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I feel the need to declare that, overall, I feel pretty alright, because I need to remember feeling this way for the times when I don’t. Like this morning, when I sent the baby upstairs to get dressed for school, only to find him 10 minutes later sitting on his bedroom floor reading a comic book. I was furious, which was perhaps an overreaction, but seriously, what the hell? Then, like an idiot, I tried to get him to walk me through his logic that led him to chill out with some reading material when it was clearly close to time to go.

“Well, you didn’t lay out any clothes for me…”

“So…that meant that you just weren’t going to need to get dressed today?”

“I don’t know.”

SIGH. Is there such a thing as the Terrible Tens? Because he seems to be in the midst. Oh, and the first person who says anything in the neighborhood of “pre-teen” gets punched.

But all of that nonsense aside, we’ve been doing a lot of our traditional fall stuff, including going to Trax Farm this past Sunday. Because October is always so busy for us, we always end up squeezing our farm trip in at around the last minute. And we always have to go with everyone else in the tri-county area who is working their annual trip in around the Steeler game. So there’s always a tense hour in the market part where you come face to face with how horrible the general population is at functioning in crowded spaces and steering grocery carts. Really, there ought to be a license for carts and things like, “Leaving your cart in the middle of the aisle while you gawk at the apple butter display instead of pushing it out of the way,” will be fineable offenses. (This, by the way, is the main thing that I hate about the Market District Giant Eagle in Shadyside. The customers’ idiotic navigation, especially in the horribly arranged produce section. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost hurt people’s feelings in that store. And, yeah, I take grocery shopping a little too seriously. I don’t have time for foolishness.) But we had a really good time, got our pumpkins and about 300 other precious autumn things. I had the presence of mind to be thankful that the baby didn’t put up a fuss when it was time to take his picture next to the huge wooden pumpkin, because I know in the next year or so he’s going to refuse and that will be when I become that woman who gets drunk and cries at the farm. But you guys. Look:

That’s from Sunday. And this? This is from 2005:

I can’t even. I’m doing this to myself a lot lately, which is admittedly kind of masochistic, because I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that he’s turning 10 soon. It’s just so…big. And I’m warning you now that I’m going to go all mommyblogger on your asses and put together a montage.

The other kids in our house, the furry ones, are doing pretty well, too. Florian the kitten is getting bigger everyday and is still a bit of a mad man. Greedo the cat is so chilled out by nature that this is kind of exhausting for them. I was getting concerned, but then went and spent an absurd amount of money on a cat tree. I think because there were no existing territorial issues for it, and it gave something for the kitten to attack, it seems to have made them much happier. They even hang out in it together sometimes!

Florian is quite the love bug and usually sleeps next to or on me, which is fine, except for when he gets the itch to gallivant in the middle of the night at the expense of my slumber. Last night, I became momentarily aware that he had scrambled across my forehead and had some bleary thought of, “Kitten. Scratch. Face. Ow. Register pain in morning.” I had completely forgotten about it until I saw myself in the mirror and noticed the little spot of dried blood. At this rate, I’m going to start looking like Omar from The Wire. Or, perhaps, Michael K. Williams dressed up as Omar dressed up as King Richard for Halloween or something equally ridiculous.

I have no idea why that picture exists, by the way. I just know that I’m eternally thankful that it does because the mere thought of it makes me giggle. This morning, for some reason, that scene from Forrest Gump where Jenny is throwing rocks at her molesting dad’s house came to my mind, because I’m such a naturally cheery individual. I thought about how the line, “Sometimes I guess there just aren’t enough rocks,” would make a great caption for a picture of, say, Whitney Houston smoking crack. But then I pushed it out of my head, figuring if I could dream it, then someone on the internet has already made it exist and I’m not breaking any new ground there. This is both sad on many levels and one of the reasons that the internet is so great.

Anyway. How are you doing?

Normally, I like my Sundays to consist of sleeping, eating, and watching movies and football. This past Sunday was nearly the opposite of that.

I got up at what we here on the internet like to call o’dark-thirty and went to Oakland to participate in the Great Race 5k. This was kind of a big deal for me, because it was my first “real” race. The Race for the Cure was fun and it was a good experience, but I couldn’t do much running. This time, people were actually there to race and while it was still a fun atmosphere, I could tell that there was more intensity in the air.

