Elf

Merry Christmas!

Baby on Bored invited me over to her space to talk about a little Christmas miracle. My life sans hooch. If you're interested, pop on over there and check it out. Or scroll down for my midnight Santa ramblings.

Hope you're enjoying the magic of this sweet lil day!

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and all through the house, not a brown dog is stirring, not even the skunk that totally kicked his ass last night.

The matching stockings (hell ya!) were hung by the fireplace with care. (there's no chimney, just a hole where you shouldn't put fire) In hopes that ol Santa would do a drive by and hook a lil family up. 

I in my ugg slippers and Pa in his cap have settled our selves and he'll be seeing about a long winters nap since I"ll be up typing this for way too long obsessively checking to see that it's a) funny b) touching and c) fit for such a fine occasion as Christ-mas. 

Christ-mas!! Christmas Ricky! (name that movie for 20 points)

Okay that's enough of that silliness. Let's talk about why Grinch was probably totally justified in stealing this consumeristic lame little holiday that allegedly has something to do with the Christian faith but mostly concerns itself with the bottom line. I say heave ho that bag of crap off the top o the mountain you green faced lil freak, DO IT!

But I don't really mean it.

And yes, you totally know where I'm going, and here I go. It's BHB's first Christmas!! It's so sweet. He won't remember a g'damn stitch of it but I suddenly care just a little bit. He's my little Cindy Lou Who but he's better drawn. One tooth, (well two but only one really reads in pictures). A ready grin. A fantastic squeal. A new zest for solid foods. A joy that can be witnessed by his gummy little hands opening and closing in unison. Dammit I love him so much.

I am the Grinch. I totally am. As you know from the previous post (scroll it on down if you care to) I was so not into this thing. I was feeling obligation to care and since my folks are in town doing lots that looked like caring. But this week and it's manic nuttiness has brought home a new range of the emotional goods.

My heart has grown three sizes this week. I'm just blown away by the highs and the lows of this thing. Momma's, can I get an amen? Never have I been more physically, emotionally stretched. Never have I been more afraid. Never have I been more in love. It's all so Ginourmous and gorgeous and overwhelming and UGH comon' fingers -comon'! These typed words can't stretch their truth around the magnitude of the LOVE...yes that's it but I need more emphasis or italicises or bold to say it, yell it. I love this silly baby person and the person who made him with me. I love him! It's crazy love! Both of these boys. And the brown one too.

But y'all know, right?

I can feel my heart going stretchee stretch. Every time that kid lights up when he see's me. Everytime he squeals with the sheer whatev's of it. When he falls alseep in the Ergo as we shop for Christmas dinner and his soft little downey cheek smooshes up to my chest and his long eyelashes relax and despite the clanging noise and shopping fury he his so soundly asweetly asleep. Ohmygod. My little Grinch heart is bursting out of my chest. What a mess. It's so wonderful.

Cute hubs and I watched It's a Wonderful Life tonight and wrapped presents and baked pumpkin pies (this was a first folks) and I panicked because I didn't know it was so liquidee when it goes in? Is that right? And holy dairy festival! But anyway. As you can see we pretty much followed the Christmas eve brochure to the letter and it was awesome.

Merry Christmas beauties! I hope y'all are having a wonderful day with your littles. Thanks for making my season so bright.

Big Love! (obviously)


PS - Check out the Santa-on-Santa action! I couldn't help but think about Billy Bob in Bad Santa but the whole standing in line talking to other Moms and making a total ass of myself trying to get him to smile totally got me into the spirit. God bless us all, right?

Home Alone

Ah. Home alone on a Friday night...just me and my miracle brown-dog and the big-headed-baby.

Ok that's not really alone, is it? But it's quiet. Little BHB sleeps peacefully in his little room with his little blanket all cuddled up with his weird-ass rhinoserous head attached to a tiny blanket thingee. You know, a lovey. A lovey. Just one of the bajillion things I had never heard before this year that now runs my life. I once spent 3.5 hours searching the internet high and low to find another one of the the weird-ass rhinoserous head attached to a tiny blanket thingees while completely panicked that I had 'attached' him to something completely irreplaceable.

And I was right, that's basically what happened.

