I'm afraid to jinx anything, but...

According to my husband, he should be home tomorrow. This is great news. He's been gone for... wait, let me count, it's been that long... let's see, he left on September 28, so that means that he's been gone for 24 days. By the time he gets home tomorrow, he will have been gone for 25 days.

Our daughter has only been alive for 187 days.

While he was gone, I celebrated our wedding anniversary alone. Our daughter learned to sit by herself and take a few little crawling steps before falling on her face and crying angrily. She turned 6 months old. I drank an entire jug of wine. I'd like to say that I'm kidding about that last one, but I'm not. Let's just say that I don't do well alone in a house at night, and I think I should be commended for only drinking one jug in almost a month.

On the other hand, I learned that Llama (that's what I've decided I'm going to call our daughter here in blog-land) and I are fairly self-sufficient. We have a nice routine going and I'm afraid that Bucket (what I've decided to call my husband here in blog-land) is going to come home and screw it all up. We like to sleep until 8am. He leaves for work at 6:30. Right there, we have a conflict. We like to eat dinner early, between 5 and 6, and he doesn't even get home until 5 on a good day. More conflict. I think we can all three manage to alter our schedules enough to mesh once again. Until he leaves for his next adventure.

All things considered, I'd much rather have him here than... wherever he is now or wherever he's going next.

The other thing I'm very reluctant to jinx is my admission to grad school. I have to say, though, that I asked some people at my former workplace to write me letters of recommendation, and two people did so in a timely manner. One person, however, for whatever reason, did not. Then she stopped answering my emails and taking my phone call. I was desperate when I asked Bucket's BFF (do boys have BFFs?) to write one for me. He likes me well enough, I reasoned. He has a degree in education and he uses it, and I'm applying for an education program. I'm even applying to the very school from which he graduated.

I had no idea that he would write me such a glowing recommendation. He says he's "had the pleasure of knowing me" for 7 years. He says I'm intelligent, capable, dedicated, personable, committed, creative, compassionate, and that I have perseverance. This is a guy I was afraid to talk to for the first year and a half that I knew him. When I finally found my voice, I said, "Hi." It took another year before I was able to talk about anything of substance with him.

And then I got pregnant with Llama. My pregnancy was difficult. Not as bad as some people I know, but difficult nonetheless. I relied on Bucket, his family, and our friends heavily for support because I didn't think I had it in me to keep going some days. My job was stressful, I threw up constantly, and my blood pressure just kept rising. All I wanted was to stay home and rest, for just a day or two. And then the doctors told me that I had to stay home, to lay down, to rest, to prepare myself only one meal a day and have other things brought to me. All I wanted to do was get up and get out. People like Bucket's BFF (and some others who I will acknowledge one at a time) were kind and generous enough to talk to me, to email me funny things, to visit, and to (on a rare occasion when it was permitted) go out to dinner with me. I'm eternally grateful. Now I'm grateful to him for this letter, too.

I have a lot of reasons to be happy today. I'm a very lucky Llama Mama.