bewildered by grace

I'm a Christmas Nazi / Another Christmas Song Question

2011-12-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

So I have some strong and totally ridiculous views on certain aspects of Christmas. For instance:

-I don't think that you should mix and match Christmas light colors. Pick a color, or a series of colors, and stick with it. I don't hate all LED versions of lights, but I really don't like the red, orange, and blue ones. They remind me of those chili pepper lights you sometimes see in Mexican restaurants. Okay, I might dislike all LED lights. I love those really fat old glass lights that glow with wanton disregard to your skyrocketing electric bill. I prefer them in the red, green, yellow combination, but have seen some red and white, and even green and white ones that are super cute too. They remind me of my childhood. I actually despair at Bella growing up in a world where only LED lights exist. The only time it is acceptable to mix the above mentioned lighting colors is if you're adding white icicle lights to a solid color. Someone nearby has their house trimmed in red, with white icicles everywhere. It's gorgeous. NEVER, under any circumstances, change the color of your lights in the middle of your roof line. Don't be lazy. I know you grabbed the wrong color at WalMart. Go change them over.

-Our tree has only white lights on it. Only white lights are acceptable. Decorations are mostly red, green, and gold. I have a couple of white ones, and one really special one that has a tiny bit of blue on it, but otherwise the colors are coordinating, though almost none of the ornaments are. The wrapping paper used on any gift under the tree, must meet the color criteria of the tree above. We found gorgeous blue and silver wrap this year, and we left it for slightly less beautiful, but matching, wrapping paper. This is when Peter laughed at me and called me a Christmas Nazi. He's not wrong. I have issues. My mother has multi-colored lights on the tree. She always has, she always should. Her tree would look wrong with white lights. I understand this is unreasonable, but it's the way it is.

-Christmas carols are classic for a reason. They live forever for a reason. I think Justin Beiber should possibly be sued for his version of Drummer Boy. You do not need to make a carol current, or cool, or different. That song has been beautiful for much longer than he's been alive and I find his version almost disrespectful to Christmas itself. I have no problem with making a new Christmas song. There are quite a few that I really love. I'll do a post soon and we can all share original Christmas songs we love, that'd be fun! But under no circumstances is it okay to totally change the feeling of, say, O Come All Ye Faithful so that it's "trendy" and "you". If you're famous and reading this - don't mess around with what is already great. Also, if you're famous and reading this, I need to update my privacy settings.

Speaking of Christmas carols, my favorite might be O Come O Come Emmanuel. I've actually never been able to pick a favorite. I do really love this one though. I love the haunting sound of it, and I adore the lyrics.

So here's the conundrum: So far, my favorite is the Bethany Dillon version. I have a feeling that there's a better one out there, but I haven't found it yet. For that matter, I can't even find a link to the one I like - it's not on YouTube that I can see. Get it on iTunes. You won't regret that dollar. I just LOVE the last verse of it, even though it breaks my cardinal rule of Christmas songs (don't ever change the original lyrics!). See? I'm flexible! She does a beautiful job on it, and the best part about it is that she doesn't rush it. I HATE speedy versions of this song.

So this challenge will be twofold:
Find me a better version of this song that isn't speedy or obnoxious.
ALSO
Tell me your favorite Christmas song, and your favorite version of it. I plan on listening to nothing else tomorrow and I'm needing to update my playlist.

Oh Christmas!

2011-12-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

I really adore Christmas. I love everything about it. It's almost a feeling you get when fall starts closing its doors and winter shows up. In BC that happens in one foul windstorm that shakes the house and then a week later it's +15 for a couple of days and then it's all over. Winter sets in and I wake up to frosty windows and a smell in the air that makes people drag out their Christmas lights.

I think the world would be such a better place if people were the way they are in December. I mostly hate January and February, and even March is just cold and I'm miserably waiting for summer, but December is a perfect month. It's that everything that happens in December is an occasion. Nothing is just another day; it's one day closer to Christmas Day. We are having two tree decorating parties this weekend. The one with just Peter, Bella, and I will be about moving our breakable decorations to the top half of the tree, and eating snacks and listening to music and watching Bella's face when Daddy lights up the tree. I love it so much. Christmas was great before Bella. It's completely magical now.

I found this amazing kid on YouTube through Becky, and this is a pretty cool rendition of Drummer Boy. I think his mittens in the video make it for me. Bella loved it. But it got me to thinking, I bet there's a bunch of amazing Christmas music out there, that I don't know, that could be playing in my living room this month. So I'm going to post my very favorite version of one song, and you are welcome to one-up me with a song/video/link to a better version of the same song. I'm going to do it a bunch of times this December, maybe close to everyday. Think of it as NaBloPoMo, but late. And not as consistent. And in a theme.

Without further ado, here's my favorite version of Drummer Boy. I love EVERYTHING about this version. I love the build of it and I swear to you, when he sings, "So to honor him" I tear up. Every year. And the bagpipes? Totally freaking genius.

PS - Robyn. Justin Beiber needs to have a chat with Josh Groban. That man knows how to sing a Christmas song. And his hair is way nicer.

Stunned Into (Almost) Silence

2011-08-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and my friend had posted about being "gutted" at seeing the front page of the New York Times. I had to look - and she picked the right adjective. It's horrifying.

Terrorists control most of Somalia right now. They are an Islamic insurgent group and have decided that they are taking a stand against the indoctrination of Western ideas into their Islamic society. That includes refusing aid of any kind if it comes in the package of anything other than Islam. It includes refusing immunizations for incredibly preventable diseases for their children. It includes refusing food from groups like Unicef. It includes the execution of foreign aid workers. They are hemming their people in, refusing outside access of any kind, and starving their own people to death. There are over 500,000 children who are dying of starvation while other people die to bring them food that they're not getting, because it's coming from white hands. The UN is launching investigations into organizations bringing aid because so much of it is being skimmed by known terrorists. It's illegal to aid terrorists, obviously. So if 20% of the food goes to dying children then we stop that 20% because it means 80% is aiding terrorists. To say the situation is complicated is a mass understatement. What on earth do we do? How can we help? It literally looks hopeless.

I'm going to draw a pretty controversial parallel here, just because it's something I can't stop thinking about. You should know I want to be wrong. I want these two things to be separate. It would make me feel so much better about myself and I'd like that. But I don't know that I'm wrong.

Last week while waiting for the ferry, we took Bella to the little park at the terminal. There were two kids, I'm going to guess aged nine and six. They were both so obese that they couldn't play. The little girl ran exactly the way Bella does. Like a speed walk, because Bella hasn't figured out the slight jumping motion that is intrinsic to actual running - this little girl physically couldn't do it. She was trying to ride the carousel, but the moment her dad went to push it, the amount of weight and lack of muscle tone literally didn't allow her to stay on. The motion of the carousel turning forced her off, as though her dad was pushing it sixty miles an hour. He tried again and again, and she flew to the ground over and over and you could tell it wasn't connecting with him. "Hang on!" he'd yell as she hit the ground. I couldn't look.The word 'abuse' popped into my head and I couldn't think of a good reason to make it leave. Maybe it was genetics. Maybe. The six large take-out containers of deep fried food that the mother was holding indicates otherwise, but I guess there's always that possibility. You don't see those kids over in Somalia though. The ones that are genetically predisposed to be huge. They don't exist there, why do they here? I don't know - I'm asking in earnest.

I'm asking how those two things can exist simultaneously. I'm asking how one is better than the other. One is seemingly about religion, one is about....what? How can we literally eat ourselves to death on one half of the world, while they starve on another? Because we can afford it? That's hardly an answer but it's the only one I can think of. Not only can we afford it, we think it's actually a basic human right to eat what we want, when we want, and not have to pay the consequences. Am I being unfair? Childhood obesity is killing our children. Starvation is killing theirs. They're refusing aid. We're refusing to eat something other than McDonald's. Both governments bear huge responsibility. It should NOT be cheaper to get a cheeseburger that is so far from actual food that it doesn't rot, than it is to get some chicken and vegetables that haven't been fed or sprayed with chemicals. How is what we're doing different? We make it impossible for poor people to eat healthily. Those poor people get a myriad of diseases that come from eating nothing that isn't chemical and fat at its core and they die from those diseases. While costing the government untold amounts of money in health care.

It's something I've been thinking about a long time: this question of entitlement. It's a basic human right to eat. It isn't a basic human right to eat something different every night of the week, regardless of when it's in season. Because lets face it, if we stopped demanding the exact same food all year round in our grocery store, it would be less likely that those vegetables would need to be artificially produced. It would mean that local farms could actually make money. It would even mean that the food you ate every day would taste better. Our economy would improve. Organic would stop meaning expensive. Eventually it would. I've been trying lately to eat organically, and do you know what I've discovered? You can eat it for about the same amount as you can eat crap, but you can't eat exactly what you want all the time. You might not eat meat with every meal, or even every day. Why do I balk at that, even now?

I'm the "king of sinners", as the saying goes. I was mad at Stupidstore for not having cilantro just yesterday. I have asparagus in my oven as I type this and I don't know who grew it and I know it was sprayed with chemical. I actually don't even know what asparagus looks like growing naturally. I don't know when any of my vegetables are in season, and I eat crap. I've fed it to my daughter for no other reason than that it was convenient at the time. I'm going to crack a diet Pepsi in just a few minutes because I like it and it's not even my first one today. And to a certain extent that's okay. It's okay to go out to eat and to enjoy what you put in your mouth. But I wonder about all this. I don't have answers that bear any intelligence at all. I want some country to storm the borders of Somalia with tanks, killing terrorists left and right dragging food and medicine behind them. I doubt that's a real answer.

I just can't stop wondering if we're as far removed from the terrorists in Somalia as we'd like to think we are. They're killing their people, we're killing ours - we're even using the same weapon. Don't get me wrong. Even typing it makes me want to rebel against my own words. Except that I don't see how those words are wrong. I'm wrong. I'm entitled and I'm guilty and I'm wrong. And though I don't need to feel guilty about being born on this side of the equation, I can't not think about the other. I can't turn my tear streaked face away from the photos because they're too hard to see, as my brain thinks of what it would be like to watch Bella die in my arm, so so slowly. But I should also think what it would do to my heart to see her get so huge that her body shuts down because it can't cope with what I'm feeding her.

So here I sit. Trying to find a conclusion that proves that we are better than they are. I don't have one.

One More Time

2011-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we go to BC Children's Hospital one last time. I have one last pink ferry voucher in my bag, one last list of questions for the doctor, one last chance for a trip to Olive Garden with the transport paid for by the government.
On March 25th, I put a syringe of Propranolol in Bella's mouth for the last time. The other day she needed Tylenol and fought me giving her medicine and it made me happy. It means that everyone was right. She doesn't even remember those months where she had to learn to deal with it, to suck it up (literally). She's happy and silly. She's incredibly smart. She's super small. I bet she still doesn't weigh 25 pounds and I'm just over stressing about it. I'm done stressing about a lot of things. She's currently jumping up and down on the couch saying "No B-S!" Possibly because I just freaked out over hearing an ad for anti-depressants on TV that said that one in five of us are mentally ill and undiagnosed. I may have called the ad a liar and said they were spreading BS to the masses. Bella has hopped up on my soapbox unawares - which makes me laugh. She makes me bust out laughing every single day. Maybe I could get her a little sign and we could go picket some pharmaceutical company. Anyway, I digress - again.
In the spirit of not stressing about things, we are making this last trip a celebration. Bella, my mom and I. My mom has come with me to almost every last one of these appointments. At the beginning we would sit at the ferry on the way home and I would sob my eyes out and she'd hold Bella and we'd talk. We'd try and go shopping before those early scarier appointments and pretend everything was fine. One time, we sat in a hospital room with Bella strapped to heart monitors and we prayed together for a long time for Uncle John. I would take her out for dinner - once to this stupidly fancy place that we rolled Bella into in her stroller. She napped - we had wine and dinner. We've taken turns while Bella needed to be walked around the ferry because she was crying, then because she was learning to walk and we would break our backs leaning over to help, now to chase her as she runs wildly all over the place and says "hi" to everyone she sees. I don't know how I would have done those trips without my mom. She's cried with me, laughed and shopped with me, helped me to get my questions in order and asked her own and remembered the answers when I was too stressed out.
So on Thursday, as a thanks to my mom for being so amazing during all those early trips we are going here for the night. We're going to take Bella swimming in the amazing pool and then order Indian food to our hotel suite. The next morning we'll have breakfast in the restaurant and drive to Granville Island to run around and shop and look at stuff. Our appointment is at 2:45 and then we'll probably go for dinner one last time and get on the ferry and laugh at how Bella doesn't want to nap and how crazy she is. I'm looking forward to it. Can you believe that?
We do have to talk to the doctor about possible laser treatments for Bella's mark and when that's a feasible thing if it doesn't go away completely on its own. Now when she goes to sleep at night she "prays to Jesus" to "please heal my little mark and make it all better". Part of my spirit, I can't lie, whispers to Heaven, "Seriously, how can you say no to that? Just do it. Please? C'mon..." I guess I know where Bella gets her little "salesman pitch" that always makes us laugh when she wants something.
We're hoping the mark goes away on its own and it may yet, but I think we've decided that we'd like to take care of it before she could get teased over it, if it comes to that. I have no idea what that entails or costs or anything like that so we need to figure some of those things out. I need an ophthalmologist referral in Nanaimo to do check-ups on her eye and make sure everything is progressing fine there. When her face went still right at the beginning, it did some permanent damage to the nerve that controls her eyelid. When she's super tired it droops slightly, doesn't blink quite as quickly as the other one. Unless she's exhausted, you probably wouldn't know it, but it's one of those things we keep an eye on. We've never noticed much difference in the way of actual eye movement but your eyes develop pretty slowly so we will probably still check on that every once in a while.
That said, it's pretty likely that after Friday afternoon - we're done. She's fine, it's over. I think that deserves a celebration. I'm so happy she's okay - so happy that we didn't damage anything with all the steroids or the heart medication. We've decided to take this summer and all just have fun together. We are doing little day trips with her, and taking her to the beach and throwing her a cowgirl birthday party next month, which of course I'm going a little over the top about. I love pony rides - it's going to be great. Can't wait.
So that's it I suppose. One last Bella update, one more trip to Vancouver to finish things off. One more time.

Because We're Insane, That's Why

2011-06-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

We are driving (DRIVING!) to Wyoming. Next week. With Bella. In the car. To Wyoming. A little fuzzy on your geography? It a road trip long enough that if you could draw on the planet with a big red marker, you could see that road trip from space. Bella is going to be in the car with us. Did I mention that already?

I remember last year, the idea of a 14 hour plane ride nearly drove me to drink. I couldn't imagine keeping her in one spot that long. I was CERTAIN that I would end up in a tiny airplane bathroom bawling and holding my screaming child. She did beautifully. Just perfectly, couldn't have asked for anything better. There AND back. And this time, we have a portable DVD player. And folks, I am heading to the library and plan to fill half my car with exciting DVDs. She's gonna love it. The other half of the car is going to be filled with children's Gravol. Don't judge me. It's Bella in a car for 18 hours.

So far, the plan of attack involves an evening ferry out of town and then do most of the trip through the night. And the Gravol. If we can catch the 8pm ferry, we should hit the border around 10:30. By the time she wakes up, we should only have about seven or eight more hours. Eight hours is only two more hours than I strapped her in a hiking backpack the other weekend. She can totally do it. Plus, Dora and the Backyardigans and the Veggies, and Guess With Jess are all coming and will be hooked up to the DVD player. It'll be fine.

At this point I welcome any roadtrip advice or even meaningless comforting lies about how totally great this will be.

Just a couple run on sentences for your enjoyment....

2011-04-28T23:57:00.001-07:00

Sunday afternoon I will be taking my last pill. I don't expect to enjoy Monday evening much when my body goes "hey! Where's my stuff!" for the first time, -and I expect to hate Tuesday. I'm willing to have next week as a whole, be a total wash.
I've dropped from 8 pills (not counting the other medication that I quit a couple months ago) to one pill in 8 weeks and as they don't make smaller pills and I don't want to deal with compounding I'm going to quit and tough it out until the withdrawal is over. I don't have to work next week so that'll be a big help. This last drop has been pretty intense. Today I had the worst brain zaps I've had yet, was nauseated enough to take gravol during the day and not care if I was tired, and a screaming headache.
In total, I will have been on medication for ten short months. For not being depressed in the first place, I have a hard time with that number, but it is still a smaller number than my doctor wanted. My taper has been aggressive and I've paid for it (so has Peter and anyone else unfortunate enough to encounter me on a Wednesday). I'm ready to be done. Three more pills. Three more days.
I wish I felt better about the way it all went. I still feel unresolved about the doctor, still want to egg his office some days. I'm still mad and guilty and I still have trouble remembering things that I did only a few months ago. I have no memory of events that I should be able to easily recall. I'm still getting stressed out too easily, still having trouble multitasking, but hopefully those things will start to slowly get better when my body adjusts to having no medication. My family are all saying what a drastic change they've noticed in me since my starting to wean and that's good. I still spend all my time wondering how I got here, upset at what I've said and done, and guilty over things that I can't change now.
I'm tired. I have to tell you though, when I can get myself to relax and fall asleep, I sleep like a dead person. It's the best sleep I've had since those early pregnant sleeps where you're not quite to the sick phase but you just sleep 14 hours a day because you're so exhausted from trying to produce a human. That exhaustion never goes away, but your ability to sleep will, and then it's downhill unless you can get addicted to a batch of anti-depressants and then fall asleep after dropping your nearly lethal doses to something your body is supposed to be able to handle. If I could quit the nightmares, I'd be golden. The other night it was trying to escape from Russian Mobsters in Tokyo who wanted to rape me, but I was so blind drunk in my dream that I kept stopping while running away and looking at these amazing shoes for sale in the night market, then remembering these guys wanted to do horrible things to me and running again. This is strange in that I don't know any Russians, have no idea why they'd be cruising around Japan, have never been to a Japanese night market (though the Thai ones are cool) and have also never been blind drunk. Or raped (thank God).
Then it was humpback whales who ate Bella because she fell out of a window while looking at them. I'm scared of whales, did you know that? I think they're amazing and majestic and so beautiful, but if I were kayaking and came across a humpback whale, I would pee my pants and probably have a heart attack and drown while the whales ignored me. I was swimming in Hawaii once and I looked down to see a huge sea turtle beneath me and I lost my mind. I was on the beach hyperventilating with panic while marveling at how beautiful it was in about two seconds. Poor turtle. Seriously, what did I think it was going to do? Chase me? Geez. Sometimes when I'm swimming I think about all the creatures that I'm sharing a body of water with and my heart races so badly and I feel so tiny and insignificant, and okay, edible, that I have to go lay on the beach and have a Smirnoff Ice and calm on down. I love to swim - there's something so free, and so quiet about being suspended underwater - just don't be stupid and think "Holy crap! I'm in the same water as like, thousands of whales, some probably within a couple of miles of here. Robyn saw killer whales on the ferry last week (jealous!!!) and those whales could easy be near here by now".
Now that you're all sure that I'm insane and really should be on some form of medication, I'm going to go and mix my powdered cement supplement with some water that I should be drinking WAY more of, take two natural relax supplements (that I may keep around the house forever, because I'm, well, me) and a couple of omega and DHA supplements, a prenatal vitamin (because EVERY woman should take them - always) and crawl into bed and finish my book. And pray that I sleep dreamlessly. Goodness, that would be fantastic. Three more stupid pills.

Tourist

2011-04-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a firm believer in loving where you live, which is really easy for me. I remember vacationing in Coombs as a girl. I remember getting a pair of white cowboy boots at one of the kitschy little stores that surround the main square when there was still a huge ferris wheel in the center. I wore those boots with a short baby-doll dress for my birthday so you can date that accordingly, if you wish. I live here now and every spring when the Alberta and Saskatchewan license plates start showing up, I grumble with the best of the locals about how, "You've seen Oceanside, now go home!" Secretly though, it's amazing to live in a place where people want to vacation - where I used to vacation. Yes, it means that on a sudden Tuesday in June you can't get anywhere near Coombs market to get your organic veggies, but hey, look at the view here! I can cope. Begrudgingly.

A few days ago, Peter and I did a "tourist at home" day. I love being able to have these, and I enjoy them every time. We packed up Bella and drove the fifteen minutes to Parksville and enjoyed the sunny view while watching the clouds come in over Mt Arrowsmith, threatening rain. Our first stop was Qualicum Cheeseworks, and no matter how many times I go I have so much fun. It's the Saskatchewan farm girl coming out in me, a piece of my DNA that I'm so happy Bella has inherited and Peter doesn't understand as I breathe in the glorious smell of a working farm. Yes, that smell is manure, but somehow when mixed with fresh spring air, hay, dirt, and the musty woodsy smell of an old barn, it becomes an intoxicating perfume to me.

I'm sure they'd be just as busy if they charged for parking or admission, but I love that they don't. This was the first time we'd taken Bella, and folks, she LOVED it. She went wild. She chased a duck who was well mannered enough to not bite her fingers off, as I would have done. She squealed at baby chicks and asked politely to be left in their cage with them for all eternity. She kissed a sheep on the nose and saw a calf born two days ago. The best part of the day was when we entered the bunny pen and while I was cuddling the most adorable little rabbit, Bella asked her Daddy if she could "please kick a bunny?" I kid you not. She unfortunately inherited her father's DNA which involves seeing some kind of sport with a complicated rule system and a high incidence of total disaster during every day activities. I guess the gorgeous little lop-eared creatures sitting peacefully in the sun just begged to be punted. I thought they were so adorable I could just cuddle them making squealing noises forever, but once the critter in my arms decided I had taken things too far by kissing it's cute wiggling nose, it leaped from my arms and went running about the enclosure. Bella stopped asking to abuse the animals and giggled uproariously. Apparently they just weren't moving enough for her.

We ended up in the shop while Bella ate her weight in cheese samples that they make fresh on the farm. I had two tiny spoonfuls of the berry cream cheese that they make and held myself back from buying them completely out of stock. Bathing suit season is just around the corner but oh, the texture of that cheese and the taste of fresh berries just makes me think of croissants and forget about the sight of my love handles in a pair of cute jeans. I could bathe in that stuff it's so delicious. In great news, I found out that they sell organic beef in small portions so I'll be back a few times this summer yet I'm sure. The wonderful lady behind the counter did not comment on the amount of cheese we consumed (we're a family of little will power) and instead offered us a few wine samples. Peter responsibly frowned at the time (it was still well before lunch) while I headed over to the bar and sampled some local gooseberry wine, which made me think of a picnic on the beach with some fruit and bread, and perhaps some of that berry cream cheese. We ducked out after buying a new cheese knife and a cute magnet before I lost total control and ate and drank and shopped myself into oblivion.

From the farm we were off to Little Qualicum Falls to show Bella where Daddy asked Mommy to marry him seven years ago and started the chaos we now call everyday life. She's obviously still far too young to care, but it was special having her there. We took a bunch of pictures and Bella ran around kicking pine cones which turned out to be a wonderful substitute for those poor bunnies. I shot some video of Bella and Daddy playing the above-mentioned complicated game (this one involved seeing if you could whack Mommy with the pine cone) that I'm sure I'll watch when she's off in college refusing to answer my calls. It occurred to me that days don't get more perfect than this as we acted like idiots in the car trying to keep Bella awake during the short drive to Coombs Market. We got parking in front of the General Store (imagine!) and we wandered around looking at things that I've seen a million times before, and bought in other countries. It was a joke with my family when I traveled that everything I brought back from some exotic place like Japan, Nepal, or India, could be found and purchased with ease at Coombs. It used to make me so angry but now that I buy plane tickets with much less frequency than I used to, it just makes me happy. We shared lunch and found out that there is now a new Italian restaurant in Coombs and as I am as big a sucker for pasta as I am for delicious cheese, I'm sure we'll include that as our next stop.

To think, people from the prairies spend heaps of money to get here, and this is where I live. I saw my first smattering of Alberta, Washington, and even a Colorado license plate on the way home and I couldn't help but laugh. Welcome to Oceanside. You really should just move here.

It's Ok, It's Just Wednesday.

2011-04-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

Goodness sakes. I'm sick to death of being on this medication. I know, I'm sorry. I'll try not to whine. I'm down to 75mg which is actually pretty amazing Given that in February I was taking 400mg and two different medications. I feel more like myself most of the time. Wednesdays are total crap though, and are becoming increasingly difficult. I drop my dose on Tuesday at lunch and I'm usually in bed before my body notices that it didn't get all of it's dose. By morning? I'm not a good person on Wednesday as my body realizes "Hey!! What the?" and tries to work with less hormone than it normally has, which is way less than it's had in the past. I'm generally angry, irrational and overwhelmed not to mention totally exhausted. I fight a headache for the whole day and get zapped fairly frequently.

By Thursday I get zapped intensely and often one time after another. On a Thursday my mood is more even but the zaps are incredible. I can't deal with a sudden change in temperature, like walking outside, or opening the fridge. If I touch something cold (like go to pour Bella's milk) or drink something hot (like the coffee I refuse to live without) I will get a very strong electric shock in the base of my skull. Often they're bad enough that if I'm talking, I completely lose what I was about to say. I find myself confused and disoriented often. I don't love to drive on Thursday and funny things become really hard for me. Like sitting and standing too quickly or turning my head to look into the back seat to see how Bella is doing. Or shoulder check. Like I said, I shouldn't drive.

By Friday I feel not bad. My mood is controllable, the zaps aren't great in the morning but even out by afternoon and by Friday evening I feel good. Saturday is a give away. It goes either way. Lately, as the medication dose I am on is down, but the percentage that I give up every week rises (It's was a 33% drop this week, next week is 50%) Friday can be marginally better than Thursday, and Saturday can still be manageable but pretty crap. Sunday though, I am myself, and Monday is the best day of the week. My body feels fairly well adjusted to the new dose of medication, just in time for me to drop it again the next day and by Wednesday I'm a raving bitch again. Sorry for the language. The woman I talk to at Point of Return said that that's the actual medical term for it, and Peter reluctantly agreed that it was fairly accurate.

Robyn used to go to school for Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday. Luc, being the sensitive little guy that he was, used to be okay on Monday (he'd just seen her that morning), and on Tuesday you'd try and plan an activity or something to keep him distracted, but Wednesdays were just crap. Wednesdays he could throw himself on the floor at being gently told that ice cream was not a suitable breakfast option, and weep openly. We started using the phrase, "It's okay. Nothing's wrong, it's just Wednesday." Wednesday night by dinner Robyn would be home and he'd be great. It's funny how many things happen on Wednesday that we apply that to now.

In good news, the taper is hard, but I'm making it that way. I could go slower if I wanted to and my zaps would be fewer, my moods more even. But I'd have to look at that pill bottle for longer and I just can't. In two weeks, I could possibly be done. I might see what my work schedule looks like and wait for Peter to have a day off at home with me and take my last pill the day before. Then I know I'm ok if I have a rough patch. I'm praying that it'll just be another drop, but I'm scared of that. I may just load myself up on Gravol and try to sleep through it. But I'll be done.

I still am having trouble remembering big stretches of time over the last few months, but my health feels better, and I've been managing some very occasional exercise. In dropping the meds, and starting to actually care what I eat and what I look like, I've lost seven pounds so far with not very much effort at all. At the worst, I was only ten pounds lighter that I was the day I went in to have Bella. I remember not caring that I was going to be fat forever and never like the way I looked again. Now my disgust with my own body and the mental state that got me there knows no bounds, so that's a good thing. Any strong emotion that promotes action is a good thing since what we noticed most on the drug was my inability to really care about anything other than Bella. I noticed my horrifyingly messy house the other day and it upset me so much that Peter kicked me out to clean it. My old doctor would say that that proves my OCD diagnoses but he'd be wrong. It proves that I'm me, but still a little too drugged to deal with the overwhelmed feeling that a messy house has always given me. I know it sounds funny but those things make me happy to see returning. Bad self image is better than no self image. Plus those seven pounds gone make me happy. Really happy. Happy enough that if the sun shines, I might walk around Westwood lake tomorrow. Anyone want to come?

More Shameless Self-Promotion

2011-04-16T16:32:00.002-07:00

Except it's not, because it's Bella. And she's not me, just all the very best and cutest parts of me. Anyway, go see her blog - lots of pictures, if you've been wondering how she's doing.

Quick, because this post can't be just another link to yet another blog that I keep up on - I will add a little filler with what I would have used as Facebook statuses lately, had I been signing in.

Tonight when putting Bella to bed, I noticed that she has another diaper rash. Or diaper blisters as they are in our house. As I was smearing her private parts thick with cream she says, "Ooooh! Make-up! Thanks!"

Two nights ago Bella found some of Robyn's expensive makeup that she'd stolen and stashed away for later. My mom showed her how to put her fingers into the hot pink blusher, and then rub her fingers on her cheeks. Cute. So they leave, I wash her face and I'm putting her to bed later on and we're doing the whole, "night night toes. Night night tummy." and Bella all of a sudden strokes her cheek and says, "Night-night makeup. I love you makeup"

Oh dear. That kid makes me laugh my face off every. single. day.

