Turn Around, Bright Eyes

At long last, I present to you the karaoke video, as promised to my formerly-pregnant-now-mother-of-TWINS friend, Amaretto. You may recall that she requested that I perform “Total Eclipse of the Heart” karaoke-style to entertain her while she was on bedrest. The opportunity hasn’t presented itself until now; specifically, this past Saturday night at my friend’s birthday party. Better late than never!

Ordinarily, I expose the world to my karaoke stylings only under the influence of tequila and/or vodka. Copious amounts. My present expectant condition, however, prevents me from doing so. It does NOT, however, prevent me from getting hopped up on Shirley Temples, and letting the fact that we had a private karaoke room embolden me. In general, I’d only fling my arms and do a Jessica Simpson-style finger-to-the-ear move if I was very, very drunk. However, I was surrounded by people I knew, and well…I’m sure you can imagine how it went:

Turn Around, Bright Eyes from metalia on Vimeo.

Please note that I actually spent a large amount of time TURNING AROUND. (Just like the song says!) That, however, has less to do with my slavish devotion to literally interpreting the lyrics, and more to do with the fact that the monitor was BEHIND me. Why, karaoke bar, why?

Baby FAQ

Thank you all so much for your kind words, comments, and emails about my pregnancy. It means so much to me, and I’m so excited to be able that I have such fabulous readers to share this with. For real.

Since I made my big announcement, I’ve received a number of emails/questions about various things related to my pregnancy. Since I am a horrible asshole, I haven’t answered all of them yet, so I figured I’d just answer them all here.

Wait just a darn minute. Didn’t you JUST sing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at a karaoke birthday party Saturday night? Where the hell is your video??

Okay, so no one actually asked this, but I am anticipating the question of a few people to whom I PROMISED a video post TONIGHT. The answer is that our Dell laptop kept shutting down Movie Maker for a reason that was unclear, and my MacBook didn't seem to want to recognize the shimmering jewel of karaoke video goodness that I kept TRYING to transfer, though that could be because I don't really know the Apple programs yet. Regardless, I was going to cry of frustration about six separate times. Until my computer genius brother figures out what’s going on, the karaoke video will have to wait. Unless YOU want to help!

*bats eyelashes at Internet*
*remember I just showered, and possibly still have mascara smudges on my face*
*check mirror*
* note that I look like Alice Cooper*
*shrug, wink smudged, crazy eyes once more*


Wait just a darn minute. Weren’t you supposed to do a real FAQ post seventy years ago? Where the hell is your FAQ post?? (repeat 3,507,908 times)

See above, re: my lazy assholery. Wait, scratch that; I’m PREGNANT. I’m just going to use that as an excuse for everything over the next few months, even when it makes no sense whatsoever. Like now, for instance.

Congrats on your pregnancy! So how did you find out?

I know it's trivial, but you know, just ONCE, I’d like to find out I’m pregnant in a way that is befitting inclusion in a heartwarming passage in my kid’s baby book. (And yes, I know it’s totally my fault, because I’m the one choosing when to take the test.)

I'm 0 for 2 in this regard; I mean, do you know what Toopweets’ baby book says on the matter? Well...nothing, because I never filled it in. But if I HAD, it would say: “We were watching TV and Everybody Loves Raymond came on. The phone rang, and it was someone asking Daddy if we'd like to switch our phone service. Even though it was sort of early to tell at that point, Mommy decided to get away from the shitty sitcom and telemarketing to take a pregnancy test. And..she was pregnant! Unfortunately, Daddy was embroiled in a deep conversation with the telemarketer for some reason, and Mommy then had to get Daddy off the phone by excitedly waving a peed-upon stick in his face.”

This section in the new baby’s book will make me look even stupider: “Mommy was at work, and decided that she should duck out and buy a pregnancy test. Don’t ask Mommy WHY it couldn’t wait until she left for the day; she couldn’t tell you herself. She drank almost a full liter of water, and headed across the street to the drugstore. When Mommy returned from her little jaunt, she tucked the test into her pants pocket…and was promptly summoned to meeting. Bear in mind, your mom just drank a LOT of water. She began squirming, and realized she wasn’t going to make it through this meeting without a bathroom break. She decided to take the test while she was there, figuring, “Eh, what the hell? What are the odds this early?” VERY, VERY GOOD, apparently. And so it was that your mom returned to the meeting…with a (properly capped!) peed-upon stick shoved back into her pants pocket, where she completely spaced out and made lists of baby names in her portfolio. Because she is a classy and professional lady.”

