It was jokingly brought to my attention this week that I leave cabinet doors open. And lights on. And shoes on the floor. While I’m a neat and organized person, I do it in chunks. I will walk around the entire house turning off all the lights, closing all the doors, and picking up all the shoes in one fell swoop at the end of the day as opposed to doing it as I go. So when my friend mentioned she was going to send me her electric bill, I chuckled knowing there’s absolutely no comeback. I’m completely immune to abandoned house lights.

And I know these things about myself. I know that I make a smoothie and forget to put the frozen berries back in the freezer before I finish drinking the smoothie. I know I can’t even see the contents of the bag I dumped out on the garage floor three weeks ago anymore. I know that the blueberry stuck in Abe’s hair probably won’t get removed until bath time tonight. It’s just who I am.

I read a great post from Kris Carr this morning on “Unconditional Acceptance”. Reading it reminded me of my friend’s joke, and how that very joke would have sent me into a self-worth tale spin not long ago, even though she was just being funny. I would have walked around the house checking and double checking lights so frequently that I would COMPLETELY forget to clean up the cherry pie I dropped on the white carpet. And then I would have felt worse. I would have waited for her to acknowledge what a “good job” I did remembering to turn the lights off so I could award myself “Most Improved at Turning Off Unused Lights”. I would have patted myself on the back for being “better” because I remembered. Self-worth = Turning lights off.

But I’ve given myself more acceptance lately. I’m by no means good at it, but I’d say like 30% better than I used to be.

This work-in-progress feels incredibly selfish, to be honest. To just accept all my little quirks and imperfections instead of feverishly working to change them feels cocky and stuck-up. To simply apologize and chuckle at myself when my husband slams his head into the corner of the cabinet AGAIN instead of shaming myself about how I never work hard enough on myself to right that wrong is so much more accepting of who I am, and way harder. Forgiving myself for not taking Abe to all the museums in Los Angeles during our visit is way harder (even though my friend reminded me Abe would be happier in a pile of Cheerios than in a museum). And further, to accept that I’m the kind of person who gets stressed out during travel no matter how smooth the trip (it’s going to be horrible no matter what), or the girl who starts an exercise routine and gives up within a month (it’s boring, it’s all boring), or the girl who finds absolutely nothing appealing about a hot bath (why would you just lie there in your own filthy water?!) is to be honest about who I really am and give people the opportunity to like me for it.

In essence, I forgive me for all my little shortcomings. Except my recent banana chip addiction. That has got to stop.

This morning I woke up all grateful for being alive.

My husband let me sleep in until 7:30 and when I came out, Abe shouted, “HI MOMMY!” I proceeded to play legos with him on the floor while checking emails for work on my phone. I wrote to my friend how lucky I am to sip coffee on the floor with my son, play legos, and work all at the same time. What a glorious day this is. Huzzah.

Today we were invited to come play at my friend’s preschool. So an hour before departure, I asked my husband to bring Abe into the shower 10 minutes after I got in. This way I could take a nice shower alone and then finish up by washing Abe. He miscalculated the 10 minutes by about 5, so Abe joined me while I was still washing my hair. He began playing with a car and a bar of soap at my feet. We don’t use bar soap at home, so he was scooting it all around the floor, thrilled with how slippery it was. My relaxing 10 minute shower turned into me straddling Abe on the floor beneath me, leaning forward because the floor was slippery, and up on one toe so as not to step directly on the matchbox car underfoot, all while trying to lean just my head back to keep the soap from getting in my eyes.

No problem, though. Abe hung out in the shower for a while after I was out and it gave me time to dry my hair. I put in a few bobbypins and got Abe ready to go. By the time I looked at the clock I was already running a little bit late! Oops! I ran into the kitchen to make myself a quick cup of coffee for the road and grab all of Abe’s snacks to toss in my purse. If we’re a few minutes behind it’s no big deal.

Then I knocked over the coffee. All 8 ounces of it liquid. Off the side of the counter, onto the floor, and onto my jeans. Deep breath. Ok, fine. I can handle this. This is no problem. The morning started great, small blip, and we’ll just be a little later than I thought. I’ll find a towel and get this cleaned up and we’ll move right along.

