LG's golden month-iversary

Editorial note: Well, I created this post eleven days ago so that this post is dated LG's 20th month-iversary, and then proceeded to take another eleven days to actually get the content up because I was being a perfectionist and trying to do a fancy photo collage with his 8-month pics from last year. As you can see below, the pics are there but not in a collage or even formatted to my liking, but whatev. If I ever get around to doing a "why I'm blogging" post, it will explain that I'm actually going to get my blog made into a book each year. Our family yearbook, if you will. Much easier to keep up and serves many more purposes than a scrapbook. So here it is, late, but up, so I can move on to some of the other things I want to write about. A preview: camping, NASCAR, evil, and back-to-school. Stay tuned.

Well, LG, you're 20 months old on the 20th. Your golden month-iversary.

Though I didn't have signs, stickers for your onesies, or a stuffed animal to sit next to you for size reference, I did manage to take a picture of you on each of you month-iversaries (or a few days before/after) during your first year. Here are your 8-month-old pictures from last year, taken on 8/20/2011:

 

[The rest of the pictures throughout this post were taken on 8/20/2012.]

Here's whats been haps with you as of late:

After your first day back at daycare after our family vacation last month, we Mommy decided that we she was going to take away your pacifier, cold turkey style (your dad agreed that it needed to be taken away at some point, though I don't think he saw the necessity of taking it away right then, and he definitely had moments of weakness in the days following the split, but I was strong and never once gave it back to you). In the months prior to vacation, we'd let you have your binky at bed/night/naptime, and as needed to keep you quiet in public or to keep your h'anger in check during dinner preparation. However, while we were on vacation our daily schedule got all kinds of cojagulated and a lot of your naps took place in the car, so you and your binky had a lot more quality time together while we were away. 

You threw a tantrum in the daycare parking lot that first day back when I left your binky in the car, then asked your teachers for your "baba" all day, and then threw another tantrum when I picked you up and we had to leave that binky at daycare. That's when the executive decision was made. Though there have been times when I've wished I could just stick the plug in your mouth, you've done great without it. The main post-binky change we've had to make is with your bedtime routine.

Let me say here that I still rock you to sleep, and I really don't care what anyone thinks about it. 

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow. For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs; dust go to sleep! I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.
~ Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

From birth until sixteen months, I'd basically top off your tank with breastmilk before the long haul through the night (you actually started sleeping through the night around 4 months), and you'd fall asleep in the process. For several months there, it was kind of difficult to transfer you to your crib without waking you up, and at one point I determined that the minimum waiting period between sleep initiation/de-latch and bed transfer was nine minutes (with time, we got it down to two or three minutes). As we wrapped up nursing, I'll admit that I was pretty nervous about how you were going to settle down and drift off to sleep without imbibing in that magical elixir, but we transitioned to your post-breast bedtime routine (described in this post) pretty naturally. I was even able to get you, the child who could care less about stuffed animals, to connect with a lovey. But without your binky, you'd just thrash around in my arms long after your projector had turned off, and I'd end up having to put you in your crib to cry it out. This, coupled with your growing attention span and interest in books, led to an addition of bedtime stories (finally!) to your post-binky bedtime routine. 

Every night, we read [at least one page of] the following books [before you're "all done"]:

- If I Were a Puppy by Anne Wilkinson (you point to the puppy's nose, your nose, and then Mommy's nose, and you point and say ball)
- Hickory Dickory Dock by Sanja Rescek
- Nursery Rhymes by Roger Priddy (you like to point out the "wawa" in Jack and Jill)
- Danny the Duck With No Quack by Malachy Doyle (you can point out and say duck, and point out the flowers and trees on the cover)
- Baby Einstein: Pretty Poems and Wonderful Words by Julie Aigner-Clark (Mommy loves reading you old-school poetry)
And you'll actually let me read the entirety of these books:
- Peek-A Who? by Nina Laden (you can point out and say owl and choo-choo)
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

The last and first word you say each day is "book." You're not talking in complete sentences, but your vocabulary, word linking, and communication skills are certainly growing. You have started saying "hi-eee" and waving [when coming and going]. Whenever we walk past a car, you point to it and say "room room." You can sign please and say "eese." At the table, you like to point out that everyone has a glass of "wawa" (your generalization for any drink). And I'm pretty sure that your term for yourself is "deh-deh." 

