Successful Womanhood?

I was out at Starbucks today, getting some fresh air with Caden, and I happened to be a couple tables away from my opposite. Sort of.

I mean this woman put some MONEY into her appearance in a very tasteful but kind of in your face sort of way: perfectly dyed and highlighted long thick hair, eyelashes expensively mascaraed, makeup carefully applied, short (but business-y) skirt, tight suit jacket, tall heels, understated thick silver jewelry, with a personality as firm as her no-nonsense posture. And these were no knock-offs she was wearing. She shopped carefully, you could tell.

She was being interviewed for something by the man sitting across from her. She used perfect Business Interview body posture, lean in, not away, don’t break eye contact, keep your hands moving, but don’t fidget, firm and expressive voice. Her nails were expertly manicured, and when she turned to me I saw she was much younger than I thought.

Father’s Day: The Father’s Remix

Hey gang, it’s a rare post from Aaron. I just had to brag (a tad late) about my wife. On Father’s day Jennifer let me sleep in. Granted I woke up at 6:45 but that’s more a function of working morning shifts at Starbucks again. When you regularly wake up at 4 am 7 feels like Christmas morning.

Augustus McRae, Good Boy.

We found out today that my family dog of 14.5 years, commonly known as “Gus” had come to the end of his very happy life this morning. We got Gus when I was 11 and my sister was 8, the last of a litter to be adopted because he had bowed legs and HUGE ears. He grew out of the legs, and into the ears, and continued on to have many an adventure. (Seen above at what I believe is the Vatican, courtesy of Photoshop.)

As a puppy he loved to try and climb trees, chase sticks (and later, the much more exciting tennis ball), drag our dirty laundry into his kennel, and did his best to always pee outdoors.

Gus was a fantastic dog, who went gray about the same time my dad did, a testament to their deep and heartfelt connection to one another . He loved to chase deer out of the backyard, after you kindly pointed them out to him. He enjoyed long walks on the beach, where he ate a ton of sand and then pooped it everywhere. He was excellent at always wanting to go outside at the exciting part of the movie. He loved to play catch with snowballs, and was always confused when they disintegrated in his mouth. He was always available to lick clean the bowl we used to make the tunafish salad sandwiches.

It’s so sad to have to say goodbye to a pet, and Gus was an especially important one. Gus was a member of the family, much more than any mere animal, and it’s hard to say goodbye to family when it’s their time to go. I am taking solace in knowing he had a long, happy, love-filled life. Bye buddy, we’ll miss your face.

Father’s Day

Aaron and I knew we wanted to have kids, and like every good thing, we had to wait a long time to have a baby. Not by choice, but never the less, it took us almost a year and a half after we started trying to finally have Caden.

This obviously was very difficult for me especially since there was nothing medically wrong with either one of us. Aaron was unbelievably supportive. He never once got frustrated with my sadness, never once told me to get over it and just relax. He prayed for me, held me when I cried, and was in general the kindest man you’d ever meet. Every time I hoped I was pregnant and the test came up negative, he gave me a hug and a cheerful face and said, “it’s not always going to be this way! We’ll have our baby.”

We went and saw Juno last winter and I cried through what is, in reality, in a very funny movie. Jennifer Garner’s heart broken childless woman trying to adopt broke my heart. Her pain at not having a baby struck waayyyy too close to home. I sobbed through the movie, I sobbed in the parking lot, I sobbed for two hours when we got home…

In Which I Mention Underpants

There are some weird things you go through when you share a laundry room with an entire building. All that said…

I had a LOT of work to do today. An hour of yoga, tidy the house, and do several loads of laundry then grocery shop. I put the laundry in, made sure it got into the dryer, and asked Aaron to bring the laundry in from the machines down the hall, so our nice things wouldn’t get wrinkled. He amicably agreed, as he always does when I ask him to help with chores.

I got home with my arms full of grocery bags, and Aaron helpfully mentioned he folded the laundry and got it all ready to put away. He then left the house to go to a photoshoot.

