You’ve humored me and now the floodgates are open. There are only 4 left for crying out loud, I can’t just pretend the other two don’t exist. And since Ellinghouse asked what I thought about American Idol’s resident virgin Lover Boy, let me tell you. But first we must start with Syesha.

Honestly there isn’t a whole lot to say about the last girl standing, other than I don’t like her. She sings fine and all but not my thang, I never really get into her song selection and one previous performance made my ears shrivel up and fall off as it sounded like she started off three octaves too high. But it got rave reviews so what do I know. She seems like a lovely person so I really don’t know why I don’t like her but I’m wondering if her tiny body, pretty smile , bubbly personality and nice rack have something to do with it. Maybe if we just ugly her up a bit I’ll be little more open to keeping her around.

Now sweet little David Archuleta. Aren’t you just the cutest little thing? He’s what I imagine most mothers hope their little boys grow up to be: sweet, thoughtful, cute, and humble. But the humble thing is getting a little old. It was precious for the first month and now I just want to smack him and yell “take the compliment like a man, damn it!”

Talk about lookalikes too, was this boy Robert Downey Jr. in another life? Coincidentally the comparison is best seen in Robert Downey Jr’s mug shot, er one of them.

I bet David has a wild side just waiting to bust out. I’m guessing one party in Hollywood without his Dad helicoptoring around and he’d easily be able to double for RDJ in the flick Less Than Zero.

I love this guy but I’ve grown bored of him. I am not picking up on any creativity here. Sure we should all strive to be as wholesome but my goodness boy, you’re 17! Go steal a lollipop or something, live on the edge. I fight the urge to flash him to see if he really would pass out from the sight of a breast. Although it might not be an accurate test because the sight of uneven, nursing for almost 3 years, saggy mom boobs could have that effect on anyone.

But ever since he did that one song where Simon busted him saying it reminded him of “ghastly songs you sing when you’ve got, like, animated creatures with you and everyone joins in together,” I can only picture him as the lead singer of a Mormon Rock Band.

Speaking of Simon, I’m afraid he’s really the only one who holds the key to my heart year after year. His brutal honesty is a definite turn-on but he tends to go too far, beating a dead contestant. We get it; you hate them and want to stab them in the face. But oh my, his hair, the parted flat-top is so bizarre it works and those celebrity capped teeth are so distracting from his missing upper lip, so strange yet so very sexy.

Wow, I feel like a million times better getting this all out. Now I can move on, until the results show. Is it 8pm yet?

I think in the past, I don’t know what, 6 years or so, I believe I never really talked openly about American Idol on here. This is about to end my friends because I cannot go on another week without asking if anyone else can look at Jason Castro and not see Dr. Cuddy. Separated at birth, 22 years later? Pretty people, aren’t they both?

If I were 16 years old, I would be all over that boy Jason. Man, what I wouldn’t have done for a dread locked boy and a gee-tar. Especially one singing Bob Dylan (and Marley for that matter). Me and Dylan, we was tight. But duuuuuuude, dude! The Bob Marley performance was a bit of a bomb so I was already cringing when I heard the redemption song would be one of my favorites; I worried if he could even come close to doing it justice. But to forget the freaking first verse? Oh my, that tore my heart in two; my teenage fantasy was blown to bits. You were born for a Dylan performance, what the F? We couldn’t even watch the entire performance and knew the judging would be too much to bear. I only hope they took it easy on you and maybe I missed one hell of a finale. I wanted to like you, I really did, ever since you won me over with Daydream. Like the rest of those boys during my teenage years, you let me down. And just like those teenage years, it’s OK because there is already a piece of my heart with its eye on the next guy.

David Cook, I don’t know what it is about you but I really wanted to not like you. You seemed phony to me, prefabbed, but then you spoke. And you sang and you played and you did them all so well. And I realized you reminded me so much of my own ribbie, a well-spoken mellow fellow who can really rock the hell out on stage. And your humbleness is probably also frequently mistaken for gloating, just like my boy. I can’t help but love you both. Even your massive forehead grew on me. But if it’s OK with you, I’m going to do my best to ensure you don’t win. I just can’t let you record that cheesy album you’d be contracted to record. You’d be better off coming in second. So go on, make me proud and blow the final performance.

Now you all know you can find my reviews over at Mama Speaks, I try to keep this space review free these days (and apparently post-free in general). But I can’t help spread the word for Katja, owner of Skimbaco.com. She’s a fellow children’s shop owner and works hard at promoting other small business owners including yours truly. I know how hard, expensive and time consuming it can be to get your store known and celebrity endorsements are few and far between but can really make or break you. So I really shared in her excitement when the shoes she gifted to Suri Cruise got some pluggage on Oprah the other day. Yes, she is the mama behind the Tom Cruise quote “Ladybugs are Suri’s favorite.”