I started soaking up the coffee off the floor as quickly as possible, futilely trying to beat the streams of coffee pouring down the side of the cabinets replacing the coffee puddle I’d just soaked up with another one. Once I finally got that under control, I moved on to the cabinets. As I detailed the white (of course they’re white) wooden cabinets with a rag, carefully sticking my finger in all the cracks and crevices where the coffee was holding on for dear life, I noticed a small line of coffee sitting comfortably on the lip of the of the drawer. Now, if you have a kitchen with a drawer and you spill coffee down the outside of that drawer, you can probably just sop it up with your towel and go about your day. But if you have an old kitchen, with an old wooden drawer, odds are that old wooden drawer doesn’t really seal shut anymore. This was the case with me. I opened the drawer to ensure I’d removed all the coffee from the lip when, much to my surprise, the drawer was full of coffee.

Now, at this point, I’d cleaned up nearly 3 times the amount of coffee I spilled, a little joke on my assumedly played by Science of Physics or one of those classes I never paid attention to. I pulled everything out of the drawer, laid it on the counter to dry, and grabbed my stuff to pack in the car. I got everything in, I re-checked to ensure I had snacks and diapers and my sunglasses, and got in the car. Deep breath and we can start the day over anytime we want.

Wait. I didn’t get Abe’s pacifier. He might have a meltdown on the way home. I should bring it.

I ran back to the front door, put the key in, turned, pushed the door and snap. Yep. Snap. My favorite sunglasses, my favorite sunglasses that I’ve EVER OWNED purchased for my by husband and given to me by my son as a Mother’s Day gift SNAPPED against the door and cracked.

I stood, staring at the cracked wooden frame. I could feel it welling up inside. I’d done so well. I let it all go at each new stage of suck and here I am with no karma backing me up, demonstrating that the world has my back. I’m here with no coffee, broken sunglasses, and no will to go on with my day.

I got back into the car and literally sobbed in the front seat. I don’t remember the last time I cried over anything, let alone any THING, but I did. I cried. I loved those sunglasses so much. My favorite pair. And as I cried, my little boy piped up from the back seat and said, “It’s okay, mommy.” This, of course, made me cry harder. Then he asked, “What’s wrong, mommy?”
“Mommy broke her favorite pair of sunglasses. The pair you and daddy gave me. I’m just sad because they’re broken and I liked them so much.”
“Mommy? It’s okay. It’s broken.”

Did this make up for the fact that my sunglasses were broken? No. And it didn’t warm my heart enough to not care about the sunglasses, so don’t think for a second that’s where this blog post is going. I miss my sunglasses. And it’s too late for coffee. My kid’s cute, though.

Abe’s brain for one minute:

Door!
Open. Close. Open. Close. Open.
Hi!
Door!
Close. Open.
Bye!
Close.
Open. Hi! Close. Bye! Open!
Mommy?
Mommy?
Mommy?
Door! (Runs into door.)
Oh no!
Bump. Bump.
Oh no bump on-nah head.
Abe’s head.
Bump, oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh nooooooooooooo.
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
How I wunna what you are.
ABC!
ABCs!
DUMP TRUCK?!
Dump truck.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Bump.
Abe head bump.
Owwwww.
Ouch.
Truck.
BIG truck.
MOMMY!
Read books? Read books?! READ BOOKS!??!!?!
G’night truck, book?
Pets? Pets book?
Read books.
Abe read book. Read Book.
Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up.
Books. Book. Bump.
Bump on head.
Ring around the rosey, pocket full of posey, ashes, ashes, we all fall DOWN!!!!
Nighttime!!!
Daytime!!!
Nighttime!!!
Daytime!!!
Water, please?

First of all: traveling with a 2-year-old > traveling with a 1-year-old.

I can’t even explain to you the difference. Abraham was borderline pleasant to be around for 5+ hours of airplane rides yesterday. Between shows on the iPad, coloring, stickers, and reading books, he was just like traveling with a needy friend or a fellow passenger who insists on telling you all about their last colonoscopy for the entirety of the flight: a little annoying but way better than a screaming kid. People complimented him on his behavior which, of course, made me feel like mother of the year (and shouldn’t we all base our worth on the applause of total strangers on an airplane).

