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... Read more →

As a Very Important "Beauty Insider" member at Sephora (translation: HA HA, WE GOT YOU TO SIGN UP FOR A CARD JUST FOR FREE SAMPLES, SUCKER), I am apparently entitled to a birthday gift every year. Provided I make a purchase during my birthday month. And remember to present that stupid card. Anyway, my gift was a small bottle of shower gel. It's glittery and sparkly and smells like cupcakes. Thanks, Sephora! How did you know I was turning 12 this year? My mom says I can wear the tinted kind of Chapstick now too! (I guess I should be grateful that they DON'T customize the birthday gift too much, since if they were to base it off my recent purchases I'd probably get an anti-wrinkle cream that smells like lemon verbena. And desperation.) (Oh, and I'm 31 now. Everyone kept telling me that 31 would hit me harder than 30, but it didn't. I guess there's something about having TWO CHILDREN that makes you already feel older than dirt, what with how terriblly haggard you look next to their chubby smooth perfection [seriously, if you ever want to feel REALLY BADLY about yourself, press your face against an infant's... Read more →

I have taken approximately 3,923,001 pictures of that child over the past three years, and I have NEVER once seen him make that face. I'm so glad I got to pay $16.99 for this once-in-a-lifetime expression of Complete & Utter Goober. (I do like how Ezra's just trying to blend in, striking the patented T-Rex-can-only-see-you-if-you-move pose. Good work, son.) Happy Holidays. We're off to introduce the new man to the family and eat a lot of pie. Read more →

I have been writing posts nonstop in my head since Friday -- nothing I ever intended to commit to the keyboard and publish, just a endless series of disjointed paragraphs that bounced from topic to topic and argued with straw men and imaginary bureaucrats. On and on, my brain kept going and talking and spinning. It kept me awake and anxious at night and distracted and disconnected during the day -- all the signs of an obviously superior coping mechanism. Those of you who follow my sporadic dispatches over at Twitter probably Know Of What I Speak. Here, like a Band-Aid: On Friday, Noah's teacher unleashed a long litany of behavior complaints at me, many of which I was hearing for the first time, others which I thought were already being addressed, all of which together painted a very bleak picture of an overwhelmed, uncontrollable child with no attention span who simply could not function in the classroom. A child whose continued enrollment in the school was in serious jeopardy and was on a one-way track to being dismissed from the school. Here, like a bottle of alcohol emptied on the open wound underneath the Band-Aid: Expelled. From preschool. Merry... Read more →

Ezra slept for eight solid hours last night. I slept for three, thanks to a complete and utter inability to breathe due to the aforementioned Y.A.F.C. Noah -- who has made a full recovery and is back at school today, probably contracting the next bacterial scourge as I type this -- slept for less than eight hours but more than three, as I heard him conversing until midnight with an imaginary scary goblin who lives in his closet and is his new best friend in the world, because he's a NICE scary goblin. They go on ADVENTURES. Shut the DOOR, Mama. I BUSY. I am pretty sure the scary goblin is actually the garden gnome from our neighbor's yard. I have no idea how he ever got so hopped up last night. It's like someone was ordering him to dance until he collapsed headfirst into the furniture in exhaustion right before bedtime, or something. Noah's Dance from amalah on Vimeo. (Totally gratuitous footage of the baby doing absolutely nothing of interest is at the end. You're welcome.) (Also, yes, we are out of butter. Thanks for the update, Jase.) Read more →

Aaaaand the rest of the family has now been felled by Yet Another Fucking Cold. Felled, I say! Like mighty oak trees! Except...well, more like low-lying shrubs at this point. Or that dead hydrangea in the backyard. Noah is still home from school, which is nice in a way, because I miss playing with him, but also kind of eyeball stabby, because I don't understand how a child can go from a napless wonder running laps around the house at 7 pm, shrieking at top volume and demanding PLAY-DOH CRAYONS MARKERS TRAINS WANNA PLAY MY TRAINS NO WAIT BUBBLES, to feverish and miserable and wailing MY EAR HURRRRTS by 10 pm, thus re-setting the "he can go back to school tomorrow yay!" clock back to zero. But I don't know. There's still something extra endearing about them when they're a little peaked and still bedheady and pajammied at lunchtime: Anyway, I clearly have some important lying-in-bed-and-moaning to do today, but I still invite you to have a laugh or an eyeroll at my expense over at The MomSpeak, where I wrote about my dread fear of coupons. Yes. Coupons. You probably thought it was not humanly possible to have a... Read more →

