I grew up in a small town in Connecticut. We had five thousand residences and two police cars. (so if you passed both of them you could speed home!) Our jail was a chair that you were handcuffed to (in case you miscount the police cars). Our high school was combined with the town next to us and even that only got us to 600 kids IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL.

But most importantly, every summer we had the Carnival. Giant cages spinning wildly in the Ferris Wheel of Death. The Bingo tent full of old people, trolls and me. Cotton candy for two dollars and goldfish brought home to die by the dozens.

So before my kids left for my birthday, we drove to our first southern version of the county fair.

We ate funnel cake. FOR LUNCH.

In our defense we also provided french fries and an Italian sausage slathered in onions and peppers to eat.

My son and his stomach of steel and I went on ride after ride after ride.

That helicopter has taken E to carnival heaven.	Welcome to the funhouse. Full of terrified smiles.
The only way to leave the funhouse. Only awesome for E.	What blog is posting the picture of the mom flashing the county fair?
Out of all the Fords and fire trucks that E could drive...	He picks the hippie lovebug. I think my work here is done.
This is our HAVING FUN face	I'm pretty sure E is screaming too.

Pretty standard fare. Until I tear my eyes away from the whirling lights and sounds and sugar.

And I’m being stared down.  By tattoos of eyeballs.  ONE ON EACH BOOB.  Spirited t-shirts encouraging me to Save a horse! Ride a cowboy! And belt buckets that say: bad mom. Which I’m pretty sure she means bad as in good. Or maybe bad as in good luck keeping these cutoff jean shorts from showing you the fun.

But most importantly, you will see Cinderella. Chatting with two vampires.

What do you think the Princess of Shoes discusses with the Princesses of the Night?

And then you will wander into the petting zoo.

The zebra tried to kicked that sheep's butt. Who knew zebras & sheep were mortal enemies?	Do NOT go to this guy's hairdresser.
Seriously the only meat the Queen will eat. I would not want to be in that herd even IF I got to meet Prince William	Not eaten. Yet.

But as you leave the lights and the dust and the missing teeth of the fair behind, you just might find your heart walking in front of you. Holding hands.

The first time they've ever held hands. Which may or may not mean this is one of three hundred pictures

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So today is my birthday. I’m 32 years wonderful.

My birthday present from my husband? He left with the children at 5 p.m. on Saturday and will come home with them this morning.

I lived in this home single and childless for two nights.

And lived I did!

I meandered around the movie store. (Seriously. I took like an HOUR in there. As tweet and facebook replies bombarded me with choices, I realized I need a list. And for the next decade, I know what I’m doing on my birthday weekend.)

• Harold & Maude
• Northfork
• Welcome to the dollhouse
• The Box
• memento
• requiem for a dream
• pi
• Mozart and the whale
• The squid and the whale
• Before the devil knows you’re dead.
• City Island
• 500 Days of Summer
• Magnolia
• Running With Scissors
• Tetro
• Ghost World
• Shopgirl
• The Good Girl
• Management
• Up In The Air
• And Scott’s friend’s advice (CLEARLY): forget the weird stuff and watch on memorium to john candy…Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors and Summer Rental

I chose Up in the Air and Northfork. (Although I was too ambitious and only watched the former. Maybe tonight, for my birthday, I’ll force Scott to watch it. BWAHAHAHA! The giving never ends!)

I went to the hippie grocery store for dinner and bought all my favorite foods (that were available. like no gooey fifteen-cheese pizza or frosting-in-a-can came home with me.):

Salt & Vinegar potato chips, Swedish fish, Potato salad, Salad with feta and slathered with dressing, Spicy Tuna sushi

I chatted with friends, ate breakfast late and ate dinner out. I snuggled with my dog. (I also may have chatted with my dog and snuggled with my friends but for a much briefer time.)

Ratchet also kept me from thinking my house had been invaded. Like in the movies. That I don't watch anymore because my imagination is active enough.

I miss my children. But I keep telling myself to stop. Because I need the space. This time to breath and talk and listen. On my own schedule. No naps to work around. No children to occupy. No husband to trick into changing a diaper.

I miss my husband. But I fight the urge to call every few hours. To bask in the guilt of his work and my play.

I didn’t ruin the gift.

And when my family comes home, I will happily catch them up in my arms.

Until they annoy me. Or I annoy them.

