“You know what would be awesome? If Nora walked in here with bagels and hot coffee and was like, ‘Hey guys, I made you breakfast. Thanks for taking such good care of me.’”

“She will someday. When she’s 24. And she’s home from medical school.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Or she’s back from the artists’ colony. Or out on bail.”

“So many choices.”

“What do you think Nora will be?”

“Good question.”

“I was just reading in National Geographic about plans to colonize Mars. Do you know how long it’s gonna take? To make Mars livable? It’s a thousand year plan.”

“So I guess she won’t be living on Mars.”

“No. Probably not.”

Oh my God, I know. I’ve been sucking at this blog, and I don’t even like using the word “suck” guys (have I told you I’m prudish in some ways or what?), that is how much I mean it.

The problem is that I do not know how to organize my life anymore. That sounds bad, I realize, like I’m flying around with a sheaf of papers trailing out behind me and my hair wild and I’m wearing a burlap sack or something. But actually, I’m busy and I really like it. I’m working on a few projects, which is terrific, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of allotting time for each aspect of my working life. Or in the case of this blog, my favorite hobby.

We’ve also been busy in other ways, including a wonderful trip over Presidents Day weekend to New York City and thereabouts with some good friends, during which my passenger-side mirror was ripped from my car, and hanging by a few wires when we found it the next morning, and the oh-so-dutiful boys duct-taped it back on so it wouldn’t go flapping around when we were on the highway. Oh, wait, did I mention that in addition to being really busy, I have also been very classy lately?

I’ll post a few pictures later on because I think a visual will help you out on that one.

Seriously, though, it’s all been so much fun, and even when it’s stressful I don’t mind because it’s stressful in a good way, if that makes sense. J was saying this weekend that while this winter has been bitterly cold, it doesn’t seem as long and dreary as last year’s. This winter has flown by, he remarked. I know what he means. Last winter our life as a family was new and charming and exciting, but I remember at times feeling as though my primary goal in life was to explain to my husband - every second of every day - how hard it was to stay at home with a baby. I couldn’t stress it enough.

I don’t ever feel that way anymore - not ever - for many reasons. The moms I’ve become friends with, and the activities Nora and I have become involved in and the fact that, now, I consider an afternoon at home a welcome respite instead of something that makes me feel lonely. Also, work. I think that feeling satisfied and whole as a mother takes a lot, including the above, but for me the biggest one has been work. Or, I should clarify, work beyond being a mother.

So frantic, yes, but I love the thought that when we look back on this time we will look back on a whirlwind of activities and landmarks and changes. Chasing a near-running toddler and Starsong the purple pony. Professional deadlines and frustrations and successes, and obsessively watching “The Wire” at home. Throwing all our stuff in our bag for a weekend trip and then not having time to unpack it again before the next one. Reading “Goodnight Moon” five hundred times a night and snow days and finally working out regularly. Packing up my computer and taking Nora over to her grandparents so I can get some writing done. Putting on our coats for the millionth time, and waiting for spring.

A few weeks ago we went out to celebrate my little brother’s 28th birthday. Dinner with family and friends followed by the inevitable question. Go out or go to bed?

We were in New York, Brooklyn specifically, and my parents had graciously offered to take Nora back to the hotel so that J and I could join the celebration. I thought about it and decided that, yes, we should go out. But not until 3 a.m., I said. I said it about ten times.

Being a parent hasn’t deterred us from going out now and then, having drinks and late nights with our friends, not at all. But I will say that the majority of our evenings revolve around eating dinner and reading in bed and going to sleep early. Well, the going to sleep early part is a regular thing for me, at least. J’s a little more of a night owl (owl reference, I know, you’re welcome).

This is because, yeah, obviously, we have a child who we take care of on a daily basis. But it’s also because it’s what we like to do at this point in our lives and that has to do with many factors. Nora and habit and our age and the fact that you can get HBO series like “The Wire” on demand and, oh my God, have you seen it? “The Wire?”

Having a night out, however, is a really great release for parents, in my opinion. Whether it’s a quiet dinner together, or a get together with your brother and friends that involves beers. Like millions of beers, even though you totally told your parents, don’t worry, we are not going to stay out until 3 a.m. and you truly meant it when you said it.

