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Archives from 2002-2006

JB is out of town for a few days and at first I was kind of dreading the solo gig because children can sense weakness and as soon as you don’t have backup that’s when they move in for the kill, but so far it’s actually been really nice, maybe in part because I’ve been preemptively pelting them with M&Ms before they can complain about, like, having to wear shoes or whatever. That’s right, I’m using sugar as bait and I won’t apologize for it, Jamie Oliver.

I deployed the Shark Parenting Method—never stop moving—to great success yesterday, with a trip to the farm, a picnic, and two epic playground visits, practically twirling my mustache with glee as they ran themselves ragged. Oh ho ho, I thought, everyone’s going to sleep great tonight. (Naturally, Dylan woke up howling at least five times between midnight and 4 AM.)

The first playground was a hit, but the second had this slide that they both wanted to climb backwards, over and over. Riley managed to fall and smash his chin on it and had himself a massive meltdown, and five seconds after I’d wiped the last of his tears away he climbed back up its slippery surface and fell in the exact same manner, and then stood there shrieking “Not again! NOT AGAAAAIN!” while sobbing and carrying on and every parent was sort of eyeballing us and I was stumped as to what sort of reaction I should be having, because I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t exactly sympathy.

Anyway, he was fine, nothing a little chocolate couldn’t fix, and it was the only moment during the weekend when I thought of my husband’s peaceful hotel room and plotted my revenge. I was even unusually ambitious during yesterday’s naptime and decided to mow the lawn—a comical process that involved googling “how to turn on lawn mower”, ripping my arm half out of its socket while reefing on that motherfucking cord only to eventually figure out I’d flooded the engine, determining which of the SEVEN gas cans in the garage (WTF, JB) contained the right gas (luckily, one was helpfully labeled “FOR CHAINSAW ONLY”), and, eventually, some actual mowing, which was kind of rewarding and fun except for the fact that I kept running over fresh piles of dogshit and it took a full sweaty hour to mow the front section which is on a steep tiered hill, but later when we drove home my boy Riley looked out at the newly shorn lawn and said, “Mommy, I’m so proud of you. You did a great job” and I was like, dude, ten thousand M&Ms for you, and hey, should we go back and knock over that stupid piece-of-shit slide?

Video chatting with JB, which was a nice break from Dylan’s nonstop “WHERE DADDY GO?” query, which he especially loves to shout at me while we’re at the playground, over and over and over, to the great interest of other parents.

He’s been playing peekaboo with his sunglasses lately and thinks it’s HILARIOUS. Don’t tell him he doesn’t actually turn invisible when they’re on, okay?

A brief moment of downtime.

Farm!

Playing Poohsticks.

“WHERE DADDY G—A HORSE MOMMY A HORSE! HORSE!”

Yeah, that’s right. I mowed that shit. First one to tell me I missed a spot gets a FedEx’d bag of used toddler diapers.

Things I’ve bought lately that make me happy:

The song Velvet, by The Big Pink. Just lovely, and great for running.

Also, Sabali by Amadou & Mariam. Sounds a bit like that pretty Devotcha song, “How It Ends”, then the singing starts and you go, wow.

Dapper Snappers. These things are freaking genius for beanpole kids whose pants are always falling off their scrawny behinds. They snap onto the back of the pants, cinching the waist tighter without causing any weird bunching, and unlike belts there’s no extra stuff for a kid to deal with if he has to, say, use the bathroom. I got one for Riley and it’s like he has a whole new wardrobe now, where he can finally wear all the too-wide but just-right-in-length pants I’d sadly stored away for whenever the peanut butter calories actually start sticking to his body.

Morrocan Oil. I saw this mentioned over at Not Martha and decided to try out a small bottle, because I am a giant sucker for supposedly miraculous hair products. Usually I’m disappointed, but this oil is amazing. It makes my dry, damaged hair actually look like hair—swinging and soft—and smooths out a lot of frizz without adding any heaviness. It’s got a strong, exotic scent, which I really love.

iTunes U. This isn’t something I’ve paid money for because it’s free, and seriously, holy awesome. Thousands of lectures and videos from universities available from iTunes, and did I mention the free part? I studied for (and subsequently aced, thank you very much) a quiz on the digestive system in part by listening to lectures while running and during my commute. FREE!

The TiltShift iPhone app. This is an awfully nice little program for making your cameraphone images look a lot more special, without adding the super-processed look that gets old after about, oh, two images.

Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a collection of short stories this much. Each is rich, dark, wistful, beautiful, and spooky. Fairytales for grownups.

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