Advent Project

I had the dubious privilege of witnessing the most bizarre tantrum a few weeks ago. When we were at a pet store with my in-laws, my father-in-law gave Doug some change he had gotten back after he made his purchase. Doug took the change and headed back to the cash register area, looked around and then wailed, "There's no box!!!". We were all quite confused. I asked him what he meant. He explained, "There's no box, for the kids!". And then it dawned on me, "Like at McDonald's? When I give you my change for the kids in the hospital?". "YES!". I  told him that the pet store didn't have a box for that, but if he liked, we could drop it off the next time we were at McDonald's. He seemed to like that idea, but whined about it for a bit on the car ride home. I was finally at wits end with this and told him when we got home, I'd stick the change in an envelope and mail it to Ronald McDonald. He seemed to be satisfied with that.

I started thinking about it though and it seemed like this was an opportunity for one of those 'teachable moments'. When we got home I asked him instead if he's like to collect change until Christmas and then drop off a lot of change at once for Ronald McDonald House. He agree and we decorated an old bottle (with glitter glue, naturally). We've collected quite a bit of change and Doug is always very excited when Jeff and I give him some more. At some point tomorrow, we'll all go together and drop it off. I'm amazed at how excited Doug is about it and how well he's stuck with it. I think this is a nice Christmas tradition for us to adopt. I think we'll definitely pick a charity and do the same thing next year.

Stump the Doctor

Every few years it seems like my body likes to play a good game of 'Stump the Doctor'. I will present with a handful of symptoms, some of which can be neatly attributed to a specific diagnosis. I will also have a few other symptoms that don't quite fit and I'll also be missing a few factors that doctors deem key for a diagnosis of that particular condition. And I'll go from doctor to doctor, seeking answers and getting none, all the while suffering from an untreated condition.

 My all time favorite remains a diagnosis of possible gout from a previous primary doctor. She heard me say that my legs, among other things, hurt. She could find nothing else wrong and would not entertain my notion that it was in fact, fibromyalgia. I eventually found a doctor who also believed it was fibro and got treatment for it. But it was a long painful time. It's hard to be sick and suffering through an illness and then, on top of it, have doctors unable or unwilling to explore options. Now I get a kick out of the whole gout debacle. When I have an odd pain, I'll tell Jeff that it must be gout. "This feels like an ear infection, but it's probably gout of the ear.".

Well, it seemed lately that I'd developed uterine gout.* It started at least before January, but I specifically remember in January going to see my ob gyn about it. It's a large practice and I like most of the doctors, so I was comfortable seeing anyone there. I went in and complained that it had been six months since we started trying to get pregnant. I know, I know, they need at least a year before they'll do anything, but we got pregnant right away with Doug. I was scared to wash our clothes together after he was born. Anyway, mid cycle I was having some stabbing, aching pains. And please, I know all about Mittelschmerz** (mid cycle pain some women experience during ovulation, lasting at MOST two days). It was dismissed as normal and we were sent on our merry way. I went back to see another ob sometime that Spring, complaining of the same thing, except now the pain was lasting four days. I got another pat on the head and everything is fine.

So in July we came up against the magical one year of trying to conceive deadline. I went back to my ob and explained the situation and the pain again, which was still growing. I was having a LOT of pain mid-cycle and certain activities produced pain and I was having the same, dull ache and stabbing feeling on my period now too. My doctor sent me to a local (large) fertility clinic to get sorted out. We were hopeful that at last we'd get to the bottom of this.

The clinic, before talking to us, before doing any tests or looking at the MOUNDS of personal health histories we filled out, told us that our options were either IUI or IVF. We were a bit confused. We thought they would diagnose and FIX the fertility issue, not simply overcome it. It was somewhat like being told your house was going to have to be burned down to kill a small infestation of mice. Anyway, they couldn't find anything wrong with me and weren't willing to look into the now horrible pain I was having every month. It was a rather disappointing waste of time, but at least we didn't get $20k into it before finding out it wouldn't work. We're extremely blessed to have Doug, and we're ok if we end up being a family of three. So we weren't super interested in going that route.

