my baby is not a baby anymore

thirteen hours, thirty-five minutes. that's all the time i have left until my baby is a kindergartener. ack! how did this happen? how did the past five years fly by so quickly?

i am weirdly ok right now. numb. but i feel hysteria rising from deep within.

that is all.

why do i even HAVE a blog?

why? why do i have a blog? i mean, it's not like i blog about my incredibly important life. most of the time, i don't even think about my blog. so . . . why?

well, i originally fully intended to blog as a sort of online journal. you know. record the activities of my life, the details of timmy's growing up, etc. but, just like every other journal i have ever attempted to keep, this one died a slow, painful death due to neglect. it's a darn good thing i'm a better mother than a "journaler," i tell ya. (although, facebook . . . yeah, i have done very well texting the funny things timmy says to facebook. so, at least i will have a record of those too easily forgotten utterances.)

betting against myself here, but i am going to start blogging again. it's important! well, not blogging specifically, but journal-keeping. it is. everyone knows that. and it's easier to post pictures here than into a paper journal, so here i go again.

this is just to say...

i read a (an?) hilarious spoof by teachermommy (go there! read, laugh, comment!) of william carlos williams' poem "this is just to say" on which lead me to two other blogs and their versions . . . and their commenters' versions . . . i woke up my poor tim laughing so hard i shook the bed. so, even though i come to it late, of course i must give it a shot.

first, the original:

This Is Just to Say
— William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

and mine (taken directly from my life experience, by the way):

all your
formerly
manly undies
and t-shirts

are now a
distinctly
feminine shade
of pink

forgive me
for not
discovering
the red sock

then, in a fit of boredom, i challenged the kids to write their own. tori and andrew ignored me, of course, but michelle (my beautiful and, it is now obvious to me, multi-talented daughter-in-law) rose to the challenge and summarized the parenting experience far better than i ever could have. in fact, it's so good, i will make the extra effort to include her capitalization:

My head is throbbing worse with every word you say.
Monkey monkey cars truck milk leche leche pees?
FINALLY, your drowsy smile can cure it all.

she paints, she draws, she does movie monster makeup . . . and even though she says she never liked it, she writes poetry. love that girl! michelle, those three lines are exactly what it's like to have a almost-two year old.

preschool and hippies and beaches and pools

this morning when i took timmy and ethan to preschool, ivan was clinging to his mother and not wanting her to leave. miss brooke was out with her sick baby, so miss trilby was alone with the class and ivan is shy . . . so ivan's mom and i walked out together.

ivan's mom is heidi. we've told each other our names, but we've never really talked. i'm maybe even more shy than ivan. but i've always wanted to introduce myself and talk to her. partly because we have children the same age and she doesn't appear to be 25 years old like some of the other mothers.

so today, walking out together, she made a comment about michael's chubby cheeks or other general cuteness and i replied. from there sprang a conversation about what we'll do for preschool next year (since ours is going to all daycare and no preschool), the all-day kindergarten our school district adopted a couple years ago, the ymca (and our lack of visits) . . . and . . .

she grew up in hawaii, living in tents and vans and on the beach. her parents were hippies. hippies! she said if you're going to grow up poor, hawaii is the place to do it, because everyone is poor. she (like her mother) is an artist. she has written comic books, she sculpts, before having children she worked for a japanese cartoon (noruto? i think she said noruto...). she's been thinking of doing murals. how cool is that? well, i'll tell you - very cool.

she seemed interested in me, too. even though my parents were not hippies (although i have always believed my dad would have liked to have been) and i am not an artist and i think i am basically a very boring person.

we are already making plans for the summer. taking the kids to the splash pad, swimming in her pool, maybe going to the ymca. lord knows one of the first thoughts that popped into my head as we discussed it was that i really, really need a workout partner.

i've always been interested in talking with people who have different backgrounds (or opinions, or religions, etc.) than i do. i look forward to developing this new friendship.

so much to say . . .