So...if I were to mine my own life for a post topic today, I'd unfortunately be forced to report that Noah is once again home from school with an ear infection. (Scene: Doctor's Office. Yesterday.) DOCTOR: (after hearing Noah's cough) Has he been checked out? AMY: (waves dismissively) Oh, he's fine. Just a cold. (Scene: Noah's Room. Like, Not Even Eight Hours Later.) NOAH: (holding his ear and howling in pain) AMY: Wait. Don't tell me. I think I know this one. (Seriously. Fuck this noise and this nasal drip. Fuck them DIRECTLY. Noah attended a birthday party on Sunday at one of those little gym-type places, and I made a joke to another mother that I SWEAR, we walk into one and within 48 hours Noah is sick. It was a JOKE! You didn't literally have to whip out the stopwatch, Universe. Christ.) (I am maybe getting the hang of this, though. Crank up the humidifier in Noah's room, start calling his bookshelf the "library," haul out a Duplo train set and dub it the "imagination center," declare the laundry pile the "tactile center," climb into his bed with baby, laptop and coffee and ta-da! Instant preschool. With way... Read more →

Here is Noah (the 9 pound, 15 ounce chunk of Christmas Ham) on the day of his two-month check-up: He was 12 pounds even. 24.5 inches long. And here is Ezra (the 7 pound, 7 ounce miniature deep-fried peanut), after today's two-month check-up: 12 pounds, 12 ounces. 24 inches long. HA. HA HA HA. HAAAAAAAA. Outstanding work, little man. Out. Standing. Read more →

Ezra is a comfort sucker. (As in, he likes to suck on things for comfort. Not that he is a sucker for comfort, although frankly, who isn't? I'm a sucker for comfort food, for instance. Comfort food with butter and extra deep-fried carbs.) In pretty much every ultrasound we had, his face was always obscured by various body parts that he was attempting to shove into his mouth. I took note of this and tossed a pack of pacifiers into my hospital bag. I popped a Soothie into his mouth the very first night. Screw nipple confusion -- if I didn't give that kid a pacifier I wasn't going to have any damn nipples LEFT. He liked the Soothie well enough -- much better than the free pacifiers the hospital nursery had to offer, which I of course hoarded and took home regardless, because they were FREE FREE FREE -- but once we got home he started rejecting them too. If it wasn't a boob, it better be a finger, inserted at an awkward, palms-up angle that ensured you could do absolutely nothing else except SIT THERE while your wrist cramped up and Ezra sucked your fingerprints off. So, you... Read more →

Hey boys, let's get some pictures of you in those super-cute matchy-matchy big brother/little brother tees that the Redneck Mommy sent us: Hmm. Okay! I can sort of read one of the shirts. Close enough! Moving on! A little aside to myself here, you know, something for the baby book that I will probably never assemble: Remember last year when you hit the post-Christmas sale at the Hallmark store and you found those cute little Thomas the Tank Engine ornaments and you were all, AWESOME and PROUD and BEST PARENT EVER? Do you remember what Christmas ornaments are actually FOR? That they are not TOYS, that they hang on a TREE, high above your toddler's REACH? Did you honestly think that would be FUN? Were you honestly surprised that your toddler did not ENJOY THAT? Are you still all kinds of PROUD now that you've successfully turned the Christmas tree into THAT THING WITH THE TOYS THAT DANGLE JUST OUT OF MY REACH and do you have any ideas for washing your child's bitter, salty tears out of the velvet tree skirt? Dear Ezra: I will only buy you stupid-looking ornaments that totally suck and are not interesting at all.... Read more →