I am not convinced that Michael Jackson was a child molester.  I realize that many of you are throwing things at your screens right now. But let me present my case.

There is no denying that Michael Jackson was a whack job. He had a fucked up childhood and was a drug user and was basically a child inhabiting a man’s body. Someone that weird is an easy target for such accusations because so many weird things about him were true. So anything that gets said about him must be true.

First, and most convincingly, in my opinion, is that the parents of one of his accusers was willing to take a payoff rather than persuing criminal charges. Now, call me crazy but if I honestly believed that some sicko had touched Bridget on her jumbly bits,  no amount of money would be enough to convince me to let him off the hook. I’d want him to rot in prison while in the service of his cellmate, Bubba. I would not rest until he got what he deserved. I think the parents of this kid were just looking for a payout.

Second, when criminal charges were brought against him, the DA couldn’t get a conviction. Now we all know that just because someone is found not guilty doesn’t mean they are innocent. But public opinion against Michael Jackson was already at an all-time low at that point, and even still, the jury said there wasn’t enough evidence. I know you are all thinking of OJ right now, but the OJ jury was on his side from the get-go. I don’t think anyone was on MJ’s side at that trial. I think the jury was dying for a reason to convict and they weren’t given one.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. When someone is THAT weird, you can say just about anything about them and everyone will believe it. I’m not saying that I believe with 100% certainty that he was innocent, but I’m not convinced he was guilty either.  Only his accusers know for sure now. But with all the hate being spread especially now, I just wanted to throw some positive energy his way.

In my mind, I’ll choose to remember him as he was when I loved him when I was kid, circa 1983-1984.  I hope he’s a peace now.

The flip side of that luck, though, is that I never really outgrew breakouts. I wasn’t covered with them, but they were pretty regular. I went to see my esthetician when I turned 30 and demanded a solution to the problem that I was getting zits and wrinkles around my eyes at the same time, and I just felt that wasn’t fair. She hooked me up with the right (and cheap!) products for me and I have stuck with them with great results. I still get pimples every now and then, but usually they are hormonal or because I have been lax about washing my face.

I never really had found a good as-needed spot remover that worked for me. Until now!

If you ever get the occasional breakout and need a never-fail solution, you should try this:

I have been using this for a few months and it has never failed to get rid of the pimple overnight. And it even works on those painful, under the skin kind that bother you for two days before deciding to break through to the surface. $25 may seem a bit steep for the tiny bottle but you really only use a dab at a time so it will last for a good long time.

Oh, but if you are pregnant, check with your doctor before using anything for your pimples. That just makes good sense.

LOVE:

1. It’s really pretty! It has great moldings and trim around all the doors and windows.
2. The floor plan is pretty smart and doesn’t have the kitchen opening into the family room. I know realtors would have everyone believe that the open floor plan is a huge bonus, but I hate it. If anyone is doing anything in the kitchen, the noise of it fills the family room. I like having my kitchen separate from the living spaces.
3. Has a fireplace with gas logs, which I prefer to wood. It’s just easier and less messy and safer. I can’t wait to have a fire!
4. Our wet bar! I love it!
5. The master bathroom is very large and the toilet is in a separate little room. That means that Jake and I can share the bathroom a whole lot more than we used to. You know that we don’t use the bathroom in front of each other AT ALL so having that means less waiting for one person.
6. Our master closet is HUGE!

HATE:

1. The driveway is on such a steep hill that if you aren’t careful getting in and out of the car, you could lose a leg.
2. Have I mentioned we are infested with sugar ants?  I know they are just a nuisance but seeing them in my kitchen just makes me feel like they are crawling all over me. We are treating for them, but the exterminator let me know that they are actually pretty difficult to get rid of, and will likely require more than one treatment. Apparently when a house sits for a while, they build their little colonies. We moved in and disturbed it all, plus started having yummy food for them, so they are venturing out.  But until I can come into the kitchen and not see ants crawling around on the counters, I will not be at peace here.
3. No linen closet. Seriously? This house was built in 2004. I cannot believe that there is no linen closet.
4. The laundry room is upstairs. Initially this would go on the “love” list because you don’t have to lug laundry down any stairs. But the problem is that it’s located right outside Bridget’s bedroom door, so you can’t do laundry when she is asleep. And Bridget’s room is the one that makes the most sense out of the three extras for her to have, so we’re not moving her.
5. No central air conditioning. Now, everyone will say that it doesn’t get hot enough here to need central air. But I call bullshit. Seventy-eight degrees outside is enough to warrant having the air kick on, especially in the upstairs. And while it’s been barely sixty degrees for the past couple of days, we did have some really warm days where the upstairs was positively stifling.
6. For the size of this house, we still don’t have room for some of our furniture. We don’t have a dining room so my dining room furniture is in storage, along with all my china and crystal, and our big bookshelves.