She is also terrifying me with things that I didn't think we'd have to deal with until YEARS down the road. Like a love of Justin Bieber. Thanks Shelly.

Life - Abundantly

2011-04-13T23:09:00.002-07:00

So I went ahead and did it. I made another blog that I'm hoping some people will want to join up on and co-author with me. I kind of had this idea to create a community where people could post hints and tips and questions about living healthily, no matter what that means to you.

So drop by, tell me what you think and if it's something you maybe want to be a part of, and I will stop going on, and on, and on, about it here.

Plus - I always love a good excuse to browse blog templates, and thanks to Cindi, I found another site that makes them. 

I Win

2011-04-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Just got a call from Urban Beet. I won dinner for two at Urbana Pizza! This is good news in that we went there a couple of weeks ago and really liked it, and bad news in that my sorry butt should consume nothing but salad for the foreseeable future.

It's also good news in that Peter and I could use a date night. Probably every other night for a year. It's one thing to have a baby, but to have a sick baby, followed by a crazy wife (even if it was the medication) plus all the ins and outs that being new parents entail, has been hard on us. We're not doing badly, not at all, but relationally, it feels a little like we've both been hit by a truck. And then backed over. We're discussing marital counseling, maybe once I'm off medication.

It's funny to put all of this out there. I found out yesterday that someone else reads my blog that I didn't know about. If you're reading, "hi Karen!"

Side Note: if you're reading, you should comment! I like to know if you popped by. Also, I cannot type "popped" without typing "pooped". And it always makes me laugh, even though that type of humor usually doesn't do it for me.

Anyway. It's crazy how people change. And how they stay exactly the same and all the pieces in between that will drive you crazy, make you laugh, fall in love, or pull your hair out. Bella is changing. I don't have a baby anymore. She's a little girl. She has opinions on what she wears in the morning, whether she wants to keep her jammies on or wear a dress or jeans or what. She wants to wear my jewelery and make up all the time. The ear-piercing rule used to be, "when they're old enough to ask, and understand it will hurt." I was five when I had mine done, I'm sure she'll ask LONG before then. I predict this summer. She already asks, "Mama, bracelet? I want it?" when we're checking out at some store. She takes her little purse shopping and has opinions on what shoes she likes and the other day decided she didn't like marshmallows because although they tasted amazing, she didn't like being sticky. She is all things girl, and I love it. Love. It. But she doesn't sing to sleep anymore, and she mostly likes to fall asleep on her own, after a very short "snuggle" if I'm lucky.

Peter is different, and so much the same. He feels the same about me. The things we fell in love with in each other have been buried under a lot of "Life" and we are digging though, sorting what's important as though we're beggars in a distant country, searching for something in the mess that we can save, maybe sell, or use to make a life. Some days there's a lot to find. Some days we sing Bella to sleep, Peter with his guitar, which she loves. I hold her in the dim light of her room and life is literally so perfect you could just bust apart in a million pieces with the beauty of it all.

Then I freak out over nothing and ferret through my screwed up brain and try and figure out which thoughts are mine, and which are just the medicine. Sometimes I miss them and I boil over like an unwatched pot and make a mess. Peter gets the lucky job of cleaning me off, and usually himself, and trying not to take me personally. I told him today, that if it wasn't for Bella, I'd leave and come back when it was over. I'd find some place to hide with my pills and my vitamins and my wildly swinging moods and when I lashed out or freaked out or got brain zapped until I was so jumpy that I could kill you for the smallest imagined infraction, the only people who would feel it would be the squirrels I'd scare out of their trees. Sometimes, I'm scared out of my own tree, so it seems fitting.

It occurs to me that this is when people give up. That this is when a lot of people would decide that the means doesn't justify the end, and they'd part ways. Sometimes I want to go just to save Peter the upset of dealing with me. I'm angry and guilty and that seems to be about ninety percent of what I feel. As the medicine drops the angry goes down and the guilty goes up. At least the guilt is just mine. There's not a lot of what we started with some days, but somewhere underneath this nonsense is a foundation we built in better days, and I trust in the foundation. I trust the people who built that. I believe in the methods they used to build it. Although some days you couldn't tell from looking, not even from the inside, this is a construction project, not demo day. They look the same though don't they? For that period right before things get built, you can't tell if a house is being torn down or put back together. We're even doing some remodeling, though it's occurring to me now I'm taking this metaphor a little far.

There's things that we abandoned in the early days, or things that we allowed to be taken from us that we're willing to fight for now. Things that we know we can't live without. Mostly, we want to be a family and we don't want this life we've found ourselves in. I promised Peter a very long time ago that I'd never become the kind of wife who wanted nothing but a house, a white picket fence, and a mortgage. I want a life of adventure, and one of missions. I meant that. I mean it still. We said vows when we got married and nothing has changed. We've made them to Bella when we dedicated her, promised that she'd never come from a broken home and we meant it.

This seems to be our song lately, the one Peter plays to Bella on his guitar quietly at night in her room as she looks back and forth between us and you can actually feel the Earth quiet around us and things go exactly right for just a few minutes. We belong to each other, and nothing changes that, not ever. But we belong to something more than ourselves as well, and the greatest peace lies in that. It's a peace I need so much more of, and one I'm learning to grab onto, trying not to remember a time when I didn't believe it was mine all along.

I Suck At This

2011-04-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

First, I realized that I skipped a category and now I have to go back and do a song that reminds me of someone, which I will, because this is fun and I'm liking finding all sorts of music. But I got crazy sick this weekend and just stopped caring.

You should know, kidney stones? It's actually true what they say. They hurt worse than labor. It's actually alarming. Except, when you're in labor, they will throw every conceivable drug at you. When you have a kidney stone, they tell you that it could be a muscle spasm (that doesn't allow me to pee?!?! Doctors are morons) or maybe an intestinal thing and can you pee in a cup? Then they stabbed me with a needle and forgot all about me. Oh, but for the pain, they recommended advil. And lots of water and rest.

ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS!?!?!?!?

Worse than labor. Advil. No payoff at the end except finally the bliss of getting to pee. No cute baby girl staring at me with big black eyes, just a toilet full of pee and a little pressure off my bladder, but wait! I took some really old Tylenol 3 that I found and forgot that codeine makes me puke. So then I dealt with that. Aren't you glad you tuned in?

All to say, I will maybe do another song thing tonight. Maybe tomorrow - I have a lot of Good Wife on my PVR.

Day Six (ish): A Song That Reminds You of an Event

2011-03-31T16:31:00.000-07:00

Could also be under my happy songs. This was the song that Peter and I walked back down the aisle to on our wedding day. As we kissed, it was supposed to come on at that moment, loud, but I think there was some sort of malfunction. On the video though, it's perfect which is how I remember it.

I remember Peter swinging me around up at the alter, after telling his dad politely to "step back" with his hand raised like a traffic cop. I loved that moment best, maybe even more than when he sang to me - I wish I could put that song up during this time. Maybe I'll figure that out here...

Strangely, I'd never seen the video. Now I like the song more.

Day Five: A Song That Reminds You of an Event

Everyday

Dave Matthews Band

Day Five: A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere

2011-03-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is going to be another really weird association, that makes no sense whatsoever. You should go to the bottom, click on the song and listen while you read - it was hard to explain, and I'm drinking wine again, which makes me wordy:

I remember going back to staff DTS in Kona, which was literally the very best time of my life - I wish everyone alive could experience that time. Pure bliss. It was so great that I couldn't even take it for granted. I knew every waking moment that I would always look at that time in my life and long for it back.
Right after I got there I became friends with this girl, who incidentally had a car, though I didn't realize then that on a YWAM base, this is tantamount to celebrity. One thing Hawaii wasn't was beaches. The Big Island has surprisingly few actually, and any that are halfway decent are taken over by very expensive hotels. But, I now had a friend with a car, and we spent the first three weeks before the students arrived (and every weekend after they were there) taking off and sneaking into said hotels. It's amazingly easy if the pool is outdoors, and you're in a place like Hawaii, where everything needs a lanai feel to it so nobody bothers to build walls anywhere. The front desks and common areas of most hotels have no walls, thus, no doors, thus, no keyed entry to get to the pool. Grab a blue and white striped towel from the stack waiting, order a drink at the bar, and lounge. Or drive the half hour to a beach and get sand in your bathing suit. Tough decision.

Anyway, I digress (and miss Hawaii, suddenly). This friend, the one with the car, had just broken up with her boyfriend and was sad about it, and I had just finished a really foul relationship that I'd gotten in with a guy who drank and smoked pot incessantly and who fought with me far more than he was nice to me. Don't ask. The last time I walked out of his apartment though he was crying and I was laughing with relief that I had a plane ticket in my name and didn't have to actually grow a spine and stop a really destructive relationship. All to say, I have been an idiot at many times in my life, none worse than RIGHT before I left for Hawaii, and I got there and ended up nursing my stupidity with the self-righteous feeling that said, "I'd have stopped seeing him. I wouldn't have done anything really regretful, or anything that my family and God and any female with half a brain wouldn't be ashamed to be associated with me for. I WOULD HAVE. Promise. Ahem."

My friend, who had a brain, was sad at the loss of a real relationship and listened endlessly to this CD, which I think might be the best break-up album of all time. So while she was sad and singing "And as for me I'm gonna hear the saddest songs and sit alone and wonder how you're making out" I was falling in love with Hawaii and the grace of God that plucked me from I am certain would have been a life-destroying relationship and plunked me straight into the best two years of my life. And for that reason alone, I will always love Dashboard Confessional. Their melancholy whiney emo garbage always takes me to Hawaii. Killer Taco's with the girls before we head to the beach or to sneak into the Hilton. Crushed into a backseat that was never meant to hold more than one bag of groceries, no AC in the heat, bathing suit under my shorts and tank top, and a bag with a good book and some tanning oil, and a piece of fruit that I'd stolen from the lunch line. It's a sad song, and yet, will always make me incredibly happy.

Day Five: A Song That Reminds You Of Somewhere

Dashboard Confessional: "Screaming Infidelities"

Day Four: A Song That Makes You Sad

2011-03-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

Day Four: A Song That Makes You Sad

How Great Thou Art

Carrie Underwood

I wasn't there when Grandpa died. I miss him all the time. I dreamed about him a couple nights ago, and he was taking some new Parkinson's medication that gave him purple blotches on his skin, and randomly, his nose turned purple and he was laughing with me and making fun of himself. He clenched his shaking fists and said, "Well, I took a good bop to the nose, but you should see the other guy!" and I laughed. I could hear his voice and his laugh, and I grabbed his old bicep and felt how frail he was getting through that brown plaid dress shirt he used to wear. Stupid medicine. Stupid vivid dreams. It was so real. I haven't had that clear a dream about Grandpa since he died.

I think all the time about how at the end of his life he was so grateful for all that God had done for him. He was such a great man. He had great kids, and grandkids, and I don't even see them all as much as I'd like. He married a really wonderful woman who I love with all my heart, and I keep kicking myself for not asking her more about her life before we all came into it. What do we talk about with her? I don't want those stories to go away. I think I'm going to get a little tape recorder and start taping her talking about them - one day we're all going to want this written down. She told me one day about her and grandpa's first kiss. It's a great story. Like something out of a book, probably by Lori Wick.

This song also makes me sad, because I really don't follow in Grandpa's footsteps the way I wish I did. I want to leave a legacy like that for my daughter too, and to make how he lived mean something....

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to have wine while I did this?

Day Three: A Song That Makes You Happy

2011-03-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm trying not to be embarrassed right now, I really am. I'm wondering if I should save this one for the "guilty pleasure" song that I see down the list. Whatever. Now that I've seen the video, I know it has to go here.

Day Three: Happy Song

June Afternoon

Roxette

Best part of the song? Listen to them say squirrels. Oh man. The video, not going to lie, you may have to be on acid to enjoy. Except the clown with the lightbulbs on his head. He's creepy as all get out and I think you might die of fright if you looked at him without being in your right mind. And the naked people with the body paint. Oh man. Happy. And a little embarrassed, but mostly, just happy happy.

I remember this one summer before everything went squirrely with my dad and all that (sorry - couldn't help it) and we'd just bought that house with the pool and everything was great. Our friends were over that summer ALL the time and Shawn and I bought the Roxette greatest hits album and listened to it while we helped my mom paint. Maybe the paint fumes contributed. It was just a fantastic summer. Why is summer music better than any other music? Anyone?

Anyway, if that's my happy song, I'm sure you can't wait to see what my guilty pleasure song is. I'm a wild and strange mix in music taste, as evidenced.

Day Two: My Least Favorite Song

2011-03-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

It's so hard to pick just one! But I would have to say - this is it:

Day Two: Least Favorite Song

How Bizzare - OMC

It's hard to explain why I hate it so much. It makes me want to slap someone. Did they have more songs than this? I don't know. I do know that if I am shopping, and this song comes on, I will put down my purchase, walk out of the store and come back later, if I'm feeling generous. It might literally be the most annoying thing I've ever heard. Yep. Just makes me want to slap someone across the back of the head. Maybe when they're not expecting it, and it makes them trip and do that running thing where your arms kind of windmill while you're trying to catch yourself.

That being said, I have hated Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen since the third grade. Someone's mom worked in the school and let us in at night for a birthday party in the library, at Valley Manor. The movie chosen was Wayne's World. Third grade party. I know. There's something that is crazy creepy anyway about being in a school late at night with all the lights off, but since that night, I had a recurring nightmare that had Bohemian Rhapsody playing in the background. For YEARS. I never could make myself like Wayne's World, even once I watched it when it was age appropriate - maybe that's where my intense hatred of that type of comedy comes from as well? Goodness sakes I have issues, not that that's news to anyone at all. There you go.

Ooh! Blog Challenge! Day One.

2011-03-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I will have to thank Auntie Chris for this one, since I haven't been on Facebook, and wouldn't have known otherwise. I like the idea and lets face it, my blog has been a little on the serious/ranting side, so I'm going to take part. And I missed NaBloPoMo last year, so I'm in. Carrie!! You should do this! It would be a great way for me to get new music. And Trav. Why doesn't everyone blog anymore. I loved it so much more than Facebook. Ah well. Here we go:

Day One: Favorite Song

Falling Slowly

From the Motion Picture Soundtrack 'Once'

Glen Hansard / Marketa Irglova

Oh, I love it so very much. I could never pick an all-time favorite, but this is my favorite lately. I wish I could find you the video where they performed it at the Oscars but I think they keep a pretty close watch on those videos, since they're copyrighted. I'd never heard it before then and it was one of those songs that I just knew I'd love forever. I recently re-found it and it just warms my heart. For whatever reason it speaks to me right now, and often makes me cry a little when I hear it. Peter just learned how to play it on the guitar for me, and it's nice to hear his voice singing it too.

Weak

2011-03-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have another appointment today. For a whole half hour, which is a lifetime in Doctor Land. It's like Candy Land, only the candies are different. Sorry - my sarcasm with the medical world knows no bounds. None. I have to pass a mental health assessment today. This raises the question again,

"If I am on drugs that can alter your personality, WHY are my answers regarding my mental health all you need to treat me?"

I'm sure this will involve another lovely paper quiz probably one that I've done before. I don't know how far to "comply" with the standard operating procedure here, and how much to challenge it. Not much today. I only have five days of medication left. I can't tell you how much I hate sounding like an addict. He has to write a prescription, so I have to be nice. And mentally stable.

I'm making friends from all over the world, in rehab, as one friend affectionately calls it. An online forum community where anyone on anything can just chat about what they're dealing with. It's alarming how many of these people are Christians. A majority, I'd say. Scriptures are a part of their profile, things they're clinging to.

"He shall give sleep to His beloved - Psalm 127:2" one woman chants to herself desperately as she roams her house at night, wanting nothing more than to take a sleeping pill and escape into a blissful unawareness that most of us take for granted when our heads hit the pillow every night. She just wants to sleep.

During withdrawal, my counselor was awake for 17 days. She quit cold turkey, in a rehab facility, and never closed her eyes for more than five minutes without waking up to pace again. She watched THREE cycles of heroin addicts suffer through withdrawal and leave rehab before her withdrawals ended. The staff said they'd never seen such torture and after that didn't allow anyone to detox cold turkey at their facility. They had to do it at a hospital, they were so sure she would die from it.

I think my question today is, "Why am I finding more Christians in 'rehab' than anyone else?"

Is it that they are who are strong enough to decide to kick the medicine bottles as opposed to just resigning themselves to a lifetime of pill bottles? I really doubt it. It's a nice answer, but probably not the true one.

In processing this all, I think the worst betrayal comes in WHEN this happened. It was incredibly difficult for me to tell Dr.X that I wasn't feeling okay. It was hard to call work and say that I was too worried about Bella to both work and worry. I needed time. That's not acceptable in our culture anymore. We of the Braun genetic line could teach courses on not being weak. We are tough. We can do it ourselves, or figure it out if we can't.

I wasn't tough enough to do both. That wasn't a sickness, it was a fact. Life came at me and I took it a little bit harder than even I expected. I took it harder than some people would have - but that's not a sickness either. That's me. I'm emotional. I'm learning not to care that other people thought I took it "too" hard. Walk in my shoes and then give me your opinion on that. Until you have heard the words "Something is wrong with your child" you don't know what that will do to you. No clue whatsoever. This has been HARD on us, and I'm okay with that. Peter said after the one day we went to the psychiatrist together, "It was therapy enough to hear someone say it mattered, and that it matters still." I couldn't agree more.

Instead of believing that, I believed that it made me sick. I believed that being so worried for my daughter was an actual chemical imbalance in my brain. This is astounding to me. How did I get there? I believe with all my heart that pharmaceutical companies are out to manipulate healthy people into believing they are not. If that sounds like a conspiracy theory, then I suppose it is, until you see the following quote to Forbes Magazine by former head of Merck (HUGE Pharmaceutical Company):

"It has long been my dream to make drugs for healthy people, so that my company can sell to everyone"

Thirty years later, a staggering number of us have responded to the ads we see on television and bought into the lies. There are a huge number of grief disorders now being put forward as actual sickness. I can't tell you how many people I chat with daily in 'rehab' say that they were put on antidepressants after someone they loved died. Why can't we just be sad? I have a friends who have lost babies, and the common thread is that they are expected to "get over it" so quickly. It wasn't even a baby yet, it wasn't meant to be. Maybe it was disabled and so God was really just being nice to you. Becky wrote recently that it never stops hurting to think about her dad. It still feels like someone should come in and re-write her story. One day, Someone will. Until then, we are allowing people to label our weaknesses as sicknesses.

20% of children under five are being treated with some sort of behavioral drug. They have a host of illnesses. ADHD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. They're being medicated for it. With medications that NOBODY knows the long term side effects for.

My counselor took her Masters degree while under the influence of anti-depressants, pain meds, and sleeping pills. She completed everything except her final exam, which she planned to take in a different city after she moved. Randomly, or maybe not, she went to rehab before she took the tests. Once she was medication free, she went to take her tests and literally did not remember one single thing. Courses she had aced were gone from her memory. Her brain did not care that her drugs said Rx on them and were peddled by the television and a doctor instead of by a slimeball behind a dumpster with a baggie in his hand. Her brain lost the ability to store information while on "medication".

I wonder if 20% of kids one day will be sitting in high-rise offices, have great lives, kick their 'behavioral aids', and forget how to read? It's not a silly thing to worry about. Nor is the very likely decrease we will see in about 10-20 years in all forms of art. Artistic kids are more likely to be put on medication when they're young, but the same medications make them unable to create. It suppresses that exact part of their brain.

Now we're not just letting people tell us we're sick when we're sad, we're letting them tell us we're sick when we don't happen to be the kind of four year olds that can sit in a classroom for 6 straight hours, five days a week. I can take one look at Bella and tell you that she is going to be that kid. She wasn't made for stillness. I'm sure we'll teach her to be still sometimes, but she's a creature of action, and I love that about her. But she isn't sick, and I will NEVER give her a behavior altering drug on the basis of a sickness that no doctor can prove exists.

But I did let them do it to Bella's mommy. Worry for Bella became Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD - I even get my own acronym). When all we did was give her medicine and Peter's schedule didn't allow him to do it on a regular basis, I needed to give it to her myself. I spent SO MUCH TIME thinking about her medication, because I had to. Because it had to be taken at a specific time, and it had to be kept cold and on and on and on. It was easier to cope if I just did it. I could remember. But that meant that I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a medication to go with it.

My little girl is up. Tomorrow night I will give her her last dose of medication. Friday, I will not put a syringe in her mouth. Not one time. I just sterilized about fifteen syringes, and just realized I can put them all away. I only need three more. Oh the healing that floods every corner of my body and mind when I think of that. When I look at her beautiful little face. I am not weak. I'm a mom. I am more blessed than I have any right not be, and am happier than I've been in about 18 months, and that's what I'll be telling my doctor in a half hour.

Tomorrow

2011-03-15T12:50:00.001-07:00

I'm meeting Dr Bodenstab who I am praying with all my heart will be my new family doctor. Today I begin dropping my medication dose from 300mg to 262.5. We do that for a week, then we drop it again.

If everything goes the way it's supposed to, and I wean off okay with no setbacks then May 10th will be my first medicine free day. I'm excited for that day.

I'm spending inordinate amounts of time on the computer, and reading. I don't want to make all this public for any sort of pity party. Honestly, I wish nobody knew. It's embarrassing more than anything. I'm hoping that someone, somewhere will read this and start asking questions regarding what they're taking. I hope they'll take a little time to look into it, to question why their one medication has led to another and possibly another yet.

I don't do very many things half-way. Except clean my house, but that's a different story. I figure if my diet and exercise can change this, then what else are we as a family unknowingly loading our bodies with? I'm not supposed to have MSG among other things while tapering my medication. Going through my cupboards, do you have any idea how many things I eat (things I think are HEALTHY!) have MSG in them? I don't know what MSG is. I know what it stands for, and what it's for, but what is it exactly? A zucchini looks like a cucumber, it is yummy in stir fry, blended it will keep muffins and breads incredibly moist. It's a vegetable, in the squash family. It grows on a vine on the ground. I don't know what MSG is. I don't know what Splenda is, except that it's a sweetener that is supposedly better for you than aspartame. I know that my spell check doesn't recognize it. Unbleached flour is all I'm allowed to have, preferably whole wheat. But it's brown. Eww. But if I think for a second, why am I okay with bleached flour. I lock up my bleach to keep it away from Bella. But I feed it to her, or bath her with it?

When I punched in the ingredients in Bella's shampoo the other day, I did not know one of them except water. And the list was LONG. I typed every last ingredient into a dermatology index website and was horrified by what came up. This ingredient caused three rats to die. This other ingredient attacks the central nervous system (that's why it's labeled 'calming'). Someone working in the plant making Bella's shampoo died because of accidental exposure. Some of the ingredients do not have to be listed because they are not things that are being intentionally put into the shampoo. They're a chemical result of mixing two other chemicals, and thus, the FDA has passed a law saying that manufacturors don't have to list it as an ingredient. Even if that chemical reaction is toxic to my baby. Even if it gives her cancer in ten years. Why are babies getting cancer at all?

I have now found a website and ordered Bella an all natural baby shampoo. It came yesterday, and I was skeptical. I bought Bella's shampoo because I loved the way it smelled and I'd heard never to use Johnson and Johnsons. Except that they own Aveeno. Oops. Way to check the fine print, Mellie. Last night we gave her a bath and I washed her down being careful to avoid her eyes. You should with every shampoo, because if it says tear free, then there is a problem. It's no better for their eyes, it just deadens the nerves it touches to feel the pain of the chemical in their eyes. Promise. Go look it up - I didn't believe it either. I thought my  mom was full of hooey. Anyway, the soap worked great. Her skin was CRAZY soft and her hair was detangled and felt like silk. And she smelled like lavendar. Not like lavender scent, but like a handful of fresh lavender. I LOVE it. And it's no more expensive than what I was buying before. And I can read each of the four ingredients on the back.

This weekend we're going farmer's marketing. I'm excited. I love that BC affords us that all year round. We are going to start buying meat from a farm. With animals. That eat grass and grain, of all things. I made organic spaghetti the other night, it was awesome. It did not require me to make the sauce from scratch. Mario Batali makes a jarred tomato sauce, you can buy it at Costco for $2.50 a jar. It's incredibly good. Add some ground sirloin and some fresh basil and even some real parmesan cheese, and it's delicious. We all ate it, and Peter isn't a spaghetti fan at all.

I'm eating farm eggs. Have you ever eaten a farm egg next to a grocery store egg? You would be shocked at the difference. One has a flavor. 

 We are giving up white flour. I know. Pasta!! But I'm finding some whole wheat brands that don't taste like cardboard. I'm also going to attempt to make it on my own. CHEAP, and delicious. We had grain fed chicken thighs  the other night and first of all, they were yummy, but they were also a third of the price of chicken breasts - non-organic. When did we decide that we only eat the breasts? I love dark meat, I think it has a flavor. I'm still working on sauces. Other than the tomato sauce, they're the hardest to find. Maybe the market will have some.

Anyway, we're making huge lifestyle changes over here, and I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. I've cut my caffeine intake to one cup in the morning and I'm getting fewer brain zaps (none so far today, and only a few yesterday) and I haven't killed anyone! I'm sleeping better, though the dreams you have when you go through withdrawal are just insane. No words. They're just nuts. And VIVID. I wake up every morning certain they've happened. Be gone from me you devil drug!!

I may start a blog just about the whole food and lifestyle thing. The goal is to find it for a comparable price (lets face it, I don't need something to spend more money on) or cheaper, and have it be better for us, and still maintain the quality or taste that I'm looking for. So far, the soap and the tomato sauce have been my major accomplisments.

If you could pray for our doctors appointment tomorrow, we'd sure appreciate it. I so need it to go well. I'm already earning a name for myself in the BC medical system, and it's 'non-compliant'. Doesn't look good. Neither does doctor hopping. Here's hoping this is my last hop, it's all I have energy for.

Love you guys. Lots.

Broken

2011-03-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

I'm so angry and hurt and surprised that I almost don't know where to leave myself. Um, brain zaps anyone? I've got more than my fair share today. I feel like I'm being electrocuted from the inside out. Being this upset doesn't help. I'd kill for a glass of wine if I knew it would make me feel better.

Today we had to meet with our doctor (the one who put me on 300mg Effexor and 100mg Sertraline). We told him we wanted to approach my health through more natural means, and that although at the time I didn't realize it my husband and family had noticed FAR more negative side effects to the medications than they've seen benefits. We said it as nicely as possible, that we'd made the decision as a couple and that we would like to start weaning off the medication. He asked for a scenario in which since being on medication I have acted totally uncharacteristic to myself.

Shortly after going on meds, I had to leave my husband for a week on a trip he was unable get time off for. I know it's sappy but we hate being apart. Even overnight. We usually laugh at each other about it. Just before leaving I told him that I wasn't sad to not see him, didn't think I'd miss him, and if that was how I was going to feel, we may as well get divorced.

When we told the doctor this today he said that it's not normal to not want to be alone and that I had separation anxiety and that it was just further proof that I was on the correct road - the hell of addiction. Nice.

I said, "but that's who I am! I always miss him. He's my husband, I love him, I don't like to be away from him."

"That's not your personality!" was his emphatic reply. His first act as my doctor was to put me on medication, and now he knows my personality? Enough to tell my husband who I am?! I'm furious.

The appointment digressed from there. We said that I was never depressed (true) and didn't understand the high dose. He said the dose wasn't high, it was therapeutic. Lie. We asked about the negative side effects that can be caused by mixing Sertraline and Effexor. He said they were monitoring me. Lie. I saw him last on Jan 5th. Before that, every month. He's never so much as taken my blood pressure. I was also never made aware of the risk. I was told nothing about Sertraline but that it would help me sleep. In the end, he wrote me a tapering prescription for now so I don't have to worry about my meds drying up and going cold turkey in six days. He thinks I'm chemically messed up but he can't make me take the meds.

How do you deal with this? Other than getting a new doctor of course. Thank God my rational husband was there. He was angry but held it in until the car. If I'd been alone, I'd have slapped him. He'd have deserved it. I need to interview doctors. I need an ally over here, but I have NO idea where to start. Thoughts??

This is what the medical community believes, isn't it? They're so used to having answers that they have no idea how to be wrong. I'm broken and thank God they are there to fix me. Thank God for the pharmaceutical companies that have exactly the right medication to fix who I am.

