Twat?  I cun't hear you. I have an ear infuction.

Yes, I am childish.  The little angel has another ear infection, after only two weeks of respite. Tubes, tubes, here we come.

Shitdamnhellfuck.

This afternoon when I went to pick up the little angel from the Emerald City, I noticed two things:  1) she was NOT wearing the same pants she showed up in and 2) her sheet informed me she'd "been in a fight."

Were there guns?  Or was it the old fashioned, black-eye, garden-variety fight?  What did they do?  Was there an Emerald City Fight Club of which I am unaware?  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??

Let me back up.  When I first arrived, I did notice the pants, but I was also eavesdropping on a conversation between little J's  mother, the always-fashionable, Mama J., and the late-afternoon Emerald City worker (not my favorite).  The late teacher was telling Mama J. that little J. had been biting.  I was packing the little angel's things, secretly gloating that my little angel would never do such a thing.  I kept my self-satisfied smirk to myself, fortunately, because when I went to grab her sheet, I saw the news.  I gasped audibly. 

"What?" asked Mama J. 

"Did my daughter really fight?" I asked. I thought I saw Mama J. sneak her own smirk. 

It turns out the little angel and baby P. were both playing on the same large, plastic toy.  Apparently P. invaded the little angel's personal space, because she apparently appeared ready to bite him with her new, pointy teeth.  The little angel has discovered she packs heat.  She was the perp.

I asked them how they'd handled it.  "Well, we were going to put her in time out for one minute," said the late teacher, snapping her Hubba Bubba, or whatever it is she chews.  "But Dionne started playing with her, so it didn't really work out." 

Ah, discipline in the city.

I looked sternly at the little angel, realizing that she isn't nearly old enough for hours-after-the-event parental disapproval.  I secretly wondered if she won.  Bad Mama.

As I walked out, I discussed this new thing with Mama J., who told me J. had started doing this sort of thing about a week ago.  We are still friends, because our children did not attack each other.  It is an unstable alliance.

But then, as we huddled near her very fashionable car, the little angel leaned over to J. and gave him a hug.  J. smiled cherubically.  They were perfect children.  Ah, how thickly the wool can cover one's eyes when one's gene pool is involved.

All the way home, I eyed the little angel with a new vision of how life will rapidly change.  She has always had such a pleasant personality.  What would bring her to the dark side?  Just teeth?  Is that it?  Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?

We'll see what happens tomorrow.  In the meantime, I did what any self-respecting mother would do - I put the sheet in her baby book.

Okay, I've wanted it to rain. It's been really hot.  But today is just so gloomy and doomy, not at all the sort of day I want it to be to take the little angel to get her ears examined.

I am still nervous about this whole tube thing.  Hopefully they will be able to allay my fears. I am the daughter of a woman often accused of hypochondria.  She is not really a hypochondriac, my mother, she's just very aware.  Thankfully, that very awareness helped her discover cancer early and she's still around today.  That whole incident has fed my own hyperawareness and general malaise on the subject of health.

Earlier this week, for instance, I was exiting the post office on the way to Large Corporate Telecom, when a woman came screeching up in her minivan.  "Do you know you have a brown recluse bite?" she asked, her eyes rolling wildly.

"I know I have a bite," I said.  "I think it would be flesh-eating by now if it were a brown recluse."  (This was false bravado - I had been on WebMD the night before looking up brown recluse bites.)

"I had one of those last year," she said.  "It's a brown recluse. I'm sure of it. There's a ring around it."

So there I was, again struck by fear that I had been working all morning on ridding myself of.  Damn people!  Why is my sense of denial not more well developed? 

So I sat through this meeting at Large Corporate Telecom certain my flesh would be disappearing at any minute.  I tried to go to Large Corporate Telecom emergency clinic, but after letting me sit there for twenty minutes, the receptionist looked down at the form and said, "Oh, we only treat people who work here."  Even though there was a box for "contractor" on the form.  Nice. 

Then I drove to the mall, where there is another urgent-care clinic.  "Have you been here since December?" the receptionist asked.  "Probably not, huh?"

But of course I have been there since December!  I almost died in February in Cambridge, Mass.!  I had to have a breathing treatment and the pharmacist pronounced me the sickest human he'd ever seen walking!  "Yes," I said.  "Actually, I have."

"Well, you're lucky then," she said.  "You get to fill out the short form." 

Lucky?

By the time I got back into the little room, I was starting to feel silly.  The doctor came in, I told her my story, she looked at the bite.  "You have a strongish allergic reaction to whatever bit you," she said.  "It's okay."

"I feel silly," I said.  "It's just that my little girl..." AND I STARTED CRYING!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

The doctor was very kind.  "When you become a mother, you start worrying about all sorts of strange things, don't you?" she asked kindly.  "I can't even watch commercials anymore.  It's okay."

