The Park Family

Month Eight

2011-09-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

What can I say that hasn't been said before in recent months? Life is busy, and I'm late...again. Brooke is turning into a little person with a severe case of ADHD so most of my day is something like: run, run, run, run, clean sweet potato off of every surface in the house, run, run...30 minute nap. We repeat this three times and then she goes to bed and I'm left wandering around the house with Corey trying to figure out why our living room looks like Chernobyl and when the last time I ate something that wasn't pureed was.

In all seriousness, Brooke is really turning into a person. She crawls, she pulls herself up onto every surface in the house, she says "Dada" over and over again, and she eats EVERYTHING. She's tried pears, peaches, peas, broccoli, mango, squash, cantaloupe, apples, pluots, nectarines, blueberries, green beans, chicken, turkey, and plums. She likes all of it, but really prefers just to have a huge mound of cheerios (organic, and fruit juice sweetened, thank you) sitting in front of her while she watches "Baby Signing Time".

We discovered around month seven that although she is rather outgoing at home, once in public she clams up like a mute, so I have been making it a priority to take her to storytime whenever I can. Unfortunately, the local baby times are all inconvenient to her nap schedule so we don't always make it, but I am happy to say that she seems to be understanding that there are other people in the universe other than Mommy and Daddy and Sprocket (who Brooke is still completely in love with (and it remains unrequited)).

We visited another doctor this month, the geneticist that it took four months to get an appointment with. We are so blessed that every doctor we've taken Brooke to has been kind and patient, especially those at Phoenix Children's Hospital. We will be having several genetic tests run on Brooke soon, some for general hearing loss, and some because she shows a few signs of a genetic syndrome called Waardenburg. If you're related to us and you're reading this, rest assured that we will let you know if she tests positive for this syndrome because it could possibly be in either gene pool and could affect future generations, but I'm not stirring up drama without knowing.

Brooke's sleeping has run the gamut from terrible to much improved, and we think that teething is particularly difficult for this one because although she still just has her bottom two teeth, she has been grabbing her ears and jaw and drooling like a mad woman. We are hopeful that when the top ones come in she will have a very short reprieve and we can get an idea of her baseline sleep patterns.

We spent her eighth month birthday celebrating in Pinetop with Grandma and Grandpa, and Brooke will be blessed to spend her ninth month birthday with her other four grandparents in Tennessee, three of which she hasn't met yet.

If I say that we are looking forward to all the headaches that come with traveling with a pint-sized demon I would be lying, but we are excited to be taking a vacation together, see some new parts of the country, and introduce Brooke to more of her family. Also, we will be going to the top rated aquarium in the country, a candy factory (hello, heaven) and playing something called "Hillbilly Golf" which may or may not involve noodling a catfish and taking shots of moonshine. I will update you post-activity.

If you have some extra time on the 2nd and 8th, please say a little prayer for the passengers on our flights. If Brooke gets too rowdy we may not be able to afford the drink tab for all of them, so I may be bringing my gallon sized ziploc to security full of pureed apples, hand sanitizer, and Patron silver.

Again, apologies for the lateness. If any of you would like to volunteer your babysitting services while I type up next months blog please feel free to show up at any time. I would be misguided if I didn't suggest bringing galoshes, a duck call, and two changes of clothes. You never know when terror will strike!

Month Seven

2011-08-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

Writing these posts is always harder than I'd imagined they would be, mainly because it is so difficult to remember a time when Brooke hasn't been doing the things she does now.

Brooke army crawls everywhere, and although she will crawl the normal way for a few feet she is still faster on the belly so she resorts to that in order to get to where she's going (Sprocket's food dish, the refrigerator, the dog door) at lightning speed.

She is now pulling herself into a standing position while grabbing onto things, which mostly means that my name has been changed from Christina to "Mommy, the infant jungle-gym". She's not very good at balancing, but once she gets her knees locked out she can do a dance that combines the twist and the robot in a standing position for quite a while, which means that her crib got bumped down this month.

We are working on baby sign language and she now recognizes several signs like "Milk" and "Finished", although it's still too early to expect her to do them back. They say that babies can learn to sign as early as nine months so we're hopeful that she'll be communicating with us in no time.

Brooke has had tons of new food this month, including trying out puffs which she absolutely loves. Her pincher grasp and hand-eye coordination is getting better by the day, and I'm finding fewer and fewer puffs surrounding the high chair now, much to Sprocket's dismay. She enjoys almost everything that I've made for her including avocado, peaches, pears, raspberries, apples, bananas, plums and peas and has only made one entertaining face and that was to the mangoes. I love making all of her food from fresh, organic produce as it makes me feel motherly to be steaming and pureeing fruits and veggies in the kitchen while she watches her Baby Signing Time DVD.

This month Brooke and I, along with Gramma, went to see a pediatric opthamologist to take a look at her eyesight and see if there are any concerns that she may have a syndrome that affects both her ears and eyes. He didn't see any cause for worry, so we can check another specialist off of our list. If she had a brain tumor that was pushing on her cochlea it could cause hearing loss and also it would impact her sight, so we were definitely excited to hear the good news. Next month we meet with the genetics team so that is the big, scary appointment that will tell us everything that we can find out medically at this point in her life.

Brooke's one fat, pearly tooth is still all alone, even though she's been gnawing on everything she can get her hands on for a couple weeks now. Every day I think that its twin will come poking through, and I pray for a little relief for her tiny mouth, but it has been stubborn so far.

We also had a fun trip to the aquarium in Tempe with the local AZ Deaf and Blind Academy Outreach. It was so wonderful to see other hearing impaired children and it's nice to be reminded that they are just normal kids. Brooke is always the youngest (by far) around, but I often think that it's more of a benefit for Corey and I right now and that Brooke will have a good time later. She did enjoy the fish though, and really enjoyed picking out furniture with us afterwards since we were a thousand miles away from home near big furniture stores.

Brooke is sleeping better now (for the most part) and often sleeps from 6pm until one or two in the morning before waking to eat. Although I know people who have their six week old babies sleeping all the way through the night, that really doesn't seem to be an option for her at the moment so I will happily get up once or twice to nurse her. We do have problems with her waking up for the day between four-thirty and five a.m. (no matter what time she goes to bed) so Corey and I are slowly becoming morning people (or, more accurately, people who wake up early even though they are grouchy and ill-functioning). Her naps are still thirty minutes long - no shorter, and no longer. Despite following the advice from every sleep training 'expert' we can find, her naps don't deviate from this, so we're guessing that she's just one of those kids that doesn't nap. She wakes up with boundless energy, so our pediatrician says she gets what she needs.

Both her Daddy's and her furry brother's birthdays are this month so Brooke is in a present buying mood lately. I'm off to find her a part-time bib modeling gig so we can afford her taste in gifts.

'til next month!

Result #1

2011-07-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

There is no time for a real post because (like always) I'm running behind on my to-do list, but I did feel the need to write about some awesome news we received today: Brooke's EKG came back normal!

Hearing loss can sometimes come as part of a syndrome that affects multiple systems including eyes, heart and brain. We still have an opthamology appointment, a brain MRI, and a genetics testing appointment, but her heart is off to a good start and doesn't seem to be impaired in any way!

So far she's just a normal (almost) seven month old who can't hear very well.

Also, it is worth noting that Dr. Marc Boggy at Luke Air Force Base is the best pediatrician I can imagine having. Yes, those are too many details for most of you, but in the off chance that my blog comes up when someone is googling his name for reviews I wanted to make sure that everyone knows he is amazing!

Month Six

2011-07-20T11:05:00.001-07:00

There is constantly a song playing in my head. Sometimes it is something I heard on the radio, a special ringtone from my phone, or recently it is a tune Brooke's magic singing kitchen plays because I hear it roughly 230 times a day. But almost always the background music to my life is the little ditty that the white rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland" mutters: "I'm late...I'm late...for a very important date..."

Although normally it's not something uniquely important I'm rushing off to do, unless you consider making beds and folding laundry important. However, I can't help but rush about in a semi-state of panic that I'm just too far behind.

Case in point: Brooke's month six post. Brooke naps for EXACTLY thirty minutes in length, four times a day. That means that four times a day I sit down and figure that THIS time I will write her blog. And then I glance down at my to-do list and realize that I need to make an appointment with a pediatric opthamologist, research hearing aid accessories, order more baby wipes, and look up the recipe for organic baby banana oatmeal. As soon as I get those done I start to type in our blog address and I hear the familiar cries echoing through the monitor. Once in a blue moon I check the video portion and she simply looks around, rolls over, and goes back to sleep, so each time I hear her squeals I cross my fingers, say a quick prayer and hope that when I see her she is in the process of resuming her nap. But, each time lately she is staring straight into the camera threatening that if I don't get upstairs in 8.2 seconds flat she is going to let out a wail the likes of which I haven't heard before. We have repeated this pattern at least a dozen times in the past two weeks.

So, I am late, but here goes anyway:

Brooke is six months old. She weighs 16 pounds and one ounce (65th percentile), is 26 inches long (74th percentile) and her head is somewhere in the mid-sixtieth percentile too, but I can't remember the exact measurement. Essentially, the kid is still big, but not quite as ogre big as she was before. My family is reasonably tall so we're hoping she got some of their height genes, but it's not very likely considering the fact that God took Corey and made him a tiny girl twin to come up with Brooke. Every morning I scoop her up from her crib and look right into his eyes and grin right back at his smile. It is uncanny!

She sits up like she's been doing it for years, and now she army crawls all over the house at approximately 200 miles per hour. She attempts to regular crawl, but it ends up with face plants so she resumes her belly dragging since it gets her everywhere she wants to go anyway. And where she wants to go is towards anything electric, sharp, poisonous or just simply not allowed. Her own personal toy department has been cast aside hundreds of times in favor of the entertainment center, the dog bone, or the electric sockets in various locations. Don't worry - childproofing is in full effect, and she's not left alone EVER so she hasn't hurt herself, but I'm afraid Sprocket is going to coax her into his water dish if she doesn't start leaving his stuff alone.

We spent her half-birthday in Pinetop as is our usual fourth of July tradition. Although this year was sans fireworks because the entire mountain was burning down, we still had a lovely time at the parade and then just enjoying the fact that we weren't at home in the 118 degree heat.

Shortly after arriving home from that trip we headed back to San Diego for the second time in as many months to celebrate my best friend's wedding. She did remarkably well during the day on both trips, but sleeping in a strange environment is not my girl's cup of tea and all progress we made with sleep training went out the window.

Which leads me to thanking the anonymous commenter last month who suggested we check out a certain sleep training website/message board that did prove to be helpful. Although our trips seriously screwed things up, there was a point in time where Brooke slept eight hours straight before needing to get up to eat! We are hovering right around five hours (followed by three and three more) of sleep for her currently, so it is an improvement from last month.

Rice cereal results in a three day drought and then a massive diaper buster blowout, so we have forgone that option in favor of tummy-friendlier oatmeal, and she has now eaten apples, peaches, peas, green beans, squash and sweet potatoes. Because she is a fat girl, all of these options appeal to her and we have yet to run into any problems with her not eating a certain food.

Her belly is still quite finicky though, and I am still unable to eat any dairy without Brooke's gassiness trying to rival her Daddys and her colic-type crying returning. I hope that this does not mean she will be lactose intolerant later in life, but my research tells me that most babies grow out of this so I am hopeful that she will too.

Her doctor says that she is advanced in all ways, except for speaking issues which are obvious in cause. But, she now turns towards all sounds and we're pretty sure she recognizes her name (and recognizes the word NO since she tunes it out so well) so we are happy with her progress. We still have yet to see consistent consonant sounds, but we're doing all of our exercises so she'll catch up sooner or later.

And last, but not least, the little munchkin popped her first tooth through last week while chomping on the leather strap of my purse. I cringed that in all of my efforts to keep her environment green and organic she decided to latch onto a piece of chemically treated cow hide and munch on it with vigor, but she left me little choice so I figured that babies have survived through worse. I'm hoping the rest of her teeth are to follow shortly because she has been moodier than normal lately, but I have yet to resort to procuring her a belt or another handbag to nom. Hopefully nature will run its course.

And hopefully that voice inside my head will help me to become more efficient and I will manage to update again before seven months hits!

The rocking chair

2011-06-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

We rocked this morning, the girl and I.

Restless because her belly was making terrible noises, she couldn't figure out how to get herself into a good sleep. So we rocked.

I bundled her up in her fuzzy, pink, swaddle blanket and pulled her close against my chest. One little fist tightly clenched her small teddy bear and the other hand rested calmly just above my heart. She was so warm and so close that it almost felt like she was a part of me again, and to my surprise I found myself missing those days - the days where I could feel her squirm and roll and hiccup. The days where I didn't need a video monitor to see that she was safe at night; I could feel that she was.

She finally let her eyes drift closed, but she periodically opened them to search frantically in the darkness for my face. Once she settled on it, she let her eyelids droop again, content for another minute that I was still there holding her and protecting her. Eventually, with one long sigh, she settled down and began to get some true rest and I knew at that point that I could have, should have, put her down in her crib and tiptoed out to do the dishes or the laundry or one of the other eighty-seven things that are on my to-do list for today.

Instead, I stayed and we rocked.

Now I know why people do this all over again.

Five months down...one MILLION to go.

2011-06-10T16:41:00.001-07:00

So my little seven pound munchkin is now five months old and over SIXTEEN pounds. It is amazing how the days can feel so unimaginably long, but yet the weeks and months scream by.

Brooke’s fifth month had her growing by leaps and bounds, which is wonderful to watch and frustrating for her (and us) at the same time.

She wants so badly to crawl, and can get her legs under her, but she can’t coordinate with her push-ups, so she just does a face plant. She rolls immediately from her back to her tummy if you put her on a playmat, but she doesn’t like rolling the other way so much. She’s done it a couple dozen times so we know she’s able to, but we think the fact that she’s been diagnosed with reflux, and also that she can’t get around from her back, keep her right side up.

And speaking of the reflux, the poor little princess has had quite the month of medical interventions, much to our dismay. One of her brand new hearing aids had a malfunction, and then when it was repaired it completely died again so she was without amplification in one ear for a good part of the month. Then we got a bum ear mold so you can hear her ears screeching from a few rooms away (luckily, she can’t hear it). My broken bladder caused an uprising and I had to go on antibiotics for a time which caused havoc with her digestive system, and although we both took some probiotics I’m still unsure as to whether that made it better or worse. Oh, and the reflux. The reflux itself is much better, but they somehow manufacture infant Zantac to come in liquid form and taste like a mixture of melted candy canes and rotten sardines. If any of you want to come and help me cram a syringe of that stuff down her throat twice a day, you are more than welcome.

Every day Brooke is learning something new – she now sits up on her own, a trait that she appeared to learn overnight. She sometimes still sits with her hand(s) on the ground to hold herself up, and she still often topples over like a broken Weeble, but for the most part she’s got the balance down.

She had rice cereal for the first time right around five months, which I was holding out for her sixth month to do, but with the reflux, her crappy sleeping issues, and her Daddy’s pouty eyes whenever she grabbed for my spoon at the table I caved. She usually likes it fine, but doesn’t always seem to understand that it’s food, so it hasn’t affected her nursing at all. I will admit that it is hilarious to watch her mouth the mushy substance and decide whether she wants to swallow it or spit it fountain style right back at her Daddy. I’d say the ratio is pretty much 1:1 right now.

She also made her first consonant sounds the other day (ma-ma, I’m proud to say), so we were thrilled with that because her language skills are behind due to her three first months without hearing aids. Obviously I know that she didn’t say it in reference to me, but it’s a good sign that she’s starting to explore sounds, and we continue to work with her all day on hearing and speaking exercises.

Last, but not least, her sleeping habits are nothing short of a night shift flight controller: sporatic and generally when you need her to be awake for something. She sometimes sleeps 2-3 hours straight at night, but that’s with a whole lot of grunting, twisting, crying out and squirming, and mostly she prefers to wake every hour or so and have a little snack. While I appreciate that she’s doing the health-conscious thing and avoiding big meals, the sleep deprivation has taken a toll on both of us. Corey can sleep in a train station, so when I woke up with her first whimper I would nurse her while staring at my slumbering spouse with such resentment that I still can’t believe he didn’t wake up from the sheer telepathic power. Then, to avoid what seemed imminent: divorce or murder-suicide, he started getting up with us. But, he does need minimal brain function to teach his students, and therefore that wasn’t working either. So, we decided to sleep train.

Thirteen books, five message boards, nine mothers with word-of-mouth advice and two television shows later I still have no idea what sleep training is. I know that we should do it; I know that it’s great, and I know that it will work. I just wish someone would tell me how to do it.

You can be sure that the one method of sleep training that is thoroughly described is Ferberizing, or crying it out. This is for the parents with much bigger cajones than I have, because I spent too many weeks listening to her scream her little face off to willingly subject myself, my husband and my dog to it again.

So here we remain, in sleep training purgatory until either our lovely daughter decides she’s human or we drink the Kool-Aid and let Family Services deliver her to her newly appointed guardians (which we have chosen, we aren’t animals).

I have every confidence that they too will be sucked in by her baby blues and her ability to sit up, and will spend a very long time giving her kisses and hugs and blowing raspberries on her chubby belly. Or at least around five months.

San Diego, how I love thee...

2011-06-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

In my mind I am spontaneous. I imagine that my dream date is me coming home from [enter monotonous household errand here] to find Corey with a bag packed for me, telling me that we’re going somewhere and it’s a secret. Obviously I know that this isn’t realistic now, what with the beagador and his teething sister being bad secret keepers and all, but it’s my imagination so I’ll conjure up what I want.

In reality, any trip that takes place with less than three lists made about it causes me to break out in a rash, and if the above scenario were to happen I would have to unpack every bag, survey its contents, repack in a different order, and add another suitcase for first aid items, emergency food, and ‘just in case’ things.

Corey on the other hand, literally owned no more items than he could fit in his truck when I met him, so the Air Force has cultivated the gypsy part of him. He could absolutely go anywhere on a whim, without regard to packing, method of transportation, or responsibility at home.

I am lucky in that Corey has allowed me to handle all of our vacations my way until now, and he has even been thankful for my bags of cold medicine, granola bars, and bug repellant on different occasions.

So, when I asked him on Thursday night if he wanted to go out of town on Friday for the long weekend I had already anticipated his answer in the negative. Not only does he allow me to plan our trips, but we also now have the five-month-old Kardashian-type baby who appears to have emerged from the womb with her own set of Louis Vuitton luggage. Between Pack N Plays, Rock N Plays, play mats, play gyms, swings, slings and diaper accessories, the kid needs her own travelling bellhop. There was no way he was going to say yes.

Except, he did.

Now, I may have a reader out there who is asking me, “Well, why did you ask him then?”

It’s called passive-aggressive, and it usually works out in my favor.

So, I asked if he wanted to go to Pinetop to enjoy the cooler weather. When that wasn’t possible because my parents already had houseguests I thought the idea was tabled.

And then, because I’m so confident in my ways, I did it again the next afternoon.

“We could go to San Diego.”

Pause.

“Yeah. Let’s do that,” he says.

At this point my head started spinning in circles and I simultaneously tried to compile fourteen lists in my head all while flogging myself for my careless offerings.

Somehow, some way (I believe I blacked out a large portion of this time) we were packed and out the door in forty-five minutes.

We found a hotel that allowed Sprocket (a Marriot, thank goodness, not some scary airport motel), made reservations on the way, and got on the road at 4pm on Friday afternoon.

And, we all survived.

Brooke slept most of the way to San Diego, with several stops to eat and change diapers, while her furry brother refused to relieve himself on any surface that didn’t smell like the grass in our backyard. Nervous that he wouldn’t be able to hold it any longer, we skipped the last stop, crossing our fingers that the princess would sleep through her scheduled feeding time, and made it to the hotel by ten (she did sleep, and he did hold it until he couldn’t possibly any longer and made do with the hotel grass).

Saturday morning we got up and met my best friend and her almost-husband at Fiesta Island which is a lovely off-leash dog park where we got the shock of our lives: Sprocket is a dog. Okay, well, we always knew he was a dog, but for the first time he ACTED like a dog. He went into the ocean and swam! Sprocket normally acts like a Siamese cat around water and does everything he can to avoid it, whether it’s rain during our ten day monsoon season or an errant sprinkler while on a walk. But, he waded right in and appeared to have a great time.

Brooke dipped her toes in the water and seemed to be less impressed, and we missed capturing any of it by photograph because we are horrible parents and were busy wrangling the sheer amount of stuff that we needed to bring to the beach to haul the camera case out of the trunk.

Unfortunately, Sprocket got a mad case of dead tail from the water, which is temporary nerve damage/inflammation in the base of the tail so it hangs lifelessly (and painfully) which kept him from sleeping more than twenty minutes at a time on Saturday night. Add to that the woes of our sleepless daughter and we were lucky to emerge from the hotel room on Sunday morning with full function of our minds and limbs.

With San Diego being much more animal friendly than Phoenix, Sprocket also got to enjoy both a dinner and a lunch out with us, and the dinner restaurant even had a “Hounddog Special” that we ordered for him (grilled chicken) and brought out a water bowl (he prefers Voss…from a glass…not kidding).

We did enjoy the fact that there were other people around to dote on Brooke (she also enjoyed it, attention whore that she is) and also that we are capable of going out in public with our child without people moving to the other side of the street and crossing themselves.

We also got to spend a few minutes at Coronado Dog Park on Sunday, but it was cold, Sprocket’s tail was dead, and Brooke’s hearing aid fell out, got temporarily lost in the sand, and was located after a mad search and rescue operation (I have shaken most of the sand out) by my friend’s fiance, so we were ready to go almost as soon as we got there.

It was mostly an enjoyable trip, if for nothing else than the fact that we were able to take a last minute vacation and survive it with our two high maintenance kids. And it reminded Corey and me that the days of having fun together aren’t quite over even though slobber rags and speech therapy appointments have taken precedent over dinner and a movie.

And, with my friend’s wedding taking place in the same spot six weeks from now, it gave us the confidence to know that we can, and will, live through the trip as long as we have optimism, a dozen pacifiers and a trunk full of puppy treats.

I better go and add those to the list.

In Memoriam

2011-05-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was doing laundry after our short three-day trip to San Diego (post to come) and I found myself hanging up my husband's ABU uniforms in our closet. As I smoothed the wrinkles flat and felt the rough fabric under my fingers I said a little prayer for all the other women who have come before and will after, who would give anything to be hanging up their husband's uniform for him to wear the next day.

These women, the men they loved and lost, and the families that have holes in them are the reason for this day as well as the reason I am able to sit here and post this evening.

With all of our celebrating, grilling, partying and traveling for the long weekend I hope that everyone took a moment to remember that the backbone and strength of our country has come from them - those who sacrificed all they were called to give.

I honor them, thank them, and pray for the day that I will be able to thank them in person.

Happy Memorial Day!

Becoming one of 'those' people

2011-05-19T08:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Brooke and I were at Sprouts Farmer's Market bright and early to pick up our produce for the week (Brooke must not be mine because she likes to wake up with the sun), and when the cashier asked me what I was doing with my four pounds of organic apples I was thrilled. Even before my reply I was basking the glow of her certain awe.

"I'm making her baby food," I replied.

Then she twisted her face up and said the one thing I wasn't expecting.

"Ohhhh, you're one of those."

It wasn't followed by a goofy grin to indicate she was just good-naturedly chiding me. Just straight-faced condescension.

To say I was taken aback was an understatement. Sprouts is part of the holy trinity for organic-cooking, vegan-loving, gluten-free soccer moms all across the west (along with Whole Foods and Sunflower Market) and I didn't expect to get anything other than a friendly nod of approval at my buying and cooking choices.

Had I really become one of 'them'? And who are 'they'? Are they pod-women? Alien life-forces put here to make those who buy Gerber food and Huggies feel bad about themselves? Did I want to be one of them at all?

The answer is that I'm proud to be a part-time member of 'those' people.

I come from a Republican voting, SUV-driving, meat and potatoes kind of family. When I bring up multi-vitamins and low-VOC paint to my parents they gently roll their eyes, just as they did when I refused to eat steak as a kid. I could tell my mom checked out every time I talked about the gorgeous organic bedding and carriers that we bought for Brooke's arrival, and my Dad looked at me like I was insane when we declared our intent to cloth diaper.

The cloth diapering didn't necessarily start from a desire to save the planet. I was cloth diapered as an infant because I was allergic to disposables. In fear that Brooke may inherit my skin sensitivity I thought it would be smart to prepare for the worst, so I looked into cloth diapers. The world of safety pins, plastic pants, and leakage is a thing of the past. Cloth diapers are amazing now, and just as easy as disposables. I was sold from the first cloth diaper website I perused, and the fact that I managed to sway Corey in that direction is testament to the fact that they are easy and far less gross than you are thinking if you haven't used them.

At this point the environmental factor and the 'granola-ness' of the situation was really icing on the cake, but I thought it was silly to stop there.

With little effort or problem we have stepped up our recycling, purchased organic clothing and food when possible, hung a clothesline, stopped spraying pesticide inside the home, and we're even considering a hybrid SUV for our future car purchase.

But, before you decide that I'm about to start campaigning for Al Gore to run the world I should let it be known that our house uses cushy, soft toilet paper that probably took ten acres of rain forest to make, we use disposable wipes on Brooke's dirty little baby butt (Corey put his foot down when it came to cloth wipes), and my carcinogenic candles are burning in the kitchen right now while the dishwasher runs at peak hours filled with nasty old Electrasol and Jet-Dry.

It's true that I am making Brooke's baby food from fresh, organic Gala apples, but I also have a cupboard full of Gerber that I got on sale right before she was born. And while we love our cloth diapers during the day, hippie moms would shun us from the playgroup because we use disposables at night (the diaper rash is horrible if we don't).

And while the label still irks me, the nice part of the 'them club' is that you don't have to be a member all the time. It's not an all-or-nothing type decision as I choose to believe that every little bit helps and any smart and healthy choices you make are beneficial, no matter how many hours you let your infant chew on the rattle that fell on the floor *twice* when you haven't mopped since Monday. Not that I would do that. I mean, c'mon, I am one of 'them' after all.