I just found Point of Return last week. Just found out I was addicted last week. Just found out everything I was taking and what it does. I don't know a lot. I've never been to medical school in my life, I failed biology. But I AM the expert on who I am. And I am not broken.

withdrawing

2011-03-07T20:03:00.000-08:00

I had the unspeakable joy of experiencing my first brain zap today. I remember my reaction upon reading those words for the first time. I believe my exact question was, "what in hell is a brain zap?!"
It's more or less exactly what it sounds like. As I grew up on a farm, all I could say is that it felt like someone places a piece of electric fence right at the base of my skull. Zap. My vision blurred for a second and then cleared. I don't know if I could say that it hurt per se. I've had a pretty persistent headache for days now so it aggravated that. Then I proceeded to have about 15 more in the space of about thirty minutes. Zap. Zap. Zap. I can imagine how people would be unable to go to work. I could barely concentrate on pushing my stroller around WalMart. I kept bumping into things. I was suddenly terrified to drive, wondering if one of them lasted longer than a second, if I'd black out. I'm sorry to say I was too embarrassed to call my parents, I'd been crying on my mother's already burdened shoulders enough that day. I got in the car, the cold air in my face helped, and drove to get Peter. Stopped for a red light. Zap.

By the time he got into the car I was crying and so incredibly tired I thought I could sleep for a month. I was so hoping that those last 50mg of Sertraline wouldn't make a difference either way. But because they negatively affect my Effexor, I'm being cautioned that this may be the hardest part of the weaning process but also the most important. Taking them together greatly increases my chances of getting Serotonin Syndrome.I just couldn't keep taking a risk like that. It's not just me. I belong to a lot of people, who I'm learning now feel like I've already been gone a LOT during these last seven months. I took my last dose on Friday, so we've now hit about 72 hours. They say most withdrawal symptoms are gone or greatly lessened in about a week. Four more days.

I've also found a new doctor, and have an appointment two days from now. Part of me wants to yell at my doctor but I know that's really misdirected anger as well. It's pharmaceutical companies. They are who tell the doctors how safe it is, how wonderfully helpful. Here is what I have learned as fact through some pretty solid research lately. I'm living on my laptop right now.

-Adverse reactions to prescription medication is the number four killer in the USA. Not overdoses. Reactions.

-It is impossible as a doctor, especially a GP to know the ins and outs of every medication. Mine never showed me a sheet of paper regarding the ones he prescribed. He had no idea that it raises blood pressure, and thus never monitored mine. He didn't know that doses need to be tapered upward just as slowly as downward. He didn't know that prescribing the Sertraline could actually poison my brain. How could he? Who can learn that much off the top of his head? Eight years of school is not enough. However, both he and I had a responsibility to check. He also had a responsibility to realize that the drugs are mood altering, so following my progress based on how I say I'm feeling, is a pretty poor way to gauge the situation.

-Doctors define addictions primary symptom as being the intense, overwhelming desire to have more. If the drug doesn't cause that the way, say, heroin does, then you are not addicted. The excruciating and sometimes fatal physical withdrawal symptoms are called simply that. You have withdrawal syndrome. Not addiction. As I am not emotionally addicted to my medication, quite the opposite, I am therefore not addictive, and the medicine is classified as non-addictive. When you take something you need to be SO clear on asking if there are withdrawal symptoms and what they are.

I've spent days crying already. I have heard stories of things I have said to Peter that I do not remember. I have been told that I blatantly lied to my mother, and was hideously rude to her on a number of occasions. My memory of these occasions is blurry at best, mostly not there at all, sometimes totally inaccurate, though clear to me. Peter is devastated that he didn't check closer. We blindly trusted, and won't ever make the same mistake again.

Let me tell you something though. When both Bella and I are medicine free, we are throwing one heck of a party. Peter will be getting a trophy. Bella will get presents, and I will get to see their smiling faces and have a clear, perfect memory of a perfect day. That day wasn't today, but tomorrow's coming.

Betrayed

2011-03-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

That's at the forefront of what I'm feeling. I don't know how this happened, or how I got here. I remember needing a doctors advice not to go back to work this August. I was still pretty stressed out about Bella's medical state and I had a health nurse say that I should talk to a doctor and go on short term disability in order to be home with her. She was needing medications three times a day - no daycare would have touched her, and I needed to be with her anyway. I was anxious about her. I was anxious about her relapsing. When I went to the doctor I told him I was struggling with anxiety but that I knew it was situational. I didn't think I had any kind of disorder, I just knew that I was pretty tense about her health and that I could see the effects of that in my day to day life and knew I would be a mess at work. I know this doctor. I go to church with him. I totally trusted his judgment on the topic at hand. He suggested medication. I balked. I didn't want to take pills. I didn't want to become addicted to something. He informed me that we would stay on a low dose, and that it was non-addictive. He mentioned that stopping it suddenly would produce undesirable side effects, as would missing a dose, but that it was not addictive. Semantics, I later found out. I noticed a change very quickly on a very low dose. I was happy with the results, and I felt like myself. The goal was to get me to 75mg and stay there for a few months, give myself time to relax, for things with Bella to go better. I was on half that and feeling pretty good. The trouble began when we got to 75 and I thought I would feel better than I did. I felt the same. Not worse but the same. He talked me into 150. The same. He talked me up to 300, which I now know is the highest dose I am able to be on without being hospitalized. I did not know that then.

I'm not clinically depressed. I haven't thought of suicide, or of drowning Bella in the tub. Never. After we hit 300 I said I still felt the same, still not sleeping well. The nightmares that I'd been experiencing before medication were still a problem. He told me it was possible I wasn't tolerant to the current drug, and perhaps we could try another. I was supposed to start the other drug and then wean off this one. That never happened. Until about a month ago, I found myself on the max dose of a pretty serious anti-depressant, and a high dose of another, which was sold to me as little more than a sleeping pill, also non-addictive.

I began to worry the first time I forgot to take a pill. I became so suddenly and so violently ill that I couldn't move. I couldn't turn my head without getting such dizziness that I thought I would pass out. I was home alone with Bella. I stumbled to the kitchen, ate a piece of bread that I kept down through sheer force of will and took my pills. I felt better within a couple hours, and luckily Bella went to bed.

Two months ago I told my doctor I wanted to go off the medication, and was more or less told no. It was said nicely, in good medical (and even biblical) jargon. If you don't stay on for at least nine months your risk of relapse is super high. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to ask, "relapse of what?" Bella is fine. She's doing great. The situation that was causing me anxiety has been lessened greatly. She's weaning off her medication beautifully so far. Why am I stuck on mine? He told me to come back in two months.

I'm starting to feel claustrophobic about these pills. I'm afraid to not take them because I get so sick. A month ago, when I refilled my prescription, the pharmacist gave me smaller pills. I knew I should take two, that it was the same amount of medication, but that other pill was staring me in the face and it upset me somehow. I didn't take it. Peter said I was nuts for doing it without a doctors consent. I couldn't have cared less. I cut my dose in half and found that I slept poorly and was unbelievably tense for a few days. I say "tense". Peter would say "furious". I still sleep worse, but don't feel as though I'm on a trigger switch to bite someone's head off. I haven't taken my original dose again.

Knowing that I was going to the doctor very soon to talk about coming off (nine months be damned) I started to research withdrawal symptoms online. I figured if missing a dose made me so sick, what on earth would not taking it do? I was nervous. Then I spent two days online, and I'm horrified.

What kind of poison am I pouring into my system? For what? I feel like I was put of chemotherapy for a paper cut. Chemo is necessary, it's good - if you have cancer. The possible benefit outweighs what the disease will do untreated. But I wasn't depressed. I was anxious about a situation and I wanted some extra time off work. I wish I'd left well enough alone. I should have stuck Bella with my mom and gone back to work. I should have made a visit with a psychologist. The few drop in visits I had helped me FAR more than this medicine has. We've never noticed a difference beyond the initial. I'd have been fine on 37mg. And now I'm on almost ten times that. The stories of people coming off this drug are horrific. People literally live on it for years because the withdrawals are so bad. And when they withdraw their doctors tell them it's their original depression returning, and so they go back on, and because the drug doesn't work as effectively after you've tried to come off, they go one more. Or add another.

I'm terrified. I look at those stupid bottles by my bed and they make me feel sick. They make me afraid. I see my doctor on Monday morning and I'm telling him that I am coming off. I'm done. I don't care what they say, or what happens, I'm not becoming more dependent on this than I already am. I'm so angry that I didn't research more when he handed me that first bottle. I'm astonished at how this has snowballed. I'm taking the medication of a severely clinically depressed person, just a few steps away from a psych ward. Unreal.

In the doctors defense, I approached him with a problem that he only had one answer to. They give out medication. I should have seen a psychologist. He never even recommended that I should. It's like I took my car to a plumber and expected a fix. I'm angry at myself for that.

There are so many stories like mine online. Stressful job, trouble sleeping: ten years later, still on meds and addicted to a host of them that have been taken to try and get off previous. I get that online is where I'm going to find the worst case scenario. I get that. I know it's not proportional, but there's SO MUCH of it. So many people who said they were told it wasn't addictive and believed it until they tried to quit. So many people who have asked how to come off to be told that they shouldn't.

In good news, I found a non-profit organization that combats withdrawals with natural supplements. They are INCREDIBLY well reviewed. They are founded by people who have been in much worse shape than I've ever been and by doctors who believe that antidepressants are being prescribed at a catastrophic rate, and often to people who do not need them. I'm calling them for a consultation later today. Then I'm going to the health food store. I'm considering stopping the one medication that I'm on a low dose for tonight. It's the weekend. Peter is home and starts day shifts now. We'll see what happens. I'm going to pray, eat well, and be really nice to myself. Peter's going to give me a wide berth (which I need, since one of the other side effects has been weight gain.) I'm going to try to sleep a lot and play with Bella and get outside. I'm going to get off this crap if it's the last thing I do.

Please, oh please, if you are reading this and are taking something for depression, I think that's great. If you have a doctor you trust and you've been through something horrible or you actually have a chemical imbalance in your brain, I think that these medications are good. I can testify that they work. I know people who have needed them and there is NO shame in that. I'm not one of those Christians that believes that every form of depression is spiritual and that doctors are evil and God will heal you if you're supposed to be healed. I don't believe that at all.

I just don't know how I got here. How anxiety over Bella turned into this. A couple of stupid panic attacks forever ago and I'm being treated like I'm practically psychotic. I'm angry. I feel bad for my doctor when I see him. I'm going to make Peter or my mom come with me. That'll keep me calm. I don't mistrust him per se, just don't understand why I'm here or how this happened and why he won't let me come off. He's going to give me a plan to come off on Monday or I'm going to find another doctor, and that's all there is to it. If I had read online what I know now, I would have never popped one pill. Never. And now it's been seven months. I guess we will see how it goes. Stupid. Stupid. I suppose, all this is to say, if you're considering going on medication of any kind, do a little research. See what you come up with, and under no circumstances be afraid to ask your doctor anything. Get a second or third opinion and don't be ashamed of that. At the end of the day, you still have to go home with you. And your myriad of pills. Blast and wretch.

End of the Tunnel

2011-02-28T22:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Bella,

Oh little girl. What a ride we've been on, you and your daddy and me. We have all cried so many tears together, haven't we? Today, our wonderful doctor said that you are doing just amazingly and we are going to try and quit your medicine. I know right now you like it, you think it's fun to shake the bottle, and you love to play with your syringes. You even give your stuffed toys "meh-essin" sometimes. I wish I could tell you how sad that makes me. Baby girls should never know what those things are. They shouldn't know where medicine is kept, or what a syringe is used for, or how to comfort a toy who has to take medication. It's so cute, and it's still so sad.

You are such a brave and good little girl. I'm so happy that you don't remember the beginning days of this, and I'm praying with all my heart that we don't have to go back there. So I have you ask you a favor. Baby girl, Mama needs your tiny little body to be super tough right now. I need it to remember that we don't want that mark there anymore and that it needs to keep fighting it away even when the medicine is gone. I don't want any more rush trips to the hospital. I don't want to see your beautiful smile go still on one side. I can't. I don't want them to give you the really bad medicine that hurts your poor tummy and makes you a little crazy. Even more crazy than you normally are - can you believe it?!

Mama's going to be a bit funny these next few days. She's prayed for a really long time that we would be all done your medicine. I want to throw those syringes in the garbage. I can't tell you how badly I want to throw them away. I want to stop looking at your mark and wondering if it's looking better or worse. I want to see your body do what it's supposed to do, and that is to keep you healthy and safe. I'm a little bit scared, did you know that? I hate feeling like I'm gambling with you, but that's what we have to do. The only way to know if you don't need the medicine is to just take you off and see, and I don't like that very much.

Here is what I do like: I like that you are the happiest and smartest and prettiest little girl there is. I like that you and Daddy and me are a family. I like how today in the car out of nowhere you said, "I miss you, Tasha!" It's true- we didn't watch any Backyardigans today. I can see how you'd miss her. I like your "cheesy smile" and the way your giggle sounds. I like all your little words, and your dancing and how much you love shoes and make up and books. You're amazing. You're such a good girl, and we're so close to being done, and when we are all done, your Mama is going to throw you a party and invite all your friends. Six weeks baby girl. Six weeks and then we're done.

I love you more than you will ever know, sweetheart. I'm so lucky to have you. So lucky.

Mommy.
xoxox

Gratitude Is The Essence of Trust

2011-02-16T10:21:00.001-08:00

Brennan Manning said that. I've waffled with thinking it's true or not a bunch of times. Surely the base of trust is rooted in something more than just the ability to be thankful. But the more I think about it and run it over in my mind, and have those words stick with me through some hard times, the more I realize how true they are.

I know that the opposite of love is not hate: it's apathy. The opposite of trust is not independence, as I so often seem to think and act out. The antithesis of trust is fear. I am almost always afraid in one form or another. But how afraid would I be if I simply looked at facts, and was grateful for what I found. It's a very simple truth, that if you just start counting your blessings, all of a sudden you find that you're just not afraid anymore.

Let's say, for the sake of a point, that I become paralyzed with the fear that Peter will cheat on me. He'll find a younger, prettier, easier woman to spend his time with and he'll leave Bella and I. I can take my mind down this road until I'm a total mess. Once I'm already afraid, Peter's words that he loves me and would never do that are useless to me. I'm terrified that he's lying. Telling me he isn't doesn't soothe me. But lets say I take a moment and very clearly list to myself what I know about Peter, what I can take in with my senses.
-Peter tells me he loves me all the time. He spontaneously says it at times when I feel unlovable.
-Peter is a man of integrity. He is a man who has never once broken his word to me in even the smallest thing.
-Peter is a perfectionist. Peter is someone who tries his best at literally everything he does from his job to installing our new DVD player. Peter is driven by a need to do things correctly.
-Peter is a good father. He's more than that, he's completely in love with Bella. If nothing else existed, if I was the most hideous wife of the planet, Peter would stay just to save Bella from having her parents split up. He'd walk through fire for her to have a good day, let alone a good life.

All of a sudden, the fear in me is replaced with how lucky I am to have Peter. How blessed Bella and I are. All of a sudden the suspicion in me that Peter doesn't have my best interests at heart is driven away by the obvious fact that he does. Because I know Peter.

I'm not good at this when it comes to God. Very likely because I don't know him as well as I should. Someone told me once that every time you screw up, every fear and worry you have all boils down to one of two misconceptions about who God is. You either believe he isn't big, or he isn't good. I believe he can't or won't come through for me. Both are pride. One says that I understand the concept of 'good' better than God does, and the other says that God is too small to be able to help, and so therefore I must figure it out myself. Because I'm so much better and keeping my life in control. It's laughable when you boil it down but it takes place on a daily level in some form or another with me, often it's both. God is way up there in Heaven (small) and not concerned with the little goings on of my day to day life (mean). I think God is small and mean. Nice. And here I thought I was such a good Christian.

I am concerned with every little thing Bella does. Today she said "duck" perfectly clearly. It used to sound like "dut" and I knew what she meant. Today it was perfect and I was so proud. Not only am I concerned with every incredible thing she does, I think everyone else should be. I live in a constant state of, "look at her! Isn't she amazing?! Is that not the most beautiful and intelligent little thing you've ever seen?!" I love how much she needs us. I love being everything to her. It makes me feel amazing.

Last night, when it was bedtime, we did our routine. Medicine, "Mama, shake it? Shake, shake, shake!" She loves to shake that bottle. Find a clean cup, fill with milk, start warming. "Bunny?" she asks. I find the bunny half under the couch. Clean diaper "Pants! Bella, don't touch," she warns herself while I clean her up. Then it's into her sleepy sack. "Night night toes? Mmm-wah toes?" she asks sweetly. I let her kiss her toes. Then I must do it. Then it's grab the cup I forgot in the kitchen, and settle into the chair in the dark and rock her. Two seconds later she'd emptied her cup. "More cup Mama? More milk?" She points at her mouth to make sure I got the point. I lay her in her crib and promise to come back with milk. She sits quietly. When I get back though, she says, "Mama, no. Cup, bunny, bed." And my heart falls through the floor. She doesn't want me to rock her. She wants to go to sleep. She's tired and wants to stretch out in her bed. And although I spend all my time teaching her how smart she is, how good at doing every little thing, this hurts me. I know that it's a really great thing, developmentally. I've read enough to know that she feels secure enough to fall asleep by herself. This is progress. This is a step in the right direction, but it hurts me. Because I love her. Because I miss her when she sleeps, even still, and I don't care that it's stupid and makes me one of 'those moms'. I kissed her goodnight on the head, prayed for her, and told her I loved her. "Ove you.." she whispered. This might be the only thing that let me walk out of that room instead of forcing her back to baby-dom. I was crying, but I left. She went straight to sleep and the loneliness here was a little overwhelming. I may have asked Peter to come home early from work. I wanted my baby back. I wanted her to need me, and the funniest part is, when she woke up a few hours later and I was already in bed, I grinned from ear to ear when I heard her little voice say "Mama?" and start to cry.

I wonder how much of our feelings for our children mirror God's feelings for us. He refers to himself as a father so many times in the bible, you'd think he was trying to make a point. I wonder if he does this? Waits for us to cry and then rejoices to himself that the proper order has been restored. We need our Daddy to save us. I wonder if our posturing at independence hurts him? It must. It must hurt him over and over again as we tell him that regardless of what he says, we're still afraid. That no matter how many times he's shown us his love, we still don't totally get it. I wonder how often the distance between Heaven and Earth frustrates him. I know I hate it. I know there's so much I want to say to him face to face. So much I want to ask. I wonder if he feels the same? I wonder why I don't think of it in these terms more often. It makes sense.

There's a story about a little girl and her father crossing a bridge. The father is worried for his little girl, and tells her to hold very tightly to his hand. She looks at him and says, "No Daddy. You hold my hand"
"What's the difference?" he asks.
"Well, if something happens and I get frightened, I might let go of your hand. But if I ask you to hold my hand, I know that no matter what happens, you'll never let go."

Oh to have faith like that. To be able to admit to God and to myself that I get afraid, and when I do, I make choices that could endanger myself. Oh to know my father well enough to not have it need to look like such a lofty spiritual goal as trust. It's just fact. If something happens, I know you'd never drop me. And here I thought that God would be all upset if I said that I was going to let go. Here I thought that real faith was being able to hold his hand when all it is is just knowing that he must hold mine in order to make it. It's just a simple understanding of my own flawed and frustrating behavior, and to choose to not place myself in a situation where I'd need to rely on myself. Huh. Maybe he's not waiting for us to say we'd never let go as much as he's waiting for us to say that we just know that he wont.

Carrie - Your Incoherence Has Nothing On Me

2011-02-14T23:19:00.000-08:00

Well hello there blogger. I wonder if I have new font options along with my fancy new window here. Lemme see....nope. Same crap, prettier pile. Ah well. 

So it seems as though I have jumped back on the blogging wagon. I re-did Bella's Blog and I like it a lot. It's pretty cute. I'm not going to lie... I don't know why I use that phrase so much "Not gonna lie", it's not like I normally make a habit of it and need to specify, especially here, but I digress. I'm really not sure if I'm going to keep this blog layout. I like it, but after searching through thousands, and not being smart enough to make my own (besides, how much time would that waste?) this is where I ended up. Maybe I'll change it again soon. How simple can I go without it boring me to tears? That CAPS at the top is killing me though. Someone tell me how to fiddle with the HTML and get that CAPS the heck outta here.

This is going to be more than slightly incoherent; it's late and all I'm really thinking about is my new bedding. Peter and I (with some gift money from his family) got it for each other for our anniversary. Six years. Anyway, I'll do pictures when I get my Balinese mosquito net up, and clean up all my laundry. Nobody wants to see pictures of my unmentionables.

So here's our topic, after all of that. I am reading The Wheel of Time books. I hate fantasy. Except Lord of the Rings. And Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. Oh that was a great book. Anyway, I'm not big into fantasy at all but I love these books! I'm on book six and I only started book one in about September. I'm averaging about a book a month, which for me is pretty lame, but they are nearly a thousand pages each and there has been a lot of stuff in the middle. Moving, Bali, two Thanksgivings, a Christmas, New Years and an anniversary. That should have had me another book ahead at least. I love how long the series is. I don't have to pace myself. I read when I want to and it just seems like there's an endless parade of books waiting to be read. I guess a lot of people who don't like the books quit around book four or five and I just don't get it. They're great. Perfect escapist fiction.....ohhhh bedding. Bath first? Sleepy time tea? It's so pretty in there I can hardly stand it. I can't wait to get in. You see? Who really cares what I'm talking about anyway?

Wheel of Time. Right. Great books, and I like that I like them. I know, it barely makes sense and by now you're sitting here wondering why you're at the computer at all and wishing you were watching adorable cat videos on YouTube. I like that I like them. I hate that I like Facebook. I hate that I love cereal before bed. But I like that I like these books. I surprised myself, and honestly, that doesn't happen all that much. It's a side of me I didn't really know was there. I'm embracing my inner nerd, as it were and finding that she's kind of cool, in her own way.

I think I just needed to put something on here that was recent. Carrie, why don't people love book four and five? What's the deal with that? Anyway, maybe I can shave my legs quickly while sitting on the side of the tub. My hair is still wet from my shower this morning. Seems silly to take a full bath, and waste all that water. Plus I may fall asleep in the tub and accidentally drown myself. And on that note....

Mere Mortals

2011-01-08T08:13:00.001-08:00

It's silly sometimes how often you have to re-learn the same information. You learn a hard lesson and you tell yourself to watch for certain things so that next time, you'll see it coming and you'll know what to do. Bella is teething terribly right now. It takes a long time for me to figure this out. Granted she only has six teeth right now, so I don't have a lot of experience in noticing the signs but I tell myself after every tooth, "Melanie, the next time you look at her and think, 'Who are you and what have you done with my sweet, happy baby?' - remember. She's probably just teething. Give her some space." Two months later I'm exasperated and can't figure out why she's SO grumpy and poof! A tooth pops through and I feel like a schmuck.

I'm realizing as I type that this may be an unflattering comparison, though I don't mean it to be so, but Peter is exactly like this. I remember after we got married, and he'd get into these moods and he'd just be in a funk for SO LONG. I'd try and make him a nice dinner when we were newlyweds and it wouldn't help. I tried ignoring him completely, a couple of years in. No luck there either. Suffice to say that by four or five years down the road and my tactics in dealing with this no longer involve dinner. I get annoyed. I try and make him tell me what's wrong, and in the classic words of men everywhere, he looks at me in a mixture of confusion and annoyance and says, 'nothing's wrong. I'm fine. What are you talking about? I'm not in a bad mood." It makes me laugh as I sit in the dark now and type, but at the time, it's the most infuriating thing. I know him. Peter is not the kind of guy who gets uptight when his plans get changed at the last minute. So when he does, I immediately try and figure out what the heck is going on. I usually start with myself. I've probably done something, said something, didn't say something, bought something, etc. I don't know how I manage to be that narcissistic and self-deprecating at the same time, but I make it work somehow. Who was is that said that in an unsolvable problem the simplest answer is usually the correct one? (or something to that effect?)

Peter needs to be outside. Don't get me wrong here. Peter doesn't like to hike, or snowboard, or camp. He must. He needs is in exactly the same way he needs to eat. He'd probably say more. He's not merely 'outdoorsy" or "rugged" as Luc puts it. When Peter goes too long without doing something that is as much a part of him and is as unchangeable as his eye color, or his faith, or his music, something in Peter slowly starts to die. And the pain of that part dying, makes him grouchy. He laughed the other day and said, "like a soul-less grump". It's truly like a bear with a sore paw. And like with the teething, I look at him and think, "Who are you? Where is the man I married? Stop being so ornery!" It should be noted that saying these things doesn't work. At. All.

So yesterday, I was fed up. I was sick of him being tired, being sick, being grumpy and I wasn't going to put up with it any more. I was going to get this dealt with. I put on my dominating wife hat (which I usually try to keep stuffed in a box somewhere - it looks terrible on me) and took matters into my own hands. And bought him a lift ticket to Mt. Washington. This morning I got up at the unholy hour of six to pack him a lunch. He protested when I told him he was going, just a little. "We can't afford it" was the argument of choice. Maybe he's right. But we can't afford not to. Because it's not about snowboarding. I told Reagan that he needed to go with him. I can't snowboard. And even if I could, Peter doesn't want me around today. He wouldn't want to say it, but it's very true. He needs to get up into the mountains and do something a little risky, something adventurous, something with another man. He needs to forget about being a husband and a father for a few hours and if I'm smart that won't offend me. Tonight, he'll come home and I'll have my husband back. No arguments, no fuss, no annoyances at each other. I'm learning after six years (can that be right?!) that when Peter becomes impossible to deal with, make him go outside. He's shouldering a lot of responsibility, and he'll never put himself first without a little nudging. I miss him, I've missed him for a couple of weeks, and I'll be happy to have him back.

Aren't we all like this? Peter's learned about me that every once in a while, I need to 'get away". Sometimes that means that I just need a morning in bed with a coffee and a book and to be alone. Every once in a while I need to be taken out to dinner. Not because of the dinner, but because I need to hear someone else say, "Good evening. What can I get for you?" and know that whatever mess I make, someone else will clean up. I am hardwired to travel. Sometimes that's a night away three minutes from the house, sometimes it's moving, sometimes it's just dinner or a book that takes me somewhere else. Everyone needs a few minutes sometimes to just be exactly who they are, with no restrictions, no rules, no roles that they've taken on. I'm not a wife, not a mommy, not anyone. I'm just me right now. I just want a coffee and a book and a few moments with no demands on my time. It lasts me a LONG while.

I love that God knows this about us. Doesn't he? Don't you ever notice how all of a sudden in the middle of a foul mood, you'll see the most beautiful sunset. You'll stop to grab a coffee while you're rushing around and discover the best latte in town. Here it's Mon Petite Choux. Your little girl will spontaneously kiss your face and say, "Ah ove oooh". Two seconds of total bliss in what can often be a nightmare world. I wonder how much of our stress and frustration is simply a result of not taking a moment in our lives to just do what is truly us. I think God built into Peter the part of him that comes alive in the outdoors. When my mom gets on the back of a horse you can literally watch her change - her face, her eyes, the set of her shoulders. Everything about her suddenly looks different and you know that you are seeing her the way God made her, doing something that God has built in her. This is a person living out their own private destiny, right in front of you. It's incredibly beautiful.

CS Lewis said it so much better, and SO MUCH more succinctly than I,

"It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption."

Before She's Too Old to Think I'm Lame

2010-12-04T21:56:00.002-08:00

From the album: Contests and Giveaways

By Tickled Pink Gifts for Girls

Mother Daughter Christmas Giveaway.....

Because of our excitement that Christmas is just around the corner, we're going to do one more giveaway!

The winner of this giveaway will receive a set of adult and child cream fresh water pearl stretch bracelets (as shown in photo). Give both away or keep them for you and your little girl. They will be custom made to your requested wrist sizes.

For each entry you earn, please post a separate comment under this photo stating how you shared this contest! Each fan can earn up to 3 entries!

To enter, post this contest to your wall, email a link to your friends (cc: sharaleevoth@yahoo.ca in the email) or share the link on your blog (please post a link to your blog in your comment).

Winner will be chosen by random.org.

Contest closes Friday December 17th at 12:00 Midnight Pacific Time.

Movember, Piglet, And All The Rest

2010-12-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

So some of my Facebook friends have cartoon characters for profile pictures right now. I will be honest, my first thought was similar the reaction I give when I receive spam. "Some dying child wants this forwarded..." ad nauseum. But then I thought about it. I know a bunch of guys who took part in Movember. I had to have that explained to me. Mo-what? Why? For your prostate? I don't get it. How does skeazy facial hair raise awareness? Not that I want to see something more, um, closely related to the subject at hand. I don't. Get your prostate checked. Shave. ALL good advice.

More than a few of my Facebook friends think the cartoon characters are stupid and their profiles say so. I'm of two minds. Aw, who am I kidding. I'm not even of one whole mind. Ahem. So here's what I think: My profile picture as Piglet does not RAISE awareness, nor does it in any way prevent child abuse. However, what it is, is an outward symbol that I, Melanie, possessing about a half a mind, do not believe that the emotional, physical, mental, or sexual abuse of a child is okay, and I will DO SOMETHING regarding that. I have and will use my time, my money, my effort, and my prayers to that effect. I believe in the cause of the oppressed, and I am a defender of children. Just ask the boy whose lip I split on a water fountain in fifth grade because he was torturing a handicapped girl in the hallway. I got sent to the principal's office. My mother took me out for lunch and told me she couldn't have been more proud.

