My baby no longer

Tomorrow Millie turns 4 year old.  I’m a little shocked by that.  How is it possible that 4 years have gone by already?

It’s so obvious now that she is no longer a baby or a toddler, but a little girl.  Physically, she is getting taller and really thinning out – no more baby fat.  Her face is thinner and seems longer.  She is so verbal, sometimes I think much more so than the other kids in her class.  She has logic now – she can understand, to some degree, cause and effect.  She has learned to lie, which is both funny and sad.  She has a great imagination.  She loves to sing songs.  She likes to dress up in costumes.  She is learning to write her name.

One of the best things she does now is say, “I love you mommy” without being prompted.  Or sometimes, even better, she will say, “I like you mommy”.  She will tell me she likes my necklace or shoes, and she wants me to put makeup on her.  When I put her to bed at night, I’ll say, “What’s first?” and she will say, “Hugs!” and give me a big squeeze.  She has memorized some of her books, and “reads” to me at night, instead of me reading to her.

I always tell her she is my favorite girl (I’m glad my second was a boy so I didn’t have to change that), and she really is.  I love her, of course, but I really like her too.  Yes, she can be extremely frustrating at times (she hates to go to bed and doesn’t listen to us very well), but she can be equally charming and funny too.  I love listening to her explain something – she gets very serious and very expressive.

We are taking her to the children’s museum tomorrow which I know she will love because she loves to use her imagination and is very curious – two things that are key at the museum.  Afterwards we are coming back to the house for pizza and cupcakes (she chose chocolate cupcakes with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles).  We’ll get out our special birthday plates, one of our new traditions.  She is very excited and I’m excited to see her have a good time.

I love you, Millie.  Happy Birthday.

Millie Clara, 4 years old

My birthday girl

Shh…

It’s quiet for the moment – Millie is having a “rest” – we can’t call it a nap anymore, althought that is exactly what she is doing – Simon is also sleeping, and Jesse is working in the dining room.  I don’t think I have much time, I think Simon is about to wake up, but I just wanted to post a quick update.

We are all doing well – it’s been raining here in sunny Florida for SIX DAYS – that is just not normal.  It’s good, I mean, we need the rain desperately, but really - six straight days of rain?  I think that’s a tad excessive.  A day here, an afternoon there – that’s fine, but every freakin’ day?  If I wasn’t such a cheerful person, it might bum me out.  But I actually like the sound of rain and thunder, so I’ve enjoyed it … to a point.  Because the flip side is, I’ve been stuck in the house for five of those six days, and I was going stir crazy.  But we got out of the house today, so I feel a bit better.

Simon is doing well -he is eight weeks old (or really five weeks, if you want his gestational age) and is growing like a weed.  I don’t know how big he is right now, at his appointment last week he weighed 9lbs 5oz and he has another appointment next week.  But I think he is pretty long, his 0-3 month clothes are too tight in the length so we have him in 3-6 month clothes (which don’t fit him weight-wise … yet). 

We had him on soy formula for a few weeks because of his spitting up, but it constipated him so badly (and didn’t help with the spit up at all) that we switched him back to milk formula.  He is still spitting up at least once a day (if not more) but once we went back to the milk formula, he started to eat much more.  He’s now at about 4 oz per feeding and we think he’s getting ready to move up to 6 oz.  Now if he could only keep it all down and stop spitting up, I would be very happy.  Millie didn’t have this problem, so it’s a bit concerning to me, but the doctor said as long as he was gaining weight, it wasn’t a problem.  But it is majorly messy.  We finally got smart and put a sheet over the couch so he didn’t ruin it, but I need something for me to wear, because formula stains clothing if you don’t wash it immediately.  And I usually end up soaked when he spits up.  He did it today as we were on our way to Target, and we had to turn around and come back home to change him and clean his car seat, since they were both soaked.  Some people have recommended adding rice cereal to his formula, so I’ll ask the doctor about it at his next checkup.

He hasn’t really changed much developmentally – he smiles every once in awhile, but I could probably still attribute that to gas.  He definitely recognizes me now, and will turn his head to follow my voice.  He occasionally makes “baby” noises, but they are usually when he is being fussy.  He is so much more squirmy than Millie was (and her nickname at the beginning was “Squirmy McGee”, so you can imagine how much worse he is) – he squirms so much when we are trying to burp him that sometimes I fear for his safety – he has almost flung himself out of our grasps at times.  I think he is going to be more serious than Millie – he is very observant and quiet, only cries when he is hungry or gassy but is usually just watching everyone and everything intently. 

