I need a vacation from my vacation

No, I haven’t been spending the last two weeks destroying my scale. If it were within the confines of normal behavior, I might still be doing it though. I am reaching rock bottom here with the weight thing. I need to do something. I can’t stand myself anymore. Why can’t I just eat less and exercise more? Why is that so freaking hard? All of the things I wanted to lose weight for are here and I haven’t lost one single pound. I called Jenny yesterday and I had to hang up the phone before I totally lost my shit. Do you know how much that freaking program is??? Are they kidding?? It would cost me thousands of dollars…not hundreds, THOUSANDS. Plural…with an S. What normal person can afford to do that program? Fuckers.

*sigh*

Looks like I am going to have to do this on my own then. FINE. I am cutting WAY DOWN on everything. Last night I had a Lean Cuisine and a salad. This morning I had half a bagel with a little cream cheese. For lunch I had another salad. I am going to start growing long ears and buck teeth over here but whatever. My old high school friend is coming in two weeks and the christening is right after that. Hi everyone! Yep, still fat! Move along, nothing new here …have you held the baby yet?.. divert your attention from my double chins please! ….BLEAH I AM SO DISGUSTED. Whatever.

So I just came back from a semi-vacation in Florida for 10 days, which was the real reason I haven’t been around. It was a disjointed trip spent with some of my family, some of his family, some work stuff and not enough time alone. We started out with a birthday party/family reunion near Orlando that ended up being not as fun as we thought. There’s a reason we don’t see those people very often. Then we went to visit an aunt who recently moved to a retirement community. Wish I could say it was nice, but I don’t know because no one wanted to leave the house. We were stuck in a small house with a baby, my parents and two aunts. They didn’t want to go out to eat. They didn’t want to go to the pool. They wanted to sit around the dining room table and eat leftovers and bullshit all day. We were going batty. Oh and did I mention they didn’t see a need to put the air conditioning on? Oh no, let’s just open up all of these windows and doors…don’t you feel that nice breeze? THERE IS NO FREAKING BREEZE PEOPLE IT’S 85 DEGREES AND I CAN GROW ORCHIDS IN MY ARMPITS. The only good thing about being inside was that we avoided the love bugs that were swarming in record numbers. I left my poor husband to go to a conference for a few days, and I am just thankful he didn’t go postal on my family. He later joined me at the hotel and after my conference was over we drove down to his sister’s condo in Fort Meyers for the last three days of our trip. That too wasn’t as fun as we expected. Seamonkey is in that stage where he just can not sit still, and doesn’t like to be restrained in any way. Those of you with small children know that relaxation is not possible with a mobile little person. I apparently am just learning this. In fact you are probably laughing your ass off at me that I even put “relaxing vacation” and “9 month old” in the same thought. I am an idiot. I know this now.

There were some very good parts of the trip. The second we put seamonkey on the floor at my aunt’s house, he immediately started crawling for the first time! We couldn’t believe it. I suppose one could argue that even he saw the need to escape. He also started clapping. At one point we were out listening to some live music and he was jumping up and down on my knee and clapping. Very hysterical. BT calls it the “golf clap” because it’s very soft. We also discovered his first tooth! He finally cut one on the bottom right side. Explains the extreme crankiness we’ve been experiencing. The work conference was actually very good, especially since we were in an awesome hotel and we got free tickets to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. The company that sponsored the trip was very generous with dinners and drinks too. We got a little bit of quality time at our favorite beaches in Naples and Sanibel Island. Not nearly enough, but better than nothing.

You know I have to end with a funny story about my SIL. Not once but TWICE, I caught her referring to herself as “Mommy” when talking to seamonkey. I let it go both times, but the second time she said “Why do I keep saying Mommy?” UM, BECAUSE YOU’RE RETARDED? I mean, it's not like she has young kids that call her mommy on a daily basis. But Karma got her back because in the restaurant someone asked her “Is he your first grandchild?” I had a good laugh at that one.

Got to get to work on the 8 month update I neglected to post. Here are some pics from the trip:

The Tuesday Update

The Tuesday Update will not be posted today – the author of this blog is currently otherwise occupied taking a sledgehammer to her bathroom scale.

The Mother's Day Post

My first Mother's Day. A day I have waited a lifetime for. When discussing the day's plans with my mom last week, I said to her "Whatever you want to do is fine - it's your day". After a brief pause she said "Uh, it's your day too...you're a mother now". It took me a few seconds to comprehend that.

I thought I would spend the day saying “DAMN RIGHT!” every time someone wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. After all, I got to this point, kicking and screaming. Despite uncooperative body parts and slow governmental agencies. I earned this day dammit, and I wanted to go around shoving my beautiful boy in everyone’s face with a “HA! I AM A MOM JUST LIKE YOU TOO SO THERE”.

But I didn’t.

I thought I might spend the entire day being contemplative…reflecting on how lucky I am and how grateful I should be. I wanted to just sit and stare at my son, and think about how on earth anyone thought I was worthy of parenting this perfectly beautiful boy. I wanted to sit in a quiet room and hug him the entire day and have him all to myself.

But I didn’t

I thought that I would at least stay close to home. While I can now enter a baby store without hyperventilating, a little part of me still feels like a fraud. Like even though all the paperwork has been finalized, the world couldn’t possibly really see me as a mother. I wanted to avoid any conversations with strangers that may lead to me having to explain myself.

But I didn’t

I thought that maybe I should boycott the holiday for all the people who are still trying or who have given up the fight. I know the pain that Mother’s Day can bring. It doesn’t seem fair to them to celebrate. I wanted to avoid doing anything that might be the least bit offensive to an infertile, including bringing my child out in public.

But I didn’t

Instead, we got up in the morning and fed, bathed and dressed seamonkey like we do every Sunday morning. We went to BT’s parents and hung around there for half the day, doing the same things we do on every other visit there. (The only difference was that I had to tell my FIL that he wasn’t allowed to hold seamonkey for the day. He’s a total baby hog and never let’s my MIL have him, so I insisted that she have him for the entire day – it mostly worked). Then we went to the mall to exchange some things, and BT let me shop my heart out with no complaints. The shopping Goddesses shone upon me and I was able to find some really nice things for our upcoming trip to Florida (Except shoes – I still need shoes!). Then back to my parents where my brother, who comes over every Sunday and cooks, barbecued up some steaks.

Quite ordinary actually. At a family gathering a while ago, my cousin K was saying how excited she was for me for my upcoming first Mother’s Day. Another cousin (by marriage, and who has two bio kids) said to me “Oh Mother’s Day is just another day for me!” I was horrified. An ordinary day? Do you have any idea what this day represents for me??

But you know what? It was an ordinary day. Okay, it was the best ordinary day I’ve had…well, ever….but still ordinary. And it was just fine and dandy. The best part of the whole thing was getting calls and emails the day before from people who remembered it was my first Mother's Day. It felt like those people really knew what it meant to be a mother, and they acknowledged the hard work it took me to get here.

Hope your day was what you wanted it to be – whatever your mood or circumstances were.

10 Years and we never had a fight....

Yesterday was my 10 year wedding Anniversary! It’s hard to fathom that it’s been that long…harder still to believe we are together 15 years in total. I hardly remember the people we were back then. We have come such a very long way. We struggled a lot in the beginning, although if you ask him, he doesn’t remember that. Which is good I think. We are very different people and living together at first was hard. We still aren’t the best communicators; but we’re still working on that. Through the infertility years he always made it clear that we could stop treatment whenever I wanted, and that adoption was always a good option. The most memorable words he has ever said to me, more meaningful than “I do”, were the words “I love you no matter what” said to me while I was sobbing after another failed cycle.