Which means I'm screwed. I mean, sure I could find some other little fuzzy magic blanket that's way overrpriced that I can buy 20 of and slowly ever so slowly over time gently remove rhino-head from his plump little fingers and replace it with the new fuzziness. But. I can't. I won't. I don't care right now, I just don't have the juice.

To the right is the closest thing I can find by the same company. A horse is NOT a rhinoceros dammit, and um. It's $26.50. Comon'!

Which brings me to my topic for tonight. Supermom. Why I'm not her but continue to strive to be her and stress my ass out while feeling a mix of jealousy, disdain and despair at my inability to be her. And when I recognize her out in the world or in my in-box I get that wash of delicious chemicals, JDD let's call it, (jealousy, disdain and despair for those of you skimming and not really paying attention) it sweeps over my endocrine system and marches around all of the Jane cells making me look sorta washed out and lost and feel very, very tired.

By the way, have you noticed my obsession with initializing things? I do enjoy. Ok, back to the action.

I know y'all know, I know you do. And what I've noticed is that we Mom's seem to fit pretty squarely in one or the other camp. Argue that with me, I'm happy to hear it because I would like to enjoy some gray here myself, but right now I'm pegged pretty far over in the not so SM at all camp.


My buddy JJ has been talking about a book called Bad Mother that deals with this exact topic and you'd probably say to yourself, gosh why don't you just read it and find some relief? Harumph I say to that. Requires effort.

Jane: But, where do I get that book?

You: Well you just linked it on Amazon jackass, go there.

Jane: But then I have to walk into the other room to get my creditcard and then wait for it to arrive on my doorstep.

You: Seriously?

Unfortunately that basic exchange is the gist of every conversation going on for me right now. Even this second.

Jane: I'm hungry.

Other Jane: (the one you played in the last one) Get up and make some Miso soup out of the cool packet thingee that you bought at Whole Foods yesterday.

Jane: Ugh. Then I'd have to stop typing and get up and there's boiling water involved and oh yea. No.

OJ: Seriously?

Let me just share what has prompted this little affair of despair. (note: I just made that lil phrase up and I kinda think it's genius)

I have a cousin, who I adore. He married a lovely woman and they live in a lovely home and they have a 3-ish year old and now 6 month old twins. I mean, cool right? Our kids are basically the exact same age, BHB only has 2 months on those lil ones. Oh but wow, the difference in is his reality and theirs - they'll never be able to relate. Let me illustrate.

It's taken us like five days to get the lights on our tree. I was damn proud we bought it, and that was only possible due to the grandparents who are still lurking around. Godblessem. Ornaments are feeling a bit optional at the moment, but I would like to put them up so I can stop tripping over the boxes. I'd really like to buy a few gifts for the boy seeing as how it's his first Christmas and all but as you know, I've got the ol' creditcard-in-the-other-room stumbling block and so sadly he won't be getting any presents this year. I guess I'll print out this blog for him and put it under the tree.

Today I got a link to an album of amazing pictures from the aforementioned family of the extraordinary events of their recent life, amazing places, holiday goodness, smiling family pictures, a trip to Rockefeller center. Their giant tree decorated. I was still doin' okay until the pic of the matching stockings came on the screen, that was it. Straw, camel. Breaking and splintering happening as I tumbled into a downward spiral and the JDD washed over me.

I want matching stockings.
Who thinks of ordering matching stockings in time to put them up by December 15th? Someone with six month old twins? I'm amazed. I'm impressed. Let's face it, I'm jealous.
I will never have matching stockings. We'll just have to limp by with this ridiculous Santa one that I guess is for the cute hubs and this pathetic sock looking thing for the dog and the gorgeous angel one my Mom made for me a million years ago and what about the baby? HE WON'T HAVE A STOCKING? Sob.

While we're at it.

I was GOING to be that Super Green Mom too. I have admired the fuzzibuns and superheineys and angeltushies and all of those brands of washable diapers and basically ended up at eww. Um. These Costco diapers are kinda doing it right now for me.  Oh yes, I'm that person. Curse me silently, curse me aloud. Swirling trash piles in the Pacific are haunting me, but not enough to deal with getting the spray thing attached to my toilet or figuring out how the heck you actually get the stains out of the damn things.

I was GOING to be teaching the boy French by now and since this is the window (it's closing in fact, maybe closed?) where he is best able to learn another language I have proven it again, not SM. My neighbors speak Spanish to him and I just nod and think. Right. He should learn that language, and so should I if I'm going to survive here. But I have not, nor will I. I am not her.

