I am 37. I don’t usually feel 37 (although sometimes I feel 67); rather, I usually feel 27.

I remember being around six years old, putting my mother at 35 years old, and being in my mother’s room watching her put make-up on one morning. “Mom,” I asked, “do you have false teeth?” “No, honey,” she responded, “Why do you ask?” “Because,” I answered, “I thought all old people had false teeth.”

I shudder to think what Sun will think of her old mom when she is six and what questions she will ask of me.

I went to bed at my usual time last night–11pm. Seems no matter how tired I am or what I do, I cannot fall asleep any sooner. I awoke in the middle of the night thinking, “Oh, wow. I feel so rested. Sun must have slept all night!” Then I looked at the clock. It was 12:37. Weird.

As I was closing my eyes to return to sleep, I saw a large spark akin to lightening and then heard the loud BOOM!!! I knew immediately we had blown a transformer. Sure enough, we had no electricity.

It woke the hubs up (along with the rest of the neighborhood). We commented that there was probably a dead squirrel or rat lying in the street having been blown from the transformer he mistakenly ran across.

Such a BOOM! brings out the neighbors in droves. And when neighbors huddle near our house, Lucy must bark her head off. Which is exactly what happens. So being brave, I send CS to investigate.

He returns some 10 minutes later. “Squirrel?” I ask. “No,” he says. “A raccoon. Three feet long. The neighbor’s son ran right out and saw it walking around in circles, dazed. Now he’s hanging from our oak tree, shaking.” “WHAT? Poor thing! . . . . Go get its picture so I can blog about this!!” I run to the front of the house to see the monster ‘coon and CS returns outside with my camera. The neighbors are lingering, all looking in the direction of our yard. CS isn’t taking any pictures. I tap the window and give him the “what’s up?” shoulder roll. He responds, “It’s gone.” “Well get away from the tree already! He may attack!”

CS returns inside. Apparently the thing had mosied across the street and into another neighbor’s back yard. Thank God he didn’t come in our back yard. CS tells me that apparently there are TWO raccoons residing in our neighborhood. Our next door neighbor told him that the other day she went to put out her trash and saw what she thought was two cats walking between her house and her other neighbor’s house. But then she realized they were raccoons. She told herself then, “I’ll take the trash out later.”

CS and I crawled back to bed. Funny that in the dark, non-a/c air, we can’t sleep even though it is as dark and cool as if the electricity was on. CS calls to report the outage. He miss-dialed the number for the energy company by one number and got a sex hotline. They asked seductively that you enter your credit card number so that you could “put your hard tool into any of their holes.” Ewwww.

A few hours later, the electricity was back on and all was well again in our world.

Today was The Day. My first “real” day back in the office. Officially. And the first day Sun has been away from CS and me all day. Gulp.

I planned on going to work on Monday but was quite distressed to discover not one of my pre-pregnancy suits fit me. Not one. Ohmygod. So I spent Monday at the mall buying “big girl” clothes — but just enough to get me to where I can lose the rest of the baby weight. Wouldn’t want to get too comfortable in my big girl clothes such that I don’t want to get back to my earlier weight (at least, this is what I tell myself!).

So today I am in a spiffy new suit. And heels. Heels! I haven’t worn anything but sandals for the last three months. I feel like the Hank Azaria character in “The Bird Cage.” You know, the one who tripped wearing shoes? Yup, that’s me.

Anywho, this morning went off without a hitch — my briefcase was ready, the baby was packed, CS even packed a lunch for me. We both felt like it was my first day at school!

Then I was off to meet my friend Wendy (over at Southern Mom) to hand off Sun to her. We had a rendezvous point in between our two homes and on the way home for Wendy from dropping Amber off at kindergarten — at a closed down fruit stand. Glamorous, huh?

Wendy calls me to tell me the traffic is tight at that location. So we detour and end up doing “the drop” on the side of the road. More glamor! So I quickly hand over Sun and her mountain of accoutrement when Wendy and my eyes meet with a singular thought. Wendy asked, “Does this feel illicit to you?” I felt I should be talking in code: “Here’s the ‘package’”; “the ’supplies’ are packed”; “the eagle has landed” (Ok, that last one was just for fun). Thankfully, there were no fat envelopes swapped. I think cops would have swarmed our cars thinking I was selling a baby out of the trunk of my car.

And Wendy has spent her day reminding herself why she doesn’t want a third child (good ole dirty baby diapers!) and blogging all day to keep me up to date. I wonder how she’d feel about installing a camera in her home for me to see Sun all day. . . . C’mon!

And thus today has been a success. I have even been invited to be on a Steering Committee for this great national organization of which I am a member for their 2008 conference in New Orleans! Way cool!

So though I am wobbly in my shoes, the worst is behind me. I have new work that actually envigorates and excites me (oh, how long has it been that I’ve been envigotated and excited about work?)

It is official: I am a working Mom.