When we initially looked at this house and heard the situation, I had a vague idea that if we liked the house, maybe at the end of our lease we’d make an offer to buy it. But I know now that I wouldn’t want to live here for the long term. It’s fine for a year, but if we are going to be here for good, we need a house that has more items on the love list than on the hate list. So I actually want to get started on figuring out what our plan will be. Since we made practically no money on the sale of our house, we need to get going to save for a down payment, because real estate here is ridiculously expensive. Also, we might consider building a house and if we do that, it will take time. Of course now that I know that we won’t be here really long term, I’m far less interested in getting it finished. I just want it somewhat liveable. We haven’t even hung any pictures yet, and I sort of don’t care because in my head, we’re just going to have to patch those holes in a year when we leave. But really a year is a long time and we need to make a home for Bridget’s sake.

I guess I should go get to work then, huh?

I just wish it was a Super Target.  But it’s so cute, I can almost forgive it.

NO, I do NOT want to open a charge account at your store. I don’t care what percent I get off my first purchase, I don’t care about your reward programs, and I don’t care that I’m pre-approved.

I think it is horribly irresponsible of all retailers such as yourself, in this economy, to try to entice consumers into more debt. When so many people are struggling just to get by, you are lucky that they are in your store at all, spending their precious money. Maybe your time would be better spent finding ways to thank the customers that are there and paying cash rather than trying to lure them into debt so you can collect the interest. Shame on you.

And while I know that your employees are only doing as they are asked, trying to get people to open these accounts, you would be well served to teach them the ever-important lesson of “No means no!” Because Target? Today, even though I love you so, I almost told the obnoxious cashier who was brow-beating me about the damn charge account to just go ahead and void my $200+ order because I had just about had it with her sales pitch. If I hadn’t desperately needed diapers, I might have done just that. But my tirade would have lost some oomph had I insisted she return everything but the diapers.

LYLAS,
SpuddyBuddy

I try to keep up with doing very basic book reviews here so I can keep track of what I’ve read, because sometimes I’ve gotten halfway through a book and realized I’ve read it before. Mostly that happens with chick lit, which I love and is my guilty pleasure. I don’t read bodice rippers, but give me some chick lit, especially British chick lit, and I am a happy girl.

So recently I’ve read:

Rabbit Factory by Marshall Karp:  Oh my god, I had been hearing about this book for ages before I finally  bought the damn thing. It was so good. Karp is witty beyond belief and has created one of the best cop buddy duos in Lomax and Biggs that I’ve ever read.

My Booky Wook by Russell Brand: Read this on the Kindle, which I would not recommend doing - I found that biographies and other books with photographs don’t work too well on the Kindle. It also has endnotes which are difficult if not impossible to deal with on the Kindle, at least my version of the Kindle. They may have fixed that on the newer version and the one coming out for textbooks. I know some folks hate Russell Brand but I find him fascinating. I love to watch his stand up because I love to see how quickly and strangely his mind works. He will honestly say anything, just to see what happens. I really find that interesting. Reading his memoir or autobiography (what is the difference, by the way?) really amazed me. I’m always amazed at the fucked up lives of funny people. A lot of people would just curl up and die, but I think to be able to channel pain and abuse and addiction and turn it into humor is fascinating.

The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice: This was actually the first book I bought on my Kindle. It was ok. Not bad.  Not my favorite read but it kept my interested.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver:  I might be the last person on the face of the earth to be reading this book. It’s been on my radar of books to read for a long time, but recently a friend mentioned it in a conversation we were having about religion and so I bought it on the Kindle. I’m about half way through right now and I am enthralled. Absolutely enthralled. In fact, I need to go find the charger for my Kindle now and go read a few pages before falling asleep.

