Things I've Learned in the Past 3 Weeks

1) Ear infections turn your child into a sociopath.

2) Steroids make you hungry enough to finish off a plate of cheese grits, eggs, toast, and cereal before your husband can finish buttering his bread. I'm not kidding.

3) It's better to let your child chew on his father's toothbrush in the living room, out to the car, and into Wal-Mart rather than hear one more tantrum.

4) If I put in stainless steel appliances, I wouldn't do much more than break even. That's according to my realtor.

5) Because I'm a stay-at-home mom, repainting the bedroom shouldn't be hard. That's according to my realtor.

Time to Turn Off HGTV

I'm all in a dither trying to get our condo market-ready. My latest frustration? Stainless steel appliances. I've been watching way too much HGTV, and now I feel like my kitchen is hopelessly outmoded and will never sell unless we splurge $3000 or so replacing perfectly good appliances with that brushed metal that sets buyers' hearts a-flutter.

Learning that another condo for sale in my complex has all-new stainless steel appliances has me practically in panic mode.

Do you know what really ticks me off about it all? It's not the money. It's knowing that my current set-up is the superior design. In a small galley kitchen, it's best to match cabinets and appliances (in our case, all cream) to create the illusion of space. Chopping up the field with silver blocks will break that trick of the eye. Not only will the kitchen seem smaller, but it will be a little more "busy" and a little less streamlined.

Will the average Jane care how small the kitchen seems, or will she just be thrilled to see Stainless Steel Appliances? I'm really not sure what I'll do.

Meanwhile, I wonder how long this modern metallic look will be "in." Thirty years ago, people were covering their hardwood floors with wall-to-wall carpet and tiling their bathrooms in green.

My First Annual Christmas-Decorations-Gone-Up Rant

I saw it today: the first Christmas decorations going up in the village near my home. Can't we even have Thanksgiving?

It's not the shameless commercialism that bothers me. It's knowing that this is just a small representation of a large problem: our inability to wait.

Once upon a time, before shopping malls dictated our holy day celebrations, Christmas began on... Christmas... and lasted 12 days (you know, like the song). Good Episcopalian that I am, I will wait until Christmas Eve to decorate my tree. And I simply will not bring a tree into my home before the 4th Sunday of Advent.

Yes, Advent, that season of waiting which was lost about fifty years ago. Waiting for the coming of Christ-- retrospectively for his birth, expectantly for his earthly return. That season throughout December in which we don't sing Christmas hymns but rather songs of longing: O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

It's a lost art, this waiting thing. We can't wait for our possessions, so we buy on credit. We can't wait for marriage, so we satisfy our physical and emotional desires with mate of the moment. We can't wait for dinner, so we break into the potato chips.

(These days, I can't wait for my toddler to walk from the front door to the car without feeling like I'm going to blow. Why does he have to stand still every time he sees something, tell me what it is, stand there another full minute, then take three steps and repeat the whole thing with a new object? Why? Tell me, why?)

When I see garland with a red velvet bow in mid-November, all I see is the restlessness of a culture that no longer appreciates the joy of anticipation.

If we cannot wait for Christmas, how are we to wait for Christ?

Breakfast BC

Cleaning out a kitchen drawer yesterday, I found several expired coupons and one of my handwritten menus from our newlywed days B.C. (before children). I used to plan each meal of the day, writing it down for my trip to the grocery store.

I'd forgotten how I once loved to cook breakfast, even if it meant getting up at 4:00 a.m. to see my husband off to work before 5:00. What did we used to eat? According to my newfound artifact, in the span of a week we had peanut butter pancakes, vegetable omelets, berry waffles, and cinnamon hot cereal.

Boy, do I hate me. The old me. Now I'm just a lazy mom, sleeping in with her kid until (gasp) 6:00 a.m. Will I ever recover the breakfast-cooking mojo?

I'd like to think so. What better way to start the day than with the whole family gathered around a steaming hot meal?

Things Not Worth Fighting About #287

At least he likes his broccoli. Who am I to complain?

Plank in my Eye

While I jokingly complain about raising a tyke in a one-bedroom condo, the truth is that we've been pretty happy here. I take much pride in what I've done with the 800 square feet. I take even more pride in the lessons learned from living in such intimate quarters. And even as I have watched friend after friend move into their first homes and dream homes, I have never, ever, considered Tom and I to be roughing it. (A summer spent in a Mexican slum, where literally hundreds of families lived in shacks they built from salvaged trash, forever changed what I consider "poor".)

Yet the closer we get to the end of Tom's training (nine post-college years, most of which we've spent together), and the closer we get to moving into an actual house, the more I find myself daydreaming of what's to come: A porch. A fenced-in backyard. Two bathrooms. A pantry. A room for Nana and Papa to stay when they come to visit.

Meanwhile, Tom daydreams of sleeping, free time, and weekends spent at home.

What will we be doing this time next year? How different will our day-to-day life be? Today, as my thoughts had me in the clouds, reality tapped me on the shoulder. I remembered what my best friend told me after her boob job, a comment which, in my self-righteousness, I considered comical at the time. Though she was quite serious! She said to me, with a depressing sort of shock: "You know, these boobs haven't really changed my life. I'm still the same person." Well, duh, I thought at the time. But now... Why do I look at the speck of sawdust in my sister's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in my own eye?

Finally, the Language Explosion

Talking babies rock. What a difference a month makes. Peter has gone from learning a couple new words a month to a couple of new words a day. 'Raffe (giraffe), 'poon (spoon), 'side (outside), 'rass (grass)... He's even begun to sing along with songs, when the words are ones he knows.

And what a helper he's turned into! This morning, he proudly carried our Chico grocery bags to the car for a trip to Publix. When we got home, he unloaded every single item from those bags, handing them to me to put away. Then he helped unload the dishwasher. He grinned through every "task."

Where did my baby go? But, oh, I love this new stage!