whittycism

2013: and the horse you rode in on

Fuck 2013.

Seriously, what a shit year.

This week has been the worst week of my worst year, just really punctuating what a shitty horrible year this has been.

Over the last two weeks, Alfie has been sick sick sick. At first it seemed like any old childhood virus, a fever, lots of sleeping. But then there was a rash and then the rash spread over his whole body and he was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever. Which was so so scary, but treatable because despite it's medieval-ish name it is just a variation of strep and can be taken care of with antibiotics. Bea caught it too and was put on antibiotics as well. Bea's rash cleared up almost immediately. But Alfie's lingered and got worse and his temperature soared into frightening numbers.

We head back to the doctor and she thinks it might be this or that, but after blood tests they can only rule out what it isn't. That left Kawasaki Disease- which is unrelated to zippy motorcycles- an autoimmune syndrome. It was treatable, but it also threatened to damage his heart or worse. That "or worse" scared the shit out of me, I can't even bare to write it down even now. His doctor told us to immediately go to the hospital. There he was hooked up to monitors and an IV, they pumped him full of intravenous immunoglobulins to fight the the fever and rash, something his body should have been producing all along. But we still had to be wary of his heart, that damage might have already been done. He went in for an electrocardiogram the next day. I saw my little boy's heart flicker on a screen just like I did when he was in my belly.

He was in the clear.

He will have his heart checked again in a couple of weeks. He is on an aspirin regimen like an old man. He hates children's chewable aspirin with his entire being and every dose is a huge fight and so draining on him and me. There is begging and bribery and threats and tears. It is horrible, but he is better.

I am exhausted and stressed and so, so done with this year.

All that being said, there have been wonderful parts of my year! My children, my wonderful, smart, funny children have been a constant respite from this crapstorm of a year. My family has stood by me and supported me. I made new amazing friends and reconnected with old friends. Weirdly, I have kissed more boys in the last 9 months than I did in the previous 35 years. That's something. Truly there are a multitude of things for which I am both thankful and happy in this year.

But the overarching theme of this year is a big old pile of dog crap.

The kids are with me tonight, so my big plans are kissing my sweet babies at midnight, eating food that is bad for me, watching bad movies, and flipping a big double bird to the shadows of this shitty year disappearing over the horizon.

I have never meant it more than I do now when I say that I wish us all the happiest of new years!!

On being a moral slutbag

***WARNING: this post talks about sex and acknowledges that sometimes I have sex or have had sex in the past or could possibly have sex in the future. If you are related to me by blood or have a queasy stomach, I advise you to proceed with caution!***

I have been thinking a lot about sluts.

I have had a lot of sex. Now since I was monogamous in a relationship for the majority of my adult life, I have not had sex with a lot of men, but if we crunch the numbers, I would guess that I had a lot more sex than the average single person my age during that same time period.

I like sex. Someone once asked if I was a nympho and besides being mildly insulting to imply I have a mental condition because I enjoy sex, my answer was no, but I consider myself very sex positive. Sex makes me happy and to me it is the least complex part of any relationship - it makes me feel good and makes the person who I love/who's company I enjoy feel good. Pretty simple in my mind.

Being single and dating has been very interesting in some bullshit sociological way. Previously I didn't have much intention in my intereaction with men, they were entertaining, they were friends, but I didn't need anything from them. Previously I did not having to work very hard to get laid. I mean when you are in a relationship every kiss can lead to sex, a nudge in the middle of the night can lead to sex, getting the kids to bed on time can lead to sex. So now all the complex layers of "Will he, won't he? Should I make a move? Should I just ask for it?"  are all very interesting to me. And it was hard to go from sex at a whim to feeling a vague pressure to fit into some idea of a chaste and coy woman. Fuck that. It is not like they give you a shot of novocaine to your nether regions with your divorce decree.

Now, I was lead to believe that any woman regardless of looks or personality or mental stability could find some dude somewhere to fuck her at a moments notice. Initially, I had my doubts, but I have found this to be true. Is that the "best" way to go about it? Meh, two consenting adults and all that. Of course, ideally sex would be in the context of a loving relationship and comes with meaningful conversations and shared dreams and tra-la-la-la-la. But very little in this world is ideal and I still want to get laid.

I have never understood the some of morality mixed in with sex. As long as everyone is willing and enjoying themselves, I don't see how an artificial moral code should apply. Should everyone involved be sensitive to the other's feelings? Of course! Should participants be kind and try to be understanding? Of course! Just because one is a slutbag doesn't mean one has license to be an asshole as well.

