The twins and I started reading Harry Potter together.  And before you start screaming, “but six is too yoooooooooooooooooooooung” (because this has been screamed at me about 12 times in the past few days), I agree with you if my kids hadn’t been already exposed to the Disney World of Parental Death.

I just don’t see the first book of Harry Potter as appreciably different from letting them see Finding Nemo, and since most of the fear-inducing moments are tucked into the end chapters, we also have the option of ending early.  For instance, the twins have now seen the ballet Romeo and Juliet 300 times, and they still don’t know that the kids are going to kick it at the end.  When they want to peek into just what goes down in the mausoleum, I’ll continue letting the tape run.  Until then, in our world, Juliet is very much alive and dancing.

Watching them process Harry Potter has made me wonder if the book is a drug.  I know that it’s my go-to stress read, but it’s also interesting to watch this look of bliss cross over their faces as I read it aloud, as if they’ve taken a particularly nice drag off of a joint.  And maybe it’s seeing that bliss and not fear that tells me that they’re ready for this book.

I have started to keep a running list of their questions and commentary, since I know they’ll want it when they’re 87-years-old and I allow them to read Book 7 (I’m fine with book 1 right now, but we’re not touching book 4 and on until they’re past elementary school but which I mean, entering the nursing home years which is about the same time that I’ll finally allow them to date).

The ChickieNob has already wondered if perhaps Voldemort mistakenly gripped the wrong end of his wand when he tried to curse Harry, shooting the curse on himself.  When I informed her that it was actually love protecting Harry, she smiled politely and said, “I think we should wait and see if I’m right about Voldemort just holding the wand wrong.”

The Wolvog, meanwhile, always the good Jew, wanted to know what sort of bacon Harry was frying up for Dudley’s breakfast.  Was it veggie bacon, or was it that other kind?  You know, just in case Harry popped out of the pages and invited him into the book for a nice brekkie.

But the most pressing question: why doesn’t JK Rowling describe what the inside of brick looks like when they’re going onto Platform 9 3/4?  Doesn’t she understand that the world (or, at least the ChickieNob) has been waiting forever to know what brick looks like on the inside and here was a missed opportunity to inform us?

*******

One of the drawbacks to doing the Creme de la Creme is that my mind is always off to somewhere else in the year, and I miss everything happening in the blogosphere now.

Therefore, I apologize if something huge happens and I read the post two weeks later or miss it entirely.  Take pity on me and if something huge is happening, email me.

That said, it really rocks to know as you sit down to read that everything you’re going to read is going to be amazing.  I mean, if I’m in my Google Reader, some things grab me, some things don’t.  But in the Creme de la Creme spreadsheet?  Everything is thought-provoking or emotional.

Oh, and this message also serves as your reminder to take some time this weekend to pick your post and submit it.  December 15th is the last day to submit where you get the guarantee that you’ll be up on January 1st (everything submitted after December 15th will go up, but it will take time).

*******

The Weekly What If: What if you had to be married to someone famous (living or currently-dead-but-not-dead-for-the-sake-of-this-question) and easily recognizable, who would you want it to be?  Consider the attention that person would get from fans that you’d have to contend with, how their fame would impact your life, etc.

*******

And now, the blogs…

Built in Birth Control has a post titled “You May Not Understand” about the nurse turning off the monitor when the staff knew that she was going to lose Ayla and Juliet.  She painfully writes, “i felt my girls kick and bubble and turn. how could i tell them it was their last day, their last hurrah? why did i have to let them go so easily? you would think the one thing in the world you would be able to, absolutely need to do is fight for your childrens’ lives, right? i should have been able to motherfucking fight.”  A deeply emotional and beautiful post.

Another sad one — Magnolia Queen has a post about her unfulfilled due date which fell this week.  She muses on the idea of whether someone is a mother if her child “never made it into their arms.”  It is about asking for someone to be counted, to have their existence recognized and honoured.

A Second Line started peeing on sticks one day after transfer.  She admits: “I just seem to be going through the motions like a robot, and don’t feel in control of my own actions.”  But really, you’re going to have to click over to see what the parrot did to the stick (and I like her mindset of letting her impulses guide her for the time being).

Lastly, I end with a bit of happiness from The Journey to Baby G.  She describes infertility swallowing all of her other thoughts as “our trouble TTC situation had begun to eclipse all other parts of my life in recent months until it seemed to swallow everything else up and was the only thing left, standing at attention in the middle of the room, our unborn children occupying all of my thoughts and dreams, just begging to be conceived.”  Where she finds joy is unexpected, but it’s also the fact that she can recognize that unexpected joy and what it means to how much she has held on to who she is in this process.

