Lemonade

When life gives you lemons...

Here are some good things that will or may happen and would not have if our house had not been broken into:

• My sock drawer is organized for the first time since we moved here. I also got rid of a lot of pairs I don't wear, and a few other things. hooray.
• I cleaned my freezer. Never would've happened unless someone had cleaned out its contents "for" me.
• My work laptop used to take at least 20 minutes to log me in at work. It was so annoying! I have high hopes that my new laptop will be a bit faster.
• I got a new garbage can. This may be shortlived, but it does not yet smell like poopy diapers and rotting chicken.
• They stole my contacts. I decided that was my sign that I should have lasik done. I called today and made an appointment for an initial consultation in August. How awesome would that be?!?!
• We might get new cabinet doors out of this, since the silverware drawer is missing. There's a slim chance that they might not be able to match a new drawer exactly to the old ones, so we could get new cabinet doors for the whole kitchen that would match. It'd be awesome, but I'm doubtful that'll happen.
• Another one that might be wishful thinking: computer and camera upgrade. If insurance pays us the cost of what it would take to buy exactly what we had, we probably won't get much. But if they give us what it would take to buy comparable quality items new today, we'll probably get a little bit nicer things. We'll see.
• Those of you who have visited us here know that our front door is not the most welcoming, as the screen snaps shut onto your ankles before you can get all the way through it. But, since they destroyed the doorframe upon entry, we get a new door! I am excited to have a new, pretty door with a screen door that does not attack my visitors.
• I will admit - Travis and I did have a good time buying things at Target without any regard for price, coupons, sales, or need. If we had it before, we needed to buy it, so we did. Kind of neat.

I think Emily may be feeling the stress of this. I haven't done a very good job keeping her away from my emotions of it, and two of the past three nights, she's been up for a couple hours in the night, unable to relax. I have low tolerance for all the thrashing, pinching, and squirming, so the troubles compound. I told her very sternly tonight to LET GO of the spoon that I was trying to give her her favorite food with, and I made her cry. :( It's so hard to relax and go with the flow of an infant when everything is turned a bit on edge. But, we're fine, really, so I have to just keep breathing deep, and know that I've got tomorrow to fix what I've goofed up today. Emily is like the sea - no memory - so she wakes up joyous and beautiful no matter how tearful the evening or midnight. And, she had a good day back at daycare today after almost 2 weeks away, so that was a relief.

They also took my rolling pin. WTF??

A very strange week

Hi

A lot has happened since I last blogged, and I'll admit I'm in a bit of a daze, still, wondering if it's really real.

My sister's family stayed with me from Friday night until Monday afternoon. Saturday after noon, the Ragbrai bus came to my house to pick up the members of Team Petting Zoo who live in Des Moines, and take them to the starting point in western Iowa. However, the hydraulic brakeline sprung a leak, and they spent 5 hours in front of my house fixing it. It was nice to be a part of the Ragbrai atmosphere, but a little weird to have 25 people drinking on my lawn on a Saturday afternoon. The bus was successfully repaired, though, and the team has had a good time this week. I am unofficially declaring this year to be "Disaster Ragbrai," since something really rotten has happened nearly every day of the week. One guy got a severe citation for dribbling a bit of beer on the ground near a police officer's shoe while demonstrating his "open container" was an empty container. There was, of course, the brake line problem, and a host who wouldn't let anybody into his house, even to use the bathroom (some host!!!). There was a bit of family drama in Ames - not much, but I didn't handle even that well because Emily got very sick (102 fever and too congested to eat :( ) and I was dealing with her wanting nothing but to cry and doze in my arms (and only my arms!). I did get to bike all day Tuesday, and except for being greeted by a very sick little girl, I had a good time! Emily was feeling better by morning, so I biked half of the next day, but the wind was so strong I decided it wasn't fun anymore and quit then. I'm glad I did, because the wind was awful for the rest of the day, and I'm told I made a very smart decision. I went back to Barnum that evening, Wednesday night, because Nancy was with me. I thought about meeting Tim so Nancy could go home with him and then Emily and I could go home, but I'm very glad I didn't. Nancy took Emily to a doctor in Fort Dodge because her fever roared back that night (throughout all of this, I was getting about 5 non-consecutive hours of sleep each night), and it was nice to let her take necessary action and trust her on it. I'm also glad because when I did get home Thursday, I discovered that our house had been broken into.

Yes, I'm not kidding - somebody kicked in the front door, breaking the frame around the deadbolt, and made off with our most expensive items. They found the keys to our Saturn and used it as a transport vehicle, and it wasn't recovered until today. They made off with our new stereo, subwoofer, and speakers, among many other things. There is quite a list of odd things they took, such as the ironing board and iron, the blender, the coffeemaker AND the coffee, the entire silverware drawer itself, numerous items from the fridge (half a container of OJ?) and all of my stockpile of frozen Fareway meat. They took my pearl pendant necklaces, but not my pearl necklace from my wedding. They took my class ring :( :(, but Travis was not attached to his class ring and is content that it's gone. They didn't do much damage to the house, just took a lot of things, so that's "nice". Possibly the strangest take was our brand new washer and dryer!!! How glad I am that I didn't leave my wedding ring here while I biked, and that our bikes were with us. They didn't take Travis's computer downstairs, though it looks like they intended to since it was unplugged. Our upstairs laptop is gone (as are both of our John Deere laptops!), so I am writing this on a borrowed friend's laptop. They also got our digital camera, which I didn't take on Ragbrai because I didn't want it to get lost - oops. I am only missing about 3 weeks of Emily's pictures, though, because I had just copied everything from Emily's lifetime onto my mom's computer. Plus, a lot are on our picasa site, too, so it's okay.

