mommy is a crack whore

Now that my kid is talking (somewhat) and better yet, that her absolute favorite word right now is "yeah", I amuse myself by asking her all kinds of questions so that I might receive positive affirmation in return. "Am I the best momma in the world?" "yeah". "Do you know how much I love you?" "yeah". "Are you the happiest baby in the world?" "yeah". It should be noted that her "yeahs" has a variety of splendid inflections: sometimes it's "Yeah!", or "yeahhhhhhh", or "YE-ahhhhh", all which heighten the amusement factor. I was so proud of her ability the other day that I was showing her brilliance off to a friend, who turned and promptly asked "Is your mommie a crack whore?" "YE-ahhhh!!!" Absolutely.

delicious women

I am heading to LA this weekend to meet up with my two oldest and favorite girlfriends. N and E are part of my adolescence, my dating life, my pre-kid world.....many delicious moments in girlhood were shared with these two women. We are only in the same place every few years now - N is a world traveller and lives overseas (Syria, anyone?) and E lives in Southern California, which is a different state altogether. N was in Sri Lanka and was on the beach when the tsunami hit. She, along with her infant son, husband (and while 5 months pregnant) managed to survive due to the tremendous grace of a very small clothesline, each holding onto each other under the water until it finally receded. It was one of the scariest times in our lives - not knowing if N was alive and then hearing about her unbelievable ability to survive the unspeakable - with her family intact. Battered, but intact. N is my hero. E is my hero too, but for entirely different reasons. Have any of you had that one perfect friend? The one who never judges you, never gets mad at you, is so entirely happy and healthy in her own life that she literally doesn't need to work out her shit with, around, or near you? That's my girl E. She's my oldest and dearest friend.

So, we've conned all the daddies to keep all the babies (cheers to the men) and we get to share 24 hours of fantastic, unadulterated chick time. We all have kids ranging from 1-3, which is shocking in itself seeing as the daddies entered the picture in different decades from each other (almost, anyways) but we still managed to get ourselves knocked up around the same time, even though mine was unexpected, E's was IVF, and N's was the "hey let's make a baby and it worked on the first time trying" sort of deal.

I love these women. They are my sisters.

the fourth circle of......

We attended our first kid's party this weekend. As we are driving over, we are running through possible scenarios - will our kid behave, will we know any of these people, and most importantly...will there be beer? Let's just say our kid behaved famously. We've come to the realization that we are just not that comfortable with groups of people congregating solely on the basis of "we all have children". J and I are much more comfortable in our usual settings - mental health, the homeless, beer as a commonly shared beverage, and yes - we have gotten mostly used to our kid being an ongoing force in our lives, but the social nuances of cross comparison of developmental stages escape us. Navigating child names, (never mind properly pronouncing them), various food allergies, and my kid taking that kid's toy and that needing to be used as a learning experience, well, we aren't quite there yet. Or better said, aren't sure we want to be there at all. I have watched other moms seemingly transcend into the parental world, but for us, bedtime is one of the best hours of the day, sesame street has a lot of social value, and we see absolutely nothing wrong with leaving our kid with her grandparents so we can trek off to Cambodia for a few weeks.