Amidst the tone of morbidity in my last post, I promised you sweet snuggly babies and roly-poly canine cuteness. So like Naked Eyes sang, “Peromisses. Promisezz“, and I shall deliver. (Don’t you just love that song from the 80’s?)

A bit of a precursor – these pictures of Beau and Theo below are now somewhat famous on the internet. My apologies for being totally lame and too mainstream if you’ve seen them. But some content deserves a playback (especially when it lands a mommy blogger a book deal). Anyhow, don’t these photos melt your insides (like Starbucks cinnamon cider)?

So, so, so damn cute. The very last pic is my favorite because Milo sleeps in this same position, with his hinie in the air.

I’ll relish my sleep tonight because in a couple more years, I know he’ll be up at the buttcrack of dawn to open presents.

What can I say? Tomorrow is Xmas, so snap lots of pics of those little ones, but remember the best moments are when you put the camera down and drink it all in. With your naked mom eyes.

On and on, we laughed like kids at all the silly things we did.

Falalala.

Promises. Promises.

Those little moments are magic, hold on to them.

Wishing you joy and sparks and the best “Chwismuss” yet.

I’m brimming with merry and bright despite some weird shit going down around us lately. We’ll get into that shortly because for now I am too busy introducing Milo to Rudolph, twirling him to the Kidz Holiday Bop station on Pandora, and getting my own good fix of Diana Krall’s Christmas crooning. Our Noble Fir tree twinkles with a warm glow in our oversized living room window, and it may all serve as a peaceful, seductive illusion.

I’m not neurotic. Well, not full-blown. I wouldn’t classify myself as paranoid because I lived in New York, and my typically laid-back West Coast demeanor pales in comparison to people I used to know there. But like I said, there’s some weird shit going down lately and all the Christmas lights in California can’t camouflauge this daunting moon.

It’s the kind that hangs low and illuminates the water to an enchanting mirthy green. I saw it days ago while driving over the Richmond Bridge in my commute home with a long sea of red tail lights before me. The ghetto birds (the low flying black helicopters in Oakland) that pan for criminals have been absent lately, and in their place this giant pill-shaped moon.

And yesterday, without warning, I returned home to our formerly winsome street lined with period lamps and sprawling trees to a shaven apocalypse. I was told a gang of chain saw massacre-ists came through and did the decapitating.

WTF BEAVIS??

While my friends in Seattle are posting pictures on Facebook of a fresh dusting, a Winter Wonderland in the Northwest, here in the charming community of Crocker Highlands, we’ve entered a barren apocalypse. A starving Joshua Tree trail if you will.

And now while driving Milo to Gymboree, I’m waiting for heads to roll down the sidewalk (like they do outside Mexican nightclubs). I’m waiting for dogs to trot with missing ears, and kids to descend out of their homes with shaved heads. There goes the neighborhood.

But the final blow. The devastating drop. The mother of all his falls so far. My son took his first header from our bartop, a straight free fall, four-feet down to our hardwood floor. I rounded the corner to see him laying there. I panicked. Neither one of us could breathe. Not thinking, I scooped him up in my arms, trying to erase what I’d seen. Not realizing I could do more damage.

But he didn’t have a cracked head, or visible blood or dilated eyes, and later – a hard lump on the right side of his head. The doctor said to see if he could walk a straight line. After the blood-curdling screams – he tore down our hallway in a drunk run, like a stiff-legged toddler mummy. He’s one resilient little shit.

It was all over the iPad. His climbing up the barstools like an orangutan for that electronic marvel. He did it all in a millisecond, before his mom could say No. But I’ll still blame the fall on the full moon, on the werewolves in the bushes, on the uneven plane–the slant of our crazy planet. There’s creepy shit going on, I told you. But hey… Sinatra is back and so are light-up candy canes on nearby walkways.

I would die, absolutely die if he were damaged.

I’ll stop the doom and gloom, wish you a merry Christmas and post pictures of drooling babies and fuzzy puppies on my next post. I swear.

Sweet dreams.

With eight days left till Christmas, my finger is itching for the panic button. Dean and I agreed, it’d be a much lighter Christmas this year, after all Milo just turned two, and he’s only beginning to feign interest in boxes wrapped in frilly paper.

This year hasn’t turned out to be the greatest for us financially. That massive deal Dean was working on was supposed to float us into next year but it didn’t pan out, despite all the hours, diligence, blood sweat and expletives.

Since going freelance, I’m thankful for the clients I’ve gained, the people I’ve met. I’m thankful my gaps in between contracts weren’t wider. I’m back now with a former client, within their dark moody walls and trickling jazz music as we type on 2014 pearl white Macs lit by the glow of high-priced table lamps. I have my red pen and my seasonal pages and it’s quiet work in a busy hectic world. The check won’t come till 2014 so all holiday purchases are in the name of Visa. And I’ve come to terms with it.

