ready or not, here we come

1. dog kennelled?......check

2. house clean?........ check

3. van packed?......... check

4. baby cutting a tooth?...check

5. 3 year old with a 101 temperature?.....check

6. tired mama?.............. double check

florida or bust!!!!

one of the problems with a 1940s house

One of the problems with a 1940s house is that there is only one bathroom. Well, we have two, technically, but the other is a tiny add on with a shower stall only, no tub. So, because he is an inherently complicated person, hyphen splits his three s's between the two. showering and... er, his business in one, and shaving in the little one. He also styles his hair in there and irrigates his nose and hocs his numerous lougees. So to Annabelle, the little one is his and it is "disguusssting." I rarely clean the ittle one, because it is hyphen and therefore should be immaculate, but apparently, bathroom tidiness is not on his list of anal retentive qualities, so it is kind of gross. Annabelle is very protective of "our" bathroom and frequently points out to him when he leaves his nose irrigator in it, "papa, you left your nose boogie thing in our bathroom. that's disguuusssting." Guess where she learned the word disgusting--as in "this house is disgusting"??? And she says it with such disgust that it is amusing. Anyway, this lead me to tonight's little spat.

ALN (wandering around the house, calling): "chaaarrming, chaaarrrming, where are you?

Me (in the kitchen trying to clean the floors while a tiny danger mouse baby climbs on me): who are you looking for babes?

ALN: I am looking for my prince. Chaarmming, chaaarrrming, where aaaaarrrreeee you???

H(calling from the bathroom): Baarrrbbie, baaarrbie, I am in here!!!!!

ALN (knocking on the door and indignantly scolding) Charming what are you doing in there??? You better not be making big stinky poops in our bathroom."

Hmm. Our night in the unFairhope Hampton Inn should be interesting.

mobile to the extent she is a danger to herself or others

Tallulah can crawl. At a mere 7 months.

She had been thinking about it for a month. Rocking on all fours and scooting backwards. She was even doing this weird little thing I called knuckle walking, where she was standing up but with her hands touching the ground and trying to move around. Then after weeks of anticipation she began to crawl. Of course, we missed it. We were at Niko Nikos with some old friends. But my mom (who stayed with us for a week as part of the 3 post partum weeks she owes me now that her ankle is somewhat healed) called to fill us in on the magical details.

The next day we tried to coax her into it again, but as is the way that is baby-- no dice. So we didn't see it for a few more days. When we did see it, I would notice that she herself looked amazed, kind of like "wow, check it out!"

And then came the monolith moment of realization: crawling can get me where I want to go. Cue the music from 2001 space odessey.

Shortly followed by the mom moment of realization as she crawled over to me and pulled up on my pants leg: "oh shit. Crawling can get her where she wants to go."

Cue some kind of music that conveys dread at the thought of having to keep all the little choking hazards off the floor.

fairhope alabama, the city of child haters

So we are leaving to go to florida on saturday for a week long stay. And we thought it might be fun to leave a day early, stop in fairhope alabama and see the sights and take the scenic drive on in to destin. I began to call the bed and breakfast establishments in the area and found out that while the economy is teetering on the brink in most of the country, it is apparently going like gangbusters in alabama. In fact, it is going so well, that while most of the bed and breakfast places have vacancies, they can and do refuse service to people with children. So while it is illegal to refuse lodging to people based on their religious or ethnic background, there is no compelling state interest that overrides cracker-ass B&B's their individual rights to protect their dusty civil war era relics from the grubby hands of children under 10.

Southern hospitality, my ass.

when will I be healed?

As some of you may know, before I was in charge of wiping butts and filling sippy cups, I had another employer. I was an assistant district attorney. It was a really great job, actually. I made some wonderful friends and we always had fun going to lunch and going out for drinks after work. And I would get to work late. That is at least H's perception of my job, because that is all I told him about. It never seemed right to tell him about interviewing a girl in my office first thing in the morning who had been anally raped by some sex offender her mom picked up on a bar, or about the autopsy photos of a murdered two year old I had to see before lunch, or about the douche bag who quote "really [doesn't] get all that enhancement stuff" who beat my boss in his re-election bid. It's just not good dinner conversation and so instead I just told him about something fun my friend Sheri said at lunch or something annoying that my boss M____ S_____ had done.

