Friday Night Fun
Life has been fairly uneventful around the listen lady house lately, so I decided to up the ante on Friday night. We’d had quite a bit of snow during the day and even with two SUV’s, there was no way we were getting in the driveway. When we arrived home from work, we left the cars parked in the street and Brett started to snow blow the driveway. Except he didn’t get very far. And by that I mean he made one pass down the driveway and one pass up the driveway before I called him in.
You see Lady, as Brett was clearing off the driveway I started having sudden pain in my lower left abdomen. It was the most unrelenting, unnerving pain I’ve ever felt; and I’ve given birth people. Initially, I thought that baby Diego was laying awkwardly up against my gigantic spleen. I tried sitting, standing, laying, and I even proded my stomach a few times to see if he’d move, but the pain never ceased. I gave up and finally motioned for Brett to come back into the house so I could call the doctor.
It seemed, at the exact moment I called for him to come inside, utter chaos erupted. The pain grew more intense, Cardin started screaming as she was not ready to come in from playtime in the snow, and one of us was constantly on the phone trying to arrange care for Cardin and/or answering doctors questions.
My parents arrived to watch Cardin and the on call doctor instructed us to come to the hospital immediately and head straight for OB Triage. Thing was…by this point, I was writhing in pain on the floor, unable to move without assistance, and ready to go for someone’s jugular if they did not manage to relieve the pain. Driving ourselves was clearly not an option, so we called an ambulance.
Brett floored the cars into the garage and managed to collect my purse and jacket before the ambulance arrived; though neither of us remembered a set of keys (an important fact for later). Since I’m pregnant, the EMT’s were unable to give me any sort of pain medication, though they did manage to shove an IV into my arm. The EMT who was riding with me happened to be male and since he could do little to alleviate my pain, he let me squeeze his hand and told me to “breath through the pain.” Listen Lady, to his credit, he did say “I’m a man, that’s all we know how to say so we don’t feel useless.”
I was taken up to OB Triage where the resident initially checked the pregnancy to make sure:
1) baby Diego had a heartbeat that wasn’t under stress
2) that I wasn’t experiencing pre-term labor
Since neither was the case, we moved on to an ultrasound. By this time, I had been given percocet to reduce the pain and that helped immensely; though I began to act like a loopy fool.
The purpose of the ultrasound was really to see the gargantuan size of my spleen and measure a cyst on my left ovary that is a cause for concern. Cyst’s are a pretty common occurrence in women, and most are benign, but the size of this cyst makes it likely to either rupture or twist my ovary; cutting off blood supply. Neither of these options sounded especially rad; given that both would cause excruciating pain and likely lead to a very complicated surgery; wherin we’d be putting the baby at serious risk.
By some stroke of luck, the ultrasound showed that the cyst had not ruptured and if a torsion had been the source of the pain, it had self-corrected. Good news lady, blood is flowing normally to all your organs. The attending physician left us with the option to be admitted for observation in case the torsion reoccurred or to head home, with strong painkillers, and a resounding promise to come back immediately if I felt the same pain or experienced any signs of infection; fever, vommitting, etc.
I chose to be discharged and we left the hospital; weilding a prescription for percocet. There was one minor problem though, during the chaos to leave the house, we both forgot keys to get back in. EPIC FAIL. Luckily my parents have an extra key.
Since the whole triage incident I’m no longer allowed to lift anything remotely heavy, roll over without assistance, or drive. All of these acts may trigger another torsion and we clearly need to avoid the option of surgery. Since I’m on medication and cannot drive, I’m spending the next 5 months working from home; in seclusion. Obviously not the ideal situation, but it keeps me off Long Term Disability and will likely generate some crazy blog entries.
A resolution
At the end of last year, we decided it was time to get serious about this potty training gig for Cardin; especially since we’ve hit the pregnancy halfway point with Diego. We had made attempts last year, but she showed no interest. I didn’t push the issue, figuring she’d develop the instinct on her own when she was ready as she has with other milestones.
I’ve never been comfortable with forcing her into a developmental milestone before she’s ready and willing to do so independently. I’m sure many “experts” would disagree, but this is the approach we’ve taken with so many firsts for her. Ceasing a bottle, walking, putting her to bed, taking away the pacifier, and even with her speech; these were all stages she reached of her own volition when she was developmental ready.
I’m sure much of this comes from my background in psychology, but I’ve also learned, mostly through life lesson, that no matter how much you want someone to do something, they will not do so until they are ready and acknowledge the issue.
Alas, it seemed as though the inevitable potty training was never going to happen unless we pushed her to it. I purchased special training underwear, pull ups, and the bribe; Hershey kisses. Last weekend we made our first go at no diapers. At first she wasn’t keen on the idea of the training pants; mostly because they felt different than a diaper. However, she has done exceptionally well all week long and has even started to tell us she needs to use the potty.
Whether it is 7 am or 10 pm, she so gracefully reminds us each time that she gets a Hershey kiss. Fingers crossed the trend continues.
Registration
The week after Christmas I was avoiding any semblance of work so I decided to take a gander at local pre-schools in our area. We had an idea of where we wanted to send Cardin based on some recommendations from friends, but the whole idea of registering her seemed eons away.
Listen Lady, it’s a good thing I just happened to look because apparently you need to register your kid 7 months in advance. In fact, the pre-school we’ve picked starts its registration process the last week of January. Is this college now? Will Cardin also need to provide a life essay and recommendations?
Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to both Brett and myself that we needed to come to a decision about Cardin’s schooling in such a short time frame. Actually, it was more overwhelming to think that I’ll be old enough to have a kid in pre-school; damn you 30th birthday.
Since Cardin’s birthday is in November, she is right on the edge of the cutoff for sending your child to school. With her language delay and the fact that she has minimal social interaction with other children, we agreed that two years of pre-school would suit her best. This will impact her enrollment in Kindergarten and she won’t start elementary school until age 6. She’ll likely always be the oldest in her class, but we truly believe the extra time for her to mature and develop her language skills is best. Plus then she’s not flying off to college at the meager age of 17.
Tomorrow we have a meeting scheduled to see the pre-school and meet with the teacher. And then it hit me Lady, we should probably ask the teacher/school some questions. It seemed only reasonable as we would be entrusting them to watch and educate our child.
But what the hell were we supposed to ask??
I’ve never conducted an interview of this caliber and questions pertaining to homework, textbooks, or a class syllabus seemed out of line; yet this is all I’ve known of education. Luckily, there is this thing called google and a quick search provided me a slew of more age appropriate questions for the teacher; ones that involved daily activities, safety, and discipline.
Cardin is coming with us tomorrow to meet the teacher and see the pre-school room. I imagine that my anxiety over leaving my baby on the first day of school, with complete strangers and kids she has never met, will only grow as tomorrow comes to a close.
By the Balls
Brett and I have come to the realization that the cable & Internet company has up by the balls. Let me explain.
In January of 2010, we switched our Internet provider. This locked us in for a 12 month period at a price of $30. We chugged happily along this way until January of 2011, when our bill suddenly jumped to $50. Uncool internet company. So….we played the game.
First, I called the Internet provider only to be told there were no promotions for current customers. Then I asked to speak to the manager and was again told there were no promotions for current customers. They weren’t exactly selling me for future business. My last tactic was to take the modem down and go to one of their local offices. I threatened to cancel my Internet service and low and behold…..they had a promotion running for current customers. FANCY THAT. What excellent customer service you receive once you become a bitch.
We chugged happily along this way until about a week ago, when we got the notice that the bill was again jumping up to $50. Listen Lady, I played the game again. First with the phone calls and then even threatening to cancel at the local office. Except this time, my game didn’t work. The agent was steadfast in her refusal to help me out. Now, my cable contract is set to expire in April of 2012, meaning the bill will sky rocket yet again. Listen Lady, there is no love from this company.
In my quest to defy and outwit this company, I began a search for other Internet providers in the area. Except, there are only 2 providers that service Rochester; our current provider and one more. We looked into the other provider, but after all the fees, rental rates, and taxes they were no cheaper. Basically, the Rochester area seems to be taking it up the arse when it comes to Internet service.
Our options seem to be this:
1) bend over and take it
2) cancel our current provider for 60 days and then resume service as a new customer so we can get the $30 price again.
This issue is further complicated by the Tivo & Netflix streaming we subscribe too. Both require an Internet connection and have been pre-paid for 2012. Canceling the Internet then screws us in regards to Tivo & Netflix. Canceling for that time period wouldn’t be the end of the world, but then again, I wouldn’t be able to work from home, the Listen Lady Blog could suffer a detrimental blow to postings, and how on earth would I keep up with the Kardashians??
The results are in
Earlier this week we went for an ultrasound to check on the growth of Project Diego. Things are looking stellar and the baby is right on target at 19 weeks. Diego was extremely cooperative with the ultrasound technician and we found out that we were having a boy.
Unfortunately, Cardin seems to be getting the short end of the stick here. We are not having a girl or a chicken as she requested and the name Diego has been veto’d off the list of possibilities. Although, I must admit, it’d be pretty sweet to hit up one of his future baseball games or graduation ceremonies and scream Go, Diego, Go!!!
When we picked Cardin’s name, we had some pretty specific criteria. We avoided popular, common names as neither of us were keen on her being lost in a sea of classmates with the same name. We also were looking for a name of Irish, Celtic, or Scottish decent. Though strong drinking genes isn’t a bad thing, that wasn’t the driving factor behind our decision. Since Brett is adopted, he’s really not 100% sure of his descendants, but knows he is partly Irish and Scottish; hence the reddish hue to his ever declining hair. And of course, yours truly has 50% Irish blood coursing through her body. It seemed a natural choice to honor that heritage that we share.
The same held true as we searched for a boy’s name. After some debate, we finally settled on Rory Micah Ferdinand Mayer. Though there is some disagreement over the middle name as it stands. Listen Lady, Ferdinand would never have been my choice for a middle name, but it’s been carried down within Brett’s family and he’d like to continue that tradition. Trust me, I’m not alone in thinking that plaguing this baby with Ferdinand is a terrible fate. There are no famous Ferdinand’s that you could rattle off if you were to just happenstance across the name. Go ahead….try.
I reluctantly agreed upon such as long as we could precede it with the name Micah. And here is my rationalization:
1) When I need to use my mothering voice and whip out the dreaded middle name, I can just yell RORY MICAH and I’m not forced to taste the bitterness of Ferdinand.
2) If in the future, Rory ever decides he dislikes it as much as I, he can simply refuse to acknowledge its presence.
Cardin seemed OK with the name change and does pretty well with the pronunciation. The next step will be to tell the family; especially my grandmother. If her response is anything similar to what happened when we told her Cardin’s name I’m sure there will be a blog post.