I Are Here

Hello guests and readers of my blah, blah, blah. Forgive me for my tardiness. I sometimes type away at a blog entry but refuse to post it until I have pics to back it up which is a bad idea because I sometimes can’t get to downloading those needed pics.

I know Thanksgiving is a forgone thought in everyone’s minds now and you’re probably caught in the headlights of the Christmas highway already but to recap…we had a stupendous turkey day with my brother-in-law and his fam. Not only did this mean we had to do zero traveling over the holiday but it also meant that the food was guaranteed to be divine. My BIL (brother-in-law) could be a chef, should be, in fact and the Hubs and I are constantly harassing him on many occasions with questions in the midst of culinary chaos at home. For the grand feast we contributed the Italian sausage dressing and green beans in brown butter with oregano and pine nuts and the BIL prepared the heritage turkey with Marsala gravy, mashed potatoes with walnut oil, Hudson's on the Bend corn pudding, and of course, cranberry sauce. There were also homemade biscuits and yeast rolls. This is my plate before complete consumption. Burp.














As of late, we’re still wrestling the tot at bedtime. Actually it’s way after bedtime when we finally get him to sleep. After all the months and months and months of easily putting him to bed, saying goodnight and, at worse, shedding a few remorseful tears before conking out we’ve gone to the darkest side of hell. The silver lining is that I have had to relinquish bedtime duties to the Hubs who now puts W to bed and hangs with him ‘til he drifts off. Totally works for me. I was sound asleep by 9:30 p.m. last night. This was after I took myself on a date to Asti, sat at the bar and read (see updated “What I’m Reading List” for details). I sank into a bowl of duck rigatoni, beet and endive salad and two juicy glasses of wine. Perfect evening.

Speaking of the Hubs, seems as though W is finally taking a shine to him. Yeah, so it’s only taken about 26 months and the Hubs IS his dad, I promise. He’s finally realizing that he's Disneyland on legs. “I wanna fie, I wanna fie!” he says as the Hubs picks him up and swings him through the air. “C’mon, daddie, c’mon daddie, c’mon daddie” he repeats as he heads to his room. “Daddie play guitar!” he yells while sitting behind his little drum kit just about every morning. And for your viewing pleasure here’s daddy and W jamming away now…

The 'Ho Is Back

Let the holiday ho’-ness begin, y’all! It is no secret that I’m a slut for the red and green and Christmas songs and Rudolph and gingerbread men and fat bearded men with fluffy white cuffs that call me by name…”Ho, ho, hooooo,” and mistletoe and spiked eggnog and twinkling colored lights. But on the flipside, I loathe the gift shopping for family and friends, loathe it like a pap smear so yesterday, on my lunch break, I hoofed it to Toys R Us to do Santa’s heavy lifting. The thought of venturing in there after Thanksgiving in hopes of finding even a couple of items to stuff under the tree makes me want to eat arsenic. So I blasted through the relatively quiet store like a contestant on Supermarket Sweep and I’m happy to report that I can now cross W off of my holiday gift list. The rest of my shopping will be done online because why in the hell would I go out in my car, deal with the traffic and cranky shoppers/cashiers/salespeople, and still not find what I’m looking for when I can get it with a click of the mouse and free shipping to boot? I’m also focusing on an eco-friendlier version of gifting this year ‘cause now that I got a kid, y’all need to be saving up some resources.

So it’s day 5 or so of Operation Omit Paci and other than a few requests for the missing paraphernalia the transition has been smooth. The only true fallout from the lifestyle change is W’s need to stay up late, like until 11 p.m. last night. He just hangs out in bed with me singing songs, reading books, playing with cars and channel surfing but it’s seriously cramping my style. I had a German subtitled flick to finish last night and it’s damn hard to read on a portable DVD player with a toddler driving a pickup with a horse trailer attached across your chest. Putting him in his bed is a terrible idea as he yells and screams my name over and over and over until I go down and tell him MOMMY IS NOT MY NAME ANYMORE! And then he says, “Mama?”

Mommy The Butcher

W has always had a dreamy head of hair and as it grew, I would merely snip a little here and a little there and the overall loveliness would still be intact. In the beginning, trimming it was an adventure in my latent desires to do rockstar makeovers. Lately, he's been too defiant and combative about the much needed trim and as a result he comes out looking like the I gnawed the hairs off. I really managed to butcher his bangs a week ago so some serious intervention was in order. I took him to Bird's Barbershop as I was certain the bright lights, rock music and video games would be familiar and comforting to him. Ummm...no.

