The bad news is: I do it to myself. The good news is: I do it to myself.

Holiday season 2009 was a tornado, and not the kind of mildly murky swirl of bathwater down the tub drain but a Category 5 ("the FINGER of GOD") twister, black with mud and debris and trees and cows and tractor trailers, all of which threatened to collide and disintegrate and scatter into the four winds, lost forever. Of course, it wasn't technically trees and cows and farm equipment but homemade banners and candy sushi and a house full of guests and fish of every stripe--i.e., Wombat's birthday whirlwinding in the already-much-too-narrow canyon between Thanksgiving and Christmas--and I survived it with limbs and sanity intact but definitely strained.

The bad news is: I did it to myself. The good news is: I did it to myself.

In addition to tackling my most ambitious sewing project to date--a birthday banner--I also decided to gift Wombat a handmade toy, which was at once completely crazymaking and so overwhelmingly satisfying that I can say for certain it was worth riding the tornado for a few rough weeks to get to that place where I was set down, bursting with technicolor mother-pride at what I was able to accomplish. It's a small thing, but the fact that I was able to, amidst the chaos, set a goal and finish it on time and to my own satisfaction felt like triumph.

All of which is a long way of saying, "Hey! Look at this stuffed frog I made for my kid out of a pair of decades-old socks!"

Around Halloween, Martha featured this sock skeleton, and with a few modifications I turned a somewhat morbid doll into something much more benign. I made several adjustments to the skeleton pattern, the most obvious being the lack of a ribcage, and I also decided not to attach the second sections of the arms, in part because I think it looked better that way for a frog and in part because I was so completely over hand-sewing the joints after doing just the knees that I was happy for any excuse not to revisit that particular ring of hell.

One bit of extra work I did take on, however, was sewing definition into the frog's little webbed hands, which turned out to be both imperfect and a bit of a pain but still, I think, worth the fingertip caluses.

The most surprising challenge was tweaking the frog's expression so it wasn't completely terrifying. I had to redo the mouth several times, experimenting with thread placement and angle--it's amazing the range of expression you can manipulate with a single red line--and I spent at least forty-five minutes in the craft store trying to find the perfect combination of buttons for the eyes, since a lot of the options I thought would look good at first ended up looking psycho. I used the backside of the larger, wooden buttons because they curved out slightly, making the eyes bug out just a bit.

I still think he looks a tad demented--a little bit country, a little bit rock-and-roller coming off a three-day coke-and-whisky bender--but on Simon's unprompted insistence that the frog is perfect and wonderful in every way, I'm trying my best to just get over myself and admit that even though the frog looks slightly unstable, he's still pretty cute.

Other details:

--The collar is a cat accessory I found by chance at Target. I'd intended to sew a bowtie from some leftover paisley fabric, but manipulating miniature neckwear turned out to be too much for me in my fragile state, and besides, with a little wrangling Linus can wear this one too.

--I used an old pair of socks I've had since I was about thirteen, when I wore forest green socks as a matter of course (didn't you?). I figured I'd use these as a trial pair, since my limited sewing experience has taught me that I usually need to do something once to figure out what the hell I'm doing before I can with confidnce create a final product I'm happy with. I should also have remembered, however, that I inevitably lose patience with myself and never ever make it to Round 2 (see my frankenstein pin cushion and draft snake), and that's how these ratty, old, well-worn socks have come to be my son's beloved plaything. (He puts a hat on it and drives it around in his doll stroller while I look on and die of love.)

One of the effects of burying oneself in work for an extended period of time is that upon digging out at last one feels so light and free that one is like to go flapping up into the sunshine without even touching the ground first to get a proper foothold on the day-in/day-out of normal life. It's like that sleepover stunt where you stand in a doorway and hold your arms straight while pressing the backs of your hands against the jamb for several minutes and then when you step away your limbs float upward as if buoyed by some spirit (perhaps the one that lends a hand in "Light as a feather, stiff as a board"?). To whit: so completely am I sucking the marrow out of this still-new month that I intend to leave it bird-bone hollow and scraping the stratosphere or else flattened out and panting on the pavement at the doorstep of April, exhausted but exhilarated. In short: It's good to be living again.

This week I'm spending three evenings somewhere other than in front of one of several glowboxes in my own home, and although the first event will still involve the teevee--I'm cordially invited to mockuttend the no-doubt MAGICAL JOURNEY that will be Jason and Molly's wedding (I hear it rains! goody!)--I still get points for (a) leaving the house and (b) indulging my vice vis-à-vis a "social event." With a nod to Billy Joel, we'll be sharing a drink they call The Bachelor, but it's better than watching alone.*

I'm also super-excited to be going on an actual baby-free date-like date with Simon tomorrow, for which we will dress up and hold hands and eat dinner together like old times, even if it means just wearing non-holey underwear and grabbing a weiner at TopDog which, although by no means high-class, at least bears some meaning to us and, of course, I don't think I'm going to hear complaints so long as weiner-grabbing makes its way into the night one way or another.

