Nine days ago, I was apologizing to my daughter for working on her birthday, then furiously wrapping up emails, cleaning off my desk and preparing to leave the office until after the new year.

Eight days ago, I was in a waterpark, listening to my husband declare, “Oh my god, I’m Ricky Bobby,” enjoying a few cocktails with my sister and watching it snow indoors.

Seven days ago I was eating clam chowder and Chex mix, stuffing stockings and setting up a night vision trail cam to catch Santa.

Six days ago I was watching the kids unwrap presents, making individual apple pies in Mason jars and losing twenty bucks in a smoky casino.

Five days ago I was in a car for a long time.

Four days ago I stayed in my pajamas all day and made lentil soup.

Three days ago I saw the movie Hugo and subsequently become obsessed with Edith Piaf.

Two days ago I went to the mall.

Yesterday I made the kids banana-peanut butter canapes and pomegranate seeds for breakfast, started painting again and watched UFC on PPV.

Today I’m getting my hair cut, watching British comedies on OPB and making hopppin’ john.

Tomorrow I will start dreading the end of my vacation.

In two days  I will make sure all the laundry is done, the kids’ homework is ready to turn in, plan out the week’s meals and find my briefcase in the closet.

In three days my vacation is over.

Santa Suit + Night Vision Trailcam = Two Kids Who Will Believe in Santa A Little While Longer.

I was recently doing some online Christmas shopping for a…um…how shall I put this delicately? A piece of performance gear for cold weather running that is for the exclusive use of gentlemen.

No?

Um, it keeps one’s parts warm while running.

Male parts.

Are we all on the same page here?

The problem was, I couldn’t remember the name of the product, or the company, and I couldn’t come up with concise key words that would result in anything but unseemly suggestions from Google.

No offense to Google. I mean, when you’re searching with keywords like, “men’s cold weather running gear” you get nice safe suggestions like beanie caps and long-sleeved, sweat-wicking shirts. Any more specific – let’s say, references to specific anatomy - and well, you risk seeing things that are a little more unpleasant.

Do NOT do an image search is what I’m saying.

Last week was one of those weeks. Dr. Rossman was off running a marathon (and enjoying lovely Arizona weather, I might add), so the chore of getting the kids to school and to their various activities, fell to me.

I emailed my very understanding co-workers on Sunday night warning them of my probability of tardiness. All week. Each morning was a struggle to 1) get my daughter up, fed and dress in a timely fashion (I use an egg timer. She hates it.)  and 2) make sure my son had lunch money and his cello, then drop them off at school not too early but not late enough that I miss an entire morning of work.

Then,

The evenings were a race home after staying late at the office to make up for lost time; then Holiday Recitals, dinner-making, homework and decorating for Christmas.

Then,

As my daughter was telling me about her class Christmas party, she said they made ornaments and cards and gingerbread houses, and everyone else’s mom was there.

This is a story that’s almost too embarrassing to tell. But I’m willing to open myself up to mockery and judgement in the interest of good storytelling.

A few nights ago I was really wound after work. I’m an occasional insomniac, and I know a sleepless night ahead when I see one so I took a couple Tylenol PMs and settled into bed with a good zombie book.  I was just nodding off when I heard an interrmittent Beep Beep Beep every 30 seconds coming from the hallway outside my door.

It was the carbon monoxide detector.

It was 12:15 a.m.

Now, this has happened before so I knew that it was most likely beeping because the battery was dead. A rational person might have taken the batteries out and gone back to bed.

I am not a rational person.

I am a obsessive person.

So instead I stumbled around my house in my Tylenol PM state looking for three double As. I didn’t find any so I put on my Uggs and a sweatshirt with my hot pink Skelanimal jammie pants and told a sleepy Dr. Rossman that I was going down to the mini mart.

“Of course you are,” he said.

I’d like to point out that ordinarily I have a strict No Pajamas in Public policy but given the late hour and my drowsy state I decided to make an exception. To go to a mini mart. In the middle of the night. For batteries.

So I got home with the batteries, replaced them and slid the cover back on.

It resumed beeping.

At this point I was so tired I was almost weepy. At 12:30 in the morning things don’t seem the same as they do in the light of day. I noticed the small print on the back of the detector that says “Seven years from initialization, unit will beep every 30 seconds to indicate unit should be replaced.” BUT in my overtired in the middle of the damn night state, I start questioning the meaning of the beep.

Is it really the battery?

Has it been seven years?

Is our house quietly filling with carbon monoxide while I consider these questions?

I could see the headlines, “Local Family Victims of Carbon Monoxide. Detector With Batteries Disengaged Found on Kitchen Table.”

These are the thoughts that go through my head, at 12:45 a.m., three hours after ingesting two Tylenol PM.

So I did what any semi-delusional, obsessive-compulsive would do. I changed into jeans and went to The Wal-Mart. In the middle of the night. For a new carbon monoxide detector.

Have you been to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night?

Oh. My.

So I’m in The Wal-Mart at now 1 a.m. and I decided to pick up a new smoke alarm while I’m there because I remember back to the night two years ago when BOTH the carbon monoxide detector and the fire alarm batteries died IN THE SAME NIGHT.

Anyway, it was about 1:30 a.m., on a school night mind you, when  I got back from The Wal-Mart with my  two new detectors and a 20-pack of AAs just for good measure.

I was telling my dad this story the next day and he said, “You did the right thing.”

I guess it runs in the family.

