Tomorrow is the little angel's first surgery.  She's getting tubes put in her little ears.  Despite hearing from my brother-in-law, the nurse who sees ten of these a day, plus everyone else to which I've ever spoken, that EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, I'm still nervous.  They are going to put her under!  They are going to put foreign substances in her eardrums!  SHE WILL BE IN PAIN.  Agh - que horor.

I'm trying to decide if it would be appropriate for me to show up at the hospital with tequila. 

This weekend's ten-hours-round-trip car adventure with the little angel went relatively well. There were only two or three times when she just started howling in frustration and boredom and we couldn't get her to stop.  When she gets that bad, not even my husband's efforts at physical comedy (he hits himself in the head with an empty 16-ouncer, which makes her laugh - so sad) could overcome them.  Of course, those were the moments that made me seriously wonder if we should just stay put until she is five, but then of course I realized how boring my life would become if we never went anywhere.  About that point, she usually got distracted by midgets on motorcycles or a cow or some other interesting outside-the-car thing.

While the trip was lovely, it was of the visit-your-in-laws variety, so there weren't many hilarious-showstopper moments.  Probably the funniest to me was seeing the little angel and her two-year-old cousin, A., proudly wearing their horn hats from BW3.  They are like Burger King crowns, only they have horns instead.  So there they are, walking around the restaurant as though everything is normal, wearing horns.  I mentioned to my beloved that we should try to find every other ridiculous hat we could and put it on her head before she is old enough to protest.  After all, our days of being able to dress her however we want are sadly numbered. 

Today at noon we are leaving for a five-hour road trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  "The city of five seasons." The fifth season is "cereal."  There is a Quaker Oats plant AND a corn syrup plant in Cedar Rapids.  One smells like Cap'n Crunch, the other like burning rubber dog shit.  Still, they try to promote themselves as a city with an extra season in which to enjoy oneself. I only hope the enjoyment happens as far away from that corn syrup plant as possible.

I used to work in Cedar Rapids as a young'un, fresh out of the University of Iowa.  I was an assistant account executive (read:  one who faxes) for an advertising agency.  I did public relations.  Well, I did faxing.  This was before people really used e-mail a lot, or at least in Iowa, where we got the latest fashions at least six months after they hit the coasts.  Ever wondered why people in Iowa were the last to let go of mall hair?  Well, there you go.  I even know some ladies in my hometown who still have bangs that can touch the car ceiling's upholstery.  I'll pause to let that sink in.

We've taken the little angel a lot of places.  She's been to Chicago, Portland (OR), Minneapolis (twice) and Iowa City three or four times.  We also go back to my hometown, near Omaha, about four or five times a year.  She is what you'd call a seasoned traveler.   However, she was still a flesh purse for many of those longer trips, content to stare vacantly at a hanging toy for hours on end.  Those were the days in which we could take her to restaurants with cloth napkins. Oh, and she slept a lot.  She's a little different now.  Sort of insistent, easily bored, not fooled by "peek-a-boo" for more than five minutes.  If you eat something, she wants a piece, which means I have to stop snacking on toddler no-nos like cashews and chocolate.   She's kind of like me. I'm a wee bit concerned about her ability to sit in the car for five hours.

To compound this problem, my beloved got a speeding ticket yesterday for doing 77 in a 65.  He was mad because he had the cruise set at 75.  He has told me for years no one will bust you for 10 over. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.  However, this means we should probably not do our customary 85 (my sister recoils in horror - she thinks we should drive 45 with the child in the car, and well, she might have a point, but we still won't) all the way there.  We should probably go a reasonable speed.  I'm not allowed to drive for very long, because I'm a horrible driver. I admit this. I get sort of distracted by the people in other cars, cows, cute houses, license plates, the yellow line in the middle of the road, stuff like that.

So last night I broke down and did what I swore I would never do - I went to Target and bought the cheapest portable DVD player they had.  I'm ashamed to admit this. I want the little angel to enjoy books and spirited, backseat conversation. I will pull this thing out only as a last resort.  Oh, and I bought Finding Nemo, too. If you're going to surrender to materialism, you might as well go all the way.

Dear Microsoft,

Hi.  It's been a month since my last letter. Since then, I have taken your name in vain 17 times and have danced around my home office in fury twice. 

This time it's Word on my work laptop.  I don't know what's wrong with it. I'll bet you do, because with its last dying breath, it manages to send you an error report before vanishing into that ridiculous field your buddy Gateway put on my background.

Hold on, my other computer - yes, YOURS - is beeping.

Some other little Application Gnome that lives on my computer just told me there is a security breach in Word 2003.  I just clicked on something, and the gnome tried to fix it.  He took all evidence of the breach message with him. I wonder if he doubles as one of your handlers?  I do remember something about "if the user is logged in with administer capabilities, a hostile entity could use your computer to destroy the world."  Or something evil like that. 

