the randomness such is life

So yesterday I got to experience the magical mystery that is the dermatologist. I've had this fishy thing on my arm for (ahem) years, and I guess with baby here and all and the fact that I can't imagine not being here for her, I thought that I should be the responsible nurse that I am and get the thing checked out. So I'm in said dermatologist's clinic and as soon as I told them that my father had melanoma I earned me a one way ticket to hospital gown "full body check" land. Fine. I'm a big girl; I can handle this. So in walks hotty dermatological intern. Great. I don't even like showing every inch of skin to Mike. So hotty checks me out. But apparently he's not the end all know all so in walks the actual doctor, and with her? Oh 3 med students. Fun! Let's all look at my butt now shall we? Anyway, turns out I have a little precancerous thingy on my face that they say is no big deal they can freeze it off. So here comes hotty again coming at me with this blow torch thingy and mind you we have an audience as he shoots my cheek with liquid nitrogen leaving me with this blemish the size of Texas that he promises will go away. Oofta.

So later in the evening I go in to nurse the baby, come back out into the living room and Mike has a black mustache. Black. Ok there's no surprise that he's decided to go with the 'stache because the man loves to play with his facial hair but apparently today he thought he'd go the extra mile and paint his stache with my mascara. Black, folks. Tom Selleck but darker. OMG!


And then there's my dear sweet brother whom I absolutely love if not for his fine intellect then his oh so wierd and similar sense of humor. As any facebook friend of mine knows my profile picture is this:



But now we have this:




And that's all I got.

frickin fall

you are oh so yummy.

i got music in my bones!

Music is really doing something to me right now. More than it usually does. My mom sent me this iTouch thingy and I have it with me all the time now. Here's some of my discoveries, some old, some new.

The perfect melancholy music is Damien Rice. Put him on its like you become instantly reflective, a touch morose, maybe even a tear. And you don't even have to be sad. He just makes you feel something.

The Crystal Method. I know! Completely opposite effect. Nike commissioned this group to create a 45 minute set specifically for the purpose of being running music. And I'm telling you, it's like a freaking drug. Or maybe I just feel unleashed from my postpartum body. But it's like the music runs for you. I really can't describe it. It's just really, really perfect for running. Which is why whenever I'm done a run these days I come in and tell Mike "oh my God you HAVE to listen to this". He doesn't feel the same way I do. But you know, works for me!

I used to listen to this radio show when I lived in northern California called the Bonnie Simmons show and she had the BEST taste in music. She has a website: http://www.bonzilla.com/ so I've been picking out songs, listening to the little free snippet from the itunes store, and if I like it I reserve it at the public library so I can put it on my iTouch. I just got like 8 cds the other day! Guess what I've been up to.

The song Perfect Crime from the Decemberists is SO perfect. Great beat. I love this song. Still not sure about the band itself.

Ani Difranco. She can be a bit...intense. But she's a smart cookie. She's got some pretty badass lyrics if I do say so myself.

Anyway, who cares right? Boring post? Ah, the beauty of having your own personal blog. I wish you could see me now, laying in bed in the dark with my laptop, iTouch at my side with my earphones in, trying to type oh so quietly since the little bambino could wake up at any second. But right now Lyle Lovett is wishing he had a boat in my ear and so I'm somewhere....else. I think that's where the beauty is.

and the journey leads here

So the other night I'm going through a box and I started doing the terrible, sinkable thing that I swear I actually hate doing. I started reading old diaries. Usually I feel a little embarrassed for myself when I do this, you know, once I'm out of the Big. Gigantic. Thing that I simply had to diary about. Anyway, I was reading my (ahem) diary from right before I left my home state (Maine) to move to California. I had just spent a week alone in the woods and was knee deep in all sorts of grandiose visions of changing the world and being this great activist and learning about permaculture and going to nude beaches; I simply had to move to San Francisco. And I did, despite a temporary glitch of homelessness and oh so little cash. And I met all sorts of creative, earth loving hippy friends. I was gloriously single and right in the full blown midst of total self-recreation, and in reading those diaries....I was pretty cool. I was the quintessential starry eyed 25 year old following the yellow brick road to California.

But in pouring over the pages of my past, I felt like I was reading from the life of some other girl. Not this girl. This meat eating, people magazine reading girl who yes owns cloth diapers for her youngin but can't let go of her poop scoopin Huggies. Who left her massage therapy license in the esoteric world of northern california and traded it in for a nursing degree in the city of Denver. Who could scrape the dust off her backpack with the visa card that paid for the last condo she rented. Who somehow ended up in Denver. Somehow, all of that landed me here.

So anyway, I'm just reflecting a bit. Having a baby sent me for a tizzy because my world suddenly is no longer focused on me. I don't have the freedom of those starry eyed days. I'm married. With a baby. And I'm far, far from home.

But I guess this is what happens. You follow your heart down life's paths and it just takes you where you need to be. Apparently I needed to be here. In Denver. With my new family, who I love more than anything else possible. Life has changed drastically from the crazy 25 year old me. I have some amazing life stories to bring to the table as I begin to raise this small, perfect being. But I assure you, somewhere, somewhere deep inside, that starry eyed girl remains. She's covered with lots of routine and habit, but every now and then she sticks her head out into this slow-paced world. And then you get blogs like these. Oh and lots of Ani Difranco.

starting my day

Big deal that I'm running on a small handful of fragmented hours of sleep.

