On the Cape

We had a truly wonderful vacation with our friends back in August in Dennisport.

One thing that struck me was how fluid our days were because we were sharing them with people who had roughly the same daily schedule, eating and sleeping habits, and level of chaos as our household does.

There were overcast days at the beginning of the week that forced us to find fun diversions outside of our little piece of beach; then there was plenty of sun in the second half so we could take full advantage of the little float boat and giant shovels we'd brought along. 

Will never likes to break up a party, and this goodbye was particularly hard. Over a month later, he still asks to go back to the Cape house, and I'm pretty sure he'd be perfectly content to have a sleepover with Connor and the rest of the Flemings every night of the week. It's a good thing they only live a mile away from us year-round!

FIRST DAY OF VACATION!!!!!

Five little monkeys, sitting in a boat...

The Big Dig

Ice cream while watching "Cars movie"

Our cloudy day activities (above and below)

Our sunny day activities:

Dads and kids:

 Finny Loves Riley:

 The Whole Gang

The three youngest:

And the two "big boys":

 Noon boys behind the wheel:

Family Day at Fenway, V2.0

I told Dave he's an official "ex-Yankee fan" today. Seriously, he's been in Boston for almost fifteen years now, and he's been to WAY more Sox games than Yankee ones. Plus, for the second year in a row, he's attended Northeastern's annual Fenway Family Day with his two sons. That's some serious Red Sox Nation membership he's got going on.

Will got a spray tattoo again this year. He also played tee-ball, ran in the stands with his friend Kate, ate a cheeseburger and jammed with the live band. 

WALLY!

Our friend Mo got the boys a toy Wally a few days ago, so I kept telling Will we were meeting "the REAL Wally." He high-fived this living, breathing Green Monster but didn't want to hug him.

The boys' first ever Cracker Jack moment!

Finny: "How many can I jam into my mouth at once?
Whatever, who has time to count? Snarf, chomp, etc."

Excuse my pitiful rendition, but Will had me do this so many times on the way home, and I loved the way he filled in the words. This is obviously our Boston-centric version of the song:

I really hope this continues as a family tradition.

Barn Babies, Barn Babies, Here on the Field...*

Will is an animal lover of the highest order. Dave and I have had to coach him from an early age NOT to go nose-to-nose with every dog and cat he meets, and Will talks to them with Doolittlean ease: "Sully [our neighbor's cat], I'm gonna go inside and put on my Crocs, okay, Sully? I'll be right back."

So clearly we jumped at the chance to get to a Barn Babies event at a park down the street from our house. I told Will that if he loved Barn Babies (where you get to sit in pens with lambs and piglets and hold swaddled kittens in your lap), we could invite them to our house for his third birthday party in September.

I might as well put the deposit in now, right? Here are some other shots, including Finny and Will's "longtime" playgroup friends Abby and Connor.

*Whenever I hear "Barn Babies," I can't get that "Beach Baby" song out of my head. I definitely spent too much time listening to Oldies 103 as a small child.

Pants on Fire, Self-Fulfilling Prophesies, and Peter Pan by Proxy

The other day, Will asked his sitter, Maggie, if they could play with the "small toys" (choking hazards).

"No, we have to wait until Finny takes a nap. Otherwise he might put them in his mouth and that would be bad!" she explained.

Will looked at his baby brother (BARELY a baby; eleven months old today!?!?), then back at Maggie, and said, "I think Finny is tired."

**********

I don't think there are a lot of people who LOVE feeling unmoored, but I still probably land somewhere way, way, way over on the "HATE IT" end of the spectrum.

However, I unintentionally give myself a hard time about how bothered I am by it. I'm constantly trying to talk myself out of feeling stressed, as if it isn't taxing to a) not know where you'll be living in 2011, b) not know where one kid is going to preschool or what you'll do to fill the other one's days, and c) feel like you want to do some more work in your field, although you can't see a way to add more work into the daily schedule of motherhood.

I'd like to spend some time on a project I first developed three years ago while heading up my Intervention & Assessment classroom. It's an important idea for a curriculum that's desperately needed in our high school classrooms, and I've seen the need for it firsthand, and...I just feel way too out-of-the-loop to know how to jump back in. And there's the time issue, which is kind of a huge one.

