Biblethumping

So first of all, this is the second time I've written this entry, since I somehow managed to close my browser AS I SCROLLED THE MOUSE UP TO THE PUBLISH BUTTON, so please attribute any anger to that, and not the subject matter. The first version contained a shocking amount of non-bitterness, and really demonstrated my growth as a person, and while we're at it, let's just say it was the greatest thing ever written in the history of the English language, and this version is going to suck because GAR BLAM ANGRY.

Second of all: thank you. Thank you to everybody who commented on my last entry. Your responses were all so reasoned and diverse and thoughtful, and while it did get a little overwhelming at times, overall they made for excellent reading yesterday while I LAID AROUND IN BED WITH A GROSSLY SWOLLEN MOUTH FROM HAVING MULTIPLE CAVITIES DRILLED AND ALSO THEY SOOTHED THE PAIN IN MY HEART FROM THE DENTAL BILL I PAID. A DENTAL BILL THAT INCLUDED A COMMA.

Oy. But that's a different entry o' bitching. Today's entry is about y'all, and how much I appreciate the time you took to write about something so deeply personal...and so deeplier unhip. Also for mostly keeping the fire and brimstone out of the conversation. REPENT, YE BLOGGER, LEST THE DEVIL HIMSELF RISE FROM HELL TO HEAP DECAY AND DESTRUCTION UPON THOU TEETH AND GUMS.

I was also encouraged to see that most of you actually get my real point (which, given my incredibly imprecise and poorly punctuated writing, is easy to miss): the faith/religion/whatever of my childhood was very much an all-or-nothing concept. It didn't leave a lot of room for questioning (unless you were okay with the answer always being: FAITH, my child. You simply must have FAITH.) Either you believed every word of the Bible literally, including the 24-hour days of the creation story, and went to church every week and voted Republican and didn't smoke or drink or curse or engage in heavy petting...or you were simply not good enough.

Which is why it's still a real struggle for me to accept that I can ditch 99% of that and be anything other than a godless heathen. Which is exactly what I've secretly thought of myself for the better part of a decade now. Since...well, that's exactly what we always called the Unitarians and the wishy-washy "God is everywhere" people and OMG THEY ARE PROBABLY PART OF A NEW AGE CULT LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU IT'S SATAN! AAAHHH!

(And really and truly and honestly? I AM afraid of dying and going to hell. Rhett! Save me!)

And I know. I know! For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast. Dude, I memorized that verse for Sunday school about a million times. I think there was even a praise chorus for it. So I don't know where I got all tangled up in the crazy legalism. Maybe it was my own perfectionism, maybe it was some passive-aggressive ministering, maybe it was because I was so damned IMMERSED in it all the damned time, what with going to church five times a week and the Christian school and whatnot. Somewhere along the way I got caught up in a never-good-enough mindset where I would stress because I could never keep up with my morning devotions and began to have doubts about two of every animal REALLY fitting on a single boat and also? Dinosaurs?

And of course, let's not forget all the church splits and acrimony and just downright embarrassingly awful behavior I witnessed that was all done in the name of Christ.

Christ. My teeth still hurt.

Last night I had a dream that I was passed over from some awesome imaginary blogging-type job because "they" wanted someone who was more than "just a mommyblogger." And so they refused to even read the sample entries I provided, including the one from Tuesday. And I got all mad and stomped around because it was about GOD, MOTHERFUCKERS, and it was DEEP and only TANGENTIALLY mentioned my kid, so STOP PUTTING ME IN A CORNER, I WILL CUT YOU.

(Yes, I really told them I would cut them. Perhaps the dream actually symbolized that I need to brush up on my interview skills?)

(Also, I only included this story so I could transition from talking about God, motherfuckers, and get back to talking about my kid. Yes.)

Yesterday Noah and I were hanging out in the backyard. He was chasing after Ceiba and shrieking at the top of his lungs and no, I don't know why my neighbor sends her six-year-old out to talk to me on purpose now, while I sat out with my laptop sending whiny emails to people about my teeth. Every once in awhile I'd squirt him with the hose.

