Harper Sings

The other day Harper asked to hold Nora, then said she wanted to sing to her, so I grabbed my camera. She normally does a much better job with her ABC's, but this was too funny not to post! Also, you might not be able to hear it, but at the very end when she pushes Nora's head down she's saying "Go night-night."

Women At Work

Sometimes life is full of surprises. I admit that I normally revel in these tiny unexpected moments of bliss, even sometimes when they might not be so blissful. I don't know, I guess there's a reason Tom calls me a Drama Queen. Call me crazy, but I like change - too much of the same thing really bores me.


However, I also do not like it when things don't go my way. I don't think I'm overly selfish, I just like to plan and I like to be in control of my plan, and I really don't like it when I'm not. My plan was to take four months off work after I had Nora - I have so much sick and vacation time saved up that I would have been paid my regular part-time salary for 2 of those months, so Tom and I figured we could go 2 months without. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned. It became glaringly obvious that the temp we hired (who was recommended by our CPA) was NOT working out about 5 days after I gave birth. I'd get 3-4 phone calls a day with him asking me the same questions over and over. It got to the point that it was more stressful babysitting this guy and fixing his mistakes then it would be to just go back to work and do it myself. At first I was extremely frustrated - not only because I didn't want to go back to work yet, but also because I really love my job and I didn't want to end up resenting it. But one of the reasons I love my job so much is because I have the best bosses in the world and they sat down with me and we worked everything out so that I would only have to come in once a week at the most. Tom also had to talk me down a couple times, reassuring me that everything would work out, and that he could stay home on the days I went into my office.

So two weeks ago I woke up at 5:00am - well actually I woke up at 2:00am to feed Nora who then refused to let me put her down, but I handed her off to Tom at 5:00am and got up to get ready to catch the train. It was kinda weird. Like I hadn't taken any time off at all, it was just back to routine as normal. It was even 30 degrees outside, just like my last day of work back in January.

My bag was packed with everything I needed to spend a full day away from my nursing daughter - a breast pump, milk collection bags, sanitary wipes to clean the pump, lots and lots of extra breast pads, and two ice packs to keep the milk cold on the train ride home. By the time I got to my office my boobs were already killing me, but I had so much work to do I had to ignore them for a couple of hours. By now my milk had let down three times and, fearing I would drown in my own milk, I decided to take a break and pump.

Even though I have my own office, I decided to pump in the bathroom since I have a rather large window by my door that looks right out into our reception area. At this point I only had my small one-boob pump (my sister sent me her big one last week, and even though it makes me feel like a cow, I love how efficient it is), so I took my bag into the bathroom and started pumping away. Like I said, I had been up since 2:00, and had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep, so sitting down without anything to do but listen to the (extremely loud) hum of the pump, I promptly feel asleep, right there on the toilet in the last stall of the floor's public restroom. I have no idea how long I was out, but it couldn't have been too long after I drifted off that I fell forward off the toilet and into the stall door in front of me. After I got my pumping back in order someone came into the bathroom and yelled "What is that NOISE??" I wasn't sure if I should just ignore her, or yell back, "IT'S A BREAST PUMP!" I tried to decide what to do quickly, but I was still kind of tired and maybe I hit my head too hard on the door, so I just sat there, pumping away, my mouth hanging open while I tried to decide what to say. Then the woman left without using the facilities, which I thought was kind of weird, but maybe she just had to look in the mirror or something. The other two times I pumped that day someone came in, which I found rather annoying because there's barely anyone on our floor and I almost never run into to anyone in the restroom when I use it. But I had been gone for almost two months, maybe some of the empty offices had been rented.