Anyway, I'm putting this out there in the spirit of that Secret book Oprah loves so much. I've never read it, but I think the main point is that you're supposed to tell the universe what you want and then things start happening to grant you your wish(es). I do have a hard time with the concept that "it's as easy as that!" because of, you know, the starving and disease-ridden and oppressed millions who...just didn't want it badly enough?

BUT, one day in August of '07, I was talking to myself in the car about my current job, and how it wasn't right for me. The schoolyear was due to start again in less than a month, and I said something out loud like, "I really wish I could find a place that really suited me, where I felt like I could do everything I wanted to." And mere days later, I got a call from the director of the I&A classroom asking if I was interested in taking over the lead teacher position. If that job had been a tangible object, it would have literally fallen in my lap.

So. Wonders never cease, right?

**********

Finny is eleven months old today, and this morning I woke up and thought, "I will absolutely cry on his first birthday."

I know how fast this goes now. Bear with my analogy, if you will: Motherhood started out feeling like a train, and I was the conductor, and the upcoming mile markers thrilled me; then it became a symbiotic thing where I still had my role, but now the train had a mind of its own (like Thomas!). And then I had another kid and started to feel like I was running down the tracks in pursuit of this runaway car, and if I could just--move--faster--?

Finn SO VIVIDLY remains a nursing, crawling infant in my mind, and part of me harbors the preposterous hope that time isn't linear and we'll get back there someday. I can't believe we're only moving forward, at a pace that's beyond my ever-shrinking sphere of influence.

He slept all the time, I remember.

 And now he's this sweet and handsome and charming little blue-eyed BOY.

(Or "Chubby little man!" as Will calls him.)

So Finny and I are at odds: he wants to grow up, and I'd prefer that he didn't. And although neither of us is the conductor of that particular train, I have a feeling Finn's going to win this one. And THAT makes me feel like crying.

"Percy, Too!"

Will is a trains, planes and automobiles kind of guy, so it was no surprise when he started talking about Thomas the Tank Engine nonstop. We found an event called Day Out with Thomas, hosted by Edaville USA, a very toddler-friendly amusement park about an hour south of us in Carver.

We started talking about our trip a couple of weeks ago, but yesterday it seemed to dawn on Will that his trip to see Thomas was imminent.

"See...Thomas...wake up!" he would say, and "Give...Thomas...big hug!"

We went to meet Thomas today, and let me tell you, he lived up to the hype! See for yourself:

All (two of you) who are interested in watching me and Will go on a flying elephant ride (hi, Mom and Dad) for a minute and twenty seconds, this one's for you!

Five-month-old Finn had a pretty nice time riding the trains, too:

When denied access to the Ferris wheel due to height restrictions, Will said he was "Really. Really. Sad," in a mournful voice. But overall, the mood was "So! Happy!"--that's what he spontaneously shouted as he clapped his hands and ran for the Merry-Go-Round. When we asked him if he was having fun with Thomas, Will would nod and say, "Yeah. Percy, too." Will even got to pose with Thomas, and he made sure to give his beloved a kiss before heading home.

Keeping Me Sane, Take Two, Part Two

New Category Alert: For Breastfeeding

First let me say that I think I'm uniquely positioned to talk about good breastfeeding prep and troubleshooting because I had that nightmarish experience with Will and have now established a wonderful rhythm with Finn. However, as I mentioned in a prior post, that rhythm took a LOT of hard work to establish, even in the months before he was born.

