At least that explains why she didn’t want to do it. Not that it’s an excuse, but I suppose I’d be reluctant to do something I knew I sucked at. But more likely, I would TRY TO GET BETTER, HELLO.

Anyway, I had to have the ENTIRE ultrasound redone, but the good news is that there is a healthy girl in there, still, and she’s tall, like Sam (long legs, long femur) and I had a delightful conversation with my super-talented, super-friendly ultrasound tech who is — wait for it — twenty-five years old. At twenty-five, this woman had more skill and grace than the forty-plus ying yang who left me crying on the table.

She ALSO regaled me with stories of how much she loves her job, although she admitted that eighty-year-old vaginas make her not want to get old, which: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I’m sorry, that’s hilarious. I mean, we’re all going to be in possession of one eventually, God willing, but you know, I imagine it’s disconcerting at twenty-five to be face to face with a vagina that has been through a lot more adventure than a fresher, more youthful one.

This whole thing has me sliding down the double-edged sword of guilt, which is always a pleasant excursion. On the one hand, there’s my Sam, whose life I am theoretically about to completely ruin, at least for a little while. I think of it this way: I keep picturing Adam coming home with another wife who is nothing but a needy asshole for the first three to six months, and no matter how many times he tells me he loves me the same he always has, I’d doubt I’d be able to say anything other than, HELLO, YOU BROUGHT HOME ANOTHER WIFE, DICKFACE. And while yes, the sister-wife and I might be BFFs eventually, in the meantime, I am stuck sharing my husband.

That would blow. So here I go, about to bring home a sister-wife to my kid. What a great idea.

On the OTHER hand, I felt like a total shit going into my ultrasounds both times, because each time they asked me if anyone was with me, and both times I was just like, uh, no? Second kid? Also, he’s home with our first, so . . . ? I mean, neither ultrasound experience was all that MAGICAL, because I am a jaded asshole who thinks all babies look the same in utero, and once I know the sex, I’m like, GREAT, THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ARTICHOKE, WHO CARES, DOES SHE HAVE ALL THE RIGHT PARTS?

And — and! — this kid’s a wiggler. An insane wiggler, way more than Sam ever was. The movements! The kicking! AND YET I AM NOT REMOTELY BOWLED OVER BY THE MAGIC. I’m like, meh, kicking. MEH, knock it off. I mean, these thoughts are all secondary to being BEYOND grateful she’s alive and healthy, but you know, with Sam, I was always, LOOK SHE’S KICKING and guiding Adam’s hand lovingly toward my abdomen.

Basically, I feel guilty that I am having a second child that will ruin my first daughter’s life, while simultaneously feeling like a turd because I am not fawning over my second daughter ENOUGH and she’s NOT EVEN BORN. What kind of bullshit racket is this?

(But seriously, will I be excited when she’s born, or will I be all, OH LOOK, a NEWBORN? Call me when you’re TWO.)

Happy Wednesday, folks.

*Avett Brothers

Well, except don’t, because I’m totally kidding, and then we’d all be living in some creepy John Malkovich world. Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich!

[Aside: Anyone else find John Malkovich COMPLETELY sexy, or is that just me?]

The only comment that perplexed me was Maya’s, because I had not previously heard that direction names were going to be popular. I . . . don’t know anyone with a direction name, except for West, who was the contestant on The Bachelorette, i.e., the season that poisoned the entire show for me. I could not TAKE Ashley’s insecurity and her creepy fawning over guys that are literally a dime a dozen up in here. She picked JP, who is a nice guy, but you know, she could have just come up here, hit the bars in Southie and gotten the same guy for a lot less agony and embarrassment, my GOD.

ANYWAY, you guys, I’ve written this all over the place, but since I got pregnant, I am having this ISSUE with my underwear that involves them cutting the inside of my thighs. CUTTING! I HAVE DRAWN BLOOD. And it’s very random, and I have found the solution, but Target only had ONE pack of them and I have to go back to get more. UNTIL THEN, however, I am stuck with my normal supply and OH! the results are not good, which is how I am—God help me—lying in bed as I type this with a smear of Desitin on the inside of each leg. The VERY INSIDE, where there is ACTUAL DAMAGE. DESITIN. That’s DIAPER RASH CREAM for the uninitiated.

