It's Summer!

The calendar may say summer won't be here for another three weeks, but we've got photographic evidence to the contrary:

Baby Epicurean

Tonight for dinner, Natalie ate baguette, bruschetta, and... boogers.

Seven of Jen

I could try to come up with some seven-related excuse for why it took me so long to respond to Shelli's tag (I was waiting for seven weeks! Uh, I wanted to post after you'd put up seven other posts. You get the idea...) but really, I'm just lame. Better late than never, though:

1. I have a lot of hangups about bathrooms, most of which make no sense individually OR as a collective. I won't* take food or drink -- even if in sealed containers -- into a bathroom. The air in a bathroom is tainted, you see. There are invisible cooties (not necessarily germs, just ick) in there. I make Cait wait outside public bathrooms holding any (closed containers of) food or drink I might be carrying. Similarly, I absolutely, absolutely cannot chew gum in a bathroom. It would definitely get contaminated -- it's sticky; the ickies would stick to it. On the other hand, I am a sitter, not a squatter (except in extreme circumstances), and, I admit, I do not wash my hands after using the bathroom 100% of the time. I know this makes no sense, but, there you have it.
2. I still have my baby blanket. I even kept it inside my pillowcase until rather recently (ahem, when we started hiring someone to clean the house a couple of times a month). You see, I don't know what to do with it. It was so important to me that it seems disrespectful to throw it away (I can't even imagine doing that without cringing) but I don't know what the alternative is. The best thing I've come up with so far is to take a hike to someplace nice, have a bonfire and, well, cremate it. But I haven't gotten around to it because it seems... weird.
3. Houseplants stress me out. They are living things, but I am not so good at keeping them that way. I feel horrible if they die. On the other hand, if they survive, they are a problem because they are an obligation that I can't let down. My brother, who has a supremely green thumb, has provided me with a large array of nearly unkillable plants, and now I have to keep them alive. Some of them are doing so well they have been split into multiple pots, meaning MORE responsibilities. And then what do you do when you decide you have to get rid of some because they are either poisonous or tempting (or both) to your toddler? Oh, the anxiety. (Luckily, I was able to give a bunch to a neighbor, so the stress level is manageable at present.)
4. I detest fennel, anise, and anything else redolent or even reminiscent of licorice.
5. I'm a geek from way back, and it's genetic (or, more accurately, nature AND nurture, since I get it from my steps, too). My dad worked in IT his entire career (since before there was even a term for IT); my stepdad teaches himself computer programming languages for fun, and my stepmom was a network analyst. I've had access to computers at home since the late 1970s. My high school was a math/science/computer magnet school, and it was there that I discovered the virtual world of online communication. Only back then it was dial-up modems (including the kind with rubber cups you set the telephone receiver in!!). 300 baud, 1200 baud. 4800 BPS was blazing fast! I logged a lot of time on local BBSes. Despite my early love of technology, I'm not a particularly early adapter. My dad beta-tested AOL in the early '90s and tried to get me hooked, but I was content with my bitnet account (!). A year later, I did take him up on the offer and moved on to AOL in its early stages (any Lesbian Friends vets out there?). I'm amused to recall that when one of my geeky friends tried to get me to check out the Web in '94 I thought it was silly because what more could I want than the self-contained world of AOL (on my b&w Mac)? Eventually, I recognized the wider possibilities of the Web and the rest is history.
6. As a result of #5, I have met and dated three people online in three different decades. Cait and I, however, did NOT meet online, but chat and e-mail were integral to the start of our relationship as we were several states apart.
7. I've fallen off the NoCocaCola wagon (again). Oh, hell, I never even got on it this time. And I really need to. Natalie has never had any soda (of course) but she reaches for it when she sees it and says "eh eh eh" in the universal toddler language for "I want that!" I hate even to write this, but the other day she reached into the recycling bin in our kitchen, plucked out an empty Coke bottle, put it to her lips and gleefully tipped it skyward. Ugh.

*Since Natalie's arrival I have had to violate this rule from time to time. Oh, the things parenthood will push you to do.

I think everyone has already done this meme, but in case you haven't, or in hopes that you can come up with seven other interesting little-known facts, I tag, jointly with Cait, in alphabetical order:
Art-Sweet
Bri
Em and/or Brooke
Estelle
Kelly & Sam

Seven Things I Can't Even Remember About Me

We've been tagged twice for this meme, so Jen and I are each answering it. I started my list in my head the other day, and then, when I tried to tell Jen about it, realized I couldn't remember a single thing. And yet, people leave their children with me on an almost daily basis. Makes me wonder about the freaks who will someday be teaching/caring for my daughter. Yikes.
Anyway, here's what I've got:

