Great-Grandparents April 27, 2008

Two weeks ago Phare and I had a visit from Pier and Betty Burr Abetti, my dad’s parents. They kept commenting on what a big head she has, which was the first time anyone has ever said that. But this mostly came from the man who used to tell me as a teenager and beyond that I was looking quite plump. No joke. I used to feel hurt but then started to realize that coming from a full blooded Italian it was a compliment. My grandpah appreciates curves, in other words. To him some extra chub is a very positive thing.

Phare wasn’t sure what to make of him, as you can clearly see in the pictures below. She warmed up eventually, unlike the neighbors’ dog who barked feverishly as we passed on our walk. Actually that’s an understatement. The dog followed us home, barking and snarling and growling the whole way. She was after my grandpah, no question. Dogs can not stand him, and it is a universal truth. Apparently when my grandparents were visiting a castle in France many years ago, they came upon a fenced in group of hunting dogs on the grounds, with a sign that said “Please do not disturb the dogs.” Many tourists were milling about, taking pictures, etc, with no issues. As soon as my grandpah approached the fence, the dogs went berserk, barking and creating quite a ruckus, snarling at him and trying to jump the fence! My grandparents had to leave, feeling very embarrassed.

Seriously, we had a wonderful visit. I love my grandparents very much and feel so fortunate to have known them for so long. My grandpah is now 87 and is planning to possibly retire at the age of 90! They are celebrating their 60th anniversary this June! Wow! I’m grateful for all they have taught me and the very generous ways they have given my opportunities in my life that I might not have had otherwise.

Easter with Joe Pesci and Nana March 24, 2008

My mom joined us for Easter dinner this year and it was wonderful to have her. She is so good with Phare and Noah. She’s also an awesome cook, and brought baked asparagus with egg and red pepper garnish. Yum!

This was the first Easter dinner I have prepared. I was too chicken to cook a whole lamb leg, although I do have a fabulous recipe for lamb chops! Anyway, we ate a ham with mustard sauce and scalloped potatoes that were probably worth 1000 calories per ounce. I will never make them again but they were quite tasty. For those of you who have the must have King Arthur Baker’s Companion, I made the Apricot Almond Butter Cake for dessert, which is to die for, if I do say so myself. It’s also so easy and anyone who tries it will surely think you slaved away all day.

Learning to Crawl March 21, 2008

Phare is still not crawling and she is almost ten months old. Apparently I skipped this stage altogether and I turned out okay–hmmhmm. I try to give her time on her belly every day, although I admit I was not very consistent when she was younger. Today I tried, and the pictures are all one needs to figure out how it went. I know she will move eventually, and I know there are much more important things to worry about. Still, when all the moms you hang with had kids walking at 8 months, it can be a bit disconcerting.

To all my friends who I told “Five is the magic age. Everything gets easier after that”, I lied. It does for awhile, but then it gets way harder, way harder than the diapers, the sleepless nights, the tantrums. Harder in a different and much more profound way–harder for the heart and soul. Don’t get me wrong. There are many rewards and blessings too. Noah is an awesome young man who I love dearly. He is kind, he loves others really well, looks out for the underdog, lets other kids score on shots that are his, and says please and thank you. Lately though, I feel like I’m having to learn all over again, learn how to crawl, learn how to walk, learn how to talk when it comes to relating to him and teaching him. I feel like and infant! In fairness to Noah I won’t be specific, but life has been really hard lately. It comes to this. This is it. Did I raise him okay enough in those first ten years to give him the tools he needs to be a man of God, an honest person, to love others before himself, from here on out? There really isn’t much time left. I know that Toby and I, and family and friends, still have the ability to influence Noah’s life, but the foundation has been laid. If there is any “undoing” to do, it will be much harder. I guess I feel an extra responsibility in that.

I do believe, however, that God can help me, and this is truly my only and blessed hope. This is what gets me through on those days when I can’t stop crying, or when it feels like our family is falling apart. Sorry to be drama queen, but doesn’t anyone else have those days? God loves Noah more than I am even capable of loving him, and in fact, Noah is His gift to me. I pray that every day I can see him more and more as the gift he truly is.

