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.*

Today I was telling the Editor Across the Aisle about the little angel's recent sleeping problems. I have to give her props - the little angel, that is - because Monday night and Tuesday night she slept through the night for the first time since May 3.  (Let's observe a moment of silence for children who occasionally sleep.  Ahhhhh.)

Anyway, on Sunday night, the little angel woke up at three in the morning.  She clamored for about a half an hour about wanting milk. I told her no, sleepy. It's time to sleepy.  She said no, the milk.  I said no, the sleepy.  In response to this, she grabbed the edge of her toddler bed and jumped up and down.  I almost laughed, as her flair for the melodramatic is come by honestly. (Ahem.)

After this, she laid down on her bed and kicked her pudgy feet vehemently on her Ebayed Laura Ashley beach-scene sheets. I held firm.

Then she asked to go downstairs and lay down with me on the couch. This sounded like an awesome alternative to the drama scene unfolding in her bedroom, but again with the firmness.  No, I said.  Sleepy.

Then she said she was poopy. (Liar, liar, pants on fire.)  I offered to change her diaper, which she accepted, thinking it was part of the negotiating process.

It wasn't.

Finally, she laid down and accepted her water cup. She bit the top of her Nuby, said it was leaking, and threw it at my head.

I said, no, sleepy.

I handed her back the cup.

We went back and forth like this, with her alternately pummeling her feet and throwing the cup at my head until I finally won and she went to sleep with said leaky cup cradled in her arm like a baby.

About halfway through this story, the Editor mentioned her water cup was leaking.  She said that every time she takes a drink out of it, it dribbles on her pants. It has made her fear the drinking of the water, but she insists on drinking it anyway. I think this has something to do with the fact that she is from Iowa, and believes in the power of wearing a dress that she got for $5.27 at T.J. Maxx to not one but two black-tie affairs in the past month.  I did not mention this. (I bet she's dribbling now, reading about it.)

Me:  "I know that what you really want to do is throw that water cup at my head."

Editor:  "I do, and even though I do seriously believe that you would kill me, I want to do it anyway.  Just to see the look on your face."

I almost peed myself laughing.  I can just see the headlines now:  Cube-mate Killed In Toddler Re-enactment.

Last night I taught my last class for a while.  Well, I didn't really teach. I proctored my final exam.  They did really well - this is the hardest-working group I've ever had.  But that isn't what I want to talk about.

Two weeks ago, they handed in their final paper.  A bunch of them wanted me to grade them right away, so they'd know how well they needed to do on their final exams.  In my first semester, I would've just told them that of course they should always study hard and reach for the stars for any test.  Two years in, I just told them to talk quietly amongst themselves or study while I graded in the last hour of class, if they really wanted to know so bad.  I was secretly grateful for the chance to do it in class, as opposed to after putting the little angel to bed when I could be doing other great things, like reading The Bitch in the House or watching Big Love on HBO on Demand.

While I was grading, though, I couldn't help but eavesdrop. 

Student 1:  "So your daughter ran into the fireplace with her head?"

Student 2:  "Yeah - she's only two, but she's already a handful, just like her daddy."

Student 1:  "You'd better be careful.  You're going to have to sit at the door with a shotgun when she's sixteen."

Student 2:  "Nah.  I hope she dates a lot."

Student 3:  "You don't want that.  She'll come home pregnant."

Student 2:  "No, she won't.  I'm going to teach her all about that stuff."

Student 1:  "But then she'll just have sex!"

Student 2: "Exactly."

At this point, I couldn't pretend to not listen anymore.  I chastised them for distracting me with such a conversation, but I, like the other students, wanted to know why any hardcore father (he is hardcore - he even stayed home from class the night his daughters' dog died) would throw his baby girl out to the wolves that are teen-aged boys.

Student 2:  "The only reason I'm still married is because I had a lot of sex before I met my wife."

We were flabbergasted. We asked for MORE, MORE on this subject. 

