are things complicated yet?

Five

These days I look at my face in the morning and it is starting to appear a bit older and spottier and I wonder if he still thinks of it as the same pretty face he met seven years ago, wonder what it will look like in another seven years and then sometimes if I'm feeling extra dull I wonder what it might look like in thirty years. I think maybe I should start shopping the anti-aging products.

I wonder when I will stop fretting about the freckles that keep appearing on my face, no matter how much sunscreen I slather on or how many wide-brimmed hats I insist on wearing, and just let them multiply freely while he holds my hand as we walk in the sunshine. It's obvious to everyone but me that he doesn't give a shit about the damn freckles, just walk with him dammit.

We've only been married for five years and we have so much ahead of us. I mean, five is certainly a significant milestone but it's no ten or twenty or thirty. I tend to be the kind of person that dwells on a pleasant thought and gets weepy about all of the lovely things that are still going to happen. I'm a planner and I like to think about future plans and there's nothing more cozy to think about than The Plan Of Our Lives. I mostly think about how it's nice that we have so much time to grow old together and how there are so many secrets and beautiful truths that life has yet to reveal. I look forward to being surprised by both good things and bad, but always with him.

He is a better person than I am, always giving the benefit of the doubt, always assuming the best and not the worst in people. He is positive and optimistic and I am a bit gloomier and distrustful. He defuses my attitudes and I have yet to find the point where his patience wears thin.

He still can't quite remember how to order me a hamburger, even though he's heard it a thousand times, but he recalls with perfect clarity our first date and what we ordered and how the sun was just so and the glasses for our beers were square and that was a bit annoying and froofy but, whatever, he was having dinner with a pretty girl that he hoped to see again.

I am so glad that he asked to see me again.

Mostly, I just wanted to post this picture that I found on my mom's iPad.

When I'm home for the weekend, I like to look at old pictures. Do you do that?

I look through the boxes and bins and laugh at my painfully awkward teenage years while simultaneously thinking, "Thank God these will never see the internet. Thank God there WAS no internet." I like to squint at my baby pictures and try to find some resemblance to Claire, but it's always been difficult for me to see, even though others swear that it's there.

I really like to look at my parents' wedding photos. They are all candids, there are no more than 100 or so shots and they've never bothered to arrange them in a formal album or enlarge any of them past the 3 1/2" x 5", rounded corner, slightly reddish 1970's prints.  (She DID scan them and put them on her iPad though.) They're basically nothing like any wedding photos you see these days. I love them.

This is my mother, getting dressed on her wedding day in 1977. Her bridesmaids wore sugary-pink dresses, she had a cascading bouquet of lilies and roses and they made their getaway in a Triumph TR7. I think she looks gorgeous.

(Incidentally, it was one of Time Magazine's "50 Worst Cars of All Time" -- ha ha!  She says the got rid of it when they found out I was due to arrive, so I'd have a place to sit. How kind of them. She also says they never had maintenance issues with it, which I find incredible given that scathing write-up.)

***

Being at home this weekend has been super fun. First of all, BABYSITTERS! When you're working towards 8 months pregnant, having two whole extra people around that just love to cater to the toddler's every whim or question is pretty freaking awesome. Plus? They let us sleep in. No, really, my mom TAKES THE MONITOR TO BED WITH HER so that we can sleep.

And? It was all HER IDEA! And? Because it's not our house and Claire is usually here while we are on vacation, when she wakes up at the crack of dawn?  She goes to Grammie's room to wake HER up and not ME. It gets better: I also took a 2 hour nap every day.

The toys here are all brand new, Grammie will read books for an unlimited amount of time and she has thoughtfully placed the juice boxes on the bottom shelf in the door of the fridge, so little hands can serve themselves. She will cut limitless amounts of strawberries and slices of cheese and she won't even make a face when someone asks for an orange to be peeled and then refuses to eat a single wedge.

Colonel throws old bread in the yard so the deer will come out and eat, he chases her around the living room and gladly plays a variation of hide and seek wherein Claire puts her hands over her eyes, counts to ten and then declares, "I hiding!" There's not much for Colonel to do in this game other than say, "I found you!"  Even though it's completely nonsensical, it's cute and he has endless patience for her and she loves his attention more than anyone else's.

We are never going home.