I really would love to join a book club. Maybe I’ll look into that when I get myself settled in. I would love to get exposed to what other people enjoy reading and to discover new authors.

Oh, I also came up with some other thoughts on the Kindle. Another minus for me is that you have to turn it off during takeoff and landing when you fly. This is highly annoying to me because final descent can take a long time, as you all know. So I discovered I had to do something else to pass the time at the end of all of my flights to Dallas and back this past weekend. Theoretically, I think that the Kindle is supposed to be ok to have on, but flight attendants don’t seem to know this and will most likely insist you turn it off.

Yesterday I got myself on a plane and came back to Dallas for the weekend so I could turn in my Chevy Traverse. It was a very sad parting, I will be honest. I am also here to throw a baby shower for my dear, dear friend Sarah. So I had to buy an outfit for that today, because nothing in my closet was really making me happy. Had a nice lunch with my mom, did our shopping and then I had to get a pedicure, because, you know, you can’t walk around with hobbit feet.

The house is slowly coming together, mostly due to Jake’s hard work. As you know, when I’m overwhelmed, I just sort of practice avoidance. I mean, how can be expected to unpack the linen closet when I HAVE NO FREAKING LINEN CLOSET???  I mean honestly. This house was built in 2004. There is no excuse for it not having a linen closet. But I digress. I think that I need to have the house professionally cleaned because I think that I am subconsciously grossed out by the house. The leasing people swore that the house had been cleaned but it obviously was not. And so being in the house just makes me feel kind of gross. That may explain my daily afternoon nausea. And no, I am not pregnant. And yes, I’m sure. So the house doesn’t really feel like home to me yet, but it will.

I guess this post is about as disjointed as I feel right now. I feel happy, excited, sad and scared all at the same time. It’ll all sort itself out though. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, and while I know Jake would like it better if I could get the house together faster, I give myself permission to wallow a bit. He understands.

And I fun trips planned coming up. So there’s lots to look forward to. Stick with me. I’ll be back to normal soon. And I use the term “normal” very loosely.

I don’t do well with significant change. Actually, that’s not fair to say really. I just need a while to adapt a bit, and until I do, I am in a funk for a couple of days. I was really ok until today. I thought maybe I’d overcome that part of my personality. But today tells me that I haven’t.

There is so much to do. I am overwhelmed into paralysis. The kitchen is so overwhelming to me because there is not enough room for my stuff and the task of deciding what to keep and what to put into storage is simply too daunting. I feel ashamed of myself, and then I go in there determined to finish it already, then I can only muster doing one or two small tasks before I can’t take it and have to leave again.

It also doesn’t help that I’m exhausted (Jake and I both are, as our daughter has decided that since the sun comes up at 5:30 a.m. here, then she should obviously also be up at 5:30), and I don’t feel very well thanks to allergies.

Waaaah.

I’ll get over this. This doesn’t mean that I’m not happy or that I think I made the wrong decision. I would be feeling this way had I just moved to a new house in Dallas. My little brain just doesn’t like upheaval any more than Bridget’s apparently. I just don’t express it by biting people.

The house is as great as I remember it. Jake has done a great job of arranging the furniture. I asked him to make Bridget’s room top priority so that she felt at home when she got here, and he certainly did that. We do have a lot of things left to do and unpack, but that was most important and it helped immensely.

We already found a great pizza delivery place that is not Pizza Hut or Domino’s. Today I’ll be unpacking the kitchen and running some errands and beginning to find my way around town.

Did I mention that I have the option of having at home milk delivery? I didn’t think anyone did that anymore. But I can have a milk man and you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to do it. How can you NOT do that if you have the option?

So Jake and I decided that this arrangement is not working for her. I’ll be leaving Dallas on Friday night with Bridget. I’ll be back in town next week by myself, but we think that being with her things and in a familiar routine will be much better for her. I hope this is the right thing to do but I guess it can’t be the wrong thing to do.

I just feel badly about all the plans I’m having to flake out on. I have a TON to do before leaving here Friday afternoon. I don’t know if I’ll get it all done, but I’ll do my best.

