Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Ever Elizabeth Six Months Old

Something magical happened while shooting ee's 6 month photos. For the very first time.....

She sat on her own!!!!!


I am thrilled that I caught this expression on camera:I am helplessly in love with this face. She makes this face all the time, it's her way of saying I think that is funny! or I am being silly! or I am so happy! and sometimes, while nursing, she just looks up and makes this face for a secret reason of her own.

Ummm....anyone else notice the ceiling is moving?


Why yes, I do work out, thank you for asking darling.

This little pink bunny is Ungee. Lola gave Ever Ungee when she was born, it was her first and most special lovey, and was named for the noise that Lola and then Ever made all the time as infants.



ever elizabeth ethridge curry 6 months old * sat up first time this day * loves her teething 'keys' * loves her Daddy's stubble and when he sings ABC's she grins like stars * rolling around but doesn't get anywhere * 16.2 pounds * puts one possessive hand on her nurtsies when nursing and occasionally lets go, looks up at her Momma and grins a huge loving eye sparkling grin and her Momma's heart melts right out of her chest through the bottom of her feet * was babysat by Dakota for the first time for one hour, and he did a great job- and put her diaper on backward * wakes in the morning with a happy smile * gives chubby armed hugs around our necks * loves to pull her sissy's hair * loves Wolfgang and laughs when she sees him



Monday, May 30, 2011

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Gone Away Lake


The year after a baby could be the title of a memoir of mine, so profound and life altering it is for me. I see women who have a baby and briskly, Mary Poppins*ly move onward with a ferocious and single minded movement in their bodies. They aren't fucking around. They are getting shit DONE. I understand these ladies, I so get it, because although I'm not like that I know the motivation, the propelling force behind this baby as much loved but inconvenient accessory to my life movement: sanity. Women want to have a baby and stay in the world the way they were before because the emotions and unsettling, free falling, strange and at times terrifying emotions that come with new motherhood feel as though they will drown us forever.

I'm drowning.

I'm not saying I'm drowned. I'm saying, I'm drowning. I am in the great hormone bath of falling progesterone levels. I am watching bubbles form between my lips and float to the surface, popping at the top of the water like small shotgun announcements to myself: I'm still here.

I'm Still Here

Sugar on my lips, sugar milk in my babies mouth, sugar in her urine, hard on her kidneys, and caffeine, too, hard on my baby girl, and her wet red mouth. The black dog of depression meets the transformative rise of the Phoenix and all hell breaks loose inside of a woman. I have a baby girl and I find my touchstones all accounted for and useless. New ones must be made. New thoughts. New feelings. Old frustrations and insanities and habits come blazing up from the cellular storebank and I become furious at their entrapment.
You must do yoga, I whisper to myself. I eat a donut. You must pray, I hiss. I drink coffee. You must move your body, I implore. I sleep. You must engage in your life, I know. And disengagement is my choice and I ask myself why and I know it's because I am exhuasted, so deeply bone tired that facing hard things, one of those gone away touchstones, is hibernating. I can feel the choices at my fingertips. You must shower. You must eat before noon. A sick baby is a universal experience in work camp. You are underfed, exhausted, overworked, unshowered, on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and the baby doesn't give a shit. Honeybadger doesn't give a shit, right Stacey?

Do you ever feel you are drowning and waiting to be pushed? Pushed to the top? I am drowning inside of this great and watery cocoon and I can hear my husband's husky hard working voice but it doesn't quite reach me. I reach to touch his stubbly cheeks and look into his large hazel eyes and cannot find the ribbon of energy that usually flows freely between the two of us. I close my eyes in the darkness and burrow into his armpits and the great manly smell of him is my safest place but I do not feel safe.

My Dakota is struggling and this means that my heart is twisted metal thing like the remains of the car wreck that happened on Pomerado Road against the back of my house where they had to amputate the teenage girl's leg after the drunk boy in the driver's seat crashed them into a tree.
I can do. I can take care. I can take the right steps. And still there is the high metallic whine of distress emanating from my heart. I am his mother. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever

stop mothering him. I will stop doing his laundry, making his daily meals, his appointments, being his 'caretaker' but I will never
stand down. Some people get adrenalin rushes in tragedy that enable them to do what seems impossible. Love does this for me.

