Full of It

Glee. It is a 2nd grade spelling word. Double consonant. Long double "e." It's sort of a throwaway word. A synonym for happiness, but why use "glee" when you can just use "happiness"? The difference, I feel, is in the actual pronunciation. You have to smile when you say glee. It's hard to get out the glee without the smile. It's almost onomatopoeic. Glee!!!!!

Still, it's kind of a disgusting word, isn't it? Glee? It's worse than a Mr. Roger's expression. It falls dangerously in Barney territory, and that, frankly, is a scary zone where everyone appears to have done a great deal of things with balloons and whippets. It's one of those words that rhymes with way too many other words and lands squarely in giddy songs about trees and bees and knees and downhill skis.

But yesterday? Honestly. For a few moments, I experienced this tingly feeling of contentment that I could only characterize as gleeful. I felt glee because my life was just the way it was. I was just sitting on the hard floor, laden with exerballs and goldfish cracker crumbs, reading a book to Baby Girl whilst smelling the mix of yogurt and Johnson's shampoo in her hair and I felt such glee.

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The people I admire most are not the ones that do earth-shattering things with their time and talents or the ones that are just cozy with what they have, but those that do both. They take what they're given and never stagnate, and continue to grow grow grow, but even when every proverbial Uno hand is a wild card Draw Four and the color changes to precisely the color they don't have in their hands at all, they never stop hoping and they never shirk the feelings of glee whenever they may come, which is usually the unlikeliest of yogurt-shampoo scented of times.

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Yes, my kid is carrying a basket with a basket inside.

College Shopping

I have finally made my decision about college. And I have decided that my cousin Mo sure-as-a-seventh-inning-stretch had better come to college in Boston. Of all my cousins, Mo is my girl. She's just original and adorable, has a true set of girl balls, and will change the world for the better, propelled by her quiet passion and her awesome sense of humor. We spent the weekend touring different colleges around the Bean, commencing with a starlight tour by car up and down the Charles River, I with my gnarly driving and my Auntie N and Cousin Mo with their tired selves keeping eagle eyes out for Cheers. Of course we got their picture with that big old finger pointing down them famed stairs. Using a camera phone. At midnight. (Cool your jets, taxi, we're just making a memory as we park in your spot for 32 seconds, gah!).

We laughed so much this weekend, mostly at ourselves, a bit at the rest of the family - departed and still gracing us with their quirks and quibbles - and then we laughed some more. At one point, Loverpants was ironing in the living room and the iron emitted a loud puff of steam and Mo said, "Oh! I thought that was my mom laughing!"

We also made it to the St. Paddy's parade - the first time I had ever made it to Southie for the big march in my 7 years of life here ::dies:: - and it was worth every huffing step up the Dorchester Heights hill carting Baby Girl (who thought she was the drum major in the parade, so wildly waving were her hands). The parade was delayed for like two inexplicable hours, but the weather was sunny and warmish, and the people-watching was rare and green.

I was so sad to drop them all off at Logan, even though they needed to leave so that I could get back to sleeping more than 5 hours and eating more than half a pan of brownies. But I've got my Paddy's fingers crossed that Cousin Mo will be joining us at this time next year, meeting at the top of the hill and introducing us to her college posse, and laughing at all of the gold legwarmer rocking, green slut sling wearing teens who think they are the parade.

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Team Pigtails

It's no lie that I dreaded having a girl. The prospect of introducing a sweet pink pea to a world full of thongs and Chris Brown and sexting still horrifies me. And I am living it, albeit a bit buffered in my play pen where the worst hazards are posed by the blue dryer balls that litter our floor compelling Baby Girl to trip over them while she attempts to walk drunk-like in step sets of 5 and 6 (!!!). So I am realizing slowly that Having a Girl doesn't happen all at once. Introducing her to the barrage of misogyny and mistrust is not a one-time meet and greet. And yet, I remember seeing Loverpants's face melting right off of his head as he beheld that robust and writhing little turkey being pulled out of me. I remember finally hearing "You had a girl" and thinking, "Dear Lord, thank you. What a great idea to give us a girl." All those feelings of rightness surged in me at once.

Those feelings have revisited me time and again. This past weekend was once such occasion when Baby Girl joined the esteemed ranks of Team Pigtails.