My Mom's A Nerd

school daze

2012-01-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've completely abandoned you. I'm shit. I know it. But if we're going to be friends you're just going to have to understand that from time to time, I'm going to drop you like penicillin drops the plague. It's not personal. It's the cray cray. I wonder sometimes if I did drugs, if I would be able to juggle everything better. I know that sounds counterintuitive. Not a lot of junkies out there that you think "man she has REALLY got it together!". But I just mean you, know, a little dabble to take the edge off...Go ahead, you know you are thinking it. Mother of the year.

Which brings me to the pursuit of knowledge, the search for the right elementary school, or as I like to think of it, the one decision that we make that will possibly influence, the way he learns, the way he feels about school, learning, teachers, and KNOWLEDGE. Whatevs, no biggie. Someone pass the joint, because I am FUCKING FREAKING OUT. But you know, quietly, in a suuuuuper dignified suburban way. I'm asking questions, I'm taking tours. I'm learning about things like "singapore math", and "dolch words".

The thing is, and I know you're thinking it, I know that Nipper and I will be the biggest, most formative influence on how he feels about school, books, learning, etc... But if we choose wrong, or he doesn't get in, I'll feel like maybe we missed an opportunity for everything to be perfect. There I said it. Saying it out loud, is the first step right? I'm Marija, and I keep trying to make everything perfect. Someone please send me a vaporizer. Mommy needs to go bye bye.

We are trying to get him into a good neighboring public school, but don't know if that's going to work out. So we are looking at some privates (that we can't really afford). Yesterday we toured a school that shall remain nameless. It was not for us. I don't want to say I knew it when we were still in the parking lot... But very shortly thereafter. I had to leave half way through the tour, at which point, I was more than sure it was not for us. There were 4 parents of currents students on the tour, with 4 of us who were looking. It was awkward. They were trying too hard. It was like a super awkward group date where they kept grinning, saying how great it was going, and all I wanted to do was go home, put on my buffet pants and watch The Daily Show. The director was a dingbat, and the second grade teacher wore so much perfume, her classroom smelled like church on easter sunday. And for all of that you could have the privilege of paying $16,000 a year. For Kindergarten. And for the uninitiated $16k is at the low end of the "independent school" tuitions. (I guess we've decided "private" sounds too much like we might be excluding someone, and we all learn in pre-k that we never ever exclude anyone...)

At the end of the tour, Nipper said they were standing in the small courtyard between the classrooms and the modular buildings that make up the school. Oh...yeah...where do you think we are, New England? For $16k, you get a smaller class size, maybe p.e., perhaps art of foreign language, in a school that is usually located in an abandoned public school, or worse an old office building. "But OH LOOK AT OUR PHILOSOPHY!" So they are standing around talking, and the 5th and 6th graders are having their "recess" in this squalid courtyard. One of the parents on the tour asked the director what is their "conflict resolution system"? The dingy director prevaricated briefly, which is shocking, because these things are usually so ingrained in their spiel, it's like they are DYING for you to ask. Then said, they didn't really have one (gasp), as their kids are really good kids, and they don't have incidents often enough to warrant a whole system.

As she was speaking, Nipper looked beyond her shoulder where a wild eyed 10 year old was pounding his fist into an open palm at a fellow student in a menacing manner. The only thing better would have been if he'd dragged his index finger slowly across his neck and mouthed "I will cut you".

I'm not back...not really...I just have this to say

2011-12-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

I love Nipper Knapp because he acts like I look like this:

Even though I really look like this:

I know I have some splainin to do. Where I've been. What I've been doing. I will. I swear. Just as soon as I bake the 12 dozen cookies I need to bake tonight... Oh and then, after I let thirty 5 and unders, and their parents come over here and decorate them this weekend. Happy Holidays nerds.

santa baby

2011-11-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

Are you talking to me?

You must be talking to me

You talkin to ME?

I'm the only one here, you must be talking to me

Let's do this thing! Any of you crabby grinchypants that want to harumph about it being too early for Christmas can take it up with congress, because as of 4pm tomorrow, it is countdown to Santa time around here.

For the most part, the last three months have been SUCK CITY, around here. So we're putting it all away for the next 6 weeks. Gonna put our troubles on the back burner and try to enjoy the season. They'll still be there in January, so why let them ruin my favorite time of year? This is the only 1st Christmas, Charlie Truman is going to have, (and the only 4th Christmas for Jack! SOB. 4!) and I'm not going to let grown up stuff get in the way of making it magical the way Christmas should be when you're a kid.

One of my favorite pics of Jack from his 1st Christmas

Jack and I are going to cook all day Thursday while Nipper Knapp curses football calls, and tells us funny things people are tweeting. Charlie will mostly just be gnawing on his hammer (should I be worried the hammer is his favorite toy?), and wishing he could eat my porcini mushroom gravy. We'll go see the muppet movie, which I'm sure will make me verklempt.

My Kermit and Ms. Piggy puppets from when I was a kid. In case you wondered, I can do a spot on Ms. Piggy (shocking)

I hope that in this time of so much upheaval, and discomfort, for so many, that this week finds you all with friends, family, lots of mashed potatoes. And if it doesn't, then send me an email, and I'll send you a really dirty joke and hug to make it all better.

Happy Holidays everyone. I promise to write more. And I will because I'll be high on glitter and pine needles for the next 2 months. Watch out now!

let it snow let it snow let it snow

2011-11-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

You guys. I'm sorry. I have been busy. It's true. But that's not why I've been away. I have FORSAKEN YOU! I'm the worst bloginatrix ever. We've been dealing with some stuff and it has hijacked my ability to write, think, sleep... Good times.

Last week I had a chance to walk through Anthropologie by myself, for like 15 MINUTES. Staycation... And OH, the christmas decorations are in. I was at The Grove, and they were setting up the giant Christmas tree. Sadie said it greatly disturbed her, because it wasn't even Halloween. I wanted to tell her that if I could mainline that
Christmas tree I would.

It rained today. If I happen to drive by Home Depot tomorrow, and they happen to have christmas trees. I'm buying one. I need Christmas to start early this year.

Straight Outta Compton

2011-10-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is the LA everyone wants to think they know.

I heard a story on NPR a few weeks (days? months?) ago, about how Compton is not really as bad as, you know, COMPTON. How people use "South Central", or "Compton" as a euphemism for the worst, of the worst. People will be looking at a house in say, oh I don't know, MY neighborhood, and say, "I mean, it's not COMPTON!". The story was about how there's actually a large agricultural center there, with horses, and goats, and people making their own cheese. IN COMPTON. The point is, Nipper and I find, that when we tell people outside of LA, that we are from LA, often, they bring up the LA Riots, or NWA, or some other thing that has absolutely nothing to do with our life here. I want to say "yeah, we get shot at all the time, but you know, the weather is like, so, so, great."

But really this is the LA most people know.

Admittedly it is a city divided, just like any big city. There is incredible wealth, and devastating poverty. I've seen things here on both ends of the spectrum that have knocked me out. Stuff like, people throwing a $50,000 birthday party for their 1 year old; and two grown women fighting in the middle of a street, one of them wearing nothing, but a make-shift diaper. We live somewhere in the middle of that, but definitely closer to the diaper than the party.

I feel extremely fortunate, to live and work in a city that allows us to enjoy so many great things, the ocean, the mountains, one of the country's largest city parks (Griffith), beautiful local canyons for hiking, skiing an hour away from the beach, outdoor malls in December, Night blooming jasmine in winter, Orange blossoms, and the Disney Symphony hall, Zankou chicken, the movies (I mean it, I love them), spooky old theaters in a downtown that looks half like NYC, and half like Mexico City, gourmet food trucks that make everything from waffles to portuguese sushi tacos, and Scientologists in their natural habitat! And this is like the worst list, of the best stuff. How can you top that?

I know that many, many, people are born and raised here and never see the good parts of LA. I knew a guy in college, who had grown up on Portrero Hill in San Francisco. He had never seen the ocean. San Francisco is 7 miles wide at it's widest. He had never crossed those seven miles, because of poverty, not apathy. But there are a lot of people who move here from other places that never see the good stuff either. These people make me crazy. The transplants who endlessly feel the need to talk about how much they hate LA. Nipper Knapp and I have one word advice for these people "leave". No one is begging you to stay, and frankly, you're just making traffic worse. No other city in the world is such an easy target for people's disdain, people looooove, to hate LA. It's like the anti-Paris. People who have spent 3 days here, like to expound on all the terribleness that they encountered in their travels. "It's not for me", they'll say. Fine, then go, back to wherever it was you escaped to come here and complain. I'm sure they've been missing you.

But I'm not gonna lie, LA is vast, and I think it takes a long time to get to know. A long time to be able to take a deep breath and call it home. My first year here, I didn't know anyone, for A YEAR. I didn't know how to begin to meet anyone. I spent looooong days walking in the Hollywood Hills, smelling the canyon air, getting dusty, seeking shade, reaching the top, staring incredulous at the grid, hoping there was a life for me somewhere out there. Some weeks, there were days when I didn't speak to anyone except the checkout girl at the grocery store. It can be a lonely town, until you find your place, your people, your way. But it's that loneliness that alienated me in the beginning that has held me here for so long. You can be anonymous in this town. You can do anything you want, any way you want, and be sure that while you may be doing it differently, you are not doing it alone. I used to hate that. I wanted someone to tell me what the rules of life were. The older I get the more I love that LA lets you make your own. It's a sleepy town hidden under a crazy traffic jam. It's shy, and stubborn, and it has a funny face. You could very easily write it off as city gone wrong. But you'd be wrong. There are a million different ways to live in this town, and if you can't find one that fits you, you haven't looked hard enough. But for some reason, it's more acceptable to hate it, than to love it. I LOVE LA. I might as well have just shouted "I love syphilis". That's how much people love to hate LA.

The street I lived on when I first moved here.

That stearn love note was a long preamble to what happened here two nights ago. You guys know my mom moved here a few weeks ago to help with the kids. She is not in the "LA haters" club, as a matter of fact, she gets around really well. In her visits over the years, she has found her favorite places, and sometimes goes off on her own to get "that salad from that place we went that one time". She is making a nice little life for herself down here. My mom is bold, brave, different, and generally dives head first into most things. In many ways, she's a born Angeleno. I like to think I got a lot of my courage from her. She is however, a mom. So you know, she worries. Sometimes she expresses her worries out loud. And because I'm you know, her kid, I roll my eyes, and say "ok WHATEVER". Then I make a note to myself that when Jack and Charlie are grown, I will still feel the way I do about them as babies, and they, being grown men will roll their eyes, and say "ok, WHATEVER", and that's the way it should be. All moms have the crazy crazy. All of us.

When we bought our house, I'm sure our entire family was worried. Is that neighborhood "ok?", (mezzo mezzo), is that mortgage "too high?" (YES), will they be "ok?" (sure). But it's a mom's job to say these things out loud, and sometimes to say them with a little added color, that makes their children want to scream, kick their mother in the shin, and then take a nap (see it never changes). So for years, my mom would ask about the neighbors "pit bull", (a chow mix), and about the tagging (it was tagging), and gangs (closest thing we have around here, are these really pushy Waldorf moms, "Oh you are raising little Azalea without screens? How brave". You know stuff that living in a city, we ignore, don't see, don't think about, because you can't. You have to keep your eyes on the prize, and live your life, because oh my god couldn't you get lost fast. Louis C.K. has a bit on bringing a girl from a small town into NYC through Port Authority for the first time. She sees a homeless man in a terrible state, she bends down to see if he's ok, and Louis and his friend, grab her and say "oh NO, we don't do that". As if she's wrong. But when he tells it, it's funny. Jesus, I've just made Louis C.K. unfunny. Now I want to die.

So for years, I've just rolled my eyes when my mom talks about all the dangerous or terrible things she sees in and around LA, because hey, I live in my pink man cave, with my macbook, and my eames rocker, and my organic yogurt, and my kids wear bamboo socks that don't chafe, and you know, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! LOOK AT ME! I'VE MADE HEAVEN RIGHT INSIDE OF HELL AND YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE IT!

My friend Paul told me about moving here from Rhode Island. He was going to stay with a friend. When he got in from the airport, the friend wasn't home, so he waited on his front porch. I can't remember exactly where it was, Beverly Hills, Brentwood? Somewhere swanky. While he waited he called his mom. He told her what he was doing, and she said, in a concerned tone "well don't be a target". Oh god, this is going to happen to me someday. I'll be saying something like that to Jack or Charlie. They'll be having lunch with someone in the Hamptons, and I'll say "watch out for land mines!"

You know where this is going right? Do I even need to write anything else?

Two nights ago, Nipper and I went on a date. Well, we went to see a movie, that's a date, right? We came home, and my mom was upstairs in Charlie's room. He had just woken up, and she was rocking him. Jack was asleep. Awesome. My mom gave me a kiss on the cheek, passed me the baby, and said good night. I was thinking "see how well this whole arrangement is working?! I might even get a little time to make out with my husband on the couch. We have kids people. The window for getting lucky is very, very, very, (very) small. But when I came down after nursing Charlie, my mom was still there in the living room, watching a movie. Uh... mom please don't read this next sentence. Goodbye lady boner. Uh... I'd like to take back that last sentence. Ick. But seriously, nothing makes you want to have sex with your husband, less, than your own mother watching Tangled in your living room. It's true, you can wikipedia that shit, because it's a fact. Night time babysitters need to make like a tree and leave as soon as people get home. But she's my mom, so how do you say that? (you write a blog for 2 years, and then slip it in casually) I decided I'd curl my hair, so I wouldn't have to do it in the morning. Back to reality. 20 minutes later, the movie ended and she headed home. Good Night and Good Luck.

Three minutes after leaving our house, my mom was in a traffic altercation with several young men, who tried to ram her car, then jumped out and waved a gun at her. Right in front of my house. Good. Night. I watched the whole thing happening out my front window, where I was standing curling my hair. We live on a curvy hill street. Only one car can go up or down at a time. There are impasses 20 times a day. Someone backs up to let the other past, and life goes on. At first I thought this was what was happening. I heard them rev their engine, she was going down, they were coming up. I said "ok, easy, she's an old lady" (sorry mom). But then they revved the engine again, and again,and squealed the tires. As I pulled back the curtain, I saw a man emerge from the car and run at her, his arms in the air. OH SHIT.

Buy the time I got out the front door, shouting at Nipper Knapp to call 911, she had driven down the dead end below our house, and they had (I thought), trapped her, in her car, I heard a crash. OH MY GOD THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL MY MOTHER. This is what my brain must have thought. I don't know, because I was too busy saying "oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck" and calling the police, to know what I was thinking. I called the police too, because sometimes they don't pick up 911 from a cell phone for a very long time.

I ran out into the street, the men were still in front of the house, but then, I couldn't see what was happening, as they followed my mom down the hill, below our garden wall. I knew one of them was out of the car, and so I started shouting "THE POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY", over and over. I guess I wanted them to leave, to drive off. I wanted to get them away from my mom. When I got past the wall, I saw that my mom had pulled into a tiny driveway, and the men had driven past her and were now blocked in by a big grey truck. A good samaritan? My mom was getting out of her car. wtf. "RUN!" I yelled at her. "GET BACK IN THE HOUSE!" she yelled at me. Nipper said that when she came into the house she said "he has a gun". I didn't hear this because I was too busy being nonsensical to the 911 operator. She kept asking for my address and I kept saying "please send them, they have my mom". Oh, I hope Jim Rome doesn't play that tape ever. Mortifying.

Miraculously, both my and Nipper Knapp's 911 calls went through, and the police arrived within minutes. For reasons unknown to us at the time, the men stayed down in the dead end, out of their cars. As if they hadn't done anything wrong. We could see them down there. What was going on?!

