Category — Friday Blog Roundup

On Wednesday night, Truman attempted to jump out of his cage for the first time.  He gets super-excited late at night, popcorning happily while I do last minute things before heading up to bed.  That night, I was filling his bowl with his dried food, talking to him about how I was going to give him a cookie too when he started popcorning and wheeking.  Then, without warning, he jumped so high that he ended up folded over the side of the cage.  His bum and back legs were still in the cage, but his head and arms were dangling in mid-air outside the cage.  We both freaked out, and I quickly scooped him back in.  And then he went right back to popcorning.

We usually leave off the top of his cage, mostly because it seemed as if he couldn’t jump that high, plus it has a little internal lip that he’d need to jump over.  But that night, we weighted down the lid with a massive translation dictionary.

It freaked me out because the cage is high up on a side table.  So if he had actually gotten out, it’s a long way down for a little pig.

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Candy Crush Update: for those who are also playing, I FINALLY got off of 79.  It was quite an emotional moment that culminated with both hands clamped over my mouth to keep myself from screaming out in ecstasy because I finally cleared the board.  Without a doughnut and striped candy, I have to add.  I just had a lot of good moves fall into place by sheer luck and the board cleared.  The whole thing is always such a crapshoot.

I sailed through levels 80 – 82, and now I am currently stuck on 83.  I don’t like to call myself stuck until I’ve used up 30 lives.  Which… yeah… means I’ve used up more than 30 lives on level 83.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Enough” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Abortion and Perinatal Hospice” (Bereaved and Blessed)
• “Jealousy” (The Stars Apart)
• “Forgetfulness” (Teach Me to Braid)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a moving post about her children somehow tuning in to the people missing from their family.  Her daughter keeps the spiders at bay by imagining herself protected by “a virtual sibling family of three sisters and one brother.  My daughter only has one brother. Yet somehow she knows there were three other siblings she is owed.”  She shares a very moving story about a third baby who didn’t come to be.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has an emotional post on her anniversary.  She writes: “This morning, before running off to work, I laid down next to this same man and studied his face while he slept. So much has happened in these last 9 yrs, especially since our diagnosis. And yet, though we are both profoundly changed, I know how lucky I am to have found my soulmate.”  But what I really really really loved in this post is the Moroccan folktale she shares at the end.

Lastly, Dragondreamer’s Lair has a brief poem about the woman she used to know.  I loved loved loved this poem, especially that idea of those tiny glances that we get from a reflection in a passing window that remind us of who we used to be.  Gorgeous.

The roundup to the Roundup: Truman Harper Ford: Escape Artist.  My new stuck place on Candy Crush.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 21st and June 28th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

That is me, as drawn by Suzy Becker, reading her amazing book One Good Egg that I got to blurb this year. Do you see how I’m smiling in the drawing while two random children jump on my furniture?  It’s because the book is so engaging that you would not even realize that your living room is being torn apart while your eyes are on the page.

I’m sort of serious about that.

I don’t know Suzy, but within a chapter or two, I was deeply invested in her story, especially her relationship with Lorene and their quest to create a child with their friend, Steve.  I even ended up bringing the book with me to a basketball game and putting on sound-cancelling headphones so I could continue to read without being interrupted.

It’s a wonderful memoir, filled with very familiar (if you’ve gone the route of assisted conception) moments as well as the unique ones that make Suzy’s story entirely her own.

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The twins asked for the iPad.  The ChickieNob was dressed entirely in black.  They looked very solemn.

“What are you doing?” I asked, handing over the device.

“We’re making a movie,” the ChickieNob intoned like mini, female Stanley Kubrick.

I am currently crunching on Lego pieces as I cross the living room.  They are making a movie about three Lego owls.  It is as weird as a bag of hair.  To make the movie, they need to take over all the space around my desk.  ALL the space.  And it has to be the space next to my desk.  No other space will do.  They cannot clean up ANYTHING after they use it.  The sets must remain set up across the living room floor while they hoot into my computer: serious, thoughtful hoots, like owls that have been awoken during the day and don’t quite know how they feel about blinking into the sunlight.

They have told me that they are going to have their world premiere on my blog.

Not that I can get to my blog since, did I mention, they have also taken over my computer to do this?

This is a lengthy explanation in case a strange movie about Lego owls appears on my blog soon.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Feeling Blessed at Work” (Happiness at the Core)
• “Lighter Grey: What infertility took from me… and what it gave” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Sweetest in the Gale has a post her mother’s hysterectomy.  They were stationed on the labour and delivery floor, where every time a baby is born, music plays over the loudspeaker.  On a day when she thought she would be there solely for her mother, she was forced to confront her infertility.  “Each note of the song and every little newborn wail felt like a knife going into my heart. Literally, my heart physically hurt. When will it be my turn? Will L and I ever get to experience the joy, love, and beauty given freely to all those new parents today?”  It’s a moving post.