Two intersections. A new baby and an almost man boy in our house. Two completely different paths and needs and two children in between those.

Some things are obvious to me. I must take better care of myself or soon I will be crying uncontrollably in the grocery checkout line when the nice girl with long blonde hair asks me how my kids are. Some things are not obvious to me. Where to find the strength to do so.

A new life in our family means that I must lean backward, backward, backward, until I am almost completely drowned and gone, before I spring forward for the experience. Like an orgasm. Like a revival moan. Like a great Southern storm.

I'm Still Here.


ps
the title is from one of my favorite older kid books EVER<Gone-Away Lake (Gone-Away Lake Books) i read the first book a million and four times growing up. it has that special magic.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

fertile ground

fertile ground
-----------


i am so very tired.
i drag the shadows behind me,
a midnight blanket full of bramble,
weed, bug, flower buds and finite
blades of grass.
this i pull over the swatch of my head,
and wait for nothing. the ladybug
tilts his wings against my fingertip.
he takes off so clumsily.

you may interpret,
in fact, i am certain you will.
again and again.
the tides beat against my bone
weary arms, rattling the cages
i have built, the beautiful jutting
angles of elbow and wrist and
that red marrow bank of hip.
food repels me in this hibernation.
there is water full and bright,
a slinky moon in my mouth.

the phone strikes anvil again
and again, the birds react in
great leaps across the sky.
i will not move, i do not answer.
you may not bargain with me.
i am asleep alone.

i lay in the hand shaped shadow
beneath the awning, sharp.
swooning in blues, swamp blacks,
dirt and dusk piled toward
my cheekbones in careless stacks.
you tell who you like: 'she hides'.
still we know i am the seedling,
there are buds erupting on my face
like small pustules-
the ground tills underneath my fingertips,
my toes.

you may interpret.
i am sure you will.
my silence becomes your cry,
your movement highlights this sleep.
still we know i am the seedling,
and there are many promises to myself
that i have yet to keep.

maggie may ethridge
i wrote this a while back and the last post i wrote reminded me of it. i have promises to keep not only to my precious children but the precious and lost child i once was. these are the ways we heal. love, maggie

Friday, May 27, 2011

I Don't Know How She Does It

I never thought* that I'd be a mother desperately, guiltily, secretively, passionately and unsurely trying to navigate the world of career and child. Nineteen and twenty through my pregnancy and birth with Dakota, I quickly and immediately knew that I would never* be able to leave him or any baby of mine to go to work full-time, and the jobs I held bringing him with me- nanny, gym daycare- along with the schooling I kept up nights (thanks Mom) wasn't a path leading toward high power career woman. In fact, due to a mammoth insecurity and struggle with math, I have yet to finish my AA degree. ( Two classes! Two! Jesus! )Years, babies, went by like this: low paying jobs as lover of children where I could bring my own. I was able to stay at home for a year with Dakota (thanks Mom) and almost three with Lola (thanks Mr. Curry) and Ian was at home with either his mom or Mr. Curry his first few years as well- Mr. Curry remember we are talking about a 23 year old man at the time took a night job as a security guard so that he could be at home with two year old Ian during the day.

And now, Ever. And now, writing. And now, I'm thirty-six years old and finally believe I can make a living doing what I love have loved since five years old I wrote my first play called the Sun and Moon about how the Moon was jealous of the Sun and am best at, writing. Meanwhile, I still have to work full time. Ah.