Overall, he is a good baby.  I’ll be happy when he is on a more set schedule, when he sleeps through the night (he can go for four hours, so he’s getting there) and when he stops spitting up.  But other than that, I don’t have any complaints. 

It is very strange to know I am now a mom of TWO – I honestly can’t believe that this is my life, I don’t know if I ever thought I would get married, let alone have kids, and yet here I am.  Jesse and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary this year (seven years together) and it is amazing to me.  I am very happy with how things have turned out!

I go back to work on June 22nd, and I am very excited about that.  I am not meant to be a stay-at-home mom, I don’t really know what they do all day.  My days consist of housework and taking care of Simon.  I like the time with Simon, but not the housework.  I watch a lot of tv and surf the Internet.  I’m not a crafty person (although I do a bit of scrapbooking now and then) and I’m not a joiner, so we are not out and about that much.  All of my friends don’t have kids, so I don’t have a mom group (but like I said, I’m not a joiner, so I don’t think I would have a mom group anyway).  I was ready to go back to work after three weeks at home (not that I would have, I wanted to stay at home for the full three months, if only for Simon’s sake – I didn’t want him in daycare any earlier than that).  It’s just not for me, but then again, I find that I am not the “typical” mom, if such a thing exists.  I think a lot of moms think I am strange because I am not all gushy over my kids, I don’t talk about them 24/7 and I talk to my kids like they are adults (but I also listen to them like they are adults, which I don’t think many parents do).  I am sarcastic and laid-back and I don’t take anything extremely seriously.  I think I’m a pretty good mom – I just have a different approach to parenting.  Like I’ve said before, I need adult interaction, I can’t be all about my kids, I need to have my own life as well.  I think that’s a sane approach to parenting, for me and for my well-being.  But hey, different strokes for different folks and all that jazz…

Simon is waking up now, so I’m off to feed him.  The quiet is about to be demolished, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

Sickness sucks

That’s not a very eloquent title, I know, but it sure does sum it up nicely.

I’m not usually good at predicting the future, but in this case, I got it right: I got sick.  Granted, not as badly as I expected, but even so, it is so not cool to have a stomach flu.  Especially when you are someone who is extremely freaked out by vomit.  I’m not as freaked out as my sista, but it still scares the bejeezus out of me.  I hate the thought of upchucking – once it’s done and over with, I’m fine, it’s the lead-up to it that is horrible – the anticipation of barf.  Because you feel bad all the way up to getting sick, but you are not sure when the sick is actually going to happen, so you have to suffer through the not-knowing.  I only got sick once, but considering I woke up at 1:30am feeling bad and didn’t actually get sick until 5:30am, that is four hours of anticipation, which, if you’re like me, makes you feel even sicker.  Then, the rest of the day, I felt vaguely sick, as if I could throw up at any point – but I never did, which is so annoying because it’s a waste of a day – if I had known it was all false symptoms, I could have gone on with my day, eaten something, gathered up my strength, etc.  Instead, I lay on the couch all day, sleeping and moaning, making Jesse wait on me (which is the plus side of being sick), just waiting for the next round of sickness, which NEVER CAME.

Millie, on the other hand, had a full day of not being sick, only to throw up again yesterday afternoon.  I can’t really explain why that happened, she was getting better on Saturday, seemed much more energetic, and then woke up on Sunday completely lethargic, very sad, and eventually upchucked all over my bed at around 3pm.  And has been ok since then.  I don’t get it, but man does it suck to have to clean up puke when you yourself are still feeling pukey – I was very worried I would throw up just from the smell.  Man, this post is so pleasant to read, huh?

In any case, we are (finally) all on the mend, Jesse never got sick, thank goodness, and he was so great, taking care of both of us.  I know he had things he wanted to do this weekend, it was a wasted weekend to be sure, but he was good about realizing that those things would just have to wait until another day.  Jess, you can go to Borders tonight if you want to.  We’ll be fine.

 

Thanks Santa

Santa gave me a cold for Christmas.

Bastard.

