almost here...!

i am heading into a four-day weekend as of, oh, maybe an hour from now. it's wet and stormy outside and i've got my (un)trusty flip-flops on and a crappy five-dollar umbrella to get me home, but i don't care. i'm so happy to have four whole days to spend with my hubster and my Bubster. plus quality time with some family members, a round of mini-golf with some great friends and lots of lounging around.

and—see the pictures? the Seaside Heights boardwalk is open! it's weird to see that pier not crammed with its questionably safe thrill rides, but hey—it's a long way from what it was in late October. also rebuilt and ready for summer: my beloved Lavallette boardwalk! gotta make a trip down there before Boo arrives. 

anyway, all good things. happy summer kick-off weekend, people! (i'm sure i will have plenty to gab about next week.)

mbm

words of wisdom from AQ

i've been reading Lots of Cake, Plenty of Candles by Anna Quindlen (the one she signed!) and, per the usual with her writing, jotting down the most memorable lines. i'm only about halfway through, but i thought i'd share some of my favorites so far. (i highly recommend her book, by the way—even though the general gist is what she learned in her fifties, much of her insights are universal, as you'll see.)

on making plans

"Life is haphazard. We plan, and then we deal when the plans go awry. Control is an illusion; best intentions are the best we can do. I remember imagining that I could chart a course that would take me from one place to another. I thought I had a handle on my future. But the future, it turns out, is not a tote bag."

on the notion of beauty

"Every face is both a mystery and an identity. We realize this when we try to capture a face in a photograph. It is like taking a picture of the sunset. What you wind up with is a trite arrangement of pink sky and pillowy clouds when what you felt was something else, something greater."

on married life

"The term 'soul mate'—which, I'm proud to say, I have never once used until now—suggests two people who have everything in common. But our gender, with all the differences it implies, divides us. That has its advantages: most of the men I know scarcely remember petty slights, while I nurse mine like kittens. My husband seems naturally inclined to cede certain areas of our family life to me. I can decorate any way I want as long as the big chair faces the flat-screen TV, with a table next to it for beer and cashews. And that's just fine. Frankly, I don't want a husband who knows what toile is. The one piece of furniture in whose purchase my husband actually participated was our first couch. It was so long ago that the couch cost a thousand dollars, so whenever I buy anything new and he asks how much it cost—an armoire, an Oriental rug, a six-burner gas stove that came in at around the same price as my first car—I say a thousand dollars. A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn't believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation. Neither would any kitchen renovator, including the one I actually used."

on body image

"Cellulite is not a character defect."

mbm

iHabits

yesterday i got my new iPhone, after enduring the shame of being one of 'those people' with a shattered screen for four days. (as Michael said, it was my most expensive act of clumsiness ever.)

though i was relieved to get rid of the broken phone, i admit to feeling a little ambivalent about my new one. ironically, i had been thinking earlier last week that we're all too dependent on the damn things. some people are A-OK with that. i'm not.

last Monday morning i was on route 202 in Flemington, on my way back to NJ from my parents', and happened to notice a woman in the car next to me at a red light. she sat through the left turn arrow she had ostensibly been waiting for, all because she was looking at her phone. it went from red, to green, to yellow and back to red. she was utterly unaware. (clearly there were no cars behind her, otherwise she would have received a fairly rude wake up call, i'm sure.)

and i thought, wow. we can't even endure a red light anymore without looking at our damn phones. that's how miniscule our attention spans have become, our capacity for patience, our threshold for boredom.

i'd already been feeling slightly frustrated with the whole thing because i'm realizing it's much harder for a pregnant gal to get a seat on a train these days due to most passengers being consumed by their gadgets. most men i see are playing games and i think even a raging fire on our actual train car wouldn't distract them from their goal of reaching the next level, blowing up this thing or that, or whatever it is they're trying to do. the women are mostly reading on Kindles or iPads and something about the screen seems much more absorbing than a paper page of a real book. no one ever looks up! quite often i'm left standing—and feeling both amazed and horrified by the mini silos we're all existing in.

me and my iPhone

we're closer than smog when it clings to L.A.

we're closer than Bobby is to J.F.K.

not a soul can bust this team in two

we stick together like glue

but then of course on Thursday i took quite a tumble because i was attempting to look at my work e-mail while walking to the train. Michael's been pleading with me ever since—both for my safety and the well-being of our unborn son—to stop doing that. i tell him i hardly ever look at my phone and walk at the same time and he insists otherwise.

