New Family Member

I should say, we got the cutest, sweetest, most wonderful pup that we could find.  Seriously, she is a doll through and through.  We met her two Fridays ago after I saw her in an ad and said "that's our puppy".  I had been scouring rescue sites and the paper for months, so it was sort of a revelation.  We called immediately, visited her right away, and fell in love once she cuddled up on Kraig's lap.  So, so sweet.  We picked her up the next day so we'd have time to prep the house and buy the necessary items.

OKAY, enough info, I'll post some photos!  (these are all straight-out-of-camera. Sorry, I'm so behind on life that if I stopped to edit photos right now, I wouldn't hit publish until April.)

Ready for her arrival.

 Our first family photo, awww.

 Eating, I mean reading Kraig's philosophy book.

Her name:  Sophie

Her stats:
4 lbs of precious, 4 months old (born on our wedding anniversary!  CUTE!), will grow to be about 10 inches tall (she's currently about 8") and 8-10lbs.  She is a small maltese/mini schnauzer mix.  All schnauzer traits, really, except for her super soft, non-shedding maltese coat.  Love!

She's just as sweet as can be.  She's a little shy with newcomers at first, but warms up quickly.  All bark, no bite.  She has definitely attached to us and is becoming protective.  She found her voice now that she is comfortable at home.  She'll bark when someone is at the door, talking outside, approaching us, or at any knocking sounds.  (We're working on keeping it from being excessive.)  We definitely don't want her to bark at harmless people, but we feel extremely honored that she has adopted us so quickly as her family.

She is such a lapdog.  She loves to be near us.  She is cuddly and loves to give kisses, which Owen has become accustomed to.  It took him a few days to get used to her energy, but now he likes to let her kiss his hand, and he will voluntarily cuddle and hug her.  He's very gentle and a little too friendly.... he tries to feed her his food!  That's a no-no here, so we're trying to train him as well :)

And us?  Well, we are adjusting to having two "kids".  Honestly, it's a little crazy having a toddler and a puppy, but these growing pains will subside soon and we will fall into a normal routine.  Sometimes it's easier than I thought it'd be.  It gets easier each day, but I'm looking forward to the weekends when Kraig is here to help.  I'm also thankful for his awesome work schedule that has him home in the early afternoon, which is generally meltdown time!  The hardest days (when Owen was super clingy and not yet adjusted to her hyperness (I just made up that word)) are behind us.  And hey, it makes us keep the house straightened up a bit more so that things don't become chew toys!  Win!

Checking in

I have a few updates, so check back over the weekend for new posts.  For now, I wanted to check in about how we are (mostly, how I am) doing.

Grieving is funny.  It comes and goes but I think it's getting better.  I haven't cried about Owen weaning for two weeks now.  I think I got it all out the Saturday before Valentine's Day when Kraig and I went on a date.  Seriously, wept all day.  Ugh.  


So since all of that emotion is purged, I could really start to think about my dad's death.  It's still weird to write/say/hear that- my dad is dead.  I don't wait for him to call or text anymore, though.  Now it's just weird to see his name in my text list or see an email from him.  That stings a little, to be honest.  And talking about it will still bring me to tears, of course.  But at least I can function now.  Baby steps, right?


I just keep thinking that my dad wouldn't want me to be sad.  I know he didn't know that his time was so limited, and I know that he wouldn't have wanted to die so soon.  But on this side of things I have to believe that he would want me to think positively about him instead of just crying because he is gone.  He's still here with us; when Owen plays his drum that grandpa got him I can hear how happy it made my dad to see (via video) him play it.  Or when Owen sees the photo we have of grandpa on the wall and says "Grandpa! Grandpa Tim!  Grrr" I can remember fondly that my dad would always rub his beard on Owen's cheek and growl.  Then he'd ask Owen "what does Grandpa say?" and Owen would growl back.  I can look at photos of dad with Owen and count my blessings that I got to spend so much time watching him with Owen.  His love for Owen was so very clear.  He was so proud of how wonderful of a little man he is.  It makes me happy when we hear stories or receive emails from people who tell us that dad would always talk about his grandkids.  He was always showing off photos of them.  They were his favorite topic of conversation, to be sure.  Those memories and moments are so sweet. 


