It's been a long, crazy-ass day, and right now it's between spending some quality time with my amazing hubby, or staring at this stupid screen, editing the blog I meant to publish yesterday.  I pick sex, and I hope you would too.

i suck

Gah!  I actually wrote a post yesterday, I swear!  Kind of a long one, actually.  But during a hectic evening at home I completely forgot to edit/publish it.  I'm sorry guys - please don't throw stones at me!  I promise I'll have it up asap.  I do have work today, so it'll be a little while... but patience, my dears, is a virtue.  I know we don't have it, but pretending we do is kind of virtuous too, no?

sleeping beauty

I feel like we had a really full, fun weekend.  But according to my iPhone... all we did was sleep.  In fact, it seems Estie has become somewhat of a sleep connoisseur, perfecting no less than a dozen different styles of napping.  Here are a few she cultivated this weekend: 

The Al Fresco

The Assed Out
(or the Bottoms Up, since I really need to stop cursing in front of the children)

The King Soopers Snooze
(that's a grocery store out here)

The Sister Snuggle

 

The Faceplant

The Passy'd Out

texts from...

So you know those "text from" websites?  Sure you do.  There are quite a few of them out there - Texts From Last Night, Texts From Bennett, and even Texts From Dog (that one's actually pretty funny).  Well, tonight I think the hubs might have unknowingly launched a whole new genre.  Behold, the next big thing:

Texts From Man Attending Father/Daughter Dance 

These are actual texts I received from Benjamin

while he accompanied Annie to her school dance:

6:14 pm:  "This is easily the most terrible and awesome thing I've ever been to." 

6:27 pm:  "Oh god.  DJ dude just pulled out a limbo stick and this turned into a shit show real quick."

6:45 pm:  "Just taught a gaggle of little girls how to shuffle."

6:52 pm:  "No less than four dads with legit full-neck tats. Wonder if they've been to prison."

And finally, the piece de resistance:

And whadya know, he really fucking did.

Free shoes, too?!  Fancy!

ouch

I wore a wrap-around headband all day today, and when I took it off my skull said, "I hate you."  I'm going to bed.

i can't cook

I can’t cook.  Or I guess I should say I can’t cook well.  I mean I make dinner every night - my family eats.  But I pretty much only do it to keep them alive.  I don’t have a "feel" for it.  And I can’t improvise, which is the true hallmark of a good cook.  Someone who can make up a recipe on the spot and have it actually be fit for human consumption.  Someone who, when you ask them where they got the recipe for such-and-such, they say Oh, I just whipped it up!  Someone who also can’t tell you at what temperature and for how long to bake said dish, because they do it a little differently every time and they just KNOW when it’s done.  Jerks.  My mother- and sister-in-law are like this.  It drives me crazy with envy.  I am forever in awe of their domesticity.  These are women who host and prepare Thanksgiving dinner, while I am asked to bring booze and dessert (they know my strengths!).  My sis even caters her own business events for God's sake, to such rave reviews that an article was published with her recipes.  Hah!  Can you imagine?  And these are the women who fed my husband when he was growing up – how the hell am I supposed to compete with that?!  I can’t, and I’ve given up trying.  I just stick to what I know (teriyaki chicken anyone?) and hope I'm good in bed.  I try to tell myself I do other things well, although that is a complete lie.  I have no womanly skills, I bring no wifely wisdom to the table here.  I’m the mom who stands on the periphery at Girl Scout meetings leering at the craft projects and wishing they served beer.  And since I can’t compete with the other moms, those Grand Master Ovaries, I prefer to poke fun at them instead, to mask my inferiority complex.  But I can’t poke fun at my in-laws, because, unfortunately, they happen to be ridiculously awesome women who I absolutely adore.  They manage to make crafts and cooking and having ovaries look cool.  Plus... they always share their food.  Hey, I’m no dummy.  Chicks who can’t cook know better than to bite the hands that can!      

PMS? more like FUC - fat, ugly, crazy

Every month I am shocked by the force with which PMS hits me.  I mean I know it's coming - it's kind of a scheduled thing - so I shouldn't be surprised.  But I always feel like my symptoms are unfair and come out of nowhere.  I think I must block out the memory of the last time during the three weeks in between.  Can you blame me?  It's a pretty dismal chain of events:

For the first two days I'm just really confused.  I bumble around like a zombie wondering why the hell I'm so tired and where I left the baby.  I can't focus on anything and my eyes feel like they're made of Jell-o coated in vaseline.  I'm pretty sure I should be declared legally unfit to operate heavy machinery during this period. 

Following the two days of cross-eyed retardation are about three more of intense, feral hunger, during which I will consume anything not nailed down or currently breathing.  Even stuff I don't want, like the six month-old Halloween candy that is still in my house (because throwing candy away is akin to burning the American flag for me).  This shameless, no-holds-barred gorge-a-thon is accompanied, understandably, by resentment for my husband.  Why?

1.  He's a man. 

2.  He's not fat. 

3.  He thinks I'm disgusting.  Of course he does - my bloated, pre-menstrual abdomen is more distended than that of a starving Ethiopian child right before it's adopted by Brad and Angelina, and my boobs are mommish and my ass is oddly-shaped.

