Dear Thyroid: You suck.

My appointment with Dr. G was a disaster. Despite the dosage increase, symptomatically, I've felt the worst I've felt so far (horrendous brain fog, lethargy, sleepiness, coldness in hands and feet - the usual). And yet the numbers say the inverse: my TSH was 0.024 - well in the hyperthyroid range. This is apparently common for folks with Hashi's - they can yo-yo between hypo- and hyperthyroid. Given the random spurts of racing heart rates and palpitations over the last month, and the recent crazy bouts of insomnia I'm dealing with, I knew this was going to happen. I have all the classic signs of a "thyroiditis flare up."

Basically, my thyroid is losing its damn mind, as indicated by the graph below. My TSH levels are in blue:

Dr. G has again prescribed a dosage increase (up to 137 mcg now) and has moved me to Synthroid instead of Levoxyl. The difference between the drugs is minimal, but perhaps my body might prefer one over another. It's like the difference between a Honda and a Toyota - they're both good Japanese cars, but some people just like one over the other (for the record, I'm a Honda girl and Ari is a Toyota boy).

My T3 has also been steadily climbing with each dosage adjustment. I need to go back and do some basic primer reading on T3 and T4 levels and what the hell they mean, b/c I just can't remember. This thyroid stuff is complicated and confusing.

I thought that perhaps Dr. G is moving a bit too conservatively, so I thought by telling a little white lie I might move things along more aggressively. I mentioned that Ari and I were earnestly moving forward with DE/IVF in the next six months (really, prolly not for another year), so let's get my body in shape to make that happen. The most aggressive thing he did was send me to the lab for 5 vials of blood and tons of bloodwork: vitamin D, folic acid, estrogen & progesterone (I think), cholesterol, hemoglobin A1C (glucose over time), and a host of other tests. I spent a half hour in the lab, b/c once again, my notorious thin/spongey/rolling veins played their little games and it took 3 sticks, 2 cups of water, and lots of fist pumping and overly tight tourniquets to be able to actually fill any of the 5 vials needed. It didn't help that the phlebotomist slipped when undoing the tourniquet and pulling out the needle and missed hitting the puncture wound with the gauze, sending a spurt of blood high into the air and almost all over my shirt (it did get all over my arm, her glove, and the tourniquet itself). I almost hit the floor - I just don't do blood, my own or otherwise.

It's been 8 months and I have little to show for it - I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, I feel miserable, and oh yeah, can't have my own kids. I hate feeling like a prisoner in my own body. I hate knowing that I used to be 118 lbs just 9 years ago, could do a two-hour performance singing and dancing with only a minor asthma attack afterward, and I looked good. I looked healthy. My periods were regular, albeit artificial with birth control, and my sex drive was almost criminal.

Cut to me now: 186 lbs (I only gained a pound since my last appointment, but I just feel a lot heavier), wheezing just going up a flight of stairs, not to mention the joint pain in my knees (another side effect of Hashi's - joint paint), and the worst acne of my life, a generally puffy face in addition to my double chin (another Hashi's side effect), premature ovarian failure, and a sex drive that comes and goes, and never with any great fanfare. It's practically a passing thought that I try to actually respond to once in a while.

I hate knowing that I could do so much more if I just had the energy, if I just had a body that would cooperate with me for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I hate getting stuck with needle after needle, praying that maybe this time- this time-  my TSH will be in the optimal range and I can stick with one dosage for more than 6 weeks at a time. I hate feeling physically a lot older than 27. I hate looking in the mirror at myself and thinking, Miriam, what the fuck happened to you in the last decade? Where did that spunky spry go-get-em girl disappear to?

While I'm still coping with infertility, realistically, my bigger issue right now is my thyroid. I desperately need to find some Hashimoto's or Hashi's w/POF blogs out there. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love them. It's so frustrating to know that I can't even begin to address any of the infertility until my thyroid chills the fuck out... I told Ari at lunch today, it almost seems like we should just start the adoption process now b/c I'm sure that will move faster than trying to get my body ready for IVF.

I'm tired of feeling like everything in my life is perpetually on hold right now.