And I never ever told him about my most disturbing case ever, my first felony trial, which was more gruesome to me that any murder, and that is the guy who had 9000 pictures of child porn on his computer. There are things that the brain is never supposed to see. And if it does see them, it becomes damaged. Like you've been shot. My brain was shot by this loser defendant whose computer password was pussy. There was one picture in particular of a little girl about Annabelle's age. I'll spare you the details. But it was sickening.

When you have a gun shot wound or a broken bone or amputation, it heals. Slowly. But when it rains or is cold out, you still feel that twinge of pain, phantom limb syndrome, whatever. And so here I have been, in Stepford for 2 years now. And the first summer, I went to traffic court, and had a perfectly lovely conversation with a guy about his open felony warrants and he and I chatted for some time before I realized that people were staring at us, me the white girl in the suit and him the black dude with the open felony warrants. Fast forward to the fall, when my neighbor was murdered by his grandson. Decapitated. We found out about it on our walk back from the park. My girlfriend was so horrified she almost vomited. I just wondered aloud if the defendant was a juvenile or an adult. Then the following summer, when all the moms in my moms club adopted a homeless family and were trying to get the dad a job, until they found out that he had been to prison. They were all shocked and the mom who was the head do-gooder was so apologetic about it and I thought, "well of course he's an ex-con" and wondered why we weren't going to help him any more.

Annabelle doesn't know about my wound. As far as she knows, mama's job has always been to take care of her and papa and talullah and keep the house clean. Most days, I am fine with that

Fast forward to this spring when I read the Steig Larsson girl with the dragon tattoo books. I had lunch with a girlfriend and we were discussing them. She told me that she had a very hard time reading them because she found the subject matter so disturbing. I had to think for a moment. What was disturbing in those books. Finally I remembered it, "you mean the anal rape?" She said "well that, and the incest. The father and the brother." I nodded, and pretended to think it was disturbing too.

And now I wonder, when will I be healed?

it's going to be that kind of summer

I had just finished putting Tallulah to bed. Annabelle and Hyphen had been outside mowing the backyard. (she has her own little mower that she follows him with)I was in the kitchen washing some bottles and H came in for a beer break. "Annabelle just peed under a tree, and now she is lying in the grass." he said. I shrugged. She does that a lot. Pee under a tree and lie in the grass. I went outside and Annabelle invited me to come lie in the grass. H left out the part about how she was naked. We layed down in the grass and she said as I started to say something, "just lie down mama. Look at the branches. Look at the birds."

Think I just might.

the problem with those cute matching outfits from gymboree

The problem with those cute matching outfits from gymboree is that they match. Exactly. And so theoretically, you could grab a green and white frog swimsuit and actually glance at it to make sure it looked big enough for a rather petite three year old, because you know there is a small one floating around in your house. And then theoretically you could venture to the Y in 100 degree heat with kids in tow. There could be a tantrum on the way. The child watch could be closed until four, and it could be 3:15. So you could drive home. And then you could go back at 4 because you are going to have fun, dammit. And then you could drop off a baby who hasn't taken a nap all day in the competent arms of a 19 year old child watch worker named Josh. You could say something like, "josh you look about 12. what experience do you have taking care of babies, especially tired ones who refuse to go to sleep." And josh could say, "well my little brother is one and all my cousins are two and under. " and you could say "okay, good enough for me! you get stuck with this fussy baby. see ya!" Then you could go to the bathroom to dress out your 3 year old and then notice that her little suit is tight. Really tight. Which is a testament to the petiteness of the half asian frame and to how big 6-12 month swimsuits from gymboree run. And then you have a decision to make. Do you drag everyone home, or tell your three year old who is whining "it's too tight, it's too tight," "Wow you are getting big, look how fast you are growing, the water will stretch that out when we get in, let's go have some fun!"

should i tell her about it? what should i do?
well....
what would you do if gymboree screwed you?