We headed out early this morning and enjoyed the drive down with almost no traffic. It was so comfortable, I couldn’t believe it. Bridget slept for a while and then happily watched some Clifford the Big Red Dog on the DVD player.

Once we got there, we walked around for a bit and then headed over to the restaurant.

Here is the real reason I went:

This is Sweet Corn Chowder. So good, it’ll make you smack your mama. Well, I was with my mama, and I didn’t smack her because she was kind enough to drive six hours round trip for a bowl of soup with  me. But you know what I mean.

Then came dessert

This is the Strawberry Tart. I can’t even explain how heavenly this dessert is. Sigh. I’ll be dreaming about this tonight.

What I found very funny was that as we were leaving the restaurant, I got confused because parked right next to my beautiful white Traverse, was another beautiful white Traverse. I had to hit the tailgate lift button to figure out which one was mine. I have to tell you, the Traverse looks really good in white. But I may be biased.

Anyway, it was a great road trip. Food and memories. I also made a quick stop here

to buy a new T-shirt. I got one as a gift for my graduation and I had to throw it away earlier this year because it was almost in shreds. I couldn’t in good conscience leave for the Pacific Northwest without getting a new one. So I stopped in and relived a few jolly moments before we headed home. I didn’t get a beer this time because a pitcher of Shiner is no longer $4. And I had to drive home and all.

What a great day!

Want to take a Traverse of your own on a road trip? Go to your favorite North Texas Chevy dealer and take a test drive. Get yourself a free gift certificate for a massage at Massage Envy, and I’ll bet you love it so much you drive one home. And then you can take it for a road trip anywhere your heart desires. Then go here and register to win a weekend getaway at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Austin. While you’re on the site, why don’t you just go ahead and vote for me as your favorite Mom Squad member? It’ll make you feel good.

Is it weird that I looked for our buyer on Facebook and I think I found her? She’s not a big Facebook user and hasn’t updated in a while so any tell-tale signs like “Woo hoo! I just closed on my new house!” were not there but I’ll keep checking. Plus my great neighbors will give me the dirt on her. Is it weird that I’m so interested in this?

Jake left this morning for his drive to Seattle, but his first day was spent in Oklahoma visiting his grandparents and then going to Oklahoma City to meet with his friend who’s going on the trip with him. Tomorrow, the three guys, Jake, Joey and our dog Robby, really set out.  They’ll be in Seattle on Tuesday I think.

Bridget didn’t seem too affected when Jake drove off, but has been super clingy today and going back and forth between sweet and a hellion. I know she’s just feeling unsettled, like me. I’ll just try to keep her as busy as I can, wearing her out with physical activities, and hoping that helps her deal. She knows all about the move and keeps saying she can’t wait to go to Seattle (that is actually a direct quote - she says “I can’t wait to go to Seattle!”) but I need to be really sensitive to her emotional needs right now. She needs to see this as a fun adventure, which it is, and that although her home is changing, we are still the same and still her stability.

Tomorrow, my mom and I are taking Bridget to College Station to spend the day on campus and then get lunch at Cafe Eccell, which serves Sweet Corn Chowder that I dream about and haven’t had in a ridiculous number of years. I can’t wait to be on the Texas A&M campus again. It’s been a long time. And it’s shameful that Bridget has absolutely no Aggie swag. We’ll fix that tomorrow. I’m already teaching her to say “Gig ‘em!” and maybe tomorrow we’ll work on “Howdy!” If you aren’t an Aggie, or a Texan, you probably have no idea what any of that meant. But it’s ok. We accept all kinds here at Spuddy Buddy.

I’m sure I’ll have some pictures to share tomorrow!

Bridget is being a holy terror these days. I am not amused.

And I am beginning to question a parenting decision I made long ago, before I became a parent. I am a firm believer that children should not be spanked. I’ll present my side - before you go getting up in arms with me, read on.

First, it teaches a child that the solution to some problems is hitting. Especially in Bridget’s case when one of her biggest behavior problems is hitting us and other people, it makes no sense to hit her to teach her not to hit.

Second, I think there is an innate duty a parent has to never intentionally hurt their child. The child knows it from the first few days of life - Mommy and Daddy are here to take care of me and make me feel better, not to hurt me. When you strike a child, you violate that trust. It can also be shaming, which emotionally hurts a child.