well, this blog certainly isn't doing its job of recording all my memories. stinkin' blog. when will they come up with one that just pulls the data out of my mind and updates itself daily? that's the blog i want!

today is october 12th, which of course is twelve-of-twelve day! i remembered yesterday. and forgot by this morning. but i recovered quickly when i saw susan's email. so i'm taking pictures of my life today. my boring, house-is-not-tidy life.

also, i plan to work on my week 2 layouts for cz's design your life class. i finally finished week 1 the other day. this first one is a 12x12.

and this 8.5x11 2-page spread (and not a very good scan).

i am so insanely proud of myself! for actually finishing the first assignments, yes, but also for my newly developed ability to put all my worries and obsessiveness aside and just do it! it always takes me forever to come up with any idea and then i obsess about it and about the paper and everything else until it's just torture. not this time, baby! i am going to jump right in every week. the topics of my assignment pages almost don't matter to me. i do not need the "perfect" topic. i'm learning about design. my pages will slowly but surely become more perfect as i go along.

in other news . . . preschool. ugh. timmy is engaged in a battle over who rules timmy. thursday when i went to pick him and ethan up, i passed ms. brenae, our classroom helper, who said timmy politely told ms. abby (another helper), "i will not cooperate with you." (big sigh) as it turns out, he did eventually do what ms. abby wanted him to do. but only after he'd made it clear he was doing it on his terms. (heaving another big sigh)

oh! the weather has been so nice here lately that the boys and i drive with our windows down - especially when we go past the several blocks of street construction on the way to wal mart. they love to see which piece of equipment is working and which workers might be taking a break at that moment. aaaaaaanyway, the other day we were driving along with the windows down. timmy rested his foot up on the door's armrest and said sweetly, "look, mommy, i'm just like you - one of my leg whiskers is blowing in the wind!" God love him.

girliness lost

i don't know what it is about me these last few days, but i've been emotional, sentimental, nostalgic. thinking deep thoughts about so many things, past and present. for example, i've been lamenting the fact that i grew up with no sisters. no girlie influence at all.

having four brothers, all the tv i watched was that which appealed to males. shows like "the incredible hulk," "a-team," westerns. i don't even know the names of any shows with a female audience from that time period.

playing with dolls? i had some barbies, but my brothers' g.i. joes usually blew them up. or they buried them in the yard. or hung their severed heads by their hair from the clothesline. i did get a holly hobby bicycle for my birthday one year, but by the end of summer, she'd been disassembled for parts for various violent experimental machines.

polishing nails, playing dress-up, putting on make-up? huh-uh. nope. i didn't even feel like i was "allowed" to dream of prince charming and a fairytale wedding. i would have been laughed at for sure. and no girl-emotions, either. no crying, no female drama.

when added to our frequent moves, this equals a serious retardation of the ability to make girlfriends. not the desire; just the ability.

i made my first girlfriend in seventh grade. she moved away. and so, coincidentally, did we. i missed most of the eighth grade due to illness, but the summer before ninth grade, i really "blossomed," as they say - got boobs and hips and had great hair and learned how to use make-up to my advantage.

i became friends with the sister of one of the boys who liked me. butch and beverly (and bev's boyfriend) and i were inseparable. such intense but innocent good times. then . . . we moved away. (note: bev and i now live about an hour apart and we see each other every year or so, although we email back and forth frequently.)

i can't remember exactly how i met angela, but we became bff's. we had a lot in common, but were different enough to be interesting to each other. our friendship cooled a bit when we both moved twice more before graduation. but we went to the same college and jumped right back into our friendship. then, toward the end of our sophomore year, something happened. a gradual distancing at first and then someone told me she'd said horrible things about me. i never asked her if it was true. but i think about angela often. i wonder what happened back in college. i wonder how her life turned out. if she's happy.

fast forward to today. my cousin vicki and i've been best friends since we've lived in the same town since 1992. i made two very good girlfriends after hiring them, debbie at one company and susan at the next. then i became friends with susan's sister sharon. susan and sharon remain good friends and may be the first women, other than vicki, who i've felt i could confide my truths to.

