Tot Block

Jen's Amazing Brussels Sprouts

2011-11-23T07:58:00.001-08:00

These are seriously amazing, I know what you're thinking, but you are wrong. Brussels Sprouts are awesome - especially when made with bacon :)

2 - 3 pound of Brussels sprouts

1/2 pound bacon

1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the sprouts and trim the ends off. Put them in a big bowl and toss them with enough olive oil to coat them. Spread them on a large cookie sheet and sprinkle on a little salt and pepper. Roast the sprouts for about 45 minutes to an hour. They should get a little black around the edges. Don't worry about the burny parts. They actually taste delicious!

While the sprouts are baking, you can cut the bacon into little pieces and fry it in a pan. Strain it on a paper towel once it is crisp.

Once the sprouts are cooked to your liking, toss them in the big bowl again and add the bacon, Parmesan and more salt and pepper if it needs it. It's that simple.

Sweet Potato Souffle - an Erickson Family Tradition

2011-11-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

This is direct from Amanda - I just need a place to keep the recipe as it took me 20 minutes to find this morning :)

The filling:

3 C mashed sweet potato*

2 eggs

1 C sugar**

3/4 stick softened butter

The topping:

1 C brown sugar

3/4 stick softened butter

1/2 C chopped pecan

1/3 C flour

1 tsp vanilla

* I use canned sweet potato puree from Princella. It comes in a syrup. There used to be a non-syrup variety but I've been unable to find it. I have also tried this with other sweet potato purees as well as from scratch and none of them turned out as well. Drain the potato puree well.

** If you use the Princella with syrup variety, sugar the filling to taste. There's sugar in the topping, don't forget! I've been cutting the filling sugar back over the years but I don't know where I ended up last time I made this. Probably less than 1/2 cup.

Directions:
■Mix the filling in a blender or by hand and pour into buttered 2qt casserole dish.
■Mix the topping and work by hand until soft and crumbly. Cover the filling with the topping, lightly pressing the topping into the filling.
■Bake uncovered in 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes until lightly browned and bubbly.
■Serve warm with dinner!

Dusting off the cobwebs

2011-03-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tap...tap...tap...anybody there? Time to do a little spring cleaning around here...it's been an interesting few months behind the curtain. Overwhelming to say the least and we all ended up doing some Minnesota style hibernating.

But I don't live in the mid-west anymore, and the flowers are starting to bloom and it's time to start thinking about planting things around here. Ready for the clunky lifetime-movie worthy transition? I need to do a little internal tending...open up the windows, let the stale air out, shake out the dust and start breathing. I have no idea if anyone will even read this...but I need to write here, get some things out of my head where they've been bouncing around for the last 6-12 months.

It's funny, I know I've mentioned this before here, but I SUCKED at keeping a journal/diary when I was younger. I always wanted to, but never kept it up. They are full of entries similar to this one I'm writing now: restarting after a long break. "Dear Diary...it's been WAY to long since I've written. ('cause you know, Diary missed me) I really want to do better with this, I promise I'm going to do so much better this year. Like, I am going to write at least 2-3 times a week cause I have all this stuff going on with Choralation/Ole Choir and {enter musical theater show name here} and {enter boy's name here, easy bet it was a Mike or a Matt, my dating history contains a disproportionate number of guys with those names} who I really like, and my parents are driving me crazy. So Diary, here's the goal, I'm totally going to keep this UP TO DATE".

Um, yeah. I don't have a pattern or anything. Hey, that would be fun! Maybe one of these days I'll post old diary entries from high school and college. Those wouldn't be embarrassing at all!

I set a goal at the beginning of the year, I've gotten in a cooking rut so I want to make 52 new recipes by the end of the year. I would love to keep track of them here so I can reference back. I've done 7 so far...real posts to follow.

Also, I'm doing my surgery (finally) this summer. I have an appointment next week to set the date, . It's almost an understatement to say that at this point this surgery will change my life. The last 6 months have been brutal in terms of increased pain and decreased mobility. But more than that, there have been slow and subtle changes over 10 years, things that have changed the trajectory of my life in many ways. I have no idea what the next year will bring, but I'd like to capture some of that "real time", without the filter of hindsight or the "bigger picture" 6 months down the line.

Those are the things I hope to put out there (here) again. Who knows though, hopefully it won't be another 6 months before the next post, but it is possible :)

Graceful Agony

2010-10-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

Someone told me recently that they were excited to know me in 9 months. While that statement seems odd on the surface, it was really a very touching thing to say. You see, I'm having surgery in roughly 3 months to replace this worn down, degenerating, broke-ass hip of mine. And she was telling me how excited she was to see what I was going to do once I didn't have to spend such an inordinate amount on time and energy on dealing with and attempting to manage pain.

I don't like talking about it at any real depth. It's very apparently there...the limp gets so much worse when the pain is worse, and I have had to reach a point where I'm comfortable talking about the big picture stuff, even if it is in a slightly removed fashion. But what it means to my daily life, the countless little compromises I have been making every day for almost 10 years, the countless big compromises my family has to make for me every day and the guilt that accompanies that, the depression, the isolation...I don't know, even the surface level shit feels too flipping dramatic, much less the "deep down stuff".

But recently I found a blog where a person FAR more elegant with her words was able to say so many of the things I feel. I read this there, recently and it struck me as an amazing way to describe a piece of my own "deep down stuff":

I miss the little things….. having the energy to get up and go, watching my son’s Christmas concert without having to worry about how hard the seats are, how long I will be sitting for, what price I will pay the following day……. It isn’t BIG things like ‘Oh I wish I could go skydiving still!” or “I really miss alpine skiing!”…. I really miss just NOT having to be aware….. I am hyper-alert every minute of every day, and it is TIRING! The first thing I think about in the morning when my eyes open is what I have to do just to get through the day…. I always have to be 10 steps ahead of the game….. if I have a coffee date at 5pm, I have to modify everything I do so I know that I will be mobile and functional by the time 5 rolls around….. I miss NOT having to think in those terms…. I miss not having to think of my pain every second of every day whether my pain is bad that day or not…. I always have to be 5-10 steps ahead…… it prevents me from living in the moment at times. - Graceful Agony

I don't have much to add beyond that...just throwing something on here that's been on my mind lately.

Time

2010-02-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

Two years ago was one of the most terrifying/wonderful days of my life. It sounds so cliché to say it like that - but it was such wide sway from one emotion to the next. From fear to joy all in the same breath, I don't care so much if it sounds cliché.

As many of you know, that day we headed into the last 45 minutes of the personal Lifetime Movie we had been living in. The part where the plucky pregnant heroine, who has been holding her little family together through the terrors of cancer and chemo, finally succumbs to the crappy part of the storyline where something is wrong with HER now. She is rushed over to hospital the same day they get their first post-chemo “All-Clear” from her husband’s cancer doctor…no time to celebrate before the next plot point. She’s in crisis with HELLP and the baby is in crisis just by virtue being 4 ½ weeks early with severely underdeveloped lungs.

But...thanks to the wonderful staff at a wonderful hospital, as well as the undying love and support of our friends and family, the story gets to be a “feel good” Lifetime Movie and not the super tragic kind. Thanks to the amazing research of some amazing doctors over the years and despite a very rough start, we are here two years later enjoying life with Sir Henry the Insane. My sweet little boy who is unbelievably happy, delightfully mischievous/crazy and incredibly loved. It’s so hard to see this picture from two years ago today…it’s always hard to see such a small baby attached to machines that way. But this is my beautiful little boy on the day he was born…

and look how far he’s come. Happy birthday little man.

Mr Merryweather and the Magical Meth Lab

2009-09-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

Our incredibly talented friend Jay and his team put together the winning film in the Portland 48 hour film project!

Every team was given a type of film (i.e. silent, fantasy, western...etc). Theirs was a musical.

The elements that had to be included were:

Character:	Brian or Briana Merryweather, Laboratory Technician
Prop:	a picture frame
Line of Dialogue:	"For crying out loud."

The following had to be done in 48 hours (none of this could be done ahead of time)

Writing the script
Rehearsing
Costume/Set Design
Shooting
Editing
Sound Design
Rendering
Outputting to tape or other media

It is an amazing feat, and they put together an amazing film. Enjoy:

Kevin

2009-08-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

"Um Dad, is Kevin another planet?"

No bud, it's a boys name

"What is Kevin like?"

Seriously kiddo, Kevin is a boy's name and I don't think you know anyone named Kevin. Is Kevin the name of a new kid in your class?

"No Dad! KEVIN! You know, where I'm going to go when I die?"

Oh Heaven...um...yeah, that's really more your mom's territory. You should ask her all about it when we get home.

Whew...

2009-08-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yay! Another cancer day done…another cancer-free appointment under our belt. One more down. I can’t believe it’s coming up on two year since the diagnosis…has it really only been two years? For Christ’s sake ‘Pre-cancer’ feels like a lifetime ago.

Ah sleep...

2009-08-10T00:57:00.001-07:00

So, as I may have mentioned to just about anyone who will listen to me that Henry hates sleeping. I can't fathom why any rational person would hate sleep - but that may just be more proof that my youngest child is a little on the insane side.

I mean seriously, how could you hate sleep? It's wonderful! Not that I actually sleep - oh no. It's not that I hate sleep, it's just that I find it impossible to do sometimes. Insomnia is a fascinating thing - I would LOVE to sleep, really I would. I am so sleep deprived it's gotten funny. But on a night like tonight when my entire family is asleep in their own beds and I have the chance to sleep uninterrupted, am I sleeping? No.

It's interesting though, I have noticed that the worse my insomnia, the better Henry sleeps. See, if I were in bed, he would have been up once at least. As it is, he is sleeping peacefully in his own crib - not a peep out of him. What's been most fascinating however is that within 5 minutes of me heading into bed he is up and screaming. With the yelling - and so much screaming. How does he know? Seriously, it's a different time every night and sometimes he manages to get it in even earlier - I will simply mention to Dan that I am going to bed and he starts with the screaming. There has got to be a way to trick him though, one of these days I will figure it out. Maybe.

Look who's walking...

2009-07-05T20:30:00.001-07:00

DSC_7499
Originally uploaded by karijean.

In the last two weeks Henry has gone from a very efficient crawler to walking. The kid is fast already. Jesus Christ, I don't know why I was encouraging this. I think I'm kind of screwed. But he is cute!

On being 4 1/2

2009-05-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ah Will – my sweet, sensitive boy. It can be so hard being almost 5. He is having a little bit of a rough time at school these days. His super best friend has found the company of other kids in class and doesn’t always want to play just with Will anymore. This is heartbreaking to my little boy. He is a really big hearted kid who makes sure everyone gets invited to join in with whatever he and his little crew are doing. But conversely, he gets SO crushed when one of his friends tell him they don’t want to play with him that day. And oh, its just the beginning of all of this and kids, they can be so mean. I see things in him and they make me so proud and worry for him all at the same time. Dan and I are trying to explain the whole friend thing and how you don’t have to play with the same people all the time, and can still be friends with them. He just seems insecure in it already. Dan and I were talking about it and in looking back I think there were times that both of us really felt that way. I hope as gets older he deals with it more like Dan did than how I did.

Growing up Dan would deal with that insecurity by just becoming the “cruise director” and making his own group rather than trying to fit into one already in existence. He’s good at it – it’s very easy to jump on board with what he has planned. I spent too much time feeling like I never quite fit into the group I was a part of. Not in a huge way, just slightly off and always just a little insecure that they would figure out that I was seriously not enough (cool, smart, talented, pretty, whatever) and everything would unravel from there.

Eventually I got to where Dan is though – people have told me that I kind of “collect” good people into my life and then share them with each other so everyone can be friends. This is probably fairly accurate, if a little cheesy. But I know I don't have those same feelings of insecurity the same way I used to. I think what I mean to say is that I know that I have found “My People”. These people that are my people… some I have known my whole life, others for only a little while. Some I talk to almost every day and some I’ve gotten the opportunity to reconnect with after many years. They live here in town and in Iowa and Minnesota and Michigan and New Mexico…but they are in my life and are my people. They have been with me for of some of the best and worst times in my life. I am so very lucky to have that. And I hope that Will can find that without too much heartache along the way. I would love to spare him some of that heartache, even if I know I can’t.

However, right now he is still my 4 1/2 year-old Will. And despite some of the current difficulties, the kid cracks me up. When we were at the zoo the other day he walked up to Dan and said:

"Daddy, Polar bears eat people. But I tell you what, I would NOT eat people”

Good to know he’s got that figured out at least.

Viral Video

2009-04-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Apparently I'm late to the game on this one (11 million+ views already) but this is super cute. Totally worth watching even if you've already seen it.

Homework

2009-04-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

We have the boys in a daycare that we love. LOVE. Will used to go to a different one, but we were fortunate to be able to make the move to where they are now when he turned 3. (totally a fantastic story for another day) However, they are very organized. And I...am not. I used to be! Really! And then the Cancer and the Baby and the Sleep deprivation and the baby and now I can't keep track of anything to save my life. I have been finding myself re-writing the same lists over and over because I can't remember where I put the last one, and I was sure there was something I was supposed to do...

Anyway, with School. They send home letters from the teacher every once in a while - with, you know, things they want us to know, things the kids should be bringing in to the classroom. Most of the time those get read by us...and sometimes not. But this week, we got one and there was a homework assignment. Homework? Seriously? Already? Not to have a bad attitude about it already, but seriously. Will (aka Dan and I) were to type up an autobiography dictated by Will. They will be sharing these with the class tomorrow - but I thought I would share it here with you. So, Will "wrote" this entire autobiography:

My Story
by Will

My Name is Will. I live in a white house with my mommy and daddy and I love them. I also live with Henry, my little brother. I am 4 1/2 and he is 1. I like to play with Henry, have light-saber fights with my daddy, drawings pictures, watching movies and having snuggles with Mommy.

The End.

I don't think it is possible for me to love this kid any more than I do right now.

Photoblog: Random Winter 2009

2009-04-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

My hope is some day to get these all into appropriate albums with the rest of the corresponding pictures from all of these events. But let's be honest...it doesn't seem very likely these days. Life has been good - but very busy. While Henry isn't walking yet, he is on the move. And that kid? He moves a lot more than his older brother did at this age. Also? still not so big on the sleeping. He just doesn't really like napping - I have tried debating with him the finer points of why napping is a good thing, but he usually wins with the screaming. But it is getting better at night - and that has to be a good thing all around.

In the last couple of months, we have had two birthdays, a few large gatherings, a beach trip, a weekend sleepover at a friend's house (that was me and the kids - while Dan was getting his drink on in a pub tour between here and San Francisco), and a visit from Nana. It has been an unusually busy late Winter/Spring and it has been really wonderful. Below are some of my favorites from the last 3 months and the rest of the random favorites are here - Winter 2009

Examples of things Will says now that I am going to miss as he gets older:

2009-04-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

I think I do not like that tone of voice Mama. I may have to take away your book privileges.

