six years ago now
snuggling fresh furry ears
seems like yesterday

The wee one turned six today. Six! I can hardly believe it. He’s a regular full-on dynamo of a kid and I still try to buy him toddler sized clothes.

He had a super party today. It was crazy, and full of screaming six-year-olds, and at one point I kind of wanted to have a nervous breakdown, but all-in-all, it went really well.

I spent all day yesterday making him a castle cake. It was good therapy for someone who’s been couch-bound. I just sat at the kitchen table and fussed over the cake for hours. It was a ton of fun and the wee one gave me the best (heart-breaking) compliment when he said it made him sad to have to eat the cake.

There’s still so much mess and chaos, but I am not moving from the sofa tonight. What a fun, exhausting day.

How can he be six? Really. How?

Am at the doctor blogging from my new phone.

Fancy!

I don’t have anything to say though, except I apparently did too much yesterday. Best put away that supergirl cape for now.

went out of the house
tempt fate or go flat insane
these are the choices

Today I went to a cake supply store. This may not seem like a big deal, but after sitting on my ass on the couch for days on end, it was a very big deal. I’m not even that good at decorating cakes, but my couch time has resulted in an obsession with the Ace of Cakes show on the Food Network and so now I am going to get a flaming whisk tattoo and speak only with words like "fondant" and "gumpaste."

So I came home with icing bags and decorating nibs and icing that comes out of the can like spray paint, and pre-colored rolls of fondant and a bunch of other stuff. The wee one wants a castle cake for his party on Saturday and dammit, I’m going to make a kick ass castle cake for him. I’m not going to cover the whole cake in fondant, though, because I haven’t tried that before and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that needs practice, especially when you’re someone like me – a person who can barely fold a towel the wrong way. The idea of draping a thin layer of perfectly smooth icing over a cake, while enticing, seems almost completely impossible. The fondant is to make flags for the turrets! And maybe a drawbridge (though I think a hershey bar would make a good drawbridge, too).

Anyway, I still have to go out for more doodads (gotta get ice cream cones for the turrets and stuff like that) so I’m excited. Don’t worry, though, I won’t overdo it. I promise. I am still taking it easy. And my mom is here, preventing me from doing any heavy lifting or stair-climbing or triathalons or bungee-jumping.

A castle cake is going to be so fun to make. The wee one has had a giraffe cake, a barn cake, a rocketship cake, a robot cake (and a porcupine cake for school), and a Buster cake (from Mythbusters). They never turn out perfect, but my lack of craftiness sets the bar low, so everyone’s happy.

I have a secret plan for making a moat. I really hope it works, and I can’t wait to brag about it!

lightning is pretty
but not inside your bedroom
then, it is scary

So. The night before last we had a short thunderstorm. Nothing worse than usual, and certainly nothing like the one that ripped out trees and blew out windows and tore up cars all through Austin a few weeks ago.

However.

At 4:50am there was a blinding flash outside of my bedroom window. At the exact same time there was a blinding flash INSIDE my bedroom! A whirling ball of static/lightning shot out of the idle TV into the center of the room! Holy shit! I jumped about 14 feet when I saw it. And the zzzzzzaaaap boom of the lightning and thunder was kind of scary, too. My husband slept through the whole thing.

The crazy thing is that the power never went off and the house didn’t catch on fire and the alarm clock that was plugged into the same "surge protector" as the TV wasn’t hurt at all. Also, the downstairs TV, which is connected to the stricken TV by the same cable cord via a splitter, wasn’t hurt either. The zapped TV, however, is toast. It has gone to TV heaven to cavort with other electrocuted televisions.

Now we have a 20", 7,000 lb. paperweight on our dresser. I am actually very happy it’s fried, because as much as I love TV, I hate having one in my bedroom. But my husband is very sad. He is going to have to take time to mourn. Then he is going to try and talk me into moving the downstairs TV upstairs and getting a fancy hang-on-the-wall TV for downstairs. If this couch time persists for me, though, he may not have to worry. I will just buy some TVs online and we will be all set.

Anyway, how about that? Lightning INSIDE the house! What else can happen to make this week exciting? I’m almost afraid to ask.

I just wanted to make a note. Today was momentous for either good, or nefarious reasons.

Today was the first day since becoming pregnant that I did not have to take a nap. Even now, at 6:42, I don’t feel exhausted. This either means that at 14 weeks, things are starting to get better. Or it means, at 14 weeks, things are going south quickly. I worry about that whole "loss of symptoms" thing. I’ve had that before and it was the precursor to bad, bad things. But, since I’m technically in my second trimester now, maybe this is not as doomsday as I worry that it is.

This pregnancy is jacked up, isn’t it? I am ready for it to be fun. I want to be a cute olive on a stick, not an OCD nutjob. Ah, well.

finally quiet
finally out of the house
with trepidation

Things seem to be almost back to normal around here. Well, we’re still having a parade of relatives come by to stay with us so that I can keep taking it easy, but really, things are much better (knock on wood).

I’d say I’m getting cabin fever, but last week, we spent four of the seven days at various doctor’s offices. The pharmacist at Target now knows us by name – and sight. The wee-er one has been smacked with a killer ear infection, poor baby. We don’t get a lot of ear infections around here, so we’re new to the numbing ear drops. Holy shit those things seem to really work. She had some drops at 10:30 and is still asleep three hours later. I’m actually starting to worry because she NEVER naps for this long. She’s going to be hongry when she wakes up.

We’re also planning the wee one’s 6th birthday party, so I got a trip out of the house yesterday to go to the toy store. Hooray!

Wanna know something else exciting? I have a sneak peek of the cover art for my book, due out next May. As soon as my editor gives me the OK, I’ll post it. It. Is. So. Cool.

Thanks for all your continued good thoughts and everything. What a spectacularly horrible week last week was. I can only hope things get better for real.