ode to jimmy, on the eve of his birthday

Tomorrow is Jimmy's fourth birthday. We cannot believe we've only had him for just under four years. I can so clearly remember the Christmas morn he showed up, and how the following nights were just about equal to having a newborn: the crying, the needing to be held, the sleeping on the couch with a baby lying on my chest, the explosive poop everytime we left him in the crate, the time I fell down the stairs after I slipped on snow in the middle of the night when I had to take him out -and that was just the first 48 hours. Oh, the adventures we've had since then.

To celebrate the birthday boy, Greg and I came up with some haikus about Jimmy. Now, I'm really tired and kinda sick-feeling, so I think these could be better, but they make me laugh, and that's really what counts.

I see you are asleep
But I thought I heard a noise
So now I must bark

Ew, what is that smell
It is Jimmy's yeasty ears
Time to clean with foam

What is he doing?
Why, dragging his butt downhill!
Scrape, scrape, itchy butt.

You are four years old
It feels like we have had you
For a hundred years

A designer dog
You're a pug and a beagle
What freak thought of that?

Remember the time
Your inside parts were outside
Man, that was gross

Happy Birthday, James
You make us laugh constantly
You're one of a kind

ETA: I have no idea why this font is so tiny. I can't seem to change it.

alright, stop. collaborate and listen.

(you are welcome for that Vanilla Ice song that is now in your head.)

Over the past six months, I've had a series of health issues that are telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I have to slow down. That I have to manage my stress better. That, to put it bluntly, I often need to chill the fuck out.

I have never really been a chill person. But at this stage in my life, I find that I am multi-tasking from morning until night. At 6 a.m. I may be giving Jane breakfast while feeding the dogs while shooting off a couple of work emails. At 6 p.m. I may be cleaning up, giving Jane dinner, doing laundry and making lists. At 9 p.m. I have usually collapsed on the couch, with the TV on, a magazine nearby, and the laptop where God intended it to be (on my lap).

This is utter insanity. I need to focus on simplifying. I've said this before, and I've known it's important to not have ten things pulling at you at any given moment, but now I'm hurting physically and I need to make my life better. I have all the ingredients for a great life, but when you're running around apeshit crazy all the time, it's hard to pull back and "feel" that great life, if I'm making any sense here.

This is going to be really hard for me, because I've been a multi-tasking lunatic forever. But I've never landed in doctors' offices because of it. So wish me luck!

and now, since I have nothing to say, pics from our last boat trip this season.

project small joys: candy corn

Confessions of a Candy Corn-aholic

Fact: I am completely in love with candy corn.

Fact: It is probably my favorite candy in the whole world, its only real competition being those conversation hearts at Valentine's Day.

Fact: I ate a huge, huge bag of those delicious nuggets this weekend. Well, mostly Sunday. Well, mostly Sunday during Jane's nap. It wasn't a tremendously long nap, either.

Fact: I felt absolutely disgusting when I was done. I seriously couldn't move or I thought I would puke.

Fact: Even if I had puked, I will never be immune to the deliciousness of candy corn.

And, in conclusion: If you want me to love you, bring me candy corn.

pensive

I was driving to my mother's house this afternoon, as I do every Sunday afternoon, and I, all of the sudden, started really missing my dad. I have said this before - I can slide right through holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc with no problem (sometimes) but then out of the blue, I will get really melancholy. Today was one of those days. This Friday will be my five year wedding anniversary, and I just got to thinking about how my dad wasn't there, and how much fun I think he would have had, and how pretty he would have thought I was (I know that may sound strange, but that's just what I was thinking). I was thinking about how, when my father walked my two sisters down the aisle, he said something to both of them right before they began walking that made them cry. And I have always wondered what he would have said to me.

When I was planning my wedding I put my friend Heather in charge of making sure no one said anything depressing to me right before the ceremony. Like, "oh, I wish Dad were here" or something like that. It's not that it wasn't in my head; of course it was. I just didn't want it to be in the forefront of my mind. My mother walked me down the aisle, and I told her she wasn't allowed to say anything sad. So instead, she said something perfect. (I'm not going to tell you what it was. I get to have my secrets too.)

