Mom's Journal

Thomas the philosopher

2009-10-03T01:07:00.000-07:00

Today's discussion with Thomas the Philosopher went something like this:

Thomas: Mom, is there really magic?

Mom: Um.....

Thomas: I think that life is magic. All the other magic comes from that.

Pretty heavy thoughts for a 7 year old.

It's strange that he can utter things like that one minute and then throw a little fit the next minute because soccer practice is at 5 and not 5:30 or I didn't let him carry his sister down the stairs. It's almost like there's this split personality and one side is this wise, loving, caring old man and the other side is an immature 7 year old. Sigh. I love him.

Thomas strikes again!

2009-09-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

That child is going to be the death of me.

We are sitting at the dinner table and trying to convince him to eat his zucchini.

Finally, he turns to us and says:

"What if there is no afterlife? Then I'm wasting the little time I have here eating!"

He is 7. What kind of arguments are we going to have when he is 14?

God, I love that kid.

Washington D.C.

2009-06-25T17:45:00.001-07:00

Had a nice family trip to Washington D.C....more on that later, but here's a link to the pics:

Enjoy!

1 year old toddler girl and 1 year old (almost) toddler boy

2009-06-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's more than 2 weeks since their birthday and I still cannot believe the twins are a year old. It has just gone by so fast. We had two gatherings for them - one at home on their actual birthday with Emmett, Thomas and I (of course), and their 'Ma (Ann, Emmett's stepmom), Cristine and Noah. I made mac n cheese, Caesar salad and vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting. It was really nice and the babies seem to have a good time. They did do a little bit with unwrapping their presents, but mostly they just seemed happy to be getting so much attention. Thomas "helped" them out by unwrapping most of their presents.

The following Sunday we had a pool party at the Brisbane pool with friends from Thomas's soccer team, my cousin Mark, Cristine, Chris and Noah, Henry, Sara and Hank...it was also a lot of fun. I've gotten more and more into keeping it simple over the years. I used to do all this crazy cooking and over the years I've gradually whittled it down so that this year I just made a Costco run and grabbed a deli tray from the meat guys next door and - voila! - sandwiches and chips and a 1/2 flat of organic strawberries and we were good to go. I was going to at least bake the cake but then wussed out at the last minute and bought that at Costco too.

We're leaving in a week for Washington D.C. I'm getting pretty excited. Thomas may be a bit on the young side, but hopefully he'll have a good time visiting the monuments, etc.

Here's some pics, I better get back to the twins before they tear the house apart. Just click on the photo below and it will take you to the birthday album:

twinsbday

Love,
Melissa

Birthday Babies

2009-05-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe they are going to be a year old tomorrow!

Easter Lillie

2009-04-28T23:53:00.001-07:00

Milestones!

2009-04-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well, this needs to be quick because my typing risks waking the babies, plus I need to study for my nutrition exam tomorrow. Yikes!

But I wanted to make sure that I wrote down our two big milestones this week...

On Sunday, Lillie started walking! She has been standing on her own for a couple of months now, we thought she'd walk really early, but she only just got the courage to start taking steps. She walked to Thomas on Saturday morning - so cute! - and I'm really glad it was for him, it gave him such a thrill. He was sitting on the floor in the entryway of our apartment and she started walking toward him and he was counting off steps and saying, "Mom, Mom, look at this, 6, 7...Mom, you should look, 8, 9...". At that point I looked over and sure enough, he was right, she was walking for the first time - 12 steps! Very exciting! Emmett wanted to take some video but our apartment is in such a mess these days that he decided not to film. I have no such qualms, so hopefully I'll get some video this week.

Liam it seems is often left in his sister's shadow. This would make me sad, except I'm sure in another year or so it will even itself out a bit more. They say that boys mature more slowly than girls, and that is certainly what we are generally seeing with these two. However, Liam apparently didn't want to be completely shown up, so this week he uttered his first true words. I should preface by saying that I'm a total skeptic when it comes to this stuff. In March my Mom was saying that she thought he was saying "Mama", but it all just sounds like baby talk to me. BUT - I actually do believe that he said something today. Cristine has been working with Noah since he was a baby with sign language stuff and one of the ones that I happened to remember well was when she made the sign at the end of the meal and said "all done". And Noah would do it really well from a pretty early age, wiggling his hand around to say "all done". I never took up signing as a cause, but the words stuck with me, so when the babies have eaten all of something I will hold up the empty bowl or jar and say "all done". When either of the babies looks like they are done eating I'll ask them, "all done?"

So today I picked up an empty bottle out of Liam's crib and I was looking at it and he said "all done". I looked up because it surprised me and he said it a couple of more times, EXACTLY the same way "all done", but sounds more like "ah dah". I could almost have blown it off and thought it was coincidence but then at dinner he did it again. This time I showed him the sign and when he was done eating he wiggled his hand (didn't get it exactly right, but the attempt was clear) and said "all done". Our verbal baby!

Okay, back to me homework.

Love,
Melissa

Quotable Thomas

2009-04-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took the kids to the beach for a couple of hours. The babies got completely covered in sand. Lillie wasn't so sure about the whole thing (cold water, skinny baby), but Liam absolutely LOVED it - he was crawling all over the beach and digging rocks out of the sand. At one point he stood by the stroller and was giggling. It was wonderful to see my serious baby having such a great time, even if his twin was a little bit ambivalent about the whole thing.

Thomas had a great time, too. He is (at 6) becoming such a little man. When I picked him up from school I asked him what kind of underwear he had on to see if he could swim in them. He told me he didn't want to go to the beach but if we were going to go he was going to need to go home and get his swimsuit. So we did. Good thing, too, because the beach was, if not crowded, certainly full of people enjoying the record breaking temperatures (93 in San Francisco?!?! In April???). Thomas had a great time splashing in the water and rescuing ladybugs. There were a bizarre number of ladybugs on the beach.

Anyway, at one point I was making up a scenario of some sort for Thomas and he uttered this awesome quote:

"Mom, I don't believe in magic except for God and Santa Claus".

How I love that boy.

Liam at 10 months

2009-04-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

My Beautiful Daughter

2009-02-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

Fun in the snow in Yosemite

2009-02-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

I'll post more in the next couple of days, but for now let me present for your viewing pleasure...

Super Henry to the Rescue

babies at 8.5 months (photos by Cristine)

2009-02-12T13:42:00.001-08:00

Photos by Cristine

2009-01-22T23:38:00.001-08:00

These are all pics of the babies that were taken by my friend/neighbor/babysitter, Cristine.
The other baby in the photos is her 14 month old son, Noah.
Aren't they all just the most adorable babies ever? :)

...

2009-01-22T11:11:00.001-08:00

...

2009-01-22T11:04:00.001-08:00

Photos photos and more photos

2009-01-22T10:52:00.001-08:00

To Blog or Not to Blog - That is the Question

2008-12-29T23:00:00.001-08:00

I am giving serious consideration to ending the blog. This is very sad for me, because I am so far away from my family and friends and with 3 kids, a job and school, it is virtually impossible for me to stay in touch with my loved ones. I recently reconnected with an old high school friend and it's taken me more than a month to answer her last email. It's just so hectic most of the time - babies crying, homework, work, Thomas's school and activities...there is never enough time in the day.

This blog has never been complete in it's documentation. So many things - important things! - have happened that I have never had time to properly document. I feel sad that I've missed some big events - We went on an excellent family vacation to Pinecrest Lake this year - our big family vacation of the year - and I never had a chance to write a word about it. I have also never written a word about getting all 3 children baptized, although this was, for us, a VERY big family event. I was flat on my back at the end of my pregnancy (bed rest, ugh!) and never got to write about the wonderful shower that Emmett's stepmother and his sister threw for me - I had such a wonderful time, (such a wonderful forbidden treat - I wasn't supposed to be there due to said bed rest). I never got to blog about all my feelings about the impending birth of the twins because these blog entries take so long to write (I'm an incredibly slow writer) and without a laptop, I'd have used up all my upright minutes typing and wouldn't have been able to eat a meal with Emmett and T or take a shower (1.5 -2 hours per day is an amazingly short period of time, as it turns out).

Other times I thought I'd write and something else would come up in the meantime that would eclipse the earlier thing. For example, in October Lillie got her first tooth and Thomas lost his first tooth - all within 24 hours of each other. Also, I must say I outdid myself this year with the Halloween costumes. However, all of this got eclipsed with the excitement over the election - I did eventually write a bit about each of these, but it took a long time to do so. In 2007, we had some wonderful family times, including an especially memorable trip to the Russian River - but all of that got eclipsed by the horror and grief that was Blake's death. I couldn't bring myself to write about happy family times when my heart was so completely broken (still is, though it's been more than a year - a day doesn't go by that I don't think about Bro, God I miss him so much).

Lastly, there are things that I've blogged about that, due to time restrictions or family needs or whatever, I had to write very little about, when they actually represented huge life events. Our wedding, for example, got 3 paragraphs.

All of which is to make my point that this blog has never been a complete document. I knew from the beginning that I've never been very good at maintaining interest and that I would probably get bored with it pretty quickly - so I'm actually kind of proud that it's lasted as long as it has. For as many things as it's missing, there are many incredibly memorable things that *are* documented. Snapshots of our lives and the things we're doing, the way we felt, etc. etc. This is all valuable.

I have gotten enough positive feedback over the years that I know that my family and friends enjoy reading (this always makes me so incredibly happy) about our lives and what's happening with us, at least the stuff that I HAVE had time to write about.

But for all the positive feedback, there have also been a few negatives. When I first started I made some folks mad because I violated their privacy by using their names in this very public forum. Later I got in trouble for NOT using names and making people feel that by mentioning them by relationship or title that I was diminishing their importance in our lives. Twice I have gotten into trouble for not writing about something - as though that something was somehow not important enough to be written about - and offended family members. If I haven't said it already in this post, I don't write about things based on their importance - I'm not that good of a journalist (journaler?) - I write when I have time to write about whatever is happening at that moment. I've never been good a recapping way after the fact, and my feeling has been that life and time stop for no one - so write about what's happening now and hope that someday some of this will make sense. It is by no means a complete documentation of our lives - countless countless countless things are missing and they are not omitted because of their lack of importance.

But I have to admit the negative stuff really gets me down. Maybe it shouldn't - maybe I should just soldier on and hope for the best. I don't know at this point. I have tried very hard to always be diplomatic and not air my dirty laundry (or anyone else's for that matter) but it seems like no matter what I do, I'm bound to offend someone. That's not the spirit this was written in - it was supposed to be a document (however incomplete) of our lives - something to share with family and friends we don't get to see very often anymore. I have NEVER denegrated anyone in this forum and would never write anything that would purposefully hurt someone. And so to think that I have hurt someone with my blog - especially someone I care very much for - makes me want to quit writing publicly and keep my journals private. It just doesn't seem worth it.

And then I think of the friends and family who like to keep up with us, and how without it we would fall even further apart than life (and geography) have already taken us and I don't know what to do.

So...I guess I'll just take a few weeks and decide...To Blog or Not to Blog....

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas - this was the babies first Christmas and it was very nice to get to celebrate this wonderful holiday with them for the first time. The decision was also made that we would go to Florida next year for Christmas (yipee!!!!!!) as I haven't been with my family on Christmas since Thomas was born and it will be the last Christmas before the babies will require their own plane tickets (5 tickets to travel anywhere - yikes!!!).

Have a safe, happy, and healthy New Year.

With Love,
Melissa

P.S. I'll probably still post some photos...

Relaxed, reconnected Parents

2008-12-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Wow, did we ever need it. My Mom arrived on Thursday and we had one day to hang out together and catch up before it was time for Emmett and I to leave on Saturday. Unfortunately, Thomas had been really sick all day on Wednesday night, all day Thursday, well enough to go to school on Friday but then relapsed and spent all day in bed on Saturday. I felt so bad leaving him, but also knew that my Mom is an RN and would know what to do if things didn't get better soon. She was basically pushing us out the door.

Because of Thomas's illness and my school, we didn't get on the road until 5pm on Saturday, which was about 1.5 hours later than we were planning. We got up to Fort Bragg about 8:30 and went to this FANTASTIC restaurant called the Mendo Bistro for dinner. Afterwards we continued on to Howard Creek Ranch Inn up in Westport. About 30 minutes later we arrived. The Ranch is in a very remote section of Highway 1 right before it veers away from the coast (and there begins the fabled Lost Coast). It consists of a farmhouse, an enormous Carriage House and several cabins - all on a 60 acre farm with sheep, llamas, horses, etc. It's such a cool place - I had obsessively poured over reviews of the place and it seemed that people either loved it or hated it. It was definitely not your picture-perfect Victorian bed and breakfast with fluffy bathrobes and chocolates on the pillow, so if that's what people were expecting, it is not surprising that they were disappointed.

No, this place is magical for a different reason. Parts of it are pretty dilapitated, even run down, but the interiors all had the most amazing woodwork, beautiful antiques, and just a uniquenss and character that you don't get at the standard B and B's. It's a place that reflects the character of the owners - Sunny, who seems like he has about 100 half finished projects going at any given time, and Sally, who loves to serve up the breakfasts and lots of wonderful local tales along with it - she had everyone laughing out loud with her wonderful storytelling talent and dry humor.

Anyway, it was great, I highly recommend the place. The crashing waves of the ocean can be heard and seen pretty much everyone on the property and there is a great hike into a redwood forest that is just enough of a walk to make you feel like you did a bit more than lay around, eat and sleep all the time. :-)

We got up there about 10pm, parked and got the directions (complete with flashlight!) to get to our little cabin - the "Beach House". We got back in the car and started to pull out when Sunny - this guy who looks to be in his early 60's with a huge bush of gray hair and dressed in all black appeared out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of us. We were both like - what is this the Bates Motel? Yikes! He came along the side of the car and Emmett was staring at him through the window until I mentioned that he might want to roll down the window. I guess you had to be there, but it was hilarious, we were almost crying we were laughing so hard (okay, okay, I WAS crying I was laughing so hard).

We found our little cottage and you could hear the waves crashing from inside, it was wonderful. The wood burning stove was filled with wood and kindling and all ready to go, so Emmett stoked it up while I ran the water in the outdoor bathtub-style jacuzzi tub for two.

We hung out in the jacuzzi, read our books and just let all the stresses fall off of us. No phone, no cell phone coverage, and, although there was wireless internet, we vowed not to even fire up the computer.

The next day we breakfasted, read, took a little hike, explored the property (and other rooms for potential future visits), took a walk at sunset on the beach and then headed to Fort Bragg, back to our beloved Mendo Bistro for yummy dinner. We stayed up late again lounging in the jacuzzi.

It was all just so relaxing. Incredible. Sea air, waves crashing, remote, quiet, I can't even do it justice and it's effect on us was wonderful.

We took a long drive down the coast yesterday and ate lunch in Mendocino where we saw the other bed and breakfast that I had been contemplating and I was SO SO SO glad we chose the Howard Creek Ranch.

Ahhh, back home now and Thomas is much better and Mom is on her flight back to Florida. Missed getting to visit much with her, but it was absolutely wonderful to get away.

Sigh.

Halloween 2009 (continued)

2008-12-09T12:46:00.001-08:00

More Halloween photos:

We decided to do a theme: for each of our children's first Halloween, when we have all control and can do what we want for our own amusement (hehe), each child will be dressed as some famous, often imitated singer. After the first year, we are not so crazy. As a reminder, here's Thomas on his first Halloween:

Halloween 2008

2008-12-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

It seems like things are always way too busy to post, I've got about 5 blog entries in my mind that have never made it on (virtual) paper. Oh well...this is life with twins.

Halloween this year was wonderful...we have such a great neighborhood for it. I guess I'm old fashioned because I don't get the whole going to the mall, commercial Halloween thing - for me this is a neighborhood holiday, for the children and the neighborhood families...I feel very lucky that we have a good neighborhood for it where a lot of families pass out candy and we always run out of time before we run out of houses. This year was even nicer because our neighbors, Chris and Cris and their 1 year old son, Noah, came with us. We walked one block over to Miramar and just went up one side of Miramar and then down the other side and then all of us just walked over to the local pizza joint for dinner. It was fantastic, just a wonderful Halloween.

Here are the photos:

Isn't she lovely?

2008-11-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

Our Miss Lillie....

I DO love Emmett's new Flip :-)

2008-11-20T17:10:00.000-08:00

This Flip thing is so simple and cool...I wish I could figure out, though, how to make the videos stay clear when they are uploaded to youtube...somehow when I put them on youtube they lose some of their clarity. Overall - this little video camera is the coolest, simplest thing ever.

So - here is another video for your viewing pleasure....Twins Playing. :-)

Liam loves to bounce

2008-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

Lillie is going to be crawling soon...