***

Hey Will – I totally love you!
Hey Mama – I told you (what he thinks we are saying when we say totally) I love you too.

***
30 days?!? That’s like 100.
Well not really bud, 30 is a number and 100 is a different number
No Mama. I said 30 is 100. ONE HUN-DRED.

***
Mama!! I did not know you were this powerful a Jedi!

***
So, um, we are reading a chapter book at school about a twister. And Annie and Jack are in it and they try to escape to the serrerrr.

The serrerrr?

Um, yes. The serrerrrrr.

Do you mean the cellar?

Yes, that is what I said.

The TRUE greatest snack stadium ever built...

2009-02-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

arrived at our Super Bowl Party this year. Really, you must click on the link for the whole story:

Greatest Snack Stadium

1 year down...

2009-01-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

So, it's been one year since Dan's last chemo treatment. I was talking about this with a friend last night and I said I couldn't believe it had been a year already. She said she couldn't believe it had only been 1 year - that it seems like it was a decade ago. I see it both ways - it seems like it happened in a different life, to a different me. But at the same time it is present every day in my thoughts. And when you think about something every day like that, you sometime miss the passage of time. I think this last year has fundamentally changed how I am wired. I used to be almost aggressively extroverted - needing the energy of other people in order to thrive. Life is a lot quieter now I think. I find myself re-energized by time with our little family or an evening along with a good book and a glass of wine. It's not that I've completely gone to the other side of the spectrum - just balanced out a lot more. Henry is a child that experiences a great deal of separation anxiety it seems - he does not like to be left alone in a room. Ever. Dan and I joke that it's because he takes after me - and it took me 25 years to figure out how to spend any time by myself, he's got time to figure it all out.

**********
Dan had his check-up yesterday and got another "all-clear" from the doctor. We now move to an every 3-4 month check up schedule instead of every 2 months. He has been in remission for 1 year. 1 year!! It feels really good to have the first year under our belts.

**********
I see the way this last year has changed both myself and Dan in subtle (and not so subtle) ways, but I sometimes miss the impact it has had on Will. He was so young, but the kid has a freaky memory and I forget that. The other day Dan was cutting his hair. He keeps it pretty short now so uses clippers. I don't know if Will just hadn't seen him cutting his hair in a while, but he started shuffling around the hallway like he wanted to say something, but didn't know how. Dan turned off the clippers and asked if everything was ok.
"Daddy, what are you doing?"
"Cutting my hair bud - see?"
and then, so very quietly and with a little catch in his voice
"Are you...are you feeling ok?"
Then, realizing that maybe the last time he actually saw Dan cutting his hair was when he had to shave it all off last year, Dan got down on the floor with him.
"Yeah bud, I feel great, really"
Will was still not looking up at this point
"Do, do you promise?"

And at that point, my heart broke a little. I wish he didn't have that fear, or that memory.

But time is moving forward - and our hope is that with every year we will be able to put more distance between that time and now. And hope that the fear will fade for all of us.

25 random things

2009-01-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

Cross posted with Facebook - I got this meme and while I don't often do them I thought it was kind of fun. It's hard to think about 25 random things - and harder when you aren't writing it for a blog where the people who are going to read it know at least your recent history, if not more. I'm not going to "tag" anyone - but if you want to do it do you should. It's an interesting writing exercise.
1) Today is my Birthday (well, pretty much yesterday at this point since it’s after midnight)
2) I never pictured myself being a mom to two boys. In fact, when I found out I was pregnant with the first one I kind of freaked out and told my friend Aggie she had to move to Portland because I didn’t know what to do with boys. Now I can’t imagine it any other way.
3) I miss singing. A lot.
4) I have learned that I am a terrible waitress. I don’t know how I managed to stay employed doing it for almost 2 years.
5) I was born with a problem in my hip. It used to be barely detectable. I have developed degenerative arthritis in it and now often have to use a cane. I will probably have to have it replaced in the next couple of years.
6) My senior year of college I think I may have spent more time in Mlps/St Paul than I did in Northfield. In retrospect, that may have not been the best thing for my grades.
7) I love heist movies. And heist television shows. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.
8) Another one? Young adult stories with a sense of the fantastical – Buffy, Happy Potter, The Pretties, even Twilight…I’m not ashamed, I love them all.
9) Despite the fact that we don’t know what we are doing the majority of the time, I am proud of the way we are raising our boys. They laugh a lot and know that they are loved.
10) I love that my oldest one has a wicked sense of humor and an incredibly rich imagination.
11) I got caught shoplifting when I was in 8th grade. They called my parents to come and get me – I still don’t know what I was more embarrassed by. The fact that my parents knew I had shoplifted, or the fact that what I shoplifted was several tubes of lip gloss and some eye shadow.
12) You know how they tell you when you are really upset to write a letter getting it all out and then throw it away? Once, instead of throwing it away, I sent that letter. I’m still sorry I did.
13) I moved halfway through my senior year of HS and have only been back twice since then. I’m looking forward to showing my family where I grew up some day.
14) After college I spent a couple of years “testing my boundaries”. I knew I didn’t want to teach (even though I had just finished a degree in music ed) so I pieced together jobs based on what the perks were. I waitressed (free food and often free beer), worked in a salon (free haircuts, makeup, products) and at the Ordway (free theater). I spent almost every night at Chang O’Hara’s closing the bar and dated guys in bands. Not the most constructive time, but generally a lot of fun.
15) When I graduated from High School my parents wanted me to use my graduation money for something commemorative, something I could keep and remember that time in my life. I bought a beautiful camera and 2 lenses. My first year out of college I had it stolen out of my car. This Christmas I got a new DSLR camera and am really enjoying photography again. On the weekends my friend Kari and I take photo walks for an hour in different neighborhoods and practice taking pictures. Not to sound super cheesy, but it’s a really wonderful way to slow down and look for the everyday beauty that surrounds you.
16) I binge read. I won’t pick up a book for a month or two and then when I find something I like I barely put it down until I’m done. This last week I found a 3 part series I liked and read all three books in 6 days.
17) The main reason I was able to do 16 is because my husband got me the best birthday present ever this year. He set me up in a super fancy hotel here in town and sent me on my way from 3pm on Saturday till a late check-out (thank you Leah!) of 1:30 on Sunday. There was a pillow menu, 24 hour room service (I ordered Crème Brule at 1:00 am) and an IPod Library. It was easily one of the most relaxing things I have done in a very long time.
18) I didn't have my first “real” kiss until I was 15.
19) When my insomnia is bad, I watch General Hospital. I started watching it when I was 14.
20) When I work out, in my head I move with the grace and agility of Sydney Bristow…even though I know that’s not reality, I’m still sometimes disappointed when I catch a glimpse in the mirror of how I really look when I exercise.
21) I was in Show Choir in HS. And despite the fact that our outfits were among the most hideous things you could imagine (tight black spandex top, weird halfway see-through layers of skirt and a sparkly belt!) we had a lot of fun.
22) My friend Kati said that she’s “digging the fact that she’s reconnected both superficially (you see my profile, I see yours) and more substantially” with some people here. I have to agree with that – having moved a few times I am enjoying feeling more connected to those who I haven’t had a chance to see in many years.
23) The town I went to college in was a small town with two colleges. And they were very different schools in many ways. Back then I would have never guessed that at this point in my life many of my closest friends and my husband would have gone to that “other school” across the river. It’s funny how we can all have gone to school less than 3 miles from each other and have so many memories involving the same haunts (the Rueb, Grundy’s, Goodbye Blue Monday), but never had our paths cross until years after we all graduated and moved away.
24) I have a freaky memory for musical theater. I can still remember almost every song from every musical I was in or studied in High School. My kids have had to put up with a lot of Sondheim at bedtime.
25) This last year and a half I have experienced very extreme highs and lows. I am so very grateful for the family and friends who helped carry our little family through the difficult times and shared in our joy. There were honestly times that I could barely stand to tell people what was going on because I felt like I was starring in my own personal Lifetime Movie of the week. But we are still standing on the other end of it – Dan is in remission, Henry and I are both healthy and show no lasting damage from the trials of his birth, and Will is a remarkable and loving little boy. I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful network of people in my life.

Another set of eyes

2009-01-16T00:24:00.000-08:00

So I can't decide - A or B?

What I would like to do, I think, is cut back a little on the yellow-ish cast the low light tends to have, but I can't figure out how to do that without reducing the vibrancy of the blue and orange.

Does anyone know how I could do that?

picture post

2009-01-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more from the new camera. It helps that I have cute subjects.

Also, had a "Parent of the Year" moment earlier this week. So, we have been stuck inside a lot for the last 4 weeks, and at times it had made us all a little stir crazy. In order to lighten the mood sometimes, when the boys are driving me insane, I have taken to threatening them that I am going to sell them all to a farm. This is usually met with a good deal of laughter and some animal noises. Will even seemed to get into it by threatening to sell Dan to a farm one when he was napping and Will wanted him to wake up and play.

It appears, however, that I was wrong my thinking. Yesterday Will told Dan on the car ride home that he would not like us to tease him about the farm anymore. It makes him nervous.
So, that made me feel awesome. Maybe it would go over better if I threatened to sell him into the Jedi order?

post-christmas post

2009-01-03T00:22:00.000-08:00

Such a wonderful, wonderful trip. Too short though and a few important people did not get seen and a couple strongly desired things did not get done. We need to get back more than every two years. We were thinking maybe for the Fair this summer... I love the 'Great Minnesota Get Together!". But sooner rather than later.
Here are a couple of pictures from the Holiday season. Since I got my new camera I am having SO much fun. My hope is to put a few on here often throughout the month as I get them edited and at the end of the month have an album on Flickr.

Going...going...

2008-12-23T23:13:00.000-08:00

gone? hopefully?

We are scheduled to make a trip back to the frozen tundra tomorrow - but we have had our own "Arctic Blast!" going on right here in town. Seriously, if I have to hear/see the phrase "Arctic Blast!" one more time I may throw something at the TV. What an event it has been. The "news" or weather coverage has been on almost 24-7 since last week. Each day predicting more dire circumstances than they day before. I suppose I should take some comfort in that...they are predicting a bad storm for tomorrow. But if they predict it, it can't come true...right?

It's been interesting, working from home the last week and a half and having the whole family here. When the public schools are closed, Dan's work and the boys day-cares are closed. And since the public schools were closed almost all of last week, that meant we were all home together. And for the last five days, we have only been able to leave the vicinity of our house once. We have been literally snowed in.

It was fun, the first couple of days. And then I realized that while I love my family very much and am very grateful for them, I am not cut out to be a stay at home mom. I do not have what it takes to do what they do. I told Will last night that I was ready to sell them to a farm. And I might have if someone had offered to buy them...for a dollar. Part of it, I think, is the size of our house. We have a wonderfully cozy, but small, house. And while Dan says that I am just attempting to lay the groundwork for a basement remodel (maybe), I really do think a little extra breathing room may have made things a little less...intense.

So, hopefully we will get a small reprieve in the weather and our flight departs. I am so excited to see our family and friends...most of whom I have not seen in at least two years and haven't even gotten to meet Henry. So many of the people there were an amazing support to us this last year even from such a great distance. I hope to be able to share in some merriment with them as well.

Also, got a fantastic Christmas present this year. We bought a shiny new camera and I love it. So, hopefully over the holiday I will be able to dig through some of the backlog of pictures I have and start getting them up again.

I hope you all travel safely and find joy and peace this Holiday Season!

John Williams is the Man

2008-11-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

So, we let Will watch Star Wars (the 1977 one) when he turned 4. Empire and Return of the Jedi followed soon after and now we have a full blown obsession in our house. I was telling a friend about it and she sent me this:

I especially like the "Luke whiny voice" at about the 3:02 mark. Ah how I wish 4-year-olds understood things like this, cause I was laughing so hard I was almost in tears.

Costumes

2008-11-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

Halloween this year was quite the success. In past years Will has flat out refused to get involved with dressing up, so when he took an interest in his costume this year we were pretty excited for him. He was a Dragon and Henry was...well, in some Halloween pajamas with a weird pumpkin beret my mother put on him. Will went Trick-or-treating at exactly 3 houses...and frankly he was done at 2. I made a tactical error in picking our first house. I thought, ooh cool, decorations. We did decorating, he will like that. However, the decorations were a little more PG/PG-13 then a four-year-old can really handle. Lots of screaming sounds and chainsaw sounds and fake blood...yeah, that didn't go over really well for my shy dragon. But he loved giving out the candy, so ended up having a good night after all.

My mom also brought a NASA jumpsuit costume for Will that she brought out the day after Halloween with a bunch of other dress up clothes. While he did really, really like the Dragon...the orange jumpsuit has barely come off for two days. He thinks it looks like Luke Skywalker's fighter suit from Empire strikes back and refuses to let us call it a costume.

Here are the boys prior to Trick-or treating:

Henry, getting his first taste of sugar (I was in the other room):

And Will (at the carousel) as Jedi fighter pilot extraordinaire:

Rock the Vote

2008-10-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

Tap…tap…hello? It’s been so long since I posted I’m not sure if anyone is still out there...

So I posted a couple of years ago on Election night about my foray into the political world. I really didn’t have a lot of background in politics and was very excited about learning and understanding that which makes our county run.

My parents flew into town tonight and we sat around discussing the upcoming elections. They have an interesting local race in Norm Colman v. Al Franken, we have another interesting one in Gordon Smith v. Jeff Merkley. But of course, talk turned to the national election and where we saw that heading.

I read an interesting article recently (I so Wish I could remember where) about how many people our grandparents generation are feeling frustrated with the voting styles of our generation. They feel we have gotten too “socially oriented” and that we are ignoring larger issues such as taxes and national safety in order to vote with an eye toward these crazy newfangled principals like “Pro-Choice” and “Gay Rights”. They blame our parents mostly for raising us with the ideals born out of the social reforms of the 60s.

But it made me think, and I realized I DO vote mostly on social issues. The lines in the sand for me do involve a person’s right to choose who they will be able to marry and the right to choose what happens to their body. I don’t understand a platform that advocates smaller government, but feels they have the right to regulate such private and personal things. Those things are deal breakers for me.

So I’m curious, what are yours?

Sakes Alive, someone's four! Photoblog 9/30

2008-10-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I have a four-year-old. Sometimes I can't believe it was only 4 years ago because it seems like he's been with us forever...and on the other hand I can't believe it's already been 4 years because really? He's 4 already? Wasn't that just yesterday he was like, 1?

