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In two short weeks, we&#146re off to Boston! Yahoo!

I think for Halloween, we&#146ll dress up Ryland as an elephant. Or a pumpkin. Or a bumble bee. Or a mouse or a kitty or a flower or monkey. Ohh, a robot! A robot baby!

Now if I can just figure out how to make a robot baby costume…

I am going to have to face the sad reality of going back to work soon. Money is getting painfully tight and pretty soon we&#146re going to be choking, so I will need a job soon.

But I don&#146t want to go back to work. I want to stay home with Ryland and be his mommy and take care of him and run errands and marvel at every little thing he does. I hate that Gordon doesn&#146t make enough money to support us all. Some of you may say &#147well, you should have waited to have a baby Christa&#148 and I say to you people &#147shut up&#148 and &#147mind your business.&#148 Besides, Ryland decided on his own he wanted to be born, and I had no control over his actions.

Stupid money, it ruins everything.

I kind of miss working, I miss having a place all of my own, away from everyone and everything, where my biggest worries are paperwork or getting some project done on time. But I imagine what it will be like to have to leave Ryland, in the care of someone far less superior, and how he will miss me and I won&#146t be there for him and it kills me. I know he&#146ll be just fine and he won&#146t forget I&#146m his mother, but knowing that doesn&#146t stop me from thinking it.

But you gotta do what you gotta do and hope everything turns out okay. The next step is finding a job that pays enough and lets me work somewhat flex.

I&#146ve decided that the reason for the Red Sox success is because of Ryland. What is different this year that hasn&#146t happened any other year before? One thing: Ryland&#146s birth. Therefore, Ryland is the savior.

In a few more weeks, we&#146re off to Boston! Yay!

Every Thursday morning, Ryland and I go to the hospital where he was born for the breastfeeding support group they hold. I started about 2 weeks after he was born and have gone to just about every meeting since then and I really enjoy it. It&#146s great to be around other mothers and babies, sharing our experiences and offering help and suggestions. It&#146s only an hour and a half, but I look forward to it every week.

And today, one of the women from my childbirth class was there. I was surprised at how happy I was to see her. I sat next to her and we chatted most of the meeting and then, at the end, the best thing happened. She suggested that next week, after the meeting, we go to lunch together! I was so happy. Inside, I was jumping up and down, giddy with glee, screaming YES YES YES YES I LOVE YOU LET&#146S GO TO LUNCH I LOVE YOU. I was able to contain myself and agree, in a very pleasant and uncrazy way, that lunch would be very nice.

I feel like I&#146m about to finally go on a date with a guy that I&#146ve had a crush on for years. So now I&#146m all nervous, worried that I&#146ll mess up and say something stupid and she won&#146t like me anymore and then it&#146ll all be over. But this is huge for me. I felt so adult, so grown up and real and womanly. It&#146s hard to explain. But I&#146m a mommy and next week I and my baby will be having lunch with another mommy and her baby. Could I be any more civilized? Could it be any cuter? Could mommy and baby lunches be the best thing in the whole wide world? I think so!

I left the meeting today glowing. I am so dorky that it embarrasses me, but I can&#146t help it sometimes, even when I try. Mommy friends are hard to come by and I&#146m actually making one all on my own!

So after that, I started thinking about friendships in general and boy are they curious beasts.

We all have different groups of friends for different times and areas of our lives, different aspects of our personalities.

For example, a few weeks ago, I was in Phoenix, attending a little party of my friend Marianne. Another very close friend of mine, Theresa, was also there, as well as several of Marianne&#146s friends that we had never met (we=myself and Theresa). And Ter and I started talking about how weird it was to see OUR friend, Marianne, with other friends who weren&#146t us. Cause we were like the core group, the original group, and she belonged to US and it was disconcerting to see her with other friends. Kind of like &#147what the hell…who do you people think you are?&#148 and we laughed about it. But it wasn&#146t in a bad or negative or mean way, just in a funny, weird way.

Theresa has lots of friends that I don&#146t know and whenever I see her with them, it&#146s like &#147Umm, excuse me, Theresa is mine, thank you very much.&#148 In fact, at that very same party Theresa brought a friend of hers that I know but am not too close with and I get that little protective, almost possessive feeling of &#147Umm, just what exactly do you think you are doing with my Theresa? I knew her first.&#148 Only not so crazy sounding.

I thought the same things with Marianne&#146s friends. Sure they may see her much more often than I do, but she still belongs to me!

So Marianne and her friends in Phoenix all have this connection that I&#146m not a part of; Theresa has a group of friends that I am not associated with; Gina has her friends in the crazy old South; heck, even my pals here in Tucson have their own separate groups that don&#146t include me. And again, this isn&#146t BAD, just…interesting. We all have our different groups, whose purpose fits various needs.

Right now, finding new mommy friends who I can connect with has become a very important priority of mine. I&#146ve got this new prospect at the support group, plus a woman named Theresa here in Tucson who has two kids and who has been very helpful and supportive. Making new friends is hard work though, baby or not.

I&#146ll end this rather long, rambling entry (I&#146m on autopilot, typing with my eyes closed, so cut me some slack) with a salute to the Red Sox. Any team beating the Yankees in the postseason is a beautiful thing–the Red Sox beating the Yankees in the postseason is an inexpressible joy. No amount of celebration does the feat justice. And I only lived there for four years! I can&#146t imagine how lifelong Bostonians feel. It is almost as great as the D-backs beating the Yankees in 2001 for the championship.

Oh and for an eye-opening look at the peril of Halloween costumes, read this recent entry from Marianne.

Happy Birthday, my sugar pie guy!

Ryland is two months old today. It feels sort of surreal. He feels both brand new and a million years old. He is getting bigger and smarter and cuter by the millisecond. Until you have a baby, it is impossible to know love and contentment this great. And on the flip side, such worry, stress and fear. It goes both ways. Right now I am really enjoying our quiet times, when Ryland is nursing and it&#146s just him and me, relaxing and drowsy. I will miss this, boy will I ever.

In other news: holy red sox batman. could they give us anymore heart attacks? We all know that heartbreak is right around the corner, all this excitement is just delaying the inevitable, but it sure is fun. Goddamn it if I don&#146t hate the yankees though. Does ANYONE like that effing team anymore?

Anyway, to recap: happy birthday to Ryland, go Red Sox, send me money, and vote Kerry!

ROCK HARD!

STAY COOL!