I could ramble all day about my dad and how much I miss him (so, so, so very much), but the point is that I am doing a little better.  For now.  No guarantees about the future :)


Aaaannnndddd.... I got a new nose ring.  I ordered the jewelry online (super-duper discounted) and managed to finagle it back into the piercing by myself.  Yeee-ouch.  I'm glad to have it back after 2.5 weeks without.  Petty?  Sure.  But it means a lot to me.  (Now it's time to go back to the tattoo/piercing shop for a tattoo for Kraig and to get my monroe re-done.  Oh yes.)  


Ahem.  Anyway, prayers are still welcome.  Thanks for listening, as always.

Snow Day?

Wow, do snowstorms ever get hyped up around here.  Sure- we live in a valley between two mountain ranges, so the weather is EXTREMELY unpredictable, but still, I would have hoped that when there are winter weather advisories for days about a certain impending snowstorm that is going to drop 6-7 inches at sea level that they would at least be a little bit accurate.  

That's asking too much, folks.

Now, before anyone gets defensive, I understand that there was a huge snowstorm last year (?) that actually dropped a substantial amount of snow that stuck for around a week.  I get it.  It happens.  

All I'm asking for is a reasonable forecast.  That's all. 

Case in point:

 The lone snowball.  We made this snowball out of some snow (three-fourths of an inch?) that fell overnight.  By the early afternoon, all the snow had melted (don't all those businesses that closed due to snow feel silly?)  Anyway, the snow picked up again a little later.

It dropped another scant inch.  You can still see the grass!

We enjoyed the beauty of it before it all melted again.  But seriously, there were people (locals) freaking out.  An anonymous person didn't go into work because it had snowed.  The roads were absolutely 100% clear.  They were wet, not icy- but wet roads are the norm here.  But there was snow on the grass!!!!  So no driving for that lady.

Weird.

Or when we were at the library that afternoon and the librarians were plotting when to head home.  Caution is one thing, but the snow wasn't sticking to the road.... no cause for concern.

It's just snow, ya'll.  Not anthrax.

We'll take the snow day and we won't complain (anymore).

A Day in the Life

Owen loves green smoothies and anything that stacks.

I cannot take credit for the building.  I forget what this one was.... either a church with no door or a treehouse.  Or something else that I can't recall... Ask Kraig!

Snow?

I looked out the window one rainy morning to find that the raindrops had morphed into huge clumps of snowflakes.  Obviously I ran out with the camera so that I could prove it to all of you.

Owen loved it.

It's too bad it didn't stick.  (Or is it?)

There is no greener grass

But the "grass is greener" game is a popular one, isn't it?

What if...

I could give anything for....

If I would have just....

I have tried really hard not to play these games over the past three weeks.  Especially lately, however, one stands out in my mind:

If it just hadn't happened so fast.

Sure, I say that now.  But if it had been a long road?  Well, it was that, too, wasn't it?  My dad was sick for a very long time.  Very sick.  But this particular incident- the one that ended his life- well it happened relatively quickly.

I'll back up even further in case I've lost you.  (Warning: medical jargon ahead.  I'll probably butcher most of it, but if you don't have a med background you won't notice.  For those that do, sorry.  And why the details?  Because this is therapy, people.  Skip ahead if you please.)

My dad was diagnosed with COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in 2007.  COPD is basically the combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema- two diseases that are usually but not always brought on by cigarette smoking.  In my dad's case, it was absolutely smoking but also likely a genetic component as well, since his father died of the same thing (though much later in life.)  Anyway, in 2007 his COPD was already pretty severe.  He was admitted to the hospital in late April of that year, right before my college graduation.  I think it was finals week, in fact.  We thought (wrongly- due to poor information from an extended family member) that he was going to die then.  He didn't, obviously.

