Single Mom: Ladies

By: Allison Norris

My best friends totally split right after I had Baylor. It wasn’t intentional… just part of growing up, I guess.

They moved to LA (for a boy), Portland (for a boy), NYC (for a boy) and one stayed in Chicago (for a boy). I gave birth to a boy and miss my best friends more than anything.

This past weekend, my five best friends from college flew in, drove up, and slept over at my place. Baylor was with his dad for the weekend and I had the weekend to be “one of the girls” again. The play doh was stashed in the coat closet and Baylor’s room was used for suitcases and blow up beds. It was heaven.

We drank mimosas and then switched to wine – took a power nap and a shower – and headed out for the night. Tequila shots and Coors Light… sort of like I was back in college.

And then the next day I woke up and felt like I was dying for real. Snot from a new runny nose covered my pillowcase; my throat was on fire; and my night guard tasted like I had poop inside of my mouth. I kicked Liz lying next to me at 6am just to tell her “I was dying” and she told me to shut up.

Waking up hungover hasn’t happened in months… maybe even years? Moms don’t do that! I called my own mother to tell her about the night and she congratulated me on letting loose and having a fun time. What, am I uptight?

I started thinking about the weekend and how good it felt to be young again. Nobody gasping when I talk about graduating high school in 2002; nobody pretending to have it all together and then admitting that they left their wipes in the car and also forgot a change of clothes for their newly poop-covered child. I was making orgasm noises while putting on hand lotion at brunch… and then everybody else wanted lotion and joined in making the same noises. These were my people!

Bay’s dad and his friends are quite a bit older than I am and I always felt like I had something to prove when I was around him or his friends. The moms I hang out with are so fun, but also older. I’m sure that it’s me who expects to have already had a successful career, own a home, and be totally debt-free, but it just isn’t so.

For a weekend I remembered what it felt like to be totally accepted, loved… and in my 20s. Thank you ladies for an unforgettable couple of days!

$%&@*

By: Allison Norris

I apologize for the vulgar language in this post…but that’s precisely what this post is about. If cussing makes you uncomfortable, or you are under 17, maybe skip this one.

Along with the two yapping chihuahuas and loud-mouthed beagle, I live next door to Ballard High School. My driveway practically touches the football field and some days I can tell when the coach is really pissed…because I can hear him.

Being in the presence of high school students makes anyone nervous, except for high school students, of course. Tight pants that sag, back packs cinched to the tightest length, Justin Bieber haircuts, and foul mouths are very in style this fall.

School has only been in session for a week or so and already we’ve had an eye…and ear full. Baylor and I were coming back from a glorious walk to the public library and got to our corner. It was filled with high school youth…smoking, cell phoning, gossiping, and causing trouble – I’m sure of it. A girl with curves that I have not and will not ever have was walking a few feet in front of us. Her tight black Ed Hardy sweatpants had wings up the back of her thighs and were in full flight across her ass. She saw two skinny guys 300 feet away and screamed, “OH MY FUCKING GAWD, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS FUCKING DOING?!” Was she mad? Excited? I wasn’t sure.

She shuffle-ran with her arms up, wrists cocked to the side, and flapped her way up to the guys to give them the biggest hugs that I have ever seen. Like they wanted a hug…

“What the fuck have you guys been up to?” She was dying to know.

“Fuckin’ nothin’. Just chillin’ and shit. Just fuckin’ hatin’ bein’ back at school and all the bitch ass teachers tellin’ me what to do.”

Classy.

“I know! What the fuck?!” She was totally on his side… Duh.

Just then the other skinny kid had a very profound idea.

“Dudes, we should fuckin’ get slurpees at 7-11 and have our fuckin’ mouths turn blue n’ shit!”

Are these the leaders of our future?

Baylor and I tried to ditch the posse and made our way back home. I vowed not to hit the streets during the times that students were out of school and milling about like wild animals out of their cages.

But then, today right around lunch time, Baylor and I were chasing garbage trucks down the street and it happened again. Four Justin Biebers hopped out of a minivan carrying McDonalds paper bags and had those cinched up backpacks. They were behind a bush and didn’t see us coming.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Justin Bieber #1 demanded.

“Dude, shut up! I’m getting all my shit.” JB #2 responded.

