I think my house is haunted. Well, I’m like 90 percent sure my house is haunted. Even though my house is only four years old and is not buried on an ancient Indian burial ground (that I know of) and that in the entire four years we’ve lived here I’ve never experienced anything like a haunting.

Until now.

There have been two incidents in two days, or rather, nights. If something happens tonight, it will be three in three and I will be moving out before there’s a chance for a fourth.

Incident #1: E leaves pretty early for work, like before the sun comes up early. On Wednesday, he had to leave extra early. He always wakes me up. Anyways, about 10 minutes after he left, I heard a strange noise. Part of me wanted to cover my head with my blanket and hope it would go away. But, there’s a baby in this house and me being the only adult kinda puts a damper on my cowardice.

So I went to check it out. It was coming from the guest room, so I crept down the hall and flipped on the light to find the printer running. Not actually printing, just making noise. I turned it off and went back to bed, thinking it was odd, but whatever.

Later that night, E told me it was just coming out of power-saving mode or some junk like that. I’m pretty sure he was just lying to me so that I would leave him alone and let him go to sleep.

Incident #2: Technically Friday, but since it was 1:30 a.m., we’ll call it Thursday. E and I came upstairs around 9. He settled into the guest bed (horrendous snorer). And I settled into our bed, with my laptop and my DVR’d Beverly Hills 90210 episodes. I think I fell asleep around 11:30. Then, at 1:30, I woke with a start – what is that noise?? Is that the TV downstairs? I went to investigate. Alone. Not sure why.

And I found that while the TV was off, the box from Directv was on, as was our surround-sound, thus blaring whatever TV show plays on HGTV at 1:30 a.m., with no picture. I clicked both off and went back upstairs, where I proceeded to cower in my bed until I fell asleep. Then I cowered some more when E got up and I told him what happened. He said he’s not sure what happened with the TV, but he cannot tell me WHY THE TV TURNED ON BY ITSELF AT 1:30 IN THE MORNING.

That’s when I dropped the bomb on him. “Our house is haunted,” I said. “It isn’t,” he replied. “Why,” I countered. “Because you can’t handle that reality?” “No, because it’s NOT HAUNTED,” he said, only a little defensively.

I think he’s lying to me. And I am freaking the eff out.

I know I have an overactive imagination. It’s why I don’t watch horror movies. It’s also why my two biggest fears are tsunamis and robots (not together, although that would probably put me into cardiac arrest).

If something goes down tonight, I will lose my mind. And I will be moving out. 

The Peanut doesn’t talk much. She makes a lot of noise, but other than “mama,” “dada,” “bye-bye” and “wee,” she doesn’t have much of a vocabulary yet.

Most days I wish she would start talking more, if only to alleviate the whines, grunts and pointing that currently make up her communication. But today, I am glad she’s not.

Because that means my daughter wasn’t the kid running around the doctor’s office this morning shouting:

Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies,

ASSES ASSES, we all fall down!

Today is Mother’s Day. I was treated to a little girl who slept in her own crib until 8 a.m., a sweet Snoopy card (which the same little girl promptly tore apart) and breakfast at Panera - among other things.

I love being a mom. I love it more than anything else and I am confident that I am doing a good job. I love the way my Peanut wakes me up in the morning, with a few pokes, a zerbet, a kiss and by eventually climbing over my face. I love the way she can be so serious and then tilt her head to the side and flash me her gorgeous hillbilly smile. I love the unprovoked kisses and the way she only wants me to snuggle her when she wakes up from a nap and the way her hair curls as the day goes on. I love the face she makes when she is truly upset and the way she flails her arms and walks around yelling during a tantrum (just like her mother). I love that she’s adventurous and curious, but at the same time is cautious and carefully watching her environment.

Most of all, I love the way she reassures me, in her own way, that I amher momand that she loves me and she needs me.

So much enthusiasm…

YOU GUYS!

Jenny Lawson is coming to Concord this week as part of her book tour. You know - The Bloggess?!

I just love her. Her (soon-to-be-signed) book is my Mother’s Day gift.

But, I’m struggling with one thing. I feel like I have to say something outrageous or hilarious or tell her about a crazy Beyonce-the-metal-chicken type of incident. And I have NO IDEA what to say.

