What I Love Coming Home To...

An ocean of water on my kitchen counters and floor.

Yay me.

that one in the hat, that's me

Oh, Christmas hat, you thwart me so. I managed to track down a tape measure, finish the hat with exactly enough yarn left to seam it, realize that the reason it looked so funny was that I had somehow forgotten to bind the damn thing off, undo a row, bind off, this time with not enough yarn left to seam it, find a reasonably close enough yarn to seam the side and top, weave in all the ends, make two tassles of contrasting yarn, finish the whole damn thing, stick it on my head and decide it is the dumbest hat ever.

Now, here is the thing:

From a knitting point of view, The Hat is a total success - it looks exactly like the picture in the book. Unfortunately, sometimes pictures lie. When you finally meet The Hat in person, it's a dorky hat. It just is. I am not sure what to do about it. This hat turned out exactly as my friend asked for, and maybe on her head it will take on some fabulous attractive qualities it just doesn't possess when it's on mine. Maybe it is my head that is less than perfect, and The Hat just needs a head more capable of pulling off it's daring charm. Maybe my friend realizes the full dorky qualities of the hat, but still wanted it regardless, since most winter hats are totally dorky - so why not go all the way? Maybe there will be some miracle in the blocking that will cause this abomination to dry into the perfect confection it is meant to be.

Or maybe it is just a really stupid hat.

So do I give her the stupid hat? What if she never wears it and I am hurt, causing a rift in our 28 year friendship? What if she thinks I think that this is the type of hat she deserves, that in effect I think she is a dork, worthy of only the stupidest of headgear? What if this causes a simmering resentment that will never be overcome? What if she really loves The Hat and yet it doesn't love her back and people point and laugh behind her back when she is wearing it? Am I contractually obliged to be seen in public with The Hat? What if she loves it so much she tells everyone I knit it for her and I get the rep as the girl who makes stupid hats? What is a girl to do?!

It Would Feel Really Decadent If I Weren't So Tired...

It is a Thursday afternoon, and I am here at home. The kidlet isn't feeling well, so I am with her, pretending to be productive but really aimlessly surfing the internet, between rounds of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" sung both very loudly and very badly. (That isn't entirely true -I was productive for a whole two hours once I forcibly removed myself from the room the computer is in. Funny that.) Can someone explain to me how a child who is by all accounts sick, still has so much energy?

I am almost done the first of the Christmas hats. In fact, I would know if I was done if I could find one of my 87 tape measures. They are probably off somewhere with all my pens and screwdrivers, getting drunk or something. There is no other reason why I can own so many tape measures in such a small apartment and never find any of them. Actually, there is another possible reason - which is my generally disorganized life - but this is the season for kindness, so no one point it out, thanks.

 

The day I let our love die
I stood by it until its last sigh
Then disappeared from the scene of the crime
Locked away to serve my time

Cause in a great divide
Where a line is drawn
Oh you must decide
Which half you're standing on
~ Hard Line, Jill Barber

I ran into an old friend today, and as I left our conversation and walked back to work I realized I was completely disconcerted. I keep running into people this week that want to talk about the split and (I am assuming in a effort to be supportive) tell me how much they didn't like my husband, anyways.

This has happened quite a bit in the last six months, and I still don't really know how I am supposed to feel about these revelations. I mean, I get it, I understand that people want to let me know that they are still my friend, or whatever, and maybe it's just that I'm not angry enough. Maybe if I were angrier, I would want to bitch about what an asshat my ex was, but really, it just makes me feel sad. Poor judgement or not, I loved this person, enough to marry them and expect to spend the rest of my life with them. That it didn't work out is just sad, for everyone involved. I don't mourn the death of our relationship in particular, since I am really glad I got out when I did, because it was coming down to me or it, and I chose to save me. But I do mourn the shiny, happy, idealistic version of me that died with it.

Sometimes things just don't go the way you planned, and laying blame isn't going to change what happened, or how it happened, or why. It just did, because sometimes that's just the way it goes. Tossing piles of blame at someone's feet isn't going to change the fact that the only person I can hold truly accountable in this world is myself - and that's okay, you know?

