While Jim Was Surfing

Jim left for his surf trip the week after the family left. He went to work on Thursday, August 13, and then spent that night in Orange County at Sam and Tatum's so they could head to LAX early Friday morning to catch their flight to Mexico.

That Thursday morning, Ever was in the bathroom totally naked, and she heard the garbage truck. She tried to run outside immediately. I said she at least had to put on her undies, so she ended up outside like this:

I hope the driver wasn't offended by the nudity.

I took Wren to her four-month appointment that day. She weighed in at 13 lbs, 10 oz and was in about the 75th percentile for height and head circumference and around the 50th percentile for weight. (We didn't have her four-month appointment until she was nearly five months old, so she did have a couple extra weeks of growth.) I didn't do tummy time with her like I was supposed to because she hated it and was terrible at it. At her doctor's appointment, though, she really covered for me. When Dr. Villar put her on her tummy to check her out, Wren pushed her arms nearly straight and held herself way up, looking around and showing off. It was very impressive. She was sick with a sinus infection (which we just cleared up, many weeks later, with the help of an antibiotic) but was able nonetheless to get all her four-month shots.

I fed Wrenzo rice cereal a few times before her doctor's appointment: 

Dr. Villar advised us at her appointment to do fruits and vegetables twice a day (instead of rice cereal), so we've been working on that. So far there's nothing that she totally rejects. 

So the shots are where things really went downhill. First, I have to say that I was particularly exhausted before Jim left, as the preceding couple of nights had been bad. Here's some background:

Wren rolled over for the first time on August 9 - front to back. I figured rolling the other way, back to tummy, wouldn't happen immediately, so I still put her to bed in her little bat wing thing. (The bat wings are called "Swaddle Me Up." It's a sleep sack that's fitted on the torso and has pockets to stick her hands in so that her arms are bent with her hands up by her head. It's supposedly a more natural sleeping position.) That night after the first rolling, she woke to eat at 2:00 A.M., and I found her on her belly. For a while thereafter, she seemed to keep rolling onto her belly and getting stuck on top of the arm she was trying to roll over or, if she managed to get that arm out from under her, just getting stuck on her belly. I never saw her roll again from front to back, just from back to front. I was worried about her suffocating, and I began rescuing her through the night.

On top of that, she had a puke problem. Wren has always been a terrible puker. We would feed her, and then she would regurgitate it, often projectile-style. It never seemed to bother her much, but we were not fans. We'd work so hard to feed her, only to see it all immediately regurgitated. And then we'd wonder if we were supposed to start all over again. This was what she spit up after one feeding:

Another time I didn't even notice she had spit up until I got her upstairs and was putting her down on the changing table. I suddenly noticed that my arm was wet and she was wet. When I went back downstairs, I found a trail of spit-up:

(Note: Wren is six months old as I write this. I am pleased to report that she spits up much less these days, and there has been no projectile vomiting for a while. But in the beginning/middle of August, we were still in the throes of this.)

So the two nights before Jim left, I got up to feed Wren, and she promptly puked up everything she'd just taken. Then I had to clean her up, clean me up, clean the floor, etc. One of those nights, I had just finished feeding her and was holding her while I put the bottle in the sink. I noticed that there were two coyotes prowling around our backyard. I watched them for a while. One of them looked up and seemed to hold my gaze for a long time before going back to looking for food in our yard. I was disturbed by their presence. (I knew they roam around in the little canyon behind our house, but hanging out in our yard? Really? I'm super anti their attacking my children in our yard, so I find this disturbing.) As I was having a staring contest with one of the coyotes, Wren puked everywhere, and the clean-up began.

For these reasons, I was sleep-deprived when Jim left. Then Wren's shots resulted in a fever that lasted for about four days. Between the cold/sinus infection, the fever, and the rolling-onto-her-belly-and-not-being-able-to-roll-back, Wren was sleeping TERRIBLY at night. She couldn't go back to sleep when she got up to eat, and she kept getting stuck on her belly. I was up with her every couple hours, either feeding her or rolling her back onto her back. It wasn't until Tuesday, August 18 that I finally got a little sleep. She ate twice in the night (once at midnight and once about 5:30 A.M.) that night, but it was the first normal night we had in days. I was really amazed at how adrenaline got me through those first awful days while Jim was gone. I thought about how I'm going to San Francisco with Courtney in November and how Jim will not survive if he has to experience what I did when he was gone. He's even less of a fan of getting up in the night than I am.

I have to say, Wren is a wonderful baby. She is happy and easy. She laughs and smiles all the time. But I do wish she were sleeping 12 hours at night. That would really improve my life. I know other babies are even worse sleepers, and it's normal for a baby her age to need to eat once or twice at night. I hate it nonetheless.