This is one of those weeks when I’m pretty sure I can’t do it all. I mean, I can hold it together pretty well, most of the time. But this week just might break me. If I had time, I’d probably just sit down, stare slack-jawed into the middle distance and drown my sorrows in black licorice.

#1. My computer broke. I don’t know how bad it is, but I’m a worrier so I assume it’s pretty bad. Like all-my-artwork-and-business-data-lost bad.

#2. My family is cranky. It’s been hot and muggy here for weeks and we’re all Over. It. Plus, school started up again and our sleep schedules are screwy.

#3. I work too much. I’ve got this 9-to-5 job you see, and it’s never really 9-5. And also? Life doesn’t fit around 9-5 so well. Things you can’t do before 9 or after 5, generally: go to the bank, go to the library, talk to a teacher, get your oil changed, go to the post office, take your computer to the computer-fixing guy or have your kid fitted for a cello.

Monday looked like this:

• Get kids up, dressed, ready to walk to school, leave with grama
• Work all day
• Rush home
• Unplug broken computer and deliver across town (north) to the computer guy
• Drive back across town and out south to take care of my aunt’s farm (feed chickens, cats and cows, water garden, pick vegetables)
• Drive back home
• Fix dinner
• Take son to Mandatory Parent Orientation for Students Interested in Orchestra
• Sign up for instrument fitting for Wednesday, at a time I know I cannot possibly make hapen
• Return home, eat licorice, put kids to bed, crash

On Tuesday, there was baseball practice and the farm. Tonight there will be the Impossible Instrument Fitting and another Mandatory Parent Orientation For Parents Interested in French Class. Then more baseball, and work, and oh at some point I need to keep the house clean-ish and figure out how to feed everyone and sign homework slips and maybe even paint a little.

Of course, I know that next week will be better but in the meantime: Calgon, take me away.

My boy is playing fall baseball which, in my opinion, is far better than spring ball because the weather is better and I can take my camera out without fear of raindrops. I’ve got this little dinky lens on my Nikon but I like to try for some good shots anyway.

You ever see photos of pitchers pitching? How their arms look like rubber and you wonder how their bodies can contort like that? Honestly, it grosses me out a little.

Even so, when I got home from Sunday’s double-header I was excited to find a few of those shots on my camera.

Gross. The boy’s gonna love them.

I’m getting pretty good at this first day of school thing. This is like, my fifth year at it.

It only took two adults two hours to get two children out the door. Then I had one kid who wanted to walk to school, and one who wanted to ride. But both wanted me to see them to their classroom. So I let one walk, and one rode with me. Then we met out front and walked in together.

Because nothing in our family is simple.

She described her outfit thusly: "Punk on the bottom, serious in the middle and pure cuteness on the top." I can't make this stuff up.

Yes, that's a mohawk.

I love school supplies.

I love back to school. It means back to routine, back to real cooking and baseball practice. Back to cooler weather, back to fingerless gloves and the Crock-Pot.

It also means my studio cat Ron Weasley returns to his bed next to my desk.

It’s my favorite time of the year.

Portland, Oregon is a walking city. On our day trip last week, we parked in an astronomically priced garage and set out on foot. Since the art museum is in the park blocks near my alma mater at PSU, I thought I’d take the kids to see my old dorm and apartment.

What kind of mom would I be if I didn’t drag my kids to see completely meaningless landmarks from my ill-advised youth?

Can you call it your alma mater if you didn’t graduate?

Why wasn’t there a Starbucks across the courtyard when I lived there?

Freshman dorm: third floor, third window

That damn ivy was home to hundreds of birds that kept me from my beauty sleep.

I lived in this campus apartment building for two years.

My apartment window was right by the front door. Every time someone forgot their keys I’d get a knock on the glass. Thank god they finally put bars on them.

After lunch, we headed to Powell’s City of Books. I can’t believe my kids are in second and fourth grade and have never been there. Admittedly, they have just recently decided not to act like howler monkeys in public, but still. My son was thrilled with an entire section devoted to baseball books. He decided on one called Beisbol: Latin Americans and the Grand Old Game.

I tell you, I like my Kindle well enough, but I will never ever stop buying “real” books.

Dream come true: an entire wall of baseball books.

Sadly, the kids couldn’t resist the novelty of public transportation. Personally, I’ve spent many a stuffy afternoon on a bus. The kids insisted. I relented.

The first few blocks were fine, but the return trip – in the heat of the day – proved less appealing. My daughter summed it up, saying she liked riding the trolley “except when people stand near you, bump you, or smell like cigarettes.”

Portland Streetcar

Lesson learned.

Part of the fun of going to a new place (or visiting a place you don’t get to much) is exploring the food scene. When you’re with kids, this can be dicey.

My son will eat anything from hot peppers to salmon roe. My daughter, however, would exist solely on bread and bread products if I let her. So when we were browsing around Portland’s Pearl District last week, Noodles & Company seemed like it would please them both. And me.

It did.

And I’ll admit it…when I took the kids to the Portland Art Museum earlier in the day, I ensured their good behavior by bribing them with future cupcakes. Cupcake Jones is one of my favorites, and was right down the block. I think Weight Watchers will forgive me this one indiscretion.

As a matter of fact, I WAS jonesing for a cupcake!

So many cupcakes, so little time.

Neapolitan

Velvet Painting

Downtown Cupcake Brown in a to-go container for dad.

'Til we meet again, Lemon Sorbet.