Enough of that depressing stuff. Here, my daughter proves singing abilities do not have any place on our family tree, and is that a cracker I’m holding?

I like to pencil in vacations for the whole upcoming year in December because I’m a goal-oriented person (read: neurotic) and I thrive when I have something to which I can count down (read: over which to plead ceaselessly with the gods of time).

But this time, the crisp pages of my spotless 2010 calendar just sat empty, because there’s just so much. On top of maternity leave and vacation time, we were handed another factor. Dave and I got an e-mail Wednesday that informed us we’d all be taking another week of furlough in the first quarter of 2010. Yes, I gagged a little bit.

The first quarter is not known for its sunshine, its abundant warm weather or its piles of cash (It’s not until about July that we have enough cash to just collect in garbage bags around the house). There will be no Billy Joel concert*, no party outside, no glasses of wine on a porch swing — the glimmer of our May 2009 furcation has faded. There’s about a foot of snow on its way here tonight; May seems a decade ago.

I’m trying not to mope about this: I should be reveling in my ability to coerce Alice to sleep until 9 a.m., and I should take every opportunity to do so before No. 2 debuts. I also have been whining about not having more time with Alice … Yeah, I know. I read my blog, too. Scout’s honor, I shall try to enjoy this one for what it is: time off. I’ll try to forget about that whole “not getting paid” thing.

But damn if it’s not a punch in the gut to hear that word again.

(*Truthfully, I briefly considered requesting my furlough for late February so I could make a pilgrimage to Kansas City, Mo., to see Billy Joel on tour. But Dave kindly reminded me how he’d rather get his right hand caught in the snowblower, twice, than ride in a car with a seven-month-pregnant wife. He’s honest. Give him that.)

Since my vacation in October I’ve been carrying around this brick in my pocket called “guilt.” The brick’s awkward and I have no idea how it got there or what I’m supposed to do with it, but what do you know; every morning I pull on my stretchy-waisted hot-mama (hot = not hot) pants and voila, I have mom guilt.

I miss my baby. No, my toddler. CRAP, the brick gets heavier when I realize how old she’s getting.

Tonight, a whole pallet of bricks (is that what bricks come on? Pallets?) arrived at my door in the form of a survey from the doctor’s office: the Ages & Stages Questionnaires for 18-month-olds. We’re supposed to make a game out of testing Alice’s abilities, and then bring it to the doctor’s in a couple weeks with our check marks all tallied up. I was an early-childhood development major long enough to comprehend all babies toddlers reach milestones at their own rates. But I have high hopes for this kid. She’s my own, see.

And this questionnaire’s activities, with its Clip Art-esque toddlers all over it kicking balls and drawing with crayons, make my palms sweaty.

I flew through the first few questions: Does she point to objects she wants? OH, DOES SHE. Does she go into another room to fetch objects when asked? Like getting Mama a drink? OH YES. But then my train of awesome-parenting derailed somewhere between “Does she use two-word sentences?” and “Does your child use two or three words that represent different ideas together, such as ‘Mommy come home.’”

“Mommy come home?” OH, YOU HAD TO GO THERE.

I didn’t think the questionnaire would let me count her many variations of “mmmmmmm” as a word. I was forced to fully darken the “No” circle. Waahhhn-waaahnnn-waahhhn (my bad-news-bears cartoon-like noise).

It just got worse from there. “Does she climb up on chairs?” What is this, a test? Am I supposed to let her climb on chairs? “Does she walk down stairs?” Walk down stairs? Her dad has problems with that.

These three yellow sheets of paper had me sweating out all kinds of guilt. My brick was walking over to the wall, stacking itself up and calling for the others to come join it. It looks really nice next to that Christmas tree. I’m just a few logs away from a full-blown brick fireplace. Quick! Someone remind me I’m having another child. Ohhh, yes. Get the marshmallows.

She walked at 16 1/2 months-ish — I know she’s not going to recite her ABCs tonight. But I’m scared I’ll miss teaching her how to climb a chair and then I’ll blink and it’ll be 2013 and the teacher will be telling Dave and I what a special little girl we have, but did we know she eats paste? Yes, Elmer’s white paste, right off the stick, cutest little thing. Probably nothing to worry about but, well, she eats A LOT of it.

And we’ll just smile and think ,”Paste! That’s more food-like than glue. OUR KID’S JUST FINE.”

I read “Your Pregnancy, Week by Week” religiously when I was carrying Alice. On the same night every week I’d pull it out of the nightstand and flip through it, hoping it’d tell me something important or at least remind me that the balloon full of Jell-o that occupied my mid-section was temporary and yes I look OK in those Spandex-waisted jeans.

