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I sometimes find my child in downward-dog position when I go to wake her up from her nap.

My child is perfectly capable of drinking from a sippy cup. However, she chooses to spit mouthfuls of water out onto the front of her shirt. Consequently, I have a tiny dripping munchkin running around my living room, laughing maniacally.

All the parenting books and stuff tell you that your toddler does these odd things for attention, be it positive or negative. So, even though it’s funny as hell, you shouldn’t laugh nor should you yell because it will only make the behavior stick.

I have pulled at least six muscles in trying not to laugh at this kid. I am in serious need of a video camera so I can show the world how nuts this child is.

At least she has good taste - I taped a Queen concert from 1981 (off the Rave channel, which I love so much, I want to put Hershey’s syrup on it and have it for breakfast), and she is totally rocking out. She’s got the head-bob going, the Frankenstein-esque toddler knee-bend thing, the works. It’s funny.

And she is dripping. From her neck to her knees, she is absolutely soaked. I am going to take the “ignore the behavior” thing a step further and let her run around like this for awhile. I want to pretend, for a little while at least, that I am smarter than she is.

I’ve started a business. With luck, the website will be up and running in the next week and then I’ll be all nervous, wondering if anyone, anywhere will ever order anything from me.

There are about sixteen hundred little things one needs to do to get a business off the ground, and getting a bank account is but one of them. I did that last week, and felt all proud and important and stuff.

Then I got my bank ATM card and my name was misspelled. There are myriad things that irritate me, lord knows, but misspelling my name is probably in the top 5. After all, the lady who filled out the form was looking at my drivers’ license, and we all know THAT is spelled correctly (if incorrectly punctuated… oh, never mind. I hate my name).

But today, the UPS guy pounded on the door, scaring the bejeezus out of me, only to deliver a wee box with my checks! And my deposit stamp! Whee! Oddly, my name is spelled correctly on the checks. How did this happen?

With any luck, getting the ATM card fixed will be a painless process for me. For the lady at the bank, I can’t be so sure.

I almost went to the grocery store in my slippers today. This is not the first time I have gotten out of the house and into the car wearing my slippers. They’re just so comfortable! I’m just so oblivious!

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that it takes a great deal of mental energy to get out of the house with The Toddler in tow. Gotta make sure she has HER shoes on, gotta make sure she’s got a coat on, gotta make sure she has something to keep her busy… the list goes on.

I put all my focus on her and then totally forget about whatever it is that I’m doing. I’m Parent of The Year, right here.

Yesterday evening, around six, I stepped into the kitchen to start preparing for my child a dinner that she wouldn’t even eat. Like a big dummy, I thought to myself, “hey, why don’t I step out and get the mail real quick?” After all, the mailbox is attached to the side of the house, not six feet from the kitchen door. Should be easy, right?

Since I fancy myself a good mom, I swung the door shut behind me so Jillian wouldn’t have to deal with the incredibly cold air blowing in through the open door. But oh, silly me. The door? WAS LOCKED. You can open it from the inside and it doesn’t automatically unlock, but I go in and out at least a couple times a day, so don’t really give the locked/unlocked state of the door much thought.

It doesn’t show here on the blog, but I have a pretty high IQ. I am a reasonably intelligent woman on a normal day. But I managed to lock myself out of the house. With the baby inside. By herself.

Thankfully, all the baby gates were still up, so it wasn’t like she could toddle into the bathroom and fall into the toilet. She is fascinated by the toilet. And she couldn’t get into the kitchen, which is also good, since I am not childproofing it in any way, shape or form. That’s what the baby gate is for.

I tried the door once, just to make sure I really was locked out and not just crazy, then I sprinted (in my slippers) to the neighbors to use their phone. I’m glad we have nice neighbors, even though I think they think I am completely off my rocker.

Freddie was nearby, in a meeting, so he only took about ten minutes to get home. I refused the neighbors’ offer to hang out and peek through the window at the house because I wanted to be on the porch, able to peek in at Jillian, whose head I could just see cresting over the baby gate. Through the door, I could hear her bellowing, but it was regular “Feed Me” bellowing not “I crashed into something again, some more” bellowing, so I didn’t panic [much]. Had she managed to harm herself in the span of ten minutes or however long I was locked out, I would have gladly broken the window on the back door.

She was not amused, and neither was I. I felt all upset and queasy for the rest of the night. I still feel all at sea, but that might have to do with the fact that Jillian had the 15-month checkup today which involved shots. She freaked out hardcore for the first time and although I never have a good time when she gets shots, having her react the way she did this time threw me off.

Once home, I got her fed and down for a nap then I tried to feed myself. I burned my grilled cheese. Not just a little bit, either. BLACK. I’ve been making grilled cheese since I was about 5 (oh the good old days when parents let kids go near the stove without a fireproof suit on), so you’d think that 27 years of practice would keep me from burning it. You’d be wrong.

This is definitely one of those days when I will be extra-grateful to crawl into bed.

This Jools Holland show just gets awesomer and awesomer every time I watch it. New Order is on this episode and they’re playing “Transmission.” OMG.

