Walking Backwards

As of late, my entries don't seem to be rays of sunshine. So, following that trend, I'm writing to say that my grandmother died yesterday after a long illness. Joe and I are going to drive down to San Antonio tomorrow to be with my family. The funeral is on Saturday. We are coming back Saturday night so that Nicholas can have a normal, little-kid style Halloween on Sunday. I have so much to do today and tomorrow to get ready that I kept Nicholas home from pre-school. I also have to find appropriate clothes for the little guy because the bright primary colors that are principles in his attire, won't be suited for the occasion. The more I do the less I think, so that's good.

We certainly have had an eventful couple of days :). On Friday I went to the mall to start my Christmas shopping. I got lost somewhere in the middle and couldn't find a lot of what I was looking for, but I did end up buying some candles for myself. So, really successful there. I think malls and shopping center are just designed to be distracting. We then went by Old Navy who had all of their clearance clothes an additional fifty-percent off. Apparently, some mother with a 2T son had gone through and cleared out almost all of the clothing in that size, so there wasn't much I could get Nicholas. I did get him some stuff in 3T for next year, hopefully it will still fit. I did find a few things for gifts there for most of the children I have to give gifts to and will refrain from describing them here as not to give away the surprise. Generally speaking, Friday was a boring shopping day. Oddly, the most eventful thing that happened was at Garden Ridge Pottery, which I don't personally think as all that exciting of a place. While I was looking at some terracotta pots to transplant my herbs into, Nicholas got into the plastic fruit. I now am the proud owner of two apples, two pears, a banana, and an orange all made out of plastic and all with chunks bitten out of them. The cashiers thought that it was hilarious. He probably would have tested all of the fruit in the place if I hadn't caught him. I just have to ask, though, who the hell buys a four dollar plastic apple, really?


Saturday dawned with me being generally surly and unpleasant to be around. I didn't get any sleep because the baby monitor was going crazy in the thunderstorm. I did have a massage appointment at 10am, so I had to pull myself together for that. The massage was fine, the coffee afterwards was better. I'm still having intense back pains, but the rest of me is all soft and pliable. We then went to buy a couch. I know, what more would an exhausted, over caffeinated, painfully relaxed person want to do, but go into a store with people following you around like used car salesmen? We did find a couch. Its the one on the left, although they both look the same:



Yes folks, I just bought an almost white couch with a two year-old. Will someone please warn me next time not to go into furniture stores under duress next time.


Later Saturday we all went to Annie's pumpkin carving party. It was fun. I did not carve a pumpkin because I didn't really want to carry it across the parking lot and up three flights of stairs, so we are probably going to carve them sometime this week. We ate chili and I got back to my roots by drinking Lone Star beer. Nicholas had a blast playing with our friend Seanna's son, Aiden. They really got along well, despite a few minor disagreements as to who deserved the computer keyboard more. We are supposed to go to the park with them today, so that should be fun. I'll try to remember my camera this time so you can see their cuteness in action.

As per request ;), here are the pictures from when Deta visited. Most didn't turn out, sadly. A lot of pictures of backs of heads and blurry people. This is my favorite, even though it was noon on Saturday and I hadn't washed my face. I can't wait to see Miss Deta again and next time I'll take better pictures. Hopefully, she'll get to stay longer.

Argh! I am having so many problems with my neighbors. They came over again to yell at us for parking next to the curb between our two houses. Mark came to pick up Travis and had driven away before this woman left my porch. I, of course, bitched back at how they were behaving with total animosity and have been since the day we moved in (they came over the day we were moving to complain that the moving van wouldn't fit in our driveway). In the end I realized that she didn't care what I had to say, so I just gave up. The funny part is that she asked us to move the car even though no one was going to park there and she left five minutes later. Grrr, I am secretly (maybe not so secretly) hoping that they move very soon.


Otherwise, this week has gone fairly well. Sadly, our playdate for today was cancelled, but it gave Nicholas and I the chance to hang around the house doing nothing, which is always fun. Yesterday, we went to a pumpkin patch outside of town to get our pumpkins for this Halloween. There was a hayride and animals to pet. Nicholas really enjoyed being out in the country where he could run around like a crazy person. All in all, very fun. I have yet to formulate plans for tomorrow, but I know that Nicholas will have a fit if we don't go outside somewhere. We'll probably end up with a French fry picnic in the park. I have ceased making big plans because, though I want Nicholas to stay on his schedule, it is a week to really relax.


