Lenses

Big A flunked the eye exam at her five-year-old well visit with the pediatrician. No surprise to me, since I've noticed she now sits on the hardwood floor right in front of the TV rather than lounge on the comfy sofa ten feet away. World'sBestPediatrician referred us to a kid-friendly optometrist. WBP and I shared stories of getting our own glasses when we were kids to show Big A that glasses were normal.

Turns out Big A needs no convincing that glasses are neat. "I want to have glasses like Mommy and Daddy!" she shouts, "When can we go?" I am wondering if there might be some sort of replacement insurance one can buy for children's eyeglasses, since there must be 50 different ways she could crush her specs every day of the week.

Insurance musings were pretty much the beginning and end of my internal dialog about Big A's eyes. At least until I mentioned the optometry appointment to DH. Surprisingly, he seemed crestfallen at the news that Big A is nearsighted. He wondered if Big A was distracted during the eye test. Since then he has pointed out moments when he thinks Big A is seeing very well from beyond ten feet.

"What's the big deal? I asked him. "We both got glasses when we were in gradeschool."

"Yeah," he said wistfully. "But I had hoped she would be more perfect than us. Glasses mean she isn't, and that she'll have to deal with this for the rest of her life."

I get what he meant. Really, I do.

But the thing that popped into my head was we made one kid with an extra eighteenth chromosome, another with brittle asthma, and you're seriously sad about this one having 20/80 vision?

Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to share at that moment. So I just changed the subject.

2009 Resolutions

Oh, what the hell. Maybe I'll have better follow through if I put these out there:

IN 2009 I RESOLVE TO:


1) Go for a walk every single day for the first 100 days of the year. This probably sounds totally lame to anyone who spins, swims, or runs on a regular basis. But I tend to lie around like veal in the winter months. Walking for the first 100 days of the year will probably net me many extra hours of exercise compared to normal. And then when I have my annual oh-my-God-it's-almost-swimsuit-season panic attack in April or May, I'll be in better shape to start exercising more strenuously at that point.


2) Organize my bedroom closet. They say a bedroom closet is a metaphor for what's going on in the rest of a person's life. That's so true for me -- mine has been a den of chaos since I became a mother. It seems like I never have anything to wear, yet the rack is so full I can't wedge another hanger in there.

Time to ruthlessly prune my wardrobe of everything I don't wear anymore. Even if I do manage to get back down to my prekid weight, those prekid work outfits I've been saving for years? Out of style. Likewise, I have tons of too-big clothing from early postpartum days. All of it needs to go.


3) Go to the dentist. It hit me the other day that I haven't had my teeth cleaned since my pregnancy woes began in 2005. I don't think this is a coincidence -- after my r@.pe nearly two decades ago, I also stopped going to the dentist for a long time. I think there is something about the dentist experience that tweaks my sense of being vulnerable. Getting teeth cleaned makes me feel ... invaded. But, time to suck it up. I'm way overdue for a checkup.


4) Renew (or, depending on age/passport status) or apply for brand-new passports for everyone in the family. Currently it seems unlikely we'll have the extra money to go on any foreign adventures this year. But not having valid passports for everyone just ensures that we stay home. At least having the valid travel documents leaves the possibilities open for us. (You know, in case I inherit megabucks from some long-lost relative ...)

Wishing much resolve to others in the resolution boat!

Bring on 2009

Christmas plus two December birthdays in our immediate family make Wabi a frantically busy nonblogger this month. But I'm slipping online in the dwindling last hour of 2008 to say HOORAY, this damned month and annoying year is finally over!

Don't get me wrong, we had a great Christmas. The kids were adorable, and even though we had fewer gifts under the tree due to the loss of my income this year, we seemed to enjoy it more than usual. I can honestly say that I'm grateful for every damned, sleepless, stomach-churning moment. And sitting in front of the TV watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve tonight may be lame, but it feels like progress to me. After all, last year Little A and I spent this night together at Children's hospital, Big A spent it sleeping at her aunt's house in Sonoma, and DH spent it by himself. (Poor DH ... I can only imagine how lonely he felt that night, coming home from the hospital to our empty, cold house.) Now we are all together under one roof again. Thank God.

