Winter in the Cities

Redux

I've had this idea for a post for awhile now, and now I actually have time to post, and I can't remember what I wanted to say!! Isn't that how life goes?

We went to a wedding recently--my nephew got married. I actually told him a story at the wedding of a time when he was a toddler. I'm so old, I can do those things now! For the most part, the wedding was quite lovely, and overall, very beautiful.

A friend of mine made S a dress--isn't it sweet? I apologize for the blurry photo quality--S just didn't want to sit still during our little photo shoot.

Some of my relatives didn't go, and I think that we sort of surprised ourselves by going. The wedding was in California, and it ended up being a pretty expensive trip, although we took J to Chinatown in San Francisco and also to the King Tut exhibit. He's been interested in that lately, so it was a nice coincidence it was on exhibit there. These things added to the cost of the trip, for sure, but it also felt good to know we were contributing to J's education by doing these things.

I think it ended up being a good thing that we went to the wedding because it was a nice set of reminders about why people get married in the first place. C has been doing both better and in some ways worse lately. Overall, I think his pain management is a little better, but in some ways, he's been very needy. At times it feels to me like he is checked out of life, and then there are other times where he's much more his normal self. During the checked out times, though, I feel overwhelmed and angry. I can sort of deal with not having time to get everything done that I want to do, but often it feels like nothing is getting done. Add to that an 8 year old who drops his legos on the floor and leaves his toys on the table and...and...and...and yes, I should teach J to pick up after himself and all that. What do you (ok, not "you" because "you" understand these things) think I've been trying to do all these years? Not to mention that it takes TIME to stay on top of J and his toys. And time is something in short supply....no hostility here, I promise.

So the wedding. The wedding reminded me that of course there are rough patches in every relationship. There are supposed to be rough patches. And at some point in the future, we'll come away from this rough patch and hopefully things will be better. And love is about seeing the imperfections in your mate and loving them anyway. I'm holding on to these things right now because this is definitely a rough patch.

And then there's the saying on the fridge magnet at my friend K's house: the universe will unveil things in its own time. Or something like that. K--if you're reading, feel free to leave the corrected version in the comments. I'm sure not sure what the universe if unveiling to me, but I'm trying to listen.

I just wish I could be this laid back about life!

Halloween redux

Last year, I learned the importance of letting your child choose his own halloween costume. It took awhile for that lesson to set in, though.

This year, I got it in my head that J and S would make a cute pair, if they had some kind of matching costume. You know, like Abbott and Costello, only younger. But J really would have none of it. He entertained my ideas, like J as a banana and S as a monkey (I know, I know), but he was doing that sort of listening that mothers do when their child is blathering on and on about pokemon this and pokemon that. You know, listening, but not really listening.

So eventually, we found ourselves in Target, and he was enthralled with the idea of spending his $10 allowance on a $9.99 red ninja costume. (We haven't really been able to teach him about sales tax yet, but he's starting to figure it out.) I thought that was the end of my matchy matchy costume for baby S, but then I remembered she has a papa!

Behold:

I think this picture probably says it all. They had so much fun and the neighbors really were impressed with the two of them. I already have plans for next year. I figure I've only got a couple of years before S will have her own ideas about costumes, and hopefully I'll have it all out of my system by then.

In the meantime, J had a costume change of heart. For the last couple years, he's been asking for a Harry Potter-style owl, and I finally found one for him, a little stuffed owl finger puppet I got on a recent trip out of town. He was so excited about it, we had to go out to buy the makings of his owl trainer costume. See?

He's an owl trainer:

Now, this may not seem like much of a costume, and in fact, several neighbors thought he was a grunge rocker, but for J, this was a costume, as he is not at all into flannel shirts or shirts with buttons. In fact, he really wanted to get a second hand shirt, but the costume was so last minute, the second hand store was "closed to celebrate Halloween" by the time we got there, so we had to buy a new one. Maybe he'll wear it again. We'll see.

