it's not the mega millions, but close

I WON!

And if you haven't checked out the rest of Design Mom's site, I suggest you do it now. I would say that even if I wasn't to receive an awesome giveaway.

My wishes include being taller and, but not limited to, being a baller

We have about three weeks before we close and we can start moving out of our hovel here at Crackhouse & Where's-My-Money-Woman-I'll-Cut-You.

We drive by our new place every day, sometimes two or three times. I wish I could go in there now to measure windows and cabinets. But really I just want to sit on the clean hardwood floor and call it mine, mine, mine.

We're not going to give our official notice until next month on the 20-day deadline. I guess it would be nice to let them know that we're on our way out but I need to stick it to The Man. The Man who owns these apartments along with several other complexes in Washington also collects vintage cars and has opened up a winery in the Eastern part of the state.

I need to stick it to him because thanks to my years of stuffing money into his pockets, he has a bottle of Merlot with his name on it. Also, his money-hungry minions OK'd the removal of the large recycling dumpster and so now you have to empty your garbage at one end of the complex and drive to the other end to unload your recyclables. And who's going to do that?

And as liberating as our upcoming home ownership will be, I'm dreading this long torturous ordeal of moving. I spent this weekend filling up our living room with boxes I procured from craigslist scavaging thinking that their cardboard presence would motivate me into expediting the process. But no, my laziness prevailed. Once again, you have defeated me, Insatiable-Need-to-Watch-VH1-repeats! You slay me! I am too weak against the forces that bind me to Hollywood's Hottest Hookups 2!

The weekend manager also caught me in the parking lot lugging boxes and said, "Hey, are you moving?"

And what was my grand, college-educated, Phi Beta Kappa answer? "No! I just...love...boxes...the shape...its boxy essence..." Well, it didn't sink down to that level of stupidity, but I'm not going to include the anecdote in the alumni updates. I offered a mumbled errm, no, um, and yeah-look-over-there-something-shiny before continuing to transform my living room into a depository for the largest fort ever.



Did you know Home Depot sold playpens? Yeah, I didn't either.

My Friday question

Since Nathan started walking, he has suffered two bumps on the head. So let me ask this, how long will it take before Nathan starts to look like that guy in the movie Mask, not the one with Jim Carrey, the one with Cher?



There goes our spot in MENSA.

we're all bi-pedal up in here

You're going to have to forgive me on this because the video looks way better on my screen than it does here.



I used a Zippo for lighting, so no wonder it was so dark! But did you catch that? The MOBILITY! The WALKING and the falling, but more importantly THE WALKING!

I got a few comments about Nathan's Rice-a-roni endorsement in which people asked why there was an iron in the background. Uhhh... Because I don't like wrinkly clothing? And I need it in close proximity to the kitchen so I can get my grilled cheese on. Durr.

So if you're trying to dissect frame by frame what is in this hovel shot, let me explain.

Is that a green-and-white bath mat? Yes, it's a green-and-white bath mat from Target used to prevent two autistic cats from scratching up the carpet.

Is that really a box fan? Yes, that's what Mike uses as white noise when he sleeps and to make his voice sound weird when he talks into it.

Are those Mike's swim shorts hanging on the doorknob? Noooo... that's my underwear hanging on the doorknob. My butt's so big, you'd think it was a small country's flag. I haven't learned to be strict with it yet.

putting the "ho" in home

The only real furniture I had in my first apartment was a Stearns and Foster pillow-top bed which cost me $1,000 (300 of which came from my mom who last bought a bed in 1986 and doesn't believe that prices have changed) and a 70s era sectional couch which cost me $30 and a regrettable afternoon with my dorky classmate who liked me but had a truck.

Before that sweet bed that felt like I was being hugged by marshmallows, I had an air mattress which was only softened by an egg-crate foam pad. Before the chicka-chicka bow-wow sectional, I had the floor.

I was living with my fiancee, a GED grad who said that we shouldn't buy any furniture until he got a job. The only furniture that appeared during his stay was a recumbent bike. I don't understand the logic of buying exercise equipment when your bed easily deflates and when you have no jobby-job.

So eventually Sir Warcraft McChampion and I broke up and he moved out and there I was in a drafty apartment with a card table holding up the computer, a bed that most people used for camping and grooves in the carpet where someone spent hours moving but not going anywhere at all.