Now do you see why I hate baby books? Apparently, I don’t have the requisite cute stories with which to fill them.

(Apropos of which...How did YOU find out you were pregnant, Internet?)

Are you going to find out what you’re having?

Yup.

Are you going to tell everyone?

Nope.

You’re a mean lady.

I’m sorry! I would, it’s just this tradition we have. I don’t know if it’s a Jewish thing or just a family thing, but we don’t really publicize the gender beforehand. I suck, I know.

I suppose you’re not telling the name, either.

That really all depends on how many drugs I’m on after I give birth; try to catch me before they wear off. Definitely won't be telling beforehand, though. (That’s an actual Jewish custom, by the way, not just a possibly made-up one like the gender thing.)

Well, have you picked an in utero nickname yet?

Nope! Feel free to keep the suggestions coming.

While we're on the subject, how did Toopweets get his nickname?

I get asked this quite often; the answer is here (14th question down).

How are you feeling?

I was pretty sick, but thankfully, I’m fine now. At this point, I’m feeling good, the kid is kicking up a storm, and I’m over the bone-crushing exhaustion, so no complaints. To be honest, the worst part of my day is getting dressed-- I’m at an awkward stage now; my maternity clothes are still too big, and I find those Bella Bands suffocating. I've consequently taken to leaving the house with my fly open, and wearing flowy, tunic-like tops that I pray are long enough to cover what would otherwise be a very clear view of my underwear.

See here for instance? MY JEANS ARE IN NO WAY ZIPPED.

Like I said before, classy.

Are you crazy hormonal?

I’d like to say no, but after a perceived insult from J about my choice of hat, I just angrily told him that his made him look like Amelia Earhart. So you decide.

(Karaoke video to follow soon, I promise!)

An Announcement

Lately, I've been getting questions from some of you lovely ladies about my plans to go to BlogHer.

And guys? I can definitively say that I will not be going to BlogHer this year…I just don't think it's a good idea. And it's not because of my fear of flying, my unfortunate habit of reporting potential terrorists who in actuality turn out to be AIR MARSHALS PROTECTING MY PLANE, or because I may already be going to San Francisco next month. No, it's something much simpler than that. You see, I think I'm going to have trouble finding a roommate. I'm no expert, but I firmly believe that I'll be hard-pressed to find someone willing to room with me…and my baby.

More specifically, THIS baby...

...who, if all goes well, should be a few weeks old by the time BlogHer rolls around.

That's right, people; I'm pregnant. (Just like Jessica Alba!) Baby #2 is due the end of June, and J and I couldn't be happier. (Scared shitless, mind you, but happy all the same.) T doesn't really get what's going on (being that he's all of 19 months old), but I have taught him to kiss my belly, so...that's a start towards a loving, sibling-rivalry-free relationship, right? RIGHT?? IN THE NAME OF ALL THING HOLY, TELL ME THAT IT IS!

I don't have much more information yet, other than that: (A) I can promise you I will never, EVER refer to my stomach as a "baby bump," and(B) Heather B. has christened (Jewened?) my unborn child Eliot Amani for reasons that only we can understand, so I'm wide open to suggestions for a nickname. (Toopweets 2.o just isn't working for me.)

Oh, and I'm also going to take this opportunity to blame my sporadic posting/commenting of late on the fact that I've spent the past four months HURLING NONSTOP, and falling asleep in my work clothes at 7:00 nearly every night.

You can forgive me, right?

The First Step Is Recognizing That You Have A Problem

Seeing as that the writers’ strike really shows no signs of ending any time soon, I recently decided to take a look at our long-abandoned Netflix queue. As I was surfing through the site, I stumbled across something WONDERFUL:

After. School. Specials. On. DVD.

Words cannot express my utter glee upon discovering this. My delight only grew upon discovering that the complete set comes in a LITTLE YELLOW SCHOOLBUS. OMG CAN YOU STAND THE CUTENESS?

Ahem.