he's right. i'm usually not as careless as i was last Thursday, but i'm as attached to my phone(s) as the next guy. and i hate it. i really, honestly do. certain mornings i've made it from our building all the way to the train without checking any of my devices and i really enjoy just letting my mind wander and admiring the scenery (and actually seeing where i'm going). but it's become so automatic that i'm usually in the throes of looking at e-mails or Facebook or Instagram before i even realize what i'm doing.

but this morning—starting fresh with my new phone—i decided to stop. or at least try to stop. i left my phone in my bag the entire walk to the train and didn't even look at it until i was in my office building's lobby. (that may be one of the most ridiculous sentences i've ever written—has life really come to this? that i'm proud of myself for something so lame?)

and this is not because i'm on one of my technology-is-ruining-us kicks or anything. i'm not suggesting everyone stop looking at their phones so much (unless you're driving, of course). i'm just doing this for me. there is nothing in or on my phone more interesting than life around me. just this morning i passed a guy a couple blocks from the PATH station who took one look at my belly and broke into a big grin.

"boy or girl?" he asked. when i answered 'boy' he pumped his fist a la Tiger Woods and said, "i love you, mama. i love you!"

i couldn't help but smile myself. (people are so funny when you're pregnant.) if i'd been preoccupied with checking the latest headlines on my CNN app or adding the details of my breakfast to My Fitness Pal, i might have never have had that weird, nice moment with a total stranger. and that's the stuff i really love. to me, that's life. 

so, we'll see if i can break my habit. it would be immeasurably better than breaking my phone again (or my head).

mbm

my week so far: deranged cabbies and charming docs

this has not been a very good week for me.

on Tuesday evening i was really happy to be having dinner with my friend Kate whom i hadn't seen since this night. she had a lot of exciting life developments to share with me and we even decided to try a new place—daring of us—and all was going well until around maybe eight-fifteen. i was still trying to carry on the conversation but was growing increasingly hot and clammy. i also felt like i was far away from our table, even though i was sitting right where i'd been sitting for almost two hours. i knew i wasn't feeling right, but tried to soldier on (not wanting to believe i might be about to keel over). there came a point, though, when i finally ripped off my denim jacket and said, "is it hot in here? i really don't feel well."

Kate—a natural caretaker and seasoned teacher of young folk, no doubt used to such crises—walked me outside for some fresh air. i was wobbly and still convinced there'd be an ambulance in my near future, but sitting on an adjacent stoop in the cool night air helped a lot. Kate rubbed my leg and when i said i hoped the baby wasn't having an adverse reaction to the truffle oil on the pizza we'd just shared, she looked at me in all seriousness and said, "that's unacceptable." (we're big fans of truffle oil.)

eventually i felt less wobbly and we went back inside the restaurant to gather our stuff. she insisted i take a cab home and i knew she was right but taking a cab to Brooklyn (as i used to do often back when i worked late, in my old life) is a lot different than taking a cab to Jersey City. i thought about calling Michael at work, but he takes the train himself, so he couldn't have driven me home anyway. Kate hailed me a cab right outside the restaurant—on West 13^th Street only a few steps from Seventh Ave.—and instructed the driver to take good care of me.

i climbed in and asked the driver to take the Holland Tunnel, since our building is literally a minute away from the Jersey side entrance. then i texted Michael about what had happened and of course he immediately called me. there was absolutely no traffic getting to and going through the tunnel and before i knew it, we were on the other side. it was during my conversation with my husband that i realized the cabbie had never started the meter. somewhere in the back of my brain an alarm went off, but i was still too freaked out over what had happened at the restaurant that i didn't fully process it. i got off the phone so i could give the cabbie directions to our building. we hit three green lights and were there in literally no time.

he put the cab in park and turned around to face me. "how much you want to pay?" he asked.

i opened my mouth and then closed it. then i tried again. "um, how much does it cost?"

he launched into a rambling, confusing speech about how he'd driven someone to New Jersey just the night before and it was seventy dollars.

"seventy dollars?" i exploded. "the tunnel is only thirteen! and you only have to pay it once! this entire drive was less than ten minutes!"

he kept telling me that things were more expensive now and seventy dollars was fair and that he had the receipt from the previous night's passenger to prove it.

"but, explain to me—if the tunnel is only thirteen dollars, how in the hell do you get to seventy?"

he had no logical explanation for this. i told him even if he doubled the tunnel toll and then added, say, another ten bucks to cover the few blocks in the city and on the Jersey side, that's still nowhere close to seventy.

at this point he said the lowest he would accept was sixty-five.