I'm now on minute 47 of trying to download all sorts of updates the gnome recommended.  This better fix Word, Microsoft.  I've got shit to update.  I mean it this time.  Fix my computer, or face ye the wrath of a stressed Alpha Mother.

With love,

Dorothy

The little angel's class at the Emerald City has entered a new realm of kid-dom:  the banishment of the cribs.  Yes, Waddler B has hit the big time.

They sent a note home earlier this week asking permission to get rid of the cribs.  Now the little angel and her pint-sized colleagues will be snuggling up on...mats.  Doesn't sound as comfy as a crib, does it?  Still, I won't have to wash her Pack-n-Play-sized sheet every week, and I guess the slight reduction in laundry should be counted as a Major Milestone.  I feel sort of like the Other Parents and we have embarked on a new journey together.  Or else it's another sign of the newest rage:  parent peer-pressure.

Though I signed her permission slip with the heady joy that a parent feels when freeing oneself from yet another baby accessory, I am a little worried about her transition to the mat.  Will she sleep on it?  Will she start skipping naps altogether?  Will the waddlers band together in yet another Baby Mutiny?  Her lead teacher is taking the rest of the month off to travel with her husband, and her favorite teacher, ShaKeiva (or KaSheiva, when I'm drunk), is taking over.  Hopefully ShaKeiva of the Multicolored Cornrows will know just how to handle this new change.  I have faith in her mellow smile and easygoing attitude.

Still, the mat.  I'm not so sure about this one.  What's she going to want next?  A big-kid bed?  My beloved suggested this when he found out about the mats.  I'm still a fan of the Kid Cage and all the freedom it provides.  Hopefully the mat will not mean I next have to buy her a training bra.  Eek.

The little angel's class at the Emerald City has entered a new realm of kid-dom:  the banishment of the cribs.  Yes, Waddler B has hit the big time.

They sent a note home earlier this week asking permission to get rid of the cribs.  Now the little angel and her pint-sized colleagues will be snuggling up on...mats.  Doesn't sound as comfy as a crib, does it?  Still, I won't have to wash her Pack-n-Play-sized sheet every week, and I guess the slight reduction in laundry should be counted as a Major Milestone.  I feel sort of like the Other Parents and we have embarked on a new journey together.  Or else it's another sign of the newest rage:  parent peer-pressure.

Though I signed her permission slip with the heady joy that a parent feels when freeing oneself from yet another baby accessory, I am a little worried about her transition to the mat.  Will she sleep on it?  Will she start skipping naps altogether?  Will the waddlers band together in yet another Baby Mutiny?  Her lead teacher is taking the rest of the month off to travel with her husband, and her favorite teacher, ShaKeiva (or KaSheiva, when I'm drunk), is taking over.  Hopefully ShaKeiva of the Multicolored Cornrows will know just how to handle this new change.  I have faith in her mellow smile and easygoing attitude.

Still, the mat.  I'm not so sure about this one.  What's she going to want next?  A big-kid bed?  My beloved suggested this when he found out about the mats.  I'm still a fan of the Kid Cage and all the freedom it provides.  Hopefully the mat will not mean I next have to buy her a training bra.  Eek.

The little angel is finally walking.  She has discovered the irresistible drug that is upright movement, and she is taking a hit every chance she gets.  She's also discovered if she's upright, she can whee! run away.

Last night my friend S. watched her while my beloved and I dusted off the road bikes that have not seen action since last year's MS-150.  My odometer still read "102" from my century day back in September.  Yeah, it's now June.  Almost July.  Um, we wanted a little break. 

When we returned, S. had made the little angel a crown out of clover.  She looked like a cherub, even though she was wearing her dinner on her shirt and daycare on her pants.  A cherub who, a half-hour later, was gleefully streaking across the house threatening to pee on any carpet that tried to stop her.

This morning when I dropped her off, Mrs. W. informed me that since the little angel is now walking, the entire class can go out to the little-kid playground at the Emerald City.  She tried to soften it by saying they had also been waiting for S., who started walking a month ago.  Wah!  The little angel held back a whole class?  Supreme control or delayed progress?  I just don't know.  I guess it doesn't bode well for me that she is already forcing entire groups of people to operate on her schedule.  Mrs. W. informed she would probably be coming home EVEN DIRTIER than she is now after being introduced to the playground while still sometimes crawling.  Dirtier than now?  Dirtier than pants that shocked S. when she realized they looked like that after ONE DAY at daycare? Dirtier than shirts that must be changed before embarking into polite society? I guess that's the good thing about daycare.  It sort of forces you to cede control over things like dirt and food stains.  I suppose this is all good preparation for (eek) soccer.