A week later I ventured back to Seattle with all my pumping paraphernalia. I grabbed the elevator along with 3 other women and while listening to the group's conversation I realized it was going to be a long day. One woman asked the other two women she was with if they had heard the buzzing in the bathroom yet. "No," they said, "It must have just been on that one day that you heard it." "It was weird," the first woman said, "because I know someone was in that stall but she didn't say anything." This is when I realized they were talking about ME. "Well she WAS in the bathroom, maybe she didn't feel like having a conversation." I was just staring at the floor trying to decide if I should pipe up and come clean that it was me when they turned to me and asked if I had heard it. "Umm...I don't know...what did it sound like?" Stupid! Why didn't I just say "Actually I think I know what you're talking about and I think it was my breast pump!" Then the four of us could have a nice laugh and be on with our day. But no. I had to act like I didn't know, and the answer I got to my question was, "Well to be honest, it kind of sounded like a vibrator." Great. Now I definitely couldn't own up to it. But it just got worse. "Oh my gosh," one of the other women said, "what if it was?! What if there's some perv in our building??"

And just like that, I was the Creepy Colman Building perv. The doors opened on my floor and I got off the elevator - halfway down the hall I wondered why I didn't just say "Maybe it was a breast pump." I would have dispelled any horrid rumors and I wouldn't have to admit it was me all along. More people came into the bathroom while I was pumping that day but no one said anything, and I just kept telling myself that I was doing this for Nora. When I got home that evening I opened my bag to put my milk in the freezer only to find that I hadn't closed the bags tight enough and they had spilled out everywhere. Nice. I hadn't done it for Nora, I had done it for nothing.

Thankfully the aforementioned awesome bosses said they would get blinds for my office window so I can pump in there - and no, I most certainly did not tell them it was because I was about to be black listed as the Colman Building Perv.

I hope any men out there reading this really appreciate what working mothers have to go through!

Dots and Spots

When I was growing up I had a very hard time with "dots". Dots were uncomfortable spots on my clothes that would annoy me - like a scratchy tag or the seam on the toe of my sock that would squish into my foot when I put my shoe on (the worst offender). I was notorious for throwing tantrums at the drop of a hat if I had a spot, even stopping in the middle of crossing the street to take my shoe off and fix the spot. For the most part my parents thought it was funny (and have pictures of the tantrums to prove it), but to be honest it really drove me crazy. I even went through a naked phase because the dots bothered me so much. My aunt and cousins in Orem know first hand about this phase - they were babysitting me while my parents were on vacation and I insisted on playing outside....naked. My aunt let me because she figured I'd get embarrassed after a couple minutes and come back in, but nope, I stayed out there all day and had a sun-burned butt to show for it.

As I got older I realized there were lots of other weird OCD things that I have. Some of them I have grown out of or overcome (I can sometimes walk on grates and/or cracks on the sidewalk...sometimes there is no way around it in Seattle), and some of them have actually gotten worse as I've gotten older (uneven blinds will be the death of me), but I always swore that when I had kids I would always take their "dots" seriously, and I would make sure my hubby did, too.

Harper does not have dots...she has "spots". And I swear I did NOT teach her!! About a year ago she started talking about spots, and coincidentally, they were usually on her feet. I am always very careful about how I put on her shoes, and if she says she has a spot I take them off and try again. I have also given Tom strict instructions, and he is very patient and loving about it. Probably because I still talk about how traumatic it was when no one would help me with my dots and just laugh at me.

Anyway, last Sunday was kind of a rough day. Harper has been having a hard time going to sleep at night, which makes her more prone to tantrums during the day. It is odd for me to deal with because she has never been one to throw tantrums or not sleep. I like to think I do a pretty good job of staying patient and helping her work through whatever issues she's having, but Sunday I was exhausted and really couldn't handle it. Tom had left to go to church meetings, but I called him and asked if he could come home and help me. I assumed he was going to just stay home and help out, but he decided to take Harper to church w/ him and give me some time alone at home. I thought that was really sweet of him because 1) Harper LOVES church and perked up as soon as I said she was going to church w/ Daddy, and 2) I really wanted some time alone.

When Tom got home I had Harper almost ready, she just needed to get her shoes on. He was already running late, so I was trying to hurry as fast as I could, but Harper said she had a spot. I tried to fix it a couple of times, but each time I put her shoe on the spot was still there.

And here is how I know I married the best man ever:

Tom picked up Harper and patiently asked her where the spot was. He took off her shoe, examined the tights and asked me if there were any other tights she could wear. Her other pair had dirt all over them, so he took off her tights, got a pair of scissors, and started cutting back the seam as much as he could so the spot wouldn't be so big. By now he was probably going to miss most of his meetings, but he took his time and kept telling Harper he would fix the spot. Finally he got her tights back on, put her shoes on and asked her if it was ok. Harper walked around for a second, nodded, and off to church they went.

