California Scheming

For a brief and glorious time last year we had a housekeeper. She’d come over and clean while we’d go run errands or go to a movie or to the beach and when we’d get home the house would be sparkling clean. It was amazing!

As many of you know, I’m absolutely obsessed with St. Patrick’s Day. It’s my all time favorite holiday and last year I decided to throw a St. Patty’s party at my place…and I decided to invite the housekeeper. A very bad idea. She came over in the morning on the day of the party and cleaned the house top to bottom. It looked great!

Hours later she showed back up to find the party in full-swing and the house filled with drunken chaos. There was trash and spilled booze everywhere. And anyone who’s ever been around me when I’m drinking heavily knows that I find great pleasure in throwing things when I’m drunk…mainly food…into other people’s mouths…or cleavage. That night, after many Irish Car Bombs, I thought it was a brilliant idea to begin hurling fake chicken bits at all of my guests. While they loved it (I’m sure), the woman who had recently cleaned my house and who was completely sober did not.

Oh! And it turns out that my dear friend Megan has a very interesting “tell” when she finds someone overweight. She will compulsively rub her belly…so anytime she would be talking to the Housekeeper she would start with the belly rubbing. It was way awkward (and totally hilarious).

Poor Housekeeper had spent all morning slaving away on my house only to find all of her hard-work shat upon. And then she was assaulted by the Belly Rubber. Can you imagine that she didn’t want to work for me anymore? Geez some people!

This weekend my friends Meg and Liz turned 30! They had been the last two remaining twenty-somethings of my childhood friends. It still shocks me whenever I realize that I’m now a 30-year-old woman. Wasn’t high school just yesterday??? I remember having to write a biography junior year in AP Lit about what we thought our lives would be like.  I wrote about how I would become an accomplished author and professor and my husband(also an author and professor) and I would travel around the world doing relief work and adopting international babies. I totally pictured us as these East Coast intellectuals – teaching at a liberal arts college,  driving Volvo’s, with a tastefully decorated home and a summer cottage on the Cape. You get the idea…

Flash forward a decade or so…I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do for a career, realized I hate public speaking and would, therefore,  make a terrible teacher, dropped out of graduate school, and now work in the medical field. I tried living out on the East Coast and it just wasn’t for me. I’ve traveled a bit and definitely like it, but I’ve found I like to have a really stable home-base. I’ve realized I actually like being close with my friends and family – something I never would have imagined as an angst-filled 16-year-old. My husband (a therapist, not a professor/author type) and I live in a home decorated much like a Mexican brothel and do have a vacation home…an RV parked in a national forest. And instead of all of my internationally adopted babies, we’ve got one amazing little boy and we’re planning to have a few more…the old fashioned way. Oh! And I live in Orange County! I never in a million years would have imagined that.

Given the fact that almost nothing worked out as I imagined, I have to say that I’m really happy with my life  I went through a period in my twenties where I was really disappointed in myself for not carving out that AP Lit life. But I don’t feel that way at all anymore. I just wasn’t meant to be that person.

Anyway…after all that rambling…I want to wish Meg and Liz a happy 30th and say that I hope you guys are also happy with where your life has taken you, even if it isn’t quite what you had imagined. And I’m pretty sure this new decade is going to be amazing for all of us! Plus, now that we’re a little bit older and wiser, we’re just getting more interesting, right? Wait…right??? Fuck I hope so!

Happy Birthday Meg and Liz!!!!

Since I’ve become a mother, I frequently find myself suffering from an overwhelming sense of guilt. For example, during the recent slumber party, I felt SO terrible about leaving my son on his own for a night. And, by “on his own”, I mean safely at home with his father. And did I mention that the slumber party was held in my same condo complex and was, therefore, literally a minute away and that I was able to excuse myself and run home to hang out with him? Nonetheless, I was quietly judging myself as the worst mother in the world for not being home with him. AND I swear that when I came home the next morning he was angry with me and looked at me with eyes that screamed, “Et tu, Mommy? Et tu?”

Also, I now look at my bad habits and worry that he’s going to start picking up on them. He already eats as if food were going out of fashion and I fear that he got his insatiable appetite from his heifer of a mother. In a few years, will he also be inhaling heaping plates of nachos and fries doused in ranch dressing??? Oy – I’ve got to start eating better! I’ll look like a total hypocrite if I tell him he can’t have that food and then promptly shove it into my face.

And the cursing!!! I love to curse. Four-letter words are some of my favorite words in the English language – well, those along with conundrum, awesome, dude, intense, insane, and sweet. But it’s got to stop before Noah’s first sentence is, “That’s f****** awesome dude!” I mean I know that I sound totally cool when I talk like that (right???), but coming from a little kid it might not be quite so glamorous.

Basically I need to start being more conscious of all of my bad habits, because now I’m influencing another little person and I don’t want him to necessarily be quite as “quirky” as his dear old mom. I guess this means letting go of some of my less than stellar habits. It’s completely worth it, but it’ll be an adjustment. So get ready for Melissa-lite everyone!