Having kids doesn’t improve your marriage, we know that, but having gone through this journey together helps us to understand what really matters in life. He is still the nicest person I have ever met, and is my very best friend. He is kind and sensitive and the most amazing dad.

We went to a local pub for dinner with the boy. We were going to do something more fancy, but really all we wanted to do was be together at home.

I’ve been tagged for a meme by Melissa, and since I’ve sort of done it once already, this time I will honor my husband by giving you 8 facts/habits about him.

1. He can be a spokesperson for Honda. He has owned 5 in his lifetime, and even bought a red civic hatchback twice. Who buys the same car twice in a row, let alone a red hatchback??

2. He has this weird habit of running his fingers along the edge of any fabric. He started this as a baby as he ran his fingers along the silky edge of his blanket. Now he does the same thing to every fabric edge – our quilt, the pillow cases, the hem of his shirt, the curtains behind the couch…it’s the funniest thing. Sometimes in bed I’ll feel my blanket being slowly pulled and I’ll have to yell STOP!! He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it half the time.

3. He has a serious addiction to three things: Magazines, grooming products and organization containers. We have an abundance of all of these things in my house and much money is wasted on them. It drives me nuts.

4. He was once a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He still has the rainbow wig. He still looks like an ass in it.

5. He is enamored with spreadsheets. He loves to put information in them, inventories of things, financial info, planning lists. We constantly make fun of him for it and are always saying things like “Why don’t you go make a spreadsheet of that”.

6. He can’t dance. At all. I mean really really bad. Think Elaine Benes underwater and on crack. If he ever wants to make me laugh, he just has to start dancing. Yesterday morning he was doing a Happy Anniversary dance for me in the hallway while I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. He was trying to do the Q-tip move (rubbing your forefinger and thumb together next to your ear like you’re using a q-tip, alternating between right ear and left ear – go ahead try it, I’ll wait) from the movie Hitch, a scene where Kevin James is showing how bad he dances – BT made Kevin look like Fred Astair. I almost peed my pants.

7. He has worn a goatee for pretty much all of the 15 years I’ve known him. He shaved it off once by surprise and I was so horrified I could barely look at him. I made him grow it back immediately.

8. He can literally fall asleep within 30 seconds. We will barely be under the covers and I’ll start to hear his heavy breathing. Sometimes I have to scrape him off the ceiling when I yell “YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY BE ASLEEP ALREADY”.

The Tuesday Update

Okay, so I have found the time and motivation to write this week. I am feeling a little better because at this mornings weigh-in, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I lost 2.5 pounds! So that’s 3.5 in two weeks. Not earth shattering, but not bad either. Especially since I only got to the beach once this week, so only 4 miles this time. I have tried to pay a little extra attention to portion size this past week, trying to load up on the veggies and limit the starches. This is difficult because apparently my husband was Chinese in a former life, based on the amount of white rice he likes to consume. He also can not be convinced that corn and peas are high in starch, so when he makes them together with the aforementioned rice, (thinking he’s making a square meal) he can’t understand why I am annoyed. I know, I know, be grateful you have a husband that cooks…I’m trying over here.

I have a humongous sweet tooth, and I MUST have something sweet after dinner or I am not very happy. My mom, who we eat with a few days a week (remember my parents live on our street) bakes things out of boredom, and it has been hard to resist her homemade cupcakes and cookies. I’ve been good though, and when she says “Do you want dessert?” I have a hearty NO out of my mouth before she gets up from her chair. That, and a quick exit has helped. To alleviate my craving, I have a bag of milk chocolate chips in the fridge, and I give myself a tiny handful which seems to be doing the trick so far. BT keeps a close eye on me, so I don’t end up emptying the bag in one night. Other oddly satisfying desserts we have recently made are:

1. Graham Cracker Ice Cream Sandwiches – Put fat free C00l Whip in between two low-fat cinnamon graham crackers and freeze. Not a bad substitute for the real thing.

2. Juicy Ice Pops – buy one of the new fancy schmancy organic juice blends out there and make ice pops out of them. We have an ice pop mold that we love. The most recent flavor we made was Pomegranate Blueberry. (Be careful of brain freeze when feeding them to 8 month olds - funny to you, not so funny to them).

So tell me how you’ve been doing towards your health goals. And share a an easy low fat snack or dessert idea if you’ve got one.

Whatever

So much for my promise of Tuesday updates. That’s partly because I barely even lost one freaking pound. Eight miles, people, I walked for EIGHT MILES. *Sigh* Whatever. Don’t try to cheer me up with “at least you didn’t gain”. I am running out of time here folks, summer is fast approaching. I don’t know what the problem is, you would think I eat chocolate cake three times a day. It’s the portion control that kills me I think. I am SO calling Jenny. Did you see that V@lerie Bertine11i lost 10 pounds already?? I’m going to keep trying though, I’m not giving up. I’m just PISSED.

The other part is that I am just too damn busy. Work is insane and free time is spent with the boy. It is so hard to keep blogging. Part of me thinks I should just shut this blog down and move on with life, but I’m not 100% ready to do that yet. I read things in blogland and get myself all riled up and start formulating a post in my head and then days go by before I actually have a chance to respond. When I do get the chance, everything that has been said on the matter has been said. So you’ll just have to trust me when I say I had definite opinions on Imus, V-Tech, A little pregnant and Chew. But it’s all done and gone now and please tell me why bloggers have to get so uppity with each other? Anyway, I digress.

Oh and just so you know, I can’t view blog pictures at work, and some days I can’t even leave a comment. So I mark your blog to read later, and then later turns into 4 days, and you’ve posted 6 more times since then and it’s difficult to catch up. So I’m still reading all of your blogs, trust me. I just can’t comment as often as I’d like. Sorry about that.

Anway, did I mention that we had our first post placement visit a couple of weeks ago? It was totally fine. The woman was only there for about 45 minutes and she asked us some basic questions. I guess I should include them here in case anyone is interested…

How is his health?
What is his current height and weight?
What is his doctor’s name and where are they located?
When was his first doctor’s appointment when you got home?
Can I see the summary of visits and immunizations so far?
What formula is he on?
What is his feeding schedule like?
What is his personality like?
Does he have any developmental delays?
Do you think you have bonded with him?
Do you think he has bonded to you?
What kinds of activities do you do with him?
Who is close by in case of emergency?
How has he changed your life?
How has he affected your relationship as a married couple?
Are you feeling more stressed having a baby to take care of?
Do you need information on resources to help you?
How has your family reacted to him?
May I see his room?

I think that was all the major questions. Let me know if you want to know how we answered any of them. Seamonkey sat quietly in his high chair with some toys the whole time. He was unnaturally quiet and serious, but it seems that she thought it was the appropriate level of stranger anxiety. It was all very pleasant and quick – we had some general conversation about adoption and Colombia and she was on her merry way. We didn’t go crazy cleaning the house or doing any preparation for her visit. We have at least one more visit I think. She suggests that we readopt him here in the US – we don’t have to do that but she thought it wouldn’t hurt. So I need to get information on that. I also have to get him a US birth certificate – no clue how to do that either.

Other than that, things are fine. Seamonkey is doing well – still not quite crawling yet. He’s been very fussy the last few days, and I think maybe he might finally be teething? I don’t know, it seems like we say that every week and still no teeth. This weekend we plan to do some house stuff – planting flowers (impatients Elle, not petunias) and we’re re-doing all the closets in the house. Our current set up is impractical, and I finally convinced BT that he can no longer use seamonkey’s closet. We need the storage room. Especially since I can’t control myself with all the cute summer clothes for the boy. Someone needs to put a limit on the number of bucket hats I can buy this kid. And just for the record….boy clothes selection sucks. If you can wade through all the tulle and flowery fabric to even find the boy’s section – all you’ll find is cargo pants and shirts with bugs on them. Really now.

