Shhhhhhhhhh

we're sleeping. we're recovering and sleeping. at least that's pretty much how yesterday went for us. we got home about 11am, i ran to target real quick to stock up on juice and then addison was out of here at 12:30. we were all crashed by 3pm. annie slept til 7 and then went down for the night at 8. she slept til 4:30 and came to see me and slept til 7:30. aside from her cold, her breathing is sounding good. no apnea episodes and nearly quiet breathing for the most part. amazing.

i can't believe add has come and gone already. it was such a quick trip. and now i'm really over it. as if i wasn't before, i really am now. and that was BEFORE the KILLER came to my house today...i'm not ready to talk about it yet cause it's still too fresh and creepy and i still have to go to sleep tonight so we'll see about later. the point is, i need to just go. we need to be together as a family again - it's the only way we're all fully functional in my opinion. 2 more weeks. guess i better finish packing.

What a Day

wow. *sigh*

first of all, is that not the cutest brother/sister picture EVER?!?!?!? doesn't japper look old? i know - it's a lot of cute to handle, but you can do it.

i'm so glad this day is over. i'm also happy to report that ms. anniepants is doing just awesome after the big surgery. she has even tackled mac & cheese and graham crackers, not to mention popsicles and about a gallon of apple juice. so either she's rockin' this post-surgery stuff, or tylenol with codeine is the best thing EVER! or both.

the day began at 5am. we pretty much loaded both babies in the car while they were still asleep. we got to the hospital about 6 and i was amazed at how completely packed the waiting room was at that early hour. wow. i guess surgeons work a LOT, huh? we didn't really know WHAT was going on cause first you have to talk to one person and that's just to get your i.d. bracelet...then someone else calls you back to this little pre-op room and that's to do some vitals and get in your hospital pjs and whatnot. well, originally only i went back to the pre-op room because - again - we had no idea what we were doing, so our friendly nurse dude had to go get addison and jasper and our bags from the waiting room. thank you nurse dude. at about 7:30 addison got all dressed up in his scrubs to get ready to take annie back. isn't he cute? i was very torn about whether or not to go back with annie while she fell asleep, but i am really glad that addison did it. i think i might have lost it. so, they went back at 7:45 and jasper and i followed them to the end of the longest hallway in the world and i said "see you later" and "i love you peanut" to annie 5 or 12 times and then off they went and jasper and i walked the other way down the 2nd longest hallway in the world to a different waiting room.

about 2 minutes later, addison showed up. it didn't take annie long to fall asleep. she tried to fight the gas, but the gas won. surgery took about an hour-15 and the whole time we're just sitting in the waiting room with 50 other people who are waiting to hear how they're loved ones are doing, and man, it's really kind of stressful. every now and then a doc or nurse or someone comes in and says "family of patient [name]", and you are relieved because you don't want it to be you because only a half hour has gone by and that's not long enough...and then all of the sudden an hour-15 has gone by and they come in and say "parents of annie johnston" and we jump up and they lead us back to "recovery" and as we're walking the woman says "i think you might have an angry one on your hands". what? who, annie? angry? and i think oh no, they put her out and she woke up as veruca and she's going to be that way forever... no, i really wasn't thinking that. i was like "give me my baby!" and the nurse (sarah, who was awesome) was holding her because annie wouldn't let them touch her and she was crying and because she wouldn't let them touch her she still looked like a car accident victim or something - her face was all bloody and she was swollen and it was so sad.

we stayed in recovery about an hour while they monitored her vitals and tried to make sure she wasn't having any bleeding - although every time sarah tried to look in the back of annie's throat, annie just bit down on the tongue depressor. hee hee. she's tough, man. she's like "you so do not get to go back in there. i'm DONE with you people!". dr. r came in and said she did awesome and we should really notice a difference because her tonsils and adenoids were HUGE-EO. that's a technical term.

we got up to her room by about 10:30 am. i know. you're thinking it's still only 10:30?!??! that's what I said too. anyway, she was a rockstar. she only really cried once and that was later this afternoon when i tried to take her apple juice box away from her. that was it. she just lost it on me. she was also due for another dose of T3, so that might have had something to do with it. it was super sad though. just utter meltdown at the loss of the apple juice. of all things, the apple juice. how could i?

she's just been watching dora, peter pants (some of you may know it as peter pan), sleeping booty (again...), barney, dora again, etc. she fell asleep for the night (hopefully) at about 8pm and jasper and i got home about 9. i'm getting ready to hit the hay cause i am ti-i-i-i-red. poor addison is stuck sleeping on the pullout chair in annie's room and then he has to fly back to houston tomorrow. good man.

oh, and annie's voice right now? it's hysterical-cute-awesome. it sounds a little bit like her tongue has fallen to the back of her throat so everything is kind of muffled and throaty, but she still is talking like nothing is the matter. certain things are just hilarious. it's hard to explain, but i can imitate it for you in person sometime.

your prayers and happy thoughts helped today - i thank you again. here's another picture of the brother and sister duo. peace.