CD365

You read that right: tonight marks Cycle Day 365... it's officially been a year since the start of my last period. I can't believe it's been a whole year already. CDs 1-4 were regular heavy flow and then... nothing. I thought for sure on CD15 I was ovulating - mittelschmerz and everything but alas, the end of January came and went... nothing. February... nothing. By mid-March I figured maybe I should have the doc take a look. Dr. E (aka, Dr. Skinny Bitch) assured me it was stress. Oh, and being overweight. Something about excess estrogen being stored in my fat cells. "But if you're really worried, go see Dr. G (my current RE) b/c I don't really see anything wrong. It's perfectly normal for periods not to return for several months following the cessation of birth control."

So I met with Dr. G and he ordered 7 vials of blood to be drawn. We both thought it was PCOS and a nasty hypothyroid problem. Turns out it was POF and Hashi's. March 18 of next year will be a year since my diagnosis. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Right now, I'm mostly buzzed, from 2 beers and a Snickers-tini from a bar downtown.

. . .

Tonight we celebrated Ari's 28th birthday. It's actually tomorrow (my lil Solstice baby) but he has a Mason's meeting and I have Red Tent Temple, so we braved the foot or so of snow downtown and went out for drinks and wings. A lot of people bailed, but understandably so - the snow and freezing temps nearly kept us at home.

We spent a night this weekend in Stockbridge, MA, at the Red Lion Inn. A picturesque little town, home of Norman Rockwell... it was a nice one-night getaway just to take us away from everything. We spent time visiting family friends of Ari's (they go to the Red Lion every Christmas) and they got us a room. We had a lovely dinner (I had the maple braised pork lion, Ari had the elk tenderloin), and enjoyed an evening of experimental jazz funk in the bar downstairs. (Surprisingly, the band was actually really neat.) We slept in the most comfortable bed ever, and managed to avoid even a single flake fall on the town of Stockbridge - a narrow strip of western MA managed to avoid this entire nor'easter. By the time we got home today, we didn't hit any snow falling and the roads were all cleared.

. . .

On the eve of the new moon, Rosh Chodesh, and more importantly, the Winter Solstice... I'm left contemplative.

Brief Updates on Life

Sitting in the BWI airport, waiting to fly home. Ari's great-aunt passed away Tuesday and we drove down from MA to NJ Wednesday night and then from NJ to MD for the funeral. I have to be at work tomorrow, so I'm flying back tonight and he's driving back in the late morning tomorrow. Aunt B's funeral was really just... hauntingly beautiful and serene. My heart breaks every time I think of Uncle N: 61 beautiful years of marriage. Ari and I lived near them when we lived in MD and made it a point to visit when we could. It was not unexpected; she was given a year to live six years ago, but she declined sharply in the last 6 months. It's just very sad, and another thing I can add to the "Things That Sucked in 2009" List. It's a long list.

On a lighter note: my sister's 2nd ultrasound went well. Things are going swimmingly for Otter and her Spud. I am excited to see her at Christmas. So far, no need for an amniocentisis, and that's wonderful news given her age.

Work is... work. It's a paycheck, housing and health insurance at this point. I have come to the firm decision I will no longer be a doormat to my bully of a supervisor, and quite frankly, I'm a better person than my supervisor and will not let my supervisor win. Bullying is not a management style- it's a personality flaw, and I'm simply not going to take the passive-aggressive bullshit anymore. I'm digging in my heels and ready to fight the fight, if need be.

Ari's been applying for some more full-time work since he knows how unhappy I am at my job. He's got two apps out right now, so if you can put the good vibes out there in the universe for him, it would be much appreciated. Also... his birthday is Monday! It'll be the 12th birthday of his I've spent with him... nuts. I have some serious shopping I need to do before then :)

On the IF front... I've been much more open to the idea of adoption rather spontaneously in the last few days. Not sure why, but maybe I'm not meant to be pg. I really worry about whether or not I could successfully carry a pregnancy to term - just a weird gut feeling I've had in the last couple of weeks. As much as it would be a healing process for me, I just don't know if it's a realistic goal. DE/IVF is scary, just in terms of what you have to go through medically, and I don't know if physically, I'm really up for that. And if it failed, or worse yet, I miscarried... the emotional and financial damage could be irreparable.

