mother's day

My first Mother's Day was on the weekend we moved from State College to Denver. Evan had left that Saturday (or was is Sunday?) in a UHaul with his dad and Iris and I flew out on Monday the 13th for Denver. By all counts, this Mother's Day was more settled and peaceful. That's progress.

The weekend started with a trip to the newly opened Blue Spruce Brewing Company with some friends. Iris refuses to sit still so it was difficult to keep tabs on her while also trying to enjoy the place.

Mom's and babies. The dads are off stage right trying to make the babies smile.

On the morning of Mother's day I woke to some flowers, and a card, and a note that said, "Don't do the dishes I'll do them in the morning." Evan had stayed up till 12:30am working and then went to buy the flowers so I'd have them in the morning. He used to be much more anti-flower-buying than he is now. He doesn't like to buy in to any sort of cultural pressure to go out and buy stuff, which I support, despite my frequent trips to Costco. It's nice to get flowers, occasionally, though. That night he cooked dinner (fresh tomato soup, curried hummus, and roasted vegetables) after spending the afternoon installing some necessary plumbing into the downstairs bathroom so that the tiling guy can get started on tiling the shower.

Irises, the obvious choice. And something called bromeliads.

We didn't make any big plans for the weekend for several reasons, one of which was the weather. It was pretty bad all weekend -- we moved our garden pots into the garage and got around 3 inches of snow. 

Our apple tree in May

 Mother's day happened to fall on the 11th of May, the day Iris turned 13 months old. I may have mentioned that I can't get her to stay still so Evan helped with this photo of her below.

13 months old

And finally, Iris's favorite blanket of the moment, one that was mine when I was a baby.

The must-have for all circumstances.

growing up

My visit to State College was just long enough to make me really sentimental. I started the PhD program four years ago with a bunch of strangers, whom I now count as dear friends. I miss them. I have started to become much better at just being thankful for the past experiences rather than wishing them back into being. But there are still times when I wish for some remnant of the past to come back into the present. And the truth is, life would be much simpler if we all just stayed in one place. It takes a lot of time to develop a new community and although I have friends here in Denver, Evan and I haven't really reached a sense rootedness.

I got back to Denver on Saturday evening just before Iris went to sleep. She was sort of dazed when I walked in the door. We hugged for a long time and then I took her upstairs to put her to bed. Evan had taken off Monday since we were supposed to be on vacation, so we ended up having a whole weekend together. We took Iris to City Park on Monday for a bike ride and then we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch. By the way, in case you're wondering, most of the high chairs we've used in restaurants are broken, which is a real annoyance when you have an active baby trying to grab your food, not to mention being a safety issue. Iris actually did really well until we were leaving the restaurant and then she cried most of the way home. She was very tired and hungry in spite of eating some of the rice noodle soup I ordered along with the food I had brought for her.

In other news, we started Iris in day care this week.

And then we pulled Iris out of day care.

There were a host of reasons that we made this very difficult decision but the main reason was that the teacher(s) were pretty forceful in putting the kiddos down for nap time. By that I mean that, for the toddlers who had trouble transitioning from lunch to nap, the teacher(s) would pin the children down to their mats for long stretches of time and cover their heads with blankets all while the child is crying and trying to wriggle out of being pinned.

I struggled with how to handle the situation. At first I thought it couldn't actually be as serious as I thought it was. And then I realized that if anyone had ever done anything like that to my daughter, I would want to know right away. So then I wondered if I should try to tell the parents. I called a local non-profit that rates the quality of child care centers and told them what I was seeing. They agreed that the behavior was not acceptable. In the end, I talked to the director of the school and she said she'd address my concerns right away and she said that what I was seeing was not appropriate. But we no longer felt like we could trust that Iris would be well cared for in that room with that particular teacher. So now we either need a new day care or we need to find a nanny. Or I'll just stay at home forever.

At one point I had a realization that this is what we would be doing for the rest of our lives -- dealing with unpleasant situations in order to protect our progeny. You might think that I would have already had this realization. Like say, on any number of times we've been in the emergency room.  But for some reason this was a particularly difficult situation, probably because I had developed some rapport with the employees at the day care and my instinct tends to be one of not wanting to rock the boat. I guess it's some stage of growing up when you realize that the only thing that really matters is that you make sure your child is safe. And if that requires boat-rocking, then so be it.

The proposal defense went well, by the way. I'm now ABD, which means "All But Dissertation." Now I just have to write the darn thing.

