We met my GTB’s dad, step-mom, and sister for brunch at Salty’s yesterday. We motivated Signe with promises about the chocolate fountain. We could have told her we were going to Disneyland, she wouldn’t have been more excited than she was to see the chocolate fountain. Yes, she is my daughter.

GTB took her to see the fountain the moment we entered the restaurant. I don’t think she would have sat down before seeing it anyway. With the incentive of visiting the chocolate fountain for dessert if she ate a good breakfast, she proceeded to eat every morsel on her plate. Then she announced she was ready.

I approached the dessert table with her, asking her what she wanted to start with.

“How about a marshmallow?” she asked. OK.

“What next?”

“One of those,” she said, pointing to a cinnamon-covered donut hole.

“Nice idea,” I said. “Do you want a lady finger?”

“What’s a lady finger?” she asked, puzzled.

“It’s like a cookie.” Yep, she wanted one of those, too.

“Ooh, and a pretzel,” I exclaimed, eager to sample the sweet and salty combo.

I put the pretzel on her plate. Signe looked down, paused a second and said, “Now what do you want, Mommy?”

When I was six years old, my father died unexpectedly. It was shocking and sad and I had no concept of the lifelong repercussions this would have on my family and me. Looking back, at what at tiny girl I was, I realize how hard that was to try to make sense of in the moment. My very blurry memories of that day go something like this:

-Get picked up from school.
-Wait for my mom to get home.
-Have my mom break the news to my brothers and me.
-Take a nap.
-Wake up from nap with my best friend’s mom sitting at the foot of my bed.

In that moment, in that haze, remembering the news I’d heard earlier that day, I barely understood the next thing Nancy said to me: “He was a good man.”

It meant virtually nothing to me then. It means just slightly more to me now.

And yet….

Today, I heard that a person I love very much, someone I have known and who has known me down to my soul since I was 18-years-old, lost her husband. Their fifteenth anniversary would have been next weekend. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding.

I called her as soon as I heard. Between the story of how it happened, and me stuttering, “Oh my god” every few seconds, all I could think to say was, “He was a good man.” It’s true, and it’s the best I could do. I couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t make it worse.

Tonight, I’m hugging my husband a little tighter. That’s all I can do. I’m heartbroken.

Much to my chagrin, my daughter still uses a pacifier. Now, she only uses it when she’s in bed or sleeping in the car, but we are about two years past the point when I was comfortable with the idea of her still needing it. As a former thumb sucker and all-around oral fixationist, I want better for my offspring, and quittin’ the “pasha” (as she refers to it) has been of paramount importance to me from day one.

When she turned one, she was only allowed to use it in the car, in bed, or in the stroller. When she turned two, she could only have it in the bed or when she’s napping in the car. At three, no more pasha.

Since Signe’s third birthday is tomorrow, we have been warming her to the idea of the Pasha Fairy for a few months. This past spring, I floated the idea of a very friendly lady who comes to the beds of three-year-olds and removes all traces of pacifiers. In exchange, I explained, she leaves presents. It’s part of growing up to be a big girl. As I told the story, Signe reached up to her mouth and covered the pacifier, as if the Fairy was en route right that very minute. The next time we visited my in-laws’, where Sig often spends the night, she explained to Oma that the Pasha Fairy was coming to take her pasha. I took that opportunity to enlist my mother-in-law in the conspiracy.

As the birthday loomed, we started prompting Sig for ideas about what she thinks the Pasha Fairy will bring in exchange for all the pashas. “Princess” has been the prevailing theme, and so today, I took to Target. I found a princess pillow, a fleece throw blanket with Belle, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty on it, and a Barbie-sized Cinderella doll. The Pasha Fairy was pretty proud of herself.

So tomorrow night, I, I mean the Pasha Fairy, will sneak into Signe’s room and remove all the pashas. I pray the princess explosion I’ll leave in their stead will soothe my sleepy daughter when she wakes and realizes her own oral fixation has been kicked to the curb.

Yesterday, I started my new job. I haven’t started a new job in more than six years, so I was a bit rusty on the logistics of being the new kid. Despite that, the day went off without a hitch. Mostly.

I picked out a totally acceptable, if slightly conservative outfit. Got to work on time. Breezed through new employee orientation. Negotiated the document servers successfully. Answered 50 some emails. Made graceful small talk at the weekly community lunch. Set up my voice mail. And left work in time to pick up the Sig before she was the last kid there.

