Is it strange that I stopped a woman in the store to thank her because she was wearing a bandage on her arm and an “I gave blood today!” sticker on her shirt?

I’m sure she thought me odd, but I wanted her to see the possible results of her donation. I told her how Sammy had needed tranfusions at just days old, and it’s because of people like her that he’s here today. And then I almost started crying and thanked her again and walked away.

Yeah, so I’m the kind of person who randomly strikes up conversations with people while waiting in line at the grocery store. I’m also apparently the kind of person who gives completely unsolicited advice on strollers in Babies R Us. Oh god.

I’m also the kind of person who leaves the same three things in the dishwasher, cycle after cycle, because they’re so random I’m not quite sure where to put them away.

I’m so random. I know that.

Anyway, we’ve had a busy week. We can actually SEE a tooth bud on the top of Sammy’s bottom gums. He pulled himself to standing in the crib (he does it all the time elsewhere now), he gives hi-fives, he tries to claps, he shares – oh yeah, and he CRAWLS. Sure, he only goes three or four steps at a time, but it’s coming. I’m waiting for the moment when I turn my back and he’s scooted out of the room. And to think – we figured he’d be behind on the crawling because of the lack of tummy time post-surgeries. Nope. Right on time.

He’s just one amazing little pumpkin. Well, except for tonight, when he SHOULD be a pumpkin but he’ll be a frog instead. One amazing little pumpkin froggie monkey boy.

(Oh schnikeys. HE JUST SAT HIMSELF UP FROM HIS TUMMY. Oh.my.god. There is just no slowing him down!)

I should probably be slightly embarrassed by just how much I enjoy Dawson’s Creek.
When I was teaching back in grad school, I actually threatened my students with something along these lines: Feel free to call me at 1am for bail money. Hell, feel free to call me at 6am in a panic about the paper you waited until the last minute to write. But, if you value your life and the possibility of passing this class, don’t you EVER, EVER call between 8pm and 9pm on Wednesday night.
I have fond memories of my beloved roommate cursing someone out – my grandmother? – and slamming down the phone because they dared call during Dawson’s Creek.
I should have outgrown this. I should be living by the dirty deeds of Desperate Housewives or some other equally adult show. But I can’t shake my love for the drama of Jen dating Dawson dating Joey dating Pacey. Ahhh, sweet Capeside, you’ve never failed me yet.
And I know I can’t be the only one with this not-so-deep dark secret: my morning dose of the Creek is sponsored by Pampers. Clearly, they’re aware that they’re catering to the 28-34 year old SAHM demographic ‘Fess up, mamas.
A cup of chai, a napping baby, a somewhat clean house and five episodes waiting for me on the DVR. Things really could be worse. (And I imagine they will be, now that Joey walked in on Dawson and Jen kissing and is hooking up with the guy who screwed Jen over to get revenge. Ahhhh, sweet, guilty pleasure. )

In about 8 minutes, Alisa and Jeff will begin their vows on a warm, sandy beach in St. Croix. In about 15 minutes, they will have said the vows they’ve written and kept secret from one another, said “I do” and will begin their lives together as husband and wife.
They are perfectly perfect for one another.
I talked to her about half an hour ago. She sounded calm, rested, relaxed and happy. She was getting her hair done and Jeff was napping. I’ve seen her dress – beautiful – and the weather is gorgeous. A wedding at sunset on a beach – just perfect for them.
I hate that we’re not there to be by their sides for this incredibly amazingly wonderful moment. But they understand, and she told me to get something fruity to drink to help them celebrate.
So – to Jeff and Alisa, I raise a bottle of “Censored on the Beach” and Jay salutes you with his first taste of Sam Winter. We love you!

I’ve always known that I can’t sing. I like to turn the radio way up in the car because if it’s loud enough, it drowns out my voice and I can pretend, if only for a few minutes, that I am your NEXT AMERICAN IDOL.

Hahahaha. Oh whatever. You all do it too. You know you do.

However, it was never so clear to me as to how absolutely TONE DEAF I am until I started singing the ABC song to Sammy. I’m pretty good until I get to – well, honestly? – c. It’s all downhill from there.

I still sing to him when he’s sleepy. Skinnamarink-a-dink-a-dink, skinnamarink a-do, I love you. I love you in the morning, I love you in the afternoon, I love you in the evening, and underneath the moon. Now I realize he probably only falls asleep because it’s an escape from the off-key nightmare of mama’s voice.

This makes me sad. It also explains why I was never good at playing the violin, despite years and years and years in the orchestra. It also explains why a friend of mine had no clue what song I was singing when I swore it WAS a real song, I just couldn’t remember the rest of it and I was enlisting her to help me figure it out. When it finally came on the radio, she looked at me quizzically and was like, “This is what you’ve been singing? You’re kidding, right?”

