My friend Stephanie always wanted to go to a corn maze, and I like adventures. So last year, we grabbed breakfast, dressed Dexter up like a pumpkin (naturally) and drove to St. Cloud to check out the Partin Ranch Corn Maze.
First, we checked out what seemed to be the little kid area, and let Dexter try a sandbox filled with dried corn kernels. HE DID NOT CARE FOR IT. Once we mercifully removed him, he was still so angry I had to pry corn kernels out from between his tense little toes.
Our family visited Copenhagen to celebrate my birthday. It was kind of a last-minute trip, and we’re calling it a rough draft. We had a good time overall, but agreed we’d like to do it again, and do it better.
Most disappointing was Tivoli Gardens, where we’d planned to spend the day on Monday, my actual birthday, after a weekend of checking out other parts of the city. Turns out it closed that day, for two weeks, as a between-seasons break. Our hotel was steps from the park, and we passed it open countless times over the weekend, which made it especially upsetting.
We still got to see and do a lot, though.
It is one of the great tragedies of our marriage, that I enjoy art museums and Matt does not. I’d go as far as to say he married me under FALSE PRETENSES, as he attended a prestigious art school for a year, except I knew going in he was anti-museum. I actually think art school is partly responsible for this. Matt is violently allergic to pretentious.
But I, as a stereotypical Libra, love museums. Even the pretentious ones. As long as you’re showing me pretty things in a hushed, relaxing atmosphere, I am in.
It is a testament to just how darn cool the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is, that we both loved it. Even Dexter felt the love, as there were tons of great, artsy kid things to do, as well.
Matt and I have been keeping a secret.
The whole time we were filing paperwork and closing on our house and selling most of our stuff and packing up the rest and bon voyage-ing, we were working on another project: fertility treatments.
Dexter is a science baby. I’m infertile. He exists as a result of in-vitro fertilization and a big pile of luck.
When Matt and I were deciding whether to relocate to London, there was a lot to consider, and once we’d decided to move, we had to consider two more things: a pair of frozen embryos, in storage, left over from the retrieval round that gave us Dex. What would happen to them?
It wasn’t really a tough decision. We had always planned to transfer them and roll the dice on whether Dexter would have a sibling. And when the London move became a reality, that plan quickly shifted from someday to right now, so we met with a doctor and he presented an expedited medication and treatment schedule that would allow us to make the transfer before we had to go. It was rushed and painful and stressful, fitting in screenings and drugs on top of everything else, but we were committed.
I never believed it would work.
Dexter Ian is 18 months old today, and we are hitting our stride.
Matt started his job while we were still living in the hotel. We’d been there a week and a half and he started on a Tuesday. On Thursday, when he came home, I was in tears.