Then I will think back to these thirty-six hours and be grateful for how little I wasted on mommy guilt.

And I will be able to keep my annoyances to myself and be joyfully WIFE!MAMA!

But for now, happy birthday to me.

For a few more hours.

Just me.

PS. For my birthday, BlogHer reposted Why Bother Being A Good Parent At All? If you missed it here, check it out there!

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I walk out of the library and see:

DeLorean Gone Wrong

It’s like walking into a Back To The Future remake where Doc is poor.

It’s like the recession version.

And when I came back, POOF! It was gone.

Into future. Or the past. So if you suddenly start to disappear, you’ll know that your son is dating your wife.

And then, I am playing Legos with my children and there is only ONE CONSTRUCTION WORKER for THREE TRUCKS.

Even my son's lego box is letting people go.

So I tried to hire people for his lego set.

The saddest part isn't Fred's lack of a FACE. Oh wait, yes it is.

Even my 16-month-old didn’t fall for Fred. Instead, I negotiated World War Three. And I lost. Which may or may not mean I was stuck with Fred. Sad face. Or no face.

And then I stumbled upon this set of post it notes. Are they ironic? Or just killing more trees for the sake of sockin’ it to the greenies?

Because if this is serious, they clearly failed remedial ecology.

So I ask: What the heck is going on? Are you having a bizarre week too?

(My last bizarre week of pictures is here. And they are glorious.)

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My rockin mini-minivan

My son pipes up: CATCH UP TO THAT CAR!

Me: E, they’re driving too fast.

E: DRIVE TOO FAST, MAMA!

Me: I’m glad I didn’t know you back when I was 16.

Because at sixteen, I liked to play the YOU CAN’T PASS ALEX game.

Well, not really a GAME. More like filed under RULES TO LIVE BY.

No car could pass me. EVER. I would drive fast. And faster. And FASTEST. Only once, in my first two years of driving, can I recall a car passing me. Two actually. They were chasing each other. At one hundred miles per hour. And I was armed with a Gran Jeep Cherokee Laredo. The fastest I’d ever got her up to was ninety-five miles per hour. And the doors nearly blew off after I hit a bump and soared into the air. PS. I landed with an exhilarating thud and zoomed off to terrorize another street.

Back in reality:

E: See that green car?

Me: Yes.

E: Are we going to pass him?

Me: …

E: CATCH UP TO THAT CAR!

Me: E! How do we ask for things nicely?

E: Can we PLEASE catch up to that car?

Me: {eyeing the green sedan and my inner-sixteen-year-old} Pedal to the white mini-minivan metal, baby!

And I easily win the race (that the other car didn’t know he was in) when suddenly my son yells: MAMA! YOU’RE DRIVING TOO FAST!

Me {incredulous}: Wait*, you want me to slow down?

E: NO! {squeal of delight} Catch up to MORE CARS!

WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I mean SHAME ON MEEEEEEEEEE!!!

* I glanced at the speedometer when he said that, and I was not even five over the speed limit, officer.

** Could also be titled: Please Remind Me To Read This When My Son Brings Home Fifteen Speeding Tickets In His First Month Of Driving

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There has been a lot of zombie talk lately. And not just on Late Enough.

I was sent an article which used scientific reasoning to prove why the zombie apocalypse couldn’t occur.

Scott and I say: Bollocks! (No we didn’t. But we should’ve.) Take this science-y reasoning: animals will eat the zombies because HEY! EASY PREY. (Who is hearing Jack Handey of Deep Thoughts say hey, free dummy? Because if you are, I love you.)

Seriously though? My dog is like totally offend by the authors’ assumptions. Zombies taste GROSS.

I was also sent this by The Mother. FYLR (For You Lazy Readers): The article states that a Minneapolis court has ruled zombies STREET LEGAL. To which I think: There goes our freeze-the-zombie’s-face-off plan. Because during the apocylaspe? I’m not going NEAR Minneapolis because the zombies can already get away with ANYTHING there.

Oh and let’s not forget the beautiful zombie MRI art exhibit in Philly that I was alert by @iknowtiffany. You just need to look. Or look away.

And then I spent lunch with Scott:

Which prompted @milasue to confirm our Virginia zombie prep as WARRANTED not CRAZY.

But by then she was too late…

Much much too late.

