the mohawk

yeah, my baby has a mohawk...i feel very strongly that anyone capable of looking good in a mohawk owes it to the world to wear it proudly.  and bella does.

if you don't like it, get your own baby and give her boring hair.

~k

getting back to me

it has occurred to me, more often than not, that i really should be blogging about this whole mommy thing.  on top of that, there's an election coming up.  i should have lots to say about a lot.  and i will. for now, i'm just here to dip my foot back in the water...

today has been a break day.  bella is at baby school, and i've been trying to get caught up on a few things.  my plan was to spend the morning in the pool--ignoring all the things i need to get caught up on, but construction dudes were working in the basement and there's no way this fat ass is going anywhere near mixed company in a bathing suit.

so i did some catching up (bills, emails, returning calls sortsa stuff), went to the dentist (my least favorite place on the planet), read the rantings of some ugly, angry lady who hates disney princesses, american girl, and the color pink.  and because my baby isn't here, i took a long shower and _washed my hair_.

heaven has a whole new look these days.  in more ways than one...

more to come.

~k

the wild and winding road

holy crap! i haven't been on here in almost three months! i've thought lots about it, even came close to logging in a time or two, but there's so much to say, it's like...where to start...so i don't even bother.

i'm having a baby in a couple of weeks, feeling pretty good about it, feeling pretty good generally, and today i got this photo:
.

wow. it says a lot. about how happy i am. about how happy we are. and about how hot we are - even when my ass is the size of a mack truck. been some rough times, that's fer sure. but now that everything has settled into place, it's almost weird. sometimes i fer reals have to pinch myself because i can't believe this is my life. and more than that, i can't believe how much i love it. except for winter. i really fucking hate winter.

turns out, i'm getting my april with cherry blossoms in a different, even better package, and i'm thinking it works best to throw caution to the wind when making wishes.

~k

decisions

not so long ago, the gravity of my decisions amounted to red vs. white, taxi or metro, bourbon or irish, drive or walk, spain or the czech republic. not so long ago that i can count the months backwards on a hand, or maybe two.

hubby and i've been talking about life insurance since well before we got married. we have a mortgage, expectations about a life with both our salaries, travel plans. and now, we have another life to pay for. so the time came to really pull the trigger on upping our life insurance to appropriate amounts.

and as unexpected as it shouldn't have been, there came a question i'm still not prepared to answer. secondary beneficiary. this time it's not just about who gets the money if hubby and i tragically die together. it's about who we trust to raise our child. how are we supposed to answer that? how am i supposed to answer that?

i mean, shit, there've been plenty of times i genuinely struggled deciding between red and white, resorting to the flip of a coin to adjudicate for me. and now i have to choose another flawed human being, probably paired up with an even more flawed human being, to raise my child as i would have. or at the very least as well as i would have liked.

and until i can even wrap my mind around the gravity of that decision, i don't think i can actually make one...

~k

another year gone

hubby and i broke in the new car on a road trip to the windy city for the holiday weekend. we spent new year's eve day hanging with friends while our teams (ucla and u of i) played each other in a most uncelebrated toilet bowl game, and then he went out with our friends that evening while i opted for a cozy night in bed cuddling with miss scarlet.

it's not that i planned all along to bow out of spirited celebrations or that i wanted to be anywhere but in the arms of my love when the bells towed away another year, but i just couldn't do it. i couldn't go "out".

twas probably because i spent the entirety of the afternoon at a football-watch party around merry people drinking and laughing and having a good time, and whilst i wasn't not having a good time, i really felt out of place. i can't drink. i'm in a time and place in my life with nary a space for frivolous thoughts. and frankly, as much as i love being pregnant (another blog post), i don't love having the same fucking conversation over and over and over again with every single person who sits down beside me.

it goes like this, "so, when are you due?" [i answer]. "do you know if it's a boy or girl?" [i answer]. "oh that's so exciting!" [i agree]. the end.

maybe it's my fault. i mean, i am pretty much consumed by baby thoughts and i am carrying around a soccer ball sized belly. maybe it's their fault. they don't have kids. they've never been pregnant. they don't know that i'm still a real person underneath that big belly and behind that wine glass of sparkling juice. or maybe it's just that we're all in an in-between phase of life, some of us coming, some of us going, all of us moving around in different shades of gray, not remembering what it was like to be in their shoes or knowing what it's like to be in mine.

or maybe it's no one's fault. it's just life. and with life comes change. and isn't change all about figuring out how to maneuver through the unknown? i think that sentiment pretty much sums up my 2011... and the start to my 2012...

~k

saying goodbye

i traded in my mini cooper tonight. after seven years together, it was the hardest good-bye i've had in a very long time.

i cried all the way home, and i've cried several times since getting home. i even think tears were freezing on my cheeks while i tried to walk away some of the grief with scarlet on the leash. it was hardly just a car...

we made cross country trips together - three times, my mini and me. we campaigned for obama together all over the country. not just in indiana or south dakota, but in every state we drove through. windows painted until the middle of 2010 when i moved to DC, obama stickers adorning the bumper and the dash. she was the perfect campaign car, in obama blue with black racing stripes.

my brother and i laughed while replacing her toggle labels with silly stickers so that "unlock" would read "ejector seat" and "window" read "periscope". we made a dozen trips to vegas, crossed the golden gate bridge, ventured down eldorado's gravel roads, and parked a few blocks from the white house. we stopped to photograph bears in yellowstone park, checked out the back side of mt. rushmore, dodged hail and tornadoes in kansas, crammed five giggling grown-ups in for a trek to knotts scary farm, climbed california's highest hills in silver lake and echo park. we moved from the casas del sycamore to the ancelle, and bounced for three years down descanso to the music box steps. then on to DC we marched in step. and in missouri tonight we parted ways.

tis a very sad night for me. it feels like the last piece of the life i used to have is now parked on a lonely volkswagen parking lot. and here i sit wailing at my computer over my first great sacrifice as a mom. when my new car gets here on tuesday, i've no doubt i will be the coolest thing ever seen driving a station wagon, but until then i think i will revel in the glory days we shared, and mourn the loss of my favoritest car ever and the era i left behind tonight.

she will never be just a car...

~k

the deficit delusion

the "out-of-control", "unsustainable", "certain doom" american deficit is but a joke. i'm so sick and tired of hearing about it, when nary a soul - not a single politician, and frankly, not a single american - wants to actually do a thing about it.

no one wants taxes to go up. no one wants social security cut. no one wants medicare cut. no one wants defense spending cut. so from where and how, pray tell, are we meant to raise the funds to cut the deficit?

wishful thinking in magic land, i guess. much like the rest of politics in this country...

~k