what's the point of all this? i don't . . . know. i think there may be no point at all. but if there were a point, it would be that tomorrow is my very first ever pedicure appointment. tim gave me a gift certificate two birthdays ago and i'm finally using it, due in part (maybe wholly due) to my recent yearning for the girliness i should have had growing up. and i am so incredibly nervous about it. dumb, but true.

emotional day

i am exhausted today. tired and cranky. my eyes feel sandy and they're red and puffy. and did i mention i feel fat and homely? ah, it's one of those emotional days. so lovely.

but while i'm all crabby, i'm also feeling appreciative. i got to see the kids (minus michelle) this weekend. good stuff. and i have a great husband. i would appreciate him more, i suspect, if he were more like dr. mcdreamy on grey's, but he's ok, i guess.

just last night, he brought me a chocolate malt. and i didn't even tell him i was feeling "snacky." (note to self: this chocolate malt consumption does not help with the whole chubster thing.) and, come to think of it, he brought me a happyccino yesterday morning when he came home from work, too, because i'd been up several times in the night with timmy, who caught a cold from preschool. yup. good guy.

i am not appreciative of my hair. or that big mole on my cheek! or my planning skills, as we decided last minute to get pictures taken at one of those drop-in places. it would have been nice to have a picture of us in dressy clothes. and maybe i could have done something with my hair and maybe put on some makeup.

i am, however, appreciative of preschool. i am alone right now. and my home is utterly silent, except for the sound of my wind chimes on the front porch and the patio in back. ahhhhhhh . . .

pre-formal education angst

two days from now is the official "meet the teacher" day at timmy's new preschool. yikes! we've already met his teacher, miss brooke, earlier in the summer, but this official meeting marks the end of his toddlerhood and the beginning of his preschoolhood (is that a word?)

i haven't even gotten over the end of his babyhood yet and now he's starting his formal education. look at him - does he look like he should be leaving his mommy for 3 hours twice a week already?  

well, after he helped me make bierocks sunday, i admit i may have been ready for 3 hours of timmylessness. but only so i could clean my kitchen. i swear!

note: my sister-in-law, taryn, is to blame for the end of my baby's toddlerhood. my 4yo nephew, ethan, needs preschool this year so he'll be ready for kindergarten next year. oh, he's smart as a whip and already knows a lot of things, but he has trouble with transitions. and since our school district just went to all-day kindergarten (don't even get me started on that mess!), he really needs the help . . . but, back to the  point: stinkin' taryn! since ethan stays with me while his mom and dad are working . . . well, it didn't seem fair to take ethan to preschool and not let timmy go, too. stinkin' taryn.

i've had this undefined dread about preschool for a couple months now. even as i type this, it's not yet defined (although my hope is it will be by post's end). i am not so much worried about him being away from me for the first time (except for 3 days of vbs this summer, during which he did just fine) because he is not a clingy, needy boy. i am sad for me, of course, but that's not it, either. he is polite and respectful and he gets along well with other children, but he's not timid, so i'm not worried he be a bully or be bullied. 

no, i think it's . . . i'm worried about whether he will learn there. he's done just fine here at home with me. he knows, by sight and verbally, all the letters of the alphabet and all the sounds each letter makes. he can identify which letter "makes the beginning/middle/ending sound" of most words. we accomplished this through playing with foam bathtub letters and just talking about words and letters throughout the normal course of our day. we learn about animals and airplanes and money and books and history and . . . we just learn. as we go about our regular activities, while we're in the car. that's how kids learn at home, right?

but this preschool . . . it seems a little . . . weird. i wouldn't have chosen it (stinkin' taryn). the parents' manual doesn't mention much about regular school-type topics. they don't do worksheets. they don't practice writing or cutting paper with scissors. instead, there is a lot of information about avoiding gender stereotyping and about "cultural inclusiveness" and self-esteem. is this what school is about now? if not, why is this what preschool is about?

