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i have an unfinished post hanging out in my drafts, all because a pressing worky matter took me away from writing sentimental things. hopefully, i’ll get to finish tomorrow.

in lieu of the post i intended to have here today, please enjoy the song that i can’t get enough of:

i hope you dance around your living room with someone you love and whistle this gorgeous, catchy melody for days to come.

asterisks.

today is jude’s 17 month birthday. i am currently trying rather hard to make the time to write a letter, spanning the last TWO months.

*frustrated sigh*

i really hope that day is tomorrow.

for now? snapshots.

yesterday, i had to turn around on my way to work, in order to return the phone and wallet h had left in my bag. upon re-entering the house, mere moments after having left, i found an unsuspecting jude straddling h’s lap on the couch, fork in hand, eating all the sweet potatoes (cooked fried potato style) off h’s plate. h appeared unable to move from underneath our foodhound. jude didn’t even notice me.

when i came home from work last night, i found jude taking her bath while wearing green-tinted baby sunglasses. she screamed with delight when she saw me. the sunglasses went all askew.

boots the monkey was in my dream the other night. he was a present tense cartoon, narcissistic as ever, and late for some playdate or something with jude. i was angry. i was angry with a cartoon. sweet lord.

the end.

ETA: ooo! i forgot. here is the first fruit of the orange tree we planted last year. i boasted posted this on fb earlier, but may have left out the fact that we buried jude’s placenta under the orange tree.

[it was a beautiful fruit, btw. but very bland in flavor. le sigh.]

cd18

for those of you sitting at the edge of your seat, waiting for an update on the state of my ovaries, this is your lucky day!

i started the clomid challenge once more for a cycle such as this. i have one seemingly bum ovary. pre-jude, i’d have a long ass cycle (40ish days), usually anovulatory. and then i’d have a more normal cycle, with confirmed ovulation.

post-jude, i have about a 16-18 day anovulatory cycle, followed by a clockwork cycle.

this is my first of the former cycles on clomid. cd18, and there is no sign of blood. nor, however, is there any sign of ovulation. oh sure, i’ve had fertile cm, twinges galore, but no sustained thermal shift, and nothing even close to a +opk. what i have had is 18 days of pms. crankiness. sugar cravings. malaise. fuck you, clomid. you’re an asshole. (now make me ovulate.)

and that is all i will say about my clomid frustrations.

to reward you for reading such drivel, here is a really cute picture of jude that i posted on fb yesterday.
i captioned it thusly: life with her mothers must be rubbing off: old tshirt, doorag, and no pants.

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so. it’s saturday night.  my brain is rather blank.  anyone out there?  what would you like to talk about?

for m.

this entry is for my wistful friend, m. she wrote a post about autumn in her yard yesterday, and it made me so very wistful for her.

my friendship with m is priceless. she has been both anchor and wings for me over the years. i love her fiercely. she has taught me all about the sanctity of the perfect cup of tea.

so we stayed with m in tennessee at the height of autumn’s glory. autumn never quite arrives in austin. the leaves hold a vaguely yellowish color until they’re brown, and then they all fall off their branches. though tennessee is no match for the pennsylvania wonder of my childhood, it’s still pretty damn majestic. it was a balm to embrace it with all my senses. and it was a gift to introduce it to my daughter.

m writes about the time of year when her grassless yard overshadows the perfectly manicured green yards of her neighbors:

in the autumn, after a good storm, when the trees shake off their leaves, my yard becomes stunning (well i’d go so far as to say jaw-droppingly gorgeous) – a wonder of nature. really. and we are the envy of the neighborhood. i smile and wave on those crisp fall mornings as my neighbors stumble towards their cars in the early morning light, hoping nobody will notice the dismal, dull state of their yard. hi there. i say. isn’t it a marvelous fall day. just look at these leaves. wow. well have a great day.

even with the rain and more rain this autumn, take a look at what’s talking about:

and, meet m’s dog, vincent, whom jude called “kitty”:

short stories

so here is a very short story that very clearly illustrates the wonder of life with my toddler:

this morning, jude learned to play the kazoo. and then she signed a perfect ‘i love you’ for the first time while nursing. i asked her if she was happy, and she giggled crazily. this afternoon, she tasted her first mcnugget. she danced around in backwards circles, shrieking with joy, half-eaten nugget in hand.