At some point I glanced at the clock and realized that it was seven o'clock. Seven! Noah eats dinner at six! Oh shit! But then I shrugged and forgave myself for the omg worst mother evah hyperbole o' guilt, because Noah was obviously having fun and would have let me know if he was really that hungry.

That's when I noticed that Noah was desperately attempting to suck up hose water from the planks of the deck.

So. Question. The whole grace-not-deeds thing. That totally applies to parenting too, right?

I will not forget this, Mother. And one day I shall blame all of my existential gardening woes on you. Probably on my blog.

Crisis of Faith & Salsa

We went to Chipotle for lunch on Sunday. Jason stood in line while I snagged an empty table. As I tried to navigate Noah and a high chair across the crowded restaurant, hoping to not whack anybody in the ankles, I felt the weight of the high chair vanish. A young man wordlessly took it from me and carried it to my table, while I thanked him repeatedly, surprised at the unexpected help -- and also at how surprised I was about the unexpected help.

He sat down at his own table, bowed his head and prayed silently over his burrito.

I remember how my family used to pray over meals in restaurants. I remember not caring for a lot of years, and then I remember caring so very much. I remember my face flushing with embarassment as my parents prayed aloud over burgers and fries at Friendly's, while our waitress hovered nearby, unsure whether placing the ketchup bottle on the table would disturb our communion with the Lord Father in Heaven.

A few minutes later a family asked the man if they could join  him at his oversized table since there weren't any other seats. They were obviously eating out post-Church, dressed in their Sunday best, like my family had done almost every Sunday for my entire life. We attended a casual church but dressed up anyway -- it was disrespectful otherwise, although at some point in time I think my mother consented to letting my wear nice pants instead of a dress.

Soon the entire table was engaged in an easy, friendly sort of conversation. I wondered if the family had seen the young man say grace a few minutes earlier, or if they saw his shorts and t-shirt and assumed he needed to be saved. I wondered if they'd try to save his soul right there, like the time I made that little boy ask Jesus into his heart on the playground at McDonald's.

I wondered what they thought of my family, just one table away, all wearing shorts and flip-flops. I wondered if they felt sorry for Noah, like I used to feel sorry for the children at the booth next to us on Sundays, the day it was easiest to tell who went to church and who was a Godless lazy heathen.

I remember stressing about the fate of our fellow restaurant patrons to the point that I was unable to eat -- what if that baby over there never heard about God? Would it be my fault for not talking to her parents today? Would she go to hell because I was too busy enjoying my clown sundae with the M&Ms at the bottom to plant the seed of faith in their hearts and would Jesus look at me sadly one day in heaven because I'd been the crucial part in his plan for that little girl? Would he show me the jewels I could have had in my crown that I'd forfeited because I'd been too embarassed to close my eyes during grace that day, when that's all it would have taken to be a witness for Christ?

The family asked the young man about where he worked and lived and how long he'd been here in America. They asked him whether the burritos were authentic or not, and whether he liked the hot salsa.

"They're different, but good." he answered with a smile. "And I like the medium."

I thought about how I ended up with a child named for a Bible story but who has never been to church. Who has never been baptized. I thought about the children's Bibles and religious books our families have given us and wondered whether they worry that we'll never tell him about Jesus. Or whether the salvation of his soul is their burden alone. I wondered what in the world I'm supposed to tell him about his Fisher-Price Noah's Ark playset.

I wondered what happened to my faith and my fervor and my absolute belief in the Bible and the existence of God and heaven. I wondered when everything got so messed up for me, and why I have such ambivalence to the idea of putting on some nice pants and going to church on Sunday.

The church family's little boy spilled some rice, and the young man handed them his extra napkins.

I wonder if he'll ever know how much his actions spoke to me this Sunday.

Let's Go To the Zoo, Part Two

I tried to tell Bunny that the fucking zoo fucking sucks, but she didn't believe me. She'd been to the fucking zoo and had a perfectly lovely time, save for the somewhat chilly March weather (she's from California, and thinks we're all nuts for living on this coast, where your car gets snowed in and you have to wear jackets and whatever the hell).

