I don't know. Fly casual.

We went to my mother-in-law’s house, where I had to chase my child around while Joe cooked breakfast and sighed and was grouchy because his father (who has dementia) whispered to Joe that he’s being persecuted by his wife (Joe’s mom).

We went to a park where Luke lost his shit and cried at everything we tried.

I did not get to hike or relax or take nice pictures or do anything that I actually wanted for Mother’s Day.

And when he FINALLY asked me how I’m doing, at 3pm as I dropped him off at his parents’ to start baking pizza like he does every Sunday, and which takes precedence over ALL ELSE EVERY DAMN WEEKEND so I could go buy drinking water because we don’t have any in our house during this renovation, I finally told him that I didn’t feel like today was really about me, that it wasn’t the lighthearted day I was hoping for, and that I’d cried in the shower (along with all the previously listed complaints).

I felt ridiculous after saying all this. It feels so pathetic to demand some sort of special treatment in this life of privilege. But what I wanted was for him to say that he understood or that he wanted to make it better, or something, but instead he just said, “sorry you had a rotten day,” and walked away as I got in the car.

We went to our local national monument yesterday with some family, including kid cousins, and the three of them complained constantly about having to be outside, to be in the sun, to have to climb some stairs to see cliff dwellings, and so on. The youngest one, older than my own son, refused to walk at all.

My kid walked. He kept moving despite being quite slow. He wanted to see it all, and loved doing it with his grandparents there. He never showed signs of being tired during the hike and found ways to play in nature as we all walked along.

Part of the impetus for us to move to New Mexico—other than being close to family and Joe working a job he likes more—was to raise Luke outside. In Houston, we rarely spent time outside. It was too hot and humid, there was too much distance between our home and green spaces, and to be perfectly honest, there was too much gun violence in the area immediately across the street from us to spend much time outside.

In northern New Mexico, we literally live in the mountains, shop for groceries on the edges of mesas, and hike trails accessible from our front door on foot. When we take photos inside our own house, Google calls the location "Santa Fe National Forest," which our neighborhood backs up against, and we have three or four National Parks Service sites within a 50-mile radius.

Luke has touched White Sands, he has waded in Jemez Falls, he has played with mud in the Valles Caldera, and he practiced taking first steps in the slot canyons of Cochiti Pueblo (and admittedly, has been carried for much of these hikes!).

We aren't great outdoorspeople. We don't camp or backpack or through hike or climb or mountaineer, but we have spent the first two years here making sure we explore every inch of our local trails. It has filled our cups and kept us moving. I have devised a 30-minute hiking loop that I take MWF that I can get to by stepping out my front door. We know that on any given day, if we want to be on a trail, it will only take us a few minutes to get there (plus the few minutes of gear packing before we head out!).

It’s a relatively small space and it’s safe, so I don’t mind if he runs around doing his own thing… as long as it doesn’t involve messing with others’ experience or escaping. Well guess what! He does not care that the nature center has programs and exhibits to help us understand our natural world. His favorite thing there, that absolutely does involve others’ experience and possibly escaping?

Doors. He’s an especially tall kid for 2, and can reach most door handles. He seems to enjoy the gross motor action of opening and closing doors, and what’s more, he loves the power dynamic of getting to tell me which side of the door to be on (which is obviously a problem when he’s outside the door from me and could just turn tail and run at any point). He yells at me if I’m on the wrong side. He enthusiastically greets people going through the doors (“hawwo!” “bah-byeee!”) but sometimes freezes out of bashfulness and cannot open the door for people to go through.

It sometimes becomes our entire visit to the nature center. A couple weeks ago, we went on the weekend because Joe hadn’t been in a while, and the volunteer who greeted us tried to give us the rundown of the place. I was like, don’t worry, we are probably just here to open and close the doors with him (gesturing to the kid). The volunteer was like, “well luckily, we don’t have that many doors.” I was incredulous. “It’s WAY more than you think,” and then I rattled off the 15 doors we have played in and around in this space. It’s a lot.

