We Love you Ms. Hannigan

Little cheeks
Little teeth
Everything around me is little
If I wring little necks
Surely I will get an acquittal

Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with
LITTLE GIRLS

A little unknown piece of trivia about me is that I LOVE Annie (the original Annie, not the Disney remake that doesn't include Punjab). I can sing every song frontward, backwards and sideways - and if you catch me when I don't know you're looking, you would notice that I also dabble in the choreography.

Lately I've been cleaning, A LOT. All the books (truth, the one book I skimmed) mention this "nesting" behavior, but I thought it wasn't supposed to take hold until right at the very end. At the rate I'm going, I'll have singlehandedly built a new house and installed a swimming pool by the time this babe gets here. Yesterday I spent over 8 hours cleaning without even realizing it. At one point I nearly tripped over a dog because I was shuffling my feet around, too tired to even pick them up anymore. When I looked at the clock wondering why in the world I was so exhausted, I shocked to see it was 9PM - I had been in some type of trance since noon. I had reorganized our entire kitchen, cleaned every dish, stored things we don't use anymore, organized our pantry by the time of day you would eat that particular food, and - here's the kicker - made homemade mashed potatos somewhere in the middle of doing all this. I don't cook, nor do I "homemake" anything besides cocktails, and I have little recollection of doing any of these things.

In another one of these recent cleaning trances, I was going through some drawers and found the VHS of Annie. It was the first time I looked at something and thought, "I can't wait to watch this with my little girl." That was quite a relief to me, as most of my thoughts up until that moment had been a bit more selfish, along the lines of "well, theres one more thing I'll probably never get to do again..." I thought it the opportune time to begin thinking about all the things I am looking forward to doing with my little girl, that wouldn't be quite the same with a little boy, to begin a post natal bucket list if you will...

-Watching, singing and acting out Annie, I will play Ms. Hannigan of course - complete with gin bath. I'm not sure if she will get the lead role of Annie right away, that will have to be earned, she'll start out with a small role like Pepper, Molly or Duffy.

-Craft projects, sewing - my basement sweatshop could use some more labor, the neighborhood kids are getting too old and starting to complain too loudly! (I'll send pics soon of my most recent creations)

-Getting dressed up and going to Bloomingdales or Neiman Marcus and strolling around, trying on clothes and shoes that aren't on sale, asking the sales people to show us jewelry out of the cases, like we have enough money to shop there. This is fun enough by myself, I can't imagine the reaction when I tell the sales associate my baby wants to see the diamond brooch. Then of course getting a cinnabon as we exit the mall with our JC Penney purchases.

-When I was little and my parents used to have parties, I remember me and my girl cousins putting on "shows" of lip syncing... I'm sure Chris will enjoy baby Morganti helping me relive my youth with our duet of "Let's Hear it for the Boy."

-Reading Ramona the Brave!

I think those sound like some pretty good times....I'm sure I'll think of more things as I progress, but I thought I'd share those with you since it probably seems to most readers like I've been a bit pessimistic about this whole process.

Have a good week, remember: You're never fully dressed without a smile...