Park.

Today was cold, but very nice, so we went to the park. He'd just about mastered the equipment last fall, so I went thinking he could do most of it himself now. When we showed up, lo and behold... a brand new play structure!

At first, he was unsure about this new thing. There were, after all, holes in the floor. And it seemed pretty high up.

He was very suspicious that somebody may be watching him. He shouted "NO NO" to a few squirrels.

Look right.

Look left!

I actually thought that we were going to have to leave because he seemed terrified.

I asked him if he wanted to go home, but he shook his head "no" before climbing up and running away from me. Anything to avoid going back to crummy, boring home.

When he realized his extreme feats of strength, he decided he wasn't afraid anymore. Snotty, but not afraid.

He climbed over the tallest of arched bridges.

He carefully, one by one, made it down the steepest of steps.

He raced down the narrowest of footbridges!

What a fine day to be victorious.

Victory. Can't you smell it?

Neighbors.

How do normal people meet their neighbors? I actually know a lot about my neighbors. I'm home all the time so I can kind of spy/stalk their comings and goings.

But how do I actually... you know, meet them? Introduce myself? I don't think I could handle throwing a party and inviting the neighbors. I'm too awkward for that.

It's not like I can just show up their door with a plate of cookies saying, "Hi! I'm your neighbor! Want a cookie?"

We don't have any common areas to share. I can say hi to people getting their mail but that's about it. Do you just stick out your hand and introduce yourself while they're sifting through junk mail? I don't really know.

We've been living here for almost a year now, and we don't know anyone. I wish I could change that, but I'm uncertain how. Any ideas?


On a completely unrelated note, enjoy these photos of Oliver playing in last week's snowfall.

He enjoyed the snow. The mittens not so much.

Lazyness that commands some respect, I feel.

I'm still sick. Really sick. I have an appointment with a doctor today, actually. Oliver still has his runny nose and a little cough, but I'm the only one left still in the thick of things. It is no fun. Jared has been so busy this week after coming off of vacation that I've been left to deal with Oliver by myself. It's been a rough week for all involved.

I don't sleep well at night with all the coughing and not breathing going on, so during the day I'm very tired. Oliver's standard of care has been.... low. Low is putting it nicely. But he doesn't seem to mind.

Instead of feeding him his yogurt for breakfast, I hand him the open container and a spoon and say good luck. (His spoon skills are epic now.) I haven't dressed him all week. (But I did bathe him for hours, if only to steal the humidity from the hot water.) He's watched so much TV that his brain should be replaced by now with muppet fur.  (He can watch the same Sesame show on repeat and it's still just as exciting.)

Instead of playing with him, I've been trying to think up new "toys" to occupy him. He stacked cans of tuna and tomato sauce from the pantry. When the groceries were delivered (yes, I was too lazy to go to the store) I gave him a paper bag to carry the cans around in. A little junk notebook provides hours of fun, assuming you enjoy ripping the pages out one by one and crumpling them into a ball to throw in the recycling.

The thing is, though... He doesn't seem to mind one bit. If being sick this long has taught me anything, it's that I really don't need to do much for Oliver to be happy and more or less taken care of. I can be even lazier than before!

Sure, there were some pitfalls in my parenting this week. I went to the bathroom and came back to find Oliver sitting on top of the table, eating a stick of butter with a fork.  I got engrossed in a book and looked up to see small boy running around naked. Just as I asked, "Do you need to go potty?" he peed on the carpet.

I couldn't keep my eyes open while we were watching Sesame Street. Oliver was sitting on my lap with his eyes glued on Elmo, and the eerie level of quiet in the house lulled me to sleep. Just as I was closing my eyes I had this fleeting thought of.. "Maybe I shouldn't sleep while he is awake..." but by then it was too late, anyway. A sitar player could've shown up in my living room, and I wouldn't have woken up.

I'm not sure how long I slept, but when I opened my eyes it was still mysteriously quiet.  I could see his wake of destruction, but in my sleepy haze it didn't really sink in. Kleenexes were pulled out of the box and thrown in a huge pile on the carpet. Random cords and plugs and tips of toys were plugged into my computer. Every single toy in his box was taken out and scattered around the apartment. A box of crackers, tipped on its side, was empty.

I almost rolled over and went back to sleep, but then I remembered. Oh, yeah. There is a baby in here somewhere.

I followed the cracker crumbs and ripped up paper bits to the table, where I found said baby. He was sitting on top of the table, pen in hand, scribbling on my credit card statement. And all I could think to say was,

"Good job of colouring in the lines."

And instead of telling him to, say, get off the table or something like I normally would, I made a hot cup of tea and sat down next to him.

"Here, you forgot to colour in this box explaining APR and penalties for late payment."

Vacation. Sort of.

We surprised my mom with a visit last week during spring break. It was supposed to be a vacation for all involved, but Jared, Oliver, my mom and I all caught some version of what I'm sure is technically called "death flu."

