Author: Doris

I found myself squeezed between Vince and Edda early this morning.  I went over to Edda’s room at 5 am when she got up (as she usually does) and snuggled up next to her and within a few minutes, Vince came over too and took up whatever space was left on the bed.  It’s nice to have a sleepy child tucked under each armpit to somewhat erase whatever bad feelings I had leftover last night from feeling generally inept at parenthood.

Jeremy’s coworker has a newborn and at some pause in reimagining the energy consumption of the industrialized world, he asked around when do babies sleep through the night?  Jeremy kept his mouth shut – no one wants to hear – well maybe never?   Just the night before the question, Edda was up at 11:30 pm (30 minutes), 2 am (15 minutes) and 5 am – for good.  <- This is no longer the usual case, in her defense, she was slightly sick (as we all are this week).  The usual case is a straight shot from 9 pm – 5 am which to me is an awesome amount and is totally a full night’s sleep for the Edamame – but I’m not really sure it counts as “sleeping through the night” with the 5 am wake up call.

Vince was up early (he, in typical teenage fashion, is generally a late sleeper) because he knew he had a friend coming over at 6:10 am to pick him up to go to school to go to Hershey Park to perform with the school orchestra.  So the kids go, play and then go crazy on chocolate for the remaining hours of the day.  Vince has been dreaming of a particular roller coaster for days.

He gets back at midnight, crashes at a friend’s house and then is suppose to be up at 5:30 am to go rappelling and caving.  It’s just craziness (but luckily, I’m not chaperoning any of this).

So the boys are out at the beginning of this Memorial Day weekend.  Me and Edda for at least the first little part.  What are we going to do?  I have this idea that we’ll go see Pitch Perfect #2, but I suspect that we will just hang out around the house and make some chocolate frosting.  Look! I’m going to get a peony this year!   Very excited.

Back to the old, big camera.  Let’s try that for a little while.

Vince and I have been arguing.  Over what?  Well, just about anything.  Pasta? Socks? Ibuprofen?  All topics I used to think would have no amount of conflict in them, but somehow we find a way.  I’m a low-conflict kind of girl, so this constant arguing and then making up like 45 minutes later only to continue it all over again 6 hours later is not a mud pile I’m used to playing in.  Tonight, after the last make-up of the day (hopefully, I’m not asleep just yet so there might be room for one final round of the cycle), we hugged, apologized, laughed and acknowledged that this was going to last at least another five years and that we were in it for the long haul.

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I took Edda to the PT for her slightly disordered feet.  We ordered her some chipmunks. Not the little, brown furry types – just little foot orthotics that will go into her shoe which are called chipmunks.  The PT recommended that we not order the taller AFOs because even though it might straighten out her ankle, she’s lose mobility and muscle mass in her calf because there would be too much support.  I used to think only in terms of progress forward for Edda.  Lately, I’m just hoping we don’t go backwards.  I want her to keep walking!  Keep walking Edda.  We are so lucky to be able to walk, it’s always a good day to be standing on our own two feet.  Forget about stairs, forget about jumping.  Let’s just put one foot in front of the other and move through the day.

In college, when I was working in an organic chemistry lab surrounded on all sides by carcinogenic solvents, I remembered dispensing acetone from a squirt bottle.  Me and my lab mates would spell out our names on the floor with the acetone and then set the whole thing ablaze with a bunsen burner striker.  Now I use the same squirt bottle to give Edda water as she’s falling asleep, it’s perfect, just the right amount of squeeze, just the right amount of liquid – it feels so familiar in my hand, the muscle memory.  I just spent 20 minutes tonight slowly feeding her 16 oz of water as she had just climbed over the ledge into a restful sleep and I could feel her body relax against mine.  I don’t think she gets more than 8 oz of fluid a day these days, it takes a long time to hydrate her.  No one else really likes doing this little nighttime task – it’s a little tricky, she is drinking while she is asleep and I don’t do it all the time.

Jeremy went to PT this morning in the hopes of loosening a tight IT band and he found out that the office had moved locations because someone had driven their car from the parking lot through a plate glass window and into the main treatment area.  Luckily, the only severe casualties were some treadmills and resistance bands and bosu balls.

It’s been tough for Vince to shake this cold of his (going on a couple of weeks now), he’s still coughing and I’m trying to get him to rest more to get rid of it before a big Memorial Day weekend for him which involves: chocolate, violin, roller coasters, 5 am wake up, caves and not a single vegetable.

Edda also suffers from this mysterious malady – coughing and hard to put to bed. She’s moaning against my elbow as I type this at past 9 pm.  Too late to be up little girl!  Go to (*&^ to bed!

We all share in each other’s germs, I feel a tickle in the back of my throat that I’m hoping to overcome by my willpower, more sleep and intentional visualization (<- just kidding!  not doing that last bit!).  I don’t know what Jeremy is going to do, he’s starting to feel sick too, but he’s headed to LA for business tomorrow – no rest for him.

