News, and Scenes From an Otherwise Quiet Weekend

In Expat Land, when someone commences a conversation with "I have news!" it's either a. pregnancy or b. relocation. Thank Jesus I don't have the former to announce to you.

Now calm the eff down.

Sunday Snippets (on Tuesday): The Week, in Retrospect

Baseless Guilt, and Birthday Cake

Recently pregnant people shouldn't be allowed to plan their child's birthday parties. Or be at them. They, in fact, should be far, far away from anything remotely emotional, like at a conference for international arbitration, or an empty, dark room piping Muzak out of tan computer speakers.

Hormones, combined with a 4:30AM bedtime after a neurotic cookie-decorating/party-planning frenzy, had me tearing up every few minutes during the party and filling up with feeling of deep regret. Deep regret not about my parenting choices or the emotional damage I've caused my child, but instead about the facts that I didn't make the decorations I'd planned, that big bunny wanted nothing to do with his birthday cake, that I put too much pasta in the pasta salad (thus, throwing off the flavor/pasta ratio and rendering the salad uniformly bland), that I didn't get as many photos as I'd wanted, and that no one told me my suspenders were a couple centimeters off-center in the back. 

Yeah. I know.

Pithy Bytes: Everyday Clips From an Happily Ordinary Life

I believe in the value of documentation; it's so easy to savor small moments as they unfold but equally easy to leave them behind afterwards. Sometimes, a photo is in order. Others, a video is better suited to the situation. But I kept stumbling across smaller moments in my days that warranted chronicling, ones not suited for film of any kind but that I still wanted to put in my pocket and share later. So, I began recording audio, not certain how or if I would use it.

New Addition

It's time you've met Willard, who Tony adopted from Mooi Muf!, a fantastically cool secondhand shop specializing in Mid Century furnishings. And, apparently taxidermy. 

Five facts about Willard:

Party Prep, and Fantasy in a Sea of Buses

Julian's birthday party is on Thursday, which means for the next three days I'll be neurotically bouncing between home and the supermarket, between bouts of locking myself in the spare bedroom and cutting apart cardboard boxes. No time to explain. You'll see.

Sunday Snippets: the week, in retrospect

Little People, Magnificent Muses

There are a lot of tough moments in parenting a toddler. Screamingly tough, disgustingly tough, aggressively-bordering-on-violently tough, crazy-makingly tough moments. But in between them, I've found delight. My threshold for patience has been slowly stretched outwards, in the daily triage of deciding which wars I'm willing to fight (hitting/biting/pinching/pushing/book-ripping), and which are less consequential than a tantrum and best left to outgrow (most messes, toy-throwing, coffee table-ascending, food spitting). And in the quest to overcome impatience, I've gotten sillier. I've re-learned the definition of play.