Everyday Adventuress

Johnny Babcock's Revenge

2012-02-11T08:52:00.007-07:00

I do believe I've mentioned something about W's rather intriguing past.

As a kid, he was quite the successful small-time con man. By 7, he had defrauded the Boy Scouts of America. By 9, he had rigged his school's science fair (and won). By 13, he'd enterprisingly cheated his school band out of hundreds of fundraising dollars.

At age 16, he pulled off his most daring swindle ever, here referred to as the Johnny Babcock Affair. The targets: his own parents. I won't go into too many details here, seeings as it's all rather involved, but this long con basically enabled him to get into all sorts of shenanigans, including driving from Las Vegas to Idaho to go and see some girls, all without his dear old Mom and Dad being any the wiser.

The core secret to his success in these (sometimes criminal) endeavors was simple. W realized, much younger than most, that grown ups are people, too. They are susceptible to flattery, hurt feelings, and misjudged pride.

Therefore, they are susceptible to manipulation.

Playing on their human-side, he used that knowledge for all it was worth to get himself out of trouble and into whatever monkey business he happened to have his eye on.

For years, I've worried this master ability for trouble making is genetic, but W always shrugs it off. Never kid a kidder, he says. You can't pull anything over on the man who pulled it all off, he says.

Bologna. And I've got proof.

Sure, Little Miss and Birdie are only getting into the regular pint-sized amount of trouble now, but that innate understanding adults' foibles is going to come back and bite us for sure.

It was a peaceful sort of morning. I'd just spent a half hour or so snuggling in with Birdie and reading her books while she sucked her thumb contentedly. I laid her down for her morning nap and blissed out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

And there she was: Little Miss, sitting in a pile of squirted out shampoo. The empty bottles floated on top of an inch thick gob of the pink goop, all soaking into my brand new cream-colored carpet.

My nostrils flared. "Missy!" I roared. "What are you DOING?!"

Like any good toddler, she made a run for it. She bolted to her room and shut the door, leaving me to deal with the soapy mess.

She waited there until the sounds of the running sink and carpet cleaner shut off and I was done mopping up. Then, wide-eyed, she popped her head out.

She took a tentative step toward me and took a deep breath.

"You a good Mama," she said, drawing out the word for emphasis and nodding her head vigorously. Her voice was as sweet and thick as icing.

I paused, then snorted. I threw down my rag and held out my arms for a hug. She ran happily into them and gave me a quick squeeze.

"Love you, Mama," she whispered in my ear.

I smiled and rolled my eyes. "Oh, I love you too, Johnny."

Good Days

2012-01-30T17:50:00.005-07:00

"Today's going to be a good day," I announced to Little Miss and Birdie over cereal this morning. "I can feel it."

Little Miss didn't bother to look up from her careful elimination of any non-marshmallow Lucky Charms in her cereal bowl, but Birdie gave me a sticky grin.

"That's right," I said, grinning back at my little Bird.

After all, we had things to do and places to go. I got a good night's sleep. My favorite shirt was washed and ready. Life was going to treat me right today.

We finished up breakfast, then did a half hour of Pilates. Little Miss tried to do the movements with me. Birdie helped make my workout more intense by sitting on my hips and making what I'm sure was meant to be encouraging noises. (Ever tried to do the Hundred while determinedly NOT laughing at a baby blowing bloopers on her hand?)

The girls ate some more peaches and bananas while I cleaned out the litter box in the garage. I came back into the dining room to find them having a competition to see who could dump the most food onto the floor.

Not a problem, I think cheerfully. I needed to clean that, anyway.

I change some diapers, play a few rounds of hide and seek, lay Birdie down for her morning nap, and am in the shower by 10. (Score!)

I hop out of the shower, grab a towel, and find Little Miss trying to paint the cat's toenails.

Save the cat, clean up the bathroom, and get Little Miss into some new clothes. Start the laundry. Do my makeup. Try something new with my hair, with some degree of success, and tug on a clean pair of jeans.

Forgot to cordon off Birdie's room. I realize it just in time to hear Little Miss open her sister's door and say, "Time to be awake now!" in the loudest tones possible.

Calm Birdie down. Change her out of her pajamas, pack a snack, and buckle everybody into the car.

We head for the grocery store, where Little Miss pushes around a miniature shopping cart next to my regular one and helpfully pulls things like cookies and Pop Tarts off the shelves.

Can't find the blasted peanut butter. Little Miss gets tired of walking and abandons her cart. Birdie starts crying.

Little Miss climbs onto the side of the cart and shouts, "Don't be sad! Be happy!" and starts making funny faces at her sister. Birdie stops sobbing just long enough to giggle.

Find the peanut butter. Finally.

Head for the checkout, only to be stuck behind a chatty old lady with lots to say to the cashier. Birdie starts to cry again. Finally get up to the register and check out.

Drive home. I get a little over-confident in just how much I can carry, and a bag splits. Jars of pickles and spaghetti sauce smash everywhere. Now the garage smells like vinegar and tomatoes. Super. I pick out the shards of glass and pickle spears and hose the rest down the driveway.

Nap time. Both girls go down fighting, but I win in the end.

Do a few chores, then catch a quick catnap before the girls wake up and we start playing, playing, playing.

W calls to say he's running late, which means I'm on my own for Birdie's bedtime. Finally get her settled in, then I turn on a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Little Miss while I cook dinner.

Get shrieked at when I turn off Mickey after one episode and insist we do something else. Offer to play Little Miss' favorite matching game as a peace offering. It's accepted with a sniff.

Sigh.

W gets home. Little Miss sets the table, and insists on giving W a giant serving fork instead of a normal one because, "It's big like Daddy!"

After swallowing a few mouthfuls of pork chops and peas, W asks me, "So, how was you girl's day?"

First, I think of the messy floor, the terrorized cat, the smelly pickles, and the stupid peanut butter.

Then I think about hide and seek, two girls splashing in the bathtub, and hot showers before noon. I think of Birdie's bloopers. I think about how adorable Little Miss looked as she pushed around her shopping cart with a purse slung on her shoulder, just like Mama. I think of the sound of them making each other laugh in the backseat. I think of that giant fork on the table.

"You know? It was actually really, really good."

Failure

2012-01-21T19:19:00.007-07:00

The trouble with being a full-time mom is that you really start to believe in what you're doing.

You see the importance of your job. You're glad you don't have to hand over your kid to some daycare worker on days when they're sick or scared or feeling a little extra shy, to be looked after by four or five adults in a room full of other children. You count it as an enormous blessing that you have the opportunity to be the one to bandage boo-boos and listen to half-hysterical explanations of how Bunny was accidentally left in the car. You're lucky, really, to be one of the few who get to read the same wordy story about the Little Blue Engine over and over and over and over again to your kids every single day, because it means you're the one who's there for your kids, every single day.