A tiny voice in the dark at 430

I was greeted at 430 this morning by a small voice next to my bed that complained about a binky and how it was upstairs in her big girl bed and all I could think was, "then maybe you should go BACK UPSTAIRS to your big girl bed and get it." So Chris went and got the binky and told her that if she wanted to stay downstairs she had to be quiet and sleep and she did, for all of thirty seconds, before declaring, "I hafta go potty."

After that, she came back to my side of the bed and put her sunglasses on (???) and crawled up next to me and snuggled and asked for covers and went to sleep. In the great expanse of our king-size bed where there's more than enough room for all three of us, she snuggled up as close to me as she could get without actually being on top of me.

I stared at the ceiling for a half hour, completely unable to go back to sleep now that I'd been woken to the point of conscious conversation. The baby woke up and started kicking and turning around and poking me. I had to go potty now. And then, inexplicably, my nose started bleeding. I finally snuck out of bed and discovered that the aggravating round ligament pain I was having last night hasn't gone away and I waddled to the living room to escape into the computer while the house is still quiet. Blissfully, heavenly, quiet.

Today is my birthday and I am 32-years-old. It doesn't sound like a great way to start a birthday, but for some reason I'm perfectly fine with it.

Merry Merry

Cookie Day is tomorrow and my brother and his girlfriend will be here any minute, fresh off the highway from Houston. Claire is in bed, my parents are safely stashed across town at the home of my grandparents and Chris is upstairs drinking bourbon and playing Xbox with his brother. Jake is sleeping on the floor, which I can only presume is one of his most favorite activities, as it's what he does about 90% of the time.

Life is nice, you know?

***

I spent all day prepping for Cookie Day and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I made the Espresso Crinkle dough, two pans of cinnamon rolls and fifty-something sugar cookies.

The laundry is finished and the groceries all bought. The kitchen (and the rest of the house) is clean and both Chris and I are off until January 3rd, which feels positively amazing because none of those things EVER happen simultaneously.

I hope that you have a lovely Christmas, no matter if you're surrounded by your seven siblings and parents or you're separated from a loved one by an entire hemisphere.  Eat some pie, pour some champagne and revel in the fact that it only goes up from here.

Have an awesome holiday, y'all.  Merry Christmas.

December, by the numbers

17: Packages to mail, which will require a trip to the post office, which will surely result in unjustified rage and elevated blood pressure, which is bad for the baby, so I'm thinking I'll make Chris do it.

14: People are coming to my house for Christmas dinner. (Only 2 of them are spending the night.)

6: Days left of work for me in 2010.

0: Christmas cards we sent out this year. I feel like I should feel guilty about this, but I don't. Am a Scrooge of the most magnificent, stamp-hoarding order.

6: Christmas cards recieved so far. Apparently you get what you give on this one.

0: Twee little pink frilly things bought for New Baby.

16: Names that are on the Potential Names for New Baby List.

3: Names that we semi-agree on.

3: Names that Chris contributed to the list. (Why YES, they ARE the very same three that we semi-agree on. Isn't that remarkable?)

0: Boxes in New Baby's room. We cleaned it out a few weeks ago and...haven't touched it since then.

1: Gingerbread house completed.

30,000,000: Requests per day from a small person to eat the candy on the gingerbread house.

8: Orders we've made from Amazon.com this month. Amazon Prime is the only way to go, people.

400: Dollars we spent on a recent visit to the vet for Jake. Don't worry, he's okay. Just old. (Newsflash!)

There's probably a more direct way to say this, but I prefer to see who's really paying attention

My brother and I are about 2 and a half years apart.  We fought a lot as kids (like I think most siblings do)  but as adults we're actually quite good friends.  It was nice growing up with a close sibling because we ran in similar circles of friends and we could enjoy the same activities.

I have always enjoyed being the older sister and the only girl, mostly because this means that even at the age of 31 I usually get my way.  I think older sisters can be a little bossy, but maybe that's true of all first-borns.  I never, ever wished I had a sister (I'm not much for sharing) but now that I'm a grown-up I sometimes wish I did (although not very often since I like being the only girl and getting my way) so that we could do grown-up sister things and maybe we'd have kids the same age and that would be fun too.

But, all I've got is my funny little brother who gives Claire Libertarian literature for Christmas gifts and I like him just fine.