The Great Big IF has a post about stepping back from treatments after spending a great deal of time researching donor gametes.  She writes: “I guess I just longed to set it aside and not actually be pursuing anything but living.  And in the midst of that living, I found myself relishing a freedom I hadn’t felt in a long while.”  And I love her thoughts on how infertility is about being in a state of always grieving.  It’s a beautiful post about shifting focus.

Lastly, It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) has a post about the stark reality of estrangement.  She begins the scenario: “Imagine that your parents and sister (and her family which include your two nephews) live within 4 miles of you and that you have, virtually, no relationship with them.”  I found myself holding my breath as I read and then gasping it out at the end of a paragraph.  It really is a gut punch just to read it, and I assume even more so to live it.

The roundup to the Roundup: One Good Egg.  Freakin’ weird movie by the twins.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 14th and June 21st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

The Wolvog has always like to collect discarded electronics, and he has an impressive collection of blackberries, cell phones, calculators that he fools around with.  One of his favourites is an old iPod that my sister gave him years ago when she upgraded.  About a year ago, it ceased to work, so we took it to the Genius Bar to humour him (the thing was ooooooooooooold.  Like 89 in iPod years) where they deemed it officially dead and asked him if he’d like to buy an iCoffin… I mean… recycle it.  No, he snapped, his iPod was NOT dead, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Fast forward to this week when the Wolvog wandered into the room, grinning.  “Do you remember my green iPod?”

“The one we threw out?” I asked.

“We didn’t throw it out,” the Wolvog told me.  “I’ve been trying to get it started again.  And tonight, I succeeded.”

Cue loud crash of thunder and a bolt of lightening outside while my son devilishly wrings his hands like a mad scientist and pulls out the zombie iPod.

We are calling it Frankenpod, since it indeed has been brought to life despite the fact that the Genius Bar employees were unable to do so.  The Wolvog downloaded his music into it and spent the night with his incredibly outdated piece of electronic equipment, chillaxing with the Beatles.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaah… Frankenpod is ALIVE!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Fitnessgrams: the Latest in Fat Shaming” (Family Building with a Twist)
• “How the Cheerios Commercial Got it Wrong” (Three Geminis and a Sagittarius)
• “A Welcomed Comment” (The Koob Triplets)
• “The Very Bad Time” (Little Chicken Nuggets)
• “Ghosts and Fairy Tales” (Stupid Stork)
• “Departed Denver Discouraged” (Dreaming of Dimples)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Adventures of MissOhkay has an eye-opening (and heart-stopping) post about her child’s picture showing up on a Pinterest board called “Things I Love that are Black.”  She so eloquently points out: “To a stranger, though, Miss E has none of that. She is flat. Without context. To a stranger, she is just an attractive thing that is black. Er, brown. And I don’t want her viewed that way.”  Read the whole post, especially if you pin things or post images.

So Close has a thought-provoking post on what we owe our parents as they age, and, in turn, what expectations we should have if we have children.  She explores the “what if” of their behaviour colouring the choices we make too, and the fact that all parents are not created equally.  Should a parent who does a crappy job parenting be taken care of “just because?”  It’s an interesting discussion.

Lastly, Misfit Mrs has a post about being back at square one after a failed cycle.  I love how it moves from the sigh to the boob jeggings.  Yes, the boob jeggings.  You may want to click over and read the whole thing — it’s that good as a post that captures the everyday.

The roundup to the Roundup: Frankenpod.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 7th and June 14th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Josh really wanted to join 2013 and get a DVR.  We… uh… still have a VHS.  When a deal came up through our television provider, he asked if we could take one home, much in the same way little boys ask for puppies.  So we got a DVR.  And he set it up.  And then I stopped sleeping.

You may think that I stopped sleeping because we suddenly had all of these amazing shows to watch.  No, that wouldn’t be the case.  The first night after he set up the DVR, it took me about two hours to fall asleep.  This isn’t that unusual, and I blamed it on Candy Crush (shouldn’t we blame everything on Candy Crush?) getting me frazzled before bed with level 34.

The next night, I was sleep deprived, so it shouldn’t have taken me long to fall asleep.  But it did — an hour — and then I couldn’t stay asleep.  I woke up three or four times.

The next night, I was ill and sleep deprived, so sleep should have come pretty much immediately.  But again, long time falling asleep and then I couldn’t stay asleep.

Finally, on Wednesday night, I was still awake at 4 am.  I hadn’t been able to fall asleep yet.  I woke up Josh, close to tears, and asked him to do something about the awful DVR which was casting this bizarre glow over the room.  The light from the number display had been keeping me awake for days.  So he threw a towel over it for the time being and fiddled with the brightness setting.

