WOO HOO! I'M FORTY!

That's all for now.

Balloons...

Mothers' Day.

Happy Mothers' Day. Or, Happy Sunday in May. Or, Happy Hey-mom-here's-a-card Day. It's pretty much just like every other day, just with talk about the wonders of mothering.

What do I want for Mothers' Day? The ironic element to this question is that the very things that make me a mother makes it almost impossible to have what I want.

I want...

The cessation of any and all demands on my person, whatever their form.

Time.

The suspension of all societal expectations, both internal and external, placed on me by the patriarchy because of my gender.

Shoes. These shoes. Size 11.

For a certain right-wing pundit to lose his last marble and fly off on a paranoid tangent so random and hateful that, once and for all, the only thing anyone, anywhere will ever do, ever again, is laugh at him.

Too much?

I'd like to garden until I feel like having and Orange Blossom Ale and then write for awhile. I would like  few isolated and only-lovely moments with my beautiful son, during which he rest his curly head on my shoulder and gazes lovingly into my eyes while patting me gently and saying "Mama, home."

An iPhone without AT&T.*

So far today, I've had eggs and a shower. I changed the sheets and went to the store to buy meat.

The fact of the matter is that most mothers--hell, most women--can't take a day to do whatever they want or do nothing because nothing will get done and all that something will be there the next day when there is even less time to do it.

So thanks, America, for the card and the poem about motherhood that you Googled this morning. I'll settle for a Guinness until I get a society where women can do more than vote and get paid 1/3 less than a man for the same job.
*I would like to do/have all of these things in a completely clean house, which I did not clean myself.

A good start to the weekend

This morning, we marched in a Cinco de Mayo parade, for Betty McCollum and other DFL candidates. It was blustery and chilly (40 degrees), but still an invigorating experience.

Well, for most of us. Finn took a little nap, but it didn't last long.

Beautiful St. Paul

And the best one of all, a family picture with Betty and Al!

Mothers' Day

Mothers' Day, like all the other gift-and-card holidays, is mainly a marketing scheme. As well as a day for Mom to get breakfast-in-bed, with the added gift of a destroyed kitchen that she has to clean. I was watching a sit-com called "The Middle" about this very topic, and the main mom character had this to say: "Mothers' Day sucks. Fathers' Day is great because Moms run it."* What dad ever got breakfast in bed, full well knowing that he would have to face a kitchen littered with dirty dishes, egg shells, and crusty frying pans?

It also reminds me of "African American History Month" and "Women's History Month," which are clear examples of how far we have to go in this country before such things are unnecessary. You often hear people griping "Where's 'White History Month'? or 'Men's History Month'?" And we reply, "That would be March through January and April through February. In other words, the whole rest of the year.

Mom gets one day of special treatment, for which she usually has to pay some price, and then it's 364 days of same-old-same-old.

So, thanks Mom! Now that this includes me, though I still can't wrap my mind around that fact, please don't buy me flowers and jewelry. And please don't make me breakfast if I just have to clean it up later.

*Mom comes home to an absolutely ransacked kitchen. daddywhumpus remarked that this was how our kitchen looked when I came home from LA. It wasn't quite that bad, though he had not done a single dish in five days, which was why I tried to leave the kitchen clean, even though he told me to pack and get ready to go. I will say, however, that he did the dishes after I came home.

On Tuesday

Aside from the voluminous baby barfing, there was one other happening: the air temperature reached 79 degrees.

As of 8:25 a.m. today, there was no baby barfing, and the air temperature was 42. Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow.

Minnesota, how we love thee.

Magic

This would be a really good morning to have a wand and access to a good store of potions.

Petrificus Totalus for the cats, one of which cannot handle spring, so he gets all riled up and then picks a fight or just races around the house scratching the furniture while making continuous fluttery meows. Or yowling. They are both eating the fresh flowers in the house and then yakking them up in inconvenient places.

I am thinking Draught of Living Death or at least a powerful sleeping potion for the humans in the house. The small one is all out of whack since I came home, and who knows what's going on there. I am a terrible sleeper in general and could use to be knocked out, and Pete has been dealing the most with Thrashy VonWhineyboots at night.

Being able to point my wand at the kitchen and have coffee make itself would have been simply glorious, as I lay curled into the fetal position on the couch under one of the boy's baby blankets, unable or unwilling to move due to my cold tiredness.

daddywhumpus put the boy back into his crib, where he sleeps for the moment as we drink our muggle-prepared coffee (without half and half), and I try to think of a reason that it's simply impossible that I could make it to work. Which is where Imperio or Confundus would come in, depending upon my mood.

Barring that, I sure would love to be able to Apparate.

Puke

By the time the second cat vomited, all I could do was sigh.

babywhumpus had already barfed three times. Twice on me. Once while I was holding and comforting him as he continued to hork milky yellow fluid onto my lap and chest. You don't just hold a baby's hair back; you're in it for the long haul.

Finn was not much of a spitter-upper. He had a couple of memorable instances, but he wasn't perpetually barfing as I hear some babies do. This was quite an anomaly. All his sicknesses so far have been of the upper respiratory variety. We were all dressed and almost out the door--on time-- when the first vomiting occurred. It was rather small, just the breast milk he just consumed in his morning pillow time. Pete had a shoot, so I elected to stay home. You don't bring a barfing baby to day care, no matter how much you have to do at the office. He nursed some more, then napped lightly, then barfed some more, then had a piece of bread, then sacked out on the couch for a couple of hours. I caught up on 30 Rock and Modern Family while I kept him from rolling off onto the floor.

When he woke, he seemed better, though a bit clingy, which it so be expected. That's when The Flood occurred. And it just kept coming. More than I would have thought my boy could hold. He cried and clung. We sat there cuddling, covered in barf, while I tried to console him. Eventually, I peeled off the vomitclothes, including my underwear, which was also soaked, and got into my bathrobe, still reeking. I stripped Finn down to his diaper.

Does Julia Roberts have to do stuff like this?

Now it's 4:30. Pete is home, and he and the boy are in the backyard frolicking and feeding the birds. I am going to have a Guinness while in a bubble bath while trying to read the horrible book I picked off my shelf. It's loathsome, but I don't know what to read next, having just finished a highly enjoyable Jasper Fforde novel. I grabbed "The Witching Hour" thinking it would be a crap read with a good story, like the Vampire Books, but instead, it's a plodding dirge. I am on page 90 of a hundred billion pages, and nothing has happened, I am not interested in any of the characters, and I want someone to hand this woman an action verb.

Any suggestions?

It's Pete Seeger's 91st Birthday

That's reason enough for a celebration, and a blog post.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Seeger, and thanks.