This is Baby Bug’s good friend, Audrey. They love each other. They get along really well. It’s almost eerie. I can have a complete conversation when Audrey is around because Baby Bug is not interrupting me every five seconds. She’s off telling secrets or having laughing contests. I don’t think they’ve squabbled over one thing in the entire two visits that they’ve spent together. Maybe two visits isn’t long enough to judge by but Baby Bug has fought with other kids in less than two minutes so I’m thinking it’s Audrey.

It helps that they are only two weeks apart in age but I think the real reason they get along so well is because Audrey doesn’t mind getting bossed around by Baby Bug. Audrey is a little sister already and she is used to it. She likes it even. Maybe she misses her big sister, who is off at school, and is happy to have an event coordinator back in her life.

While Baby Bug talks up a storm, Audrey is very quiet and shy. She understands every word Baby Bug says and is more than happy to tag along with her to do whatever Baby Bug wants. I can see in Audrey’s face that she is happy to have someone who understands her and will act as a mouthpiece for her.

I’m not saying that Audrey doesn’t talk or that people don’t understand her, because she does talk and she is understandable but I get the feeling that Baby Bug is almost an interpreter or a louder spokesperson. Baby Bug is really good at letting the whole wide world know what is really going on inside a two-year-old’s brain. And believe me, there is a LOT going on inside two-year-old brains. I think Audrey likes that.

Whatever the reason, I think Audrey should come over everyday because it’s so nice for me not to be bossed around all day!

So you can imagine my delight when Jen from Jen’s Space offered to meet me at the laundromat for a play date with Audrey. The laundromat? Who wants to hang out at the laundromat? I do everything in my power NOT to hang out at the laundromat, including wearing smelly clothes that don’t fit me very well. I hate the laundromat!

There is a park behind the laundromat for Baby Bug to play on but it’s always like pulling teeth to extract her from the sandbox or the slide or the tiny pieces of grass that she is inspecting so I can go take my clothes out of the washer before the mumbling guy with schizophrenia steals them. Then there is the door she could run out of and into a car driving by or the scary germs all over the floor that she likes to wipe her pacifier along…my point is that usually laundry day is difficult. A long difficult struggle with wet clothes and my bossy kid.

But yesterday? Laundry day was a dream! The kids loved the washers and depositing the coins. It was a game! They had discussions about what was swirling around in someone else’s washer. Was it a wet sheep? It sure looked like a wet sheep. Then when the washer switched cycles and the sudsy sheepskin folded in half, away from the washer window, they both jumped back as if the sheep was really alive! It was pretty funny.

They both helped me quite a bit, carrying over wet laundry to the dryer and just generally being delightful little girls. I would have taken more photos of them being adorable but I was too busy blabbing my heart out because for once I could have a real conversation with another mom without being interrupted! The bliss! Who knew!?

So yeah, that’s my kid with no pants. There’s a story behind that of course. Even though I let her go without pants at home, I usually try to keep her clothed when we are in public. But there was a slide with water on it. You know how that goes. The sprinklers got the playground wet or the dew hadn’t quite dried off in the sun yet. It’s always like this for us. You’d think one of these days I’d pack a towel to dry off the slide before she goes down it. But no, I never learn.

She went down the slide and got her adorable skirt and black and white striped leggings wet and that was the end of that cute outfit. Plus, there were other kids at the park playing in the sand with no shoes on. We had a little battle over why she had to wear shoes when they didn’t have to. So I gave up the skirt and leggings in exchange for her keeping on her shoes because that park is a little sketchy. I affectionately call it “Drug Dealer Park.” She can run around and look like trailer trash but she will not step on glass or a hypodermic needle in bare feet under my watch. Okay, the park is not that bad but I have to be the boss on some things. I draw the line at shoes.

Hi everybody! It’s good to be back. I missed you!

I’ve thought of what I’m going to write in this post a thousand times and I still haven’t come up with anything brilliant so I’m just going to do what I usually do and state the obvious. Then I’ll just see what happens after that.

It’s been a long month not coming here to write. I really missed it. It was an exercise in willpower. I think I wrote posts in my head nearly every day. I would have broken down after the first week if I weren’t so stubborn about keeping my word. And I wonder where my kid got her stubborn streak? Hmph.

