A few weeks ago Boogie woke up and decided she would become a cliche, embodying all of those fabulous habits and personality quirks that traditionally characterize a tiny person’s second year of life. And, as a result, I could probably put the promoters who have had to address Beyonce’s tour riders to shame with all of the outlandish demands I’ve met and accommodations I’ve been making lately. Though she has been devilishly clever enough to make me fall desperately in love with her, in turn successfully preventing me from throwing her in the Goodwill donation box alongside that hideous, mistake of a lamp I just *had* to have a few years ago.

But, my friends, I have discovered a light at the end of the Parenting-a-two-year-old-without-mainlining-vodka tunnel. And that light is peer pressure.

Need to combat the subliminal message they pump through the grocery store alerting your child that it is now time to act like a complete lunatic? Peer Pressure. Need to get your kid to stop pooping in their drawers and start using a toilet like the rest of the civilized world? Peer Pressure. Tired of snickering behind your child’s back when they attempt to jump, and need to coax them into actually picking their feet up off the floor instead of simply grunting and bending their knees? Peer Pressure.

So far it has worked in my favor, though lord knows how I am going to manage the cliff jumping analogy when trying to talk her out of going with her friends to get a tattoo of my face with “Word to Your Motha” underneath it.

outtie like a pregnant lady’s belly button,

I’m not saying that to be cheeky or cute, because I am telling you now, if it isn’t because I didn’t breastfeed her until she knew her multiplication tables, it’s because I let her eat those little fish shaped crackers…You know the ones we used to eatback before we were all anti-gluten (we’re still doing that, right?) and before we realized refined carbs and sugars were the root of all failing grades and ‘talks too much in class’ report card comments.

And I honestly didn’t realize until I was reading a post on another mom blog that I was supposed to have picked a parenting philosophy. See, in those very early days of motherhood instead of trying to figure out what parenting dogma was supposed to be “guiding” me, I was just trying to make it through the day without putting her in a box in front of the Super Wal-Mart with a hand-scribbled sign saying ‘Free Baby’ (don’t worry, on the good days I considered leaving her in front of Target or Nordstroms). And by the time I was on the other side of all that business, I’m pretty sure she’d already racked up future therapy bills in the thousands. So I guess my philosophy is something along the lines of, “keep ‘em alive and give ‘em a few good stories for when they are on the couch at the least, or go for the gold and give them something they can sell for a good memoir.”

But, now I’m feeling bad because TIME put some freaky, extreme example of an attachment parent (attachment parenting is one of those philosophies we were just talking about) on their cover. Why does it make me feel bad? Because Boogie’s therapist is going to be really bored with her if she’s going to be competing with kids who are breastfeeding well into grade school.

And it also makes me feel bad because it just points out that yes Virginia, people still use motherhood as a way to marginalize women by focusing on a woman’s decision to be a full time parent. Yes, attachment parents can be intense, but holy cow…are we really applauding how progressive it is for a man to stay home with the kids while using attachment parenting to tell women that a more traditional take on motherhood isn’t a fulfilling or valid choice for them, that as the anti-feminists, they are the ones who are making things harder for their daughters in society?

Now that confusing mess of messages, my friends, is probably more likely to put my kid on the couch than the fact that yes, there are days when I’d rather see a bunch of people bitching in my Facebook feed than read you “The Pout-Pout Fish” for the sevety-frillionth time.

we out,

In the past few weeks Boogie turned two and got the news she was going to be a big sister. She was all “meh”

Well readers, I’ve done it again. I’ve gone and gotten myself all knocked up, and this time I have decided to make sure I am at my most plump and uncomfortable during the most scorching months of the year, as you do.

Not that this was primarily my doing. Nor, quite frankly, was it the result of a moment of complete mental clarity.  However, as I am ripping off the proverbial progeny band-aid, and putting the deplorable diapers and crusty fingers all up in my grill phase behind me on a faster time table than once thought, we couldn’t be happier.

I’ve made it to 16 weeks. That, my friends, is only 24 weeks away from margaritas with the girls courtesy of frozen breast milk and a stealthy get away in the night. And since I know you’re not counting, I’m due on October 25.

Speaking of the girls…I am very glad to say they are back. And since this is the last time we will be together, it will be very hard to convince me that my B-cup doesn’t make a fantastic push up bra at this stage in the game. I know where they are going after this, and we’re going to enjoy one another’s company more fully this go ’round.

May I reiterate that this is the last time we are doing “this”?

