Read more here.

Listening: Elvis Perkins

Aliens have broken in to our home and stolen all of the adult brains from the premises.

At least, that is the only rational explanation I can come up with for what transpired over the weekend.

***

Marc and I returned to Austin last week and decided simultaneously that our living room (which for the past year has been the boys play area)

was too small and treacherous for Harrison, let alone Finn & Harrison, to play in for the rest of their toddlerhood. The only idea we could come up with – apart from selling the house and moving to the suburbs to stretch out in a 5,000 sqft monstrosity, which IS NOT an option – was to move our office and turn the room into a play-room.

So, to recap – the woman who has defined herself by her accomplishments through her work for the past 10+ years, just gave up her office to work in a nook of her bedroom.

Yeah – like I said – ALIENS.

***

The idea was crazy enough, but, the method and speed with which we made the transformation was insanity. Starting Saturday after returning from Ikea to purchase all of the requisite modern-kid-room-accoutrement, Marc and I took turns taking the kid out to play while the other removed all traces of dull metallic gray from Taiwan and replaced them with the bright shiny plastic from Sweden.

We played in the room yesterday when it was done and ALL had a blast. Having the space to comfortably and safely sprawl out is really, very nice. The most shocking part is that Marc and I are becoming OK with the fact that over the last year the kid has turned our social lives, our priorities and now our interior decorating scheme completely upside down. And I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I gave up my office for my kid to have a play-room…

or super, mega, awesome fun-room, as it’s known around here. (more photos – here)

***

So, now you know – when people who used to be cool and care about all the good things in life – food, booze, music, work, movies, art – give it up to stay at home and play with their kids – it’s not their fault – blame the aliens.

Listening: Mayer Hawthorne

 LiveMom.com the Austin mom-community blog that we designed and produced a few months ago is up and growing in readership. Catherine, the founder published a pre-baby prediction interview with me last week and after the kid comes we’ll do a post-baby report – to see how naive and embarrassing all my answers were!

Listening: Crystal Stilts

I will be taking some take some time off after, you know, the human is released from my body – about 3 weeks. I’ll still be checking email I imagine because it seems inhuman not to. Besides, I’d rather work while the kid lays there like a lump and save some real time off for when he can function like a semi-human being and is cognizant of the attention. There is that little issue of lack of sleep… but, I figure I slept a total of about 40 hours my freshman year of college and survived… this can’t be much different – although, I’m assuming there will be less Keystone Light and late night trips to Taco Bell – which will hopefully lead to the loss of rather than gain of 30 pounds.

Listening: The Sea & Cake