Breaking: Movie Stars Are Short, Need Sandwiches

(This fucking economy, man. Hollywood is HUNGRY.)

So last night I had the distinct privilege of being Linda's plus-one for the big! red blue carpet! premiere! of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. (The PR team in charge of the outing: "You have a blog too? That's adorable!")

This is how we do big fancy movie premieres in DC, you guys:

Port-o-potties as far as the eye could see. As we pulled up in our glamorous stretch limo short bus in front of the Air & Space Museum and a huge crowd of people who had apparently not figured out that the celebrities were already inside, I could barely contain my excitement and sudden terror about tripping on the bus steps and falling flat on my face.

I did not fall down, which meant it was now time for the descent into increasingly embarrassing fameball douche behavior.

"Smile, people in crowd who don't have tickets to get in! We're posting these on our MOMMYBLOGS!"

(I cannot lie, though. Linda. Sundry! Seriously just as funny and wicked and potty-mouthed as you imagine, or at least desperately hope. Port-o-potty-mouthed. Between her sailorspeak and my tendency to worry out loud over whether my breasts were leaking, I think we made an AWESOME impression on the Hershey's PR people. By the end of the night we were speaking exclusively in some kind of weird mind-meld twin-speak where we finished each other's increasingly obscure sentences. The fact that she's getting on a plane to fly back across the country right now pretty much symbolizes everything that is wrong and unfair with the world.)

Night at the Museu: Battle of the Smithso!

 

My shoes. I would have gotten a pedicure, but I figured that's what the celebrities were expecting me to do. And that's precisely when they eat you.

RED BLUE CARPET PRESS LINE JACKASS TIME OMG

Our first movie-star sighting! And it's the Butterscotch Stallion himself! He is short, for a stallion. Could strap on the old feed bag for sure. Toula! Eat something!

(Check out Access Hollywood's coverage and you'll see Linda trying to nonchalantly snap Owen's picture behind him. And to think, my elbow almost had its big break!)

(I am the blindingly reflective white person suppressing a cough in the way, way background at the 1:18 mark in USA Today's coverage, however.)

My camera thinks Owen Wilson should appear in one of those "Talk To Chuck" ads for Charles Schwab.

The back of Robin Williams' (very short) head. The lady in the sequins appears to be conducting an in-depth interview with his shiny jacket.

Ben Stiller. He's blurry because my camera doesn't have enough megapixels to properly focus on someone so tiny.

Ricky Gervais, who despite being considered on the portly side, basically looks like a completely normal and healthy-weighted person in real life. I'm goddamn chubbier than he is. Jason could fit half these people in his pocket. Noah could snap Ben Stiller like a twig.

And yes, if you're sensing that I've developed a bit of a complex about this, you are correct. Now sit down and eat some ham.

I think this was the RENO 911! guys (who wrote the movie), but. You know. MY THUMBS ARE TOO FAT.

Hank Azaria. Looks like a giant in IMAX, is not really. Fact! Was really, really funny, both onscreen and off.

Amy Adams. A reporter friend of mine said she was rude. I nearly tripped right in front of her on my way to my seat; got a vague sense she was horrified at how close the Dirty Normals were premitted to get to her. She's tiny and Disney princess-like and WHATEVER.

I've never in my life been to a movie premiere before -- I didn't know they'd have THREE people introducing the movie (well, one person introducing another person who introduced the person would actually introduce the movie) ("Movie? This is Crowd. The Crowd would like you to begin so they might rip into their gigantic boxes of Hershey's candy without it echoing throughout the theater. Crowd, this is Movie. Movie enjoys long walks on the beach and also thinks you are fat."). And I didn't know that people would applaud like, EVERY name in the opening credits, which did get awkward because some people got a lot of applause and then like, other people only got applause because they brought their mom.

Also everybody went nuts at the first shot of the Air & Space Museum, like OMFG THAT'S WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW! HOLY SHIT! EVERYBODY WAVE AND MAYBE THEY'LL PUT US ON THE JUMBOTRON!

Then there was the afterparty. Drinks, canapes (INCLUDING SANDWICHES!) and possibly more celebrities to harrass, but I was pretty over it. It had been hours since I'd blabbed endless on about my children with anybody, so save for one terrifying moment when Linda and I were approached by a couple of clearly very confused teenagers with cameras, that's exactly what we did for the rest of the night.

It's actually really hard to know which camera to look at on the red blue carpet. This is why movies stars are better than us: superior camera-looking talent.