1. I've only ever dated one person besides Jen. No, I'm serious. And you can stop snickering now. My response to the thought that I might be a lesbian (a thought which I very quickly pushed away, despite the fact that my mom was/is a lesbian) and some childhood shit was to just be asexual. Until my senior year of college, when a really stubborn woman yanked my out of my safety zone and made me deal with all of it. We're still friends, amazingly enough. And then after her, I met Jen.
2. I have a brother and a sister who were born 9 days apart. No, not the world's longest twin labor, just my weird family at it again. My parents divorced when I was 3. My dad remarried, and my mom essentially remarried except that her partner was a woman, and we all know that THEY can't get married. Anyway, my stepmom and my other stepmom got pregnant at the same time. I have no idea what the odds of that are, but there you have it. Even better, when my brother was born, my mom and her partner FREAKED OUT, because the only boy name they had been able to agree on was used by my dad and stepmom. Luckily for all of us, they had a girl.
3. I have double ankle bones. Dunno why. But where all you normal people have one bump on the side of your leg where your foot and your leg join, I have two. They function completely normally--they just look weird.
4. I had to quit karate last October because we couldn't afford to pay for that and Natalie's adoption at the same time. A no-brainer, really, but if you've been reading us for a while, you know that it was important to me. It took me a while to be able to write or talk about it without crying. I left thinking I'd be back soon, but now, financially and energy-wise, I just don't know.
5. I can't drink champagne. I don't really drink anyway, for a number of reasons (most important being that I just don't like most alcoholic beverages). However, spring break of my senior year of college, a good friend and I went to France. We'd traveled together many times before, and all trips were adventures in the very best sense of the word. Our last night in France, we went a little overboard with the champagne. Possibly a lot overboard. Add in the many pastries that we decided we needed, since I hadn't had enough of them my first trip there (eating disorder), and I woke up MISERABLE the next morning. Oh the puking. And then I had to get on a plane. Despite Jen's many attempts to redeem champagne for me, I had sparkling cider at our wedding.
6. I match my underwear to my outfit. This happens a little less now that our life is a little more chaotic--some days I just grab the first pair I come to--but in general, my underwear somehow coordinates. At least in my head it does. Don't get too excited now--we're still talking boring cotton undies. Just in a rainbow of colors. And occasionally, stripes.
7. Back to freakish anatomy--the index finger on my right hand is notably curved. This is from years of jamming my finger on the lane lines during swim practices. Often while swimming butterfly. Ouch. And, yes, I'm a klutz. But I'm a klutz that can swim butterfly. And used to do it for long distances. So I guess that makes me crazy, too.
   

I think Jen and I will do shared tagging, so I'll let her put that on her post.

Nothing if not responsive

Emilin has left a new comment on your post "Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz":

Is anyone else waiting for Jen to answer Trista's question?

me: hadn't we already addressed that in a previous post?

e: Have you?

me: i don't know...

i think so

e: I didn't think there was a timeline mentioned, but I might have missed it.

me: oh

well, then, you'll just have to be in suspenders

e: Feh.

me: why on earth else would a person WANT her period?

e: Assurance that she's not pregnant?

But that wouldn't really apply...

me: a lesbian person

e: Yeah

Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz

Sorry for the silence around here lately. We're absurdly busy, as are so many right now (and they've said it better). Hopefully things will calm down someday (June? July? 2027?) and we'll have more to say. In the meantime, a few bullets to keep you up to date:

• I've pretty much quit pumping, which is working fine. I have one of the world's biggest freezer stashes, and that ought to keep Natalie covered through the end of the school year. (Actually, I think she could bathe in it and still have enough for the rest of the school year.)
  
• The downside is that pumping time was blog-reading (and commenting, and writing) time. Now I don't have that anymore! Hence, I am way behind on reading, let alone commenting (and, obviously, posting).
• I did finally get things resolved with the I*R*S, and they determined that (duh!) I was entitled to the full interest deduction, so all is well in that department. Phew. And it only consumed 364 days of my life to get it sorted out.
  
• On the other hand, Cait won't be able to take the full adoption tax credit because she doesn't make enough money. We won't be losing too much, but it's still a loss. Ah, well. It's more than worth it to have both of us be legal parents. But annoying all the same.
• We continue to work on sleep issues. No matter what we do, someone in this house is having trouble sleeping. Last night it was me. Only my problem isn't sleeping per se, it's functioning immediately after waking up. Natalie fussed in the middle of the night, so I looked at the clock, saw that it was 5 am, and went to get her for her morning nurse. It was only after greeting her and picking her up that I saw the clock in her room which clearly said 12:20 am. Oops. In the end I had to feed her anyway to get her back to sleep. I just hope I haven't clobbered the nightweaning we achieved during spring break!
• Still no period, despite the nightweaning (except for last night's SNAFU, we go a minimum of 8 hours overnight without nursing) and cessation of pumping (giving me another 8-10 hour block without nursing M-F). I've never WANTED my period like this before (except after the molar pregnancy, and that was a bit different).

ASIDE: Do you see why I don't post? I'm just not capable of being concise.

• One last bullet before bed: We have a new car! Details (and hopefully pictures) to follow after this weekend when we take it on a road trip to Cait's sister's graduation....
  

Video Evidence

This is from this afternoon. She seems to be figuring it out pretty quickly. Time to move to the next level of childproofing.

And, as an added bonus, Natalie's farm report.

(What you can't hear at the end of the video is that she's breathing heavily in an attempt to snort like a pig. She still hasn't figured it out.)

Milestones

Last Monday, Natalie let go of me and walked 4 steps to the couch to get a particularly appealing toy. She continued this sort of behavior intermittently throughout the week. Last night, I watched as she walked from her dresser, where she'd been playing in (read: emptying) a drawer, out the door of her bedroom, and almost made it into the bathroom where her bath was running. I suspect her days as a crawler are numbered.

She also has had a new and lovely sleep pattern a few nights this week. We will not discuss it by name for fear of jinxing it. She has developed an interesting way of fussing while still asleep, so her moms have not gotten to fully enjoy this new event. Still, it's notable.

We seem to have completed (or nearly completed) 2 molars. Number 3 is making a pointy appearance in the upper gums. The above-mentioned new sleep pattern went out the window last night.

Videos of her toddlerness to come, once we've managed to take some.