Last weekend we bought Strudel (if I can invoke my family heritage for a moment) her first mobile home. Seriously, this backpack thing is great. The hippie sling stopped being fun months ago, and the strolly is nice on the back but really difficult to maneuver on Seattle’s crapped up streets. Where’s the pothole brigade been lately, eh, Mayor Gridlock?

Anyway, when my fella came home from work yesterday, we got to take a fun meander in the snow, which is one of our favorite things to do. We saw a woman with a strolly who said, “It’s nice to see someone else out in this.” I said, “I was raised in Illinois, so this is nothing.”

“I was raised in Indiana!” she replied.

“Ah, this is bikini weather, isn’t it?” I said, dismissing the feeble amounts of slush in the gutter. I got her to laugh and agree with my ridiculous statement.

So my handsome fella was out in his full winter regalia, which is a muffin hat and my cast-off, too-big pea coat. I love to see him in this, because it reminds me of two years ago when we used to go for snowy walks and I ended up falling in love with him. And now look: I make him carry our spawn.

“Suh. Suuuuh. Ucks. Ucks. Ucks.” Franny paused as she finished her cereal. “Ors. Ors. ORRRS! Mom!”

“Yep.”

“Sux0rs ends with ‘R!’ I figured it out!”

“Good job, honey! You don’t sux0r at all!” She smiled.

The other day she called my sister a monkeyass. I am so proud of that kid I could just cry sometimes.

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Dear MFD,

Me, I like food porn, that’s who. Fangsgiving was a damn success. There was one little hitch, though. I put the turkey in at exactly the right time and it was a little tight in the oven. The door was the teensiest bit ajar, and since I bought an aluminum turkey pan I knew I could get the door shut anyhow. There is a lock for the oven door that I assumed it was for keeping reckless toddlers (who should be out of the gene pool anyway) out of the proceedings. And…no. The lock is only for the automatic cleaning part of the oven, so as soon as you lock it, the oven SHUTS OFF. What the fuck is up with that? (Rhetorical question, don’t email me with diagrams attached. Again. I like being stupid; it gives me something to write about.)

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One of Franny’s friends came home with us from school today. I am always astounded when people want to trust me with their children. I always want to say, “Do you KNOW who I AM?” Not in that entitled celebrity way either. I always want to say, “I am a person who once shaved three-fourths of my head, with the idea it would look cute. Two years later, I put half a box of jawbreakers in my own babychute and then thought I wet the bed when they melted. Does your child have any food allergies?” But after a few her school Moms’ coffee mornings I seem to be impersonating a responsible person pretty well. Mwua-ha-ha.

So my sister Morgan was over as well, who is a card-and-a-half, as well as a certified wiseacre. She took it upon herself to begin gently ribbing Franny’s friend, who was taking it in stride. Still, I was just so amazed that the most discriminating her school mom would let me make off with one of her brood that I had to put a stop to it when the girls retreated to Franny’s room to put on 40 pounds of taffeta, tulle, and fake bling from the dress-up drawer.

“Hey, take it easy on our little guest, whydontcha?” I said to Morgan.

“It’s alright,” Morgan said.

“Just because you had no friends as a child doesn’t mean you can go after Franny’s.”

“What!”

“I’m sure Morgan had friends,” interjected my companion meddlesomely.

“No, she didn’t. Haw!” I said.

“You don’t know if I had friends or not!” Morgan said to my companion.

“She didn’t. Haw!” I said.

“And now you’re laughing about it!” Morgan said to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “I’m just kind of laughy today. I can’t help it.” Truly, everything, appropriate or not, has been funny today.

“I watch your baby for you today, and now you mock my childhood pain and loneliness,” Morgan finished. She is going to make a great mother someday.

Everyone was on speaking terms at the end of the afternoon, but I learned that this is something that Morgan can make fun of herself with, but that I should probably leave her alone about. Kind of like my goiter. Or my ass horns.

“When I think of my mom, I think of caffeine and music. You like caffeine, Mom, and you like music.”

“That is true. Those are probably my two favorite things.” This morning I was dancing around in the living room with “Hollaback Girl” on repeat and menacing Franny so she would eat all her eggs. “Eat your eggs.”

“I don’t want to eat my eggs,” Franny said.

“I know, but we stayed up late for that birthday party last night, and you need a superpower POW start.”

“I want cereal.”

“Cereal isn’t protein, yo.”

“My dad says it IS protein.” This made me laugh. Seattle Federline is probably tired of hearing the word protein over at his house.

“Your dad needs to stay in school and read some books about food,” I said.

Franny laughed. “I know, I told him he’s wrong. All he does is have classes about music. My dad needs to read some books.”

Franny ate some more eggs while I did the Robot. “You like caffeine, music, and hats!” she declared.

“I never wear hats!”

“But you like them,” she pressed.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Here’s your CINNAMON with BANANAS!”

“B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” we sang together.

