![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/august-hat1.jpg\" "\\"Auggy")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnd heck, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m even amazed that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve managed to love this boy as much as I do despite my gag-inducing aversion to saliva.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still working full-time, as is SkipFitz, and Auggy is cared for during the day by my mom.<\/p>\n
And OK. I know (I KNOW!) how lucky I am to have a daycare provider who (a) works for free, and (b) actually LOVES my kid. I know how lucky I am to live close enough to my mother for her to be involved in my kid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life. I know that if I lived far away from her, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be sad not to have her around.<\/p>\n
However.<\/p>\n
As it stands, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a LIVE-IN nanny; she stays at our house (in our guest room) during the week, and goes home (a little over an hour away) on the weekends.<\/p>\n
And I am here to tell you people that nothing, short of a bona fide time machine, can transport you back to Middle School faster or more thoroughly than living with your mother.<\/p>\n
Case in point: Last week I had TWO Middle School Moments in a single day. The first came when my mother deemed it too cold outside for me to wear sandals to work. As I stood there arguing over my sartorial decisions for the day, the 38-year-old in me was thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When is the last time I had to argue with somebody over what I wanted to wear out of the damn house?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, while the 13-year-old in me was thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Uh! Ma! Gawd! Mom! You are, like, SUCH a total spaz! Bag your FACE!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Or something like that.<\/p>\n
But guess who won out? Yup.\u00c2\u00a0My\u00c2\u00a0inner\u00c2\u00a013-year-old drug my outer 38-year-old off to put on sneakers as soon as my mother threw down her argumental trump card: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153YOUR HEAD IS HARD!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Yup. She wins every time with that one.<\/p>\n
The second Middle School Moment of that day came when I left work early to take my baby to a Dr. appointment. It was a Friday afternoon, which meant that when I arrived home to pick up the baby and take him to get stabbed in his big, fat, juicy thighs, my mom would leave our house and head back to Topeka . . .<\/p>\n
. . . and this was the moment on which I counted in order to execute the tiny act of rebellion with which I would once again claim the kingdom: I changed my baby out of the (UGLY!) outfit\u00c2\u00a0my mother had\u00c2\u00a0selected for him to wear to the doctor (what he wears to the doctor is Very Important to Grandma). I knew what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d planned to put on him for the appointment because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d laid it out the previous evening and, knowing that it was an outfit I hated and never planned for him to wear, declared that he NEEDED to wear it (a) because it had long sleeves and pants, and the weather was cold (too cold, if you recall, for a 38-year-old woman to wear sandals), and (b) in order for him to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get some wear out of it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d before he outgrew it. Rather than risk another Valley Girl moment, I schemed instead to change his outfit after she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d left for the weekend, and before we left for the doctor. As soon as that moment arrived, off came the gingham stretch pants and matching onesie, and on went his Pink Floyd t-shirt and jean shorts. Then I snuck some Aziza eye shadow and Bonne Bell lip gloss into his diaper bag, and put it on him in the bathroom of the doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office.<\/p>\n
Oh, yeah, Baby.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just the kind of badass I am.<\/p>\n
And don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even get me started on what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like having someone point out every. single. thing you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing wrong in raising your child every. single. day. Suffice it to say that Auggy has a grandma who loves him very, very much, and is very, very . . . INVOLVED in his life, and very, very concerned about his well-being. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing, right?<\/p>\n
At any rate, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s signed on for a year of nanny-ship, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re halfway through it already. Wish me luck, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, in making it through another six months . . . .<\/p>\n
LYLAS,
\nThe Insta-Princess<\/p>\n
P.S. Longer Letter Later<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And tell you what, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just going to pretend that this blog had readers who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been wondering where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been. No, I did not die during the last . . . holy cow . . . damn near two years. So where, you ask, have I been? What have I been doing? Well, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s see … <\/p>\n