You can see the Oprah clip here and if you want your own little one sporting Suri’s style, you can find the ladybug shoes here. But there are a slew of blogs out there running Skimbaco sponsored giveaway so check out the list and see if you can win a pair.

A day late and a dollar short but this is from my favorite moment in Disney.

And at last, Disney photos have been finally uploaded after I gave up weeding them out and editing. Click here for complete set.

Sloth is insisting I take the night off tonight because I’ve been miserable with a cold this entire week. His intentions aren’t purely selfless, he’s sick of coming home to my whining and half assed meals like chicken, salsa, frozen corn and left over brown rice all tossed in one pan and renamed “dinner” and “served” by setting pot into the center of the table with 3 forks around it. It’s just a cold, or maybe the life is trying to ooze right out of me through my eyes and nose but it really doesn’t matter because I’m sure they both feel similar.

This isn’t the kind of miserable that warrants moaning in bed, although I wish it were because then I might not attempt to make trips to Whole Foods which is always iffy for me on a good day. It didn’t go half bad if you discount the part where I almost broke down in the juice aisle because 30 minutes later and I still couldn’t find the pineapple juice through the fiery, murky oceans that replaced my eyeballs as I held a deteriorating tissue over the lower half of my mouth-gapping, dopey face. I left the house without a full supply of tissues and I was down to my last one and not about to give it up. I was forced to put it on display too, I thought that would be better than scaring off the rest of the wholesome patrons with the blood that must be pouring from my raw nose by now. I mean it’s bleeding right? It has to be, after all that nose wiping and blowing with steel wool and all.

I did manage to rest for a little while aside from that nagging feeling in the back of my mind about the damage I was doing by indulging Cricket in a little TV x 3. I probably would have been fine with it if it weren’t for reading how my much more legitimately sick friend Ashlee was still managing to play games and I’m sure also cooked up a healthy, completely organic, vegan meal from scratch. If you start to think about your friends long enough you might start to question their genetic makeup, sure they look human but just where are their super powers coming from?

So anyway, I took a bath. That is my compromise for taking the night off. A nice, steamy, uninterrupted for as long as I want bath would surely do the trick. Except things like this only happens in theory. I got the steamy part but then I also got the earth shaking pounding on our ancient pocket door from Cricket who wanted to join me. He assumed he needed to beat the door off the track because he’s probably never experienced me on a locked door before and assumed it was a mistake. The “locked” term is used quite loosely in reference to this room since I’m not sure our hook and eye closure really qualifies as an appropriate bathroom lock. Especially one that allows enough of a gap for Sloth to slide his thick fingers between the door and the frame and unlock the door with a quick flip.

I eventually regained control of the bathroom. But then as my brow began to relax yet the permanent crease remained, I suddenly panicked wondering if I remembered to get the bucket in place downstairs before getting in the tub to catch the water from our newfound leak when the bathwater is at just the right height. Remembering I did have the bucket ready I started to think how we couldn’t put the repair off any longer. But repairing the leak would mean we’d have to rip open the ceiling downstairs to diagnose the leak then we might as well rip out the rest of it to repair the cracks in the ceiling caused by the sagging office floor upstairs and if we’re going to be repainting the ceiling then we should repaint the wall and if we’re going to repaint the wall then we should remove the ugly built in bookcase attached to the wall dividing the family and dining rooms opening it up as we planned but if we remove the bookcase the floor will need to be refinished because we know it’s hiding damage caused by the original structure but then we can finally refinish all of our floors so we don’t get splinters anymore but then if we’re refinishing all the floors then we should repaint everything and while we’re at it we might as well redo the kitchen like we also planned on doing but then what if we tear apart the ceiling and we still can’t fix the leak so what if we need to rip out the tub and unavoidably rip out all the tile in the process and if we’re going to redo all that, now would be a good time to rip out our rusting sink and fix the weird toilet flushing issue or maybe just replace the toilet since it has those ugly water stains but then we should get a water softener to prevent the same thing from happening to our new toilet and then figure out why the bathroom radiator is making that noise and oh yeah, that’s right, if we’re refinishing the floors then this would be the best time to rip out all the radiators and put in central air and heating even though I actually kinda like the look of radiators but I really wasn’t very warm this winter and definitely not cool in the summer and holy shit, how in the world would we ever afford any of this and why did I want a house built in 1910?

Not a whole lot of relaxation going on but I did decide that the bucket works just fine.

