5.22.2004

my husband now has a master's degree. i don't have a degree at all. a week ago, he graduated. now we can leave montana. i leave on tuesday with alex. we're flying back to ohio and leaving jon to pack up the truck and drive it across country. a friend was supposed to help him, but he broke his leg and so we had to get my little sister's ex-boyfriend to fly out to help. they should have a fun trip, actually. except for all the moving business. i didn't have to move the last time at all either because i had just had a baby. i did have to travel out here in a car, but my mom did all the driving. i sat in the back with alex. he was such a tiny thing back then. back when he had that gigantimongous hole in his face. when i think about it, i miss not being able to nurse him. it was so devastating for me. i still cry when i think about it. especially when i think of other people doing it successfully. i just get all jealous and resenting. fuck them for being able to breastfeed perfectly. i don't know who annoys me more actually, people who choose not to breastfeed, but are perfectly capable or people who have absolutely no difficulty at all. i hope beyond hope that everything goes well with our next baby. i'm getting so excited about trying now. i think i have a pretty good idea of when i'll ovulate in august. i'm sort of banking on the baby being late, so i'm counting forty weeks from conception as opposed to the way that professionals estimate a due date by going from the first day of the last period. which means that a pregnancy is actually thirty-eight weeks and not forty, but in my case, i think it will actually be forty weeks like alex was. i'm pretty sure of aleksander's date of conception, so i feel pretty confident that his due date was correct, but that i carry babies a little longer. i know that with subsequent babies, it has a good chance of being different, but if i did it that way then we won't get two opportunities to conceive, but just the one. if i ovulate when i expect to and manage to conceive immediately, then i will be due around the beginning of may. also, if my anticipated dates of ovulation are correct, then i will get a second opportunity to attempt conception for a due date range that is reasonable to our expectations. i can't wait. i was around all these pregnant women today at the blessingway of a friend. it made me want to be pregnant again so badly. i love pregnancy. i know that i complained the last time, but overall i had a very simple pregnancy and my body handled it beautifully, so i fully expect for that to be the case again. i've got to find a better way to handle morning sickness though. i'll stew on that. a friend recommended these ginger candies, but they're pretty darn spicy. maybe i'll just buy tons of ginger brew, which is less spicy, but made by the same company that does that candies. i'll also definitely buy the wrist bands this time around.
here's a picture of jon after graduating. he's on the right.

5.14.2004

not everyday is a struggle. but everyday is exhausting. my bones ache and my skin feels heavy, my muscles sag. i have so much work to do, but it's not necessary to do it this minute, so i am waiting. it's been cold here. i can't wait to leave. we leave on the twenty-fifth. i am ready. i am ready for it to be warm and for alex to have a yard to run around in. today i bought him really really expensive rain gear. i made sure that it was big enough to last him through next spring, when he'll probably actually get some use out of it. the boots have frog faces on the toes and are adorable. the jacket is terry-lined and really warm. he was wearing his boots around this evening while naked. he's naked all the time, really. he's been unpacking the boxes that i've packed. he takes out all the packing materials from the packing material box. so there are now little bits of styrofoam peanuts all over the kitchen, under the washer and dryer, littering the linoleum. i should sweep. it is not immediately necessary, however, so it can wait. i am very tired. alex is asleep now, so i can go to bed. he's been going to sleep very easily lately. it's been nice. every few months he changes his patterns. before this, he had been fighting sleep for a very long time and we were having to find all sorts of activities to get him to sleep. this is much better. it is nice to not have to struggle with him.

5.03.2004

we did it again. alex was much crankier the second time around. but the art came out beautiful. we watched crap tv, ate organic frozen dinners and made art. what a life.

5.01.2004

alex and i painted together for the first time last night. i've always had this quaint image in my mind of painting with a child, them working on some small corner while i paint on the rest of the canvas. our experience was not quite like that. i spread two drop cloths on top of one another on the floor in the living room, got out my paint box, got some water and my rags and changed my clothes. alex mostly runs around naked, so i didn't have to worry about him getting paint on his clothes. i got a canvas and started spreading paint on it. alex came wandering in from the office where he was watching his father play video games to see what i was doing. then of course he began helping. his work was pretty good, but then i needed to figure out how to get the painting away from him in order to keep him from working ad infinitum and messing it all up. jon recommended that it needed more blue. i should never listen to jon. i saw what he was getting at, but once i gave alex some blue, he began to muck the whole thing up. so then i had to wipe most of the blue off and start over with pink and red and yellow to go back over it. eventually we both had paint in weird places on our bodies (neck, head, him all over his butt), so jon took alex kicking and screaming to the bathtub while i tracked paint onto the carpet (bottom of my foot) and then cleaned everything up.


alex examining his work