The problem is that even a semi-late night sometimes prompts me to say things like, “Wow, I can’t handle those nights anymore,” and guys, that actually is lame. I don’t mean my being tired after staying out past 10 (that’s right I like to go to bed at 10), because we have to get up at 7:30 or so every morning and take care of a toddler, which requires a good night’s sleep. It makes sense.

The lame part is feeling the need to analyze my behavior and physical state. Especially because the analysis almost always stems from my concern that maybe I’m too old, too adult, too much of a mother to ever do anything remotely related to my younger self, like, for instance, go out for my brother’s birthday and drink millions of beers.

It’s like I’m not quite sure I always know my place, and this goes beyond birthday celebrations in Brooklyn. How I’m still figuring out my career path and don’t have an exactly regular paycheck. How I don’t understand the stock market. How I still look to my parents as pillars of advice, still feel very much their child. But then I have a child, too. Every once in a while I catch myself wondering just how much of a grown up I really am.

Then there are moments of certainty. The other day I was driving with Nora somewhere and I took an extremely rare break from public radio, flipping through the commercial stations. I heard this song by Justin Bieber and Ludacris. Right? Justin Bieber and Ludacris? Yeah, I haven’t been keeping up as well as I should with pop culture, but isn’t Justin Bieber, like, 9-years-old? And not someone you’d picture doing a duet with Ludacris?

This is what I was thinking about when I realized the very obvious fact that Nora was so much younger than all the Justin Bieber fans out there. That God knows what would be popular someday when she was a teenager. A teenager! I felt so much like a mom, and it felt really good, honestly, daydreaming about how one day I wouldn’t “get” her music.

I know, I know, the night of one million beers. I’m getting to that, but I wanted to point out the opposite first. The moments where I feel so mature and perfectly suited to my current role.

A couple tequila shots in and singing “Only The Good Die Young” at the top of my lungs at some hole in the wall in Gowanus? Not so much. And, of course, we got back to the hotel at exactly 3 in the morning.

I could have - normally would have - woken up the next morning and questioned my actions, thinking about how - despite the fact that I’m normally sipping a cup of tea and devouring a mystery novel by 9:30 - I shouldn’t, ever, stay out late and drink beer, and especially drink tequila. Even though tequila is the only shot worth taking if you’re going to take a shot, and has never dealt me a bad hand. I didn’t even have a hangover.

Not the point, though. The point is that I didn’t wake up and immediately begin punishing myself for staying out late and celebrating my brother’s birthday, and I think the reason is because I’d had so much fun. Fun of the going-out-late sort that I hadn’t had in so long, where everyone’s singing and dancing, really letting loose. I’m not advocating tequila shots or anything (but if you’d been there that night I would have, very much), I’m just saying I had fun. That’s it. And then when I woke up, I was still Nora’s mother, in need of a lot more coffee than usual.

I know there will be both kinds of moments in all our coming years - moments when I feel so much, so easily the parent and moments when I’m still trying to figure myself out.

Most of the time, though, are the moments I like best, and, to tell you the truth, they’re the times that sort of fade into the background. Most of the time we’ve both had plenty of sleep and I’m not trying to analyze anything. The other day I took Nora to a favorite coffee shop where she ate a bagel and babbled incessantly to me and to a few kind strangers. I was holding her close on my lap and Feist, who was on Sesame Street by the way, was playing and I’m sure anyone who saw us would have realized that we were mother and daughter. Although to me, it was just us, listening to music we could both get into, hanging out somewhere warm on a cold afternoon.

I was feeding Nora lunch today when I dropped a piece of cheese on the floor and totally, accidentally said “Oh fuck.” Accidentally, guys.

And then Nora, very happily said “Fuh.” She said it. Fuh. And I knew exactly what she meant.

So we begin a new era.

Nora’s been sick in the middle of the night the past couple of nights (a saint, as always, not even waking us up) so today, a today that was meant to be spent working while she was in daycare, has turned into a sick day, “sick” being the new theme of caramcduna.com.

I know I haven’t been writing much lately, the reason being that I’ve had a lot of work to do. While this is GREAT (!) I don’t want to neglect this blog, since this blog is a venue for my favorite kind of writing, so I thought I’d take a few moments while Nora’s up babbling “baby, baby, baby” in her crib - I thought she was gonna take a long forgotten morning nap, I swear - and say hello.

