Artificially Sweetened

From my local parenting magazine. Heh.

And because I’ve been told that I have been delinquent in the photo department.

Many thanks to Val for a) saving my life with that extra bottle of novolog and b) taking us to her town pool! And for all you curious DOCers out there, her castle is truly reeediculously awesome.

Imagine that you are adopting a beautiful baby girl.

You learn that, due to a kafka-esque paperwork foul up, it will take longer than normal for the adoption to be completed. You decide to foster your daughter-to-be in Guatemala for the extra month or two it will take to straighten out the paperwork.

A month or two stretches into a year. The mortgage is still due at home. You are without a source of income. Then, just when you think things can’t get any worse - they do.

This is what has happened to my dear bloggity friend Erin and her family.

While we can’t hold a rally on the steps of PGN and make them approve Azucen@’s adoption, we can make a tangible difference in the lives of Erin and her family. These are people who are much more comfortable helping others than being helped. But in order for them to continue to help others, they need our help right now.

Give up your latte for the week. Skip the new shoes. Take a minute to donate and help out.

Donations can be made directly to Erin’s paypal account. The address is erin stoy 77 at yahoo dot com (take out the spaces and replace the @ and .com parts).

And in case helping a friend and earning some good karma points* isn’t enough motivation for you… every donation - no matter how small (or how BIG!) - made between Sunday, February 25th and Friday, March 1st will be entered in a drawing to win $60 worth of Erin’s amazing crafts.  Erin has made the proverbial lemonade out of lemons by creating beautiful craft items from traditional Guatemalan textiles. P’ito has one of the dolls that she made, and he loves it [if by love you mean, smears boogers on it - which I think is the highest compliment he can pay].

Please donate and help spread the word on your blog as well.  Any help you can give is VERY appreciated!

Thank you everyone for digging deep and donating once again.

*The last time we did a fundraiser like this, all of the organizers got out of PGN very soon after organizing it!  Hmmm…. something to think about, nu?

That’s not just a winter-sucks-chin-up-girl-positive-self-talk thing to say, although such a pep-talk is never unwarranted.

But quite literally. I have won some very cool prizes on the internets lately over the last couple of months. Mostly thanks to the wonder that is Prizey. And my guilty conscience forces me to interrupt my unplanned blogatus to say thanks. I won… Putamayo Kids Music, a tres cool funky ring (& barrette, which has been in my hair constantly since I got it), a beautiful book, which I am looking forward to reading with P’ito. I know he’ll love the cover: in his vocabulary all animals with fur are currently “CA! CA! KIKA! (kittycat).” Finally, I won a toy garage.

P’ito likes playing with the cars, and he keeps trying to use the keys to open other locked items: file cabinets, doors, etc. He hasn’t used them to open the garage yet though!

Prizey has become a little bit of an obsession for me since my part-time single mamahood began, in part because toddlerhood is kicking my ass, and once P’ito goes to bed, I have very little emotional energy left to give to anything.

Don’t get me wrong - P’ito is absolutely, ferociously wonderful. In the past couple of months, he has developed a fantastic sly mischevious sense of humor: hiding behind corners and then popping out at me with a huge grin, rolling over and playing bare-tushed sleepy on the changing table, turning all possible objects into hats or telephones - always with that little aren’t I cute? smile.

But when he’s awake I am constantly either playing with him or on alert: why is it so quiet? what does he want? He’s not super-verbal yet, so we stand in front of the fridge with him pointing and going “meh! meh! meh!” and I try to figure out - does he want the picture of Pili? The cat-butt magnet? The list of phone numbers? Of course, he wants the small choking-hazard magnet! He’s really into testing limits right now: looking at me with his arm raised and the nice-ecologically-sound-extremely-HARD-wooden-projectile-toy in his hand & smiling: “Watcha gonna do, Mama?” Throwing food is big right now. Taking a big slurp on his sippy cup, looking at me with that oh-so-innocent smile - and spitting milk down his shirt (insert maniac toddler giggles here). And OH, the tantrums, the YOU MADE ME PUT MY SHIRT ON! YOU MADE ME TAKE MY SHIRT OFF! boneless on the floor tantrums.

End result: hundreds of posts bookmarked on my bloglines to go back and comment on, and some excellent free stuff.

I am very ready for winter to be over.

I’ve been feeling down lately - not down down, but just kind of muted. I’ve gotten past the “WOW! This place isn’t my old job!” excitement stage at work and I’m having a hard time keeping my enthusiasm up through the grey of winter.