The roundup to the Roundup: We’re reading Harry Potter.  I’m waist-deep in the Creme de la Creme.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

Someone wrote me a few weeks ago about how difficult it was for her to attend church and hear the baby blessings.  I answered back that those baby blessings are salt, and you can’t change the nature of salt just because you need to rub it against your wounded body (er, why in this analogy do we need to rub salt on our bodies?).  It will burn every time it touches raw skin.

Essentially, she has two choices: she can attend church and hear the baby blessings and know that it is going to hurt and allow it to burn anyway.  Or she can stay away from church, shut herself off from pregnant or parenting friends, and freeze out those human relationships.  Of course, reality is that we weigh out whether we want the burn or the cold on a case-by-case basis.  We attend that event and not that one.  We go to that woman’s shower, but not that woman’s shower.

There’s a Robert Frost poem that I think speaks volumes about making that decision about doing the thing that is emotionally painful, one that perhaps is speaking about something else entirely, but I think applies quite nicely to infertility and loss.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Personally, most of the time, I would rather subject myself to the emotional pain — the burn — of being in that uncomfortable place of coveting.  I would rather attend the shower, attend the bris, hold the baby, and then slip away by myself to cry and take care of my emotional needs — at least for the relationships where it’s important (friends, for instance, vs. coworkers that I know I’ll never see again if they changed jobs).  It definitely sucks, but I’d rather be burned by desire than experience the other side.

Because I think for me that ice becomes self-hate — anger turned inward because I feel anger outwardly towards the universe (or sometimes it’s directed at people who poke me where it hurts).  And it’s freezing to cut yourself off from human contact, to avoid and miss out on those moments.  The destruction of relationships.

Lest you think Robert Frost had no clue, he buried four children, including Elinor Bettina who died three days after birth.

Would you rather take the burning ache of desire or the frozen heart that comes from hate?

