10 Reasons to be Thankful This Year

1) My daughter is FINALLY potty-trained
2) My Dad is no longer a menace on the road
3) My husband can fix almost anything
4) The burglars only stole stuff that was replaceable
5) I get to live in a wonderful funky liberal city (despite the inflated housing prices)
6) My little boy loves and needs me unconditionally
7) I get to draw pictures for a living
8) I am in reasonably good health
9) I have the most supportive, caring friends anyone could want
10) My husband (who is rarely mentioned in this blog) has been and continues to be my best friend and partner in this crazy adventure

Super Mom

You and I know her. With her perfectly aerobicized body, she gently steers her preschooler towards his swimming lesson while carefully cradling her 8 month old who is dressed to the nines in matching Hannas, fur-lined boots and hat ("because you never can bundle them up enough"). This is the woman who has volunteered to be the classroom mother, the fundraising chair, the food drive coordinator, the editor of the school newsletter, etc. while also managing to work part-time, plan vacations abroad or across the country every month, ski, jog every morning, attend book club meetings, have her hair washed, combed and makeup applied with perfection.

This woman never has acne.

This woman, I'm convinced, has never seen cellulite.

This woman has no grey hairs.

How does she do all this?

Does she sleep?
Is she addicted to methamphetamines?
Is she a robot?

The mind boggles...

In the middle of relaying to her my potty-training woes, this woman casually mentions that her son, "Bobby" one day at age 3 decided that he was done with diapers and that was that. He was fully trained. (!) (wow)
This is the same woman who put her son in ski school shortly after. Bobby is now enrolled in ice skating, swimming, music, gymnastics, tai kwon do and soccer lessons. Bobby has been to the Symphony. He has been exposed to Modern Art. He knows some French, Spanish and a little Mandarin Chinese. He has travelled to London and Madrid. She has toured 12 kindergartens even though he will not be attending until the year after next. Bobby is only four.

At a recent princess-themed birthday party, Bobby showed up dressed as a Knight--chain mail and all---and his little sister was dressed in a velvet cape, tulle dress and tiny pink ballet slippers. "I picked up the Knight's costume on a whim" Super Mom says. (yeah, right) I, unfortunately showed up at the same event with greasy hair and my tee-shirt on inside-out. My daughter's hair was so matted that dreadlocks were forming. Her tights were bunched up around the ankles. I looked over at C and noticed that he had this mornings' yogurt still encrusted on his face.

Oh, well.

Don't get me wrong. I am not jealous of this woman. In fact, I admire her.
It's hard to be jealous of someone so friendly and so good-hearted. It's hard to be mean and bitchy toward someone who has bought 6 copies of my book and promoted me at various functions. It's hard to hate someone who only has positive, upbeat things to say about everyone. It's hard to be catty about someone whom you know would never stab you in the back.

I'm hoping one day she will invite me to her house so I can find out where she keeps her dirty laundry (literally)
I'm looking for a crack somewhere...anywhere...that will show me that this woman is human.

Robbed.

Three nights ago, S and I were up late working. Nothing unusual about that---being overworked freelancers, it's what we do sometimes. Especially since, with 2 little kids under age five, night-time is one of the few times we can have some peace and quiet. Around 1am we both heard a crash that sounded like someone rummaging though the garbage bins on the street. Garbage Day was the day before so we both assumed that someone was putting their bins back late at night.

The next morning something was wrong. Our black bin was missing from the side of our house. Somehow the bin was not behind our locked side gate where we had placed it the night before.

Uh oh.

Stupidly we'd left the back entrance to our garage unlocked and somehow burglars had gotten into our backyard, gone into our garage and stolen about $800 worth of power tools. Besides the tools, they'd also taken a heavy metal utility ladder, a motorized "Zappy" (yup, we're geeks) and, to add insult to injury, our brand new winter boots! (and, who knows what else--it's a mess back there) Then they loaded everything into the garbage bin, went out through the gate and wheeled it all away. All while we were at home and awake in our land of false security.

At the time that this happened my first thought was--'Wow. This could have been so much worse. Thank g-d they didn't get into the house, etc etc." But as time went by I started to feel more and more freaked out by the whole thing to the point where I was having regular recurring nightmares about robberies, guns, garbage bins, etc. So, last night around 11pm, the fuckers came back for more. Apparently they neglected to take our bikes and camping gear and were coming back to finish the job. We both heard it. A very loud crash by the side of the house. S ran to the front door to catch someone standing guard with an umbrella by our side gate while the other person (a large male?) had hoisted himself over our 8ft tall side gate. S screamed "HEY!!!!" at the intruder and then called 911. After being initially put on hold, ten minutes later twenty or so cops showed up. By then the intruders were gone. C woke up and was inconsolable. He did not stop screaming for 3 more hours. (I kid you not). One diaper change, two bottles and some extra tight swaddling later, C still refused to return to his crib. Finally, around 5am when we all started to drift off to sleep, for no apparent reason the smoke alarm went off.

Is the universe trying to tell us that it's time to move?

Go, Nancy, Go!

It's a brand new day.
Even my choices for School Board got in.
My faith in Democracy has been restored.

Finally! (whew)





...and to think we were considering a move to Canada not too long ago....