As I had no father or siblings, Stan was the most important man in my life as I grew up. He taught me to ride a bike and catch a ball. He tickled me too hard and too long when I was little. He showed me I could drive down super steep hills and around big scary roundabouts. We fought constantly and as a teenager I often avoided his company. But when I cut off my hair in my early twenties and started bringing home women, he never treated me any differently. One of the last big conversations I heard him have (and these were quite rare), was with S about 6 years ago. She talked with him about the war and about his career in the public service. He deliberately retired early at a time when jobs were few and younger folk were in danger of being retrenched. He tickled too hard. But he always meant well.

And so. S had a chemical pregnancy, poor bugger. It’s a bloody awful feeling. That brings our combined total to 10 failed IVF cycles this year, including a cancelled cycle, a miscarriage/D&C and 3 chemical pregnancies. I just heard that our IVF company will let us know tomorrow if they have enough xmas staff to allow S to cycle over Dec/Jan. I will be so glad when we never have to deal with them ever again.

blowing out the candles - it was the only time he let us sing happy birthday (we tried all day!)

so much huey love

bean jan - fet - bfn
bean mar - fet - bfn
bean apr - fet - bfn (early chemical?)
bean jun - fet - cycle cancelled - multinucleated embryo
bean july - stim flare, blast transfer - bfn
sorenson july - fet - 8 week miscarriage, d&c
bean sept - fet blast - bfn (chemical)
sorenson oct - fet - bfn
bean oct - stim antagonist 2 blasts transferred - bfn (chemical) nothing to freeze
sorenson nov - fet - ?
bean dec - ?
sorenson dec - ?

We’ll try for one more year

S took the kids to Piggy’s fourth birthday party at the weekend while I was at work. They all had so much fun - all the kids got to make, decorate and cook their own humongous cookie. When they were leaving the party (clutching their beloved baked goods), Pcat gave them each handmade aprons. We’ve hardly managed to get them off since. They are beautiful and practical, and the party and aprons have inspired all of us to do more cooking together.

I will never forget how lucky I am.

When bean came home I was in the bedroom with Huey, and I felt bad because I wasn’t there to remind him to give her the book. But when she opened the door he was standing there with his little sticker book in hand. He remembered all by himself.

Later, at dinner, he was playing with our names as he often does. ‘Mummy-baba. Bean-mum.’ Then he looked thoughtful, and said ‘Ayo yuv baba-mum. Ayo yuv bean-mum. Ayo yuv Huey.’ And we love you too, Arlo, oh yes we do.

I knew that the artist must be Huey. He has a thing about those tuna tins. There are a lot of tins in that cupboard, but they are the only ones he ever gets out.

His creativity extends to dance and music too. Check out his moves.

Arlo and Huey are being their usual divine, challenging selves. They have delightful moments of playing together, making each other laugh and chasing each other around and devising little games, and then they have terrible moments of tearing toys out of each other’s hands, screaming and pulling hair and sobbing desperately. It’s a little hard to keep up! Arlo blew me away today by engaging in some imaginative play - I pretended that the washing basket was the car, and then asked him where he wanted to go. He said the shops! Where he wanted to buy a tomato! It was very cute. Huey is going through a stage of breastfeeding all of his soft toys (or asking me to) - also very cute.

And here is a photo of them playing tea. Note Arlo’s crazy expression. It’s his version of smiling for the camera. We had professional photos done recently and it drove the photographer crazy the way he pulled this face every time he noticed her camera was pointed at him. Poor little fellow - he’s really trying hard to help us take great photos!

In the early years of our relationship, bean and I experimented with various crunchy lifestyle options. We were vegan for three months. It was cheap, delicious, challenging, and we lost 5 kgs which was a good thing, but it was almost impossible to eat out or at friends’ houses and we missed red meat too much. We did yoga. It was relaxing and rewarding but it cost a lot of money and we skipped classes too often. We did a meditation course. It was even more relaxing, challenging, and felt really good when we did it during the classes, but I don’t think either of us meditated independently more than two or three times. We gave away the television. There was more time for doing other stuff, especially reading, but bean stopped talking to me in the evenings because she had her head in a book and I missed her so we got it back again. I don’t know where the anti-television sentiment comes from, but it is strong within me, and despite my own addiction I swore that our kids would not watch any telly until they were at least two years old.

I bet you can guess how that turned out. Pretty much every day one or other of them climbs eagerly on the couch chanting either ‘Be be! Be be!’ in the case of Huey or ‘wach bi pay schhhoool’ in the case of Arlo (I find myself trying to minimise my downfall by telling Arlo he can watch ‘a bit of play school’ and it has become the title of the show). I feel guilty about it, I do. And a friend with older kids recently advised me that it is the beginning of the end. Apparently the rest of my parenting years will be filled with requests for the computer, the telly, the playstation etc etc ad infinitum. Now that’s something to look forward to. I am trying to make my peace with this, arguing to myself that for the meantime Play School is about as harmless as television can be, and it brings them great joy, and nursery rhymes - like Hey Diddle Diddle.

But the other big thing for me in this is that, until now, everything has come from us. These kids have only been cared for by us (apart from the odd hour here and there with friends and family). All their games, their songs, their exclamations - they are all are things that bean and I have said to them or done with them. It rocked me, hearing an unfamiliar song come out of Arlo’s mouth. It is the beginning of the rest of his life, where what he learns from the world will be so much more than what I can give him. But oh, how I hope that what I have given him (my rock’n'roll rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep, ‘oh no!’ and ‘oh dear’, crazy dancing to african dance music) sticks too. I want to be important in his life. Because he is oh so important in mine.

(note: I’ve already come to terms with Arlo and Huey having thoughts and ideas and desires of their own, oh yessiree, it has been well and truly drummed into me, that one.)

***

Some other things that have happened in the last few days that I’ve been meaning to record for posterity (warning, list ahead):