Well, Blaise is still a happy girl for day care. But no sooner did I post that we were all settled and happy, than she decided that bed time is no longer her thing. Unfortunately, when she decides to protest bed, she goes the protest puke route. It's really gross and hard to deal with. With regular tantrums, we can just say "I don't talk to people who yell at me. Come find me when you're ready to be nice" and walk away. With protest puke, we have to clean it up, which delays bed time, which was Blaise's goal. We got into this cycle a few months ago, so we have a few tricks up our sleeves, but we're probably in for a week or so of unpleasant bed times.
In other (improbable, but funny) news, Blaise won a drawing through the public library's children's program! The prize is monster truck tickets, which goes to show that even when we're doing impossibly egghead things like signing our kid up for a reading program, we still might end up with monster truck tickets. We had joked when we signed her up that it seemed like a strange prize and when the lady called me at work yesterday to say that Blaise had won, I couldn't stop laughing.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Happy girl
We dropped a happy Blaise off at day care this morning. She told us all about how she was going to ask Miss Heather for "ponies" (pigtails) and ask Miss Addy to read her "Max's ABCs." We picked up a happy Blaise, too, complete with ponies. Miss Heather reported that she had been happy all day, if not excited about a popsicle. (It was 0 F today, but a child in the room had his tonsils out, so everyone was eating popsicles in solidarity.) Fingers crossed, knock on wood and all that, but it looks like the day care transition might have happened and we're all thrilled.
And one of us is cute.
And one of us is cute.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Day care, work, visitors and cat
We've been having a very busy few weeks. After an excellent start at her new day care, Blaise hit a few speed bumps in the adjustment process. On her third day there, we arrived for pick-up to find a sign on the door alerting us to gastroenteritis in the center. Well, crap. Blaise seemed fine, until we got a phone call the next afternoon to come pick her up. She had a fever. Her fever was mild and ended quickly without GI symptoms (thank goodness), but was closely followed by cold-like symptoms that took almost a week to go away. When we started her back at day care, she was very unhappy. We had a week and a half of tearful drop-offs, including the occasional retching bout. The odd thing was that she was happy to talk positively about school when we were home: her friends' names, things she liked to do, books she asked her teachers to read, This week started out very badly, but by this morning, all was well at drop-off and they tell us she had a great day. Fingers crossed that we're over this hump. Really, it was too much to expect her to not have some difficulty settling. She'd been an absolute champ about everything else surrounding the move.
Ben and I are getting settled into our new jobs as well. We'd forgotten how big a timesink getting started in a new place can be. ("Um. I'm sure I have an email address. But I don't know what it is. Also, has the key to my office arrived yet?") Between the annoying administrative issues and actually trying to do, you know, research, we've been pretty busy.
Much more fun: We had visitors from Boston! Having survived the ordeal of organizing the MIT Mystery Hunt, "Aunt" Kate and "Uncle" Andrew came to bring us our cat, Leila. Blaise was thrilled to see them, occasionally just grinning hugely at them and saying "Aun'Kate Uncle Andrew in the new house!" She was less excited about the cat, but we taught her to say "Scat, cat!" which, while ineffective, is fun to say. Kate and Andrew arrived just in time for some serious Fargo cold (high of -4 F; you don't want to know what the low was), but we had fun anyway. Blaise was sorry to see them go and would like to fly on an airplane to Boston, please.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
2011
“Auld Lang Syne” means something like “Days Gone By.” It’s certainly an appropriate phrase for a New Year’s song and also apt for Blaise’s birthday.
I think about Blaise being a short-gut kid a lot – I worry about her weight, I fret when she gets sick, I see the scars on her belly every day. Still, two years later, it’s thankfully a very different set of concerns than it was on New Year’s Eve 2008. It’s hard to return to the events of that night (and the following morning) but I also find it hard not to as her birthday approaches.
Moving to a new city makes it a little different: There are places in Boston and Cambridge that have a weight associated with them that no place here does (and that I hope no place here acquires). Still, there are little things…when Blaise was admitted to the hospital in Fargo for IV fluids overnight, carolers came and sang to her in her room and a nurse brought her a donated toy as a present. Even though we were heading home in a few hours, both Erin and I found both of these things remarkably tough to deal with. The nice things people did for us always had a way of getting to us the most. I could usually deal with singing to Blaise during bag changes and other not-fun things, but when some friends came by to give us an envelope full of donations they’d collected for us, I was a total wreck afterwards. Having people at Sanford do these things for us didn’t have quite the same impact, but echoes of things that happened before can take you back.
Letting myself remember B’s first New Year’s Day can be difficult, but today I find that it also makes it easy for me to see and appreciate the accumulation of happy developments over two years. When Blaise was born, I was struck later by just how rapidly our lives changed profoundly – this is always true with a new child, I suppose, but the maelstrom of activity surrounding Blaise’s birth meant that hour-by-hour our lives looked completely different. Today, even following a move to North Dakota, the tempo of our lives is so much steadier. There aren’t numbers that we hang our hopes on every day. The changes we talk about after she’s in bed are things like the books she likes, the phrases she comes up with, and the things that she thinks are funny.