I got kind of nervous the night before and considered backing out, but by the time I got to the starting line and had time to stretch and warm up, I felt ready to go. I had whipped together a playlist on the shuttle to the start and it ended up being totally perfect.

When the starting gun went off, there was the initial stutter of everyone trying to go, but it cleared out pretty quickly and we were off.

I was surprised at how good I felt. The first jog I had done since injuring my toe had left my legs feeling kind of crampy, perhaps from favoring my left leg, and I was worried that I would have more of the same. But my legs felt fine. My only real discomfort came from the long-sleeved shirts that we were issued, which felt good at the beginning but oppressive about halfway through.

I walked for a bit near Duquesne, deciding not to wear myself out on the small hill, and a few more times for a few seconds while drinking some water.

I pulled into Point State Park at around 38:28 and I was pretty pleased with myself and my time. I was surprised to find myself feeling pretty emotional, even tearing up for a second. I started jogging kind of on a whim over a year and a half ago, because I needed to do something about my physical and mental health. Jogging led to a slow revamping of my diet, which led to a rekindling in my interests in yoga and Pilates. The cool thing is that I consider more challenges and don’t get discouraged because I won’t be the best at them, but excited because I can just go and DO them. All of this is to say that I might be doing some rather foolish things over the next six months or so.

That's my "I'm about 10 minutes away from a caffeine headache," look.

Crazily enough, the Great Race was the first of several big items on my to-do list for Sunday. I still needed to get coffee (see: aforementioned impending caffeine headache), get the baby’s soccer pictures taken, watch the baby’s soccer game, send the baby off with my dad to the Pirates game, do something with the 5 pounds of chicken in my fridge that were thisclose to going bad (ended up making the most massive batch of chicken noodle soup), wrap the husband’s birthday gifts, go to the mother-in-law’s house for the husband’s birthday party with the totally awesome birthday cake in tow, birthday it up, watch the Steelers game, watch Boardwalk Empire.

The baby’s soccer game went really well. He scored what ended up being the game-winning goal and did a really great victory run. There are a lot of things that are really cool about being that kid’s mom. One of the coolest is seeing things start to click into place for him. Score soccer goals? Totally doable. Play Beatles songs on the piano? Got it, though there will be some angst first. Learn Spanish? On it. Understand math? Please. Read books and start to realize that they’re more than just words on a page? That the stories are there to help you understand the world and your place in it? Obviously!

He’s going to be 10 soon. Last night, after some bickering escalated into shouting on my part, I took awhile to cool off. Later, I asked him to come sit with me for a bit and he let me hug him for a long time as I apologized for yelling the way I did and saying mean things (and then “reminded” him that he owed me an apology, too, for being a jerk in the first place). I looked out of the corner of my eye at his head resting on my shoulder, his cute little ear poking up. It used to look just that way when he was a baby, too.

Did I ever tell you the story about how I hate my cat sometimes?

The story starts on Friday night when the baby (along with his lovely parents) hosted his first slumber party. His two buddies came over after soccer and the baby came home after piano and three of them were off. They had such a great time. The husband and I just kind of sat back and observed them, occasionally handing them food and drawing our hands back quickly. “Man. We’re such parents,” I kept saying to myself, rapidly reaching my quota of deep thoughts for the day.

In the morning, I slowly heard their still little voices gradually wake up in that uber 9-year-old boy way. “Murrf…Grunt…Pffft…Hey…Hi…I slept good…I KNOW RIGHT I LOVE VIDEO GAMES AND DIRT AND FARTING YOU’RE AWESOME WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE HAHAHAHAHA POOP!”

They had slept in and were perfectly fine entertaining themselves as I rolled out of bed and down the stairs. I made yummy pancakes that they gobbled down. The baby said, “Isn’t my mom a good cook?” and I became mush.

I tried to get them out to the park but they were too busy reveling in their boyhood friendships to get ready in time. The two friends went off and the hum of an average Saturday sounded all around us.

I set about puttering, putting some bedding in the washing machine and getting another load of dirty dishes ready to go into the dishwasher. Our portable dishwasher needed to be unhooked from the faucet, unplugged, and spun back across the room to its resting place so that I could empty and refill it.

