Guess what I just figured out...

It turns out that if you have a baby and then wait around for, oh, say around 11 months or so, that baby will turn into a person. It's kind of like a 27lb sea monkey. Just drop the packet in the water, and voila! Shrimp!

Obviously there have been points along the way where Orion seemed take leaps towards person-hood. It started in little ways, with things like holding up his head and smiling, then eating babyfood and crawling, laughing, clapping. It seemed like there were continuous milestones!

Now, though, the things that are changing seem like they require so much more thought. He really has to understand these concepts. For example, just a couple of months ago we were thrilled that he could clap. Yesterday, he took each of my hands in one of his and moved them back and forth together to make ME clap. He insists on feeding himself. If I put food in his mouth with a spoon, he'll spit it back out to pick it up and eat it again. It's messy, but adorable. For months, he could hold the bottle and get the nipple into his mouth but could never manage to figure out that he needed to tip it up in order to drink from it. On Thursday, he figured it out and there's been no looking back.

We learned today that he likes balloons and pushing his highchair away from the table to make it roll across the floor. He still hates having his nose wiped though. Anyone know when that stops?

Mommy Guilt

Work has been hell. Doombot and I are both under pressure to work more hours and it's beyond time to fix some of the problems that are keeping us from performing as well as we need to. Of course, it falls on my shoulders to make it happen and all the pressure, angry conversations, and fear get to be kind of a distraction.

So it happened that when Doombot came back from taking Orion to his follow-up appointment for his ear infection (because I couldn't break away from work), I was shocked to find out that Orion's cough was bad. His breathing was fast, and his airways restricted. Doombot came home with a nebulizer and another prescription for prednisone. While I was busy running a business, I missed the fact that my squirrel is perilously close to having asthma.

I also didn't notice that I had developed a giant hole in one of my teeth. Ths is until it woke me upin the middle of the night last night. You know nothing good is going on when a woman wearing inside-out capri pants, a nightgown, and a parka is standing in a 7-11 at 4am buying Advil and Orajel.

Which reminds me of anohter conversation that Doombot and I had last evening after he got a haircut and I realized that I have had exactly 1 haircut in 16 months (maybe longer).

I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not doing right by my squirrel. My work is killing my marriage. I've GOT to get some perspective on my life. I think I'll start with a root canal and a haircut.

A Nine Month Miracle

I see that I made my last post here on 1/13. That means that I have never recorded the second most miraculous event in recent memory.

On January the Fourteenth, in the year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Nine...

Orion Vick Slept through the night.

At first I thought it was probably a fluke. But no! He's actually done it again and again and again. In fact, since he proved that he can do it there have only been two nights when he's needed any attention overnight. The new routine is that he gets a bottle and goes to sleep at 7pm, fusses a little and needs to be resettled by about 8pm. That is all we hear from him until his happy babbling through the monitor wakes us up at 7:30am.

Also new since the last update: crawling and pulling up. I didn't realize that he could pull up until I looked over while I was cleaning and saw him chewing on the rail of his Pack N Play. I'm a little nervous. This means walking is next, right?

This afternoon marked another milestone. For the first time ever, we ordered Orion his own meal at the deli. He got a grilled cheese sandwich and ate it like a good boy. Well, he ate some of it. He probably dropped about a third of it on the ground.

Overall, we have such a big boy that its freaking us out to no end. As Dannon put it, this time last year I couldn't walk becaue I was so uncomfortably pregnant and now we have a child who sleeps through the night and eats food.

Man.

Oooooklahoma Where the Wind Goes...ah, nevermind.

So, I fell of the internet again.

The thing is, I don't want to come on here and bitch. No one likes a whiner and that's about all I've got energy for these days. Essentially, I've come to the conclusion that moving out here was a big, fat, mistake. All three of us have been sick non stop since we got here, Dannon now has to work nights and weekends out the wazoo so I'm alone with Orion a lot, and things at work are rough. Under any other circumstances we'd pack our shit and go home. The house here should sell just fine and we still own the one in FL. We'd just get new jobs and move on with our lives.

The problem? We're under contract. If we don't stay here for at least 2 years, we owe the company back all of the money they spent to move us here. We'd be paying back until we die. So we're stuck until at least August of 2010...that's if they don't fire us first for being sick all the time and running the project into the ground.

So, yeah, I'm not very good company.

The List

This year I:
Became a mother
Fell in love with my son
Moved to Oklahoma
Took on a challenging new job
Ran out of sick time
Bought a house that I love
Picked my own pumkin for the first time
Cut down my own Christmas Tree for the first time
Gained back all the weight I lost pre-baby

Next year I will:
Get back to a weight with a "1" as the first digit
Enjoy fewer Reeses Cups and more hot baths
Read more to my son
Be a better boss, employee, and wife
Earn the trust that has been placed in me
Make it home for Christmas
Use a babysitter to date my husband

Who asked you?

I guess the firt time one experiences a miscarriage, one runs right to the doctor. On number five, though? Meh. I know how it goes. It's cycle day 17, your beta is only a 12, you should get your period soon. Smell ya later. Been there, done that. So when I was fairly certain that I'd had (sigh) another miscarriage I decided to spare myself the indignity and ride it out solo.

Big mistake.

So, here I lay for the second night, in a randomly inflating and deflating hospital bed. Having been scanned in every hole imaginable, sucking up all the pain meds they'll give me while the IV antibiotics pour into my system. The doc that came to see me this morning was shocked I was concious, my white blood count was so high. He said things like "blah blah blah lose a tube" and "blah blah blah want more kids?" The general implication being, like reproductive health? Lay back and take advantage of the all-your-veins-can-pump IV bar and be glad you're not in surgery right now.

OK...so I know there's a crapton of stupidity here. First, what the hell was I doin getting pregnant now in the first place? I know! I know. Second, it's one thing to know your own body but that's no excuse to not get medical treatment. Ugh. I know. I have a habit of thinking I'm smarter than I am when it comes to medical stuff.

However, what in the world makes my friends and family members think that they should be telling me to get my tubes tied to "keep this from happening again". Does it matter to them that I'm not done having children? No. They think this is too hard on me. Ok...then suggest I go on the pill...get a shot...get an IUD...but dude...burn out your own tubes. Leave mine alone.

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The More Things Change...
For my 3rd miscarriage, I had to have a D&C. I thought it was totally sick that I had to go to the labor and delivery area for my surgery. It really helped me though, when the sweet old nurse patted me on the shoulder on my way out the door and said, "We'll see you next year, sweetie."

Now, after #5, my hospital room is on the mother and baby/womens surgery/pediatric unit. Every time a baby is born, they play a snippet of a lullabye over the speaker. It makes me wonder if that music will ever play for me again. I just don't think I'm done. Maybe I'll be back next year.

Oh My Darlin

I'm from Florida, in general, and from a citrus famil, precisely. If I'm going to get all excited about a citrus fruit it had better be good, is what I'm saying. Until a few weeks ago I'd never even heard of a clementine. Where do they come from? Not Florida. Anyway, it seems like in the rest of the world they're a fall/winter treat that people actually look forward to.

I've seen stacks of them at the grocery store for a while now and just thought...eh...more citrus. Then one of the bloggers I like mentioned clementines on her twitter and I thought, what the hell.

What the hell? These things are amazing. Easy to peel, seedless, juicy but clean, and sweet as candy. I guess I'm officially not in Florida anymore.