Stressed is Desserts Spelled Backward

Okay, so I have may have bitten off more than I can chew at the moment. This is my paltry excuse for not posting in a few weeks. Between school, work, P's schedule and just plain old life, this blog has slipped to last place in terms of priority. There are just not enough hours in the day for everything I need to crank out, and it's becoming more and more clear that I need some help. It's so hard to admit that you can't do it all on your own, isn't it? 

I have my fingers crossed that a few exciting developments will come to fruition soon (including a blog revamp!), so hopefully there will be tons to share in the coming weeks. 

xoxo

PS: I love reading about other people's day to day and how they get everything done. Erica Brechtel of Small Shop's post for Mimi+Meg was particularly interesting, as is Camilla Pavone of EffortlessStyle Blog's In Her Shoes series.

Home Sweet Home

It’s Sunday evening, P is in bed and C is at a work event, so I thought I’d use this tiny chunk of quiet time to squeeze a post in. I’ve been terrible about posting these past few weeks, so I’m really trying to make up for it now that all our summer travel is over.

The past few days have been a bit trying. Our house had to be tented for termites on Thursday, which if you’ve never had the pleasure, is not such a pleasure. Basically you get evicted for three days and return to the site of what was formerly your front lawn but appears to have been repurposed for one of those pitch-a-tent-and-stay-awhile music festivals. Oh, and by the way, you might want to keep your windows open for a few more hours in case there’s any lingering poison in there. And here’s a bill for two grand. It’s all very good for the blood pressure.

We were able to caravan our family of three (plus our pet fish, Irving Baby), over to Culver City to stay with some generous friends, so we very fortunately didn’t have to check into a hotel. Which of course meant it was the perfect time for P to contract roseola, a lovely children’s virus that hails from the House of Herpes. In summary: two days of fever followed by two days of full body rash followed by two days of diarrhea followed by I’ll let you know what happens next.

As of today we are happily almost back to normal: food unwrapped from those fantastically noisy Nylon Fume bags in which I have little faith, deck and lawn looking marginally cleaner and a sleeping unfussy toddler snug in her own bed.

xoxo

All I'm Saying Is Watch Where You Walk

Whether it’s a stiff back when I rise from sitting on the couch for too long or a hangover from one glass of wine, I’m reminded pretty much on a daily basis that I’m aging. Yesterday’s reminder: swinging on the swing set at the park makes me want to yak.

Since the weather has been so amazing, P and I went over to Griffith Park for a little while to burn up some toddler energy and take advantage of the sunshine. Say what you will about Los Angeles, it’s pretty nice having Griffith Park in, basically, my backyard. There is so much to do there; we’ve lived in Silver Lake for two years now and we still haven’t done it all. My main goal this summer is to join the LA Zoo, which I know gets a lot of flack for being low rent, but to the naysayers I say, “Who cares? They have prairie dogs!”

Speaking of wild animals, I have to share this playground story with you. So while I was chasing P around the playground yesterday, rubbing my half-hunched back and calculating when it would be okay to take my next Advil, I spot a three-year old boy in the middle of it all, pulling down his pants. I laughed on the inside thinking I would see his mommy running over to him at full speed in a second or two to stop whatever is about to happen. Not so. Instead, Evan*--I know his name because I realize his mommy is sitting on the ground nearby carrying on a conversation with him throughout this occurrence—rolls his pants, then undergarments, down to his shoes and urinates in the middle of the playground. Mommy continues to sit and watch.

Then the poor guy does the pants-around-his-ankles shuffle over to the slide, yanks them back up and starts complaining, “Mommy, my pants are wet from the pee pee!” I can clearly see that the entire front of his pants and down the legs are soaked. This doesn’t stop him from sliding.

Mommy says, “Well, what do you want to do, Evan?”

Your child is walking around in urine-soaked clothing. What are the options???

So, I think I’m a mostly non-judgmental person when it comes to other parents and their child-rearing styles, because now that I actually am one, I can say that it’s NOT an easy job. Maybe it was some hardcore potty training technique that I haven’t read about, but it was really gnarly. It has also taken my already compulsive use of Purell to another level.

*Obviously don’t want to embarrass the kid even more…

Top Ten Reasons...

Why I'm not allowed to drink a 20 oz. Diet Coke at 5:30pm anymore:

I might*...

1.) Stay up way too late watching Bill Maher and reading The Help because, oddly, "I just don't feel that tired!"

2.) Have nightmares about Sarah Palin (see Maher, Bill) and the civil rights movement (see Stockett, Kathryn).