Third, the taking away of privileges has a longer lasting effect. If you take away a toy or something the child loves for a period of time, you get the opportunity over and over to remind the child about behavior and consequences.

Bridget: “Mommy, I want to watch Charlie and Lola!”
Me: “I know you do honey, but little girls who bite their friends don’t get the privilege of watching TV.”

This conversation happened a few times over the course of a day, and while it didn’t stop the biting entirely, it did drill it home to her that biting was bad. She began putting her toys in time out for biting, so it obviously was on her mind.  As an aside, out of sheer desperation one day, I went against my gut and bit her back as many people told me to do and it had zero effect on my child, so I never did it again. She still bites occasionally but it’s definitely not a frequent as it used to be, and you can see her stopping herself from doing it very often.

I know that there is a difference between spanking a child and abusing a child - I certainly don’t draw any comparison there at all. I was spanked as a child, and I was not abused. But I will say that I feel like I was spanked when I was far too old for it, past the age where a grounding or the taking away of TV or something would have been far more effective at changing my behavior. I can’t say that spanking is the cause of some of the emotional distance I feel from my mom, but it’s possibly part of it.

So those are all the reasons in my head why spanking is not for our family.

BUT. You knew there was a big but coming, didn’t you?

Lately Bridget has been so out of control that I am about to lose my mind. She runs from us when no regard for what dangerous areas she might be in or be headed for and she doesn’t look back. This is not a scenario when time-out is going to work. The punishment here has got to be swift and decisive. I’ve recently started to threaten her with a spanking and I know that a parent cannot ever threaten something they are not willing to follow through on. Thankfully so far the threat of a spanking has been enough to set her straight. But the day is going to come, and soon, where I will have to deliver on my threat, I’m sure of it. And I just don’t know how I can do it. Because even when I’ve been at my most angry with her, I have never had the urge to hit her. And how do you spank a kid hard enough to make an impression so to speak without being able to muster the will to do it? The other thing I struggle with is in these scenarios, we are usually in public and I most assuredly would not spank her in public. So what is a frazzled mom to do?

I’d love to hear what you all do. What works? Do you spank? How do you do? Are there rules you have about physical punishment? Let’s hear it, but let’s not judge each other.

Mine doesn’t look quite like this, as this picture is the newest version, which is thinner than the old one, but you get the point.

I have been very skeptical about the Kindle. I like books. I like shopping for books and holding books and just everything about books. So to read on a device seemed kind of “meh” to me. But Jake bought a new one, and I decided to try out his old one. Old is a relative term. It’s less than a year old.

Things I love: I love the access to practically any book instantly and for much less money than buying the actual book. There is even a link you can go to that has all the New York Times Bestsellers. It connects wirelessly from anywhere so you can be sitting in the airport and see an interesting book in the bookstore, and just download it in seconds for half the cost. It’s also really thin and light. Much easier than lugging big books around. And if you have ever been in the predicament of being close to finishing one book when you are about to go on a trip wondering if you should bring the old book and the new one, or just the new one, you will find the Kindle a great solution to that. You can have ALL the books for less space and weight in your carry on than one book would take up. It’s also not as hard to read on the screen as you would think.

Things I don’t love: I find it kind of difficult to not accidentally turn pages, just because of the placement of the buttons. But according to Jake that problem has been fixed on the newer version. The other thing is that it’s an electronic device. I don’t feel really comfortable taking it in the bathtub to read. But then again I personally don’t take a ton of soaks in the tub, so it’s not a huge issue for me. But it’s still kind of an issue. Also, I like to get bargain books at Barnes & Noble for like $6 or less. The cost of the Kindle books is a bit higher than that, so I feel a bit more guilty about impulse book buys.

All in all, I like it. I don’t think it’ll replace books for me, but it’s good to have it around and to have access to almost any book you could want with very little weight and space.

Anyone else have one? What do you think of it?

