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Oh, man, today was one of those days. I feel terrible saying this, but at several points this evening (after Tim was home), I could’ve walked right out the door and not looked back.

Auggie woke up at 5:30 this morning. Tim and I traded grumpy early morning comments about what to do until almost 6, when Tim finally got up and tried to get him to rest his weary head for just a little longer. He gave up on that at about 6:30, when Auggie got into bed with me. By 7, he was up again. About 7:30, I dragged my grumpy self out of bed and into the kitchen for some Raisin Bran.

Sweeeet.

Auggie ended up going back to sleep at 8:30 for another two hours, and I’m not ashamed to say that I went back to bed too.

As it was bloody hot again today, I tried to think of some fun stuff that we could do this afternoon that involved luxurious amounts of air conditioning. Oh, did I mention that Auggie and I have had the same cold since last Wednesday? Oh, yeah, it’s super-fun.

I decided that we would throw caution to the wind — or should I say rationality since Auggie is a sick and grumpy 2 year-old with a short attention span? — and go to see “Finding Nemo” at the theater.

There was popcorn, there was “Cookie

Dough Bites,” there was Diet Pepsi — it was great! Great, for about an hour. Once the sea turtles were over, Auggie was done. He had an even better time wandering around the huge cineplex, examining the vending machines and arcade games.

Once we were back out in the blast furnace, all I could think to do was to go back home and ride it out until Tim got home from work.

You know what? I think I’ll just go ahead and stop whining about it and go to bed early. Tomorrow will be better, right?

It is incredibly surreal to be downtown in the middle of a weekday when you aren’t there for work. Auggie and I went down to take Tim out for lunch, and I had forgotten just how city-like St. Louis feels when there are actually people there. Usually, we’re down there for a baseball game in the evening and the place is d-e-s-e-r-t-e-d. Like, “The Day After” deserted.

Even stranger is to have a toddler with you when interloping with the worker bees. They all look at you like you’re toting an alien or something. I felt like a circus sideshow, and we were only eating a little “Curry in a Hurry.” Maybe they were all just wishing that their kids could come and eat with them for lunch.

Auggie got his first hot dog from a bona fide hot dog stand. Yee haw! (It was awesome too. I had a bite.)

Some fun moments from Auggie’s second birthday party:

• Tim and I being completely distracted party hosts, trying to socialize with friends while simultaneously not burning the food or slicing our fingertips off.
• The typical confusion of the two-year-old while opening presents: ‘Now, why can’t I play with that amazing toy that I just opened?’
• My friend Susan asking what we used to marinate the portobella mushrooms, since she hasn’t found a good technique yet. ‘We just threw them on the grill.’
• All of the kids at the party sticking their fingers in the cake’s icing at some point before it was actually sliced.
• Auggie acting all shy during the rendition of “Happy Birthday”, hiding his face in my shoulder, but instantly signing “more” once everyone stopped singing.

Last week just kinda passed in a blur. I can’t get a general picture of what happened, just moments that flash in my mind like one big movie montage cop-out set to the tune of “Do You Believe In Magic?” I led my first La Leche League meeting on Monday night, and it went pretty OK. I was nervous, but there were only three moms there, so no biggie. The next one will be easier. Tuesday, I was completely ticked at myself for gaining 2 pounds. But, oh, the excuses I had! Birthday cake, Taco Bell, drinks galore, frozen custard too! Whatever.

One of my dearest friends is heading off to the Redding Festival soon. She leads such an amazing life, and there really is no one else in this world who deserves happiness more than her. Sometimes, I try to imagine what her life must be like — meeting rock and roll heroes like Paul McCartney and Neil Young, traveling all over, spending weekends on Long Island at their beach house. Sigh. My life pales in comparison, yet I still feel incredibly happy.

Life is good. My husband is the best. My son is the funnest kid I know. My family is really fun to be around. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But I had the greatest Jason Pettus-esque fantasy this weekend that Tim and I should stick around here for five years hoarding money, and then travel the world, spending six months to a year in all of the places we’ve always wanted to go: New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, the list goes on… Auggie would get the greatest education learning other languages, seeing other cultures. What’s keeping us, really?

This week is tripping on by, just like an August week should. Sorry for the no-show yesterday, but it was one of those days that really wasn’t all that bad, but, for some reason, the Big Gray Cloud of Discontent fell over me late last evening and I felt powerless to do anything but lie in a fetal position in my bed.

But all’s well this morning, and I have ever so much to tell you!

We can begin with the fact that August, the boy, not the month, is officially 2 years old! I completely flaked at the pediatrician’s office the other day when she asked whether he is putting words together to form phrases. Was all, “..?” and “I’m sure he does, I just can’t think of any right now.” And she was all, “If he doesn’t start doing it by Christmas, give me a call and we’ll talk.”

Immediately upon leaving the office, I called Tim, distraught that our son might be “behind.” And he’s like, “Beth, how about ‘I’m gonna get you’ and ‘Love you’ and ‘Thank you’ and ‘Little People’?” And I was like, “I think I’m the one who’s “behind”.”

I have serious performace anxiety at the pediatrician’s. I try to think of all of the stuff that he’s doing beforehand, but then when faced with our kindly doctor’s inquisitive stare, I blank. D’oh!

Speaking of, Auggie has awoken from his nap. I must flee! More later, I’m sure…

It takes me until Tuesday to finish the Sunday Times crossword.

Even when I cheat.

sigh.

