Pillows

Me: How did you get 3 pillows - there were only 4...?
He: I know it sounds strange, but I've had 3 all night.
Me: Nooooo... we each started out with 1 plus a hugger.
He: I know, and I know it sounds strange, but early in the night I just found this pillow.
Me: Yeah, you just "found" it in my arms and took it away!
He: No! I wouldn't do that!
Me: Then you "found" it under my head and ganked it. Which is it?
He: *hands me the pillow*


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The Most Expensive Cat IN THE WORLD

Thursday morning when I was feeding the Z, I saw Grimmy squat like he was peeing over by her diapers.  Since he has been "inappropriately eliminating" for over a year now, this didn't surprise me, but I was surprised because a. he normally does his business on the kitchen, not the bedroom, floor, and b. he normally does his business in private.  I yelled at him and he stopped, but there was no pee there.  Then I saw what looked like the same thing over by the chest, and then again on P's jeans, and then again INSIDE the box of Z wipe refills.  Once Z's bottle was done I checked all 3 locations and none were wet.

A long time ago a friend had a kitty who almost died due to a bladder obstruction, and I remembered her saying that the warning sign was that he was squatting and not peeing.  I passingly wondered if I needed to be worried and take him to the vet.  I decided not to because I had missed work the day before for my pointless boob appointment.

When I got home that evening, I didn't see Grimmy til after Z went to sleep.  P called me over and said he looked sick.  I found him prone in the closet, breathing rapidly.  He hardly lifted his head when I approached.  I sat on the floor and petted him and he barely responded.  I had an overwhelming feeling that he was dying.  Then P and I debated whether I was over-reacting: did he need to go to an emergency vet right now, or could he wait for morning?  I really felt like he couldn't wait, so P got him loaded (still not without a fight, that's my Grimmy!) into the cat carrier and off I went.

I was right: blocked urethra.  Arg, how I wish I had taken him that morning!!  It was an expensive and stupid mistake.

They took him for the procedure, and I headed home.  Got a call around 2am that he had complications: she was suspecting some sort of mass or something, and she was only able to get a hard catheter in after 1.5 hours of trying.  She recommended that I take him to a cat vet the next day for the soft catheter that he needed for several days.

Now, let's stop right there.  I set a price limit for myself before I went to the e-vet.  Their quote was higher than that limit, but not by much, which is why I left him for the procedure and didn't ask them to put him down.  Don't get me wrong.  I love this cat like no other cat I've ever owned.  But he has spent the last year peeing/pooping on my kitchen floor.  And I'm a city girl with a country heart.  I am going to outlive all my cats except the one that I get when I'm like 90.  Cats die.  One does not spend thousands of dollars saving the short life of an animal.  It's just how I was raised.  So when the vet's quote exceeded my self-imposed limit, I'll admit that I hesitated, but not for too long, because it didn't exceed it by much, and it was a totally treatable condition, and for goodness' sake, he's only 7 years old.  I could love him for another decade easily!  It just seemed like I shouldn't let him die from this, right now.

But when she called to say there were complications, ooooh crap, maybe I made the wrong choice. But at that point I was in it for the long haul (within reason).  It would be like flushing all the money I spent that night down the toilet to say if I didn't see it through!

So Grimmy went to the cat-specific vet.  Where they said that he didn't have a tumor or a block or anything, just a very tiny urethra.  Good to know.  They quoted me the same amount as the e-vet to REDO the procedure with the proper catheter.  Piss (literally).  Now I'm in it for just over double what I originally authorized myself to spend.

And he needed to stay at the vet for monitoring.  I'm sure that'll be more money.

The most expensive cat in the world.  Behold the Grimmy at the vet in his fashionable accoutrement.

He'll be coming home in his 300 snow-white horse-drawn diamond-crusted carriage this evening.  Perhaps if I get him a marble litterbox he'll deign to use it instead of the floor?

3 (Random and Unrelated) Things Thursday

1.  I had my dr. appt. yesterday.  I'm fine.  I send Preston this text ahead of time: "I bet I'm going to pay $60 for the doc to cop a feel and tell me I'm fine.  If so, I'm going to be PISSED."  And that is *exactly* what happened.  She told me that they couldn't do an ultrasound or mammogram while I am lactating because the inflammation from the milk production would make anything abnormal too difficult to see.  So she did a physical exam, didn't feel anything, and told me it was probably a broken capillary.  I was a little frustrated because she wasn't very pro-breastfeeding past 6 months.  She told me that it was unnecessary that I'm still breastfeeding, and that people who go past 1 year are really taking it too far.  (Not true, doc!)  But she didn't tell me to stop, and I told her I was planning on going at least a year unless she did.  So, onward!