Oh friends I could go on, but, I will not. I think Miso will win out here. Plus I have about 14,000 things to do for our movie. Hmmm, hold. on. a. minute. That's the issue isn't it? The movie is robbing my SM status. DAMN YOU MOVIE! And funnily enough, that is the very crux of this blog. Can she be a Director and a hustling-get-this-thing-funded Producer/Director/Wife and a super Mom?

Short answer? Nope.

Our tree. It has one ribbon. Cute hubs did a fantastic job putting the lights on. Call it good.





Bongo is very festive with his jingle bells on. I will say however is that he is looking a bit like a guy who could use some extra attention...BHB looks like a five year old in this picture. And here's my cute Mom being, you know, cute.

The Miracle on 34th Street

I name all of my posts after movies. This season is ripe with possibilities! Too bad I'm too damn busy to take advantage of all of them. But there was a miracle friends, and while 34th street is far from here - we did indeed have a damn miracle.

So.

Remember the incredibly challenging situation with our brown dog? The last time I talked about it, things were dire. Backstory available by clicking on Bongo at the end of this post. Or you can just click on Bongo in my new label cloud. Ohhh, I'm excited about the label cloud. It's over there to the left. Down a little. I need to do a better job categorizing my posts with their lil labels. Ohhh, label cloud.

Anyway if you didn't go anywhere and you still wanna know, in our cliffhanger episode our cute brown dog was headed for eye surgery. Which no-one wants, no one does.

Around that time a friend had introduced me to a pretty groovey dude who is a healer. This healer friend was alerted to the Bongo situation. He pretty much came right to the rescue and started doing healing sessions on the dog, and on us as well. And our little smoochydoggie would look better for oh, say, 3 or 4 days and then he would start the same squinting and goo-ing and general dismay based in the eyeball. So it was clearly helping but not fixing.

ohmygod. Are you bored? Don't click away, I'll speed this up.

Cut to the chase: We went ahead and scheduled the surgery, but the eye surgeon we used last time wasn't available for two weeks. And healer man suggested another healer gal who specializes in animals to augment the process. She just happens to be the daughter of a famous dude. And I suppose has her own fame as well but holy crap she will forever be famous in my mind. Famous and exhalted as the woman who came over here and did some major doggie voo-doo and fixed his eye. Ok, that sounds ridiculous. And it is, and it isn't.

Let me 'splain. We've known All along that the issue was clearly emotional. Clearly, truly. I mean comon', it all started 2 weeks after BHB arrived and it was so obvious that when the baby would cry, in response the dog's eye would squint and leak. But when a surgeon says to you, uh-boy, your brown dog needs surgery, you brace yourself and your wallet. And then when you have a pretty lady who smells good come over and take your dog in figure 8's around the room and do some cool oovey stuff involving lazers and sprays that smell like flowers and all around general goodness you think, ok, that's cool. Fun story. Fun stuff. But what you don't really, truly expect is for it to just get better.

And that's what happened. Day by day. He looked better, he was more cheerful and his eye stopped gooing and squinting. Soon the surgery was upon us and we're going, um. gosh. I don't think he needs it! And so they checked it out, and remarkably they agreed. Nope, he's looking great.

God bless it. All of the times watching The Secret and What the Bleep do We Know? and I totally nod and go oh yea, totally. We are creating our own reality. Our thoughts make our lives. Abso-dam-tootly. Yet I'm still shocked when the dog shows me how that is really done.

It's a nice rack-focus reality slap of fantasy. (if that makes any sense). Perfect for the holiday season.

Please enjoy some pictures of Santa Baby and the Miracle Pooch.

Honest

Holy crap what a week. So good, so good I'm trembling to tell you about it unfortunately it's going to have to wait. Even though BHB has been a champion sleeper I have Not as I have been cranking on work deep into the night so I must go to bed Now, now now now now. I promise to dish the news soon.

But first! Let's have a quick award show. Drumroll please.

A fine and fabulous reader who we know as embracing my quirks gave me this shout out recently (well, somewhat - it's been several weeks actually, oh shoot I'm already going to lose the honest status right there!) - it's called an Honest Scrap. Ha.

So here's the scoop.

1) Must thank the person who gave the award and list their blog and link it.

