Destruction, thy name is Chicklette

It's really amazing how quickly the Chicklette went from tottering a couple of steps at a time to full-out running around the house. In circles. Repeatedly. Until Mommy and Daddy have both broken a sweat trying to catch up. The cats have taken to hanging out on the breakfast bar, because they can barely outrun her (and are, frankly, too fat and lazy to try more than once a day).

And the mess. Oh, the mess. Parenting lesson of the week: even if you've childproofed a room, it doesn't mean that there still aren't dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of "safe" things that can be moved/thrown/otherwise displaced in a matter of seconds.

The capacity for self-destruction is also high. Just this week, we've had a fat lip (falling face-first onto a toy), a smushed pinky (from exploring the dresser drawers), and a head bonk (from walking in one direction whilst looking in the other). I don't know what this says about me, but I find these types of mishaps quite amusing (aside from the initial tears). It's like having a very small and cute drunk person wandering around all the time. I'm sort of surprised that I'm as calm about the physical injury side of things as I am, but I guess I always figured that the Chicklette was doomed to inherit clutziness from both sides.

In other news, I found an ossified avocado under my car seat this morning -- it must have rolled out of the daycare bag about a month ago, because it was about half its original size and weight. Complete with a little "ripe now!" sticker on the side. Which made me laugh way more than it probably should have.

So that's the news from here. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Using birth control un-ironically

So, one of the interesting decisions we've had to make in the midst of our current family drama is the decision to table for one year any discussions about or efforts towards having another kid. I say "interesting" rather than "awful" because it unexpectedly felt really good to be open and honest about the fact that we are not in a position to bring another person into this family right now. This past month has made me see what being a single parent would look like, and while I'm hoping that won't become the permanent state of things, I just can't stomach the idea of bringing (or trying to bring -- let's not get ahead of ourselves here) another innocent bystander into the current chaos.

Also "interesting" is the way my thinking has changed on the whole age thing -- 6 months ago I was panicked about turning 35 and OMG I need to get pregnant again right now, but the Perspective Fairy seems to have visited me during some night recently and I'm a little more sanguine about the whole thing. Sure, it would be better from a biological standpoint to get the baby party started sooner rather than later, but I've been around the infertility blogosphere enough to know that I could still have a few good years/eggs left in me. Or I could not. Either way, it's out of my hands and I'm at peace with that at this particular moment.


So, we're back to using birth control. Not in the ironic suppression-before-IVF way, but in the actual, hey, sex can make babies and we don't want one of those right now way.

How unexpected is that?