A Note to our Family and Friends

i just wanted to say a quick thank-you to all of our friends and family. we've already heard from so many of you wishing us good thoughts and sending prayers our way for annie's surgery tomorrow. it means so much to me - to us - to have such an amazingly supportive and loving group of family and friends. surgery is at 7:45am tomorrow and i think they said it would be about an hour and a half so we should be done with the hard part (for me anyway) by 9:15-9:30am. i will of course, keep you all apprised of things as they unfold.

with so much love,

gina

Monthly Archives - Jasper Month 5

dear jasper,

happy birthday tomorrow! since tomorrow is annie's surgery and i figured i wouldn't get a chance to write this letter then, i am doing it now. you could care less, really. you're good like that.

you've gotten bigger. do i repeat myself every month? i've noticed it though. you don't look so much like a skinny baby anymore and are looking more and more like a roly-poly baby. i love it. your face is filling out and dare i say your little thighs are fattening up a bit? you got nothin' on your cousin henry, but you're working on it.

you are rolling all over town. forwards, backwards and then sometimes you like to just spin in circles. weird. annie likes that, too. you guys are weird, but then, so are your parents...often i find you in your crib in the morning facing the opposite direction from how i left you the previous night. you are getting closer to being able to balance by yourself in the sitting position, but we're still not quite there and the little bumbo is our best friend. you love it, too, because it enables you to get in on all the action and really feel like a part of things.

your smile melts my heart. i can see why mommies have a hard time letting go of their little boys when they grow up. because we see how you smile at us and just love us so much right now, it's hard to imagine any other woman in your life. but i promise i will - when the time is right - let you go. as long as you find someone who is fun, funny, intelligent and kind. i'm doing it again. seriously honey, i promise not to be an overbearing mother.

that's enough of that. 5 months old already and you are just as sweet as can be. i want to eat you up. i won't. i promise that too: i will never eat you for dinner. but i do love you enough to do so. isn't that weird? there's just no other way to say it. i love you so much i could eat you. your smile is so fantastically delicious i could eat that, too. you are my sweet, sweet (and still pretty) little boy and i can't get enough of you. don't go changing on me too quick. you already are. pretty soon you're going to be speaking like a texan and i'm going to wonder what in the sam hill happened.

xoxoxox to pieces,

mommy

The Snowy Day

...the title of one of my favorite children's books ever and also the perfect description of today. we woke up to a total of - i don't know - close to a foot of snow...that's the most snow we've had at one time in a looooong time. i was just glad that it happened AFTER addison's flight arrived yesterday. i don't know what i would have done if he wouldn't have made it home for the big surgery day tomorrow.

we spent part of the morning shoveling out and thankfully one of our neighbors offered up his snowblower for addison to use. good people. we made them some cookies in return, cause you know, you gotta stay on top of that karma stuff. annie was having a ball out in the snow - helping shovel, running, throwing, chasing ferris, etc. i'm glad she got this big snowfall before we head south of the mason dixon line. i have a couple of other pictures of annie playing here and here if you're interested. jasper had a good time - though brief - hanging out in the fresh air with us, but he wouldn't keep annie's socks on his hands so he got cold and had to go inside.

now we're getting ready to bail because we have a showing at 2:30. we even confirmed that they ARE in fact coming, so i figure anyone who would choose to leave in this weather must be desperate for a house and therefore will just LOVE ours. good thoughts, please.

And They Say it's a Bad Thing

what you are looking at is annie breastfeeding her baby. what you didn't see is annie breastfeeding ALL of her babies. i had just gotten done feeding jasper and then annie - completely in her own world, taking care of her babies like she usually does - brought her babies up to the couch, one by one, and "breastfed" them. she would just pull up one side of her shirt and hold the baby to her chest like she's seen me do a million times. then she'd put that baby down for a nap and get another baby and do the same thing. she didn't even notice me taking the picture because she was so engrossed in her mothering. i couldn't help but giggle mostly because it was so cute, so innocent, so loving the way she handles those babies...but also because it's just amazing what a toddler notices and picks up on and repeats. a-mazing.

soon after the feeding was over she would burp the baby, then kiss the baby, then put that baby down for nap while she fed another baby. i don't think you can tell from the last picture, but i love it because that baby actually comes with a bottle, so you know, annie -being the reasonable little human being that she is - both bottle-feeds AND breast feeds. i love that she is not so quick to judge like so many people are these days. you know the ones, those breastfeeding crazylunatics out there who think bottles are evil and you should breastfeed until your kid goes to kindergarten...or the other ones - the ones who think breastfeeding is somehow dirty and abnormal and believe that women should be kicked off of airplanes for feeding their children that way. oh they are everywhere, these crazy people. but annie? she's not one of them. like me, she chooses to breastfeed because she wanted to try it and luckily it came easy for her...but also, she likes the option of being able to give her baby a bottle every now and then. maybe she can teach me how to give jasper a bottle cause i'm still having no luck there. i bet that crazy-note-leaver from yesterday is also one of those kinds of judgers. booooo hissssssss!

just to keep it all fair and square - here is the jasper photo of the day:

this is the view he gets from the stroller. i had him laid out in the back end so he could sleep - not that he did. eventually he ended up in the little bjorn with me so he could check out the cool sites, too. oh man, you should have seen annie by the way. at first, utter terror when we were looking into the dolphin tank from the giant glass window. she was NOT about that. but eventually she warmed up to the idea and we went over to a different aquarium - the one with the sharks - and she was looking at all the pretty fish and then the shark swam by and she ran so fast it was just hysterical. he was a scary one, too, so i don't blame her. then, a couple of minutes later she'd every-so-slowly creep back to the glass and look in and sure enough the shark would show up again and she'd wave her hand at him like "no you won't, mr. sharky!" and then she'd run again. as the day went on she got more and more bold and at one point when we were outside walking around, a bunch of older kids started running past us and annie kind of got caught in the fray and she just stood there waving her hand and yelling - i mean yelling - "NO RUN! NOOOO RUUUUN!" it might have been one of the top 3 funniest things i've ever seen her do.

ok, that's enough from me today - i'm out.