It's been a bittersweet month for us. Since Dan was diagnosed with The Cancer on Will's third birthday, the two are very intertwined for us. At least right now...I hope with time they cease to be less so. But we have so many painful memories of last year, and we really, really didn't want that to color Will's birthday this year.

So we left town - just the four of us. Just for the weekend, but it's something we had never done before. Since Will was born, we have always traveled either with or to friends and family. It was an amazing weekend. So many times Dan and I just looked at each other, silently so grateful for this time and its marked difference from a year ago. When we got back from our weekend away, we felt refreshed, recharged. It felt like we had drawn a line in the sand from "last year" and "this year" and stepped right over it, leaving the "last year" behind and starting new.

When we got back, we met up with Dan's parents and Will's godparents for lunch. On our way there, Will told me what he wanted for his birthday.

"Mama, for my birthday I want these things. I would like a cupcake, and singing and a candle and clapping. Ok?"

Glad to oblige bud, glad to oblige.

Here are a couple of my favorite from the weekend, plus a video! from the train ride Will got as a birthday present. As always, the rest are here: Photoblog 9/30.

Chemo Months - Photoblog 9,9

2008-09-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

So, it's interesting going back through these. I'm glad we have them, and I'm glad to share them, but even the happy things don't necessarily bring warm feelings. These are all we have from December to February. A lot of holidays occur during that time, and birthdays, and other group gatherings and Dan couldn't attend any of them. It was just Will and I (and Henry sort of) at all these family things, and we were missing a pretty integral part of our family. That point driven home even more as the family things we were going to all were on Dan's side. Despite my parents being here for a good part of this time; and the lifelines that were our friends - people who brought us food (which again, thank you! Totally wouldn't have pulled together a single meal if it weren't for you!) and called and checked in and came over and took care...it was a lonely time. It was weird to "experience" the holidays when going through something like we were.

But there were good things, and I am glad I have pictures of them because at some point I think we will be able to look at them and see them as good all on their own, not moments of good almost engulfed by the fear and pain and anxiety that surrounded them.

Here are a couple of my favorites, rest are here: Photoblog 9.9

The Many faces of Henry - Photoblog 9.2

2008-09-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

So this week covers pretty much April and May. It takes me right up to end of my Mat leave. Also, Henry hadn't really started smiling much, so I had a LOT of pictures of various faces he is making. Again, the return of the striped pillow!

I know that this set really falls under the category of "Needs more judicious editing" but there are so many expressions I want to remember that I indulge myself anyway.

Here are some of my favorite and the rest are here: Photoblog 9.2

How to give the spouse of a recovering cancer patient a unnecessary heart attack

2008-08-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

So far, for me, the worst, worst part about Dan's bi-monthly cancer checks is waiting for the Dr to come into the room...and the first few seconds after he's entered. We sit in the room for 10, 15, 20 minutes waiting. See a shadow on the floor from under the door...and it passes by. Another shadow...the door opens. And in the first 5 seconds we sit there attempting to analyze his every facial expression. If it was bad news, he wouldn't come in smiling. But if he's not smiling, that doesn't necessarily mean bad news. Ahhh! What is he going to say? Is this the time he walks in the door and our world drops out from under us again, or will we be given another 2 month reprieve before doing this dance again?

Today, he comes in and starts asking about how Dan is feeling. Ok, so that doesn't tell me anything. Soon he's asking if we have any fun plans coming up. I always take this as the sign I can start to relax, because who would come in, ask if you had any fun plans only to say: Well sorry about that. You're going to be missing out on those fun plans due to the Cancer coming back. Aren't you glad I asked?

He does a quick physical exam and that is usually it. Today though, he finished the exam and said: When did you do your blood draw? I don't think I've seen those numbers yet. I have to check on something, I'll be right back.

What?!? You mean the tumor marker numbers that are the only test this month to see if Dan is still Cancer free? You know, the whole reason we're here? Those numbers? If you haven't seen "those numbers" yet, why are you in here talking about my fun plans? You don't know that you get to talk about fun plans yet! You haven't seen the numbers!

And then he was gone for 10 minutes.

And I think I stopped breathing.

He pops in "Numbers are perfect! See you in 2 months" and pops back out the door.

I still hadn't recovered from the 10 minutes of the not breathing when we had to go out to schedule the next appointment and Dan is all Yay! Numbers good! 2 more months! Aren't you excited?!?

And I am, SO excited!

It just took me a few minutes to catch my breath.

Hey! Look who was pregnant! - Photoblog 8.26

2008-08-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Not Me!

I think I may only have one picture of myself when I was pregnant with Henry. But I don't think I have many of my pregnancy with Will either...so it's not a second child thing...ANYway.

Kari, that's who was pregnant! In between taking lots of pictures of my own newborn son I got to participate in a couple of baby oriented events with Kari, who was due about 9 weeks after Henry was born. Since clearly I was in a picture taking mood those days, I had a lot of pictures of Kari from those two said events. A Baby shower:

And an impromptu "My nails should look pretty in the Hospital" trip to the Spa:

I know that Kari was somewhat uncomfortable at this point in the pregnancy (I think at this point she was more pregnant that I have ever been since both my boys arrived 5 or so weeks early) but I love these pictures because she is so happy. Every pregnancy is special, but this was a very hard fought/hard earned/hard won (whatever the phrase is) pregnancy. So it was fun for me to be a friend who got to be there with her.

And fun to see what she got to bring home 4 months ago (rest are here:Photoblog 8.26)

Hodge Podge - Photoblog 8.20

2008-08-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

Just a mix of stuff from early June. We were busy in June it seems, I had a lot of pictures from June. Will got his first Bike, was in a wedding and got to go on a pirate ship. Well, not really a pirates ship, it was actually an accurate representation of the Nina (of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria) but Will had been pretty obsessed with pirates and it was close enough for him.
Here are the faves, rest are here: Photoblog 8.20

Will asleep at the wedding:

Goofy faces from Henry:

Will's Pirate Ship:

On vacation - Photoblog 8.19

2008-08-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

So, 'photoblog 8.19' will be more like 'photoblog 8/20' this week because I've been kicking it out in the Mountains for the last couple of days. We're home now, but still feeling that vacation vibe. So I think I am going to shut off the computer or I will find myself answering work emails and doing excel spreadsheets. So tune in tomorrow sometime for a slightly delayed post.

Playing

2008-08-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've been fooling around in Gimp Shop again, I'm constantly surprised at what a powerful tool it is. I know I am just barely scratching the surface with it. I had the thought that in my copious free time I would start taking tutorials...or at least it might be something more productive to do when insomnia strikes than watch an NCIS marathon. Here's what I tried:

Original:First try, last week

Tonight's attempt

Nana and Papa come to visit Photoblog 8.12

2008-08-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

So one good thing, wait, one thing that didn't totally suck, about the whole Cancer umbrella was that my parents became this beacon of support for us. Now, that isn't to say that they haven't always been supportive. Because they have...except for that one time I was 15 and was SURE they were trying to ruin my life by not really wanting me to go out with this super cute junior(totally won that argument by the way)...anyway, I digress.
Facing something like we did is hard on the people who want to help. People have a hard time knowing what to do, what do say. I did, and I was living it. We were incredibly lucky to be surrounded by an abundance of people who did and said amazing things. But my parents? They came out and were here, living in the trenches with us. They came for Dan's first week of Chemo and my mom came out for almost 2 1/2 weeks during his last round when I was 8 months pregnant. They came out after Henry was born and Dan was still feeling all of the physical repercussions of just being one month out of chemo and I was so, so tired yet completely unable to sleep. My mom has sat up with me at 2:00am countless times in the last 9 months talking to me, distracting me from my anxiety, keeping me company when I felt alone.
So, the good thing that came out of it, yes, back to the good. They got to spend so much time with Will. I know it is hard on them that they are not here to be part of his day-to-day, but in this last year they were a very strong presence in his life.
So, in June they came out and we wanted to get out of town, to just be away from all the stress and anxiety of this last year. We rented a place at the beach - Mom and Dad took Will a day early for some special time. It was good - we laughed, a lot. Here are some of my favorites, and as always, link here: Photoblog 8.12

Photoshoots and a Party - Photoblog 8.25

2008-08-05T08:16:00.001-07:00

So, this set of pictures is not so big. It spans pretty much the last couple weeks of June through the first couple of July. In looking at them, I couldn't figure out why there were so few - we were pretty busy during that period. But my parents had just left after an awesome 2 1/2 week trip (next weeks photos!) and I think I was tired of taking pictures.

When Henry and I are home together during the day, I mostly work while he hangs out in a sling or naps on his chair. This time period was when we first discovered he would sleep in the big yellow chair, so there are a lot of pictures of that. He still wasn't sitting up so there are also a lot of him during our breaks, on the boppy. Poor kid is going to hate the sight of those sherbet colored stripes when he gets older. Here is one of my favorites from our at-home-alone photoshoots:

There was also the 4th of July - a spectacular even hosted by our dear friends Sarah and Dave. They know how to throw a party. It was interesting - there were SO many more children than there were last year this time. Last year there were 3, this year there were 10 with 8 of them being under 15 months. That is a lot of kids - added to the chaos and the fun:

We also took several trips to the zoo. We really have a wonderful zoo here - here is my favorite of the entire month and as always you can view the rest here: Photoblog 8.5

Camera Envy - Photoblog 7.29

2008-07-29T15:56:00.001-07:00

So, I meant to write in between these two posts...but clearly that didn't happen. We've been busy over here in our household. Summer evening and weekends fill so quickly with friends and family - I hate to loose track of any of it but can't seem to find the time to write it all down. I find I've been throwing things on the Family Calendar after the fact so that I'll have some kind of record of what all we did this summer.

This week's photoblog has to do with Camera Envy. Kari lent me her wonderful SLR camera for a week and I got to play with it. It takes the prettiest pictures. I had SO many good ones, it was hard to pare down. I didn't get a ton of Will though. It's much easier to force Henry into doing a photo shoot than it is the ever-moving object that is Will. I did however get a couple fantastic pictures where Will told me he would pose for me. Below is one of the best.

Also, Henry is doing things like blowing raspberries, babbling and trying to stay sitting up. I find myself stopping what I am doing and hopping on the floor to play with him many times a day. He is just so interactive now, it's a fun stage. I can't believe how fast it is going this time though! He is going to start solid foods in 2 1/2 weeks - that is crazy talk.

As always, you can see the entire set here: Photoblog 7.29

A day in the life...Photoblog

2008-07-22T13:26:00.001-07:00

So, the first Photo Tuesday. This was fun for me! About 2 weeks ago I decided to take one day and photograph it as we went along. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary from our regular Saturday, but it was fun grabbing some of those daily things instead of just the events. It worked pretty well - except we split off in the middle of the day and only have one camera so I missed swimming pictures (Dan and Will go together every Saturday), and after dinner we came home and it was bedtime. The wheels came off a little and there were no extra hands for picture taking. So our day ended at dinner apparently.
Anyway, here are a couple of my favorties and you can click on the link here for the set: Photoblog 7.22

Boys

2008-07-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

Two recent examples in which I just have to laugh that this is my life...with all boys:

Here is the scene. We are all in the car, that has a broken muffler that we haven't gotten fixed despite the fact that we sound like an entire motorcycle gang.
Henry is screaming, because that is what he does in the car.
This seems to upset Will, who decides the best way to deal with it is a mantra that goes something like this "Mama Mama Mama MAMA MAMA HENRY IS HURTING MY EARS!!! YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO MY WORDS MAMA!" But keep in mind he is trying to be heard over the screaming. And the muffler.
The radio is playing very softly, but somehow Dan hears a tune and turns it up. Loud. Except we only really have 1 speaker that really works in our 15 year old car. The rest kind of make a staticy noise, so you really have to turn it up to hear the music. "Sweet! Van Halen!" and starts humming, air guitaring/drumming and yelling WOO-HOO every time Will stops for air.
So that makes Will try and yell louder, over his Dad, over the Van Halen, over the static, over the screaming baby and over the muffler.
And I realized that this is just the beginning. I am going to be outnumbered for the rest of my life.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Last night we had company for dinner. We were planning on the adults eating after the kids went down but they came early to see the boys for a little while. Will has taken to procrastinating bedtime as much as possible recently with the "I have to go to the bathroom" plea. So sure, what are you going to do.

So, Will was in there procrastinating and I had just finished nursing Henry. Dan was waiting for Will to return to bed (as we have long ago stopped going into the bathroom to wait with him). One of our guests gets up and in walking to the kitchen asks what Will is doing.

So I get up to find out and see him, sans clothing, not so much facing the toilet. I go in and ask him what he is doing...

"Peeing mama. Look! It all went down!"

Why yes it did, right down the heating vent that he was peeing into. Oh yes, my child, my sweet little boy was peeing, into the HEATING VENT.

So, I kinda started to maybe get a little upset (thinking really this is an act of I don't know, defiance? maliciousness?) "No Will, NO! Stop that right now that is NOT ok!"

By this time Dan had come into the room and Will looked at both of us, honestly very shocked, his lower lip starting to quiver a little at my outburst and he looked a little...embarrassed.

"um, Daddy" he asked quietly, "Is that only ok at swimming?"

And at that point I realized that I had no idea, nor do I think I want to, as to what goes on when the boys go for their weekly trips to the pool.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also, as I was putting together a present for Dan today I realized that I have so, so SO many pictures that I have not done corrections to and posted. I love taking pictures and I love sharing them, but after Dan's diagnosis, it was somehow very emotionally overwhelming. So, I kept taking them, but haven't been able really to go back and look at many of them - especially the couple weeks leading up to and following when we found out. However, I feel like it's time. And I haven't been that good about posting here either. So, in order to take care of both those things at once I am going to institute Photo Tuesdays. Yes I realize that photo Fridays sounds better, but I wanted to do it on Tuesday so oh well. I am going to post a couple of my favorites here and a link to a set of pictures on Flickr every Tuesday. Except I am going to chicken out a little and start with the most recent and work my ways backward. I think I still need a little time before tackling those.

4 months

2008-06-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

Henry had his 4 month appointment this week - everything looks good and he is gaining weight like a champ.

Dan had his 4 month appointment as well and everything looks good there too. Yay! I keep forgetting that Dan got his 1st all clear appointment post-chemo the day before Henry was born until it's appointment time. The timeline from those couple of weeks back in February are still a little fuzzy to me.

