LOL

Jon just heard Julian talk in his sleep through the baby monitor.
He said "basketball." I'm cracking up right now...

Negligent negligent blogger.

I know not 3 months ago I made a commitment to update every weekend. I've been remiss. I am recommitting. Really. I'll get back to Sunday posting, even if it's just a photo or two. Now that said, if y'all might comment a bit more I might actually think people are still reading (shameless prod.)


Jon's folks are visiting this week, it's been great, but it sure does wear me out trying to be smart, cute and funny all the time. Not to mention how tiring it is to keep the filter between my brain and my mouth functional for such long stretches. No one is requiring any of this, mind you, but I seem to feel the necessity nonetheless. As the years pass though I think that they understand my ways, and I theirs a little bit better. I imagine I must be a bit of a handful for anyone else's parents (ok, and perhaps my own.)

OK on to Julian. He is talking so much, but oddly enough he has started combining words that he didn't use to combine. "Momook" is 'mommy work', "dadook" is 'daddy work', "mahook" is 'mommy book', you get the picture. He also is starting to issue directives to people including "sit," "stand," "nap," "eat," and today while we were playing "hoobaw" (football) he told Jon and me to "stop talking." Um...no.

Outside is the new inside and Julian will sob if we don't bring him outside for just about everything. We have a rule that he must be sitting to eat and yesterday he wanted to eat outside and when I told him he had to sit down he sat on a flattened cardboard box on the deck, shoved a handful of spinach in his mouth and used his feet to spin himself around in circles while sitting on his butt. He was actually sitting, so what could I say??

Now for photos:

We got this book called "stuff on my cat" which cracked us up so much that Jon decided to start our own "stuff on my cat" series. I've tried a few things but it only works when she's sleeping. Believe it or not it actually pisses her off when we put stuff on her when she's awake (but not when Julian sits on her, go figure.)


I'm not sure why Julian's bike seat was in the living room.


There was one of those moments of silence this morning that make any parent go "uh oh." Walked into the dining room and saw this-
snug as a bug in a rug! (Ok I didn't come up with that one.)


Tank top weather, finally.


Finally.

Restylane, here I come.

I met a (guy) friend for breakfast Friday morning (yes, it's going on the blog, and no, I'm not going to out you...)

We sit down, exchangei greetings and he says, "Wow, you look good!" sounding a bit surprised.
"Really? How's that?" I fish, as I've been in bed feeling like crap for 2 weeks.
"Well, you usually have these bags under your eyes..."
"Oh? Maybe it's time for some injections?" I cringe, tugging at the skin under my eyes.

He realizes that maybe it wasn't the right thing to say...he backpedals... "No, I mean, not really bags, just these big dark circles..."

Sigh. I guess it's time to either get some make up or sell my business. Since I'm in a 5 year lease, and actually love my job, it's going to be make up- I've already put my order in at Sephora. Perhaps though it is time to end the delusion that I am looking fabulous for "almost 40."

Then last night. I'm exhausted but one of my old friends was having a cocktail party/BBQ. Jon wanted me to go, as I've been in a bit of a funk of late. I dressed, did my hair, and even (considering what had happened the day before) put on make up. One of the hosts, another guy, as I walk in says "Whoa! What's up with your hair, is it 1982?" Sigh. My hair was SO much bigger in 1982.

Then when a third friend at the party (yes, another guy) looks at my boots and says "your husband let you out of the house in those?" I start to panic. A few hours later I catch up with him and ask what's wrong with my boots. He says "oh, no...nothing wrong, they're hot!" Phew. I was ready to retire.

All is well here, other than the bags under my eyes, I suppose. Julian is starting to yell when he's excited. 100% authentic boy. Gotta love it. Doug is here for another 2 days, wrapping up his 2 week visit.


We started Julian in day care 2 days a week (the nanny is here the other 3) and other than sobbing about 15 min before we show up (how does he know?) the transition is going smoothly. We're excited because she speaks Spanish. She also has a basketball hoop in her driveway, which Julian LOVES. He walks around the house day in and day out yelling "ba-ket-BAWL!"

Jon and I are doing rock-paper-scissors to figure out who is going to break it to him.

I emailed my mom this picture to which she replied "Wish I wuz there to help save him from whatever horrible things you two were doing to him!"
For the record mom, it was Jon- I was at work.


Julian would crawl up into bed with me say "mommy belly hurt" and read books while I was recovering. It was perfect until he forgot and suddenly jumped into my lap. :)





He's been a champ.

All is well, and back to the main attraction.

