So basically I've been too tired and too busy to write. Or do anything except look-up at the end of the day and go, "HUH? Where did the time go?"

On on hand, Mort is super excited to head off to kindergarten. On the other hand, he didn't realize he would have to go every day. "What? When will I see my friends?" he demanded. I keep checking his birth certificate, but he really isn't a teenager.

Our house has been a balmy 80 degrees because we have a very dear friend visiting from Italy and truly, central air is one of the things that makes America great. I can't imagine finding another country as enchanting as Italy, but it is beyond hot there.However, we love our friend very much, and so we have the ac bumped up to 80 degrees and are panting and vying with Stella for the privilege of lying on the cool kitchen floor. Our friend, meanwhile is wearing pants, a sweater and a scarf and shivering and complaining about how freezing it is. However, our sink is leaking and damned if he didn't immediately take it apart and start trying to fix it. Maybe it was because I told him I would turn on the heat if I didn't have to call a plumber.

I am not a proper grown-up. I do not have sensible hair. I shop in clothing stores whose fashions are featured in the latest issue of Seventeen. (Is that still a magazine? I used to read it when I was 13. Does that mean girls today pause briefly to scan its pages at the age of 7 before they jump over to Cosmo to learn how to use double-sided tape so that their backless dresses stay-put on the playground?) I tend to ignore things that need to be fixed around the house as opposed to handling them. I love cookies for breakfast.

Anyway, tonight I met Mort's kindergarten teacher. I wanted to present myself as a grown-up. As a parent. As a sensible, mature person who does not let her son sing any of the lyrics to MIA's "Paper Planes", so I dressed-up a little. Not job interview level.( Although I did break out my heels. ) But not my standard tank top, cut-offs, sandals summer sloppiness. I actually had on a tank top and changed . Because you could see my shoulders. And I felt that was unseemly for a mom. Of course, every other parent there had on shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops.

I could barely stammer out a sentence to the teacher. Other people were talking to him like he was any old normal person and not their child's kindergarten teacher, but not me. I was revved so high my words came out all twisted and wrong. I undoubtedly made the "Do not let this mother volunteer" list. With any luck, the teacher just thought I was drunk, and not the possibly crazy mom that I actually am. I was writing notes like I was in college, trying to capture every word that fell from the teacher's mouth. And then I noticed that one of the sheets of papers he'd given us had a full outline of everything he was saying.

I mean, I know that all my dippiness comes from a basically good place. I just don't want to mess up anything that has to do with Mort. I want to be perfect, thereby ensuring that life for him will be perfect. Don't bother trying to follow that train of thought. There's no logic behind it.

For instance, the parents were asked to list two of their child's strengths and two things they needed work on. Can I tell you how I agonized over that? I looked around me like I was taking a test that everyone knew the answers to except for me. Pencils down. But I was still trying to figure out the angle. Where was the catch? What answers would ensure that Mort was accurately represented? If I raved over him, would he be ignored or dismissed as the spoiled son of an overzealous mom? If I was honest with his faults, would he be negatively labeled before his first day?

Good Lord, how will my nerves survive this milestone?

And also, don't you hate people who tell you what kind of person they are? Inevitably, if they have to tell you how they are, it bears little resemblance to how they actually are. I just thought I'd throw that out there, seeing as how I've begun my last two blogs telling you what type of person I am. Yeah.

I'm the type of person that cleaned her entire house top to bottom in two and one half days! Woo! I'm the type of person that now has velvet ropes around every room and is wrapping Stella's paws in saran wrap and making her shed over the sink.

I am a reasonably intelligent person. In college, I was a member of three honor societies and I graduated with honors. However, I just spent 21 minutes and 38 seconds trying to have extraneous charges removed from our phone bill and I am so turned around that I no longer have any idea to what I have agreed. For all I know, I've had our phone service shut-off and/or switched out for tin-cans and a string.

Really? Should something this base be so difficult? 

It should have been a three minute conversation:

"I've been charged for calls that are covered under my current calling plan."

"Oh, yes! I see that. Let me credit your account and make an adjustment so that doesn't happen again."

"Okay, bye! Love ya!"

What the hell took 21 minutes? What was all the talk about maybe it went to the long distance building instead of the local building and that plan wasn't recognized at that building? What was the talk about putting a freeze on something to prevent that from happening again? Why must they hurt my brain?

Isn't there some joke about asking someone what time it is and they answer blue? Because I think I was just involved in it.