I’m nervous about my upcoming Adventures in Single Motherhood. After a nice long research leave, Pili is headed back to work. Work is two hours away, which means that Monday-Wednesday nights, it will be me and the boy. Any tips on getting out of the house in the morning singlehanded will be much appreciated.

I had an appointment with New Endo this morning: no insta-A1C machine, so I will find out tomorrow exactly how sucky my A1C is. Last one was 6.9: I am thinking somewhere around 8.3 New Endo was perfectly nice, but not nearly as thorough as Good Endo back in Less Urban City, and he wants me to log. Good Endo just downloaded my meter and pump. I am tempted to just keep seeing him, but in the end I’m not sure I am committed enough to my diabetes management to drive five hours roundtrip to see a doctor.

I hate seeing new doctors: I recite my medical history and they hmm and haw and bite their cheeks and say “you’re awfully young to have that” (3 basal cell carcinomas, little bastards) and I just feel like a big old freak of nature. This is compounded by the fact that I am back to my highest ever weight, and feel icky and fat - I’m muffin-topping out of all my jeans. I need to start doing the weight-watchers thing again, but when? (see above re: Single Motherhood) The online version doesn’t work for me - I need to be accountable to someone other than myself. I know that once Pili gets home, I’m going to want to see her, not spend all my time racing off to the gym and doing all the errands I couldn’t do when she was away. Oh, and I am having a major flare up of my l1chen p.lanus and my exczema, so I’ve got red itchy blotches all over my hands, stomach, underarms, and underboobs. And the dermatologist’s first appt is not until March. C’mon let’s hear it folks - am I not The Sexiest Woman Ever? (ahem). Let’s hear it for the medical trainwreck. Actually, the reason I made L.P. ungoogleable is that apparently there are people who think it is sexy and put up p@rn sites devoted to it. So hey, some icky wicky sleazeball out there on the internets thinks I’m sexy!

While I may be lacking in the Sexy of Late, P’ito remains quite possibly the Cutest Boy Ever (excepting the children/nephews/ friendskids of my kind readers, of course).

p.s. Congrats to Cheri, Gary & Eliana, who are OUT OF PGN! and Ezra & Jenny who welcomed Elsie Jane and two mommies, who have a damn cute boy of their own.

Thank you all so much for the virtual shoulders.

I went into a store today where they had a big fat b/w cat who let me scoop him up on my shoulder and love on him.  (I am totally more likely to purchase things at stores with cats) And I felt a twinge, an ache, a memory of how much of a solid armful Louie used to be before he got sick, along with an awareness that the Louie I loved was gone long before the vet lifted the stethoscope off his chest and said “I am so very sorry.”

And then somehow I keep finding myself here.

On a totally different subject:

I posted some possibilities (and some pretty hilarious outtakes) for our first “look how cute our kid” is holiday card photo here. I am feeling pretty uninterested in putting in the effort to send out cards but at the same time for so long when I got all the cute cards with pictures of other people’s kids, I sustained myself by thinking about, next year, when we have our baby… so I’ll be damned if I don’t do it this year. Family photos are friends only, so please ask if you want to be be-friended. And please tell me which one you like best!

And on yet another different subject:

Go send Cali some love - she is having her retrieval tomorrow! Here’s wishing you more eggs than a matryoshka factory!

And welcome to the world little O’Flipper. If your mamas don’t post pictures soon, they may be responsible for my untimely demise - I mean, if I drive to Bklyn in a snowstorm because I’m jonesing to see this baby, and I freeze to death in a snowdrift somewhere, wouldn’t it be their fault?

(attn: postpartum hormones - that was a joke!)

In order to get a post up more than once every two weeks. Oh, and if you know of any organizations that fund technology support for not-for-profits, please let me know? I’d love to liberate my workplace from Mac OS 9.2 so that I can blog at work again without bringing in my personal laptop so that I can actually get some work done without having my computer crash every five seconds.

• Pepito birthday wishes - thank you, thank you, thank you!
• Holy shit, child is walking. Who gave him permission to do that?
• Diabetes management: what’s that? Or: I thought it was hard to make sure I left the house with all the supplies I needed before I had a child.
• Need to find endo and primary care in MUCDTR, stat.
• Symptoms of frozen shoulder? (see previous item) Am really hoping this is just a pinched nerve. Ouch.
• Missed a birthday party for a good friend this weekend. I suck. Go wish gandksmom a happy birthday please, so I don’t feel like such a loser.
• If you were tagged for a meme over six months ago, should you just let it go or should you go back and do it?
• V. V. V. Happy for Cheri, Gary, and Eliana!