You moved up to one of the toddler classrooms at daycare about six weeks ago, and are once again a little fish in a big pond. Especially so, since the age range in this class goes from 18 to 30 months. This transition has been more difficult than when you started at this particular[-ly awesome] daycare a year ago or when you moved up to the last classroom; never before have you cried, clung, or ran up to the door before/after me when I've dropped you off in the morning, but I'd say that's the case about 75% of the time so far. Outside of daycare, you've also been having what I'd consider to be pretty normal separation anxiety when it comes to Mommy and Daddy, and sometimes Nana and Grandpa. I don't know if this has anything to do with separation anxiety, but for whatever reason, you seem to get upset lately when I sit down on the toilet or take off my clothes before your bathtime (our gigando tub requires Mom or Dad take a bath with you).

Another tenet of toddler behavior that we're plagued with are tantrums when you don't get what you want when you want it (usually food, Mommy's attention, or an item you're not supposed to have). In my letter to you at 18 months, the only mention of tantrums was during dinner preparation, and those tantrums still come each an every day, as sure as the sun rises and sets. This past week, it seems like if we're at home and you're not eating something you like (which is hard for Mommy to determine these days), reading books, riding your tricycle/fire rig outside, taking a bath, or otherwise have Mommy's undivided attention, you're not happy. Supposedly, tantrums and whining are completely normal, but I have to admit that one of my biggest concerns right now is that the whining/discontentment will become a permanent behavior or personality trait. As a parent, one of the most important things I hope to instill in you is a general gratefulness and appreciation for the non-tangible and simple things in life: people, laughter, memories, nature, creativity, spirituality, etc.

Other toddleristics that you've acquired: doing what we tell you not to just to push your limits (example: making [a bigger] mess of your food, yourself, the table, and the floor towards the end of a meal, all with that sassy smile aimed right at Mom and Dad), jumping right into a new activity to avoid a less desirable activity (example: hopping on your fire rig when we've just put away your tricycle and are supposed to be heading inside for a bath)--though this is definitely more desirable to me than a tantrum.

And some adorableness: A few nights ago when we were all cuddling (aka Mom and Dad lounging and you climbing all over the place, dropping elbows and knees) in bed, you took the tissue I had used on you and set aside, folded it up just so, and proceeded to wipe your nose. The past month or so, Daddy has been picking you up from daycare after your nap. Some days he'll bring a snack (or have one of the daycare gals put your afternoon snack in a baggie to-go) and take you to the park, where you'll eat your snack on the tailgate of his truck and watch and point and giggle at the cars going by, before you play, of course. Other days you'll follow him around the backyard or the garage (most recently putting his 1957 Johnson two-stroke boat engine that he is restoring back together--or taking it apart, again). As I approached our house the other day after work, I could see you and Daddy walking down the street, little hand in big hand, each of you in an orange t-shirt and jean shorts (which was not planned, as I had you dressed and out of the house before Dad was up), and I thought my heart might burst. I'm so glad you and Daddy have your special time together.

You were handed down a beautiful red tricycle, which is currently your favorite toy. You can get yourself on/off the tricycle pretty well now, and once on, you grip the handlebars, rest your crotch where the seat and frame meet, and push yourself along Fred Flintstone style. And boy, can you haul on that thing; once you get some speed you pick up feet, lean back, and cruise. Mommy and Daddy have been teaching you how to use the pedals, but I think your legs are just a titch too short at this point. Give it a week. You're just about grown out of 18-month size bottoms, and are into 2T/3T tops and a size 7 shoe.



In deep concentration



 

This is where we used to live

The other night, LG and I got lucky and had AD home for one more night than expected, so the three of us made an impromptu trip to the downtown district of the town we used to live in (we now live one suburb closer to the D) for some ice cream from the fabulous Dairy King. When we lived over there three/four years ago, AD used to make me climb on the back of a tiny moped to get ice cream (it was embarrassing, and a high school acquaintance asked if she had seen me riding around town on the thing when I ran into her at a concert a couple years ago—but the ice cream was worth it). These days, we travel by hatchback or truck (much less embarrassing), and after ice cream, we usually cruise past the old rental house on our way home.

