Whoo boy - that was a fast month! I can't believe it's June, especially as I sit here looking out into the rain. Where's my sunshine, goddammit?

You'll have to excuse my rudeness - I'm a little preoccupied this morning. My beautiful little sister is lying in a hospital bed at St. Vincent's in NYC, hooked up to a pitocin drip she really didn't want, waiting to have baby #2. My mom just called to fill me in, but we really ended up talking more about my other beautiful little sister's problems. We are really worried that she's been way too impulsive lately and that she needs to stop plowing forward with these major life decisions, several of which I can't discuss on this blog because someone in my (or her) real life might eventually read this.

Almost-post-partum sister doesn't know what she is having, so I'll no doubt be going on a little infant spending spree in the next day or so. I used to think that this sister was a great mom for a boy, but would have trouble with a girl. Too many hormones in a very small NYC apartment, too much drama. However, she is so much calmer and centered after two years of mommyhood that I think a girl would be fine - or maybe I just want the excuse to run out and buy her some frilly girly clothes.

On a totally different topic, I feel like I am drinking way too much these days. I'm not sure what to do about it, either, since I'm enjoying it so much. I think it has to do with the fact that the kids are finally on some semblance of a normal sleep schedule, meaning I can count on a decent night's sleep more nights than not, meaning the old control of, "I better not - it could be a rough night with the baby," is gone. Plus, it's summer, after a bad winter, and D. is on vacation this week, so we're just cutting loose a little.

...while little D. is pseudo-napping in his crib. He woke up as I carried his limp body up the stairs, but I ignored his gaze, put him down in the crib and told him it was naptime. What do you know - it's been 45 minutes, and although I can hear him babbling every now and then, he's not crying to be let out. He must be dozing, or perhaps is just occupied with plotting his escape from the crib. He figured out how to climb up onto the sofas the other day, so I guess the no-hazard living room is now the all-hazard living room. Good thing bumbles bounce!

I think we are going to see "Troy" tonight, which I am less than thrilled about. However, after I got to pick "Mean Girls" as the movie for last weekend, I'd rather D. chose "Troy" than that Red Sox fan movie for us to see. I hate this time of year, movie-wise - crap movies sprinkled throughout the spring. Actually, I think there probably are some decent movies out there, interesting indie films of the sort that NEVER COME TO CAPE COD. Along with all the things to do on a Sunday night. This is the smallest community we've ever lived in, and there is a definite void when it comes to cult-chah. I'm getting pretty sick of the quickie dinner at TGIFriday's, followed by a movie I don't particularly want to see. At least we haven't lost our high-school propensity for sneaking mini-bottles of wine into the theater...but in high school, it was usually creme de cassis or some other disgusting liqueur someone had filched from their parents liquor cabinet. These days, it's the closest I come to being an outlaw, swigging some vile Sutter Home merlot out of a dixie cup in a darkened theater.

Ah, spring - when the dampness combines with the remains of whatever rodent crawled in and died in our walls a year ago. The house is permeated with a whiff of stinkiness that goes away whenever it stops raining. Given that we've noticed a bunch of spongy clapboards on various parts of the house, I've been having nightmares about the scenarios that could occur when we hire someone to rip them off and replace them. I had a dream that the walls were full of honey, and another one that a raccoon had been living in our attic and bringing back small animals to eat up there, so we found a rabid raccoon AND a pile of rodent bones in the attic. Maybe it's bugs, rotting our house down. Or some other creepy crawly horror, like the turpentine beetles we just sprayed the backyard pines for, to the tune of $220, have actually been working away at the framing of the house for 2 years! Aaaargh!

Or maybe it's just my bad attitude towards this particular house, which was the right choice for us at the time we bought it, financially speaking, but which has proven to be not as well-constructed as one would hope. The creaky floors, the strange lump in the upstairs hallway from where the house has settled so badly around the chimney, the inadequately ventilated attic that we keep meaning to do something about...there are days when I really miss our old house in PA. The day after D. came home and told me he could not continue working with the assholes in his old practice, I walked around that house sobbing my heart out, wailing, "My house, my beautiful house!"

