The DeLorean

for some time now P has tolerated traveling in the car with little patience. i assume that he is bored back there, where he is required to be rear-facing until he's like 6 years old, staring at drab gray leather and what he may or may not be able to see of the very top of the sky through the side window. i ended up buying him a string of little toys that hang from his carseat handle, which he likes. upon realizing that the toys amount to a mirror/crystal ball, a drum with fringe, and a shrunken head all hanging from a whirly-doo of stars and moons, i have nic-named it his "fortune-telling playset" and constantly demand he reach into the future and resolve all my mysteries. he responds appropriately by banging the drum, staring into the eyes of the shrunken head, and bringing the mirror close to his face so he can chew on it thoughtfully. unfortunately, i can't tell you what he said because it's like your birthday wish -- if i tell you, it might not come true. sorry sucker. here, it has hypnotized him to sleep and the shrunken head has retreated unassumingly to the corner to watch.

anyway, i recently discovered, in a public restroom no less, that P loves jazz muzak. he wiggles his little body and smiles and bops his head along anytime he hears some big brass. since we finally got our satellite radio set up in the wagon, yesterday i thought i might be able to appease P with some jazz tunes and flipped over to station #72 as we wound our way over mingus mountain to prescott. so, the sun is shining. P is gurgling happily in the back seat. saxophones are streaming peacefully through the speakers. and i try to picture the rest of my life set to a soundtrack of bebop.

right. because for the last 15 years, i've spent every moment alone in a car singing angrily at the top of my lungs, a la:

step one: slit my throat
step two: play in my blood
step three: cover me in dirty sheets and run laughing out of the house
step four: stop at lake michigan and rinse your crimson hands
you took me hostage and made your demands
i couldn't meet them so you cut off my fingers
one by one.
{alkaline trio}

love songs of course (because aren't all songs love songs?), but in the angsty terms of revolution and setting things on fire and moldy milk. not g-rated. unfortunately, jazz is my future according to P. next thing you know, i'll have a closet full of flowery cardigans and blush when someone says the word "crap."

at any rate, though i'm still angsty at almost-29, i'll still give P a fair chance at loving life, at least until he turns 15 -- then we can break out the old "records" just in time for my own mid-life crisis. on the way home, we compromise with oldies and motown. alas, i try to remind myself it could be worse; P could be into dave matthews or nickelback or john mayer .... ugh.

The Heavyweight Title

last night i asked aaron to tell me a story. (i usually do this when i need a distraction from whatever worry is running circles in my head, keeping me from sleep.) this is how the conversation progressed:

aaron: want me to tell you a story about how pretty you are?
kelley: ok.
aaron: this one time, i looked at you and you were sooooo pretty.
kelley: *giggling*
aaron: and i never had to look at you again to know it was true.

this was a much better conversation than the one we had earlier in the day.

aaron: what's your freakin' problem?
kelley: i'm exhausted because i got up with panzer 4 times last night.
aaron: no, i got up with panzer 4 times last night.
kelley: well, 2 of the times i got up with him, you were still awake so there was no need for me to even get out of bed.
aaron: no i wasn't.
kelley: yes, you were.
aaron: no i wasn't.
kelley: you're right, it's a contest, you got up more times with panzer, he weighs more when you're holding him, you change more poopy diapers and you've soaked more spit up into your t-shirt! they're all contests and you win them all! side note: all lies, i am the mommy, and i have endured more of everything, and to prove it, here is a small sampling of my collection of world championship mommy belts:

later that night, i realized it was a contest. i've been ooey-gooey with P since he popped out his first 2 teeth last weekend, ending his 2-week streak of finally sleeping through the night. my wisdom teeth are still working their way in, and i know first-hand that teething sucks, so i have given P the benefit of the doubt that he is probably miserable and needs me. plus, he has recently become proficient at rolling over and i'm paranoid about him having his face smashed into the mattress until he figures things out a little better. plus, who wouldn't want to spend a few minutes, even in the middle of the night, with this face?

that was, until last night when i got up with him at 1AM and rocked him to sleep and set him down in countless cycles for an hour. OK, mommy's a sucker, but she's not stupid. panzer goes down crying at 2:04 AM. aaron asks if i want him to take a turn and i say no, let's give him an hour. we briefly discuss the difference between the cry of distress from what we were hearing -- whining. and settle down to wait.

at 2:24 AM, there is silence. i grab aaron's arm. did we just win?

well, the answer was not for another 22 minutes, but at that moment it became very clear to me that it is not me versus aaron, but us versus him. and we had better win even if it means sharing a few of my awesome gold belts.

Just Call Me Death Warmed Over

now i've never committed murder but i am fairly certain that homicidal rage can occur in one of two ways. either there is a big monumental rage-causing event (such as discovering that your husband has thrown away the half-pan of brownies you were saving for dinner when you were 9+ months pregnant because he did not want them. side note: who does that!?). or it can be the accumulation of a lot of seemingly inconsequential things. likely compounded by a serious lack of sleep and picking green beans out of your unwashed, uncombed hair on the way to work. it was this second type of homicidal rage that overtook me yesterday.

the details themselves are mundane so i won't waste space on the internet. however, the state of homicidal rage provides a strange heightened sense of awareness. when i was riding my bike home barefoot (long story) and the little nubs of my purple glow-in-the-dark plastic pedals were boring into my previously-perfectly-pedicured feet, i had the opportunity to visualize and ponder the phrase "when the shit hits the fan." it is truly representative of the lead-in to the homicidal rage. having become more closely acquainted with poo in the last 5 months, i believe whole heartedly that shit itself, existing quietly in a pile perhaps even in an easily-disposable package, is bad enough. shit in motion is just plain wrong.

also, i can now officially appreciate the phrase "bone tired" and it doesn't have anything to do with fatigue in the bones. it's actually when you finally get a chance to lay down and you feel like your skin is so tired and worn out that you're not sure it's going to keep holding your bones in.