Oh. Yeah. That. No.

I'll spare you the anti-climatic peestick photo, though rest assured I have quite the collection of no, not even, nada and girl, please.

What I don't have, despite it being well into that time of the month, is a period. That would actually be kind of nice, just to have that last little glimmer of dumb hope definitively snuffed out, in a way that all these negative pregnancy tests seem to be unable to do.

Bleh. This blows. 

The Easy vs. The Good

(Fair warning here: this post is one big emo crybaby jag away from being my own LEAVE BRITNEY ALONNNNNE! video, even though it is not about Britney at all)

(But for real, people. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONNNNNNE!)

So there's this song on one of Noah's Signing Time DVDs -- it's over the end credits and has made me emit a Free-Hugs-Campaign-Like-Snorfle on more than one occasion. Rachel (Signing Time host/creator/Noah's favorite thing this side of creepy animatronic choo-choos) wrote it for her husband, presumably sometime after their first daughter was born deaf and their second daughter was born with spina bifida and cerebral palsy:

It was you and me and the whole world right before us
I couldn’t wait to start
I saw you and dreams just like everyone before us
We thought we knew what we got

And then one day I thought it slipped away
And I looked to my hands to hold on
And then one day all my fear slipped away
And my hands did so much more

So maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good
No, maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good.

And this is where I'd dissolve into a puddle of mush, because SO BRAVE! So inspirational! So RISING TO THE OCCASION!

(Bear with me, folks, it's been a hormonal day year decade.)

I've been singing that last chorus a lot this past week (in my head, of course, I have no desire to inflict that sort of suffering on my family), mostly every time I come to Typepad and stare at a blank entry page.

I'm so tired of this. Of writing the same, whiny entry about how hard therapy is and how badly Noah behaves at his little classes and trying to think of a new and "funny" way to describe a temper tantrum. And really, what's the point? This little blip in Noah's development has been documented enough. I've gotten valuable advice and support and my goodness, it's been a huge help. (Transitional objects from home! Photo album of the classroom!) But at this point, I don't really need any more reassurance that we're doing the right thing, because I know we're doing the right thing. I know it will get better, but in the meantime how many times can I write that hey, we aren't there yet?

There are plenty of blogs out there where you can read about how tough motherhood is and how much it can suck and how impossible kids are. I never wanted to be of those, particularly since this blog was always intended to be read by its very precious main subject someday.

Lately I've struggled with a lot of stuff I never wanted to be. Back in the pre-Noah days, when I bargained with God and the universe for a baby, back when I pledged a Holy Mother Christ-like level of care and love for whatever hypothetical baby I ended up with. Oh, I was going to do everything right and lovelovelove shinyrainbowunicornbutts. I was never going to yell or lose my temper or be that mom storming out of the grocery store dragging a limp-noodle screaming toddler behind her by the arm with that grim look of oh my god I will KILL the first person who even DARES look at me cross-eyed and judge my parenting.

I guess some days the best you can hope for is never again. Or maybe just that it'll happen when you're shopping at an off time, thus reducing the number of witnesses.

(Here's where the bad stand-up comedian in me wants to slide in a rimshot like, "Motherhood Would Be So Much Easier Without All These Damn Kids!" Ha! Lemme cross-stitch that onto a sweatshirt for ya.)

It's certainly not in my nature to sugarcoat anything -- more so these days than ever -- but by writing about and focusing on the Hard, I feel like I'm missing out on the Good.

On Wednesday Noah sat in my lap and ate some Cheerios and after a few minutes I slid him into a chair next to his classmates. He stayed there. He poked a piece of pineapple when asked, he shared his cup with the girl next to him, he obediently put his plate and fork in the clean-up bucket. He went to the bookshelf like the teacher told him to before resuming his temporarily paused freak-out.

On Thursday he played well with the other children during free time. He watched a boy send a car down a slide and started to go for the car before pausing to see if the other boy was really done playing with it. He used sign language to ask for a turn. The other little boy signed no, and Noah calmly went to find another car. Free time ended. Stuff happened. It was hard. But then he sat and ate a snack and drank from a juice box for the very first time.

Last night he took a pasta noodle and pressed it across his face like a mustache. He declared himself to be "a PopPop!"

It's all so very, very good.

Wish us luck and lunch and more effective social stories

Back to Lunch Bunch today. I have spent the entire morning talking about sitting! And how sitting is fun! We LOVE to sit! Sitting is our FAVORITE!

Noah's responses, so far: Nope, No, Not Even, Nonononono and one Tarzan-like ear-piercing NOOOOOOOO that I can't even spell phonetically because there's this Exorcist-like quality at the end that doesn't quite correspond to our earthly alphabet.

And then the cat threw up on my bed.

I think I am going to go eat some bacon.