The Best Thing

I have a lot of photo-heavy, low on content stuff to post what with Halloween and Trick or Treating and a trip to the zoo and his big boy haircut and our holiday family pictures, but that is all nothing compared to this.

Tycho talks.

Rocket science! You guys, I was so worried. My stomach was in knots for months as I was waiting and waiting and waiting, first for the language explosion that I was expecting that never came, and then to get him evaluated, and finally to actually get him placed into a program and start doing something. It was an emotional roller coaster, harder than I ever expected parenting to be, and a experience I never would have dreamed I would have.

The months ago Tycho could barely put two words together. He didn't have names for anyone or anything besides mama. He would lose old words every time a new word would appear. And we couldn't communicate effectively and we were all frustrated.

But now. Last night we were eating dinner and Tycho was sitting happily at the table say, "EAT FISH! EAT FISH! MORE FISH! PLEASE FISH!" while he ate. He uses rudimentary sentences. He has names now for Daddy and Arlo and his friend Selby at school and Lighting McQueen and Nemo and Dori and Thomas Train. He has new words every day. He supplies the word "feet" at the appropriate time when I sing him "Part of Your World" at bedtime. (And then he asks for "more song" and I sing him the reprise.) At our more recent trip to the zoo he said "lemur." He knows what a star fish is. I don't think I taught him that.

I am bursting with pride and happiness and gratitude and joy. Really and truly this is amazing and wonderful and I feel like we are able to know so much more of his delightful little personality now that he is able to share with us through his speech. When I think about where we are now and how far we've come I feel like a ball of energy and light. Euphoria. I can't even describe it.

We still have a ways to go but progress is being made and I couldn't be happier.

The reason

Kyle and I were talking the other night about how crazy it is for us to have another baby. To draw out the diapers and the crying and the poop and the not sleeping for another several years right when we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. But we know we want two children, so we will suffer. Or something. There may have been wine involved.

Really, I'm not a baby person. I mean, I now have all sorts of squishy mama hormones giving me squishy mama feelings and sometimes I want to kidnap a friend's newborn to huff that new baby head smell, but like, babies, not my favorite. Even my own, who was clearly the most adorable perfect baby ever, bored me to tears, adorably. I never wanted babies to have babies. I wanted to have babies so one day I could have children.

Tycho is still a baby in a lot of senses. He needs help with everything, and his communication skills are barely developed. But I see now the person he is becoming, and it is AWESOME. There are still hard moments, and often, but in general every day with Tycho is better and more like what I imagined when I would daydream about parenthood. His personality is his and his alone, and we hang out and it is fun and I love him. I mean, obviously, but you know.

TWUE WUV

So, like, yes, I totally love my baby all the time, always and forever, even when he is being a huge butt head. That goes without saying. Since he sprung from my loins and all that. But lately I feel like I am extra super in love with him. I think toddlerhood suits us all very well. I'm squee-city, here. Look at this kid, he is beautiful.

FOUR

I have a lot of posts to catch up on, I know, but I have been married for four years today and I think that is important, and I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle of all the baby birthday shenanigans. :)

I'm such a sap.

At least once a day (more often two or three times) Tycho does something so heartbreakingly adorable that I get all misty-eyed and have to squeeze him as tight as humanly possible. I am so intrinsically tied to him. I have no idea how that works, but it is beautiful.

Seven Years!

Something a little bit different...

Today is exactly seven years from the day Kyle and I met, like, for real, in person. I am normally not one who celebrates anniversaries of inane bullshit, and I haven't made any effort to remember this one, but August 19th is stuck in my head.

Seven years isn't really that long, but it is my entire adult life, so it's significant for me. Anyway, I'm really happy that Kyle took a chance on an internet romance and did really come to see me in Seattle seven years ago. It changed my life.

At least today is somebody's birthday!

Today will be an experiment in how to not completely irritate your husband on his 28th birthday when you are also 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. It might be tricky. Plan so far is to get the fuck out of the house and get a pedicure, because I am sure I am far less annoying when I am not here. We'll see how it goes after that.

I love you, Kyle.

37 Weeks, 6 Days

Posted without comment.

b r e a t h e

I. Am. Panicking.

Seriously. What in the hell do we think we are doing, having a baby? We don't even have a savings account! (Well, actually we have three, but they collectively hold approximately twenty five dollars.) We're going to lose the baby under piles of laundry and cat hair and also possibly cat vomit. I mean, really. We are not grownups. And where the hell are we going to live? Pay no mind that our lease isn't even up until August (AFTER THE BABY IS SUPPOSED TO ARRIVE), and there's no way we can afford to cut out of our lease early. But like, we can't have a baby and no dishwasher and no laundry, what with the aforementioned piles of dirty clothing. But (see above re: savings account) it's not like we can afford anywhere better. Or anywhere better than a cardboard box once approximately 110% of my salary is going to daycare. And who doesn't get important adult things like a house before they have a baby? Who has a baby in a crappy rental apartment? Who? What first grader is going to invite their friends back to this piece of shit "home"? OMG, first grade? School? Should we start worrying about school districts and whether or not the local elementary is total ass? Because obviously we're not going to be able to afford private school! Why in the world did I have to be so incredibly selfish and do this NOWNOWNOW when clearly that was a terrible idea?