(It . . . feels fabulous. No wonder Sam asks for it by name.)

This is worse than the hemorrhoid cream situation of Sam’s gestation.

Speaking of Sam, we have reached the endless narration portion of childhood, because everything that happens in this house needs her running commentary. “Daddy, are you putting on your pants? And your socks? To go to work?” “Mommy, you brush your TEETH?” “Sunny’s walkin’!” And every statement needs acknowledgement, or she repeats it, oh my GOD. The thing is though? I sort of find it endlessly entertaining, as I have most of motherhood, in a surprising way. This should . . . not be news, given that I’ve opted to have a second child, but I’m sort of surprised by how enjoyable it is to have a little chatterbox following me around the house, even when she perpetually asks, “CAN I HELP?” with tasks that would be MUCH FASTER without her assistance. Or—OR!—when her helping with the laundry consists of taking things from the clean dryer and putting them BACK into the (running, full of water) washing machine. NOT HELPFUL.

But you know, it’s kind of hard to stay mad at a kid who wants to help AND is obsessed with a guidebook on Boston terriers (Sunny is a pug, yes . . . long story). You guys, she takes it EVERYWHERE. We do not leave the house without it. We do not go to bed, either for naps OR bedtime, without it. She reads it no fewer than fifteen times a day, out loud. The story, if you were wondering, is simply, “Once upon a time there was a good doggie. He’s so cute. THE END.” And then she closes the book with a remarkable amount of satisfaction, as though she has just read the annotated Lolita and understood every word. (This would make her better than her mother.)

I’m super excited to have another one. But damn, I am terrified, too.

Have a great weekend.

*Peter Gabriel. And I don’t think inner thigh chafing is what he meant.

Well, then. I don’t like to overly explain absences, but I’ve been working a lot, which is great! Really, it’s great! Who doesn’t like money? I LIKE MONEY. But I was super-busy every night and every preschool session and every . . . well, EVERYTHING.

I’ve been working more in books, and man, that’s a lot of fun. Also? It’s a lot of reading. A LOT of reading, which doesn’t leave much leftover time for PERSONAL reading, which is why I’ve been sitting with Maggie Steifvater’s “Forever” on my night stand for two weeks, and it’s due back to the library on Tuesday, so I’d best be HUSTLING UP IN HERE to whip through that last, miserable book in the most ridiculous trilogy ever written in the history of YA trilogies, AMEN.

It’s awful. There is a lot of soul-gazing among teenagers and a not-insignificant number of heartfelt SONG LYRICS written out by one of the protagonists, and it’s not meant in an ironic way. Basically, I read this entire trilogy from behind my hands while making this face:

(SONG LYRICS.)

I … God, let’s see. The last two weeks have been VERY BORING and involved me staying up late with a red pen (have you tried these?) and writing some stuff for other people and working on multiple books for children and young adults and . . . um, that’s all I’ve got, because THAT IS ALL I HAVE DONE FOR MANY DAYS.

The end.

Oh, not really, but that’s what it FEELS LIKE, and you can ask anyone who’s expected a phone call or an email from me, because AIEEEEEE, freelancing is fun, but it is also very time consuming.

In the interim, I missed you guys, and feel like a loser for saying that, but I DID (do!).

I can’t stop thinking about Swistle’s post about sociopaths, because once you encounter a sociopath, you don’t really forget. It’s CRAZY. It’s crazy. I am exceedingly nice to sociopaths if I can be, because as Swistle and I discussed separately, it’s amazing how FAR a sociopath is willing to GO in order to play a game with you. SO FAR. FURTHER THAN YOU EVER DREAMED. Because remember, they do not have any feelings. None. Zero. They don’t care about you and yours. They’re bored, they’re egomaniacs, they have no conscience at all. They don’t even love their CHILDREN. They CANNOT. YOU WILL NOT WIN. So if you see someone being nice to a person YOU KNOW they know is crazy, maybe they know they are a sociopath, and just don’t feel like having their LIVES RUINED.