Claire, of course, will always be the oldest and the first girl and she'll probably be bossy like I was/am but I hope she likes her new baby brother or sister just as much as I like mine, even though I'm counting on many years of discord because that's just how siblings go, right?

Scheduled Arrival: April 28, 2011 

(It was a tough secret to keep and I feel so much better now that I can tell you how BARFY I feel all the damn time.  I'm sure this is a boy.  I was never this pukey with Claire.  You must be so thrilled that this turned into a post about vomit.  Well, there's more where that came from folks.  TRUST ME.  Get ready for a fun ride over the next 6 months.)

The chill of an early fall

After we made pancakes and bid farewell to our friends that visited this weekend, we let Claire run around the dewy grass in her pajamas (at her very loud insistence) while we stared dumbfounded at each other because dude, it did not feel horrible to be outside.  It is not a furnace.  It is not like standing in front of a hair dryer.  It was cool, breezy and downright pleasant.  

We came inside and pushed open the first-floor windows and felt the refreshing and cool breeze waft through the house.  I could hear the lawnmowers and birds (geese, even!) and the leaves on the live oak tree next door rustle and sway. It had been a long time since I'd listened to the neighborhood. I've spent the past few months actively avoiding the outdoors and here I was now, welcoming it into my home.

It is so fantastic to feel like it's okay to go outside again.  Sometimes I think that Texans get a sort of reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.  The summer can be so brutally unpleasant and suffocating with overnight lows that remain in the 90s, humidity that soars past 80% and weeks and weeks of 100+ degree days.  It feels like there's no break and like it might never end.  It is hot and suffocating twenty-four hours a day for MONTHS.  It can often remain hot until October.  It makes me hide inside and steers me off of the most mundane of activities, like going to the grocery store because I would have to walk in a parking lot to do that and it will be a million degrees and NO THANKS we'll have cereal tonight.  It might be sunny and gorgeous out but we are staying inside all summer because it is just too hot.  It is too hot to go to the pool even because I just BAKE on the cement and since it never gets cool at night the pool stays hot and is just barely more refreshing than a lukewarm bathtub.  I spend a lot of time in the summer just trying to avoid sweating while keeping the AC set to an affordable level. 

This cool weather is so different.  It is so welcoming. It is "let's go get some nachos on a patio" weather.  It is evenings of "let's take a walk around the neighborhood after dinner."  It feels like a world of activities are suddenly options to us again.  I have even allowed myself to consider taking Claire to an outdoor playground instead of Chick-fil-A, which is where we've been camped out all summer.  The slides at outdoor playgrounds are way too hot in June, July and August.  They burn little legs.

I think what is most insulting to me is that our crap summer does not come with a side of Awesome, like other places have with their versions of crap weather.

Snow is a giant pain in the ass to shovel, and it gets dirty and slushy fast, but at least it's pretty while it's falling and in the mornings when it's undisturbed.  You can't gaze at Hot while it's beating down on you mid-day.  You don't take pictures of Hot and put them in your Christmas cards.  You can't play with Hot.

Or those of you in the Pacific Northwest where it rains so much? At least you have mountains close by.  Mountains are pretty.  You can also drive up a mountain and it gets colder, like some magic trick of the most amazing sort.  Here's it's just flat and wide and it goes on for miles and there's a reason settlers called the middle of the country The Great Plains.  There are no geographic features to look at, meditate on or climb that make the heat escapable or tolerable.

Those of you in Florida, poor Florida, with the hurricanes and humidity and constant stream of political ads trashing up your televisions, the hurricanes are horrible but at least there's a beach close by all of the other days of the year and you never, ever have to wear a heavy jacket. 

Most of you in California can bite me.  (Earthquakes are not a meteorological event.)

It's not even that I want to move somewhere else or that I really think *everyone* has it better than we do.  It's just that summer is so particularly awful on the thermometer where I live and I hate it. From where I sit there's not much to look forward to as the season changes from spring to summer.

So, you can see why I was delighted to learn yesterday that fall is here, finally, after a very long summer indoors with a toddler. It feels like the pause button had been finally been let go and we're free to enjoy the fresh air now.