Well, it turns out they were suuuuuuuuper stoned. The guy with the gun, had waved it in the face of another neighbor as he ran past, and shouted at him to get back in his house. This neighbor, a young guy, asked the police if they were on pcp or something. "Nope, just pot". REALLY? Who gets high and acts like that? And you make fun of us for pms? Testosterone is a bitch. Ok, so the police come, they interview everyone. They arrest the guys for attempted carjacking, and assault with a vehicle. Are you kidding me?

As soon as I could ascertain that my mom was ok, once she was in the house, once the police where there, here is what I thought: "I am NEVER going to hear the end of this". That's how fast it happened. Within 5 minutes of being TERRIFIED, that some guys were trying to kill my mom, I was rolling my eyes, saying "ok WHATEVER". I was still shaking. My bones were shaking, a sign from my body that it was time to run, but my brain had gained back control, and that's when the shit show really began. Carjacking? Meh, throw down between me and my mom? ATOMIC.

Nipper went down to get my mother's car. She was watching out the window, and I was pacing back and forth babbling like an idiot. Don't you wish you could tell me to shut up right now? She was telling me what happened, but I couldn't even really hear what she was saying, because all I was thinking was "how can I keep her from what just happened?" " How can I minimize this, so that I don't have to hear about how this city isn't safe FOREVER." "Why did this happen to HER? Why couldn't it have happened to me?" I would have taken it as a secret to my grave. "Nothing bad EVER happens here!" "We live in PARADISE! LOOK AT MY BAMBOO SOCKS!"

"Of course it's not safe!" I was shouting in my own head, "it's a city!" But this is what came out of my mouth: "in 14 years of living here I have never had anything like this happen! Nothing!" And then: "I just find it amazing that you are here 1 week, and of course this happens to YOU". She walked right out the front door. Nothing like blaming the victim, while their still at the scene of the crime. Don't worry, Nipper Knapp informed me immediately that I am in fact the world's biggest asshole, and I apologized. But you know I was in fight or flight baby! I had to excise my demons! Had to dump the adrenaline on someone! Had to try to shape the current events to match my world view. Had to keep my mom from saying "I told you so" AT ALL COSTS. Whoopsy tootsie!

In the last 24 hours, my mother has heard every different side of the story from several neighbors. My neighborhood is super gossipy, I can't imagine what they say about us, and I give them NOTHING. I'm convinced, we'll never know what really happened. One side says that the guys had smashed into the guy in the grey truck on their way up the hill and they were trying to escape his wrath, when they met my mother's car coming down the hill. Which explains the engine revving, tires squealing, panicked escape from vehicle, and gun waving (no it doesn't explain that, but...). They weren't trying to car jack my mom, they were trying to get past my mom. But then why'd they follow her into the dead end? They were super stoned. The crash we heard was not them smashing into her car. They smashed into something else. I don't actually know what. Or maybe the grey truck crashed into them. They were super high. Did they even see my mom? Apparently when the cops asked them in they were high, they were just like "uh yeeeeah". Again this from a game of telephone amongst my neighbors.

When I ran out on the street shouting "the police are on their way" the grey truck apparently drove off, maybe had something to hide. But today, the other neighbor who called 911, said the driver of the truck pounded on his door and said to call 911, so why then, did he leave before they got there. I didn't see him drive off, because I was in my dining room, hugging my mom, shaking, and about to say something really regrettable.

So that happened. But then I had a glass of wine, and the next morning, the neighbors who also called the police, brought my mom a very nice bottle of Cuban Rum, with a note reminding her that "LA has lots of nice people". My mom and Charlie went for a long walk, they had a swing in the breezeway. We've turned the whole thing over and over, pulling out every detail to debate it's merit. I'm ready to let it pass. Our life is busy, and I have things to do. Everything keeps going, the sky is so blue, and the mountains are so clear. Why are some of the most beautiful days the ones before or after disaster. So yeah, someone waved a gun at my mom, the neighbors talk about you behind your back, and there's a T-mobile billboard at the bottom of the hill that just says "SIN" in big pink letters because it's en español. But hey, say it with me "IT'S NOT COMPTON!

The Man Repeller in a nutshell

2011-10-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

A little bit ago I mentioned a website called The Man Repeller. It's a cute girl who works in fashion, whose clothes choices, are all things that girls LOVE, and men hate. You have to go to the site to see what I'm talking about, but I experience this with Nipper Knapp all the time.

The first "infraction", I incurred was wearing uggs with mini skirts when we were first married. "This makes no sense!" he would exclaim. "It's warm enough for a skirt, but then you're wearing big wooly muckalucks. You think this looks cute. It doesn't." He can pry my uggs from my cold dead feet. Motherhood has gone ahead and taken my mini skirts. They're still in the closet, because I can't bear to think I'm *gasp* too old for them, but, they haven't been touched in years.

Then came the Luke Skywalker boots. I actually had these in two iterations. The first was a cheap pair from Target. They were sandy suede mid calf boots with a zipper, and had suede buckle straps all around them. I also wore these with mini skirts. For this infraction he'd greet me at the door with a "Hi honey, how was your trip to Tatooine today?" Stupid man. For my birthday three years ago Nipper's mother upgraded my Tatooine boots to a pair of Fiorentini and Baker boots from Barney's. (I love this woman) I don't get to wear these enough because I have kids, and you actually have to buckle the buckles (3 per boot) and who has time to do that, or the flexibility to bend over while holding Andre the Giant baby.

I know there are other fashion things I do that make Nipper roll his eyes. There was a beautiful cream YA-YA trench coat I got at a sample sale at the house of the Billion Dollar Babes founder. It had a giant cowl neck, and all kind of complicated buttons and a belt. GORGEOUS. It made me feel like Diane Keaton in a Nancy Meyers movie. He hates it.

Ok, I blocked their faces to protect identities, but these two beauties are an example of the difference between men and women. One is a man repeller, and one is not.

The other day we were waiting at an audition space in Santa Monica. This girl walked in, and as she passes in front of us, both staring I say "oh COME ON". To which he says "you see?!" She was gorgeous. She looked like Naomi Watts, all wind tousled, and wearing some drapey outfit with a short skirt, and layered tops, and suede knee boots, and a big boho bag. She was the effortless beauty every girl aspires too. That's what my "oh come on" meant, like, she's perfect, stop looking. But Nipper's "you see?!" meant something entirely different. He thought she looked RIDICULOUS. He was like why'd she have to ruin being cute, with that horrible outfit. And then he asked where she was hiding her light saber, and if she left the window cracked for the Jawas she left in the car. DUDES!

About 5 minutes later another girl walked by. This time we both just stared. Her legs were 14 feet tall. She was the closest thing to a giraffe I've ever seen in person. She was wearing shorts, a simple blouse, and great shoes. On this we can agree, if you have legs like that, you can wear whatever you want. Sigh.

The other day I saw these jackets at American Rag. The first one is amazing. Perfectly broken in, buttery soft. Ironic patches, nehru collar. I had one just like it in high school. I think it had a Misfits skull painted on the back. It's a terrible picture, and you can't really see, but the second one is navy blue. You also can't see that it's $2000. They were both $2000. I think this would be the perfect thing to remind me that I was once cool, and can still be, if only I had $2000 laying around to spend on a jacket, I'd be embarrassed to wear to pre-k drop off...with my mini skirt and skywalker boots.

That's all I've got for today. Oh except this. I got these gold safety pin earrings made for me last year, by the a goldsmith, who is a friend of a stylist we work with a bunch. (brag drop dear greer) They are my homage to my punk rock youth, (I may or may not have pierced my nose in a London hotel room with a safety pin when I was 15) But they are solid gold, so it's ironic. God I hate when I have to explain things. I get tons of compliments on them. They are my diamond studs. I never take them off. I'm wearing them right now with khakis and a lavender cashmere cardigan. OH THE IRONY! Take that mom! Sorry, having my mom around may or may not be raising some inner teen rebellion. If you notice me hiding out in the prius sneaking cigarettes, and sexting with Nipper Knapp, don't be alarmed, I'm fine. Just fine...

Burnout Book Club

2011-10-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

one of my favorite books...well it used to be. Now my favorite book is paddington.

Ok, here's MY book club proposal. Only mom's and singles with very little energy can be asked to join. No go-getters, or people with "big plans". The meetings will rotate from each persons house each month, meet at a park, coffee house, or pre-school parking lot. The meetings will last anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours depending on nap time. No new books will be read. As a matter of fact no reading will be required at all.

At the beginning of each meeting someone will start by saying "hey did you ever read ______" and name a book they read in college/high school/ before death and taxes were everything. Then people will either say yes, or no. Everyone can say "I loved that book, it really changed my view of ________" or "oh I always meant to read that, but never got around to it", or "I picked it up 5 times over the last 15 years, but can't get past page 7."

Then we'd all order a round of drinks, and move on to complaining about the following topics: Kids, schools, husbands, sex, other moms, other kids, in-laws, own mother, fat, vaccines, and most importantly "those people".

After that people can quietly excuse themselves as their ability to put together any more thoughts or sentences for the day are exhausted. The host will be left feeling edified, and a tiny bit triumphant, and will sleep like a baby...when they get a minute

oh darla!

2011-10-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

I was telling Nipper Knapp that I don't like some of the things Jack has been doing lately. Not behaviors, he's great. Activities. The usual mom complaints. Too much tv, too much ipad, mostly just too much time inside. He asked what I'd rather he be doing, to which I replied immediately, "read a book, ride a bike, play in his tree house, run outside and not come back until I call for dinner, get dirty, CATCH FROGS!" He said "ok". But before he could mock me I said "I know, I want him to be a boy in 1953, I get it."

I have no illusions about the world we live in. I have my nose buried in an iphone, ipad, imac, half the time. I write a mom blog. I make a living selling things on tv. The irony is not lost on me. But sometimes I wish I could just take my boys to a compound near the sea and raise them, just like they do in the wild. You'll notice I didn't say the country. I don't want to live in the country. Because you know, there's other people in "the country". People with opinions about things. What I want is a solitary life where they can climb rocks, and swim in the ocean, and ponder the vastness of the universe without some local crumb bum filling their mind with thoughts about stuff. I want my boys to be filled with curiousity and wanderlust, oh and an undying love for their mama. is that too much to ask?

School of choice

2011-09-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are entering the thorny thicket of school choices. I use the word "choices" broadly, because what I really mean is "desperate hail mary attempts to get our child into a school where he won't be maimed, mentally, physically, or otherwise".

We bought our house a few months before Jack was born. We had the sunny belief that we'd be sending him to the French school when it came time for his little mind to be molded into a good little citizen. But then we met him, got to know him, realized we're pretty partial to him, and oh yeah, visited the French school. No cold Gaullist was going to reprimand my baby for mixing up his etre with his avoir. We lucked out with his preschool, because all they required of us was a reasonable amount of money. But now it's time to get him into an elementary school, hopefully that he will be in with the same (ish) kids until he graduates from High School. In Los Angeles. I KNOW. What kind of 1970's midwestern fantasyland am I living in?

Here's the problem. Our neighborhood public school is bad. Not so bad that it's on the list for schools you can opt out of in the, school of choice, program, but bad enough that we wouldn't send him there for one day. There's another school nearby, that needs bodies. I mean children. It's a BEAUTIFUL school, so pretty, they used it in an episode of MAD MEN, because it looks like a beautiful mid 20th century learning heaven, where older ladies who maybe still wore girdles under their tweed skirts, taught the youth of tomorrow, to conjugate verbs, and dream about space. The houses surrounding the school are estates. Not just mansions, estates. Long rolling green lawns leading to 8000 square foot homes in every style, with guest house, and pools, tennis courts with lights. But guess what. The school sucks. None of the kids in that school live in those estates. Everyone who lives in the neighborhood is 112 years old. There are no children. I don't know which came first the bad school, or the no kids, but now it's an ever worsening cycle. So depressing.

This is Arroyo Vista, one of the schools, in one of the 3 good school districts in all of Los Angeles. Even kids who live IN this district, have to lottery into the school. INSANE.

So, that leaves us with neighboring schools that we would have to get an inter-district permit for EVERY YEAR (read, we can be happily sailing along in the 8th grade after years and years in a school, and they can give him the boot), private schools we can't afford (if one more person tells me $19,475 a year really isn't that bad for Los Angeles...murder), magnet schools, (museum science anyone?),and charter schools. We walked out of a meeting for a charter school this morning that everyone has been saying is THE BEST, when we read that they have temporarily ended their music and art classes due to budget cuts. For elementary school. No music. No art. For little kids. That's a deal breaker for us. What are they going to teach them ALGEBRA? CHEMISTRY? What a disaster. Have we lost our minds?

No Child Left Behind should be called America Left Behind. We're such idiots. I don't want to get into some political discussion here, (so please don't write me some libertarian rant about educating our own), but seriously, dudes, in terms of brain trust, we are like the grasshopper who sang all summer. Except that instead of singing, we just binged ourselves on suvs, subprime mortgages, dancing with the stars, and fat. I'M A COMMUNIST! You didn't know. I told you I went to Cuba in college. You were confused by all the Marc Jacobs, and stories about fancy cookies. Well, now you know.

We're not alone. Sandra Tsing Loh, wrote a whole web page about this very topic after navigating the impenetrable maze of middle class school options in the LAUSD. It's called "Sandra Tsing Loh's Scandalously Informal Guide to Los Angeles Schools". It's an easy read, and if you know STL, you can imagine her saying the words in her funny cadence, and it makes it, just that much more entertaining...and depressing.

I don't know what we're going to do. Deadlines for tours are coming and going. Lotteries, application dates, move by dates (yes I said that), are upon us. In the last 5 days we've even discussed bribing (I mean paying, PAYING) Nipper's sister, who is an amazing, and dedicated school teacher to come to Los Angeles, to teach our kids, and our friend's kids. You know, sort of like a private tutor, home school, one room school house sort of thing. At least for elementary and middle school. Why not? When you start looking at the real options, it doesn't seem so far fetched. I know, communist. It's not your fault, you thought I was some kind of Target loving dilettante who just flitted from one half finished glamor project to the next. I am, but I'm also a pinko. I put kale in my smoothies.

I'd love to hear some of your stories about school placement anxiety. Just to make myself feel better. Oh, and for those of you who live in Portland, and your kids walk two blocks to the AWESOME neighborhood public school where they have a spring musical, and an organic farm, you know where you can stick your story.

As I lay Dying

2011-09-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine started a book club. I like her, and knew she'd bring together a great group of people. I was curious. As soon as I brought it up, everyone who knows me just gave me "the look". "Obviously, you aren't going to do this and why are you even talking about it?" That's what the look says. It also says "Bitch please". But I ignored the look. Then my friend chose "As I Lay Dying", by Faulkner as the first book. Uhm, ok. Never mind I can't find time to read Vanity Fair in the bathroom even. I can totally do this! I WENT TO COLLEGE!

I happen to have the book already. It's been on my shelf for years. It's one of my father's favorite books. My first clue should have been that I've owned the book since before I had kids. Hello Dumb Dumb.

I don't really need to go on about this anymore. I didn't even get the book off the shelf. Didn't even physically move it from the shelf to say, my bedside table, or the diaper bag. Didn't even pretend to try.

I remember talking to this ex boyfriend of mine once, years ago. I was here in LA, single, 3 cats, guitar, lots of expensive salads, and he was in NYC. We were talking over email, and I must have asked him to talk about something, or about talking on the phone about something, or to look at something. I don't know. And he said "I won't be able to do that until October". It was mid-summer. I remember thinking he was a douchebag (he was), and what kind of asshole says, they are busy until "insert month name". I thought he was just being blustery and self important (he was).