What actually sucks way worse than traveling with a 2-year-old is a three-hour time difference with a 2-year-old. Yes, a 1-year-old wakes up at 4am for a few days when you travel west, but they also go back to sleep at 7am, again at noon, and probably one more time in the stroller at 4pm before going down for the night at 7. Today Abe woke up at about 4:45am, napped at noon for barely 2 hours, and is still awake as I type this running from one of the yard to the other shouting, “RUNNING!”

Hours 5am until 12pm were the longest 7 hours of my entire life. Abe was wide awake, rapid-fire requesting everything you can think of. A trip to the grocery store that I literally don’t remember somehow failed to produce chocolate OR coffee creamer, staples in my diet. And this afternoon when I woke up from my nap, I found that the eggs were neatly stored on top of the toaster. My friend generously offered to store them in the fridge for me. Three cups of coffee and generous amounts of dark chocolate-covered almonds, I feel a mix between hungover and suffering from early onset swine flu. And somehow my child has never felt better, or louder.

Have a beautiful (yawn), weekend.

This is week number 2 of working on my book. I had a moment of, “Too much. Nope. Can’t do it,” late last week. I’ve calmed down since then with the help of an amazing editor and some wine. Today I added the pregnancy blogs to the big, long, running word document that contains all the content we somehow have to work into an actual memoir (not just cute little bloggies bouncing around like little overweight Mario in the underwater level). I’m forced to remember what all this stuff felt like while I was experiencing it. Some of it was truly fun and some of it was just mortifying at the time. It’s all very, “If I knew then what I know now,” sort of stuff.

We’re trying to work my current understanding of the world and motherhood into the very naive, very worried mother character I was 3 years ago. I don’t want to write a book chronicling something that I was without also incorporating who I am. Otherwise, people could just read my blog.
We’re also working to expand upon stories and give people who don’t know me (who doesn’t know me?) a better understanding of my life so that hopefully when women experience infertility, they have someone they can relate to in this book. There are a lot of stories I’d forgotten about, a lot of memories I hadn’t considered including. My editor keeps reminding me  that (in an annoyed teenager voice), “It’s like your story is an accordion and we’re going to pull it apart and expand to hear to real music,” or whatever. The truth is that expanding on some of this stuff makes me go back in a feel the struggle again which kind of sucks and makes me never want to have kids again. What sucks even more is she reads this blog so she’ll remember to push those buttons when we talk next.
She’s a button-pusher.

In other book news, I entered my blogs into a journalism prompt and was chosen to have my books included in, what is now, a book called Bumptabulous. Lots of other moms with blogs are in there, too, which makes me wonder how long I have to blog before more than just 100 people read it. But I digress, it’s a really cool honor and the chick who put it altogether was awesome to work with and for. So in case you wanted to pass my blog along to some of your friends to increase my readership, you can now tell them I’m a published author. Because I’m sure that’s what new moms ask for first when given a mommy-blog recommendation shortly after changing 2 poopy diapers and confusing breastmilk for half and half.

Happy Monday, everybody.

Running errands took way too long today and I was late for my afternoon appointment at the spa.

I know. You’re completely jealous that I had a spa appointment. Until you find out it was for a bikini wax. Men, you can stop reading now unless you want to truly, and maybe for the first time, appreciate what women do for you in terms of hair removal.

Already late to this appointent, which could potentially make me late to pick up Abe, I rushed in the front door of the spa. Everybody was all zen with neatly folded edges, smiling at me as I entered the tortue chamber.
“Erin?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Ok, hi I’m Lori! I’ll be taking care of you today.”
“I hate to do this, Lori, but I’m already late so if we could do this as quickly as possible, that would be great.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. Just change and lay under the towel and I’ll be right back.”
“No no. It’s fine, Lori. I have no dignity or pride. Let’s do this thing. Turn up that soft music.”

What happened next could literally only happen to me. Lori started by “prepping” my skin, which I think just means tossing around some baby powder and giggling. Then she applied a thin layer of some adorably delicate wax and gently, almost lovingly applied the canvas strip. She then ripped the strip off my leg like I was her ex-husband. I immediately started sweating. I’ve never gotten a bikini wax that I don’t sweat through. It makes the entire experience that much sexier.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “Let me try again.”