As far as today goes, I’m hoping to have fun playing with my new Things program, although that seems like a kind of geekiness I’m not ready to embrace, brewing some more coffee in the French press, which is a lovely thing when you’re drinking for one, and maybe watching the episode of “The Wire” that J watched last night when I gave in to exhaustion and went to sleep. I do not like it one bit when he’s seen an episode that I haven’t.

And, of course, playing with my Nora, who, despite the unexplained throwing up all over herself and her mattress, is happy. I experienced a few moments of disappointment this morning when I realized that I was not, as I thought, going to go to the gym and then out somewhere to work on my laptop, but instead, was going to spend the day at home avoiding other children and reading “The Train Station” featuring Elmo eight or nine hundred times. But when Nora climbed up in my lap a little while ago and chose - surprise, surprise - that very book, then settled in against my chest, I am telling you, I felt very lucky that everything got turned upside down. And puked on.

Yesterday my parents, J, Nora and I piled into the car and made our way to the Baltimore Aquarium, which was one of my favorite places when I was little. We walked through the freezing cold along the harbor, bought our tickets and spent a couple hours among the various species of fish and plant and the crowds of other children and parents and grandparents who’d had the same idea.

There was something incredibly heartwarming about watching my daughter make her way through the same paths past huge shark-filled tanks I’d once walked, and pointing excitedly at bright, darting, exotic fish.

But perhaps even better was the hilarity of driving there and back, packed tightly in the front and back seats, yelling at my father for pumping the gas pedal in a motion sickness-inducing manner and checking his Blackberry when we were sitting at a red light (”I was stopped it’s ok to do it when you’re STOPPED!”). Funny, busy, insane, hot. But the mundane details of getting there just as good as the actual destination.

The annoying age, as I like to call it - the age where Nora became less of a happy-go-lucky infant and more of a demanding little Napoleon-type figure - is over, or, at least, has morphed into something entirely manageable and often funny. Approaching 15-months-old, Nora does something new, it seems, every minute of every day. I know every parent says the same of their child, but I believe it now, as I see it.

She remains eagerly inquisitive, asking us what everything is, however mundane, like the bushes we pass on our walk down to the water, or the characters in whatever book we’re reading before bedtime, so that I’ll sometimes hear J’s voice from the guest room (where we relax with Nora before she goes to sleep) saying something like, “That’s a teddy bear, that’s a teddy bear, that’s a teddy bear, that’s a ball, that’s a teddy bear, the ball again, that’s a mouse.”

Now, more than before, she’ll try and repeat what we say every once in while, adding new words to her catalog.

But no word, it seems, approaches the exquisiteness of “num num,” which applies to any and all food and drink that Nora loves so dearly. The intonation varies - the sight of a banana always results in a “num num” followed by a high pitch squeal, a sippy cup of milk yields a quiet, loving “num num,” and when we passed the cupcake display at the coffee shop the other day, Nora screamed “NUM NUM NUM NUM NUM NUM,” gesticulating wildly at the baked goods as though we starve her at home. As though those cupcakes would save the world from climate change and poverty and sickness if she could only eat them, please GOD CUPCAKES.

She loves food, and while she recently has begun rejecting things without reason, as I’ve heard toddlers often do (why garbanzo beans but not corn? why an English Muffin but not pasta?) her passion is real and the worst - and I’m talking the worst - thing a person can do to her at this stage is give her food and then take it away. Which…I sometimes have to do because, despite the fact that she’s learning, she still, at times, stuffs her mouth so completely that I worry she’s going to choke. Like, she’ll be taking nice bites of her waffle and then I’ll look away for a second only to look back and see that she’s put an entire half of a waffle in her mouth. Could she handle it? Probably, but since her not handling it means a call to emergency services, i don’t chance it. So at that point I have to take the waffle, or whatever, away, and then the world ends. I mean, this is her most sincere crying. Not when she falls. Not when she doesn’t know where one of her parents are. Not when I wake her up from a nap, because I really think we need to get out of the house and have a latte. But when I take her food away.

