Christmas 2012

Wow, I just can't believe how fast this year has gone already! Christmas has already come and gone and it's almost the new year. It seems like the older I get the faster life goes.

I had to work Christmas Eve all night and Mark had to work all day on Christmas, which kind of sucks but I remind myself that the most important jobs are the ones that can't go away on nights, weekends or holidays. Really, in a perfect world neither of our jobs would be required - but people screw up and people get sick so off to work we go. Luckily Mira is too young to really know the difference, or get the idea of Christmas yet anyway, so for now it's okay. As soon as I got home from work Christmas morning we brought out presents for Mira to open. She actually did a really good job opening everything! Her favorite present was her pink trike - she kept trying to sit on it before Mark was done putting it together.

Feeding her baby doll.

She wanted to wear part of the trike as a necklace.

Showing off her new winter coat

So Mira had fun Christmas morning playing with her new toys and later she got to show off some new dresses she got (she is so into frilly girlie things - love it!)

She loved her new Disney Princess hooded towel

Mmmm, rolls...

Mark and I didn't really exchange gifts this year. My present to Mark had been the ski passes. It felt a bit strange to not have anything to give him on Christmas but it's not like I was going to wait to give Mark ski passes. Mark's present to me was tickets to see 3 performances by Ballet West: The Nutcracker, Cinderella in February, and Aladdin in the spring. That's one of the most thoughtful presents I've ever gotten - I absolutely love the ballet! I've been dropping hints for years that I'd love to go with Mark to the ballet and even though it took 10 1/2 years for him to follow through, at least he did! And as many of my girlfriends have noted, this man is a keeper if he'll buy me tickets for not one, not two, but three ballets. Sorry ladies, he's mine - don't get too jealous. :)

I've mentioned that Mira is starting to throw fake temper tantrums and I finally managed to get one on video. I dare you to watch this and not laugh.

She sure is a drama queen!

I said in my last post Mark was going to try to get me on a black diamond mogul run the next time we went skiing - which I did yesterday. It was definitely a challenge and I biffed it several times on the way down but Mark was probably prouder of me than I've ever seen him and he was so excited that I'm more and more able to keep up with him. He told me afterwards that the run he took me on was probably more of a double black diamond because of how narrow, steep and tree-filled it was with moguls about hip-deep but he knew I could handle it and he knew it would be great for my confidence level. We're going to try to do at least one black diamond run every time we go skiing now. Yay me!

Here's a couple more videos and then I'm done showing off. Here's Mark doing an intermediate mogul run - this is how it should be done.

And then there's me.

Ah well, the technique will be there eventually.

Here's to a great new year for everyone!

Holidays

Wow have I slacked off with the blog lately. Whoops. I'm blaming the busy holiday season and my work schedule and Mark's and Mira's illnesses requiring medical intervention and our ski passes.

So first things first, Mark and Mira are both healthy (now). Mira came down with a bit of a cough and runny nose which turned into an ear infection which turned into a double eye infection, so she was on oral antibiotics and eye drops. Luckily she bounced back quickly, as kids tend to do. I ended up having to be on antibiotics as well for a sinus infection after my respiratory illness. I always get a sinus infection after any sort of cold but typically after a few days the symptoms go away on their own and at least the pain is controllable with over-the-counter meds. For whatever reason this time I was in migraine-level pain for over a week with no relief no matter what I took, but a few hours after taking my first dose of Zithromax I was starting to feel better. Whew!