2008-11-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

Interactive twins

2008-11-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

This video is from a month ago, but fun to see how they are starting to notice each other already and how their personalities are showing already...

New Hair

2008-11-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

Yikes!!!

5 month photos

2008-11-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

here are photos our neighbor (and babysitter) Cristine took of L&L...although they are almost 6 months, I'm calling these the 5 month photos...

A Time for Change

2008-11-04T23:04:00.001-08:00

It's funny, the first Presidential election I voted in was Bill Clinton's first election. I was at Jon's parent's house and they were decidedly unhappy about the results of that election. I, on the other hand, was jumping around for joy. I think back on that now and have to admire their patience - I can remember that Jon's Dad was just happy that I, as a young voter, wasn't apathetic. I had made the effort to go out and vote and actually be engaged in the process and I guess that was enough for them. Still, when I remember that evening I remember the grace with which they handled that situation.

This election was so different for me. Yes, I'm happy. Yes, I think Barack Obama is going to be a wonderful President. I'm incredibly proud of my country that we stood up for change and really showed that anything is possible here. I could talk for a long time about why I think the best candidate won and why that alone makes me so very happy. And so I would have been joyful tonight regardless of the historic nature of this campaign.

I also know that race shouldn't be an issue in determining President of the United States. It shouldn't matter what color Barack Obama is. But it does. When I saw the lines of African American voters in Detroit that waited (some were saying 5 hours?!?) to cast their votes, the looks on their faces, it does matter. At one point during the coverage of the victory celebrations they panned in on this elderly black man who just stood there with tears pouring down his face. When I saw him and thought about what he must have seen and how this must feel for him...there were tears pouring down my face, too. The suffering, the humiliation, the pain and discrimination that black people have faced in this country throughout it's history. The hard fought battles to be freed from slavery, to be able to testify in court, to be able to vote, to be able to attend the same schools and use the same bathrooms, dine in the same restaurants, as white people. I am so proud tonight of my country that we CAN CHANGE, we can grow and learn. I am so proud that we have judged a candidate by the "content of his character" and not the color of his skin.

I could not stop crying tonight. Thomas kept asking me why I was crying if I was happy and it was so hard to explain to him. Seven years ago my father (biological father, that is, not to be confused with my always loving and supportive step-father, Jerry) predicted all kinds of dire things would befall my baby and I because of his mixed race heritage. When Thomas was born, this became something of a joke because of his blonde blonde hair and bright blue eyes. But then Liam was born. Beautiful baby Liam with his deep brown eyes, silky brown hair and golden skin. Would he have the same opportunities available to him as blonde haired/blue eyed Thomas and Liliana do? Tonight I feel I can definitely say that he will. And I can imagine the mothers across the land who can say without reservation that their children can truly be anything they want to be in this great country.

God Bless America.

Love,
Melissa

Yes We Did

2008-11-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to President (elect) Barack Obama and Vice President (elect) Joe Biden.

I Can't Resist

2008-11-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

I have been resisting blogging too much about politics, which has been hard in this very exciting election season. I am going to be on complete pins and needles tomorrow, especially knowing that, as of this morning, the momentum seems to be shifting a bit - the wrong way. We will see.

Henry sent me this youtube clip - he knew I'd love it because of my love of Evita and my history of singing this song at parties after I'd had a few :-), so I couldn't resist sending this along...

It's all about teeth

2008-11-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm very late in posting this - seems like there is always something demanding my time these days - which is life with 3 kids, I imagine. Still hard to believe sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago - I think it was on Emmett's birthday, October 14th - I noticed that Lillie was drooling and crabby and chewing even more than normal. I didn't expect teething yet, it's a bit early and they are usually a few weeks behind, but I started poking around her mouth and lo and behold, there was a tooth!! Not in the normal place, though. It's a molar in the back on the right side and poking out of the side of her gum rather than the top. Poor girl. I called the dentist and the pediatrician and both assured me that if it doesn't bother her (above and beyond the normal teething stuff) or impede her ability to eat that there's nothing to be done. Except open an account for her orthodontia. Ugh. I wish they had those plans for braces like they do for college where you can lock in today's prices by committing to a certain school and paying now - we could decide on an orthodontist now for all 3 kids and begin paying on the bill now.

When Lillie finally went in for her doctor appointment this past week the doctor initially thought it was a cyst because it's in such a weird spot, poking out there. But then we he was able to feel it he realized that it is, indeed, a tooth. So there's a milestone - one day after her 5th month birthday she popped her first tooth.

But wait, that's not all...the next day after Lillie's tooth, I took Thomas to the doctor's office for his follow up flu shot. Afterwards we stopped at the little cafe that's in the building and got him a popsicle. As he was biting down on the popsicle he bit down inadvertantly on the stick and his tooth fell out. It's the bottom front tooth on the left side. So - within 24 hours of Lillie getting her first tooth, Thomas LOST his first tooth.

Thomas was VERY excited about losing his tooth. He wanted to call everyone to tell them. The reason he was so excited is because he knows from his school mates that when you lose a tooth the tooth fairy comes.

At work that night I pondered - how much does the tooth fairy pay these days? I asked around but the answers varied. No one seemed to know definitively. I looked online but again the answers were scattershot. After much asking around and poking around online it seemed that the most reasonable thing to do is to give a $1 gold coin. So, after much discussion about how I was going to get $1 gold coins at 1am, someone pointed me to the postal machine that's on campus and accessible all night long. So - I bought the cheapest thing I could and paid with a $10 bill, so I had a whole bunch of gold coins.

I got home and Thomas was up and on the couch, so I sent him back to bed, but as he was climbing back into his bed, I asked him how much he thought the tooth fairy might bring and he said, "oh, 5 or 6". Wow. Dollars?!? I didn't press him further, but then I felt like I didn't want him to be disappointed or think that his tooth wasn't worth as much as his friends teeth. So - I bundled up 5 of those $1 coins (beating myself up the whole time for completely overdoing it) and waited for him to fall back asleep.

I cracked open the door and from his breathing I could tell he was sound asleep. I crept up close to his bed, cursing the creaking hardwood floors the whole way! - and tried to reach around under his pillow until I felt the tooth. Finally I got the tooth and managed to put the coins under the pillow without waking him up. It occurred to me that whoever invented the tooth fairy was really playing a joke on the parents - how hard is it to retrieve the teeth without getting caught in the act. I was freaked out especially because I kept thinking, if I get caught with this, then he'll know that I'm the tooth fairy and next he'll be questioning Santa and the Easter Bunny. We've actually never been too into the Easter Bunny at our house, but I'm not at ALL ready for him to not believe in Santa yet!! So...thankfully I got away with it.

December update - Thomas has two more loose teeth! Yikes! I hope he keeps them till after the family Christmas photo...

Well, better run...took me almost 2 months to finish this entry. Things are just way too busy these days.

Love,
Melissa

The Next Phase Begins

2008-10-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

Well, starting tomorrow - actually, later today now that it's after midnight - a new era comes into our lives. My days as a stay at home Mom for the last (almost) 7 months are over and I am back to work. I wish I could say I am looking forward to it, but frankly, I'm completely dreading it. I'll get to bed tonight after pumping around 1am and be up tomorrow by 7 - not counting several wake ups with the twins - to take Thomas to school. Then I'll spend the day taking care of the babies and trying to clean up the house. At 2 I'll go get Thomas from school and bring him home. At 3:30 Melissa (the babysitter) will come and I'll get ready for work. At 4pm I'll leave for work. I'll work until 1am, come home, pump, and hopefully be in bed by 2-2:30 so that I can start the next day all over again. It makes me tired just thinking about it. My sister in law does this schedule FULL TIME - I don' t how she does it, I really don't.

Wow - it really sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, doesn't it? Ha! I shouldn't - at least it's only part time. I feel very fortunate in that regard. It's just that I had hoped the babies would be sleeping through the night by now and so far we are not even close. There has been some progress from last week when they were getting up every 2-3 hours around the clock again, but we are still not getting any big blocks of uninterrupted sleep and it is very wearing. My mother in law commented that in her day you would just let them cry and they would eventually go back to sleep and learn to sleep through the night (today they call this the Cry It Out method I think). The theory is fine and I must admit my reluctance isn't because listening to them cry would break my heart at this point. I'll be honest - if I thought we'd get a full nights sleep out of it, I wouldn't hesitate to let them cry it out for a while. The practice is difficult at best. First and foremost is the issue that if one is crying and left to cry it is inevitable that both will be up and crying and when they start feeding off each other it suddenly is a whole lot more complicated. When they constantly disrupt each other it just goes on and on and on. The next problem is that they are sleeping in a cosleeper next to our bed so the crying is too close for anyone to sleep through - and the only other space in this apartment to put them besides our bedroom is the living room and I'm not wild about that idea.
So - one of us gets up and takes care of the crying baby while the other baby and the other adult sleeps and then at least we don't have everyone up when one baby is crying. But then of course we are now almost 5 months into this with babies that aren't sleeping through the night. Ugh.

I had also been really hoping to carve out a substantial portion of this weekend for myself to prepare physically and emotionally for going back to work and that just didn't happen. I did get a couple of hours on Saturday, but somehow it never seems like enough to get completely recharged. There just wasn't a lot of quiet, calming time to soothe my nervousness about the upcoming week. To top it off, we decided to go to Mass on Sunday morning and this is almost always a recipe for disaster. I am (by necessity) always up very late at night and so not fully available in the mornings. This means that Emmett has a larger burden in the morning with the babies and Thomas. As the time for church approaches, everyone gets more and more tense. Emmett fails to eat breakfast on these days and this always adds to his crankiness. Thomas still (for whatever reason) doesn't act very well in church. Maybe we are expecting too much, but he is able to behave pretty well in school these days and in other environments where he has to be quiet and pay attention, but in church sometimes he is just very difficult - talking through the whole thing, disturbing other people, and generally messing around instead of paying attention. As I said, we are probably expecting too much, but it rachets up Emmett's tension level (ok, ok, and also mine sometimes :-)). Add to that two babies crying during the mass and it just becomes a major stressor. Emmett's Mom and I were trying to make it better and this just made the whole situation worse. By the time we left the church parking lot we were at each other's throats and the arguing didn't stop until the mid-afternoon. I think Sister Rita is right and that one adult plus Thomas should go to church on Sunday and the other adult and babies should stay home, at least until we are getting consistent rest and can handle the situation without everyone getting so wound up. It's just not worth it and I don't think we're getting what we should out of the Mass.

It's just so exhausting with twins. We have absolutely no time for ourselves these days. We had theater tickets for Friday, but I had to cancel it because this is a lean month financially and a babysitter for three children (or even the twins) is out of the question. We occasionally get an hour or two in the evenings but most of the time Emmett is falling asleep on the couch almost before we sit down. There is no time for ourselves, no time to connect and be a couple again. We're both exhausted from not sleeping for the last 4.5 months. We have no family nearby, so there's just no one to provide a respite ever and even if there were, we feel like it's too much to ask any one person to watch all three children.

As always, there are things to be thankful for. We are both very committed to our family and help each other as much as we can. For both of us our family is everything and in the end we are always able to overcome the tense moments because we know it's just a very trying situation and it will get better, if for no other reason than because the babies will eventually sleep at night. Once I am working again we will have a bit more disposable income and be able to hire a babysitter to get a respite once in a while for just the two of us.

Best of all, as part of our Christmas present this year, my Mom is going to come and watch all three children so we can go away for the weekend. It is the best Christmas present I could imagine and we are both so incredibly excited! We are laughing, too, because we think it's probably our one chance - once she sees how much work is involved, she probably won't make this offer again! haha I think just the idea of it is like a light at the end of the tunnel right now and I can't wait to begin planning our trip. I'm hoping to find a really romantic bed and breakfast somewhere with a great view and a hot tub where we can just relax and let all of the stress and tension roll off for a little while. Ahhh...I can almost feel the bubbles already :-).

Well, I better run...need to grab some sleep while I can. Sorry to be such a downer, but I guess it's some honestly about the challenges of life with twins. :-) Hopefully once I get adjusted to working again I can have lots of positive things to say!

Love,
Melissa

Thomas at 6 years old

2008-09-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Twins at 4 months

2008-09-22T15:47:00.002-07:00

Liam's 4 month photo

2008-09-22T15:47:00.001-07:00

Lillie's 4 month photos

2008-09-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Baby Photos

2008-09-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn't make fun, but the photo below of Lillie made me laugh so hard...those wisps of hair she has on the sides of her head are just awful, but I hate to cut any of her hair since she has so little of it overall.

Anyway, we are back from Florida and had a great, if low key, trip. It was so nice to get to be with my family, I miss everyone so much...can't believe it had been a year since I'd last been there and seen the Grandmas. We did make it to Wannado City and Lion Country Safari for Tom, and also an ill-fated trip to Olive Garden (babies hungry, Tom acting up and me with a stomach ache, ugh!), but aside from that, we were pretty much at home the whole time. We did spend some time in the pool - Tom every day and me pretty much every day. Thomas is doing great with his swimming, he finally got up the courage to swim where he can't touch and actually paddle and kick at the same time - I was so excited! This he did on the very last day right before we left for the airport! I'm bummed with myself that we didn't get Thomas swimming sooner, I had heard that if you don't get them swimming around age 3 you get to a time when they are too afraid for quite a while and I think that's what's happened to us. It's been a challenge, but I think we have made a breakthrough now.

Jerry took some absolutely amazing photos which I'm now going to share...

Two more weeks (from today) and I'm back to work...scary but kind of exciting too!

Oh yes, and I'm 37 years old today - where the h-ll did all the time go?!?!

Love to all,
Melissa

Y-O-D-A, Yoda,,,,y-y-y-y Yodaaaaahh

2008-09-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yes We Can

2008-08-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

A few quick notes...thoroughly enjoyed the Democratic convention and am hoping and praying that Senator Obama is our next U.S. President. It is exciting, though, to know that either way it goes it will be an historic election since McCain has chosen a female vp nominee. I have no particular objection to Sen. McCain personally, but I think we've had enough killing and dying in the middle east...thousands of American lives later, as well as (I believe) hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives later and still no sign of the lunatic that murdered all those people on 9/11. I firmly and strongly believe that an American civilian life is not more valuable than an Iraqi civilians life and the losses there have been catastrophic. Enough already. Well, I shouldn't go on and on about my political beliefs because most anyone who knows me knows that I could go on and on and on about the way I feel about this.

However, I keep receiving these anti-Obama emails lately. They are interesting and I like to keep informed...I am not so bull-headed that I would not change my mind if the facts indicated that Obama was not a good choice for President, but the emails I am receiving are ludicrous. The jokes are one thing...I can chuckle at good jokes regardless of the candidate...but some of these other attacks on Obama range from misleading (to put it nicely) to disturbing.

The first one I am thinking of is this one I received where the attack was based on Obama removing an American flag from his campaign plane. It even cited Snopes as agreeing it was true. So, curious, I went to Snopes. It turned out to be true because the flag in question was a registered trademark for the airline that they bought the plane from and had to be removed by law!!! I hate this kind of misleading crap. Is this what the anti-Obama folks have to turn to in order to attack him?

The second one I opened up today was a big long attack on Obama's African roots. This I find disturbing. I thought the whole point in this country was that anyone can become anything they want to be regardless of where they came from. Now we are saying that Obama is "too African" because there are some photos of him with family in Kenya? Huh? There was one photo of his grandmother with a big smile on her face and I could not for the life of me understand what the problem was:
She looks so happy and proud, it made me smile.
I don't like to use the racist label, but it seemed to me that the only purpose in using that photo was to remind the closet racists out there that his family is indeed black. It made me incredibly sad to think that photo of his lovely grandmother would somehow be used against him in the 21st century because of the color of her skin. Sick to my stomach and sad. I thought as a nation we were better than that now. The other point of the email was to discuss his family's "radical roots". I would venture to bet that very few people looking at that email understand very much about Kenya's political situation and that "radical" has an entirely different meaning. Lastly, again I must stress...what about his family? Do we hold an individual accountable for all the actions of their family? Obama is bad because he didn't disown them and is shown in photos posing with them? I know I have family members that I don't necessarily agree with on certain subjects, but I don't disown them! Enough to say that this email was incredibly disturbing because it appeared to be racist and also to attack a person for the actions of their extended family and I think both of those things are despicable ways to attack and political candidate.

Show me some fair and relevant criticisms of Obama (lack of experience, anyone?) and I'll be willing to listen and consider, but this trash is too much.

When will the mud-slinging end so that we can run a respectable campaign?

Oh well, better run...babies crying.

