Happy leap day

Snow
Fever
Mindful return to the fungie (7 minutes is my magical number)
Heater cranked up against my achy chills
Lights on against the dark

Hot water with a shot of chai (a dreamy drink, try it sometime!, not a latte) scenting the room with spicy wonderfulness.
A great talk with my sister to kick off the day.
I feel shitty, but things do not suck.  So I'm up when maybe I should be down...but I kind of don't want to sleep through it!

I just sort of feel like things are brewing and things are possible, even if I don't know what. Maybe just tea  with toast and cinnamon, maybe a wild rush of work that needs doing will get done. Maybe all of that wonderful soul work I've been working on will be percolating away in my periphery, about to blurp out something ah-ha-tasitc.

Even if today just brings the feelings of possibility and unsuckiness and the magic of snowfall?
I'm in.

Happy leap day everyone.

Dodgeball

Della is sick again, a fevery snotty thing, where she is holding her mouth open and drooling copiously. Today was a day of fitful napping and much crying, snot and drool, and not letting me let her down even for a moment. This is hard, and I'm tired, and sad for her for feeling shitty *again*-- I swear it feels like we get something new just as the last thing is starting to feel resolved. I feel so bad for her for feeling so bad so often these past months. Daycare is a blessing, it really is, but there are parts of it that totally suck. This tour of viral infestations is certainly a major downside.

Doug has arranged to stay home with her tomorrow. We try to take turns with this. All I can say is that I now feel like a time bomb... with our track record so far, she and I tend to share bugs. Doug, with his superhuman, works-with-kids immune system, seems to dodge more than he catches.

In happier news, she is talking a lot more-- many words are coming out besides armpit. We also have elbow, "oss" or "osh" for "off", she says "upanda" for up and down, things that are hot or cold she says are hot, there are bowls now and she knows how to whisper.  She holds her finger up and says shhhh.  She wants to be swaddled a million times in a row, but let out immediately please.  She still says "mo" for more, with the sign, but instead of the Grommet-esque fists, she now bounces her fingertips together, my big girl.

She gets intonation; to ask questions in her Della-language, she knows to go up at the end.

She is totally amazing, adorable, growing too fast, and simply rocks my world.
Now, please excuse me while I go drink some elderberry and pray to the virus gods to spare me.

quick photo

I'm cheating since this is from a few weeks back--We stopped at the Seuss sculpture garden in Springfield on the way to my sister's house. We also went into the science museum to see the dinosaurs. I'm sure we'll go back-- it is a great stopping point with much to see and do, and not too big or overwhelming or crowded.

I suddenly looked into the future: Peabody museum! Mystic aquarium! A zoo!

She can now say armpit.

Babble and stuff

So this month I've been challenging myself to post every day at my heartwork site. It has been really hard-- logistically, energetically, and also, just wondering what the heck to post. Sometimes there is something ready to spill out, and other times? Not so much.  It has been really really good for me though, to try to get into the headspace to write or share on such a regular basis.  I miss it. I've missed it. I'll probably miss it again, but I am trying to build the habit of posting more often.

Anyway, I invite you to go take a look-- I've done a cross-post or two (on valentines day, for example) but most of the content over there is independent.

Back here at I can't whistle, we are entering the phase of the mini tantrum. Well, to be fair, we're all not entering into it. Doug seems to have better coping skills and I tend to cry rather than rage. But Della? Rigid body, wailing unhappiness, not often, just beginning, but enough to make me realize what a wimp I am and that I'd better get a backbone, pronto.

Today was easier than yesterday. Yesterday, faced with my first real experience of this, I spent too long trying to soothe and understand, and all that did was prolong the 110dB horribleness of baby wailing in front of building filled with other people's apartments in the early morning hours.... Today, I tried to soothe while stuffing said rigid unhappy baby into babyseat. It took half the time as yesterday. Della is STRONG. Really, really strong.

So! On a happy note, our very unhappy pickups at daycare have improved too, thanks to my ASKING FOR HELP (novel idea, eh?).  When I get there, one of the lovely adult people comes over and helps get Della's coat on while I gather leftover food containers etc, we all swirl around gathering and clothing and then, voila! Off we go.

Della is a joy, so this weirdness has been extra weird.  We're all just not used to it.  When she cries a certain kind of cry, I cannot think clearly toward a resolution.  My only thought is more of a visceral instinct to MAKE IT STOP (sorry about the use of capital letters in this post, apparently I need EMPHASIS today and italics are JUST NOT ENOUGH).

