Sweet Yet Sour

October 27th – Anna’s Update

Monday, October 27th, 2008 | Updates | 4 Comments

Rena is right, I need to do an update.  Sorry! I have been terribly busy, too busy to even think about writing an update blog.  We’ll start with the update on Anna, and then when I have time I’ll update you on Mike and I…

First, I have been letting Anna play games on my computer, and as a result, my “a” key has been pounded into only partial functionality.  If there is a word or two in my update that are missing an “a”, you’ll have to forgive the omission.

Anna will be 7 months old in two weeks! Amazing!  She began this weekend to work on her consonants; before she really only talked in vowels.  We are now hearing “ba and ma” noises on a fairly regular basis, unless of course a grandparent is on the phone wanting to hear the noises, and then Anna is ungraciously silent.

Anna rolls like a tiny little steamroller all over the floor; she rolls into furniture and to wherever she wishes to go.  She’s trying to crawl as well, but only as far as scooching around on her tummy.  Pretty soon, we’ll have to baby proof and we are not looking forward to it – but she’s already able to roll over to the DVD player and press all the buttons, so the time is probably now.  Anna also rolls over on the changing table now meaning that I have become adept at putting her diaper on backwards.

A few weeks after her 4 month appointment I noticed that there was a small bump on the right side of her nose in between her eyes.  At the time I assumed it was from Anna’s many attempts to get a toy into her mouth that went awry and instead she had bonked herself.  After two weeks the bump had not gone away and I made an appointment with her doctor.  After much prodding and poking, the doctor was unable to determine what the bump was and said we should take Anna to a dermatologist.

At the dermatologist’s office, there was again more poking, prodding, some measuring and even some picture taking of Anna’s bump.  The dermatologist was still clueless about what was the cause of the bump, and we were referred to a dermatologist at Children’s Hospital.  A few weeks ago we saw the dermatologist at Children’s (after first seeing two nurses, and another doctor in his office) and Anna was her cheery self for the doctor and his four doctors in training.  After more prodding of the bump we were told that it is likely a “dermoid cyst”.

However, because of where the “probable” dermoid cyst is located, we were informed that Anna would need an MRI of her brain to make sure that there are no underlying structures involved.  Yep, those of you who know me know that I freaked out a bit at hearing “brain MRI”.  I really freaked out when I was told that in order to keep Anna still for the MRI she will need to be sedated.  The MRI is apparently really busy at Children’s, so Anna’s MRI will be on December 12th.  I have plenty of time to freak out about both the brain MRI and the sedation.  I (and my readers) should keep in mind that the doctor said that “it is unlikely” that there are any structures in Anna’s brain that are affected.

On the bright side, Anna is a lovely, bright, happy and active little girl who charms everyone that she meets.  On the really bright side, she’s started (cross your fingers I don’t jinx myself here) only getting up once a night.  Every once in a while I have to get up twice, but that is rare these days.  Oh, sleep, how I missed you these past months!  I have to admit I had to force this upon her – I began a few weeks ago by getting an alarm clock with a “nap timer”.  When Anna begins to cry, I turn down the baby monitor, hit the nap timer and for 10 minutes I go back to sleep.  If she’s still yelling after 10 minutes I get up and feed her or comfort her.  Generally she goes back to sleep before the 10 minutes is up unless she’s truly hungry and if she is still awake, she eats well.  It took about a week of doing that consistently to get her trained, but now, everyone sleeps better and longer in our house…

Oh, and she’s still really cute.  Here she is working on sitting up like a big girl.

Still cute!

Sept. 5th – Weekly Update

Friday, September 5th, 2008 | Updates | 5 Comments

Whoohoo! It’s update time!

1. Today Anna is 5 months old.  She’s very different from the baby that I gave birth to 5 months ago.  She talks (well, baby talks), laughs, concentrates on things and is working hard on rolling over.  It’s been a roller coaster, but it’s definitely fun to watch a little person develop.  And damn she’s cute.  We took this picture of her when we visited Nate and Laura on the 23rd.

Anna in her cherry dress

2. While I watched my mom on her road to recovery from her medical nightmare this spring, I decided that the gauge for my mom being 100% was her return to swimming.  This week I finally got that 100% proof.  My mom called me on Tuesday to say that not only did she go to the pool and swim, but afterwards she took the dog on a walk around Prospect Lake, which is right next to the pool.  This is really remarkable considering that 6 months ago she could barely walk.  I’m so proud of her.  This week she’s going on her first trip; driving to the Sandhills with her friend Jan and going to some quilt museums in Nebraska.  I’m sure that they will have a great time and my mom will enjoy being out and about.