i am in love.

cookies and beer.

today, i feel like sisyphus. i do not usually write about work, mostly on account of the brave dooce who has gone before us. that, and my worklife is simply not that interesting.

but today (and yesterday, too, actually) i feel like sisyphus. since my return to work from maternity leave [read: when i realized i was now the breadwinner], i have taken that proverbial rock, and rolled it up that corporate hill with gusto. hell, i’ve even spent a whole lot of energy trying to implement ways to more efficiently roll the rock. ugh, this analogy is painfully tiresome. you know what is coming: every day i start over again. all the hopes of promotions, raises, etc are dashed, and the futility of my predicament is overwhelming.

i cried a lot yesterday. i have been quick to anger a lot today. all i want is cookies and beer, though not simultaneously. i was thinking something a little more progressive. mostly, i want it to be my turn to reach some sort of new career summit. i don’t feel entitled, just deserving.

if i write anything less vague, i’ll feel nervous. so i will leave it there.

this morning, i was a ball of nerves. there are so many bills to pay, and the layer to cover them all is ever-thinning. as i was readying to leave for work, h took me in her arms, looked me in the eye and reminded me of this truth: “you’re blessed”. i placed my hand on her heart, and repeated it. we are blessed. and we are going to survive this lean season.

pee ess, i ate a cookie.

always emerging.

so i’m cutting myself some slack with nablopomo requirements. i am staying away from the internet for most of my weekend (ie sun-mon) these days. i am becoming downright protective of uninterrupted time with my family. jude is needing my full attention right now, and i’m doing my best to give it to her.

i really can’t comprehend the explosions of knowledge and understanding that are happening in her head. she understands everything we say. she now answers questions.

me: hey jude, guess what?
jude: what?
(we are teaching her to reply with ‘chicken butt’.)

at a birthday party the other day, there were a bunch of balloons. we gave her an orange one, tied it to her belt loop, and she proceeded to run around in bliss for hours. however, she was not satisfied with just an orange balloon. so, amidst a group of talking adults, she signed “more” over and over, pointing to her favorite colored balloon: blue. when she was ignored, she said, clear as day, “i want the blue one”. a complete, grammatically correct sentence. the room quieted, all the adults staring at this creepily mature voice. jude resumed signing emphatically, and was given a blue balloon. [later, she would try to offer my breast to this new balloon bff, but it wasn't interested in breastmilk.]

language explosions are weird. she hasn’t said a sentence like that since sunday, unless you count the one word protest: iduhwantoooo, which is new. that exclamation is usually followed by the jelly-boned flop onto the floor. how she does not crack her head on the stained concrete when she tantrums remains a mystery. but, i digress. language explosions. i am forever shocked when my blathering baby comes out with a clearly spoken english phrase. it’s almost creepy. like dancing ally mcbeal baby creepy. i know that she is forming neural pathways for these phrases, and then can’t necessarily find her way back yet. last month she said “flower” like a fluent english speaker. now, she can’t repeat it.

me: can you say ‘flower’?
jude: a-ta
me: good. can you say ‘kitty’?
jude: a-ta
me: nice try. can you say ‘acetaminophen’?
jude: a-ta-ta
me: excellent.

one word, though, that she never forgets: cheeeeeese!

that’s my girl.

what we forget.

not much time to write today. i hadn’t even an inkling of what to say until a few minutes ago, actually, when a friend (whom i’d link to, but her site has gone missing) emailed me with a quote of my very own. she’d been (clearly very bored and) rummaging through the archives of my old blog, which date back to 2002, pre coming out, even. from this 2007 post, she gleaned these words:

“i am trying to say that if i can find my way back to the words, peace will only deepen within me. and if i keep writing as the peace deepens, maybe you’ll see it. recognize it. and peace will deepen within you too.

when all is calm, in heavenly peace, our breaths even out. steady. rhythmic. deep and sustaining. inhale. exhale. and rest. what more can we give one another?”

my own words were a simple reflection of a deeper call by one of my most sacred of muses, etty hillesum:

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.

i had forgotten all about writing that post, over two years ago now. so much has changed but that one constant: the need to write my way to peace, to belief, to hope. i don’t want to just be a chronicler, or god forbid, a mommyblogger. i want to wake to wonder, and tell it well.