2) Share "10 Honest Things" about yourself.

3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

4) Tell those 7 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

10 Honest things about myself:

1) I am the busiest lazy person I know.
2) I love the smell of my dog's head.
3) I still think my husband is totally hot. Luuuucky!
4) I believe in past lives.
5) I forgive easily. (sometimes too easily)
6) I had a devastating crush on Davey Cole in 2nd grade.
7) I freakin' love to be on stage. (thus the blog)
8) Regarding #7 - I know that approval seeking is boring, I am trying to kick the habit.
9) Speaking of kicking habits, I don't drink anymore - I got it all done early.
10) If given the choice between a delicious salad and mac and cheese, I'd choose very well. You decide what that means.

And now for the nominations:

Baby on Bored - she got me into this mess and I totally love her for it (mostly). And. Okay, I"ll say it. I want to be her someday.

JJust Kidding- freakin' hilarious. Read this post, an all time fave.

Wellington Road - my new NZ ex-pat BF. I heart her. It's fun to see what's going on on the other side of the world from an American mom's perspective. Plus she backed our project on Kickstarter which makes her doubly, triply cool. Just sayin'.

Viva Joy Riot - name says it all. It's a mish-mash of mommy stuff and design and amazing pictures and great writing is the thread that holds it together.

Lulu and Moxley's Mom - I am finally reading her blog along with about the rest of the world. Go see why. Dry and fuuuuuny.

Shoot how many more am I suppposta do? Can't do. any. more. must. bed.
Award show over.

(here it comes...the signature that was voted in even tho B thought it was clothing designer-ee. I wish I was a clothing designer, then I would have much better style. The whole ballcap and sneaker director thing fits me well, sad to say.)

Home for the Holidays

(to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas, I know...I'm early)

On Thanksgiving weekend my sweet life gave to me:

12 cute hub kisses
11 hours o cooking
10 footballs passing
9 palm trees swaying
8 moods a milking
7 wine drinkers
6 (x 3) pounds of Turkey
5 Ba-by giggles!
4 Frolicking Friends
3 Pumpkin Pies
2 Pa-rents
and a Brown Dog wiiiith a kong.

If you don't know what a kong is, you're about to get really jealous of my reality. This red rubber thing comes bouncin toward our knees and the baby's head about 18 times a day as the dog looks on desperately with the highest and most fervent hope for someone to stop what they are doing, turn and head toward the kitchen, pull out a butter knife, open a peanut butter jar, and put said peanut sauce into said kong and then go off into the recesses of the house (as if it's that big) to hides the stinky lil thing.

Next this sucker person comes back to the not-so-patiently-sitting-dog and says in a high squeaky voice with arms raised in an I don't know expression. 'Where's your Kong?'. The tiptap of joyful brown nails skitter off in every direction but mostly the direction of where you left it because his brown nose is powerful stuff. Bounce. bounce, bounce. Sigh. Open door, jar open, butter knife hits sink, footfall on hardwood floor, pause. 'Where's your kong?'. Skitter. Rinse. Repeat.

Has anyone seen the title movie? Oh man, I should netflix it. As I remember, I kinda loved it. I think it was because it featured Robert Downey Jr (RDJ) oh yes I just went there initializing his name damn his genuisness and endless hotness as he was just knee deep in his addiction and apparently doing heroin during filming. And pretty much playing himself in the movie. I gotta say, he is just the freakin' poster child for recovery, isn't he? Gawd I heart him.

But I digress. As I often do.

This holiday weekend was long and good. I saw not one but two movies this weekend. TWO MOVIES! That is the fallout of a baby who sleeps - a filmmaker who can reenter the sanctuary that is Arclight cinemas and soak in the real butter and the comfy seats and laugh and laugh and almost pee laughing. Of course I'd be lying if I said I didn't come out of the theater and call my mom desperate n crying 'cause I wanted her to keep the boy awake so I could rush home instead of going to dinner to kiss his downey head before he slept. But. He was already asleep. So we went to Amoeba records and dinner and we acted like people with a life. Dawg I just love her and her 'baby is already asleep just go to dinner I love you' self.

Let's enjoy this picture of the cuteness, shall we?