• A prenatal lactation consult--if you're looking in the Boston area, Beth Sargent at Isis Maternity. Knowing she was on my team and knew me personally before Finn was even born gave me a feeling of preparedness.
• A postnatal lactation consult--STAT. I visited Beth at Isis when Finn was 3 days old, and scheduled the visit directly after his first pediatrician's appointment so that if my doctor had been concerned about weight gain, Beth would have reassurances and strategies for me.
• A supportive pediatrician. He might be supportive that you DON'T want to breastfeed, supportive that you do, or just your cheerleader in every way. Mine was non-dogmatically pro-breastfeeding, so when Finn's weight gain was a whole lot slower than Will's initially, he was completely unfazed. He never even mentioned the word formula, only suggesting that if it would make me feel better I could pump an extra bottle to top Finn off at night. However, just as importantly, he wasn't opposed to formula--he asked questions and supported me in my goals.
• (FYI, topping Finn off at night has never really worked for us.)
• A postpartum doula. Jen was helpful in every way, but she made herself available over the phone even before her scheduled weeks began, even before Finn's arrival, in fact. She laughed gently at me when I kept insisting that I had thrush because of completely made-up symptoms I was assigning myself. She told me about other women she'd known who had my experiences, referred me to websites, and all the while helped me run my household of two small kids.
• Makeshift nursing bras. Basically, I cut out the underwire in my larger pregnancy-sized bras and voila! A nice supply of nursing bras. I never used the snap/panel trappings of the "real" (and usually expensive) nursing tops anyway--it's always been way easier to just pull everything up in one quick motion.
• The Brest Friend and Boppy. Leah used to make fun of my pregnancy pillow, the Snoogle, but that was before she caught wind of my new nursing pillow, the My Brest Friend. Oh how I wish I were making that name up. And yet, it really was great in those first three or four weeks when I didn't know WHAT I was doing and Finn certainly had no clue and would just lie there until I shoved his head toward me at the right angle. After that first month, the Brest Friend was too cumbersome and now I use a Boppy when I can get to it, or I prop him on a pillow or a balled-up blanket or nothing at all.
• Having someone teach me how to nurse in a carrier. If you use the Bjorn or an Ergo or a sling a lot, it's great to learn how to nurse in it. The Ergo's easiest for me because the sun flap that comes with it snaps over his head and there's a space on each side that allows me access if I need to position him a little bit. But it's enabled me to nurse him on walks or just without having to lurch him out of his cozy pouch, and that's been helpful.
• Breastfeeding drop-in group (also at Isis, for me)--I only went once but in the weeks following I'd go in every Tuesday and weigh Finn on the same electronic scale, just to pacify my mind. This was a friend's suggestion, which leads me to:
• A friend to mull things over/talk things out with; if you're lucky enough to know her, I highly recommend Bianica. We've even discussed how similar our lives are even though we are many miles apart. She always has reassuring things to say, but more importantly she has practical tips that WORK, like the weekly weigh-in suggestion. Having her as a sounding board has been invaluable.

For the Toddler:

• Friends in the neighborhood. I've already buttered them up in many a post here, but I can't say enough good things about Will's playgroup friends and their parents. In this good weather, we've been spending mornings at the playground, which helps to...
• ...wear out the children! I just bring Will outside (which he demands all the time anyway with his little lisp--he actually climbed on top of the ottoman the other day to unlock the door and chant Out-THIDE, Out-THIDE, Out-THIDE) and hurry him around the neighborhood or let him scale the playground structures. We both see our friends, we get a healthy dose of vitamin D, and he slept through diaper changes on two separate occasions last week because he was Just So Exhausted. Win!
• My parents' house. It's a change of scenery, boasts a variety of novel toys and household items, and is a great bribery tool, as in, "As soon as you have your socks and shoes on, we can go to...Nan and Mamp's house!" This invariably leads to Will padding around the house pointing out things that belong to or remind him of Nan and Mamp, but it also eventually convinces him to stop kicking off his shoes and head down to the car.
• Stuffed animals. They are suddenly very interesting to him, and he likes to kiss them and then pretend that they are kissing each other. (Especially "Soft Elmo" and regular Tickle Me "Elmo.")
• Non-board books. I know! It's a whole new world! Recently he's been loving Dig, Where the Wild Things Are, and this noisemaking monstrosity his godmother got him for Christmas called Snappy Sounds or some nonsense. (Thanks, Auntie Lo!)
• CDs in the car--we have been on a constant rotation of Sara Hickman's "Toddler," a Rockabye Baby compilation of rock songs turned lullaby (think harpsichord-meets-Guns-'n'-Roses. No, really), and Elmo's Sing-along. They keep me and Will sane while we endure Finn's ear-splitting screams of protest.

I'll finish this list up as soon as we sell our condo, move to our next house and...see you in 2011?

Keeping Me Sane, Take Two, Part One

The last time I wrote a post like this, Will was almost two months old and it was November. NOVEMBER. Not chilly-with-sun-peeking-through-wait-is-it-really-going-to-be-eighty-degrees-tomorrow? April (sidebar: April!! Woo-hoo!), but honest-to-god-here-comes-winter NOVEMBER.

