Date: July 17, 2015
Party People:
Brian (a young 35)
Laura (36 today)
Jonathan (3 years, 2 months)
Teddy (old but still larger than life)
Honey (old but still sweet as honey)
5:15 Jonathan is whining that he needs to "go pee on the potty! Daddy Dadddddyyyy!!" Brian kindly gets up to handle that loveliness. J is somewhat reluctant to go back to bed, but B eventually convinces him.
5:50 <whack!> (door flings open) "Mama! Mama! My clock turned green!" Brian is really a saint with all this early morning stuff. He gets up again with J and lets me snooze.
6:15 I head downstairs to be with my guys. They both greet me with sweet happy birthday comments. We chat for a few minutes, and then Brian brings over a gift bag. I read through a thoughtful card (always the only thing I really want for gifts) with fun gift cards. So awesome! And then ... I can't believe he actually got me this ... it is so amazing ... a SELFIE STICK!!! We all have fun with it and take no less than 40,000 pictures. We sip on coffee, eat brekkie (shredded wheat with granola and strawberries), and continue taking pictures. We discuss B's practice. I spend time scrolling through Facebook -- it really makes birthdays fun! I exchange a few text messages with friends and neighbors. Brian heads out to his office, and I head upstairs to get dressed.
8:00 JDub and I get ready to hit the pavement. He wants my selfie stick so bad. I let him play with it for a few minutes, but I can totally picture him taking it apart or cracking it on my first day having it. So I try to trade him for food. That would be an easy trade for me, but he will have nothing to do with it. He's also pissy about smiling for selfie stick pics. But he's fairly quiet through the walk. I huff and puff my way up the hill. We stop by the school, where they're having a soccer camp. He is not exactly thrilled that we can only watch.
9:15 We make it back home, and it's hot as fire outside. We spend some time checking on the front yard plants and drip lines. We've spent a lot of time on the yard this year, and I'm so happy to see the results. All the plants seem happy, and I'm sure the water district is delighted too.
9:30 We go inside for a snack. I'm obsessed with this dip from Trader Joes. JDub devours celery but will have nothing to do with "red grapes." "I only eat greeeeen grapes, Mama!" He then spends some time on his ipad, loving a new construction game. I do my daily straightening of the house. Once the floors are relatively dog-hair-free, I attempt some crunches and amateur core strengthening stuff. Within seconds, Teddy is predictably trying to join in the fun. And then JW too. This why Wanda is not shrinking. (Long story short -- Wanda Sykes named her gut Esther, I died laughing over that, so I named my gut Wanda.) Wanda has been demanding a lot of bread and cake lately. And Wanda doesn't like doing crunches. She's been a bit unruly these days, but I secretly don't mind.
11:00 Lunchtime. Open-face PB&J, salt & pepper chips (Wanda's demand), and lots of pickles. I dare you to try that combo -- peanut butter and pickle. You're welcome. I text B to let him know we have food in here, but he must be busy. I play the piano for a while, and J resumes his construction game.
11:30 Brian comes inside. We talk about his practice, and he just experimented with some new advertising this morning. His firm has exploded this year, and it's been awesome. Of course it's great to see money coming in. But what's even better is seeing his confidence soar. It's so rewarding to see his very long term efforts (started law school in 2004) finally paying off. He's doing great, feeling great, and I love watching him succeed.
12:00 Time for happy nappy. J wants to read with both Mama and Daddy, so why not. Not many kids get to read pre-nap books with both parents, so we take full advantage of our work-from-home lifestyle. And of course, we play with the selfie stick some more. Love that thing!
1:30 I get in the shower and try to convert myself into a presentable human being for the rest of the day (or what's left of it). I take a few (ahem, a hundred) selfies. I am mostly playing with my new selfie stick, tee hee, but I also have a weird existential moment of wanting to document what I look like at exactly 36 years old. Brian joins in.
2:15 JDub is up and all sweaty. He and B snuggle/wrestle on the bed while I talk with one of my sisters for a few minutes. We then scurry around the house, packing up our life to survive away from home for an afternoon.
2:45 We hit the road for the beach! Actually, we sit in the driveway for a few minutes, making sure the Ortega Highway is open. It was closed yesterday because of a "small wildfire." Joy. Lovely. Even if it is open today, I don't know how comfortable I am being trapped on that thing. But we find that it is indeed open today. We head out, and Jonathan talks the.entire.way. Nonstop. No pauses. None. Reading this, you might think it's a bit of an exaggeration -- "oh it probably just seemed nonstop." or "well, I'm sure there were some quiet moments in there somewhere." Nope. Not one. Through all the windy mountain roads: "Mama, do you like lions?" "Yes I do!" "Daddy, do you like lions?" "Yes I do!" "I like lions. I like the mama lion. And the cubs. And the daddy lion has a mane. The mama lions are nice, and the daddy lions ROAR!!! Daddy, do you like sharks?" "Well, I like dolphins more." "Oh, dolphins smile! But I like sharks. They have really really really sharp toofies!!" ... We got a real sneak peak into his mind, which I adore. People have commented since he was an infant that "he's so verbal!" I didn't really see what they meant when he was so little, but wowzers do I ever know what they were talking about now. Although there are times that I would love to hear myself think or wish that B and I could have a 5-minute uninterrupted conversation, I truly love that JW shares his thoughts with us. I want to do whatever I can to show him that he can always come to us with whatever is on his mind -- no matter what. We will always listen. We will always accept and love him. There is nothing he could ever say to us that would take away our love for him.
