So on Tuesday I was working hard in the ol’ home office (stop laughing, I totally was) when my finger accidentally slipped and instead of continuing on with the writing of the Most Boring Report Known To Man I somehow found myself on Bejewell’s site.  Look, I don’t know how these things happen.  Must be sun spots.

Anyway, I read all about how she had won an award and I was all, “well la di da, look who’s the fancypants” when I then saw that she had then kindly passed the award on to me.  It was for bloggers that show “creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.”  I’m guessing she chose me for my mad design skills.

And I was so excited because finally!  My greatness is recognized!  I began writing a little acceptance speech but then I realized that I was late for a conference call.  So I picked up the Buddha and slung her into the crib, hoping that she wouldn’t notice it wasn’t quite naptime.  Then I ran downstairs and grabbed the phone only to realize that I left the call-in number upstairs.  I ran back upstairs to get the number, which is about when the Buddha realized it was not, in fact, naptime and started screaming.  I stopped by the nursery and flung a few toys into the crib, closed the door to muffle the screaming, and headed back downstairs.  By this point the dogs, jazzed up by all this upstairs-downstairs action, were prancing around on the stairs and I managed to trip over not one but BOTH of them on my way back to the phone.  Limping and sweaty, I lumbered into the kitchen and called in only a few minutes late.  And immediately everyone was like, “Who’s doing all the heavy breathing?”

The point is that I got a little distracted that afternoon and never acknowledged Bejewell.

And I spent all of yesterday at a work retreat and I’m sorry, but eight hours spent bonding with my colleagues pretty much is all I can take in one day, so I didn’t get around to accepting the award yesterday either. 

But it was very kind of her to pass it on, so here I am, saying thank you.  I’m late, but then all my thank-you notes are late so, you know, par for the course.

Oh, and I’m supposed to show the award:

And link to the original site that started the whole she-bang, which is Arte y Pico.  That site is in Spanish, and I only tell you that because I clicked through and was all “What the…” so I’m trying to spare you that. 

I’m not passing on the award because I am selfish.  No, really, it’s because I have the Most Boring Report Known To Man Runner Ups One and Two looming on my to-do list. 

Now that I’m an award-winner do I get an assistant?

Two facts:

1) After years of service spent shrinking plastic film on windows, thawing frozen water pipes, heating little bits of sticky tape so they came off easier, and, yes, drying my hair, the K-Mart-purchased hair dryer that I received as a Christmas gift back in 1988 (that’s nineteen eighty-eight, lest you think that was a typo) finally died last week.  This weekend I purchased a new hairdryer.

2) Today I am having the best hair day that I’ve had in approximately two years.

Coincidence?

So, like, BlogHerNot is totally over which means that it’s time for me to arrive because if there is one theme that runs throughout my life it is that I always MISS THE PARTY.  Always.  Without fail.  If there’s a good time to be had, I will miss it by one week.  Or one night.  Or five minutes, as happened one horrifyingly awful New Year’s Eve when I chased a party across a large American city for four hours, spending nearly $100 in cab fare and just missing the happenings every single time.  The scene, it is always better before I get there. 

So I missed the call for BlogHerNot instructors and didn’t prepare a post and now I’m all I WANT TO PARTICIPATE but everyone involved is hungover and saying, “Oh, baby, you should have been here a few hours ago.  Now that was a good time.”

Such is my life.  But don’t miss out.  There’s good stuff to be found.  Over there.  Not here.  I ran out of time to write good stuff because I was too busy reading their good stuff.  The good stuff that’s over there.  I mean here.

Right.

Me: All right, what shoes am I going to wear today?
Other Me: Well, you do have that event to go to.
Me: Oh, right, that thing being held at the church. 
Other Me: So you should probably wear something nice.
Me: But it’s really hot.  I want to wear sandals.
Other Me: I don’t think you should; it’s not very professional.
Me: But it’s Juuuulllyyyy.
Other Me: You know how we feel about open-toed shoes at work.  Let alone a work event at a church.
Me: *grump* Well, what about these sandals?  They are a little dressier.
Other Me: They are, but they are still sandals.  You shouldn’t wear sandals to a church.
Me: But…but…they are Jesus-y sandals.  Doncha think?
Other Me: Your logic is that it is okay to wear sandals to a church if they are Jesus sandals?
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 
Other Me: Heh heh.  It’s not funny.  Heh heh.
Me: HAHAHAHA! Jesus sandals to an event in a church! HA!  I’m totally wearing them.  Man, I crack me up.
Other Me: Are you done now?
Me: HAHA!  Heeeeeee.  I guess so, why?
Other Me: Because you are talking to yourself again.  I just thought you might want to know.
Me: *sigh*

We tried the pool again this past weekend.  This time we remembered to class it up a bit and brought out some actual toys for the Buddha to play with.

You know those foam letters that you are supposed to give the baby in the bath?  They stick to the side of the tub and you can use them to spell out words and thus expose your child to basic early literacy concepts that will further their brain development and help them maximize their potential as educated human beings?  Yeah.  Those letters.

They stick real good.

(Note that the dirt yard, cheap pool, and naked baby have not changed.  We didn’t want to intimidate the neighbors by getting too big for our britches.)