I have now, officially started my Christmas shopping. Joe and I sat down to make our holiday plans as to where we are going to go (Thanksgiving here and Christmas in Louisiana) and discovered that we have over thirty people to buy gifts for. Damn Joe and his prolific family. We are also traveling a lot in December and I don't want to end up at a mall anytime after Thanksgiving, so here I am starting an unheard of two months early. I'm not crazy am I. It feels crazy.

As much as I would like to go on about how my weekend was and what I have planned for Nicholas on this, his week off, I have just received a bit of news that has me a little unhinged and unable to really think about much else for the moment. The nurse from my gynecologist's office just called to tell me that my exam results have come back abnormal. I am a 2 on a scale of 4 abnormality, what ever that means. At some point during the time the nurse was talking I just kind of froze and stopped listening. I have an appointment scheduled for a colposcopy in the middle of November (earliest available). I know this is not an uncommon occurrence, but its never happened to me before so I'm a little freaked. I'm just hoping that everything is okay, I'm too high-strung for anything to be wrong.


I'll write more later I'm sure. The next entry will hopefully be a little more light-hearted.

Nicholas just added a new phrase to his repetoire today. "I'm awesome." I think I have to agree, but its not typically what you expect a two year-old to say to a room full of people. Apparently, he has no problem with self-confidence :).


Well. . . because I'm watching the debates and am busy yelling at the television, all my words of wisdom will have to wait until tomorrow ;). Until then, some pictures:


Nicholas seems to be enjoying my spaghetti. So much so that he seems to have forgotten to use his fork.


He has been trying to learn to play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and is getting quite good at it. He will also sing along, but you can only catch the first few and last few words.


He wouldn't take the fireman's helmet off all day. When we were leaving the in-laws, he had a fit that he had to leave it behind.

Damn the fact that I am in the high risk group regarding flu shots. I hate getting a flu shot because I always feel like crap for a couple of days afterward. Since I'm in the high risk group, my doctor put the pressure on me today to just get it over with. I'm really surprised because I thought, with the flu vaccine shortage, they would be happy to have a few extra people skip out this year. No, I should only be so lucky. They had already pulled the dose before even asking me about it. That's a bit presumptuous, don't you think? I stood my ground long enough to be lectured on how a cold almost put me in the hospital this January and that the flu might just do me in and won't you think of the children. What really convinced me was realizing that this is the first year Nicholas has to make it through cold and flu season at preschool. I'm betting that every child falls sick at least once and that I'll get to be exposed to all of it, too. Anything that will be a barrier between me and toddler germs is a welcome addition (even if it has to enter my body through a needle in my arm). I just hope I lose this achy feeling before I'm helping parent on Thursday.


I discovered I have a spider living on my rear-view mirror. I don't typically pay much mind to the million or so tiny spiders that I constantly see around my house and yard, but this guy has been there for a few days. Its funny to see him clinging for dear life as I barrel down the highway and they crawl out to spin yet another web connecting my mirror to the driver's window. You'd think after surviving the first trip, he would pick someplace a little more hospitable. I'm glad he has decided to hang out with us, though.

I'm sick :(. Again. It's just allergies, but I've got a sore throat and headache and the like. I have an appointment to see my pulmonologist tomorrow because it is making my asthma unbearable. I love this time of year, but the ragweed and mold are killing me. Nico is also congested and crabby. I wish, sometimes, that I lived somewhere where the mere act of going outside didn't make you ill. I'm staying away from Annie's today for fear that I may have a sneezing fit all over the baby, but I am going to heavily dose myself on benedryl to make it up there tomorrow if I have to. I also want to take Nicholas to see the duck pond at the arboretum. We have been taking him to the pond here by our house, but the arboretum pond is close to an ice cream parlor that sells dairy-free ice cream ;). The weather here is beautiful and I don't want to waste it being sick inside. Austin has so many beautiful outdoor places that we don't get to see as often as we'd like because of the heat or inclement weather (you can't be too careful with a wild toddler). Maybe I'll take him on a walk this afternoon despite the weariness. The outdoors might do me some good, or at least make me feel that my illness is worthwhile.