I don’t need to tell you (BUT I WILL) that this led to a panicked spiral as I considered how awful it would be to be the MOTHER of a sociopath, given that most rudimentary research leads one to believe that they are BORN NOT MADE, and what do you even DO? Fortunately (oh my God), my research also indicates that, as suspected, my current offspring is rather far from the picture of a young sociopath (highly empathetic, very into physical affection, likes animals and doesn’t set them aflame, ETCETERA) and I no longer need to consider 20/20 appearances as part of my retirement plan.

In other offspring news, she is naked pretty much 24/7, and today at the park, just before plowing into the sandbox, politely asked for her shoes & socks to be removed (reasonable), then requested that her pants and diaper also come off (not reasonable). So while I may not have a sociopath on my hands, it IS true that I might be dealing with an exhibitionist, and perhaps by the time she is of age, Times Square’s Naked Cowboy will be retired, and Sam can take over as Pantsless Percussionist. She does a mean “Got a Bunch of Bones” from the Bubble Guppies while drumming in time, and hot damn, she prefers to do it in the buff.

Now if you’ll excuse me, now that I can check sociopath fears off of my list, I am off to ruminate about pancreatic cancer. Because this is what I DO every time a famous person dies of a disease. I PANIC ABOUT IT.

Feel free to imagine what I’d be like if I wasn’t medicated for anxiety. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY.

*Feist

Of course, I arrived to pick her up and she was … completely fine. Of course. I mean, she went outside and painted and climbed and ate clams on the half-shell for her snack, or whatever. (How ELSE do you explain “teddy bears and clams,” HMMMM?) But God, it kills me to pick her up and have her lay her head on my shoulder for a very, very long time, as though I had forsaken her to be next in line for the reaping and if not for my arrival, she’d be headed to the arena to be eaten by genetically engineered wolves.

Meanwhile, I welcomed the reprieve to not only do exciting things like clean the fridge (holla!), but to give myself a damned BREAK, because you guys, my kid is into flashcards, and lo, it is very cute, it is also more annoying than one might think. I am loath to admit that my kid is into flashcards only because I feel like it makes me look like one of those crazy parents who is forcing her to learn Swahili in between diaper changes (“Can you say ‘mtoto’? MAH-TO-TO”), but a quick Twitter consult assures me that it is very common, and my plans to groom Sam for a lofty career screwing caps on toothpaste tubes are fully intact.

However, to give myself a break from the LITERALLY never-ending flashcards, I decided to whip out the paint this afternoon, and HAAAA YOU GUYS, HOW STUPID AM I? VERY.

“Mah HAIR! SO PRETTY!”

I just … well, it’s a good thing she’s in preschool, because HELL if I am doing THAT again, because, honestly, neither Sam nor I is a fan of the out of context bath (“I AM NOT GOING NIGHT-NIGHT!” Fine, kid, NO ONE IS MAKING YOU GO TO BED AT 4. BUT YOUR HAIR IS BLUE), and it took three apre-bath scrubbings to get the blue streaks off the tub, which, you know, was kind of helpful as I had “bathtub scrubbing” on my list of preschool chores ANYWAY, but just not RIGHT THEN. I also did not enjoy scrubbing the blue footprints leading to the bathroom, and I have no explanation for that, except that I do believe she painted her feet.

And with that, I’m going to do some work and read Divergent, which is AWESOME. AND, by the way, I can’t be the only person who wants to THROW UP when she sees the Denny’s commercial with the MACARONI AND CHEESE BURGER. AS IN, MACARONI AND CHEESE ON A BURGER. No. Just no. I’m all for gluttony, but I think that can be satisfied with a nice bloomin’ onion or maybe a special pack of Klondike bars, AM I RIGHT? JESUS.

*Or, you know, Friday. New Order

She said that. To the woman WITH HER HAIR IN HER HANDS. I feel like finding that woman and cutting her bangs very, very short, and perhaps throwing a little bleach in a very conspicuous place. But you know, it speaks to the whole culture of education that we’ve created, and while I value education (please, who doesn’t?), I think it sucks that we’ve become so obsessed with higher education in a very specific form, and that we’ve declared trade professions to be vastly inferior. I could go on about this for hours and hours, and indeed, in recent months, I HAVE, and it ties back, of course, to the COST of college education, and how the availability of loans has made everyone believe that college is PARAMOUNT, no matter what you decide to do with your life. Oh, but what you decide to do had better be a white collar job, because otherwise you’re stupid.

