I swear to Od, Noah really is Jason's kid. Our mailman was a lady. (My keyboard seems to be better, but still acts up after I type a lot. Which means I really have no choice but to post photos instead. No choice!) And this one goes out to Amy H. and all my girls from Austin: Seriously. He will smack you with his fabulous handbag. Read more →

Heylook. There shouldbea space in that title. Andright heretoo. I plannedto write a little more about ournew house today, plus some city-to-suburbs angst with an extra scoop of whining,but my spacebar is notworking. Ihaveto hitit several times, really hard, BLAMBLAMBLAM, to get it to work,whichmeans this morning's Advice Smackdown column tookme about seven hours to write,whatwith all the blamming. And I still have to figureout ifMamapop and ClubMomare blam-worthy. I am tired of blamming. So there will beno blamming orextra spacebarstrokes here.Noneatall! I actually didtry to fix itmyself, andthought after I yanked thekey off andfound a tiny bit of foil from Hershey'sKiss (pink,for Easter!)underneath that I'dsolved the problem.But no. Keyboard still bein a slut bitch and oh crap, there oes the G key. I don'tknow how orwhy,but I am bettin this isall Noah's fault somehow.He makes everythin sticky these days. He's startin to mugfor thecamera.It'sprettyhilarious. Dude, look at that messed-uphair. Where the hell is this poorkid's mother? (I AMGOIN TOTHROW THIS LAPTOP OUTTHE DAMNWINDOW I SWEAR TO OD.) Read more →

Amy: Well, it's official. We finally finished all that Easter candy. Jason: Wait. We had Easter candy? (Real entries using all your awesome topic suggestions coming soon, I promise.) Read more →

Shortly after I posted yesterday, Noah and I took a quick jaunt to the pediatrician to confirm what I already knew (double ear infection! yum!), and then headed over to Target to fill the second prescription for him in the span of two days. (On Sunday Jason went and got him some Baby Zyrtec. Did you know they make Baby Zyrtec? It smells like bubblegum, tastes like asswater and comes swaddled in your choice of a precious little pink or blue hankie.) (Okay, I am just plain making shit up for no good reason now.) I figured I'd drop the prescription off, wait a few minutes for it -- perhaps browse the nearby aisles to see if there have been any exciting breakthroughs in my OTC pain-relief options -- and then we'd be back home in no time. Of course, I arrived right as the pharmacy was closing for lunch, which meant I had at least an hour and a half to kill. Free time. To kill. In Target. That's like the most expensive prescription co-pay EVER. TOTALLY REASONABLE THINGS I BOUGHT: 1) Underwear, because honestly. The tags on the ones I currently wear say "The Gap" but I don't... Read more →

...because the past few days have gone like this: Snot. More snot. Allergies? Zyrtec! Snot. Hmm. Sinus infection? Snot snot. Snot. Ear infection? Oh. Well, crap. And also snot. Poor Noah. He is not well. And he has to deal with parents who call him "Snotface" in public, to the horror of other people in line at the Target pharmacy. It's a term of endearment, honest! Just like Pinchy McSquishbutt. Don't ask. Hey! Look! Here's the tire! It's still down in the basement. Shut up, Tire. You're obviously drunk. Read more →

Quick. Somebody give me a topic to write about. I am too tired to think of one. I am so tired. I am so super extra goddamned tired. Noah and Jason are still laid up with really bad colds, which means everyone is cranky and...well, sort of crusty. The snot pours on, my friends. And then there's this. Heather is Noah's first and only babysitter. She is our friend. She is a member of our family. We would not have survived the past 18 months or so without her, and now she's moving away and I sort want to throw myself on the ground and wrap my arms around her ankles while wailing don't leeeeeave meeeeee, and then maybe lock her in our basement for awhile. And I mean that in the nicest and most non-creepy-murdery way possible. But I won't, because I'm happy for her and her awesome new job that will pay her more than I ever made at my old job, but WHATEVER, YOU WHORE. HAVE A NICE LIFE. (ALSO I SAVED THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF HOUSE FOR YOU. DO YOU NEED ME TO SAVE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL TOO?) Anyway. I am still kind of blue... Read more →