Month four

2011-05-13T19:40:00.001-07:00

Brooke’s fourth month of life flew by, although somehow the days still seem neverending. Her colic finally resolved this month, and although she is now what our research and doctors dub a ‘high-need’ baby, she is getting used to the idea that she’s not going back in the dark comfort of her gestational life and she had better get used to the world.
Right at three months she started rolling from her back to her belly, which is a bit backwards, and still hasn’t rolled the other way unless you count a few random tumbles. Her doctor thinks she likes the pressure on her belly since she still has gas issues so she has no reason to roll back, and I agree since she likes to sleep on her side and stomach too. I am constantly trying to roll her back over.
This month she has started taking naps in her crib, although she still sleeps exactly thirty minutes each time. It’s like the kid has an egg timer in her diaper because she rarely sleeps more than five minutes longer or shorter EVER. She has also transitioned from sleeping in her Rock N Play Sleeper, which was the best thing in the world for a while, but it has been hard to adjust to not being in because it was at an incline and her new sleeping arrangements are flat.
The kid sucks at sleeping, which means mommy doesn’t get much either, but we’re hoping that as she gets used to sleeping flat (and gets older and wiser) she will figure out how much fun sleeping is and will do it for longer than 90 minutes at a time at night.
This month Brooke got to meet her fantastic Godmother, who is also my fantastic Aunt, and also got to spend some more time with her Grandad and Gramma and her Uncle Mikey. Her brother Sprocket is also logging some more quality time with the munchkin and is starting to warm up to her now that she can grasp and give him treats.
Her hearing aids have transitioned into just another part of life by now, and she loves getting them put in when she wakes up in the morning and after naps. I also love listening to her Daddy read her bedtime story every night and knowing that she can hear every word.
As for the details: according to the doc at four months your growth starts depending more on your genetics and less on your eating habits so she’s making her way out of the super high percentiles and into normal baby territory. She weighs 14 pounds and 10 ounces, is just shy of 25 inches long and her head is 16.5 inches around, all of which are squarely in the mid-60s percentile-wise.
I will have to write a post about the baby things that have worked for us, and the things that have been a waste of time and money, but one thing I cannot exude enough love for is our BumGenius cloth diapers. Everyone who thinks that cloth diapers are only for birkenstock wearing hippies or smug, ‘green’ celebu-tards is completely wrong – we have NEVER had a blowout with a cloth diaper, but if Brooke poops in a disposable it is more likely than not all over her clothes. They are pricey, but overall some of the best money spent and I get the peace of mind knowing that she’s not sitting in some crazy chemical beads that are the same ones I find in my purses’ dustbags.
This month Brooke is looking forward to meeting her Granny (Daddy’s mom) and her Great Aunt who are flying out from Tennessee next weekend, celebrating her Uncle Mikey’s birthday with the family, and gaining another four pounds. I am looking forward to her being able to sit up by herself (which we are working on) and start making some consonant sounds, which she is behind on due to her hearing loss. We are taking correspondance courses through the world famous John Tracy clinic and are hopeful that we can curb her language delay. We are also researching a private school in the area that includes infant speech therapy, but we’re unsure about the $14k tuition for a four month old.
Overall, month four was a pretty good month and it only seems to be getting better. Perhaps we’ll survive this with some semblance of sanity after all.

Unexpected Pride

2011-04-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

When we first learned that Brooke had hearing loss it was devastating. You never want your child to get a paper cut, so a permanent disability is horrifying. I could only focus on the things I was sure she would never do: sing in a choir, dance in a ballet recital, speak without drawing attention, or tell me stories of her day in school.

But, when we got the official diagnosis I took to the internet like I do morning, noon, and night and set out to find a solution. I often think that I should have been born in another place and time – somewhere with corsets, or where women still cook in beautiful frilly aprons, or when men stood up when you left the table and carried hankerchiefs to blot your tears – but without google I would be lost, or at least own millions of dollars worth of encyclopedias.

After putting in what seemed like endless hours in the middle of the night I came to a profound conclusion: we don’t need a solution.

Brooke can’t hear as well as other kids. There is no shame in it and no reason to be embarassed. I blanch when people tell me not to worry because she can cover her hearing aids with her hair. Why should she have to hide them? She did nothing wrong and it isn’t a punishment for bad behavior. In the scheme of her life her hearing loss will be but a minor setback.

This idea did come partially from my reaching the acceptance level of the grief scale, but it mostly came about when I learned that hearing impaired children do every one of the things I mentioned above, and more.

She will be able to sing and dance her little heart out – all the way to professional ballet companies or to record labels as others with her impairment have done. She can play any sport, tell any story without missing a beat, and hear every single word that I mutter to her under my breath in her tween-age years. I am certain that there will be days that she will cry and not want to wear her hearing aids. I’m sure that some kid, somewhere, will pick on her. And I’m also quite convinced that my most important job as a parent is to teach her to handle herself with grace and confidence in those situations and to understand that we all have our crosses to bear.

So, here in the Park house we are embracing her hearing aids, not hiding them. In fact, I’m honestly a little sad that she needs a pilot cap or headband to keep the things on until her ears get bigger than the pixie lobes she currently sports. In my ideal world we would go out everywhere proudly displaying her thousands of dollars of hearing helpers and we would educate people all over.

Hearing loss is the most common birth defect in the world. Did you know that? I had no idea, but it’s true. Maybe if we weren’t all so preoccupied with hiding things behind hair then kids would be more willing to embrace differences like that. So, we ordered them in bright metallic pink, with hot pink ear molds. 99% of her wardrobe is pink right now anyway, so it is a perfect match. And yes, in the time of neutral being trendy we are rallying against the baby fashion movement and proudly dressing her like the girl she is, partially because I like being feminine, and partially so I don’t have to smile and roll my eyes when the little old ladies in Target tell me how handsome my chubby baby boy is.

I now look forward to every morning when I pop her hearing aids in and tell her how much I love her because I get to watch her eyes light up and her mouth curl into the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, and I dread every bedtime because I have to take them out and turn the volume down on the world again.

My daughter may not be perfect, but I guess that beautiful, smart, funny, and kind will just have to be good enough.

Month Three

2011-04-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a few days late at this, but it's amazing how time gets away from you with a little one!

This month showed signs of promise and hope - hope that I will survive, hope that Brooke will be able to cast out the demons, and hope that I won't have a voluntary hysterectomy to avoid any possibility of doing this again.

The past few days have given me glimpses of why people do this more than once as Brooke has made it through the majority of the day without having a single meltdown. We still have our bad days where I want to walk out into traffic, but as a whole I am starting to enjoy being a mother.

Yes, that sounds horrible, especially for someone who longed for so many months to do just this, but I'm afraid that infertility actually made it harder for me to cope with the difficult times. While we were infertile I had dreams of dressing my tiny little baby doll up while she gazed at me with loving eyes. I envisioned her cooing up at me in adoration, and squealing in delight at that thousands of dollars of toys we've purchased for her. The reality is so far from that and I suffered from a bitch slap of true life when we were a full 180 degrees from those fantasies.

As far as development goes she is doing just fine. She has rolled over on several occasions, although she has yet to do so with full intent. She loves to munch on her fingers, and grab her toes. She chatters for hours at a time, and now has clear favorites when it comes to toys - a red monkey in a hula skirt, a giraffe with blue feet, and a yellow worm with antenna. Infant toy designers are not very zoologically intelligent.

She does suffer from torticollis, which you can see from the pictures. Her head leans to the right because the ligaments are tighter on that side - probably from being crammed up in the womb that direction. We are doing daily stretches with her, and if it is not better by month four we will start physical therapy. Her doctor assures me (and my research confirms) that not only is that pretty common, but she also doesn't have a horrible case of it.

We also have the added excitement of getting her hearing aids today! I cannot wait to see her face when we turn them on as her hearing loss is something I have mostly made peace with. As a women with a hearing impaired child told me recently, "All children get picked on at some point for some thing and I know that his thing will be hearing aids." All we can do now is raise a strong and confident girl who looks at them (anyone who would dare to tease her) sweetly and tells them to shove it.

Oh, and in the information that only a grandma could care about she weighs 13 pounds and six ounces (a full two pounds heavier than one month ago) and is approx 24.5 inches long. She's a big one for sure, probably because she likes to eat ALL THE TIME. She naps four times during the day for 30 minutes at a time, but only in my arms so I don't get much done during nap time. She also goes to bed at 7pm and wakes at 7am, with four or five rousing fits along the way. I do wish she slept better, but I suppose we will get there in time. The fits can't be too bad anyway because Corey manages to sleep through the vast majority of them.

And speaking of the rest of the family, Corey managed to convince me he needed new golf clubs this month, so here is a picture of his new Cleveland's. I have no idea if they are diamond encrusted, which only seems likely given the price, but they supposedly make him hit like a pro so I succumbed.

And Sprocket has managed to find a way to meditate through Brooke's screams. You can almost hear him thinking, "I'm still an only child. I'm still an only child..."

I thought these things were made of Sugar and Spice?

2011-03-09T10:21:00.001-08:00

The last month has absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, been the hardest month of my life.

When you leave the hospital with a baby you have already heard at least a dozen warnings about shaken baby syndrome. You dutifully nod your head, roll your eyes at your significant other, and tell the nurses that you have many people to call if you feel that you're in danger of shaking your baby. And then they leave the room and you talk about what kind of awful people want to shake their precious bundles of joy.

And then two weeks later you realize that it's normal people just like you who are treating their babies like Polaroid pictures just to get them to shut their pie-holes for long enough for you to brush your teeth for the first time in a day and a half.

Brooke has colic. And some of you are thinking, "Don't be dramatic. Babies cry. It's what they do." When I say Brooke has colic I don't mean that Brooke cries. Brooke screams.

If you want to know what Brooke sounds like here's what you do: Go to your stove and turn the front burner on high. Wait four minutes for either the coils to get nice and orange, or for the flame to burn bright blue. Then, dip your left hand in whiskey and hold it over the flame or press it to the burner and keep it there for a full minute.

That noise you just made is about half of the decibel level of what Brooke can manage, even though she's less than twelve pounds. She does this for around six hours every day, give or take a few seconds.

Brooke screams when she has a dirty diaper, and when she has a clean diaper. She screams when she's hungry and when she's full. The only time she doesn't scream is when other people who have heard the stories of terror come to visit. Then she pretends to be the sweetest baby on the face of the planet.

We have been to multiple doctors for her screaming, and she always sits on their papered table, drooling and smiling her gummy smile, and they tell us that she will grow out of it.

We don't know whether or not her hearing situation has any effect on her disposition, but last Friday we took her to one of the top pediatric hospitals in the country, which thankfully is only forty miles from us (Phoenix metro is huge), and they were able to run a barrage of tests on her which told us that she does have hearing loss. In her right ear it is mild to moderate and in her left ear it is moderate. We also found out that it is sensorineural which means that it is not fixable and it is permanent.

This doesn't sound too bad, and I am well aware of the fact that it could be much worse, but unfortunately voices are on the very low end of the sound spectrum, and without intervention her speech would be hugely effected.

Of course, we are getting her hearing aids as soon as possible (hopefully in the next two weeks) and we will be starting with the Arizona Early Intervention program to make sure that speech therapists, social patient coordinators, and audiologists are all at our disposal.

Until then, Corey and I are doing our best to come to grips with the fact that life will be a little harder for our little girl, and if she doesn't learn to stop screaming she's never going to have a boyfriend.

Since we have no known history of hearing loss in our families, we also have to undergo genetic testing as well as EKGs, thyroid testing, and kidney testing to make sure that her condition isn't a part of something much bigger and more dangerous, so please cross your fingers that hearing loss is the only problem she has! We also hope to find out if it is progressive, although we probably won't know that until we do hearing tests every few months and see if it is getting worse.

On much happier notes, her two month visit with the pediatrician went swimmingly. We had to switch from our much-beloved off-base doctor to one on-base and we were terrified due to some bad visits I've had. However, her new doctor is amazing and really took the time to listen to our questions (I always have many) and concerns (yeah, I have those too).

She was 11 lb 6 oz which is the 84th percentile, and 22 and 3/4 inches long which is the 85th percentile. She does like to eat!! We are hopeful that her height comes from my side of the family, but we know that little else does because she is an exact replica of her Daddy right down to the beautiful baby blues that she has kept so far.

She did get her shots, which after hours upon hours of research we decided to do on the normal schedule, and she hated them very much (but not as much as Corey hated seeing her get them).

Her neck strength is a little behind due to the fact that she doesn't do much during tummy time other than scream (see a pattern?), but he doesn't see anything developmentally wrong which is a good thing when we're keeping our eyes open for any other problems which could indicate a systemic syndrome.

I'm struggling to think of anything else to post because I know that her Grandmas will read this and everyone knows that Grandmas find everything their grandchildren do incredibly entertaining, but the reality is that she's two months old and two month olds don't do a whole lot.

Hopefully my three month update will be filled with happy tales of playtime, hours in the Bumbo, and sweet, sweet, silent serenity. Or at least a story of me changing out of pajamas before 3pm.

The cone of silence

2011-02-15T11:49:00.001-08:00

If I said that I haven't blogged often because I have a newborn, most of you would understand. If I mentioned that said newborn has colic, all of you would understand. And although I am busy tending to her needs 99% of the time, I have also been avoiding blogging because there is one particular thing on my mind and I want to be very careful how I write about it, because as we all know: once something is on the Internet, it is always there.

Brooke is hearing impaired.

At this point we don't know if she's profoundly deaf or if she just has moderate hearing loss. We don't know if it is conductive or sensorineural, neither of which mean a whole lot to people who don't have hearing problems. But, the fact remains that we have taken seven hearing tests and she has failed all seven. She has been seen by an audiology tech, a pediatrician, a otolaryngologist, and finally an audiologist, and all of them gently place probes in her tiny ears, press some buttons, and look at us with a soft smile and shake of their heads.

When she first failed her newborn screening in the hospital we were sure it was just residual fluid in her ears due to the fact that I was only pushing for a few minutes. When she failed again the next day we were a touch more concerned, but thought that the fluid must just need a little more time to dry up. By the time she failed numbers three through seven we progressed to somewhere between horrified and quiet acceptance, and that is where I remain.

The pediatrician says that she is healthy. She was never jaundiced despite exclusive breastfeeding, she is gaining weight like a champ, and there is absolutely no way that anything is wrong with her very powerful lungs. But the fact remains that my little girl may never hear me tell her that I love her and that breaks my heart.

We are hopeful that no matter what the extent of her hearing damage that there will be at least something to work with - even if she has as little as ten percent hearing capabilities they can amplify it with hearing aids and she may be a candidate for cochlear implants later in life. And hearing aids have progressed far beyond the huge, tan-colored appendages that we all used to see on our grandpas. They can even fit them on a child as young as one month old.

But despite the hope that I have been given through my late-night research, I still can't help but cry thinking about the possible hardships my baby will have to go through. Will she learn to speak the same time as other babies? Will she learn to speak at all? Will she get teased in school, or will she have to go to a special school for deaf children? Will she ever hear the lullabies I sing softly to her despite knowing that she probably can't hear me? And will she be able to dance to the first song at her wedding?

I wonder what I may have done (or not done) during my pregnancy to result in her hearing loss. We have no family history, and I had no infections during her incubation time, so did I forget to take my prenatal vitamin on the day her ear canals were forming? Did I listen to music too loudly in the car on the way to obstetrical appointments? Did I not pray enough? And why are the babies born to the idiots on "Sixteen and Pregnant" just fine and my poor baby has to suffer? It is easy to tell other people that God isn't vengeful and He does not punish until you are in a situation where you feel that He is punishing someone you love for something that you did. Or maybe He just doesn't care.

I am so thankful that my husband is here with me to go through the same thing I am and although our emotional journey isn't exactly the same he is the only person that knows exactly what I am feeling when I look at our little miracle. He reassures me when I need it, and holds me at three in the morning when I am crying even though he has to get up for work in two hours and she has already kept us up half the night.

I would gladly give my eyes, ears, hands and legs to save Brooke from suffering for one minute from this condition but unfortunately there is no bartering system for God or the senses. All I can do at this point is wait, research, and continue to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at night in her glider while the optimist inside me defies her not to hear it.

Month One

2011-02-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

Month one is hard! People don't tell you it's hard because they want to seem tough, or they don't want to complain, or maybe just because their babies are sweet and quiet. I'm not sure the reason, but we spent so much time and energy focusing on getting pregnant and staying pregnant that we thought the easy part would come when she actually got here safely. How wrong we were!

Brooke was an angel for the first two weeks. She rarely cried, and only then when she needed to be changed or held for a minute. At two weeks she started showing us how impressive her lung functions are and began screaming for hours at a time. I had no idea that babies did this, and I thought something was horribly wrong with her. After some convincing from Corey, my mom, nurses we know, and the pediatrician I resigned myself to the fact that we were the lucky 1 in 5 who gets experience with Colic.

The past few days have been a little better due to some changes in breastfeeding tactics (I make more milk than the little thing can handle, which makes me feel like an upright dairy cow) and the fact that gripe water helps her tiny belly get rid of some gas, but the past few weeks have been rough. So rough, in fact, that her daddy has declared her to be an only child already.

She has started making new noises to add to her collection of barnyard sounds, and I swear that every now and then her smile is more than gas. She still hates baths, but she loves being wrapped up in her hooded towel afterwards. She doesn't like bottles or pacifiers, which means that I am on duty 24-7, but since we are absolutely dedicated to breastfeeding that is better than the alternative. By her two week appointment she had gained one full pound and nine ounces from her going-home weight, and she's now around ten pounds according to our home scale. I still have ten pounds to go to get back to pre-baby weight, but unfortunately it is easier to put weight on a baby than it is to take weight off a mom.

She is a good sleeper at night and comes down from her evening colic episode around 7pm and sleeps the rest of the evening with breaks to eat. Like clockwork every morning between 5 and 6 she starts making horrible grunting noises that sound as if she's perfecting a sea lioness mating call so we are awake from then on, but I am still thankful for the 2.5 hours of sleep at a time.

She lives in the Ergo carrier, which is my favorite thing on earth right now when I can't get her to calm down, and naps in her Rock N Play sleeper downstairs. She loves her daddy and his voice and she hates her carseat and cloth diapers. We are still committed to the cloth diaper cause, but it has not been as easy as we'd hoped due to the fact that she eats a billion times a day and therefore pees and poops more than a normal baby. At one point we went through six cloth diapers in a four hour span, so we're still experimenting with them.

I wish there was more to write, but honestly she's just a big lump right now. Albeit an adorable, blue-eyed, angel faced lump, but a lump nonetheless. Although we have been warned against it, we are looking forward to the time where she can tell us what is wrong with her.

And, just so no one accuses me of being one of those people that can't talk about anything but her baby we did do something else exciting this week: we booked a cruise. During one of Brooke's freak-outs Corey happened to get an email about cruise deals. He generally asks me about twice a week if we can go on another cruise, but he must have been determined this time because he actually started asking me with dates in mind. I didn't have the heart to tell him no because I honestly thought he might jump off of a bridge at that point in time, so I relented. We are now going on a belated anniversary cruise in May of 2012 to Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. Our great friends Brandon and Kim are going with us for their first trip away from their son so I know that we are all going to have a blast. And this way we have something to look forward to on nights where the girl gets all situated for bed and then craps all over us while we're singing her a nighttime lullaby (just a little anecdote about last night).

And finally, some pictures. As soon as she is in better spirits we will have some professional ones done.

Brooke's birth story

2011-01-11T16:01:00.001-08:00

Brooke, Daddy and Sprocket are all napping so I finally have a minute to put our birth story down in writing [typing].

We went in to the doctor on the 30th, which was right at 40 weeks, and there was no further progress so our fabulous doc set us up with an induction date of the 3rd. When I heard that my heart immediately stopped beating and I thought to myself, "What have we done? I know nothing about babies. Let's keep her in there!!"

Early in the morning of the 3rd I lost my mucous plug and contractions started, so I was hopeful that we wouldn't have to do an induction at all and she would be coming naturally. I labored at home all day and although the contractions got to ten minutes apart they never got stronger or closer, so at 11pm we headed to the hospital.

By the time we got there my contractions were stronger and three minutes apart, so they didn't give me the pitocin as originally planned. I labored throughout the night, but by early morning I still wasn't progressing so they hooked me up and away we went!!

From 7am to noon I had strong contractions but they kept checking me and I hadn't progressed past 1cm dilated. They concluded that the scarring was preventing me from dilating so they upped the pitocin hoping that the stronger contractions would break things loose. Unfortunately, the contractions got much stronger but the only result was that no one could 'find' my cervix. Each nurse called someone else in to check, but after a parade of medical professionals they said that my water was bulging and my cervix was just too thin to measure. They called my doctor in and he broke my water and announced, "There - now she's 5 centimeters!"

By then I was exhausted and in extreme amounts of pain so I was beyond thrilled that the anesthesiologist was there waiting to give me an epidural. I didn't necessarily plan to have drugs, but after 24 hours of contractions I was ready for some relief! Corey was absolutely amazing during this time - he held my hand, talked to me during each contraction, and fed me ice chips. I wouldn't have been able to do it without him there.

My parents had arrived during this time and the nurse announced that I was 9cm so we were getting close to showtime. I was so relieved that it was tangible! Right away my doctor came in and explained that we were going to be pushing. While I was excited to get her out I had a small problem - not only did the epidural give me pain relief, I also could not feel ANYTHING. I couldn't feel my legs, move my toes, or even imagine how I was going to push. But, no one seemed to care.

They gave Corey one leg and my mother the other one and told me to push. All I could do was pretend I was doing pilates and apparently that is the same group of muscles because everyone announced that I was doing fabulously! The pushing phase didn't last long at all - maybe twenty minutes, and then my doc announced that it was time to get the baby out. I wasn't sure if something was wrong with her or if she was just that close, but either way I knew I had to push harder than I had before.

To Corey's horror the doctor started putting on galoshes, laying down paint plastic, and donning some kind of crazy parka. We thought he was joking around until he said, "It's going to look like a crime scene in here!"

Before I knew it I was pushing, and there was this enormous feeling of relief. Out she came!!

The rest was really a whirlwind - Corey cut the cord and they placed her on my chest. I remember thinking she was huge before they tore her away from me and the doctor started the stitching - and stitch he did. I had a third degree tear - and yes that hurts as bad as it sounds - and the sewing took much longer than the pushing part of labor. I felt like he was going to be down there forever and I was incredibly relieved that I'd had the epidural because I couldn't bear the thought of feeling the needle at that point.

She was wonderful and healthy with 9s on her Apgar, and Corey didn't leave her side from the second that she came out.

When they handed her back to me to breastfeed she looked right at me with huge dark blue eyes and my head spun. Had this little person really come out of me? Is she really part of me? These thoughts still haven't stopped flying through my head a week later.

Recovery has been a lot more painful than I expected, probably because of the tear, but also because Friday night I had to return to the hospital because of an infection and a bowel obstruction.

Honestly, my hormones have been running like crazy and I love kissing her and holding her, but I also alternate between those and moments where I am completely overwhelmed and scared about being completely in charge of this little life. She is so beautiful and trusting and I want nothing more than to make her life perfect in every way.

Corey is the most amazing dad I could ever imagine - watching him watching her sets my heart on fire every day.

This is such a poor version of the events, but it really is impossible to even put into words everything that happened a week ago. It feels like it has flown by, but each hour also has its own challenges and learning opportunities. Sometimes she eats well and sleeps well, and sometimes I have no idea why her head is spinning around in circles.

The exhaustion isn't really anything new for me, but Corey is having a bit of an adjustment period. Luckily, she does nap a lot so I can park it on the couch and try to recover if he needs to nap or sleep in.

Speaking of which, Daddy is napping and Brooke is hungry so motherhood calls. Wish me luck!

Brooke Marie

2011-01-08T16:35:00.000-08:00

She arrived in dramatic fashion on Jan. 4th. 7 pounds, 11 ounces and 20 inches long.

Will give the whole story soon!

Christmas Eve Eve and 39 week update

2010-12-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

In taking a break from wrapping presents, readying guest rooms, and cleaning the house I figured I would post a short update since I probably won't get a chance for the next few days.

Today's doctor appointment was uneventful and nothing has changed so I'll save the little questionnaire for another time. Baby girl Park is still sitting on my bladder and I am still only one centimeter dilated. If she hasn't come by Thursday of next week I'll go in for a 40 week check up and we will set an induction date.

Since we know our exact date of conception (another hidden bonus of infertility) they are quicker to do an induction because we know she's getting overbaked. I don't want a toasty daughter!

Her fits are getting stronger and I doubt she's any more comfortable than I am, but I am not anxious to spend Christmas Day in the hospital so I hope she hangs on through the weekend and then we'll start trying to do enough jumping jacks to jar her loose!

We wish we could be with both of our families for the holidays, but we are blessed that my parents will be travelling down to us this Christmas and that my little brother will be trekking across the valley to join in. Although I know it is nothing like what next Christmas will look like with the entire Toys R Us toy department under the tree, our family room is currently decked out with quite the pile of gifts and a huge, pink ornament adorned tree (in honor of she who has yet to be named (publicly)).

My southern husband misses his white Christmases and I assume we will resume our normal journey to the White Mountains next year where Sprocket and his little sister can be properly spoiled before they are sent out to frolic in the white powder together. I am terrified about the prospect of being a mother, but certain that there will be a million moments in the next year that will make the struggles of the last two years worth it.

We wish every one of you reading this a very blessed Christmas, and we hope that the new year is warm and full of even more gifts than this year was.

38 week baby update

2010-12-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

How far along? 38 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 27 pounds. Back up a pound, which meant back up to the 150s. I am not excited about this at all and was hoping to finish this thing in the 140s, but it wasn't meant to be.

Maternity Clothes? That, or the double hair elastic on the waistbands of my jeans.

Stretch Marks? Still the one yucky one. I'm sure I'll get more in the next two weeks though because I don't think anything can stretch much further without serious repercussions.

Sleep? None. I don't mean to be a complainer because I am beyond overjoyed that she is still in there getting ready for her big day, but this has been the hardest part. I'm up all night long running to the bathroom and my stupid bladder is constantly in spasms. I am definitely looking forward to her not being planted right on my organs.

Best Moment This Week? Hmmm...Getting all of the out of town presents mailed off and the cards sent. I still have a few gifts to pick up for Corey and we still have my Dad's gifts to choose, but other than that I'm done.

Movement? Much less again. Doc says she's doing fine, and I can usually stir her up with a lot of ice water and some jiggling, but she's lazy.

Food Cravings? I ate some popcorn this week and it tasted good. I don't think it counts as a craving, but at least I kept it down! :)

Gender? Girl, girl, girl.

Labor signs? No additional dilation this week and the Dr. says he doesn't think I'm going to go too far ahead of my due date. He also acknowledges that there is no way for him to know this, but I'll take his word. Looks like we'll make it through Christmas.

Belly Button? Still an innie. A bruised looking, scarred, stretched out innie, but an innie nonetheless.

What I Miss? Sleep, hot baths, not waddling, and not seeing looks of pity plastered on strangers' faces whenever I go somewhere.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Meeting her. Pretty much everything else is in a stand-still.

Weekly Wisdom? Don't get pregnant in April. This Christmas stuff is hard work when you're a hot air balloon.

