Haiku #1

Studying at night
The dog yawns at my hard work
"Laziness pays off"

Anorexia Lite

I kind of get girls who struggle with anorexia. I totally understand the need to act out in some way in order to feel in control when my situation is anything but controllable. And at times like these, when the husband is deployed, the baby has become a throw-everything-away-because-trash-cans-are-cool toddler and the toilet breaks and the care needs brakes, I consider the need to control things.

Don't get me wrong, though. I have a complete and utter obsession with food. I don't have the self-control to be anorexic. One look at a chocolate cupcake and I'm done. I read cooking magazines like romance novels. And just like romance novel readers imagine themselves in the arms of the shirtless, rippling-muscled Maximuses in the stories they read, I imagine myself slowly stirring the roux and steadily adding the cheese... maybe a little extra... like a block extra... and baking it for an hour with macaroni and bread crumbs and finally when the anticipation is too great, EATING the divine casserole for all it's worth and basking in the afterglow.

I'm a little hungry just thinking about it and I forgot what I'm writing about.

Okay, but the point is, I've noticed something about myself since the Navy kidnapped Jon. On bad days, when I'm exhausted and it's been rough and I find a toddler shoe in the trash AGAIN while looking for a sippy cup there, because I can't find it and that's where my offspring chooses to hide things, I rebel. Before bed, I survey the damage; it could be dishes in the sink or the remains of what used to be my makeup... and I do nothing about it. Let us be very clear it. It is not the exhaustion that keeps me from washing the dishes or my face. It's rebellion.

I get this little foot-stomp going in my brain and say, "I don't have to put up with it any longer! Too long have the tyrants of toddlerhood and housekeeping and beauty regimes held me under their power, but today I say NO! Yes, watching babies and cleaning house and trying to keep a bad complexion at bay all make perfect sense. But that's the problem. They're right. And rebellion requires a little bid of bad. So TAKE THAT, status quo! I'm NOT washing my FACE TONIGHT!"

After my personal revolutionary riot, I go to bed, feeling quite in control. It's anorexia lite. Act out without severe consequences.

Unless of course cold dish water is considered a severe consequence. Which, in my book, it kind of is. Cold dishwater is a personal pet peeve. Gross. So anorexia of all kinds comes back to bite you in the butt, I suppose. But at least I have a butt, since I never said no to that cupcake.

Have a butt to bite, Choose Anorexia Lite!

Gimme Some Advice

Today Nate got together with his best friend Braydon and they begged for candy at a local shopping center that was hosting a Halloween thing. Jon just sent us these awesome "Thai Boxing" shorts for Nate, so he went as a boxer.

We tried to get some photos before we left. Notice the chucks. Also note that he got abs added with eyeliner for the actual event.
One of the restaurants giving out candy was also handing out fortune cookies. Nate's said, "Many people are seeking you for your sounds advice", which makes me wonder. Do they mean sound as in *shriek* *yell* *holler* or are they referring to advice? Like the time we went to our friend's wedding in September and just as the bride was asked if she takes this man to be her blah blah blah, Nate yelled, "Uh-oh!"
That's probably what they meant.Here he is with abs a bit faded, but still visible. All that candy is totally going to ruin his 6 pack. Maybe he'll learn, "Look both ways before you cross the street".

A Dear Jon Letter

Why write two updates in one evening? Here is an excerpt of tonight's spousely email for your reading pleasure:

Henry won't shut up. He barks ALL the TIME now and he's SO loud and he won't stop when I tell him to and if you get a box in the mail with breathing holes in it, it might not be Nate. It's possible that I've sent the Navy a top-of-the-line alarm system that runs on table scraps. And by runs, I mean walks, because running is past the capacity of this particular model. It's slightly defective. But there's nothing wrong with the volume. This one goes to eleven.

I love you more than I love cold weather, chocolate cake, eyeliner, Henry, massages, boots, throw pillows, Stella Artois, cute undies, umbrellas, our Element, whiskey, clean sheets and cheese... combined... plus 20. Which is to say... a lot.