So you try to do it all-out, giving every day every ounce of your energy. You put all of your brainpower and emotional control into being patient and careful and loving. You work on being protective without being a hellicopter, teaching without taking away their own unique style. You try, and you try, and you try.

And sometimes, unlike that Little Blue Engine, you fail.

And because you believe in what you are doing, because you think it's the most important thing you'll ever do, because you love the funny little people you are doing it for so fiercely that you would do anything, ANYTHING, to succeed for them--

Well...failing sucks.

Birdie has been inconsolable lately, and I don't know why. She is normally such an intensely joyful little person that I honestly don't get it.

She isn't wet. She isn't hungry. She isn't teething. She isn't sick.

I try feeding her. She doesn't want it. I try feeding her something else. She only gets more frustrated.

She screams when I lay her down for naps. Maybe she's ready to give one of them up. I cut out the morning nap.

Definitely NOT ready to give up the morning nap.

I change diaper brands, thinking maybe the old kind was scratching her. She cries. I try bringing around her Mimi (a blanket, for those not fluent in Birdian) with her everywhere we go. She calms down for a minute, then cries again.

Little Miss went through this, too. Am I crazy? Am I that horrible at understanding what my kids need? Am I just such a lousy mom that my children end up shrieking in fury at my incompetency?

I know no one is perfect. I know that lots of kids probably go through this. I know that. Of course I do. But it's like changing diapers or cleaning up vomit or wiping noses--it's different when it's your kid. When you've devoted your life to them, any failure, big or small, feels crushing.

The worst part is that I feel so ridiculously helpless. Here's my beautiful baby girl, screaming like someone is stabbing her, and I can't do a darn thing.

I tried for an hour tonight to get Birdie to eat something before bedtime. She'd barely touched any food all day, and I didn't want her to be hungry. That's a reasonable thing for a mom to want, right? She wasn't interested in eating, though. She was only interested in sobbing.

Finally, I did the only thing left I could think of and laid her down in her crib. I gave her a kiss, closed the door behind me, and went into our bedroom and did a little sobbing of my own. Then, I knelt down and prayed.

And the answer?

You're doing a good job. Just keep trying, trying, trying, trying, trying.

The Trouble with Delays

2012-01-13T11:24:00.002-07:00

Here's the deal.

I promised you good stuff when we got back online. I promised you regaling tales of Christmas. I promised you the oh-so tragically funny story of our holiday trip to the E.R. I promised tales of sibling manipulation.

But now, here I am, a new computer on my lap (thank you, Apple!) and I've kind of moved on already. Like holly wreaths and kitschy Santa dolls and strings of colored twinkle lights, Christmas stories have an expiration date. By the time December is over, I'm always ready to tuck them back up in the attic (or throw them out the window) and take my life back, already.

So, I would like to propose a compromise. Rather than a full blown blog post on each of the above topics, I'll tell you the short version of the best one. Then, we can all move on to other exciting topics, like world debt and my masochistic refusal to go to bed early.

Christmas at the E.R.
Every year on Christmas Eve, we get all gussied up in our nicest clothes and have a fancy dinner. Then, before opening up our new Christmas pajamas, we have a dance. Now, none of us are dancers. None of us are even close to being dancers. It's sort of an occupational hazard of growing up tall and lanky with huge noggins. It's sort of like putting a grape on the end of a toothpick and expecting it to dance the rumba. We're not exactly a graceful bunch.

That's OK, though, since the dance is just for us. We skip and stand on toes and pretend to tango and are generally as silly as can be. I'm sure we all look like idiots, but that's sort of the fun of it.

So there we were, dancing a rather overly-enthusiastic conga around the dining room table, when Little Miss tried a little pirouette and wound up slipping and cracking her chin on our new hardwood floor.

Thus ended the festivities. One ruined party dress, one blood stained Daddy-shirt, and a tearful trip to the emergency room later, we had a stitched up chin and a lesson learned: grapes don't make for very good Ginger Rogers'.

To Be Continued...

2011-12-28T17:39:00.004-07:00

Yep. I'm still alive.

My computer, not so much.

I'm typing this now on a borrowed laptop--a laptop I need to return to its rightful owner all too soon. My computer--my poor, lovely computer--has succumbed to some tech disease or another and is refusing to even so much as turn on. It sits there, it's computer screen black with mourning, bemoaning the blogs that might have been.

And oh--the stories are good. You'll see, once I get around to telling them. They're totally worth checking back soon. Sibling manipulation. The E.R. on Christmas Eve. It's good stuff, I tell you. Good stuff.

But until then, there may have to be radio (or blogger) silence, since my only options are typing on my iPod touch or prying W's work computer from his stiff, workaholic fingers. (Love you, honey! Love your laptop, too! Thanks for soloing the whole bringing-home-the-bacon bit!) Neither option ends pretty.

And so, I'm off to the Apple Store. Cross your fingers for me. Toes, too, if you're able. And then send me a picture, 'cause that'd be a trick you don't see every day.

Blackmail

2011-12-02T06:15:00.006-07:00

I'm a blackmailer.

A dirty, mean, heartless old blackmailer.

I've blackmailed my child into good behavior. I used one of the the oldest tricks in the book--done something I swore I'd never do--and lied to her straight faced.

I told the Little Miss that Santa would only bring her presents if she was good.

Before I had kids (and was, therefore, the best parent in the world), I promised myself I would never use Santa as a jolly old bribe. Now, I'm not one of those nutters who doesn't believe in including Saint Nick in any Christmas celebrations. I love the old Elf. I just thought it was stooping a bit low to claim only kids who made their beds got stacking blocks and candy canes.

Chalk up another in the long list of things I said I'd never do. It's just too tempting.

Little Miss is finally old enough to understand the whole Santa/presents thing this year, and as such, she is incredibly excited. It's amazingly fun, teaching her about reindeer and the North Pole and elves. I don't think I've been this excited about Christmas since I was a kid myself.

As for the whole, "He's sees if you've been bad or good" thing, I've been playing it up for all it's worth.

We sat at the kitchen table at lunch today, eating our peanut butter and honey sandwiches and listening to carols. The Little Miss was filling me in on all the Christmas info she's been gleaning from books and songs.

"And reindeer fly in the sky like a balloon and bring Santa and Santa comes down the chimney and brings me presents and Birdie presents and Mama presents and he says 'Ho, ho, ho!...'" she rambled on, her eyes wide and expressive.

I nodded solemnly. "Yup, you're right. But only if we're good, huh?"

She nodded back, her expression serious. "And be nice to Birdie and share..."

"Uh-huh..."

"And eat bananas and listen to Mama..."

I smiled, my attention wandering back to my plate.

"And don't draw on Birdie..."

"Wait. What?"