Last time we did “this”, my uncontrollable craving for square-shaped fast food burger patties coupled with my weakness for eating seven cupcakes in one sitting (they were angel food cake!) lead to a 20 lb weight gain by this stretch marked point. My crippling need for black bean burgers, peach flavored water, and apples this time not only has sent up a big, red WTF banner…but has also happily resulted in only 7 lbs of gain. But don’t be alarmed dear readers, I just celebrated that victory with two single-serving bags of sea salt kettle chips.

We’re in the painful process of converting Boogie’s playroom into a nursery, a prospect that is at once daunting and at the same time cause for celebration as I can justify packing away all of her toys with tiny pieces…for the safety of the new baby since the safety of the pads of my feet pale in comparison.

Being a parent of two, that’s like woah.

devil horns | mel

That gigantic head has a life of it’s own: slamming into and splitting your delicate lips that are just trying to survive the winter, landing square on the bridge of your nose when you (and your language censor) least expect it, and colliding with floors/furniture/major appliances for no apparent reason.

And it only takes a few days of healthy head growth and sub-par hair sprouting until your precious baby goes from a baby skullet to this…

Good gah! She has a bad baby toupee!

As Boogie approaches the big second birthday, a milestone wherein the doctor will actually measure her head and give us an accurate idea of how it compares to normal heads her age, she now rests her giant heed on her wee pillah with a baby toupee that makes Gene Simmons’ toupee look convincing.

It’s a challenge having a baby with an ever increasing cranial circumference. What, with all the tugging that it takes to get her sweaters (all open in the back might I add) over her head each morning, and then prying them off her head each night. And having to constantly clear the air space when she gets to excited and that thing starts whipping around.

We’re just hoping that the rest of her body catches up before she starts looking to much like a Blythe doll, or before it turns into something like this…

(Also, I am tagging this post with big headed baby.)

devil horns | melody

First Birthdays the Mister (left), Boogie (center), Me (right).

They say a foggy memory is the first sign that you are aging, but I’m here to tell you that it’s more likely that you’ll be driving along (during the day of course because you can’t see so well at night) when you flip to a radio station and find that your music collection has been hijacked and turned into an oldies station.

Perhaps there were musical harbingers of oldness that I had chosen to ignore: the fact that I own vinyl and not in that hipster cool way but in the you can borrow my copy of “Chipmunk Punk” way, the fact that I have a massive collection of tapes (one being a recording of when Q 106.5 went off the air here in St Louis because at my age for whatever reason I thought that would be something worth documenting), and the fact I spent a very long summer afternoon sipping margaritas and moving my tomes of high school music into my iTunes library. That’s right, I have been alive long enough to legitimately own three different types of music storage media. Three because I am just on this side of 8-tracks.

A couple of weekends ago as my thirty-second birthday (yes, I am not old enough to have to lie about it yet) approached, a local alt-rock station-the one that took me from Seattle-grunge virgin to progressive rock woman-was having what they call a “Way Back Weekend.” Now mind you this isn’t the first I’ve heard of this, but it was the first time that it occurred to me that I knew the words to every.single.song. Songs I learned in a pre-Google-era, when you would pray for lyrics on the CD insert or get creative with your EQ to isolate lyrics because it was crucial you knew every word. An era when life was so easy that you actually had time to devote to learning Nirvana’s entire library-which in all their random glory requires a higher level of functioning that even four years of college level lit classes hasn’t helped me figure out. My high school CD collection is now considered a throwback.

During said “wayback weekend” I found myself singing along to a Stabbing Westward song that I has considered a favorite, a song that was so passionate and resonated so well with my love-torn 18-year-old heart. As the song ended, without having forgotten a single word mind you, I turned to the Mister and said, “God that song is way melodramatic.”

Also, get off my lawn.

devil horns | mel

Since she is also becoming increasingly enamored of electronics, a love that started some time ago with licking outlets and hanging on floor lamps, it is nearly impossible to capture her musical styling on video. Instead of beautiful baby music all you would see is an extreme closeup of her mouth and incessantly running nasal cavities, maybe a few teeth, and sea-sickness inducing panning and swooping view of our home as I avoid her desperately clawing, sticky, pudgy fingers.

But never fear, there is an exact rendering of her vocal prowess that can be found right here on the interwebz. You need only close your eyes, press play and be magically transported to Chez Meiners and Boogie’s skillz…it’s like living here without the poopy diaper smell or having your white sweater smeared with tomato sauce.

taste teh awesome | melody

As a human we all have our dark moments, but it has to be one of the darkest places a person can go to be able to look at their own child and be able to beat them with such force, so often that their little life slips from them.