There are other indicators of how far B’s come: Around this time last year, rice mum-mums were the main food of choice because they barely had any ingredients…this year, we know Blaise would rather eat Saag Paneer than pretty much anything else. Walking wasn’t on the horizon for another few months on New Year's Eve 2009…this year, Blaise does a vigorous happy dance in place before she tears off to chase after me, Erin, or her favorite stuffed friends. As for language, Blaise chatters away to us all day about all kinds of interesting and funny stuff she sees going on. These things sometimes make it difficult to believe that Blaise’s life began the way it did, but never so difficult to believe that we forget.
This all means that this New Year’s Eve, I still find myself thinking about days gone by and remembering how tough they were. But, I’m also thinking about days to come and how much fun they’ll be.
I’m going to close by giving you all a version of the same pitch we gave you last year: Blaise’s first birthday present was donated blood. Anybody can save a life. Please give blood if you can.
A happy and safe new year to all of you, and as always, thanks for reading!
I think about Blaise being a short-gut kid a lot – I worry about her weight, I fret when she gets sick, I see the scars on her belly every day. Still, two years later, it’s thankfully a very different set of concerns than it was on New Year’s Eve 2008. It’s hard to return to the events of that night (and the following morning) but I also find it hard not to as her birthday approaches.
Moving to a new city makes it a little different: There are places in Boston and Cambridge that have a weight associated with them that no place here does (and that I hope no place here acquires). Still, there are little things…when Blaise was admitted to the hospital in Fargo for IV fluids overnight, carolers came and sang to her in her room and a nurse brought her a donated toy as a present. Even though we were heading home in a few hours, both Erin and I found both of these things remarkably tough to deal with. The nice things people did for us always had a way of getting to us the most. I could usually deal with singing to Blaise during bag changes and other not-fun things, but when some friends came by to give us an envelope full of donations they’d collected for us, I was a total wreck afterwards. Having people at Sanford do these things for us didn’t have quite the same impact, but echoes of things that happened before can take you back.
Letting myself remember B’s first New Year’s Day can be difficult, but today I find that it also makes it easy for me to see and appreciate the accumulation of happy developments over two years. When Blaise was born, I was struck later by just how rapidly our lives changed profoundly – this is always true with a new child, I suppose, but the maelstrom of activity surrounding Blaise’s birth meant that hour-by-hour our lives looked completely different. Today, even following a move to North Dakota, the tempo of our lives is so much steadier. There aren’t numbers that we hang our hopes on every day. The changes we talk about after she’s in bed are things like the books she likes, the phrases she comes up with, and the things that she thinks are funny.
There are other indicators of how far B’s come: Around this time last year, rice mum-mums were the main food of choice because they barely had any ingredients…this year, we know Blaise would rather eat Saag Paneer than pretty much anything else. Walking wasn’t on the horizon for another few months on New Year's Eve 2009…this year, Blaise does a vigorous happy dance in place before she tears off to chase after me, Erin, or her favorite stuffed friends. As for language, Blaise chatters away to us all day about all kinds of interesting and funny stuff she sees going on. These things sometimes make it difficult to believe that Blaise’s life began the way it did, but never so difficult to believe that we forget.
This all means that this New Year’s Eve, I still find myself thinking about days gone by and remembering how tough they were. But, I’m also thinking about days to come and how much fun they’ll be.
I’m going to close by giving you all a version of the same pitch we gave you last year: Blaise’s first birthday present was donated blood. Anybody can save a life. Please give blood if you can.
A happy and safe new year to all of you, and as always, thanks for reading!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas!
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We didn't do much in our house, but we had lots of fun anyway. Here's Blaise with her favorite Christmas present. It took us 6 hours to convince her to open another one (to be fair, about 90 minutes of that was a nap).
Yes, that is her doll in the salad. We try not to ask too many questions. So we chopped a lot of wooden veggies and then we ate some barbecue. Blaise still isn't interested in meat, but she ate plenty of Jack's Stack beans. (For the uninitiated: Jack's Stack beans are actually the best in the world. Maybe better.)
Blaise still has about 6 unopened presents under the tree. She got so excited about everything she opened that we had to play with it right away. She also seems a bit concerned that opening all the presents will make the Christmas tree go away. She loves the Christmas tree.
We know you crave pictures. So here you go:
Yeah, so she got a little, um, creative with the Mr. Potato Head. We think she got that you are supposed to stick the pieces on, but not that it's supposed to be person-like. Between this and the Dolly Salad, it was kind of a surreal day for Blaise's toys.
We wish you all a happy, healthy Christmas and a relaxing weekend!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Christmas in Fargo
I said that the next post would be from the Dakota Territory and I meant it! We dodged a pretty nasty snowstorm on the flight in and made it to Fargo on the 11th. We stayed a few days at a hotel and moved into our house with the bare minimum of stuff that our suitcases (and the local Walmart) could supply us with. The moving truck showed up this past Saturday and in the meantime we managed to buy a car (a 2011 Subaru Legacy that needs a name), buy a sofa (a little red number that also needs a name), and unpack most of the non-book boxes.