“What shit?” JB #3 asked.

“My shit and shit…” Oh, that shit.

They barreled around the bush to head towards Ballard High School on the sidewalk along my street.

“Oops, I mean ‘shoot’” One of the JBs corrected himself when he saw Baylor. Good boy.

“Nice, dude, swearing around kids and shit… OOPS, I just said SHIT!”

They laughed and continued in their back-to-school-clean sneakers to the high school. Baylor and I kept looking for the garbage man in his truck so that he could wave at him. It’s super cool to chase garbage trucks when you are a 1-year-old. And then, in 15 years, it’ll be even cooler to sound like a total idiot and say “fuckin” and “shit” just because you are trying to be a grown up when grown ups aren’t around.

Better fuckin’ watch out for me kids… I’m going to wash those mouths out with some serious soap. No shit.

The Ecstasy of Blue Underpants

By: Katherine Ellis

My sister missed my niece’s potty training window; at least, that’s what she suspected. They were too busy; they waited past the pinnacle of Lulu’s potty excitement. She was on the downhill slide, totally over the potty, when my sister decided it was time. By then three year-old Lulu didn’t care, she seemed perfectly happy to have her mother change her diaper forever.

My sister was in the midst of this drama and chattering into my ear over the phone when my daughter, Josie, came home from preschool screeching about underwear and the potty. She was two-and-a-half and demanding boo (blue) underwear. My sister encouraged me to act. Move! Move! Do it now while you can!

The next morning we made a BIG show of going to buy new underwear with all kinds of gaudy, sparkly, animated characters with crowns and wings and oversized ears. And our girl went for it. She was all in. We read her the potty book and I, Josephine’s mother, put her on the potty every 30 minutes (this sentence is hilarious if you’ve read the Potty Book 5,000+ times). It worked. Oh how proud we were!

Josie got a sticker every time she used the toilet and it was going so well. Then… Meh. We lost interest, and by ‘we’ I mean she. She lost interest. It was fun for a while. Then our friends gave us some leftover pull-ups with princesses on them. Oh for pete’s sake. She was over underwear. She carried her new diapers around the house, clutched to her chest. She got out of bed at night to diaper her monkey; she slept with them close to her face. Are you kidding me? Get those potty-killer pants out of my house! We took a little break. We used the princess diapers until they were gone and went back to the generic diapers of our past.

Not much later, she decided to go back to underwear and this went well for a time. One day I brought home some new bar stools with seats made of woven sea grass to test out in our kitchen and soon they were saturated with pee – well, I guess we’re keeping them now. She could use the potty. She just wasn’t interested and didn’t really mind walking around with wet pants. Soon, like so many other things in our two-and-a-half year-old’s life, it became an issue of control. The parents want me to use the potty; therefore, I must not use the potty. Must not.

There was some hand-wringing, some parental resignation. Then: new bribery. She would get a matchbox car for every day she went without an accident. She was crazy about those little cars and, at $.69/car this was a habit I could support. I’d even get one of those big carrying cases if she got enough of them. This worked for a time then… Cookies! Yes, cookies would save us. I know, surely I’m scarring my child forever by using food as a bribe but…desperate times.

Josie’s approaching her third birthday, growing out of the original underpants, and the last few weeks we’ve instituted a new reward. If she has a whole week without an accident we can rent a new movie. Oh the joy! Most of the time Josie does earn the reward, and last I heard my niece had finally hopped onto the potty bandwagon and would not, in fact, be wearing diapers forever.

I’ve heard rumors of other parents who have smoother, more practical, nurturing ways to potty-train –solutions that are child-centric and enhance the connection of parent and child. However, I, Josephine’s mother, have been humbled by parenting in many ways. These days I’m willing to do just about whatever it takes to get through it all, even if that means we have to watch a whole bunch of movies filled with princesses.

For more stories of our adventures visit www.hystericalmommynetwork.com.

Wedding Bells, Part 2

By: Brandy Black

We got in a fight before our wedding. On the ferry ride over. I can’t remember why. Could it have been the make up? Things were tense. We had been planning a wedding for a year from another state and it was all happening on this overcast day after waiting 2 years for sun.

