Burdens

-Ow! You stepped on my foot. Again.
-Why do you even stay married to me?
-I don’t know… Oh yeah. I’m carrying your child. Your very heavy child.
-I haven’t even taken a single turn.
-Yeah! Bring me some ice cream.
-OK.

Also, She Can Hear Your Thoughts

Leta is two and a half. She is playing with some colorful stacking round boxes on the deck. She counts them, says their colors, and then begins again. After about fifteen minutes of this, I decide to change things up.

-This blue is actually navy blue, Leego.
-NAVY! BLUE!
-And this is sky blue.
-SKYBLUE!
-And this kind of green is… Well… it’s chartreuse.
–Blank stare.
-Char!
-CHAR!
-Treuse!
-TOOOS!
-Chartreuse!
-CHOOS!
-Awesome.

We repeat this process two more times, and she’s got it completely. Same game, new colors. Bryan shakes his head and laughs. Later, Jon is making Leta beans and asks what kind of bowl she’d like. She says, “I prefer yellow.”

And it occurs to me that the kid doesn’t like eating much because her parents are obviously putting foul-tasting smart serum in her food.

Your Cheering Section

Evany wrote a very kind post about my book and her love/hate relationship with blogging, which she’s been doing for eleven(!) years. She says:

“…Suddenly it occurs to me, rather unpleasantly, that on the scale of one to cool, I’ve always thought that people who are passionate about what they do (excluding, of course, Burning Man) are 8,000 times cooler than the crabby people who scoff them. And in this situation, I’m totally the scoffer! And I don’t want to be the scoffer.”

Overheard: Kids Today

Scenario: Two older ladies in the hotel lobby discuss their work at a local school.

Lady1: I asked the little girl, where do you think mom is? She says, “I don’t know, probably home with Dad making babies.” Can you believe this!
Lady 2: What are these kids hearing at home?
Lady 1: I know, the filthiest language!
Lady 2: These little boys. One of ’em come up to me and says, “Mrs. Smith, he said the T-word! ” And I say, “You turn around and don’t listen. You walk away when you hear something bad. You know right from wrong.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, what’s the T-word anyway? I’ve got to do more to keep up.

Mum in Training

I have a brief piece up at Alpha Mom, go read it! Here’s how it starts:

I haven’t even given birth yet, and already I’m a bad mother. We’re clearing out my beloved, light-dappled office to make room for a nursery, and I’m feeling a little blue. We remove my small desk with its floating drawers and woody scent, my dome lamp with the pink shade that makes everything rosy in the evenings, and my Japanese porcelain tea set. Dear, quiet little office how I loved thee… Read the rest.

Traveling in Comfort and Style

Bryan and I have a wedding to attend, so we took a red eye to Boston last night. If there’s anything more enjoyable than a red eye when you’re pregnant, it’s boarding the plane with wet pants.

Why were my pants wet, you ask? Excellent question, reader! The answer is, I sat in yet another Mystery Wet Spot! Mystery Wet Spot, Part II!

We had a stopover in Dallas, so I plugged in my computer and hunkered down on the carpet. The carpet was wet. Not globally wet, specifically wet. It was wet only in the exact spot where I was sitting.

Then our flight boarded and I was trapped for three hours in damp pants. Pants damp with fluid of unknown origin. Something inside me broke on that flight — something small but integral. If you need me, I’ll be rocking in the corner.