So, now that the dust has settled, how are we doing? Overall, pretty well - those of you who see us on Facebook already know that we got nailed with a bad stomach bug last week, though. The bad news about that was that we ended up with our first hospital admission in Fargo so that B could get some replacement IV fluids overnight after a very bad day of gut trouble. The good news is that she's been having a great time the last few days and seems to be very close to back to normal (see evidence below).
The other good news is that visiting the hospital gave us a chance to suss out the pediatric floor and our new pediatrician in the context of a fairly mild short-gut moment. I felt so much better hearing that our nurses and our pediatrician have treated short-gut kids before and were very knowledgeable about what Blaise's numbers and history meant. I'd rather stay out of the hospital altogether, but I think these folks can take good care of her.
Besides that extremely not-fun stuff, we've managed to do some fun things, too. We have a Christmas tree that Blaise is VERY excited about, and a pile of presents under it that she is actually less excited about.
The empty house was fun to run around in, but the reunion with all of her stuffed animals and books was a very happy one (I think she may have actually thought that some of those things may have been gone).
Christmas also means that one gets to wear funny hats.
All in all, it's been a good first week or so in Fargo. We got here, our stuff got here, the moving crew on this side was a riot (for any "Newhart" fans, we somehow got both Darryl and Darryl, but not Larry), and the Fargo Public Library has a great children's room. Grandpa Tom paid Blaise a very fun and very helpful visit that has left her with the lingering desire to see pictures of his dog Buddy at all hours of the day. Aside from having been sick, we're all enjoying settling in, though Blaise clearly has been thinking about some of her old friends: we've been hearing a lot about going to visit Aunt Kate and Uncle Andrew and she's spent some time looking at pictures of old friends like Siri, Leo, and her buds from day-care. Still, even if she's missing people a bit, she's also been having a blast seeing all the snow and sticking Christmas decorations all over the house. We've been reading about how "Da Gunch" stole Christmas, spotting "Kissmass Tees!" everywhere and singing Frosty the Snowman over and over and over.
Finally, for those of you who are going to ask: It is indeed wicked cold up here and everyone keeps telling us that it only gets much MUCH worse. Strangely enough, I kinda like it...nothing like the threat of mild frostbite to keep you on your toes (given that you can still feel them). Seriously though, it's just winter up here - nothing too bad, just a little more snow and chill than usual for Boston. I'm sure it's going to get more intense, but for now we're all looking to buy us some sleds.
So, now that the dust has settled, how are we doing? Overall, pretty well - those of you who see us on Facebook already know that we got nailed with a bad stomach bug last week, though. The bad news about that was that we ended up with our first hospital admission in Fargo so that B could get some replacement IV fluids overnight after a very bad day of gut trouble. The good news is that she's been having a great time the last few days and seems to be very close to back to normal (see evidence below).
The other good news is that visiting the hospital gave us a chance to suss out the pediatric floor and our new pediatrician in the context of a fairly mild short-gut moment. I felt so much better hearing that our nurses and our pediatrician have treated short-gut kids before and were very knowledgeable about what Blaise's numbers and history meant. I'd rather stay out of the hospital altogether, but I think these folks can take good care of her.
Besides that extremely not-fun stuff, we've managed to do some fun things, too. We have a Christmas tree that Blaise is VERY excited about, and a pile of presents under it that she is actually less excited about.
The empty house was fun to run around in, but the reunion with all of her stuffed animals and books was a very happy one (I think she may have actually thought that some of those things may have been gone).
Christmas also means that one gets to wear funny hats.
All in all, it's been a good first week or so in Fargo. We got here, our stuff got here, the moving crew on this side was a riot (for any "Newhart" fans, we somehow got both Darryl and Darryl, but not Larry), and the Fargo Public Library has a great children's room. Grandpa Tom paid Blaise a very fun and very helpful visit that has left her with the lingering desire to see pictures of his dog Buddy at all hours of the day. Aside from having been sick, we're all enjoying settling in, though Blaise clearly has been thinking about some of her old friends: we've been hearing a lot about going to visit Aunt Kate and Uncle Andrew and she's spent some time looking at pictures of old friends like Siri, Leo, and her buds from day-care. Still, even if she's missing people a bit, she's also been having a blast seeing all the snow and sticking Christmas decorations all over the house. We've been reading about how "Da Gunch" stole Christmas, spotting "Kissmass Tees!" everywhere and singing Frosty the Snowman over and over and over.
Finally, for those of you who are going to ask: It is indeed wicked cold up here and everyone keeps telling us that it only gets much MUCH worse. Strangely enough, I kinda like it...nothing like the threat of mild frostbite to keep you on your toes (given that you can still feel them). Seriously though, it's just winter up here - nothing too bad, just a little more snow and chill than usual for Boston. I'm sure it's going to get more intense, but for now we're all looking to buy us some sleds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)