Blue collar workers, PS, are not always factory workers and other unskilled laborers. You know how much I paid my plumber to fix our bathroom in Florida? $125 an hour. I do not make $125 an hour.

Eff this noise, y’all, I’m going to PLUMBING SCHOOL. Unfortunately, I have zero marketable skills in this area, as I am not visual, nor inclined to do any kind of work with my hands that doesn’t involve typing. But if I WERE? I’d be all OVER that shit, and if you think I’m kidding, I’m not. Not even a little.

Also, if my kids decide they want to go into a trade, that’s fine with me. I don’t care about WHAT they go into, so long as they are ambitious and hardworking in their endeavors to do what they do. I want them to be educated and well read, but those things don’t necessarily translate to a happy and/or lucrative career. So. Want to be a hairdresser? Great. But you’d better work your ass off, and be a goddamned good one. Same thing if you want to be a stockbroker or a therapist or a doctor or a plumber or whatever. Work hard. Be happy. Provide for yourself and your family.

*claps hands* Moving on!

Preschool is going well, although I am criminally aware of just how hard I am jinxing things by saying that, but she really seems to dig it, and I … um, I am enjoying the hell out of my free time. I’m not working or napping or relaxing (I mean, I’m still working, but not during preschool time). Instead, I am doing ALL THE THINGS I never have time to do. Like wash the baseboards. Match socks. Clean and vacuum my car, along with scrubbing the seats and the crevices and … God, this is sounding absurd. Thursday, I am organizing the sippy cup shelf and cleaning out the fridge, and I MAY deep-clean one of the bathrooms, but I’m thinking the deep-clean might have to wait until next week. I CANNOT DECIDE. SO MANY RICHES BEFORE ME.

You guys, what the HELL? All these months of waiting for blessed child-free time and instead of spending some quality time beneath the sheets catching up on sleep and/or parked in front of the television ogling Eric Northman’s behind, I am SCRUBBING MY BASEBOARDS? Vacuuming my car? These are chores, and yet they are LUXURIOUS CHORES, and believe me, I never thought I’d consider bathroom floor steaming to be a luxury, but there it is. Also, there is Lady Gaga blaring, so it’s like a VACATION.

As for what Sam does while I am blissfully knee-deep in Mr. Clean, I haven’t the faintest, because her school reports go something like this:

“HI, MOMMY! Gracie and FISH. I climbin’! And da SLIIIDE! Snake go ‘HISSSSSS!’ Froggie go ‘RIBBIT!’ Yellow! Blue! GREEEEN! IT SPILLED!”

“Oh, really, Sam? What else did you do at school?”

“TEDDY BEARS AND CLAMS!”

Right. So it’s obvious my tuition is going to good use. When she applies to automotive school, I’m sure her skills with spilled teddy bear, uh, clams, will really cinch her admission.

Happy Wednesday!

*The Gags, natch

Yes, it’s hard. It’s so, so hard. Yes, there are days that I want to throw myself into the river and float off into the sunset, because HONESTLY, these children, they are trying to kill us, RIGHT?

But.

I’ll tell you the one thing — the ONE THING — that makes it all worth it is this:

You know when you’re first falling in love with someone, and you get that heady rush with that flip-flop feeling in your stomach, because this person is so amazing! And so adorable! And look at YOU, how you landed this perfect catch, and you just want to kiss them kiss them KISS THEM until you can’t kiss them anymore, because you are just so stupidly, madly in love, and it all comes crashing over you like a crazy wave of … love.

Yeah, that. I mean, a non-sexual that. OBVIOUSLY. TO BE CLEAR. You wouldn’t think I’d have to say that, but when I say kiss, I mean, I KISS MY KID. A LOT. BUT IN AN APPROPRIATE WAY. But you know, I get one of those moments a day, at least. Even when she’s yelling and screaming and refusing to go to bed unless it’s with me, “We go night-night on da bed?”

(IN YOUR DREAMS, BUCKO.)

But that. Once a day, I feel that. So even when it’s hard, it’s not THAT hard, right?

