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If this were LiveJournal, I would set my mood as “accomplished.”  It isn’t even 10am, and I have already been to work (and sent home because I’m not supposed to be there until 11:30 today–oops!), to Home Depot, and reconfigured Thor’s bed to alleviate his (and my) anxiety about the possibility of him rolling out of it and into a full body cast.

When we moved into the new place and set up Thor’s bed, I wasn’t really worried about him rolling out.  He hasn’t fallen out of his bed since he was about three-years-old, and that only happened once, or twice, and I had built a border of pillows to act as a bumper.  But lately, he has been saying he’s afraid he’s going to fall out, so I have been figuring out how to help his fear.

Originally, his bed looked like this:

The bed came with an extra panel, in the event that we wanted to remove the staircase from the side and use a regular bunk ladder.  I’ve had that up in his closet until today.  Today, I added hinges and a sliding bolt, and attached that to the bed rail.  The configuration was important.  I wanted to place the panel so that I could still (climb up the stepladder) and tuck him in, but I also wanted it to be placed so that he couldn’t just roll easily out of the bed from the head, or the foot.  Also, I needed to be able to move the panel enough to make the bed, hence the hinges.

And that should do it!

And here is why I will never be an artist:  I think to myself, “I feel like painting.  I really want to paint [thisandsuch].”  And then I think, “Why is paint so messy?  I wish paint weren’t so messy.  I should just draw something instead.  Where are all the pens?”  And, of course, by the time I find a pen, the moment is gone.

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Here is why I will never be an accomplished musician:  I spend so much time tuning the instrument, that all my patience for playing it is gone.

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It was a very happy Mother’s Day, spent with my favorite people.  Mom and Thor played badminton in the backyard, while B and I stood inside watching.  Then Mom and I picked up a classmate of Thor’s and went bowling.  After that, birthday dinner for Mom.

I love having a mother.  I love being a mother.  I know exactly how fortunate I am in both cases, and I am so grateful for every moment.

There are times when I wish I had more children.  Listening to Thor explain to his friend’s siblings that he is an only child brought those feelings to the surface, today.  But I have this one.  And this one is an excellent one.  I am extremely fortunate.

What follows is my best relationship tip, which isn’t really a relationship tip at all, but a how-to-be-you tip.

I am not a romance for the sake of itself kind of girl.  I dislike romantic comedies, I dislike most chick-lit, I dislike gender roles, and a lot of tender gestures (of past boyfriends–I’m sorry Past Boyfriends!) go right over my head.  Notably, a PB got me flowers for Valentine’s Day and did this amazing, romantic reveal, and I got excited because I thought he was celebrating President’s Day, and how adorable was that?!  Who celebrates President’s Day?!  Adorbs!  The look on his face…I should have known right then that the relationship would end.

Anyway.  Not romantic.  However… 

When B and I got married, even though I am not truly the kind of girl who wants flowers for Valentine’s Day, or sleigh rides at Christmas (or at all because, horse poop), or orchestrated displays of affection that culminate with videos of me crying with joy on YouTube, I found myself getting angry, frustrated and feeling wounded that I wasn’t getting V-Day flowers, horse poop, or embarrassing commentary on the internet about how ugly I am when I cry.  And I became sulky and sad about it.

I also chastised myself over feeling sulky and sad because I knew B wasn’t a hearts and flowers guy when I married him, and it was wrong to expect this very pragmatic man to suddenly show up at my office with a barbershop quartet to perform the love song he’d written about how sweet my ankles are.  And since I didn’t really want that–good lord–I couldn’t figure out why I was so upset.

I’m a navel gazer, so I looked down into the scrying bowl of my bellybutton as I soaked in the bathtub and attempted to decipher my own behavior.  It wasn’t that I wanted flowers or grand gestures, it was that I wanted tangible proof that B was thinking of me, and the easiest translation of of that thought were the media approved tropes of FTD, Hallmark Moments, and the Kiss Cam.

Once I had figured out what I really wanted, I could ask for it and stop being so darned petulant.  And once I asked for the attention, I had to pay attention to what B believed was proof of his love and attraction for me, and I had to accept that for what it was–and I asked him to consider what I preferred and meet me halfway.

It took a while for me to retrain my sensibilities to accept tickle attacks, having wet hands wiped on my dry hair, and other aggravating overtures as B’s sincere offerings of adoration, and it took a while for B to retrain himself to send me mundane (or adoring) text messages and emails during the week.  And two Valentine’s Days have passed since then, with no flowers to the office, but I couldn’t feel more loved.  (Do feel free to send flowers to my office if you read this, Dear.  I don’t need it to feel loved, but I love it when I can scoreboard my coworkers with an IN YOUR FACE! token of desirability.)

My advice boils down to this:

1. Figure out what it is that you really want.
2. Ask for what you want.*
3. Be ready to compromise to accept what your partner is able to offer (unless your partner is a complete troll and tells you to suck it, in which case, be ready to move on.)
4. Do your part to model the behavior you want to see, and be patient.  The best relationships aren’t built overnight.  They are built over decades.

*For a long time I thought that if I had to ask for it, it didn’t count because it wasn’t organically inspired.  That only works if you are partnered with The Amazing Kreskin.  Tell your partner what you want.  Then, if they give it to you be a better woman than I was after my first meltdown that I didn’t get a Mother’s Day card and say, “Thank you,” and mean it.

So…Kohl’s.

I never liked Kohl’s much previously, but since we’ve moved over to this side of town, I’ve had occasion to visit one a few times, and I’ve found something there every time.  I haven’t bought something every time because I don’t think too highly of their prices, but I’ve found things.  Tonight, because I needed a dress to wear to an event, I headed over there.  I tried on and really loved several things.

I ended up with this dress from the Jennifer Lopez collection, which really surprised me.  Not the dress, since I obviously liked it, or I wouldn’t have pulled it off the rack, but that this was Jennifer Lopez.  It’s so…me.

I absolutely loved everything in the Vera Wang line, and I am also ridiculously fond of the Lauren Conrad collection.  Unfortunately, I only needed one dress, and I won’t buy clothes I don’t need (anymore.)  So, I picked the dress I could get the most wear out of, and then found a handful of accessories to round it out.

A pair of gold earrings and a little gold bangle will set that off nicely, I think.

As a bonus, here is a partial shot of me in another of the JLo collection.  It was a one shoulder, print, mini dress that looked like it belonged on the set of a video filmed on the Golden Girls’ lanai–seriously, how can a mini-dress made by a woman so young, look so very, very old?  So of course I had to try it on.  Thor told me that he hated it.  “Of course not!” He cried when I asked if I should buy it.  When I asked why not, he said, “Because part of your body is sticking out of it!”