1. We got new neighbors. I’m going to tell you about it by quoting myself on Facebook: “I wish I could find the words to adequately express my delight upon learning that an enormous crowd of loud not-quite-teens-anymore moved next door to us. Right now I am listening to squealing females, cheesy white-people-drunk music, and occasional announcements such as “that’s my song!” or “pass the lighter.” If I had a shotgun y’all might not see me for awhile.”
2. Fyi, quoting yourself feels oddly narcissistic.
3. Anyway I ended up calling the cops on them, which was weird for me, since I distinctly remember being the kid who got the cops called on them, and hating it. I wonder if I would have kept doing it back then if I knew how much we were annoying the neighbors. Yes. Yes I would have.
4. It has been eerily beautiful here – sunny and like 65 degrees. Amazing. I want to be concerned about the lack of rain but I’m too busy enjoying the sunshine. Kinduva vicious cycle.
5. My husband works so much (usually 6, sometimes 7 days a week) that sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t just downgrade our life to ridiculously minimal levels so we actually, oh I don’t know, LIVE. This grind just kills me sometimes. This somewhat-poor-person grind. This working and struggling. And then I hear things like Beyonce renting out an entire floor of a hospital for like a million dollars and redecorating it and I want to vomit at the self-importance of some people – the excess. I don’t know why, but something about that just makes me ill. I hear that her security wasn’t letting parents visit their babies in the NICU. Of course I read that in the news so it probably isn’t true. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it were.
6. I wish Pinterest would give me back my life.
7. And to the scoffers…check it out: I didn’t think I’d get roped in – actually had high hopes of the opposite. But then I started doing it and realized it’s strangely fun. GREAT. Another online distraction from reality. Whee.
8. Georgia got sick again last week, so if you’re catching a bit of negativity in my tone, it’s from exhaustion and a little frustration. I’m so tired. I’m tired of snot, mostly. It’s just always there in great quantities and though I’ll save you the details, it somehow gets ALL OVER HER which means it’s ALL OVER ME. I don’t love it.
9. February is often a weird month for me. If there’s a “dark” month for me, it’s this one. I tend to feel a little down and sort of disillusioned and lost. And then it always passes in March. Always. Unless it comes back, which it occasionally does in intervals associated with PMS – which kind of makes it not count, right?
10. So, in super boring news, the widget on the left “Google Friend Connect” is going away March 1. Not by my choice. Google is eliminating it for people who don’t use their blogging program. Pricks. So if you follow via GFC, please choose another follow method (or leave me, but at least say “Goodbye, it’s not you. It’ me” before you go).

Valentine’s Day is coming up. We’re gonna have some fun with that.

Have a great week, you guys.

1. Maybe I should just officially start writing my Sunday posts on Monday.
2. Well, no, maybe not, since yesterday was obviously an exception being the Super Bowl and all, which means of course that I was too busy eating to write. Or do anything, for that matter, except wish I would stop eating.
3. I realize this makes me lame and stereotypically female and a variety of unpleasant adjectives, but I still don’t understand football.
4. No really. What the fuck are they doing out there?
5. At any rate the half-time show was, well, a giant media spectacle as usual. There was some serious genre-mixing there. I particularly appreciated the sudden Vogue magazine advertisement, thrown in for what? 15 million dollars? God American consumerism makes me want to vomit. Though let’s be honest, I engage.
6. I was so sick last week I wanted to pummel myself with a sledgehammer. As if the flu wasn’t enough, it morphed into a sinus AND inner ear infection, which, just in case y’all have never had the pleasure, feels similar to the sensation caused by 8 hours or so on a deep-sea fishing boat in the Pacific. Vertigo. Nausea. Sea sickness. No really. That’s what it feels like.
7. It isn’t the best experience in the world. (Much like deep-sea fishing, I might add.)
8. Speaking of good feelings, sometimes I look at my dog and just say “I’m sorry,” since he sits there all distraught and lost and sad as I race around ignoring him day after day, wishing I could cuddle with him and be a real pet owner.
9. Oh dude. That’s sad. I’m a bad person. (But I called him over and he’s sitting next to me now, so I feel a little better.)
10. Today Rocket said “Mama, sometimes I think some weird thoughts, but that’s okay because I don’t have to do what my brain says. It isn’t the boss of me. I AM THE BOSS OF MY BRAIN.”

I told him some people spend their whole lives never figuring that out.

And I was thinking that things like the SuperBowl advertisements are banking on hundreds of thousands of people not knowing that they are the bosses of their brains, so the day after watching the half-time show, they stand in the grocery store check-out line, and some way somehow, for some reason, hear their brains telling them to “BUY VOGUE MAGAZINE.” And without thought, they obey.