I have a regular 6-week thyroid  checkup on Monday with my RE. I'm not looking forward to it. Despite the dosage increase over the last 6 weeks, symptomatically, I feel worse. I had my b/w done yesterday (with a juicy lookin bruise on my hand... I look like a junkie) and I'm not confident that the numbers will be what I hope they will (in the 2-3 range). I'm betting they'll be over 5 again. I haven't hit my sweet spot TSH level yet, and honestly, after 9 months of treatment and yo-yo-ing on Levoxyl dosages and TSH values, I'm starting to get pretty fucking impatient. Add to the fact that my doctor basically said it's useless to try and take care of anything related to my weight right now b/c of my thyroid being unstable, and well, I'm not feeling to great about my health. I'm a terribly impatient person and I might need to seek a second opinion to see if I can't move this on a faster track. At the very least, I might need to seriously reconsider again supplementing this with some TCM and acupuncture.

Well, this wasn't brief at all. I'll write more in the coming days... I've got some interesting initial thoughts and observations on the donor selection process now that we've registered with a couple of databases online. Weird stuff, man, weird.

For now, time to board. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.

A Celebratory 100th Post

I can't believe this crept up on me so fast. I can't believe I've written 100 posts since March... nuts. (Although really, this isn't shocking; the LiveJournal I kept for years amassed almost 1200 entries in about 4 years.) In celebration of this momentous occasion, I've got a big announcement...

I'm going to be an Aunt!

I can finally let the cat out of the bag; my sister had told me weeks ago, but I was sworn to secrecy to keep it from our parents. Over Thanksgiving, they did the reveal to both sets of parents, and told their friends this past weekend. The gag order has been lifted and I'm really happy to write about it here. Our parents are of course very excited; Spud will be the first grandchild for them.

For the sake of anonymity in this blog, I'll be referring to my sister as Otter, her husband as Thor, and the baby as Spud (their name for the lil' rascal, not mine). Mom-to-be is healthy, glowing, and due in the end of June, which fits her school-year scheduled life perfectly. A lil background: my sister is 8 years older than me and they've been married for 8 years now. Thor is a totally awesome brother-in-law, and they have been gracious caretakers to one of our cats, Clio, when my current job didn't allow pets.

Here's the super-weird-almost-cosmic way I found out... Ari and I were only back from Japan a matter of days when I had a very vivid dream where Otter walked up to me on the street and told me she was 8 weeks pregnant. She also told me it was a little girl and was naming it my maternal grandmother's first and middle names. We hugged, I was excited, I woke up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night, not entirely sure if that was even real. I went back to sleep and told Ari about it the next morning. He thought that was a weird dream too.

So I IM'd her the next day, asking her how she was feeling and telling her about that funny dream I had the night before. My office phone starts ringing and it's my sister. We never call each other during the work day. After a little chit chat, she confesses she really IS pregnant, but only about 5 weeks. I am sworn to secrecy.

Freaky, huh?

But now that's she's out of the preggo closet, I'm happy to spread the news, b/c I'm wicked excited for them. And my sister is very understanding of the whole dynamic - we're both working really hard to be supportive of each other b/c at the end of the day, we're sisters. There are times when it's been really hard, but I work through it (thank god for therapy). I've got a supportive husband and parents. And recently, I've focused less on my constant pity-party for myself and channeled more of that energy into being exciting for my sister and her husband and my future neice/nephew. (Speaking of neice/nephew: why is there no gender neutral term for child of a sibling? That's when I found nibling. It sounds a little odd, but I'm all for a movement for a gender neutral term.) Instead of focusing on loss (what I don't/can't have), focusing on possibility (a nibling!): this small attitude change has had immense help in looking at the general state of affairs with regard to my IF. But every day is different, and I take it one day at a time. I'm so pumped about being an Auntie - that's right, Auntie. I've always wanted to be referred to as Auntie ever since I was little :)

For now, here's to 100 posts and I'm sure a hundred more. Let's hope the next 100 bring Ari and I closer to our dream of being parents ourselves.

Cross-Pollination Post: Decisions, Decisions...

I'm Cross-Pollinating today! For one day, bloggers in the ALI community swap posts without revealing who their guest blogger is as a part of Xpol. We sign up, we get matched, and agree to post the other blogger's post in our own blog without revealing their name/blog. To see all the other busy bees cross-pollinating today, click on the image above. The guest post follows below- I'm so happy to share my blogspace with someone who has such a great story to tell. Leave a comment and see if you can guess who my guest blogger is (and thus where my blog post is hiding today)!

"Decisions, Decisions..."

When Miriam and I were getting to know each other in that bloggy way – exploring each other’s sites and comparing the similarities and differences in our journeys, she suggested that I write about how hubby and I chose adoption and international adoption to be specific.