Cruel and Unusual...Mostly Unusual.

it's all i've been hearing for the last day now. "see the animals?" "lucy go?" "henry?" "nicki?" round and round we go with the question/answer forum.

see, i made the mistake of telling annie in advance that we would be going to the zoo with lucy and rosaleen and henry. i should have just waited until we got in the car to go, but i have to admit, part of me likes to hear her so excited about her friends and "the animals" that i bring on the punishment myself. we had a great time even though the zoo was having some special high school spanish extravaganza and the place was mad with high school students. it was nuts, but fun. just good to hang with my girlfriends and let the kiddies run themselves ragged. oh my gosh and wait until you hear what happened! this is good.

so, i had ferris with me because we were showing the house this morning at 10am. now, first of all, if you know ferris you know he would rather go for a ride with us in the car -smooshed between two carseats with annie pulling his ears - than get left behind. you know this about him. ok. so i have NO GUILT leaving ferris in the car while we're doing stuff because #1) i have a brain and i know better than to leave a dog in a hot car in the summer with the windows up (even with them down in the summer), #2) i may be annoyed with ferris but i love that dog like he's a human being and i would never do anything to put him in harm's way - unless he like ate annie or jasper or something and #3) i forget how dumb/ignorant/annoying/confrontational some people are and it is astounding.

that was a long sentence - and perhaps a bit of a run-on - but i had a point in there somewhere.

so anywho, it's about 34 degrees and sunny today. the temperature inside the car was probably - i don't know - 55-60? perfectly comfortable for a doggie who likes to curl up into a ball to fit into whatever pocket of sun is available for the laying. not that the temperature matters because it is not june, july, august or september in minnesota. i think we were in the zoo for 2 hours. i come out, hit the lock on the door and ferris jumps up, tail wagging to greet us. we get in the car, and i start driving and decide to clean my windshield because it's a bit dusty and - whoa - there's a note stuck to my windshield. it reads:

"how would you like being locked in a car with no air. you are cruel. i may report you."

that's it. no name. nothing. i mean, first and foremost, at least have the ba-alls to leave a name. if you are going to be so bold - albeit lame - to leave me a note like that, why not have some guts and tell me who you are so we can have a conversation about this? so i could say things like:

#1 there IS air in the car, dummyhead. cars are not airtight. also, the car is not in a garage with the ignition turned on.

#2 are you KIDDING me right now? who ARE you? do you HAVE a dog? addison maybe put it best when he said "they probably have a dog, just not a high school education". ahhhhh yeah.

#3 it is 35 degrees and sunny outside. these are not the dog days (pardon the pun) of summer where the interior of the car can reach over 100 degrees. there is a plentitude of air in the car and...

#4 are you just stupid? you must be. you're an idiot. i wish you would report me so you could say to whoever it is you report me to "i saw a dog locked in a car with no air" and have them go "?" because it's ridiculous on so many levels, particularly the level about there being no air in the car. there was this one time, back in my partying days, when i was really hung over and i had a 5 hour drive home... after about 2.5 hours i had to stop because i thought i might be sick. i ended up napping in my car in a parking lot in the SUMMER with the WINDOWS UP (because there are freaks out there, you know) for 2 hours and i didn't die. because though it was hot, there was air. i was able to breathe. amazing, i know, but true.

ok, ok, i'm over it (obviously). i just think it's crazy. do you all think i've just abused my doggie? don't answer that please. honestly, though. who does that? leaves an anonymous note like that? rude.

anyway, that's all for today. tomorrow we'll talk about annie breastfeeding her babies. for real, ya'll.

have your pets spayed or neutered - and remember - there is NO air in your car, so if you're going on a long drive, best keep the windows open...

gina

Is there a Saint for this?

so we had annie's pre-op physical today. it was supposed to be yesterday but don't get me started on the ineptitude of certain appointment-takers at the children's clinic...enough said. aaaaaaaa-ny-way, we wake up this morning and annie is sporting a very drippy nose. and then "ACHOO!" the sneezing and then "COUGH COUGH" the coughing. WHAT?! are you freaking KIDDING me with the timing? girl hasn't had a cold allllllllll winter long and now, 6 days before her surgery, she gets one? i am not ok with this. we just spent a million dollars on another plane ticket for addison to come home and now there is a possibility there will be no surgery?! come on. i need prayers. there must be a saint for this. grandma? a little help here? is there a saint of surgery? st. christopher? does he cover this stuff? i don't know. i should, but i don't. anyway, we need some good prayer/good thoughts/fingers crossed action happening. mostly because i want this surgery done already, but also because it may very well be another month or 2 before we could reschedule and i can't deal that much longer by myself. so here's hoping this thing just stays a runny nose and doesn't turn the corner to sore throat. if that happens, we're done for sure.

doesn't that sandwich that annie is eating above look soooo good?

in jasper news, i have officially started weaning him. kind of. i'm really just trying to get the kid to take a bottle, but he's not interested. i'm dropping the 4:00pm feeding and am just giving him a bottle and then cereal. yesterday he took 3 oz of the bottle and ate about 4 bites of cereal that he gagged on every time. he might be even more dramatic than annie. he conceals his penchant for the dramatic very well with his i'm-quietly-judging-you-because-i'm-smarter-than -you looks...but i think he's every bit as dramatic as his sister...especially because when he only eats 3 oz. at 4:00pm he is a basket case by 7pm. it's awful. miss no nap and mr. crabby pants make mommy crazy by 7pm. on that note, i'm out.

