Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Go gently into that good night, Barbaro ... your astounding battle to live was heroic.

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8 degrees (as it was when we woke up yesterday morning) is too cold to get out of bed ... do not live in Anchorage but rather in Nashville and is a crying shame self was dragged here by wild horses ... 8 degrees constitutes type of morning you should just turn on TV (bypassing Weather Channel because DUH) and go straight to HBO and its repeated showings of Nanny McPhee (how incredible is Emma Thompson?,) U.S.Marshals, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, etc. Feel like a good, sick scare/vomit-fest? Then drag out your Saw trilogy ... mind you, we don't own it ... ok, we do. there, happy? Or if the Tiny One is up will switch to Disney , which is simply on in background during rousing game of chase from sockets to kleenex to dogs' tails to stairs to bookcase (oh, sacred books) ... ah, quiet but freezing morning was nice while it lasted ..

Ain't Life Grand?

And So It Goes ... Again

ok, just to clarify for people who've asked ... that is NOT Kelly and I in the picture included in yesterday's blog ... it was just some picture I found in our Windows sample pictures ... I don't have any of the two of us in our computer, but if I did, you'd probably be sorry because there are about a gazillion in existence from the time we were born until the present ... I just need to put them in the computer.
Annie is on the mend, so pictures shall be on the way as well as stories from my oh-so-bizarre life: for example, my child shoplifting; yours truly making use of mall security to locate my car; setting off my car alarm and absolutely not being able to get it off; putting my finger directly into my daughter's poop during the millionth diaper change; running into a doorframe and having to have my glasses repaired; the tragic end of KinderMusik for this particular semester; my beginning of 6 months of Lupron treatment for aggressive endometriosis (hello, mood swings roller coaster. May I take a ride?); Annie discovering my nostrils with her fingers; and on and on and on. Honestly, it's just the way things generally go in my little world ... it's been that way for quite some time. Do come join the fun!

Rhinoceros IVF

Newsflash of the Day: ok, just read that IVF was performed successfully on a rhinoceros in Hungary ... good grief ... I'm as big an animal lover as the next person but still ... is absolutely dumbfounding.

alright, alright, fine, you dragged it out of me like a herd of wild buffalo: my birthday was yesterday ... the big 25 ... that's right, my cousin, Kelly (God bless her) will always, always be so much older than I. so sad. ok, OK, enough with the torture, precious Kelly is only 36 hours older than I am so that would make me (God forbid) 33. continue mentioning Kelly because our 36-hour age difference meant that, of course, we grew up together, wore (how to say?) interesting matching outfits as tiny children, went to DisneyWorld together, put each other's fingers into adding machines and added them up (oh, wait, that was Kelly adding up MY fingers: not a smart idea, Kel), you get the picture. no birthdays of mine pass without thoughts of her (because she's older than I and her birthdays always come first and I've already thought of her) ... is lovely to continue to grow up together ...

Aunt Kelly

no exciting blogging as of late as Annie has had a lovely case of the sniffles ... first time in 9 1/2 months she's even been remotely sick ... as one might expect we now all have the sniffles but, most importantly, Annie is much better. precious husband and I continuing on in sniffle-induced daze but is ok. no big deal. regular blogging and pictures will return soon ...
and last but most assuredly not least, belated by a day happy birthday to my cousin (one of those pregnant ones) Kelly ... like a much, much older sister to me and an always-there-when-you-need-her friend whom I love very much! she turned 40 yesterday ... ok, ok, FINE, she turned 33 ... and yes, I could tell stories for DAYS about her ... love you, Kel ...

Woe Is Me

have just finished lovely and extraordinarily tasty brunch of Snackwell's Devil's Food Cookie Cakes and a Dr. Pepper ... was reading nutritional information on Snackwell's box and is excellent product: no fat, no cholesterol and low sodium ... can feel the unhealthiness just falling away. wait, have just seen serving size for Snackwell's Devil's Food Cookie Cakes and is (GASP!) 1 cookie ... am in disbelief as have just consumed 8 cookies during my lovely brunch. am appalled that "cookie" maker would think one person could sit down and simply consume 1 cookie. is like consuming 1 potato chip or trying to catch lightning in a bottle. is impossible really. am so disappointed. will just have to finish Snackwell's Devil's Food Cookie Cakes along with Dr. Pepper, which is high in sugar, high in calories and just generally bad for self in every single possible way and then hurl self through window in despair. or not. is Friday after all. would so hate to miss weekend ...