But dudes, I will be busy, and won't be able to look at your thing, talk on the phone, or get together for an expensive salad until October, of 2025. Excuse me if I'm overusing this phrase, but this two kid thing is for realz. I wish I could take that sentence back.

After the fender bender, air dry, day, Nipper and I agreed we need help. He doesn't have time to write, I don't have time to write. Every time we get auditions we sigh. The daily acrobatics to get to auditions, school, get everyone fed, were becoming more and more terse. No one has time to work out, much less see each other, or eat sitting down. The pink man cave? Haven't been in there in months. The kitchen counter is covered in mail (did you just hear Nipper Knapp shiver?) I haven't been to a dentist, in a really, really, really, long time. There's a thing on my arm, I think I need to have looked at. My hair color, which I've been doing myself is a ridiculous color yellow. On a good note, I now KNOW that I can function on 5 hours of sleep a night.

So we asked my mom. To move here. To Los Angeles. From Oregon. For a year. And guess what. She said yes. As a matter of fact, she was here, and had an apartment rented within 3 weeks of asking. That's family. She has a busy life, filled with projects and people of her own to look after. But here she is, looking after my little people, so I can catch a breath.

A week after Charlie was born, we parted ways with Jack's longtime babysitter (not ready to talk about that yet). Our good friends across the street (Brett, this guilt trip's just for you!) moved away, and my whole world went kaboom. All my best laid plans up in smoke, we managed to hobble through the first few months. I thought it was a little more stressful, but not too bad. Then I went back to work. Then I died.

So here we are. In the most unlikely scenario I could have predicted. I sort of imagine my mom getting the email where I ask her if she can move here for the year, to help, like this: My mom sits in a bookshelf lined room. She's in a heavy leather office chair facing a computer screen. It's silent, save the sound of birds in a tree near an open window. She's quietly checking facebook, reading articles friends have sent her about feline leukemia, Bella Abzug, and the Marshall plan, when a chime sounds that she has an email. She clicks over to read it. At once she is standing, the chair upended, several loose papers swan to the ground. "I GOT THE CALL!" she shouts, as her previously sleeping cat opens one eye, rolls it, and goes back to sleep. Also it's possible that the theme song from Rocky started playing quietly as she read, and was blasting by the time she announced her victory, leading into a montage of her packing, doing push-ups and sitting in a coffee shop with a bunch of other yoga grandmas patting her on the back, shaking there heads approvingly. I'm pretty sure that's how it went.

My mom is busy setting up her apartment, which is absolutely perfect, and reminds me of a cross between Melrose Place, and the Brady Bunch house. It's got a pool in an elevated center courtyard. We've already moved a closet full of kids toys over there (can you hear Nipper Knapp laughing maniacally?) Nipper and I have seen TWO movies since she got here a week ago. TWO! There isn't much I like better than sitting in a dark movie theater eating popcorn with Nipper Knapp. I've been to several auditions sans baby, and Nipper and I even carpooled to a few last week. He listened to his sports podcast on the car radio and I listened to the WTF podcast on my headphones. HEAVEN. Dear people without kids, heaven is no one talking to you. We got to our audition all relaxed and dreamy, and holding hands. I'm sure half of Los Angeles wants to punch us.

So wish us luck. My mom and I haven't lived with, or near each other in 20 years. But before my hair falls out and we have raccoons living in the attic, I will have a year of free babysitting, free from worry (about those things), free from missing my husband, and she will have a year of smelling baby necks, and learning ALL about each and every detail of the Lego Hero Factory robots. Win-win. Right?

But they're so slimming!

2011-09-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

God, grant me the serenity to accept the maternity stretch pants I cannot change out of,
Courage to change into a pair with a button when I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I'm not gonna lie, I need to do some sit-ups. And stop eating gorilla munch every night.

The other night my friend Danielle's husband outed her maxi dress for what it really is: sweatpants without a crotch. BASTARD. Why do you have to ruin the illusion?! It's a dress! So what that's it's basically a long tshirt that hides everything. It's a dress!

Which brings me to The Man Repeller. Have you guys seen this site? It's dedicated to all the cute stuff that girls love that men hate: boots with skirts, dresses over jeans, giant sweaters with weird fringe, etc... I sent it to a very fashionable friend of mine, and she called me laughing "It's like ALL of my clothes! It's amazing I have a husband and a baby!"

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water.

2011-09-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

please note the shoes...

A few weeks ago, I had one of those days that makes you question everything. I know I've been super dramatic lately (LATELY), but since I went back to work, everything feels like crazytown. Someone always needs something, and no one seems to be getting what they need. I miss Jack, I miss Nipper Knapp, I can't stand how many bottles Charlie has already had in his little life (I know, I know, but it's how I feel). The nursing, pumping, driving, mascara, slating, smiling, driving, pumping, nursing, sleeping, oh eating, nursing, schedule is starting to tear me apart. How is it that I'm "doing it all", and still feel guilty. On this particular day we had auditions all over, and Jack was out of school, so he was along for the ride. Poor circus baby.

We had a callback in the afternoon in Santa Monica that we couldn't take the kids too. So we had arranged to have Sadie's AMAZING babysitter, who has been helping us out a bit here and there pick up the kids in between auditions at the pizza place where we'd be having lunch. I was a little nervous. Jack doesn't really know the sitter very well, and I was worried he was going to be upset. He wasn't. I told him she had good music in her car, and he said "but daddy and I listen to DUDES music". I asked what that might be and he said "Star Wars, and Batman". "And Tangled?" I asked. "YES, and Tangled". I burned him a cd for her car. But then I was worried about having both boys in the car with someone else, driving around LA, on the 110 freeway, eek! You know mom stuff.

I was worrying about mom stuff, talking on the phone with Sadie (on the bluetooth to the car, geez). I was stopped in traffic about halfway between Pico and Venice, on La Brea, when I saw a car speeding up behind me. Crash. Shit. I think I might have said "I'm having an accident". I don't know. It was a blur. The tail end of my car was smushed, the trunk pushed into itself, so the door won't close. The girl didn't have any id. No wallet. No purse. Nothing. Oh, and it wasn't her car. She said "can I just give you my phone number?" She was young. Sigh. No, you can't just give me your phone number. The whole time I'm standing out there talking to this twit, the headache that I'd been staving off starts to build. I'm squinting into the mid day heat, taking iphone pics of the car, the girl, her car, the plates. I'm going to be late for my callback now. I'm paying someone $18 an hour to drive my kids home so I can talk to this girl. That's the economic facts of the situation. This girl cost me at least $7 in babysitter time. I take the registration info from the owner of the car.

In the middle of it, the babysitter texts. They're home. Jack gave her directions the whole way. I'm thinking over and over how glad I am that the kids weren't in the car, their little bodies safe at home.

I meet Nipper Knapp at our callback. I hug him hard, and for a long time. I know we need to go in, but I'm stunned, and I just want to stand there on the street and hug some more. I also want to lay down a little bit. We go into the casting office. We make small talk with the casting agent and her husband. We do our scene for the director, which happens to be our house has just been robbed, no problem, I'm right there.

We had planned to try to get in early and go to the Rose Bowl to use the gym, and swim, while we had a sitter. But now, the bumper of the car is hanging off, and I'm frazzled, and it's 3:30 and we're out in Santa Monica, and it'll be an hour home anyway. "Let's just go home." "No", Nipper says, you should go swim a little, decompress, I'll go home and relieve the babysitter. I love him.

So he hauls my swim bag out of the trunk of the broken car. Up and over the backseat because the trunk door is broken. Off I go. I'm in a fog. I'm in that weird state where stress gives way to extreme sleepiness and lack of focus. I text my mom, she calls me 13 seconds later. "Are you ok?" "I'm fine". Not really though.

this doesn't haven't anything to do with this story, I just saw it, and it made me laugh. Am I the whale? Is life the whale?

When I get to the Rose Bowl, I realize that some things fell out of my bag. I have one flip flop, and no towel. COME ON! I'm determined to have one thing progress as usual. I put on my swimsuit, tiptoe across the hot pavement, and jump in the pool. My back and neck are tight, and I can't tell if it's tension or from the accident. I swim a little, but mostly, I just float. After 20 minutes of staring at the sky, I get out.

Here's my grand plan. I'm going to shower, and then I'm going to get enough paper towels to dry my hair a little, just so it's not dripping. I'm going to put on some lotion, and air dry. It won't take long. This is my plan. We all know how well my plans have been going lately. As soon as I get in the shower I realize I'm an idiot, but it's too late. The locker room is filling with tween girls. They've just finished swim practice, and they're everywhere. There's nowhere to stand much less AIR DRY. I'm used to being there in the middle of the day with all the other jobless old ladies and hobos.

I wedge myself in between two 12 year olds. I'm naked holding my giant pink and orange LL Bean bag. You know, they're like "Uhm, gross". I would be, if it wasn't me being the weirdo. I walk over to the paper towel dispenser and it's out. Of course it is. The only other one is near the door to the pool. What are my options? Did I mention the only clothes I have to change into are my audition clothes (too tight jeans, and a halter top, electric blue clog sandals), and my workout clothes (white v-neck tee, nursing bra, grey striped cotton leggings). None of this is going to be awesome if I have to put it on wet.

Here's what I do. Because I have apparently lost the shame particle, that should have made me wait naked in the bathroom stall until I was dry. I dry myself off with the halter top. That's right, in the middle of a throng of overachieving (swim team? c'mon) 13 year old girls, I dab myself dry with a halter top. I make every effort not to get too *ahem* personal, but god help me, I'm not gonna walk through the Rose Bowl lobby and parking lot with a wet cooter. I get mostly dry, and I wrap the halter around my hair to keep it from dripping. I'm standing there with this drenched halter turban, digging through my bag, and it's really hot in there, and I'm still a little bit damp, and I'm starting to sweat because my nervous system is shouting "FLIGHT! FLIGHT!"

Not just a little bit, I'm dying inside. I want to tell this girl next to me who has become morbidly silent amidst the other chattering girls, to "I used to be normal, just wait until you go back to work after having your second baby, extracurriculars my ass..." But I don't say anything, I just bury my shame deep behind an aloof mask and carry on. Like, this is just how I do it. Soon this is how everyone will do it. I'M DOING THIS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT!!!

The girls clear out as fast as they came in, and I'm mostly alone to finish the post swim of shame. I'm just pulling on my workout clothes, with my clogs (Maybe they'll mistake me for one of those cool/weird European women, that don't understand fashion conventions, but ends up looking "neat" anyway) (#maybeIshouldstayhome) as another rush hits the locker room. College aged lifeguards in training. Thank you god for small miracles. "I really didn't need to stand in a humid toilet stall and dry myself with tp today."

Did I mention we just asked my mom to move here for the year to help us out? Do you like how I buried the lead?

misssoni mayhem

2011-09-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry. I know. I've been gone a long time. But this two babies thing is for reals yo. I'm sort of drowning. I have big news coming. But no time to write. Soon. Next week. I promise. I have notes for 5 posts. Things are happening! Namely I'm drowning.

This morning, I finished school drop off early, which is whole other post about how you just can't argue with someone when they say they have to poop. You can't. I read on a friend's facebook page that she saw a small child bloodied in the frenzy at the Austin Target when the Missoni line opened this morning. I'm not a big Missoni fan, but those guest designers always do cute stuff, and since 15 minutes to myself is a polynesian vacation, off I went. Oh, and of course the prospect that I might see a fight. You know that's always good. Got to keep my edge... I decided I'd forgo pumping a bottle for this little adventure, maybe make one after he goes to bed tonight. Living the dream.

I got to my local Target in Pasadena 40 minutes after they had opened. It might as well have been 4 days. EVERY SINGLE ITEM WAS GONE. The parking lot was jammed with jettas, and prius' with Wellsley College bumper stickers. I should have known. The atmosphere was giddy. Packs of stylists (I could tell by their cute vintage glasses, mismatched clothes, and lack of souls) with carts piled to the ceiling were wildly picking through children's shoe boxes in the hopes of finding a children's xl that they could smash their size 7.5s into.

As I approached the bedding section, I overhead one woman angrily exclaim to who, I'm assuming was her husband on her phone "Well have you ever heard of buy and return?!", as she threw a comforter into her already packed cart without so much as a look. Another woman nearby naively giggled "I don't even know why I'm buying this!"

I went upstairs to the children's section to see if I could find something for my niece. Jackpot. Barely anything was gone, except of course the socks. As I was picking out some cute pieces for her, a woman and her friend approached. They were picking the girls clothes off the racks holding them up to themselves with a disappointed air. Clearly they'd come to late. NO MISSONI FOR YOU! The saddest one held a knit kilt up to her completely average woman sized hips and said "what do you think?" "CUTE!" said the friend in too high a register, as she cocked her head to the side, and then "although I'm not sure it's going to pleat the way you want it too".

oh my god.

As I was walking to the checkout, a Target employee rolled a cart with boxes of shoes, into a throng of women waiting by elevator, and just shouted "SHOES" as he backed away. He had to shout it twice to be heard over their excited chatter. It was feeding time at the lion cage. They all gasped and dove in at once. I turned away, my stomach for the hunt soured.

I said to the checkout lady "these women have lost their minds!". She said that a woman who looked like she couldn't afford the shirt she was wearing bought $2700 worth of stuff without even looking at it. That she had RUN into the store and just started grabbing. "They're selling this stuff on ebay for a huge markup, then anything they don't sell, they bring back when it's worth zero." I promised her I was buying the girls clothes for an actual girl, and I wouldn't sell any of it on ebay. Then I cursed myself for not getting there earlier and making and extra buck... Just kidding. Not really.

Coming up, very soon, how I got in a minor fender bender, had an awkward moment in a locker room, and how very very soon, we are getting another family member here (no I'm not pregnant).

I promised myself I wasn't going to blog tonight

2011-09-01T20:39:00.000-07:00

best panty ever...

But I have 18minutes until the wash is ready to put in the dryer, so you, know, might as well offload some of the detritus. I mean, write something.

It has come to my attention that some of you think that my attempts at making homemade underwear is a cry for help. I can assure you, this is merely a mark of my obsessive behavior, and not one of us being broke, or me being crazy. Oh, I mean, I'm CRAZY, but not "sews her own underpants crazy". Well, attempts to, but not does, and wears. Never mind.

I shot pics for a company called Park Vogel years ago. Their clothes were the dreamiest. Vanessa, one of their designers is a "guru of textiles". They made cashmere sweaters, and fancy modal t-shirts, and for only one season, boy shorts and camisoles, made out of the most amazing cotton modal. In compensation for our photoshoots, which were for their lookbooks, I received, money, but also loads and loads of free clothes. Dream job. In the 3 or 4 seasons I shot for them, I got about 15 pairs of their underwear. I should have gotten 100 instead of the piles of cashmere that now sits in my closet unworn in this hot, hot, city.

I have 3 pairs left, and they are in tatters. I've tried to wear other underwear, but nothing is as comfortable. They are whisper soft, the perfect shape, almost sheer they are so light, and 100% cotton. I'm welling up a little realizing that I might have to put some kind of cotton spandex blend near my lady business very very soon. Depressing.

The camisoles that they sold with the underwear were super cute, and had a built in shelf bra, but in reality couldn't be worn if you were above a b cup, because your boobs just fell out. Not pretty.

I thought I could cut apart one of my remaining pairs, make a pattern, and cut up the camisoles to use the amazing fabric for more panties. Uhm... you guys know I'm sleep deprived, right?