We parted at the wedding site to go to our separate rooms to get ready and we weren’t speaking –on our wedding day! I was fine at first, chatting with my girls, putting on the amazing gown that I had been dying to step into for months, but I kept wondering how my bride-to-be was doing. Her sister came over to pick up the infamous make up and I asked. I didn’t get the answer I had been hoping for. Susan apparently wasn’t talking much and I knew what that meant and now here I was forbidden to see her before I walked down the aisle to say I DO. I began desperately trying to manipulate seeing her and was told by everyone I asked that everything was fine and I shouldn’t see her before the wedding. The schedule was set for her to get pictures with her family first, then me. I made my way down early hoping to see her but she was done. I took my pictures with the family all the while pre-occupied. I pressed further and explained that I needed to see Susan to give her a present. It worked, somehow someone sent her my way and I pulled her into the dark hall where we later had our first dance as a married pair.

“How are you? Are you OK?”

She was quiet at first and than we grabbed hands and looked at one another and all of it disappeared. At that moment the wedding was no longer about guests or flowers or make up or rules, it was about us, my best friend, my wife to be, standing before me, more beautiful than ever before. I cried. She bowed her head and looked up with her big brown eyes as if to say “There you are.” We kissed. I later found out when reviewing pictures that the photographer was there, snapping the whole scene. We didn’t even notice her. I could have escaped to the getaway boat right then and there; it was all that I needed…that moment.

A voice came from the distance: “Susan, it’s time! You have to go to the other side; the string quartet is playing. Come on.”

We ignored it. Susan grabbed my hand and led me to a small window where we watched all of our stunning guests – from LA, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Colorado, Boston –they were all there for us.

VIVA Mexico… oh wait, I’m not going anywhere

By: Allison Norris

One of my best friends is getting married in September and decided to have her bachelorette party in Cabo San Lucas. I wasn’t sure if I could swing it financially, so I held out until salty margaritas on the beach were haunting me in my sleep and Baylor’s shriek would snap me into a sea breeze. I bought the flight with a credit card and would figure out the rest when the time came to board my flight… sans baby.

The girls (11 of them) were ecstatic and I felt like my tank had been filled even with just the idea of going on a 6-day vacation with girls and no child. I was imagining what sleeping in would be like day after day… staying up until the wee hours of the morning drenched with sweat because we’d danced so hard. My favorite waiter would bring me a strong alcoholic beverage followed by a refreshing limonada all day long so that my afternoon nap would be solid.

I packed my bags for my Thursday morning flight – we were all getting to the airport at 5:30am to board and not get off of the plane until we reached paradise. Tons of bikinis and a few dresses later, I was packed. The only thing that would be terrible to forget would be my passport… better grab it!

Where is it? It’s not in the bag that I’ve had it in with all of my other important documents for the last 10 years… hmm. Better check that box over there.

Nope.

What about this file folder?

No luck.

Panic.

Where in the HELL could it be?

Under the bed?

The last time I used it was two years ago when I went on my first and last vacation with the NFL player to Mexico. I’ve lived in 5 different houses since then… I am sure it’s just in a purse or something, right?
I tore my house apart. It looked like someone had ransacked and robbed me. Finally, at 10pm on the eve of my vacation, I threw in the towel.

My bff Gena called me and suggested that I change my flight to Friday, get my ass to the Federal building downtown on Thursday, and get a passport expedited. It would cost me $200 for the new passport, but a vacay with my 11 besties was priceless. It was worth a shot!

The alaska air lady told me that it would only be $325 to change my flight to the next day… I wasn’t going.

I went to bed, broken hearted, praying that I would receive a message from God or someone in my dreams detailing where my passport was hiding.

Bay made his first noises at 6:30 and I noticed my phone blinking. Gena had called several times and then left me a detailed text explaining that she had worked it with the alaska rep at the desk and that she had my flight changed FOR FREE to Friday morning, returning a day later as well. She told me to get down to that federal building and get myself a passport!!!

I made my appointment, went to walgreen’s for passport photos, talked my dad through scanning my birth certificate, remembered a check, and was out the door with time to spare. I found parking and made my way inside the huge building. I was greeted by an officer checking IDs and controlling the metal detector.

“ID please…”

I handed it over with a smile.

“8-2?” He asked?

“Yep!” I replied, expecting a Happy Birthday, Miss.