I can actually pinpoint when I got sick.  We were in the car, driving to Christmas Eve dinner, and I coughed/sneezed/cleared my throat – well, one of those things, and when I was done, I noticed that my throat did not clear, that it was actually a bit scratchy.  Hmm, I thought, that’s not good.  By the time we got to the restaurant, I needed a drink – my feeble attempt to try to thwart the sickness by lubricating my dry throat.  Of course, that had no effect.  By the time dinner was over and we got back to my mom’s place, I was searching frantically for a cough drop.  I ALWAYS carry a cough drop or two or six hundred with me, but on this occasion I had none.  My mom had some yucky Ricola herbal crap ones so I begrudgingly had that, and actually they are not as yucky as I remember (but still not good enough to go out and buy a bag).  I slept that night with a cough drop in my mouth (don’t judge – I know it sounds scary but my jaw is clenched in a death grip the whole night – I wake up with the cough drop still planted firmly in the same spot as when I went to sleep, so no fear of choking) but woke up on Christmas Day with a sore throat and the sniffles.  By the end of the day I was stuffed up and quite unhappy.

The day after Christmas I had planned to brave the early morning crowds and do the day-after-Christmas shopping.  And, even though I was sick, I was a major trooper and got up way early to go to Target.  I got there when they opened at 7am, and boy was that interesting.  It was not as amazingly crowded as I expected, although by the time I left at 8am, it was packed.  I’ve always gone around 10-11am or so, and by then all the good stuff is long gone, and I’m left to dig through the dregs.  But at 7am, let me tell ya – the shelves are still completely full of stuff!  I actually got everything I wanted/needed, and even a bit more!  I bought 3 sets of icicle lights (I could’ve bought more, there were plenty at 7am!), 3 boxes of sets of three 2 foot evergreen lighted trees for the walkway, a big box of colored lights, 2 boxes of lighted snowflakes, 3 lighted garlands for the porch, a couple of bows for the porch, and some other small odds and ends.  I didn’t get distracted by the gift wrap or Christmas cards, as I have plenty of that stuff already – I just focused on what was important and got in and out of there with a minimum of fuss.  I was back home by 8am and back in bed sick shortly thereafter.

I stayed home from work yesterday and stayed in bed all day, and today I went in for a half-day.  There isn’t much going on right now, so I don’t feel guilty about missing work.  I’m feeling better tonight, not as stuffy (but nauseous from all the phlegm, lucky me) but I have my annoying cough that I hate with a passion, so I hope it goes away quickly (but I’m not counting on it, it never does … I sound like Eeyore!)

Christmas was nice, all in all.  It was hard to really enjoy it when I was feeling so crappy, but Millie had a great time with her presents, and I got a bit of video of her opening stuff, so that’s good.  She got a cool kitchen from Jesse’s parents, a bike and a doll stroller from my mom and an art easel from my sister, so she is loaded up with big stuff.  I got her mostly clothes and a Mrs. Potato Head, and she’s quite the happy kid right now.  She knew “Santie” Claus was coming, and we left cookies and milk out for him.  Christmas morning, I whispered to her, “Santa ate the cookies!” and she got all big-eyed and whispered back, “Santie ate cookies?”  It was very cute.

I am very glad it’s all over, and I’m looking forward to a nice, calm January.  After our New Year’s Eve party, of course.

An Update of Gigantic Proportions

My sister’s wedding is fast approaching, only two weeks away now.  I am picking up my bridesmaid dress tomorrow, and I bought new shoes to wear with it (the second pair, I might add.  The first pair was too tight and even though I was using shoe stretchers on them, I just knew they were going to hurt me).  Jesse has a new suit, we are going to be a very attractive couple at this wedding, lemme tell ya.

My mom and I went up to DC for the bachelorette and bridal shower this past weekend.  It was a nice trip, everything went well and I think E was pleased with how it all turned out.  I felt yucky for some reason on the bridal shower day, so that kind of sucked because I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, but as long as E enjoyed it, that’s all that matters.

While I was in DC, I had lunch with my old pal Jamie and her husband Stephen.  I had a great time with them, catching up with Jamie and getting to know Stephen.  They seem like a very happy couple, which makes me very happy for Jamie.  She still has the same crazy personality, and she always makes me laugh.  I haven’t seen her in almost four years, so I was very glad to be able to reconnect with her.  Yay Jamie!

