We randomly weighed Emma at the Omniplex yesterday. She's at a whopping 25 pounds. That's only a pound and a half more than she weighed at her 2-year-visit, only five pounds more than most kids weigh at 1. And she's more than 37 inches tall. According to Babycenter's growth calculators, that puts her in the 75th percentile for height and the 10th for weight.

She's always been on the low side in weight and just keeps going up the charts in height. When we last asked her pediatrician if he was concerned about it, he glanced at me and then at Adam. (Both of us are tall and skinny, me excessively both.) The doctor laughed. "Nope, not a worry." She comes by it naturally.

We've already had issues finding clothes for her; the right size for length just slide off her barely there waist. (We were really screwed for clothes because she potty-trained so early; toddler clothes are meant to have that diaper filling out the butt.) Already, her winter wardrobe -- she's newly in 2T -- is starting to show her ankles. But there's no way the next size up would stay on her.

I've dealt with the skinny life since I was her age, with people asking how much I weigh, if I throw up after meals and what size I wear, questions they'd never ask an overweight person. I know, I know, it's better than the other extreme.

And at least Emma eats a lot and well. (Fighting with kids about food ain't fun.) We're blessed with a kid who'll eat nearly anything we put in front of her (I'm throwing salt over my shoulder as I type), not just macaroni and hot dogs, but Mexican and Thai and "Yum! Broccoli!" (which always makes folks laugh). She's just got my metabolism; in about ninth grade, my own pediatrician told me I burned more calories sitting on the couch than most folks do running a mile. I tried desperately then to gain weight, eating a high-calorie diet, drinking Ensure, working out. No go. I was embarrassed to wear shorts or skirts, hated my bony elbows and shoulders and wished for more curves. Now, I know I'm lucky. It's not always easy being this thin, but I'm happy with who I am. And however she turns out (she's got a lot of growing left to do), I hope Emma will be, too.

I've hit that depressing part of any vacation: It's almost time to go back to work.

With the last two weeks off, one of them spent almost exclusively in bed (and so not in a good way), the looming weekend just serves to remind me that Monday's around the corner. Sigh.

It's never easy returning from a break, getting back into that rhythm of waking with the alarm and hurrying to get out the door. But being away from Emma nine hours a day makes it harder. She got really clingy while I was sick, crying if Adam asked her to leave the house with him, wanting only to play right next to me, constantly asking if I was feeling better. She knew something was really wrong, and she wasn't willing to leave my side until it was fixed. And now that it (mostly) is, she wants me to do everything for her. Nine times out of 10, if we ask, "Who should (wash your hair, brush your teeth, read the book, make your lunch)?" her answer is, "Mommy." We've spent so much uninterrupted time together that I'm a little nervous about how things will go next week.

She does love her day-care provider (she's in home with our neighbor's little boy), and I know Emma will have fun telling them all about Hanukkah and our "home vacation," as we've been calling it. She saw Luke outside this week, and the two of them ran laps around the cars in the driveway, so glad to be together. Plus, he'll have all new toys for her to explore. Score.

In addition to worrying about her -- and me -- getting back on schedule, I'm lamenting all the things we didn't do. With losing more than a week to the dreaded pneumonia, we didn't do any of the crafts I had planned. The house looks worse than it did before the holidays. Granted, we read a ton of books together, including an illustrated edition of Wizard of Oz, a few pages at a time. (I worried that the art would be too scary for her, but she loved it.) And I read a ton on my own. We curled up together and watched some feature-length movies, which are real treats because we're sort of TV nazis. I finished Angel Season 2 and watched more than half of Buffy Season 4 on DVD. We've spent hours playing with her new dollhouse and LeapPad. We've baked cookies, real and imaginary, and made a lasagna that's lasted all week. We've taught Emma how a calendar works, counting down days until we'll go on a make-up trip to Phoenix in February. Today, we even hit the Omniplex, trying to squeeze in one of the kind of things I'd hoped we'd do. (Even as I good as I feel, I was more than winded by the time we were through. And my chest is still killing me. Making that walk from the garage to my building on Monday is going to SUCK.) Emma loved her first trip to the hands-on science museum -- and the very special trip to McDonald's after, only her third visit in nearly three years.

