Oh. That’s right.

We’re back from England.

(hi.)

Our plane to England leaves at 7:20 AM out of SFO on Monday, which means we’ll have to be out of the house by 5:00 AM at the latest. What with toddler, luggage, long-term parking, checking in, not to mention changing diapers, changing clothes, feeding toddler, suppressing urge to muzzle toddler (none of this listed [...]

On Tuesday, I woke up a married woman.

I went to bed a single one.

Some days are just like that.

“You should journal that,” my husband told me, the last time I passed on something ridiculous and funny that our son had done.

“Meh,” I said, because I am lazy.

“Or you should just email him, so he can read it later, like in that commercial,” he said. “He has an email.” (Fact: we might [...]

I have insomnia, so I am sitting on the sofa, surfing the internet.

My husband has a video game, so he is standing in the middle of the living room, shooting mutants and listening to Bing Crosby. (Fallout: New Vegas, for those of you who are wondering.)

It is now 1:49. AM.

It occurs to [...]

“I’m getting sick,” the Guy said, and sniffled.

“Again?”

“I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Oh,” I said.

Hobbes, sitting on the Guy’s lap, craned his head to stare up at his father.

“You’re old,” he said.

***

We went camping.

It was The Guy’s idea, which is ironic enough. Almost seven years [...]

It was a hectic weekend.

I don’t know what it is about our planning that fills our regular weekends to bursting with activities, but leaves our long weekends relatively desolate. We’re working on adjusting that pattern. Downtime is all well and good, but Hobbes has a limit to the amount of parental quality time he [...]

I’ve been rereading Anne Lamott’s wonderful book, Operating Instructions for the last week or so. I’d forgotten how beautifully it’s written, not to mention how much it makes me laugh. When I initially read it, Hobbes wasn’t even a glimmer in the eye; nowadays I read it with an eye angled backwards, to the same first year experiences I had with a new baby at the age of 35. The laughter has an extra edge of rue to it, a kind of, “I hear ya, sister,” that it didn’t have when I first read it.

The Guy was grousing about the Amazon app store. “It’s not downloading,” he grumbled.

“Chuzzle,” Hobbes said. This was the free game that the Guy was attempting to download to his tablet. Hobbes was addicted to the word. “Chuzzle Chuzzle Chuzzle Chuzzle.” In his mouth, it came out, ‘Chuzzow.’

After a while, the Putomayo Kids CD starts turning into white noise. Anything does, when you’re forced to listen to it again. And again. And again. And again.

We were halfway to the daycare when I realized that the disc had moved onto tracks that Hobbes doesn’t particularly favor. “Do you want more monkeys?” I asked him.

Hobbes inherited his love of music from my mother, which is where I learned it. He voices loud approval from the backseat at my radio choices, calling out demands for this song or that song based on whatever mood he happens to be in. Since the classical music station in the Bay Area folded, or lost its frequency, or broke its transmitter, or generally speaking disappeared one night from my radio’s list of options — not that it was much of a classical music station anyway, since it often played muzak with as much deliberation as it did Mozart — his listening options in the car are mostly limited to Alice on 97.3 and such CDs as have made it to my car. He doesn’t appear to mind. Songs involving animals are a hit. So are songs in major keys with brisk, driving tempos. Drums are popular. So are sopranos. He disapproves of stringed instruments (excepting the ukelele and banjo) but likes marimbas purely on principle.

I was lying in the dark the other night, wondering if Hobbes had finally gone to sleep, when I felt a little hand groping for my face.

Then it patted my cheek. “You’re very clever,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.