No, not me. Oh dear Lordy not me at all. But our new neighbor who recently moved in has been busy. I didn’t even know she was looking in the neighborhood, but I spotted her during breakfast one morning. I have the perfect view from my designated dinner table seat which faces the window over looking our little porch. The little mismatched porch that looks as though it was only made to use up some miscellaneous scraps of building supplies and other oddities like chicken wire. The little porch that leads to our clashing larger deck addition still in progress from last summer.

But there she was right outside our window with a mouthful of grass and other straw-like bits. I watched her as she stood on the railing looking around almost nervously to see if she blew her cover before hopping in to the blooming bush with her latest load of nesting materials. And seconds later she emerged again, mouth empty, ready for another sweep of the area.

I’ve never been much of a nature girl. Of course it’s nice and all, I try to do my part so it is always here and healthy, but I’m very picky about outdoor temperature, I don’t like coming in contact with crawly things, and flying things and biting and stinging things. I’m not a hiker or a camper and birds were just birds aside from the exciting spotting of a cardinal or blue bird. But robins were every where and to me, just another bird. Then she came to town and suddenly along with her arrival, I gained a renewed interest, one I imagine I had when I was Cricket’s age. I not only appreciate their existence but I’m completely fascinated with it, just like Cricket came inside last week yelling as if the house was on fire about seeing a handful of ants. I guess it has been a long winter for him and he forgot just how much he loves letting them crawl all over him.

But this mama robin has me completely on the edge of my seat. After witnessing her mouthful of grass, I couldn’t wait for her to fly away so I could take a sneak peak at her progress. I’ve seen nests before, up close and personal as I’m sure we all have, but it is mind blowing how she took that disheveled mound and wrapped it into the most perfectly formed nest. Sloth, Cricket and I all oohed and ahhhed over it and the next day. Then later that afternoon I wanted to see if all was still well on the home front and I was taken back when there was the most perfectly formed blue egg. So perfect I wanted to test its authenticity and make sure it wasn’t some finely polished porcelain. We again oohed and ahhhed over it and one by one we lifted up the playgroup playmates so they could share in our joy. Meer hours go by and upon my usual inspection when exiting and entering the house from our back door, I saw the perfect egg was joined by another equally perfect egg. We made the big announcement with as much excitement as if we just had our own ultrasound and found out we were having twins.

Another day goes by and then there three eggs. One more day and now we’re at four eggs, all perfectly crafted by one busy bird. I watch out the window more often than ever now and happiness comes over me when she spends a few minutes on our porch before disappearing into the bush. I can see the list running in her mind of everything she has to do before the big day(s) arrive. I try to be delicate around that porch, but I am afraid she really didn’t choose a great location for privacy. It’s a high traffic area but when she choose it, weather hadn’t been ideal and that door doesn’t get used nearly as often as when the sun invites us outdoors. This is the spot where Cricket likes to play while I cook, this is the door that is used when letting the dogs in and out and on occasion I’ve scared her out of her nest, unintentionally of course, while cursing my crazy defiant dog to get her ass back into the house. She never goes to far though, just a safe distance from our chaos waiting for a safe moment to return.

But it’s getting close and her mama-robin skills are kicking into overdrive. She knows what needs to be done whether or not she’s scared, she’s toughing it out as yesterday morning she wouldn’t budge. I peeked in like I’ve been doing everyday now and suddenly I found myself with my face about 3 inches from hers. I never expected her to be sitting in her nest but there she was warming her buns and she wasn’t about to stop. I found myself almost frightened. Exactly what does a mama bird do to a human head so close when protecting her unborn children? I held my breath and walked away very slowly without turning my back to her as if she were a lion. We all know how fierce we become when we don’t know the intentions of strangers to our children, I couldn’t underestimate her power.

So now I just watch from afar and count down the days until we have 4 more new friends to greet us in the morning. We’re getting close.

Have you heard the story about the Jeni, the mommy blogger? Perhaps you’re already an avid reader. But to summarize, she’s a single mom to two boys. Jeni has been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. Her very good friends pulled together like mommy bloggers are known to do and put together an ebay auction to help raise funds. In the words of her friends:

There are 4 x $25 UBR gift certificates (here, here, here and here) up for grabs and a slew of other goodies to be had. Please stop by the Bloggers for Jeni auction now.

