Fall

Fall has well and truly arrived in NC after a freakishly warm September and early October (90 degrees? In October?). I love Fall - it is by far my favorite season. I love the trees turning, I love the crispness of the air, and I really love the golden quality of the light. M and I have spent the last couple of Fridays and Saturdays at the local science museum looking at the farm animals and bears and lemurs and playing with their wind exhibit. All summer the wind-focused section was boring - sitting there limply in the humidity - but now the steerable toy sailboats on the pond really fly and the seedpod launcher is super fun.

M has turned a corner and is so much fun lately. Right when I started to look out my door at every passing car, hoping a band of gypsies was coming by that I could give her to, M became a doll... I swear they know when you're hitting your breaking point! She still has her moments, don't get me wrong, but at least the fun-to-sucky ratio is more 9:1 instead of the reverse.

I've been trying to be a more mindful parent lately, trying to stop planning and focusing on the future so much and start enjoying what I've got. One of my colleagues at the research center where I work died of a rare autoimmune disease two weeks ago. I didn't know her that well - we worked on different research areas - but I started reading her blog in September: diaryofadyingmom.blogspot.com

Although you would think the posts would be depressing, Michelle was such a fighter and idealist that, without candy-coating anything or denying how horrible the situation was, her posts are an uplifting call to really LIVE. When she died on Oct 11th, on her 11th wedding anniversary, people from all over the world wrote in to say how much her writing meant to them... I'm not good at expressing that kind of emotion, but I guess my way is to try to incorporate the lessons she was able to communicate into my life the best I can.

Gratuitous kid pic:

Keep your John out of my uterus!

Please head over to Julie's at A Little Pregnant and read her post

"Why no one with a uterus should vote for John McCain"

She says what I couldn't get out last night as I was watching the debate, sputtering and cursing...

Chicagoland

Hi from the land of Cubbies and Sox (White, that is)...
What, OMG, I'm posting?! I know, don't have a heart attack or anything.

I'm at a conference in Chicago, sans husband and daughter - which is a bummer, but it has been restful... A whole king size bed to myself! I've occupied my free time by going to the Art Institute - very cool, high hipster quotient what with all those under-fed, over-nicotined art students hanging about - and the Shedd Aquarium, which was awesome - M would have loved it. The Shedd has my very favorite sea creatures, the sea horse and sea dragon, because they are heavily involved in habitat conservation and breeding... The sea dragons in particular were so gorgeous - like something from another planet.

I'm manning an exhibit booth at a psychiatric convention... wow, talk about the lunatics running the asylum! I think the psychiatrists spend so much time talking with people with severe mental illness that they can't hold normal conversations anymore (or maybe they never could to begin with). We have candy out, and they are scooping up handfuls like they will never have access to chocolate again...odd bunch.

What's new on the baby front? Well, we're in kind of a holding pattern. I haven't lost the weight I wanted (and needed) to -surprise! - and work is going crazy... I'm starting up three high-profile projects right now. All of this, though, are excuses. I'm basically just scared - scared I won't get pregnant, scared I will, scared I will be super sick again, scared of going through delivery again (not of the actual birth, but of the hospital interventions). K is also somewhat reluctant, knowing what a high risk pregnancy can mean for our family, especially now that we have M.

K and I have started looking at adoption again - we found a program in Haiti that seems like a really good fit. Lithuania is so slow (years and years once you are actually on the list, even when a potential parent is a Lithuanian citizen, like I am), and K has alot of connections to Haiti. What's nice is that, technically, adoptive parents have to be at least 35 yrs old, so we have a couple of years to wrestle with all of the issues that a adoption, particularly transracial adoption, would mean (for the kids and, less, for us). Also, I still have that gut feeling like we are supposed to have one more biological child and then adopt. It isn't rational, but what about having children really is when you get down to the core? As another blogger recently said, it isn't like we're trying to staff the family farm... we in the US have kids for social and emotional reasons.

My October resolution is to post at least once a week - you in the back there, stop snickering! - hopefully more often... I've got some great pics of M that need to be posted. Laters!