This time, I was on week 17, but my bookmark was wallowing back in week 14’s highlights. I skimmed the best parts, skipped the part about not eating fish, glanced at the renditions of what my baby looks like. I caught up mainly out of guilt, mixed with a little relief in watching three weeks pass without my knowing.

I again have a feeling I know the sex already, but I’m not prancing around the house with anticipation of the ultrasound (8:30 a.m. on Dec. 21 for those who’d like to jump in and make a prediction). I’ll just know when I know. I feel so much calmer, in a way.

Since I’m not sure if this is the last baby I’ll have (did you hear that? It was my mother, running to get her rosary. Hi, Mom!), I’m trying to just enjoy it. Trying.

Such as today, when I was amid one of those three-minute crises at work. My hands were pulling back my hair from my face to cool off, and then I was jabbed. Jabbed by a little foot or elbow. I stopped and held my breath, putting my hand over my belly. And he/she kicked back. My eyes burned in that don’t-get-all-emotional-that’s-disgusting way, and I laughed in relief because that was the first time it felt real.

Beginning to resemble a Weeble doesn’t make pregnancy seem real. Getting kicked does.

January, May, October and some of November: These are the months Dave’s managed to save thus far from our old computer by rigging it up to a hard drive and begging it for forgiveness. It’s very unforgiving.

I think it’s punishing us for watching Bob Dylan’s Christmas video.

I can’t underestimate how heartbreaking that is — my photo situation, not the Dylan video (that’s beyond adjectives). Three-and-a-half months is about a quarter of all the memories of Alice’s second year, a fact not lost even on my math-challenged brain. My stomach, if it weren’t being propped up with a baby, would be hiding in my socks.

Not to mention the baddest of my Billy Joel collection is lost, along with my Christmas music amassed without discretion over many, many years.

All that’s left is random photos. Better than nothing, but … not all I wanted.

Dear Alice,

In less than a week you’ll be 18 months old, an age reserved for tantrums in grocery stores (oh yes, that’s us pretending we don’t hear our daughter beg to be let out of the cart to walk on her own), the age of first words (not all of them approved for use outside the home), and “no.”

You give high-fives, you wiggle the tip of your nose when I ask “what does a bunny do?” These are the cute things.

Over the last couple of months we’ve been watching your real-person personality come out. You fake cry, then quickly recover when we suggest we turn “Rudolph” on. When you spilled water while opening Mr. Big’s crate, you walked and got a towel and dabbed up the puddle without my prompting. When I try to hold your hand in the store, you’ll bat it away. You say the “s” word.

Yes, that “s” word.

Other words you’ve said include puppy, more, no, Bengals, football, Santa, fork (I hope it’s fork) and bib. Those warm the heart, but none gets our hearts pounding like the “s” word. I plan on ignoring it and hoping it goes away. It’s a parenting skill I’m hoping also applies to the aforementioned tantrums.

My emotions have been teetering on unbalanced over the last two or three weeks, and when I catch you reading to yourself from “The Monster at the End of This Book” I could just pick you up and sob and kiss your squishy cheeks forever. But you’re READING TO YOURSELF, and that kind of autonomy doesn’t come often so I pull myself together.

Likewise, a Proud Moment in Parenting History occurred a couple weeks ago when not even your Elmo toothbrush could lure your defiant little frame anywhere near the running water in the tub. Those hormones felled me good. “FINE,” I said, hitting the faucet off. I could’ve sobbed then, too, but I was too busy lugging your toddler body into your big-girl room. You went to bed at 6:45 that night. I went at 8.

I compare you to this baby all the time, and I try to bring No. 2 up often. You’re very enthralled when we see babies in public or on TV, but the way you throw your plastic baby doll around gives me pause. I suppose I won’t be able to leave her/him with you while I go out. Bummer.

I hope the next five months are replicas of the best of the last year. After May, it might be downhill for a few months. We’ll talk about that later.

Happy 18 months, Alice.

Love,

Mama

The dude at the Apple store wasn’t even sympathetic, is the thing.

He couldn’t sense my pure, animalistic rage; he couldn’t tell how at any moment I felt like crying or leaping over the counter to yell at him “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.”

He just stood there behind the counter, arms in his pockets like he couldn’t care less. HE didn’t lose all the files, now did he? Nooo, this wasn’t about HIM. He told us — the worried, panicked look in our eyes not registering to him – to bring our computer back next week when someone had the time to look at it, and maybe — just maybe — they could save all the content that I’m pretty sure has been lost to the gods of Should Never Have Waited So Long To Back Up My Files and WHY OH WHY.