So I allowed myself to be talked into going back to the fucking zoo. We'd go during the week! In the morning! Noah is old enough now! The pandas aren't such a big fucking deal anymore! It's gonna be great!

So we packed up snacks and sippy cups and loaded up the offroading strollers and drove to the fucking zoo.

The beginning of the day. Full of promise and hope and overwhelming skepticism.

That arrow, by the way, led us to a non-stroller accessible walkway with a bazillion stairs. That was possibly in the jungle. Where those screeching ink-shooting dinosaurs that killed Newman probably live. We opted to hike up a small hill to a different entrance.

About halfway up the hill I started wheezing. And sweating. And cursing at Bunny in foreign languages that I do not speak. About three-quarters of the way up the hill we noticed the signs that said pedestrians were forbidden on this road, and also there were about a dozen tour buses barreling down the road right at us.

You know how they say mothers sometimes get superhuman strength when their children are in danger? Yeah, that totally didn't happen, and I just glared at the buses and made them stop until we finished slowly trudging up that damn hill.

Needless to say, we were not starting off well. The sight of three hundred million billion other people milling around the fucking zoo didn't help either.

"SEE? THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT," I yelled at Bunny over the din of of the crowd, as we attempted to push our strollers through a wall of people in matching red shirts and name tags, even though they were not part of the same group. It's just that every group there decided to wear red shirts, pretty much defeating the purpose, and giving the fucking zoo an unfortunate bloody-mass-genocide vibe.

We trudged uphill to the visitor's center. The ATM machine almost ate Bunny's card. We paid $2.50 for bottled water and discovered the biggest flaw in our plan: in order for Max and Noah to actually see the animals, we had to take them out of their strollers. And then we had to put them back in, and each time we went through this process the boys protested more and more about going back into the stroller.

We saw the top of the panda's head. The elephants were all going to the bathroom, and at first I wondered aloud about the deformed one that had TWO trunks, oh my God, what's wrong with it, until I realized I was actually looking at its wang.

We saw a lot of animal wang, actually. I don't even have any animal photos to post, since honestly, I have no interest in being THAT KIND OF SITE. (I'm already the number-two Google result for "mucus plug pictures," thankyouverymuch.)

We also saw two orangutans fighting. Or so we thought, at first.

Nope, they were fucking. It was...pretty awesome, since every adult brought their kid to the display, took a second to process what they were seeing, then hustled over to the next window, all oh my goodness, oh my GOODNESS!

Bunny and I stayed. Of course we did. Because we are 12, and also, it was the first time we were able to enjoy a damn exhibit away from the crowds. I almost wish I'd brought my video camera, because dude, YOUTUBE SENSATION.

Noah liked the elephants and I think the tiger, but they only had girl-lions and I told Bunny that girl-lions were OF NO USE TO ME, since Noah only recognizes the boy-lions with the manes. So I didn't bother showing him the girl-lions. (We'd created some guidelines by this point for what was worth a stroller extraction and what was not sponge-worthy, so to speak.)

I took a picture so I could show him later though. And since this one is wang-free I can post it.

Can you not just feel the excitement? Can you sense the magic and wonder?

Here's Noah seeing an elephant for the first time, clearly blown away by the magnificent sight of the enormous beast and...

Whoops, nope. He's got his stroller strap there. Never mind.

The highlight of the entire day was a cow. A COW. It was at the petting zoo area and Noah freaking lost his mind over the damn cow. It did not moo, however, which disappointed Max, who before yesterday thought he knew what the cow says, and now feels that perhaps his refrigerator magnets have not been entirely truthful with him.

I thought Noah liked the goats too, but upon further reflection of the photographic evidence, I see that it was probably not so much about the goats.

ABALL. OHMIGOD WE WALKED THREE MILES UPHILL BOTH WAYS TO SEE ABALL.

By this point we'd been at the fucking zoo for a whopping hour and twenty minutes.

Aaaaaand time to go.

The end of the day. Exhausted. Disillusioned. Sticky.

