My Big Fat Spankin' First Post of 2023

IT'S A BRAND NEW YEAR....

Oh wow is it... no... can it be??? I mean actually we're pretty far into it. Kind of to the point where I am not writing 2022 on everything even.  There were plenty of squirels and I got distracted but here we are now. Let's say welcome to the New Year properly. Or improperly. Or however we do this nonsense...

It's been a heckuva year and a wild wild ride right through the holidaze seasons but everyone's come out hollier, jollier and tinsilier...? 

Speaking of tinsel...

Had to find this pic for some random reason a while back and well this is me at about Allan's age. Weird huh?

This particular tinseled gap toothed cutie has had a long end to the whole thing. At the begining of December she had something Allan adorably called "a boopsy" in her nether regions. This is the second vulvar biopsy I've had.  It was... "fun"? Hard to compare one to the other really. Each one has its own special magic. (normal by the way, as only lab tests will ever say about me)

Anyways, the recovery this time was ... prolonged... which made for an interesting wind up into the Christmas season, considering I am the magical sugarplum fairy who brings Christmas and Hannukah to the land of Wrights whether I'm throbbing and tender or not. 

On the bright side, I pretty much told Allan I was not doing anything for a few weeks and she was surprisingly helpful and independent. She swept up, picked up, and got herself some of her own food. She even dressed and kept herself kempt. mostly. I mean let's not go overboard. She explicitly likes her hair "wild" some days, and who am I to judge. Be fierce, little warrior girl!

And on that note, having exhausted this topic, and faltering to conjure adequate segues, here have another cute not-Allan picture. We are not twins by any means, but it's funny to see how we shared a few expressions

So there you go for people who say we look soooooooooo much alike...meh, kinda. I was definitely much plumper cheeked and just generally huger. I'm still huger in fact:

But it becomes increasingly clear that Allan is oh so much more than my little mini-me. She is her own giganta-her, really. The biggest brightest most amazing feels and insights and words that have yet to be invented. 

Full of MUSIC in her soul and poetry on her lips!

Beat poetry

Emphasis, occasionally on the beating. Truth, when raw, sometimes can be a bit intense. But lovely nonetheless. 

School wrapped up about two weeks into December and Allan got her own special version of Disneyland: Gramma Pam's house! For almost a full week! This is the longest she's been away from home and it went very well. Though Pam's house is pretty much second home already. Nonetheless kind of cool. We've got a rematch scheduled for the mid-winter break. (Skiing is great and all but danged expensive compared to summoning a willing grandparent and tossing some luggage and a child in her direction!)

Allan had an orgy of delight and her parents got to be Andrew and Adella instead of Mommy and Daddy (or Anjpah and Adellwa, as Allan occasionally names us) for a while. I mean with each other even. 

We celebrated by watching netflix in a chill fashion, playing board games, going pokemon going, and hitting a fancy schmancy work party at the Museum of Flight. I stayed for a whole forty minutes before the cleaning solution and other fragrances sent me scurrying home. Whoooooooooo! The final one was probably my least favorite, but it was cool still. 

The weather took a funny turn around then. Full blizzards of snow. A small clearing just in time for Allan to make it back to the house. And then...

The biggest ice storm in at least a decade! Which was cool because we live indoors and have decent heating!

Miss Thang had a blast slipping and sliding around our yard

We stayed there until my hands were white and blue and she probably would have played longer but we finally skated to the mailbox and there were cards to open. (Phew). Skating on grass, by the way, is kind of trippy. But fun too. 

Made for a climactic skid into the holidays, since the grocery deliveries were cancelled for a few days right up until Christmas Eve day. And then Amazon was still a mess. I was sure everyone would cancel my orders so I made a couple of grocery orders from different grocery stores via different delivery services (door dash, instacart)

It was fun because I got updates from all the services all day long. One shopper substituted in chips for other chips. I got a refund on milk. Eggs were unavailable would I like a substitution (yes, of course I would like an aubergine and a ball of string instead of those eggs). My order was being processed. My order was on its way...Better all the way through!

Instacart Safeway won the grand prize but Door Dash QFC was pretty good.  No injuries. No cancellations. A TON of fortune cookies. 

And with that extra padding of PHEW (we were totally out of food), we let the good times roar!!!

A little Hannukah: 

A lot of Christmas Eve

Presents here and there. 

Allan got her first Barbie branded product actually. This dog was a favorite for roughly a day and a half before she returned her affections to Pepper the unicorn cat. We managed to turn off the animatronics and sounds after only a few traumatizing episodes of accidentally squeezing its paw, so over all a hit. 

And of courses the Crhismukkah Eve comes with PJs!!!

The parents divided up a single grown up set that somehow had come instead of two pairs. Which worked fine enough for all invovled. Allan was satisfied. Andrew has more pajama bottoms. All is well. 

And just like that... we finally reached the grand finale of 2022's holiday season (NYE counts for 2023 I think)

Allan was greeted with the customary scavenger hunt for candy and stickers... then breakfast and GIFTAPALOOZA!

Gramma Pam and Grampa David visited of course and we settled into a very complex game of Horrified.

The board games have been a fun addition to the holiday season. Between us, we received about 4 or 5 new ones. The ones we identified got opened up on their own nights in order to be played. Next year, I'm hoping to codify the tradition and open/play a new game for every night of Hannukah. Yeah similar to the books idea (open and read each night), but Allan already has an Advent calendar with one book a night so I think we've got that covered already!

Needless to say, Ms. Allan (as she is now signing all her artwork) looked and was FABULOUS for Christmas. Enough said. 