Why oh why won’t my child sleep past 5:30?  She used to sleep later.  Oh, how fondly I remember the glory days of 7:30: those lazy, hazy, halcyon mornings gone by.  If I’d known they would be so fleeting, I would have taken more time to enjoy them.  More time to snuggle into the blankets, more time to hit snooze on the alarm clock, more time to wedge my cold feet into my husband’s calves as punishment for his snoring…

Alas, those days seem to be gone forever.

My sweet old boyfriend Mr. 7:30 has been beaten up and kicked out and in has swaggered the new man in my life: Mr. 5:30.  I’m trying to appreciate his good points.  The morning sun is extra peaceful at 5:30 and the birds are extra chatty.  Being up so early gives me a chance to pick up the house so I don’t have to do it at night.  Breakfast, especially coffee (COOOFFFFFEEEEEEEEEE), tastes better then.  Most importantly, it gives me more time to snuggle with the Buddha before I have to get ready to go to work. 

See?  I am really, really, really, really, really trying.

But…

No.  Every morning when I hear that “a ba ba ba BA BA BA BAAAA BAAAA” coming down the hallway it becomes abundently clear that this is something I can only tolerate, never love.

Mr. 5:30 and I are just never going to have anything but a begrudging relationship.  I’ll politely smile at his jokes, but I will never wash his socks.

You can hook this nightowl up to a main-lined IV drip of coffee, but you cannot, ever, under any circumstances, make her love 5:30.

I don’t care how chatty his birds are.

(Did that sound dirty to anyone else, or have I just had so much coffee that I’m hallucinating?)

I’ve been late for work every single day this week.

You’d think the fact that the Buddha got me up at 5:30 this morning, thus giving me almost three hours in which I could get ready and leave the house, would mean that I’d manage to somehow break the streak and be on time today.

You’d be wrong.

Also?  My shirt has a rip in it.  I just noticed.

And also?  I have zits.

And one more also?  My hair looks like hell.  Like that’s a surprise.

And yes, just one more, last one I swear also?  I have a meeting to lead in two hours for which I am totally unprepared and (I lied) also?  I haven’t written any of the materials.

It’s a glorious, GLORIOUS day!

This past weekend was HOT.  HOT as in “the weather was hot”, not HOT as in “my secret lover spirited me away to the Caribbean for three days of rum-based drinks and inappropriate massaging” although that is also true.  I’m just kidding.  No, I’m not.  Yes, I am.  Wait, what?

Anyhoodle, to combat the heat (which, for the record, I do not complain about because I complain about being cold, not hot, pay attention), the Alias Father and I set up a little plastic kiddie pool for the Buddha Baby in our front yard.  Which happens to be completely dirt because landscaping is always the thing we are going to do next year.  But the Buddha doesn’t care so we plunk her down in her bargain-basement pool except that we haven’t bothered to buy her swim diapers so she is naked. 

So we are sitting there in our dirt yard and the Alias Father takes off his shirt because, as I mentioned, it is hot.  I am stretched out in a crappy aluminum beach chair drinking a beer with my feet in the pool.  The dogs, which, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before, are pit-bully-types, are lounging about chewing on sticks.  This is their favorite past-time and we usually yell at them for it but today it is too hot, so instead we just resign ourselves to picking up stick puke at 2 AM.

And it is hot.  It is so hot.  The air is rising off the packed dirt in waves.  The Buddha is splashing away when we suddenly realize that we forgot to bring out any toys for her.  So Alias Father looks around, reaches over, and picks up a rock.  He swishes it around in the pool and hands it to the baby, who happily begins gnawing on it.

And I realize that somewhere, somehow, in between the plastic pool and the dirt yard and the aluminum beach chair and the beer and the shirtless husband and the pit bulls chewing on sticks and the naked baby and the toy that is not really a toy but is actually a rock, my life, my nice little life, has somehow become a bit trashy.

And instead of fleeing in horror or yelling at the dogs or taking the rock away from the baby, for heaven’s sake, I drink some more beer and call my sister to tell her about it all.

Because I’m kind of like that.

I had a perfectly glorious long weekend, filled with sun and warmth and friends and adventures.  I went to our small town Fourth of July parade and came back with some Smarties and hard candy to show for it.  I went to a endless summer afternoon barbeque and had the best-behaved baby there.  I went for a long evening walk with the Buddha and didn’t get eaten by bugs.  I spent time in the hammock, time being productive, and time goofing off.  It was, in short, absolutely lovely.

So why am I filled with ennui?

I periodically find myself in this place, this place of dissatisfaction and angst and grumpiness.  This place of fussing and bothering and crankiness.  This place of ridiculousness because my life, it is so sweet and good and lucky.  And it is not perfect, but perfect is as perfect does and less is more and home is where you find it and all that.  And I know all of this, I know it, and yet…here I am again.

Do you ever find yourself here?  How do you shake it?

On Tuesday night the Buddha woke up once at 2:30, got dosed with Baby Tylenol for the tooth pain, and went back to sleep until 7:30.

Yesterday, three of the four (FOUR!) teeth poked through the skin.

Last night, she slept straight through from 8 PM to 7 AM with only minor, not-really-awake whimpering around 3.

We may have turned the corner on this little phase.

I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: those of you with non-sleeping babies are my heroes.  I seriously don’t know how you do it.  As your reward, I’ll dream nice dreams of you drinking beer on the beach somewhere.

You know, while I’m sleeping.  Soundly.

(I totally just cursed myself there.  You’re welcome.)