I Like How...

... my darling daughter just spilled water* all over the kitchen floor and then ran away. As though if she just left the sink she was happily playing in and went into the living room, I wouldn't notice the giant puddle on the floor, or think that she did it.

A little tip: It helps if you don't start yelling: "Uhoh, dere is a pwuddle!" when you try and make your escape.

*As a side note, I anticipated the puddle. Hence why all the need to be laundered towels are sitting in the kitchen.

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem...

So this yarn thing may have gotten a little out of hand. I was cleaning the apartment today and realized I have balls of yarn stashed in every room of the house. There are the two main stashes: the baskets in the dining room and the box in Teagan's closet. This, in theory, is where the yarn goes. Apparently this isn't working so well for me. There is a bag beside the computer. I found another bag in my bedroom. A ball of Merino on Teagan's dresser. The other two balls of the same yarn are stuffed in my Emily bowling bag. A lone ball of sock yarn is in the kitchen next to a box of cereal. There are two balls of cotton on the desk. One stray ball of novelty yarn on the toybox in the hall. A half ball of plain white worsted is stuffed in the bookcase. There is a ball on the kitchen table and one... sitting on my monitor as I type this.

Hindsight is 20/20

there's really no hope for me
and that three second rule
somethin gets dropped
and still i'm the slowest damn fool
slow to realize what's really going on
slow to know in a moment
who or what has gone wrong
i wanna tighten down on the lag time
~ Lag Time, Ani DiFranco

I Love My Friends...

My Grandfather died on Monday, and I was horribly sick throughout the wake and funeral. I want to send out a huge thank you to all of my friends who came with me to the wake and funeral and held my hand and were just totally the most fantastic people a girl could ask for.

Thank you - I love you guys.

Wow...

Remind me not to write anymore snarky letters to the universe, ever again. I think the only reason this day couldn't possibly get any worse is because technically it is over.

So Sucky...

Dear Universe,

Ha ha ha.

Very funny.

If moving didn't make me throw up right now, I would so kick your ass. 

                                      Sincerely, 
                                      The Very Ill Girl

Stick a Fork In Me

"In the clearing stands a boxer,
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
"I am leaving, I am leaving."

But the fighter still remains..."
~The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel

Dear Universe,

This past year has kicked my ass, thank you very much. I've had about as many life lessons and opportunities to learn and grow as a person as I can take. Unless you are sending me the happy I have so sorely misplaced, I am on vacation until further notice. You want to bring any more death or change it will have to wait until the new year.

Sincerely,
A Very Tired Girl

So I Went on a Date Friday Night...

Which made me realize I am so not ready for dating. Not the date part, I like the actual date part - the going from the point A of my doorstep to the point B of our destination and all the little bits in between back to the point A of my doorstep at the end of the night. But I am not ready for the second date, or the one after that. I am okay with good dates, with fine dates, with lukewarm it-was-better-than-tv dates but I am not ready for the dating-as-a-vehicle-for-finding-a-future-relationship dates at all. I spent the better part of two hours in a car with someone while they told me all their "look how good a boyfriend I would be" bits and I realized I just didn't care to hear it. Tell me the stories, the anecdotes that make up the history of you and I will hang on your every word, but don't tell me how together you are - because I am scattered into little pieces and I don't care to have them picked up just yet.

Now don't get me wrong - I adore falling in love. I love that feeling - falling down into nothing and not worrying about where you are going to land. Love it so much I have let my wayward heart lead me all over the damn place. I have followed my tripping, skipping little heart to different cities, provinces, countries, even down the aisle leading to a minister - all in service of that blissful falling feeling. But I am not ready for the landing, and I don't want to fall today. Or tomorrow. Or next week, or the week after that. I don't have the emotional or mental energy to figure out how to fit someone else's puzzle pieces with mine and turn it into a picture.

Whine Whine Whine...

What I need tonight is someone to hold me while I cry and lie to me, telling me it's all going to be okay.

Instead, I will drink a glass (or three) of wine and listen to sad, sad songs, until I get bored of my own self pity.

