1.
For my birthday, Rob and the kids got me a dock for my iPod, and I have turned it into a radio for my room.

Now, when I am finished with my shower, I flip to one of my playlists and I crank up the tunes while I am getting ready. I bop along to the music, and I think about how it's just like when I would get ready for high school.

Except in high school I listened to cassettes, I didn't use ultra rich eye cream, and I didn't need tweezers to pluck out the occasional odd chin hair (oh, yeah, I said it).

I used Salon Selectives shampoo ("Lookin' like you just stepped out of a salon . . . "), Rave Ultra Hold hairspray (97 cents for a can as long as my forearm), and dark matte lipstick.

I finished my look with a selection from my parfumerie, which included such signature scents as Lady Stetson, Navy, Skin Musk, Exclamation!, or Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth.

Oh the uncoolness of it all . . .

2.
But speaking of the old days, Fiver found a cassette tape and he wanted to hear a specific song. I popped it in to his radio and began rewinding it. Thus, this conversation:

This sure takes a long time, Mom. Can't you just press skip?

This IS how you skip ahead on a tape, buddy.

I also realized that I've lost my touch with tapes. I used to be able to pop a tape in, start rewinding or fast forwarding it, and then hit stop within a few seconds of the song I wanted. I used to be able to do that with albums as well. I could gently plop the needle exactly on the groove of the song I wanted.

Now I can't even get close to the song. I hardly ever use tapes because I am not around tape players very often and most things come on CD. Even CDs seem clunky when compared with MP3 players.

Where are we headed with all this? My kids will probably just have music beamed directly into their brains.

3.
Next year, if you have any love for me at all, my friends, you will remind me not to let my son, who has attended OT for more than half of his life for motor delays, pick out the most complicated, migraine-inducing valentines known to man.

You will not allow me to be swayed into buying any valentines that require tiny little stickers to be shoved through tiny little slots, which then need to be fastened with separate, even tinier little stickers.

You will remind me to draw a heart on a piece of paper, let him sign his name below it, and then run off nineteen copies for his class.

I thank you heartily in advance.

4.
I've only been on the treadmill once this week. I am a slug.

5.
My son, as part of his new therapy, has been on the treadmill more than me this week. He's getting into it purely for the love of moving. Plus, he has the metabolism of a rabbit on crack.

Some things are just too unfair to contemplate.

6.
My Valentine's song contest is drawing to a close, and I'll be announcing the winner later tonight or early tomorrow morning.

You'll be happy to know that I have the chocolate prize ready and waiting, and nothing has even been poached from within its heart-shaped confines.

Now if only I could apply that self-control to the treadmill.

7.
The genetics have kicked for Bun. Well, besides him being a total clone of Rob, of course.

He went in for his one year check-up today -- only two weeks late! I'm improving! -- and it seems that he has started to thin out and lengthen like the rest of the kids.

He weighs 25 pounds, and he has gone from the 95th percentile to the 70th percentile for weight, because his height is in the 95th percentile. He's getting skinnier and taller, so the pants that fit in the waist are too short, and the pants that are the right length fall off his little hips.

Again, the inequity of the genetic deck is too much for me to bear sometimes.


Happy weekend, and happy St. Valentine's Day, my friends. If you can't snuggle your sweetie, then snuggle up to some chocolate and call it a day. See you on the flip side.