So we had our ice cream and were heading down the street, past

-  the “green house” where the owners had painted VOTE OBAMA on their front window 

   during that election and had rain barrels that I coveted (but now I have my own!), past

-  the “yuppie house” where the twin golden doodles lived with the yuppies who would never 

   acknowledge you when you greeted them on the street, past

-  the “crazy garden house” where the yard had more square footage of red, pink and purple 

   flowers than grass, past

-  the “weirdo house” with the spray bombed ‘80s Suburban and an array of greasy looking young men working on cars well into the night in the dark garage (and I’m pretty sure someone was living out of a small RV in the driveway for several months).

What’s funny is that I can easily identify a yuppie, crazy garden and weirdo house in our current neighborhood. I’ll have to look for a green house, though my neighbors might say it’s our house when they see AD siphoning water from our second story bathroom into aforementioned rain barrel… Anyways, all of those houses were still there and from the looks of it, were still inhabited by the same people. However, as we continued down the street, we realized that the little blue bungalow where we used to live was not. Not there.

It was a little blue bungalow (our third blue rental house in as many years) with a deteriorating foundation, a creepy cellar under the front porch, a detached garage made sturdy by some sort of cable system, a yard full of dog poo to pick up, and the endless sidewalks of a city corner lot to shovel. But that house was cozy. The second story master bedroom was long and narrow, with gabled ceilings and room for a sitting area. Though we lived there for a year and a half and experienced each of the seasons, my memories of life there seem to be from winter; maybe because I spent the first three months (January - March) and another month (March) the following year at home looking for a job (and believe me, with the exception of this past winter, March is definitely still winter in Michigan).

This is where, two weeks into his new job, AD split the seat of his pants at work and I had to take him another pair of pants (boy was he lucky I wasn't working at the time. He will probably be mad that I included this detail of our life on Evergreen Street, but it's a memory I don't want to forget, 'cuz it was hilarious).

This is where I learned to love a yellow living room (the cove ceilings were a bonus; currently on my second yellow living room with cove ceilings).

This is where AD got the nickname Pee-pie during a game of Scrabble with my brother and I.

(in aforementioned yellow living room)

This is where AD tried his hand at a paver patio and roofing the garage.

AD's patio and our new grill

Enjoying smoked brisket and ribs with Nana, Mom, Dad, and BZ

This is where we came home one day to find a giant pile of wet wood chips in our side yard. Luckily, our neighbor across the street was the city building inspector, had an idea who had dumped it there, and made the pile disappear.

This where AD also tried out a Nascar-esque mustache (momentarily. Again, AD is going to be mad at me for putting this in here, but I've been waiting four years to use this picture for something).

 
This is where we brought our new [to us] pop-up home (with an El Camino, ha!), set it up, and then slept in it for the first night because it was Halloween and we were worried someone could vandalize it. That winter, AD also pulled it into the garage and deflated the tires so we could set it up and "camp" in the garage. He then showed me how to set a tire back on its rim using carb cleaner and a lighter.

Notice the house and the garage in the background. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the El Camino; this pic is from "Poppy's" maiden voyage the following spring.

This is where we learned to brew (and bottle) beer.

This is where AD shotputted our cooler across the backyard because I scratched his car with it. We no longer have that car (black Subaru pictured above), but he put a gauge in my car (which I still drive) with the lawnmower a few years later, so I'd say we're even.

This is where AD scared the crud out of some people who were trying to get in our front door in the middle of the night [by opening the door with no clothes on and a rifle in hand].

This is where I came home after I got laid off.

This is where SG would hop down the stairs from our bedroom to the first floor, and left two little paw indentations in the carpet on the right side of each stair.

I don't have a pic of the paw prints; I hope this pic of SG that Halloween will do.

This is where we realized that we would probably be staying in Michigan for the next few years, and decided we'd better find a less expensive place if we were ever going to save up enough money to buy our own place.

My 30th birthday in three parts

I still have a few things from July that I want to blog, but my thirtieth birthday just came and went with lots of fun and a development, so I'm posting a little out of order.