Wearing red after the hurricane hit Haiti didn't help the Haitian people one little bit. But the money I raised did, and I wore red to show that I was a supporter of the Haitian people in their hour of need. I believe that women should be checked for preventable and treatable cancer and thus posted the color of my bra last year. It was the oh-so-stylish lingerie of a new mom. Nursing bra. Bigger than one would EVER want to wear. Beige. Like your Gramma's carpet. But I have gotten checked, and told others to do so, and offered to go with them if they need a hand to hold.

This is NOT to toot my own horn. I have a couple of charities that I REALLY love and I give to them regularly and on tight months, not at all. But I'm a big believer in actions speaking louder than words. Or a Piglet profile pic.

Christmas Project 1 - Status: Complete!

2010-11-21T09:57:00.001-08:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Christmas Thoughts....

2010-11-18T20:25:00.002-08:00

Today Peter and I were talking about Christmas. We have the budget talk every year, though I'm not sure why. I blow it every year. He doesn't, because like a normal logical male, he thinks that when we decide something that's that.

I had just picked him up from work and was driving, and Bella was sleeping in the backseat. We were talking about money, which isn't ever fun, unless you have lots of it and don't have to think about it. We did that one year. The second Christmas we were married. I remember the number we'd set for each other, and honestly, it's so stupidly high, I won't even type it. We were both working and getting paid well, living very cheaply, and didn't have Bella. So we went a little crazy. I don't really remember what I got.

This year is not like that. I'm not working, we have a baby and expenses are high. The list of things we need to get in the next little while for Bella includes things like a new stroller, which is expensive. Babies are expensive. Groceries are expensive. Debt is expensive. But it's not even about that. I was trying to come up with a list of things I wanted even if we had more money and I came up blank. I thought I was being lame so I walked around the mall window shopping and I came up blank. I don't want anything. I can't think of a single thing that I would want that's not ridiculous. Like ANOTHER Bath and Body Works lotion. I should do a lotion post. If I lined them all up, you would be astonished. It doesn't help that I barely use them, I usually forget. Obviously, there are a few large ticket items that I'd like that are just unrealistic. Like a new dining room set. Not gonna happen.

So we were talking about what to get, and how much to spend and how to add it all up, and I think what happened is that I pulled into an intersection to turn left and was going to stop, but Peter didn't think I was going to stop. (It's true that sometimes I tend to brake later than some would). He pointed at the oncoming traffic, that I had planned to avoid, but when he said to watch out, I got a fright and thought I was doing something wrong and jumped into the intersection. I have no idea why this was my knee-jerk (or foot stomp) response. It was highly stupid. I had to slam my gas pedal down to make it across. It scared the life out of me. And as Peter is trying to figure out WHY I would try and rush across a busy intersection, and I'm trying to figure out what just happened, it crossed my mind that I very nearly ruined Christmas. And every day following. One accident. One stupid, distracted mistake. We'd have been hit by a car going about 70 on Peter's side and I don't want to think about the rest. All of a sudden the money wasn't an issue. We were all safe and warm in the car, and although it's cliche and a little bit cheesy to boot, I knew that I had everything I wanted for Christmas already. And then some.

That being said, we do have to shop. But I want to get people things that mean something. I wonder, if you spent more time and thought and less money on Christmas, what you'd end up giving? What would you end up getting? That being said, I have come up with my Christmas wish list this year:

~I want to have Christmas Eve night in front of the fireplace, curled up in new jammies with Peter and Bella, on the mattress that we've dragged out of our bedroom. I want a bunch of Superstore appetizers and a cheap bottle of wine.
~I want memories like we just made in Bali with our family.
~I want to go to Children's Hospital next week and hear a good report about Bella's health, and more than that, to be able to see her doing well as we take her off the medication she's been depending on for over a year. I want to drive out of the parking lot, and I will. So many other parents will spend the holidays there.
~I want to play Settlers with Loren and Peter
~I want to bake cookies with my mom and Robyn and have them tease me all day because I'm such a terrible baker, and then hear my mom yelling at Robyn for decorating her gingerbread men inappropriately.
~I want to chase Bella away from the tree a million times (does anyone have some of those baby fences they want to lend me?) because she's so excited, and it's so pretty and new and fun.
~I want to go horseback riding in the snow with my mom.

I don't need more stuff. I'm trying to get rid of the stuff I already have. That being said, tomorrow, I am going to the Christmas Craft Fair in Parksville to take a look around, and hopefully become inspired as to thoughtful gift ideas for others and yes, do a little shopping. Plus, I love a good craft show. And there's free hot chocolate. And free carriage rides. I'm so in. I'll take photos.

Thanksgiving

2010-10-09T09:10:00.003-07:00

As the headlights move through the darkness I wake up just in time. I rub my eyes and hear my parents whispering in the front seat, trying not to wake seven sleeping children. I sit up and my mom turns from the front seat and smiles at me. I look out the windows and see the little town moving slowly by us under it's sparse streetlights. There's the church with a tall steeple and the graveyard that my cousins and I used to run around in in the dark. Before we were sternly told how disrespectful that is. We didn't know. We don't know any of the lives buried under that soil. Not yet. The church makes my heart beat faster, it looks the way churches are supposed to look. I'm happy we're home. I lived in this town a short time compared to all the other places in my life, but this house more than any is home to me.

We pull into the driveway and I hear my brothers and sisters start to wake up. I'm the first out of the car. It's cold outside and I left my jacket behind so I rush on toward the door. I walk into the garage first and it smells of my Grandpa. Of hard work and of repairs around the house. There's another smell intruding though, this one coming from the house and my mouth waters in anticipation. My parents have caught up with me and my mom stops to knock softly on the door before opening it without waiting for an answer. None is needed. All nine of us try and pack into the tiny landing and we must look like fish in a barrel from my Grandma's perch in the kitchen. She laughs at us as we wiggle out of our shoes and come up the three steps into her waiting arms. She's still dressed even though the clock on the stove says that it's midnight. The stove catches my attention and it stays there. Nothing makes me feel as loved by my Grandma than this. There's a hot pot of soup on the stove, zummaborscht, which will be comfort food to me as long as I live. It occurs to me that she's cooked a huge pot of soup for us so that we have something warm to put in our stomachs before bed. Cooking for this many is a big task, especially given all the cooking she'll be doing from early the next morning. Somehow she knows exactly the moment to put the soup on the stove so that it's hot when we get there, but hasn't been cooking so long that her potatoes have boiled to nothing. This is a skill she'll try to teach me long years from now, that I will fail to comprehend. My mom embraces her mom and a feeling of rightness fills the house. I belong here.

My Grandma has a slight air of relief about her, and I know instinctively that she's been praying for our safe journey. She asks my dad about the weather, and he talks quietly to her about it. My Grandma can tell God to change the weather, I think to myself. At this age, I can't imagine even God not listening to Grandma. It's still many years before I will see tears fall on her soft beautiful cheeks, mourning her own prayers not answered, loss hanging over her like a blanket. Right now, I've never seen my Grandma really cry. She gets slightly teary-eyed when she says goodbye to us. But right now is a time for hello, and she looks happy and calm. There is an air of quiet around her, it's calming to be near her. Or maybe it's the soup. But something is wrong. I smile to myself as I walk through the kitchen and attached dining room into the living room. The lights are out except the tall lamp in the corner, and my Grandpa sits in his rocking chair with his bible open in his lap, hands still on the pages, head back. He's asleep. I lean forward and put my arms around him and he wakes up and his hands come up to my back. I love the way he says, "Hello, Melanie" with the emphasis on the greeting and his breath coming out as he says my name. It sounds like he's been waiting for me, and it makes me feel special. My family crowds in behind me, my Grandma laughing that Grandpa managed to sleep through our noisy entrance, he must be getting old. But it's a joke. They don't seem old to me, they never have.

We all crowd back into the dining room and my mom grabs the bowls that are ready and waiting by the stove and Grandma ladles out soup and she brings us each a bowl and a bun that I know were made earlier that day. I could have eaten a feast ten minutes before entering the door and I would still want a bowl of soup when I arrive here. We've never come to this house at any time of day without a hot pot of zummaborscht waiting for us.

My parents tell us to hurry, we need to get to bed, and the kitchen is strangely quiet as we all concentrate on eating. Grandpa walks up behind me and put his hands in my collar. They're cold - they always are. They tremble slightly and I giggle. The shaking seems like a part of him, it's not anything that scares me. It almost feels like he does it to tickle me, and it won't occur to me for long years yet to be truly concerned about it. And not for a few years more to actually be scared. My Grandpa is invincible. I'm as certain of this as I am that there will always be soup in Grandma's kitchen when I arrive.

As soon as my stomach is full I realize how tired I am, and my sisters and I walk into the little yellow bedroom where a bed is already made for us. I stumble through getting into bed in a fog and am asleep before my mom comes in to turn out the light and say goodnight.

The next morning I awake to the sounds of clanging in the kitchen, the shower running down the hall and the smell of brewing coffee. I get up and walk into the kitchen in my pyjamas and see my mom and Grandma already dressed. My mom motions to the clock, it's ten-thirty already. She tells me to wake my sisters and get dressed. I walk back into the room and us girls laugh as we get ready, pulling our new clothes out of our bags. We always have new clothes for holidays at Grandmas, and I'm not sure when or why the tradition started.

By the time I'm dressed with my teeth brushed, I come back into the kitchen and some of my aunts and uncles and cousins have arrived with things to put in the oven to warm before lunch. Everyone is hugging and saying hello, talking about the weather and the road conditions for those of us who have driven a long way. It already smells amazing in the house, turkey that my Grandma has had to set her alarm to put in, and my aunts and my mom are moving around the kitchen. Each has a purpose and they're peeling potatoes, doing dishes, chopping and seasoning, all the while visiting and drinking coffee. My uncles are gathered around the dining room table and are laughing, teasing. My uncle John laughs, a sound that always makes me want to giggle myself, and he talks about the fishing trip he took that summer. My uncle Jake is talking about the one that got away, and they're discussing how long it is before they're able to ice fish, an activity that has never had an ounce of appeal to me.

I go off in search of my cousins who are gathered in the basement. I wiggle again through the landing, pausing to give a hug to my Uncle Henry and Auntie Margaret. Calling to Amy and Leah that we'll be downstairs. Cindi and Jen are downstairs, in the second kitchen. They've found pickles. I laugh in excitement as we all grab one, and I studiously avoid the pot on the stove. I looked in one once and found nothing but a pair of chicken feet, it was like something out of a horror movie. There are pies on the counter though, and from the smell, I know there are cabbage rolls in the oven. If I could figure out how to steal one of those as easily as a pickle, I'd do it but for now the pickle is the perfect appetizer. Our parents pretend not to notice that we all eat three or four pickles before lunch and we pretend we're doing something sneaky by stealing them. Amy and Leah join us and we all hug and giggle. Cindi's heard a rumor that this year we actually get the corner table, which will be used for that game the uncles all play after lunch, that I can't pronounce. This is big news. It's usually where the cool girls in the family sit - Becky and Angie, Heather and Lisa. I'm excited. It feels like a certain type of graduation, not having to sit on the floor with all the little kids.

Before long everyone has arrived and an endless line of food has come down the stairs where long tables are set up. It's noisy and there are people everywhere. A toddler is crying somewhere, and suddenly my Grandpa moves to the head of the table and everyone is quiet. He prays a blessing over the food and over our family, and as he says amen there's a slight press towards the food. We're not sure why we do it. We know the adults serve themselves first, and then the kids that need help getting their food. I'm okay with waiting as long as there is ham and cabbage rolls when I arrive. I could care less about the turkey. I missed the cabbage rolls one year and I was devastated. We all get our food and we sit at the corner table and I glance over at my older cousins and suddenly where they're sitting seems cooler to me, and I wonder if I'll always want to be older. I hear adults talk about wanting to be younger and I can't imagine it.

After lunch there is pie and endless pots of coffee. We get chased from our table so that our uncles can play their game, and someone starts a game of Balderdash and immediately, hilarity ensues. This is a game that adults and older cousins play and it's another thing I can't wait to graduate to. I sit on a couch next to the table and listen for a little while. Listening is almost as much fun as playing even though I don't quite understand some of the definitions. Before long Cindi taps me and says she's taken over the blue room and I dash upstairs. We sit in the blue bedroom, where my parents slept the night before. There's a little crib in the corner that all of us have slept in at one time or another but there's no babies in the family right now. Before we know it, our cousins will start having babies, then ourselves but that seems very far away to us right now. We sit and talk about frustrations with our brothers, about boys and whether any of us has gotten our period since the last time we've talked. We spend the afternoon this way, venturing out to get another piece of pie, or a bun with some cold turkey or ham for dinner.

Night falls and those who have further to drive start to go and it's the morning, only in reverse. People everywhere, hugs and safe travels. We are staying a few more days and we make plans to do a big girls shopping trip at Value Village the next day. Before long everyone is gone, and we're alone again in my Grandma and Grandpa's house. My house, I think to myself strangely. I grab a book and curl up in my Grandfather's rocking chair. On another family gathering, long years from now, and across the country I will sit here again. My baby girl will be tired and I will need to put her down for a nap and I will sit in this chair and hold her and feel the rough fabric under my hands and the wooden arms worn smooth by my Grandpa's hands. I will rock in that chair in the dark and tears will roll down my face because he's gone. Because he never met my baby girl and because somehow I grew up. Somehow those days in Grandma's basement are over, and I don't know how that happened. Because the cemetery that we used to play in now holds two people who I dearly love.

The sounds outside the door are still the same. Someone is talking about old Balderdash definitions and they're laughing. I wonder if they'll wake my baby, but I can't imagine a better sound. Family. Laughter. We are still laughing. The smells are the same. Someone remembered to bring cabbage rolls. There'd better be some left when I'm finished.

Hello, My Name is Melanie and I'm a__________.

2010-10-06T09:34:00.004-07:00

There's so many things I wish I could change about myself. I so easily look at my own faults and have a really difficult time with the things I do well. I don't usually notice them, and this week I had someone point out to me some of the things that I thought were my faults as my strengths, and because it came from a totally impartial source, not even a friend at all, it made me listen. I have a really hard time with appearing weak, but just as hard a time when people assume I'm strong and can take more than I know I can. I know - it's a frustrating dichotomy. I probably get offended a lot more than I need to, simply because I try and seem fine, and when people believe me, I get upset. Peter has gently pointed this out to me time and time again.

I'm not heading back to work right now. Not because we're rolling in loot and don't need the money, but because I can't do it right now with Bella. After the year I've had, I just can't. I don't have it in me. I'm so incredibly tired, all the time. I'm so exhausted by looking at her mark and praying that it doesn't get worse. So I had to call work and tell them that I wasn't okay with coming back, and it was one of the harder things I've done in a long time. It was incredibly humiliating. Maybe it wouldn't be for you, but for me, it felt like calling in sick on a huge scale. I felt like I was letting everyone down. We could use the money - I was letting Peter down. We could use the benefits package - I was letting Bella down. It was a job I believed was a gift and one I liked - I was letting myself down. It was a job I was mildly good at - I was letting my boss down. I felt like a wimp. Like I should somehow figure out how to suck it up, and just be tougher.

Someone told me a while back that I use the phrase "I should" way more than I need to, and that every time I do it, I need to take a step back and ask myself why I think I "should" do what I'm berating myself for.

"I should be able to relax about Bella."
She is doing better all the time, but there is still a risk. What parent, with any level of risk to their child, is relaxed about it? We close off stairways, move our cleaning products, lower the crib level, put covers on all our plugs. I watch Bella's mark and her facial movements. I listen to her breathing. I give her medicine. And when your baby nearly falls down the stairs, or you find them with an extra-strength Tylenol in their hand wet from having tasted it in the two seconds you were looking the other way (true story) there is a moment of total panic, even though nothing happened. Your brain reacts as though it did, for just a moment, and you're terrified. I've lived like this for a year in one degree or another and I'm not constantly panicked but I am tired of worrying. Bella's mark looks much redder at times, and every time, I wonder. I hope that after I put her down for a nap it'll look light again and I can breathe a small sigh of relief. It doesn't ruin my life, it's not the end of the world, but it is a lot for me. Maybe you'd deal with it better. I don't. I'm doing what I can. And right now, what I can do does not include being a bank teller. I should not feel guilty about that. But I do. Oh, I do.

"I should do more. Work, be a mom, keep the house cleaner."
Why? I'm not ambitious. I don't have any ideas of excelling at my career until I'm a manager or have a desk with my name on it. It's not who I am. Here's a secret. I'm not a bank teller. I work at a bank, or I did, until last year. It's a job that I go to and like, in exactly the same way I used to like serving tables (the enjoyment fades a lot more quickly with that one). In no way does it define me, in fact, some of the things I think define me are in opposition with the actual act of going to work nine-to-five. It's not me. I'd be much happier being a 1950's wife taking care of my kids and having dinner on the table. That doesn't make me less, but in today's day and age it means that I'm less of a woman. I'm letting down my gender by being so openly un-feminist. If I never had to work another day in my life, but was expected to do the housework and make dinner and do the grocery shopping, I would feel incredibly liberated. I'd even wear the apron and the cute little house dresses. Sounds perfect. Sorry to all those who marched and fought on my behalf to get me into the workplace and earning the same as a man. I kind of don't care. I kind of believe that this woman's place is at home, in front of the stove. Sorry.

Someone told me that I was choosing the difficult path, by staying home with Bella. He said that the wimpy thing to do, what a lot of people would do, would be to suck it up. They'd go back to work, and they'd be miserable and worried. He said that it takes a lot more courage to say that I'm not doing okay right now and I need to work on feeling better for myself and my family before I do anything else. It's a lot harder to be open with your struggles than it is to hide them and suck it up. I'm trying to honest with myself about who I am and where I am instead of constantly worrying about who I "should" be. The funny thing is that there's a lot of things that I've pushed myself to be that I actually dislike in others. There's a lot of things about myself that I've been trying to change that I really love in others.

I'm going to end here before this becomes a hippy post about loving myself and just being groovy or something. Besides, Backyardigans just ended and Bella's calling "up, up!!" from her excersaucer and throwing cheerios on the floor. She's ready for a cuddle and a nap, and so am I. I could use one, I'm tired.

Grateful

2010-09-14T17:26:00.003-07:00

There used to be this water slide in West Edmonton Mall called the Cannonball Run. Maybe it's still there. You'd be on a perfectly boring slide, going quickly but essentially in a plastic tube where not a whole lot could happen to you and then suddenly, the slide would dip and then just end in mid-air. You'd drop about eight feet into a tank of water and it was so much scarier than jumping off an eight foot diving board. For one thing, I could never predict where the slide ended. I went on it a bunch of times, but it surprised me every time. Also, when you were in the water, because you dropped straight down, the water coming out of the slide was pouring in on top of you. For a minute under the water, you have no idea which way is up. You just swim blindly and suddenly, you're out. The current is pretty strong, and you have to really swim to get to the side. At least, that's how I remember it. It's been about twelve years since I've been on it, so who knows. Maybe it's nothing.

Last September, I felt like that. I felt like things were fine, fun even, and then the slide just ended and I was underwater not knowing which way to swim to get out. Now, I feel like I'm in the tank, the edge of the pool and the ladder to get out are just beyond my reach and I'm praying that I'm done. I'm praying that I've proven myself in some way and I won't be asked to go again. I'm praying that my prayers get answered how and when I want them to, knowing so many people who haven't been as lucky as that. I want it to be over. I want to breathe a sigh of relief and move on. I know that day is coming, but I'm a details person. I want to mark it on my calendar, and I can't do that. Nobody knows when it is.

My mom and I, on the last trip to Vancouver to see Bella's doctors, were talking about what I needed to know. It's a common ferry conversation. What do I need to know before we leave today? What are my questions? We were talking about how long Bella would have to be off her medication entirely before we could be free from the worry of relapse. I said without thinking, "When are we out of the woods? Would someone please just tell me how long these damned woods go on for?"

I'm an "are-we-there-yet" person. I want to be able to plot something on a grid. I want to deal with problems that have reasonable solutions. I don't like maybe, and I don't like surprises. Just tell me what is going on. Bella has been on a reduced dose of medication for over a week. So far so good. When do I get to let my guard down? November 19th, we go back to do it again. When do I get to stop freaking out when she coughs? I can't not think about it. I'm always thinking about it. And even though right now is a good time, because the doctors think she's ready to go off, it's a terrifying time. This is where the rubber meets the road and the consequences are just too high for me.

People just keep saying I need to trust God. Can I tell you a secret? I trust that God is exactly who He says He is, and I'll believe that if she relapses. I don't know how her situation or being concerned about it has anything to do with trusting God. I believe that He wants her well, but I believe He wants a lot of things that never come to pass on this earth. I know where I live, and it's not a place where everything goes right. This isn't Eden. This is Earth, and on Earth, crap happens, and it doesn't make God different. It just means that I'm not in Heaven yet. I believe that my heartache over my daughter's pain has taught me a little bit more about His heartache over ours, but that doesn't mean He's going to save me from it. It just means that He wishes it wasn't like this either. But it's like this. Adam and Eve ate that stupid fruit and here I am. And I don't have the worst of it, not by far. I have the best, in a lot of ways.

I do know that one day, maybe not in my lifetime, He'll make it right. He'll have collected all my tears in a bottle and show me how much he cared, and for the first time, I'll get it. I know that Bella will get better, and I know how close I came to that being a MUCH more complicated issue. I know I'm lucky, and I know I'm blessed. I know that "gratitude is the essence of trust," as some wise person once said, and I'm grateful. She's incredible and she's getting better and I'm grateful.

It Was Time

2010-07-16T20:11:00.001-07:00

I can't decide if today was a big step forward or back. I will preface by saying this: I no longer recognize myself in the mirror. Not in any sort of a deep way, but in a way that says, "hey! Who put that there?!" I dislike my appearance immensely. I don't remember ever liking it less. Having a baby does weird things to you that I'm not going to get into, but certainly contributes to the above exclamation upon getting out of the shower and accidentally going past the mirror (an activity I try to avoid).

If I could only blame it on that, that would be one thing, but I can't. I'm a stress eater. Or rather, when I'm stressed, I could honestly care less about what I'm eating. And let's face it, it's been a very stressful year. My worst, in the stress department. If I'm holding a crying baby in my arms and it's between putting her down to cry for ten minutes while I make a healthy salad, or grabbing a bag of Lays that I can plow through while I'm nursing, I'm going for the chips every time. Even if it's breakfast. I've had too many other things to think about. I don't care what I eat, lots of days I don't care what I look like.

Thankfully, those days are happening less and less. Which means that I now get up in the morning and scream, "I haven't been pregnant for almost a YEAR! I'm NOT putting on THOSE maternity pants again!" But then I look around at clothes that I don't fit into and can't find the energy to try and fit into, and on they go again. It's depressing, it really is. I have to pull them up a hundred times a day.

So today I decided that I cannot live in the past, or worse, the future (when I finally lose the extra weight) and I caved and made Peter take me shopping. He was the unfortunate recipient of this task as it was him who said the other day, "honey, I know that dress is comfortable in hot weather, but it does NOT do you any justice at all. None." He said it was okay for around the house. I asked if it was okay to wear to the store. No dice. He wasn't wrong either - it's a terribly unflattering dress. Makes me look like I'm packing seventy-five extra pounds instead of, well, you know. The thing is, the thought of buying anything with a double digit size on it (an absolute first for me) just depressed me. And things have been hard. Why add to all that?

But I have literally no summer clothes. Two or three t-shirts and one tank top. One pair of capris bought at a maternity store. Not one pair of shorts. The ugly sundress, and that's it. I'm a walking episode of What Not to Wear, and I'm wondering why my loved ones haven't nominated me so I could get the five grand. It's a beach day today. ALL my fans are on and I'm sweltering. I'm wearing jeans. Stupid. Enough now.

So I went to Superstore (don't you just love the clothes there?) and got a pair of shorts, two t-shirts, and two tank tops. And you know what? They fit. They fit a girl my size. They look nice. I feel nice in them. Like I want to go for a walk outside, or make a salad. While trying on my umpteenth top, a woman who was, strangely, getting changed in the change room hallway smiled at me and nodded in the direction of Peter and Bella, "it's hard when you've had a baby. Everything's in the wrong place. That looks nice." I would have hugged her had she not been half undressed.

I'm going to lose the extra weight, I swear I am. I feel more motivated now than I did sitting in my maternity jeans and trying to figure out if I looked pregnant enough that people would ask. I'm just sick of looking like an idiot in the process, you know? Who wears jeans in this weather?

Anyway, step forward or back, it was a step that required shopping, and those are always my favorite kind.

I Love You, Crazy.

2010-04-06T14:15:00.003-07:00

We were at my mom and dad's for most of Easter weekend. Dad picked me up on Friday morning and I was too busy. My dryer broke and I was loading up all my wet laundry to take to mom and dad's to dry. Mom wanted me to bring my Wii, so we could play Mario. There was just too much stuff to grab. Either way, I shouldn't have forgotten. But I did. I forgot Bella's medicine at home and remembered my stupid Wii. It shouldn't have been a big deal, Peter was coming later on so he could grab it. She'd miss her morning dose, but that's happened before, not very often, but once or twice. Not the end of the world, just enough to send me on a self-induced "worst mom of the year" guilt trip.

Peter brought the medicine, I gave her a bit extra for the afternoon and evening, since she'd missed the morning. I left it at my mom and dad's so when I came back the next day I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting. We got her morning, afternoon and evening doses on time that whole day. I should have noticed. I should have noticed when I picked up the bottle, when I put it in the syringe, it's the wrong color. There's a freaking "S" right on the front, I put it there with a Sharpie so that this wouldn't ever happen. I should have noticed when she didn't want to nap, and wouldn't sleep longer than a half hour at a time, or when she inhaled about five times as much Easter dinner as Cadence, who is twice her size. I'm her mother, I should have figured it out.

When we got home Saturday night, after giving her her evening dose, I went to put the medicine in the fridge, in the spot I always keep it. But there was already a bottle there. Her medicine. Peter had grabbed her steroids. After all the hard work I'd done to get her off, after how excited I had been that I would never have to give my baby a stomach ache again, I dosed her with a good amount of steroids for two entire days.

I totally fell apart when I saw it. Put my face in my hands and sobbed until I couldn't breathe. I CANNOT screw up with this. I just can't. And I did. Yes, Peter grabbed the wrong bottle, but he never should have had to grab it in the first place, I should have remembered. And I should have noticed the S. And I should have noticed the color. But I didn't. We called the nurses line and they made sure we didn't overdose her, which I already knew we hadn't, since I've had her on much higher doses before, and when she was much smaller. But going off steroids quickly can make your brain suddenly swell - were we now risking that? I needed to give her her other medication, but it affects blood pressure, and since she hadn't had it for a while, was I risking her heart rate? We used to have another medication to give her because of how hard the steroids are on her tummy, I didn't have any.

Nanaimo hospital was totally useless. They wouldn't even tell us who the on call pediatrician was. I wasn't going to take her to emergency to sit with a bunch of sick people (what about her immune system?) to have some stupid resident have to pull out a textbook to figure out what a hemangioma is. Plus, she's one of a handful of kids who is being treated with the medicine that she's got. It's an extremely new treatment. I needed to talk to someone who KNEW. We called Children's. Her doctor was on call. Thank God. Except that we paged her over and over all night and she never answered or called us back. We stayed up until one thirty before I took her to bed with me and tried unsuccessfully not to worry.

Next morning, more of the same. More paging, no response. Until a receptionist at Children's made me feel like total garbage for not going to the emergency room, or calling 911. "I'm a mom. That's what I'd have done if it were MY child." Translation: "That's what you would do if you were a good mother." More tears, accompanied by some swearing and stomping around by me. Bella was playing happily in her Jolly Jumper. FINALLY, a call from her doctor. "You poor thing, you must have been so worried! No dear, she's fine, she'll be fine, it's okay. You did the right thing." So after all that, nothing too severe. I tossed the steroids in the garbage and we moved on and tried to have a good Easter, but you can see in all the photos that I've been crying all morning, and all the night before. One more first that I feel this damned medicine has stolen from me.

I'm tired. I want it to be over. I want to get in the car and go somewhere with her without worrying about her medicine. I want to put her to sleep without having to wake her again because I forgot to give it to her earlier. She can actually take it in her sleep now, she's so used to it. That makes me so terribly sad. I want her to be better, that thing to be away from her airway and eye. I want her never to remember this, which I am fairly sure she won't. That's something at least.

In good news, she has started sleeping in her crib. Two nights in a row now, only getting up once to eat and going straight back to sleep. Hopefully a little more sleep will help my coping mechanism to work a little better - because Saturday night is a pretty good indication that I am still not coping well with this at all. You wouldn't believe how I lost it.