Two years later, in January of 2009, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital again- this time he was intubated (put on a ventilator) and sedated for 3 full weeks.  His blood oxygen levels went up and down, and finally we were able to completely wean him from the ventilator with the help of a tracheotomy.  It was quite a roller coaster of emotions- I was 8 months pregnant with Owen and feared that my father- with whom I had a rocky relationship with for the year prior (well, my whole life, really, but it really culminated in a huge argument before my wedding, after which I didn't speak to him for almost an entire year- right up until his hospitalization) wouldn't meet my child.  This made me unspeakably sad, but not as sad as the thought that my father was going to die thinking that I hated him.  While we thought- based on what his pulmonologist expected- that he was going to die (this was 2 weeks in to the 3 week sedation/4 month hospitalization), I vowed that if he lived I was going to mend my relationship with him.  He was going to know that I love him and that I forgive him.

I did just that.

Thankfully, he was weaned from the vent and transferred to the ICU stepdown unit, and then to the nursing home with his trach, and finally the trach was removed (!!!)  and he was sent home (!!!!!!!!!) to live a relatively normal life.  He lived alone, and that made us (my sister and I) nervous but we knew he had all his meds, his oxygen if needed, and his CPAP machine for nighttime.  Not that he was really all that great about following doc's orders, but we hoped for the best.

Even the best, though, meant that he wouldn't live for much longer.

COPD is a really awful disease, and unfortunately there is no cure and there is no way to make it better.  It only gets worse.  There are flare-ups or "exacerbations" of the disease, like a respiratory illness, for instance, that then require medical action.  Over time, these exacerbations get worse and worse.  For instance, my dad's first hospitalization in 2007 was only a week-ish stay.  No intubation.  In 2009, he was on the vent for a long time, needed a trach, and was then to use his oxygen fairly regularly at home. We knew the next exacerbation would be worse than in 2009 so we knew two things:  he would be hospitalized for a very long time, and he would be intubated.  Each time he was put on the vent, it would be more difficult to get him back off of it.  His lung functioning was deteriorating quickly and there was nothing we could do to stop that process.

I think you can imagine how stressful it was when he'd get a cold or cough.  At least for me, I always thought "Oh no, he's going to have to go to the hospital, and then what?"  And each time he'd get over a little infection I'd be so thankful.  Last winter (2010) he got sick a couple of times but always got better.  He was able to come to Cleveland to visit us for Christmas, he was at Owen's baptism, and he came up for Owen's birthday party.  Those are all such sweet memories I have with my father.  I am so thankful for that time that I spent with him and could watch him with my son whom he loved so, so very much.

This winter, he got sick again and immediately I told him to go to urgent care if he couldn't breathe.  He joked with me about it, but he seemed to really feel lousy.  He told me as much.  I talked to him everyday and the first day that he mentioned he was ill was Saturday January 22nd.  Over the next two days I'd check in with him to see how he felt and it seemed to me that he was sick but was going to feel better soon.

Tuesday the 25th I got a voicemail from the Ambulatory Care Center in Ottawa.  I called the nurse back and she let me know that he was intubated and taken to the hospital in Lima.  I was worried but didn't panic because, well, he made it through the last time.  Even against all odds, he had made it.  He would do it again.  (Intellectually, I should have known.  We knew he didn't have too much longer to live, we knew it was going to be worse this time... we knew.  I guess this was denial protecting me.)

I called my sister and mom to let them know.  I didn't have much information from his ICU nurse but what she could tell me seemed worse than last time, and she seemed much more urgent.  It was one of his regular nurses from 2009, which I was thankful for.  She was my favorite nurse, and it was nice to have a familiar voice to talk to, and a familiar nurse taking care of my dad.  I know that she loves her patients and I am so grateful for her care.  But that familiarity with her also allowed me to notice those stark differences between the last time and this time.

