Owen is amazing, still, obviously. Leaps and bounds away from where he was the last time I posted. It's god damn incredible how fast everything changes. So sad and bittersweet and awesome. Walks, runs, dances, talks, eats everything, mouth full of teeth. Opinions and answers. Best manners in the world, please and thank you non stop. Dude can point out a taxidermied deer or a tattoo from miles away.
Yesterday Owen and I were at a Cracker Barrel in Lincoln, Illinois. High up on the wall, across the dining room there was a deer. He was sitting across from me and kept pointing yelling, "Duh, duh, deer, duh, deer." I was like, "Owen. Inside voice. What's going on, dude?" And I finally realized he was pointing at the deer on the wall across the room. So awesome. We hang out and talk to our taxidermied deer at home a lot, but I would have never guessed that he'd identify and holler about a stuffed deer without being encouraged to, all on his own accord. Several times every single day this baby surprises the shit out of me.
So, O and I spent the night in Lincoln. We were driving back from another low key weekend in St. Louis, hanging with grandma and relaxing as much as we could. I started getting a little nervous. Road conditions were pretty gnarly, saw an accident on southbound 55, lots of cars swerved into the grass median of the highway, that sort of stuff. I pulled off the highway in Springfield to get a coffee and chill for a minute because I was starting to spaz, and the weather just kept getting worse. The Volvo totally swerved a bit on the off-ramp and I was like, "Oh, hell no." So, I make a few calls, get the low-down on the weather and it seemed like if I could carefully truck northward through Bloomington, I'd be in the clear. So, O and I headed out again. We were about a half an hour north of Springfield, it was already dark out, could barely see even fifty yards ahead of us, and I'm assuming we hit a patch of black ice. We swerved into the left lane, no brakes, swerved to the right across three lanes of traffic and I decided to sail the Volvo into the grass in the middle of 55, thinking we'd slow down and come to a halt. No. It was like a movie, at that point I'm screaming at Owen that I loved him over and over, waiting for impact, and the Volvo clears the median, does a 180 into southbound traffic on 55 and screeches to a halt. How the shit there wasn't any traffic for me to careen into, I have no idea. I had about 5 seconds to quickly pull to the shoulder and there we were. Shaking and crying and freaking the shit out, I make the appropriate phone calls, pull back onto 55 heading back towards St. Louis and off at the next exit where we partied at the local Wal-Mart and Owen thoroughly destroyed the room at the Hampton Inn. I found his little sneaker in the toilet the next morning. Seriously. It was that kind of night.
O didn't know what was going on, obviously. He was giggling and goofing off in the back seat the whole time. This stuff is super scary, but I could have never imagined how scary it actually was having O in the car. Holy crap. Scariest thing that's ever happened. I was super scared to finish the drive yesterday. My shoulders and neck are all jacked up right now from being so tense and white-knuckled the rest of the way home. Super nervous to drive now. And obviously, the worst thoughts keep running through my head over and over, even though I know I need to just put it to rest because here we are and everything's cool, but dang.
This sort of stuff gives you some awesome motivation though. Even though I'm still in my relaxin' pants, but still. I got this banging to-do list in front of me that I couldn't be more excited about. And it's lame stuff I've been dreading for a long ass time now. Like the dentist. Oh yeah, broken tooth? I almost died with my baby so you are out of here! DMV, we'll talk this week. Taxes, you're going down, too. Shitballs, man. Scary times = TCB.
Otherwise, times have been alright since Owen's birthday. So much work, which is good. Lots of great finds for Apricot and good sales lately. Super exciting. I'd like to kick that up another notch in the next few months. Holidays were nice. Overload of friends and family that I was a little nervous about, but was super nice. So nice that when my mom left Chicago after visiting for Christmas, I decided I didn't have enough and drove back the following to day hang out over New Years. New years was super fun, spent with old friends and Four Loko, which I concluded is the closest thing you'll ever get to a Tardis in real life. Although it seems like I've been so busy working nonstop, I've actually had a good handful of super amazing hang-outs with favorite people over the past couple months that I'm really appreciative of. Scary times also equals making more time for important stuff like that, that you don't realize is important until later. So yeah. More of that. Re-evaluating what's going on, what's going to happen, what I want and what is best. I've already been sort of doing that recently, but this occasion put an entirely different perspective on it. So, right.
Also, it could definitely be a work-induced phase right now, but I'm super into Oklahoma City lately and really, really want to go check it out. Like, seriously. Sounds like the most amazing place ever. Really, no joke. I think I'm going to coordinate a long weekend to hang out. Maybe not drive, or at least wait until the temperature is above 40 degrees to do so. At first I thought it all sounded super lame, but after watching hours and hours of interviews about OK City, I'm kind of sold. Like I said, probably a work-induced phase, but yeah. On my list of things to do this spring.
Oh, also have to mention that besides keeping myself and Owen alive through what had the potential of being incredibly fatal, I definitely scored the Mom of the Year Award with this past visit to St. Louis. I seriously wanted to lay super low this weekend, just relax. We got in on Friday and I had no plans, hadn't talked to anyone. My sister came over to hang with O and I was all, "Let's just go down the street to The Waiting Room and have a drink, nothing big." So we do that, and while we're there I get word that DJ Lance Rock was hanging out at Halo. I bust out of the bathroom after reading this text and said to my sister, "We have to go now. You can come with if you want, but I have to go." She thought I clogged up the toilet or something. We leave and I couldn't possibly get to Halo fast enough. I wanted to go wake Owen and and bring him with, but yeah. He left his fake I.D. in Chicago.
I meet up with Anchovy, do some light chatting, scope the scene and am like, "Where is he?! AH!" He comes back in the bar and is hanging with his friends, you know, like people do. Took me a while to muster up the nerve, because I didn't want to come across as a weirdo, and I'm a spaz and over think every possibility, but yeah, so I finally go say hey to him after some encouraging words from Anchovy. I'm like, "Okay, I don't want to seem like a weirdo, but I just want to tell you that you and Muno bring so much happiness to my kid and our home. Like, he's at grandma's sleeping with a Muno doll that's as tall as he is right now." OMG, DJ Lance couldn't be a more awesome and normal and a sweet dude. We chat for a minute. He says, "I do it for the kids!" He, without being prompted by me, signs a glossy for O. I was like, "No, no, you don't have to do that. We're at the bar, being adults. That wasn't my intention." Although in my head I was screaming, "FUCK YES! I RULE! I'M THE BEST MOM EVER! YAY!" So, I nerd out my conversation with Anchovy, then we ride on the group coat tails and get in on shots with DJ Lance. My brother came around a little later and talked to him, saying he thought it was super awesome to sign a photo for O because he seriously rocks out to Gabba nonstop and DJ Lance hugs my brother and, as if we really knew each other or something, goes, "You're Rachel's brother?!" Haha. So cute. Best night of 2011. It's seriously awesome, like, his mannerisms are the same when he's explaining that you shouldn't bite your friends and when he's ordering shots for friends. I almost felt like I was in a dark, loud, smokey version of Gabbaland. I mean, you know. It was pretty awesome. Fun night, I do it for the kids. For O. BEST MOM EVER. Well, next to my mom, who framed the glossy by the time I woke up on Saturday.
