I'm working on it.

forget the sight of my beautiful daughter, smiling, laughing, dancing to her favorite songs. Tiny toes, bare legs in her diaper, and her floaty, flannel, ruffled jammie top swinging out around her small body as she twirls, hands high, fingers spread around and around and across our living room floor.

No matter what, I want this moment for mine, for always. I never want to forget her face, her eyes, bright and happy, shining and laughing on their own. I never want to forget the wonder of her smile and the joy, really, the absolute joy in each of her deliberately placed steps.

This moment, these minutes, they are full, full, full. My heart is warm from them and from her.

Seems like the impossible task. The one thing that I can't do. Everything.

The logical me that I want to be:
Of course it's impossible. Nobody can do everything. Nobody can finish everything. Besides, what would you do then? When everything was finished? Relax? Why not relax now? Make it part of your day - your schedule. You know, include some downtime amid the moments you dedicate to trying unsuccessfully to be everything you think makes life perfect. After all, you know there's no such thing as perfect here.

Things are much better than 2 months ago. They are. Really. You're making progress everywhere - look at your living room. Look at your bedroom. The bathrooms are both relatively clean - not just clean, but disinfected. You've started to communicate some of the stuff you've been hiding for awhile. And, you learned how to operate the lawn mower. This is big stuff. This is good.

Stop worrying so much, and stop believing that you can finish everything on your growing list this second. That is not how life works.

The me that I am:
Sure, that's easy. That's the cop out, isn't it? "Nobody is perfect."

Of course - nobody is perfect. But lots of people have organized homes. Lots of people don't worry all the time about what's for dinner because they already know. They've taken care of it. They're on top of things.

They're wives with great marriages and happy husbands, they're mothers with happy, well cared for children on great sleep schedules, they're friends who have lunch and send cards and work out and have people over for dinner and go to church and take classes and have their hair and nails done and are happy.

Oh. And employed. They're making money for their families. For themselves.

And you? You are sitting here posting some emotional crap on a blog nobody reads while you should be finishing up any of the five hundred things you've already fallen behind on today. Plus, that relaxing stuff? Haven't you been resting long enough? Haven't you fixed yourself by now?

Dear Self,
I just want to take a moment to send you this note of congratulations. Today, you took some big steps. You confronted multiple fears, and faced the challenges with bravery, honor and only one scream. I am proud of you.

It takes great courage to march into the darkness, and you did it.

Hooray! Hooray for you!

Love and kisses,
Me

PS. I always knew you could do it!

go now?

Hurricanes seem to be increasing in number around here these days. Guess there must be some kinda miracle grow in the Atlantic this year. It's a bit worrisome.

Bigger than the worry right now is the confusion. One day we're going to get smacked, the next day it's Charleston. One minute it's a category 1, the next it's a tropical depression. I realize that the wind speeds separation is you know, small, but the flood probability is quite a difference. Will we flood? Won't we? Will we evacuate? Won't we?

Should we evacuate? Should we wait a little longer? How long is too long? And how on earth will this work with a cat in the car?

And then suddenly, we're joined by two more indecisive storms . . . although Ike sure looks certain about his strength. The feeling is that it's time to make plans to go. Nobody here wants to chill during a category 4.

On the upside of things, there's a strong possibility that we'll finally be getting that new furniture we've been wanting!

I joined a gym. Yay me!

To celebrate, I'm baking peanut butter cookies.

Yay peanut butter!

*** Peanut butter is high in protein, vitamins B3 and E, magnesium, folate, dietary fibre, arginine, ergo it's good for me, ergo, it's healthy. Yay me!

Yay Cookies!

All of 'em.

I'm too tired to even begin on this one. I can only say that the arrogance and wanna-be-tough attitude of so many celebrity-whatevers is beyond the scope of annoying.

Things I love, Part 2 in a series, continues with . . . the space bag!

Yeah, I know. But the infomercials get me every time. Sometimes I get stuck watching them for hours. It was worse pre-parenthood, because then, I had hours of free time to sit around doing nothing. Back in the day, those late-night spots always managed to hook me. Needless to say, I've seen just about any product of this nature you can think of, and I've contemplated the purchase of many of them. (My husband just thanks heaven that we don't own the Little Giant and Mighty Putty yet.)

Typically, I'm not a fan of catalog ordering, tv shopping, or the like, although if it's online, I have no issues with making an unseen purchase (evidence of my over-dependence on and trust in the medium?). And even though I have no intention of buying these items, I watch the 'shows' over and over. Could be I'm lulled into a semi-conscious state by the practiced voices of the hosts, could be that those mesmerizing lights; either way, I watch and take note, and can later recite all the virtues of said product to my leery and slightly bored husband.