As a child of the 80s, I grew up on this stuff. And we’ll get to its influence on my young life in just a moment, but first: For the uninitiated, after school specials were a mainstay of late 1970s-1980s TV. They revolved around big issues like teen pregnancy (Two Teens and a Baby), individuality (The Day my Kid Went Punk) and mental illness (The Girl with the Crazy Brother). As you can see by the titles, these matters were always handled with sensitivity and tact. I could go on about the melodrama and general awesomeness of the whole genre, but why do that when the following scene from Ace Hits the Big Time (i.e., after school special where boy moves to big city, stumbles onto gang-related turf war…of the DANCE!) can do that for me?



(In case you’re wondering, yes you DID in fact hear the lyrics “New blood on Falcon ground/You're gonna look like cooked spaghetti.”)

After nearly wetting my pants laughing, I spent some time scouring the web for additional after school special video clips, and without warning, a memory came rushing back:

The year was 1980…something. I must have been about 7 or so. There I sat, in my side ponytail and plastic charm necklace (I'm assuming), watching one of the specials; this one in particular was about teen alcoholism. I remember watching aghast as the wholesome teens went from sneaking sips of schnapps to drinking entire bottles of wine (uh…the horror?).

And then…I began to cry.

Not for the fate of the teens (who, by the way, were totally operating a motor vehicle by this point), but for MYSELF.

Because (oh God, am I really sharing this?) I was a big fan of grape juice as a kid, and somehow, watching this? My young mind equated it with wine. Still sniffling, I trudged down the stairs to deliver the terrible news to my mother, who was folding laundry at the time. Seeing my tearstained face, she immediately asked me what was wrong. “Mom, I’m an alcoholic!” I wept. “I really, really love drinking grape juuuiiice!”

Whereupon she burst out laughing, and explained to me in detail why I was not, in fact, a seven-year-old alcoholic.

As soon as I remembered this, I asked my mom about it, and she claimed not to remember this ever happening. (And promptly laughed again.) BUT I KNOW THE TRUTH.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go rent Ace Hits the Big Time and check my family for signs of gang involvement. (Which, according to the movie, may involve purple sweatbands and dance fighting.)

The Driver on the Bus Says...

I’ve recently come to the realization that I develop selective amnesia each time I set foot in a drugstore. I forget, for example, that we are in dire need of Scotch tape and Band-Aids, and have been for weeks. (YOU try walking into a Very Important Business Meeting with a damn Cookie Monster Band-Aid on your thumb and attempt to be taken seriously. It's not easy, people.) And yet, I remember the brand, color, and name of a drugstore lip gloss that I read about on someone’s blog ages ago, and set out to find it, thereby abandoning any hope of procuring scotch tape and grown-up Band-Aids.

All of this, I guess, should go a long way towards explaining why I thought we had been systematically traumatizing our son over the last few weeks.

Let me explain. His favorite book of late is this version of The Wheels on the Bus:

As you will see from the helpful note on the cover, the book has a great many movable parts. I received it right after Toopweets was born; my friend had gotten it for him, along with a bunch of other books that her own son loved. I remember her saying that I should probably invest in a few or 4 more copies of this book, seeing as her son had already destroyed three, and was working on his fourth. Something about the moving parts being very easy to tear off. I further remember glancing down at my tiny peanut baby, and being completely unable to imagine him ever being capable of such a thing.

Oh, how naïve I was.

He loves this book passionately, and, in “reading” it practically non-stop, has unintentionally ripped the shit out of it. It started off innocently enough, with the people on the bus no longer being able to step OUT! and IN! due to his destruction of the pull tab, but things reached a peak with his BEHEADING OF THE BUS DRIVER. This man’s “Move on back!” days are OVER, people.

As soon as it happened, T became very upset. I assured him I would tape the bus driver’s head right back into place…and promptly realized I HAD NO SCOTCH TAPE.

Not wanting to lose the driver’s head--and rejecting my (very fleeting) thought to use the gum I was chewing at the time as an adhesive--I’ve been sort of, um, wedging the driver’s head in wherever it can fit elsewhere in the book. Over-analyzer that I am, I was worried that my total inability to remember to buy Scotch tape for the damn driver’s head was screwing him up in some way.

I was beginning to think he found it totally normal to see a disembodied, oversized bus driver head jammed in between the doors of a bus, freaking out the man passing by…

Or seeing the driver seemingly licking the ear of one of the mommies on the bus:

But then, after a few days, something funny happened. I noticed him putting the disembodied head back on the right page, and worriedly shouting “Oh, NO!” each time, presumably concerned about the well-being of the headless driver.