And this picture, it makes me a very happy mama.

learning

2008-06-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

So, I haven’t been posting too much lately. I could go into a whole bunch of reasons why, but the main reason? I am too damn tired. Seriously, oh my god tired. I can’t even tell you the number of times I have lost 5-10 minutes during my two ½- hour pumping sessions at work. I love my boys, but I don’t think that anyone told me that two was WAY more than double one. WAY more.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually have generally great kids. Will has adjusted better than to be expected to having a little brother and Henry for his part has cut back a little on the screaming and now has many different levels of expressing his displeasure with whatever the current situation is presenting him. My favorite is kind of a squawk/yell that is kind of like a cry but more of a “mom, mom, MOM! I AM NOT HAPPY” that comes before the actual full on scream. If you can catch him there things can usually be turned around somewhat easily.

But the tired? It makes me cranky. First it was the 3 1/2 month bout of insomnia. I could actually “reasonably” tolerate 2-3 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period because I didn’t have that many obligations during the day during the week. I could cat nap with Henry and didn’t have to speak to people I didn’t want to. The tipping point came when I went back to work. Now, keep in mind, I actually like the people I work with and they have been amazingly generous, but I really don’t think I realized how much I was depending on those cat naps to keep me sane. This is not to diminish what I went through (or anyone else is going through) as a first time parent, but I am amazed at how much energy two children require. And with just one, if you are sleep deprived and cranky, you run the risk of being kind of a bitch to other adults. But with two? Let’s just say 3 ½ year olds have a knack for knowing when you are at your tiredest most not-like-yourself self and start pushing your buttons. This morning, Will and I had the most fantastically mature argument during negotiations of what was appropriate to wear to school (shorts and a tshirt – yes!, underpants only and his sword tied around his waist– no!) in which he finally told me not to put on my Angry Face, he didn’t like it and it wasn’t nice. And he’s right and more often that not the tired makes me act like the kind of parent I don’t want to be.

But the thing I am learning with that is that for me, not only do I think it’s ok to not always be the parent I want to be in front of my kids, I actually think it can be a good thing. I think it’s an opportunity for me to teach them that you don’t have to be perfect – and that if you screw up, it’s both ok and appropriate to acknowledge it and apologize for it. After Will and I had had a rough morning a couple of weeks ago I realized that I was just kind of being an asshole. So I went into his room and told him that I was sorry. Mommy was having a tough morning and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was my fault and I should have been a better listener. And he really heard what I was saying. And I asked him if he would forgive me and he smiled and said yes, gave me a kiss and ran out of the room to find his sword. And for me? I think that felt a little bit more like the parent I want to be than if I had just done it perfect the first time.

grown up

2008-06-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

Mama! Look!
Yes Baby?
It's Daddy's work. When I am grown up I will go to work there too. I will do lots of things when I am grown up, like touch things?
umm, excuse me, what? what things are you going to touch bud?
When I am grown up I will touch Scissors! And Cars! and umm...stuff onna umm...counter...and oh! The grill, Mama I will touch the grill.
That sounds like a good plan bud.
Oh HEY MAMA! When I am grown up I will reach. I will reach SOOOO high so I can touch the sky.
I know you will baby, I know you will.

The green rebar tour

2008-05-29T21:00:00.001-07:00

Last year the unthinkable happened when a bridge collapsed in the Twin Cities.

They have started new building. I like to think it's part of the process of healing, of closing the jagged gash scarring the river and those towns.

One of my dearest people had a chance to visit the site and take some truly incredible pictures. You really must go see them. Go now. They are not only very interesting as an educational tool (I certainly had no idea what went into bridge building) but are fantastic pictures as well.

Above is one of my favorites. You can click there and it will take you to the set, or you can just click on the link here.

Photo Round-Up

2008-05-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Someone is smiling:

Someone grew about a foot this month:

This is the new family time (love):

another round

2008-05-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

So, somehow my last post got picked up by a weird website search engine thingie. I have removed the phrase that was causing it to get picked up and am reposting. The things you learn :)

Things here are going well - busier than I thought I would be at this point in my mat leave. I can't believe it is about to end, I go back to work in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! I am so not prepared to hand Henry over to the SuperDaycare, even though they are super. We are really happy with the place we are sending him, it's the same place as his older brother. We were on a waiting list for 2 years to get Will in at this place (and then deferred entrance one year so he started at 3) so are feeling really lucky that we got the sibling advantage with the Wait List this time around.

Also feeling really lucky because my work has done two amazing things recently. Like, mind-boggling amazing. I work in a pretty male dominated industry and my company is not really an exception. Other than the fact that the president is a woman, there are really only like 4 other women in the entire company. Also, it has a somewhat transitory nature so it tends not to be super family friendly either (I am the only woman in the company with children that are not adults). However, when approaching how they would handle my new status as a parent of two young children they have been amazing. First, my maternity leave. Even though my office isn't technically big enough to require them to follow Family Leave regulations they did anyway, giving me the full 12 weeks off unpaid. And then, this is the part that really blows me away, they instituted a policy that allows for the donation of leave time to a fellow employee. And oh my lord my co-workers were so generous. I don't want to put on here how much, but way above and beyond generous. People donated so much time that combined with my own sick/vacation time and some savings I was able to take off the 12 weeks without freaking out about how we could afford it the entire time. They gave me time with Henry so I didn't have to go back to work much earlier. I can't even begin to explain what a gift that is.

Also, they are letting me have a stab at a trial run flexible schedule. I have 3 months to prove to them that I can get just as much work done in a week by working from home 2 days a week as I would if I was in the office full time. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can impress them in this regard, I have worked remotely before and know how to discipline myself to keeping to a schedule. If anything, I have the tendency to work too much when I work from home because I have a hard time shutting it out. But my boss has had a bad experience with this before so we will see, wish me luck.
*******************************************************

We had the first of the new surveillance check-ups for Dan's Cancer recently. It's weird, making the move from fighting cancer to the new living with cancer thing. Because that's sort of how I look at it. We don't really consider it gone for five years. For five years we will go in for these check-ups. Holding our breath for the days before because if it comes back now we are looking at a whole different ball game. This was the first one, and I hope it gets easier. I hope we are given an opportunity to learn how to live with this new reality over the next five years. But this one, it ended up throwing all of us out of whack for a good week. I didn't sleep, Dan slept a lot. Will was on edge because Dan and I were. I know how lucky we are to be at a point were we have the opportunity to learn how to deal with remission, but I think sometimes we were unprepared at what kinds of scars the experience has left on our family. I say scars, but that week it felt much more like still raw, open wounds.

One of the things I think it has left me with is a difficulty to properly assess the urgency of a medical situation. Everything is either 0 or 100 in terms of how worried I get. I forget that there is a large range of numbers in between there. It's just, with Dan he went in for what we thought was a little infection and walked out with a cancer diagnosis. A cancer in which the success of treatment relies almost entirely on catching it early. Within hours of that first appointment for the infection it turned out he didn't have we were scheduling surgery. And at one point during chemo we went in because Dan had a little bit of a nagging cough. Once there they rushed him over to the hospital to be admitted because his blood oxygen levels were so low they were worried about him going into respiratory distress and "taking a turn for the worse". I was on "bedrest" when that happened.

You take that and add my experiences with what happened with my own health at the end of my pregnancy. I think I'm somewhat justified in having a slight phobia when it comes to potential medical concerns. But what I hope eases up with time is the feeling that I get when faced with something like Dan's monthly check-up or Will's mysterious arm rash or Henry's lingering jaundice. I don't simply worry that one of things could be potentially very serious, I flashback to that day when Dan called me and told me that this was not an infection, it was much more serious and could I please come now. And I feel it all over again. That being said, it was a good appointment and his numbers continue to look great. I like to think of it as a start down a good path. A chance for us to learn how to live with Cancer. **********************************************

On a happier note, my children could simply not be cuter I am sure of it. Will loves being an older brother and takes his new role quite seriously. I really believe he thinks of Henry as "our" baby because he takes a great deal of concern in making sure we are paying attention to Henry's needs for blankets, pacis, etc. I am terribly behind in the picture posting. I have been taking a ton, but haven't gotten them off my camera. I will do that soon.
**********************************************

And in VERY fun news, welcome to the world Baby Howie!! You have the most kissable, smooshable cheeks. I am so excited that you are here.

New look

2008-04-13T19:58:00.001-07:00

I wanted something a little lighter so I thought I would try my hand at a redesign. You like?

seven+1

2008-04-13T02:46:00.000-07:00

Seven weeks and 1 day ago I was in a hospital asking a nurse to take me to go see my son.

It all started seven weeks and 3 days ago. I was just about 36 weeks pregnant and had been having an interesting week. 3 weeks prior I had started having contractions and been put on bed rest for 2 weeks. So it was my first week off bed rest and I was uncomfortable. Yes, I was 36 weeks pregnant so that was to be expected, but it was more than that. I had gained about 10 lbs in two days - my hands were so swollen I couldn't make a fist. I called the Dr and they wanted me to come in and have some blood work done. On Thursday that week I went in to see if the blood work they had ordered turned anything up. My regular OB was gone that afternoon and so I was seeing someone else in the practice. She did a quick exam, asked me why I was in and looked at my chart.
Then she looked up at me and said "Huh, these numbers aren't good. We need to send you to Labor and Delivery right now. I think you'll be having a baby today."

Um, what? I asked if I could go home and you know, make arrangements for Will, get my labor bag, get my husband stuff like that. No no, I had to go over right away and I was lucky she was letting me walk and not sending me in a wheelchair. Apparently, my liver and kidney's had stopped functioning properly and I had developed HELLP syndrome. (which is a little like pre-eclampsia gone bad) I wasn't sure what that meant and didn't have access to a computer to find out. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't because it's some scary shit and I think I would have been a lot less calm if I had more details. So I called Dan, told him they were going to induce me in the morning and could he take Will to his parents and pack up my bag for me? I had a list of all the stuff that I wanted to have there but none of it was really together. He was a rock star though and brought me everything I wanted.

So there I was Thursday night. I knew something was wrong but didn't really understand what. And, I knew I was going to be having a baby in the morning.

They gave me an Ambien to help me sleep - I think that was the last time I've slept more than 4 hours.

Friday morning rolled around and they started me with Pitocin in an IV to get labor started. They also started me on and IV of Magnesium Sulfate that they told me was due to the HELLP syndrome and was supposed to prevent me from having the seizures that can sometimes be associated with this. The told me it was going to make me feel like shit (and WOW did it ever) but you know, better than seizures, right?

My contractions got pretty strong with the Pitocin right away. They gave me an IV of something for the pain that was delightfully fuzzy. But then they decided that the contractions weren't productive enough and they broke my water. That made the delightfully fuzzy go away and my contractions started coming really fast - sometimes starting before the last one had really ended.

I know it's not the choice for everyone, but I was all about the epidural. I knew I was going to want one coming into this whole process so I thought now seemed like a good time. Ahh, it was bliss. However, it made my blood pressure drop dangerously fast and there was a good hour in there that I don't really remember where they were bringing it back up. But then, blood pressure up, no more pain...time for a nap!

I woke up about an hour later and was in pain. The last time they had checked me I was only about 5 cm dilated so I still had 5 to go. And it had taken me a while to get to those 5 so everyone was thinking this was going to take a while. But when I woke up from my nap I howdy there was the pain and I felt a lot of pressure, like I had to push. Dan went and got someone because my epidural was no longer working...at all. Well, that's not totally true. The outside of my thighs were numb. We all went back and forth on this point for a while with them trying to convince me that I just needed to adjust how I was sitting. Nope, pretty sure this is not how it was supposed to feel having done this once already with Will. So I made them check me and low and behold everyone was surprised (but me at this point) that the baby was crowning and he was coming. Now. Without the epidural. Without any other assistance, he was ready to come.

Dan tells me they didn't even finish getting everything ready before he came. The doctor made it down and we didn't have to push for too long. I had totally natural childbirth and was a little unprepared for that - but honestly, felt a little bad-ass having done it. He was here, our little Henry John.

And then, things started to get interesting and the next part of our adventure began. I'll try and post part 2 soon.

4 things at 5 am

2008-03-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

I got this in an email from Kari, and while I never really do these it was fun reading Kari's responses...even knowing her as well as I do. So, I thought I would answer some questions and it would make a fun post.

Four things about me that you may or may not know in any particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. front desk person at my freshman dorm. I was supposed to ask people to open their bags if I suspected they were smuggling in beer. We were told to suspect said beer smuggling if their bag was oddly square shape. Cause only freshman would try and sneak in a case of beer and not remove the cans from their tell-tale packaging.
2. manager of an Aveda salon and spa
3. sales clerk at Express (women's clothes) at the Mall of America
4. Music Theory T.A. and tutor

Four movies I would watch over and over
1. Moulin Rouge
2. Finding Nemo (out of all of Will's movie obsessions, this is the only one I haven't gotten tired of)
3. Ocean's 11, I am a total sucker for heist movies
4. Once

Four places I have lived:
1. Livonia, MI
2. St. Louis
3. Northfield, MN
4. Colorado Springs

Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. Lost
2. ANTM
3. First 48
4. House Hunters

Four places I have been
1. Savannah
2. Cairns, Australia
3. The Badlands
4. Toronto

Four People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Aggie
2. Kari
3. Sarah
4. My In-laws

Four favorite things to eat:
1. Sushi - especially Albacore nigiri
2. Pepperoni Pizza from the Italian Pie Shoppe in St. Paul (followed closely by the Gyro pizza from Bill's/Basil's in Northfield)
3. Flank Steak, Aggie's mashed taters and mozzarella/tomato salad. We make this meal every year to welcome/say goodbye to summer
4. sandwiches - it's a tie between New Seasons and Jimmy John's

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Sleeping in my bed
2. Lahaina, Hawaii.
3. Twin Cities (I miss my people there)
4. In my bed sleeping. Did I mention how nice it would be to be sleeping? On my bed and not in a recliner in 45 minute bursts with my 5-week-old?

Four friends I think will/should respond on their blogs:
1. Kari (I know I got this email from her but I still think she should post her answers)
2. Kimberly
3. Peter (just because it's the same site doesn't mean I don't want to hear both of your answers
4. Kate (whose new blog I really like by the way)

Four Things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Summer
2. Sleeping again someday
3. Going on a mini-vacation with my parents
4. Going to MN for Christmas

So, tell me some about you...

also, one more thing you should know about me is that due to 5-week-old mentioned above I am mastering the art of typing one-handed. In fact, this whole post was done in that fashion. Fancy, no?

101

2008-03-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is post number one hundred and one. Kind of fitting I think since 101 Dalmatians is the current movie obsession for a certain 3 year old in our house. He told us the other day that when we went to the beach this weekend we were going to have to go to the store and get him a dog because he needed one to run with at the beach. And a kite. He wanted us to get him a dog and a kite at the dog and kite store on the beach. The only way to get to this store is by ship - a pirate ship to be specific. I'm glad he has a good imagination.

