Category: Real Life and Whatnot

A few pictures from the last two weeks. She seems to be in a very good mood lately.  The two “portraits” were an attempt to get her to smile for an evite picture. The one with cupcakes was us trying out the cupcakes from the person we’re using to make them for her birthday. And the one with the dog is her on the dog walk with our dog Emma. ‘lil q loves dogs and they like her. 🙂

Lily put up some pictures we sent her of ‘lil q and her new bear. I think her captions are better than mine. 🙂

Wednesday ‘lil q finally had the surgery to put in the ear tubes. After weeks of doctor visits and coordinating schedules, surgery took all of five minutes. It was over so fast, they told us not to leave the waiting area because we wouldn’t have time to even get a cup of coffee.  They were right.

In the three days after, it seems she is speaking more and clearer. That is saying something as despite being the youngest in her toddle class, Isobel’s language skills are as good or better than the other kids.

I added some pictures that show, before, right after, on the ride home, and five hours later.  We’re all glad it’s over and she’s doing well.

Here’s a link to the pictures: Surgery

Last night, at 18 months, and 9 days, Mike and I finally left ‘lil q at home while we went out for the night.  We’d left her during the day a couple of times, but not like this. In truth, it’s not like we didn’t want to leave her, it’s just that there wasn’t anything we were itching to do that we couldn’t take her with us to do. Given how it took to have her and how fast she is growing, spending time with her is usually tops on our list.

Surprisingly, I didn’t even worry while we were at dinner. We were showing pictures to our friends, so we clearly were thinking about ‘lil q, but I know I wasn’t worried.  Of course having one of the women from the day care watch her always helps. If there was one thing I knew about Ms. Susan, she’d have called if there was an issue.  And since we had our phones out showing pictures, we knew we wouldn’t miss the call.

‘lil q seemed a bit shocked to see Ms. Susan in the house, but once that wore off, she was her usual happy self. Went to sleep without a fuss and took it all probably much better than we did. LOL.

Now that we have one under our belt, we’ll probably do it a bit more, but since hiring a professional to watch ‘lil q isn’t cheap, it probably won’t be too often that we go out without ‘lil q.

Finally, in keeping with my goals for the weekend, the Easter pictures are up.  I’m attaching my favorite, but you can see them all by clicking the link.

For the first time since ‘lil q was born, we took a vacation. And by vacation I mean, just us, our family, somewhere that wasn’t a friend or family’s house, with no purpose other than to take a trip.  Call us daft, but we chose the beach in February. In reality, the beach, in a

beach town, in the winter is a great time for a quiet vacation. Seats at a restaurant, empty beaches, no crush of other tourists. Of course the big question is always the weather, but that’s always an issue.

As some know, ‘lil q spent the first week of her life in a condo overlooking the Pacific Ocean compliments of her grandparents. She didn’t get to go to beach or play in the water, but she did get to hear it and she can say she ‘saw’ it I suppose.  So this trip she got to see the Atlantic Ocean. In less than 18 months she’s seen two oceans, flown four times and been to twice as many states.  At least when she’s older she can’t say we kept her isolated.

One of the nice things about the beach in the winter is the availability of places to stay – nice places, with lots of room.  We ended up with a four bedroom house that allowed us to bring the dog, a block from the beach for less than most hotel rooms.  But more memorable is that this was our first vacation as a family, our little family.  There have been and will be more extended family vacations, and those are just as important, but for us, this trip will always be special.

There are more pictures under the Photos tab, under Family Vacation.

I saw this article today and it struck me hard.

Gay Oregon Teen, Taken Off Life Support After Hanging Himself

I read about this young man and wondered how he must have been hurting to do this. I thought about how much he left behind, how much he’ll never do. Never fall in love, get married, have a family, laugh and cry with his friends, celebrate his triumphs, and pick himself up from his setbacks.  I think of how much I’d want to say to him, because when I read this, I immediately wondered what I can do to be sure my daughter never feels so despondent that suicide seems the only avenue left.

I want to cry with his family, because even though it is not my child, it is still a child and being a new parent makes me more sensitive to how much every child matters, how we need to watch over all the children, not just our own.  I want to find the kids who did this and do things I shouldn’t even thing about. Anyone who would drive someone to do this isn’t anyone I want around my child.

I worry that with time, my child could be one of those who doesn’t see how much her words hurt and what effect they can have. Will I be a good enough parent to teach her to be a kind, compassionate person, or will I fail and she’ll end up a bully, joining in when others tease the ‘different’ one.

And I’m sad we still read about this, far too often.  As we celebrate the success of gay marriage at the ballot, the president declaring we deserve equal rights, and the shifting public view towards tolerance, we forget in that instance how much we still need to do.  I have no answers, just a mountain of questions.  I don’t want to fail as a parent, not for my daughter, or for any of the other young people she’ll associate with.  This just reminds me how much harder I need to try, because failure is awful beyond words.

So Sunday morning, I woke, looking forward to the start of a glorious day of shopping, shopping, more shopping and cooking.  I kinda hate to shop, but morning coffee can do wonders to put me in a good mood.  So I cleaned the tank, measured the water, scooped out the coffee, turned it on and went to take care of my baby daddy duty. [Stop snickering I said duty, not doodie.] When I came down to get my supposedly made coffee I got nothing. Nada. Not a drop.  Ever want to scream, but couldn’t because you have a sleeping baby?  The rule in our house is, “you wake her, you bought her.” Making matters worse, the machine, a Cuisinart DCC 3000 is only seven months old.  It was a replacement from the manufacturer for another one that was only a year old.  Very annoying.  Fortunately the Starbucks is only a ten minute walk.  Oh well – good thing Christmas is coming. I see a new coffee machine from Santa on my list. Continue reading My Coffee Pot Broke – and other tales from the struggle called life.