Masterfeces Theater Presents

Last night, while we were all enjoying a delicious dinner of grilled chicken chicken and ratatouille (well, except for Noah, who threatened to punch our house apart [WITH HIS FISTS!!!] if we ever made him eat such things again), I noticed a single, compact little turd had suddenly appeared on the floor next to the table. 

Now, the problem with having a cat and a very small dog is that it is literally impossible to tell their poop apart. And yes, this is a problem. One that we are very familiar with. Hey kids! Who wants to play another round of Who Pooped On The Floor? 

But since we were eating, I opted not to really ponder over the source From Whence The Turd Of Mystery Flowed, and instead quickly cleaned it up and flushed it away and then...

Another one. This time right in the middle of the kitchen, on the path I'd just walked through no more than 30 seconds earlier, when it was definitely poop free. 

Someone was Stealth Pooping, you guys.

And it didn't end there. After dinner, I found one in the living room, then two more under the dining table, and then Jason found MORE in the kitchen less than 15 minutes after that. All told, by the end of the night, we'd cleaned up about 10 separate poop accidents, all seemingly deposited randomly, one at a goddamned time over the course of several hours. 

THE SUSPECTS:

Lady Ceiba Hummingbird Magillicutty of the Downton Cheezburgers

EVIDENCE FOR: It was raining yesterday, and HOO BOY, is my dog ever the dainty little princess about pooping in the rain, when her delicate haunches might dare brush against wet grass. Never mind that this is a creature who also enjoys rolling around in piles of squirrel shit and eating mulch, WET GRASS IS WHERE SHE DRAWS THE LINE. We've completely barricaded her out of her favorite stealthshit location (the basement playroom), so it's possible she'd been holding it in all day and then driven to desperate, more high-profile pooping.

EVIDENCE AGAINST: Ceiba rarely moves from position during dinner. She is a terrible begger, always crouched next to my chair, letting out the occasional growl of "GIMME SOME CHICKEN, WHORE" or busting out with her patented Waffle Jump. Also, she was unceremoniously sent out in the backyard after the first two turds were discovered, just in case it was her and was still a work in progress. However, the timeframe between Ceiba's return inside and the second wave of poop is unclear, since Stealth Pooper Was Stealthy. However however, I am pretty sure three, maybe four...um, DEPOSITS, max, has been her longstanding personal best. 

VERDICT: Undetermined. 

 

His Distinguished Lordship Maximillian Thunderdome, Esq.

EVIDENCE FOR: As mentioned previously, Max has been having some age-related digestive problems. He gets constipated and panics and basically goes wherever. We switched his diet up to combat the constipation but then that led to vomiting because Mister Princely Pweshus Fwuffypaws' Wittle Tummy Tums Is Sensitive. We're still working on it, but finding random rock-hard turds is not a completely foreign experience.

Mostly though, I just think he's all, "I'm OLD, motherfucker. I've paid my litter box dues. From now on I'm shitting wherever I damn well please. Life is short. Get off my lawn. Etc."

EVIDENCE AGAINST: He was not spotted downstairs at all. He stayed up on our bed all night, as far as I can tell. That's a level of stealth never before witnessed with this cat, who usually likes to announce his tummy disturbances with a lot of meowing, horking, sturm und drang, etc. The last time he was constipated he basically marched into my office mid-squat and yowling, then looked me straight in the eye and shot rainbows out of his ass, Nyan Cat style. 

VERDICT: Undetermined. 

So who pooped on the floor? The world may never know. The kibble-studded puke I stepped in while getting out of bed this morning is likewise mysterious, making this whole thing one big riddle cloaked in a puzzle topped with an enigma and then wrapped in a wad of paper towels. 

Even Dream Jobs Get The Blues

The first thing I did after accepting my first non-mommyblogging-related job in a bajillion years was rush to Target for pens and file folders. The second thing I did was glare at my husband for laughing at me. And my pens and file folders. I did realize I would still be working on a computer, right? With a keyboard? Just like I've been doing for a bajillion years in a happy, paperless worky bubble? 

I can't really explain it. But if you get me anywhere near anything that remotely resembles Actual Office Work, I am completely seized with the need to scribble things down on Actual Paper. I require Post-Its and notepads and file tabs and a pen to write with and one to chew on. I want to print things out and stare at them and cover them in proofreading marks and bullet points and chicken-scratch notes to myself. 

I ask myself questions a lot. Category aggregation slider at top? Slideshows? Talking clients? News items round-up SUSTAINABLE? PLAGIARISM??

I stare at these half-formed questions later and am basically like, "Bitch, the hell if I know." Sometimes I answer myself with more scribbles: WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT??????

The good news is that the job is going...uh, good. Well. Excellent, even. I am getting the shit out of shit done, yo, and people seem to like me.

And none of them read my blog.

I mean, they know OF IT, and understand that I am a blogger who knows about blogs because I blog and I blog far and wide and empire-like, but I am 99% confident that nobody I interact with on a daily basis has ever read a single post about my boobs. Nobody knows about my love for personifying deodorants or the time I mistook a fruit sticker for a grave bodily injury or that I am sometimes just a giant walking sack of neuroses and fail. 