I don't know why I have been thinking about this so much lately, it is not like I am bedding some random fellow every night. Like I said, the number notches in my headboard are still unenviably low, but I tend to get all tangled up with the idea of things so this has been on my mind. I just had never considered the idea that I would be in the position to consider these ideas again, so I am pretty blown away by the small intricacies of it all.

All that said, every time I have managed to lure some fella home, I am amazed. I am amazed at the unexpected conversations, I am amazed at the jokes and ridiculous situations, I am amazed that despite sometimes a world of difference there is a basic humanity that connects us all. And most of the time I am amazed at the sex.

People are amazing. Sex is amazing. So I guess I am coming out as a slut and I feel pretty good about it.

Dreams

I am not a big believer in dream interpretation or epiphanies that come in the night, but sometimes the subconscious is not a vague brew of labored symbols and fraught meaning. Sometimes it just is what it is.

Yesterday morning I woke up a bit breathless from a dream I had been having. In the dream I was beating the crap out of Timmy. I hit him with my fists, kicked him when he fell, a board with a nail at the end was featured prominently. Eventually his new girlfriend showed up - looking so emaciated as to resemble a holocaust survivor or walking skeleton (she is quite thin and it bugs the shit out of me) - and I beat her too. But here is the thing, as hard as I kept beating them, it had no effect, they were not injured. They were maybe mildly annoyed. And when I swung my fist, it was like punching through mud, so much effort for absolutely no return.

And this is exactly what I have been doing in the real world but with my words. I have taken verbal swing after verbal swing at him to no effect. I want a reaction, some sort of reaction, but I don't even know what.

Do I want to shake his fists at heaven cursing his own name? Yes. Do I want him to rend at his clothing regretting every decision that lead to him losing me? Yes. Do I want him live in neverending despair because he destroyed the one person who loved him best in the world? Yes. Is any of this going to happen? Well, considering he didn't have the emotional maturity to say "Hey, I may not be happy in our marriage anymore and I think we need to talk about it" then probably not.

I want a reaction be it sadness or anger. I feel the need to poke at him until I get it. But it is useless, even in my dreams. Not to mention the emotional toll it takes on me. I madly type texts with tears streaming down my cheeks or shout to my phone's voice recognition until it is covered in angry spittle. He is not capable of giving me anything I want anymore much less the emotional response I am looking for (and honestly, no response could ever be enough to satiate me). So, I am going to stop.

No more angry texts, no more sad texts. No mentions here or on facebook unless directly related to parenting or the sale of our marital home. Nothing. He doesn't get anything more from me.

A story: a couple of weeks ago, I was having a phone conversation with him about something kid related and it devolved into a shouting match (funnily, we never ever ever fought while we were married!) and after he hung up on me - his favorite tactic!- I pulled over my car and started stomping into the nearest store for a bottle of chocolate milk. I love milk. I love, love, love chocolate milk. It is really bad for me, especially in the amounts I drink it (or I should say drank it, as I gave it up officially last week- high five!). But as I was marching in, something overtook me and actually said aloud "NO!" and turned on my heel and went back to my car. I gained a lot (A LOT!) of weight while married to Timmy and have been very successful at losing it recently. I decided right there in that parking lot that he would never get another pound from me. Before I was eating out of happiness (try being married to an italian chef, y'all and you will think you are happy too!), fuck no was I going to eat out of sadness for that bastard! Not one more pound for him.

So, not one more word for him. These are the last: good fucking riddance.

The truth

I have been thinking a lot lately about justice, fairness, and karma.

Let me first say that I am very lucky in my life, that the world has been more than fair to me, and I am blessed in many ways. I am (relatively) healthy. I have two healthy children who are funny and smart and give me joy every day. I have a house and a good job. I have friends and family who love and support me. I am also strong-minded and -willed, I am not a victim and I am confident and self-assured.

All that said, this is what happened in my life: Timmy, my husband of over 9 years and partner of 14 years who I loved very, very much, cheated on me with at least 11 women over the course of our relationship.

He confessed this to me on his own volition and I was completely and utterly blindsided. He revealed this to me on April 13, 2013 which was a Friday. On the following Monday I was tested for STDs and took his name off contract for the house we were in the process of purchasing. On Tuesday I hired a lawyer. I also moved up the closing date on the house and moved into it two weeks later.