Love,
Melissa

Another smiling Lillie

2008-08-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

Thomas took this photo and I think it's pretty cute...he definitely has an incredible "soft spot" for his sister...hope that balances out a bit once the babies get older. I think it will, it's just right now that Liam's loud and frequent crying are a bit intimidating for him.

More faces of Liam

2008-08-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Here they are...

Don't Mess With Us

2008-08-25T21:58:00.001-07:00

We're back from our week in the wilderness...well, not complete wilderness, but camping for 8 nights with 3 kids, 2 of whom are 3 months old definitely felt a little "out there", haha...but actually I think things went quite well. We are definitely planning to make the Pinecrest Lake trip an annual thing. But right now the babies are asleep and I want to spend the last little bit of the evening with my husband.

More as soon as I can...

Pretty Lillie

2008-08-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

Breastfeeding Rant

2008-07-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm off on a tangent today...but this is something that I want to write about because it really bothers me. I am so SICK AND TIRED of the attitude the people have about breastfeeding - basically that you MUST breastfeed or risk feeling incredibly guilty and/or inferior about it. I think the Bay Area is a lot worse about this than the rest of the country but I am disgusted by the pressure and cattiness even that fellow mothers that should be supporting each other show when breastfeeding comes up.

If you've been living on Planet Earth for the past 20-25 years or so you know that breast milk is best, does anyone need to hear it again (and again and again and again)??? Most women will try to breastfeed their children when they are born. But guess what? Breastfeeding is not all that easy - it's amazing how many people struggle with milk supply, getting the baby to latch, etc. etc. For some women, believe it or not, they just don't enjoy the experience. Why should we have to force ourselves to breastfeed and make ourselves unhappy to please a society that insists on breastfeeding when there are other options available to us in this country and in this day and age? Honestly, I think formula fed babies grow up and do fine - it's not like you can look at a baby and point out the ones who are formula fed versus breastfed. Why can't we just let people make the best decision for their family and support them and help them feel good about it???

This started today because of a posting on the Silicon Valley parents of multiples group that I belong to. The first poster said this:

"I'm sure at least one person has done their research to figure who has the best prices for formula. I'm currently looking for soy formula but may switch if the doctor gives the okay to do so. I'm also interested in the higher calorie formula but haven't found a soy one yet.

I'm interested in both in-store and online price breakdowns.

Thanks!"

Okay, simple enough. But this was one of the responses:

"I am not using formula anymore, but when my twins were premies the NICU had
us mix the formula in a higher ratio to increase the calories per feeding. I
am sure you could do that with any other formula as well. Just ask your
doctor for the ratio. Just a warning it was hard to make, since it does not
dissolve as easily and I was happy when the doctor finally let me stop
feeding formula.
As for prices, I am nursing though I am not a good resource for that."

Perhaps I'm just too sensitive, but the original poster asked a simple question AND she's looking to save some money on formula so she's probably already made the decision to formula feed. The responder doesn't have anything useful to add about how to save money on formula and, while she's at it, manages to mention THREE TIMES about how she's breastfeeding and not using any formula. Don't get me wrong, my hats off to her because breastfeeding twins (as I've discovered) is incredibly difficult, but I think it's terrible to rub that in someone's face who is obviously not breastfeeding and that's exactly how this post comes off. I've got a newsflash for this person: YOU ARE NOT A BETTER MOTHER BECAUSE YOU ARE BREASTFEEDING!!!!! Yes, it's nice that you are providing your child with breast milk - but I'm here to tell you, sister, there are a lot more important things you're going to have to give your child over their lifetime than a little breast milk so get on down off your high horse and realize that we are all in the trenches her together and the world would be a much better place if we'd learn to support each other and the right that each of us has to determine what is best for ourselves, our baby, and our family as a whole.

This rant is not about me personally - I'm still working on breastfeeding and am fine with pumping some and breastfeeding some. I just hate the thought of someone having to feel bad as a new mother about the decision not to breast feed. No one should have to made to feel bad about their decisions and it makes me furious when I see someone saying something that can do nothing but make the other person feel bad.

Okay, enough ranting. I could go on and on about this, but I'm going to stop because I have to go pump. HA

Liliana Smiling

2008-07-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

She may not be the most photogenic of my babies at this age, but she sure is the happiest. :-)
For some reason, though, she is very hard to photograph - it took a whole bunch of shots to get a couple, even though she was in a great mood this morning. I also tried to get a photo of Thomas and Lillie together and smiling, but I couldn't catch her at the right moment - Thomas is a bit rough (being a typical just-turned-six-year-old) and she doesn't smile much when he is handling her - but she has smiled at him when he's interacting with her without picking her up. Of course, he loved it and now says that she is his favorite of the babies.

Well, here's a couple more and then I'd better go- it's almost midnight and I haven't eaten dinner. Thank heavens Emmett is due back tomorrow evening - can't wait!!

The Many Faces of Liam

2008-07-23T23:28:00.001-07:00

So far so good - Emmett is in D.C. again for work and this time (knock on wood) things are going much more smoothly than the last time. I hired a very experienced twin babysitter/nanny who is coming in the evenings so that I can catch my breath, go grocery shopping, or, like tonight, spend a little 1:1 time with Thomas, who has been having an especially rough week. (He's been acting out a lot and I think it's being home from all his travels with his grandparents and having to share the attention.) I feel really lucky to have found this babysitter. Her name is Melissa (as if we didn't already have so many Melissas in our lives haha), and she is from Michigan - Emmett thought this was a reason that I liked her, but I swear I didn't know until she was already at the interview! Anyway, she has quite a bit of twin experience, has been a live in nanny for a couple of families, is the daughter of a daycare owner, is a postpartum doula, and is training to be a lactation educator. Whew! Needless to say, she is pretty capable and I feel very comfortable leaving her with the babies while I get some time away. This was tougher than I imagined, the twin experience is such that I feel a greater need to get away - also probably because this time with Emmett working and traveling for work, I'm a lot more of the primary caregiver than I was with Thomas. In any case, I both feel a great need to get some downtime, but also feel nervous about leaving them with a sitter this soon. I never felt this way with Thomas, mostly because I was so unsure of myself as a mother that I figured anyone that babysat for a living would be more qualified than I was...I was SO new to babies when Thomas was born. I think I'll probably be an old pro by the time these babies aren't babies anymore HAHA.

Oh, but I am digressing...I should have used my time with the babysitter to take a nap instead of taking Thomas to Fresh Choice, but I couldn't stand to let him down, so now my eyes are burning from lack of sleep and I'm not entirely sure any of this will make sense when I read it later, but I've got another 25 minutes before my last pumping of the evening.

Well, we've hit a very fun milestone...we are getting real smiles from both babies! I think their inherent personalities dictate that we tend to get a lot more smiles from Lillie than we do from Liam, but for whatever crazy reason I haven't managed to get a good photo of Lillie smiling yet. She has such an amazing smile, it really lights up her whole face. I am going to really try to get a photo because I want so much to be able to share her beautiful smile with everyone. Liam is a little more of a serious type to begin with and his smiles, while gorgeous, are softer than her big cheesy grins.

I did, however, get some good photos of Liam on July 22nd. I got some smiles and also some of his most common facial expressions. So here they are - enjoy!

My beautiful boy with his sweet smile...

Liam has a very intense stare, we call it his "penetrating gaze"
Last, but not least, Liam frowns a lot...I hope it just means that he has amazing powers of concentration, haha

Liliana

2008-07-11T16:03:00.001-07:00

I have to make this very quick, no time for writing much...these little ones keep me hopping!

One quick note...we had all three of our children baptized on July 5th at St. Brendan's. It was a great day with friends and family. My Mom and Jerry, Henry and Sara, Desmond, Brian and Sherri, and Emmett's Mom. Emmett's Mom prepared a wonderful luncheon afterwards of chicken Caesar salad, deviled eggs, rolls, delicious melon and finger sandwiches. Yummy! Emmett picked up a special cake from Lido's which was excellent except that the baker misspelled Liliana's name and the word "Christening" - ohhhh well.

Uh oh - Liam is starting to stir and I haven't had a shower yet...I better run.

Oh yes, the main thing I wanted to do was post a slightly better picture of Miss Lillie...she is not particularly photogenic thus far, I must admit, but I think this is slightly better than the last one.

Hopefully I'll get to post the baptism pics this weekend.

Love,
Melissa

Nolan Kids

2008-06-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

OK, so far we are hanging in there...although I admit some days I want to clobber the next person who talks about how lucky I am to have twins...haha...of course, I know I'm lucky to have these two treasures, but I'll tell you, this is by far the greatest challenge of my life, trying to manage these two little babies and keep my sanity. Emmett has been in Washington D.C. on business this week so it's been just me and the twins and...all I can say is I'm SO looking forward to getting a solid 4-5 hours of sleep when he gets home!! The night before last by the time I fed and burped and diapered both babies all night I ended up with two 1 hour naps for sleep. By last night I was pretty wrecked. I'm getting too old for this! haha But last night I managed 3.5 hours of sleep and that was awesome!

I don't mean to be negative...God, how I adore these two little angels, they are so amazing, and I'm so blessed to be able to spend time with them and watch them grow and thrive. But I have to be honest about how hard it is, too. It is incredibly difficult. We are about halfway to the point where they should start sleeping more at night and things should be better then. If I can just get these two on a schedule I think I'll feel a little more sane. :-)

Anyway, I need to get back to the babies, so without further ado, I'll post a couple of pics of the Nolan kids...I couldn't get a good pic of Liliana, so I'll just post these and try to get some better ones soon.

Love,
Melissa

More drama

2008-06-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

It seems these days there is never a dull moment.

Last Friday I started having a lot of abdominal pain that didn't go away. By Sunday night I was back to taking Vicodin and still having a lot of pain. So off Emmett and I headed to California Pacific Medical Center for a trip to the emergency room.

Turned out I had an awfully inflamed gallbladder - and I'm here to tell you that that is one incredibly painful experience. I got admitted to the hospital that night and ended up having my gallbladder removed via emergency surgery the next day (Monday). I guess I had hundreds of stones (the surgeon said it was like gravel in there) and adhesions - pretty yucky but not at the point of being terribly dangerous. A very good thing to have it removed when I did.

They wanted me to stay two days after the surgery, but I decided I wanted to come home yesterday. Even if I still can't do too much for the babies, I'd like to at least be here with them. Thank heaven my Mom was still here to help us get through this - but I know she is completely exhausted at this point, as is Emmett.

Anyway, that's our latest drama. I'm pretty sore, but feeling a whole lot better than I did a few days ago, so that's a good thing.

As I said, never a dull moment. :-)

The babies are currently on a 2 hour feeding cycle, so there is very little time to write or send email these days. Hopefully I'll be able to update y'all again sometime next week - but then I know it's going to be completely nuts when my Mom goes home.

Love,
Melissa

Liam and Liliana are here!

2008-05-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

I have to keep this short because I'm way behind on my pumping schedule.

As expected when we were dashed off to CPMC on the Tuesday before last, 5/13, our beautiful twins were born via c-section that day. Both of them are now home with us and seem to be thriving. We feel so incredibly blessed.

Liam Patrick Nolan was born at 4:39pm and weighed 5 lbs and 11 ounces. Liliana Rose Nolan was born at 4:40pm and weighed 5 lbs and 1 ounce. They are so tiny but so perfect. We stayed in the hospital for 4 days afterward and then we all got to come home together, what a blessing. Twins so often end up with stays in the NICU and we were very lucky that both of our twins were able to avoid that. I imagine in retrospect I was lucky to have the bout of "preterm labor" because during my stay in the hospital they injected me with steroids so that the babies lungs would develop more quickly in case they were born prematurely. As it turned out, we made it to 36 weeks and 2 days, so they are technically premature. I have to admit they looked so tiny to me at first it was a bit startling.

I'm happy to report that, as of last Friday, they had regained all their birth weight and added a couple of ounces each, thanks to the diligent 3 hour, round the clock feedings administered alternately by my Mom, Emmett and myself. Wow, this twin thing is definitely a handful. :-)
Perhaps more relevantly, they were a bit too little to latch (according to the lactation folks) and since they are premature you can't wait to get them to latch before feeding, so we are struggling a bit with the breastfeeding thing. Since I still want so badly for them to be breastfed, I am using the breastpump 8 times per day to pump the milk and also try to build up enough of a milk supply to feed two infants. It makes for a pretty exhausting day. But so rewarding when I look into the eyes of my precious babies. :-)

Which brings me to my first sentence...way behind on my pumping schedule.

Thank you to everyone who wrote or called to keep up with us, it is so nice to feel so cared for.

I'll close with a picture of my little beauties taken today.

Love,
Melissa

Last Ultrasound!

2008-05-13T13:32:00.001-07:00

Well, here are a couple of shots from our last ultrasound. The top one is Liliana with her face pressed up against her brother's head (how cute!) and the bottom two are our little Liam, who seems to like having his photo taken the last couple of months.

The bigger news is that today may be the BIG DAY!!!! My blood pressure is up a bit and I spilled protein in my urine (for those who are well versed perinatal terminology) which are all signs of possible pre-eclampsia. Rather than take any risks, they have asked me to come into the hospital today for a probable c-section. So here we go...we made it to 36 weeks and 2 days which is pretty darn good for twins!

Will keep folks posted if something changes, otherwise say a little prayer for me and the babies as they enter this crazy world.

Love,
Melissa

Liliana and Liam at 34 weeks

2008-04-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here is Liliana:

Here is Liam:

Not much to say today...I'm pretty tired out from my appointments...but I wanted to share the pictures of our little ones from todays ultrasound.

Hope all is well out there.

Love,
Melissa

Baby Liam

2008-04-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

My adorable little boy...no, not Thomas, although he looks a lot like Thomas did as a baby....per today's ultrasound.

Bad news yesterday...I failed my 3 hour glucose test and so now have to deal with gestational diabetes on top of everything else lately. Ugh. But - at least that explains why Liam's fluid levels are so high. Dr. Sandberg was very reassuring about it so far and both babies seem to be doing very well. One day at a time.

Right now I am very tired and going to post the photos of Liam and then try to get a nap.

Professional Photo

2008-04-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

I also decided since this is (hopefully! barring disaster, that is) my last pregnancy, that I should have some professional photos taken.

Here is the one we chose from the group that the photographer did.

Now some pictures of me, my Mom and The Belly

2008-04-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

A few photos (of Thomas)

2008-04-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting time...I've been on bed rest since March 30th due to having had a lot of contractions that may or may not have been a bit of preterm labor. I ended up spending three days in the hospital and now a little over a week on bed rest at home. We're all hoping to keep these babies in until 34-37 weeks...it's going to be a long haul.

I don't have a laptop and so far I'm not supposed to spend very much time sitting upright, so I'll have to update in snippets. We did have a great family getaway that last weekend in Mount Shasta, it was so nice to get away and we all had a great time. Of course, overdoing it up there is probably what caused all the contractions, but at this point we all seem to be safe and sound it's all good.

I thought I would put up some photos - I've been so focused on the ultrasound photos that I haven't posted any photos of Thomas or myself (with my HUGE belly) in a long time...so here they are. I also threw in some others.

Los Dos at 29 weeks

2008-03-24T13:51:00.001-07:00

Well, here we are at 29 weeks. The top photo is our baby boy. He was not feeling very photogenic - he was turned so that he was facing away from the ultrasound, so no good photos of him today. However, we got a (rare) good shot of Lili today since for once the placenta wasn't right in the middle of her face. Emmett thinks she has my mouth, but I think her mouth is more like his. I guess we'll get a better idea when she's born. :-) Everything looked great with the babies today. I continue to be concerned that I'm having some preterm labor, but I guess we'll just take that one day at a time.

Thomas is on spring break this week, so we'll get a chance to have some mother/son fun. Today will be a mellow day - we're going to be focusing on his read-a-thon - he needs to accumulate 5 hours of reading this week. Tomorrow and Wednesday he'll go to Buena Vista spring camp, this will give him an opportunity to play with his friends and even get to go bowling, since they are having a field trip on Wednesday to the Yerba Buena bowling alley. On Thursday we're going to buy some stuff for the babies and maybe take a little side trip somewhere to a park or zoo or something. On Friday I have an appointment with my doctor and then we're heading out for a little family getaway to Mount Shasta for the weekend.

Saturday Thomas and I spent the day together since Emmett was having friends over to watch the NCAA tournament on television. The party was a success, and I was happy that Emmett had the time to spend with his friends. Thomas and I went down to the south bay and hung out, albeit very briefly, at the Happy Hollow Zoo and Park. Afterwards we went to Fresh Choice for dinner and then did a little shopping to get some shoes for me to wear for Easter and some books for Thomas to read this week.