So I have to start planning the Christening (Julia I have a date but still confirming the time). It’s about time I got my butt in gear. The godparents are going to be my SIL and my brother. I wasn’t thrilled about having my SIL, but I guess I can’t complain because my brother is no Holy Roller himself. My SIL isn’t a practicing Catholic anymore…she attends a Methodist? Lutheran? (not sure) church since she married her latest husband. Technically she can’t be a Godmother, she has to be a Christian Witness (only one Godparent has to be a practicing Catholic – although I realize using the word “practicing” with my brother may not be entirely appropriate). She does have the paperwork indicating she had all her catholic sacraments. I have a feeling that everyone is kind of doing a don’t ask don’t tell thing with our church (BT is handling the paperwork), which if you ask me, is wrong. Trust me, I am well aware of all the nonsense that goes on with the Catholic Church. But I still believe you shouldn’t lie. And I don’t want my son to be part of any kind of lying to the church thank you very much. But what am I supposed to do? At least she does go to church and my brother doesn’t really, so I guess it’s fair. Whatever. It still irks me. Nobody said I was rational.

Because they already all get on my nerves. They love seamonkey to death, they really do. And I am happy that he makes them so happy, and that everyone makes a fuss over him. It is so wonderful that the woman who said “I just wouldn’t have kids” is now the best Grandmother in the world. Even my SIL buys him tons of presents. But every time I go there I get a ginormous headache. They baby talk to him all day long. I LOVE YOU! SEAMONKEEEEEY! HEEEEY! I LOVE YOU! Yelled across the entire table in that singsongy voice OVER and OVER so that you just want to stab yourself in the eye with your fork. So between the yelling, and the baby talk, and the pressure of my tongue on the roof of my mouth to keep me quiet…by the time I leave I need four Advil and a shot of Grey Goose. Tell me it’s normal to feel this way. Tell me that just because I have finally been given a child, that I don’t have to be so over grateful that I can’t bitch about this stuff once in a while.

Oh and last thing – HURRAY FOR MARGARET!!! Finally Finally FINALLY she is going to be a mom!! So incredibly happy for you!!!

Ten Pound Tuesday

This past weekend I was reminded of why I live here. Why I endure freezing winters spent standing on windy snowy train platforms waiting for trains that never come. Why I endure slush, snowplows and high gas bills to heat my house. This weekend was the first real breath of spring, and I spent it at the beach. It was glorious.

I spent most of Saturday harried and aggravated, a result I think, of knowing how beautiful it was outside and being pissed I couldn’t get my butt into gear fast enough. Finally though, seamonkey and I were both napped, dressed and fed and ready to go by 3:00. I went outside with the boy and started packing up the truck for a ride to the beach, planning to walk the boardwalk. Hot and sweaty, I hoped the walk would improve my mood. Just then BT returned home from doing a beach cleanup he organized with his fishing club, and I coerced him into joining us even though he was dead tired. The cool breeze and sunshine revived us both as we drove.

We strapped seamonkey into his big fancy off-road manly man jogging stroller (No sissy strollers for THIS SAHD), loaded it up with water bottles and off we went. Our beach has a wonderful boardwalk that hugs the shoreline, providing a spectacular view of the waves and dunes. The boardwalk is also touted as a “Health Walk” and has markers along the way to tell you how far you’ve gone. From end to end, the walk is exactly 2 miles. In case you can’t do the math – that’s a four mile trek round trip.

Our walk was an exercise in diversity. Old wizened faces and little pink cheeks. Short and fat, tall and thin. Jogging, ambling, strutting. Walkers and strollers, wagons and wheelchairs. Kites and seagulls and perfectly blue cloudless skies. Smelling hotdogs, French fries, tanning lotion and sea water. High heels, running shoes and bare feet. Airing of differences, sharing of problems, fervent gossip, easy laughter, contemplative silence. All of us sharing the same stretch of sunbleached planks. Did I already use the word glorious?

Seamonkey thoroughly enjoyed himself. We took off his shoes and socks, and he babbled merrily as we bobbled along…playing with his toes and graciously accepting any and all compliments from passersby. We stopped along the way to sit him in the sand. He would touch the ground and pull his hand back fast – totally perplexed by this new mysterious substance. We buried his feet and he wiggled his toes to find them again. We can’t wait to bring him here for a proper visit. We came back to the truck after our four miles, glad that we were able to take advantage of the weather.

So what’s with title of my post, you ask? Well I am really trying to lose weight. It seems that we loved the food in Colombia a little too much (empanadas-worth it)…plus all the big holiday dinners when we got home didn’t help. Besides the fact that I just need to look and feel better for the usual reasons, I have a high school friend coming to visit in June, we have an agency social that month, and the 4th of July (beach party) is closing in fast. So yesterday BT had to help a friend with something, so I had seamonkey all to myself again. So back to the beach it was for another four miles.

After the first 2 miles I was feeling so good that I started to do a very slow jog. To keep my motivation up, I would pick a landmark and tell myself I would stop when I got to it. When I got to it, if I still felt okay, I would pick another one farther up. At first I was picking landmarks too far ahead, and the whole time I was running towards it I would think “I’m never going to make it that far” and I would start to get discouraged. But, if I picked something close, I would get there in no time and be on to the next one. I eventually jogged an entire half mile! So I started thinking. I need to lose like 50-60 pounds, but losing even 40 would be huge for me. When I think of that goal (landmark) it seems too far away to be feasible. So I need to pick something closer. Like 10 pounds. When I lose 10, I’ll think about the next 10. So every Tuesday, I’m going to tell you how I’m doing toward my first 10. I weighed myself yesterday, and after I went through all seven stages of grief*, this is the game plan I came up with. Who knows if it will work. Lord knows, I’ve got to do something.

Okay, got to go fill up my water glass again. My tonsils aren’t quite floating yet. Now if I can only get out of this chair without using my ass muscles. They’re freaking killing me. Who knew you had so many muscles in your ass?




*Shock, Denial, Bargaining, Guilt, Anger, Depression, Acceptance

Water Water Everywhere...

Hello and Hallelujah, the sun is finally shining! That nor’easter was really a pain in the ass. It made last weekend miserable, and it prevented me from going into work on Monday.

You see, there is only one road into and out of my little neighborhood. That one road runs alongside a canal. So at the highest point of high tide, the canal overflowed and flooded the street. So, since my little Honda Civic doesn’t have a outboard motor, we worked from home that day. The tides did eventually subside some hours later. But with all the train delays, it just wasn’t worth trying to make my way into the office. Besides, I was in my jammies in a warm house with an endless supply of hot coffee with southern pecan coffemate – you couldn’t have pulled me out of there for anything!

That little aforementioned street is at the very north end of my neighborhood. I live on the very south end. South, as in, 8 houses away is the open bay. At the southern most point of my street is a narrow bulkhead with a railing (like you see on dead end streets) and beyond that is good old Atlantic Ocean water. The water came up and over that bulkhead and alllllll the way down the street. See here: That Honda Pilot on the left is ours, sitting in our driveway. The railing is way down at the end beyond the parked white car. The houses on the right, across the street, are on the canal, so the water overflowed from behind their house as well. Back water met front water, so they were completely surrounded. Yikes! We watched the water creep up our driveway, but luckily it stopped a few feet short (we have a High Ranch so no basement). Of course, Big Tuna gets on his Big Tuna Boots and goes wading out into the middle of it all just because he can. He ends up talking to other neighbor husbands who all have on their manly man boots too. Inside, they are all really just 12 year old who like to splash in puddles, aren’t they?

