Can I come clean?

Because this is killing me.

I wanted kids two years apart.  Or less, really, but two seemed like a more sane number than one. 

My daughter turns two next month.  So can you guess how long I've been trying to get pregnant?

I know how super blessed I am.  How wonderful my daughter is, and my life.  I'm lucky I'm not dealing with the thought of "What if I can never get pregnant?  Never have a kid?"  Because dealing with this has given me a greater understanding of what it might feel like to deal with that, though I'm sure it sucks a whole lot more.  But it still sucks to deal with this. 

Being as we already have one daughter, conceived without the use of fertility meds, we have no known issues.  Other than that I occasionally have (very) long cycles and a fuzzy diagnosis of PCOS. 

Writing all this out, I feel like a whole lot more of a bitch.  Because I have dear friends who I know have faced much more insurmountable odds than this.  That's the beauty and the peril of a blog, I suppose. 

But one more thing.  Completely unrelated.  Our house was broken into the other night.  I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a loud bang and our (now knighted) dog barking.  I peered out of our second floor bathroom window, into our backyard.  The motion detector light was on, and it looked like the gate into our backyard was ajar.  After a few minutes, when the barking had ended, I watch a skinny black man start to walk back into our yard.

I yelled to scare the guy off.  But here's the best part, the part my husband thinks is hilarious.  I yelled "Scram!"  The whitest thing you could say, apparently. 

Then I woke my husband, who was grumpy and disbelieving that anything worthy of waking up for had happened.  We went downstairs and thought it was overkill to call the cops, until we realized the screen into our kitchen had been cut. 

So we called the cops.  We didn't see anything missing, thanks (no doubt) to our knighted dog Vito.  The cops were at our door by the time we were off the phone.  I described the guy, they set some dogs loose to try to track him and told us to "stay inside".  But nothing. 

It wasn't until two days later that I realized they stole my camera, which had been sitting prominently on the kitchen table.  So they were definitely inside our house.  The upsdide?  We've gotten to know several of our neighbors much better, as we stopped at their porches to tell the our story in the interest of public safety and neighborhood well being.  Another updside: I will be getting a new camera.  But burglar, if you read this blog, it will no longer be sitting on my kitchen table.  Also, I buy cheap cameras that just happen to look expensive, so there are probably better things to grab.

As upsetting as the burglary should be, it's really the first woe that's keeping me up at night.  It's the second woe that's keeping DH up at night.  But I have no doubt that both of these woes will be keeping my mother up at night.

Month 23: our life in pictures

You can see the tale of our days here.  We've had some very hot days, and some much more tolerable days.  We've spent lots of time outside, rain or shine.  Lots of time in the water (harder to take pictures!)  In a few of these pictures, you can catch a glimpse of two of my oldest friends (not in age, but in years).  It was a wonderful visit ; I haven't gotten a chance to spend this much time with these girls since high school, and it was just like old times (okay, not really, but a new version of wonderful).

You can also see in some of these pictures that MJ is climbing to new heights.  She scales the jungle gym without fear, but forces me to squeeze inside to catch her.

The biggest story of the month is language.  It blows me away.  Many new words every day, and three to four word phrases.  I used to be able to easily understand her because her vocabulary was limited, but now her vocabulary is extensive enough I often have no idea what she's talking about. 

Potty training: pretty much non existent.  She's interested but non committal.  She did, however, lift up her leg and pretend to pee on a tree at the park, just like Vito. 

 

Vocalization

One of the most fascinating things about MJ's new found verbage is that I'm gaining more insight into what goes on in her little noggin.  I have often wondered what she's thinking, what she's trying to figure out, but only recently has this become a reality.

Her stream of consciousness is most noticeable during storytime.  And this is the part I find most surprising, because I always thought she was more in the moment than she actually is.  In the middle of a Curious George story ("Joaj") she will bust out with something about her day, like

"Katie bye-bye, home" which I think is something along the lines of "I said bye-bye to Katie before I left for home."  Despite the fact that this happened 4 hours early and was seemingly an uneventful moment.

Or something that happened a week ago.  "No bite Lolo".  Which references a moment a week ago when another little girl grabbed her cheek.  Her expressons are never quite accurate, but (only because I get to spend so much more time with her) her intention is usually discernible. 

I just never before realized the random moments she was thinking about during storytime.  I really thought she was thinking about George the monkey.  Or the wall she was staring at.  I didn't realize she was piecing together moments of her day and week that are still on her mind.