There’s a reason why I need to make sure I take my Prozac on time, every single day. I normally take it first thing in the morning, but since I forgot to pick up my refill last night, I didn’t get my dose until after three this afternoon.

I’m so damn crabby right now that, if blended with some garlic, mayo and panko and lightly fried in butter, I’d be one fine and tasty crabcake. I’d probably be flaming mad about the grease burns and being suffocated in mayo and whatnot, but that’s beside the point.

I completely blame my mood on my neglect on the drug front, because it makes no sense that these things are bothering me:

• It’s a lovely 63 degrees outside. I would love nothing more than to lie on my couch and rot what remains of my brain with last night’s recorded “American Idol”. To fully enjoy this, I need for my stupid dogs to be outside. If the dogs are inside during “Idol”, they howl along with the shitty singers and totally ruin the experience for me. The dogs refuse to go outside. If it was 20 degrees outside, they would pacing the floors, whining and making me nuts to go outside. Not today. You know, I like to toying around on MySpace because 1) I’m a loser at heart, and 2) I like filling out surveys and memes, but I’m ashamed to do them on my blog. Quite often the question “Have you ever been in a fight with your pet?” appears on such surveys. What a stupid question! However, if these fucking dogs do not remove themselves from my house soon, Fight Club might possibly commence. I don’t want to be the person who punches a Basset hound in the neck. I really don’t.
• Speaking of pets, someone from the great state of Alabama came to my blog today by doing a search for “free pron (sic on their part) made from home of people having sex with pets”. Add this to the person in Alabama who recently told me I was inviting Satan to take my child and I have to wonder if Katya, Michelle and my blogless pal Deb are the only people in that state who aren’t loons. I know they’re not, and I’ve probably insulted any other fine Alabama readers of this blog who aren’t loons. For that, I’m sorry. Perhpas the Satan-fearing lady and the pet-fucker should hook up.
• I’m so annoyed with myself that I’m irritated with my dogs because I want to watch “American Idol”. Honestly. If that isn’t a sign of undermedication, nothing is.
• I can’t seem to stop destroying the sock I’m trying to knit.
• I am so completely, utterly fed up with what passes for “news”. Looking at CNN.com right now, the top story is breaking news from the Bahamas regarding the burial of Anna Nicole Smith. There are also headlines about a laughing young woman robbing a bank (Britney?), Robert Blake appealing some case about the murder of his wife, a judge doing a cartwheel in the courtroom because someone stayed sober, and an abandoned tiger and monkey who have become friends. HOLY SHIT! SOMEONE NEEDS TO CALL CNN, BECAUSE THOSE IDIOTS HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT WE’RE IN A WAR! They also seem to have forgotten that Britney Spears is in rehab, because hello?! Not one single headline about that.

Okay, it makes total sense to be pissed off about one. News agencies won’t show the coffins of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but this other shit passes for news? Please.

Oh, but let me tell you my real irritation today. I went to a new coffeehouse. Why? Why in the world would I do such a thing?
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I had a big, long, depressing entry I intended to write today, but instead I spent the evening on the phone with Kristina, which was much better for me than writing about sad things. Maybe tomorrow.

But that’s not amoung the two things I wanted to tell you.

1. That woman in Alabama who commented last week that she’s going to pray that my kid doesn’t inherit my ignorance, which is displayed by my occasional use of the term “devil baby”? Well, she’s not praying nearly hard enough. Today at Hartford, I caught Clara Jane making her devil baby face. As I always do when she makes that face, I made it back at her and said, “Devil Baby!”. To which my child replied. “No. You’re not Devil Baby. You’re Devil Mama.” And don’t you ever forget it, Kid.

2. I just can’t seem to get enough Andrew Bird these days. Yes, I know he’s been the darling of the indie set for a few years now, but I’m just hopping on board. Why? Because of his special guest appearence as Dr. Strings on Clara Jane’s favorite show, Jack’s Big Music Show. Yep, it’s come to this. My main source of discovering all the hip new music that the kids are listening to is the Noggin Network. It’s like preschool on television! And like MTV used to be when they played music!

Devil Mama hopes Gwar makes a special guest appearence and Jack, Mary and Mel’s clubhouse soon.