i want timmy to learn to read and write. i want him to learn proper grammar. and math. and history. government. literature. science. critical thinking skills. maybe a foreign language or two. you know. the things i learned in school and the things that will help him succeed in college and adult life. self-esteem, et al? let us handle that at home.

i swear, if i had more than one child at home now, i would seriously consider homeschooling. our neighbors when andrew and tori were little homeschooled their kids and they turned out well-educated, well-mannered and well-adjusted.

but, all this (admittedly, self-created) drama may turn out to be no big deal. because timmy's birthday is in february, he won't be eligible for kindergarten for two more years. next year, when ethan is already in kindergarten and timmy's good and crunchy (i picture the preschool administration wearing birkenstocks and pookah shell necklaces - i sure hope that is just my imagination!), i can send timmy to a more traditional preschool. but at least i feel better now that i've droned on and on about my worries. thank you, bloggy-blog!

sweet nothings

i like to know the stories of how couples met and fell in love, but i think the stories behind pet names are even more interesting.

tim, my wonderful husband who has had a happyccino waiting for me when i woke up each of the past two mornings, mostly calls me sweetie. (i secretly believe that's a left-over from his wild and woolly teen years, when it may have been somewhat difficult to remember each girl's exact name.) but he also calls me his little flintstone feet girl. (i have very tiny feet, but they're wide and my toes are short.) lovely, no?

he also calls me his jolly green giant because i always think i'm much taller than i am, especially in comparison to him. (i'm almost 5'5" and he's 6'2". but it feels like we're almost the same height.)

when i was still a working woman, i wore my hair short. andrea, my stylist at the time, did whatever the heck she wanted with my hair - i had no say, but neither had i the time to worry about it. once, she cut it SO short and put SO much goop on it that when tim saw it, he began calling me his little chemo girl. mildly offensive, but what could i do?

tim has also been known to tilt the lampshades in the living room and close the miniblinds behind the sheers a little bit (i keep them closed at night and all the way up in the daytime) so that i will fix them when i walk through. again and again. and he thinks it's funny to call me his little ocd girl. nice.

rod and vicki call each other "babe." that's it. no imagination, i say. but at least it's nicer than "old lady," which is what lonnie calls sandra.

tori told me yesterday that her boyfriend todd calls her his little black-footed pachyderm. what the?! alas, there is a reasonable explanation. todd can never remember where he parked his car at the mall or a restaurant, but tori never forgets (it is said elephants never forget). tori has had a life-long aversion to wearing shoes. her friends from school called her "hobbit" because of it. and, as she explained, her feet often are filthy by the end of the day (thus, she is black-footed). he also calls her his baby elephant. now that i know the story, i think both are sweet.

tim and i used to, when we were young and carefree and had time to shop together, make up life stories for strangers in the store. part of the fun was imagining what their pet names for each other were. it's just this moment i realized we don't do that anymore. when i see him tomorrow, i'm going to convince him to take me to lunch (at fiesta, of course) and then i'm going to inquire as to whether he'd like to imagine our neighbor's pet names. i will report back.

a wild hair

by the end, the hair on my head will most certainly be a little wild (it is humid, as well as 104 degrees today, which results in corkscrews and general frizziness), but what i really mean is that i've got a crazy obsessive idea in my head that i cannot stop myself from acting upon. you know - a wild hair.

you see, my bedroom is a pit. and i can. not. tolerate. it! not one moment longer. i dreamed last night that i got a new bedroom. beautiful hardwoods with a gorgeous wool berber rug and nothing visible save my sparsely-yet-comfortably-clad bed. and then i woke up and tripped over tim's book on the way to the bathroom. i need (need!) a calm, serene, orderly, clean bedroom. my husband? not so much.

my husband . . . oh, it raises my blood pressure just to think about it . . . is a pack-rat. he loves stuff. he loves multiples of his stuff. he loves his stuff and their multiples to remain accessible to him in any area of the house. when he and i met, we were like long-lost soulmates. it took a few years for our few differences to become obvious. and this thing with stuff? it's a big one.