And I might too, were there not so many skinny ass women in it (telling me to buy more crap to make me feel, become, or look more like a skinny ass woman).

Anyway, here’s to a week free from sea-sickness, over-eating, and, with any luck, skinny ass women in Vogue.

Cheers, all!

On a ridiculously more happy note, here’s a picture of Georgia doing something unsafe, saying “Ta-DAH!”

1. There should be a universal law that mothers can’t get sick. It should be like gravity – an unbreakable law. I got sick yesterday morning with a fever and aches and sore throat, and yes, though it’s just a little cold, my life doesn’t stop for anything – and it’s freaking miserable. Ya know? I know you feel me on this one.
2. Either mothers shouldn’t get sick or there should be a “Pause” button for life.
3. On Saturday, Ava taught Mac and me how to crochet. She taught Rocket how to finger knit. I thought that was pretty cool. So yesterday, when I wasn’t attempting to sleep, we were all sitting around knitting and crocheting and I felt like a really crunchy family.  Then I remembered she learned that at her hippie school and I felt less crunchy, since I had no idea how to do that until she showed me.
4. Have I mentioned that there is ALWAYS something under my feet? I mean like, IN THE WAY? It’s actually quite spectacular. Between the flailing 6-year-old, the needy-ass dog, the purring cat, and the SUPER CURIOUS TODDLER, I am almost always tripping over some live member of this household. I’ll be honest, I don’t love it.
5. I read a blog post this morning about a mother who was trying to deal with leaving her kids alone with their grandparents for ONE night – for the first time in seven years. When I read things like this I immediately wonder if there is something profoundly wrong with me, since I count down the days until my youngest is big enough to be abandoned and when that day comes, I BOLT FULL SPEED OUT OF THE HOUSE without worry, guilt or remorse. While gone, I enjoy my time thoroughly and may or may not devise plans to stay gone forever. Okay that last part was an exaggeration, but the rest is not.
6. I mean what the hell is gonna happen to them? They’re with their grandparents. Even if they do scream and wail all night or wake up vomiting or whatever…who the hell cares? It’s ONE NIGHT. They’ll survive. And if something really deadly was happening, I WOULD COME HOME.
7. Dude, seriously what’s wrong with me? Does anybody else think it’s not that big of a deal to leave kids with their grandparents every now and then?  Why don’t I worry about this shit? Should I be worrying? I just don’t get this parenting thing.
8. Mac and I went away for one night in December for our 10^th anniversary – Georgia was 16 months old – she stayed with Mac’s parents – we went to dinner and a concert in Santa Cruz…and… IT WAS GLORIOUS. While I hoped it went well for the sake of her grandmother, I was not in the least preoccupied or worried that some catastrophic disaster would befall us or her. Rather, I freaking enjoyed myself. I mean shit, are parents really expected to never leave their kids again? HUH? SEVEN YEARS? Whoa.
9. Okay I’m done with that. I’m learning to let things go, at least a LITTLE faster. Speaking of fast, Georgia has reached mind-blowing ambulatory speeds. She goes as fast as her little legs will move and it’s like she’s just tumbling forward with this crazy momentum. It’s way freaking cute. She falls a lot.
10. I don’t worry about that either.
11. Oh, and more thing. A few weeks ago we were getting out of our car at a friend’s house with the kids and baby when this woman and man walked by with their dogs. The woman stopped and said “Hi! Would you mind if our dogs met your kids – we’d like to see how they do around children.” And I look at her slightly baffled and say “Um, your dogs have never been around kids?” She says “No, and we’d like to see how they do.” And I’m all “You want to TRY YOUR DOGS OUT ON MY KIDS?” When I said it I looked at her and snarled and cocked my head to one side like “HUH?” and “Go away you fucking asshat.” And she did.

People are so weird. This woman asked if I’d use my kids as guinea pigs so she could learn about their socialization level. What did she expect me to say “Oh, yes please! I’d love for your dog to rip my toddler’s face off – since it’s in the name of learning, it’s obviously worth it!”

DUMMMMB.

Anyhoo, have a great week, all.