3.) Toss and turn until 5:15am, waking up my poor husband, who already had to get up at 5:45am this morning.

4.) Finally fall asleep and wake up three and a half hours later to the sound of the coffee maker's auto shut-off thingy beeping. (Miraculously P is quietly reading books in her crib...)

5.) Forget the proper word for the coffee maker's auto shut-off thingy because I am so exhausted.

6.) Accidentally pour coffee into my child's sippy cup and not realize it until she is holding in her hands and says "Mommy, hot!"

7.) Drop half of my hard boiled egg into my post-sippy cup, now lukewarm mug of coffee.

8.) Fish it out and drink it anyway because I don't have time to brew a new pot.

9.) Dump the rest out after reheating it in the microwave three times, remembering an email my mother sent me about microwaving water (It's bad, right? I really just skimmed through it.).

10.) Have to crack open another 20 oz. Diet Coke to get me through the rest of the morning...


* And by "might" I mean "did."

In Which We Share A Cupcake

My apologies for the too-long absence! We had a very full weekend that included dinner with friends on Saturday evening and a b-day party on Sunday morning (Another thing I knew nothing about: the toddler birthday party circuit. Holy exhaustion! They should really tell you on the Evite to take a preemptory Advil and to come hydrated to those things.) Also on the agenda was an appointment for highlights, which (if you aren’t one of the dozen or so people I called to whine at length to and don’t already know) went horribly awry. Long story short, I currently look like Denise Richards but am hoping a color correction appointment on Wednesday will have me back to my old brunette-ish self.

Before all of the weekend madness, though, I took my little sidekick over to the Americana on Friday afternoon for a cupcake date at Crumbs. I’m pretty sure Crumbs is a national chain, but for those of you who haven’t experienced this dessert shop sensation, I will explain: cupcakes so enormous that you will become ill if you finish one by yourself (and yet I never learn…) that come in ridiculous flavors like Devil Dog, Cotton Candy, Cosmo and Key Lime Pie.

As I’ve mentioned before, P is obsessed with cupcakes. Everything delicious and sweet is “cupcake,” including ice cream, waffles and muffins. She has had them before but this was our first actual cupcake date in which I would attempt to let her pick one out and share one with her at the shop.

Okay, so the picking out part didn’t go very well. It was actually seven minutes of shrieking “Cupcake! Cupcake!” (which, when you’re in a small public space, is a long time) while I waited for my latte. I think the display case was a little too much for P to handle, so I just picked my favorite, Bryant Park, which is chocolate-y and mousse-y and whipped cream-y. Here are some photos from our cupcake picnic (note the chocolate Joker-style smears on P’s face):









Afterwards, she jumped down from the booth and danced around the shop singing a song called--what else--“Cupcake.”

The (Play) Dating Game

On the never ending list of Things I Was Unprepared For in the world of parenting is how difficult it seems to be to meet other new moms. And when I say other moms, I don't mean your girlfriends who also had babies; they usually aren't the same age as your own baby, and at this stage, a few months age difference might as well be a decade (it's a napping issue). I'm talking about the women you meet when your child runs up to theirs on the playground; the kids seem to instantly bond, but the mommies do not.

It's a totally new concept to me that I can only liken to the dating experience. Here's how it seems to play out (for me, at least): You meet a nice mom at a park or a party or through a mutual friend who thinks you two might hit it off, you exchange email addresses, you work up the nerve to ask her for a (play) date and you never hear back. I am currently on my third play date ask and am waiting for my third non-reply. I am starting to feel like the mommy equivalent of Andrew on the Real World D.C.--100% desperation and zero game. (Yes, I realize I'm about 15 years too old to still be watching that show. What's your point?)

I've heard it's easier to meet other moms once your child starts school, but that's not for another year and a half. Right now I'm researching mommy groups in my area, but they are somewhat hard to locate and inexplicably esoteric in their application process ("Email Theresa P. and wait for further instruction from Emily K." So bossy!). I guess I'm just a little envious of the groups of mommies I see picnicking at the park or taking Pinkberry field trips post-music class.

As a lifelong introvert, it's sometimes challenging for me to keep trying, but I want to show my daughter that it's good to put yourself out there. I'm so grateful for the support system of mothers that I am lucky enough to already have in my life; I have learned a lot from moms with older children, and hopefully I have something to offer to those with newborns. One of these days, though, I'm sure I'll meet the nice mother of a 20-month old (who is going through the same developmental milestones as Penelope and all that that brings with it) and wants to go on a play date with me. A girl can dream, right?

Here is an unrelated cute picture of Penelope: