A White Winged Horse

So I asked my sister what her little girl wants for her birthday and she said, "She told Anji that she wants a white winged horse." I have no idea if there's some special toy out there that she's looking for or if I should go buy the porcelain Pegasus statue that came up when I did a Google search for "white winged horse."

I think a four-year-old might get hours of fun out of a porcelain statue. You can do so much with breakable items.

That's actually the kind of present my dad always gave me after my parents were divorced and he was really out of touch with how to be a dad. No big deal, the poor guy, he did the best he could. No hard feelings, Dad.

His reasoning was that we got toys from our mom. From him we'd get some type of sculpture or art that would appreciate in value (or so he thought. I haven't actually looked yet to see if I can sell that dog statue for millions of dollars). Toys just turned to dirty hunks of plastic and metal.

But a dog statue! You can display that in your curio cabinet as a trophy and once in all while, all you've got to do is dust it off.

Anyway, so then I was looking for a My Little Pony horse and this gorgeous purple horse came up with a beautiful long mane that a girl would have fun braiding and whatnot. I stared at it for a second and thought to myself, "Dang. I wish I could be appeased with a toy."

Wouldn't it be great to reach thirty (or whatever age you are) and still have your dreams hanging on a My Little Pony or a Tonka dump truck? Such a simple item. Costs so little. And so readily available. All you have to do is hop down to the Target and buy it and there, you've got everything your heart ever wished for.

I don't know about you, but I'm seriously considering exchanging the American Dream for a much simpler dream: cheap objects that engage my imagination. Like maybe some Dr. Who action figures. Or a slew of Doc Martin action figures. They don't make those? They should. They really should. Then, when the show ends, fans can just keep making up stories. Kind of like how when Futurama was off the air (before it started on Comedy Central or wherever), I had to buy the comics to get new stories.

 Damn you, David Tennant. Damn you for ever leaving Dr. Who.

Oh my hell. I just realized, I can get more of the Tenth Doctor if I just buy a Tenth Doctor action figure and make up my own stories! Let's see, I'll need a Tardis, obviously, and maybe a Donna Noble action figure too, since she was my favorite of his companions (I loved Rose until she came back with weird teeth in the later episodes). Hmm. That should be all. And then just my imagination, right?

This will be good. I can totally see this turning into some really great fan-fiction.

A Note from Alexander the Great's Mother. Kidding. It's Just Me. Nicole.

Attention everyone: I have an announcement to make. My son, Corbet, has officially learned how to point and say, "Ah." Sure, when someone ELSE'S kid does it, it's just yeah, you know? Oh. Huh. Cute.

But when MY son does it, he's demonstrating his superior intellect. He's not even a year old yet. The boy understands POINTING. He might as well be writing out complex equations that calculate the wind-speed velocity of the slope of a rocket ship. I have no idea if that's a thing, but it sounds intense.

Anyway, when he does it, I melt and laugh and give him a big fat smooch.

 Corbet on his first swing as a big kid. Well, big-GER than when he was a newborn in a swing. That's his dad's hand. 

Beautiful hand. And the boy is beautiful too, if I do say so myself. And I do.

So that's fun. It makes up for the three or four interruptions of my good nights' rest. Which isn't a good nights' rest at all, unless I were to go to sleep at ten. I don't, so every night's sort of hellish. I SHOULD, but I don't. When else am I supposed to read if not in bed, before falling to sleep? There's no time the rest of the day.

Corbet is also walking like a brand new colt. His legs are a bit wobbly, and he falls a lot, but he's actually learning to stand in the middle of the room. Any new walker understands how difficult this is—free-standing, you know. Instead of crawling to a stationary object, he's realized he can make his legs straight with his hands on the floor and then sort of rise up.

It's pretty amazing when you see it.

Additionally, he's been attempting to run. He usually falls, but that doesn't seem to stop him from trying again. Lately he's taken to walking to my Simple Human garbage can (that made me throw up when I was pregnant!), opening it, and taking trash out.

That's pretty awesome. The best is when it's got cat vomit in it (my orange cat seems to have a weak stomach and throws up once a day at least) and Corbet pulls the paper towel out with the cat vomit in it.