I want something else to type about, or think about. Maybe my next post will be about her birthday, that I'm already planning. That might be fun. Or the trip to Saskatchewan and hopefully the horse show that I want to take her to see. That would also be great. We're going to Wyoming for Bella's first camping trip in June too, and I can't wait. Things aren't all bad. For the most part, we're coasting along okay over here. But nothing can happen. I can't screw up. I have to do everything perfectly or everything falls apart and I feel the same way I did in the hospital all those months ago. I have the ability to do our day-to-day life and absolutely nothing else.

But she makes me impossibly happy. She says 'mama' and "dada' now, and she gets excited when Peter comes home. She still loves American Idol and still sings herself to sleep. She smiles so easily and laughs at nothing at all. She laughs best at Luc, but today she was giggling like crazy when I was nibbling at her fingers. She's such a happy little thing, and she's perfect in every way, and I can't imagine feeling a little more sane, but being without her. I'd take the insanity any day of the week. She's completely enchanting and makes it worth it. I told Peter once, "I love you madly" and he responded "I love you, Crazy". How very apt.

Hope

2010-03-06T15:56:00.002-08:00

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

--Emily Dickenson

I love Emily Dickenson, and always have. She's my favorite poet. I found this one recently, posted in part on Facebook by a mom I know who is now going through the same thing with her son that we did with Bella in September. Neurologists, MRI, waiting, worry, and that gut wrenching fear that encompasses everything you have ever known. And somewhere beneath, hope that maybe you'll scrape by. Maybe you'll get lucky, that you won't hear the words many terrified parents have heard before. You won't see a doctor shake their head and talk about treatment and things to expect that scare you half to death. Literally scare you so badly that you can't figure out how to live through it.

We got lucky. I pray she does too. I don't know her, never met her and likely never will, but my heart aches for her. For the way she feels when she lays awake and looks at her beautiful son. For the way her heart stops when they take him from her arms to poke him with needles, put him to sleep, and try and make sure that his brain will be okay. I want to hug this mom. I want to tell her that it'll be okay, and I want her to know that I've been there too, and that I'm still scared. I pray that the hope wins out for them too.

If I Had A Million Dollars:

2010-02-13T12:45:00.001-08:00

~I'd live at the spa. Or go once a week. I don't care how "high-maintenance" and hoity-toity (a phrase I LOVE to use) it makes me sound, if my benefits covers massage at TighNaMara, I may go every ten days or so. Peter said he'd happily watch Bella, I'll go to the spa, have a swim in the mineral pool (free to spa guests) and a massage for an hour or so. Since massage is covered, my outlook on life has greatly improved. A couple hours of alone time, a massage, and home.

~I would get a tub like the one we used yesterday. It was hand pounded copper, and retains heat beautifully. It had a big hump in the middle so that when you lay in it, it supported your knees, taking pressure off your lower back. Not sure how much pressure is created when you're sitting in the water, but whatever, it was nice. I love being in the bathtub. LOVE IT.

~ I would eat out a lot. I love trying new foods, seeing how people make things beautiful and tasty.

~ I would have such a beautiful kitchen that it would entice me to stay at home and cook, just to be in there. I would have copper pots, and a beautiful gas stove and would feel like I was on a cooking show every time I boiled water.

~I'd live in a log cabin. Maybe this one. And I would have a lot of land, and no neighbors in sight. Not that I have an issue with my neighbors now, but I'd really prefer to be alone.

~I'd have a little four stall barn and I'd teach my daughter to ride. And when things got stressful, we'd hop on and run up into the hills and come back when we feel better.

~I'd travel. It's been so long since I've gone anywhere that I can't think about it or I develop a twitch. I'd let Bella see the world.

~I'd never go back to work. I'd stay home with my beautiful little angel, homeschool her and have dinner on the table for Peter when he gets home. Or have dinner reservations.

But yesterday felt like a million dollars. What an amazing anniversary. I'll post photos soon. I used my camera underwater though, and although it's made for that, I'm waiting a few days before I take out the memory card in order to ensure that it's totally dry. Because I'm paranoid like that.

But it was six whole hours, where nothing was required of me, where my worry for Bella seemed a lot farther away then it usually does, and where I got to actually talk to my husband. It was glorious, and not because of the spa, though it helped. It would have been nice to just sit on a couch somewhere in front of the fire and say, "hey! I know you! How've you been lately?" That was nice.

Thanks mom and dad for watching our angel. You have no idea what those six hours meant to me.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings....

2010-01-27T09:56:00.003-08:00

Being a mom is so so different than I thought it would be. And maybe it's different because of the way my pregnancy ended with so much fear and uncertainty, and then Bella's life began with so much fear and uncertainty.

I feel like I am having a hard time connecting with other moms. I feel isolated with everything that Bella and I have gone through together, because there's nobody that really understands that. There's a mom and baby group at the health center that I keep meaning to go to, but in talking to a friend the other day, don't know if I'm up for it. I need to be more positive about things like that. So many of my feelings are different that I know they would have been if everything had been okay. Maybe this isn't making sense. I'll grab another coffee and think about it.

Okay, here's the thing. I feel like the only thing moms talk about is parenting. Go figure right? And of course that's fine. It's even good. But I feel very much like an outsider in these conversations. Because I just don't care, and I can't figure out a way to get myself to care. When I was pregnant I was always on Baby Center. What milestone was my baby blueberry at this week? Fingers and toes! How exciting! A heartbeat! A gender! There were all these things you looked forward to. And generally, you do the same with a new baby. She looked at me, smiled at me, held up her head, rolled over, sat up, talked, ate solids, slept through the night, etc. Moms LOVE to talk about this. They compare and contrast and give advice about how to get a baby to eat solids, take a bottle, sleep through the night. There is a wonderful sense of community they feel when they do this, and I'm glad that it's there.

Our milestones are different. I don't check to see if she's doing anything new this week, and I couldn't tell you when she rolled over for the first time. I check her mark. I check her brain for swelling and I try not to think about what I'd do if her brain swelled and I try and keep her medications coming on time. I call her doctor, her pharmacist, her specialists. I don't have any advice about getting her to sleep through the night, because until very recently, with her steroid dose, it wasn't even an option, and she still doesn't do it. And I don't feel like participating in a conversations about it because I don't care if she's a year before she does it. I can get up with her. I know she's not going to be ten and waking me up three times a night to make her a sandwich. And I become easily frustrated with moms who are exasperated at three months that their baby isn't sleeping through the night, and exasperated with moms who are so proud that their baby does. Because it so doesn't matter.

Okay, so here's the confession, and I realize I'm a jerk for feeling this way. I really do. But I simply cannot take hearing a parent complain about their child in any way. I get that being a mom is a HUGE change and that moms need to be able to vent, and I know your whole life changed and nothing in your daily routine is the way it used to be, whether you have your first baby or your fifteenth. I know that we all don't know what we're doing and we need each other and we need the community of being able to share and vent and ask advice. But I came too close to having my routine change not at all. I came so close to having no reason to get up in the middle of the night, except to stare at an empty bassinet and cry my eyes out with an ache that would never go away.

I know if none of this had happened, I would be the type of mother that I feel so different from now. I'd have been such an anal, by the book mom. I'd have gotten Bella on a strict schedule and tried to do everything just right, and maybe she'd have been a better kid for it, and maybe I'd be a better mom for it. But I can't. I don't care about those things. I don't care when she sleeps through the night, eats solids, walks, crawls, etc. I care even less than Peter sometimes. And I don't know if that makes me a bad mom. I don't know if I'm a bad mom if I let her co-sleep, not only because she needs it, but I do. I need to wake up in the night and feel her warm sleeping body breathing softly next to mine. I need to convince myself a thousand times a day that she's okay, that she's going to be okay. My liver isn't going to kill her, and her mark isn't going to affect her brain or her eye or her airway. I need to convince myself that that horrible day in the hospital was just a really close call. That I haven't hurt her in any way from having her on steroids for so long. I need to know that her heart murmur is gone and that her heart is working fine and that these current drugs aren't going to change that.

I need her. She's the most amazing thing in the world, she's such an incredible treasure, and I need her. I don't need her to sleep through the night. I wouldn't mind, but I don't even try and work at it. And when we sit in the dark in our rocking chair and I feel her little hand crawl up the front of my housecoat to find my skin, and I hear her sweet sighing sounds that she makes when she's happy and falling asleep, part of me hopes that she never sleeps through the night and I feel sorry for people who have babies that do. Because I know that one day that is not too far from now, she'll walk into the house, toss her car keys on the table and call "Night mom!" and go to her room and shut the door. And I will LONG for this. My arms will long to hold her in a bundle on my chest and snuggle her to sleep.

Maybe everything traumatized me to the point that I possibly have too much perspective. I certainly don't have enough grace. There are times where it's hard not to feel angry at people who have it so easy, and I know that I don't see what they may actually be going through. There are times when I feel annoyed at people for not having the same perspective that I do, and yet, I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Not ever.There are times where I could kill someone for asking about her mark and times when I could kill someone for ignoring it. The worst is to ask and then ignore the answer. I know people are just trying to make me more comfortable, but I so long for someone who just understands this. Who doesn't think that I'm a bad parent because I don't know that I really do parent Bella. I play with her. I enjoy her. I don't try and teach her anything other than that I love her and will always be there for her. If she tries to crawl and gets frustrated, I pick her up. If she wants to eat ten times a night, then I feed her and my poor husband goes to work dead tired and we sit in our jammies all day. I forget to give her a bath because she was playing with me, and I forget that if I want her to sleep through the night, I should teach her to nap by herself. But I cuddle her and she falls asleep and I breathe her in and just can't bear to put her down. People who follow Baby Wise would think I'm a hideous parent, and maybe they'd be right, but again, I just don't care.

It's just that with very few exceptions, I don't know how to talk to other moms. I don't know how to not feel embarrassed or elitist when they ask if she sleeps through the night, or if she's hitting certain milestones. I feel like I'm neglectful if I don't know the day she rolled over, like how could a good mother not know something like that? Have marked it down in a baby book and remembered that date? And without giving someone the long story it's hard not to just feel like an outsider, even though I'm a first time mom too.

So I avoid the mom-and-baby groups. I give people answers they like to a question that is too complicated. "Are you sleeping any?" "Enough." "Is she a good baby?" This question always makes me laugh. Do people actually say no? "Terrible baby, this one. Don't know what we're going to do with her. " She's a perfect baby. I don't know if she's ahead or behind in her development, and I truly don't care, so questions about her weight and abilities are all hard to answer. I had no idea what she weighed for about two months. We had so much time away from the doctor that I forgot to weigh her. It felt too nice to not have to go that I couldn't even bear to bring her to the health unit to check. I currently don't know how long she is. I've never known what percentile of anything she's in. She's here. She's alive and she's happy and she laughed at Peter the other day and I caught it on videotape. Yesterday when he walked in she called "hi" from the couch, clear as a little bell, and we died laughing. Last night I almost forgot to give her her medicine, and I'm terrified of doing that. The other day her breath caught and for a moment I was so worried about her airway that I couldn't do anything else but hold her and cry and try to convince myself to be rational. I dreamed about being back in the hospital with her, and the way she looked on that little bed, so sad and small and sick and I woke up so scared I had to have Peter pray with me before I fell back asleep, with her snuggled into me and remembering that I said I would never co-sleep. I pray every night that I will wake up in the morning and that mark will have vanished and I can just be a normal parent, and not such a basket case. But I wake up and it's there and then she smiles so hugely at me and screams as though she's just won the lottery and I laugh and pick her up and we start another day together and I thank God that we do.

I don't know if after all this, this is still making any sense. I need to get it out somehow, and part of me needs for people to understand, and part of me needs to understand it myself and I still don't feel like I do. But she's here, and she's okay and that's all I ever wanted in all the world.

EDIT: Just to avoid any confusion here. If you're reading this, I'm not talking about you. Just so we're clear. I just needed to vent today, and maybe needed to realize how seriously screwed up this has all made me feel.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

2010-01-06T09:27:00.003-08:00

Sorry for the following post: It is New Year's after all.

Oh yipes. I knew it had to happen someday. I got on my Wii Fit and did a body test. I can't even tell you how sad I was afterward. I was preparing myself for a really terrible number, and it was six pounds more than what I was fearing. I have never in my life looked at this amount of weight and tried to figure out how to make it leave. It's a three year old. How do I get rid of enough weight that you could make another person out of it?

I am trying not to sink into thinking about how revolted I feel with myself. I knew that it was going to be ugly when I got on that scale. I'm devastated that I literally just let myself go for 14 months and now I have to try and make that all back, hopefully in half that time. I feel like someone who left for work with a spotless house and came back to find everything in it moved about five inches. It all looks about the same, it's familiar, but everything is in the wrong place. It's unsettling, and depressing to not recognize myself in the mirror, and yet to see attributes there that I once liked. Oh dear. Peter told me that he missed the way I used to look. Not even slightly upset. I miss it too.

Anyway, enough of the whining. I will not "diet". I know I can. I lost 17 pounds on South Beach just before my wedding. But it came back. And I'm nursing. I can't just cut out 85% of food groups (like fruit, for instance) and expect that Bella will be okay with that. Here's the plan, because it will make me feel better to see it on a list:

Steps to Looking Hot (or Respectable) by July 1st.

1.) Strap Bella into her carrier, and go for a walk every morning, weather permitting.
2.) No pop. Not one drop. Wine? One glass per week. No more.
3.) At least 30 minutes of exercise on my Wii Fit, five days a week.
4.) If Peter works until 9pm, he eats dinner ALONE.
5.) Every time I grocery shop, must have a healthy weekly meal plan, and 85% of my cart must be produce or protein. An easy way to remember: Don't shop in the middle of the grocery store. Stick to the edges.
6.) No food after dinner. No dessert anytime.
7.) Watch my carbs. Lots of protein, lots of fruit and veggies, and drink lots of water.

Seven steps seems like enough. I'm telling you right now, I'm going to have trouble not eating at night. I'm starving all the time because I'm nursing. I'll figure it out. Now, I've got to go slap on some sweats and take Bella for a walk. Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted. I'm not motivated enough to also make a new blog like Melissa. You're just going to have to hear about it here. Sorry.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T15:01:00.002-08:00

I did it! I completed Bella's blanket, and I'm actually pretty happy with the results! I made it bigger than I originally thought, but I'm glad it's something that hopefully she can use for a while. I hate receiving blankets because they're all so small, I really like the ones I made with Grandma and my mom, and the one Auntie Sue sent me for that reason. They're nice and big.

We wanted to not go crazy on toys for her this year, since really, she doesn't have a lot of hand-eye coordination quite yet, so we tried to do special gifts. There's a book, the blanket, a journal that I'm copying my some of my pregnancy posts in. Her daddy got her a beautiful framed photo of the two of them that we're going to hang in her room. Tonight I'm going to my mom and dad's, while Peter's working, and then coming home, moving our mattress into the living room, making some appies, and opening a bottle of wine and watching White Christmas with my two favorite people in all the world. And we'll all open our new Christmas jammies, even Bella. I'm so blessed this year. She's so perfect, and he's such a great daddy and husband. I don't care what's under the tree. I've already got everything in the world I want. Except a Kate Spade bag. I'll live.

Merry Christmas Everyone! I love you all.

I Can't Believe I'm Doing This...

2009-12-21T23:19:00.002-08:00

I'm going to read it. I watched the movie, and I hated it. I'm sorry, maybe that's too strong. Something in me did kind of twinge as I reminisced about being young and everything being that big a deal (like I'm so calm and stable now) but seriously, if I saw one more teen heartthrob shoot a moody look across a crowded room, forest, street of a quaint town, etc etc, I was going to stab myself in the leg. It was just over the top. But a lot of people who I know and love have read the books, and said they're great. That they're so so much better. People who have similar tastes as me have said that I would love them. And not 13 year old people.

So here I go. I'm not sure if I'll quit by tonight, but I'm going to give it a fair shot. Mostly because I'm too lazy to go to the library, pay my fines, and find something else to read so close to Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I will put a Christmas-y post up here before the 25th. Likely of my blanket, taken with the new camera that Peter won for me at his Christmas party! I'm pleased with the blanket and plan to finish tomorrow. Gotta run, it's late and Bella needs to be medicated and snuggled to sleep. And I need to get some reading in. Wish me luck, I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Why do I EVEN try?

2009-12-12T12:49:00.002-08:00

To budget around the hollidays? Why? Because I'm an idiot who likes to set herself up for guilt and failure? We all know I have no math skills whatsoever. We KNOW this!

Every stinking year. Here's the thing: I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker for the perfect gift, for the perfect Christmas Eve meal. I'm a sucker for anything that would be cute for Bella's first Christmas. Here's the scenario:

Mellie is nearly done shopping for Peter. Just needs a last minute stocking stuffer and then we're done. Whilst walking through the cologne section of The Bay she comes across "Black" by Kenneth Cole. She smells it, imagines Peter wearing it, and goes a little weak in the knees. $10 stocking stuffer becomes $90 gift set. I don't just blow a Christmas budget; I annihilate them.

With Peter getting stuck in the States, and getting our car brought across the border, we do not have money to burn this year. We don't have money to spend. But I have a line of credit with a 2% interest rate and no minimum payment, since I work at the bank. So Mellie walks into the store this year, needing one more gift for Peter and gets suckered in by some pimple faced teen sales guy, who probably lives with his mother, has no overhead and no brand new baby girl who needs diapers, gripe water, and a myriad of cute sleepers on a regular basis. Of course he'd buy one of these! Of course he would! And now he can afford to, on the commission from my sale. Stupid girl.

The thing is, I am still rotating between a pair of maternity jeans and an old pair of pre-pregnancy jeans that are getting so worn out they're going to disintegrate off my unrecognizable butt. I have no pants that fit. Not one pair. I need to buy some pants. But I put it off, since honestly, I'd rather Peter have a gift under the tree that makes him light up, laugh and say "honey! what did you do?!". And really folks, I'm not going to like how I look no matter what the pants, so why put myself through the torture of figuring out what my "new" jeans size is? Why?

I have zero self control when it comes to gifts for Peter and Bella. None. Every December I resemble one of those people on TV whose finances are so out of control that they don't even look at the bills. I don't. If my checking account runs empty before payday, I transfer some money over from the line of credit and go from there. January to November, I behave. Except for birthdays, and anniversaries, that's more of the same, just not to the same degree of wanton idiocy. I swear, something happens to me in December that says, "bah, whatever. We'll figure it out in January. Think of how happy he'll be on the 25th!!"

Oh well. Merry Christmas to Peter anyway. He'll be thrilled. Until he sees the bank balance.

Dear Isabella,

2009-12-11T10:10:00.002-08:00

Last year, mommy sat in front of her Christmas tree and cried. I had been waiting for you for so long, and I felt a little hole in my heart where I knew you fit. I was afraid that hole would always be there, that you may never come.

I prayed that next Christmas I would cuddle your little sleeping body next to the tree. That's all I wanted in the whole world. I wanted you.

Sometimes when I look at you I just can't believe you exist. I can't believe how beautiful and sweet life can be, now that you're here. Falling in love with you is the most amazing, incredible feeling I've ever felt. When you wake up in the morning next to me (though we're trying really hard to get you to sleep in your own bed) and you open your big dark eyes, see my face, and smile as big as you can, I feel like nobody on earth could ever be as happy as I am. When I'm trying to sleep and I can hear you squealing and talking to Daddy, I just can't help but laugh a little, and get up, and come see what you're up to. I love to watch you learn things, and to see you get so excited when you figure out how to reach up and grab your little kitty on your playmat so that he'll sing a little song. I don't think I've ever understood the beauty of God's creation until I saw you. There were glimpses of it when I saw mountains, or the ocean during a storm, but never like this. I can't believe he created you. That your little fingers wrap around mine, that you fit perfectly in my arms, that your lungs breathe in and out, you blink, you smile. It's amazing to me just to watch you live, sleep, kick your little legs. Every movement you make feels like a miracle.

More than anything though, I love to hold you when you sleep. I love to feel your little hand crawling up the front of my shirt to find my skin, and when it rests there, you sigh and you completely relax. I love that you snuggle. I'm completely addicted to the smell of you, it's nearly narcotic. I could inhale you until I go dizzy from it. When you sleep, I close my eyes, and put my face in your neck, where I can feel your soft hair touching my cheek and breathe you in. I try not to think that one day you will be too big for me to do this. That one day, you won't need me to go to sleep. So I think of things we'll do then, that we can't do now. Play. Cook. Horseback ride. Read. When I think of you being able to wrap your arms around my neck, to hear you say you love me and Daddy, then I'm okay with you getting bigger. I can't wait for those days.

For now, we spend hours each day on our rocker, snuggling. And last night, your Daddy and I set up our Christmas tree. When you saw it all lit up, you smiled so big! And when we were all done, Daddy sat next to me, I wrapped you in a nice warm blanket, and rocked you to sleep. And I sat there and realized that I got my Christmas wish. I got you. And you're safe, and beautiful, and so desperately sweet. You've made our lives so incredibly wonderful, it's hard to know what to want for Christmas this year.

I love you so very much, my darling baby girl. So much.

What's Cuter Than This?

2009-12-03T19:41:00.004-08:00

Nothing, that's what.

Phew, Done.

2009-11-30T19:18:00.003-08:00

I can't believe I blogged 30 times in 30 days. I nearly made it except for the internet being down yesterday. Oh well.

All of this, and I really don't know that I've said much. I think December will be nice for all of us. No rushing to the computer at 11:30.

Anyway, thanks all for reading, and for writing, I like reading your blogs, even the ordinary day ones. I'm happy for the new bloggers, like Jonathan, and Uncle David and Auntie Carolyn and Robyn. Good times. I hope this keeps up.

And now for something completely different:
I said I'd do it, and I did.

All I have to say is this: I'm not blogging tomorrow. Or maybe even the next day.

Date Night - part II

2009-11-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

This is appearing about an hour and 37 minutes late. But it wasn't my fault, my computer wasn't connecting to the internet. Peter fixed it.

Date night went well. I only cried a little as we were driving away and a little again when my dad called me 10 minutes before we got home asking how long we'd be because Bella was refusing to take a bottle and was crying. Other than that, she did fine, and so did I. Next time I'll try a movie. Dinner was delicious, the appies were incredible, the mains were good, but the sides were totally uninspired. What can you do? We had a great time either way.

As for the bottle, we tried it again today and it worked like a charm, so who knows what that was about.

Anyway, it's nearly 2am and I'm going Christmas shopping tomorrow with Robyn. And I'm supposed to put up a link to her blog. And tell people to comment. She should keep blogging. So there you go. Go comment on Robyn's blog.

Date Night - part I

2009-11-28T09:03:00.003-08:00

Peter and I are going on a date tonight. Alone. I am up at 8:30 stressing about it already. My mom and dad are going to watch Bella.

The plan was to go to dinner and a movie, but that would have worked out to about three and a half hours, and I just don't think I can do it. I didn't say this to Peter, just sat in the car trying not to hyperventilate. He mentioned that he actually liked my original plan, which included reservations at a really nice restaurant in Cedar but no movie. I don't know why we deviated from the first plan anyway, it's been causing me endless stress, thinking about being away from Bella for nearly four hours. He asked if we could just do what I had planned first, and I nearly fainted with relief.

The restaurant is in Cedar, so it's a half hour from here, and dinner will take about an hour and a half, so we're still looking at almost three hours, but that's not too bad. I can do that. I just didn't think I could do four.

Here's the scoop. I know all moms stress about this the first time. It's always hard. I've been away from her for two hours while Peter's home with her, and I am fine. And both of us were away from her for nearly three hours once before, and I think my problem lies there. She was having her MRI. It happened on the worst day of my life, and they told me when she went into the MRI that she'd be about a half hour. I remember every moment of those two extra hours. And when I got to see her again she wasn't fine. She'd been poked six times before they'd gotten her IV in. I can't imagine how she must have cried, and I wasn't there for her. I couldn't be.

I know this isn't the same. I know if she's really upset, my mom can call me, and I'll rush home to her. I know she won't actually even get really upset. She's so good, and so happy. She knows and loves my mom, was smiling for her like crazy last night. She'll be in her own environment. I know she'll be okay, and I know the longer I put this off the harder it will be. So we're going to go.

I'll let you know tonight how it went.

Making Memories

2009-11-27T09:44:00.006-08:00

Last night we had Thanksgiving. My hen turned out okay, since I realized that my fig preserves were moldy and I had to wing it (no pun intended) with something else. My hen had a neck when I unwrapped it. I nearly threw it away, but composed myself and called Peter in to deal with it. I am no Julia Child, I'll tell you that. Once the hen was de-necked (okay that "word" makes me nauseated), I crammed some onion and garlic inside it and made a glaze on the stove top of some orange tangerine juice I had in the fridge, some white wine, and a bunch of maple syrup. It turned out okay. Guinea hen tastes remarkably like chicken. So much so that you wonder why you spent 13 bucks on a little chicken when a whole one is only 8. 10 if you want them to rotisserie it for you. I could have done that, and brushed it with maple syrup and that would have been it. And saved myself three bucks. We used to have guinea hens that lived outside our first house. They are horrifically noisy, they sound like a child screaming while being shaken violently. The first time I heard it, I rushed outside, certain something terrible was transpiring in my backyard. Eating one felt good on that level, I don't mind telling you. Ha ha! Revenge is mine, you noisy freak of nature.

Anyway, not at all the point of this post. Dinner came out okay. We also tried celeriac (ugliest piece of produce you can buy, I think) and they're tasty. And I cooked turnips for the first time, and they were also yummy. My stuffing was the best, I think. Want a good stuffing recipe? Take a box of stove top turkey stuffing, and add to it a cup of celery, about three or four cups of mixed mushrooms (spring for shitakes, they're delicious) and about a cup and a half of dried cranberries, and a half a small onion diced small. Instead of water, add about a cup of chicken stock, and a cup of white wine. Or more, or less, depending on how moist you want it. Toss it in the oven for an hour. It was pretty spectacular, and I don't like stove top stuffing.

Also not the point of this post.

Bella did so great last night while I was getting stuff ready. Slept on her own, not a care in the world. Two minutes before Peter came home, when I was filling water glasses and lighting candles, she started to cry. So in walks Peter to see his frazzled wife, a mess in a pair of pants with who knows what spilled on them, maybe sauce, maybe spit up. His baby is looking adorable in her happy thanksgiving shirt and screaming. He smiles, looks at the beautiful spread of food, and goes to sit down. He says grace and Bella screams along and I'm trying to hold her and calm her down while we have a nice quiet meal. No doing. I move to the rocking chair with her, and she starts to quiet. But my food is getting cold so Peter tries to move it near me and spills about a quarter of a bottle of wine, all over my plate, floods it totally, and all over his pants and the floor. He gets up, runs to change, and mop up the floor before we totally ruin our throw rug. He's mad the way only Peter can be at himself when he does something that he thinks is stupid and embarrassing. It makes me laugh a little, but I'm trying not to. By the time Bella is done crying, and the floor is clean, our food is stone cold. We heat it up in the microwave and turn on the football game and drink our wine. I made it just past halftime before I fell asleep nursing Bella with my shirt half off. Peter let me sleep.

Somewhere in there, I remembered another feast I made for him for his Thanksgiving. I remembered how beautiful everything looked, and the candlelight, and sitting at the table together with the fireplace on. I had brushed my hair and had some make up on. Wait, I bet I have a picture.

But all I kept thinking was that I wouldn't trade that for this. I kept thinking that we were right in the middle of a memory that one day we would talk about at pretty Thanksgiving tables with my makeup and my shirt on. We would eat warm food from the oven instead of the microwave and nobody would spill the expensive wine we'd splurged on and we'd laugh about the first Thanksgiving I tried to do with Bella. How tired we were that Peter spilled the wine and stormed around and I held Bella and tried to eat while simultaneously rocking a baby, dripping sauce over us both. It just seemed like one of those moments you know? That one day I would miss this mess and chaos and confusion while we figure out this mom and dad thing. That as I get better at this, I'm going to miss this part. I don't know, now it's not coming out right.

Either way, Thanksgiving was memorable and lovely. Wish me luck with Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving Again!

2009-11-26T11:27:00.004-08:00

Food makes me happy. Not just eating it, though that's lovely too. I love an excuse to try cooking something new. And loved having a reason to go to Whole Foods again yesterday. Today is American Thanksgiving. And, as I am married to an American, we do the feast twice a year. Since we had the big traditional feast on our Thanksgiving, I try and make his a little different, while not deviating too far from what should be on the table on Thanksgiving day.

Tonight's Menu:
Appetizer: Mini Crab Cake on a Bed of Spring Greens, Chipotle Garlic Aoli

Main: Roasted Guinea Hen with Fig Balsamic Glaze
Wild Mushroom and Cranberry Stuffing
Autumn Baby Ravioli in a White Wine Butter Sauce
Medley of Spiced Roasted Root Vegetables

Dessert: Pumpkin Pie with Spiced Vanilla Whipped Cream and Spiked Egg Nog Hot Chocolate

All served of course, with a very nice bottle of red wine. And before you think me too ambitious, I'm doing it all without a babysitter for Bella. But I'm totally buying the pie, and you'll notice the word "roasted" a couple of times there. This menu was planned hoping that all I'll have to do with Bella is the pasta. Everything else will be prepped this afternoon while Peter is at home, and then tossed in the oven at the appropriate times. But according to my modified recipe, I need to baste that stupid hen every ten minutes. That should be a good time. Thank goodness for my infant carrier. I made soup the other night with Bella tucked into it. She was pretty okay with that, though she doesn't much like doing the dishes. Can't say I blame her. I'm getting nervous thinking about it. Wish me luck. If we can't carry it off, or I burn that hen, I'm calling for pizza and wings and we're watching football.