But I just get very annoyed every time I flip through the pages. The main problem is that it’s completely hypocritical. We are going to show you how to simplify your life, but before we do that, why don’t you look at pages and pages of advertisements of things to buy to clutter up your home or get rid of your wrinkles or stuff your closet with. If their main concern was to help simplify your life, they would not accept advertising at all, or they’d be more particular about the ads they allow. One of my favorite magazines ever is Cooks Illustrated, and the thing I love best about it is that they don’t accept any advertising, so they can be perfectly honest about product reviews. It costs a little more, but I love not having to flip through ads to get to what I want to read about.

The other thing that bothers me is they have done to ogranization and tidiness what Vogue did for women’s body images. I don’t need a magazine to make me feel badly about how my garage looks or whether my linen closet is arranged in the most productive way. I have people in my life that do that for me.

Hi. I’m Donna and I’m addicted to handbags.

First, it was the Liz Claiborne that everyone had to have in 1987. I had I think three different colors and shapes before Liz went out of fashion. Then I got a Coach bag as a gift (I blame you Sarah, for starting this), then I bought a Coach of my own. Then I ushered in the era of kate spade. I own six kates. Oh, I also dabbled in Dooney & Bourke, but they don’t really thrill me. After a while, I got kind of bored with kate spade and upped the ante to Burberry. After two of those, I have hit an all-time…. um, low? or high? I can’t tell. You decide.

Today I got this:

And inside it was this:

I know, I know. You don’t have to say anything. But in my defense, Jake got a ride in a B24 that I’m pretending is his Father’s Day present, so I can pretend this is my Mother’s Day present even though we agreed that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day need to stop being like mini-Christmases. I guess we’ll start that next year.

As I was opening the box, Bridget asked me, “What is it, Mommy?” I said, “It’s your inheritance, honey.”

Truer words were never spoken. Some women love jewelry or shoes. I love handbags. I can’t help it.

Last night, when I went to bed, I checked in on her as I always do, only to find that she was not in her room at all. I got Jake so we could look for her, because I had a feeling that wherever we found her, it would be either adorable or hilarious or both. I didn’t want him to miss it. We did find her asleep in our bed, with her arms up over her head, her little hands clenched into tiny fists, just like when she was a tiny baby. Very cute and funny, definitely.

What was not funny or cute was when I heard “Hi Mommy!” in my ear, at 3:30 a.m. I wanted Jake to get to sleep so I went to her room and laid down with her on her bed for a while, but she just wanted to play. I was not about to get up at 3:30 so I finally just left her room and let her cry for a few minutes. She did go back to sleep but in the end, her little body lost an hour and half on the front end, at least an hour in the middle of the night, and another hour on the end because she woke up early. And guess what? She didn’t nap at Mother’s Day Out today. I do not understand what is going on with this child, but it is making me crazy.

Tonight, being Friday and my husband not having to work tomorrow, I’m considering taking a comforter and a pillow outside and camping out in the back of the Traverse. It’s big enough and I’m sure it’ll be comfortable enough, and it’s the only place I can think of to sleep besides a hotel where I won’t hear the girl if she decides that it’s time for a toddler party in the wee hours. The main obstacle here is whether sleeping in your car in front of your house is technically legal, and if it’s illegal, exactly how illegal it is. I mean, is it like a ticket offense or a jail offense?  Because I can deal with a ticket. Come to think of it, I might get a better night’s sleep in jail than I will in the house. Hmm….

On a slightly related topic, I want to gently remind you that you should go and test drive a Traverse at your favorite North Texas Chevy dealer. Just test drive one and get a gift certificate for a free one-hour massage at Massage Envy. Can’t beat that! And don’t forget to go to the Mommy Madness DFW website and enter for a chance to win a weekend getaway at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Austin. While you are there, you might as well just vote for me as your favorite Mom Squad blogger. I mean, since you’re there anyway….

After twenty-three long months, I got my braces off.

The actual removal of the braces was a terrifically unpleasant experience, strangely more unpleasant than getting them on was, except for the fact that, you know, at the end of the appointment, I had my braces off instead of on.

I’m really happy, as you might expect. I can’t stop running my tongue over my teeth. I enjoyed a lunch that didn’t require me to brush my teeth afterward. And then I went to floss my teeth and it only took a minute, rather than the hour it used to take.

No, I don’t have any pictures yet. I look really bad today because someone, who shall remain nameless, woke up at 6 today and took away my opportunity to wash my hair. You can see a picture when I don’t look like death warmed over.