Did I say each time? I meant it:

The Headless Bus Driver Disaster from metalia on Vimeo.

At least I haven’t scarred him for life...this time.

Hmmm...

Do you all remember my friend Amaretto? She of the pregnancy-induced bedrest? You were all so sweet to her, and came up with fantastic things for her to read/watch/do while she was laid up for three loooong months.

Well, I thought I’d update you. Today she gave birth…to TWO BABIES. She had a boy and a girl, both of whom are utterly adorable, and mom and babies are doing wonderfully. She didn’t tell any of her friends that she was having twins, however, and so my first words to her upon hearing the wonderful news may have been: “As soon as you recover, I am going to BEAT YOUR ASS for not telling me.”

I’m such a fabulous friend.

Fortunately, we have nearly ten years of friendship under our belts, so she knew I was kidding, and all was right with the world…except for one thing.

As you may recall, my contribution to “Operation: Entertain Amaretto on Bedrest” was an offer to sing the karaoke song of her choosing (which was “Total Eclipse of the Heart”), and post a video of my performance here. Because I so clearly suck, I never got around to doing so before she had her babies (Plural! More than one baby! OH MY HELL). There were a number of contributing factors here, the majority of which revolve around my lazy ass, the myriad ways in which said ass can be lazy, and the fact that after my last karaoke outing, I think my entire family would be happy if I never set foot in a karaoke bar again. (Seriously, though, who could blame them? You saw the trainwreck of a video.)

But!

As luck would have it, a friend of mine is having a birthday party in just a few weeks...at a karaoke bar.

(J, who is on another business trip right now, definitely just sat bolt-upright in his bed, The Shining-style, and sensed that something awful had just happened.)

So the real question is this: Do I try to capture the majesty and glory of my cover of “Don’t Stop Believin'" (i.e., something I know I can actually sort of sing, and which the video camera missed last time), or do I go with Amaretto’s request for “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? (I am telling you now, the phrase "unmitigated disaster" does not even begin to describe what my performance will inevitably be. I tend to...emote with my hands a lot when I sing along with that song.) I can’t decide. Can you do it for me?

Now, I know this is in no way a substantive post, so I’ll leave you with this, since I’m on the topic of music anyway. I was trying to find the name of a catchy song I’d heard in a commercial. I found it, but in the process, somehow stumbled across this, which combines two things I’m into right now: the song, and 30 Rock. (Perhaps you have to be a 30 Rock ho like me (or Ali) to find it entertaining, but goddamn, that song is catchy.)

Okay, people: now which song shouldI sing when I embarrass myself performing karaoke for the second time in four months stage my triumphant return to the stage?

GAH. (A Sort-Of Guest Post)

A word of introduction: I begged J to write a guest post about the story I’m about to tell, since…well, I wasn’t there, and he was. But he was all, “hell to the NO.” And so, I’m putting myself in his shoes to share with you the event he just experienced yesterday. Just pretend he wrote it, m’kay?

Why I Should Listen To My Wife Next Time-- by J.

As I was packing for my business trip to Las Vegas this past Sunday night, my lovely wife Metalia was doing all manner of no doubt vitally important tasks on her laptop. Do I care that she wasn’t cleaning off her Clothing-Covered Chair of Doom instead? NO. For I am breezy, and that eyesore in the corner of our bedroom doesn’t bother me in the least. Ever. Like I said, breezy.

She looked up from her computer and suggested that I bring a camera with me to Vegas. “What about for when you see someone famous?” she said. It should be noted that her point of when (and not IF) I’d see a celebrity was well-taken. Within the past year, I’ve repeatedly texted my darling wife (who does NOT own nearly enough jeans, by the way…or shoes.) to tell her I’ve spotted Oprah/Amy Poehler/Seth Meyers/an exceedingly cracked-out Whitney Houston near my office. Her response is always the same: “Get a damn cameraphone already!”

But still, I demurred, pointing out that I’d be busy with work stuff most of the time I was there, and didn’t see the point. Off I went on my trip.