The whole crying jag was over as soon as it started, but then I felt stupid on compounded levels.  I thanked the nice doctor, gathered my things, and headed back to Large Corporate Telecom to continue behaving as though I really am a sophisticated professional.  (sniff) 

Last night, I gave my Composition I class final.  The test was worth 20% of the students' grades.  I told them this several times throughout the course of the semester.  I also told them (and printed in the syllabus) how much every single thing they did in class and outside class was worth.  Then I handed back every single thing they ever did, with the grade prominently printed at the bottom of the page. 

Finally, I gave them a study guide last week that spelled out what to study. I then told them that some of the lectures would be particularly important to the final, and if they had EVER missed a class, they should ask their friends for notes.

When I handed out the test, I explained how I had printed how many points each question was worth ON THE TEST ITSELF.

Here is my list of favorite things they came up to me during the class and said:

• But I don't know the answer to this one.
• I think the answer is "A."
• I don't remember this!
• What are you looking for here?
• How much will it hurt my grade if I don't answer these?

And my all-time favorite:

Was I here this day?

After I graded the finals, I was pleased. Last semester, not one student got an A in my class. This semester, I had three out of 18.  Now I am really not such a hard teacher - at least I don't think I am.  These students seem to be in shock that they are not getting all As.  This makes me wonder about the current state of our secondary school system, because if these cats were acing their high-school classes, then we are all in trouble and have no business competing in the global marketplace.

However, the As.  There is a glimmer of hope, after all.

There have been some requests to hear details about the Big Date.  I'm trying to figure out a good way to explain what we did.  There was dinner (Jack Stack), there were drinks (great new Waldo bar called Lew's - reminiscent of Iowa City's Airliner, complete with wood paneling and Budweiser-horses lamp above the bar) and in between, there was, well, the park.  I'm not going to say anymore. We're all adults here.

Last night, though, something very exciting happened.  Just two days after we finally got a child-safety gate installed at the top of the stairs, my beloved called down in a strangled voice "Come here!"  I thought she must have fallen and really hurt herself. I went bolting up the stairs to see her little fat feet operating all on their own!  I sat down, he let go, and there she was, 30 inches of tottering pink arms and legs ready to plow me down with no remorse.  She was babbling and laughing like a deranged person, obviously pleased with her new skills. 

We repeated the exercise downstairs to see if it was real (and to see how bad it would be on hard wood - even MORE supervision will now be required - just when I could almost use the restroom alone again), and she was able to walk from one of us to the other or from the ottoman to the couch - about four or five steps - without help. It always ended in a dive-bomb, and it was always accomplished at full throttle. I think she employs my friend J's ski technique to walking - go fast enough you don't need to steer and run into something soft-looking when you are done.

I am so excited for her.  I can't WAIT to take her to the park now!

This weekend, obviously, was Mother's Day.  This is a story about how unfun it is to surprise me.

I had to attend a friend's baby shower on Saturday afternoon.  I thought it was odd that when my parents showed up for the weekend, they were driving my father's Ford F-150, complete with topper. They almost never drive that truck.  My dad made some comment about the truck only having 800 miles on it, but I still thought that was kind of weird.

When I got home from the shower, my husband was sitting on the couch holding a driver's license of a guy I knew in high school.  My laptop stand was downstairs. I asked them why it was down there, and my mom said something about needing to borrow it.  I felt a little tug of fear in my chest at this point.  "What have you done?" I asked my husband.  He just smiled.

I ran upstairs, and lo and behold, my high school vanity (we had been using it as a computer desk for about six years now) was missing.  All the stuff that had been in my high school vanity - toe shoes, prom announcements, poems I'd written, etc. were stuffed in a bag.  Apparently my husband had gone through it and thought the driver's license was the only item of interest.  In place of the vanity was a spiffy new glass computer desk - big enough for not only our home desktop, but also my laptop  AND some room to work. Considering this was mashed into a tiny office that also has to contain our futon (ahem, guest bed) and Xbox, television and stereo, I was amazed at the use of space. Except for my filing cabinet, which was now sitting in the center of the room.

I looked the shiny new desk, the filing cabinet in the center of the room, and my high school memories shoved in a paper bag, and promptly burst into tears. This was apparently NOT the reaction my beloved was looking for after spending three hours on this project.

In time, after we moved a bunch of CDs downstairs ("Why don't we just stack them here, on top of the air-conditioning vent?" or "Maybe we could just stack them here by your feet - just don't kick them while you work"), shoved the filing cabinet against the wall behind the door and recalibrated the futon, it seemed to work a little better. I started to halfheartedly go through the bag, but in the end, I just threw it all away.

Lest I sound heartless, I do appreciate the work my beloved did. He knew the office was too small and that I spend all my time here now.  He knew that I liked this kind of desk, even.  It's exactly the one I wanted.  But he also knew that he hated my vanity, and I liked it. Just like he hated my blue chair (now languishing at my parents' house) and my black, ladder-back chair (now rotting in the basement).  There is a trend here, and it is to remove all the furniture that I liked. 

