highlights

1. Nora has her first "boyfriend."  She and Jaxon play together "all the time" and "call each other girlfriend and boyfriend."  I'm not crazy about the concept but seeing the two of them say hi to each other in the hall each morning is worth it.  They both look SO bashful and smiley and cute.
2. This weather is amazing.  It makes me want to move somewhere more temperate.  For now, I'll just lie to myself that our weather will ALWAYS be this way.
3. Old friends.  Spent the day with an old friend the other day.  It was restoring.

highlights

1. We went to the beach on March 14.  Please let this be our new climate because we love it.
2. Had a picnic lunch with the girls today.
3. Birdy tells killer knock knock jokes.
4. I'm grateful for access to good healthcare.
5. Nora told me this morning that Grandpa was speaking to her from her heart.  He was saying, "Move on....  Go on your journey."  In a kind of spooky voice.
6. Joe and I had third row seats to see Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt.  We had such a wonderful time.

highlights

1. Nora spotted our first robin this morning.  I love that she knew that they were worthy of spotting.
2. Birdy has taken to hauling my first Cabbage Patch Kid, Gunther, around.  
3. Birdy spoke at 'school' today for the first time.
4. Working with a team of positive, creative people is energizing and I love it.

highlights

1. Nora told me that "jealous" means "what people feel when they see her bottom."
2. We had a lovely family get away in downtown Chicago.  The girls loved Chicago and can't wait to go again.  It's fun to experience it through their eyes and remember my own firsts around their ages now.
3. Joe traveled last week and then had Friday off.  We took the girls to the movies and then decided to get a sitter and went out to a nice dinner and out for a bit.  I love that guy.
4. Lemon in my water is making me happy.
5. Becca's wedding invitations are designed and ordered!
6. Birdy's "k" sounds are currently t's.  Otay and tookies melt my heart.
7. The girls are often so loving to each other that it about breaks my heart.  (Of course, the opposite can also be true.)

highlights

1. Nora's fish, Love, passed on.  We felt ready to get a new fish and are now talking about names.  One idea was "Meanie No Die".  The current contender is Butterscotch.  "Butter because her is soft like butter and Scotch because her is kind.  Butterscotch."
2. Joe is so helpful around this home.  I really don't know what I'd do without him.  I hate this depression and how hard 'normal' things can be.  Sometimes my appreciation of him just processes as guilt.
3. Being able to help my sisters when things are tough.
4. Designing B's wedding invitation with her.
5. Birdy is a two year old.  Like in the terrible two sort of way.  To make up for it, her 'I wuv you''s and kisses are generous and often.  Totally worth it.

highlights

1. A lovely breakfast out with friends.
2. When I told Nora I had to go out one evening, she said, "But who will cuddle us?"
3. Nora and I are going to take a knitting class together.  Her idea.
4. Birdy can count to 14 and almost sing her ABC's.  Nora is spelling more and more and is so interested in science.  It's a joy to be around so much learning.
5. Checking things off my list.  If I have a few more weeks as productive as this one, I may actually be sort of caught up.
6. Making valentines with Nora.

highlights

1) Having a Friday without an agenda to spend with the girls.
2) Laughing with sisters and friends.
3) Sleeping in LATE this morning.
4) Birdy having moments that require her to disrobe and dance.
5) I think things are falling into a workable groove lately.  Joy before perfectionism.

highlights

1) Nora was playing with the dollhouse and had the dad doll rocking the baby to sleep singing, "Don't ever give up on yourself" repeatedly.

2) The opportunity to improve.  Tonight my therapist told me that she thought I possessed all of the skills needed to seriously improve my depression.

3) Laughing with Joe.

4) Birdy's sweet "Good Morning!" from the stairs EARLY each morning.

5) Beautiful weather.

6) Mom had a good report from her doctor.

untitled epiphany

happy new year.  I love a fresh start and the freshness of New Year can't be manufactured at any other time so I'm digging it right now.  So much is going on that I never blog because I can't figure out what takes precedent for recording for our family or what needs working through by writing.

