The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

We are in so much trouble.

Remember when she was so tiny? *sigh*

The more days that go between blog posts, the harder it is for me to decide what on earth to write about. So how about a quick jumbled mess of a post to catch you all up, aye? Cool.

- I finally saw a doctor about my hands, and the prognosis is: pretty much broken. The doctor is a family doc with a background in dermatology, but even he had to get out his book of scary diseases to see if he could find an answer. We are leaning between this and this, (don’t click if weird skin issues gross you out. My hands are NOT as bad as these photos!) with some blood work to rule out anything else. Either way, my hands are not bad enough to warrant the treatments (immune suppressant therapy, experimental nasty drugs) so I just get to be the girl with the itchy swollen hands I guess. My hands are actually totally fine today, for the first time in months, other than peeling from all the swelling. It’s hot.

- My sister and her boys are still here, and we all scratchy-throat sick. I like to blame Tom, since his job involves breathing the same air as 236736 travelers every day, so maybe we have SARS. Or a cold. Either way, sick kids = crabby kids, and that equals lots of TV. Sanity > parent of the year award.

- Tom and I tried to convince Chance yesterday that she wanted to stay forever. The girls are loving having their cousins here, I like knowing I am not alone with my angry little dictators all day, and besides, they are just fun people to be around. She scoffed, and reminded us that her very viking-esque husband would come looking for her eventually. That and her boys are slowly driving her insane while she is solo-parenting them, so yeah. They are leaving on the 5th, and hopefully moving a state or two closer, though still a multiple day drive.

- Speaking of driving, the Portland trip was great, though rushed. The main reason we went down was for a surprise celebration party for my Mum. I haven’t written a lot about my other family on the blog, mostly because I know it is weird to post about other people’s lives in a public space, but let it be known: This woman was worth driving 800 miles in two days with a sleep deprived toddler and a 6 month old. More than worth it. I’m so glad we were able to be there, and it makes me wish I would justify going down more often.

- Tom has another job opportunity on the horizon that we are trying not to invest ourselves in, even though it would be so very ideal for us. Not only would it make it possible for us to pay all of our bills, but also put some money away (wonder of wonders!) Unless something comes though in the next 3 or so months, my going back to work at least part time is almost inevitable. Think happy thoughts about the job.

- Our anniversary was wonderful. We ended up putting off the sans-kids date until a night that Tom could stay awake past 7pm, which worked out since there was a sunset concert that night up at a local winery. It was nice to get out without the kids, and even better just to have time to focus on each other. We’ve packed a lot of “focusing on little people” into the last 3 years – we have to remind ourselves to spread some of that attention around. Alice was not a huge fan of the bottle, but we were just a few miles away, so when Chance called and Alice was shrieking in the background, the boobs were able to come to the rescue.

Picture post later – both the girls are sleeping right now, which means it’s time for me to have ice cream and coffee and not have anyone begging or scalding themselves.

“Hey guys, my cousins and auntie are here this week, so we are out at the park, or the pool, or just sitting in the back yard eating popsicles. Mom will post about all of our adventures soon, but in the mean time, could you convince her that I deserve a popsicle too? Otherwise, I’ll just have to keep eating my sister’s boogers.

Big wet slobbery kisses,

Alice”

We are home. Actually, we got home last night, and then decided to make my mileage a full 1000 miles over the last few days, and went out to the lake for the afternoon. Because we hadn’t spent enough time in the car lately? Ha. I plan to sleep 10 hours tonight, and then tomorrow afternoon go on a date with my husband, sans children, for our one year wedding anniversary. I’ll be back soon.

Okay, I am not usually one to post internet quizs or personality tests, but this one struck a nerve. As in: I am going to forward this to Tom and be all “HEY MAN, it’s not my fault I don’t do this dishes, I am trying to improve the world!”

Click the button to see a description of why I am AWESOME and also emotionally guarded and rather taxing as a wife. What personality type are you?

Eta: Tom did the test and is HI (Harmony-seeking Idealist). They have a compatibility feature, which said that on 3 of 4 counts, we are awesome together (We are both introverts! We both value creativity over paying the bills! We both want to please the other more than ourselves!), but on the last one? I quote:

While the “judging“ one has a strong need for order, in-time management of things and accountability, the “perceiving“ one doesn‘t give a damn about clutter on the kitchen counter, overdue bills or the piles of clothes in the bedroom.

Which, uh, pretty much describes every fight we’ve ever had.

I am part of a local mom’s group in town, where we get together on Thursday mornings and just talk. We have a lactation consultant who fields breastfeeding questions, and we sometimes have specific speakers and topics (fertility, slings, cooking, crafts, etc) but really one of the goals of the group is just to provide community and support to what can sometimes feel like the loneliest job in the world.

Last week we met a new member who is struggling with what I think all of us have felt at some point – she doesn’t feel valued by her partner, she misses her old friends and lifestyle, she is second guessing her parenting abilities… so basically, she is a mom. The conversation evolved into what one member dubbed “The dark side of motherhood” – that sometimes we are angry at our children; that we are insecure and anxious; that we buy into the “Clorox mom” standard of motherhood; that we sometimes have to lower our standards to save our sanity. But mostly we just talked about what a shock it is to the system when you realize that you are not a perfect mom, and that you never will be. Some people find that out in the first week home with a newborn who won’t stop crying; some of us are not hit with that 2×4 until the kid is a toddler and is a poop Picasso. But is is humbling, and if you don’t know it is normal, it can be crippling.