Mark of course is another story. The back story is that when he was an infant he got pneumonia, which made him more prone to recurrent pneumonias as he got older so now he has scarring in his lungs from all the infections he's had which, of course, makes him even more prone to getting pneumonia. So he got sick with that nasty cold the same time I did but he just did not recover the way he should have (I think part of the problem is he didn't take any time off of work). Finally after he had a wheezing/coughing attack one night when he needed several puffs of my albuterol just to breathe we took him to the Instacare. They gave him a breathing treatment and did a chest X-ray that showed he didn't have evidence of pneumonia yet so they called it bronchitis and sent him home with a course of antibiotics and his own inhaler. A few days after starting his ABX he still didn't seem much better and after he finished his course he got much worse again. What that meant is I was at work and got texts from him like, "I can't breathe" and "Help me." And of course I couldn't just leave work so we had to call Mark's parents to come to the house and sit with Mira (it was late at night so we definitely didn't want to wake her up) and get a friend to drive Mark to the ER and when I was finally able to give report on my patient and leave I went to the ER and traded off with our friend so she could go home and I sat with Mark. That was another really long night. The doctor was worried that Mark might have a pulmonary embolism so he got a bunch of labs drawn, 2 liters of IV fluid, a pulmonary CT scan and more breathing treatments. And luckily everything ended up looking okay so the best the doctor could think was that the ABX he'd been on weren't attacking whatever bug he had. He still didn't have pneumonia based on the CT but he was right on the edge. So they sent him home on 2 more antibiotics and steroids - and 24 hours later he was looking and acting normal again. Big sigh of relief there! It's been a rough few months for health care in our family. If there's a bright side to this, we hit our deductible a few months ago with Mark's hospitalization for chest pain and so at least this has all been covered by insurance. I guess that's a good thing, right? :)

We also had some family from out of town this last week. Mark has an adult daughter from his previous marriage (he got married when he was quite young, 19 years old, and needless to say that didn't work out so well) who moved to Kentucky with her boyfriend earlier this year, so our present to her was to fly her out for a week to visit. It was such a fun week with Jintelle and just like old times. Plus my little sister Penny is in town for a few weeks so we got to see her for Hanukkah earlier in the month. I think taking the commercialism out of the holidays and focusing on spending time with family is the best thing to do this time of year, and at least in my case much less stressful.

Sara and Penny

Me and Penny

Sara, Penny and me

Mark and I have gone to several more counseling sessions and I feel like it's been helpful. For the most part I've been feeling much better. One thing that was suggested we do was to find something we both enjoy doing so we can spend more time together as a couple. One thing we definitely enjoy but we don't do very much due to price is go skiing. We looked into buying season passes to one of the many ski resorts nearby. The prices that seemed reasonable for our budget were only mid-week passes, which would really limit our ski days. Then we looked at The Canyons, which is in Park City and therefore the most expensive resort. We went there once last season and really loved it - but $1500 a person for a season pass just didn't seem affordable. Then we noticed that they give a massive discount to law enforcement and a spouse. And when I say massive I mean half price. Now that was certainly doable! So we have season passes to our favorite resort - and one of the reasons we love it so much is how big it is, about 180 trails! Now we have all season to explore the resort, I can perfect my skiing skills, and we get to spend time together doing something we love! This was the best gift we could have gotten each other.

One of the perks of having a season pass is we get a free buddy pass so when Jintelle was visiting we took her up skiing with us. Mark got a helmet cam and got some footage of us bumbling our way down the mountain and of him doing some black diamond trails. I had to edit these videos and they may not have come out great but you get the gist of it. :)

Mark is a much better skier than I am - he was on the ski team in college and doesn't even think twice about skiing off a cliff through a forest at breakneck speeds. My goal, on the other hand, is to not be snowplowing down the mountain by the end of the season. However, we figured out that even though I'll psych myself out and fall down on a not-very-steep, well-groomed slope with no trees in sight, if you give me a steep narrow hill with moguls and trees I'm not scared at all. Go figure because moguls are harder than a groomed slope! When Mark and I went skiing yesterday he got a video of me going down some moguls and doing fairly decent!

Mark thinks I can handle a black diamond mogul run the next time we go up so we'll see how I do at it. The nice thing about having a season pass is we can go up for a few hours in the morning and come home and not feel like we wasted our money. It's pretty awesome so I think we're going to have to get passes every year now because we're enjoying it so much. Plus next year Mira will be old enough we can start taking her up and teaching her to ski - now that will be cute!