I think her request was brave. I know some people who have ALWAYS known that they wanted to adopt. It has nothing to do, for them, with any lack of fertility but with a dedication to help the children of the world. I’d love to say that I was that altruistic. I’d love to BE that altruistic. But the truth is that we only turned our thoughts towards adoption once our attempts to procreate had failed. Which doesn’t mean that we’ll love an adopted child any less than we would a biological one. But for a number of reasons – not the least is being the last of my line on my father’s side – it was very important to me that we at least TRY to genetically carry on our family lines.

Although I remember my frantic visit to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test after my first unprotected sexual experience (not sure why I was stupid enough to let that happen but the irony of that fear is certainly not lost on me!), by the time I reached my mid-20’s I think I KNEW that I wouldn’t get pregnant. And whether it was some genetic knowledge or a self-fulfilling prophecy, it turned out to be correct.

And with that knowledge, I had a plan. I was going to use a sperm donor if I was single and not yet a mother at 38 (coincidentally that is the age when my mother died. I’m not sure if I chose it for that reason or because I thought that would give me time to get pregnant before I turned 40 – because of COURSE it was going to work the first time. I never considered otherwise).

As it turned out, I wasn’t single at 38. But neither was I a mother, although numerous doctors had already said that they didn’t know why. But for a slew of reasons, we weren’t ready to dive into the wonderful world of IF treatments. And when we did, we met with a litany of chemical pregnancies, an early miscarriage, and a number of pointless cycles.

By the time we stopped trying this past January, I was 43. And adoption was already on the table as a concept. Unlike many couples I know, that ones who did copious amounts of research before deciding whether to pursue domestic (open? closed?) or international (what country?) we fell into our decision easily.

I think I spent all of two days looking into domestic foster-to-adoption. But two days is a lot if all you’re hearing are horror stories of children being returned to biological parents who are ill-equipped to care for them.

Domestic adoption probably got a week’s worth of attention (I have to say here though that when I research something, that something is WELL researched). The current vogue is to adopt openly. And I admit that there is a part of me that appreciates that in concept – the child is loved not only by their adoptive family but by their birth family who is active in their lives and of course, a child can never have too much love. And I applaud the decision that birth parents make when they decide that they must sacrifice their child to give them the best life possible.

But hubby and I both agree (him a little harsher than me) that giving up a child doesn’t mean getting all of the benefits with none of the work. Hubby and I will, more than likely, only have one child. We have (thankfully similar) pretty strict ideas on childrearing which mostly involve letting children BE children and not having to grow up too soon, etc. I think we’ll be stellar and very, very, fun parents who each have unique and different things to bring to our roles. We won’t be having a biological child but I still want a child who is, as much as any child can be, “ours.” Is that selfish? Perhaps. But I also truly believe that it’s less confusing for the child.

It might surprise you to know that I would actively support my one-day child’s search for their birth parents. But it won’t happen when that child is four or five. It will need to be their choice and something that they want to and are ready to undertake.

All of which made international adoption the clear choice for us. And as often happen for us, we fell easily into the choice of adoption for Bulgaria. When I began looking through the countries (as the designated family researcher), the Eastern Bloc countries were looking grim – expensive and demanding of a lot of in-country time - Guatemala and Ethiopia were mired allegations of children sold by their families or outright stolen from them. We were too old for other countries we looked at and my Jewishness was a strike in others.

Bulgaria jumped off the page at us for a few reasons. First off all, we’ve been there. Hubby is from the UK and I lived there with him for 4 years after we were married. Our first real vacation was to Bulgaria – someplace I never even thought of visiting. And we had a great time. The children who are put up for adoption there are typically Roma (more derogatorily referred to as Gypsy) with dark hair and eyes mirroring our own. For better or worse, the country’s adoption system which had come almost to a halt under an administration that preferred to see children living in orphanages than adopted to loving families oversees was being completely overhauled. The pricing is in the mid-range for international adoption and the in-country requirements are completely reasonable.

Was it the right choice? As I write this, we’re waiting for various bit and pieces of government approval so that we can submit our dossier and get on the waiting list. Adoptions are certainly moving faster than they were through last year under the old administration (in 2008 there were only 5 adoptions from the US as opposed to 298 in 2001) but there have been no referrals of “healthy” kids that anyone is aware of (that being said, what is considered unhealthy isn’t always as big an issue for those of us in countries with access to quality healthcare as it is for those in other countries).

