Well, I've been gone so long because this past weekend we took our first Family Car Trip. Ah, yes, we packed up our one suitcase and the little angel's six bags, Pack 'n Play and bouncy seat complete with vibration, music and Sharper Image-style baby back massage. We decided after one screaming fit that Mama should fold herself into a little human origami and ride in the backseat with the little angel to pop back in pacifiers, perform a bit of softshoe and anything else it took to ward off the qualifying rounds for the Fussy Baby Olympiad.

Did I mention that I get carsick? Fortunately, during my first trimester of pregnancy (when walking into the produce aisle of a grocery store could make me dizzier than a preteen at her first rave), I discovered these little arm bands with platic beads in them that are supposed to control carsickness. They apparently push on some tendon or something that tells your body there is no such thing as vertigo. They did nothing for me during pregnancy, but they actually worked on carsickness. Nothing works on morning sickness. Don't believe those liars who say to eat a cracker. Saltines are to women with morning sickness as rubber duckies are to drowning victims. Right idea, but not enough. If you have morning sickness, ladies, eat a twelve-inch sub.

Anyway, I digress. We made the 6.5-hour drive to Minneapolis from Kansas City in about nine hours on the way up and eight on the way back. The little angel did quite well, staring happily at the Fuzzy Bee book and gurgling in her seat. My husband is the seventh of eight children, and we were en route to his grandma's 95th birthday party. When we arrived at his cousin's house, which was awash in grandchildren at all stages of early childhood development, my sister-in-law looked at me and said, "Oh, here are the cousins from Missouri with their barefoot baby!"

Wait a second - babies are supposed to wear footwear? Seriously? I mean, I really didn't know - her feet never touch the ground unless the rest of her does. She walks carefully on gravel and I always carefully label all the broken glass in my house. Hmmm. Shoes.

As I stepped on the scale for the third time since being declared "recovered" from childbirth, I anticipated weight loss. After all, since my doctor (who had broken his leg while roping calves since the appearance of the little angel - go figure) told me "go get, 'em, tiger," I figured this meant that I, like Kate Hudson, could pick up Pilates and suddenly lose massive amounts of weight, look fabulous and still be publically photographed eating pizza and drinking alcohol.

But oh, no. I am not Kate Hudson. I do not have a personal trainer, a nutritionist or a nanny. I can barely get my beloved husband to rip himself away from the lawn three times a week to allow me a paltry hour at the YMCA. Therefore, I have discovered that in the war I am waging against my pudge, my post-partum fat cells are the Green Berets of my body. My muscles apparently did a short stint in the Texas Rangers then went on to Ivy League schools for the duration of the war.

Why do celebrities flit around on magazine covers baring their still-hot breasts and noncorresponding slim thighs three months after having babies? Why do they wear Manolos on the way home from the hospital? Why, oh why, do they look so fabulous plugging an empty pram on the streets of London SIX DAYS AFTER CHILDBIRTH????? Why do I not look like that, too??

I'll tell you why. My fat cells are serious about staying. After a teenage eating disorder and ten years of vegetarianism, my fat cells were freebasing freedom fries and then passing out cold on street corners. They got foods they never dreamed possible from their carrot-stick cell walls. And they liked it. And now, as I dutifully admit to the evil whores at WeightWatchers online each and every Laffy Taffy that crosses my lips, they are laughing. No matter what I do, they are winning. After all, they have been training for this moment all of their lives. Can someone please send me a spa weekend?

A few weeks ago, my friend S. and I were in Z. Gallerie, which is a "pretty useless things" kind of a store. Right up front, positioned like expensive cereal, was an item called something like "banana chase with canopy." It was basically a chaise lounge made of banana-tree wood, and it had a canopy made of linen that went over the top. S. thought it looked v. comfortable, and I agreed, but what a useless furniture item. I mean, where do I put it? In my tiny bedroom? Next to the high chair in the kitchen? Perhaps in front yard, so the pirates next door can observe me peeling grapes? I mean, please.

Feeling righteously indignant, I swore I would never purchase such a silly thing. Then, yesterday, I found myself in Babies R Us staring at something called the Baby Cabana. It's basically a baby-sized pup-tent designed to protect the young'uns from sun exposure. I looked at the Baby Cabana. I looked at my fair-skinned, red-headed little angel smiling at me from the cart. I looked at the Baby Cabana. I thought of melanoma. I looked at the Baby Cabana. I looked at her mottled skin under the harsh lighting of a warehouse store.

You know how this story ends.

Banana Chaise with Canopy.

Last Friday, I left the little angel in the loving care of her baseball-watching father and went out with the girls, wearing heels for the first time since my fifth month of pregnancy.

