i'm a single mom this week and next while dan goes to la and nyc to promote his book, ¡satiristas!, (it hit bookstores yesterday, please go out and buy a copy to save my marriage! oh, and it's really good, too...). i'm also in the potty training trenches.

after an ugly start to the day in which parker tormented roman and he pitched lengthy and highly dramatic fits, i decided the only way to save the morning was with some ice cream therapy. so we cruised over to the mission where it was sunny and warm for a trip to bi-rite creamery. parker got mint chip, roman "mingo" gelato. they were mostly ok in the shop but it deteriorated badly when walking back to car and hit an all time low at the bi-rite grocery, which is just too expensive and always obnoxiously crowded, but i did splurge on strauss milk and yogurt and some organic tomales coast roast coffee.

by the time we reached the car, roman was dangling by his wrist from my clenched fist like a bucking, screaming rag doll, knees scraping against pavement. he fought me like a feral cat being forced into a carrier while i tried to buckle him in, with the added pressure of a convertible full off 20-something mission hipsters waiting for the parking spot. he chucked a matchbox at my head when i got in the car, then whined, cried, and complained from 18th and guerrero to parker's school on laurel hill — "open my window," "i want my babbesball," "my shoes fell off." i swear i wanted to chloroform the little bastard. instead i cranked the volume up, belted out to death cab, and tried to ignore him.

now, after wetting himself, he's sleeping like a perfect angel.