3. Last weekend Mike and I got my grandfather’s truck.  It’s a huge 1993 GMC Sierra with a camper top with, I’m scared to say it, a 34 gallon tank.  After my grandfather died my grandmother didn’t want the truck and at the time Mike and I discussed that it might be nice to have since we were doing a lot of landscaping at the time.  Last November my dad and Uncle Ted drove the truck out from Oregon to my uncle’s home in Wyoming where it has been sitting in the garage until now.  We’re not doing too much landscaping anymore, so I’m not sure how much use it’s going to get.  On the other hand, the truck smells like my grandfather; it’s like driving with Grandpa in a way.  The other day Grandpa and I went to Home Depot and then a few days after that Grandpa and I took my sister for a ride in the truck when she was having a bad day.  We were both a little comforted by the presence of Grandpa in the truck with us; I may spend time just sitting in it and remembering him.

4. This week marked the return of the hockey stud that I married.  Before we were married, when Mike was playing hockey much more regularly, I could count on him to score at least one goal each game.  This week Mike came from his 10 p.m. game on Tuesday with two goals.  Very cool!  I’m sure he’s having a good time and enjoying getting back to his favorite sport.

5. It’s no secret, I love ice cream.  This week was good for my love of ice cream, bad for my thighs… I discovered that one of my favorite local ice cream shops, Liks, which originally was only located in Capitol Hill, has branched out.  They have a new shop that is only a few miles away.  I went to the new store and got a few pints, and then saw a sign that Liks is available at King Soopers, our local grocery store chain.  The next day I went to the grocery store and found that I can indeed buy a few flavors of Liks there as well.  Whoohoo!

My other good/bad discovery is that Gelazzi, a really great gelato place that is downtown on Larimer, has also opened a new location close by.  This one is even closer than the Liks.  I haven’t been there yet, but I think this weekend we might need to make a family trip there for some gelato.  Maybe when Anna is bigger we can make a family bike trip there and I can work off 1/4 of the calories I will consume.

6. I’m considering taking down the Denver RRC website.  It’s not getting any use since I don’t have the time or the money to review restaurants anymore.  But I don’t want to lose the recipes that I have put up on the site either.  I’m considering either creating dorriemunhall.com/recipes or just sprinkling the recipes in with the normal blog.  What do you guys think?

August 26th – Weekly Update

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 | Updates | 1 Comment

Update! Update! Another Update!

Here is a review of the exciting and not-so exciting things going on here at the House of Munhall.

1. We took Anna to the pediatric opthalmalogist on Wednesday to see if she has a lazy right eye.  After an hour and a half long appointment and three sets of eye drops to dialate her eyes, we were told she does not have a lazy eye.  It’s apparently a “pseudo” lazy eye, but they want us to have her checked again in 6 months anyway.  Here’s the weird part though – we saw a Dr. Steele, a nice, but not terribly friendly, woman who looked like she was about 8 months pregnant.  When we were walking out with our paperwork I did a double take when I realized that the doctor’s name was Anna and her middle initial was L, just like our Anna.

2. Mike gave Anna her first cold and me my second cold in two weeks.  It’s lovely when we can all share these things as a family.  Anna was pretty congested, but with lots of baths, the humidifier cranked up and the elevation of her crib mattress we kept it to a minimum. She seems to be pretty much over it by now.  Just so you know, if your baby sneezes out a lot of snot, you need to be very quick with the Kleenex.  I learned this the hard way after watching Anna sneeze once; I guess the sweet little thing thought  “Oh, what’s that on my lip? I should taste that and see.” and before I knew it, it was gone….

3. I went to see my eye doctor today about some redness in my left eye.  Turns out I have lots of sun damage from when I was a child and one area of damage is irritated.  No more contacts for a while for me and lots of eye drops.  The doctor said, “I bet you spent a lot of time outside when you were a kid.”  I did actually; I rarely came inside for anything.  Once, my mother put me down for a nap right before some of her friends were due to come over for tea.  They were just beginning their tour of the backyard when they found me halfway out my window on my way out to play.  Oops!

