1. Chart Todd's naps, including date, place, and duration.
2. Clean my bathroom on Saturday night.
3. When I’m planning to exercise the following morning, I go to sleep with the workout DVD already in the player, and my workout clothes on. Then when my alarm goes off I hit the snooze 6-8 times and get up 20 minutes before class starts.
4. Sleep with a watch on.
5. Get unnaturally excited about renting a self-storage unit.
Be forewarned. The next time you talk to me, I’m probably going to spend the first 10 minutes gushing about our newly acquired self-storage unit. Todd and I move all the time, which means we never really live anywhere. At our present locale, we don’t have a basement, attic, or garage, which means our bikes are in our bedroom and we use Rubbermaid Totes as end tables.
But not anymore.
Upon deciding to rent out a storage room, we became giddy, running around our apartment, picking up anything: a bowling ball, tomato stakes, garbage bags of newborn onesies. What about this? Can we put this in storage?! Nothing was safe. I coud write a whole blog post on how important I deem storage, not to mention the mental clarity I achieve when I feel a space de-cluttered of seasonal items.
6. Order socks off Amazon.
7. Order a Chinese earpick with a flashlight attachment off Amazon.
8. Sympathize with Kim Kardashian.
9. Critique the footwear choices of TV Moms.
I did this before. Now I’m just louder about it because I think I have more credibility.
10. Entertain nightmare scenarios for Mae, e.g. explaining Moses was not one of the Founding Fathers, even though her Texas school book says so.
During a discussion on abortion (What was I thinking?!) in my class, one of my students said, “If she can lie on her back for a man, she can lie on her back for a baby.” When I got home I cracked open a fresh box of wine, clutched Mae, and sat on the floor listening to Mary Lambert. My knee jerk reaction is to home school her, forever, on a boat that we sail around the world together.
11. Google rhetorical questions, e.g. “Babies can’t choke on liquids, right?”
I’ve made Todd promise that when I die the first thing he should do is delete my history. Perhaps in this age this goes without saying, but I needed a verbal commitment from him. It’s too important, and not because my history is weird; it’s more like a painful museum of neuroses, and no one needs to see that.
12. Engage in lengthy discussions about humidifiers, car seat regulations, and the nuances of infant bowel movements, late at night with Todd over red wine.
13. Ask for glass food storage containers for Christmas.
14. Hum “Hickory Dickory Dock” to myself.
15. Do all my work on the floor while the cats nap in our leather recliner.
16. Order Japanese hair wax for men off ebay.
I’ve been searching for the perfect hair product for years, and I finally found it: in Asian convenient stores. It isn’t sold in America, but it’s so worth it. Without it my hair looks and feels like shag carpeting.
17. Get jacked up about donating platelets.
It’s. The. Best. You sit with your feet up for an hour and a half, watch a movie and intermittently request snacks and drinks. It’s like a manicure but better because you don’t have to make small talk. It is also a healthy civilian task to complete that makes me feel like a superhero.