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: the December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/30.
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens ( twins, books, writing )
2. Scrambled Eggs — A Journey from IVF to Baby-Maybe ( ivf, ttc, pregnancy )
3. Getting Inside My Head ( kids, tech, weight loss )
4. Me Plus One ( SMC, pregnancy after loss )
5. Ambivalent Womb ( mfi, ivf #3 )
6. My Infertility Journey ( parenting/ infertility /ttc#2 )
7. A Half Baked Life ( food/baking, pregnancy after loss )
8. Bio Girl ( parenting, infertility, TTC#2 )
9. Write Mind Open Heart ( open adoption, mindfulness, perfect moments )
10. It’s Always Raining ( infertility, fostering, life )
11. Banking On It ( 1st ivf, mfi, immunology )
12. Blawnde’s Blawg ( infertility, acupuncture, new to TCM )
13. Diary of taking small steps towards baby steps ( ivf, pcos, ttc )
14. The Miss Ruby ( living childless, longtermttc )
15. Fervently Wishing ( smc, health, ttc )
16. My Ordinary Miracles ( success after infertility, toddler, twins )
17. Yolk ( infertility, ttc, humour )
18. Too Many Fish to Fry ( twins, if, miscarriage )
19. Baby Magnesi ( infertility, mfi, depression )
20. Searching for the Missing Piece ( miscarriage, adoption, decisions )
21. Here We Go Again ( parenting, life after, humor )
22. Aisha Iqbal ( motherhood, writing, life )
23. One Cycle at a Time ( infertility thyroid pups )
24. Infertility Unexplained ( unexplained infertility, iui, acupuncture )
25. No Suzy Homemaker ( IVF, RPL, stillbirth )
26. The Unfair Struggle ( mfi, speedskating, life )
27. amoment2think ( parenting, society, food )
28. Dragondreamer’s Lair ( parenting, secondary infertility, crafts )
29. My Cheap Violin ( single, ttc, iui )
30. Woman Anyone? ( third trimester, baby #1, unexplained infertility )
31. A Second Line ( IVF, stillbirth, incompetent cervix )
32. Stumbling Gracefully ( working mom, photos, letting go )
33. The Road Less Traveled ( infant loss, embryo adoption, IVF )
34. Paradykes ( emma, life, surrogacy )
35. Kate the Poet ( writing, parenting, college )
36. A Page In My Book ( everyday chaos, special needs, if grad )
37. ThatGirlWithEndo ( infertility, endometriosis, pain )
38. Not Just an Army Wife ( military, infertility, loss )
39. Not Again! ( rpl, autoimmune, iui )
40. Workin’ on a full house! ( PCOS, life, TTC )
41. This non-American Life ( travel, expat life, Europe )
42. Flogging the Muse ( art, painting, creativity )
43. Alex’s Adventures ( IVF, NK cells, MTHFR )
44. Life In A Glass House ( transracial adoption, multicultural family, G-d)
45. For We Are Bound by Symmetry ( ttc#1, unexplained infertility )
46. The Infertility Overachievers ( success after IVF, toddler, IVF #2 )
47. On Tap for Today ( life, humor, Boston )
48. Magnolia Queen ( wedding, miscarriage, family )
49. Rocky Road to Motherhood ( pregnant, IVF, life )
50. The 2 Week Wait ( infertility, humor, TTC )
51. The Port of Indecision ( recurrent pregnancy loss )
52. The Inadequate Conception ( infertility, humor, book )
53. Walking An Unknown Path ( failed ivf, god )
54. Find Joy Now ( joy, life, parenting )
55. Sparkles and Fairy Tales: Waiting on my Fertile Godmother ( PCOS, infertility, marriage )
56. Creating Our Miracle ( ivf, ttc, infertility )
57. A Woman My Age ( adoption, infertility, parenting after 40 )
58. Digital-Damita.net ( frugal, green, ttc )
59. Enchilada Sunrise ( fibrecrafts, bipolar, life )
60. My Hopeful Journey ( support, support, support )
61. Removing Roadblocks ( unexplained infertility, faith, food )
62. A PGD BLOG ( pgd, ivf, myotonic dystophy )
63. The Journey to Baby G ( iui, miscarriage, pcos )
64. The Pursuit of Pregnancy ( ivf, recurrent losses, DOR )
65. The Misadventures of Missohkay ( adoption, pregnancy loss )
66. My Infertile Confessions ( IVF #1, PCOS, septate uterus )
67. Cradles and Graves ( recurrent cord-related loss, maybe a baby? )
68. From TTC to Mommy, thanks to IVF ( ivf, parenting after IF, embryo adoption )
69. A Miracle In the Making…A Great Joy Is Coming ( pregnant afer IF/recurrent miscarriage, nk cells, mthfr )
70. Whitney & Erick – Our Home on the Web ( IVF, miscarriage, RPL )
71. The Infertility Therapist ( psychological aspects of infertility )
72. Carney Exploits ( life, infertility, home )
73. Your Great Life ( fertility coaching, emotional support, family-building )
74. Eggs in a Basketcase ( infertility, relationships, failure )
75. Project Baby ( infertility, iui, my story )
76. Infertility And Me ( azoospermia, father, MFI )
77. The C’s Baby Dance ( PCOS TTC #2, IVF-ED, IUI )
78. Lifeslurper ( donor eggs, infertility, depression )
79. To Those Who Wait ( IUI , TTC 3+ years, life )
80. Raising Cain (someday) ( IVF, infertility, waiting for #1 )
81. Mission: Fertile Soul ( fertility, creativity, humor )
82. Teddy Lifeslurper ( infertility, humour, teddy )
83. Exploring Chaos ( ttc #2, tww, parenting after IF )
84. Little Bird ( donor egg ivf )
85. Surviving the Secondary Infertility Madness ( pregnant, pcos, parenting )
86. College & Endo ( endo & IF, TTC in college )
87. Our Stork isn’t Great with Directions ( new baby, PCOS, MFI )
88. Infertility Musings ( miscarriage after IVF #1, sadness, hope )
89. Lily in the Valley ( IVF, marriage, stepparenting )
90. Reach In, Reach Out, Reach Up ( adoption, christ, infertility )
91. Wistfulgirl’s World ( infertility, pcos, life )
92. Stork Stalking ( SMC, recurrent pregnancy loss )
93. Inconceivable! ( infertility, family, struggles )
94. Plans Change ( adoption, infertility, teaching )
95. Lauren Vs. The World ( injectables, unexplained, anovulation )
96. Making Baby Giraffes ( infertility ivf icsi )
97. The Barren Chemist ( childfree after loss, chemistry, life )
98. Riding the IVF Roller Coaster ( fear, early pregnancy )
99. As Fast As My Baby Can ( ivf, ttc#1, donor eggs )
100. Tales from the Rat Race ( pregnant after ivf, 3rd trimester )
101. Born From My Heart ( toddlerhood, infertility, adoption )
102. Ready For My Bundle ( adoption/infertility, job loss, home improvement )
103. All Grown Up ( adoption, parenting, life )
104. Hearts Joined, Hands Fast ( mfi, iui, ttc #1 )
105. My Dusty Uterus ( exercise, humor, eggs )
106. Loving, Living, Loving ( stillbirth, family, childbirth )
107. It’s Definitely Possible ( smc, ttc, life )
108. Try, Try Again ( baby loss, ttc, ivf )
109. for all the things we hope for ( infertility, miscarriage, nursing school )
110. Buzz Off Infertility ( infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy )
111. In a Nutshell ( donor IVF, fertile-venting, surviving )
112. Waiting For Our Miracle ( FET, IVF, early pregnancy )
113. Junebugs Musings ( if, moving, soul-searching )
114. Trying to Conceive ( ivf, infertility, emotions )
115. Motherhood Meets Me ( adoption infertility motherhood )
116. Getting There ( adoption, waiting, life )
117. Baby Dreams ( pregnant with #2 after IF/recurrent miscarriage, my son, life )
118. Infertile Follies ( infertility, IVF, ectopic pregnancy )
119. Grief, Interrupted ( grief, acceptance, special needs )
120. Watering Faith’s Seed ( infertility, faith, ivf )
121. On The Lanai ( infertility, emotions, marriage )
122. All Aboard the Pity Boat ( infertility, running, life )
123. Trying not to scream ( infertility, loss, trying again )
124. Hope Is A Four Letter Word ( annovulation, iui, ivf )
125. Heeeeere Storkey, Storkey! ( twins, life, pregnancy )
126. Calmly Chaotic ( pregnancy, 1st trimester, design )
127. The Infertility Doula ( support, information, general IF )
128. The Road Less Traveled ( unexplained if, life )
129. InDueTime ( life, infertility, pcos )
130. wanna bee ( adoption, loss, craftiness )
131. The Ros’ Bowl ( parenting after infertility )
132. High Heels to Hunting Boots ( dog, photography, cooking )
133. Uncommon Nonsene ( infertilty, pcos, hypothyroidism )
134. Journey to Baby Belgard ( unexplained, infertility, ivf )
135. MissConception ( infertility, pcos, ttc #1 )
136. the December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/30.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is navy blue, the next month it will be green, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

