Oscar Shmoscar. Why do we watch these things?

I've tried and I've tried and I'm finally just going to admit it and move on --- I just don't like Jack Nicholson. I don't like his cheesy smile, his ridiculous hair, his incredible arrogance or even his (dare I say) one-dimensional acting chops. The dude acts like .... Jack Nicholson in every movie.

Also, is it just me or did all but one of these "Song of the Year" nominees truly, truly suck?

Oh thank goodness, the only decent song just won.

THON ON!

Second most inspiring thing I ever did in my life....



Could you stay on your feet for 48 hours straight? Dancing, crying, hugging, playing, aching ... all to raise money for kids with cancer? I think you could. And if you did, you'd never forget it.

Can't wait to tune in Sunday night to find out if they broke last year's record -- $5.2 million. Gives me chills.

WE ARE......!

You know you're a parent when...

It's not often that the high point in your day is also the absolute low point. Such was the case yesterday when I found myself digging through my son's poopy diaper searching for and, gleefully, finding the three fingernail-sized chunks of royal blue foam he'd bitten off a beer coozie the day before. (A beer coozie I stupidly thought was harmless enough to give him as entertainment in the kitchen while I was making dinner.)

You can't imagine (or maybe you can) the relief to see them there, completely intact, just like the pediatrician on-call the night before had told this frantic mother they would be.

Being a mom to a kid with teeth is a whole new adventure.

Our little tadpole

Kostyn went swimming for the first time at Grammy and Pop-Pop's place last weekend. Loved it!



Here he is rockin' the Tommy trunks...


For a kiddie pool it was kind of deep (who am I kidding, like I'm some sort of connoisseur...) but just shallow enough for him to stand all by himself. And stare at his mama. Silently begging her to rescue him from the chilly water.

2/13/73

In case anyone thinks I'm wallowing in my 35-ness today, here's a sneak peek at my column for Sunday:


I turned 35 this past week, and after much contemplation I’ve decided I’m fine with it. In fact, I’m better than fine with it; I’m downright happy.

Consider these laugh lines proof.

To sum up just how great 35 is, I’ll tell you what I asked for for my birthday: $78 designer-label sweatpants. That, in a nutshell, is the comical genius of 35. You finally reach a point in your life where you’re able to afford trivial luxuries, and you willingly and joyfully spend that extra money on elastic waistbands.

It’s a wonderful stage of life.

I’m not saying that at 35 you stop caring what you look like. (Remember, the aforementioned sweatpants are designer chic.) What I’m saying is that at 35 you finally begin to live by two important mantras: The first is to be true to oneself. The second is that form should follow function.

If you’re not yet 35, chances are you’ve known both of these for many years, but you’ve at least occasionally ignored them. You’ve worn 3-inch heels instead of the flats you love, and ordered fancy drinks when you’re out with the boss instead of the Bud Light you’re craving.

But as you age, you slowly begin to trust your inner voice — that sensible, spiritual sage inside you. Turns out she’s pretty smart, not to mention kind and generous.
I think the motivation to trust that inner voice kicks in around 35 because by then most people have had something monumental happen to them — the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the threat of a health scare — that sharpens one’s focus on what’s important.

So you set about streamlining your life. You keep the friends who make you happy and ditch the ones who make you crazy. You start to think before you speak and act on your heart, and both of these cut way down on regrets.

Those of you who are under 35, don’t fret: None of this will occur overnight. And you don’t have to quit your gossipy text messages and late-night parties. Even we 30-somethings still enjoy both from time to time.

The transformation will happen gradually. First, you’ll experience great success — or great failure — and discover the kind of person you are by how you react. Then, through trial and error you’ll figure out what makes you happiest and, if you’re smart, reach for it with abandon. Along the way you’ll realize that many things (hangups, pride, insecurities) in your life are getting in the way of that passionate focus. So you’ll start to give them up, one by one.

How will you know when you’re getting close? There will be warning signs, though some of them might seem scary to you now. First, I began to know more about my siblings’ lives and less about celebrities’. I found myself watching more HGTV and less MTV. (I reasoned that “The Real World” peaked several seasons ago, anyway.) I started to decide what I thought was cool rather than having those decisions handed to me.

There are lots of other signs that you’re on your way to 35. You might notice that your iPod (BlackBerry, cell phone, laptop, fill in the blank with the gadget of your choice) is way outdated, but it still serves its purpose so you won’t bother to upgrade it. You might start to listen to radio stations that don’t play any current pop songs. Given the state of today’s pop music, you might already be doing this.

You’ll be coaxed into doing some community service, and you’ll like how that feels. If you’ve moved far from home you’ll begin to sense the price you paid for that decision.
There will come a day when you can’t remember the last time you got on the bathroom scale, but it won’t matter because you will have internalized how beautiful you feel when your son (daughter, spouse, parent) smiles at you. That is the same day you’ll stop wearing lipstick to the grocery store.