My gut reaction to hearing his mother had done this was tears. Tears that would not stop all day today. They caught my breath and surprised me. I cannot fathom that the last moments of that poor baby’s short life-one that had not had enough time to develop a callous, one that didn’t have time to become jaded-were spent scared and afraid of the person he loved the most in this world. A person he trusted.

And I can’t fathom just how dark of a place his mother could have been in to watch his fear, pain and suffering without being able to have one joyful memory call her back and make it stop.

I heard many people say they weren’t surprised to hear today’s news. That the Casey Anthonies of this world have become so much a part of our American psyche that they knew his mother was responsible before she was arrested today. What a sad mark upon the face of this world that is. I don’t blame them though, and they were right.

But as a mother it is so far from my comprehension and belief in people to be able to fathom that a person is capable of murdering their own child. And so many times this has happened lately. It tries a person’s resolve, and it is haunting.

Bits of information, the color of his pajamas, his blanket, anything that might help the search began furiously circulating on social media and local news outlets.

I can’t tell you how many times I have awoken in a panic to find the clock reading 9:30am, realizing I didn’t wake up to Boogie’s special brand of  morning screeches.  It’s a parent’s worst nightmare-something happens in those few, vulnerable hours when you aren’t there to stop it. Call it new parent panic, or just being a parent, it’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.

Tears burned my eyes just a few hours later when I noticed updates about the case had stopped scrolling across the bottom of my screen. The SARAA alert had been called off. I dreaded every second I watched the screen as I hit rewind, finally seeing those last few scrolling sentences say they had identified the body found near the boy’s home as Tyler’s.

I grabbed Boogie tight, gave her as many kisses as I could until she head-butted the bridge of my nose nice and good, and decided this…

Never will I ever feel sorry for myself because I had to clean up your spilled cup of milk.

Never will I ever take for granted that you will be there when my work is through.

Never will I ever promise a moment to someone who won’t appreciate it the way you would.

Never will I ever feel it can’t get any worse when I can hear your giggles.

Never will I ever take one smile, one moment, one day for granted. Not as long as I am your mommy and you are my Boogie.

My gratitude mixes with pain as my heart, thoughts and prayers go out to the mother and family who are today facing their worst nightmare.

**Updated at 10:02pm, Tyler was actually 13-months-old at the time of his murder, not 18 months as I had originally read.

Like taking ice cream from this baby...

I don’t mean to be all apocalyptic, but I also may or may not be hoarding food-stuffs in my basement.

What used to be welcome signs of the first tender days of summer, the quiet song of the cicada and the face-warming temperatures of late-Spring, have turned on everyone. They have become the deafening roar of horny, obscenely large bugs, and the sweltering stickiness that I usually associate with the end of summer, when my liver is so exhausted from patios and margaritas that it has chosen to travel alongside me on a skateboard.

We are only a few weeks into summer and it is shaping up to be about as appealing as eating a Blowpop while grooming a collie.

Because my uterus has essentially delivered up a tether to my front porch in the form of Boogie, I have been spending most of these sweltering days indoors. It is slowly becoming an elective quarantine though since the few occasions I’ve ventured out have done more to instill the fear in me than they have for curing my cabin fever.

Is there anything worse than taking ice cream from a baby, your baby no less, then being dive-bombed by a cicada as you are trying to stuff her very angry, very chubby little limbs into her car seat? Probably not. Unless of course you include that horny, obscenely large bug landing in the handle of your car door, and an entire restaurant watching as you roundhouse said door trying to scare it from its lazy landing spot. Or if you were to compound it with that awkward teen drive-thru worker who simply came out to offer assistance, probably at the beckoning of the lone patron who could breathe out a plea on your behalf in between laughs, only to be greeted with you screaming in his face like a banshee because he walked up too quietly behind you (the better to infiltrate that horny, obscenely large bug’s enemy lines of course).

Not that that would happen to anyone.

And we aren’t going to talk about how many times horny, obscenely large bugs have hitched a ride inside prompting you to strip off your pants, shirt or other assorted piece of clothing and throw it outside overnight.

Not that that would happen to anyone either.

Anyhow, I need to get back to buying canned goods and water… you know, not that storing food has anything to do with that earthquake that woke my arse up way too early this morning.

devil horns | melody

Photo credit: J Pollack Photography

The Mister: I don’t know if you heard me ask it the other day, but what do you think about having another kid? They say two years separation is ideal.

Me: {Diamond Cutter}

Image credit: anorak.co.uk

Devil Horns | Melody