I'm baaaack!

And boy, do I have a story for you!

("you" of course, means the computer-driven bots that leave spam comments on this blog, since no real people will ever see this post).

Since it's been a year since I last posted, I should catch you up on what's been happening here. The short answer is, "not much." Basically, we've been living our lives, enjoying our girls and looking forward to the future. I started thinking about going back to work, and we embarked on some major home renovations. A friend announced that she's having a third child, and both The Boy and I were able to express our heartiest congratulations, while both privately thinking "better you than me!" We're good at being a family of four, we like being a family of four, we are happy with two kids.

You already know what's about to happen, don't you?

Last week, we were in NJ for Christmas with my mom, and I felt lousy the whole time -- queasy and anxious. Naturally, I chalked it up to being with my mom (who could make anyone feel sick). Except that I still felt queasy after we got home. Add in the fact that I was about a week late, and I started thinking that maybe I should take a test, just for old time's sake. I already knew I wasn't pregnant. After all, I've been down this road before -- my period would be late, and a combination of wishful thinking and sheer delusion would drive me to the dollar store. Afterwards, sitting with the negative test in my hands, I'd feel like a jerk and promise not to do that ever again.

But still, I had a test in my cabinet from about a year ago, so I figured it couldn't hurt. At least I'd be certain and would be able to move on. So I took it, and got the shock of my life: a faint pink line. It was so faint I had to make my sister come confirm it was there. Which she did, so immediately called the Boy and ordered him to bring me FREDs.

When The Boy arrived home a half hour later with more tests, I immediately took another one, and the pee hadn't even finished crossing the window when a bright line popped up.

WHOA. This is impossible! For those of you who maybe don't know my history, I am infertile. I lost one fallopian tube to an ectopic pregnancy three years ago, and the other is so scarred and twisted that three separate doctors had told me I would never again conceive without the help of IVF. It is supposed to be physically impossible for me to get pregnant. And even if I did manage to somehow, miraculously, conceive, there was virtually no chance that the embryo would land in my uterus. I'd be looking at another ectopic for sure.

But here's the kicker -- not only am I pregnant , but it is NOT ectopic. We had an ultrasound yesterday, and there is a tiny little sac right where it should be. Miracle piled upon miracle.

At this point, it's way too early to determine whether this pregnancy is viable, but there is no particular reason to suspect it isn't. I'll go back in January for another ultrasound. And until then, The Boy and I will be trying to wrap our minds around becoming a family of five.

Consider our minds totally blown.

Wrapping up

It's been what, like four months since I've posted here? I can't even imagine that there's anyone left reading (you know, out of the legion of fans I had before). Clearly, I'm not doing much blogging any more, so I think the time has come to wrap things up here. I figure I'll finish by tying off some loose threads:

My sister is doing much better. She's properly medicated and has been very receptive to treatment. There are still things in her life that are difficult and bad, but overall, I'm so damn proud of her. She's doing her very best to pull her life together, and so far she's doing a bang-up job. I hope and pray that I never, ever get that call again.

M, my M, is four years old now. She's smart and silly and cute and just all around great. She's old enough now that she has this whole secret life -- every day I ask her what she did in school, and she tells me she's keeping it a secret. And then, every few days or so, she'll say or do something that I had no idea she could do (draw a person, write her name, tell her lefts from her rights). She never fails to surprise, delight and exasperate me.

E is turning one next week. She's a tiny little dynamo -- short and small, and in perpetual motion. She started walking about a month ago, and I never get tired of seeing her stagger around. There are a dozen moments a day with her that fill my heart with joy, and I am glad every day that we decided that having a second child was worth the (emotional and financial) cost.

That said, E is definitely my last child (barring a miracle). As much as I love and adore her, The Boy and I both agree that, while a second child felt like a necessity for our family, a third child would be a luxury. And the resources that would go into that possible third would probably be better spent on the two we've already got. Add in the fact that I'm barely handling two, and we have a decision. One, I might add, that I'm actually 100% ok with. It feels really nice to know that our family is complete.

So that's the state of things here. Largely uneventful, just as I like it. Thank you to those people who have read this blog, especially through all of the "woe is me!" stuff. Just knowing you were out there got me through some really bad bits, and for that I am extremely grateful.

Recovery

The good news is, my sister's ok (physically, at least). She swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, but thankfully realized as she started getting sleepy that she really didn't want to die after all. So that's good, I guess.

I went up on Saturday, first flight out in the morning, last flight home at night. It's awful -- she's stuck in the er at a kind of crummy-looking hospital, just sitting there until a bed opens up, possibly today. So yeah, three days of sitting in a waiting room, staring at the walls. How very therapeutic.

At some point, I'm going to need to talk to someone about all this. Right now, I'm just struggling with the feeling that I should be there, even if it's just to stare at the walls together. But see, there are these kids, one of whom doesn't take a bottle and is still nursing. It's a catch-22. I can't take E to the hospital, but I can't really leave her, either. So I'm stuck with daytrips when I can arrange babysitting, and even those I'm hoping don't leave E to wean early. And then I feel guilty that I'm thinking about things like that when my sister is going through hell. I should be dropping everything to be there, doing whatever it takes, right?