Oh, and apropos of nothing, can I tell you all how much my wife loves the show Gossip Girl? I’m sure she must have mentioned it on here one time or twelve. At one point, I teased her (lovingly, of course), telling her that I’d heard through the grapevine that it had been canceled. There may have been tears. (Not really, but she was quite relieved when she found out I was kidding.) The joke, however, is on me, because I’ve started watching it with her. I blame that entirely on the writers' strike, however, and the fact that there’s nothing else on.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon, I was sitting on a bench outside a hotel in Vegas with my friend K, who was there for the same convention that I was.

*****IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER! IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER! While in Vegas, I learned that an adult movie awards show/convention descended upon the town yesterday. That is NOT the convention either of us were there for.*****

Anyway, K and I were waiting for some pizza we had ordered to arrive; K got up to get a drink, and a tall, beautiful girl with long blond hair and a scruffily bearded boyfriend came over and sat down on the bench next to me. The girl and her boyfriend turned towards me and smiled.

Holy shit. It was Serena van der Woodsen! I mean...that girl from Gossip Girl! And her real-life boyfriend was her TV boyfriend Dan Humphrey! (I know they have real names, which I learned for the first time yesterday, but since everyone knows them as Dan and Serena, let’s just go with that.) At that point, Metalia’s voice suggesting that I bring a camera reverberated in my ears. And I knew she was going to KILL me when I told her this story.

Serena pulled a small dog out of her bag and began playing with it. Both she and Dan were friendly, talkative and down-to-earth, so I didn't feel too weird about telling them my wife loved their show. They were very gracious, and told me how they’d driven down from LA since they had nothing to do, on account of the writers’ strike. K returned with his drink, and we all started talking. Our pizza guy arrived, and Dan commented on how good our food looked, so K and I offered to share it with them. They refused at first, but ultimately joined in, chowing down on the pizza, and chatting with us all the while.

Now, let’s review. My wife loves this show. I am literally sharing my lunch with two of the stars...AND I DON’T HAVE A CAMERA.

Oh, and because irony is funny: The thing I was in Vegas for? It was a consumer electronics convention. Where there were cameras, cameras everywhere.

I ruefully mentioned to my new best friends how my wife was going to kill me for not bringing a camera, and I said I had to at least call her and tell her who I was eating lunch with. Serena laughed, and offered to get on the phone and say hi. (I told you they were nice.) Meanwhile, 2,570 miles away, my wife (whose phone has a camera in it, like A NORMAL PERSON’S) was on the train and missed her chance to chat with Serena. Oh, cruel fate! Why do you mock me? Uh-- I mean, her?

They thanked us profusely for lunch and left, waving goodbye and smiling. Whereupon I called Metalia, and OF COURSE she picked up the phone this time.

Needless to say, while she thought the story was awesome, she was bewildered that neither K nor I made any real attempt to get a picture with Dan and Serena. Her exact words were, “I don’t care that your Blackberry doesn’t have a camera; you should’ve used K’s cameraphone. Or gotten a disposable one! Or posed for one of those street caricaturists--I don’t know, something!"

Alas, it was too late. But if you know my wife at all, you would know that this (along with a spotless Clothing Chair of Doom, my favorite, hard-to-find snack, and icy cold Diet Orange Sunkist) was waiting for me when I came home:

Serena+ Dan+J + K=Best Friends 4-Eva

To Do: Buy a Muu Muu

I’m a bit bummed today.

You see, my husband is in Vegas on a business trip (an oxymoron if ever there was one, no?), and I’M NOT THERE WITH HIM. I love Vegas, remember? And I hate when J has to travel.

First of all, I don’t sleep well when he’s not home. Sounds sweet, I know, but the reality of the situation is that my tossing and turning ultimately resulted in me totally oversleeping, and waking up just as my nanny was arriving. I greeted her, bleary-eyed, wild-haired and braless, and it is a true testament to her professionalism that she did not run shrieking from the apartment at the sight of me.

Another downside of J being away is that it completely brings out the crazy in me. With him gone, I get nervous in our apartment late at night (this situation certainly isn't helping any), and tend to do weird, nutbar things, like flinging back the shower curtain in one swift motion, to ensure that a crazy killer isn’t lurking in there. I perform a similar trick when hanging up my coat. Namely, sort of stabbing blindly into the coat closet with my hanger to presumably neutralize the aforementioned crazy killer. In my heart, I know it’s batshit insane, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it.

But you know, those aren't not even the WORST things I’ve done in his absence. No, that dubious honor is reserved for the downloading of melancholy songs too embarrassing to even divulge. I mean…God. One of the songs may or may not have been about a jet plane, and someone leaving on it.

