Oh–My–God–Milo. Look–at–your–butt.

It is so… big. You-look-like-one-of-those-rap-guy snowmen.  (“Snuwmin” you say)!

But you know, who understands those little Michelin men anyway?

The chicks–they only talk to you, because you look like a total badass on those baby skis.

I mean, look at you.

HOLY SHIT!

At 26 months, my man still may still rock the Pampers, but he can ski, bitches!

That’s right. He may be wearing the stiffest boots in the world. And those skis may only be 60 centimeters long. But Milo’s got moves like Jagger, I’m telling you.

Just you wait, at 4, he’ll be doing nosegrabs and ninety rolls on his board like Shaun White.

And eventually I’ll be one of those moms crying like they do in that new Proctor & Gamble ad for their little bruisers that become Olympic athletes. Can’t remember the last time a commercial made me tear up. I’m not even yanking your chain.

Peace and love,

The Nostalgic “Snuuw”mom

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

Remember that old skit on Saturday Night Live–Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey? They play that fuddy-duddy music in the background with a still shot of a cliché landscape, and an ominous Bible voice that reads the words scrolling down the screen, which are typically a twist on an old saying. Here’s one for you:

Well, I had a deep conversation today, or something of that nature with Milo, who is now 25-months old. Here is our rhetorical thread:

Me: Buddy, do you think I will ever write another manuscript again?
Milo: WHY?
Me: Well, because it’s always been a dream of mine.
Milo: WHY?
Me: Because most everyone has a dream. It’s how God wired us.
Milo: WHY?
Me: So that–
Milo: hhhWHY?
Me: So that we have some kind of purpose, and a gift we can share with others.
Milo: OH NOOO.
Me: What?
Milo: I FAHHRTED.

As you can see, this is our new word this week–FAHHRTED, but in his defense he says it when he burps too.

Also, as you can see I need to have more adult conversations. Although, this blog has been my saving grace. WHY you ask is it my saving grace?? Blog writing is a bit like lacing on ice skates and gliding out over a smooth wide rink, this big white field I’m typing in. (woohoo, check me out…) I can go on and on without being interrupted, without plateau questions, without someone (like my husband) twirling a finger in the air telling me to wrap it up, get to the end of the story. Without an editor using strikethroughs. Without executives pontificating over my content. I can say whatever I want to say, and you’ve just go to listen, or click out. It’s your prerogative.

It’s also like standing in a field with a white knuckled grasp on a bunch of balloon strings. And with each confession, I let one go. There I said it, poof. And there I said it–this other thing, poof. Poof. Until I’m sending up all these brightly colored balls of energy and my thoughts are less heady. I have a creative outlet to go to after a long day that may or may not involve: dog gurking, removing shoe polish from Milo’s hair, circling the Trader Joe’s lot 10x for parking, tug-of-war with the iPhone that was dunked in the bathtub, too much, too much whining and another foul diaper full of squishy peanut butter.

Because I don’t want to talk about this with you moms’ on the playground. We can read it plain as day on each other: the dark bags under our eyes, the scraggly hair, the tone in each other’s voices, “I said, DO NOT steal her juice.” Instead let’s talk about the neighborhood co-op progressive dinner, who drank too much, or how the mom up the street has this incredible au pair and doesn’t have to work. Her father invented what?

Let’s send up nebulous thoughts into cyber space, kvetch, nestle into a cozy chair with a warm cup of coffee and warm each other’s hearts with pictures of our munchkins (when they aren’t scream-crying).

On that note, I’ll leave you with one more Deep Thought for the day:

With tears of empathy,

M

I realize this pic looks like one of those poorly developed Polaroids from back in the day, and the washed out color really doesn’t do this gorgeous day justice. But I had a dark shadow over my face and Dean looked like he was pregnant with an alien. Hence the filtering and cropping.

Yes, it’s November in the Bay Area, and we’ve made our annual pilgrimage to Half Moon Bay to buy live crab right off the boat.

Milo kept yelling “HI” through the guardrail at this fisherman below sitting on the bow of his boat, but I think the poor guy felt mocked. No one came down to his side of the pier. We found that buying crab is kind of like choosing which nightclub to go in to. You tend to want to be at the place other people line up for.

This year the crab is $6 per pound, which can only mean one thing… inflation! Two years back it was $4 per pound, They said for a dinner party of eight, we’d better get two crabs per person. As you can see in the pic below, these Dungeness crabs were pretty big boys. We got forty pounds of them.

