Christy and Josie both go to the Doctor

I'm not a big doctor person. Going to the doctor means being organized and making an appointment and then actually remembering the appointment. All of these things are challenging steps for me. But this week I actually went to see my GP about my possible asthma. He made me blow into a lung function thingy and listened to my lungs and said, yes indeed, I have mild asthma. He gave me some cortical steroids to inhale twice a day for a couple of weeks and a prescription for an inhaler. I have to go back in three weeks for a follow-up visit. Guess how they code a follow-up visit in my doctor's appointment book. You guessed it, f u. Well f u too I say.

On Thursday Josie goes to see Dr. Churchill yet again. Our pediatric urologist (who knew there even was such a thing) is seeing a lot of us these days. Josie gets her second ever VCUG. For those of you who don't have a child with kidney problems, a VCUG is a voiding cystourethrogram. It is basically a series of x-rays where they use a dye to look at what happens to liquids in your bladder when you pee. The question is, does any of the liquid backwash up to your kidneys through your ureter? Your pee is not supposed to go backwards - it is supposed to be a one-way process. We all have little valves where our ureters join our bladders that keep pee from going up and bothering our kidneys.

As you all probably know, Josie's plumbing is all messed up on one side (she has two ureters and they interfere with each other). We were initially told that the only way to fix this mess would be surgery. But now our pediatric urologist thinks it may have fixed itself somehow. On Thursday we will watch Josie pee through the magic of x-rays and find out if she still needs to have surgery or if she has cured herself.

Between the couch cushions

A month or so ago when Mitch was cleaning the giant yellow couch prior to selling it on Craig's List, he found an asthma inhaler. We have no idea who it belonged to. In classic pack rat mode, Mitch actually saved the thing. Well recent events have made me thankful for that bit of crazy stashing of things.

After Lucy was born I went through this 9 month or so period where every time I went running, I couldn't breathe and would hack up great chunks of phlegm for about an hour afterwards. It pretty much sucked but I was reluctant to go to the doctor. Finally it seemed to go away. Later I talked to a friend of mine who said that getting mild asthma post pregnancy wasn't that unusual.

Well come around to present day and the same thing is happening all over again post Josie delivery. Every time I go running (and mind you, I don't run very fast. Small children and elderly people regularly pass me) I treat myself to an hour of labored breathing and gross snot in my lungs. Mitch has mentioned several times that a sane person would see a doctor concerning such a thing. The other added twist is that now when I get a cold, it always turns into this ugly chest extravaganza where I have to sit up on the couch all night wheezing and worrying that I am going to suffocate before morning.

Just such an episode happened this weekend. I have round two of the cold that is going around (I already had the damn thing two weeks ago but now I have it again). Yesterday afternoon it became this debilitating chest thing where I nearly expired walking to the park. A friend of mine at the park who used to be a respiratory therapist said I looked like crap and needed to go to the doctor. She also asked if I was using my inhaler and I said, "what inhaler?" Things were getting pretty ugly around 6 PM and I was starting to consider going to the emergency room (why do these things always happen on a Friday after 5 PM) when I decided that using an unknown person's inhaler that expired in 2004 was a great idea. Who doesn't get their prescription medicine out of the couch cushions?

Yes, I am an idiot. Yes, I should have gone to the doctor ages ago. But at least I looked up albuterol on the web and found out that there is a pretty generalized dosage for people over 12. Anyway the good news is that the albuterol worked like a charm. Within seconds I could actually breathe. The crappy part was that I had to keep using the inhaler every four hours for the next 12 hours but now I feel a bit better.

I swear next week I am going to the doctor for real. But until then, thank goodness for the couch cushions.

It Turns Out that Hell is spelled F.O.U.R. A.M.

We made a big leap forward in the livability scale last night but boy was it a costly one. We finally moved Josie's crib into Lucy's room after a year of sharing our room with her and two weeks of Mitch and I sleeping on thermarests in the living room. We were worried that the move would disrupt Josie's new found ability to sleep solidly through the night without waking anyone up but we decided to forge ahead because both of us are tired of sleeping on the floor.

Well, it wasn't Josie that was distressed by the move. Despite months of advance warning and steady talking up of the idea, Lucy was none too pleased to have to share her palace with Josie. We managed to get through bedtime with no major hitches but Lucy woke up around midnight and started causing trouble. First it was the scary monsters (12:15 AM), then it was a sweater (1:30 AM), then it was the alligators (1:45 AM), then it was juice, "I WANT JUICE!!!!" (3 something AM). Finally around 4 AM I dragged her into the living room so that I could yell at her without waking up Josie. I gave Lucy some ultimatums (no Jungle book tomorrow if you don't shut up and go to sleep) while Mitch took Josie out of Lucy's room in anticipation of a giant Lucy screaming fit. I put Lucy back to bed and then she was quiet. She had won, Josie was out of her room.