It’s worse when she’s tired, as everything is with children. Just this morning, I was on the phone with our pediatrician’s office trying to schedule Nora’s booster H1N1 shot, when I felt a little tug on my pants leg and looked down to find Nora muttering “num num” and looking up at me like she was about to, possibly, lose it. So I went into the kitchen and poured her a little bowl of Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat Cereal. It’s so good, you guys, this Kashi cereal. It’s, just like the label says, warm and cinnamony and just a little sweet and perfect for the harsh New Haven winter.

So anyway, I get back to my call and when I check in on Nora, who is eating her snack over by the ottoman, I realize she’s put like 20 pieces of Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat Cereal in her mouth, and while she can usually chow down on any kind of cereal like a champ, this raises my danger instincts. Especially because even though she seems like she’s got enough to handle, she’s putting more in there, one after the other, no stopping for air. So I reach down and I take away the bowl and tell her to “eat what you have,” a phrase she either doesn’t understand or sees no need to understand, and the minute I do this, she begins crying - a desperate wail, and tears spring to her eyes and roll down her cheeks and - this part kills me - she begins frantically doing the sign for “more,” which I’d taught her when she was a tiny little thing and never realized she’d caught on until recently.

This might sound weird, and maybe it’s simply the fact that I’m a more experienced mother than I used to be, but when she gets like this, all tired and dramatic and wanting nothing more than a simple snack, I find her really endearing. I mean, I find her adorable all the time, and I never want her to cry, of course, but as she grows more and more independent, these ridiculous tantrums, somehow, pull at my heartstrings in a good way. My sweet little girl wants that Kashi cereal so, so bad.

Perhaps these moments are better than they used to be because I now know exactly what to do. Because I don’t panic. Because it’s been months since I’ve felt the urge to call J at work and tell him I was having a hard day.

In this case, I hung up the phone, poured Nora a cup of milk, sat her in my lap while she drank it and took her upstairs for a nap. She looked at me as though to say, “finally.” I think she fell asleep before her head hit the mattress.

Last week Nora and I took the train down to D.C. to visit my parents for a couple of days (sorry D.C.ers for not getting in touch! it was a really quick trip). Nora and I have made several long-distance trips together, so I wasn’t too worried about traveling alone with her, although I knew it wouldn’t be a piece of cake or anything. Nora isn’t walking yet but she certainly doesn’t like to sit still as much as she used to; our super-easy flight to Rome is a distant, glorious memory.

I want to diverge from the subject for a moment to talk about the guilt that I sometimes succumb to as a mother - the guilt that I think many mothers feel, despite the fact that they should not. The guilt I felt, for instance, when I dropped Nora off at daycare this morning, where a few kids were coughing. And what if she gets the Swine Flu?!? It would be all my fault! Because she could have stayed home with me! Even though I actually do have some work to do today (for once) and even though I know she loves daycare and it is beneficial for her in many ways! Still! Worst mom ever?!?

Jesus Christ. I feel like smacking people when they get like this, and yet…I’m not immune. It’s bullshit, pure and simple. However, these feelings of guilt play a part in this story because on my way to catch the train last week, with stroller and duffel in hand, I stopped to get a cup of coffee, as I hadn’t had any yet that morning.

Guys, I needed that coffee. I mean, if there’s one person in the world who needs a coffee, it’s a mom, especially a mom who’s about to travel five-and-a-half-hours by train with her child who may or may not be (read: definitely IS) in a minor tantrum-throwing phase. Yeah, I guess I could have waited, gotten settled on the train and then bought a coffee in the cafe car, but you know what would have happened by that point? I would have died from caffeine deficiency.

The point is that I got on the train already feeling bad because I was wheeling my stroller one-handed with a duffel bag over one shoulder, holding a cup of hot coffee. Now, I’ve become skilled at this sort of thing. I can wheel that stroller around 90 degree turns while drinking coffee, talking on the phone and walking my two dogs. You know, sort of. Still, to the untrained eye, I’m sure I looked a little overwhelmed.

So I get on the train with my hands full and proceed to look for a seat, which required walking through several cars. Unfortunately, one of the cars was the Quiet Car.

