Judecorp.

We've been legally married two whole years today! That's just crazy talk. (And yes, if you do the 'back math,' we got married on Friday the 13th, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.) I'm glad for a number of things: that we've still got each other, that we're still in love, and that our marriage is still (at least for the time being) legal in our state. Good times.

It's also our first Mother's Day as mothers-to-be, and that's a nice little accompaniment to the day. Last year, for our first anniversary, I took Jen away to the Cape for a weekend and with a heavy dose of chutzpah gave her a "mommy-to-be" card and told her that I hoped this would be our last Mother's Day without something to celebrate. Phew, I'm glad I wasn't wrong on that one.

Sometimes I think back on the road we've taken to get to this point and it blows me away. In some ways it's particularly suiting that our anniversary and Mother's Day will always come side-by-side, because one of the things that keeps us determined to go as strong as possible is the struggle that we go through every day just to try to keep what sorts of family rights we can hold on to. I can't believe that this time last year we'd already had one failed IUI and were on our way to finding out that #2 was a bust as well. Next would come our cancelled cycle, our break cycle for the awful HSG, and then three back-to-back injectibles cycles. Then the positive test. And the two heartbeats! And the bleeding. And the lost baby. And the bleeding. And the ER. And then... 18 weeks of clear sailing.

I think we've both learned a lot in the past year about both roles: being partners AND being mothers. I'd love to say that it was totally smooth and easy all the way through, but I can't. What I can say, though, with total sincerity, is that it is totally worth it in the end - on both counts.

I love my wife, and I love watching her become a mommy.

~//~

p.s. Happy mama's day to all the mamas out there: kid mamas, animal mamas, mamas-to-be, mamas of angels, mamas-working-on-becoming-mamas, foster mamas, and any combinations thereof. xo

It is supposed to rain until like next June or something at this rate. I already feel waterlogged and it hasn't even been one full week. I'm so glad I don't live in one of those places where it's grey or rainy for most of a season. I would fall asleep and never wake up.

As expected, we spent another expensive weekend away trapped in our lodging and watched a lot of cable. I don't think I ever imagined watching so many episodes of "My Super Sweet Sixteen" in a row, nor the neverending hours of Game Show Network. I think I lost many, many IQ points this weekend.

It's not like it poured the whole time, either - just part of yesterday and pretty much all of today was a wash (we left a little after 10 because, let's face it, we really weren't going to do anything after check-out). Friday was cold and windy but thankfully rain-free, so we did get to walk up and down the main drag and look in all the shops and galleries that were open. We couldn't do much beaching, though, because the wind/mist/nastiness was considerably worse there and the cold wind was giving us earaches. There was so much fog even when it wasn't raining, so I think I took two whole photographs. Ugh.

We did definitely maximize our time on Friday, though, with the walking up and down and shopping, and then dinner at Bayside Betty's which is one of our favorites except that My Jennifer was getting a really awful headache. So we rushed through our tasty dinners and headed home to call it an early night. Bummer - that ended up being our best night.

Saturday started out similar - cold but no real rain - and we attempted to walk again. There was much more wind and it was much colder, so we walked with our hoodies tied tightly around our faces so that our glasses were barely peeping out. We went back to our room to warm up in front of our little fireplace before our anniversary dinner reservations. We put on our fancy duds that we brought and of course that means the monsoon winds and rain picked up. We'd brought two complimentary umbrellas from our guesthouse and I /do/ hope they REALLY mean 'complimentary' because, erm, both of them blew out in wind gusts and got completely broken. We threw them in a couple of garbage barrels but apparently other people were not as kind - we saw many umbrella corpses all along the side of Commercial Street.

We got to our dinner place (Ciro & Sal's) which, of course, was on the other end of town (a long, wet walk), and were totally soaked to the bone. Still, we had a yummy Italian meal (Jen loves Italian) with the most awesome dessert ever - a sweetened cream cheese plopped into a heart-shape and covered with strawberries. delicioso!

Jen was getting a headache again and all of the rain and bad weather was making me increasingly grumpy, so we called it yet another early night. I really wanted to go dancing but the headache did Jen in and she didn't want to go back out in the rain. One day, my lovely wife will take me dancing. I hope.

So the little cabin was incredibly cute and the guesthouse was really nice, but would have been much more fabu with nicer weather - cute pool, lots of patio areas to sunbathe, really close to beaches, etc. The fireplace came in handy, as did the heat and the wall jets in the shower. And the free umbrellas. And my raincoat. And Jen's duck shoes.

Jen got me a cute little Red Sox cap with a note inside that promises me 2 Sox tickets of my choice - she's apparently gunning for Sox vs. Giants in San Francisco, but I think I'm a wee bit too practical for that. So maybe I'll wait for Monsoon Season to be over and then we can catch a midsummer game.