Not as cute

I'll spare you the details, but it didn't turn out so well, and I'm abandoning ship. I couldn't cut the fabric straight enough. Can't find the right lace, and OH, I am terrible at sewing neat little seams. Someone recommended ongossamer cabana cotton boyshorts. I'll try them, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

OH MY GOD I JUST WENT LOOKING FOR A PICTURE OF THE UNDERWEAR AND REALIZED I WROTE THIS SAME POST ALREADY A YEAR AGO. LORD HELP ME! I'VE BEEN WEARING HOLEY UNDERWEAR FOR OVER A YEAR. AND I'M REBLOGGING ABOUT IT! #depressing

I want to tell you all about last night

2011-08-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Warning, there is mention of breastfeeding in this post. So if you are Bill Maher, or any other douchebag who thinks baby's magically feed themselves at Spago, don't read any further. Also go suck an egg.

This is a story about one night. Well not really one night. It's a story of many nights run together through, one after the other, bleeding mercilessly into days packed with running here and there, peppered with laundry, occasional application of mascara, and many, many, many insurance, school, and bank forms to be filled out. This is my life. It's not war, and it's not bad, it's just...wow, its just endless. We're past long days, short years. We're into short days, short years, short hours. There are not enough seconds in each minute. I can see both of the boys changing daily, and even though I'm here, watching, I am worried I might be missing something.

I'm not complaining. In the year 2011, this is a very good life. We have a home, a garden, the best swing chair ever, full dental, clean water, organic cotton socks, each other, you know, the good stuff. But I can't help but think that something is amiss. Don't worry, I'm not going to check out, and move my family off the grid to a farm in the ozarks, or anything, but when life's pace faster is than Usain Bolt at a square dance..that doesn't even make any sense. I'm sorry.

(woah! I know! Shocking!)

Ok, here's one example from this week and then I'll tell you about night. Yesterday I bought THE BRA. What? You don't know about THE BRA? I was told about THE BRA, by another actress and new mom at an audition a few weeks ago. She's a pilates instructor, as well as a new mom, and an actor, so she does a lot of driving. A lot of times our appointments are within an hour of each other on opposite sides of town. We were discussing when to pump, how to pump, etc... and she said "well you have THE BRA, right?" "NO! I don't have the bra! What is the bra?" and then another woman who had been eavesdropping chimed in "oh yeah, she's right, you have to get THE BRA."

They explained that THE BRA, was actually a sort of tube top with a zip front, that has cut outs around the nipples (kinky! but not...) so you can put the little cups for the pump inside them, screw on bottles, connect the tubes, turn on your pump, and make milk out of BOTH SIDES at the same time. SO smart. I don't know why I didn't know about THE BRA before. I have a double pump, but I always just pumped one side at a time, and held the bottle in my hand. Now it takes only half the time. But that's not the best part about THE BRA. The pilates/actor/mom tells me: "this way you don't have to pull over to pump, you can just do it on your way to your next appointment". DID YOU HEAR ME? I can make milk out of my breasts while driving. This is the ultimate in mommy efficiency and it fills my heart with both joy and anxiety. OMG! Think of all the other things I can get done in the 20 minutes, I'm saving every 2 hours, from not having to PULL OVER and make milk. I'm sorry I'll stop shouting. I just can't imagine what my grandmother would think about me hurtling down the 101 freeway, milk pump attached under very stylish nursing cover. And I'm happy about it. I think.

SO about last night. Here's how it went, give or take. Baby goes down around 6:45 after a very short nurseyloo. No problem. 45 minutes later he's up. Normally I'd just send Nipper in to soothe him. But I don't mind giving him a little more milk because he didn't really nurse much, and I'm pretty rested because I got to sleep until 7:45 that morning because my darling husband took both kids downstairs at 6:30, or maybe it was 7. I don't know. So he nurses again, this time for a long time, and I put him back in his crib. Good night Charlie. Now I join Jack's bedtime already in progress. We negotiate who is going to read, (daddy) and who is going to get the shaft with a "you can read tomorrow night" (mommy). We remind him not to suck all the toothpaste off the toothbrush like he does every night. We remind him not to pick his nose or he'll get a nosebleed (again). We say "ok, let's settle down, it's time for bed" 18,000 times. We say I love you, and kiss eyelids and cheeks, and he says cute, funny things, that we think "I have to remember that". One of us reads, and the other one RACES downstairs in order to get a precious 30 minutes to do WHATEVER they want. FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMM! (I usually opt for laundry, the daily show, and checking email. The man's not going to keep me down) All of this takes an hour total.

During all of this I'm thinking about those awful morning news programs, and magazine blurbs about how you shouldn't just eat the kids leftovers before you scrape them into the garbage, and how you can exercise in your "downtime" as a parent. "Just a few crunches while you bathe the kids! Take the stairs!" Who the FUCK do these people think they are? There should be a law.

Now it's almost 9 o'clock. We don't usually eat dinner. Just a big late lunch. Sometimes I make us a green smoothie for dinner (racy). But last night I had cereal instead. He's been asleep 2 hours, so I pump a bottle. Because the milk train NEVER stops. But I don't get very much because it's night, and I had to do that 2nd bedtime nurse, and I'm irritated, that I spent 15 minutes of my "me" time pumping, when I could be sprawled on the couch not thinking about anything. I'm so irritated that I go to bed. Well, I SAY I'm going to bed, and then I spend 30 minutes perched on the edge of the couch watching whatever Nipper has on the tv, and stating every commercial break that I need to go to sleep. At 10 I give in, and go upstairs.

But I don't go to sleep. I check facebook, twitter, email, read a blog or two. I go over the day in my head, make lists for the next day in my head, try to solve everybody's problems IN MY HEAD. After I come with a solution for world peace, and a good retirement plan, I fall asleep. Moments later, I hear Jack's door open. He trundles across the hall, piles into the bed, lays on top of me and whispers "mommy I want to snuggle you". Fine. All of my daytime fight is gone. "Ok, shhh". We fall back to sleep. This for me is a minor miracle and a sign that I am no longer me. Most nights, if so much as Nipper's toe is touching me foot, I can't sleep. It's like that toe is trying to BURN A HOLE IN MY SOUL.

I used to read. Books. I used to read books. Before bed. Every night. Now I don't even read magazines. I don't even pick them up to look at the pictures. It's too much information. My brain can not contain any more information than it now contains. Not one more item.

Because I made a bottle at 9, I assume Charlie will wake up early just to torture, me. But not tonight. He sleeps. He sleeps like a motherfucker. I wake up at 2am TWO AY EM! I slept for almost 4 hours with Jack and his jimmy legs sprawled on me. He's managed to have his 100lb head on my neck and somehow at the same time have his pointy little elbows and knees in my sides. All of them. All 4 elbows and knees are poking into me. I sit right up in bed look at the clock on my phone. I grab the monitor in a panic and watch for signs of life. He's breathing. Ok. I pee. I'm up. I just slept for 4 hours. Longer than I've slept in months. I'm going to pay for this. I am wide awake.

Charlie wakes up at 2:30 and I go in his room to nurse him. I go back to bed. Jack has noodled all the way over to my pillow, and so now I must wedge myself 1/3 of the way down the bed on the side. I check facebook. I check twitter. Why? I don't know. I look at pictures of the kids on my phone. Charlie wakes back up at 3:20. He slept too long. Now he's up too. Fuck. I nurse him again and he goes back to sleep. Jack wakes long enough to mumble "mommy I want to snuggle you". Tomorrow we are going to have a talk. His head is on my pillow and the rest of his body is sideways across the top of the bed. His little behind is right in front of Nipper's face. He farts. LOUD. And for about 4-5 seconds. It must be like a nuclear cloud over there, but Neither Nipper nor Jack wake up. Serves them right for sleeping through all of Charlie's fussing. I'm laughing, trying not shake the bed. It is now 3:40. 3:42. 3:51... At last I sleep.

At 5:40 Charlie cries again. I drag my carcass out of the bed. I want to pee, but it's early, and if he cries too long and it get's louder, he's going to wake Jack up, then Nip will be tired, and Jack will be tired, and everything will be TERRIBLE, ALL DAY LONG. So, I hold it. Charlie is sort of wide awake when I put him back in his crib, but I give him his pacifier and his eyes roll back in his head. I go back to bed. I go through Jack's room (we have a Jack and Jill bathroom) so I don't walk on the creaky part of our bedroom floor and wake anyone up. This is the kind of information that is now in my head, replacing other important information. Sigh.

Jack is now starfished, kitty corner across my entire half of the bed. I'm mad. I'm not going to lie. What the fuck kid? You've got a bunk bed in your room, A BUNK BED! With a shark nightlight, and stuffed animals, and a moby light, and a feather bed! My 4yr old has a feather bed, because I'm aiming to make my kids as poncy as possible. I'm sure they'll get roughed up by the world. Why not expect a comfortable bed? So that's TWO beds, and he doesn't even have to nurse a baby, or wear mascara. I contemplate going into his bed to sleep, but I know that's not going to work. I'll just lay there pissed. SO, I pick him up and move him 12 inches, into the middle of the bed. I know it's a mistake, but I'm fed up. He wakes up. DUH. I know he's going to wake up the moment I scoop him up, but I can't help myself. My brain is scrambled.

He rouses a little, rolls over onto my pillow (does this thing have a gravitational pull?) and says "mommy I want to snuggle you". It is 6:04. Good morning Nipper.

Signs

2011-08-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Should I be worried?

Full disclosure: On the way home from our Jack and Mommy night out the other night, he was playing out a scene in the back seat where the Boba Fett lego was asking the Mandalorian Clone lego if he wanted to go on a date. Fett sounded pretty nervous, but when the clone said yes, he was pretty cool about. This charming boy with decapitation fascination is my spawn...

You got Mike Tyson'd

2011-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

Have I ever told you guys the story of how Nipper and I met? I'm turning into the old ship's captain who regales you with the same boring fish story every night at dinner time. Except this one begins with me trying to throw the catch of the day back into the drink.

The night before I met Nipper I had a little birthday party with some friends. And by friends, I mean, my friend Stephanie, her husband, and 3 guys who wanted to date me, went bowling. I had been single for about a year, after two long term relationships in my twenties right after each other ran their course. Oh to have the perspective I have now!

So we bowled. We drank. I wondered repeatedly if the pink seersucker corset top I was wearing was really appropriate bowling attire, and wished that I had just worn a dress, or a t-shirt, or pajamas. It was really too girly to go with the seven jeans and bowling shoes, and YES, I do remember what I was wearing, and I regret it even now. SO. Stephanie's husband had this friend named Teddy, who was a stone cold fox. He was a man child who was ALL bad news, but I was single and totally willing to disregard all signs that this person would torture me emotionally until he moved on to his next victim, or I imploded. I feel much the same way about Colin Farrell, who I ran into in the elevator at Cedars Sinai when I was 9 months pregnant with Charlie. He didn't seem to notice me. Weird.

SO this Teddy guy showed up at my bowling party. He drove up from Newport Beach, or some far flung land like that. I took that as a sign that he LOVED ME. But then he didn't bowl. He had one drink, didn't talk to me, and left. WHAT? Boys are so confusing. Did he drive all that way to see Steph's husband? Did he come bc he was like "what girl? oh ok, I'll come check her out, like it's a sale at the meat packing plant". Then he got one look at the ground chuck and bolted.

I turned to Steph and said "that's it. I'm done. I have dated half of Los Angeles and I'm done." I had been on so many 1st (and last) dates that year, that I was starting to get bored with my own "this is who I am" spiel. Who cares! I decided I was swearing off men for the foreseeable future. I was going to play my guitar, and take pictures, and shop, and eat dinner in my pajamas, and to hell with dating. I met Nipper Knapp the very next day.

I was in my agents office the next afternoon when she caught me walking by her door and shouted "MARIJA THIS IS NIPPER, HE'S FROM MICHGAN TOO!" "So what..." I thought. But then he and I started talking. Our families lived really close to each other, we both loved the blues, he showed me pictures he had of his niece and nephew he had in his wallet, and he was thinking of quitting acting. We got all of this out in a 1 hour conversation we had AFTER we had walked outside together. Our agent said she was watching us out the window talking after we left, and she just knew. Well, I didn't know. I gave Nipper my number and walked away. I was wearing my favorite paper denim and cloth jeans (oh how I miss those jeans) and a peach eloise rib tank top, oh and my caramel suede boots. Much better.

He called me the next day. Which made me laugh. Who does that? He asked me if I wanted to go to the oldest blues bar on the west coast. To which I said "sure, so long as it's not a date". WHAT?! I had never said anything like that in my life! I even said yes to guys I knew I would never date, just to get them off the phone. Who was this new me? And then, he surprised me even more by saying "Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed, but ok". WHAT? He didn't say "fuck you", or "you're a twat", or "well in that case forget it". He said "I'm disappointed". I should have known then this man would have the power to make me return a $1600 Chloe bag (true story).

When he came to pick me up, I peeked out the window and thought "oh he's cute". We went to sushi. I wore a white blouse with a black bra, which was pretty sassy for a girl who just said she didn't want it to be a date. We went to Sushi, before going to Babe's and Ricky's. We sat at the sushi bar. Half way through dinner, I turned to him and said "remember how I said I didn't want this to be a date? I changed my mind." He laughed, put his hand on my back, and said "ok". I asked him years later what he thought when I said that. He said "that I was going to get lucky". Boy howdy. Welcome to mortgage-land honey.

At the Blues bar there were more people in the band, then in the rest of the bar. We were the youngest people by about 50 years. It was awesome. We were disappointed to find out there was no all you can eat fried chicken buffet, but the music was awesome, and a couple who were about 90 years old, were dancing with each other, the whole night. I knew about half way through my drink that I was going to marry Nipper Knapp. I went outside to have a cigarette (yes it's true, I was a rebel) and he came out to smoke with me (mr. asthma WAS trying to get lucky). I was leaning against the wall of the club, smoking my stupid cigarette, and Nipper Knapp put his hands on the wall on either side of my head, and kissed me. After we kissed he told me about he saw Mike Tyson do that to a girl in NYC one time. This was true love.

We said "I love you", within two weeks, married six months later, and didn't spend a night apart for almost three years. After running as fast, and as far from my childhood home as I could, I found a boy from Michigan, to make a new home with a million miles away. We've been married seven and a half years, and since we don't have real jobs, and spend every waking hour together, I figure it's more like 42 in dog years.

Two days ago on my birthday, I was having a hard time saying the actual number of years I am now, out loud. I was feeling pretty blue. Nipper Knapp, love of my life, excitedly said to me "you aren't even half way to your expected death age!"

ladies, can I pick em or what?

so this is happening

2011-08-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'll be thinking of you all day little man.

12pm Santa Monica
1:10 Hollywood
2:15 Santa Monica

That's my audition schedule tomorrow. Those of you who live here and do this for a living are just laughing at me right now. For those of you who don't here's what this means. The babysitter get's here at 10:30, I only have 2 bottles in the fridge, so hopefully I'll have time to make one in the morning, after Jack goes to swim class, and while I'm putting on my make-up, probably with Charlie in the bjorn, PRETTY. I'll nurse Charlie one last time, that means, I need to pump somewhere around12:30-1:00. Right around the time I'm in my callback in Hollywood. Uhm. Ok. This isn't stressful. Not at all! At least I'll be in my car. In traffic. And then intermittently being judged by strangers. Don't forget, I will have slept from 11pm to 6 am, in hour and a half intervals, then gotten up to nurse and soothe a fussy baby, so Ill be SUPER well rested. My armpits are going to smell SO good.

Also, everything in LA is 30 minutes from everything else. Except when there is traffic. Then it's 45 minutes to an hour. Also, you always wait an hour (at least) at every audition. So if you have gotten through the basic math, something's got to give. I'm actually just hoping to make it to the first one early, get through fast, without a casting assistant sneering at me when I check where I am on the list for the 17th time in 37 minutes, get to my 2nd one, a callback, do that fast (hahahaha, yeah that's going to happen, when you add agency people, a director, and a client, it ALWAYS speeds up the audition process), pump in the car before going back to Santa Monica for my 3rd one, which I'm hoping they don't mind me being exceptionally late for. It's for the new show Whitney, I have one line. Can't they just look at my picture and imagine me saying "what's the name"? I won't feel cheap at all.

