1. I must have been really bad last year, because Santa brought the kids guinea pigs.
2. Yes, yes, I realize “Santa” is me, but I’d rather not take responsibility for the presence of those two animals in my house. Let’s call it a temporary bout with Multiple Personality Disorder, wherein I became a person only interested in fulfilling the dreams of youngsters. Blinded by this mission, I make stupid decisions and wonder how it happened.
3. More on that in my next post. Was going to write the story here but realized it would take up the whole thing, which wouldn’t leave room for my flurry of irrelevant, disconnected thoughts. Which are obviously critical.
4. I feel kind of weird right now. Maybe it’s that I’ve been changing the way I eat. And I’ve been exercising. Weird. It’s not really a New Year’s Resolution. It’s more just a “I’m tired of feeling like shit all the time and I’m ready to feel differently but I couldn’t do anything before Christmas so I’m doing it now” type thing. I think I also don’t really know what exactly to do with myself after the insanity of last semester. I was just rushing and rushing for so long and now things are a little calmer and I’m feeling a little lost. Whatever, it happens. Then it passes.
5. On Friday I found a plastic cup in the freezer full of frozen water. In that frozen water were a variety of Legos, mostly the heads and arms of men, signaling to me that Rocket had been experimenting. I then went to the computer and wrote in the homeschool record “studied the physical properties of water.”
6. Yeah, so that’s pretty much how homeschool is going.
7. Another winning area of my life is home organization. My house is so fucking thrashed I’m considering moving out. Just leaving. But I can’t afford that, so instead I’ve started throwing and giving away things, pretty much at random. I feel a pang of sad, like “Oh, I like that.” Or “Oh, I may need that.” But then I remember that every item preserved is an item to be dealt with, and I chuck that shit. I also ask myself if I’m going to care when I’m 89 and dying that I didn’t keep that one candle holder that is just so cute.
8. Doubt it. I’ll be too busy demanding morphine and pissing off my relatives.
9. Speaking of pain, a good part of my life is now devoted to ensuring Georgia doesn’t kill herself. Last week she: 1) fell out the back door; 2.) tripped on a toy and hit the wall; and 3.) crashed into a bush for reasons still unknown. The result was three scrapes on her head.
10. I just kind of want her to stop moving. At least not so much, and so unpredictably. And so rapidly. Just kinda mellow a little. Take it down a notch.
11. And this, my friends, is her new perch. Yeah. I know. Not safe. But you try keeping her off of it. Shiiiit. And yes, she’s up there so often I just feed her there now.

I believe the word you’re looking for here is “winning.”

Have a great week.

1. A few days ago in a coffee shop, while waiting for my 12 shot latte, I glanced down at the table next to me and noticed a young woman sitting there with her gum stuck onto the rim of her coffee cup, presumably saving it for later. Her companion must have been delighted to look at that throughout their conversation.
2. There are not many absolutes in the world, but I’m pretty sure the above-mentioned behavior is just not right, no matter what, in any context for any reason. It’s a fucking piece of gum. Get a new one when you’re done with your coffee.
3. On Friday night Mac and I celebrated our 10^th anniversary with a mini-vacation to Santa Cruz, just the two of us.
4. We could have just sat there staring at each other all night, doing nothing, eating nothing, saying nothing, and it would have been more fun than I’ve had all year – simply because, yes, that’s right: NO OFFSPRING.
5. But as an added bonus, we didn’t just sit there. We went to dinner, where we had a real conversation and sat in our chairs the whole time (rather than circling the restaurant in pursuit of a riotous toddler), AND somehow managed to proceed through our meal with no arguments or squealing regarding who gets to sit where and whether or not they can have lemonade.
6. Kids are annoying.
7. Anyhoo, we saw one of our favorite bands (The Devil Makes Three) at The Catalyst, which is this super popular bar/concert hall in downtown Santa Cruz. To be honest, the show wasn’t the best we’d ever seen, HOWEVER, one of my dreams came true on the way home from that show.
8. You think I’m going to say something about Brad Pitt or the lottery or Bob Dylan, don’t you? No. Much cooler than that, people.
9. I went through a sobriety checkpoint, SOBER. I’m not going to tell you how excited I was when I saw it coming, how fun it was to tell the officer  “a bar” in response to his question “where are you coming from” and yet know I was sober as a, um, I don’t know, something sober…a Mormon? A monk? And I got to whip out my license all confident and shit and chat with the officer like a respectable member of society. There was a time not that long ago when a sobriety checkpoint would have seriously altered the course of my life. I’m not proud of this, just glad I’m not still there, doing stupid things that threaten my life and others’ lives and put me on the outskirts of society, in the place where the fuck-ups dwell.
10. Speaking of new places, happy freaking New Year. It’s 2012. I guess that should mean something to me, but it pretty much doesn’t. It’s another year. It will be good and it will suck but it won’t be that bad, guaranteed (see number 9), and I’ll keep trudgin’ along with this family I love who completes me and infuriates me, and maybe I’ll reach some goals, maybe I’ll be offered some kick-ass writing or teaching job somewhere, maybe I’ll lose some pounds – but mostly I’ll just be me, living, just like every other year, whatever that entails. I don’t get particularly excited about the New Year, nor particularly nostalgic about the past one. I am, however, fucking stoked the holidays are over.