As for other out-of-doors, media-free diversions, it's a testament to how appreciative I am of freedom these days that I'm smiling instead of grimacing while standing, wind-whipped, in the backyard, up to my knees in weeds and my wrists in mud. In between the gales and downpours, though, it's more than pleasant here a lot of the time, and yesterday all three of us stayed at the park until the shadows and chill forced us and all the other toddler teams back home (or, in our case, for an impromptu Greek dinner with some friends before heading home). So full of the spirit of DOING was I that I barely even flinched when the other toddler parents at the park made ovations of forming a weekly playgroup there and then went around the circle introducing themselves and their children. (Winner of most unsual name: a darling little sprite named Duende.) I can't remember the last time a grown woman sidled up to me on a bench and asked, "So...you come here often?" I can't remember ever being so eager to accept her advances.

*The only thing sadder than going to a party to watch a Bachelor wedding for a season you didn't see is knowing you'd watch it at home by yourself anyway. (See also: actually giving a crap about the Oscars when I haven't been to a movie in more than a year (although, honestly, let's not fool ourselves--I really only want to see what everyone's wearing).)

Thanks, everyone, for your support about the sucky joblessness. Simon is currently--as I type--on a phone interview for a good position, which would have him doing basically the same thing he was doing before, only on a larger scale and in a more supervisory than hands-on role--i.e., instead of fixing the flickering lightbulb in the building's conference room, he'll direct one of his minions to do it, which, you have to admit, has a certain allure to it. That's climbing the career ladder by not climbing the ladder, I guess, ho ho ho.

Unfortunately, Simon kind of likes changing lightbulbs as a way of interrupting the monotony of the more technical parts of his job, and isn't it unfortunate that neither of us has the commitment toward workplace success that might result in at least one adult in the family reaching his or her greatest potential in the workforce? As an editor, for instance, it should be my deep passion to scale the ranks from lowly editorial assistant to proofreader to copyeditor to developmental editor to editorial director--the apex being, at most presses, to eventually attain a position in which I would do very little actual editing. I mean, I guess if someone wanted to pay me a truckload of cash to merely supervise others in doing what I'm trained to do, I might be willing to relinquish the real, basic, unabashed enjoyment I (most of the time) get from line editing manuscripts to make them better in a visible, tangible way. But still, how much would it take for me to be bought out of doing what I love? Not any numbers that I've seen lately.

Of course, there's very little social prestige in stagnating as an underling for an entire decade (it's not a rut, it's a groove!), but alas I never quite got the hang of giving a crap about what others think, so outside pressure is small impetus for me to raise my game, at least anytime soon. Sure, perhaps once my babymaking and babyraising days are behind me I'll wake up one morning filled with ambition to become an all-powerful Grammar Czarina, but for now, of course, I'm happy to just nose-to-grindstone my way through this rough patch (my awesomely awesome employer has allowed me to go full-time for as long as Simon is unemployed! yay them!) and in the meantime hope that my better, higher-earning half will catch the big fish, which I promise, here and now, not only to praise lavishly, with generous oohing and aahing, but also to cook up and serve (the fish) while he (the Simon) kicks back with a martini (which I will not make, as no matter how many times he teaches me the procedure, I forget it immediately; and in this way making a martini is like checking the oil in my car).

The other example of our dedication to mediocrity: After undergrad, Simon did two years of full-time, full-load pre-med as a foundation to becoming a neurologist. It wasn't until he was ready to apply to med school that he realized he didn't want to be a doctor at the expense of having a life (which, according to the doctors and med students he interviewed, was the only way of it), and so he quit. He didn't then run out to become a hot dog vendor or anything (no offense to hot dog vendors, but that's hardly a good use of Simon's education), but it's nevertheless hard for most jobs to compare--salary-wise--with neurology. Plus, it sounds really good when introducing oneself at a cocktail party.

Yet, it's this sort of attitude that will likely keep us perpetually poorer than we want to be but happier than we deserve to be, cocktail partiers be damned. For now, for me, that's still a manageable tradeoff.

So, in case you didn't read it elsewhere, Simon no longer has a job.

I'm not panicking (yet) but mostly just feeling sad (for Simon, for the company, for the dissolution of what had been a happy workplace family), and so in the comfort of NOT panicking (we do, thank goodness, have a modicum of savings, and a recently actualized capacity for inhuman amounts of freelance work), my overwhelming emotion is this:

It's not FAAAAAIR.

