While gathering my week's supply of fruit and veggies in the produce section of the grocery store the other day, a bustling produce worker approached me and asked what I was looking for in an apple (almost as if he were asking what I looked for in a man).

I laughed, "Well, I guess I like crisp, sweet apples."

He proceeded to share his wealth of apple knowledge describing to me the characteristics of each Fuji, Gala, Cameo, Granny Smith, Red & Golden Delicious, Braeburn, and all others that were out on display.

"I've always been a fan of the Fuji," I said.

"Well, if you like the Fuji, come back in a month or two and we'll have one that's so big, and so sweet, you'll have to hold it with two hands and eat it with your husband in front of the TV with a block of cheese."

I laughed again, "Oh! Sounds so romantic!" I was serious...sharing a nice apple with my sweet hubby & cutting up nice little slices and enjoying the evening together sounds romantic to me! The produce manager gave me a look that suggested I was nuts for thinking an apple could ilicit any romance at all. Perhaps our ideas of romance differ as much as our idea of a good apple may differ...maybe he likes sour, mushy apples. Sigh. I'll have to go back in a month or two and try it out, I guess. Maybe report back to him...

In the mean time, I'll just continue to watch how every apple my babeh holds seems to be as big for him as I anticipate the early summer apples to be for me...

No, this is not me with Sir Shamu of Sea World. But in the next few days we will be knee deep in Sea World Magic where we'll actually get to SEE Shamu in person. (Hasn't there been a Shamu since forever ago? Do you think they'll tell us if this is Shamu the 5th or 12th? Surely Killer Whales grow old...) We'll also visit The San Diego Zoo (don't know if the THE should be capitalized, but it seems appropriate), the beach, and the new Wild Animal Adventure Park.

I'm honest when I say this trip really isn't for me--nor my hubby. Really. Though we've all needed a bit of a family vacation for a while--and our trip just happens to fall over Mother's Day and the month before my hubby's busy summer work--the trip, in my mind, is really for my little Babeh and not at all for us grown-ups. He'll be two this month which means three things (well, it means MANY things, but for these purposes, THREE):

First: He understands, knows, and LOVES animals
Second: If we wait another month we'd have to buy him a plane ticket
and Third: If we wait too many more months, I'll be as monstrous as Shamu and all the other visitors of these great parks will think -I- am the whale or elephant that should be looked at.

This is our window to travel. This is our window to shower my little one in animal delight. This is our window to make some serious memories before the summer blows in knocking us into the pool and out of our normal routine. This will be the start of a whole new collection of memories! Yay!

Other than being terrified that the plane will crash (this irrational fear is rediculous and I wish I could just hypnotize it out of my bones), I'm just as giddy as a school girl to see my babeh dance around in excitement this weekend.

I think my hubby might do the same. He makes me just as giddy...

Every day opening lines to a Taming The Tangents blog entry run through my head and every day I jot them down on my mental canvas and hope to be able to expand on them when I have more time and energy. I haven't been very good at finding more of either lately, so putting off actually writing them down (online) has been just as easy as thinking of new first lines...

...so I've decided to just blurt out a few of them to get them off my chest and imagine that the rest of my entire thought is subscripted for my 3 readers (I love all of you) to enjoy. Here they are in no particular order:
*When looking at people who are old, I often try to imagine what they looked like in their youth---and I try to do the same for younglings as for when they are elderlings. I'm starting to look at my own son in the same way. Suddenly he is looking more and more grown up to me and I'm finding myself imagining what he'll be like, both in looks and personality, in 10,20, and 30 years from now. It kind of rattles my bones---but at the same time gives me great satisfaction that I think he'll be just as cute and sweet then as he is now.

*I have a guilty pleasure of ordering things online, waiting anxiously for them to be delivered by the seemingly shy UPS driver (who usually rings the doorbell and runs as fast as they can to avoid being caught---as if I'm going to to say anything but THANKS to them), and then deciding whether or not I should keep it. Sure, its a pain to take it back to the store if I deem it unworthy of keep, but if I got free shipping anyway, why is it so bad to have an excuse to get out of the house?

*If I could choose my morning alarm clock, I would easily choose the spring birdies chirping through my window as they have been lately. Even though they think wake up time is 6:00 am, I don't mind their sweet tweets drawing me away from dreamland. And if I could choose a lullaby to put me to sleep every night, it would hands down be the sound of a warm rainstorm and a little wind. Its so lovely. I love Spring.

*For the first time in my life, I think I'm starting to prefer skirts over shorts. It may be a skirt summer for me---which might be interesting---I've never had a skirt tan line before.