(For the record, it was LL Cool J’s “I Need Love” – how much singing is involved in THAT song? Like, um, NONE. Painful. Just… painful.)

Anyway, we’ve got an almost-crawler on our hands. This amazes me, since it’s the major developmental milestone we all assumed he’d be behind on, since he couldn’t be on his belly for a while after each surgery. Someone apparently forgot to tell him, though – he gets onto all fours, rocks a bit, moves one hand and then belly flops. And for all that we want him to crawl, for all we’re encouraging him, I know our entire lives are going to change completely once he’s mobile.

Then, and finally then, he can finally scoot away in horror when I start singing, “I’m a little teapot short and STooooooUUUUUUUUUuuuutTTT.”

Sigh.

To the taxpayers of NH: I apologize for the money that the state’s going to take fixing the dirt patches at the State House where my son ripped up all the grass. But thank you – he had quite a tasty snack of the stuff.
So, how bad is it if any 8-month old eats a handful of the lawn?
I did manage to unfurl his tightly closed fists and steal away most of the grass (which I can only assume was covered in pesticides and other ick) on several occasions before it made it to his mouth. Still, he was all sneaky about it, as sneaky as an almost 8-month old could possibly be. He leaned forward and pretended like he was closely examining a single blade, and when he thought I was duped into believing that’s all he was up to (because, you know, parents are stupid and don’t have a clue, right?), wham! Mouth to the ground. I’m certain there was probably some dirt and possibly an earthworm in there as well. He seemed rather pleased with himself, as he let out a happy shriek – giving me the opportunity to scoop out the little blades from the corners of his mouth.
Now, I have no problem with him chowing down on some leafy greens and I know it’s inevitable, but I’m not sure what the common protocol is – is 8 months too young to make a snack out of creepy crawlers, dirt and grass?
Though, really – his poopy diaper this afternoon was interesting. Instead of the usual swampiness that involves fumigating the room and an entire thing of diaper wipes, there was one little poop. And as gross as this is – it rolled out of his diaper. If this is what the lawn at the State House does to my son’s gastrointestinal tract, I say – bring it on!
Still, I’m just so screwed once this kid starts crawling.

To celebrate the very fact that I crawled into my own bed, in my own room, while Sammy slept in his crib, I present to you the first made-from-scratch soup of the season: Butternut Squash and Apple Soup with Pancetta.

For some reason, I really enjoy making soup – and I generally hate cooking. I believe that all foods should consist of two ingredients and three steps, the third of which should be the actual motion of eating said food. (Ok, I’m not that bad, but if I could live on Boboli and pasta, I probably would.) Proof of my lacking culinary skills: I filled the food processor a leeetle too full, and there is now soon-to-be soup splayed all over the toaster oven, calendar and coffee pot. Whoops.

Anyway, I snagged this one from the cookbook that’s free with $25 at our local Hannaford. It’s FANTASTIC. I had to substitute smoked bacon for the pancetta because the store was consistently out, and really – I live in little Cambodia. It’s easier for me to find galangal than it is any Italian ingredient. Considering I’m on my second bowl, I think the bacon worked juuuuuuuust fine. (Please, any recipe that calls for bacon to be fried in oil, and then the oil & drippings are used for flavor – how could you go wrong?)

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup with Pancetta

1/8 tsp Black pepper, freshly ground

3 lb Butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into chunks

2 Tbs Chopped fresh thyme

2 ea Medium onion, thinly sliced

1/4 lb Pancetta

2 ea Tart apples, peeled, cored, cut into chunks

1 1/2 cup Water

1/2 tsp Salt, table

4 cup Broth, vegetable

Directions:

1. In a large pot, heat first amount of oil over moderate heat. Add the pancetta and cook about 4 minutes per side until golden brown. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

2. Add remaining oil to the pot. Add the onions and cook 8 to 10 minutes over moderate heat until translucent, stirring occasionally. Add the squash, salt, pepper, and thyme. Cook; stirring for 5 minutes.

3. Add the apples (such as Granny Smith), vegetable broth (or chicken), and water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, 15 to 20 minutes, or until squash and apples are tender. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.

4. Working in batches, puree the soup until smooth in a blender or food processor. Alternatively, use a handheld immersion blender to puree. Add the mixture back to the pot and bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Crumble the pancetta and add half to the soup; taste for seasoning.

5. Serve piping hot with the remaining pancetta sprinkled on top.

Perfect for a rainy, cold autumn day. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! And if you’re looking for a yummy fall main dish, try the Roast Pork Chops with Apples and Sage – easy and FANTASTIC.

So Leo, the ringleader Little Einstein, always ends the episode with a loud, “Mission COMPLETION!” – which drives Jay and I nuts, because it seems as though he should be saying, “Mission COMPLETED!”
Anyway. Mission “To the Crib!” sort of completed? Mission completed, but it only earned a C+ with a note to revise and turn in for a higher grade? Mission “Don’t try this when your kid is teething AND starting the separation anxiety phase” handed back with a “Try again!” sticker?
Once he finally fell back to sleep after an hour long “I’ll stop crying and screaming only when you hold me and I can snuggle in your shoulder, thus ensuring that you’ll never want to put me down” freakout session, he slept almost all the way through to 7:30 this morning. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned and peeped through the slats on his crib from my mattress-on-the-floor on an hourly basis. Around 3, I discovered him on his tummy in a puddle of baby-drool and made the mistake of trying to pick him up and put him on his back. After a some REALLY unhappy sobbing, a snuggle session and little nap together on my mattress-on-the-floor, he made it back to his crib without incident and slept just fine.
Even better? He normally eats twice during the night. Not ONCE did he cry for a bottle!
I’m thinking we’ll make some revisions for tonight – in the crib earlier, mama’s mattress-on-the-floor a little further away, closet light off.
Whew. If last night was any indication, this might be easier than I expected. And right there, with that little statement, I’ve jinxed it all and he’ll be sleeping in our room until he’s married. And since no woman will ever be good enough for him to marry, looks like we’re going to need a bigger master bedroom. Heh.

Tonight’s a big night in Ekaland. We’re graduating Sammy from the co-sleeper next to our bed to his crib in his own room. Like, outside our bedroom door and down the hall. Ok, so it’s just past the steps on the left, but it’s not in our room. And that’s like, well, far.

So yeah. That’s the plan.

This means leaving him unswaddled and taking him off the sat monitor (which monitors his heartrate and his oxygen levels), which I’ve had him on every single night since I couldn’t wake him up. It’s a comfort knowing that should he stop breathing or something equally as awful, the alarms will go off and we’ll wake up. Luckily, the alarms haven’t gone off since a few days home after the Glenn operation in July. I sleep better, though, when I can through half-opened eyes, occasionally check on his heart rate to make sure he’s okay.

It also means moving him to his bedroom and out of our safe, locked room. I have these paranoid delusions that someone is going to break in and kidnap him in the middle of the night (similar to the delusions I have that someone will kidnap him if I leave him downstairs in the swing while I take a shower upstairs, as though the moment I turn on the water, some neon sign will flash outside the house in big, bright red letters, alerting all the kidnapers walking by that my son is BY HIMSELF just behind the locked doors and windows.) Yes, I know I would hear that on the sound monitor, but it’s just not the same as having him in the co-sleeper right next to me, where I can reach out and rest my hand on his chest and know he’s okay.

So that’s the plan. He’s getting too big for the sleeper, an experiment last night proved that if I don’t jump up the moment he makes a sound, he will fall back to sleep most of the time, and he’s been (knock on wood. everyone. now.) incident free since early August.

Considering he has slept by my side since his birth almost 8 months ago, the plan also involves dragging the futon mattress into Sammy’s room, where this mama will settle in for the night. Or two. Or until he graduates from high school and she feels confident that he’s okay on his own. (At which point she’s going to move into an apartment around the corner from his college anyway.)

Oh hush. We all have our isses.

I’ve spent the past few months in a strange place, feeling as though Sammy was this fragile little being and I had to find the right balance just to keep him alive, that every day was an exercise in keeping him here. I know the episode in June (when I couldn’t wake him up) really screwed me up, probably a lot moreso than I even realize. Lately, though, I’ve been able to relax a little bit. Instead of hovering over him every single minute, I can let him play on his own for a little while. I can leave him in his crib while I take a shower. I don’t poke him (as often) while he’s napping to make sure he’s still breathing. He’s a strong, wildly independent little monkey, just shy of 17 pounds, trying to crawl, feeding himself and just generally at or above what he should be doing at almost 8 months old. And while I still hold my breath when we put him on the pulse oxymeter at night, waiting to see what his heartrate and oxygen sats are doing, he’s clearly doing really well. His cardiologist was thrilled, said that his triscupid regurgitation was the best he’s ever heard it in him. Our home nurse is signing him out of visits next week, and early intervention is doing the same. Still, it makes me nervous – like things are going so well, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It really makes me value every day I have with him.

