july fun

Evan's birthday falls very close to Independence Day, so the first weekend in July was full of fun, in spite of Evan's recent claim that, "We never have any fun, ever." This may be true, but I don't think it's for lack of trying. It may also be true that we have trouble prioritizing fun in our family. In any case, I sought to right the funlessness, if just for an afternoon. Evan did his part by eating enough to have extra energy for the outing, and even took extra B vitamins.

Our nanny watched Iris so Evan and I could go out (I haven't mentioned the new nanny yet, right? I'll say more later). We loaded up our bikes and went to South Pearl Street to have a meditative foot bath at the drop-in meditation center and then we rode bikes through Wash Park on our way to dinner. We were both fully relaxed and happy to be out in the summer weather together.


For the Fourth of July, we went to our neighbor's house for a cookout and had a good time being in a new place, and meeting new people. Iris had a bit of a meltdown early in the evening so we went home and made sure she ate and drank well. She still hasn't seen fireworks in her lifetime, this may be a parenting fail.

The weather has been terribly hot and we've all been suffering from the lack of air conditioning in the house. Our rooms are upstairs in the hottest part of the house. Thankfully, Evan installed a portable air conditioner that is doing wonders for us all. Our first night with it wasn't spectacular, however. Iris was up needing milk a couple times and then got cold early in the morning. Hope springs eternal, though. Maybe tonight she'll sleep better.

I hired a nanny about a month ago so that I could actually make progress on my dissertation. She is in massage therapy school and has a daughter of her own. She is great with Iris and is teaching Iris more sign language. I usually work from our home office but lately the work has been more related to dealing with health insurance and oxygen issues, rather than my own dissertation work. I absolutely need the free time to deal with the pile of bills.

entertainment

This past weekend was light on housework/renovations and heavy on entertainment. On Friday, I had a girls' night. The wife of one of Evan's coworkers was dying to see "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" on its opening night. So he (Jesse) brought over baby Owen and another coworker, Chris, came by with his daughter, Emily. This was the first time I had left Iris for such a long time since she stopped taking a bottle. I was worried she wouldn't go down easily for Evan but turns out all the babies had a great time together. And the movie was fantastic -- I didn't want it to be over after the 2 1/2 hours.

Iris, Emily, and Owen with their daddies

Laurel came over on Sunday to watch Iris for a bit so Evan and I could go out. We had no plans but we ended up finding a New Mexican taco place called Socorro's Street Tacos. The decor was all about New Mexico, which I liked and the food was really good.

As if that wasn't enough entertainment for one weekend, we also went out on Monday night. Carmella came over to watch Iris and we went to see Bill Callahan at the Oriental Theater. Evan introduced me to Bill Callahan when we started dating. Evan's friend Jackson had introduced Evan to Bill. Jackson introduced Evan to most of the music he is familiar with. We enjoyed ourselves immensely despite my forgetting to bring earplugs. Concerts are almost always too loud for me. Below are some of my (our) favorite songs of his. I include the lyrics mostly for my mother who has a sweet way of always asking, "What are the lyrics to that song?" And then, "What does it mean?"

"Rock Bottom Riser"

I love my mother

I love my father
I love my sisters, too.
I bought this guitar
To pledge my love
To pledge my love to you.

I am a rock bottom riser
And I owe it all to you
I am a rock bottom riser
And I owe it all to you

I saw a gold ring
At the bottom of the river
Glinting at my foolish heart
So my foolish heart
Had to go diving
Diving, diving, diving
Into the murk

And from the bottom of the river
I looked up for the sun
Which had shattered in the water
And pieces were raining down
Like gold rings
That passed through my hands
As I thrashed and I grabbed
I started rising, rising, rising

I left my mother
I left my father
I left my sisters, too
I left them standing on the banks
And they pulled me out
Of this mighty, mighty, mighty river

I am a rock bottom riser
And I owe it all to you
I am a rock bottom riser
And I owe it all to you

I love my mother
I love my father
I love my sisters, too.
I bought this guitar
To pledge my love
To pledge my love to you

"Say Valley Maker"

With the grace of a corpse

In a riptide
I let go
And I slide slide slide
Downriver
With an empty case by my side
An empty case
That’s my crime

