We’ve had a great weekend, and I’m exhausted, so please enjoy these videos of Cordy for tonight. For those who haven’t been here all that long, you will also now have the privilege(?) of hearing my voice.

Cordy saying mama:

Our little musical genius, playing piano and singing along with it. (For the record, we have no idea what she’s singing.)

And finally, Cordy waves bye bye.

Yesterday I spent the day at a baby shower, but this wasn’t your typical pregnant-woman baby shower. The baby was 10 months old, and the parents looked nothing like her.

My cousin and his wife were unable to have children biologically, so they adopted a baby girl from China. I had mentioned that they were matched with her two months ago. Since then, they flew to China, went through the entire adoption process, and returned home with Mia. Yesterday they came to town so the entire family could meet the new addition and offer up some gifts to help the new parents out.

First off, I’m so happy for them. My cousin and his wife are two of the nicest people I know. They deserve to be parents, and I know they’re going to be wonderful parents. At the same time, this little girl, who spent the first 9 months of her life in an orphanage as one of many mouths to feed and one of many in need of comfort, will now have as much love and cuddles as she can handle.

She’s an adorable little girl, and quite the social butterfly. She happily let anyone hold her, and smiled at everyone, although she still knew her parents. Whenever my cousin walked in the room, she’d spy him right away and start babbling “Dadadadada!” while bouncing up and down. She still has trouble sitting up, but now that she doesn’t have to contend with many other children for attention she will probably advance in her physical development quickly.

Her parents are clearly smitten as well. Still trying to figure out the ropes of parenting, they jump at the slightest protest from her and happily offer her anything her heart desires. My cousin’s wife has quit her job to stay home with Mia. (My cousin’s job requires that he travels often, so it worked out well for them.) They are all slowly figuring each other out, and the parents are already discussing wanting a brother for Mia someday.

It was a wonderful party, and I got to spend time with many relatives that I don’t get to see nearly enough. Cordelia was there as well, and I wish I could say she charmed everyone. Instead, she chose yesterday to be one of her cranky days. She clung to me the first 15 minutes, then slowly warmed up to the crowd, although she wouldn’t let anyone touch her or pick her up. Typical.

I also noticed that my daughter really is a loner. I have a gazillion cousins, and (now) all of them have children, so there were a lot of babies there. While the other babies and toddlers played together, Cordy was content to hide in the dining room, away from everyone, taking Jordan almonds out of the bowl and lining them up along the edge of the table.

After I stopped that game and brought her back into the family room with everyone, she quickly disappeared again and I found her in another room, pushing an empty stroller back and forth. Every five minutes, I found myself looking around the room, wondering Where’s my child?

No matter how much I tried to get her to stay in the family room and play with the toys and kids there, she would jump on the first opportunity to slip away to a quieter area of the house. Do I have an anti-social child? Or is she just too cool for that crowd?

We left after Cordy had a gigantic meltdown due to missing her nap. As I tried to make my rounds and hug everyone, Cordy screamed in each person’s face if they attempted to touch her or even so much as make eye contact. My grandmother was a little upset that her great-granddaughter wouldn’t even look at her. Although, to be honest, she has somewhere around 20 great-grandchildren at the moment, so really, what’s one unfriendly one, right?

But overall it was a good day, and I’m so, so, so happy for my cousin, his wife, and their new daughter, Mia.

We’re both feeling much better today, although I think Cordelia was kind enough to pass her cold on to Aaron and I. Ah well, I can deal with a cold.

As we approach summer, I’m trying to get my body ready so we can try for baby #2 later this year. One thing I’m considering is getting off any medications I’m on. For those who have been reading this blog for some time, you may remember that I suffered from postpartum depression. Well, that’s not quite true. I suffered from pregnancy depression first, and it was bad enough to need antidepressants while pregnant.

I hated taking any risks with medications while pregnant, but in this case, the depression was more dangerous than the medication risks. Since I was depressed during pregnancy, there was an extremely high chance that postpartum depression was not far off also.

Even with my antidepressants, I was still a sobbing mess those first few weeks after Cordy was born. I questioned if I was ready to be a mother, since I couldn’t even enjoy my baby with the help of drugs. I felt guilty that I was so disconnected from my newborn.

Luckily, I realized that this was only a temporary time, where the hormones were being dumped out of my body faster than a mob informant being dumped into the Hudson with cement shoes. No matter how good the drug, it simply can’t keep up with a hormone exodus of that scale. After a few weeks, I adjusted, the drugs adjusted, and things were about as normal as things can be with a newborn.

It’s been over a year and a half since Cordy was born, and I’m still on the antidepressants. I was on two, and I successfully weaned myself off of one. Now I wonder if it is time to wean off the second one? The drugs have been a big help, no doubt. But how do I know when it’s time to quit?