The first thing I did when I got home? Chewed a big old piece of bubble gum. It was wonderful.

We’ll close and then Jake will head on to Seattle in my truck with the dog. I’ll be here with the Traverse staying at my parents and finishing up saying all my goodbyes, and hosting a baby shower. Then when all that’s set and the grunt work at the new house has been finished, Bridget and I will fly to Seattle and be home.

I have tons and tons of calls and arrangements to make before this all is said and done. I really need to get our phone in Seattle set up, so that I can do the really important thing - ordering the change of address cards! Do you know how cute they are these days? I have been perusing, but since I don’t have a phone number yet, I can’t order them. Soon, though. Soon.

And really, isn’t it all about the cute stationery?

I wish we had had time to go back to take stock and figure out what we had room for there (it is smaller than our house here) but we didn’t. I guess it doesn’t really matter since we aren’t getting rid of anything else. We’ll figure it out there and move to storage whatever we need to.

Now I just have about eleventy billion things to do here - phone calls and such, to get ready to get out of here and get set there.

My one complaint? I’m going to have to spend a lot of time and money picking out curtains for our new house. I hate that. I am no good at it. But the house doesn’t even have ugly blinds that we can live with while we figure it out, so it’ll be kind of a priority unless we want the neighbors to be all up in our business.

I had a moment of panic when I realized that I agreed to move to Seattle without making sure that there were Target stores there. That could have been a disaster, but a quick internet search calmed my fears. There is a Target very near our new house. Crisis averted.

We looked at some townhomes yesterday and one house. We really really like the house, Jake is almost ready to sign the lease, but something is holding me back and I can’t tell what. It’s a gorgeous older home in a wonderful neighborhood for a reasonable rent. The owners seem very nice and we even met a neighbor who has a dog who is practically Robbie’s twin in appearance and in temperament. I think the thing that makes me nervous is the landscaping around the property - it has a steep drop off down to a creek and I’m flat out worried about Bridget. She escapes from us so quickly and so far we’ve been lucky that she hasn’t gotten hurt, but what if she goes off after a rabbit or something and we can’t get her? The flip side to this is that the house is on a very quiet cul-de-sac and no one would ever drive down our street because it basically is a private driveway. In any other home, I’d have to worry she’d dart out into the street, but not with this one. As Jake would say, it’s half of one, six dozen of the other.  I do like it and it’s definitely a contender.

I have had one hell of a time getting one of these property management companies to call me back. I’ve been emailing with one agent and picked out about six properties I liked and wanted to see. All was going well until I tried to actually set up an appointment, then she dropped off the face of the earth. Then I got a call from her colleague who also dropped off the face of the earth. Finally after two exasperated phone calls and an email yesterday, I got word that only two of my original choices were still available and to contact her colleague for a showing. Well, in the meantime, not able to just sit on my hands and wait, I found one of the two properties with another company and already have an appointment to view it. So all that work with her and they are going to show me ONE house. And I’m mostly inclined to not take it just to not deal with them. I probably won’t unless it’s just spectacular. Why do people make it so hard to do business with them? Don’t they want to make money off of me? I don’t get it.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we are not getting on that plane tomorrow without knowing where we will be living come June 1. Well, I will be living with my parents for two weeks come June 1, but Jake and Robbie will be living here starting June 1 or so.  So tonight I anticipate having a decision made and martinis to drink in celebration of yet another big item crossed off the to-do list.

Wish me luck.

Now that she has figured out that she can get out of her room if she so chooses, bedtime is a huge nightmare. She comes out of her room, screams, cries, plays, jabbers, and does everything except lie in her bed and go to sleep. Some nights she doesn’t quiet down for an hour and a half. The past two nights, when I’ve gone in there to check on her before I’ve gone to bed, I’ve found her asleep on the floor.

We thought it was maybe that she was afraid of the dark, so we left her light on for her (we have dimmers on all our ligths so we turned it on low, but still enough for her to see) and that didn’t work. She always says she wants me to come lie down with her, which I can sometimes do but not always because I work in the evenings. And it doesn’t really help anyway because the second I leave she’s back to carrying on. We have tried to silently put her back in her room, and that doesn’t work either.