Sigh

2009-11-25T23:05:00.002-08:00

I don't get my Christmas wish.

They lengthened the amount of time we're spending weaning Bella off the steroids. They added four more weeks. Double what I thought I had left.

That's four more weeks of stomach ache, the absence of hope for more than three hours sleep at a time, three more necessary medications and a mild case of thrush.

I'm tired. And disappointed.

Christmas, Thank-You's and Mario

2009-11-24T17:09:00.003-08:00

I should just leave it at that. That has been my day so far.

It is 5:10pm. I am in my jammies. I have played most of World Three in Mario, and have been writing thank you notes from Bella's multiple baby showers and Christmas cards the rest of the time. And of course, nursing Bella, "fighting" with Peter about the heat being turned down (I'm a little funny about Bella getting cold, or anything close to it), and changing diapers.

Here's another selfish confession. I am truly very thankful for every gift we've got, and I love being able to tell people that. BUT, I love the stationary aspect of the "thank-you note". But if I wasn't a freak about beautiful paper and pens, I probably wouldn't have sent them. Don't get me wrong, I would have said thank you, and been just as grateful, but I'd have sent you a facebook note, or told you in person. I don't do it because it's the "proper thing to do". I just loved having a good reason to go to Michael's and get the cutest package of cards you've ever seen. Plus, I love an excuse to send, and receive real mail. I love getting anything in the mail that isn't a bill.

Here's the thing though. I don't know why we write down what we get and from whom. Do you really want your card to say, Becky, thank you for the adorable hat and the cute little shirt and bib. Doesn't that sound a bit formulaic? Don't you feel like you've gotten a form letter or something?

Dear (Insert Name Here)
Thank you so much for your gift of (insert correspoding present here). It was very kind of you, and we're so grateful.
Most Sincerely,
(your name here)

I will tell you that I thought of each of you while I wrote your card, and was really thankful, and wrote something individual to you. If you compare your cards, they are not the same. And they are on really cute stationary.

If cleanliness is next to godliness...

2009-11-23T13:07:00.003-08:00

...then the last six months would have sent me straight to hell.

If you have kids, and you're reading this, I need you to do me a favor. Remember when you brought your first baby home from the hospital. Remember leaving with that tiny bundle and thinking, "they're really just going to send me home and see how I do?". Remember how unreal that was? To just take your baby home and get on with your life? And remember the weight of the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again. Remember the first time you were totally alone with your child? How scary that was? Remember how all you used to do was stare at them when they'd sleep, thinking, "don't you need something?". It's funny how little maintenance the first one really is. Before the hospital and everything I remember thinking, "seriously, I should be doing something shouldn't I?" Stupid me, the answer was to go to sleep. Oh well. Anyway, remember that feeling, and try not to roll your eyes at me during this post. Or go ahead. I'd laugh at me if I were reading it.

Today, I put Bella down for a nap. In her room, in her swing, all by herself. It took me a long time but I closed the door. I used our baby monitor. Then I cleaned out the fridge. I cannot tell you about the fridge. Oh, what the heck, you've been there. There were cabbage rolls from Thanksgiving in there, and guacamole from before then. There were things in that fridge that were older than Bella. It was horrific. I cleaned it out, washed the disgusting dishes that held the offending items and took out the abominable smelling garbage. And when I was done, I checked on Bella. Still sleeping.

So I made the bed. Peter and I will go to sleep in a bed that was made that morning for the first time in probably six months. I didn't make the bed much when I was huge and pregnant. I ran to the kitchen to listen to the monitor. Nothing but the tick-tick-swish of the swing. I went to see if she was alive. She was. So I swept the floor in the kitchen, and then for good measure, the bathroom. Still sleeping. So I did the mirrors, sink, and toilet. I threw in a load of towels. Still sleeping. I took out a load of clothes and folded them. And put them away. In the same half hour period. Folded AND put away. Where they belong! Not just in the bedroom on a chair, but in the drawers. And I swept my floors in the main areas of the house, and in my bedroom.

And she woke up. So I picked her up and walked her into the living room and she looked around like she had no clue where she was anymore. And then smiled at me. And I was so proud of her, of me, and of us that I cried. I can't believe that I cleaned my house while my baby napped. On her own. What an angel. Oh my goodness, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Today I got to be a wife and a mom. I've never done that before yet. I'm one or the other, and guess which one wins?

I also made a meal plan for the week, and a corresponding grocery list, and once we eat and watch Top Chef, and I feed Bella, I'm going to do errands. All by myself while Bella gets in some snuggle time with her daddy. I know. So laugh if you will, I will do it tomorrow at myself, but today I am simply amazed at myself. With no exaggeration, I am prouder of me today than when I got my high school diploma. When Peter got home for lunch, she was up, fed, medicated and changed. And his house was clean. And his wife was smiling. Unreal.

You know what else is stupid? Baby Mexx.

2009-11-22T14:29:00.005-08:00

I mean, where do they get off? Stupid store. They should be housed in a corner of Stupidstore, except their prices are too high.

So by now you've realized you're about to read a ranting post. I went to the mall all excited yesterday with all my store credit everywhere. I had to go to the Children's Place, Babies R Us, and Baby Mexx. I never shop at the regular Mexx simply because I am not that trendy, and do not need to be constantly outfitted in linen. Do they even sell jeans? Anyway. I went to Baby Mexx to return a hat and socks I got. Apparently they were on clearance, so I got $10 off whatever I wanted in the store. I would have liked something for $12-$15. Nothing in that store is that price. Nothing. Maybe a pair of socks, but it seemed like a stupid waste to get a pair of baby socks for ten stinking bucks. But, wait! All of their infant clothes are 40% off! Maybe I can shop at Mexx after all!!

So I got Bella an outfit. With my $10 discount, and 40% off, I still spent almost $30. Can you believe that?! It's infant clothes!!! Made by infants in China! Where does the price come from? The fancy ribbon tag attached not with those plastic thingies, but by actual thread, and a little plastic clip, that also says Mexx? It's not like they're spending a lot of money in the real estate. The store is so tiny you can't flipping move in there. I hate children's stores that don't take into account that the people who shop there are mothers with STROLLERS! Morons. Anyway, where does the money go? I don't know.

But look at her. Could she be any cuter? Is that not the prettiest outfit you've ever seen? It may be, until I post pictures of her from Shawn's wedding (I'm working up to this, I look huge in all of them) and then her Christmas dress. Which I got at Children's place, along with a matching hat and panties, and a pretty pair of fleece pants for the same price. And the dress is to die for. I already have clippies to match. Anyway, this is our first and last outfit from Mexx. Stupid Mexx.

I woke her up to take this. I'm a jerk, and it looks like she may know it.

Look at the cuffs on the little knit pants! And how perfectly her little moccasins match. Seriously, I could also rant about people who treat their kids like accessories, but man, having a little girl is like being a little girl again yourself. Playing dress up and dollies all at once. I adore being her mom for more reasons than all the baby clothes, but it's hard not to love the clothes.

I had to enlist Peter to make her smile. She's such a little Daddy's Girl. Don't you just want to eat her?! Or take her to a little ski chalet and snuggle her in front of a fire? Man. I can't tell you how much I love this little girl.

Oh, and if you haven't had enough, there's another photo on Bella's Blog.

My Favorite Things

2009-11-21T10:26:00.002-08:00

I'm going to do this in the morning, and hopefully save you another super lame post.

Do you know what I love more than most things? Store credit. It makes me exceedingly happy. My work friends threw a baby shower for me and my friend Tiffany the other night (who had the cutest set of red haired twins you've ever looked at, a boy and a girl!) and I got so much stuff! Seriously, if you've sent me a baby gift, I'm ever so grateful, and you'll get a thank-you card as soon as I can write about a hundred of them. I'm working on it, and I also have Christmas cards! Oh yipes, I'm starting to stress out.

Anyway, back to the store credit. I got a couple of things that I actually have doubles of (that's how many gifts we keep getting, we're starting to double up) and so I get to take some back today. I have a beautiful sweater and jeans for the Children's Place, and a matching hat and slippers from Baby Mexx and a gift card for Babies r Us. And the mall is all decorated for Christmas, and Santa will be there. One weekend soon, we need to take Bella for her Santa pictures. I want one of these more than I am afraid of the germs. Hopefully I won't offend Santa if I sanitize my baby right after they're done with their photo.

While I am gone, Peter said he'd put up our Christmas lights. There are two houses on our cul-de-sac that already have them up. Everyone decorated for Halloween as well. I can tell this is going to be a fun place to live. Loads of kids. And cats that poop in my yard, but that's a post for another day. Anyway, Peter offering to put up the lights is a really sweet way of saying he'd rather do hard labor outside in the rain than go shopping with me. Oh well. He's too much of a voice of reason in the baby section anyways. Who needs it? Maybe I'll call my friend Joy and have her come with me, and her husband can help with the lights. They need to come and pick up their Bailey's anyway.

I can't tell you how excited I am for Bella's first Christmas. Can. Not. Wait. I also bought her a little gingerbread house kit, that I plan to decorate exclusively in pink candies. Stop rolling your eyes - it's going to look so stinking cute! With a little sign in the yard that says "Bella's House". I'll post a photo. For thinking the entire time I was pregnant, that I was having a boy, I am absolutely in love with having a daughter. I love all things pink and girlie and frilly. Okay, time to get in some Mario before I have to go the the mall! YAY for Christmas and weekends! Do you think Peter would allow a couple of pink Christmas lights with our white icicle ones? Pink is the new red and green folks. It totally is.

It was going to happen sooner or later

2009-11-20T23:08:00.003-08:00

This is about to be a very lame post.

Robyn and Luc are over. Bella is happy. We had shepherds pie for dinner, but I tried to make it with roast beef instead of ground. It was delicious, but texturally, a total failure.

We're going to play Super Mario Bros for my Wii. We can all play at the same time, in the same level. This makes me super happy. Mom came over today, we played all of world one while dad snuggled Bella.

I have a hot chocolate spiked with Bailey's. Joy, if you're reading this, never leave alcohol at my house again. I guess I owe you.

That's all I got, folks.

Saved

2009-11-19T13:35:00.004-08:00

The craziest thing just happened to me. Maybe much more miraculous than crazy.

I was driving with Bella to my mom's place, and if you're from BC I was between Lantzville and Nanoose, in the left lane. Not because I was going desperately quickly but because I had been at a red light and just sort of ended up there.
If you're not from BC, all you need to know is that I was on a curvy sort of highway and though it's divided, it's divided with a huge cement median. Which is about 12 inches away from your lane. It's super close.

Anyway, I'm driving along, not going slowly, but not really zooming either, since it's pouring rain again. Some stupid 18 wheeler comes up beside me and I get a little nervous, because the other night someone cut me off in the rain and kicked up enough water on my windshield that I was blind for a few seconds, even with my wipers on high. I was terrified of this happening with the semi, especially since I was right next to that huge cement median. He wasn't going much faster than me, so I sped up to get around him. He sped up. All of a sudden I looked down and I was going 110 and he still wasn't letting me by. He had me pinned and there was traffic behind us, so I tapped my brake to slow down to get behind him, and as I did I hit a puddle and started to hydroplane. I swear to you, I felt us heading toward that median, and then all of a sudden we were sliding the other way, toward that stupid semi's wheels. I yelled and I knew we were going under him, I could feel us and I couldn't steer. Out of nowhere, it's like we were bumped and we were still sliding but we were going in a completely straight line. I bet we slid 40-50 feet like this and then I tapped my brake and it held and I got behind him.

I do not know how we didn't die today. Or rather, I do know, and I'm amazed and shaken up. I felt the car being bumped back into place. Oh thank God we're okay. And she didn't even wake up. And now she's starving. Gotta run. Just thought you may want to hear a good miracle story.

I May Be Done Blogging

2009-11-18T17:08:00.004-08:00

Forget NaBloPoMo. Guess what I got today?! Just guess. Well, as you can already see the picture below, don't guess. Just grab some drinks and come over and play with me!
I'm so excited for so many reasons about this game.

Here's the first one. It's not three dimensional. It's the way the old ones were, the scrolling screen sort of deal. I loved Mario Galaxy, which is about as 3D as you can get, but I like these better. I just do. My mom will play this with me! Oh I actually have a reason to look forward to Peter going to Colorado.

Look at them!! It's so cute!! Oh man, I just can't tell you how excited I am for this. I have been waiting MONTHS for this game to come out. Oh how I love my Wii. Ahem. Peter's Wii. Well now that just sounds wrong. Screw it. I love my Wii.

AND! You can play four people at a time! And you can be a penguin! And the Yoshi's are back! Okay, I'm going to go before the use of all these exclamation points even starts to annoy me. I'll keep blogging, but I can't tell you how profound they may be.

17 down, 13 to go

2009-11-17T23:45:00.002-08:00

My clippies came today. I was going to lay them all out and show them off in a picture, and do another one of Bella wearing one, which looks so adorable on her it could nearly make you cry. I was going to. Then we gave her her medicine a little later in the day, and now it's 11:46 and she's acting stoned. Poor angel. She's jumping from sleeping to wide awake and smiling, to crying and squirming in mere moments. It's psychotic. It would actually be a little bit hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

In other news, Peter is going to Denver in a couple of weeks, for a ski weekend to meet his sister Katie's new beau. He's an Australian surfer/pharmacist who is also a missionary in an orphanage in Bali. He's raising 12 little orphan boys. He is, shall we say, very easy to look at. Even Peter will admit this. His resume reads pretty well, and so we have high hopes, which is why Peter's going to check him out. I'm praying for a destination wedding in Bali. On the beach. I could really do Bali right now.

NOTE: Please stop reading here, if a moment of my selfishness will make me lose any sort of regard you may hold me in.

I want to go too. It's something we would have done before Bella. Something together. Now he's going and I'm staying home with the baby. It's not like she can snowboard. It would be stupid to go and sit in the lodge for a day. It would upset her. She doesn't have a passport. We can't afford it. I'm afraid of all the germs involved in traveling.

Still. I'm going to my mother's for three days, and he's going to Aspen. Next year things would have been different, but he needs to go and be a big brother, and I would have just been an extra anyways, baby or no. I'm really glad he gets to go. He could use to go blow off a little steam in the mountains. He's meeting friends of ours I haven't seen in a year. I would love to see them. We're still going in the spring, and I'll see them then. Still. Nanoose vs Aspen.

It's the getting on a plane and going somewhere I think. That's all it is. I just want to get on a plane and go somewhere. Maybe Bali for a wedding. One can only hope. If this works out, and Peter and the rest of the family approve, and there's a wedding, I will be very happy I sent Peter to Aspen for the weekend. I'm happy anyways...oh blast, I don't know. I just wish I could go somewhere, and I so love Denver. I'm being such a big stupid baby about this, it's actually nauseating to me.

Stoner baby has started to cry. I better go in there before she starts laughing hysterically. Crazy baby. Stupid medicine. Lucky Peter.

My Wish List

2009-11-16T08:59:00.009-08:00

Okay, I've finally got a moment - it's first thing in the morning and I've got a coffee and Bella is chattering away to herself and smiling (it's how she begins every single day). Yipes! Is my coffee gone already? Give me one sec.
Ahh, much better.
First. I actually need one of these. I have too many doctors appointments to keep track of, and now that I'm not working I barely remember what day it is, let alone that I need to be somewhere at a certain time and date. I'd like one of these a lot. But this one is expensive. I'd be happy with this one instead. Plus I can put a photo in it. Nice. If I could have any one I wanted, I'd get a Kate Spade one. But who are we kidding? I'm not that trendy. Moving on.

I'd really like this also, and it's not too expensive! I love this movie. Love everything about it. Perfect gift for a person on a budget. My face will light up, I'll watch it again and again, and one only has to spend $15.

This would be nice also. Or just a gift certificate to Michael's. I'd be great with that as well. I want to keep crocheting, and once Bella's blanket is done I'm going to be all out of pretty yarn. This is a great idea for Peter, since when I'm doing it, I actually stay awake in front of the TV!

Well, it's my wish list isn't it? I've wanted a pair of these for AGES. My 5th anniversary is coming up though, maybe I could get them then? I'm not ever thinking that they'll be under the tree, but a girl can dream can't she? And diamonds don't care if you are still carrying your baby weight. Or your "crap-I-got-fat-on-holidays-and-then-had-Christmas" weight. Whatever, it's my wish list and I want them. They're beautiful and make me smile.

You know what else doesn't care if you're fat? Purses and shoes. Oh, I love accessories. Not shoes as much, but purses and scarves and the above mentioned earrings. If you want to get me a handbag, this site will work. So will this one. Oh, and Kate Spade does those too, and I don't care if I'm trendy or not, I'd haul one of those around. Especially this one. Oh my gosh, I'm salivating right now over that bag. Oh my, oh my, oh my. But no, if we're being honest, this will do just fine. Man, I could do a post just about purses.
This. I need this one. I'm getting to the point of not using my Lavender Vanilla Sleep Therapy lotions and scrubs. Because I'm going to run out, and then I'll be sad that they're gone. I want this. Anything from this site will work, even if I'm still fighting with them because they took away my favorite scent. I like this one a whole heck of a lot though. And speaking of lavender:

I love this store. I went there last year while in Denver. I spent quite a bit of money but got some really lovely things. One of which was a jar of real lavender. I put it in hot chocolate and it was blissful. I put it in jasmine tea, and it's even better. I made Robyn make me some lemon shortbread with it, and they were really good also. Plus I'm out of my spiced vanilla sugar, and I need that. I may shop here later today. Blast. Don't leave me at home alone with the credit card. I'm bad news.

Okay, Bella is fussing now, and it's time for her morning nap. Despite every effort to the contrary, she does have a bit of a schedule, and 10am is nap time. Holy, it took me this long to do all this? Must have been the handbags. I need to gaze at that Kate Spade bag just one more time.

Ten truths?! Will you take two?

2009-11-15T23:30:00.003-08:00

I think this once-a-day-posting would go better if I stopped trying to do it at 11:30 at night. I'm boring myself. This week I'm going to do my Christmas list, but I want to do it justice, and I just don't have the time right now.

So I'm going to do a couple of truths about me, since everyone else was doing that one too - although, Kathy, if you're reading this, I'm still disappointed with yours. I need a secret, I want to find out something new about you. This means I need to share something new about me, I suppose:

I have an incredible mind for numbers. Not mathematics, please don't get confused. I can tell you hundreds of numbers off the top of my head, and I find them very easy to memorize. Since Bella has been born, I can tell you by heart, her care card number, the phone numbers for both of her pediatricians, the pharmacy, the travel assistance line I need to call when filling out my ferry forms, the identification numbers of both her referring and attending physicians. I know my phone numbers from when I was a kid, and given how many times I've moved, that's a lot of phone numbers. I know my library card number by heart. It's weird, they just stick in there. I'm a little bit the same way with song lyrics, but can't ever remember the artist. Ever.

I hate, passionately, my post-pregnancy body. I don't look like me anymore, and with everything else that's going on, it's exhausting to think about diet and trying to fit in some sort of exercise regimen. In no way do I blame Bella for this, and if you had asked me a year ago, when we were trying and it wasn't happening if I wanted to forfeit the way I looked for a baby, I would have taken it in an instant, no hesitation. It's not like I was so smoking hot before. She was absolutely worth it. And I know it's only been just under three months. I know. I happened to get pregnant at my heaviest weight ever, so even though most of the baby weight is gone, I still don't like what's in the mirror. Being a mom makes me feel like the least sexy thing on the planet sometimes. Sexy like tube socks and flannel jammies and unshaven legs. I feel like after being a mom, I have no energy left for being anything else. Not a wife, not a very great friend or daughter or sister. I don't journal, I don't do almost anything that doesn't revolve around Bella. And I love her, I love being her mom more than I love anything else about me, but I would like to have a clean house, smooth shaved legs, a coffee and my journal with my music on and take a minute to myself. I don't do that ever anymore. I got a $75 gift certificate to a very beautiful spa nearby, and Peter even said he'd top it up for me so I could get a few things done, and I have no clue whatsoever when I'll use it. I know it'll get better, and easier, and I'll work a little harder to lose the extra 30 pounds I'm now lugging around, but I wish that day was tomorrow. I don't want to hear that I need to take some "me time". I need to get past the doctors and medication and exhaustion to where me time is even the most remote of options. Then, I could leave Bella alone for a day with no guilt or separation anxiety and go to the spa. I could really, really use a makeover. I feel a little like that woman in the commercials, all overweight and frumpy and going to the lost and found looking for herself. Have you seen me? I used to be funny and silly and not so worried. I used to look hot in a cocktail dress. And this conveyor belt rolls out and she finds herself and rushes up to give herself a big hug? I could use to find that lost and found.

Well, there you have it. Nothing too earth shattering, but two truths is all I have the energy for tonight.

Wedding

2009-11-14T23:30:00.001-08:00

Shawn got married today. It was lovely. The ceremony was beautiful, the bride cried coming down the aisle, Shawn was beaming and told her "this is the best day of my whole life". Which was pretty stinking sweet.

Bella looked so cute you could have eaten her right up. I wanted to nibble on her she was so completely adorable. She also giggled for the first time tonight, we're pretty sure. She did it to herself and we all looked at each other like, "did she just laugh?" I didn't hear it well enough to know with certainty.

But I'm not going to lie, the highlight for me had to be watching Carrie and Carlie dance. Carrie, you're my hero.

Goodnight.

Pharmacists and Saggy Breasts

2009-11-13T20:23:00.004-08:00

I'm telling you right now, I'm only posting because of this once a day thing. Today we found my mom something to wear for Shawn's wedding tomorrow, and dealt with a lot of other drama, that really doesn't involve me, but made for a great distraction.

I met my new pharmacist and he was so nice to me I nearly cried. He told me that if Bella is having trouble with her meds, that he'll make them different flavors until we find one she can stand. For now, they're tutti-frutti because that was always his kids favorite, even when they were as little as she is. He gave me his work schedule and his card with his number and told me to call anytime I ever have a worry or concern. He made up Bella's medicine in an hour. It's taken four hours before at BCCH, though, granted, they deal with a much higher volume of people.

I'm excited to see how Bella looks tomorrow, she's going to be the cutest thing ever. Tonight I'm sitting at my mom's and we're trying on nail polish and dresses and wraps. I'm not because well, I just had a baby and I'm fat and frumpy - and I challenge anyone to find worse Braun fingernails than I have. I'm going to buy stick on thingys at Shoppers tomorrow, and wear closed toed shoes and nylons with control tops and thighs, and hopefully everyone will look at my baby and not notice me at all. That would be fine by me. I wish my clippies had arrived in time, but I wasn't really counting on it, so I bought her a little beret. Of course I did.

In other news (STOP READING NOW IF YOU'RE MALE AND DO NOT CONTINUE FURTHER) I got my period today. Bella is only two and a half months old. I only stopped bleeding from having her three weeks ago. This bites. I'm so stinking mad I could spit. Oh well. To make all you women who have had babies laugh, I shall share a funny story about my Peter.
I was bemoaning the state of my once-perfect-perky breasts and how saggy they have become and what a nice distant memory my breasts became. Peter encouragingly said to me, "honey, don't worry so much. When you're done nursing, they'll bounce back a little". Now I'm alarmed. He obviously understands nothing of female anatomy after childbirth, and I was sure I had prepared him better. I say, "Babe, this is what my breasts look like full of milk. They are going to lose that milk, and then they're going to look even worse. I wonder how long I can legitimately breast-feed Bella for without causing any psychological damage?" He returns with, "Melanie (insert "tone" here), I have known women with four kids and their breasts looked just fine" (Insert "so there" pause here).
And me, "Yes darling, but did you see them with their bras OFF?"
Silence. Poor Peter, some things you just can't prepare a guy for.

Toxic

2009-11-12T22:10:00.002-08:00

The doctor said I'm allowed to go to Shawn's wedding. I can't let anyone who is sick touch Bella, but he said that she should be fine, and that she needs to be out with healthy people and not to let myself become housebound. So yay, she gets to wear her dress. Photos to come early next week.

This morning I got up and saw to my dismay, Bella's beta-blocker sitting on the counter. It's supposed to be refrigerated. I had left it out for 11 hours. I called the pharmacy, left a message and told them to call me back, but in the meantime, gave her her dose of medicine.
Went to the doctors office, was told we could go out and headed straight for Grandma. It was nice, I had coffee with Grandma, Auntie Margaret and my mom, and then mom had to go, and as I was getting ready to leave the pharmacy called back. They didn't know if the medication, when left out just became ineffective, or if it actually went bad and became toxic. "Don't give her any more" they told me. I asked how I could find out, and they told me they didn't know. I freaked out, called my doctor here and asked if there was some way I could find out if I'd just poisoned my baby. The nurses there were very nice, and made a bunch of phone calls and kept me on hold. In the meantime I found out that nobody in Nanaimo will make the drug within two days. She can't go that long, so I'm trying to figure out how to get to Vancouver to get more medicine. The nurse at the doctors office finally figures out that the medication is not toxic, and goes to the trouble of finding a pharmacist that will make my medication in Nanaimo, and gives me his name and phone number, tells me to give her the stuff I have until I can get more tomorrow.
Thank God. Another 45 minutes of terror. I thought I'd screwed up and poisoned her. I kept saying, "how could I be so stupid" and finally fell apart in Auntie Margaret's kitchen while Grandma walked Bella around and calmed her down. She doesn't do very well when I'm stressed out. Auntie Margaret hugged me and cried because she felt so sorry for me. Goodness. I'm glad I wasn't alone when I got those calls.
All in all, that was my day. I'm at home with Peter and Bella and our good friend Loren and a good glass of wine, and so things are looking up.
I have too many things in the air and I figured dropping a few, like my housework and shaving my legs, wasn't so bad. But I can't drop some of these. Some of it I have to do just right. I can't screw up, and honestly, I've been a mom for a grand total of 75 days. When it all comes down to it, I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm wading through it as best I can, and I'm scared and my word, I'm so stinking tired. I know it's going to get better, but it's amazing how close I live to the edge of having a complete breakdown. I just fell apart today. Now I'm okay, but I wonder how close I am, what minor crisis can send me back there. I'm tired. She's perfect and amazing and I wouldn't trade one second with her for anyone else's life, not for a moment, but oh my goodness. I'm so tired. The worry is more exhausting than the sleep deprivation by about a hundred times. But both? Both is too much.

What dumb pharmacist says they don't know if I've poisoned my baby, and can't find out for me!?!?! Seriously, you go to school for endless amounts of time. C'mon now.

Can I Just Number My Posts Like Uncle John?

2009-11-11T20:00:00.003-08:00

So since Peter works for Shaw Cable, we literally get every channel known to man. They say if he had to pay for it, it would be over$300 a month. It's exhausting. I wish I could pick 20 channels. I'd be fine. I don't need 200. I like getting things in HD, but Peter is always walking by and switching my channel from regular TLC to HD TLC. Seriously, I'm watching "Say Yes to the Dress" - who cares if it's HD or not? Honestly, most times, unless I'm watching an action flick or a football game, I can't tell the difference. Saying this is the only way to get Peter to look like he's sorry he married me. It's good times. Watching football in HD is life changing though, I don't know how we lived without it from September to February.

You'd think it'd be great never wondering what you're missing on those channels you don't get with your bundle. Would you like to know? Here goes: a list of shows that are on at any given time, providing you have enough channels.

Friends - obviously. I don't think you have to have very many channels to be able to watch Friends 24 hours a day.
CSI (wherever) - I like Miami the best, because I like Horatio, reminds me of my father in law. I never watch though, most times it just depresses me.
Dog the Bounty Hunter - I hate this show. I know it's got a good following, but I honestly couldn't care any less. He's a schmuck, and annoying like crazy and she's worse.
Hitler Documentaries - we got really into this for a while. I love anything related to WWII. Fascinating, but it's run it's course.
Oprah - because what if you don't get off work until 5 and by then it's over? Done with Oprah, but I wish I had watched when Ellen was on.
House Hunters - or any of it's spin offs, like "House Hunters International (love it) My First Place, For Rent, Property Virgins, and a bunch more I can't think of right now. If I can't find anything to watch but the above mentioned, I'll usually have it on TLC. If Food Network is showing, say, Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay, both of whom I harbor a strong dislike for. Anyway, House Hunters is literally on 6 times a day. Who knew?

