Six.

Six years ago today I made the best decision EVER.

 

I married this guy.

 

And I am so, so lucky that he is my husband and baby daddy.

Here is to six more.

The best laid plans…

Saturday night started off with a lovely offer from my father in law. They’d watch the baby on Sunday and The Teller of Tall Tales and I would be off to DC for a little work, and then some lunch and a bit of a shop!
How lovely. I woke early and dressed, I even curled my hair, put on a new outfit and my favorite cockroach stomping boots! But alas the best laid plans were not to be.

Here at the American Dream I’ve been sleeping down stairs in the crazy awesome apartment and since TTOTT (The Teller of Tall Tales) (Do we like TTOTT? I’m trying it out…) has to get up early for work, and let’s face it he may be sweet and funny but he is not the quietest man in the land, he’s been crashing upstairs in his childhood bedroom.

It’s so ideal.

Plus the little league baseball trophies are way sexy.

By the time I got upstairs the poor dude was folded over in extreme pain. And just like that we were off to the E.R. Let me just say, if you need a trip to urgent care may I suggest that you schedule it for 7 a.m. on a Sunday. We were seen in a flash! I’m still pondering why hospitals must be kept at such a frigid temperature. I think my toes are still frozen, it was Cullen cold in there. Poor TTOTT (Yay? Nay? I dunno..) has kidney stones before so it was no shock what it was, but I do have to say that I haven’t really seen him in this much pain before. It sucked hardcore.

Luckily our lovely nurse quickly administered the phine. Ah, yes. Morphine. If you all ever have the opportunity to visit TTOTT whilst he is all warm and fuzzy from the phine, I highly- HIGHLY- suggest it. (although let’s hope today was the final time he has it)

You’ll experience a little thing we call THE ZACH SHOW.

He gets all silly, smiley, and just ‘on’ there is no other word for it. He is ‘ON’.

Zach has earned his monikers earnestly but he truly is not a braggart. He’ll mention my accomplishments far quicker than his own.

It’s just a good thing I wasn’t imbibing any beverages as the nurse gave him a dose of the phine, he got a big smile on his quickly flushing face turned to her and said

“You might have seen me on television!”

It was shortly after that our nurse betrayed all woman kind by saying a man having kidney stones was worse that a woman giving birth.

BETRAYER!!

But TTOTT was soooooooooooooooooooooper stoned at that point so he just giggled and then when the nurse left he told me that babies trump kidney stones. I say well done young man, and have another hit!
 He’s gonna be fine, we are home now. We stopped for bagels and donuts on the way home and I have a new lover- a honey dipped donut. I proclaim my undying love for thee!

The man is resting now, no more morphine but he’s got a nice prescription of Vicodin to see him through the next few days. Here’s hoping he is on the road to ‘delivering’ soon.
I won’t be getting a nursery ready though. Ew.

I wouldn’t be East Coast if I didn’t blog about the snow.

Seriously. They’d revoke my East Coast Family (Boys 2 Men, ABC, BBD) membership card. Which might be okay, since we all know I miss the land of Lost Angels. (West Coast, baby!)

Menfolk be shoveling in the a.m.

Whatever. It’s SNOWY here. And by snowy? I mean ridiculous gorgeous. And I mean ridiculous gorgeous because I don’t have to go anywhere and  because my brilliant mother in law stocked up for Armageddon at Giant and I have enough strawberries and seltzer water to get me through till spring.

wanna play in the sand?

She also bought diapers. She’s awesome that way.

Oh Santa, my Santa! 

Things that are fabulous about being snowed in are:

1. It’s so pretty! 
2. My mother in law felt the need to make cookies. Oatmeal chocolate chips. My favorite. 
3. The in-laws played with Baby Max so I could rock the yoga dvd
4. I rocked the yoga dvd
5. Elf was on t.v. I am disarmed by Buddy The Elf. 
6. A molar the size of Wisconsin popped through Max’s gum. Hooray! And perhaps, relief? 
7. Max and I had a serious dance party. The kid has moves.
8. I abused my in-laws desire to play with Baby Max, and totally indulged in a big old beauty day! 
9. Hair has been deep conditioned, skin has been masked. (masqued?)
10. Many, many, many, baby snuggles
11. Many, many, many, readings of Llama Llama Red Pajama (which come with extra baby snuggles. Bonus.)
12. P.J.’s all day. 

Rotten things about being snowed in:

1. Zach is stuck at the St. Regis in D.C. and will possibly be there till Monday
2. ‘Stuck’ apparently involves getting drunk with the kitchen staff and texting me late night.
3. No, I won’t share the texts with you! (But they were amusing.)
4. I miss Zach
5. My poor father in law had to shovel everything not once, but twice…and you cannot tell at all. 
6. His back is wrecked.
7. His sister reminded him that ‘men of his age can have heart attacks shoveling snow’. (he did not.)
8. ‘Snowed in’ apparently involves eating everything in the house.
9. Like yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. And frozen organic vegetarian burritos. And Lentil soup. And oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. 

Prozac Puppy in the a.m. loving the snow.

The snow has stopped now, here’s hoping that it stays gone so my sweetie can come home to me! And promptly make me mad. Ain’t marriage grand?

Cookie good.

The waiting game…

Zach’s interview went beautifully and he is so hopeful for things to come! So am I. It’s hard not to start imagining where we will live and imagine buying things for the new place, envisioning Zach’s new job.

Is this getting my hopes up? Counting my (free-range, vegetarian-fed, cruelty free) chickens before they hatch?

Or is it visualizing?