4. On Saturday we went up to Laura and Nate’s for a lunchtime visit.  The drive up to their house was so green we thought we were lost; we’re pretty used to it being snow covered.  Cash came along too and as usual, Duke spent the entire time showing Cash how much Duke loves him. We got to taste some of Nate’s latest brewing adventures, some grilled meat and veggies and yummy peach pie.  Nate is making some great alcohol, including a lovely apple cider and a peach beer. Do these count as fruit servings?  I hope so, because I had two!  Mike and I each had second helpings of the peach pie that Laura made – so that in the end, there was no more pie when we left. Oh, and I helped to finish both the vanilla and the butter pecan ice cream.  See how helpful I am?

5. Because the DNC is in town, Mike’s office decided that everyone could work from home this week. The DNC doesn’t really affect Mike, except that some of the train stations closest to his office are closed, but it’s nice to have him home. Anna and I do pretty good at pretending that he’s at work – but not always.  Sometimes, Anna says, “Hey, I want to show Daddy how good I am at drooling today.” and really who can say “no” to her cute self?

This Week’s Update

Monday, August 18th, 2008 | Updates | 2 Comments

Here’s the news from my little corner from this last week (in no particular order).

1.  I’m over the cold thankfully.  I was well enough to attend a ladies night planned by ElleBee (thank you ElleBee!).  We hung out at The Hornet, talked, ate and drank cider (at least Ellebee and I drank cider).  It was absolutely lovely to sit and have adult conversation.   The Hornet makes a lovely Guinness battered fish and chips that I just had to have – yippee for deep fat fried goodness!  There was a discussion that I spend far too much time on my blog telling about the bad stuff of parenthood (apparently the diaper post was a little scary for ElleBee).  So I’m drafting a post about the good stuff that comes with being Anna’s mom.

2. Mike updated my WordPress version for my blog.  It’s a much nicer interface on the backend, but it meant that I had to change my theme.  I’m not really liking the new theme very much, but it was the only one that I had on reserve that didn’t make the Blogroll and the categories look screwy.  I’ll be looking for new themes sometime soon.

3. My mom’s birthday was Friday and she and my dad ventured up from the Springs to celebrate.  I made my mom a chocolate chip cake that she loves and a simple dinner of baked potatoes and corn chowder.  The winter meal seemed fitting since it rained all day Friday and the high was in the 50’s.  I gave her the earrings I got for her from Sundance Moods (lovely blue iolite and pearls), which she loved.  My sister gave her a camera for her computer, which we will hook up for mom, so that she can talk to Anna and my nephew whenever she wants.

4. My cousin John from Portland was in town this weekend.  John is the youngest son of my mom’s brother Tom and I have not seen him in 15 years, at least.  Unfortunately, I was only able to see him for a few minutes since he could only meet around the same time that our Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion was planned.  John is a younger version of my grandfather Tom, with a lean lanky build and a thin patch of red hair and red goatee.  The weirdest part is that he smells exactly like my grandfather does.  I have a tendency to notice the particular smell that people have and it was strange to be hugging my cousin, but smelling my grandfather.

5. Mike and I really thought that Anna was going through a growth spurt a few weeks ago.  It seemed like a logical conclusion when two weeks ago she began demanding food every 2-3 hours (at least), even at night.  Previous to that Anna would go for a nice 5-6 hour stretch after we put her to bed.  Now that it has been two weeks of this, I’m not sure if this is a growth spurt after all.  Being up three or four times a night was something I had hoped was in the past for me, but I was, as usual, forgetful of the “roll with the punches” life of a parent.

6. We finally hosted our Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion at our house this weekend.  Two other couples and our teacher were able to show up and bring their babies.  We were missing two more couples and three babies, but I think I will try to organize another get together soon since this one was so fun.  Our teacher wanted to hold babies, hear birth stories and asked questions about how things were going now.  It was great to hang out with parents of kids almost exactly Anna’s age (Anna is the oldest by a few weeks).  I am so immersed in my world with Anna that I forget what other babies can be like at the same time.  One boy was not very active and just wanted to be held; his lucky mother said that he sleeps from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.  The other boy was active, but unfortunately very fussy – so much so that his poor mom said, “My child should make other parents feel good about their babies.”  I showed his parents a little better swaddling technique that seemed to calm him down and Mike played Anna’s favorite motorcycle game with him.  We sent them home with the “Happiest Baby on the Block” video from which we had learned the tight swaddle in the hopes that we could help them calm the fussing.

7. Tuesday Anna and I spent the day at our friend Kristen’s house.  Kristen has recently broken her foot and needs help with her one-year old, Evan.  There were times when I had to hold both of them and other times when I had to change two diapers in a row.  How do those people with twins manage?