Part I: The Day & The Celebration 
This year my birthday fell on a Saturday, which meant a) no work! yay! and b) AD was working, so I still had to get up with LG (is it wrong for the mother of a toddler to dream about sleeping in on their birthday?). My parents took LG and I out to a Cracker Barrel breakfast (LG's second for the day--have I mentioned that LG usually has two breakfasts on Saturdays? He's a man's man in that he loves himself some breakfast. I will also note here that he usually doesn't do lunch when there are two breakfasts; just a snack before nap. Anyways, enough of LG, this post is about me!) on our way to the outlets. My parents basically let me pick out some new clothes as a birthday gift. A surprise? No. Much needed and appreciated? Absolutely. I am a natural-born shopper and deal-finder, but due to financial and figure issues (i.e. I'm cheap and not exactly satisfied with my body right now), recent clothes shopping sessions have not been very successful. However, I'd say my birthday shopping trip was a success. And considering that I found a pair of jeans, three cardigans and three tops, along with two tops, a pair of overalls and two pairs of shoes for LG (boy is averaging two months per shoe size [whole, not half]!!) in about two hours, I'd even put the trip in the Power Shopping category. I'm back on my game and feeling good! 

AD got released from work and was back in the D by five, so we all went out to Buddy's for a pizza dinner, which was enjoyed by all. On Sunday, my parents had a small birthday get together with close family and friends. I knew about the party, but they surprised me with a Mexican food theme, for which there are many leftovers--a gift in itself, if you ask me.

The only pic of me from the party: my uncle, AD, and I getting our eat on

Part II: The Night
After a day of shopping and a nice dinner with your family, how would you spend the night of your birthday? Your thirtieth birthday. Go out dancing and drinking with friends to prove you can still party like a twenty-something (I dare not say 21-year old, because Lord knows I could really drink until I was about 22!)? Dessert, wine, and a movie at home with the hubs? Nah. Here's what my birthday night looked like:

Don't judge my jammies or the bags under my eyes; I'm keepin' it real round here.

I went for a sleep study. Other people might have been bummed to spend the night of their birthday by themselves in a strange place with electrodes attached to them with goop, but I was excited.

A little backstory. I snore. I think I've snored in some capacity throughout my entire life, but it had never really been brought to my attention as a problem until I was in a relationship with AD and we were sleeping in the same bed. My snoring has become progressively worse over the past several years, to the point where often times one of us ends up sleeping on the couch on the nights AD is not working because my snoring is so bad. Not an optimal arrangement in a marriage. At some point, someone suggested that I might want to have a sleep study done, as severe snoring can be a symptom of sleep apnea. When I was at our family doctor this past spring, I mentioned the snoring problem and he gave me a referral to a pulmonary/sleep doctor, which was taken home and shifted around in the family paperwork for several months. 

Well, I finally reached my breaking point about three weeks ago and made an appointment with the doctor. And because I've always been a good student, I started doing my homework on sleep apnea. Okay, so sleep apnea is where you stop breathing while you're sleeping, and  the symptoms are loud snoring, obesity, and persistent daytime sleepiness, which can result in high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and depression if left untreated. Wait--you mean my being tired all . the . time and lack of motivation to get things done might not just be because I work full time, have a toddler, and manage said toddler and our home by myself 4-5 days a week, but because I might have sleep apnea? Whaaaat? So when I went to my appointment and the doctor prescribed a sleep study and the earliest opening was on my birthday, I took it. I wanted answers.

I had to report to the sleep clinic about an hour before I'd usually go to bed. They took me to my room and I got in my jammies, and then the technician came in to hook up all of the electrodes. I don't know exactly how many electrodes were attached to me, but I've read that it's a minimum of 22. I had two on each leg, one on each shoulder, some on my chin, some near my eyes, and then all over my scalp; there may have been some on my neck or collarbone, but I don't remember. There were belts around my chest and stomach, and a tube going to my nose to measure my breathing efforts, and then a sensor on my index finger to measure blood oxygenation. I laid down in bed and they had me move my legs, cough, look up, down, left, right, and blink several times to make sure everything was working. The technician explained that if you stop breathing a certain number of times an hour in the first few hours, they will come in and outfit you with a CPAP (Controlled Positive Airway Pressure) machine and see how you respond to it the rest of the night. 

Under normal circumstances, I can usually fall asleep anytime, virtually anywhere, but with all the stuff hooked up to me and a little bit of performance anxiety, it took me a lot longer than normal to fall asleep. The tech came in once to reattach a leg sensor, once to hook up the CPAP, and once to adjust the CPAP. That's right, y'all, I've got sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea, to be exact.