A part of me wants off the drugs. Not only is the prescription expensive, but I’m curious to know if I can function normally again without it. I also would like to be off any medications before pregnancy #2, just to play it safe. I know that my current antidepressant is one of the safest out there for pregnancy and nursing, but even if it is safe, I’d rather go with no drugs than a safe one.

However, a small part of me asks, am I really ready? I remember those days of depression, feeling as if a dark cloud was hanging over my head. Nothing made me happy at the time. I was pregnant, with a child I had planned for and wanted more than anything, and even that didn’t make me happy. I felt so hopeless and helpless, and wondered if I was going crazy. I don’t want to feel that way again. I’m scared to feel that way again, because I don’t want Cordy to ever see those dark moods.

Am I ready to wean off? Am I crazy for agonizing over this decision so much? I’m a little embarrassed by this, because I feel like a druggie, saying I can stop anytime I want to, really. The difficulty lies in the fact that with the help of antidepressants, I feel good. That’s what they do – they make you feel good. But how do I know if I’d feel good again without them? That’s the tricky part. While not addictive like heroin or other feel-good drugs, antidepressants can pull you into a dependency, leaving you to fear going off of them and slipping back into that dark place again. Damn you, pharmaceutical companies. Your pretty blue pills sucked me in and now I fear going off of them and then begging others for a hit of Zoloft.

I think I’m going to try it. After all, if it doesn’t work, I can always refill my prescription again. But hopefully the old me will resurface, no worse for wear, and I can continue feeling good, only without the drug backup.

Besides, who can be unhappy when you have a cute kid like this:

How do you explain to a 20 month old that bad dreams are not real? Cordy woke up screaming this morning at 5am. I ran into her room, thinking that perhaps her leg was caught between the crib rails, but she was in the middle of her crib, sitting up screaming. Once she saw me, she reached for me, and I scooped her up and sat down in the glider. She quieted down right away, so I think she just had a bad dream.

I’d like to say I managed to fight off the monsters in her head and get her back to sleep, but it didn’t happen. While she was perfectly calm in my arms, she was wide awake and didn’t appreciate any attempts to get her back to sleep. So we were up for the day at 5am, which is about 3 hours before I consider it to be a new day. Ugh.

To add to the fun, she seems to have picked up her friend’s head cold, and is sporting the oh-so fashionable toddler snotty nose today. So much for going out to get pictures taken.

As for me, I somehow picked up a stomach bug. Remember what happened with Cordy and her stomach bug two weeks ago? Apparently now I’m living the sequel, only unlike her, I have control of my bowels, so no sheets to wash. It’s an improvement at least.

So please forgive this lack of a real post. I wanted to be witty and thought-provoking or at least amusing for you all today, but the early morning wake-up combined with illness has zapped me of my creativity and higher brain functions. We’re spending the day quarantined inside the house, still in our pajamas at 2:30pm, even though it’s gorgeous outside.

But not only do our kitties shower us with furry love, they also earn their keep. When we moved into our new house, we found a lot of spiders. Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of spiders. I hate them and their eight legs and their beady eyes.

I have a long-standing treaty with the spider species: if they remain outside the walls of my house and off of me and my family, I shall do them no harm. But if they come into my house, they forfeit their right to live. Sadly, many of them didn’t get the message, or chose to ignore it, and so have lost their lives.

One morning while still pregnant, I came downstairs to be greeted with a giant spider body at the foot of the stairs. I shrieked at first, then realized it was dead. Dante, my blue-point Siamese, was there next to it, proudly showing off his trophy. I gave him lots of praise as I disposed of the spider corpse.

Dante does a good job of dealing with spiders, although he has a tendency to play with them for too long, enabling some to escape. Then we got Marlowe, our kitten. Marlowe has more of the predatory instinct in him, along with a love of fresh spider for dinner.

These past few weeks, thanks to the nearly unending streak of rain, the spiders have been crossing territory lines in high numbers. And thankfully I am not greeted with spider bodies each day. Dante and Marlowe work together as a team to wear the spider down, and then Marlowe goes for the kill and eats the spider. Sometimes the spider fights back, but Marlowe doesn’t let a little pinch on the nose or mouth stop him. Each time I see a spider devoured, I reach for the treats and give both cats lots of praise.

But Marlowe has proven useful in other ways as well. He cleans up the crumbs Cordy drops when eating. (See? I told you they’re like dogs!) He also doesn’t limit his fresh meat to spiders. He also enjoys an occasional stray ant and moth.

After the perimeter has been patrolled and all arachnids are exterminated, the cats then provide the service of lap warmer to me on the couch. Who can resist service like that?