Then race home because by the time I get there I (and Charlie) should be ready to nurse again. By which I mean, my boobs will hurt, and Charlie will be crying his little eyes out.

SO, to that grade A suck bag who called Maternity leave "a racket" last week: (Click this link here), you sir can go fuck yourself. Also to Megyn Kelly, "sigh..."

Now hold your breath and tell me to break legs.

patent #965,456,782,349,784,219,888,537

2011-08-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

This hippo doesn't have anything to do with anything. I took her picture at the LA Zoo last year.

I dunno how many patents there are. That was just a guess.

Here are two things I would like someone to invent.

Some kind of pop-up lap cradle for airplane travel. It would have to be small enough to fit in a diaper bag, but then unfold quickly (pop-up) to cover your lap, while keeping the baby off your actual lap so your ass doesn't fall asleep on the plane, and you can't move because if that baby wakes up and cries so help you god you and everyone around you is going to FREAK OUT. Someone get on that. Might I suggest using some space age fabrics and mechanisms? Great.

The second thing I think would be great is some way to wash your armpits when you are just out in the world. Not like a portable sink and soapy washcloth, but something more like the flowbee, but for armpit cleaning. I dunno how it would work. But it would have to be quick, quiet, and (obv) discreet. You don't want to be all "excuse me folks, I'm just going to go use the ladies room, if you hear a jet engine sound coming from that direction, it's NOT my portable armpit washer. Not at all." All I'm saying is there are times when I would like to just duck into a bathroom and take a mini shower.

So how's YOUR week going?

Mommy Dearest

2011-08-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

In case anyone missed it, Nipper Knapp called me Joan Crawford when I asked him to throw the kitchen towel he used to wipe up the floor into the hamper instead of putting it back on the towel rack. This from the man who gets the boojeebees when there is MAIL on the kitchen counter.

Oh ok, I may have also mentioned that he didn't rinse all the soap off the frying pan, so Jack's quesadilla was all soapy. I know, I'm a monster. NO SOAPY FRYING PANS!

I'm going back to work today. My still slightly larger than usual arse is packed into my "hip mom casual" pants, and my blotchy face is covered with spackle. The only upside to taking 8 months off is that my eyelashes have repaired themselves from 20 years of curling and mascara and are long long long. It's the little things that are going to keep me going today.

Fingers and toes crossed today people. Legs breaking.

I got down so low

2011-08-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you were probably speculating as to why I haven't been writing lately. I'm sure you think "oh she just had a baby", or "she's on summer vacation". But no, it's not either of those things. Yesterday when I got out of bed, I noticed a tiny little spot of what can only be described as baby poo juice on my sheets. Charlie's diaper had leaked a little while he was nursing before we got up. By the time I noticed it, it was dry, and really only the size of a quarter. You see where this is going right? I stood there, about to pull the covers over it thinking, "it's not really poop, it's just the poop juice, which is sort of like pee really, and that is STERILE, and he's only a baby, and it IS dry, and oh I'm so tired."

I just feel that a person who has slid so low as to consider sleeping in her baby's poop, really shouldn't be writing about much of anything. I should be seeking help. So... As soon as I'm able to master paying all the bills, feeding my family, and conquering the nightly poop/sleep/laundry battle, I'll be back. Did I mention I go back to work next week?

Lord give me strength.

2011-08-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm trying really hard to fall asleep. But we're at "the cottage", Nipper Knapp's parents house in northern Michigan.

This photograph is hanging next to the bed in my room. It's really bothering me. Who are you trying to call baby Nipper Knapp? Is it a wrong number? You look sort of like you just got caught.

Or maybe you just said "just a sec, let me ask, hon, do we want to add a second pizza for $9?" and are waiting impatiently for the answer. Like "yeah, ok, c'mon, the pizza phone guy is waiting, gah!"

Also, I like your red phone, and the cheeks you passed down to both our boys.

Good night.

Caution

2011-07-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Jack had his end of the year parent teacher meeting a few weeks ago. The kid's doing just fine in case you were worried. His teacher says he's often passive in conflict situations, and we should allow him to solve more of his own problems. You know, to build confidence in this arena. I know she means, let him punch a kid in the face once of twice for taking his toy, just to see what happens. But I figure it's good for him to be more autonomous in other areas too. So I've been trying to get him to get himself dressed, pick his own clothes, blah, blah, blah. He's a boy, so 90% of the time he doesn't care what he wears. My friends with girls say outfit changing happens 3-100 times a day. Around here, we're lucky if we can get him out of his jammies. "Why would I take off these super comfortable clothes to put on other clothes just to play?" He's right too, but SOMEONE around here is a stickler for the rules and not walking around looking like a hobo. Hint: it's not me.

To that end, I took him with me to get some things he needed for school. This is what happens when you let a four year old pick out his own water shoes:

This makes me question if he's actually my child. My eyes are burning from their hideousness. And of course he wants to wear them every day now. ALL THE TIME. FML. (that was for you Nipper Knapp). He might as well have just punched me in the face.

Oh my toe! The one where I don't even tell you what happened to my toe, it was THAT BAD.

2011-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. Worse than the day my dad told me my parents were getting divorced, worse than the day my grandma passed away, worse than the day my egomaniac boyfriend told me he had taken his ex-girlfriend to New Zealand with his family over Christmas vacation for two weeks, after we'd been dating for over a year, worse than the day... Ok, ok, you get it, yesterday was bad. Maybe not as bad as all those days. Maybe that's hyperbole, but it was pretty bad. Not a memorable day. Not one I'll be able to pick out of the other 365 when I think back on this year. But one of those days that makes you lay in bed and fantasize about emptying your bank accounts to take the whole family away with a full time nanny and a masseuse to Hawaii for 2 weeks. That might cure the shit day that was yesterday.

It began normally enough. I woke up. I had two kids, a house, a husband, I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and I had no real plans. I suggested we go to get pizza for lunch after Jack's swim class, since Nipper didn't have to be at his first audition until 1:45. Sounded like a good idea, until Jack SOBBED when Nip told him we were going to get pizza instead of my original idea of picking up In&out burgers, which we've eaten so many times this week I'm actually ashamed. (that number should be 1 time, but it's way, way, way, more). What kid cries when you tell him we're having pizza? My kid. You'd think I'd have said we were having brussels sprouts and liver. Jesus. Ok, note to self, more meals at home, and no more separate kids meals. Yeah right. I saw an expensive cookbook in a fancy store on La Brea last year that was about cooking for "picky" kids. Most of the recipes had stuff like shrimp and rutabagas in it. The book cost $45. This bitch obviously had never seen a child or a rutabaga in her life. It reminded me of the time I went to photograph a piece for a magazine a few years back. This Pacific Palisades socialite had written a book on table manners, and how to set a table. We were shooting at her parents bajillion dollar house in Malibu canyon. And...I shit you not, when I got there, she had me set the table for the shoot because she didn't know where the utensils were supposed to go. But I do. I do, because I was raised in the midwest...here on EARTH. How do I live in this world without so much as a switchblade?!

So fine, we go to pizza, but the only way we get Jack there is to say he can play with Nipper's iphone when we get there. "Is this really a good idea anymore", I'm wondering as I stuff pizza in my mouth as fast as I can because Nipper is holding the baby because he was too hot in stroller and started to cry as soon as we got there. I mean if one kid won't eat the pizza and won't take his eyes off the fucking iphone, and the other one is dying of heat stroke so one parent has to forego eating and just bounce and coo like a dumb dumb, are we really having "family pizza"? IS this what a meal together has come down to? I have lost the war...

I find myself thinking these battle/war questions all the time. I want us all to eat around the table all together more often. I also want to eat a meal without saying "can you take a bite" and "can you please sit down" 17,821 times. I also want to eat at home more, but our schedules seem to drive us all out of the house at different times, and Nipper and I are never ready for dinner at 5:30-6 when Jack is having his, so... Lunch, that's it. I have 4 opportunities a week for us to have a meal together and it's lunch. Starting in September when Jack is in school 4 days a week, I'll have 3. You'd think I could make that happen, but no, and one kid is only a baby!

So as I'm shoveling in the pizza, and having this argument in my head, the day is unfolding. Nipper is going to take Jack to his 3 auditions because we no longer have a babysitter (10 million word blogpost brewing in my head about that situation). He has promised him he can play games on the ipad, which is like telling a junkie he can have a wheelbarrow of crack. He's in. He woke up at 5am again and was out of his mind tired, so I offered to take him home with me and Charlie instead of being dragged around to work with daddy. NO WAY. He was going to get to smoke some serious ipad, why the hell would he want to go home with me and REST?! Narc.

So off they go. I return home with Charlie, my throat now on fire from the beginnings of this cold. I'm praying for a nap. The boys won't be home for 5 hours. Surely at some point the baby will sleep and I will close my eyes when he does. Hahahahaha. Stupid woman. Don't you know, you should have kept that hope a secret, even from yourself? Of course Charlie doesn't sleep, and of course Nipper texts me from his 2nd audition that Jack has dropped the iPad, and smashed it to pieces. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Jack is devastated. He can't stop crying. Nipper is pissed, but trying to console Jack. It was an accident. I'm now, sick, tired, mad, sad, trying to tell Nip to not be too hard on Jack, and Nip is texting me that Jack is inconsolable, and he sort of wishes that it hadn't been an accident, because he's so mad, but obviously not at Jack, and... You see where this is going. How can you be mad at a 4 year old when he breaks your $800 toy. You're the grown up who gave it to him. Dumb dumbs... I tell him that I'm going to give him a big hug when he gets home and I wait.

Well obviously, Charlie falls into a deep sleep 20 minutes before they get back around dinner time. I'm too fried to even get irritated at this point. I lay on the couch with my eyes opening and closing involuntarily. Watching my baby sleep, wishing for sleep myself. Listening for the car door slam, so I can get up and hug Jack as soon as he gets here.

I made an appointment for Nipper to take the iPad to the apple store at 8:50pm. Thank the "geniuses" at the "genius bar" for having late appointments. Figured we might as well find out the extent of the damage ($) as soon as possible. ($419 in case you were wondering, and they just give you a new one. So now we have a $1200 iPad) Also figured both kids would be in bed. MARIJA ARE YOU REALLY THAT STUPID? The universe had a good laugh at my expense yesterday.

Because Jack was so sad and sleepy and shaky, I told him, he and I could crawl into my bed and watch a movie and have popcorn after I put Charlie down, and daddy left for the apple store. Because you know Charlie has gone to bed at 7 every night for weeks. No problem. But guess what? They were both up until 9:45 last night. 9 forty fucking 5. For those of you without kids, you might be thinking "big deal". But 9:45 is the parent equivalent of 4:18am to you. I need that extra hour or so at night. I need it to clean the house, write emails, watch R rated tv, talk to Nipper about everyone we hate, and just stare into space. Oh, and I was sick. so... Boo-fucking-hoo.

Poor Jack was so patient as I kept getting up from our movie, and then from our bedtime books to try to rock Charlie, pacify Charlie, and finally nurse Charlie back to sleep. He finally gave up on mommy and fell asleep looking at Pinocchio. Poor baby. He asked me as I was getting up out of the bed for the last time "mommy, when is Charlie going to be a big boy?". Sob...

Oh and don't worry, I was positive, sweet, and patient, with the kids the whole time, lest you think this post is about how I lost it. I was texting Nipper stuff like "FML" and "FUCK THIS WHOLE FUCKING DAY". But the kids, well, the one who is conscious, and most likely to remember this day, will only remember that we laid in bed and watched Pinocchio while mommy tried to get that his rascally baby brother to sleep. Because fuck all if I'm going to turn my day from hell, into theirs.

I'd tell you about how Jack ended up in our bed, and because I was worried about him getting enough sleep I got up (now fully sick) and took Charlie, who sounds like a badger when he nurses, into Jack's room to nurse, and tried to go back to sleep at 5:45am, only to lay there, with Charlie only being happy to sleep ON ME, until my arms fell asleep around 7am. But I'm too tired.

Oh and yeah, I wrote this post yesterday but forgot to post it because I was brain dead. In better news, Jack rode his bike, saw a lizard, had a "seaweed" popsicle, and I saw Midnight in Paris, which revived my hope for humanity. I also had a dream that apple started making iphones in jadite green. SO... one day up, one day down...

Hi. How's it going?

2011-06-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Here's an exchange Nipper and I had last night after the kids were both asleep (thank you god for that hour).

Nipper (cooking a grilled cheese): Why is it so different between 1 and 2?

Me: Because we're doing man on man coverage. And it used to be just one, so when one of us was with Jack the other one was getting a break, and now there's no respite, there is always something that needs to be done.

Nipper: I was talking about the hood vent on the stove... Level 1 is barely anything, and then level 2 is like a jet engine, but then there is no difference between 2 and 3.

Me: Oh, I thought you were talking about our children.

Then I ate a bowl of chocolate cheerios the size of my head and went to sleep at 9:07pm.

Does anyone want to lend me their maid/nanny/personal chef/ assistant/pool guy/ gardener/ house painter/ doula/ masseuse/ hair dresser/therapist? Thanks...

I'm in it peeps

2011-06-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

Greatest Birth Announcement. EVER. I don't know these people. Our friend Kelly sent this to me. Love it. Wish I was together enough to do a birth announcement period.

Charlie is 5 weeks old. Jack turned 4 this week. The party is Sunday. You know I'm doing it up Nerdmom style. I have SO fucking much to tell you that I'm bursting at the seams, but I don't have any time to write. SO... I'm offering up two links that made my week. One from my dear friend Jackie, who is also a mom of two, the same age, and all around genius. If she and I can ever get our shit together, there's going to a book, movie, column, so funny that you will shake and pee yourself when you see it. The other link from Lisa of Smacksy. It's like this woman read my mind.

These both made me laugh out loud this week.

Jackie's link: I need a chicken

http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

Lisa's link: I have additional drawings in the works

http://www.amberdusick.com/woodmouse_loves_crafts/2011/06/what-it-is-like-to-not-sleep-at-night-illustrated-with-crappy-pictures.html

Cult Classic

2011-06-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm on a linen website right now and the reviews are starting to freak me out. Are linen sheets only for weirdos? Everyone I know who has linen sheets says in dreamy, faraway voice "Oh...once you sleep on linen you'll never sleep on anything else". Like if I get some will I end up canceling our premium cable, moving my family to a "compound" somewhere? I'm nervous.

Here is the first review that made me wonder:

" To clean them, I enjoy using the Aquasana hand held filtered water from my large walk in shower. "

Uhm... seriously? You only wash your sheets in filtered water from your shower? This is way too much care for a sheet. And I am ALL ABOUT good sheets. There is no way this person has children, but I'm betting they do have lots of orchids...

Then I read this one:

" just got linoto sheets for my birthday - and i love them! i'm living here in texas in the 100-degree weather, and they're just so light and cool to the touch! we sleep three in the bed and the linen sheets are a godsend!"

I was with them until they used the phrase "three to a bed", like, that's a thing. Is that a thing? They didn't say, "my child sleeps with us", or "we're swingers", or "we're really poor, and so we only have this one bed". Not likely as the damn sheets are $200 a pop. They said "three to a bed". Is that a thing? Maybe in Texas.

Also in the reviews all the people referred to a guy named Jason, as if this Jason person was their personal "sheet guy". The website looks like a real company. Not like some guy selling luxury linens out of his mother's parlor. I'm confused.