2.  Z is getting a little separation anxiety in the mornings when I leave her at daycare.  When I go to kiss her bye, she flings up her arms and begs to be picked up, or tries to climb me, or whines, or all 3.  It really is heartbreaking.

3.  I am meeting an old friend for a playdate on Friday.  Actually, I'm having her over to my insanely dirty house.  I haven't seen her in 7 or 8 years... we were unlikely friends.  Her boyfriend actually cheated on her with me, then broke up with her, dated me, then cheated on me with the chick that introduced me to Preston, broke up with me, then dated her!!  What a tool, but I got Preston out of the whole convoluted thing, and this old friend was actually a really good friend for a while.  After college we just sort of fell out of touch, and I remember getting an email from her along the lines that she was cleaning up her contacts and did I still want to be friends.  I said of course, but then never heard from her again til she friended me on Facebook.  When I saw that she moved to my area and she has a son that is only 2 months younger than Z, I decided to message her, and here we are.  I'm actually pretty nervous about the whole thing.  We were both pretty awkward back in the day, and I certainly haven't grown out of it.  I hope we're not both miserable, I hope we both still like each other, I hope we can be real friends instead of Facebook friends!  P and I don't make friends easily, and both of our good sets of friends live across town - it would be *so* cool to have a couple just minutes from the house with a kid approximately the same age that we were friends with!  Plus, well, I just always really liked her.  We had a lot of fun.  She forgave me for being the "other woman" - she is a better person than I may ever be.  I respect her and like her and I want to be her friend.  I really hope this doesn't suck!  Trying not to get my hopes up, but hoping at the same time.  (Reading this last one back over and I sound like a kid, but oh well, there it is.)

First Words!

The other weekend when T/M and their daughter R visited, we were seeing them out, standing at the door waving/saying bye, and right after the door closed, we heard Zoë say "Ba-ba", like bye-bye, while waving.  We were fairly certain this was her first word.  Be became convinced over the next hours/days when she repeated the word while waving in appropriate circumstances.  Wow, her first word!  At 10 months and 1 day old!

Here's the really amazing part: she has followed that one up with several more!  She's got "kitty", which sounds like "ki-seeeeeeee" where the seeeee is a kind of hiss.  And she is working heavily on "uh oh!", which sounds just right, but isn't always used in the correct context yet, and "thank you", which sounds like "dah oooo" with a particular pitch/inflection, but isn't always used in the correct context yet either.

She's still got all of her babble going, her "dadadada", "mamamamama", "nanana", "bababa", and of course, we got an imitated "papa" the other day.  The difference between the babble and the words is that the words are always 1-2 syllables only, used in a context, with the same pitch/intonation/inflection, and the babble is just one syllable that goes on and on and on.  She basically goes all over the house saying "dadadada" right now.

So this last week has been a big one for her - 2-4 words, plus she is now really walking freely.  She'll let go of a wall or furniture and venture out into open space now, which is a significant development.

The other development that we saw last weekend was her desire to spoon-feed herself.  She can't successfully scoop her food yet, but she can maneuver the spoon into her mouth once the food is on it.  So she and I danced a delicate dance during solid meals this weekend: she sat in her high chair with a spoon in each hand, I had a spoon, and a spare on the table.  She'd try to scoop food, I'd help her, she'd jerk the spoon out of my hand because I didn't let go fast enough, and shove it in her mouth.  P and I would applaud her feat, and I'd follow the spoonful with a spoonful from my hand before she could realize what was happening.  Then we'd do it again.  But goodness help me if I tried to help too much, or sneak too many spoonfuls into her mouth without her involvement - she was really telling me what she thought!

She was fussy in general this weekend, for her.  She was getting over her ear infection on Friday, but I couldn't find a good reason for it on Saturday/Sunday.  She'd yell at us if we put her down.  Or if we picked her up.  It was like she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, and her stupid clueless parents just couldn't get on board.  It was rough.  Luckily it was a little better yesterday evening, and after yesterday's freaking out, I was just trying to be in the (fun/happy) moment with her.

Oh, which brings me to her 2 new favorite songs.  Preston has had this thing lately for Everlong by the Foo Fighters.  Z loves to dance to it.  And we are proceeding with my first watch of every Star Trek episode ever made - we are on season 4 of Voyager now - during breastfeeding sessions.  Z loves the Voyager opening credits song.  She hears the first 3 notes, unlatches herself, looks over at Stevie the TV, and smiles and squeals.  My little Trekkie.  Gotta get 'em early.  :-)

The Overacheiver becomes The Exsanguinator

Fair warning: this is a gross story about breastfeeding woes.