And then I met Mike.

After one of our first dates, I tried to say goodbye in the car, but he wanted to walk me to the door. During those fifteen steps from the car to the loveshack, I tried to think up a sexy way to say, "Let's not go into the bedroom yet. I have to find the airpump first."

Instead I confessed, "Don't freak out but I don't have a couch."

"Okay..." he replied."That's not awkward."

And can you believe he still married me after that? After he walked in and found out that I had put two folding chairs together for a chaise lounge?

I still am trying to absorb the idea of moving into a brand-new shiny home where no one has lived in before and nothing inflates or needs duct-tape to work.

what I did this weekend

1. Took the family to Whale's Tail Park again, where Nathan tried to mack on an octopus. What can I say? Babies making (inter-species) babies!



2. Spent a glorious afternoon walking around Greenlake with the lovely Lisa, Branan and Cooper family.

3. During the walk, received a call from our agent who wanted to give us the news that our offer had not only been accepted, but that the seller decided lower the price down by seven thousand dollars and agreed to cover the closing costs.

4. High-tailed it to the real estate office and signed the papers to our new home.

We close on May 11th and our lease here runs out on the 31st. We have those two weeks to move our hovel into a grand, semi-spacious abode with granite countertops, bamboo flooring, and stainless steel appliances.



There's this rush of knowing that by the summer, we'll be in a new place that needs no fixing or upping. There will be no parking dramas. Best yet, we will have no downstairs neighbors battering a bat into the floor. We will not hear the thuds below our feet that warn: keep it down, keep it down, keep it down.

feety-feet, don't fail me now

Sometimes when I'm walking alone, I'll repeat some of the nonsensical bits I say to Nathan, particularly this line: "I like to bite the feety-feet."



I know the babystink that lingers in his toes is fleeting and will soon be replaced by repulsive boystink and mutant teenstink. While we were visiting my in-laws in St. Louis, my 13-year-old nephew took his shoes off and the toxic fumes were so foul, it sank into the carpet fibers and the smell stayed even after he left. So I'm trying to get in all the babystink before his toes morph into something ugly.



I don't know what it is about having a baby that makes me pervert the English language. Ever since Nathan arrived, I've had to say things like feety-feet, call my son a "bunny," and worse, make a scene over the butty-butt. I love the butty-butt and its two handfuls of globular fat that force me to grab and squeeze and repeat, "I love to bite the butty-butt."

And sometimes Mike and I will talk to each other the way we talk to Nathan. We have this bit where Mike and I will frown at Nathan and pretend to be angry with him and we'll demand information by saying, "Nathan, your mother and I are very upset with you because you haven't answered our question: How big is Nathan?" Then we'll grab his hands and go through the varying, "Is he this big? No! Is he this big? No," until we reach the grand finale when we'll wave his arms at his side and squeal, "He's thiiis big!"

This is probably what people did before they had television.



Next month is Nathan's 1st birthday, when he'll officially no longer be a baby. But ever since he started fitting into 18-24 month pants, I've been losing the baby in him. Even this picture looks like I've taken a two-year-old and diapered him in a frenzied attempt to turn him back into an infant.

But until I stop playing the "What is that you're eating?!?" or requesting that Nathan stop crying so I can hear what Kendra's saying on Girls Next Door, he'll still be a baby, feety-feet and all.

flip this hovel

We never met our first realtor. The woman was a friend of Mike's friend and worked primarily with million-dollar properties along Alki. For those of you unfamiliar with Seattle, Alki is a swank neighborhood in West Seattle that lines the beach. Alki is also a Native American word for, "You think you can live here? Paa-shaa!" It's true. Look it up. So having never genuinely looked for a home, I believed the first realtor when she told me it was my job to look through listings and pass them onto her and she would give me her opinion. She also told me to look for a "good roof."

And when my friend Alison suggested we check out her realtor, because what I was doing what not really the standard buyer-agent dichotomy, I figured why not. We were also unhappy with our mortgage guy who was recommended by realtor #1. It was like we were being paired with one of those Beauty and the Geek guys and instead of getting us a sweet deal on a home, he was making us memorize the first 21 numbers of pi. Plus, the loan he offered was about a percent higher than the loan we're going with now.