All this to say that thanks to our beloved Target, I can now inspect some of this TV product for myself. And that's exactly what I did with the item known in organized circles as the space bag. I was skeptical but intrigued. Could it really make more space for me?

The answer, folks is YES! In fairness, I'm a first time user, and I've only been using for about 20 minutes. So we'll see how these things hold up over time. But, if first impressions are everything, I am Impressed with the "Big letter I". I've had 4 big bags of too-small-for-our-angel baby-clothes sitting around in the closet for several months. Each time she outgrows something, I add it to the top of the bags. The bags were nearly bursting from the strain of holding in so many clothes. But not anymore.

This morning I was able to get all 4 bags worth of clothes into 2, count 'em 2, medium-sized space bags. With the air sucked out, they take up about 6 inches of vertical space.

Sometimes things work out well. Chalk one up for me today, and one for the Space Bag. I'll be a repeat customer for sure.

Those aren't really the words I want to use. But I'm trying to practice not saying anything questionable - especially since we suddenly discovered that our 18-month-old really does understand (and can sometimes repeat) what we say. This evidenced by the 'oh dod' that came out of her mouth shortly after the "Oh, God" came out of mine. Wish I could say it was part of a prayer. Alas, it was not. I've broken commandment #3 again.

Anyway, poopie-head, poopie-head, poopie-head. I'm not name-calling and that isn't shorthand for another four letter word related to the new sewer line we just had installed. It's just my words for the day to explain how I feel about things - like my broken laptop that is only one, yes one, year old - oh, and also the idiots who can't seem to process a claim on the extended repair warranty service we purchased with the machine.

It's a small, tiny, minute part of life. I know and accept it. But I still find it aggravating.

Something is wrong with Nadia's face.

And I'm angry with China.

First they poison my daughter. Then they steal medals.

It's just too much.

I suppose that most people already know about the goodness that is color-safe bleach. I suppose that many people, people smarter than me, have already experienced the joy that is seeing spaghetti sauce come right out of a navy and white striped shirt. And I'm certain that I am nowhere near the first wife and mother to shout with glee as a particular article of clothing comes out of the wash minus the offending stain ( . . . that wouldn't have been there in the first place if you'd just listened to me, I mean I've told you fifty-million times, well, ok, 50 times then, but I've told you that you must rinse that stuff out immediately, and what the h about a bib already? . . . ).

I admit and accept that I'm a bit slow on this uptake.

But folks, the truth is hard to ignore - even if it's a commonly known one. Color-safe bleach is the savior of laundry and stain-tired women everywhere.

Let me paint you a picture of my laundry-life up until a few days ago:**

Baby-clothes, mounds and mounds of tiny socks and bloomers and jammies and shirts multiply like mogwai each night while I sleep. And I mean multiply by enough to need washing nearly every day. For the record, it's a lot of washing and a lot more folding. Add to that record that somehow, every single piece of clothing is stained with something. Yes, I said every piece.

How the cheese sauce ends up on the bottom of her bloomers is beyond my ability to discern. But it's there, and it's ground in good. There are stains on her shirts, and stains on her shorts and stains on her socks and so many stains on her bibs I'm embarrassed to put them on the child in public. And many of these stains, mind you, have not been rinsed or pre-treated or even blotted off.

So every couple of days, you could find me hunched over the utility sink (thank God for that) in our laundry room with a pile of tiny garments and a bottle of stain remover. There I'd stand, spraying, scrubbing, rinsing, praying and attempting to cajole those worn in stains out of the fibers of the clothes. A lot of the time, I could get the marks out, but most of the time, this process took hours. And at the end of it, I was sore from being stooped over and cranky from breathing in the chemicals.

And then, world, then I discovered Clorox 2.

It looks like detergent. It even smells like detergent, and thankfully, not like regular, chlorine bleach (though I have to admit that the Lavender scented one hubby recently brought home is a huge improvement in that vein). You can add it right to your washer with your regular laundry soap. It brightens colors. And, it whitens whites! But the key thing for me is that it gets stains out of colored clothes, and that is currently one of the best parts of my week.

My laundry life now still involves large piles and many loads of dirty baby-clothes. But the agonizing hours of bending and scrubbing have been reduced to a matter of minutes. The moments of worry during especially messy dinner times have nearly faded, and it's now rare to hear the phrase, 'well, that's ruined' coming from my lips.