Of course if you ask her she's old enough to start skiing already.

She's enough of a daredevil I think she would have a blast going skiing. Mark and I keep joking that we're going to have an Olympic skier on our hands (her middle name does mean "snow," after all!).

Mira is growing up so fast! It just blows my mind that she's going to be 2 in a couple of months. She's working on talking more and tries to sing along to any piece of music she hears. She loves to twirl around in frilly skirts and dance, and she's learning the art of the temper tantrum. Most of the time the tantrum consists of fake crying, dropping her face into her hands dramatically and sometimes some kicking for good measure. Usually they don't last very long and I have to try not to laugh because she's obviously just doing it for show but every once in awhile she has days when she's a little monster. She's constantly crying, screaming, throwing tantrums for real, hitting and in general cannot be pleased with anything. Mostly she's still a good natured, happy little girl. Here she is trying to play with Wally but really only succeeding in harassing the poor cat.

Here's a funny video we got at my sister Sara's house a couple months ago. Let's just say that cat toys should be marketed towards toddlers as well.

And finally some random pictures that Mira took with my phone. This girl makes me laugh.

I'm supposed to work Christmas Eve but I'm sure I'll have plenty of pics and videos of Mira having fun getting some presents in a few days. Hope everyone has a low-key, enjoyable holiday season!

Thanksgiving 2012

We had a good Thanksgiving this year. I know it's a bit cheesy but I do like to take the time to reflect on what I have to be thankful for and of course I'm thankful for the usual things (my family, Mira, our house, full-time well-paying jobs with health insurance, money in the bank, good friends etc.) but I especially had something to be thankful for this year. I have to say, it is amazing how much better I feel now. It really feels like I've gotten myself back after I'd gone away for close to 2 years. That's a long time to be living as someone you don't really recognize, or like that much, to be honest.  I've been on the Prozac for just about a month now and I feel so much happier than I have in years. I hadn't realized how bad this depression was and how deeply it had permeated every little thing about my life - and not just my life, but the lives of everyone closest to me. I have moments when I feel regretful that I let things get so bad but there's nothing to do about that now. The goal is to pick up the pieces and move on. Now that I'm doing so much better I've felt so guilty sometimes about how badly I've treated Mark. And it's not that he was doing anything wrong, I was so depressed nothing he could humanly do could ever make me happy, but I still feel bad that he's put up with so much, and then I feel so grateful that he's stuck with me through everything. I really did find a keeper! And Mira - it's so sad that I have to say this, but for the first time I'm excited to get up in the morning and play with my daughter. I can't believe I let myself suffer for so long. And no one knew. When I've told my family and friends about this whole ordeal, the response I always get is, "I had no idea." My response is, "That was kind of the idea." Obviously that mindset has to change but that's what therapy is for.

And speaking of therapy - Mark and I had a marriage counseling session a few weeks ago and I cannot believe how helpful it was. (This is me getting all clinical about this, but studies have shown that the best results occur when the patient receives a combination of medication and counseling.) The therapist we saw was excellent. We didn't say anything during our appointment that hadn't already been said, but sometimes saying those things to a nonthreatening, objective third person makes a world of difference. She was so good at validating what both Mark and I were saying so that we felt heard, and then she was able to make thoughtful suggestions to each of us on what we could do to look at things differently. Both Mark and I had some "ah ha!" moments. I talked about how I describe myself as an over-achiever. I got straight As all through college, I graduated summa cum laude with a few honor society memberships under my belt, as soon as I started working I joined all these committees and took on tons of extra projects so that I could prove to everyone how good I was. The therapist said that parenthood is commonly a challenge for people like me because in the past, if I wasn't feeling good about myself I would do more and that would make me feel better; the problem now is that doing more might not be the answer, it's more about finding a balance. This was nothing new but I'd never had it put like that to me before. It had become a vicious downward spiral. I felt bad about myself (now we know it was depression but back then we didn't know that), so to feel better about myself I did what I always did: I took on more projects at work and got more involved. I went back to work 6 weeks after Mira was born - I didn't have to from a money standpoint but I did because I was miserable. The more time I spent at work, the more guilty I felt about leaving Mira but when I was with her I wasn't happy either. And the more time I spent at work, the more Mark felt neglected and tried to get me to drop work responsibilities to be at home, but doing more work was how I was trying to cope with feeling miserable, so I felt angry and resentful that Mark wasn't being supportive of me. You can see how we were just going around and around in circles with nothing actually getting solved because the underlying problem wasn't being fixed. We were trying to cover up the symptoms without curing the real disease.