"well, i'm calling my husband then," i told him, "because he's going to flip out."

and that's what i did. Michael had me put him on speaker phone and we were both arguing with the driver who was amazingly adamant about his completely nonsensical fare.

while this was happening, i pulled forty-five dollars out of my wallet. still an exorbitant amount (especially when you consider that, even with traffic, the fare i usually paid going from uptown Manhattan to my neighborhood in Brooklyn was always under thirty dollars—yes, the Brooklyn Bridge is toll-free, but it's a 30 minute drive!) but at that point i just wanted to get out of the damn cab and upstairs before i got woozy again.

i told the guy, "i have forty-five dollars in cash. final offer. take it or i'm getting out of the cab right now."

he took my money and i reached for the door handle. locked. i went to unlock the door and could only find the button that controlled the windows. i looked up at the guy. he was staring at me. "you not get out of cab until you pay me more."

"are you fucking kidding me?" i shrieked. "you're locking a pregnant woman in your car? i'm sick, you asshole! let me out!"

Michael—still on speaker phone—said he was calling the cops and asked me to get the guy's license number, which was posted on the plexiglass divider. i read the number aloud to him several times and then said, "call the cops, Michael." i was afraid the guy would just take off and i'd be trapped in the backseat for god knows how long. 

that's when i heard a click. the guy had unlocked the doors—presumably realizing the cops might be there momentarily. i was out of that cab so fast—faster than a pregnant woman should be able to move—you have no idea. "i'm out, i'm out," i kept telling Michael as i walked into our lobby. "i'm out."

i was still trembling by the time i got up to our apartment. that kind of thing has never happened to me before. i've had jerky drivers, sure, and drivers who had no idea where they were going. but never someone so ridiculous and menacing. to a pregnant woman! who he knew wasn't well!

i got myself a glass of water and lay down on the couch and filed a report via the city's 311 webpage. the next day i received a notification that my claim was being processed and i could expect to hear from an official within four weeks.

i woke up yesterday morning feeling all right—a little wiped, but not nearly as wobbly as i'd been Tuesday night—but still i put a call into my OB's office, because not only had i never experienced such a troubling encounter with a cab driver, i'd also never felt that wifty during pregnancy. apparently at this point in pregnancy, my blood pressure is as low as it can possibly get and she thought that and perhaps low blood sugar were the culprit. (funny, because one of the things that went through my head when i'd started to feel bad was, "where the hell is the dessert menu at this place?" the waitress never even offered us anything.)

so, OK. nothing to worry about.

i left work early yesterday to meet Michael at Matthew's pediatrician office to follow up on a lump i discovered behind his right ear on Sunday. i had decided, thanks to Google and consultations with friends, that he had a swollen lymph node, which was no reason to truly panic, but worth having checked out.

except Matthew was at my parents' until yesterday afternoon. my mom had told me the lump was still there, but i obviously couldn't see it for myself until the ped's waiting room yesterday at three-thirty. and what i saw when i finally could see it was...a bug bite. it looked completely different than it had Sunday evening and i immediately felt like a dummy.

but, there we were, co-pay already paid. when it was our turn, the doctor asked me what was up and when i described for her what i'd initially noticed she said, "lymph node." but then she actually examined Matty and said, "bug bite."

Michael rolled his eyes at me, but thankfully the doc was gracious. "you did the right thing bringing him in!" and, just to make me feel better, she said, "keep an eye on him and the bite. if it changes or if he has trouble moving his head at any point, give us a call."

this morning, there was no visible mark where the menacing lump had been just a few days earlier. which, of course, is awesome. but paranoid-Googling-mama strikes again.

this morning i got up early and was pretty much ready for work by the time Matty woke up. i wanted to get to the office early because i'd missed so much yesterday and i also had an appointment scheduled for ten-fifteen with an orthopedist about my bum right shoulder. i left a little later than i hoped, but was still feeling good about my odds for a productive day when i found myself hurtling downward on the corner of Newark and Grand Streets. my attempt to step onto the curb on the far side of Grand failed miserably and next thing i knew i was on my hands and knees on the sidewalk, my Blackberry (which, yes, i had been looking at, stupidly) about six feet away from me and my poor iPhone bearing the brunt under my left hand.

a nice guy picked up my Blackberry for me and asked if i was OK. simultaneously a woman driving by pulled over and shrieked, "are you all right?" i assured all witnesses that i was fine—and i mostly was, the belly hadn't made contact with anything and though my right knee hurt like hell, i hadn't ripped my nice blue Gap Maternity maxi dress, nor was i bleeding through it.