I would like to say that since Little A didn't die -- something I really feared could happen last December -- the rest is just gravy. But I am a small and bitchy person who bounces between immense gratitude and equally huge pissiness. Because Jesus H. Christ, 2008 was hard. Financially, professionally, physically, and emotionally difficult. Something had to give this past year, and over and over again, the thing that gave was me. I'm heavier, wrinklier, drabber, and poorer in so many ways. So while I'm glad it wasn't worse, it could have been a damn side better. Really.

I don't usually do resolutions, but this year I'll bite. In 2009, I want to hunt for joy. Too many of the past few years the Wabi-Sabis have measured the worth of their years with the yardstick of past horrors. And I am really tired of saying that a year must fall into the good category only because I somehow survived it. I am ready for a good year by anyone's measure -- even the happy oblivions who skip through life. I want one of their good years.

It's time to try for something new and different. But after being in crisis mode for so long, I fear my horizons have narrowed to the point where I don't even know how to dream big anymore. I'm actually having a little trouble figuring out what might bring the family more joy in the coming year. It's a little alarming.

So help me out: When was the last time you were deleriously happy? And is it something you willfully made happen, or was it happenstance?

The House Whose People Sit in Darkness

The report for Little A's CT scan came back today. The problematic area of her right lung is not a tumor or congenital anomaly. The most likely big bad we dreaded -- bronchiectasis -- got ruled out as well.

So, we're left assuming that this weird patch of lung is scar tissue that developed during Little A's back-t0-back bouts of pneumonia last winter. Scar tissue is great news, as it can reverse in small children. So we'll continue to carefully manage her asthma and try to limit the amount of colds she gets (ha, ha, ha on this last one ... hoo, so funny).

After I talked to the pulminologist I hung up and skipped around the house and high fived Little A 50 times. There is nothing like a toddler to happily indulge a giddy adult in the high fives. Then I put Little A down for her nap and in the silence of the house, found myself crying.

Three years ago today I sat at the desk where I now type this post. The phone rang, and as I stared out the window into the backyard, a perinatologist I'd never met before told me that the baby in my belly had a 1 in 5 shot at having either Trisomy 18 or Trisomy 13. And so it began. The waiting, the hoping, the crushed hopes, the termination, the complications, the marital strain, the depression, the subsequent pregnancy, the pain, the worry, the uterine rupture, the joy of Little A, the medical problems of Little A. Had that call not come in December 2005, what would my life look like now? To be honest, I don't even know how to imagine that scenario anymore. It's all too strange too contemplate.

They say it's not uncommon for people to associate sounds or smells with the moment they receive terrible news. For me, the thing that always pops into my mind when I think of this day in 2005 is The Epic of Gilgamesh. For some reason -- probably because it is shorter than most other Penguin Classics on my shelf -- I happened to be rereading Gilgamesh around the time of that phone conversation. And now the call and the poem remain linked. Especially the passage about Gilgamesh's best bud Enkidu, who dreams of his own death, of going to the palace of the Queen of Darkness, which is described as the house from which no one who enters ever returns, down the road from which there is no coming back:

There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay is their meat. They are clothed like birds with wings for covering, they see no light, they sit in darkness.

It sounded so familiar to me, that Palace of Darkness. I lived next door in the House of Grief for a really long time. Food's just as sucky as it is at the Palace, and the lights are out, too.

But at least the road from the House of Grief runs in two directions. And sometimes you get to walk back out of there and into a real home. You get to turn up the thermostat, flick on the holiday lights, and enjoy a nice cup of tea while you bake cookies. And if the wind is blowing ominously outside, maybe this time you can just ... shut the damn blinds and ignore it, and not have the weather serve up a tornado while you're not looking.

Sometimes you can do this. And today, I am so thankful for that.

Scans, scans, scans

It's been a scan-tific week here at Casa Wabi. Yesterday Little A had her chest CT, which probably took six seconds, but required us to not feed her for 12 hours ahead of time and then be at the hospital for several hours. That's because toddlers won't hold still for scans, so they need to be given IVs and sedated. Thankfully preparation for the scan was way more hoopla than the actual deed. I was a bit of a wimp, sniffling as they escorted me outside the CT room after Little A went to sleep. But aside from waking up from the anesthesia incredibly pissed off afterwards, Little A did just fine.

We should find out the results of the CT scan by Friday. I'm hoping the pulminologist is just test happy and abusing our good health insurance. In that case, the results should be that her lungs don't appear to have any growths or congenital anomalies. Then all of her respiratory problems this year could be safely chalked up to her asthma.

