tanks.

this tiny little post is simply one of thanks.

dear readers–friends–thank you for walking our path with us, for joining us on our sacred journey. you are a very loved bunch of people and i am ever grateful you stick around and celebrate this little fambly of mine.

be safe and blessed tomorrow, whether you are consuming turkey and pumpkin pie or not.

*mwah*

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conversations

jude has finally begun to say ‘no’. though hearing the word will undoubtedly grow old soon enough, right now, it is simply adorable. she says no in a very polite way, as if she doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying it. furthermore, it comes out sounding like a question, with her little lilting voice. and the accompanying head nod? totally rivals that of stevie wonder in a ‘boogie on reggae woman’ moment.

conversations go a little like this:

me: jude, do you watch dora?
j: no…no?
me: do you want a snack?
j: no…no?
me: do you want to read a book?
j: no…no?
me: do you want to go to the park?
j: no…no?
me: do you want world peace?
j: no…no?
me: well, what do you want, then?
j: *makes the sign for milk*

and then she laughs and laughs and rushes my boobies.

i love my kiddo. i love that she already has a finely honed sense of humor, and that it’s all kinds of silly.

exhibit a:

here she is watching the rain while wearing 3d glasses. it must be noted that she is not wearing pants.

in other news, my internet–and soon to be IRL, right?–friend, christine featured a pic of j and me on her blog today. every week, she posts a lovely photo of a breastfeeding mama, and every week, i get a little weepy. i highly recommend that you read her. her life is amazing: a gaggle of bio and adopted kids living in an RV park that she and her husband just purchased. if she owned some goats, i’m sure h would leave me and pitch a permanent tent onsite.

ETA: great. now i can’t stop thinking about jim trott from the vicar of dibley:

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justice.

this brings tears to my eyes, in a grateful sort of way.

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so guess what?

cd21 seems to have been my lucky day, yesterday! twinges and cramps and more twinges, oh my! my bum ovary did her thing! our timing could not have been better. opk was negative this morning, and my temp has definitely shot up.

so, i didn’t conceive for my birthday. i’m thinking the even better auspice is thanksgiving. right?

here we go. this time next year, we may be the house of virgo.

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16 & 17 months.

dear jude,

i never wrote a letter last month, and that dereliction of duty can be attributed to the following factors (in no particular order):

1. over the course of three weeks, we all got sick.
2. i worked a lot of overtime to compensate for #1.
3. we drove seventeen hours to nashville, where we spent nearly a week.

i do hope you forgive me, darling girl. now that i am sitting here, trying to recall two months of development, i am drawing a blank. because so much has happened. your personality has burst forth with all kinds of effervescence. you engage your toys in elaborate play now. often, you will only interact with me if i am voicing elmo, or your beanie horse called pony, or the my little pony knockoff who sports a buzzcut, on account of your former habit of eating hair (also called pony). you offer your toys water, snacks, or my breast. you encourage them to throw balls. you play with them. it’s wildly entertaining for me to be part of.

you LOVE playgrounds. with every visit you grow braver about climbing and sliding. you are as tall as a three year old. and you are making a mighty effort to match their abilities. however, you also eat pebbles. well, you chew on them, actually. call us horrible mothers, but we let you do it, too. because it is a miserable fight to fish them out of your mouth. we haven’t seen any evidence of you swallowing them. and you always spit them out when you’re done. also, you’ve been working on two molars for months now, and chomping on little stones seems to bring you relief. so, chomp on.

speaking of those damned molars, you have been on a regimen of ibuprofen/tylenol/teething tablets for a long time now. you despise the bubblegum flavored ibuprofen (but are ok with the clear cherry stuff), and adore the grapeish tylenol. when it is time for medicine, you scream TY!!! YEAH! WOW! then, i tap 3 teething tablets into my palm, and you pluck them with your delightful pincer grasp, 1-2-3, and savor them in a happy mouth. kid? you are adorable.

your love affair with books has deepened. mama h has noticed that when i am home, you bring me all the books about mommies to read to you. you sit cozily in my lap, and masterfully turn the pages. you have definitely entered the age of wanting books to be read to you again and again and again. it never gets old for me, either. those moments when you are awake, and sitting still? bliss.

jude, i have to confess that trying to remember all the ways you’ve grown over the past two months is really daunting. you are so wondrously present tense that it is hard to be anywhere but NOW with you. i can tell you with a vivid recall that every morning, you sit between your mothers and point to us, back and forth. we say mama mommy mama mommy mama mommy until you dissolve into a happy giggle, usually after you point to my nipple and i say, “nipple”, which is your favorite word. but, ask me to remember when you began to tantrum in earnest? when your adoration for cats shifted to DOGS? all i know is that it has all happened.

so, my darling, i will let photos tell the stories i can’t.

in closing, i want to say this (in the spirit of wonder-filled, squishy mothers everywhere): jude, every day, i watch closely as you wake up to the world around you, and i am so proud of your bravery, your burgeoning wisdom, and your tenderness. you are in love with your life, so content and mindful of every morsel (and pebble), and i am overwhelmed sometimes that i get to be your mother. i was lucky enough to be the one you chose to house you for nine months, and now i get to raise you? to instill the security of home? to protect you? i get to do all these things? i am overwhelmed, but overjoyed. and ever thankful.

i love you so.
mommy

and now for those photos!

here you are with your primo, carlos, on my 31st birthday! (26 october)

and here you are with your new friends, harper & mateo, when you met for the first time on 10 october. in this particular photo, the three of you are being wrangled on a steep driveway.

who can forget the day you spent with your cousins aaron and connar? here, big kid aaron really wants to hold you. you are so over being held by him, since he has been trying to carry you all day. 26 september

grandpa joe stopped by and hung out with you in the playroom. you allowed him to read to you for approximately 37 seconds. i am lucky to have caught this brief, lovely moment. 27 september

you still love balls.

this look? oh you beautiful girl. nothing but confidence. 18 october

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home

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.

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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.]

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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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placeholder

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

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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”:

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