So anyway, today, for the first time in a while, he was able to mostly ignore the doors. Of course, he still did a #2, which he seems to only have after daycare on the days we go to the nature center, he still wanted to play with the toys in the gift shop instead of the toys literally 10 feet away that were identical, and he screamed on multiple occasions and we almost evacuated as a result. But in the end, he did zero in on one of the tables with a fun thing: balls of salt dough to be rolled out with dowels and toy animals to leave tracks in the dough.

I watched him watch an older girl roll out her dough, and in the din of the place, he decided to try conversation with her and the others at the table (when he gets going, because his language is still developing, it’s a lot of nonsense words that sound like “dur dur dur dur dur” 😂). I think he thought it was going well. Then the other two kids left the table with their dough to show their moms, who were sitting nearby, and Luke was a little lonely. He tried to follow them and join them, but as he got close enough to rejoin, he held back. This is a feeling I recognize all too well. Who knows why they left, but my tender mother’s heart hopes he didn’t think he wasn’t welcome to keep playing with them because of some imagined awkwardness. He’s probably too young to have defined thoughts like that, but the hesitation was really so painfully familiar.

Anyway, he went back to doing his own thing, quite happily, and I had to tear him away, screaming, when it was time to go. Here’s looking forward to next week and whatever nonsense the nature center holds for us.

My last post was in April 2024, when we moved away from our house in Houston. I’m still in grief over leaving a house that was really such a treat. But now we are (back) in Los Alamos, a beautiful town where live in a townhome that’s almost as old as the nuclear program and has endured decades of Landlord Specials™. It’s been a struggle for me to make the mental leap from the (relatively) perfect house to this one. And it’s been hard for me to parent in it.

Luke is two now. He is a child of intensity and insistence. He is no shrinking violet. He does not sleep “well,” as some kids supposedly do. He is mischief and he is cuddly and he is wild. Despite being born 6 weeks early, his growth hasn’t been affected and he is dramatically tall for his age (3 of 4 grandparents are very tall, including grandfathers who were 6’5 and 6’7”).

As for me, this year, I’m turning 40… and having a toddler is making me feel every bit my age. This is where my mind has been most, lately. There are multiple factors, almost all physical, that make me feel not up for the task of having an active 2-year old. Basically: I’m out of shape. When I got into my current career in 2018, I fell off of running and have steadily gained weight since. I also don’t eat in a way that gives me energy. I don’t sleep as much as I should (and could! Mostly, Joe handles Luke’s wakeups in the night). I did have heart surgery to address my A-Fib last year, so I’ve been working out regularly ever since, but not aggressively enough. And I think all of this leads to sluggishness that makes me less fun as a parent.

I want my toddler to like me. Sometimes he seems to favor everyone in his life over me, but especially his dad, who is active and healthy and throws him around and gallops across the park with him.

Then we have good days and I know Luke likes me. Today, I picked him up from daycare and we went straight to the local nature center, which has Wednesday evening programming that is turning out to be perfect for us! We explore the small museum, we learn new things (he’s not really able to understand much of it yet, but I figure the exposure to it is good), and spend time in nature. He runs around for 2 hours in a safe space and he is so pleased to be with me. Also on Wednesdays, I handle bedtime (usually Joe’s job) and Luke is so. Dang. Cuddly. He must have as much physical contact as possible, and I love it. I knew when he was coming that I’d be excited just to hold him. He’s letting me do less of that as he gets older, but it fills my cup to cuddle him to sleep on Wednesday nights. And then I figure, he probably does like me and I’m projecting onto him my own insecurities.

Still, I want to be more fun. I have had a few external pressures on my health this last month. We tried another round of IVF, which failed, but my back muscle tissue where the injections went in is still so painfully sensitive, making high-impact exercise impossible. And I’ve got a toddler in daycare, so I’ve been sick with an intense head cold for two weeks. Once these wear away, I can go back to running, which I’d started back up in December. Here’s hoping.