Tonight I got to watch the CMA's while Glee was taping. Taylor Swift won entertainer of the year and cried like a little girl, because well, she's 19 and she is. I love her - made my whole night. She also took home female vocalist of the year and thanked "every person in this room for not walking up on stage and interrupting me". There was a lot of fun at Kanye's expense tonight, which was good times. I love any awards show of any kind. Guilty pleasure I guess.

In good news, tomorrow I'm going to the doctor with Bella to get the low-down on how house bound I need to be, so maybe I'll have something to write about other than TV. Gosh I'm so lame it's exhausting even to me.

Stupidstore is Super

2009-11-10T22:39:00.002-08:00

I hate Superstore. I've blogged about this a long time ago, but if I'm going to do a blog a month you're going to get something of a re-run here eventually. I don't have 30 original ideas.
I hate that you need a dollar for a cart. I never have a dollar. Don't tell me to keep it in my car, I'll spend it on a coffee every last time. There's a contraption you can buy for your key ring, but I hate spending the dollar. I'm not spending more money to have the dollar.
I hate the colors of it, and the warehouse feel of it. I'm always freezing cold in there and all that yellow stresses me out.
I hate that it's so stupidly laid out. If I want diapers, coffee, meat and bread, I have at least three miles of walking to do, which wouldn't do me harm, but that's just not the point. And it's fine that it's big, it's just that if you want cheese and bread, they're at least 200 yards from each other. If you want to run in for a rotisserie chicken, and a loaf of bread, they're nowhere near each other.
I hate paying for bags. I wish they'd raise their prices two cents on every last thing and leave the dang bags alone. I hate bagging my groceries and feeling rushed when I don't go fast enough, because I'm trying to grab my debit card, and my baby is crying and some dumb woman is trying to make me figure out how many bags I'll need.
BUT ALAS:
I love, with all my heart, their clothing section - especially the kids stuff. Tonight I got Bella two hats, a pair of mittens and a sleeper, all of it easily as cute as the stuff you get at Baby Gap. I didn't shop the sale rack at all, and it was all less than thirty bucks. A sleeper is six dollars, and they're so much nicer than the WalMart ones.
I love their Italian salad dressing. I would go for that alone, even if I had to walk two miles, which I do.
I love their frozen desserts. You can show up at someone's house with a really beautiful, yummy dessert for seven dollars. For someone who can't bake to save her life, this is a treat in itself.
I love all of their menu things. Anything with the label "A Taste Of" on it is delicious. I've not found one that's not yummy. They have this fig balsamic sauce in a jar, which when paired with goat cheese on a Triscuit is life changing.
I love their prices. They have a rotisserie chicken, loaf of french bread, and two salads deal that's only ten dollars. Ten! To feed four people!
And now that I have a baby, I love that it's one stop for all that I need. Tonight I got baby clothes, a wedding gift for Shawn and Stephanie, cards and wrap for the same, some dishes, eggs and milk. It was nice not to have to load Bella in and out of the car three times to do that. Even if I didn't have money for a cart and loaded down her stroller so much that I nearly buried her.
So I go. Bella fell asleep in the stroller while we were there tonight and I had her all tucked away from people and their germs, and had disinfected my hands and the stroller, so I felt relaxed enough to take a walk. I learned today that they also have really nice kitchen things. I got a set of french onion soup bowls for ten dollars. For four bowls, and they're pretty and white, so they match my other dishes. Melissa inspired me to try the french onion soup, and now I have bowls to do it in!
Oh Stupid Superstore. How it vexes and delights me. Another love-hate relationship.
That's all I did today worth talking about. Oh, except that I played at least four hours of Tomb Raider for my Wii, and managed to forget to save my game both times and so now I have nothing to show for what was already wasted time. Stupid Laura Croft and her slutty outfits and her confusing save options. I hate-hate Laura Croft.

um...oh forget it, I've got nothing.

2009-11-09T16:01:00.005-08:00

I finally posted to Bella's blog. Pictures and a video and everything. I know.

For all the time I have on my hands, I don't do a heck of a lot. Today I spent a lot of time and a little money at My Sweet Bowtique. Oh man. I could go crazy there. I already watched Top Chef, Peter goes back to work in a few minutes, and I'm alone here again. Maybe if Bella sleeps on her own a little I'll finish the laundry, or clean the kitchen. When Peter comes home, then we're watching Monday Night Football, and having pizza and wings. That'll be fun. I'll have to crochet all evening in order to stay awake, or maybe have a nap with Bella when he's gone.

Crocheting! I haven't posted about that yet. I have made a scarf semi-successfully (in that I'm not embarassed to wear it out) and am now working again on Bella's blanket. If you were on facebook you will know that I started a blanket and then realized a long way in, that I was screwing up over and over again and had to pull the whole thing out. I was depressed. So now I'm a little further than I was before, with no real critical errors. It's a dark red color and it's going to have a soft ivory trim, and I'm giving it to her for Christmas. This sounds so Martha Stewart and Good Housekeeping of me that it makes me almost as happy as the blanket itself. I love the idea of crocheting and knitting, and so I got my mom-in-law and sister-in-law to teach me when they were here and I've been going to town ever since. I don't know if I have enough time to get the blanket done. I'd like to make a matching hat too...hmm. The thing about crocheting,in my experience so far, is that it's really not much cheaper than buying what you make. Not if you get something nice anyway. I used some super-soft bamboo yarn for my scarf and it ended up being about 25 dollars. I was going to use it for hats for Bella so I didnt' mind spending the extra, but then I couldn't make the hat, and tried a scarf and needed WAY more yarn, which was no longer on sale. Oh well. The blanket in the end, if I don't run out of yarn, should run me about $15 though. So that'll be okay. I love doing it though. I love having something for Bella that I made for her under the tree.

I'm still waffling about Shawn's wedding and have decided that I will make no decision until I talk to the doctor on Thursday. We'll see. I also may break my promise to not look things up online that pertain to Bella and do some research of my own. Peter is afraid this will scare me into further hibernation, and he may be right, but I think I need to know more...

Okay, this is all I got. I don't know what the title is and my stinking video for Bella's blog is still loading, so if you're reading this immediately after I wrote it, then maybe don't go check quite yet. Looks like it may be a moment.

EDIT: No video, it wouldn't load in an hour, and I got tired of waiting. It wasn't that good anyway.

6 Minutes?!?!

2009-11-08T23:54:00.001-08:00

Oh my gosh, no time!!

Okay - here's what I'm excited about this week, which is actually a stunning glimpse into what my life has become.

Monday - Top Chef. Oh how I love Top Chef. It's by far my favorite thing on TV. Also, the Broncos are playing Monday Night Football, against the Steelers at home.
Tuesday - The Good Wife. I find it strange that I like this show, but I really do. Good drama.
Wednesday - GLEE! Oh thank heavens for glee. It sure is aptly named as that is the feeling that fills my heart when it is on.
Thursday - Grey's Anatomy, though I still don't know why I watch, I never miss an episode.
Friday - nothing, but that's only one day. Maybe I'll get out of the house a little.

There! Did I make it?

Hope Now

2009-11-07T20:26:00.002-08:00

So last night I went to hang out with friends of ours, Phil and Joy. They have a little baby girl that is exactly four months older than Bella. Every time they're together we all laugh at how brown Bella is. Seriously, she looks like she's Native. My mom says it's so Luc doesn't feel left out, being the only brown kid in the family. He went on and on this summer about how brown he is, and how white I am, cutest thing ever. Anyway, getting out of the house was what I needed. Today I felt better.

She's so much braver than me. True, she understands not one thing about what is at stake here, but that would make things more scary to me. Sometimes she wakes up from a dead sleep screaming in pain from her stomach. Sometimes when we go to give her medicine, she looks at us with her huge eyes and cries until she isn't even making a sound, just tears on her face and sobbing so hard it just breaks our hearts. My mom burst into tears the other day giving her medicine. I cried for about an hour afterward. She usually calms down right away after, and I hold her and apologize and we rock and cry.

But most of the time, she's brave. The other day she grinned at us the whole time we were shoving syringes in her mouth. Never made a peep. I can now give her medicine on my own. Probably 65-70% of the time she does okay. She gags on the anti-nauseant but I don't blame her. I make a point of tasting every medicine that I give her. Here's the break down.

Ranitadine - foul. I touched the end of a 1ML syringe to my tongue and seriously, my whole mouth tasted so bitter and alcoholic that I was shocked. Gross! She takes 0.6ML of this three times a day.
Propranolol - not bad. Texture is similar to hair gel, and we have to keep it cold, so she doesn't love that, but it has a mild flavor, so that's not too bad. She takes 1.75ML of this three times a day.
Prednisol- kind of citrus-y. Not terrible. Out of the three, she likes it best, which is lucky since at one point it was 20ML a day, broken into two doses. Now we're down to 7.5 in the morning, and 2.5 at night.
Fluconozol - creamy and thick, so texture sucks. But it tastes a little like ground up vitamin C tablets. Peter says it smells exactly like that orange industrial hand cleaner. I think it's fine, she's not a big fan at all. Gags on this one a lot too. But we only do 2MLs once in the afternoon, so she copes. And of course the Gripe Water, which tastes like dill and licorice. Weird.

I don't know why she's so sweet, and so happy. Honestly, if she isn't in pain, or super tired from being in so much pain, she's smiling. She talks away, and what's also cute, in a super sad way, is that she has learned how to complain without actually crying. She makes these mad yelling sounds, or sad yelling sounds and sometimes will do it until she's asleep on my chest, still yelling occasionally, but eyes closed, totally relaxed. It's like she just needs to tell us that she's having a hard day.

I think, as far as the crying and the pain she's in goes, I have reached a sort of break through. I do not try to get her to stop crying. I know, how very "zen" of me - but I just accept it. She's in pain. I cannot do one thing to stop that. I'm not going to ask her to not communicate with me about it. She communicates by crying, and so would I if I were in that much pain. So I talk to her. I rock her and tell her that she is allowed to cry, that I don't mind one bit, and that I'm so sorry it hurts and that I love her more than anything in the world. I don't know if it shortens the spells, but it helps me. To say out loud, "it's okay sweetheart. You go ahead and cry. I know you're sad. Tell mommy about it, I want to hear. It's okay." doesn't do a whole lot for her, but it calms me down. To hear my voice saying it makes the frantic "PLEASE stop crying!" panicked feeling go away. And when I relax, eventually, so will she.

In other news, I FINALLY found her the tiniest little pair of black shiney dress shoes for Shawn's wedding. She's wearing black and ivory, and I think she is going to look like a tiny little Audrey Hepburn. I'll take photos. We're going, we have to. I'm going to pray like crazy and stay the heck away from absolutely everyone. I don't know what else to do. The doctors aren't so terribly worried, they're not calling for her quarantine, but letting us know to be careful. The doctor did tell me that she gives the same medicine to babies who have siblings in school, and she's never seen one group of kids do better than others. She said I'm not to become house bound, that that's an over reaction. So we're going to try.

That's all I got. She's been crying with Peter the entire time I've been typing, so I'm going to go.
The title of the blog is actually a song title - by a group called Addison Road. Check them out. That song, and another, What Do I Know of Holy, are amazing. The rest of their album is unfortunately, a little blah. But those two are fantastic.

I'm So Done

2009-11-06T14:28:00.002-08:00

Sorry, I'm about to whine a little bit. Feel free to ignore me if you think my issues are small potatoes when compared to yours; you're probably right. But I need to post today and this is all I'm thinking about.

Robyn has a fever and a cough and feels achy. She lives with my mom. Therefore, due to Bella's immune system being suppressed, I can't see my family for approximately a week. More, if any more of them get it. I know that H1N1 is contagious for about a week, from the day before you show symptoms, to about a week after. So if, say, my mom shows symptoms in a week, then I have another week to go. And if, say, my dad shows symptoms a week after that, then I have another week after that. You see where this could start to make me panic?

I'm terrified to go to my own brother's wedding next weekend. Too many people have been sick. What do I do? Sit in the back of the room with Bella in her carseat with the rain cover on, even though we're inside? I don't want her breathed on, let alone held. I'm so scared of her getting this. So scared. Do I just not go? Or go and leave her with Peter at home with some frozen breast milk? I don't know what in the world to do.

On top of all this, I need my mom. I'm tired and scared and I worry incessantly for Bella. I need my mom around. The two weeks she was in Saskatchewan were nearly intolerable for me. Peter is at work for nine hours a day, and sometimes I just need someone here so I can have them hold her while I go pee, take a shower, or sweep the floor. I can't do without my mom for 1-3 weeks. I just can't. And now I have to. I would never forgive myself if I were responsible for Bella getting sick just because I was being a baby and needed to be with my mom for a while. So we're pretty much house bound. I don't take her out in public unless it's necessary, and really, most things aren't. Like taking Peter out for dinner tomorrow night. That was the plan. Our first date night since Bella was born. Something we both "need". My mom and dad were going to watch her. Now I get to call the restaurant and cancel our reservation. Maybe in two weeks or so we'll try again. And I don't want anyone else watching her, because she doesn't really know anyone else and that seems unfair to her too.

This sucks. I want my mom. I want Bella to be off this stupid medicine, and not in 47 days. Today. I want her off today. Or rather, two weeks ago, so her immune system would have had time to rebuild and I could feel like a normal parent, going out for dinner and getting a babysitter. I want to go to mom's group on Tuesday mornings. I want to go to the mall and not have a panic attack when some stranger goes to touch her face. The other day at the grocery store she was crying and a sales lady stood about 10 inches from her face and went on and on about how beautiful she was, and I must be so proud. I didn't feel proud. All I thought was, "who are you? Are you sick? Is your family sick? Did you just come from getting the stupid H1N1 shot? When was the last time you washed your hands? Please back up, back up, back up." I would have told her, but I think she was slightly disabled and I didn't feel like causing a scene. I bolted instead. Threw all my stuff into one plastic bag and got the heck out.

She can't get sick. I'm not being paranoid or overreacting. This isn't the flu to me. This is dangerous. People die from the flu every single year. Not normal healthy adults. People with prior conditions. Like having a suppressed immune system. If she gets it, there's not a thing they can do for her. Her body can't fight it off - I can't even think about what that could mean for her.

I'm so tired. I'm so so tired of this.

Too Busy To Write

2009-11-05T18:00:00.002-08:00

I'm also too busy to figure out something interesting to say. I have to leave to fetch Peter from work in approx 2 hours and 45 minutes. In that time I have to clean my kitchen and bedroom, and make the following menu:
~Real bruschetta with my driveway mozza, tomatoes, balsamic and some stupid basil paste I have to use because SaveOn was out of real basil. Argh. If I had gone to Whole Foods this never would have happened. Why didn't I buy basil yesterday?!
~Breaded shrimp things and some sort of sauce to dip them in.
~Stuffed mushrooms (these I bought, didn't make them, so I just have to fire them in the oven.)
~A bunch of little crostinis to put cheese and stuff on.
~A cheese and meat and olive platter
~A platter for our fancy goat cheese that I bought. Goodness, we eat a lot of cheese!
~Proscuitto wrapped asparagus

I also need to wrap two birthday presents, write in two cards and occasionally nurse and change the baby. Also, after picking up Peter, at 9pm no less, I need to go to the store and get a good bottle of wine, and some firewood. I was going to do it now but it is POURING rain and I couldn't take Bella in and out of the car that many times without risking her getting sick.
I'm tired just thinking about it. And there goes Bella. Gotta run.

Yes, I'm going to use the driveway mozza. Don't you wish I was making dinner for your birthday?

5 Good Things

2009-11-04T21:38:00.003-08:00

So my posts so far have been a little angry or depressing so I'm going to post something good.They say (whoever they are) that before you go to bed you should think of five good things about your life, or about that day, and five good things about your spouse, and you'll live a much better life. I think "they" might have been Oprah, now that I think of it, but hey, can't hurt.

1. Today I was told that I can again reduce Bella's steroid dose. I prayed that we'd be off steroids by Christmas, it was what I wanted under the tree. Empty steroid bottles and no refills on the prescriptions. We'll be done by December 23, so I get my wish!! This made me so happy that I cried in the hospital Starbucks today.

2. I cooked with parsnips for the first time yesterday and they were wonderful!! Actually the second time, the first time I cubed them, threw them in the oven to roast and forgot about them. This time I made them into soup with some potatoes and white asparagus. I blended it all with my immersion wand blender thingy and it made delicious white soup. I love that blender more than anything in my kitchen, except for the mug Peter got me about a month after we met, when he randomly pulled my name for a Christmas gift exchange. We weren't even friends then really. Aww. That's a good thing in itself. I love that mug.

3. My mom came with me to Vancouver today and Bella barely cried all day, despite being crammed in her carseat for the better part of 12 hours. She was an angel. I love having my mom around when things are going on, it just makes things easier to take.

4. I got to go to Whole Foods today and have lunch and pick up some things for a little bit of birthday dinner for Peter tomorrow. I love Whole Foods. It's like Mecca for me.

5. Tomorrow is Peter's birthday. I met him exactly five years ago and have loved every minute since. I can't believe he's mine, and that we have this beautiful baby girl that's a part of us. No matter how crappy things can be with screaming medicine times, and scary trips to the doctors and the hospital, I wouldn't trade our life for anyone else's. I wish we lived near Whole Foods though.

6. (Because I was always a bit of an overachiever). Just a few minutes ago when trying to get my Whole Foods purchases into the house, the funniest thing happened. I pulled my 85% recycled eco friendly paper bag out from the trunk and the bottom fell out spreading onto my driveway a container of olives, a pumpkin cranberry loaf and a ball of real mozzarella, in the container with that weird watery stuff that's in there. I found eveything but the mozza, which I accidentally kicked while looking for it, sending my mozza ball rolling onto the driveway and the watery stuff spilling everywhere. I laughed like crazy and didn't know what to do so I stuffed it back in the plastic tub, gathered it up and carried it to the door where I proceeded to drop it again while searching for my house keys and sending it rolling across my step, bouncing off and down the walk a little. My mom and I laughed so hard at the sight of my $8.50 mozza bouncing away that we nearly fell over and peed ourselved. You should have seen it. Funniest thing that happened to me all day.

A New Layout and a Blog for Bella!

2009-11-03T12:44:00.003-08:00

First, I must apologize to Carrie for the loss of her beautiful template that used to be here. I thought it would be fun to play with the idea of a new one, since I haven't used the older one for a couple of years. In a lovely show of technological genius, I lost the old template forever. I blame her partly though, as I got hooked on the idea by looking at her new template and then that was that.

So I also did up a blog for Bella, and hopefully can publish to that more often. I'm becoming less and less of a fan of Facebook every day. Here's my latest reason:

My biological father had the unmitigated gall to show up at my Uncle John's funeral. I am so sorry to his family for this. What a bastard (hmm, three posts, two cuss words. Hopefully this isn't the start of a trend). I can't believe the uncles didn't get together and bodily remove him from the premises. I would have done it, if I had been there, and if I were big enough...however with this baby weight I'm still packing around...sorry, I digress.

I know why he was there. He wanted to see me or Robyn, Reagan or Shawn, and assumed we'd be there. I should correct that. He didn't want to see us. He wanted my mom to see him seeing us. Oh the words that run through my head (see above). Anyway, his new wife Nettie commented to my mother how beautiful we all were. My mom wanted to know how in the world he got pictures of us, and he said that my "uncle" Joe had pulled them off of Facebook and saved them to the computer for Dave. Unbelievable. He has not one right to look at a photo of us. He is not at all worthy of looking at my beautiful daughter and fancying himself some form of grandfather. He's not. He is Bella's mothers sperm donor and nothing more. If I could erase him from her family tree, I'd do it in a heartbeat. In fact, in her baby book, he's not on the family tree anywhere. If I could somehow never tell her about him, that'd be great. I'd be happy if she never even knew of his existence.

Anyway, I have ruthlessly pared down my friends list, and I'm pretty sure everyone we know has removed Joe Adrian as a friend. My privacy settings on Facebook are pretty tight, but still. Ewww. It just makes me furious to think about. I'm toying with the idea of making this blog private, which I will likely do soon. Bella's new blog is. You have to have permission in order to see it. This makes me more calm. I like it more. I'm tempted to take pictures of her off of Facebook entirely. Maybe this is overkill. I should talk to Peter about it. He'll tell me if I'm overreacting.

You know what scares me? Lots of stuff. But lately, it freaks me out that you can't get your photos off the internet. If I deleted my Facebook account this instant, lots of other people have photos of me on theirs. I can't control who Shawn is friends with, and in a couple weeks he is getting married, and then I'm sure he'll want to post pictures up. Those pictures will contain us. People I don't want to see us could see us. I don't know who Shawn is friends with. Probably nobody unsavory, but who knew Joe Adrian would give photos of me to one of the last people on earth I would want to have them. I don't like this one little bit. Anyway - that's my hypersensitive rant for today. With so much garbage going on, it shouldn't be at all hard to post once a day.

If you'd like to see Bella's blog - just e mail me your e mail address and I'll add it on. I tried to take a few e mail addresses from Facebook and put them on, so some of you will be able to just log on and see it, but if you can't, just let me know. In the meantime, the address is http://www.ourlittlecookie.blogspot.com/

Anyway, back to the template. Want to know what sold me? Well the coffee, and the pen and the post it (I'm sure I've blogged about my love of post-its before) and the leather-looking notebook. But above all of that is the paper looking placemat. Doesn't it look like something from Country Dining in Martensville?! Made me think of going for fries again. Which I apparently missed so much that I made them last night. Not exactly shrimp-chicken-lemon-dill-cream-carbs-deliciousness but I did have one culinary masterpiece of last night. I somehow managed to recreate in perfect detail, Moxie's basil-mayo french fry dip. It was divine. I'm thinking of all sorts of recipes that I could slather it on. Can't wait.

I miss you.

2009-11-02T16:01:00.003-08:00

I miss everyone. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to come for the funeral. Not the funeral, I hate funerals, though I heard this one was amazing. I wanted to be with my family in a difficult time. It's been five years this fall since I've been there. Think of all that has happened to you Saskatchewan folks in five years! I've missed births, deaths, weddings.

I'd have been there except for Bella's immune system. I just couldn't take her on a plane. And she had doctors appointments and all sorts of crap to do here. But I so wanted to be there. This year, I'm coming. If it's for the family reunion that I hear rumors of, or just to come - I want to do it.

I've never met either of Cindi's kids, or Jen's or Amy's. I met Ben when he was really little, and don't know Sam or Hannah. I've never met Johnny's wife Melissa, though I blog stalk her a little bit sometimes. I love the way she writes. I don't comment though because it seems silly since I've never even introduced myself. I don't know what Auntie Susan's house looks like now that it's all renovated. No idea. I see pictures of it and it looks totally strange to me. I hate that. I don't even know what Grandma's house in Martensville looks like. I still think of the big house in Osler with the basement when I think of her. I was at the other little one in Osler, but only once or twice. I haven't gone for fries with the girls in ages. I've never been to Becky's house. I don't know who Lisa married (except that if the name is an indication, he's gotta be great) or what Heather is doing now that she's not travelling the globe.

Sometimes I hate Facebook. I don't want 420 characters about what's going on with you. I want pages and pages. Novels. Write away, I love long posts. I love to write them and to read them. I'm all for this posting once a day thing. I hope everyone does it. I miss you all. And when I'm alone in my house with Peter gone and it's raining and I'm feeling sorry for myself, it helps to read about what you're all doing. Even if it's what you made for dinner. I love little details like that.

Here's mine for today. I want someone to come over and snuggle Bella so I can blow off some stress by cooking. I want to make chicken and shrimp with a lemon-dill-cream sauce over pasta. Maybe with some fresh tomatoes and green onions to garnish and some fresh shaved parmesan cheese. I relax by cooking. It's such a great outlet for me. It requres something of me, and I can concentrate and if I put enough pieces together, I can make something work. I can do something I haven't done before. When everything falls apart, this makes sense to me. And it makes something beautiful and tasty and comforting. Someone (probably on Food Network) said that food is the only art that appeals to every sense and I like that. I'm not very artistic, but I can tell you my five best meals and exactly what they looked, smelled, felt, tasted like. What they sounded like cooking. If I know Bella is being comforted by Peter or someone else she knows then I can put on head phones and relax. I can take a million little parts and make them all do one thing, make one thing. And when it's all on a plate then something inside me relaxes. It makes me feel like I can do the same thing with my life. Plus it's enjoyed with a glass of wine, and that always helps.

Come for dinner. Please?

Back?!

2009-11-01T21:31:00.004-08:00

So I haven't been on here in well over two years. That's depressing. After the last post, for a long time, nothing seemed good enough to write. I couldn't, for instance, talk about my love-hate relationship with Grey's Anatomy after talking about Grandpa. Everything I wanted to write seemed trite, stupid, and wrong.

A year later, I started writing about wanting to get pregnant and start a family, and because I didn't want anyone to know that we were trying, I didn't think it appropriate to post here. So that's at another blog. Now that she's born, I need to make her one of her own and put up pictures and updates and things there, but I haven't gotten to it quite yet. Soon. Promise.

However, Becky filled me in that this month is NaBloPoMo (which I have to admit, as acronyms go, is a lame one). So I figured, hey, now is as good a time as any to get back on the blogging train. I miss it. I miss more, everyone else who used to post. My mom, my aunts and cousins. It was a way better way of keeping in touch than Facebook. Hopefully everyone else will do the same.

Either way, I'm still struggling to figure out where to begin. Let's try point form? Here's what I'm thinking tonight, in no particular order.

~My cousin Emily has H1N1. I am more scared than I want to admit of Bella coming in contact with this. I can't deal with it at all. I feel sorry for my Auntie Colleen because her baby girl is sick, and although I don't know much about motherhood just yet, that I know better than a lot of people.

-My Uncle John died and I think it sucks. I hate every last thing about it, and I have a hard time praying about it because I don't understand why God would have allowed it. It seems cruel and hard and I love his family so much and they are devastated. To say something like "it's so unfair" falls far too short.

~I'm sick to death of people telling me that I need to take a break from Bella when she's crying, which happens a lot lately (the crying and the telling - most recently, my doctor). She is not fussy. She is not being dramatic. She is in real pain that she doesn't understand and if all that makes her feel even slightly better is being swaddled, held upright with her stomach on me with her face in my neck and her hand touching my bare skin somewhere and me sitting in a rocker and rocking her for hours until my back and butt are so sore I can barely move, then that is what she gets. I will not lay her down and walk away when she's crying to do anything but pee, and I've done that holding her too. If this makes me a bad parent, then that's fan-freaking-tastic with me. I don't care. If one more person says "Well, honey, when you've done everything you can, then there's nothing wrong with leaving her in a very safe place to cry a little. You need to take care of you." No, I'm sorry. I need to take care of her. And I can't take away her pain. In fact, I shove a syringe in her mouth twelve times a day that is full of the medicine that causes that pain. She may not understand what is going on, but she will damn well know that when she cries, I am there. I will be there every single time. It's what I would want if I were her. And I will not deprive her of that for some "me time". I can't think of that as anything but extremely selfish. It's like saying to her, "Your pain is stressing me out. I need a minute" She doesn't get a minute. If she can deal with it at two months old, so can I at 27. I'm not frantic. I'm not going to shake her, or freak out. I'm going to hold her, and rock her and cry with her and we're going to figure it out, and if we can't, we're going to ride it out together.

Okay. Three points, and now I'm upset, and Peter is trying to calm Bella down and she's screaming in the next room. I gotta run. More tomorrow sometime I guess. We'll see how this blogging once a day goes.

hard footsteps to follow...