This whole surrogate mother concept has really thrown both Joe and I for a loop. Joe has now gone back to his strong push for us to have another baby. While he was reading up on surrogacy, memories of when we were expecting Nicholas were conjured. Of course, he only brought up the good stuff and seemed to have pushed the hardships into the background. He told me last night that he wants another baby right now. Sheesh! Everyone wants babies out of me it seems. As for myself, I'm becoming increasingly confused as to what in the world I want. I had decided that Nicholas should be our only child a little bit after he was born. It wasn't an easy decision, but I think its the best one for our family. I want to be able to send my child to college, preschool, and be able to stay home and take care of my child myself. At the same time, I am also looking forward to focusing on my own life. I put off my career, travel, and most of my interests and hobbies. That's fine with me, I am willing to make these sacrifices to see my son grow-up first hand. That doesn't mean that I don't ever think longingly about having another child. Now, I'm being asked to go through what I want, emotionally, for myself, but that I have put aside for logical reasons. I am being asked to go through this for someone else. Just the idea of having to go through everything that pregnancy entails and then having to give up the life that I had started, to know that the beginning of this child's existence ends my role in its life. I want these two to be able to experience the joys of parenthood, though, and would love to be the person to provide that for them. The foster care system has let them down (they travel out of the country for work) and have tried unsuccessfully for so long. Maybe it will get easier to make a decision, maybe not. I am just hoping that the decision I make is the right one for everyone.

Oh, I forgot. Annie's beautiful baby was born yesterday at around 10 am (after 28 hours of labor and an eventual c-section, poor thing). He is SO precious.

Wow. Have you ever had someone ask you something that you didn't expect and then you have no idea what do? Well, I talked to my mother this evening and she told me that I might be getting a call from my half-sister, Melissa. Yay! I thought, since I haven't talked to her in several months and they just got back from Africa. "Yes," my mother said "she doesn't know if she is able to ask you something, so I will. She wants to know if you would be a surrogate mother for her and her husband." Uh, Um, what?! My mom drops this as casually as she talks about shopping for a new coat. Apparently, this is not as big of a deal as I think it is because she just kept on going with other conversation as I sat stunned on the other end of the line for about ten minutes. I have thought about being a surrogate mother before, but more in an abstract sense. This is not abstract. Joe is not thrilled about the idea, either. We are going to think about this for a long time and I have no idea what our answer will be. I want to do it, but I don't want to do it. Damn people, shaking up things.

Trying not to get too excited because I know these things are a long haul, but . . . my friend Annie is in labor! WooHoo! Wish her luck.

Today I got to be "helping parent" at Nico's preschool. I must say that it was probably the longest four hours of my life. Who knew that ten two-year olds could be that hard to handle. Okay, when I write it out, it does seem that I should have expected something like this. Man am I tired. First, I was up super late last night because I forgot to get a snack for the class. The helping parent has to bring a balanced snack for the class (a protein, a fruit or vegetable, and a carbohydrate). Also, the food cannot contain nuts, meat, hydrogenated oil, excess salt, or excess sugar. So, I went to three different stores to get stuff (hydrogenated oil is in EVERYTHING). I didn't even bother to prep it before I collapsed into bed (bad idea). Second, Nicholas slept terribly last night and I woke up feeling like I had spent the night rolling out playdoh with my face. I could barely open my eyes and only made my first, tentative movements to down several tylenol. Then, we had to go through the task of getting Nicholas dressed, fed, and into the car. I'm lucky that I managed to change out of my pj's. With Joe's helpful and irritating prodding we finally made it out the door ten minutes late. After arriving at school, I got to prep snack and set up the class room and then the kids started showing up. What followed was three hours of uninterrupted chaos. At the time I am writing this, I am having a hard time recollecting specifics because I seem to have blocked the horrors out of my memory. Finally, class was over and I had to clean the classroom while watching Nico and Megan, whom I had to take home later. Trying to move from room to room, let alone do dishes, while wrangling these two was an adventure in itself. In the end, I don't ever want to do it again. Good thing they have me scheduled to do it next Thursday. On another note, I now have almost a hundred dollars worth of circus tickets that the school is making me sell (or be responsible for myself). If anyone is interested, let me know. You don't have to go - just send me money to cover them :)