Great Wolf Lodge Giveaway!

My peeps at Seattle Mom Blogs are giving away a free night's stay in a family suite at the Great Wolf Lodge. All you have to do is comment by Thursday, May 15th and you could win!

I had to work that weekend so I could not join my SMB ladies, but maybe your lucky charms could snag this prize and I could live vicariously through you, my internet friend.

Hey Answers!

Thanks for participating in the first ever Hey Mona! Q&A.

thecandyqueen asks, "Hey Mona! Why am I so moody ALL the time???"

Hey thecandyqueen! You need to fill your life with happy activities, like answering the question, "Which Sex In The City character are you?" I am Miranda's nanny, Magda. And sometimes, Steve's mom, especially when her dementia set in and she was picking pizza out of the trash. We've all had those days.

Erik asks, "Hey Mona! You often refer to the exorcism of your dear Nathan....can he really turn his head 360 degrees?"

Hey Erik! No, Nathan cannot turn his head but sometimes his farts are so noxious, he levitates.

Swistle asks, "Hey Mona! Explain to me why postage rates KEEP BUMPING UP so that I ALWAYS have to use a second stamp on an envelope. Why not just CHUNK it up a big notch and then give us some PEACE for awhile?"

Hey Swistle! I hear you on this. I bought a ton of forever stamps, but then I used them all up. They did not last forever, lying liars who lie.

annenahm asks, "Hey Mona! I'd like to learn how to drop it like it's hot. But right now I can only drop it like it is luke-warm, and picking it back up before some slips off to the floor has been a real challange. Could you vlog us an instructional? You seem to have it going on. Thanks."

Hey Anne Nahm! Yes! I will be posting up a video with my tips on how to drop it like it's hot or at least tepid. I'm just trying to choose which pajama bottoms I'll wear to model these awesome dance moves.

Tamara asks, "Hey Mona! Since you're such an awesome photographer, can you give me some tips on looking 100lbs lighter in my pictures????"

Hey Tamara! Photoshop your head onto someone else's body. But make sure you have similar skin tones or else, you know, it'll look fake.

JMC asks, "Hey Mona! Why is it that I always have a million questions, but as soon as someone offers to answer one, I can't think of any?"

Hey JMC! I'll just give you an answer anyway: Stilton Cheese!

Tessie asks, "Hey Mona! You are a picture-takin' fool. What's one thing you wish you had a picture of, but don't?"

Hey Tessie! I don't have a picture of me holding Nathan right after he was born. Mostly because Mike didn't know how to work the camera and hello, I just gave birth, do I need to do all the work here?

audrey asks, "Hey Mona! How come nobody else is getting the punctuation of "Hey Mona!" correct? And why, oh why, isn't my beautiful lawn coming back so beautifully this year? Does it know I'm having a party in 6 days and it just wants to make me look bad? Will it come in all green and gorgeous the day after the party? WTF, lawn?"

Hey Audrey! Why don't you start your party at 11 PM? It'll be too dark to notice the lawn color. Also, if you get people drunk enough, no one will care about the lawn.

Coleen asks, "Hey Mona! How did you and Mike hook up?"

Hey Coleen! Mike and I were introduced by The Candy Queen and then Mike clubbed me over the head and brought me back to his cave.

Banana asks, "Hey Mona! Can you give us a tutorial on how do you flirt with the over 70 set?"

Hey Banana! If you want to lasso in some hot geriatrics (it's not hard, they can't move fast--joint problems), try out these pick-up lines at your local ICU, hospice, or bingo hall:

Baby you so fine, I bet you have all your real teeth.

Hey baby, where were YOU when JFK got shot?

Is that titanium in your hip or are you happy to see me?

Hey Mona!

I'm launching a new feature called "Hey Mona!" and I would like you to be part of its initial run. Please leave me a question in the comments and I will answer it tomorrow. You can be anonymous if you'd like, but I'm more inclined to answer questions from those with linky-links and namey-names, my internet friendo.

It could be your Mother's Day gift to me, which I will happily accept in lieu of propitiating my real wish list: wine coolers, Veronica and Betty comics, hugs and high-fives.

the birthday aftermath

We ordered Nathan a volcano cake at The Rainforest Cafe as we had done for his first birthday. At first, Nathan freaked out at the sparkler on the cake and thought it was some brownie beast with fiery appendages. Once we removed the sparkler, he realized that the dessert monster's innards were filled with rich ice cream and whipped cream and not unicorn tears and crumpled metal remnants of Thomas the Train (though I really wish some mega-mothra-beast could eat up those pissed off trains with the constipated faces--seriously, how difficult is your life when you are a TRAIN and you have a name like PERCY?).

I'm so glad that birthdays are over because now the focus can be on ME and MOTHER'S DAY! Tell me what you're doing this weekend, my dear internet friend, and in the meantime, let's listen to an apropos classic from Danzig, shall we? Nothing says love like a horror punk mixtape!

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Two days old.



Two years old.

Two years ago my son Nathan was born.

One day I was walking home from the bus stop. I was worried about Nathan's speech and I was going over in my mind whether speech therapy was the right choice. I noticed Mike's car pull up in front of our house, having just picked up Nathan from daycare. He was about half a block away from me and about to parallel park when he stopped. When I reached the car, Nathan was beaming at me.

And then Mike told me what had just happened.

He was about to park when Nathan pointed towards the approaching figure and squealed, "Mama!"

And I wish I could have framed that scene for the next checkup so I could say, "See? This is what I want. This is more than enough for me."

I have this vague memory from science class about the area between ocean and shore called the interstitial zone. Sea plants who cling onto rock have to endure extreme variables of low and high tides. They have to live through waves constantly crashing over them. This is how I feel about being Nathan's mother. I live in the interstitial zone--a place where I feel like I'm sometimes drowning under the grueling water loaded with doctors and their cold checklists or other judgmental mothers or a workload that keeps me in the office and sometimes I'm exposed and gasping and needing more and more of this magical boy.

And in the moments when I pretend I'm asleep and my son comes over and kisses me repeatedly or he runs so fast with he plows into me or when he can recognize his own mother from the end of the street, my heart balloons in my chest and it presses against my ribs so tightly that I don't know if I'm going to suffocate under the aching power of being this beautiful child's mother but I welcome it all in as I have for these past two years.

Four reasons why you probably won't invite me over for wine and cheese and smooth jazz

1. I don't like Garrison Keillor.

2. I could never get past "Who is John Galt?" in Atlas Shrugged. And it's the first line.

3. I just watched the first few episodes of Arrested Development on Hulu.com and now I will have to make time for all this rich, family dysfunction.

4. I could not continue watching Charlie Wilson's War after the scene where Julia Roberts separates her eyelashes using a safety pin. But Mike really loved the movie so I said, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry Tom Hanks and the two of you could change the name of the movie to Mike's and Charlie Wilson's War On Banning Same-sex Marriage?"