used to be, it was just tim's closet and dresser drawers that were chaotic and scary. i'd bravely venture in twice a year or so to clean and organize them. not because he asked me to, no. huh-uh. he would prefer i stay out of his things. no, the pressure would just build within me until i felt i could no longer survive unless i cleaned, sorted and organized his areas. then, ever so slowly, the madness began taking over our home. our lives. i may be exaggerating. but if i am, it is to such an infinitesimal degree that it may as well be the whole unvarnished truth.

anyway, i gradually got more and more discouraged and finally gave up. and now, my room is horrible.

i should note that tim fully intends to hang up every shirt, to put every tie in the tie holder, to put every pair of boots and shoes away on his shoe shelves in his closet, to put every ball cap away in his ball cap holders, to throw away the (insane amount of) pocket stuff he arrives home with each day. but he never gets around to it. then, he begins to think of the piles as storage devices in their own right. he really, truly cannot understand why i get so upset about it.

but today? today i can conquer anything! i have a wild hair on my side! i've already got two bags of clothes to send to goodwill. i had to stop to feed the kids lunch and put them down for a nap . . . and take a manic-typing break because i was close to passing out from heat exhaustion (have i ever mentioned our house is old and so is our heating and air conditioning unit? and that our really big bedroom has ONE really small vent? yeah. we freeze in our room in winter and boil in summer.) but now i'm cool and still possess my wild hair.

i'm off! please pray for me. and if i do not emerge before nightfall, please send help.

what is this "blog" of which you speak?

as i go about my day and do the things i do, i frequently think, "oo! i should blog about that!" then, when i finally get a chance to get online (not often, since it's 100+ degrees every day and i do NOT want my hot laptop on my already hot lap outside), i read all the blogs in my ever-growing list. and those posts remind me of some story and i think, "oo! i should blog about that!"

but when i finally navigate over to my page, all those ideas seem so dumb. and boring. boring is a horrible thing to be; boring to oneself is even worse! but i don't want to be fake, either. what if i develop alzheimer's and my journals and blog are the only memories i have? i don't want to "remember" something untrue. (although . . . if i weren't going to know any better, maybe i should start planting exciting tales to entertain my elderly self . . . something to think about, at least.)

so, boring wins. timmy and i and taryn, ethan and new baby michael went to lunch today. timmy ate FIVE broiled flounder filets and most of my rice pilaf (which was much more delicious than his rice pilaf, as it turns out), as well as all the tomatoes and cucumbers from my salad. ethan ate a bunch of clam strips and not a veggie in site. what those two eat is very important to us, because they're both skinny. boring, but true.

also: michael (whom i call "mr yakimoto" now and whom i fully intend, against his mother's wishes, to call "mikey" later on) is so stinkin' cute! he's a crabby little old man in a tiny baby body. he has taryn's eyebrows. on her, they're just regular ol' eyebrows, but on him? SO adorable! especially when he's mad - his eyes squish closed, his forehead wrinkles up and his eyebrows stick straight out. a nephew is not like one's own child - not at all! - but his grouchy little eyebrows still make my heart jump a little in my chest.

here are a couple pics of him at two days old.

one with daddy:

and one with mommy



see those eyebrows?

i listen. i learn. i do.

oh, my. busy, busy, busy.

my basic digital photography class is going well. my brother thomas and my gf sharon are taking it with me and if nothing else, we're having a good time together. we meet for dinner at one of the old town restaurants before class. we email each other links to good articles about exposure, etc.

exposure. man. i like the instructor, brian. he's nice and he knows what he's doing. he doesn't seem to think we're all a bunch of idiots. (although we very well may be. :D) the first night we learned where all our buttons and knobs are and what they do. no kidding. but what's worse than the sound of that is . . . we had some trouble. all of us. even those of us who scoured our manuals intent on remembering every little thing. (i guess i really do need to know what "shutter speed," "iso" and "aperture" mean and how they interact before i can begin to remember how to change one of them.)