Anyway, after Wren's fever went away and she started being more normal at night, things improved. Ever brought some humor, including this conversation:

E: "I want our next baby to be a boy."
Me: "That would be nice. I would love to have a boy so Daddy can have a son, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Daddy and I only seem to make girls."
E: "Why do you and Daddy only seem to make girls? Are you not good enough at your job to make a boy?"

On Saturday I was putting Wren to bed for a nap, and my ring caught on her bedding. I thought it was weird, but I didn't notice until later that the diamond had fallen out. That was why my ring had caught - the prongs were just sticking out, super sharp.

I didn't hold out much hope for finding my diamond. I vacuumed the entire upstairs and went through all the junk in the vacuum looking for a lump. No luck. I checked the bed. No luck. Then I thought of the shower. I saw something that looked like a little drop of hair gel. It was my diamond. I didn't take a picture of where I found it, but I did take a picture of the drain after the fact:

Note that the drain holes are giant and that the drain cover is broken off, leaving one side totally open. That was the side on which I found this guy:

The most annoying part was that I couldn't get my ring off. The jeweler who made my rings insisted on making them so small that I could barely get them over my knuckle; he didn't want them to be too big when they were down at the base of my finger. It's probably been years since I've removed my rings. I wanted very much to get them cleaned and to get the color of the white gold fixed, but I never did because I couldn't get them off. Of course, if I'd taken them in to get them fixed up, the jeweler would have discovered that the prongs had worn down.

I tried a couple times to get my ring off. I tried to shrink my hand in ice water:

Then I lubed it up with lotion, fetched by my assistant:

I pulled as long as I could bear and only succeeded in swelling up my knuckle and making it hurt:

A diamond ring without a diamond not only looks ridiculous, but it is dangerous. The prongs were so sharp. I accidentally sliced the palm of my right hand with that stupid, unremovable ring. I tried to keep Band-Aids over the prong portion, but they kept sliding off.

I ran into the senior Bunnells (Roy and Karen) at church on Sunday, and Karen inquired about my bandaged finger. I filled them in and told them I planned to go to a jeweler and get the rings cut off on Monday. Roy said he had a tool that could cut them off. Karen said she could get a ring cutter from work. I was anxious for removal. I told them I might come by later.

That night the girls and I had dinner at the Karners'. When I walked in, I told Mel and Derrick that if they couldn't get my engagement ring off, I was going to the Bunnells' on the way home to have them cut it off. Derrick got a bowl of ice water while Mel fetched olive oil. We froze my hand till it hurt. Then Mel began twisting and pulling while Derrick filmed the proceedings. My ring was stuck right on top of my knuckle when Derrick gave Mel a pointer and Mel told Derrick to stop filming and take over. Derrick finally managed to get it off. Mel wanted to go for the wedding band, but I didn't think that my finger could take the pain or that the swollen knuckled could possibly be passable. So now I'm wearing just my band. I may wait until some cold winter weather, when my finger is as small as can be, to try to remove the band. 

I took Ever to the activity pool at the YMCA a couple times while Jim was gone. It's a fun, shallow little splash pool. Ever would circle the pool slowly, repeating this pattern: stand tall, take a huge breath, and then fall/jump forward and down into the water, acting as if you're going all the way under but not really usually putting your face in.

We had our first Mommy/Ever movie date. Ever chose Frozen, of course, because she's totally obsessed with that movie. She went to town on the giant bowl of popcorn I made.

I enjoyed our time together. I have to say, though, I'm not sure why Frozen is supposed to be the most amazing movie in the history of the world.

I finally realized that Wren is a belly sleeper, and it was no use trying to keep her on her back. I put her down on her back every time, and she tightens her abs, lifts up her straight legs (often crossed at the ankle), and rolls at least up onto her side and often all the way over. She finally started turning her head, at least, so I could tell she was breathing. Isn't she big?

Jim returned late on Friday, August 21. That day we had Aven Dalton over for a play date. They had fun swinging and singing "Let It Go." Here's the still pic:

And here's some video:

They spent the rest of their play date making "welcome home" signs for Jim with paint, glitter, and stickers. They worked very hard:

We taped them to the garage door so Jim would see them when he drove in:

Needless to say, we were very glad when Daddy came home. 

As for Jim, he had a good trip but came back frustrated that he's not as amazing at surfing as he used to be. He is not as good because he never goes. He thinks he should surf, but he'd usually rather stay home with his lovely family (and for that we are very grateful). Surfing gave him his identity in high school and college, so he's confused about losing that. What this all means is that he returned in the midst of a mild mid-life identity crisis. He concluded that we can move away from the ocean, and he became obsessed with the idea of moving to the Pacific Northwest. He spent much time researching various cities in Oregon (Corvallis, anyone?) and looking at weather, rainfall, etc. We won't go anywhere for a while; we'd like to maximize his pension if we can. But we dream of living someplace green, someplace it rains, someplace there's not so much traffic. Someday.