At any rate, a good time was had by all, and hopefully S won't hate us for dressing her up like a lobster. To her credit, she seemed to enjoy the costume, and once it was off, she had fun poking at the eyes and chewing on the antennae.

What was my costume, you might be wondering? Well, I have a standard Halloween costume each year. Suburban mom. Check it out!

Ya gotta love those candy corn buttons!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I've already got a "bee" in my bonnet for next year! hint, hint

A little of this, a little of that. Complete with lots of eye candy!

Sometimes I think I've really adjusted to life here in Minnesota, and then fall comes along and smacks me in the head. It's raining here today, and it's cool and very cloudy. Just like winter in Portland. It's hard to believe it's October and not January. At least I've finally learned that October is the month to wear sweaters. By January, the heat is on everywhere you go, and a coat and scarf and gloves AND a sweater just make for a little too much warmth. October is a good time to wear sweaters.

Recently, I learned that there is such a thing as a pain clinic. It's a place to go if you're having chronic pain, like C is, or if you've recently had a surgery and are having difficulty with pain. C went to the pain clinic and found out there are a lot more things to try. So far they seem to be working pretty well, so we'll see how things go. It seems to be getting a little easier anyway.

Today is picture day at J's school, and this year we actually remembered! Last year, somehow we didn't know it was picture day, and we sent him to school in his uniform. Picture day is a rare opportunity to go to school out of uniform, so it was a disappointment we forgot, although he still took an excellent picture. This year, J and I ran out last night and bought a sweater for him to wear. He picked a nice brown sweater with a light blue and tan argyle pattern. He was so pleased with his choice he wore it home. I'll try to post a picture of him sometime soon, as he looks very grown up in his new sweater. It was really fun to go shopping with him. Since he does wear uniforms, we don't often have many choices when it comes to clothes. And, I have a terrific friend who gives us lots of hand me downs in excellent condition, so his non-school clothes often come from her. It's pretty rare when we need to buy something, so I think that made it an extra special treat. It was nice to just be out, the two of us. I liked seeing what he likes and what he doesn't like in clothes. I think this year's picture is going to be super nice.

I have been away from knitting for awhile, and in some ways, it's been making me stir crazy. I have been doing some embroidered dish towels for a wedding gift for my nephew. They are turning out super cute, and now I've really got the bug for embroidery but I wish I had more time to do all the crafting I want to. Just gotta get that dissertation done. And then........

I'll probably still be chasing after baby S!!!

And then we are eight

Things are improving around these parts. C admitted today that he's not sure the medicine is helping that much, but the good news is that there are other things he can try, and he has an appointment soon to try some of those things. I believe it won't be tough forever.

Baby S is growing and learning and doing things that I find hard to believe for a baby her age. She is 8 months old. Did you know 8 months old can kneel at the coffee table and play with a toy? I'm sure you did know that, but it surprises me. Eight month old babies should still like to be swaddled, in my opinion. If I ran the world, they would not be riding a bicycle with no hands (don't ask me who put her on that bicyle):

Eight months old is too young to ride a horse. At least that's what I tell Baby S, but she doesn't believe me:

Grandma said she was too small to ride the horse, but I caught Grandma putting her on the horse sometimes too. In addition to riding the horse, it seems that 8-month olds can also crawl, put legos into their mouths (no?), and say a few interesting things like Huh dah (I want that)!

Eight year olds are pretty cool too! J started school last week, but not before we had a trip to the state fair. He remembered from last year that there were cool pokemon toys at the fair, so we went in search of them. Success!

Can it get any better?

When everything changes

First, a little eye candy:

I was talking to someone the other day and mentioning how different things have been now that C has psoriatic arthritis. That's what he has, by the way, if I haven't mentioned it. It turns out that (thankfully) he does not have celiac disease, and whatever GI problems he has are related to the psoriatic arthritis. The medication he's taking seems to be helping that too.

Anyway, this person seemed surprised that things would seem different to me, so I explained. C is finally taking a drug for his psoriatic arthritis that is supposed to help, but it takes time to take effect. In the meantime, he has been taking either hydrocodone or oxycodone for the pain. They help quite a bit for the pain, but they have a host of undesirable side effects: irritability, agitation, and occasional bouts of irrationality.