(zombies laugh too, you know)

PS. The title references yesterday’s post. Shifting from EDs to zombies isn’t easy. But someone’s bound to do it awkwardly on their blog. And by someone, I mean me.

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I am the featured blogger of the week at the Blogger Body Calendar project. I wrote like eight posts until I wrote the one below. I chose to cross-post because it was hard to write and I feel safer here. But I hope that you will click the link to check out the project and buy a calendar. PS. I apologize for any typos. It was hard to keep rereading.

I can’t write about my eating disorder. I thought I could. I have been in recovery since 2001. I eat pizza and cake and three meals a day plus snacks. I don’t hate how I look. I don’t wish I was thinner. I like my weight and have stayed within five pound for the past nine years except during my pregnancies and postpartum periods. And I only know my weight because I go for yearly physicals.

I wanted to write about my struggle and triumph over anorexia. Because I think that the worst part of an eating disorder is the isolation. Me and my head and my food and my WILL. Falling asleep in the middle of the day because I don’t have enough calories to stay awake. Counting ribs to calm my anxiety. My pseudo-recovery back then consisted of hiding in stalls on other floors of my college dormitory until the bathroom was empty so I could vomit. The string of therapists and medications and diagnoses. The inpatient treatment facility that kept extending my stay.

I wanted to write about crying during my first yoga class in treatment because connecting my mind and body in a way I had denied for five years was unbelievably overwhelming. So was giving away my “skinny” clothes a year after finding recovery. I spent days and hours praying to a God I did not understand to help me to eat and love my body until I did. And I have spent my days since then reaching out to others at different points of their recovery to give and get support.

I wanted to write about my immense disappointment in the recovery field for not giving a solid community to the eating disordered. That those who are still active in their disease have more forums to discuss staying sick than those who are well. But I also remember that the only reason I could stay at my treatment facility beyond 30 days was because a lone insurance operator took pity on my story and added my treatment center to their network. Because otherwise the insurance company had not a SINGLE inpatient facility covered. That most doctors weigh us and hug us but don’t really know how to help us.

I wanted to write about how disheartened I am by the media’s portrayal of eating disorders as a symptom of a magazine instead of as a disease. My desire for bigger breasts may be a symptom of what sells. My desire to not eat for years until I was so underweight people thought I had cancer. That is not in the magazines. Crossing that line did not make me pretty or trendy.  And who saw me? I hardly left my house.

Because when I was in the throes of my disorder, all I wanted was to not feel. To not deal. I hated how much life hurt. And I was looking to stop it. To control it. So I chose my body for my “it.” And I tortured it forgetting that it was MY BODY. I was hurting myself to hurt myself to hurt myself. And sometimes to hurt you. To show you how hard it was to live in all this crazy in my head.

I wanted to write about how I believe that it is easier to blame society for eating disorders than it is to help the eating disordered. We are so frustrating and stubborn and crazy. And while I currently don’t buy the magazines stuffed with stories about how I am not good enough, I could have never made that choice had I not begun eating and living and feeling again.

I believe in the Blogger Body Calendar because I think our society is warped in its view of women and of bodies and of health. But I don’t believe this calendar will save a single woman already in the grips of an eating disorder. I pray that our charity can do that. I pray that the pediatricians and internists and psychiatrists can do that. I pray that my story can do that.

Because today I am beautiful and whole. I love the shake of my butt when I dance. I love that my nails grow and my periods are regular. And I love that I never sucked in during my calendar photo shoot. Because I can even love the curve of my belly.

I know, deep down in my soul, that the thinner I crave is not even the thinner I see. It is deep and dark. My thinner is about disappearing.

And I want to take up space today. I have things to say and do and feel and write.

I have people to love. I can’t do that if I’m not here.

Remember that the project which inspired this post supports the National Eating Disorder Association. So even if you aren’t psyched about seeing me naked in November, you can buy a calendar just for the charity. And then spend the rest of the time cutting off all the heads of the bloggers and switching their bodies. And giggling.

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My son turned four yesterday. My beautiful boy who made me a mom. And tired and crazy and unbelievably content with my life.

His day. His rules.

It’s good to know we’re related.

PS. If you want to read his birth story, it’s here. It is graphic and honest and atypical. I did not write it for this blog. I wrote it years ago at the behest of my midwife in the hopes that I could process E’s birth enough to not carry it into my subsequent pregnancies. Writing helped. Today, I only carry joy around his birth.