our first week's assignment was to take pictures of things in and around our homes, making changes to the above three mystery concepts as we go. however, none of the three of us understood, in practice, how to go about this task until the day before the second class. i came across a bunch of articles online that helped it click for me and promptly emailed t and s. the piece that we all needed was how to find from what settings we should start (and from which we should begin making those incremental changes). i did feel comfortable with each of the three concepts individually. on paper. but i needed to know how they interact. apparently, so did my cohorts.

we are now a couple days post-second class meeting and i am back to discouraged. we took night pictures. my (free with purchase of my camera. should have known.) tripod has a screw loose. literally, because the plastic into which it - well, screws - is cracked. thus, my camera shakes. and slowly droops. resulting in crappy, blurry photographs. and frustrated photographer.

although! there was one bright point in the evening. i was approached by an extremely handsome man on crutches early on. i did not run away because of the crutches, which just now (!) made me think of ted bundy's broken-arm-need-assistance ploy. (pausing to thank God for protecting me, even though i am so obviously a dolt.) he asked if i were taking a photography class (the six of us standing around with our tripods must have clued him in). he said (oh, did i mention his delicious accent? maybe italian?), "look around at all your friends. they are all taking the very same picture. you do something different. lie on the ground or stand atop this fence. (it was a wall.) you see? all the same subject, but yours will be beautiful." ah, good times. good times.

oh, my LORD, this is a boring post! but, as this is my journal, my diary (and as i am my only regular reader), i owe no one a good read, right? i want to document my rise from pathetic less-than-beginner to competent and (dare i hope?) good photographer. from this day foreward (please picture scarlett o'hara with her turnip) i will enjoy my own pictures.

just like the time tim tried to teach me how to golf, i am frustrated. then, i could see in my mind's eye exactly where the ball should go. it consistently refused to cooperate and flew off behind me. (no kidding - some of our friends did not believe i could do that until i showed them.) now, i see in my mind's eye what my photographs should look like. they also consistently refuse to cooperate. i need a rosetta stone to translate what my eye sees into what my camera sees. (maybe this will come with class number three? please?)

does this make sense to you?

i like things the way i like them. is that so wrong?

i wouldn't call myself picky, but maybe particular is a good word to describe me. i like to be as obsessive-compulsive organized as possible.

here's one example: i hang my laundry on the clothes line (oh, i do so love the smell of clothes fresh off the line!) in a particular (see? there's that word) order. each person's clothes are their own group, as are towels, bedding, doggie items (my doggies not only have regular ol' dog bedding that needs washing from time to time, but they also get cold and wear "fweaters" and jammies. but i digress). within each of these groupings, there are sub-groupings. clothes are separated by type, such as tops (sub-sub-grouped by sleeve-length, color and fabric weight), bottoms (jeans, shorts). underwear and bras go on the first line so my backyard neighbors don't see them. not that they're interested, but . . . just in case, you know? towels are grouped by location (bathroom, kitchen) and then by size and style. sheets - well, i'm sure you get it.

but see? i don't do this because i'm picky! i choose to organize my laundry on the four long rows of clothesline i have so i can easily fold them as i take them off, place them in the basket, take the basket from room to room and put the items away. just like that. no sorting through the folded clothes (which encourages wrinkles, people) to find all of, say, timmy's clothing. it's all right together - and it's separated by drawer! and further separated by how it goes in that drawer! timmy's "summer clothes" drawer, por ejemplo, is organized by shirts (stripes in one spot, solids in another, logos or characters in another, etc.) and shorts (knits vs twills vs denim - and all those sorted by color). see?

organization makes me happy. clutter makes me nervous and cranky and just . . . down.