i glanced down at my iPhone, preparing to text Michael (as i walked on—clearly i learned my lesson from the painful fall i'd experienced three seconds ago) and that's when i realized the screen was cracked in a million places.

great.

i've been an iPhone user for almost four years now and never broke one. bye-bye to that claim.

i made it to the Hoboken PATH station unscathed and some nice woman offered me her seat and i didn't look at my right knee until i got to my office (without further incident). it was scraped pretty badly and swollen grotesquely, but i cleaned it and slapped on a Band Aid and managed to do a little work before leaving for my orthopedist appointment.

this is where the day starts to get better.

i've been having off-and-on shoulder issues for a couple years now. i managed to alleviate a good chunk of the pain by overcoming my need to carry Supplies For Every Occasion in a weekend-sized shoulder bag every single day. i did a major downsizing and saw immediate results. but over the last month i've been experiencing what felt like (and what Google assured me was) tendinitis in my rotator cuff. my dad had had similar issues and a cortisone shot worked wonders for him.

i had seen my GP about my shoulder pain on Monday and she referred me to an orthopedist. i figured i'd get an MRI and just prayed that i wouldn't need surgery, that it wasn't anything more serious than a little inflammation.

Janet, the very friendly, really competent woman behind the reception desk (usually i find similar souls in this city to be rather chilly and/or seemingly beyond bored by life—not at all engaging), asked me to fill out some forms and said she remembered me from when i called to make the appointment, because i had mentioned i was six months pregnant. she saw the belly and put two and two together.

i sat down and filled out the forms, one of which asked me my age, height and weight. i hesitated for a moment on the weight. do i put my pre-pregnancy weight? my current weight? did that even matter for a shoulder issue? in the end, i put what i weighed yesterday morning (this morning's number doesn't count, as Michael made an misleadingly fattening pasta dinner last night and i had to skip the gym this morning) but added an arrow with a note that said, "six months pregnant!"

i handed in the paperwork and was reading my book when a man in a white coat walked out into the reception area with a patient. the name on the coat matched the name of the doctor i was there to see and i am pretty sure i started smiling like a lovesick schoolgirl right then and there.

for some reason i had envisioned Dr. Jeff as a fifty-something, balding, rather bland sort of guy. but the guy i was gazing at in the reception area wearing Dr. Jeff's white coat—dreamboat! and quite possibly younger than me.

he retreated back to the exam area and i kept on smiling like an idiot. a few minutes later Janet called me from my seat and walked me to a little room in which she got me situated on the table and told me the doctor would be in shortly.

the office was hot as blazes and i kept wiping my right hand on my dress so that when it came time to shake Dr. Jeff's hand, i wouldn't sweat all over him. i occupied myself with my book (Where'd You Go, Bernadette?  for those who are curious; it's awesome) and then, without warning—because Janet had left the door open—there was Dr. Jeff, introducing himself, shaking my somewhat-dry hand.

dark hair, dark eyes, easy smile. "what's going on?" he asked me.

"well, i've had shoulder pain for probably two years, off and on—"

"wait," he interrupted. "you're here for your shoulder? oh thank god. someone said 'back' and i hate backs."

"oh, really? no, my back is fine. here for my shoulder."

"i'm so glad," he confessed. "see, it's my birthday and i really just want to get through today without a back patient."

i wished him a happy birthday and asked why he was even working.

"well, i'm not a planner," he said.

"you sound like my husband."

"yeah, i'm just not a planner and my girlfriend is really pissed at me because i didn't make a reservation for dinner and she could have planned a party but didn't because she thought i was taking care of it, but i'm not, like, into the whole 'celebrate me!' thing. i'm happy with some oysters, you know, and a couple cold beers."

"yup, totally," i said, now picturing him eating oysters.

"my girlfriend is really pissed."

"that sucks."

"yeah, pretty much," he said. then a beat. "anyway, had to get that off my chest. so, tell me about your shoulder."

i started my explanation of what i've been feeling and when it hurts while he's glanced at my file. suddenly he burst out laughing.

"what?" i asked.

he showed me one of the forms i filled out, the part where i wrote my weight with my qualifying note about being pregnant.

