You can tell a roomful of family at a birthday dinner that you are allowed to touch your penis in your room only. Not at the table. In your mind, they all needed to know this. They will all laugh.

You will ask for apple sauce, have a tantrum about not wanting apple sauce and then eat the apple sauce all while your mother looks at you still trying to decide what to say.

You think that the red car with the smiling teeth grill is a real car from Cars. You will then proceed to tell everyone you see that you saw the real life Lightening McQueen.

You will teach your baby cousin to “say his name” even though you’ve somehow forgotten that Baby G’s real name isn’t Baby G.

You will Tebow everywhere because your daddy taught you how. Everyone will think it’s funny. Even when done at the grocery store and someone nearly runs you over. You get a pass for being three and cute.

When you are seven and a half…

You will read The Tale of Despereaux and then watch the movie and want to discuss the differences at great length. Your mother will find this amazing and tell all of your grandparents.

You will get grouchy at your mother for not managing to stay awake for this boring beyond boring of all movies on any viewing. But hey, she’ll still gladly discuss the slightly less boring book at great length with you.

You will come home each day with stories of who lost teeth today. You will yet again ask if you are the only person in the world who will forever have baby teeth. The answer of course is yes and then you’ll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for only adult with all baby teeth.

You make the Harry Potter Knight Bus out of Legos and then take it apart to do it again, at least twice a week.

You claim that every food in the world is inedible. There is rumor that you live off air and jokes. The only food you want at any given meal is either one we are just now out of or possibly one that doesn’t yet exist.

You tell better original jokes than most high paid comedians.

When you are ten…

You yell at your siblings if they even look at your perfectly built Hogwarts Lego creation. You’d never consider taking it apart. It was a one time deal that you plan on enjoying looking at forever.

You take up texting. Or more technically iMessage. You will text both of your parents non-stop. (Or what feels like non-stop to them.) Even when sitting on the couch next to them. It’s cute. In a, sort of getting old, way.

You figure out how to add a signature to your texts, which neither of your parents know how to do. You change it on a day to day basis, depending on your mood. For example, yesterdays signature was: I’d like a kitten. Texts tend to look like this: Hi! I’d like a kitten. What are you doin? I’d like a kitten. Mommy can you change the chanel? I’d like a kitten. Can I watch Idol? I’d like a kitten.

You decide to learn to bake. Muffins are your current favorite.

You will sob when your favorite skier passes away from a head injury. This was the first time a hero of yours has died and it has made you incredibly sad. It’s a first that I wish I could have protected you from. Thankfully it has not made you fear skiing.

You will one day announce that it’s high time Harrison learns to read. The fact that he just turned three and still screams each time someone makes him blow his nose makes no difference. You are going to be the one to teach him. What follows is a lot of entertaining attempts at getting him to look at the letter and word cards that you have made up. He in turn makes them into weird ramps for his cars. This will be a process.

When you are thirty one…

You will want to hug every single person on the entire Internet for their kind words this past week.

You will laugh hysterically at an ill placed hanging fairy during a procedure.

You will tell the nurse when she asks you to tell her if it’s uncomfortable, how about I tell you if it hurts…because we are way past uncomfortable now. I mean see where you are and the entire army of medical instruments up my…yeah. Stopping now. Uncomfortable. She did laugh though.

You will decide to quit coffee cold turkey. Not because you don’t love coffee, because oh you adore coffee, but because in the moment you know it’s the right thing to do. Even after the headache starts you won’t give in…because some things are more important than a cup of coffee.

You buy Girl Scout cookies from the cute six year old girl at the door on general principal. You don’t even like GS cookies, but a few boxes now reside in your cupboard.

You will finally delete the six posts sitting in draft form. If they weren’t worthy then, they surely aren’t now.

You will thank everyone who still comes and reads here 600 posts later.

Anyway, if you could spare a good thought or two, I’d love it.

Thank you.
-Issa

2. My current app obsession is W.E.L.D.E.R. I’ve managed to turn Morgan and my mom onto it as well.

3. Right as I was leaving to get my kids last night, I heard a huge noise in my basement. In the end what happened was the hot water pipe to my hot water heater exploded. No, I really mean exploded. It shot holes through my wall. My ex husband managed to temporarily replace the pipe (with some kind of metal tube deal) so I had water last night and this morning. I have a plumber coming in a bit to actually fix it. I had to call my insurance because there is just tons of damage. There is a company coming in to do something to my carpet. Pull it up? Dry it? Not sure. Something. Let’s just say yesterday was a pretty bad day.