At least a couple times a week, I get emails from new or hopeful bloggers, asking for advice about ads and sponsorships and wanting to know how long it took before I started making money blogging. I try my very best to answer the majority of these (though I know I have a backlog of them in my inbox right now I AM SORRY), but I always...cringe when I write my response because I know it's probably not what anybody wants to hear.

It took years. It took a little bit of luck and a lot of good timing and many, many months of posting to the sound of crickets day after day. It took writing because I loved to write and not because I was hellbent on a book deal (HA!) or quitting my day job, because that just didn't happen back then. But it took years, not weeks or months, and it also involved a lot of side gigs -- some good, some not -- and a lot of stress and networking and adapting and people writing shit about you and a lot of lessons in self-awareness and boundaries learned the hard way.

Would I do it all over again? Abso-fucking-lutely. I mean, Jesus. I love my job, I love my life, I love you guys. All of you.

(Well, except for that one person I met in real life several years ago and thought maybe I could be friends with, and then later randomly discovered she was relaying everything I said and did and wore to a message board comprised of people who hated me, like what the fuck, I sometimes wear yoga pants and have visible roots, ZOMG IT'S ALMOST LIKE BLOGGERS ARE REGULAR PEOPLE OR SOME SHIT.)

(I should delete that. It's petty. Eh, I'll leave it for now and delete it before I publish. If I forget it's probably because I DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN.)

(Delete?????? You over-sensitive baby?????? Brand dilution synergy????????????)

Whatever, I still can't quit you, Internet. 

But I didn't realize how badly I needed...well, not a break from blogging about myself, because look! Here I am! Still blogging about myself! But...something different. Something where my day revolves around something besides a breakneck pace of writing deadlines, where there's no pressure to be FUNNY! Something that doesn't involve me mining my life and experiences and OH MY GOD, something besides kids kids babies diapers sleep boobs kids. 

But I did. Did I ever. 

(I also didn't realize how badly I needed to bust out my super-old reading glasses that I used to wear to combat eye strain and maaaaybe also to look older and more responsible at work.)

(Needless to say, I'm no longer concerned about that second part. Yikes.) 

Feelin' Groovy Or Possibly Just Very Cluttered

Ezra did a little redecorating in the Baby Jail this weekend. First he attempted to turn it into a ball pit, only with a knee-deep hoard of assorted toys and pointy-shaped plastic things instead of balls. When I protested that this maybe wasn't the coziest environment for the still fairly unstable Baby Ike, he helpfully added a layer of bubble wrap. 

When I also nixed that idea (SO LAME MOM), he went with option C and tossed in every single throw pillow and blanket he could find, officially turning Baby Jail in a groovy good-time laid-back Conversation Pit. 

All we need now is a lava lamp up in this bitch. 

(First rule of Conversation Pit is you do not talk about Conversation Pit.)

Okay, so it's crowded and awkward there's a lot more rolling and flailing going on than walking/cruising. But Baby Ike gets a very devoted playmate, Ezra gets his weird on (seriously, a deflated pool toy and smashed boxes of play cereal are among the valued treasures he specifically chose to transfer to the Pit), and Mama gets 18.5 SQUARE FEET OF LEGO-FREE REAL ESTATE. 

Marking the Occasion

Ike fell off the changing table last night.

And I mean FELL. In the most SPECTACULAR fashion. Head first and naked, ass over teakettle, BAM. Forehead, meet hardwoods.

It's almost a rite of passage, you know? All of my children have now suffered at least one big tumble from the furniture, all before they hit their first birthdays. Noah rolled off the bed. Ezra did that too (on family portait day, no less), and was also prone to dive-bombing from the couch whenever he spotted something on the floor he wanted. Who needs hands or reaching or pointing? MY MOUTH IS A DIVINING ROD. WHOOMP.

Noah fell down the stairs; Ezra tripped over a push-toy and split his lip open. And later, same scenario, only the toy was an escalator and his lip was HIS HEAD. And then there was the time with the curling iron and the time he fell over the back of the couch and dented the soup pot and then he fell face-first in the Christmas tree lot and OH YEAH THE STOVE and anyway, point is, I'm aware that kids fall down and get hurt and bounce back from the bruises and boo-boos. Their skulls really are very extra hard. 

And yet I will vividly remember each incident because I am saving up for a helluva wedding toast. 

And because in each moment, there is still nothing worse, nothing scarier. Being juuuuust out of arm's reach when your baby goes from a sitting position on a stable surface to up and over the edge while your hands desperately grab at the air behind them. Hearing the THUD, the THWACK, and then the awful seconds of silence while they catch their breath before the pain registers and the screaming begins. Picking them up and trying to decide whether to pull them close for comfort or push them back so you can check for injuries. Look for blood, check the teeth, panic about bones and brains and things you cannot see. 

I sat down in the rocker while Ike wailed and cried. I cried too. Jason jumped out of bed and came running. I choked out my confession: His diaper had leaked, his pajamas were wet, I turned around to grab dry clothes from his closet and left him on the table and...and...