DC is a very nice town … well, I guess I mean Arlington, because that is where my sister lives.  And we went to Georgetown, and that is very nice as well.  I liked it because it was like NY, only a little slower (but not as slow as Florida).  I could see myself living up in that area, I just love the Northeast.  But I would want a little more space, which I guess would mean living further out in Virginia, because I know it is way expensive in the DC area.

For my sister’s bachelorette, Sarah (one of the other bridesmaids and my sister’s best friend) got her a baseball hat that said “Bride” on it and sewed a veil onto the back.  When we went dancing, it was amazing how many guys came up to my sister and either wanted to just say “congratulations” or wanted to dance with her.  It’s like the hat gave the guys more confidence, like, “well, if she rejects me, at least I know it’s not me, it’s because she’s getting married.”  It was very funny.

The guys in DC are much cuter than here in Florida, and you can tell they are all well-educated and have great jobs.  Down here, it’s a crap shoot.  I got lucky and found a great guy, but for the most part most of the guys here are duds.  But one of Elaina’s friends told me that it’s still hard to meet guys there, because most of them are contractors and are only in town for a short while. 

While I was in DC, I called Jesse and he put Millie on the phone, and when I said “Hi, Millie”, she said “Hi, Mommy” back to me.  That was awesome!  I know Jesse prompted her to say it, but it was still very cool to hear that through the phone.

My sister is so organized about the wedding, it’s really dorky and cute.  She has this amazing spreadsheet with all these different tabs and it calculates the cost of the wedding based on how many people are attending.  It’s so anal!  Which is so my sister.  Everything is color-coded.  So funny!

I helped my sister with some of the wedding favors while I was sitting home sick and she and my mom were out to dinner.  I’m trying to be as helpful as I can, from far away.  I have instituted a daily call to my sister in the weeks leading up to the wedding, so she can use me as a sounding board when she is getting frazzled.  Hopefully that is helpful enough.

I still have to write my toast for the wedding reception.  I did a first draft and it ended up being not where I wanted to go, so I need to revise it.  I have lots of thoughts in my head, but I need to figure out how to get them on paper in an organized and thoughtful way.  I want to be witty and slightly funny but wise and warm, all at the same time.  Tall order.

Ok, let’s move on to other subjects.

I just saw this awesome infomercial product called “Tater Mitts” which are plastic kitchen gloves with stuff on them where, if you are washing the potato, rubbing it between your hands, it will take off all the skin from the potato.  Neato.  Although Jesse then said, “So if I gave you an Indian burn with these gloves on, I would tear all the flesh off of your arm.”  So I guess it’s not that neato.

Millie is so cool now.  She is talking a lot more, a lot of it is still unintelligible, but she’s getting better.  She says “Where ____ go?” like, “Where puppy go?” or “Where Papa go?”  She always asks to “color” and is so cute when she will walk into the room and say, all casual-like, “Hi Mommy”.  Like, it’s no big thing, being able to talk.  Which I guess it’s not, to her, but to me it’s so amazing.

“So You Think You Can Dance” is on now, and I LOVE THIS SHOW!  I can’t even explain how much I love it, it is so very awesome.  I like the dancers from last season better, so far, personality-wise, but dancing-wise, I think they are better this season.  It’s hard to choose who should be in the bottom three couples each week, because they are all very good dancers.  It’s down to seven couples now, and they are all amazing dancers.  Even the b-boys are good at the other styles of dancing.  My other favorite show is “Top Chef” which is also awesome.  I am so impressed by anyone that has talent.  Both the dancers and the chefs are so skilled at what they do, it is inspiring.  I wish I could dance or cook like these people can. 

We are finally going to renovate our living room, starting after my sister’s wedding.  I am very excited about this, I am so grossed out by our carpet, I can’t even explain how disgusting it is to me.  I hate when Millie lays on the carpet, and I know it is contributing to our allergies.  They will be stripping the room bare, basically.  They will take down all the paneling, pull up the carpet, take down the ceiling tiles and put up drywall everywhere.  We will put in the wood flooring ourselves.  They are going to put in a pocket door to our 3rd bedroom as well.  They will also be renovating our closet at the same time, so we will actually be able to use our closet in our bedroom, which we haven’t done for the past two years.  I can’t wait for them to start!