After dinner, a rooftop beer garden and four glasses of wine, I inhaled deeply the sweet scent of early summer, forgetting that the little angel had spent the previous afternoon at the qualifying rounds for the Fussy Baby Olypiad. After my girlfriend ordered a round of blue shots named after Mike Sweeney, a Bible-banging KC Royals baseball player, I forgot the little angel existed at all. I laughed. I slurred my words. I fell off my very sassy heels on the way to the bathroom. I smoked cigarettes with no concern for my own or anyone else's health.

And then, a few minutes after the witching hour, I remembered I am a mommy. Suddenly the dancers seemed preteenish, the balding hotties at the bar pathetic, the lead singer of the band ludicrous. What was I doing here with these madmen? Where was my baby? Fortunately for me, my girlfriends were very understanding and immediately charioted me home to my very own little palace, complete with signature balding hottie and miniature lead singer. Ah, bliss.

I have to take the little angel to the D-O-C to get her two-month vaccinations today. Two days ago the Parents as Teachers lady came by (she had been fighting for me with the other lady two blocks down the street - apparently they must get funding based on how many recruits they can find in a three-block radius) and reminded me how important it is to America that I get my baby vaccinated, despite the pain and eight pages of scary warning materials the D-O-C gave me in the hospital.

So this shot thing seems to be a source of controversy. Apparently, babies can die from them, but we must vaccinate anyway for The Greater Good of America.

Really, I do understand and I have ever intention of vaccinating the little angel. I don't intend to freeload immunity off the rest of the world's little angels who have already dutifully howled in pain (forget the sugar-water-laced pacifiers, it's going to hurt). But I am annoyed that this is yet another "choice" that comes with modern parenting. You can "choose" whether or not to get an epidural, to have an amnio when your triple-test comes back "your baby might have Down's Syndrome," to take the triple-test at all, to vaccinate, to send your child to daycare with other infected children when you have a mortgage to pay...these things don't always really feel like choices. I mean, what else are you going to do? Yet, the guilt.

So today I stare at my little angel as I type, and she is dancing to the Bare Naked Ladies and experimenting with new squealing sounds she just learned to make, and I hope to God that the shots are not painful and don't have any ill effects. Go, baby, go.

Billy Graham just fixed my shower. No, not the one on television (Billy, not the shower), but his name is honest-to-God Bill Graham. It says so right there on his plumber's shirt.

Billy came when we called the home warranty people for the fifth time this calendar year. While I was pregnant, we lost the dishwasher, the microwave, the hot-water heater and a very important part of the furnace. Somehow our 84-year-old house KNEW the little angel was coming and wanted to prepare us for how little control we would have over the rest of our lives. We had to call Billy because the shower spouted a geyser yesterday just as my sister and her boyfriend were preparing to return to their native Chicago. Billy came, looked at the shower, and told me that (like everything else in This Old House), the part is uncommon, hard to find, at the bottom of a well, you name it. Billy exited stage right to go in search of a "stem." This was our exit conversation:

Billy: "Thank goodness that I didn't have to use the blow torch." WHAT??

Me: "What will happen if you can't find the stem?"

Billy: "Well, you just won't have hot water then." Grinned down at the little angel, who blows through eight or nine bottles every 24 hours.

Me: "Um, I need to clean the bottles." HATING HATING HATING.

Billy: "Just boil the water. I'll be right back."

At this moment, the little angel started crying. She was hungry, and her mother, Laura Ingalls, hadn't had time to boil water to wash a bottle in the creek yet. Yes, idiot, hot water IS important.

Billy Graham just fixed my shower. No, not the one on television (Billy, not the shower), but his name is honest-to-God Bill Graham. It says so right there on his plumber's shirt.

Billy came when we called the home warranty people for the fifth time this calendar year. While I was pregnant, we lost the dishwasher, the microwave, the hot-water heater and a very important part of the furnace. Somehow our 84-year-old house KNEW the little angel was coming and wanted to prepare us for how little control we would have over the rest of our lives. We had to call Billy because the shower spouted a geyser yesterday just as my sister and her boyfriend were preparing to return to their native Chicago. Billy came, looked at the shower, and told me that (like everything else in This Old House), the part is uncommon, hard to find, at the bottom of a well, you name it. Billy exited stage right to go in search of a "stem." This was our exit conversation:

Billy: "Thank goodness that I didn't have to use the blow torch." WHAT??

Me: "What will happen if you can't find the stem?"

Billy: "Well, you just won't have hot water then." Grinned down at the little angel, who blows through eight or nine bottles every 24 hours.

Me: "Um, I need to clean the bottles." HATING HATING HATING.

Billy: "Just boil the water. I'll be right back."

At this moment, the little angel started crying. She was hungry, and her mother, Laura Ingalls, hadn't had time to boil water to wash a bottle in the creek yet. Yes, idiot, hot water IS important.