The definition of irony

When you are online researching the best kind of external hard drive to buy so you never experience a catastrophic loss of everything on your computer, when a malicious virus attacks.

Pop up warnings saying "click here to run your system security" (yeah right) to windows opening up to sites like www.p*rn.come and www.vi@gra.com. How fun.

Internet Explorer was completely shut down but fortunately we could still get into Mozilla Firefox to get some free repair scans (after consulting our computer guru friend--thanks Aleck.)

We did have some infected areas that were dealt with, but we survived relatively unscathed. This time.

We bought and saved to that external hardrive the very next day. You know, I could care less about most of the stuff on our computer. But the babys' pictures. I couldn't bear to lose them! Could you? -M

What am I up to today?

Um...that would be watching Danny's hair grow.

You see, I may have gone just a tad too short on my first attempt at cutting it with our new Kids Shaver. Actually my first attempt at cutting it earlier in the day was not too short, but noooooo I was not satisfied. So about a half hour later I thought I'd give it another shot and really go for it!

On the bright side he is really enjoying how it feels to rub his little head and cracks up when he looks in the mirror. On the not so bright side, I don't feel so good.

His hair grows very fast however. In fact, let me go back and check it again.

No, still the same.

No pictures of him will be posted for an appropriate amount of time. But rest assured he's still beautiful. Just, um, shorn. -Monica

P.S. Su of course came to the rescue and tried her best to do damage control. Thanks honey. I've learned my lesson!

Congratulations XBox!

I've been a long time follower of a blogger who spent more than two years TTC (trying to conceive). XBox, as we call him (cuz he called his blog XBox4NappyRash) and his wife are an Irish couple living in the Netherlands and it's been great fun to follow their journey. Great writing, great wit and great drama. This morning we were thrilled to see that their beloved daughter had arrived! Many congratulations XBox and ET. Yeah!!!!! -Monica and Susanne

Happy two months Benjamin!

It's hard to believe that two whole months have gone by since we were blessed by the arrival of our number two son little Benjamin . Click on this link to see some fun pics from his second month.

We took the boys to our friends' little boy's birthday party on Saturday and they had a blast. Happy First Birthday Grisha! Have a great day everybody! -Monica

Thought for the day

I remember when I was 18 years old being horrified at the thought that in only 12 short years, I'd be 30. Can you imagine? Thirty years old! At the time, 30 years of age seemed pretty much equivalent to death. But now it doesn't seem so old at all. Funny how that works.

Why you may ask would I reflect back on that memory? Well you see, last week, in the mail, I got something from AARP. Yes, the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired People. When you turn 50 they mail you your AARP card and even though you get all kinds of discounts on stuff, let's face it--you're officially old. It's a very unsettling rite of passage from what I can tell.

Well, the good news is that I'm not 50 yet. I have until September to suffer that indignity. But as I was fading to sleep the other night it suddenly dawned on me that when you are 50 you are only 20 years away from being 30.

And 70.

Maybe someday I'll write "But now it doesn't seem so old at all".

Not likely. -M

Happy Valentine's Day Susanne

 

Cheesy? Yes. Cheap? Yup. 

Fortunately those are the qualities you love most in me! Happy Valentine's Day sweetheart! -Monica

It's a bear! It's a plane! No, it's just Danny having fun!

Grateful

The two blizzards that just poured tons of snow on DC were memorable for a lot of reasons, but for me, I think I'll always reflect back on this time with gratitude. Let me count the ways...

• Wonderful neighbors--visits and team shoveling made it almost fun
• Stores that were busy but well stocked for the most part (and people who acted civilly. Yeah!)
• Power and phones that did not go out
• A gas fireplace in the basement that could be used for heat if we lost our regular heat
• Cable TV that stayed on (not a necessity, but it sure made it more fun)
• Batteries for our radio (we actually had the right size and enough--you know, just in case)
• Four straight days off from work--definitely a world record for snow days for me
• Two of the most gorgeous children in the world to hang out with
• That all of us stayed healthy--hard to imagine what we would have done at some points during all this with pharmacies and doctor's offices being closed and hospitals inaccessible
• And last but not least, Susanne. There is no one I'd rather weather any storm with. 

That's all for now. Time to make pancakes with Danny. You can only promise something like that so many times before you just have to put your money where your mouth is ;-) Have a great day everybody. -M

Update from the snow zone

Well here we are in (what?) day five of the blizzard hostage crisis. Of course part of the fun of being snowed in includes making cookies right? I think Danny has been paying a bit too much attention to those cooking shows Su likes to watch. As you can see, he is a bit "know it ally" in the kitchen like those TV hosts ;-)  On the bright side, the oatmeal cookies did turn out splendidly so we've got lots of sugar to sustain us as we continue to watch the snow fall and blow.

