butterfingers

This week I have:

Plowed into a display of tacky plastic crystal balls at Bed, Bath, & Beyond with a shopping cart. Was left alone for just a moment while Mom ran purchases out to car, and with Bug and Baby in tow, managed to effect a minor avalanche in a very public spot.

Spilled 2 fairly full drinks, both situated in the same spot on the counter and filled with ice. The first time, I launched the cup with what was left into the sink, which detonated a veritable Coke Bomb onto the surrounding walls and cabinets. Both times, I wanted to cry but didn't, because of some stupid, sensible cliche about spilled milk.

Dried to dust my second to last right-eye contact lens because I (apparently) went to put it in its case at night and missed.

Whether these actions are due to sleep deprivation, remnants of prego brain, or just my good, old-fashioned inclination to be a klutz, it is not clear. Would consult crystal ball, but is currently (see above) out of commission.

dustballs

So far this pregnancy is marginally less stressful than when I was pregnant with K.Lo. The biggest thing is that I'm not working outside of the home; my job consists of the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, taking care of K.Lo. The usual old-fashioned domestic duties. Which is all good, as I'm perfectly content with these things, and of course, it's not good to be overly stressed while pregnant. If we weren't stressed to some degree, though, we'd probably be pulse-less.

My brain seems to be on hiatus this week, maybe N.Lo is building his own brain cells and is sapping all the power from mine? I don't know... I feel like mainly the past couple of days, I have been *blank*. Which in some ways is good, because I haven't been thinking about certain weightier issues that have a tendency to stress me out, like certifiable family, or why, even if I'm comfortable with being a non-hob-nobber, it still bothers me on some deep, dark, junior-high-insecurities level when I'm excluded. I don't have the go-go gadget brain power to address these things at the moment. So what I do worry on, the little things that are nagging me, particularly when I'm feeling so sapped, is that I'm not doing *enough* so far as the aforementioned domestic duties are concerned. What I want to do in my day is take a nap, watch a little TV, eat a little ice cream, and not think about the eau de dog hair on the carpet, or the mildew overtaking the shower. I eat the ice cream, I watch the TV, if I'm very lucky I take the nap. But it just doesn't work for me to let lurking messes get lurkier. I can't rest. I do what I can, take care of what's most pressing: I buy A&H carpet deodizer and vacuum the house, I scrub down the bathroom, I spot-clean the kitchen. I launder, I iron, I give the baby a bath. I try to do a good job.

I think one of the problems with being home all day, though, as lucky a circumstance as it is, is that you can think too much about whether the job you're doing is good enough. When you're working outside of the home, you do what you have time and strength for inside the home, and you're golden. You're doing the best you can. But inside the home, all day, every day, there's little else you're being judged on. Obviously, no woman in the world will ever live up to the domestic ideal presented by Martha Stewart--and yet I can't shake what she said on her show recently about cleaning her bathroom every day. Is this reasonable, or even humanly possible? Then, another friend I talked to recently cleans her house in two hours every Friday, or thereabouts, and I'm like, wow. The whole house, really?! It takes me two hours to dust just our bedroom. Probably I'm just slow, but I try to be thorough. And I'll never be thorough enough, but at least most of the dust bunnies are gone, and the room looks and smells good for a few days, about once a month. My mind wanders to what other people I know are doing and not doing, and compares their household routines, which in actuality I know nothing about, with my own. Just because a friend's house is well-organized and her kitchen counters sparkle when she has guests doesn't mean that a) it's like that all the time and b) that her room corners don't have a few cobwebs just like mine do.

I can't really judge my own standard of cleanliness by others and what they supposedly do, right? I'm an as-needed chore-doer by nature, I can't stick to a regime. Regime as a word just makes me feel all... regimey. Also, as mentioned many times before, we're a dog household: We're always going to live a little messy, and as not-okay as I am with the constant Battle of the Bender-Hair, I am actually okay with a little messy, a little less than perfection, or at least expected perfection.

So how do I get rid of that little Martha on my shoulder, the one who instills self-doubt and deprecation where it's not welcome or wanted or needed. Is there a cleaner that will eradicate her, a simple household solution? Or how about the tendency to endlessly compare all of what you know about your own habits to all of what you don't know about another's habits. How do we get rid of that.

Anyway, I'm spiraling a little too far down into thoughtfulness... Time for some oreos, some Last Comic Standing, and some sleep.

i dropped an iron on my neck

Today I dropped an iron on my neck. In an effort to minimize craziness while ironing with K.Lo around, I chose to use the pint-sized ironing board, balanced precariously on the back of the living room chair. This board would be a lot harder for her to knock over should we get in a battle about it, even if the ironing itself would be a little more annoying to manage. Instead of going around to the front side of the chair to plug in the iron, like any normal person would, I tried to plug in the iron while kneeling in back of the chair and fumbling blindly through the two inches of space between the chair and the wall. Of course one cannot really see the outlet from this vantage, particularly when one is holding up the iron on the precariously-balanced board with her other hand. Why the iron even needed to be high up on the board in the first place instead of on a more manageable plane such as, I don't know, the floor next to me, is another mystery entirely. Anyway, I couldn't find the outlet properly and became frustrated, I let go of the iron for a second, and it fell onto my spine. And it spilled all its water on me. Also, while ironing, to add injury to insult, I burned one of my knuckles. I hate having stupid brain.

updates

Location: home again, after a whirlwind trip to DC and MD. Visited the Smithsonian, saw among other things Abe Lincoln's hat from the day he was shot, Kermit the Frog from 1970, an outfit that George Washington wore, and Dorothy's ruby red slippers, all live and in person, even if behind glass. Also many space exhibits and the Hope Diamond, for a nanosecond. Saw the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the White House for the first time ever. Bought Bug some animals. Decided we must venture back for more than a few hours, definitely a few days. Want to see the zoo, and the monuments in further detail, as well as the museums, and go on on the boat-mobile that drives directly into the river. Sunday, a lovely visit with fam, held a sweet little new baby. Monday, a trip to IKEA!, hours and hours on the road and then HOME. Pizza. Sleep.

[caption: OMG, it's Carrie Bradshaw's computer, Seinfeld's Puffy Shirt, and Mr. Rogers' sweater! Glorious artifacts from my 80s, 90s, and 00s TV experiences, all in one case!]

Bug: precocious. Give the child a few bites of brownie and if she decides that's not enough, she's off to the kitchen, stretching and waving and whining up at the brownie container on the shelf. Sheesh! Also though, a good traveler. Couldn't be more pleased.

Headaches: went away, but now returned. Pondering fall travel, very pregnant travel, to up North. Plane, train, automobile? Money, rental cars, and gasoline. It's all too much.


Trips: another this week, back to RDU, to celebrate an MSW graduation--go Sebs, woohoo!

IKEA: I'm all over the catalog.

Floors: freshly vacuumed.

Suitcase, bags: all unpacked.

TV: lots to see this week, but then soon all the good stuff will be over, no?

Miffed: Missed the Australia's Next Top Model Marathon on VH1 this past Sunday.

Dustin Diamond on CFC: like a traffic accident. A rude, loud-mouthed, un-self-aware traffic accident.

Amazing Race conflusion: eh.

Brain cells: fizzling.

Green: not so much?

Scale: lies.

Smooth Move of the Weekend: forgetting camera not only in DC, but also for Sunday family gathering. Nearly murdered by J.Lo.

Emails, blog posts/comments (by me): soon!