And speaking of water and splashing – seamonkeys lessons aren’t exactly going swimmingly (HA GET IT).The second time we brought him; BT got the not so bright idea to convince my parents to come along. First of all, let’s try to imagine the ridiculousness of four grownups bringing in a 7 month old to watch him be walked up and down the length of a pool shall we? I was mortified. I never want to be one of THOSE parents and here I am doing it. I think having both BT and I there every week is already very silly. Anyway, of course that day he was all off his nap schedule, so he went into it totally over-tired. He did his usual scream thing, and I just kept saying “Don’t worry, he’ll stop soon”. But after saying it 25 times it became clear that stopping wasn’t on the agenda. Making this all the more aggravating, was the fact that my parents were acting as if we had thrown him into a vat of boiling oil. “Wow, he is really crying”. “He really doesn’t like this” “Maybe you should take him out” “Maybe swimming isn’t a good idea” “Starfish, don’t you think he’s had enough?” “Oh my God listen to him cry”. So, Crying Baby+Annoying Parents+Tired after a long day of work + Starving = Complete and utter nervous breakdown. I finally got up (you can watch from a room that overlooks the pool with a one way mirror), went into the pool area, and took seamonkey out after 20 minutes. The ride home was pretty quiet. I believe the only words I said were “You are NEVER allowed to come again”. I think I heard my mom laugh. Sheesh, grandparents. I sure don’t recall my parents going that nutso over ME.

The third time we brought him, we tried to ease him into it. We brought him to the pool area well before his session. We let him get used to the noise, and see the other kids. Alas, as soon as I handed him over to Shawn, he started crying again. Now let me say, that we know his cries. It wasn’t the ‘I’m in excruciating pain cry’ or the ‘something just scared the living shit out of me’ cry…it’s the ‘I am just not happy at all and I must tell everyone around me’ cry. Kind of moany and whiny screaming. If it were the all out red faced can’t catch my breath cry, I would have pulled him out immediately. I’m not a complete barbarian. Partial maybe. So we left him in. After about 10 minutes, BT and I start trading looks, and I start to feel the nervous breakdown feeling creeping back in. So I went to the front desk to talk to them. As soon as I began talking I started getting all choked up, which, if you knew me, is NOT like me at all. I managed to keep my shit together, and I asked the woman “Look, he is still screaming…at what point do we say enough is enough? I feel like we’re torturing him”. From the time I approached the desk, she had a knowing smile on her lips. She patiently let me talk, and then she said very nicely “Okay. Listen to me. “DO NOT PULL HIM OUT. You will be sorry you did. If you can’t watch him cry, then STAY OUT HERE.” She then went on to tell me about all the kids who have cried and proceeded to be awesome swimmers. I was really happy that she told me flat out what I needed to hear. She gave us some other options if we still didn’t feel right about it, like changing instructors, or time of day, or allowing us in the pool before the session to ease the transition…but my gut tells me he’ll be okay – he just needs to get used to it.

So THIS week when we brought him, he cried for 15 minutes and then stopped. And he actually enjoyed himself. In fact, he SWAM. No, seriously! Shawn had him lying in the water, holding him by the armpits and and Holy Crap if this kid wasn’t kicking his legs with a big ol’ smile on his face. *Sigh* I swear. This is why God created Vodka. And is why I just found this:

Monthly Update - 7 Months old

Dearest Seamonkey:

Another whole month has gone by. I know I say this in every letter, but the time sure does go fast. Recently I heard the phrase "The days are long but the years are short". So true! You are such a solid little boy already, and we can't even remember you as the little peanut we first grew to love. We watch the videos from Colombia over and over and you look so small and different than you do now.

I wouldn't say that there have been dramatic changes in you this month. More like a general improvement in everything. You've got that pincer grasp thing down, and you concentrate very intently when there is a small speck of something you want to grab on your high chair. Your brows furrow in deep concentration. You seem to eat more hungrily now, and it is less of a chore to get you to eat. Sometimes I can't seem to shovel it in fast enough for you. You also roll over both ways now, and it's your preferred method of transportation. You can get yourself into crawling position from a sitting position, but once you're there, you're not quite sure what to do. You'll rock back and forth a bit, making us think you're about to start moving forward, but alas, you're not quite ready yet it seems. We're trying to keep you on the floor as much as possible to encourage you.

Your amazing personality continues to shine. Anytime you see someone you know, you smile a big cheesy grin. If it's someone you really like, like Daddy or Grandpa, you jump up and down and laugh. You have really been cracking up alot lately. One of us will say something that suddenly strikes you as hilarious, and you'll giggle so hard you can't catch your breath. That of course, makes us laugh, and you start laughing at us laughing. It never fails to make tears of laughter stream down my face.

With strangers you start out a bit wary...looking from the person to us and back again, as if to say "I don't know Mom, this guy looks kind of shifty to me..." But after a few minutes you are smiling. You LOVE other kids. Especially your cousins. You'll spontaneously grab them for your version of a kiss...it's the cutest thing.

This is your second cousin N, who is the closest in age to you...she's just a few months older. We love to see you together, and we hope you develop as strong a friendship as her mother and I do.

This month included your first Easter. The Easter Bunny brought you a ton of gifts via your grandparents, aunts and uncles. You even opened it yourself:We started the day by going to Aunt M's house and having dinner with Daddy's family. You were intrigued by the little dogs and didn't even cry. Afterwards we went to your Great Aunt's house to see my side. I hardly saw you the entire evening, because you were passed around from person to person. You didn't mind one bit. At one point I think I saw you holding a chocolate twizzler in your hand. I knew any attempts to tell my family what you were allowed to eat would be met by yelling and shooing, so I didn't bother. I figured one day wouldn't kill you. By the end of the night, I was handed back an overstimulated, sweaty, sticky, but extremely happy baby. After a good hose down, you slept like a rock.

Almost every day your father and I comment about how blessed we are. We wonder if everyone loves their child this intensely, and if a baby can get bruises from being kissed so much. Your grandma (my mom) went through her old pictures to show us how you look just like me when I was a baby:
What do you think? Same eyes and nose...but maybe all brown eyed brown haired babies look the same. Anyway, we know you were chosen especially for us, no matter what. We love you very much.

The Time Traveler's Wife

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have participated in the latest round of the Barren Bitches Brigade Book Tour. I opted in because I heard alot of good things about this book and was anxious to read it. Each participant has been asked to select three questions from a list and answer them. Below is my review and my answers. Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list here

Spoiler Alert
If you want to read this book but haven't yet, you may want to avoid reading this post.

So on to my review. In a nutshell: This book bugged me. I was excited to read it since it had the sci-fi time traveling thing going on as well as the fact that it was supposed to be a grand love story. Everyone was tellingl me that they read it over and over, and how they cried every time. I gotta tell ya, I just didn't see it. I thought it was a dark depressing story, with desperation as it's main theme. Henry DeTamble was a reckless human being, not only with his own life, but with the life of his wife and future child. Clare Abshire is a lost soul. She starts out that way before she meets Henry, and when he arrives on the scene she is desperate for the attention she couldn't get elsewhere. . Besides the fact that his visits start to border on the inappropriate, his tales of their wonderful future have Clare enraptured. She focuses on nothing else and misses out on a normal childhood and early adulthood...convinced by Henry that their fate is already sealed. Their "real" life together is snippets of sex surrounded by dark periods of oppresive waiting. It's hard to figure out if Clare is really in love or just unnaturally dependent on Henry. The more time she spends with him, the more depressed she becomes. At the end, she is even more lost than she was when she began.

The chapters about infertility are heart wrenching, and I suppose one could argue that they accurately reflect the horrible pain, suffering and desperation that many women go through. As my answers below will indicate, I feel that Clare's intentions are selfish, so much so that she disregards the health of her babies, and they die as they time travel out of her womb. I have a hard time believing that any woman would be that desperate (and stupid).