My dad was a partier. And I know he would have partied that day away, super proud of me. And I am so sad that I missed that experience.

not really feelin' it

I'm in a pretty bad mood today for multiple reasons, but luckily, Linda at All & Sundry has written eloquently about one of the reasons I'm not very happy. Posts like this one makes me both feel better and know that there are just some things in parenting that are universal.

weekend. update.

Well, my weekend started unexpectedly early when I had to take the day off and bring Jane to the doctor - diagnosis: double ear infection. I really wasn't surprised, because she's been hacking away all week, but still, ugh. So I kept her home and hung out with her today. Not surprisingly, this afternoon I started to feel like crap - not sure what exactly is going on, I just feel like I've been run over by a truck. Maybe it's because I've been home with a two-year-old all day? I really don't know how stay-at-home moms do it, I really don't! Anyway, without further ado, my pathetic weekend:

Tonight: Catching up on some DVR - watching last week's "Survivor" right now and might watch "Ugly Betty" season premiere tonight if I can stay awake. I kinda think I won't be able to.

Saturday: Well, it's going to rain/snow (effing stupid weather) so, as long as I'm not bed-ridden with some nasty thing, we will keep Jane on the go, possibly going down to see my in-laws at the beach.

Sunday: Continued bad weather, continued keeping Jane on the go - perhaps a pet store visit, maybe a trip to the boat so Greg can do some work, no doubt some intense Dora-watching. Also weekly visit to my mom's.

All weekend: Insane jealousy about Lisa's trip to a beautiful land far away.

This very well may be the lamest of all lame weekends. I literally do not have one official plan. But considering how I feel right now, that is probably a good thing. Please share your much more exciting plans in comments.

not for all the money in the world would I go back to this time in my life

I came across this post on Jezebel.com yesterday and it's been haunting me ever since. Apparently the author of the book Queen Bees & Wannabes - the book that inspired the movie Mean Girls - has published an updated version that goes into all of the new, exciting kinds of bullying going on in this day and age with teenage girls. As it turns out, if you're the one who has unfortunately been deemed a "wannabe," it seems you can't escape the bullying. Going home isn't a respite anymore; horrible groups can be formed about you on Facebook, you can be bullied by text and IM, and who the hell knows what else. Reading this post and all of the comments left me with my heart pounding, mouth hanging open and tears in my eyes.

I was truly lucky in middle school and high school. There was every reason I should have been picked on - I was a classic nerd, with the giant 80's glasses and the funked-up teeth that later had braces and retainers, the horribly-permed hair, the sad attempt at looking like my idols Madonna and Cyndi Lauper - I was a hot mess (this was mostly in middle school - I just turned into a grungy metal chick in high school). For some reason, I was lucky enough not to be bullied. I think part of it was that for seventh and eighth grades, I went to a very small private Catholic school. I truly believe if I continued on to public middle school at that point, I would have gotten my ass kicked handily. By the time I went back to public school for ninth grade and beyond, I was looking a little less geeky and a little more...scary, so I assimilated pretty nicely. And my high school (in my town, at the time, high school was only tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades) was sooo huge that you really had to stand out to get picked on.

Now, people could have been ripping me to shreds behind my back, and they probably were. But I feel so fortunate that I'm not left with the scars of a really horrific middle/high school experience. I mean, it wasn't perfect - not by any stretch - but I can look back at those years semi-fondly.

But now I have a daughter. A sweet, funny, adorable, wonderful, perfect daughter. I know she's not all of those things all of the time, but I would do ANYTHING for her, throw myself in front of a bus for her, protect her from things that will harm her. Until I can't anymore. And it's then - when she comes home crying because someone said something mean about her in school (and I fully understand that this happens in elementary school too, and hell, probably preschool), that I really don't know what I'm going to do. Because I don't think it's nice, or really even legal, to punch other kids.

But I think I'm gonna want to. Scratch that - I know I'm gonna want to.

Another blog I read, Mike Adamick's Cry It Out, hit on this same subject, but with far younger children. He does it with humor, but I was crying by the end. Check it out.