Henry is doing well - he is officially past his due date and seems to have gotten a lot more active in the few days since that date. So active in fact that the sleeping at night thing seems to be getting worse rather then better. He really only likes to sleep while being held in an upright position. Otherwise there is yelling. Yelling until his face is purple. Which is, you know, fun. But, as a friend reminded me recently, at least he is consoled by something. And it is something that does not involve me moving around a lot. There could really be lots worse things than a baby who wants to cuddle.

I have found a solution for it during the day. A fantastic wrap that keeps him close and still allows me to move. I mean, I probably wouldn't jog with him in it, but let's be honest, I probably wouldn't jog anyway so that has little to do with the wrap.

Also, got my hair cut. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it's the first time I've done something remotely different with it in several years. I have the cutest hairdresser the whole world (thanks to Shelley of course) and when I went to see her last week the conversation went something like this:

me: I think I want to do something a little different with the front. You know, like something...with the front?

her: The last 3 times you've been in here you've mentioned that you want to do "something" different with "you know, the front" and I think that you want bangs but are actually afraid to say that you want bangs (which was totally right by the way... the last time I had bangs was in the late 80's-early 90's and it was bad. It involved lots of hairspray and sort of looked like a claw) so I am going to go ahead and say it for you. I think you want bangs and I think it's a good idea. It'll be cute, so we'll do sort of a Reese Witherspoon/Heidi Klum bang. ok? Great.

So here we are, new bangs and a wrap that keeps Henry close. Still not much sleep, but hey, we're getting there...I think.

Brotherly Wisdom

2008-03-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Baby brother loves me but he doesn't like you guys. You guys change his diaper.

Boys

2008-03-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Resting at home this weekend

An Abundance of Blessings

2008-02-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

Right now:

My Husband's Cancer is considered in remission.

My Oldest son is fast asleep in his bed, clutching a plastic sword and no doubt dreaming of fighting grasshoppers and spiders with his friends Mulan, Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

My youngest son is curled up across his daddy's chest and they are on our couch less then 10 feet away from me.

Right now is a very, very good night.

Newest Addition

2008-02-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

Henry John

Born 2/22 at 2:15 pm

We are all doing pretty well - he's had to stay for a few days longer due to some complications with him being early and all, but he is on the right path and hopefully will be coming home soon. I will post more details when I have a little more time. But for now, these will have to tide you over:

New pictures up at Flickr - I will be updating pictures all week so check it out!

Status

2008-01-30T15:58:00.000-08:00

Hello, everybody. We've been meaning to put together a status report for a while now, but as it turns out there's no easy way to put together a mid-chemo report: "Still doing chemo...it still totally sucks!" This last Monday, though, was the last injection of the third and final cycle, so we're done, with this step, in a sense. I say "in a sense," because there's a lot still to go. If chemo can be likened to being punched in the stomach over and over (and it can), then Monday was like the last time getting punched in the stomach. So while we're really happy that the punching is stopping, the stomach still hurts pretty bad and will for the near future. Estimates that we're hearing are three to four weeks for cells to start regrowing (hair, taste buds, etc), and probably two months for energy levels to return to somewhat normal.

The very encouraging overall news, however, is that the blood numbers look very good. They couldn't, in fact, look any better, as the crucial tumor markers are low enough to be unmeasurable. We get a month off before returning to the hospital for more blood tests and the first CAT scan since they started treatment, which to us feels like a durn eternity. So while there are no guarantees regarding whether this cancer returns, statistics are in our favor and we're crossing our fingers for, hopefully, five upcoming years of uneventful surveillance.

So that's where we are now as we bumble around and try to get things ready for another little boy in this house. We truly cannot thank all of you enough for all you have helped us with, for all the dinners, adventures with Will, cleaning, rearranging furniture, and on and on and on. We could not have made it through this time without you. We're looking forward to rejoining the rest of the world soon, and it's pretty clear we're going to be buying the first round.

Love to you all,
Us

Rules

2008-01-22T16:06:00.000-08:00

The other night Will and I were having dinner and he was periodically getting up to put his face down by my ever-expanding belly to say hello to his baby brother.

I told him baby brother was kicking me and asked if he wanted to feel.

He looked slightly horrified and leaned very close to my tummy and said:

"no, NO baby brother! Mama, you have to talk to him, we don't kick people!"

It's raining I think

2007-12-30T20:15:00.000-08:00

So much to say, but not really anything new at all. That's the place I seem to find myself in these days. I have started so many posts with updates as to what is going on, but sooner or later every post I started ended up being about The Cancer. And it was starting to piss me off. (at The Cancer, I was getting pissed off at Cancer) Because, there are other things that have happened in the last 3 weeks, I'm quite sure of it...but everything is still under The Cancer umbrella. The big, stupid Cancer umbrella.

Speaking of umbrellas, Due the the weather out here in the sunny NW, Will's new obsession is rain gear. We stopped at the store one night on our way home from school because for the 10 minutes prior he had been telling me how much he needed a gumbrella from the store. And since these days I am a total sucker, we stopped and got a new gumbrella. And for the last 12 days that gumbrella is talked about at least 10 times in every car ride and must go with us everywhere. It also must sleep next to Will's bed in case it starts raining in the middle of the night and there is a gumbrella emergency. Then he will be prepared with the staying dry. because of the gumbrella. next to his bed.

Christmas this year came and went. My parents came out and we had an early christmas with them (St. Nicholas day) and they got our house all decorated for the holidays...because lord knows if they hadn't there is no way I would have had the energy to do it. Christmas week was..interesting. With Dan's entire family here there was 4 family events in the 4 days leading up to Christmas. The smallest being 9, the largest being like 40. And because of The Cancer, Dan couldn't go to these events so I took Will by myself. Now, his family is amazing and I am so lucky that I married into them and they have been an incredible help with Will...but it was a lot of event-ing to do on my own. It just felt very, I don't know, obvious that Dan was missing...and it made me sad and honestly a little unsettled to be with his family without him.

One piece of good news - we got some preliminary test results back on Dan's blood work on Christmas eve and the tumor markers have been falling really well. Early signs are that the chemo seems to be doing what we hoped it would doing. So, while the road is still hard...at least it feels like we are headed the right direction.

So, you see? The Cancer takes over the post anyway. But I don't feel like ending it there. So here is a picture of Will enjoying Christmas - seriously, how can this not make you happy?

Rough Weekend

2007-12-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

Near the end of a what has been a very tough weekend, Will finally had enough of me this evening.

He was trying to get to Dan, who at the moment was not really available and when I wouldn't let him yelled this at me:

"You DON'T keep me away from my Daddy! You STOP keeping my daddy away from me. You are not being very nice."

I know this is a confusing and hard time for him, and I understand that he is going to be pretty mad at me throughout all of this, but tonight, that? It broke me just a little.

2 days down

2007-12-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well we are two days into the chemo. There are three different chemo meds that Dan is getting (along with lots of saline and a bunch of other drugs to combat the side effects). They all have long names, but the treatment is better known as BEP. The “B” he gets on days 1,8 and 15 of the cycle. The “E” and the “P” he gets on days 1-5 of the cycle. We have been told that the side effects are cumulative throughout the process and that he will be feeling his best early this week and in the days leading up to the start of the next cycle.

So far, it’s kind of like what we expected. Which is actually nice, I can do without surprises. I went with him on the first day so I could talk to his oncologist about the specifics of what they found last week and also to get the Chemo 101 from the nurse – you know, what all the meds are at the clinic, what meds we will need to monitor at home, things to look out for and things to be concerned about, that kind of thing. Then I stayed with him for the day while he got the 6 hour cocktail. I think I may be banned from coming back for a while as I kind of drove him crazy. With every movement, every sigh from him I was all “Do you need anything?can I get you some water?how about some juice?do you need the nurse?anything?ANYTHING?” at one point he asked if I would mind if he just read, quietly. I calmly told him “Sure, no problem. I’ve got a magazine right here” but in my head was more “sure no problem, I will just sit and stare at you for the next two hours and if you make any move that resembles discomfort I will ask you 9 million questions about how I can try to make it better”.

There is this hard balance you attempt to reach when someone you love is going through something that undoubtedly will cause them discomfort and pain. We know that is what will happen with these medications, it’s kind of how we know they’re working. But the balance part comes between you and the person physically going through this. Dan wants to be able to tell me truth and not always have it send me off into a flurry of action. Sometimes he’s simply going to be feeling shitty and there is nothing I can do about it and he doesn’t want me to do anything about it, he just wants me to know. However, if I fly off the handle every time he mentions that he’s got a little chest pain, it’s going to make it hard for him to tell me in the future. At the same time, I can’t see into his body to see what he means by a ‘little bit’ of chest pain – does he mean a little like some Tylenol would help or a little like I should call the Dr. cause it’s getting hard to breath. There is just so much of reworking ways that you communicate with each other and I have a feeling it is something we are going to be working at for the next 9 weeks.

Not the news we were hoping for

2007-11-30T13:22:00.000-08:00

So, the Cancer is still there. We found out on Wednesday, start 9 weeks of chemo on Monday. I don't really know what to say at this point.

In case you didn't see this - here is a note from Dan. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to us these last couple of days - knowing you are out there and thinking of us is an incredible support. Even if you don't hear from us, know that your words and kindness have touched us immeasurably. Thank you.

So, from Dan:

Hello all. Well, we found out this morning that we wound up on the wrong side of that 50% number they gave us, and have some work to do before getting this cancer gone. Chemo is scheduled to begin this coming Monday, so that hopefully the hair can fall out just in time for Christmas pictures. The schedule is this: all day chemo from Monday through Friday on Week 1, then just on Monday for Weeks 2 and 3, and then doing that whole cycle twice more, for a total of nine weeks of treatment. A casual glance at our spankin' new 497-page Lance Armstrong LiveStrong notebook makes it clear that chemo comes with several unpleasant side effects along with the excellent main effect of eliminating this brand of cancer in about 99% of cases. However the most disturbing side effect, obviously, is that I will not be able to drink beer.

So, it is going to be an interesting few months, particularly with Em getting more and more pregnant by the day and trying to take attention away from me, but we're timing out to be done with this stretch right before Superbowl, which is the most important thing. Thank you so much for all of your support - we'll try to keep you all up to date as we move into this next phase.

Love to you all - D&E

State of the Union

2007-11-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

First, let me start by saying that Thanksgiving this year was wonderful. Absolutely fantastic. We ended up with 16 for dinner and people brought some of the best food we have had yet. We deep-fried one turkey and rotisserie-ed the other – both were fantastic. We missed Aggie and Becca, but I again represented with the Mashed Taters and artichoke dip and all the newcomers this year know where these recipes come from. Now, here is a little of what is going on in our house:

Dan – is feeling well these days. He seems to be fully recovered from the surgery now and we are starting to adjust to what this plan of attack means to our daily lives. He has another Big Monthly Appointment this week with all the scans and tests – in the long run, it really is reassuring knowing how closely this is all getting watched.

Will – he is such a three-year-old. We are trying our second attempt to potty train which is an adventure in itself. I have a hard time writing about him these days because it seems like every story we have about him is a little saccharinely sweet. You know? He is at a really fun age for language development and life seems to follow almost every “You know you have a preschooler when…” list that has ever been written so I don’t really have much to add. The thing about him, through all the ups and downs and three-year-old-ness, is he is just a really good kid. I was talking to a friend recently who hadn’t seen him in a while and she gave me about the best compliment anyone could when it comes to him…she told me saw a happy and secure little boy. Of course I am slightly panicked about what we are about to do to him by introducing a whole new factor of “the sibling” into his life, and how to teach him about the dynamics of that whole new relationship, but hey one step at a time.

Me – I am doing well. I am at a great point in the pregnancy where the morning sickness and fatigue is now totally gone, I’m not so big that I’m uncomfortable, I can eat fruit and vegetables again and I can feel the baby move each and every day (many times a day – he’s a lively one). Work is going well – very busy, but there have been new challenges that I have been given and been able to “rise to” as it were, so that always feels good too.

And that, my friends, is the current state of affairs around here.

Backlog

2007-11-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

Oh my lord I have been behind with the picture stuff. I was looking at my Flickr account today and realized I hadn’t uploaded pictures since basically June. Now, we take a lot of pictures in this household so June to November meant that there were a lot of pictures sitting on my camera waiting to be uploaded onto my computer and tinkered with.

So, I dug in and wow, yeah there were a lot of pictures. Luckily (I suppose) since my old camera sucked at focusing the majority of them didn’t turn out, so I didn’t have TOO many that could even be remotely fixed with my limited knowledge of photoshop. But once I started looking at the pictures that came from the new camera? There are almost too many to choose from. I think I got so used to taking 20-30 pictures hoping that 1-2 would turn out that with the new camera I now have 20-30 pictures of almost exactly the same thing that are all good. In any case, that got overwhelming so I've only put up pictures from July and August so far.

Here they are: July/August Flickr

And here are a couple of my favorites – they are (shockingly) out of focus, but I don’t care terribly. I like them anyway.

Maybe if I just give it time?

2007-10-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Today after nap Will and I were cuddling on the couch watching some Pixar movie. At one point he looked up at me and said:

"Go away please Mama, I need some space"

I think my three-year-old just broke up with me.

One down, twenty-three to go

2007-10-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

We had the first of Dan's monthly surveillance checkups this week, He will have these every month for the next two years, and then slightly spread out for the three years following (pending nothing shows up in that time of course).

The Scans came back clean and the blood tumor markers negative (meaning they didn't show cancer activity in the blood. That's good, we want negative). So an 'all clear' for the month of October!

It was interesting, this week leading up to the appointment. I know, or at least I hope, that as time goes by and we're lucky enough to have the months continue without recurrence that the mind numbing, heart-pounding anxiety in the days, hours and minutes before hearing that 'All Clear" will lessen for me. That these appointments will become a new "normal" in our lives. But that seems like a long way off for me right now.

I hope that doesn't sounds negative...it's just I tend to deal with this level of insecurity and stress by kind of freaking out before I know anything concrete. It's just how I do it. For example...last Friday when Dan was out of town for the night I started obsessing about his original CAT Scan. See there are two ways to do one, 1) Drink the stuff that will act as a contrast agent the night before or 2) get an IV of the contrast agent while you are there for the scan. Since I knew that he hadn't drank the stuff the night before and I couldn't remember if he had gotten the IV the next day (and Dan wasn't at home to tell me) I somehow managed to convince myself at 1:00 am (without ANY knowledge to back this theory up) that they there had been a miscommunication and that they had done the CAT scan wrong. And that when we went to our appointment this week we would find out that the Cancer had really spread and we just didn't know it yet. See? A totally rational and logical line of thinking.

