Grrrrrrr. So this was my morning: on my way to work, I got pulled over for having a taillight out, and it turns out my registration had expired. In March. What was I doing in March... hmmm.... oh yes, having twins. Apparently you can have your car seized and towed for not having up to date registration, a little fact I was quite unaware of. But I must have looked pitiful enough, and explained about the twins, and got teary, because I was let off with just a ticket for the light. (Phew!) If such a situation happens to you, you too will need the following links to get you back up and running (and laughing again): NJ DMV - got me re-registered, online, in about 5 minutes. Everything's peachy now, so Mom, don't worry. Eugene Mirman - "Hey Jude" and the "Who Medley" are my faves so far. Party Hard! - Ahhhh, college days... what happens when 3 kids, a boombox, and a video camera make the rounds. (warning: super long)

Reinventing myself. After Sophie was born, I had a really hard time figuring out who the heck I was. Like, can a mom still be cool? Is it ridiculous to wear hip-hugger jeans and a fairy t-shirt? Should I cut my hair and was it okay to still wear it in braids? (The answers, thankfully, are yes, heck no, no, and of course it is.) Now with the twins, I'm more secure, but I feel the need to make some subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes. I find myself being more introspective, more contemplative. *I wonder how much longer I can make organic, no-sugar meals for Sophie yet still eat a Hot Pocket standing up in front of the refrigerator. The answer: make more wholesome food since I'm making it anyway and freeze it. *The more I work at Mutts, the less meat I eat. This makes perfect sense to me. *I'm having trouble reconciling the fact that I will download music off the internet for free with the fact that I don't want anyone to steal people's artwork. It's the same thing. No more free music for me. *I also find that if I squeeze in time to paint at night, I wind up being much, MUCH more able to handle the babies and my workload in a sane manner. I literally need to paint every night to make it through the next day. So at the end of the summer, I may just end up being a wild vegetarian Mama artist who takes time to work on writing her first book. (More on that later.) And this, too, makes perfect sense to me.

My first day back at work is tomorrow. I will be packing my backpack with the necessities: laptop, sketchbook, lunch, and cookies that I'm making tonight in celebration to share with the rest of the office. It's a little like the first day of school; I'll have all my clothes laid out and my lunch all bagged and ready to go. I will actually have a reason to get dressed in the morning. I know exactly what work awaits me when I return (and it's exciting to me) and I'm ready to hit the ground running. In terms of energy/exhaustion, this is going to wind up either being very good for me, or the thing that finally sends me over the edge. (I'm betting on the first one.) Send good vibes in the general direction of Metuchen tomorrow for me, please.

Question of the day: Should I cut my hair? The temptation is great to grab the scissors and just start hacking...

Painting my way through So I've come up with an idea that's literally getting me through my days lately... I've been painting a story, right off the top of my head, one page a night. I'm loosely basing the procedure on the comic-in-24-hours theory, but bending it to my schedule: one page in about one hour, done whenever I can get an hour free but trying to stick with consecutive days as much as possible. All I've been doing lately is dreaming of painting and wanting to have a paintbrush in my hand as soon as possible... but it's a good thing to dream about when your day is a never-ending cycle of sleep deprivation, formula, pee, burps, and picking up toddler food off the highchair. Power to the puppets! Way to go Avenue Q! I've wanted to go see this play for so long... this year's best musical has puppets aplenty, and many Sesame Street alumni in the cast. With songs like "It Sucks to Be Me" and "You're a Little Bit Racist", how can you lose?

Lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures here and here. More about motherhood, art, and possibilities, coming soon.