But now, it's the weekend. Time to get grocery shopping and laundry done. To get the house clean. To start preparing her for days spent with someone, as great as she is, who isn't me. Sigh.

But the truth is, this day has been damn close so far. Emma and I cuddled just after waking and read books, then we had a special breakfast together. We spent most of the morning baking browned-butter cookies and preparing appetizers for a New Year's Eve get-together tonight. She's a great helper in the kitchen these days -- seriously. She's great at measuring and mixing, loves to roll cookie dough into balls and is the master decorator.

In between dusting the treats with color, we sang with the radio and danced around the kitchen. American Pie was my favorite, though it left me a bit winded. Emma got attached to Simple Plan and has been crooning "I'm sorry I can't be perfect" since hearing it. Adam thinks it's a bit much at nearly 3, but I can't help but giggle at her earnestness. We just put her down for a nap (which she says she plans to take at her imaginary friend Polly's house); Buffy DVDs are calling my name. This has turned into the winter break I needed, despite pneumonia's best attempts to ruin it.

And you know, this whole year has been pretty damn perfect. There's not much more I could ask for out of life. Sure, more money would make things easier; our budget is always tight. Adam and I could use more time alone -- together and separately. There are a million things we'd love to do around the house, gadgets we could own. We wish Adam's family were closer. But all of that stuff is pretty minor.

I have an amazing daughter, an incredible husband and the best friends and family (yes, I mean Adam's, not mine) anyone could wish for. We all laugh a lot. I have a good job, as does Adam. We live in a great house, in a wonderful neighborhood, in a town we adore. We're generally healthy, not-quite wealthy and often wise. I hope we're as lucky in 2004.

Happy New Year to us. And to you.

In the car today, I heard a R&B song by "Eamon" that sounded like typical pop. The slow, rhythmic beat and his soft sweet voice mixed incongruously with the lyrics, though, and folks in nearby cars were likely staring as I couldn't stop laughing.

Here's what I heard (edited just as the radio did), and you need to imagine an R. Kelly-like sound:

F*** what I said; it don't mean s*** now
F*** the presents, might as well throw 'em out
F*** all those kisses, they didn't mean jack
F*** you, you ho, I don't want you back

I was still singing it when I walked in the door.

Granted, music like that probably won't make me laugh as much when Emma's listening and singing along. But for now, I just can't help myself. Like Snoop's Holidae Inn. (I know it's actually by "Chingy," but I don't know who that is, and chances are, you don't either. But we know Snoop. Oh, and Ludacris, too.)

(Whachu doin?) Nothing, chillin at the Holidae Inn
(Who you wit?) Me and my peeps, won't you bring four of your friends
(What we gon' do?) Feel on each other and sip on some Hen
One thing leading to another let the party begin

I don't know why the song cracks me up so; it just does. I started to write about it after the first few times I heard it, but looking at the lyrics made me realize you might think less of me! (You, or at least I, can't understand much beyond the chorus. Maybe about half of every sentence. Reading the lyrics, though, tells me that might be because half of the song isn't actually aired.)

In this vein, I have to admit my Shaggy love, too. I'm still hoping Adam will one day tell me, "Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby." (And using a Juice Newton /Steve Miller mix? Brilliant!) And It Wasn't Me makes me giggle every time. She even caught you on camera??

Lest my musical taste be in doubt, the next two songs I sang along to after F*** It (that's what the Eamon song is called; I guess they just avoid the name on the radio) were Clapton's Lay Down Sally and It's Still Rock and Roll to Me by Billy Joel. What can I say, I like a variety of genres. For Hanukkah, I got the following CDs: A Simple Plan, Rod Stewart doing jazz and big band covers, two from Kid Rock and Shel Silverstein poetry. Funny, though, I didn't get either that I asked for -- the new Barenaked Ladies or the Hedwig charity album.