GASP

In spinning the dishwasher around, an action I’d performed a thousand and twelve times before, I made a miscalculation in the physics of the situation. The chaotic possibility that I would perform this action with just the right sets of variables in posture, stance, and force meant that the sharp metal corner of the machine would swipe through the air just so. That corner would meet the top of my left big toenail at just the right moment in time and place in space. In the king-of-the-mountain battle between the metal and my toenail for rights to that piece of space-time continuum real estate, the metal won.

It was not immediately evident to me what had happened. I stared at my foot and slowly evaluated the damage.

“Ow. Oooh. Uhhh. Ow. Ow. Ow. OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST.”

I hopped up the stairs and into the bathroom and informed the husband that, “I *#*#%#@ UP MY FOOT *#(%)*)$!” as I dripped blood all over the floor

Then I burst into tears. “I’m suppohohohosed to run a 5k in two weheeheeheeks!”

We went to MedExpress and were in about in about 45 minutes. A tetanus shot and some soaking instructions were my souvenirs. The nail might not make it but my Chariots of Fire dreams remained alive. As we drove away, the husband continued our neverending game of Punchbuggy and reflexively punched me right where I got my tetanus shot upon seeing a VW Beetle.

The husband went out that night and I opted to stay home. I crawled into bed and tried to deal with the increasing throbbing in my toe. Despite downing some Aleve, I couldn’t find a comfortable position and decided that the best course of action would be to watch Mad Men episodes and whimper.

The cat jumped up to siphon body warmth from me and began the awesome process of walking on my feet to find the perfect spot.

“No, cat. No. Please. No.”

I gently moved my feet around and he followed them. I didn’t want to make too sudden a movement because he has a tendency to attack body parts moving around under the covers. I texted the husband for moral support. He replied, “Gatooooo.”

Uh. Indeed.

I think it’s safe to say that the husband and the baby and I squeezed the last drops of summer out this weekend. After work on Friday, the husband and I went to see Our Idiot Brother while the baby was at his piano lesson. I strongly disliked the movie and spent the next few hours sulking about why good writing with interesting characters is so impossible to come by. Of course, the last place you want to be when you’re lamenting the state of American culture is the mall, and that’s exactly where we were. I sauntered through the food court, addressing every guy that passed me as, “Bro.” We went to Dick’s to get the baby some soccer stuff, and I lost it temporarily in the entrance. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but they had a banner up for this initiative that they’re working on with Jerome Bettis about preventing concussions. Which is great, obviously. But they used this picture of Bettis.

Nothing looks amiss about this picture until you crop his face (and more importantly, his mid-sentence facial expression) and put it right next to the word concussion. Let me illustrate.

CONCUSSION

I also took issue with this product, which was being sold as a Tailgate Toss.

This game, my friends, is not called tailgate toss. It’s called cornholing. I don’t know where it got its name, though I imagine it was thought up by a bunch of Beavises not unlike yours truly. Point is, if you’re going to go cornholing with your buddies before the big game, call it what it is.

Then I went in the store and bought a yoga mat and some soccer stuff, tied my cardigan around my shoulders, and flounced off in a cloud of Soccer Mom.

Friday night, I polished off the last bottle of wine from the absurd number that we consumed at the beach. I spent the rest of the night trying to act like I wasn’t completely sloshed. I don’t think I succeeded.

Saturday, we went to Idlewild to fulfill our quota of Family Fun, Dammit for the season. It was actually a really nice time. I guess since it was 90-some degrees out and a “limited operations” day, people stayed home so we were able to gallivant about without ridiculous crowds. It was some church’s picnic day and I only saw one creepy “purity” shirt on a 9-year-old girl, so that was cool. (Seriously, Jesus fans, it’s great that you’re all about abstinence, but I find the omnipresent discussion about the sexuality of little girls kind of weird.) Limited operations didn’t affect us too much. The ferris wheel and a few other rides weren’t up and running. But what did cramp our style was the lack of lollipops on the Good Ship Lollipop. You know how you pace around the tiny boat on that swampy water and then a junior from St. Vincent’s deadpans. “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship. Have a sucker?” Our visit ended with, “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship.” And then…nothing. No lollipop. It was really awkward because I was standing there looking at this kid like, “Soooo….?”