Submitted for the 5 minutes for Mom Mother’s Day Photo Contest

Now the idea of this contest was to submit “photos that tell some sort of story of what motherhood means to you” er, me. Or us. I just sifted through trillions of pictures depicting pregnancy, birth, Cricket over the last three years, I was searching hard for one of the two of us that really wrapped motherhood up in a pretty bow but came up short. Aside from the fact there aren’t many of the two of us where part of our heads aren’t cut off or I have some weird head tilt going on because my arm is outstretched 3 feet longer than it’s capable holding a 10 pound camera, I realized that isn’t the story I’m feeling right now.

Lately I’ve been digging deep into my heart and soul, trying to figure too many things out. I’ve been overanalyzing ever minute area and feeling many things and people break away, slip away or filed in a “not worth it” or “not right now” category. While I think Cricket and I will always share an unseverable bond, this is one of the relationships that has been slipping more and more from my grasp but the one I struggle most to hold on. With each passing day, he’s becoming less of a Mama’s boy and more of a Papa sidekick. I field more “where is my Daddy?” questions throughout the day than my weak little heart can take. I’ve been told I need to eat inside by myself while he and his daddy eat outside. I was told I need to leave while he stays with daddy and when I come home we can be friends. I partake in the family activities only to hear “Daddy look at that! Daddy come here! Daddy do you see this?!”

This picture sums up motherhood for me lately. Motherhood is about standing strong when your heart breaks. Motherhood is about putting your child ahead of your own insecurities. Motherhood is watching from the sidelines with a smile when you want to play. Most of all motherhood is about letting go when you want to hold back often watching the two most important men in your life walk hand in hand away from you.

I insisted on a daily touristic shot of the 3 of us during the Disney part of our trip, looking back I’m not so sure that was a good idea. My best looking day was the last one when my sis was gone and we no longer had a personal photographer. Easy for me to say when there wasn’t actually proof of me looking cute.

I’m not sure I will ever dare take another vacation. I’ve been having a very hard time catching up professionally, personally, physically and mentally. I feel doomed, my post-vacation blues, infamous and relentless Sunday blues and PMS all fell on the same day to make life a little unbearable for all of us in the household. To top it off, we had a power outage that night as soon as I sat down to work pushing me another day behind. On the other hand, the early bedtime was probably for the best. Now I’ve been plagued with a raging migraine and other menstrual cycle ailments all day while Sloth has more of the common cold suffering going on. Well Cricket seems to be doing OK and even making sure to flush the toilet for me after I puked.

I get frustrated that I always seem so willingly to take on the victim role yet this week has me wondering if there are times when it’s really warranted. My psychologist once told me I was an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I can take anything slightly negative and make it all about me. This explains why I also feel Mother Nature has a personal vendetta against me. Mother Nature decided to give Florida near record low temps for April the ONE week I was there. The curse of the Mama C-ta cold front, that dark cloud above me is turning out to be a little more literal. I was looking forward to this vacation for many reasons but largely for much needed sun and warmth. The day we left Baltimore and the day we returned were both warmer than what we experienced in Orlando. It was so warm in Baltimore while we dwindled down the minutes to departure by germinating the neighborhood with dandelions, I was even wondering if I would be able to handle the Florida heat. Apparently the worrying was all for not.

There was plenty of bitching about having to wear the one pair of jeans over and over with absurd layering combinations. But Baltimore doesn’t have Dinoland and maid service and already cooked meals and rides and no work and there were those moments when we could shed some layers and by the last day I was even able to bust out my little hot pink dress that made me look pregnant. So an enjoyable vacation it remained. All I have to say is that Cricket is probably pretty thankful I packed all 4 of his super long socks. He might have been more thankful if he had a mother who prepared for all weather conditions with long sleeve shirts and more pants.

I’ve been working on this recap in my mind since the flight home. I was wondering how I would keep a post on a 7 day trip of fun and constant overstimulation manageable. With many areas of my life right now, I’m trying to focus on the simple. So this too I aim to keep it simple and take it day by day.

Friday - flew in to Tampa where we were whisked off to St. Petersburg and enjoyed deluxe accommodations at a two room suite. Sloth and I had a romantic dinner a la vending machine at 11pm while Cricket dozed off way past his bedtime. Dinner of Doritos and Snickers Ice Cream bars was proof vacation officially started.

Saturday – Joined my 3 sisters, mother, father, niece and nephew at my sister’s house in St. Pete. Fortunately 3 of those people left mid-day to catch their cruise, if you’ve ever been in the same house as my entire family you would understand why dividing is mandatory for survival. I was tossed clueless into a kayak sans life jacket in the canal with my niece and we then did a little touring of St. Pete where Cricket almost attacked the penguins and we then laughed as they in turn almost attacked another little kid who was feeding them fish. We’re sympathetic like that.

Pathetically, that is all I can manage for now. The real meat to come. G’night.

We wish you were there.