In some ways, I feel like I have lost C to psoriatic arthritis. He spends a lot of time on the couch, he is often quite cranky, and he has developed a need to control lots of things that really don't need control. All of these things might have been there in C before but the psoriatic arthritis has brought them out ten-fold.

My old C might come back when the medication takes effect, but for now, I'm living with someone different, and I'm not sure how much I like it.

I think the person I was talking to was expecting that psoriatic arthritis is a little like having a mole or something. It's there, but it doesn't change you fundamentally. Maybe for some people disease doesn't change them fundamentally, but for others it does. Chronic pain is a nasty nasty thing, and I think that if you know someone in chronic pain you should expect that some how they are different than they were before they experienced pain.

I started going to meetings of the Well Spouse Association. This group meets to provide support to people who are married to people with a chronic illness. The types of illness may vary quite a bit, but it's surprising how much we have in common. I'm not going to say any more about this group due to confidentiality, but if you know someone who is living with a chronically ill spouse, this is a great organization.

It's going to hear the stories of others who have similar situations that made me realize this is not some surface level annoyance that will not impact my life. I suppose I can choose how much I let it impact me, but it doesn't feel like there's much choice when C is on the couch and refuses to budge when the baby cries.

This entry feels a little more intense than I intended it to. I'll try to write an update some time when it feels less intense. Thanks for reading!

Gigant-O Baby!!

Remember this?

That was Baby S on Valentine's Day, about a month after she was born. She was just starting to fit into her "newborn" clothes. Even though she was in the normal range when she was born (6 pounds 9 ounces), she lost a little weight. And, I don't think that baby clothes are really designed for babies on the smaller side of normal, anyway.

My sister said she'd never seen a baby so tiny. (not entirely true because she was there when another sister prematurely gave birth to her son, who weighed around 3 pounds at birth...but that was 20 some years ago) She said my baby had no butt to speak of.

Now, this:
Sorry for the blurry nature of this one, but I think it really shows of the length that this child sports. This is that same baby, who will be turning seven months old tomorrow. She's long and lean, and has shot straight out of those newborn clothes into clothing designed for year-old babies. She needs 'em--her legs are looooooooong!

Here she is, sitting in her bumbo seat. She loves that little seat, partly because the last thing she likes is to be lying on her back. Sitting up is what she wants because after all, she might miss something.

Sigrid has been learning to crawl. Some babies HATE tummy time, but Sigrid LOVES it! She has been working on her stealth commando crawl, but she's also mastering the full-on hands and knees crawling. I'm just relieved that she's not fast yet. She can get what she wants across the room, but not very fast.

All of this indicates that we might have a tall girl on our hands. We mentioned this to J the other day, and suggested that S might be taller than he will be when they are grown. A little while later, he told us he really wants to marry her some day. When asked why, he replied, "because she's going to be taller than I am, and then when we go shopping, she can get stuff down off the high shelf!" Sweet boy, your sister will be able to do that for you without marrying her! But it's nice to love, isn't it?

Update, update; or, the 3rd time's the charm; or, this one should last ya a few days, anyway

Isn't it funny how when you're feeling the postpartum hormones, you think you're not feeling any hormones, but then, as they slowly return to slightly more normal, you suddenly realize that four months ago, you were a raving lunatic, and you can probably blame it all on the postpartum hormones? I can already hear my friend K (and K, I know you're reading this, so "hi, K!") saying, "I told you so!" Well, yes, maybe you did, but wow, those hormones are something. They knock you over on your butt and you didn't even know they hit you. Although, the pronouncement "let's have another baby" about 6 hours after baby S's arrival should have been a clue.

Baby S and I are pleased to report that we're still successfully nursing in the evening and overnight hours. I'm honestly a little surprised how well this has all worked out. Every once in awhile, I think if I worked at it, I could probably bring my milk supply up, but then I think, why bother? Why fix something that isn't broken? (and, if YOU think it's broken, no need to tell me so!)