The tech told me that they will hook up the CPAP to a patient if they stop breathing 75 times an hour in the first few hours of a sleep study, but that my doctor had instructed them to hook me up to the CPAP if I stopped breathing 15 times in an hour, I guess because he was concerned about the quality of sleep I'm getting. I've now read that 15 times is borderline between mild and moderate sleep apnea. The tech also told me that I was snoring pretty badly and did not go into any REM sleep cycles prior to the CPAP, but stopped snoring and had several REM cycles after they hooked up the CPAP. I should get a call about the actual results of the study within 1-3 weeks and another from a medical equipment company about getting my very own CPAP, and I have a follow up appointment with the doc in a month. I'm hopeful that getting treatment will improve my quality of life (and my husband's).


Part III: Thoughts About Getting Older
Our culture makes a big deal out of turning thirty; just Google it and you'll find that there are books, websites, a musical, a movie, articles, lists, and a lot of blog posts like this one. Like any other birthday ending in a 0, thirty represents one decade of your life coming to a close and another just beginning, but what I think makes thirty so terrifying for some people and gratifying for others is that it's a distinct point in time when people judge themselves, holding their life up to the expectations and realities of their culture, their family, their friends, and their own ideas and hopes about who/where they should be in their lives. 

When I graduated high school [at almost 18], I was going to get a degree in marketing, get a job in the automotive industry, have fashionable clothes, car, place to live in a city. I didn't know if there would be a boyfriend or husband or children.  

When I graduated college [at almost 22], I was going to get my MFA, get some stories published, find a teaching job somewhere, and maybe find an artsy/hipster boyfriend (ha!).

When I finished grad school [at almost 24], I was going to move back to Kalamazoo to be with AD, find a job, and get married.

Notice how my plans got less and less detailed? I think my plans at 18 were based on my interests, not on my talents, and certainly did not take the process of getting from point A to point B into consideration (read: business school wasn't for me). At 22, I had found something that I was good at and other people thought I was good at, and I think there was comfort in the fact that there was a very well drawn-out path that I should follow if I wanted to be successful in that career. Around 24, I realized a few things. I was in love with AD, and now plans were no longer "mine," but "ours." The recession was starting, and people, including a lot of my students at the community college who were in their 40s and 50s, had lost their jobs. These people had devoted 15-30 years of their life to one field or even one employer (obviously workplace dynamics had changed during those years), but where did it put them? At that point I finally stopped trying to make myself choose a specific career (then or ever), believed that what I do for a living doesn't wholly define me, and realized that if I were to put my self-worth in those things, I'd probably be setting myself up to feel unfulfilled. In the battle of overachiever vs. free spirit, free spirit won out. Or maybe, in the battle my/our plans vs. God's will for us, God's will won out. 
 
So, here I am, at thirty. I am: A wife. A mom to one kid, thinking about another. A daughter, granddaughter, niece, sister, aunt, and friend. A follower of Jesus and a member of a Christian community. A master's graduate. A full time employee. I have: As illuded to earlier, a husband, son, mom and dad, grandmother, aunts and uncles, brother, cousins, a niece and nephews (blood and in-law), and friends. A Savior and God's grace. A home with heat, AC, and running water. A job with benefits. Two cars that are totally paid off. A stocked pantry, fridge, and freezer. Clothes to wear. Material things that make my life easier and more enjoyable. Intelligence, creativity, a sense of humor, compassion. Blessings, blessings, blessings.

Where do I think I'll be at forty? Married to AD of course, and hopefully by that time either he will be able to get more weekends off or I will be able to have a more flexible work schedule. Mom to two to three kids, who have hopefully grown to be respectful, kind, helpful, creative, and more self-sufficient [than LG is now]. Probably living in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, or Pennsylvania on a decent piece of land in a house that we've either built or can truly make ours (AD is currently itching to move back east, and won't let/help me do anything to our current house that is not directly tied to resale. Ugh!). Working outside the home, but maybe less than forty hours a week; maybe splitting my time between a "regular" job and some sort of creative endeavor. Active in a Christian community, though maybe in a more volunteer or support role as a teacher or mentor.