Don’t get me wrong, this kind of life is definitely a work in progress. I still care too much what people think of me, and not quite enough what I think of myself. But I now have an old iPod that’s as big as a brick, I drive the kind of car friends routinely laugh at, I sometimes leave the house with my son’s spit-up on my shirt, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

So take heart, youngsters: If you strive for it, that delightful moment will come when your inner voice has become so strong, so well-equipped at blocking out the trivial and savoring simple pleasures, that you can finally, at long last, relax in your own
(35-year-old) skin.

And in your fantastic new sweatpants.

Friday Fun

It's been a long time since we had any Friday Fun.... Let me know your results!

You Are Chicken

Bah! You're hardly meat. But you are quite popular, and people aspire to taste like you. You're probably quite skinny and free of vices. Except letting people eat your eggs.

What Kind of Meat Are You?

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

How Do You Communicate?

You Are Cereal

Playful and lighthearted, breakfast is likely your favorite meal of the day. (In fact, you're probably the type who sneaks cereal as a midnight snack.) Your culinary skills are probably a bit lacking... and you are a sucker for junk food. Some people accuse you of eating like a kid, but you prefer to think of yourself as low maintenance.

What Kind of Breakfast Are You?

What I learned yesterday

baby + cell phone + drool = mommy needs a new phone.
If you've tried to reach me in the last 24 hours or so, sorry. I'm in the market for a new phone. In the meantime, there's always email...

2/6/42

I have this fear that there will come a day when I am asked to sum up my father’s life, to put into eloquent words what he has meant to this world, and to me. And I won’t be able to do it.

Because some people just cannot be put into words.

You have to be around my dad in order to understand what he means to those who love him. You have to experience how gentle his big calloused hands feel when they hold onto yours. You have to smell the pipe smoke that lingers on his jacket when he returns from an afternoon fiddling around in one of his sheds. You have to see him flash that big toothy grin at you after cracking a silly joke and know that his smile — not the joke — is what makes you smile back.

You have to see the tear in his eye as he holds his grandson for the first time.

On the surface it seems that all his life my father has done small things with great love. But when I peel back the layers of that life, I realize he has actually done astounding things with amazing determination.

He had a fairly miserable childhood, one of loneliness and abuse and neglect. Yet somehow he grew into a God-fearing man with purpose, direction, and hope.

He had a harrowing experience in Vietnam, parachuting out of a downed aircraft and spending 13 days hiding in the jungle, traveling only at night and praying he’d run into his own troops before the enemy. Terrified, starving and alone. Yet he survived.

He put himself through school, married his childhood friend, and raised three girls. When his home was deemed unsafe due to toxic chemicals buried nearby, he moved his family to another town and found work. Each time he was laid off from a job, he found another. He sometimes endured excessively long commutes, bad managers, hard labor and meager wages.

He beamed at every one of our accomplishments growing up and drove us cross-country on family vacations. He taught us how to fish and cross-country ski and roll up our clothes to fit more in a suitcase. He took on all three of us in tickling wars, accompanied us to father-daughter dances, and stayed up late worrying when we were out on dates.

All the while, he showed us how to respect each other and ourselves. He brought us up to believe that anything is possible, that we are powerful, and that family is everything.

Turns out he’s done great things with great love.

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you.

milestones

I just got done reading one of those “Your 8-month-old’s Development” lists, which always sort of freak me out. It drives Chris crazy. According to the “experts,” my son should be waving bye-bye, saying “mama” or “dada,” crawling, standing, pulling himself up onto his feet, and playing pattycake.
Kostyn does none of these things.
Every month this makes me feel like a failure, because I’m the one home with him all the time. Should I be doing something that I’m not? I play pattycake with him, and he loves it, but he doesn’t clap by himself. We wave to him all the time, but he has yet to wag his little fingers back at me. We practice “mama” and “dada” and lots of other words, but so far he isn’t addressing us with anything other than smiles.
I help him when he’s struggling to get on all fours from a sitting position, but that’s as far as he can go. When he tries to move forward, he slumps onto his tummy. And when he’s on his tummy, he seems to only move backwards or pivot around in a circle, which really pisses him off.
Chris says he’ll do these things on his own time, when he’s ready, and I know this. The disclaimers at the bottom of these monthly lists always say that, too. But still, it’s hard to read about all the things that other babies his age have already mastered.
So I wallowed in worry for a few minutes this evening, and then I started to think about all the things he CAN do.
He smiles and laughs and shrieks with joy on a regular basis.
He has mastered the ability to grab onto a single Cheerio and put it in his mouth. (Sounds simple, but it’s quite a trick for tiny fingers.)
He drinks from a shot glass.
When we sit down to read books, I always hold two out in front of him and he studies them both and then puts his hands on the one he wants me to read.
When I read to him, he turns the pages for me.
When he listens to Chris play his conga drum, he moves his head side to side repeatedly, as if he’s grooving to the music.
Sometimes when we’re playing he’ll stop what he’s doing for a second, lean into me for a hug, and then start playing again.
This morning he blew raspberries on my tummy, the way I’ve done to his countless times.
He knows precisely how to steal my heart over and over, every day.
There. I feel better now.

Are you ready for some football???

Kostyn is. And he's sportin' his old-school Patriots onesie to prove it.
(poor guy has no idea he'll be asleep before halftime...)