Even when we don’t feel like our job is valued by others, we know it is probably the most important thing we will ever do to raise another human being to be self confident, humble, giving, funny, creative… and damn it, we want to get it right. So, we all fumble our way through the day, hoping we are at least not doing any harm. Or that we can make up for it tomorrow. And if we are lucky, we have a group of friends that we can turn to and admit that this? Is hard.

All of this is to say: You are doing a great job. And yes, I will need you to remind me of this next week.

Secret: Sometimes I stay up until 1:30 am searching for my little brother online. I never find him. He doesn’t want to be found.

He does share a name with a up and coming Arsenal footballer though, so I know a lot about that kid’s career.

I think I have arthritis in my hands, and I’m really quite pissed about it, since the joints where my thumbs meet my hands are so swollen that I can not: press the space bar without wincing, pick up the girls without fearing I will drop them, knit, OR pick up my coffee cup. In other words, all my favorite things. Come on hands, you are only 25! Get with the program! (Also currently swollen: the top joint of my right pointer finger, the pad of my hand near my writs on my left hand, and the pad at the base of my left pointer finger. Oh, and my right pinkie finger is stiff (will be swollen tomorrow).)

I actually do not know arthritis is the problem, but I’ve been ignoring the joint swelling for months (years?) and would have likely kept blaming it on random allergies if my friend Meghan hadn’t pointed out to me one day that it could be arthritis, and a light bulb went off, and I remembered that Oh! My grandmother was in a wheelchair for the last 20 years of her life because of arthritis. Suck. We are expecting our new insurance cards in the mail any day now, so I do not want to use our old insurance and then go through the hassle of transferring care (our current PCP is not covered under new insurance) so I’m just waiting, popping Advil, and carrying around an ice pack because hot damn, this hurts, and itches (from the swelling).

Know what will be FUN when I can barely hold a fork to eat? Holding onto a steering wheel for 12 hours this weekend. Weeeee!

Alice turned 6 months old yesterday, and I woke up inspired to make Alice a video of me telling her her birth story, rather than rewrite it all out. Cute idea, right? Well, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, so it didn’t dawn on me that a shower would have been smart before I turned on the video camera. I would retape it, but I love how the girls woke up and joined in, and really, I don’t have 26 more minutes to tell the story again. So, enjoy: Greasy haired mama and two little helpers, telling the story of how Alice was born.
(I tried to post this all day yesterday, but Vimeo was taking forever to post the video, so today it is.)

Alice’s birth story from Ivy mae on Vimeo.

If it’s not one thing it’s another, right? Ella has had a 104 temp for 24 hours now, which will subside to 101 with a dose of tylonol, with no other real symptoms to clue us into what she is fighting off. For the most part, I am a fan of fevers – infection and virus love 98.6*, so when the body senses an intruder, it heats up to make the body an inhospitable place. Awesome. So, any fever below 102, I will generally let slide. I fear lowering the temperature and letting the virus thrive more than I do any side effects of a fever. But once we get above 103, she is so uncomfortable that it’s mean not to dose her up. 104 and I start regoogling “Toddler, fever, brain damage“. 104.6 and I am calling our pediatrician at 4am. I was just telling FireMom the other day that our pediatrician is wonderful, because he doesn’t make me feel insane for leaving a message like “Ella’s running a high temp and maybe it’s from a skull fracture? CALL ME BACK,” which of course he does within the hour. I should probably write out a full love letter about our pediatrician some day, but suffice it to say, we drive an hour out of town to see him, even though we live in the thick of town. We like him a lot, and lord knows he must like us since I call him at least twice a month, sure my child has a perforated bowel, meningitis, pneumonia, an ear infection, worms and is color blind. Now, add a skull fracture and dry drowning to that list, and you can see why he’s not surprised to see my number on his machine at 4am.

So, instead of the park and yoga today, we are driving out to see the pediatrician. He left it up to me whether or not we come in today, but said he was concerned that she isn’t maintaining a lowgrade (below 102) fever, and that she doesn’t have any other symptoms (which points more towards infection than virus). I imagine we will go in, he will look in her ears, pat me on the back and tell me I am right to worry but that she is fine, but it’s worth it for me. Some day I will write up a post about my raging anxiety about the girls dieing suddenly when i am in the next room WRITING IN MY BLOG. But not today. Today I need to get a diaper bag and shoes.

ETA: Back, and it’s likely a virus. Her fever was back up to 103.7 by the time we got up there, which was horrible for Ella, but made me seem less like a munchausen mom. Her tonsils are all pus-y (wait, how would you spell that?) so he did a strep test and it came back negative. It’s good to know where the fever is coming from though, so we’re just waiting it out and seeing what happens. Right now she is eating Popsicles (these tiny ones, which are a great idea) and watching Diego. Life isn’t so bad.