After driving three and a half hours alone with the little angel on Friday, I finally picked up my beloved at the Des Moines airport.  The little angel, who had begun voicing a disconcerting "There is no more Daddy" in her best Charlton Heston voice the night before, ran screaming to him in a fit of toddler joy, then immediately demanded ice cream.

After we calmed ourselves, we drove another hour or so to my best friend's parents' lake cabin.  I've been visiting this spot since I was about seven - my parents honeymooned here. It's a man-made lake that started off crappy and has grown rather opulent in the past few years.  Going to the lake is one of my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE things to do, which is why we were doing it even though it was supposed to be cold and rainy on Saturday. 

On Friday when we arrived, it was a balmy 85 degrees.  The little angel and my godson, J., ran blissfully through the yard like a baby Ralph Lauren commercial, Millie the Dog hot on their heels (for visualization purposes, Millie looks and acts like the adorable but disobedient Toto).  We grilled out.  We lingered in the golden sunlight, drinking wine.  The children fell asleep exhausted.  All was right with the world, or at least with central Iowa.

Then we woke up.  It was raining and barely sixty degrees.

There is a certain terror that strikes the parents of small children at predisposed times.  They include:

• Airplane rides
• Church
• Funerals
• Weddings
• Show and tell
• Meeting a new babysitter
• Rainy days

Thankfully, my childless friends, smart girls, had brought earplugs and slept until 10 a.m.  We parents were up shaping pizzas out of Play-do for several hours before they graced us with their presence.  At one point, when the pizzas started to include frog legs, heart monitors and suitcases as ingredients, we realized it was time to try something new.

And we did.

And we did.  At about fifteen-minute intervals.  For about fourteen hours.

At times, we braved the frigid June outdoors, swinging the children in bedsheets and showing them how to throw rocks in the water.  We admired the neighbor's statue of an owl.  We encouraged the children to run screaming around the yard.  We did this ourselves, but not for the same reasons.  We did it because it kept us from beating them.  They did it because it felt good.  We pretended we were in New England in November.  Then it started to rain, a pelting, freezing rain, and back inside our 1,000-square-foot playpen we went.

All in all, though, the kids were really good, and my childless friends were really patient, like goddess-patient, though I could see their souls starting to bleed out their eyes a little bit by Sunday morning.  I can't imagine what it must've felt like to them, but I know I was more exhausted from two straight days of trying to keep the little angel happy, quiet and not eaten by Millie the Dog than I was from an entire week of single parenting in the dog-free and childproofed luxury of my own home.  Although, as with most weekends spent with great friends, I wouldn't have given up watching J. and the little angel play together or the conversations we all had after the kids went to bed and we relived the undistracted conversations of lake trips past, when all we had to worry about was the future, not the present.

This morning I left on a two-night business trip to somewhere that is most certainly warm and sunny.  Added bonus:  It's for an exciting new project which should keep me happily getting paid until January.  And I'm writing!  Whee!  Normally, I hate being away from the little angel for more than one night, however now, one day out of my rainy weekend and two days away from my beloved's work "Family Weekend" in the Ozarks, I can think of nothing I need more than a hot bath, an iPod and a room of my own.

With a deadbolt.

The end of Operation Single Parent is at hand.  This afternoon I pack up the little angel, my suitcase, my beloved's suitcase, the little angel's suitcase, the little angel's inflatable bed, pillows for everyone, Tad the Singing Frog, Slugger, books, coloring books, stickers, toys, an inflatable swimming pool, 64 bottles of water and various other accouterments to pick up my beloved and join six friends, two of them single and childless, for a weekend at a lake.

It's supposed to be 62 degrees and raining on Saturday.

We were supposed to have twelve adults.  One of my friends, who is 32 weeks pregnant, woke the other morning to find her water broke. She's on bed rest in the hospital (props to K. - she's such a trooper).  I would be a LOT more worried, except the exact same thing happened with her first pregnancy, and that child is now a robust three-year-old. Needless to say, she's not coming.

Another friend had to bail because she found a new apartment in DC and has to move this weekend.  Dammit.

Another friend decided it wasn't worth it to drive thirteen hours round-trip to a lake house if it was going to be raining.  WTF?

