I still hate titling these.

Hello, hello!

We spent last weekend in Maryland hanging out with my sister and her family. Her new baby is so lovely and snuggly and perfect, and my twenty-month-old goddaughter is spunky and so freaking smart and very awesome indeed. It was a very nice visit, if way too short, except that a cousin we saw while we were there managed to spread his cold to me and M and the new two-week-old baby. Being pregnant suppresses the immune system, so a cold I used to be able to shake in three days now hangs on for two weeks, and M is also cutting some molars, so she and I are not at our very best right now.

Nothing new to report with M's case, other than that her dad has attended two out of six visits since court. Oh, and the worker told us she was chatting with the law guardian, who reported that she loves working with us and wishes she could clone us (which was nice to hear). Our worker gets my sense of humor, so I told her it was nice of her to say that, but we've actually been working on a plan to flee to Canada with M really soon, and in the meantime we're just really good at getting the white people in charge to trust us. The worker yelled, "I knew it!"

We're starting to look at houses again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we live in a Cape Cod, and our upstairs is two huge bedrooms and one very small bathroom, and the downstairs has a whole bunch of cramped rooms, including two very small bedrooms and a narrow living room. When we moved in it was just fine, but it's hard to entertain since everyone wants to hang out in our (small, eat-in) kitchen, and if we continue to foster it will be weird because opposite-sex kids can't share a room after age three in our county. So we're starting to look at houses that would suit our needs a little better. We've narrowed our search to two towns not far from us. I have to admit that I have no visual/spatial intelligence, so it's hard for me to look at bad paint or really outdated decor and see past it to the bones. Luckily Andy's good at that, so I'm confident we'll find something that works!

I'm pretending that the idea of doing the minor things we need to do to our house to make it more marketable (almost entirely cosmetic) and then packing and moving while pregnant or with a new baby isn't freaking my shit out. Was it convincing?

Relief

Yesterday morning we had our first trimester screen. This is a blood test combined with an ultrasound to give an indication of your odds of your baby having certain issues, including Downs syndrome, a rare but serious chromosomal abnormality called trisomy 18, or heart defects. We decided with the first pregnancy not to do the tests, since the outcome isn't going to cause us to terminate the pregnancy (there are a lot of false positives) or probably even pursue further testing, because the follow-up tests for the chromosome problems, amniocentesis and CVS (where they take a teeny piece of your placenta), carry risks of miscarriage. This time, we did the test because it meant another ultrasound.

The baby's doing fine. I cannot possibly tell you how much that sentence means to me. I realized as we were sitting in the waiting room that I fully expected to be told that I'd had another miscarriage. Every single thought about this pregnancy, for the last three months, has been tempered by the fear slash firm belief that I was going to miscarry again. Even though we saw the heartbeat at six weeks, I couldn't relax and let myself think things would be okay.

I think that really changed yesterday. The whole pregnancy is real to me in a way it hadn't been yet. We got to see the baby, who is measuring exactly on track, and it was amazing. It moved around and rolled and waved its little arms. The ultrasound as part of the first trimester screen is to measure a spot on the back of the baby's neck - a measurement above 3 millimeters is considered suspicious, and our baby's measured 1.2 mm. The blood results won't be in until later in the week, but they didn't see anything that immediately indicated any concern.

I had my twelve-week appointment with my own doctor today (the stuff yesterday was at a different place) and got to hear the heartbeat again. Not too proud to tell you I cried. Yesterday and today. I also finally remembered to ask my doctor about recommending physical therapy for my back, which has been sore already. I go in for my first appointment next week.

Awesome stuff all around!

Do you have any questions? I had a million the first time my sister was knocked up, so I'll happily answer them if I can.

Three our-family things and three bio-family things

Our family!

1. Today is a lovely warm fall day, so while Andy does yardwork, the little girl and I are going to have an adventure to get the best apple fritters in the world (shout out to Zarpentine's Farm!) and also to get her some long-sleeved onesies, because girl is growing fast.