I just Googled “Amtrak Quiet Car” in an attempt to find a definition, and instead found that many have shared their thoughts on the subject with the Internet. Check it out.

The Quiet Car is self-explanatory. You’re not supposed to talk loudly or use your cell phone. I’ve always thought this was a fine idea, until - and here I diverge briefly again - my father’s recent experience on Amtrak. He and my mother, traveling to New York, sat down in the Quiet Car by accident, and my father proceeded to talk on his phone en route. Then, naturally, the inevitable happened in the form of a gentleman who leaned over and said, in a snide voice, according to my father, “Excuse me. Don’t you know this is the Quiet Car?”

My father, always easygoing except when confronted with - to put it plainly - total jerks, replied, “Thank you for telling us. And, by the way, I could do without the attitude.”

Guess what happened next. No, guess. They exchanged more words. Emotions escalated. And…they almost got into a FIGHT. Like, fisticuffs. Seriously.

Right. Um, do you know my dad?

He’s a peace loving guy. Which drives the point home even more:

People who ride the Quiet Car are assholes.

Well, for the most part. My mom claims she had to hold my father back - hold him back! - and that eventually both men calmed down. The Quiet dude got off in Philly, and everything was fine.

In this guy’s defense, my dad was talking loudly on his cell phone. Annoying, I’m sure, but I think a gentle reminder would have done, since my parents - honestly - didn’t realize they were being offensive.

Back to my train ride.

So I had to walk through the Quiet Car to get to less-populated train cars in the back. The guilt reared again. Not only was I carrying coffee and a duffel bag while navigating the narrow aisles of a D.C.-bound train, but if I had realized where the Quiet Car was, I would have entered through a different door. I would have skipped it altogether! Hell, I don’t want to ruffle any feathers. I was already bringing a 13-month-old on a train. For five-and-a-half hours! I was all about charming my fellow passengers into loving my rosy-cheeked, teething-biscuit-covered child. She’s getting her molars and SHE IS DELIGHTFUL!

Anyway, we’re walking through the Quiet Car and I’m pretty much tiptoeing, no joke, because people are sleeping and, no doubt, enjoying their noise-free train experience. There’s a bit of a bottleneck up ahead and, right there, smack in the middle of the Quiet Car, Nora decides to engage in a rowdy bout of whining, that most likely translated into something like “Why is it so quiet in this train car, I HATE IT.”

A few heads turned, although most people chose to close their eyes and ignore us, praying for our quick passage. There was one woman, though, who couldn’t resist dishing out a little judgment, and this woman, who was reclined in her seat and apparently in the middle of a nice nap before we showed up, looked at me then looked at Nora, crinkled her face into a grimace and sighed loudly, although she simply couldn’t believe our audacity. Who the hell did we think we were whining in the Quiet Car?

I am my father’s peace-loving daughter, except, it turns out, when some Quiet Car junkie dares give my daughter a dirty look. How the hell does she know what getting your molars feels like? Her gesture was subtle, but I am almost ashamed to say that I nearly reared back and smacked her.

Almost ashamed, but not quite.

My anger subsided as my bag lightened, and I looked back to discover that a kind middle-aged man had taken it gently from my shoulder, with a, “Let me help you, you’ve got your hands full. I remember those days.” He carried my bag through three cars until we found a seat, and helpfully placed it in the luggage rack. I was incredibly grateful.

We settled in for a rather tiring train ride and I reflected on the two strangers. And on myself, not quite ashamed, because you know what? Maybe my dad should have punched that guy, and maybe I should have smacked that woman.

But instead of making the local news, perhaps better that I came to the conclusion I mentioned earlier, plus a few more. Most people who ride the Quiet Car are assholes. But there are a lot of good people in the world.

Most of all, no parent should have to hold their breath as they worry about that their teething baby might wake up a fellow train passenger, who, I’m willing to bet, didn’t really need the nap in the first place.

And a mother, who will spend that train ride getting cookies shoved down her shirt, and probably could use a few minutes of shut-eye, should get coffee any damn time she wants.

Ok, first of all, I was too tired to watch “The Hills” last night. It wasn’t that I was totally asleep, I just couldn’t focus enough to even change the channel. Depressing.