Other than the fact that I'm exhausted all is well here in recovery land. Julian is handling things swimmingly, although it's 9:45pm and I still hear his dad in the other room trying to get him to go to sleep. It's amazing when nap is thwarted it takes forever to get him to sleep.

This boy loves putting food on his head. I don't get it.


Julian is working very hard here...


To get a french fry between his toes


Love this one.


I must really think my kid is cute to let a photo of me looking like this land on the internet.


TTFN!
-s

Day 4 Update.

Thanks everyone for your emails, calls, posts and good wishes.

The surgery was a bit more extensive than they anticipated. I'm working on a joke that starts "my fibroid was so big it had its own fibroid..." which it actually did. Also had a bunch of other stuff going on that had to be attended to as well. I was able to keep my ovaries and have been in very little pain, oddly enough, until today. The first few days at the hospital I was on narcotic pain killer which made me itch like mad. Since I've been home only Advil- until today when I caved and took a vicodin. I've probably got another 30 minutes before I actually fall asleep from the drugs.

Sister Sharon has been here helping with the babe. No idea what we would have done without her. My mom gave us the great gift of a personal chef who made 6 meals with 4 "portions" each. I asked her to err on the side of larger portions and oh MY did she. Each portion would feed me for a week at least. Tonight Sharon leaves and my mother arrives for 5 days then Jon's brother comes back for a few weeks to do the lifting and cooking and cleaning. They are anticipating 3-4 weeks before I can pick up Julian again or do any housework at all. I have 2 weeks before I go back to work. I am hoping I can make it in for a few hours at a time next week though. We'll see.

No photos as I'm in bed and it seems no one else in the house knows how to use a camera.

I'll post again in a few days with an update.

My gory life.

Things have been a bit busy for me the last few weeks as I have been trying to get things at work in order before I head into the hospital on Friday for a partial hysterectomy. I'll spare my readers the gory details but the short version is that I have a growth called a fibroid that is causing me major problems. Exhausted is a crazy understatement for how I'm feeling, and even as of 3 months ago I could not imagine being this immensely relieved to have an organ removed.

I briefly considered a procedure where an interventional radiologist snakes a wire up your femoral artery to the area where the blood is supplying the uterus and they insert plastic beads to block the blood flow, effectively killing the area that is malfunctioning. It seemed like a good idea until I found out that it is excruciatingly painful, for some people it doesn't work, and here's the kicker... some people deliver their fibroid weeks after the procedure. Excuse me? I'll pass, thanks.

After a few weeks of telling my patients that I was planning a brief medical leave, and seeing the very concerned looks, I decided just to tell them I'm going for a hysterectomy. People had very interesting responses, mostly that they are so very sorry about my loss. Then finally one of my patients responded "oh, I did that, it was the best thing EVER!" Now that is what I needed to hear.

So other than that, the big and much more exciting news is that Julian is starting to use the potty. He'll pee every time we set him down, and he's even managed a #2 a few times for us. I'm under no delusion that he is on the verge of getting out of diapers, but even if his diaper use cuts in half I'll feel better (tree hugger alert) about the landfills. Some day J is going to have my head for posting this but I have to do it.



The weather here is turning, finally, to spring, or last week oddly enough to deep summer, and we are all enjoying being outside more. Our city is full of beautiful flowers blooming everywhere. Stunning.



Mindy, Ann, and the twins came over for brunch on Sunday. I have absolutely no idea how anyone parents more than one child. I am awed. I cooked breakfast for everyone, we hung out for a bit, then as soon as they left I fell asleep for 2 hours.



I probably won't post again until after the surgery, so I'll catch up with y'all next week.

Hold Me.

Last week I was sitting in my office talking to my patient Allison. I suddenly felt a very strong urge to sneeze. Knowing that I only had a few moments before the sneeze would come to fruition I decided to say " Hold on, I have to sneeze, excuse me." However, what actually came out of my mouth was "I have to sneeze, hold me." Then of course the interminable seconds where I realize what I've said but I can't say anything else because the sneeze is building and building, and then it happens. She looks at me and says "ok, but can I wait until you're done sneezing?" Thank god the woman had a sense of humor.

As for the wee one, he's been down with another chest cold and this time, because we caught it early, only a minor flare up of his asthma. Our happy news is that he peed in the potty for the first time today. Woo hoo!

This is a video my brother in law did of all of the siblings birthday wishes from NY, CA, and OR for my mom's big birthday last week. And just think, before we did it I thought it wouldn't be worth the bother!



And of course photos.

Cinco de Mayo downtown "our city."







And how we got Julian to wear his bib at dinner last night.