After work, Sig and I put on play clothes and went outside to pick strawberries, tomatoes, and basil from our garden. Then we came in and ate the strawberries while I prepared what GTB called “the perfect dinner.” Then we all played and talked to both Oma and Grandma on the phone.

So far, I was navigating the life of a working mother perfectly. Sometime after bathtime though, it all went horribly wrong.

As GTB was drying off a very happy, but obviously very tired, toddler, I realized I had forgotten Blankie, a.k.a. Hong, at daycare. Daycare closes at 5:30. If we’re lucky, they are there answering the phone until 6:00. It was then 6:55. We were screwed.

Blankie is not just a covering that keeps Sig warm at night. She’s a feeling, animate member of Signe’s family. She has a personality, and emotions, and Signe protects her as much as she comforts Signe. When I told my daughter that we’d left Hong at daycare, I couldn’t tell if she was more upset at the idea of spending a night without Blankie or of Blankie being all alone at daycare.

We did get through the night, though bedtime took a lot longer than usual and there was one nocturnal panic when Sig couldn’t find Blankie. The reunion this morning was especially sweet. When we got to daycare, Signe laid on the floor with Blankie and said, “I’m going to play with you all day long.” When I left, Signe and Blankie went to the window together so they could both wave goodbye to me.

I used to love Jezebel.com. It was the perfect combination of Hollywood gossip, feminist musing, political discourse, and literary tidbits. And the comments were witty, insightful, and sometimes more amusing than the original post. But lately, I’m interested in only about 10% of what they post and the majority of the comments range from inane to annoying.

Naturally, because I tend to overthink everything, I’ve been wondering why this is. Has the quality of the writing and topics really fallen off a cliff? Am I getting too old and boring for this kind of blog? Am I so out of touch with the kids? Do I need something that appeals more to working moms in mid-market cities than to single grad students in New York? Probably.

Today, they posted this article about a mom pondering what to tell her toddler about makeup. “Finally!” I thought. “A decently written article I can relate to! Maybe I shouldn’t give up on Jezebel just yet.”

Then I read the comments. I’ll save you the time and trouble and tell you that it’s basically a collection of “who gives a fucks?” and “wow, obsess much?” and others that were clearly written by people who’ve never had kids or worried about how to create a promising future for a little person they love by setting good examples and providing thoughtful explanations about things.

And that pretty much clinched it for me. I’m done with Jezebel.

I’m now open to suggestions on new, favorite blogs. Please say there is more for me out there than the mommy blogosphere.

When your Yahoo! email is down, and instead of taking you to a page that offers any helpful info, they direct you to “search” for a solution to your problem, may I suggest you do not type “I just want my email is that so fucking hard?” into the search box.

Unless you want a bunch of search results about “fucking hard.”

Last weekend, we adopted a six-year-old Cocker Spaniel from the Oregon Humane Society. He’s a total muffin and, so far, I really enjoy having a dog. This morning, I had a funny realization.

This dog’s name is Jordan (we didn’t name him). The kitty I adopted when I was 21 was named Niles. Remove one “s” and the animals I’ve owned as an adult have something funny in common: both have river names.

So now, I’m thinking of getting a fish and naming it Congo. Or maybe a pet bunny named Danube.

Noticing that my husband changed his Facebook profile pic, I IMed to find out why….

The Girl: What’s with your new FB profile pic?
GTB: What do you mean? It’s Punxatawny Phil wearing a Steelers scarf, casting a Lombardi trophy shaped shadow.
GTB: Woo-hoo
The Girl: Did you see my post the other day, about how Rush Limbaugh is a Steelers fan?
GTB: huh uh
The Girl: Rush Limbaugh is a Steelers fan.
GTB: Oh well. Nothing I can do about it.
GTB: Ann Coulter loves the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.

Today is January 20. Tonight, my husband finally disposed of our Christmas tree.

So satisfied with completing this arduous task, he has found new ambition and informed me he will soon reorganize our bookshelves, which he has been asking me to do since, oh, about the time we moved in (in 2007).

Calling his bluff, I asked him how he is going to reorganize.

“Well, to start, nonfiction will be organized by category.”

“Oh really? So we’ll have a two-book section on cats? A one-book section on Scottish people? A three-book section about the CIA?”

“No, we’re going to have a 50-book section about the book collections of crazy women.”

Jerk.

As I prepare the weekly PowerPoint presentation that is shown in all of our offices, I search for a piece of clip art I can use on the slide about holiday closures. I type “holiday wreath” into the search field. One of the suggestions I get is this:

I try to picture the occasion that would call for such a piece of clip art. I fail.