We drove back to Bunny's house for lunch and playdate cocktails, and amused the boys for HOURS by chucking balloons at the ceiling fan.

I emailed Bunny this morning about weekend plans (we're aiming low this time, I think. perhaps we will make aballs out of tin foil and teach the boys how to fetch) and mentioned that despite showering TWICE already, I still felt a little zoo-stankish.

She emailed back: actually, you do still smell like monkey sex house, but it works for you.

The fucking zoo, man. Literally.

Today's Agenda

We're going to the fucking zoo.

Fuck.

I am wearing my most ugliest comfortable walking shoes, and yet I still inexplicably felt compelled to shave my legs. Noah appears to be preemptively underwhelmed.

I will report back from the other side, no doubt with a broken spirit and several blisters.

It's like being in a cubicle all over again.

Today's post is guest-authored by my six-year-old neighbor, who composed it while standing on her recycle bin so she could talk to me over the fence, as she does every day, whenever possible. I think she has a strong and unique voice for the blogosphere and a innate sense of storytelling. Mostly I admire her knack for the run-on sentence.

Hi! I am tall, see how I can see you now? This is better for my toes than just the fence plus I am only a foot away from our trampoline did you know we had a trampoline? and so if I fall like whoa! I will fall on the trampoline but only if I don't fall less than a foot which would be bad my mom says we are having chicken for dinner.

We made up a game you wanna know how to play it? It's called cracking the egg because we go like this and then we go POW like this and stand up and we make it up all by ourselves my brothers and me and my brother said we should call it cracking the egg and that's what we call it your dog is taking a poo you gonna have to pick it up?

We watched our friend's dog for awhile but she was big and so were her poos and also stinky hey look I am standing on one leg can your baby stand one leg? does he say goo goo gah gah? I used to say goo goo gah gah but not anymore, maybe like six years ago maybe, okay probably five because I am only getting started with six but I was five for a long time my birthday was just a couple weeks ago and we got ice cream and you know what? Today is my dad's birthday and we're throwing him a party but it's a surprise so shh don't tell him, okay? Well, he knows we're throwing a party but he doesn't know who is coming to the party so that's the surprise part also I cleaned my room does your baby have a lot of toys in there?

My brother claps his hands like this and he is so loud do you ever hear him clap his hands? Like this? SO LOUD. I MEAN REALLY. Boys are like that. Loud. Your baby looks like a boy already I saw him in his baby pool the other day does he go in his baby pool everyday? How many days? Does he play with your hair ever? 

I've been in your house before. My friend used to live there and I remember what it looks like. I saw it empty too after she moved out and I was sad do you think I could see what your house looks like now sometime? I am good with babies maybe we could play sometime? And when your baby gets bigger he could come to play on the trampoline and I will make sure he doesn't fall in the foot of space here okay I have to go now bye!

Hostess Cupcake

We threw our first honest-to-God actual dinner party in the new house this weekend -- a party where we invited multiple people whom we are not related to, where we cooked multiple courses and I was in the basement frantically ironing dinner napkins as our first guests arrived because heavens! To Betsy, even! WRINKLED DINNER NAPKINS = FAILURE AT ADULTHOOD.

And here is some more math for you:

Seven adults - not enough chairs + three designated drivers x one pregnant woman + two toddler moms who drank all the wine and would not stop talking about birth and labor and mucus plugs + two toddlers + one tumble off the back deck and another damn bloody mouth in front of the SAME PEOPLE who saw the LAST bloody mouth and who now think parenthood is pretty much one bloody mouth after another. And also mucus plugs, which the poor pregnant woman never even heard of until last night but now knows everything you could possibly know about mucus plugs, including the size, color and consistency = ONE FREAKING AWESOME DINNER PARTY.

(Seriously, that equation totally adds up right. Just carry the one.)

He will hike up his shorts leg to show you his "abooboo" on his knee, which he got last week and is REALLY IMPRESSED WITH. The new one on his mouth? Eh. He's seen worse, you big pussy.

Getting ready for this dinner party was an experiment in terror for Jason and me, since we've been living in our new house for almost six months now, but until yesterday the place looked like we'd just moved in last weekend.