I think people were surprised that my primary reaction was not agony at leaving the hometown I'd grown up in a scant 6 months after settling in to what we thought was a job for life. No, I mourned my house. My parents, my brother, my extended family - well, I'd been living away from them since I left for college at age 18. It had been such an unexpected twist in our lives to even have the opportunity to move somewhere we had family and for D. to join a practice he *thought* was a gem. Moving into a beautiful house three blocks from my parents when I was 7 months pregnant with our first child, after putting off having children until that point in our lives so D. would be finished with residency and would be around to enjoy them, well that was just more icing on the cake. It just seemed like too much, and as it turned out, it was not meant to be after all.

But oh, that house - those walk-in closets, the finished basement with the bar, the gleaming Corian countertops in the kitchen, even the no-thought, no-tweaking heating system that kept us comfortable in every season - well, that I still miss with every materialistic cell of my body. We Libras are like that - enjoy the finer things, don't you know. Sigh.

I read a column in the Boston Globe yesterday in which Tom Perrota's new book, "Little Children," was reviewed. The columnist's point, taken from the slant of how the novel skewers suburban SAHMs/SAHFs and the evangelisism they evince in their focus on the first few years of a child's life, is that child rearing, especially the first few mind-numbing years, is not some glorified "magic" period in a child and mothers life together, but that it is scut work, toiling long and hard for not much pay off, and that is why women are the ones who do it.

And this is how I've felt since I had my daughter. Yes, I know I'm blessed with two healthy kids and a wonderful husband who has a great income so I don't have to work to keep the kids in new shoes. And no, I wasn't particularly thrilled with my old job, and was happy enough to quit it when pregnant with my daughter 4+ years ago. But here's the thing - I don't know what the hell those other mother's do with their kids all day. It drives me nuts to spend day after day cleaning, feeding, laundering, soothing, nagging. How many rainy days of the week can we go walk around the mall, ride the merry-go-round, eat chicken mcnuggets and then go look at the puppy mill dogs in the mall pet store? There is nothing exalted about it.

So that's where I'm at these days, feeling too over-educated and over-cultured to be a SAHM. Maybe I just need a vacation, maybe its the fact that N. woke me up at 4 am crying about a bad dream where I dropped her off the roof (!) and then again at 6:07. when she apparently read her clock backwards, saw the 7 and decided it was time to get up. I'm actually thinking it's time to gear up the website I've been dallying with for the past 8 months and get working on something...ANYTHING.

Just got my girl to bed, after the routine "race ya!" up the stairs. We did our brand new bathroom routine next, teeth, face and ::ta da!:: sit on toilet (this being her first week out of nighttime diapers) and off to read in bed.

Lately, we read whichever story she chooses from the large collection of Scooby Doo books we've amassed over the last 6 months. We do this cuddled up in her bed, with a flashlight, after we rearrange the sleeping buddies to make room for Mommy. The flashlight is a relatively new addition, making its debut appearance a few weeks ago when N. requested we tell "spoooooooky stories!" at bedtime. Spooooky stories are told under the comforter, making it a hot proposition - by the time I'm fumbling around in my tired brain for a not-too-spooky-for-a-4-year-old ending to my spooooky story, I'm usually gasping for fresh air. The oxygen deprivation inevitably leaves my story endings somewhat hurried and flat, with me yanking the covers off to feel the cool air roll across my face as I gasp, "happilyeveraftertheend!"

Now that we are doing flashlight reading, followed by shadow play, we aren't reading as many books, just one longer one. N. still has a sippy cup with a small amount of diluted juice, despite all of the pediatric warnings that by doing so, I am rotting her little teeth out of her head. I'm a baaaaaaaaad mommy, I know, but since I just took her to the dentist for her checkup and her teeth are pristine I'll save myself and N. the trauma of taking away one of her longest standing comfort mechanisms just yet. The other comfort, of course, is her buppie. Her buppie is her security blanket, soft and fleece-like when purchased and covered with pills on one side now. I was smart enough to buy two identical buppies, in case of loss or disaster. These days, one stays at pre-school and one stays home, but both have developed this slight roughening on one side, and that is the side that must lay up so that N. can rub it while sipping her juice, after I've laid it taught across her knees but draping equally down her sides.