At first I was feeling guilty for going behind realtor #1, but when I met our new shiny realtor who met with us in person, it was meant to be. The first lady wasn't going to make any money off of us, which I'm sure she knew and thus, made me scramble around doing the work she was supposed to do.

So it was a good switch.

We first looked at a house that needed work, and by work, it needed new electrical and plumbing and that the new bathroom he installed wasn't finished or built with a permit. But that's what our new agent said after a walk-through, all I could offer was my thoughts on whether or not the seller looked like Buffalo Bill or Buffalo Bill's dad. And our new loan guy? He was willing to meet with us on the weekend (!) and there were no crazy loans or trick questions about Stephen Hawking and he had no lint on his black sweater. None! How did he do that? I never leave the house without a flurry of bits attached to me.

And after all this time of hunting and searching and crying and hating ourselves for not having bought sooner, we made an offer.

At about 1200 sq feet, it's not a huge home, but it's gorgeous. There's bamboo flooring, vaulted ceilings, granite counter tops and a little fairy that comes out to sweep all the hair I shed onto the floor. And we're still in West Seattle with only a partial view of a crack house, which is sad because I watch Intervention and I wanted that full-throttle voyeurism.

The only thing is, I don't think the offer will be accepted. I know they want a shorter closing date than we can offer, so if it's a nay on this, then I'll be okay. C'est la vie. Maybe the next place will actually come with a washer/dryer, refrigerator and a legion of hair-sweeping fairies.

I just want hardwood floors and nice neighbors, because that's worth the closing costs alone.

the beat goes on

The baby shower was much less painful than I thought it would be. For one, only my boss and former co-worker were there, and of the two, my boss was the one to acknowledge my and Nathan's presence. She was actually nice to me, but that's not saying much. I've seen her applaud some executive director's work and then when the ED was out of earshot, she added, "I can't believe she's taking so long to finish that project. I would have never hired her."

And when she asked, "So you quit school spring semester, right," I knew after that dreadful breakfast, she was probably running her mouth with, "Well, you know Mona got knocked up and had to quit school," even though I did graduate early (and with honors, yo!) and walked at my departmental ceremony just four weeks after having Nathan.

But instead of firing off my oh-no-you-didn't hand wave, I replied, "No. I didn't have to take any classes during the Spring because I had finished. Early."

It would be pointless to prove myself to someone who cherry-picks flaws and feeds on low points. I want to say that I had no intention of showing Nathan off to these women, but that's about as true as my undying love for cilantro. But having my pastel-dressed, beret donning son there provided me with physical proof that my life is good.

And tangentially speaking, if you're thinking about having a baby and need another item for the "pros" column, think of this: you'll never be alone at a party. I didn't speak Arabic (my pregnant friend is from Baghdad) and I didn't want to rehash the few good times with ye colleagues of olde (because that conversation wouldn't last long). Also, you don't have to clean up the party because your hands are full of baby, giving you a very unselfish yet totally selfish way to say, "I would help, but you know, the baby."

So Nathan and I babbled to each other while the Arab women belly-danced in a circle, moving to the music and a clap-driven beat. They danced in pairs; they danced alone. The women who had sat quietly, picking at their tabbouleh and hummus were called to life on the dance floor, their hips moving and jerking, arms and hands gracefully securing spots in the air around them. Unfettered by scarves and coverings their hair spilled down their backs and reached further when they arched their bodies.

When I was pulled in, I moved to the middle, taking Nathan as my dance partner. I shook my hips as much as I could while toting a 26-lb baby, and performed varying speeds of the "mommy-side-to-side-sway." I lowered Nathan down and then quickly lifted him up in a grand, sweeping motion and my son's laughing mouth said much better than I ever could, "Here I am, in yo' face, ladies!"

a cheap, dirty mess

Not everyone was happy that I got pregnant.

A few weeks after Mike and I found out we were having a baby, I agreed to go to brunch with my former co-workers and ex-boss. One of them noticed I was wearing a wedding band and asked if I had gotten married to which I said yes and added, "And I'm having a baby!"