Really, in all of this, I am okay, we are all okay. There are only a few things that can't be replaced, but a lot more things that they could have taken that are priceless to us but apparently worthless to others. All of my grandma's antique china that she gave to me is here, untouched. Nearly everything else can be repurchased.

The neighbors said they saw the Saturn in our driveway on Wednesday, but not on Thursday morning, so I am so glad I stayed with Tim and Nancy that night. I am left with the same feeling I had after my work accident two years ago - I wish it could've been a lot better, but I am so incredibly grateful that it wasn't any worse. It was also another opportunity to see how amazing my friends and family are. Nancy made the same 90-minute drive that I had just made the instant I told her what had happened. Two of my friends who were not on Ragbrai came over with dinner and their laptop and digital camera. They documented all the damage and repaired my front door so I could sleep here safely last night. (it is SO barricaded!! :) ) Tim drove all the way to Iowa City to pick up Travis so he could get started with me in getting things back to normal. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives. I am lucky that the bad things that happen in my life are so minor that I am left only a little sad, yet a million times more grateful for what I have.

So, I'm going to go call my mommy now. I hope all of you have had a far less interesting week!!

Hide and Seek

Emily is quite attached to me these days. She likes to have me within eyesight, preferably not moving away from her. She will eat a little from Travis or her grandma if I'm not in the room, but once she sees me, it's game over. It can get a little clingly, but she's an awfully nice little buddy to have around. When she's playing on the floor, she'll crawl over to me and put her little hands on me, just to smile at me and say hi. It's pretty cool. :) But there's been times that I've had to hide from her to avoid the tearful howls when I leave for something so selfish as a quick bathroom break.

Her 9-month checkup was today. She's still 95th percentile for height and head size, but now only 75th for weight - getting to be quite slim!! She's Travis's daughter - so who's surprised?? It was nice to talk to our doctor about her eating habits, or rather, lack thereof, and realize we can be a little more relaxed about it. I don't know why I continue to obsess about it, except that it's frustrating to try to feed her and be greeted with tightly clamped lips and a constant whine. I guess she'll eat when she's ready. My latest theory is that formula-fed babies are much better about taking solid foods because formula is so terrible tasting that they're happy to consume anything that isn't horrendously awful.

Anyway, it was also nice to see that she's growing and developing just like she should. It was a nice reassurance, because I've had a tough last couple of days. Our wireless internet connection has been SO crappy lately, and I can't even call Mediacom to tell them how terrible their service is because their customer service wait times are at least half an hour - and who has time for that?? It means that a lot of the time I'm home with Emily, I'm pretty isolated, and this week I really wanted that connection to the outside world when I was so frustrated with her not napping (or napping at weird times) and not eating, and being so incredibly whiney when I turned to go into another room and then having to carry her wherever I go. It's exhausting. Then I was battling "terrible mother" feelings when I dropped her off at daycare on Wednesday and explained that she was really crabby and I didn't know why. When I picked her up, Amanda told me she had noticed some really painful daiper rash. Poor Emily - I had been annoyed, but she was really actually hurting!! :( I know I'm not a terrible mother, just a rookie mother, but I still felt awful. Today was much better all around, though, and I think I've finally kicked my string of frustrating days (I hope!)

I can't believe Ragbrai is almost upon us! We've been throwing around tentative plans for so long that it'll be interesting to see things fall into place. I had really hoped that Emily would be not nursing so frequently at this point so I could go longer without being near her or a breastpump, but I might end up taking my pump on my bike with me. I would imagine I'd be the only rider out there with that kind of pump on her bike!! Even though it'll be a complicated and stressful couple of days, I plan on getting some good fun in, too. I've gotta say it will be a relief, though, to not have to schedule our evenings around one of us trying to get a bike ride in. Honestly, I am so impressed at how little energy I have for biking. It's not that my leg muscles are tired or sore, but I just don't have anything to give to getting up that next hill. So, we'll see if I am able to do a full day.

Happy 4th

I'm almost to the end of my 6-day weekend. I had yesterday off, and I took Wednesday as vacation and went up to my parents place in Rockford. Emily and I were there for 2 days, and I got to go on a bike ride with my dad - my longest of the year at 28 miles! I forget how peaceful it is up there. I know I live in nice neighborhood (except for the 4th of July when it sounds like we're in a war zone), but compared to my parents' house it's the middle of the city. It's good for the soul - like my own little spa retreat! - especially since I had no agenda except for the bike ride. Emily had a good time too. I thought it'd be a good opportunity for her to see how a cow says "moo," but apparently my dad's cows don't moo, they only stare stupidly.

And, Travis's parents came to visit us yesterday and today. What is Emily going to do tomorrow when she doesn't have grandparents around?? :) She's quite the character now. The only thing we can count on her wanting to eat is sweet potatoes - anything else depends on her mood, her hunger level, and who is offering it (better chances with anybody but me!). Her crawl has a little lilt to it, more like she prances than crawls. I watched her wipe out today, though; she just didn't get her hand down where she wanted it, and instead she bonked her head on the floor and rolled, legs in the air, and just stayed there while she realized how much it hurt and the tears started to flow. Except for the crying part, it was pretty funny to see! She LOVES music, though. Today, while playing with her grandparents, I could tell she was getting a little overstimulated, so I put on some piano music, and she just stared out the window while half-heartedly chewing on a toy. I think it was a nice little rest for her, and fun to see her mind go so far away while listening to music. In between songs, she'd snap-to and interact with people until the music started up again.

So, Trav and I are having a quiet evening. I guess we're boring old parents now, but it's hard to want to go somewhere to be social with an 8:00 curfew. It's beautiful outside, and there aren't as many neighbors shooting off fireworks yet tonight, so all in all I can't complain.