J had his big old 8th birthday this last week. I still woke up in the middle of the night to celebrate his birth, which, of course, was in the middle of the night because apparently that's when my children are born. He decided to have a low-key sort of birthday/surprise party this year, except that the surprise was that he didn't want his friends to know it was his birthday. So they got to our house for the little outing, and J announced, "surprise! it's my birthday!!" By then, he didn't care that they didn't bring presents because we'd been celebrating his birthday all week anyway.

[What follows next is an odd collection of photos--I was trying to find this first one, but I kept uploading the wrong one because my computer wouldn't show me the thumbnail, and I was too impatient to do anything else but guess. It's one of those days I suppose.]

Here are J and S, doing what sibs do best:

And, this is Domo, who has recently taken up residence at our house. I believe that he has become a way of externalizing all of the crap that C is putting up with from the arthritis (see more below). At any rate, sometimes Domo kicks C's butt, and makes us all laugh, and sometimes we can't wait to toss Domo out in the snow bank (but there's no snow yet, thankfully)

And here is S, with her Papa: If you've been following things of late, it turns out that Papa (AKA, C) has a fairly significant form of arthritis, and his is situated in the lower back. He's getting treatment, but it takes awhile to take effect, and I am amazed by his ability to withstand so much pain everyday, as well as the side effects from the medication he's taking to alleviate the pain. This is not an easy journey, and not one he should be experiencing so young. There's still a little more to his story yet unknown, but we have more adventures in store before we'll be able to tell those tales, so stay tuned, I guess.

I think my mother is tired of me remarking on how long S seems. She really is a rather tall baby. At six months, she can already fit into her size 12 month onesies, and other things that ideally would be lasting for several more months or weeks at least, are clearly not going to be fitting for much longer at all.

She's working on the crawl these days, and this is very new to us. With J (who had a medical condition, including a colostomy bag on his abdomen), we never really had the crawl, and I didn't notice it until now. S is a VERY active baby! And, she is slowly working on the crawl, but I figure we'd better enjoy it while we can ("it" being that she's not really that mobile yet) because the time will come soon when we'll all need to look out.

J especially. We keep asking him to take care of his legos, but they remain everywhere. I've come to believe that legos just become part of the fabric of one's house. I mean, maybe someday I won't have legos...nah. I'm sure there'll always be one in the carpet, and one in the couch somewhere, and one tucked into the furnace grating. I just hope baby S doesn't ingest very many. Is that really too much to ask?

Can someone please just push the pause button already?

It's not supposed to be July, and the month is practically half over already!! I've got too much stuff to do, and not enough time to get it done. My night owl nature is hampered by a baby who thinks she needs to go to sleep at 830. And, so far, she's been going to sleep nursing, although maybe that's gonna change soon. We'll see. I think I could easily be one of those mamas who thinks she's gonna give up this nursing thing, and I'll say that for months, even years, and I'll still be nursing. Or, I might quit tomorrow. Na, not tomorrow.

I didn't go to my class reunion. If you went to my class reunion and you somehow found my blog via my Facebook page, and you somehow cared about me and what I'm up to enough to actually read my blog, well, then please leave a comment so I know you care. Because most of my friends from high school also did not go to the reunion. A few of you read this blog, and I know you didn't go (hi, Kay...I know you're lurking out there, and I'm glad of it). I don't know why you didn't go to the reunion but I know why I didn't go. I don't think much has changed since 1989 for many of the people in my high school class, and I'm not sure I have much in common with very many of them. Individually, a lot of the people I went to school with are nice enough people. Most of them didn't really give me much thought when I was in high school. I was kind of geeky smart and a little socially awkward, and maybe a little shy too. At any rate, I've looked at the pictures from Facebook, and I'm glad I didn't go. I'm glad I didn't take the opportunity to feel on the margins one more time. To feel excluded. To still have absolutely nothing to talk about with most people because I don't like beer.