Developmentally, she is doing great-- her language comprehension is amazing-- she will try to say most things when prompted, (platypus was particularly cute), meows when we are almost home and she realizes she'll soon see the cat, has many words and noises that begin with B: ball, baa, butt, boob, breast..... um, yeah.
She points at her belly button and delightedly yells BUTT! which is not entirely incorrect, just incomplete. You should see her smile so very proudly.

She loves music, so much, in fact, we play the opening to Phineas and Ferb over and over and over, and the opening music for Bones. Ahh yes. She dances and dances and dances, and even hums to herself a little sing songy thing when she plays sometimes. Very cool.

She totally has Up and Down, knows what they mean and practices saying them and practices doing them by standing up and sitting down.
She likes to stand UP on her rocking zebra, circus style, then will sit DOWN only after much parental freak out.

She has a great sense of humor-- truly-- anticipates jokes, laughs loudly like I do... wonderful drool when she laughs too hard.

I think I've stopped pumping.  Midday when Della is at daycare, I was pumping, but moved the time farther and farther until I could make it until I pick her up.  Yes, engorged, but happy to not be pumping. My pump has a new and happy home that it will arrive at next week... and I will not miss it. Transitions suck for me. I'm just sayin.

Things we are loving this week: playtex cups with handles and straws (from target)... the cheaper ones we got on amazon were horrible ear poppingly difficult unfun and now gone.  Yo baby vanilla yoghurt.   Carter's ruffle butted cotton leggings/pants (come in a two pack, are soft and stretchy, and have a very forgiving elastic waist).  Old navy socks (target ones suck rocks).  Bananas. Gala apples. Spicy mustard. Sausage.

Della is finally in size 4 diapers. She is 28.25 lbs and 30" long, so a bit shortish and in the 98% percentile for weight. I was round too, so I get it.

How do you get your kids to learn to brush teeth? She has many-- 4 top and bottom and a single set (4) of opposing molars to boot. She'll chew on the brush, but won't let me in there to do a proper job.

Ok! That's all I have time for in this moment.
Thanks for stopping by!

Happy things

Mo is fabulously pregnant after her recent CCRM FET. Hot diggity dog. Please, god/goddess/all-that-is be kind and let this one stay.

B had her second beautiful daughter-via-IVF on valentines day.  Not exactly playing out the way she hoped, but exactly the right outcome with everyone safe and sound.  Welcome Maggie!

Just wanting to marinate in the happy.

a letter from my future self on valentines day

Dear self,

You may not know it right now, but you are doing important things. I know, it may feel like somehow you got on the wrong bus, or that you are being mistaken for someone else with different skills and different goals than the ones you imagine you have, but in reality, you are learning in every moment, learning things that will help you take yourself where you need to go.

You are learning that you will need to take yourself, that there is no express ride, no fairy godmother, no magic wormhole, no wood sprite, or fog-thick fantasy where you will wander in lost, and wander out found.

You are learning how to listen differently, to yourself and others. You are learning how to speak and when not to. You are learning to watch for bigger patterns and not just respond to minutiae.  You are learning flexibility and strength. You are learning how important it is to say no, and how freeing it can be to say yes, and how shitty it is when you say yes too soon, or no simply out of fear.  You are learning how to be new at something, how to suck at it, how to be open to not knowing.

You are learning to love in a wide open way that you have never experienced before. You are learning to trust, to lean into, to count on... you are learning that being scared about being interdependent does not mean you can pretend and not do it. You've already found yourself out, and realized in spite of fear, you're in it too. That although you've already learned, you already know you would probably survive, you cannot imagine going back to just you.

You are learning to listen to your body, to the signals that come quietly before the shouts, the jammed gears, the smoking clutch.  You are learning that you need to take a different kind of care, and that requires a different kind of time, and a different kind of time means a different kind of allowance... you need to make room for taking care.  It cannot be interstitial.  It has to be as important as it is.

You are learning a lot about what you don't like, and a lot about what you do.  You are learning to pay attention to energy shifts and balances, what brings energy, what saps it. You've already made a huge leap this year into awareness of the cost of self inflicted conflict. That each moment needs to have clarity of attention and that split attention is acutely and nearly instantaneously depleting.

You are learning about the skills you have that are independent of field. The ones that just are-- the katestuff that you may be able to reframe into a useful package to help feed your family and your self.

You are learning so many things that are laying groundwork. You may not know for what yet, and that is ok. You are learning, in fact, that not knowing is ok. That you can feel your way towards whatever is next, and have faith that somehow all the pieces you are collecting, all of the yeses and the Yeses and the YESes will amount to something tangible and satisfying and real.  That your gifts will be useful and helpful and of the kind of value you may not be able to imagine just now.