I’m going with visualizing, since I can’t help myself. I envision everything they told him at the interview happening, I imagine him working happily at a job he loves. For me I imagine brunches with friends, taking Max to the Grove and to Disneyland. Introducing him to friends who he didn’t get to meet since we moved to fast. I picture myself heading back to auditions, and filming short films with my friends like I did before. I imagine booking jobs and taking a class. I envision a lot of happiness and yes, stress moving back to Los Angeles. But I think Zach and I have licked our wounds long enough over what happened in the Ohio Debacle and we are really ready to be brave and start forward!

I know I’ve got a great guy who has worked tirelessly at a ‘paycheck’ job in order to keep us going. He deserves some good things to come his way. Here’s hoping one of the good things coming his way is a job! He fell in love with the place and they seemed to really like him! He came home to an email from them with some really encouraging words in it…they want to find him something, here’s hoping they do!

If you’ve got a moment, please say a hello to one of those friends we moved to fast for Max to meet! This is Shaun’s new blog. He’s awesome. He’s funny, and his kid? Absurdly cute. For reals.

SPODADDY Help him get started in blogland, and check out his videos cause again…the cute is almost painful.

Happy Father’s Day!

It’s my very first one! Cause it’s all about me ya know…my father passed away when I was very little (add that to the ‘oh that’s why I was messed up as a kid’ file.) and so we never celebrated or acknowledged it in any way. I don’t have any memories of Father’s Day even being spoke of at our house. I didn’t even really realize it was in June until I got married and we sent my father in law things. Talk about denial! Last year when I was pregnant we celebrated a little bit, too afraid to tempt the fates to go all out with the baby 6 weeks away, but this year he is here and fat and happy and let the celebrating begin!In a too-cute-for-words decision my husband has decided we should celebrate and Benny Hannas because that’s where they always celebrated his birthday when he was a kid. So cute. Here’s hoping Sweet Baby Max likes the cooking show as much as he liked the Beatles Tribute show Rain (which was totally awesome and you should go if you like the Beatles at all!)

One of the reasons I’ve always been scared to have a daughter is that I was so messed up myself. I was a daughter in desperate need of a father. It’s terribly embarrassing to be midway through a psych course in childhood and teenage development and realize you are a clinical case, a stereotype of a girl with Daddy issues. It is only by the grace of God that I didn’t fully go down the Rabbit Hole.

As I watch my FIL with my SIL and watch my husband with her, those fears start to fade. I do want another baby, and hopefully another boy. But truly watching how similar my sister in law and I are (we even have the same birthday) by nature but how different by nurture, I see even more how a strong father influence can make all the difference.

My husband is a wonderful father to Max, already there is basketball and lots of silly dancing and pratfalls. Anything to get a Max giggle! Max is truly lucky to have a father (and a grandfather) who will want to be involved in anything he does. He wants to do theatre? We’ll be there building the sets. Well, the boys will be. I’ll be doing the costumes or choreographing or directing the shows, Zach might direct too! Soccer? He’s got a coach. Baseball, basketball whatever it is! Unless it’s math and then we’re all screwed. We’ll get him the best tutor ever. Whatever he is interested in we will be involved.

I wish all the Father’s out there a wonderful day. Thank you for being good daddies to our precious babies.

Especially you Zach Dulli. This last year has been the greatest having Max, but one of the worst with almost everything else! I see how hard you are working and I love you even more for it. Thank you for working to take care of us. Thank you for singing Luck Be a Lady just one more time and spinning Max around because it makes him laugh. Thank you for hopping in the bathtub fully clothed when Max was freaking out. Thank you for having my back at the pediatricians and thank you for keeping your sense of humor. You are the bestest!! Here’s to your first Father’s day, and here’s to many, many more to come!

Would you trust this man?

I hardly ever write about my husband which is a shame because he is such a personality. First off, he’s wickedly funny and a smooth talker, he could indeed sell ice to Eskimos. But more importantly, he’s a liar. Yeah, I said it. He’s a tall tale teller, a fibber.  And he’s amazing at it. He’ll craft a story and have you believing it so fast, it’s truly his superpower. He’s recently informed me that he told me a tall tale to me ages ago and I not only believed it but have repeated it to others as the God’s honest truth and now he is afraid to tell me which lie I’m telling. Surely Sister Mary Catherine who gave me a scar with a ruler for passing a note in the 7th grade cannot hold it against me that I am telling a lie if I believe it’s the truth, right? I’m wracking my brain to figure out which one it is…

At least I’ve deduced that the following was a lie. It only took me 20 minutes, but the truth prevailed!

About three years ago I was driving home from an audition, listening to NPR and they had a segment on about how scientists had actually made a Liger. I love the big cats so this was super exciting to me.

I ran in the house and it went a little something like this:

I was just listening to this show on NPR and Zach! They made a Liger, like in Napoleon Dynamite! And they made a Tigon too where the Tiger is the dominant gene, isn’t that cool? 

They made a Cowig. 

A what?

A cowig. Cow Pig. Cowig.

No way. That’s amazing.

Yeah, that’s where they’re getting bacon from now. 

You’re kidding me!

No, cause it’s big like a cow but meaty like a pig.

What does it look like? 

Like a pig but with cow coloring.

Unbelievable.

  This goes on and on for about 20 minutes. He has an answer for each and every question I have and I must reiterate that I had JUST heard a show, on NPR no less, talking about the blending of species just like this…otherwise I never would have believed it. (Honest! Do you believe me?) Finally I asked such a me question:

What noise does it make?

ummm. mmmmoink?

You fucking liar!! I can’t believe you got me so bad! 

And that’s what life is like with my husband. Just the other day he tried to get us to believe that the Aztecs nursed their whole lives.  And all because we had been talking about nursing and their happened to be a Pontiac Aztec driving on the Beltway right in front of us. That one didn’t fly and my sister in law and I just said ‘nice try!’ He smiled and said ‘ they can’t all be cowigs.’

He is under strict orders to never, never do this to Baby Max.