Still- denial.

He's going to be fine.  We just need to get through the woods.  It's going to be fine.

Well, Wednesday I got a call from his nurse that his sats (oxygen saturation) were dropping into the low-mid 80's (upper 90's is good.  It's on a 100-point scale) and that they were actively bagging him.  I started to panic, and the nurse started crying.  Oye.  This was bad.  I was at the zoo with Kraig and Owen and had to stop and finish talking to the nurse while I sobbed in the middle of the zoo.  I called my sister and my uncle to let them know to get to the hospital as soon as possible.  We'd keep each other updated, but this was not looking good.  His pulmonologist (again, the same doc as last time) "didn't know what else to do"- he was maxed out on his meds, they were already at 100% on the vent, they couldn't do anything else.

They stopped bagging him, adjusted a few meds, moved him back to a regular bed, and his sats started to slowly improve.  By then my sister had arrived and a nephrologist came to speak with her.  My dad had renal cancer in 2010 and had a kidney removed.  The nephrologist said that dad had sterile sepsis and that had caused fluid buildup in his lungs which lead to the respiratory distress that afternoon.  The doc was certain (yes, certain) that if we started dialysis, we could do the work that the kidney wasn't doing (filtering his blood) and that would reverse all of the edema and fluid.

I went to bed Wednesday night thinking that my dad had so many lives- we thought he was on his last one, but no.  He had tricks up his sleeve and he was going to make it out again this time.  We were so hopeful.

There were a few other issues- suspected pneumonia, premature ventricular contractions, and acidosis- that were cause for some concern, but we thought the dialysis was going to fix all of that on Thursday.

Well, the dialysis wasn't doing a thing on Thursday morning.  Four hours in there was no improvement. They flushed and restarted it, but his pulmonologist came in to let my sister know that he did not think the dialysis would work the second time, and that he didn't see any ray of hope.  He was out of treatment options.  We were going to have to fly in to Ohio as soon as possible to say our goodbyes and let him go because at this point, all measures to keep him alive were artificial.

They did try the dialysis again on Thursday evening, but it did nothing.  Over the course of Thursday night as we packed our bags and tried to rest before our early Friday morning flight, my dad deteriorated to the point where we suspect there was little-to-no brain function.  He was still sedated, of course, but it seemed his body was definitely shutting down.  All of that is irreversible, and while it was difficult to know that information as we flew 8 hours to Ohio and drove 3 hours across the state to see him, it was also comforting in that I had a peace about what we had to do.  My dad was no longer there in spirit anymore- we were just keeping his body alive as much as we could so that I could say goodbye.  There was literally nothing that any doctor could do to bring him back.  We did all that we could.  That was tremendously comforting to know, though the decision to pull a loved one from life support is never easy.  There were no choices left; there was no question about what to do.  I'm thankful for that.

So, we got to the hospital at 7:30pm on Friday night.  Kraig said goodbye to his father-in-law, and then my sister and I had some alone time with my dad.  We prayed, we talked to him, we joked, and we wept.    We said everything we felt that we needed to say, and we let him know that we did everything we could and that we were sorry, but we'd have to let him go.  And it was okay to go- we were there with him and we love him.

As difficult as that was, I am thankful for the peace I had.  As I looked over his body- attached to the dialysis, ventilator, and umpteen (literally, in the teens) different medication bags, I knew he was just hanging on by a thread.  His sats were dropping, his vitals were tentative at best, and even as I stood there for 10 minutes things were slowly declining.  The decision of when to let him go was easy- do it now, and do it as quickly as you can.  That may seem callous, but I choose to believe that he was just waiting for me to come say goodbye.  We were also teetering on the brink of respiratory or cardiac failure and I didn't want him to go that way.  I wanted it to be peaceful, and for that to happen things needed to remain in our control.  He wasn't going to hang on much longer, so it was better to do it now, at least in my mind.