The movie with SJP coming out soon is based on the novel I Don't Know How She Does It
I read (and really enjoyed) years ago. Unlike the protagonist of this modern working mommy dilemma, (who has a full time nanny) I don't believe anyone would look at me and ask themselves that question, because I believe in fact it's obvious how I do 'it'. Let us count the ways:
1 My house is a mess. A rotating disaster of a mess, but still. We get all the dishes done and kitchen cleaned and this still leaves the four loads of laundry all over the living room and dog hair balls all over the floor. We scrub the bathroom and there are cups and dishes growing small new colonies of microscopic dopplegangers who cry Don't Eat Me! Digression...
2 My style is... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
3 My children have parents who scramble to find that field trip form we signed and turn it in late. We give last minute or late gifts for things like Teacher Appreciation or Pizza Party For Dying Ducks. We don't do many field trips. We have been late to school approximately two hundred billion times since EE was born. Dakota is the one suffered most from this. His first period teacher hates me I'm sure.
4 Our fourth child, the inimitable EE, goes to work every day with myself leading to sickness and illness including her current pitiable state, and is now what Mr. Curry calls a 'daycare baby' meaning a baby with a chronically snotty face and slightly under the weather visage.
5 My writing output has slowed.
6 My children criticize my parenting. Mom, a bar and apple is NOT breakfast. Mom, why can't you stop writing for TWO SECONDS and come here, I want to show you xyz ! They are politely supportive when I tell them I just got accepted in an EBook publication (more on that later) or that a poem of mine is going to be published or that I have an idea for a column I'm fleshing out, but really? They'd rather have their eggs sunny side up, please, and a mother available daily for art sessions when the child feels like it, thank you much, and not when the schedule allows. Dakota tells me how TOTALLY AWESOME his friend's mom is who makes them a huge dinner when Dakota spends the night and then teaches them how to make a dessert he's never had. And I feel sad, because you know what? I'd like to be that mom. I have been! I love spending time with my son and his friends.

But you can't have it all.

There aren't enough hours in the day came about for a reason- this phrase was clearly invented by a working mother devoted to her children and the necessity of not only following her passion but making a damn living who cannot afford a nanny or a maid.

I have to push, push push and work hard, work very hard right now to break through and make money writing. I have a line up of projects I'm working on and this year began seeing results from the work of the last few years, largely on this blog and the people I've met and the offers I've been given. I read an essay in a magazine recently, maybe Vanity Fair, where a well seasoned journalist said in all the years interviewing powerful women, only ONE was willing to say that she had great desire for success and had worked hungrily to achieve. If you listened to 99% of these women, success just accidentally came about while they were happily skipping round doing what they love and oops! look at that, a Grammy fell in my lap, or wow! what do you know someone just gave me a publishing contract. The one who would admit it was Catherine zeta Jones, by the way, who said she was proud of her husband's Oscar but while proud, it wasn't HERS, and she wanted her own!

Me too. I want my own. I want all the countless hours and days I have spent writing- largely entirely unread material- since I was five to begin to pay off, I want my dreams to come true, I want to write for a living and I want to make money.

I also want to be a wonderful mother.

Maybe I can do both those, but I know that for at least right now, I cannot do both of those AND have a beautiful home with a tidy front yard and remember everything on the calendar and call my friends back and get enough sleep and exercise...you get the point. I was telling Mr. Curry the other day that I have finally realized when people say 'you can't do it all' they don't mean it. What they mean is 'you can't do it all but you better do the parts I think are important'. When Lola's teacher nods in solidarity during speeches by successful women with children talking about the sacrifices, do you think she remembers that the next day when I can't bring brownies?

I know in one way the circumstances I'm talking about are very specific to having a baby vs. a child or even children. Babies are all consuming, and a breastfeeding co-sleeping teething keepsgettingsick baby even more so. When I'm not the walking dead all the time, balance will be easier, the see saw not so tilted.

For now the guilt is an ever present cloud. I have something to compare this to- I know what it's like not to have to work full time with a new baby, and God is it WAY BETTER IN EVERY WAY.
Meanwhile I'm not the best mother I've ever been. I'm exhausted, a bit snippy, I fall asleep during story time, I am writing when the fairy garden needs to be maintained and I am writing when Mr. Curry is making dinner and I am writing when the living room is covered in clothes and toys and stuffs. I am trying SO HARD. I snuggle, I play when I can drag my ass ( I love that line in the spectacularly bad J-Lo movie where she has had a baby and is looking at a picture of her old self from behind: The old ass is like the new ass, but way hotter!) I give my husband quickie a la carte orders, I talk about their days, but man. It's hard out there for a G.