“This is expired. The department of licensing is two blocks up. Good luck.”

I laughed. Of course it was expired.

I made my way the two blocks to the DOL and was greeted by a room packed with people. Four measly stations were accepting people and I was directed to take a number.

151. I was number 151… ok, not bad… what number are they on?

68.

Shit.

I have now missed my appointment for my passport, am supposed to be on the beach in 24 hours, my bags are packed and I am fucked.

I returned to my car and drove home. No Mexico for this mamacita.

Please Don’t Leave A Message After The Beep

By: Allison Norris

Oh hey Al, it’s Mom. Just wanted to call and say “hi”. Where are you? Whatcha doin’? I made the best dinner last night. Your brother loved it. Have you talked to your brother lately? You should call him. Will you call him? And you know, I haven’t talked to your sister lately. What’s she been up to? If you talk to her, will you have her call me back? How’s the guy she’s dating? He’s pretty cute. Anyway, call me if you get a sec. Love you, bye!

The voicemail. I know what it’s going to say… and I don’t actually need it because I can see on the screen of my cell phone that she called. She will most likely call again, leaving another voicemail.

Hi honey, it’s me again. Just wondering what you guys are up to this weekend. I’m thinking about coming to stay with you. Where would I sleep? What is Baylor up to? Put this message up to his ear so that he can hear Gramma’s voice… Hiiiii Baaaaaaaylor! It’s Grammmmaaaaa! I’m gonna come seeee youuuuuu! Ok honey, call me later. Love ya!

Since she’s already had an entire conversation and let me know what shoes she’s wearing, do I need to call her back? Bay has heard her voice and for all he knows they had a great conversation… so I don’t see the need.

Then there are the voicemailers who leave the brief unnecessaries.

Hey, it’s me, call me.

So, essentially, there is no message. And again – I can plainly see the missed call from you. Do you not have a cell phone? Do I need to explain how one works? Didn’t I just talk to you an hour ago and I told you I’d call you back?

The collection agency voicemails are never fun. The automated ones that tell you to call a 1-800 number but it’s on repeat and you didn’t catch the first 6 numbers, so, oops! Guess we won’t be calling that one back.

I tried leaving a message on my phone instructing people to text me if they needed an urgent response as I never check my voicemails because, well, they drive me nuts… and people were offended. I should have asked them to email, text, or facebook me because I stay current on all of those methods of communication and don’t have to actually talk to anyone. Whenever I actually check my messages, I hear “hey Al, it’s Liz…” and then I hit delete. I’ll just call her back and she can tell me then.

I got one today that said, “Hey Allison… I just saw your missed call but didn’t listen to your message, so call me back.” This is a little more my style as I’ve been known to leave something similar. However, this person is someone that I may call once per year and if I leave a voicemail, it’s probably not to say “hi.” Most likely there is a reason that I called and left a message. If I hadn’t left one, it could have been a pocket dial and maybe he would have never called me back at all.

It’s all very complicated.

The absolute worst voicemails are the ones that you accidentally missed but wish you would have answered.

Hey Allison, it’s Danielle in Paraguay. I haven’t had access to a phone in over a month and I won’t be around one for another 6 months… but thought about you and wanted to check in to say hi and maybe hear Bay’s voice for the first time. Guess I missed you. Call you when I can!

How could I have not known that the unavailable number would be from someone who was literally unavailable. Damn.

I appreciate a creative voicemail, or the occasional prank… I also would rather hear the plan on the message rather than a beat up text that takes three tries to send and leaves me without the middle. So I guess they aren’t all bad. I just don’t have the time to sit and hit “7″ 14 times in a row to free up space so that it can get filled again with my mother telling me to “give her a buzzzzzz.”

I’m the one who needs a buzz. Right now. Where’s that bottle of wine I had around here…

One Special Mom

By: Caren Gillespie

When The Next Family approached me to write an article about a special mother, my first thought was, “how do I choose just one?”  I know some pretty phenomenal moms, but here is one who really stands out.