Independence Day, by the numbers

Wagons, bikes or strollers decorated: 0

Parades seen/participated in: 0

Fireworks witnessed: 0

Cute red/white/blue outfits/accessories Claire wore: 0

Parental Fails: 4 really colossal ones

***

Houseguests: 2

Pounds of ribs and brisket smoked: 23

Bacon-wrapped jalapenos: 36

Rounds of Margaritas made: 4

Bottles of Grand Marnier emptied: 1

Margaritas I drank: 0 (Not sure how this happened; everyone was awfully thirsty while I made dinner and then, all of a sudden, the Grand Marnier was in the trash.  WAH.)

Batches of chocolate chip cookies: 2

Birthdays: 1

Movies watched: 2 (Edge of Darkness, Brewster's Millions)

Episodes of "Whale Wars" watched (and made fun of, my GOD what a bunch of stupid hippies): 2

Trips to the pool: 2

Jaguars seen: 1 (Oddly enough, the Dallas AQUARIUM has a Jaguar.)

Times I unloaded the dishwasher and loaded it again: TOO MANY TO COUNT

Parental and General Wins: A million.  

Happy Easter!

I've been thinking about Easter a lot for the past week, and about what it means to me and how I'm sort of...taking it in this year.  We're not super churchy, so I'm not saying I had a moment with God or anything, but for me it was more about taking time to examine some new beginnings we have going on here (jobs, home, a toddler language explosion) and rediscovering some faith in myself and my family.

This is just a long way of saying that we had a really lovely weekend. 

Today we had lunch at Benihana!  And it was awesome!  I highly recommend your local hibachi establishment if you have a toddler.  Claire was TRANSFIXED by the chef and the food and the steam and the...everything.  She's a huge fan of hibachi.

She is not a huge fan of Benihana hats though.

Me though?  I'm sort of amused by Benihana paper hats.

Claire hunted for Easter Eggs this afternoon.  They're the plastic kind, because hard boiled eggs make me want to gag.  Oh my goodness, there's nothing that makes me want to barf more than ruining a perfectly good Cobb Salad with a bunch of grody EGG. 

I had them on the breakfast table this morning and when she spotted them her eyes got really big and she said, "OOOOOOOO!"  Then she called them, "Ball!"

Yeah!  Sort of, honey.

Side Story: Last week they did an egg hunt at her school and each parent was asked to bring in a dozen plastic eggs with "fruit snacks or stickers" inside.  So, "fruit snacks" obviously means those gummi-type snacks in Disney character shapes with something like 2% fruit juice, right?  Not the best calories you can buy, but pretty harmless toddler food in moderation, yes?

Well.  I was the only parent that opted for stickers.  (OF COURSE.)  Claire came home that afternoon with about 12 eggs stuffed with:

• Starburst candies

• Jelly Belly jelly beans

• Haribo gummi bears

• Brach's gummis in the SHAPE of fruit - the kind with sugar all over the outside

• 1 package of legit fruit snacks

Now.  I'm not saying that any of these are BAD for a toddler.  They're treats.  Whatever.  Sometimes-foods.  But the directions said FRUIT SNACKS and 4 out of these 5 are definitely not fruit snacks!  They have fruit in the name or color but seriously?  Not fruit!  Not even 2% fruit-juice-Disney fake fruit!

I can't decide if the other parents phoned it in with a, "Whatever, this is what we have to stuff in these stupid eggs," or if they really thought these were semi-healthy because of their vaguely fruity properties given to them by a marketer.

I think they really do think these snacks are be healthy.  Because, you know, that's a Pineapple flavored gummi bear!  FRUIT!

What do you think?  Stupid people?  Or just careless people?  Either way, America's ideas about food are really messed up.

Anyway. I got a cute picture of us this weekend, which is so rare.

Then I blew some bubbles and Claire chased them.  I wish I liked anything just half as much as she likes bubbles.  It must be nice to be so flat out THRILLED by something so simple.  Being 18-months old must be the best age ever.

Merry Christmas!

I haven't sent out my Christmas Cards yet (even though they're all addressed and stamped and ready to be taken to the post office), so this is going to be a spoiler for those of you in my address book but...eh.

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I hope that your holiday is filled with laughter, pie, smiles and lots of hot chocolate with Bailey's.  I hope that you wake up Christmas morning surrounded by the people you love most.  I hope that 2009 was a great year, but I know that 2010 will be your best year ever. 

Lots of love,

Chris, A'Dell and Claire