I’m so sorry Cali.

I wish there was more I could do.

If you want even more to get enraged about, check out my latest post at lesbian family. Let’s just say there will be no Tonka toys at our house any time soon. Grrrrr.

One of the mainstays of my little corner of the internets is Calliope. She’s always there for others - celebrating with them when they achieve their dreams and mourning when those dreams come crashing to the ground. And - she’s a full time caregiver for her grandmother, who has alzheimers, which is a valiant, but decidely unremunerative occupation.

In the meantime, she’s been on her own quest for motherhood.  IUI after IUI did nothing - and still she perservered. The dream finally seemed like it was in reach when she was chosen to be a donor for a shared IVF cycle. She passed all the pre-cycle testing with flying colors. And then, today, as she sleeps on a friend’s couch in a strange city, undergoing stims and monitoring - a routine blood test for hepC came back positive.

Despite the fact that she was negative in the pre-cycle testing - and this is 99.99999% likely a false positive - the clinic has canceled the shared donor cycle even before doing a second test. They will let her continue, assuming that her repeat test is negative - if she foots the bill.

There’s no way this woman can do that. And if anyone ought to be a mom, it’s Cali.

If you possibly can, please go to her blog and donate to her paypal account. She needs to pull a lot of money together very quickly in order to be able to continue and every little bit helps.

Won’t you please donate?

If you donated… click here - and thanks.

If you didn’t donate (and you can afford to skip a latte or two and spare five bucks)… click here.

Tent camping with an 11-month old (how did that happen?): Yea, Nay, and if so, How?

A few points of clarification… and more questions for those who’ve done this:

• Absolutely car camping.  We’re crazy, but not that crazy.  
• Where did baby sleep? (P’ito is not used to co-sleeping, and I don’t think our tent will hold a pack n’ prison and us)
• What did baby sleep in to stay warm?

Oh and some cute pictures of said 11-month old, just because.  Big thanks to Minnesota Nice who knitted this awesome hat.

I can’t even say how blessed we are to have this boy home. Please, please - go to Cheri’s site and read her explanations of the shit that is hitting the fan in Guatemala and what you can do to help. And then please, please - call your senator, call your congressperson - do SOMETHING. Thanks, from the bottom of my heart and Pepito’s cheeks.

I wasn’t going to post until I had something deep and meaty and thought provoking to write about.

But then I thought I’d better get off my tush and post, otherwise my next post would also need to be titled “Has it really been a month already?”

In my defense, we’ve been really busy around here.

Pepito’s adorable friend Garin (and his mom!) came to visit:

We went to the event.

Check out the teeth in that second picture. And yet, all he wants to eat is puree. Sigh. I am so jealous of people whose kids will devour hunks of banana and avocado. This one is going to be thirty and still craving E@rth’s Best Turkey Vegetable Dinner.

Speaking of eating:

We got some very cute presents from T&A in flat city (thankyouthankyouthankyou)

Pre-meal, clearly. He’s looking at me like, “why mama, are you holding that camera instead of wielding the spoon of sweet sweet Turkey Vegetable Dinner deliverance?”

This onesie is true more often than not, alas.

This shirt is already appropriate. I mean… look at that kick!

As always, lots more pictures friends-only on flickr.

Other things keeping me busy:

Working a full day and then driving an hour and twenty minutes home. Will NOT miss that commute.
Packing.
Obsessing about the situation in Guatemala. This really deserves its own post.
Packing, Sorting, Yardsaling, Throwing OUT.
And. My mother-out-law is visiting. For EIGHT days.
Did I mention, packing?

A question: how do you pack? Are you a pack-it-all-the-last-week-person, or are you a pack a few boxes a day for several weeks person? And what would you say to your partner when she tells you: “I am irrationally angry that you packed all the nice bowls away and now I have to serve the salad in this metal mixing bowl.”

Hint: Yes, that’s irrational, dear = not a good answer.

p.s. A very overdue congrats to Bri and Wes who are now the proud parents of a bee-u-tiful boy. Congrats as well to… Tam, Andrea (even though her child eats solid foods and I hate her), Jo (you have to read her post - it’s beautiful), Barb and Holly - who are all either home from Guatemala with their babies or very very close to it.

And keep your fingers crossed for the ones in waiting: J., Cali and the pee-stick-poem-writing Missed Conceptions, and on a more serious note, the babies, families adoptive and first, and staff of the hogar.

Did I miss you? All omissions are absolutely unintentional, I swear, and can be blamed on Mr. “What do you mean, 4:30am isn’t a good time to play?”