Jake is going on an extended holiday beginning tomorrow and lasting until next weekend. Eight or nine baby-free days are spread out in front of me and glistening in the new fallen snow.

Want me to make you even more jealouser? My boss is in South America through the first week of December.

Next week has the potential for so much progress. I've printed an hourly planner off Outlook so I can carefully plot what I'm going to do. If I have to ink in scouring my bathroom, so be it. My main goals are to clean my house (of course, and lose ten pounds while I'm at it. The likelihood of both happening are about even), touch-up my walls with the corrective paint I bought last time Jake was out of town for a week, re-grout my sink and tub, go to the gym every day but Thursday, get the rest of the Christmas stuff up, put on make-up and comb my hair every day, finish cleaning out my basement, finish cleaning out that bottle of Maker's on my kitchen table, and staying up until midnight every night this week. Oh, and Wednesday night? It's on like old skoolio, babies. We are going the hell out.

You know, with all the other 22 year-olds in town who are out searching for long lost high school classmates so we can all show each other how much more attractive we are now than we were when we were 16 and awkward. And being pregnant doesn't exclude you from going out. Bars are smoke-free, bitches.

But seriously, I'm getting things done this time around.

Or I can just start freebasing under the El. It's not like I have a baby to take care of or a boss to make happy.

Enough of what I will do, here are things I won't do:
1. wash brightly colored plastic dishes
2. wipe someone else's butt/nose
3. listen to Life is a Highway
4. stub my toe on the bathroom step stool
5. step on Matchbox cars
6. fall asleep in a tiny bed at 8.30
7. wake up earlier than 7.30
8. make icky Gerber Oatmeal
9. worry about dinner
10. buckle carseats
11. tie shoes
12. brush little teeth
13. say "no" eighty times per day
14. talk about Thomass or Fireman Sam
15. or Diego or Dora or McQueen or Roary the Racecar
16. or monsters or ghosts or why we can't play with our genitals at Target
17. or Walmart or Ikea or CVS
18. read a book with pictures
19. watch a movie with no swear words
20. fall more and more in ridiculously squishy love every single minute of every single hour of every single day. I guess I'll put it on hold for a few days so my heart doesn't overflow and explode all over the place, making for a very messy and medically awkward holiday weekend.

go ahead and puke. I don't care. I'm going to miss that little boy.