And THAT is the proper way to deal with spots and dots.

Nora Evelyn

Almost three weeks ago on Friday, February 13th (my birthday!) I gave birth to Nora Evelyn. My actual due date was just two days ago, so she was a bit early, but everything went well and she was (and is) absolutely perfect. It was kind of a crazy experience doing it au naturale (no epidural), and minutes after I gave birth I made Tom promise me that he wouldn't let me do it again. He kept saying "But you did it! You did such a good job!", to which I yelled "NO, PROMISE ME!!" But honestly I felt great five minutes later, it was such an easy recovery.

Having two kids is really not as hard as I thought it was going to be, but there is definitely a rather lage lack of sleep. With one baby you can just sleep whenever she sleeps, but with a toddler and a baby that's not really possible...although I will admit to turning on Sleeping Beauty for Harper and falling asleep on the couch more then once.

Harper is such a sweet big sister, and I swear she can already communicate with Nora. She is always telling me what Nora wants: "Baby hungry," or "Baby sleepy," and just this morning she told me "Nora poopy", and indeed she was! When Nora cries Harper runs to her side to calm her - sometimes with "ssshhhh's", sometimes with tickles. She also love "taking naps" with Nora (I don't actually let them sleep together, but Harper likes to lay in her bed and then asks me to put Nora next to her to "take nap"), and even better, taking baths with her.

It is funny because I really thought I only wanted two children, but having Nora makes me realize I want another one....some day :)

Grandma Lee

After a year-long battle with cancer, my Grandma Lee passed away two weeks ago. Although it was not unexpected, it was a bit sooner then any of us anticipated - Tom and I had planned a trip to Utah in May to see her one last time and have her meet her newest great-granddaughter. When I found out she had days to live I was extremely depressed, especially knowing I probably wouldn't be able to go to the funeral, being almost 8 months pregnant. While part of me was glad I had last seen her when she was healthy, I mostly felt guilty and upset that I hadn't kept in better contact with her over this last year which I know was pretty much hell for her. I had the best intentions to call on a regular basis, send pictures of Harper, etc., but as always, time seemed to slip away too quickly. I have gotten through the last couple of weeks by remembering some of the really wonderful times I had with my Grandma.

Grandma was rather quirky. Her OCD and shopoholic-ness (yes, that's a word) combined for a condo-full of Ferragamo shoes, Lladro figurines, souvenirs from all her travels, and probably every book ever sold at Deseret Book. She kept everything, including shopping bags from the 50's, which I'm sure held some sort of sentimental significance to her....or maybe she just liked the bags...I can understand. Many things she bought never even got opened. When I lived in Orem I visited her a couple times a week - I'd pick up her mail, help her with her computer, and watch Wallace and Gromit with her. The first week I was there she got a Lladro box in the mail - I was so excited when I saw the box I ran up the stairs to her condo and said "Let's open it!!" "Oh no," she said, "just put it on the table with the other mail." I lived there for 4 months and it was in the same place the day I left. One day I jokingly asked if I could have it since she wasn't going to use it, but the very idea was rather appalling to her. Her reaction still makes me laugh.

Growing up, Grandma would come visit once a year. She always had the same suitcase and overnight bag, which Erica and I called the present bag. Each visit she would pull out something wonderful for all of us from that little flowered bag. Following the presents came the hugs, which were almost as good as the presents (that's saying a lot for a 6 year old girl with a new Strawberry Shortcake doll in her hands). She combined the perfect amount of squeeze and squish for the ultimate hug - and she always smelled lovely.

Grandma loved animals. When I was 8 she got a tiny black poodle named Sammy who she doted on and adored until he died in her arms just a few years ago. She had a horrible time with his death and didn't even want to let him out of her arms. My cousins surprised her with a cat, Lucy, to keep her company after Sammy died, and she quickly became a much-loved family member. Grandma said she could sit on her chair and watch Lucy play all day, and it was always fun to hear her stories of how Lucy could climb all the way to the top of her bookshelves. Pets were always treated as part of the family - when Grandma wrote letters (which she did very often) they always included love to Truman, Oliver and Scout.