 She still looks fabulous in fact. 

But wait,that's not all. There was another week of break going on!

The fun! Allan got to go climbing! With Andrew's help (and lap) Allan took a coding class where she animated some wild and amazing things. We considered and then decided against attempting any form of skiing. It all went bonkers amazing wonderful. 

We finally cashed in on our zoo membership and ...went to the zoo...

It was awesome!

Though I'm gonna admit I was pretty ready to have the house back to myself again. 

Getting back into routine was a wee bit of bittersweet relief all in all. 

Especially because Allan is enjoying school!

Sort of. 

Sometimes.  

When it isn't the worst thing ever anyways. 

Right after normal went back, Allan went back to Gramma Pam's to celebrate The Grammabirthday (by demanding cupcakes and otherwise forcing my mom to cater to her every wont and whim as usually)

Cupcakes were had. 

Especially by Allan. She would like everyone to have more birthdays please. And definitely celebrate half birthdays as well. 

Anyways, things are mostly kinda settling in to the new normal. Kind of. Where "normal" is mostly abnormal. 

This second weekend of post holidaze fun, Allan and Andrew are off to Tahoe to go skiing and otherwise continue the legacy of wonky sleep for the 2023 year! From what I understand, they got settled in around midnight on Friday. I have no idea how pretty much anything went last night. Tonight they'll be driving back to San Francisco for a whole new strange sleeping place at odd hours, before catching a flight home tomorrow. I'm sure that there will be infinitely more "best" and "worst" days ever in the coming week! Ah well. They are probably having fun.  

 I am, anyways! I've been getting some good chill time in. Introverting out in my little house but not just hanging on my own. It's hard to actually hang out with my favorite peeps in the day to day. I schedule in "time off" from mom-duty, and try to do it around the time I might align availability with folx, but nobody can really promise anything. It's all usually just kind of child-related chaos, where pockets of time open randomly and without warning when I'm decidedly not-free and vice versa. Being essentially FREE all day means my persons can call when they have a moment and I'll just... this is crazy, I know, especially if you've ever tried to call me... answer. 

And then I'm just kind of available to keep on talking without any screams or knocks on the door, or the obviously divided attention of a mom who does NOT want to open that door but feels like it might break down at any moment... And maybe we watch a movie or a Doom Patrol or a soccer game or just curl up on our respective couches talk about life and... wow! I'm into it!

I'm not totally off the hook. Right before leaving, Allan entrusted her current favorite stuffy into my care. I was a bit surprised and she almost took it back, but then decided to press forward. She seemed very concerned about Pepper being well cared for, although some part of me suspects she actually was leaving her with me so I wouldn't miss my Ms Allan too much. Nonetheless, I take my duty of care seriously. 

Pepper is having a nice long weekend. 

Froggy... not so much. What can you do? She's used to being fairly literally babied, and daddy is away. Poor thing. I'm sure she'll be blissed out when the family she most likely gets back tomorrow. Which she will likely express through a lot of petulant yeowling, and occasionally biting and scratching Andrew as a lesson for leaving her in the first place. She may be misterable, but she is infinitely better behaved when it's just the two of us. I hear this is basically the exact opposite with our child. Which probably explains how we have divided the small-female mommying in this household. 

Otherwise, the year keeps spinning. Allan's been chugging on willingly doing her homework and demanding chores to do.

 The chores are all avarice. She wants this light up Pikachu thing that costs a whole lotta "points" (one dollar is one hundred points), and she knows the best way to get it before the world ends is through the value of hard work and whining. No, mostly hard work. Sort of. Doing chores with Allan is ... not exactly restful. 

For example, last Wednesday. We got home from school and she asked what chores she could do. I listed out about four options, to which she moan-cringed and yelled stridently that she didn't want to do any of them but... (mega resigned sigh) "OK..." Then she cried because cleaning the toilet might get her wet, though it never actually did. Then she went to another room to pout and I said she didn't have to do any of these chores. But she WANTED TO!!! Really!! OR something. So she came upstairs where I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom, and found a few blankets. This sparked some kind of evil-genius mechanics and she started getting mischievous smiles while yelling "DON'T LOOK!!!" and scurrying around a lot. Plenty of bangs and strange noises later, and she returned without blankets. I kept cleaning... she demanded another chore. I let her clean another toilet. We mopped the floors "together". Then I dried the floors while Allan jumped on my back and tried to ride on me.

 Later I went upstairs and found several blankets folded over each other in nesting-doll fashion. In the very middle was a picture she'd drawn for her friend and forgotten to give to her. No idea,but it was pure evil genius I assure you. 

The homework though is a tad bit more intrinsically motivatedoh oh 

n. She gets a packet once a week and I have to encourage her a bit to get it started. And we agree she doesn't have to finsih anything. Just choose a few pages to try. But once she does, she loves writing little stories and doing math problems. Of course her math problems seem to require me to "closer yer eyes" for long stretches until she says "Gosh gollyit's NINE!!!!" with grand fanfare that requires my dazed reciprocation. Or sometimes she just tells story problems about how there were nine mothers and then two stepmothers came along and then four mothers died and now how many mothers were there... I feel my days are numbered sometimes! And sometimes she needs her entire set of crayolas. But it gets done. And it gets done with a sense of ownership! 

Or she did before her little ski vacay! Lord knows what it'll all be like next week. Fingers crossed for something awesome. How could it be anything less though, considering hte source? 

Messy, chaotic awesome!!

Happy 2023 y'all!