We stood there quietly, old non-functional Mac in hand, Dave trying to be cool and me trying to name every single photo we’ve taken since our last backup in what, May? Furlough photos, gone. First birthday, sandbox, Halloween, mullet shot — all just gone. All gone.

And this calm and collected, non-invested old man just told us “And no backup, huh?”

NO, NO BACKUP. See me, irrational, emotional pregnant lady over here? I WANT YOU TO BE JUST AS UPSET.

So. Yeah, my trusty computer died last week. I’ve been blogless, Facebookless and general Internet surfing-less since last week. But nothing punches a mom in the gut with as much force as possibly losing all those photos.

I usually nag Dave to backup files all the time — OR AT LEAST MAKE PRINTS. Bt it slipped my mind because that stupid, silent Mac bearing the black screen of death over there is so old and decrepit we couldn’t make prints from it; our OS didn’t support even Walmart.com’s photo uploader.

Oh, God, WHY. Take my Billy Joel collection on iTunes if you must, but please let me keep the photos. PLEASE.

Pardon me while I go over here and scream.

My fellow-mom friend once told me she loved being pregnant, and that she missed it, almost, after she gave birth.

I hope my face didn’t reveal the horror I felt at that statement.

I was reminded last Thursday of this moment of disbelief that anyone would miss the bulging waistline, the non-flattering way clothes drape — because that’s what clothes do to pregnant ladies; these yards of cotton (always too-worn cotton) don’t flatter, they drape — over puffed-out mid-sections … Ah yes. My second foray into maternity clothes was accepted with a certain amount of relief (12 percent), disgust (85 percent) and self-loathing (3 percent).

I did not go quietly into that Rubbermaid container to heave out the clothes no one, not even their makers, could love. I made Dave go fetch it from its place of exile in the basement, and I watched as Alice pulled out all the shirts and pants and tossed them aside. And I sighed.

Long-sleeved shirts were in short supply so I tried to rally around a shopping goal, but scanning the racks at a few stores proved fruitless. Who looks good in big, knotty sweaters that hang to the knee? (Let’s not kid ourselves — I’m 5-foot-1, it would hit my shins when I walk.) Why do these clothes have to be so … maternal? Why are the acceptable items so expensive? Why are there three racks at Target, crammed between the tank tops on clearance and the plus-sized clothes? Three racks for nine months. REALLY, TARGET. REALLY?

WHY I’m doing this is clear. I want another one of these:

I’m lucky to be pregnant, I’m lucky to have Alice. Of course. But elastic-waist pants and bell-shaped shirts take more getting used to than one might imagine.

OK, thanks. I feel slightly less angry now.

Surprise! Our child’s afraid of leaves, just like our dog.

Not wanting Alice to feel like the baby’s giving her an eviction notice — and scared that Dave would start moving his CD collection back into the empty room that once was Dave’s Room – Do Not Enter and is now Alice’s Big Girl Room — I hurriedly picked out a toddler bed online and shipped it to the house last week.

The whole affair took me an hour to assemble Friday night, plus another five minutes to stare at my mechanical genius, and a solid 10 minutes to pick out a mattress at the store the next day.

Saturday night, I put her in her new bed in her new room at 7, and she lasted til 8:30. OK, so she lasted til 8:30 because that was the fourth time I’d poked my head behind her door to make sure she wasn’t falling out and breaking her skull open. You know, on the hard carpet we just had installed.

But by Monday night she’d slept through the night-ish. This is one of those rare success stories. I must write it down and save it, so when I yell “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SO DIFFICULT” she can say “not always. Remember that dark November night?” And I will concede.

But I say “-ish,” because today around 2 a.m., I heard a whimper.

Reaching back for my best “If you don’t move, Dave will think you’re in deeper sleep than he is and he’ll get up” move, I tried to steady my breathing. But then I heard babbling.

And what did my wondering eyes find behind her gated door down the hallway from our room but a toddler, sitting pretzel-legged on the floor, “Good Night, Gorilla” in her lap as if she were reading to herself.

She wrinkled her nose and did her exhale-and-laugh-through-your-nose sound as if she knew she’d been caught. She giggled when I said “Ooooh, honey, 2 in the morning isn’t for reading,” and I picked her up and put her back in bed, and she waved to me after I kissed her good night.

And then she slept til 7 a.m.

That was one of those times that dulled the fatigued caused by a 10-minute howling fit over dinner that wasn’t done EXACTLY RIGHT THIS INSTANT. I said dulled. Not erased.