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend L.  My friend L. has two-year-old, asthmatic twin boys.  As she told me about the breathing treatments she must administer to one, sometimes two boys, sometimes four times a day, I felt myself feeling a little bit red-faced.  I whine and complain when we have to dose the little angel with Augmentin twice a day for her recurring ear infections, even though at this point she dutifully opens her mouth like a little baby bird awaiting its mama's worm gift.

L. feels bad because she might, MIGHT just be complaining just an itsy-witsy bit about having to do this thing.  Even though it's for her children's health.  Hello?  I can't stand to take my own, normal, swallowable medicine four times a day (if I must - not normally).  I can't imagine having to hold down a two-year-old for anything, let alone some weird, scary mask contraption.  Is this a cause for complaint?  YES!  Is this something you have to do?  YES!  BUT YOU MUST COMPLAIN TO YOUR OTHER FRIENDS!  It is right here in my Mama Handbook on p. 12, Article XIII, Section 3:  "Administering medicine to children is not fun.  Make it look fun while you are doing it, tell them how very, very fun medicine is, then go in the bathroom and do a shot of tequila before re-entering the living room."  So there you have it.  If mamas do not complain a little bit, they might repress enough to force their children to marry their friends' children, and then all the children will run away and live under viaducts near a stain that looks like the Blessed Mother by the time they are 16.

I know three twin mamas, and they are all my idols.  I struggle along as it is with my own little angel.  I have even talked about not having more angels, just because I sometimes am not sure exactly what to do with the one I have.  Now, did these people choose twins?  Does anyone?  Maybe they do.  There is something extremely cool about twins.  I wanted to be one when I was going through my Sweet Valley High phase. But while twins might be really neat when they are sixteen years old and a perfect size six, I bet they were hard to dose with antibiotics or breathing treatments when they were two.  I bet it is even really hard to feed both of them or bathe both of them without sort of wanting to shove flaming toothpicks under your fingernails.

So, L. and other twin mamas, I raise my shot of tequila to you.  I'm in the bathroom right now. 

Oops.  My beloved and I both forgot that today is our anniversary. I mean, we've been discussing it all week. We did know it.  We just forgot this morning.  I had this nice card all ready to go, but did I lovingly hand it to him when we woke up?  No.  I ran downstairs to do Pilates before it was time to work.  I think the last thing he saw as he walked out the door was down-dog (which is not my best side).

So yes, four years ago was that day that I thought would be the happiest day of my life.  Kind of a limiting view, eh?  You get married, you wear the big white dress, then it's all downhill from there.  I was talking to my friend S. a while back and she said it was funny how she used to think that your life was really over after your twenties.  I guess I didn't think it was THAT bad, but I did sort of believe that nothing fun ever happened once you had kids and a mortgage. 

I do remember being little and thinking how sad it was that my mom and dad never got to play. It seemed like all day Saturday and Sunday all they did was work, work, work.  And they did.  However, I didn't realize that some aspects of what they were doing some adults think is fun. Like gardening or mowing the lawn. I think some people actually like doing those things.  I'm not one of them, but some people...

So no, my life didn't end after my wedding day.  There are a lot of parts of it that are more boring than my twenties, but then again, I cried in the shower a lot in my twenties.  It was so confusing then, just being that little ball of ego jell-o all the time, with no real mold to fall back on.  Just a little ball of jell-o, crawling around, trying to find a shape.  So sad. 

Oh, my anniversary.  Anyway, every year we try to find someplace that reminds us of our wedding, which was on a lovely white-sand beach on the Gulf coast of Florida.  It is hard to find something comparable in Kansas City.  The first year we went Pachamama's in Lawrence.  I don't remember what we did the other years.  It usually involves seafood.  I remember Pachamama's because that was the first time we ever discussed having children.  Then we freaked out and did not actually get around to conceiving the little angel until a whole year later. 

I did realize, though, that since my beloved and I dated for a year and a half and were engaged for a year and a half and have been married for four years, we are now basically at the seven-year point.  Now, does the marriage seven-year-itch thing happen after you have been MARRIED for seven years, or been TOGETHER for seven years?  Should I watch for itching, or do I have three more years to coast?  Nothing particularly itchy right now.  That's good. I always really worried about that, too. I also worried my child would be ugly. Thank goodness I've grown out of that superficiality (okay, I haven't, but phew, the little angel turned out to be cute).

At this point, I think I will also shout out that I used to think I would want bigger bling at the five-year point.  My ring is lovely, but at the time I got married, all my friends had bigger diamonds.  I can't BELIEVE I thought that was important.  I can't BELIEVE I was that insecure about the way I was doing things as opposed to the way everyone else was.  What cured me of that?  Not really sure.  Maybe the angel.  Maybe time. 

Wow.  I sound old.  What will I be writing at my ten-year anniversary?