Yeah Yeah Yeah

So, as some people have gleefully and not so gleefully pointed out, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Normally this day passes me by without notice as I don't so much have a thing for pirates (with one or two notable exceptions). This year though, I thought it should be recorded for posterity that if you ask my daughter; "What does a pirate say?" she answers with a resounding:

AARRRRR!

Two year olds are so much better than television.

I Am Not Looking For A New England...

"I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?"

The Secret Life of Babies

According to the new daycare worker, my child has been speaking Polish.

Yeah, I have no idea either.

Random Quotes From a Monday Night...

~ "If you start dating 23 year olds, won't it be confusing trying to decide if you should offer them a post-coital cigarette or cookies and milk?"

~ "That will be me, that girl over there. Drinking a pint alone and so earnestly writing in her journal. But I will wear much cuter shoes."

~ "These girls, they are so into money it is frightening. Does the Visa machine come out before or after sex? Or is it built in?"

~ "They have perfectly highlighted hair and are always tanned. What will they look like in twenty years? Albino raisins?"

~ "I can handle a certain amount of superficiality. Especially if it comes in a cute package."

One Day She Will Learn How To Use This Sentence to Her Advantage...

My little baby girl just said "I love you."

Toddler: 1 Apartment: 0

One small person stuck inside all day means that my apartment is getting it's ass kicked. I feel like I have been following behind her all day trying to keep up but she is, sadly, much faster than me. I really hope the weather changes tomorrow, or I might just have to move rather than try and tackle cleaning up.

Yeah, I Knew That One Was Coming...

feels like reckless driving when we're talking
it's fun while it lasts and it's faster than walking
but no one is going to sympathize when we crash
they'll say you hit what you head for
you get what you ask
and we'll say we didn't know
we didn't even try
one minute there was road beneath us
and the next just sky
~ Ani DiFranco

You know...

It's a good thing I am so committed to Canadian Blood Services getting my cute lil' A- blood, or I would be hard pressed to go back in December. This is the second time they have managed to mutilate the crap out of my arm.

Here is a tip: if the vein isn't looking so promising, don't just close your eyes and hope for the best here, people - that's a needle you are waving around there. It is disturbing to have a clutch of people gathered around you staring at your arm, waiting to see if the needle stays put, or decides to pop it's way out of said arm, thanks all the same.

Although, it could be worse - the last time I donated blood she missed entirely in a spectacularly painful way, no less, and then was so shaken by the incident she had to get someone else to give it a go on the other arm. I ended up with a three inch diameter bruise that time. Way to build the public confidence there, guys.

Now With More Meme!

Go here and pick five quotes to post in your LJ:

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
~ Dorothy Parker

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
~ Hunter S. Thompson

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
~ J.D. Salinger

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
~ Philip K. Dick

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
~ Mae West

Navigation by Cake and Other Adventures

So we managed to make it back from the Gift Show safe and relatively sound, although my right shoulder might never be the same again. Oh well, I am certain I don't really need to be able to lift my arm above shoulder level that often, right?

Now, I am sure there are people who arrive at the show with an itinerary and a neatly mapped out plan - which booths they will visit when, how long they will spend in each hall and so on and so forth. We like to start out that way, with our neatly highlighted guide and a clear plan of where to go and what to see. This, of course, is totally blown to hell in the first minute after walking into the show. Because in the first minute, we revert to our real navigation system - Navigation By Cake. Because, the first thing you see when you walk in the door of Hall 1 is the Scantrade booth. Scantrade knows it's stuff - they have free coffee, and warm chocolate chip cookies. Thus, it begins - the rest of the show is navigated based purely on who is giving out what free food when. Samaco and Seagull give out candy, good to stock up in the morning, for a mid-afternoon sugar rush to get you to 7pm. Anyone giving out cookies and pastries and coffee is the morning tour, Abbott's sandwiches and ice cream are lunch, Amscan's assorted snacks and juice is a good mid afternoon snack, since it usually involves something with protein. The day you spend at the Congress Center is based around the free samples all the gourmet food companies are giving out. Cheese fondue for lunch, cake for dessert. Truffles, well, anytime you can find them, really. This year Upper Canada upped the ante - they installed a chocolate fountain. Do you have any idea how many marshmallows covered in warm chocolate you can eat before getting sick?