And I sing (Say Valley Maker)
To keep from cursing
Yes I sing (Say Valley Maker)
To keep from cursing

River Oh
River End
River Oh
River End
River Go
River Bend

Take me through the sweet valley
Where your heart blooms
Take me through the sweet valley
Where your heart is covered in dew

And when the river dries
Will you bury me in wood
Where the river dries
Will you bury me in stone

Oh I never really realized
Death is what it meant
To make it on my own

Because there is no love
Where there is no obstacle
And there is no love
Where there is no bramble
There is no love
On the hacked away plateau
And there is no love
In the unerring
And there is no love
On the one true path

Oh I cantered out here
Now I’m galloping back

So bury me in wood
And I will splinter
Bury me in stone
And I will quake
Bury me in water
And I will geyser
Bury me in fire
And I’m gonna phoenix

I’m gonna phoenix

And here's Tiny Desk concert he did for NPR Music. If that's not enough, here's the NPR Live Concert of his current tour.

a busy week

We have had an unusual week - lots of visits and visitors. It's hard to record all that has happened this week, but I'll start with Wednesday's big milestone - recorded below:

Iris pushing up on her belly

Iris rolling over on her left side to her back

She can roll over now (on both sides)! She's really quite active - sometimes I worry that she's too active. The other very big news of the week: we closed on the house. Evan and I now own a home in Denver. There is a lot of work to be done on it and I am looking forward to having somewhere to deposit my creative energy.

 Evan and I had a date night on Friday - we went to Le Central. On the way home we talked about who we would want Iris to go to if anything happened to us. We have some amazing friends and family so we're fortunate to have several ideas. At some point we should get a will written. Our big goal for August is to get into a sustainable routine of exercise for both of us. We have benefited greatly from my mom's month-long visit but I still never managed to work on my dissertation proposal or get into a running routine.

I realize that I haven't written much about Iris's diagnoses and prognoses so that many readers of the blog might not have the full picture of what Iris is dealing with. I'll address that shortly.

chewing on oxygen

This is Iris's new favorite thing to do. Technically, the oxygen is still in the right area, but it's probably not having the intended effect.

I try to stop her as much as possible but it's not clear to me how you discipline a three-month old in this regard. I mostly rely on trying to distract her or by giving her something else to put in her mouth. My mom thinks she is in the early stages of teething and it seems like I've felt the start of some teeth in her gums.

Here are some of her without her oxygen on. It's easy to forget what she looks like without the tube running across her face.

Iris is basically sleeping through the night now, by which I mean from about 8:30pm to about 7am. I still have to get up around 3:30am to give her a dose of Sildenafil but otherwise she'd sleep straight through the night. I also take that time to nurse her but if she doesn't nurse properly then I have to pump, so I am up for about an hour total. Evan and I are both quite pleased with how well she sleeps and naps. She fusses just a little bit right before she falls asleep and it's really out of character for her to cry for extended periods of time. This is a drastic difference from before the surgery and even just after the surgery when I think she was in a lot of pain. 

Since my mom is in town Evan and I have been able to do a lot of grown-up things. We went to yoga Thursday night, tennis Friday morning and had a date on Friday night. Unprecedented.

It looks as if we are going to close on a house by the end of July. We have been in negotiations with various housing people since May and we are hopeful that we will own a home in Colorado shortly. The house needs some work so we won't move in right away but we both look forward to finally settling somewhere after having moved so much in the past few years. I think the official count is that we have moved four times in the past three years. Exhausting. But after move number five I hope we don't have to do it again for a long, long time.

date night

Evan turned 33 today. We had a very mellow and relaxed day. Mom came over in the afternoon to watch Iris for a couple hours so we could go on a date for Evan's birthday. She is in town for most of July to help out around here. Our parents have been so amazingly helpful in the last few months.

For the date we went to one of my favorite places in Denver -- City, O' City. I think I like it because it is full of the hipsters I emulate. It's also a vegetarian/vegan place that makes incredible food. We had a Mexican/Korean torta (vegan sausage heavy with cloves and topped with kimchi -- not pictured), an egg, tomato, gruyere and arugala sandwich with curried carrot soup (heavy with ginger and thick with cashews) and a side of poutine (just plain heavy).