After all the troubles I had with getting Sun to nurse, we finally got it down last week such that Sun is nursing first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and at the 2am feeding. The other three feedings are bottles (one breast milk, two formula). So I am now pumping at most only twice a day. I opted for this schedule so that whether I was at work or not, things would be the same.

When I am at work, I am pumping with a Medela Pump-In-Style pump given to me by a dear friend. She GAVE me her pump, a pump she used four years ago while she worked as a new mom.

And that’s the funny thing. This pump already knows my office. You see, the friend who gave it to me once worked in my office. Technically, we met through work and became friends. But we became friends five seconds after meeting and both knew we had found something special in each other. Then she had the nerve to up an move far, far away and we don’t see each other or talk as much as we would like. But when we do talk, all time slips away and it’s like we talk every day.

Every time I grab the pump backpack or plug in the pump, I think of my friend and her journey with being a working mother and striking that balance that makes it successful. I draw strength from her — she who works harder than most people I know but could get away with working half so hard to keep up with the rest of us; she who wants the best for her son and her parents and struggles to want the best for herself; she who has been down this breastfeeding/pumping road I am about to walk down and knows it can be done.

And so I didn’t just inherit a breastpump, but I am also benefiting from the journey this pump has already been through with its previous owner. I’d like to think there is another mom-to-be out there to whom this pump will pass in another couple of years.

I love to smell the top of a cat’s head. Cats have spots near their ears on the tops of their heads that have glands that secrete an oil. This is why cats rub their heads on furniture — to get the oil on their favorite pieces. They are marking their territory.

I have replaced my favorite smell being that of a cat’s head with that of Sun. I have found that I now smell Sun whenever I pick her up. I smell the top of her head and kiss her. She doesn’t always smell like baby shampoo (in fact, she rarely does). She just smells like Sun, just as CS smells like CS and Peanut smells like Peanut. And I inhale her scent and hold it in my nose the way a cat smells something new — with it’s mouth slightly ajar memorizing the scent.

I can’t get enough of her smell. Even when she is crying heavily and I get a noseful of her milky breath. Sun’s scent is intoxicating.

Sun is just starting to smile for reasons other than a poop. It is really awesome. When she smiles, you can see she has dimples! Last night, as I was holding her, she looked over my shoulder and broke into a huge grin. I looked to see what she was looking at but saw only a dark wall. But she saw more, because a moment later that huge smile of hers erupted with a sound: Sun’s first laugh. It was magical and amazing. And I was its witness.

As it turns out, I will have taken 14 weeks for my maternity leave, not the 12 I had initially scheduled. I was due to return 3 days a week this week, but with Labor Day being Monday, I pushed it back a week so that I’d start on a full week. Then it looked like the hubs was going to be out of town next week, so I pushed it back a second week, and when his trip canceled, things were already in place for me to start work in two weeks.

I haven’t not worked for this long since law school — if you can call going to law school not working! Outside of that, I have worked to some degree since my first job in high school. Good God. I have been working for twenty years!!

Point is, I have enjoyed having the time to myself and to have gotten Sun on a schedule (she has consistently slept at least six hours a night for the last three nights!). There is one thing I noticed I particularly miss about not working: holiday time! Sounds crazy, huh? But it’s true.

In an office job, holidays are so welcome. But yesterday, it wasn’t Labor Day to me, it was just Monday. Being home every day, I have started to lose track of days — they all feel the same. Fridays no longer have any excitement about them. The weekend days feel just like weekdays. And not in a everyday-is-Saturday but in an everyday-is-Wednesday — humdrum and regular.

So though there are many things I will miss when I am back in the office, the shared experience of holidays is something I look forward to. Leave it to me to find that I miss work because I miss the holidays!

My mother came for a visit yesterday. Just before she arrived, Sun had another one of her exploding diapers. This one spread all around the waistline of her onesie. I immediately put the onesie in the washing machine. When the washer buzzed, I went to check it — it was still stained. I tossed it in the trash and called to my mom, “Well, there goes another one.” She called back, “Here’s a little hint: put it in the sun. Baby stains will come out.” I thought, “Sure; I’ll humor you.” Just like I humor her father when he offers me cans of tomato paste that are so old they are about to burst — I take the can telling him I’ll use it then toss it in the trash when I get home. It’s a public service, from my way of thinking. I am getting bad food out of society.

So I open my door to place the onesie on the porch. “On the grass,” my mom says to me, “You need to put it on the grass — it has something to do with the chlorophyll.” I find the one small patch of sunlight in the yard and lay the onesie in it. “This will never work,” I continue to think.

We then go to lunch and return an hour later. It is now overcast and there is no sun in my yard. I pick up the onesie and am shocked, SHOCKED, to see nary a stain. Not on the front that was touching the grass, and not on the back that was facing the sun. It looks brand-spanking new. White as white gets.

So there’s my mother’s helpful tip to all you mommies out there: “Baby stains” (nice euphemism, huh?) come out easily in the sun but only if you lay the item in grass. What tips have you gotten from your mother that you thought were outrageous but proved to be true??