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“baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder what’s in a day
what’s in your cake this time”
calliope at at creating motherhood has suggested that today, our extra day, be used for remembrance, for grief, for lifting up those friends that need it most. what a beautiful idea for dealing with what so many of my friends and i consider such an ugly burden.
infertility has forever changed the fundamentals of my being. almost two years have passed since i suffered through the last of my ivf cycles. physically, my body seems to have recovered from that violation. emotionally, i am damaged beyond repair.
i mourn the loss of that whole, hopeful person i once was. even though he’d never admit it, i’ve also crushed my husband’s dreams of normalcy. i can’t help but wonder how many maybebabies there were that we never knew, that never stood a chance. i’m heartbroken for my friends who are still fighting the uphill battle towards motherhood and those who are suffocating under the crushing weight of loss.
maybe today i’ll file away some of my bitterness and anger. so much of it i carry around in secret. afterall, i have my beautiful, perfect little girl here in my arms. what about my friends who don’t? don’t they better deserve to wear their heartache like a badge of honor. aren’t i supposed to just get over it and just be happy? i want to, but i know i never will.
nugget is very interested in language. this week she’s perfected “up” and is working hard on “bug” and “duck.” last night she signed “more” without prompting and it was the best i’ve ever seen her do it. 
maybe we’ll try the baby einstein my first signs dvd again. usually she’s completely unimpressed by baby einstein, but i keep holding on to the idea that one day she’ll enjoy it. that’s what everyone keeps telling me anyhow.
that’s right, i’m willing to rot my child’s brain with television. i know, i know, so not crunchy-ap-hippie-earth-mama-y. i’m sure i just lost ten granola points.
nugget would much prefer i vod her some jack’s big music show. smartly, noggin added an additional show to their daily lineup. but since it’s only twenty minutes long, and sometimes mommy needs more than forty minutes a day of semi-quiet, i’m most grateful that it’s also available on demand.
our local toy store called this morning to ask if we were done with la nug’s birthday basket in their birthday vault. nuggetdaddy said we’d come by today or tomorrow to pick out a few things from it. well, okay, he said we’d come by but i don’t think he meant that we’d necessarily be purchasing anything. silly nuggetdaddy! despite it being unpleasantly cold this afternoon, i decided we’d go ahead and stroll over there. nugget made out like a bandit. she got three books, a maraca, a ladybug ball and a froggy nailbrush for bathroom. fine, the nailbrush is for me.
we also grabbed a few items from from the clearance table. a set of boikido musical blocks that were in her birthday basket were actually on the sale table too, so those came home with us along with two small gifts for her tantie and auntie. they’ll be stocking stuffers. nooo, it’s not too early to be christmas shopping. oompa stopped carrying boikido products, citing inferior qualtiy and customer dissatisfaction. i’ll be keeping the receipt handy just in case. they look very similar to the haba fantasy blocks tantie gave her and she loves those. we’ll have to see how these hold up.
after the toy store we strolled across the plaza to the grocery store. of course the one prescription i needed refilled was the only one i hadn’t gotten from the allergy/asthma specialist. whatever. breathing is so overrated. as i browsed the aisles for dinner ideas while waiting for the pharmacy, nugget decided to sack out in her stroller, ladybug ball clutched firmly to her chest. hilarious! no wonder so many people had been looking at her. i thought they were just admiring her regular everyday cuteness, but this was quite the spectacle. she’s still asleep in her stroller and snowsuit, parked next to nuggetdaddy’s home office desk. i can only hope that this becomes a new habit for her!
i settled on ground beef and fingerling potatoes at the market. i have serrano ham left over from the birthday party that i’m going to wrap beef patties in and i’ll sprinkle the potatoes with pecorino before roasting them.
yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting
i like tomatoes to taste like tomatoes. wintertime tomatoes are always risky. will they taste like summer? no. will they taste like cardboard? i sure hope not. these at least smell like tomatoes. they were the best i could find, so they’ll really just have to do. they’ll be making their way into tomato, mozzarella and basil paninis.
in addition to these little beauties, i have six pounds of plum tomatoes that tomorrow will magically transform into a lovely pappa pomodoro. we’ll be celebrating nugget’s birthday and i have so much to do. at least i’ve managed to bake the cupcakes and make the “baby party mix,” which nugget declared most acceptable.
“one moment in her presence and you can forget the rest. for the girl is second best to none…”
a year ago, today we welcomed our daughter into the world. she had already been a part of our world for months, but this, this was her big debut.
it was scary. it hurt. a lot. a whole lot. nothing went according to any of the well thought out plans, not a, b or c. there were drugs, fevers, emergencies, scalpels, no time for tears or fears and then, plenty. slice. pull. snip. and just like that, our star was born.
her ten tiny toes, her perfect mouth, her little hands that held on to our fingers, they were all small miracles. the sum of her parts, she was the biggest miracle of them all. did all of these people swarming around us
know? did they know she was the one? the one of so many infertility treatments, the one ivf protocol that finally worked? the one embryo that implanted? the only one that would ever be a baby in our arms? the one dream that we dreamt for oh-so-long that finally came true? we knew.
the 365 days that followed helped fade some of my feelings over the whole experience, how it all shook down that day and over the week that we spent there. or maybe now i just don’t have the time and energy to fixate on those memories. i’m too busy chasing after nugget, picking up her toys, reading her story after story, too busy being her mommy. and i love every single moment of it; i live for it.
“she’s the one.”
i’ve had a fever every day since the last week of january. it is officially the fever that will not die™. i’m on my second round of antibiotics and it’s really, really supposed to be gone by now. if it isn’t gone by tomorrow then i’m supposed to go back to the doctor. great. i wonder what cooties nugget will pick up during that visit. you see, i’m no longer suffering alone.
friday night la nug spiked a fever (and vomited all over me). saturday morning she was right as rain, but it came back just as it did again today. initially i thought she’d caught some nasties at my last appointment, despite my not allowing her to play with the ridiculously tempting waiting room toys. i was hoping my body was just over worked, over medicated and couldn’t keep up with making the antibodies we both need to fight off all the winter ickies. i tried chalking it up to teething. now i can’t help but wonder if she has my mystery fever. aack! what horror might i be subjecting my baby girl to?
half pint pixie tagged me with this this morning. (i just love using the same word twice in a row.)
the rules:
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link to the person that tagged you
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post the rules on your blog
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share 6 quirks about your kiddo
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tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs
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let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
the nuggety goodness:
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when she says “dog” it sounds a whole lot more like “dud.” come to think of it, our dog is kind of a dud. she’s so insightful!
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she loves to sleep with her legs propped up. it’s best when one is on me and the other is on daddy.
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she’s obsessed with removing all of the foam bumper stickies from the insides of the cabinet doors and drawers. i’m obsessed with fishing them out of her mouth.
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if she sees someone else wearing barrettes or a hat, she starts pulling on her own hair to check and see if she is too.
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when she wakes up, if daddy isn’t there, she asks for the phone (it’s also an intercom) so she can call him to come upstairs.
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when she rides her wheely bug or pushes her turtle around she makes the motorboat sound.
jeri at images by jeri, stacie at the twinkies and tante toma… tag! you’re it!
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