Though his story has changed somewhat from that first confession here is what he told me that night:

• He actively started seeking out women to have sex with on the internet less than a month after Bea was born, while I was still healing from giving birth (and while he was still healing from his vasectomy, not surprisingly he had complications from that surgery).
• Between when he started that bout of cheating in late November and April when he confessed, he had slept with 6 different women multiple times. (I know many, many more details about these interactions, but will leave it out for the sake of brevity and because some of it is just gross.)
• He cheated with five (or more) women prior to Alfie's birth, one of which was his ex-girlfriend who he had cheated on when they were together (NOT with me!!).
• He used his night job - which had been given to him by my family business - for a cover for his liaisons while I was home alone with a newborn and toddler.
• He only was telling me now because I was about to use a large part of my inheritance to pay for his degree.
• He only stayed with me the last few years because he wanted to have children and thought I was his last chance. He used me as a broodmare.
• He was (at the time of confession) seeing/talking to two other women but had not had sex with them which he remedied that shortly after I left. One was a married alcoholic who called me fat and vaguely threatened me over the phone and another that asked him shortly after they had hooked up to come and bail her out of jail several counties away.
• He no longer loved me because I didn't clean enough, procrastinated with my crafts, and was still angry at a friend who hurt me very much.

He has been telling people that he "made some bad descisons" like he overdrew at the bank. That telling of it borders on fairy tale. It has been driving me crazy that people might think I divorced him due to choosing curtains I didn't like or somesuch.

As to the accusations against me. They are all true. I hate to clean. I wait until the last possible minute to work on things for craft shows. I am still angry at my friend who basically stopped talking to me after I had a miscarriage.

By all counts I could have taken everything from him in the divorce, I had resources and a gender-biased court system on my side. But I didn't. I immediately offered 50/50 custody. I gave him the opportunity to refinance the house (that was purchased with funds from the sale of my premarital house) in his name. I sold him my car that was a premarital gift from my grandparents for half the blue book value.

He refused to pay child support despite it being the first time in the course of our relationship that he was making more money than me. I financially supported him for 14 years - he has never paid rent or a mortgage in his adult life. He actually said to me that if he had only had waited a year to confess he would have had claim to my inheritance as well.

Now, Timmy feels very put-upon and victimized by the fact I have been very mean to him during this whole thing. He is right, I waste no opportunities to tell him exactly what I think of him and what he did to our family. And while none of you will probably ever be on the other end of my anger, I can tell you that I am very cutting, very eloquent, very pointed when I am angry. I don't feel too bad about being mean to him, mostly because I never say anything that isn't true and his bad, guilty feelings are not my responsiblity.

Over the last six months or so, I have told the people around me. I have ranted and raved. I have cried on shoulders into the wee morning hours. I have told bartenders and the dog adoption lady. But to the world at large, I have only hinted at what he had done. I didn't want to create drama. I didn't want to be painted as the bitter and angry woman. Well, guess what, I am pretty angry. I am less bitter, but it is definitely there. I have nothing to hide, so why am I protecting him?

And here is where we get to justice. While I am actually pretty happy with the direction my life is going (though I have my moments of deep, hyperbolic despair) and I am doing pretty damn well, I have this nagging feeling that is just not fucking fair. He just got a promotion, he just got a free guitar, he just got a new girlfriend. What I have is the truth. And I need people to know the truth.

I am not patient enough for the karma that is clearly coming down the line. I know that he is in for a future of failed relationships filled with lies. I know he will fail in the eyes of his children. I know that he will be lonely and miserable. I know this, but I just can't wait. 

Maybe if a few more people know the truth about him, know who he really is, I can find a crumb of justice in that. Or maybe this will just incite sympathy for him. Or maybe this is petty revenge, I don't know, but it is the truth. And it is the truth that terrifies him the most.

 

Wednesdays

I try to keep my drama off the internet. Which used to be no big deal as I had very little drama in my very little life and I was happy with that.

Every Wednesday I cry in the daycare parking lot, big ugly snot-filled sobs. Every Wednesday I drop the kids off at daycare, soak in as many hugs and kisses as I can get, and I don't see them again for three to four days. It sucks. It sucks so bad. I spend the days they are away trying to medicate myself with friends and booze and projects and food and whatever stupid distraction I can find, but really I am the walking dead. I am empty. I feel souless. My heart actually aches. It is some Promethean bullshit, except it is my heart not my liver and I get a whole week before it gets ripped out again.