I went in to begin putting away some laundry, and noticed some strange underpants. Not strange as in weird looking, strange as in “not Aaron’s.” Boys underpants. Not my boys underpants. Nicely folded, sitting on top of the pile, as if to say “Hello, I am Mystery Underpants. I’ve been left here for you to figure out.”

I am immediately confused because they are men’s underpants! My MAN folded the laundry. You’d think the guy could recognize his own underwear?

When I questioned Aaron about why he folded them nicely and left them there, he responded with, “I figured you’d have a reasonable explanation! They were in the laundry!”

I put them back on the table in our buildings’ laundry room. I don’t need that kind of mystery.

Stranger Danger!

My Subconscious

I have a very lovely friend, Susan Tuma, who is an excellent dream interpreter. When I have a dream I believe has spiritual meaning, and I’m not quite sure about the symbols, I ask her. She’s always very helpful (and funny). I had a dream last night that was quite literally one of the best dreams I’ve ever had.

It was also hilarious enough to share. Feel free to take a crack at the symbology because something tells me we won’t need Susan to help us out with this one.

Why We Have Eyeballs.

One of my early memories of school is reading groups. I found them horrible, annoying, stupid and giant wasters of time. Why? Not because I hated reading, but because I LOVED it. I was reading chapter books at age 5. I found sitting in that little circle, listening to my peers halting staccato sounding out of words to be TORTURE. Torture, because I could read SO MUCH faster than they could. To this day, I cringe and want to scream every time someone reads aloud to me.

My sister and I both are very very avid readers. One summer we decided to read the entire Harvard recommended reading list, which I think is about 100 books. We got through about 15 books a piece before we realized the Harvard book list is HECK-AH boring. We returned to better pursuits. (Reading sci-fi for me, Jane Austen for her.)

Writing and The Wall Between Us

* I and fellow author/ninja Jenn Samson are co-starting a small writing group at my house on Monday nights. We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re going to have fun doing it. You’re welcome to come, Monday’s at 7.

Caden went down early tonight, and I have time to write. I found a good prompt on a literary blog, and I’m writing this short something straight into the post, minimal editing for grammar and spelling. Enjoy.

Prompt: “The walls between us mean…”

BABY! OMG BAAAABBBYYYYYYY!!!! (not pregnant)

AHHGHH;H;DSGHS;DOIGH;OSIGNOSGOISAN!!!!!! This is a long post. LONG.

That’s gibberish for: Oh MY GOODNESS my poor child had a totally bipolar crazy day in which he constantly needed holding or entertaining or cleaning up from something or being taken away from something and I know he’s bored but I have no idea what to do about it and I don’t care how awesome you are you CAN NOT entertain an infant with limited verbal skills all day long with no break without losing your sanity.

And I have cramps.

Aaron and I looked at each other tonight over the fourth straight hour of screaming baby and just smiled at one another. Poor Caden was just having a really hard day, or something. He’s still sporting the snotty nose and whimpery demeanor, though I wouldn’t classify it as a cold. The teeth-finders, Tyler and I, don’t feel any teeth coming in, so it’s mostly just baby being a baby.

Bring in the Noise

I thought it was time for a good Caden update.

It’s hard to find Caden in the house sometimes, unless you’ve walked out of the room he’s in. Then he screams like a banshee and demands you come back and bring him with you. I want to take cookies to our neighbor to say I’m sorry for the screaming, but who am I kidding, I want to eat those cookies.

Caden is now crawling super fast, rolling over rapidly in both directions and pulling up on anything that will hold still long enough for him to get his feet under him, including: bookcases, furniture, piles of laundry, chairs, and wall sockets. Don’t worry, they’re all plugged with those little fingernail breaking plastic things.

He can hold his own bottle now, find his own paci and replace it (Praise the Lamb), and sit up in a high chair when we go out to eat. He also enjoys pulling things down off of other things including: books, electrical appliances, piles of clean folded laundry, food you’re trying to eat, and mom’s art supplies.