Mitch and I had a mini parenting conference at 4:15 AM and decided that this wasn't good. So back into Lucy's room went Josie, with the added incentive to Lucy that if she was quiet and went back to sleep that in the morning Mitch would take her to store and she could pick out any stickers that she wanted.

Apparently, stickers weren't enough. Lucy started screaming at full decibel that she wanted juice. Then it degraded into screaming for Mama, and then just generalized enraged screaming. Josie amazingly slept through the ruckus for almost ten minutes and then it started. The loudest, most high pitched, incredible tandem screaming that our house has known. One of them would slack off and then the other would really shine through.

The only fortunate thing that a person can say about it is that it only lasted for about ten minutes. And then we were able to get in our three hours of sleep before Josie woke us up in the morning. Ah parenting. We're all looking forward to tonight, not.

Josie Turns 1, The blog makes it to 100

Lucy helps Josie open her present from Grandma Jo and Grandpa Jim

Lucy and Josie both like the cake, don't tell anyone that I didn't make it myself...

Josie had her first birthday on Tuesday this week. In an unanticipated turn of events, I would say that while Josie liked her carrot cake she wasn't as ecstatic about it as Lucy was about her applesauce cupcake on her first birthday. In general, Josie is much more of an epicurean than Lucy. Josie loves to eat and is particularly interested in eating whatever it is that YOU are eating whether that is pesto or pizza. Anyway, she liked her cake and hopefully she won't realize until she is forty that her cake was store bought while I made Lucy's. Chalk it up to eroding quality over time or maybe just relaxation of the momma worries by the time baby number two comes around. With Lucy I was concerned about letting her eat some store bought sugar fest. With Josie I was just happy that Mitch had time to go to the store and get her a special treat...Although we did still try to stay on the "healthy" side of cake with the perennial favorite, carrot cake.

In addition to cake, Josie had a nice bath and enjoyed opening her present from Grandma Jo and Grandpa Jim. She also enjoyed eating her cards from both Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jo. I didn't bother to wrap the stuffed animals that we got her but instead let her play with the crinkly plastic bag that they came in (only under supervision, of course). All in all, it was a fantastic birthday. And it is still going. Her new wheely bug (a present from Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sue) arrived yesterday and I have promised Lucy that she and I will make applesauce cupcakes for Josie tomorrow.

On her first birthday, here is a list of some of Josie's many accomplishments:

- a generally sunny disposition (hey, this is a huge accomplishment in my book)
- lots of crazy noises that sound very conversational, although no actual words yet
- ZERO teeth but an amazing ability to eat anything despite the lack of chompers
- not one, but two marvelous cowlicks, one in front and one in back
- a total delight in bath time which involves lots of splashing, squealing and mayhem
- lots and lots of walking including on grass, sand, carpet, grass, and stairs
- baby signs for all finished and more
- great kazoo playing
- world's best lamprey (and still lampreying at a year old!)

We are very happy that she is kicking butt and taking names in this, her first year of life. We're looking forward to lots, lots, lots more.

And, in a neat coincidence, this is the 100th post for boomvang.

Scary Monsters or Dada?

Mitch was gone last weekend. He got home around 8:30 PM and Lucy heard the car pull into the driveway and was scared. She started crying and Mitch and I went in together to reassure her. When she saw Mitch she said, "DADA!! You're home!" We asked her why she was crying and she said she heard a scary noise. I told her the noise was Dad driving home in the car and she goes, "Ooohh." As I was leaving the room, I heard her say to Mitch:

"I didn't know if it was scary monsters or Dada."

This morning when Lucy came into the living room to wake us up at 7 AM, she glanced up on the wall and saw Mitch's shiny new silver guitar that he brought back from his recent trip:

"Hey! Nice guitar Dada."

Observant and an appreciator of fine guitars, Lucy is truly her father's daughter.

Two

Despite the fact that Mitch and I currently replicate the 1950's model of a family where I go to work every day and he stays at home with the girls, I like to tell myself that I am almost equal to Mitch in my parenting time. I rationalize that I spend 3.5 days a week with the girls (I have three days off every weekend and I count all the after work and bedtime time as a half) while Mitch spends 4 days a week with them. Periodically, the reality of the situation makes itself apparent.

The reality is that Mitch spends 7 days a week with the girls and I spend three days a week with the whole family. We have many friends who parse the parenting equation by splitting the time with the kids between the parents so that each parent has significant alone time but Mitch and I like to hang out together on the weekends so we don't do much of the divided family thing. Typically on the weekends we all hang out together, all four of us. We do take turns in the mornings so that one of us can sleep in but that is only a couple of hours each day. Otherwise, if we do divide up, one of us takes one of the girls and the other one takes the other.