The last time I saw her was Thanksgiving 2007 when she came to visit. After dinner I was talking about a certain frienemy who kept making inappropriate comments about me waiting "so long" to have kids and wondering why I wasn't pregnant again (Harper had just turned 1 at this point). Grandma patted my hand and reminded me that it was about "quality, not quantity", and that my "timing" was "no one else's business." Over the next year whenever anyone would ask me when I was going to have more kids I would smile and remember what my Grandma said.

If I start to get too sad thinking about Grandma, I always imagine her now with Grandpa, who died when she was about 5 months pregnant with my dad. I will miss my Grandma dearly, and I'm sad she didn't get to meet my baby, but after 60 years missing her sweetheart I'm glad she finally gets to be with him again.

Harperisms

My daughter is pretty much the funniest thing in the world. She says and does the most hilarious things, I thought I'd share a few here.

Yucky Spiders
If you know me at all you know I am absolutely, deathly terrified of spiders. It has gotten slightly less debilitating over the years, but it is certainly not something I want to share with Harper. To help her be normal (that is as opposed to whatever the heck I am), I do things like sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider", read her books in which the protagonist is a spider, and say, when one happens to be in our house,"Oh wow, a spider!" through hidden tears and gritted teeth before I run to the other room, scream into a pillow and ask Tom to kill it.

A couple months ago I was giving Harper a bath and halfway through realized, to my horror, that there was a giant, dead spider floating in her bath water at her feet. I must say, I am rather proud of how calm I stayed. I simply told her it was time to dry off, picked her up out of the tub and began our regular routine to dry off and get PJ's on. However, Harper saw the spider as I was taking her out of the tub and became completely obsessed with it. She said, "Spidah" in this really gruff, annoyed voice, and then "Yucky!" in the same tone. I'd never heard her use this voice before and it sounded pretty frickin' hilarious. You know when Napoleon Dynamite gets frustrated and makes that "UH!" noise right before he says "Freaking idiot"? I would say that's pretty much exactly what it sounded like. "UH! Yucky! UH!" Over and over. Not only that, but she refused to let me dry her off, she had to keep staring at the spider. I finally had to distract her, put one of her bath toys over it, and then tell her it went bye-bye so I could get her PJ's on and get the heck out of the bathroom. I left the water and spider there for Tom to take care of when he got home.

Ever since then she'll call anything that she doesn't know a spider. A piece of yarn on the floor - yucky spider. A booger she just picked from her nose - yucky spider. A few weeks ago I was putting her in her chair for dinner and a small pea had gotten left on her chair and was all shrivelled up. You guessed it - yucky spider. I brushed it off her chair and told here there were no spiders, but she kept pointing on the floor and insisting there were yucky spiders. Halfway through the meal I said "Harper, I don't see any spiders - there aren't any," to which her quick reply was, "It's tiny." The next morning when I sat her in her chair again for breakfast she whispered "Tiny spidahs".

A few days ago after Harper had her breakfast, we went into the living room to play with toys. There was a small stain on the carpet in front of the fireplace that hadn't been there the day before. I said "Uh-oh, what's that?" and knelt down to check it out. Harper did the same, touched it, and said "Spidah poop."


Bye-bye Mickey
For Harper and Erica's birthdays in September we went to Disneyland. She really loved all of it, but I'd say the highlight for her was meeting Mickey right before the fireworks on her birthday. I wondered if she would remember anything from the trip, even short term, but she still talks about "Tee-bell flying" (Tinkerbell), "Dinneylan", and Mickey on a regular basis.

A few weeks ago Harper and I were walking on the sidewalk and I pointed out a low airplane to her. "Airpane, airpane, airpane!" She was jumping up and down, very excited. Then all of a sudden she hung her head, sighed, and said as morosely as possible, "Bye-bye, Mickey."