It's not just me, right? There's definitely something going around. Something in the air, maybe. Or in the water. Or in the multiple cups of coffee I drink to function during the day because I can't sleep at night. Maybe it's that winter came back and ate spring and all the pretty little flowers that were blooming in my yard. Maybe it's because I even have a yard in the first place, and I miss our old condo and the cement and grit of the city. Maybe it's that Noah's nose has been leaking like a faucet for days now, that Jason's already sick and I'm trying not to even acknowledge the scratchy feeling in my throat. Maybe it's the terrible news at Virginia Tech and my inability to turn of effing CNN. I don't know. Maybe it's just all these Girl Scout cookies I've been eating. (Damn you, Tagalongs! Fill the void already!) Whatever it is, I don't think I'm the only one feeling this way. (Right? Right? That's your cue, commenty-type people. Hello? Fuck.) I'm sad. Anxious. Constantly on edge. I've been having nightmares. Stupid anxiety dreams mixed with full-on weird ones, like a recurring dream where I've... Read more →

Despite multiple blog posts to the contrary, I am a pretty laid-back, non-neurotic mom. Shut up! I am. We don't own flash cards or go to Mandarin Chinese lessons. I can call a spade a spade, a rip-off a rip-off and a Baby Einstein video a baby-crack de-mobilizing device. I am (relatively!) calm in the face of injury and illness and the only reason all my outlets have the plastic pluggy things is because we requested that the previous owners of our house leave them. (Seriously. It's in the contract. Plastic pluggy things to convey.) I believe that children don't really need to be pushed and entertained and enriched 24 hours a day, and that basically all my son needs is love, a (relatively!) safe environment to explore, free time to do that exploring, and a mother who doesn't eat all the Goldfish crackers. We've never been to the emergency room or used our pediatrician's after-hours answering service. I shrug when he eats dirt and bathe him every other day. I believe that tantrums are an annoying but necessary part of a child's journey towards language, that milestone charts should be taken with a grain --make that a rim --... Read more →

1) Hey! Localites! Next year you MUST attend the Share Our Strength/Taste of the Nation event. Was a great party. Great! So great that now, many many hours later, the only word I can think of to describe it is...great. Well, that and...fuzzy. Wine-soaked. Creamy polenta served with braised shortribs and some kind of mystery fried foodstuff on a stick that I kept seeing people with but was never able to locate, which pissed me off because one of my guiding culinary principles is FOOD + FRIED + STICKS = AWESOME. 2) Also awesome was the fact that Jason and I were invited as (bwah ha haaaa) press, which meant we were tagged with the Yellow Wristbands Of I'm So Blogging This. Didn't stop one cute little old guy from scolding me about my hair ("You have gorgeous blonde hair and look what you did to it! Why? Whyyy?"). But after I explained the whole Pink for the Cure thing, he graciously asked for my site address so he could donate. Which is when I realized I had no business cards or even a damn pen. MOST. AWESOMEST. NETWORKER. EVER. 3) Also most awesome: mah shoes. Yeah, I was totally... Read more →

Ok, so it really does not take much to make me cry. Am hopelessly weepy and sentimental and I may be crying RIGHT NOW just from trying to think of an example of something lame and ridiculous that recently made me cry. Like that Free Hugs video. Or those Kleenex commercials with the couch. Or the heartbreaking beauty of my pizza bagel. All of that setup to say NO FAIR WITH THESE COMMENTS. All the honesty and bonding and gorgeous tributes to your boys and your girls and Christ, my eyes got all blinky and shit while reading them. (ALL of them, plus the emails, every one, yes.) So...thank you. In a similar vein, thank you to everybody who recommended the Ellyn Satter book after the OMFG MY KID WON'T EAT GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH IF I DON'T MURDER HIM FIRST post. (Uh. This one.) I finally went out and bought it last Friday (and bumped into reader Krista* while there, in a overwhelming confluence of Internetness) and spent the entire weekend reading it while slapping myself in the forehead. A couple of the big mistakes I made: 1) Caring, obviously. 2) Doing the short-order cook thing, where I'd... Read more →