I do.

Pet Peeve # 357

People who say they really don't want to make your life difficult, while in the midst of making your life really difficult.

Thanks for the sentiment, assholes.

If I Don't Make it Back...

Please go on Oprah and tell the world I loved kittens.

Mixing socializing and the full scale project of a four day buying trip might just kill me, but I'll have had a good time on the way to the grave.

My Fantasy For Tonight...

Involves a tall, handsome stranger arriving at my house with pizza and a bucket full of cleaning supplies. A mild sedative suitable for a two year old and a margarita would probably help, too.

I need to clean tonight, and try and get my apartment looking suitable for my mother and stepfather to inhabit for two days while I am in Toronto. If you haven't seen my apartment recently - think ravaged by wild dogs. I might as well say I really want to scale Mount Everest tonight, and then get in a quick trip to Paris. I really just want to take a nap.

Goodbye, and Thanks for All the Fug...

The folks over at You Knit What? have decided to call it a day. I will miss them, and all the fugliness.

http://youknitwhat.blogspot.com/

"what good is a poker face
when you've got an open hand
i was sposed to be cool about this
i remember cool was the plan
tried to keep it all under wraps
but the wraps kept going slack
i keep turning around
i keep coming back"
~ Worthy, Ani DiFranco


I was recently told that I was transparent- that you could see everything I thinking on my face. Oh, how chagrined I was! I spent so much time longing to be a Woman of Mystery(tm) (along with a Boogie Queen(tm) and Wanton Sex Goddess(tm)) and here I was, totally blowing it. I think somewhere along the way I took the phrase still waters run deep a little too seriously. You think I would have chucked it along the same time I realized broken doesn't equal interesting. Ah, but apparently not.

This weekend has given me a lot of time to mull things over (another favorite of mine: a life unexamined is a life unlived) what with the endless hours sitting on the sides of pools and pushing swings. I've decided to embrace the transparency, damnit! There are a lot worse things I could be than an open book.

Princess Leia is my Role Model and Other Musings...

I was recently asked if I had seen Star Wars. This question was quickly qualified, pointing out that the questioner meant the original. The first thing that ran through my head was, originals? You mean there is anything else? Oh yeah, there were those 2 1/2 pieces of crap the powers that be decided to torture us with. ( 1/2 of Revenge of the Sith is worthwhile, I will grant that, but no more.) I laughed when answering this question, because of course I had seen them. Hadn't everyone in this country? I often forget that the whole Star Wars deal isn't a universal experience, and that as a child of 1974, my perspective on their cultural impact might be a bit skewed.

So yeah, I've seen them. Several times. Probably several dozen, sadly enough. Okay, fine - I own them, actually. As a kid, we all lived and breathed Star Wars. We were the original brand loyalists - we had Star Wars sheets, trading cards, lunch boxes, t-shirts and action figures (with extra cool points for those with parents who would patiently cut out UPC codes for the limited edition 1979 Boba Fett.) I was so jealous of my friend Paul - while I had to be content with my dinky Landspeeder and TIE fighter, he had the Millenium Falcon with all it's eight million moveable parts!

The nice thing about being the lone girl in a circle of friends was that I always got to be Princess Leia. Which was fortunate, what with the dearth of female characters around. If you didn't fancy yourself spending an afternoon pretending to be tied to a rock or fainting a lot, the princesses were the way to go. Princess Leia and Princess from Battle of the Planets got to kick butt and be stylish. Other than that, you were pretty much out of luck. Wonder Woman seemed too far out of reach for a little girl, far too womanly with that sparkly bustier and bosom that could front the prow of a ship. The bionic woman was boring when you took away the sound effects. Charlie's Angels required more girls than we had around, and left the boys to be bad guys or a disembodied voice. Besides, unless they were blonde, they all dressed like Mom. We occasionally played Dukes of Hazzard, but that entire game just involved jumping in and out of the window of my Dad's car until he would catch us and tell us to knock it off.