There was a time, back in her 2 to 3 year old days, when she was bewitched by Thomas the Tank Engine for months and months and months. When I was pregnant with her brother, and knowing I was likely to give birth prematurely again, and remembering how panicked and unprepared (and unpacked!) I was when my water broke 5 weeks early with her, I started stashing things away to occupy her while I was in the hospital. One of those things was a Thomas flap book, with over 60 flaps scattered over 5 or so pages. I packed this in a little bag along with some other items, and we brought it with us when my water did, in fact, break early and in the middle of the night. And when we were unable to reach the babysitter we had arranged and had to wake her at 4 am and bring her to the hospital with us, we pulled out that flap book and read it several times once Mommy was all hooked up in her hospital bed. And then we read it every night for the next 7 months.

The rituals that accompanied that book would fill an entire week's worth of musings - the pretend pouring of tea and eating of cake from one scene, the picking up of yarn from the "Y" car on the alphabet train and the pretend knitting of sweaters, hats, gloves, and scarves to keep us warm in the train yard, the pretend fright at opening the flap with a ghost face in it, the way Mommy always gets the engines mixed up in their sheds and N. has to correct her...on and on and on. This routine could drag on for 30 minutes, just for ONE book! But, you know, it got her through those tough first months of losing her "only" status, when Mom and Dad were often tired and cranky too - we always had our special Mommy and N. time at the end of the day. And I hope we will for many years to come, as long as I can drag it out before she kicks me out of her bed one day when she'd rather be alone and read books by herself.

I was doing so well when I first began this blog. It has now become apparent that like so many other enthusiasms of mine, it is but one more fascinating, all-consuming, NEW and IMPROVED diversions from real life. Like the crocheting class I took last year. Two little hats later, the needles and yarn are stashed in a bag somewhere in the basement. Ah, remember the days of soapmaking? (Not that I actually made any soap after the first messy afternoon.) The hours spent pondering the offerings of on-line soapmaking suppliers, the dream of a cottage industry that I would successfully run from home while the children napped? The line of ginger-scented maternity body products? What about that mystery novel I started writing back in 1991? I even attended a writers conference and had it critiqued by an actual, honest-to-God editor, who was even moderately encouraging. All 6 of my invention ideas, quickly sketched and described in a special notebook and forgotten about?

Now that I've cataloged a fraction of the enthusiasms that have occupied my adult life, I'm feeling kinda small and insignificant. Since I became a SAHM, I've been pretty happy with my life, except for the nagging feeling that I'm quickly approaching 40, heavier of body and lighter in accomplishments than I had hoped for. I guess that despite the flu, the bugs infiltrating our house, the kids, the housekeeping that I suck at, the friends that I attempt to nurture long distance, the husband who needs attention, the bills to be paid, and all the flotsam of life that everyone has to deal with, least I can do is to try to be better about blogging.

Right?

All favorite words around here this week. Nothing like a 4 year old yelling from the next room, "Mom, are you puking?" while you are hanging over a toilet, followed by hearing a little voice chanting a darling ditty of a song that goes like this: "Puke, puke, puke, puke puke puke, puuuuke!"

We are all better now, but it was really ugly around here. Highlights include the dryer breaking once I had all the soiled bedding in the house piled up and the husband having to go into his office at 1 am to snag some anti-vomiting drug samples they give to chemo patients. Whee!

We actually schlepped to the mall yesterday for an early dinner, and although I knew this horrible stomach bug was going around town, I didn't realize how many people had been affected. We walked down the length of the mall to the food court, where I ponied up our $1.75 to ride the merry-go-round. As I was paying, I noticed a sign posted on the kiosk reading, "If your child is sick, please do not let them ride the merry-go-round!" The guy handed me my change and said, "Three kids threw up on this thing yesterday."

I'm so glad my days spent toiling in the service economy are through.

...a Daphne day! My girl hardly ever wants to be Daphne lately, but today I was asked for pink barrettes, pink sunglasses, and yes, she would like to wear the pink corduroy coat to pre-school, thank you very much. Her brother is still Shaggy. We are currently in discussions about how we can all go as the Scooby Gang/Mystery Inc. for Halloween. Hell, I've already got the geeky glasses and Velma haircut, not to mention the big ungainly shoes. I'll be all set once I find an enormous orange turtleneck and matching knee socks.