8. Wednesday my sister and I went to a meeting of the “Liberal Ladies of Highlands Ranch”.  Sadly, there were only five of us, but it’s a start.  The other women in the group are a little more active politically and are, like ElleBee, volunteering for the DNC.  One woman has been campaigning for Obama and told us a story of being escorted out of a Lone Tree neighborhood by the police because someone objected to their presence.  I have no idea why, but the suburbs seem to be the place where Republican’s have gone to breed and frankly sometimes I feel a little choked by the conservatives in our area.  It was nice to meet with other like-minded women and finally see that we are not the only Democrats in Highlands Ranch.

9. We started Anna on rice cereal this week.

Anna tries rice cereal

Here she is looking at the bowl from her high chair.  Mike and I put her in the high chair only to discover that she is a tiny little girl in comparison to her high chair – and that we can’t adjust the tray level.  We spent a lot of time laughing at the poor thing staring at us from her perch.  Anyway, we are trying out the rice cereal in small bouts.  So far most of it ends up on her chin and on her bib.  Until she gets the hang of swallowing something on her tongue, feedings will be immediately followed by a bath.

This Week’s Update

Friday, August 8th, 2008 | Updates | 2 Comments

It’s Friday, August 8th (08/08/08 – how cool!) and I thought I would do another update on the goings on here.

1. I have been sick with a little cold that I think my nephew gave me this week.  Fortunately, I don’t think Anna has gotten it and hopefully will not get it – since there is nothing more pitiful than a sick baby.  This experience has taught me that if my sweet and lovely nephew comes up to me and says, “Lickies!” – I need to run away as quickly as possible.  The cold itself was not that bad, perhaps due to the large amount of Vitamin C I consumed each day.  But, it did mean that I missed out on a “Ladies Night” that ElleBee had planned.  Damn it – I was really looking forward to going out and having some fun.  Hopefully I can make it to next week’s planned outing.

2. Anna turned 4 months old this week.  We celebrated by taking her to the doctor and watching her scream in pain while they gave her 4 shots in her thighs.  I do so hate having her scream in pain.  We discussed with the doctor that we are little concerned that Anna has a lazy right eye.  We’ll be taking her to a pediatric opthalmologist soon.  On a good note though – Anna is apparently doing well developmentally and she now weighs almost 12lbs – 11 lbs 7.4 oz as of yesterday and she is 24 inches long.  She’s growing!

3.  I suspect that Anna probably grew an inch this week and gained at least a few ounces due to a growth spurt she has been going through.  Growth spurts are mommy killers.  They come on without warning and mean that all of a sudden you have a baby who is a little grumpy, does not want to go to sleep and wants to eat a lot, sometimes every hour.  These things generally only last a few days so I am hoping that by this weekend I can get a little break; it’s been hard to deal with the cold and a growth spurt.

4. This week Mike started playing roller hockey again at Bladium in the “Over 30″ league.  He’s playing Tuesday nights with a team of friends from his old job.  His first game was Tuesday night at 9 p.m. (yuck) against the team of his old buddies Casey and Nazar.  It’s kind of a long way to Bladium from our house, but I know that Mike loves playing hockey almost as much as he loves beer – so I’m sure he doesn’t mind.  It’s been a while since I have had to smell the stinky gear that goes along with Mike playing hockey – so that was um, fun, when I had to go through the garage on Wednesday morning…  As some of you may recall our wedding vows included that Mike vowed, “not to bring his hockey gear into the house”.  We’ve amended the vows so that he can do so, but only if he asks for permission first and the stuff can’t be in the house too long.  Some of his gear needs to have some holes sewn up – which is my job – so I can look forward to having some of his gear up close.  Perhaps the stuffy nose from my cold will come in handy after all.

5. I have decided to join the Highlands Ranch chapter of Mothers and More.  Their website made the group sound pretty cool and I definitely like the sound of a group that focuses on adult interaction between moms. Honestly, I am pretty introverted so having to meet new people is not something I do very happily, but I am hoping that I can meet some nice women through the playgroups and activities.

That’s all the news that is fit to print from here.  Until next week…

Update

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | Updates | 2 Comments

I realized today that I use the blogs of my friends to keep up with their lives.  Especially now that I am spending more time at home and less time out in the world socializing I need these easy to get updates.  And then I thought, “Well, duh, maybe I should do the same for my friends.”  We’ll see how long this lasts, but here’s what is going on these days in the Munhall house.