I have no photos today, I’m unhappy with my recent all iPhone photo blogging.  Photography is not satisfying with an iPhone for me.  I guess I should pick up my huge camera again, but I don’t really think that’s the right direction either…

So this is the photo that you get.   A peek into my texting relationship with Vince…

Edda enjoyed going to OT today, as you can see from the little video above.  There were four of us in the room, Deb (who is mom to a 30 yo), me (mom to a 11 year old), Keyla (who is 23 years old) and Edda who is 11 years old.  We all had a fabulous discussion about Taylor Swift.  (But first we had a heated discuss about bunions, so it goes both ways.) Who knew Deb was a Taylor Swift fan?!?  She was the one who was like – have you seen the new Bad Blood video, Doris?  You must see it.  Keyla nods enthusiastically.  Edda smiles.  I’m always the last to know.  Well, here you go.  I know none of the famous people in this video.  The new Taylor Swift video:

I ran for an hour on the Wootton track early Sunday morning.  It was very humid.  Summer is my
least favorite running season.  I’ll take super cold over humid any day.

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Vince hosted a sleepover on Saturday night.  I do enjoy having him host sleepovers at this age – as I told a friend, all I have to do is throw a pizza into the room and they are good to go.  Jeremy made a nice stack of pancakes for them in the am.

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Edda had field day today at her school.  We were invited to have lunch with them after they played around with water hoses.  It was soooo hot.  We met a bunch of Edda’s buddies and had “slow-melt” ice popsicles.  What weird polymer/emulsion/colloid did they put into popsicles to make the melt slower?  Ahh, just gelatin according to the internet.

Ahh, weekends with nothing scheduled.  A total luxury.  This is what I did today: laundry, bills, eat leftovers and make cupcakes for no reason.  I didn’t even really finish the laundry, nor did I finish paying all the bills.  But I did eat a lot of leftovers and I made all the cupcakes.

A few weeks ago, Jeremy bought this automatic frosting dispenser.

So I was able to swirl the cupcake frosting.

We’ve been introducing Keyla to the inner workings of the Lee-Martin household.  Fascinating all-around, I’m sure.  Because of the transition, I’m introducing her to Edda’s team – her school and her therapists.  I’m not often at Edda’s school nor do I go regularly to Edda’s therapy sessions, so it’s nice to catch up with these folks that I often email, but hardly ever see.  The above photo is with Amy, our local au pair coordinator, who is now a good friend of mine because she has seen me through many, many au pair adventures which started in 2008.

I took the opportunity today at Edda’s OT to make an appointment with the PT in the office.  Edda’s feet are flaring out because of her constant pacing and her feet now can’t be placed in the proper angle from her ankle.  If you know 2nd position in ballet, that’s how her feet are stuck.  There is some deformity in her ankle bones, so I need to get someone to look at them and make sure that it doesn’t get worse.  More worrisome, but probably something that we can do less for, is the appearance of scoliosis in her spine.  I can really see it now, it’s worse now than it was even 6 months ago, and it’s more marked when she’s awake and doing her repetitive hand motion.  Perhaps it’s worsening because her body is trying to grow taller as she heads into puberty.  I think the PT will be able to address the feet, but the back, I think I might have to head to Children’s to see an orthopedist.  This is my summer goal for Edda.  To make it to the ortho’s office and have a baseline x-ray taken, get AFOs for her feet.  Maybe a brace for her back.

Vince has been sick this past week.  I took him to school on Tuesday and we got a call from the nurse within the hour of drop off that he wasn’t feeling well.  The school policy is usually that if you don’t have a fever, they send you back to class after a short respite in the nurse’s office.  But the nurse knew that Vince isn’t typically a frequent flyer, so she called us (or actually, he called us).

It’s this an “adult” kind of sickness all of us slog through.  He feels pretty good when the Motrin is working, but when it wears off, he gets a little feverish and feels pretty crappy.  So he’s been going to school under the auspices of medication.  I can’t decide if going to school is the right thing.  When he’s under the spell of Motrin, he’s totally himself, but when it wears off, he’s totally not.  So should I keep him home and have him be all happy-go-lucky all day?  Dunno.  I wonder if he’s contagious. That is another issue.

Also, Vince and I text a lot.  It’s been interesting. We’ve even apologized to each other after a particularly bad fight.  If you have time and want to delight him, text him!

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It’s great to be back at work without school obligations looming over me.

Jeremy took me out for date night tonight.  I think I look espeically frumpy in this particular get up, especially standing next to Jeremy in his well fitting suit.

Jeremy took me to a book signing party at work – not entirely the most romantic date, but there was free wine and food.  And his co-workers are always very nice and welcoming and love to talk about the renewable fuel standard.   I get to practice my small talk skills between bites of shrimp or brie.

We did manage to cut down the mantles, so they ended up looking just regular.  Jeremy bought the mantles on the internet and, essentially, they were un-returnable.  If we weren’t able to cut off the extra 20 inches, we would have had to write it off as a sunk-cost which would have pained me to no end.  But we didn’t have to and they look fine.

The huge German chest got moved into our bedroom.  Our bedroom is now the land of the unwanted yet wanted furniture.  Any furniture that we like and don’t want to throw out is now in our room.  It looks like a mish-mash college dorm room now.  Overflowing and uncordinated.

It’s late!  Good night!