The Mommy Blog™ | Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood™

Friday, April 23, 2004

It’s taken me all night, but I did it. The first gag is complete. With Mindy being out of town, my Internet Provider being offline due to server problems, and the Colorado Avalanche losing - I had a little time on my hands. I have successfully glued all of Mindy’s office furniture to her ceiling. I didn’t miss a detail. Her pen is glued to a piece of paper, that is glued to the jumbo desk calendar, that is glued to the desk, that is glued to the ceiling. Photos are glued upside down to the desk. Paper clips? Ha! They are glued in a little pyramid on her desk. The coffee was the hard part. I actually had to fake that. Some 5 minute epoxy and food coloring looks just like that cup of joy.

You don’t believe I did this do you? This ruptured disk in my back is not proof enough? The fact that super glue prices skyrocketed overnight are no evidence? OK, how about a 3-D walkthrough? Thanks those goofy real estate agents for giving me the “walkthrough software” to make my job of proving this little gag a little easier. Now Mac people, I’m very sorry, but this little animation will not work on your machines. I’m terribly sorry. For you others, Click here to download the walkthrough program. You can save this program to your own computer or run it from here. Pressing the “Esc” key exits the program.

Now…..where’s the fridge full of beer?

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Me, Me, Me

Wheeeeeee! I am just buttoning up my office and getting ready to DITCH this place for a whole week! I’ll be at a work-related conference, two thousand miles away from my family, which will seem like heaven for the first three days and will then be tortuous beyond all reason for the next four days. Such is the Mommy Curse.

In the interim, I will be leaving my beloved blog in the witty and capable hands of Lee, Genuine, Snowball, Cyn, and Jenn. Gil may even join in, if the kids give him two adjacent seconds at a stretch!

So, basically, this is a not-so-veiled disclaimer: anything you read on this blog between the morning of April 23 and the morning of April 30 WAS NOT AUTHORED BY ME.

Do NOT get upset with me for any content during those dates. Please, especially if you are part of the family and only read once in a while, these Guest Bloggers are my friends, good people, and they mean well. They are also very, very funny, and very, very twisted. I have no idea what they are going to do to this place, but it should be fun to watch.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Haiku Smackdown

It’s time once again
for the big Haiku Smackdown!
Show us your stuff, yo.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Family

Almásy: This… this, the hollow at the base of a woman’s throat, does it have an official name?

Madox: Good God, man, pull yourself together.

Do you remember, in The English Patient, when Almásy claimed the hollow of Katharine Clifton’s neck as his? I have never forgotten that. I think of it each time one of my children visit their own claimed topography.

There was one part of me that all three loved equally: the soft underside of my upper arm. It was a must for any baby of mine to fall asleep with the top of the head firmly pressed into my outstretched arm and body curled into my chest. I think it reminded them of the closeness of my womb, and the security of that pressure.

They have also each adopted different parts of my body as personal totems and touchstones. If one of my children is upset, I know that all I have to do is sit quietly and help them to find their secret spot, and all will be well again.

Logan always nursed as a baby while holding onto my nose. He liked the feel of the tip on the palm of his hand, and no matter how much I discouraged him or tried to distract him, he was never happy unless he could rest his hand there. It was either that or the inside of my mouth, fingers curled over my lower teeth. The nose, I decided, was not so bad.

Later, as he weaned and began to walk and talk, he began to rest his hand on the swell of my breast, just under my collar bone. Again, I think it was the sensation of having warm, soft flesh against his palm. It soothed him. I don’t have a single picture of the two of us together during his toddlerhood where he doesn’t have one hand down the front of my shirt and the other around my shoulder.

Logan never did have a traditional lovey—not a blanket, or a bottle, or a teddy bear. He did, however, carry around a tennis ball. There is just something about a convex surface in the palm of that kid’s hand that makes him feel safe. I sometimes still catch him sidling up to me and slipping his hand under the back of my shirt to rest his palm along my waist for a moment before moving away.

Dylan was always very big on eye contact. Whenever I sang to him or told him a story, he would sit on my lap, hands folded, absolutely silent, with his wide eyes on mine. He would listen until the song or story ended, pull his binky slightly out of his mouth, and say simply, “More.”

We have a ritual at bedtime: I say, “You are my special, special boy.”

He replies, “And you’re my special, special Mommy.”

“Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

“OK.”

“Will you come see me in the morning when you wake up?”

“Yes.” We have said these exact words to each other every night for the last two years. I find that I have trouble going to sleep until I have heard them.

And, if we fall asleep together, it as likely as not forehead-to-forehead, smiling at one another. Later, we both turn over and snuggle up back-to-back, our spines pressed together, and in this way we always sleep soundly.

Daphne has her own preferences. She is incredibly partial to my left shoulder. She places her blanket over my shoulder, arranges it just right, and then nestles her head into the soft nest she has made, thumb in mouth. She also likes to get right in front of my face, press our foreheads together, look into my eyes and tell me that she likes me, and that I am home. It gets me every time.

Daphne has always shared my bed, and when we fall asleep together, we curl in, facing one another and she snuggles tightly into my chest. And always, just as with her brothers before her, I stretch my right arm out and she presses the crown of her head into the underside so that she is encompassed within the 90 degree angle of my arm and my body. It is her haven and mine as well.