2. Before we can do that, the girl needs to take a nap. She has been fighting going to sleep for over an hour at this point. She has the funniest ways to keep herself awake, like sticking one arm in the air and banging the other foot repeatedly. I think while we're out we'll stop at Barnes and Noble to try to find a decent short board book about naps - the baby loves Time For Bed and she actually pulls it out at bedtime if we forget to grab it. Whatever we get, I'll get a copy for daycare too, so we can have the same routine in both places. Any nap-book recommendations?

3. My sister and her family are coming home for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas this year, and I am so excited to see them! For what might be the first time since we all left home, we're having a full dinner at my parents' house with both of my siblings and their families. It's going to be lovely. Andy's making sweet potatoes with pecan-marshmallow streusel topping. We actually still don't know what the plan is with Andy's side, except that neither of his sisters can make it and that both of the houses we might end up invited to have residents who smoke indoors. Urk.

The baby's bio-family!

I talked to the worker for a long while on Wednesday and found out the following things:
1. The baby's grandma told the worker on Monday that she feels like the baby is where she needs to be, and that she (the grandma) is not planning to file for custody again. WHAT. This is the exact opposite of what she's been saying all along, so even if she changes her mind tomorrow (totally possible and even likely), it's a huge step. The grandma thinking the baby is fine where she is doesn't have any legal bearing or any impact on where she'll end up, except that it might mean she won't file for custody at the last minute and drag out the whole process.

2. The baby's mom had been doing really well and had been taking care of herself in a way that made it look likely that she was actually trying to improve her life. Well, turns out she had been working so hard because she thought that she might be pregnant, and now that she knows she isn't, she isn't making such awesome choices. This is sad because dang, her life could be so much better than it is, but it also gives me hope that she chose to be pretty healthy for the benefit of the unborn baby.

3. The baby's dad left me a note a few weeks ago in the notebook we send to visits that he had been approved for a three-bedroom place and would be moving soon. I called the worker to let her know and she called the dad and then called me to report that actually, he had been approved for a one-bedroom place IN OUR TOWN, not in the very small town 45 minutes away he kept saying he was planning to move to. Now, our town isn't tiny (it's actually in our state's top ten by population), but we like the idea of the dad being close by because it feels like maybe it'll be more likely that we'll be able to see our girl if she goes to her dad. Also, per the worker on Wednesday, the dad was planning to move into the one-bedroom to try to get custody of our girl but the worker discouraged that because it would mean leaving his other two kids with his mom indefinitely, which, you know, the county doesn't really think is a great plan. So the process to correct the paperwork to try to get a three-bedroom place is annoyingly slow and complicated, which works out great for us because the dad has said all along that he's not planning to file for custody until after he moves. For the first time, I actually feel like I can plan to have the baby here for her birthday (in mid-December) and Christmas.

The worker also told me that she's planning to start the paperwork process for writing the termination of parental rights after the baby's been with us for a year (in January) because it's a lot of stuff to compile. She is always pretty up-front that the baby's case could still end up with her back with bio-family, but she said that as it stands there would still need to be significant improvement for them to agree the baby should be moved. So, in summation, time keeps ticking on this case and no one is making big strides to get her back.

What is the thing you're most excited about making for Thanksgiving? Or, if you've been following this baby's saga, what do you think of these new developments?

Holiday spirit!

I'm already home for my Christmas long weekend! I usually don't get out of work until 4 at the earliest, but here's an awesome thing: at our work Christmas party, my work-best-friend won a game and got herself four extra hours of vacation time for this week. She knew my sister and Brian and the best baby in the world were coming into town (they arrived last night), so she asked my boss in secret if she could split it with me. Boss said yes, so work-best-friend and I both got two extra hours of vacation time, and I get to be home early!

I made Yuletide nipples yesterday, and I think I'll try to fit in a batch of m&m cookies this afternoon before we head to family dinner at my parents' house. My grandparents are in town for Christmas, which should certainly keep things from being boring.

I hope you all are having the best holiday season EVER.