Dupree has caught a cat claw or two in the past from getting too close. I’ve gotta think a crab claw is much more lethal. Luckily Dupe was a little gun-shy.

After we left the pier and started on the drive home, we came across a rare gem of a beach–one of the only ones that allows dogs on leashes on this area of the coast. It was a bit of a hike to get down there, and I was wearing 3-inch suede heel boots. Yeah, go me. But I took my time scaling down the rocky cliff, and it was well worth it.

 I snapped the above pic right before we all ran to the edge of the cliff. You know your kid is a fast little shit when your 6-foot-five husband has to break out in a sprint to catch him.

Just like running on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas, same plush velvety bronzed sands sans the Don Julio hangover. Plus, these waves weren’t at a vertical trying to pound us down and suck us in to a wicked undertow.

Perhaps a real live Maverick here. We’ll never know. Although, something tells me the Mavericks aren’t in full hooded body gear, even in November. They’re more of the reckless, saltwater in-every-orafice kind.

HBC: “HomeBoyCrew for life” – Dean likes to say

Quite possibly one of my favorite pics of my fellas. Although Dupree is showing us his ass. I suppose if he was facing me, tongue hanging out and ears cocked, it would all look staged.

“Hold still,” was what I kept telling Milo as I wrapped my arms around his frenetic limbs. I wanted to teach him to pace himself. Not to outrun the excitement.

After leaving the beach, the floor of our Traverse now covered in a fresh blanket of sand, we drove through a small town behind five Italian sports cars in different colors. It started with an older Ferrari and ended with a brilliant aerodynamic red one with glinting rims. Dean dubbed the spectacle the “small wiener convention”. I laughed, and thought back to when I’d dated a guy with a yellow Ferrari and how cool I felt riding in it, except for that it was yellow. Bright yellow. I mean if you are going drop boatloads of cash on a car, why in the color of Tweety Bird? After a few dates, I couldn’t handle his baby talk anymore, specifically when he used the word “nummy” at Ruth’s Chris. (Which also may have something to do with a cartoon-colored sports car), and so that was the end of that.

But I realized riding in that very moment, in our sand-speckled SUV (that now reeked of MacDonald’s fast food)–that I’d take a three-row family vehicle with car seat, wet dog on my feet and belching husband any day over riding shotgun in a Ferrari without a ring on my finger, and a promise for tomorrow.

I have everything I want in this moment, the love I’d always craved when I was single. I’ve realized it doesn’t always come in the prettiest package, or with exactly the right words, but it’s something you feel deep inside despite your issues, and you know it’s the real thing. It took so long to get here, but I’m so glad I waited.

OH! And Milo has a new word this week. “Happy.” He said it again while studying my face for a long time there in his car seat. I think he picked up the word from the last page of The Little Blue Truck. He said it again, “Happy,” then nodded slightly, agreeing with himself before he closed his eyes and drifted off into highway slumber.

“Yeah, buddy,” I said brushing a lock of hair away from his eyes, “We are. Happy.”

M

While running late to the train station this AM with a lead foot on the gas, I slammed on the brakes to end up behind this license plate holder.

It’s proof there are still realistic people on this planet, and when you live in a town that borders Berkeley (who is now trying to ban cigarette smoke in domestic households) sometimes you’ve got to wonder.

How would my life look if I was normal? On the outside it’s got to appear that way to some people, but I’m pretty sure I come from a long lineage of people who have always raged against some type of machine. The man who fathered my mother: a drinker, swindler and racketeer. He frequently conned people into investing their savings in his oil drilling runs to Texas but he always came up dry. He eluded the government, tax collectors and investors and vanished when I was three weeks old. Years later we learned he had a whole other secret family.

My father’s father: a traveling motor home evangelist, disciple of TBN. He hung on every word ministered by Paul and Jan Crouch. Late at night, I still see Jan on cable with her lavender Marie Antoinette hair and mile-long fake tarantula lashes. They say women who pile on the makeup and hide behind it, are just plain hiding.

Here are some other hidden facts about people in the media you are familiar with:

1. Dr. Ruth is a trained sniper. She can load a Sten automatic rifle in under a minute.

2. Steve Jobs became a vegan because he believed that would eliminate the need to bathe.

3. Kesha (that seemingly airheaded blonde singer) has an IQ of 150 and scored 1500 on her SATs.

4. Before acting, Christopher Walken was a lion tamer.

5. James Lipton was once a pimp in France.

I’m not saying I’m normal. I’m far from it. But that’s material for several other blog posts. Until then, here are some fairly innocuous things from my past:

1. When I was younger and people told me to pursue writing, I replied saying I wanted to be a mortician. Something about the quiet calm and serenity and the ability to make people over.