Certainly only time will tell. At least all of those two week waits taught me some amount of patience. I’d like to say that we sweated this decision – that we poured over articles and called references and such. But while I’m ever-grateful to the internet and all of the information, and the few people on a listserv that I DID reach out to, we made this decision because in the end it just felt right. And I almost like to think that it found us and much as we found it.

Make your guess in the comments below, and feel free to share your thoughts on her story... after you make a guess, click here to be taken to their blog!

Called me out.

So I'm behind a few days worth of posts, but it's been an interesting few days. Ari and I (again) had another long discussion (read: late-night argument) about this rock and a hard place location I'm in where I need to find a job that actually stimulates and fulfills me but has MA-written insurance and a decent enough salary and that if I want to transition to another job I basically need to do it yesterday because it doesn't make sense to start a new job in a year and then start IVF.

Whew, pardon the runon sentence.

This goes back to a lot of what I wrote about in my last post: stuff I need to have in place (ideally) to have kids. What really annoys me is that there are plenty of couples who end up with an oops! baby and somehow figure out how to make it work, but when you're dealing with IVF and thousands of dollars, suddenly all the t's are crossed and i's are dotted before you can get the ball rolling. Add to the mix that Ari simply isn't ready for parenthood yet and it gets... frustrating, to say the least. At the crux of the argument is that either a) I wait until he's ready and we've got our finances in order and thus, am kind of left in a state of miserable waiting or b) I rush Ari into something he's not ready for and thus he's left in a state of feeling cheated.

It's not exactly a win-win situation. And this is why last week, we were up until 2:30 in the morning, shouting, crying, demanding, bargaining, and venting. Like all good marital "discussions," it started out about one thing, but by the end, was a very different beast that brought up all the various challenges in our relationship. We had finally had enough, and Ari was exhausted and went to bed. I was still fuming, so I do what I always do when I need to get out of the house in the middle of the night: I wander around the 24-hour grocery and drug stores near us. I spent the time looking for things related to his Hanukkah gift so I could channel my energy in a more positive direction towards my husband. After I got home, I fell asleep on the couch.

Somehow I ended up back in our bed before I woke up, and we talked some more. We both had only a few hours of sleep under our belt, and Ari finally said, "If this is that important to you, then let's do it. Let's get the ball rolling and start actively looking for donors and getting everything started."

*record scratch*

I kind of mumbled "Awesome" or something to that effect and then he was out the door for a gig for his new business. At work, I could barely focus. All I could keep thinking about was "Holy shit... he really wants to start moving on this..." and that's when I realized that maybe I wasn't as 100% ready as I thought I was. My therapist had even asked me about this a few sessions back: "What would you do if Ari called you out and said he wanted to start things now?" I didn't have an answer for her then, but I sure had it right now.

After we both got home from work, we had a long conversation about all of this. What it comes down to is several factors: financially, we're just not there. He's definitely not ready, and I'm probably only about 75% ready. Insurance is a must. And basically, the entire process of selecting a donor and going through IVF in general is pretty fucking daunting, and it really intimidates the both of us. What I realized is that I've got some pretty serious issues of my own I need to work out that my various medical issues are not helping. I've got a lot of work to do for myself, and after admitting this to not just my husband, but to myself, I'm at a better place to move on emotionally.

In the end, if we're ever going to be parents we need to be partners in the process, not enemies. We reached a compromise: let's re-evaluate things in a few months once his business gets off the ground. Let's work on getting all the other ducks in a row, particularly my thyroid and weight. And while we wait, let's start looking at donor profiles- not make any decisions, but get a sense of what we're looking for, what's important to us in a donor. Just dip our toes into the process rather than diving in headfirst.

Instead of standing back-to-back, looking in different directions with different agendas, let's stand side by side, holding hands, and looking at the entire expanse of the horizon. I really just need to remember the quote we had written in our wedding programs:

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." ~ Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Makin' a list and checking it twice.

So, if we want to get this "having a baby" party started, I'll need to have a few things in order. It is astounding everything we need to consider in the grand scope of things. And when I look back on it? I want to throttle my high school health teacher for spreading this notion that getting pregnant consists of merely glancing at a member of the opposite sex, let alone actual contact. In a way, I'm thankful I was diagnosed before we started trying, b/c I've probably only spent about $75 in my lifetime on pg tests, back when I missed a pill here or there or my period was randomly late. Man, if only I knew!

