Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2006!
And a big announcement coming tomorrow . . . stay tuned . . .

I have to wonder what happened to all of the packages that DHL was supposed to have delivered to me, but didn’t. Did the deliveryman leave them at the wrong house? Toss them off the truck on his way to the company Christmas party?
I spent an hour and a half on hold waiting to talk to someone in the DHL customer service department, and when I finally got through, the woman snidely asked me, “Have you looked outside by your front door?”
Gah . . .

It’s December 23rd, and we still haven’t put up our Christmas lights.
I’m starting to think that it’s just not going to happen this year.

Me: Oooo! I just got an email from a reader who wants me to leave you and run off to Australia with him!
George: Please don’t leave me and run off to Australia.
Me: Don’t worry. I don’t even know what he looks like or how much money he makes.
George: That’s your criteria?

I was at a Girl’s Night Out dinner last night. Among our group were several seasoned moms, the first-time mother of a newborn and two women without kids whom the rest of us bored to tears with our baby talk.
I filled the new mom in on two universal truths I wish someone had told me: (1) the last thing she’s going to want to do for a very, very long time is to have sex, and she shouldn’t feel at all guilty about that, and (2) it’s normal to hate your husband after you have a baby.
Everyone else was shocked that I said this out loud.
“I didn’t hate my husband,” the other moms murmured.
Um, yeah. Right.
Every new mother hates her husband. In fact, you’re supposed to hate him. Sure, maybe not all of the time. Maybe you even get the warm fuzzies when you see father and child snuggled up on the couch, looking all googly-eyed at one another. And you sigh, and think mushy thoughts about how sweet life is, and the circle of life, and how precious baby feet are, etc., etc.
But then your husband goes off to work, leaving you with a crying, shitting, boob sucking newborn, and you promptly start hating him again.
These feelings are completely normal. In fact, it’s nature’s way of ensuring that you don’t get pregnant again while you have a newborn. After all, if you hate your husband, you won’t have sex with him.
It’s a temporary glitch. Eventually, when your hormones level out and you actually manage to get some sleep, you do stop hating him, just as you also stop crying over Johnson & Johnson commercials and the memory of what your breasts used to look like.
But still, no one would fess up. Instead, they all looked at me as if I’d admitted I slipped cyanide into my husband’s meatloaf, and then began to protest that babies actually bring spouses closer together. Which is just another big, fat lie, unless you find it a turn-on to be up together at 2 a.m. taking turns pacing around the nursery with a screaming infant.
Which, quite frankly, I do not.
The conversation then veered toward favorite methods of postpartum birth control.
“You don’t have to worry about that until your baby is four to six weeks old, though,” one of the seasoned moms reassured the new mom.
“Four to six weeks? Try four to six months,” I scoffed.
Which reminded me of the conversation I had with my OB/GYN at my six-week check-up after Sam was born, when she asked what kind of birth control I’d like to use. When I stopped laughing and picked myself up off the floor, I said, “I have a six-week old. He’s my birth control.”

I return from the liquor store with an enormous jug of vodka, Bloody Mary mix and a jumbo-sized bottle of Shiraz.
George: Expecting company?
Me: No. I’m expecting trouble.

Why is it that computer equipment always waits until the worst possible moment — i.e., when you’re rushing to meet a deadline — to break down? After months of dying a slow death, my printer finally imploded right in the middle of spitting out my revised manuscript of TESTING KATE. Which meant that I spent most of Saturday racing around to various office supply stores trying to find a laser printer that (a) cost less than $200, and (b) was not a complete piece of shit.
The good news: I’m the proud owner of a zippy new printer that’s about ten times faster than the last one.
The even better news: My revisions are DONE! Done, done, DONE! Yea! Snaps for me!

It’s a point of pride that I get my holiday cards out early. Like, the-day- after-Thanksgiving early.
Why am I hung up on this? I have no idea. It’s just more of the Type-A nuttiness I’m mired in. And before you judge, remember: were I not so obsessive-compulsive, I probably wouldn’t have ever finished one novel, much less multiple books.
The funny thing is that my early holiday cards are starting to generate snarkiness from the recipients. I’m getting cards back with notes suggesting that I’m obnoxiously early in expressing my holiday cheer. One correspondent even told me that it was a sign I needed to have more children.
“You know, it’s not like it’s a competition,” I said to George.
“Come off it. You’re always smug about getting the cards out early,” he said.
This from the man who’s pledged to love me until he dies.
“I am not smug. I’m just organized,” I said.
He snorted in response.
And maybe — just maybe — he has a point. Maybe I am the slightest, tiniest bit smug about getting my cards out early. Because if it is a competition, than guess who wins?
Me!
But, you know. In a very merry sort of way.

Sam has started calling me “Money.”
Not Mama. Not Mommy.
Money.
George reports that when I go out, Sam wanders around the house saying, “No Money, No Money.”

In the tradition of pugs everywhere, Lulu likes to yap. She’ll bark at dogs walking by, or at the mailman, or at a leaf blowing across the back deck. And it’s not just a little warning gruff, but a high-pitched shriek of outrage.
“THERE IS A GOLDEN RETRIEVER ACROSS THE STREET!!! SOUND THE ALARM!!! SOUND THE ALARM!!!”
And to make it that much more irritating, Sam has started to imitate her.
“ARF, ARF, ARF!” Lulu barks.
“ARF, ARF, ARF!” Sam barks. Then he giggles, and turns in circles like Lulu does when she gets really worked up.
Every time a package is delivered to the house — which this time of year is nearly every day — I have to answer the door with a small dog and a small boy underfoot, both yelping and both spinning in circles.
I’m hoping this is something he’ll outgrow before he starts school.