However, this kind of totally healthy and logical worry (aka anxious panic) seems to stop as soon as I do know something concrete, even if it's bad. I get a kind of creepy calm and my repressed type A personality comes out and I make spreadsheets and notebooks and manage appointment scheduling and clean the entire house and make flubber with my 3 year old. It is then that I have the ability to draw on the untapped wells.

Dan tends to deal with this kind of thing in the exact opposite manner...which in a way is actually kind of nice. It tends to mean that both of us rarely freak out at the same time.

So all of this is a really long way of saying that we had a really good checkup and that we could not be happier this month with the results. But the getting there? It continues to be a work in process.

Must be something in the Water here

2007-10-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

So, um, I guess I need to stop referring to the baby as "she" in my head. We are now 6-0 in favor of boys among our local group of friends. We've got all we need for starters on a basketball team, plus a 6th man.

Had the big ultrasound yesterday and follow up this morning. Everything looks good and healthy and male.

I wish I could say that I felt overwhelming excitement when I heard that he was going to be a he, that the heavens opened up and angels extolled the virtues of having two boys in 4 part harmony…but I can’t tell you that. Disappointed is not at all the right word. Surprised maybe? I really thought that I was having a girl…and I don't think I hid the fact that I thought that would be pretty cool. But, as my close friends can attest, I have always kind of pictured myself herding a bunch of boys around.

I think the thing that makes me a little sad (read: little sad, NOT disappointed) is that I have such an amazing relationship with my own mother. And it makes me a little sad that I won't get to experience that kind of relationship from her end with my own daughter. That and I kind of love little-girl ponytails and am mildly obsessed with baby-legs. I think I would be a really good mother to a girl and I'm sad that I won't get to find out if that is true.

That said, I happen to think I am also a pretty good mother to boys as well. I read something on a blog some time ago (can't remember which one) and the writer was talking about finding out that her second was going to be a boy. I had jotted it down at the time and changed it a bit this morning to make it my own: I think maybe I'll be one of those moms who herds her boys with an endless supply of hugs and cuddles (but still a strong hand). And that I will teach my boys to love music and to swim and bake and watch football and love books and do elaborate science projects at the age of 8. And all the girls they ever meet will be blown away by their strength and sensitivity. And that would be pretty cool as well.

p.s. I kind of like the sound of "my boys".

The C word

2007-10-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

100% Embryonal carcinoma with Vascular invasion. Stage IB.

1 month and 1 day ago I had no idea what most of those word meant on their own, much less put together in a sentence.

1 month and 1 day ago, on September 14, on Will's 3rd birthday, Dan's doctors told him that they had found a mass, and it was cancer. Testicular cancer to be a little more specific.

I have hesitated writing about it here because frankly it's been much to raw for me, and writing does not quite have the therapeutic effect that it might have on others who choose this form of communication more often. I still get greater comfort out of talking. But as we have reached a small milestone in our process with this diagnosis, it felt like the right time to capture some of what has been going on, and some of where we are going.

Things moved very fast after the initial meeting with the Dr that Friday. We went in for a CT scan the next morning and had the initial surgery to remove the tumor on Tuesday. The surgery was outpatient and I was able to bring Dan home that evening. He is really recovering rather nicely and now, at about a month out, is at about 85% I would say.

From there came a series of Doctors visits. conversations about our options, long sleepless night and now here we are. We have a plan. The big picture? This is a very treatable cancer that has a high success rate when it comes to treatment when it is caught early. And it was caught early. But it's still cancer and it still really sucks.

This is the email we sent out on Friday:

Hello, everyone! After visiting with multiple doctors over the past couple of weeks, we've finally settled on an excellent specialist and our next course of action, which is going to be surveillance, and then chemotherapy if necessary. Apparently the big surgery we've been mulling over doesn't work as well for this specific cancer (100% Embryonal carcinoma) as it does for other types of testicular cancer, and might miss microscopic cells which can move directly to the lungs, bypassing the nodes which are removed during surgery. And preventative chemo (which was actually recommended by the first doctor we saw), apparently, is done "sometimes in Europe" but very rarely here in the states (when we brought up the chemo idea to actual specialists, they looked at us with a mix of amusement and horror, like we were dogs depositing a dead squirrel on the floor as a gift).

Surveillance entails monthly x-rays, CT scans and bloodwork for the next two years, then less frequently for three years after that. If the cancer is still around right now (a 50% possibility), it will manifest within that time, and we'll jump into nine weeks of chemotherapy, which itself has a 99% cure rate. So that's the story. We're not exactly done yet, but it feels good to have a decision made, and we're not arguing with the eventual cure rate either way.

There truly are not words to thank all of you for your help and support over this past month. We'll see many of you soon, and for those who are farther away, we are determined to start coming out of our cocoon, so please write or call whenever you feel like it. Our love to you all.

New Camera

2007-09-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

I got a new camera, Dan talked me into it during one of my more hormotional (hormones + emotional = hormotional) moments when I was having a fit because only about 4 pictures from Will's awesome birthday party turned out. This was because my old camera was having trouble doing things like focusing.

My new camera makes me very happy.

Getting a D in nutrition or Reason #27 why I won't be Valedictorian of Pregnancy

2007-09-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, I realize I am just getting out of the 1st trimester and all of the fun with eating that has come with it. Whenever I tell anyone how sick I've been they always say reassuring things like "Oh it doesn't matter, just eat whatever you can keep down. You have plenty of time to get good nutrition in over the next 6 months" and "Don't worry about what you've been eating, I mean you're taking your prenatal, right? You'll have time for eating healthy when you're feeling better". Which is very kind and comforting. But I haven't been eating just kind of bad. It's not like I've just not quite been getting in my 6 serving of fruits and veggies a day...I am eating like crap. I kid you not, I really think the only green thing that has entered my body this week was the lettuce that was on my BLT last night. And yesterday my big healthy choice was to get lunch at Jamba Juice, you know the place where they make fruit smoothies with lime sherbet. My sister-in-law called it the White trash pregnancy diet and I think that honestly about sums it up. I apparently can only eat things that are fried or are made out of highly processed, bleached flour.

I know I still have a chance to turn things around, but I have fear in my bad habits. Because, despite the eating like crap, I still have been sick more and have so far lost a tiny bit of weight since finding out I was pregnant. So I don't even have the negative reinforcement of my terrible eating choices to guide me. Plus, with Will I had a secret, awesome weapon in my effort to be a healthy, earthy baby-carrying vessel. A secret weapon named Shelley.

Seriously, that girl is the only reason I didn't put on 50 pounds when I was pregnant with Will (and if we're being totally honest, one of the only reasons I stayed sane 50+ hours a week between working in a crazy ass industry and a raptor growing inside me). In the morning when I would start to think "Hmm, I'm feeling kind of nauseous and a little hungry...maybe I'll just run to the gas station and get some Hostess Donettes to feel better" she would come around the corner in our purple palace of an office with a Vans Heart healthy multi-grain waffle topped with fresh fruit "because she had extra" and I would eat that instead. And then at lunch when I was thinking "Mmmm, greasy McDonald's" she would come over and entice me to come with her to the best healthy grocery store in town and we would pick out awesome healthy organic frozen lunches and extra frozen veggies to add to them to "bulk them up". That's not to say that we didn't eat the occasional bag of Maui Hawaiian chips (worst breath ever!) or get a slice cake once a week, but nothing like that crap I am pulling now.

So, I am trying to institute a WWSD (What Would Shelley Do) approach to my diet as I'm starting to feel better...I even brought a blender to work and plan on stopping by the store for some frozen fruit and good fruit/veggie juice blends to make smoothies. Until then, I think there's a cookie calling my name somewhere...

3 weeks later

2007-09-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

So, summer is drawing to a close. I stubbornly refuse to say that Labor Day is the end of summer, especially here in the Northwest. Actually, September is one of my favorite summer months on the West Coast because there aren't usually many 90 degree days anymore yet the winter rains haven't really started yet.

September is a month I have been very much looking forward to for another reason. I can now say that I am 12 weeks pregnant! Yay! I'm due at the end of March and I can hardly wait to find out what we are having (which should happen sometime in November) This is news that I am so excited to be able to share...it's been weird to avoid talking/writing about it, as it had been a very present, front of my mind kind of thing for the last 8 weeks.

It has been a very different first trimester that I had with Will in most ways. There were the same scary complications for the first few weeks, but they have for the most part resolved themselves in a similar fashion. The main difference is that I have been SOOO sick this time around. With Will I threw up maybe 2-3 times total...this time I am pretty sure I am averaging about 2 times a day. Dude, I even threw up in a grocery store (I made it to the bathroom at least). But, as of this weekend I am starting to possibly feel a tiny little bit more human as I round out of the first trimester and head into the second.

In fact, I am starting to feel so much more human that we took an adventure up to the Mountain yesterday with Will. I had never been to Timberline and it was a beautiful morning, so we packed up in the car and took off for the day. Will of course lost his mind at actually being on the mountain that we see all the time and spent most of the morning yelling at us that "MAMA! DADA! WE'RE ONNA MOUNTAIN! LOOK!" and singing "The Bear went over the Mountain" while making his stuffed polar bear dance along. It was a wonderful, amazing day that has imprinted onto my brain as one of THOSE days. You know, where everything is just where it is supposed to be at that moment, and you recognize that you are just happy at the exact moment that you are happy instead of after the fact? Yep, one of those days, and I couldn't be happier. (I'll post some pics soon)

This and that

2007-08-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

The latest round of guests are gone and a quiet calm has fallen over the house. Dan is in the other room watching a movie, I have been watching a backlog of bad TV on the DVR and lazily surfing the net. Will is fast asleep after a pajama stripping/diaper-taking-off incident in bed. As wonderful, wonderful, having our latest guest here was there is something so nice about just having the three of us in our quiet little house again.

Since this guest was mostly Dan's, Will and I have gotten to spend a lot of time together over the last few days. Our nightly routines have been pared down to just the two of us, and we have had such a nice time. I think he is about ready to have Daddy do nighttime again - I just don't quite read certain books the right way - but we have made new little traditions and inside jokes just in the course of a couple of days. His newest movie obsession in Mulan...there's something about the Huns I guess. He's memorized a couple of the songs and his been singing "I'll make a man out of you" at the top of his lungs every time we get into the car. He's even memorized a couple of lines from the movie and it is very important that when these lines come up, I must stop whatever I am doing and "act out" the scene with him....which of course makes me want to explode from all the cuteness and just plain earnest-ness.

It's hard though sometimes, these days that I get to spend so much time with him, to give it up. It's amazing how quickly I can fall into a rhythm that I just don't want to interrupt with things like work and daycare and having to let Dan put him to bed tomorrow night...

Beach Part1

2007-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

These are from a few weeks ago when my parents where here. We spent the day out at Cannon beach and Astoria It was, of course, raining in mid-july but in some ways I was glad my parents got to see our Coast like that, all misty and Northwesty.

These were taken with my mom's camera, the one I covet. Seriously, seriously covet.

My former home

2007-08-04T06:54:00.001-07:00

I have been devouring news out of the Twin Cities this week. After making sure that family and Aggie were accounted for I really should have been able to just read the occasional story, but for some reason I keep combing the stories for more coverage, more news, more details. It's like I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I didn't know someone who was affected and I keep looking for that detail as to who it is. I also can't seem to stop thinking about what it must have been like to be on/under/around the bridge at the time of it's collapse, and so many of my thoughts have been going out to the people who were so tragically touched by this horrible event.
The people I love are ok, I feel so lucky for this.

More pictures!

2007-07-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Yay new pictures here. I've been putting up lots of pictures lately - these are some miscellaneous shots from May and June. It was fun, going through these and getting them put up I realized that we have gotten a chance to spend a lot of time with Dan's family the last couple of months. Which is good - my niece and nephew are pretty kick ass kids.

I will probably be posting another group of pictures soon, My parents were just here and I borrowed my Mom's new camera and went a little crazy. I have camera envy. Lots of it.

This next month is kind of crazy busy for our household, I think we have something planned for the next 5 weekends straight. Every summer I start out saying that I am not going to over schedule and come mid-July every summer I start trying to figure out how I managed to plan so much in a short amount of time. Dude, I even had to make a freakin' "family calendar" to keep track of everything. A family calendar! Keeping track of things like that (outside of work) has never really been my thing and now I talk to people, out loud, about how awesome having a 'family calendar' can be for your sanity. Seriously.

Anyway, check out the pictures, more to come soon.

Feelin' hot hot hot

2007-07-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's been hot here for the last week and a half. For some reason the heat makes it so I stop acting like a functioning member of my household and society. Pick up my dishes? WAY too hot. Fold clothes? Ugh, it's hot, I don't wanna. Hang out? I don't know, it's kind of hot. Sleep? Ehhh, it's toooo hot. Apparently it also makes me very whiney. So, other than whining about my lame Oregon heat (which I understand has nothing on say Phoenix heat - but they all have air conditioning!) I have nothing.

Except some pictures from the 4th, which I didn't even take. But they are great pictures and we had a really fantastic time. Will made a new friend in a little boy named Brandon and wasn't at all freaked out by the few fireworks that he saw. It was hot, but as always, such wonderful company. Check 'em out - Kari's 4th Pictures

Math Test

2007-07-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

Yes yes, I know I am not the math teacher. But I found this interesting. If you haven't done it yet, check it out. And tell me how you did...

Company

2007-06-28T15:51:00.001-07:00

There are the kind of guests that make you want to lock them in the house to prevent them from leaving and returning home...you know, the kind that every time they come visit you practically leave real estate listings and job postings on their bed because you want them to move closer to you so badly? The kind that you don't want to share with anyone else for at least 24 hours after their arrival.

And then there are the kind of guests that make 3 days feel like 3 years they've been there for so long. You know, they kind of guests to drink your last beer and leave dirty underwear on your bathroom floor.

The company we had this last weekend was very clearly one of these two kinds of guests...I think I'll let the pictures tell you which one:

So, there were lots of stony silences and no one smiled:

/

She didn't get along with any of my friends and when we went out everyone had to sit at different tables because it was so awkward:

And clearly we were miserable. Miserable I tell you!:

I mean honestly, what does one do with company like that?

Namaste Bitches!

2007-06-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

I keep sitting down to write, and start and then get pulled into different directions. It's been a busy couple of weeks, at work, with family and with friends. I have company coming into town tonight(Which I am SO freakin' excited about!), we had Father's Day last week, work has been full of new projects, spreadsheets and clients. I feel our little family has been going every single minute of every day of the last couple of weeks. We finally started a "Family Calendar" because we just couldn't keep track of everything and it is really funny to look at. It's packed! Which, honestly, I love. I love moving like this and doing and seeing and going. But, it's hard to find time for just being in all of it.