…to all of you.

thanks for reading as i find my way.

happy saturday.

oh, my charley.

i once told a story about the sacred relationship i have with my dog, charley. if the good lawd ever gave me a proper guardian angel, it would be this some sort of aussie/spitz/healer mix. i am her person. she is my dog. and so it has been since may 2004. end of story.

at least, that was the end of the story until h and i moved in together. she has a dachshund/aussie mix (i’m not kidding) named lucy. though she has no legs, she is still very much an alpha bitch. [read: serious napoleon complex.] charley, too, is a very alpha bitch. the two came to blows many times during their first year living together. lucy would end up with a bloody ear and wounded ego. charley won every time. when our boy dogs, moe and clem, entered the picture, a proper pack was established. charley was, by far, the leader of that pack, submissive only to h and me. the bloody fights ceased.

until…enter jude.

in the beginning, as we were establishing just how to go about living every day with a newborn, charley’s routines were severely messed with. gone were the frequent walks, the snuggles, the acknowledgement of her existence. when she was acknowledged, it was to be told to move, or go outside, or stop licking my hands and feet already. and then there was this squawking baby, who smelled like me, but wasn’t me. wtf was that thing? also, there was a steady stream of people coming into her house.

charley does not do well with transitions, and i know this has a lot to do with her life before me, when she was left alone all the time, chained to a pole, and tormented by neighborhood kids. when we pack for a trip, she worries. when we pack to move, she really worries. she becomes tense and insecure. and here was all this change, all at once.

charley and lucy had one smackdown fight, when jude was a few weeks old. they worked out their balance soon after, but i was hormonal and a new mama bear, and i was SO angry with charley for awhile. i know she sensed this.

fast forward several months. charley mellowed out considerably, and found her place in our bigger pack. she accepted jude as my puppy, or at least as an extension of me. as jude became more mobile, charley deferred to her when she approached. she simply stayed out of the way.

and then, jude began to walk. no longer was she this crawling, squalling, little creature. suddenly, she stood eye level with charley, and was intensely interested in her. though both h and i were relentless about showing jude how to properly approach, pet, and not sit on dogs, we began to experience harrowing split seconds when jude would dive for charley without warning, and instead of nervously trotting off, charley began to stand her ground. and then she began to growl nervously when jude approached, though she never bared her teeth or snapped at her.

[a little backstory: a couple years ago, h's rough and tumble nephew, age 4, ran up to charley and kicked her hard in the ribs with cowboy boots. charley immediately retaliated by knocking him down and pinning him to the ground by his shirt. she could have easily bitten him, but she did not. she subdued him like a pup out of line.]

i didn’t know what to do, but when i smelled a threat to my baby, the balance of loyalty tipped mightily toward jude. and so h and i began to talk about the very real possibility that we’d have to rehome charley. but who would want a 6 year old, extremely alpha dog, who would undoubtedly revert to all her old unhealthy habits when ripped away from her pack? i put feelers out, sought advice from friends who’d faced similar situations, and began to work with jude and charley together.

though i’d made it a point from the beginning to introduce jude as a pack leader (i love you, cesar), i started working with charley and jude together to put jude’s dominance into practice. i began by teaching jude how to sign “sit” to charley, and i would let her make the command while holding her high above charley. charley acquiesced quickly to this. and then i set jude down to stand next to charley and tell her to sit. this worked too. several times a day, i would make charley roll on her back in submission while holding jude.

one day, something must have clicked for charley. she simply approached jude as she does me–with deference and affection–and licked her hand. we allowed jude to pet charley on the head, on the back, and then the ears and finally the snout. charley appeared a little nervous, but was submissive. since that day, charley has shown nothing but loyalty to jude.

h & i remain vigilantly watchful of jude’s interactions with charley, but charley has learned to relax. she has taken to guarding jude as she guards me. when jude is being danger baby, charley groans audibly from across the room, so that we will pay attention. she kisses jude’s toes and allows jude to pat her over and over.

once again, i trust my guardian angel.

in honor of uncle g’s birthday today (happy berfday! i love you! let’s have some whiskey!), here is an old photo of him with charley, who will continue to be my dog.