 Orange cat with a weak stomach. Also works as a window security system.

Ok, so that only happened once and then we learned our lesson. Cat vomit goes in the OUTSIDE garbage can. Plus it stinks something delicious.

Something delicious. To describe a bad smell. I like it.

It's adorable and I know it doesn't bode well for the future, but I can't help but laugh when Corbet heads to the garbage can and I say, "Cor-BET," where my voice goes up on the last syllable, like "Oh no you DOOON'T." He laughs and squeals and runs for the corner where the garbage can hides. And I run after him. He laughs like crazy. 

I laugh too, of course. How can I resist? It's hilarious to me that he's learned there are forbidden things that he'll get in trouble for. Sometimes he shakes his head and turns away, like he really knows how to mind. I wonder how long THAT will last.

Maybe forever. Maybe he'll be a perfect saint, unlike his mom and dad. One can hope!

Right now he's in this phase—Stoker keeps saying everything's a phase—where he wants me to hold him ALL the time. It's a bit inconvenient, but I try to enjoy it, knowing that at some point he'll never want to cuddle, he'll only want to play and be as far from me as possible.

That happens, right?

Being a mom is pretty great. I can't wait to teach him how to take over the world. I've got my lesson plans all laid out and soon, I'll begin guiding him toward world-domination. He'll be a great ruler. It's going to be awesome.

Had a Dr. Who Dream Last Night, But that's Hardly the Point

Last night I was driving to the cafe to do a bit of writing. It was dark, and now that I'm in Utah again, beautiful. Listening to songs from the official soundtrack to the piece I'm working on as I drive helps me get in the right frame of mind, so of course I was listening to the official soundtrack. The lights from the city make the sky glow and the trees are all skeletal black frames against the bright sky. It was a serene moment, but there was something missing.

Angst. Oh yeah. ANGST! Where has it all gone?

Then I realized, my son was born last June and so now there's always something to live for. He's this brightness in my life that pushes away all that crappy darkness that sometimes closed in on me. And that feeling of desolation was always worse during Utah winters. But now I am home, Utah is my land, and these are my people, here. I have a son and a husband and I don't have to feel that loneliness the harsh winters could always generate for me.  Not anymore. Weird. I never thought, back in the day, that I could feel so much more lightness.

A brooding, black and white shot.

Corbet at 5.5 months. He gets handsomer every day. Handsomer?

Maybe it's just a result of fewer hormones, or maybe it really is that I have someone who needs me more than anyone has ever needed me before.

Having a baby is difficult, no questions there, but it's also the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Sometimes I feel like the Grinch, and just looking at Corbet makes my heart swell to ten times it's original size (I may have mentioned this before). Honestly, I wonder if it could ever make my chest burst, because it feels that way.

Speaking of this, I met this girl the other day who's about to have a baby. She's married, 24, and somehow, SOMEHOW, she's going to give the baby up for adoption. What?! No idea how this works or how someone makes a decision of this nature. I mean, I can imagine a couple of scenarios, but I can't understand how she could go to full term and, with a father for the baby nearby and everything, simply put him into someone else's hands.

I told her it was cool that she'd have the baby and everything, because that's better than the alternative (my opinion after having had my own), but wow. That's got to be crazy. All that effort. That time. That energy spent growing the baby, and boom, you give it away.

The only thing that made those nine months of hell worth it was to know that I'd have a baby at the end of it. I had no idea how it would feel to have a baby and everyone said, "You can't imagine how much you'll love him till you have him." And they were right. Now that I know better, there's no way I could have just given Corbet away.

In any case, here I am, old and without angst. But not without crazy passionate responses to the insanity of the world. Go figure. I'm exhausted already. I have no idea how I'm going to make it to ninety-four. Wish me luck!

Best Doctor ever. In a snowstorm. Wait. Is that Utah?

p.s. Had an awesome dream last night. Flying. Etc. And I was Rose Tyler for a bit, then the Tenth Doctor. And did I mention there was flying? And it was a new episode of Dr. Who with the Tenth Doctor. If I keep having awesome dreams like this, I might make it to be an old woman.