Cheap Thrills and Aqua Wayne March 17, 2008

Phare has a love for tupperware lids. I discovered this one day after dropping one nearby, and observed her emphatic and desperate reach, and then waving her arms like a baby bird trying to fly. Today I decided to get out the whole box of lids, and she kept herself happy for about 20 minutes. Score!

This past Saturday we attended the 5th birthday party of our twin friends Jack and Eleanor Hinckley. The party was a pool party, a great idea if you want managed chaos. John Hinckley immediately named Phare “Aqua Wayne”, after her Grandpah Wayne, aka “Papa Wayne”. This is mostly due to the lack of hair

Phare loved the water of course, and Toby managed to catch on camera the typical response she has to water landing on her face. She is not crying, just alarmed.

Weight Gain March 12, 2008

Yesterday at Phare’s nine month check-up the doctor bluntly instructed me not to hold back in reference to eating. I explained to Toby as we left the office that the doctor shouldn’t be worried as I simply can not stay away from McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Toby said he was sure that is not what the doctor meant. Yes, I have seen that movie, “Supersize Me” and was completely appalled, and vowed never again to set foot in a Mickie D’s again. I’m not sure what is happening to me. I never eat fast food, ever! Still, I wake up thinking about those cheeseburgers. They must be from McDonalds. No other cheeseburger will do. Help me!

Phare is apparently not reaping the benefits of the incredible extra amounts of fat I’m consuming. She has not gained an ounce in two weeks. This could be because she was sick, or it could just be “one of those things”. The doctor is not worried, but of course I won’t be at peace until the scale at least moves a little. No mother of an infant in her right mind can just let that one go. Again, that verse is coming to mind, but sometimes it is okay to worry a little, because it helps us make decisions that can at times be life saving–just ask my sister-in-law Jane (see link to the left, Ramona Mae, for the whole story). I will try not to worry too much, and trust that all the other signs are pointing in a very positive direction.

Here’s my string bean looking plump.

Alien Dust and The Cowgirl March 11, 2008

For the past few months Toby has been tearing apart our bedroom–literally. He has taken down walls, ripped off the floor, ripped out all our built-ins, reinsulated, put on new drywall, primed, put in new lights, etc., etc. It’s a mess in there, mostly because of the drywall dust. That stuff is not of this world. It is not your ordinary dust. It coats everything in the house, and takes months to get rid of. Even in an effort to wipe your feet off, you will track it everywhere.

The catalyst for renovating our bedroom started with a home energy audit we had done several months ago. There is so much cold air in our bedroom that you seriously need slippers when standing at the closet door trying to decide what to wear. I won’t even depress you with the state of the rest of the house. We live in one of those old houses where even when you keep the heat set to 60, you still pay an arm and a leg for the propane. In an effort to make our house more energy efficient we decided to fix our bedroom. Of course, as with all old house renovations, one thing leads to another and you always have to do way more than you set out to do.

We are living in the guest room, soon to be new baby’s room. I’m pretty amazed that I am tolerating this whole situation the way I am, given my high anxiety and high nesting tendencies. It helps that I keep reading the same Bible verse over and over again, in Matthew: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” If the baby’s room is not ready it’s not ready, and I feel okay with that. It’s a small thing, but God truly can change hearts and minds. Besides that, Toby is such a hard worker and I am so grateful for the way he is constantly taking care of and providing for our family.

Current state of our bedroom–Toby will build built-ins all along the right wall in the first picture:

Makeshift closet in our current room:

On a separate note, Toby loves playing dress up with Phare. Here is Phare sporting a new outfit from Grammie Sue, complete with tights, and my cowboy hat that I bought for a dinner I recently went to.

12 Weeks And . . . Not Counting? March 6, 2008

I’m very hesitant to admit that I’m in slight denial about this current and unexpected pregnancy. Women and men I know well have experienced tremendous heartache where having a baby is concerned. Don’t I understand this incredible gift I have been given? I do, but I don’t know what it’s like to suffer the loss of an unborn baby, or the pain of not being able to conceive. When I think of others around me who have suffered so, I do feel more and more grateful for this God given gift and realize that I am blessed beyond my limited understanding.

