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i've moved here : it

it was the best year of my life :)

i'm consolidating all of my journals into one journal.

so this journal (about my art life and main life), my anavoog journal (about my crochet) and my lilizuzu journal (about my daughter) will now be all smooshed together into one at my "it" journal:

it

i'm starting off on a new foot for the new year :)

i'm not a person to ever follow a recipe...but i want to learn new things.
so...i'd like to learn some things by reading some cookbooks and see how other people cook.

so tell me your favourite cookbooks of all time.

i'm especially looking for morroccan, greek, and french
also jewish and scandanavian.

but i'm really interested in just about everything.

so hit me with your best cookbooks so i can go check them out :)

p.s. i like cookbooks where you make EVERYTHING from scratch and where real ingredients are used not things like margarine or boullion cubes, etc.
i'm not interested in adding a can of this and that together and then voila. i'm not afraid of things that are labour intensive.

for the first time in my life i am not just a sex symbol, a mere shadow of what sex is about, but i am making love...and making love at the deep level that creates new life.

my body is not in it's best shape, but for the first time it is creates the source of nourishment for my child and gives pleasure to my man.

i am deeply fulfilled.
i feel purposeful and real.
neccessary and primal.
i am at my core.
my heart.

my life is full of love.
everything i give is returned to me a millionfold.

i walk around in my pajamas and make chicken soup.
he buys me daisies and kisses my eyes.
total comfort and trust.

this is what life is about for me.

from lilizuzu

photo by jason s. shapiro

a family of cats for halloween :)
lilizuzu is 3 months old now

*beams* :)

as you can see, i am still sleep deprived, because this cracks me up to no end!
especially because i have a voice that goes with this, and maybe i will have to record it for you.
actually there is a whole flash animation in my head that goes with this...monty python style.

today is my 1st day being all alone with her, as M has gone back to work.
i am a sad mama cat and i am nervous. (i also think i got my period today for the 1st time since pregnancy)
lili, printheth of thee unicornth, child of go, rules me from her command center...the white noise midi file spewing graco swing.
i am her loyal subject, milk maker, and toe kisser

i am stupidly in love with "the buh" :)
her sweet smells, her little soft parts, her funny sounds.
everything she does completely fascinates me and i watch her constantly with amazement.
it is weird to think that i could never go back to the way things were before..even theoretically if i could go back to a time she did not exist, i could not handle life without her now that i know she is possible.
my life would not be as full without her. the smell and sound and feel of her are permanently part of me now. part of my soul, this earth, my experience, this life.
i could never go back to how things were.
my life will never be the same.
my entire being will never be the same.
i have taken the step through through the portal, the looking glass.
i am on the other side now and there is nowhere else i'd like to be.
i knew i would love her more than anything, but to be here really experiencing this love now is intoxicating. i am the mama cat. the ana mothership has finally arrived.

***

ooo, m and i came up with cool new life plans tonight :)
i hope we can make it work!
if we can, our lives and of course then anacam and ana2 will go in a new exciting direction :)
it involves traveling around the country in a van with a mobilecam. (girlreinvented i need to get your knowledge on this!)
the traveling voog family!
ooo i want it to work so much!
new things! new things to take photos of! new adventures!
(and maybe making a buh #2 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLwUH3l0E5Y

september's here again...

tomorrow we are going up to my dad's because on sunday he is going to baptize her (he is a lutheran minister in case anyone did not know)
he is really excited to be able to do this :)

i have much to say but i am so so sooo tired.
i will take pix of the baptism, of course, and put some up here after i get back :)

we bought an obscenely butt ugly graco baby swing today that plays nasty classical midi music and has "nature sounds" and vibrates and swings.
it is soooooo UGLY but we were desperate!
"The Buh" loves it so far and we hope it will calm her when she is in her spaz mode.

right now she is sitting in it like a little buddha having a dream.

about 2 weeks ago i started to have the most irrational thought.
this insane feeling that i wanted to be pregnant again ASAP!
i don't know if it is hormones, some sort of animal instinct thing, or a reaction to having, what i call, "empty belly syndrome".
i had months to get used to my belly becoming more and more pregnant but zero seconds to get used to have nothing in my belly at all.
i was not prepared to feel this way or prepared to deal with going from a huge belly to no belly.
i thought i'd be ecstactic to have my body back. to be able to look down and see my vagina again, to be able to bend over and tie my shoes, to be able to sleep on my back.
but instead i am faced with this feeling of loss, looking down, longing, on my linea negra and blown out belly button, running my hands up and down my belly where it once was tight and stretched and full of movement now to just feeling soft giving flesh.
i miss the kicks inside even tho now i get to touch her feet and feel them from the outside. it's nonsensical.
but it's more than this. it's more than just missing the belly. feeling like the queen bee.
at least i think so.
it's something deeper than this. it's something primal and seemingly irrational i tell myself.
i never even wanted one child let alone two.
i am sleep deprived and hallucinatory.
there is no way i could physically and emotionally deal with caring for a new baby as well as be pregnant at the same time.
or dealing with a new baby and a toddler at the same time.
plus knowing that my risks of having another child with down syndrome are very high, i would guess.
not that is a factor in my decisions. it wasn't before and it wouldn't be again and maybe this world needs more people with an extra chromosome.
here i am with the nagging lingering thought that will not leave...i want another child.
i even dream about it, begging M to "put another baby in me"
a compulsive urge beyond my understanding
lili needs a little brother, it says...lili NEEDS a little sister it screams
i must find a way to break this spell if possible, right?

a few more weeks of no sleep and poopy diapers from the "troll buh" will cure me of this, yes?

there are two sides to "the buh" (as we call her)
which is why she is the buh-buh (or the br-br)

faerie buh....and troll buh :)

faerie buh makes seahorse noises.
troll buh is full of existential angst.

holy farging sh*t!
it's anacam's 10th ana-versary!
a DECADE!
how did that happen?
and will i even have the time or energy to write anything about it?
everything i have gone through in the last 10 years...
and now here i am....with my daughter and my love
it really blows my mind...

lili with her beautiful eyes open :)
almost 3 weeks old

it's hard to get a good photo of her with her eyes open because she squiggles so much.
so i made this one by doing a screenshot from a little digital video i made from this toy aiptek camcorder.
it's a little dark, blurry and pixelated, but you get the general idea :)

i squashed myself into my pre-pregnancy jeans.
huzzah!

i only weigh 5 pounds more than i did before i was pregnant.
pretty incredible really.

this SORT OF makes up for the fact that i can't have any sex yet.
(well not really)

the days pass so quickly but at the same time so slowly.

we got the results from lili's blood test back yesterday when we took her in for her 2 week check up.
and she does, indeed, have down syndrome.
it was hard to hear it definitively...i wasn't expecting to cry about it, but i did cry a bit for the 1st time.

in other news, yesterday her umbilical cord finally came off.
it looks so much nicer now.
she has such a nice little round belly :)

she gained almost a pound, too!
grew an inch.
she is healthy in every other way.
and she smells so sweet.

she makes little "seahorse" sounds.
not like we know what a seahorse sounds like, but if we did, we are sure she sounds like one.
a rare land seahorse.

we call her "crusty, the seahorse", a squeaky feminine creature

and here is her theme song this week:

"i like to eat and i like to poop and i like to sleep and i wonder where i am and who i am and who you are..."

we love her so much :)