Clorox 2 is a life-saver. And for that, it takes it's place as a thing I love.


** In the interest of full disclosure, it must be noted that while my laundry life before the introduction of C2 was disheartening, it was not as awful as that of other women who are not married to a husband who actually does the laundry. During my 'mothering' season of the last few months, I've taken over that responsibility; however, it must be noted that during the first 4.3 years of our marriage, that amazing man washed nearly all of our stuff.

That's what I'm attempting to do, anyway.

I need to save the baby photos and videos. And I'm thwarted at every turn. Four dvd's wasted as the computer crashes in the middle of a burn. 10G of images, still need to come off, and as I burn, the computer starts to overheat . . . and crashes. Again.

Earlier, I tried to save the shower caddy from our master bath. It's somehow covered in rust. Something I just don't have the patience to try and understand. I mean, come on. It's a shower caddy - for the *shower* - where it gets wet. You'd think they'd make it out of something that doesn't rust. But, that's me. Anyway, trying to get the rust out of all those little wiry spots is like , well, I don't know what it's like, but it's hard. And I think I've given up.

And this morning, I tried to save the baby's clothes from the stains that appear to be beyond set in. No luck.

I suppose I feel like it's a good thing I'm not responsible for saving the world.

So I'm driving home one day, already in a not-so-great mood because I'm getting home super-late from a super-crappy job, when the ultimate soccer-mom vehicle pulls out in front of me. It's a mini-van that's decorated with a bumper sticker, which catches my eye because: 1. it's a the only decoration/ornament on this very plain van and 2. it's a text-only sticker, the kind guaranteed to have some kind of obnoxious message for the world.

As I get closer to the van, I read the sticker, and instantly feel my face get hot. It reads:
"Babies are born to be breastfed."

Let me give you a moment to consider that for yourself before I begin the rant you already know is coming. "Babies are born to be breastfed."

REALLY? That's so good to know. I always wondered why babies were born. Now, thanks to you, mini-van driving mom, I am finally enlightened. Thank God you were able to make everything clearer for me - blind as I was to the truth.

I did not have a baby so I could breastfeed her. I don't really know anyone who does. I mean, I have NEVER heard anyone say, "I'm so happy we're pregnant! I've been waiting my whole life to breastfeed!" Nopey, they are not born to be breastfed. They are born to live - to have life, to experience living.

Truth: I breastfed my baby. I believe it's a wonderful thing you can do for your child - all circumstances permitting. I think it has great benefits for both mother and baby, and I think it's important that new mothers know it's an option for them.

BUT . . .

It's not why we have babies. And it's not the only way to feed a baby. And it's not the 'best' thing you can do for a baby. And it bugs me to no end when others try to make it some kind of measuring stick for motherhood.

What about the mothers who can't or don't breastfeed? Are they less of a mother? Do they love their child less because they fed their child from a bottle or gave formula instead of milk?

Truth: I breastfed my baby - and I also gave her formula. And then finally, there was no breastmilk, just formula.  So, I guess I totally did it wrong.  I guess I must be less of a mother.   Missed the mark, and screwed up her whole reason for being.

The opinion of me:

Babies are born to have life.

The best thing you can do for a baby is love her (him).

Breastfeeding is a wonderful option for mothers.

People who put stupid stickers on their minivans, well, they're stupid.

and so much to do elsewhere? It occurs to me that today would be a wonderful day for some much needed yardwork, but I'm at that point in my workday where I'm a lady in waiting.

Waiting for clients to call me back, waiting for sales to finalize contracts, waiting for my server to speed up so I can post something, waiting for emails and waiting to see where things will go - up or down - from their current, less than usually busy standpoint.

Normally, I'd relish the slowdown - the few moments void of the typical frenzy and challenges of organizing people and projects and the people of the projects. But today, with the sun shining and the winds gentle, I can only think of how I've always wanted to know how to operate our lawn mover and what a shame it is that I can't get over to the nursery to get some plants for our empty flower boxes.

It's strange to be typing in a post on a blog that could belong to me. More-so when I'm 'behind' my post schedule on the 'real' blog ('real' in quotations is the nicest I can be about the comment some old, ugly, wanna-be important person made about it at a recent blog conference, but I digress) . . . and feeling guilty about it since family is so far and that is really the easiest way for them to keep up with granddaughter one and only (so far).

And there's no telling if this one will even have a second post, what with the lack of spare time these days. But I've typed it anyway, and so I'll post it.

There.

Done.