You don't do that, of course. You never do that. Not once they can roll over and sit up and wriggle free of the safety strap (which I didn't even use, because he wriggles free so what's the point) and yet I did it anyway, because it was the middle of the night and I was tired and...and...

Yeah. My bad.

He's completely fine, of course. Those skulls are tough stuff, by this age. He woke up with a red mark that's already mostly faded and probably no memory of what happened, given all the wrigging and flipping and rolling he did during this morning's diaper change. 

I remember, though. And I'll probably never forget, either. 

(Baby Ike in Baby Jail. Stop looking at me like that. You can come out when you're ready to pen a five-paragraph essay about gravity, son.)

Señor Tequila Throws A Party

Hello! I am a bottle of tequila. Well, half a bottle, but WHO IS COUNTING? Tequila is not interested in your math, Tequila is interested in getting Tequila's friends out on this placemat dancefloor for a Cinco de Mayo party.

No, we have no firemen, or kittens, but I will promise you this: NO ONE WILL BE WEARING A SHIRT. 

Oh look! Tequila's guests are arriving now. As always, I have invited a diversified mix of attendees to guarantee a wild, unpredictable time.

Blue Mug always arrives early and then stands around staring awkwardly at the punch bowl. He doesn't get out much and mostly just wants to talk about Star Trek and Game of Thrones. However, if something were to go wrong with the sound system, he is your guy. Can Tequila help him have a good time tonight? Oh. Oh yes.  

Total drama queen, this one. But such a dancer! 

Some might say I am crazy for inviting my boss. Perhaps I am. Such is Tequila. I make bad ideas into good, and good ideas into OMG WE SHOULD TOTES ORDER SOME TACOS RIGHT NOW.

Ah, you see Tequila's plan now, no? World's Best Boss Mug will most certainly come out of his shell when he meets Insulated Flip-Top Sippy Cup. She is young and vibrant and teaches measuring cups to read in her spare time. She is also spill proof! The perfect woman, really.

No party is complete without Red Solo Cup, obviously, but I know something even better: Frat-house antices aside, he and Blue Mug have much in common, over which they shall bond, share some drinks, and leave the best of friends.

(Hint: Bronies.)

Champagne Flute may, at first glance, come across as a bit of a snob, but Tequila knows her roots are much humbler: $4.99 for a pack of six at Ikea. Tequila will never tell, though. Tequila is a rogue, but always a gentleman.

Ah, my old friends. I go way back with these two, obviously. Let us not speak of the fact that they also, a long time ago, came in a pack of six. What happened to the other four? 

Tequila happened. Also that tall human girl who talks with her hands a lot. 

Ahh, and now my partner in freshly-mixed Sauzarita awesomeness.

The three little limes shall regale our party guests in song before going off to bed. Broadway Souvenir Mug will especially enjoy that, I think. 

Hmm, I think we are all here, but is someone missing?

HOSPITAL CUP BITCHEZZZ AWWWW YEAH!!!!!!!!

And now we dance! And toast! And...

"Heeeey you guuuuys. I brought hummus."

"Sigh."

NOW that's a Cinco de Mayo party, my friends. 

(Or so I've heard, having never been to one before. Hence my response to Sauza's request for a sponsored Cinco de Mayo post being about imaginary party guests I found in the dishwasher.) 

(And the beer. Which is sadly absent in that final shot because I made margaritas before making sure I had all the photos I needed. Shocking, right?)

(If you would like your own dishware party with our fine friend Tequila — or with actual human friends, IF YOU'RE WEIRD — there's a coupon on Sauza's Facebook page. Woot.)

Sooooooo, How'd It Goooooo?

I spent the morning in an Actual Office, where Actual Other People do Actual Work. Wearing Actual Clothes because they have also Actually Showered, because Actual Reality! It was so real, you guys.

A few observations and assorted tips for any fellow Work-At-Home Hobbits out there, contemplating a return to the corporate fishbowl:

1) Office furniture has not changed ONE BIT since the last time I sat in an office. Which was in 2006, and I'm pretty sure that there hadn't been any big innovations in the Dark Cherryesque Laminate Desk-and-Bookshelf world for a long time before that, either. 

2) Office phones, however, are as terrifyingly complicated as ever. Pick it up, press 9 for an outside line, BEEP BEEP ERROR AUTHORIZATION NOT RECOGNIZED BEEP BEEP JUST USE YOUR CELL PHONE IDIOT.

3) I don't look nearly as skinny as I used to in elevator-door reflections. Sigh. 

4) Always bring a back-up pen to a meeting. Mine ran out of ink about 10 minutes in and rather than admit that I needed a new pen, I sat there like it was the damn SATs, scribbling frantic circles all over the edges of my notepad in hopes of getting it to work again. My meeting notes look like half-formed chicken scratch interspersed with a series of tornados.

5) If you opt to wear a stiff, suit-like dress with a crossover design in the front, you might want to take it on a test-sit before going anywhere in it, on the off chance that a safety pin is required to keep it from gapping and showing everyone in the room your black lacy bra OH MY GOD.

BABY IKE APPROVES OF THIS DRESS.