We're back from a therapeutic weekend retreat at Love Lake.



Shef toddled into the water multiple times per day, and therefore slept soundly at night and naptime, except for when he discovered he could hurtle himself out of his full-size travel crib and crash head-first on the wooden floor.

This troubled us, and we'll be bringing a crib tent on our next excursion.

Pal Renee's mom managed to stun her with a surprise 30th birthday party at The Roller Garden.



Many guests hadn't been to a rink in years, but those guests have not been middle school teachers. Those of us who have, well -- we were more than familiar with the scuzzy rental skates and the ins and outs of the Snowball.

When I arrived to pick Shef up from school, he was crying, but Teacher Tina assured me it was because he’d just woken up.

“He loved going outside today,” she said, smiling. “He went in the play houses and everything.”

“Oh good,” I said, kissing his sweaty little head. “Did he cry the rest of the day, then?”

“Well…” She looked down for a moment, and I could tell she was deciding how much of the truth to tell me. “He stopped a little at lunch, too.”

Super.

We’ll be back at it again on Friday.

This evening I’m reminded that I love Super Nanny. No one else can call a six-year-old “cheeky madam” with such panache.

And since I watched Super Nanny without the convenience of Tivo (my delightful husband refuses to call the Tivo Guys and figure out how to make it work without a phone line), I learned about another compelling reality show soon to debut on ABC: Brat Camp. In it, assholic, sexually active teenagers are sent away to be tortured and transformed.

If I ever get my Tivo back, I’m definitely capturing that magic.

There are lots of wonderful things about our new neighborhood – the aforementioned wading pool, Cupcake, the proximity to the River – but the best thing is being six minutes by foot from the house of Jordan, bosom friend.

At 4:30 she called, we discovered we were both husbandless for the evening (Dan is sitting in on depos in Jersey), and we hatched a plan to consume Chipotle at her house at 6:00 while Shef waxed cacophonous on Solana’s toy piano.

Divine.

What we really needed was a slow, relaxing weekend. We wouldn’t have a tight schedule -- one of us could give our lawn a plow while the other walked the baby to the neighborhood wading pool. (Yes! We have a wading pool at one of the two community centers that are within walking distance. Isn’t that charming?)

Instead, the weekend was absolutely jam-packed with important, mandatory events. These were things we really wanted and needed to do, but there were just too darn many of them; and now I’m feeling close to comatose.

To make up for it, we’ve vowed to escape the madness in seven days and sojourn to The Lake, where we’ll begin drinking g&t’s at four and try to keep from falling off the dock.

One after another, the moms of Shef’s friends have been giddily announcing their second pregnancies.

Their babies are due in December and January, and they’re already glowing.

“I’ll be a lot of work, but we’re thrilled,” they say, gazing lovingly at their adorable one-year-olds.

I can’t understand it, really. It’s as if they’ve completely forgotten the abject misery of the third trimester and the harrowing darkness that is labor.

I manage to close my gaping mouth and choke back the nausea (it inevitably accompanies the thought of conceiving again) long enough to deliver the appropriate congratulations, the inquiries about how they’re feeling, the warm, knowing smiles exchanged between mothers who have already welcomed babies into their homes.

This morning at 3:00, when Shef had woken for the fourth time since nine, I told Dan that one child was most certainly enough.

“I’m not doing this again,” I said.

Dan sighed, probably thinking that there was surely a better forum in which to discuss this than in the dark at three AM. “It could be different next time,” he said hopefully.

I suppose he’s right. Maybe I won’t dry-heave for twelve weeks straight or have ankles the size of Ohio. Maybe my second trimester won’t be punctuated by daily, deadening headaches. Perhaps I won’t swell to 200 pounds or need an emergency C-section with general anesthesia. It’s possible that the new baby will sleep for longer than two hours at a time with some regularity, or not want to nurse every thirty minutes around the clock for the first six months of his life.

It’s just the chance that it won’t be markedly different that triggers the hyperventilation.