John Lennon Got It Wrong

If you live in this house, life is what happens in between houseguests and travelling. Cecily is gone, laundry and packing for the trip we take Thursday at 9 AM has commenced. We are on our way to the supposedly fabulous Landmark Resort for a conference (finally being a lawyer's wife pays off) and from there and overnight at Angie Oh's.

My calendar next week is blank. 100% blank. I actually kissed it. Let's see how long is lasts, i give it until Thursday.

Fake it til you make it

Chad has a few extra mommies to throw around since every mother who meets him wants to adopt him. So his best friend's mother is here this weekend, Chad calls her his fake mother. She is here, supposedly, to visit her number one grandchild, but now that number two has arrived well, we won't go there. The point is Cecily could make a good time out of a cardboard box so the fact that it has done nothing but rain (what is it about mother's visits and rain?) has not deterred her at all. Nor has the fact that we are obviously at the point of vacation fatigue after two weeks of Jim and then another week with our parents two weeks ago.

So God bless Cecily, the happiesst camper that ever was. Who will fake it until we drop the fake monniker and I am convinced that she was my mother all along.

i am an island

Some people find it odd that Chad never knows what is going on my blog. We just don't discuss it. in fact, he rarely checks or comments on my blog. I don't find this strange and I read a great quote in the book on my "What I Am Reading" list that explains why.

" I think the idea of writing by committee, or learning to write by committee is insanity. It's just simply insanity. I mean, writing is a very solitary process, it's all about being different from everything else-not the same."

I think this is why there are so many blogs. It is a not because we are a confessional tell-all society. It is because we are all trying to get a little solitary confinement in a world where we can always be reached and to use that confinement to differentiate ourselves in what is becoming an increasing homogenous society. My blog proves that while I shop at Target, drink at Starbucks and do nothing but talk about my kid all day like the rest of my friends, my blog stands as blatant and accesiable proof that I visit sites like Design Sponge and Bottom Shelf Books and my friends don't.

At least, it would if I ever got around to putting up links to my favorite sites. Great, another brillant thought flushed down the toilet.

Worst Nightmare

My thoughts go out to our neighbors to the west who were just driving home from work and were plunged into a nightmare.

When will you learn?

http://www.service.mattel.com/us/recall/39054_IVR.asp?prod=

If you have young child please click on this link to see if your child has been ingesting lead from our good friends in China and the corporate assholes who enable them. My daughter had three toys on this, luckily not within the prescribed date, but they are in the trash anyway. i don't trust that somebody was watching then or that they would have announced it if they had.

That poor mother whose child has been chewing on those stacking rings FOR THREE MONTHS. Olivia tested for levels of lead when she was young and it scared the hell out of me and was the last kick in the ass we needed to buy a house that was not old enought to have lead paint.

I hope class action clocks Mattel right in the face.

it's Raining Babies and Frappaccinos

So the exciting news is-everyone is pregnant, except me. Did you really think I would announce that via blog post? Rachel, I am looking in your direction. Seriously though, everyone else, are you looking to get pregnant? Spend about twenty minutes in my general vicinity. At first, it started out so great, one of my favorite friends is having her first and I got to do that estatic- freak-out crying in the middle of the store call and I get to do all sorts of fun buying and planning.

Then it was Olivia's best friend's mom with her second which is it's own kind of exciting because it is someone we actually like having a second. Plus, that baby is local so we get to maul it constantly. I am also convinced that this baby is my "in" with Ellie, but that's another post about my sickness of trying to get olivia's best friend to think that i am the coolest friend's mom.

Then it just started getting ridiculous. My next door neighbor, Olivia's pre-school teacher, the last mom left in my play group, other than me, to not have a second. It is getting to the point where my "congratulations, that's wonderful!" is starting to sound a little rehearsed. Don't get me wrong, i am getting to the point where babies are like puppies. They are so cute and I just want to squeeze them and love them, but then you get home and realize that you are covered in body fluids and they need to be let out every few hours and I think, "Whew dodged a bullet there." However, it does get a little lonely being the only, well, just one.

On a side note, a few people gave me gift cards to Starbucks for my birthday and I think I am putting on sympathy frappaccino weight.

Adrift

At first, the unscheduled part of summer seems liberating, but by August it is as oppressive as 93 degree heat. I just feel scattered, I find myself standing in the middle of the room trying to remember what I was doing-a lot. Friday starts another revolving door of houseguests and travelling. I have lots of fun and exciting news that deserves it's own post and will get to it soon I promise, but today is full of a million activities that I am already late for!