While You Were Sparkling

So I was going to write about Sparklecorn today and how it all went down. Picture nine straight hours of rolling anxiety attacks...several honest-to-God crying jags alongside the ladies of the CheeseburgHer party... the prospect of partying in the equivalent of a flourescent-lit produce aisle at Wal-Mart...begging for decorating help via text, email, Twitter, a bullhorn on Times Square...a cake that got stuck in traffic...missing keys to electrical boxes...getting personally singled out and screamed at by the first irate party guest who walked in the door (because we started late) and crying again because oh my God I'm all sore muscles and exposed nerve endings, stop yelling at me, YOU KNOW THE USUAL. 

But then I looked at the first batch of photos and all that bullshit up and fell right out of my brain. I can barely remember a minute of it now. You guys are just that pretty, I guess. 

***

This bullshit, on the other hand:

I don't know what this child ate while we were away, but look at him. Standing there, reorganizing the spice rack. On his LEGS. 

BOY LEGS. With kneecaps and shit, instead of gnocchi-chub-pillows. 

He's walking everywhere now, officially, picking up more and more speed by the minute. Talking too, or at least trying to. "Eat? Buh? Eh? Cat? Meh? Yite? Gog?" 

If you guess incorrectly at what he's trying to say he will give you a withering look and sigh. "Hmmphf" apparently translates to "I pity your feeble brain, but I believe I asked for some Cheerios. Chop chop."

(Though I'm getting pretty good at understanding this age: today I asked him if he was crying because he tried to taste an antibacterial wipe he found in my purse. He tried to deny it for awhile but I knew the truth.)

At least he still looks a couple years younger than Noah, right? Who is all, suddenly, six-going-on-12.

And Ezra is three-going-on-what-the-hell, weren't YOU just a baby five minutes ago?

Sigh. It's never going to stop, is it?

(I don't know who is more underwhelmed by that thought, me or Ike. MO-O-OOM!)

BlogHer 2012, Part One (Which Features Very Little About, You Know, BlogHer)

Oh. Hi. I went to Blogher. While there, I cry-talked about my boobs to Samantha Bee, threw a party, suffered a nervous breakdown about said party, smeared unicorn cake on the faces of friends and strangers, fell down the stairs at a Broadway theater, and then brought a life-sized Harry Potter cardboard stand-up home on the train like an idiot. 

This morning I woke up to the sound of Noah yelling, "STOP STARING AT ME!" at the cardboard stand-up. Then he punched it. It fell over.

"HARRY POTTER, ARE YOU OKAY?" Ezra shouted.

(I should mention this was all happening before the sun was up.)

"HARRY POTTER IS OKAY," Ezra reported.

Well, good. I guess?

We are all good here too. I guess? 

I need a little bit more time to get my head and thoughts and photos in order, but here's one story from the very first day, which COULD HAVE been my last, because...well, you'll see:

On Wednesday morning, Jason and I drove up to Pennsylvania to drop the boys off at their grandparents' house. Then we went immediately straight to the train station and finished the trip up to New York. When we got there, it was raining, and so the taxi line was ridiculous.

While we were waiting (with our eleventy million suitcases because he and I BOTH like to bring a lot of shoe options — shut up, we've been married 14 years tomorrow because we see eye to eye on PRECISELY that sort of shit), the car service people were hustling the line, trying to cut deals with people to skip the taxi and go with them instead. 

Now, I admit we have done this in DC a lot: usually at the airport, where there are typically a dozen car service limos queued up. They've dropped passengers off and are hoping to score a return fare and extra cash and will drive you home for about what a taxi will charge you anyway. We've done it a lot and have never died once. 

But there we are, in New York City, and some random Russian dude is offering us a ride and I'm doing that thing where you stare into space, pretending to not even listen because no, thank you...when I realize Jason has negotiated and agreed on a fare and is walking off with said random Russian dude. Okay-y?

So I follow, thinking that hey, this is probably not the best idea, but also thinking that we're talking about a limo/towncar service, so it's not like this is the WORST idea, like if we just agreed to take a ride in some random Russian dude's random unlicensed minivan oh my God it's just a random unlicensed minivan.

!!!

His friend was driving, parked illegally while the other guy went out in search of suckers passengers, and of course every alarm bell possible is clanging around in my head...but the first guy was already loading our suitcases into the back of the minivan.

You guys. I know. This was so bad and so stupid and YOU SHOULD NEVER DO THIS EVER. It's New York 101, dumbshits, and the only explanation for why Jason and I continued to cheerfully climb into a couple strangers' random unlicensed minivan instead of running back to the taxi line was that we didn't want to make a fuss. If we were going to get kidnapped by Russian mobsters, well goddamnit, we were still going to be polite about it. We were going to be the most cooperative victims ever.

Once we started driving, I glared at Jason, like I cannot believe you just agreed to let us get chopped us into tiny pieces and hurled into the Hudson River all to shave 15 minutes off our transportation time.

And he looked back at me, like I know. I'm sorry. I was just thinking about that thing your hair does in the rain. 

I pulled out my phone and debated...texting? Tweeting? Loudly making a phone call to someone with our exact location and circumstances to casually let our friendly Russian mobster overlords know that SOMEONE KNOWS. SOMEONE CARES. GOLDISH METALLIC MINIVAN HEADED DOWN 6th AVENUE. SEND HELP. 

Instead, I just nervously played Angry Birds. The Russian guys were much more interested in the real estate listings anyway. They seemed to be debating a move to the suburbs. 

Fifteen minutes later, we were in front of our hotel. The driver hopped out, handed our luggage off to the bellhop, thanked us and wished us a good visit. Then drove off to (presumably) make a few more extra bucks on a rainy day. 

(Us, later that night, in a licensed pedicab that charged us more than the Russian minivan.) 

(STOP EXPECTO PATRONUMMING AT ME, HARRY.)