Leavin' on a Jetplane

well, addison has come and gone. we took him to the airport this morning to head back to texas...we miss him already. it's funny how you get used to someone being gone when you know you have to, but then they come back and it takes a half a second to fall right back into your groove and everything feels like it should and then they leave again and you already forgot what it was like to not have them around so it feels really icky. did that make any sense? the point is, addison got out of the car at the airport and i missed him. the good thing is, he will be back on saturday for annie's surgery - which is already next week (!). not long after that, we'll be heading down to texas ourselves - wow.

times - they are a'changin'.

i really don't have anything else to offer today except that i miss my husband and annie keeps saying things like "daddy on a airplane? daddy in tessas? where daddy go?" and i know she misses her game partner already, too.

Prayer for St. Joseph

dear st. joseph,

i apologize for what we did to you this morning - what with all the pounding on your feet so we could get your head buried in the frozen dirt at the appropriate depth - but it is very important. we've been relying on our cute paint, new carpet, dishwasher and huge garage to sell this house, but it's just not working. time to call out the big guns. and you're it, joseph baby. annie calls you the baby jesus and i try to explain to her who you are but she just looks at me with this blank look, blinks a couple times and says "baby jesus?" as if to say "mom. stop being stupid. this is the baby jesus." so i just let her go with it. she's only 2, she'll catch on eventually.

anyway, i know you're probably busy with other stuff, but if you have a few minutes could you just kind of do whatever it is you do or talk to whoever you need to talk to (ahem) in order to help us get this house sold. i can handle a lot, but two mortgage payments is just annoying.

we appreciate it. really.

amen.

Monthly Archives - Annie Month 27

dear annie,

you are 27 months old today. we are in the throes of your terrible twos and i am constantly waffling back and forth on whether or not i feel they are truly terrible. some days yes, some no. some hours yes, some no.

it's nice your daddy could come back to see you for your 27 monther. he's been in texas, you know, getting all trained in on his new job. we'll be joining him in march after your surgery. have you and i talked about this yet? not really. you're having surgery in 2 weeks, honey. i'm sorry...but it is going to be so good. you know how you can't breathe when you sleep and how it wakes you up and you gasp and you cough all the time? the doctor is going to make this problem disappear. i hope you aren't too afraid when we get there. we've been practicing lots with the doctor kit they gave us at the hospital. really, i am more worried about how i'm going to handle the whole thing. you'll be fine. besides, you are going to get to eat things like jello, ice cream and popsicles for however long after the surgery, so you don't even know it yet but you are PSYCHED! i'll even put chocolate sauce on your ice cream.

so anyway, there is a whole lot of change happening in your life right now, so it's no wonder you are kind of a spaz these days. the other thing is, it's been below zero outside for over 2 weeks now and we all have some pretty serious cabin fever. you just tear around the house like a crazy person, and then you end up with various green and blue bruises all over your sweet little body because floors and tables and doors and walls are hard, not soft. and when you fall off of the soft things onto the hard things, you get marks to prove it. you are tough though. seriously tough. scarily tough. i don't think you think anything about falling off the bed onto your head - your just like "oh, hm, i should try not to do THAT again" and on you go playing on the bed all the while singing "...3 little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and broke his head..." it's actually pretty funny.

new brother, daddy gone, cabin fever, surgery, moving to texas, new bedroom, potty training - these are all things that have been new in your life over the past few months. you are doing great and handling it all so well - i'm so proud of you. i often wonder if i'm screwing you up for good because of all this craziness...but i guess i won't know for another 13 years or so. i hope not. cause at the end of the day - even the longest day - you are still my baby girl. my sweet, silly, wonderful peanut who in my opinion is turning into a big girl much too quickly. i love you with all my heart and soul, baby.

love, mommy

2 of Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

i just got called out by someone (i won't mention any names) for not updating my blog in over a week, so i figured i better get on it.

the kiddies have had fun with their little valentine's gifts...annie particularly likes to help jasper with his. she is way more concerned about what he's getting than what she is getting. always lookin' out for her little bro. OR just making sure he's not getting the better deal.

addison and i are having our "date night" tomorrow night - we're going out to a funky, yummy sushi place uptown so we can remember what it's like to be young and hip. ha. tonight though, addison is going to brave the cold to grill us some steaks and we'll fry us up some homemade steak fries and a yummy salad and vino and that will be perfect. i can't wait. oh, and i picked up some ridiculously rich-looking triple chocolate ganache something-or-other from trader joes for dessert so i'll report later on how that was. mmmm. it's valentines day - we have to have chocolate at some point.

it's been great having daddy-o home for the week. we've been busy that's for sure. annie is getting all the pancakes, tickles and other daddy-specific games in that she can. course, it's nice to know he'll be back in 2 weeks for the big surgery, so it won't feel like so long that he's been gone. hey, speaking of surgery - we were lucky enough to get to hang out with our nephew/cousin henry yesterday...that's him being mauled by ferris. we got him to play doctor with us and he was great! he did great as both surgeon and patient. jasper even decided to join dr. henry for a surgery - they are VERY advanced little doctors. prodigies even.