4. Last night I gave myself my first shot. I cried. But I did it.

5. This week has kicked my ass from here to next week. I am super freaking stressed out right now. I’m not sure I can handle anything else in the next few days.

We’d walk at night. I’d take her to the mall. I’d take her to The Grove. On occasion I even took her to the pier. She loved the lights, the people, the noise. Her eyes twinkled. I know people say babies don’t see everything that early, but I know Bailey saw her surroundings.

While Logan would deal with Morgan and bedtime, I’d take Bailey on evening adventures. It was our thing. Our special time, just the two of us. It was how I got to know my baby girl, without the constant toddler interruption.

Sometimes in the sling, sometimes in the stroller. Los Angeles at night was our place. Old ladies would chastise me. Oh that baby needs to be in bed. It’s cold out. Uh yeah no. Los Angeles in August in anything but cold. Bed…yes maybe. But hey, she won’t sleep there either. I didn’t really care. Old ladies are always like that. They know best. *eye roll*

It was calming for me, this I know. Being out in the night air was good for both of us. She loved it. That’s all that really matters.

We’re people watchers, she and I are. I know where it started.

*********************

He climbs into my bed at 10:15pm. Some nights he sleeps all night, the other nights he wanders. It’s always a guess as to which bed he will be in each morning.

The room is pitch black just how we both like it. I sweep wiff you this night mama, he asks me. Sure my bud, but why? I just wike a big bed. I laugh and then shush him into he falls asleep.

He’s long;  all arms and legs these days. I breath him in. The smell of apple body wash still lingers on him. His PJ’s smell like fabric softener. He smells like boy. Clean boy, but still, boy. He snores lightly and sighs in his sleep.

I snuggle him close for a while, then I quietly carry him back to his bed. In reality, he’s kicky and not a great bedfellow.

***********************

Morgan has alwasy been the best sleeper in the house. As a newborn, we’d put her in the crib and she’d just fall asleep. I told everyone they were insane. BABIES sleep! See my sleeping newborn?!? I wanted to hold events and charge money: SEE THE TINY SLEEPING BABY, only $29.99. It wasn’t long before we considered the fact that she slept each night, her saving grace.

Now she reads in bed until she falls asleep. I’d say on average this takes her ten minutes from the time her head hits the pillow. I envy it, her ability to sleep so well. Part of me knows it’s the other side of her ADHD. She literally wears herself out every day. The other part of me knows she got that from her dad.

********************

The pitch black room calms me after a long trying day. My best thinking comes at night. My clearest thinking happens then. I’d take sleep if it would have me, but we seem to be in disagreement tonight.

I leave my window open a crack to let cold air in. I cuddle under tons of blankets. This is how I sleep best. When I manage to sleep that is.

**********************

At least twice a week, I wake up to Bailey in my bed. She’s swift and quiet. If I had to guess, she comes in around 4am. Rarely does she wake me up as she sneaks in. I call her the bed ninja. She, like the newborn she was, isn’t that fond of sleeping. I fear she’ll be a life long insomniac like me. Only time will tell. She tells me she does her best thinking in bed.

***********************

Saturday evening, I started Clomid again. On Wednesday I will start injecting a second medication into myself. I’m a little anxious about it, mostly because the injector is a pen this time. Last time I had more steps and was somehow less nervous. Maybe my nurse explained it better that time? I’ll figure it out. Luckily you can truly find videos on anything. A few nights of that shot and then I go back Saturday morning for another ultrasound. I’ve had so dang many of those it’s not even funny. Then….well I don’t know exactly. I’ve not gotten past that point yet. This is where I’ve gotten stuck both of my other attempts. So we’ll see what happens.

For both previous attempts, the Clomid made me a complete spaz. An emotional weeper. I cried at anything and everything. It was not so much fun. This time? Well so far I’m just a big giant grouch. It started yesterday afternoon and it hasn’t passed. Working today when half the country isn’t? Has made me even more grouchy. Having to send my girls to daycare and trying to work and entertain Harrison all day makes me grouchy. My boss being shocked that everything is closed makes me grouchy. The dog barking. The laundry that didn’t get done yesterday. The sound of Cars on my TV right now. Basically everything makes me grouchy.

I almost think I’d be better off with the weeping.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a brief update.

