2013
Spinning My Wheels
I feel like I’m always cleaning yet nothing is ever clean. I feel like I’m blogging yet nothing is ever blogged. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it all before.
It should be no surprise that I work out a lot of things in writing (and I’m only slightly ashamed to say that I frequently steal jokes from my own website to make myself appear quick-witted in the rare instance I engage in real, in-person conversations with live humans), so when I don’t have time to come to this space and toss things around, my brain starts to feel a little bit constipated, for lack of a term that doesn’t reflect how much of each day is devoted to poop-related shenanigans.
In trying, as ever, to be a good internet citizen (which right now looks like one who tries to comment on every blog post she reads), I was able to work out something in the comments section on this excellent post, which I’m recording here because I want to remember it (because it’s a sad fact that after ten years of blogging, my memory is indelibly tied to what I’ve written down, which makes not writing things down feel like an act of intentional forgetting, which I HATE). Anyway, I’ll try to make this brief because my blogging situation is unrelatable to 99% percent of the population, so who cares?, and also because I have a few excellent photos of the boys from this morning that I want to share because they’re the perfect example of how easy it is to declare, “When I am a parent, I will never do X” and then you become a parent and BOOM, you’ve bought ridiculous matching pajamas for your children and you are not even a little bit sorry because WOOKIT DA CUTSIE TWINSIE-WINSIES, and this, uh, disorder is, I’m sure, extremely relatable.
So, the thing I worked out was this: Not all blogging is created equal. As this applies to my situation as a person who’s currently writing five(!) columns* for clients, plus the sponsored things that find their way here, I’m not actually spending many hours a week “blogging,” I’m spending many hours a writing as a freelancer, for money, which makes it work, not hobby blogging. This is an obvious epiphany but an epiphany nonetheless, and it’s turned out to be very important for me to realize that over the past year I’ve transitioned from someone who makes a bit of extra money from my hobby to someone who relies on money that comes from legitimate employment opportunities that merely grew out of blogging. When I have to fill in the blank that says “Occupation,” I realize I’m not just a book editor anymore, I’m a writer. This feels strange and good and accurate and lucky.
All of the above is also my way of saying that I’ve been working a lot, and I’m TIRED. Some days it feels like I’m spinning my wheels and will never get caught up, but then I take a step back and look at how quickly things are actually moving and changing and I realize that yes, my wheels are spinning, but this cart I’m on is grounded and we’re actually going somewhere. Even just typing that makes the load feel lighter.
I’m looking forward to having my days to myself again once Fox starts daycare in a few months because then I won’t have to work in fits and starts and mostly on my laptop from the car because that’s still the only place he’ll nap, but of course I’m also preemptively weeping at the thought of not having my littlest buddy on hand for snuggles whenever the mood strikes, which is pretty often because holy crap he’s just keeps getting cuter. He’s also walking. Not taking a few wobbly steps now and then but full-on walking across the room on his feet like the personiest person who ever personed. He turned ten months old yesterday and I’m bitter because I feel like I’ve been cheated out of at least two months of babyhood and also because I haven’t been able to record every little twinkle in his eye on my hobby blog. Waaaaah.
Some photos from this morning:
AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!!!!!
*If you’re interested in visiting me elsewhere, I’m continuing to blog for CafeMom about all things baby–baby gear, bringing home baby, baby milestones–here, and I’m also doing a campaign for them with Bisell and Febreze called “Pets and Babies and Rugs, Oh My!” about keeping my floors clean, which is good motivation for me to actually do that, and also, of course, HILARIOUS because they will never, ever, ever be clean. Over at Work It, Mom, I’m still at my basic “Working (on) Motherhood” column, I’m now writing for the Pregnancy and Parenting section, and of course there’s the craft blog, which I continue to be gut-bustingly proud of because although there are a lot of craft blogs out there, the world needs more of them geared toward busy [working] moms who may not always have the best craft skills and who definitely need quick and easy projects they can do with their kids and using everyday objects, a la this play tent made with shower curtains and a hula hoop and put together in twenty minutes in the car because my whole life revolves around things I can do in twenty minutes in the car, including this very post, for which I’m now all out of time, goodbye!
2013
Three Four
Today is my birthday.
I got a planter and a garden stool and new slippers and socks with pigs and hearts on them and a face massager (wrinkle remover?) and a handmade card with a cement mixer (“because I know you like them!” “…”) and two bouquets of flowers and triple chocolate mousse cake and fishnet stockings (FROM MY SON) and earmuffs, naturellement, which I wore during dinner on the hottest day of the year.
All that and the baby also let me have what I wanted more than anything: a shower. Aim high in your latter years, kids. Aim high.
Here’s to thirty-four. (THIRTY-FOUR!)
2013
Two Years Here and Gone
Yesterday I jogged past some of the places we had our wedding portraits taken two years ago to the day, and in between huffs and puffs I marvelled at how much is different now. The pink blossoms are on the decline, the weather is crazy hot for April, and here I am out and about with a whole entire new member of our family. Simon has a different job–one that doesn’t beat down the happy whistler that makes himself heard when times are good–and Seersucker Wombat has grown a foot and a half and a million dreams inside his little-big head. As for me, there’s no way my current chest could fit into that wedding dress, for starters.
What’s the same is that we’re still a family built around a couple who swarms each other like two hybrid lightning bug-moths, each unstoppably attracted to the glow of the other. I love him shallowly, like a new girlfriend loves her new boyfriend for all the easy stuff like his talent and his good humor and his twinkly chocolate eyes, but I also love him deeply, like a wife loves a husband she has known for a decade, a man whom she has made a home with and made children with and made jokes and compromises and signature cocktails with. This life isn’t always a piece of cake–sometimes it’s a pie with burnt crust and an underdone middle and off-center decorations on top–but you know I’m gonna eat that up anyway, crumbs and all, and it will be delicious because we made it together. Also, PIE.
Marrying Simon is the best decision I ever made, followed closely by having our wedding catered by a taco truck. Some things are just Right.
According to the books, the second anniversary is cotton, so…underwear? I don’t know! I’ve never done this before, unlike some people. (Ooh, anniversary BURN.)
Happy weddingversary, you old so-and-so. You just danced past me doing the shuffle off to Buffalo move using an overturned champagne bucket as a top hat, and if you’ll allow me to turn my response into a metaphor: You don’t have to ask me twice. I will, I do, let me at it, tonight and tomorrow and forever.
You are the best thing [that] ever happened to me.