When Lola tells me I'm the best mommy ever, I look at her veeeery suspiciously. But so far, she still looks like she means it.













*the amount of life experiences I could head with that phrase is staggering

*so far...

Thursday, May 26, 2011

absence of air in the presence of love {poem}

her eyes are quietude. think how beautiful that is.
her eyes make space for this:
the shadow of peonies bleed into the green
sheet hung to block the sun. she reaches
and pats the cotton. it sighs in the breeze.
back and forth. see how beautiful that feels.

if you can take a deep breath, rejoice.
her fists curl like tiny fronds
over the bronchial tubes. not disturbed
by absence of air, in the presence of love.
this is a lesson i am trying to absorb.
i run my peasant hands over her skin.
sink my eyes into her own again.
inside of her a small cry escapes the cells
where oxygen spoils outside closed doors.
but her eyes meet mine,
and she only cares for love.

this is a lesson i am trying to absorb.

maggie may ethridge
may 26 2011

doctor visit 10:00 am for ee
diagnosis : bronchiolitis
honorable mention: asthmatic?
questionable but possible: pneumonia
move forward: nursing, mommy takes E and C and D, fish oil and multiple, let's strengthen her lungs, breathing treatments every four hours, pound her chest to loosen mucus

my new motto



horses gonna horse by aled lewis

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden


@image- emma hardy








What do you mean love love you love me? Do you mean didn't sleep all night because the baby woke at every hour with her whimper mouth rose? Do you mean the child is hurt all the time with the righteous anger of the young and directs it at us with all her eye rolling grownups are so dumbdumb power? Do you mean how is it we paid off allllll that debt and still...there's more.. are you sure? there's more? ahh it's all medical see how sick gets you broke in America? it's all Maggie needs another surgery? how fucking ruuude, let's charge her up the ass for it. it's all Ever has RSV and needs IV and oxygen and a special specialized doctor? how soon to ask for medical care in our opinion, chaching! They call asking for their money with their eyes screwed shut and mouths big and blabbering. They don't know and they don't want to know.

Each day is a complete and total parallel:

One line looks like this and says you are so lucky so blessed this is the family you always wanted

The next line looks like>> this///)+!@ and >>> says exhaustion
tepid thoughts >>>> evaporate
nothing to say>>>> too tired
post partum depression>>>>eating too much sugar
workfulltimeworkfulltimeworkfulltimeworkfulltimeworkfulltimeworkfulltimeworkfulltime
saggy body>> tired body>>>unwashed hair dirty shirts>>>babysick
writewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewritewrite
children my children our children our children
sensitive>>>vulnerable>failing>>unsure>>>horny>tootired
dishes??dogs??bathroom??sunroom??backyard??

HERE IS MY LIST IF I MAKE LISTS THINGS WILL HAPPEN THERE WILL BE TIME MADE
plant vegetables/extremecouponing/lolalearnbike/sex/organizepilespilesofpaperwork/

And bullhorn: I"M NOT COMPLAINING IT"S JUST THAT I"M TOTALLY COMPLAINING

it will get better
is supposed to be a slogan for bullied gay kids but i think it works for mothers of babies as well

ps
tell me it will get better!

pss
i mean i totally know it will, it's just i've never worked full time with a baby, never before!!! and...
i can officially say,,,it's amazing,,,that's the word for it

psss
tell me anyway....

pssssssssss
ever has bronchitis:(

Welcome SPONSOR: Jane Foster


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I traded Jane's ad for one of these adorable kitty faces :) It will be showing up in future pictures, I'm sure, it's adorable and squeeze sized :)