On football

So in case you haven't noticed, it's autumn in America, which means football season is upon us. I decided last year that I was going to be a die-hard Redskins fan, and I'm super-psyched that they won yesterday but I can't help feeling that I'm a failure as a die-hard fan, since I can only name a handful of players on the team.

You might have guessed about me that I'm not really into sports. Most of them take place outdoors and involve being active, so there's two strikes against it to start. But football? I like football, mostly, I guess. I don't live near enough to any major sports team to have to sit outdoors in crappy weather in uncomfortable seats, which means that most of my football is observed from a living room. This suits me just fine. And usually, football is an excuse to eat shitty food and yell a lot about things that don't matter in the long run, which is also fun.

Andy is a Dolphins fan. His dad is a Bills fan, and the Bills and Dolphins have some sort of rivalry thing, so it was a pretty natural move for little-kid-Andy to pick the team that his dad hated (if you're new here, read that post for some insight there). He also was a fan of Dan Marino, who played for the Dolphins, which fact I totally already knew, but only because of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Andy will happily watch football, but is okay with the fact that not having cable means he misses a lot of games. He also doesn't sulk all week (or at all) when his team loses, which makes me love him even more, because that shit is childish.

So. How the hell did I become a Redskins fan? Well, I picked the team with the most racist name, and I don't like the Braves' colors. No, just kidding. (The Braves are a baseball team, anyway. I looked it up to be sure.) No, the real reason is this: my mom grew up in northern Virginia. Her dad, my grandpa, loved his adopted region enough to become a big fan of the 'Skins, and he started instilling this love in his grandkids when we were still quite young. I remember learning the Redskins Fight Song when I was a toddler, no joke. And I don't really care enough about football to have a loyalty to any team, but I decided I wanted to learn more about the sport. There's too much to try to learn it all, so I decided to pick one team. And as my grandpa died a few years ago and I miss hearing him sing that song, I picked the 'Skins. As far as I can tell from people's responses, "they were my grandpa's team" is as reasonable reason as any other.

Last year by the end of the season I had a decent grasp on major players on the team, but it seems I have lost all of that knowledge in the meantime. So we're going to a bar tonight to watch the Dolphins play, and I'm going to bring a printout of this year's roster and some index cards to make myself some Redskins flash cards. Because I am a giant nerd, and also I want to represent.

How do you feel about football? Who's your team?

Donating!

So the wine tour went better than I could have expected, mostly, and at my request yesterday we had a day where we didn't have a single obligation. We went to a hoity-toity, super-granola farmer's market in one of the richest suburbs of my city, and split a piece of cake for breakfast (and a $3, naturally-sourced, fair-trade, ethical-sugar-in-the-raw cup of coffee). Then we went and checked out Border's, which was a depressing wasteland playing loud country music (in an effort to keep people from browsing too long?), where a lady pretended for eleven minutes to not realize that I, too, was trying to look at the single shelf of knitting books.

Then we came home, and Andy suggested we tackle the office. I gasped.

The office, since we moved in, has been the room where things just get dumped. The door stays closed most of the time, so it's really easy to chuck stuff in there before company arrives and then just add more stuff on top. It also has bunches of drawers that end up full of bizarre, unrelated things, and a closet that a whole lot of crap, most of which we didn't use. Of late, the office has also been the room that holds all the baby stuff people have donated, which is not an insignificant list.

So we cleaned it out yesterday! Here's a picture of about two-thirds of the stuff that will be heading to Salvation Army when Andy gets home:

That's my kitchen! Please don't rob me! You'll note the circa-2001 nineteen-inch TV/VCR combo there, and its companion DVD player is perched somewhat precariously on top of a bin full of VHS tapes. There's a shower rack thing that we don't use since Andy prefers the detachable-head shower thing (I don't care, because I can't reach the thing anyway). There are something like four sets of curtains in that gigantic trash bag, most of which were here when we moved in and which we stuck in the office closet "just in case," even though we hated them. There are also two pillows, some towels we've never liked, the old bedspread from the guest room, my prom dress, four too-big sportcoats that were hand-me-downs from Andy's dad, several old cell phones, a giant vase, and some cheap cookie sheets that have since been replaced with the good shit.