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IT was going to be one of Rabbit’s busy days. As soon as he woke up he felt important, as if everything depended upon him. It was just the day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a Notice Signed Rabbit, or for Seeing What Everybody Else Thought About It. It was a perfect morning for hurrying round to Pooh, and saying, “Very well, then, I’ll tell Piglet,” and then going to Piglet, and saying, “Pooh thinks–but perhaps I’d better see Owl first.” It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody
said, “Yes, Rabbit ” and “No, Rabbit,” and waited until he had
told them.

Today is…one of Those Days. For some reason, I thought it would be awesome and efficient if all three of us got our teeth cleaned on the same day. So I am picking up my companion from Giant Local Software Company and driving back to Seattle to take him to his. Then I have to pick up Franny from school and get a birthday present for a friend of hers. Then Franny and I have our dentist appointments, and then we’re all going to this birthday party. Then I have late evening plans with my sister, which will be a pleasure, but it will be one more thing, you know? I am trying to time travel back to where my head was at a month ago when I made these plans…oh, look, there it is. Firmly lodged up my ass.

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We had grand plans to stomp around downtown today and buy persimmons. Instead we are at home with a feverish Strudel who is on me like dried vomit is on Tara Reid’s party dress (read: frequently and tenaciously).

However, her will is good. And the empty 3-Star Vodka box behind her has nothing to do with her pinkness, so don’t even go there. It’s her toybox. Yeh, we gheetto.

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“Doot doot doo…. Hey! Are you guys awake? Look who’s awake! I need to get dressed. Yep, getting dressed now. How’s it going? How’s the baby?”

“Good….”

“Did you see the sunrise this morning? You should check the camera. I took pictures. It was beeeutiful!”

I watched as my companion disappeared around the corner as he left the bedroom, singing a song that sounded like it was about walking around a corner. I could still hear him in the living room. “Getting my bike out and GO-ing to wooork!”

I heard his helmet strap click as he joined the buckle. He stuck his helmeted head back in the door as I was finishing nursing the baby. “Do you want some COFFEE? I made coffee. It’s delicious. I love coffee!”

“Wow,” I said. “You made coffee? You never make….”

I trailed off as his head disappeared again, and he was back thirty seconds later with a steaming cup that he thrust into my hand. Strudel stopped nursing and sat up to get a better view of the entertainment unfolding in front of her. I could see her thoughts: Breakfast and a floor show. Cool.

“It’s freezing out there. Okay. Gotta go,” he said, giving me a kiss. He doot-dooted out the door, light as a feather. I hope he crashes gently.

1. Dear MF Diary,

Things have been crazy like Jay-Z and it’s all my fault. I have not felt like writing as much because I have been dog-ass tired. October is a crazy month; it contains Franny’s birthday, my birthday, and my companion’s birthday. Strudel is the lone March holdout.

2. Special Unitorn Shindig

So: Franny’s fifth birthday was pretty good. I brought her in the house with her eyes closed, and held a sheet up in front of the dollhouse so I could unveil it dramatically. She was very excited about her dollhouse and about having some friends over. She was amped about the cake too, which my companion spent four hours making. At her request, it was red velvet with chocolate frosting and a “unitorn.” Okay, she doesn’t say “unitorn” anymore, but I can’t let it go. Sometimes we still say wulva around here too, so, you know. It’s loose like that. (The English language is loose, not vulvas. FYI.)

“Now I’m five! I’m five today!” she shouted, all day long.

Then we took her to dinner at The Spaghetti Factory and sang to her, and she hid in my shirt, but recovered in time to eat her spumoni. For Franny, this day will go down in history as the day I, Sugar Nazi, let her eat leftover frosting off the spoon. Twice. She’s still talking about it.

She went back to Seattle Federline’s house the night of her birthday. When I picked her up from school later that week, I asked her about her birthday after she’d had some time to think about it.

“What was your favorite part?” I said, as she skipped along and bonked her Olivia lunchbox on her leg.

“My unicorn cake!”

Then she told me about her birthday at her dad’s house. Her grandparents were about to go out of town, so she had to have it a week early. She received three video games for her Nintendo Gamecube over there.

“It wasn’t very special,” she said, and then moved on.

3. Goodbye, Ted K.

There is more to report. Here at the Double “A” Ranch we have moved on to the amazing year 1999. Last week we got DSL after years in dialup Siberia and we were able to split it between both computers, so now we can have dorky librarian races! Quick! What’s the population of Peru? When did George Bush make the “put food on your family” speech? Who can find the scariest penis on the craigslist personals? Who will get distracted by mongoose porn and disqualified first? (Me.) Simultaneous internetting! What a country!

Also, last night my companion, AKA “Tha Unibomber,” AKA “some guy who thinks he’s from the 19th-century,” AKA “a recent convert to the horseless carriage” got a cel phone!

“The first thing I have to do is figure out how to turn it off,” he said on the way home. No, the first thing we have to do is get you an Outkast ringtone. Nice try though.

4. Smoking and Fried Food is My Heritage

And now, for the reason I am so tired and less writerly. I am banishing my muffin top, which is hard work, people. I am going 78 miles uphill, both ways, and it is sleeting sharks here. I sit up nights, crying over my smoking-hot pair of Diesel Jeans that I am about two sizes away from. I am of hearty peasant/white trash stock, so my body would like it if I would sit in a hut/trailer, narfling borscht and turkey wings / KFC and cigarettes and weighing 300 pounds. But no, this cannot be.