I am starting to recognize the toll this is taking on me. I have been so solid so far, a fucking stone. But that stone is in the middle of a raging flood-fed river and I am being worn down. I can envision a future where I am muddy silt downstream.

And it sucks to be a single parent. It is unfair. To me because it is not the deal I struck when I agreed to become a parent. Unfair to the kids because I am certainly not the best mom I could be. I get a few precious hours with them at the end of the day before bedtime and it goes so fast.

I have been very equitable in all of this, 50/50 all the way. Which is amazing because I would be well within my right to grab hold of all I can get, to take every second, every cent, and there would not be one person on the planet who could find fault in that. But I haven't, it turns out I am a nice person, a zen-fucking-master, a Mother Teresa mother fucker. And don't think it doesn't bother me, a part of me wishes I could be vengeful, but I don't have it in me. Damn it. Sometimes I wish I did because in my rueful imaginings I suspect it feels really good to dole out what is deserved and take what your are owed.

I am trying really hard not to be bitter. Trying to tamp down the anger and rage. Quell the snot-filled tears. So I limit it all to Wednesdays. That is my broken day, my lost day. All day I sit on simmer, quietly building to a boil. And then I go home and nap.

Let's go out: ain't to proud to beg edition

So, I am finding myself with a lot of free time on my hands. Initially I thought I would use this time productively: sewing, painting, cleaning, exercising. You know, bettering myself. And I have to some extent, but good gravy, betterment is boring sometimes.

I took that Meyers-Brigg assessment several times in college (I have no idea why SO MANY professors thought it would be SO enlightening), I vacillated between an INFP and ENFP every time. For those not in the know, I=introvert and E=extrovert. And seriously, my scores would be like 49% introvert and 51% extrovert or vice versa every damned time. SO enlightening. Point being, I am shy and like my alone time, but sometimes need the company of others. Supposedly introverts get their energy from being alone, extroverts from being with people. I hang out in the hazy middle. I need to be alone to gather my thoughts, but will slowly go crazy if I don't get some people time as well.

That crazy thing has been especially true lately. I need some company, yo. And this is my none too subtle plea: ask me out. Invite me. Please. I am lonely and want to have a conversation that does not involve talking to a crazed kitten. Here are the benefits of asking me to your event, party, bris, etc:

• I make good conversation. I am semi-versed in many topics and have varied interests. I listen to NPR and can discuss world events. One thing speech and debate in high school taught me is the ability to bullshit pretty well about everything else.
• I like to help out! Need someone to stand by your guest book at your wedding? DONE! While I may not be able to hit a ball with a barn door, I will keep score and get water at your soft ball game! Having an orgy? I will hand out towels and offer words of encouragement!
• I will display the amount of cleavage appropriate to your event. Everyone loves cleavage.
• I clean up well. I have several dresses that I am willing to don. I also dress down for camping, gardening, toting barges.
• I will be your DD, DM, or DtF. Heh heh, just kidding on that last one! Kinda. Mostly.....geez, we'll see.
• I am charmingly awkward. 
• The amount of bawdy language I use is proportional to the amount of alcohol I drink! You want to hear some seaworthy language and/or topics, just you wait!
• I can be genuinely enthusiastic about almost everything. Need someone to cheer on your team? I almost got in a fist fight once over my ardent cheering at a dodgeball game! I will cry at your wedding! Sing at your birthday! Shout insults at your enemies at your back alley brawl!
• In the long term, I am a really good friend. Not to be too humble and to misquote Jerry McGuire, I will complete you.
• If you invite me and it is a night that I don't have the kids, I will most likely come. Exceptions are neo-nazi rallies, church, vandalism, heroin, and cock/dog fighting, but for almost anything else, I am game.

That is that. Let's go out, world.

So, this is that post

I have been composing this post in my head for awhile now. Wondering if I even should write it at all, but I have documented a lot of my life here and it would be odd to leave this out.

Timmy and I are getting a divorce.

Wow. That is strange to type out. But there it is, black and white. We have been separated for more than a month now, the paperwork is submitted to my lawyer, and once the paperwork is into the court, it is 30-45 days and that is that.

It is so strange to untangle 14 years of a life together. There are small things that you would never think of, like I currently don't own a spatula. Or tylenol. Or napkins. Or a myriad of other small things that you don't think of when starting at a new place. Because I had all those things, built a collection of those things, but then they aren't mine anymore. 

After the initial blow, the dust has settled, the angry voices have past, we have arrived at a place where we work together dividing our lives. 