Anyway... The bottom line is that I'm feeling so much better. Talking things over with my mom and friends has been helpful too because again, people on the outside can see things that you can't when you're trapped in the middle of everything. Mark and I are going to go to at least a few more therapy sessions, and I can say now that I finally feel like my rota fortuna is on the upswing again. :)

So that's how I've been doing. The last few days Mark and I have been flattened with some debilitating respiratory virus - congestion, cough, wheezing, sinus headache, overwhelming fatigue, fevers - it's been rough. And we both got our flu shot last month so who knows what this is. And of course Mira has a little bit of a dry cough and a slightly snotty nose but otherwise she has just as much energy as ever, which seems a bit unfair because Mark and I are both sick so we can't really pick up the slack for each other. But at least she's not sick so that's good.

She's definitely starting to talk too. It's still garbled but more and more her chattering sounds like words. One of her new things to do is if she finds something she's looking for, she points at it and says excitedly, "Dey-a iiiiihhhh!" ("There it is!") So dang cute! She tries to count to 3, as you can see in this video.

A few weeks ago we had a massive snowstorm, so I bundled Mira up and took her out to explore the snow. At first she wasn't really sure what to do about the snow and did her best to avoid it, but eventually she was trying to walk in it as much as she could.

This ended up being a good action shot of her tripping - don't worry, she wasn't hurt.

She's getting in touch with her creative side too. A few days ago I took her to my sister Sara's house and Mira had such a fun time playing the piano. I think we'll have to sign her up for lessons in a few years.

She still loves to sing and show off too, especially after she watches the show The X Factor on TV, which is sort of like American Idol. She picks up on all these little nuances and gestures that I wouldn't have thought she'd notice.

She's also getting really good at drinking out of a cup without a lid. We were visiting my family and my dad poured a glass of chocolate milk, which of course Mira wanted to try. We didn't have any sippy cups at the house so we poured some chocolate milk in a plastic cup and held our breath. She did great! She spilled only a little bit when she got distracted while trying to walk and drink at the same time but otherwise she didn't spill any milk. (We had a really close call when she ran into the carpeted living room with the milk sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the cup though.) So we felt okay giving her some water in a little teacup so she could have a tea party with me today.

I just can't believe how big she's getting! She amazes me every day.

The other thing Mira is really enjoying these days is coloring. She has a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book that she scribbles in but of course she keeps trying to go for the coffee table or the floor or the walls with her crayons. Today we got a shipment of diapers in the mail (I order all my diapers from a website called diapers.com - anyone with small children really needs to check this site out, it is fantastic!) and I had a brilliant idea.

I stuck Mira in the box with all her crayons and she went to town coloring the box. Seriously one of my best ideas ever, if I do say so myself. :) I know what we're doing with all our big boxes from now on!

And of course we need some pictures of Wally. He has really attached himself to me - as soon as I come out he follows me around the house, and some nights he walks around the house yowling for me. Mark made the comment that Wally is the neediest cat he's ever met - most cats are independent and decide after awhile that they don't want attention anymore, but not Wally! He is so sweet and he is fitting in so well.

This is how Wally likes to cuddle with me.

Yes, I have so much to be thankful for! :) Hope everyone else had a great holiday as well!