I only took one picture because I only had my phone. It’s this:

That’s the husband in the green shirt. He’s in the process of putting his hands up as he and the baby ride the Whip. But I know at some point I’m going to forget what this is and wonder, “Why do I have a picture of the husband being held at gunpoint by an idyllic white picket fence?”

When we got home that night we popped over to my mother-in-law’s house for one final session of nightswimming. R.E.M., would you mind providing us with a brief musical interlude?

Yesterday, we had some vague plans of doing stuff around the house, but when it turned out to be cool and rainy all day, we just laid around and napped. It was nice. I did all of the laundry and put some summer clothes away, so if the cool temperatures upset you, don’t worry. My act of putting the sundresses in the bins in the attic have ensured us three weeks of sweltering heat at some point soon.

The baby took a three-hour nap, which was nice because he was being a humongous jerk prior to that. When he started crying because he couldn’t do something in a Wii game and I couldn’t help but laugh, he told me he hated me. So, yeah, no more Wii for him for awhile.

On a more serious, commie note, I want to acknowledge Labor Day and thank the National Postal Mail Handler’s Union and the Communication Workers of America and all of the laborers who came before them. Because of the NPMHU and the CWA, the husband and I grew up with health insurance and parents who weren’t so overworked that they couldn’t be in our lives. Despite only having high school diplomas, our parents were able to raise children who would go on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Thank you for fighting for a better life for yourselves, for me, and for my son.

labor
baby’s behavior
putting clothes away/cool weather

The baby started fourth grade today, which is of course blowing my mind. He has this year and next year at his current school and then will move to a 6-12 school, which I’m just kind of not thinking about.

The things that I remember most about my fourth grade year are getting glasses and taking up the flute. Clearly, I was gunning for the title of Coolest Kid Ever. (Spoiler: I lost.) My kid, however, just might have a shot. He wore the Kangol that he got in New York and the Adidas shell toes that we purchased last week. He’s going for a Run DMC/Grandmaster Flash vibe. I couldn’t be more pleased.

I don’t have the traditional first day of school picture on the porch to share because the school bus was 30 minutes late today so I didn’t have time to take pictures off of my camera. While waiting, we got to enjoy the sight of other kids getting on their school buses without difficulty and took in a torrential downpour or two. My shoes are still damp.

Despite having a new bus company this year (I called and complained about the old one as “unreliable” would be too kind of an adjective), I still had to call and get an update on the bus and got the, “Well, there’s traffic and it’s raining,” rigamarole. Sorry. Unacceptable. Saying that there’s traffic and rain in Pittsburgh like it’s some kind of unique set of circumstances is like saying, “Gee, it’s a bit sultry atop this volcano.” We almost gave up after waiting for so long but it seemed somehow important to me that the baby and the bus driver meet on the first day. When the bus finally arrived, I had to do the whole, “Here’s my one and only child. If you could now cease being an idiot from this point forward, that would be aces!” hand off. I’m pretty empathetic to people messing up at work, seeing as how I do it ALL THE TIME. But this has been a constant issue and I am getting pretty fed up.

ANYWAY…what else? The husband and I spontaneously tackled our third floor on Sunday night. It’s served as a repository for anything and everything the past five years. It’s a perfectly liveable space and it’s being wasted right now, so we started pawing through the various bags and boxes that we’ve been toting around with us since our late teens. There’s lots of just random stuff that gets shuffled when you move a lot and also lots of meaningful stuff that I’m really glad that we kept. I found a pros and cons list that I composed while determining whether or not I should go out with the husband (mostly pros, the only con being that we were good friends and I didn’t want to potentially ruin that) and a few of our angsty, early emails that essentially serve as our love letters. He found the scrap of paper that he wrote my phone number on. We don’t seem like the most romantic people, but I guess we are.

I think the start of a new school year has that unavoidable feeling of a new start, and we are, of course, going through some transitions. We’re trying to figure out what we’re doing with our life from here and I think getting the house more in shape is indicative of us finally moving forward, even though things don’t look like we thought they were going to.