Krista is a full-time working mother of three children: Mercer, (almost) 7, Haley, 4, and Kemper, 1.  When I say “full time”, I’m not talking about your typical 9-5 day.  Krista, who works in sales, is basically on call all hours of the day. She is not the type of person to do anything half-assed -especially mothering…

With all the work she has to do, one might think she’d have no time to be so present in her children’s day-to-day lives.  I, being a stay at home mom, have more time than Krista has, but I cannot imagine being able to participate in all my children’s daily activities in the way she does. She is a room mother, a coach, on the preschool board, and attends all school events.  She admits that being so involved allows her to have a bit more control of the environment of her son, who has a peanut allergy so severe that he must always carry an Epi-Pen. She is determined to not only make the school district a nut-free environment, she just might take on the world at some point….this is just how she rolls.  All the while, she is determined that her son not feel abnormal about his allergy and he takes it in stride.

I am in awe when I watch all she can juggle.  She runs her house in a coach-like manner with a “go get ‘em!” mentality and a soft mommy edge.  It works for her family, and their “dance” is inspiring to watch.  She could not have more generous, thoughtful, loving children.  You watch them and you know for sure they know they are Number One in her life.  She does get sad if she has missed out on anything with her children, and you can tell she has mom guilt with some of her choices (I tell her it comes with the territory).  But one thing you won’t hear from her is complaining.  Sure, she gets down or needs to vent, but most of that consists of her trying to figure out a solution for whatever is bugging her or what she could do differently in the future.  It’s inspiring really….

I recently sat down over some wine and appetizers to see if I could find out her secret.

Did you always know you wanted a big family?

Yes, I grew up in a big sports family and when one of us was away it didn’t feel like the house was empty because at least two of us were home.  It was like our own internal community, which is what I want for my children.

How do you balance your family and working life?

That’s a great question…It’s an answer I hope I will learn someday.  Do you know you have balance when you do?  I guess I just try to maintain acceptance and try and let go of some of the tactical things.  I basically keep two identities: my work and my home.

What is your biggest challenge with maintaining some balance?

Sometimes I wish I had more time in the day and sometimes I wish the day were over.  I try and make sure each day includes one-on-one time with each of the kids.

Describe your relationship with your husband.

I feel so blessed to have Steve; we have been best friends for 15 years.  I know he is always there for me….He’s my family!

Describe a good day.

A good day consists of no morning appointments so I can walk my kids to school, my work done early so I can play with the kids before dinner and time with each kid.  I want them to be tired because we had so much fun that day.

What do you do for yourself?

Not Enough!  I just know that when the kids are laughing it’s  good for my soul.  I do get to sleep in sometimes and am finding more time with my friends, but for the most part I am still trying to figure it out.

What is your 5-year plan?

Part of why I work now is so when my kids are preteen and teenagers I won’t have to work as hard and can spend more time with them.

In a perfect world, how would your life look?

I would vacation every day and just watch my kids having a blast.  We would have no monetary responsibility.

What advice would you give someone else contemplating a large family while working full time?

Find what works for you, everyone is different but make sure you laugh every day.

I feel privileged to know Krista. Even with her every day demands she always tells me “are you kidding? I always have time for you.” She truly inspires me to be a more positive mother and to appreciate the time I get to spend with my own children.  She does it all so gracefully but she will be the first to admit it is not easy. It takes work, but it’s all worth it to her!

Enviro-Mentally Exhausted

By: Caren Gillespie

If you met me in person, you might think I’m pretty eco friendly. Compared to many people in this country, I am! I’m a former Dead-head, long haired, yuppie hippie who started caring about what was happening to the earth from early on. I was very into Earth Day in the 90s. I planted trees, rode my bike everywhere, hiked the mountains and basically did what I could with what education I had and what resources were offered at the time. Flash forward to the new millennium and here in Seattle, you would think Earth day is every day. Here, “eco” has come a long way. Armed with my grocery totes, I fall right in with other Seattleites who gravitate to the “organic products” available to us everywhere. But I think we still have a long way to go.

we have access to so many things in this country that “help” save the earth but, in its abundance, it begs the question “does it really help?”

Consumer Reports recently did a study and found that a large percentage of Americans stopped buying eco-friendly products because they were too expensive and they didn’t feel they worked well. It’s amazing in a world with iPads and robotic surgeries, we cannot make a product that works better on cleaning my dishes than me spit washing them. In a nutshell (organic of course) here are my gripes about our uber-green movement:

Warning: Going green means actually turning green!