I don't expect to be in the majority with my views. I know that many people liked it, and if you got something good out of this book, that's great. It was certainly a well crafted story, just not my cup of tea. If you want some serious romantic time traveling story about a woman who can't conceive, go read Outlander. Now that's my cup of tea with milk and honey! (For another fulfilling albeit cheesy experience, go rent Lake House).

Clare endures a lot trying to create a child. She keeps trying, regardless of the fact that she continuously miscarries, continuously wakes up covered in blood, and knows that her child could have the same "problem" as her husband. What drove her to continue down this road and why do you think Henry participated?

Clare was so desperate to have a piece of Henry with her always, that she stopped at nothing to get it. Because Henry came into her life so early and so often, Clare knew nothing else but him. Her whole world revolved around him; her days were either spent with him, or pining away for him until he returned. So it’s no surprise that Clare says “I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always. And I wanted Henry to be in this child, so that when he was gone he wouldn’t be entirely gone, there would be a bit of him with me…insurance, in case of fire, flood, act of God.” Which funny enough, she does end up needing in the end. I suppose Henry participated at the time because at that particular moment he hadn’t really known for sure if they could or could not produce a baby. Although he does say “I know, without knowing, that this is very unlikely”. I believe that Clare couldn’t think rationally, or even objectively…so obsessed was she with having Henry, even if it was just a small tie to him. If mothering were her only objective, she could have adopted. But when Henry suggests it she says “But that would be fake. It would be pretending.” Maybe it was at this point that I really started to hate this book.

The present and future intersect frequently in the book. Often the result of these minglings is that information about the future is hinted at or revealed early but the actual experiences cannot be altered or prevented. If you could have known about the struggles you'd face on your path to parenthood, would you have wanted to know? Would you go back and warn or prepare yourself, even though you'd be powerless to change the outcome? Why or why not?

If I couldn’t change the outcome, then I wouldn’t want to know. I remember sitting in my RE’s office after the first failed cycle, having a real conversation after we finished with all the medical talk. I was saying that if someone could just tell me, “Look, this is never going to work so stop wasting your time”, I would have stopped in a heartbeat and went on to adoption. But as we all know, the siren song of IVF is strong. Each new cycle I thought “THIS is the time it’s going to work!”. But eventually we realized that it never would. So, even if I thought I could prepare myself for that awful journey, I don’t think I would have believed myself. I would have tried to change the outcome anyway. Clare is clearly very happy when she learns that eventually she has a baby, although she doesn’t know how many tries it will take. She has one further miscarriage, and there is no discussion of how she felt through it, so it’s unclear if was easier for her to bear than the others. No miscarriage is of course, but perhaps that glimmer of hope gave her the strength to try again.

Due to his ability to time travel and jumps into the future, Henry knows that he is going to die. Yet in the beginning, he works hard to try to create a baby with his wife. This situation obviously benefits Henry in that he gets to parent Alba for a bit before he dies. This situation also benefits Clare since she wants to be a mother. Yet Alba grows up without her father yet with his extraordinary abilities—abilities that were a difficult adjustment for Henry growing up. Do you think he acted in the best interests of his child when he helped create her knowing that he would not be around to help her understand her ability to time travel? Do you think it is truly possible to take the feelings of a child in mind prior to creation as well as fulfill your own need to parent? If you had been in Henry's shoes, would you have created this child knowing she would be able to time travel and you would not be there to help her understand this anomaly?

Throughout this whole story, I couldn’t help but think that Henry was hiding behind his “fate” theory, and engineering all these events out of pure selfishness. Or if not selfishness, his desperation to stay grounded in the present. To begin with, I don’t think he acted in the best interests of Clare. I think he could have withheld his identify from her when he came to her as a young girl. He didn’t have to supply her with the list of dates that caused her to spend her life waiting for their next encounter and essentially stealing her childhood. It was as if he were cementing his future by binding her to him from the very beginning. Although he gets a vasectomy, a time traveling self gets her pregnant anyway. Knowing what he is, and what could happen, he does it anyway. I think it is a necessity to take the feelings (and health!) of a child in mind prior to creation. Your desire to parent a biological child should never supercede their welfare. Even worse if you know you won’t be around to help them.

Take me out......

....to the ballgame!

Happy Mets Opening Day!

Random Monday

So seamonkey had his first swimming session. What a hoot. We changed him into his little swim shorts and were hanging around the pool waiting for our time to begin. We met the instructor and handed him over. I was a little disappointed in how they handled the first session – I would have hoped that he would have gotten out of the pool and talked to us first, but we just handed him down into the pool. Made me wonder how they assess the needs of new students. He clearly wasn't expecting a new student, let alone who was 6 months old. It ended up okay though. When we first handed him over the kid (the instructor can't be more than 19 years old) said “Now I’m going to warn you, he’s going to cry”. Uh yeah chief, that’s pretty much a given. And he didn’t just cry, he screamed, and I mean SCREAMED bloody murder for 10 minutes straight. I timed it. During those ten minutes another mother walked by me and said with a scrunchy face “Too young!!” Who asked you and mind your bidness!! But after 10 minutes, he seemed to suddenly realize that he was in one big giant bathtub, and oh hold on here people I LOVE THE BATHTUB. Much splashing and giggling ensued and we breathed a sigh of relief.


Anyway...., I’ve been meaning to tell you about something Melissa over at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters is doing. She has created an “Emoblopedia” (emotional blog encyclopedia) – which is a big collection of blog posts grouped by category – that deal with all the emotional issues surrounding infertility(and adoption) When you are feeling like you are crazy or alone, you can go to this reference guide and hear from all the folks who’ve been there-done that-bought the t-shirt- and have an opinion on the matter. I think it’s an awesome thing. I have a post or two in there (you just ask Mel to add one of your posts, it’s a snap) and I have already read through some of the amazing entries. Just one of the many great resources from this blog. So check it out. Submit an entry for inclusion. Tell your favorite blog authors which posts you think they should submit (any you think I should submit?). We all know that blogging has gotten us through the worst of times...this is another extension of that. A one-stop shop for your emotional bloggy needs!

And while you're there, check out Melissa's entry in the International Infertility Film Festival.

One last thing - the Feds are proposing a increase on filing fees for our beloved adoption paperwork. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous - the rates are going up a whopping 66%. Your beloved I171H will now cost you $670. Carrie was nice enough to post about it, go here for more details. The deadline to make comments is today (Monday the 2nd), so if you have a chance, go tell them how ridiculous it is. This really burns my ass. All day I am exposed to young single mothers that have money practically THROWN at them from the federal government to have and care for their babies. Makes me ill.

Happy Monday.

Not much to say

Now it's my turn to be lame. I don't know how you guys post so much. When I have the time, I have nothing interesting to say, and when I think of a post I have no time to write it. And you guys post so much by the time I check bloglines you've got 43 entries and I can't possibly comment on all of them! So I guess I need to stop being a comment whore, huh? I get it, everyone's got a life, be happy when they read you at all.

So today is a "have time but nothing to say" day, but I feel like I need to post something or you'll all desert me. Work is work - no funny stories lately. Although I did see someone on the subway today - a grown woman - wearing an aqua Tinkerbell backpack with the word "Mommy" embroidered across the back. I assume there is a matching one attached to a 5 year old somewhere? Please lady, you shouldn't wear that unless you're with the 5 year old. And even then - it's not as cute as you think it is.

Seamonkey is doing well. He had a little breakdown today - daddy didn't make sure he got his afternoon nap, so he was sleeping at mealtime and I had to wake him up. (Daddy conveniently left for a social engagement) Normally I wouldn't do that, but he didn't have his afternoon bottle either, so if I didn't wake him up there was going to be a 3am screamfest for food, and that can't happen to me on a schoolnight. I tried to get him to ease into being awake and I thought we were clear for a while there, but as soon as I put the bottle in his mouth he freaked out. Nothing I did helped. Held him, put him in the crib, sing, dance, nothing. Scream scream scream. Finally after a good half hour he called himself down and just started smiling and laughing. Psychotic I tell you. It's a good thing he's cute.