*Jesca Hoop

The backpack, you guys. The freakin’ Elmo backpack. It just squeezes my heart until I’m gurgling on it, really. (Holla, Jillian Michaels for giving me that stupid, stupid analogy. Also: up yours.)

The thing is, she’s going to school for a whopping five and a half hours a week. Yes, let me repeat that: 5.5 hours a WEEK. I’m acting like I’m shipping her off to COLLEGE. I’ve left her with babysitters longer than that in a single shot, which makes my ridiculous angst about school so stupidly laughable, especially to people who’ve been sending their kids to daycare. Like, I know. I KNOW. But there’s something about it being … I don’t know, PRESCHOOL and the fact that she’s old enough to go to a non-daycare preschool that’s just killing me.

She cried for at least 45 minutes after I left. I … what? The school has this policy of not letting parents sneak out, so you have to say goodbye, which feels NEEDLESSLY DRAMATIC and yet, I get it. I mean, logically I get it, but also recognize this is pretty much the opposite tactic than the one we employ for babysitters, which is ye olde Distract and Flee As Quickly As Possible.

The other thing is … ugh, there is a PTO and there are FUNDRAISERS, and I got my first real glimpse of Those Moms, and I am not the person you want on your PTO committee, because I am incapable of viewing such shenanigans without irony. I WANT to take a fundraiser seriously, but I am constitutionally unable to do so. I WANT to get all hot and bothered about the right way to enter the driveway before dropping your child off, but I can’t, because I just end up yelling, “SOUTH TO DROP OFF, MORON!” and when no one gets it, I am just irritated by the whole thing.

Up to this point, too, I’ve been able to pick and choose my friends, pick and choose who Sam hangs out with, and generally avoid the whole parent scene. Surprise! I’m not the kind of person who ENJOYS parent politics! In fact, I run screaming from them! Outside of my core group of friends, I probably have fewer friends than anyone I know, because I’m just … a small-group, intimate friendship kind of person. Large groups make me twitchy and, frankly, kind of bitchy. Professionally, of course, I am able to do this — and am actually quite adept at it — but in actual life, I am of the low tolerance type.

And not to make school all about me, but it’s ENDING. I made small talk this morning! I have to attend picnics for the sake of my kid! Meetings! I might have small talk with strangers! I made a crack about hitting the bar while our kids were in school and had to look around the room to check to see if anyone thought I was serious!

But whatever, I folded three loads of laundry, watched True Blood, (I’m still an episode behind, so …) worked for a little while and went to the UPS store by myself! Myself! And there, the UPS clerk asked about my work (I was mailing off a large interesting-looking book manuscript and faxing a client contract) and instead of talking about work, I was all, well, I AM ALSO A MOM. BUT MY KID ISN’T HERE RIGHT NOW. SHE IS IN SCHOOL. DID I MENTION I AM A MOM?

Meanwhile, when I’m in the same situation WITH my child, I have this overwhelming urge to yell that I am ALSO a PROFESSIONAL with REAL RESPONSIBILITIES. TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!

None of this makes any sense. Also, I have a sinus infection which is making everything smell weird — like FARTS, if you must know, like FARTS. This morning at school drop-off, I was afraid to talk to anyone because I just kept thinking, well, here I am. Smelling like farts. I might not want to be in school politics, but I don’t want to be tittered about as the lady who smells like FARTS, EITHER. I’m pretty sure Sam doesn’t want to be labeled as the kid whose mom smells like a giant fart, TOO.

Note: I do not smell like farts, I just THINK I smell like farts because of the sinus infection. Confirmed.

Also, this whole school thing is really, really making me want another baby. Again. Or you know, STILL.

*The Faint. From Yo Gabba Gabba’s “School” episode. YEP. Also, did you know they used to be led by Conor Oberst, now Bright Eyes, whose voice is like NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD to me? Yes. Music trivia of the day.

The soother of destiny.

I can’t even talk about it without getting some kind of wild PTSD-related twitches, because my child DID NOT SLEEP the entire time! And neither did we! FOR TWO DAYS! HA HA HAAA! And we drove around town like refugees! But NOT BEFORE we sat through the storm and witnessed my neighbor’s house get basically, uhhh, decimated by the winds, as tree after tree toppled over, demolishing bit by bit of the poor guy’s yard, fence, gazebo, and finally, house.