Stuck at 49 pounds gone, but perhaps the flurry of workouts that have been kicking my butt here recently will make a dent in the 11 stubborn pounds left to go.

Only 2 more days until my baby isn’t a baby anymore… Why this makes me a tinge sad, I don’t know.

But, on the positive side, no more referring to his age in months! I’ll just be able to say, ‘Auggie is 2!’ instead of, ‘My son is 22.45632 months old. Thanks for asking.’

By the way, I ended up staying awake until 3 am. last Wednesday night. Not fun.

Stupid, stupid caffeine! Why, oh why do I always have to have that second latte at Kaldi’s?

So, here it is, 1:30 in the dang morning, and I cannot fall asleep. Following is a list of the different techniques I have tried so far to bring about the sleepiness:

* A hot shower. I even shaved my legs! Relaxing, yes. Sleep-inducing, no.

* Praying. No, not praying for sleep, just my usual gratitude, reflective mental inventory that I try to get through every night. Most nights, it goes like this, ‘Dear Lord, please forgive me for my snnnnxxxx…’ Not tonight. I even prayed for the damn dogs, and no sleep.

* Thinking of incredibly boring things. Examples include, trying to remember the tune from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the names of all of my school teachers while growing up, how to thread my sewing machine, etc. No go.

* Making a mental list of all of the things I needed to do tomorrow. Not the right thing to do to relax, when you have a big Thursday ahead of you and still haven’t fallen asleep.

* Reading a book about parenting. Nothing like reading about the joys of attachment parenting to send you off to dreamland, wrapped in the warm glow that you’re doing something right, right? Uh-uh, not tonight.

* Blogging. You can see where this is getting me…

Now, I’m off to tread the calm waters of the Internet, looking for incredibly boring Web sites. Ooo! There have got to be some amazing snore-fest about Robert’s Rules of Order, right?

Think sleepy thoughts for me, night owls.

Hey kids, didja miss me?

Nothing like saying you’re taking a break to make you think of a million things to blog about. But, oh no, by golly, we said we’re taking a break, so we’re taking a break, missy.

So I stored up minutiae for an entire week, like some kind of super-mommy squirrel, just biding my time. So here it all comes — watch out!

• Auggie’s newest words/phrases: Love you, excuse me (sounds more like, ‘meh-me,’ but mommies can decipher these things), cracker, Little People (‘Ee-you’ is somehow ‘Little People’? I refer you to my earlier point.) and, the classic, boo-boo.
  

• Tim started his new job with much aplomb. He seems most excited about working downtown. I’m most excited about seeing him in his fabulous suits. Rrowr!
  

• One of my father’s cousins has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She’s in her 40s, with a teenage daughter. This sucks a lot. But what really sucks is all of the stupid questions that I’m dying to ask her: Do you talk on your cell phone all the time? Do you live near huge power lines? Eat too much bologna? Use Pantene shampoo? Disturbing.
  

• My obsession with Aqueduct has recently been displaced by a growing affection for The Postal Service. It warms my 80’s music-loving heart. Tonight’s search for Dntel (PS’s predecessor of sorts) was futile, alas.
  

• Does anyone else find their heart rates increasing while reading the ads for Apple’s new G5? I’m all flushed.

There, that feels much better.

I wish I could get excited about blogging again. Maybe it’s time for a break, you know?

It’s not you, it’s me. I swear!

I guess I just feel like so much of our days are awash in banality. We do much the same things, over and over again. We swim in the blowup pool in the backyard, we watch “Little People” videos (well, he does. I usually tidy up, although the damn Aaron Neville songs get stuck in my brain just fine.), we run various errands, we try not the annoy the heck out of one another (although some of us try harder than others) and we just hang out. August is as tan as a sailor (and I can say this with some authority, as I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean last weekend), and I’ve got a good bit of color myself, despite my eschewing of tanning for the past decade or so.

So, if you stop by and I haven’t updated for a week or so, don’t fret. Soon, my love for boring the heck out of people searching for “how+to+make+swords” will return, I’m sure. Right now, I’m tired.

Those of you who know me will find this very hard to believe, but for the past several months, I have been organizing my church’s vacation bible school. It happened last week.

And I survived.

There were no lightning bolts flung from the heavens, no burning flesh whenever I shook hands with our pastor each evening, nothing.

Except that all of the children were spawn of Satan himself!

I’m kidding, of course. Although, I did help out with the five and six-year-old class during a couple of nights (there were 12 kids in that class) and to say that they were “challenging” is an insult to the New York Times crossword. The boys! The boys!

I just kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, is this what my son is going to be like in a few years?’ And the answer is most certainly yes.

Case in point: There was a plastic bin of Crayons. In said bin, someone had placed a number of Pokemon-branded crayons, probably thinking that the kids would just be tickled to death at Pokemon crayons. Not all of the crayons were so lucky, however. And the boys went absolutely bonkers over the @#$% Pokemon crayons. They were hoarding them like gold! At one point, I said, ‘Guys, they’re just crayons,’ to no avail.

So a few nights later I picked them out of the bin. They looked at me like I had just drowned their families’ cats. ‘But why?’ they asked.

‘Because we’re not here for Pokemon, guys,’ I responded.

They sat looking at me, blinking.

‘Why are we here, guys?’ I asked, hopefully. More blank stares.

‘For Jesus [DAMMIT]!’ I wanted to yell. I only sighed. Maybe next year…

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Guess I’ll just have to cut a few of the racier scenes…

[Thanks to Jason for the fun tip.]