So, they unhooked him from everything, extubated him, and made sure he was comfortable (ie. very sedated) as he took his last breaths.  My sister and I were both there, and while it was difficult to witness, I am glad that he died with his lovely daughters holding his hands.  He wouldn't have had it any other way.  He passed away at 8:30pm on Friday January 28th.

But that's only the beginning, isn't it?  At least for me and my sister, our suffering is only just beginning.  Our story is far from over yet, and while those that love us like to say things like "he's in a better place", we are not in that place.  We are not better at all, actually.  This is a loss that is so deep, so profound, we can hardly find our way through it.  Heck, it's three weeks later and I am still struggling to convince myself that this is real.  He's really gone.  It just doesn't make sense to me.   I knew for years that my time with him would be cut drastically short, but that doesn't make it easier.  In fact, the wonderful two years that I had with him just leave me yearning for more time.  It's unfair.

That's where I am at.  I am bouncing back and forth between denial, sadness, and anger.  I miss my father so very much, I can hardly express how his absence makes me feel.  Like I said, we talked all day, everyday, so already it feels like forever since I have talked to him.  He was my best friend.  I stay at home with Owen and he couldn't work due to his condition, so we were each other's pals day in and day out.  Every morning I'd wake up to a text from him.  I talked to him more than I talk to anyone else except Owen and Kraig- he was my number 3 guy.  And in his death, I can imagine no more painful a loss except if I lost my husband or son.  My dad was so special to me.

I know that one day I will read back over these entries and I will be thankful that I am finally able to smile instead of weep when I think of my dad.  I'll be thankful for the time I had with him instead of feeling like I've been robbed.  I'll be happy that he is no longer suffering instead of just wishing he was still here with us.  I'll still miss him, but it won't hurt so very, very much.  Until then, I am in the middle of this indescribable pain and sadness.  But when you are "going through hell, keep going." (Churchill)  That's what I intend to do.  Please help me keep going.

Making plans

Wow, it's mid-February.  I cannot exactly tell you what it's like to feel as though an entire month was ripped off the calendar without my knowledge, but I can say that I don't like it.  It's weird.  At the same time, I like that winter is almost over (at least in the Pacific Northwest.  Sorry, Ohioans.  Enjoy these last few months of snow and ice ;)).

This also means that my birthday is less than 3 weeks away.  How did THAT happen?  And after that, it's Owen's birthday.  Mercy.  I'm so far behind on birthday plans!  I'm also behind on planting my garden, but that's another story for another day.

Thankfully, though our house is small we do have a yard.  I would have never thought of having an outdoor party for Owen's birthday... in Ohio.  It could be the middle of a snowstorm!  However, the end of March is well into Oregon's spring, so we can have an indoor/outdoor shindig if we want to (depending on the rain, of course.)  This is thrilling, if you ask me.

I did a quick check of the weather to see what the averages are for March in Oregon.  Well, well, well.  Right around 60 degrees everyday?  Heck yes.  And just to be safe- the record low?  30 degrees.  That's the RECORD low, people.  Like, fat chance of that happening (just like there's a slim chance of the record high - 73 degrees.) But 60-ish sounds wonderful.  I'm so excited that people/kiddos can spill out into the yard if need be.

So, Owen's birthday plans are well underway and I am so excited about the theme.

What?  You didn't think I was going to give THAT away, did you?

Deep sigh

Slowly but surely I am going to get caught up on the blog.  I have stories and photos to share, after all.

But right now I just need to vent.  Whine?  Whatever it is, I'm doing it and you can listen or not.  Deal?

I'm not sure if I never allow myself to feel stress and sadness, or if I just never experience it.  I think it's the former and now that's coming back to bite me.  I know, intellectually, that I have been no stranger to stress and pain, heartache and sadness.  I've experienced a lot in my 25 years and I think I just try to let it roll off my back.  I'm tough, I can handle anything, I am not sad because things like *that* don't affect me, I tell myself.  That attitude is getting me nowhere right now.