*About a week ago we committed to a heavy purchase that was going to be much more than we should ever pay for something---oodles for gorgeous, healthy conscious pots and pans. Laughing. My car isn't even worth what we committed to pay for these delux cheffery tools. But I couldn't sleep for 3 nights thinking about it and all I could think about was how guilty I felt (especially since my hubby left it up to me to decide whether or not to buy in--which was brilliant of him) so I cancelled the order at the last minute that I could. Its funny because now I feel like I have that much MORE money than I had before. I didn't feel one ounce of guilt saying that I didn't feel like cooking on my own set of pans that night and committed to going to Costa Vida for dinner instead.

*Being barefoot is one of my favorite, favorite things about summer. I can't remember a single day with shoes on (in the summer) growing up---well, maybe one pair of pink jelly shoes that I loved. I don't mind having tough feet and I don't mind having to swipe off a rock or thorn once in a while. I love being barefoot. So so much.

*Throughout my whole life everything seems to be blamed on me. I'm quite certain its safe to say that I'm the one who gets the beating most of the time---whether it be in my family, with friends, at work, or in the neighborhood. I have done a good bit of analyzing my behavior as I've tried to figure out this strange phenomena (in hopes to fix something within myself to avoid it happening so often) but no matter how hard I try to say the right thing or fix the broken edge, I still get the slap on the wrist. What hurts most is that even when it ISN'T my fault and I WAS in the right, I'm always the one who has to apologize. Why can't someone else just say they are sorry? And why can't someone say they are sorry to ME. Urgh. Its hard to always feel like I have to be the bigger person when I've been made to feel so small.

*People may think that I am a picky eater but my choice of food has much more to do with how the food makes me feel than how the food tastes. I quite like cheese, and ice cream is to-die-for...but it gives me a superbly bloated stomach with a side of tummy ache the rest of the day, so I choose not to eat it. I think a bite of a big, fat, juicy hamburger is actually very delicious...but I feel so heavy and full after eating a whole burger that I'm just miserable afterward, so I choose not to eat it. Rice makes me feel the same way, so I prefer to negate it from a third of my dinner plate. The diet I choose has much more to do with how I feel after I eat it than what I think it will do to my waisteline. It can be frustrating when people don't understand the menu I try live by. Oh, and by the way, brownie mix eaten right out of the bowl really does make me feel good. :)

*This week I am willingly putting myself at risk for a deadly disease and a small chance of dying. I have been laying awake at night thinking of how foolish it is to submit myself to the Swine Flu and a possible plane crash on the way to San Diego, but I'm putting my babeh's and hubby's enjoyment of marine and zoo animals ahead of my own fears. I do my best to be unselfish... :)

Boy, does that feel good to finally have all those thoughts out of my head. :)

It always amazes me to see angry drivers on the road. You know, the ones who give you "The Glare" as either you pass them or they pass you, or the ones who honk half a millisecond after the light turns green if you haven't sped through the intersection already, or the ones who feel justified in cutting you or someone else off because they have little patience or little courtesy?! And how about those middle fingers?! I wish there was a hand signal for, "Really!? You're going to let it bug you THAT much?!"

I think "The Glare" is justifiable if a car nearly kills you (like one did this morning on our walk), and a nice tap on the horn can be allowed if someone is blindly backing into you or has clearly fallen asleep at some uncommonly long light. And I even think whipping around someone who isn't paying attention or is going 20 mph under the speed limit is just fine. But most of the time, the rage on the road is getting too far out of hand.

If I were in charge of road sign archecture, I think I'd design one that was a nice calming blue that would read: CALM DOWN. In smaller letters I'd have it say, "We are all trying to get somewhere and at the next light you're going to be sitting next to this person anyway, so relax a little." Really. Getting somewhere 20 seconds faster isn't going to make that big of a difference (unless your baby is crowning or you can't hold your pee in any longer...).

Henry David Thoreau once said

"For an impenetrable shield

Stand inside yourself"

As I've come to get to know such a variety of people over my lifetime, I'm coming to the conclusion that the strongest people are those who known themselves best and who work endlessly toward making their person as strong as they can be. They literally have the power to shield themselves from anything that could penetrate them.

I still have much to learn about myself, as I think most of us do, since we are very complex beings whose power and strength has only slightly been tested. But I realize that working toward my strongest self is some of the most important work I can do.

What I've also concluded is that the strongest people I know surround themselves with other strong people--ones who don't need to be constantly bouyed up or who continually have to carry someone else's weight. They are people who give a little and take a little, but need no crutch to carry them day in and day out.