DE/IVF affords us the rare opportunity to time things in a way that natural conception can't. And this might not be the best thing for us, since we (like to) get a little caught up in the planning stages of things. (Case in point- the nearly 2 years we had to plan our wedding. We had everything planned to the smallest detail.)

So here's what we need to have sorted out before we can begin this journey:

1. Insurance. This is pretty self-explanatory, but having an insurance plan written in the state of MA is a biggie, b/c MA has some of the most comprehensive infertility treatment laws in the nation. In a lot of ways, it really binds us locationally to this state (which is great, b/c I love it here). The other option is NJ, which is where Ari and I are from originally, but like I said, we love it up here and MA is where all of our friends are.
   
2. Income. Also pretty self-explanatory. Right now, we're working on 1.5 incomes as Ari gets the new business up and running. Seeing as we need to sack away upwards of $15k for one DE/IVF cycle, this is also a biggie.
   
3. Housing. I'm in the unique position of having free housing with my job. It's been a lifesaver for the past 9 months. However, there are also unique challenges with my job as a result of said free housing and how it relates to maternity leave.
   
4. Well-managed thyroid. Have another monitoring appointment on 12/21. I'm hoping I'm in a better TSH range, but my suspicion is that it has crept back up, as symptomatically, I've felt like poo since I upped dosages. I think I may have had another ATA attack, and I'm dumping TSH right now. My RE is a little slow on protocol, and I'm seriously considering getting a second opinion/more aggressive RE after the new year.
   
5. Lose weight. I've got about 50lbs I need to lose to get my BMI where it needs to. And losing weight will be next to impossible until I have a well-managed thyroid.
6. Adopt healthy lifestyles. Regular exercise, eating better, and getting everything squared away with my teeth, because oral health is directly linked to instances of miscarriage.

This is totally doable.


..right?

Show & Tell 5: My Desktop Toucan

This is my desktop toucan. In my head, I call him Toucan Sam. Original, right?

He sits just under my computer monitor. I get a strange delight looking at him every day. If he went missing from my desk, I'd be pissed, and then very, very sad. I love this little guy. I don't keep a whole lot of chotchkes on my desk: a couple of mugs for the school where I work, a bottle of hand santizer, a full sized bottle of Optimism lotion from Bath & Body Works. I have a pic of the hubby of course, but it's on my side desk area, and not in my field of vision all the time. This lil dude is.

He's from Venezuela, as you can see. My dad bought this for me a few years ago. He's a photojournalist, and was on assignment in South America. He saw this, thought of me, and brought it back. My dad used to travel a lot, all over the world in fact, and I always loved the cool lil souvenirs he brought back. That's why I was especially touched when I got this when I was in college- my dad still thought of his "little girl" when he went abroad on assignment for the first time in several years.

Toucans have always had a special place in my heart. I get the whole big schnozz thing, as I have quite the well-endowed nose myself. But when I was a kid, I had a really neat experience that has stayed with me to this day.

I was maybe 4 or 5 at most. Our den has a large window overlooking the backyard. In the far corner of the yard is our "garden" (aka, giant lawn clipping dumping ground that grows tiger lilies every summer). I happened to be looking outside at the garden and saw a HUGE black bird with a long banana yellow beak and subtle tints of blue plumage along the shiny black profile. Sweet jiminy, it was the bird on the Froot Loops box. (I knew this b/c I ate more artificial coloring and flavoring for breakfast than one child ever should.) And toucans weren't exactly part of the normal flora and fauna of New Jersey in the mid-80's.

I ran upstairs to tell my mom. By the time we got back downstairs, it had flown away. My mom of course entertained her youngest daughter's notion that "Sure honey, of course a big black toucan was in our backyard!" I saw right through this and begged my mom to believe me. Cue the waterworks, the pleading, and the fruitless wishes for the bird to return.

I know I saw a toucan, damnit. And now, I have my own Toucan Sam looking semi-quizzically at me five days out of the week.

Head on over to Mel's to see what the other kids are showing this week for Show & Tell!

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Edit: Sweet! It worked :) There may be password-protected posts in the future, so if you'd like the key, please leave a comment to that entry and make sure you leave an email when you comment and I'll email it to you.

Full bellies

A delicious Thanksgiving indeed. Family, food, and good times had by all.

(This is mostly a test post from the iPod Touch that Ari won me as a raffle prize at the convention he went to last week.)

Today, just relaxing at my parents' house watching Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. More to post about later.