Student 2:  "I know so many people who got married young, sometimes to the first person they'd slept with, and then ten years down the road,they wonder if they're missing something.  I am happy where I am because I know what I'm missing, and I'm just fine with missing it.  I want my daughters to go into marriage with their eyes wide open, and sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs along the way to get that perspective."

I went back to grading my papers, but part of me was thinking about my own premarital sexual escapades.  I did some really dumb things, and some even dumber people. It's true.  I also had my heart broken, stomped on and driven over with a Jeep Cherokee.  I did learn what worked and what didn't, how to switch it up, how to ride out the plateaus, and when to cut ties and bail...before I got married.  It is true. 

That said, I can't bear the thought of the little angel going through what I did, physically or emotionally.  I know she's going to have her heart broken.  I know she's going to like someone who doesn't like her back, maybe even love someone who doesn't love her back.  I hope she is pretty, but I don't want her to be too pretty.  I hope she is sensitive, but not as sensitive as I am.  I hope that by the time she gets married, she knows what she wants in a traveling companion and understands that no man can ever fulfill a woman. The woman, the person, has to do that for him or herself.

I'm not sure what my position will be on sex when the little angel is hanging around the condom basket in high school health class (she won't be going to school in Kansas, no sirreee).  I'm not sure how forthcoming I'll be about my own experiences, but I won't lie to her if she asks.  I hope she doesn't have to grow up too fast, but I'm not sure how she can avoid it, unless we move to a bubble.  Small towns are no safer, folks.  I grew up in a very small town.

I found K.'s perspective on sex education rather interesting, though. As a good Lutheran, I believe we should try as hard as we can not to sin - we should not plan to sin.  At the same time, as a good Lutheran, I believe in grace.  I hear the argument that preaching anything but abstinence is like encouraging your kid to fornicate.  But I also believe that the kids will be a fornicatin', and I don't want my child to get any horrible diseases or have a baby when she's still a baby, if it can be so easily avoided with a little education. Which is the worse sin?  Discussing fornication or withholding information that could save your child's life, literally and figuratively?

I'm also fascinated by this concept of playing the field in your youth as marital aid.  I can see his point.  I was just talking to my girls yesterday about how I would've liked to have been a younger mother in theory, but in practice, I was sooo enjoying the road trips on $50 and the beer-soaked parties and the roller blading and the sleeping late of my twenties.  In my twenties, I did not know what I wanted in a man - that was clear from my persistent pursuance of loner types who were long on sultry glances and short on phone calls.

I do know that I would never have clicked as well with my beloved if I hadn't learned the hard way how to recognize a good man, a kind man, a man who would treat me with respect and make me laugh instead of cry when he could.  You can't learn that stuff in school. You can't watch it on television and have it translate. You can't buy it in a store.  You have to live your bad kisses and your heartbreak and your mismatched priorities and your boxers-or-briefs and your morning breath to KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, hopefully before you walk down the aisle.  And you have to have lived all that stuff to remember that that's what's out there when you're tempted to stray or bored or just sad or mad or hormonal.  Remembering you chose your spouse because he was the best match for you out of all those many people you did date, you did audition, those other people who just did not make the cut, because your man was the best for you.  You hope.  You hope you chose best, because you had choices and you knew what was out there.

Or maybe not.

Thoughts?

I was talking today on the phone to my friend L. about why I started blogging.

When the little angel was two months old, I started blogging.  I have never been a mother before. 

I am the kind of person who always researches everything.  I was valedictorian of my graduating class in high school.  I graduated from the University of Iowa in three and a half years.  I couldn't wait to get out there and prove to the world that I knew what I was doing.

I kept a pregnancy journal, fastidiously.  I recorded every pound I gained, every pretzel I threw up, every drink I denied myself.  I have always journaled.  I wrote down every emotion I had, every man who broke my heart, every morsel of food I didn't eat when I was anorexic from 1992 to 1994. 

I keep lists.

I have a mission statement for myself.

I have goals.

I was going to be the perfect mother.

Then came the days of darkness, the days when the little angel was just a baby and my best friend was going through a painful divorce, and another friend's husband had an affair and left her and another friend suffered painful sinus infection after sinus infection through her own first pregnancy and was too scared to take any medicine.