Milestones? I don't know that we really have many milestones left, but each day is a blessing! A big, fat, uncomfortable blessing, but a blessing nonetheless! :)

The season of giving

2010-12-13T11:33:00.001-08:00

If you know me, or have followed me for any length of time you know that the boy and I do our best to recognize how blessed we are, especially compared to others. Of course, just like everyone else, we take a lot of things for granted and specifically during Christmas we find it very easy to get caught up in gift buying, spending, decking the halls, and everything else that comes so naturally to those with privilege.

For the past three years we have put together boxes for Operation Christmas Child and we have adopted a family in our community (or in our state at least) for Christmas. Unfortunately, we have had terrible luck with adopting a family and every year we were left feeling very disenchanted with the experience, so this year we decided that we would opt out of it and add to our prayers that God would present a different opportunity for us to help someone.

Almost immediately we found out that not only would our church be a designated Operation Christmas Child location, but also that Christian Family Services had many foster children in the area that were in need of presents for Christmas. It is a strange mix of feelings that comes with this because we are excited to be able to help, but it is hard knowing that there are so many in need.

We make it a tradition to each pack a box for a child, and this year we thought that even though the baby is not quite here yet she should also have a box sent in her name. So, we packed up our usual boxes and then headed to the church to volunteer on the collections end.

While we were there we met an amazing woman who has been part of the Samaritan's Purse organization for years and we got to talking about what a welcome gift these boxes really are. She has gone out on distribution missions to give the boxes to children in Belize, China, Canada, and Africa and told us that these were literally the first gifts many of the children had been given. Not the first Christmas gifts, the first gifts, period. Can you imagine having never been given a present in your life?

She also reiterated something that my darling husband had already thought of and something that hadn't really occurred to me at all: the younger age groups get many more boxes packed for them than the older ones. I often get caught up in buying cute little girl toys and outfits, so I saw Corey's eyes light up a bit when she mentioned that the oldest boy group (ages 10-14) often has a lot of children that are forced to be men because they are the head of household. I knew that we would be packing another box, and sure enough we headed straight to the store to pack a box that we hope will end up with the right boy. Corey filled it to the brim with tools: a hammer, screwdrivers, wrenches and a bunch of other boy things that I never would have thought of.

When we got home he spent another hour trying to wedge all his findings into the small shoebox - something that could have only happened with divine intervention because there must have been twenty pounds of items crammed in there. And so, the members of our little family of *almost* four each sent a shoebox to Asia this year, praying that each will end up with a child who has been hoping for its exact contents.

We also were lucky to have chosen two local foster children to adopt, a one-year-old girl, and a sixteen year-old (again, thanks to my thoughtful husband who noticed that the older children's names were not being chosen) and we had a wonderful time shopping for them. And thanks to some ninja shopping skills we were able to score quite a bit of stuff for each of them while only going over the spending limit slightly! I only wish we could be there with them on Christmas to see their faces!

I'm sorry that this post isn't written very well - reading back I realize that it's all over the place - but it was important to me to share how thankful we are that we had two amazing chances to be part of a bigger picture this year. We were both concerned that with everything else going on in our lives (any day now people) we wouldn't be able to participate as much and instead we were blessed with new opportunities.

Sometimes getting what you ask for isn't a bad thing at all.

37 week baby update

2010-12-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

How far along? 37 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 26 pounds. It's not much, but the half pound I lost this week made me incredibly happy! I'd love it if this was my fighting weight for the next three weeks!

Maternity Clothes? No change in this.

Stretch Marks? Yep - the one I thought I had last week is for sure a stretch mark. It's not a sweet little pink stretch mark either - it's one of those heinous ones that is on steroids. I can't wait to laser it off!

Sleep? The Beagador had issues this week, so when I wasn't up with the baby I was up with him. Luckily, he is on the mend so at least my boys are getting sleep.

Best Moment This Week? We reached full term! I cannot believe it - I'm excited for her to get here, but so nervous to get everything ready. Realistically, I will never ever be ready for her.

Movement? Much less this week. No reason to worry - we can still wake her up with a story from daddy or some ice water. She's just out of room.

Food Cravings? Still no appetite. I have to admit, I'm convinced that most pregnant women use the baby as an excuse to eat crazy things that they would have craved without being pregnant. We all crave certain foods, but I have not experienced ANY of those, "It's 2am and I just gotta have ice cream" kind of feelings.

Gender? Girl, girl, girl.

Labor signs? Not much new since last week. Today's check up didn't show much progress - still only one centimeter dilated, although he said I'm almost completely (90% or so) effaced.

Belly Button? Still an innie. A bruised looking, scarred, stretched out innie, but an innie nonetheless.

What I Miss? Laying on my stomach and super hot baths.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Decorating for Christmas this weekend, and getting the rest of the baby stuff done. Every time I think I've purchased everything I come up with another list of a dozen things. I have no idea how people afford babies without major planning!

Weekly Wisdom? Before you have a baby take what you think you'll spend getting ready for him/her and then triple it. Pretty much the same rules as vacation.

Milestones? Reaching full term is a pretty cool milestone if you ask me. Granted, I probably have another three weeks left, but I'm excited about her getting to this point. The Peanut is a rock star!

Nursery pics

2010-12-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

I've been saying I would take some pictures of the nursery when it is completed, but I don't think it's EVER going to be completed so I'll show you the work in progress. And if you're thinking to yourself, "You don't have much time..." Yes, you're right. And we know. But I'm in denial.

Her lovely swing. If a girlier baby item exists I am unaware of it - this thing projects little pink butterflies on the canopy for goodness sake.

The tree needs something so it doesn't look quite so foreboding, but Corey doesn't like the flowers I picked so we're still on the hunt.

Our insanely comfortable Dutailier glider (Thanks Mom and Dad!). I anticipate many sleepless nights spent in this thing. This was also the ONE thing that Corey picked out. We tried thirteen million of them, but he put his foot down and said we were getting Dutailier. My husband has expensive tastes.

We hired a wonderful little graphic designer from etsy to do her wall art - the middle one is missing because it has the baby's name on it and that is still top secret.

It may or may not contain this letter. And these wall letters may or may not be on one wall of the nursery.

And although this is the least feminine article in the baby arsenal, this is the world famous Fisher Price Rainforest Bouncer, widely regarded as the most wonderful bouncer in the world. It is also harder to get one of these than it is to get on the Birkin waiting list so I am insanely proud of the skills I used to procure this.

It is truly a miracle not only that I took these pictures, but also that I managed to upload them. Our new camera is wonderful, amazing, and harder to understand than the Honduran taxi cab driver with a lisp that we had on vacation this year. I spent the last twenty minutes pressing random buttons and hoping that they worked.

Corey swears he will learn how to use it before the baby comes, so I'm hoping he really does! Oh, and thanks again Mom and Dad!!

Still to do: Finish the tree (as noted above - any ideas welcome!), sew the crib skirt, curtains and her monkey quilt, finish washing the cloth diapers (quite the endeavor) pack the hospital bags, get the car seats inspected, oh and I still need to come to grips with the idea that we will be bringing home a baby this month. A tall order to be sure.

Wish us luck!

36 week baby update

2010-12-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

How far along? 36 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 26.5 pounds. The weight loss wasn't meant to be a streak. This up and down thing seems to be a pattern, so I'm hoping that I won't have put much on at the next appointment. I don't have any room in there to eat, so I guess as long as my jeans keep fitting the same I'm not going to stress too much...

Maternity Clothes? Ugh. Just ugh.

Stretch Marks? I think I have one. It looks weird, and we thought it was a vein because it's blue, but it won't go away. Such a tragedy.

Sleep? Who needs it?

Best Moment This Week? Being one week away from full term! It's unbelievable really. We're dilated 1cm and 70% effaced, so I'm happy about that. The closer I can be to a normal pregnant woman, the better.

Movement? She rolls around and is searching for the exit on a regular basis.

Food Cravings? I wanted some peanut butter M&Ms the other day, but they were out. I have a feeling it was divine intervention!

Gender? As our house turns decidedly more pink I hope she's still a girl.

Labor signs? My contractions are getting more and more painful and more frequent, so I spent a week on bedrest. Since we're getting so close to due date though I don't think they're too concerned even if she comes today, so I've been given sweet freedom. Not that I have much energy to do anything though.

Belly Button? Only because of the unfathomable depths of my belly button is it still an innie. I just don't think that thing could pop out no matter how many babies were in there.

What I Miss? Eating or drinking anything without getting nauseous. I think this is what it feels like to have a lap band, and I feel awful for those people. A thimble of water? Half an egg? It's crazy!

What I Am Looking Forward To? The rest of the cloth diapers coming in today. I think that's the last thing on our to-buy list.

Weekly Wisdom? The last few weeks fly by so do everything early! I don't even have the bag packed yet! Yikes.

Milestones? Nothing really - but this is the last week that she would be considered premature. Hallelujah!

Day twelve and Thanksgiving recap

2010-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

Day Twelve is assigned to be a post about what I believe and because it doesn't get any more specific than that I'm sure I could go on and on, but I will try to keep things simplistic.

I believe in God, and that Jesus was sent to Earth to die for our sins. I don't believe that there is a 'right' way to be religious or spiritual, meaning that I don't think that those who don't go to church, or someone who calls God a different name, or people who don't take communion are all destined to hell. I think being a good person is much more important that what religion you consider yourself.

I believe that my husband is the most fundamentally good person I have ever met. He will always do the right thing, even when no one is looking and when no one will know that he did it.

I believe that common courtesy is vastly underrated and underutilized (or maybe not even known anymore). A few weeks ago a woman at the grocery store rammed right into my huge belly with her cart, looked at me, and kept walking. Rudeness like this happens more and more frequently to me lately, so I try to appreciate the words, "Excuse me," and things like thank you notes, kind words, and apologies even more than before.

I believe that Sprocket will be the Peanut's guardian angel.

I believe that my parents will spoil the Peanut to within an inch of turning her into a rotten Princess. I will, however, put peas under her mattress just to keep her balanced.

I believe that we each have a responsibility to leave the world a better place every day. That sounds prophetic, but it can be something as simple as a smile given to a stranger or a door held open for a frantic mother. Along these lines, Christmas makes me even more aware of this and my next post will be about the amazing time we had over the past two weeks doing our annual Christmas giving.

And I believe that 99% of what my mother told me growing up was accurate. Prior to age 20 I believed that about 10% of it was legit, so I also believe that the Peanut will bring me my karmic retribution and not listen to anything I say.

As for Thanksgiving, it was stressful but lovely. We hosted for the first time and my Dad decided to barbecue the turkey although he really had no game plan as to how to go about doing so. My mom donned her superwoman cape and swept in, taking over or helping with everything and Corey drove around town all night Wednesday trying to find a stone fire pit so that we could sit out in the backyard and enjoy the (cold) weather.

I wish I had taken a picture of our table because it was the first time we have taken out our antique wedding china, crystal and gold flatware all at the same time and it really was breathtaking. Not only that, not a single item was broken!

And speaking of pictures, I will try to post some pretty ones over the next few weeks as I attempt to learn the ropes on our new Canon Rebel. My parents gave us the early Christmas present so that we could figure it out prior to the baby making her big appearance, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't horribly overwhelmed. Different lenses, flash settings, auto optimization and even an integrated self-cleaning system - whew!

And we may need the camera sooner rather than later as my contractions have kicked up a notch in the past few days. Nothing that I'm running to the hospital for yet, but they're definitely getting stronger and more often, so we will find out on Friday if there's any progress or if we really still have in the neighborhood of 33 days before the princess emerges.

Until then my husband has put me on his own version of modified bed rest which is comprised of yelling at me when I so much as roll over, so if there's anything we can do to keep her cooking for another little while I'm sure we will do it.

P.S. Thanks for your opinions but...

2010-11-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

you can keep them to yourself.

Seriously, I am proud and thankful to have friends and acquaintances who have such strongly held beliefs that they feel they need to preach about them. But, the bottom line is that we will be cloth diapering, breastfeeding, vaccinating, and giving birth in a hospital.

I get that you want/had a homebirth, don't take your kids to doctors, think cloth diapering is a pain in the butt, and grew up on formula and turned out absolutely fine (so did I), but I don't care.

Please rest assured that I have spent the past eight plus months doing research on each of these options (and many, many more) and we are very comfortable with our decisions. A Ricky Lake documentary is not going to change my mind, and neither is your eye-rolling. And, if you tell me again that I'll wish I'd listened to you once I have the baby I will delete you from my facebook, ignore your text messages, and stop sending you our glorious and glittery Christmas cards.

That is all.

Day Eleven and Thanksgiving Eve

2010-11-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Today's blog challenge asks me to list my favorite TV shows, and that's a bit of a tough one. I have the TV or radio on a lot at home because I love ambient noise, but I really don't care much what is on. Generally it's the Food Network or the Cooking Channel, but when the boy is home he throws a fit over that stuff so it changes to whatever is on HBO. I do love Jeopardy and am convinced that Peanut will be smarter because we watch it, and I also love CNBC shows about money because it baffles me how people can be so stupid economically. We also watch Boardwalk Empire and the funny shows on Wednesday night - Modern Family, The Middle, and Cougartown.

As for Thanksgiving - it has already been dramatic and hasn't' even happened yet. My parents had planned on coming down to our place, which NEVER happens because they hate travelling during holidays. We hate it too, so this year we jumped on the chance to use my ginormous belly to our advantage and say that the holidays were here. Unfortunately, my Dad had some work emergencies come up this week and it didn't look like they were going to be able to make it after all, but last word at publishing time said that they were coming so we will see.

I'm struggling quite a bit, as I'm sure all pregnant women do, with balancing getting everything done and taking it easy for the little girl. I get a lot more contractions when I'm super busy so I know that's my cue to rest, but there is so much on my to-do list it is ridiculous. Especially with company coming there are beds to be made, food to cook, china to wash, and copious amounts of grocery shopping to be done and really all I want to do is lay in bed and watch the aforementioned programming.

I hope that when she gets here it becomes easier for me to ignore the messy kitchen and the spring cleaning and the meal planning because otherwise I'm going to be a walking zombie.

Apparently this motherhood thing doesn't come as naturally to me as it does to others.

My entire family wishes you and yours and fantastic Thanksgiving, and I hope you find time to think about what you're thankful for!

34 week baby update

2010-11-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

How far along? 34 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 23 pounds. I went down a pound this week which was welcome news, especially since we found out that she's quite the little chubster in there. As long as she's a good healthy weight I wouldn't mind losing ten more!

Maternity Clothes? They still suck. So does stretching out your normal clothes though, so many days I give in.

Stretch Marks? Nothing within my realm of visibility.

Sleep? Getting worse. I may actually sleep MORE once she gets here.

Best Moment This Week? Seeing her chubby little cheeks on the 3D/4D (what the hell is 4D?) ultrasound

Movement? She's completely out of room and readied herself for the great escape. As long as she doesn't scoot herself out of position we should be good to go.

Food Cravings? Food is gross. So is Thanksgiving.

Gender? Still has a vagina. I know because I saw it in 3D. We are pretty confident at this point that she is, in fact, a she.

Labor signs? Nope. Just a few Braxton Hicks here and there.

Belly Button? Still an innie. I'm watching it carefully though.

What I Miss? Taking a deep breath.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Getting her swing in.

Weekly Wisdom? Do everything early. You will run out of time and by then your hormones will not let you handle it like a rational being.

Milestones? We got the Miracle Blanket, the bouncer, the Ergo, the Boppy, the nursery vinyl and the coming home outfit all in. Just 50 or so things to buy and we're ready for her to get here!

Day Ten

2010-11-18T09:31:00.001-08:00

Today's post is supposed to be about something I'm afraid of. It could be the longest post in the history of blogging.

When I was younger - let's say anywhere from age five to age twenty-five, I wasn't scared of a whole lot. Okay, yes I was afraid that my porceline dolls would come to life and murder me (thanks Twilight Zone) and that aliens would beam me up, but that was about it. I enjoyed earthquakes when I lived in California. I collected bugs for a school science project. I jumped off of a bridge and out of a plane. I was tough.

Fast-forward a few years and I'm scared of everything. Traffic on the freeway - those people drive like maniacs - scorpions, ghosts, Corey dying on the way to work, bedbugs, asteroids colliding with Earth... I couldn't sleep a wink after we visited Tulum this year and listened to one old Mayan tell us how the world was in fact going to end in 2013.

A bigger challenge to me is going to be NOT passing these fears automatically down to the Peanut. If I scream every time I see a spider she's going to learn to be afraid of spiders and damned if I'm going to give her my neurosis without letting her develop her own (or in addition to her own).

So, the saying is, "If you can't make it, fake it," right? Well, I'll be faking tough for the next eighteen years or so.

Day Nine

2010-11-15T09:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm behind on this, but I will finish eventually. This one stumped me for a while because when we bought a new laptop I never transferred old files over to it from previous computers. That means that there are virtually no pictures of friends on this hard drive.

But, I do have one set of pictures from my best friend's graduation last year so at least it's something. I've been friends with Lex since 6th grade when I moved to the middle of nowhere. That makes it something like 17 years (which is insane!). She's running things out in the middle of the ocean right now as a Navy officer - we're all very proud of her and baby girl Park can't wait to meet her Auntie Lexi when she comes back!

32 week baby update

2010-11-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

How far along? 32 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 24 pounds - This is getting ridiculous! I'm blaming the four pound gain on the fact that this appointment was in the afternoon and all of my others are in the morning before I've had anything to eat or drink. That must be it!

Maternity Clothes? My feelings for these haven't changed, but I did buy my first ever pair of leggings last week. Not as bad as I thought.

Stretch Marks? Not that I know of. Of course, if she continues to gain two pounds a week I'll look like a zebra before this thing is over.

Sleep? Nunca, nil, zero, zilch.

Best Moment This Week? Finishing the artwork for her nursery. I can't show it to you because it has her name on it, and her name is TOP SECRET.

Movement? Less actually - her sleep cycles are very long. She goes crazy twice a day, and otherwise just chills in there.

Food Cravings? Still hate food. Nothing new.

Gender? We didn't verify this week, but she still feels like a girl to me.

Labor signs? Braxton Hicks, but nothing crazy.

Belly Button? Still an innie. I guess it's a good thing I had a deep belly button to start with.

What I Miss? Breathing through my nose.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Our birth and labor class tomorrow.

Weekly Wisdom? I no longer have any wisdom. The baby ate my last brain cell.

Milestones? Every day is a milestone. She has a 95% chance of survival if she came today - that's good news!

Day Eight - A place you've travelled to

2010-11-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

I've been very lucky to have travelled to some very cool places, so I decided to narrow this down to a place we have travelled to this year.

Looking back at my old posts, I did a horrible job covering the lovely places we visited while on our cruise in April. To be completely fair, I was right in the beginning throes of morning sickness, but it's really no excuse because we stopped in four of the most amazing cities/countries.

If I had to pick one favorite (and the boy agrees with me) it would be Isla Roatan, Honduras.

When we arrived it was almost impossible to see land from the ship because the humidity was as thick as pea soup. I think it was only 90 degrees, but with 98% humidity it was a little warm to say the least. We trudged down the road and out of the 'safe' area that the cruise ship had roped off so that you would spend your tourist money with them. I'm sure that cruise lines have the safety of their guests in mind, but we were not at all interested in seeing the tourist trap spots that they deemed acceptable, so we hired a private tour guide to take us around the island.

This was one of the best decisions we made on this trip, and if any of you are ever in Roatan please get the name of our guide from me because he was fantastic!

One of the drawbacks of finding out I was pregnant two days before leaving was that we had to rearrange some of our more dangerous plans, like scuba diving and zip-lining. Roatan is famous for jungle ziplines and I was excited for months to be speeding down the 300+ foot cables towering over the trees. The boy was not quite as disappointed that our plans got canceled though (I have my doubts about whether he could have launched himself off of the platform anyway).

We did a little research before leaving and found the information for an orphanage on the island and were able to talk to the directors before leaving so we had an idea of what the children were in need of. We made a little extra space in our luggage so we stuffed in toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant and Uno cards for the kids, and then we had our fantastic guide take us to a local grocery store to pick up some food.

It was so much fun filling up the cart with food that we knew the kids needed, and then we went over to the orphanage and got to meet some of them. A mixed bag of tragic and moving, we met some of the fourteen children that lived at the orphanage - better housing than they would have had otherwise for sure, but so sad to know that life isn't anywhere near fair and by no fault of their own these kids are sharing one big room and fighting over card games instead of playing Wii on their flat screen like so many children in the U.S. are doing right now.

Honduras does not grant international adoptions as a rule, so the only hope these children have is being adopted by a family member or a community member. Because of the extreme poverty on the island, realistically the best they can do is hope that the orphanage is able to consistently fund their bilingual education so that they can get a job in tourism and be able to take care of themselves when they reach their late teens.

After the orphanage our guide took us on a full tour of the island, from coast to coast. We felt like we were on the island of "LOST" and could rarely believe the contrast between the shack housing and the raw beauty of the land around it. And, as it usually is in places such as this, the class distinction was amazing. Normal houses:

Mayor's house:

We also went to a private 'petting zoo' that had lemurs, monkeys, and anteaters that you got to play with. The boy narrowly missed a poo incident with a lemur but the monkeys were amazing to play with - they especially liked my water bottle. I often think of my beagador as a little monkey and these guys did little to dispel that thought.

I wish we could have spent an entire week here, and maybe someday we will. Roatan has some of the best reef diving in the world so there are many diving resorts on the island. We often think about going back for a week, and drooled over the photos on their website just yesterday. I think it will be a little while before the peanut is travel-ready, but as soon as she is we can't wait to show her the world starting with beautiful, raw places like Roatan.

Day Seven

2010-10-29T16:29:00.001-07:00

A post about my favorite movies could realistically be four pages long, but I'll try to keep this to a minimum.

Ever After, Pride and Prejudice, and The Princess Bride - could watch the three of these over and over and over and never get tired of them. Sigh. So romantic.

Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club - The boy had never seen any of these before me. What the heck is wrong with him?

A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation - The boy and I watch Christmas Vacation while we're putting up the Christmas tree and again on Christmas Eve, and we watch Christmas story several times on Christmas Day. I love these holiday traditions!

I also watched Top Gun so many times in college that I actually burnt out the DVD, so no movie list would be complete without the sweetness that is Maverick vs. Iceman!

Thoughts and Day Six

2010-10-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

I love beautiful things. Of course I love things like diamonds and pearls and Cartier Christmas ornaments, but mostly I love beautiful things like framed pictures of family, flower pots on windowsills, and stacks of Halloween pumpkins just waiting to be carved.

I often blog-stalk with mouth agape, deeply envious and impressed by the creative abilities my distant acquaintances have. Some of them have massive amounts of money that allow them to peruse the Restoration Hardware seasonal catalog and place orders longer than my grocery list (and seriously, who does RH think they are - Louis Vuitton?). But some of them have an innate ability to walk into a Goodwill store with eight dollars and walk out with a piece of furniture that will look like it came from Pottery Barn.

I do not have this creative gene. Never have, never will. My mom can paint, and draw and sculpt, but she kept all of this to herself because the best I could do in art class was trace a comic and pretend I free handed it.

So, I am trying desperately (with the help of copying other's creativity) to make our house a beautiful place, but it is very slow going. I pick up things here and there, but I lack the ability to picture the items once they are in my house and often time they get to the place I intended them to be and they just don't fit.

Also, I have the energy of a thirty-five year old pack mule (is that old for a pack mule? I assume so.), but that is another thing altogether. If this supposed 'nesting' doesn't kick in the Peanut is going to throw a fit when we get her home from the hospital. I'm counting on this mythical stage to visit soon so I can finish her shopping, put together the rest of the nursery, and (cringe) finish unpacking because apparently getting the cardboard boxes out of my house in two months is just too much to ask.

And now, for the day six task. Pictures that make me smile:

Corey helped me with this project when he could see that I was about to go crazy from wedding related crap. I love how it turned out.

No offense to any of your canines, but it's pretty much a fact that Sprocket is the cutest thing on four legs.

My boys.

Our little miracle.

Day Five

2010-10-27T17:43:00.001-07:00

When I was three all I wanted was a little sister. We would play with dolls, stay up late and whisper secrets to each other in our makeshift bedroom fort.

When we went to the hospital to see my little sister I could hardly contain myself. And then there was this wriggly little creature with as much hair as a capuchin monkey. His name was Michael and my dreams were crushed.

I decided I would call him Hogwash instead.

He maintains that I tried to kill him several times during his first years of life but I disagree. I was just toughening him up for life.

Now I adore my baby brother and couldn't imagine life without him.

His intelligence often surprises me given the fact that he chooses to spend much of his time with his overgrown frat brothers discussing the merits and beer and women. His work ethic rivals a superhero - I've never seen him back down from a tough job. He's also incredibly supportive and no one else gets the welcome from Sprocket that Uncle Mikey gets when he pulls into the driveway. Often the Beagador tries to shove at least three gifts into his jaw for his favorite person, and he wriggles back and forth like a sidewinder.

I do look forward to the day when he finds a girl that will encourage him to wear ironed clothes and eat things with color, but regardless of his rampant bachelordom he is the perfect little brother.

Day Four

2010-10-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today's post is scheduled to be about my parents and the reason that I'm posting it a bit later than originally planned is that I couldn't find a picture of my parents in my computer. I asked my mom to send me one last week, but she's ignoring me so it would be only fair if I scrounged one up from Christmas morning without makeup. But, I'm sweet so I'll settle for this one.

My parents are pretty much the coolest parents in the history of the world. My mom is a five foot tall-ish positive thinker who likes to spend her time making lists and cutting coupons. My dad is a six foot plus former college lineman with expensive tastes and who sees the glass as half empty and probably full of some cheap nasty liquid anyway.

To say that they are opposites is a vast understatement. And they've been very happily married for 35 years this past June.

Growing up I always used to gag and run from the room because they were cuddling on the couch and making out. Realistically, what twelve year old wants to see that nastiness? Even though I can't say I enjoy seeing my parents make out now, I am thrilled that I have had such a great example of enduring love and patience in a marriage.

Corey and I truly enjoy spending time with my parents, not just as mom and dad, but more as people. True, we seek out their advice and guidance on things (although my mom lies about how long it takes to install a ceiling fan) but our most memorable times are spent sitting around the fire pit in their gorgeous backyard, having a drink (or club soda) and talking. My dad and Corey love to golf together, and my mom and I will shop, cook, or simply watch the Beagador run amok in the backyard.

The Peanut can't wait to meet her Grandma and Grandpa, although I think Corey and I are in for a world of pain - my Nana and Papa spoiled me rotten and I have it under good authority that my parents have some of the same plans for their precious baby granddaughter.

30 week baby update

2010-10-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

How far along? 30 weeks

Total Weight Gain? 20 pounds - up another pound from my 28 week appt. Apparently this kind of thing is normal, but I feel like an orca.

Maternity Clothes? Still hate 'em. I wear mostly dresses and yoga pants so I don't have to look at that stupid belly panel on the maternity jeans.