I stopped reading a lot of the HLHS support list for a while. It got to be really tough for me. Jay had a point – we often seek support when things aren’t going well, so naturally, the list is going to be full of parents with questions and concerns about their kid. It’s a tough place to be – you want to be there for other parents, but it’s easy to get dragged down. I end up swallowed in these emails with potentials – it happened to this kid, it could happen to Sammy, too, or is this what we have to look forward to?. But every kid is so vastly different, even within the HLHS diagnosis. It’s a syndrome, so the anatomical differences – and progress – vary. For so long, I couldn’t read the pages of the HLHS angels – kids (and families) I had followed, a few of whom we lost within weeks of each other. It was an awful, awful time, and I felt as though simply by reading about them, I was inviting this energy into our home that I didn’t want anywhere near Sammy. It was horrible of me, I know. These families are wonderful, caring people who need to hear that people are thinking about them, that their kids’ lives touched people. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it – until the other day. It was a huge step for me.

Little by little, I think I’m a little less scared and a little more hopeful. I’m holding on to the stories of the post-Fontan (the third surgery Sammy will need when he’s between 2 & 3 years old) kids, the ones who are 7, 8, 9 years old. I think about what Sammy will be like then. I’m still really tentative, though – I’m hesistant to plan his first birthday party because I don’t want to tempt fate. And when we talk about things – like taking him to Falcon Ridge next summer – a little piece of me still feels the “but what if…” panic. Still, I feel a little stronger lately, and I wonder if I would have enjoyed Sammy in the same way and intensity had we not been faced with the real fear of losing him.

I got a phone call this morning from a strange number, and in a very unlike-me moment, I answered it. It was Faith, who gave birth to little Gavin yesterday. Gavin was diagnosed in-utero with HLHS. For some reason, I feel a connection with Faith. I believe that people come into our lives for certain reasons, and I can’t help but think that Faith is one of those people. I have to say, while I wish no one ever had to go through what we went through with Sammy, it was really nice being able to be there for Faith. It’s definitely one of those you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it times. It’s hard enough simply giving birth; having to cope with post-partum hormones while trying to handle a baby in need of serious medical intervention – well, it’s terrifying and exhausting. And for as much as my thoughts go out to Gavin, his dad and the medical team, I can completely empathize with Faith and what she’s going through. I know how much it meant to us to have Alicen, Chris & little Ellie – who went through everything about five weeks before Sammy did. Knowing Alicen just knew, and that my feelings and thoughts were valid and real and okay and that she had felt them too, was such a comfort for me.

Anyway, you guys rocked the positivity for Sammy, maybe you could work your magic for Faith, Adam and Gavin too? Please send love and positive energy to them all. Thanks.

First things first – what is up with the seriously disturbing lack of Dunkin’ Donuts on I-95 from North Carolina to New Jersey? Don’t they know that while Starbucks has one damned tasty latte, their coffee tastes like ass two weeks without a shower?
We took our first long-distance trip with little monkey this past weekend, driving almost 900 miles to Wilmington, NC for Jay’s dad’s wedding. He did fantastic! (Sammy, not Jay’s dad, though he did do a lovely job with his vows.) Mama and daddy, on the other hand, just about had a nervous breakdown after 20 sleepless hours of fighting Columbus Day traffic trying to get home. For the record, tunnels suck, NC and Virginia – while beautiful enough – are endless spans of highways filled with trucks and little else. And what’s with the smog over Richmond? Was everyone smoking at the same time? And while I love my friends and family who have chosen to make the Garden State home, I will never, ever understand why they live there. Jay and I actually fought over who would have to drive through it. There’s a reason why there’s no toll coming into the state – only when you leave. Flee, flee while you can – but they’ll charge you for trying to get out!
I am, without a doubt, a New England girl, through and through. Sure, Massachusetts has its problems – Mitt Romney, anyone? And the Red Sox, oh, my sad, sad Red Sox – but I just about cried as we crossed the border into our colorful, chilly yet beautifully wonderful state. I couldn’t get home fast enough.
The wedding was wonderful. Jill – the bride – insisted that everyone be treated like a princess, so we all got to wear tiaras the day before. And the actual wedding? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a happier, more radiant bride. She was just glowing. Jay gave a beautiful toast, after which the microphone was passed around and a whole slew of people gave their own mini-toasts. The cake-smearing was classic, and of course – what’s a wedding without a fantastic rendition of the Electric Slide? Seriously – we had such a blast. And hello to everyone who reads this site – it was nice to finally meet you all!
And now we settle back into our routine of drooly toothlessness, attempts at crawling, waking to feed twice a night and wondering what happened to the house I could swear I just cleaned and the piles of laundry I could swear I just washed. Ahhhh, home sweet home.