"And don't put Gazette in a box..." My eyes widened as she continued. "And don't color on walls and don't spit on the floor and don't put stinky diapers under the bed..."

I stifled a small gag. Was all of that what she normally did? This is what went on in that little brain of hers?

I stared at her, mouth agape, as she proudly finished up her list. "And no throwing carrots at the cat."

I blinked. "Um, yup. You're right. Santa doesn't like it when you do any of those things. All of that--all of it--that makes Santa sad. So, um, don't do those things. Ever. Ever, ever, ever."

"And Santa brings presents?"

"And Santa will bring you presents."

Thankful

2011-11-24T08:49:00.005-07:00

I'm grateful for hot showers and blueberry pie and days off of diets.

I'm grateful for online shopping and customer-with-child parking spots.

I'm grateful for escapist blogs with fun new ideas to try.

I'm grateful for inspiring friends who are strong and loving and increase my faith every day.

I'm grateful for a cat who curls up on my belly while I read and waits up with me when W works late.

I'm grateful for interesting books.

I'm grateful for comfortable couches.

I'm grateful for our beautiful new home and W's job that makes it all possible.

I'm grateful that for the first time in almost a decade, we feel like we've landed.

I'm grateful for a healthy toddler who loves to "help" and sing and wear ruffles and sees the world in terms of "magic wand" and "not a magic wand."

I'm grateful for a healthy baby girl whose laugh is like a chirp and is so happy, so truly joyful, that it's impossible not to feel lighter when she's around.

I'm grateful I married my best friend. I'm grateful that through almost six years of marriage, two kids, fat pants and skinny jeans, a handful of persistently premature white hairs, a few serious lows and innumerable highs--through all of it--W still slow dances with me in the kitchen. He listens to my crazy ramblings, is the world's best father, and gets dressed up for our YouTube-dance-lesson dates in the living room. He is still my favorite part of every single day.

I'm grateful for long naps.

I'm grateful for air conditioning.

I'm grateful for spectacular Southerton falls. I'm grateful for days in pajamas. I'm grateful for giggling and happy squealing and watching my family play.

I'm grateful for a husband who cooks Thanksgiving dinner while I sit on the couch and blog.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Mummy

2011-11-14T08:39:00.002-07:00

Humidity agrees with me.

My skin adores it. My lungs can't get enough of it.

My hair wants to marry it. In fact, my hair loves humidity so much that it tries to reach out in every direction and wrap it up in fuzzy little corkscrews of fondness.

I've always had big hair, bordering on the ginormous. Now that we've moved to a place that has 80% humidity pretty consistently, my hair has decided to try and take over the world.

I tried consulting my Southerner sisters. It fuzzed.

I tried drugstore de-frizzing solutions. It fuzzed.

I tried giving up entirely with the hope that my natural curl would kick in and take control. It fuzzed even more.

It didn't matter so much to me when we first came to Southerton. After all, I had just had a baby and then immediately moved across the country. I think I'd more than earned a few months of frumpiness.

But now that Birdie is 7 months old, my excuses are running out. When we bought our house and I realized that these would be my neighbors for the next forever or so, I knew the gig was up. No more showering at noon. No more sweatpants at 2 in the afternoon. The time had come to step up and be a real person again. The time had come to de-fuzz-ify.

I went to a beautician and paid for a consultation. Having only ever lived in the west before, I needed it. I have no idea how to fix my hair out here. She cut my hair "the right way" for humid climates, chastised me over my cheap blow drier, and sent me on my way with a couple of products guaranteed to flatten my frizzies and a receipt guaranteed to make W choke on his dinner.

I went home and slathered them on. I took my time, straightening every chunk with slow precision, trying to copy the meticulous, if somewhat elaborately impractical, techniques the beautician had showed me.

An hour later, and I was perfect.

I looked in the mirror and turned my head from side to side, feeling the delightful swish of well-behaved curls. For the first time in months, I felt pretty. I won't lie to you--it was nice.

I went about my day feeling like a beauty queen. I made a conscious effort to stand up straight like I used to. I put on one of my pre-pregnancy shirts and was pleasantly surprised when it fit perfectly. Yes sir, I was on cloud nine.

Even the usual bedtime scuffle couldn't get me down. By 7 p.m. I was tucking Little Miss in and still feeling good.

I leaned in to give her one last kiss, but she stopped me by raising her hand up to my head. She spread her fingers out an inch or so away from my scull, and I could feel the tendrils that I had so carefully squashed earlier reaching out to move back and forth with her palm. At some point during the day, the humidity must have won its war without me knowing it.

"Mama's soft," Little Miss said luxuriously. "Mama's soft like a cat."

Awesome.

Well, I thought. At least that's something.

Halloween

2011-10-29T09:00:00.008-06:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

Between colds, moving, teething, Birdie's worsening acid reflux, W working late, and zero sleep for all, our entire family has been pushed right up to the edge.

I have to admit (abashedly) that I was starting to feel a little hard done by. I hadn't had any kind of non-mom brake in at least a month, and it was starting to really grind me and my patience down.

Someone constantly needed me for something. Lunch. Cleaning. Help up the stairs. Help down the stairs. Help with shoes. Force feeding Tylenol. Listening about work troubles. Worrying about work troubles. Make a crown. Draw a cat. Change the litter box. It was all normal stuff--but it was all the time, and it was always accompanied by a loud chorus of "I'm sick/teething/sad/tired" screaming.

All together, and without any personal time, my selfish side was beginning to feel more than a little overworked.

So it was with a bitter sort of humor that I snorted when Little Miss announced she wanted to dress up as the Fairy Godmother for Halloween, Birdie to be a pumpkin, Daddy to be Gus-Gus, and me to be Cinderella--not the dolled up, going-to-the-ball version of Cinderella, mind you; the raggedy, sooty, been-out-slopping-the-pigs one.

Of course.

I suppose that's fair, I thought to myself darkly as I put on my costume and got ready to go to a Halloween party with the kids. It's hard not to believe your princess days are past when you lose track of how many times you've been puked on before 9 a.m.

We went to the party. The Little Miss graciously accepted Birdie's share of candy along with her own. We came home.

I tackled Birdie bedtime while W chased Little Miss around the living room, trying to catch her long enough to get her out of her Fairy Godmother costume and into pajamas.

On one of her rounds, Little Miss paused just long enough to scoop up the play crown I'd made her from the floor. Then she ran over to me, waved her magic wand, and plopped the crown down on my head. She gave me a quick hug, then dodged Daddy and ran off again, giggling like mad.

I smiled.

Even being grimy old Cinderella isn't so bad when you've got a Fairy Godmother to turn you into a princess now and then.

Cold, Schmold.

2011-10-20T05:45:00.006-06:00

There are a few things full-time parents should automatically be exempt from.

