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Sat, Feb 18, 2006 10:10 PM
Written yesterday on my way home from Chicago....

Dear Arden,

The pilot just announced that the plane is approaching Boston. This is the best part of my trip.

I’m almost home.

I get to see you shortly.

I heard that you were a good girl for Mommy. I also heard that you gave her and Grandma quite a scare.

Did you know that you are allergic to penicillin? You are, but we didn’t know it until your chubby little thighs were covered in hives.

I hate being away like this when something happens with you.

I KNOW you’re in safe hands with Mommy.

But that doesn’t stop my heart from wanting to jump out of my body and stay by your side. That doesn’t stop me from sitting in my hotel room with empty lonely arms.

The pilot has announced that we’re preparing for landing. The pressure in the cabin is changing. Time to stow the laptop away.

I’m finally relaxed for the first time since last night.

I’m almost home and you’re almost in my arms.

Love,
Mama

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Fri, Feb 17, 2006 10:00 AM
"You just can't stay away, can you?"

Said to me by Arden's pediatrician yesterday, when I took her in with a HIVE covered body. She had little hives all over her legs and face. Grandma Mary called me to let me know -- I called the ped's office who said bring her in. So I did. At this point we're assuming it is from the amoxicillin and that she's allergic to that and therefore the entire penicillin family.

She's not bothered by them, has been in a great mood. They just bother mommy who looks at these little red splotches on her child's face and things she's come down with some new daycare disease.

I've made the decision that Arden will now go to daycare in her very own Haz-Mat suit. I see it as the only way to protect us from the germy war that is daycare. I think it's totally logical. Don't you?

Erin

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Wed, Feb 15, 2006 1:13 PM
Like Erin said...this morning proved that Arden is well on her way to healthy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re going to come out alive from the “Day Care Germ War.�? I suppose we will. Every other family seems to, but right now I’m pretty sure there is going to be a little memorial for us all outside the day care door.

In fact I have a sneaking suspicion that I have conjunctivitis. Which means I have to get into my doctor today since I’m on my way to Chicago tomorrow…I can just see me blinking my cherry red eyes at the hospital staff tomorrow. This of course could help those of you taking Erin up on her wager...

Anyhow…Proof of Arden’s returning health…She got up grinning and squealing….ordered Erin around during her diaper change and yelled at me to hurry up with breakfast.

Proof that Erin and Arden had an err... complicated day yesterday... usually I have to pry Arden out of Erin's arms...I walked in and a certain heart-clad sleeper encased punkie pie was deposited in my arms.

Two girls thrilled to see me....three if you count Lucy dog... I'll take it.

Of course what my darling spouse didn't share was that she had made me a lovely romantic dinner! Champagne included! Now that is a Valentine's Day gift.

Arden's Valentine's Day gift to us both was letting her cranky self fall asleep by 7:15.

Dora

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Wed, Feb 15, 2006 12:26 PM
Hallelujah!

That's what Arden said when I dropped her at daycare today. Having not left the house for days, she was thrilled to be somewhere else. New faces and new toys were a very good thing in her world.

The little cherub got me sick enough to require a doctor's visit and my very own prescription. :-) I guess she didn't want me to feel left out.

She and I spent the day together yesterday. I think I was boring her. I'm usually so animated and chatty with her, but talking equaled great pain for several days, so I've worked on perfecting my pantemiming abilities.

We made Dora dinner, she has decided that the kitchen utensil of the week is the spatula. What great fun those are.

I'm hoping the three of us will be healthy at the same time for a few straight days. Bets anyone?

:-) Erin

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Sun, Feb 12, 2006 10:25 PM
It’s odd… you become a parent and suddenly your whole world revolves around this little person.

Anything that happens to them strikes you emotionally 10x worse.

So when your baby is sick and hurting… You are sick and hurting.

I’ve been told this a million times by other moms… but never bought into it.

Well people I’ve bought the propaganda and now I’m a convert. This has been an emotionally draining few days.

Arden is sick and has been sick for about a week. The antibiotics are kicking in and kicking bacterial ass.

So she was in a particularly pissy mood. She finally feels well enough to express that she feels ghastly. Her nose is draining, her cough is breaking up…

This has led to a vicious cycle.

And has brought me to the next bit of mommy propaganda I have bought into…

Bodily fluids of your child will not repulse you quite like those same fluids in any other situation would.

My day was spent sucking snot out of Arden, having Arden wipe her nose on me over and over and...

Getting christened by baby vomit numerous times.

Wet, warm, slimy, smelly, mucous laden baby vomit, in surprising volume.

I can’t stand vomit.

Yet I just calmly hold a basin under her and if I’m not quick enough calmly strip me down, strip her down and mop up whatever surface was unlucky enough to be under both of us.

Basically the mucous breaking up ends up being swallowed and when there is too much….it all comes out with whatever milk is in her stomach at the time.

I’m not saying it smells like roses.

I’m not saying I don’t squirm a bit when she erupts.

But I don’t run from the room screaming.

Huh. Go figure.

Just pat me on the head and call me Mama.

Dora

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Fri, Feb 10, 2006 6:16 PM
Lucy has been (mostly) deskunkified. Nature's Miracle and a bath pretty much did the trick. She was completely traumatized by the entire experience. Now maybe next time she sees a furry black and white thing she won't go at it with her hackles up. A girl can dream anyway..

We are house full of sick people. Arden is home today, Nonno is watching her for the morning, which is a huge help.

We visited the doctor yesterday because she was just not herself, glassy eyes and a fever. Her pediatrician took one look at her and said "we have to fix her." She's now on antibiotics and hopefully we'll get whatever this nasty thing is out of her system.