And being parents. The kids in all of this are paramount and wonderful and resilient. Bea is continually happy and smiling and beautiful. Alfie is chatty and funny and testing all the limits he is supposed to and so, so sweet. They are great kids and constantly challenge us to be better parents and people. That is what we try to concentrate on, being the best, being better for the kids. And so far, we are doing okay.

And I am okay. I mean it. Oh, there have been moments of tears and rage and deep, horrible sadness, but really, I am okay. Things happened. (I will not go into the minutiae here because it is not really important to the world at large, but if you are hungry for the dirty details, ask me privately or in person, I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of, but documenting it here for eternity just seems in plain bad taste.) Those things hurt and were hard, sometimes are still hard, but that is the past and I have my eyes on the horizon. I really do feel my life is full of possibility and potential. I have a road laid before me that I did not expect to tread, but I am excited to see where it will lead.

I will be honest, I am lonely a lot. That is hard. I am doing my damnedest to be out with people on the days I do not have the kids. And at night when the kids are in bed but before I can toss and turn myself to sleep, I am lonely. It has been a long, long time since I have been alone and I am not very good at it yet. Like I said, a new road, a hard, unexpected road, one that will surely trip me up occasionally, but I will find my footing and keep moving forward.

I feel like I should say something deep and meaningful to tie this all together, but I am not at deep and meaningful yet. I am at getting by, I am at trying hard, I am at doing the best I can. When I get to deep and meanful, I will definitely let you all know.

Vacation Memories

Today's blogging challenge question: What's one of your favorite family vacation memories?

I wouldn't say we were poor growing up. We had food and clothes and solid little house. But I know my parents walked close to that line, we had enough but didn't have excess. So as far as family vacations go, I can only remember one official vacation when I was 7 or 8 for which we drove 20 hours to Disney World.

I don't remember much from the vacation at all. Which I am sure would be a bitter pill for my parents as they must have saved and saved to make that trip. I think when I was 12 or so we went to Washington DC. Again, I don't remember much.

What we did do, a lot, was go camping. I am not talking about park a camper in a camp ground and laze about camping. I am talking hike in several miles, carry your own tent and water and food camping. We camped from when I was very young, a baby really, until I was in my early teens. 

One specific spot we went back to over and over again was the shut-ins at Hercules Glades in the Mark Twain National Forrest. The shut-ins was a spot in a small river where the ground  suddenly dropped out from under the river and created a water fall (when the water was running). Our regular camping spot was above the bank just below the falls. There was a path down to the river where we did our dishes and skinny-dipped. And just next to the path, right at the edge over-hanging the water, was a large hollowed out tree. 

The hollowed out bit was large enough for both my sister and I to climb into and if your shimmied your way up the hollow trunk, up to a spot where the tree bowed out over the water there was a bit of a ledge made by the bend and an old knothole that was like a wee window on the water below. It was awesome. At present day, I am not much of a magical thinker, but back then I was pretty convinced that this tree was clearly home to gnomes or fairies or some other magical being when we weren't around. Because it had to be, right? It was so perfect, a window! A crooked little door-like opening! Room enough to fit two little girls and all of their imagination!!

The last time I went to the shut-ins I was in my twenties and camping solo. It had been years since I had been down there, but I found "our" spot with ease. The gnome tree was gone, a ragged stump in its place. Surely a big storm or flood had taken it out. It was still beautiful, still amazing and relaxing, but the magic was just gone. Or maybe I just couldn't see it anymore.

This is my grandfather

This is my Grandfather. Yesterday morning he passed away.

He was a farmboy. He lost his mother when he was a small boy, he lost his brothers when they were far too young, and he lost a son painfully and horribly early. When he was first married he tended to pregnant mares and collected their urine to make hormones for menopausal women, my grandmother says the smell was staggering. He was in the Army and drove trucks full of supplies in Philippines. He built dozens of good, strong homes that are still lived in and loved. He was a good business man and a fair landlord. I never saw him smoke a cigarette or have a drink, and I never heard him cuss, though I am 100% certain he did all those things. He was not tall or big, but he loomed large. And he loved my grandmother so tenderly and genuinely for more than 65 years.

I don't feel like we were particularly close or that I knew him very well. I was an emotional and sensitive kid, an angsty teen, and busy young adult, a classically self-centered idiot of a child. He was a quiet man, I was a quiet child. Growing up I remember him as serious and maybe a bit stoic. I remember him reading the paper. I remember him working in the barn or driving the tractor. I remember him at the office and the importance of being on very good behavior when we were there. I remember holidays and birthdays. When I was 14 and hiking out in the Rockies, he sent me a couple dozen squares of toilet paper and one of the nicest letters I have ever received. I know I did myself a huge disservice by not getting to know him as a person when I could, not being brave enough to ask questions or simply just see his human, non-grandfather side sooner.

