It's been emotional

It has been a long 2 months since my last blog post. If anyone out there is still reading, I can explain why - I swear, it's for a good reason!  I have been busy. To say the least.

Describing every detail of what has been going on with the Jenkins’ since we got back from our cape vacation would fill 10 blog posts so I thought I’d give 10 abridged posts in 1. Or at least as abridged as I can be!

1.     Twickers’ surgery:  I’ll  spare the gory details here, but basically our dog Twickers had chronic UTIs and had to have surgery on her “lady parts” to prevent them from coming back.  I was under the impression it was a minor surgery, but it was actually a major surgery.  She had 20 stitches. Then she had complications. Her incision opened up, she contracted a skin infection, it was a nightmare. After bringing her home from the doggy hospital, we were up 3 nights in a row with her.  We finally had to bring her back and she ended up being at the doggy hospital for more than a week.  In the end, the wonderful vet staff at Village Vets in Decatur nursed her back to health and she is doing so well. Twickers has always been pretty disobedient and crotchety, but honestly, she is a different animal now.  It’s incredible.  I’m glad we did it in the end, but for a couple weeks in August our lives were turned upside down over it.

The cone of shame. And a crate. 

Could life be worse?!

Pathetic creature!

Twickers' meds

Twicky is all better and ready for baby kisses.

2.     DeQuervain’s injections: Since Tess was born I’ve been suffering from this super intense pain in both of my wrists.  When we got back from the cape I went to see my physician about it.  She sent me to Emory Orthopedics where they told me I had DeQuervain’s tendonitis, otherwise known as Mother’s Thumb.  It’s basically inflammation in the tendon into your thumb from your inner wrist caused by constantly picking up your baby or nursing or any kind of repetitive motion or strain like that.  Artists or anyone who works with their hands get it too. My dad, who is an artist, had it and had surgery to treat it about 30 years ago.  It is INCREDIBLY painful, but the good news was that these days surgery is a last resort and a steroid injection into the tendon should cure it for life!  I got the first wrist done there as soon as they diagnosed me.  Unfortunately, they failed to tell me how unbelievably painful the injection would be!  I literally could not use my hand/wrist for 3 days!  It was some of the worst pain I’ve experienced and I had no idea it was coming.  Fortunately Andy could work from home so he could help me with Tess. I literally could not hold her I was in so much pain. I couldn’t feed myself or dress myself. It was insane.  Then I had to do the second wrist 2 weeks later! Again, a horrible experience at the time but I haven’t had any wrist pain since, so it was definitely worth it.  This also, btw, was all happening during Twickers’ surgery nightmare. It was a stressful couple of weeks.

At least I had this to make me laugh in the midst of it all.

This face never fails to make me laugh.

3.     Science: I had submitted my manuscript (that I have been working on for the past 3+ years) before we left for the cape. While we were there it got rejected.  I submitted it to another journal when we got back. It got rejected again.  I submitted it to yet another journal a couple of weeks later.  Got rejected again.  I don’t want to dwell on it, but let’s just say I’m beginning to take it personally. I’m getting close to submitting it again… 4^th times the charm?

Who needs a Neuron paper when you have true love, eh?

4.  Moving and shaking: Tess’ crawling abilities also shot through the roof as soon as we got back from the cape.  She cannot be contained now!  She is also pulling herself up to standing and is just starting to be able to transfer from one piece of furniture to the next.  She even can let go of something and stay standing for a brief moment before crashing down.  We probably only have about 2 months 'til this kid is walking! How is that possible???  We can barely keep up with the baby proofing.  This weekend Andy secured some key pieces of furniture to the walls (our hutch and television) so nothing comes crashing down.  But there are about 10,000 other things on the list. 

We have a lot of floor time.

She likes trying to get everything off of her changing table now that she can reach.

5. Crib time: We moved Tess from our bedroom into her own room when we got back from the cape.  She has always been a great sleeper, we have worked hard on getting a great sleep schedule down with her from an early age and have been successful. But introducing her to her crib after 7 months of being in a bassinet in mom and dad’s room got her off everything good we had going.  We had to let her cry it out a couple of times.  When we responded to her crying she very quickly learned that we would come in to snuggle.  I know how important sleep is for her, so despite the theories about how crying it out is psychologically damaging, I knew that a couple of nights of crying was going to be far less damaging than her turning into a bad sleeper in terms of her brain development.  It was hard for me, and I cried as much as she did but she eventually got the picture and learned to love her crib.  It also didn’t take very long.