Happy Crickamacka!
At Costco last week we were surprised to see all of Christmas decorations out. Harper especially loved the small carousel and all the snowmen (which she pronounces snowmeeeeeen). I pointed to a lit Christmas tree and asked her what it was - "A tree." So I told her it's a Christmas tree, and asked if we should put one in our house (this was her absolute favorite thing about Christmas last year). "YEAH!" she said, "A Crickamacka tree!!" I laughed so hard, and in the car the next day I talked about Thanksgiving and Christmas, and what we do on each holiday. I told her Erica was coming for Thanksgiving, and we eat lots of yummy food, and talk about things we like. Before I could get very far on Christmas, Harper yelled "Happy Crickamacka!!!"

"There May Be A Gap..."

I have had an ingrown toe nail for many years now. Sometimes it's super painful, sometimes I don't even know it's there, so I've just put off getting it taken care of. However, about a month ago it was really starting to get bad, so I scheduled an appointment to get it removed when I got back from Disneyland. It was done yesterday and let me tell you, it is extremely disturbing.

I've had lots of crazy medical procedures - three surgeries for endometriosis, 5 cortisone injections in various parts of my back, this horrid nerve test where they stick needles with tiny microphones on the end of them into your nerves and listen to them, not to mention the whole birthing a baby. Yet for some reason, THIS procedure has been horrible for me! Not because it's excruciatingly painful - as long as I don't put a shoe on it really doesn't hurt much at all. Because the thought of a portion of my toe nail being pulled from my toe and ripped from the nail bed is seriously giving me nightmares.

Before yesterday morning I thought they basically numbed your toe, lifted the side of the nail and filed it back a bit. Maybe did some cutting, and then put the chemical on it to keep it from growing. You can imagine my horror when the nurse brought in the tray of tools for the procedure. I'm not sure if pregnancy just makes me a giant wuss, but I literally almost passed out seeing that. Then came the doctor's explanation of the procedure, half of which I think I was blacked out for (trust me, you don't wanna hear it). After the clipping and yanking (and maybe a bit of pee in my pants) the doc said cheerily, "That looks great! There's a bit of a gap between the nail and the skin for now, but that should grow back in nicely....do you want to see it before I bandage it up?"

The actual toe could not have been worse then the images in my head after the "gap" comment, but I graciously declined anyway. The rest of the day went ok - my toe was numb until late last night so physically I felt totally fine. Mentally I was a total wreck. Which, in turn, made me feel even worse for being so upset about a toe nail!

Last night I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. I move around a lot in my sleep, so I kept waking up to shooting pain in my toe when I'd hit it against something (my leg, Tom's leg, the cat, etc.). And then there were the nightmares. At first they were somewhat reasonable and made a little sense - a toe nail extraction gone wrong, lots of blood, giant scalpels. Then they turned into weird cosmetic surgery nightmares - I went in for a routine dermatology appointment and then said to the doc, "Hey, while I'm here, do you think you could tighten up my throat and jawline a bit?" "Oh sure," the doc said, "that'll look great! It's a simple procedure...." Then came her opening up the whole side of my face with no anaesthesia. The whole time I'm thinking Oops, I guess I should have asked how much this will cost, and Crap, how am I going to explain the swelling and stitches to Tom? After waking up from that one I warily went back to sleep to find out that my bill for the surgery was $82,000.

This morning I was already wide awake when my alarm went off. I was thinking about post-surgical instruction #1 - Take of dressing the morning after surgery, apply AmeriGel, re-dress. I had to actually LOOK at my toe. I sat down in the bathroom and got it over with, but the image of the "gap" is forever burned into my brain. I did a pretty good job of not thinking about it while getting ready for work, but an hour later as I'm putting my shoes on, I realize this ain't gonna happen. I try a different pair of shoes...nope. I try completely unlacing my running shoes...uh-uh. They all pushed down on top of the nail...on top of the "gap". After trying to have a coherent conversation with Tom about what I should do (impossible at that hour), I decided to just call my boss and work from home today. Tom worked from home today also to help me with Harper and to help keep my mind off the horrible image. I have been doing ok, but I am just a few hour away from having to reapply the gel and I'm getting very nervous.

No wonder I put this off for so long.