Oh, how I pity the new-mommy me of yesteryear. If I met her now, I'm sure I would be nastily condescending, saying things like, "Honey, you don't have to order groceries--just go on the weekends," or "Ha ha, I remember when my biggest problem was how to prepare lunch with a baby strapped to my chest." I would DEFINITELY tell her to lay off the TV, because really? The Wire and True Blood and (shudder) One Tree Hill? You were that bored? (No, I do remember how much more boring it was with a newborn when I didn't have a fun, chatty toddler to entertain me. Sorry, did I say entertain me? I meant RUN ME RAGGED. Anyway!)

This is part one, and there will be at least a couple more posts like this--apparently the amount of stuff I need to keep me sane has increased exponentially in the last year and a half. Wonder why...

On TV or DVD (or, new sub-category, On My Bedside Table)

• DVR'ed episodes of Modern Family, Cougar Town, Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, The Office
• On Demand episodes of Parenthood, The Pacific, and 16 and Pregnant (oh yes, really)
• Coming soon: Treme on HBO, probably Glee if I can't help myself
• Not so much anymore: How I Met Your Mother. Because, when?!? When will you meet their mother? Enough already!!
• O magazine--um, my mom and I both have subscriptions now...need I say more?
• Entertainment Weekly: we started subscribing for free through Dave's extra-but-useless Delta miles, and now I count on it for good music and book reviews, which brings me to
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett: the book club selection du jour, and not, in my opinion, a Literary Work of Genius, but definitely absorbing and well-written
• Baby/toddler books galore, including: Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp, Your Child's Growing Mind by Jane M. Healy, Bright From the Start by Jill Stamm (my favorite so far), and Raising an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin

For the Baby:

• The bouncy seat (OMG he likes it! He really likes it! Coos, giggles, bats at the fish LIKES IT!)
• The swing (won't put him to sleep, but will keep him asleep)
• SwaddleMes, just like his bro
• The wipe warmer (TWICE now I have laughed in the face of the naysayers who claim it's a novelty item, a pretentious extra--both my boys require this thing)
• Ergo, Baby Bjorn, Ergo, Baby Bjorn. I wear Finn all day long, even down to the car where I put him in his bucket seat (thus thwarting the entire purpose of having a bucket seat) and then again when I retrieve him from the car.
• Dr. Sears' Baby Book. I have probably used most of the standard baby reference books out there, no joke, and I have to tell you that this one works best for me. It goes overboard in its praise for attachment parenting (I don't choose to wear Finn all the time because I believe in it as a method so much as because IT WORKS) but it's also sensible plus the Searses are a nurse-practitioner mother and a pediatrician father WHO RAISED EIGHT CHILDREN. A bonus is that they don't rely on scare tactics to guilt you into following their advice, which I've found a surprising number of these books DO.
• Sleep 'n' play outfits, again. This time, I only tolerate the footie ones with snaps or zippers all the way up the front. These Gerber ones are my favorite because they're thin enough to layer over without overheating Finn, and because the 0-3 month size actually fit him for about two months and the 3-6 size actually fits him now. I also like the thicker, cuter Carter brand sleep 'n' plays.

Sad but true mandatory disclaimer: No one's ever paid me to praise a product.

Last-Minute Projects

The hardest thing about occupying my mind in this two-days-til-due-date limbo is that I have no idea how much longer I have before it's time to drop everything and give birth.

I have been in false or pre-labor for a day now, dilated to a centimer. Contractions have come and gone and other less savory signs of labor have made their appearance, but the whole process hasn't been kick-started. It was absolutely impossible for me to avoid the expectation that this labor would go just like Will's. Or, if it differed in any way, that I would go earlier. Well, here I am at 39 weeks, 5 days, and the last time I was that pregnant, I...wasn't. Will was born the morning of that day.

Yeah, yeah, "labor has its own clock" and all that. But what do I do while labor takes its sweet time in getting here?

1. Order "This book belongs to the Noon Family Library" stickers.
(They just got here today, and I'm intent on sticking them on every single one of Will's books after he wakes up from his nap.)

2. Drink raspberry leaf tea by the bucket.
(I guess it's supposed to strengthen your uterine muscles? Whatever, I just add honey and knock it back.)

3. Wash cloth diapers every day instead of every other--just in case!
(Maybe there is such a thing as being overprepared? A washed diaper never boils?)

4. Write and address birthday cards for the next few months so I don't have to worry about it while adjusting to two kids.
(So if your card comes signed by Joanna, Dave, Will and "Baby Noon," now you know why--it was written before he was born--and won't take it personally.)

