While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Upon meeting a blog reader for the first time

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I’ve got this fabulously funny blog reader in Ontario, Canada. Her name is Sara (from My Mother’s Daughter) and she’s been a loyal reader pretty much since I launched the Lance five years ago. Our relationship began over a boob cake, but more on that later.

We didn’t know each other prior to blogging. She simply started reading my stuff and I started reading her stuff. From there we became good ‘ol fashioned internet friends bound by what I can only describe as identical sensibilities, a crude vocabulary, a compulsion to share crazy ass stories and a love of the song Shoop.

We’re goofballs separated at birth.

Mutual blog affection led to random email exchanges. Sara’s emails usually began with sentences like, “Warning: the following story is gross.” Or “My friend is going to be on TLC tonight with her daughter who has dwarfism.” Or “I dyed my hair really dark last night and a girl at work told me it gave me a crazy look in my eyes.” Or “My mom just told me old age is causing her to lose the ability to control her farts.” Or “You make my ovaries dance.”

Sometimes she’d write nothing and attach a red carpet photo of Tina Yothers, whom she resembles. The subject line: “Jennifer – Family Ties.”

For Christmas one year Sara mailed me my favorite Tim Horton’s coffee, complete with a Timmy Ho’s mug. The package arrived ON Christmas. (I still don’t know how this happened. The mail doesn’t come on Christmas.) And soon after Henry was born she mailed me a children’s book about a bear in tighty whities. Does she know me or what?

So when I learned that she and some friends were renting a vacation house this month in Palmetto, we immediately made plans to get together and meet face-to-face. Her friends thought this was nuts.

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Why I love my husband in three examples

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ball gown prom dress

Today is my wedding anniversary, the celebration of which took place last week at a little-known resort on a little-known slice of local waterfront no one seems to visit. Stay tuned for an un-sponsored (ie: truthful) review of the resort. I started this post on the balcony of my hotel room. I failed to finish it because I was too busy eating and drinking heavily, losing midnight games of Rummy and lounging poolside for hours with highbrow (and lowbrow) literature.

Example 1: He dreams about our son.

Last week Joe woke up with a memory of a dream. This was especially noteworthy because Joe never remembers his dreams, which I find sort of sad since I remember every ridiculous plot line from every one of my ridiculous dreams.

Joe dreamed that two-year-old Henry ate a “pellet” that turned him into a full-sized adult male. In his dream, he watched our son swallow the pellet and like a character from out of a comic book, morph (disconcertingly fast) from a toddler into a hairy, lumbering man.

This really freaked him out – Joe not Henry. According to his recollection, Henry was calm, but “still slimy” from the transformation. Joe’s use of the word “slimy” caused me to CHORTLE.

“Slimy?” I asked. “SLIMY sounds disgusting.”

“It was disgusting,” Joe said. “You don’t change from a toddler to an adult in three seconds without some residual dew.”

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To chase a career or a kid?

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Before I had Henry I was impatient with the world, critical of myself and sometimes of others.

I thought stay-at-home moms had it easy. Worse yet, I thought they were devoid of interests beyond the confines of motherhood. I pictured them schlepping kids from Gymboree class to play dates, dressed in yoga pants and a pained smile. I pictured them chained to the kitchen, the SUV, the laundry basket and the obligatory spin class. I pictured them dutifully scheduling time for mommy pep rallies that celebrate the pleasantries of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing and holistic nutrition. (Dear Earth Mamas: I see nothing wrong with these things. As topics of discussion, however, I find them boring.)

I thought I’d lose my identity as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought I’d compromise my self-worth and freedom. I thought I’d be resentful of my husband and pissed at myself for having failed at being a working mother: the ultimate wonder woman. I thought I’d be considered a disgrace to the radical feminists who came before me and a quitter to the overachieving, have-it-all multitaskers of my generation.