That last one is completely made up in my head of course - my poor hubby has never given me any reason to believe those things.  But in the week before I rope off my crime scene, #3 seems very real to me.  It haunts me, causing me to recoil when my loving, supportive mate tries to touch me in any way, and then sulk away bitterly when he finally gives me the space I demand.  Then I hate myself for pushing away this awesome dude who has the patience and compassion to love me during my monthly psychosis.  As you can imagine, all this self-loathing is very isolating.  So I fill the void with more food, eating my feelings until I'm swollen and ashamed, which then reminds me of Benny's imaginary disgust for me, and the whole thing starts over again.  God, he's such a lucky guy!  I really oughta get on some meds or something.

Fuck I'm hungry.  What were we talking about?

ROCKSTAR!

My darlings!  Sorry for my absence - I've just made it through the longest weekend of maybe not my whole life, but at least of the last few years or so.  But I survived!  And Annie's ROCKSTAR! birthday party was a raging success.  We had it in my in-laws' big, shade-tree-filled back yard, which for some reason has an almost drug-like effect on young children.  They just kind of go nuts out there.  So naturally, it's where 100% of the birthday parties in our family take place.  Saturday was really windy, so most of the party decor - pink and black and zebra print, oh my! - went out the window.  I was a little bummed, but the kids didn't notice and couldn't have cared less.  The sun was shining, which is about all you can ask for in Colorado in April.  We had quite a big turnout with about a dozen kiddos running amok, hoola hooping and monkeying around on the swing set between my feeble attempts at organized dance-party games.  There was a piñata and a silly-string fight, and the most glam-rockinest birthday cake EVER, courtesy of my endlessly talented sister-in-law, who should have been a baker, among other things.  But the best part of the whole day, in my opinion, was dressing up.  I just love an excuse to be someone else for a day.  And it turned out the adults were WAY more excited about it than the kids!  I mean Annie was game - we flat-ironed her hair and sprayed the tips pink - and most of the girls got pretty dolled up.  But nothing over the top.  And not one of Annie's male friends wanted ANY part of it!  (Except Annie's little cousin Miles, bless his heart, who is always stuck with a bunch of women and is always down for playing along.)  But some of us so-called grownups on the other hand, well... we really embraced the theme... 

My sis-in-law Lindsay, the eighties rocker
Me, the Woodstock rocker
Benny, the... well he's just a rockstar, duh

Robby and Lauren, who normally don't like to play dress up, but shocked us all
by going full rockstar - guyliner and all-  and totally stealing the show! 
Dig their backstage passes!

Divas!
Olivia, Annie, Lexi and Tessa

Annie and cousin Miles, the tattooed and mohawked rocker

Miss Brooklyn, who is a rockstar every day

Jared Leto, I mean Robby, who is so rockstar he pushed Brooklyn off the tractor
(not really)

Estie and Olivia's little sister Ruby - baby BFFs!

Robby and Lauren with Estie -
practicing for their little rockstar, due this fall!

After we cut the cake, we smashed the guitar over Annie's head -
it was so metal

The aftermath of the mass silly-stringing, which I didn't get a picture of
since the kids started without me

We are just so very glamorous

screw the honor roll, my kid's on tv

My baby's famous!  Well, sort of. 

Annie got picked along with five other kids at her school to be in a small-potatoes production for a local TV station.  It's an unscripted educational program featuring a very nice old man who looks like Bill Nye the Science Guy's dad if he'd gone to Woodstock.  They do experiments with the kids and encourage lots of questions and suggestions.  Well!  Talking is Annie's most special gift.  She ate up every second of her fifteen minutes of fame - honestly I was just hoping she'd let the scientist guy get a word in edgewise during filming!  But she actually did a great job.  The production crew said she's a natural!  I'm so proud.  The show's called Little Shop of Physics, and Annie keeps correcting me when I call it Little Shop of Horrors, since she's too young to know what that is. 

FEED ME, SEYMORE!

I also took some video of the TV monitors while they were filming, but my iPhone doesn't seem to want to chat with my Youtube account this evening - meaning it won't work and I don't know why the hell not.  I'll see if someone techy can help me.  Til then, dear viewers! 



anxiety attack

Stress.  We all experience it from time to time.  I think I handle it really well. 

Except when it's me who's stressed.  Then I just flip the fuck out.

I like to blame my carefree, easy-going childhood for ill-preparing me to deal with the pressures of adult life.  But really I'm just a big weinee.  I get overwhelmed easily.  Plus I've had a really blessed life, so my concept of stress is skewed way out of whack.  I mean aside from my dad dying when I was 14 and then having a baby three years later, my life's been pretty chill.  Okay, those events were a little intense.  But nowdays my life is great.  There is nothing going on in my world right now that is seriously upsetting.  My stress triggers are suburban things like planning birthday parties, doing housework with a baby attached to me, preparing dinner without poisoning my loved ones, and deciding what to wear when I go out in public.  These are not real problems.  Earthquake victims - those people have problems.  Bank hostages, world leaders, bomb diffusers, the Octomom.  They are all under legitimate duress.  Also cokeheads, because that shit just makes everyone freak out.  But me?  I'm a part-time working mom with a totally devoted spouse and a team of caring in-laws helping me every day.  Compared to most other adults, my life is a cakewalk.  But everything's relative - so since I've never been through the things that, say, a Rwandan diamond miner has been through, my stressers are understandably measly in comparison.  I mean, re-structuring an outdoor birthday bash on account of rain is tough... but at least I still have both my arms.

Ooh, too much?  Yeah... I'll save you a seat in hell.