In this moment, she has a senior in High School reading level. She just turned ten. I am often lost in how to encourage her to read to her highest potential and in the fact that she’s still little. She’s still a little girl. Maybe this is the first step in her growing up. Maybe it’s not. How am I supposed to know where to draw the line? She is a big reader. She will read anything. That doesn’t exactly mean that I want her reading anything.

In a way, she’s naive. Her life has always been safe. She’s spoiled in many ways. When she has any issue, whether a fight with a friend at school or a nightmare, her father and I are always there to talk it through with her. There is family all around her who believe her to be one of the smartest, most amazing kids in the world. (Sometimes the fact that Logan and I are the only ones with kids is awesome.) In other ways, she’s wise beyond her years. She at times acts more like a responsible 28 year old than a ten year old. Her understanding about the ways of the world shocks me at times. She knows about divorce, suicide, depression and miscarriage. She knows adult words for her emotions. She can cook to a degree, do laundry and clean.

Yet part of me wants to shield her from the realities and oddities found in other peoples words. I let her read Number the Stars by Louis Lowry last year. We discussed the Holocaust. We talked about our families story. She knows that Hitler killed people. Somehow though, I stopped before allowing her to read The Diary of Anne Frank. I couldn’t make myself tell her that so many kids were killed. I will one day, I just couldn’t make myself do it that day. I’ll likely explain it all, before she learns it in school. But at nine, I thought she was too young. I feared she’d obsess about it. I feared it would feed into her light anxiety. I suppose I feared it would make her grow up in a way. Too much knowledge at times can do that.

Hunger Games is about kids forced to kill each other. Kids who are allowed to starve. For sport. This book, that game is considered a sport. I’m not sure that I’m ready for her to read that. I don’t know why. I’ve let her read Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Kids die in both. Kids at times turn on each other in both series. Why does this one feel so different? I don’t have the answer, I just know that it does.

I’ll let my kids watch Transformers, X-men and Spiderman. Why won’t I let her watch Grey’s Anatomy or CSI? I have no idea. I don’t, much to her disappointment. There are kids in her class who watch Grey’s with their parents. Here, I call it an adult show and leave it at that. I watch things like that on nights when the kids are at their dads, or after they are asleep.

The time is coming for me to let her grow up. It’s coming. I feel it. But it’s not here yet. I guess, maybe she’s sheltered. In a lot of ways, I know she is. I’ll tell you something though, I wish I’d been more sheltered. I was allowed to watch anything. Dirty Dancing isn’t exactly most six year old kids favorite movie. I was allowed to read anything. Hi, V.C. Andrews at 11 years old. If I could unread that shit I would. But I can’t. (My mom isn’t really a fuck up. She just was busy getting her education…and she believed in kids knowing the truth about everything, since she’d grown up knowing nothing. I mean really, my grandma handed my mother the instructions from the Tampon box when she was eleven and said tell me when you need this.) All I can do is try and not allow her to read something that she’s not emotionally ready for. Just because she can read it and comprehend it, doesn’t mean she should.

I want her to just be ten. To be a little girl still. To be innocent. Maybe in a way I’m fooling myself. But is it so wrong to want her to stay little as long as possible?

So…what say you? Is ten too young for Hunger Games? What would you do?

2. I’m a Bronco fan and yesterdays game was great. It was one of those games I didn’t want to take my eyes off of. I really love watching football on Sunday. I realized something though. I really like football. I really like Twitter. I do not like Twitter during major football games.

3. After three short weeks in a row, this week seems very long. It’s only 10am on Monday and I’m already saying this. Imagine how Thursday will feel?

4. I am a bit ashamed to admit this one….but I started watching Dance Moms this weekend. Lifetime was playing season one pretty much non-stop, because season two starts in a few days. Have you seen this show? I’d heard so much about it that I had to check it out. Yeah. I’m hooked. It’s so bad that it’s good.

5. Getting hooked on a song, is nothing new for me. I go from one favorite song to another. Listening to it non-stop until I’m almost sick of it. I’d hate to do it until I was completely sick of it. Currently my favorite song is this:

I just adore it. What about you? Are you the person who gets hooked on a song? If so what is it right now? I’m curious.

I didn’t realize how hard it would be to tell my truth the other day. I’d been holding that one back for so long that it became almost a secret. It wasn’t something I wanted to be secret. It just sorta happened. In a way, telling my non-secret felt freeing. In other ways, it just made me tired. This is something so personal to me, that it’s hard to leave it out there for the world to see.

Truth, as my friend Stacey said to me last night, can be hard.

