I think it happens most when I am the parent of a new baby and not as much otherwise.

Maybe it’s the whoremoans or the milkbrain or just the soul change, but I have just about had it with sobbing over bad things happening to babies and children right now. I am much more affected than I usually am, which means that I well up with helpless tears at least once a day.

Nice, hunh?

Never good for the mascara.

While I’m altogether exhausted with the crazygirlysillydaily tears, I am happy to report that finally, finally, something very good has happened here. Finally.

Mazel tov, family I do not know and will likely never ever know, and Sarah. Happy, happy day.

First, I would like to dedicate the song Volvo Driving Soccer Mom to the Husband and congratulate him on his new (used) car impulse purchase. I think he wanted to sleep in it last night. As soon as McPantses went to bed, the Husband left to fetch his evening coffee and when he got back, I asked if I could drive his car around the block and he said “suuuure” while looking back over his shoulder at me in wide-eyed weird mode.

I said, “If you don’t want me to drive your car around the block, just say so.”

He said, “That would be weird of me, though, wouldn’t it, if I just didn’t want you to drive my new car yet.”

I’m pretty sure the man, at 31, has never owned a car that he’s just picked out and purchased until now. If he wants me to wait to drive it until daylight, that’s fine.

(While I do have a niceish newish car*, I didn’t pick it out, either, and I’m 33. We have this habit of lucking into cars from family members. The Husband’s old car, a Toyota Crappolla, is going back to my parents, from whence it came.)

2. Strange things afoot at the blog: frances mcpantses dot com is going into hiatus for a titch–I want to have a store up and running in the next few months. To facilitate that, I’m going to get my blog moved over to a new site pretty soon. Last fall, I gave myself a nickname that seems to have stuck.

Soooo, the self-proclaimed Superhero of the Mundane is moving her bloggity navel-gazing over to a new site. Click away. Eventually something will be there!

(I hope.)

**nervous laughter**

3. I opened up comments so that you don’t have to be registered to post them. If I get a heapin’ helpin’ of spam, I’ll close them back again.

* By “niceish, newish,” I mean that I drive a clean, serviceable small SUV that was the model year of the calendar year it was when I got it. It’s probably the newest car I will ever drive and I lucked into it when the Gray Ghost met her maker.

The Prime Time Lizard:

We had, for several years, a lizard that would hang out on the window screen in our den between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m. while we were planted before the television.

My favorite Christmas palm tree:

This has been a popular Christmas sticker and card item, especially for people near the coast or people who want to showcase a beach photo on their Christmas card.

(I am taking advantage of a rare moment of hard drive workability to post from home. I am scared to plug any extras into the compy right now, but my spanky new external hard drive should be here tomorrow and I’m golden from there on. I think. Maybe.)

Yeah, they have nothing to do with each other.

1. After nursing Third at school (read: daycare) this afternoon, I was holding him with my right arm wrapped around his bottom and my left arm around his shoulders (standard baby sitting up pose) when he sharted and I could feel the liquid poo shoot up his back all the way to his shoulder and slowly soak through his outfit onto my hand.

It was quite a family moment, I tell you. Nothin’ says says lovin’ like explosive poo on yer mama.

2. In two weeks, I will be in Atlanta at the Viking cooking school participating in a cool Girl’s Night Out in Paris cooking workshop with some girlfriends. McPantses will attend some godawful Winnie the Pooh thing with her grandparents (on the front row, no less) and the boychild will nuzzle at my Mary Poppins sister.

I can’t wait.

My sister doesn’t know that she and her husband are getting Viking cooking school gift certificates for Christmas. I am probably more excited at finally (alack and ALAS!) finding the perfect gift for my perfectly wonderful and thoughtful sister and her even (if possible) more wonderful husband than going to a cooking class myself! Wheeeee!

It’s time to direct your fickle attentions to the things I am enjoying of late.

First, meet Mr. Hughes. It’s possible that he is the single funniest person on the internet. At the very least, he is the person I would most like to have over while sharing bourbon with fellow foul-mouthed friends.

Next, warm your heart with the adorable softies made each month by people all over the world. The fabulously artsy-craftsy loobylu started A Month of Softies from the Land Down Undah, where good women make adorable handsewn toys and turn the free world onto the printy wonder of Wacom tablets and Goccos.

My sister presented McPantses with the most gorgeous set of dominoes made by a company called eeBoo. I keep clicking back onto their website and making lists of what I want to buy the kids for me to play with.

And, speaking of McPantses, I very much look forward to teaching her how to embroider and sew. I’ll be using a kit from Palmer Pletsch. My mother taught me to sew by hand and embroider when I was around McP’s age and I have fond memories of learning a skill that’s turning into a lost art. McPantses will love it, too. When she’s big enough to appreciate embroidery, I will make her one of my patented* kits that I give as gifts. I buy a ton of DMC floss in crayola-box colors and wind each color around a plastic bobbin where I’ve written the color number on the rim in sharpie marker and present the whole shebang in a plastic crafty box with dividers. I also give a notebook with copies of stitches and various how-to instructions along with something to practice on. I am moderately proud of the kit–I think it’s a swell gift.