Saturday afternoon I switched the Z from the left boob (The Slacker) to right boob (The Overachiever).  She popped off really fast, and I saw bright red blood in my shield, and no milk.  "Weird", I thought to myself, "I haven't seen blood like that in a long time - perhaps I scratched myself when I switched her??"  I kept feeding her, knowing from my early breastfeeding experience that blood will do her no harm, gross as it sounds.  She popped off again, again I saw blood.  Again, and this time there was a little milk with the blood.  But she was DONE.  She wasn't having anything else to do with it.

The next time I fed her, she didn't want The Overachiever.  Sucked like once and patently rejected it.  I thought maybe she didn't want to lay on that side (she is recovering from an ear infection, I thought maybe the positioning was hurting her).

The next time I fed her was bedtime.  She rejected The Overachiever again.  It was really frustrating by this point.  We flipped her around and tried football hold in case I was right about the ear thing.  NO!  She wanted NOTHING to do with my right boob.  She had already emptied the left, so we warmed a bottle and she fell asleep that way.

I went to bed a little worried about her self-weaning or something, and set the alarm for a 3:30am pumping session since I was going to be full due to her lack of nursing.

3:30am: I wake up, follow my normal procedures, start pumping, and look down and see blood squirting out INSTEAD of milk.  Woke Preston up, almost passed out (I don't do well with my own blood or that of people I love).  He proceeded to do research on the internet while I called the after-hours nurse line at my doctor's office.  I kept pumping and eventually I started getting a mix of blood and milk, and finally near the very end, just milk.

It was DISGUSTING.

The nurse said not to panic but to call the doctor first thing Monday morning.  To quit electric pumping on that boob (wasn't going to happen, but I was careful for the rest of the day to have the suction as low as possible), and just feed the baby from the good boob/bottle until I saw improvement.  Fortunately, that panic-making 3:30am session was the last time I saw blood.  I actually cried the next time I was ready to turn on the pump, but milk came out, thank goodness!!  And for the rest of the day, only milk.  And I only pumped 3 times total that day.  I felt comfortable enough that I offered The Exsanguinator to her that evening and she took it, so I'm pretty sure there wasn't any blood.

Update: Now I'm panicking again.  I called my OB this morning, and she referred me to GENERAL SURGERY.  NOT COOL.  Not cool at all.  They took all my information down and will call me back tomorrow to let me know if they want to see me.

In Which I Post a Foot Pic

So I think I broke my toe.




If it isn't broken, it is really trying to imitate a broken toe. Super painful, slightly swollen, obviously bruised. Hurts to bend. Hurts to push off when I walk.

Yesterday afternoon I was on my bed with the Z. P was leaving the room and she took off at lightning speed to follow him. I jumped up and ran around the bed to catch her before she fell off (she'll crawl right off; she has NO fear), and SOMEONE who is an adult living in this house and who isn't me left the First Aid kit under the bed's overhang when he tried to cut his finger off with the table saw and I stubbed my toe on it. (SOMEONE is in biiiiig trouble!)

I'm really upset. Running was just starting to get really better for me. FINALLY. 10 months post partum. Gah!

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Ramblings

This is a weekend wrap-up, but I've been doing some thinking, so it is really just a platform to ramble...

There is no right way to parent.  But I think we may be different from a lot of parents out there.

Daddy holding Zoë holding/eating one of her letter magnets.

On Saturday we went over to the Grandparents G's (GG's) house.  They had their other grandkid there.  I feel sorry for this kid.  He was born to 18 year old un-married parents.  They have alternated between getting back together/breaking up for his entire short life (he's almost 3), and that's got to be really hard on him, that kind of instability.  Also when his dad has custody, the kid is usually parked at the GG's house while his dad parties with friends, etc.  The dad still lives with the GG's.  But he doesn't take care of his own kid when he has custody.  And as a parent who has to pay for babysitting or arrange a weekend evening at the GG's house, I call bullshit.

Plus the GG's, they are great people, but they are yellers.  Maybe it is different with a toddler boy, but I cringe every time I hear, "E, NO!  Don't ___!  I told you not to ___!"  It is like, ugh, is there a different way?  Because I swear the kid just tunes them out now.  And I hope they won't yell at Z like that...

E's legs in the background, and Z playing with his gun.

Then on Sunday one of my old friends and his family came by on their way home from H-town.  Their daughter is only 2 months younger than the Z.  They played together and had super-fun.  But my friend and his wife... they are just a different kind of parents than we are.  They are worried about everything.  They would apologize when their kiddo put one of Z's toys in her mouth.  She's a baby, that's what babies do!  I certainly don't care!  But then I started thinking... is that how I'm supposed to act when I'm on a "playdate"?  (We've never had one yet.)  I mean, isn't the point toy-sharing?  I'm confused.