Princess Leia had it all going on, though. She had attitude in spades and snappy dialogue to go with it, trading sassy banter with bad and good boys alike. She was handy with a blaster and tactical maps and could pilot a ship when the occasion called for it. All that, and pretty white dresses that didn't get dirty, like ever, and extremely complicated hairstyles. This is who I totally wanted to be when I grew up - I wanted to have adventures and face down unspeakable evil while moving through life with courage and grace, and an endless supply of smartass remarks. Of course, I also figured by the time I grew up, one could actually win an interstellar spacecraft in a card game and there would be plenty of evil aliens to do battle with behind the greater backdrop of intergalatic war - so take it for what it's worth.

OoOoOo physics...

"Turbulence was a problem with pedigree. The great physicists all thought about it, formally or informally. A smooth flow breaks up into whorls and eddies. Wild patterns disrupt the boundary between fluid and solid. Engery drains rapidly from large-scale motions to small. Why? The best ideas came from mathematicians; for most physicists, turbulence was too dangerous to waste time on. It seemed almost unknowable. There was a story about the quantum theorist Werner Heisenburg, on his deathbed, declaring that he will have two questions for God: why relativity and why turbulence. Heisenburg says, "I really think he may have an answer to the first question."
~Chaos, James Gleick

Stupid Things Make Me Laugh, Part 2

From today's horoscope:
Fortune favours the obtuse today.


That's good, since it seems to be a permanent state of being these days.

I Love My Laundry Room

Which might seem a little odd, since I have previously posted about the Mystery of the Disappearing Fish and all that it implies about the conditions of said laundry room. The nice thing about it, though, is the book exchange. Shelves and shelves of free books- most total crap- but sometimes you managed to find something interesting.

Today I found:
The Freud/Jung Letters
and Jung's:
The Psychoanalytic Years
Critique of Psychoanalysis
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconcious

Wheee!

It's Too Early In the Morning For This...

So one of the things I never, ever thought would happen would be my two year old pointing out the giant, freaking hickey on my neck and saying, "Boo boo Mommy? Owie. I kiss."

*shakes head*

Well, I Find it Funny

"These researchers were convinced, and they tried to convince others, that Mandelbrot's new geometry was nature's own. They made an irrefutable impact on orthodox mathematics and physics as well, but Mandelbrot himself never gained the full respect of these communities. Even so, they had to acknowledge him. One mathematician told friends that he had awakened one night still shaking from a nightmare. In this dream, the mathematician was dead, and suddenly heard the unmistakable voice of God. "You know", He remarked, "there really was something to that Mandelbrot." "

~ Chaos, James Gleick

Brilliant, I am Not...

It really helps when you decide to go to a movie tonight, line up a babysitter and everything - that you manage to properly read the time the movie is showing at. *smacks forehead* Oh well, I am sure I can find something else to do, and I am actually free next weekend to go to the movie at any time I should choose. Even 10 am. Although that seems excessive.

The reason I was so determined to find a babysitter tonight is due to the realization that punched me in the gut while I was standing in line at the bank yesterday. The same realization that I manage to supress for whole hours at a time.

Today would have been my sixth wedding aniversary.

I am so not spending it home alone getting increasingly despondent over a relationship that has, quite frankly, ended for the best.

I won't, damnit.

Firemen - Totally Sexy

Yeah, so sitting here, drinking a glass of iced tea, when suddenly I hear the fire alarms going off. Smell smoke, check out the hallway, grab the baby and head downstairs. The garbage shed attached to the back of our building was on fire. Fun times. Back inside, hoping Teagan will fall asleep again, and very glad my apartment didn't burn down four days before my insurance kicks in.

Math Makes Me Hot

"Clouds are not spheres, Mandelbrot is fond of saying. Mountains are not cones. Lightning does not travel in a straight line. The new geometry mirrors a universe that is rough, not rounded, scabrous, not smooth. It is a geometry of the pitted, pocked, and broken up, the twisted, tangled and intertwined. The understanding of nature's complexity awaited a suspicion that the complexity was not just random, not just accident. It requires a faith that the interesting feature of a lightning bolt's path, for example, was not it's direction, but rather the distribution of zigs and zags. Mandelbrot's work made a claim about the world, and the claim was that such odd shapes carry meaning. The pits and tangles are more than blemishes distorting the classic shapes of Euclidian geometry. They are often the keys to the essence of a thing."

