Max is Currently Watching:

For some reason, for the last week, Max has been obsessed with this video. I think it's all the colors and sparkly...either that or it bears a striking resemblance to Teletubbies for Grownup Coolsters.

Either way, enjoy. I promise I'll think of something interesting to say this week.

Half an Orphan

Okay, well, let me just say that I certainly hope that this isn't actually going to happen.

I've been disturbed by this whole story all week, and I've been trying to think of something to say about it. I mean, it's always sad when someone dies young, and for no real reason.

But he had a daughter. Lately, every time I look at my son, I think of him growing up without knowing his father, and of Heath Ledger's daughter, who will grow up without hers. What started it was a picture I saw of a little square of concrete outside of Ledger's home in Brooklyn, and "Matilda" scratched in the concrete. Above it, her little footprint was pressed into the cement. It was a secret, until he died, and now it's being turned into a memorial to him, covered in flowers and messages from mourners.

I think about him passing that footprint every day, and how he, like my own husband does, must have looked at how tiny it was, and remembered the small heft of his daughter in his arms when she was new, how tiny she must have felt, how light. I think of him feeling the gravity of fatherhood every time he looked at that footprint.

It's not easy for a girl to grow up without a father. It touches everything about her life. It changes how she sees herself and it can shape the relationship she has with her mother and with other men. All the love in the world from a mother can't fix the broken part of a girl who doesn't know her father, who doesn't have his love or approval to teach her what love or approval should look like.

It's sad when someone dies young. It's sad that his family has lost this bright light. It's less sad that we won't get to enjoy his gifts--I enjoyed "Monster's Ball" and "Brokeback Mountain" and his roles in them very much--but it is still sad.

But for Matilda Rose, who is two, it is probably the biggest tragedy she will ever have to face. If she is at all like Max, she knows her father, knows to ask for him and look for him. I hope that we can leave her, and the rest of her family, alone at least long enough for them to say goodbye to him.

Heath Ledger's death is a tragedy, and not in the trainwreck, media-circus kind of way. It's a tragedy because he left a daughter behind, and she will carry fatherlessness around like a handprint on her heart.

Rescue Pack Vs. Backpack

After a solid week of sitting at home on my couch watching television with a sick 2 1/2-year-old, I have come to the following conclusion: Diego's Rescue Pack totally kicks Dora's Backpack's ass.

Backpack just carries stuff in it. The map, some coins, whatever. Rescue Pack, on the other hand, can turn into whatever it needs to: Jet ski? Check. Parasail? Check. Kayak? Check-a-reeno, kids. The Rescue Pack rules. Backpack is bilingual, it's true, which will, you know, be an asset in a global economy and everything, but I am quite sure that if you needed it to, Rescue Pack could turn into a English-Korean dictionary. Rescue Pack to the rescue!

That said, I woke up this morning with the Rescue Pack song stuck in my head and I can't make it stop.

Goals for the week:

1. File my taxes
2. Pay the cable bill
3. Catch up on all the crap I haven't done this week while suffering from a massive case of the black plague.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Typhoid Mary Will Return After These Messages

Pardon my lack of anything intelligible. I just really have the worst...I don't even know what this is. A cold? The flu? A very mild case of pneumonia, despite the extremely painful vaccination that I received against such an occurrance several years ago, that was supposed to last at least ten years? I have no idea, I only know that I have been coughing so hard that it makes me throw up and makes my nose bleed, my body aches from head to hips from coughing, I feel like I'm drowning, and I can barely get off my couch without assistance.

Very little is happening here, except that Dan and Max both have the same wretched ailment, but not as bad as I do, I don't think. We are three exceedingly low-energy, uncomfortable, and grouchy individuals.

We will resume our regular broadcasting schedule when I am better, at which point I will probably poke a little fun at daytime television programming, Anthony Bourdain in particular. Seriously, who eats that shit for anything other than a TV show? He's not a foodie, he's a perpetual contestant on Fear Factor.

Also, I think I might have a tiny crush on Tim Gunn.

