Me: So. Noah. Noah: LOOK OUT! DINOSAURS! Me: What? Oh. Listen. Noah: THE DINOSAURS ARE GOING TO EAT OUR THANKSGIVING, MOMMY. Me: Awesome. Listen. For real. Mommy and Daddy have something important to tell you. Noah: Okaywhat. Me: Well...Mommy is going to have another baby. Noah: ... Me: You're going to have another baby brother or sister! What do you think? Noah: But we already HAVE a baby. Me: Yeah, but... Noah: Another baby would be TOO MUCH BABIES. Me: I think we'll... Noah: And our house will be TOO FULL. WITH BABIES. Me: Maybe we'll get a bigger house someday, then. Noah: ARGH FIIIINE. Me: So are you okay? Another baby brother or sister is okay? Noah: It's too much babies. Me: Yeah, probably. Do you want some pumpkin pie now? Noah: Uh-huh. But not for the baby. Babies don't get any pie. A few minutes later... Noah: Mommy? Me: Yes, buddy? Noah: Can I watch the baby come out of you this time? Me: Uh. No. Read more →

Well, hello! Everybody back to the grind after the hallowed day of national gluttony? Nobody got run over or squished too badly on the crazy batshit day of national consumerism-ism? Anybody want some leftover pie? I've got...three, I think, still. But not this one. Our holiday was fantastic, thank you for maybe thinking of asking, just now, once I said that. The turkey was our most delicious ever, thanks to Jason's brine (he won't tell me what's in it, the bastard) and my basting (which I will tell you because I am giver AND a showoff; it's butter + thyme + honey + apple cider). He also made challah bread stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce (the secret ingredient to THAT is, no lie, vodka). I made a cauliflower and broccoli gratin with so much cheddar cheese and cream that I successfully destroyed the nutritional benefits of every vegetable from here to the White House garden. Including the ones Ezra made. He then covered them in parchment paper and braised them in a little shitload of butter. He ate them too! Dipped in the vodka-spiked cranberry sauce, at least. He went really, really nuts for the cranberry sauce. Damnedest thing, right?... Read more →

Remember that fuzzy little blob-thing I posted about six weeks ago? Well. BAM! 12 weeks, two days. Absolutely perfect and adorable (that ARM! the little SHOULDER BLADE! the EAR that you can just barely make out before the image goes all blobby and wonky!). All expected and required parts present and accounted for. Including... Well. Okay, it's really, really difficult to determine the sex of the baby FOR DEFINITE SURE at 12 weeks, but I'm just going to break it to you and let you down easy because about four bazillion million of you have been screaming for a GIRL GIRL GIRL, but... Yeah. Right now, things are looking familiarly, unmistakably...dangly and boyish down there. Prepare yourselves. Actually, wait. I'm the one who's probably going to end up with three boy children running around without any pants on while beating each other with Wii lightsabers and yes, that actually did happen last night and yes, there is video, but HELL. If anyone should be getting "prepared" it should be ME and should probably involve some helmets and whiskey. Screw you guys. Happy Thanksgiving and whatever. (THAT LITTLE ARM OH MY GOD I JUST WANT TO CHEW ON IT ALREADY.) Read more →

DISCLOSURE TALKYSPEAK: Thanks to American Express for sponsoring posts today about small businesses. American Express is presenting Small Business Saturday, a way to honor the local merchants who are the backbone of the economy, this Saturday, November 27. They're offering statement credits to people who shop at small businesses, advertising for small-business owners, and donations to Girls Inc. for "Likes" of the Small Business Saturday page on Facebook. Join the celebration by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of this entry and then visiting the Facebook page to learn more about the program and read the terms and conditions that apply. ACTUAL AMALAH-TYPE TALKYSPEAK: I cannot lie. I just spent three hours in the car. Three long, torturous hours. Procuring our Thanksgiving turkey. It wasn't supposed to take three hours, of course. Half hour up to the farm, 15 minutes there selecting the bird, another 20 minutes or so wandering around with the boys, visiting with the -- ahem -- pardoned birds still wandering around the pens and the cows and what-have-you, taking adorable photos with them all decked out in Thanksgiving-y outfits I done picked out special...and then a half hour trip back, high on life and the... Read more →

The chemo isn't working. I didn't expect it to. He felt "better" after a blood transfusion last week. His numbers were "better." I didn't expect that to last, and it didn't. At all. I talked to him on the phone on his 81st birthday last week. For just a few minutes. Then he said he had to go and hung up. This was also expected. He is translucent. He is blue and grey. Like a cancer-stricken extra on a medical drama, wearing too much pancake makeup. He is immobile and helpless, short-tempered and miserable. He is a bundle of medical checks and balances, with one medication causing X but preventing Y and yet none of them having any effect at all on Z. It's happening slower than I expected. That's not necessarily a good thing. Which is confusing. Guilt-inducing. Unexpected. The doctors are finally talking about stopping treatment, about making decisions, about being comfortable. Because the cancer is too aggressive, because the chemo isn't working, because he is already much older than 81 and so sick and has no bone marrow and no platelets and no hemoglobin and no options. Because he is blue and grey and miserable and fighting... Read more →

