my favorite new video.

enjoy the happy one and the ornery one.

Read Full Post »

re:weather-about which i am wrong.

so i was wrong. it is actually raining. i should tempt nature more often with my declarations of all storms missing us.

behold, the current radar:

Read Full Post »

hello there.

it’s early thursday morning. the coffee is piping hot. miles davis pandora station pipes dulcet tones. the world outside is humid, grey and warm. 40% chance of thunderstorms later–possibly severe. the rain always misses us. just look at the browning grass in the yard. i’m watching it right now, from my kitchen table.

a siren now, as i type. a loud siren. a firetruck…on my street. an ambulance won’t be far behind. it’s stopped near the house of our sweet, dominican, very old neighbor, ms marjorie. i hope she is ok. please be a false alarm.

everything is quiet again. miles davis plays my funny valentine. no ambulance yet. no sign of fire.

the family is asleep, even now. what a rare moment this is, to be alone, and sitting still. “alone” these days only = driving to and from work, and showers. the end.

on a related note, time with h these days = checking each other’s heads for nits once the children are in bed, and sleeping in the same bed, alone together, for a few hours before a very teething ziggy joins us at 2am every.night so we can all actually get some sleep. (yes, it’s a bad precedent, as we’re on the cusp of transitioning him out of our bedroom altogether, but…universally agreed upon rule of motherhood: do whatever the hell keeps you sane and sleeping, and don’t judge what works for everyone else, right?)

in a year or so, when i look back on now–jude just before three, ziggy, nearly 8 months–i will likely see a blur of joy and ache and (motherfucking) lice and desperation and perseverance, little time for reflection, and a lot of insta.gram photos. i hope i will remember the very intentional attempt to remain on the side of hope, as well as the excitement at controlling what little i could control. because i’ve been kicking ass in my work, and am finding great satisfaction in that. and h and i are both more conscious than ever of what we put into our bodies, and how much. we are successfully making that eyeroll-inducing “lifestyle change” (gag) that everyone on the biggest loser always talks about. and we are healthier for it.

[note: it also doesn’t hurt that, collectively, we have lost 41 lbs since january. no lie.]

i also hope that, whenever i do find the time to reflect on this season of my life, i will see that now is the time i began to let go of the guilt over some of the things i cannot control, like hours in the day:

i cannot be a prolific blogger right now, and that’s just how it is. no more apologies for not writing more. (kick me if i do, please?)

it is ok that most of the photos i take anymore are on my iphone. right now i have a choice to edit slr-taken photos of my children, or spend time with my actual children. not taking pictures with my proper camera is something that has literally kept me up at night until recently. until, one 4 am, i realized that the memories i hope to preserve are not reliant on pixel size. and then i fell asleep. finally.

well. time to endeth this ramble. the household is up. and it is time to go to work.

still no ambulance.
and no more sirens.

Read Full Post »

why i haven’t been blogging much lately.

so, it’s sunday afternoon. i’m lying in bed with the windows open, as a cold front blows through my house from backyard to front. someone is grilling. my freshly washed bed linens smell like brisket. i’m not complaining. i turn my head to the right and look out the window: i see my oily-dreaded h pushing my oily-haired kids on swings. jude is wearing long pants and no shirt. zig looks like an extra from mad men.

from the paragraph above, can you pick out the reasons for my lack of blogging?

if not, i’ll translate:

1. bedrest. so, remember how i didn’t tear when i gave birth to zig? as it turns out, i did tear, only not perineally–i tore labially. i will spare you all other details other than the way h described it: a torn petal. after months of discomfort, i had it fixed (ie removed) on thursday. i’ve mostly spent the weekend staying off my stitches. i may or may not have just started my period.

2. we are still battling omfgLICE here. needless to say, it’s spread. we’ve all had to cope, and are now employing the 5 step battle plan, which involves copious amounts of olive oil. i can’t think about it all too much, or i get itchy and nauseated.

3. while playing in the sprinkler yesterday, jude stepped in a bed of some kind of black ants. they swarmed her feet and legs, bit and bit and wouldn’t let go. she screamed and flailed and screamed some more. we finally washed them all off in the sprinkler, at which point we threw her in a baking soda bath, gave her benadryl, and slathered her in cortisone cream. afterward, she enjoyed a bowl of stephen colbert’s americone dream ice cream. today, she is the proud owner of several pus-filled welts all over her feet and legs. we have her in long pants to keep her from scratching.

so there you have it. a plague of insects and suzy surgery have kept me from writing. please know that i’ve done my best to keep this post non-whiny. i sincerely hope that i have succeeded.

pee ess: to the commenters on my last lice post, yes we are using tea tree oil shampoo. all of us.

Read Full Post »