Sleep deprivation.

The calories in peanut butter.

Sunday diaper changing duty.

Colds.

OK, you say. You'll give me the peanut butter. But colds? That hardly seems fair. If we have to pick one group of people not to catch a cold, shouldn't we pick the baby? Or the bread winner?

No, I selfishly respond. And here's why.

If the baby gets a little cold, she just spends the day cuddling with Mama in the rocking chair. Miserable, yes. But as long as it isn't a serious illness, it ends up being nothing more than an afternoon spent in pajamas and a night spent sitting upright.

If a kid gets the flu, they sit on the couch for a day or two getting pampered and watching Dora the Explorer while they eat chicken noodle soup.

When Dad gets sick, he takes a little time off work, doesn't shave or shower, and sleeps all day.

But when Mom gets sick--oh, oh, oh! Everything comes to a screeching halt.

I for one cannot remember my own Mom getting sick once. Now that I'm a mom myself, I realize it's probably not that she never was. It's probably more like, she never could. Not without the entire family shutting down, anyway.

In order for Mom to take the day off, Dad has to, too. The kids schedules are thrown out the window. Beds go unmade. Lunchtime is late. Naps are missed. People get grumpy. Really, really grumpy.

And Mom, poor ol' Mom, ends up getting out of bed to help, anyway.

I have to admit, I was pretty wiped out this week. I caught the cold of doom and could have slept straight for a good 32 hours or so, dreaming whacked out NyQuil dreams, had I not been needed. (My favorite dream was the one where I joined Maroon 5 and convinced them to start singing show tunes.)

In all fairness, W and the girls tried their best not to disturb me. They brought me water and earplugs. They played as quietly as possible downstairs. But there are some things, like nursing a baby and interpreting Toddlereese, that simply cannot be done effectively by anyone else.

They tried. They really did. But W still ended up bringing both girls into the bedroom once or twice, one kid on each hip, three thoroughly desperate looks on their faces.

Birdie wouldn't nap. Little Miss wouldn't stop crying. W's work email exploded. And Adam Levine had to finish singing "I Got Rhythm" all by himself.

By the next morning, it was clear to all of us that Mom needed to be better, whether I actually was or not.

"How are you feeling?" W asked as he got ready for work. His tone was apologetic, like he felt like he was deserting me in my time of need.

I scrunched up my eyes, cocked my head to the side, and opened my mouth part way, trying to find an answer that would be both honest and would let the poor guy off the hook from feeling guilty all day for going to work so we can pay the bills.

"Not good, huh?" he asked, his voice full of sympathy.

I shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." His reply was immediate, stubbornly sweet. "It always matters. To me, at least."

I rephrased. "Does it change anything?"

He paused, then answered resignedly, "No. Unfortunately. But I wish I could give you more of a brake."

"It's OK," I said, humming a little to myself. "I know you would if you could."

I've got starlight
I've got sweet dreams
I've got my man
Who could ask for anything more?

Even if I don't get to be exempt from colds.

Just call me Vila. Bob Vila.

2011-10-08T11:13:00.006-06:00

I've become quite handy in my week and a half of home-ownership.

I hung curtains.

I successfully measured, had cut, and installed window shades.

I drilled and installed a peep hole. With a spade bit. That's right--I know what a spade bit is. Well, I do now, at any rate.

Yes, I'm becoming quite handy. Quite handy indeed.

I admit, the cat door leading into the garage almost defeated me. But after much grunting and grrr-ing, the untimely demise of a hand-held jig-saw, and a bit of unauthorized hammering, I got the stupid thing in place and ready to go.

Finally, the only thing left was mounting the TV above the fireplace. The builder had thoughtfully installed a pipe inside the wall to run the wires through, so I hardly expected it to pose much of a challenge. I mean, really. If I can find the breaker box, make friends with the guys at the hardware store, and turn on the water heater without blowing our new home sky high, stuffing a few cords down a plastic tube could hardly stop the likes of me.

Wrong.

I had only been at it for five minutes before I knew we were in trouble.

For starters, the pipe was corrugated. (That's handy speak for "bumpy.") Secondly, it made two turns deep within the wall. Both things combined made it nearly impossible to push anything through.

First, we tried yarn. No go.

Next, we tied some washers (handy speak for "little metal circles with holes in the middle") to the end of the yarn, thinking it would weigh it down enough for gravity to help us out. Nada.

We tried magnets. We tried a hanger. We tried attaching a marble to a piece of string and rolling it down the tube. We tried fish tape, the official and somewhat overpriced tool for pulling wires through places wires don't want to go.

Nothing worked. And we had tried for hours. You would think two people with four degrees between them could figure out how to get a piece of wire through a tube in a wall, but no.

I was at it again one night when W called with a brainwave. He'd mentioned the problem to our brother-in-law, who suggested attaching a piece of paper to some yarn, dangling it down one end of the tube, then using a shop vac to suck it through to the other side.

Eureka! It worked! I untied the paper and taped the cords to the yarn, ready to pull them through.

Half way through the wall, they stuck.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" I shouted in frustration, throwing the rest of the cord on the ground. "This is impossible!"

I grabbed the yarn and gave it one last almighty yank, ready to throw the whole thing out the window, and,

Pop!

The end of the cord came unstuck and poked its head out of the wall.

I stared at it, in total shock. Then I straightened up.

Yup. Handy. (That's handy speak for "me.")

Perfect Birthday: Check

2011-09-23T09:37:00.010-06:00

Yesterday was absolutely wonderful. Ideal. Positively fabulous.

I woke up to the smell of bacon and chocolate cake. W and Little Miss sang me Happy Birthday. Birdie coo-ed. I got a kiss from everybody.

It was spending the day together and listening to Kate say, "Mama burf-day!" over and over again that made the day truly amazing, but the gifts certainly didn't hurt anything.

In fact, the gifts were pretty darn fabulous, too. They were perfect, actually. So perfect, that I have decided to share them here with you as a list of the top 4 perfect birthday presents of all time.

In Fourth Place: Heavenly for any music lover, and essential for a person who, like me, should probably enter iTunes Anonymous:

Third Place: Gazette, who looks a bit like a newspaper smudge--in a cute way.

Second Place:

Note the bow on the front door. (He thought of everything, didn't he?)

How do you beat a that? you ask. What on earth could possibly top a beautiful new home, a gorgeous new cat, and iTunes bliss? How could any husband, even one as rocking cool as W, one up all of that?

Easy.

First Place:

Official

2011-09-15T17:11:00.011-06:00

It's official, ladies and gentlemen: I'm a mom.