Light bulbs: I walk into my living room in the evening and notice a green glow….”Honey, why does it look different in here?” He replies sheepishly “Oh, I didn’t think you’d notice. I put in those CFL light bulbs.” Yes, I noticed! How do you not notice when your house has a hue of green? He put them in the bathroom too; this is where I get ready to face the world every morning! Yes, I know there are CFLs with different light ratings, but we’ve tried them all it seems and none come close to the warmth of the incandescent. Again, can’t we invent an energy efficient light bulb that reflects light the same as a standard? It’s a light bulb!
Laundry detergent: in our house the “whites” load is now anything but white. Look at an eco-friendly person in white closely enough, and you’ll see they aren’t wearing white but a shade of greenish-grey that all the “eco” detergents seem to leave.
Liquid Hand Soap: Great, they are sulfate free, but did you know that if you pour a whole bottle of oil down your drain, it will clog? If you read the ingredients of the Eco-liquid hand soaps you will see they are made up of mostly oil! It’s my theory but I have some clogged drains to prove it. Did you know that being green is chic now? Tell me you haven’t bought a hand soap or household cleaner simply because you liked its label. I have.
Organic produce:
If you are an organic produce buyer like me, you are also damned.

It’s not enough to buy organic, because if you do buy those organic grapes from Chile, your carbon footprint has increased because of the fossil fuels used to transport them to the U.S.!

So now some people think it is better to buy local conventional (non-organic) produce than to buy imported organic produce. I get it, we don’t want to use the Earth’s resources but we also don’t want to poison our children, so we deny them grapes and bananas and most other things because here, in Seattle, we have apples….apples people!

Grocery shopping on the whole gets a bit out of hand here in Seattle. It’s a brave soul who forgets their reusable bags at a grocery store—we actually came real close to passing a law banning anything else!

You feel the tension mount as the bagger utters those dreaded words almost spitefully and unforgivingly loud “PAPER OR PLASTIC MA’AM?”

Well at that point, you might as well have set a forest fire in the mountains. It is unrelenting scorn you will feel in this city, not an ounce of forgiveness. Let’s be honest. We’ve all been on both sides of this. With all this pressure, it’s no wonder that Amazon Fresh is so popular these days. No one watches you buy non-organic Cheetos and high fructose corn syrup-y soda. It’s all private; like that “Playboy” magazine that comes cleverly wrapped in brown paper so your mailman and neighbors won’t know your significant other likes a good “article” now and then.

Are you rolling your eyes now, thinking I am “that” mom who just doesn’t get it? Yes I get it, but succumb to it all? No way. I used to walk into a grocery store and have this unexplainable anxiety as I would shop. I had to let that go. I want my kids to enjoy food, not worry about it so much. I don’t want them to feel that anxiety in the school lunchroom as their friends envy the lunch they brought. “Hey! How come you got chips? The tuna came from a can, not fresh caught.” Honestly, I do teach my children what healthy food to put into their bodies and respect how it makes their bodies feel. They are happy with one small scoop of ice cream and consider that a treat instead of the gargantuan sizes restaurants serve these days. They know the difference, but they also know they have the freedom to make choices. I feel I also have that right. So yes, I will bring my reusable bags a ‘plenty to my local grocery store, farmers’ market and even Target and occasionally I will forget them. I have a compost bin on my kitchen counter with rotting food (which just seems like an oxymoron for a healthy environment, but it helps our Seattle parks), but an eggshell might find its way down my drain. I buy healthy food for my family and make most of our meals at home. I even bought part of a cow from a sustainable and organic local farm last year. Yes, I have my limits and am very conscious of my “footprint”, but to keep up with the eco trends that riddle our city, well, I don’t have that kind of time or money. It comes down to what works for your family and not necessarily the easiest route but one that doesn’t deter from more important things in life. Choose your battles, be mindful of your actions and consequences and don’t worry so much, it’s a good example for everyone.

Gardening

By: Allison Norris

Hello, Spring? Is that you?

I had imagined planting a beautiful vegetable garden along my white picket fence. A few kids running around in the yard, and the dog (a retriever, of course) trying to get them, would decorate my perfect yard. The sprinkler, going back and forth would drench them and I’d wrap them up in a fluffy white towel after washing the dirt from the day off in the bath. My husband, who was so tired of his career modeling underwear for Calvin that he went back to school to become a doctor, would walk through the door and wrap his arms around me exposing the pint of ice cream in one hand.

