I'd totally have that guy's love child

Words. So many words.

 To give you an idea:

That's the book I'm working on. Is it amazing? No. What's taken me nearly six months to do other writers who get to do this full-time and have help with the kids or just have older kids who are a little more self sufficient could probably whip out 46,000 words in a month or two. I'm not going to fault myself for not being further into this story because I love it, I love my characters, I love my writing partner's ability to get me back on track and storyboard with me day or night from California.

The preschool (non)dilemma

It's really taking its toll on me this morning. I just need to know. Am I a shitty mom for not sending Josie to preschool?

Please tell me, I'm not the only one with a 3-year-old who's just chilling out watching Dinosaur Train while she has her morning quota of milk and after-breakfast snacks. I'm only panicking over this because I feel like most of my social network feeds are filled with pictures of kids going off to first days of preschool - they're all dressed up cute and have little backpacks and fancy shoes.

And my kid is curled up in jammies still at 10 a.m. while Dr. Scott talks about the stegosaurus and the Pteranodon family goes on another adventure.

We have our reasons for not doing preschool this year, and possibly not doing it next year either when she'll be 4, and like us everyone chooses to send a child to preschool or not for their own reasons.

WTF! She knows her ABCs

Somehow Josie knows her ABCs.

It's absolutely horrible, but I'm not even sure where she learned them. These are bad habits to break.

Next thing you know she'll know how to spell and my life will forever be destroyed. I will never be allowed to plan a surprise trip to get I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M again and forget going to the P-L-A-Y-G-R-O-U-N-D.

Sure, it's entirely possible that my incessant singing of the little ditty drilled it into the ever-changing landscape of grey matter inside her noggin. Or it could have been any one of the LeapFrog toys she plays with in conjunction with the LeapFrog videos on Netflix she's obsessed with. It could even be my mad immersion techniques where I have forced my kids to go to the Y and have fun (I know! I'm such a bad parent) and the amazing childcare staff has given a push in the preschool education department. Someone should buy them cookies.

Weighing the problem

Weight is just a number on a scale. Isn't it?

As an obsessive compulsive weight checker, I can say that isn't always the case. Yesterday, I weighed myself seven times. Seven. It's not always that bad. Some days it's only three. And when I skip a day, I worry more about eating a sandwich with bread than any one person should. I don't, by any means, starve myself, but I do watch closely what goes in my mouth with a reward and reprimand mentality.

For a lot of women, being "fat" is in their heads. For those of us who have battled the weight monster for years, we look in the mirror and see a giant even if our clothes have become ill-fitting from weight loss and the number on the scale reflects something we're pleased with.

The scale isn't the issue, though. The body mass index charts, the skinnier than thou actresses, the weight loss supplements advertised everywhere ... those are the issues. As a society, we — women and men — have religiously opened ourselves up for criticisms where weight is concerned. For most people I know, the BMI would call them overweight; actresses who put on a few pounds because they had a bad breakup and ate a loaf of bread and some Ben & Jerry's are flaunted as baby bump suspects; directly related are the too-skinny rich and famous who are called out as bulimic or anorexic; I'm not even going to tell you what advertisements, the grocery store and pharmacy do to a chunky girl with low self esteem.

What I am going to do is get to the point. Eventually. I think there's a point to this. Maybe.

Worth the break

Ten weeks away. This is like starting over.

And man, have I been busy not folding laundry while stepping away from my Internet addiction. I have been busy doing other things though, you know, because I have two kids both going through their own version of the Terrible Two's. Josie's trying to catch up on all the temper tantrums she didn't throw over the last year and Charlotte is keeping pace in order to be done with this nonsense by the time she actually reaches 2.

I can't complain much because compared to other kids, mine are relatively low-key and easily calmed. Like last night. We got ready to sit down for dinner and, as is my norm, I refilled the girl's milk cups. Josie insisted she didn't want more, so I just put a splash in to make sure she'd have enough for dinner. Oh the tears! You'd think I tore the head off her favorite stuffed animal and laughed about it in front of her. The fight was on, and I really didn't have much fight left in me (and what parent does at 6:30 p.m.). She was angry enough about it she refused to eat. She didn't want any macaroni salad, not even the eggs — which, as everyone knows, is every child's favorite part of any cold salad.

Superhero Mom took over, swooped down and guzzled that splash of milk and all was forgiven in the land of Temper Tantrumville. Seriously. I drank the little bit of extra I gave her and she was happier than a dog with a new bone, ate her dinner and went on for a fairly calm night. The whole incident lasted maybe three minutes.

Even the Boy shook his head, amazed that the only thing she wanted was no extra milk. I don't know where she gets this strong willed thing from ... nope, not a clue.

All I want for Mother's Day is ...

My life right now is all about scheduling. And I'm sucking at it. Badly.

The only thing I have set in stone every week is the Bean's creative movement class on Tuesdays, but soon enough that will come to an end and we'll be doing the summer thing. I assume the "summer thing" will be much like our "spring" and "fall" and "winter" things ... a whole lot of what the eff are we doing today.

At least we're finally getting bedtime back. Forget prime time television with the Boy — I'm stuck sitting on the stairs outside the girls' bedroom usually from 8 to 9 p.m. At least they're in their own beds and sleeping most of the night again. Though the normal bedtime for them means an earlier wake up call. I suppose I can handle getting up at 6:30 some mornings if it means an hour or two of quiet at night to collect my thoughts. I usually don't get to do that during the day unless it's in three-minute increments interrupted by screaming because someone turned the TV off, took a toy or dumped Bailey's water dish.

Looking for love?

"love your life"

I don't know if that was the entire quote or not, but they are the words I saw scrawled across the shoulders of a woman at the gym earlier this week. They struck a chord. They hit me deep.

I have enjoyed my life for the most part. Many times, though, I have found myself resenting moving away from my family and friends, or hating that we don't have a six-digit income. I've gotten angry because I can't keep up with the dog hair or the toys that overrun the first level of our home. And while those things seem like negatives, I have mostly enjoyed my life.

Enjoyed. Not loved.

I have frequently failed to understand that loving my life doesn't mean I am supposed to enjoy every aspect of it, but rather as a whole love it for all of the experiences, the joys as well as the trials and tribulations, that have come my way.

As far as I'm concerned — and I'm merely one person and one opinion — loving something means you are passionate about it, and I am definitely passionate about my life. I'm finally starting to understand that as I've had a chance to reflect on the things I truly am "passionate" about. The things I live for and love. Naturally, my top two are my babies and my husband. Then coffee.

Well ... some days coffee is the very top of the list. OK. A lot of days. Man, I love coffee!