Please save me from myself; I’m probably about two days away from singing show tunes in a muumuu.

(...Though rest assured, if it came to that? I'd make sure to film it. You know, for you.)

(Also? The lady on the right is my new favorite person. Not only because she's so obviously elated about her muu muu, but also because she sort of looks like Bette Midler circa mid-80s, and, well, who better to sing show tunes with than her?)

(Good Lord. What's become of me? COME BACK, J!)

Scenes from a Mall

Tuesday marks the day that I completely lost touch with reality.

J and I both had off from work, the weather was cold and lousy, and so…

We decided to take T to the mall.

I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Oh, wait; I do. I think it was something along the lines of, "T was so good the last time I took him to the mall! He just slept and stayed in his stroller!”

The problem? He was two months old at the time. (Like I said…lost touch with reality.) It was only once I was literally peeling my giggling, rampaging NINETEEN-MONTH OLD off a mannequin for the umpteenth time that day that it dawned upon me: There’s a very compelling, very cute reason why I’ve been pretty much shopping exclusively online for the past year or so. And that reason does not take kindly to being confined to his stroller when there are fountains to lunge into and Cheerios to fling.

J and I quickly realized we had a formidable opponent on our hands. T arched his back and whimpered until we took him out of the stroller, whereupon he took off down the hall, basically all but singing “Born Free” and frolicking. I swear I heard him mutter “suckas!” under his breath.

Compounding the problem was that we’d taken our “car stroller” to the mall with us, which basically stays upright only if: a) you don’t place any bags on it which contain more than a feather; b) there’s no wind; and c) the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars. Clearly, that day, my diaper bag weighed a ton, there was a stiff breeze in the mall and the stars were not in alignment.

The stroller, naturally, went down.

We made a decision then and there that we would take turns: one of us would wheel around the good-for-nothing-but-holding-our-bags stroller while perusing the stores, and the other would attempt to corral Giggly McRunsalot. Why? Because we had made our way to the mall as a family for the first time in eons, and BY GOD WE WERE GOING TO BUY SOMETHING.

When my “free time” came, I was like a Supermarket Sweep contestant (minus the abjectly hideous sweatshirt). I bobbed and wove my way through the throngs (yay, alliteration!), with a stroller mind you, knowing that my time was limited. I found, tried on and purchased these flats in under seven minutes. I was a force to be reckoned with!

At that point, I came back and switched with J. T spied the escalator. “Whee!,” he shrieked, “Mommy, down!”

…And off we went. While J took the empty stroller with him through Banana Republic, I picked up T and took him for a ride down the escalator. He LOVED it, and wanted to go back up. Do I even need to tell you that the “up” escalator was out of service? What the HELL, mall?? My kid was entertained, though, and so it was that I wound up hefting him up and walking all the way up the escalator, and down we went on the (functional) other side once more. After my third time doing this (and coming to the realization that I was woefully out of shape), I decided that I needed to find a fully working escalator if I wanted to, you know, continue living.

We walked a little further down and found one. Seven times, people. SEVEN MORE TIMES we went up and down the escalator. I'm NOT KIDDING: (Do you like my drawing of my jeans? And brown boots? Graphic design is my true calling.)

After the seventh time, I began mentally going through all of the escalator scenes that I could recall from movies; I got through the “Colorblind” scene from Cruel Intentions, the end of Superbad, and Mallrats when I noticed J waiting for us at the top of the escalator (just like Cruel Intentions!). “Time to go?” he asked me. “Time to go.” I replied.

We spent the rest of the day fingerpainting, cooking together, and playing Extreme Couch Cushion Fort Wrestling Battle Royale (patent pending!). In short, NOT being the same idiots who took our toddler to the damn mall in the morning.

Now, I’ve already made a vow to myself (and T!) not to bring him back there until he’s old enough. (i.e., When he’s obnoxious to me one minute, and then sweetly asking me for a ride there the next…I figure I’ve got about 13 years.) Until then, however, I have but four questions:

1. Do any of you with toddlers take your kids to the mall?

2. If so, does your arsenal of mall-going supplies include a tranq gun?

3. Because I saw some kids around T’s age sleeping in their strollers…how do their parents get them to do that IN THE MALL?

4. Seriously, how? I need to know.