(He’s fine. His, um, life-size replica of the statue of David and accompanying blue-lit gazebo is … not. I can’t type that sentence with a straight face. Yes, David was situated so he faced the rear windows of the house in all his glory, and yes, he was LIT UP IN BLUE, rain or shine, every night of the year. I GOT NOTHING HERE, PEOPLE. Except my neighbor has promised he’s going to “Rebuild! Bigger and stronger than ever!” WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT MEANS? WILL DAVID GET A BIGGER PENIS?)

Irene was supposed to be this BIG OVERHYPED THING, according to New Yorkers, who we learned are the center of the universe. “New York is safe! Hallelujah!” read the headlines. Meanwhile, everyone else was not doing all that well — including large parts of New York’s economic sisters-in-arms, Connecticut and New Jersey. And Vermont! Oh, poor Vermont, right? I feel a little shattered every time I hear what’s going on there, and when I see pictures of all the roads we used to travel on that are literally GONE, I feel even sicker.

I also feel a remarkable appreciation for working light switches, and Sam quite literally WEPT WITH RELIEF when she pushed the button on her sound machine and it turned on. She cried from happiness. “I can go NIGHT-NIGHT!” she declared through a mixture of laughter and tears. “MAH MACHINE!”

Good God, did I fuck this kid’s sleep up good and hard or what? It seemed like a good idea, this sound machine. We live in a single-story ranch! That sound machine’s presence enables us to watch television and take showers and have conversations after 8 p.m. and GOD, I HAVE MADE HER DEPENDENT.

She seems relatively unscathed though.

Heeey, did anyone ever tell you what a CRAP IDEA those little carts are for small children? And how it will turn grocery shopping into a horrible adventure, filled with injury (crashing into your heels), intrigue (will she take out the ENTIRE display of parmesan, or just nick it?) and excitement (Look! It’s like bumper cars! Except not at ALL HA HA OH GOD)? Never again. I will do ANYTHING to stop my daughter from finding that little cart ever again, even if I have to call the manager of Price Chopper MYSELF and demand all removal of toddler-size shopping carts from their existence at the CORPORATE LEVEL.

(Too unrealistic? AIM HIGH, I say.)

I hope you have a great Wednesday, or whatever day you read this!

*YE OLDE SWAYZE

After all, the woman who raised me is the same person who, upon learning that I would be wearing my (beautiful but fairly modest, at least by local standards — I mean I’m not rocking an eyeball on my finger or anything) engagement ring on my honeymoon, was absolutely HORRIFIED and fretted aloud that I needed to guard my hands everywhere I went, because someone could just come up to me and MACHETE IT RIGHT OFF MY FINGER, and she was completely serious. Oh wait, no, I think she meant that they would MACHETE OFF MY ENTIRE FINGER, not just the ring. So.

(We honeymooned in Aruba, which is incredibly safe and not at all prone to rogue machetes, even in a post-Natalee Holloway world.)

(Not that I’m blaming the victim here, but I think we can all agree that it was highly unlikely that I would be getting wasted and trekking off to parts unknown with strange local men I had just met on my honeymoon, I mean, right?)

She ALSO forwards me EVERY SINGLE THING she gets that is a warning of some kind, whether it’s the woman who narrowly missed going home with a guy who had duct tape and rope in the back of his car or how to keep yourself safe in the event of a person who wants to steal your car in a parking lot (throw your keys in one direction, run in the opposite direction. Scream a lot.)

I don’t even know where I’m going with this, except I keep laughing at all the warnings she gives me about keeping my eye on Sam when we’re out in public, when first of all, HAAAA, as if she raised me to be anything but PSYCHOTICALLY SUSPICIOUS, but also, every mother of a two-year-old knows that taking your eyes off them in a public place is JUST NOT POSSIBLE. I mean, yes, you don’t want them running into traffic or being abducted or what have you, but the more pressing reason is that they are like tiny destructive robots who will leave rubble in their wake if you leave them unattended for like, five whole seconds.