So I really really want to try these sheets. But if you guys start noticing me writing about secret messages being sent to me via the microwave oven, or dressing my whole family in matching track suits...call someone.

Cinephile

2011-06-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

Movie Charlie

Today Charlie and I went on our first adventure together. The AMC theaters here have Monday morning mommy and me movies. You can take your baby, or your kid, and it's ok if they cry of poop, or lean over the seat and talk the whole movie. The movie is usually whatever is the big new release from the previous weekend. It's AWESOME. As someone who loves movies, it's the thing that saved me from feeling like a leper when Jack was a baby. The first movie we went to was Hairspray. I cried. Not because Hairspray is a tearjerker, but because being a dark movie theater with my baby (Nipper) and Jack, made me feel so fucking normal.

This is what he looked like in the most exciting parts...Not really, he was snoozing.

So Charlie and I went to see Super 8 today. We loved it. He nursed when we got there and slept on my lap for most of the movie. Heaven. I didn't cry, but almost. It's such a relief to get a glimpse into the future normal, after weeks and weeks of nothing but diapers and sore nipples.

Kind of love my fellas today. I promise to bring back the snark and venom very soon...

White gold, Texas tea...FREEDOM!

2011-06-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

I am in love with my new baby. I want to nibble his toes, and run my fingers over his velveteen bunny soft head. But I also want to go see Tree of Life, go back to work, and take Jack to a birthday party. Since Charlie came out like a linebacker he eats ALL THE TIME. Sometimes it's every hour. Which is fine. I'm happy to do it. With Jack it never made sense to me to pump, because he was always with us. I never wanted to be away from him for a second, and could never get into a rhythm of when to pump, and when to nurse. It always just seemed easier to nurse. So I never pumped. Plus the few times we did try, he wouldn't take a bottle. This time, I'm determined to make it work. I am shooting a wedding in July, and have to be able to be away from him for 8 hours that day. I'll have to find a time to pump, which is kind of stressing me out, because you know, it's not like I'll have a coffee break, it's not a regular job. But like I said before, THIS IS GOING TO WORK!

This is what I take for freedom now. Getting up in the middle of the night to let my husband give the baby a bottle so I can pump. Going to shoot a glamorous wedding, and trying to find a quiet private place to hook myself up to a milking machine.

Motherhood is complicated. Duh. I didn't go back to work for 4 months when Jack was born, because I couldn't fathom being away from him for a moment. Now I don't know how I'll go back to work, even though I feel more ready, because I can't figure out logistically how to make it work. Two kids, one nursing, one husband, no gardener (that's on me), no babysitter. It could be worse. I could have a real job. MAJOR FUCKING KUDOS to those of you who do. I bow to your mommy prowess. You can slap me for complaining if and when we ever meet.

I just pumped my first bottle, an hour after Charlie's morning feed. I'm worried he's going to wake up hungry five minutes after I pump and I won't have enough milk...Complicated.

For you moms out there who pumped and gave bottles, how did you do it? I'm...uhm...asking for...advice...sshhhh...

sniffle

2011-06-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Jack at a week old

And then you have that day as a new mom, where everything goes totally fine, but everything makes you cry. Yeah, that's the day I had today.

Charlie was up from 3:30 until almost 6:30 this morning. He dozed off and on while nursing (four times) in that time, and so did I. But basically, we were up. Jack came in at 8am because he wanted to say "have a good day" and kiss me and Charlie before he went to school. Sweet boy. He came in, whispered "Mommy", and then gave me a kiss, then he gave Charlie a kiss. Then he went to give Charlie another kiss, and I whispered "please don't wake up the baby honey", and he said "why?" and I said "sshh, because mommy is tired" this all happened at whisper level. But of course, as soon as Jack walked out of the room, Charlie was up, and ready to nurse, and I was riddled with guilt for telling Jack not to kiss his brother again. But also wanted to barf because I was so tired. And so it begins...

Did I mention that I watched a video of Jack at age two talking about Buzz Lightyear about 20 times last night? It was the night before we left for a job in NYC. Nipper was meeting us there, and I wanted to get Jack something new to play with on the plane. He was holding Buzz like a baby doll, and said "Buzz Iteyear can't see the teedee" because his space mask was down. I know, I know. But I'm his MOM. Did I mention I made Nipper watch it 10 of those 20 times. Did I mention I cried the whole time. It's insane to me that Jack is now so big, and Charlie is so little, but soon he'll be just as big, and in two years, I'll be dying that Charlie is so big, and how did it go so fast, and Jack was so little when Charlie was born, but now so big, and UGH!

I'm realizing I'll never have the time and focus with Charlie that I had with Jack. I'm trying to get over that. But I'm also trying to get over missing Jack, and that undivided time and attention, while feeling guilty that poor Charlie is getting the short end of the stick. But he's not, because he get's a big brother who is awesome, and wants to kiss him two times before leaving for school. See? It's complicated.

Also we lost our long time babysitter this week. Long story. But it's thrown a GIANT fork into my plans for this summer, and for Charlie, and you know, maybe someday going back to work, and not losing my mind. I had this friend in college who had the same nanny his whole childhood. I thought ours was like that. She was part of the family. (Did you see the quilt?!) So I'm super sad, but also super mad. Ok, if you need me, I'll be the weepy lady with the tennis racquet. Did I mention we are taking lessons starting next week. Somebody stop me...

midnight gardener

2011-06-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

This rarely happens at night...

So tonight I pruned my roses in the dark after the we put the kids to bed. When else am I going to do it? I went out there when it was still light to water this new GIANT fuschia plant I have in a hanging basket in the breezeway. But then I noticed the roses were looking kind of leggy, and no Roberto, so... I got out the pruners. By the time I got to the second rose bush it was pretty much dark out, and while leaning in to get a distant branch, I got a leaf in my eye, which made my eye automatically close AROUND THE LEAF. Have you ever felt an entire leaf under your eyelid? It didn't really hurt, just felt weird, but then when I got inside it was bothering me, so I decided to watch baby videos of Jack. You know so I could cry my eyes out, but just to clean out any leaf dirt. It's going too fast.

Pushing Charlie to Village Pizza

Oh also, apologies to those of you who don't like my Faulkner like stream of consciousness posts. I don't have the energy for structure. And no I'm not saying my writing is as good as Faulkner's, although that wouldn't really be something I'd say anyway, because I can't read Faulkner because he's SO boring, but my dad likes him, so... good night.

2011-06-04T01:56:00.001-07:00

This is a little blog test. I'm up. I'm nursing. I'm trying to text a blog from my phone. My friend Allie had her baby girl tonight. 31 hours of labor! It's been fun sharing those first few hours of crazy wonder and love over text and Facebook with her and friends. My nipples SUPER hurt right now. But wow I like being a mom.

Hope I'm not texting this to my whole rolodex. For those of Yo under the age of 72, google "Rolodex".

someone get that lady a straight jacket

2011-06-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Peonies from Trader Joes. Perfect!

And then sometimes you run into Lisa from Smacksy when you're getting out of your car in South Pasadena and you are trying to cram a GIANT diaper bag, that you're already mad at yourself for bringing, when you're just going for a stupid walk, but what if the baby poops, or needs a change of clothes, or you know a hat. But really, you're going to walk for like 1/2 an hour, and you are 4 minutes from home, so you needed the suitcase? But there you are CRAMMING it into the bottom of the overpriced stroller you bought when you were pregnant with Jack, that you and Nipper Knapp HATE, but now it's like, you've committed and by god you're not going to spend one more penny on strollers, because this one DOES IT ALL!!! And you say hi, and then because you are embarrassed by the diaper bag, and the stroller, and the fact that you haven't spoken to a human being who wasn't related to you in weeks, you commence to verbally vomit on Smacksy about how Nipper is at a Target audition, but you want him to come home so you can go to the actual Target store for FIVE minutes, and isn't it stupid that you brought a diaper bag, and how your 10lb baby is killing your boobs, and oh you're just out for a walk. But you feel even weirder when you start talking so you try to shut up. But you feel like a freak because you think she's probably wondering why you are parking your car at the park, to go for a walk with your baby and your diaper bag, and you are SO HAPPY, she didn't walk by 5 minutes before to see you eating your In&Out burger in your car, like a criminal. So then you mention the In&out burger, but only in passing, and you wish you could shut up, but she's right there in front of you, A REAL PERSON, and a MOM no less!

and Charlie sleeps through the whole thing...

You manage to shut up for long enough for her to say, "have a great walk", and pretend that you are behaving in a totally normal manner, only to run right into her and another mom 1/2 a block away. And when the mom politely says you look great for having had a baby 2 weeks before you say something about pacing around in circles in your house, which makes no sense at all, and probably she wonders if she should wrestle the stroller out of your hands, and call someone, but you know the walk is going to help, so you only slow down for a minute, and then you're off again. FITNESS! FRESH AIR! The jacarandas are in bloom! But you don't mention that. She also smiles politely because she's a mom, and realizes you are hormonal and insane, and she should let you pass.

Later when you tell Jack that you saw Bob Rosenberg and his mom on the street, he says "Oh... you mean Action Bob?"

"yes, I saw Action Bob and his mom on my walk" like it was all no big deal...

Then later this happens, and you die of love

twice

and then this comes in the mail, and you think everything might be just fine...

Thank You

2011-06-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

hiccups

I want to thank a few people who helped make yesterday pretty great. In no particular order:

I would like to thank Jack's babysitter for being a no show. It allowed me to spend 30 minutes in the swing chair with both of my boys under a blanket telling the wizard of oz story. Which Jack said he thought "Charlie really likes".

I would like to thank Charlie for going to sleep after nursing, so that Jack and I could crawl into bed and watch an episode of Spiderman.

I would like to thank Jack for cuddling up next to me while watching Spiderman and falling asleep. His first at home nap in bed with mommy in what may be a year.

I would like to thank Charlie for continuing to sleep all the way through my nap with Jack, and our grilled cheese and apples lunch, another thing we haven't been able to do in a long time.

I would like to thank AMC for running Die Hard in the middle of the afternoon while Nipper took Jack to swim class, so that I didn't DIE of boredom while Charlie nursed for 17,000 hours.

I would like to thank Nipper for taking Jack to swim class, where he reportedly did the pancake float all on his own, the only kid in his class to do it. Then for taking him to Menchie's and getting this picture.

I would like to also thank the inventor of Limonata, for you know, inventing it.

And I think that's it.

As you can see, anyone that helps my boys nap, me nap, provides desert, action movies, or lemony goodness is alright in my book.

lists

2011-05-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have to make lists for everything now. The groceries, Jack's school things, bills that need to be paid, everything. If it's not written somewhere, I forget. So in honor of that, and because I figure I've got an hour before Charlie wakes up, and Jack and Nipper get back from swim class, and I need to fold the laundry, and eat a bowl of cheetos, so my ability to muster original material is limited.

Here are two of my lists. The first one is a list of the most often used phrases in our house this week. The second is a note that was generated on Facebook. Someone sent it to me, I can't remember who. I wouldn't say they aren't exactly fascinating, but they are random...

Most used phrases in the Nipper Knapp household this week:

My cooter hurts

Pull it down, you don't want it to grow out crooked!

Where the fuck is that fucking soothie?

I love you Jack Knapp

No you can't touch them, and they're on loan

Nipple trauma

I love you Charlie

Is that normal?

I love you Nipper Knapp

Do we love them? Yes we do

25 Random Facts about me

1. I love cinnamon ice cream, and really miss this place in San Francisco that made it right there in the shop. I ate it almost every night for 2 years. Yum!

2. I went to boarding school in Maine when I was 15, but ran away twice, once when I hitch hiked to Connecticut, then Boston, where I pan handled for money in Harvard square, then hopped a bus to NYC, then to Michigan, where, upon my arrival, my mother had me brought in by the police, and promptly sent me back to Maine. I stayed there another year and a half until my senior year when my Cuban boyfriend I ran away, slept in the woods, and then took a bus to Miami. My mother let me stay there for one whole week, before she sent for me, and I finished high school at the local catholic school in Ann Arbor Michigan

3. I was a really good kid

4. No seriously, it was just a weird time in my life

5. Becoming a mother is the best thing that every happened to me. I laugh and cry way more often.

6. I love sushi, but hate cooked fish. I could eat spicy tuna rolls, and salmon sushi at every meal. But I hate mercury poisoning so I don't

7. I love Jack White.

8. the greatest disappointment of my life is that I can't sing

9. When I graduated from college, I decided I wanted to learn to tap dance like Gene Kelly, because I loved him just a little bit. So I took tap class in a weird abandoned factory in San Francisco. Can't tap a single click. Another artistic tragedy.

10. I don't like humorless people or liars

11. I think that people who are really good at what they do are sexy

12. I can't hear Django Reinhardt music without dancing

13. I don't believe in god, but find myself praying sometimes anyway

14. I love cats, but hate their poop

15. I would really like someone to teach me the dance that Beyonce does in the video for "all the single ladies"

16. I used to think that I was a realist, but I'm starting to think that I might be a misanthrope

17. Nipper and I eat dark chocolate of some kind every day. I need to eat more vegetables

18. I love to flirt, but think I might have forgotten how to

19. I hate how much I love TV.

20. I have become obsessed with a quaker preschool that we can neither afford, nor, probably get into.

21. I love shoes. I used to have several hundred pairs. But I've had to cull my collection due to the ONE closet we have in our house.

22. I wish I new how to build things, and sort of want to be a set designer when I grow up.

23. I think Mary Louise Parker is sexy

24. Nipper Knapp saved my life

25. I'm a mac

Trumpets and stuff

2011-05-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so for those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you know... We have a big fat baby boy! 8lbs, 13oz, 20 inches. His name is Charlie Truman Knapp, and he was born on May 14th at 9pm. I'm TOTALLY going to get back to writing here in the next few days, and I'm TOTALLY going to tell you the whole birth story, because I want to brag brag brag. But I'm too busy huffing baby smells like it's paint thinner right now. SO...for the time being you should all go follow me on facebook (link here), or twitter. I seem to be able to manage mini updates on there, and lots of pics.

More later, soon, I promise. Unless I overdose on pampers, nursing, and total lack of sleep, in which case, you know, go read a book or something. Geez.

Catch a Tiger by it's Tail

2011-05-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that Nipper and I paid a couple hundred bucks to ride a baby lion around a supermarket. It was about the size of a golden retriever, and the trainer or owner or whatever kept telling me, I just needed to grab it's tail to control it. I kept thinking "eeny meeny miny moe, catch a tiger by it's tail, if it hollers, let him go..." Everyone knows you never grab a cat's tail. The dream seemed to go on for hours... Is this a sign of labor? No. Is this a sign that I don't remember how to clean a newly circumcised penis? Maybe.

These are bookends from Serena and Lily. Aren't they the cutest?! Just got their catalog for the first time, and now I'm obsessed!

It's complicated

2011-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

This gorgeous photo (not of me) from the brilliant Ingrid Franz Moriarty

Got this comment on the post yesterday. Love it. And after much deliberation I WILL be taking an eyelash curler in my hospital bag, along with my knee high suntan reinforced toe pantyhose (thanks for the idea Smacksy):

"OK, as part of the Knapp Posse, Michigan Division, I just HAVE to respond to this. First of all, totally agree that it's nobody's bidness what happens in, on, or around my vagina--or anyone's. Having said that, I really must share a Viking story with you. My tight-ass sister-in-law (first marriage) gained my unending devotion when, during her birth video, her husband caught her spraying out her hair before they left for the hospital. Everyone in the family made fun of her, except me. This was a woman who knew life's biggest photo op was on the way, and she wasn't going to entertain posterity with flat bangs. That's Viking nerve, in my book.