Then and now. I'm so sad and excited to say that we're leaving our very first house and Houston. This is where I found my footing, where I found my voice, where I found my confidence, and where we finally, finally welcomed our child. This house had its problems, but our new one will have more. Our new-old town will be a great place to raise our family, but this one would have been, too.

Joe got a job in Los Alamos. I'm leaving my job to settle in with the baby—something I've considered doing for a while, so this provides a good excuse—and we'll be closer to both of our parents as they get older, where our kid can grow up knowing them as best he can.

Oof okay, so this is awkward, I forgot to tell y'all, I had a baby!

I had preeclampsia and was admitted to the hospital around week 31 in mid-December, which was pretty sad over the holidays, where I waited until week 34 to be induced. Then he went breech during the induction so I had a C-Section, which was its own wild ride, even though it went perfectly. He spent two weeks in the NICU and has been home with us for a couple days now. He's very small, but feeding and growing tenaciously!

I'm pregnant!

Anyone could probably understand why it's so difficult to say it, why, even though my bloodwork consistently shows positive signs, I feel the need to couch it in "for now," and "we'll see."

I had my IVF transfer on May 31. A week later, I got a call after my one-week check-up from my doctor's office and they told me they did a sneaky pregnancy test and then they said the words, "Congratulations! You're pregnant!" I was so in shock that I just said, "Oh my god," and "Really?!"

Last time around, when I had what turned out to be a biochemical pregnancy, they had done a sneaky pregnancy test—but didn't admit it until after we saw the failure of the attempt. They didn't say those words to me. They didn't schedule extra appointments. And I certainly wasn't still going back for appointments two weeks later.

Last Tuesday, I hit Day 13, which is when, statistically speaking, if your bloodwork shows levels above a certain threshold, there's a 91% chance of live birth. I was well above that threshold. It has been jubilation in our house ever since. I've even said the words, "I'm pregnant," out loud to a couple people on a need-to-know basis. But there's still the looming, "for now," and "we'll see."

Every week, there's another appointment of, like, "if we make it past this gate, we'll be in the clear." The one this week is the last one before I think I need to graduate from only seeing my IVF doctor, to also seeing my OB/GYN for pre-natal appointments. On Wednesday, I'll have a specific kind of ultrasound to confirm there's actually a clump of cells and it's not just a biochemical pregnancy.

But we are 3.5 weeks out from my IVF transfer and I have many symptoms already. Things are looking good... for now. 😊

Taskmaster Birthday

So a little more than a month ago, I decided I wanted to have a Taskmaster birthday game night. I've been watching Taskmaster as my evening comfort show for years now and Joe seems to genuinely enjoy it, as well. He's also got a mind for games, so I was really excited when he offered to be the Taskmaster. After making sure our friends were free on the night of the event, Joe sent out tasks with the trademark red seal as an invitation to everyone, and their first task was to text him their email addresses so he could start sending out tasks for us to do ahead of the party.

He fretted for weeks that people weren’t even going to show, because no one was responding on the pre-party tasks. He sent an email out a couple weeks after the first ones went out, saying not to worry about doing those tasks, and that it'd just be a game night. But we did have a prize task to participate in.

The prize task was “bring the best bubbly thing” and very few people actually did anything for this because no one read the email Joe sent in time to get something other than sparkling wine, so that was three people. I let my friend who didn’t bring anything pass off the bottle of Gruet I had as her own. I told her it was from New Mexico, which she told Joe, and she got an extra point more than the others who brought bubbly wine. Another friend brought a bath bomb and got 3rd, I put a TON of research in and brought a dry ice bubble making kit and got 2nd, and the guy who won brought a small bubble wrap baggie. Joe liked the simplicity I guess. 🤷‍♀️

There were 12 tasks, including:

Sausage or Finger? (Wear a blindfold and guess whether the person behind you touched you with a finger or a sausage—appropriate ahead of EEAAO's big Oscar win!)

A two-parter: 1. Using finger paint, sign your name on the bottom of your page that you will be adding art to; 2. Paint the Taskmaster using the hand you didn't use for signing your name. (So most of us wound up painting with our non-dominant hands.)