timmy likes to be organized, too, although not nearly to the same degree. he likes to have all his toys put away before going to bed. his toys all have a place. balls have a balls bin. cars, because he has so many, have a medium cars bin and a small cars bin , and his very large cars (cop car, ambulance, fire truck and a huge motorcycle) are parked on the shelf above the cars bins. his musical instruments go in the musical instruments basket on top of the trains bin. for some reason, his soldiers go in the trains bin. (?) tools go in the drawer of his workbench. all the unrelated toys go into a generic toys bin. he has a very small room and being organized keeps it open and spacious-feeling.

so, why doesn't tim see any value in being organized? believe me, i am grateful he emptied the dishwasher for me last night, but why did he put the innards of timmy's cups (straws, valves, etc.) in the knife section of the silverware drawer instead of into the lids of the cups (on the cup shelf!) themselves? why slide the microwave bacon crisper between the cereal containers? and please, for the love of pete, can anyone tell me how it makes any sense at all to forgo the cabinet containing all the measuring items in favor of putting the glass measuring cup down into the pots and pans cabinet? why? (why?)

and while you're pondering, could you please explain why the man cannot close his closet door?

happy independence day!

bugs me when someone refers to this holiday as "the 4th of july." i mean, it IS the 4th of july, yes, but to call it that rather than "independence day" loses all significance. don't you think? independence! it's important to us Americans.

oh, i feel a big political rant about the erosion of our rights as citizens coming on . . . but that's not what i want to talk about. i hope to celebrate in a way that looks attractive and fun in photographs. if so, i hope to make a nice layout. before this year ends. but that's not what i want to talk about, either.

last night was not a restful night for several reasons, not the least of which was timmy waking up several times. "mommy? come in! i'm cold/hot/thirsty/i can't find chickie." or "mommy? do you hear the fireworks? is it still sleepy time?" or my personal favorite, "mommy? i have a question for you!" (last night's "question" was a recitation of the lyrics of 'heartland' by george strait.)

so, i was tired. and when i did sleep, i had one of my recurring dreams. i have several, but in last night's the brakes on my car weren't working. not hurtling-toward-death-with-no-way-to-stop not working. no, that would have been preferrable, i think. in my dream, my brakes slow me down, but i can never quite come to a complete stop.

and for some reason, i am loathe to tell anyone. i do not understand why, but i am reluctant to (and, in fact, don't) tell anyone. people ask me to drive them here, pick up that there - and i know i should refuse, but i can't. when it's time to stop at a traffic light or when parking, i push the brakes with all my might (remember the strength of my thighs?) but all i can do is slow down.

so far, in all the years i've had this dream, i have not crashed into the car ahead of me at the light or into the building in front of which i am attempting to park. but i know it's only a matter of time. i spend the entire dream worrying about the people in the car in front of me, the people in the car with me, property damage.

and all the time i am certain at any moment i and my faulty brakes will be exposed. exposed for what? in the clear light of day, it seems obvious to me that worn brakes are a common and easy to fix problem one should be completely unashamed to confess, but . . . not in my dream.

what the heck is my psyche trying to tell me? (and do i really want to know?)

happyccino is my only friend

i sometimes suffer insomnia. for weeks, out of the blue, i wake up many times during the night. so annoying! and i'm a little sleepy the next day, but nothing too traumatic.

but those other times. ah, jeez. i have trouble falling asleep until the wee hours of the night. i watch tv for a while, i read for a while. then i give up and lie there in the dark trying to bore myself to sleep.

and hey - if it happened only once in a while, i wouldn't complain. well, ok, maybe just a little. but i wouldn't need my friend, my love, the english toffee cappuccino tim brings me when he comes home from work in the morning following my night of sleeplessness. my happyccino.

i try to stay away from caffeine normally. but, oh, the sweet nectar of wakefulness. when i need you, you're there for me with no questions. steaming away my sluggishness. fortifying my foggy mind with your frothy faithfulness. calming me with creamy caffeination. and surely my trembling appendages are your way of ensuring my body burns off the extra calories you provide? oh, how i love thee.