Monday, May 23, 2011

something beautiful and something broken

my Nana died. i haven't spoken to her in many years, because she couldn't speak to me without making it miserable, a constant rehashing of my father and if he did or did not do what my sister says he did. and my choices. and my father. and my sister. and like that. i let her go, and with the exception of two phone calls over the years, she let me go too. she held on to my father. i am the mother of children, and although i should not, i understand. ' this situation ' is full of shoulds.  it has to be punctuated this way to perhaps and hopefully get across some of the strangeness and some of the delineations: involving family member X but not O, including the opinion of H and L but definitely not X, this way, " we " ( the family ) all know about it, extended, but only " us " know about it.   And one day the writer said when everyone is dead I'll write all about it. for now, it's simply enough to know that my Nana died. she knitted me a pink sweater with beautiful loops when i was three? four? and my sister, her namesake. my sister. her namesake. a sigh that goes on forever. she wrote me letters. she visited over summers, her broad intelligent face beaming and reeking of powder and department stores.  she dressed in skirts and slight heels, slacks but never jeans.  she wore jewelry. she was friendly with George Bush Sr. and the archbishop.  she was a lawyer as a young woman in Jackson, Mississippi, when women- mothers- were not supposed to be anything more than women, mothers.  she married my Grandfather and they had four children and my Grandfather was Supreme Court Justice and fought for civil rights. He was in a wheelchair. He had polio as a young man. He died when my father was a young man.  My Nana was reserved to the point of secretive while appearing ebullient and outgoing. She talked a blue streak. She had an accent as thick as the powder on her cheeks. My Nana said my name like this: Mahhgie Mhaay.  My Nana had three boys and they were tall and muscular and handsome and genius and stood next to their sister Ruby ( hi Aunt Ruby- she became, to my astonishment, a follower of my blog a year or so ago ) in smart lines with black shoes and caps and their beautiful faces shining to be photographed.  My Nana had three boys and they were mentally ill.  My Nana never, to my knowledge, said the words mentally ill in relation to her family.  My Nana was the mother of my Aunt Ruby who is gorgeous and traveled the country singing opera and who I resemble but in my opinion not enough. My Nana wore her grey hair in bouncy waves at the bottom, cut higher than shoulder and shorter than chin.  My Nana lived later in Boston and has now died in Boston in her eighties after a broken hip.  

When someone dies and all you can think is I wish it could have been different it hurts in a different way than it would have. Even if you know it couldn't have been.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

101 Ways To Smile: Plan A Trip

Our recent jaunts- some pretty far, like Anaheim, some 20 minutes away in La Jolla- have inspired me to start a new family tradition.  I read a study that showed you receive the most health benefits from vacations BEFORE you actually go on them, due to anticipation. And one of my favorite wisdom givers, Gordon Livingston says in How to Love
that having something to look forward to is one of the mainstays for happiness. In that spirit, every time a trip or getaway or just a simple outing of ours ends, I'm going to immediately plan another.  The research of planning- the maps, google searches, talks with others about fun things they've done- is almost as fun as going! Our next outing is to (cousin) Reef's Nocturnal Birthday party, and after that we have a beach vacation planned in July. What are you doing this summer?

ps
In case you haven't noticed, I'm making 101 Ways To Smile a series on Flux Capacitor
I'm going to try to have one new entry every week that is meaningful and real for my family

one smile
two smile 
three smile

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Ever has a penchant for pulling hair & Lola is a good sport







Wolfgang has appointed himself Ever's Buddy...he's always hanging out around her and sniffing her



& mixed tape onsie from Alliecraft
& ruffle butt bloomers from DreamSpunKids

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Generations

One fine Saturday we headed out to beautiful La Jolla where Mr. Curry's only sibling and sister, Kristi, lives.  The family all met for food and a nature hike and a game of Scrabble. La Jolla is also where Mr. Curry and I were married, right on the beach. One day I have to figure out how to show ya'll the pictures from our wedding. GORGEOUS.