Yes, I did his bangs. So, so sorry son.















The stylist had to consciously avoid snipping that HUGE bottom lip.















"Hmmm...okay. This isn't so bad."




















I guess he preferred the Bird's sticker instead of his new 'do.

Arugula

Lordy. Where do I start? Let’s see…Britney Spears ran over another photographer’s foot? Amy Winehouse gets booed off stage? W kicks his paci addiction? Umm, yeah, let’s start with W. Way more compelling than Winehouse and Spears.

So W and I talked about a paci intervention for several days. I told him that intervention meant that the pacis go in the trash and he gets a big surprise in return and on a designated evening I presented him a toddler racetrack with all sorts of bells and whistles. His paci fell to the floor as his jaw dropped open. He gathered up the pacis I had collected and stuffed them in a paper bag. We both walked over to his trashcan and tossed them in. Simple. As. That. Sure, he mentions his long lost pacis on occasion and has been staying up in bed with me 'til about 10:30 p.m. but he also says, “Pacis in trash, pacis bye-bye.” I think the fact that we talked about paci rehab prior to paci disposal helped so it wasn’t a surprise to him that it was going to happen. Now it’s just a boy and his blankie and I couldn’t be happier.

Last weekend, our neighbors got their door kicked in and much stuff stolen. Curiously enough, we had just had a conversation with some other neighbors (they live next door to the ones that got robbed) about the abundance of break-ins in our cozy little ‘hood just the day before. After some research on our end, we found that our general area has been hit 80 times in the last month by thieves. Yeah, for real. They kick in your door, take your stuff and haul ass out. 80 times this has happened. Are we paranoid? You bet. We have since put in another deadbolt on our each of our exterior doors and installed a security system just this morning. Next up, a dog. One thing about situations like this is you really get to know who your neighbors are. We’re forming a small army. I would hate to mess with us now.

Y’all, next week is Thanksgiving. Now how did that happen?

And you know what’s better than chocolate? Boggy Creek arugula. I’m not kidding. Either on Saturday morning or Wednesday morning, get your buns in your car (or on your bike) and head over to the east side to get you some. If you haven’t been to this small farm, you have to indulge yourself. Take the kiddies, too, if you got’em. The produce is still warm from the sun and there are some free samples of different stuff to nibble. Lovely chicken coop and a tempting sand pile, too. It’s all I can do to keep from eating a whole pile of the veggies before I can get them in the fridge. Please go. It’s local. It’s fresh. It’s supportive.

How’s work, you ask? Crazy, nutso, insane. Remember that conference that we work on once a year while doing other events throughout the year? Well, last year we knocked out 80+ parties in 9 days and we’re already working on double the number of parties we were working on this time last year (cue Psycho shower scene music here). My Christmas list includes much wine and Valium.

BFF

We had the pleasure of hanging with Caca a little last night while her mama did an interview for a story. W was thrilled to have her in his orbit. I'm always in awe of how close they seem and the level of respect they share despite their age. I could learn a little from those two sweet spirits.

Here's a brief pictoral of last night. They are like Fred and Ethel and that also means that sometimes Caca is Fred and W is Ethel...

Here Caca looks like she'd been working at the ranch all day and now she's kicking back with her evening beverage and best bud but wait... she's expecting a call about some unfinished business! Willem looks like he's been gravedigging in that shirt.















Here she is laughing at W in a way that seems to be giving him a complex.














A dramatic moment on Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.















Umm...totally cute.

Chhhhh-Changes

I was completely dreading the time change but that was until I realized which direction we were changing. I had it all reversed. “Hello, blondie?” And as much as I really don’t enjoy waking up with the ass crack of dawn, this little arrangement is working quite nicely. I actually have time to move at a much needed slower pace and even get a few extra things done like put away the clothes I decide not to wear to work instead of leaving the bedroom looking like a spastic stripper blew through. I get to drink an entire cup of coffee instead of gulping the scalding caffeine I so desperately need to get me out the door. I also get to serve W breakfast twice. He’s either a growing boy or got a tapeworm at the beach.

While at the beach over the weekend with a couple of the Hubs’ family (which was a glorious break from everything I do on a daily basis…oh, how the routine punishes the spirit), it was brought to my attention that W sticks out his tongue…a lot. In fact, it was mentioned that he uses it like a tail and I have to agree. See…





























"Please bring me mah snacks on the veranda, dahling."

Deep In The Belly

I sliced into this pumpkin and it shed a beam of light on my son like Skywalker's lightsaber.




















Naw. Just kidding.

See how he totally stays on task?




















Good job, W!