plus, isn't that cup fabulous? i am inspired by the color combination and the gentle waves and that bold font on the horizontal strip. i'm not kidding. i'm going to translate this cup into a scrapbook page. maybe about happyccino.

i need more sleep and fewer pounds

just messing around this afternoon while tim and timmy are running errands. found a website that uses face recognition software on a photo you upload to determine your celebrity look-alikes. being curious (and bored), i snapped a quick self-portrait.

and, of the ten look-alikes, i most resembled . . .

a bunch of fat old asian men.

plus kathy bates.

family talk

i love hearing children mispronounce words. some of our best "family words" come from our kids' verbal mistakes. we like to get ice cream cones from "bwawm" (brahm's) and shop at "wow-mowt" (wal mart) thanks to tori's inability to pronounce her r's. we like to drink "moke" (milk) and eat "oat-moe" (oatmeal) for breakfast, in large part due to andrew's first speech attempts.

now that i think about it, we often call tori "toe-wee" (we often just shorten it to "toe") and andrew "and-woo" - or more recently, "ee-new" and "an-voo," timmy's two earliest names for him. sadly, since the first two are grown and gone, timmy has no teeny-child nicknames. i guess the other cops do call him "shep." good as it gets.

timmy was born conversing like a forty-year-old. our opportunities to add to our family's private language are now few and far between. there's "eh-ho!" (hello, until he was 18mo). "kempimals" (chemicals), said like so: "mommy, when i grow bigger, may i please help you clean the window with your blue kempimals?"

i know each child is unique, but it does make me a little teeny bit sad that we didn't have much baby talk from timmy. oh, he says puh-lenty of funny things, but it's just not the same as baby talk. so, to cheer myself up, here's a picture of timmy lounging and enjoying watching daddy trim tree branches in the back yard. please note the scrawny legs, the handsome undies and that ultra-manly hibiscus tattoo. he and daddy tried for lightning bolts from the machine, but you take what you get (daddy's is a rose, heehee).

blogalicious

dear blog,

until a few months ago, i didn't know what you were. i'd never read a blog. i know! where have i been, right? well, i've been busy, not that it's any of your business. busy with lucky ducks and crayons and little people. but not with housework. oh, noooooo. not housework. but i digress.

i can't remember how or why, but i stumbled upon the pioneer woman. and i read her entire blog - from the first entry through. what a nerd. no, me; not ree. i spent every naptime for i don't know how long reading that sucker. and then i clicked on a commenter's link. then followed it to another. and another.

now, i do journal. of course i do! not as often or as in-depth as i should. my whole life, i've intended to keep a journal. and i have. usually in january. maybe a couple days in february. then again in january. but when i was pregnant with timmy? oh heck yeah. i recorded every detail of my life. then when he was born, i recorded every detail of his life. if the need to know how long he nursed the early morning of june 3, 2005 ever arises, i'm all over it.

for the past - oh, say . . . 8 months or so, i've slacked off. holding a pen or pencil really, really hurts my hand. it's the weirdest thing! maybe not all that weird, as holding my steering wheel, knitting needles, mop handle or shopping bags also cause my hands pain. but again, i digress.

i got a wild hair after seeing various 12-of-12 blogs last month and whipped one up. ok, i opened a template, but that's just efficiency. an admirable trait, really. why reinvent the wheel? i still haven't finished april's 12-of-12 layout (oh, Lord! is it really almost the 12th again? so soon?!), but this blog has allowed me to vent about my every day . . . vent-worthy . . . stuff.

let's face it; my friends don't want to hear about poopies and peepees every day. oh, who am i kidding? i don't converse with anyone over the age of 3 more than twice a month. today, for example, i chatted (oh yes i did!) with the turnpike toll-taker. i couldn't help myself - she was reading a book with paper pages (as opposed to a board book). she was very kind. she may have taken pity on my frizzy pony tail, boogie-smeared shoulder and happy meal toy-strewn jeep.

but my point, dear blog, is this: thank you. you're there for me, man. really there for me.