So, we've dwindled a bit.  My single friends are now preparing to pick up cabana boys.  I'm not too worried about spending two days with this group even if we are stuck inside, because the people involved have a high tolerance for two-year-olds and I have promised myself I will do the following things.

Parent Rules:

• I will remove all the batteries from the toys that make noise.
• I will bring a protective sheet for the table and washable crayons.
• I will bring a portable DVD player so the main television is not taken over by Thomas, Nemo or any other animated character.
• I will put all used diapers in a trash can outside.  I will resist the urge to change the little angel's poopy diaper in front of other people, especially if they are eating fudge.
• I will not discuss my child's bodily functions.
• I will have at least one conversation per day in which my attention is not diverted the entire time (since beloved will be there).
• I will not inquire into their childbearing or marital plans.
• I will not read Parenting magazine. I already went to the drugstore for US Weekly and The Devil Wears Prada. 
• I will not lament the cost of babysitters or daycare.
• I will not sing The Wheels on the Bus during drinking games.
• I will not insist they talk to my daughter on the phone on the way there.
• I will not leave her in their care while I go skinny dipping (unless they ask).

I'm more aware of these rules since I've been talking to the Editor Across the Aisle about parents v. nonparents in the game of friendship.  I was well aware of the rules BEFORE I became a parent, just as I was judgmental of those horrible parents yelling at their children in the grocery store and letting them eat ice cream for breakfast.  The nerve of those people, I thought. I WILL NEVER BECOME THEM.

Ha.

But as I became them, I forgot the rules.  I changed my newborn's poopy diaper on my best friend's brand-new, marble kitchen counter.  I ask people if they want to talk to my daughter on the phone all the time.  While pregnant, I bitched incessantly about being pregnant.  I now have to remind myself that not everyone wants to hear every blessed detail about My Life As A Parent. 

However, I will, of course, expect the childless people (and I know these two in particular will be FINE) to follow the Childless People Rules:

• They will not expect my two-year-old to be well-behaved at all times.
• They will not expect her to chew with her mouth closed or eat healthy foods.
• They will not expect her to remain a happy girl after her bedtime or stay up partying until midnight at the dinner location of their choice.
• They will not expect my full attention when the little angel is near sharp corners, open water or small animals.
• They will not tell stories of how bad other parents are when I do the same things in their presence.
• They will respect my child's need for naps and excuse us from activities that take place during those naps.
• They will not encourage me to drug my child so that she will go to sleep.
• They will place breakable objects, pointy things, beer cans and medicine on high shelves or counter tops and not right on the damn floor.

I know, I know - I was blissfully unaware of the Childless People Rules when I was childless. But I'm hyper-aware of the Parent Rules and do make an honest effort to follow them. The world would be a better place if we could all respect each other's situations, regardless of what they are.  So I'm off to vacation - let you know how it goes next week!

Thank God the cavalry (read:  Ma and Pa) arrive tonight.  After four nights and five days alone with the little angel - and not EVEN alone, because I work outside the home all day - I am exhausted. 

9 p.m. - Little Angel's room

Little Angel:  "MORE MILK!"

Me:  "No.  Go to sleepy.  Here's Tad." (Press hand of singing frog.)

Little Angel:  "NO TAD!"

Finally, she falls asleep to the hum of her window A/C unit as I fight sleep myself.

2 a.m.

Little Angel:  "Mommy!  Mommy!  MOOOMMMMYYYY!!!!"

Me: (stumbling in)  "What's wrong?"

Little Angel:  "I'm scared."

Me:  "Of what?"

Little Angel:  "I don't know."

4 a.m.

Little Angel:  "MOOOOMMMMMYYYYYYY!"

Me:  "What is it?  It's not morning yet.  There are no birds.  Do you hear birds?  Look, it's dark outside!  Let's go back to Mommy's bed." (Fully realizing the mistake of suggesting this - FULLY REALIZING - NOT CARING.)

Little Angel:  "I wanna watch TV."

Me:  "What? Are you crazy?  Only night-shift workers are watching TV right now."

Little Angel:  "Watch Pilates."

Me:  "Oh, no you don't."