Now, the Little Miss was born nearly 2 and a half years ago, and I quit working outside my home almost 2 years ago. I've been peed on and pooped on and had my shirt used as a Kleenex. I've changed diapers and washed sheets and changed diapers and kissed owies and changed diapers and put up pigtails and changed more diapers. I've been a horse, a cat, a princess, a dog, a prince, a monkey, kangaroo, and an elephant. I've built forts, rolled down hills, dressed dolls, and come running in the middle of the night to sing away bad dreams. Heck, I haven't slept more than 4 hours in the past 6 months.

Doesn't matter. I was not a bona fide Mama until this past week. Now, it's legal.

The issue came up when the lender for our new house called to confirm a few details on our loan. Primarily, she wanted to confirm my employment status.

"So, you're a housewife?" she asked, a polite but still skeptical tone in her voice.

I wondered if it was worth the debate. More for my benefit than hers, I responded, "No. I am a full-time mom."

"Uh huh." I could almost hear her check the "housewife" box. "And you have no plans to do anything else in the foreseeable future?"

PhD candidate, college professor, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist... it's all in a future I can see. But for her purposes...

"Nope."

"And would you be willing to write an official statement to that purpose?"

"Uh, sure."

Dear Courteously Disbelieving Loan Officer,

I am a mother. I am not an idiot, nor do I spend all my time lounging around my house in pajamas watching soap operas. Well, sometimes I lounge around in my pajamas, but not for the reason you think. Furthermore, I like my kids and what I do way, WAY too much to give it up anytime soon.

Sincerely,...

I reeled in my snarky and probably over-sensitive ruminations.

"Do you need that notarized, or can I simply print it off and fax it to you?"

"A fax would be fine," she said, all business now. "I just need a signed letter with the date, a statement from you saying you are a (pause) full-time mother, and that you do not intend to seek employment outside the home in the near future."

"OK," I said.

We hung up and I turned on my computer. As I sat staring at its blue start up screen, I was struck by how surreal this all was. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my life turning out like this.

A mom. I'm a mom. A stay at home mom, at that. A stay at home mom who is apparently kind of defensive about it.

How strange.

Of course, I also never could have imagined having as much fun as I do every day, or that I would be this happy. I have a secret handshake with Little Miss. I found Birdie's only ticklish spot. I get to take naps (sometimes) and sing songs (incessantly) and belly laugh (every stinking day).

I certainly could never have imagined how being a mom has knocked off some of my biggest rough edges and made me an all around better person.

I am a full time mom, and I have no desire to do anything else in the immediate future. Officially.

Home

2011-09-03T13:23:00.000-06:00

Inside the back cover of my tattered old copy of A Tale of Two Cities is a list.

It's an old list, begun in 2001 and added on to from time to time. It's a list of my life goals.

Some of them have already been checked off (ride a Ferris wheel with a boy I really care about and get kissed at the top, own a dog, have kids, get a Masters Degree, marry my best friend).

Some of them are one time things (ride an elephant, read an encyclopedia from cover to cover, have one perfect birthday).

Some will take my entire life (never fight with W, learn to create beauty, identify the character traits that bug me in others and eliminate them from myself).

And some of them have to do with a house.

You know how some girls dream their whole lives about their perfect wedding? I wasn't ever one of them. Which is good, really, since W and I still jokingly refer to our wedding day as the absolute worst day of our marriage. But that's a different story for a different day.

While all the other girls were thinking about veils and bouquets, I was busy planning my future house.

Big windows.

An unobstructed view of the sky.

A green front door.

A lawn big enough to play a killer game of tag.

After a few months of looking for our first real home, as opposed to the rented apartments we've lived in ever since we were married, I started to think maybe some of those dreams were going to have to be put aside.

Sure, there are homes out there that have everything on my list. Perfect manicured grass, perfect dormer windows, perfect grand entryway--all for the ridiculously imperfect price of $500 grand.

Now, I'm not complaining. We have finally reached a point in our lives where we can afford a home, as opposed to a ludicrously tiny apartment where you can touch the kitchen sink while still sitting on the living room couch. (Oh yeah. We've been there.) And I'm grateful.

Honestly, I'm to the point where I don't really care where we live, as long as we can finally start putting down a few roots. Get to know our neighbors. Decide where the Christmas tree will go early. Unpack every single box with the full intention of never packing them up again.

Which, of course, is when I found the perfect house. Brick and green siding. Rocking chair front porch. A cookie-making kitchen and a giant master tub.

Perfect. Except for the price tag.

I talked them down $20 K. It was still higher than W wanted, but it was low enough that I stood a chance. I showed him the floorplan, talked him through the pictures, and mourned over the reduced price. Then I sat back to wait.

He loved it.

He went to go see it. He talked them down another $10K and got them to throw in a back fence.

We put in an official offer. We were accepted. We were approved for a loan. Now, we are set to close at the end of the month on our dream home.

Just in time for my birthday. Looks like I might get to cross two things off my list.

Survived

2011-08-27T17:57:00.001-06:00

We made it! We have officially survived out first hurricane.

Disaster

2011-08-26T10:48:00.004-06:00

Here's a friendly little tip from me to you:

If you don't like natural disasters, don't move to Southerton.

Me, I'm terrified of things like hurricanes and tornadoes and floods. I have been ever since the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz as a kid and my mom wasn't there to fast forward through the beginning.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in my grandparent's home, laying on the floor. I remember the exact way my Grandma's shock of white hair looked when I glanced over at her to tell her she must have put in the wrong movie--this one was black and white and the Wizard of Oz was in color.

She told me to keep watching. I did, with increasing amounts of horror.

First, Dorothy almost gets mauled by the man-eating pigs in the farm's pen. Then the mean lady takes away Toto and Dorothy gets hustled by a strange little man in a funny-looking hat. Then, the farm hands lock her out of the cellar and she gets bonked on the head.

As if all that wasn't enough, next she gets swept up in a whirlwind with a witch, her house squishes some poor old lady, and a crazy blond in a puffy dress the color of Pepto Bismol floats in on a bubble, steals the dead lady's shoes, and expects Dorothy to wear them. Then, to top the whole thing off, the dead woman's feet shrivel up into her body and tiny little people with squeaky voices start celebrating the brutal murder.

What kind of sick old-lady snuff film was this, anyway?!?

My fear turned into real terror later that summer when, for the first time in my life, my Southern mother looked at the sky and announced she thought a tornado might be coming.

Growing up in Wyoming, you don't get a lot of tornadoes. You don't get much of anything, to be completely honest--disasters, shopping malls, neighbors. It was the only thing that comforted me after the Oz Incident.

But, sure enough, Mom was right--a small twister touched down in our town that very day.

For nearly 28 years, that was the closest I got to a natural disaster.

That is, until 5 months ago. Then, we moved to Southerton.

Our first weekend here, more than 65 big, fat, ugly tornadoes touched down in the state. In the last week alone, there has been an earthquake, a tornado warning, and a severe thunderstorm watch.