6.     Chowing down: We started baby led weaning once Tess hit 8 months old.  It’s been so fun to watch her eat and learn to love food, but also a new challenge.  For those who are unfamiliar with “BLW,” it’s basically a method for introducing solid foods to your baby.  There’s no spoon-feeding, you simply start giving them whole chunks of food that they can feed themselves.  It’s based on the theory that humans develop the skills necessary to be able to feed themselves once their body is ready to digest more than just breast milk.  Cavemen didn’t have food processors and somehow prehistoric man was able to transition from milk to meat!  It has all kinds of benefits, food and eating becomes something they are actively engaged in and it is a fun and exciting experience, so supposedly they learn to be more adventurous in their eating.  It also allows you to eat as a family, rather than one parent shoveling processed baby food into baby’s mouth as the other parent quickly inhales some food so the other parent has the chance to do the same after the switch.  It also helps babies develop their fine motor skills.  Anyway, we just give her boiled carrot sticks, avocado, mango, plum, banana, etc and she picks it up and eats it. What a concept! So far she is primarily still eating fruits and vegetables, we tried introducing meat but it wasn’t very successful.  She also eats Cheerios now too, it’s so cute to watch her little fingers pinch a Cheerio and gobble it up!  The major drawbacks are: the constant fear of choking in case she literally bites off more than she can chew.  She only has two bottom teeth still so food really just gets mashed between her gums before she swallows. We had one incident where she almost choked, that was why meat was unsuccessful, which was scary but it was the only time.  The other “con” is the extreme amount of cleanup that is required! OMG! I think I am going to design a high chair that is made for baby led weaning, because the one I bought has so many nooks and crannies for food to get stuck in it’s ridiculous.  But the time I save in not spoon-feeding her and getting to sit and eat together is worth it. Also, we can bring her to a restaurant and put some slices of mango in front of her and she is happy as a clam for the duration of our meal!

Her very first taste of food!

She was not convinced to begin with but got used to it eventually.

She loves Cheerios.

She likes sharing with the dogs too.

Avocado is her favorite.

She is slowly starting to get less messy when she eats it.

She also loves mango.

She uses celery more as a chew toy than food,

but most restaurants that serve buffalo wings or bloody marys have them 

and it works for keeping her entertained if we forget to pack any food!

7.     Back to Massachusetts: I had to go to Smith College for an Alumnae Association meeting at the end of September.  I sit on a committee that selects candidates for key leadership positions at the Alumnae House, so I spent the end of my summer clamoring to get all of my interviews and reference phone calls taken care of and writing up all of my reports.  It is a huge amount of work, but such a fun job - and I get to interact with some pretty incredible Smithies, both on and off the committee.  On top of that, I get to go back to Smith twice a year!  Andy and Tess came too – her 4^th flight to MA - and we got to visit with my family.  We even went to The Big E, the New England state fair.  I have worked my ass off this summer to lose the end of my pregnancy weight – 50 pounds in total - and I damn near gained it all back between the fried Oreos and lobster rolls and maple cotton candy. Wow.

Tess and her cousin Alex.

She was a little worn out by The Big E.

Me enjoying a bacon s'more.

Yes, a s'more with a slice of bacon in it.

Me and my future little Smithie.

8.     House Party I: We threw our first house party since having Tess.  This is of note mostly because we used to have house parties frequently, and they were pretty epic events for the most part.  But that has come to a grinding halt since Tess entered our lives.  We jumped back in head first to have a leaving party for our dear friends who moved from Atlanta to Montana, and it was a roaring success if I do say so myself!  We had kids in the pool and a ton of food in the afternoon and even had a few people stay late night after Tess went to sleep.  It might take a couple of decades for our parties to reach the same level of debauchery for which they had been known before Tess came along, but it was a damn good start I’d say!