These are Mr. Curry's parents: Grandma and Grandpa Curry with their granddaughter, Ever Elizabeth

Kristi's beautifully casual and bright dining area

The gang's all here: Auntie Krisi, Grandpa Curry with Ever, Myself, Grandma Curry, Lola, cousin Reef, Dakota, Ian, Carl (Kristi's husband) cousin Jacob and Mr. Curry

Great Grandpa and Grandma Nash- Mr. Curry's mom's parents and their great-grandchild ee

The cousins romp

Carl holding ee, Kristi and Grandma Curry

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

this is goodbye {poem}






in the end you could not live,

no one can, in the end.


your son went first like a brown otter,

a Mississippi river took him.


over the raw of your face , spirit slip

slipping downstream


pooled in the flux of pupil,

swimming slowly in equations of Pi.


then found- you again

you finding yourself locked up


crying like fragile

breaks cry throughout glass,


' don't leave me ! '

and i did i did leave you say it fast


an hour of time.

what does this mean?


your tidal gown,

pink slippers falling off toes.


the corridors of ill people

in ill fitting clothes.



the cage of your bones,

your fume and fury your fight!



an old woman wrinkle iron

me out but nothing irons out the light.



not the nerve virus, the stinging

nettle palmed in your hands


joint plaster

white lilied fingers, flapper hair


still beautiful.

every visit, i searched your eyes


for yourself.

calling ' you hear me grandma '


body a trembled prairie,

spirit gathering evening light-


i saw it leave each part,

the ankle bone collapsing


the knee agape

the surrender of your organs


to skin,

your spirit moving ever upward


to the eye.

it made me sad to see your piano fingers abandoned.


i stayed close to your face,

like a mother.


if you were to cry

we wanted you to know you were not alone.


finally the whole you was so fine and thin

strained of filament, muscle, bone-


your spirit very pure,

like a teaspoon of rare cream.


soul small child, tipping over the eye,

birthing yourself to death.


body animal burrow, full of baby six times

emptied, moving out now in moving breath


and still as the prehistoric sky.

some time went by



and you died.

this is how it was, and everybody cried.

Maggie May Ethridge
written for my grandmother Elizabeth

Monday, May 16, 2011

Biblophile: The Year of Wonders

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague This is the novel by Geraldine Brooks I finished two weeks ago, swooning. I was so thrilled to be transported, so happy to have found a small but significant novel to rest my mind inside, even if the resting did take place in a village being slowly demolished by a 17th century plague in a Derbyshire village. It was a good remedy from the brontosorus of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen- a novel I dove into fully expecting to if not love, deeply like, as I had his Corrections. Freedom left me cold. I couldn't care. The essential and inexplicable ingredient for novelistic passion.  The writing was good. The characters detailed. The settings precise. The plot went somewhere. But I didn't care where it went, or about the people it happened to.

Year of Wonders begins with the protagonist Anna Frith, widowed at 18 years with two tiny sons she loves entirely.  Her love for these boys is detailed beautifully, so beautifully. The way a mother's eye sees her children when they are small is a passionate, sensual and ferocious thing, and the descriptions of Anna nursing her littlest boy alongside the river brought tears to my eyes.  I felt the bonds of human life as they extend backward farther than the eye can see, but not beyond the novelist imagination. Mrs. Brooks uses fine historical details to layer and layer and layer each plot turn, and I felt myself enveloped in her mastery.  Mrs. Brooks based this novel on the true story of a village infected with Plague that decided, with the leadership of their preacher, to quarantine themselves until the dying had stopped.  In this dark nightmare of a bubble, the story takes place. Anna befriends the preacher and his selfless but bracingly practical wife after the inevitable worst happens: her two sons both die.  I found  myself late at night, covers pulled to my chin as I cried and read the description of Anna's little boy's slow dying.  I was transported to Ever's hospitalization with RSV when Mrs. Brooks described the little boys grey pallor, his struggle to breathe, and what makes my stomach turn and my eyes fill to even recount- his acquiescence of his nursies.  When Ever gave up on nursing, I felt the beginnings, the fringes, of despair.  Reading this reminded me of what Mr. Curry and I had remarked to each other more than once- thank God we live here and now, where our baby could be saved.  And oh God, to think of all the mothers.... To walk alongside a narration of a mother who could do absolutely nothing as her son fought to breathe and then slowly slipped away, dying in her arms, was not an experience I'd seek again.  But it is truly great writing.

