Mr. Independent

Jumparoo and First Tooth

Not even four months old yet and Remy is showing us more and more of the little boy he is going to be. Because lately he is constantly struggling to stand up on his own two feet, we decided to put together the Jumparoo for him. He may be a tad too short for it, but in just three or four days he seems to have mastered the thing. His little hands move deftly over the toys, pushing buttons, spinning wheels - his big eyes taking it all in while he maneuvers around with one foot on the ground. He amazes me.

Another sign of his relentless march forward - yesterday I spotted the little white edge of his very first tooth! I've been on the look out for it because he's been drooling buckets and chewing on anything that comes near his mouth for weeks now, and then last week we had two or three nights of heart breaking weeping when nothing would soothe him. But it has all paid off, because now the tooth is here! It is his bottom, front, right tooth. I'll try to get a picture soon, if I can get him to cooperate.

In other news, went in to the ER on Thursday, a week to the day after my surgery, with pain that, for the life of me, I would describe as a gallstone attack (except of course that I don't have a gallbladder anymore.) I called the insurance company's nurse hotline and the nurse instructed me to go to the nearest ER. Four hours in the ER, doing test after test, and the doctor comes and tells me ("good news!") they don't know what it was, maybe gas, either some residual CO2 or my own personal concoction. Wonderful. A grown woman with a baby to look after brought down by freakin' gas. She said that it's possible the fibromyalgia exacerbated the situation, but that hardly makes me feel better. I know I should just be grateful that it wasn't a PE or a stone, but when every day you are striving to be a mother worthy of this exceptional little human being in your care, finding out that you are the kind of person who goes to the ER with gas is not good news.

I'm Okay, I'm Okay

So tomorrow it will have been a week since my surgery. I think I expected it to be more like a root canal than abdominal surgery...yeah, not so much like a root canal.

The "Surgery Center" was a little disconcerting. I felt like a car on an assembly line, except I was actually being disassembled. And then I woke up in terrible pain and my evil nurse kept telling me that she wasn't going to give me any pain medication until I started breathing more deeply, but I couldn't breath deeply because I felt like my lungs were being crushed by all the damn gas they had pumped into me. After several minutes of this I was shaking and crying (very embarrassing) and she says to me "you better stop acting like that or the drugs aren't even going to work." Excuse me, whuck??? "I am not acting like anything!" was the best I could do, but I should have asked to talk to her boss! Fortunately after that she went to lunch and my next two nurses were not sadists. By the time Ross came and picked me up I was feeling much better (yea, demerol.)

I have four small incisions, and they aren't that bad. The only one that actually bothers me is the one in my belly button and I think that is because my belly is still so loose from the pregnancy that it hangs and, you know, kinda swings a little (nice, right?), and that puts some tension on that incision. The real oucher was the gas they used to inflate the abdomen but I think that is finally gone now. For the last couple of days I have woken up feeling pretty normal, but by about dinner time and after being kneed or kicked in the belly a dozen times by my little buddy, I'm sore again.

I've had some digestive issues but the doctor told me to expect that and explained that in most cases it resolves within a few weeks. Last night I walked with Ross to the mailbox and it felt so good to get out of the house! Tonight I plan to go grocery shopping and buy some of that butter I've been thinking so much about!

What's Going On

Yay, (and finally) my surgery is just a few days away! Thursday morning I am supposed to show up at the Surgery Center at 8:30am and, if all goes well, I should be going home four hours later, sans gallbladder. Laproscopic surgery is a wonder, isn't it? Of course, there is the slim possibility that things may not go that way...like that laproscopic surgery I was supposed to have to remove an ovarian cyst. I woke up with a five inch incision in my abdomen and a whole world of hurt. But let's not think about that. Instead, let's think about pizza and beer. Mmmmm.

Remy turned 3 months old last week! He has gotten very good with his hands, now that I've freed them from the mittens. He likes to cup the top of his head in his hand and stroke his chubby little cheeks while he sleeps. He doesn't appear to be a thumb sucker, but he likes to chew on his fist while drool runs down his front, and he will often jab his fingers into this mouth and look alarmed. He also likes to grab onto his lion toy and pull it to his face, then push it away, then pull it back. Then he'll jab a lion limb in his mouth and look alarmed.

He's become much more attuned to noises. Gone are the days when we could blare the tv, run the dishwasher and have a lively conversation while he slept peacefully a few feet away. As for noises he likes - my singing (he's the only one) and just about any noise that his daddy makes. He is beginning to realize just how entertaining a daddy he has.

Some of the things that make Remy laugh:

• the sound of his daddy's voice
• getting in and out of his clothes (especially when his shirt gets stuck on his head)
  
• his dreams, whatever the heck they are about
• having his cheeks or his tummy rubbed
• hearing other people laugh
• waking up in the morning
  
• getting kisses from his toy lion
• seeing his mommy holding him in the mirror

Sweet Rain

We had rain yesterday for the first time in...I don't know, I lost count. A loooong time. It was awesome. The rain brought rolling thunder, cool breezes and children's squeals of delight. Neighbors who usually stay behind their tightly shuttered blinds were throwing open their windows and coming out on their balconies. I don't think I'll ever take rain for granted, living here.

Love This

If you are lying on the couch at 4am with your newborn tucked against your side you probably won't see anything on television better than this McDonald's commercial. I love it. The song is "We are Alive" by Hungry Cloud and the location is our very own Red Rock Canyon (currently featured as the background of this blog!)



Unfortunately they've started airing a shorter version of the commercial without the beautiful song, so I had to go dig this up on youtube. You can read more about the commercial here.

Best of July

I think July is my favorite month of the year. It has blue skies and sunshine, a major holiday, parties, swimming, family time, and my birthday. If you are going to do something fun in any given summer, you are usually going to do it in July. This year will go down in my personal history as one of the best Julys ever because it was little Remy's first. As the summer-fatigue and relative boredom of August set in, I'm thankful for all the best moments of another fabulous July.

• Watching Mally and Owen splash around the pool with their dad after dark.
• Remy's first picnic, on Mount Charleston under the fragrant pine trees.
• At Wheel of Fortune, simultaneously amused and annoyed as Ross tried to make funny faces for the camera.
  
• Remy's very first visit to church.
• Sitting on the balcony with Ross after the hot Vegas sun has gone down and talking about our days and our plans.
• Ross, Mark and Mally playing Castle Crashers on the XBox.
  
• Ross taking me to Barnes & Noble and buying me a nook for my birthday.
• Spending time with the brilliant and beautiful Stephy.
• Standing at the edge of the apartment complex and watching fireworks explode all across the valley with my son sleeping in my arms.

Only Child

Time magazine has done a fascinating article on the increasingly popular choice of having only one child. For now Remy is an only child, and time will tell if he remains one, but it is good to know that a lot of the negatives associated with being an only child are bogus.

"No one, Falbo says, has published research that can demonstrate any truth behind the stereotype of the only child as lonely, selfish and maladjusted. (She has spoken those three words so many times in the past 35 years that they run together as one: lonelyselfishmaladjusted.) Falbo and Polit later completed a second quantitative review of more than 200 personality studies. By and large, they found that the personalities of only children were indistinguishable from their peers with siblings."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002382-2,00.html#ixzz0vfoxeNWv

I'm especially compelled by the sobering cost associated with raising a child - $286,050 by the time they graduate from high school. Does that mean that two children would cost a family $572,100? How is a family supposed to pull that off while paying a mortgage, contributing to a 401k, and saving for college tuition? This is definitely something I will be wrestling with over the next several months.