But I did give in to going downstairs, despite my refusal to sleep to the sound of television. We hit the couch. I'm beyond tired after giving into the Pilates begging at 5:30 on Monday night.  I had to stretch the alarm clock to the edge of my bedroom door to ensure I would still hear it from downstairs on the couch over the sound of Sybil purring and sticking her tail into my ear canal.

The little angel demanded a blanket, even though I'm maintaining my house (except for the blissful, window-unit-covered bedrooms) at a balmy 80 degrees these days to save money.  The only blanket available was down.  She's a sweater anyway, so I knew I was in for it.  Once we got the blankie, she shoved her little toes in between my knees and stuck her hair up my nose.  I tried to think loving, maternal thoughts.  Next she opened her big, blue eyes and tried one more time.

Little Angel:  "Mommy do Pilates?"

Me:  "No.  Mommy is going to get her exercise tomorrow by running away from Grandma and Grandpa."

She seemed content with that.  We finally fell asleep at 5:45.  Awesome.  I can't WAIT to see my husband.

Operation Single Parent is still going reasonably well, even considering that she woke up at 5:45 this morning and said "Watch Mommy do Pilates."  How's that for incentive?  So I decided to humor her, even though I then had to stop the tape 23 times to get her milk, get the sand out of her toes (?), pet the kitty, get her a toy, etc.  She also sat on top of me while I was doing sit-ups.  I got in the shower after all this activity only to see a little red head sticking in, ceremoniously dropping my bra and underwear into the shower with me.  "Mommy get dressed," she said.

There have been fun times, too, though.  Last night Kansas City had a BIG BIG thunderstorm.    Big BOOM BOOM ina clouds.  I kept my plans to have dinner with Goofy Girl and Goofy, Jr. despite my mother's admonishment to stay in due to the weather and the knowledge that the world would surely end today due to the date corresponding to the Sign of the Beast.  We ate lots of Mexican food and watched our children go from shy and crying to scaling me as I finished up my salad and some of the little angel's fries.  As we walked outside, it started to rain in the way it started to rain shortly before Noah loaded up the ark and called it a day.

About halfway home, the skies opened and small animals and locusts began falling from the sky.  It was raining so hard the streets were instantly flooding.  I was concerned that the little angel might be scared. I was sort of scared, considering I'm not a good driver anyway and I have an astigmatism that makes it hard to see in the dark, especially when it's raining, and did I mention I'm not a good driver?  I started singing songs, though, to ward off my terror that we might just float away and be eaten by frogs.

About three blocks from home, the rain increased to typhoon levels.  I heard a little voice from the backseat take a break from her show tunes to yell.  "Rain, be nice!" she cried.  "BE NICE!"  I looked in the rear-view mirror to see her shaking her tiny fist in fury at the sky. 

Surely the world can't end yet.  She hasn't even had a chance to yell at a man.

So, this weekend I dropped my baby niece right on her head.  Well, not exactly dropped...she crawled off the sofa bed on which I was sitting.  Unfortunately, I was the responsible adult in the vicinity when it happened, the adult who didn't even notice the baby getting closer and closer to the edge of the bed.  The worst part of all of this is that I was videotaping my daughter and other nieces when it happened, so in the tape you can watch the progress of Baby J. as she enters harm's way.  It's like watching a simulation of the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

My first reaction upon hearing THWAP!  WAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! was fear - what if she broke her neck? What if she's permanently disfigured?  (Witness how quickly anxiety can override my intelligence - she fell two feet, not thirty stories, and I was honestly worried she might have broken her neck.)  Once I saw that she was screaming and breathing, not bleeding with useless limbs hanging awkwardly from her torso, my second thought was:  "Her mother is going to kill me."

I've always been a little intimidated by my sisters-in-law.  I'm not quite like them, not that they are so like each other, but they all seem to have that big-family apathy that comes from years of deflecting simultaneous criticisms from multiple sources at the same dinner table.  I come from a small family with one sister, and I worry incessantly about her opinion and the opinions of my parents.  My beloved, sibling seven of eight (which translates into sixteen nuclear in-laws for me, along with fourteen nieces and nephews, versus three total human beings on my side's nuclear) doesn't give a rat's ass if one of his siblings momentarily disapproves of him, because chances are others would only approve of him if someone else disapproved.  It's a totally different world, and one to which after five years of marriage I am only partially acclimated.