Regularly in rotation in my office stereo are Jackson Browne, Garth Brooks, the Eagles, Once More With Feeling (the Buffy musical), '80s greatest hits, lots of BNL, the Band, Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne, the Chicago and Hedwig soundtracks, Christopher Williams (an amazing singer/songwriter; go see him if he's in your area) and Jimmy Buffet. (And those are just my work CDs.) Eclectic.

So I've got plenty of room for a hotel party and some hos now and then.

After much deliberation, here it is -- the best and worst books I read in 2003. I've read 99 books cover to cover this year, which of course isn't over yet, not counting the hundreds of kids' titles Emma and I shared. Narrowing it down to those I loved and hated wasn't easy.

If you'd like to see what didn't make the list, take a gander at everything I read this year.

And please, let me know what books you couldn't put down and which ones you couldn't wait to.

Best Books of 2003

• 1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. For more on my extreme love of the book, see this post.



• 2. Maus, a pair of graphic novels by Art Spielgman. I first read Maus for a college class. I'd never read "serious" comic books before, and Maus is astounding. The author/illustrator tells his father's story of survival during the Holocaust, and we see the world then through his eyes; we also get glimpses into their lives and relationships now. In about two pages, the medium -- with Jews depicted as mice, Nazis as cats, Poles as pigs (and so on) -- feels as natural to read as text. An amazingly painful, funny story.



• 3. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. I wouldn't have thought a book I'd read so recently would score so high on the list. (The second half of the book -- detailing the creative side of ellipses, dashes and exclamation points -- is as good as the first, where Truss lamented the misuse of apostrophes and commas and the chaos the ignorant can and do cause.) Punctuation hasn't had a greater champion since the Manutius family invented the semicolon.



• 4. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer in 2000. That should've been proof enough for me, but I'm generally not a huge short-story fan. A set like this changes my mind.



• 5. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. The first Atwood novel I've ever read, and none since have been as filled with meaningful metaphor yet still a joy to read.



• 6. Lucky: A Memoir by Alice Sebold. I read the much-lauded Lovely Bones before all the hype built up, and I'm glad I read it first. Otherwise, I'd have spent the entire novel comparing it to the details of Sebold's own rape. This is one of the few books this year so painful that I had to put it down for a while. Every woman should read her story of survival.



• 7. So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson would've been the top non-fiction book on the list, had I not the good luck to get Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Nelson's passion about reading rivals mine, and I'm a little jealous she had the chance to write a whole book about her love.



• 8. Shopgirl by Steve Martin. Reading The Pleasure of My Company, I could hear Martin's voice in my head. Shopgirl was even better, because I couldn't. I got so caught up in the story that Mirabelle and Jeremy and Ray were more real than Martin.



• 9. A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan. I didn't realize until 20 pages in that I'd read this one before (hey, it was before I started keeping the list). I'd rediscovered O'Nan, and his other novels are very different from this one. For whatever reason, the post-Civil War town, quarantined for tuberculosis, hit me much more strongly the second time around. The conceit of a second-person narrator -- "you" are the sheriff, the mortician AND the local preacher, what a load to handle -- is jarring at first, but then the details of the tiny tale take over. It's a lyrical horror story unlike anything I've ever read.



• 10. Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold is the re-imagining of real magician Charles Carter. It opens with Carter being accused of President Harding's murder and works its way back through his life. Carter Beats the Devil reads like history, giving you a glimpse into a world of vaudeville and magic in the 1920s, and peppered with real figures. I actually searched for a biography of Carter after reading it, to no avail.