Now I admit, the new desk is better.  But he loaded up my vanity in my father's truck without even asking me if I wanted to keep it.  It was practically the only remnant of my old life left in this house.  It makes me sad to see it go.  And I am once again reminded that This Old House was not meant to have an office, or any room that actually looks nice upstairs.  At least once we have the electrician come, we can eliminate some of the thick, ugly power cords snaking all over the upstairs like jungle undergrowth. 

But it IS a nice desk, and it was a lovely effort.  However, I'm bad with surprises when they affect my personal space.  Do not be calling Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for me anytime soon.

My parents are coming to visit this weekend.  Their Mother's Day present to me is a night out with my beloved...and a morning sleep-in as only grandparents can provide it. I'm so excited!  A date!  A late-night date!  One where we can drink copious amounts of alcohol, content in the knowledge that if the little angel needs a ride to the Emergency Room in the wee hours, my parents can do it! 

Because, of course, this is always my fear (besides the aforementioned hangover fear) - that we will have one too many, then return to find the babysitter giving the little angel CPR. We will have to call an ambulance because we are hopelessly intoxicated (in my nightmares, I don't know how I assume we got home if we were so drunk - but it's a nightmare, so it doesn't have to make sense).  The ambulance driver will lecture us the whole way to the hospital about what bad parents we are, then the nurse will call Child Protective Services when we arrive, and we will never see the little angel again. All because it was 2-for-1 night at The Brooksider.

Do you see how bad my imagination is?

Anyway, I'm really excited about the date.  Just us.  Where to go? What to do?  What did we used to do besides eat?  Should we listen to a band? Go to comedy?  Park?  The possibilities are endless!  True, we will probably end up going to dinner and hanging out at the dive within walking distance, but for now, Saturday night is a little date fetus just waiting to surprise us with its appearance.

Today I finally brought myself to read what really happened to Precious Doe, the little girl found decapitated in Kansas City a few years ago.

So this is it:  Her stepfather kicked her in the head so hard she was "unresponsive" for two days.  She allegedly died, after which her mother and stepfather cut her head off and left her somewhere - or maybe they buried her - at that point I was on the verge of running to the little angel's room, ripping her from her crib and hugging her through my tears.

I have become one of those mothers that can't read or watch the news. I always thought my own mother was a big wuss when she said she couldn't watch sad things.  I am still struck by the scene in Angela's Ashes when they wake up to find one of the babies had died in his sleep in bed with the family.  I couldn't sleep for two weeks after seeing that movie, and it was not even particularly brutal.

I can't fathom wanting to hurt your child.  I can't even stand to watch the little angel get her vaccinations - which I know are good for her, despite all the autism fears.  I know those little shots are protecting her from all the diseases that seem so innocuous and not a big deal until your own little angel wakes up spotted and wailing.

It's easy as a new parent to either 1) disinfect everything that comes within ten feet of your child or 2) reassure yourself that nothing bad, really bad, could ever possibly happen.  The truth is that it's a big, cruel world out there. The chances are very, very good that nothing truly bad will happen to you. But, then there's the reality of mortality.  It happens to everyone.   As a mama, though, I can't allow myself to think of anything bad happening to the little angel. I have prepared myself mentally for the death of my family members, even my husband and friends.  But I can't allow myself to open the mental door on the room that is disease or death for the little angel.

How is it, then, that a mother could "dispose" of her child - a child that had been brutally abused - in such a horrible and nonchalant way?  What possibly could have been going through her head?  How is it that you have to be a civic leader to adopt a greyhound but any old human can procreate?  And how is it that the majority of people are truly good - I do believe that - despite all the shit that goes on in the world?

The little angel's new shoes arrived today.  I spent a ridiculous sum on Stride Rites again. Here is my reasoning:

• She can't walk yet.
• I remember when I couldn't waterski, and I had to try it without the cool gloves, a vest that really fit right and weird, wooden skis that did not properly adjust.  I ended up on my face a lot more than was probably necessary.
• Starting out without the right equipment sets you up to fail in life.

Yes, there is a bit of the "I want for her what I could not have" in my theory. However, once she's walking confidently, it's back to Payless we go.

Anyway, they just arrived over lunch. I opened up the box, staring at their little white-and-pink perfection, the smell of leather, the little flowers.  The velcro.  I thought about her little pink feet squishing into the shoes, really taking that first step - probably in these shoes - maybe even learning to run.  Then I started thinking about all the other shoes she will have. Maybe soccer shoes. Maybe ballet slippers or even toe shoes.  Her first heels (post age 12, thank you).  Her prom shoes.  Her slinky sandals and Birkenstocks when she goes to college.  Her wedding shoes.  All in a long line, starting with these little pink-and-white sandals.

Kind of made me pause.