2007-07-28T19:04:00.001-07:00

My Grandpa has gone home. I've been thinking about him a lot. Trying to process a world that exists here without him, and how strange and sad that all seems. More than that, I've been thinking about what makes saying goodbye so hard.
C.S Lewis once talked about death as the one thing that we were never meant to deal with. God didn't create us with the ability to handle it on our own, because it wasn't something we were ever meant to face. He's giving us grace to handle the unthinkable, but it will always seem...wrong somehow. Because it is. It's not what he wanted for us. That makes me feel better. Knowing that I don't really have to cope, because it's never going to feel okay. It's not supposed to, not on this side of eternity. We are eternal, after all. Trapped in a finite world, in finite bodies, but infinite in spirit. This thought also gives me comfort, because when I realize this, when I live like it, then maybe I'm closer to my Grandpa than I've ever been before.
And therein lies the struggle. I said on Becky's blog, and thus in my tribute to Grandpa, that to not follow in his and Grandma's footsteps would be to live life less. I believe that with my whole heart. Every single one of us is currently living the legacy we are leaving behind to those who knew us best. What if I died tomorrow? What would be said in front of my casket, what would be said to comfort those who would be left behind to grieve? We called Grandpa many things: strong, loving, faithful, honest, hard-working, and in love with his Savior and his wife. Every one of these things was true. More than true, there were just not English words that described it properly. Everything fell short somehow. What a life he lived...
But to live life in Grandpa (and Grandma's) footsteps, is even harder than saying goodbye to him. It's living in a way that honors his memory...but no, he wouldn't want that would he? It's living in a way that honors God. Really, that is what his life was all about. It was his love for God that made his love for his wife something truly incredible. It was his love for God that made every one of his grandchildren feel like his favorite. Because we all were. It wasn't Grandpa loving us that made us feel that special, though we know he did love us all desperately. It was his stunning obedience to his Lord that allowed God to love us through him. That's why his love felt so special, so different. Because it was different. It was Jesus, and that's amazing to me. And he did it by simply being this one thing: obedient. He worried about nothing other than what his Lord thought of him, and what God wanted of him.
Again I wonder what would be said at my funeral? Not in a morbid way, but in a way that challenges me to think, "What legacy am I leaving behind?" We're all leaving one, after all. This is making me ask myself some very hard questions. I know what Peter would say at my funeral, or how he would feel. I know what a pastor or my mother would say. They'd talk about the good things I did. Most of these would likely center around YWAM, sadly enough. Two years in twenty-five. But what would my co-workers say? What would the people I talk to at the bank say? Or my non-Christian friends? Would there be only Christians in that church, because I hadn't befriended anyone who wasn't like me? What would people at work say if they knew exactly what I believed and why? Would they be surprised? I dearly hope not, but I suspect so, at least a little bit. Maybe they'd say, "I knew she believed in God, but she was a missionary? I heard her swearing after work once when she'd had a bad day...I didn't think Christians did that." Ouch. They'd be right. Do I really model the love of God not just to those I'm comfortable being a Christian around, but to everyone who meets me? Do I share my faith, or look for opportunities to be Christ to someone else? Do I love my family, or my spouse in a way that makes others notice my relationships and, gasp, inquire as to why my life is different? Has anyone ever asked me "the reason for the hope that I have"? You didn't meet Grandpa without meeting Jesus, you can meet me and not see Jesus at all, it just depends when you catch me. How hard I've been working, how financially or emotionally stressed I am, whether or not I've had a bad day at work, can all affect who you meet when you meet me. Sometimes it's not Jesus. Sometimes it's just Melanie.
I don't think Grandpa would want us to idolize him in his death, though he was loving and strong and wonderful. It would be easy to do. But if I did that, made him into something perfect, his life wouldn't be anything but an amazing story to me. It wouldn't be a challenge to the way I'm living now, and I think that it needs to be. I think God has always used Grandpa in a way that made everyone he met want to be like him. In order to do that we need to realize that he was still just a man. A great man, but just a man. He wasn't perfect. He was human. I'm human. Finally we have a starting point. I can be like Grandpa. If I just try to be like Jesus. Then my life, and my legacy, will resemble that of my Grandfather. I think that's what he'd want more. Not just to remember how wonderful he was, but to question what it was that made him like this. Because then we'd find Jesus, and that was all he ever wanted for all of us. To know that we would follow Christ with all our hearts.
Grandpa did. Everyday, Grandpa did this. On the last morning he woke up on this earth he asked God what He wanted of him. I want to be like Grandpa and Grandma. The hard thing is this: it will cost me. It will mean forgiving when someone doesn't deserve it. It will mean devotion to prayer and to God in a way that I haven't yet experienced. It means loving my spouse more than I value my individuality. More than I value myself. It will mean loving my enemies. It will mean not compromising in not only what I feel is right or wrong, but what I know God says is right or wrong. It means not living for money, or power, or for honor in the eyes of anyone but Jesus. It means a value system that the world will notice instantly, is very different. It will mean a change in the way I'm living now. I will mean sacrifice. It will mean dying knowing that I lived my life in a way that would honor the one I will spend eternity with. It will mean laying down that last time ready to see my Saviour with nothing but tears in my eyes for the gratitude that "Jesus died for me. He died for me."

I just can't

2007-07-14T09:53:00.001-07:00

I am usually a pretty self aware person, and I tend to be fairly honest about my shortcomings (though there may be a slightly masochistic reason for that). I know myself very well, and though I don't often like what I see inside my head and heart, I'm not usually surprised by myself, if that makes any sense. I don't know that I've ever dealt with grief before, however, and this is entirely new territory for me. I don't like it here, not at all.
My Grandpa doesn't want to live anymore. He's so sick and he's longing to go home to Jesus. I can't deal with that. My brain just will not do it. I get that he's nearing the end, and that it may be time. I don't want him to be sick anymore. I want him to be happy. I cannot say goodbye. I just can't.
When Peter's Grandma died, we were all so happy for her. That sounds strange, but she'd been away from her husband for 20 years and she was ready. The day she went, all I thought about was her and the love of her earthly life, meeting in a place where there are no tears, where goodbye doesn't exist any longer. I was happy for her.
This is different. They are together here. My Grandma and Grandpa have a love story that should be in a book. When Grandma met him, she was seven years old. It was love at first sight. She prayed every day, the one phrase that has taught me more about love than any other earthly example, "Jesus, make me into the kind of woman he will love." She prayed that for years and her and Grandpa have a love that is so strong that it amazes me sometimes to watch them together. These people know what love is. They live it together and they live it with their family.
When I'm with Grandpa, I never age. I stopped somewhere around four years old and even though he's met my husband, I still have always felt like a little girl around him. Peter once asked me about my parents divorce, and about not having a dad for all those years and he was so upset about the pain we went through then. I told him it was okay, it really was. God sent me other dads. I've never been without a strong male figure in my life. That's what my grandfather is to me. He's like my dad. He apologized to me a while back for something that happened when I was just a little, little girl. My mom had bought me a new dress that day and my grandparents were over for coffee. He was having coffee in the living room with my father and I rushed into my room, put on my new dress and ran into the room to show them how pretty I looked. I must have been less than five years old. I twirled around and then my father shouted at me to go away, and take off my dress, the adults were visiting, and I was to make myself scarce. My grandfather says that he never forgot the look on my face. And twenty years later her told me how sorry he was for not telling my father to shut up or "punching him in the face". I do not remember this day. I'm not sad about it, it's not an issue. It was to my Grandpa. But when he told me that story, sitting at my mom's table, shaking with Parkinson's disease, nearly blind and looking very old, he was ten feet tall to me. That hasn't changed. My heart sees him that way, even when my eyes see his health decline. Even when my ears hear stories about him that say strange things like "he's in the hospital, do you want to go say goodbye?" That's not true, it just can't be. This is the man that rides to the rescue of little girls in pink dresses, the man that loves his wife and his Saviour with a strength that seems super human. He's not actually sick. Not really.
People deal with grief differently they say. When his time comes, whether it's tomorrow or in five years Robyn will be at the funeral. She says she has to go. I can't do it. I can't see him like that. I can't go see him in the hospital. He's ten feet tall, for crying out loud - what hospital bed would hold such a big strong man? My heart has to believe that none of it is true, until it actually is. Until he's in Heaven and he looks to Jesus and the angels the way I've always seen him in my heart. I think that maybe then the peace will come.

I'd Like to Thank Grey's Anatomy...

2007-06-09T23:54:00.001-07:00

...for saving my marriage.
You see, before my life was vastly different. Or, perhaps I should say, Peter's life was vastly different. Our evenings usually went as follows:
Peter: (looking longingly at his Playstation) Honey, how's that new book going? I saw you reading it earlier, would you maybe want to do that tonight? I could light a fire for you and make you a cup of tea...
Melanie: I finished it. I need to get to the library more often, I have nothing to read. Do you want to watch a movie?
Peter: I don't know, we've seen everything we have. How about a nice long bath for you? I could run you a bath, pour you a glass of wine... (now he's openly staring at the Playstation with unabashed longing.)
Melanie: I showered this morning, and it's so late, I don't want to go to bed with wet hair...
Peter: Okay. Why don't we go to bed? (this is agreed to...fast forward five minutes)
Melanie: Where are you going? Aren't you tired?
Peter: Not really. Umm... maybe I could play some Madden while you sleep?
Melanie: Yep, I guess you'd better.

I really wasn't that mean about it, and I'd like to think I'm better than a lot of women on the issue of video games (all women but Carlie.) It wasn't that I didn't like him to play, it's just more difficult to amuse me for that much time all by myself. I usually cleaned, or went to bed by myself, which I like much less than cleaning.
NOT SO ANYMORE!

Melanie: Babe, when was the last time you got some good Madden time in? Isn't it time to begin a new season? (NOTE: if you've never played Madden, this is the LONGEST part of the game. You have to draft players just like real football, organize your team, run practices, and then, just to be sure you did it all right, play a pre-season game, oh, and look for an hour at your stats. It takes literally hours and you can't turn it off in the middle.)
Peter: Yeah, I guess it is. Eric did give me the newest Madden, and I haven't played very much yet. You wouldn't mind? Do you want some tea first, or your book, or....wait a second! Wait one second! This is about Dr. McDreamy isn't it?! You have a crush on him!
Melanie: No! Well, yes a little. But he's not real, so it doesn't matter right?
Peter: I don't know. How much Madden can I play?
Melanie: Oh, I'll be occupied for a good couple of hours, maybe three...
Peter: (while getting settled with his beloved controller) You're sure you don't have a crush on that guy?
Melanie: Honey, he's not a man. He's a fictional character created from the mind of a woman. I get it. There's no reality lapse here for me. I love you.
Peter: (now running screen plays and fully distracted). Yep, uh huh.... you too babe.

We're happy. We're snuggled on the couch, he's playing his game and I'm loving every episode. My imaginary crush on Dr. McDreamy may have just saved my marriage.

my dad can beat up your dad

2007-05-27T22:59:00.001-07:00

Funnily enough, this the the feeling I get when I hear my new favorite worship song. You know when you hear a song that makes something in your chest kind of constrict and you just love it the moment you hear it? I love stuff like that. It feels like you're a part of something bigger, and something in you swells and almost makes you cry just because you can't find another way to put it. That's how this song makes me feel. I've heard it for the first time today, and I've downloaded it on iTunes, and listened to it over and over again. I love it. I don't recall the last time that I've felt proud to be a Christian when I'm worshiping. That sounds bad...I feel love for Jesus, I feel conviction, I feel adoration, I feel blessed and special. But this one made me feel...taller. I felt good that I believed in God. Not in a prideful, ha, I'm a Christian and that makes me great, but almost that way. It makes God sound manly and strong. Not just compassionate and loving and kind. He sounds tough in this song to me. Like Aslan in Narnia instead of "a rose trampled on the ground" He is tough. He's strong. I felt proud to know him when I worshiped to this, if that makes sense.

Here's the link.
Here's the lyrics:

Everyone needs compassion
A love that's never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations

Savior
He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender

Shine your light and let the whole world see
Singing for the glory of the risen King

Currency

2007-05-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I wrote anything meaningful here at all. I've had a lot on my mind, and a lot has been going on, but putting things in words, has been surprisingly difficult lately. I think God has been trying to teach me something, and there's a good deal of hope in that, though it seems that he's using a hopeless situation to get his point across. How very...God...of him.
I was going to write a whole long rant on my new pet peeve, the movie "The Secret". Actually, now that I've started, I can tell you right now, it's not gonna be a short post boys.

Only in Western culture could something like this pass off as the newest, latest, greatest thing. What utter rot. I haven't watched the whole thing just the first 20 minutes or so, and maybe like a lame movie that gets good in the last couple of minutes, it redeems itself. I find it insulting. It states in the synopsis, "This is The Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." Catchy huh? I want in...tell me, please? How can I have everything I ever wanted? The answer? Simple. Hinduism. The law of attraction. Everything that happens to you that is bad, you brought on yourself. Let us quickly note that this exact thought process started the caste system that is still crippling nations like India. They look like they're rolling in wealth....no wait...I've been to India. They're all POOR!! The movie actually stated "I know what you're thinking. 'So my dad dying, that was because of my own negative thought?' the answer, 'yes.' ". Wow huh? Sounds hopeful? This was when I turned it off. The Law of Attraction states that thought equals creation. Get that? Thought = CREATION. So here's the part you're gonna love: Yes, your negative thought process killed your father (woah dude, way harsh for Pops) however, your positive thought process can make you rich!! And there my friends, is where they are making money hand over fist. I'll buy that. It explains pain and suffering because the world would actually rather take blame for it than have it unexplained. And it produces anything that I want for myself. Wow. I thought that humanity was lame when we started bottling water and selling it to each other. I thought humanity was lame when I had to pay a dollar for air, to fill up my car tires. But this, this tops it all.

Note: I know that thinking about being sick, will actually make me sick. My issue is that thinking about sickness will NOT make Peter sick and die.

Here's my issue with people in Canada and the USA buying into this thought process. We've already won the lottery. Let's say you're going to school with approx. 6.5 billion people. At the end of the year, they take a test to decide who the smartest of those 6.5 billion are. You score in the top five percent. How do you feel? Pretty amazing huh? Way to go you? Let's say you score so low that your score, when added with others, doesn't begin to add up to the person in the top five percent. And then you hear the person with the killer grade whine about how unfortunate it was that they missed that one question. How do you feel towards that person? Furious? Nah, something stronger. Murderous? Yeah, that'll do since there's not one word for maim-the-cocky-bastard-and-gouge-his-eyes-out. Here's the thing. If you were born in Canada, or the USA, you are wealthier than 95% of the world's population. Here's the kicker for that other 95%. Their wealth, if pooled, would not be as much money as the 5% that we have. Bummer for them. And here we are, buying movies like The Secret in order to attract everything we want. My entire issue with this is, what we want, will NEVER be enough for us. We've won the lottery. This is what it looks like. Throw a party and hope that the other 95% never notices. The problem with global wealth distribution is that even if we all decided to share it evenly, the world economy would be crippled as the 5% pretty much controls that. If fair trade were ever an idea that was bought into globally, it would pretty much mean financial disaster for you personally. Yikes.

I hate that the "law of attraction" (as though it's a law or something) annihilates compassion. Why should we help out India? That must be one sad nation of negative thinking suckers. Again, we're back to the caste system. You're where you are because of your own dumb fault. Get it together, meanwhile, I'm meditating my way in to...what did they say....oh yeah "unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth". Sweet.
Here's my question, and what I've found to be God's question to me lately:

-What for? What do you want to win the lottery for? Really?
-I want to be mortgage free?
-Why?
-Because debt is very stressful, financial stress is the number one cause of ruined marriages you know.
-But you live in a country where if "hard times" hit, you can go into debt. We have a whole economic structure worked out for you. You have to pay it back, if and when you can...oh wait. Unless you file bankruptcy. We have a system for that too.
-But then I'd have no money. Where would I live?
-Well, incidentally, we have something called Social Assistance. We'll pay you to live at home with your baby if you make a mistake and get pregnant too early, or if your husband walks out on you and you have no marketable skills. We understand that you can't work. It's okay.
-Really? How much will you pay me?
-Well, how about $800 a month? That's three times what they make in Nepal IN ONE YEAR, will that work for you? We get that things are more expensive here than in Nepal.

We have such a screwed up idea of wealth. This is what God's been bugging me on. Our hard times right now are purely financial. Becky's hard times are not. Money isn't going to fix what keeps Becky up at night. What a jerk I am. Becky, e mail me, I'll give you my address, and you may come and gouge out my eyes. I'd deserve it. Unfortunately, positive thinking will not fix what keeps us up at night either, just like being afraid of Peter dying will not kill him. Thank goodness. Our God is more merciful than that. He's much too merciful to give us everything we ask for. A guy I know once said this:
"God is much more concerned with our wholeness than our happiness"
Well said Matt. Here's the greatest thing about God: His ideas of wholeness for us, will make us happier than we've ever dreamed of being. Not only have I won the geographical lottery, where I was lucky enough to be born here, instead of in India; I have won a spiritual lottery. Everything that happens here, means literally nothing unless I am meeting the God who put me here. It means nothing if I am not serving others, not because I am better than them because of my wealth, but because I am in debt to them because of their poverty in the light of God's love to me in mine. I believe that when God said to feed the hungry, that that wasn't a metaphor for something greater. I believe he meant, "hey Melanie, there's hungry people on the planet. They need food. Could you do something about that?" I believe church without active missions is selfishness of the worst kind. I believe God will call us on the carpet for this. Soaking services and not soup kitchens. "The Secret" and not Service. God didn't yell at prostitutes when he was on this planet. He yelled at church people. Shame on us. Shame on me. I have been sitting in that 5% of global wealth and whining about the 4% that are still richer than me. My currency is all messed up. I'm trying to use Rupees in Canada. I'm trying to use Dollars in Heaven. "God, if you could just give us some more money, we'd go into full time ministry. Promise."

"Come, all you who are thirsty come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. WHY SPEND MONEY ON WHAT IS NOT BREAD AND YOUR LABOR ON WHAT DOES NOT SATISFY? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." (Isaiah 55)

You who have no money. Come. Buy. Eat. Not only milk which nourishes, but wine which is enjoyable. Not just life. Life abundant. Want me to tell you a secret? It's not about money. It's about this. Delight your soul which will live forever. I have a framed poster on my wall which says "Want what you already hold." Get your currency straight. What if you switched your mindset so that everything you wanted was in your home, and not in "that guy's house"? What secrets to life can this world offer me, if the secret to real life isn't in this world?

About Leah

2007-05-08T23:11:00.001-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Bringing Home the Bacon...kinda.

2007-04-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

So I've officially gotten a temporary second job. I'm not getting as many hours at the bank as I would like, and so I have taken to delivering pizza. It's hockey season, so that means a good amount of money, and when that's over then the tourists start pouring in. I worked my first shift on Friday night and in three hours made more money than four hours at the bank. Crazy. Reagan says it's because I have breasts and so that's why, but honestly most of the people I delivered to were women, and I don't think they care. But I compliment their homes and their babies and so that works just as well.
I thought I would feel lame delivering pizza at nearly 25 but I just couldn't bring myself to waitress. It just seemed like such hard work to learn table numbers, and where the cream was kept and on and on. By two hours into my first shift, I was answering phones, punching in orders, and making good money doing it. There's not a lot to learn that a handy new map book won't help me with, so I'm good. It's only three nights a week, in Parksville and Qualicum, and I still get all my weekends to myself. I work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday if you're sitting around in the area and want a friendly face delivering pizza... I was very surprised to enjoy my first shift, and tomorrow I'm back at it. Peter's happy because on my work nights, I get 50% off pizza. His next order is a goat cheese and oyster pizza. Um, eww.
Other than that, there's not a lot that's new for me. Peter and I are leading a home group for young married couples and are loving the people we've met through that. We hung out with them all weekend, and just had a really great time. Now I'm off to have a long hot bath, after watching some Iron Chef...

Resurrected

2007-04-06T00:17:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I find myself wanting to celebrate this Easter more than I normally do. I want to celebrate what has been resurrected in my life, what God is currently raising from the dead. It amazes me that we don't think that miracles happen anymore. I have seen miracles in my life. Our friend Janie was given just a few months to live years ago, her situation really was hopeless. Quite honestly, I thought she was going to die. I really did. I'm sorry for that now. Luckily we serve a God that doesn't care if we're hopeful or not. He wanted Janie healed. He wanted her to live, and I think he wanted to prove that he alone has power over life and death. Cancer does not. Janie can tell you.
At some point in the last few years, I really struggled with whether or not my brother or my sister would ever be at the place where they were actively serving God again. I mourned for the loss of both of them at one point, and they are restored. It makes me think of the verse in Luke (I had to look it up):
" ' My son,' the father said, ' you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' " (15:31-32) I look at Robyn with her little boy now, and I SEE the faithfulness of my God.
God has raised me from the dead. Not only when he died for sins that not only did I care nothing about, but that I actually valued; but when he daily saves me from a car accident five miles down the road by having me hit a red light, or when he loves me enough to discipline me in an area that would eventually kill me, or ruin the plans he has for my life, even if I don't know it at the time. He is sovereign, and he will constantly do things that I don't understand, but he is God, and I'm not. That's all that I really, really know.
I believe that God wants to heal my uncle John, who was very recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Everything in me recoils at saying that, because "oh my goodness, what if I'm wrong, what if..." but I do believe it.
I remember this one time in YWAM, we were praying really hard for finances for these three or four really great people to go do missions abroad. We'd hit a deadline, and we needed the money and we didn't know how we were going to get it. Now, I have seen financial miracles like you would not believe. I've seen celebrities ( I promised them not to name names, but you'd know them if I did) walk onto the YWAM base and write $10,000 cheques at the last possible second, so that poor people can go to other countries. I've collected money from people who were told by God to come to an obscure location that they didn't know we were at to give us whatever was in their wallet. This time was different. We were praying and we were getting nothing. Literally nothing. And then a man that I know and respect got up, with tears in his eyes and said that he really felt like he'd heard from God. We waited for the money to fall from the sky. Literally. It did not. He got up and said that all he'd heard God say was this: "AM I STILL FAITHFUL?" We knew in that moment, that they were all going home. They did. They didn't get to be missionaries and others did. It was terribly sad. To this day, I do not understand it. In YWAM, miracles are more common. This time it didn't work that way. But he is still faithful.
All this to say, I have heard God give a disappointing message, and I've seen him do miracles that blew my mind. In my head, I don't know what will happen with my uncle John. In my heart, I know what God has said to us thus far:
"Keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years." (prov 3:2)
"Then he will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones." (prov 3:8)
"Your healing will spring up speedily." (isaiah 58:8)
In my own life, I remember very clearly a time when I did not serve God. I don't know how to describe this time in my life, even to my own family, to my own husband. I know that God was allowing hardship in my life that I didn't feel that I could overcome. I felt like the deck was stacked against me and I wasn't going to win, no matter how hard I tried or prayed. I felt like Job. The devil took everything he had away, but God allowed it to happen. I knew God was allowing something terrible to happen to me not because he is cruel, but because he is merciful. And I know that at the very last possible moment, it stopped. I can tell you that I overcame nothing. I ran. I fled with everything in me, and I made choices that didn't even allow me the option to become who I was then because that girl, that lie that is me on this sinful earth, terrifies me. Part of me is haunted to this day, that maybe I'm not different now than that girl back then. Maybe I'm the same girl but with no opportunity to screw it all up. I know how close I came to wrecking everything. I know, without really intellectually knowing, what would have happened had I not literally run for my life. But he saved me. Not only from a destiny that I would have hated myself for, but for the pride that would have eventually killed me had I not gone through what I did.
I believe God is still raising people from the dead.
Just like Jesus, just like Lazarus. The funny thing, the thing that always gets me is that Jesus himself raised Lazarus from the dead, but when he arrived at his grave, he still mourned. Why? It says in the Bible that Jesus was going there for the specific purpose to raise him from the dead. (John 11:11-12). It's not like he arrived there heartbroken that his friend was dead and then God told him to raise Lazarus from the dead. But when he meets Mary and sees her weeping he was "deeply moved in spirit and troubled." And he went to the tomb and wept. Why was he troubled? Why did he cry? If it was me I'd have arrived with this smug little smile and a knowing look in my eye..."Guess what?!" It would have been like giving someone the best present ever. I'd have been ecstatic. Jesus mourned. I think this is because he truly does share in our sorrows. I'm allowed to cry and mourn for my uncle John's diagnosis and believe for his healing. Jesus did it for his friend Lazarus.
I believe in hoping against all hope. The diagnosis says that my uncle will be taken before his time by cancer. My God says that he died for our healing. I want to believe God for more than I do now. I want to ask him for things that I know he wants to give me without being afraid the way that I am so often. I want to be like Abraham. He wasn't stupid. He didn't sit around thinking, "oh good, even though I'm nearly dead, I know that God promised me a child and that's that! Yippee!". The bible says that Abraham faced the facts that he could see, that his body simply couldn't produce the sperm necessary to make a child. He dealt with what he knew of this world, and he believed in what he knew of the next, not because he was such a spiritual guy, but because God actually had to make an incredible promise to him, and then persuade him that it was true.
"Yet he did not waver in unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he had promised. "
God is working on persuading me that he wants to heal my uncle. He's made some promises, but my head knows that not everything works out the way I want it to. Good godly people die all the time. I'm facing the fact that cancer is lethal. And I'm trying to believe the truth that God is bigger than my reality.
I'm going to try with all my heart to give glory to God this Easter, for not only raising his Son from the dead, but for showing me that same miracle again and again in my own life, in people that I care dearly about. For doing it in me. Happy Easter guys. I love you.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2007-03-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. It's here (at least for those of us lucky enough to live on Vancouver Island). Camping season. Next weekend, because it's Easter, I get a four day weekend and we're grabbing our tent and getting out of here. The weather is supposed to be beautiful and hot (20 degrees!) and I'm thinking Saltspring. There's a great campsite where you can camp next to the ocean, and if it does get rainy, you can always head to a coffee shop, or spend Saturday browsing a farmers market. We can go hiking in one of a million places, and just hang out for a few days. I adore Saltspring, it's one of the coolest places in BC.
Depending on when the family has easter dinner (I heard Monday night) then we'll hang out from Thursday evening until Monday afternoon. I'm thrilled. It's about time. The rain has been starting to get to us, especially Peter, and it's time we took a few days away from it all to just enjoy all the reasons why we love BC. We're praying for good weather, but I'm pretty set on going no matter what. It snowed on us last year in WY and we didn't pack up, and had a great time. Plus it's early enough in the year that no fire bans have set in yet! I cant wait. This is by far, my favorite thing to do with my darling husband and I'm so glad that spring is finally here!

Something old, new, borrowed, and BLUE!

2007-03-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

So it seems that I've been remodeling everything a bit lately. Last week I sold some DVD sets that I wasn't watching and Peter hated anyway, and had $80 to spend on anything I wanted. I wanted a new bedroom. When we bought our bedroom set, we picked a fairly neutral colored bedspread so that if I wanted a change I could have one without having to spend hundreds of dollars, and wasting all the nice stuff I already had.
REFERENCE:
This is what my bedroom used to look like:

I felt like I was on trading spaces. "Melanie, you have one afternoon, $80 and a bedroom that matches everything else in your house. It's great, but it needs some "wow" some "spark". Something that sets it apart as a romantic haven, rather than an attachment from your living room". Anyone who has been to my house knows that everything in it is either brown, ivory, red, black, or possibly orange. In every room. So the bedroom was starting to feel a little bland. I've been missing colors like blue or green lately.
I needed new sheets to give the bedroom a new look. And all the sheets we have are presents from others, and are really nice. From doing some price comparison shopping, I realized that the people who bought our sheets spent lots on them. More than I have ever spent of sheets, more money than I have now. We love those people by the way. The cheapest sheet set I found was $40 at WalMart, and they just felt like really thin cardboard. Scratchy. Peter would have none of this. Why in the WORLD would we change a perfectly nice bedroom, put our expensive sheets in a drawer and sleep on scratchy sheets just because they were a different color, and Melanie needed a change?! Besides, she'd be sleeping anyway, who cares what color they are?
After much searching, at a specialty bedding store in the mall (Quilts Etc, for those Nanaimo folk - GO BUY SHEETS) I found a clearance sale. Beautiful silky 300 thread count sheet sets in a variety of colors. They were about the same price as the pillowcases I wanted at Home Outfitters (that store is a racket). They were the right color, I was sold. Now all I needed was accessories to match. I had some lamps in other rooms I could take, I had a picture that had been looking out of place for a while above my dining room table, but my side tables, and my decorative pillow would need to be bought. I bought fabric from a clearance bin at WalMart for the tables, and a new pillow from Home Sense. Voila! It worked, I was exactly on budget, my sheets feel divine, and I actually introduced a new color and a slightly more feminine touch to our bedroom. Take a look! Peter is still getting used to the silky material on the side tables, and the fact that I added a swath of the same material over the closet.He will love it very soon. It just takes him a while to process new information.

I love blue and brown together. For some reason it makes me think of Hawaii, and that makes me think of summer. I love the little rug that I threw in the room, and the way our office lamps look. I love the new look and the fact that it looks different than all the red you see everywhere else in the house. When you walk into the bedroom now, it looks completely different to me. And if you open the drapes to see the ocean outside, it ties together beautifully. I'm very excited, as much about the new look as the great deals I found. So now I've added for your enjoyment, some fun facts about sheets that I never knew before:
-Thread count on sheets means virtually nothing. I bought once, for the low price of $80 US dollars :P 1200 thread count sheets. I was expecting heaven. Literally. The highest thread count I'd ever seen in a store was 800 and that was only once. I was so excited when I crawled into bed that first night. Not so great. I thought maybe they'd been starched in the packaging, so I washed them and loaded them with fabric softener. Twice. Nada. They are our least comfortable sheets. They pill in the dryer, and I have no patience for them. None.
-If you take normal everyday WalMart sheets not the really cheap ones that you buy for college or ywam, but the middle of the road ones, and IRON THEM, you will be amazed at how much softer they are. Ironing sheets is an instant way to make them softer, and was proven in blind tests to be much more comfortable than unironed sheets with higher thread counts. You don't even have to iron them every time you wash them, maybe every other, or every third time. They'll stay nice and soft. Who knew? If you are my mother, spend the money on great sheets to begin with and save yourself the complete insanity of ironing sheets. If you are me, and you need the smell of fabric softener, slip a bounce sheet between your comforter and your top sheet. Or three. (I put bounce sheets everywhere, even in pillowcases)
There you have it. A new blog and a new bedroom. Lucky little me.