I know it’s just us too, because my mom can put her down to bed with nary a peep. It’s a show that is solely for mommy and daddy.

The biggest problem though is that instead of adding extra sleep on the flip side, she’s actually getting up earlier, coming into our room with a chirpy little “Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!” every morning about 6:30 or so.

I know it’s a phase but damn, I wish it would end soon. I’m frigin’ exhausted.

I’m hungover slightly. While it’s true that vodka doesn’t tend to lead to bad hangovers, I do still get that mildly upset stomach the next day. I’ve been trying all day to find the right thing to make it feel better, but no luck so far.

We tried to take Bridget to see her first movie today. It was a fail. We took her to see Disney’s Earth for an early show. We figured there wouldn’t be too many other people in the theater at 10 a.m. on a Sunday. There actually were quite a few but a lot of little kids so we thought we were safe. Bridget really enjoyed sitting in her chair, eating popcorn and drinking fruit punch but the movie didn’t really impress her at all. So we left about 15 minutes in. It was ok, though. For a first try with a kid as young as she is, it was just fine. But I have to say that although the movie was rated G, the stuff they showed before the movie, namely a commercial for some new show on the Cartoon Network, was definitely PG and I did not find that very amusing.

We got another call today for a showing. Huh? We are in the option period. Our buyer has just a few days left to get her inspection done (we had the appraisal on Friday) and then we’ll be officially under contract. Why would anyone want to see our house right now? Even if we got a great offer, we couldn’t take it, so why would we put ourselves out to have a showing? I called our realtor and she said some agents will still show houses at this stage, but she doesn’t know why, and that we should just go ahead and decline any showings. If our buyer backs out, we can start showing again. Thankfully the situation our buyer is in (long story) tells me that she will not be backing out and her financing is set so we feel pretty good.

This is going to be a really busy week, mainly because I only have two days of it here in town. We leave for Seattle to look at houses on Wednesday at an obscenely early hour and will be back on Friday. Bridget is staying with my parents so we can actually get stuff done and not have to deal with her naps and toddler whims while trying to get this last big task accomplished. I’m really excited!

And with that, I’m off. Going to try to convince my husband that I need some Mexican food for dinner. Wish me luck.

It’s not bad, it was me vs. a pole at a drive through (total karma payback for going to a fast food drive through to begin with) and no one was hurt, except my lovely lovely Traverse. And I think that the people inside the restaurant may have broken some ribs from laughing so hard at me, but I don’t take any responsibility for that.

I feel sick and stupid and horrible and awful and guilty and every other negative adjective you can come up with. Of all the cars to do this in! Before I left the house on this little errand, I even contemplated taking my Explorer since it’s been sitting in the garage for three weeks and does occasionally need to be driven, just to blow the cobwebs off the engine. But the Traverse is so new and pretty and fun, I couldn’t resist. If only I had taken my car, I’d feel stupid right now, but not guilty.

Sigh….

Of course, everything is going to be ok. The lovely folks at James Wood are going to take my Traverse and give me a fresh one to drive, which I think is a big leap of faith considering how trustworthy I’ve proven myself to be thus far. My insurance, of course, will take care of paying for the damage. The car is completely drivable, but it’s not a great advertisement to see one all banged up on the road.

So all you other Mom Squad members, you are probably in the clear because what are the odds it would happen to more than one of us? I took one for the team.

The silver lining in all this is that when I called my insurance company to report the claim, the intake person had never heard of the Traverse, so I got to extoll its virtues to her and tell her she should really go drive one. I have no idea where she lives so I didn’t promise her a free massage or anything, but it’s one more person who heard about how wonderful the Traverse is.

So for now, our closing is set for May 29. We have selected our movers, who will come to pack on the 27th and load on the 28th. We don’t know where we’ll be living yet but hopefully that will be remedied next week when we take our house hunting trip.

I am finally taking a deep breath, a pause from all the things we’ve been doing and I’m having a moment of sadness here and there. I’m still excited, it’s just hitting me that I’m leaving the place I’ve considered my “home” for most of my life. Even when we lived other places, Dallas has always felt like home to me. I know that I can make Seattle home too but I definitely will miss a lot of people and things here.

So it appears that Jake and I are master home stagers. Anyone want me to stage their house?