~ from Chaos, by James Gleick

Things That Should Be Outlawed:

Babies who get up at 5:30 am.

White stretch pants.

Fluorescent lighting.

Stupid Things Make Me Laugh

From today's horoscope:

Fortune favours the brave.


Of course, sometimes it also blows the brave up, so take it for what it's worth.

Alrighty then...

So the new cabinet is so not going to work in my kitchen, which is a bummer since I will have to continue to put up with my spices cluttering up my cupboards. Well, technically the cabinet fits, but only if I don't want to open the fridge. Ah well - I think it will go into my living room to house my ever growing collection of DVD's.


Things you do when you wake up at six am and your baby isn't home yet.
- take out recycling
- wash recycling bin
- surf internet
- lay down new area rug
- throw out old area rug
- dishes
- search for screwdriver
- realize you have no one else to blame for lost screwdriver
- find screwdriver
- surf internet
- take down supports for old spice rack
- discover the wall behind supports was never painted
- consider painting
- discard painting in favour of spackling over holes made from screws holding up spice rack
- move new cabinet into place, discover it doesn't fit
- wonder what the hell to do with new cabinet
- go to buy a coffee, remember once standing outside Tim Horton's that it is closed for renovations
- buy water instead
- realize water is good for you, but tastes like water
- measure picture you smashed in last move three years ago so you can order new glass
- congratulate self for finding tape measure on the first try
- surf internet
- put away laundry
- debate psychological ramifications of discomfort with other people folding my laundry
- consider breakfast possibilities, decide ice cream sounds perfectly reasonable
- take multi-vitamin
- blog

Fireworks

Fireworks dance across the sky
Bright bursts of light
Falling
Falling
Never touching ground
Your outstretched hands try
To hold on to them
Hoping to steal them from the wind
Memories are like this
The memories of tonight
Are like this
Slipping through your fingers
Always just out of reach
Nothing stays sharp in this world
Every edge gets soft
Even this memory
This night
These fireworks
So brilliant
Shining in this sky

The Grand Plan

What to do with the rest of my weekend:

- See if I can still make the tail end of a birthday party.
- Go see The Usual Suspects in the park tonight.
- Rearrange new kitchen furniture.
- Finish laundry.
- Start picking paint colours.
- Try and drag reclusive friends out to Sunday brunch.
- Go shopping for something a bit more upscale than jeans and tank tops. Remember to buy Teagan yet another pink hat.

Wheee!

Ever have one of those moments...

...when something is totally off-kilter, but it takes a minute to figure out exactly what it is? I had one of those moments today. I was standing alone in the store - a customer walks in, and I immediately feel as though something was off. I couldn't figure out what it was at first - they didn't seem like one of those stealie stealie types you have to watch like a hawk, nor one of the crazy conspiracy theorists we sometimes are besieged with.


Then it hits me.


This woman is wearing a fur lined parka, toque and winter boots.


In July.


*shakes head*

Uh yeah, remind me not to that again...

Why is it I am surprised when people who have consistently lied to me in the past lie to me again?


There is an Ani lyric for all occasions:


"they say goldfish have no memory
i guess their lives are much like mine
and the little plastic castle
is a surprise every time"

Happy Birthday, Teagan!

So my little girl is two years old today, and it boggles my mind. That tiny little thing I held in my arms is now a huge toddler, who runs and leaps and tries to kill herself on a near daily basis with all the running and leaping. She can string together two and three word sentences - such important things as "water is wet" and my personal favorite, "Monkey Jane" (thanks InfiniteWaitState). She has recently developed a sense of humour, and makes strange little jokes she finds endlessly amusing.

Since she is mine, she is of course the most adorable child ever invented. She is incredibly joyful, exuberant, headstrong and completely fearless. She has taught me so much in her short time here, not least of which is the endless capacity we humans have to love.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

First check your feet - then choose your dance.