My instinct is generally to protect my heart, as it’s been broken so many times before. Yet this week, I choose to open it up and share. To tell you my dreams. To share my fears. My fear that it’s too late. My fear that my baby days are over. That my PCOS has ruined my chances. It is my greatest fear. I’m not going to give up until I try everything though. That’s just me. I’m stubborn like that.

You guys are amazing by the way. I can’t believe how many people are out there cheering me on. I just thank you, all of you.

So now you know. Now you all know and I can’t put that Jeanie back in the bottle. Not that I want too. I never wanted this to be secret. I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing. Not in any way. I’m really excited about the possibilities actually. I, for a time, let my fear of getting hurt in some way keep me from speaking. Someday I’ll get over that. I’ve come so far in the past few years. But I guess the statement that old habits die hard, is true.

I’m tired you guys. This process makes me tired. It’s an emotionally charged (hi hormone pills) process. Which is just plain tiring. Mostly I just wanted to say thank you. For accepting me as me. For being here. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate it.

The reason is fear.

Fear of being real. Fear of saying what I need and want to say. Fear of being judged. That’s the big one. That’s the hard one. The piece that keeps me silent when I want to talk. Frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being afraid of my own thoughts. I’m tired of being afraid to share what is really going on in my life. When it came to the point of me seriously thinking I just needed to walk away, I knew it was either man up and talk, or just fucking do it and be gone. So here goes nothing.

For a long, long time, I’ve wanted to have another baby. Logan and I were actively trying the entire year before we separated. I had a miscarriage in May, 2009 and well we never had any luck after that. It has nothing to do with why we divorced, it’s just fact. We wanted more kids and it just didn’t happen. The thing is, just becuase I got divorced, doesn’t mean I don’t want another baby. I want another baby badly.

That’s my truth. I’m actively trying to have another baby. Surprise.

I am trying to have a baby, alone. Just me. Every piece of this will be happening in a doctor’s office. Just know that.

The hard piece of this, is that it’s not easy for me to get pregnant. I have PCOS. In July I went to see a phenomenal Endocrinologist/Fertility specialist. I have some other issues, because of the PCOS. It’s complicated. Basically? I’m going to start menopause in say another year or maybe two if I’m lucky. I’m only 31 years old and this is my reality. I am not done. Every day I long for another baby. Every night I dream about a little girl. Every fiber of my being knows I’m not done. There is someone missing. However? My body is almost done. This is my last shot.

I know I could consider adoption. Yet with only one income and adopting as a single mom, it’s not feasible for me. I’ve considered becoming a foster mom. That is something I still may do, but not until my children are older.

I have given this much thought, I promise. I debated pros/cons/am I crazy’s for almost a year. I’ve decided that yes, I’m probably crazy, but that doesn’t make it wrong. I didn’t make this choice lightly. Yet it is the right choice for me.

We (my doctor and I) were shooting for October. I no longer create eggs on my own. I have a perfectly good uterus and my ovaries are fine. But I don’t create eggs. In my October cycle, we tried Clomid. Clomid makes me insane by the way. Fun times. Ahem. It wasn’t enough. I had eggs, but at some point they stopped growing. I was crushed. Completely crushed. Leave it to me to think that things would be easy.

In November, we tried Clomid and a shot that I’m forgetting the name of. Three days of me injecting myself. Not so fun, but I did it. Yet again, it wasn’t quite enough.

As hard as it was, I decided to take a break in December. With Morgan’s birthday and Christmas, I just couldn’t try again in that moment. The drugs are harsh. I needed some time to relax, some time to feel sane for a bit. I quit my antidepressants in June because of this. October and November were hard without them. The insane amounts of hormones coursing through my system, plus the lack of meds? Yeah. I was a mess for a bit.

This month I will try again. Because I want this more than anything in the world, I’m willing to subject myself to more Clomid. To shots every day for my entire cycle. I’m willing to do this all, because this is what I know I want. A baby. There is no certainty in this world. I have been given no guarantees. Everything is up to chance and luck. I do know, that if I don’t try this, I will spend the rest of my life wishing I had. That’s something I’m not willing to do.

I’m scared. Not of what I’m about to try to do again. No, I’m scared of hitting publish. Of sharing myself with all of you. Of putting myself out there. It’s been a long time since I’ve been real here and I’m timid.

I know though, it’s time for me to be me on my own blog. If I’m not willing to do that, I have no reason to be here anymore.