9.     “Happiness is having a scratch for every itch:” While preparing for the party, Andy and I did some yard work where I got a pretty bad case of poison ivy.  It was bad enough to have the blisters and the itching and oozing that comes with poison ivy, but then I had this weird thing where the allergic reaction went systemic.  Even after the ivy rash was almost completely healed I had the most intense itching all over my arms and legs – way worse than the poison ivy rash ever was.  Before going to Massachusetts I went to my PCP and she told me I could go on steroids but she would recommend not nursing while I was using them.  I didn’t want to do that so she said I could take Claritin. I decided to try that but got the prescription for steroids just in case.  Every day I would wake up and it would be worse.  Claritin, Benadryl, creams, NOTHING would help this itch.  Finally, one day while we were up in Northampton I met up with a friend who told me he had the same thing happen to him once and he was itchy for NINE MONTHS!!!!!!!  When I say I literally had a panic attack on hearing this, I don’t mean I figuratively had a panic attack. I LITERALLY had a panic attack!  I had been itchy for 3+ weeks at this point and was frankly beginning to lose my mind a little over it. The thought that this could continue for months was more than I could handle.  I also realized at that point I was going to need to start the steroids ASAP before it got worse, and I didn’t want to stop nursing. I also didn’t have any stored breast milk with me.  So here I was, at the crowded Northampton Brewery on a Friday evening in floods of tears not knowing what to do.  I had a dinner at 6:30 and my plan was to nurse Tess at the brewery before I left, but of course no milk was coming down in my panicked state. I went out to the car to try there, but Tess was fighting and there was no milk and my nervous breakdown was only ramping up.  I was sitting there, practically hyperventilating, thinking my last nursing experience was going to be in the midst of a breakdown sitting in my mom’s car of the parking lot of the brewery while Tess squirmed and cried. Meanwhile I was already late for dinner.  Finally Andy came out and told me to get a hold of myself, I would skip dinner, get the prescription filled at CVS and go back to the Autumn Inn to feed Tess one last time and start the steroids immediately after. It would only be for 5 days, we would figure out how to get her to take some formula, feed her extra food and deal with it. Of course, logic and reason were long gone for me at this point and I was just thinking about being itchy until next summer and how my baby was going to be forever damaged because I cut her off from breast milk too abruptly.  I did some reading though, and figured out from the half-life of prednisone that I could take a dose right after putting Tess to sleep and it would be cleared from my system by the next afternoon. I would pump and dump during the morning, and still be able to breastfeed a couple of times each day.  We got through it, I didn’t have to give up nursing and my itching was completely gone by the time I finished my 5-day course of steroids.  As usual, there was no reason to panic and everything worked out in the end. In the midst of it all, it seemed like the end of days, though.

This was me right around the time I learned about the 9 months of itching.

My look says something along the lines of, "Um... what?"

10. Existential crisis: Finally, the biggest thing that has been consuming me the past 2 months is that I have been applying for jobs.  One of them I wasn't too excited about but seemed like it could be a good opportunity.  Unfortunately, they wanted me to start 5 days after offering me the job, offered no sick or vacation time, or telecommuting options and the 9 hour work day was non-negotiable (I tried to get them to hire me part time until I could find day care). So that didn't work out. The other job I really, really, really wanted but didn't get.  That news was difficult. Last night on my way to a friend's house I was fully pathetic about it all, listened to some Adele and had myself a good cry. I just have to hope that it means these things weren't meant to be and there is a better opportunity down the road. We'll see what's next.

Tess was helping me write my applications.

I think Tess is asking Andy why I don't want to just stay and play blocks with her.

The whole experience has been rather exhausting for these three.

So this was basically our last two months, by the numbers:
10 month old Tess (in 6 days!)
8 vet clinic overnights for Twicky
5 days of steroids
3 manuscript submissions
2 job applications
2 wrist injections
1 party
1 job offer
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Wrong sport, Tess!

We have also been spending some quality time cheering on our favorite teams.

Tomorrow we leave for San Francisco – Tess’ first LONG flight.  Keep your fingers crossed and I’m sure there will be a far more interesting blog post about that journey coming next week!  Thanks for reading and I’ll try to not have such a long absence next time.