My aching shoulder and back (in the future I will not have a weight lifting day at the gym, cart around big crates of books at Mort's school, and pull weeds and cut back plants for the fall all on the same day and all without having remembered to do even one set of my 120 repetitions of physical therapy prescribed back exercises that keep my back from waking me up in the middle of the night)woke me at midnight. I watched Fashion Police and then the season finale of Project Runway. Except I had the television set to "sleep" and it turned off right before they announced who won. I'm thinking Mondo. He was the only one with real talent and vision this season.

I went back to bed around 3. Mort came in our room at 5, completely disorientated and not quite awake but insisting it was time to get up(too much trick or treating?). So I laid in bed with him until he fell back asleep. 5:30 a.m. And then of course, i got up. Because I couldn't go back to sleep.

At least it's a lay around kind of day today: grocery shopping, finding an easy costume for Mort's party at school today because Mort informed me last night that he broke mine last year's, hence why I couldn't find it. Helping 22 first graders get into their costumes. And helping to keep 22 first graders under control when they're overflowing with excitement and too much sugar. Perhaps my lack of sleep will give everything an air of surrealism....

Knowing I have complained and dreaded soccer season in years past, I would to take this opportunity to say what a pleasure this season has been. Mort tried really hard (no using his "magic powers" to move the ball, no cartwheels on the field, no climbing on the soccer net--- just good old fashioned running and kicking), no rabid parents screeching at their children and mine, (okay, maybe I yelled alot but it was all POSITIVE yelling), no coaches trying their best to reduce children to tears ("Sweep the leg, Johnny!") and we were fortunate enough to have coaches who actually coached and patiently explained positions and plays to the team. In addition to having such positive, kind coaches, we were also part of a team filled with really nice hard-working kids who had positive attitudes and supported each other whole-heartily.

I'll miss watching the team play soccer and I am thankful for such a heartening experience. Mort has already announced he wants to play again in the spring.

I gots to rant. You don't gotta read.

I was dropping off Mort at school and walking back to my car when one of the women who works at the school gave me a big smile and said to another school employee with a sigh, "Wouldn't you love to have the day off? I'd love to have the day off from work and throw on a hoodie and a pair of sweats," all the while smiling at me in my hoodie and sweats.

And to her I have several points I'd like to make:

1) I was wearing gym clothes because I was going to the gym, not because I have "off from work." I do not wear gym clothes in real life as I do not deem them acceptable. Gym clothes are for the gym. Period. That is not to say that I won't throw on a hoodie, but it will not be in conjunction with any other clothes that could be worn to the gym.

2) I did not have "off work" because I am a lazy-ass, bon-bon popping, soap opera watching stay-at-home mom that you see driving her kid to and fro school every day. I have a paying job from which I telecommute and by the way, I don't wear sweatpants for that either.

3) Even if I didn't have a paying job, my job as a stay-at-home mom is a JOB. It is work. It is every bit as valid and infinitely more important than sitting in an office all day and collecting doctor's excuses or whatever it is that you do. I am raising my child to be the best, happiest version of himself he can be. And if you think for a second that isn't work, than you must not have children or else you aren't staying at home to raise them. And by the way, I don't wear sweatpants for my job as a mother, either.

P.S. Yes, I recognize that I'm bringing a bit of my own insecurities and defensiveness to a seemingly innocent remark...or WAS IT?

Next up on the rant list is also directed at a woman who works at Mort's school. Mort used to come home from school with his entire lunch box full. He was going 8 hours having eaten NOTHING. That, to me, is pretty horrifying. This year, however, we have had a break through. And Mort now comes home with an empty lunch box, save for the crusts of his sandwich, which we as a family, have decided is perfectly acceptable. He eats all his packed veggies, all his packed fruit and all the parts of his sandwich that aren't touched by crusts. And yet this woman has taken it upon herself to start chiding Mort for not "doing a good job" eating his sandwich.