I had this baby, but my best friends were still jumping out of airplanes and questioning why I wouldn't join them, in the airplane, at the bar.  I felt so alone.

So I blogged.

And I read other people's words.  Other people's experiences.  And I felt better.  I realized there were other women like me, who depended on the Internet as a lifeline.

L. shared with me a painful time in her life when she used the ethernet to pump her blood for her, to keep her going.

I've seen you out there, in my stats.  I've seen you in North Carolina, in New York, in Lawrence, in Iowa City.  I've seen you in Korea.  I've seen you in Ireland and Australia.

So many nights when I've been up at three in the morning, Kansas City time, and I've pictured you all, there, comforting your babies while I comforted mine, and it made me feel stronger to know you were there.

That at three in the morning, Kansas City time, one of you is always awake.

Thank you, Internet. 

Thank  you for being my village.

Dear Little Angel,

It's my third Mother's Day.  You and your daddy let me sleep until 10:30 this morning - something I desperately needed, since you cried for me for thirty-five minutes at five a.m.  You've been having a lot of trouble sleeping, which means I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping, since I'm the only one who you will accept in the wee hours, despite our many, many, many attempts otherwise.

You probably don't realize this, but I have snuck into your room and kissed your little cheeks every night that I've been home with you since the day you were born.  I started in the hospital, and I've never stopped.  Because I love you that much - I can't sleep not knowing that you are at peace, even when I'm not.

I read a quote once - I don't remember where - saying that if children realized how much their mothers loved them, they wouldn't have the courage to leave the house.  It's probably good that you don't realize how much I love you.

And Ma, I do realize how much you love me.

Happy Mother's Day.

Sounds gross?  Is gross. To. Wake. Up. To. A. Leaky. Diaper.  A leaky diaper currently being worn by the child sleeping on your torso.  IS GROSS! 

I know so many people who say things like, "I just became oblivious to body fluids after I became a mother."  Well, it IS true that my gag reflex is maybe in its second year of medical school, but that doesn't mean that my day doesn't start off a little worse than it otherwise would to realize that I have been peed on.  Again! 

I love my daughter, I do.  But despite spectacular progress in March and April, the little angel has not slept through the night since May 3.  And I? Am tired.  The last time I got a full night's sleep was  Saturday night, and that was only because we were visiting my parents and I whined and complained so they offered to get up with her during the night.

I was talking to my friend L. yesterday (she has three-year-old twins, so again with the guilt I have over even complaining about this stuff) about the sleeping issues.  I hate to talk about it, but sometimes at work I feel the need to explain why I've lost half my vocabulary since Monday and trip over nonexistent folds in the carpet when trying to walk faster than my usual slog.  She always makes me feel so much better, and she reminded me that there's a big difference between two and three and things will continue to get better, and if all else fails, eventually you can just tell the child to sit on the couch, then, while Mommy sleeps anyway. 

I tend to forget that there will come a time when I don't have to physically protect the little angel from doing things like sticking keys in light sockets and braining herself with the furniture and stealing the cat's food while Sybil is trying to eat.  There will come a time when I don't have to protect her from hair in her mouth and broken flower stems and the need for the Baby Slugrrr to have his diaper changed RIGHT NOW. 

After this conversation with L., I hauled my sleep-deprived self over to the soda machine and found myself trying to picture the little angel with a driver's license, perhaps lying one masseuse table over from me as we discuss where we're going to have dinner after we finish shopping.  This visual gives me the strength to deal.  Is that so wrong?

I had a bit of a nervous breakdown last weekend.  My ability to hold down my corporate job, write for my magazines, teach my class, parent my daughter and exist as a functioning member of society petered out like a garden hose.  As I cried to my husband on the ride home from my parents' house, he (just as my mother had when I snotted all over her in the parking lot of an upscale strip mall in Omaha) asked me What. Can. You. Cut. Out.?