You are learning to imagine an energized life, one with confidence and quiet joy. You are learning to imagine how active a roll you will need to take in avoiding the leg traps of old behaviors that keep you small, keep you quiet, keep you wounded.

You are learning to stop and look, stop and think, stop and listen. Remembering things you knew, and then unknew.

You are learning, I know it feels you are learning too slowly, or in a way that feels circuitous and non-linear, but you are learning what it takes to feel good. And you are remembering, not always and not easily, but you are remembering pieces you've put aside or away.

A few years from now, your landscape will be different. It will be more gentle and less thorny. You will be able to see a little farther,  and have more faith when the fog comes in that it is simply time to reconnect, gather in, re-imagine and reaffirm.  You will be stronger than you think. You are now, but you can't quite know that.  You'll see though, and it will simply be true.

You will realize how much there is in every moment that can be used for bliss. You are realizing this, but you forget and re-remember. You will forget and re-remember a million million times.

But this I know, this you know: you were made for joy. You feel it in everything when you can. There is nothing quite like fireflies or snowflakes or the moon. There is nothing like chocolate or the right shoulder, or clean sheets or hot showers.  There is nothing like lying on the floor and feeling that sort of connected with whatever that earth energy is that holds us just strongly enough so we don't fall off.

You will learn to reconnect more easily.  Have faith that you will.
and I'll be waiting here to welcome you.  We'll have fun, I promise.

with love, and more appreciation that you can know for all that you are doing, and all that you are being and all that you are becoming. Without you there would be no me.

Namaste
your future self

45

And today, I turn 45.
Here I am, suddenly (it seems) finding myself midway through the middle.

I had trouble with this one. I usually don't. Birthdays for me are days to thank my mom, thank my parents, and sort of feel awe. I could freak out about mortality any old day.  So I don't usually get swept up in birthday angst. But this one came with some pre-anxiety. Maybe it is because I am still seeking my path(s). Maybe it is because it feels very midlifey in a way other birthday's somehow avoided (44? still "early" 40s!).  Not sure, but with relief I can say that today dawned with no anxiety. "There", I felt, with some lightness, some solidity. "There".

Horton, tempests, teacups, pilates

And, it was two years ago today Della and I began our journey together-- a bizarre pinchy transfer in a room big enough for a party.  The table in the absolute center.  A doc I met just that day (whom I liked), a nurse I did not like at all who did not know how to do the ultrasound... and the news that of the two we had to transfer, one had "high implantation potential", and we were handed a little photo of our amazing cell clusters.

Now, looking at Della, it is like looking at a speck of dust and finding out it is a universe.

How could that possibly be this? I don't know.

Tempest in a teacup.

Della is asleep on Doug right now, one of the most beautiful things I witness.
I just stayed up late and made a shitty carrot cake, my first try with a new gluten free flour mix. Bah. Terrible. Thrown out terrible. Disappointing. King Arthur's flour mix. I thought I would be in good hands. But no.  Smelled weird, strange texture.... yeah, no.

But! Pilates today, my first introduction. Kicked my ass, made me humble, made me laugh, made me focus, made me wish I had done it sooner, made me wish I were 20 years younger. But I left feeling, somehow, that this is more important than it might seem. Symbolic? Maybe. The studio is called Equilibrium. If only.

2 years

2 years ago today
our sweet Della began in a petrie dish in Waltham Massachusetts.
Since the image of the cell cluster is on Doug's computer, and it is late, and I am tired, I've decided to mark the occasion with a reposting of one of my most favorite photos:

Dear Della,
I know you already know this, with the child-innocence of no can'ts or shoulds or oughts or have tos, no preconceived notions on what is possible or impossible... nothing yet to make you feel less than: you have my whole heart.
And it's a big one, so, no mean feat there.
And I promise, with every bit of my big big heart, that to the best of my ability, I will always support you in feeling whole, Enough, fabulously and totally Della. And I promise to hold all those things for you in those times when you can't.
Baby, I've got your back.

Life is beautiful

A little reminder from etsy today:

Here's the link.

Taking a long slow deep breath now.

Moon high, and sky indigo.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Mindfulness

So today, in an attempt to stack the cards in my favor from the get go, I set up a meditation alarm to gently chime every 7 minutes to give me ample opportunities to reevaluate whatever it is I am doing and choose something else if I've veered off energetically or productively.

And you know what? It's working.

The longest this lets me veer unconsciously, unmindfully, is 7 minutes.

I'm feeling pretty happy about this simple solution. My energy is better and I am being fabulously productive.  I'm just sayin'.

I have a meditation timer app on my phone, but today I am using an online one I found after a very very quick search.

Behold the fungie:
http://www.fungie.info/bell/#

I'd love to know, what works for you?