As you may recall, I posted a pic taken Sunday that showed about 2 feet of snow on our back deck. I then totally shoveled the deck and table CLEAR yesterday before today's snowfall, and here is what it looks like now at about 6 pm on Wednesday night . I kid you not.  Another 18" or so we think.

We are doing fine otherwise. Our cable started going out about a half hour ago but now seems fine. We are really hoping our electricity, phones, cable and internet keep working. But wouldn't be surprised if something breaks. It's supposed to snow til later tonight. Onward and upward! -M

P.S. Danny's new favorite game? To announce "I am Monster Truck, Baby is Car!" This right before he tries to crawl over the little guy. Fortunately we are very good at intercepting him!

Yay! Snow!

Our back deck

The National Weather Service is predicting between 10-20 inches of snow tomorrow here in DC. On top of this. Sigh...

Thanks Mr. Plow

Yay.  The plow finally came ... but I guess we're not going anywhere anytime soon.  Our car and our big new pile of snow:

Still Snowed In

Yesterday afternoon our friends Tom and Kristina trekked through our neighborhood to come for a visit.  Here they are:

Kristina took a couple of great photos including this one of our street (approx. 24 hours after the snow had stopped falling) :

 

As you can see, although many of us have started digging out our cars, we're not driving anywhere anytime soon. 

She also got this pic of the four of us.  It is one of the first good ones we've managed to get.  Thanks Kristina!

Live from the Blizzard of 2010 -- 21" and counting....

My number one reason for loving telework

 

The amazing view! (Hi Benjamin!) -Mommy

Bring it on!

Well, they are predicting that in DC we will have the "storm of the century" over the next 24 hours. Danny is excited to make an even bigger snowman than he made here during our December storm (the week Ben was born.) Of course even if he makes a bigger snowman, I'm not sure he could give a bigger hug. ;-)

Have a great weekend everyone! -Monica

Not enough for a snow day, but it sure is pretty

View from out our front window this morning. Yes, that is a sandbox. 

Top ten reasons I'm happy today

10. An unexpected snow storm is falling over Washington, DC that may just continue all night. I still love a good "snow day".

9. Work is going pretty well. That always makes me happy.

8. Baby Benjamin is doing great! He's only been with us six weeks and it's as if he's always been here. How wonderful!

7. Su on maternity leave means wonderful dinners every night. Fortunately she loves to cook and cooks well, so having time to really plan and prepare dinner makes all of us happy.

6. Danny is a CONSTANT source of delight and laughs. Just the things he says and does. We may have to start calling him Larious. Cuz he's so hilarious.

5. Valentine's Day is coming up I am bound and determined to come up with a really romantic idea to celebrate it. It's challenging with two little ones, but it can be done.

4. We just came home from a little gathering with neighbors that was a hodge podge of giggling children and laughing adults. We have fabulous neighbors and I am beyond grateful that we live where we do.

3. Danny has been going to bed like a dream of late (knock on every piece of wood in the world). But as I type this he's peacefully sleeping in his "big boy bed" in the next room and it just feels awesome to know that he is so comfortable and happy there.

2. Now that Ben is here, so much seems "back to normal". Pregnancy has its share of challenges, fears and emotions (for both of us), so now that we can just be us again, is wonderful.  I feel like Susanne and I are "home" again in some way I can't explain. It's great.

1. Last but not least, after figuring out that my mom had a pretty nasty bacterial infection that she's now been treated she is finally on the mend after breaking her hip two weeks ago. Falling and getting badly hurt is just no fun period, but it turns out that mom was under much more stress from this infection than anyone knew. It is the most wonderful sound in the world to hear your mom, who you were afraid might never be well again, sound like her old self.

Truly blessed. Yup. Keep snowing heavens! Keep snowing! -Monica

Glad you asked

It is a really fascinating experience to share that we have just had a baby, because for many people, this news is wonderful, yet a bit confusing. I mean look at us. We are two women. How did we do this?

Our close friends and family of course know exactly what process we went through to have our sons, but others who are not so close, often ask the best questions. Not malicious questions, just curious.

For example, “who’s the father?” Once we explain that the boys have no father but two mothers, often we see the "blank look" so sometimes we share a bit more about how we used donor to conceive our children. Oh no. More wheels figuratively spinning around in people’s head trying to figure out what that really means. And I just know that there are those who end up thinking “well they must have just called up one of those cryobanks and said “hey, send us whatever you got there—any donor will do!” Well that or even more outlandish ideas. How can I say this? Um NO!

I can’t imagine what else goes on in their confused little heads so sometimes a little more information is in order.

Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to a friend last year who really truly wanted to understand how our family came to be. He encouraged me to share this with others as he found it fascinating, so I’ve decided that now is as good a time as any to share it. Enjoy!
_____________________________________________________

“…Anyway, your questions about our donor are no problem at all. Someday I'll probably even do a post about it because I think it's interesting to others as well. When Su and I first talked about having children, we both were very much leaning towards adopting a child. We'd both worked in Latin America and knew others who'd adopted kids from Guatemala so that seemed sort of logical to us. We signed up for a class at a clinic here in DC called Whitman Walker. The class was called “Maybe Baby” and is for gay people who are trying to learn all about the many options to have a family.

It was one night a week for about 8 weeks and we learned about adoption, alternative insemination, known donor, unknown donors, legal stuff etc... It was fascinating and as a wonderful aside we made some great friends who we are still close to.

By the time we finished the course we both ended up agreeing that there was no reason we couldn't try to have a baby using a donor. Susanne had always figured she'd have children one day—I never did have the “biological clock” thing and also since I’m a lot older than Susanne, she was the logical one to carry any baby we’d try to have. So, we arranged for some medical screening of hormone levels etc... and she was deemed super healthy by the reproductive endrocronologist we went to.

So...then the big decision became whether we would ask someone we knew to donate semen or select an anonymous donor who we'd never know or meet. We both have some awesome male friends who we could have asked, but after much introspection, we feared that any known donor we could choose would, of course, feel connected to our baby. And that was something that was not okay with either of us. Any child she gave birth to would be our baby-no one elses. So we started exploring the various cryobanks around the US.

On those sites you basically can search for donors who fit whatever profile you want. Hair color, ethnicity etc. Then for free you can read a short profile of the person and read a short paragraph they wrote in response to a question like "why did you decide to become a donor." You get to see a lot of details about their age, eye color, blood type etc... on this short profile. It was very interesting how easy it was to kick potential donors out of the mix because they couldn't write well (not that I'm so great a writer but that's not the point.)

Anyway, we decided to select someone with qualities similar to me so our baby would sort of look like both of our sides of the family. We narrowed it down to two and then picked the one that we both agreed seemed "right". We only had a number to identify our donor by.

Then we paid about $15.00 for a long profile with not only his full medical history and school history including GPA and other standardized test scores (like GMAT.) It included his and his entire immediate family's medical history which was great and it turned out they were a very healthy bunch! We then had the option to buy a picture of our donor as a toddler. We didn't do that right away, but later did. He's adorable, and that mop of hair you see on Danny's head? It's the exact same hair except for the color. (You can’t get a picture of an anonymous donor as an adult. This prevents walking down the street and seeing some guy and going “Dude!”)

We also purchased an audio profile of our donor being interviewed. He sounds like a really nice happy person and our plan is to share with Danny everything we have on the donor.

It’s termed “anonymous” because the donor does not want to be found later. One of the best questions we get asked is “what if you kid grows up and dates someone who it turns out is a progeny of that donor?” (They don’t ask it quite like that, but that is what they mean.) Well, the odds of that seem pretty darn small, but I tell them that we purposely chose to use a cryobank from a different state to reduce that possibility. I’m guessing statistically that the odds of that “dating scenario” happening would actually be much higher in an insular small town than in our situation, but who knows? As a friend once told me “mama’s baby, daddy’s maybe. ;-)

We definitely know that we want our children (if we are blessed with another child) to be a full sibling to Danny so when Su was pregnant with Danny we purchased extra vials of "our donor" and put them on ice so to speak (in a facility designed for such a thing.)

There are several way to conceive. “In vitro” is what everyone thinks of which is when the egg and sperm get together in a dish and are then implanted in the woman’s body. This is a method most often used when there are severe fertility problems. We didn’t have a fertility problem. We had a lack of sperm problem until working with the cryobank. So with a doctor’s assistance, the semen we chose was inserted into Su’s uterus at the exact right time during her cycle. It took lots of timing and tracking, and it did not work every time we tried. But when it did work, wahoo!
____________________________________________________________

I wrote all of this before Benjamin was even conceived. Wow! Now we have TWO gorgeous sons!

It's kind of funny that we sort of say we "adopted some sperm" to have Danny and Benji.We know that they have half siblings somewhere out there but are not interested in trying to meet other families on what are called voluntary sibling registries. Perhaps the boys will want to do that when they get older. Totally their call.

Alrighty then. Just felt in the mood to share. –Monica

P.S. I am very grateful to our donor for becoming a donor. Yes, they are paid to do so, but go through very rigorous testing and it can’t be that fun. I just can't imagine my life without my two amazing sons, so again, grateful is the word when I think of most when I think about this.

Our house--early this morning

Danny picks up the remote while watching Sesame Street.

Mama: "Are you going to change the channel?"

D: "Yes, I news."

M: "You're going to watch the news?"

D: "Yes, I love news."

Hah!