• 11. The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I read all 11 of these books in just over a month (only slowed down by having to borrow the last one from the library; a friend lent the rest). Yes, they're complete trash. But well-written trash, set in a slightly alternate universe, in which everyone accepts that vampires, witches and zombies are real. Anita Blake is as powerful a heroine as a reader can ask for, and her adventures are great fun. (Plus, really hot vampire and werewolf sex. Seriously.)



• 12. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier is a beautiful portrait of 17th-century Dutch life. The story behind Vermeer's famed painting to life.



• 13. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. This 624-page novel hung out on my shelf for nearly a year before I picked it up. I'm so glad I finally did. Set in the mid-1970s in India, Mistry introduces us to four amazingly different Indians -- from different backgrounds, areas and castes -- that are at turns hilarious and heart-rending.



• 14. Yes, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is the one of the few "bestsellers" on my list. I've heard all the criticism -- it's a routinely plotted thriller, the characters are shallow, he mixes fact and fiction with a heavy hand. I agree. But the ideas he presents, challenging Christianity, have started a discourse I'm glad to see. Plus, I loved the twists and turns.
  
  
• 15. The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer is so much more fun that Harry Potter. Artemis fancies himself a criminal and his adventures are better for it.
  

Honorable Mentions

• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton


• Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich


• Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott


• Enchantment by Orson Scott Card


• The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Hahn-Beer


• The Rise and Fall of David Levinsky by Abraham Cahan


• The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy
  
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Worst of 2003

1. Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

2. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

3. Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks

4. In the Cut by Susanna Moore

5. Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola by Kinky Friedman

Some days, Emma is just amazing. We went out to a Thai restaurant for dinner tonight; it's not fancy, but it's definitely a "grown-up" kind of place -- no kids' portions or anything. She sat quietly, counting sugar and Sweet-N-Low packets, playing with plastic dreidels, rolling a car across the table, playing "music" on her plate and slurping down water from an adult-sized glass glass. She let Adam and I talk to the friend who joined us, offering "excuse me" before interrupting. She chowed on spring rolls and wolfed down pad thai with singapore noodles. How many not-quite 3-year-olds eat Thai? She kept reaching for bean sprouts, telling everyone, "You should try one. They're crunchy."We only made two trips to the potty (saying she has to go is a guaranteed way to get out of her chair); one of those was at my suggestion, to wash up after dinner.

Every day, life gets a little easier.

That's it. I'm enlisting. Lynne Truss has showed me the world is in danger -- of being unclear, losing our trains of thoughts, living in a world of plummeting standards and causing a mass suicide of the Sticklers among us. My very life is in danger. (If you're as anal as I am, yours is, too.)

So I'm now a punctuation vigilante. I'm stocking up on correction fluid, big pens, a variety of stickers, paint and brushes, guerrilla-style clothing, medication for my personality disorder, a megaphone and a gun.

Who's with me?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I thought Eats, Shoots and Leaves would bring me joy. It was the understatement of the year. Dear, dear jetsetting friends Steve and Amy surprised me a package from Amazon.co.uk yesterday, and they've changed my life.

It's the funniest book ever. EVER. I plowed through the last third of my "erotic thriller" In the Cut (which sucks, by the way, often literally) to get to the sexiest book I've ever read. (I'm being honest. It so turns me on.) Lynne has a grammar-porn career ahead of her.

I want to quote whole sections here, but there's that whole copyright thing. Damn. So come on over, and you can read it on the couch beside me (it'll take a great effort to let you touch the book, but I'll be generous and share). I actually put it down last night, with all of the willpower I could muster, so that I could prolong the enjoyment. I'm telling you, it's that good. If you're not the persnickety punctuation type, then you'll be edified as well as amused. Even with all my love of colons, dashes and ellipses (oh my!), I'm learning a lot. Like the Manutius family, 15th century Italian printers, were so much cooler than the Sopranos. The back room at the Bada Bing ain't got nothing on the guys who invented italics.

Want to guess what I'm doing with the rest of my evening?