Wait, I think half of that is a detergent commercial? Those media assholes.

Bay and I tossed on our coats and headed to the garden store to buy a starter kit and some seeds. It was freezing cold with the sun out, and buzzing with people. Every single one of them stopped to smile at Bay, who loved all of the attention, and delayed our mission by at least 30 minutes.

With our seeds, starter kit, and a Dora shovel for Bay, we headed back to our bottom floor duplex to play with our newly purchased dirt. We spread the supplies out on our concrete slab and started expanding the dirt pellets with water and then placed our seeds inside. As sad as this sounds, I don’t know that I’ve planted seeds before. It was beautiful, actually, knowing that with your special attention and care, these little balls will form food that we’ll be able to eat! It reminded me of being pregnant and taking care of my little baby, growing every day… minus the eating-when-it’s-done-growing part. Then, Bay decided to crawl on top of the very thin plastic, crushing the squares that contained our newly planted edamame and sugar snap peas.

He ate some dirt, I showed him a worm that we found in an overgrown flower pot, and then I gave him a bath in his blow up duck bath tub that sits inside of my shower. I wrapped him up warm in a yellow towel and he laughed when I covered his little body in lotion and eventually pajamas. He slept sound all night.

Maybe I should feed him dirt before bed every night…

*Wink*

By: Allison Norris

I was wearing a tight, tan polyester top when my mom and I pulled into the bustling field with all of my belongings in the back of her van. It was the first day of college, and like in a movie, all of the eager new students were checking in to receive their dorm room assignment. It was hot and I was sweating. The football team was required to help the new students unload anything heavy. They were wearing their jerseys and black shorts… it was amazing. I graduated high school with kids that I had known since I moved to the island in third grade. The guys had come to feel like siblings, and finding a date to a dance senior year felt like another homework assignment. These college boys were real men. They were surrounding me. I had never felt so popular.

Random football players stopped by my room my entire freshman year. It was like I was this piece of meat and they were vultures swarming around ready to swoop…until I found a boyfriend.

And then I joined match.com. Those feelings of broad wingspans doing circles above my head came rushing back.

I’ve never done any type of online dating. Having a baby has made dating, or even meeting someone who I could consider dating impossible. It’s not that I really want to meet any of these guys… I am totally planning on hiding behind my computer screen and responding to emails from guys that tell me what a catch I am. It is absolutely a confidence booster, and I will be forced to cancel when my 7 day free trial is up.

It’s also the best entertainment I’ve experienced in months. Men are disclosing personal information and putting their feelings in writing. They are free to admit that they like a 5’4″ brunette with a curvy body and a job. They put their income right on there so that there are no secrets. These are real relationships being built on truths, dammit!

There is a strip at the top of the screen that tells you what activity your profile has had. The numbers grow and I’m feeling good – in a cyber sort of way, of course.

I’m sorry, but “MrNiceGuy69″, I will not be *winking* back at you because you are older than my dad and maybe even my grandpa.

Hmmm… Sorry, Ngyeninkit, I am guessing that English is not your first language. I don’t know what to respond to your two word email.

Oh, hello, you are cute… I’ll send you a wink (and then hope and pray that you wink back, because it’s all about the wink).

I can’t believe I am “winking” at people. Am I in 4th grade? All that’s missing is a “check yes or no” box on a folded up note being passed by the kid with the missing tooth.

OH, a VIP email. Now what does this mean? Cute… single dad… has a job… ok, ok… and 40. Hmm. 40 isn’t that old, right? I will respond. After all, you only get one VIP email to send per week. Wouldn’t want his to go to waste. I’m flattered.

I would have never thought that I’d been clicking through old photos of me to try to find a picture for my online dating profile – especially one BC (before child) – because my boobs were much perkier. And yet here I am, as hungry for true love as the next, trying to find the winning shot that will increase my stock.

All of these profile views, winks, IM chat sessions, and VIP emails are getting me excited. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see how many people have viewed my profile. It’s like wishing that your crush will smile at you as he passes you in the hallway, if he passes at all.

Come on, crush, pass me. Pass me good. And throw in a wink too…

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