As someone who has worked 18 out of the last 24 hours, this is all I've got today.

But really, isn't that enough?

Addicted.

I'll just bet you were wondering where the cool polaroid-looking backgrounds for my photos came from, weren't you?

Huh?

Huh?

See, I knew you were.

Well, I found Picnik a while back, courtesy of Dianna at The Kennedy Adventures.

It is my current obsession.

Go on over, try it out. It's free.*

*I am not a paid spokesperson for Picnik. However, if the cool folks at Picnik happen to run across this post and send a little sumpthin' my way, I won't be terribly offended.

Chuck E. Cheese's is only fun if you're drunk. Or maybe if you're four.

And just a few short hours ago, I was neither drunk nor four, but I was at Chuck E. Cheese's.

You know, where a kid can be a kid.

Those places always feel like a time warp to me, and not in a good way.  

Plus today, there was a little girl there with questionable hygiene who kept scratching her head in a way that made me itchy and uncomfortable.

At one point, RJ looked at me and said "How long has it been?"

I glanced at my watch.

"Less than an hour."

RJ:  "Do you think it's been long enough?"

Me:  "Oh, hell yeah.  Try to catch him and we'll leave."

RJ: "I think it's your turn to catch him."

Me:  "Oh no.  I caught him last time.  Don't you remember?"  Launches into a very detailed, descriptive tale of The Last Time, which, by the way, was totally made up.

Oh well.

At least SOMEBODY had fun.

Cj's first haircut. With apologies.

Ok, I caved to the pressure.

Even my well-meaning, German-speaking, non-judging babysitter said a week or so ago "Maybe you just cut these long parts off, huh?"

So I did it.

I cut cj's hair.

Also, I cried.

Because now, he looks like little boy instead of baby.

Here's how it went down:

Obviously, this was becoming pretty necessary.

cj, remember that Mama loves you very much and only wants what's best for you.  

Mama always has good intentions.  

No matter the outcome.

Happy Birthday, Zackie.

Dear Zackie,

Today you are 4 years old. It seems like only a short time ago that you were just a baby, and we were sort of in the business of just getting used to each other. You were such a scrawny, tiny little thing that I was kind of terrified of you, and although I loved you so much that I thought my heart might beat right out of my chest, I wasn't sure I LIKED you very much yet.

Then, you started, slowly, slowly, to become YOU.

Here you are at one. I thought surely you were the smartest, cutest, funniest child ever created.

I still think that.

By age two, you were pretty much your own person. That determined look was (and still is) one that I saw often.

I've never met someone quite so stubborn except maybe myself, but this is so not about me right now, so just keep those thoughts to yourself, please.

You were fearless. A broken bone and a few trips to the ER proved it.

At age three, you had a clear idea of what liked (superheroes) and what you didn't (bedtime).

You could tell amazing stories, you could do the splits, and you could run faster and farther than anyone else.

Here you are now. You are so much more little boy than baby now, and sometimes it makes me sad that you'll never be that little baby again.

Sometimes, your hugs feel more like attacks than like love.

Sometimes, when I look at you, I see so much of myself in you, and sometimes, I see a creature that I feel certain could never have been a part of me.

Zackie, you are complicated and funny and smart and beautiful.

You know more about superheroes than Stan Lee, and you love your little brother with a ferocity I could not have dreamed of, or hoped for. And I'm pretty sure he feels the same way about you.

It's hard for me to believe that before long, I'm going to have to put you out into the world. You will go to school soon, and I won't be there to protect you every step of the way. It's almost unimaginable.

You are still fearless in ways I have never been and could never be. You followed me to work, you went onto the roof, and you've never met a stranger. Sometimes when I think about things like this, I feel like throwing up. Then I remind myself that if I can get you safely into adulthood, these fearless, stubborn traits will serve you very well in real life.

Happy Birthday Zackie.

Mama loves you very much.

The Services We Provide.

I am the manager of a large chain bookstore, the good one, not the one that sucks, and in my tenure there, I have been asked a number of questions that seem a little extreme.  It is not unusual to have someone ask for a copy machine to copy pages from a cookbook or an article from a magazine, and in my lifetime as a bookseller, I have been asked for everything from goldfish to unleavened bread.  True story.

My bookstore, Let's call it the M&J, is a little bitty store in a little bitty town, and when we first opened, many people were confused as to why on earth anyone would need that many books.  If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, "You people surely do have a lot of books," or my personal favorite, "This is the biggest libary I ever seen."

I have counseled people who just lost loved ones, either through death or through divorce, I have listened to people who had just received devastating health news about themselves or a loved one, and I have helped people choose a new diet, a new tattoo, and a new baby name.

But there's a new trend lately that I'm seeing, and it's widespread.

For reasons I cannot comprehend, my somewhat rural customer base has decided that the M&J must be the go-to place for all information about their fancy new gadgets, and they pretty much assume that my staff and I can help them configure, setup and operate these shiny toys.

I recently helped an earnest young man on the phone set up a new facebook account.  He assumed (and as it turned out, rightly so), that since we were a BOOKstore, we would know about faceBOOK.  I talked him through the setup process, but balked at giving him my information so he could friend me.  A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

The very same evening, I got a call from a woman who asked for books on the iphone.  She had a pretty new one, and as she relayed it to me, she was having trouble texting.

I dutifully walked to the iphone books, determined to help her.  As I was asking a series of smart sounding questions, she seemed to get more and more confused.  Finally she said, "I know HOW to text.  I just don't know what these texts that people are sending me mean.  What's LMAO?  What's TTYL? "  Hmmm.  At that point, I walked her through using that crazy thing called the interweb to look up a text abbreviation chart.  Her praise of me and my bookstore was unsurpassed.

Unsurpassed, that was, until a few days later, when I helped a sweet little old man who was quite likely a peer of Thomas Edison to set up his ipod touch on the store's wireless connection so he could check his email.  He was expecting some sort of very important email from his girlfriend and needed to get to it ASAP.  He, too sang my praises, and came back a few minutes later to let me know that - Good News! - his girlfriend was going to be able to meet him in the store for coffee a little later after all.  Their plans were up in the air a bit because she was unsure if she would be able to get a ride.  He hoped that once she arrived, I could come meet her, too, because of how nice and helpful I was.

And these are just a few of the services we provide.

The Great Snowball Fight of 2010.

A truce was called, and no winner was declared.

However, it seems pretty obvious who the winner really was...