Ah, parenting. Such fun!

a note

OK, I started my picture post about Chicago yesterday, but then Greg got all flippin' mad about our Friendly's experience, so I just saved it as a draft so Greg could vent to the interwebs about his dissatisfaction. So when I just published my Chicago pictorial now, it posted under Greg's entry from yesterday, I assume because I wrote it yesterday. But I am counting it as TODAY'S post.

So there.

and now, a guest post from Greg

Ahem..... Dear Blog,

OK so it should be clear to those of you who know me I have no patience. It might be a virtue, but I haven't been able to wait long enough to find out, so suffice to say the monstrous and time consuming process of writing down my thoughts (or typing them) is not going to happen. Unless I get really, really pissed.

I am damn mad at Friendly's and considered conducting my first tweet, which is too time consuming, so Amanda said I could rant here.

I have become enchanted lately with sliders. I love those little burgers. Sliders are a great excuse to have 6 burgers at Burger King or Wood N Tap or wherever. They're cheap and delicious. I like the Wendy's double stacker too. All of these items are healthier than a strawberry milkshake, so it's ok to eat them.

Friendly's has joined the party offering their own interpretation of the cheeseburger slider. Before I go on, you should know my first job was at Friendly's. I am well aware of the time vortex involved when ordering and am fully cognizant of the FDA's "just above dog food" classification, "suitable for human consumption." I am no fool, I knew these things were going to disappoint, it was just a question of how bad they could be.

Do you have two quarters? Stack them on each other. The height of the "meat" in the burger was less than that. The meat was actually thinner than the "cheese." Remember the old Wendy's commercial with that cranky old lady saying "Where's the beef?" The meat in that commercial was way, way thicker than the slice o' burger in my sliders.

C'mon Friendly's, we know the economy's in the crapper and you can't raise your prices. We know the cost cutting fools at corporate have got to try to keep your company from keeling over like Bennegans and Roy Rogers (CT locations RIP). Do you remember the riots that broke out when you guys doubled your profit margins on cherries? Didn't you learn that splitting a cherry in half and putting the sliced part down in the whip cream was going to piss people off?   

Were you thinking, "Well if they don't actually try to pull the cherry off the top, they won't notice." We noticed. No stem, half a lame cherry. Congratulations you screwed me out of a third of a cent. Ninety people later you're 30 cents richer. F-U Friendly's.

Avoid Friendly's, and if you can't, at least avoid the sliders.

  

oh yeah, remember I went to Chicago?

Me and a street performer who pulled me into the act

American Gothic and me

tick tock, show's about to start

Ready for U2!

Navy Pier, from a distance

Greg talking to Bob Newhart

Me hanging with Bob

A festive anti-heathcare reform rally at Millennium Park (we were there because I wanted to see where Obama gave his acceptance speech)

The Cloud Dome at Millennium Park

let me entertain you

OK, I am starting to draw a blank on what to write about. So help me! Is there anything really exciting you'd like me to blog about? Anything of interest? I mean, not that there could be anything more interesting than that bug I posted a pic of yesterday...but still....I need ideas to carry me through the rest of this month!

bugged.

Check this ginormous bug that was on the boat today! I swear, this thing was staring at me. Plotting, even.

weekend update. again.

Because I am such an interesting blogger, I'm going to tell you how my weekend has switched up. My mother has blown me off for the craft fair (not really - she's busy - but how can I feel sorry for myself unless I say she blew me off? it's much more dramatic that way). Anyway, instead we are headed to the boat for quite possibly the last time this year tomorrow. I took this picture last weekend, when I THOUGHT it was our last time down at the beach. For some reason, I love it.

weekend. update.

Well here we go again! I am ever so thankful it is Friday.This was a hectic week. I actually went out last night with some friends, and today was a little rough-going for me. Do you remember, in college, when Thursday night was so HUGE? I can't handle it at 36, that's for sure! Especially when that alarm goes off four hours after I go to bed. Anyway, weekend plans are as such:

Friday night: I am sitting here trying to keep my eyes open, watching "The Biggest Loser." Greg is about to go out and perform at an open mic with his band. It's weird not to go watch them play - before Jane, I always went.