Having two kids and one adult is a whole different universe than two adults and two kids or one adult and one kid. Maybe it is just that I am inherently a more disorganized person than most (very possible) but for sure in our family, the only one who has down the multi-kid routine is Mitch. He has developed all sorts of complex systems to support and facilitate the sole parent gig. When I go out on my own with both girls I typically mess all these systems up. Not on purpose (as he sometimes thinks) but more because I can barely make it back alive, let alone make sure that the sippy cups are in the sippy cup pocket and the socks are where they belong. When I come back from the store or the beach or the playground, I feel happy to have returned without losing one of the kids or deliberately killing them or giving one of them away. Ask me where the formula ended up or where the empty bottle is and I have no freaking idea. (much to the endless frustration of Mitch).

Mitch has been gone all weekend and I must say that I am pretty pleased with myself for all the things the girls and I have gone out and done. We went to school together. We went to the beach together. We went to the mall and played and looked for new socks for Lucy. We've been having a good old time. And I think I didn't even lose any bottles, socks, or shoes or leave any banana peels or dirty diapers in the van (Mitch will be so proud), although there was that whole incident with the seagulls eating our cookies...

As both Lucy and Josie each get a little bit older, the whole double kid gig gets just a little bit easier. I'm still looking forward to Mitch coming back tonight (both because I like him and because he can lay the smack down on Lucy when she gets out of bed for the tenth time at bedtime).

Two is definitely more than one and as much as I like to think differently, and as much as I am invested in the girls to the hilt, Mitch is still the professional around here.

Visiting Inconceivable

Did you know that I am currently living in Kentucky with my mom and dad?

This weekend as we were driving around in the van after running errands, Lucy started asking us whether dinosaurs would eat us. We tried to explain that dinosaurs aren't around any more at which point she wanted to know where they went and when they were coming back. The whole conversation made me realize how mind bogglingly weird it is to think that there actually used to be 60 foot tall lizards walking around, right here, but now they are all gone. It sounds insane. Needless to say, Lucy wasn't having any of it and we ended up having to tell her that dinosaurs wouldn't eat us because they had to go home to their mom and dad and that they lived far away (I believe I suggested that they lived in Kentucky since this seemed like a state we are unlikely to visit any time in the near future).

Then today I had the privilege of attending the funeral of a science teacher who had worked for our park for fifteen years as an education specialist. I barely overlapped with Arnie Miller in my job. Soon after I started with the park, he retired. I do remember a couple of meetings with him to discuss the education programs at the park and I remember being impressed by his passion, knowledge, and dedication to science education. I went to the service today both because I remember Arnie fondly even if I didn't know him well but also because he was an integral part of the Division of Interpretation for 15 years and I am the Acting Chief so it seemed like a good thing to do.

The service was amazing. Arnie's whole family actually got up and talked about him and what a wonderful person he was. The temple was full of people who clearly loved Arnie and had been touched by his life. Many people talked about how much Arnie had loved nature, what a wonderful teacher he had been, and how devoted to his family he had been. Some of the descriptions of him (curious about everything, great listener, great conversationalist, extremely tolerant human being) reminded me of my own parents. Anyone who thinks communism isn't all bad but that extremism of all kinds is dangerous is o.k. in my book.

There are several things I wanted to say about this experience from my perspective. First, it was the first funeral that I have been to since I had my own kids and having kids put a whole different color to the service. It made me think about how my own children will think about me when I die and reminded me to strive to be a good parent to them and fill their lives with good memories that will be a comfort to them after I am dead.

Second, one of the things that people said about Arnie was that he never said anything bad about anyone. And I thought, "Wow, that is amazing. That is something to strive towards - putting less negativity out into the universe." One of Arnie's grandsons also mentioned that Arnie's last advice to him was "Stay close to nature. Enjoy nature. Stay close to your family. And forgive any bad things that have happened in your past." Sounds like pretty darn good advice.

Finally, one of the last parts of the funeral was the actual placing of dirt on the coffin at the cemetery. And let me tell you, this was no symbolic small scattering of a few particles of sand, this was hefting of full shovels full of heavy dirt onto a wooden coffin. It made an amazing spooky sound. It turns out that helping to bury your loved ones is actually a Mitzvah (a command from God) and was one in which most of us took part (I hefted my three shovels full of earth into the grave). And it is very serious. The family actually stayed behind after the ceremony to finish burying Arnie. It was extremely intense and was a VERY visceral confirmation of the temporariness of all things. Somehow the sound of that dirt hitting the coffin really drove home the reality that Arnie's body was in there and that all of us would end up, one way or another, in the earth.

If you know me, (and you probably do since I doubt anyone that doesn't know me is reading this) then you know that I have big issues with death. Primarily that I would prefer not to, die that is. Somehow this funeral, coming so close after my dinosaur discussion, just emphasized that human life is full of inconceivable truths. No wonder people believe all manner of crazy things when you think about all of the inconceivable things that are actually TRUE. You mean dinosaurs used to roam the earth? No way. You mean people have actually walked on the moon? No way. You mean I, and everyone I know and every living thing I have encountered will one day cease to exist? No way.

Dinosaurs and Death. It was an interesting visit to the Inconceivable, but I wouldn't want to live there.