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I ask. Actually no, I don’t ask. Well, I sorta ask if you will ask me.

Not like ADVICE (unless you are dying. then ASK AWAY because you are already getting all sorts of inane advice.)

More: I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW {blank} ABOUT LATE ENOUGH.

Like did you really edit your eighth grade yearbook and include random inside jokes? are you now thinking that it might have been your sixth grade yearbook? was one of the inside jokes: do these eyes look like they care? (middle school is a pit of jabbing needles in your eye.)

And I’ll reply here, but if some questions are DEEP or NEEDY or HILARIOUS, I’ll blog them out. Because YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH. (I’m totally Tom Cruise in that movie. I don’t know what that means either.)

So instead of I Ask, You Answer, it’s like: I Ask, You Ask, I Answer (and the green grass grows all around all around and the green grass grows all around). But just for this week.

PS. If you need to ask me more later on, I am on formspring. But be warned, the last question I asked someone was: Do you think Alex@LateEnough/L8enough is the awesome? So I’ll find you.

PPS. Don’t forget that answers are up for all the previous I Ask posts.

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My sister, Katie (usually known on this blog as Aunt K, the Toddler Whisperer), is visiting and one of our many many important discussions turns to bras. And how much ours suck.

Me: We should get measured and go bra shopping tonight.

Katie: I’ve never been measured before. But my favorite strapless bra is from JCPenney

Me: Well I have two Victoria’s Secret bras I bought AFTER my first fitting. Both the same size. One slides up over my boobs and tries to escape via my neck and the other cuts off all circulation to my lower body. Plus I love JC. Let’s go.

We walk into their bra department and mull around the checkout counter in the hopes that the FIT SPECIALIST they advertised with the many certificates-shaped frames hanging around the sign will see how much our boobs need help.

After a few minutes, two women walk towards us. Daring us to ask for help. We accept.

Me: We need to get measured for bras.

Katie: Do you have the FIT SPECIALIST?

Woman 1: That’s me. {glances around as though another fit specialist might jump out and say LIAR.}

She grabs a tape measure and my sister and starts measure her armpits.

K: Um, okay right here in the aisle.

Fit Specialist yells: YOU DON’T EVEN NEED A BRA.

Me {cheerily}: Well, wait until you measure me!

FS to K: YOU’RE A 36. WAIT, YOU ARE SMALLER IN THE BREASTS. Let me remeasure. {tape back in armpit} You’re a 35. BUT WE DON’T EVEN MAKE 35 BRAS. HA! Let’s say 36A. Or hmmm.. 38… wait, 36… 38… Let me think. You COULD do a 38A but WE DON’T EVEN MAKE 38A. HA! {awkward pause} What size you wear now?

K: 34B

FS: Do your bras fit?

K: Yes?

FS: Get that. 34B. Sounds good.

{moves towards me}

FS: You don’t even HAVE BOOBS.

Me: Well if you know how I can grow more, let me know.

She measures as I prepare to be sent to the training bras.

FS: You’re a 32B. What size you wear?

Me: 34A

FS: But NOBODY makes A cups.

Me: Yes, they ARE hard to find…

As she walks away, she calls out: Y’all are just toothpicks with teeth.

Proof that my sister coming out of the fitting with a smaller cup size than me is INSANE

We wander around the grandma bras looking for the exact same size we are already wearing.

I find the bra that can be worn 62 WAYS.

I almost bought this for the CHALLENGE. Especially when the website only lists 17, and I can think of 87 ways to WOW. And at least one includes a small dog, the bra and rainbows.

And I grabbed another 52 bras because it turns out our fit specialist was more special than specialist.

Three thousand nude bras for the old married lady.

As I put my own crappy bra back on, our FIT SPECIALIST bursts into the fitting room and asks: ARE Y’ALL MAKING A MESS FOR ME? WE’RE CLOSING.

Me: I’m trying to put all the bras back on the hanger.

FS: JUST GIVE THEM TO ME. Did you find one you liked? {is she worried about being recorded?}

Me: Yes. But I don’t remember which one.

The FIT SPECIALIST is not pleased with my indecision so I grab the Ego Boost bra. Because my ego is fragile as heck. So why not build it up with cleavage?

See, it's already working.

As I check out, my fit specialist says: You have to pay full price for the bra.

So FYI: the little-boob discount isn’t good anymore.

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