For God’s sake, I was putting CUCUMBERS IN A FRACKING BAG today at the grocery store, thus occupying my hands for what, a FRACTION OF A SECOND?, and the kid nearly took out the entire banana stand. It was teetering! Bananas were at risk! Repeat, BANANAS WERE AT RISK.

So yeah, geez, I keep an eye on my kid for the safety of everyone involved, including the bananas, but also because yes, my mother raised me to be EVER VIGILANT of people who want to do me or my child harm.

(I’m sure she’ll comment here. Keep your eyes peeled.)

Along those lines, I have said this elsewhere before, but when we lived in South Carolina, we were always warned to not go near golf balls that had fallen into the many ponds around our house (or anywhere, really). South Carolina — at least the area we lived — was pretty lax when it came to allowing fairly large alligators to live in the lagoons on golf courses and housing developments, and the one behind our house was particularly gigantic. I wouldn’t put Sunny on a lead out there, is what I’m saying. ANYWAY, every golfing season, some jackhole would lose a limb digging after his golf ball, because he found out too late that the golf ball he was digging at was an alligator egg, which HA HA.

But the thing is, wouldn’t YOU take off the limb of anyone who tried to harm your kid? I would BREAK THEIR NECK, honestly, without even flinching, and if ever there was a time to have sympathy for an alligator, motherhood is it. See also: I have an entirely new appreciation for the peril we were actually in when I was on a hike in high school with my boyfriend and some friends, and a baby bear — an adorable, tiny, picture-perfect baby bear — rolled right in front of us on the trail. At first we were like, OH LOOK, a baby bear, how CUTE! And then, OH MY JESUS GOD, A BABY BEAR! RUN! because that bitch would have TORN OUR FACES OFF.

Apropos of nothing, now might be the time to mention that Baby Bear’s (Sesame Street) speech impediment makes me positively ENRAGED. I’m all for being inclusive and making kids feel like everyone is different and speech impediments are okay, but my GOD, it’s TERRIBLE and not even REALISTIC-SOUNDING and SESAME WORKSHOP, I’M PRETTY PEEVED.

I hope you have a great Tuesday. Give yourself a cookie for making it through this absurdity unscathed.

*Pet Shop Boys

Yes. Yes, we did. People really do that. In our defense, it was just after she’d had strep, and if you Google strep in children, it comes back with all these wackadoo side and after effects, and one of them is this thing called, ah, PANDAS. Mind you, I did not make this discovery, as I was too yanked out over whether she had meningitis to be concerned about anything else (“Sam, can you put your chin down for Mommy? No, down? DOWN?”), but she started acting, um, weird (HAAAA) and Adam came into the room, eyes nearly brimming with Tears of Parental Concern and said, “What is this PANDAS crap? I don’t like it.”

He’d been Googling. And my husband NEVER Googles. I AM THE CRAZY GOOGLER. But no, there he is, Googling about this INCURABLE disorder that causes nervous tics and OCD and bizarro behavior, and HA HA, a tantruming kid looks a lot like that, right? RIGHT. So we make an appointment for 20 minutes from that moment — I called the pediatrician in tears — and was fuming that I couldn’t get her in sooner (“Mrs. Rubin, that’s … in twenty minutes.”), and HAAAA OH MY GOD.

The conversation with the ped included a diagnostic line of questioning about her potential OCD habits, to which my husband replied entirely earnestly, “Well … she’s REALLY into the mail.” (And she is, but … oh God, it all was so LOGICAL in that MOMENT, you guys, and OH MY GOD, I KNOW.)

The whole thing turned out to be the unfortunate coincidence of the developmental onset of temper tantrums combined with the tail end of strep, and finally, the doctor who, to his credit, did not laugh, announced, “I … I think she’s just fine.”

There you have it. Whenever you find yourself wondering if you should call the pediatrician, now you know. I called — oh, did I not mention it was a HOLIDAY? — and made an EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT because my child was having a TEMPER TANTRUM, and they still take my calls.

I think of this because, surprisingly, my kid fell and basically bashed her head in and is GUARANTEED to have a black eye in the morning, and I was/am surprisingly chill about it, and … well. We’ve come a long way, baby.

I think that’s enough humiliation for the day.

Have a great Thursday!

*MGMT