Now, we're getting a hurricane this weekend.

I have tried my best not to panic. I asked the locals for safety tips. I rooted around in our still unpacked storage boxes and found all the flashlights. I went to the store and loaded up on little necessities like batteries and Pop Tarts.

Still, it was hard to keep the panic from my eyes as I loaded up the conveyor belt at the supermarket with gallon after gallon of drinking water and dry goods.

I heard a dry chuckle behind me as the cashier rang me up. I turned to find a strange little man in a funny-looking hat giving my stockpile the once-over.

"Well, now," he said, smiling, his Southern drawl pulling the words out like thick taffy. "I wonder what you're getting ready for. Couldn't be that itty bitty storm coming our way, now could it?"

Itty bitty? I thought of the local weatherman, who said just that morning that the hurricane was already as big across as Texas. I forced out a short laugh. "Yup. It's my first hurricane, so I'm just trying to be prepared."

"Oh, you'll be all right," he said, clearly finding my worry amusing. "My wife and I made it through worse storms than this. Just hunker down with your family and sit tight. You'll see. It's nothing more than a great big thunderstorm."

He winked merrily. "Of course, if it gets really bad," he said, "you can always click your heels together three times and go on home."

The Great Sleep Conspiracy

2011-08-16T05:16:00.004-06:00

It was 10 p.m.

The house was dark and quiet. My face was washed; my teeth were brushed. The cicadas keened in a constant, soothing hum outside our windows.

I lifted back the covers and sank onto our mattress with a grateful groan of half-hysterical relief.

I've always been one who needed a lot of sleep. Without it, I get cranky, teary, and more than a little unreasonable. Unfortunately, sleep is a rare commodity when you're the mother of two small children, one of whom is still nursing.

So it was with near-delirious joy that I snuggled into my blankets. No one had needed me all night long. No one woke up from a bad dream. No one cried out for one more song. No one had a blow out diaper and needed their pajamas and sheets and blankets all changed in the pitch darkness.

Nothing. Silence. I had had the whole night to myself, and now I was going to sleep at 10.

10! I smiled sleepily as I positioned the pillows just right. The room was the perfect temperature, and the mattress felt like heaven on my sore back. This was bliss, pure and simple.

More silence.

It was strange, that silence. Unnatural. No crying. No "Mama!"s. There wasn't even the sound of Little Miss illicitly singing Karaoke on her bed with Bunny. It hadn't been this quiet in two years.

I could hear the clock in the hall tick-tick-ticking at me. How long could this possibly last? Someone was going to need me, I just knew it. They were just biding their time. Little Miss and Birdie had never collectively gone this long without one of them calling out for me.

I listened, hard. Nothing.

I told myself to go to sleep. This was a blessing--a serious stroke of luck! I should capitalize on every second of these strange Mom-free moments.

I listened harder. Nothing but the peaceful breathing of W lying next to me.

I glanced over at the clock. 10:45. That wasn't so bad. If I fell asleep now, I could still catch a fair amount of Zs.

I listened even harder. "Stop it!" I snapped at myself. Was it really so bizarre that my children should be asleep? That the quiet I had prayed desperately for during the past two years had finally happened?

11:15. Still not terrible. I went to bed later than that in college all the time.

11:30. OK, getting later. Still recoverable, though. Go to sleep!

Midnight. This was ridiculous. No one needed anything. No one was going to need anything. They were all asleep, just like I should have been already.

I forced myself to breathe deeply and evenly, using a trick I learned back in my ultra-stressful graduate student days. I slowly concentrated on relaxing my toes, then the balls of my feet, and on up through my body.

I sighed as I finally slid into the peaceful land between consciousness and dreams. Midnight still isn't so bad, I thought to myself as I drifted closer and closer to sleep. Even if the girls got up early, I might still get six straight hours, which is more than I've had since Birdie was born.

I let out an exhale in one long breath and felt myself slipping calmly away.

Then,

"MAMA!!!"

No

2011-08-05T12:45:00.004-06:00

"NO!"

"Buddy, it's not that big of a deal..." I said, gathering up the crayons the Little Miss had just thrown to the four winds. "Do you want to do something else instead?"

"No!" she shrieked, her little face contorted with fury.

"Would you rather go outside?"

"NO!"

"Do you want to play with your toys?"

"NO!"

"Do you want to go have a snack with Bunny?"

"NO!"

"Would you like to turn back into the sweet little girl from a few hours ago who didn't shout and scream and give Mama a headache?"

"NO!!!"

"That's what I thought," I mumbled as I rubbed my temples with the tips of my fingers.

The Little Miss has been acting out a bit more than usual lately. Part of it, of course, is that she's now 2, and with that comes certain bratty obligations.

I suspect more of it, though, is that I have been somewhat consumed with finding our first home lately. I try to focus on her as much as possible during the day, but there are so many calls to make and things to research that sometimes it bleeds over into our usual play time. Talking to our Realtor, visiting builders, finding reviews on nearby schools--it all takes time, and the Little Miss does NOT like things cutting into her Mama time.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes. "Ok. New approach." I thought hard, then asked, "Are you Bunny?"

Little Miss raised her eyebrows at me.

"No." Duh, Mama.

"Are you Birdie?"

"No."

"Is Bunny blue?"

"No!" she smiled now, suspecting a new game. "Bunny's brown!"

"Is Birdie blue?"

"No," she giggled.

"Are Birdie's eyes blue?"

"Yes!"

"And what about your eyes? Are your eyes blue?"

"Yeah!" She clapped her hands together excitedly.

"Would you like to color now?"

"Yeah!"

I smiled, knowing the battle was over. "OK, now. Let's try and not use the word 'no' again the rest of the day, all right?" I said. "There are so many better things to say."

Little Miss was still nodding her head seriously when W walked through the door.

He set down his briefcase, gave me a kiss, and said, "Do you want to take the girls to go see that house showing tonight?"

I took a deep breath and held it. I thought about the stinker mood Little Miss had been in all day. I looked around at the mess littered around the apartment in the wake of her wrath. I thought of the work it would take to get her cleaned up, into the car, and to the showing. I imagined the plague of locusts she would call down upon the Realtor and the house once we got there.

I looked up at W, who was waiting patiently for my answer. I glanced at the Little Miss, who stared back with big, innocent eyes and then went sweetly back to her coloring.

I let out my breath in a huff. I closed my eyes, shook my head once, and held up my hands in defeat. I paused, still not wanting to say it, then looked at the ceiling while I answered.

"Well...no!"

A Reference Guide for All Harassed Spouses

2011-07-28T17:24:00.006-06:00

Life has been more than a little insane the past few months.