That reminds me, has that movie about Joy Division come out yet? I don’t know anyone in New Jersey who would want to go see it with me. In fact, the only person on earth I know of who would be interested is Terri, and she’s in Ohio with a brand-new baby-person.

Maybe I should start getting Entertainment Weekly again. As craptacular as that rag sometimes is, at least it was a way to stay in the loop with movies and stuff. Nowadays, I don’t even realize a movie has come out until it shows up in Redbox. Hee.

When we moved, we found ourselves under the umbrella of a new cable system. Although the new cable company is much bigger, it sucks a whole lot more than I would have expected it to. The interactive channel guide is tres primitive, and WE DON’T GET BBC AMERICA ANYMORE.

On the other hand, we get this new HD channel, call Rave. It basically shows non-stop music, especially Glastonbury highlights and my new favorite show: Later… with Jools Holland.

Why don’t we have shows like this on regular American TV? OH, that’s right… Americans have shitty taste in television shows. And music. It’s okay, as long as this channel sticks around. I’ll just send the cable company people a letter a day until they add BBC America. After all, we get almost one hundred Spanish-language channels that I don’t want and can’t opt-out of, so why can’t I get one channel with accents and more Gordon Ramsay? Is that too much to ask? I don’t think it is.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my psychic CD player. It’s true. The thing is totally tuned to my subconscious and is guaranteed to play the one song I really don’t need to hear. Fun!

For Hanukkah, I asked for some kind of gadget that would allow me to listen to my iPod through the regular stereo speakers or whatever. I was thinking about the Bose iPod dock thingie like the one Chuck has, but we found something EVEN BETTER.

Turns out Monster makes a cable that plugs into the back of the receiver and into the top of the iPod! Genius! All I had to do was get the charging dock set up to stick the iPod in and now I’m ROCKIN’ OUT. For $40, compared to the $400 the Bose thing costs. Look at me, all frugal and shit.

Anyway, I’ve been neglecting my iPod lately - hearing aids and earbuds just don’t mix. Plus, when do I ever GO ANYWHERE that I am in need of it? Never, that’s when. So I haven’t been managing my playlists much. Instead, I just hit “shuffle” and let it go.

What’s the first song my iPod decided to play? Let’s think a bit. There are 4111 songs loaded onto it at the present time. Roughly 300 of them are U2 songs, so that’s a pretty hefty percentage. REM, James, Phish, The Cure, and The Smiths make up another pretty hefty chunk.

The iPod decides to rock us out to Def Leppard. Aw yeah. It seems that no matter how I try to reinvent myself, I always come back to the World’s Most Hapless Band.

Where the hell did this year go?

I was flipping through a book I swear I just bought, and I found the receipt, dated June 27th. No way. I just bought it. Like, yesterday.

But, yeah. The holidays are coming up, and if you’re Jewish, they’re coming up much earlier than usual. That’s actually good, since I’ll be able to get Hanukkah over and done with and have time left over to get good and bored with all the Xmas hoo-hah.

I am participating in at least three holiday card exchanges this year, including one that is worldwide, so that should help me hate December a little less.

If you would like to get a holiday card from ME ME ME ME ME, email me your informations at racheldirollzack ((at)) gmail dotty commie and I promise I won’t send you anthrax. Honest. I ran out of that last week when I was sending cards to everyone on my enemies list.

Go on, make the holidays fun. Let’s all send cards to one another. It will make everyone feel all warm and fuzzy inside, however briefly.

Oprah’s latest book club pick just so happens to be my 2nd-favorite book of all time: The Pillars of The Earth by Ken Follett. If you don’t know what my 1st-favorite book is, then you are missing some very key information about me. Put it this way - my child’s middle name is Scarlett.

I normally pay little attention to the whole Oprah “thing.” She doesn’t really do anything for me, and at times I feel her attempts to be “real” come off more fake than if she would just say something like “You know what? I have more money than God, and therefore I have no idea what a normal person’s life is like.” That would make me feel better.

But the book club, well, that’s a great idea. Here is a woman with a lot of influence, telling her Oprah Army what to read. And they do it. So it’s nice that she picked a book that I absolutely LOVE, meaning lots more people will read it, and maybe fall in love with it, too.

If you like TPoTE, then also check out the sequel: World Without End. It picks up 300 years later with the descendants of the characters in the first book. It’s not as good as the first one (what sequel ever is?), but it’s pretty well-done all the same.

I wish I could be more coherent about this, but it’s been a rather tough couple of days. More on that later, but for now, go out and read. TV is going to be all re-runs after this week anyway.

I know I’m not the first person to ever change a diaper, but HOLY GOD.

Why do the turd-shaped poos smell so much worse than the smeary gooey poos? Sometimes squash comes out looking the same as it did going in and that’s fine but today…. man oh man.

It was like a Tiny Nugget of Death Stench. I’d like to pack up a few diapers’ worth of my daughter’s poops and send them to Afghanistan - put them in the caves over there and you’ll have bin Laden surrendering in no time.

I’m going to have nightmares now.