Love that feeling

Your baby kicking within you is kind of amazing.

I'll always love you, little New York

A's versus Yanks

Our baby Poppy

More NYC

Fordham Road, The Bronx.

View from the hotel, Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.

The El train headed back into the city.

Arthur Avenue, The Bronx.

Grimaldi's, Brooklyn.

New York

Washington Square Park.

Under St. Mark's, where Adam and I got engaged.

With my dad at the Lower East Side Festival for the Arts.

Flash Fiction Forum

Adam captioned this "Barely over the podium." 

21 weeks pregnant

From NOT THE MADONNA

“I just want to remind you,” he says, “that this is real. If we make this mistake, we’re going to have to live with it.”

“Is that what our child is? A mistake?”

He puts a hand on my knee. I want to knock it off and spit in his face, but I restrain myself. “Look,” he says, “I said the wrong thing. I didn’t mean to. I’m not saying mistake. I’m not saying I definitely don’t want to do it. What I’m saying is that this is a commitment. And you’re not – well –”

I’m not what?

“You like to live in the moment,” he says. “And that’s great, except when it comes to things like paying bills and doing dishes. That’s stuff that can sometimes wait. What can’t wait is a hungry kid who needs his dirty diaper changed. A kid who’s screaming his fucking head off at three in the morning. How are you going to feel when you have to shove your dreams aside to deal with that?”

And that’s where I lose it. Of course, I’m tightassed in my own way, so my version of losing it is taking off my sunglasses and hissing in his face, not knocking over his beer and screaming or anything. “Why is it my dreams that have to get shoved aside? We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

“That’s the point, babe. Both of us will be shoving things aside. You’ve got to make room, you know?”

Of course he’s right. That process starts before the kid is even born. Your organs rearrange. Your pelvis stretches. Everything yawns and expands, preparing.

“Shit,” I say, and start to cry.

Damn I'm goofy looking

Dear Poppy

You have the cutest damn dad around.

Grandpa and Grandma Blatt

Jones Beach, 1947. 

20 weeks pregnant

Random Sunday morning thought

I owe no one an explanation for who I am or what I do. Neither do you. 

It just occurs to me

That Adam married a crazy dog lady.

Witness the following:

"We should get BOTH of them!" (2010)
"Wanna go with me on a transport?" (2011, 2012, 2013 and so on)
"I want to save this dog in Carson even though we're up here in Berkeley ..." (2014)

I'm damn lucky he doesn't kill me.

Kind of touching, it is

Angela texted me today and said that she saw a woman being wheeled out of the hospital with her new baby. She is beaming, she wrote. Thinking of you.

I have been in happy hormonal near-tears half the day thinking of meeting my Poppy. Our Poppy. Walking a dog (Luna!) for Family Dog Rescue today, I ran into my friend Caitlin, newly back from overseas. "You look great," she said. "I see the terror and the excitement in your face."

Right she is. For sure.