Also, can I just say that my idea of men was permanently altered by birthing class stories--some for the better, others for the worse. My college bf reported that he nearly passed out at the first sign of blood *on the screen.* He left the screening room, got a drink at the fountain, and hit his noggin on the ceramic bowl so hard his wife found him prone on the linoleum after class. Scratch that guy off my "What If" list. These are the moments that make women. They make men. Here's hoping you treat yourself to a spa pedicure, and that Jack's little brother arrives soon! Hope to meet you on the lake one summer.... Veronica"

My doctor told me that she hears from some patients that they're husbands never want to have sex with them again after the birth of their children, because they can't see them as sexual beings ever again. To which I say BALLS. I get it, sex is complicated. People have all kinds of hang ups and reservations. But DUDES, seriously? You did that! It's like you made a mess in the kitchen, and then said "Ugh, let's just buy a new house, rather than do the dishes. Ok that's a terrible analogy. It's more like you invaded Iraq, and then said "Ugh, this country is a mess, I'd rather go steady with France." Better? Whatevs, you know what I'm saying.

That having been said I heard a story about a friend of a friend, whose husband was mad at her because she didn't want to have sex a week after their 1st child was born. Uhm... Dude, you bombed the fertile crescent! Give it a minute!

Not to be too squishy, but it's a-fucking-mazing what the female body can do. Not a brag, bc, you know I didn't invent the uterus. It's also amazing that I haven't touched a garbage can, a gas pump, or been pummeled by our son (rough housing is strictly daddy's arena) in years. Grateful for my ovaries, and kick ass husband who loves me, our kids, and my body, just as it is... I for one hope he never loses his cute butt, because I'd hate to have to start dating Singapore. (still no good, huh? I'll work on it)

Do yourself a favor

2011-05-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

Do yourself a favor and listen to this this morning. So great. I embedded the video from youtube because NPR doesn't have that option. Or I'm too groggy to figure it out. It's an NPR Tiny Desk (that link takes you to the original video) performance by Raphael Saadiq. Love it.

hee hee hee hooey

2011-05-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm going to piss off all kinds of people with this post. Not my intention. And it shouldn't, but you know, people feel strongly about this stuff, so...

Moments after Jack was born 4 years ago

To each his own I say. Pray or don't pray to who you like. Love who you like. And if you want to have an epidural, it's none of my business. It's also none of my business if you want to have your baby in a hot tub, or minivan, or a tree house with no doctor present. Good for you. I think most problems in this world evolve from people caring WAY too much about other people's choices about those kind of things.

This post is a companion piece to my friend Jason's post on JasonGOod365 this morning. It all started with this sketch on SNL this weekend about the birth class. If you didn't see it, here it is. For those of you who have had a baby, and gone to the birth class, you are dying laughing right now. For those of you who haven't or didn't, that's not actually too far from the videos they show.

My favorite video, (all of them seem like they were shot in the late 70's early 80's) was of a large woman with a retro bush, who for some reason was completely naked save her long black slouchy socks. FOR god's sake woman! BLACK SOCKS + NAKED?! And let's just say the socks matched the drapes. There might have also been a mustache, and a mole with a hair growing out of it, but I might be embellishing. It was an awful site to behold. She kept squatting in her black socks. Her husband was wearing a tan hawaiian shirt. Nipper and I were sitting in the back, feeling like the school burnouts, trying not to giggle, and staring out the window so as not to be scarred for life by the images on screen. I don't even really know why these are considered instructional videos. Bad lighting, horrible styling (yeah, I said it) and shockingly unattractive people aside, what did we learn? Not much. Every birth is different. For the record, I was dressed, laying down, and listening to Sam Cooke and Patsy Cline (oh and CNN was on mute in the background). Let the hate mail begin.

At the birth class we took at Cedars before Jack was born. We went every week, and learned how I might use no less than 14 pillows to sleep comfortably while pregnant. Which WAS worth the price of admission, but that was it. Oh and we learned that all of my internal organs would be pushed up somewhere around my rib cage by the time the baby was to term. I must admit that I used some of the breathing techniques while driving to the hospital, but mostly, we learned that people are SO fucking self righteous about their birth plans, their babies cord blood, and wether or not they are going to have an epidural or not. Yeesh.

The most irritating take-over of a term by assholes, is "natural birth". Since when does it not count as natural when my baby comes out of my vagina, just like babies have been coming out, since you know, Eve ate the apple (that's what the kids are calling it these days), if I get pain medication while doing it? It's like the anti-abortion movement calling themselves pro-life, as if people who believe in choice for women, are pro-death. Shut up. None of these people ever come out and say things like "Oh, you had an un-natural birth? Too bad." But trust me, that's what they mean, when tell you they did it "naturally".

Let me be clear, I don't care what you did, or plan to do. It's your sugar bowl, and you treat it how you want. My neighbor Brett had home births, and I think she's a VIKING. her second baby came so fast, she was home alone, while her husband was dropping Cleo off at our house across the street. He was gone 5 minutes. When he got home she shouted from the bedroom "Baby's here!", he raced in, and caught her. VIKING.

I am not a viking. I'm a mom. Just a regular mom. I know this about myself. I want to be in a hospital, with doctors, and nurses, and people bringing me fruit juice in a giant cup with crushed ice in it after I have my baby. I know, SO selfish. I don't want to be home where I'll be thinking, "Hum, I really need to hem those curtains, while I'm getting to know my new baby". Two days of care, is that too much to ask for? With Jack I went into the hospital thinking, I'm going to go as long as I can, and then I'll get the epidural if I need it. I was dilated to 5 when we got there. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural. I said "let's wait and see". The next contraction I had knocked my lights out, and I said "ok, I see. Let's do this thing".

So what am I saying. To all you expecting mommies out there, it's your body, your baby, your birth, your choice. Anyone who tries to make you feel otherwise is a jackass.

But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you must be naked while laboring (which is also fine by me) for the love of all that is holy, don't wear black socks.

Dude's Weekend!

2011-05-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

Nipper and Jack set out yesterday morning for a wedding in San Diego. Nipper was the best man, and Jack was along for the ride, because I was all "oh hell to the no, I'm not having a baby on the 5 freeway, San Diego, or anywhere in between..." Sadie came over and we had a sleepover, just in case the baby did decide it was time, I wouldn't have to call the weird neighbor who takes his teeth out when he gets home from work, to drive me to the hospital.

Within 3 hours of leaving the house Jack had his first temporary tattoo. I've spent 4 years protecting him from the existence of this particular plague, and there it was, a Thor tattoo on my baby's unblemished arm. "That's doesn't go with his seersucker suit" I thought. But the rules of dudes weekend, are like the rules of fight club. I didn't have a leg to stand on. I was lucky I was even being kept in the loop on the debauchery. Oh and he got the tattoo at the movie Thor. They went to see THOR at 11 in the morning. Nipper is clearly trying to follow in the rebellious footsteps of his own great dad, who took him to see Sharky's Machine when he was 11. I'm guessing this early exposure to the nitty gritty of man world, is what made him such a lamb. (That's right I just called him a lamb. Deal with it)

They sent pics all day, while I napped, sewed, ran errands. Sadie and I went out for dinner, and watched "My Cat From Hell". We talked until midnight, and slept in until 9. Perfect. When do we get to have time with our girlfriends like that? NEVER.

I guarantee you we looked this glamorous while watching My Cat From Hell last night

Seeing my handsome fellas in their matching seersucker playing, and being guys, basically made me feel like my heart was being squeezed just a little too tight. I can't believe my baby is old enough to be out in the world with his old man, my sweet husband. They called me at 11pm on their way back to the hotel. This is a kid who sometimes falls asleep on the couch at 7pm. He had a backpack full of light sabers (it was a fun wedding), and sounded completely content. This mother's day they gave me the greatest gift a mother could get. A little time to myself, a great night of sleep, and the knowledge that my little man is thriving in his little world. Happy Happy Day.

Now if his little brother could make his way out of uterus today, I'd, you know, appreciate that too. C'mon baby, help a mama out!

critics, sycophants, and jujubes

2011-05-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my dad this morning about writing and being misunderstood. It's one of the things about putting your thoughts down on the page, and letting the world read them. I believe it's both an act of courage, folly, and takes at least a smidge of narcissism (otherwise you're John Kennedy Toole). It's like many other artistic endeavors. You can't do it in a vacuum. I mean you can, but then you're a crazed shut-in (I'm borderline).

My friend Jason wrote a blog post this week about the "why you write" issue. The many ways we seek approval, don't want approval, wonder if the things we are writing about are worthy, interesting, make sense to our audience, alienate those closest to us. I've had MANY thoughts like this in the last year "if everyone I knew was dead I could write and INSANE memoir". That can't be healthy. I've also had the slightly saner thought "If I wrote a book under a psuedonym, I could write an INSANE memoir." But where's the fun in that? It wouldn't even be scandalous because who would there be to be scandalized. If it's anonymous it might as well be fiction.

Sometimes I don't know if this is a mom blog, or a craft blog, or just a place for me to mentally vomit every so often. I know that I enjoy the writing process. I'm often compelled to write, waking up in the middle of the night with whole posts in my head. I like when people respond to it in a positive way, and I'm driven to distraction when someone clearly doesn't get it. My least favorite response is a the "aaawww, you're great! Don't be blue!" response to a post where I'm clearly trying to tell a story about what a Larry David style socially awkward freak I can be. I mean you have to know that if I'm telling an embarrassing story, it's because

A) I think it's funny
B) I think I'm awesome
C) I want you to laugh AT me AND with me
D) In my family we laugh at ourselves a lot, and DO NOT under any circumstances want pity or pathos from strangers much less each other. That would be a sign that you are weak, and the other family member will promptly kill and eat you

When I get the pity response, it makes me feel
A) Dirty
B) Misunderstood
C) Like one of those moms who makes her kid sick to get attention. What's that called? Munchausens? I swear all neurosis contained within these pages is real.
D) Angry that irony is not something that everyone is born with

I hope this post didn't feel like a scolding. I don't want to be one of those people that tells you how to view their work. You're gonna read this and take what you will from it. How you perceive my little life will be based more on, wether you were bullied in school, have parents who love you, and are the kind of person who decoupages to mask the suffering that is the human existence, than anything I say. Just know I'm out here in the sun, typing away because I enjoy it, and I love it when you love it, and when you don't...I think you're stupid.

Without further ado, here is the jujube story:

I should start this by saying that I was raised by a woman who, though she is now some sort of Methodist/Buddhist amalgamation, I always had the impression she was trying to raise us like nice Jewish kids. So much so that in college, I once lied on a date and told a boy (who I thought was totally not worth the lip gloss I had just applied, but you know first date, trying to make a good impression) that my mother's side of the family was Jewish. Ok, well I didn't out and out say it, I just didn't correct him when he said something about how I understood because I was Jewish. Sue me. I now realize that this was just my sheltered midwestern response to all the hummus and fake yiddish accent aphorisms she used to throw around. We couldn't be bigger honky's. But I grew up thinking I had some silent connection to Woody Allen and a pushcart on Orchard street. THESE WERE MY PEOPLE!

Ok that was all disclaimer for those of you who don't have my ironic Jewish fatalism and comic sensibilities, and are going to to think the following story is about me being a closeted bigot. Kind of like my niece's old nanny who thought Borat was anti-semetic. Sigh... No irony. The amount of explaining contained in this paragraph kind of ruins the rest of it for me, and I'm vowing not have any more paragraphs like this on the blog again. But I'm 9 months pregnant, and if one more person says something stupid to me this week, there will be blood...

When Nipper and I were first married, we lived in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. There is an enormous concentration of Hassidic Jews in this part of town. I always marveled at their ability to get their teenage sons to wear giant hats and payos in the middle of our giant media metropolis. And don't even get me started on the wives wigs. Kudos to you. Living in this neighborhood shattered all of my illusions that I could "pass" for a jew. A revelation I verbalized in an audition with John Landis when he asked about my ankle tattoo. One of my finer professional moments. I am SO awesome.

The men in the neighborhood would avert their gaze when we passed on the street. The women, paid me no mind. After a few years, I took to saying in a too loud, and too friendly tone "GOOD AFTERNOON!" like a crazy person, because it pained me so to be shunned by MY people. The chosen people.

One day I was walking home from the art supply store. I saw a dad and his three small children stopped on the sidewalk half a block ahead of me. The littlest one was in a stroller, and the other two were crowded around. They were sharing some kind of candy out of a box, and as I got closer the kids looked up at me, smiling, mouths filled with sweets. When I got about 10 feet away, I exclaimed loudly "JUJUBES!!!!!!!!". The dad who would normally just turn his head so as not to have to look at the wicked shiksa, looked directly at me, his face incredulous and sour. In the time it took for his direct gaze and disapproval to register, I had halved the distance between us. Looking down I could see clearly the writing on the candy box. They were gummy bears. The girls were eating gummy bears out of a box. But gummy bears don't come in a box. EVERYONE knows they come in a bag! The dad clearly thought I was making some crass racial slur at the expense of his children. He must have thought I was MESHUGANA.

I've since learned to live with the banality and non being of my jewish existence.

Mazel Tov!

Quantum Leap

2011-05-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

The nesting phase of my pregnancy is over. I can barely look at my sewing machine or go into my office without thinking "look at all that crap, so much work, I need a nap" and then I eat 17 portions of something, and fall asleep. I'm like a narcoleptic obese person. But also cranky, and sometimes I cry for no reason.

I've moved on to the anxiety, work dream, phase of my pregnancy. A few nights ago, I dreamt my agent called me at 3am to see if I could make an audition in Santa Monica by 5am, and oh there were lots of sides, and I had to be in camera ready hair and make-up.

Last night I had a dream that I was in a sketch on SNL with Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader. It was something about being at an airport, and Jason Sudeikis was playing the ticket agent and Bill Hader was my boyfriend. Except I didn't know my lines. It was like I had been dropped into the sketch Quantum Leap style, and I had no idea what was going. I knew I was on SNL, but you know, nothing else. But I was like "IMPROV! I CAN DO THIS!" So I just started making stuff up, and the audience was laughing, and Jason Sudeikis kept breaking, which made Bill Hader break, and I thought everything was going pretty well, until Hader turned to me and said under his breath "Lorne is totally going to fire your ass the minute this sketch is over" Noooooooooo!

Then we were in the dressing rooms, which for some reason were like fancy horse stables. I was trying to take pictures of all the girl cast members because they are my heros, but they were all just giving me sad "girl, you are about to get canned" faces.

Then I woke up, peed, and spent the rest of the night going through every labor and delivery scenario available to my subconscious. My favorite ones being where I don't give birth in the back of the prius in rush hour traffic.

Happy Birthday To MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

2011-04-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Nipper is out tonight at a bachelor party. I am home with the boy. We made a new Thomas the Train track in the living room, played legos, had slot car races, ate In&Out burgers, watched Shrek, read SIX (he insisted) books, and now here I am, alone on the couch. I took a shower and ate a quesadilla. F U I'm pregnant, I can eat a burger and a quesadilla if I want to. Every time I have a moment to myself these days I think I'm going to go into labor. But so far, tonight, nothing. Although what I'm about to show you just might start me having contractions.

You all remember a year ago, when Nipper drove to NEVADA to get me this knotted melati chair from Anthropologie. It was out of stock online, and 75% off in the store, but there were only 2 of them, one in Northern California for full price and the Nevada one for 75% off. He loves me. It's been hanging in our breezeway for the last year, and we sit in it and swing and swing. I had originally planned to hang it in the yard, once we built the deck and pergola, but that's going to take some time. Which is perfect because now there is THIS:

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited. It's pink and orange and yellow and looks like if a hare krishna was a chair, and I want to sit in it with my two babies wearing a marigold necklace and a Lemlem dress, and OH this is going to be a good summer!