First, we had a brand new baby, my beautiful Birdie (rechristened by the Little Miss for her soft, feather-like eyelashes and love of flying). Then, I came home from the hospital and that very night the neighborhood came over to help us pack everything we own into a moving truck. I spent that night on the floor, curled up on a blanket next to a borrowed pack 'n' play, chanting, "I can do this I can do this I can do this," and trying hard not to cry. (For the record, I do not recommend sleeping on the hard floor just after giving birth.)

Three days later, W left for Southerton, and the girls and I followed him a week or so after. (I don't so much recommend that either.)

Birdie's little life has calmed down considerably after her first few intensely dramatic weeks, and we love our new adoptive city, but there have still been some serious adjustments to having two children instead of one, and my stress levels have remained somewhat high.

To that end, I have compiled a list of tell-tale signs of a rough day for the convenience of W and all spouses of stay-at-home parents. This way, the second they walk through the door they will be able to tell how crazy the day was at home: regular ol' run of the mill happy crazy, or run away screaming crazy.

We begin with the hair. Now, you can't really expect much in this area on an average day for the parent of two young kids. It'll be washed and pulled back into a pony tail on a normal day, so don't be alarmed if there's nothing more stylish going on. If it's fixed more elaborately, you can bet it's been a good day. If it looks oily and unclean and eerily similar to how it looked when you left in the morning, don't comment. Just hand over the cookies and back away slowly.

Next, take a good, long look at her face. Are her eyes smiling and crinkled up with laughter, or are they surrounded by red blotches from where her fingernails have been digging into the skin around them? Is her jaw clenched? Nostrils flared?

Glance at the shoulders. You know how they say you can tell what a tree has survived based on the rings in its trunk? Similar principle here. The fewer white rings of dried snot and tears and spit up, the better.

Then, take a gander at the overall condition of her clothes. If she's wearing something nice (a clean polo, a button up shirt, basically anything stain-free), she and the kids have been somewhere. This could be good or bad, depending on how the outing went, so make sure to check the other items on this list. If she's still in old cut offs and a ratty t-shirt, tread lightly, my friend.

Zero in on her knees. Chances are good they will have at least a light dusting of ground up orange Goldfish crackers or a peanut butter smear. That's just par for the course. It's your job to look past all that for any fresh rug burns or bruises. These usually appear after someone has tried to take a daring leap down the stairs and Mom has had to lay flat out to snatch an ankle before everybody wound up in the E.R.

Finally, consider the toenails. Now, let's be honest. The days of weekly pedicures are long since gone. Chipped paint is hardly the biggest concern of your life when you've got better things to do like tickling tummies and being a horse-dog. (If you've ever been a horse-dog, prancing around the living room barking while a toddler sits on your back giggling and shouting happily "Go horse-doggy! Yeah!" you'll know what I'm talking about.) Still, if Mom did happen to find a few kiddo-free minutes to open up a bottle of something as stain-prone as nail polish, you can bet it was a good day.

If all of the above points to a bad day, don't panic. Do what I do:

Remind yourself it could be worse. You could be moving cross country with a newborn.

Slacker

2011-07-28T17:18:00.003-06:00

It's official. I'm a slacker.

I feel like I haven't written in ages. Life got so crazy, what with the move and Babs and getting used to all the changes that came with them. And then I stopped writing in favor of sleeping, and then I stopped needed the extra sleep but wasn't sure how to pick up writing again. Months drew on, and suddenly I find myself, 4 months from my last post and at least 7 since I wrote consistently.

I've missed it, though. So much that I can hardly describe it. Writing is an important part of who I am, so it's time to pick it up again, even if I'm rusty.

Oh boy howdy, am I rusty. You should see some of the slop I've jotted down in the past few weeks and then given up on before I could burn your eyes with such poorly-constructed posts.

So here we go, adventurers. Time to get back on the horse. I know I've probably lost a lot of my readers, but that's OK. In time, I hope to win your readership back again.

And so, we begin again.

Beautiful Birdie

2011-03-29T03:47:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the world, gorgeous girl. I love you already!

Dear Babasheesh,

2011-03-28T09:48:00.003-06:00

Hi there, baby girl. There are only so many hours left before I meet you in person, and I find I have a lot and nothing to say all at the same time. You're my little number two, my middle child, my mystery.

Who will you be, I wonder? Judging from your WWF moves and assertive dislike of me crunching in on your space, I doubt you'll be some shy violet hiding in the Little Miss' shadow. But who will you be? Will you be smart? Pretty? A big tease like your Dad? Intensely independent like your big sister? Quietly confident? Spunky and sly? Funny? Quick? Happy?

Happy, I hope. And healthy. You're going to need all the good health you can get with your Dad and I moving you across country in only a few weeks.

You'd think I'd be less nervous this time around, but I'm not. You'd think I'd know what to expect, but I really, really don't. I feel fairly confident these days being Little Miss' mom, but you are a whole new ball game. Sure, I've changed a small landfill's-worth of diapers now, and I've figured out how to properly unhook a car seat, but that hardly makes me an expert. I still don't really know for sure how best to be a mom. More importantly, I don't have a clue how best to be your mom.

The best I can do is promise I will love you and try my very best to be what you need. I'll cuddle you and hold you and rock you to sleep. I'll try to teach you to be strong and happy and confident. I'll go with you to try on prom dresses and make you milkshakes on bad days and help you with your homework. Well, except for math. You'll have to go to your dad for math.

And speaking of Dads, well--you've got nothing to worry about on that front. I may not know what I'm doing, but that guy is made to be a father. He would do anything--ANYTHING--for any one of his girls, and you're included in that now. He's happy and kind and can make just about anything fun. He's going to tickle you and tease you and try his very best to embarrass you in front of your friends, but he will absolutely love you till the end of time. You will always be safe if he's around, and you will always, always be adored.

I can't wait for you to meet your little sister. She's been talking about you for weeks. Every time we get in the car, she asks if we are going to come and see you or hear your swish-swishing heart beat. She's a wonderful little girl, and she's going to be an extraordinary big sister.

I know you'll like them. I hope you like me, too. I hope I can be the mom you deserve and that I can change and adapt to what you need and not just do what I know. I promise I'll try.

I can't wait to meet you in a couple of hours. I can't wait to hold you and start getting to know you and have the chance to fall in love with you. I hope you fall in love with me, too.

I'll see you soon, my darling.

Love,

Mom

P.S. I'm really not kidding about the math.

Dear Little Miss,

2011-03-28T08:36:00.002-06:00

Last night was the first night in your entire life that I've spent apart from you. You stayed over at a friend's house while Dad and I got ready to go to the hospital and wait for Babasheesh to come.

It was so strange, walking in your room and seeing your empty crib. It was like I'd misplaced some indefinable chunk of me; like I'd laid down my lungs somewhere and forgotten to pick them back up again. I knew you were safe, but I still couldn't seem to breathe right without you near me.

