Sheryl and Me

Day before yesterday, we went to Sonic for lunch with our neighbors and then to a great playground just three minutes from our house. Madeline set her sights on an adorable little boy and beelined from the slide, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him tight like he was her great lost love. As I quickly followed her to make sure she didn't knock him over in her exuberance, I looked at the cute kid's mom. Then I looked again. It was Sheryl.

Sheryl Crow.

She was lovely -- all smiles, dressed in jeans, a stylish t-shirt and construction boots with funky bracelets, wearing a curly ponytail without a stitch of make-up. Just like any mom of a toddler, she was out playing with her 18-month old adopted son, Wyatt, and an equally friendly young woman, who I assumed was her nanny. We shared some typical mommy talk -- "How old is he? How old is she? What's his/her name? He/She's so cute/pretty! Great playground, huh? Have a great day"... And then as I wandered off to give her privacy and act cool (yea, I know who you are but I see rockstars every day....), I heard her take a phone call on her Blackberry and discuss whether or not to book Toronto and Chicago.

So Madeline, if you're reading this a decade or two from now and you have no idea who Sheryl Crow is, she's pretty cool. She's won seven Grammy's and has more multi-platinum albums than I could count quickly in her bio. My affection for her music started in high school when my mom, your grandma, loved to listen to her albums -- rocking out to "All I want to do is have some fun" at the top of her lungs in the car with all the windows down.

We had a fun Halloween, despite a rocky start. Early last Friday morning, Madeline reached up on her toes, fingers stretched, and tipped her cooling bowl of boiling oatmeal from the kitchen counter right down the front of her. Blisters formed within seconds; she was in a lot of pain. Because I didn't know where the emergency room was yet, a neighbor across the street led me in his car, and my other neighbor/friend, Amy (the ER nurse) met us there and stayed with us. Madeline was so tough! She had first and second degree burns on her chest and under her chin, but after a dose of Tylenol with Codeine, she left the ER like it was any other morning, chanting "Play Ou-side" the entire drive home. After a week, she still has a quarter-size burn left on her chest and little scabs on her chin that look like she took a spill chasing a ball or something. It doesn't seem to bother her a bit, and she sits patiently while Rob and I change her bandage twice a day.

Halloween night, Madeline made her debut as a bumblebee. She collected candy at one house, then happily "helped" us pass out candy at our house by eating it hand-over-fist. Rob finally started hiding the bowl in the bushes between rounds of trick-or-treaters -- we'd see a fluff of bent-over toole sifting around between our landscaping, saying "Pop? Pop? Pop?" on repeat (lollypop). Our neighbor Stader (born and raised in New Orleans), passed out margaritas to the parents on our cul-de-sac as the kids made the rounds, making a special stop at our house to give me pickles and ice-cream. We ended the night by walking four doors down to a fun Halloween party.