On Sunday we had a wonderful Easter. Emmett's mom came up from Monterey and we all went to church at St. Brendan's, which we all really liked. Emmett and I are probably going to take the next steps to join this church and also to get Thomas and the babies baptized. For my part, I actually managed to get the homemade bread done, take my shower and have my hair done and make up on before church! Wowee! After church, we went to a little park and took a couple of family photos, then it was home for a traditional Easter brunch with kielbasa, hard boiled eggs, butter lamb, homemade bread, and strawberry spinach salad. Yummy! Everyone else went to the park after brunch but I stayed home and tried to rest a bit. Emmett's mom served a delicious dinner of lamb, potatoes, asparagus, rolls, gravy, and blackberry pie. Yum, yum and double yum! After she hit to road to get home before dark the three of us watched the Simpson's movie together and then it was time for bed.

Well, I'm going to wrap up this recap because I've been trying to write this whole thing with a 5 year old hanging on my back trying to read each word because he's bored and I think it's time for both of us to try for a nap. :-)

Love,
Melissa

All is well

2008-02-25T14:29:00.000-08:00

Well, after two more doctor's appointments, last Thursday and again today, all appears to be well with both babies. Last Thursday was my regular ob/gyn appointment and today was an ultrasound to check on the babies. It turns out that I will be having ultrasounds every 4 weeks from now until they are born. Exciting, but I hope that it doesn't disturb them too much.

They were not very photogenic today - so only a couple of pictures of them to post. Oh well...:-)
The top picture is of our baby boy - you can't see his face, only his little ear and his hand up in front of his mouth. The second photo is of Lili's arm and leg - she looks all curled up - so cute! At some point today she had her feet in her brother's face - but the doctor assured me that she couldn't do any damage haha! The third photo is of both heads together - it's rare to be able to get them both in a photo - especially now that they are getting so big, so I kind of liked this one.

We are getting more and more excited - yesterday marked 25 weeks. I'm scheduling some maternity photos since this is hopefully the last time I will be pregnant. I found a great photographer to take them and I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. In the meantime, I need to remember to take some snapshots and send them. People usually think I'm about ready to give birth, but I've still hopefully got 13 or so more weeks to go!

Thomas has been having some behavioral problems, so we're going to be focusing a lot of energy on that for a while. He's naturally willful and a bit temperamental and we're trying to figure out how to manage it and how to channel him in the right direction. It seems lately like we're struggling a bit with that. We are going to meet with his teacher and a social worker soon to try to get some advice on how to handle him. I know part of it is that my patience is much thinner these days, but he has also escalated some of his button pushing. We need to get a handle on all of this and preferably before the babies come.

We had a very good and social weekend - Friday night we went out with our friends Eric and Heidi to see Teatro Zinzanni - it was fantastic! I forgot just how much fun that show really is! We ended up staying out late and I was so tired the next morning I felt hung over even though I didn't have anything to drink. Ugh. But totally worth it - we had a really good time. We had an equally nice time on Sunday getting to visit with our friends Henry and Sara and their 14 week old baby, Hank. Hank is getting so big and looks so healthy and sooo cute! Emmett made a delicious dinner and the four of us had a great visit - we have all been so busy that it had been a while since we got together - fun! Thomas loves when they come over, but he was a bit bummed I think that now he has to share the attention with Hank - maybe that will be a preview for him of what it's going to be like when his siblings come...which wouldn't be an entirely bad thing - I don't want him to be bummed out that the babies are coming, but I also am feeling somewhat anxious about him being blindsided by their arrival and what that means for him. I'm sure it will all work out okay, but I just don't want him to feel left out. Thomas is always going to be my precious first born son, my precious angel. :-)

Okay, better run, it's late and I haven't had lunch yet.

Hope all's well out there.

Love,
Melissa

Busy Days

2008-01-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

January has gone by in a complete blur. I've been working more because we are a bit short at work, so that's been part of it. It's getting more and more exhausting already for me to work a lot of hours - it looks like I may get pulled out on maternity leave as early as March or as late as mid-April, but not the May 1st that I was hoping to get to. The other bummer was that at my last doctor's appointment they nixed my travel plans for Spring Break. I was hoping to take Thomas to Florida and then take some time for Emmett and I to do a little trip the two of us to the islands or something like that, but that's a no go. My ob said no more travel after March 15th - although it is unclear (meaning I didn't think to ask specifically) what exactly that means - no airline travel? no travel at all? no travel outside a certain radius? The concern, which is extremely valid, is that preterm labor is a big possibility from now on and if something happens and these babies are born very prematurely, it would be awful to have them somewhere far from home in a strange hospital and them having to stay in that hospital in the NICU for 4-6 weeks. So my guess is that if I travel it has to pretty much be where I could get back to San Francisco if I needed to in an emergency - ummm, how far is that? I guess we could probably go to Oakland or San Jose, but I guess that's about as exotic as our travel is going to get for a while - haha. Not sure about Monterey, but hopefully that would be okay because I know Emmett's Mom is going to want us to come down at some point between now and when the babies are born. Ahhh well, it will all be worth it if these little ones are born healthy - that's all that really matters.

My Mom was in town for a week last week. It was so wonderful having her here, we had a really good time, in spite of the fact that I developed a nasty cold the day before she came which I can only hope and pray she doesn't get and pass on to the grandmas. We spent three nights in a hotel - our special treat. Thomas loved it, of course. The hotel had a wonderfully warm swimming pool that was really shallow so Thomas loved that and so did I! It was the warmest hotel pool I've ever been in, incredible! I swear it was about 95 degrees! We were joking that it was like the largest hot tub ever - except that it was just cool enough for me to be safe with the babies - perfect! We had room service, although our room was missing it's room service menu and it ended up being more difficult than it should have been to get a replacement so we could actually see what there was available to order. We did eventually get it figured out and had some yummy desserts one night and an amazingly good meal on another night. Yum, yum!!
On Friday night we went to the Body Worlds exhibit in San Jose, Emmett and my Mom and I. It was fantastic, we all really enjoyed it. I was actually surprised by how much Emmett got into it - I think he was even more into it than my Mom and I - the "medical people". Anyway, it was fun, very intense, we ended up being there for about 2 1/2 hours just looking at the exhibits and reading all the information. Mom and I particularly loved the pathophysiology.

Speaking of food, I'm up about 5 pounds so far with this pregnancy, which I think is a good thing. I'm pretty happy about it and was relieved that my ob/gyn also thought this was fine. I was so overweight to begin with that she doesn't mind if I keep my weight gain to a minimum, and so far this is not a problem. It would be great to get through this pregnancy and end up lighter than when I started - it would also give me a good start on getting some weight off after the babies come - YMCA here I come!!! Speaking of which, I haven't been as good lately about my work outs, need to get back with the program quick before I get out of the routine completely. However, I may have to rework what I am doing at this point - I'm getting huge! My ob said at my last appointment that my abdomen measures what would be normal at around 7.5 or 8 months for a single pregnancy. Wow! That's laying down, so it doesn't measure fat, either haha.

This last ob/gyn appointment was all about the "reality check". She really wants me to get on the ball about getting into the birthing refresher course, a parenting class for multiples, a hospital tour, all of that. I guess it's probably time for all that, but it's just going by so fast.

Today was the "fetal survey" ultrasound. It's a 90 minute appointment (that ended up being more like 2 hours) so you can imagine my surprise when I went to drop Thomas off at school and discovered there was no school today and so he had to come with me for the whole thing. He did pretty darn well for the active 5 year old that he is having to stay still and occupy himself for the whole thing. He got a little bit more difficult at the end, but overall I was really impressed with how good he was. And the good news was that everything is within normal on both babies. They are about a pound each and almost exactly the size they should be. I am so relieved and happy. Everything is chromosomally healthy and looking good developmentally as well. Yipee!! Now if we can just keep them safe and sound for another 15-16 weeks in utero, and have a safe vaginal delivery, all will be well! Is that too much to ask? I hope not...

Anyhow, better run, I promised to take Thomas to see the Alvin and Chipmunks movie so we better get on the road. I added a few more baby pics. I'll be having another ultrasound in 4 weeks, so more pics then.

Love,
Melissa

Today's testing

2008-01-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it was all good news today...both babies look healthy and normal and are growing well. And...we found out today that baby "A" is a boy, so there is one girl and one boy. This is kind of what we were hoping for (it's so not PC to state a preference these days, but I have to be honest that I was hoping for a boy), so we are happy. Not too many good pics today of the babies, but we're having the "fetal survey" ultrasound done in 3 weeks (at 21 weeks rather than the usual 20 weeks) and so hopefully more photos then. However, we got a couple of photos today and a couple of (what I think at least) are funny photos that were the shots used to confirm the sex of each baby. Here they are:

Happy New Year

2008-01-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe another year has come and gone...2007 really had some great highlights for our family. It would be easy to call it one of my personal greatest years - college graduation after some 18 years of trying, finally conceiving not one, but two siblings for Thomas (after more than a year of trying), and, most recently, becoming a finalist in the application process for my master's degree at UCSF, a shocking and wonderful bit of news that came to me on Christmas Eve. Not sure what I'll do about it yet, but more time to ponder that later. On the family side, Thomas started his Spanish immersion kindergarten and loves it, and we had a "Summer of Fun" that was really one to remember, especially our wonderful trip to Michigan that far exceeded all of our expectations, although we also had so how much fun camping and going to Santa Cruz beach boardwalk...oh yes, and Thomas's pirate party that was such a success.

But losing Blake will keep 2007 from ever being a truly great year - it casts a shadow over everything else. It's a loss that my conscious mind won't allow me to fully absorb, only in small bits and pieces, but at night I often dream of him and they are sad, emotionally draining dreams that remind me of how terrible this loss truly is and how my life is forever changed by losing my cousin and one of the very best friends I've ever had. I miss him so much already.

2008 is off to a good start...today Emmett received a clean bill of health from his doctor, so we can relax about that - good cholesterol, reasonable blood pressure, all systems go. He seemed healthy, but it's always a great relief, especially with two babies on the way, to know that your partner, best friend and lover is strong and healthy. :-)

Happy New Year to all and may 2008 bring peace, love, and happiness

Love,
Melissa

Memories of the past...and the friends who have left us

2008-01-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. 2007 was such a huge year here in the Nolan household, both in great ways and yes, also in some bad ways.

I had a dream a couple of nights ago about Blake - again. Although it has been several months since his death, it is still so hard for me to accept the truth of it and the finality of it. I find myself going over and over our conversations over the last year and wishing I had been able to read him better...things he said that perhaps should have clued me in to how bad he was feeling - but then I just didn't have a frame of reference, no context in which to put his comments. That this could happen never occurred to me as a possibility, so there was never any way for me to make the leap from what he was saying to what was really going on in his mind. I think in some ways he wanted to reach out to me, but I was so far away and so busy with my own life and I don't think that he was willing to really put it out there the way that he was feeling. I tried many times to convince him to come for a visit, but there never seemed to be time or money to make that happen. Nothing can change what happened and I know that I can't take the blame for Blake's decisions, but it continues to be so hard to accept.

...oops out of time, guess I'll have to finish the trip down memory lane another time

And more photos...

2007-12-08T22:21:00.001-08:00

These are all of Baby "B" who was feeling much more photogenic on Thursday:

Twins!

2007-12-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

(note about photos above - the first three are of Baby "A" and the last two are of Baby "B")

Well, it's been a while since I've written...our lives have been pretty caught up with our big news. Yes, the title is correct, Emmett and I are expecting twins. We can still hardly believe it ourselves, although we've had six weeks to get used to the idea. I had been thinking from the beginning that something was very different about this pregnancy than the last one. Everyone kept saying, well, every pregnancy is different, which is true, but this just seemed a LOT different. It wasn't so much the ever-present nausea and incredible fatigue that were so much worse than anything I had with Thomas - I knew that my pregnancy with Thomas was extraordinarily easy from the beginning. It was the fact that at 8 weeks I was noticing discomfort in my abdomen when Thomas would lay on me to have his story read...it sounds crazy, but it just seemed like my uterus was more distended than it should have been at that stage. I was telling Emmett, I think this might be twins...he was laughing at me and saying that I was having wishful thinking. I suppose in some ways it was because the first trimester was so rough that I was definitely thinking this would be my last pregnancy, even though I really wanted to have two more children. Well, I guess I'm getting both of my wishes. :-)

We went to our first appointment with the ob/gyn in late October. My friend Deb had recommended her and she is really wonderful - excellent bedside manner, very competent-seeming, and also seems to have the kind of calm, laid-back temperment that I want from an ob/gyn. We were both very impressed with her. She came in and did the manual exam and then we were waiting for our turn with the ultrasound machine. I asked her if everything felt okay with the exam and she smiled and said, "well, your uterus feels a little big". Emmett and I just looked at each other. Sure enough - she brought in the ultrasound machine and as soon as she fired it up, there was more than one baby in there - and there they were floating in their own sacks with their own placentas. Emmett looked like he'd been hit by a truck. The doctor said she wanted us to go over to the place that specializes in multiples to have a confirmation ultrasound that day...but took a look at Emmett and recommended with a smile that he not be the one to drive over. She and I were laughing at that point - he just looked so thunderstruck.

Which of course he had reason to be - it does change our lives dramatically in large and small ways. On the practical side, it means that we are going to have to figure out a lot when it comes to when I go back to work, how much work, and how Emmett will juggle everything when I am working and still be focused at his job. Child care for 2 kids - totaling something like $2000/month, is just not a possibility at this point. Also it seems that nursing school is going to be on the back burner for the time being since we can't afford the childcare during classes nor could I envision having the concentration required to get through an incredibly intense program while trying to parent two infants. Also, for the time being, until we figure everything out we are going to have to stay in this apartment. I know Emmett especially had been wanting to move, so that was kind of a disappointment. In short, a lot of our plans are kind of going to get shuffled around and I know that took some time for him to get used to. I think it's just really sinking in for me.

All of this is not to detract from the happiness we feel - now that we've had time to get used to everything we are so excited about this. Two more children - I, of course, am an only child and have always wanted kids fairly close together so that I could experience (vicariously at this point) what sibling interaction is like and Emmett kind of feels the same way since his siblings are all considerably older or younger. Twins are the ultimate sibling experience in a sense. We've been looking at double strollers and just imagining what it's going to be like to have a baby in the house again. Emmett was smiling the other day and saying that he's really looking forward to it. I'm excited to see him with them - he was so incredibly good with Thomas as an infant - so ready to be involved at every step. I know it's going to be a lot harder this time - since he'll have to be also focusing on work this time and, needless to say, all the 3am feedings will be x2, but we'll figure it out.

So it's been a busy time - we've had a lot of appointments due to the "multiple gestation" and, when combined with the "advanced maternal age" factor, it makes this a very high risk pregnancy, which doesn't make it very easy for me to relax and get used to being pregnant. The good news is that the specialists we've been seeing are awesome and we have gotten to get a lot of peeks at our babies since there have been many ultrasounds. We did a CVS - chorionic villi sampling - which is where they take a small sample of the placenta to do genetic testing on the baby. It's similar to amniocentesis except that it's done much earlier. They were only able to sample one of the babies, though, because the other was turned in a way that they couldn't get to. The CVS turned out that the first baby is very normal genetically and that she is a girl. I thought I was prepared to have all boys if that was the way it turned out - but when I found out I was having a girl I was really excited, more so than I thought I would be. And it was such a huge relief that she is so far healthy and normal. We will do amnio on January 7th, so then we'll have an idea of how the other one is. I have a feeling that one is a boy, but I could be completely wrong. I also want to be prepared way in advance if there is something wrong, so that we can plan for it.

Thomas is very excited about all of this...he was a little concerned when he found out that there were two...he said, "well, what will I be to them? They're going to have each other..." It broke my heart, but I explained to him that he'll still be their big brother and how important that's going to be for them. Now he's back to be completely excited, although I don't think he's aware of how (at least at first) this is going to affect his place as the king of the house...that poor child is in for a rude awakening. I will do my best to be aware of it and help him through it but I know that there are some rough times ahead for him. Later, though, I have a feeling those two are going to idolize their big brother. It's going to be fun. When it's not completely exhausting, that is haha.

Anyway, I guess that's enough news for now...now that I'm through the first trimester I feel more comfortable sharing this and the latest photos of the babies and hopefully I will write more often to chronicle this incredible blessing in our lives.

Love,
Melissa

A few notes on our Florida trip

2007-10-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

I never got a chance to do the postmortem on our trip to Florida...so here it is.