And I don't know if I will ever really forgive myself for never saying something I had been contemplating for a decade or more. I didn't think I could get the words out, I always thought I would put it down in a letter to make it easier, but I never did.

So, here. Grandpa, thank you. Thank you first for your part in raising my father into a kind and loving man and a good father. If this was your only legacy, it would be hard to do better. And thank you for working so damned hard for your entire life that enabled me to have advantages that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. It never seemed like you did it for the acclaim or accolades, but only for the love and betterment of your family. And it worked! You succeeded! I am a better person, a happy, blessed person because of you. So thank you. And I am so, so sorry I couldn't say it when it counted. I only hope you knew it anyway.

My grandfather died on a sunny morning, only steps away from his wife of 65 years in a house he built himself and lived in for 35 years. I had seen him the weekend before and he seemed happy and had a bit of an appetite. So much of his life is shadows to me, but I see the affects of his life in mine every single day.

Blogging, birthdays, babies, etc

Yesterday was my birthday. It went okay. I basically stayed home. napped and ate a piece of cake. Timmy was eager to get me to do something a bit more social, but I was cool with being a homebody.

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested a new blog challenge to my blog challenge group. We were to have weekly questions to answer and since I was the one to suggest it, I was first up to come up with a question. And then I slacked (mock surprise face!!) and I am just now getting around to my very own question. Which was, in honor of my at the time upcoming birthday:

What did you accomplish in the last year?

...

...

...

Crap.

Why did I have to ask such a stupid question?

If we are calling accomplishments major changes, I certainly had some of those. If we are talking accomplishments like finally getting recognized by the Nobel committee, then not so much.

I changed jobs. I feel a bit uncomfortable claiming this as an accomplishment as I basically begged my daddy to give me a job. Which is... kinda pathetic. But really we had been talking about me coming to work for the family business when my dad retired for a few years now. When I finally asked my dad to give me a job, he was two years out from retirement and I felt like I was drowning in bills and the stress of barely eeking by was eating at me constantly. So I begged. Maybe not my finest moment.

But now we are slightly above eeking and slowly paying off bills. And my dad moved up his retirement, which I think makes him pretty happy. And I do think I have added something of value to the company, I work on our online ads and I like to think I am a bit responsible for getting some houses rented out! So everybody wins, right! And only a slight hit to my pride!!

My other accomplishment was very much an accident, so my claims on that are a bit dubious as well. But I got pregnant! Again! After being thoroughly convinced that it was not possible. After being a bit of a douche about the awesomeness of single children. After firmly denying that there was any chance we would try for another and we were oh-so-happy with our little family of three.

Timmy and I had gone round and round a bit about a second child. Were we doing a disservice to Alfie? We both had siblings and great siblings at that, would Alfie be missing out? Would he be lonely as we got older and grumpy and unmanageable and eventually keeled over? We were fully
committed to raising one awesome kid. That would be a great legacy, to be awesome parents concentrating all our pure awesomeness into producing an awesome human being. Yeah. And besides, my ovaries were all messed up, didn't work right to begin with, so why oh why would we want to go through the heartbreak of trying to conceive again.

But we lingered on making more final, long-term birth control options. And we were lazy with the ones we were using and when I called my doctor to finally schedule an appointment for that long overdue IUD, they made me take a pregnancy test and holyfuckingshitthisisunbelieveable.

So, it turns out that really making an awesome kid is pretty hands off. Seriously. Sure we read lots of books and try to take him to new and educational experiences. But really, that kids is just plain awesome on his own with very little conscious effort on our part. I really don't know how that happened, but seriously, he is amazing and we will certainly have enough awesomeness for two kids it seems.

I will admit I had some reservations at first, but that was mostly the lingering effect of the holyshit factor. Now that the shock has worn off and I am privy to some near constant wiggling from this little girl (It is a girl!!), I have readjusted the picture in my mind to a family of four. This is going to work, we can totally do this! Alfie loves babies and will love having a sibling. So, surprise!

Those are definitely the big changes, ahem, accomplishments, over the last year. Other than those, pretty big deals, it  has been kinda a quiet year enjoying family and friends.

Blog post ACCOMPLISHED!!