEVER SHALL WE DOOOOO in the general direction of a nearby stepstool. IT'S LIKE WE NEED A TOOL OF SOME KIND. HMMM!

Solution: Ask to watch TV instead, because DAMN, WOMAN.

And...so on and so forth.

It's working, we think. Not all the time, but in past couple weeks we've managed to get him to work and reason through a couple change-ups and "why/how come" questions. A good start, but nothing that seemed to curb the Big Bad Reactions to a triggering event.

One such triggering event is, and has always been, taking the alternate way out of our neighborhood. Our house is on the edge of a street that loops around a couple of other houses, kind of like a cul-de-sac but not. But weird. It's like whoever built this development was legally required to toss up some affordable townhouses among the gigantic single-family homes, but sure as hell wasn't going to put them where anyone would actually have to look at them. Thus, we have two ways out.

 

Obviously, the preferred exit is shorter, but quite often gets blocked by landscaping trucks, extra cars that simply don't fit into two- or three-car garages, I mean, MY LANDS, and...I don't know. Piano-and-Ming-vase delivery trucks. So it's sometimes a little easier to just go around the other way.

Except that Noah always, ALWAYS loses his shit when we go that way. It's takes all of three seconds to end up exactly where we would end up ANYWAY, but in three seconds he can manage to completely lose it. He screams and kicks and pulls his hair and thrashes around in his seat. We actually moved him out of his booster and back into a harnessed carseat thanks to one of these fits, when he managed to turn his body completely around and slide out of the seat belt and onto the floor. 

We tried everything we could think of: we took walks around the block, we took pictures of the road for social stories, we drove that way every day on purpose, we drove that way only when we absolutely had to.

It's a little, silly thing, right? But that's how it is. Even if we can avoid a three-second detour right outside our front door, we may have to take one further down the road because a traffic light is out. We have to turn on a blinking red light instead of green. We have to double-back in the grocery store because we forgot something, order orange juice at Chipotle because they are out of the usual apple, wear this red coat because the blue one is in the wash, and on and on it goes. Explaining, comforting, bargaining, begging, completely unable to get him to understand that it's GOING TO BE OKAY. REALLY. 

Yesterday I had to drive around the way of doom, thanks to a tree-removal crew blocking the corner. Noah freaked. We continued on. We got to the highway exit for his afternoon program, driving under the bridge we'd soon circle back onto.

"Are we going on that bridge?" Noah asked.

"Yep," I said. I thought about leaving it at that, but instead plunged onward with the kind of endless chatter I do, never knowing how much of it he absorbs, plus, who else am I going to talk to? Fucking Twitter?

"See, we drive arooooound this ramp and get on the bridge! Wheeeee! It's like a big loop."

"A loop." Noah repeated.

I was about to define the word for him when he continued.

"A loop. Just like the one outside our house."

And that was it. He caught sight of a nearby school bus and changed the topic. 

***

I drove around the loop again today, on purpose, just to see.

In the backseat, Noah started to protest. Then he tentatively raised his arms over his head.

"WHEEEE!" he said, and he laughed.

Topics in search of cohesion

Well. The inevitable happened. My microwave totally found out about my blog.

How you gonna mock me and my ancestors NOW, bitch? Go ahead. Nuke some popcorn without your fancy modern turntable and lemme know how it goes. 

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Speaking of the Inanimate Object Uprising of 2009, I've had a vicious, three-inch-long black-and-blue mark on my left thigh on and off for years now, ever since we moved into this house. And I have absolutely no idea what piece of furniture is the culprit. I've tried to line it up with all of the obvious pointy corners, then gone through the regular motions of sitting down/standing up, and am now opening cabinet doors and drawers, and seriously, it's starting to really unnerve me that there is SOMETHING that I have managed to repeatedly walk into for THREE YEARS and yet cannot for the life of me identify what it is. Thus I cannot move it or unhinge it or take out back and shoot it because IT'S A REALLY PAINFUL BRUISE YOU GUYS.

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While I was typing that paragraph, Ezra found an open box of linguine in the pantry. 

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The Shutterfly contest has up and been extended another whole week! This means they are either super-pleased with the response so far and see no need to stop the fun...or they are not pleased with the response and it's all my fault and I need to slip them a note in homeroom all, "R U MAD AT ME CIRCLE YES/NO." Anyway. If you've got even just a spare 15 minutes and a handful of photos, you can still create and share a photo book and be entered to win a big ol' prize package.

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You know, I was not really fazed by the whole FTC blogger-disclosure thing, as I think I've always been pretty clear about what's what around here and at my other gigs (jerks thumb in direction of left sidebar). But lately I have been thinking that it's pretty damn unfair that bloggers now have to declare even the tiniest little Amazon affiliate link while cosmetic companies can have models wear insanely fake eyelashes in their mascara commercials and don't have to say anything.

Legal disclaimer: Model was neither "born with it" nor is this any actual reasonable representation of "Maybelline," unless you count Maybelline products being applied to giant synthetic fibers that have been hot-glue-gunned to a model's eyelids and then given a good Photoshopping just for good measure. Actual results will likely closely resemble your own lashes, but darker and clumpier which honestly you should be grateful for because the longer you stare at this image the more creeped out you become because seriously, HER LASHES ARE TOUCHING HER EYEBROWS. AND I THINK HER CHEEKBONES ARE MISSING. IF SHE BLINKS SHE WILL TAKE OUT THAT ENTIRE SKYLINE. AAAAEEEIIII, AND ETC.

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And while I was typing THAT paragraph, Ezra got into the cardboard recycling and attempted to eat the picture off an empty box of waffles.

 

 

Seriously. I feed him. Quite a bit, actually.  But I'm gonna go ahead and give him some ham, I guess.