I love magazines (almost as much as I love catalogs), but I’ve always had a difficult time finding one to which I can really relate. I work outside the home, but I’m a mom. I’m a mom, but I’m in my 20s. I’m in my 20’s, but I’m married and own a home. I have a house, but I don’t have thousands of dollars for room makeovers. Those things don’t seem so odd individually, but the incongruity of them all together is apparently beyond the scope of a target audience. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that a single magazine doesn’t encapsulate me. I’ve always been that way… breaking stereotypes left and right, taking interest in a wide variety of things. I talk to one coworker about shopping, another about cognitive science, and another about major league baseball. Keeps the mind fresh. So I read a bunch of magazines, each for a portion of their content, and in the end, In Style is my favorite just because it’s so irrelevant. Just like magazines should be.

Lately I’ve been feeling a snug sort of contentment. My kid is growing and learning every day, and I *love* not having a baby. Andrew doesn’t say much other than “mama” and “ba”, but I have conversations with him all the time. He understands absolutely everything I say and minds pretty well. He points to everything… everything… over and over, asking what it is, satisfied when the answer is what he expected. He laughs when he sees the yellow car on our evening walks. He buries his face in my shirt when he’s scared. He puts his arm up and giggles when you say “to infinity…” then laughs wildly when you finish “and beyond!!” He doesn’t walk on his own, but will crawl over to the daycare shoe basket and pull his own shoes out and try to put them on his feet, if you ask him to… and if he feels like it. He’s just so precious to me right now, and I can tell you that I am already enjoying the “second twelve months” much more than the first. Sometimes I peek in on him at night and my heart swells with pride and love and just plain missing his company. So this is how mommyhood should feel.

I am also feeling particularly grateful for my husband, my job, our families, and everything that fills in the cracks between, from being able to have a repair man come and tend to our washing machine, to the tiny buds I’ve spotted on the trees outside, to cold medicine, to Netflix, to a warm bed and laughter. Right now I feel like I’m living each day, and I’m about twelve times happier than I was last year at this time (although I think my outlook was starting to improve somewhat by March). There’s so much to appreciate in the midst of health issues and economy issues and money issues and world issues.

Enough of that sappy soapbox… I’m starving. What should I have for lunch today? (I have another two hours to wait!)