i'm all over the place in this post. see? that's what happens when i take a week off. i ramble, and you get 750,000 links to pictures. sorry people. my blog.

anyway - on saturday night our friends (and i use that term loosely - hee hee) roasted addison and i as well as our friend tom, who is also moving to texas. it was debaucherous and happy and sad and goofy and raunchy and the most fun i've had in a long time. i don't want to get all blubbery and whatnot since i already did a bit of that on saturday night, but i am going to miss the minneapolis contingent so bad it hurts my tummy to think about it. it brings to mind a little song by R.E.O. Speedwagon that i am more than happy to get stuck in all of your heads: "...i can't fight this feeling any longer, and yet i'm still afraid to let it show. what started out as friendship has grown strooo-ooo-ooo-nger..." sigh. seriously though, i'm buried up to my neck in denial that this is really happening, and when it hits me i will be alone in some strange place and the people that i would normally turn to for support will be fifteen hundred miles away. this is good for you, verizon wireless, as if you don't have enough of our money already. i guess i have to turn in to a phone person. sucks though. anyway - the roast was a blast and i will spare you all the pictures from that debacle...because they are just a bunch of extreme close-ups random eyes-half-open shots and you can imagine yourself what that must look like.

i think that pretty much sums up the last week. it's all over the place and i'm sorry about that, but i just don't feel like going through and editing it all to be more coherent for you. for that, i am not sorry. nap time is almost over so i need to go enjoy my last half hour of quiet.

peace out.

I swear I didn't do it

annie took a header off the sofa yesterday onto the worst-of-all-coffee-tables-with-the-SHARPEST-edges-ever...and she ended up with the giant goose egg/bruise you see above. and yes, she was so mad at me for trying to take a picture of her. yes that's my arm on her wrist restraining her which is why you see that look on her face.

i'm almost scared to take her in public for fear that i may get turned in. turned in by someone who doesn't or has never had a toddler in their life. speaking of toddler moments - i took the kiddies to Border's Books yesterday while we were showing the house. i thought it would be fun - we could find a book, i wanted a crossword puzzle book and maybe a magazine - and then veruca came out to play. i was trying to find my magazine of choice and annie kept saying "this way!" louder and louder. finally, i had to have a little "talk" with her. i knelt down in front of her stroller and was saying "look at mommy. look at me, annie. look at mommy. right now. look at mommy. listen." none of this was effective. she kept looking past me going "THIS WAY!" ugh. there were people everywhere i know, just silently judging me. am i paranoid or what? do all parents feel so judged, or is it just me? i think it's weird. i should probably get over it. i don't care really, i think i just remember being a person without kids and seeing those mothers and thinking "oh that sucks". ha. anyway, veruca did go away after our little talk, and i didn't have to raise my voice or anything. i didn't buy her anything, either, so there! if you buy yourself something but let your kid carry it, they think it's theirs and they forget about it by the time you get in the car so it works out great for everyone.

one thing that did not work out so great for me, though, was the book we had to buy from the library. yep, that's right. annie ripped a page out of "Miss Mary Mack" and now we own it. $6.99 for the most annoying book to read ever. and every time she sees it she say's "broken". i wonder what would have happened if would have just taped it up and not said anything? but noooooooo, i brought it to the librarian and said "we had an accident" and showed her and she goes "let me see your library card" and then "it's $6.99". crabby much? i don't know what i expected but she acted like i must know what to do - like certainly the little devil child i brought in to her library had done this before and therefore "it's $6.99" came out of her snide little mouth like "oh - you again - it's $6.99 but i wish it were $20 now get OUT of my library" oh well. i'm sure she was happy to see me take annie back to get more books. i thought librarians were supposed to be nice. hey - speaking of librarians and kid's shows we grew up watching...do you remember that one about Marian the Librarian and she was being held hostage in this castle to read stories to the witch or something? hold on while i google this...ok - evidently it was called "Once Upon a Time" but i couldn't find anything else about it. oh man, it was a goodie though. marian would pull objects from her bag and then tell the story about those objects and she always thougt the witch would let her go if she told the story, but the witch liked the stories so much she made her stay. love it. anyway - this librarian? NOT like Marian.

so, here is a video of jasper giggling. he's such a big boy now.

The Thighway of Love

yesterday at our superbowl get-together we were marveling at henry's massive thighs and it got to reminding me of this picture i took of annie's legs when we were at my folk's house last week. baby legs are so sweet. even when they're "big babies" at 2. it's one of my favorite things to do is just watch annie run around in her underwear cause her little thighs are too cute. i keep trying to get a picture of her when she puts her feet behind her head while sitting, but she won't show off for the camera. i think cirque du soleil is in her future though. seriously.

so a big thank-you to tom and molly for hosting all of us crazies yesterday for the superbowl. i'm so grateful to them that i could get out of the house and commune with adults for a while. i ate so much food in the first hour of being there, i was hurting a bit. i forgot that i wore jeans that were tight withOUT food in my tummy. wow. it was good pain though.

last night was annoying. annie would NOT go to sleep. we finally had to leave before the game was over because she wasn't cooperating. it is just starting to drive me insane. i've reached my boiling point i think. i might have had a mini-breakdown last night. ask addison, i'm not sure. hahahhahaha. sorry honey. i just can't wait for you to come home and for this weird interim-thing we're doing to end. i have no interest in being a single mom. none whatsoever. larry helped cheer me up though, so thank you larry for calming me down. i'm excited to be back as a complete family again, i'm excited to start the new deal in Austin, i'm nervous to leave everyone here in Minne, i'm anxious, i'm a little frustrated no one has bought this house yet...are you kidding by the way? this place is so CUTE! who wouldn't want this joint? i would buy this house all over again if we were buying our first home again. come on, people, get on board!