We're about to replace all the windows and...da dada DAAA!...put hardwoods down in the whole entire damn house, but these are projects we've been "about to do" for many months now, and I put a lot of other projects on hold until "after the floors are done."

Some of these projects included:

1) Assembling office furniture
2) Hanging things on walls
3) Cleaning anything, ever

I tried to talk myself into the Pergo, y'all. I TRIED SO HARD TO LOVE IT. And I tried to be okay with the old grody carpet and our plan to not replace anything until we were done with toddlerhood once and for all, but then the DC-area humidity hit, and oh my fucking lands, every latent smell and stain in that old grody carpet came to the surface and OUR HOUSE SMELLED LIKE MILDEW AND PEE.

We now have one of these things puffing away in every room right now, like it's a public bathroom or something, although that's exactly what Ceiba thinks several rooms are, apparently. And Max decided that he likes to poop in this one corner of the basement rec room, even though his litter box is in the other corner.

I'm seriously about to ship these pets to China. In a box labeled "wheat gluten."

Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh, the dinner party. And all my efforts to mask and disguise the carpet pee smell for my guests, which I have probably rendered null and void by telling the Internet about the carpet pee smell the very next day.

We made deep-fried risotto balls, fava bean crostini, figs stuffed with marscapone cheese and Greek yogurt and brined chicken. And by "we" I mean "Jason," except that I shelled and peeled fava beans for HOURS AND HOURS on Saturday and I also made some awesome herbed potatoes. Which we didn't serve because I forgot to ever cook them.

I am awesome. However, my dinner napkins were flawlessly ironed. They still are, actually, since I made everybody use paper ones.

But look! I assembled my office furniture! I have an office! Where I do a lot of very important professional writer-type things!

(Think anybody noticed there isn't a chair?)

Where I actually do all my work, since it's closer to the kitchen, the TV and my US Weekly.

Tire: NOT INVITED TO PARTY.

See? I told you the party totally ruled.

His New Favorite Word

ABEAD! BEAD BEAD BEAD!

Great. Because "bead" comes in so handy in so many conversations.

SAY MAMA. SAY MAMA ALREADY GODDAMMIT.

Wait. Shit.

Oh, please don't let his next word be goddammit. Oh, please hell no.

More Crap About Number Two

(It's a pun!)

Jason and I had a long talk this weekend about this. (That's a lot of this for one small sentence.) We've done a lot of talking about this, but since there's no easy answer we tend to just change the subject after a couple minutes and move on to simpler topics. (Like, shall we open more wine? Why, yes, please!) (Just call us the Wine Vikings.)

This time I cut through all the crazy what-ifs and hypotheticals and layers (specialty of the house! onion parfait!) and just asked Jason what his gut was telling him. We put a lot of trust in Jason's gut around here, as it has never once led us wrong. Unlike my gut, which is impulsive and reactionary and usually craving burritos.

Jason took a moment to listen to his gut. He cocked his head and everything.

"I think we should wait."

"Ohgoodmetoo." I breathed a sigh of relief. And my ambivalence was suddenly obvious, and I confessed to feeling supremely overwhelmed by the thought of dealing with morning sickness and pregnancy and a newborn and breastfeeding and two kids in diapers in the immediate future, and choosing it ON PURPOSE.

It turns out my own gut has been screaming NOT NOW! NOT NOW! all along.  And here I just thought it was asking for more burritos.

So. No Clomid for us. No RE appointments or injectables or ovulation predictor kits.

But. We will also not actively prevent pregnancy, and if it happens, we will be happy. Ohplease. We will be very happy.

And. I am going to pursue some less invasive treatment options, I think. Taking better care of myself. Regular exercise, yoga, de-stressing as much as possible. Maybe some acupuncture, like so many of you recommended on Friday's post. (Anybody have a good DC-area recommendation, by any chance?) But my health will be the primary objective -- long, irregular cycles or even no cycles at all are not good for me, fertility concerns aside, you know?