Weirdest pregnancy symptom yet: Claustrophobia. Well, not even that, exactly. Kind of combination of a fear of crowds (demophobia!) combined with a violent knee-jerky reaction to invasions of my personal space. Like, if you accidentally bump into me in the grocery store aisle, don't be surprised if I start involuntarily shrieking and karate-chopping the shelves of soup cans. Jason noticed I seemed increasingly jumpy right from the start. I'm usually a big-time hugger, and very demonstrative and in-your-face with my compulsive need! For affection! Because I like you! Hi! Gimme a cuddle! Instead, ever since getting all knocked up, I would startle if he brushed into me and sort-of flailingly seek to extricate myself from bear hugs and whenever the boys would do their patented EVERYBODY PILE ON MOMMY couch trick I'd slither to the floor and escape, and not in a HA HA FUN MOMMY way. More of a BACK THE HELL OFF ME, YOU ANIMALS way. And then things got serious a few weeks ago, when I foolishly waited too long to head downtown for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. I knew it would be bad, but not...that bad. I couldn't leave for the Metro until... Read more →

Since so many of you asked, no, we were not able to figure out the mystery of Bearius Care in time for Noah's birthday. So instead we attempted to distract him with a lot of Star Wars crap and brightly-colored wrapping paper. It worked. Didn't stop us from trying to make it up to him a few weeks later, once we discovered what he was actually talking about. So it wasn't a young Captain Kirk action figure with a vintage convertible and super-extreme cliff-clutching action, but he did happily identify it as the "grown-up Bearius Care ship." So I think we did pretty okay. (Here. Sorry. I think the other one wanted some attention or something.) LIVE LONG AND PROSPERCHEEEEEEEEEEEESE. Read more →

Suddenly, all Noah wanted to talk about was "Bearius Care." I don't remember exactly when it started, but it was all "Bearius Care" this and "Bearius Care" that. "Who is Bearius Care?" I'd ask, over and over again. "Bearius Care is Bearius Care," Noah would answer, like duh. Occasionally, we'd get a clue: Noah would spot a little mop-haired boy on the playground and run after him, screeching gleefully. "It's Bearius Care! Hi Bearius Care!" Child actors in TV commercials sometimes got a reaction too. He mostly seemed to invoke the name while playing with certain toy cars, but also sometimes space ships. And once while reading a book with a picture of a desert. But he simply would not, could not, just flat-out explain who Bearius Care was or give us any background or context. (Other than the fact that Bearius Care was, of course, completely face-meltingly AWESOMMMME.) It drove me so batty after awhile -- WHO IS BEARIUS CARE? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? LET ME INTO YOUR LIFE, CHILD! -- that I eventually turned to Google. I knew I was at least dealing with a mispronunciation, but I am pretttttty good at Google, if I do say... Read more →

Noah plays soccer now. Long-time readers may remember that a couple years ago, Noah was "not ready" for his preschool's extracurricular soccer program. He was "disruptive" and "challenging." The other children were genuinely trying to learn "the basics of the game" but Noah was a "distraction." We were asked to "no longer send him." Our money would "credited" toward our next tuition payment, of course. Basically, he was kicked out. He was three. Every year since then, in the early fall and spring, Jason has optimistically mentioned soccer. Maybe we should try again? Maybe he's ready now? But then we'd look at the local schedules and team sizes and refund policies and inevitably get skittish and back off the idea. But Noah plays soccer now. He plays with his classmates from the public special ed preschool program. He plays wherever we, the parents, can snag a gym slot or open field at a local playground. Jason is the coach, along with another dad. Parents and older siblings usually help out, keeping the kids focused, and nobody cares if somebody is having a bad day and doesn't want to play or is bothered by the grass or their soccer shorts or... Read more →

I know. I know I know I KNOW. If you are looking for someone to blame for the sporadic posting, blame the fetus. Which I know you won't actually do, because what are you gonna say? BAD FETUS! STUPID UNBORN CHILD! YOU'RE MESSING WITH SOMETHING VAGUELY ENTERTAINING THAT I OCCASIONALLY CHECK OVER LUNCH BREAK IF I REMEMBER SO KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF! Yeah, go ahead. It can't hear you anyway. It doesn't even have any ears yet. Nyah. No, but seriously. This week was quick and mighty payback for a whole heapload of bragging I did last weekend. I told at least four or five separate family members that I feel great! Easiest first trimester yet! I had two or three uncomfortable days there but I seem to be past all that now! Already! I can't believe it! Just a couple weeks to go until the second trimester so maybe I've escaped the worst of it all together! So, of course, I am currently on day number five of the same low-grade, persistent headache. It goes away with some Tylenol but then creeps back within an hour or two. I have thrown up almost every night this week, usually... Read more →