Even though these women were phenomenal at transforming communities and helping immigrant families, they wallowed in the requisite office gossip, especially when it was aimed at me. Take for example the Christmas party when Mike and I arrived late and left early. They took this to mean that Mike and I were in an abusive relationship because all older man/younger woman relationships are abusive! Women in their 20s don't have minds of their own; they don't gain wisdom until menopause! And when another one told me that my "lack of typing" was a sign of Mike controlling me, well, chalk that up to domestic violence, not employee boredom!

And upon my sharing that I was with child, they said they would rather throw themselves down the stairs multiple times than be pregnant. Well, only one woman said that, but it was the general consensus that I was doing a pretty stupid thing by becoming pregnant so young. But there wasn't anyone at that table who said congratulations or mazel tov, and I was pretty pissed at the memory of their frowning, barren faces.

And now, over a year later, Nathan's awesomeness (and my new job's completely career-nurturing, family-friendly environment) has dissipated whatever disdain I had for those women. And even though I'm sure there was much fanfare over how big of a mistake I was making and how my stint at motherhood would be disastrous, I'm probably just as bad as they were since this is just my side of a dirty mess.

I'm going to a baby shower today where there will be a sure sighting of my ex-boss. But I'm not worried about seeing her since there's no better way to play oneupmanship than having youth, an Elton-John singing son and a sweet life. What has furrowed my brow is that the gal having the baby shower has told me that she does not want to have a "Target baby," because Target is cheap. Well, someone file that under "o" for OBVIOUS. Of course, Target's cheap. That's why I shop there.

Worse than that, this negates the parenting/consumer philosophy I was going to scrawl in the card, "Get it for free, buy it used, or buy it at Target."

I'll guess I'll have to go with the wise unsolicited advice I received at the grocery store, "Watch your baby."

mommy magic

The above magic show is featured over at Blogging Baby Parent Dish.

I should have called it, "From one 'O' face to another."

--

Nathan can say three things now. When he looks at me, he says, "Maaa-maaa." When he looks at Mike, he says, "Daaaah-daaah." When he looks at our cat Charlie, he says, "You are my brother, you are older than me..."

He's so smart. Not even a year old yet and already he's singing Elton John!

--

Mike's and Nathan's birthdays are two days apart. Mike decided that from this year on, he's not having a birthday. This is fine for me because I don't think I could match last year's festivities, when I let a penis-wearing woman kiss my husband. Now, if a woman wearing those bachelorette-party-penis-necklaces wanted to kiss Nathan, I would have a problem with that, since Nathan would want to put it in his mouth and haven't I traumatized my son enough?

crawl of the penguin

I found someone's paycheck today. It was folded in half on the pavement and belonged to a kid named Jason. I could easily surmise that he was a college student because he had only worked for four hours total, earning 32 dollars after taxes. And even though 32 bucks doesn't seem like much, when you're a college student, that could buy a few sub sandwiches or buy enough toilet paper for a decent mummy costume (don't underestimate how much TP an endeavor like that will really need, especially when you've had half a box of wine...so I've heard).

And this is how I paid it forward because yesterday someone at my gym was kind enough to return my digital camera to the front desk after I had left it in the locker (yes, mi nombre es el stupido). I doubt it would have fetched much money on the cameras-full-of-anonymous-baby-pictures-market since a) it is the size of a brick and b) the little flap that holds the batteries in will likely need duct tape in the future just to function. In any case, I was very fortunate that there was some humanity and honesty still left in my gym's family locker room and I was reunited with my camera.

This small miracle has been the only way I'm able to share with you the awesome fun we've been having dressing Nathan's head up as a penguin.



This hat is like a shaman; it has healing properties. It even forces Nathan to read books about farm animals, albeit, upside down.



And today at West Seattle's Whale Tail Park, Nathan's penguin hat blocked out the fancy shamancy hot pink Bugaboo Stroller behind him.



Earlier, when passing said $879 stroller, I think the way my mouth flapped open actually broadcasted my stupid remark about people who spend that much money on a stroller because the owner of the stroller looked up at me and the direction of my loud booming voice as if to say, "I bet trash talk is all you can afford, lady!"

So much for paying it forward, even when I'm yapping some passive aggressive smack that disguises what I really want to say, "Me Want That! Me Too Poor! Me Likey! Me Not-Able-to-Afford-y!"



And when I confessed this to Nathan, he did what any loving son would do, try to compel the smack-talking demon out of my body.