I've spoken to several doctors about it, and their solution is generally to whip out a prescription pad (want a baby? Clomid. don't want a baby? birth control pills). I don't do well on either option, so I'm going to see if I can find the elusive Option Number Three on my own.

I don't want to go to war with my body, so for now I'm just going to pick my battles. And achieving pregnancy at any cost just isn't one of them. Maybe one day, it will be. (We are only saying, "wait," after all. Neither one of us is particularly okay with saying "never.")  We'll cross that bridge when we come it, if I may mix metaphors to an insane degree here, what with the battles and the bridges and the guts and all.

I also have to ask for forgiveness, since I know I occasionally mix messages along with my metaphors. Because even though I feel very at peace with our current plan of semi-non-action...up until this morning I secretly thought I might already be pregnant, and was gleefully composing the "Guess what! I'm an asshole! Behold the positive peestick!" post in my head.

Of course, the peesticks were negative, and I got my period this morning. So. Guess what! I'm an asshole.

So that's where we're at. I want it, but apparently not enough. Right now. This minute. Ask me in a month, maybe. And remind me not to make any more grand, self-righteous pronouncements on the matter, at least not before lunchtime.

What I Did On My Bloggy Vacation

Not so much of a vacation as technical difficulties, as we've gone from a busted keyboard to a busted power cord and I was completely laptopless for most of the weekend and yesterday:

Luckily, I managed to keep myself occupied. SOMEHOW:

Happy Mother's Day! Now everybody get the hell away from me so I can concentrate on mah show. Oh, but bring me another mimosa first.

***
I mowed a lawn for the first time in my entire life on Saturday. I nearly took a chunk out of my flip-flop with the weed whacker, but otherwise the entire operation took place without incident. I just feel the need to document this important event in the Suburbification of Amalah.

***

We also said goodbye to Heather this weekend. I have nothing to say about this except that she is a whore and I hate her. Also that I cried and hugged her a lot.

You will never guess what her goodbye present to Noah was.

I am posting this one because I know it will break her heart, and I am vindictive.

***
In other news, I went to the dentist this morning, which is always fine holiday fun, especially when it's been about two years since your last appointment.

"So why haven't you seen a dentist since early 2005?"

"I had a baby. I got distracted."

Obviously, my mouth is a big hot mess at this point, as I have apparently clenched and grinded all the enamel off of several teeth, and pushed other teeth into my jaw, where they are currently bumping and grinding against my jaw bone. Apparently when tooth vs. bone (the ultimate oral grudge match!), the tooth wins.

(Also, apparently when your dentist says stuff like "your teeth are bumping and grinding against your jaw bone," the appropriate response is not, "a-boom-chicka-bow!")

I'll spare you the rest of the gory tooth details, but suffice to say: it's gonna take a little more than some Thomas the Tank Engine Training Toothpaste to fix things in there.

***

And this one is just for the sheer, blissful hell of it.

Number Two

This morning Noah and I played our game of Gimme Kisses. I tell him to gimme kisses, please. He shakes his head no, and then I swoop in for a kiss anyway, while making a big, exaggerated mmmmmmmmmmmmmMWA sound. Then he giggles.

This morning I stopped playing after a few kisses. He started humming. "Mmmmmm." He reached up and put his hands on my cheeks and leaned in.

"MWA!" he shrieked, covering my face with kisses. Then we both giggled.

Yeah. I gotta get me another one of these.

***
Two things I said I'd never do again:

1) Have another child.
2) Take Clomid.

They went together pretty nicely, I thought.

But like a lot things I swore I'd never do (suburbs! yard! skinny jeans! hotdogs for lunch!), I changed my mind about Number One. I want another baby. WE want another baby.

The five of you who read the ClubMom blog know that Jason and I have been trying for awhile now. I don't know how long, exactly. Maybe since Noah's first birthday? Maybe even before that? I seem to remember using the BlogHer swag bag condom at some point, but honestly, we've never really used birth control since Noah was born.