I went back to my obgyn's office a total of three more times, seeing three more doctors trying to get to the bottom of the pain. One finally ordered a more detailed ultrasound to be done while I was in pain. It didn't show anything. The only thing the doctor could come up with is that the mid-cycle pain is setting off some inflammation and I'm sensitive to that. That doesn't explain why it gets progressively worse each month. The last time I went back, I ended up going on the pill. The doctor couldn't think of anything else to do for me. The pain was lasting nine days now, and my cycles were getting shorter, 25 days. I needed a breather from the pain and I just wanted to get through the holidays at this point. So, despite the fact that we're trying to get pregnant, I'm on the pill for the next three months.

Today I finally met a doctor who believed me when I said something was very wrong, and confirmed my suspicions. It seems likely that I have endometriosis. We won't know for sure unless a surgery is done to confirm it. Endometriosis doesn't show up on any scans. Some women with just a little bit of endo have extreme pain, while other with tons of endo have little to no pain. My symptoms didn't suggest 'classic endometriosis' as my doctors have been telling me. Unfortunately, their expertise is limited to pap smears, birthing babies, normal pregnancies and writing scripts for the pill. So I finally found a doctor who has expertise in dealing with endo and other disorders.

 It was such a sweet relief to have a doctor take me seriously. Right now the plan is to stay on the pill for a few months and then come off of it and see what happens. It's a possibility that I may have surgery in the spring. We'll just have to wait and see.

But it's so nice now to have a doctor on my side and to know I have options and to get a better grasp on what I'm up against!

It's also a comfort to know there are so many ladies out there with endometriosis. I've met a few in the past few months, and it's always nice to know you're not alone.

And thank you to everyone who has been supportive of me during this time, Jeff, Bridget, and my Mom who has watched Doug for about a 100 hours while I went to the doctors.

For a while, I contemplated taking in a show and tell of what my uterus felt like when I was in pain. Initially, I envisioned a grape fruit and my largest knitting needles. I decided though, that play doh and toothpicks were less messy. 

                           





*No, I don't think that's a real thing. And I don't want to know if it is. I'm not trying to belittle gout either.  I know it's a painful and horrible condition. I just think it's hilarious my doctor was so off target. You have to find some things funny or else you'll never get through them.

**I think more weird pains need to be given German names. I don't think people would make fun of PMS if it had a German sounding "I WILL KICK YOUR BUTT" name. Seriously. Mittelschmerz sounds like pain on steroids.

The Trade

Doug has managed to put many baby things away without complaint, the stroller, the high chair, his crib and quite an assortment of toys. But not the Baby Einstein Aquarium. He's on his third one. The first one broke within a year, and in a panic we ran out to buy one that night, because dude, we need sleep! The second one broke within a few months and I emailed the manufacturer, who sent me a replacement free of charge. That was about 18 months ago. 

We kept hoping that he would outgrow the need for this battery devouring toy. Every two-ish weeks we'd need to replace all four C batteries in it. We hoped when he went into a regular bed he wouldn't need it. No such luck. I bought him a Sleep Sheep (we've replaced its batteries twice in 18 months) in the hopes that just the soothing white noise from it was enough. No dice. Recently we'd taken to just asking him if he could possibly sleep without it. HA! I realized that he wasn't going to take it off to college, but I thought it was about time to gently disengage him from it.

Last week I saw our opportunity coming. I was singing him his lullabies, and I kept hearing a clicking sound. I noticed that it was coming from the infamous aquarium. There was a small tear in the background, and every time it went around it caught. I came to the conclusion that one of two things was going to happen in the near future: 1. it was going to just catch and tear off completely or 2. tear enough to impede the progress of the scroll. Either way, it was close to breaking.  I began to imagine a nightmarish scenario in which it broke in the middle of the night and we had an inconsolable child on our hands, possibly sleeping in our bed (which is a HELL no). 

I decided to be proactive and head this dilemma off at the pass. I turned to the old parental stand by: bribery.  I began looking for a toy so amazingly awesome that Doug would trade the aquarium for it. I found a game called 'Lucky Ducks' there are twelve ducks in a moving pond that go around Ernie from Sesame Street. There are four groups of  ducks, each set of three have the same shape on their bottoms, so it's a matching game. Doug is quite the duck enthusiast, so it was perfect! I ordered the game and oddly enough, it was delivered on a Sunday. We came back from church and a package was sitting on our porch. I told Doug it wa a surprise for him (always a sure way to get him all worked up). As I opened the box I noticed that the batteries were not included, it needed two C batteries. So we told Doug he could have this game, but only if we got the aquarium, because we needed the batteries from it. I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. 

