Since a few of you have asked, Kyle is (well, until the next plague descends) feeling much better. There's this silly little thing parents do -- well, there's this silly little thing I do, as a parent -- that consists of wringing my hands like a crazy person each time we hit a speed bump, as if this less desirable phase is going to be The Way Things Stay Forever and Ever, Shoot Me Now. Regression -- whether by sickness or teething or growing pains or exhaustion or WHAT-THE-HELL-EVER -- is a tricky mind game, and it's hard to see past it. Sure, I logically know (uh, in hindsight) that the flu or a stomach virus or teething or Kyle just being an all-around grouchopotamus isn't a brand new normal, but it's hard not to let my cynical mind go there at times, like when he's screaming his head off at 2 a.m. or throwing his pacifier at my face at 4 a.m.
Then, we pass through the shitty stage and move on to smiles and laughs and long nights of sleep, and I am reminded how I sometimes desperately fail at perspective because after 27 years you'd think I'd have figured out by now that life is not a straight line at all, it's a back-and-forth, two-steps-forward, eighteen-steps-backward kind of dance. Nothing lasts very long, not even the flu/cold season.
So, yes, he's doing lots better. Let me show you!:
In his Pink Floyd t-shirt, making his papa proud.
I took more pictures of him over the weekend. You can see them all here.
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Also over the weekend I hosted a champagne and cake party with my friend Kristie. We had champagne (shocking!) and Sprinkles cupcakes and lots of ladies all gathered in my 1300-square-foot house, laughing and sipping and politely ignoring my child screaming from his room. (Nothing says PARTY! like a screaming baby, don't you agree?) But, really, we had a nice time.
My motivation for throwing the party was just celebrating friendships in general. When I first began dating Mike I let nearly everything else important in my life fall by the wayside. Grades, friends, my sorority, my job, so on and sadly so forth. About six months in, something shifted, and I missed who I was (and who I had) before Mike. Taking a renewed interest in my life improved my relationship with him. (Win-win!) So, I'm now a pretty big advocate for women having strong friendships outside of their marriage or relationship. You can never have too many people in your corner, so pick funny, smart, confident, supportive women and spend time with them.
With champagne and carbs. Hard to top that.
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I invited a couple of those women to see New Moon with me this weekend, too, so I wouldn't have to see it alone. The movie was great, in a really-horribly-acted-and-super-duper-cheesy way. Those are the best kinds, aren't they? It's like the feature film equivalent to One Tree Hill or Dawson's Creek or anything that's ever aired on MTV. I found myself clapping and groaning and laughing and loving every minute.
You should go see it, too.
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Mike and I have one ongoing, headache-inducing fight, and it's all about me. Oh, that's fun, isn't it! To be the cause of frustration in my marriage! I think I shall add that skill of mine to my resume. Need to drive your husband insane, give me a call, I'm an expert! See, I tend to abandon household tasks half-way through completing them. For example, I toss my shoes off when I walk in the door instead of taking them to our room. I tend to wash all the dishes except the pots and those pots sit in the kitchen sink for a week before someone (uh, not me) stomps around and puts them away. I fold the clothes but abandon the sock pairing. I...well, you get it, don't you? I'm pretty spectacularly awful at follow-through, that's the point of this, and it drives Mike to pull his hair out and drink and call me names (OK, he doesn't actually call me names BUT I BET HE WANTS TO).
The root of the problem is (hopefully) my attention span and not my sheer laziness. I get distracted easily and regular chores suffer. Mike also happens to be ridiculously weird about things like this and where it may not bother the average person, it REALLY, REALLY, OH-MY-HELL-WOMAN-GET-YOUR-SHIT-TOGETHER bothers him.
I feel like I do so much around the house and for our family that a rogue pair of shoes or a dirty pot or a random pair of socks shouldn't stress anyone out. You should still buy me flowers daily because I'm awesome. Awesome people totally leave the lights on in every room in the house. YES THEY DO.
But, well, I love my husband and this really, really bothers my husband, and so I'd like to take a stab at fixing this, so perhaps my husband could go back to really, really loving me in return. Is there another way to remember to do all these things other than just, um, REMEMBERING? Because if I could just remember to do them, well, we would not be on the fourth paragraph of my marital issues, would we? No, we would not.
Do you perhaps suffer from this disorder too, this I Am So Busy and Important I Routinely Forget to Finish Simple, Ordinary Tasks disorder? Do you have a way to control this disorder? Would you like to share your wisdom with me? I think my husband would send you a thank you note in appreciation, and he never sends thank you notes for anything, ever, unless I write it and then have him sign it.
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This weekend, Kyle also crawled with his belly off the floor for the first time. He's become quite the army crawling expert and I wasn't sure he'd ever lift that pudge up to crawl like regular babies crawl, but then mid-champagne-and-cake party, he did it! And I teared up! And then I captured it again the next day. See!:
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Molly's still here, too. This is her put-upon face. The face I've seen regularly for the last 9 months. Don't feel too badly for her, she enjoyed an entire box of Pepperidge Farm cookies after our champagne-and-cake party, when we left her alone with them for hours. I can't really blame her, but I sure don't feel quite as eager to let her on our bed as I was the day before.
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I hope you have a very short work week and will be enjoying food and family and Black Friday sales in no time. We have some good things up at Style Lush this week (like this HANDMADE advent calendar, OMG) in honor of the holiday and shopping spirit and festiveness, so go enjoy.
Happy Turkey Week to you and yours.