but tell me how you really feel about blue nail polish.

it has been a muggy week. muggy! isn't muggy a funny word? don't think about it too hard, it's still a recession and there's a royal wedding to think about. is it still a recession?

we were running some muggy errands today, huck and i, accomplishing important things and solving international crises and refilling our nutella stash, when suddenly the skies opened up and all of that humidity came dripping down from the clouds.

"it's pouring out," said a rather sour-faced woman at the check out line of the trader joe's, as she eyed the bald, hatless baby strapped to my chest.

well, shoot.

we waited out the rain at the drug store next door. i bought some green peeps, and then i ate them really fast. they were just the perfect amount of stale. isn't this a really good blog post?

i bought an umbrella next and decided to walk to housing works real fast to look at wardrobes. it's a long story. but okay, i need a wardrobe because i'd like to move huck's crib into the closet so he can get some quiet while he sleeps, and our clothes will need somewhere else to live soon.

brandon and i are currently embroiled in a grand debate about whether we should buy a nice wardrobe now or a nice wardrobe later. and if later, then perhaps a junky wardrobe now? or just move now. or else just wait and not move yet but buy a nice wardrobe when we get a new apartment, and thus do a junky wardrobe now and/or no wardrobe at all but rather sit on our hands until some specified time that brandon won't clue me in on, at which point we'll move. or a nice wardrobe now. this makes more sense when i explain it while i'm not so tired.

in any case, wardrobes. huck wasn't too happy with the turn of events (still shopping? moo-oom!).

here are some pictures. i documented my muggy afternoon, because . . . you know?

mr. no fun made me promise not to post any naked pictures of my son on the internet

to that i say . . . fine.
(does this count?)

in lieu of the ever-so-tasteful, side-profile, huck-nakie-on-a-changing-pad shot i had selected (he immediately peed on that changing pad, good thing it's waterproof), here he is, fully clothed.

(he's devilishly handsome, i can admit it.)

amanda and zach and theo, oh my!

my sister amanda, her husband zach, and their sweet baby theo are here this week to walk all over the island of manhattan with me and eat at all of our favorite places.

like, at the shake shack, lame.

(but this time we ate at the shack in washington square park. yeah, we like to mix it up a little.)

tonight we had pizza at patsy's followed by magnolia for dessert. 

and then us girls came back to nurse our babies on the couch and watch newsies while the boys walked the dogs through the park.

it should be noted, magnolia's peppermint icebox pie is a-ma-zing,
right up there with their banana pudding.

while we were there, uncle zach tried to feed huck his first sugar. 

and then we jammed to a little jackson five with dad.

i'm going to miss my sister when she leaves tomorrow!

heaven in a baby

Everywhere we go, my Huckleberry is the man of the day.

Women stop dead in their tracks at the grocery store to say, their hands over their hearts, "Oh!"
Pediatricians walk into exam rooms with vaccines in their needles and gasp, "That face!"
Old men wink at him on the sidewalks, and say to me, "Keep having babies. You're obviously good at it."
Fancy Jewish ladies in fur coats proclaim him "The best baby I have ever seen in my life!"

Huck is a like drug. One hit of his smile, one dose of his squeals (with his fat body tensing up in complete excitement), and you're immediately addicted to babies for life. I want a million more Huckleberries. One after another after another after another. I'm afraid that I won't be able to go a minute without a Huckleberry in my arms ever, ever again.

And do I sometimes get lost? Just the mom behind the adorable baby? "Don't mind me, I just birthed him, that's all." 

Um, yes. But happily so. Everywhere we go, I get to see faces light up, bad moods melt, and grizzled New Yorkers turn to a puddle of goo thanks to this silly little baby. What could be better than that?

Sometimes I think I can look into my Huckleberry's eyes and see straight though to heaven.

I get a lot of emails from readers who are struggling with infertility. I want you to know how much your trust means to me, and how much I pray and hope along with you. And I also want you to know: it is worth it. Huck is worth every negative pregnancy test, and every depressing moment. Every single second.

Yours will be, too. I promise.

I just love that I can share him with you, and with strangers on the street, and with my fellow grocery shoppers at the Trader Joe's.

He's my miracle, but I like to think he is also yours.

I hope that when you see him, you can see heaven, too.

this week on babble

nursing is not gross!

nursing in public days one, two, and three,

and a love song to my huckleberry friend 

(i cried like a nerd while writing this)

. . . aaaand i'm spent.

see you next week dudes, and enjoy your easter candy!

as of late

Just an update on the life and times, you know how we do.