"i love that," he said. "that's cute."

i mentioned it was hot in that office, right? right then i started sweating even more.

we joke back and forth about it and then basically the rest of the appointment is all very jokey and funny and silly. at one point—after a joke about the cortisone shot he's about to give me that "will work instantly if i don't miss"—Dr. Jeff says that eventually, when he has his own practice, he'll be able to behave this way all the time, but until then he has to read his audience and he could tell right away that i was game.

let me stop here and say that any woman, i believe, enjoys being flirted with, at any time. hell, any normal breathing human appreciates some flirting. but more than pretty much anyone else on the planet, a six-months (or more) pregnant woman appreciates it. because yes, even though we're these beautiful vessels carrying growing humans and we sometimes have a glow and we're getting fatter, yes, but for a good cause, blah blah blah, we generally feel cumbersome and awkward and not the least bit attractive.

so riffing with this young, handsome, birthday-boy doctor only a couple hours after making an ass (and mess) of myself on a Hoboken sidewalk sort of made my day. perhaps my week.

he gave me the shot, right in my shoulder (he didn't miss) and was amazed that i didn't flinch. ("i'm tough," i said. "clearly," he said.) he said i should be good now, forever. one shot of cortisone should be all i need to cure me of my tendinitis.

i'd be lying if i said i wasn't considering reverting back to my overweight, oversized bag-carrying days, just to pay Dr. Jeff another visit.

mbm

trading places

so there i was on Friday evening, walking down Washington Street in Hoboken, my right hand clutching the little starfish paw of my two-year old boy—who was covered in chocolate milk and still whimpering from the shock (and utter sadness) of spilling it—my left hand pushing his weighed-down (and now wet) stroller, dodging pedestrians and sneaking glances at the young and carefree folks filling the sidewalk tables on every block. i started guessing what they were drinking—oh, that's a margarita; oh, there's a Blue Moon; i bet that's a nice cold glass of pinot grigio... they dug into nachos, into salads, into burgers and plates of pad thai. they laughed, they flirted, they talked sports and clinked bottles. their ties were loosened and their hair was piled into messy buns.

the sun was setting but the fun was just beginning. can i please trade places with you for five minutes?

"again?" came my little boy's squeaky, plaintive voice. he had stopped walking and was pulling on my arm. "again?"

"what again, bud?" i asked.

he pointed toward the cross street we'd just ambled through. he had enjoyed walking down and then up the textured curb ramps and wanted to do it again.

"next corner, kiddo. we have to cross a bunch more."

"neck cone-ah," he repeated.

"right."

on we strolled as i contemplated one of the funniest, most frustrating paradoxes of parenthood. i had looked forward to my Friday night date with Matthew all week. we'd gone to the park, and then to the pizzeria and were on our way for ice cream. he'd made me laugh, he'd understood why he couldn't stay on the swing longer (because six other kids were waiting for a turn) and he'd devoured nearly an entire gigantic regular slice for dinner. you can't ask much more from a two-year-old companion.

yet seeing those crowds spilling out of the bars and restaurants stirred the other part of me—the part who still remembers her old life, who wouldn't change one single thing about her current life but occasionally mourns all the same the fact that 'freedom' no longer means taking advantage of two-dollar beers during Happy Hour. these days 'freedom' is waking up an hour early to sit and read Real Simple over a cup of coffee in silence.

here comes the irony: when i was one of those people out on a Friday night with my friends or with Michael—at least in the later years—i would see families strolling by and feel such a pull for that life. i knew i was ready. and i was.

but life is never very clear-cut. transitions aren't absolute and just because you're ready for one thing doesn't mean you're over the last thing. and that's okay. you're the sum of all your parts, after all.

it got me thinking. i have friends who are pregnant for the first time and also friends planning weddings and thinking ahead to babies. there is so much goddamn advice out there about how to prepare and what to expect and most of it is either total BS or a recipe for hysteria or both.

i'm actually not convinced that you can be prepared, not really. but if anyone asked me for my two cents, this is what i'd tell them...

***

you need the following to be a parent:

patience. and then more patience. and then sprinkle a little more on top. primarily with yourself—having patience with yourself is absolutely essential. if you're easier on yourself, it'll help you be easier on your partner (who is only human after all, just like you) and you'll naturally be easier on your child, who deserves the bulk of your patience, because that kiddo is learning everything from scratch. do you remember learning everything from day one? like how to operate your hands and how to walk and how to eat? god no. why? because it's fucking hard! your little one is not throwing food on the floor or refusing to sleep alone to annoy you. he or she is just figuring out how life works. so: patience, grasshopper.  