Stretch Marks? Nope. Which means if I'm getting maternity pictures I should probably do it now before my belly blows up.

Sleep? Yes, Corey is sleeping just fine, thank you.

Best Moment This Week? Hmmm. This week has been kinda blah. Last Saturday I slept three hours in a row though, so that was pretty exciting!

Movement? She's out of room to kick, so she mostly just rolls and prods me with knees and elbows. It looks a bit like a waterbed mattress when you look at my bare belly.

Food Cravings? Sour apple Jolly Ranchers sound good. Hard candy helps with the heartburn and the taste of vomit, so I think I'll go pick some up.

Gender? Girl. And if it's somehow a boy who has been hiding his parts this whole time I'm punishing him by making him sleep in a pink nursery with girl monkeys all over the walls.

Labor signs? Nope. So far, so good. She's still enjoying her stay at casa de uterus.

Belly Button? I can't see the thing, but Corey says it's getting more and more shallow. If it pops out I will be duct taping it daily.

What I Miss? Not waddling.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Her Pack N Play should be here today. Long term I'm looking forward to not taking these stupid iron pills for anemia. Yuck!

Weekly Wisdom? Don't be friends with people who only gained 15 pounds during their pregnancy. They were only put here to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.

Milestones? 30 weeks baby! That's rounding third and heading for home! I never thought we would make it this far.

Day Three

2010-10-21T10:32:00.001-07:00

I'll save you the drama right now and tell you that I'm going to be writing about my husband. Sure, there were two times in my life before Corey that I thought I loved someone, and without an abiding and universal definition of love I guess if you think it exists it does. However, in retrospect I was a naive child and a co-dependent mess at the times of these relationships and when love and respect exist without each other I have a hard time believing that the love part was ever there at all. Cryptic enough for you? Good, because I really have no desire to dredge up old crap. So let's move on.

When I first was introduced to Corey we were in a dirty dive bar and neither of us were remotely interested in the other. Apparently I was a big snob, and he was, well, he was drunk.

Four or so months later our mutual friends tried to set us up and I was reluctant. "He's too quiet," I told them. At that point I couldn't understand why they both laughed so hard their faces turned red.

We did eventually agree to a double date, and for the next few weeks Corey remained polite, quiet, reserved and respectful. The Air Force sent him to New Orleans for a month and we spent countless hours on the phone getting to know everything about each other. And then slowly, when he came back, the real Corey started to come out. The Hooters T-shirt emerged from his closet. His friends started eluding to this mischievous man who would run up and punch them in the face for no reason. He drove his huge, loud truck even faster and Hank Williams could be heard from the gates to my apartment. He told me he hated cheese plates and the symphony and shirts with collars.

The debutante in me was crushed, but it was far too late. I was gone. I sobbed on my desk at work one day that I was going to marry a hillbilly and my children would be walking around barefoot chewing straw. A bit dramatic to be sure, but he also would be lying if he said his ideal life partner was a snooty, red-wine sipping, John McCain volunteering, Yankee city girl.

Why he chose me I doubt I'll ever really know, but I can tell you that God plopped this goofy boy with bright blue eyes right in the middle of my life and derailed me from my tracks at a million miles an hour. We never deserve the blessings we are given, but I'm nothing if not eternally thankful for this one.

Corey is the most thoughtful, caring, and responsible man I've ever met or even heard about. When I was laid off a few weeks before our wedding he didn't even flinch. "I make enough to support us and you didn't need the stress of that job anyway."

I love that when I'm not looking he cuddles up with his smelly mutt on the couch and they snore in harmony. I love that he calls me from the golf course when he makes an amazing shot just because he wants me to share in his excitement. I love that he stood by my side every day that we were going through fertility treatments and never once made me feel like my body was letting him down.

I happen to think that your first love happens the first time you find real, true, uncomplicated adoration and you don't have to question whether or not it's right. You just close your eyes, hold on, and say prayers of thankfulness every second of the day.

I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Day Two

2010-10-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

So today's post is supposed to reflect the meaning behind my blog name. I'm pretty sure my blog name is "The Park Family" so I'm not sure how much direction you people need here.

I will explain that the meaning behind our blog address (yankeeandrebel) is that when Corey and I first started dating I would lament the fact that I already knew my children would be born with goofy little southern drawls and big blue eyes, and he teased me that his family would never accept his "Snobby Yankee Bitch".

Of course, years later we now know three things:

1) Peanut probably WILL have a southern drawl, but it's because her mama has started talking like a damned hillbilly, not because of her daddy. Somewhere along the line I subconsciously decided that if you can't beat them you should join them and I hear myself saying "Ya'll" and even "Ain't" on occasion. Then I lock myself in my room and repeat lines out of a diction book for thirty minutes.

2) Peanut only has a 13% chance of blue eyes. It's biology, not rocket science.

3) His family DID accept his snobby yankee bitch wife. In fact, they are all incredibly nice to me. I'm sure they secretly think some of my ways are very strange - "What do you mean she's never been frog giggin'? - but they are sweet nonetheless.

I haven't had the heart to tell them that the North won.

Day One

2010-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

An introduction seems quite silly since I'm quite certain that the limited audience that my blog entertains already knows me, but I'll play along.

I am Christina. Wife to Corey, mother to a one-year-old Beagador named Sprocket and a 29 week old incubating baby we like to call Peanut. I'm a mostly boring stay at home mom who likes to channel Betty Crocker and June Cleaver with a little bit of 80's Madonna thrown in just for spice.

The last picture I allowed to be taken of me was on our cruise when I was just five weeks pregnant, so you'll have to settle for that. Yes, people have demanded a plumped up version, and just as soon as I can find the energy to do my hair I will succumb to peer pressure. For now, settle for this:

This is in Roatan, Honduras and although that looks suspiciously like a baby bump I assure you that it is simply Clomid bloat. Just what every woman wants right before she goes on a cruise, right? Although there was a baby in there, she was the size of an apple seed so I can't blame the belly on her at all.

15 interesting facts could be a stretch, but I'll give it a go anyway:

- My thumbs are double jointed. So are my mom's. My Nana said it was a sign of fortune or something, but my Nana was known to make crap up.

- The boy and I collect magnets and those little squashed pennies wherever we go. We are almost as lame as stamp and/or spoon collectors, but not quite. Our refrigerator is already covered with many different cities and countries, but I hope that by the time the Peanut graduates high school the entire thing is blanketed.

- The boy is trying to talk me into writing a book and he almost has me convinced. None of you will ever read it though because it will be chick porn written under a terribly tacky nom de plume. Why? Because you can write that drivel while you're half asleep, editing is optional, and it makes good money.

- Growing up, I was the queen of sleeping in. Now, thanks to a noisy Beagador, a snoring husband, and a baby who is trying to disjoint my hips I am lucky to make it to dawn.

- I make the best inside-out German Chocolate Cake you've ever had. It's true. I'm not modest about this one.

- I hate chocolate. Really. It's just not good. I also hate meat. Because of these two aversions I have had zero cravings during pregnancy thus far.

- My wedding day was NOT the happiest day of my life. It was miserable. However, I have had thousands of happiest days with my darling husband so I wouldn't change it for anything.

- I yell at the television. It used to just be during sporting events, but now I do it all the time. Rachael Ray is a favorite victim of mine, as well as Sandra Lee, Oprah, the dumb contestants on Jeopardy, and anyone 'reading' the news.

- I haven't paid for any toiletries in at least two years. It really is amazing the degree to which Walgreens and CVS will pay you to take their merchandise. I still get embarrassed using coupons, but I can't help but grin when I walk away with a bag full of stuff that I just made two bucks to buy.

- Because of my frugality I have little patience or tolerance for people who claim to be broke and accept government and/or societal handouts when they're spending their money on things like cigarettes, alcohol, eating out and Target odds and ends. If you can't afford diapers you can't afford vodka.

- I humbly think my Beagador is the cutest thing that God ever made. Also, at some points in time I think he is the dumbest thing He ever made too. He's the Megan Fox of dogs.

- I have a bladder disease which prohibits me from drinking anything other than water and club soda. I miss coffee and diet coke, but the way I miss red wine and whiskey is on a whole different playing field. Sometimes I open the bottle of Jack in my freezer and just sniff it. You know, because that's not crazy at all.

- I think that those who don't vaccinate their children are irresponsible and inviting epidemics that the world hasn't known in decades. I also think that parents of children with egg allergies or immune deficiencies who are not able to vaccinate their children should be allowed to punch non-vaccinating hippies whenever they want.

- I think an epidural sounds lovely.

- I can't stop watching "Teen Mom" on MTV. I'm not exactly sure what their target demographic is, but judging by the Clearasil and Trojan commercials I'm guessing it's thirteen year old girls. Guess what? I don't care! Watching that oompa loompa Amber beat the crap out of her fiance/ex/boyfriend Gary is the stuff dreams are made of.

30 day blog challenge

2010-10-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Although I love frequenting blogs that are updated on a regular basis, I still can't seem to find the motivation or suitable content to keep mine more up to date than a few times a month.

To help with these struggles I'm adopting the challenge that I've seen floating around the blogosphere recently, and I'll give it my best effort to remain somewhat diligent in my postings.

If anyone else wants to participate, here's the challenge:

Day 1-Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts
Day 2-Meaning behind your blog name
Day 3-Your first love
Day 4-Your parents
Day 5-Your siblings
Day 6-A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 7-Favorite movies
Day 8-A place you've traveled to
Day 9-A picture of your friends
Day 10-Something you're afraid of
Day 11-Favorite tv shows
Day 12-What you believe
Day 13-Goals
Day 14-A picture you love
Day 15-Bible verse
Day 16-Dream house
Day 17-Something you're looking forward to
Day 18-Something you regret
Day 19-Something you miss
Day 20-Nicknames
Day 21-Picture of yourself
Day 22-Favorite city
Day 23-Favorite vacation
Day 24-Something you've learned
Day 25-Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs
Day 26-Picture of your family
Day 27-Pets
Day 28-Something that stresses you out
Day 29-3 Wishes
Day 30-a picture

Baby update

2010-10-08T12:45:00.001-07:00

I haven't really been playing this game, but I'll go ahead and do it anyway since I have nothing else to talk about. Here is the generic baby update form:

How far along? 28 weeks

Total Weight Gain? Wow. Getting awful personal right off the bat. Up 19 pounds since the beginning of our cycle with the RE, and up 14 pounds since our positive test. According to my OB now, those drugs make you swell up like a baby whale so I'm only counting the 14. It makes me feel better.

Maternity Clothes? I did buy two pairs of maternity pants and I hate them, so I mostly wear my old jeans with the buttons undone and long shirts to cover my ginormous belly. Yoga pants are also lovely.

Stretch Marks? None that I can see. Of course, the lower half of my body is now a complete secret to me, so I could have all kinds of things going on below the belly button that I'm unaware of.

Sleep? Somewhere between 24 and 27 weeks my bladder completely gave up, so sleep went along with it. I sleep in 45 minute increments between trips to the bathroom.

Best Moment This Week? Every moment she's cooking in there is amazing. Seeing her and hearing the heartbeat are always cool too. The upside of being 'high-risk' is getting to check on her so frequently!

Movement? Little girl is just finishing up her ninja training and it appears that she's graduating top of her class. The only times she calms down are after I eat (she apparently hates food just like her mommy) and when her Daddy reads to her every night. She quiets down for the story and then throws a holy fit when he's done.

Food Cravings? I hate food! The morning (all day) sickness isn't completely gone and nothing ever sounds good.

Gender? Still a girl, every time.

Labor signs? Braxton Hicks, but nothing real.

Belly Button? Still an innie, but I can now see my laparoscopy scar so I know it's stretching out some.

What I Miss? Brushing my teeth without vomiting.

What I Am Looking Forward To? Her nursery artwork coming in.

Weekly Wisdom? Never underestimate how cool it is to bend over without grunting like a sumo wrestler and losing your balance.

Milestones? Every single day is a milestone. I want her to keep cooking for as long as possible!

Nursery progress

2010-09-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

I finally found both a camera and a USB cord, so I figured it was time to give a little update on the nursery and assure my parents that we are actually planning to have a finished room for Peanut by the time she gets here.

Yesterday another generous friend chauffeured us to pick up a horrendously heavy piece of baby furniture, so the crib and combo unit are now in place. Our perilously narrow stairway led to a bit of drama as the fully assembled, solid mahogany dresser needed to be hoisted over uneven landscaping, heaved around turns, and lifted over delicate banisters, but they did a remarkable job.

Isn't the crib lovely? Sucker came in a box as big as my living room, and so heavy that it had to be taken up the stairs piece by piece, but assembly was remarkably simple and only took the boy and me around 30 minutes total. Perhaps that's what the premium was for.

This lovely piece came fully assembled, right down to the drawer pulls. Combo units are hard to find, but since they make all bedrooms around ten feet by ten feet now I just couldn't find a way to shove a crib, dresser, changing table and glider all in her room, so we went with this bad boy.

Is her furniture nicer and more expensive than many pieces of other furniture in our house? Yep. Am I embarrassed by this fact? Admittedly, a little. But, I still have our $1,500 Egyptian cotton sheets* to luxuriate on while she has to snooze on crappy cotton ones, so if she gets snotty about it at least I have something.

Because I'm insane - as I point out often so you won't get any ideas of listening to me - I have spent an unmentionable amount of my life researching baby gear, and a car seat was one of the scariest. We FINALLY decided on one and I ordered it that second so I wouldn't have the option of talking myself out of it. Of course, the safest seats had no girlie patterns, so she gets yellow. Oh well.

Somehow we've managed to accumulate quite the pile of baby junk in the past few months without really accomplishing anything from our list. Do we have thirteen thousand frilly dresses in her closet that she will probably never wear? Close. Do we have a stroller? Nope. I assure you that our priorities aren't that far out of line, but outfits with little watermelon shaped flip flops are a lot easier to pick out than the bassinet where she will spend the vast majority of her first few months on Earth.

At least the painters are finished, and the major parts of her nursery are in so I can continue my market research and narrow down the final forty or so necessities to brand and model number.

Then I have to wrestle my inner demons and write a ridiculous check to the cord blood banking company who swears it isn't preying on my maternal instincts to protect my not-yet-born in any way conceivably possible. I may have sucker stamped on my forehead, but if our Peanut happens to be the one in 4,000 children who gets a disease that has already been identified as treatable with these little miracle cells, well, she damn well is going to have access to them.

On a lighter note, and lest you think I have forgotten my first-born, here is what happens approximately ten seconds after I vacuum the downstairs:

The Beagador likes to channel his inner piglet and roll around in the area where the grass is baked to straw by the Phoenix sun. When he feels that he has an appropriate amount of filth glued to his coat he runs in to show me, proud as a peacock. It usually makes his daddy laugh, but I got the last chuckle a few days ago when the boy had just spent an hour bathing his baby Sprocket and he ran outside to wallow while still damp.

I think the Sprocket and the Peanut will be best of (messy) friends!

*Please note that these sheets were purchased long before I met the boy and had any idea what a budget was, and why you shouldn't buy sheets from Neiman Marcus. And yes, if it brings you any satisfaction, the seams on these suckers tore long before any of our Dillard's sheets have.

The best laid plans...

2010-09-20T13:23:00.001-07:00

I know I mentioned this, but when we were buying our house we ran into several roadblocks. There were many nights that the boy and I would sit in bed, look at each other, and shake our heads. Were we meant to do this?

At least a half dozen times we also said, "If this problem doesn't get resolved we'll just rent for another year."

We asked ourselves if God was putting these roadblocks in our way for a reason. Were we not meant to buy right now? Was this not the right house?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that if we'd listened to that nagging, questioning voice in the back of our minds we wouldn't be so stressed right now. Why are we stressed?

Well, because we're moving. The boy's position was guaranteed for three to four years. Unfortunately, guaranteed doesn't mean the same thing in the military world as it does in the civilian world, and his job is moving to New Mexico.

Luckily, we'll get about a year in this house (hopefully), so Peanut will get to bask in her beautiful custom nursery. True, we'll move before she will have any idea where she is, but at least I'll get some cute pictures.

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I'm having a mini-breakdown right now. I'm doing my best to focus on the present, and the positive - neither one of which are my strong suit.

We'll need to rent our house out because the real estate market is so volatile in Phoenix that we'll never get our money back. So we go from homeowners to landlords in the blink of an eye.

But, on the positive side of the coin, we will be together. The boy should also get his position extended to three years from the time we get there, so we could have another four years together without a deployment, which is unheard of. I keep telling myself that our family is the most important thing and keeping us together, no matter where we live, is our priority.

Now you must remind me of this in a year when I'm living in a two bedroom house that was built in 1975 and only has a swamp cooler. Yikes.

The Price is right

2010-08-27T08:40:00.001-07:00

Wowza. You know how I said in my last post that being a grown-up was expensive? I should have had at least forty comments to that saying, "Honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet."

The past four weeks have been a veritable keg party at our new house. DishNetwork, Cox internet, painters, movers, ADT, Pest Control, Garage Door Servicemen, appliance deliverymen, Air Conditioning repairmen, and more appliance deliverymen have been parading through our door since we signed the papers. It's amazing what move-in ready really means when you're *slightly* high-maintenance like we are. I can only imagine what would have been needed had we purchased a fixer-upper.

To keep the baby from growing another arm due to paint toxicity, Sprocket and I spent last week with my parents in Pinetop while Corey supervised the entire house being painted (did I mention we decided to paint the entire house?) from down here. It looks great, and once we find a camera in one of these boxes I'll be sure to post some pictures.

But the really expensive part isn't even the house. Sure, one of our very new air conditioning units decided not to work one day, the doorbell almost started a fire in our hallway, and painting a two story house with a great room that seems fifty feet tall is amazingly pricey, but the Peanut - well she's a whole different spending story.

I picked up a copy of a book called "Baby Bargains". Sounds frugal, right? Many a mother told me I HAD to have this book, and I'm very glad we purchased it because the world of baby purchases might as well have been Mars to us. However, safe baby stuff is not cheap.

Sure, there are cribs and car seats and strollers that pass safety inspections and sell for reasonable prices. But, you want the car seat with side impact? Oh, that sucker's gonna cost you. Cute cribs at Walmart? Of course. And baby probably won't die in it. But, do you want to make sure it wasn't made in China from particleboard that contains lead and asbestos? You're lookin' at $500++.

As we made our way down the list and picked out each specific brand and model for each necessity, the tab really started to add up. And when I say add up I mean that I started to hyperventilate.

Yes, we have a baby fund for this stuff. And yes, it's good that we overestimated said baby fund because we're going to use it. But, I'm cheap now. I almost threw up spending $50 on maternity clothes yesterday (oh yeah, I'm finally in maternity clothes. Yay, me. (Dripping with sarcasm, in case you're confused.))

I've resorted to buying Babies R Us coupons on ebay because they will save us hundreds of dollars, but beyond that there isn't much I can do to save on this stuff. You can't buy used, they rarely put the good stuff on sale, and scrimping on safety is not an issue for us. So, the debit card is on fire.

Lest I make life seem tragic, we are feeling very blessed. Peanut is routinely doing the cha-cha on my insides and although it is painful when she gets a foot all up in my adhesions, her Daddy sure loves to feel her kick and watch my enormous belly gyrate with her movements. She also loves to hear his voice, so he reads to her every night when we settle into bed. She calms down to hear him speak, but if he dares take a breath or turn a page she gets impatient for him to resume and knocks me around a bit.

Unfortunately, the bladder instills haven't been helping so we're going to discontinue them for now. My doc says I'm carrying her low and she likes to use my bladder as a pillow (albeit a diseased and shriveled pillow) so that's probably not going to be helped by some heparin pumped in from a catheter. Fifteen more weeks - I'll survive.

I alternate between telling her to hurry up already, and holding onto my sanity by a kite string as I realize that three-ish months from now I will be solely responsible for another human being who will need me to do EVERYTHING for her. Sure, Sprocket needs more attention than a fat mom on "Toddlers and Tiaras" but at least he sleeps for six hours a night. I pray daily that we get one of those angel children who gets wrapped up in her Miracle Blanket and sleeps until 8am. Maybe she'll learn just how crabby her Daddy is when he doesn't get enough sleep and she'll cut us a break now and then.

Or maybe her millions of dollars in Miracle Blankets and soothing nursery white noise machines will knock her out for days at a time.

One can only pray to the Visa and Mastercard gods.

Cha-Ching

2010-08-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

This grown up stuff is expensive!!

Now that the house is officially ours, we have had the garage door serviced, bought a new refrigerator and gas stove, had the house re-locked, scheduled the painters to do the nursery (and we're getting the master bedroom and bath re-done too, just because) and scheduled ADT to come and install new security services. We still have to get landscapers to come out and fix the watering system, install new ceiling fans in some of the rooms, have the backsplash in the kitchen tiled with mosaic tile, replace the doorbell, and possibly replace the exhaust hood in the kitchen when I figure out whether or not the current one will compete with my gas stove cooking.

Then we have to buy the copious amount of baby related gear that I referred to in my earlier post.

Yikes.

Tomorrow I go to the doc and start bladder instills for the pain my I.C. is causing. I've had the bladder instills before, although obviously not while pregnant, and they aren't a huge deal, so I am hoping it will help me get more than an hour of sleep at a time without having to run to the bathroom because peanut is pressing on my poor, sick bladder. It's a bit unnerving having any kind of procedure while my baby is still making her home in there, but if her mommy doesn't start getting some sleep and relief from the pain she's going to have much less time to shop for pretty things, so it's in her best interest.

We are just shy of halfway there and it's slowly dawning on me that at the end of this year we will have a beautiful baby girl to bring home (God willing). I can't believe that a hospital is going to allow us to just take her - don't they know I haven't changed a diaper in years? How will I know which cry means, "I'm hungry" and which means, "I'm sick"? So many of my friends have multiple kids and I gaze at them in awe - how did you learn it all?

Of course we will be taking birthing, CPR, infant safety, breastfeeding, lamaze, and whatever other class they invent in the meantime, but I have a sneaking suspicion that practicing these things on Molly-Wet-n-Cry is just not going to be the same.

Apparently there just isn't such a place in life as 'ready for a baby' because six months ago I was sobbing that we were ready and wanted one so badly and now I wake up in the middle of the night afraid that we aren't going to pick the right bottles or that she's going to get her little fingers trapped in the crib slats.

I guess we'll just do the best we can, and hope that Sprocket picks up the slack.

the cardinal rule of pregnancy

2010-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

When you suffer from infertility and have success, there is one rule that is punishable by death (or at least episiotomies and long labor): thou shalt not complain about pregnancy. Well, guess what? Screw the rule.

This pregnancy is HARD. We knew this going in. They told me it would be painful for me with all of my 'issues'. But I have been in pain for the past two years plus, so I thought it couldn't be much different. I was very, very wrong.

Yes, it is physically more painful. There is now a cantaloupe in my pelvis and it is pushing on my broken, diseased bladder and my intestinal adhesions. It is the sweetest, most loved cantaloupe in the world, but it is still brutal. But, the hardest part and the thing I didn't expect is the emotional turmoil involved when the pain knocks me to the ground and makes me cry out that I'm ready for the epidural NOW. I'm scared that something is wrong with the baby.

I'm doing my best to not be the crazy pregnant lady, and so far we've only called the on-call once, but every time I feel like peanut is taking a machete to my guts I'm terrified that she's in danger.

Each time we check on her she's doing fine - last time she was doing flips and ninja kicks in there - but it doesn't stop me from fretting. Because I'm crazy. Sigh. The peanut has a crazy momma.

But, since we verified she is, in fact, a SHE (and I win all the money in the world according to the bet I made with everyone), I'm guessing that she will have a certain amount of crazy in her too (just look at my mom - it's genetic (Hi Mom!)). Might as well get her used to it now.

What the peanut may be lacking in sanity though, she will not be lacking in equipment. We have purchased her a nursery (attached to a lovely four bedroom house) and it is scheduled to be painted this week. Then I can begin filling it up with truckloads of the most adorable baby girl stuff one can find. Sure, there will be a crib and a dresser and a rocking chair, but I'm talking about the good stuff. Bookshelves full of Little Golden Books. Tummy time mats with floating fish in them. Bumbos, and Exersaucers, and Gloworms, oh my. And how many pink dresses can you fit in a standard DR Horton sliding closet? My friends, we are about to find out.

Despite the fact that I had a momentary heart attack (figure of speech, as far as we know the hole in my heart is holding up just fine) when finding out we're having a daughter, I then remembered how very glad I am that we took some extra time before the babymakin' to put together a kickass peanut fund. I stress about money every day because, well, say it with me - I'm CRAZY - but I realize that there is no reason to stress when I'm logical about it. We've budgeted and re-budgeted and then done it again and somehow we have become ninja savers because what other people can't manage to do on two incomes we are comfortably doing on the boy's. Even if our little princess needs imported, lactose-free formula, and diapers made from pashmina, we have enough in the monthly budget for that. And I am OH SO thankful to my husband for being such an amazing provider and working so hard for us.

This is why he is sleeping in right now and the peanut, the beagador, and I are lounging on the couch and waiting for him to emerge. The Three (crazy) Musketeers.

Now that I think about it, he's slept in long enough!

House buying and Peanut farming

2010-07-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

Corey and I have affectionately dubbed the one yet-to-be-born "Peanut". I'm not sure why Peanut, especially since she looked freakishly like a gummy bear on all of our early ultrasounds, but Peanut it is.

The official date we will find out if Peanut has boy parts or girl parts is July 30th, which is both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. I keep waiting for it to hit me that there is an actual, living being a few inches below my belly button, but still it is surreal. In fact, the only indication I have of her presence (besides the constant vomiting) is the fact that I ate a McDonalds cheeseburger a few days ago. No baby = no meat, but this little one is a carnivore just like her daddy, so I gave in to her demands. Thankfully, McDonalds' meat is very un-meat like and I was able to chew it while pretending it was a dry, bland mushroom.

Corey has been in ninja mode, rushing here and there almost so quickly that I can only make out a blur where I know him to have been. Between work and classes he has been trying extra hard to figure out a way to keep our real estate agent and the seller's agent from killing each other before we buy the house we want. The deal has been called off because of their antics several times, and the boy has had to make late night phone calls smoothing things over more than once. I never thought we would be mediating between two grown men, but a move-in ready house is a rare thing out here so we're doing whatever we can.

We've seen dozens of houses that have been trashed (quite literally) to levels anywhere between dirty and condemnable, and unfortunately the premium for buying one that has new carpet, paint, tile, and landscaping is around $30k. Normally I'd never shell out that kind of dough and we would buy a fixer-upper ourselves and HGTV it to our heart's content, but my expanding belly does little for my energy level or my propensity to inhale copious amounts of toxic paint fumes, so we're accepting our self-appointed titles as Mr. and Mrs. Sucker and springing for the huge markup on the bells and whistles. Apparently we are not the only schmucks in Surprise though, as every house we've put an offer in on has had several more by the end of the day. End result: outbidding the other lazy shoppers. Cha-ching. Let's all just cross our fingers that our overpriced abode holds value for three years so we can break even at the end of this ride the Air Force calls an assignment.