2. I try never to step on cracks in sidewalks.

3. I have a tattoo on the inside of my ankle that says Danza (the Italian word for dance). My  girlfriend thought the uppercase ‘D’ looked cool in the sketch at the parlor. Now people think I had a thing for Tony Danza (my husband being one of them).

4. I used to pen love letters for my classmates in school. They’d get the boy, I’d get their lunch money.

5. Growing up, I insisted my mom call me Shannon (no idea why) and cut all my hair off. She wouldn’t bend on the name so I referred to myself in third person as ‘Shannon’ and negotiated a butchered ‘do from my mom, a former beauty school student.

If you ever feel like a misfit at times, like your uniqueness is a detriment in the high school of life – I’ve got a clip below that will make you feel better instantly. Dean has been watching a show called Eastbound & Down. It’s a total guy show about this ex pro baseball player who can’t let go of that life and has to prove to everyone years later that he’s still a baller. Curled mullet, big flapping gut, faded jeans and all. He’s producing homemade self-help videos and pumping his flabby body up with steroids. When life gets to be too much, he climbs on to his leopard-print jet ski with his metaphorical middle finger in the air.

Just spend a few seconds with Kenny Powers now, and you’ll instantly feel more sane:

Dear readers, (what are you one, or five at this point?) would you say you are fairly normal? And if so, how do you define that? Is everything knitted together neatly, all tied up in pretty red bow?

What’s one weird fact about you?

I’d love to know.

M

Life gets weird sometimes. And when it does, you’ve got to put on your leopard-print panties, stick your neck out, and do something a little different. So on this spontaneous Sunday morning, we got in the car and drove to Oakland Zoo.

We finally spotted someone taller than dad. (Dean is 6’5)

Milo wasn’t all that excited about the sprawling safari smackdab in the middle of the urban compound, until we played I-Spy. I started at close range, “I-Spy a rock. I-Spy a fence. I-Spy a sassy girl.” Then we increased our depth of field and he gave me an ecstatic “I-Spy jurafff”! Still for a 2-year old, I think it looks like just another page in the board book.

But Milo went ape-shit in the petting zoo. I felt like a derelict mom running after him with a camera while he chased these guys, stuck his finger in their butts, smack-petted them and tried to make up for it all by feeding them delectable sticks, weeds and rocks.

But isn’t this too cute below?

Little buddies

Simpatico. Just two little souls in our big metropolitan meadow.

Then… on to the baboon exhibit which is always a hit–although we couldn’t see the new baby girl up close. I lifted this pic taken 4 days ago by local press:

Mom and Baby Kodee (1-month old) – photo credit to Bay Area News

The other baboons lounged around picking bugs from each other coats, trying to look sexy with their Jupiter-sized hemorrhoids.

Inspiration for Fall Fashion 2017

Apparently, their swollen red butts indicate an increase in hormones. It’s also a way of attracting mates, and the redder they are–the opportunity for more offspring.

Speaking of attraction, I still do not believe all the scientific crap “proving” that we evolved from apes. Although I do believe in something called microevolution. But the primate family tree, c’mon, I mean if you look at a baboon real closely and then hold up a picture of Josh Duhamel:

You be the judge.

So, anyways, after all the hairbrained fun, we meandered up to an open field near the parking lot to find an explosion of strollers, diaper bags and human children running amok between parents holding coffee mugs and ziplock snack bags.

Then I saw something, something just not right. At first glance, just an educational sign, one of those expensive ones tucked off the walkway between some trees. The headline said ‘Hayward Fault’ then went on to explain how we were standing on top of it in that very spot. WHERE THE CHILDREN ARE PLAYING, completely oblivious. The sign went on to give the history saying it was part of the San Andreas Fault system, like check out this cool piece of trivia. Like how baboons are found in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and how elephants shed real tears like humans.

HELLO. The last major quake for this fault line was in 1868 and they are due every 140 years. We are now at 145 years! So why in the hell have we built a gathering spot for the most innocent generation of our breed on top of a major fault line?

There are some f*cked up things in this world that I just don’t understand.

But I suppose in the meantime, I’ll go on about my business walking on two legs instead of four, making peanut butter squares and posting pics of assholes.

– Your eternal optimist

Lady Baboon