Today is going to be a Great Day! The weather has turned, it's time for sweaters, my babe just turned 4 months, and we're having homemade pizza for dinner tonight.

where we are now

Weeks go by quickly now. Quickly! I'm still not believing the weekend is over by the time wednesday comes around. And a good amount of predictability has returned to my life; we've got the whole routine thing going. Part of this routine involves going to work and dropping my baby off at my friend's house, and the other part of the week is my friend going to work dropping her baby off at my house. Which means there are 2-3 days every week where I have two babies. And this, a little surprisingly, is kind of hard. Well not hard. But not easy. Those babies are not synced up and I realize I have been blissfully enjoying my baby's multiple hour naps during the day, because baby number 2? He takes mini naps. I don't get that multiple hour quiet time as I chug down my fourth cup of coffee and geek out on the gagillion blogs I'm following. So if you've been wondering why my postings have been weak here's why.

But this jobshare/babyshare thing that I have going on is a good thing. I love being able to talk about the joys of parenthood and the joys of hospice nursing with my friend Sarah. We have such an unbelievable amount in common, including babies that were born just 4 days apart, and what a treat that is. Because there are very few people that I can talk to about my kid's sleep schedule and the benefits of a morphine pca pump. God I love Sarah.

But the little jewel of my week has become thursday nights where me and my good friend Betsy (new mom of twins) go out on a date and literally burst with joy as we do the most mundane of tasks like going out to eat(!) or going to the mall (!). I can't tell you how much fun I had tonight as I got food court food and slow shopped at the Carter's outlet. It was pure joy! I mean you should have seen the bargain baby clothes. And this, I know, is a true reflection of the state of where I'm at right now. I am such a mom. Wow.

And speaking of that you would not believe how insanely cute my little girl is. My God I could just eat her up and she's doing all kinds of totally amazing things like rolling over and putting her whole hand in her mouth and pretty soon I'm pretty sure she's going to be doing crossword puzzles and singing advanced choral music. She is so, so cool.

And so I admit that occasionally I mourn for the freedom of my child-free life. Sometimes I look at the state of my breasts and feel a little tear coming on. Sometimes I am down right mystified that a person so small could create so much laundry. But then I look at her, at her little upturned nose and her sweet sweet smile and all of that melts away. I am a mom now. Wow.

My what a difference a year can bring.

Last year....

This year...

I'm just sayin....

sunday

wet earth, fresh coffee, heat on for the first time, cozy blanket, snuggly baby, no agenda, morning stretches, edith piaf french classics, poached eggs on toast.

Grief

Right now I'm remembering the emotion grief. I learned, last night, that the mother of one of my friends has inoperable brain cancer. And this information sent me reeling down my own portals of grief, portals that are permanently etched in my being now. I feel so much love and sympathy for my friend, because it is a road that is lonely and scary.

My father died when I was 27, the same age as my friend. And I can pin point the moment my life changed forever. It was the phone call at 6am. "Hey dad!" I answered. "This isn't dad" said my sister. "You need to come home. Dad died today."


My father's death was significant not only because I lost a parent, but because it was the first time that grief was introduced to my life. And that abyss, the deep, echoing tunnel where there are simply not enough tears possible changes you. It forces you to struggle through your dark places, to work your way out through the webs of sadness and anger and denial. Finding your way to the other side of grief takes work, and you will be another person once there.

That said, the other person that I became was the new me. It took a lot of time to feel even somewhat normal. I walked out of that grief no longer a girl but a woman who now knows what grief is. And I'm a little more jagged, a little less romantic, but still me. The grief part eventually morphed into something else. Now five years later, it's acceptance and appreciation, and occasionally, its a very sad moment.

During our trip to Maine this summer we finally spread Dad's ashes where he requested, in Bracket lake in Northern Maine. He loved to fish there more than anything, and now his ashes are a part of that lake forever. And though that is sad, its also beautiful at the same time.





I miss you Dad.

we survived the weekend.

Ok so answer me this? HOW are you supposed to properly use an air mattress with camping? I ask this because me and the fam went camping at, say 7000 feet or so, and though we thought we were well armed with our down comforter (hey, it's CAR CAMPING), we were utterly FREEZING at night. This was the first time we had used the air bed we bought, or, excuse me, air freezer. Little Ellie did just fine with her lambskin bed and snowsuit I made her wear. She peacefully lay in between mom and dad as we literally suffered through the night. We were So. Frigging. Cold. It was potentially the worst night's sleep I've ever attempted. But hey, we survived and it sure was pretty.


Soon after we get home Mike goes out to a buddy's to watch a game, comes home around 9 or so saying he didn't "feel so good". That was quickly followed by explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting. Poor little hubby was S-I-C-K. After a fainting spell during another freakish bathroom session I decided to turn our living room into a scene from MASH. I called my good friend Jody over (another nurse) and we got him started with an IV and gave him about a liter of fluid, which I sort of had to Macgyver together with the fluids that we had between the two of us (flushes, sterile irrigation saline, etc). It's nursey lingo but point is, we brought that color back into his little white ghostlike face in no time at all. And I was quite proud of us I must say.



Notice the fluid hanging from the nail where the picture goes.

In other news the mouse remains. We set out traps with peanut butter, came home from camping and the peanut butter is mysteriously gone. But the trap remains set. This is clearly a very smart mouse so we have moved to glue traps. And truly every time I walk into the kitchen my heart sort of skips a beat as I check down at the glue bait. But that mouse seems to be gone. While I don't really like the fact that it can just come and go like that, I have to admit, in some perverse way, I do feel this wierd sort of bond with this mouse. You know, the whole cat and mouse game, like I sort of started liking it once I stopped being afraid of it. But I'm still keeping out the trap. I haven't changed that much.