I don't know. I'm a mess right now. (a thoroughly non-suicidal mess, just in case anyone thinks that I'm sounding worse than I am.) I hope that once we figure out where she's going to be long term, things will get clearer and easier.

wordless

my sister tried to kill herself today. Thank heavens, she failed. But I've been on the phone woth the hospital trying to get information for almost an hour no, with no help. I cannot talk to anyone right now, so I'm posting here. i just needed to get that out.

It's like waiting for godot. "We can't help you here. Please hold. Please hold. Pleasehold. She's in critical, can't tell you anything. You can't find out information on a critical patient. Ok, when she leaves critical, who do I talk to? We can't give you any information then, either. You need to be here."

Am looking for flights now, but can't possibly get there until tomorrow (with E in tow). Oh, god.

Broadway Baby

When I was little, I loved listening to Broadway musicals. It started with Annie, of course (wasn't every kid who grew up in the Suburbs surrounding NYC in the late 70s/early 80s obsessed with Annie?). But, spurred on by my involvement in a singing group, I was soon belting along to Grease, Chicago and Bye Bye Birdie. I never thought about what the words meant, I just sang. It wasn't until college that I learned what half of the things I'd so gleefully sung about actually meant.

I assumed the same would be true with M. I made her a mix CD recently of "princess music," consisting largely of songs from Disney movies. But I had some room on the CD, so I snuck in my favorites from Annie, Hairspray and Bye Bye Birdie. I (correctly) figured she'd like the music. My big mistake, however, was in assuming she'd just listen and maybe sing along without thinking about what the words mean. My folly has led to some interesting lines of questioning:

"What's a hard-knock life, Mommy?"
"Why are their lives hard?"
"What's an orphan?"
"But why don't orphans have Mommies and Daddies? Are they dead?"
"Are you half and orphan, since your daddy is dead?"
"Are you going to die?"
"when you go back to work, will I be an orphan?"

"What's a flasher?"
"Why does that girl's mom tell her 'no'"
"Why doesn't her mommy want her to dance on TV?"
"Can I dance on TV?"
(she also, incidentally, insists that the Tracey who sings "You Can't Stop the Beat" is a different girl then the one who sings "Good Morning, Baltimore," because they sound different.)

"Why are they on the phone?"
"Why are they singing on the phone?"
"but WHY?"

Seriously, if I'd know she was actually going to listen to the songs, I'd never have put them on the CD. The point was to get her to stop talking in the car, not to open up new and uncomfortable lines of questioning.

At this point, I'm just glad she's never heard any of my Avenue Q cd.

Stuff

Just quick updates:

1. The baby is crawling. Not army-crawling, which she'd been doing for a while now, but actual, hands-and-knees crawling. I tell you, it's very funny to see this little tiny thing (she weighs 14.5 pounds at a week shy of six months) crawling. Plus, she's super proud of herself, so as she moves, she'll look up at me and crow. Adorable.

2. I'm back on some kind of diet -- since E was born, I've gained back all but 10 of the pounds I'd lost. Part of the reason is that I dove back into bad habits -- eating chocolate all day every day, for instance. So I've banned candy from the house and will be refocusing. I'm not fool enough to think I'll lose any weight, I just want to try not to gain any more before I end up gaining everything back.

3. My body continues to play with my head. Gr.

4. Two of my IRL friends, both of whom I like very much, are in a fight with each other. Each has privately confided in me, so I know both sides of the story. Aside from feeling dishonest because I haven't disclosed to either one that the other has spoken to me about the problem, I'm kind of frustrated because I feel like I should fix it. Mostly, it's been a problem of miscommunication combined with oversensitivity on both sides (seeing offense where none was meant). Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix it without betraying one or more confidences. Gargh. I'm not good at this kind of thing.

5. M continues to be a fantastic big sister. She adores E, who adores her right back. It's so nice to see the two of them playing so well together. Nice, that is, until M decides that she's big enough to pick up the baby and carry her around or move her to a different spot if M deems that E's too close to something M doesn't want her to touch. If there's a scarier phrase in the English language than "don't worry mommy, I''m moving the baby," I don't know what it is.

6. We're starting E on solid foods. So far, she hates rice cereal, will tolerate oatmeal, and doesn't really seem to like anything else. Mostly, she just doesn't like to eat because (a) mealtime means she's confined to a high chair, and there's nothing E hates more than being confined, and (b) I won't let her steer the spoon all by herself. If this keeps up, I fear that we're going to dealing with a very picky eater. That'll be a new experience, because M was a great, non-fussy eater from day 1. I've been very spoiled.

7. That said, if I place a plate of cheerios on the floor, E is about as happy as she can be. She LOVES cheerios, and if she can eat them while crawling around, so much the better.

8. I know this because I got tired of E picking carpet fuzz off the floor and trying to eat it. I finally figured that if she was so hungry, I'd give her something more nutritious than polyester to eat. So I put down a plate of cheerios, just to see what would happen. She devoured them with glee.

9. Am I a bad mom for feeding my 5-month-old on the floor like a dog?

WTF?

Not pregnant (duh). No period. But I've been crampy, it's been a week now that my breasts have been sore, and I've been spotting.

What the heck is going on here?