All those late nights and stolen weekends I've spent burning the midnight oil, I've been tempering my insanity with the promise of a new pair of shoes, a trip to NYC, and a financial boost that will enable me to even contemplate planning something that resembles a wedding I can get excited about. But now it's going to be the money that gets us through--hopefully--however many weeks (oh please let it only be weeks) it takes for Simon to find a new job, which will probably also involve us finding childcare, which, HELLO FRESH HELL OF ANXIETY.

Still, this is a new situation, and I'm not freaking out. (If we're in this situation three or four months from now, however, watch how very much I will freak out, and in grand style, with buggy eyes and standup hair and everything.) If truth be told, I'm actually looking forward to his mandatory time off, since it will give us a chance to catch up on household projects (hey! look! it's the pile of mulch that's been blocking our driveway since December 2008!), and maybe even allow us to occasionally grab life by the guts and squeeze, the best albeit violent way to make up for all the merely-existing I've been doing since January.

Yesterday, for instance, was Simon's first jobless day, and while I worked, he managed to not only watch the baby but cook dinner and record a song and clean the moldy windowsills in the dining room, a project that has been looming for months and months but which I could never get to because I couldn't figure out how to do it while supervising Wombat at the same time. Simon's solution was to give the kid a paper towel and show him how to scrub while saying "doo doo doooo" (that's toddlerspeak for "brazzle dazzle," I think?) and whaddya know, it worked. Breastlessness aside, Simon is SO the better mom.

Anyway, there's no one to blame for this unfortunate turn of events, and although it sucks to have to weigh family time against cold hard cash--I find that comparing financial security to emotional well-being is like comparing apples and oranges, or maybe even apples to photographs of apples, one of which you can't eat no matter how cruelly those megapixels approximate reality, enough to make my mouth water, actually--and so I guess this is one of those times we're supposed to just sack up and do what's necessary--not what's comfortable or even what's tolerable but simply what is best. I'm still going to whine like a brat about it, though. Just a little. I really wanted some new shoes.

Rabbit, rabbit.

First off, let me begin with an important programming note: Unless you would like to give birth to a Christmas baby and have all future holiday seasons unalterably hampered by yet another arduous celebration of wonderful things, DO NOT HAVE SEX this month lest ye conceive. Now is not the time to kill the rabbit, friends. (Angry sig-oths may direct hatemail to my hand, held up in front of my face, like this.) You're quite welcome, ladyfriends.

(Can you believe it was two years ago this month I got pregnant? What's up with that? I don't know if it's on account of being so far removed from the experience or because the gestation itself felt so brief (because it was enjoyable? because Wombat arrived on his due date, before I had the chance to really rage?) or because I wanted it for so long beforehand, but I always feel like such an imposter now even referencing having been pregnant myself because who? me? pregnant? You must be thinking of someone else, for surely it wasn't I who [dot dot dot]. Perhaps this is why our motherbodies pooch and sag forever after--our softspots are our only hard evidence. Well, that and the actual baby.)

Oh, did I say "baby"? I meant "little MAN," with the jeans and the shoes and the layers and the mullet and the je ne sais quoi, qui, comment. Le sigh.

This weekend was full of actual babies, however, and that made it an exceptionally lovely weekend, despite the fact that it was only one day long, since I spent Saturday working from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. to complete the penultimate stage before getting this $@*%ing freelance brain-melter off my desk and out of my nightmares once and for all. Sick of hearing about it? Imagine how I feel. Why, if I had a nickel for every [DOT DOT DOT]

But! Babies!

Yesterday we headed up north to meet Wombat's future bandmate--the four-day-old son of Simon's guitarist--as well as Dorothy Jane [Dottie Dot Dot], baby sister to Wombat's semiannual co-conspirator, Nora Lea, and [dot dot] daughter of the inimitable Helen Jane, party planner extraordinnaire. (Follow her on Twitter this month for her best party tips.) All through the Inferno that has been my work life since January (turns out Hell hath not nine circles but exactly 386 pages, including front matter), one of the rewards I'd promised myself was a trip up to Napa in the midst of spring sproinging, so this invitation came at a perfect time. (Thank you, Helen Jane, for reading my mind.) Imperfectly, we didn't have time to jump out the car to take still shots of the wild mustard like all those families in their coordinating sweaters (we had too many buckles to unlatch and not enough color coordination among us), but Babies! awaited, so we pressed on, papa in the driver seat and Wombat forward-facing in his carseat, the better to see...his book.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful way to spend my first real day off in much too long. Lots of hugs (tight ones, true ones), plus chocolate cake and goody bags and paper chains and champagne and teeny tiny baby toes and my son's first elbow scrape, surely proof that a new season has begun.

More photos here. Can't you just smell the sweet relief wafting on the spring breeze?