Speaking of cute...for some reason this week he found his feet and hands. A little behind at 6 months I think but whatever. I video taped him today holding his hands up in front of his face and moving his fingers and bending his arms, totally fascinated. The video shows him quietly observing, then me laughing, then him laughing at me laughing, then he gets all serious and looks at his hands again...round and round. It was so freaking funny. It was like he was stoned or on acid or something (not that I know about that stuff heh)..I was waiting for him to be like "Duuuuuudddeeee, look at all the coloooorrrrss" in a surfer dude voice or something. He found his feet too, and finds the need to munch them whenever he is on his back now. The verdict? Tasty:



Oh and guess what we did. We signed him up for swimming. I would say "swimming lessons" but I'm not sure there is much in the way of things to teach a 6 month old at this point. But he will now have one on one sessions with an instructor (young college kid) at this place for a half hour once a week until he's two. No seriously. We paid for enough sessions to get him through the next 15 months. It seems a little much, but really it ended up much cheaper that way, and if we opt out at some point, we only lose our deposit, which isn't much. But in reality I really want to keep him going. He really loves the bathtub. As in, he loves to have water literally dumped on his head, splashes like crazy and hates to come out. So I really want to keep him comfortable in the water. We live near the water, my dad has a boat and my husband surf fishes. It's really important to us that he learns to be comfortable and safe. The place didn't blink an eye about him being so young...in fact they encourage it, since apparently babies have a natural instinct for swimming and it's best to start them as young as possible. And seamonkey seemed fascinated by the place - didn't cry once seeing all those strangers in one place. It's crawling with kids, and check out the mural they have at the pool! I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Monday

You can’t make this stuff up

Its been an interesting few weeks here in starfish world. I thought I would document two of the more interesting happenings:

STORY ONE:
One evening, I left work at my usual time. I took my usual subway train to my usual stop. I proceeded to the usual track, and got on my usual train, three minutes before it’s due to leave at 6:07pm, and sat in my usual seat. I pulled out some knitting and settled into the blind oblivion that is my usual commute home. About 20 minutes later, after pulling out of another stop along the way, I hear the tail end of the automated conductor announcement say “…..the next stop is X Town”. Uh….hold on here. X Town is not on my train line. I look around, and no one else seems to be panicking. I look out the window…hmmm…this doesn’t look familiar. We pull into the next station, and the robotic voice says “This is the train to Yville. The next stop is “Zfield”. OH CRAP. I got on the wrong. freaking. train. Damn track changes. Gather up knitting and make way to the door. I am going to need to get off this eastbound train and take another train back west to the Hub Station so I can get on the right train. Hmmm…some of these stops are really small stations, there might not be a train going back west for some time. Hmmm…which stop to get off? The further east I go the longer it will take me to go back west. Hmmm. Crap. Okay, I’ll get off here.

Hmmm. This station appears to be right in the middle of a residential area. Let’s make our way over to the schedule board. Okay, it’s 6:39 now. The next train back west is….no. Please no. 7:25??? WTF!!!! Okay. Keep it together. Don’t cry. Oh SHIT. I left my blackberry home today in it’s charger. Can’t call home to tell them I’ll be late. Let’s try this pay phone. Doesn’t work. GREAT. Walk all over, up and around and can’t find another pay phone. See a cop car. Excuse me officers, can you tell me if there is a payphone around here? No? Gee thanks, sorry to have disturbed you sitting around BULLSHITTING. Go back up to platform. Sit down. Cry. Knit until the cold makes my fingers numb and it’s too dark to see. Board the 7:25 and get to Hub Station. Go to pay phone. Doesn’t work. *sigh*. Go upstairs and see two payphones. One is occupied. Second doesn’t work. *SIGH* Stand too close to person on occupied phone until he freaks out and gets off. Dial tone. Praise the Lord. Insert two quarters. Hear “50 cents please” Hit coin return with no luck. Operator comes on to tell me I owe 50 cents. I tell her I did. She starts to tell me to call the 1800 number. Completely lose my shit and scream into pay phone using words like “bullshit” and “second freaking time” and “1800 my ass”. Get connected to husband and tell him I’ll be late. Get on correct train and eventually get home. At 9:00pm

STORY TWO:
I am trying to hire a Director for my department. I came across an interesting resume from someone who worked at another company in my industry, who, if not for their very small size, would be considered a competitor. His experience was somewhat related to the position, but he deals more with outside relationships rather than inside, which is what this job requires. I figured maybe he wanted a change or something, so I asked him to come in for an interview. I started out as I usually do, explaining who I am, where this position fits in, and my expectations. This candidate, who I’ll call Joe (because he looked like an ex-boyfriend of mine with the same name) is asking me all kinds of strange detailed questions, and trying to scribble down my answers with the stub of a #2 pencil. Scrunching up his face every time I answer as if I’m speaking Chinese. He then starts to ask me about how often he’ll be dealing with the external clients. “You won’t” I say, “we have another unit that does that – you’ll deal with people internally, help resolve issues and support the people who deal with the external clients.” Another scrunched up face. “Hmmm…” he says as he leans way back in his chair. “I don’t know…Let me ask you your opinion, considering you’re a Vice President and all….If I want to be CEO someday, I’ll probably need this kind of experience?” He waves his hand over the job description to illustrate what he means by “this kind”. “Uhh….yeeeaaah. I don’t think that’s the right reason to take the job” I say. Before I can say anything further, he jumps in with “In any case, you are going to want me to talk to your external customers”. “No,” I reiterate, “I already said, there is no reason for you to talk with them, there is another unit that does that”. “Well, I’ll tell you right now, as soon as they know I work here, they are going to call me directly. They won't bother talking to that unit.” Now it’s my turn to scrunch up my face. “Why would THAT be??” I ask. “Well because I have connections. They know me.” I blink slowly for 10 seconds. Then I laugh. I’ve never laughed in a candidates face before. “Joe, our company is about 10 times bigger than yours. I think we've got a few relationships ourselves”. I got up and told him to show himself out. Did I mention that he looked like an ex-boyfriend? Did I also mention that a recent hire from his company told me the reason he's looking for a job is because he got FIRED from that company? YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR.

Monthly update - Six Months Old

Wow. This is all going really fast. Sometimes I think you are growing right before my eyes. At your last doctor's appointment you weighed 17lbs 10 oz and you grew another inch. You are one solid little boy. I can't imagine how I'm going to hold you when you're two. Sometimes I carry you upside down on my hip and chant "sack of potatoes, sack of potatoes". So far that makes you laugh.

You laugh alot more now. Big hearty giggles that crack us up. Sometimes you laugh when we do certain things, like when I sit you facing me on my lap, hold your hands and flip you slowly backwards. Sometimes you just burst out with a big guffaw for no reason at all. But I swear, there is no better sound I have ever heard in my life.

Conversely, you have started to make the worse sound I have ever heard. It's this whingy whiney groany "eeehhhhhh" sound. So. annoying. We can't figure out why you do it. You seem to be frustrated or uncomfortable or something but we can't figure out why. Please stop. If you continue to do this until and through your toddler years, I will surely go mad. For some reason, the highchair really sets you off. You immediately get fussy when you are put there. Feeding you, particularly in the evenings is really getting to be a chore. If you are really tired, you do the all out, red face, can't hardly catch your breath cry. The second I take you out, you stop. *sigh*. That is so not cool. I only get a few hours with you each night so let's make them good ones, okay? You and I, we're working it out. Slowly. You've begun stage 2 foods, but mostly just the fruits and veggies. You get a few spoons of the meat a day, but we're taking that very slowly. That stuff smells like regurgitated cat food, not sure how you can stand it.