Hi. So, here's today. I just realized that I forgot to turn off the stove after I made Mort's quesadilla. He's having a quesadilla, carrots, celery and organic fig newtons. By Paul Newman. Should they not be called Fig Newman's? Maybe they are. Let me check. Dang. They are. I thought this was my big break; I could copyright the name and sell it to the Newman Foundation for a gazillion dollars. Because it's not wrong to rip-off charities. Or non-profits. Or whatever the heck that company's deal is. What do I know? I actually forgot to turn off a stove. Really, who does that?

The thing is that I fell asleep at 11. I woke-up at 3. Mort woke-up at 5:30. Even though I had stressed that he could play quietly in his room, but he was not to leave his room until 7. Because Mommy and mornings just don't mix. But I still was woken from my semi-sleep state by a whispered, "MOMMY? CAN I GET UP NOW?" a mere 1 1/4 inches from my face. And then Stella leapt to attention. Kid is up! Time for breakfast! Watch me spin so fast I'll make time reverse just like Superman! I'll make it time for dinner and then spin back to breakfast again!

Then I took Mort to get his moppy-Mommy-I-want-a-ponytail-hair trimmed so that he can see whilst growing said ponytail. Now he has a bowl cut. Same difference.

So, every morning at my house looks about the same.

I am generally the last one up and at 'em, having spent some part of the night awake. Stella is always the first. I have two cups of coffee and then at some point start to realize I am functioning. I may or may not have had full conversations and/or written out my daily to-do list, all of which I will have no recollection. Stella spends her time sleeping and smashed against my leg. It's the closest she comes to cuddling, so I try not to move. 

Stella has a good way to begin the day. She opens her eyes, does some yoga and scratching, sneezing and twirling, and then begins staring at a still-sleeping Duke with her Jedi mind trick focus. If during this time Duke has the misfortune of breathing, Stella will take this as a sign that she has indeed chosen the correct time to awaken and begins to whine. TIME! Time to get up! Time for breakfast! Time to get newspaper!Oh, newspaper's not here yet? Because it's too early? OKAY! SOUNDS GOOD! WOO-HOO!!! And then once she has eaten, she goes back to bed and immediately falls asleep. About an hour later, the neighboring rooster starts to crow. In case you were wondering, those suckers are loud. But not as loud as a terrier who wants her breakfast.

I am losing my identity, my job and my almost daily connection with my friends. In two weeks, my only child starts kindergarten. And life as I know it will cease to exist.

     Sure, I’ll still be a mom. But it seems a little silly to be a stay-at-home mom when your child is busy elsewhere. Now that I have the hang of cramming cooking and cleaning into the tiny space right between Go Fish and drawing aliens, how am I to fill my days? I’ve taken the scenic route, career-wise, meandering through a myriad of nametags and overly bright smiles before finally graduating from college at the ripe old age of 31 and heading straight into Mommy world.

    And now that I’ve finally gotten the hang of this job, (wait for it…) the most fulfilling and challenging job I’ve ever done (and there’s that cliché. Oh please, you think I can hang with my son for five and a half years and not believe it’s the best job in the world?) and my employer is letting me go. Oh, sure, he feels that I’m a valuable member of the team. I’ve gotten awards, raises and the occasional bonus. But unfortunately, my services are no longer needed as they once were.

      Losing this job means that there’s really no need for me to haunt my usual hotspots: the park, the library, and the playground. I’ve developed deep friendships with amazing women over the past several years. But when they get-together for playgroup, I’ll be the only one not toting a kid along with my shared dish. So, other than the occasional ladies’ night out, where will I fit in?

     I’ve been having full-blown nightmares as of late. Generally, I’m trying to save my son from some unseen evil, but my guess would be that I’m trying to save me, as well. Save myself from the what-ifs of the future and the regrets of the past. How much time have I wasted over the past five and a half years wishing that I could have just ten minutes to myself? And now that I’m going to have those ten minutes and then some, how much do I wish I had just one more year of interrupted showers and a constant companion?

      I know that he’s only going to kindergarten. But it’s only the start of a lifetime of learning to let go.

A herd of happy adults and children were hanging out in happy land yesterday. The kids dressed themselves in various bits and bobs of costumes.

"I'm not Sarah!" hollered one.

"I'm not Thomas!" hollered another.

"I like your costume, Mort," remarked a mommy.

"I'm not Mort!" he said.

"He's incognito," noted another mommy.

