Thank you so much for the wonderful birthday wishes. It was a great day. Jason got me some new Twins gear (an awesome jersey, hooded sweatshirt and t-shirt) and then took me to Dave & Buster’s so he could decimate me in the basketball-shooting game. (I am the WORST at that game.) It was a fun time and it was so great to have the week off.

The weather has been perfect all week, too. It was 66 degrees on Monday, so I tossed my summer gear in the closet and can now wear tennis shoes instead of clompy boots outside. The poop swamp is gone and our yard is now contaminant-free. (For now.) There’s only a few stubborn ice remnants left, and I kindly help them out by stomping on them with my heels so they can disappear faster.

A neighbor cat peed on our patio window last weekend, so I washed it (the window, not the cat, although I would love to get even with that window-peeing menace), and then washed the inside of the window, and you guys, seeing the sun stream in through crystal-clear glass healed my soul. I’m not kidding. We took the plastic off our windows and opened up doors and screens and it was heavenly. Just heavenly. I knew summer this year was really affecting me, but I didn’t realize how close to the end of my unravelled, unknotted rope I was.

Hey, do you want to hear about my stupid dream neurosis? I hate when people in my dreams don’t listen to me. Last night, I was with a group of people fighting off evil attackers in some post-apocalyptic world. We drove off the last of the evil-doers and started congratulating each other, when I turned around and there stood Eric Bogosian. And I was like, “What the hell is HE doing here?” And people were telling me, “It’s cool. He’s with us.” And I said, “NO. That is Eric Bogosian. He’s a bad guy.” And they said, “No, no, he’s a GOOD guy.” And so on. They wouldn’t listen to me, even when I insisted that Eric Bogosian is ALWAYS the bad guy, don’t they know ANYTHING? And sure enough, a hidden group of bad guys ambushed us, Eric Bogosian started laughing evilly and saying, “I double-crossed you,” and as I started fighting back I shrieked, “Why doesn’t anyone LISTEN to me?”

Man, even in my sleep I’m a whiner.

You guys listen to me, right? Right?

Hello?

 

I try to balance gender neutral clothing with the ‘girly’ stuff my daughter loves (pink, purple, princess, fairies, etc) and people were SCANDALIZED that I put nightgowns and tights on my baby boy *eyeroll* despite the fact that they were more practical than sleepers or socks that he flung across the room within seconds of donning. She wears hand-me-downs from her brothers… and he STILL wears tights in the winter (the 14 year old boy now prefers to freeze LOL).

My PERSONAL beef with children’s clothes is this rash of ‘camouflage’ patterns. Ugh. They are children, they should NOT be wearing camo… especially the more ‘authentic-looking’ camo. I live in an area where we are fortunate to have a good amount of nature still with us. A child in a camo-printed jacket that gets lost in the park or woods here virtually vanishes. Bad. Plan.

I have completely different issues with the pink and baby blue ‘camouflage’ you see everywhere.

Why, oh why, are we accepting this as a viable choice for our children and infants??