Mother Daughter Bonding Time - (or "Oh lord, help me... when does your father get back!?!?!?")

I know I have so neglected Shades lately.  My goal was to keep this from morphing into a mommy blog by creating a separate blog for our daughter, Emerson, elsewhere. However,  I have discovered, for the first time in my life, compartmentalizing is no longer an option.  I'm not saying every post will be adventures in motherhood - but its without a doubt the most all encompassing role I have ever held so you're just going to have to grip the handlebars and work with me on this completely insane course onto which my life has veered.

Hunter and I have spent the past four months positively desperate to get Em into a routine and now that we're there, we both looked at each other last night, exasperated and agreed that having every single moment of your day budgeted just completely sucks.  Now, I will admit we do have about 4 or 6 moments that are not scheduled or consumed.  We use these moments to close our eyes and catch our breath or lean up against a wall and take a 30 second nap.  We occasionally splurge and try to get through 15 minutes of The History Channel's Pawn Stars (the only TV show we have the mental capacity for these days) and I do try to get in a few pages of reading before losing consciousness at the end of the day.  Just in case you're wondering - I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series.  Yep, that's right.  I'm pretty sure this is the 4th  time I will be reading the entire series.  Harry Potter is comfort food in the Best household.  Pure-T Comfort Food  (Though I will say, Ghost Written by David Mitchell may have to intercede between The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  This has been the most amazing and magical four months of my life.  Every single day this beautiful little girl does something new that just takes my breath away.  She makes a new connection, she gets her hand eye coordination controlled enough to reach out and pet Bodhi, her giggle gets a little more defined, she wraps her little arms around my neck and squeezes with a soft little 'coo' in my ear.... and I will tell you, each of these tiny little milestones leaves me just completely breathless and fighting the urge to go out and buy a celebratory red velvet cake (we celebrate with red velvet in this house - we cope with chocolate in any form).

Last week, Hunter took a much deserved mini-vacation; (Don't worry - my turn is coming... oh yes... one day) a road trip with his friend Jon with the ultimate destination of Telluride, CO for a two day Phish concert.  I was kind of excited about kicking back and just relaxing with Emerson.  I scoped out all of the parks I wanted to visit, I got a good bottle of wine before he left, I went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for a few recipes that I've been wanting to try.  I figured I could knock the recipes out during her 3:00 nap, take a stroll to the park before bed time and then spend my evenings after putting her down kicking back on the patio with a glass of wine, catching up on long over due phone calls.  It'll be fun!

(Every time that overly enthusiastic, excessively perky voice in my head exclaims "It'll be fun!" I really should just go get in bed and hide under the covers.  Why haven't I learned this?  It's my inner voice for crying out loud?!?!)

Let me just break it down for you like this.  The minute Hunter walked out the door - the child started teething.  At least I think she's teething?  She's producing about 2.5 gallons of drool a day and gnawing on her fist like a fried drumstick from Mama Dip's Country Restaurant.  (Has anyone else noticed how food oriented this blog is?)  Maybe its not teething and is some sort of new personality quirk.  If so... we'll love her anyway.  So as soon as Hunt walks out the door Em begins to teethe which made her usually sunny disposition a little ... shall we say... cloudy?  Stormy? Torrential? Gale Force? Category Five-God Save us All-Hurricane?  Okay, she wasn't THAT bad but she was less than beaming.  She also decided that she was completely done with the 3:00 nap that she has taken every single day of her life.  (That blessed nap that allows me 45 minutes to transition from work to mama with just enough grace to pass muster.  Good bye grace!  There goes those recipes I wanted to try.... fortunately I had enough bread to get me through these tenuous four days with sandwiches.  *Glances sideways at spoiling tomatoes*)

Around this time, the dishwasher also quit.  Well, it didn't so much quit as it flooded the kitchen.  At first I thought it might have just been Emerson's drool, but after further inspection, it was definitely coming from the dishwasher.  I know this because you can turn the dishwasher off and the encroaching river of water would stop.  You can't, however, turn Emerson off and make her encroaching river of drool stop.  We would later find that we somehow burned a hole completely through the base of the dishwasher's tub.  How did that happen?  You've got me.... I'm mystified.  (By the way there goes my evenings with a glass of wine and a phone call - its hard to talk on the phone and wash dishes at the same time and that's about all I had the energy for at this point.)

So - screaming, teething, sleepless child... CHECK!  General need for a snorkel... CHECK!! Broken coffee maker... CHECK!!!

"WAIT!?!?  WHAT'S THIS??? BROKEN COFFEE MAKER!??!?! NO!," you exclaim.  "Surely you jest!," you cry out.  "Not the coffee maker!!!!!!!  Anything but the coffee maker!!!!," you wail. (You don't mind if I dictate your end of this conversation do you?)

Yes, the coffee maker just added insult to injury.  It didn't just break, it would take two agonizing hours to brew 4 of the 12 cups of water I put in the hopper.  Like a slow, cruel, torturous taunt of coffee that came out the consistency of what I can only imagine would be equivalent to these tar balls we hear so much about.

Woe. Is. Me.

PS:  As a post script, I should let you know... I survived and Emerson won't remember it.  Hunter returned home to an exhausted but functional family, a new dishwasher should be installed by the end of this week (meanwhile we've switched to disposable EVERYTHING because WE'RE THAT LAZY) and my savior of all things caffeinated walked me through a do-it-yourself emergency maintenance on the coffee maker that, all told, was truly the crux of my survival...  live to fight another day my friends!