It was a fantastic trip...it was so nice to get away for a while - and we are always so spoiled when we go to Florida. The flights going there worked out fine - except that I was so cheap that I wouldn't spend an extra $10 to check my bag on Spirit at LAX (they charge separately now) and it ended up being a HUGE hassle to haul the duffle bag with all of our stuff plus my school books in it all over the airport. Sometimes I am too cheap for my own good. Thomas had a backpack with all of our carry-on stuff in it - books, cards, crayons, his games, everything. It is was so heavy, I couldn't believe he could carry it most of the whole 4 hours of our layover - that child is such a trooper sometimes.

I'm back! It's been a while...

2007-10-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Since I've felt like writing. For a while, my mood has not been very good, primarily because of Blake's death, but also because of hormones (Clomid Hell!!!). Between Clomid and Blake, my weight skyrocketed over the last month and that never helps the ole frame of mind...I weigh 15 pounds more than when I was 9 months pregnant with Thomas and 15 pounds more than I've ever weighed in my life!

But I'm trying to get back on the upswing. I am feeling more at peace about Blake, or at least accepting it. I have gotten a little better perspective on not getting pregnant and am ready to focus on the next step - which is doing whatever it takes to lose some weight. I signed up for a fitness class at school. You have to spend 3 hours/week at the fitness center, which isn't too bad at all, except that I didn't sign up until 3 weeks into the semester and then I took a week vacation when Thomas and I went to Florida. So that left me with a 15.5 hour deficit by the beginning of this week. So I've been spending a couple of hours a day exercising after my classes. I had to drop my Microbiology class - I just missed too many classes with the vacation and a bunch of appointments I had last month, but I'm glad because it's freed up quite a bit of time now. Time that can be spent at the gym working out and trying to get my body back in shape for a pregnancy. I think that the biggest obstacle at this point to my getting pregnant is probably all the extra weight I am carrying. I was pretty chunky when I got pregnant with Thomas, but still at least 40-50 pounds smaller than I am now. Anyway, I think the exercising will help. I am also doing my Mom's thing of logging my calories every day. It's a struggle, but I've got to do this. I got really discouraged by after a discussion with Emmett's Mom about how her coworker could theoretically do 1 hour of stair-climbing and only burn 130 calories (?!?!) and felt very hopeless about the whole thing. But after a calming period, I realized that with that particular number I think someone mixed up their math a little bit. I looked at all kinds of academic web sites and all over the internet and couldn't find a single source to document that that much exercise would burn so few calories. Even if it were true, I need to realize that Emmett's Mom and I, while we share a common struggle with weighing what we want to weigh, we are coming from a VERY different place. She is used to weighing 95 pounds and I come from a family of midwestern farm girls who feel absolutely sexy and wonderful at 150. 150 is not necessarily considered a "healthy" weight for me at 5'4", but I'll take it. It's only slightly overweight and I am fortunate to have been blessed with a body type that aesthetically speaking looks pretty good at 150 (all butt and boobs) (I have always wondered, in hanging out with Emmett's Mom and his tiny sisters, and he is so slender himself, where he got his attraction to huskier girls - I guess it's not always true that guys like women who are of the same body type as their mother and/or sisters, but I still find a bit bizarre that most of Emmett's girlfriends have been, let's say, on the robust side. His favorite celebrity crush in Beyonce - in her bigger days. But alas, I digress...) If your goal weight is 150, your perspective on diet and exercise changes a lot. First, you can eat more calories per day than if you weigh 100 lbs, and also, I would imagine, burn more calories when you are working out. I know that I'm going to have to work out a lot more than I did when I was younger to have that body, and I'm going to have to eat less (and stop the stress eating!!!), but I still feel like I can get there. I am logging my diet and exercise on http://www.sparkpeople.com and it is pretty consistent with what the machines and fitness trainer tell me. The calories, while they add up quicker than I'd like, seem to coincide with what I think they are, too. So I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to make some progress.

I finished one of my applications for graduate school. Now I'll just have to wait and see if I get laughed at or if I will at least get an interview. Please say a little prayer for me - it would be so fantastic to get into my first choice school. If not, then we will be on to plan B.

Thomas is doing well in kindergarten. I am finally getting to be okay with it - for the first month I got choked up when he went into his classroom, looking all grown up in his school uniform with his backpack on. The only problem that we are having is that since I don't speak Spanish it is very hard for me (already!) to help him with his homework. I am going to have to get the Spanish dictionary out and keep it handy so that I can be more helpful. The first round of homework I couldn't even read the instructions, so I had no idea what to tell him to do. I used some online translater that I found and got through it, but it is definitely a challenge and will only get to be more so as time goes on. Overall, though, he seems to really like school and that's the most important thing to me - that he develop a passion for learning.

Emmett has been such a trooper with my recent mood swings - I have been short-tempered and depressed a lot and he's been so kind and supportive through it. I feel so fortunate to have such a kind-hearted husband. :-)

I'll write a couple of Thomas stories later, but for now, I better get back to work.

Love,
Melissa

Songs that make me think of Blake

2007-09-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

Blue Denim
- written by s. nicks, m. campbell

I saw him the other day
I saw him again...yesterday
I wonder if I'll ever see him again
He reminded me of Blue Denim

CHORUS:
Blue-gray eyes...they change with the color...
Change with the sun...they run with the sight
They change with the wind...but they're always bright
Bright eyes...Blue Denim
Bright eyes...Blue Denim

I knew him another way
I knew him another day
In some ways he'd forgotten me
In many ways he got to me
I turned away so he couldn't see
I turned away...it could never be
I never thought he could walk away
But I lost him again...yesterday

REPEAT CHORUS

Understanding me...understanding you
Is not an easy thing to do
Understanding me...and understanding you
Is not an easy thing to do

And I will never forget...
The last time I saw you
Like a photograph...so rare
Like a painting
No I will never forget...
The last time I saw you
Never to be...not you...not me
No...no...

REPEAT CHORUS

So I'm going away for a little while
To remember how to feel
And if I find the answer...
I promise you...I'll come back and get you
I'll come back and get you
I'll come back and get you

I remember listening to this song a lot before I left for California at the end of the Lake House days because it made me think of Blake...I played it for Finn and we had a long talk about Blake...at some point I guess I had hoped he would join me in California - he would have enjoyed it so much.

The other song that I have been listening to is a rock song, more angry and powerful, makes me think of Blake but also of my own struggles with depression...it's called "Live is Beautiful" by SixxAm - my parents will laugh because I was so crazy in love with Nikki Sixx as a teenager and he's baaaaaccckkk hehe....anyway, it's a great song, it reminds me of that moment right after the darkest hour of a depression when you finally come out of it...reprinting the lyrics doesn't do that song justice...but it's posted on Nikki Sixx's myspace page...http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=176408813

I have another whole blog to write - this is really just a side note because someday I can look back and remember what I was listening to and thinking about during this time...

Off to get T...

Love,
Melissa

Made through a week without E

2007-09-10T20:47:00.001-07:00

Well, Thomas and I made it through our week without Emmett. It was hard, but I think I handled it pretty well. The house didn't fall apart - in fact, was neater and cleaner than when he left and we ate well. I actually grocery shopped and cooked four different meals. Thomas and I only ended up eating out that first night, which I was pretty proud of cause I generally am not crazy about cooking for just the two of us.

On Wednesday I made us homemade stovetop macaroni and cheese...

oops out of time...sorry

Tired of being busy

2007-09-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

I think I got spoiled this summer by not going to school, because I'm having a bit of a tough time buckling down again. I'm tired of being busy all the time, I want more time to relax. Life is so short and the time just flies by...it scares me sometimes. Maybe in part because of Blake's death and maybe also influenced by this movie I saw last night, Premonition. It was such a sad and kind of depressing movie that reminds you how short life really is.

I haven't felt much like writing the last couple of weeks...I am still working through my grief about Blake and only now starting to make peace with it and try to move forward. I don't want to write blog after blog about how hard this has been and how painful, but I've never lost someone that I was so close to and then dealing with the inevitable feelings that it didn't have to happen, what a waste, etc. etc., what could I have said or done differently that might have made some kind of difference, I don't know...sometimes I need to talk about it and sometimes I don't want to at all...as I said, I don't want to write blog after blog about how much this hurts, but I don't want to write blog after blog that doesn't mention it, when it is so present in my life right now. I need to call Blake's ex-wife and check on her...she has an even bigger burden than I do and I hope she is getting through this intact. I get through every day as normally as possible, but it's this ever-present thorn in my side that stings from time to time during the day...it's always there right now.

We went to the state fair on Monday, which was fun...but not as fun as it could have been. It started with Emmett and I getting into a ridiculous fight about nothing because we both skipped breakfast trying to get on the road. It's rare these days for us to fight much, but we really let something small escalate this time...we made up by the time we crossed the Richmond bridge (Bay Bridge was closed this weekend, so we had to go up the GG bridge and over the Richmond Bridge to get on 80 to Sac), but combined with it taking us almost 3 1/2 hours to get on the road, it sort of left us both feeling tired. And me with my Clomid emotions definitely doesn't help.

Rides were egregiously expensive and we paid $7 for a corn dog (okay, okay it was a jumbo, but still...). It was nice walking around and riding a few rides - Emmett and Desmond rode this ride that looked absolutely awesome, like a free fall thingy...but it cost $7.50/person to ride it, so I opted not to do it this time. We spent $12 for the three of us to go on a log ride thing...did I mention that it was crazy expensive? - but the log ride was worth every cent, it was 98 degrees in Sacramento. At least we managed to get a coupon from some kind soul for buy one admission, get one admission free...so it only cost $16 to get in for the three of us. Of course, Emmett promised Thomas they could go to the Raging Waters section, so that was an additional $20. I was also bummed because we missed the last cow milking...the children's dairy had a show where the kids could go and milk the cow - I thought Thomas would get a real kick out of it, but they didn't have all the shows because it was the last day of the fair.
Wow, I'm making this sound like a real bummer, but it wasn't all bad. It was a lot of fun to be in the warm summer weather, it was cool to people watch. Des and I walked around and looked at the cool, crazy huge longhorns and I had a really fun interaction with this llama who was so enjoying my scratching it's neck. Of course, Thomas so enjoys the rides so we went on several rides. But I have to admit the highlight might have been the deep-fried Oreos. At the end of the day, Des and I bought the deep-fried Oreos and the deep-fried Twinkie and split each of them. The Twinkie was kind of yucky and I don't need to eat that again...but the Oreos...I don't like the cookies all that much, but when they are battered and fried, they are quite yummy, I must confess. Ugh. Emmett had chicken strips (mediocre) and fried avocado with pesto which was not bad...but I'll take the deep fried Oreos any day. I didn't try the deep fried Coke - I think I'll save that for next year haha.

Emmett left yesterday on a business trip so Thomas and I are on our own this week. It's tough without him here, Thomas was almost late to school this morning because I am so bad at the morning routine. I almost forgot to make his lunch and we got out the apartment door before he reminded me that he didn't have any shoes on. I am SO not cut out for this. One thing about parenting - it has definitely forced me to develop skills that I didn't previously have. I am trying so hard to get him to school on time every day. It didn't help that he decided he had to go poop right before we walked out the door so I'm starting to panic that we are going to be late and then I'm getting crabby and starting to yell and he's trying to calm me down (isn't it supposed to be the other way around?) and by the time we get in the car and get the seat belts on it's 8:11 and the bell rings at 8:25 - it's at least a 15 minute drive, not counting parking and walking. We were still in the car when I heard the bell ring, so I had to drop Thomas off at the curb...but was able to park just outside the drop off zone and run to make sure he was in his class okay (and on time!) before I left.

I did manage yesterday to drop off the car (the overheating problem we've been having for the last 9 months finally got unmanageable) and Thomas and I got on the bus and got to the car rental agency and picked up a Toyota Corolla for me to drive this week while they are fixing the 4Runner. I don't like the Corolla at all, very uncomfortable car - Yuck! - can't wait to get my truck back. I ended up taking Thomas to Fresh Choice for dinner last night, but I'll be cooking the rest of this week. We are so broke it's pathetic. Got to get on top of this and start getting ahead. The repair shop called and the repair is going to be $560 for a new radiator. They wanted to do the water pump (it's got a slow leak) as well and the timing belt, but I had to stop because we simply don't have $1400 laying around right now. At least this will solve the immediate problem and hopefully we can set aside some money in October to do the rest of the work. I really can't complain, this is the first big repair since I bought the car 2 1/2 years ago and it does have 165,000 miles on it.

One last thing and then I better run and do my grocery shopping. Emmett was leaving yesterday and was so unhappy to be leaving and told me he had anxiety about leaving his family - he admitted that he doesn't like to go anywhere that requires a plane ride away from us. For some reason driving somewhere doesn't bother him but flying away from us seems too far. It made me feel so warm inside on one hand and then the other part of me has to chuckle that this is coming from the guy who once complained so much about anyone behaving in a way that seemed "needy" and he's having trouble leaving on a 4 day trip. I guess we have a pretty powerful effect on each other - along with Thomas, of course, who has such a powerful effect on both us. I love Emmett so much. I miss him so much already...but then I was always more prone to "neediness" - hahaha.

Alright, off to the grocery store. I have my list of ingredients and need to get this done so I can be in class by 2.

Love,
Melissa

Thomas's First Day of School

2007-08-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

Emmett talking to Thomas while waiting for the kids to file into the classroom

Thomas and his friend Jackson

Thomas on his first day of school - August 27, 2007

I made it through today sending my little boy off to elementary school! Whew, it was toughhhhhh!! I cried a couple of times, but all in all I did okay.

I have to admit I was a little sluggish, though, still grieving for Blake, had dreams about him yesterday and last night...grief is such a difficult, long process, especially when it's someone you are close to and love so dearly. Still so hard to believe he is gone. I wanted to be able to write about Thomas's first day of school without mentioning it, but it's having a pretty big effect on my state of mind right now...

So far, I am happy with the principal and the teacher, they both seem like strong, high energy women and I think Thomas will do well. I was SO thankful that his friend from preschool, Jackson, is in his class. I hope that will make the transition a bit smoother for him. He seemed pretty nervous when we were walking up and Emmett and I had to virtually push him through the gate at the schoolyard. There were so many kids, parents, and staff there...the cacophony was very intimidating, even for me, so I'm sure Thomas was a bit taken aback. Not like the quiet and smooth transition of taking him to preschool in the morning. We waited outside with him until all the kids went into the classroom and then there was a meeting in the cafeteria for the parents, which was light on content, but took a VERY long time, mostly because every statement has to be translated into Spanish and Cantonese. Emmett was commenting that he will not be attending very many school meetings if this is the case because he lacks the patience for it. Can't say that I blame him entirely, it does get maddening after a while, but we'll see how it goes. It is necessary to translate - many of the parents are newer immigrants whose English is limited. I was wondering if it doesn't make more sense, though, to have separate meetings in three languages to expedite things. Just a thought.

Thomas is going to be in Florida on picture day. :-( Oh well. I'm bummed, but hopefully they will have "make up day" like we did when I was in school.

Can't wait to pick him up at 2 and see how his day went. I hope he's doing well. I love that little boy so very very much.

More phone pictures from the zoo

2007-08-26T04:14:00.000-07:00

I just figured out how to actually upload the pictures from my phone. They are not the greatest (my new blackberry pearl will make better photos), but here they are:

Thomas and I

2007-08-26T03:24:00.000-07:00

Thomas and I have been having some adventures. Unfortunately, I broke my camera and so am limited in the number of photos I have been able to take. The camera will be fixed in a couple of weeks, but it sure slows us down. We went to Merlin, Oregon for a couple of days a week ago and I didn't take a single photo because I forgot to bring the old camera with me. We had a good time, though. We rented a little yurt (so no putting up a tent when we arrived at 1:30am - yay!) and stayed there for a couple of nights. The first day we hung out - the campground was on the Rogue River - so beautiful - and swam in the river, ate our meals at this cute little restaurant in town, and played at a playground. Mellow and fun and such beautiful sights and smells...we will definitely be going back there very soon. The second day we checked out of our yurt and headed to Grant's Pass where we signed up for a jetboat tour - wow, that was totally fun! We had such a good time with it. Thomas was pretty unhappy at first about all the getting wet, but it was such a hot and sunny day that it really felt good and eventually he was okay with it.

After the jetboat ride, we went to the Oregon Vortex, or mystery spot, or whatever it's called. It was pretty interesting but a lot of talking. I was surprised that Thomas sat through it as well as he did...even I thought it was a bit long. Could have seen all there was to see in about half the time, honestly.

After that, we went to this family fun center where Thomas got to ride the bumper boats and the kiddie go carts. After that he went into the arcade and I let him play some games for a while.

It was a fun day and a full day. After the family fun center we were supposed to drive to Redding and stay in a hotel for the night, but it was so late that I decided to bomb home instead so we could sleep in our own beds.

