Looks Like We Made It

Here's a little catch up marathon of our lives since I dropped off for a couple of weeks...

Having your baby turn one is a milestone only truly celebrated by the parents. Sure there are many who have watched the little tyke grow and blossom over the year — and are invested. But it’s the parents who are breathing the “how the hell did we just do that?” sigh of relief. So we sighed, ate cake, and shook our heads in disbelief. The bean is one. We took a family day trip to the zoo and it was great. We had dinner with friends after soccer practice that Friday and Miss 6 slept over. So the hubby and I came home, baked cupcakes and drank wine until midnight. It was almost like a date night having only the bean in the house. Then on the big day, we woke her with singing. The grandparents called (or most of them) and we headed off to Miss 6’s soccer game. They won and the team sang to the birthday girl as she sat strapped in her stroller (no grass for you!). That night we celebrated with an impromptu gathering for cake. It was a great day. And a perfect celebration day for a one-year-old. We got the obligatory cake face pic for posterity so we can prove that we had a least some of the forethought that we put into celebrating Miss 6 turning one! And isn’t heading that off such a grand motivator? ☺

It’s strange how unnerved I get when I open my calendar for the day to find it blank. I have to make the wild generalization that most people would greet that with a welcome. “Hello day! I’m so glad you’re here”…but not me. It makes my blood pressure rise. I feel like I have to be forgetting something. The pressure to make something out of this blank entry looms large. “Finish your novel!” “Write your blog!” “Clean out your sock drawer!” I can’t decide if those words in quotes are being spoken in my mother’s voice or not. It’s likely. She’s not one to be idle and views “down time” as laziness. Plain and simple. So the last couple of weeks when I had a day or two of ‘blankness,’ I had to talk myself down and just try to enjoy it. I grocery shopped at the odd hour of two, went for walks or runs, got laundry done and actually put away…it was really odd after so many months of jam-packed, back-to-back insanity. I may have even gotten on the floor and played with the Bean. May have sat at the table with Miss 6 while she read her daily book to me three times in a row. Could have started dinner early enough to eat at six. It was surreal. And the whole time I was feeling this slight edge of simmering panic thinking that it couldn’t possibly just be free time. I really need to chill…hear me mom?

So besides having some what should be welcomed slow time, we fit in a one-year check-up for Bean (she spiked on height and weight, putting her over the average — such an overachiever), had Miss 6’s first parent-teacher conference (who knew — a budding math whiz) fitting in a date night afterwards, attended more soccer practice and games, went to a kick-off meeting for two new projects for work, went to lunch with the b-partner to celebrate her birthday, watched protesters march through Boulder in solidarity with the monks in Burma, are waiting for word on whether the hubby will be moving into a new role at his company, helped Nanners’ family move some stuff into their new house, went to consult with Lady Lou over her kitchen décor decisions, started my literacy volunteering at Miss 6’s school, found out that the hubby is going on business trips for three consecutive weeks this month, forgot to send out the birthday package for Grandy, took Miss 6 to Spanish, got my haircut, went on a walk with my dear friend who has lived in her house for over a year and I’ve never seen it, found out that an artist from my home town wants to use one of my short stories along with his latest art release, had our annual block party and stayed up singing “So Sobo” with made up lyrics until almost midnight, and went for breakfast in Ned followed by a hike in Estes — taking in the peak fall colors of the aspens — and got home by noon…so, wait, did I just say slow time?

Seriously. All that and the fall season of shows is gearing up. Not good. I can do without TV all summer, but I can’t miss a single episode of Lost, Brothers & Sisters, Grey’s Anatomy, or Desperate Housewives. So I’m screwed. I also made the mistake of watching Heroes too many times, along with a couple of pilots that looked a bit too enticing. And I can’t wait for Pushing Daisies to start…I now need some extra hours in the day. To fit in TV.

And the thing with soccer: It appears that Miss 6 truly can’t stand anything less than perfection in herself. So after a fairly abysmal run at goalie (they scored three against her), she came off the field in tears. We said all the stuff about it just being a game and that it’s supposed to be fun and that trying things is how you learn. But who knows. This is the kid who sat in the door during her first three ballet classes and refused to participate. When we pushed her about it, she said, “I don’t want to do it until I know all the moves.” So there you have it.

As for the other girlie, well, she takes off her socks as fast as I can put them on. With glee. Which is no good when winter is approaching in Colorado. And today during my run that turned into a walk because I wore the wrong sports bra ☺, I won the battle by putting socks, fleece booties and a hat on her. Then gave her two things to chew on. So I decided to be bold and put her down for nap with the socks on. When she woke up a couple of hours later, both socks were off and had been thrown from the crib to the floor. The bean was grinning at me as I took it all in. Stinkpot.

Then today, I was discussing an upcoming direct mail campaign with the b-partner. And decided to close the back door in case the dog started to bark. Which is the precise moment that I hear a little shrieking sound. Which is also when I noticed the squirrel in the dog’s mouth. I momentarily lose sanity and start to scream, “RUUUUUUBBBBBYYYYYY!” Forgetting that the b-partner is at the other end of the phone I am holding to my ear. I keep screaming, frozen in a state of “what in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks do I do now?” I screamed her name over and over until I felt my throat start to hurt. All during which the dog is picking up, shaking, dropping, then picking up, shaking, dropping this shrieking squirrel. I couldn’t really believe my eyes. This dog has always been a total wimp and to see her taking on this squirrel with such glee…something in me snapped. I ran out there still screaming into my still-in-the-dark b-partner’s ear. And it got away. Somehow it’s will to live out did the dog’s will to kill. Or maybe (what I’d prefer to think) is that the dog wasn’t really that into it after all. Was just playing with it a little. After all these years of those little guys taunting her from the trees and through the window, she just needed to show them what could happen if she really wanted it to. I walked all around and couldn’t find it anywhere. As I looked, I heard a loud chirping from the cottonwood. I’d swear it was the fallen one, mocking me from the treetop…but still. Gross. Seriously gross. At least the b-partner didn’t lose her hearing.

Tomorrow we head to Denver for a meeting followed by dinner with the team from the big summer project. A new restaurant, The 9th Door. Should be fun.

TODAY’S THEME SONG: I Feel It All. Feist. The wings are wide. Wild card inside.