Every day you get better control of your hands. It is amazing to watch you start to really use your fingers. We now have to move most things out of your reach when you are sitting on our laps at the table. You like to grab things and bang them really hard. The louder the noise the better. Grandma thought it was funny until you actually smashed a melanine bowl into many pieces. No more bowls for you. You can grasp a sippy cup really well, and you get the concept that you can drink from it, but we're still working on the concept of tilting the cup upward so you can get to the water.

Another great thing you have started to do, is to put your hands in my hair and pull my face into yours. You put your big wide open mouth on my face. I guess that's your version of a baby kiss? It kinda hurts most of the time because you've got a mean grip, but oh how I love it when you want to be close to me!

Your babbling is different now. Instead of just ooooo and aaaaaa sounds you are actually trying out your tongue and jaw. We now get lots of babababas and yayayayas. When you make those kinds of sounds I get glimpses of what your voice will sound like when you do talk. You also love to do raspberries, although you've been doing that for a while now. Not so cute when you do it with a mouthful of peas. Your face is maturing too...your hair is growing and you're losing some of that "baby look". We are so torn between wanting to see grow and progress and wanting you to stay little just a little longer. These months are flying by.

You sit up very well on your own now and only tip over once in a while. You like to sit up in the bathtub now, you can get maximum splash factor that way. We've just introduced small toys to you in the tub and you are loving it!


You seem to like tummy time alot better now, although mostly what you do is alternate between pushing yourself up on your arms and laying down and sucking your thumb. Those push ups apparently take alot out of you. We try to put toys in front of you to encourage you to start crawling, but mostly you just get so excited your legs move you backwards. You've got rolling over completely down now. In fact, you can roll from back to front AND front to back. We put you on a quilt on the floor and in no time you've rolled yourself right off of it.

You get up at about 7-7:30 each morning, which is good because I can say goodbye to you right before I leave for work. You do pretty well with your naps. You sleep about an hour in the morning and a good two to three hours in the afternoon. We find that if we put you in the middle of our king size bed for your afternoon nap, and put some classical music on the radio, you sleep pretty long. You still sleep with your hands up...we call it your Victory pose (another good day for seamonkey!)You take another catnap around 6, and go to bed around 9:30. The absolute best part of my day is having you fall asleep in my arms. I try to really concentrate on that moment, holding you tightly and breathing in your wonderful baby scent. I can't believe you are mine. We love you more every day.

The Not so Lame List

Here is the final list of blog links! Thanks for participating, and sorry I had to resort to name calling, but hey, sometimes ya gotta do whatya gotta do. Remember this was all about supporting each other, so be sure to take some time and check out these great blogs. I've tried to include a little description to guide you; forgive me blog authors if I've got it wrong, sometimes it's hard to figure out.

Worth the Wait (Home with 2 from Russia)
B-Happy (Journey to #3, this time in Ethiopia)
The Chambers Adoption Process (Working on a domestic adoption)
Building a Family (Journey to Ethiopia)
Waiting for Sprout (Journey to China)
A Dad’s Journey through International Adoption (Journey to Russia)
Born in our hearts (Home with one from Russia, one Domestic)
Voice of the Voiceless(Journey to Russia)
Waiting for Brody (Journey to Guatemala)
Mei Mei Journal (Home from China)
My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood (Bio Triplets)
Waiting for Sophie (Home from China, Journey to Guatemala)
Anti-racist Parent (Joint blog)
Olive You (Journey to Russia)
Perky’s Perspective (Home with 2 from Russia)
Guatemalan Sisters (Home with 2 from Guatemala)
Two Moms Adopting (Home with one Domestic)
Family Found (Home with one from Ethiopa)
Praying them Home (3 bio, journey to Guatemala and Haiti)
2 more to love (2 bio, 2 twins from Vietnam)
“For I know the plans….” (Journey to Colombia)
Metrodad (1 bio)
Snips, Snails & Pigtails (3 bio, 1 domestic)
Looking for Grace( 4 bio, 1 on the way from Russia)
Karen Road Chronicles (2 bio)

And speaking of great blogs, I'm a big fan of Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters these days. What a great resource and support community for infertiles of every circumstance (still trying, adoptive parents, child free). I've decided to join the Barren Bitches Book Brigade this go round, so look for my opinion on "The Time Traveler's Wife" in the coming weeks.

Off to sleep - this DST bullshit really screwed me up. People, I NEED my sleep. Between the loss of my precious much needed additional hour and the fact that my Microsoft Outlook Calendar has half of my meetings scheduled at the wrong time, I'm about to lose my mind. Only half though, so I don't really know for sure which ones are wrong. Seems like I just wander from conference room to conference room saying "are we meeting? now? oh ok, I'll come back". Stupid government. Stupid Microsoft. Stupid meetings.

*sigh* and it's only Monday.

On prayer...

As we all know, when you go through something big, like say, infertility or the adoption process, you tend to think about God more than usual. I know it from experience, and I see it in the blogs I read every day.

Of particular interest is when bloggers ask readers to pray that some piece of paperwork gets there, or gets signed, or is overlooked…. or that some particularly nail-biting part of the process happens in our favor, quickly and without too much suffering. And when I read those words “pray for us” or “keep us in your prayers” - I always scrunch up my face and think “Don’t you know it doesn’t work like that?” I mean, really, if all it took was to just ASK God for something, wouldn’t we all be home with children by now, most by an uncomplicated pain-free natural birth? (And wouldn’t I be wearing size 4 jeans?) More mystifying yet is that we think that if A LOT of people ask ALL AT ONCE then God can’t help but listen? Do we really think that the Almighty can be swayed like that? Interesting concept, but I don’t think so. He’s much too smart for that.

When I went through my infertility treatments, I prayed a lot. Please God, I want this so badly, not just for myself, but for my husband and our families. Please God, I’ll be a good mother, you know I will. During our final treatment, I wore religious medals of Saint Gerard and the Virgin Mary. I said a novena specific to for those wishing to conceive. I visited a church near work and kneeled and prayed to Mary. Despite all that we got bad news yet again. Even though I knew in my heart it didn’t work that way. Silly rabbit, miracles are for kids.

So I don’t pray much anymore, not in the traditional sense anyway. If that sounds blasphemous, I don’t mean it that way. While I don’t go to church all that often, I do very much believe in God. We’ve settled our differences for the time being – as I’ve said before, I could hardly argue with the Guy who made it possible for Seamonkey to be sleeping in the crib in the former guest bedroom…. But basically, I’m like - if all this is up to him, what am I asking for? What’s the point? It even kind of bugs me now when people “waste” prayers on trivial things. As if praying about getting the nurse at your doctor’s office to notarize your letter by 4:00 somehow makes a difference. Maybe it’s a case of, “it didn’t work for me, so why should it work for you?”. Yeah that’s probably it. Well, I guess the bitterness of barrenness has never really left me, huh? Tell me something I didn’t know.

Anyway, I approach the whole God thing a little differently these days. I acknowledge Him in little odd moments –not sure how to explain that exactly – but I recognize His presence and acknowledge His hand in things. Like on a particularly beautiful sunny day at the beach, after a fun day laughing my guts out with cousins, or when my new son has fallen asleep in my arms. During those dark moments too – when someone has died or fallen ill, or when the news tells you nine more soldiers died today. I try to remember to say thank you for the good stuff, and for the bad stuff I pray for the strength to deal with whatever happens – whether it’s for me or someone else. It may not be enough, and I may have this all wrong, but it’s the best way I know to understand and cope with the unfair randomness of life.