Lately I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed by the prospect of two little ones. How will I do it, cooped up in the house all winter long? Will my marriage to Toby survive? How will it work when Noah has soccer every day after school but the baby needs a nap and Phare is throwing tantrums because she is in the car, again? Will I turn into a frumpy, mini-van-driving-soccer-mom who no longer recognizes words like soap, shampoo, conditioner, and shaving cream?

That last worry is precisely why I should not have read fit pregnancy at the gym the other day as I nearly passed out on the elliptical. Gabrielle Reese graced the cover with her perfectly tan pregnant body. All the pregnant women in that magazine are beautiful, and while they do not look like any real pregnant women I have known, with their perfect basketballs and not an ounce of fat anywhere else, somehow I can’t shake the image that that’s what I’m supposed to look like! I long for the days when looking like I did below, seven months along with Noah, was completely acceptable, and no one reacted perhaps the way you will when you see this picture!

Collapsed Lung Boondoggle March 4, 2008

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and emails! I think Phare is feeling much better today. She looks more alive, is playing by herself, is less clingy. Her cough is still horrid but that will probably take a while to resolve.

I want to lessen the alarm for the collapsed lung comment. This is how the doctor described it to me on the phone, but it’s not as serious as it sounds. I apologize for causing anyone undue grief! It really means that a small part of the lung is not expanded the way it should be. Air is not getting in properly because of congestion. Hopefully the antibiotics will clear it up soon, but we will be keeping our eye on things and not making any assumptions.

I’m feeling better too, and got six hours of sleep last night! Hooray! That is truly a treat for me On a lighter note, only parents can adore this kind of face. Toby shared with me that he has always been grossed out by food on other baby faces, but he thinks it’s cute with Phare! This is a particularly savory combination of pea soup and cottage cheese. Phare could eat an entire container of cottage cheese in one sitting if we let her! By the way, I did not do that to her hair–it just happened.

Early Pneumonia March 3, 2008

When it rains it pours. Phare developed a bad cough last night, and today I had a gut feeling that it was the kind of cough you don’t just ignore. I brought her in, feeling a little over the top with worry. I’m glad I did. The doctor recommended an x-ray at the hospital, so Toby and I took her over there together. Unfortunately I was not able to go in with her, due to the pregnancy, but I could hear her screaming the entire time out in the waiting room. Agony!

It turns out she has some dark spots on her lungs that indicate a partial lung collapse, and infection. This sounds severe, but it means she is in the early stages of pneumonia, and the antibiotics should clear it right up. I think what I feel flabbergasted by is having a healthy child for nine months, and then boom–pneumonia!

If you think to pray for her, please do. She is utterly miserable and waking up a lot. I’m also getting sick, which completely rots. Toby came home after our appointments and took care of the bean so that I could sleep (I got a whopping 3.5 hours last night). He wins husband of the year!

Here’s the peany in better days.

The Quilt March 2, 2008

I have at last made a quilt. Unfortunately I am the type of person that says I can’t before I can. I’m not sure why this is. I decided to buck that trend and do something I have always wanted to do, which is to make a quilt. My sister-in-law Jill has been a huge inspiration in this department. She made Phare a beautiful quilt before her birth, and she has made many others for other people in our family that I have greatly coveted. Anyway, if she can do, why can’t I? I’m trying to have this attitude more often now, instead of the self defeatist one, as Toby would say.

This quilt was made for Doug and Kerry Heavisides, good friends of mine that I went to high school with. Their baby girl is due at the end of March, and has been long waited for, for many years! We are all waiting with baited breath for her arrival.

I must give tons of credit to my wonderful friend Ruth Ann, who taught me everything. I have not used a sewing maching since 8th grade home ec, and she spent many hours with me, being incredibly patient, serving me tea, and tolerating my incredible ignorance about the most obvious things. She even had to fix a part that I really screwed up. Ruth Ann is a master quilter and a perfectionist (in a good way). I feel like I have had the incredible opportunity to learn from the best of the best. Thanks Ruth Ann!

Many of you requested pictures, so here they are.