Is it Thursday already?

Why yes, yes it is. This week has flown by after taking two days off to start, work on and finish my criminology paper. I could attribute my procrastination to being that busy but really I'm just that stupid. In the end though, I'm pretty happy with the results. I turned that paper in at the literal last minute. It was due by 4:30 yesterday. I typed my heading and flew out my front door at 4:15. The four block drive took the longest seven minutes EVER. I parked on Southside and RAN to the Academic Building. I ran. Yes, the girl who believes running is an affront to the nature of the modern biped double-timed for a whole six and a half minutes. My lungs nearly burst as I took the stairs up to the third story and had the TA initial my paper as turned in at 4:30:47. Oh yes, 13 seconds from being late. Do they give out prizes for cutting it that close? I think they should. I ran for more than six minutes I deserve a cookie or a tiny gold-plated statue or a damn sticker. After that I walked in a deep breathing, burning lungs accompanied by hacking sort of way back to my car. I'm sure I sounded like I'd been a chain smoker for 20 years.

The second major goal of my two days as just a student and not a working parent was to get my passport. Allow me to burst out in skeptical laughter. I turned in my paper with 13 seconds to spare, do we really think I made time to get my passport. Negatory. However, on my way to pick up Emily I did manage to get the picture for my passport taken. Now let's ponder this for a second. I had a day off. I did school work all day. I had just finished running. Of course it looks like a glamor shot. How could it not? I am recovering from a bad haircut, am broken out enmasse from stress and had on no makeup. Wait, I had on lip-gloss. That's something. Regardless, it is possibly the worst passport photo taken in the history of identification photos. I look every bit the stressed, harried working student mother of a toddler. I love it. It is the perfect sort of picture to kick off my trip to the Caymans in January. It just screams "this girl is bound for romance in the islands." Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking: everybody takes bad ID photos. I do not. This is the girl who painstakingly curled, primped, make-uped and dressed for every drivers license photo. I am a disgrace to myself. But one who can laugh.

In other news, Emily is quite possibly the cutest child ever. Our usual routine is, pick up, get home and skeeze out before making dinner. Last night Em asked to brush my hair for the first time. So there I knelt on the bathroom floor while my tot clumsily ran her tiny little comb through my too-short hair. She even picked out a pony tail holder and repeatedly placed it on top of my head before pulling it off and exclaiming "no Mama, thas not wite. I messt it up." It was the crowning moment of parenthood. She finally gave up when Donna arrived for dinner but those five minutes were just perfect. They can only be topped by our nightly ritual when I lay in bed with her (child rearing critics be damned!) and she strokes my face until she drifts off. Somehow those golden moments make it perfectly acceptable to put off homework and take bad photos.