1. Anna is more chatty and smiley these days than she has ever been.  She’s much more fun now and a there’s a lot less crying.  Except at bedtime or naptime, when she screams through all of her bedtime stories because she does not want to go to bed.  I’m getting used to this and I simply read through the stories in the same tone of voice, despite the fact that she is yelling in my ear.   I know that as soon I get to the middle of the last story, (which is always the same – “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, by Eric Carle) she will have closed her eyes and stopped crying with resignation.  She apparently laughed last week while Mike was changing her diaper, but I missed it and she hasn’t laughed since.  She does little laugh attempts but no real laughing for me.

2.  This last Saturday we were supposed to host a “Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion” at our house.  All of our classmates, their babies and our teacher were coming.  However, on Friday it became evident that Anna was sick, and after calling and talking to our pediatrican’s nurse, we decided she has some sort of stomach virus.   So we cancelled the reunion and stocked up on pediatric electrolyte drink and hunkered down for Anna being sick.

When we do reschedule the reunion it will be exciting to see everyone and the babies (there’s twin girls, three boys and our Anna).  I’m hoping there will more than just talk of labor and delivery, but it will be fun to see how everyone else’s labor went.  I am also looking forward to talking with other women who are staying home to see how they are coping.  I have been trying desperately this week to finish decorating Anna’s room in preparation.  I’m just not a decorator, so before Anna arrived all we had was furniture in a white room.  It’s still like that, but I’m trying to get some stuff hung up so the walls aren’t bare.

3. My parents have been visiting Wyoming a lot this summer hanging out in my Aunt and Uncle’s house by Reservoir No. 1 (very original name, eh) and just relaxing.  This is the first summer that I can ever remember when my dad did not teach his usual summer Organic Chemistry class.  He’s always taught in the summer ever since we were kids so this is a big change to have him not teaching. Mom is doing really well and is finally feeling well enough to get back to quilting.  I’m hoping she will finish the two quilts she is working on for Anna sometime soon.

4. Sunday night someone got into Mike’s car and took his GPS.  They didn’t seem to take anything else, but they left a nice tarp (not a fair trade!).  When Mike got home from work on Monday night we called the Sheriff’s office to have someone come and take a report, just in case they recovered the GPS at some point.  I’m sure it was just a roving band of teenagers and there’s a good chance that the car was unlocked, but still it was a nice GPS and Mike really used it a fair amount.  The deputy that was sent out to take the report was so, how do I put this, “policeman-like”.  He had no sense of humor, and kept scolding us for possibly leaving the car unlocked.  Every other sentence he said started, “This is America, so you can leave your car unlocked if you want but…”  Oh bite me, we accidentally left the car unlocked.  I don’t think I have ever, nor will I ever, leave something unlocked thinking to myself that it’s my right as an American citizen to the pursuit of possible burglary.

5. I had a brief conversation on Thursday with a business analyst that I used to work with at my former job.  She’s apparently working for a consulting company and said she might have some part time QA work in the next few months.   Hopefully we can work something out when the time comes.

6.  I am going a little more stir crazy that I thought I would staying home with Anna.  For the moment, she’s not very happy in her car seat for very long, and she pretty much has to stay in the car seat when we go out, unless I want to carry her and only have the use of one hand.  I feel guilty going out and making her stay in the car seat, so I have avoided going out at all.  I realize that I need to get over this and just get out, but there’s also not much you can do with a 3 month old.  I can’t really take her to the zoo or the museum and have her be excited about any of the things that she sees.  I can’t wait until she can at least go in a front pack carrier or something so that she can be out of the car seat and we can look at things together.

Until she can completely hold her head up I can’t put her in the pack, so I keep telling her to work on her neck muscles…  It’s a difficult transition moving from when I could go wherever I wanted to feeling that I need to be mindful of the baby, when she needs to eat and sleep next and how long she will be able to be in the car seat before she gets upset.

7.  I bought a sign the other day that says, “A spoiled rotten Greyhound lives here.” for our front porch.  Lately with the heat though, I doubt that Cash would think that he is spoiled.  Anna’s schedule dictates that I don’t usually have time to walk him until about 10 a.m., unless I want to walk him at 5 a.m., which I don’t.  This means that it’s pretty hot by the time we go out for the walk and even though he likes the walk, he pants all the way through.  We’re making up for it by giving him chicken jerky treats every day and every once in a while I sneak him a little cheese.

That’s all the news from here I think.  I’m off to bed for a little snooze until Anna wakes me up for a feeding…