That said, I’m glad I’m here. And you, I’m glad you’re here.

Tomorrow I’ll be writing my list of resolutions. I believe I’m going to call them “Slacker Resolutions 2012.”

There’s something to look forward to in addition to what is obviously going to be the best year of our lives. Ha.

1. Christmas shopping would be a lot more fun if there wasn’t so much shopping involved. Or, if I had like ten thousand dollars, you know, to waste. Or at all.
2. Every year I say we’re going to have a small Christmas, then every year I spend way too much money on way too many things we don’t need and it’s the picture of excess and unabashed materialism and I realize I’m a terrible person for buying so many things made of plastic and in China.
3. But I’ll be honest, it’s pretty much exactly how I want it.
4. And I’ll tell you why: my kids are still young enough that I can spend ten bucks on a gift and they think it’s freaking awesome, so I buy lots of ten dollar gifts, in anticipation of the time when they’ll be demanding $150 items and I’ll be able to afford like one gift for each of them. Or two. I LIKE showering them in crap. I LIKE IT.
5. I like the 2-hour gift-opening sessions. We do not have minimalist Christmases. I’m ashamed of myself. So ashamed I’m not going to do it again for at least a year.
6. In other news, I never want to eat again.
7. I am also currently watching my husband dance to the Wii game “Just Dance III.” There’s a lot of booty shaking occurring and I’m about to wet myself in hysterics. He’s doing this bunny hop thing and it’s freaking great.
8. I am so glad my husband is home. I’ll never complain about him again.
9. That may be untrue.
10. Anyway, I had an amazing Christmas. My brother and his wife and their 3 kids came and there were all of us at my mom’s house with noise and chaos and crying babies and love. My dad showed up on Christmas morning, my husband’s parents came as well. We were surrounded with the people that make this all bearable, and even, I’d say, enjoyable. And by “this” I mean life. The whole freaking shebang.
11. I get all sentimental this time of year.  I love my life, my people, and this (by the way, this was Christmas Eve, before Santa came):

Merry Christmas, everybody (who’s into this sort of thing). Um, a day late.