May I recommend that you try peanut butter and honey sandwiches with nutella sometime soon? AMAZING.

dear me, don't forget this

last night as i was nursing my baby to sleep i had a rather lovely thought.

i thought to myself, as i was nursing my fat little baldy, 


right now, this very minute, i have everything i've ever wanted.

lovely, right?

i'm living in my favorite city in the world,
i am healthy and strong,
i have really great friends,
i love my family super much amounts,
i have an outlet for my bizarre ramblings,
my husband loves me,
he's really hot,
and he is employed,
and,
best of all,

i am somebody's mother.

the minute i thought this rather lovely thought i thought another rather lovely thought:

i have everything i want, but somehow, i want more.

and that's a good thing.
isn't it?

accepting enough has never been our strong suit as a human species. henceforth i am typing this to you on a COMPUTER, in a climate controlled INDOOR ENVIRONMENT, using DEXTERITY IN MY FINGERS, and not using my FLIPPERS. am i right? or am i getting darwinism wrong.

i find daily that i have to create my own happiness, even when i know that what i have should be more than enough for me.

it is easy for me to look around and identify what else i could have. i want more babies, for instance. (not right this second!) and i want more space, for which to put these more babies. i want more money to afford more vacations in more places that are warm and more breezy. i want more storage. i want more confidence in my abilities, and more peace with my husband, and more dogs that are sane, and less dogs that are not.

i want, i want, i want.
it's a problem.

but here's what: it's a good thing i had those awful years of working at the world's supidest company, for the world's most deplorable boss, while dealing with my body's most stubborn infertility.
because i learned then how to be happy with what i got, even when what i got wasn't a whole lot.

it was hard then. it is hard now because life is always hard, but the hard times now are not hard in the same way that hard times were hard then. and for that i am grateful.

the good news is, that happiness i found then has stayed with me.
like a little trick in my pocket for just-in-case.

because having everything you ever wanted is entirely possible it turns out,
but guess what, it won't make you happy every second of every day.

only we can do that for ourselves.

and you know what?

we totally can.



that's probably the most lovely thought of all.

this week i am nursing openly all over nyc.

it's an experiment.

today i wore my hair up on the top of my head like all the cute girls in city do.

it gave me a major headache.
(i'm not sure it's for me)

IN OTHER NEWS

i'm in the running for most stylish mama! weird!

this week on babble:

vanity sizing for babies

it was inevitable i'd write about MILFs

we're considering delaying solids

the one about peter pan

my very best nursing advice

some good things lately

1-4. new york city in the spring time.

5. we've finally selected "our" local pizza joint. this is important stuff.
6. these cookies, which i had to buy since they're wearing a beret.
7. waiting out a rainstorm at a book store and speed-reading the first 45 pages of bossypants while huck played with his feet. (also, i'm really jonesing for a copy of gwyneth paltrow's new cookbook "my father's daughter," and a kitchen to cook them in, and a giant, rustic, wood farm table to eat them at.)
8. huck's awesome church mohawk
9. this new project i'm dreaming up, wherein i nurse in public without a nursing cover for a full week as an experiment.
10. the super rad thunderstorm going on out my window as i type

now you tell me some good things lately!

this week we thought maybe peter pan was dying

i have this dog. his name is peter pan.
peter pan has a dream.
his dream is to die by eating lots of socks.

today was a really good day

huck loves his c/o little alouette teether.

today the holbs brought home a package of end-of-season mallomars. 

we shall eat them while we watch the 'burbs! 

good move, holbserino.

in case you missed them, here are this week's babble posts:
my very best nursing advice

eff you, sleep training!

i like to DANCE!

who's afraid of the easter bunny?

baby's first disney

chunk off

 the other day at play group we decided to have a chunk off.

you know, make it official.

my friend elise's baby is a real tank, but i'm proud to say huck held his own.

it was close, but huck's extra knee roll may have taken it.

have you ever seen a roll on a knee? 

(not over the knee; i mean, on the knee.)

it's pretty flippin fantastic, is what.
(pics via my momma's cell phone)

BUT LET US NOT FORGET!



i was fatter first.

homes of the hundred acre wood

You know what they say . . . if you can't say something nice, talk about cartoon home design instead.

Last night we watched Winnie The Pooh. My mother-in-law sent us our DVD collection from storage and I was so excited to have part of my old house back that the first DVD I saw went straight into the DVD player. I miss that old house in Idaho so much. I can't believe it was 1100 square feet. THAT'S ENORMOUS.

(Maybe next I want ALL OF MY CAKE PLATES shipped to me?)

I have been having a hum dinger of a time feeling chipper about the size of things lately. I think I have size-related depression. I have nothing nice to say about anything. We watched Winnie The Pooh last night while B ate a sandwich in the "kitchen" (it's not really a kitchen the sink is only six inches wiiiiiiide), and my running commentary (there is always a running commentary) went something like this:

"Pooh has a full-size mirror! Look at his huge rug. Do you suppose that's sisal? Oh gosh his kitchen is so spacious."