I thought I had written before about our differences in keep-vs.-donate, but I just searched for a solid ten minutes and found nothing, so my apologies if you've read this before and I just can't find the post. Andy is one of those guys who wants to hang onto things. More than once, he's asked me, indignantly, "What's wrong with stuff? I like stuff!" On the other hand, I subscribe to Unclutterer. To me, if we get a new coffeemaker, we should get rid of the old coffeemaker, period. To Andy, the old one worked fine, we just wanted one that ground beans fresh, so we should keep the old one in case the new one breaks or something. He wants to have a fall-back plan for a coffeemaker. And our old TV. And a metric shitton of t-shirts. There are some things I keep around: yarn, for example, and books, and sweaters (I'm always cold, so I have a dresser that's almost entirely full of sweaters). But other than that? Out it goes! Someone can use it! We don't need it!

Andy has gotten much better about this since we bought the house, I think. When we got married, we were given several picture frames, which sat on a shelf in the office (some without pictures) until yesterday. One of them was from Andy's grandma. It was heart-shaped china with little birds and flowers sticking off it and it was really, really ugly. It went with exactly zero things in our house. But Andy's grandma died not long after the wedding, so he wanted to keep the frame, even without a picture in it, even though he was the first one to point out it was hideous. Yesterday, he agreed that it was time for it to go. Same thing with the giant crystal frame that weighed more than Pancakes that we got from our neighbor, who has since died. He seems to be realizing that getting rid of things isn't being disloyal to the person's memory, and that there are better ways to remember Grandma (or the neighbor) than shuddering every time we look at that weird thing.

I told him I've been considering selling my wedding dress. He said that was fine with him either way, but that my wedding dress is the only physical thing he's seen me be sentimental about. That gave me pause, but I think he's right. I mean, I don't need to hang onto the first set of dishes we got, because they're cheap and crappy. I don't need to keep the skirt he got me for my birthday when we started dating, because it doesn't fit and my style has evolved a lot since then. Mostly, I think things are things and people are what's important.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm glad to be getting rid of a truckload of crap that stressed me out every time I looked at it, and I'm glad Andy didn't feel coerced into donating things he felt were important (we're good middle children and discussed it more than once). I also feel glad that we're fortunate enough to be able to replace anything that we need to, even if we don't have a backup coffeemaker.

Where do you fall on the spectrum of Spartan, no-decorations-living and better-keep-this-complimentary-mug?

Trying to stay awake.

Here is what we've been up to this week:

• Monday: Met up with a friend I hadn't seen in months right after work, then two hours later we were joined by our menfolk for a lovely Mexican dinner at our favorite joint. Returned home around 8 to do two hours' worth of homework for foster class.
• Tuesday: CSA errand, doggy break, foster class, after which we discovered that one of the couples in the class is planning to do this awesome program where they'll foster babies between birth and six weeks, at which point they could come to a home - like, say, ours - with parents who work full-time, as babies in our state can't enter daycare before six weeks of age. This conversation was awesome but took a while, so we got home around 10.
• Wednesday: Art Night, which is a weekly thing where our good friend comes over and we all work on whatever respective art project we've got going. She was over from about 5:30 till a little after 10.
• Thursday: Dinner up the street with friends at 5:30, followed by Knitting Night with the same friend we do Art Night with. Got home around 10:15.
• Today: I'm waiting for the jars to finish in the dishwasher so I can can the second batch of peach butter, and then we're going out for birthday dinner then drinks for a good friend. Her birthday was earlier this week and also was the same day as her grandpa's funeral, so I don't feel particularly inclined to beg off tonight.
• Tomorrow will be a fourteen-hour-long fiasco train-wreck of a combined bachelor/bachelorette party for a wedding Andy's in at the end of the month. We're going on a wine tour, which sounds great, right? Well, we leave at 9 a.m., which means our first tasting will be around 10:30, we're in a limo with 28 other people (of whom I know maybe 10), and some of these people are the sort who think bringing coolers of cheap beer to pregame the first winery is a great plan. Oh, and after we get home from the day-long, drinking-in-the-hot-sun, Rachael-will-get-heat-exhaustion-so-she-stays-sober event, there's a barbecue/bonfire at the home of the bride and groom - who are nice enough or whatever but who are not people I would typically choose to spend 14 hours with. Remind me sometime to tell you about the wine tour we went on with these people last year, which ended up with the bride starting a fight and then storming off in tears, with the groom following her. Oh, and they were our ride. Cool.