Maybe I should be more worried about the results. But for some reason, I don't feel worried. And I'm just going to go with that for as long as I can.

The other scan that occured this week was on me. My quest to figure out what the hell is wrong with my body continues, and so today I got a pelvic ultrasound to check for cysts, fibroids, and other oddities in the nether regions.

This is the first pelvic scan I've had as a nonpregnant entity, and I'd been hoping that the drink-a-bucket-of-water prep was something only pregnant ladies have to do. But nope, all women need full bladders for pelvic scans. Lucky us!

I have what one medical professional once dubbed very efficient kidneys. Which is a nice way to say that my digestive track, it processes water like Niagara falls. I can (must) pee out a glass of water within ten minutes of ingesting it. So when told I was to drink 48 ounces of water 90 minutes before the test and not pee until afterwards, I practically fainted at the thought.

So, I cheated on the prep. I scaled the water back to 32 ounces and drank it less than an hour before the scan. But even so the tech informed me that I had too much fluid in my bladder, and so I had to go to the ladies room to get rid of some. I'm not sure what was more satisfying --peeing out a fish tank's worth of water, or the feeling of vindication I had in blowing off the exact test instructions to begin with.

Anyway, the good news is that there wasn't anything noteworthy on my scan. Since my pain does seem more stomach/upper GI related than gyno, that isn't a big surprise. But still, it's nice to hear that I can cross some stuff off the list of possible problems.

Next up: food allergies? Can a person become lactose intolerant at the ripe age of 37?

Sisters

Big A (to Little A): "Stay here. Smile for the camera! Mommy is taking our picture when we have fashion!

Little A: "Wuh dat?"

Big A: "That's when we are fancy and beautiful. Did you know those boots you've got on used to be mine when I was a toddler?"

Little A: "Lez GOOOOO!"

Big A: "Geez, you sure are in a hurry."

...............................................................................

Little A can't even speak in proper sentences yet, but that doesn't stop these two from talking, joking, and bickering every conscious moment they spend together. Growing up the only girl in a household of boys, the early-sibling communication style I became versed in was the thwack-and-run-for-your-life variety. So the chatter of girls is something that still surprises me.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Crazy = Ordinary Day

"Well, since you couldn't manage to make this last appointment on time, I think I'll just have Dr. H call you back herself about whether she'll reschedule. Because the current calendar is booked up for a very long time." So says the curt phone receptionist after I explain that I am going to miss my appointment with the gynecologist. My car has just gone BOOM and sputtered to the side of the road in a hail of coughs and smoke while en route their office.

Crazy is just an ordinary day for a OB-GYN . Running that kind of practice has got to be controlled chaos at best. Pregnant bodies do not always cooperate with regularly scheduled appointments. I keenly recall that back when I was a pregnant body, there were many snafus, dilemmas, and emergencies that led my appointments to be canceled because I wasn't allowed to leave the hospital to trek over to the OB office. As such, whenever I made it to a normal appointment it felt like a victory. I never complained about Dr. H running late -- and there are times she runs extremely late. I was just glad not to be the cause of her lateness. And although I've heard other patients exchange irritated words with office staff at times, I always tried to be the friendly, polite, understanding patient. I didn't want to be the person the staff hates.

I realize that my car breaking down on the way to the OB-GYN office does not fall into the same category as a baby sticking out the wrong end of my uterus, or someone hemmorhaging through their belly button. But it's still completely out of my control. And Dr. H's office is the first call I made (before the tow truck, even) to let them know I wouldn't be there. What else, exactly, did that receptionist expect me to do?

And hey, if it weren't for all THE UNEXPLAINED, CONSTANT PAIN, I'd be more than happy to drop this whole appointment thing like the receptionist insinuated I ought to do. But I don't really think it should be up to her to decide if I get an appointment or not on the basis of her being annoyed with me.

So rather than let it go, for the first time ever, I snarked back at someone at a doctor office.

"HEY ... Do you really think that I enjoy standing next to a highway ... especially when I'm paying for a babysitter just so I could visit your office? You know, I'd say this is even more unpleasant than the pelvic exam I am now going to miss. And it's at least as inconvenient for me as you!"

Silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Then, "Can you see her the day after tomorrow at 3:15?"

So today I'm thankful for PMS. Because sometimes it helps get things done.