I know most of this is probably just pregnancy hormones and lack of good sleep and totally normal and everything, and that we'll hopefully figure out a way to make things work, but all these things are real worries for me. I mean we decided years ago that we needed a new couch and a new coffee table, and we still haven't managed to be in a financial position to make such a purchase, and the whole pregnancy/childbirth/baby thing is already going to cost us a lot of money that we don't have so I guess the baby is going to have to hang out on our disgusting old couch. At least baby won't be able to bump his or her head on any coffee corner tables, because we don't have one at all. I don't know. I think I really just need to cry and flip out and have Kyle hold me a reassure me and tell me everything is going to be all right, but as much as I love him, he's really not that kind of man, and doesn't understand this. He tells me it's going to be okay, but not in any way that makes me believe him or even really considered that these things might in fact be problems or that I'm not completely insane, and maybe hopefully I am but I really don't think so.

I already love this stupid little thing so much and I don't know how I'm going to be good enough.

Happiness

This is probably too sappy and gushy for anyone to enjoy reading, but I need to put it somewhere.

I am really happy.

It's kind of amazing.  And it's a wonderful background happy. A nothing particularly awesome happened today, but I still feel great, kind of happy. A work is totally stressful and I have to work overtime and I barely get to see my husband and my house is a certified disaster zone but I still can't stop smiling kind of happy. Happy.

Happiness that doesn't depend on things going my way (or at least not terribly wrong) is kind of new for me. I have a tendency to let the day to day bullshit stress me out and take over. I tend to take my work drama home with me, and let it consume my thoughts and often times my conversations with Kyle. Little things like dust bunnies and dirty laundry in my environment can create a huge black cloud over my day.  I usually have many happy instances, but the overall background mood is morose, or at least apathetic.  But lately, even though things have been average at best, I am feeling freaking amazing.

It totally doesn't matter when my boss's chronic health issues cause her to have a nervous breakdown at work. I take charge and do what I need to do to keep things moving. And it doesn't matter that I spent over two hours stuck in traffic today. I just turn up the volume and rock out to Todd Rundgren and the Backstreet Boys while other drivers laugh at me.



Also, I am super in love with Kyle. Always, but especially lately. We aren't seeing a lot of each other these days because we both have tons of work commitments, but he has been super sweet. He doesn't make a lot of grand gestures, but the little everyday things he does totally make me swoon. Like making me dinner and leaving it in the fridge for me even though he won't be home to eat it.

This is probably ridiculous, but at least once every day he'll do something sweet, or say something nice, or even just send me a MMS of the bunny cat hiding inside a paper grocery bag, and I'll think to myself, "I really should marry him." And then I remember that we are married and it makes me so happy.



In other news, it's 14 DPO, and there are no signs of impending period. No pregnancy symptoms either, except for morning nausea, but that's been a constant for me since I was a teenager. But maybe... just maybe... even though we didn't have a lot of success with the "trying" this go 'round.... maybe? We could be one of those cautionary tales for middle school sex education about why pulling out is ineffective birth control. We'll see.

Two.

Today Husband and I have been married for two years. In August it will have been six since we met. There is nothing in my world that exists except for in relation to him. And I don't mean that in a pathetic, I have no interests or hobbies of my own kind of way, but rather that even when he's not here and I'm doing something completely unrelated to him or our relationship he is still there with me.

There are a lot of people who ask about marriage  "why bother?"  Why don't we just keep on keepin' on? Why do we have to make a big deal out of it? The legal aspects are neither here nor there (although they are nice). And it's not about all the pomp and circumstance of a big wedding. It's the total commitment of yourself to your partner for life. And that's so much more than just love.

When Husband and I got married I knew that I was ready to make this commitment, and I that I wanted to be with him forever and that I wanted for him to be my family and the father to my children. But still, I had no idea how this would change our relationship. It's hard to describe the difference. The subtle permanence of us permeates everything now. I could never have predicted the comfort and ease of just knowing. Knowing what, I'm not even sure, but it's there, in the background, behind everything that I do and think and feel. And it is amazing.

Husband is not the perfect man. He's not the perfect husband.  I imagine that some of my acquaintances think that my marriage is doomed to fail based on the anecdotes I share with them.  He is irritating and messy and I'm needy and we fight and complain about each other. But it is all superficial. Underlying all of the imperfection is something special that I cannot describe, but I can feel it, all the time, and I know everything is going to be okay.