I thought that Doug might hem and haw over this trade for a few hours to days, but I was willing to give him time. What I wasn't prepared for was him skipping down the hall to hand us the aquarium so we could butcher it for batteries. As you can see, Doug was clearly pleased with this arrangement: 

As I expected, bedtime Sunday night was a bit rough. Jeff has moved Doug's night light closer to his bed as Doug primarily used the aquarium as a night light when he woke up in the middle of the night. Doug asked to have a flashlight in bed, but I offered to loan him something else. I'd had a glow worm when I was Doug's age and when I was in college my mom gave me one as a nostalgic gift. I went and fished it out for Doug and he's able to give it a squeeze when he needs a little extra light. All in all, I think the trade has worked out quite well. 

Skit Skat Skoodle Doot

I've been wanting to make something for one of Doug's favorite books for a long time. By Thursday afternoon I'd already been to the gym, the house was clean, I was caught up on my bible study, Doug was down for a nap and the banana bread was in the oven baking (believe me, I'm not nearly this organized with life) and I found myself with some time on my hands. Break out the craft box!

Doug loves the book 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom' by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. He can recite long bits of it with you. Frequently when I'm trying to corral him into the car because we're running late (so normal) I'll say to him "Skit skat skoodle doot!" to which he'll reply "Flip flop flee, everybody running to the coconut tree, mamas and papas, uncles and aunts, hug their little dears and dust their pants!".

Anyway, I've been wanting to use it to help introduce lower case letters to him, as the book is very familiar.

So I cut out a strip of brown felt for the trunk of the coconut tree. I cut it diagonally to maximize the amount of felt I had to work with. The pointy, Washington Monument-y end of it is also a great place to attach the   palm fronds.

 

Then I took two different shades of green felt to make the fronds, I made five fronds in all: 

Next I took some fabric glue and glued them all to the trunk: 

Next I cut out three brown circles for coconuts and glued them to the tree: 

While I let that sit and dry, I got to work on the letters. I used Times New Roman for most of the letters, except 'a' and 'g' because I wanted them to look more like they do when you write them. I used 200 point font for them. Each upper and lower case pair are the same color. I printed them out on cardstock: 

Yes, it's been a long time since I've had a manicure.

Then I fired up my trusty laminator and laminated all the sheets. After they were laminated, I cut them out and applied some sticky back velcro to their backs. The squares I had were on the larger side, so I cut each square into quarters. 

That was probably the most tedious part of the project.

The finished product: 

I made a felt board a while ago by taking some felt and stretching it over a thick craft board and stapling it on. Actually, Jeff did the stapling, you need some serious muscle to do it.

Doug was elated. He made sure some letters were falling out of the tree.

Time to flip flip flee!

Just the Two of Us

I cherish my one on one time with Doug. We go to story time together. I ferry him to his gym classes and to pre-school. We run errands to Target and Walmart and to the grocery store. We explore new places together, Wegman's, the bouncy place and new playgrounds. Sometimes we stop for snacks when we're out running around. We'll have some coffee and juice and split a muffin at Starbucks. We'll share an order of medium Mcdonald's fries at Walmart. He is my little buddy, my side kick.

 He wants to be like Daddy, but he wants to be like Mommy too. He insists on getting a box of animal crackers at Wegman's because he needs his "purse" (the box of animal crackers comes with a string handle). I feel like we're on a team when we're out and about together. As much as I'd love an addition to our family, I'm glad that Doug is getting so much one on one time with me. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

2009 Called, It Wants Its Jeans Back

So over the spring and summer, Jeff and I decided to work harder to eat better foods and exercise more. Jeff is doing really well, and I'm getting there slowly and surely (read: I'm considering mailing my thyroid death threats).