"That's right,"Mort agreed,"I'm Ed Cognito."

Now, as some of you may know ( and if you are reading this blog, my guess would be you're one of the ones in the know) I am one of those lucky souls who is paid money to do something that I do anyway: find mistakes in other people's writing. Call it a compulsion, call it an obsession, I just call it plain old fun.

And oh my Good Lord did I find a doozie of a mistake. I was reading "Sleep is for the Weak" and the foreword is written by the EDITOR IN CHIEF of Redbook magazine. And three paragraphs in, I caught a truly unacceptable error. The word "of" had been used when the author meant to use "or". If you don't find that as mindboggling and head banging as I do, that's okay. But just know in your heart of hearts that is such a horrific mistake that I would assume heads rolled all over the place. Whether it was made by the author or the editor, I don't know. But it's on the first page. And it's glaring.How could someone not catch that? Seriously? It pretty much kept me up last night. 

Although on the other hand, just as i was almost lulled back into the baby longing that could accompany your first born venturing out into the world, I read this book. And remembered all the hellish things I had conveniently forgotten in the face of "Babies are so beautiful! Small! Lovey! Wonderful! Miracles!"

Yeah. I forgot the whole crying for hours straight. I forgot that inevitable, inexplicable cranky period every night for months on end. I forgot the whole poopy diapers for YEARS until one day it's potty training time and you will have to dash to the public restroom if you are a)nowhere near one. ANYWHERE. b)just about to check out in a store having waiting in an excruciatingly long line. I forgot the teething. The endless middle of the night drama. The mind numbing act of pumping so that you can go grocery shopping by yourself. Their inability to tell you what they want/need. The boredom. The repetition. Exisiting on three hours of sleep for a year if you're lucky. Being unable to so much as take a shower  with the shower curtain closed without a playpen/bouncy seat/swing crammed into the bathroom with you. Oh my God. Biology man. It tricks you to keep you reproducing. But now I remember oh biological clock! And by the time I forget again, I will be too old to breed.

I was seized by guilt and shame yesterday(well, hello my old friends!) at my garden's slow demise and decided to salvage what I could and start planting for fall. I only was two wheelbarrow loads into the clean-up of blooming cilantro and rottign lettuce when mort appeared and wanted to play Frisbee, so I didn't get very far.

However, as I carried the first load of weeds and uh, compost down into the field where the fox resides, I was suddenly struck by the notion that what if the fox wasn't the friendly neighborhood Stella-like creature I imagine it to be? What if it was rabid? What if it had no fear of humans and felt threatened and attacked me? What if up close it wasn't cute and instead was all gnarled and gross?

I loudly announced my presence by yelling, "All animals that live back here, I'm bringing a bunch of food, I don't want to see you. Please just stay hidden!" It worked, but it's amazing how much more appealing seeing the fox is when I'm behind my camera trying to get close to it rather than the other way around.

On a whim, I grabbed a book at the library titled 101 Things to do Before You Turn 40.

I would be hard-pressed to sit down and actually read it, but I did skim the major points.  And in doing so realized that either I have had a very full life, or the author has led a very sheltered one. Regardless, it was fun to mull over my list, should I have one while on the treadmill this morning. 

Looking back at the past decade, however, does make me believe that most of my best adventures were had by living life, not by making a list. Hold On! Something by the swingset--is it my fox, need to grab binoculars...and,no. Just more rabbits. Good Lord, does every rabbit in the tri-state area live in our backyard? Also, do other states refer to the tri-state area or just where I live? 

Anyway. So, my time-capsule of the past decade seems pretty much like I couldn't have dreamed it up prior to its happening.  Marriage to my best, 400 mile move, became college graduate, sold a short story, was pregnant twice, became a mommy, actually needed to start coloring my hair for more than fun,learned to make good salsa and a proper margarita, overcame fear of travel to countries where I didn't speak the language, grew a garden,had to choose between surgery or physical therapy,got a job utilizing my actual skills and education, made true friends. What I would like to see happen in the next decade? Run a 5k? Gather more work?Take up Pilates?Learn to be handy? Travel across the country? I really can't imagine.

Apparently I have my own brand of morality when it comes to the creatures of the forest that we live amongst. Stella killing rabbits? Eh, part of the cycle of life. Stella going after a mourning dove that couldn't fly? Absolutely not and much to her horror, resulted in her being scooped up beneath my arm like a loaf of bread. Go figure.