• Yes, the blog was down for a bit today. I’ve got a nasty habit of ignoring the warning emails I get, warning me that I’m on the verge of exceeding my bandwidth, until things go poof. The Cuz did some stuff to ensure there will be less poof-going.
• Nearly three months after The Giant Weather Dong of Doom whallopped St. Louis, my rinky-dink little redneck township is finally going to start picking up storm debris. B. has been diligently working to haul all the tree crap from the backyard to the curb. As of this afternoon, our house, which sits on a hill, is no longer visible from the street. I’m trying to find a good way to spin this in our real estate listing. “Lot with dense wooded view” sounds pleasing, no?
• Yeah, I’m still obsessively knitting socks. But I might be moving on. Why? Because Friday, after nearly two months of waiting, I finally received the first issue of my Craft subscription. Fuck sock knitting; I’m off to make my own shoes!
• In all seriousness, it’s a pretty inspiring little piece of periodical work. I love this blurb from an editorial by Jean Railla: In the age of hyper-materialism, Paris Hilton, and thousand-dollar “It” bags, perhaps making stuff is the ultimate form of rebellion.

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I’m pleased to report that today has been a good day.

It’s been awhile since we’ve had one of those. Seems like as soon as Clara Jane turned three, a cosmic switch was flipped and she went from being sweet, patient, and polite to being, well, Devil Toddler. I know, I know. It’s because I cursed her with the name Devil Baby. We only use it when she makes this face, I swear. It’s not like we address her as Devil Baby. Well, not unless she demands that we do so.

But considering the sudden change in my child’s personality that started the very day she turned three (which, I don’t have to remind you, is the root of 6, which is the basis of That Number Of Which We Shall Not Speak, Lest We Get Eaten By Cloven-Hooved Beasts), I’m starting to think that last weekend’s helpful commenter who informed me that I was leading the devil to my child when I call her Devil Baby may be on to something.

Or maybe it’s just because the kid had an exciting week filled with very little sleep and very a lot of cake and frosting. Add a nagging cold on top of it, along with a prolonged visit to her grandparents’, and of course she’s going to be a smidge on the beastly side.

But today’s been good. I knew it was going to be good when I hadn’t issued any time-outs within the first hour of being awake. That’s an improvement over every single day she’s been home since turning three. In fact, here we are at nearly 4 PM, totally time-out-free. The little angel’s napping peacefully. Or quietly sacrificing goats. I’m not sure, and I don’t really care because right now it’s Mommy Time. What the kid does behind her closed door during Mommy Time is her business.

Right. Good parenting. I’m all about it.

I got a preview of the kind of behavior that’s occuring at the Pudding house today when Clara Jane looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t love you,” and then laughed. We were having lunch at the time, and it was rather embarrassing to have my adhesioned C-section incision burst open all over the restaurant like it did, what with being told that the person I birthed for over 32 hours isn’t much fond of me. While I gathered my entrails from the floor and tried to blot up the mess with brown paper napkins, Clara Jane proceeded to sing the praises of “my friend Dad”, as she’s started referring to B. That is, when she’s not referring to him as “Our Father”, like he’s Jesus.

Motherhood = Martyrdom. I’m starting to understand that notion.

Shortly after being told that I’m not loved, the one who supposedly doesn’t love me crawled from her chair onto my lap, and spent the next 30 minutes slowly grazing on her turkey and cheese sandwich and yogurt with her non-mama-lovin’ head planted on my chest, letting me smooch her warm little blonde head as much as I wanted while I squeezed her tight.

How sickeningly darling was this display? No less than four patrons and two employees had to stop by our table and tell us how cute we were, all snuggled up and covered with yogurt and chicken noodle soup. It’s hard to eat soup with 35 pounds of snuggly, non-mama-lovin’ child on your lap and chest, just so you know. But she did eventually retract her statement about having no love for me.

Man, I needed that. I’ve been sick all week and have slacked off in every department of my life, except the sock-knitting and sleeping departments. Our house is on the market, and we’re getting a bit desperate to sell and yet, I haven’t had the gumption to keep it presentable. The dogs are tracking mountains of mud through the house several times a day, and all along I’ve just wanted to crumple into a heap in the basement and knit while everything domestic falls apart above my head. I’ve given into that urge twice so far. Basically, I’ve questioned my abilities in just about every aspect of my life.

But today. Clara Jane and I both had decent sleep last night. Our colds are better. We had time to just sit on the couch and read. We ate well (let’s not mention the organic faux Oreo pile in front of me and the half-empty Cherry Coke Zero bottle next to it). I’ve done mountains of laundry, including one basket that I later realized was already clean. Now it’s extra-clean!

We made a Trader Joe’s run and bought stuff we needed, not just organic faux Oreos and reduced-fat cheese curls. Clara Jane visited the sample station and partook in lemon-ginger-echinacea juice and southwestern salmon on croustini. For a kid who’s demanded a diet of nothing but cake, goldfish crackers, and chips for a week, that amazed me.

I even made the bed.
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In the midst of the house-buying, birthday-partying, devil-worshipping frenzy of the past week, I’ve neglected to mention that I’m sick. Nothing serious, just the typical late-winter bug that’s creating horrible monsters in my lungs that demand release. I’ll spare you the details beyond that.