The story unfolds with incredible precision and pacing.  The only place lacking in a perfect human heartbeat was in Anna's mourning of her son's. In the novel Anna takes on the work of the dying and as a midwife to women birthing amongst this tragedy, and surely any woman in that position would have grief deferred. Still, I think the muck black river of her grief was not accounted for enough. 

Highly Recommended.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Backdoor Disneyland: Our Weekend Trip

We arrived in Anaheim in the afternoon, dropped Lola off with Taymar, Max and Caspian, and headed to our hotel. Lola had the amazing opportunity to go to Disneyland for free with our best friend Taymar and her son Caspian who is one of Lola's most beloved friends. Max is Taymar's boyfriend. So Mr. and I stayed at a hotel we picked online down the street from their awesome hotel:  Mr. Curry christened it Underwear Stain. So fitting. Brown droopy exterior with bird shit capping the windowsills, two of our three vending machines with hastily scribbled out of order signs, no ice machine on our floor, the fridge didn't work and our television was about 35 inches wide and 35 years old. Movies were 15$ a pop. Sweet! Ever and I had tootsies on the bed first thing, to break it in.


We showed Ever where she'd be sleeping later while Mommy and Daddy 'had fun'.

Then we made our family portrait, which was spontaneous and I instantly loved.

This is the ashtray out front of the classy hotel. When we came back later, Mr. Curry offered to retrieve this wine glass for me to use for the champagne. So sweet.

We hit Downtown Disneyland, which is where the poor man's version of Disneyland. Attached to Disneyland,  but not actually Disneyland, it's still pretty damn cool.- and free to enter!  Lego store, first stop. Awesome. We bought Cousin Reef his birthday gift. Mr. Curry stands next to the epitome of evil with a history of family abuse. Darth Vadar is the ultimate representation of what our parents can do to us, what we can do to our kids, and what holding in feelings does to our looks. :)

Ever Elizabeth trying on her Minnie Mouse hat. Aww!

Vanilla yogurt with fresh fruit...yummy!

Our picture taken by the nice lady in front of the fountain, who was very nervous about doing so.  A young girl in Ugg boots, sweats and a sweatshirt told me she liked my 'clean' style. Mr. Curry ribbed me for the rest of the evening.

We sat for early dinner at The Jazz Kitchen, representing New Orleans with appropriately jazzy music and ambiance- we looooved it. We love French Quarter everything.

We sat on the second level, overlooking Downtown Disney. Mr. Curry ordered his drink, Jack and Coke, which they made to his satisfaction, for once. And I had a house beer. Ever had a diaper change and nurtsies in the bathroom because I'm a coward and chickened out on public nursing. Sorry ladies.  In the stall, however, I heard this fascinating exchange between that strange species: American Teenage Girls: " Oh My God. I TOTALLY got my period. Shit! " " Like, now you'll have to tell Stefan. " " Damnit! And like, I can't believe you guys were gonna bail on me because I was late. It was not my fault and my Dad is gonna be fucking pissed. " " Yeah! I was like no! I was like no way we're not leaving her!" " Fuck no! " Ever and I were silent in the stall for a good ten minutes, doing our doings.  We came out and the one girl at the faucet froze, the other stuffing her boob into her dress turned red. Guess they didn't realize we were there.



We took in the beautiful weather and relaxing company.

Ever was fascinated with my  lemons.

Food: Seafood Jumalya Reaction" drooolohmgodyummmm "

Love.

Back at the hotel, Ever and I practiced eating our feet.

The next morning was rough. Mr. Curry and I stayed up late, drank, and crashed hard.

It rained.

The leftovers appropriately sorted, we exited Underwear Stain, never to return.
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