Alexa

Please go and visit Alexa at Flotsam. She very much needs the prayers, good wishes, and thoughts of the blogging community after having received the heartbreaking news that, at 22 weeks, 2 days, her Baby A, a boy, has no heartbeat.

According To Dan: Sex Machine to all the Chicks

While attempting to read a box of cold medicine:

Dan: Don't take this if you are pregnant, are trying to become pregnant, if you might be prenant, if you are a mother...
Molly: If you have a mother, if you've ever seen a mother...
Dan: If you're Isaac Hays.
Molly: Because he's a bad motherf-
Dan: Shut your mouth.

Here's a Big Waste Of Time For You

Build your own snowflake: http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/
This is weirdly addictive and I've somehow spent half my day wishing for snow and the other half missing kindergarten.

My Least Favorite Part

The single thing that is driving me the most insane about my son's toddlerhood is not the tantrums. It is not the weird likes and dislikes. It is not the defiance or the total disregard of consequences for any action that he can possibly come up with. It is his recently-acquired need to move and speak constantly.

Let me explain: He describes in real time every single thing he does or thought that goes through his head. Presently, he is spreading clothes around the dining room from the laundry basket, announcing that he wants to wear them. He is currently dressed, but that has not stopped him from draping a pair of my husband's khakis around his neck and attempting to insert his arm in one of his own t-shirts, while repeating over and over "Wanna wear. Wanna wear. Wanna wear. Wanna wear."

This has been going on since he lifted his head off his pillow this morning. Brush teeth. Brush teeth. Brush teeth. Drink juice. Drink juice. Juice gone. Eat toast. Eat toast. Eat toast. Toast gone. Need bacon. No bacon? Need bacon. Need bacon. No bacon? Need bacon. Take shower. Take shower. Take shower. Take shower. Watch TV. Watch TV. Watch TV. Watch TV. Eat sandwich. Eat sandwich. Need milk. Need milk. Need milk. Need fruit. Need fruit. Eat fruit. Eat fruit. Even at naptime, he got into bed saying "Taking nap. Taking nap. Taking nap. Taking nap."

I can't believe this is the same kid who wouldn't call me Mama until he was almost two. I can't believe I ever encouraged this insane howler monkey to talk. I can't believe I ever thought it might be okay for me to be a stay-at-home mother.

I can't believe it's still half an hour until bedtime.

I never thought I'd be so happy to see Monday morning come. I love my son, but I am not enjoying two-and-a-half so much. I feel a little guilty about what a miserable fucking weekend this was, because I think if I were a better, more patient mother, this would all phase me a little bit less.

Thursday Thirteen Things I Want in 2008

1. A great, crafty project. I have a few going on, including glass marble magnets. I've recently become an Etsy fanatic and am full of unfulfilled inspiration.

2. Another baby. For God's sake, I needn't bring it up again really.

3. A new house. We are starting to look again after last fall's fiasco.

4. Financial solvency for a certain non-profit agency doing good, important, and necessary work. Lest I get Dooced, I won't be going into it, but suffice it to say that the company has taken extraordinarily desperate measures to bolster their income, and I am extremely concerned at the nature of the measures.

5. Some time and money to do some interesting travel. Dan and I are talking about having my mother or his mother or a combination of the two come out some time in the summer, and the two of us going to Amsterdam or Helsinki for a week or so.

6. Some patience, for goodness sake. I have so very little of it, and I live with a two-and-a-half-year old.

7. A new bed. I suspect that our bed is contributing to Dan's snoring, my insomnia, and both of our unbelievably sore necks.

8. To lose weight. Dan and I are both making an effort to eat healthy and move more.

9. To make it back to Michigan in September for Trina and Gerry's wedding. We are really looking forward to it.

10. Lower car insurance. We live in a better neighborhood now--shouldn't we pay less for insurance?

11. To be a better wife, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, and friend. I am annoyingly pragmatic in my approach to my relationships and, combined with my lack of patience and my sort of half-assed social skills, I think that I have a tendency to hurt the feelings of people I love.

12. Better TV. This writers' strike is killing me.

13. The pasta dough rollers and cutters for the KitchenAid stand mixer that I got for Christmas.