Everything is going very well these days, knock wood.  Let’s hope it lasts.

Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas, but I’m taking next year off!

It is just too much, having it at our house (at least, right now it is).  My kitchen is just not big enough for all the hustle and bustle – nowhere near enough counter space!  It was good for this year, because Millie is more comfortable at home than anywhere else, but next year she will be ok to go somewhere else, so SOMEONE ELSE OFFER TO HOST NEXT YEAR! 

Everything was yummy and I think everyone had a good time, so that is all that matters.  But man, am I tired.  I have had a backache from hell for the past two days – luckily, Jesse gave me a gift certificate for a massage (smart man!), so I’m going to see if I can get one this weekend.

Millie loved all her presents – she got a rocking horse that rocks the house!  She was a little afraid of it at first, but once she got over that, she was in heaven!  The smile on that face as she rocked back and forth was amazing and reminds me why she’s the best thing since sliced bread.  She behaved so well, with all those people in the house, and stayed happy all night.

Jesse and I got enough money to get our iPod, so maybe we’ll go to the store this weekend and get it!  We are very excited to finally be joining everyone else in the 21st century!

Jesse’s at work today and the daycare is closed, so I’m home with the Mils – we are probably going to brave the crowds at Target today because we need diapers (I’m thinking that the crowds will have dispersed by this afternoon, right?) but other than that, we are just chillin’ at the homestead.

Now that Christmas is over, I can say, “I can’t believe 2007 is almost here!”  Time flies, now I have to think of some resolutions.  I actually already have one, which is to manage my time better, to do more in a day, to be less lazy and more productive.  I think I can do it, I really need to do it.  I think my other one will be to zone out less when Jesse is talking (sorry babe, although you know it’s true).  It’s not that what he says is not interesting (well, some of it is not but that is true of everyone at one time or another), but he is, like his parents, a slow talker (hope that doesn’t insult you guys), and it takes him a looong time to get to his point, so much so that I tend to zone out and miss half of what he is saying.  My family talks fast and our stories are quick and to the point, so I’m not used to having to wait for a punchline.  But I’m going to try to be more patient and concentrate more when he is telling me something.  I think Jesse’s resolution for me is basically the same, to be more “in the moment” when we are talking.  So many times, he will say something and I will say, “you never told me that” and he will say “yes I did you just weren’t absorbing anything”, which is most likely true.  Of course, he is guilty of the same thing sometimes, so we both need to be more “there”.  Anyway, I think those are resolutions I can keep.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and I hope everyone’s 2007 is everything you want it to be and more!

This year, I am!

I’m in the holiday spirit this year.  I KNOW!

The past two years, I haven’t been, what with the wedding aftermath and the baby aftermath.  But things have calmed down enough now that I am ready to celebrate, dammit!

I put up the Christmas lights today, all by myself.  Jesse was studying (a noble cause, one not to be disturbed by decorating) and I put up the pretty icicle lights.  I can’t wait until it gets dark so I can take Millie outside to see them!  And really, I only sweat a little bit, putting them up, so that didn’t dampen my holiday spirit too much.

I am going to buy a 4 ft. fake tree that we can put up on a table in the living room.  We have a full-size tree, but that sweet child o’ mine loves to dismantle the house, so the tree must be out of reach.  Therefore, small tree it is.  I don’t mind, most years at my mom’s house we had a small tree – there is no difference, really.  And I have already put up our advent calendar, but it’s hung a little high, so I may have to move it so Millie can participate.  It’s really cute, it’s a felt Christmas tree, and all the ornaments are dated and have magnets in them, so she can stick them on the tree herself.

We are going to have Christmas at our house again this year, with one huge difference.  I will NOT be making Christmas dinner all by myself.  It will be a potluck of sorts, everyone will bring a course.  Last year, I think I was still hormone-crazy, and I made the whole dang thing myself.  I must have forgotten I had a four month old, and thought, “hey, no problem.”  I was exhausted, and I don’t know that I enjoyed myself or Millie’s first Christmas very much because of it.  So this year, uh uh.  I am taking it easy.  Millie is just so much more comfortable at home (and so am I, truth be told – I don’t have to worry about her knocking things over or getting into trouble), so I know she will have a good time.

