I hit a terrible wall this past week. A metaphorical brick wall of...of MORE metaphors, like paralysis and drowning and suck and ass. SOLID BRICK ASS. Yeah, that pretty much sums everything up perfectly. I missed a deadline, due to a simple flipping around of dates in my head. And missing this deadline sent me hurtling down the road (OF ASS) into the wall (OF ASS), because I got flustered and frustrated with myself. I beat myself up over my inability to stay organized and on top of things, and yet instead of... I don't know, sitting the fuck down and getting shit done...I floundered instead. I didn't know where to start. I couldn't prioritize. Everything became a jumble OH RIGHT SHIT FUCK THAT and a scramble to keep on top of the NEW deadlines that were coming in, while everyday I continued to pile up more things that were officially Past Due Goddamn It. Then we all got sick, which helped a TON, and I went into full-on passive aggressive "I can't heeeear you" ignore mode to pretty much everything. And again, let me remind you, that all I needed to do was 1) Sit the fuck down, and... Read more →

Or, Stuff That Would Have Gone On Twitter If I Didn't Lose Interest After Reaching 141 Characters Or, Stuff That's Been Sitting In My Drafts Folder Waiting For Me To Remember What The Hell I Was Talking About Or, I Made You A Blog Entry, But It Sucks *** We have three separate garbage/recycling pick-ups on Wednesday morning, which means by 7 am I have had three separate panic attacks over THE BUS THE BUS OH SHIT WE'VE MISSED THE BUS. It's gotten so bad that I can actually be looking out the window, starting directly AT a garbage/recycling truck and still get all twisty-in-the-heart-region at the sound of the engine and squealing brakes. Pavlov's School Bus, you guys. WTF. *** Speaking of the school bus, it shows up close to a half-hour late on rainy mornings. Because, you know, it's raining and wet and therefore we are ALL GOING TO DIE IN OUR CARS. But the return bus shows up perfectly on time, to the minute, no matter what. Now, I don't mean to suggest that I feel a little cheated by that lost half hour of zoning out over my coffee, or that I sometimes resent the efficiency... Read more →

Wow. Okay. So. The When You Marry book thing (album? commentary? no, I think "thing" was just about right.) took quite a tour around Teh Interweb last week -- first on Sociological Images, which Kelly tells me means that I am Officially Important to Sociology and Stuff, then to Jezebel (thanks for the link back to the original site OH WAIT NEVER MIND), and then a bunch of other blogs, culminating over the weekend with a front-page mention on Fark, the web's premiere depository of stupid, pointless, too-much-time-on-our-hands bullshit. This mostly means that I am 1) kicking myself for the massive monetizing FAIL of dumping the scans into Typepad's ad-free photo album format, and 2) absolutely drowning in emails from people who want to tell me their theories about Brenda's boyfriend's name. As was established pretty quickly in the comments on the first batch of scans, his name is likely Quin or Zion, as I clearly haven't written in proper cursive handwriting in full-on decades now. But I am not sure what I'm expected to do with this information -- find them on Facebook? Classmates.com? Travel to Edinboro, Pennsylvania and attempt to track down the D.C. Heath and Company publishing... Read more →

So I figured something out, something that should really help my time-crunched, messed-up schedule quite a bit. I just need to multitask. Everything I do must serve a dual purpose. Like, I can put Swiffer cloths on the baby's knees, color my roots while I drive, teach my preschooler how to use his pragmatic language skills to argue with our health insurance. And lunch! Oh, what a pointless uni-task waste of time that is! Until now! Yep. Time for another adventure in microwavery. On today's menu: BACON POLES! So I actually felt a little sad about how terrible that poor souffle turned out, especially since...well, come on. It was a souffle. That I microwaved. Let's not stack the deck too high against any chance of success, shall we? So I chose this recipe because 1) it contains bacon, 2) I had a coupon for bacon, 3) microwaved bacon is actually pretty darn good, and 4) BACON POLES, YOU GUYS. MEAT STICKS. BEEFLOGS. (Okay, PORKLOGS, if you buy into the idea of a single magical animal that gives us pork and bacon and ham and logs.) (Also pictured, top right: "Seaside Cheese Dip." The secret ingredient is canned clams!) I'm a... Read more →

Phone calls, voice mails, emails. Messages on Facebook and Twitter and blog comments. How's Noah? How's Noah doing? You haven't written much about Noah this month, about the schools, about how he's doing. So how's Noah doing? When I was busy assembling his birthday video, I admit my jaw dropped a little when I came across the stuff from this time last year. This time last year, may I remind you, was months after he'd graduated out of early intervention and speech therapy, yet still a couple months before his preschool decided to stop being polite and start getting real, before we started living under the shadow of Various Ominous Acronyms. In about...oh, 90% of the video from last year, I cannot understand a word he says. I could at the time, and in one particular video from Ezra's birthday I can also pick up some barely-veiled annoyance at my in-laws for misunderstanding Noah for the 50th time during a 20-minute hospital visit, like ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO HIM? ARE YOU EVEN TRYING? Of course they were. And I'm sure his preschool teacher was too. It's so obvious now, when I hear his garbled little babyspeak, that he was... Read more →