Which is one reason I am so excited about the new Yoga class I am taking. The majority of my experience with yoga has been via DVD and a couple of poorly chosen yoga "sessions" at the mega gym that I go to. The "sessions" were a little more "We do YOGA BITCHES!" than I really wanted. Also, at this point, the yoga Will has been learning at school has already surpassed what I know from the DVDs -and let's face it, they are most pregnancy yoga dvds anyway. I have been wanting to learn more, I think it would be good for my hip and also my head. I feel like such a fake midwesterner whenever I start to talk about the psychological benefits of meditation, but whatever. My parents already make fun of me for that and the tofu that I now eat, so be it.

This class though? It is fantastic. Where the one at the mega gym was all "FEEL the BURN! How deep can you STRETCH?!?" shouted over a headset with music pumping, this was more like being gently placed in a warm bathtub of happiness and lavender scented oils and maybe there being some movement involved. Needless to say, it was great experience and I can't wait to go back. Two interesting observations: 1) Despite feeling like my heart rate actually lowered for an hour and a half and that all I had done was some gentle stretching, the next morning I totally felt like I got my ass kicked, so that was cool. and b) It is REALLY hard for me to meditate for 5 minutes. I was doing beginner level where all I had to do was focus on my breathing...I'm a singer, I should totally be able to do that. It's kind of sad that how hard it really is to get your mind to slow down for just 5 minutes out of your day. I have GOT to work on that.

Milestones

2007-06-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

Just for a little background. I was born with a congenital hip disorder. Before I turned 1 Doctors took all sorts of extraordinary measures including traction and surgery to hopefully allow me the possibility of walking. It worked well and I walked, and ran and danced and did all the things that a kid with "normal" joints can do. At first, they told my parents that by the time I was 16 I would need to have my entire hip replaced. At 16 I was performing in a show choir and doing musicals and the only problem that seemed evident was that my knee would get a little bit sore and I really wasn't very flexible (I only have about 10% lateral movement in my hip due to the surgery). Then they said I would probably need it replaced in my early 20's. I entered my 20's and was soon working retail (on my feet all day), was waitressing and bartending. Again, I would get a little stiff in the joints but it wasn't something I really thought about every day. Honestly, I think I got a little cocky about it all and didn't take very good care. I mean I knew that things were not really all ok in my hip, but I don't think I KNEW how much I was working that joint on borrowed time.

At 23 my hip started dislocating and within a year the arthritis had deteriorated my hip to the point that I could not leave the house without using a cane. I could barely go grocery shopping without the pain setting me out for the rest of the day. There was daily, chronic, pain and then there was the kind of pain that made me feel like I was 80 and my body had completely given out on me. I couldn't even tie my shoes on my own.

I went in to see a specialist who was...cold. Now, I am not looking to make lifelong friends with my Doctors, but this guy was tough. He told me if I wanted to have children I should think about doing it before they replaced my hip. He also told me that there wasn't anything to be done except to replace it and that I would never be normal again. And to come back when I couldn't handle the pain any more. Now again, I am not trying to run a marathon here folks, I just wanted to tie my shoes and buy milk. So I asked if I could go to Physical Therapy...he said if it would make me feel better, sure but it wouldn't do really any good. Thanks, thank you for that.

One thing that terrified me about having children is the age that Will is at now, and my lack of ability to keep up physically. There were things I wanted to do as a parent that I would not be able to do if I couldn't walk through Target without having to get off my feet for a couple of hours afterwards. If there was nothing to be done than there was nothing to be done...it's not like it was going to make me any less of parent if I couldn't do those things. But I just didn't think that I had exhausted ALL of my options yet, and I really wanted to keep working on this.

So I went to Physical Therapy, and I worked my ass off for two years.

The arthritis in my hip is worse than it was 5 years ago. It will continue to deteriorate and I will need to have my hip replaced at some point in the future. I am in pain every day. But thanks to that physical therapy, the pain is less and I am not a candidate for surgery at this time. I have not used a cane in almost 5 years. I can tie my shoes without help, and go to as many grocery stores in a day as I want. I have dance parties with my son and can carry him through the zoo...all things I was worried I would not be able to do at this point.

And a couple of weekends ago, with a bunch of our friends, Dan took Will and I on our first camping trip . We went for long walks in the woods and threw rocks in the river together. It was awesome and we both loved it. These may seem like little things, but it feels like a milestone to me.

What's on your Table?

2007-06-06T12:39:00.001-07:00

Time recently published a photo essay from the book "Hungry Planet" where it shows ALL the food that 15 different families eat in a week. What they've eaten out, what they cooked, what they got out of a package...everything. It's fascinating, and a little depressing. Seeing what some families exist on compared to others is very telling. Also interesting is the lack of fresh, unprocessed food in the diets of some of the families in more developed nations. We try to eat reasonably healthy in our house, especially since Will has been eating real food, but I realized I can't really picture what our table would look like. Can you?

Check it out: What the world eats.

Bubbles

2007-05-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

To say that my son can be focused...it's putting mildly really. Since he was a baby, he has shown a tendency to, well, obsess. His current obsessions? Outside and Bubbles. This child would live entirely outside if we would let him. And the bubbles...Dinner Will? No, that's ok. I've got my bubbles, I'm all good. Time for bed? No mom, I think I'm just going to hang out here with my bubbles. See, bubbles and me, we've got a good thing going here and I don't think I really want to ruin that with sleep. At least that's kind of what I think he means when he starts the purple-faced yelling with some more yelling when we try to convince him that maybe some food, drink or sleep might be needed in order to keep blowing the bubbles.

That is one of the reasons this memorial day was so perfect. We spent in Kari and Andrew's backyard, which is the perfect backyard for hanging out with Will in its fenced-in, perfect lawn-ness. Our wonderful hosts fired up the grill, we all drank some beer and let our son blow bubbles all day long. Here are a couple of Will with some of his favorite people in the world on an absolutely wonderful day:

And one where I caught a bubble and get all artsy:

It's a slippery slope my friend

2007-05-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

"So, I did something yesterday I never thought I would find myself doing. Ever. I can't even believe I am going to tell you about it."

"Oh Em, what'd you do?"

"I was at the grocery store with Will...and I sang the entire Elmo Potty song to him...outloud...twice."

"EMILY!"

"I know, I know! I am like a perm and a pair of mom jeans away from changing my screen name to ~~i*heart*being*will's*mama~~ aren't I?"

"It is a fine line..."

"At least it the grocery store was almost empty, I mean it's not like a lot of people could hear me..."

"The Elmo Potty song Emily?"

"I know."

Thursday Nights

2007-05-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

We have been doing Thursday Nights for more than three years...maybe four? I don't remember when it started exactly, but it was before I was pregnant with Will. Sarah and I used to get together when the guys were playing darts and go to the gym and then go back to my house to watch The O.C. Then we would meet up with the guys at the bar and drink too much Hair of the Dog Fred. We were the Dart Widows.

When I was pregnant we kept the gym part up for a little while (not that long though in all honesty) and even the meeting up with guys part (again, not for that long and there was no more Fred). Somewhere early on in there Andrew started playing darts and Kari started joining us. After Will was born Sarah and Kari still came every Thursday and cheered me on in those early scary days of being a new mother, and kept me from feeling isolated when leaving the baby with Dan and going out and meeting up with them at a bar seemed far too overwhelming. Thursday nights were my nights to always be home, but they didn’t have to. They have made it important to them for 2 1/2 years to forgo being out and about and be on my front patio instead.

Over time it became less and less about getting together to watch the OC and more and more about sitting outside (even in the winter) and having a few cigarettes and a few glasses of wine. It became less about talking about what was happening with Summer and Seth and more about sharing what was happening in our lives...our fears, our successes, our pain, our joys. Thursday nights have seen us through 3 Master's programs, multiple job changes, moves into our first homes, inexplicable sadness, innumerable joys, countless tears and endless laughter...and many, many bottles of wine.

We have had other people join us from time to time, which is always so nice. Recently, someone has been joining us who very quickly has become one of My People. I am so thankful for that and so bummed that this Thursday was her last Thursday before she leaves on her great adventure. I know I speak for the other two of us when I say congratulations on being done (DONE!) with your thesis and for defending it so successfully. We cannot wait to hear and read all about your upcoming journey, but we will miss you too.

These Thursday nights, they have been such a gift to me. I am still amazed sometimes that such wonderful women have let me collect them to my home, once a week, for so many years. Thank you.

Future Streaker

2007-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

So last night I was sitting out on the porch with the girls, doing our typical Thursday night thing (more on that in another post, promise!). Will had had some difficulty going down to bed in that he would rather live outside and play with balls and KICK! than eat or sleep. So his little voice kept coming over then monitor "Mama, need water!" or "Mama, Buzz needs new Diaper!". Things were quiet for a while and then there was this "MAMA! ASDIUYOAUISD" I looked at Kari and told her I had no idea what he was talking about but it didn't sound urgent and it was already an hour past his bedtime.

About 5 minutes later, again, "MAMA! ITOKJSCLOTHOF!!"
Still didn't sound urgent, just informative. Still no idea what he was actually saying.

Another 5 minutes passes and "MAMA! I took ALL my Clothes off!!"

huh?

I go in and sure enough, there is my little man stripped of all his clothes and half of his diaper off. He looks up at me from his bed, biggest smile you can imagine. SO proud of himself.

"Hey Mama, I took ALL my clothes off. Fun!"

You know, if he's got that concept down now, he is going to be a lot of fun at a kegger some day.

He really is my child

2007-05-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

Dan: Will, you need to stay focused on what you are doing. You only have two stairs left then we are at the top

Will: meh...Bye-Bye Focus!

Trailers - Recut

2007-05-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

Oh my good lord. Dan showed me these tonight and I realize that I am probably behind the times a little on this, but these are awesome. Best. Things. Ever. Please check out all three (I think Top Gun might be my favorite):

The Shining:

When Harry Met Sally:

Top Gun:

Pictures and stuff

2007-04-26T12:26:00.001-07:00

I finished up a batch of new pictures from the last couple of months. Over this time Will and I had more opportunities than usual to have time where there was just the two of us. A day off here, a weekend where Dan was traveling there. I know this sounds kind of weird, but I feel like we've really gotten really close over that time. I mean, before he was VERY Daddy centric and now it's a little more even. It's really fun getting to know this little person...because at this age he changes so much all the time that's really what I feel like I am doing. More and more of his personality comes out every day, and he is talking so much and boy does he have a lot to say! In any case, here are a couple of my favorites from the recent batch (you can see the rest on Flickr):

Will and I also did a lot of fun adventuring with Kari over the last couple of months - she is such a great support to me when Dan is traveling. She makes up the funniest games with Will and he loves her beyond reason. So check out this picture of Kari showing of her new hair which I think is awesome and totally wish I could pull off.

sleep

2007-04-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

So I see a pattern starting to emerge. Just like last week, I didn't so much sleep on Friday night. I stayed up watching my "stories" and playing around on YouTube. Until Three. Will woke up at five. Yay! We then went on an awesome picnic to wine country. Just as a side note, the Midwestern in me still gets such a kick out of saying shit like "I just took a quick jaunt over to wine country" because that's the sort of thing people in romance novels and Lifetime movies say (the 'finding a true/second love' romantic Lifetime movies, not the 'runaway teen/battered spouse' Lifetime movies). In any case, went to wine country. Will decided that this was a day he did not need to sleep. Ever. Skipped his nap and stayed up until 8:00 that night. He talked about our picnic for the rest of the day...with no nap.

Now, you would think that, hey! Since I didn't get any sleep on Friday night, I should do something about that for Saturday So I got a little more sleep...like 5 1/2 hours. And then last night? again with the no sleep. I think I got 4 hours or so. So, awesome.

Today? I almost cried a few times just from the tired. And I think I fell asleep in the bathroom for a couple of minutes. I wasn't actually going to the bathroom at the time, I was just looking for someplace that was quiet for a few minutes. Tonight I am going to a fancy-pants reception/Q&A session with the Superintendent of Schools with my mother-in-law, who said when I asked her what I should wear "Oh you know, whatever you wore to work today will be fine honey. You know, no jeans or anything". Um, somehow I think the old jeans/hoodie sweater/ponytail/no makeup look I'm rocking at work today isn't quite what she had in mind. So I have to go home and get myself all gussied up. And then when I get home tonight? Totally working on this whole sleep thing. I hear it's pretty cool.

Bits and Pieces

2007-04-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

So, it's 1:00 am. I've been exhausted for two days, and for some reason can NOT get to sleep tonight. So I've given up trying for a little while. Brewed a pot of herbal tea, put on some Bach and am getting caught up on my blog reading. And I kinda realized I also needed to get a little caught up on my blog writing as well.

Will is a funny kid. Seriously, I realize that every parent says things like this and I know that I have said this about every stage that he has gone through...but 2 1/2 is a shitload of fun. He has started talking...and I don't mean one or two word sentences here or there, I mean TALKING. As a friend put it recently, whenever I tell her what Will is saying/doing she pictures him talking in all caps with lots of exclamation points. And it is so dead on. So here are some fun Will stories from the week:

1) Back when Will was still not liking me very much (last week actually) I decided to use the situation to my advantage rather than take his 2 1/2 year old fickleness personally. Dan and I were trying to get him ready for an outing and I was putting his shoes on:
Will: Daddy! Daddy Daaaadddyyy! I only want Daddy I can't stand being touched by you, you evil, mean mama. (ok, so the last part I made up)
Me: Will, is Daddy your favorite?
Will: YEAH!!!
Me: Do you like Daddy more than Mama?
Will: yah (this would have been "um, duh mom" if he was 5 years older)
Me: (slyly checking out the massively dirty diaper he is sporting) Will, do you want Daddy to change your diaper?
Will: YEAH! Daddy change diaper!! Mama no change Diaper. daddydaddydaddy!!!
Dan: Seriously?

2) Will's school was closed on Monday for "teacher training". Personally, I think they just wanted the day off...or they were meeting to see if the staff could figure out who all works there now. Because as parents we can barely keep track of who is currently employed there due to all of the staff turnover, I'd be impressed if they could. In any case, I decided to have my own "Take your Child to work day". So Will and I took Dan into work and went and visited all of Daddy's friends at work. We have visited Dan's work with some frequency so he is pretty comfortable there. At one point he was running up and down the hallway just walking into people's offices and trying to hide.
And then we stopped by my work...which we had never really done before. And Will had one of his "Shyness Attacks" where he buries his head in my neck and refuses to smile at, look at or speak to anyone. He warmed up to one of my co-workers but was particularly rough on Peter. He refused to have ANY contact with him for the 20 minutes we were there and kind of looked like he was on the verge of tears every time Peter looked at him. However, the entire ride home? "Where'd Peter go? Where's Peter? Bye-Bey Peter! BYE BYE PETER!" and then I reminded him that Peter was married to mama's friend Kimberly. "oooo, yah! Peter married Kim-bah-lee! KIM-BAH-LEE!!! Peter and Kim-bah-lee come to Will's house! Ok mama? MAMA? Come to house!!" Couldn't stop talking about it all.the.way.home.

