Bucket List

I just found this list somewhere among the million Word documents on my computer. It was written almost two years ago.. shortly after Mason was born. I have no idea why there's only 95. Guess I got lazy before I got to 100. Hopefully I can stop being lazy long enough to finish this list before I croak. Anyway...

Important things to do before I die:

1. Become a teacher
2. Do shots of Jamison with Conan O’Brien
3. Start loving my body
4. Find the campground we used to go to when I was little and take Mason there
5. Eat deep-dish pizza in Chicago
6. Teach English in another country
7. Take Mason to Sea World
8. Parasail over the ocean
9. Be a soccer (or track, or band, or art, or whatever) mom
10. Find someone I can share my secrets with
11. Become a member of the Mile High Club
12. Eat completely Vegan for a year
13. Have a meaningful conversation with a bum
14. Get a mini-potbelly pig for a pet and name him Hamlet
15. Protest something
16. Take my dad to a Simon and Garfunkel concert
17. Re-watch all the old Disney movies
18. Donate hair to Locks of Love
19. Watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve
20. Dance with Ellen DeGeneres on her show
21. Learn French
22. Have a beer with Chuck Palahniuk
23. Volunteer to hold abandoned babies at a hospital
24. Wear yellow to a funeral
25. Surf
26. Be proud of my kid no matter who he ends up being when he grows up
27. Feed a giraffe
28. Learn to cook well
29. Get a job I love that doesn’t require a name tag or an apron
30. Send a thank you note to Ben and Jerry for being awesome
31. Get Mason’s picture on a bottle of Jones Soda
32. Learn to snowboard
33. Be completely debt-free... for at least one week
34. Stand in that place where you can be in four states at the same time
35. Give a large sum of money anonymously to someone who needs it
36. Run a marathon
37. Visit Ireland
38. Write a novel
39. Have it published
40. Pick up a hitchhiker
41. Play bingo with a bunch of old ladies and beat them
42. Swim in the Pacific Ocean
43. Kiss someone on top of the Eiffel Tower
44. Pay for the person behind me in line at a drive-thru
45. Take a spontaneous cross-country road trip
46. Plant a garden
47. Use a metal detector on the beach
48. Own a home
49. Adopt a puppy for Mason
50. Go to Mardi Gras
51. Skydive
52. Acquire smile lines and don’t let them bother me
53. Jet ski on the ocean
54. Scuba dive
55. Sing a Sublime song on stage with Bad Fish
56. See the Grand Canyon
57. Have a real backyard with a swing set and lots of room to run
58. Make snow angels naked
59. Take a hot air balloon ride
60. Help in a natural disaster recovery project
61. Win more than $1000 on a scratch-off lottery ticket
62. Hike in the Rocky Mountains
63. Read all the books on the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time list
64. See either David Bowie or Billy Joel in concert
65. Learn to play the guitar
66. Raise Mason to have compassion, confidence, determination, and a sense of humor
67. Graduate college
68. Float in zero gravity
69. Go down an up escalator
70. Donate eggs or be a surrogate mom
71. Get a tan on a nude beach
72. Make all Mason’s Halloween costumes ‘til he’s old enough to put up a fight
73. Be in a commercial
74. Read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden while sitting by Walden Pond
75. Learn to make sushi
76. Be a foster-parent
77. Bowl a 300
78. Go to Bonnaroo
79. Spend a night somewhere supposedly haunted
80. Donate to charity
81. Make my blog famous
82. Own a Dr. Seuss painting like this or this
83. Ride the world’s highest roller coaster (Six Flags, NJ)
84. Buy a round of drinks for an entire bar
85. Gamble more than I can afford to lose in Las Vegas
86. Beat my dad in darts
87. Get drunk off a bottle of Cabernet that costs more than my weekly salary
88. Remodel an old house
89. Get over my fear of masks
90. Go completely blonde and see if I have more fun that way
91. Have coffee at the Gas Light Café in NYC where Jack Kerouac hung out
92. Sleep until noon again someday
93. Stop feeling guilty
94. Fall in love
95. Be Mason’s best friend

I'm Not Usually the Sentimental Type...

but seriously. Aww.

These two spent yesterday at the duck park together...

and didn't leave one another's side.

Even when they split up for five minutes as a way of more efficiently nourishing the ducks...

they quickly picked right back up where they left off.

Mason showed Madelynn that chivalry is most certainly not dead

and she returned the favor by catching him when he went down the slide.

Today, when Mase and I stopped over at Aimee's, Mason grabbed grapes off of Madelynn, Mads taunted Mase with toys he couldn't touch, and they both whined and screamed and wanted nothing to do with each other.

But yesterday sure was nice.

Education Compliments of Lowe's

I had to go pick up some more paint yesterday (stiiiiiill painting, I know!) and while I was waiting for it to get shaken up, I decided to give Mason a little lesson in colors. We brought the paint swatches home and he's learning them already. Hey, he's got my genes.. the kid catches on quick.

He can always pick out orange and yellow and he gets red and green every once in awhile. And the rest of those colors... well, they don't matter anyway.

This is Gonna Suck

ETA: It did suck. Mason giggled and pulled his foot away the whole time, I almost passed out, and I don't even think I got the whole thing out.

My Loss = His Gain

When I'm having a crappy day there are always a few things that can make it instantly better. One of these things: chocolate. More specifically: brownie batter. There's just something about high fructose corn syrup and raw eggs that brings a smile to my face every single time.

And I gotta share with the babe.


No wonder why he's always trying to drive me crazy.

Pappy Buys the Cool Toys

My dad went to Ocean City last weekend and, of course, came back with a present for Mason: a bubble shooter. Now, I had previously believed that I didn't really want my baby playing with anything resembling a gun, but this thing kept him occupied for FIFTEEN STRAIGHT MINUTES (that's like, six hours in toddler time)... so I'll totally allow it.

Mason Meets Megan

Oh, Megan. She was my best friend in college. I had more crazy, ridiculous times with this girl than I had with anyone else in my life, ever. We lost touch for awhile, but now that I'm home and we're back in each other's lives to stay (although apparently she's been stalking my blog for the past two years :)), Megan had to meet Mase. They were fast friends and Mase had a great time at Blacky. Swimming. With all his clothes on.

Missed you, Megs. :)

This is Safe, Right?

Reunited

Last April, an 11-month-old Mason met a 3-month-old Rocco. I can't find my San Diego pictures, but Mason was pretty unimpressed by the crying, immobile baby of my best friend, Megan. Now, Rocco and Megan are back in PA, and we met up with them for some lunch and park time. Mase found Rocco way more fun this time.

Fireworks

I took Mason to the fireworks last night. Just as the sun was setting, we found a spot in a field close enough to have a great view but far enough away that we wouldn't be caught up in all the craziness of traffic and 4th of July drunks.




Next year, I think I'll google "how to take non-sucky pictures of fireworks" because I had no idea how to go about that. But, it was Mason's first real fireworks show (if you don't count my dad's Annual Redneck 4th of July Party where a years-worth of beer cans are collected and sold to pay for a bunch of illegal pyrotechnics) so I documented it as best I could.





As I'd hoped, Mase was thoroughly impressed, screaming "whhhhoa!" after every burst. Even cuddled up with me, watching for close to an hour, he didn't fall asleep until we got in the car.

Happy Fourth.