Leaving my job at the newspaper would mean I’d dropped a significant ball in the heroic juggling act that is regularly executed by the modern working mother. I’d be forced to rethink everything I thought I’d do or wouldn’t do as a parent, as if you really know these things before you bring a tiny, demanding, Bambi-eyed being into this world.

I was wrong about working mothers AND stay-at-home mothers. (As an aside, I was right about yoga pants.)

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You’re pregnant forever, and then you’re not

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Two of my closest girlfriends are pregnant right now, both of them due around the same time: late May/early June.

You already know one of them – my best friend Ro. And guess what? Her baby girl (Mia) is due on Henry’s BIRTHDAY: June 5. How’s that for timing?

It’s killing me to not be in New York right now. The last time I saw Ro she was 48 hours pregnant (I’m exaggerating) and supervising my kid at a park while my father and I went about the serious task of testing climbing the park’s playground equipment. Even then it was obvious she exhibited better parenting skills than myself.

Her baby shower is the day before St. Anthony’s Triathlon, thus I am unable to attend. ANOTHER MAJOR BUMMER. Consequently, it is possible that my best friend will fully gestate and I will never see her baby bump in person. UNFATHOMABLE. Fifteen years ago, when I filled three pages in her high school yearbook, I never imagined we’d BARGAIN SHOP without each other much less give birth to babies on opposite ends of the Eastern seaboard. Kvetching over the phone about the marvelousness and shiteousness of pregnancy is not the same as seeing it happen before your eyes. I’ll never get to feel Baby Mia kick Ro in the ribs – at least not in utero anyway.

Ah. But such is life. I signed up for this when I left Buffalo nine years ago. (NINE YEARS AGO?! WHAT?) After a decade away from home your absence no longer goes missed. It simply becomes a matter of fact. You miss Christmases. You miss birthdays. You miss pregnancies. You miss babies being born.

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Beach Shoot :: Hayden Reis

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Thought I’d share some images from last month’s Hayden Reis beach shoot.

Hayden Reis is a line of mega bright sailcloth bags. The company was hatched by a former pharmaceutical sales rep from Sarasota, whom I profiled for the paper shortly before packing up my bags to pursue freelance magazine and photography work.

It was one of my biggest shoots yet: six beautiful women + four adorable kids + a gorgeous location (Hyatt Siesta Key Beach) = so many pictures I maxed out an eight-gig card.

Special thanks to the designer for letting me borrow her camera card. I never expected to fill mine in two hours. I guess I got carried away — as usual.

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Mon ami needs your vote!

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You’ve met Ricci and Mbaye before.

Ricci is one of my nearest and dearest girlfriends. We met six years ago at the newspaper I still write for.

In 2008, she left Florida to work as a freelance multimedia journalist in West Africa, where she met and fell in love with a handsome Senegalese soccer player named Mbaye. Two years ago, I grilled them about their relationship and then last year I introduced you to their baby.

Now I’m asking you to vote for Mbaye in Redbook Magazine’s 2012 Hot Husbands contest.

If you got your hands on the July issue, you may have seen him striking a GQ pose on page 10. He’s now one of 25 finalists in the Hottie Hubby face-off, so please, please cast a vote for him by visiting this link or this link.

Never mind that she’s worked for The New York Times, Ricci desperately wants to claim that she’s married to Redbook’s Hottest Husband of 2012.

Seriously. Is there no greater claim-to-fame? 🙂

—

PS. Photo snapped at the Saturday Morning Market in downtown St. Pete – one of my favorite places to take visiting friends and family. If that knit hat with ears doesn’t scream sex appeal, I don’t know what does.

A Q&A (due) date with Nicole

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Meet Nicole, whose baby girl (Lily) shares the same June 1 due date as my Henry.

Nicole is a teacher in Upstate New York. She used to work with my best friend Ro and my sister Heelya. I actually met her for the first time last July at Ro’s wedding in Buffalo. Joe and I were tearing up the dance floor when this beautiful, leggy blonde came up to us, introduced herself and said she was an avid Lance reader.