3)Earlier this week I had a problem with one of my eyelids...nothing serious just something that made my eyelid swell up to a pretty fantastic size. So when I woke up Wednesday morning I said to Dan and Will that I was going to go to the doctor because my eye hurt. About a hour later we were talking with Will about how he was going to grandma and bapa's house today and he said "Mama going to Doctor because her eye hurts. Ouch! Kisses Mama? Kisses make it all better". You know, which made me totally melt, and holy shit that was a lot of words.
Later Dan picked him up at his parents and Will told him again that I had gone to the Dr. and that the Doctor had said to mama "no more monkey's jumping on the bed!" I love how this kid's head works sometimes.

Where I stand.

2007-04-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I was getting Will ready for bed and we had been talking about all the cool things we had done in Arizona a couple of weeks ago when we were there. He likes to look at pictures from this trip almost every night and asks me if I "member" things that we did. So we had been talking about Arizona and he took it from there:

Will: bye-bye nana! bye-bye papa! bye-bye baby madison! bye-bye ryan! bye-bye big pool, ooh! and little car!
(looks at me)
Bye-bye mama.
Me: Bye-bye Mama? I'm not going anywhere. Where do you want me to go?
Will: Yes, mama go. Go to great-grandmas. go Arizona. on a plane.
Me: You want me to get on a plane and go to Arizona right now?
Will: yeah. now. mama go.
Me: But Will, who will take care of you?
Will: Kari.

Apparently he was more excited about Kari coming over last night than I thought.

what you gon' do...

2007-04-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

I take it back. It wasn't the song, it was the version.

eh...

2007-04-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am kind of boring right now, that's why I haven't been writing much. I just don't really have anything to say. I've been feeling a little reclusive and a little bit anxious, although I don't really have any reason to feel either. The family is wonderful, friends are good, work is..eh. Nothing is wrong, but I feel a little off. And I don't have much to say. But I figure it's kind of like working out, even if you don't feel like going you should try and go for at least 20 minutes, just so you can say that you went. Just to keep in the habit. So lucky you, you get to read a 20 minute workout post...just so I can stay in the habit.

Here is something I have seen linked to on about 3 different and unrelated blogs recently. So today I checked it out and really liked it. It's two women who live 3191 miles apart and take pictures every morning. They don't plan anything, but it's amazing how well they compliment each other. Take a look, I think you'll like it.

Grey Matter

2007-03-25T03:46:00.000-07:00

It's 3:45 in the morning. I have only slept for about 1 1/2 hours since 9:00, 1 1/2 hours in which I had the weirdest dreams about Will and I trying to out chase mini tornadoes. I have watched 4 episodes of Bones and am now on my 3rd episode of Grey's Anatomy. Meredith annoys me sometimes. This is what I am thinking about at 3:45 in the morning.

One thing I hate...

2007-03-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

I do not like flying.

And it far outweighs my ‘Staying at Home Alone’ hatred. About 5 years ago, not so long after September 11th, I was on a flight to Dallas that encountered some "problems". I was asleep in the front row and it was a pretty empty flight so there was no one else in my row. I woke up with the damn air masks hitting me in the face and there were people screaming. And it felt like we were falling. You know how they tell you that the little bag that's attached to the masks might not inflate but there will still be oxygen coming through? Totally true. I forgot this fact in the confusion of the moment. If you ever find yourself having to use one of those things, it's a good thing to remember...keeps you from panicking even more. Turns out we had somehow lost all cabin pressure and they had to make a "quick controlled descent" from flying altitude (35,000 ft?) to 5,000 feet in order to remedy this. We flew for the next hour at this lower altitude and then made a priority landing in Dallas. If I hadn't HAD to get on a plane to get home, I doubt I ever would have again. And I didn't like flying before this.

However, as my parents insist on not living in the same town as me and want to see their grandson on a regular basis I have to suck it up and deal with the flying. We have been down in sunny Arizona visiting with my parents at my Grandmother's house. It was a fantastic trip - the weather was unseasonably warm, Will and I were able to spend really wonderful time with my parents and my grandmother. We even got to see my Aunt and Uncle and some cousins I haven't seen in over 5 years. I miss my parents a lot and so it was really good to be able to see them again so soon after Christmas - even if it was just for a few days.

So I was really, really happy. And I was also traveling without Dan. Sometime even just one of these things can trigger my anxiety of flying because 1) Sometimes it frightens me that by being so blissfully happy I am somehow tempting the fates and the universe will course-correct and cause something tragic to occur and 2) I am often terrified that something bad will happen to some subset of our family and what that would mean for the person who had to deal with tragedy. Totally rational, no? With both of these factors in play, well, needless to say I was out of sorts yesterday when heading to the airport. While we were driving I was internally working on my long standing resolve to not let this affect me around Will, because I don't want him to feel the depth of my irrational fears.

But then, it seemed like all of these little things went wrong. Stupid things like us getting lost trying to find the terminal, and then the skycap not being open meaning I had to stand in a long line to check my luggage, and then the bag holding Will's car-seat wasn't working right and then and then...for some reason all of these little things stirred in with the base of anxiety that was barely being contained underneath the surface caused me to become slightly unhinged. I started crying in the middle of the airport with my mother standing next to me holding my two year old child. At 30 years old I had to have my mother walk me through the airport to the security line because somehow my coping skills had reverted to those of a six-year old.

I reassured her that I was fine (I don't think she believed me) and made my way to the front of the security line with Will blowing kisses to his Nana the entire way. Then to top it all off there was a problem with my driver's license and both Will and I had to be searched. Which was awesome. But hey, the guy that took every single thing out of every single bag I had knew how to get Will's car-seat bag to work correctly, so score!

By the time we finally got on the plane I was done. Even at two hours past his bedtime Will was officially more together than his crazy mama. It was a reasonably empty flight and it was just Will and I in our row. He was asleep before we left the ground, and I? I don't sleep on planes anymore because I have to keep the plane in the air by sheer force of will...and if I sleep who is going to do that? A little while after take-off, in the dark with my little boy sleeping next to me, I finally had some release - not in a good Zen kind of way but a silent-crying panic attack kind of way. I can only imagine what the flight attendant who caught my eye when I was done must have thought about my situation. Not that I really cared though...I was just glad that I had managed to keep it together long enough for Will to be asleep. Plus, I had to focus my attention back to keeping the plane in the air.

Yeah, I don't like flying.

Happy Blogiversary

2007-03-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to my blog!

I can't believe I've already been posting here for a year. I was looking back on some of my old posts and I don't think I really knew what I was going to make of this stuff when I started. Not that I do now, but I had some grand ideas when I started. Thanks for reading - I'm having fun figuring it out as I go along.

I put up some new pictures here. They are from January and February, which were particularly fun months this year. Plus, there are some pictures from the aquarium..with the TUNNELS!! and FISHES!! and even some JELLYFISH!!!

I am also eagerly awaiting Kari updating her pictures and will post a link to them when they are up. On Sunday a few of us got together and made delicious liquors. Well, we didn't actually make the liquor, but we infused it with many wonderful things like grapefruit, lemons, mint, blueberries... not all at once though. That would be kinda gross. In any case, Kari got some AH-MAZING pictures of our work and I can't wait to see them...or share them for that matter. Next step in the infusing deliciousness (after the infusing part that is) is to sample our goods and see what needs simple sugar added and what needs more time infusing. And come up with a name...we need a name for our cellar.

Family Picture

2007-03-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

Holy crap - I can't believe it! A picture exists, that includes all three of us, just the three of us, and we are all looking at the camera. And no one has their eyes closed (Dan) or is crying (also Dan).

This was from a fantastic weekend we had at the coast a couple of weeks ago. We were on our way from the beach house in Lincoln City to Newport for the morning to visit the aquarium. It was a typical winter coast weekend for the most part, all rainy and cozy, but the sun broke out for a bit and it made for a beautiful morning. And the aquarium? I think that if Will could be adopted by the aquarium people and live there all the time he would. To say that he loved it really doesn't give it credence. He is obsessed with it...he talked nonstop about the BIG SHARK! TUNNEL! SEA OTTER, goes SPLOOSH MAMA!! for about a week and still insists on going to sleep every night with the brochure they handed out at the entrance. He points things out to us on the map..."remember mama? sea lion and hold daddy's hand and touched the star (starfish)" and then clutches it to his chest in a giant hug. I swear the other day I saw him giving it "cuddles and kisses". Yes, the paper brochure. To the aquarium. Total obsession.

Other than that, we spent most of the weekend watching the tide come in and playing frisbee on the beach. Honestly though, I still can't frickin' believe that we actually got a family picture.

Humbled while buying produce

2007-02-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

Dan: Seriously, that is the only place where the check-out guy makes me feel socially inadequate.

Me: I know, even the bagger was too cool to have ever hung out with us.

time

2007-02-25T09:08:00.000-08:00

You know when someone you love is going through something so mind-numbingly awful that all they really need is time? Just time.

I am from the midwest and I do not deal well with that whole time concept...I have this almost unstoppable need to do things. I want to feed you so you know I love you and bring over lame magazines and movies and chocolates. I want to do something, anything…cause you know, it's all about me.

But there is nothing I can do to make this better. I can only possibly, maybe, in time help make it a tiny, little bit less horrible. All I can do is say to my dear friend that I am so immeasurably sorry.

p.s. – oh, and 2007? You had better watch your ass because me and my people? We will take you down.

Late Valentine

2007-02-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

The next American Idol

2007-02-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Have a told you that Will likes the music? I'm not sure I've really explained just how much. It's kind of a running commentary these days. Mama? Dance Party? Music? Mama? Sing Humpty Dumpty. Now. No night-night, sing. Blackbird, now. Manger song? Now. MAMA? NOW!MUSIC! NOW!
Lately he has decided that mealtime is the best time to entertain us with his musical stylings - who needs food when you have some hokey pokey/old mcdonald/jingling bells goodness, right?

Super Sunday

2007-02-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

So, as I’ve mentioned before I used to be really involved in music. I went to a performing arts program in high school, did every musical possible, and graduated college with a Bachelor of Music. Being involved in all of that, I kind of missed a lot of, well, pop culture. Seriously, Nirvana barely made it onto my radar; I have to tell you watching sports? Way further out of my realm.

When I graduated I started working at a brewpub in St. Paul. Unlike Oregon, where there are more brewpubs then coffee shops, Minnesota folk (at the time at least) really liked their beer cold and tasteless…you know, lots of Hamm’s. So working at a place that only had one TV and beer that tasted like hops during the football season? It wasn’t exactly very busy. But the owner Mark loved football. He was from Wisconsin and was a die hard Packer’s fan…a dangerous admission in Viking’s territory, but he wore it proudly. I worked with him every Sunday during football season for two years. We had 5-6 regulars that would come and watch the game with us and serve themselves beer while I learned how the game was played. See, Mark decided that I was going to be an expert in all things football. He convinced me by saying it was a good way to meet guys (hey, I’m not proud) but as it turned out, I really, really liked watching football.

Now, every fall Dan and I get all geeked out for the start of the new season, reading up on how the camps/pre-season is going, making our guesses as to who will do well and who will fail. And it all culminates with the game of all games…the Super Bowl.
We have hosted Super Bowl at our house for the last several years and while I enjoy it, it really is Dan’s holiday...and as much as it is about the game, it is also about the food. For the last three years he and Dave have been trying to outdo whatever it was the year before. Two years ago they made a Turducken. Last year it was a Ham Dog. This year, a whole pig roasted in a Chinese Box. I shit you not, there was a large animal roasting in our backyard.

All in all there were about 20 people there to enjoy this culinary feast and a keg of Dave’s fine crafted homebrew. Will was out of his mind with excitement as he was sure that everyone was there to play with him. I don’t think I saw much of the game this year, but it was a really good day.

I put up the rest of the pictures here, but I have to warn you, some of the of the pig preparation pictures can be a little graphic, especially if you don’t eat meat.

Self Portraits - 30

2007-01-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

An old love

2007-01-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

The relationship started showing signs of trouble during my junior year of college. Little things really, I would call plans off here or there, sometimes blowing something off altogether. Nothing major, but the signs were there and I chose to ignore them.

By the middle of senior year it became clear that I simply wasn’t in this relationship anymore. I was emotionally and even physically just absent. But I kept on, more out of habit than anything else…kind of a “doing it for the kids” sort of attitude. There was no animosity, no anger; but there was also no joy, no passion…no love.

I did my student teaching after graduation. It was a weird way to do things, because you are no longer enveloped in the safe confines of the academic world. You are paying rent and car insurance and have choices and freedom. At the same time you are still a student and not yet in that adult world. That’s when things moved away from the peaceful coexistence that had been so carefully balanced for the last couple of years. It was done. This relationship that had defined such a huge part of me was over. I removed all traces of it from my life…surgically excising that whole part of me.

Recently though, I have found a peace that I didn’t know I could and I find myself nurturing a new relationship with an old love. It’s slow going, kind of a day to day sort of thing. I owe it all to Will…he loves music as much as I remember loving it.

I don’t remember starting to love music. I don’t remember learning to read music, I just remember knowing how. I don’t remember when I first felt like my entire body would explode because the music I was singing/playing/listening to had come perfectly into tune with something inside of me, but I have been lucky to experience it many times over.

When I realized that teaching music wasn’t the right path for me, I didn’t really know where to go with it. It had been an all consuming part of life for so long that I thought if I couldn’t do it all the time, I wouldn’t do it at all. I went from identifying myself as an alto, a music major, a member of a choir a musician to not even listening to music in the car. I stopped going to concerts, stopped singing in the shower, just stopped.

But then there is Will. As a baby when he and I were alone in the house nothing could calm him quite like music. Now he loves it when we play music in the house and he can “dance” along. He loves being sung to every night...and more recently many, many times during the day. And he has started singing along with me in that fantastic two year old way. So for the past two years I have been mending that relationship I had and have been learning how to let music be a part of my life and not my whole life.

Do you know those songs that you have that you could listen to over and over again…barely letting it finish before you hit the back button to start it again? Those songs that somehow come into tune with something inside of you? I have been finding those songs again. Right now some of them for me are:
Fidelity – Regina Spektor
Mr. Brightside – The Killers (this has been on the list for some time now!)
Vindication – Bobby Llama
Overture to Candide – Bernstein
What are some of your songs? Please, please leave me a comment and share them with me – I am loving finding new music again.