This Is Dedicated to the One I Love

The Miracle

For Annie, the miracle
&
For Kelly, Kate and Mandi, the moms-to-be

Sometimes in the afternoons I sneak into the crib with Annie during her nap ...
her lullabies are playing, and she still has the magical smell of baby sleep.
She rolls into me, one hand on the side of my face, her little nose touching mine and one hand on my chest.
I put my hand on her back, feeling her breathing, feeling the beautiful child who inhabited my dreams long before I could see her face.
We lay like this for a moment, an eternity?
In this instant I see a glimpse of heaven ...

Party at My Crib

alas, dear readers, your eyes do not deceive you, that is self getting out of Annie's tiny crib ... I get in there from time to time to lay down with her or comfort her if she has just awakened from a nap screaming (rare but nonetheless.) crib has yet to crash to the ground so we're ok so far ...
anyway, point of blog: took upon self (usually precious and incredibly thoughtful husband's job) to change Annie's crib sheet and upon completion of task am now irritated, hot, exhausted, and just generally irked. How is it that a sheet so very, very, very small can evoke such feelings? why is it important that tiny sheet be changed in such a manner so as to maintain position of beautiful dust ruffle and lovely bumper pad? honestly, honestly DON'T KNOW but threw self all over crib making just that happen. was hanging from headboard with hand wedged, WEDGED between the mattress and the crib itself making absolutely certain the dust ruffle stayed in its designated dust ruffle area. is small nightmare if truth be told. will begin lessons for new moms-to-be (Kel, Kate, Mandi) on how to efficiently change crib sheets ... will figure out first.

Category 1 Hurricane Annie

will be taking short leave of absence from the world of blogging as will be heading out of town tomorrow for yet another pregnant cousin's baby shower ... in meantime, annie is burning up the floor, the carpet, her knees, etc. in a fury of motion ... is even beginning to make tiny pulling up onto the furniture motions but have sat upon small child to stifle this additional insanity ...

Forces of Nature

oh, mercy, is it wrong to wish for your child to regress back to before she was a mobile little force of nature?? fortunately for mary and hope (as you can see in the top picture) they still have tall places to escape and survey the chaos, such as on top of the bed or on top of the couch ... I, however, am responsible for this tiny tornado forever and always and there is nowhere to hide!!
In most of these pictures, Annie is crawling (or resting) very near a big striped bowl, which is Mary's bowl of food ... she's laughing because I'm telling her no and she's remembering yesterday when I had to forcibly remove dog food from her mouth and also a rawhide stick she was chomping on ... how can a 9-month-old be so quick? She was JUST sitting quietly playing and perfectly contained 8 days ago!! oh, I'm tired, and I only have the one child ...

Annie the Conqueror

ah, here's our sweet Annie conquering the world ... she's eating a magazine page in the first picture, eating her cute little finger puffs in the second one and enjoying the mayhem of crawling over to her cabinet of books, pulling almost all of them down and then sitting in the middle of them in the rest of the pictures ... what a gal! Life is certainly changing! Just when you get used to one thing in parenthood it just flies by and something brand new comes along ...

That's All, Folks

ok, here are the final miscellaneous Christmas pictures (that's my dad with Annie) plus a pretty stream I saw coming home on the Natchez Trace ...
will be back to regular everyday blogging and picture-posting tomorrow with Annie crawling, etc. and all the mayhem that ensues ...

Hello, World

more Christmas pictures ... can these possibly be interesting to anyone but us?? (and Jill, God bless you for being such a supportive friend! and of course, my best friend, Teri, and Kel, who always has such wonderful things to say. and our parents. ok, never mind.)
exciting news from the parent front ... Annie is now a crawling baby! As of Wednesday, she suddenly put her little herky jerky movements together and crawled ... she's still getting the hang of it but she's so proud ... the dogs are not so sure about her new moves, but they're working through it ...
had excellent child-free night out last night with husband ... went to Nashville Children's Theatre's production of "School House Rock" and quick bite to eat at Noshville ... was really nice and fun to have conversations with Anthony that actually had beginnings and ends, not "now what was I saying two days ago about the new speaker of the house?" (ok, self was still likely discussing the Doodlebops' strange new costumes but point is the same.) Ah, how parenthood forevermore changes every single aspect of your life but in retrospect what did we used to do with our time?
oh, remind me to tell you about my new GPS, Karen ...