We are pretty short on cash right about now, so Jesse and I are trying to stick to a budget for Christmas.  We are only spending $25 on each other, and are going to try to stick with $25 for each family member as well.  Even for Millie – we have gotten her a Backyardigans cushy chair (she already loves it – we will hide it for a week or so before Christmas so she forgets she has it) and a Dora the Explorer (ugh, I hate Dora) sit-n-scoot thingamajig.  I also got her some Weebles for her stocking, but that’s basically it.  I mean, come on – she’s a baby, she doesn’t even know what Christmas is, why should we spend exorbitant amounts of money when she doesn’t even get the concept of presents?

I am hoping our family has read my blog lately, and is remembering that Jesse and I only want an iPod for Christmas.  Seriously.  That’s it.  Don’t get us anything else – we just want gift certificates to Best Buy so we can buy the iPod after the Christmas rush.  I know that knowing exactly what we want takes some of the fun out of shopping, but better to get someone exactly what they want than something they don’t want but that you had fun shopping for.  This is the season for giving, so make sure you give us what we want!  If my mom reads this, she is going to think I am being very selfish, but I don’t think I am, I am just being honest so that everyone ends up happy on Christmas day.  I will always prefer getting a list from someone than wandering the mall, unsure of what to get.  Who needs that extra stress?

We went to a Holiday party for Jesse’s new job (btw, Jesse got a new job as an accountant at a Promotions company.  I am very proud of him!), and everyone was so nice and friendly (he has only been there a week and a half).  It was our first Holiday party of the season – I have a couple of others for work and one with friends, and I know we are going to be partied out come New Year’s, but ’tis the season, right?

That reminds me, I need to get Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas on DVD!  And trade out the CD’s in my car for my holiday music!

Happy Holiday season, everyone!

What’s Going On

So, now that I can write freely and whenever my little heart desires, I can finally spend some time talking about the past month.

The past month has been filled with sickness, plague and misery.

I am so dramatic.

Our trip to NY was kind of sucky.  It was good to see everyone, but we didn’t get to do as much as we normally do.  And I have to attribute that, I’m sorry, to the Mils.  Travelling with a baby is not easy.  The flights were fine, but once we got to NY, it was a jam-packed week filled with nothing in particular, yet we had absolutely no time to do anything because we kept having to think, “What do we do with Millie?”  And then, everyone got sick.  Well, everyone except me.  Jesse and I went to the city on Friday to stay overnight.  We were going to go to dinner with E and Mike, then spend the next day wandering.  But when we woke up on Saturday, I called my mom to check on Millie, and both of them were sick.  So, we went straight to the train station and back to Long Island.  Then Jesse got sick on our last day, so he had to travel sick.  We are all still sick, even me, who must have caught it from all of them later.

I don’t want to blame Millie, but I can’t deny that it was much easier to go to NY without a baby, and I don’t think we’ll go back anytime soon – at least, not until she is more self-sufficient.  It was a disappointing trip.

So like I said, we are all sick.  Jesse and my mom were on antibiotics for awhile (although Jesse’s ear infection is back, we think, so he will have to take another course of antibiotics), and now Millie has an ear infection (her first cold followed by her first ear infection … boy, are we proud!) so she is on antibiotics too.  It has been so sad, watching her be sick.  She is so listless and puts on a sad face, as if to say, “I don’t like this, I want to be running around eating paper and playing with the remote.”  She is also very clingy, which is both sweet and sad.  I love that she wants to be close to me, but I’m sad for the reason.  We only had her in daycare one day this week.

That’s the other difficult thing.  She’s been in daycare since October 5th, but still is not used to it because she has missed so many days.  She has only had one full week of daycare so far, the rest has been hit and miss because of travel or sickness.  I want her to get used to it, because it is so sad to have her cry everytime I leave her there, or everytime I pick her up.  I know she stops crying when I leave (I’ve hidden outside the door to make sure), but it sucks nonetheless.  I do think she enjoys her time there, once she forgets about us … but that’s the thing about daycare, you are just never sure.  I hope she’s ok, and I have to have faith that she is ok, otherwise I would be stalker-mom, watching from across the street when they are out playing or peeking through a window.  And that would not be good.