Tonight I'll be back at another IMAX theater, but one more closer to my natural dork habitat: we're seeing STAR TREK again. How many times do you think Amy Adams has seen Star Trek? None, I'll bet. None times.

I WIN.

So Many Entries to Write, and Yet I Give You This

I am losing mah mind over here, people. You know it's bad when I start breaking out the phonetic Southern accent that I don't actually talk with.

1) My baby is SIX MONTHS OLD today. Six! Such a random number to get worked up about, I know, but six! Half a year! Totally in need of a long detailed entry about the state of every tiny little thing he does! But who is going to write that, I ask you. WHO? All my ghostwriters called in drunk.

2) Noah's evaluation with the school district is TOMORROW. At the crack of 9 o'clock. And I've got a whole entry about THAT percolating in my brain, in which I confess that the last couple weeks have actually been w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l and we've made a lot of great p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s and now I have NO idea what to expect from him tomorrow, like I think there might be a chance we get sent home with zero services and I think I might be okay with that, because seriously: w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l. But the minute I say all of that out loud I just know I will jinx everything and come home tomorrow feeling like a truck up and ran over me, hence the s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g, which probably doesn't work so well on a blog, where everything is spelled, unless the universe gets easily confused by hyphens.

3) My dad was back in the emergency room yesterday, and this time was finally sent home with a new diagnosis other than effed-up lungs: congestive heart failure. Which I know is not quite the death sentence that the "HEART = FAIL" implies, but oh my God. He's already ON every medication in the world, he's already CHANGED his diet a million times over, he's already had TRIPLE GODDAMN BYPASS SURGERY, so...just between you and me, I would still like to tell the u-n-i-v-e-r-s-e to go f-u-c-k itself.

4) Now that I've maybe got a few of you feeling all sorry for me, please allow me to send you elsewhere! There's a new Bounce Back up, where we're talking about the things you wish somebody (fuck you, somebody!) had told you about breastfeeding. I'm also contributing (for a few weeks, anyway) to Clean Freak Confessions, one of those sponsored site things that I have to sheepishly ask you to maybe consider commenting over there and/or thumbs-upping my entries so the sponsor is all happy happy? Y'all are VERY good at making the sponsors happy, I must say, and for that I want to lick all of your faces. I have entries up (so far) about washing cloth diapers and how cleaning can help families coping with illness. Yes, the topic of the site is cleaning. I assume I shall run out of topics in about...oh, already.

5) And hey! Speaking of places to click and read and comment, look at these morons over here at Washingtonian.com. They look familiar. If you're one of the two or three people who have copped to being driven crazy by my refusal to tell you what our "girl name" was, I finally caved and revealed it to the interviewer, because what's the point? If I ever have another baby you just know it will be another boy. Probably twin boys. Or someone will leave an entire soccer team of boy babies on my doorstep, wrapped in Thomas the Crazy-Eyed Tank Engine blankets.

(And in the non-selfish realm of pimpage, check out my lovely new Twitter background & design. It looks like a real blog, where I actually remember to say things and update occasionally! Imagine that! Anyway, the folks at Sweet Blog Design can make one for you. Look, I'm on Twitter, I use Twitter, I totally still do not fucking understand Twitter, but I hear it's all kinds of important and the celebrities and the destroying of traditional journalism and all that. So you better make sure your profile is pretty.)

And Then I Threw Up. The End.

So I went to New York City on Thursday. You know, just the random sort of glamorous day trip that is so typical of me and my fabulous jet set lifestyle. Or train set lifestyle, I guess, since I took NJ Transit, and probably had a Thomas and Percy floating around in the bottom of my bag. And I made the train on time and did not get off at Newark by accident and it was all fabulously boring, though I like to think that the baby strapped to my chest in an Ergo carrier paired with high-heeled boots and a ridiculously overstuffed diaper bag added a little bit of intrigue. Will she fall down? Get stuck in a sidewalk grate? Leave behind a trail of wadded-up bumGenius diapers* all over the East Side? DUN DUN DUUUUN.

The Whole Point of the trip was an extension of the Hewlett Packard Moms for Simplicity ad campaign that you are probably currently using an ad blocker on, and was supposed to be about moms momming around and using the latest in mom technology to make their momming easier and simpler and 75% more mommier. This included meeting Olympic champion swimmer (AND MOM!) Dara Torres and watching her swim LIVE AND IN PERSON, while we all stood by the edge of the pool and took pictures of her. God, it was embarrassing, the way we all stood there taking pictures of her.