The next day was Thomas's cousins Leo and Leilani's birthday party. He seemed to have a good time and got to see his cousins and second cousins and played a lot. When we got home from the party, his nana was waiting for him at our house and he went to Monterey for the county fair. Thomas has definitely had an extremely busy and fun-filled summer, that's for sure.

On Tuesday we went to the zoo. When we were there, he asked me to take a picture of him. I explained about the broken camera and he looked at me and said, "but you have your phone". UGH!! I didn't take a single pic in Oregon because of no camera and after we are home my five year old reminds me that I had a camera on my phone the whole time! Ugh, ugh and double ugh.

The pic up top is from the zoo...

On Friday, we were supposed to go to Fairyland with T's cousins, but my sis in law was having foot problems so T and I went to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo by ourselves. Enjoyed the dolphin and sea lion show, even it if it isn't very P.C. Also got to ride some good rides, I finally got Thomas to enjoy the log ride - yay!

And now Thomas and Emmett are on a father and son camping trip at Union Lake - I think that's what it's called - and then kindergarten starts on Monday. No rest for the wicked or the weary. Hahaha

Love,

Melissa

My Beloved Blake aka "Bro"

2007-08-18T18:55:00.001-07:00

It breaks my heart to even write these words, but last Sunday, August 12th, my beloved "Bro" died. Even as I start to accept this unbelievable loss, part of it doesn't seem real. It's so hard to explain how I felt about him...it was not so much like the brother I never had, but like a cousin and best friend rolled into one. I just cannot explain...Blake and I were like two peas in a pod, the two of us together were something entirely different than each of us separate...we could instigate each other into the craziest things and we would just bounce off the walls when we were together...even as kids (just ask my Grandma, we used to drive her NUTS!). As adults, we just went crazy in different ways, but he could make me feel so free when I was with him...and he could make me laugh like no one ever has or probably ever will again. When I moved to California and I was feeling down, I would call him and he would make me laugh so hard that somehow by the time I hung up, it wasn't so bad anymore. He was always there for me when I needed him. I just loved him so much. This post just doesn't do justice to the way I felt about him...I think that any eulogy barely does...they all end up sounding so trite and the same as every other one...but it's hard to put all the memories and emotions of a lifetime of love and friendship into a paragraph or a page...a full length book would maybe begin to give the picture of the integral part of me that is Blake. I will forever treasure our years of living together at the lake house and getting to know Finn as well, since Blake and John Finn were inseparable...we were like a terrible trio at times and I loved them both...so unbelievable that they are both gone now. Driving all night and talking, waverunning, partying, paintball guns, rollerblading, shopping, eating, dancing, teasing, swimming, and, above all else, laughing. Memory after memory of all the conversations we had, all the things we did...a lifetime of memories swimming around in my head. After I moved to California and became a Mom, our times together were milder and fewer...but there was just this unspoken love and acceptance and understanding that never went away. There are probably only 2 or 3 people in the world that understand me the way that Blake did and I can only hope that time will ease the bitter ache that I feel without him here anymore. Hey Bro...I love you and I miss you so much.

Thomas and his girls

2007-08-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot to write about this when it happened back in May...

Thomas was having two girls at his preschool fighting over his attention...his dear friend Xochitl and another girl, Alyssa. They would fight over sitting with him at circle time and Xochitl got upset because Alyssa was touching Thomas at circle time and she didn't like that. Alyssa got in trouble with Teacher Edith because she was kissing Thomas while he was sleeping at nap time. So...there was quite a little drama going on with this rivalry over Thomas.

After Teacher Edith had told me about this, I was driving with Thomas and I asked him which one he liked better. Thomas said, "Xochitl".
"Why?" I asked.
"Alyssa always wants to be with me. Xochitl knows how to control herself."

Ah, he's such a little man. :-)

Not for Grandma :-)

2007-07-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

I want to preface this post by saying that I am truly happy overall with my life. I have a great marriage, a fantastic little boy, we are surviving financially, taking vacations, and I'm getting my education. And that is what I chose to focus on most of the time. There is so much that is good in my life that I prefer to focus on that rather than the not so good stuff.

In addition to generally choosing to stay positive, I also find that when I'm writing blog entries, I am aware that there are members of my friends and family that read them (especially that my mom prints them all out for my grandma). I'm happy about all of that - it makes me feel good to know that people care enough (or are curious enough) to check in with me (well, us). And I'm so awful about writing in general that it makes me feel good to know that Grandma reads them and enjoys them. But the consequence of that is that I think I often censor myself more than perhaps I should. I have considered from time to time writing another blog that says some of the stuff I don't want my grandma to read, but, truthfully, probably for the reaons outlined in paragraph 1, there really isn't enough of that stuff to create a whole other blog.

So I did some thinking. I reminded myself that the purpose of this blog is to have a sort of chronicle of our lives during this period. Something that maybe someday I can edit and print out and give to Thomas as a memoir of his childhood. With that in mind, I wouldn't want to write things that he wouldn't want to read or things that are, let's just say, too personal. If I even wanted to document things like every fight Emmett and I have or whatever it is, that would be the place to have another journal just for me. Again, not enough content and I don't think I need to document that stuff anyway. What I am taking so long to get around to saying, though, is that I think that presenting the situation as perfect isn't honest. And I DO want this to be honest. So maybe this isn't the post to print off and give to Grandma but it will be an honest account of some of the challenges we have at this point in our lives.

Most people by now know that Emmett and I have been having trouble conceiving another child. It has been very frustrating and upsetting - probably because we just didn't expect this. Obviously, it wasn't hard to conceive Thomas so we didn't anticipate that we would have trouble having another baby. But here we are almost a year from the time we started trying and no baby yet. I haven't said much about this because I don't like to focus on it - it's upsetting. I was so hoping to have another baby in the house by now and we arent' getting anywhere. My quests to get medical help have been frustrating, to say the very least. After like 10 doctors appointments, countless labs and two ultrasounds, I have finally started on Clomid. Today is day 4 of the Clomid and I'm happy to report that I'm not (yet) having any of the awful side effects that some people report (keep your fingers crossed). I'm really hoping this works because it turns out to be pretty much our only option for having another baby of our own. I did a lot of thinking about this over the last year and decided that, since we DO have a beautiful little boy already, and we still have so far to go financially to get where we want to be, it just doesn't make sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have another baby - AND not even be sure that we would actually be successful. It's not fair to Thomas. My regular ob/gyn will prescribe the Clomid but if that doesn't work, he will refer me to a fertility specialist and those office visits cost $600 each before the doctor even touches you. Basically, just to do the testing to START the process costs about $10K-$15K. That doesn't include the shots they might want to give you at $1K each or in vitro, which would be another $10K or so. I'm guessing all of this, and my numbers may be off, but the point is that anything like that is just way out of our means right now. And if we had those kind of means, I would prefer to spend it getting Thomas into an awesome private school or saving for the house with a yard that we would all enjoy so much. The other thing is that if we spent all that money on creating the baby, then the baby is born and now we have two kids and we're REALLY poor. haha - but true. No, I don't think we're going to be going too deep into the fertility treatment route. Adoption is a consideration, but not sure if I want to go that route, either. I never wanted to have an only child, it's not ideal, but it's really not the end of the world, either.

The one side effect of the Clomid that I am experiencing is mood swings. Yesterday I took Thomas to see the cooking rat movie (Ratatouille or something like that) and the theater downtown was the one that had the best show time, so we went down there. Well, I couldn't find the parking garage, I couldn't get where I wanted to be because of all the one way streets and then once I found the garage I couldn't get into the garage because I couldn't find an entrance. And all of this circling is in afternoon rush traffic in downtown. It was horrendous. It took 25 minutes from time we got to the theater to actually get into the parking garage. By then I was completely frazzled and melting down. I then got lost in the parking garage and had trouble navigating how to go UP to the upper levels where there were spots available. Instead I ending up in a DOWN loops which I could not get out of that took me right back to the exit. I just completely lost it at this point. Some guy who was working in the garage came up to the car and said, "Ma'am, are you alright?" At which point I just went off, "NO! I'm not alright! I've been driving around for 25 minutes trying to get into this garage and now I can't get to where I can park, I can't stand it anymore, I need to get the car parked! I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS CAR!" Oh, yes, not one of my finer moments. The man then calmly directed me where to go to park the car and we FINALLY got parked.

Which brings me to a little side note. I'm sure there are parents out there who may read this and think, what kind of mother melts down like that in front of her child? Well, this mother does. I do feel bad about it, but I'm starting to make my peace with the fact that I DO sometimes melt down and it doesn't make me a terrible mother. One of my professors at SFSU says, and I think I've quoted this before, "you don't have to be a great parent. You just have to be an okay parent". I think what this means is that it is very important to make your children feel loved and valued and important. Beyond that the rest is gravy. It doesn't excuse all behavior but I'm not going to beat myself up for yelling or melting down sometimes. For good or for ill, Thomas is used to me and I've noticed that while it may cause him some stress (I'd be fooling myself if I said otherwise), Thomas is a very secure little boy and my melting down doesn't change that. Yesterday he just sat quietly in the backseat through all of this and when we got out of the car (finally), he said, "Mom, are you happy now?" I smiled at him and he smiled back and we were fine.

Anyway, the whole thing yesterday really brought up all the issues I have with living in the city. My unhappiness with living in SF is exacerbated right now by my Clomid mood and by the fact that every day for the last several weeks it is wet and foggy and rainy every single morning when I get up. Today was no exception, except for the fact that it was so cold that Thomas and I were huddling under blankets this morning trying to stay warm. Neither of us wanted to get up. As I type this I finally had to turn the heat on because my fingers were so icy cold that I was having trouble typing. Yuck. Add to that the things that have been stolen from us since we moved here - the break in at our apartment last year and then one night a few months back when Emmett accidentally forgot to lock the car doors one night and someone ripped off all our cd's and also Emmett' s mountain bike. Ugh. When I mentioned this to my mother-in-law, she said (regarding Emmett), "When will he ever learn?" Something about that just struck me. I am so far away from where I should be. I don't want to live in a place where it's like that. I'm not saying I need to live in the sticks where you can leave your front door open every day, but I don't think that you should have to be so diligent. That just seems wrong to me. When we lived in Redwood City one night I accidentally left my purse outside and when I realized in the morning what I had done, I ran outside and there was my purse still sitting right where I left it. I'm not saying that you should be able to do stuff like that every day but every mistake should not be met with such dire consequences. I don't know, maybe I'm just too naive.

There are so many other reasons that I don't like living in the city - but I've been on a rant about this to my Mom and Emmett and all day and now I'm sort of petered out. As Emmett pointed out, there isn't much point when the reality is that I am committed to Thomas's school right now for the year so it's unlikely we're going to move out of the city at least this year. But I hope we get out of the city at some point. The way that people who are crowded together (almost a million in 49 square miles) causes people to develop an indifference to one another that I find appalling.

Okay, enough rant. I'm ready to be happy again. :-)

Love,
Melissa

From today's Dear Abby

2007-07-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

From today's Dear Abby (as printed in SF Chronicle):

Ways to be a more positive person:

"1. Stop and consider what caused your negative self-image. Then begin taking positive steps to improve your body, soul and intellect.

2. If you feel yourself reverting to a poor self image, remind yourself of what you are doing and why.

3. Do something for someone who is less fortunate than you are.

4. Avoid people who make themselves feel better by making others feel less so.

5. Count your blessings every day and make up your mind to be happy."

I think the last one is probably the most important of all.

Love,
Melissa

P.S.

2007-07-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

I skipped over a little anecdote about Thomas at Mike and Aurora's wedding...Thomas was dancing with one of the bridesmaids and having such a good time. Then it was time to leave and go back up to the room. Thomas kept pulling away and trying to get back to her and Emmett asked him where he was going. Thomas said, "I'm going back to ask that woman something."

"What are you going to ask her?"

"I want to ask for her phone number." No joke. My 4 year old son was asking for the digits for the first time. We laughed so hard. He said, "I want to call her so I can dance with her again tomorrow."

Ahhhh...I can see lots of interesting things in the coming years haha.

Also here's a link to trip pics.

My 100th Post

2007-07-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that this is my 100th post...I guess that's some sort of milestone, especially for me since I sometimes tend to get bored with something and stop doing it. While I have stopped blogging for long periods of time, I keep coming back to it, so I guess that's either progress, growing up, or both.

Today is our first official day back from vacation and what a wonderful vacation it was. Our best yet! We crammed an awful lot into a 9 day trip, but we sure had fun. We flew on a red-eye on Friday June 29th and landed in Chicago on the morning of June 30th. We then drove up to Germantown, Wisconsin where we had breakfast with my cousin Andi, her boyfriend Jim, and my Aunt Joan and Uncle Wally. We ate at the Cracker Barrel, which was first for Emmett. Yummy! Then we kept driving until we arrived at Silver City, Michigan where we stayed overnight before backpacking into the Porcupine Mountains and staying in the cutest Yurt. We stayed there overnight and then hiked out and drove to Munising, Michigan where I would have loved to have gone diving and seen the pictured rocks, but alas, it was only an overnight stop at the Terrace Lodge before heading to Mackinac Island overnight. THAT was truly awesome and we all fell in love with the island. I think the last time I was there I was about 7 years old and it is even better than I remembered. After one night on the island we bombed down to Holly, Michigan where we had dinner with my Grandma and then visited my friend, Sheri. We spent the night at Grandma's and then headed up to Lexington, Michigan for a couple of days, stopping on the way to eat brunch at the St. Clair Inn, which had wonderful atmosphere and okay food - which is to say the food was good, but just didn't quite live up to the elegant surroundings. After two days of enjoying Lexington, especially the beach and the lake (Michigan's version of paradise!), we headed to Grand Rapids for Michael and Aurora's wedding on 7/7/07 - and I was reminded that as cool as that date is, I'm so happy that Emmett and I pressed on and got married last summer. Marriage has been too wonderful to have waited! :-) The wedding was very pretty, in a garden next to a waterfall, and then the reception at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel - it was all very nice and Thomas had a lot of fun dancing with a bridesmaid. It was nice seeing my Mom and Jerry and Aunt Brenda and Grandma Juanita again, too. We all had a late brunch together and then they headed to Detroit to visit family and we pressed on for Chicago, stopping to enjoy a little fruit stand along the way and get one last glimpse of Lake Michigan. We stayed overnight in Chicago and then flew out yesterday morning. The airport was a ZOO!

It was all fantastic....I missed getting to see my family on my Mom's side, and that was a bummer, but we had such limited time and so much planned. Hopefully I can come back again soon.

Above is a family photo from Grandma's 93rd Birthday.

Ahhh, now back home and back to work.

Love,
Melissa

Lake Tamarack

2007-06-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've actually added a photo album, but here it is...our trip from last weekend to Lake Tamarack for Father's Day.

I hestitated to publish this because I look so incredibly FAT in all these photos - UGH!!! I know I'm fat at all, but these photos really make it seem even WORSE than it is (I hope!)...yikes!!!!

Oh well...anyway, here are the photos, for your viewing pleaure...

Click here

Love,
Melissa

Thomas likes to sing Jolene

2007-06-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here it is:

Emmett and Thomas make college plans :-)

2007-05-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

I have to write down what happened tonight...too funny!!

Emmett and Thomas and I were all sitting on the couch, I had just finished reading Thomas's bedtime story and Emmett starting talking to Thomas about his future and what college he should go to...

Emmett: "Which college do you want to go to - Harvard, Princeton or Yale?"
Thomas: "I want to go to kindergarten."

Emmett: "You should really go to Harvard. You can do whatever you want after that, but then you'll have a good start...the world will be your oyster."
Thomas: "Guess what? Anthony S. eats worms for real."

I love my boys. :-)

The regular semester ended today. Finals next week and then I'll be a college graduate!!!!

Love,
Melissa

City Boy at Home

2007-04-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

There is much to tell and relate - the last week of Spring Break included Easter and also a great trip to visit my Mom and Jerry in Coral Springs - we had so much fun and Tommy started swimming - really swimming, with not life jacket or anything - in the pool for the first time! It was very, very exciting. We also celebrated Mom and Jerry's 27th wedding anniversary - it doesn't seem possible, but then again, in some ways it does. :-)

I'm rushed as usual - it's late and I have to be up early tomorrow to work on a project for school - 6 more weeks until the semester is over - it's so exciting, I can hardly believe it.

One quick note with a humerous Thomas anecdote - my Mom was telling him that she had been married to Jerry for 27 years and Thomas's response - "Why?"

We got a laugh out of that one.

I thought I'd also share a pic - this is Thomas sitting in a chair at home on Easter...I like it because you can see the city in the background and, I don't know, it's just kind of a cool pic...I've got literally hundreds of pics to post, but this one is just kind of fun and cute...