Pregnant

2010-07-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly certain that anyone who reads my blog is also my facebook friend so this is old news, but just in case: I am pregnant!

It feels very strange to type that, especially since I still don't feel pregnant even though I am now in the second trimester. Depending on which one of my doctors you believe I am either due on the last day of this year or the first day of next year.

In the marathon world of infertility, Corey and I managed to win in a sprint. It seems like we have been going through things forever, but in reality so much of infertility is in testing, diagnosing, meeting with overbooked specialists, forming game plans, getting referrals and insurance approvals, and testing drugs. The amazing fact is that we actually got pregnant on our very first fertility cycle with our infertility specialist.

Mentally, I was prepared for it to take many more months or years. I was not prepared for it to work. Even taking the test seemed silly to me, but as we were leaving in three days for a cruise that would certainly involve me sampling many new varietals of red wine, I thought it would be the responsible thing to do.

"Something looks weird on this pregnancy test," I told the boy on the phone while he was at work.

He came home and we tried a new stick. Something definitely looked weird. I expected a true blue line, and I saw a shadow. I thought it was a fluke.

So, we went in for blood tests. Sure enough, two days before flying to Miami, we found out we were (barely) pregnant.

That was eleven weeks ago, and I was sure we wouldn't make it to this point. Morbid, I know, but I'm not programmed to be a glass-half-full kind of girl. It was too easy. Too quick. It will go away.

But, the peanut has hung in there. Through two hour workouts prior to the cruise, through motion sickness, through food poisoning, through long brutal flights and terrible car rides. Every time we go in to see his/her little heartbeat I am amazed that the baby is still going strong. But she (I am the only one that thinks it is a she) is growing, and most recently has started sucking her thumb.

Our NT scan showed low risk for many genetic diseases, my blood type is compatible, my scarring due to my horrible past problems is holding strong, and Corey and I are thankful that we don't carry the CF gene, so we are definitely so-far-so-good.

In about four weeks we will go in for our anatomy scan and check all the necessary functions of the baby, and hopefully get an idea of which color to paint the nursery.

I hope that at that point it will start to seem real, because right now all I feel is that I contracted the world's longest lasting stomach bug.

I have what our infertility specialist referred to jokingly as 'survivor's guilt' and I have no idea why God chose to bless us so quickly while there are so many loving, deserving parents out there who have struggled for much longer than we did. Every time I complain about the puking, or I struggle to choke down my prenatal vitamins, I think about those women out there that would gladly throw up thirteen times a day to be able to bring a baby home and I thank Him with all of my heart.

We thank everyone for their support, prayers, thoughts, and good wishes and humbly ask you to keep them coming as we navigate through the world of pregnancy.

In return, we'll let you babysit.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Father's Day in my house growing up was the stereotypical celebration in honor of our patriarch. There were homemade coupons promising ONE FREE CAR WASH, and GOOD FOR ONE ROOM CLEANING, there were horrible neckties, and there were the hushed voices of children doing their best to play quieter than normal because today Dad deserved an uninterrupted nap.

When my parents were finally able to have me, after struggling a bit like Corey and I have, they struck a deal. They knew that they wanted my mom to stay home because they were both from families where the mom was a housewife (as most were at that time) and they felt that the interaction was imperative to development. In a time where women were becoming decidedly more independent and accomplished, this meant bucking the trend of two income-ness and embracing the past "Leave it to Beaver" style of life.

At five years old, I didn't understand this compromise. I understood that sometimes my Dad was on business trips and couldn't make it to recitals. I understood that he would come home after a fourteen hour workday and not want to have a tea party. I also understood that "Wait until your Dad gets home" was not meant to draw me into a comfortable remembrance of the last time my Daddy and I played with dolls. It was meant to scare the crap out of me.

As I grew up, it slowly dawned on me that my mom was the classroom mom, the unofficial cheer coach, and the lady at EVERY practice, concert, trip, game, play, and recital BECAUSE my dad was at work, not in spite of it. Even when I probably would have chosen to have her around less (that's what the teenage years do to you, after all) the light bulb started to flicker when I realized that other people's moms were at work. And while my mom deserves tons of credit in this area, my Dad is also the unsung hero of my developing life.

He was appreciative of his ties and coupons (although I think he appreciated the naps exponentially more) and never complained that my mom got to be the one in the middle of everything. I'm sure he was secretly thankful to not be on the receiving end of pubescent breakdowns and boy talks, but I think he was also quietly mournful at missing afternoon track meets and evening driving lessons.

I don't think I understood completely though, until our wedding. My mom had the idea that both of them should walk me down the aisle to give me away. I was fine with it, but my Dad put his foot down. HE was my father, and HE would be giving me away. Although my mom was a bit hurt, it was perhaps the first time I witnessed his refusal to share the role he had stepped into 28 years ago. As he escorted me down our aisle in the rain, I saw in his eyes not only the pride of a father but the unmistakable knowledge that those years had simply flown by without his permission or awareness. The sacrifices he made were necessary to them, appreciated by me, but no less painful because of that knowledge. It was a hard compromise for him to make, and he did so without letting any of us know how difficult it was.

I understand now Dad, and I appreciate every fourteen hour day.

For these reasons and more, I simply cannot wait to have children and witness my Dad's transformation from martyr to grandfather. I'm certain he will stuff their pockets with candies, bandage their cuts as if they had taken shrapnel from a wayward air strike, and make mud pies for hours in the backyard, just as my Papa did with me.

And if it is possible, he will enjoy being a Grandpa even more than he did being a Dad (that is my hope anyway). I just hope they still make Daffy Duck neckties.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and to each father who has made sacrifices, noticed and unnoticed, so that their children may have the lives he envisioned for them.

Someday

2010-06-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

Someday I want to live near the beach. I want to have babies that wake me up and tell me that they want to go play in the water, so we will pack up baskets and tote bags and start the barefoot walk down cobbled streets and sandy boardwalks, and set up umbrellas to lounge in the warm air.

I want to head home when it gets too hot, late in the afternoon, and I want to stop on the way to get mint chocolate chip ice cream cones, because everyone knows you can only eat mint chocolate chip in the summer. Or maybe rainbow sherbet. But never one scoop of each, because that is a terrible mixture.

I want to have backyard barbecues with dozens of friends, and tiki torches that stay lit late into the night, and hear the whispers of children who are supposed to be asleep but who just can't drift off because the excitement of life has them too full of energy.

I have no idea where in the world this beach is located, or how many years into the future this glimpse is, but I dream about it like it has already happened. I can taste cold, drippy watermelon on the back porch, and hear birds chirping through open windows in the spring.

In reality, summer has hit. The Sprocket and I bid Daddy farewell in the mornings and then watch the world get toasted outside our back windows. He sticks his head out the dog door to survey the world, only to draw it back in when he discovers that the sun singes his mass of black fur. He retreats to the bedroom to nap again, hoping that when he wakes it will be eighty degrees and he can go outside in peace. We need to take him up the mountain to visit his Grandparents so he can run amok (his favorite activity) without burning his little paws.

In honor of summer, the boy and I must go buy a king sized bed. These two things sound completely unrelated, but when you feel like nothing in the world can make you any hotter and you lie down on crisp, cool sheets to relax, touching someone else's hot leg can put a serious crimp in your style. Sometimes the boy and I will accidentally touch in the middle of the night, and you would think that one of us is electrically charged by the way that each of us jump away in pain. We originally wanted to try and hold out until we moved, but the universe has plans to keep us in our current house a little longer than we originally thought, so it appears we will have to move a new bed in before moving out.

And in housing news, there is none. We put one offer on a place we liked, but quickly got into a bidding war and were out-auctioned by someone with cash. We haven't found much else that we LOVE, so we're going to keep looking and start to include short sales in our hunts because that is what at least 90% of the listings in our area are. I feel terribly guilty looking at beautiful homes still occupied by their original owners when I know that they paid $400,000 for their house and are now selling it for one third of that.

I would hate to be them, but I'd also hate to stay in this rental for one day longer than I have to, so onward we go...

2010-06-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a while, and I will update soon. In the meantime, I saw this video and found it very moving so I thought I would share it with anyone who might stumble upon my blog. Sometimes we forget that everyone has struggles that we may not have any idea about. Although I've been semi-vocal about our problems with infertility, there are many couples who don't share the pain they're going through.

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

Motivation

2010-05-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

So I haven't been feeling so hot lately. Nothing major, just the longest lasting cruise-induced stomach bug in the history of the world (that the boy also contracted but seems to have recovered from already).

B.C. (Before Cruise) my days consisted of laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, playing with the Beagador, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms...etc. A.D. (After Debarkation) my days consist of lying in bed, moaning, sipping ginger ale, and maybe doing a load of laundry so my poor husband won't have to choose between doing his own midnight laundry and wearing a dirty shirt to work, again.

Then today, I stumbled upon this blog, which I generally read every day but had let slide since we got back.

I know that at least half of the world reads Nie's blog, but she has this unique ability that I always find good pastors have at church: they make you feel like they're talking just to you. Every word out of their mouth is something that God knew you needed to hear, and they say it gently, sometimes in a whisper or in silence. Even if they're telling you that you need to do better, or that you've been making mistakes, you still feel like the message is a sweet gift and you welcome it wholeheartedly without defense or anger.

Today she showed me that life sometimes sucks to one degree or another, but we have to get up, smile, and power on. I have not experienced her degree of suffering even in my darkest nightmares, and yet she's ironing clothes in her beautiful dress, probably humming to herself in perfect harmony while marinara from scratch bubbles away on the stove.

So today, while the boy is out watching the remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street" (I wisely opted out), I will tackle the three loads of laundry that need to be folded, the kitchen that looks like we live in tornado alley, and maybe even a few of the weeds that time forgot in the backyard.

Or at least take a shower.

Our cruise

2010-05-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Before my old age completely fades my memory I need to post about our amazing Caribbean vacation. It's unbelievable how the time beforehand and since then has crawled by, but the vacation itself went at the speed of light.

The most nerve wracking part of our trip was the plane ride to Miami, as my darling husband had a seizure on the first plane ride we ever took together, and since then I spend our jet time checking his chest for breathing and making sure he still has a pulse. I'm sure I look like a crazy woman staring at her husband intently while he sleeps, but I don't care.

Luckily, we arrived at the abominable Miami International Airport (never, ever again will we fly to MIA) without incident, and our luggage even arrived too. We took a short cab ride to the Hyatt Regency (not at nice as it should have been for a four star) and then met up with Corey's friends for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. We had an amazing time with them, and I was a little sad we hadn't booked an extra day or two to spend before we left on the cruise.

I won't waste time talking about embarkation as it was uneventful, and by noon we were onboard and the boy was enjoying his first of many, many trips to the 24-hour pizzeria.

I need to break our ports into a completely different post because there is no way I'm writing a twelve page narrative right now, but suffice it to say that the stops were the best part of our trip. It amazes me that there are people who go on cruise ships and never get off the boat at the stops, as the ability to travel to four countries in a week is what sold us in the first place, but there were many passengers that did so.

We did enjoy a few shows, a comedian, a juggler, and the drive-in sized movie screen mid-deck that showed movies at night. As a foodie, I was sure I would be disappointed in the cuisine, but it was rare that I didn't think dinner was delicious. Buffets are never my favorite, but I will say that to cook for 3,400 people at once must be quite an undertaking and the few times we partook in the buffet were satisfactory.

We didn't have any complaints with Carnival at all, and thought the service we received from everyone was remarkable. Our room was immaculate every day, and they did a wonderful job decorating our cabin as an anniversary present from my parents. I wish we could have brought our cabin steward home with us, as the boy loved the towel animals waiting for us every night.

One problem we did have revolved around our choice in cabins. When we booked there were few balcony cabins left, so we chose one mid-ship on the sixth floor. Unfortunately, the fifth floor was the activities floor and we had a room directly over the disco, piano bar, and nightclub. These rooms should definitely be flagged for excessive noise, because cruise ship entertainment does not abide by the time constraints of land, and we didn't get sweet relief from the pounding bass until after 4am some nights. Since I am old and like to sleep during vacation, this was a real problem, particularly since we reached each port around 8am. Unfortunately, this lack of sleep caused us to miss our cave tubing excursion in Belize which we were both incredibly excited for.

Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for someone else, a couple had to leave the cruise early for reasons that were never made clear to us, and my husband looked sweet enough complaining that they moved us to the blissfully quiet tenth floor halfway through our trip. It was a bit rougher being that far up on the ship, but I enjoyed my sleep after that and we were very grateful for the reprieve. We heard complaints from many other people near our original room, so I know that we were very lucky to get moved. My advice would be to avoid any and all rooms above or below a noisy area on a ship - sounds like common sense, but we figured that we would be up until late anyway so it would be fine. Unless you can sleep in what sounds like the stage area of a rock concert, these rooms are not for you.

If you cruise at all you are probably aware of the stigma that Carnival has as the Walmart of cruising, and we were very nervous because of this, but also wanted to avoid the pretentiousness of Celebrity and the crappy ports of call that Princess offered, so we took our chances. I will say that we had absolutely no reason to complain about Carnival, but we did find that the population aboard a Carnival ship reminded us of what we would see at Walmart. There were a LOT of obese people, wearing inappropriate clothing, doing their best to eat their fare's worth from the buffet...often. There were a lot of drunk, rude people bumping into you, cutting in lines, smoking where it wasn't allowed, and treating the staff like they were second class humans. There were people throwing trash on the ground, dropping tongs from the buffet and putting them back in the food, and letting their children run around the ship completely unchaperoned. I know that this is basically a cross section of what America has become, but our vacation definitely would have been better if people had required themselves to maintain any amount of decency.

I'm not sure that more money ever equals more manners, but I think next time we will try a different cruise line and hope that the air of pretentiousness scares away some of the classlessness that we experienced from fellow travelers. I understand that people want to let loose on their vacation, but it is never appropriate to be rude, no matter how entitled you think you are. The carnival employees worked very hard, and I felt awful for the room steward who had to clean up trashed cabins every day and the waiter who had to bring our table mates four different appetizers and three entrees per person.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and wish it hadn't flown by so quickly. I was actually able to go with the flow a bit more than normal, which turned out to be a real benefit because micro-managing a vacation like this wouldn't have been possible even if I'd tried.

I appreciate my husband working so hard every day to allow us to go on trips like this, and we can't wait for the next one!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-21T19:12:00.001-07:00

One down, 79 to go...

2010-04-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Before I get too sidetracked with cruise nonsense, I have been meaning to write a post about our first wedding anniversary last weekend.

Since our cruise is our actual celebration, although not on our anniversary date, we wanted to keep the weekend of pretty low key. Add to that the fact that Nascar is in town that weekend, so my parents were down doing their biannual charity work, and we were pretty set on a dress down celebration.

We attended the race and watched it from the M&Ms suite, and met the driver, Kyle something-or-other.

We also got to talk to Coach Gibbs (who will always be a football coach to me, but apparently he now does something with racing), although I refrained from yelling foul mouthed Redskins/Dallas banter that would have embarrassed my husband. I will say that if you're going to attend a Nascar race, doing so from the suites is the only way to survive the sweaty, drunken, slurred southern drawl, matted back hair crowd, as well as preserve your hearing for later in life. In fact, I prefer attending all major sporting events in the suites, except for hockey because then you are less likely to find yourself in a middle of a drunken brawl and that is precisely why I attend hockey games in the first place.

My parents got us a wonderfully thoughtful gift in that my mom recreated the top layer of our wedding cake, and managed to track down our imported blown glass cake topper that flung itself off of our cake precisely fifteen minutes into our reception, shattering all over the entry area and leaving a gash in our cake the size of a snowball. Had I not been so intensely sick of everything wedding related and more concerned with when I could take a nap than with what our cake looked like, I probably would have sobbed. But now I have it back, and I love it.

My darling husband also researched the fact that the first anniversary is the paper anniversary and he presented me with beautifully rich monogrammed stationery and a journal. I updated his storybook/scrapbook with pictures of the Beagador and got him golf stuff because, well, that's what he likes.

With an entire year of blissful wed-dom under my belt, I feel the need to share my vast wisdom with the masses, so I will tell you the secret to a happy marriage: Choose your mate wisely, because at some point things are going to really suck and they will be what you have to fall back on. That, and to kiss, even when you want to smack each other, because kissing each other whenever you want to is why you married each other to begin with (according to Sweet Home Alabama anyway, which is like the marriage Bible).

Anti-Infertility Bills

2010-04-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

The legislation in Arizona is currently determining how to proceed with two bills that are fundamentally anti-infertility. I won't bore you with all of the details, because really, those who aren't dealing with infertility aren't going to find it all that interesting. But, I will say that if you have been previously, or are now so inclined to write to your representatives this is a good time to do so. Here is a copy of the letter that I have emailed and faxed to every single Arizona Representative. If you would like more information, let me know.

Apr 13, 2010

Representative Doug Quelland
Capitol Complex- House, Room 128
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890

Dear Representative Quelland,

As a resident of the great state of Arizona I urge you to oppose two
bills, SB 1306 and SB 1307, which will make it harder for couples with infertility to have a family.

I am aware of amendments that have been made to the bills, but THEY HAVE NOT BEEN "FIXED." They are still anti-infertility
treatment and anti-family. I strongly oppose these bills and I will be watching how you vote.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) has been practiced in this country for
almost 30 years, bringing more than 50,000 babies to overjoyed couples each year in the U.S. alone, and something approaching 3 million babies worldwide. This medical treatment is mainstream, medically proven, and accepted.

Donor egg treatment, similarly, has been practiced for more than 20 years all across the country. It is the standard of care for many
couples, especially young women with premature ovarian failure and women who have undergone lifesaving chemotherapy to beat cancer. For such women, if they ever want to become pregnant and have a baby with their husbands, donor egg therapy may be their only hope.

Yet, suddenly the Arizona legislature has decided to single out these life-giving, pro-family medical treatments from among all others and subject them to a new regime of Governmental restriction. I urge you to oppose these bills.

SB 1307 harms us because:
-- it sends our doctors to prison if a microscopic embryo is
"harmed;" this will drive doctors from Arizona and mean no
hope for people with the disease of infertility;
-- it contains vague language which could be interpreted to limit
treatment options such as embryo cryopreservation, a key tool in
minimizing the risk of multiple births which can be unhealthy for
mother and baby;
-- it stops progress on research to better treat infertility;
--- it makes it hard if not impossible for infertility patients to
donate any unused embryos to research, which is the preference for many
post-infertility couples;
-- it accords unprecedented protections to microscopic embryos (policed
by the threat of prison for doctors) that could plainly interfere with
the practice of IVF in Arizona.

SB 1306 interferes with donor egg treatment by:
-- imposing burdensome and inaccurate informed consent obligations on
doctors who offer donor egg treatment;
-- threatening doctors with loss of their medical licenses and prison
if they fail to follow the new informed consents to the letter;
-- limiting or outlawing valuable research involving eggs that could
help treat infertility, and laying the groundwork for further
restrictions by describing egg donation in dehumanizing terms.

If embryo cryopreservation is prohibited, Arizona will become the Triplet, Quadruplet, or Quintuplet Capital of the country, as women will be forced to transfer all the embryos they may produce in a cycle.
Those high order multiple births will wreak havoc on health care costs, not to mention the poor maternal and child outcomes that would likely result.

Alternatively, in the absence of embryo cryopreservation, doctors could be restricted to allowing only a few eggs to be fertilized so only a
few embryos are created in which case patients and doctors will likely
just leave the state rather than receive substandard medicine at
astronomic costs.

My husband and I are currently dealing with the devastation of
infertility, and we know first-hand of the difficulties it brings. I
urge you to reconsider making this process any more difficult for my
family and for all of those dealing with the process of creating a
family in the presence of infertility.

On behalf of the more than 100,000 Arizona citizens who are contending
with the heartbreak of infertility, I respectfully urge you to oppose
SB 1306 and SB 1307 when they come before the House for a vote.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Christina Park

Sweet therapy

2010-04-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

It's amazing the things that people use in place of cognitive behavioral therapy: drugs, sex, shopping, food, alcohol, even working out can become destructive in an addictive behavior pattern.

Last year when I had a bad bout of costochondritis, an ER doctor originally diagnosed me with anxiety issues. It didn't feel right to me, but I'm a pretty high strung person so I didn't completely disagree. Knowing that if I was manifesting such serious psychosomatic symptoms I needed help from an expert, I took it upon myself to go to a psychiatrist. Although she agreed that I have anxious tendencies, and she offered me some new coping mechanisms for that, she also diagnosed me with sanity and tried to fire me twice in the last year. I only saw her every few weeks, and each time she tried to tell me that there was nothing else she could offer me, I changed the subject. Unfortunately, people with chronic pain disorders are often called crazy, acutely sensitive, or even hypochondriacs, and I wanted that ace up my sleeve should some doctor again decide that I am simply insane and manifesting my own pain problems. It's easy to tell them that you're in the care of a mental health professional and she deems you completely sane.

Unfortunately, I have officially been booted from the shrink. She told me that she will be happy to consult with any future doctor on my mental health, but that she was offering me no further benefit.

In truth, she wasn't offering me much benefit to begin with, because I choose to cope with my stress in an unusual way: I turn into a modern day hybrid of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker (who listens to Flogging Molly while baking).

With fertility treatments causing me to be moodier than John Mayer, my oven has been getting quite the workout lately. And thanks to our amazing fruit and vegetable co-op, I have had no shortage of beautiful spring produce to use up.

In the last few days I have gotten up, hit the gym, and then come home to don my beautiful pink retro polka dotted apron. I have baked double fudge stuffed devil's food cupcakes with cream cheese icing, a dozen sausage/egg/cheese/potato breakfast burritos, a gallon of fresh strawberry jam, loaves of strawberry bread and banana bread, and now I'm starting on apple cinnamon monkey bread for the boy to take to work tomorrow. I have no idea what my next session will involve, but I have a basket of sweet potatoes, apples, a pineapple and two yellow squash to use up soon (Iron Chef anyone?).

Unfortunately for my poor husband who has been amping up his workouts lately, none of my favorite coping mechanisms are exactly low calorie. Sure, I substitute wheat flour and splenda here and there, but I doubt it makes up for the pounds of chocolate, butter, chorizo, or sour cream I use.

The girl scouts who dropped off cases of cookies to the base today to thank our troops are also not helping his cause.

So while Tiger Woods and Jesse James chose very different 'addictions' (I don't believe this for a minute, I'm just being sarcastic about these creeps), I still didn't choose a very healthy one. Perhaps there are people out there who are addicted to meditation, or volunteering, or knitting hats for homeless eskimo children, but we each choose our path.

Mine looks like this:

Tasty path, right?

April showers don't let me down.

2010-04-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's been months since I've blogged.

I read other's blogs with such envy as they manage to make cooking dinner and taking out the trash news-worthy, while I struggle to figure out what in our lives would make good blogging fodder.

In a little less than three weeks we leave for our Caribbean cruise and I am both excited for vacation and terrified that the bikinis that I must wear will be hideously unflattering. Prior to now, I would have just stopped eating for a few weeks beforehand, dropped ten pounds and been done with it. But, it turns out that starvation mode isn't so good for the body when you're trying to get knocked up so I've been sticking to my promised 1200 calories a day and putting in time at the gym a little more often. Our fertility specialist won't treat us if my BMI falls below 19, and right now I'm at exactly 20, so unfortunately I'm not allowed to lose much more. Although I'd love to get back to my high school weight, I am happy to now be a little lighter than the weight I was when I was diagnosed with cancer five years ago (FIVE - YAY!). If you didn't see me in the year or two that followed I will just let you know that hormone therapy packs on the pounds! At the highest point I think I had put on THIRTY pounds! Yikes. Not ever being heavy before, it was tough to take off, and especially hard to do the healthy way since Corey isn't a fan of me only eating every other day. I have about four more pounds that I'd like to lose, and then I'll be done.

We are trucking along with the infertility treatment. I will spare the gory details because not only is no one interested but me, but it also involves a lot of acronyms, drama, emotion, and disgusting things you'd probably rather not know about Corey or I. So, just rest assured that we are doing whatever we can medically do.

Corey was officially promoted last week. I know it seems like forever ago that he found out he was getting promoted, but the Air Force takes it's sweet time and does things in a particular order so he was one of the last groups to get promoted. Although it doesn't change things much in his particular job, it's still nice for him to see an additional stripe on his uniform and it's another step on our ladder.

Easter was quiet around here, but we will have an eventful April so it was kind of nice to stay home, catch up on episodes of LOST and chill with the puppy (who is almost not a puppy anymore). Next weekend is NASCAR which means that my parents will be down working for their charity, and our one year anniversary is Sunday, which means that I have exactly six days to figure out what kind of lovely paper central present I am getting for my darling husband. Do nudie magazines count for a paper present?

In the spirit of living in the moment

2010-01-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

After reading what I wrote in my second to last post (let's all just ignore the mental breakdown that was my most recent) Corey and I sat down and had a little chat. By the grace of God, we managed to be on exactly the same page about things and made a decision: we are going on vacation.

Had I known exactly how stressful real vacation planning is, I might have rethought our conclusion, but a week later I am happy to say that we have researched, re-researched, compared, and agreed on a location as well as booked it, paid for it, and mentally packed for it.

We are going on a seven day cruise of the Western Caribbean with stops in Belize, Honduras, the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel, Mexico. Clear water and warm, humid air never sounded so sweet.

We did decide on Carnival cruise lines, which we're a bit leery about given the party ship claim to fame they have, but the fact of the matter is that I somehow became inherently cheap and had we decided to go on Princess we would have gone with a less expensive interior room. Granted, many people stay in those rooms and things go well for them, but let's just say I've seen Titanic and the people with the suites get on the rescue boats first. So, we decided to ride in style on Carnival and take the money we'll save and use it on scuba diving the great barrier reef and zip line rides through the Belizean jungle.

The money vacating our savings account has bothered me much less than I thought it would, and I can honestly say that I think the memories will be worth every penny.

Now I just have to figure out how my parents will survive eight days of their Grand-dog, the Beagador Crown Prince of the Western Hemisphere. May the Lord be with them.

I want a baby!

2010-01-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

I don't have the time or the emotional energy to elaborate on this, but in the spirit of sending thoughts into the universe a la "The Secret", I am saying this out loud (or as out loud as one can get through a computer keyboard anyway).

I want peanut butter and jelly stains on half of my clothes, mud pies on my living room carpet, sleep deprivation, sweet pea puree in my hair, and half of my savings account spent on Pottery Barn baby furniture that never gets used because I can't bear the thought of the kid sleeping more than ten feet from my bed in a pack and play.