I am, though, going to visit one of my high school friends tomorrow. She lives a little ways away from me, and she makes and sells girls dresses. The pictures of her dresses don't do them justice. They are adorable on, and every little girl I've ever given one to has not wanted to take it off. I'm looking forward to seeing her, and spending time with her twin boys and daughter. We don't so much talk about the good old days because we weren't actually that close in high school. But we have grown closer over the years, and she's a great friend. So, no need to reunion.

I'm curious, though, if you're reading this for whatever reason, did you go to your last high school reunion? Do you think you'll go to the next one? Why or why not?

Baby S is 6 Months Old

In some ways, it seems like just yesterday I was still pregnant and so very impatient to have this baby. Remember that? Of course you do! You were telling me to stop being so impatient, and she would come when she was ready.

And then she was ready. And then we dealt with some things like her being tongue tied and me not having that much of a milk supply. But it seems that these days we're still nursing successfully at night. That's the best time to not be making up bottles, I tell ya.

We've gone to visit grandma once, and grandma's come here a couple times. For the first six months, I think we've done okay.

All along, I've been dissertating and knitting, even if I haven't mentioned it so much here. I'm making slow but steady progress on my research, and still hoping to be done sometime in the fall. Although fall will be here before I know it! And I have some knit projects to show off sometime soon, too. I'm getting stuff done!

Here's to you, baby S! Keep growing and being the wonderful baby that you are! I love you little one!!

Three of my favorite people

total eye candy!

I should probably add that...

if you've been following along lately (and I'd be surprised if you are, since my posts have been infrequent and somewhat boring lately), my sweet C has been going through quite a rough patch. He's been in pretty serious pain of some kind, and we're not sure what it is. We're still not sure, but after an MRI, a bone scan, a spiral CT, and a biopsy, I'm pretty sure we know it's not cancer. I'd say that with more certainty if the radiologist who did the biopsy hadn't mentioned cancer on the day of the procedure. The referring doc has ruled it out. At any rate, whatever it is, and it's probably some kind of arthritis, is a bit of a mystery. But at least things might be looking up. Or, at least not looking down.

There's something wrong if I'm blogging about blogging

but I do have to say this new Movable Type is nice, even if I'm still a little afraid of it.

In the meantime, I'm playing around a little and seeing how it uploads photos, so here's a silly one of baby feet and kid feet. I like how S is looking at me, even though I'm focusing on her feet. She's very aware of the camera--goofy girl!

A Sudden Turn of Events, Change is Hard

I was going to write an entry about my recent breastfeeding challenges (we're back to the clampdown, pullback, snap! and I have been contemplating the end of breastfeeding...but then we got baby orajel and life is good). But, I just logged in to my blog server, which just upgraded to a newer version of Movable Type, and HOLY SHIT! Things are totally different. I don't know my way around this place. I'm sure it's gonna be good, but I am feeling really OLD right now. Change, I can't take it!

Update: Achem's Razor Applies

It seems DH's problem is NOT Cancer (the big "C" as we call it my house). To this, my mother said, "well we already KNEW that." I'm thinking, when the doctor lists the possible cause as three different types of cancer, we DON'T already know it's not cancer. But anyway, bullet dodged. Still waiting to find out what the cause of all this back pain is.

Happy Anniversary; Or, Just Another Day

Sixteen years ago, C and I got married. We were young and cute. We've been a lot of places and done a lot of things, even though I think we both wish we've been more places and done more things. Our love has gotten stronger through the years.

Lately, C has been experiencing a lot of back pain, and that's been really tough. He's crabby when he's in pain, and it's hard on J. We've finally gotten C in to see the doctors, and it turns out not to be good news. We don't really know the news yet, but barring some 11th hour surprise, I don't think we're in for very good news. This, we found out today in a letter from the doctor. I think he thinks his nurse shared the news, but she didn't.

Tomorrow we go for an MRI and a bone scan, and we'll see what we learn from those. There's still a slim possibility that the news won't be bad. But I'm bracing myself for the worst.