silent

I found out I was pregnant on inauguration day (Gobama!). Since then it's all been setting in: the emotional rollercoaster, the tender boobs, the need for chocolate chip cookies. It has been such a blessing to have this little bundle to look forward to, especially since the last three months have been the absolute worst of my life, with all this business crap to deal with.

We had our first appointment with the midwife today, where we discussed everything in an open, friendly atmosphere - the baby's birth date: September 30 (my favorite time of the year! And, Luciya and the babe will be 2 1/2 years apart - perfect!) We discussed how we've decided to NOT find out the sex. We went over emergency procedures and all the offerings of the ld&r section of St. Al's.

Then the midwife went to listen for the heartbeat with her little microphone. I held my breath as she moved all around to locate it - to no avail. No problem, she said, my uterus was probably just lying low. So we went in to see the ultrasound tech. 

She found the sac but it looked so small she tried again by inserting an internal ultrasound. Again, just a little black spot. The midwife and the tech stepped out of the room without a word to let me change. John and I looked at each other and that's when we knew.

The baby has died inside of me.

It's now up to my body to figure that out, and get rid of it.

'cause all she wants to do is dance, dance

Luciya wandered away from her Dada today and came back in possession of two CDs. John swears he doesn't have a clue where she went or where they came from. He's got boxes of CDs stored in the furnace room, but the boxes are sealed and the door was still closed. 

Here are the random selections now sitting on my desk:

and

I'm so excited to listen to about 46 hours of Neil Diamond. You think I'm kidding?

peanut butter jelly time!

to my husband on our 8th valentine's day

Happy to be your baby-mama

Proud to be your wife

Looking forward to many more years

Of this interesting life!

Even though you make me crazzy

And I know I do the same

I have faith we're meant to be

Because our true love isn't lame.

Like this poem.

Oh, well. I just try.

I love you.

Shemmy

projects

The past few weeks have been dreary gray-bone chilly-nut heavy-sky days, and we've found ourselves indoors much more than we'd like to admit. So, taking advantage of Uncle Mikey's presence and the onset of cabin fever, we've started tackling some household projects that have been topics of conversation for months. 

Inspiration: Half-counter in the corner of the kitchen with 3 cupboards underneath. Not conducive to family eating; very good for gathering clutter.

Step 1: Clear off the mess. Remove the cupboards.

Step 2: Don pink rubber boots and Inspiration Tutu in order to more effectively help in construction efforts.

Step 3: Rip the effer off the wall using any power tools necessary. (A woodworker neighbor with said power tools comes in handy in this step.)

Step 4: Pause. Now what?

Step 5: Spackle and repaint.

Step 6: Furnish. 

We already had the chairs, rug, and bench. We got the table at Fred Meyer for $119.

We're waiting on the finishing touch - a strip of board to cover the bottom portion of the lovely "wall tile" where the counter was ripped out.

I LOVE this. We have eaten here, as a family every single day for the last week. We've played cards and painted pictures. And we don't miss the cupboard space at all. It's like a whole new kitchen!!

luciya pooped in the potty!!!!! luciya pooped in the potty!!!!

So, Luciya likes to practice sitting on the potty. Sometimes she'll pull down her pants, sometimes she'll leave them on, but she always likes to grab exactly one square of toilet paper, pretend to wipe, and the toss it into the "big potty" and say "bye bye!" as we flush it away.

She's never actually peed or pooped in the potty, though, and I'm not worried, since we're not in an extreme rush to potty train or anything, but I've wondered if she really knew what the whole potty business was really about.

This evening, after picking up a few things at the Costco, Luciya and I had a lovely date for two at McGrath's Fish House. This is the second of such mommy-daughter dates out for a meal, and both times she has behaved incredibly well. She ate her veggies, stayed in the high chair, and didn't throw a single morsel of food on the floor. We laughed together and quite enjoyed our meal. When we came home I ran a bath for Luciya and before getting her in the water we each sat on our respective potties, as is custom. I didn't think anything of it until Luciya got up from her potty and there were THREE BIG BEAUTIFUL TURDS sitting there in the bowl!!! Like, no big deal, Mom, I just had to poop, so I did it in the POTTY! Such a big girl.

I hope you can sympathize somewhat with my absolute elation. I'm just so proud (sniff, tear).

And you can kind of hear it in my voice in the requisite video that followed. (Warning: video includes one second of footage of actual poop.)

hooray!!! from shemmy on Vimeo.