Throw a rubber ducky the farthest without it going off the rug (5 out of 7 bounced off on the first attempt! Went way faster than expected)

Wearing a blindfold, blow up and tie the biggest balloon

With your butt on the wall, blow up a balloon but don’t tie it off. Then let it go. The furthest one from the wall wins (this was obviously chaos!)

Write a 10 word story; then mouth it to the Taskmaster, who then has to guess what the 10 words are

Pick a spot to put a small, medium, or large hula hoop; then try to throw a frying pan into the hoop without it bouncing out; furthest wins (mine was the only one that stayed in its hoop!)

Draw the median beaver (like the Median Duck task, but Joe's from Oregon and went to Oregon State so he picked Beaver over Duck); extra point goes to the best beaver

I got second place in most of the tasks, but everyone else was all over the place- so I won the night with the most points. It helps that I’ve seen several of the tasks on tv, though Joe had made variations on them, so I didn’t automatically have an advantage. But also I know Joe’s favorites and so I tried to appeal to him on several occasions, which might have helped.

I think the only person who wasn’t having a TON of fun was our non-drinking friend whom Joe got to know by playing board games at work with—because this was not the kind of game night where you can figure out a strategy. Too chaotic for that!

It’s my birthday! I’m 37 now. It was a great weekend. 

I took Friday and today (Monday) off to really make the most of it. Friday was mostly spent cleaning our house in preparation for guests, though I tried out acupuncture for the first time. I have to say, I don’t think I’m going to rush back for another session. I didn’t dislike it, I just felt like I didn’t get what I was hoping for out of it. I was also told that caffeine can interfere with its efficacy, so I didn’t drink coffee—and wound up with an intense caffeine deficiency headache, despite giving in and having a couple of mugs of green tea. The green tea just didn’t cut it.

On Saturday, we started the day with a trip to our favorite bakery, where we bought one of every little dessert for our party that night, as well as enjoyed having brunch there. Between the cappuccino there and the full pot of coffee we had before leaving for the bakery, my headache mostly dissipated, making the afternoon of shopping (not usually my favorite) and evening of partying a lot more fun. The party went really well, and I’ll share pictures and details of that in a separate post! 

Sunday was a hangover day, for the most part. The time change—which I was awake for the night previous—didn’t help. I’m getting too old for this shit! But I managed to get in the shower in the late afternoon and enjoy the Academy Awards. I feel like I was the first among my friends to see Everything Everywhere All At Once, and I urged a lot of people I know to see it, so I like to think of myself as an OG fan! I was so proud to see it win big.

And then today, Monday, I slept in a bit, enjoyed Tiff’s Treats chocolate chip cookies—ordered by my mother-in-law and delivered to our house first thing today!—for breakfast. Sat around for a couple hours, went on a 2.5 mile walk/run, which was vaguely stupid because our pollen count is crazy right now. But the weather was so perfect, it was worth it. We’ve already been having 85-degree, high humidity weather for weeks, so when the humidity dropped and the high temperature today went down to 65, I was so excited to get out and enjoy it.

And, it just so happens that our local Alamo Drafthouse put on a stray, single showing of EEAAO today, and I had nothing else to do, so I went and saw it for a third time. I have to say, while I did celebrate Jamie Lee Curtis’ win, upon a rewatch, it’s so clear how much more Stephanie Hsu deserved the Oscar over JLC. I’m not hung up on it though.

Finally, I got home and had the urge to go to Jeni’s to get ice cream. My bff in Maryland told me I needed to go enjoy Biscuits With the Boss, the Ted Lasso-inspired flavor, in person. It was a beautiful evening to be out and the ice cream was perfectly tasty! 

Just a great birthday all around. One of the midday Facebook birthday greetings from one of our old grad school friends said, “Many many happy returns only. Stay blessed and happy always and forever!” And while that sounds like a standard greeting, he’s in India, trying to get back to the U.S., and has always been incredibly sincere. I’m not great at being mindful, that one made me stop and think about how fortunate and grateful I am. So I took a moment to be thankful for all the blessings, of which I have many. 💙