To which I would like to say, "Step off, yo." If you have a serious concern with what my child is eating, please schedule a meeting with his father and I and do not berate him for eating what we have decided will best work for him to provide him with a balanced lunch while he is at school. He is 6 and he just hears your criticism, not realizing you clearly have your own food demons. His crusts will not help the starving children in Africa or whatever your rationale may be.

Perhaps you could spend your lunch duty policing the kids who are buying their "lunches" and scooping up three desserts and nothing else. Or perhaps you could worry about the parents who are bringing large Cokes and a bag of fast food into school for lunch for their 6 year olds?

And now I feel better. Thank-you for your time.

We got a new front door. Not because we wanted to, but because we're grown-ups. And sometimes after living for five years with a door that is peeling (okay, more like vomiting)paint and literally rotting around the edges and sagging in its frame, it's time to take a tremendous amount of money that could have been used on something fun like a vacation or groceries or puppies or new socks for Mort who seems to make holes in socks just by looking at them and agree that the door has to be replaced.

And see kids, those are the things that you think you can't wait for when you're all yelling about how you can't wait to be a grown-up and eat ice cream for breakfast every day. It comes down to buying new doors, learning to reset your car's computer every season because you drive such a specialized car that it needs to know that the weather has changed and therefore the tire pressure will be a little different and when you call the people at the dealership and ask them to do it, they insist it's easy and you can put on your big girl panties and do it yourself. Which is absolutely true, but that's not the point. The point is that I don't want to do those things.

Nor do I want to have to hunt around for the fancy pants impossible to find oil that my high performance car eats like I'm driving on the Autobahn and have to learn to check a dipstick and put in more oil, when in reality I'm just a mom driving her kid to school in a teeny station wagon and going to the gym. Can't relate? Oh, it will happen to you, too.

Just like 107 years ago when I went to the Homecoming Dance my senior year, I wore an extremely daring off the shoulder dress that reached the middle of my calves. And flat shoes. But it was off the shoulder, people. Scandalous. And then this weekend I saw oodles of kids going to their Homecoming Dance, and even though I could swear some of them are in Mort's 1st grade class, the girls were wearing dresses that made me oh so glad I have a boy.

Except someone's mom bought those dresses for them, so I guess their moms were okay with their daughters looking like that. And by that, I mean whores. Do I have to spell out everything? I have a rule of thumb(terrible expression if you know its origins, but you probably don't and I don't feel like going into it right now) and it's pretty simple: if your underwear shows when you bend over, it's not a dress. It's a shirt. And you need to wear pants with it. Apparently high school girls do not share this rule. Also, if you have to wear double stick tape so that your still undeveloped cleavage isn't on display but you aren't on MTV, you shouldn't be wearing it. Again, I am obviously an old fogie in this department as well.

Also, I like freedom of speech very very much, but if you're going to hold up horrible signs while people bury their children, shouldn't you as a grieving parent have a right to freely shoot those people with rubber bullets at the very least? Or taser them? How about BB guns and attack dogs? Vats of boiling oil?

I have to go clean the woodwork and help Mort make a boat for Columbus Day now.

Well, in the obscene amount of time that has passed since I last wrote, quite a bit has happened. I found my new favorite nail polish. I did all the weeding and cutting back of our outdoor area. I installed a new door knob in the mud room. I reached my weight loss goal of the ten pounds needed to fit into my clothes, only to discover that going to the gym means that my clothes I've been longing to wear again are now all too big because despite being back at the same weight I've been since 1998, I guess I am now more compact. So I look like I'm an Olsen twin. Not because I look child-like, homeless and simian, just because I look like my clothes are too big in an unflattering way.

And best of all, I watched my sister bring her son into the world. And I'm not going to get all double rainbow on you and weep about how magical it was. Except of course I AM going to do that because it was beyond amazing. And she was amazing and her son is amazing. And I could stare at his little face with its ever-changing expressions all day and smell his little baby scent and feel his little heartbeat. He is better than any double rainbow. No matter how many drugs you've taken.