We left Clara Jane with my parents on Monday, because we’re bad heathen parents, but also because we wanted to get some work done on the house in hopes that the recent upswing in the temperatures would lead to lots and lots of potential buyers parading through to view it.

Somehow, I don’t think spending a day and a half, prone on the couch with my knitting added anything to the value of my home. In fact, I’m pretty sure I decreased its value with the oodles of germs I’ve sneezed all over the place.

But hey! I finished knitting that first pair of socks as a gift for one of my favorite blog-readers! I even tried them on my germ-addled feet.
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Did I mention that the sellers of The House We Love finally, after much back-and-forth, accepted our offer to buy their house? I did? Well, I might mention it again and again, as I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is going to be our house. Wow.

Anyway, we had an exciting, fun weekend beyond getting the fine house news, which arrived in the midst of the annual February birthday bash at my parents’ house:

My great-aunt Helen turns 76 on February 22. Granny Viv turned 81 on February 13th, and Clara Jane turned 3 on February 15th, as you might have already realized. Aren’t they darling?

Never in my life have I seen so much cake for so few people. We’re a small family; the party consisted of less than 15 people but the cake menu consisted of a dozen chocolate cupcakes, a banana-peanut butter cake, the majority of the strawberry cake I made on Thursday, and a very special, surprise horsey cake:

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I’ve thought my two big life-changing events – getting engaged to B. and birthing Clara Jane – coincided with Valentine’s Day. Well, sort of, since Clara Jane was born on February 15th. But now I’ve come to realize that the real connecting factor is the Daytona 500. The engagement wasn’t just on V-Day, but also shortly before the running of The Great American Race. Clara Jane was born 20 minutes after Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the 2004 race. During my pregnancy I told my mom that if she was born during the race, I was going to name her Daytona Dale Petty B_____, just because it’s fun to watch my mom hyperventilate.

About halfway through today’s race, we learned that the second offer we made on The House We Love is being accepted.*

Let’s all got do donuts in the infield and spray each other with Stag Beer in Victory Lane!
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• We’re in my hometown for the annual February birthday shindig.
• We had to drive through a blowing snowstorm last night to get here. I think from now on, this family should only celebrate birthdays in May, so we don’t die on the way to the parties.
• I called my mom during the miserable commute (I was in the passenger seat; no way would I have been yapping on the phone had I been driving through that shit) and told her, “I need to talk to your friend, the doctor,” which is code for “break out the Dr. McGilicutty’s booze because I need a drink.” My 59-year-old mom hides her booze so that her tee-totalling 81-year-old mom won’t bust her. Problem is, when you’re 59 years old and you hide your booze, there’s a good chance you’ll forget where you hid it. After I made her go on a booze hunt, I was too tired to even do so much as a shot when we got here.
• Three-year-olds should not be presented with brand-new tricycles at 11 PM if there’s any hope for a reasonable bedtime.
• As of 7 PM tonight, we’ll know if our second offer on The House has been accepted. Call the doctor, because I need some nerve tonic, as my nerves are shuffled.

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Today, my sweet baby is no longer a baby. She’s a big three-year-old.

If today is an example of what three is like, I’m already longing for the terrible twos.

Happy birthday, Devil Baby. I love you, even when you’re chanting “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!” at the top of your lungs while marching through the house, banging on an empty rice cracker box to the beat of your negations.

I’ll also love you when you spontaneously turn into a scorpion and demonstrate your butt-stinger:

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I used to be one of those anti-Valentine’s Day people. I’m still not a fan of materialistic aspect of the holiday – or any holiday, for that matter – although I don’t dislike it enough to stop participating in it. Basically, I think it’s cool to have a day of affection. Sure, we shouldn’t need a day to express love and affection, but let’s face it – some people have a hard time doing those things on a regular basis. Basically, I’ve gotten over myself and learned to just make Valentine’s Day whatever I want it to be.

It doesn’t hurt that two of the coolest things in my life happened on February 14th. In 1999, that was the day B. and I accidentally got engaged. In 2004, I spent the day in labor. How can I begrudge a day that made the two people I love most in the world permanent fixtures in my life?

This is what was waiting for me when I awoke this morning:

Cliche? Perhaps, except I love roses and chocolate-covered strawberries. Our wedding cake was covered in such berries. It’s also much less cliched when you consider that my husband, who wakes up at 5 AM every morning to make it to work on time, gets up extra-early every year and hikes his butt down to the local flower stand to purchase this for me every year, all so I can sit in our cozy house, gazing at my flowers, and eating those berries for breakfast. They’re divine with coffee.
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