humility. you're not god's gift to parenting and you never will be. no one is. anyone who acts like they are is probably more lost than anyone else. everyone is feeling their way in the dark here. some have trouble accepting that, but the sooner you can accept the fact that you'll screw up multiple times a day, the sooner you'll learn to appreciate the journey. yes, i used the j-word. crunchy? sure. but i can't think of a better word to describe it. no one expects you to know everything the minute that child leaves the womb—especially that child. so, pace yourself. lower your expectations. and accept your limitations. ps: you'll have moments when you'll see other parents and feel alternately critical (how could they do that?) and envious (how do they do that?)—but there's no bigger waste of your energy than playing that game.

a sense of humor. you will, at various times, be covered in poop. you will, on various days, leave for work with globs of unidentified substances on your clothes. you will, on occasion, be that mom on the sidewalk whose child is screaming at a nearly-illegal decibel level about spilled chocolate milk and you'll have nothing to clean up the mess and you'll pull him out of the stroller, forgetting how many bags are hanging off the handles and the whole thing will tip over and you'll be sure the people sipping their adult beverages only a few feet away are thanking god that they're not you, but this is what you do: you laugh. well, first you return the stroller to its upright position and then you hug that poor, heartbroken, soaking wet child because for him wasted Nesquik is a big deal. then you laugh. on the inside, anyway. because parenthood is largely absurd. it's a comedy of errors and if you take any of it too seriously, you'll be seriously miserable.

love. you always hear how when your child is born you finally know what love is. i don't know that that's entirely true—i mean, i'm pretty sure my heart expands on a daily basis thanks to Matthew, but i also knew what love was before i had him. and that's key here. kids need love. almost more than they need food and water. pure, no-holds-barred, freely-given, unrestricted and uncomplicated love. but, as any shrink will tell you, if you don't love yourself first, you can't love anyone else. so you really need to be OK with yourself before you become a parent, otherwise not only will you be less able to love your kid, you might also make your problems their problems, which is totally unfair. they're learning everything from scratch, remember? the last thing they need is some of your unresolved baloney thrown into the mix. all they—and you—need is love.

you also need to be OK with giving up the following to be a parent: 

sleep. at least for a while, at first. and then you need to learn to go to bed early because you will always be getting up early. if not at the request of your kid, then to have a little alone time or sneak off to the gym or watch the news before it's time for Disney Junior. nothing will mess with your head, your outlook and your ability to be patient, humble, humorous and loving like sleep deprivation.

privacy. if you do your deep thinking whilst on the toilet or in the shower, better find another place. and locks don't really help, because the kid will just bellow for you on the other side of the door. it's cute, though, i swear.

nights out. not all of them and not forever. but your social life will change pretty drastically for a while after you become a parent. part of this is because, well (see above), you're tired. and then you realize you sort of prefer to be home (at least i do) with your little family because, man, it's pretty amazing to finally have your own family! and hiring a babysitter too often is just cost prohibitive. so it's best to make sure you've had enough of dancing on bars and seeing movies in theaters and lingering over romantic dinners. again, not permanently, but mostly, for a while.

order. no matter how many ways Pinterest inspires you to get organized, the toys will still be everywhere. they just will. in your bathroom, in your closet, under the refrigerator, in between the sofa cushions and covering every single inch of whatever room serves as your child's play space. (Matthew has a plastic bin of magnetic alphabet letters and he'll ask us to open them daily, hardly ever because he actually wants to play with them; usually because he just enjoys dumping them out. sometimes the last thing i want to do at night is put those damn letters back in their tub—and sometimes i don't—but i also tell myself that someday i will be missing the days when i had to clean up his damn letters every night and i should try to enjoy it while i can.) the laundry will never be done, the house will never be completely dust-free for more than a day and you will find mysterious sticky spots on the floor forever more. but who wants to live in a museum anyway, right? what does organization and utter cleanliness really prove? in my opinion, that you're not enjoying life enough.

***

those are the big things. from my perspective, at any rate. the perks and benefits of parenthood far outweigh the sacrifices—i think most parents would tell you that. but it's good to go into it with as clear an idea of what's involved as possible.

Matty and i finally made it to Rita's last Friday night, where we met a dachshund puppy and split a cup of vanilla-chocolate twist with rainbow sprinkles. "yum, yum, yum," my sweet boy said after every spoonful. i dropped a big glob on my skirt and his face was a palette of chocolate milk, pizza sauce and ice cream. we made it home five minutes before his regular bedtime, grimy and spent, but smiling. i gave him a bath, got him to sleep, cleaned up my act and crashed on the couch.

and, for what it's worth, there wasn't an ounce of me that wished i was out having a drink on Washington Street.  

mbm