But then I had a thought.  The kind of thought that you probably already have thought but that I've never grasped.  On Friday, I went to the gym and met a mommy friend there.  As an indicator of our fitness and commitment level, we thought we were going to a half hour beginner's class and both of us considered canceling.  We made it there for what turned out to be a one hour intense step interval class.    And it rocked.  We modified where needed, we succeeded some, laughed a lot -- we survived.  I left feeling so triumphant.  Like ME -- me --- regular, nonathletic, fat, uncoordinated, undisciplined ME did a class with THOSE women.  And I could not have cared less what I looked like or what anyone thought.  While wonderful, this was not the epiphany.  The epiphany was that it took the good portion of the morning to get everyone ready, get to the gym, take the class, get the children, go home and clean up.  For once, I didn't try to 'make up' for the time lost doing something for myself.  Normally, I would feel guilty and work double time during the afternoon on whatever I think other people think I should have done.  Here it is:  doing something for myself is worth REAL time -- not late late nights or stolen moments --- REAL time.  The sort of time where you could meet with people who want something from you, the sort of time you could schedule with appointments, cleaning, laundry, shopping, or phone calls.... REAL time.  I've seriously often wondered how people fit in working out, getting hair and nails done, doctor's appointments, creative time...  now I know what they know.  It's not magic.  It's not better discipline or scheduling.  It's knowing your own worth and enjoying the trip.

Wordless Catch Up

Our Little Climber

Nora's Fourth Birthday Party

Nora's Fourth Birthday -- Making Cupcakes

Birdy Layne

Nora's First Day of School

Apple Picking

Growing So Quickly!

Joe's 41st Birthday

We took tons and tons of shots.  This is one of the only ones where we are all at least looking in the right direction.

fresh new week

i keep trying to find a way to sum up last week so that I can move beyond it and there just isn't a good way to do it.  It was an awful week and you know what?  Even in the midst of awful, I surely have so, so much to be forever grateful for.  I'm just going to list it here without all of the stories I'd like to include on each item.  Maybe another day, another time.

Sunday was the wake for our friends' baby daughter.
Monday Joe's mom text broke up with us.
Tuesday Nora swallowed a quarter and had to have an emergency procedure to remove it.
Wednesday we attended another wake.  This time for a dear friend's father.  He was one of the good guys.

That's all there is.  We are so blessed beyond any measure.

thogging and learning

i can't blog because i haven't blogged so i can't blog.  Instead, I think of a few things a day I would like to blog about (thogging) and then don't do it because if it's not about the girls then I feel guilty not updating them first and if it is about the girls, I want to get it right.  I am well aware that no other posts have been so well thought out and multi-drafted -- in my imagination, I am much more on top of things.

So here is today's out of order, not most important, not anything really - thing.  Today I got to meet another mom and family from Nora's online playgroup  (more on that in a minute.)  In preparing for it I became nervous, as I do when meeting new people.  Am I too fat?  Too silly?  Not smart enough?  But mostly, I worry about my speech impediment.  Like, what if they can't understand me?  Should I 'warn' her ahead of time?  Am I an ungrateful narcissist?  Am I being ridiculous?  My solution to this thought process was to call my two of my dearest friends and get their opinions.  This is, and always will be, the best solution to many a problem and  I'm lucky to have it.  Only this time it occurred to me that 1)They don't have a cleft palate and speech impediment, I do; and 2)If I was going to get precious time to talk to either one of them, I didn't necessarily want to waste it on such negative trivia.  So it is that at the age of almost 38, I figured out that I don't need a popular vote, approval, or social safety in order for a decision to be right for me.  I am sure that to most of you this is an obvious truth, but I am often sure that others know better or are in the very least laughing at me or judging me.  This is profound for me.  Even if everyone disagrees with me, I may still be doing just the thing I should.  Wow.

When I was pregnant with Nora, I joined an online 'expecting club.'  It was a group of ladies who, like me, were all due in October 2006.  Occasionally, it was helpful but I mostly found it clique-y and stupid.  When Nora was born 7 weeks early, I  found myself even further alienated from that group and checked out the September 2006 Expecting Club.  I immediately liked the group better.  Amazingly (or not), I am still in contact with many of these women.  I feel so lucky to be a part of something that so simply (but almost magically) just worked.  This has gone way beyond our initial bonding over pregnancy, delivery, and newborns -- these women have regularly made me laugh so hard I choke, been fun and snarky with me, gotten me through grief and loss, shared the tedium of every days, taught me about parenting, community, everyday home skills, life, generosity, strength, love and have, generally, made me a better person.  Four years later, I count them among some of my best friends.  Today marked the tenth woman I was able to meet in person.  Can't wait to make it more!

two is twice as nice

just a couple of random thoughts.  Before we had Birdy, I wondered how it would be to have two children.  Of COURSE we'd love baby number two, but really, there was no way that baby number one wouldn't be our favorite.  After all, how could any one person be asked to live up to all that baby number one is?  I went forward and trusted that there was enough love to go around and that we wouldn't completely ruin  baby number two.