Ice Skating with Thomas

2007-04-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

I took Thomas ice skating for the first time last Saturday. It was wonderful - lots of fun! He seemed to like it pretty well - ice skating is always so hard at the beginning when you're slipping and sliding all over the place. I was impressed with how well he did, actually. I, on the other hand, was feeling the effects of all the weight I've gained, combined with a nasty fall that left me with a headache and dizziness for several days. Ugh. I'm not sixteen anymore, yikes! We'll have to wear helmets next time!!!!

Here are some photos:

Thomas having fun at the ice rink - and doing pretty well!

Thomas taking a picture of Mom on the ice

Thomas, looking not sure about this after putting his skates on for the first time.

Well, it's off to class for me...midterm exams - yuck!!!

Love,
Melissa

Thomas is always good for a laugh :-)

2006-12-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

Thomas got a TON of books for Christmas (yeah!) and so we spent part of Christmas Day reading his new books. At bedtime I negotiated with him that we would read one more book and then he would get ready for bed (teeth brushed, pajamas on) and then there would be a last book right before bed. Well, before we had even started the first book, the phone rang and it was Andi, calling from Uncle Wally and Aunt Joan's house, where a lot of the family was hanging out. I was talking to her for a while when Emmett decided he should go on and get Thomas ready for bed. Thomas wasn't happy about this since he hadn't gotten book #1, and so he told Emmett in a very loud voice,
"NO! That is NOT what we agreed on!"
Of course, Andi could hear what Thomas had said, and she just cracked up completely. The story traveled to the group assembled there and provided them with some good Christmas laughter.

That's our Thomas!

Thomas's first recital

2006-12-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

Our Thomas...never fails to bring such a smile to my face.
Last Friday was his first recital at school, a chance for the ballet teacher to show off what she's been teaching them this year. It was, I have to say, just about the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I, of course, sentimental as I am, was crying before we sat down to watch. All the kids wore red shirts and Santa hats. I'll have to post pictures when I can (I'm actually planning during my break between semesters to post a huge backlog of photos to the web site and also work on redesigning the family web site), because words alone just don't convey how cute they all were.

There was one part where all the kids sat down and one child gets up and gets to do a solo and when they are finished they tap a child of their choice to go next (like duck-duck-goose, sort of) until each child has a chance to do a solo in front of the group. When it was Thomas's turn, he got up and at first it seemed like he was just going to do what the other kids did, but then he started really getting into it and his Santa hat dropped over his eyes and he was just dancing around like crazy with the hat covering his eyes...ohhh, you probably had to be there, but it was priceless. A lot of the parents came up and were telling us how Thomas stole the show. I don't know about all that, but leave it to our Thomas to make a spectacle out of himself. He must get that from his mother hahahahha.

The downer of the thing, though, was that before the recital we discovered that in addition to Thomas's DVD collection, the cash box from the club that Emmett is the treasurer of and Emmett's ipod, our burglar also got my new digital camera. I was very upset. But not nearly as upset as we both were when we realized the the burglar got Emmett's Dad's new camcorder with the only copy of our wedding video inside of it. That pretty much screwed up the rest of our night. We both felt like we'd been sucker punched. I think the whole thing was worse because of the fact that we keep realizing things are missing gradually so it's like a fresh round of loss every week.

But I'm pretty much over it now. It's just *things* and things at the end of the day don't mean all that much. We have each other and our health and that's all the really matters. I am slightly bummed about the wedding video, but I have my memories and a lot of people don't have a wedding video, so what's the big deal. Mostly it's just another addition to our debt load, and this year was pretty brutal in that regard, so what's one more debt at this point? Losing the camera sucks, but may give me an excuse to buy a digital SLR camera since they are coming down in price and I really want to start doing higher level photography.

Speaking of higher level photography, I am considering doing a photo book on San Francisco. So much has been done on the city that the biggest challenge will be coming up with something unique. I want the book to reflect my ambivalence about the city but to do it in a fresh way. I am hoping to incorporate the things I have learned in my classes on CA history, CA geography and CA food wine and culture. In order to do this well I am going to need a good camera that handles light well and for which I can get good lenses - I want to bring my photography up to the next level.

Okay, time to run - post office, Christmas shopping, cooking, and studying for my last two final exams.

Love,
Melissa

Thomas anecdote

2006-12-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

Another one I don't want to forget....

His teachers say that he is one of the most entertaining kids in the class, no surprise there. :-)

We've been teaching him to brush his teeth by himself. This is not fun. Sometimes Emmett and I are a little overzealous about things that don't really matter in the long run and also we don't always have realistic expectations about what is age-appropriate. I guess that's what you get when you pair an only child with the youngest and only boy child - two people who are pretty clueless about kids. In any case we are aware of the problem and working on it.

So - I was sitting in the bathroom the other night with Thomas trying to get him to brush his teeth properly and he was messing around (as usual). When he said he was done, I said, "why don't you brush a little more on the front teeth? You want them to be clean, don't you? The girls will like you more if your teeth are nice and white and clean." (BTW - I do realize this is somewhat flawed strategy with a 4 year old, but it was pretty much half joke and half incentive).

So he brushed them a little bit more and then he rinsed his mouth out and set his toothbrush on the sink. He turned to me, made a little pose, grinned big with all his teeth showing and said, "How do I look, baaaaaby?"

I almost fell over laughing.

NEW JOB FOR EMMETT!!!

2006-12-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to my wonderful husband on his new job!

We are so excited. It has been a VERY challenging 8+ months that he was either not working or working sparsely and if it hadn't been for UCSF, student loans and some small contracting gigs that seemed to materialize out of thin air when we were down to our last dollars, I just don't want to think about it - suffice to say, God is good. And we are stronger as a couple and as a family for managing these challenges and finding our way through them.

I know it was a bit disappointing for Emmett to have to turn away from the idea of self-employment, but I think that for now it was the right decision. Part of growing up I guess is realizing what is best for you in reality, which may be very different than what you think will be best for you in your daydreams. However - I still hope to be able to support him to get to law school at some point. I do think he would be happy with that and would do very well. However, I also think he would do very well if he could advance to sales management. I could see him being a wonderful sales manager mentoring other people in their sales career - he has a great deal of empathy and is outstanding at walking that line between the best interest of the company and the best interest of the employees.

Okay - but I've talked so much about what we're NOT doing, but so far not much on what we are. Emmett is going to work as an account executive at a company called parature (http://www.parature.com). I know it's a CRM software/service, but not a whole lot more at this point. I also know that the salary is more than the last job and that it pays commission which should in theory double the salary - what a coup that would be for us!!! It seems like the product will be saleable and that the commission structure makes this very manageable, so we are keeping are fingers crossed but are incredibly optimistic about 2007. Please send good wished and good luck our way as he embarks on this new career. It's a start up so there are some stock options (you never know!) - not enough to get rich, but maybe someday a nice nest egg. More relevantly to me is the idea that working for a start up may allow him to achieve and move up faster than he would in a larger, more bureaucratic environment.

So - congratulations to Emmett - I love you, baby.

He starts on December 28 - the greatest Christmas present our family could have gotten.

Love to all of you,
Melissa

Pre-Holidays

2006-12-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

It's been such a long time between posts, it's a constant battle of wanting to be more regular and just not having the time, especially when there are so many things that I still want and need to do. A lot of my spare time lately has been feeding my sudoku addiction - I'm way too into it, it's a total addiction. I have literally stayed up all night working a puzzle. I keep thinking that I'm going to really master it, but I think I'm deluding myself.

Final exams are coming up next week and then one more semester to B.A.!!!!!!!!!

I'm also looking into my prerequisites for my Master's in psych nursing - no rest for the wicked or the weary!!!!

We did it!

2006-09-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well - we did it. Emmett and I are husband and wife. I don't think it's still sunk in completely. What a couple of years it has been - so many ups and downs it's hard to believe that it's brought us here.

I guess that's the thing about hard times - the suffering makes you really appreciate the happy times.

Life is good -- wonderfully good and endlessly interesting.

The wedding was an incredible success. It exceeded all expectations by so much, I still can't believe it. I have led a charmed life and always had a great family and felt loved, but never like I did at this wedding. I can honestly say that I have never felt so surrounded by love. I guess that's part of having it in Lake Tahoe - there wasn't anyone there that didn't *really* want to be there - it's too much trouble to plan (everything books up so fast in the summer) and too expensive for people to come on a whim. Even so, we ended up with about 90 people there and that really surprised us - we didn't expect that so many people would be there. A wonderful surprise. So many members of Emmett's family made the trip, his grandmother, all of his sisters and their children (including his sister and her family from Vancouver, another one from Northern California) and friends from as far away as Idaho and Texas. On my side, it was so touching how many people went to so much trouble to be there - 6 out 7 cousins on my Dad's side flew in for the wedding, 2 aunts, my parents (of course), and my 92-year-old Grandmother managed to get on a plane and come (with a little help from my cousin Blake)! And then there was my surrogate family who not only showed up but all participated in some way - Eric was the music coordinator/DJ, Heidi and Sara were wedding coordinators (and boy did we need them!), Deb was a bridesmaid, Christian and Henry paddled me in (yes, it's as crazy as it sounds, but more on that later) and Henry also read the Irish Wedding Blessing during the ceremony.

Everything was truly magical. Things that could have gone wrong didn't (for a change haha) and in fact often were replaced with things that turned out BETTER. All the people that we met in Lake Tahoe were so incredibly nice that I felt like I was back in the midwest. The house that we rented was INCREDIBLE and everyone just really seemed to enjoy each other - people who hadn't ever met or people who hadn't seen each other in years all got along so well - it really felt special and charmed - to a degree that was almost eerie.

Three Little Monkeys

2006-04-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

I never want to forget this. I keep reminding myself to videotape Thomas doing the motions for it, but you know how it is....very hard to actually do all the things I tell myself I'm going to do.

Anyway, I think for the rest of my life if I see the lyrics I will picture how cute he is when he acts out this song, which I'm sure he learned in preschool.

"Three little monkeys swinging in the tree,
Teasing Mr. Alligator,
'Can't catch me-e',
Along came Mr. Alligator,
Quiet as can be
And - -
SNAP
Ohhhhhh Nooooooooooooooo!!

Two little monkeys swinging in the tree...."

Sort of morbid, but so hilarious when it's all acted out.

Ah well, back to work

Love,
Melissa

wedding site

2006-04-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note right now...I realized that when Emmett and I get married and (hopefully) have another baby...our lives will be changing so much...
I guess the bottom line is that I decided we need a family web site in addition to the one just for Thomas... hope that I'll be able to puchase domains and put up a site for all of our children - but I'll probably have to find a way to link certain characteristics of each of them...hmmmm, more to think about.

The point is that for now I've added a family web site to our tree. For the moment it has all the information about the wedding, but later on I'll use it as a central site for our family activities and adventures and link it back here.

Here it is: http://www.nolanadventures.com

Love,
Melissa

Grand View Park

2006-01-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

Best of the Bay
Best View
"The aptly named Grand View Park is a tiny but precipitous hill accessible by stairs from either 14th or 15th Avenue (near Aloha and Noriega). Depending on where you stand (and on weather conditions), you can take in a sweeping view of the coast; the Golden Gate, Mount Tam, and sometimes as far north as the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; the downtown skyline backdropped by the Berkeley hills; and the west side of Twin Peaks. Additional perks include a variety of native plants, including two rare species, and a pair of redtail hawks that can frequently be seen hovering overhead. Just be warned: on foggy days you can barely see your nose."

S-A-F-E-W-A-Y spells....

2005-11-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a tough few days. Poor Thomas has been sick and I realize how lucky we are that he has generally been so healthy over the last year. All of us have, actually. When I started at UCSF 2 years ago and Thomas started daycare, it seemed like we were sick ALL the time. But (knock on wood!) the worst of that seems to have passed. At least until last Thursday.

Last Thursday Thomas started showing signs of decreased appetite. It was mildly concerning, because he wouldn't eat his salad at dinner and he usually loves salad (if you can even imagine a three year old that loves salad?!?). I didn't think that much of it, but then Friday around noon Olga called me at home and said he was vomiting at daycare. So I went and picked him up and he seemed okay, maybe a tad sick, but didn't feel too hot and it didn't slow him down much either. haha

Saturday morning he and his Dad got up early and had breakfast. By the time I got up he had vomited up his breakfast and was laying lethargically on the couch. Poor kid. I had to work at 10am, so I headed off and Emmett decided to keep him home from tumbling class and swim class. We were hoping that by keeping him home and getting him some rest that we would still be able to go on our double date with Rob and Amy, Thomas's friend Dylan's parents. By midday it seemed that going out wasn't going to be a good idea, so we ended up cancelling. We were both pretty bummed about that because it's so rare for us to even be off for an evening together.

Let the Hunt begin!

2005-11-11T04:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it's officially started...the holiday shopping season.
Of course, I'm not nearly on top of it enough to actually be starting my own shopping, but I'm shopping for things to sell on EBay during the holiday season to try to make some moolah before the holidays.

It frustrates me to no end that I own a retail business and yet I'm completely shut down during the biggest shopping season of the year. But the reality is that people do NOT buy children's clothing during the holiday season. Already my auctions are tanking like crazy. My stork auction Moms group are all getting fired up about selling toys. I was thinking of doing something else - maybe women's clothing - but they really got me inspired about the toys. I've ended up doing a fair amount of shopping and picking up a fair number of toys, carefully keeping the receipts so that I don't lost my a-- if these things don't sell. We'll see. A lot of people made a huge amount of money last year selling toys on EBay (almost everyone made more than $1000 *profit* and some made a whole lot more than that). So I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but with a whole lot of caution. I really think it's the age old "gold rush" deal where a few people are there at the right place at the right time and really hit it big and then everyone else comes running to join the craze, but most of them are a day late and a dollar short, as the expression goes. So I'm fairly concerned that there will be a HUGE amount of people *selling* toys this year without a proportionate jump in buyers, so whatever profits are there are going to be very small indeed. The thing is that I'm certainly no economist and it IS true that online shopping increases every year, so I'm going to cautiously invest some money into buying some toys to sell, give it a try, and if I'm not selling very much, then I will take the stuff back to the store, get my $$ back and buy some nice things for my boy.

We'll see. Emmett is very nervous about my "toy habit" haha. And I must admit that I really have to control the addition aspect of all of this. It's really easy to get caught up in the madness, in particular when I'm on this stork online forum where everyone is feeding everyone else's frenzy. I'm having a tough time rising above it so I'm having to step back a little bit from the stork madness and focus on getting my paperwork together for school and choosing a preschool for Thomas.

well, that's about all for now. I gotta get back to work. Fortunately, we're having a slow night in the ole emergency room. Since it's my second night on, I'm fairly well rested and not feeling groggy and irritable like I do my first night on. I'm working 4 nights in a row - egads! haha - but at least I'll get in the groove. We're so short over the next 6 weeks that I'm going to be working a LOT of hours, not so much looking forward to that. I'm getting lazier all that time and less and less interested in working a lot of hours. But I AM looking forward to school. Also a bit nervous because I have found that it is more difficult as I get older. My memory, she ain't what she used to be.

Love,
Melissa

Pics of the Pumpkin Patch

2005-11-11T04:16:00.000-08:00

Two posts ago I talked about our experience at the Pumpkin Festival/Patch last month and what a good time we had with Thomas and his friend, Dylan, and Dylan's parents.

Rob, Dylans, Dad sent me the pics from that outing and it reminded me how fun it was!

When I EVER get a chance to upload all the backlog of photos to the web site, I'll let y'all know, but for the time being I thought I'd share a couple here.

Halloween 2005 - BEST EVER!!

2005-11-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

WOW!!! What a wonderful time we had for Halloween this year!!!!
Emmett and I couldn't believe that we actually had SO much more fun with Halloween as parents than we did doing the adult Halloween parties. We just had so much fun it was amazing.

Thomas was uncharacteristically easy to deal with which was a huge bonus. He didn't whine too much about getting his make up on, his costume or the hat or anything else and he didn't clamor constantly to be carried - I think he was just in awe of the whole thing.

First off, I'd have to say that in a city where only 19% of households have children, we must have picked the best neighborhood in the city because it was FULL of kids last night. It was like a genuine Halloween, the kind I remember from my childhood. No mall BS - I hate that! But a real old-fashioned neighborhood Halloween with the houses all decorated and no cars and kids running around everywhere and people outside passing out candy - all of it. Everything that you think about when you think about traditional Halloween. AND - as an extra bonus, I must say I was surprised (and a little bit delighted) that Thomas got ALL traditional Halloween candy - no organic stuff, no high end boutique candy (people trying to one-up the neighbors or something), no fruit - he got nothing weird or healthy haha. 100% Hersey bars, Snickers, Reece's, and all that. He did get one Quaker granola bar, but even it was covered in chocolate.