5. Take baths. Relaxing sometimes brings on labor!

6. Go on long, uphill walks. Exercising sometimes brings on labor!

(Do you see how irritating these contradictions can be?)

7. Warn parents that, should labor be delayed another two/five/thirty-eight days, they will be required to assist you with all daily tasks because YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN TAKE IT ANYMORE.

8. Scavenge for more shows to DVR during late-night nursing sessions.

9. Flip through kids' clothing catalogues and sigh whenever you get to the baby girl outfits with ruffled bloomers and monogrammed collars.

10. Shred Dave's old documents from the '90s. Like his Sprint phone bills, which alerted me to the fact that Dave once owned a Sprint phone, something I didn't know because he switched to Verizon before we met, and yet he still has four years' worth of cell phone bills...taking up precious space in our office.

**I just realized that Dave and I would be the best Wife Swap ever, except we wouldn't swap with anyone--the show would just follow us arguing about hoarding old handwritten track meet results from high school (Dave's), then watch while I compulsively collect the mail and immediately sort it into Recycle, Shred and File piles. OK, that show might not actually be very interesting, but maybe the audience could write in and convince Dave that he doesn't need all those meet results? Or a Dining In receipt from 2002? Because that would be worth it.**

Lately...

We've been gone two weekends in a row--once to New Jersey, once to Florida, coming home late yesterday. We have a multitude of photos to share, but our camera died in Boca. We've also been celebrating Will's birthday in Groundhog Day fashion, not to mention the birthdays of all his original playgroup besties. In other words, we are burning the candle at both ends and also melting the wax in the middle. I know, great metaphor.

Some quick notes, then, unfortunately without the accompanying illustrations:

• Bianica tells the story of Will and Connor's first meeting over here, and does a better job of it than I could anyway. You should know that we an absolute blast and also that Dave was clinically depressed upon leaving. (So was his son, but mostly because there was a pool AND the ratio of ceiling fans to rooms was 1:1, making it in every respect Will's earthly utopia.)
• Will got his one-year portraits taken today by Brittany Blando, my wedding photographer. Brittany and I hit it off instantaneously almost three years ago when we met, and she's been there not only for our wedding but also for a photo shoot when I was eight months pregnant with Will...and has now documented my first son's first birthday. I guess it's an understatement to say that she's a lasting part of our lives.
• My friend Nikki joined the fun to get portraits taken of her almost (tomorrow!) one-year-old, Kenley, and WOW. Can I just say that Kenley's pink and white dress--with a tulle skirt, mind you--sent me over the edge of cuteness? Please. Memo to all those with baby girls: STOP TAUNTING ME WITH YOUR ADORABLE GIRL CLOTHES. Yes, yes, blah blah, sharks and trucks are awesome, fine. But there is nothing like those girl clothes, and there's no convincing me otherwise.
• I am in that awkward phase of pregnancy where maternity clothes still make me look bigger than I actually am, but most of my regular clothes make me look like a stuffed sausage. This phase happens to correspond with the weird New England is-it-summer-or-fall-or-maybe-even-spring?!?!? transition, so my daily outfit consists of: one (1) pair of Gap jeans in my regular size, worn low enough to allow the belly some wiggle room, and one (1) supersoft maternity tee given to me by sis-in-law Jen that says "Full of Life" across the front. (Get it? Full of life? OK, you get it.) Oh, and some flip-flops or sneakers depending on the hourly season changes.
• Many of my wonderful mom friends have asked about our recent switch, albeit in stages, to cloth diapering. It has been really phenomenal for me, especially the "taking it piece by piece" approach--which is weird, because I'm usually a whole-hog kind of person, in case you hadn't noticed. Here's where I got my initial information: Lazy Mom's Guide to Cloth Diapering. We started with one six-pack of Bum Genius 3-in-One diapers, some All Free & Clear detergent, and...nothing else. Not even a cloth diaper pail and liner. As I said, we're taking things slow--we alternate using cloth one day and disposable the next--but our follow-up order came in the mail today and, yeah, there's just nothing interesting left to say. So, the end.
• Flu shots. Dentist appointments. Sign and sing classes. Playgroups. Birthdays. Grandparent time. Trips away. Visits from family and friends. Furniture and room rearrangement--in preparation for new baby. Suddenly, I have no time at all to do anything that isn't already On The Calendar, and it's making me feel like the remaining fifteen weeks of pregnancy are going to fly.

