In which Ceiba is introduced to the new laminate floors in the basement... MY GOD WOMAN. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. WHAAAAAT HAVE YOU DONNNNNNE. MY VERY BEST FAVORITE CARPETED PEE SPOT! IT WAS RIGHT HERE! I WILL SEEK OUT RESPONSIBLE PARTY. THEN DESTROY. AHA! PREPARE TO BE SNIFFED AT FORCEFULLY. HMM. OKAY. HI. IS MAYBE NOT SUCH A BAD SORT AFTER ALL. WILL JUST GO UPSTAIRS TO POUT. WAIT A SECOND. WAT'S THIS? *** So that's been happening. Randy came and ripped up the hideously befouled carpet and put down laminate and my dog is all THERE IS NO TRACTION OR ABSORBENCY PANIC PANIC BZZZZZTTT OVERLOAD. Oh, and everybody please say hi to Randy, as he is a long-time blog reader, at least he was before I was all, "Thanks for reading! Now please come fix everything at my house that is broken. Which is a lot of things. Also, BEWARE OF ALL THE PILES." Then I wandered around in my pajamas and a ponytail all the time, just to completely shatter the illusion that bloggers are cool, together people who are at all worthy of respect or admiration. But then I bought his silence with a couple Chipotle burritos.... Read more →

Or, I Was In The Very Front Row At A Lady Gaga Concert While Six Months Pregnant And All I Got Were Some Crappy Camera Phone Photos My ticket said NO CAMERAS, in very big capital letters. So I did not bring a camera, lest the Imaginary Authority Figures decided to yell at me. They DID yell, kind of, but not about the camera thing. Jason bought me these tickets way, waaaaay back last summer for our anniversary, and included a upgrade to a special Little Monsters package, which meant we got to get in before anybody else and snag the primo floor real estate up front. At first, this did not seem to be much of an upgrade at all, since it ALSO meant my friend* and I got to start standing up a full FIVE FREAKING HOURS before Lady Gaga actually came on stage. Five hours. Of non-stop standing up, minus exactly two incredibly hurried pee breaks. Not exaggerating. I can't even spend five hours SITTING down before I feel wiped out enough to move to full-on LYING down. Our spesul sort-of VIP status meant nothing to the event staff, however, who screamed at us repeatedly that if... Read more →

The thing, with Noah, is that his victories, however small, are so hard-fought for. And harder won. Little things like preschool, karate class, swim lessons, riding a bike, talking to another child or simply using an idiom or bit of slang correctly are huge for him, and for us to witness. He is playing a constant game of catch up. And we are his cheerleaders, celebrating every baby step and breakthrough, screaming from the rooftops. And then there's Ezra. Things come easily for Ezra. What once was a sigh of guilty relief over his "typicalness" is now a gasp of wonder at all the things he can do already, at his seeming bottomless well of innate talents and abilities. He doesn't just talk. HE TALKS. Full sentences. Every word he hears he immediately absorbs and starts to use. He talks about things he sees and thinks and did earlier that day and would like to do tomorrow Nouns, verbs, abstract concepts and feelings and scenarios playfully pulled from his imagination. He asks questions, he wants to know what and why and when and how come, and he ponders your answers with a seriousness in his eyes that looks so out... Read more →

It's a pregnancy rite of passage. At least for me, anyway. That moment when it actually, finally dawns on you that you are going to have a baby. Like, a baby. Is going to come out of your body, one way or another, and then that baby is going to stay here. With you. In your house. And life. And you will be expected to do things with and for that baby. Fuck you, figurative state, shit just got literal up in this bitch. I've had this moment strike me right around this same point, bolt-of-lightning style, every single time so far. You would think I would start noticing the general pattern of pregnancy = ACTUAL BABY, but I seem to be able to gloss over that little detail for most of the first two trimesters, and then suddenly: OHSHIT. A bunch of baby-related purchases arrived over the weekend, and I realized my system of shoving them all in a far corner of the nursery is no longer working, because there's now enough crap in that pile (including a sub-pile of older-brother handmedowns and outgrown jackets with no place to go) that you have to walk around it almost as... Read more →

You know? All things considered and ruthlessly mentally compartmentalized, we had a really lovely week around here. Jason made me an amazing dinner for Valentine's Day. I opted for Just Buy Something Shiny route and picked out a Le Crueset tagine for him, thus ensuring that he would ALSO make me dinner for the rest of the week in his excitement to try it out. Our house smells like a Moroccan restaurant all the time now, and Noah thinks couscous is the best thing ever. Noah is not wrong. On Wednesday, I had my 24-week OB visit, where I finally got to celebrate the packing on of FOUR WHOLE POUNDS. I know I sound like such a dick every time I bring this topic up, but holy hell, this pregnancy is so weird. Me at 24 1/2 weeks (and looking so very terribly excited about it!). No, those are not maternity jeans. Yes, that is a belt. Because somebody ate my hips off. I at least look pregnant from the side, right? The kid is big and strong enough to visibly jiggle a bowl of pudding balanced on my belly with the force of his kicks (what? it was a... Read more →