You get that folks? She’s going to “try again.” I’ve never had anyone who was ripping hair from my body DO IT and then say, “I’m going to try again.”

“Try again? Why?”
“Well, your hair is, resistant. I’m going to have to try a thicker wax.”

Resistant. Ok. This is probably the 30th bikini wax I’ve ever gotten. No one has ever described my hair as being ANYTHING because no one has ever described my HAIR to me because they just RIP IT OUT. Your ONE job here is to remove the hair; that’s it. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care which wax you use or how you describe my hair to yourself as you do it, as long as you remove it the first time you rip off my epidermis. Forgive me if I’ve already lost faith in you in the first 5 minutes.

Lori proceeded to coat me with what appeared to be playdough. I know. It didn’t seem right to me either. In hind sight it might have been best if I jumped up, hurriedly put my pants on while repeatedly screaming, “The kittens. The kittens! I completely forgot about the kittens!” and went running out the front door. Instead, I found myself encouraging Lori that I was sure she made the right choice in wax the second time around. After she ripped off the strips of playdough (which hurt way more than the adorable wax), she shook her head.

“Wow. Really resistant. I’m going to try the other wax again.”

Nope. Not kidding. In case you weren’t counting, she’s now waxing me for a third time. Financially speaking, I’m getting a pretty big bang for my buck. Inflammation-ally speaking, I will probably not be able to let anything (cotton, silk, air…) touch my bikini area for…well, forever.
I’m not done folks. Because after she waxes me fort he third time, she then begins plucking my bikini line with tweezers. Have you crossed your legs yet? I almost did. This is when I reached the “bargaining” stage of grief.
“You know, Lori, I will pluck those when I get home. You don’t have to do it.” Because what I was thinking was I’m going to kick you in the face. It’s violent. I know. But you weren’t the one on the table praying to the god who is assumedly permanently perched in that ceiling for all the women who are trying not to vomit.
“Oh, ok! You’re in a hurry, I forgot!” Yes. This is because I’m in a hurry. This is why I want to leave.

I walked back to the front to pay for whatever just happened to me, three times, and the woman behind the counter asked, “I hope you had a pleasant experience.”
“Pleasant? No. I had a bikini wax.”
The woman behind the counter suddenly humanized, flung her hand in the air, and quipped, “Girl, I had an out of body experience the first time I had a bikini wax. And not the good kind. Did you want to leave a tip?”
“No. I think I’ll just pay and go. I already feel a little ripped off. No pun intended.”

Mom: Abe, look up in the sky!
Abe: The sky?
Mom: Quick! Look! A blimp!!
Abe: The sky?
Mom: Look up, Abe! Up!
Abe: Up? In the sky?
Mom: Abe, move your head. Look up. It’s a BLIMP!
Abe: Bump?
Mom: No, there’s a blimp, Abe. In the sky. Look up. Can you see it?
Abe: See the sky?
Mom: No. Ok. Move your head this way. (moves Abe’s head) Ok, now look. No, look up. Look UP, Abe.
Abe: Up.
Mom: There. See it?
Abe: Up. In the sky.
Mom: Do you see it?
Abe: See it?
Mom: The blimp? Look at it. It’s the only thing in the sky.
Abe: In the sky?
Mom: Yes. Do you see it or not?
Abe: Sky.
Mom: Ok, well, that’s the Goodyear Blimp and it’s a really big deal to see it and it’s the only thing in the sky and I have no idea how else to explain it to you but if you just look at it, you’ll notice it’s a big blimp in the sky. Flying.
Abe: Flying.
Mom: Right. Whatever. Nevermind. There’s a blimp in the sky.
Abe: Bump.
Mom: Yeah.
(silence)
Abe: MOMMY!
Mom: Yes, Abe?
Abe: MOMMY!
Mom: I’m saying yes.
Abe: MOMMY!
Mom: I’m just going to stop answering.
Abe: AIRPLANE!
Mom: No, that’s a blimp.
Abe: AIRPLANE!
Mom: Whatever. Airplane. It’s a blimp. I was just showing it to you and you didn’t see it and now you see it. There it is. It’s a blimp.
Abe: AIRPLANE.
Mom: BLIMP, Abe. BLIMP. It’s a BLIMP.
(pause)
Abe: BLIMPLANE!
Mom: Close enough.