4:00 Toward the end of the drive, traffic gets ugly. We forgot to plan ahead for Friday rush hour. As soon as we got off the Ortega, the little beach towns are a nightmare. JDub starts saying "my tummy is giggling, my tummy is giggling. It giggles when there's no food in there. That means I'm huuunnngry!" We are all hungry, so we decide to change plans. Let's eat! Yep, always sounds good to me! We'll get some good food first and then go play in the sand. We finally arrive at a place in Dana Point with hundreds of rave Yelp reviews. I jump in the trunk and stealthy change clothes (I was only wearing my swim suit and cover-up during the drive). We walk in, but they don't serve dinner until 5. Doh! We're starving, so we opt for happy hour appetizers. They're meh. We're a bit confused about all these rave reviews. But whatever. We were hungry, and now we're not. J continues to talk and chatter through the entire meal and then pretends to be mute when the waitress stops by.
5:00 We arrive at Baby Beach, my all-time fave. There's even parking, which is a small miracle. We get all set up, and J is happily splashing. I head over to the rental hut to see what they've got. I've been wanting to try paddle boarding for a very long time, and I've declared that today will be the day. Or maybe not. I'm secretly a bit nervous about it, even though it's no big deal. But maybe we can rent something that all three of us can do together. I get to the hut, and it's closed for sunset. Dang it! Next time. But I do stumble upon a hidden restroom. I check it out, and it's a winner. Score! Will definitely be using this one from now on. Don't you love finding clean public restrooms? No? Not something you make special notes of? Just me. I head back to the guys, report the news of the closed rental hut, and definitely report the bathroom news. B is sad about the rental thing because he knows I was looking forward to that, so we decide to do an early morning anniversary date of paddle boarding through the harbor. I love that. I splash a little with JDub, but it's mostly an evening of me sitting and them playing. Luxury. The truck we brought is a very hot commodity among the other beach boys, and they all take turns stealing it. J and B find a crab, and J excitedly tells me the story. I don't follow it, and B has to interpret.
7:30 The sun has hidden behind the cliff of Dana Point mansions, and that beach breeze is getting chilly. We pack up and get in the car with no fits, complaints, tears, nothing from a certain mini-human. As we're flinging sand off our feet and haphazardly throwing all our crap in the trunk, there's a millionaire across from us wiping down his Maserati. The whole time we're packing up, which seems to always take a while, he's over there lovingly massaging his vehicle. He reeeeaallly loves the car. It's kind of weird, and B and I exchange glances. Eventually J asks (quite loudly), "what's he doing to his car, Mama?" He looks over. Oi. "Oh, he's taking good care of his car, sweetheart. Let's get you in your carseat." We left the millionaire to make out with his car in "private" at the public Baby Beach parking. As we start the drive, Brian asks me what type of Ben & Jerry's I want for my birthday. We dream and drool over the possibilities. But I remind him that we don't have any. "No problem, we'll stop at Von's on the way home -- J will be asleep by then." Hee hee, you funny husband. JDub talks the.entire.way.home. For no short of 15 minutes, he sings "I'm on my birthday suit! I'm on my birthday suit!" No idea where he got that, and Brian and I crack up. We also join in. All three of us chanting that through the mountains. Haha!
8:30 As we're pulling into the neighborhood, B says, "we are so close to rinsing our feet." I say, "I've been day-dreaming about that for about 30 minutes." We die laughing. We get home and rinse our feet outside. We also find a very sweet birthday present from our neighbor, Anne, on the porch. It's a bottle of wine, a thoughtful card, and a cute wine glass that says "stay beautiful." I love it and am wanting to take a picture of this. But I get distracted ... We open the door. We are stopped dead in our tracks by a god awful smell. The choking type of smell. Like something died. In a sewer. OH MY GAWD!! B bravely walks in and checks on the dogs in their room (the laundry room). Diarrhea. Everywhere. Piles. Smears. And of course the dogs are wagging their tails through it. Disgusting. Guess I should have paid more attention to those nap-time toots. Ugh. Plus it's already past bed time for J, and he's getting more wound up. B lovingly asks me if I want baby duty or shit duty. I decide to cash in on my birthday and go with baby duty. I head upstairs with J. Teeth. Jammies. Blankies. Book. White noise. In bed. Lots of last-minute chats about the day and how much we love each other. Success. Adorable. I head downstairs to find B with his shirt over his nose and mouth. He's at the sink with his shoulders all hunched up, trying to wash his hands. "I almost threw up like 8 times." He proceeds to describe the clean-up process in great detail, and I'm hysterically cracking up. We get fans in the windows to blow out the stench of raw sewage.
9:00 We land on the couch with popcorn and cookies. So healthy. So good. One more selfie stick photo opp. We watch a couple episodes of Jim Gaffigan's new show. Really funny, and we both lol several times. He totally nails parenting.
10:00 We climb into bed a bit sun-kissed. We chat about how great of a day it was and how cute Jonathan is. We also talk about how we could never live with 5 kids in a 2-bedroom apartment like the Gaffigans. Ahh, time for sleep. I will save the remainder of this blog write-up for the morning, but I drift off to sleep thinking about it. As always, I'm so glad I did this day-in-the-life documentation. It gets me all sappy and thankful every time. I think of myself as someone who truly (sometimes literally) stops to smell the roses every day, and I am frequently mindful of how grateful I am for my life. But when I take the time to document the mundane details, it hits me even more. My husband. Our son. Our health. Our life together. The beach. Chats in the car. Even the nasty dogs. Sometimes life is shitty (literally). Sometimes it's not fair, and it downright sucks. But I love my life. I might not be able have as big of a family as I want, but I sure adore the one I have. The end.