Z showing R how to work the toy.  Super cute!

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Core Update

I'm doing really well so far!

Monday: Core I
Tuesday: Core circuit on run
Wednesday: Core II before a bike
Thursday:  30 Day Shred

Friday's plan: either Core III or a core circuit on the run or Ab Ripper X (which is a beast - I realized I never wrote about it my P90X posts, so I'll just tell you it is a beast!).  I'm not working tomorrow, so I'm going to play it by desire!

I am sooooooooooore!!  Sore, sore, sore.  But in a good way.

"Fun" Run

I did a version of the "fun" run idea that I posted about last week.

.25 mi walking warm-up, with short run at the end
25 crunches/30 sec plank/10 squats
1 mile run+short walk to get breath back
25 crunches/30 sec plank/15 squats
1 mile run + short walk to get breath back
25 crunches/30 sec plank/20 squats
.25 mi hard run
cool down

Even though my numbers are fuzzy above, this was over 3 miles total according to gmaps, with 2.5 of them running, and it took almost exactly 45 minutes including the warm up and cool down.

I chose crunches/plank/squats because I could do the crunches and plank on a park bench and not get down on the ground (silly, I know, but there it is), and I didn't do the lunges because I didn't want to burn out on my first try!  I definitely want to work up to working them in, though, as well as to adding at least another set. 

I was proud of myself, too, because I ran the miles without walking.  That seems like such a small goal in the scheme of what I used to be able to do, but it is honestly where I am right now.  I am hoping that by forcing myself to have the mental stamina to make it through 10ish minutes of running, I can work my way back to miles of running, because I really think my mind is my limiter, even though my body also isn't where I want it to be.

I'm going to be sore!

Finger Painting

We made our first foray into fingerpainting this past weekend.

The kiddo didn't really understand that she was supposed to paint, but she had a great time playing with the bowls and making a huge mess!































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Status Report

Hmmm.... the last time I did a goal review was 2 months ago, oops.  Here it is:

June Goals

1.  Get back to feeling 100%.  Whatever it takes.  CHECK (thank goodness!)

2.  Once I get back on my feet: Work out 5 days out of 7.  No excuses.  (Focus on running and core.  Try to start going back to the Y to swim on Fridays.  But ANYTHING will do.)  Ummm... not so much.  4 days out of 7 is pretty reliable, though.  No Y on Fridays since I quit the gym.  Running is becoming much more regular, and that is good.  Core... umm... not so much.

Informal goals: get Preston to finish the upstairs floor (FAIL), run another 5K (FAIL)... that's pretty much it.  Trying to go a little easier on myself this time around.

Easier I definitely went!

Weight on 6/3 was 135.0.  Weight this morning was an even 133.0.  (AND it is Monday morning.  I was an even 132 all weekend, so I think that I've got a pound of bloat. :-))  That's a slower weight loss than I had been seeing at only 1 lb per month, but I'm only 3 pounds away from goal weight range, so it makes sense that it is happening more slowly now.  Slow and steady will win me this race, and damnit if I'm not almost there!


August Goals:

1.  I really want to get to the 5 days per week of working out; just as much as I wanted it back in June!  I think with the baby it just isn't happening for me.  It is ok if it doesn't.  And if I have to set the goal at 5 days to get my actual performance to 4, then so be it.  5 days a week is my dream.  4 is my slightly more reasonable expectation.  Both are goals that I have to work hard every day to make happen.

2.  This month I really truly want to focus on core.  I've said it several times in the past, but I just haven't really gotten there.  But here's the thing: I'm almost to goal weight, and I'm still not pleased with how I look.  I'm just a little... squidgy... around the middle.  And I can definitely feel my lack-of-core when I run, and after I run.  I'm really never going to get a better time to focus on my core.  Once I quit or drastically reduce breastfeeding, I'll want to up my aerobic exercise quite a bit.  Whereas right now, it is no huge loss to redirect 10-15 minutes of my exercise per day.  So that's the real goal.  Finally and truly make this month a core-focused month.  I started this morning by doing Core I.  Only 30 days to go!

Informal goals: I want to make significant progress on the house this month.  We have an unprecedented opportunity to move into the house that my parents are buying tomorrow while we get work done on our house.  This is really key because we don't want the baby around the gunk and sound of renovation.  We need to get on this.  We need to figure out what we want to do and get started getting it done.  Like ASAP.