But I cannot NOT get my parents something for all they’ve done. I can’t NOT get my best friend in Boston something. She sends our gift to us before everyone every year. I can’t NOT get something for my little sister in Denver and my younger brother in Austin. I can’t NOT get something for my husband, even though he calls himself Scrooge, the eternal present pessimist. The analyst. The ‘here’s three reasons why I don’t need this‘ and you should return it for a refund.

But there’s got to be something under the tree for him, he still deserves a little magic So last night, I googled ‘gifts for picky husband’, ‘gifts for the guy who has everything’, ‘gifts for metrosexual husband who is still a guy’s guy’… and what it yielded were things like 100% cashmere briefs with embroidered heart on the bum, an oversized engraved bullet/money stasher, a mile of land to own on Planet Mars and a Ferrari driving experience (which made me laugh if you read this post).

And in Dean’s typical fashion, he comes up with the perfect gift for himself last minute. This AM he texted me a picture of a knife sharpener. (Good I am not still watching Dexter.) He learned about this $23 knife sharpener in a cooking class we went to a couple months back. I’m also going to get him his first fresh shave with hot towels at a local barber, not the Leave It to Beaver kind, a vintage Rockabilly kind where they swim in tattoos and serve you bourbon.

So I’m wondering if I can ask a favor. If you have any other gift ideas for a guy like mine (and their really aren’t many), can you comment and let me know?

Also, besides Thomas the Train track parts and play food for my little man’s kitchen, any other must-haves for a newly minted 2-year old boy?

Toodles and tinsel,

M

Like Martin Luther King, I have a dream.

Only mine is a little more like Alfred Hitchcock’s.

In this dream, I’m found wandering our charming neighborhood aimlessly in my wide-leg Lululemon pants, no bra, and only one shoe. I have scraggly afro hair, two dark raccoon eyes, and I’m pointing in the direction of the faraway “CHOO-CHOO”, as if I can board it and be carried out of my psychotic state. People laugh at me, point at me, and contemplate calling the Oakland PD.

Then CLACK and BLAM. A thin wire of throbbing pain burns through my right temple. I can actually feel it, and when I open my eyes to behold the perpetrator, there he is–the incriminating face of a toddler (my toddler!) beating me over the head with his Thomas the Tank Engine. (Mind you–this is right after the ‘I will now use your sleeping body as a trampoline and launchpad off the sofa, right before I pound the shit out of with my fists.)

I’ve got to face it, my sweet little mellow guy with the gut-splitting laugh, the “observer”,

Not my kid, but close

the gentle-natured boy is becoming the Mike Tyson of toddlers. Okay, maybe that’s going too far. But he’s changing slowly like Gidget becoming a Gremlin, like the Incredible Hulk going green. Ever since he turned two years old, it’s like a trigger got tipped, and he’s pushing buttons, testing boundaries, diving off sofas, throwing punches with those flailing white arms. My baby boy is a tiny neandrethal, a junior UFC fighter in training.

And when his sweet almost 2-year old friend Maddie came by, the one he loves to call to, “MAHNeee, khumeyah (come here)”, the one he loves to have chase him, the one he loves to play blocks with, build trains with, play hide-and-seek in the tent…The same one that he got a hold of by the shoulders and shook like a helpless ragdoll, nearly shoving her down on the floor. And when it happened, I flew up, got him by his own shoulders, looked into his excited blue eyes, and said, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? WHY? WHY? SAY YOU ARE SORRY!” And so the timeout string ensued.

Still in shock, my head in a fog the day after it happened, his homecare teacher told me things like: “they are learning, they get excited… he feels comfortable with her.” It’s time to teach them what’s acceptable and what’s not, that we can hug but not push, that we can dance in circles but not shove. And it made me feel better. And so did Maddie’s mom for understanding the whole thing.

In fact we went out for an adult night at the new awaited Penrose in our hood with two other couples that weekend. Our mom gaggle was so excited to put on lipstick, wear heels, zip up our chic jackets, and sashay into Penrose with its exposed brick walls, dimlit bar, and high family-style tables. We ate flatbread with pomegranate, pork loin, caramelized carrots, and did shots of Herencia tequila, along with some vodka.

Needless to say, the rest of the night became a little fuzzy for me. I remember thinking, I’m out, I’m out, I’m gonna live it up. I feel like I’m back in New York, and anything could happen.

And it did. The next morning I found myself curled up in a bed I never imagined I could fit into. I found myself fully clothed, drooling, waking up at 4am next to my little main squeeze in his toddler bed. In – his – toddler bed – if you thought you read that wrong. Yes, I am truly a contortionist. There he was, the guy who tries on adult sized mannerisms, his heavy closed lids, hot breath against me, that long thin white arm over my back. And here I was, reverting into the fetal position.

Sometimes the lines are blurred. And sometimes it’s nice they are only two, even if it is terrible some days. We may remember their antics, but they’re too young to remember ours.

Bitchslaps and guppy kisses,

M