The glow from all of these devices is killing me.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “What Do Teens and Elderly Women Have in Common Beyond Commentary about their Uteruses?” (Stirrup Queens)
• “Conflict Online” (Lavender Luz)
• “Dear-Me-from-999-Posts-Ago” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “The Reality of Breastfeeding” (PAIL Bloggers)
• “Not Riding the Roller Coaster” (Stirrup Queens)
• “Dealing with the Naysayers” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “On Defining Myself” (Sprout)
• “Mother” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “Our No Kidding Lives” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Deep” (Cullen’s Blessings)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Notes from the Ninth Circle has a post about a viral Huffington Post piece that mentions that the author is parenting after infertility.  In fact, he even links to a post about infertility in the original version on his site.  But when the post was reprinted on the Huffington Post site, that link got stripped.  It’s the frustration that this big part of the story is being left out.

Serenity in Chaos has a very powerful post about how her infertility experience inadvertently affected a friend who came after her.  She writes: “Unfortunately she experienced a miscarriage and because I had sort of “silenced” them through my experience to say nothing more than those words above, my friend got quite angry at the lack of support at that time. She told me afterwards that she felt robbed of the sympathy.”  The post highlights the unique way we deal with (and seek comfort) when facing infertility.

Lastly, Something Out of Nothing has a post about encountering an infertile woman in literature: “It once again left me wondering, where is the real story, our story, in popular media?  We are the strong, brave women, who live every day outside the bounds of what is considered “typical” to pursue our dreams of a family.  Aside from our blogs, which seem to be read mostly by people in similar situations, who is writing (and reading) our stories?”  It also has a cool side story about two sensory activities.

The roundup to the Roundup: The glow of electronics is keeping me awake.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 31th and June 7th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Facebook sent me a note on Thursday congratulating me on hitting 700 likes on Facebook. (I’m well aware that by writing this, most of you will quickly unlike me, sending that number plummeting.  But I got to risk it.)  That rocked, but I did nothing.  I mean, I literally did nothing.  Other people clicked a button.  Shouldn’t they get the congratulations?  Why do we only congratulate the person who got the button clicks?  Why don’t I receive a similar note from Facebook saying, “congratulations, Melissa, you’ve now liked x-many things!  You rock in your liking.  You’re a great liker.”

I do think of myself as a good liker.  I’m a passionate liker.  The things I like, I like a lot.  I care about ice cream flavours and books and people and islands.  I like things with my whole heart… no… with my whole BODY.  I may only click a button on Facebook to show that like, but what I mean by that click of the button is that I LIKE it.  Shrieking it, rolling around with it, hugging it to my body.  That’s what my like means.

Where is the congratulations letter for that?

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Too Many Fish to Fry has a really cool idea, especially for summer.  Trying to reach a goal and have no idea how to make a dream a reality?  Join along because there is strength in numbers.

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I just discovered Candy Crush.  I mean, I heard other people talk about Candy Crush, I saw it pop up in my Facebook feed as other people played it, but I hadn’t actually seen it myself.  And then… and then… I downloaded the app.  And now… I’m candy crushing.  I am crushing my work so I can get back to Candy Crush.  Every time I complete 30 minutes of editing, I allow myself one level.  Oh my G-d, I love this game so hardcore.  Help meeeeeeeeee.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “A Very Special Visit” (Life in the Last Frontier)
• “Hear Me, That’s All I Ask” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “The Important Thing about Yelling” (Hands Free Mama)
• “What Does Society Have in Store for My Mixed Race Daughters” (The Blessed Barrenness)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bereaved and Blessed as a photo that is worth 1000 words.

Pepibebe has a post about being labeled infertile.  After worrying that the doctor would put up a fight because the normal number of insemination cycles is 12 and the author has only done 11, she is stunned to get her referral with the label of primary infertility.  She has a conversation with her wife on the ride home: “I commented to Toku on the drive home that I wasn’t very happy seeing that written in black and white. She asked what I would have preferred, and I said for him to write ‘Unlucky so far.’ She drily remarked that diagnosis wasn’t very likely to get us any publicly funded IVF.”  What can I say?  I like her label better too.

Unconceivably Blessed has a post about holidays serving as a reminder of who isn’t here yet.  She writes, “It made me realize how many holidays, family functions, vacations, or other occasions I have not fully enjoyed because of where I thought we would be in our family building journey at that time. How many times and ways I have imagined telling my husband or family and friends that we are expecting.”  I love the last two paragraphs; that idea of turning off your brain and trying not to see the world this way.  It’s difficult.

Lastly, The Bickerstaff Blog has a post about having to give up a dream position due to reality.  When the opportunity finally rolls around to grade the AP exam — a longtime goal — she’s unable to take it because she’s finally achieved her other long-standing goal: parenthood.  It’s the bittersweetness of living in a world where we’re told we can have it all, and then having reality step in.

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m a great liker.  Project Dreamcatcher.  I am being candy crushed.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 24th and May 31st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.