 

An alternate-reality "oh god where are my pants" nightmare for anyone but Olympic champion swimmer Dara Torres.

 

He judges your fangirling.

I almost did not get to meet Olympic champion swimmer Dara Torres because of...wait for it! you just fucking wait for it!...technology. As I have no use for your mere mortal PAPER, I did not print out a copy of the day's itinerary, which had been emailed to us all a few weeks ago. Instead, I figured I would just look stuff up on my phone whenever I needed an address or phone number or...hmm. Why won't Gmail load? Why won't anything load? And that's how Tracey and I ended up smack dab in the middle of Manhattan tilting our iPhones this way and that, trying to get usable signals or remember anyone's stupid phone number because we had absolutely NO idea where we were supposed to be headed after a meeting with our ad people**. Except that it had a pool. Our cab driver found this to be supremely unhelpful. Look, dude. I once mistook Newark for New York. You're lucky I didn't direct you to the sprinkler system in Central Park.

We eventually got there, of course, and then after the pool thing we went to lunch and were offered the chance to sit and interview Dara one-on-one for a few minutes, and because I really care about bringing you guys nothing but the most top-notch content, I panicked and said no, thank you, OMG. What would I say, I have no idea what to say, me and my extra mom chins will just sit over here with my mom arms, hardcore momming, feeding my baby edamame paste from the bruschetta, and after the event was over I realized I also had avocado all over the crotch of my dress. AND my bra was showing all day because my dress did not have nearly the post-nursing elasticity that I thought it did.

 

I had a really handsome dinner date, though. We ate at one of New York's finest dining establishments, and I mean that, because I can at least rule my sister's kitchen out as the place where I got a touch of food poisoning, leading to an entire night on the floor of the bathroom at my in-laws' house. Which was awesome! See post title, fin.

*Speaking of cushy corporate blogging events, I was recently invited to one by a diaper company. And I was all, "I'd love to go! But, hey, full disclosure and stuff, I use cloth diapers most of the time now? Eh?" And then I was promptly uninvited. I am being persecuted for my principles! Denied fabulous getaways in...Ohio, I think it was. Barred from the exciting Powerpoint presentations! No swag bag for you! Oh, woe.

**And at that meeting with the ad people, after drawing a blank on any sort of "sponsorable" content (bleeeargh) ideas, I ended up describing the Deodorant Wars entries. And that's about when Ezra spat up all over my arm and I tried to be all smooth about wiping it up and ignoring the looks of horror on the faces of the young hip sales staff, and for some reason it wasn't until that exact second that I fully grasped that I 1) had brought a BABY to a BUSINESS MEETING like an ASSHOLE, 2) was discussing TALKING DEODORANTS as a viable form of conversational marketing, and 3) was sweating profusely from engorgment and said baby was pawing furiously at my chest. So I got up and hid in a closet for awhile. Buy ads on my webbity blog, companies! I am an opinion influencer! I am authentic! I AM A MOM TO THE EXXTREME.

Because the world should stop, just for a moment or two

I've been working on a post all day. A sentence here, a sentence there, half a sentence interrupted by someone who needs something and the perfect punchline ruined by an inexplicably truncated nap and whoo boy, I would probably make one hell of a prolific mommyblogger if it weren't for all these damn meddling KIDS.

But. Then. I cannot stop thinking about baby Maddie and now, oh no, not more, not again, baby Thalon and my hands pull away from the keyboard and wrap themselves around my baby's fat little body instead, my strong, solid, healthy little boy who is drooling all over my arm -- he of course prefers my arm over the dozens of toys and rattles and lovies I've tried to tempt with today -- and I try not to imagine all the ways things can all fall apart, all the unhappy endings and missed miracles and the idea that your own heart will just stupidly KEEP BEATING even after your baby's stops and OH YEAH, let me get right back to working on a post about some dumb thing I said or did because oh, that Amalah! What has she gotten herself into now? It feels wrong for that, today.

Others have said more, and said it better. I just needed to say that I am so sorry, Heather and Mike and Shana and Rich. I am so sorry.

Oh, Hi, Afternoon Nap Just Imploded

Seriously, when you find yourself changing sheets and locking doors and confiscating various toys o' hopped-up stimulation for one kid while trapped in an endless nursing/crib/cry/nursing/crib/cry cycle with the other, eventually you need to come to terms with the fact that:

1) there is not going to be any afternoon free time during which you may flee to the computer and write about your feeeeeeeeeeelings on your blog, and...
2) as soon as you hear your husband's key in the lock you can open a beer without the whole "drinking alone and in front of the children" thing and COME ON KEY SOUNDS DON'T LET ME DOWN.