If nothing else, I got to laugh at stuff like my old Venus razor.

LOLShaving

I write to you from day 3 of my juice cleanse and you know what? It’s not bad at all. I’ve been following the travails of the Serious Eats crew, who were one day ahead of me and decided to read the comments, hoping for some input from other people who have done it. The problem was that I forgot that Serious Eats is a huge site and has the douchey commenters to go with it, nearly all of whom ridiculed the juicers for being stupid and buying into fads. My instant reaction: “They hate me, too.” Because that’s the kind of super-sensitive-you-hurt-my-fee-fees week I’m having.

I mean, I get that plunking down some pretty serious bucks on 18 bottles of juice with perhaps little to no scientific research behind their efficacy is pretty dumb, but for me I was really needing to do some serious resetting. The cleanse gave me the opportunity to really examine how I behave about food and what kinds of hunger give me anxiety and what my instinctive reactions are. Do I feel “cleansed?” I don’t know. Physically, I don’t feel wildly different, and I didn’t experience any lightheadedness or other signs that I was without food, aside from an odd brand of dry mouth. (Though I did try to roll up my yoga mat while I was still standing on it yesterday, which was not my finest moment.) Mentally, though, I feel much better and I’ll take what I can get in that arena these days.

My point is, people spend a lot of money on much dumber things.

Just sayin'

Another cool side effect is that my sense of smell is super heightened. And not in the early-pregnancy “Ugh, what is that?” way. But everything smells so amazing right now. I guess my sense of taste is getting something of a rest since I don’t have the juice in my mouth as long as I do food, so my nose is picking up the slack. Yesterday, there was a mobile BBQ truck on campus for an orientation event and I swear I walked past it three or four times just to take in the aroma. Then I scowled at the people in line. “Look at them. Just grabbing the BBQ like it’s whatever. They don’t understand the magical meat that they’re holding in their hands!”

It’s also made me more excited about ramping up my already healthy eating. Like one of the Serious Eats writers, it made me a little more confident to have more vegan days during the week than I already do. Though, obviously, I’m not going full vegan any time soon (see: BBQ lust). This morning on the bus, a guy in front of me was having a frosted honey bun and a huge bottle of Brisk iced tea. It made me feel ill. But not sanctimonious! Eat what you like. Swearsies.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to take it easy introducing foods back into my life, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist a bowl of oatmeal or my first cup of coffee since Monday (!). The caffeine part, by the way, was not too bad. Last night, I decided to drink some chai and nearly vibrated out of the house. I’m also surprised at my energy level, which I guess is the other physical effect. I don’t feel like I could run a 5k, per se, but I do feel light and unburdened.

Anyway, the husband and the baby are in New York this weekend. I’m excited to have some time to myself, but I do miss them something terrible. Especially when the husband sends me pictures like this:

He fell asleep reading last night. Could you die? Also, apparently one of the first things that he did upon arriving in NYC was to buy a Kangol hat.

I freaking love that kid so damn much.

I don’t know if you’ve heard but it’s been crazy hot here this week. As such, everyone is becoming a little…punchy.

For example, me taking a picture of myself first thing in the morning just so I can show you how my hair has been acting.

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and this is one of the few days out of the summer where that just sucks. So there’s lots of ice water being consumed and cold showers being taken. Last night, I climbed into bed and realized that there was no way I was going to fall asleep without cooling myself down somehow and de-stickifying my neck and cleavage. So, I hit the shower and then got back into bed. That meant that I was putting my wavy hair to bed wet and then waking up in the humidity. The results were some kind of science experiment.

If it wasn’t so messy, I would have just rocked this Shirley Temple ‘do, but it was obvious that my pillow had styled my hair so I clawed a brush through it.

Downstairs, I set about getting my coffee, breakfast, and lunch together for the day and I was supervised by my cat, who I had forgotten to feed yesterday. Today, he made sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s his food bin that he’s sitting on top of. And he meowed at me in a very direct tone. He’s very subtle.

After I got myself and my hair out the door, we rode in to work. Close to my office, we gaped at a man who was easily over 6 feet tall riding along on a Razor scooter.

Like this, but completely absurd.