So here's what it's really like for me:  when I'm with Nora alone, I am positive that she is my favorite.  Like, giddily positive and how could anything or anyone in the world compare to my first baby.  And then... when I'm with Birdy alone, I feel almost guilty for how SURE I am that she is, indeed, my favorite and imagine if we hadn't have had her wouldn't life be so empty.  And when I'm with them together?  Well then I'm sure I won the universal lottery to have been given TWO children such as these...  TWO.   Me!  Me - who isn't 'lucky,' me - who has a birth defect and was told by a doctor at the age of 17 to never have children, me - who is adopted and doesn't know much useful genetic information, ME, unbelievably me!  The lottery is not fair, I didn't deserve it, I certainly didn't earn it, but damned if I didn't win it.

remember magic

because staying at home has somehow made me even worse at blogging, here is yet another scattered update post.

Birdy First
Everyone comments on what a happy baby Birdy is. She really is a joy. She gives the most delicious hugs and giggles easily. Most of the time she is smiling and babbling and even when she’s not, you can easily remedy her problem and return her to her happy self quickly. She has almost five teeth that have cut through now – three bottom and two top. Her first tooth came in May 21 – correction, her first TWO teeth came in that day. Before that, she had been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Since then, she has cut one more through and ALMOST has another one. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to capture a picture of her three little bottom teeth, but so far, not so good. Gone is her gummy smile. She still has Physical Therapy once a week because she is not yet sitting up on her own (it actually started when she wasn’t rolling ‘on time’). I’d like to cancel it because I feel that she’s progressing just fine but they act like it’s really something. Truth be told, I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have another set of eyes observing her progress; especially when I’d be happy to keep her an infant forever.  {UPDATE: Birdy sits with the pros now but still doesn't crawl.  They have continued her therapy biweekly until she crawls.  Which will be any day now.}  Since allergy season started strong, she has been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Once the allergies cleared, she was teething, and now? Who knows? All I know is that she was much closer to sleeping through the night at 3 months than she is at 7 months.

Despite her 'need' for therapy, she wiggles and kicks constantly. Her squirmy acrobatics are constant - she even holds her bare foot while she nurses.  I call her my monkey girl because if I move her little hands away from something I don't want her to have, she tries immediately to get it with one of her feet!

And Now Some Nora

Nora started swimming lessons this week {6 weeks ago} at the Y. She absolutely rocked the first lesson – when they asked if any of the preschoolers could already swim, up went her hand (she can’t). Same thing for floating. I love that bravado. She’ll continue to go twice a week for the majority of the summer. I took the opportunity to check the Y out – do any of you belong? The free childcare while working out is appealing, but I’m not sure the cost of family membership will be worth it for us.

Nora has been absolutely amazing lately. Here are some things that she can do: 1)Get the cereal out of one of the top cabinets, get the milk off the top shelf, get a bowl and spoon, pour everything without spilling AND put it all away; 2)Play so kindly with her baby sister. I am regularly awash with love and gratitude when watching them together; 3)Dig in the garden and weed; 4)Tell elaborate and funny stories; 5)Plays with her dollhouse everyday. Elaborate set ups of dollhouse people, Fisher Price people (about 1/3 the size of the others), animals, Matchbox cars, and Happy Meal toys litter the play area. I love it. 6)I’m awash with love for her all the all the all the time. 7)Goes in and out of the house playing so happily. I love looking out the window to see her swinging with a drum hanging around her neck and her pretend phone to her ear. 8)Wears awesome, self-selected outfits. I love seeing the pride in her choices. 9) Expresses such exuberant “THANK you”’s for just about anything. For some reason, she is now saying something like “swank you”. I love it even more. 10)The other day, she caught a caterpillar and had it in her little bug house. I explained to her that she could take it in for a while, but that in the evening, she would need to let it go because it would need to go home and eat and sleep or it might be sick or die. The next thing I heard was her on the porch saying, “I sowwy, caterpiwwar. You not be sick I take you home now.” I think the universe thanked her the next week when her friends caught another one and put him in the bug house. When we went to let him go, we found him building a cocoon. We’re waiting to see what it does next.