Look What I Found

This is what over ten pounds of baby looks like, four days late. I'm so glad he made it OUT and a year later looks like this:
The All Stars just melt my Southern California hipster heart.

Obla Dee Obla Da

We have mice. Which I do not approve of.

Correction: I do not approve of mice in my house. Despite Dr. Seussical rhyming, mice do not belong where people live, at least not while they still carry hantavirus. Maybe in heaven they will be disease free and we can contemplate their small furriness and twitching noses without spraying them down with Lysol. Until then, they aren't allowed in my attic.

Which leads to my dilemma. We set up traps and hid some poison up in the attic, away from the Man Child of Destruction and Eating Things That are Not Meant to be Eaten. And the practical side of me is content that the mice will soon be gone.

But the other part of me (not that there are only two parts of me - but these are the only two that pertain to mice) is a little stricken by the idea of killing mice. If perhaps there had been a book about giving a rat a cookie ... or if Beatrix Potter had portrayed mice as evil and not put sweet blue waistcoats on them ... maybe if they had red glowing eyes... I don't know.

I'm not even a vegetarian. But MICE. They're LITTLE. And CUTE. And I can just see the little mouse memorial service for the wayward teenage mouse who was warned against the evils of the trap, but didn't heed. Or the groups of maimed and brain-damaged mice in "Poison Eaters Anonymous". Call me ideological, but it's really hard to be responsible for killing cute things.

If only I needed to cause the death of sharks or snakes or spiders or cockroaches or fire ants (I. hate. fire ants.) or fascist, hairless cats... not that I want any of those to infest my house, but at least I wouldn't mind KILLING them.

But isn't that just the way of viruses? Hiding inside cute things to trick you into catching them? I mean, that's how the common cold gets around. Kids are cute, but when you get down to it, they're mainly just snotty factories of disease and malfeasance. Oh man. I came with that word all on my own, too.

But I didn't know how to spell it, so I had to look it up.

My point is, mice are really cute. And I hope they eat the poison but go off somewhere nice (and away from my attic) to die, so that their last hours are spend by the soft murmur of a peaceful stream.

That would help.

Ostriches Make Terrible Parents

It's about time, right?


Some people need to talk issues out, but I typically go all ostrich and bury my head in the sand for a bit while the world careens on around my big exposed butt. Do birds have butts? Tail. My big exposed tail.

All that to say, I'm in Virginia and I'm getting to see people I love and attempting to see more people I love and mostly showing off my adorable offspring (which is not very ostrich of me, because I'm pretty sure ostriches make horrid parents). Nathan had a first birthday party yesterday and will officially turn one on Wednesday, which makes me proud and sad and hungry for cake. He's speaking now, but his only words are "Uh-oh", which was his very first word and of which he is exceedingly proud, and "mama", which doesn't count, because it doesn't mean "mommy", but rather, "I want that", which can refer to food, a toy, the bathtub... or his actual mommy, when he condescends to need me.

The other day I was at Potbellies (the glorious thing about that statement is that I have eaten at Potbellies like 5 times since I've been here (!!!) and I have no idea which time this was) and I was getting ready to leave, packing up diaper bag, purse and baby after tossing the trash. I was feeling efficient and capable, when Nate chucked his sippy cup on the floor. Without skipping a beat (and in that "you think way faster than you move" way), I simultaneously bent over to get the cup without putting the baby down and thought to myself, "I'm so much more agile than my mom or mother in law - they would take longer to bend over to get this". I was SO agile and swift that I smacked Nathans head against a chair next to me. He screeched and commenced wailing. And I was humbled. And decided that grandmothers know what they're doing when they stall before bending over. And also, I am, after all, an ostrich kind of parent.

Shame.

So don't give up, I'll post birthday pictures soon. And the multitude of Nathan stories will commence. But if you're bored with toddlers and their ostrich mothers, let me know and I'll do something by myself to tell you about. Maybe like a nap.

Now I want chocolate cake and a nap.