"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," Jason said once about a second pregnancy, while I pondered the calendar in a minor morning-after freakout and looked at him, like THAT'S BITCH-CRAZY TALK, HELL YES IT WOULD BE, OUR CHILD STILL HAS POOPS THAT SHOOT PAST HIS NECK.

But then I gradually came around to his way of thinking. No, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. In a lot of ways it would be pretty great.

***
Which brings us to rethinking Thing Number Two. Stupid Number Two.

The 10 of you who have been reading all along might remember that I took Clomid for a few months with no success, waaay back in 2004.  Those were pretty much the most miserable months of my life and I went completely batshit crazy afterwards, with depression and panic and I was just all around a Big Hot Mess. (I can't even bring myself to link to the entries from that time, even though they don't even begin to really express just how bad things got.)

I'm not sure if I've ever really spelled out my fertility issues here, so for those just joining us: I am annovulatory. I do not ovulate on my own, ever. I get periods -- usually every 45 to 50 days, but sometimes much more infrequent. In 2001 (2002? god, am senile. where the fuck are my keys?) I got two periods for the entire year.

We don't really know why -- I don't have PCOS or thyroid problems. I had an eating disorder all through high school, but I'd already had irregular periods for a few years before my anorexia developed. So I float around in the pool of Unexplained Infertility, watching my cycles get longer and more whacked out by the month. It's not insurmountable and it's not the end of the world -- but it's enough to color and complicate your reproductive plans.

After upping the dose of Clomid a couple times, I managed to ovulate, but didn't conceive. Then I got sick and we decided to take some time off from the baby-making and try again in the new year.

Then, of course, I fucking got pregnant. Like a normal human being, without Clomid or an IUI or even a damn thermometer. (The people who told me it was because I "just relaxed" are all buried under the floorboards of our old condo, thankyouverymuch.)

That pretty much brings us to now. I hoped that having Noah would "fix" everything. Like he was this 9-pound, 15-ounce Post-It Note that said HEY LOOK! WAY TO GO ON THE FULFILLING OF YOUR PRIMARY PURPOSE, OVARIES!

But no, everything is the same as it has always been. Which means we have two options:

1) Wait and see if we get lucky again.
2) Try Clomid again.

Stupid Number Two.

***
I don't know what option we're going to go with, honestly. On the one hand, I'm sick of thinking about this and marking tiny yet ultimately useless X's on the calendar. I'm sick of wondering if we'll get lucky next month or next year or ever.

On the other hand, I don't necessarily feel ready right this second to have another baby. Sometimes I still feel like I just HAD a baby. That I still HAVE a baby. That it's too soon and too much and maybe we should just let it happen when it's meant to happen, like Jason always said pre-Noah, and it pisses me off that he was right because I don't necessarily believe that things always happen when they're "meant" to happen, I mean, look at every reality TV show in the history of reality TV shows where my favorite contestant got voted off too soon.

On the other hand, Jason and I are both much, MUCH younger than our siblings. In a lot of ways we were only children. Which wasn't bad at all, oh no, but...I don't know. I think I'd enjoy watching Noah grow up with a sibling close to his age and wonder if we shouldn't get a little aggressive before too much time passes. I worry he'll be spoiled or lonely on his own, blah blah typical family planning mindfuck.

On the other hand, Clomid made me crazy.

I wonder if it would be as bad this time, since maybe I would be (shut up) more relaxed, since I have Noah and the knowledge that I CAN get pregnant and CAN carry to term, and honestly, I don't necessarily feel like not having a second child would be any big devastating thing. I mean, we want one, but if you told me tomorrow that our family was complete as-is I'd still feel pretty damn lucky and content.

On the other hand, I might only think that because deep down, I'm secretly pretty smug and confident that we'll be able to have a second baby eventually.

On the other hand, I am fresh out of other hands. I'm talking in circles and boring even myself. And I find myself pretty fascinating. Look! My belly button is squishy.

***

I look at his face and know that he is enough. He is more than enough. And yet because he is enough, more than enough, to fill my heart and life with such mind-boggling amounts of joy, I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to have that joy times two.

I cannot help but to take his face in my hands and cover it with kisses, while silently praying gimme baby. Please.