People are always asking me that.  And I usually want to throttle them, because they always suggest I cut out the "extracurricular" stuff, like getting a master's degree, writing fiction, writing magazine articles, writing my blog, teaching my class, seeing my friends, traveling. In other words, the things I like to do.  No one ever suggests quitting my day job, because We. Need. The. Money.

I know, everyone has to work.  My family is often shocked I would question my need to earn.  It's not that I don't want to work, though - I love to work!  On my writing! I just don't! Love! To! Work! In! An! Office! Doing! Stuff! That's! Not! Writing!

Still, I know he has a point. I need to be doing this now, while he builds his business.  So I've been looking for a job that will allow me to at least work sane hours and not make me want to drive a nail into my eyeball every time I attend a meeting with more than two people around the conference table.  That's a project in process.

He also brought up that of all of my "extracurricular" activities, teaching offers me the least emotional return on investment. I spend up to ten hours a week driving to and from class, teaching the class, grading papers and doing the administrative things. For this, I get only enough money to make us owe taxes every year.  I did it initially because I thought that some nice community college would hire me for a full-time teaching job eventually, allowing me summers off and hence more time for the writing.  It always went back to how can I get more time for the writing without having to go all Toni Morrison and get up at four a.m. to write.  I know she did that. I bet her kid didn't wake her up every morning at two, though. This morning I got up at two, fell asleep on her floor, got off her floor and went back to bed at four, then got up to get her some milk at 5:30 and finally gave up on that sleeping thang and got in the shower at 6:30. This schedule of naps that I like to call "my nighttime sleeping" is not so conducive to early-morning inspiration.

I'm bitching to you, aren't I?  (sigh) I'm trying really hard not to be so negative.

Anyway, I decided that my beloved did, in fact, have some good points.  Something had to go. Time with the little angel is the nonnegotiable constant in my life.  Everything else lines up in a little row, including, unfortunately, my beloved and myself.  So in order to not just be a ship passing in the night forever, I decided to get real about finding a more manageable day job and stop with the teaching.

Last night, my shining star student told me her twin sister was going to take composition from me in the fall. Then the guy who's my age and hates school told me I'm the only teacher he likes.  It was kind of like when you finally decide to chop off all your hair, then it looks AWESOME on the way to the salon.

Here's the thing, though: I know I'm good at teaching composition. I like doing it.  It is with not a small amount of wistfulness that I sent the e-mail yesterday to my dean telling her I'm not available except to sub in the fall.  I also like biking, but we've decided we're not going to go on RAGBRAI (a bike ride across Iowa that my beloved and I both love to do) this year, either, because we don't really have time to train for it, and we just can't handle any more pressure right now.  I like to sail my twelve-foot AMF Puffer, but we didn't do that at all last year, and I want to make time to do it this year. I like to see my friends. I like to go on dates.  I like to do a million things that I'm not doing much of right now.

In retrospect, letting go of teaching was good in that it made me sit down and list all of the things I like to do.  I'm a really interesting person.  Whee!  I hate having to cut things out, though.  My father-in-law once told me the hardest thing about having kids is having to give things up.  I thought he was just being negative and old-fashioned. I thought I would be able to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, make cookies and write novels, all without skipping a workout.  I've been humbled by this parenting thing.  But rather than giving things up, I'm trying to look at it as forced prioritization. I'm actually writing more than I have in years, simply because I've had to give up so many other great things to do it.  So maybe this whole exercise hasn't been a total loss.

Next week is my final exam.  I wonder if I'll ever give another?

Today when I picked the little angel up from Toddler High (whee!  Her teacher was back today!  With a new haircut!  A week after her husband died!  We love you, Ms. L.) I noticed that her friends S. and J. were sporting shiny new bite marks on their wrists.  A matched set.  Their mommies were studying their wrists, trying to determine if they had, in fact, just bitten each other.

I was a tad worried.  Remember, the little angel was once a perp.  I marched right into Toddler High and bribed the young afternoon girl to tell me if the little angel had bitten anyone. 

Young Afternoon Girl:  "Oh, no, she's never bitten anyone in this room."

Me:  "Well, she bit Baby M. in Waddler B.  A couple of times."