I can sense my heart's desire to pull away from the sadness and pain, and I can also sense my mind telling me that I need this.  I need to feel it, I need to grieve, I need to just weep.  That becomes difficult when I am not yet able to comprehend the loss of my dad, but I'm sure I'll get there.  That's even more reason to allow myself to grieve.

It's been two weeks and one day since my dad died.  Before all of this, I would have said that that was ample time to get past the really hard stuff.  What did I know?  I don't feel like I've even begun to deal with the immediate feelings of loss yet.  I've got a long way to go.

On the other hand, there has been a lot that has gotten in the way of the grieving process.  Anyone who's ever known anyone who's died knows that the days between the death and funeral are filled with people.  All day, everyday.  It's chaos for a person like myself who prefer quietness and peaceful days with just my husband and son.  Pure chaos.  It's also not conducive to allowing oneself to feel much emotion.

Not only did we have that constant hum of people around us, but my sister and I also had to deal with my father's estate.  He had no will and no wife, so it was up to us to sort everything out.  It's still up to us.  It's a huge undertaking and it's going to take a long time and a lot of work to sort through.  We also had to plan the funeral arrangements.  Needless to say, we were busy.  Also not conducive to allowing oneself to feel much emotion.

Then, lucky me, the three of us got a stomach virus that had us all up vomiting the night before my dad's visitation.  Good gracious, was that ever awful.  Just when I thought I couldn't possibly get more sick than that (seriously, it was bad), I caught influenza and brought it home to Portland.  I remember being ecstatic when our plane touched down in PDX, so happy to be home but fighting off a nasty cough.  I was thrilled to see Donna at the airport to pick us up and then we went for lunch with her and Gordon, but I couldn't give them the huge hugs that I had planned on since I didn't want to get them sick.  Then the chills set in, and just like that I was knocked out for 5 days with a fever.  All I could do was lay in bed and shake, and that's when I knew that I shouldn't have ever thought I couldn't get more sick.  Wow, influenza is rough.  That, my friends, is why people get flu shots.  I started to feel better (meaning I could function- feed myself, get out of bed, walk around) but the deep cough and congestion are still kicking, 9 days later.  Whatever, I'm just thankful to be alive at this point.  Ugh.

During the course of the flu, though, I lost my nose ring.  I know, wah wah wah, I'm such a baby.  But seriously, I've had a nose ring since I was 17 years old.  It's part of me.  I like it.  I've had it repierced 4 times because I had to take it out for dance or jobs, but I could never not have it.  I know it's probably silliness to some of you, but I'm really sad that I lost it (somewhere in a kleenex.  Gross, I know.)  I don't have a spare and don't think I'll be running to the body jewelry store anytime soon.  (Maybe there's one next to the restaurant that we're going to tonight... hmmm....)

And then, here's the kicker.  I had to wean Owen.  At this point you probably think I'm just whining to whine, but this is really sad for me.  (You can skip ahead if you want, I don't mind.)  We were still going strong with a handful of feedings (sometimes less) each day, mostly surrounding bedtimes.  I was just going with the flow, no plans to stop anytime soon unless Owen gave me some signs that he was ready.  We would have stopped eventually, and probably sooner than later (like, sometime in the next 6 months) but I was in no rush.  We were approaching his 2nd birthday, so I didn't really talk about nursing him because most people think it's gross or that there is something wrong with nursing such an "old" child (don't worry, I think there is something wrong with you if you think that, so the feeling is mutual.  Ha.)

I was almost embarrassed to tell my doctor that I was still breastfeeding when she started talking to me about meds to help with my influenza.  She didn't give me many options, in fact it was either take this cough medicine and wean him, or you get nothing.