Historically, I am not good when it comes to talking to someone famous and have made a fool of myself on more than one occasion. The most recent being the time my dad played in a golf tournament and met Sergio Garcia (good God, he is smokin) and then proceeded to call me at work and PUT SERGIO ON THE PHONE. The results were not pretty. It was five years ago and I still get a little nauseated just thinking about it.

I’m sure I’ll just end up getting to the table, handing her the book to sign and saying something lame, like “thanks,” or “I really like your work,” only to think of the perfect thing five minutes after I leave. Ugh.

I’ve spent the past 24 hours with a jumble of thoughts running through my head; my feelings ranging from anger to sadness to embarrassment to empathy. And I’ve spent some time thinking about the words I wanted to use in writing this post. I suppose I could go on about the separation of church and state, about what the Bible says vs. what I know is right, about faith and family and hatred.

Instead, I’m going to use the words of our own forefathers.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (The Declaration of Independence).

Yesterday, the state of North Carolina, of which I am a resident, voted to pass Amendment 1. Yesterday, North Carolinians spat in the face of the ideals on which our country was founded – Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I am heartbroken that there can be so much blatant hatred and ignorance, running rampant through this state (and this country).

I believe in faith. I believe in freedom. I believe in tolerance and kindness and the golden rule. And most of all, I believe in love. All kinds of love. Love between a husband and a wife, love between a man and a woman who decide to remain unmarried, love between two men, two women and family love. Love is love. Period. And I believe that all Americans should be granted the right to express this love through marriage and that the rights of all families should be protected by our government.

Melissa, over at Dear Baby, wrote a beautiful post about raising children in the face of such bigotry and I agree with her wholeheartedly. It is our job as parents to ensure that our children know what is right and that what’s right isn’t always easy. It’s our job to make sure our children grow up to be kind, loving, compassionate people who speak for those who have no voice, who stand with those who cannot stand on their own, who love because it is the right thing to do. If I teach my daughter nothing else, I hope she learns to love.

It’s amazing to watch my little girl grow and develop her own personality. She’s becoming funnier and sillier and sweeter and more wonderful each day. And she makes me laugh.

• She’s learned how to take off her pajamas. She’s been in the 2-piece jammies for a few weeks now and this week, I watched her slip her arm out of the sleeve, pull the top over her head and slip the other arm out. Consequently, she’s half naked a lot. But she’s got a cute belly.
• Since she was born, the Peanut typically wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 and I bring her into bed with me and we both fall back asleep for a few more hours. Lately, she comes in, falls asleep, but wakes up again before me. She quietly fidgets around - poking at me, climbing me, pulling the blankets off of me. But this week, she surprised me. As I was laying there, pretending to be asleep, I watched her (through barely open eyes) take out her bink and lean down to give me wake up kisses. And then I died. Then she gave me a zerbet.
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I sing this about 30 times a day. No exaggeration. E sings it a few more. She is OBSESSED with this song! She squishes her two pointer fingers together as if to make the “spider,” and demands we sing it. Again. And again. And then once more. I try to switch it up with other nursery rhymes but she is having none of it. Not even Humpty Dumpty can hold a candle to this damn spider, although she does enjoy a good rendition of I’m a Little Teapot.
• Peanut isn’t talking much. Besides mama and dada, she doesn’t have a lot of words. But, she’s excellent at sounds! Monkeys, dogs, kitties, lions, alligators (another story) - she can imitate them all. My favorite is her fish face. It’s not a typical fish face, but it’s what she gives us when we ask for it.

The fish face.

My Nani came to town this past week and on Sunday, we all drove up to Lexington to spend the afternoon at Childress Vineyards and listen to some sweet music courtesy of MoodSwingZ (for real). It sounds hoity toity, but became decidedly less so when I got tipsy tasting wines and almost rolled my ankle while walking with my husband to the gazebo. Unbelievably, these incidents were unrelated.

This also happened:

The Peanut emptied all of Grampy’s pennies into the fountain and was told she was cute by Richard Childress (NASCAR owner and also the vineyard owner).

She is cute. And also far too important to be bothered with the likes of us. No pictures please.

Me and the husband, enjoying the smooth sounds of MoodSwingZ.

Too busy dancing with Grampy to pose for a picture.

And then we went home and played kickball. She cheated.