We had a pretty fun Halloween, and I have the photos to prove it. Falco was a turkey, or a chicken according to most people. He was a real sport about keeping his costume on, just like last year. He had four opportunities to wear it, at the zoo, at school, on actual Halloween, and at a day-after party at our house. We’re hoping to still get more use out of the turkey suit for Thanksgiving, though that seems a little weird since we will be eating said bird.
OK, so maybe I overreacted a tad with my last post assuming that Adelaide’s days were numbered. I freaked out when her condition started deteriorating again, but after increasing her steroids again, she is doing well. She is back to having a ridiculous appetite, but we’ll taper her again in a couple weeks. Her disease is strange and variable, so we never know what to expect, but she seems out of the woods again for now.
For those of you who don’t know the story, Matt was hit by a car while riding his bike to the train station on 9/30. The driver didn’t see him and made a quick right turn, taking my poor husband out in the process. I got a very scary call on my way to Falco’s school from a stranger calling from Matt’s cell phone. He said that Matt was in an accident and asked him to call me to let me know. The stranger, Tom, said that he was OK but confused, and an ambulance was on the way. Matt does not remember Tom or asking him to call me, but I’m so glad he did. I dropped Falco at school and met Matt at the emergency room. His poor head was banged up, but he was awake and oriented.
Turns out he was scraped and bruised all over and had facial fractures. He was wearing his helmet, which definitely protected him from worse head trauma, but his poor face still hit the asphalt. He needed a laceration repair on his eyebrow and ultimately surgery to correct his fracture. There are many stories about his time in the ER and rechecks and day of surgery that are outdated and unpleasant, so suffice it to say that he is recovering and doing well, all things considering.
You may remember that we have a child, Falco, who I used to tell you about, post cute photos of, etc. I will be sure to write my next post soon about how hilarious, adorable, and brilliant he is. Stay tuned.
No time to write because it’s 10:30 and I’m sleepy, but I just wanted to say that pooping on the potty (by Falco) has happened, twice in the past four days!
Oh, and tomorrow morning Matt is having surgery to repair his broken cheekbone from when he was hit by a car on his bike two weeks ago. I KNOW I should have mentioned it sooner, but I’m telling you now, m’kay? He is OK but still has to get through this surgery and recovery.
That’s all the breaking news for now.
I have been so busy living my life the past couple weeks that I haven’t had time to write about it, but I’m going to catch you up. Adelaide has already been home for three weeks now, and she is doing pretty well. She has some side effects from the steroids and seizure meds, but she is mostly herself. She started on a chemo drug called Ara-C that has been shown in clinical studies to significantly improve the lifespan of GME patients, so hopefully that will be successful. It is injectable, so I have to give her shots at home twice a day, four days per month. Now that this treatment has started, we will start to taper her other meds next week. I’m nervous about that because there is a risk of her getting worse again, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.
In other news, we took Falco to Seattle over Labor Day weekend to go to PAX. The only other time we have travelled with him was our trip to Mississippi when he was eight months old, so we were nervous, especially about the flights. Our worries were not completely unfounded, as you might expect, since we were going to be trapped on a plane with a very active 21-month-old. We got through it, but not without a lot of squirming and whining and seat kicking and crying about ear pain and squealing every time the PA system turned on, etc. We couldn’t really engage him in any activity; he wouldn’t sleep; and on the way home he got so frustrated that he started hitting us. We couldn’t do anything about it for fear of causing a meltdown, so we had to just take his bad behavior and all be miserable.
The good news is, when we were actually in Seattle, he did great. He slept well in the Pack and Play the hotel provided, and he was in a pretty good mood and excited to see new things. We couldn’t really do much of PAX because it was crowded and filled with a lot of stuff he wasn’t allowed to touch, so we spent a lot of time in the room. Overall, with the tortuous air travel, such a quick stay, and missing most of the conference, I don’t know that it was worth the trouble and expense. It was fun to go be with a bunch of fellow nerds for the weekend, but we were all happy to get home.
Since Falco is too young to read, I think I can safely list here some of my ideas for his birthday and Christmas gifts. Can’t wait to start shopping!
Play kitchen that we don’t really have space for
Playdough that he can mash into the rug
Realistic, annoying firetruck
Adorable toddler bed that he may climb in and out of all night
Bean bag chair in a possibly less busy print than shown here
Tricycle on a stick, which will require…
A cute, little helmet
I have less than four months until his birthday, so I need to start clearing out all the baby junk to make room for some big boy toys!
I’ve had it with you, denim. HAD IT! I’m so over buying jeans that fit great when I try them on and then completely change after wearing and/or washing them. I’m a 31-year-old mom. I don’t want low-rise jeans that enhance and accentuate muffin top. This already severely limits my choices. So, when I try on jeans that actually have a zipper longer than two inches that fit, I’m thrilled. But that is hardly the end of the story.
Try as I might to avoid it, I have to actually wash jeans after one or two dozen wears, and then what happens? Said pants shrink so that the rise and length are too short. Ann Taylor and Eddie Bauer, I’m talking to you here. At least that’s one problem. The other side of the coin is that, again, the pants fit great in the store and I’m happy, feeling stylish and great and comfortable. But with that comfort comes stretch, and with that stretch comes ill-fitting pants. Gap is the worst on this front. The pants stretch so badly that they are all of a sudden too big and falling down even though they fit perfectly when I bought them.