1. A few days ago I was changing the sheets on my bed (which I do every six months whether they need it or not!) and I noticed the blanket stuck to the flannel sheet. Like REALLY STUCK. Now don’t get all dirty on me…you aren’t, are you? Okay good.
2. So as I pull the sheet away from the blanket, I notice this thick pink substance between them. I thought it was bubble gum. I edged forward and gave a little sniff, attempting to decipher the strange adhesive matter in my bed. It didn’t smell like bubble gum – didn’t really smell like anything. I called Mac over and we examined it together. I was baffled. He said “Um, I think it’s silly putty.”
3. And it was. There was SILLY PUTTY in my bed. Obviously, that’s never going in the kids’ stockings again. Incidentally, isopropyl alcohol dissolves silly putty. I hate silly putty. Occasionally I hate my kids. I mean who the hell plays with silly putty in their parents’ bed?! So wrong.
4. Speaking of weird shit, Rocket spent most of the day yesterday hanging off the furniture upside down trying to make his head red. He’d just suspend there and yell out, no matter where anybody was in the house, “IS IT RED YET?” IS IT? IS IT? MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA Is MY HEAD RED?!?”
5. This week I made bread with my kids – whole wheat bread with real yeast and wheat flour and everything. In the actual oven. I felt like a super Waldorf mom.  The bread kind of tasted like ass, but whatever. It was worth it since I could tell myself what an excellent, engaged mother I am for the whole week.
6. Speaking of excellent parenting, the gym has free child care and a hot tub. I pretty much spend two hours there each day, “working out.”
7. Tomorrow I go back to school. Yippee. Restraining myself. Alright fine. I’ll admit it. Just like every semester, I’m a little excited. And just like every semester, in 6 weeks or so I’ll be under my bed in the fetal position.
8. Do you guys read The Daddy Dialogues? If not, you should. Brandon (the writer) is a startlingly funny, insightful, smart father of twins.  He has a spectacular wife, too, named Erin, who blogs HERE. She is equally fabulous and I am finally sleeping again, since she’s returned after a WAY TOO LONG blogging hiatus.
9.  So we were in IKEA today gazing lovingly at organizational systems [I will never use] when I got this somewhat unpleasant aroma wafting my way. Realized it was coming from Ava’s mouth. She didn’t brush her teeth that morning. So after throwing my all into a lively lecture regarding bacteria and hygiene and common decency and the suffering of those around her, all the way out the door and into the car, I decided all of this was wholly ineffective…and then I got an idea.
10. I pulled the car over on the side of the road and said “come on. You’re brushing your teeth now.” She looked at me dumbfounded. Shocked and appalled. I said “I’m not kidding, yo,” and got my tooth brush and toothpaste out of my gym bag, handed it to her along with a bottle of water and said “Go. Now. Brush.” In the rain. In the street. But she did it, scowling at me in between laughs. Come on, you have to admit, that actually was a bit of a winning mothering moment…right?

1. The title of this post has to do with the fact that my dog pooped in the back of our Expedition. Since he knew it was wrong, he attempted to cover it up…WITH THE ERGO BABY CARRIER, resulting in dog crap smeared all over the thing. I considered throwing it away. But I didn’t, because we’re too poor for that.
2. I also considered throwing the dog away. But I didn’t, because that may upset PETA.
3. As you can see, I’ve been making solid decisions lately.
4. There is so much poop in my life. It’s just not right.
5. I have been eating very limited sugar and pretty much only complex carbs (whole wheat, brown rice, quinoa, etc.) and exercising 4 days/week for the last two weeks, and I gotta say, I feel so much better (mentally and physically) but I also feel really freaking weird. Holy cravings. Guess I was more addicted to sugar and white flour than formally thought. I’ve lost 10 pounds. I have like 900 more to go.
6. Yesterday I saw a gentleman wearing sweatpants and white fuzzy dog slippers, in public. That was probably the high point of my week.
7. Well that, and the comment Mac made when he walked into our bedroom after I cleaned it. He looked around and said “What happened here?” with this sort of shocked, slightly frightened look on his face – evidently he’s not used to things in that condition. He was visibly startled.
8. Have I told you that Rocket still says “dust” instead of “just”? Don’t tell anybody, but I hope he does it forever. Well maybe not FOREVER. But definitely 10 more years.
9. The upcoming week is my last week before school starts again. Please help me contain my enthusiasm.
10. This morning, Georgia fell off a chair and cut the heck out of her lower lip. There was blood everywhere. It was horrible. She cried and whimpered then said “milk” and we nursed and I was so happy I could give her that comfort. She nuzzled in close and nursed with all her might, the way they do when they just need mama. I put a blanket over her and we rocked until she fell asleep and as she took those deep breaths after crying and nursed gently and closed her eyes in peace, I thought about how women throughout the ages have been doing that same thing – in the face of war or poverty or tragedy – in the face of all problems, we bring our babies close and we are both comforted for that moment. Just the two of us. Nothing else matters. All of it fades away through this simple act of nourishing and cradling a little child, who needs her mama. When all else fails, there is that.

And I was grateful.

Have a lovely week.