In recent times two of my bestest friends in California decided to move home (Megan to Boston and Alex to Oregon) – a tragic turn of events. HOWEVER, this past weekend marked their much anticipated visits. Like the junior high school girls that we are, we decided to have a slumber party to celebrate. And it was awesome! While all of our husbands and boyfriends wanted to believe that we would spend the night having tickle-fights in skimpy pajamas, we actually ended up gorging on Stephanie’s delicious home-made lasagna, drinking tasty cocktails (you MUST try the bourbon slushie), and leaping WAY over the lines of decent feminine behavior. WAY over the line. But, alas, I have been sworn to secrecy. I am only at liberty to discuss my own behavior, which included demonstrating my ability to “get low.” And, believe me, nothing is hotter than a  new mom shaking her skinny ass (and portly belly) to rap music.

Anyway, it was a great night as usual. As always, I can count on these girls to leave me thoroughly entertained and it only makes me sad to know that our little group has been broken up by those two miserable whores. I kid, I kid. I’m very lucky to have found such amazing friends and I can’t wait until Slumber Party 2011!

It’s my mom’s birthday today! She’s very excited because this is the first time that she will not be celebrating in the cold and snow. They are coming over in a little bit and we’ll be heading out to Laguna Beach. She’s planning to go wading or at least put her toes in the ocean.

I’m so happy that I get to spend this birthday with you Mom!

Oh! And to give everyone an idea of what a January day looks like here, I’m including two pictures taken last January at the beach.  The second one is of Shawn wading in the water.

UPDATE: My mom’s birthday was great! We went to Laguna and walked around the shops, had lunch, and she got to wade in the ocean. Here are some pictures:

My current favorite outfit for Noah is a onesie that says, “I LOVE MOMMY.” Granted he does actually have similar onesies that say things like, “I’m Nuts for Grandpa,”I Heart Daddy,” and “Grandma is Great,” but I KNOW that the Mommy one is the one that he actually feels the strongest about. A mother just knows these things.

The warm and fuzzies that I feel from seeing him in this outfit got me to thinking…what if I could dress my family and friends in similar outfits? For example, how great would it be to dress my parents in “My Daughter is NEVER Disappointing” t-shirts or to have my friends wear “Melissa is SO Awesome” hats or, best of all, to make Shawn wear a dress-shirt to work everyday proclaiming that “My Wife is the Most Amazing Woman in the World…All You Other B****** Better Recognize!”

Wait…you don’t think they’ll go for it??? Dammit! I guess I’ll just stick to dressing my kid up in ego boosting outfits then. He’ll be fine with that until he’s like 16 or 17, right?

Yesterday was Noah’s two month doctor’s appointment and that means that he had to get his first round of immunizations. He bled quite a bit with one of the shots and he was such a sad little dude last night. He’s usually the Zen master, so it was hard to see him cry so much. He’s doing better today, but he’s still not himself. Hopefully tomorrow he’ll be back to being his usual happy self. Here’s a picture of him during happier times.

My niece, Caitlyn, is turning 8 today. Happy Birthday KK! We wish we could be there to celebrate with you! I hope you have a great one and get lots of fun presents! We miss you!

Love,

Aunt Melissa

Believe me, I tried to hold onto my youth for as long as humanly possible. I was in college and grad school for many a year (only to walk away with no graduate degree – thank you very much) and then continued to live a student-esque lifestyle until I moved to the OC. Living in the epitome of suburbia slowed me down quite a bit, but – as you would imagine – my life really changed when I became pregnant and had baby Noah.

So it’s been almost a year since I’ve had any alcohol or done anything remotely scandalous. The night before New Year’s Eve I went out to dinner with a friend and we decided to go to a hookah bar afterward. I soon realized that I was by far the oldest person there (everyone else looked about 18). They had rap videos playing and I realized, too, that I am thoroughly out of touch with the rap scene. I guess that may have something to do with the fact that I now live in the whitest place in the world. Anyway, in a panic, I started reminiscing about the old days and bombarding my friend with stories that she probably cared nothing at all about, involving people she had never met, in places she had never been to…but I needed to try to remind myself that I wasn’t always the lamest old lady in town.

Then New Year’s Eve rolled around and instead of going out, we decided to stay in with my parents and the baby and play board games and have one cocktail. AND I TOTALLY HAD FUN DOING THAT. The Melissa of a few years ago would never have dreamed of celebrating New Year’s like that and that’s when it really hit me…I’m getting old…and (eek!!!) more mature. The horror!

Don’t get me wrong…I still have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy, but it’s come to my attention that marriage and parenthood have really changed me. So I guess that 2010 is the year that I officially renounce my title as The Girl Most Likely To Get Hammered and Make An Ass of Herself…and Then Throw Up On Her Shoes. God, I was a classy young woman.