Ugh. All I want to do right now is take my pants off, eat some chips and salsa (we made salsa!), and curl up with the four books I got out of the library. Is that so much to ask?

What advice do you have on how to be a good sport for fourteen hours spent with people you're done with after two?

Fostering: first day of middle school right here.

Tonight's our first MAPP class, y'all. This shit's happening.

We have absolutely no idea how many people will be there, other than that "the session is full." Full could mean two other people, or seventy, and I honestly don't know which guess will end up being closer to the truth.

Also, I'm really good at being anxious, so I've been practicing worrying about this all week. Last night I freaked out because I didn't have every single piece of paper they wanted already lined up (and stayed up late getting them all ready, and getting grumpy at Andy for not rushing to make me a copy of his car insurance card when I wanted him to).

Today, I am trying to figure out what to bring us for dinner, because the classes are from 6 to 9 and Andy's going straight from work. He texted me that he ate a really late lunch, so I'm grabbing a sandwich here and bringing us three kinds of fruit from our CSA - we'll each get a peach, three teeny plums, and a handful of blueberries - and homemade granola bars. Turns out I'm trying to impress these bitches by being all "I work full time, but am still capable of providing nutritious food to any child placed in my care!". Obviously, no one but me gives a shit about my snack choices, but I feel like everything I do/say/wear/think is being scrutinized.

What if everyone else is really weird, or really into Jesus (who's cool and all, but not my reason for doing this), or old, or something? What if they make us do stupid role-play stuff (someone mentioned "acting out skits" in one of our earlier meetings) and it's lame and forced and everyone has those weird tight smiles but we have to pretend to be excited so they don't mark us down for having a bad attitude? I JUST WANT TO HELP SOME KIDS is said in the same tone in my head as I CAN'T REMEMBER MY LOCKER COMBINATION AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO PEE BETWEEN CLASSES AM I SUPPOSED TO HOLD IT ALL DAY OR WHAT.

I'm so good at worrying!

Anyone want to hear a recap of the class stuff tomorrow? Or would you rather hear about a fight I had with Andy on Sunday? Or both? CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!

P.S. Let's be serious, if no one chimes in with a choice I'll probably forget I was going to write about either of those and write about something different. So, you know, be ready for that too.

Fostering: to-do list

We got a letter officially confirming our enrollment in the next session of foster-care classes, starting at the end of the month, which means we have just over two weeks to compile copies of all of the following stuff:

• Social security card
• Driver's license
• Marriage license (or divorce verification)
• Proof of income
• Car insurance card
• Dog rabies vaccinations
• Fireplace inspection [Note: we have a fake fireplace that burns gel fuel. No joke, it's like having a Sterno fireplace. I think the lady we met with didn't really understand what it was, because she wants us to get something called a "certificate of non-use" for it.]
• Pistol permit (if applicable) (it isn't, and we told the lady that, but she made sure to tell us, like, three times that we could own a gun, but we needed to keep it locked and all.)