Let the Presentation Begin

Ok, dear readers, may I humbly present the beginning of our Christmas morning pictures. I think they speak for themselves ... (by the way, that beautiful woman in the picture with Annie is my mom)

Wag More, Bark Less

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I still promise the Christmas pictures are coming, but in the meantime here are some pre-Christmas pictures (and a couple of the family dogs taken during Christmas): a couple of Annie in the park in her new fluffy blue outfit (along with her daddy in his normal clothes,) my cousin Kelly (36 hours OLDER than me and due in April with her baby) and her husband, Michael's, beautiful and wonderful golden retriever, Daisy, and my Aunt Mar and Uncle Larry's (Mom's brother and my second parents) Jack Russell Maggie ... can you tell we're animal people? The bumper sticker on my car says "Wag more, Bark Less."

The Birth of a New Year

And so here we are at the birth of a brand new year ... for those of you hoping for Annie's first Christmas pictures, they're coming, but in the meantime (brace yourselves) I've been having thoughts. Now that my child is 9 months old, I feel like I'm starting to get my feet back on the ground and remember what the world outside my own house looks like. So I decided to kick off the new year with an actual blog ...
In recollection, my life has always been a bit quirky ... because I am an only child, my imagination is vivid and that has certainly carried over into my adulthood. DisneyWorld is still my favorite vacation spot, and I believe in Santa Claus. I was devastated to learn that the Stevie Wonder classic "Isn't She Lovely?" isn't about me, and I've always been drawn to mirrors. (Parallel? Perhaps.) I sing and dance for Annie (a lot) and, truth be told, we watch the DoodleBops because I like it and do all the routines. In fact, if we're being honest, I spent an embarassing amount of time on the internet finding out what the DoodleBops look like without their wigs and outfits. I used to have an irrational fear of snipers (don't laugh, Danielle) and toilet snakes (don't ask.)
Think the weirdness stops there? I've been bitten by not one but two brown recluse spiders in my lifetime, one that got so infected it had to be cut out, leaving a lovely quarter-size scar on my leg; on that same day, I was stung three times by one wasp who flew up the pants leg of my overalls. Since we've moved here (excluding all Annie-related excitement) I've broken my foot and gone to the doctor for what I thought was a REALLY bad ulcer that turned out to be a bone spur forcing its way to the surface through my gum. Yep. It was new to my dentist, too.
There's a point to all this, I promise. For this new year, I don't have any resolutions as much as I have goals. I want to spend more time just being myself as strange as I may be. We were at KinderMusik a couple of weeks ago, and I, along with one of my other also-an-only-child friends, decided that for the new year we would become more crafty, as in art projects and sewing. The thing is, that's just not me, at least not at this stage (it's not my friend, either.) I was talking about this in Gulfport over the weekend (ANOTHER baby shower) and my aunt said, "but you blog, THAT'S what you do." And I thought about it ... my degree is in journalism, and I love to write. It comes very easily to me, and I enjoy relaying the oddities of my life to others. So my goal this year is to just be me, starting with writing more and being a bit more honest about who I am.
So here we go:
I like the Dixie Chicks -- a LOT. With or without their politics, they are astoundingly gifted musicians.
I worry when I go out to check the mail in my pajamas at 4 in the afternoon that my neighbors think I lead a meaningless life full of bon-bons, champagne, and soap operas.
I'm not a great listener, but I'm working on it.
I'm still sad that "Friends" isn't on anymore.
I secretly wish I'd gone to med school. (and yes, I know it's not too late.)
I would do absolutely anything at anytime for my family.
I have no sense of direction whatsoever --- NONE. Zilch. Zero. Can't read a map to save my life.
My dad is my hero and one of the most amazing people I've ever come across.
I think Harry Potter will die in the last book.
Hurricane Katrina profoundly changed my life.
My husband is a wonderful person that I truly look up to, have fun with and know in my heart that God sent to me.
I absolutely do not understand the fascination with Paris Hilton. AT ALL.
I would rather be home with my family than anywhere else, and nothing brings me more joy.
I'm just beginning to think I'm an ok mom.
I LOVE to go to the movies.
I worry too much what other people think about me.
I truly believe animals go to heaven.
And, finally, if you're still reading this, I thank you ... Happy New Year!!