So not only did I worry that my niece was seriously injured (she wasn't), I worried that my reputation as a fit parent was, too.  Even though I would've been HOLDING my niece if she would allow me to do so without screaming.  Even though I wouldn't have hurt her for the world and everyone knows that.  I know, intellectually, that it's impossible to watch everyone at every moment.  There were four other children competing for my attention at the moment it happened.  But I still feel like somehow I should be able to - and this comes from the same deranged part of my brain that tells me I should be able to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, recycle the grease, stop global warming, raise my child, romance my husband, publish a book and exercise four times a week, all while avoiding wrinkles, traffic accidents and nervous breakdowns. 

Fortunately for me, the sister-in-law whose child I neglected - the same SAHM sister-in-law who bakes well and makes her own greeting cards - didn't make me feel bad for the accident.  She was actually extremely cool about the whole thing, which reminded me of the benefit of marrying into a big family - there are a whole lot of people who have your back when you screw up honestly. And unlike in my family, where as the oldest child I've been the first to do a lot of things, there is always someone else who did the exact same thing between two months and fifteen years ago.

Even if when I did it, I did it on camera.

Scene:  The Mall.

We're just getting ready to exit Target when I hear a little voice coming from near my knees.

Little Angel:  "Pinnies!  I wanna throw pinnies ina fowntain!"

Shit.

I decide to go for it, considering a) this is a innocuous request, b) I actually, for once have pennies and c) any aerobic activity will make the little angel sleep better.  Plus, she's slept the last three nights in a row, ever since the fever vanished.

But we must jog.  That is the rule.

She starts to trot down the mall, past the Bath & Body Works, past Foot Locker.  She picks up speed when she sees the fountain. 

After tossing five pennies in the fountain, we head back. 

Me:  "Let's run!"

She takes off at a good clip, training in her head for the Toddler Olympics. 

Little Angel:  "You run, too, Mommy!"

I begin my Mommy Shuffle.  This does not really constitute running, but she thinks anything above a walk is high-speed MADNESS.  As we pass by a flock of middle-aged women holding enormous Starbucks megadrinks, one of them peers over her sunglasses at us.  "What I would give for that energy," she says.

I think to myself, rudely, well, all you have to do is move - it does have this funny side effect of giving you more energy.  Put down your green-strawed heart attack and bust it, sister.

The little angel jogs the length of the mall. By Target, she seems to be getting winded.  I wait for her to slow down.  As she enters the final Target stretch, she's tiredly weaving past the aisles, nearly clocking lawn ornaments in her exhaustion.  She looks back at me.

Me:  "You know, you can stop running any time you want."

She stops dead in her tracks and holds her arms up.  I feel horrible, realizing she was thinking that "run" meant you have to keep running until you drop.  Stephen King would have a heyday with this one.

I pick her up, and she lays her head on my shoulder, pooped.

Me: "I'm sorry, honey, I thought you understood how exercising worked."

Little Angel:  "Wow, Mommy. Good workout."

Okay, let's revisit this. Last week, I commented on some points one of my students made about virginity and whether or not protecting it is necessarily a good thing.  This inspired some thoughtful commentary both on- and offline.  In fact, my friend Cagey and I ended up talking about it for a while at lunch on Saturday.

While I don't want to go too far into what she said (because that is her commentary, not mine), one of her central tenets involved Sex and the City.  She said it hasn't done anything for thirtysomething women.  She also said that she knows several people who have clung to their virginity until marriage (or they intend to) and it hasn't negatively impacted them in any way.

This is in line with the comment Carrien made - she felt it would be a mistake to advocate sleeping around.  In response to these comments, I realized I hadn't probably been clear with my opinion.  I also realized that this is a really interesting and important conversation, and I think we should discuss it further.