Saturday: I am once again going off in search for fritters at that local festival I never made it to last weekend (although I did stop by there during the week, I must admit. Or did I already admit that on here already? Who can keep track). Tomorrow afternoon we are off to a chili cook-off at a friend's house. This is an annual event that has gotten pretty huge.

Sunday: Going to arts and crafts fair with my mom. Oh Lordy, I know how to live it up! Please tell me what your no-doubt much more exciting plans are!

coolness.

Well you all know how much I love the musical In the Heights, and I'm super-psyched it's hitting the road - especially because part of the road it's hitting is where I work. This is a freakin' COOL video they made to promote the tour. Have I said I can't wait? Well, then I'll say it again. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

project small joys: fall

Top 10 Reasons I Love Fall (in no particular order):

1) The annual festival in my hometown that features the best apple fritters EVAH. People wait in line for extremely long amounts of time for these little nuggets of supreme joy. They must be eaten warm for maximum pleasure. In fact, I love all festival food, and luckily, there are lots of fall festivals in my area.

2) The fact that I live in New England. This is the only season where my area of the country rules.

3) The crunchy, colorful leaves. Is there anything more satisfying than marching over a crispy pile of leaves?

4) Not having to apply sunscreen to Jane every day. For those who have to do this with a toddler, you know what a reprieve the colder months are.

5) The impending holidays. Commercialism or not, I love the October-December holiday season.

6) Halloween. Specifically, the candy. We have a whole trick-or-treating extravaganza at my workplace every year where full-grown professional-ish adults dress in costumes and run from office to office to fill up big bags of candy. I work in a very candy-centric office, which is obviously awesome. So we totally bring it for Halloween.

7) Candy corn. (This does deserve its own entry.) My favorite favorite favorite candy. If anyone wants to purchase me a bag, I will be your best friend for the day.

8) That first-day-of-school feeling that September brings, even if you're not in school. I always feel the urge to stock up on notebooks and a new Trapper Keeper (remember those?). It feels like a new year, even more so than the actual New Year does.

9) Hello - my BIRTHDAY. I will never be ashamed at how much I love my birthday, and how much I love everyone's birthday. Particularly if it means I get some cake.

10) Getting to break out the jeans and sweaters (the fall sweaters, not the big bulky winter sweaters) and scarves and having an excuse to go replenish my wardrobe a little bit. Even I, who adore wearing flip-flops and shorts so very much, gets sick of wearing them by the end of September. I'm clearly no fashionista, but I like one or two new things every now and then. Having to buy Jane an entire new wardrobe every season is a little bit daunting and expensive, but as it turns out, these kids - they grow. A lot, in fact!

And my very LEAST favorite thing about fall:

The fact that it means winter is coming.

What's YOUR favorite thing about fall?

ps this is awesome

busy bee

I am in the midst of an INCREDIBLY LONG work day, so this is going to have to suffice as my blog posting for today, because who knows when I will get home.

And how are you doing?

a thought

Yesterday, Jane was feeling under the weather a tiny bit, so we spent a couple of hours on the couch dozing to “Dora the Explorer.” (Actually, I was dozing, she was enthralled.) (Also, the songs in that show WILL NOT LEAVE MY BRAIN. AT ALL. I cannot tell you how many times today I found myself with that catchy hit “I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map” in my head. It is taking up way too much important real estate in my head. Where I could be remembering all of the lyrics to the Madonna songs on her new greatest hits CD that I just got, Celebration. LOVE IT.)

Anyway, she was being very cute and leaning on me while we watching, which she doesn’t typically do when she feels great, because that girl is on the GO like nobody’s business. So to have her snuggled up with me was pretty awesome. And it got me to thinking about when I would do the same with my mother, how I would sit close while she read books to me and my brother. And I can remember it all so vividly.

And then I realized that I – ME –am that person to Jane. And I know you’re probably thinking – DUH, Amanda, you are in fact her mother, and we’ve had to listen to you rambling about that for over two years now, plus nine months of pregnancy – but it still comes as a shock to me that I’m someone’s MOTHER. That when she grows up and talks about her mom, she will be talking about ME. For better or for worse.

And no, I’m not drunk right now. It just makes me feel very grown-up, I guess. (And if you are polite, this is not where you remind me that I’m 36, and I passed the grown-up threshold long ago.)