And we have until the end of the classes (the last week in September) to accomplish the following:

•  Move Andy's sculpture stuff away from furnace
• Cap pipe fragment in basement [It irritates me that this is on our official list, as the lady told us the only reason she thinks we should cap it is so kids don't shove stuff down it. Not exactly a safety concern, but whatever, we'll cap it.]
• Move carbon monoxide detector upstairs
• Paint sunroom
• Buy a carseat
• Get a hook-and-eye latch for the door from the kitchen into the garage, as a toddler who could reach the handle could open the door pretty easily
• Get stupid certificate of non-use for fireplace
• Return kerosene heater to my parents' house

 Naturally, I've had the paperwork containing both of these lists sitting on the kitchen table for a week, reminding myself to get at least the first one taken care of. And just as naturally, right now I'm sitting on the couch looking at the list, thinking about reading some blogs for a while until Andy gets home and (hopefully) makes me dinner, and then continuing to hang out on the couch and watch a movie.

Wait. I just moved the carbon monoxide detector upstairs. Now I've officially gotten started on the list, and can therefore relax in the pleasure of a job well done.

Exciting! Mostly!

You guys? My sister's in labor as I'm writing this. She's six hours away, with Brian and a whole bunch of doctors who don't know her well. They've only lived there for a few months, so they don't have friends close enough to visit them at the hospital. I'm dying that I'm not there.

You might have noticed that the Kid and I are pretty close. I've always been protective of her - I remember crying more than she did once when she got a spanking (which I'm sure she fully deserved), and the only "fight" I've ever had with my best friend was when we were six and our brothers were picking on the Kid, as older brothers do, and my friend didn't stick up for my sister enough.

The contractions woke the Kid up at 4 am yesterday. She's been in labor for almost thirty-six hours as of this writing. Things are progressing, but slowly - her cervix is apparently not as excited as the rest of us about this kid showing up, so it took its sweet time getting ready. Now the cervix is cooperating, I guess, but the baby has rotated during the wait and is now face-up, so they're trying to wiggle her back around. The Kid had an epidural late last night, so she's as comfortable as she can be, for having regular contractions and being awake for two days.

Brian and the Kid announced a while ago that they were reserving the first two weeks of the baby's life for just them. They want to settle into a rhythm on their own, without people coming and going and bossing and being in their shit. I think this is a good idea, but that means I am not there right now, holding the Kid's hand when she needs it, getting her a cold washcloth (she said the epidural makes her feel really warm, even though Brian is shivering), reminding her how strong and brave she is.

She said in the time since she was admitted, they've had something like ten other deliveries. She can hear them, and she heard a baby cry as she was texting me that. I teared up at my desk at work, because I'm not there telling her it's her turn soon! I have to keep reminding myself that if either the Kid or the baby were in any danger, they'd do a c-section, so things are still just fine. Humans have been doing this for a long freaking time, and mostly it all works out the way it's supposed to.

You guys? The baby's middle name is Rachael.

Two good things and two irritating things.

Today has been an interesting balance. My allergies are acting up hard, helped along by the shifts in weather, leading to a pounding headache and a general sense of stupidity all day. This made it very hard to do more than sit at my desk and stare blankly at the stack of work waiting for me. I also couldn't help checking the clock over and over, and I'm confident that it was 3:19 p.m. for at least fifteen minutes.

Work finally ended, obviously, and on my way home I was tailgated for several minutes by a total douchebag. I watched him in my rearview mirror from the time he swooped in behind me, cutting off the person who had foolishly left more than a car length's distance between us. This douchebag was a king among douchebags, and honked at me twice in the space of a mile. First, I had the audacity to stop at a red light. Even if I had chosen to run the light, traffic was backed up enough that I only would have made it to the opposite side of the intersection. Then, since traffic was so slow anyway, as I crept past a daycare I slowed down a little extra to let a lady out in front of me. King Douche laid on his horn, so I flicked him off in a pretty obvious manner (not my proudest moment, but this headache!). He rolled his eyes, then made a snap decision and pulled into the shoulder and sped past a lane of traffic. I am not proud of thinking that I hoped he crashed and was fine but effectively subdued.

I decided that a little caffeine might help the headache and the cranky, so that brings us to good thing number one: the mocha-coconut frappucino from Starbucks. Have you tried this yet? It was so good! I usually think that mocha frapuccinos are kind of wimpy, not enough coffee or chocolate, but the coconut was lovely. I am one of those people who firmly believes in the glory of chocolate plus coconut. My head feels a teeny bit better, too.