So when you’re asking me to pray that your application gets approved or your pee stick turns the right shade of pink, know that what you’re really getting from me is my wish that you can handle the results whatever they turn out to be. But ‘crossing my fingers’? That I can do for you, sure. Toes too, no extra charge.

You guys are so lame

Come on people, where is the love?

Thirteen of you commented on my last post, but only 7 people left blogs to share!

What the hell?

I know you're out there. I average over 100 hits a day, 200 after I post something new. Amazed? So am I! So, I am mystified as to why there is a lack of participation (and why I never seem to get too many comments). This is fun dammit! We all need to encourage each other to keep blogging - and the best way to do that is to let each other know that we actually READ what we WRITE.

Leave me a blog link or I will hunt you down and force you to watch my home movies. And lurkers...FINE YOU WIN. Just cut and paste a link in the comments, you don't have to say anything else!!!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

I can't believe it's been a whole year.

This time last year I decided to blog because we were officially starting the adoption process. Our lives had finally taken a positive turn, and there was hope for a family on the horizon. We were still undergoing infertility treatments, but somehow in our hearts we knew adoption was how we would finally realize our dream. Boy did we ever hit the jackpot. Seamonkey is all we dreamed of and more.

Jill was the first person to comment on my brand spanking new blog. She said: "congrats - we are also in the beginning steps - just did my I600A last week... looking forward to going on our journeys together!" And I'm happy to say we did just that - both of us did eventually get the elusive I600A, are now home with our beautiful new baby boys. We still keep in touch and I suppose we'll need each other's support more than ever now!. Perhaps some day we'll be able to do a play date, girl. You know, the kind where you and me go have a drink downtown and leave the kids with their dads? Yeah, that kind!

Blogging has been such a wonderful outlet for me. As I know it is with many of you, it is a way for me to process my thoughts...to vent to people who really understand me. It is amazing to get support from people who you've never met. Sometimes just getting a response or two telling me I'm not nuts was enough to get me through a particularly bad day. I thank you all for that...from those of you who have read this blog from the beginning, to the occaisonal commenters who chimed in when they had something useful to say, to the diehard lurkers - who even though I could never coerce them to comment, kept my stats up which encouraged me to keep posting.

So in honor of my blogiversary and of the support of cyber strangers everywhere, let's try a little something different, kay? Wanna?

Go right now and find another adoption or infertility blog out there that you've never read before (and preferably not one already on my blogroll). Easy enough to do, just do a little link hopping...click on a blog from my blogroll (over there on the sidebar ---- >) then click on a blog from their blogroll, then a blog from their blogroll, and so on and so on...keep going until you get at least six degrees of separation or so (I'm channeling Kevin Bacon here). Post the link in my comments and I'll update this entry with a list of some new blogs for us all to check out. Try to choose a blog you wouldn't normally gravitate to (like a different country/program) so we get some good diversity in the list.

If you'd like to have an alcoholic beverage to celebrate, I'll leave that up to you. But if you really want to honor me, make it cold and put alot of vodka in it

So leave a link, say hello, and if you want to say something nice about me and my blog, well that would be just fine too. Make me feel good and let's see how long we can make this list. And you lurkers - let's hear from you too, huh?


*UPDATE*
Here's what we've got so far! Give these bloggers a visit, and spread the support and bloggy love!!

Worth the Wait
B-Happy
The Chambers Adoption Process
Building a Family
Waiting for Sprout
A Dad’s Journey through International Adoption
Born in our hearts
Voice of the Voiceless
Karen Road Chronicles
Waiting for Brody
Mei Mei Journal
My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood
Waiting for Sophie
Anti-racist Parent
Olive You
Perky’s Perspective
Guatemalan Sisters
Two Moms Adopting

Monthly Update - Five months old

Dear Seamonkey:

Holy cow how time flies! We can't believe how quickly you are growing from a baby into a little boy. Thankfully you still have your good natured personality. You still start every day with a smile. I took this picture of you this morning, after I heard you talking to yourself in your crib:

It seems that at first you babble on to yourself for your own entertainment, then it gets louder and louder, signaling to us that you've had enough and are ready to get up. Bath time continues to be hilarious, and I'm secretly hoping that maybe there's a swimming scholarship in there somewhere for you. You are on solid foods now, and there really isn't anything you won't eat. You even like peas! You do seem partial to sweet potatoes and pears though. We found a new treat you love - mangoes! We put it in the little net thingie for you to hold and you mash that sucker flat in no time! Of course afterwards you need a hose down.You are getting very fussy with your bottle, and seem to want it less and less now. We know you've had enough when you start babbling and playing with your tongue and getting milk everywhere. So, we decided to see how you would like a cup:
You love it! Now you pull at the glass anytime we are drinking something. Of course, you do get quite soaked but you thoroughly enjoy it. We are working on your sippy cup skills so that you can hold it and drink yourself. You do better each time...you get better control of your hands every day. Getting control of your legs is a different story. You kick your legs around all the time. If we put a motor on you, you'd be off like a flash. We try tummy time with you, but you're not a big fan. We keep trying anyway! You are almost ready to turn over:
You get most of the way over, but then decide it's too much trouble and roll back. Any day now you'll make that last little push!

You are fascinated with our cats. You squeal with delight anytime either one comes into sight. Lucy pretty much ignores you, but Willow is just as fascinated with you as you are of her. She sits right next to you and lets you touch her. When you are playing, she comes right over to see what all the fuss is about. Of course, we're very watchful when they are near, although we are very confident that they will not hurt you.

The family continues to adore you. You visit your dad's parents every Monday and they love you to death. Although Grandpa G is a complete baby hog. He likes to hold you in his rocking chair and doesn't like to give him up to anyone else. You are very relaxed with him and sometimes fall asleep on his lap. Uncle M is chomping at the bit to buy you tons of sports equipment. For now he's bought you your first Mets hat:

My mom is a typical grandma to you. She sneaks you treats when she thinks I'm not looking. She gave you a lollipop for Valentine's Day which you loved. You held it yourself in front of your mouth and kept sticking out your tonuge and lapping at it like a dog. We only let you have a few licks - we know grandma is crazy. You have a fascination with my dad. Grandpa N can get you to smile when no one else can. He's like your own personal clown. You get so excited when he's around you start jumping up and down. Speaking of jumping up and down, you love your jumperoo! You can be in that thing for hours and sometimes you exhaust yourself so much you fall asleep standing in it! It is hilarious to watch you jump and shriek and squeal. You seem to really like music. For some reason, anytime SpongeBob comes on, you stop dead in your tracks and stare at the tv, loving the theme song. Sometimes, if you are crying, we can get you to stop by singing "oooooohhhhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea..." We also put children's music on for you and you listen very intently. You are partial to the Little Bunny Foo Foo song, especially when I do the hand movements for you.

You are definitely getting more fussy as your personality develops. Sometimes you'll start crying for what seems like no reason, and it is difficult to calm you down. It only lasts a short while, so we're not sure if you're starting to teethe, or are just releasing some pent up energy or what. It's okay though, we know it's part of growing up.

I have gone back to work and you are doing well being home with daddy. Dad can't wait for the weather to get warm so he can start taking walks with you and doing manly things. I can't wait to get home each day so I can squeeze you. When I first get home, you stare at me for a good long while as if to say "Hey, I know you...where've you been all day?" But thankfully you remember me pretty quickly, you let me feed you, play with you and put you to bed. Weekends are spent running around town, mostly to Target to buy you more diapers and more formula. You don't mind being in the stroller, but you are very quiet the whole time. Taking it all in I suppose. Oh but you definitely don't like putting your coat and hat on or off. That's always fun.

We can't believe that you will soon be six months old. We can't wait to see what you learn to do next. You continue to be the joy of our lives..we love you very much.