The image of him hunched over and kick-pushing his way to, presumably, educate the youth of America has now burned itself into my brain. Imagining him kissing the wife goodbye, all, “Off to bring home the bacon, honey! Hey, son, I’m taking the Razor today,” makes my head hurt. Zombies can’t be far behind.

We went to see Harry Potter last night and the baby got all dressed up for the occasion.

He is currently devouring the books and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for the franchise, I’ve found almost all of the movies to be pretty enjoyable. I didn’t sob through the last hour of the movie like the grown women in front of me, though. I mean, I get being attached to characters that way, but histrionics in public are a little unnerving.

I posted to MamaDojo last week about our impending trip to Kennywood and tried to explain the tradition of the park, Rick Sebak, and the importance of French fries to non-Pittsburghers. I’m not sure if I did an adequate job or not. But the key takeaway is this: the annual trip to Kennywood is an essential part of growing up in Pittsburgh. There are many rituals involved, from attire to the order of rides to what food is eaten when.

Strategy: get a few of the big coasters in right away. Then proceed straight to Potato Patch for a box (yes, a box) of restorative fries.

The husband, the baby, and I made our annual trip last Wednesday and it was one of the best Kennywood visits we’ve ever had. The weather was gorgeous and it wasn’t crowded, which meant no extremely long waits for rides. This was good because I woke up feeling not so great and I ended up riding the bench a couple of times throughout the day, but didn’t risk wasting much time doing so.

When I was a kid, going to Kennywood meant freaking out on thrill rides and shooting furtive glances at boys. Looking back, it was also usually a rare occasion when my parents and I would spend the day together and have fun for the most part. When the baby became big enough to go and actually ride things, I remember being really excited to share the experience with him. And after a few touch-and-go moments on the Pirate Ship, I could tell he was hooked.

I think what he really likes about it is that it’s the three of us playing together. We all pile into the Racer and boo the other coaster or scream throughout the Phantom’s Revenge. I don’t think anyone would ever accuse the husband or me of being overly mature, but we’re definitely parents. And for a day we get to be kids with our kid.

The baby is still too short to ride the Thunderbolt or the Sky Rocket, so we missed out on those. But it was on some of the tamer rides that we had the best moments of the day. He and I rode the Bayern Kurve together and he cracked up the whole time. Hearing him just goofy with happiness for a few minutes straight was just…awesome.

We had saved a few rides for the night because they look the coolest in the dark and with the lights on. One of these was the Paratrooper. The baby and I sat together and the husband was in the parachute behind us. Again, the baby laughed and oohhed the whole time. It was wonderful. He’s getting to an age where he’s trying to appear older and tougher than he is. Hearing the little boy that is still inside of him made me find the little girl that is still inside of me and I laughed right along with him.

At the end of the day, the husband and the baby wanted to squeeze in one more ride on the Phantom’s Revenge. I had had enough for the day and waited for them on a nearby bench. I watched people file out with absurdly huge stuffed animals and kids look for the parents with only the vaguest sense of panic. I listened to that old song that they always play at the end of the day and felt the twinkly lights on the rides warm my skin.

After they had managed to do not one but two final rides, the husband and the baby and I made our way out, too, pausing to document our sweaty, gleeful, fry-stuffed selves in front of the sweet “Goodnight” heart.

Then came my favorite part: walking through the tunnel toward the exit. Everyone whoops and hollers and giggles at the echo as they shuffle along, the mark of a perfect summer day firmly pressed into their memory. Nobody looks back because they’ve all had their fill and the best part of the night is yet to come: that glorious post-Kennywood shower and sinking your tired feet into bed.

Because the folks at Kennywood want everyone to be able to experience a perfect day like this, they want to give you a chance to win four free tickets to the park. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below. You can also earn additional entries by posting a link to this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook. Just be sure to leave a comment here with a link to your tweet or Facebook post. The winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday, July 26th. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was provided with complimentary tickets to Kennywood in exchange for hosting this giveaway.

Update: And our winner is…Gina! Congratulations, Gina!

The husband called me one afternoon last week and told me that he and the baby were stuck in a good deal of traffic coming home from the Pirates game and would I mind taking the bus home? That was fine with me. I left work a few minutes early to beat some of the rush and on my way to the bus stop, I could see a cluster of inbound buses idling at the stop light. I knew that I was way too far away to catch them before they pulled up to the nearby stop and decided to just take my time and catch one of the next bunch.

