For the dad, while you’ve been elsewhere.

I took a shower.  Squiggles gave herself a manicure.  I have no idea where she got the polish, given that I’m not exactly known for my well-kempt nails.

Owen and Anna sent some books for Lily.  Squiggles was beside herself with joy to have some new reading material.  “I’m gonna borrow Lily’s books, Mommy.  She can’t read, but my can read, Mommy.”  She has been taking them everywhere – preschool, Aunt Cami’s, and restaurants.  She takes them to bed with her, and they each get their own (full-sized) blanket.  (P.S.  Squiggles cannot read, not a single letter.  But it’s adorable when she thinks she’s reading.)

Yesterday morning, this little person said, “Mommy, you need to take my picture ‘cause my look so so pretty.”  Watch out – she’s clearly the next Style Rookie.  Yeah, she’s scratching her bum, or maybe picking a diaper wedgie.  Intentional fashion statement.  You’ll see – everybody will be doing it after this photo gets published.  You saw it here first.

We' hung out with Nana yesterday.  This was the ninth or tenth bib Dr. McPukey had sported in a matter of a couple hours.

I had to pee (it happens).  I came back to a bewildered baby:

Things have cooled down so we dug out the winter gear for our walks.

She just loves being this warm and cozy.

(She’s fine the second we step outside.)

Squiggles and I have had a busy night.  First we had a cookie-making party, then we had a bubble-bath party, and now we’re having a popcorn-and-M&M-and-cookie movie party.  She’s been excited about this all week – it’s become a Saturday night tradition.

She’s been really clingy this week with her dad gone, but I can’t really lift her up yet.  Instead, I’ve tried to shower her with love.  In the form of sugar, I guess.

Sisters, BFFs, hallucinators extraordinaire…

I was looking for a photo of my dad on my sister Cami’s blog, and found her story of gallbladder removal.  Apparently we had approximately the same hallucinogenic reaction to the sedative (except I’m not allergic to it). 

Recovery, Laura style

My doctor sent me home with strict instructions to rest after my surgery.  He didn’t say where or how to rest, so the next day, Lance and Dani picked me up and drove me around the South Shore of Massachusetts. 

There was another storm brewing, so we got some spectacular views of an angry, angry ocean battling the rocky shoreline.  I love me a good storm!

These pictures most certainly don’t do the waves justice.

We mostly stayed in the car on account of the rain, but got out to get a better look at the chaos a couple times.  It was cold (I tried to write “wicked cold,” but I just don’t have it in me), and I was comically underdressed.  So I got back in the car, lickety-split.

Lance is demonstrating how hard it was blowing by leaning into the wind. 

On the way back, we drove around near Wompatuck State Park and found the best leaves of the season:

I don’t even think my hosts noticed how drugged up I was.  In fact, maybe the waves weren’t nearly as spectacular as I thought they were.  Oh well, it was a good time either way.

My near-drunk experience

I’ve been having gallbladder attacks for the last ten years.  They started when I was living in Japan, and they hurt like a mother back then; however, they became please-please-please-gouge-my-eyes-out-to-divert-the-pain painful after giving birth to Lily. 

In September, a gallbladder-attack trip to the ER turned into a five-day hospital stay because my liver was out of whack (something to do with my gallbladder or pancreas… I forget).   I was there so long that I became best friends with the consulting surgeon (meaning that if I saw him at Walmart, I would say hey), mostly because he really liked my baby and would come by and chat a lot.  He worked really hard to convince me to undergo a cholecystectomy:

Dr. Park: You may want to have your gallbladder out. 
Me:  Yeah… okay.

So I did.  It was laproscopic, so I only have a few very small cuts on my belly:

The surgery took an hour or so, and my only memories of the procedure involve feeling utterly and completely jubilant…  a few minutes before the surgery.  Before they gave me the general anesthesia, they gave me Versed (or something similar). The nurse told me it would make me feel like I had drunk a glass of wine.  What she really meant was that she was going to get me double-rainbow-WHAT-DOES-IT-MEAN, high as a kite!  

My memories:

• exclaiming over and over how much I adored all of the vibrant colors and streamers and balloons and giant crayons in the operating room
• telling every medical professional in earshot that I was so, so, SO drunk… whoa…
• telling the surgeon he was my best friend, forever, seriously
• asking if I could take some giant balloons home for my daughter
• being laughed at.  a lot.

Also, I apparently woke up at some point and asked if I had given birth yet, and whether I could hold the baby.

My first memory after waking up after the surgery was a nurse yelling at me that, “YES, THE SURGERY IS OVER!!!” in a manner that led me to believe that it was not the first time I had asked.

Anyway, because the surgeon and I are BFFs, and because Tim is going to be a pathologist, Dr. Park gave him some pictures of  the surgery.  I’m so pleased to present them, because I love me some good, gory, medical photos.