Current Events

1. THE TALKING

Will is pointing to things and trying to say them. He has a good approximation of DOOR ("doh"), BALL, ("bah"), WINDOW ("do-do"), CAR ("cah" or more likely "go-go-cah!") and HI...he also broke out the NIGHT-NIGHT yesterday at bedtime, which came out as "Nigh-niaahhh" or some bizarre vowel sound trailing off at the end, but it was accompanied by him waving as I said "Night-night, paintings!" making the meaning somewhat clearer.

(I'm under no illusions that Will is going to bee adding more and more words until he is a Shakespeare in diapers; often he conquers a skill and then drops it for weeks. Which brings me to...)

2. THE WALKING

Will took his first steps on Monday morning. One step was from walker to standing, and the next was a fully independent step...until his confidence (and knees) failed him and he sank to the floor after a ten-second pose. Although this doesn't exactly add up to walking, it is definitely a milestone that elicited a revelatory "Ohhhhhh" from me. Suddenly, the sleep disruption I had been blaming on teething for the last month or so made a bit more sense. I mean, it probably had something to do with teething as well, and certainly the whole coughing-on-drool-until-he-spits-up routine was all about the aching gums, but as the Genius Mother of the Century I apparently missed the signs of a developmental touchpoint. The completely textbook signs. Bravo, me!

3. THE GESTATING

How am I feeling? Pretty fabulous, actually. I'm not sure if the ugliness of the first trimester this time around makes the second feel like a heavenly oasis of physical functionality or if this pregnancy simply continues to be different from the last. While pregnant with Will, I basically exploded between weeks 20 and 24 and became quite abruptly uncomfortable--things mellowed again in the third trimester. With this baby, I suffered some "typical" nausea and fatigue early on and now am enjoying the "typical" second-trimester respite--I'm over the icky symptoms and not yet to the point of enormity.

Also, I'm exercising regularly and drinking a bit of coffee (caffeinated!) every day. That helps.

4. THE READING

Dave had a million airline miles left on Delta, but somehow not enough to actually HELP US FLY ANYWHERE. (Um, isn't that the point of miles?) So we ended up having to order some free magazine subscriptions just to get them to stop mailing us warning letters about how time was running out. Annoying.

Anyway, that means we have a plethora of magazine options around here, but no good books. I keep seeing a recommendation here or there and then forgetting all about it, so could people please tell me what you've been reading? I want a list so long it lasts through the newborn days with Baby Boy, so please throw anything good my way. (Yes, I'm a member of Goodreads thanks to Maria, but most of YOU are not.)

5. THE DRESS

I bought a gorgeous dress at a Gap Baby outlet a while back, before Bee had her baby and when neither Aimee nor I knew what we were having. "Of the three of us, SOMEONE will have a girl," I thought as I made my purchase. Here's what happened next:

End of July: Bee had her son, Connor.
Early August: Aimee found out she was having a boy in December.
Present day: I discover that this dress, or any dress for that matter, would be an inappropriate item in which to dress our baby as well, for the obvious gender-identification-related reasons.

The dress is definitely for a NEW baby girl, so I can't give it to any little ones who already exist in my orbit.

So the moral of this story is that somebody close to me needs to conceive a girl, ASAP. Otherwise I will be, as I lamented to Dave, "that sad old lady with ten boys who hangs on to a dress hoping that one day she'll have a girl to give it to."

To which he replied: "TEN boys?" Not the point of my story, Dave. Not the point.

No Wonder It's a 2.99 Rental

Why did I think I could handle watching Marley & Me? Everyone told me they'd cried watching it. How did I think I of all people would survive it? Maybe I thought I'd cry those bittersweet tears, the this-is-sad-but-he-had-a-good-life cry? And Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, they're funny people. They'd never break my heart. Right?

Soooooo wrong.

Dave is finishing the movie right now. I left when Marley's stomach twisted for the second time, and I am now sitting in our freshly painted office, peering at the computer screen through swollen eyelids. I feel ridiculous...but not ridiculous enough to go into the living room for the final scenes.

Wait, I think I hear the credits. (And maybe the sound of my husband blowing his nose, but I'm not sure he'll ever confess to it.)