Our Halloween this year was a bust.  Millie was sick and tired, but I wanted to at least try to get her to go to a few houses on our street.  So I got her dressed in her mermaid costume, and she proceeded to walk around the house at breakneck speed (so I don’t have a good picture of her), with a sock in one hand and a small Halloween pumpkin in the other hand.  I tried to get her to go trick-or-treating, but she really just prefers our sidewalk.  We would walk down the walkway, then walk back up the walkway.  We would walk up the front porch steps, then back down.  When I tried to pick her up and carry her to a house, she would scream and cry.  After about twenty minutes, I gave up and we went back into the house, where I changed her into pjs and she went to sleep in about five seconds.  I’m assuming next year will be better.

My Graves disease is holding steady.  I went to the doctor after the cruise, and my numbers have come down and are holding steady at about 2.0 (normal is 1.7).  I am supposed to just keep taking my pills three times a day and get monthly bloodwork, and I will go back and see the doctor in December for another checkup.  All my symptoms went away immediately after starting the medicine, so now it is all about getting to the normal range and staying there.  Eventually, my pill intake should begin to lessen, until I am weaned off them altogether.  So really, nothing new to report.

Millie is becoming the most fun kid.  I know all parents say that, and it is true for all of them, but man, she is fun.  She isn’t talking yet, just babbling, but it’s funny to watch her try to be eloquent – she uses her hands and face to express herself,  all the while babbling nonsense.  She is still the smiliest kid I know, always happy (except when she doesn’t feel good), lots of energy, so curious and loves to explore.  Everyone just loves her to death, her father and me included.

Jesse is doing well, he only has two more classes in college after the one he is in currently, and then he is done for awhile!  He is starting to look for accounting jobs, and we have a really good lead on one, so we are hoping he finds steady work soon.

All in all, we are doing well.

Dysfunction with a capital D

I have a dysfunctional family.

Doesn’t everyone, really?

My sister and I always thought we had a pretty normal family.  Our parents have been married for 36 years, and although it probably seemed to everyone on the outside that we were a solid family, my parents have not liked each other for almost the full 36 years.  They finally separated about 3 years ago, partially because we insisted.  Personally, I couldn’t understand how two people could stay together for all that time but not like each other.  So you think things would be better now, right?

So wrong.

Our parents are even more screwed up now than before, I think.  One is totally incommunicado, and the other is completely bitter and neurotic.  And my sister and I are fed up.  My sister is ready to write one of them completely off, and I have realized that I can’t try to make them happy with the things I do – if they can’t be happy for me, screw ‘em.  I’ve got my own life to live.

It’s sad when you realize that your parents are just people, with their own problems and issues.

So we are at that wonderful time of year where we have to choose our health benefits. In the past, it was pretty easy, because I was single and didn’t have to think of anyone other than myself (I miss being selfish like that). I just chose the plan I wanted and that was that.

This year, I have to not only consider my unemployed husband, but I also have to think about the way-off-in-the-distance idea of becoming pregnant. Because once I choose my plan, I can’t change it for another year. So do I get the cheaper plan that doesn’t fully cover in-hospital stays, or do I get the more expensive one that does cover it, just incase I get pregnant next year and end up having the baby in 2005.

My life has changed.

Last night, Jesse and I had to discuss having a baby. In actual, real terms, like, "Well, if we get pregnant before April, I will have a baby in 2005, but anytime after April I’ll have the baby the next year." Having a baby was always just a concept before, as in "get married, have kids". Now it’s an actual discussion we had to have. It sorta freaked me out. All of a sudden, this is something that will really happen someday. I’m actually making plans to have a child. Whoa.

The concept part of me feels ready, but the actual part of me is dragging her heels. I like the idea of having kids, but I love my independence and know I will miss it. I know, having a child changes everything (I’ve seen the commercials, too), but some things I don’t think I want to change. I like only having to worry about me (and Jesse to some degree).

My co-worker is pregnant, her baby is due in January, so it has been fun for me to watch her body change. But it freaks me out to think that will happen to me. My boss is adopting a baby this month, and that is a scary process, one I hope I don’t ever have to go through. But everyone around me is having babies, and that in itself makes me think I want to have one, too. But I really want to enjoy being newly married (I hate the word newlywed, so precious! bleh) for awhile before we start to seriously discuss having kids. So it’s annoying we already had to have this discussion, just for insurance purposes. Damn healthcare!