This is a photo taken inside my abdominal cavity – they are lifting the gallbladder (small white sac-looking organ in front) away from my liver (big red organ):

This is a close up of the gallbladder – they have cut it away from my liver and are almost ready to remove it.

This is a picture of my gallbladder outside my body.  They took a peak inside to see what was causing all the trouble, and it was a whole bunch of garbanzo beans, obviously.  Just kidding – those nasty suckers are gallstones.  There are 17 in this cross-section view alone, which means I’ve likely been toting around well over 50-75 gallstones.  Impressive.

The little gallstones are actually the most problematic.  They are the ones that get stuck in places they shouldn’t be, like my common bile duct.  This causes the gallbladder to intensely contract.  The contractions feel just like labor contractions, only higher up and with no breaks – it just keeps contracting.  Needless to say, I was not sad to bid this organ adieu.

My grandmother, father, and sister Cami have also had their gallbladders removed.  Apparently we’re just not good at bile-storage, or something.   

The surgery was Tuesday.  I have to admit I’m a little more sore than I anticipated (read:  my belly feels like somebody took a chainsaw to it).  It’s okay, though.  I can always take some oxycodone and hallucinate me some more giant crayons. 

When Karen was in Boston: Great Meadows Bird Refuge

I have lived in Boston for a little over six years.  I love the city, but I don’t like living here and am anxious to move somewhere less noisy, less busy, less… city. 

Thankfully, there are places to escape – many within a short drive of the city.  Concord and Carlile are my favorites for such escapades.  Cami introduced us to the Great Meadows Bird Refuge when I was pregnant with Lily, and I love it.  It is just that – a refuge – and not only for birds and other wildlife, but for humans desperate for a walk in some fresh air.

Poor Max wasn’t feeling well.

The kids had fun blowing cattails in the wind.

In the following photo, Ivy is telling Squiggles that she is standing too close to Ivy’s “pond” and to please move over to the other pond.

Squiggles obliged and moved over.  Here are squiggles and Ivy reigning over their respective ponds:

‘Twas a very pleasant evening. 

The next day Karen took her family back home to Denver and the rest of us have been crying ever since.

Who’s next???

When Karen was in Boston: DeCordova Museum

Cami suggested that we go to an art park one sunny morning.  It was a grand idea because the grown ups could enjoy looking at the sculptures, and the kids could enjoy climbing on them.  And maybe a couple adults could enjoy climbing on them, too.

Lance and Dani were preparing for a home visit from the adoption agency (they’re totally pregnant… in a hoping-to-adopt kind of way), Karen, Zack, Cami, and I were left to reckon with 6 toddlers and an infant.  They totally won.  Don’t let these pictures of them being compliant fool you – it only lasted a few seconds.

For example, we stopped to take a couple “sisters” photos, and by the time we looked around a couple seconds later, the little people had dispersed – all in different directions, of course.  Just try not be jealous about how photogenic we are.  This was actually the third or fourth attempt – it was just too hard for some of us to open our eyes, I guess. 

The kids had a blast running from sculpture to sculpture.

Squiggles wanted me to lift her up on top of this totem pole. 

I don’t know how this photo came into fruition, but I love it.  I think it could be used in a Kotex add campaign.

Lily was pretty content to ride in the Bjorn for most of the visit (as long as she was facing outward):

And then she wasn’t.  I thought maybe she wanted some mama love.

But actually, she just wanted her thumb.  I’m slightly infatuated with this tiny-yet-chubby human.

When Karen was in Boston: Hampton Beach and Nubble Light

Karen and Zack were supposed to go home Tuesday, but of course there was a hurricane to be reckoned with.  Their flights were cancelled, so they were obliged to stay and play awhile longer.

One cloudy day, we took a drive up to Maine.  We stopped at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire hoping to grab some seafood at one of those shacks along the side of the road.  Unfortunately, everything was boarded up due to the hurricane.  The road along Hampton beach – usually bustling with tourists, concerts, and activities – was covered with sand from the storm.  We stopped at the abandoned beach and watched the enormous waves roll in, one after another.  They were majestic.

Zack and the boys started playing a game where they would stand by the ocean and wait for a wave to come in.  When they saw the waves break, they would run away so they wouldn’t get enveloped in them.

Pretty soon Karen and Lucy joined in the fun:

Max almost got swallowed by this wave:

But don’t worry, he’s just fine.

Such a nice day.  Next we ate seafood from a fancy seafood restaurant in Kittery, ME.  Except we didn’t go in on account of the kids’ happy meals; instead, we ate fancy seafood in the van.  :)

We drove to Nubble Light in Maine.  It is one of my favorite lighthouses of all time.  Just simple and pretty. I stayed in the van with a sleeping Lucy while the rest of them looked around.