If I have to hear one more story of someone we know accidentally getting knocked up when they didn't want kids to begin with I'm going to drive directly to Gymboree and punch someone. Damn breeders.

That is all.

Walking the line

2010-01-20T08:45:00.001-08:00

I'm a planner. I'm a super, mega, anal, OCD, planner of everything. I have binders in every room of the house containing daily to-do lists for the next week, savings schedules for this year, grocery lists, weekly menus, gifts to buy for the next decade...you get the picture.

I wasn't always this way and had you asked me five years ago whether or not I would own ten notebooks of purposefully varying sizes and colors for specific cataloguing of daily activities, I would have looked at you like you were mad and screamed something about never turning into my mother. But in this way, I very much have. And for the most part, I cringe to admit, it is highly effective and makes parts of my life a cinch.

What it doesn't do is nurture the freckle faced twenty-something that I have hidden inside. She yearns to break free and leave town on a whim, belting out her favorite song through the sunroof while the wind tangles her hair. She wants to leave fertility treatments and pest control appointments in the back of her mind and focus on the way things feel, taste, sound and look.

There are people (I know there are as I have blog stalked them) that take off unexpectedly to go on trips. Maybe they decide to go to an amusement park for the weekend, or maybe they quit their jobs and travel through Europe, staying in hostels for a year. I LOVE these people. And even more so, I want to BE these people. I want to wake up Saturday morning, throw an extra pair of jeans and my toothbrush in a bag and take the boy and his dog to the beach. I want to take ten grand out of our savings account and head for Bora Bora just because we can. I want to go to the airport and get on the next flight, no matter where it's bound.

Sometimes, generally in the foggy haze between asleep and awake, I convince myself that I can be this person. In a split second I assure my conscious self that I am capable of throwing my notebook out the window and going wherever the wind takes us. Then slowly, I feel the cloud lift and reality settle with great density upon my shoulders. Sometimes I even go so far as to make a list of places we could go spontaneously. Then I realize the irony of my actions, ball the paper up into my palm, and open my small brown binder to focus on the tasks for the day.

Very recently, a man I went to high school with passed away. I wasn't close with him, then or now, but that doesn't mean that his death didn't impact me. The fact is that he died of natural causes, as ridiculous as that feels to say about a 28 year old. His lovely wife is having to endure not only his loss, but also the loss of both of her parents in the last year as well. It sounds like a movie you'd never want to watch, and it brings me physical pain that all anyone can do for her now is pray. And as I pray for her I think about what she must miss about her husband and what she must wish they had done with the time they didn't know was dwindling away. I'm certain she doesn't long for more time to do laundry, or wish that the house was cleaner that week. I doubt she yearns for time to move backwards so they could put more money in savings or succeed in more lucrative careers.

If I were her I would long for more weekends on the beach, doing nothing. I would wish we'd used up the forty days of vacation time the boy has. I would thirst to get the time back spent scrubbing muddy paw prints off the microfiber sofa and instead go outside and play with the dog in the rain.

I made several resolutions this year, all catalogued neatly in the blue folder on the kitchen island, but there is one predominant one that I'm adding to the list: "To Identify the Line".

The line between too perfectionistic and too apathetic. Between laundry washed, dried, folded, starched and hung according to color, and piled up in the corner to petrify. Between never taking vacation time and going AWOL to live off the grid in Brazil. Between putting every penny in savings for some yet-to-be-named emergency and blowing it all on Jimmy Choos and mint condition Nintendo NES games. Somewhere between those poles there is a vast gray line with a little less structure and pattern and a little more complexity and delicious chaos.

I want to walk that line.

Post Xmas wrapup

2009-12-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

I'm so bad at blogging for the same reason that I'm horrible at taking pictures during interesting things - I'm too busy DOING the interesting things. Okay, maybe things aren't always interesting, but they are almost always busy.

At the beginning of November Sprocket helped me put away the Halloween decorations and get out the winter things:

That was pretty exhausting so he got a pillow and a blanket and took a little nap. He thinks he's a person:

Then Corey and I did what we do each year to get into the holiday spirit. We put together our Operation Christmas Child boxes. I love this charity so much and we have a lot of fun putting boxes together thinking of the children who will be getting a Christmas present thanks to this wonderful organization.

This was also exhausting for my boys, so they cuddled up and took another nap. I am in love with this picture because a) it's the cutest thing this side of a baby in footie pajamas, and b) this is the first time I was actually able to sneak up with the camera and snap a shot without waking one or both of my guys up:

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Pinetop and enjoyed ourselves although we really missed my baby brother's company as he had to work. Unfortunately, I spend most of our time in Pinetop with terrible migraines thanks to the altitude so I don't have many pictures of the Thanksgiving feast itself, but rest assured it was lovely. Sprocket doesn't get much people food, but we have established that while he is a fan of turkey, broccoli elicits a much different response:

Last week my best friend in the world finished up her degree and was commissioned as an officer in the Navy, so I made my way out to San Diego to celebrate with her and attend the presentation. Unfortunately, both of my guys were sick (Corey with the stomach flu, and Sprocket was on a thirst strike until we bought him a cat water fountain) so I had to make the trip solo, but it was wonderful to see her and spend some time with her lovely family.

Once again we spent Christmas with my family in Pinetop (a ritual that I think will be changed next year as my altitude headache reared its ugly head in the worst way), and enjoyed having another white Christmas. Sprocket wasn't quite sure what to think of the snow at first, but after a few tentative bites he declared it both entertaining and delicious and spent quite a bit of time running amok in the back and front yards.

I think that catches you up on most things that have taken place in the last six weeks or so. Of course there have been other amazing, or disappointing, or confusing things, but I'll leave those for another post on another day. Right now I'm just enjoying the post Christmas high and the peace and quiet that can only mean that the puppy is taking another one of his naps on the couch. If only I could find the camera.

Christmas traditions...

2009-11-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

Just last week (literally) I was basking in the 90+ degree sunlight of my backyard, watching our neighborhood children trek over to the community pool while balancing noodles, inner tubes, snorkel gear and water wings precariously over their heads, and sprinting on tip-toe out to the mailbox because the driveway was hotter than my broiler.

This morning I sipped my hot white tea while wrapped up in a thick blanket, waiting for the heater to come on.

Only one conclusion can be derived from this sequence of events: Fall this year in Phoenix was a full 48 hours long and it is now Winter.

I hate the cold, but it's impossible to hate everything that Winter brings with it: pumpkin carving, turkey roasting, hot chocolate whisking, tree shopping, present wrapping glory. The only problem with the holidays in the valley is that we don't have autumn to help us ease our way into it. So now, before I could see it coming, plans need to be made.

For those of you who aren't readers of this blog, or who we don't talk to often (how unfortunate, we keep meaning to call), Corey and I have made it a tradition to adopt a family for Christmas. While we have made it a goal to be more thankful all year long for the rich blessings we have in our lives, Christmas is a time where we have found it particularly rewarding to wrap all of those thankful feelings up into a big gift and bless a less fortunate family. Especially with the current (and seemingly never ending) economic climate, one would think this would be an easy task. Unfortunately, it's not.

So, I am enlisting all the help I can get.

We are looking for a family in need of a little help this Christmas. It could be help buying some presents for their children so they have something under the tree, or it could be a load of firewood and a Christmas dinner. We aren't particular about the nature of the need, but we do have one large stipulation, which is where we went wrong last year.

The family must be in need. Not 'in want'. We are not looking for someone who is brokenhearted that they can't buy their kids the largest plasma TV for the playroom. We aren't looking for a family who will sneer at a Guess coat because they were holding out for a Prada one. And, we also aren't looking for a family that can't afford Christmas presents because they spend their entire paycheck on cigarettes, alcohol, and eating out.

I don't mean to sound snotty about it, but I am well aware that there are thousands of families just getting by for a multitude of legitimate reasons, and I have no interest in ignoring their needs so I can pay the electric bill of a lazy drug-addict who signed up for public assistance so he won't have to work.

Also, we simply can't afford to buy a family of six every new video game system just so they can keep up with their friends.

So, if you know anyone who is deserving of some help this Christmas please let us know. It can be as face-to-face or anonymous as the family is comfortable with, we just really want to help someone who needs it.

Thanks!!!

Bad Blogger!

2009-11-02T15:24:00.001-08:00

It's true - I'm a very bad blogger. It's not due to lack of conviction on my part, as I have sat down with the laptop approximately twenty times since my last post, but I just never manage to hit the "Publish" button.

There has not been much excitement in our little corner of the world, and a major part of that is Corey having been in Texas all month completing his instructor training for the new position. It's not the first time the Air Force has separated us, and God knows it won't be the last, but to say that I'm counting down the minutes until his return would be an understatement.

In the meantime, Sprocket and I have been at home trying to find some sort of routine in the chaos that is a puppy's first few months of life. So far, we've come to a stand-off in the area of sleeping habits as he would prefer to only sleep a few hours at night and then lounge around all day taking naps as he pleases. As this doesn't quite work for my schedule I have been a walking zombie, at least until noon, and not as much gets done as I would like. These are the days that I miss coffee. A lot.

He is growing quite well though, and once we got his sicknesses under control he has put on enough weight to make him a happy 24 pound, four month old lab. He is quite obviously mixed with a breed that has a less substantial bone structure than normal black labs, and we don't expect him to get anywhere near the 60-75 pounds that most full grown adults get to, but we would be foolish to think he would be a good guard dog at any weight. Sprocket has never met a person he didn't want to paw, lick, and nibble to death - regardless of the location, time of day/night, or just the fact that they look frightening.

I have some rather unfortunate medical tests and problems to deal with in the coming months, and it will be nice to get Corey home and establish a little order to our tumultuous world (as least as well as we can). Nothing life-threatening, but definitely emotionally draining, and I am very thankful for the thoughts and prayers of my family and friends in-the-know (and of course those who just send general good tidings our way).

As we get more resolution and perhaps some answers I will post more about the situation, but until then I am doing my best to find comfort in the blessings I DO have. It's sad and amazing to me how much we (and especially me) overlook the things we are gifted with while focusing on the things we can't and don't have. It's a daily struggle for me to remain on the positive side of the fence (perhaps Maleficent gifted me with pessimism) but I do appreciate the warmth that comes with good friends and family.

I hope that going into the holiday season this year all of us receive not only the gifts that we are asking for, but also the ones we need.

Day of the Monkey

2009-09-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

I post this with full knowledge that it may be a case of a proud parent thinking their child or pet is the cutest, smartest and best looking ball of adorableness on the planet when in reality it more resembles a clumsy ape than the Gerber baby. However, I am going to proceed with complete belief that Sprocket is the most precious puppy in the history of the world.

With a bladder the size of a walnut, Sprocket must be taken out every few hours to relieve himself and keep me from scrubbing pee out of the carpets. This works just fine during the day, but at night it is rough because my little puppy experiences an out of body experience when woken up from a deep sleep. In a zombie haze it takes him approximately five minutes to recognize a) that he is, in fact, a dog, and b) who we are and why we are waking him up and dragging him outside. He walks around in a daze, stumbling like a drunkard and running into walls on the way from his kennel to the sliding glass door. Sometimes I can scoop him up, carry him outside, and place him in the grass, and sometimes he seems intent to do it on his own.

This morning around five I got up and stirred him enough to wake him up and coax him out of his kennel, and I walked to the living room to open the door for him. Several minutes later he toppled into the dining room, lopsided from dragging something with him and sideswiping several walls on the way due to walking with his eyes closed. Squinting in the darkness I realized he was bringing his good friend Monkey out to go potty with him.

Since he is, by all intents and purposes, housetrained and a strictly indoor dog he knows what he has to do when he goes outside and I can only assume that he figured Monkey had been cooped up all night too and needed relief. He tottered to the door and marched outside, dragging Monkey along with him across the cement, down the stone pathway, and into the damp grass. He gingerly placed Monkey down in the grass, walked a few feet away to do his business, and then stared at Monkey for a few seconds, yawning, as if he was politely giving Monkey space and time. He then glanced at me, waiting for his pat on the head and "Good Boy!" that is part of his positive reinforcement, received it, and scooped Monkey back up and escorted him down the pathway, into the house and into the kennel where they curled up together and went back to sleep.

All of this took about five minutes and I am convinced none of it was conscious on his part.

Other than managing his cuteness, our little guy has had a busy time of it the last few weeks. Since getting him three weeks ago, he has made four trips to the vet, only to learn that he has two internal parasites, Giardia and Coccidia, common to puppies who are raised in, ahem, not so sanitary environments. We don't fault the rescue association from which we acquired him as I think they do the best they can as a non-profit, and as he resided before that at the county animal shelter there is no way of knowing where he picked up the bugs. We think he is on the up-and-up thanks to his medicine although it causes him to vomit so it is hard to tell. He's the first puppy we've seen who doesn't like to eat, so it has been quite a challenge to doctor up his food with gourmet treats to get him to devour it, and between his anorexia and gut bugs he's on the smaller side of the size range for his age and we're busy trying to fatten him up. I feel like the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fable as I squeeze his belly and weigh him on a daily basis trying to gauge whether or not he is putting on the weight, and resist the urge to slather his milk bones in butter. He may have to go stay with his deep fried grandparents in the south for a month or two if we can't get him a little chunkier.

Until then, we're thinking of making him a puppy runway model.

Transition to adulthood...

2009-09-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Of course I know I'm a grown up - I am the ripe old age of 27 after all - but sometimes the degree of grownupness sneaks up on me, and this weekend was one of those times.

- After a week of getting up every two hours to take Sprocket out, what I was most looking foward to on Friday night was not an exciting night out, or even an exciting night in; I was incredibly thrilled about the prospect of getting seven hours of sleep while Corey was on puppy duty.

- After a trip to the doctor yielded some very unwelcome news I wanted nothing more than to go to church on Sunday. Corey and I have been talking about it for a while now, but I think that was the proverbial straw and I needed to feel a little divine-ness and that I'm not really as forsaken as I sometimes imagine I must be.

- We decided on a non-denominational church that we felt was a good balance between the beliefs we were each brought up with, and got up to get dressed as we were both accustomed to. In my dress and heels I stood out like a sore thumb as the dress code for church now is somewhere between golf course casual and car wash classy. Jeans, cutoffs, tank tops, and T-shirts now classify as Sunday best. I was horrified.

- We budget all of our money to the penny so we can put a large amount in savings. This is not optional as I am the budget nazi at home. This week I'm dying to break our rules and make an unauthorized purchase: the new purple animal Dyson ball vacuum. I'm such a rebel.

- I just pulled a live spider out of the puppy's mouth without even cringing. This shocked even me.

- The smell of pot roast on Sunday made the house so inviting! No, I haven't started eating meat, but the smell makes me happy.

- Last but not least, every day I appreciate my mother and all of her parental nonsense more and more. I KNOW I must be getting old when this starts happening!

Meet Sprocket, the wonder dog

2009-09-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

We have a new addition to our family to announce, and as you can see from the picture, it's not the kind that incubates for nine months.

This is Sprocket, part lab, part something the rescue organization couldn't identify, and 100% cute little black dog.

Sprocket came into our family by way of his new Daddy's weakness for cute little dogs with big brown eyes last Saturday from the HALO rescue organization. This non-profit rescues animals that are scheduled to be put down at other shelters and adopts them out at local pet store locations. Why our cute little man would be put down is any one's guess, although I am brokenhearted to understand that it is simply because of the overabundance of homeless animals in Maricopa County and the distinct lack of facilities and volunteers to care for them.

Depressed about the call he received from the radiologist identifying his foot as broken, the boy woke up Saturday morning and began moping around the house. Because we had been talking for months about getting a dog, I quietly transferred some money into our checking account and announced that it was time to go shopping for puppy amenities.

A few hours later we arrived home with dozens of bags containing treats, toys, a kennel, puppy food, and cleaning products (for housetraining mistakes) and embarked upon the journey of finding a new member of our family.

When we walked into the Petsmart we were told the adoptions were taking place in the center of the store and we were upset to find that the puppies available were all chihuahuas and other purse dogs. Dejected, we knew that this kind of dog would never fit in with us as we were sure we wanted a tough dog, good for hiking, walking, and wrestling on the living room floor on lazy Sunday afternoons. As we headed for the door to return home, we noticed a few people gathered around the entrance, one of whom was holding a tiny black pup who looked scared to death of the excitement that was going on around him. Before I knew it, the boy had scooped the baby up into his arms, and the puppy had promptly fallen asleep on his forearm. Lucky for us, this was a secondary rescue association and they were also adopting puppies out. Although I was hesitant to pick the smallest, youngest, quietest pup of the group, Corey was already in love with him, so I filled out the paperwork, wrote a check, and took my boys home.

He's now been with us a week and it is hard to remember a time when he wasn't here. Truly a baby at nine weeks old, he is much like an infant as he needs to be watched constantly and tended to every two hours so he doesn't have an accident in the house. Although things haven't been perfect and we've utilized our new carpet cleaner on several occasions, he is doing quite well at the house training and we're on our way to understanding 'sit' and 'shake' so far. He loves bacon treats, milkbones, and drinking water by the gallon and hates baths and mud. He is also quite the little charmer and enjoys the attention wherever we take him.

Labs are supposed to be quite good with kids so we're hoping that Sprocket becomes the bodyguard for our future children as he has already become my constant shadow during the day, following me from the bedroom, to the laundry room, to the kitchen, without making a noise. He adores sleeping on his daddy's lap (or back, or stomach) while they lay on the living room floor watching college football, and has seamlessly worked his way into our hearts, as if he was there all along.

Oh, and he has his daddy wrapped all the way around his little paw. What took me two years took him all of two minutes.

I guess that's just what happens when your husband falls in love with a dog.

Getting older every day...

2009-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

Last week was the boy's thirtieth birthday. I'll let that sink in a moment.

30!!!

I remember back in the day, while playing with barbie dolls and EZ bake ovens, thinking that surely when I was thirty I would have the whole world figured out. There would be no stress, no complications, no hard decisions. Knowledge is power, and certainly by thirty I would know everything there is to know. Also, I figured that the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and arthritis would be setting in because, damn, thirty is old!!

He didn't seem to feel much older, or to be bothered by the milestone, so we headed up to celebrate with dear friends in Las Vegas.

Brandon and Kim have been good friends of Corey's for years now, and upon meeting them I immediately felt that I'd known them forever as well. I know that I can be a bit standoffish towards new people and I have high standards for friends, but to know these two is to love them so we are sure to have a good time when we see them.

Quietly, I was hoping that we wouldn't need a repeat performance of last year which involved copious amounts of whiskey and beer (on the boy's part, not mine) and sitting at the blackjack tables until dawn, but I was prepared to honor Corey's birthday wishes whatever they involved.

Thankfully, his age must have kicked in somewhere during the last year and we enjoyed the weekend without much debauchery. We played with Chase (the world's cutest baby), went shopping, played (and watched in my case) enough Tiger Wood's golf to qualify for some kind of Playstation tournament, and ate at Hubert Keller's burger restaurant to celebrate. We did hit the tables for a while on Saturday night, and then ventured to seedy Fremont street on our way out of town to play some roulette, but all in all the gambling was a secondary point in the trip.

When we got home to celebrate his actual birthday my parents showed me up by buying the boy a new driver that he'd been lusting after since seeing it featured in last month's golf digest, but he also got a new golf bag, some golf clothes, a sand wedge...notice a theme?

I think he enjoyed himself, and I know that he handled the milestone much better than I will in a few years!

Updates

2009-08-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything particularly interesting to post, but I hate the idea of having a blog and letting it sit idle 90% of the time. Most people I know understand that my life (and most others) is a series of monotonous events punctuated by the occasional excitement - so don't begrudge me a boring post now and then.

We are moved into our new place and even though we still have the small annoyance that we're renting, we are in love with it. The owners are considering selling, so there is a small chance we'll purchase it in a year, but if not I will enjoy cooking in my enormous new kitchen for the next 11 1/2 months. It truly is wonderful to have sunlight and space and GRASS, none of which we had at our previous residence. I have also yet to hear and see the ghetto bird circling my backyard with its spotlight beaming, so that is an additional plus.

This is the boy's last week in the job he's been doing for the past nine plus years and I know he's a bit melancholy about it. Ten years ago he was just a small town boy who wanted more out of life and thought it would be cool to work on F-16s. Now he's in the middle of a promising career and will be training the future crew chiefs of the air force and making a difference in their lives just like his instructors did for him. I know he'll be amazing at it and this is just another step to getting where he wants to go in the military, but I am definitely going to miss him for five weeks while he goes to instructor training in Texas!

We are taking baby steps towards finding a real medical diagnosis for what's going on with me, and I'm happy to be going in the right direction. The tests aren't generally fun, but I feel like I have doctors that are listening to me and taking my concerns seriously, which is a welcome relief. It appears that I may well have a systemic pain problem, but these are quite hard to diagnose correctly and I am not intersted in a doctor labeling me just to get me out of his office and medicated, so it is involving quite a lot of research and questions and requests on my part. I'm hoping that if I do in fact have the problem that they think I might, that I am able to be definitively diagnosed by a specialist and we can move on to treatment. What a thought!

If I could think of anything else remotely resembling intersting information I would write it, but this is where the monotonous part comes in. Sometimes the day to day stuff is nice though right? It could always be much worse...

The price of personal integrity

2009-07-27T13:08:00.001-07:00

I used to believe in karma. I thought that when you were a good person who made good choices and affected the world in a positive way you would be repaid in kind. Maybe not tit for tat, but certainly that the world or universe or higher power would see your good deeds and pave your way a little.

My mom taught me the golden rule and I bought into the theory. Treat others as you'd want to be treated. Sounds fair, right? If you are nice to people, they will be nice to you back.

But wait, that's not the moral of the story at all, is it? The rule of karma doesn't talk about the payout, we just interject that of our own accord because we think that's what is fair and just.

Unfortunately, the world is not fair and just at all. The world is full of givers and takers at a ratio of 1:10. Takers rarely see their ways from outside themselves and become givers, and givers rarely sell their personal integrity to become takers. So, are we destined upon birth to become one or the other, and sentenced to a life within that role? Because I was brought up to believe that I am blessed and I should help those around me that are less fortunate, does that mean that they are fated to have things I cannot?

I know this all sounds very bitter, and truthfully I feel bitter about it on many occasions. I feel bitter when I see people take advantage of programs that were not designed to help them simply because they feel they deserve material things more than others. I feel bitter when I see the local adoption agencies struggle for funds because they have more unwanted and uncared for children than they can take care of. I feel bitter when I donate extra money to the electric company to help those who can't pay their bills only to hear that the people who can't pay their bills are in that predicament because their air conditioner is set at 65 degrees or their jacuzzi heater is on high.

The problem is that there are also those that are truly in need. There are mothers who cannot feed their children, not because they pay too much for cigarettes and booze, but because they were laid off or left an abusive relationship. There are veterans who are disabled and homeless, who hold signs at freeway entrances hoping to earn a few coins and purchase another gallon of water. There are dogs, ribs sticking through their skin, left chained in backyards to die in the heat because their owners left them when they moved.

They deserve to be takers. And the people that are giving deserve to be able to gift things knowing that they will make it to the hands of these who are truly needy.

The price of my personal integrity is high as of late and as much as I'd like to cut and run at times I fear that I'm a lost cause at this point. We could stop all of our contributions and live an easier life, but would I be able to lay my head down on my pillow and not see the faces of those I could have helped haunting me?

The food at restaurants doesn't taste as good when you know that there are those going hungry in your neighborhood, and a new pair of shoes puts you in excruciating pain when the man on the corner has holes in his soles.

So, it is better to be a taker? Is ignorance truly bliss? If you don't see that beggar at all does his plight weigh heavy on your mind?

I struggle with this daily as we decide how we are going to raise our children. Do we set the price of their personal integrity so high that they will wish they had been raised to be takers? Will my children resent that they don't have some of the same things that their friends have simply because we believe in giving and saving?

And, can givers even raise takers? When I look at the people I know they are definitely products of their upbringing and often turn out exactly as their parents are. So, do I sentence my children to a life of being caring and contributing, but also being confused as to why their friends are carefree with their ignorance and government checks?

How do you raise children that are both conscionable and happy, as it sometimes seems that these traits are mutually exclusive?

Moliere, one of my favorite writers of all time said, "Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows."

I hope he was right.

There's good news and there's bad news...

2009-07-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

It's finally official and I can announce our good news to the world: Corey got the job he interviewed for and he will now be an instructor for the Air Force which comes with a 4-5 year committment to keep us stationed at Luke!

I'm not a HUGE fan of Phoenix, but it is nice to have peace of mind that we won't be transferred to somewhere random, Corey won't be deployed to the desert, and we won't be separated for a long period of time (other than his training course of six weeks which is coming up soon). Corey is also excited that my family will be close when we start a family as he thinks I'll be a neurotic mom.

The only downside to this announcement is that it came ONE day after we signed a lease to rent another home close to base. We love the house and will enjoy living in it, but had we known that we would be here for at least a few years we would have been looking at buying a house instead of renting again.

I know that it's probably not that prohibitive as it's going to take us a LOOONG time to choose a house to buy (we're very picky) and we wouldn't have wanted to stay in our current house much longer, but I hate the idea of living in someone else's house when we don't have to.

In less exciting news, I have a new doctor and I'm hoping that he will be able to help me treat whatever is going on with me. Unfortunately, I've spent the last two years suffering from various areas of pretty intense pain and at some point I have to wonder whether it's more than bad luck and something more systematic. I'm not "that girl" that's always sick, and I live a pretty healthy life, so the fact that I'm always in pain is pretty upsetting. I'd really like to have my life back, so if you could send me some good vibes I would appreciate it!

...make lemonade.

2009-07-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

We all know what you're supposed to do when life gives you lemons, but what do you do if you ARE a lemon? Or, as Corey asked me yesterday, "Are you sure your parents aren't first cousins?"

While I am quite certain that my parents are not blood relations, I do believe my mom must have imbibed some wonky cough syrup a few too many time while incubating me 27 years ago.

The inflammation in my pericardial sac has been quite stubborn, so I went for a follow up to my cardiologist to see what our next course of action is. He scheduled an echo cardiogram to get a view of my heart without ripping me open and found something rather interesting. I suffer from a congenital heart defect known as Patent Foramen Ovale, or more commonly referred to as a hole in my heart. As much as 20% of us are born with a membrane not yet closed in our hearts, but in most people it heals when we are very small - either naturally or due to medication or surgery. Unfortunately, mine did not.

The leak in my heart is small, and he is confident that not only does it have nothing to do with my current inflammation, but also that nothing needs to immediately be done about it.