I learned a lot about myself and my affection for blogging. I thought I might get caught up in my real life and forget about the internet but that didn’t happen at all. If anything, it just cemented the fact that I do love blogging and I’m probably never going to quit. Some people like Facebook, some people like Twitter or Flickr or MySpace and some people don’t like the internet at all and choose to use their time wisely and write novels for money. Not me.

I like blogging. It’s the perfect medium for me. Sharing but not too much sharing. I can say what I want to say and then walk away for a day. I use all those other internet social sites but I don’t love them as much as I love blogging. So what can I say? I guess I’m here to stay.

Next time I start getting burned out, just tell me to take a week off. No more month-long sabbaticals. Unless of course I have another kid and for some reason I am struck down by good sense and decide to be a mom every second of the day. But even then I don’t think I could stay away forever. You guys are too good to me and I miss sharing.

So anyway, how’s it been going this last month? Weren’t the guest posts pretty fantastic? I didn’t turn anyone away either. I wasn’t choosy. I just put up what came my way and it worked out. I have a few posts left in the vault too in case I ever want to lay low again but keep the content coming. I was really pleasantly surprised with what the contributors came up with. It was refreshing. I know some people were annoyed with me but I think all in all it was a good experience. If anything, it amused me. I had a lot of fun illustrating most of the posts.

What have we been up to while I was laying low? A lot. Probably more than I could ever condense into one post. I might write about a few of the things we did. There was the time we made bread. That was fun but the bread was pretty bland (I need a good hearty wheat bread recipe). We discovered a few new parks. We spent a lot of time at the beach and my mom’s, where I found a treasure trove of old toys from my childhood. We went to Bethany’s a lot, though she did a pretty good job of documenting her side of our visits.

While I’m on the subject of Bethany, I need to come clean. She’s been editing my posts for quite a while now. I may have mentioned it now and then but I don’t think anyone knows how much she really does. She is my right-hand woman. She has the password to my blog and she uses it. Frequently. You might think my writing has gotten better. It hasn’t. She also edited all the guest posts. She put in a lot of time. Many times she put pieces of posts together and even published them for me after I’d passed out while putting Baby Bug to bed. She’s a friend indeed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to pass on some credit to my own very personal editor. She spoils me. She’s also a freak. In more ways than one. She’s one of those people who knows everything, like a walking encyclopedia. You can just ask her random things like, “What is cream of tartar?” and she’ll know the answer off the top of her head.* It’s almost annoying. Except it’s super handy when you don’t know how to spell very well and she’s only a click away on instant messenger.

I’ve been hesitant to gush about my friendship with Bethany on this blog because it just felt like bragging. I know when I read other people’s blogs and they talk about this or that friend, I sort of glaze over with a you-had-to-be-there sort of feeling. But I think Bethany has crossed over that line here. She’s pretty much become a character in my life and on this blog. She is a character.

Honestly, I think she was a character sent from God. You know how you have low points in your life and you wish or pray, or whatever you do when things are really bad, that someone would just come rescue you or show you the way out of some particularly difficult problem? Well, without revealing every detail of my life, I just want to say that Bethany has been that person. She sort of dropped out of the sky like an angel and has really helped me through some hard lessons that have been plaguing me for years. Maybe someday I’ll be able to write about them. Maybe I won’t. I don’t know.

I just want to say that praying (or wishing or dancing rain dances—whatever you do) really works. It might take a day or a year or even five years but people do come out of the woodwork to help you through. And sometimes as a by-product they edit your blog posts and help you with your over-use of commas!

So I’m back! I’m just going to stop my rambling right there and say I can’t wait to write something else tomorrow!

*Editor’s note: I did not know what cream of tartar was off the top of my head. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.

Think of this post as a little vocabulary exercise except instead of vocabulary words I have blog links that I need to use in sentences creatively that won’t bore all the non-linked to death. I’ve asked around and my non-blogher friends have informed me that they are indeed quite bored of all the linking but they will continue to read patiently, as long as I include stories. I will do my best. And then it’s on with our regularly scheduled programming all about Baby Bug.

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