The American Cancer Society asked me to write an additional post for the More Birthdays campaign. (I was supposed to write one more, next month, and that was it.) I suppose I can assume this means they've been happy with the response so far and you guys have been clicking over and retweeting and like-buttoning or whatever the hell it is you youngsters do these days with your Internets and smartyphones and...and... What was I talking about? I got distracted by some deep thoughts about prunes. Oh! Right. Another post for ACS. Another look at a topic that should inspire at least a dozen entries from me on any given day, eleven of which are all but guaranteed to make a significant portion of the Internet cry. Or at least, lie about crying in my comments section. Don't think I don't know you do that. (And don't think that I don't love you for it.) But oh. I'm tired of it. It hurts like a bruise, and some days just thinking about it feels the same a swift kick from pointy shoes. My dad...well. Things are about the same. He still believes he'll be able to continue chemo, somehow. And... Read more →

Okay. We need to talk about something important. For once! We need to talk about my hair. This topic is so intensely important, I felt compelled to create some illustrations. You know I'm serious when I bust out the stick figures and paintbrush tool, yo. First, this was me (and my hair) back before I ever decided to have babies: I mean, not that thin or out of proportion, but you get the idea. Stick-straight, fine hair that did very little besides sit there. It was very good at sitting. Also: hanging, limping, and flopping. I found it incredibly boring, and spent every other year wondering if "bangs would help," and then every other year in between THAT attempting to grow out my stupid bangs. Then, I went on Clomid, fertility pill of the devil himself: That shit made my hair curly. Suddenly, I had tons of natural wave and body. Of course, I also had NO BABY and a raging case of major depression, panic disorder and OCD. So I had to stop taking the Clomid. I still kind of miss That Hair, though. A few months later, though, huzzah! I was pregnant. And sometime around the second trimester,... Read more →

I have it on good authority that Noah picked out my Valentine's Day card entirely all by himself this year: Not that I really needed much convincing otherwise. Honestly, the only card that could have possibly given this one a run for its money would have been one that like, hit you in the face with a pie when you opened it. I guess they were sold out of that design. Anyway, happy Valentine's Day from Noah and Ezra! If you've ever wondered what it's REALLY like to live my highly glamorous, fancy-blogging-lady life, I suggest you simply hit "play" on that video about 1,758,920 times in a row. Then ask yourself for some more candy about 2,169,083 times. That'll at least give you the abridged version. Read more →

Yesterday, the doctors told my dad it's time. It's time to stop. No more chemo. It's not working. At first, he misunderstood, thinking they just meant his current chemo drug. Then, I guess, he argued. What about a port? Another protocol? Something stronger, harder, newer? There has to be something else. No. There is no "something else" they can do. For the cancer, that is. That, for all intents and purposes, has already won. But there's always something they can do to your body, some procedure, some test to gauge or stem the related fallout without really touching the cause or buying more time. More transfusions, blood work, CT scans, MRIs, chest X-rays, all stuff they continue to order because that's what their patient is choosing -- to go down swinging from a hospital bed instead of accepting hospice care, and I know, I KNOW. For the love of God, I know. Trust me, this would not be my choice. But...this isn't my choice to make. It's his. I don't know whether it's determination or denial, because it's simply not up for discussion. No hospice talk, no canceling the invasive tests to find out what we already know talk, no... Read more →

Noah went to his very first karate class yesterday. Long-time readers: Yeah. You know the deal. You know that this was kind of a big step. Newer peeps: There's no way to nicely sum up three-plus years of developmental delays, meltdowns, evaluations, diagnoses, successes, failures, therapy, IEP meetings and God knows what else in a sentence or two, except to say that yeah. This was kind of big step. After our success with the homegrown hardscrabble soccer practices, we started wondering what other organized activities Noah was ready for. Soccer is on hold until the spring, since we could no longer consistently track down indoor venues and the constant switching of locations was driving the kids a bit batty. Jason suggested karate, mostly because Jason always, ALWAYS wanted to learn karate as a kid but Jason's parents wouldn't ever let Jason learn karate and yes, sometimes parenthood is little more than an ongoing experiment in Surrogate Childhood Wish Fulfillment. He then let Noah watch the original Karate Kid movie. (Not only was karate completely off the table for me as a kid [GIRLS DID BALLET, YOU KNOW] [P.S. I HATED BALLET], I wasn't even allowed to see the Karate Kid... Read more →