What now? Buy pants too big and long to compensate for shrinking or too small to plan for stretching? This seems like the ticket to even more poorly fitting clothes that I can’t wear. I was so fed up and desperate today that I wore this cross between sweats and yoga pants to playgroup today. Mind you, I was hosting at my own house, but still. I don’t usually wear drawstring pants in the company of anyone but my family. This is a slippery slope. I need denim help. I’m afraid to pay a lot for jeans, thinking my problem is that I’m just getting poor quality, and then waste even more money on pants that end up the wrong size. This is all the more reason to work harder on my dress and skirt aspirations. If only it weren’t 50 degrees here right now it would be a lot easier.
Those of you who know me in person know that I am not a high-class dresser. I wear jeans, joke T-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers or flip flops 95% of the time. The other 5% is spent awkwardly (and probably unsuccessfully) trying to look sharp with my old and mostly out-of-style wardrobe. It’s not exactly that I think I look bad in my standard garb, but I definitely don’t look nice or grown up either. So, I’ve been contemplating some kind of makeover of late, but it’s hard to make myself over when I don’t really have any sense of style or taste. Plus, after looking like a college student constantly for years, I feel strange if I all of sudden try wearing a skirt to playgroup. People will wonder why I’m all dressed up, and then I feel silly. The makeover I want is to start wearing lots more skirts and dresses, but I think it’s hard to not be too dressy with that look. Plus, I have San Francisco weather to deal with. It’s not exactly warm here, so I have to figure out tights and boots and jackets. PLUS, I’m a full-time mom, which means sitting on the floor and going to playgrounds and such.
Maybe I need to start small and get a couple outfits inspired by how I want to look every day but just wear them when I have somewhere to go, like a party. That would ease me in. When I start to have a decent supply of non-T-shirts, then I could dabble in wearing a skirt instead of jeans to playgroup. This will definitely involve some shopping. Maybe even thumbing through fashion magazines or catalogs. This sounds a lot like spending time and money on myself, which I haven’t done much of in a couple of years. Maybe it will help me to remember that I’m still Andi and not just Mommy!
Falco’s party was a big success. We had 25-ish people including
babies, and he seemed to enjoy the crowd and all the attention.
Check out the gallery for party pictures.
Today Falco and I met Lynne and Ruby for a Gymboree class in Los Altos. The class was at 1:30, which meant getting Falco up from his nap at 12:30, attempting (unsuccessfully) to get him to eat a rushed lunch, and then getting in the car for our 40-minute drive. He was pretty unimpressed with being strapped into his car seat right after waking up when he was ready to play, but we made it with minimal whining during the trip. We got there, and the place was a big room with lots of gymnastics-style mats all over the floor and various padded things for the kids to climb on, under, and through. Falco took off crawling immediately and seemed pretty excited about his surroundings. After a few minutes of playing on our own, the class started. The teacher said the theme was “off and on” and went through a couple activities focusing on that like the kids getting on and off this big rocker thing and whatnot. I felt a little silly and forced trying to emphasize saying “off and on” in a cheerful voice, but what was worse was the songs. I’m accustomed to song time at swim class, but those are real songs with a big group in a noisy pool. You can’t really hear yourself or others singing, and you’re in the water, which makes everything more fun. At Gymboree, the songs are about Gymboree, like singing about bubbles or putting toys away or the parachute or whatever. That was a little weird, and the fact that there were only five moms plus the teacher in a big, quiet room made it feel like I was singing a solo if I did attempt to sing along. Luckily, it was my first time there so I could just play dumb and keep quiet.
The equipment in the class was pretty fun, especially the parachute. At one point, the chute was laid out flat and the teacher said that the babies could stay sitting in the middle if they wanted. Somehow, all the other kids bailed except Falco. Everyone else was around the edges fluffing the parachute up and down, and Falco was just sitting there in the middle laughing and smiling like the whole thing was just for him. I was so proud of how confident he was! He was happy to try everything and had a pretty fun time.
After class, we had to get back in the car to drive home. I thought he might catch an extra nap on the way back, but he didn’t look tired a bit and just looked around and periodically whined because I think he was bored and didn’t want to have to sit still. I don’t think we’ll sign up for the class because it’s such a long drive and expensive and just doesn’t seem worth it. As much as I would like to take a class with Lynne, it would make a lot more sense for me to go to the Gymboree 10 minutes away from home. I think I’ll hold out for preschool acrobatics at the San Francisco Circus School, which he can start at 18 months. He can get on the fast track to becoming a circus freak and make us proud.
Yesterday was Matt’s birthday. We had a good time overall, though
there were a lot of chores involved. We had to paint the laundry
room so that it would be ready for them to move in the washer and
dryer this week. That was a pain, but it’s great that our kitchen is
finally coming together. We also went out to breakfast and Chinese
lunch. Matt wanted a PSP for his birthday, so we made a run downtown
to the only store that had the new one in stock. Overall it was a
good day and good weekend.
Lots of new things are going on in our kitchen. We have cabinets,
and the tile is being laid as I type this. Check out the gallery for
updated photos.
I stay home with the boy and blog about motherhood, San Francisco, cooking, video games, and anything else going on in my (exciting) life.
