C*lgon, take me away! (or, a Day in the Life...)

I do not know how single moms do it day in and day out! I am in AWE of you women, complete and total AWE.

Narda went to Boston yesterday, and should be home in a few hours. I've only had Malka solo for about 30 hours, and we've had a lot of fun, but I'm SO POOPED! I think it also had to do with the fact that Malka woke up at 5am, and I'm sadly one of those people who has a HARD time going back to sleep in the morning, so once I'm up, I'm up. Malka was a charming delight, and went down for a nap from 6:30-8:30am. I brewed some coffee (decaf - I'm off the leaded once again, due to the Gerd), and proceded to paint the interior of our front door with chalkboard paint. It looks pretty cool. It will be a great place to leave messages to one another, and a great place to plop the Malka Palka Pooka Palka down while cooking, and let her have fun coloring. Then I tidied up and checked e-mail and showered and prepped to leave for our day's adventure. Then Malka woke up, and we (well she, actually) had a bottle, and we were off! It was only 9:15am.

We then went downtown to B*d B*th and B*yond, where I got a matching shower curtain and tension rod to match the one I put on my closet, having removed the unwieldy sliding dooors. Narda waited until I had added the bottom section and then decided that she wanted to do (or rather that she wanted me to do) the same thing with her closet. So I did. I still have to sew the bottom tab, however. Malka and I also went to Wh*le F*ods (all stores are getting an * in the name, to avoid the sp*mmers) and then went to run a few other errands, ending up at J*nnifer Con*ertibles, where we ended up getting the sleeper sofa as viewed below, and two chairs, instead of the loveseat and chair. It was only noon, and by now, Malka Palka Pooka Palka was DONE. She had been up since 8:30, and had been SUCH a good girl, but decided that she was hungry and tired, and that J*nnifer Con*ertibles would be the PERFECT place to let me know just HOW done she was. And loudly. All while I was talking to the salesperson and Narda, via cell phone, all at the same time.

So off to home we go, Malka gets lunch, and a nap, and I proceed to have lunch myself, and do the dishes, and put up the shower curtain, aka closet door for Narda's closet. Then it was time to clean the kitchen, and I played about 15 minutes of my Pl*ystat*on. Then Malka woke up, and we had a bit of fun playing for a while, and then went outside, and discovered that Mount Morris Park, which has an amphitheatre, was having a dance concert. So we watched that for a bit (Malka, she LOVES the dance!), and then went onto Malka's FAVE activity - SWINGS! After we did a bit of swinging (and I answered about 5 questions of "Is that your daughter?" UGH.) we then went off to M*rshalls, where we then acquired the 6th "BCD" (baby containment device), or actually, baby carrier - this one's the hip seat. It's COOL. It's basically a hard fanny pack that sits on the side of your hip, and the kid sits on the seat, so you can hoist her up to your hip, and the weight's off of your arms and lower back, and on your hip instead. It was about 30 bucks cheaper than at Spend Spend Baby or that place with the backswards R, so into my cart it went!

We then came home, Malka Palka Pooka Palka had her dinner (did I mention that she's now trying cottage cheese, and although the faces she made at first were funny, she's happily gumming/chewing her way through those yummy curds of happiness!) and then it was time for Eemah to eat. Now, bear in mind that Malka has now finally achieved some random form of mobility. It's not crawling yet, really, but she can get around - so where you plop her is NOT where she will stay. She will reach, scoot and wiggle her way on over to her goal - usually the little bags of catnip in the corner of the living room, or her sound machine in her bedroom, etc. You get the picture. So I plopped her down in front of the kitchen, and quickly make my dinner - I took one of the ice cubes of basil infusion and smeared it on a chicken breast and broiled it - then plopped it on some brown rice I made the other day, and voila! Yummy quick dinner. By now, Malka was also DONE with the day and this whole "being awake" thing. So off we go for her bath, and bottle and bed. She has been REALLY good about going to bed on time. So good, in fact, that after Good Night Moon was done, and her teeth were brushed, I was trying to get in one more snuggle before bed. But NO! She pushed againt my chest, and the second I put her down in her crib, she grabbed her lovie, rolled over, and went to sleep! That's my girl, she takes after her Eemah. I tend to fall asleep pretty qucikly, too...

After Malka went to sleep, it was tidy-up time, bottles and lunch for daycare prep time, make my lunch for tomorrow time, feed the cats time, and then finally, at about 8:30, I was done. And just in time, too - I had to watch the finale of HGTV's Design Star. I mean, it was OBVIOUS that David was going to win, but still, I had to watch.

And now, I get to do it all again tomorrow.

It's a blessing in my life that we have Malka at all to worry about and take care of, but WOW - I'm pooped. And with that, I say C*lgon, take me away!