And finally, good thing number two: Tonight Andy and I are going to our first information session on becoming foster parents. I promise I am not going to turn this into a bizarre family-friendly lovefest or anything, but this is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and Andy is finally there with me. Mostly my reason is this: I worked at that shelter for eight years, and a whole lot of the kids I worked with had been in and out of foster care. If I can provide a safe place for one of those kids - who I know to be sweet, loving, funny things - instead of them being sent to some shithole with junkies who pocket the checks, then I feel obligated to do that.

We haven't really told anyone about this whole "maybe being a foster parent" thing yet, because we're so early in the whole thing, but if I can't be excited about shit like this on my own personal blog, where I am mostly anonymous, where can I? If you feel like I'm not cussing enough and talking enough about being hungover or whatever, feel free to let me know.

How is your day? Have you tried that coconut thing? (You should.) Any foster parents or kids out there?

Babies and baby showers forever.

I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow. I decided not to finish the blanket that I hate, and I'm just going to give the yarn away or something, because really, there's no point in forcing myself to finish it. So we went to one of those baby stores - this one is called "Buy Buy Baby," no joke - to pick something up. Know what's a fun experience? Dragging your husband into a baby store with no idea what you're about to buy, no registry, and no idea if the coming baby is a boy or a girl.

Seriously, does absolutely everyone find out the sex of their baby these days? Because it's really effing hard to find gender-neutral shit.

I also have the following women in my life to shop or knit for: my sister, having a girl, due at the beginning of June; my husband's cousin's wife, having a girl, due at the end of June; my coworker, who I don't know very well, having a boy, due in mid-August.

I think I have reached that stage in my life where I will have someone gestating near me at all times.

I'm okay with this, I think. But then, I'm ovulating, so ask me again in a week.

On parenting

Know what I love? Babies. Those things are neat. I get babies. I know how they work. I have a secret for putting them to sleep. I find them precious and adorable and all those awesome things. I am one of those women whose voice goes up an octave whenever I speak to an infant, and science reassures me that it's normal and even helps development.

Know what I don't love so much? Eight-year-olds. Can we talk candidly for a second about those guys? Have you ever met an eight-year-old who wasn't kind of a pain? I have seen home videos, and can therefore attest that I was an incredibly obnoxious child. I recall pretty clearly that my siblings were pains as well. All the eight-year-olds I've ever know have been kind of obnoxious at best, and downright douchey at worst. And eight is the very beginning of that terrible ugly-duckling stage, where their teeth get all weird and overgrown, and they outgrow their clothes every ten minutes and insist on wearing the same battered sneakers for a year, and then just when you think it can't be any more annoying, BAM. That once-precious baby is now a teenager. Joke's on you.


Andy and I are starting to talk about a timeline for procreating. I like the idea of producing an heir, because I have a lot of neat stuff that needs to go to someone, so I'm down with that. I also like doing it, so it's a pretty neat deal. And I'm the one who initiated the whole conversation, so it's with some surprise that I note that my brain is going, "Man, babies are awesome! Let's get us one!" but also, "Man, I hope those endorphins you hear about are enough to keep me from punching an eight-year-old who insists on telling the same not-funny knock-knock joke nine times in a row then laughing hysterically, because I feel like that might be justifiable."

Is this normal? I feel like now that we have committed to trying to make this a thing within the next year, I'm starting to think of all the things that suck about parenting. Grubby little hands all up in my stuff. Juice spilled all over the joint. Gaudy plastic toys advertising characters I don't recognize. Pages ripped out of books I've had since I was a kid. Snot. Barf. Sass. Ugh, what if we have a baby and then it grows up to be a fifth-grade bully? What if we have one of those kids you see on Maury where the mom (where are the dads?) is all like, "Maury, I tried everything. She is too WILD." What then?

I think this is that whole afraid-of-change-thing that's totally normal and human and stuff, right? Because babies are great.

Any parents reading this thing? Are these normal fears, or am I going to be the most neurotic parent ever?