[Awesome.  Some docs seriously need to work on their breastfeeding support.  "Now would be a good time to wean him" isn't exactly the helpful attitude that I was looking for.  Is it so much to ask for a little sensitivity?  Are you seriously going to tell me that I should "just" wean him, as if it's no big deal?  It seemed a bit cold to me, in my much-too-sensitive opinion.]  Stepping off soapbox.

Well, I opted for no meds.

That was before I got zero sleep because I was coughing all night.  I surmised that Owen wasn't getting much milk, if any, anyway because of how sick I was.  So, I called for the meds.  I talked to Owen about how mommy's milk is all gone and we need to say bye-bye.  He took it like a champ, and has been such a trooper all week.  Unfortunately, I only ended up taking the meds for two days because I don't like how they made me feel (Hycodan- codeine, yuck) and wasn't getting any more sleep since I was just up all night sweating and paranoid from the narcotics.  Ugh.  What a mess.  But I had already told Owen it was all gone, and he was being such a trooper.  I couldn't turn back now...

But I am so sad.  I wasn't expecting this to be such a punch in the gut, but it's awful.  I don't know if it's made worse by everything else, or if weaning is always such an emotional experience but I'm a weepy mess.  I'm sure that the fact that I had to do it cold turkey and didn't really have a choice make it all the worse.  I also think that the fact that I have done it for 22.5 months makes it that much harder to just quit.  I know part of it is that this marks the end of the baby era, and now Owen is my little man.  I have to find new ways to bond and connect with him, emotionally and physically, and I wasn't ready to have to think about how to do that.  I just keep thinking that he can nurse again after x amount of time, just not right now, but then I realize that this is it.  It's over.  He's not my little nursing baby anymore.  That will never be a part of our bond ever again.

This may seem melodramatic and ridiculous but it's really hard for me to swallow this.  I also know women who never had that relationship, some who chose not to, and some who tried so hard for so long and just couldn't.  I'm sure it's difficult for everyone in their own way, or maybe some women are just stronger than me.  I don't mean to be insensitive as I sit here and whine about how I got to breastfeed for 22.5 months and that wasn't long enough, or something.  It's not that.  It's just the transition; the moving from one era to another, the end of something and beginning of something that has yet to be determined. I'm not handling it well.  So thanks for listening.  If you have advice or had similar feelings, I'm all ears.

So that's my two weeks in a nutshell.   I have so much more to say about my dad and his passing, and I'm thankful for anyone who is willing to hear me out.  Like I said, this is a little bit like therapy and I'm glad to have the virtual journal to look back on.

From the trenches

I'm finally able to climb out of bed for extended periods of time and I wanted to peek in and say hello.  We are, in fact, still alive over here.  It's been quite a while since I posted; I've had the worst two weeks of my life, if you'll allow me that bit of melodrama.

I'm sure you all know by now, but in case you don't, my father passed away and the three of us travelled back to Ohio to say goodbye and make arrangements for his funeral, and in the meantime caught a nasty stomach bug followed by Influenza B.  I've never been so sick in my 25 years of life, and now I know why people get the flu shot.  Sign me up for 3 next year, please.  I don't mean to be dramatic but I have no idea where I can even look to being catching up on our real-life, let alone our blog.  I'll be back soon, though, since this is a little bit like therapy for me.

In the interim please keep us in your thoughts- specifically that we could catch a break soon.  That would be nice.  Normalcy would be great but I don't want to ask for too much.

More stories from Ohio

I completely forgot to tell all the wonderful stories from our trip to Ohio. 

You already know how we went from this

to this

But there was also this

snowfights with Paul and Bear

funny faces with daddy

kissing cousins

packing an extra suitcase to take home

playing with friends

dinner at a vegan friendly (!) restaurant in Cleveland.  It wasn't awesome but it was nice to have some organic vegetables after being unable to find any in Ottawa.

This is what I know: our boy loves airports, he loves airplanes, he loves flying.  He still asks if we can fly to Chicago.

In case you were wondering...

....we don't miss this.  Not even a teensy-eensy little bit.  Not at all.  You can keep it!