Miss Tricky Takes Over

You know what I love? New to me Blackberries. That’s right, folks. Clean cups, move down at the cool kids table because I am claiming my spot! It feels good to be part of the in crowd. It feels even better to have gotten in for free since my delicious little curve is a hand me down. Suck on that.

It’s Monday around here and Mr. President and I are staring down a week filled with The Spawn since his daycare is closed. It’s like facing your own death but more annoying. By yesterday afternoon I had already thrown up the white flag and admitted defeat, hoping that if I just laid very still on the floor he would STOP TALKING AT ME FOR LIKE A SECOND. Ahem. The Prez is trying to harness the power of positive thinking and keeps chanting: “it will be fine, we’ll make it work, it will be fine, we’ll make it work….” Only a newbie would be so foolish as to believe that a simple mantra will help him survive. I, on the other hand, lived through like 2 ½ years of at home Spawn and know better. It’s all over for us- make sure and send us cards at the insane asylum we will be placed in by Thursday.

In other news, I am 28 now. It’s a lot like being 27 except I’m pretty sure I felt my boobs sag even more when 7:54am rolled around on Friday. Combine that with the fact that I was sound asleep by about 9:30pm and you have yourself one tired, old lady. Well, one fantastically hot, mildly saggy, tired, old lady. Rawr.

All right, I am off to try and sell my child try and exhaust the boy at the park for awhile- enjoy your Monday while I figure out how my new phone works.

Another year of Miss Tricky has come and gone…. and I hate to be too cheerful, but it may be the best one yet. Out of the myriad reasons this year has been stupendous, there are two that really stand out.

First is The Spawn. It seems like everyday for the past two weeks I find new reasons to be amazed by him. It’s hard not to cry every time he sings. This morning he crawled into bed with me and sang his own version of Old MacDonald…

“Old bedonald has a farm,

eee, iiii, eeeee oooooooo.

The pig goes oink, oink,

Eeeee, iiiiii, ooooooooo!”

Last night he slept naked because he asked me if he could “sleep with my body”. All of this is incredible because it means he is engaged and interacting. In previous years life just seemed to bounce off him and never get in; he wasn’t a part of anything. Now he is a part of everything and is grabbing the world in big, greedy handfuls.

The other started exactly a year ago…

For my 27^th birthday a couple of small miracles happened and I got to actually make plans and go out. Some good friends of mine from back home drive the Jager bus all around the country and just happened to be in Southside (my favorite neighborhood in Pittsburgh) on my birthday that year. I secured a babysitter for the Spawn and made plans to go out for dinner with my parents and then out for some serious drinking with old friends. Dinner was lovely, my parents and I were starting to hit a stride in our newfound relationship and we stuffed ourselves on seafood and drank expensive champagne. I actually got them to stop into Jack’s for a birthday shot when they dropped me off to find my friends. (At some point I was walking up Carson Street listening to voicemails when I noticed two guys walking past me in the opposite direction. I don’t remember anything about them except that they totally checked me out. Who doesn’t want that on their birthday? )

I still don’t know which bar we were in when they introduced me to some guy they worked with- I suppose it doesn’t matter. I was drunk, it was my birthday, and I felt pretty and free and was having an amazing time when they insisted that I accept a ride home from that particular gentleman. Despite the fact that I had plans to meet up with some old Southside friends who I surely would have gotten into some debaucherous trouble with, I allowed myself to be ushered into his car.

I was far too birthday drunk to try and figure out directions and I know for a fact that his GPS took us the longest way possible but who cares? It’s my birthday and I definitely don’t know this dude from Adam! I do remember that I had a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth and that I ceaselessly scanned through his satellite radio the entire way home. So far so good right? Hot-mess, drunk birthday girl who won’t stop talking or pushing buttons in the car; it must have been dead sexy. We made it to my house at some point where I immediately marched inside, kicked off my shoes, grabbed a bottle of Cook’s Champagne (classy) from my fridge and dragged that poor man out on a barefoot walk through my neighborhood. We drank from the bottle, talked about life and he very wisely convinced me not to climb the fence and get in the pool.

I kissed him in my driveway. I kissed him because it was my birthday and I wanted to kiss someone. I kissed him because I was drunk and wanted to see if I could. I kissed him because he seemed like a good person to kiss. He was a GREAT person to kiss and when I pulled away he reached out instinctively and didn’t let me go. It was pretty fucking hot. That’s it, right? Birthday kiss with random stranger never to be heard from again…not bad for my first birthday as a truly free woman.

Except that I saw him again. The next night (where I embarrassed myself at a whole new level- another story, another time) and then that fool called me and asked to come see me again before he left town. I don’t know why but I let him. I let him come to my house where my kid and my friend’s sick dogs that I was watching were on a Sunday afternoon. The power was out and it was hot and sticky and all I had to offer him for a beverage was a Capri-Sun. He took it and we sat on my porch and talked. I was kind of a bitch to him. I was embarrassed and hostile and just threw my whole story at him and waited for him to be appalled. But if he was he didn’t show it and as he left to travel home he asked if he could call me.

So he called and we talked. Over time I discovered that he was the one checking me out on the street that night. Over time and hours of late night phone calls and visits and incessant texting I fell completely and totally in love.

This year I spent my birthday in his house with my son and my monkey-cat. (Oddly he spent it in Southside with my parents.) Life moves in strange and amazing ways if you let it, and some days I still can’t believe that this is my life. I guess if you are really lucky one year you’ll decide to steal a drunken, birthday kiss from a charming stranger who just happens to be the love of your life.

Four years ago right now I was lying in a hospital bed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I was playing six degrees of separation with my mother, sister and husband and some sort of wholly inappropriate punk rock music was playing in the background. Four years ago right now, I was 36 ½ hours into labor and was starting to push. (To you folks who don’t have kids – sorry, I promise that’s as graphic as it gets.) Three hours later (yes 3!!!! Hours of pushing!!!) a little boy entered the world.

I believe this picture was taken the next day. The only picture of him in his first moments was lost to a cell phone failure years ago. It’s entirely my fault as I had outlawed all cameras in the delivery room. That is my biggest regret of that day. As you can see above, I was the size of a small apartment complex and I didn’t think there needed to be any lasting proof of my fat, labor-exhausted, sweaty self. Dead wrong. One cell phone picture was taken of The Spawn and I in his first moments and it was beautiful. I wish I still had it.

 The thing that strikes me hardest on this particular birthday is how far he has come in the past year, and how patient with me he has always been. The day (and the days leading up to) he was born were an amazing indicator of the boy he would be. While I stumbled awkwardly through a never ending and painful labor, pushed forever and generally mucked up the whole process, he was constant and calm. His heart rate never faltered and he showed no signs of stress. Then he put up with all of it again a couple of years later. As I fumbled as a mother and a wife and then through a divorce and diagnosis- doing everything wrong at least the first 3 times I tried- he was an unwavering source of light and focus in my life. Easy going and loveable, reliably stubborn and aggravating and above all consistently understanding of my screw-ups, he is an amazing little man.

 This year I am blessed to be able to know, rather than guess at, his thoughts. This year he can say “birthday” and that he is four. This year he knows about cupcakes and songs and sharing them with his friends. This year he sang his own version of the Sesame Street song all morning and pooped in the potty “all by himself”. This year he is four. This might be the first year that he is really happy.

 Thanks for sticking with me through all my blunders Little Spawn. I love you.