I never update. But I hate blogs that update about what lazy bloggers they are. (Do, or do not. There is no “whining meta-apology”.)

Tonight might be the wrong night to update though. This kid gave me such a hard time today. And I was all burnt out, so, after my regular end-of-the-night-beer with Ian, I had an end-of-the-end-of-the-night-beer. And now I’m tipsy.

I finally processed my pictures from the Fireworks Festival. Hey, look how giant that kid is. Who in this household is old enough to handle a kid that giant and intense?

Who here is old enough to have given birth to that kid? Oh god, let’s not even bring that up. He’s been hard on me since day one.

Look. He still has his little elfin ears. I remember loving those ears when he was a baby, they folded down at the tips like puppy ears. Awwww… Goddamn kid. Why do you always have to be so damn intense??

I wish I could call in sick tomorrow. I’ve been fighting flu-symptoms for a week and a half, but they’ve never got bad enough for me to actual hunker down and be sick. But also, tomorrow would be a v. bad day to call in sick since there are prototypes due at the end of the day on this Very Big Project that I am assisting with.

Speaking of intense. Maybe the question is whether I am capable of making mellow children. Given who her dad is, you’d think Hannah would be a little more level. Instead she has this crazy combination of her dad’s low emotional affect (she is NOT a giggler) and her mother’s… um, imperious will (shall we say?). Yesterday she clawed Ethan’s face seriously. And when I said, “HANNAH! You need to say sorry,” she said to me in a very level and sober tone, “I don’t say sorry.” She was not in the least remorseful.

And yet, today, when Ethan drove me to frustrated tears in the car, she sat there saying, “hey. HEY! YOU GIVE MAMA A HUG.” And Ethan complied. She is one of the few people in this world who gets to boss him around and he just listens.

I spend time hating other parents, the smug ones, the ones who look at you, unable to control your child, and they manage to easily dismiss your struggles as having something to do with some failing of yours. You do know- you know, right? how much the child you raise has to do with luck? (you have one and you pat yourself on the back. I have three and I know how much they are their own inevitable person.) People keep telling me how lucky Ethan was to end up with a mother who is interested in finding the right ways to respect who he is instead of beating or shaming him into submission. I don’t know if he will ever see that – but it’s something I cling to. Maybe this struggle has a purpose, at least for one of us.

It’s a good thing he’s so beautiful. And interesting. And fiercely intelligent. Because whatever myriad things mother-child relationships might be expected to provide, a sense of my own worth is not something I ever experience with him.

Ian needs the computer because he needs to stay up late working. I am selfishly updating my whiny blog and forcing him to stay up later. 🙁

But I wanted to find excuses for these last pictures. Chocolate orange trifle. And fireworks. Look. There’s srsly good stuff in my life. Kids, yeah, yadda yadda. But also, CHOCOLATE & FIREWORKS, like SRSLY!!

We have actually got around to doing a tiny bit of wedding planning. This is probably because my mum has finally got around to doing a tiny bit of HER wedding planning. And that made me wake up a little and say, “so, if we don’t start planning now, we should probably plan to not get married until 2011.”

You know what I want for my wedding? Fireworks. And chocolate. Like SRSLY.

You could accuse me of being a stilted writer. And tipsy. It would be mostly true.