One tentative first step yesterday, one that I only barely happened to notice, right after I turned to look at him for no particular reason. One second his hand clung to our bedframe as usual as he made his way across the room in search of mischief or perhaps an errant steak knife, and then he let go and continued to shuffle and wobble forward. Two seconds, tops, and then he dropped back onto his diapered butt and looked up at me in surprise. I shouted downstairs to Jason: Ezra took a step! He just took a step! And then silently, to myself: I'm so glad I got to see it. Less than an hour or so later, at a neighbor's open house party, Jason and I watched him take two, three more. We pointed and grinned at each other from across the room, like big fat pantomiming loons, both just overly pleased that we both got to see it that time. It's hard not to be super uber-cheesy about the first steps. Sure, mobility = giant sucking suckhole of hell and headbruises. And walking = the end of babyhood, the official passage into full-tilt toddlerhood. But it's still such... Read more →

Ezra, being his typical charming self, voicing his displeasure over being deposited in his high chair when he was right in the middle of disconnecting the refrigerator's water hook-up, and also over his hand-me-down 1st Birthday Boy bib, like SORRY, Novelty Bib Establishment, I also reused a Baby's First Christmas bib and there's nothing you can do about it. But wait! What's this? I am...curious. Strangely...drawn to it. Though also a little baffled by it. Aha! Food! I like food. Yep. I do like... OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. Whoa. WHOA. Wut? Dude. You have no idea. It's like, soooooo goo- OH CRAP. HULK...GETTING...ANGRY... Aaaaaaaand scene. Read more →

It's not fair, this past year. It whizzed by in crazy-fast-forward mode. Blink, three months. Blink, six months. Blink blink, 10 months. And now here we are. 12 months. One year. On the cusp of toddlerhood, with his true babyhood vanishing into the few fat rolls he still has on his legs. His delicious, crazy little legs -- he's so ready to walk but can't quite get that last bit of balance going, though he's down to needing a single solitary finger against the wall or furniture or hooked around mine. He can suddenly do so many things, and I have no idea when he started doing them. He signs what he wants, he plays pattycake and soooo big and waves hello and goodbye to everyone he sees, he dances, he sticks his tongue out and furrows his brow while concentrating on his set of nesting cups, he mimics sounds and can point out Mama and Dada and Noah, he picks up a comb and immediately tries to attack his brother's hair with it. It's ridiculous, the little things that stun you, but there it is. He knows what a comb is for. Wow. Of course I miss the baby.... Read more →

Oh, come on. You knew I was gonna do it. So last night I made the infamous spinach-cheese souffle. In the microwave. MICROWAVED SOUFFLE. BECAUSE WHY NOT. Would you like to see how it turned out? In painstakingly over-documented, un-retouched, high-res detail? Yes? Then keep on clicking, baby. The first thing to do, in the interest of historical accuracy, was to remove our fancy rotating turntable. I wanted the full, real experience of two-minute cooking intervals and constant 1/4-turning. This is like the culinary equivalent of visiting Historical Williamsburg. The recipe explicitly calls for chopped frozen spinach, just so the very first step could involve defrosting the spinach. I mean, sure. You could buy and chop fresh spinach, but where's the microwaving fun in that? You don't even get to hit any buttons! While the book says to microwave the spinach in its package, Jason insisted that I heed modern advancements and follow the directions on the bag, which call for a separate, covered container. Boo! This throws the validity of the entire experiment into question! However, by this point I will say that I already learned something. My microwave does indeed have a special "defrost" setting* that helpfully beeps... Read more →

Lo, if it is hard and unyielding, I shall whallop my noble crown against it. If it is soft and upholstered, I shall climb atop and hurl my body headfirst from its highest peak. If it is a place in which I may get stuck, I will get stuck. If it is not bolted to the wall...look, you see where this is going, okay? If it is food, I shall eat it. If it fits in my mouth, then it is food, and verily, I shall eat it. If it does not fit in my mouth, it is still probably food, and I shall wail piteously about not being able to eat it. If you have forgotten to put the pet food back on the counter, I shall sense it from three rooms away, for I am all-knowing, except for where I dropped that toy I was playing with not 30 seconds prior. If a bathroom door is open, I shall find it and pass through it and have my hands in the toilet faster than an unladen European swallow. If you are in the bathroom, I shall choose this exact moment to trip over my stupid little plastic push... Read more →