Last night, I went out to see my best friend who was in town for Thanksgiving and staying at her parent’s house.  Before I went to her house, I swung by my parent’s old house, partially out of intent and partially due to muscle memory.  It felt wrong to be so close and not drive up and down their street once.

The other family had several lights on in the house — one in their old bedroom and another in the playroom.  I could see the familiar wood walls of the playroom through the uncurtained window.  They had placed a rocking chair where my old play stove had been.  There was a bookcase along the wall.  It was dark out and I didn’t want to look like a stalker, so I idled for a few seconds and then continued on to her house.

I didn’t mind that they moved their things in, but I’m glad they didn’t make any major changes yet.  Didn’t cover up the wood walls of the playroom or paint the front door another colour.  For some reason, changing those things — those things that define the physical space such as the door colour or the wall material — would be like erasing us from that house.  As if it had never been ours, never looked this way.  As if so much of our lives hadn’t gone on within those walls.

We were sitting in the living room; my friend and her husband and her brother and some old family friends that I have known since childhood.  I admitted that I drove by my parent’s old house, and my brother-by-friendship (what do you call the siblings of a sister-by-choice?) — knowing me well — immediately crowed, “and Melissa cried, right?”  But I didn’t.  I thought I would, and perhaps I would have if it was day time and I could see something more than the shadow of the house.  But I didn’t cry.  It just felt like hearing a sigh.

*******

I saw the 7th Harry Potter movie this past weekend with my father, my sister, and our husbands.  What I’m saying won’t ruin the movie unless you haven’t read the book, but skip over this section if you are a purist and literally don’t want to read anything before you see it.

There is a scene early on in the film, one you read about in the book in a sentence or two.  Hermione erases herself out of her parent’s mind.  She erases herself out of pictures and walks out of the house, and I’ll admit — my brother-by-friendship be damned — I cried hard.  Because I think the only thing worse than losing the person would be forgetting them, as if they never existed.

Of course, if you forgot, you wouldn’t know that you were missing anything, which is why it must be so much more painful for those with good memories to view someone who is losing their memory.  Of course, as memory loss occurs, there has to be fear and confusion.  In not being able to find the familiar around you.  But it is terrifying for those viewing it happening in another person, seeing themselves erased.

The twins asked about the movie when we got back, and they kept saying, “was it so scary?”  And I would say, “it was so scary!  I made myself sick being so scared.”  And they would ask again, “was it so scary?” relishing the idea of their parents encountering something terrifying and living to tell the tale, and I finally said the 12th time it was asked, “it was so scary, and there was a sad part too.”

I told the twins about Hermione erasing herself out of her parent’s minds, my throat catching.  And I made them promise me that if they ever learned how to do that sort of magic, they would never do that to us.  Because I couldn’t stand the idea of it; of what my life would be like without knowing them.

*******

Erasure is a form of found poetry that is built out of erasing words.  The silence — the missing words — is where all the meaning rests.  It’s sort of a bizarre idea — building out of erasing — since so much of writing is about bringing together words.  About placing more words together in order to best explain the idea.  Erasure is explaining by taking words away.

No one ever thinks about what happens to those missing words; the ones that are removed.  They provide all the meaning, and yet, they don’t even get remembered.

*******

If given the choice, would you rather ache with the loss; missing someone who was or would you rather live like Hermione’s parents, completely ignorant that they just loved someone for eighteen years who is no longer there?

I love that whenever someone is taking a picture of us…

Lindsay does this…

You can find more perfect moments at Write Mind Open Heart.