If it is anything like Dora and I have (which I'm assuming we got from A), she just must feel so bad. Our glands are swollen, we ache, there are chills. It plain sucks!!

Luckily the weekend is upon us. Unluckily, there is a big snow storm coming which means having to be out in the freezing cold with a snowblower. On the other hand...at least it'll force us to just hunker down at home for the weekend, which we all need desperately.

Happy weekend, readers.

Erin

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Tue, Feb 7, 2006 2:16 PM
Plain fact is that my life stinks right now.

Literally.

Now it could stink because,

1. my company is now exploring other companies to merge with, which means another round of layoffs loom in the future. Which means of course, that our tight budget is going to get exponentially worse. Which means that every time I walk past the closed boardroom door I want to empty my breakfast out a window. Its a great feeling.

Or it could stink because,

2. Arden is sick yet again. And this time it has settled in her lungs. Is there anything more frightening for a parent than to have your child's breathing compromised? I don't know about you but I directly equate breathing with living. Not to mention the sheer joy having a child sick since mid-december brings into your world.

Better yet it could stink because,

3. I saw Arden awake for a total of ONE HOUR. There is something SERIOUSLY f**ked up about that.

Now if 1 were to come true and my job went astray then 2 and 3 could be fixed.

Well sort of. The loss of 1 would directly lead to the creation of 4

My life could stink even more because,

4. Heating oil, electricity and food all cost money and money comes from 1.

But truly my life stinks because,

5. Lucy our adorable, neurotic lab/??? cross decided to provide a special 2am episode of "Real Wildlife Encounters" starring herself and a very large representative of Mephitis mephitis. (aka Striped Skunk)

And people wonder why I'm developing a tic.

Dora

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Sat, Feb 4, 2006 6:14 PM
My recent post on our commitment to working with HRC to make the world safe for Arden as a child in a GLBT family has turned out to be a very timely post.

Earlier this week here in good ol’ liberal MA, right in the lovely town of New Bedford, in a quiet bar called Puzzles a horrific hate crime occurred. A man walked in, ordered a drink, asked if it was a gay bar and on hearing an affirmative answer proceeded to attack the people around him with a machete, a hatchet and a gun.

It should make any person stop in their tracks and wonder what is wrong with the world.

It makes a parent want to wage war on the very core of what drove this young man to such potent hatred that he could life a hatchet to another human being…..

Homophobia.

Right now, Erin and I, married legally here in MA, are denied over 1500 rights that our good married straight friends and family enjoy federally. And we’re safer than a GLBT couple in any other state.

1500 rights.

Homophobia.

Just last month when we were sent away from a doctor with the diagnosis of “allergies�? with our feverish, vomiting baby. A doctor who didn’t have the time to examine a four month old baby, but had time to admonish us for being a family with two mommies.

Fever, vomiting… A DOCTOR.

Homophobia.

I’ve never been a person to interfere too much with other people’s political beliefs. I mean I may rib them and argue a bit….but I don’t push the issue. How my friends and family voted has always been, in my mind, a matter of deeply personal choice.

It just isn’t anymore.

I’m asking outright for all my friends and family to protect Arden. Protect her mothers.

When you hold a ballot in your hands think for a moment about what your choice can do.

Taxes don’t kill people.

Homophobia does.

You choosing that candidate that doesn’t support the rights of GLBT Americans helps clear the path to promote homophobia.

Think of it this way. If there was a person about to be hit by a bus barreling towards them and you were behind them and all it would take to save their life would be reaching out to pull them back you’d do it right?

No question, no contest, no debate.

Because that is what humanity is about. At that moment the person you saved could be black, white, gay, straight, Jewish, Catholic, Mormon, Atheist.

But you wouldn’t see any of that.

All you would see is that there was a living, breathing, human being in front of you and saving them is all that would matter. In that second you won’t have thought of your pocket book or what the person standing next to you might think. You reacted from your soul.

That is the definition of morality.

That is the definition of what is right and good.

That is the very antithesis of Homophobia.

And that is what I am asking.

Outright asking the people in this world to do.

Pull Erin, Arden and I out of the path of that speeding bus.

Stop the hate. Say no to homophobia.

Speak out in the one method our government will listen to.

The power of one moment, alone in a voter’s booth.

Choose equality.

It isn’t that you can make a difference.

Your vote will be the difference.

Dora

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Fri, Feb 3, 2006 11:38 AM
Best News of 2006...

Shelli and Narda are going to be MOMMIES! At long last they will be united with their little girl in February. We are so happy that they and their daughter have found their way to each other.

We can't wait to meet her.

Erin

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Thu, Feb 2, 2006 11:00 AM
The child has recovered from yet another illness. It certainly feels like she has been sick since she started school. One cold after another. This one, however, was accompanied by 3 days of a fever.

Yesterday morning she woke up utterly miserable. She was cuddly and feverish (over 101, yet again). Mommy took the day off since Mama had already missed two days, and together we headed to the doctor. A mere 2 hours after the 101 temperature, it had miraculously disappeared, just in time for the nurse to look at me like I was crazy. ;-) My cuddly, snuggly, fire-hot child was laughing and playing, and nice and cool.

She was on and off miserable for the day with a stuffy nose, but she seems to have recovered. Not, of course, before passing it on to both her mothers. One is on the mend and the other, that would be me, is suffering from a headache to beat all headaches. I'm told this is the first symptom. No wonder the child was so cranky on Monday, this is awful!

She was well enough to return to school, where we learned that half of her class is now out sick. What goes around, comes around.

Erin

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