Sugar and Spice and Please, Don't Do This To Me Hormones!!!

No sooner then after writing about Jack's upcoming 2nd birthday did I start getting those pangs. I think many women will know what I'm talking about when I say "post-toddler pangs". Those lingering thoughts about having another baby once you realize that the first is no longer infantile.

Exhibit One- I had a dream a couple nights back about being pregnant again. I was a lot smaller this time around, and apparently through powers of osmosis I knew what I was having despite not having a sonograph. It was another boy, smaller and with black hair. It was Super Bowl Sunday and everyone in the waiting room was eating chips and dip and cheering while I waited for stronger contractions.

When I woke up I started my period. This leads me to believe this wanting, these dreams, are merely my hormones saying "you know, you COULD make a baby again."

Exhibit Two- During a recent trip to Target I walked by the children's clothing section and saw a pink tutu, upon which I looked at Greg and said "I want a little girl." This leads me to believe I'm going batshit crazy.

I DO NOT want another child. At least not right now. I tell myself and others that it's just not going to happen. That I'm soooooooooooooooooooo not ready for a second, especially when I wasn't even remotely ready for the first and that it's a miracle that I even have any maternal instincts.

But somewhere, whether it's in my ovaries or my heart...





Jack and Stella? Jack and Adele? Jack and Alice? Gahhhh...my uterus needs a swift kick in the face.

Jack: A Retrospective

In two short weeks he will be two. I have been shell shocked since the day he was born. Constant changes abound with children, life. Good, bad, mundane. All marked indelibly in our minds. Scarred on my torso, in my skin. Stains in the carpet, baby shampoo in our shower. Tiny versions of our world, living, breathing only braver. My mind keeps trying to play tricks on me with this son of mine. In trying to cradle him I am shocked back into reality with the weight of his will. I look back at pictures that seem so recent and turn to my left only to see a tiny face maturing. Folding up too small shirts to give away feels like a small death. Finding broken chrysalis'.
"It wasn't too long ago".

...It wasn't too long ago.







"Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new"
From "Child" by Sylvia Plath

Stuff and stuff

I've been trying to get some ducks in a row. Trying to finish a couple essays while also trying to write more and get back to some old poetry roots. Trying to get my health on a better track (ordering two, yes two, burrito bowls from Chipotle last night was probably not conducive to such changes..). And trying to post here more often. While I don't have too much to say (sometimes I have to wait until it gets unstuck from the inside of my head, which is the case) I do have some pretty cool stuff I found on the internet during the week. So here you go!


Apartment Therapy has been driving the inner nesting freak in me bonkers! A couple favorites-


I love coral for a paint color!
I want this rug for Jack's room so bad!


Some bathroom envy-



I'm a big believer in soap dishes. Soap build up on my sink has no place in my life.


Some wallpaper I've been sighing over-




AND...SEAHORSIES!




AND...some music for your pretty ears-






Until then...

Vodka after bedtime...

I've been a pretty social person these last couple months. I think it started with all the insane visiting during the holidays and shuffling back and forth from tables of food, arms of relatives, toasts, resolutions. I suppose it left me with an excess of momentum, which I never previously experienced as a lifelong hermit. Up until December, eventful nights for me were junk food, 30 Rock and maybe a whooppie sesh with the husband. That was until I inadvertently made the resolution to take back my social life. I figured I owed it to myself after oh, 3 or so years of social ineptitude/ambivalence.
Of course, being a mother I'm oft plagued with the 'ol maternal guilt. Am I hurting him by going out once a week or so? Does he miss me? Am I being selfish? I usually leave after tucking Jack in bed, after reading him "Goodnight Moon" for the umpteenth time, safe, sleeping under the watch of his father. I don't want him to know I'm not going to be here to squash any monsters that arise in dreams.
After mulling it over, guilt tripping myself, talking about it with Greg and friends and in-law's and the neighbors cat, I think I've let it go. I think that I've finally allowed myself to have more feelings outside of our safe, cozy, familial nook.
I go out because sometimes I like to feel the bass, the kick drum, the energy of a friend's band vibrating through the room. I go out to laugh at things people say, in real life, rather than the internet. I go out to lose my equilibrium for a few hours, find it again and nurse it back to health, tonight I'm my own baby. I go out for autonomy. I go out to see faces I haven't seen in days, months, years. But more than that, I go out to come back in. To take off foot crippling heels and put on pajama's and to feel a sense of relief instead of the contempt of monotony. To look at sleeping faces and feel like I'm home. To feel like maybe next weekend 30 Rock, junk food and whooppie sesh's are exactly what the doctor ordered.

I think every mom, woman, deserves that. Guilt-free, judgment free. Have your vodka, your cake. May your "walk of shame" be to the crib and the coffee maker.

The park:1, Jack:0

Only in motherhood can you take pictures of sleeping people and not be considered a "weirdo". This is my nightly ritual. A stroke of the hair, replacing of the blanket and, at times, a flash of the camera.

Goodnight Jack.

I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes...

Last Friday I got to-

A. Reunite with a dear friend who I haven't seen since he attended our wedding and danced with Greg's mother (one of the highlights of the evening for sure!).
B. Meet his date for the evening, a wonderful and nice woman who I hope to see again.
C. Release all my love for 70's music in a glittery, vodka-cranberry (and ONE margarita) haze that compensated for my lack of working out this month.
D. Finally answer the question of "what would it be like to be pulled onto a platform with a bathtub on it by a guy dressed up in an outfit that can only be described as a co-design between Liberace and the Pope and baptized with glitter as David Bowie tunes pump through the room?"

The answer my friends- UNBELIEVABLE! No. Seriously. I can't believe that freaking happened.

Here's some pictures of the last few moments of sanity before my compatriots and I headed to the 2010 Glitter Ball-


My fellow debauch lovers.



The theme to the Glitter Ball was basically a tribute to the 70's and all things outrageous and flamboyant. Tyler borrowed my favorite lounge shorts for the evening. They scream "hetero".


My date for the evening, Colleen. She was a very good sport for somebody who is more of an 80's enthusiast. She respected my need for T.Rex.




I felt so "clean" here.


Taking a walk through our newly reconstructed bridge that connects our 4th Avenue to Congress St. My shorts in action.


And finally, the last picture taken before, well before any one of us could even operate a camera properly. I'm pretty much balls deep here.


The next morning Greg asked me how it went. All I could muster up was a look into the horizon and the thought that I could finally understand why Studio 54 was such a hit.