Anyway, I wore the same pairs of capris and shorts all summer long. Yesterday it was finally cool enough for me to drag my jeans out of the closet (less than 60 degrees means I put on jeans, 58 is when I consider sneakers instead of sandals). So I wore my favorite pair of jeans to Doug's preschool and then to a few errands afterwards. The thing with most of my jeans is that they have a bit of stretch in the denim. This usually makes them quite comfortable. However, they were already a bit big due to my weight loss. So as the day wore on, they stretched more and more. After dinner I was getting ready to head out the door for the evening and I wanted to look like a nice pulled together person, I didn't want to go for the 'frazzled mom' look that I so often employ. So I took a shower and threw on the same jeans I'd been wearing all day. The crotch had now almost stretched down to my knees. Not a great look. Running late and frantic I began to tear through my closet for the jeans I bought after Doug was born (pregnancy was evidently a great weight loss tool, who knew?). I managed to find one pair that fit really well except that it was longish and needed to be worn with boots. I found some thick soled mary janes and a nice top and was finally on my way out the door.

That evening when I got back I resolved to rescue my smaller jeans from storage in the basement. I found my fugly maternity jeans first. I have no idea who thought pregnant women wanted whiskered jeans, but I could never find a pair that wasn't. I finally located my smaller jeans, and lo and behold, they are whiskered too! Ugh. My jeans are evidently trapped in the 2009-2010 fashion season. At least I promise (for now) not to wear my crocs with them.

Under the Influence

I was at a bible study the other night watching a video discussion about the early church. One of the people in the video made a reference to "the One" and then said she felt like she was in the Matrix. I was the only one who laughed. And if you're familiar with my laugh, you know it's rather loud and braying. One of the moderators in the bible study made it worse by making a reference to the Borg. Yet again, I was the only one who found that amusing (and loudly). As I was driving home, I began to wonder what had happened to bring me over into the geek side.

Before I met Jeff, I did toe the geek line a good bit. I've always loved to read, and I am intrigued by science fiction (but I don't read science fiction, don't ask it just works out that way). I mean, I'd seen Star Wars and Star Trek, and enjoyed them, but I never actively sought out those movies or shows. I've been a fan of Harry Potter since the third book (my all time favorite) was published. I enjoyed 'The Hobbit' which I read in middle school. All the elements were there, but it just wasn't quite enough to push me over to the other side.

Then enter Jeff. He was 25 when we met and I was 22. He definitely was in need of refinement. He once wiped his nose on a linen napkin at a restaurant. We've had many discussions about that incident since, but he still doesn't quite get it. He's  becoming more social since my intervention. I introduced him to the 'Inheritance Cycle' by Christopher Paolini (I still have not read that beast of a fourth book). I also introduced him to the 'Hunger Games'. But that pretty much ends my influence on him.

Jeff has way more influence on my tastes. He introduced me to South Park, which I love, and chicken wings, which I also love. Some of my favorite dates with him were at his house eating wings and watching South Park. Jeff also managed to work in a lot more Star Wars. I'd seen the original trilogy, but only the first of the new trilogy (it turned me off of the new trilogy definitely the worst of the 6, in my opinion). He also showed me the remaining two Lord of the Rings*. I'd only seen the first in the theater and read the first book,  I became uninterested after Gandalf died. And he also introduced me to the Matrix, which I like, but is probably my least favorite of them all. I suppose I am now a geek by marriage.

The other night I asked Jeff if we would be considered 'born again trekkies'. We both watched it  (mostly the next generation) here and there growing up. The summer I was pregnant with Doug the first movie of the re-boot came out and we very much enjoyed it. Last summer we re-watched the movie, and afterwards I said that we should add the next generation shows to our dvr. We forgot about it and by the time we did it, it wasn't available on any of our cable channels. We eventually got a Roku (for internet streaming) and we've been watching the show free from Amazon Prime. We're going episode by episode, season by season. We're almost through the second season.

Doug is our little geekling in training. He is very much into Star Wars. He does a mean Chewie and Vader impression. During the Super Bowl, a trailer for the next Star Trek movie was aired. In the trailer, it was quiet for a moment, except for the beeping of the Enterprise. Doug whipped around, "RD2??!". We told him, no, that it was Star Trek and not Star Wars, and please don't ever mix them up again. Doug hasn't seen Star Trek, but he knows we watch it and has asked to watch it too. The geek is strong with this one. I won't even try to influence it out of him.

This is the back of my car. 

*Watching 'The Lord of the Rings' with Jeff is a serious time commitment. He has the extended edition of each movie, so it takes about 12 hours if you want to watch them all. In fact, I was forbidden to buy 'The Hobbit' when it came out on dvd, because Jeff had heard that there was going to be an extended release coming out before Christmas.