Anyway, I want to say something here, and I want to assure you it’s going to be followed up by a very joyful and uplifting post (with pictures) that I will work on a little later.

I want to talk about the whole being a mother thing again, particularly being a stay-at-home mother. And how…it’s hard. I know. I totally know, I already talked about that. But I want to assure you guys that I’m not bringing it up to complain and get sympathy.

The reason I bring it up is because I distinctly remember saying to someone once, “What do stay-at-home moms do, anyway? Shop all day?”

So that’s why I have to bring it up again. To squelch any chance that anyone I know will ever say anything as asinine as that.

Let me tell you about my morning.

Nora had a cold last week, not a bad one but we stayed home from most of our activities to avoid getting other kids sick. So I was anxious to return to the regular schedule. While she’s still got a runny nose, I think due to a bad case of teething, Nora is currently feeling great and the fall weather up here is perfect for outings.

We go to Toddler Tunes most Wednesdays, where a very nice man sings cute songs and all the moms and babies sing and dance along. Nora loves it, but so do I, because I get to see my friends and get out of the house. But also, it’s just part of our schedule now, the rough schedule that helps keep me from going crazy and gives just the right amount of structure to our week.

Nora’s gone through stages with her sleeping schedule, as all babies do, but I must say we really lucky. We have a GREAT sleeper. She sleeps like a champ at night, and except for a few rough patches, has taken two two-hour naps a day like clockwork. She barely ever cries in general, and almost never cries when we put her down for bed.

Unfortunately, I would have to put this week, so far, in the “rough patches” category.

The three times I tried to put her down for a nap this morning, Nora let me know my actions were not appropriate with excessive wailing. And snot. Snot and tears wiped all over her face and then embracing me around my neck with a death grip when I’d go in to see if maybe, just maybe, the planned nap wasn’t exactly working out. Which, you know, it wasn’t.

This is what my exhausted-but-not-willing-to-sleep child and I did instead. Nora played with toys on the floor while I tried to write a couple emails. Nora played with various bottles and cups in the bathroom while I ran - lightning speed - downstairs with a full laundry basket of dirty clothes, my hope that by getting it on the first floor and closer to the washing machine, I’d get it done that day. Nora played with the bag of to-be-recycled newspaper while I did the dishes, interrupted frequently by her mad dashes to the dog food bowls, where she likes to fully immerse her arms in their drinking water and splash around. Nora pulled all the books off the bookshelf, and I let her, because this resulted in my successfully writing a few emails. I had to pee, Nora came with, rushing over to partake in the flushing of the toilet when I was done and then attempting to put her hands in the toilet water (another favorite pastime). I’ve learned to flush and put the top down in one fell swoop, thus deterring her. More snot. Wiping of Nora’s face as she screamed. I ate a granola bar in secret behind a pillow while she played, so she wouldn’t see said granola bar and demand it. I called my parents, and just as they answered saw that my now very sleepy child had fallen from where she’d been standing at her toy basket onto the floor. I pick her up, and she presses all the keys on the phone. I then took her upstairs for a diaper change, while talking to my mother. Nora hates diaper changes so I have novel distractions at the ready. A CD case. A tube of diaper cream. We make it through. Back downstairs, and I let her pull more books off the shelves while I get the diaper bag ready. She goes for the dog bowls again. She is QUICK. I save her in time, buckle her into the car then run back into the house to retrieve the stroller…and the wipes, I forgot the wipes. Ok, we are good to go. I pull out of the driveway and onto the road, I am so looking forward to a morning out of the house, talking to adults. I look back and she is asleep. We have been in the car all of three seconds, and Nora has fallen fast asleep. I drive down Townsend Avenue, weighing my options. We can go and I can wake up this cranky child when we get there. We can stick to the plan.

Or, I can admit that I have no control. I can admit that Nora’s rest is more important, turn around and come home, which is what I did, then carried my warm, sleeping child up to her bedroom, where she is now taking a much needed nap.

I will have to admit that, try as I may to avoid it, when my husband comes home from work and tells me about interactions with coworkers and the bacteria he looked at under the microscope, my offering to the discussion will revolve more around how I found a baby booger in my hair. Then maybe I will pour myself a glass of wine and think about how much I deserve it, which is, I must also admit, a very good feeling.