Later in life if I develop problems like arrhythmia or palpitations, they will surgically repair it. It does put me at higher risk for stroke and causes migraines (which I suffer from) so I can elect to have the surgery now, but I think we will handle things one at a time.

In other (and much more exciting) news the boy is being promoted! For those of you that aren't familiar, the military world doesn't work the way the civilian world does as far as promotions go. There is a massive points system in place that decides who gets promoted and when, and it is based on a number of things - the largest percentage of points being assigned to a test that rivals the SATs. Last year he missed being promoted by a heartbreaking 3 points, but this year we celebrated at 6 in the morning when we found his name on the list for Tech Sargeant! Unfortunately since he is pretty young for this position, he will be one of the later people promoted (somewhere between 8-10 months from now), but it will make a huge difference in his day to day duties and we couldn't be more excited. We may also soon have another exciting Air Force announcement to make, but will wait until it is made official.

This weekend we will make our traditional 4th of July trek up the mountain to see the fireworks with my parents, and I am excited to have 4 full days to hang out with my husband rather than our normal rushed weekend.

We hope everyone else has a great long weekend and stays safe too!

The day the third baseman broke my heart

2009-06-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

In psychology they teach you that your world view is cemented by the age of six. In my case, my professional sports view was also in place by an early age. I’ve been a Dallas Cowboys fan for as long as I can remember, and a Braves fan for almost as long as that.

It was hard not to be a Braves fan as a pre-teen girl when you saw David Justice come up to bat. The proverbial bad boy, there was an edge to him (you don’t have to tell that to Halle Barry) that made him seem dark, mysterious, and dreamy. Winning homeruns in the 1995 Championship and all over the news at the same time for his drama off the field made him seem as Danny Zucco-ish as could be. At the same time there was his counterpoint; the good boy to his bad: Chipper Jones. I always liked Chipper Jones when I was a kid, not because he was so cute (although he was) but because he was solid. A great baseball player, a charity volunteer, always smiling with his, “Awww, schucks, I’m just a small town boy” smile.

The days of David Justice passed, but I’m nothing if not loyal so I remained with the Braves through thick and thin. Like the Cowboys, we had some good years together in the 90’s, and Chipper came back year after year as one of the most consistently great baseball players in the league. Even though it wasn’t love at first sight, he grew on me and eventually became my all-time favorite baseball player who could do no wrong. Until last Sunday.

Feeling a little better, I dared to venture out when my Dad called and said he’d managed to snag some amazing tickets to the Diamondbacks/Braves game due to his fantastic marketing contacts. We try to at least make the Braves game every year and I knew I would be furious with myself if I missed it to lie in bed. Had I known what he meant by amazing tickets I would have gone even if I was having a heart attack.

The dugout box. It’s a suite attached to the dugout at field level. It means that I was sitting ten feet away from Chipper Jones, Bobby Cox, and every other member of my favorite franchise. It means that I reached out in front of me and felt the red clay, and looked over my left shoulder and gazed right into the visiting team locker room.

My dad gets amazing tickets all the time, but they’re usually up in the corporate suite level – far away from the action. Generally, I love this. Private bathrooms, catering and waitresses, separate elevators. But this was a different way to view things. Here we were right in the middle of the action. And while the magic of the game of baseball was even more prevalent, the magic surrounding our favorite multi-millionaire baseball players becomes tarnished a little when you’re sitting ten feet away.

After rushing to the team shop to buy a twelve dollar Sharpie, we sat poised to get autographs, talk to the team and basically become best friends with Chipper Jones so he would invite us to summer with he and his wife in Atlanta and go on the road for series’ in Toronto, New York, and Seattle.

Unfortunately, I was in no shape to be yelling to anyone so my darling husband took it upon himself to start the dialogue. Unfortunately again, my handsome husband does not have breasts like the blonde in the twelfth row behind the dugout had so he was, for the most part, ignored. Even after yelling, “Chipper, my wife loves you!!!” loud enough for the entire stadium to snicker, he still couldn’t manage to snag an autograph as Mr. Jones was too busy dipping into his chew can and spitting juice all over the dugout. In the sixth inning stretch Chipper disappeared into the locker room below and never reappeared, not even to shake hands after the game.

Not a total loss, Bobby Cox did toss us a game ball at the end and eventually Corey resigned to leave his post at the suite door, finally deciding that Chipper wasn’t coming back.

Crushed that my baseball boyfriend might not be as perfect and charming as I once thought, I managed to make it home and hit espn.com to see if there was some injury I didn’t know about that was plaguing my star and would cause him to snub the Diamondbacks like LeBron.

Although I did find a toe sprain record, (toe sprain?) I also found an interesting blurb on Wikipedia explaining why Chipper and his first wife got divorced while I was busy pining over David Justice – he had a two year affair with a Hooters waitress that resulted in a child. Who the hell has a two minute, let alone a two YEAR affair with a Hooters waitress? Checking out her assets is one thing, but engaging in a relationship is a completely separate offense even if you’re not married.

After being let down by countless athletes I was sure I had it right this time, but it turns out that it’s harder to find athletes with morals than you’d think. First Tony Romo with Nick Lachey’s sloppy seconds and now this? Devastating.

All I have left to cling to now is the goodness of Kurt Warner and the knowledge that, although unemployed, I do not have the job of cleaning up the dugout after MLB games.

Thank you God.

Not as crazy as everyone thinks.

2009-05-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to those of you that were planning to visit me in a white padded room: You'll have to wait a while longer. It turns out there is actually something physically wrong with me.

Pericarditis is inflammation of the sac surrounding your heart. It often occurs after a viral infection (like I had prior to this all starting), hurts worse when you are reclined, makes you short of breath, and becomes much worse when you breathe deeply or exercise. BINGO.

The diagnosis is simple and could have been made over a week ago if they hadn't decided instead that I was insane, but it's not as simple to fix. Unfortunately, inflammation is cured by anti-inflammatories and they don't exactly work overnight.

Thank you for the prayers if you're sending them my way - I can use all I can get until I start to get some relief.

Hard times ahead...

2009-05-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

It's difficult for me to write a serious post, as by nature I feel better being sarcastic, self-deprecating and exaggerative to add drama to a story. Unfortunately, the story I have now needs no dramatization.

Mental health problems carry such a stigma in our culture that even though my own personal education is in mental health I fall victim to it on a personal level. After my trip to the emergency room two weeks ago I blithely accepted the diagnosis of anxiety and tried to assure myself that it would resolve itself with time. Tingling in my limbs, sleeplessness AND fatigue, chest tightness and cold sweats are all telltale symptoms of anxiety issues and although I have my own personal problems with mistrust in the medical field (un/misdiagnosed cancer at 23, you think?) I comforted myself with the fact that I am in the lowest possible risk factor category for any kind of heart problems and that the many M.D.s I had consulted with knew what they're talking about.

So on Thursday of last week I put on my best tough face, donned my workout wear and decided that since my problems are of the psychological variety a little endorphin rush would do me some good. Water bottle in hand I headed to the track near my home to get my heart rate up to something beyond the excitement of a Dr. Phil episode (the highlight of the previous week), and all was well until somewhere between .3 and .4 of a mile when my chest pressure was starting to transform magically into something much more implicative of a chef's knife being plunged into my heart repeatedly.

I did make it 2 miles (two VERY slow miles) with many stops along the way and then gave up to try some yoga at home.

The agony continued and I figured that a hot shower and some meditation would be like natural Valium and I'd calm down as soon as my body recovered from the Arizona temperatures and the actual physical exertion which hadn't been accomplished in weeks. Unfortunately, no such luck.

Here's where my stubbornness comes into play, yet again. For fear of hearing, "There is nothing wrong with you, go home!" again from the emergency room staff I sat up all night long in tremendous pain and figured I would mention it to my doctor, with whom I had a normal old appointment the following day.

However, when I showed up on base complaining of chest pain they chastised me for even going there (there are no emergency services on base) and told me there was nothing they could do. I must have looked completely desperate though, so my doctor saw me anyway, confirmed the anxiety diagnosis and gave me TWENTY(!) little magic white pills known to mortals as Xanax and known to us crazies as sweet, sweet relief.

Unfortunately, twenty pills that last 4-5 hours a piece don't take you all that far and I am now rationing them like mad until I can get in to see a psychiatrist that will figure out something better and less addictive.

The real struggle with this post is trying to figure out how to end it (The post, that is. This is not some drawn out suicide note). I'm lying here in bed, the pain in my chest hard, fast , red hot, and unrelenting, and the bottle of Xanax is sitting on the nightstand to my right. The temptation is real, but since I don't know how long it will be until I have something better/different/more effective I'm saving them for midnight so I can hopefully get some sleep.

To tell you that I'm 100% convinced this is all anxiety related would be a lie, but I do think it's important to write this and publicly heed my own advice and take my own knowledge to heart. The brain is an amazing mass of cells, and physical manifestations of feelings are nothing new or remarkable. Although I have no idea what I am specifically anxious about my body is sending me messages loud and clear that something is wrong, and I hope that if nothing else this will serve as a reminder to everyone to reads this (and to myself) that you should always listen to what your body and mind are telling you. Taking care of your mental health is every bit as important as your physical health, even though psychotherapy is often only considered an option for the truly sociopathic or alternately the bored wealthy Beverly Hills housewife. I have an amazing husband, a lovely home, a wonderful family and a shoe collection that takes up two closets. What could I possibly have to be anxious about?

If you need to talk to someone, do it. It could save you (literally) a lot of heartache, and quite a few strange looks when you tell doctors that there are six foot lobsters chasing you through the emergency room (I'll save that for another post entitled “The joys of intravenous Ativan” perhaps).

C.R.A.Z.Y.

2009-05-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

I've always been a worrier, it's true. From a young age I'd lie in bed and devise elaborate plans entailing what I would do if robbers broke in, if I was abducted by aliens, or if the monsters under my bed broke loose from their chains.

Gradually, those fears gave way to other anxieties (although I will admit that probing by alien is still a bothersome thought) and the things that keep me up at night are now more along the lines of illness, wellness of family and friends and whether or not the duracell that powers my biological clock is running low.

Somewhere between losing my job and the wedding from hell my anxiety started to kick into overdrive and I stopped doing normal everyday things like eating and sleeping, and instead supplemented those with attempting to watch Law and Order reruns 24 hours a day (surprisingly doable thanks to TNT). I surmised that once we were hitched, the visitors had vacated our home, and I was back on my way to being gainfully employed I would calm down.

Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case. Although I did manage to find joy in churros and sticky buns during our honeymoon I still haven't been able to sleep like a normal person, much to the dismay of my charming and ever accommodating husband. Last Sunday his patience wore out though when I mentioned to him that not only had I been having chest pain for the entire week, but my left arm and left leg were now both numb. He swept me into the car and six hours, two blown veins, two EKGs and a quadruple dose of Ativan later it was determined that I had anxiety problems. Duh.

Although I still have the chest pressure and tingly limbs I am happy to note that I don't think I'm dying and I do have an appointment with a psychiatrist so I can be sufficiently medicated - at least enough to function on a daily basis.

My favorite quote of all time is something that Mother Teresa said: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." I try to keep that in mind when I get frustrated with other people, and it just occurred to me that I should also keep it in mind when it comes to myself. Sometimes I think we are harder on ourselves than anyone else possibly could be, and I am no exception to this.

However, if anything can clear the mind it is the cold crisp air of the mountain so we are headed up to spend Mother's Day in Pinetop this weekend and hopefully the lack of smog will scrub my mind clean and freshen up the cobwebs in my brain.

To all of you mothers out there I wish you the happiest of Mother's Days!!!

Downpour in the Desert - AKA - My wedding day

2009-04-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hollywood loves to reference how little girls sit around and dream of their wedding day, but for me the daydreams didn’t really start until the beginning of the planning process. I read bridal magazines, followed wedding websites and basically aspired to be the Martha Stewart of planning my own wedding. I should have known better.

There hasn’t been much in my relationship with Corey that has been easy or perfect. There’s no sense in dwelling on the hardships now but we’ve had our share. The past few years should have been the indicator to me to not plan anything and just run to Vegas, but stubborn as I am I pretended that I could disrupt the flow of destiny.

Turmoil reared her ugly head early on the morning of the eleventh when I opened the curtains and saw the thunderheads surrounding the downtown area, spinning like the cauldron stirred by the three witches. Like Macbeth I had tempted fate, and lost.

The average rainfall in Phoenix for the entire month of April is .5 inches. On my wedding day it rained .6 inches by noon. By the time we arrived at the ceremony location the hair and makeup that had been painstakingly arranged for hours prior were limp, lifeless and smeared. My hand-beaded Acra ballgown was coated with about six inches of mud, sand and city slime before I even walked down the aisle. Our beautiful garden location was reduced to a 10x10 tent that our guests were huddled under, and the melodious din of the waterfall in the background could not be heard over the gusts of frigid wind and incessant thump of the rain on the vinyl ceiling.

Every girl’s dream. Sigh.

The platinum lining on our day was that we actually did get married. Our families made it here safely, our vows were beautiful and when I wasn’t crying crocodile tears of disappointment I was crying tears of happiness.

And my husband couldn’t have been more handsome or loving.

We survived. We survived our lovely imported modern art cake topper committing suicide an hour into the reception by flinging itself off of the cake and onto the tile floor to shatter into a million pieces and take half of the cake down with it. We survived an illness causing an early end to the reception, thusly skipping our first dances and necessitating that the bride and groom drive hours across town instead of retiring to their honeymoon suite. We survived stepfamilies in the same rooms for the first time in years, delayed airline flights, weeks without sleep, and even the flu on our honeymoon.

We survived and came out of it all married, and still happily so, and although we wouldn’t do it again for less than seven figures we are still happy that we did it. We are thankful that our families were able to attend, and thankful that at the very least we had a lovely reception dinner.

We are even thankful for those dozens of frustrating but well-meaning people that told us matter-of-factly that, “rain on your wedding day is good luck.” I have yet to meet a happily married couple who actually had rain on their wedding day, but that is beside the point. We make one.

So while our wedding day was a far cry from the ever after fairy tale image that I had envisioned while planning, it still accomplished what we set out to do: become husband and wife. And when we think about it, it was fitting that our wedding was less than perfect. The only thing that has been perfect when it comes to Corey and I has been our love and if I had to choose between an amazing wedding or an amazing marriage I would choose the marriage every time.

Thanks fate, we owe you one.

Three little words...

2009-03-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

ELOPE!! ELOPE!! ELOPE!!

If you, or someone you love, is planning a wedding anytime in this milennium - ELOPE!

That is all.

Green eyed monsters

2009-03-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

It's strange really - being laid off, that is. Even when I had known for weeks that it was coming, it was still eerie to have HR come into my office and close the door. Last Wednesday was my last day at work and although I've been in a bit of shock since then I've managed to embrace the silver lining that is extra time to take care of my ever-extending to-do list.

With a little over a month until the wedding I never cease to be amazed at how many details it takes to pull an event like this off. In fact, I have come to believe that this might be the most involved thing I take charge of in my life. Please don't misunderstand - I don't think it's the most difficult thing, but it is the most involved. The hard part is in the details: Out of town boxes, bathroom baskets, monogrammed aisle runners...I now understand why women recruit huge bridal parties to 'support' them on their big day. With only a maid of honor, and one that is out of state at that, my 'wedding favor assembly parties' are solo. In a way it's beneficial as I must make sure that every single thing I'm spending time on is worthwhile, but I also wouldn't be lying if I said I hadn't wished for three magical bridesmaids with Martha Stewart's craftiness and magic wands.

Other than my lack of employment and my stock in Michael's Arts and Crafts there have actually been deeper thoughts weighing on my conscience, lest you think I'm as shallow as a silhouette. Corey's stepfather has been getting increasingly ill in decreasing increments of time and I find myself busy making deals with God that they enroll him in a robot heart transplant trial. While I still feel that my life is incredibly blessed it seems so surreal that we have already had to deal with sick parents, lost jobs and cancer in our short relationship and young lives. I struggle daily with feelings of envy and jealously of friends and acquaintances I know who manage to make decisions that, despite how bad they may be, hardly ever yield consequences. Logically I know that their lives have nothing to do with me and have no effect on my decisions, but still I struggle. I often wonder if I'm the only one out there with these feelings and feel like such an awful person to acknowledge them. I suppose that this exemplifies one of the reasons why Corey is such a good influence and makes me want to be a better woman as he never envies anyone else anything. No matter what he sees that other people have he always manages to appreciate what we have and the way we got it. Sometimes the shortcut to things looks so appealing when we see others who have gotten there by cheating, but I'm happy to know that even when I'm tempted, the angel on my shoulder (who also happens to be my *almost* husband) encourages me to be the slow and steady tortoise that gets to the finish line by following the rules, regardless of who gets there before we do.

Good thing he's agreed to marry me - who knows where I'd be without the good influence (and the secondary income!).

Someone else's shoes

2009-03-02T07:30:00.001-08:00

I’m sure you’ve already picked this up from my blog if you’ve read it before, but I have trouble sleeping. I have a disease that mostly manifests itself in the form of the pain of ice picks being shoved into my pelvis, and although I do have pills that calm the situation it is a definite crapshoot as to which days the prescriptions will work at all.

This has helped to lead me to a dangerous addiction; one which I am quite certain would have developed regardless of my affliction, but because of it the effects have been magnified.

I am addicted to reality television.

Thankfully none of it involves rock band buses, bachelor/ette(s), or amateur singing competitions, but my craving has taken the form of seedier and darker ‘entertainment’.

“Jon and Kate + 8”, “Intervention”, “Medical Mystery”, “The Biggest Loser”, and “A Baby Story”. These are my crack. I tell myself that I can quit at anytime, but the minute I lie down and feel the familiar cramping I set out to soothe myself with the tragedies, mysteries, monsters, addicts and lunatics that make their home on multi-national television.

The boy can’t wrap his brain around my fascination, but I suspect it has quite a bit to do with the fact that I studied psychology in college. I specifically focused on adolescent eating disorder therapy, but have always been utterly enchanted by the question of why people are the way they are.

The fact that Kate bosses Jon around to within an inch of my (and his, I hope) tolerance level is not the interesting part. What is intriguing is why she feels the need to mommy him. Was her own youth tumultuous? Was she lacking “love and companionship” a la the “Octomom” and so she seeks to create a permanent family dynamic within her home and relationship? Why does he put up with it? Does he come from a broken home? Does he suffer from extremely low self-esteem and codependency issues?

Why do people on “A Baby Story” continually bring infants into this world that they routinely cannot emotionally, physically, or financially provide for? These decisions and the factors that the subjects used to come to said decisions are the things that keep me from switching the television off and staring at my ceiling instead.

Even in my own life I run into people and find myself staring blankly at them (or my cell phone, or my email) as they explain to me decisions that they have made that are completely illogical. This is not to say that I think I am the be-all, end-all of all decision making in the world, but if you can’t pay your rent you shouldn’t have a child. If you can’t stand your boyfriend you shouldn’t get married, and if you routinely snort cocaine off of urinals in county rest stops you cannot control your addiction.

One of the most common responses that I hear to the criticism of illogical decisions is that God will provide. I hate this excuse more than any other, not because I am an atheist or because I believe that God doesn’t care; it is quite the opposite actually.

Not only do I believe in a fair, loving, and caring God, I am also quite certain the He provides in more ways than I recognize on a daily basis. However, I have yet to receive a check signed by J.C. himself with “provisions” written in the ‘note’ line.

When people say, as they are collecting welfare checks, or asking family members for money, that God is providing, I agree. He provided you with two arms and two legs and a brain. He provided you with the opportunity to grow up in a country that allows you freedom of religion, and the right to vote, and the right to work. He provided you with intelligence (sometimes) and the ability to understand that if you can’t pay your electric bill the company will shut off your power. He also provided you with the ability to know that when your power has been shut off, and you can’t afford food and rent for yourselves, you should not be bringing new life into this world.

I have been asked since my last post why I feel it necessary to have a large savings account before we start to have children. I have been chided and reminded that children don’t need onesies from Neiman Marcus to be well taken care of, as if I am waiting to plan my pregnancy around the spring ’10 baby collection release.

On the contrary, we choose to have a financial plan in place before having children so that we can plan for the unexpected. A totaled car, another health problem, a deployment, a special needs child...etc. I know that we cannot anticipate everything that could possibly happen in the future, but I believe a parent’s responsibility is to provide for his/her/their children to the best of their ability. If the best of your ability is to cash a state check and then spend the money at the bar while your children sit home with the babysitter that charges the lowest amount on Craigslist, I don’t think you should be a parent.

Lucky for you I don’t have a say in it. But, I will lie in bed at two in the morning and judge you for selling your story to TLC so you can visit the nail salon twice a week.

****************
On an unrelated side-note, last weekend my old friend from high school, Chris, took some pics of Corey and me to prepare for photographing our upcoming nuptials. He really is amazingly talented and I can’t wait to see what he takes at the wedding in LESS THAN SIX WEEKS!!! Argh!

Useless Ambien

2009-02-24T06:31:00.000-08:00

It’s funny the things one thinks about during the long bouts of insomnia between two and four a.m. Of course lately it has been minute and ridiculous wedding details such as napkin rings and program ribbons (one of which woke me up in a cold sweat Saturday night) but other forms of randomness also work their way into my foggy barely-consciousness:

- Do we have bedbugs? I don’t think we have bedbugs, but something like 90% of people who DO have bedbugs don’t know it. This invariably leads to me grabbing my cell phone to use as a covert lighting source and searching under the blankets for tiny creatures while my love snores peacefully next to me.
- Is that the ghetto-bird I hear overhead? I really want to move, however moving sucks and is very expensive. I also really want a baby, but those suckers are even more expensive.
- If we ever had twins would being twice as happy outweigh being twice as tired? Is it better to be exhausted all at once, or over two different children’s infant stages?
- Why don’t Catholics believe in eternal marriage? If the boy and I make it to heaven I still want to be his wife.
- How do the sparkles in my lip gloss end up all over Corey’s face just from a quick hello kiss? He always looks like he skipped lunch to collect samples of stripper dust.
- How much damask is too much damask when it comes to wedding décor?
- Does Bobbi Brown seriously think that laid off corporate drones can afford to spend $42 on eyeliner?
- Why, when the entire world has joined the healthy eating/green living/animal rights movements, is it still so damn impossible for me to find a vegetarian Lean Cuisine in the frozen foods section of Safeway?

I’ve also taken to creating running lists in my head of all the wedding-related tasks I must accomplish in the next 47 days. Eleventy gagillion tissue paper pomanders must be made. A parasol, an aisle runner, and a tablecloth must be painted with our monogram. Five Manzanita centerpieces must be fitted into bases, adorned with crystals, and shellacked within an inch of their little branchy lives. I must find ties for the Best Man, my Dad, and my brother that match the shade of burgundy I have so carefully tinted in my mind. I cannot afford to import the gorgeous hand-dyed silk ties that I found online from India for $10,000,000 Rupees even though I have no real idea how much that is.

The boy and I have finally come to an agreement on how large our emergency fund must be before we start trying to conceive our first little bundle of joy, and the figure astounds me. How did it come to pass that in two generations what could purchase a house outright is now what one must save just for a rainy day? No matter how many coupons I cut, if I want a baby before I start to deal with the crippling pain of arthritis I’m going to have to find another job. Oh, and the guilt of being laid off has surprised me. I find myself apologizing for it repeatedly although I know that #1- It isn’t my fault, and #2 - Corey would never hold it against me even if it was my fault. This guilt was compounded when the boy decided last week to trade in his elephant sized 4x4 for something that gets more than 2 miles to the gallon and doesn’t take half a month’s salary to insure. This was his last tie to bachelorhood and his one true love before me and watching the boy say goodbye to his beloved truck broke my heart. I cling to the idea that when we both get to heaven I will be sitting shotgun (with an English Bulldog in my lap) in a two ton pickup that I needed a ladder to get into while the radio blasts Hank Williams and my husband runs over all the girly cars in his way. Good thing we’re not Catholic.

Love survey

2009-02-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

I don’t normally use my blog for things like this, but what the heck?

♥ What are your middle names? Marie and Michael (we will have the same initials)

♥ How long have you been together? Married? 2 years together – married in 49 days!

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? We had been introduced several months earlier, but didn’t really have a conversation beyond, “Hey, how’s it going?” until our first date.

♥ Who asked who out? A mutual friend of ours suggested I come over and hang out. I didn’t know it was a double date until later.

♥ How old are each of you? I’m 27 (ugh) and he’s 29.

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most? Definitely mine. My brother lives across town and his siblings live across the country.

♥ Do you have any children together? Not yet, but we’re definitely looking forward to being parents!

♥ What about pets? We don’t really have the right setup for a puppy right now, but sooner or later the urge to get an English Bulldog will win out.

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? My health problems.

♥ Did you go to the same school? Nope. U of Arizona and U of Tennessee.

♥ Are you from the same home town? Negative. Although they were both small and everybody was in your business so I’d say they were similar.

♥ Who is the smartest? Depends on the subject.

♥ Who is the most sensitive? Me. I cry. I cry a lot.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? I’m guessing our most frequent stop is Subway, but if we’re talking about a real live restaurant I’d say Coup des Tartes.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? Tennessee is the furthest we’ve gone so far.

♥ Who has the craziest exes? I’ve got one nutjob of an ex that’s unbeatable!

♥ Who has the worst temper? Neither of us have too much of a temper, but he’s definitely more laid back than I am.

♥ Who does the cooking? Me, of course. Sometimes I can get him to flip things or chop them though.

♥ Who is more social? Separate we’re each fairly social, but together we end up like cave-dwelling hermit people. I guess we just like each other’s company.

♥ Who is the neat-freak? While we both aspire to be neat-freaks, the clutter in our house has triumphed over us recently.

♥ Who is the more stubborn? Me. We’ve had contests.

♥ Who hogs the bed? He does. But to be fair, I sleep for about 2 hours each night so it doesn’t bother me too much.

♥ Who wakes up earlier? We wake up at the same time, but I dawdle in bed for a bit longer than he does.

♥ Where was your first date? Buca di Beppo and a terrible movie.

♥ Who has the bigger family? He’s got a ginormous family!.

♥ Do you get flowers often? Often enough that I feel spoiled, but not so often that it’s no longer special.

♥ How do you spend the holidays? We generally spend holidays with my family since they are closer, but we try to split things up when we can.

♥ Who is more jealous? I am, by a mile.

♥ How long did it take to get serious? Ten minutes. Or, more accurately 245 cell phone hours while in different places. Thank you US Air Force.

♥ Who eats more? Corey can eat his weight in pizza. But, if it’s a veggie eating contest I think I could take him.

♥ Who does/ did the laundry? We’re pretty equal with housework. Whoever has more time at home does it.

♥ Who’s better with the computer? I am, since I sit in front of it ten hours a day.

♥ Who drives when you are together? Usually him, which is nerve-wracking since directions befuddle the boy. I will admit that the GPS has helped the situation.

