be afraid. be very afraid.

****

I can’t remember what I did Friday afternoon. I think I picked up Duckie kind of early and we… something, something, something… went to the store, had pizza, blah blah blah.

Oh. Yeah. Checkup at the doctor’s office. She has a slight heart murmur; we’ll have to go back in a month to have Dr. B listen again. If it’s still there, off we go to the cardiologist to have them tell us it’s nothing to worry about. No wonder I’d blocked it out.

The weekend went by a lot like that. You may have noticed that last week, despite the moon cycle, I was highly active and energetic. I may have been too active, because this weekend I was so wiped out I could barely function.

Despite the large, colorful knot on her head from a nasty wake-up encounter with the big dresser, we still went to the parent-kid yoga class on Saturday morning. She made it about forty minutes before getting bored and deciding she wanted to tell everyone about her Halloween mermaid costume. Hey, forty minutes ain’t bad for a three-year-old. But we’ll probably wait a while for another one.

Trip to big box store to snag a nightgown for her. Why she wants a nightgown, I don’t know. Probably because I won’t let her wear her dresses to bed. Damn, but those things are hard to find. You can’t spit without hitting a cute pajama set around here, but good luck finding a nightgown that doesn’t have Barbie on it. (Barbie can sit out in the cold for all I care. Elmo can keep her company. They’re not coming in my house.)

She let me put her hair in pigtail braids this weekend. I hadn’t realized it was so long. She looked adorable – but cute like a little girl, not like a baby. Am I ready for that? Does it matter? It’s happening anyway. But she still wakes up in the morning, pats my face and said, “My mommy."

(Sometime this morning we heard a strange bumping sound from the other room. I said, "Brian. What the hell is that?"

"I'm not quite sure," he said. Bump.

"There it goes again."

Being the big man that he is, he got up to investigate and came back almost immediately.

"Tinker," he said, referring to our enormous, flatulent Maine Coon of a cat. "He was trying to get out of Duckie's bedroom."

"Is he still in there? Should we let him out?"

"No, he's out."

"He got out on his own?"

"Yeah." Brian turned over and went to sleep.

"I'll be damned," I said.

The sneaky little visitor to my side of the bed said, "Tinker's out? Out of my bedroom?"

"Yes, darling," I said, dropping back off to sleep. "He's talented like that."

"Oh," she said. "Talented. Heh." Slight giggle, then we're all back to sleep.)

I think I was fighting off another cold on top of everything else (icky female stuff I won’t go into.) An anxiety attack Saturday night. Miserable, exhausted, throat starting to hurt, head starting to pound, body aching, right side of the neck so tight it’s hard to turn around to back the car up.

Power nap on Sunday with Duckie, who was also tired – but probably from the intensive painting we did in the morning gearing up for Christmas gifts, cards, decorations, etc. Lots of fun, but very messy.

To bed early last night. Ditched yoga this morning, and it was a good decision. But now the whole right side of my upper body is complaining. I wonder if it has to do with all the active yang energy I’ve been putting out – overloading and stressing the dominant side. Imbalanced. Out of season, too. Cold weather makes me want to hibernate, and here I am running my ass off (literally) during the weeks.

So, again, practicing backing off this week. Yoga this afternoon, a relatively short practice, spending some extra time stretching and nurturing the right side.

I would about kill for a heating pad right now. Sadly, I left it in the microwave at home, its precious heat wasted for the moment. I do believe I will be spending some quality time with it tonight, though.

Yeah, yeah, piss and moan.

Brian and I have started planning the holiday baking onslaught. Last year he expressed interest in joining the fray to bake his traditional “friendship bread” – otherwise known as sweet spiced quickbread with whatever you feel like throwing in. Sounds like fun to me. And we’ll all be able to help in one way or another.

As for our other terrifyingly yummy projects this year, all I will say is that I’ll be experimenting with ganache as couverture – over, you know, everything I can think of. A local chocolatier will sell me burgundy chocolate in bulk. It’s some good shit, folks. Be afraid. If you have kids, don’t give it to them until they’re at least eight years old. It’s habit-forming. And I won’t pay for rehab – theirs or yours.

*****