Then this…nonsense ran through my brain.

As dumb as they are, I kind of wish I had a Segway right now so I could just make one of those buses…

But Segways are for douchebags.

I should jog more so that I can build up my speed so that I could just run to the bus stop…

But then I would have to wear my big ol’ sports bra all the time just in case I have to take off and my sports bra gives me UniHooter.

What would be really awesome is if I could fly. Then I could fly to the bus stop…

But wait…if I could fly, why would I be taking the bus? Wouldn’t I just fly home? Why is my imagination making me a pigeon?

Around this time I realized that I need to quit being so absurd.

Last night, I was talking in my sleep so loud that I woke myself up. I took a few seconds to wonder who I was talking to and about what before I realized that the answer to my questions was “No one real,” and “Probably bacon.”

I took the day off of work on Friday because I had a dentist appointment at a weird time. I was also, apparently, very exhausted as I slept on Thursday night through Friday morning for something like 12 hours. That evening, we headed out to Oakmont for the annual Greek food festival, which was unfortunately rained on but not before we had some delicious chicken, lamb shank, and loukoumades.

Saturday I was not feeling well, physically or emotionally. My mom came over and was trying to do stuff around my house while the husband was going to his grandmother’s to pick up his grandfather’s old hi-fi and there was too much stuff going on for me to handle. I burst into tears quite irrationally, but to my credit I haven’t done that in WEEKS. The baby felt really bad for me, though, and gave me a bunch of hugs, then took me by the hand and led me to the couch. “Lie down, Mum. Take a nap. You’ll feel better,” he said, and put a blanket over me. He then brought me some books, his DS, and a cup of water and patted me on the shoulder. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Of course, this morning, I was trying for 15 minutes to get him out of bed amidst his whining and groaning. While brushing my teeth, I yelled, “Are you out of bed yet?” He replied, “Yes! Gawd!” And technically he was. He had climbed out of bed…and then curled up on the floor and was falling asleep again.

We all have nightmares. None of us is unique in that respect. And I think we’ve all had a few that have always haunted us. I have at least a handful of nightmares that have so thoroughly terrified me that I’ve never forgotten them. Like the nanny legs from the Muppet Babies trying to kill me, which sounds silly but, seriously, if I brought this to life in a horror movie you would lose your shit.

But maybe less so if they were played by these guys.

There was also the series of apocalyptic nightmares that I had in the months following 9/11 and leading up to the baby’s birth, obviously spurred by that harsh realization of the kind of world that I was bringing a child into.

There was the weird, crucifixion-type dream that I had when I was pretty young, in which I was executed along with two other people for the vague crime of being bad. I woke up screaming, desperate for forgiveness.

And there was, of course, that weird alien one from a few years ago.

But I think the scariest nightmares are the ones that don’t scare us at all.

I had one last night in which I was abusing the baby consistently over a long period of time. Hitting, screaming, abandoning. It was terrible. Thinking about it today I’m thankful to be fuzzy on the details since what I do remember makes me feel sick.

I haven’t talked about it much here, but I’m coming out of a pretty dark period in life from, I think, a lot of insecurity about mistakes that I think I’ve made. I’m doing so, so much better now. Like 180 degrees better, but I know that turning over the rough stuff about what the baby must have thought of me when things were getting bad has been on the back burner.

I don’t beat myself up for having days when I’m just not being the mom that I wish I could be. It’s not always up to me. Sometimes the baby is in a cranky mood and I’m exhausted and we end up bickering. But what I did in my nightmare was make sure that he knew that I did not love him, which has never been the case no matter how inescapable my darkness may have seemed at times. I think it didn’t scare me because no matter how improbable those other nightmares have been, this one was the one that was utterly impossible.

Much to his increasing embarrassment, I will often grab him and smother him with kisses and hugs and “I love you”s. Something inside makes me do this, I think because I fear that he’ll have dark days like the ones I’ve had. If one of my jobs as a parent is to teach him survival skills, then I’m going to always be braiding a lifeline for him that he’ll be able to find even in the murkiest of waters.