As my hubby and I went through our "life goals" together last night, I was encouraged to discover that not only were our goals fairly individual, but they were also fairly similar. We want each other to be involved in each goal and we need each other's support and strength to get there. Its nice to know that my hubby and I are both strong people who could probably manage on our own pretty well--but who still feel the need for each other in enough ways that our biggest life goal is to stay a happy, healthy family who can be a source of strength for other families, too.

So, yes, Mr. Thoreau, I agree: Stand Inside Yourself. But may I suggest that we also stand beside people who, too, know themselves and will make our stances stronger.

I don't know what I did wrong.

We had a good three-week stretch where I was SURE my babeh was nearly all the way potty-trained. He would tell me when he needed to "go" and he happily sat on the toilet whenever I offered him the chance--and he'd actually "GO."

Now, though all he wants to wear are his "big boy pants," he suddenly hates the toilet and screams if I put him near it. He says "uh oh!" moments before he wets/messes his pants but has absolutely no desire or will to do it the way he's done it for nearly a month.

Is this normal? Should I just keep putting him in big-boy-pants or revert back to the diaper? Should I force toilet time or just let him warm up to it again?

Urgh. I have no clue. Help.

If I don't wake up hungry, I know I didn't eat right the night before. I'm one of those people who would much rather feel a little hungry than a little full, so to me, waking up HUNGRY and ready to eat is a lovely feeling.

Lately, its TANGELOS that I crave. My babeh and I have been going through oodles of these outie-belly-buttoned oranges lately and I have yet to get sick of them. Did you know that a tangelo is the result of an accidental hybrid of a tangerine and a grapefruit?

Yum. Delish. And Costco has them in bulk right now. We're in one juicy heaven.

I woke up crying this morning.
It had been a hard, sleepless night with my sick, coughing-up-his-tiny-lungs-non-stop babeh in bed with me (and my hubby NOT--he's on a boys trip this weekend). The room was too hot (as it always seems to be in my case), especially so since I had to close the window to shut out the yelping maniacs who seem to need to shout at each other in the hot tub at 2 in the morning. When I'm too hot at night, I dream awful things, and last night, the awful things hurt my feelings more than they scared my psyche.

Its hard for me, as it is, to sleep without my hubby by my side, and though my babeh next to me is still sweet company, nothing compares to being able to nuzzle inside my sweetheart's shoulder nook and hear him dreaming. Sometimes he dreams that he's a bear and instead of dreaming, I hear him speak SNORE, but that's a tangent I will choose not to go off on.

So when I woke up crying (the big, sobbing tears of a hormonal, half-asleep tiredling) it was especially hard to calm myself down. My babeh stirred a little from my whimpering and I wasn't quite ready to soothe HIM back to sleep when it was ME who needed the soothing right then. I laid there thinking, "I lived by myself and in on my own for nearly 5 years before taking on a co-sleeper. Why can't I just go back to sleep!?"

Apparently my subconsious needs my hubby as much as my consciousness does. I hope he comes home before bedtime tonight.

There are many things that some people LOVE and others just don't. For me, one of those LOVE things is having my hair played with. Having it brushed or fingers run through it, getting it washed by the stylist or scalp-scratched by a fellow movie watcher, I don't care how its done, I just LOVE getting "groomed."

Recently, in a book I'm currently reading, I learned that one of the reasons that cats love to groom and be groomed is because (according to studies done) both the giver and receiver have significantly increased levels of serotonin, the feel-good-energizing-stress-reducing-chemical that the body produces during happy moments (as well as any moments where repetitive physical movements are made--like exercising--a subject for another day).

Its no wonder cats spend so much time grooming and why I like being groomed so much (as well as exercising). It makes ME feel good, energized, loved, less stressed out, etc. So, the next time someone asks WHY you want to have your hair brushed, your back scratched, or to go out on a nice long walk...its chemically important to your body!

You learn something new every day!

Today we celebrate the birthday of two of our closest (in proximity and relationship, coincidentally) neighbors. My babeh has a not-so-secret crush on both of these little ladies, so going to visit them today is going to be candy (not so much Chicken Soup) to his soul.

Tangent: I've always wondered what people who really don't like Chicken Soup (assuming there are such people) think of those Chicken Soup For the Soul books. I'm sure they can't quite get the concept the same way that those of us who love the soup do...

The other day he heard one of these above mentioned neighbors coming home and rushed to our front door calling her name as well as her son's. So I opened our front door (seeing as our doors are 3 feet apart in this condo complex we live in) so that he could have a quick neighborly visit and, alas, they were already gone. Without even blinking an eye, he ran to the pantry, carried his stool to their door, and rang their doorbell until they came to greet him.

Smart boy. Smart boy. He loves his ladies. Happy Birthday to them from him (and me)!