Young Afternoon Girl: (shocked) "Really?  I can't imagine it."

Me:  "Well, it was personal." (under breath) "The little bastard totally had it coming."

We stopped and picked up my beloved to head to Lowe's to pick up paint, because I, dear readers, am finally going to paint our heinous home office a lovely fog color with shiny white trim.  Then we will put up our fancy new wall sconce.  And then, we will have Zen in Home Office.  Except for the carpet, which Sybil has puked on so many times that I've stopped doing much besides wiping it up with a Kleenex and praying that the money tree will rejuvenate fast enough to pay down our credit card debt so we can re-carpet the damn place before someone has the house condemned.

In the car, I told my beloved about all the biting.  I wondered who had done it.  Then I thought Hey!  She's verbal now!  MAYBE SHE WILL SPILL IT.  The power - it was giddying.

Me:  "So, do you know who did the biting?"

Little Angel:  "I want a cwackwer."

Me:  "Who bit S?"

Little Angel:  "Goldfishie!  I want a goldfishie cwackwer."

Me:  "Did you see anyone bite S. and J.?"

Little Angel:  "Mommy."

Me:  "Huh?"

Little Angel:  (brandishing crumbled Goldfish)  "Mommy did it."

This weekend we went to Iowa to visit Mother Who Is Now Convinced I'm Not Wiccan and Father Who Wouldn't Have Noticed Had I Not Pointed It Out.  We had a great time, but when we returned, we smelled something.  A little, no a LOT of something.  Maybe even something rotten.

The last time I smelled this particular smell, I was pregnant with the little angel and deeply in throes of morning (which, sistah, is not constrained to "morning") sickness. Thank goodness that was not the case this time, because I might have just DIED.  We caught our big, fat mousie.  And, unfortunately, I think we caught our mousie on like Friday at four p.m., even though we didn't get home until Sunday at three.

While I retired outdoors making immature gagging noises, my beloved removed big, fat mousie and put him in the trash, commenting loudly on what a good, fat mousie and obviously well-fed mousie he was.  And how he probably had lots of brothers and sisters. GAH. I made evil eyes at Sybil, who is so nice as a companion but so utterly useless as a cat that I can hardly believe she still fits the physical description.  She didn't seem put off in the least that she'd been oblivious to a small metal-and-wood device and a mini Three Muskateers totally doing her job for her.

While we were outside, the little angel noticed a miniscule ant climbing along the pavement.  We were doing more sidewalk chalk, which is this month's favorite game. 

Little angel:  "OH!  What's this??" (She pointed at the ant with one still-chubby finger.  Her fingers do not seem to realize that they should fall in line with her skinny hips that make every pair of 24-month jeans look all K-Fed, resulting in me following her around the mall play place yelling "Pull your pants up!" like SUCH A MOM.)

Me:  "That's an ant."

Little angel:  "Where's he going?"

Me:  "He's going to find his friends."

Little angel:  "Oh, NO!  No friends?"

Me:  "He has some friends."  (I start pointing them out. My, but we have a lot of ants.)

The little angel reached down to pet the ant and promptly squashed him.  He didn't completely die, though, just lay there waggling his legs in what was probably excruciating pain. I wasn't sure if I should reprimand her or what.  I mean, we were outside to avoid having to explain big, fat mousie's recent demise.  I don't know after last week how many more death conversations I have in me right now.

Me:  "I think he's tired now.  Maybe we should play with chalk again."

When she turned back around, I put the poor ant out of his misery.  And actually, I sort of felt bad.

After the chalk, we walked around to the front of the house to check on Mommy's flower, Daddy's flower and the little angel's flower.  Mine and my beloved's are Gerber daisies.  I pulled off one of the stems that had lost its bloom and threw it to the side.  The little angel saw me.

Little angel:  "OH, NO!!!  Mommy!  It's BROKEN!!!"

Then the little ant-smasher proceeded to pick up the broken-off stem and replant it in the pot.  I didn't stop her.  I just can't get too deeply into the reality of the big, cruel world yet.  She's only two.