i'm all over the place today. annie must have felt my frustration last night though, because she stayed in her bed until 6am and then she slept more in my bed until 7:30 almost. thank you, honey. i needed that sleep. and for the first time in 6 or 7 days, jasper didn't wake up at a weird time. he woke at 7 like a normal kid. bless your hearts, babies. i feel much more rested today. i think that's where my stress begins and ends with this single-mom thing: it's the lack of sleep that kills you. it's just exhausting. and then when 8pm comes you are like "thank you God" because you finally get some quiet, alone time and then suddenly it's 11:30 and you're still enjoying your vegetative state in front of the TV and you figure you have to go to bed and so you do but then the madness begins at 1am and it's just insane. so, it's nights when i actually get to 6am without interruption that i feel like a rested person again. makes a big difference. i hope no one is reading this post today. it couldn't be more dull. i'm just venting.

well, time for lunch. which means, quiet time/nap time is only about an hour away! yippee!

Hunker Down

it is as cold as i remember it for a long time. -13 for the moment. and from the extended forecast shows, it's not getting above zero for many, many days. is this what it's like to live in siberia? i hate it. this is one thing that makes me very excited for austin.

what you see above is the snow family we made when we were visiting my folks. it's funny, because annie would NOT smile for the picture. finally my mom showed up behind me from the house and made a funny face and she couldn't help it, but she was not going to smile. she loved her snow family though. you know what's cute? we had built the snowman on the right - which evidently was the mommy - and after we built that one annie said "daddy owman?" apparently her little nuclear family world was not complete with only a mommy snowman. the mommy needed a daddy. duh. so then we built the daddy snowman...who is actually smaller than the mommy but whatever. and then came the baby. i don't need to explain how that works to you. hee hee. anyway, it was the last beautiful day we had. i think it was 40 degrees and the snow was perfect for snowmen. papa finally had to drag annie inside when her mittens fell off and filled with snow. she would have stayed out there with her new family all night.

here's a little "taste" of what happened last night when jasper was introduced to rice cereal. after that, this happened - oh he was so disappointed in me - and then this happened...the gagging. it was very entertaining for me and, as i suspected, the little boobman would not give cereal a chance. and then, of course, he woke at 4 this morning. i can't wait til addison gets home next week. i seriously need a breather from the middle-of-the-night duty. it'd be one thing if annie were sleeping through the night but nooooooooooooooooooo...ay yay yay.

what else? not much. we're venturing out in the arctic tundra today to go to the grocery store to stock up for the second-coming-ice-age...i mean the super bowl shindig. other than that - no plans to make it out into the cold. good day to finish that bottle of 3 buck chuck i've got.

stay warm,

gina

Monthly Archives - Jasper Month 4

dear japper,

i'm so sorry that no one is ever going to call you "jasper". it's just that your sister can't say your name so she says "japper" and now everyone calls you that. i used to be so annoyed by people who were like "my daughter couldn't say [whatever name], so we now call our son [ridiculous name]"...but now i get it. and i think japper suits you. i am sorry though.

you are 4 months old. actually 4 months and one week. i'm a little behind as usual. we're getting ready to start you on big kid food - rice cereal. i hope you like it. you've been doing this thing for the past week where you wake up between 3 and 5am and i am not thrilled. i am figuring you are having a growth spurt and you are telling me you need more food during the day because you are sucking me dry at 3am. it's insane. you drink like you've been walking through the sahara for weeks, it's insane. it's also not allowed. you are 4 months old, sweetheart, that is too old to be waking in the middle of the night. you know, you aren't supposed to eat anything after 8pm - you might get fat. i'm just saying.

you have also started babbling more. it's hysterical. you just lay down on the floor and go "gggkkk" and "mmmmrrrrr" and things like that and it makes me giggle. speaking of giggling, you are doing more of that lately too. it's too funny. it almost sounds like it hurts. it might since usually i'm tickle-torturning you to keep you laughing because i can't get enough.

annie has really taken to you as the older sis. if you are crying she will come to you and pat your head or tummy and say "okay japper" and then lay her head on your tummy. then you laugh. you love her. she can calm you down like that, it's pretty sweet. sometimes though, if you're really p.o.'ed, you'll start screaming and annie will get freaked out and back away from you and just say "japper sad". she won't touch that. she knows even her sisterly powers can't bring you back from that kind of outburst. there's only one thing that can and we all know what it is.

i'm afraid i might be doting on you a bit much. i'm afraid you may become a mama's boy if i'm not careful. i was this way with your sister too, but it's different with girls. one thing is true of you both though: i love you more than anything and sometimes i just want to lick your face off.

love, your mommy

Home, (Freezing @*^#$^) Sweet Home

we arrived home yesterday late afternoon from a week-long vacation at camp papa and mama. we had a great time and i got a little reprieve from being a 24/7 mommy-on-call. thank you mom and dad for helping me out with the little ones. hard to believe it was nearly a week - it went so fast and i don't even think my folks were sick of us yet! i would have stayed longer, but it's supposed to be minus 7,000,000 degrees the next few days and we weren't too jazzed to be driving in that and i do have a very important superbowl party to be here for. priorities, people. anywho, we had a lot of fun hanging out with my folks and my sister-in-law, jess, was in town for a day so she finally got to meet jasper and we got to hang out for a night so it was fun to see her too.