Happy Friday, bitches. Here's a photo of my baby mid-crazy-bounce in his jumper thing, complete with mid-crazy-bounce eyes.

Hey cool! My mama drinks out of BPA-free bottles too!

In other news that I can type really fast without my brain needing to get involved: a long, long time ago it was decided that I would continue the Zero to Forty pregnancy thingie over at Alpha Mom, in the form of a postpartum guide, just "as soon as [I] settle in and get [my] act together with the two babies thing."

I have not gotten my act together by any stretch of the imagination, and yet, Bounce Back launched today. New entries will be posted on Tuesdays, just like the pregnancy calendar. Yes, I certainly do have a lot to say about this reproduction business. In another six months I'm clearly going to need a new angle, as there's always someone funnier, younger, hotter, and way pregnanter than you out there on the Internet these days.

Anyway, it turns out postpartum is a difficult topic to write definitively about, since everybody's experience is so different, so even if you haven't had a baby super-recently I'd love it if you stopped by and chimed in on the various subjects with your own personal no-holes-barred and lochia-is-not-sparkly-unicorn-poop story. The plan is to turn Bounce Back into the most real and informative and UNIVERSALLY TERRIFYING record of what happens to a woman after giving birth in all the land. Together, we can stop the global population crisis! Huzzah!

Asterisk, Asterisk, Asterisk

For the past three days I've been secretly dying -- quietly, and with dignity, and lots of moaning -- from what I was sure was cancer of the face bones. The pain started on the left side of my face, right above my teeth, coursing through my cheek and nose and temple and ear. It didn't particularly hurt when I bit down, there was no swelling or redness in my teeth, yet the pain would not go away with regular old Tylenol so therefore: CANCER.

(Was someone saying something about drama queening? What? Me?)

Okay, so I didn't actually think I was actually dying. Maybe for five or 10 minutes, tops. With two of those minutes happening sometime after 3 am, and who DOESN'T occasionally lie awake in bed in the middle of the night and diagnose themselves with cancers of various kinds, I ASK YOU. Therefore, those particular minutes do not count.

I was far more terrified of the prospect that there was something wrong with my teeth, something that would require a trip to the dentist and horrible invasive procedures involving pointy metal things. So instead of calling the dentist I simply brushed and flossed and used a lot of Listerine, hoping that whatever the problem was, it would be impressed by my Hail Mary attempt at dental hygiene and go away, content with the fact that I had clearly Learned My Lesson.

Anyway, it turns out it's actually a sinus infection. So there. Fuck you, teeth. I'm off to drink high fructose corn syrup right out of the bottle.

So sinus medications have been helping, except that they make me really, really sleepy. I fell asleep in the middle of writing yesterday's entry, for an hour. I woke up all, what the fuck was I talking about? So anytime you see me do this:

---> *** <---

In an entry, you now know the truth. I either can barely generate enough interest in my own topic to stay awake long enough to write it in a fully cohesive manner, or else I'm darting from topic to topic because of all the corn syrup.

***

(OH. HA. I'M TOTALLY THE HILARIOUS.)

***

Anyway, yesterday's post was entirely too heavy and depressing and made too many people cry. Let's bring on the ridiculous! Like this post over at Alpha Mom, which is essentially the Deodorant Wars series, only with baby bottles. That's right. I got someone to pay me to pose inanimate objects and make them talk to each other, and in this case, stick earrings in baby bottle nipples. LIFE IS GOOD.

***

Wait! Let's get depressed again, for no particular reason at all. I just very randomly came across this photo, from October 2007:

I'm pretty sure that just killed me dead.

Stop it, you.

Results of the Totally Not Really a Contest Fake Contest

So, because all these goddamn unicorns keep shitting on the floor and eating the drapes, Danielle, Chad, Cara, Baileyswedishfish, Dona, SueBee AND Jessi all win. I figured I didn't actually need to say anything, since everybody just stares at the baby photos anyway, and the captions could announce my intention to run for governor of the Outer Spacian Hinterlands of Pluto and the comments would still mostly be about nomming on Ezra's cheeks.

And of course, I do not blame you. He is incredibly nommable, and I haven't had anything original to say since 1992.

Honorable mentions go to Kim and die Frau for trying to find something noble in my intentions (i.e., focusing on my beautiful babies' smiles instead of being all neurotic and hand-wringy). You both win leprechauns.