Foot in mouth disease

2011-04-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have a terrible tendency to say whatever is on my mind. Except when it counts and then I keep it to myself. If you were hoping I'd be that friend who'd tell you you're husband is cheating or that your opinion on world news is fecking ridiculous and you shouldn't speak in public, I'm not your girl. I prefer to lead by example. Sticking my foot in my mouth at every turn so my friends have LOTS to gossip about behind my back thus forgetting their own problems, and perhaps keeping them from talking about subjects on which they are ill informed. I'm the Mother Theresa of helping people feel better about their lives, because they're not me.

Half the things that come out of my mouth are deeply regretted, and I'm suspicious of my thought process as the words are unfolding. I'm pretty sure I know why I do this, but I'm not telling. Do you ever find yourself for instance, in the middle of a heated discussion, saying something that, as your saying it with so much conviction, you'd think it was the Gettysburg address, thinking "well, that's bullshit". This happens to me all the time.

The other day I was talking to the receptionist at Jack's school. She's pregnant as well, and her due date is a week after mine. Every day on my way out, I stop and have a little polite conversation about the aches, pains, and oddities of pregnancy. Yesterday she asked me if I had my bag packed for the hospital (she doesn't really know me). I said yes, but it was just a few nightgowns, a cardigan, some hand lotion and a few bunny sacks for the baby.

She said she needed to pack hers, but also didn't the hospital provide onesies. To which I replied "Oh, yeah, I don't even remember if we took clothes for the baby last time, but I got such cute baby gifts, I thought I'd take a few for this one, but then realistically I'll probably just hand him to the nurse and say HERE, YOU TAKE CARE OF HIM". WHAT THE FUCK?! The world began to move in slow motion as I finished my sentence. What are you talking about?!

You know how sometimes in email, tone doesn't translate? That's how I felt. But I was actually talking. As soon as I said it, I thought, "Jesus Christ's Crackers, she doesn't know you're joking! She doesn't know you can't fire your gardener or ask your cleaning lady to stop stealing the lemon fresh pledge (3 bottles in 4 months, and yesterday a full bottle of Mrs Meyers Verbena dish soap...maybe I should make her a lemony gift basket). She had no idea that you moved a 75lb garden pot and filled it yourself yesterday because you don't like asking for help. She doesn't know that when Jack was born, you kept getting into trouble with the night nurse for refusing to let him sleep in his little plastic hospital crib, and kept pulling him into bed with you so you could sleep all smushed together. She doesn't know that you wouldn't let your mother in law push the stroller through The Grove when he was 3 weeks old, because YOU had to be in contact with the baby at all times. All she knows is that you just got all Scarlett O'Hara on her, "Fiddle-dee-dee Mammy take that baby, Ms. Scarlett needs her rest", and now she has to smile awkwardly, and nod, and hope you go away promptly. I did.

Then I realized that Jack's teacher was around the corner in the teacher's lounge, probably listening, and rolling her eyes at the other teachers, with a look that said "Can you believe that lady?! We watch her kid all day and OH, she's tired...bitch please"

I wonder if I sewed her a baby quilt in the next 2 weeks, she'd forget that I've revealed myself to be a complete ass. At least she'd think "that lady is a real ass, but it was nice of her to sew me this baby blanket".

Don't let me forget to tell you the jujubees story sometime. It's a classic..

Le Grille

2011-04-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Our house came with a built-in outdoor grill. It sounds fancy, but it's not. When I hear the term built-in outdoor grill I think of those fancy brick ovens that have viking mini refrigerators, and they are alway in an olive grove or next to a pool that has a water slide hidden in a succulent garden. Ours is in the driveway, and attached to the garage.

It was also brick, and the metal parts were painted maroon red, and the sides were pale yellow tile, and the whole thing was FILTHY. It works well, but was pretty ugly.

A few years ago I asked Roberto to tile it and paint it for me, and as you can imagine by now, he said "No, I think it looks really good". And no I haven't fired him yet, but I'm going to. I'LL DO IT ~~TODAY~~! SOON.

Last month I found that little tutorial on how to make decoupage coasters using mod podge hard coat, and it got me thinking that maybe I could just decoupage the tiles on the grill. Then I could paint over the ugly maroon, and voila, still hinky, but much prettier built-in outdoor grill! I found paper that looks like those pretty moroccan tiles they have at Mission Tile that cost 10 kajillion dollars a piece. I am still thinking of painting the whole thing to match the house, but for now the white is a massive improvement, and makes the whole area look brighter and cleaner.

Now I just need to tile the patio, get new outdoor lighting, and hang some more plants, and it'll be done... until I think of something else.

hee hee hee hooooooooo

2011-04-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow me on twitter, or have 'liked' my facebook fan page, you know I've been pre-occupied with my impending due date. Not because I'm worried about it. I'm not, but because it's coming up so fast! My pregnancy with Jack seemed to go on forever. This one has flown by. I'm a little sad, because I know this is our last, and I'm trying to savor every moment, good, bad, bladder related. I'm excited to meet the little dude. I'm also scurrying around like something that scurries (thank you pregnancy brain shrinkage) getting the house, Nipper Knapp, and Jack ready for baby.

I went to the doctor Friday and she did her little measurements, and pronounced that the baby was measuring between 7.5-8lbs. Uhm... I have 4 weeks to go. She gave me the caveat that it could be up to a pound off in either direction, but she was guessing no less than 7. Ok, that's fine, I don't mind having a possibly 10lb baby. YES I DO! I like my vagina! It doesn't deserve this! Just kidding. Not really.

So my friend Kelly sent me an invite to this site Pinterest this week. At first I was all "geez Kelly, I don't have time to go around cataloging the things I like on the web, I'm a mom, and pregnant, and still working (sort of) and, and, and... I've been "pinning" things non stop. It's so easy, and now I have all these little pinboards with things I like for the house, clothes, destinations, books, etc...

I found this little nest on someone else's pin board. I would camp if tents always looked like this

I'm sort of thinking of it as fantasy football for girls. It's like fantasy lifestyle league. It serves no purpose, takes lots of selecting, and considering, get's you no where, but you can share it with friends, so it's social. I LOVE it!

the mobile was made by this brilliant woman who just had a baby boy,

I found this mobile on one of Kelly's pin boards. I have a frame from an old chandelier that was in the house when we moved in. It's hideous, and we replaced it with a nelson bubble lamp. But I kept the frame because I thought I could fix it up somehow. I'm totally going to make it into this dealie, but with lights for my office! SO cute! I just need to pick fabrics, cut out more leaf shapes (kill me now) oh and hope this baby doesn't come in the next 2 weeks, because I still have to finish the lilly pilly tree quilt for Jack's nanny, paint the grill, hang our new street numbers that I got at anthropologie last year, re-pot the big hardenbergia in the yard, build a deck, oh and sleep...

Good Girl Dinette

2011-04-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Just realized that tomorrow night is the "multi-cultural potluck dinner" at Jack's school. Each family is supposed to bring a dish that represents their culture. The kids made tie-dye shirts this week to wear to it. Uhm...

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out if I should have one of our favorite restaurants pack up a take-out order for us, or just be honest and drive through In-N-Out Burger.

The meal that best represents our culture would be someone else making it, and then a waiter taking away the dishes when we're done eating it. Sad, but true. Maybe I'll take a few gallons of Fosselman's cinnamon ice cream, and be done with it. Or a box of frozen soy "chik" nuggets". Or some Annie's naturals mac and peas. Or toast. I could just take a whole loaf of toast right? A few boxes of cereal. Green smoothies for everyone! A bushel barrel of honeycrisp apples. A baker's dozen fancy cupcakes.

I know, I know, I'll take 3 large Village Pizzeria pizzas, 1/2 pepperoni, 1/2 cheese, and 6 meatballs in sauce. Done. Phew...

Bossypants

2011-04-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have been reading the most grim books lately. I don't know what's come over me. I can barely watch the news, and yet I've been reading grisly murder mysteries, and a bunch of compelling but disturbing non fiction. The other night I was lying in bed when I finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is great, but I was feeling my hope for human beings slipping away and decided I needed to read something happier before I went to sleep. I went into the ibooks store and found Tina Fey's new book Bossypants. I got a sample and started reading.

15 minutes later, I finished the sample, bought the book, and had to force myself to go to stop reading and go to sleep around 1:30am because Jack was going to be up early for school, and I was going to be wrecked. I finished it the next day after a long nap. SO GOOD.

If you are a working mom, or a stay at home mom, or have a vagina you should read this book. Also if you don't have a vagina, but you have kids and a job, or a wife, or both, you should read this book. If you hate laughing, and think women shouldn't have jobs because they need to be home sweeping, then as Tina Fey says (I'm paraphrasing) you "can go shit in your hat".

She talks about her background in improv, the behind the scenes stuff from SNL, what she learned from Lorne Michaels, and how she navigates working 70 hours a week on 30 Rock, while being a mom, a wife, and all around ass kicker. Did I mention she had to personally call Oprah and ask her to PLEASE come and shoot an episode of 30 Rock they already had half shot, all while planning her daughters 3rd birthday (Peter Pan themed), and doing her first performance on SNL as Sarah Palin. Ass. Kicker.

And finally FINALLY, a wealthy, intelligent, powerful woman cops to the whole nanny/babysitter, I do all the parenting myself lie. (Gwyneth and her "first I get the kids dressed, and make them all breakfast and off to school before I go to my photo shoot"... Ok Gwynie, I'm sure your cook/nanny/housekeepers don't help you with that at all.) My favorite footnote in the book was this one:

*"I know it's bullshit that I say "babysitter" instead of nanny. What I have is a full-time nanny, and I should be roundly punished for trying to make it seem like the teenager next door comes over one night a week. But I don't like the word "nanny." It gives me class anxiety and race anxiety. And that is why I will henceforth refer to our nanny as our Coordinator of Toddlery. "

AMEN! I would now like to apologize for referring to Brenda as Jack's babysitter. Until he started school he was with her 25 hours a week. She was, and still is, indispensable to us. She comes during the week on Jack's non-school days, and takes him to the park or a museum, for walks. He loves her, and a lot of times when she's here, I am too. She allows me to pay bills, take a nap, blog, finish one of my 10,000 projects. Jack can come and get hugs, and most of the time Brenda and I end up gossiping while he says things like "ugh, what are you guys talking about?!?!?!?!" I usually say "feelings" or "jesus" and he goes back to playing.

So... Having read Bossypants, I now love Tina Fey, even more than I already did. She's smart, funny, and has a tremendous ability to navigate a business that I have only succeeded on the fringe of. (dangle) Read it today, or you can go shit in your hat...

SLAUGHTER THE GOAT!

2011-04-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

I borrowed this beached whale from here

I am massive. I'm putting odds on this baby being born 2 weeks early. I'm also putting bets on me going just a little crazy if it doesn't. I can't bend over at all, which is weird. I swear I don't remember not being able to bend over when I was pregnant with Jack. I also don't remember Jack having razor blades for bones. I have pointy elbows, and Nipper has pokey sternum (it's true!), so maybe this one has inherited those charming traits.

Nipper Knapp's niece and her best friend came to visit us this week from Michigan for their spring break. They are 13. Oh holy cuteness. They are all at once sweet kids, and eye rolling, Katy Perry sing-a-longing teens. We did the rounds with them, taking them to the Hollywood sign, Universal Studios, the beach, the giant Forever 21 in Pasadena that used to be a Saks Fifth avenue (so depressing).

On Tuesday I had my friend Deanna do their hair and make-up before we went out for the day. Deanna works in film and television and I thought it'd be fun for them to get sort of a make-up lesson from a pro. Aren't they pretty?!

Tuesday afternoon I had arranged for them to take a dance class at The Edge Performing Arts Center. It's the place in town where it seems like all the professional dancers and choreographers train. I had sent them a schedule of classes and they decided they wanted to take a hip-hop class. I asked them if they wanted to take a beginning class or a regular one. They said "I dunno". They're both dancers and have been taking for years. So I asked if they had ever taken hip-hop before. "Nope". Ok, so beginning it is...

Nipper texted me from Universal and said they were both a little nervous about the class. Oh and that their feet were sore from walking in flip flops all day. My Knute Rockne brain took over, and I gave them my version of a pep talk.

I told them about the time I was in Cuba my senior year of College. I was there studying Santeria under Communism. I had befriended some people who worked in our hotel, and they were showing us around, introducing us to their families, and showing us how they lived. I asked if anyone could take me to meet a Babalawo or Santero (you know like a priest or shaman). The lifeguard at our hotel said his sister knew a guy, who knew a guy. We went into a shanty town a few miles from our hotel. We went to her house, and then she took us to the Babalowa. Also later that day, I may or may not have made out with the lifeguard, but I left that out of the story for the girls, didn't seem pertinent to my point.

The Babalawa had people lined up outside his house waiting to see him. He had an alter in the main room and was in the process of helping some little girl who's mother was sick, or maybe she wasn't doing well in school, I can't remember. I asked if there were any sort of rituals or ceremonies I could be witness to. He told me to come back later because they were going to do something important later than night. Then he pointed to the half door that led to a tiny space behind the house. There was a goat and the biggest rooster I had ever seen in my life. They were going to slaughter them, then do something with the blood. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

In my time there I had seen a newly killed pig being cleaned for a roast in a yard, and I wouldn't say I was squeamish, but something about seeing these two animals live and in the flesh did me in. I didn't go back. I think about it all the time when I'm afraid to do something or try something new. I regret it all the time. It was a good lesson. I should have gone back that night, seen what it was all about. Instead me and Radio Raheem necked in the stairwell of my hotel.

So I said to the girls "sometimes life presents you with an opportunity to do something you may never get a chance to do again." Not that hip hop class in LA is equivalent to ritualistic animal killing, but still. I said, "you are never going to see these people again! Even if you just stand in the back and sort of half dance/watch, what've you got to lose?! SLAUGHTER THE GOAT!"

Needless to say they skipped the class and we all met up for pizza instead. I can't wait until Jack tells me he wants to quit his interpretive dance class, or flag football. "SLAUGHTER THE GOAT JACK!"

Can you see the resemblance. The lifeguard was cuter though...

Evie's baby quilt

2011-04-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I was overcome with the urgent need to make a baby quilt for my friend Allie who is due 3 weeks after me. This whim hit me around 10:30 on a Tuesday night. I knew I was going to see her for dinner this week, and wanted to have a little baby something, since I didn't know if I'd see her again before we are both in the baby black hole of newborndom.

Alexander Henry's Birdsong

I used pieces from the pink laura ashley ticking sheets I had on my bed when I was young. The benefits of having all my fabric in one place where I can see it is already paying off. The binding is made from some shabby chic sheets I bought when I thought we might have a girl. The rest are bits of dreamy fabrics I had in my stash. I was trying to make it girly, but not too, and to match the crib bumpers and bedding I knew Allie had just sewn from Alexander Henry's Birdsong.

Pregnancy pics

2011-04-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Can someone clarify something for me? Am I the baby mama? Is Nipper the baby daddy? I don't really know. Like if Nipper said "I'm tired of all this baby mama drama", he'd be talking about me, right?

Ok, that settled, it's time for me to show you guys some of my favorite pics from the pregnancy shoot I did with my friend Ingrid Franz Moriarty (check that link for her GORGEOUS pregnancy photos and portraits), of Signs Of Labor (check that link for great pregnancy and doula swag). Ingrid is a genius photographer, and founder of a company that helps raise awareness of pregnant women and pregnancy on the roads. I feel so lucky to have gotten a chance to have her capture this tiny moment in time with me and Jack (and baby #2). If you are in LA, and are pregnant or have kids, I demand you contact her for pics. Genius.