Isn't it sad that this is the creative highlight of my day? Planning my not-too-original Halloween costume 7 months in advance? What happened to the woman who used to make jewelry out of sterling silver and meteorites and accident debris? I just hope she's still in here, somewhere underneath all the glue sticks and construction paper.

Broke down and bought a cd chosen and begged for by my girl: "Kidz Bop 5." Ah, the power of advertising on Nickelodeon. Anyway, I admit that I was swayed by the inclusion of "Hey Ya!" on the cd, and I figured I'd buy it and give it a listen, so that I'd know what I was dealing with in the future when asked for such items in terms of appropriateness and language, etc.

So, we have been listening to it one song at a time in the car, because I figure one or two spins of the disk aren't going to do any permanent harm to my precious children if I decide I don't think the lyric changes are appropriate enough, etc. (or if I just can't stomach most of the pop garbage that is usually on these things).

We are driving home from preschool a few days ago, and one of the songs is playing ("Headstrong" by Trapt, I think,) and N. says, "This song is kind of rock and roll-ey." Which I thought was pretty funny, but I really cracked up when the version of Brittney Spears "Me Against the Music" came on, and from the backseat I hear, "Hey! This is just like a disco!"

Yup, disco mini-van, cruisin' down the road. I'm *really* tempted to get a mini-disco ball to hang from my rear-view mirror now.

I'm so happy this afternoon, just really content to putter around the house. Why? Because I'm ALONE for a change, at home. D. has taken to kids up to Boston for the afternoon to see the St. Patrick's Day parade and hang with the in-laws. I am doing laundry, paying bills, organizing taxes, fucking around on-line, and generally enjoying the quiet. The thought of slopping through puddles to watch drunk firemen hang from their firetrucks did very little for me this year, so I begged off.

Little D. has reached the dreaded toddler stage of courting imminent death. My girl never went through this phase. She is such a different personality, and by the time she was moving confidently, she was also paying attention to "No!" and talking quite well. The combination in my boy of amazing mobility, total stupidity and fearlessness about his world and an apparently insatiable curiosity is astonishing to me. In the past week, I've saved his life no less than 8 times, leaving me to wonder if I'm some sort of Mommy superhero or (waaaaay more likely) the worst mother in the world for letting him live in an environment where he can actually get into so much trouble.

The problem is that he just keeps going - we dispose of one safety hazard, and suddenly he's figured out something else dangerous to do. And it's not like I'm off ignoring him - he's almost always in my view, except when he's safely penned in the living room where we've removed any hazards to his life so I can go to the bathroom or throw in a load of laundry. And I can't even blame his big sister too much, when it's his dad who lays down on the floor to play with him, then blithely walks away leaving a trail of small change for the kid to gnaw on.

In the past month, I've swooped down to yank him off a stack of books he has created as he tries to climb the bookcase. I've pried his jaws open several times to retrieve toys much larger than the supposedly safe diameter of a toilet-paper roll. I've heimliched the kid, for crying out loud, because he somehow managed to find the single colorform sticker I failed to throw away and get it lodged in his mouth, gagging so hard he began throwing up.

He has crawled under the kitchen chairs and gotten his head stuck. He's almost yanked to computer monitor off the desk by tugging on the power supply strip, which is of course, safely ensconced in a power supply strip safety cover. We've gated off the living room, plus installed a gate that basically runs across the entire bookshelves/fireplace wall. I've ordered another gate to keep him off the dining room fireplace surround, since he's managed to climb up the 3+ foot high stack of rubbermaid bins we've piled in front of the danger zone to keep him out.

I've replaced all the knobs on the dining room furniture with huge, ugly, unfinished wood knobs that he can't unscrew. I've plugged all the outlets, put a doorknob cover on the basement door, installed cabinet latches on all cabinets, and keep the stove knob covers latched. I even keep the rest of the family in fear for their own lives by hectoring them about keeping the bathroom door closed with an extra hook and eye latch.

This is all compounded by the fact that the weather has been so crappy we haven't been able to get out and do much. I think once we hit some warmth and dry weather and I can run him around outside, he'll do a little better. Then again, I'm probably kidding myself. He'll probably just keep driving me insane by chowing on the wood chips at the playground and poking himself in the face with sticks and climbing up things way too high for safety.