Here's more: Pooh's entire kitchen consists of one (1) table, and one (1) cabinet of Hunny. What a lifestyle!

Brandon asked me why Pooh would buy a mirror, since he clearly doesn't understand what a mirror does. But do you think a bear of very little brain does his own furniture shopping? Anyway, I hardly think Pooh would choose a sisal rug so large, if you ask me.

Later that night I rearranged my furniture, in an attempt to soothe the aching size-depressed beast within.

It only sort of helped.

pants and wardrobe nonsense

Today I wanted nothing more in my sad little life than to put away some winter clothes and feel a little more organized. I had just taken the trash to the basement when I bumped into my favorite maintenance guy Miguel, and Miguel was all, "Oooh, King Henry is so STRONG! So CHUBBY! So WONDERFUL! And apartment 301 is empty do you want to go look at it?" And I was all, "shyah!" cause looking at apartments that are bigger than mine and make me want to cry is my very favorite thing to do lately.

Huck and I charged forth into the maintenance elevator and in a jiffy we were on the third floor. I really love that maintenance elevator. I feel like a queen in there, it is just a lovely little thing to be carted around to different floors by a manually operated lever.

Slightly related: Attending scouting operations on different floors in my building is always a trip because every floor looks like my floor, but not every floor smells like my floor. My floor always smells like stuffed red peppers, but the third floor, well, today the third floor smelled like pasta.

And oh, I can tell you, I know heartbreak. Intimately. Yes, I know heartbreak, and her name is 301.

Living room space! A hallway for the stroller! A kitcheny-type kitchen with room for a T-A-B-L-E (we must spell it out because lately that is a dirty word). The bedroom was huge, and, a walk-in closet!

The only thing she was missing was my mintyfresh green bathroom, but look Greenie, don't get too comfortable.

I left that apartment with stars in my eyes. I promptly called up my landlord to work out a deal only to find out it had been RENTED ALREADY. Probably only seconds before I called because that is just how the Universe likes to play me lately.

So the moral of the story is, when you are stuck for time and all eternity in a too-small apartment, you organize crap, because what else are you going to do?

And so it was that today, during one of Huck's six 20-minute naps, I discovered this bizareness going on in the back of my closet.

In my defense I am pretty sure I bought them at a sidewalk clearance sale for five dollars while pregnant. This is no defense at all because really, who buys stuff while pregnant but stupid people? (Also I think I recall buying them on a SUNDAY. woops!)

While I was trying the pants on (if you can even call them pants), Huck woke up from nap number four. I was glad, I needed a second opinion. The two of us took a moment, and we pondered.

I'm at a loss.

They are clearly so bad that they have swung around to awesome, only they have also swung clear past awesome and into the dreaded "I can't tell" category of fashion, which is probably why I should definitely keep them and wear them like a champion.

this week's babble posts

green like the urban jungle

so help me, it's a mothering theory (controversial! apparently.)

1.0 living in a 3.0 world

could you need a baby exorcist? could the answer be "possibly?"

percentiles, height, and babygasms: this one is all over the place

have a good weekend!

this is a formal apology to my dad

dear dad,

it really, really sucks that we live so far away.

i feel like i've stolen your baby soul mate.
can you ever forgive me?
i feel really pretty lousy about it.

huck was really cute all day today.
he smiled at all the shoppers at trader joe's like it was his job.

one woman asked, "is he always this pleasant?" and i said YES.
and then i felt bad that you weren't around to mug on him.
also i wished we could run to mashitas for some kimchi,
that was really good kimchi, huh.

huck is still taking his naps in the car seat.
i feel like if i give the car seat back to the friend i borrowed it from, then that means my portland vacation is really over,
and i think i'm not ready for that yet. 

luckily huck loves sleeping in that car seat. 

(driving around in that car seat he likes considerably less, why is that?)

this morning we were feeling lonely for you, so we put on some mickey mouse clubhouse.
it didn't help, i just felt more bummed that you weren't around to do the hot dog dance with us at the end.

it was the episode where goofy goes back in time and becomes a baby, and mickey has to babysit him all day, and donald uses the fact that he's helping as a way to hit on daisy (which is weird because, aren't donald and daisy already an item? aren't they married? i'd always assumed they were all married only now i'm realizing that in toon town at disneyland they all have separate houses . . . so, either they are doing the woody allen/mia farrow thing, or else they're all eternally dating, which . . . is weird now that i think about it),  and then pete shows them all how to burp goofy after he takes a bottle. 

after goofy is burped he says in a high-pitched baby voice: "garsh!" 

you should watch it, if you get lonely.

xoxo
daughter #1