The thumb is back.

About a month ago, this little guy cut him thumb. For weeks he insisted that a fresh band-aid be applied at least once daily. To my delight, he stopped sucking his thumb.

Until today.

Strategic destruction, or just coincidence?

The mother of three boys, I try to be realistic about bringing things into my home that could end up karate kicked across the room, poked with sharp instruments or otherwise destroyed. But sometimes I just can’t help myself. Case in point, a small collection of mid-century modern furniture (Noguchi table, Eames leather lounge chair/ottoman, Nelson bench, etc.) has made its way into various rooms in the house. I totally dig them all.

So, recently Allen has entered the “let’s see what happens when I do this” phase, climbing up to the highest shelf in my office to reach my pens and smuggling them into another room while I’m otherwise distracted. I’ve had to get the upholstery cleaner out on more than one occasion and each time I’ve drilled into him, “Paper? Yes! Walls? No! Paper, Sure! Chair? No! Paper? Okay! Table? No! No!” You get the idea.

Then the curiosity turned from my pens to the tools in the garage.

I heard that “Oh, no…” and you would be right.

We turned on the voice-notification on the alarm months ago so we’d know when someone was entering/leaving the house (another possibly worse curiosity problem) so when I found Allen in the garage with the hammer a couple days ago, I was able to contain the problem rather quickly and without any real damage to him or any property.

Then today Allen realized he could conveniently fit through the dog door and the light bulb went off again.

And of course, just when I was completely focused on work, my left brain registers that I’m hearing a pounding noise coming from somewhere… perhaps the next room… Hmm?

Oh, dear. This is where I leave out all the embarrassing details of my knee-jerk reaction (don’t worry, it didn’t involve violence) and Allen running for cover.

So, now my Nelson bench has several indentations that I’m guessing will not increase in value any time, ever.

It reminds me of the time Dean systematically destroyed two of my first edition Edith Wharton novels with a pink highlighter pen when he was Allen’s age.

Forgive. Forget. Replace?

More proof that he’s not the perfect child he appears to be coming soon . . .

So, it begins.

The terrible twos (aka Allen’s 2nd birthday) have arrived. Here’s the little man. Don’t say “He looks just like his father!” or I’ll make you suffer looking at all my baby photos.

We celebrated his birthday by quickly devouring a Cold Stone ice cream cake and putting him to bed so we could watch the Presidential debate with our politically correct (because they’re also democrats) friends Joe and Claudia. We paused the DVR so much to have colorful discussions, it took us close to 4 hours to watch a 90 minute program.

But that was weeks ago. Let’s move on to right now.

We picked the perfect day to change our cars tires to the studded snow variety just in time for it to start, yes, snowing. This is not good. Not only did we have a short summer (I think we might have had two sunny days back-to-back), it’s supposed to be a cold winter. I guess I don’t mind cold, but please, don’t make it long. Maybe I should have titled this post “Snow, it begins.” Bah.

What have I been up to?

Well, not sleeping apparently. No surprise there.

In my copious amounts of spare time, I’ve been doing some very fun (blue sky creative) design work for a client in the fashion industry. (Ahh, to be working on something that takes me back to my fashion roots.) We’re gearing up for all the promotional material for her upcoming runway show at the end of May. Chloe Dao, the winner of season two “Project Runway” is making a guest appearance and showing some pieces of her collection, so it’s going to be a pretty big event for little ole Anchorage, Alaska. My client is trying her heart out to raise the fashion bar here, and man does she have her work cut out for her. Aside from a handful of wanna-be divas, there’s a lot of very unfashionable people around town. The past year we’ve accomplished a total re-branding, store remodel, and several successful in-store promotions and events, but the economy has been tough. So, I’m trying to support her but stay out of all the drama and frustration.

But enough of that.

Other things I’ve done recently…

1) Learned to apply cream eye shadow (stop laughing)
2) Cleared my house of all storage clutter (my favorite thing besides, well, never mind)
3) Splurged on a Marc Jacobs wallet (shhhh, don’t tell Eric)
4) Got a puppy/playmate for Jackie named Casey (also an Italian Greyhound)
5) Successfully encouraged Grant to pull his own front tooth
6) Proudly watched Dean open his report card to reveal straight A’s
7) Discovered my potential future home
8) Got my first kiss from Allen (very slobbery)

Life is good.

And now, back to my book (the laugh-out-loud There’s a Slight Chance I Might Be Going To Hell novel I got from Eric for Valentine’s) and hope it won’t keep me up the rest of the night.

To anyone reading this, hope all is well.

Birthday boy.

One year old. Man, how time flies. Mom celebrated a birthday a few weeks ago, too, but we won’t talk about that… The best part for everyone (even if I do say so myself) is 6 layer chocolate cake that lasts for days.

Fall is not only in full swing, it wouldn’t surprise me if it snowed soon. We had such a glorious summer (short as it was) I’m not sure if I’m ready for winter. I would like to see autumn last a lot longer.

Other news (since I haven’t been very prolific lately):

We finished our landscaping project and are planning the back yard phase for next year. Last month Eric went on his first deep sea fishing trip and came back with two 100 pound halibut that are now in our freezer, waiting to be slowly devoured over the next few months. Delish. My parents and youngest brother Richie came for a week-long visit and we had a great time. The boys are back in school so it’s me and the little guy you see right here hanging out, learning how to run without falling flat on his face.

Life is great.