It started about six weeks ago, when Strudel had a Springfield Power Plant-style growth explosion and my back hurt by dinnertime every goddam night. I know the fix for this is exercise, so I started doing sit-ups and ugh, push-ups. And my god it’s hard to exercise when you’re breastfeeding–it is such an energy drain to begin with. You need to eat at least 500 extra calories a day to lactate, which is like an extra meal. To round out my upper body work, recently I added lunges and squats, which I used to be able to do one million of. I used to be able to bend light poles with my thighs, which, let me tell you, is hell on traffic on major arterial streets. But I digress.

So, anyways, I have added more exercises and now my ass and thighs hurt so bad I creak when I walk. I want to feel like the grown-ass twenty-eight year old lady I’m going to be on my birthday tomorrow, who has rocketed two babies out of her hoo-hoo and gotten a master’s degree and finally ended a starter marriage that dragged on way too long, and who has lived all over the country and has 4,000 pairs of red shoes. I don’t want to feel like some broken down old lady like I did six weeks ago, so…exercise. I have lost at least an inch off my waist already, and now am eating whatever comes across my path guilt-free. I am looking into starting kickboxing after xmas. That way I will win every argument with my companion. Haw!

5. The Days of Wine and Boobranching

Finally, Strudel is teething again. She is getting her top two teeth, after getting her bottom teeth at three months. She bit me in bed this morning and I may be turning her out to pasture soon. Now I remember why I weaned Franny at eight months. First, there’s the “snapping” off–there’s nothing like seeing your nipple get to be four inches long as she pulls away. There’s also the vicious grabbing. She grabs my breast and stuffs it into her mouth like a freaky animal. She grabbed me so hard the other day that milk squirted out and into her eye. And now with the teeth.

USE A CONDOM, PEOPLE. You’ve been warned (again).

Last night I did something really, really lame. I dropped a full pint of ice cream on my baby’s head, at close range. I was trying to open it while I was nursing her lying down and reading Terry Pratchett. She recovered pretty quickly (no goose egg) and promptly fell asleep, but I always wonder if I am knocking potential IQ points out of her when she klonks her head somehow.

On a related note, I have discovered that when you have small children, chocolate becomes a substitute for sex. It’s something you can do in front of them, while paying attention to them, and almost without guilt (the guilt part happens when you try to brain your child with the chocolate). Of course, you have to hide it from the older, smarter ones to prevent the whining that keeps you from enjoying your chocolate, because if I share I know there’ll be grabbing and hoarding, and the inevitable sugar crash, and that’s just me.

But I digress. Witness last night:

Companion (to frantically nursing baby at nine pm): Go to sleep, The Baby.

Me: She won’t be asleep until ten.

C.: Uuuugggh.

Me: It’s horrible, isn’t it? You find someone you love, and who you actually want to have sex with, and you have a child with them….

C.: …And you can’t have sex anymore. It’s God’s little joke.

Me: Ha ha ha.

C.: Ha ha ha. (Puts pants back on and finds keys.)

Me: I’ll have ice cream this time.

In April, when Strudel was about three weeks old, I was sleep-deprived, making me jones around for sugar like crazy. My companion had stepped out to get some groceries and I found a half-eaten bag of chocolate chips in the cupboard. GOOD chocolate chips–I think they were Guitard or Ghiridelli. We don’t keep that Hershey’s crap around here, which means that many bags of chocolate chips never fulfill their destiny and become actual cookies. I finished off the chips before he came home. It would have been the perfect crime, except that I gave myself away shortly after he came back.

Me: The baby smells so good! Mmm! Smell her.

C: She does…hey, what’s that stuff on her neck? Ugh.

Me: Oh god, it’s a melted chocolate chip that fell down her collar.

C: Busted!

From earlier this summer, there is also a big smudge of chocolate ice cream on Strudel’s bonnet from when I was out collecting job applications with my sister. Strudel was still small enough to carry in the sling and I had her big sun-blocking bonnet on her. She was whipping her head around as I was trying to eat my Hagen-Daz, and I still haven’t remembered to wash it, so it bears the telltale streak of chocolate peanut butter flavor. Every time I get the bonnet out to go for a walk I say, “Gee, I should really wash this thing.” And then it falls out of my head the minute I walk out the door, because such is the beauty of a mom’s memory. Je regrette rien!

So at any given moment, I am smearing or beating my children with chocolate. At least they smell good.

In Other News

Today my companion has yet another interview with Giant County Library System, but on the cataloguing side of things. I was going to cut his hair last night, since he is a little shaggy, but he just said, “whatever.” First not shaving against the grain, and now refusing haircuts. After a year and 15-plus interviews I would be disheartened too, but I am afraid that next time he gets called in for an interview he’s going to take a poop on the conference table or something.

NOT that I am trying to give anyone any ideas for today. Sweetie. Health benefits, sweetie.