annie discovered Cinderella while at grandma's house. it's "ella? ella?" nonstop. we must have watched that movie (on VHS) about 6 times and that might be an underestimate. i was just amazed that she could - for the most part - sit still for that long. might be almost time to take her to her first movie. i can't wait. she'll probably pass out from the enormity of it all. she's so used to our teeny tv that when she sees a movie on the big screen, it'll just be too much for her.

what else? hmmm... japper is doing great. he's getting big. i swear. he loves to sit up now. you know, he can't do it yet, but he really wants to and prefers to be held in a sitting position. his latest trick is when we put him in his car seat, he leans way forward so his head is like this. every time i look in my rear view mirror and see him slumped forward like that i think about how if i were britney spears, the social services people would be after me. seriously though, japper does this to himself. you can try to put his head back, but he fights you for it. stubborn. also on the japper front: we are going to get some rice cereal today and get him going on that. i think he's going through a growth spurt - he's been waking up between 3 and 5am the past few nights and he's staaaarving...so i think he needs some more substance. cereal time! woo hoo! he still won't take a damn bottle to save his life, so i don't know how cereal will go but we're going to go for it anyway.

i'm way behind in my monthly updates too, so be looking for those to come soon. have a good day - and thank you to Punxsutawney Phil who didn't see his shadow today and promises us an early spring! yay!

Chill, Mama, Chill

hahahahahahahahaha! i'm so melodramatic, aren't i? i should have tied a disclaimer to that last post saying "warning: sleep-deprived mother of 2 children wrote this post. it is way past her bed time, but the only quiet time she has had all day. anything you are about to read may reflect her highly exhausted and edgy state".

not that it all wasn't true, but i didn't proof the post before i posted it and i realized that it did sound a bit like an emergency. it's not. the emotions and stress and exhaustion were just so fresh that it was all just coming out of me like vomit...for lack of a better simile. or something. anyway, my sister-in-law calls me this morning and is like "what is the MATTER and what is going on and is annie having surgery today???" and that's when i realized maybe, just maybe i had made it all sound a wee bit more dramatic than it actually is.

annie is having surgery, yes, but it's not an emergency. we've scheduled her surgery for february 26. finally. i'm so relieved to have this whole thing cleared up. the poor thing hasn't been able to breathe for months, so i think she'll be a whole new person once she can breathe normally again. it may be sad to hear her say "no" instead of "doh", but it's ok. i can handle it. i read in one of my pamphlets that kids who have chronic obstructive apnea often aren't getting enough sleep which leads to behavior problems. um, hello!? i'm thinking after this surgery annie will be anita no more! she's going to be a perfect angel! it's just the breathing that is the problem, not her age or my parenting! hallelujah.

oh and speaking of anita - it's just not sitting well with me. it's not working for me. i think i'm actually going to start calling her veruca. it really fits her much better. especially because there are many times when she sounds british "mummy!" she'll say. "i want this mummy!".

so, i just wanted to clear the water about the surgery deal. it's happening and it's crazy and all that, but it's not an emergency so don't be worrying if you were.

later.

(Not) Catching Zzzzzz's

wow. today was a big day. a long day. an exhausting day that began at 1:30 in the morning. annie woke, i took her back down to bed. she woke again at 2:30, i took her back down to bed. at 3:30 i just stuffed her in bed with me and then i proceeded to not get any more sleep because the girl is the loudest breather/snorer/can't-breathe-so-i'm-gasping-for-air(er) ever. it was actually a relief when day broke, because i knew it was the day we would be visiting the ear, nose and throat specialist and maybe, finally, we would get some answers.

we arrived at the clinic at the U at 2:30. first was the hearing test. everything seemed to be going fine except when we'd get to the real low level (soft) sounds and then there were some issues...frankly i am not at all concerned with annie's hearing. the girl breathes so loudly through her mouth for crying out loud - that is just how she breathes on any given sunday - so it's not shocking to me that she can't hear someone whisper her name from 6 feet away. imagine how loud your breathing is in your own head if you were breathing through your mouth all the time. sheesh. her doctor agreed with me though (i should be an md) and said the hearing test wasn't really indicative of a big problem, but it's something to watch. she also has some fluid in her ears which could be a contributing factor, and also another reason to watch the hearing...and that's only the beginning. we then go back in to the waiting room and wait and then at last, we get in to see the doctor. first, nurse. she does her thing and says next we'll be seeing the surgical resident. damn teaching hospitals. one note on that whole thing by the way - everyone is a student and they are all younger than me. it's so weird. doctors all used to be so OLD...then you get to be of a "certain" age and now - suddenly - you're the old one. ick. i digress. so dr. surgical resident comes in and checks annie's ears (she's doing awesome with all this waiting around, by the way. i couldn't believe how well behaved she was - she must have known we were finally going to get her some help). dr. surgical resident then tries to get a look inside annie's mouth to check the tonsils but instead of being cooperative, she starts spitting raspberries at him. i thought it was hysterical and cute - and i think he did, too - but i was trying to be a good, assertive parent and help things move along. he got a real quick peek and said "they're huge". yes, that's the formal medical diagnosis for annie's tonsils: huge. more waiting, more waiting and finally the doc comes in. suddenly we're smack dab in the middle of an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" - the dr. surgical resident is all "...patient presents with a blah-blah-blah-big-medical-word-blah-blah, etc..." and dr. rimmell is all "...and how would you proceed?" and it was all very life-imitating-art at that moment and i got a little kick out of it.