Changes in Attitude

2009-02-06T19:54:00.001-08:00

The boy won. It doesn't happen very often, therefore I will ask for a moment of silence so you all can appreciate the levity of the situation.

...

Okay, that's good enough - he didn't win the lottery or anything.

What he did win was the argument that had been ongoing in our house since I found out my job has been extinguished. I wanted to scrap the wedding plans, cut our losses, and take off to Vegas with my parents while Corey wanted to go on with everything as planned. I argued that if we saved the money we planned to spend on the wedding, our lives wouldn't have to change at all in the interim between my old job and finding a new one. We could still eat at amazing restaurants, plan an abundant honeymoon, and shoe shop with abandon (okay, that's maybe not so much of a "we" thing, but you get the picture).

He argued that if we didn't have the wedding we'd been planning for months, I would regret it. And, as hard as it is to say, he is right.

So, we are now powering on. With two months left until our wedding there are pomanders to be made, aisle runners to be monogrammed, and pocketsquares to be sewn. I have a crisis with the centerpieces, and frustrations with envelope liners, but I will persist.

From this point on I am delving back into my wedding plans with reckless abandon and embracing the stress that comes with being a bride a mere 65 days away from her dream wedding.

It's true that when we write all of our checks and add everything up we won't have as much in our savings accounts as we would have had we run off and eloped, but I guess that's what you save for in the first place: to spend it.

Besides, all that brie and caviar was making it next to impossible to lose that ten pounds that every bride must effort to lose before her white gown is zipped up for the last time. Now that I think of it, this layoff may be a blessing in disguise.

I need a stimulus

2009-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

I wrote this entry last week, but postponed posting it on the off chance that my job quandary was resolved and I was by now happily working away in a new(old) position. Unfortunately, I have the same amount of information, stability and happiness today regarding my employment as I did last Thursday so here is my update on the situation.

I have never interviewed for a job I didn’t get. But, there’s a first for everything, right?

Yesterday I sat awkwardly in a conference room with two people I trained (one of whom would be my boss – ugh), an HR representative, and a person that I clearly couldn’t stand when I was there and who judging by their facial expressions shows the same disdain for me.

“Tell us about a time you had a professional problem and how you overcame it,” they ask.

I want to stand on my chair and shout, “I could do this job in my sleep and pretty much did for a year which is why I was promoted, so let’s just use this time to get me up to speed on things and you can send the other interviewees home.”

Instead I say something I vaguely remember reading about in a pamphlet from high school FBLA mock interviews about patience, and preparedness, and determination. We move on.

This awkwardness goes on for another 20 minutes with the tension now clinging to the walls and the ceiling like smoke from burning bacon and I’m glancing continuously at my blackberry not only because it keeps going off and I can’t understand why I’m in such high demand if they don’t need my position anymore, but also because the clock is there and I’m counting the seconds of silence while they all take notes on me.

Finally, they ask if I have any questions for them (I do not) and thank me for coming in, like I just answered their ad from the classifieds. Unfortunately, I still had business to do in the building, and with one of the people in the interview, so I had to wait downstairs for them to finish talking about me and my ‘skill set’. Twenty minutes later they emerged and the only one that would make eye contact with me is the one I needed to meet with regarding a marketing matter.

I’m going to throw up.

Then, using my amateur sleuthing skills I find out that there are at least three other internal applicants, one who happens to have been with the company for a substantially longer duration than I, and again I feel nauseous.

When the situation was fist presented to me my old position was tied up in a pretty package with a cute little bow and put on my desk like a consolation prize. “We don’t want to lose you so we’ve figured out a solution,” they said.

Then the explanation that even though they had this position for me I would basically have to ‘mock interview’ for it because of HR laws of equal rights. That eventually made its way to the position actually being posted to other applicants and suddenly I was going to have to prove to employees that I literally TRAINED this spring that I could do my old job.

Seriously?

So…anyone need a private chef?

The End of Eden

2009-01-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

I’d consider the last week or so somewhat of a holding pattern. I’d been busying myself with everything wedding-related for quite a while now, but due to the (un)employment situation I’ve been forced to put those things on hold, if for no other reason than to preserve some sense of emotional control.

The truth is that it would be a ridiculously stupid move to continue with the plan of spending five figures on a single day with the economy in such peril and the chance of me finding a job that paid as well as my last slim to say the least. The other side of that vicious coin is that at this point my wedding day is like a movie I’ve seen a million previews for and can’t wait for opening day of. I see the details in my head: the flowers, the decorations, the ridiculously expensive but highly coveted candy buffet at the reception. I can almost hear the Swarovski toasting flutes clinking together and I’m starving for this wedding.

So, the solution is one that I’m not completely excited about but have essentially come to peace with: I have to interview for my previous job back. While I am grateful that my old boss (same corporation, but individual company rather than corporate as I am now) immediately broached this when she heard of the imminent demise of my job, (and has even agreed to make it a lateral move salary-wise) I am still not warm and fuzzy about the proposition of having my old job again. To be fair I think that 99.9% of this apprehension exists solely due to a past supervisor who is no longer with the company, and everyone I have spoken to has assured me that it is much different there and that my return would be celebrated, but there is still a part of me that feels very defeated and angry. I won’t elaborate on the work situation and persons involved in the dissolution of my job as this is a public blog and all I need is the wrong person to stumble upon it, but I will say that corporate politics are not for the faint of heart.

So, heads – I get the job, I pack up my office here and transfer to a desk a mile down the road, and our wedding is on as planned. Tails – one of the other ten million people interviewing for jobs right now takes the position, I pack up my office sometime soon (I’ve been given no final date), and our wedding takes place in a bowling alley in Glendale.

Cross your fingers for me – I hear the coin toss is taking place sometime next week.

There I was, minding my own business...

2009-01-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Life is funny. One day you're stressing about pomanders and monograms and cake tier flavors and the next you get hit by a bus on its way to the unemployment office.

Unfortunately, this morning I was invited to join the ranks of the other 7.5% of our dear countrymen who earned the privilege of being "let go" from their beloved employers. "Let go" in itself is quite the awkward phrase as it infers that you beseechingly begged permission to be separated from your paycheck and they, being ever so willing to grant your every wish, allowed you to do so.

Of course, the timing could be much better as I'm just about an inch away from a complete nervous breakdown as far as wedding planning and expenditures go, but I'm doing my best to hang in there at least until the boy gets back from his ill-timed work trip to Texas tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I can stress and cry and blubber "why me?" into my pillow. Tonight, I'm resilient.

My darling old friend Curly was so cute to say in a comment on this blog that I should be a writer, but I'm disappointed to find no monster.com listing for "random story-telling cynical blog author". Eh. I doubt it would have a corporate credit card anyway.

In any case, I just thought I would practice some "Secret"-type theory and put it out there into the universe that I would like to find a job that I can do from home and that involves baking cakes, sewing, cooking dinner for the boy, and giving appropriate attention to studying the "Lost" island and discovering all its secrets.

What's that? Oh, it's my mom calling. She says that the job does exist, but it's called a homemaker and it pays...well...nothing. Square one, I'm back.

To the Great Recession: I know I've been skeptical of your existence in the recent past but you've converted me into a believer. You can now rest assured that your goal of creating mass havoc on the working class has been accomplished. Please feel free to go bother Dubai at this point and leave America alone.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T07:29:00.001-08:00

Saying goodbye to 2008 was simultaneously a thrilling event as well as a melancholy one. The year that gifted us with three surgeries, one chronic disease diagnosis, and a heartbreaking family funeral also came bundled with one beach vacation, two job promotions/transfers, and one ‘official’ proposal of my dreams.

But our own little world has endured nothing when compared to the trials and tribulations of the global environment: economic crisis’, health epidemics, malevolent acts of terrorism, poverty and human tragedy, coupled with bias-defying elections, random acts of kindness in the wake of natural disasters, miracles, and the constant presence of God/fate/karma/whichever higher power you may believe in.

As I think back over the past 366 days (lest you forget it was a leap year) I notice that although I can distinctly remember days that seemed they would never end – no matter how hard I begged for them to – now, looking back, they all seem to have raced by. Was it not just yesterday that we were saying goodbye to 2007? I can close my eyes and smell the hot cocoa from Zoolights in January, and the iodine in the operating room in May, and the Origins’ sunscreen mixed with ocean air and barbecue smoke from the beach in August. I can remember trying to catch my breath from laughing so hard playing Monopoly on the bedroom floor and from sobbing on the verge of hyperventilation after my Nana died. Each memory brings with it the feeling of: I will never be this happy/sad/scared/tired/heartbroken/relaxed again – knowing full well that those emotions will return again the moment I least expect them.

Welcoming 2009 is an emotional event in its own right. The year we will get married and (God willing) conceive our first child. The year Corey will turn 30. The year I will get so close to 3-0 that saying I’m in my mid-twenties will become less of a stretch and more of an outright lie.

I have no preconceived notions that 2009 will bring nothing but sunshine and lollipops and rainbows. I’m sure I will find myself sobbing in Corey’s arms uncontrollably, frustrated beyond belief at one or more doctors, and clutching the armrests of at least one jet thinking to myself that there is certainly a lot of turbulence on this flight. I will be petrified to bring a child into this screwed up world and I will be horrified by things I see on the news. I may even burn something in my ever-moody oven.

But there are also things that I will bring with me from 2008 to ease the transition:

1. A tetanus vaccination that will last until 2018 (a late night Christmas
present to myself)
2. Our wedding account which due to our copious saving attempts (and my
generous parents) is nearly complete.
3. An employer that has thus far offered me nothing but stability and room to
grow.
4. The world’s best mattress (at least compared to our old one).
5. The knowledge that using a coupon will neither kill nor deface me with a
permanent scarlet C (for cheap).
6. Enough of an emergency fund to feed/clothe/pay our bills for a while, or
just to run off to Fiji.
7. The daily reminder that no matter what else is going on, I was lucky enough to find the one person that makes it all worthwhile.

So although we are certain that 2009 won’t be any closer to perfection than its predecessor was, we welcomed the new year with open arms last Wednesday night and hopes that it will at least improve on the good that is already here. And just to be sure that 2008 went out on a sweet note, we dined at Coup des Tartes (which is our tradition, and also the site of our wedding reception) and enjoyed a four course meal of roasted sweet corn soup, brie brulee, pomegranate encrusted filet, roasted winter vegetable tagliatele, and various other wonders. It was the perfect way to usher in 2009 and say goodbye to 2008.

We hope you all had a sweet start to your new year too.

The Spirit of Giving

2008-12-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

To those of you who would normally be receiving something from us this Christmas – whether it be a card, a plate of home-baked goodies, a gift in the mail, or a trip to see you, we are sorry. This year we chose to do something a little different with our Christmas money, as I alluded to previously.

Neurotic as I am, I constantly worry about what-ifs and this year there seem to be quite a few people sharing my concerns. We have friends and family members with depleted retirement funds wondering what will happen if the market doesn’t come back. We have coworkers and acquaintances wondering what will happen if their company can no longer afford to pay wages. We know people with children on the way that are wondering what they will do when the bills come in the mail next month.

Suffering is everywhere, all the time. This year it took the form of a recession to let us know that none of us are immune to the ebbs and flows of the economic environment. In years past we have chosen angels off of Christmas trees, and contributed to company fundraisers. We have served food to the homeless, and tutored underprivileged youths. But this year it seemed important to Corey and I to help someone a little closer to home.

I will acknowledge that our adopt-a-family project didn’t go exactly as we had planned. After a deep breath we decided that there was a reason we were compelled to go down this path and we were going to do everything in our earthly power to make sure that someone else’s Christmas was a little merrier because we were involved.

So, we are happy to tell you that in lieu of the things I mentioned above, there is a family in our community that has warm coats for their children, Christmas presents under the tree, and some necessities that will hopefully take a bit of spending burden off of their shoulders in times to come.

Unfortunately we were not in the position to grant miracles, and I wish that there was more that we could do, and for more people. However, we really feel like each gift is wrapped with the thought behind it and we hope that when we deliver our packages tonight, on Christmas Eve, the family feels the joy and love that we have to spare in our family.

On Christmas morning when we are opening our gifts we will also make sure to spend a few moments thinking about the family, and about the two children in the Philippines that will be opening (technically they will have already opened due to the time difference) our Operation Christmas Child boxes and ask that they are blessed in the many ways our family is, none of which have to do with wealth or tactile prosperity.

I want to thank all of you for graciously accepting (whether consciously or unknowingly) the sacrifices we have made on your behalf to make these things happen for other people. I also want to note that while it is a little more stressful, shopping for Christmas presents on a budget creates a unique opportunity that I daresay I enjoyed. Chagrined, I think I spent about 20% of what I spent on Corey last year, and I am happy to note that there will be no discernible lack of presents or the Spirit of Christmas in our living room tomorrow morning.

We hope that all of you have a beautiful day tomorrow and that the spirit of the season extends long after the sun has set on Christmas 2008.

With Love,
Corey and Christina

The Gift of Christmas

2008-12-11T13:02:00.001-08:00

It’s been hard to get into the Christmas season this year. Wedding plans have taken over all free space in my brain, and the boy has been working a longer schedule with classes on top of that so he’s not exactly running around the house in a Santa costume (although that would be cute, yet slightly strange and creepy). By this time last year we had a beautiful sparkling Christmas tree in the living room, most of our presents purchased and wrapped away in the guest rooms, and I was baking cookies like the food network iron chef judges were about to peek in my Christmas tins.

So far this year I’ve hung a wreath on the front door. And you know what? I was damn proud of that wreath last Saturday when I finally managed to perch it over our 12 foot tall front door.

Since my family is actually celebrating Christmas in Pinetop the weekend before the traditional holiday, Corey and I will be home on Christmas Day. Thinking this would be a great opportunity to give back to some less fortunate people in our community we began calling soup kitchens and homeless shelters and offering our volunteer services. Unfortunately, the karma train has a lot of people worried right now so everywhere we called was full of volunteers. Dejected, I thought about spending a quiet Christmas at home alone with Corey.

That sounds awful, but I’m not sure how to word it differently. What I mean is we were so excited about giving back this holiday season. Back in my single days when I had more time I volunteered quite a bit more than I do now and I miss it. I also felt like this was really our chance to show people that there are still some of us out there who care about how our neighbors and fellow men are doing - especially now when layoffs can happen to anyone, even those that have been very fortunate in recent years. Not willing to take ‘no help needed’ as an answer, Corey and I brainstormed a bit and decided to enlist the help of a man Corey works with and who does quite a bit of volunteer work on his own. Fifteen minutes in his office was productive enough to get in touch with a school guidance counselor and ask him to find us a family that could use a little help making their Christmas bright this year. Wish granted. This week we are going to be matched up with a family and we have the opportunity to make their lives a little better, even if just for a little while.

I can’t express to you how excited we are to be ‘adopting’ a family for Christmas. I find myself walking through stores wondering how many kids our family will have and what kind of presents they will like. Is there a little girl that needs these adorable pink winter gloves? Maybe a boy who is tired of wearing a hand me down jacket and dreams of a new one (probably a Dallas Cowboys jacket if I imagine hard enough)? I’m sure there will be a mom who will be able to use the bags of groceries to make a feast for Christmas dinner.

Our resources aren’t unlimited, but we’ve budgeted the amount we’re allowed to spend on each other (which usually gets ridiculous and needed to be reigned in anyway) and with a few savings techniques that we’ve picked up over the last few months, I hope we’ll be able to provide a family with a day to be thankful for. And in doing that, this family will have provided us with the opportunity to do a good thing and to remind ourselves that how rich we are has nothing to do with money in the bank or items under the tree. On Christmas Day I will be safe and warm wrapped up with the one I love on our couch watching “A Christmas Story” over and over. How can I even begin to ask for more than that?

If you have been like me this year and have found it a little hard to get into the swing of things, I urge you to volunteer your time or resources somewhere to someone in need. Something as small as a can of food in a donation bin can bring food to a family that wouldn’t have it otherwise. Please try to remember that when we are all sitting around Christmas trees with our families opening presents of abundance, there are those that are cold and hungry. And selfishly, making a difference in someone else’s life is the best feeling ever.

The curse of the SunDrop

2008-12-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

It’s almost too unbearable to write about, but I feel I must share this with the world to perhaps spare some other poor soul from the torment: The body is physically unable to process SunDrop without a gall bladder.

Sad, but an undeniable fact.

To those of you that are unaware of the existence of said soft drink, apparently you’re missing out. I first learned of this liquid gold from an old friend from Wisconsin. He spoke of SunDrop like a Costa Rican speaks of coffee, or the Swiss speak of chocolate. While acknowledging the existence of other highly caffeinated and sugar injected lemon-lime thirst quenchers, our Mountain Dew and Mello Yello simply have nothin’ on this stuff (so the addicts say). I’ve heard it mixes well with Jack Daniels, allows you to stay up studying for three days without sleep, and cures cancer (although no claims have been proven). So, as a birthday present, I had a case of the stuff shipped out from Wisconsin. And because I made such a gesture I was allowed to taste the product of my intense google searches. To me it tastes like a sweeter (if you can believe it) and less carbonated Mountain Dew. Unfortunately for me, I said so. Immediately I was shunned by the group of Wisconsin-ites and I learned to never again speak of my true feelings towards the elixir.

Cut to a year later when I met Mr. Confederate. Early on in our relationship (so early he hadn’t yet seen me without makeup or with my hair in a ponytail) he mentioned something about missing home and especially missing a drink he could get in Tennessee. So for the second time in as many years I was subjected to a monologue on the virtues of the drink of the gods – also known as SunDrop. This time however, my heart began to race. I’d already wooed Corey with my lasagna, banana bread, and inside-out German chocolate cake, but this would seal the deal for sure. I raced home to place my order and 72 hours (and $80 in shipping costs later) I approached his door with what felt like 100 pounds of aluminum cans under my arms.

To this day I’m convinced that is the exact moment he fell in love with me.

It has been a while since I’ve ordered the stuff – partly because it has approximately 800 calories per can and partly because I’m pretty sure I have the guy wrapped up (at least I’m honest), but I knew that when we traveled back to Tennessee for Thanksgiving he was sure to fall off the wagon once again. Sure enough, the first stop when we entered his parent’s house was the refrigerator. I had personally been worried about his digestion and this trip for months, mostly because they deep fry their butter in Tennessee before serving it. Little did I know the real culprit would come from a glass.

I’ll save you all the gory details but apparently the absence of a gall bladder does not affect the ability to digest deep fried chicken parts, pizza, nachos, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese, corn pie, fried turkey, French fries, country ham, or fried pie. SunDrop is however, completely indigestible. Order was not restored to the world until we reached a cruising altitude of 42,000 feet somewhere over Arkansas.

Let this be a warning to those of you who may be considering consuming the liquid crack. Back away from the can and instead have a glass of what the health freaks drink in Tennessee – sweet tea.

Operation Christmas Child

2008-11-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

With everything else going on, the holidays have really snuck up on us this year. I actually saw something this morning that taunted me with “31 days until Christmas” and I laughed like crazy until I consulted my calendar and realized that it was telling me the truth. A month? That’s all I have?

Because we’re so far behind we almost missed out on something we’ve been excited to do for months: participate in Operation Christmas Child. I’m not sure how I first became aware of the program, but after reading the website and watching the videos I was in tears and knew it was something we had to do. To sum it all up, people all over the world in countries like the US, Canada, UK (traditionally more privileged nations) donate and collect shoe boxes full of Christmas presents for children who otherwise would probably not receive anything for the holidays. We won’t know if our Christmas boxes are headed for El Salvador or South Africa, but in a month there will be a child somewhere who will sit with our Christmas shoebox in his lap and wait with his friends until the volunteer signals them to rip open their packages. Inside he will find Matchbox trucks, bouncy balls, crayons and coloring books, a stuffed frog, and other various toys along with toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap. In many cases, this will be the first time the child has ever owned a toothbrush. As I sit here and check my 401k with concern it’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that there are children without access to clean water, medicine, and even more heartbreaking, without love. They may be orphans living in a state hospital, or working in a sweat shop to help provide food for their 14 member families. I have no idea what hardship is compared to these poor kids. But it’s nice to feel that for a few minutes on Christmas they will know that someone cares enough to send them a present.

We had a blast shopping for our shoeboxes. With my baby fever running rampant anyway I was able to go crazy in the toy aisles and purchase as many girlie trinkets as I could fit into my old (but newly wrapped) Bini shoebox. I picture in my mind a little 5 year old girl prancing around on Christmas, her shoulders draped with a pink and purple boa, tiara gleaming in the sunlight as she adjusts her lipgloss in her shiny makeup mirror. She might share her bracelets with her friends, but the cashmere soft teddy bear is all hers.

I know that our Christmas boxes are not going to change the heartbreak that these kids have in their lives every day. New lipgloss is not going to feed families, and toothpaste, while necessary, is not going to save any lives. But Christmas isn’t about saving lives for any of us. It’s about putting smiles on people’s faces, and letting them know that on that morning, along with so many other mornings, you’re thinking of them and praying that God takes care of them. It’s about celebrating the good and letting go of the bad, even if just for a morning. And if we can give one boy and one girl a morning without tears just ONE day this year, I feel like our Christmas will be more special than any other.

Of monograms and house guests

2008-11-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

With wedding planning fully underway, we took a break this weekend as my parents were coming down to be our first official house guests. We deep cleaned the house, ironed linens, and set up the guest bath (which rarely gets much attention) with cute little soaps and towels. It was nice to actually have some noise in the house as we are usually asleep when we are home.

My dad's business charity is UCP and every 6 months when Nascar is in town we grill hamburgers and hot dogs at the race track. I myself am not a Nascar fan, but I am a fan of helping worthy causes, so nine times out of ten I am spending race weekend pulling apart hot dog buns and directing rednecks to the relish dispenser. Corey spent much of his days as the parking lot police (equipped with a safety orange vest and badge) chasing away offenders parking in front of gas pumps. It was a rebel girl's birthday dream.

As a combination birthday dinner/wedding reception scouting trip we headed to the restaurant and ordered three times too much food (all in the interest of 'tasting' of course), and made most of the decisions as to what will be on our wedding menu. My parents also gifted me with an arty nouveau spice rack that I've been coveting and some super fuzzy pink lounge pants that scream my name from a mile away. The boy is not as good at keeping gifts a secret so in the past few weeks I had already opened my gifts of the new Sleeping Beauty release as well as a gorgeous pair of Gucci sunglasses I had been lusting after. On my birthday he presented me with a spa certificate so I will be spending next Saturday getting massaged, pedicured, facialed, fed and made-up at Dolce. Sigh.

Wedding planning is just as stressful as I was afraid it would be. At least we're doing it extremely short notice so I only have five months of running around like a crazy woman instead of the year and a half that I fear I really need. So far all I've done is book the locations and get monogram samples from my graphic designer. Three checkmarks and 250 items left on the list!!!

Keeping up

2008-11-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week for sure, for everyone. Personally I was disappointed with the Presidential outcome, and that had little to do with Obama's victory. I was, am, and will always be a Republican. I myself share core values with Republicans. However, I also feel that I have no right to tell other people how to live their lives. I personally would never entertain the option of abortion, but who am I to push my beliefs on other people? I have been brought up to feel one way about gays and lesbians, but I feel I have absolutely no right to decide who can and who can't love each other. In this situation I respect and admire everything about John McCain. If he hasn't proven to the American public that he puts his country before himself then I don't know who has. So, my disappointment stems more from his loss than Obama's win. I have faith that Obama will bring thoughts and ideas to the White House that have never been heard before. But, he hasn't been tested before and that makes me a little nervous. I hope that he turns out to be the President that 53% of the country wants him to be.

On the personal front I've been dealing with a cold that just won't go away on top of my daily health problems which has made wedding planning stressful and daunting. However, the good news is that I have a dress, a ceremony site booked and a reception site booked. I thought those last two alone were going to be impossible, but when all else fails march down to the event coordinators office and demand they see you. It worked for me! :)

To my evident chagrin, this weekend is my twenty-somethingth birthday. If you'd asked me at 18 where I saw myself in years I would have definitely said married with kids. So, I'm a bit behind the curve, but at least headed in the right direction. Too bad birthday celebrations just don't mean as much in your 20s as it did when you were in the single digits.

Gone are the simple days of Cabbage Patch dolls and Rainbow Brite cakes. No more inviting every kid in the neighborhood over and having them sit in a circle around you while you unwrap every single present and parade it in front of their faces. And definitely no more eating 1800 calories worth of icing with little repercussions besides a distinct sugar high and a frosting moustache.

Oh to be a kid again.

Wedding woes

2008-10-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone I know is married. What I don't know, however, is how they survived the wedding planning process.

Two weeks ago I sat gazing at my shiny bauble, blissfully unaware of what planning my wedding would mean. First we took the, "Oh, we'll get around to it next year" approach which was quickly changed when the boy reminded me that in order to get the new baby I've been bugging him about we'd have to get hitched first. Well, that was enough to push me into a whirlwind of planning only to realize that this stuff isn't easy. Or inexpensive.

The good part is that it will be small. And when I say small I mean SMALL. With family and friends scattered all over the world (a side effect of life in the military) we decided that planning a short notice wedding and inviting everyone would make for a lot of bad feelings and hurt pocketbooks for those to whom attendance would be a real challenge. So, it will be 20 of our closest friends and family members and that's it.

The bad part is that I was somehow switched at birth with Christina her majesty the Royal Princess of Norway and I have rather expensive tastes. Sure, we could get a whole pig and a keg ala CMT's redneck weddings and call it a day, but that's not exactly how I roll.

The reception was the easy part. Our favorite restaurant has been the scene of many of our most romantic dates, as well as the place where I first taught Corey to be a foodie. Their French inspired American-nouveau cooking is a must have.

Now for the hard parts: a ceremony in the, ahem, desert, that doesn't look like we're in the desert. Somewhere that doesn't care that you won't be buying their pricey catering package and just want to use them for their beautiful garden views before you jet off to greener culinary pastures. Does such a place exist? Maybe with a dusting of fairy dust and a happy thought or two.

And then there's my poor mother who is trying her best to scour the internet for inspiration but who (despite living in Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas) cannot seem to grasp that it will, in fact, take quite a while to drive from Cave Creek to downtown Phoenix and our guests will be likely to arrive at the reception with In N Out burger remnants on their tux lapels because they were starving at around the 20 mile mark.

Looking on the bright side, I do already have my dress which is something that generally causes a bride more disdain than anything else in planning her day. And I am the google queen so if something exists I will find it by way of the internet. My perfect ceremony locale must be out there somewhere!

I'm sure in a year I will look back and laugh at the drama one single day caused me, but I'm sure I won't regret the memories. So I trudge on with my trusty wedding planner portfolio and arms full of bridal magazines and hope and pray that it all works itself out in the end.