My first month as a single parent is drawing to a close. In some ways it's been easier than I though - in others, much harder. I am usually such a solitary person, I didn't realize how very accustomed I had gotten to there always being someone around to talk to. I divide my time pretty much equally between feeling strong and confident and like a total failure. Most times, I look towards the future, making plans and setting new goals and just trying to get through each day with some small amount of grace.

Other times I sit around feeling like a total nutcase - a bad mommy whose daughter watches too much tv, a bad friend who burdens people with the constant need for stupid favours because she can't remember that she just can't pop out to the grocery store for diapers at ten o'clock at night anymore. A bad daughter who hasn't yet managed to mail her Father's Day gift because she just can't seem to get it together.

Some days I wake up positively giddy, as though I have been given a precious gift - my life has been handed back to me without the constant stress of a relationship gone terribly wrong. I feel like I found myself somewhere inside a very bitter and angry stranger, and rediscovered the person who knew how to laugh.

The only thing I don't seem to be doing is mourning the passing of my marriage. That worried my for a while, that I must be suppressing something to feel so little about the ending of a huge chapter in my life. Then I realized - I already did that. I've spent the last two years doing that.

The mourning is over. It's time to let it go, grab onto this new life with both hands, and leap.

And Who Said Television Wasn't Educational?

Teagan has learned two new words today: clue and bubble. Now, if you add her other words, blue and puppy, any parent will know exactly who is introducing my baby to the wonderful world of language. (Well, other than InfiniteWaitState, of course, who is diligently trying to teach her the words ninja, coup, and totalitarian regime.)

I have learned the secret, finally, of what exactly it was that replaced the little yellow pill as Mommy's little helper - and it's DVDs full of a inexplicably blue little dog. Sometimes singing vegetables work, too. But that song about the pirates who don't do anything tends to get stuck in your head.

Who needs valium when some guy named Joe is getting paid what I hope is very good money to sing about going to the toilet.

This Week Has Kind of Sucked...

...but on an up note, I now fit into a pair of pants I haven't been able to wear since getting pregnant.

Yay me!

Words! Words! Words!

Teagan's vocabulary is growing so much these days, these are her new words in the last few weeks:

duck
elbow
cookie (of course)
forehead
blue
shoe
boot
banana (also known as nanananana...)
bottle
cup

and my personal favorite:

poop!

I Can Die Happy Now...

Teagan has learned a new word.

Mommy.

I was beginning to despair of her ever calling me Mommy, as she much preferred to call me Daddy, even though I knew damn well she knew how to say Mommy even if she chose not to. Every night I would come home and she would run down the hall screaming; "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." Last week at the park she insisted on calling me Daddy both loudly and repeatedly, which garnered some rather odd looks as people marvelled at how successful the operation must have been. A few more weeks and I would have been fielding gently probing questions on how best to address the transgendered.

A couple of days ago, though, she pointed at my chest and declared me Mommy. Then she pointed proudly at herself and proclaimed; "Baby!"

It was one of those moments that breaks your heart and mends it again all at the same time.

So now, officially, I am Mommy.

Yay me!

More Meme...

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A Mother's Love is It's Own Reward...

AKA, Things I tell myself when I have the urge to stuff my child in the oven.

A few weeks ago, I crawled into bed and Teagan rolled over in her sleep, grabbed my hand with her little baby hand, and as my heart melted into a little puddle of goo, she sighed; "Daddy."

A couple of days later, a sleeping little angel baby rolled over as I tried to wake her up and sighed sweetly and whispered; "Cookie."

Last night, she rolled over, cuddled her head against mine, and whispered; "Ma...

...Daddy."

Just for Ouroboros...

It must be spring, finally.

I took the cranky baby out to the park today, then a tour around in the stroller of doom. What did I find during my travels?

Schoolgirls.

With bare legs and their kilts rolled at the waist to make them so short they barely cover their unmentionables.

The best part were the two guys on rollerblades who almost became roadkill while trying to get a better look.

You ever get the feeling that you are really, really dim?

Seriously.

Say, for instance, you happen to reflect on a part of your life, long past and realize that anvils were dropping all over the place and you were just skipping along blindly like a maniac, somehow managing to avoid the anvil rain shower?

Yeah.

Weird.