and then the other shoe dropped. dr. rimmell says "normally i would proceed by issuing a course of medication for a week or two to see how she reacts to that, but i think the end result is going to be the same no matter what so i think we just go ahead and schedule surgery now..."

i'm sorry, what? surgery?! i mean, i figured that would be the end result - you know - after a couple months of medicine, sleep clinic trials, etc...i didn't think it would be surgery right now, right this minute. i was so ill-prepared for this. i didn't have my mom with me, i didn't (obviously) have addison with me, and suddenly i was being asked to make decisions about whether to remove some adenoids and tonsils or just shave them, whether to do ear tubes or not, whether to have a nervous breakdown in front of the doctor or not. man. i did hold it together though. i almost (almost) started crying, but i didn't. it's just really scary and heartbreaking to think about having to put your baby through all this. i know, though, that she will feel so much better once it's done. it's just that suddenly the doctors are throwing things at you like "complications of the blah blah could be bleeding in which case we would need to see her back right away" (as in - otherwise she could die); or "there is a 1 in 80,000 chance of mortality..." what?! mortality?! you're talking to me about my 2 year old baby and you would even MENTION the word mortality? do you you KNOW how close to losing it i am, mr.? i mean, dr.?! honestly.

and then suddenly we are sitting in the room with a "patient coordinator" - whose job it is to prepare (read: terrify) you about what it's like to watch your child go to sleep via anesthesia. it's insane. and then she's handing annie a doctor's kit that has all these surgical gloves, hats, bandaids, gauze, anesthesia mask, ekg pads, etc. in it so that she can familiarize herself with everything she'll be seeing the day of surgery. and then there are the 700 pamphlets and papers about procedures and physicals and risks and parking and pre-op and post-op and it's all quite overwhelming when you were just expecting to show up for an appointment where the doctor says "here's a prescription for some flonase - now be gone with you". instead - 2 hours later you are about to send your baby girl - your innocent, sweet, funny, perfect little baby girl under the knife - entrusted to the hands of a doctor you have only known for 5 minutes but have to trust that he is one of the best there is at what he does. it's really scary. i'm completely scared out of my mind, but i know that no matter what, i have to not ever show that to annie. i have to somehow be the strong one for her. she's going to be even more terrified, i'm sure of it.

so there you have it. the long and short of it is that we're going to go the route of shaving down the adenoids and tonsils (less risky) and then putting in the ear tubes as well so we don't have to do it later since it is a big hereditary thing and addison had them and we might as well just nip it all in the bud right now...

the drama of the day. it was intense and long. even annie thought so. she fell asleep in the car at about 5:00 and it's now 11pm and she's still o-u-t...bless her little heart. hopefully these are the last nights of her having breathing problems. i sure hope so.

Ritual de lo Habitual

little reference to one of my old faves - Jane's Addiction, and one of the best albums ever...but anyway...above you can see one of the new johnston house rituals - piling into mommy's bed in the morning before breakfast. i tried to get annie's attention to smile, but "Little Bear" beat me to it.

so i've been playing with Napster yesterday and today. i can see how this could get very addictive. it all started on sunday morning when i was watching CBS Sunday Morning and they did a profile on Regina Spektor. she's a twenty-something from the Bronx by way of Russia and she plays the piano and sings and her voice is so mellow, so ethereal, so jazzy...she's kind of Fiona Apple-y...but different. anyway, i was completely entranced by her music so i wrote her name down and then got on Napster to figure out how it all works and proceeded to download the whole cd to my computer. and then, in a surprising show of technical genius, i burned the cd onto a cd so i can have it in my car as well. can you believe i actually burned something? i'm so technically saavy it hurts. nevermind that the first batch of cds i bought for this purpose were dvd only or something. whatever. i blame it on the stupid dummy that was working at Office Depot that day. i mean, shouldn't you know these things if you work at a place like that? all i wanted to know was if i could record music on these cds and the 17 year old cashier says "i would have no clue about that". what?! really? you're 17, aren't you supposed to have more of a clue than i? it just really irks me. the lack of customer service or just about everywhere - particulary, but not limited to the customer service desks you get connected to when on the phone with the phone company, cable company, etc...but that is a whole blog in and of itself and i won't go there right now. the point is, i burned a cd and i'm super psyched about it. now i just need to rein that excitement in because i could see spending hundreds of dollars a week just downloading cds and songs to make mixes and all that. (i won't addison, i won't...i'm just saying i can see how it could happen) suddenly your mind is just spinning with all the songs/cds you've wanted but never had and it's all right there at the click of a mouse. ok, i realize the rest of the world has been doing this for years now, but we just got a computer that does more than play solitaire so excuse me while i celebrate joining the 21st century.

my mom is coming today to visit/help. unbeknownst to her, i've been telling annie to please, please go to mama's room at 2:30 am when she wakes up and not my room. please. it's weird, the 2:30 thing. because it's ALWAYS 2:30. never 3. never 2. always 2:30. i don't get it. i'm thinking about installing an electric gate at her doorway, is that abusive? i'm thinking a couple of good zaps and she'll stay in bed the whole night.

meanwhile, it's time to get dressed so i can take annie outside and burn some energy. toodles.