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Pregnancy Confession No. 7

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[I'm vain.]

This confession has been eating at me for some time now.
In true-confession style, it fills me with tremendous guilt.

It makes me feel weak
and superficial.

And to those of you who don't share
my neurosis,
 I apologize.

Because in admitting this hang-up
I'm letting go of it.

Truth is
I wasn't cool about gaining weight.

Why?
Because as much as I enjoy eating.
(And believe me. I enjoy eating.)

I also enjoy exercising.

And I've taken pleasure in the fact that
I've been able to maintain my weight for many years
by eating healthy
and staying physically active.

It's in no way an obsessive thing.

It is,
I admit,
a control thing.

And very little has compromised that control
until now.

For obvious reasons. 

I'm now 36 weeks pregnant.

A rounder, bustier version of myself.
A baby apartment
with a tenant whose lease is up in four weeks.

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Life is like a jar of pickles

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Tomorrow is 2011. The date sounds so futuristic to me.

Tonight Joe and I have dinner reservations at a trendy new restaurant in downtown St. Pete.

I plan on wearing a dress, red lipstick and high heels.

I’ve looked forward to this date all week.

And yes, I plan on having a sip (or two) of champagne. The baby and I could use a little fizz to ring in the New Year.

But that’s tonight.

Right now it’s 4:11 in the afternoon and I’m still digesting the sandwiches I made today for myself and my friend Wendy Joan, who pedaled her bicycle over to my place today for lunch.

Tomato, mozzarella and basil on pita with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, followed by strawberry salad, followed by chocolate truffles. Deeeeeelicious.

So, yeah, I keep thinking 2011 sounds futuristic, but right now the coming year feels comfortably quaint.

Why is that?

First: because Wendy brought me the cutest jar of homemade pickles. (That’s the jar above. Adorable, right?)

Second: because she rode her bicycle here.

Third: because she used to live in Sarasota, but recently moved to St. Pete and now we live a mere two miles apart.

Fourth: because Wendy is originally from Buffalo, which means we immediately have 500 Buffalo things to talk about, like the fact that she also worked at the McKinley Mall and that there’s a pretty good chance that during my four years at Waldenbooks our paths unknowingly crossed a dozen times.

Fifth: because Wendy is also a journalist.

When I woke up this morning I thought about how I want to feel in 2011. I thought about how nice it would be to stretch out the simple pleasures a little more. Of course I have my big goals and my big plans, but it’s the little stuff in between that keeps the big goals on track.

Little pleasures keep us well oiled. They make us better equipped for plowing through big stuff, heavy stuff.

The way I see it, if I can start off 2011 with a jar of homemade pickles, I’m doing alright.

Happy New Year, beloved Lance-a-lots. It’s gonna be a good one.

The joys of being a post office groupie

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I’m sitting on a futon in my living room.The pug is curled up beside me, snoring. He woke up about five minutes ago and burrowed out from under the covers of the bed, where Joe is currently (still) sleeping (in).

By June we’ll have a baby in this house, which means I now regard my husband’s sleeping habits with bitter sweetness.

The pug and I are on a futon because I sold our brown couch Thursday for $80 on Craigslist. (Yes, the brown couch my men are asleep on in the photo to your left.)

Over the course of nine months, I managed to save $1,092 in a mason jar to purchase a plush new sofa with an enormous seat and an equally enormous ottoman.

I told Joe it was important that I have a soft place to land as I get fatter and more pregnant. So, Merry Christmas to me.

But that’s not the point of this post.

As evidenced by the title, I’m here to espouse the pleasures of penpalship.

That’s right. PEN PALS.

Do you have one?

Chances are you had one many moons ago. It used to be that teachers encouraged the old-fashioned art of letter writing by hooking students up with pen pals in cities far from yours. Of course this was prior to email, which I’m also a fan of but for reasons completely separate from why I adore ACTUAL HANDWRITTEN MAIL.

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