Here's my position (Ma, stop reading now):  I played the field.  And I was on the JV squad, in training very early, earlier than I would EVER want the little angel to be in training.  My student's position was that playing the field exposes a person to the fact that hot sex alone can't carry a relationship if the love and trust isn't there, thereby enhancing the value of love and trust even when, inevitably, the passions cool over the course of time.  I'm sure there's at least someone out there in cyberspace who will try to convince me they're still having hot sex twenty years into their marriage, and I'll believe them, but I won't believe they've had consistently hot sex for twenty years. My guess is that the passion ebbs and flows, spiking after a long separation, a near-death experience, a huge fight or a fabulous, margarita-drenched vacation.  It ebbs when you're tired, overworked, up late with small children, sick, worried about an aging parent or sick child, feeling unattractive or unfilled professionally or emotionally or just plain bored. 

Scientists discovered recently that the chemical reaction that causes romantic electricity lasts about a year.  After that, it's just like drugs - you need more and more to get the same high. Unfortunately, at the same time, you know your partner better and there are fewer new discoveries to elicit that chemical reaction.  My point, then, about the virginity thing - I feel better knowing that just because I had an amazing chemical reaction with other men doesn't mean they were right for me.  I didn't choose to marry my beloved purely 100 percent on physical attraction, though it's there.  And I don't think we need to get divorced if a month goes by without a quickie.  And yes, we have a toddler - they are all quickies.  True love is about more than the sex, but if you've never had the sex with people you didn't love, is it more likely you would mistake a new physical attraction for love?  Might you think, perhaps, you'd perhaps chosen wrong - how could you possibly be attracted to someone else?

I know that I can tell these things to the little angel.  I hope that she listens and holds on to her virginity until she meets a boy or man whom she loves and trusts completely.  I do believe premarital sex is considered to be a sin by my church.  I also believe lying is considered to be a sin by my church - my point on religion is that our American culture seems to weigh sex as worse than violent crime, and I have a huge issue with that.  Sin is sin, and if you believe in grace, you also believe it is not through good works that you are saved, but that we're all human fuck-ups and without grace, we'd be dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, bar none.  Bar none.

So let's talk about sex, and what can be learned from it.  Can these lessons be taught without experience?  Or is the experience more detrimental than the learning that might come from it?  I don't claim to have the answers.  I only know what I learned from my own experiences.  I certainly will never encourage the little angel to have empty, Samantha-style sex - animal sex.  However, I don't know that I would necessarily be broken hearted if she loved and lost only to learn.

Children, when they are ALMOST but NOT QUITE well, become possessed.  The little angel came home yesterday with a 102 degree fever at noon.  By four, she had poo running down her legs, out of her saturated diaper and onto the floor, right in the middle of my conference call.  By seven, she was running around the house trying to get Sybil to take her thyroid pill.

Last night, she woke several times, and, after some debate, we treated her a sick child instead of a well child. In the morning, she had a 101 degree fever.  Now she's napping. Her fever broke around 9:30 this morning, but it's been up and down all day.  I HAVE to go to work tomorrow, as does my beloved, so I'm humoring her this afternoon even though she's already spilled an entire container of rice on the back patio, killed three flowers by ripping their petals off when I wasn't looking, threw melons on the freshly washed kitchen floor and drank fourteen gazillion half-finished cups of milk.  I want her to get better so that I may then kill her.

Just kidding.  JUST KIDDING!

So, we've got to wait another day for the virginity talk. I promise, it will happen this week.  I think.

My beloved was mowing the lawn when we got home from daycare last night.  I went to get the sidewalk chalk so that we could draw more hot-air balloons on the broken concrete we euphemistically call a "patio."

The little angel has become a fan of organization and cleanliness.  She wants her spoon and hands wiped off between courses and would request sorbet to cleanse her palette if she knew such a thing existed. 

Little Angel:  "Daddy, it goes in there."  (points to the shed)

Beloved:  "Oh, you think I should put the mower in the shed?  Okay.  I won't leave it in the street, then."

My beloved went over to the shed and pulled out the jogging stroller, since the mower lives behind the jogging stroller in the shed.  "Mommy's stroller!" shouted the little angel.  She's never seen her father jog.

The little angel leaned over conspiratorially.  "Daddy's stroller is louder than Mommy's stroller."

*Updated to add - Here are some thoughts on the new BlogHer ad network (see the cool ad in the left sidebar? If you're interested.  More on that later...got to go to work.*