revelations (not the bible kind)

tomorrow is shoshanna's second birthday, and dudes, i am so excited for it.  i even had a hard time falling asleep last night just thinking about it, oh god i'm a nerd.  about 90% of our loved ones' birthdays have taken place in the past few months, so she has had a lot of practice with the whole birthday thang, and often runs up to me yelling, "hap bir-day, mama!"   i think i'm so excited because this is really the first "holiday" that she understands, can anticipate and truly appreciate. 

[sho and i at her first birthday party. photo by vanessa hardy]

i stayed up waaay too late last night making her a silky-soft pair of summer jammies (from a thrift store slip) with a pocket made from this lovely scrap of fabric my friend sara gave me, and scored a wink-wink deal at the salvation army when the checkout guy gave me a huge tub of big cardboard blocks for one dollar.  i also splurged (well, $27 is a serious splurge for my budget) on a nice, non-annoying keyboard to replace the 99 cent one from salvation army that she's been playing all winter.  best of all, i'm making dirt cake tonight to take to her daycare birthday party tomorrow...and then, i have the rest of the day off to take her on a surprise trip to lake michigan (i.e. "the oceant") with our friend vanessa!  dude!  i'm way more excited about this day than i was about my birthday and mother's day combined.

[vanessa and shoshi, one year ago]

so yesterday, after i picked up sho from daycare, we headed to the store for a "quick trip" to get the ingredients for her daycare dirt cake (i got gummi worms and edible flowers y'all).  holy god it was a shit show of the highest order.  sho was tuckered out and refused to stay in the cart, so we alternated between her running alongside the cart and the very short me (somehow this made it all the more embarassing) carrying her on my shoulders as i pushed our cart.  i was hot, tired, and flustered, trying to keep this kid from all-out losing it in the middle of a super-crowded grocery store.  and i try not to talk about this, but i was angry at her dad, too, for not even acknowledging her birthday yet and for leaving me to do this--all of this--on my own, every day, with no financial help to boot.  i thought, "man, anyone who sees me right now is thinking: 'that woman is in over her head.'"  and i realized that that is kind of my biggest ego trip/fear, for anyone to think that i can't handle my life or the things that are happening in it.  but dude...sometimes i can't.  so what?  we've all been there.  (or if not, your life has been way too easy.)  what on earth good does it do for me to pretend i'm doing totally groovy, with a screaming toddler on my shoulders and a spilled carton of blueberries at my feet?  i don't know, it was just a good thing for me to realize.  i can fail at this sometimes, it'll be okay.

it almost made that cluster-cuss of a grocery trip worthwhile.