I wonder how you're going to do with all of this. First, we leave you overnight. Then, we bring home a baby. Then, we move cross country. It's a lot for me to handle, and I'm not a toddler.

I worry about you. I worry more than you will probably ever realize. I worry that I won't have as much time for you, that you'll miss the days when it was just you and me, that you'll think I don't love you as much any more.

I do, though. I love you so much that it's hard to believe it can all fit into my body. I love you more than sunshine, more than sleep, more than you love Bunny. I love you times infinity, and nothing and no one will ever, ever change that. You and Daddy will always be the center of my universe. You'll just be sharing it with one more person starting today.

Things are going to be different, of course. Not bad, just different. We'll have Babasheesh to hang out with, too.

I think you are going to love being a big sister. You already love talking about her and showing off her ultrasounds to anyone who comes over for a visit. You'll get to grow up together. You'll have tea parties and teach Babasheesh the correct way to line up her stuffed animals. She'll borrow your clothes and drive you crazy and copy everything you do. You'll buy her her first tube of mascara and give her tips on shaving around her ankles. The two of you will sit on your beds and talk about boys and dissect sentence structures ("And then he said, 'Cool,' and I said, 'Totally,' and then he said..."). You're going to love each other more fiercely and more deeply than you can even imagine.

You'll be sisters. You're going to have a sister.

I can't wait. The very thought fills me with enough joy to make everything else seem more than worth it.

Things will probably be a little crazy for a while, but just remember that no matter what else happens, I will always be your Mama, and you will always be my little girl. You are the yellow in my sunshine.

I love you,

Love,

Mama

Babasheesh

2011-03-10T07:14:00.015-07:00

I worry a lot and, frankly, I'm good at it.*

I worry that I subconsciously bring undue drama onto myself just for the pure joy of telling a story about it later.

I worry that all my education and knowledge are slowly being siphoned off and replaced by Dora the Explorer songs.

I worry that I'll go down in the record books for delivering the world's biggest baby.

Now, most of the time my worries are, I'll admit, completely unfounded. I mean, really. What are the chances that terrorists will decide to bomb my tactically insignificant little town, or that the band Genesis will ever reform?

Just this once, though, my worries have proven entirely valid. The gigantic baby bit, not the part about Phil Collins getting the group back together. (Shudder).

That's right. This baby, who the Little Miss has lovingly dubbed "Babbasheesh," has gone way past normal-baby size, sped on by big-baby size, and is coming up fast on Babbash-enormous.

At first I thought maybe it was all in my head. After all, doesn't every woman hit that point in the third trimester where it feels like there's no possible way for you to get any bigger? True, I don't remember getting quite this large with Little Miss, but even that makes a depressing sort of sense. I've been all stretched out once before, so it's only logical that my muscles would be more obliging this time around. Right?

Logical, yes. Reality? No.

Turns out, Babasheesh really is just one colossal kid. Recent ultrasounds are putting her at almost nine pounds already.

Let me just say that again. She's nearly nine pounds, and technically I still have three weeks to go. They figure she's growing at about 3/4 of a pound a week, which puts her at a whopping 10.5 to 11 pounds if she goes full term. That's also not accounting for the fact that from everything they can see, she's actually picking up steam on the whole weight-gaining thing.

Now, I like to think of myself as a relatively tough person. I've withstood hard times and heartbreak. I've sucked it up and pushed through painful surgeries and devastating decisions. Heck. I even delivered all of Little Miss' 8.5 pounds of glory on my first go at motherhood.

But 10 and a half pounds? I feel the urge to vomit in fear at the very thought. It's almost worse than the idea of Jersey Shore getting picked up for another season.

I suppose it's what I get for wanting to marry a big strong man my whole life. All those desperate wishes at middle school dances for a guy who wouldn't make me feel like I'd step on him if I wasn't careful came true: W is a solid 8 inches taller than me, and I don't exactly shop in the petites section. Our gargantuan genes combined were bound to make jumbo-sized rug rats.

Or maybe it isn't the genes. Maybe it's just my subconscious hoping for another good story to tell.

* Quoting Erma Bombeck

Murphey's Law of Moving

2011-03-02T14:50:00.004-07:00

We have been applying to jobs all over the country for more than a year and a half. Big companies, little companies; great positions and not so great positions--short of garbage man, we've pretty much tried for it all.

When your husband graduates with an MBA from one of the top three programs in the country, you kind of expect to get something great straight out of the gate. Not a vice president position, maybe, but something a little more glamorous than a Christmas tree salesman.

When your husband graduates in the very bottom of an economic recession, though, you take the Christmas tree gig and are thankful.

OK, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. W was never reduced to selling dead pine trees out of a parking lot. It was hard to not feel like that was the direction we were heading, though, when jobs way below what we'd dreamed of while paying for that $40,000 education didn't even give him a first interview. Half of them didn't even dignify his resume submission with a rejection email.

It was disheartening to say the least. Even when we did finally start getting calls, they were for crummy positions or peanuts-pay.

Still, we tried. We split up the major job sites and looked every day. We filled out applications and honed W's resume every night. When he did get an interview, I'd use all my old reporter-stalking skills to find out as much about the company as I could, then quiz him on it.

It was exhausting.

Finally, we gave up. W got a promotion, so we were OK money-wise, he liked his new position, and we figured we could be happy anywhere. So we wouldn't ever get that big house out of state somewhere. We could afford our kids, we could afford food and a place to live, and we were together. Who could ask for anything more, right?

And that, of course, is when we heard back from THEM--The Company W has dreamed of working at for years, which just happens to be headquartered in the South, right next to The PhD Program I would kill to attend. We'd applied on a whim around Halloween last year, never thinking we'd really have a shot at it. (Like I said. When you are having trouble getting call-backs from local nobody's, your hopes for getting a dream job across the country are pretty low.)

Yet, they called. They wanted an interview. Then another. Then another. Then they wanted to fly him out.

We tried not to get our hopes up. We told ourselves after every interview that it was a long shot--too long to even be taken seriously. There were, after all, hundreds of other applicants. Many of them were internal. There was no way we were going to get this job.

Then, about a week ago, an offer came. They wanted him. They wanted him bad.

Sure, it came right when we had made plans to settle down right where we already are. Sure, I'm about three weeks away from having a baby. Sure, it means moving thousands of miles away from absolutely anyone we know.

We'd still be crazy not to take it.

Which leaves us right about here: about to have a baby, planning on moving with a newborn, trying to find a place to live sight unseen and coordinating moving all our stuff cross-country. We're happy. We're excited. We're on cloud nine.

We're scared off our rockers.

But hey. Even if we get stranded in the middle of Nebraska on the way there; even if W hates the new job; even if the humidity kills us all--we can always come back and sell Christmas trees.