The parents are leaving on Tuesday and I'm trying to not bawl openly and constantly. Thankfully they are not going far, like 50-some miles away to park in a pretty place and enjoy some nature and likely enjoy the time away from the constant buzz of baby and our lil' movie and get it done! and what's next? and crap I need to and can you just watch him while I? kinda stuff they've been doing with us for a month. A month! Ladies and gentlemen (uh, do any guys actually read this blog?) Ladies, can you imagine? A month of daily lovin' from grandparents who are truly good. Damn you time for your forward marching! Thank god they'll be back for Christmas.

I'm gonna get honest here. I am torn about whether this signature thing below is fabulous or totally obscene and cheesy. Let me know your thoughts while you admire the font and size I chose. I hope your holidays were delicious.

Meet the Parents

So my Mom is in town. And my Step-dad. Here's the thing: these people are really good people. Not like, oh you know, good as in they are well groomed, wear matching jewelry, listen to NPR all day and wear LLBean.

No these people are Good (capital G), as in, are loving and always of service and cheerful. Really! Cheerful pretty much all the time. Frankly it's a bit tough being around them because any impulse I have to throw a snit or complain or whine about dumb crap gets quashed by their laughter and Can-do attitude. Oh and I should say that they are well groomed too, but not so much on the catalog outfits.

In fact, it's been hard to come up with stuff to write about up here because I think alot of what I do here is thrash around about my garden-variety angst which has been minimized by all this damn loveliness. Of course the other thing I do is talk about sleep which I know y'all are probably over hearing about. And frankly? Nothing to say right now - drama done for the moment. OK. Okay, wait..I know you won't mind just this one little tiny eensy bit...

The boy sleeps. I put him down. He goes to sleep. As I'm leaving the room, he smiles at me. I'M NOT KIDDING! He does this at night, he does this at nap time. And then he sleeps - 3 hours during the day, 11-12 at night. Ridiculous. And if I wasn't me, I'd hate me too.

Back to the parents. They live full time on an RV, so they are staying in their lil traveling house about a mile from here. So. Life is so sweet with our routine of getting up and making coffee for Papa L. They arrive at nine, he drinks it makes jokes and starts doing all kinds of stuff around here. Like fix lamps. He goes to his favorite hardware store. He watches the stock show. My mom gets the baby up from a nap. She changes him into a cute day costume. They sit together and coo and laugh while I flit around trying to get something done. And meals are made, errands get run, the baby is so beautifully taken care of since his naps are totally honored and yet, something unique for this household, still stuff gets done! If I could freeze time I would. I do pine for my Mommy and Me groups and a little bit, but not enough to miss a minute of this magic.

They were originally going to be here to help us BHB sit while cute hubs and I made our short film. And then, if you remember, we had a reality check and realized that we didn't have a huge chunk of the budget required to shoot the short in the manner we'd like to. Meaning: pay people something, not steal locations or shoot without permits. It turns out law-abiding is an expensive habit. Harumph.

Soo, we decided to do some fund-raising type thingee's while they are in town so that we stay focused on making some art while we get the benefit of some delicious Gramma babysitting and Papa L tasking. So last weekend we had a fund-raising party and today we threw a fund-raising Garage Sale. Both only mildly successful in terms of actual dollars compared to the work put in, but strangely fun and also came with the great house purging and house prepping that a g-sale and party (respectively) will do for you. Picture above: Boy and Grandma prepping for garage sale with couch on porch.

The place we're really hoping for some magic is our online effort. Last week we mounted a computer-to-computer Obama type funder on a super bitchin' site called Kickstarter.  Perhaps you noticed it the widget over there to the left? Give it a click, or go right here. On the page you'll find a video of cute hubs and I yapping to the camera and some real fun comes when BHB makes an appearance (about 3 minutes in).

If you can, pledge a few bucks. Really, just 2 is seriously great. What's even better is if you can pledge a few, and then forward to some friends and say 'Hey! Check this out! These people have a small child (with a big head) and still want to shoot an ambitious short film. I think they are kinda nuts but in the best way and I pledged a little, can you help them out too?' Then the magic of the interweb comes to life with all of the forwarding and hey-ing and tweeting and lovin' and then our movie gets made thanks to you. Seriously.

I hope that sounds good. I've backed a few projects up there and it's super damn fun to be a part of their projects. Artists are crazy people and I enjoy being counted among them, especially in times like these - we're hanging out on the edge.

Also, this is our movie poster. Our friend Bob designed it. We love him.