1. I did some calculations, and I figured out that between the dog, my 3 kids and the cat, I have not gone to the bathroom by myself in approximately 9 years. I realize I just mentioned this a few days ago, but I tend to get irritated by things in phases, so sorry for the redundancy.
2. I love the whole Christmas thing so much I embarrass myself. Candles, music, decorations, lights, egg nog. I’ve gotten totally mainstream in my old age.
3. Clothes shopping is really not that fun when you’re, um, of a less-than-ideal weight. I’m edging pretty close to some serious weight loss efforts. After I finish all the egg nog, of course.
4. So apparently I violated about nine thousand blog etiquette rules when I wrote an entire post in response to a commenter. Oops.
5. But seriously, I am new to this (well, not that new, but new enough that I can use it as an excuse)…and even if I do this for 5 years, I have a sneaking suspicion I still won’t know what’s going on, but for sure I don’t want people to feel like this is an “unsafe” place to have a dissenting opinion. I love dissenting opinions.
6. It’s helpful parenting advice that I loathe and I get pretty defensive when I feel it coming. Sometimes I ask my friends for help, as in “Hey. This is going on in my house. Have you encountered that problem? If so, how did you handle it?” And then they tell me what they’ve done that’s worked or hasn’t and I add that information to the morass of confusion in my head and we all move on with our lives. But that unsolicited, preachy, “If parents were in order of excellence I’d be top on the list” attitude really gets under my skin.  And it happens to be the reason I started writing this blog – for sure, open spewing of parenting advice is one of the main features of mainstream parenting blogs and chatboards that make me want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles.
7. But I have to get real. Not everybody is going to comment in a perfectly like-minded way that speaks directly to what I’m trying to say – I’m not going to “get” everybody the way I get most of my readers and consequently I can misread people. Seriously, I’ve been spoiled. I love the comments on my blog so much – they often say what I’m saying better than I do and I look forward to each and every one of them.  At any rate, I’m sorry if I over-reacted and alienated people. I’ll try to relax next time. I can behave, I promise.
8. Alright enough of that. The other day while I was listening to Christmas tunes on Pandora (oh yeah, I was not joking) this song by Toby Keith came on called “Jesus gets Jealous of Santa Claus” and I thought to myself: “DUDE. It’s Jesus. Do you really think he gets jealous of a fat, gift-wielding sleigh-riding IMAGINARY character in a polyester suit? Don’t you think he’s evolved past that shit at this point?” But whatever. I mean I get the sentiment, but why do people say such stupid things? I kept trying to wrap my head around that: Alright Mr. Keith, you are trying to get people to focus on Jesus and his spiritual teachings over the materialistic reality of Christmas, and your method for doing so is to cast him as a participant in the same superficiality that serves as the foundation for the materialism you are attempting to discredit. HUH? How is that effective?
9. Yes, I realize these are not normal things to contemplate. But I can’t help it.
10. Speaking of not contemplating things, I don’t think y’all have ever met my dog. FYI, he is not my baby. He is not even my fur-baby. He’s just my dog. But I love him dearly and he follows me around everywhere I go and he is, as we speak, snoozing at my feet. He’s an 8-year-old Tibetan Spaniel named Odie. He is our in-house Zen-master, all deep and chill and tuned-in. Seriously he’s an incredible watchdog. Very alert. Very protective and loyal. He likes eggs, me, and peeing in the litter box (not kidding). He dislikes vacuums, bacon, and me leaving. He’s my pal.

First of all, regarding the title: Yeah Right.

1. People. Next Monday (a week from tomorrow) is my last day of school this semester. If I make it, I will have survived.
2. I’m so tired. I’m so sick of writing. I have ten more pages to write by Wednesday. No biggie. Pssht. (Hold me.)
3. The plus side to not writing much on my blog lately is that I have so many posts rolling around in my head…when this semester is over, you all shall be pummeled with the barrage of brilliance (hahahahaha) scratching at the walls of my brain. Trying to get out. Right now.
4. Ewwwww. That was kind of creepy. Too much rat imagery.
5. For example, I have a post in my head about Bath & Body Works. Lots of sparkles involved, and words like “enchantment.” I know you’re excited.
6. When I get through this, I will truly feel that I’ve accomplished something. This is the hardest couple months I’ve had in many years, I think. Going to grad school, homeschooling Rocket, working part-time and having my husband gone 5 days/week…meaning it’s ALL ON ME…ALL three kids…holy shit. This is officially not fun. Not at all. Done with survival mode. As my friend told me recently, though, when this is over, I’ll never think my life is hard again.
7. Word.
8. We have reached the stage where it’s no longer fun to go to restaurants with The Toddler. More on that later.
9. We have reached the stage where I’m about to ban Rocket from all activities no matter what they are and no matter how much he BEGS for them, for the rest of his life because…and holy crap people this annoys me… just about the time he actually starts this activity he was simply dying to do, he suddenly and totally loses all interest. More on that later. As well.
10. And…we have reached the stage where I feel the urge to become dictator-like in my decision-making regarding Ava’s friends. I know I can’t do that. And I won’t. That’s wrong. But I really really want to. More on that too.
11. Also, I discovered why I’ll never be able to compete with daddy. When the baby wakes up at midnight and I’m still writing my paper, the daddy does this (see image below), whereas I rock her and get her back to sleep in her own crib because I’m an insomniac who can’t sleep with the baby in my bed any more. Whatever. Whatcha gonna do? Take a picture, obviously.
    

    Proof that they're always gonna like him better.