(Speaking of hand-wringy, how awesome is it that right after I'm all, "my kid's expensive private preschool kicked him out of SOCCER!!!11!", I read this post at Sweet Juniper about the Detroit Public Schools failing children in a very profound and fundamental way, on a massive scale, and it makes me twitchy and angry and heartsick and grateful, and if you haven't read it [and the postscript] you should. It will haunt you.)

(Personally, I had no idea that haunting weblog ghosts could physically wallop you with a two-by-four while screaming, "PERSPECTIVE, BITCH!" Turns out they totally can!)

An outtake from yesterday. We'll call this one goofen shadesofthefutureblah.

Contractually Obligated Shmushy Face

A NAP? TAKE A NAP YOU SAY? YOU SHOCK AND APPALL ME, MADAM.

(Two new posts over at the Luvs site: Save It For the Internet, Lady and Things I Did Instead Of Writing Helpful Time-Saving Tips For You This Week.)

(By the way, I really want to thank everybody who has clicked over and/or left a comment on my stuff over there. You've helped me earn a few more much-needed dollars. I'm also going to be doing some additional writing for Zero to Forty soon, which was by far the Most Fun Writing Gig Ever. And perhaps now it will be even more fun -- writing about pregnancy without, you know, having to actually be pregnant. WIN!)

(And yes, I totally appreciate the irony of me coming here to post about how I don't actually have time to post here but look! Here's stuff I wrote for money. Delicious leafy money. I would like to eat it with some croutons and shaved Parmesan cheese.)

(Here. Because I feel guilty now for being such a sell-out and all, I give you this unflattering photo of me, unshowered and completely free of makeup, sporting a big hickey on my cheek, courtesy of a REALLY REALLY HUNGRY INFANT.)

I Know

Look, I just...I KNOW, okay? I've been trying to write -- really, really trying -- but my baby has suddenly decided that sitting still is completely unacceptable. We must walk! Pace! Go places! Walk over there! Now walk back again! Show me things! I want to see windows and ceiling fans and interestingly pointy potted plants! Have you not seen those diaper commercials? I AM NOT A BRICK, I AM A HUMAN BEING. NUTURE MY INTELLECT, BOOB LADY.

Speaking of diapers (hey! what?), I do have new posts up at the Luvs site. I've pretty much given up on the true "time-and-money-saving tips" theme and am now hoping to educate by examples of what NOT to do, unless you want the simplest task to end in disaster. It's the Amalah Way! Recent disasters include gift wrapping and creating an art gallery for Noah's preschool projects. Honestly, I'm amazed I can manage to walk upright most of the time.

Anyway, I shall keep trying to figure out how to type while doing the baby-pace-and-butt-tap dance and will post again very soon. Hopefully this afternoon. I've got Big Ideas involving my kitchen counters and a figure-eight walking path. (Seriously. Even in the sling he seems to know when I try to use my hands for Other Things and will start squawking if I do not pat or rub or touch him in some way every .325 seconds. And what am I supposed to do? You've seen his face. He's pretty much going to get whatever he wants from me, and he knows it.)

The Tuesday Redirect

So my maternity leave officially ends this week, all around. Just in time for all our family to depart and for me to suddenly be thrust into solo double-hammer-time parenting for the very first time. Not really sure which rocket scientist worked THAT schedule out. Oh, wait, it was me. Right. Okay.

*wanders off stage right, audience hears muffled cries of "STUPID, STUPID" and some head-slapping sound effects*

Ahem. Anyway! I'm back at the Advice Smackdown (thanks to Sarah of Whoorl and Kelly of Mocha Momma for filling in the last couple guest-author spots), although I admit I'll be cheating a bit longer by only answering easy questions. So those of you who have submitted questions that require actual brain power and thinking, well...you just hold onto your horses there, missy. I'd say it'll be at least mid-December before my mind catches up to my typing fingers. In the meantime, mush and nonsense, ahoy!

Baby sucking on Daddy's pinkie finger = mush.

Baby wearing floppy-eared puppy booties = nonsense

And on that note, this week's Time & Money-Saving Tip is up at the Luvs MomSpeak site. It's about pee-pee. Yes, it is. I'm certainly not expecting another 136 comments on a post about pee-pee, but you have to admit that would be pretty awesome. (NOTE: If the sight of the word "pee-pee" triggers your gag reflex, the post also includes a photo of my cleavage. See? Something for everyone!)

For those of you interested in neither babies nor cleavage = hamsterdog