Oh, and if you're with me in thinking that Evan should write more on the blog, post something in the comments. In addition to being funny and witty, his recent post quelled my nerves while I was gone. He claims not to have time to blog but I think that he might respond to external pressure.

Daddy-Daughter Staycation

Evan here. I’m writing this during our first daddy-daughter staycation. When I texted this event to a friend, my phone autocorrected the last word to “starvation.” Funny, but also a helpful reminder of my priorities.

We were to go on a nice family vacation to State College, PA. Sarah was to defend her proposal Friday morning, and then we were to vacate with old friends until Monday, when we were to fly back to Denver. We made plans with friends and were excited to see them and to introduce them to the new and improved Iris. But Iris made other plans. Terrible, painful gas and constipation started on Tuesday, thanks probably to the remission of a stomach virus, some dietary changes we’d made in response, and possibly also the end of her steroid burst. Her pain and discomfort continued until Sarah left for the airport Thursday afternoon, alone, after we had decided that she (and we) couldn’t fly in this condition. I’m exaggerating a bit – mild discomfort continued until she labored through a sizeable blockage late Thursday night.

I’m happy to report that no one’s starving and that we’re having a great time. We went for a bike ride this morning, and we played in the backyard this afternoon.

About the decision to cancel the trip, some thoughts:

On Wednesday night I mentioned the unthinkable possibility that I might need to stay with Iris while Sarah made the trip alone. Sarah was incredulous and considered it impossible on two fronts:

1. That the stars could misalign so perfectly as to keep her away from Iris for such a long time.
2. That someone other than Sarah would act as Iris’ primary caregiver for such a long time.

These were existential worries, catastrophized rather than calmly reasoned. As Thursday morning progressed, our discussion of this possibility became more serious, and I set to work convincing Sarah and myself that it would work. “It will be great! Daddy-daughter weekend!”

When unforeseen forces force big plans to change (including vacations), sometimes I like to exaggerate the arguments in favor of change. This is a coping mechanism intended to make life easier. (Full disclosure: sometimes in these situations I exaggerate the arguments in favor of not changing – which makes life harder. Sarah is probably laughing at me now in her loving way, thinking that I exaggerate everything.) In this scenario I exaggerated how great it would be mostly because I needed convincing. No doubt I was nervous, and for a few reasons.

First, having not had full care of Iris for such a long period, I was simply a little wary of the increased responsibility. Till now, whenever I’m ostensibly caring for Iris, Sarah offers guidance before I’m even aware that guidance is needed.

Second, and more worrying: were we making the right decision? Were a few hours of discomfort on a plane and in the airport system enough to cancel a family vacation? By about 11am – an hour before needing to leave for the airport – it was clear that she was on the mend gastrointestinally, but the blogosphere’s fear-mongering made us worry about an “obstruction” more than was probably necessary. And WWTMIPWLTBD? (What Would The Mythical Ideal Parents We’d Like To Be Do?) We both admire adventurous spirits, but in terms of family activities we do so mostly from afar. It seems likely that these parents would have jumped on the plane and dealt with it. Were we being dull and boring? 

Had we jumped on the plan, the outcome for us might have been better – since we’d be celebrating Sarah’s new ABD status and Iris’ regularity as a family – but then both Iris and I wouldn’t be able to experience quite so viscerally the importance of everything that Sarah does. Iris’ favorite word since Sarah left is “mama.” She utters it constantly.

Two final notes:

During Iris’ second nap today she ripped off her canula. Before putting it back on I decided to test her saturation levels, just to see. The readings were between 95 and 97 – way too high to be accurate. But they stayed there for a few minutes, so I decided to suspend disbelief and let her spend some time cordless. The last time her sats were this high off O2 we were at sea level – but we were also on vacation. Who knows, maybe my presence during the day is all she needs. In any case, after her nap we went outside and played in the dirt. See pictures below. I tested her again when we came in and got a reading of 91. This is a more reasonable reading and means she responded well to the prednisolone. Good news.

Sometimes Sarah’s blog posts contain things that Sarah hasn’t had a chance to tell me yet, especially when I read them at work. I find that very pleasing. Some of this current post will be new to Sarah, and I’m glad to return the favor.

Iris in her new big hat. See how it darkens her face.

Iris plowing the fields and earning her keep.

Iris wondering when I'm going to start helping out around here.

prednisolone baby

Iris was on a steroid burst again. She seemed to handle this round better than the first time. She actually napped. And she was very, very funny when she was playing. Here's a video I took of her walking back and forth, mummy-like.