Oliver seemed to be affected by the disease very little. I mean, sure he was throwing up and he had diarrhea but he was still running around and playing. It takes a lot to slow him down.

Jared and I, on the other hand, locked ourselves in the hotel room for a day and a half and fought over the bathroom. It was kind of sweet, though. While we both lay dying on opposite ends of the room, we would occasionally call out to each other.

"You okay?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I'm okay. What're you up to now?"
"Eight."

Then we'd both fall asleep for a while until we called out again. The number would always go up, indicating how many rounds of barf we'd had. It was almost a competition.

Isn't that romantic?

But anyway, I tried to take some pictures of Doobie on the beach. He's so much bigger than he was when we were there last July.

 

 

He really liked the seagulls.

Family Naan Night.

Jared can't cook. If I were to die, he'd starve. And that's putting it lightly. 

Tonight, when I came out from my nap and I heard the timer going off, I got a little panicked.  Jared has, after all, set my dish towels on fire. He's exploded things in the microwave more times than I can count. 90% of the things that he brings out of the kitchen by his own hands are abominations unto this earth that belch their bbq-ed or  ketchupy stench into our apartment.

Again, I'm putting it lightly.

Tonight, though, I caught him early enough to avert a complete disaster. He decided to get a head start on our family naan making plans tonight. When I asked him, "Did you proof the yeast?" he replied, "What's proof mean?" I took that as a "No."

He had problems with measuring, and added too much sugar. Then, in a panic over adding too much sugar, he forgot the salt. I taught him to knead the dough and leave it in the warm oven with the door cracked open.  He did pretty well at that.

An hour later, it rose! If it were Christmas, I would have dubbed that a Christmas miracle.

We fired up the ol' cast iron skillet since we didn't want to go out to the grill.

They didn't taste like naan, but they were still pretty good. I put cinnamon on mine and it tasted like a donut. Or maybe one of those sweet soft pretzels.

We'll have to try again. At least we had fun.

Doctor's visit.

I went in to the doctor's office again yesterday to try and figure out what's going on with me. I've been feeling tired in the afternoons. I want to take a nap every day. I wake up feeling alert and refreshed, but then I get to the afternoon and I'm tired. I can keep busy, I can eat snacks, I can be just sitting around resting... no matter what, I still get tired.

I thought I'd get my thyroid and iron checked to make sure it's okay. That kind of thing runs in the family, and I thought it'd be a good thing to test for anyway.

But when I walked into the clinic, the doctor didn't even want to test it. She wanted to say I was fine, that I'm just tired because I have a 1.5 year old son at home. She, like another doctor before her, said I have PCOS as soon as I told her I don't get any periods.

But the more I'm told that, the less I'm sure. No one has ever investigated further to really make sure that's the case. She didn't want to do any testing to double check her diagnosis, which made me feel bad. I had to ask for the testing specifically, and she still tried to wave me away. She was very nice and I don't think she meant to brush off my concerns, but it still made me feel stupid. It is really hard for me to stand up to doctors and people like that. I don't like causing problems, even when I know something isn't a big deal and that I should just suck it up and do it.

I do have a couple of the symptoms for PCOS, but nowhere near all of them. And my symptoms match up to some other things just as well if not better. I'm secretly hoping that my results come back abnormal so that they can do more testing and find something to help me. I don't want them to just stamp "PCOS" on my file again and tell me there is nothing they can do.  If they do finally come to that diagnosis after ruling out everything else, then fine. But I hate wondering if that's really what's really wrong with me.

And worse yet, if it is PCOS... well, pretty much there is nothing to be done about it. If we want to have another kid, it'll probably take a long time. I'll have to diet and exercise as hard as I am now for the rest of my life.  If I don't, I'll become obese and diabetic by the time I'm 35.

And then I'll die young.

I shouldn't have to be worried about dying when I'm 22. I feel like there is no way I can keep up the effort I'm making right now indefinitely. How can I mentally keep up the determination to be on a strict diet and exercise regimen for... forever? How can I push myself to be healthy when even my doctor admitted I'll probably be at least a little overweight for the rest of my life? "It's just too hard for most people," she said.

When she said that, it made me cry.

Why would she even say that to me? I don't want that to be true. I don't want to sit here and feel like everything I'm doing is pointless, if I'm just going to be fat and unhealthy anyway. I want to think that she's wrong and that I'll bring myself back to a healthy weight, but it's hard when I'm still feeling so down about the whole experience.

It would be terrible if my goal was always to settle for "less fat than you are" instead of "healthy weight."

I feel like I shouldn't be this bothered by it. After all, I don't have cancer or anything. I don't need surgery. Most people will look at me and think there's nothing wrong with me. In the big picture, even if I am a little fat, I'm still by and large okay.

I'm just going to take this afternoon to mope about it and take a bath. After that, I'm going to put it out of my head until the results come back. My worrying can't change anything, anyway.

Bath time.

Supposedly, our corrected, perfect invitations will arrive tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath.

Today we just sat around the house and did nothing.