Emmett actually wore his "Great Big Jack O Latern" costume - it was absolutely hilarious. These two women were commenting on how it "takes a real man to wear that costume" - which cracked me up - so true! :-) Emmett said it takes a "real father" maybe and I'll give him that it was a true labor of love that he wore that costume because Thomas said he wanted him to be a "Great Big Jack 'O Latern". Of course, I found a costume that made it even more embarassing than it needed to be, but he wore it. I was very impressed.

I got off easy because Thomas asked me to be a plain 'ole witch. Cool. I scored a cool witch dress for $3.50 at the Savers Thrift store and a way cool fancy witch hat with feathers at Walgreens for $7.99 and - voila! - witch. I did add some funky orange and black striped thigh highs and some green make - up, but still got by for less than $20 and absolutely NO effort. Thomas's costume didn't cost much (how lucky am I that he chose to be scarecrow?!) - but I did put in some effort to make it. I made patches for some old overalls that he had and then got some raffia (sp?) for the straw and attached it to the sleeves and legs of his clothes. I took this straw hat that Thomas picked out at Savers and added some leaves and birds. It was fun and he got lots of compliments on his costume which was fun. I think it's a good thing that Emmett goads me into making homemade costumes for Thomas. Every year I get tempted to just find something online, buy it and be done and every year I end up making the costume at home. I AM improving at it, though. Hopefully by next year I'll have acquired some sewing skills and can sew something for him. It was funny that Saturday night I was making his costume and Emmett was sitting watching TV, Thomas was in bed. I commented on how it was good that he talked me into making it (I had seen a couple on EBay and been oh so tempted!) and he had the good taste to be self-deprecating about the fact that he insists on the homemade costume and then sits lounging in front of the TV while I do all the work. I laughed, it was nice that he acknowledged that, but I actually REALLY enjoy having a creative project. There is so rarely time these days to utilize my creativity. I also have to be honest and admit that I like the props I get for his costume when we're out. I was preening like a peacock when we were out trick or treating. LOL :-)

Anyway, it was just so much fun and we got to meet so many neighbors. A truly awesome Halloween - the best I've had since childhood.

I added some photos to this posting because for one thing I am getting SO bad about added photos to the web site - ugh! I have SO many pictures to add. I still keep making noise about doing more photography for art, but that's along with about 100 other projects I'm working on right now. So much to do, so little time!

Well, gotta run. Hope everyone out there had a safe and happy Halloween.

Love,

Melissa

Great Weekend!!

2005-10-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

Emmett's birthday went great!
I'm so happy that things went smoothly.
We got up early (like always) last Friday morning. I got Thomas ready and took him to Olgas for the day, then I came back and we hung out for a while and read the paper. When we were done with that, Emmett went for a mountain bike ride in the Marin headlands and I went to finish up the shopping and preparations for his birthday. First I went to Nordstrom Rack and bought him three gorgeous ties for work - they were all really nice, pretty high end ties and I got such a great deal on them! (one of them I actually got for 93% off the retail price, if you can believe that!)

After that I ran to Walgreens to get some wrapping paper and then the video store to rent a movie and then to this really awesome, high end bakery nearby to get some INCREDIBLE dessert items for later in the evening.

By the time I got home, Emmett was back. We got deli sandwiches from the coffee shop downstairs and then hung out for a couple of hours at home, watching a movie and being together, just adult time, able to completely relax. It was heaven.

After that, we walked down to the BART station and took the subway downtown to see a movie AT THE THEATER!! Can you believe it? So rare...

We saw the movie "Edward R. Murrow: The McCarthy Years". It was REALLY good - I really enjoyed it. Very political and very timely. From there we hopped on the cable car - my first time riding the cable car! (and I've lived here almost 7 years!) - which dropped us off about 5 blocks or so from the Matterhorn restaurant where we went for dinner. It was really good food - we had a cheese fondue that was awesome, along with a nice white wine. It's just so nice to be out by ourselves sometimes. It feels so wonderful and indulgent.

We were, in fact, enjoying ourselves so much that we ended up being late to pick up Thomas. Ooops! It was hard to get a cab that wasn't full going down Van Ness at 9:30pm - so that took a while and then we were too cheap to pay for the cab to take us all the way home, so we had it drop us off at the train station and we took the MUNI train home. MUNI trains are the slowest mode of public transportation. It drives me crazy! And then at the end we had to walk another 7 or 8 loonnnggg blocks, so we didnt' get there to pick up Thomas until about 10:20pm. He had good time with Olga and Ana, so he didn't seem to mind too much. :-)

I faked Emmett out this year. First I told him that I couldn't afford to buy his "main" present for him until this week when I get paid, so he wouldn't have it for his actual birthday. This was actually true at the time, but then I decided to heck with it and ended up loaning myself the money from my savings. Then I was having a hard time getting his present because it was sold out everywhere - he wanted a black iPod nano. But I happened to be there shortly after they got the shipment in at the Apple store, so I managed to score it a couple of days before his birthday and hide it from him. That way why I got him the ties, so that I would be able to give him something during the day that would look like his "substitute" present. I get such childish delight out of trying to surprise people at birthdays and Christmas, "that's really silly", as Thomas would say. Anyway, as we were walking home from Olga's with Thomas, I said, "Thomas, do you want to give Daddy a present for his birthday?" Of course he did, so I said, well, let's stop at Mommy's car and see if there's something in there for Daddy. I got out the bag from the Apple store and gave it to Thomas who then gave it to Emmett who didn't even look at the bag and realize what it was. Well, when we got upstairs and he looked at he was sooooo happy and surprised!!! YAY!!! So much fun....

The weekend was also good - we took Thomas to tumbling class and Dylan was there so he enjoyed it a lot more. I'm so amazed at how totally attached he is to Dylan. He seems awfully young to me to be so invested in friendship. After class we went shopping at the record store in the Haight so Emmett could spend some of his birthday money. From the record store we walked to Crepes on Cole, which is a really good (albeit expensive) brunch spot for crepes. Yummy! After that it was back home and hanging out for a while for Thomas's and my nap and then Emmett made pork chops for dinner.

Sunday we got up early and met up with Dylan's parents and Dylan at Ocean beach so that we could caravan down to Half Moon Bay for the pumpkin festival. We had a really wonderful time - I made a candle and Thomas did some Spinning art - the parents took turns watching the kids and getting a few minutes to themselves. We tried to convince Thomas to get his face painted, but he wasn't having any part of it. After the festival we headed down to the pumpkin patch and picked out some pumpkins, had a Burger King picnic (haha) and then did the corn maze 3 or 4 times (that's my favorite part every year!!!). By that time it was time for the boys to nap so we all headed home. I made a hamburger potato and cheese casserole and we had chocolate cake for dessert. This was in celebration of starting my diet on Monday.

Yup, I'm going to give a try yet AGAIN. I've just got to get this weight off, it's driving me nuts.
I've decided I'm going to do the low carb thing for 2 weeks and then do 6 weeks of calorie counting and just rotate through those until I get this under control. So far, so good!!

Jeez, I've got to get to bed. I'm going to be tired tomorrow.

Hope everyone is well.

Love,
Melissa

P.S. Got some family drama to report a bit on, but no details yet.

(cont.) Emmett's BDay and Halloween are Coming

2005-10-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

I am so tired this morning. Another frustration with the business yesterday morning and I ended up being up until I think it was like 1pm. I had bought a Lilly Pulitzer shirt that had a small spot on it banking on the idea that I would be able to get the spot off with bleach stick. And the stain DID come out so I was very happy and I listed it. But then I looked at it more closely and realized the bleach stick had left its own stain - yellow spots on the white shirt. Ugh. So, rather than being proactive, I decided to just put it aside for a while, since I had only listed it in the store and, generally speaking, I only sell a few items out of the store every week or so. Of course, this top ended up getting sold. So now I had to figure out how to get the bleach spots off. Sh-t. I tried all kinds of things, ran to the laundromat to wash and dry it and STILL there were bleach spots. Finally I decided to go online and see if I could find a remedy for this. I found this forum for stain removal techniques (awesome resource!) and someone said that you should put cream of tartar in a pan with boiling water and that soaking the garment from 1/2 to 2 hours in this mixture would remove the stain. Thankfully, I had an almost-full container of cream of tartar and so I mixed it up and soaked the shirt and I *think* it worked. I had completely run out of energy by that time and so I ran to the post office to mail off the other packages and then headed home and fell into bed, leaving the shirt soaking.

I think the phone rang 6-7 times while I was sleeping. The answering machine filled up and once it's full it won't answer anymore and some moron rang the phone like 10 times before hanging up. I wanted to scream! I guess I could have turned the phone off, but I like to be available if something happens with Thomas. Emmett and Thomas got home about 6pm and at that point I gave up on sleep and got up. Emmett made fajitas for dinner (yummy!) and then I gave Thomas a bath and put him to bed while Emmett did the dishes. Ho hum. Not a very interesting story, but such is the less-than-exciting life of our little family. I ended up getting to sleep early and getting about an hour nap before work, which saved me from being completely exhausted. However, I am having an allergic reaction to our bath soap, so I've been having an itching, tingling rash all night at work. Ugh ugh and double ugh! haha - oh well, what can you do.

So last time I was talking about our upcoming plans. Last night we decided we are probably going to see Capote or Serenity on Friday for Em's birthday. I haven't decided on a restaurant yet, but I better do that today so that I can make a reservation. We're going to spend the day together and then the evening. This weekend I think we're going to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins.

Next up will be Halloween - we are planning to go trick or treating and also to Boo at the Zoo. This is the first Halloween where Thomas is starting to be into it. He has decided that, in his words, "I want to be a scarecrow, I want you to be a witch and Daddy to be a great big jack o'latern." I can't stop laughing about Emmett being a great big anything, but especially a great big jack o'latern. Too funny!! I'm going to go back to the Goodwill and get a witch costume for myself and then I'm going to make Thomas's scarecrow costume. It should be easy enough that even a complete sewing idiot such as myself won't screw it up haha. I've got some overalls and I'll sew some patches on them and add some straw, flannel shirt, hat, and a little bit of make up and I think we'll be all set. He'll be so cute!

This weekend will be pretty much devoted to Emmett's birthday. Next weekend we have one or two parties on Saturday and then Emmett is going to go to his stepmother's house for his birthday celebration on Sunday. She decided they would all have a kid-free day - her and Emmett and Emmett's sister Tash. So I'll be on Tommy duty. :-)

Well, I'm going to go now. Work is almost done and all in all this post just isn't all that interesting ahaha - I think after the way this year has been, that's definitely a good thing. Boring is nice. :-)

One last thing - Emmett and I have started playing backgammon in the evenings. The first night we played wasn't so much fun because I am a sore loser sometimes. The second night was better, in part because I won (hahahhaahahhahahahaha) and also in part because I wasn't so wound up already. Also I think the more we play the more I will get used to losing. It's hard in backgammon because if your opponent captures one of your pieces you can end up stuck forever and not being able to move anywhere while they are just going and going and the frustration of that just gets to me sometimes. Ah welll... I think the games will be fun and a good bonding experience.

Gotta run,
Love,
Melissa

Emmetts Birthday and Halloween are Coming!

2005-10-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

We are busily making plans - there are lots of fun things coming up, the highlights of which (I hope!) will be Emmett's birthday and then Halloween.

For Emmett's b-day (36! - yikes, we are getting so OLD! haha) we are going to take the day off and spend most of it together while Thomas goes to Olga's during the day and then we are hoping to find a babysitter for him on Friday evening. Poor kid, I feel bad packing him off to childcare for all that time, but sometimes adults need some time to themselves. :-) Emmett's planning to go for a solo bike ride in the morning (I am actually hoping to get out and take a little ride myself, although at a lot more leisurely pace). Then we will meet up and have a big "football" breakfast, as Emmett and his Mom call it. (She used to cook him big breakfasts on Football Sunday, at least that's the way I remember the story.) After breakfast we will, um, hang out at home for a while and take a nap. Then it will probably be time to start getting ready for our evening - dinner and a movie.

Ugh - busy at work again, gotta run...more later...

Thomas the Heartbreaker

2005-10-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

That boy sure knows how to get to me....
Busy times, busy times. We got up and moving early yesterday - I needed to get some things at Joanne fabrics to fix this costume that I sold on eBay and then discovered that it had some rips in the tulle underskirting. I don't have a sewing machine - heck, I don't know how to sew even if I did have one, so I'm going to hand sew some new tulle in and cut out the old tulle. Wish me luck!! I have decided that it will be more than worth my while to take some sewing lessons this fall. I have been forever wanting to do something enriching for myself - it seems with a little one around, a full time job and a business, there is never time for anything else. So - I'm going to take a few sewing classes and try to buy myself an old used sewing machine so that I can start at least repairing some things at home and hopefully start making small things like Halloween costumes.

Anyway, we went to Joanne fabrics and got the stuff I needed - then ran into Marshalls to see if they had any good stuff for resell and then lastly into Nordstrom Rack. I'm really excited because I got to talk to someone there about when they will be doing their next big markdowns - so I can be there when they open and get the first pick of the newly marked down items - YAY! They have some great stuff that I have my eye on - I think I'll get some big dollars for some of this stuff on EBay.

We grabbed some lunch on the way home and then ate lunch at home before Thomas took his nap - which he did for once without a huge fuss so I was able to catch up with my Mom and also get all the shrimp shelled, de-veined and de-fecesed. It was a lot of work, but I heard that the meal turned out great. Monday night I made pasta primavera which turned out fantastic - fettuccini noodles, fresh cream, freshly grated parmesan, 4 different types of fresh veggies (took FOREVER to chop them all up!), onions, and fresh basil. It was so good, I was so proud of myself. I'm getting a lot faster at the whole chopping, slicing, dicing thing. YEAH! SOOO - I had made that Monday night and there were tons of leftovers, so I decided to use some of the shrimp that we bought at the fish market and saute it in olive oil and garlic and toss it into the remaining pasta primavera. Yum yum! The problem was that by the time Thomas got up from his nap we had to run to the post office (10 packages to mail - yay!), the bank, the drug store, and the gas station and by the time all THAT was done, it was almost 5pm. We ran home and I took a quick shower and then chopped up the garlic, threw the shrimp, garlic and olive oil in the pan and ran off to work my 6pm - 2am shift. It's really hard - just when you get to the part of the day where you're ready to wind down and relax after running around and after a toddler all day, it's time for me to go to work. I walk in the door for that shift some days and just think, I am too exhausted. There is no way I'm going to be able to do this all day. But then I get into the flow and the energy in the Emergency dept. and the time goes by and pretty soon it's 2am and I go home and just fall into bed. I cannot complain so much, though. I know that I am so blessed. A lot of people have to do that every day just to make ends meet and I only do it every once in a while. Also - before anyone starts feeling too sorry for me (haha), Thomas goes to daycare today and I get to sleep in and then work on my auctions and relax a little bit today. So, as I said, I am so very blessed.

As I was running around like a chicken without a head yesterday before work, Thomas was busy getting himself into trouble, primarily by insisting on either getting on the computer or turning on the TV. I have to confess that since I have been working my business and ramping up my auctions, I had been really slipping about Thomas's "screen time limits". We used to watch a couple of shows in the morning and then get on with our day, but since I've been working in the mornings, I really let the time slide away and he was watching WAY more TV than what is healthy (in my humble opinion). Plus, as I think I've mentioned before, he's on the computer now playing computer games, so that adds to his screen time. I guess we were getting pretty out of control because Emmett started noticing a change in his behaviour. That made me really stop and think about how much he was watching/computing and I realized I was going to have to really set limits and stick to them, for myself, primarily. I read somewhere that 90 minutes of screen time per day is the most a child should have, so that's the limit I'm setting, with the idea that he'll get much less than that on the weekends and on the days when he is at Olga's (they limit to 30 minutes per day). Anyway, it has caused some angst in the household since Thomas had gotten used to really having free reign about how much and what shows and games he was going to play. (On a very positive note, I have to say that I feel really good about the steps to limit the screen time. Once he got over his initial fit, I was really encouraged that he pretty much right away went to his toys and books and started finding other things to do. That really told me that it is even more necessary for him to not watch tv and be able to have the creativity of playing with his train set, puzzles, lincoln logs and all the things that will help him develop mentally.)

So yesterday he had gotten himself into trouble with his Dad before I left for work and was sitting on his bed on a time out. I went in to say goodbye to him before work and give him a hug and a kiss and he said, "Momma, I'm really going to miss you a whole lot". My heart broke. He's just such a little doll.

Man, I love that kid so much.

Hope all is well out there.

With love,
Melissa