Rainy Days & Wednesdays Always Get Me Down

Hey y'all - 

I went five days without taking a picture. I'm suffering from photo fatigue, election fatigue and fatigue fatigue. It's also possible I inherited my father's seasonal affective disorder, since all I want to do is get under a blanket on the couch and watch old movies until it's time to buy an Easter dress and eat candy-covered malted milk balls. 

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You guys still aren't sleeping through the night. 

Laney has crazy nightmares and hollers nonsense in her sleep: BUT I HAVING A SLEEPOVER WITH CEDAR! or BUT MY MOMMY GAVE ME COOKIES! She does this at such a loud volume that it wakes Hagen up, and he starts to cry, which rouses Laney from her dream and causes her to wail, "Hagen's crying at me!"

Readers: You know when you take a nap in the late afternoon and when you wake up, it's dark out and you're confused as to what day it is? Is it still today, or is it tomorrow? Since our children wake up at midnight and 2 and 3:30 and 4-something, Thor and I have felt that strange exhausted disorientation for five days in a row. 120 hours later, we still feel like we're slogging through the same day. 

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Jessie lost the election.

It's heartbreaking, really. She couldn't have run a better campaign, and I couldn't have been more proud to be her supporter. The man who won is an unemployed 24 year-old who directed reporters to his mother when he was accused of sexual assault, and who once wrote a blog post about women and their "angry vaginas." 

And now he represents all the women and little girls in House District 14.

Sometimes, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning.

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Thor is sick. 

If he manages to successfully hack up that lung he's been working on, I'll take a picture of it. 

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I'm probably not quite as down as I sound, but y'all seriously, it's been a bummer of a week.

Love,
Mom

Piece Of Work

Dear Laney,

Lately you've been a real piece of work. Leading up to Halloween, you decided you wanted to dress up as a "princess doctor." "A princess or a doctor?" I asked. "A princess/doctor," you explained. I sighed. I'm going to spend the next few decades instilling in you the idea that "Girls can be anything!" And I can't really kick that campaign off by telling you princesses can't also be doctors in their spare time. Besides, I entertained myself by imagining a typical day on the calendar of a princess doctor:

At the last minute, right as I was about to turn one of your dad's white dress shirts into a princess lab coat, you agreed to compromise and be a princess/wizard. What turned the tide was that Peg Peg had bought you a light-up magic wand at Cracker Barrel, and you liked the idea of pointing it at your dad and me and telling us, "You're trapped in the ice! Don't move! You're frozen now!"

Your dad does a very good impression of someone trapped in a block of ice. I'm scared to ask, but I suspect it's because it's happened to Mr. Let-Me-Go-Missing-For-At-Least-Twenty-Four-Hours-Before-You-Call-Search-And-Rescue before. 

What tickles me to no end is that your dad is the strong, silent type, with emphasis on the "silent." Your dad could join a monastery without having to alter his daily routine too much: Keep quiet. Drink beer. Wear earth tones. Grandma Sue says that he was such a serious baby that she called him "Mr. Baby." BUT WAIT! Sprinkle a little crazy drama major dust on those serious, scientific genes, and you get:

You went in your room last night and shut the door and came out fifteen minutes later in this Honey Boo Boo-meets-Courtney Love get-up.

I will not be disappointed if Hagen turns out to be the quiet type, because between you and me, girl, this house is all stocked up on crazy.

Love,

Mom

Trick Or Treat

Open Up And Say, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Please."

Dear Laney,

You went to the dentist this morning for your check-up. I don't want to sound like an old-timer or anything, but MAN, things have changed since I was little. I remember a scary old man scraping around on my teeth with a metal hook. What I DON'T remember is a flat-screen TV mounted on the ceiling so I could watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while I wore cushioned earphones. I also don't remember a nice lady in a pirate outfit "counting" my teeth and giving me tokens I could redeem for toys in a prize machine.

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: the 70's stunk, and I want a do-over.

Love,
Mom

P.S. You have no cavities, you sat still for an x-ray, and your permanent teeth look perfect.

Playover in Denver

Hey y'all - 

Well, we did it. Fifteen days, four flights, four states, one road trip, one party, one wedding, eight playgrounds, three houses, one hotel, and a million cuss words mumbled as I installed your car seats in one of five cars. 

And you know what? Y'all were awesome. I could not ask for better traveling companions of any age. 

On our last day in Fayetteville, we did some shopping and some idiot* decided it would be fun to buy Laney her own microphone. I have never actually thrown gasoline on a fire, but now I understand the concept. Peg entertained Laney for hours by using it to introduce her... "Ladies and gentlemen! For one night only! Miss! Laney! Burbach!" Laney would jump in the room and we'd cheer and then she'd instruct Peg, "Do it 'gain."

Here, Laney takes over for Southwest Airlines Ground Crew:

Ladies and gentlemen! Fasten your seat belts!

I shouldn't be so surprised that you were so good on this trip; you've been traveling non-stop since you were born, seems like. Not counting the states we just drove or flew through, here are the states Laney's visited (and spent at least one night) - 

Considering she's just three, I'd say we're on a roll. By the end of elementary school, we could have this country knocked out.

Love,

Mom

* Me. I'm the idiot.

Mom's Big Day

Hey y'all - 

Yesterday was my birthday. 36 feels the same as 35 blah blah blah. But because it was MY birthday and I'm a big-time grown up, it was all about ME and what I wanted to do, and didn't at all take into account what anyone else might enjoy, 'cause it's MY day. Mine, mine, mine. 

Now, on to all the pictures of us at Chuck E Cheese's:

Air Hockey

Dance Party game. We both got a failing score. Genetics are an awful thing sometimes - sorry.

"...And here's another thing about this car..."

Laney gets the wheel. Dad gets the gas pedal. The car goes into the wall.

The super motion voyage machine

Voyage buddies

Picking our prize - making every ticket count.

Kidding aside, I had a great time. I didn't embarrass myself on the free throw machine, and I got a great score in skee-ball and we all had pizza and played every driving game in the place, even when Laney wasn't tall enough to see the screen.

We won 42 tickets, which was just barely enough to score the hot pink striped pencil eraser that Laney had her eye on. Does she own a pencil? No.

Completely unrelated to my enjoyment of the afternoon:

Genius. Just genius.

Happy birthday to me!

Love,

Mom

Museum Project

Hey y'all -

Like I was saying, we went to the museum yesterday.

It was surprisingly cold here in Arkansas, so Laney decided she wanted to wear Peg Peg's sweater, which was both practical and fashion-forward since oversized earth tones are totally on trend this season. I'm making that up. Unless it's true.

I enjoyed parking Hagen in his stroller next to works of art, and then adding "avec Hagen" to the ends of their titles. For example, this is a lighting installation piece from the Luminist exhibit that I like to call, "Sloan (Red) 1968 avec Hagen."

Your dad calls this, "nerd humor."

Then, I entertained myself by taking pictures of the most interesting figures inside larger paintings. Like hidden portraits.

That last one comes from a much larger painting that should be titled, "Mother Of A Talkative Three Year-Old," but isn't.

This is exactly what I look like on the living room floor - horizontal and glassy-eyed - by the time Laney finishes recounting the plot of Strawberry Shortcake in Sleeping Beauty. Only this lady's wearing much nicer shoes. 

Laney's favorite piece in the museum? The stairs.

Fine art's in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

Love,

Mom