Did you know (of course you did) that I have a bit of a paper product obsession? I am behind on baby thank-you notes right now (which keeps me awake at night) and on orders for luggage tags (minor hard drive problems at home**) and am tempted to treat myself to some gorgeous letterpressed cards or stationery. I am especially in love with these amazing cards and might just order a pack for myself.

Quick family update:

1. No job news. I don’t want to press right now. I’ll give it til mid-August and then press. We’re in the midst of a big contract negotiation, so I want to get through that first. Better moods means a better chance for me to get what I want, right?

2. Air conditioning problems at home makes for a grumpy Heels and Husband. Bleh. No computer and no air conditioning make me something-something.***

3. The Husband’s spur-of-the-moment purchase of a new (to him) car on Tuesday makes him in a better mood. It’s coming to live at our house today.

4. The Crabcake had an ear infection last week. Getting amox. down the boychild’s gullet is a frustrating experience. I figure that as long as he gets down even half of a dose, I’m doing good.

5. I hate hate hate people who natter on and on about what they’re supposed to be doing in life. The thing is, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing in life, so if you have a divine inspiration for me, pass it on. I am waiting for a clue and praying for guidance (yeah, I am, so what?) because if ever I’m going to be at a crossroads, it’s now. I am so undisciplined that I probably need to pick one thing and go balls to the wall at it, but at WHAT? Cards? “Art?” Writing? What I really want is a faboo lifestyle biz that encompasses all of those things and more. Hah!

* Yeah. Not really. But I work hard making them and if I want to call them “patented,” I shall. I’m using it as a figger of speech.

** Also keeping me awake at night. On a brighter note, I drift off to sleep dreaming of a new i-mac and have already picked one out and gotten the applesalesdude to save the specifications of what I want. My theory, tho incorrect, is that if the Husband picks out a car on a whim, I can get a compy, can’t I? Of course, this week, my theoretical new compy’s real name may be “new air conditioner,” so I’ll be holding off on the big mac order for a bit.

*** If I said it in Homer Simpson’s voice, you’d get it.

(not that anyone besides me is keeping up)

The word on the street is that my boss doesn’t want any part time employees.

I am still waiting for him to decide.

I really would like to work part-time.

I suspect it’s not gonna happen.

My biggest hope, besides the PT gig, is that I don’t cry in public when he tells me that I can’t have it.

My second biggest hope is that I don’t show my ass when he tells me. I keep telling myself that I owe it to myself to at least exit with a shred of dignity.

Cross your fingers for me.

Let’s see if I can do this right.

I am trying to add a blogring listing.

I think that the Heels household will be making some big changes in the next few months and I am currently trying to just ride things out and see what happens. Let me preface this entry by saying how incredibly fortunate I am to have a supportive husband who cares about more than just a bottom line.

I have requested to become a part-time employee, but my boss wants me to stay full-time. I hope that I left him with some things to consider this morning after our talk. Originally, I was going to wait another two weeks to talk about it, but the time was right and I hate keeping a secret and not just ripping off the bandaid.

We’ll see what happens. He’s asked for time to think about it and I have given all I have to offer (staying FT through September; working out a schedule for PT that he likes, etc.). Let’s hope I can just leave him alone and let him think for now. Part-time would be ideal for me and it’s what I would choose right now. If part-time is unacceptable, I will have to make a big change.

Ordinarily, I would be twitchy in the extreme waiting for him to decide what’s acceptable for the office, but right now, I just feel a sense of peace for having gotten it out.

I want to treat whatever happens as a sign of what I should do. If I leave this job, we will pull the chilluns out of daycare and find supplemental gymnastics for McPantses. I will beg the daycare to let her continue to attend ballet there because she adores her teacher so very much. I might do the art class at home or find a cool one in town, too.

I miss my kids.

I want to be with them.

My relationship with McPantses has blossomed in the best way during my maternity leave. I missed, to borrow from Regarding Henry,* the first four and a half years of her life during my work hours. I can’t wait to have this time with her.

I’ve known my boss for 15 years and have worked for him on and off since I was 21. I have a wonderful work gig. I wanted to ease into part-time and then ease my way out altogether after McP’s kindy year in 2007. I hate to just give up a job that’s been good to me and good for me.

But I now find myself hating to give up time with my kids even more.

* Ahh, you know what I mean. I didn’t miss it in the asshole corporate thug/bullet over the eye/total amnesia sort of way. But I did miss a whole lot, didn’t I? I think McP took her first steps at daycare.

God, that made me tear up.

I have missed a lot.