06/25 text to Joe:  Nora came out of the bathroom and I asked her if she had washed her hands.  Something about the way she said, "Yes" made me wonder...  So I asked if she was sure.  She said, "Yes!  You wanna feel dem?"  I did and exclaimed that they were dry!  She licked them and said, "Here!  Twy again!"

Copied from Facebook status 06/26: Joe: Nora, your cup is laying on my bed. If you do that, it could spill and I don't want a wet bed. If it happens again, you will have to go into time out. I hope it doesn't happen again.  Nora: I hope you're not home next time.

The other day I called Nora ‘baby.’ She told me to only call her ‘Nora’ or ‘big girl.’ I told her that she was very special to me and would always be my baby in my heart – after all, she had made me a mommy. She looked at me and said, “Siwwy Mama! God made you a mommy! Remember his magic?”

seeing God.

nora:  what we doing today?

me: we're going to visit grandpa's grave.
nora:  that's your dad.  where is he?
me:  in heaven.
nora: yeah and God is always with him, wight?
me:  right.
{pause}

nora (suddenly dancing around the room and saying in a sing songy voice):  I get to see Go-d!  I get to see Go-d!

it's all good

i'm so far 'behind' on this blog and i don't care because you know why?  It's all good.  I am blessed beyond measure and just loving these girls right up.

surely we can do this...

a wonderful woman needs our help  Maybe you know a way to get these drugs and/or testing covered -or- maybe you know of some program that could help -or- maybe you can help in some other way -or- maybe even help directly on your own.  I can personally vouch for the integrity and worthiness of this request.  Let's figure this out, shall we?

a possibly superlicious solution

and i don't use 's' words lightly. I should make a post catching this up on everyone being sick, me trying (yet again) to find my stay at home groove, family, friends, and life. Instead, I am crazy excited about grocery shopping. Grocery shopping is my nemesis. In fact, even though I stay at home now, Joe does a lot of the shopping. This solution is two-fold: 1) Making it a challenge with coupons, and 2) Going late at night ALONE. I've been trying to be really thrifty lately (see [possibly underwhelming] results here), but the second part of it is the part I'm excited about. Nora goes to bed by 8 pm and Joe and Birdy are normally asleep by 9:30 pm; so last night, I went around 9:30 pm to an almost empty grocery store and just took my time. While I walked the store, I listened to This American Life on my headphones/telephone. Pure bliss. I got home around 11:30 and rather than being tired, I felt rejuvenated and accomplished. Those two feelings are a rare occurrence around here and to have them together at the same time? Well that's just something worth blogging about.

family resemblance

it would be so great

i was in my littlest sister's room recently and came upon a handmade book with a photocopy of our dad's picture on a funeral card. The book was titled something like "My Book about My Dad" and I assume that her therapist made it with her. In J's handwriting, it says, "Private! Do Not Open!" Heeding her order could have saved me tons of tears because inside, each day has a place for her to write and draw a picture and it is filled with things like this:


Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please come back. The accompanying drawing is a stairway going to the sky and one person near the top of the stairs and another crying person at the bottom.

Each entry continues with the same sort of heart wrenching theme. The last one says:

Dear Dad, I wish so hard you could come back. Because if you could, it would be so great. I love you.

Tomorrow is the one-year marker of my Dad dying. I never thought I'd bear one day without him and the passing of a year, rather than being a comfort, feels something like mockery. It makes me want to shout about fairness and how time doesn’t heal all wounds. Life without Dad feels less safe, less grounded, less protected, less guided, less fun, and less loved. I wish that we had some sort of tradition to mark the day -- I've been reading up on different cultures' traditions for marking this day. Having something that everyone recognized would be a comfort. Some kind of cultural 'this is how we do this undoable thing.' It’s funny because prior to this experience, I thought ‘Why mark a date of death? Wouldn’t it be better to celebrate their life on a birthday?’ Only my very body remembers what this weather and time of year brought. The ending blows of winter bring back the hospital, hospice, and loss. Whether I mark it or not, I will always remember. And I will always miss my Dad.