Obligatory Catch-Up Post

In 2010...

Sawyer turned 5 years old, and is attending the special education preschool program again with his beloved teacher Ms. Brenda. We're trying to get him as ready as possible for kindergarten in the fall, and at this point it's looking like he'll do well in a mainstreamed class. It's amazing how much he has improved. Still no diagnosis but we're working on it along with his teachers and developmental pediatrician.

I planted more tulips. I will not rest until every inch of flower bed is full of tulips!

We finally replaced the dirty white carpet in our family room with hardwood - so much easier to keep clean!

We had lots of playdates with cousins Caroline and Mary Grace, always Sawyer's most favorite friends.

I went to Girls Camp as a stake level leader, and it was the highlight of my summer. I'm now working with the young women at church, and I get to be a level leader again this summer - yay!

The other highlight of my summer was spending two whole weeks at the Outer Banks with my family. Relaxing, refreshing, rejuvenating...take your pick. Eric even came for about 5 days.

Penny picked up a bad case of scabies at the boarding kennel while we were gone. It took us 3 vet visits to finally figure out why she was so itchy all the time. Poor doggie in the Cone of Shame.

In September we adopted another rescue dog, Duncan. He's a 1 year old Golden Retriever and loves every human being in the world like crazy. We love him too, even though my vacuuming has tripled since we brought his furry butt home.

Sawyer had a blast being Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. He was a big hit at the town parade - even though he wasn't actually in it. Kids from the floats kept yelling "Hey! I see Buzz Lightyear!"

We attended the Rally to Restore Sanity on October 30. Sawyer loved it, especially when we had to force our way onto a packed Metro car to get there. He kept telling everyone we saw "I'm going to a rally!"

I completed the Couch to 5k program in preparation to run my first 5k (the "Freeze Your Gizzard" in Leesburg) but unfortunately got injured the week before the race (not from running - from Duncan running into my shin! No break, just a bone bruise but the doctor was scared about blood clots.) I'll do another one someday. 

Maybe.

In December Sawyer lost his first tooth. He didn't even tell us it was loose, I just went to put him in the bath and noticed that it was missing. We found it on the kitchen floor.

We stayed in Virginia for the holidays this year. For Thanksgiving we had dinner with Robbie, Michael, Erin, and her friend Avery, and a fun brunch at Megan and Ryan's the next day. We spent Christmas Eve attending church with Megan, Ryan and their kids and had dinner at their home (where Sawyer lost his second tooth - Santa and the Tooth Fairy came the same night!)

We took Sawyer to his first Kennedy Center performance - The Nutcracker. He loved it and, to our great surprise, sat still through the whole thing.

After Christmas we flew to Utah to see my little sister Tori get married to Billy Strong during one of the biggest snowstorms of the year. It was wonderful to be there for their special day as well as to spend time with my mom. Another shining moment was spending New Year's Eve in a sports bar called Wing Nutz trying desperately not to laugh as a group of very white Provo rappers "performed" a few feet away from us.

Concerts! I got a few good ones in this year - Ray Lamontagne and David Gray at Merriweather Post Pavilion in August, The Weepies at State Theater in November, Joshua Radin at the 9:30 Club February 15, and David Gray again just last week at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda. The last one was quite possibly the pinnacle of my entire concert-going career - front row, dead center, acoustic tour. Perfection.

Anyone still out there?

Wow, 11 months. That's even longer than I thought.

You can probably guess what brings me back - the same reason that starting me blogging in the first place: We're getting ready to embark on more Adventures in Infertility.

Last time on A.I.I.... Three years ago we visited our R.E. to plan the transfer of our remaining 3 frozen blastocysts (embryos). All systems were go...and then we discovered that our insurance wasn't going to cover a single cent of it. So we decided to save up some more money and wait a while longer.  In the meantime we discovered Sawyer's developmental delays, moved and bought a house, and Eric changed jobs several times.

Finally, we seem to have reached an equilibrium. We're settled into our new home, Sawyer is doing great, and we have enough money in the bank to proceed. The time is right. AND joy of joys, it looks like our insurance is actually going to be very helpful this time around (if our paperwork is correct, everything should be covered at 90%.)

I had a consult with Dr. A on February 21 and we have a game plan. Since it's been so long since our last IVF, I need to undergo all the screening tests again. That will include:

-Baseline transvaginal ultrasound
-Preconception bloodwork/female infectious disease panel (more bloodwork)
-HSG X-ray (this was the really painful one for me last time; this time I will be armed with narcotics)
-SHG/pelvic exam
-Hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy (another ouchie)
-Mock embryo transfer

If all goes well with the testing, transfer should be sometime around mid-April. 

As soon as my next cycle begins I can schedule the tests and get the ball rolling. It feels slightly terrifying to be plunging into all this again, even more so than the first time, because now I know what it entails. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. But I feel ready, definitely more ready than I ever have been before. Probes, shots, stress, hormones, headaches, hope. Bring it on!

Chocolate Milk

Sawyer's favorite food is chocolate milk. He will drink it all day, every day if we let him. I buy the Nesquik powder so we can use organic milk to mix it into, and because it has less sugar than Hershey's syrup or Ovaltine (and did you know Hershey's is mostly high fructose corn syrup? Yuck.) I also like the powder rather than the premixed stuff because I can put just a little of it into his cup and his "chocolate milk" is more like regular milk with just a smidgen of chocolate.

The other day before dinner I asked him what he wanted to drink and of course he asked for chocolate milk. When I went into the kitchen he followed me saying "No no no no Mama! I want Daddy to make it!" I told him it was the same thing, Mama could make it just as well as Daddy. He insisted: he only wanted chocolate milk made by Daddy. So I watched Eric make it. It turns out Daddy has a different strategy - he adds 3 scoops of powder (the box says to use 2) and sometimes also adds a bit of half and half.

So it's true. Daddy really does make better chocolate milk. But Mama's might be less likely to give you type 2 diabetes.

Budding Artist

Sawyer has become obsessed with writing and drawing lately, which I'm thrilled about, because until very recently he had absolutely no interest in picking up a writing instrument of any kind. Now he'll sit at the table for long periods of time tracing letters and numbers and shapes, and getting more creative too. Here's his first recognizable drawing: "a face with arms."

Often he asks me to draw something for him so he can try to copy it. It's challenging for me since I'm not an artist (AT ALL). I do OK when he asks for a puppy, or a tree, or even Lightning McQueen. But yesterday he came up with a new one: "Mama, draw windy." So I drew a tree with lines going by to signify wind. Then he said, "Draw germs." Um...germs just look like little bugs, right? So I drew something resembling little spiders. Then, "Draw penguin germs." Sorry son. I can't draw that without doing some research. How about a smiley face instead?

OK, That's Enough

A New Year, and a New Layout

In lieu of making New Year's resolutions, I decided to do a blog makeover. I'm still tweaking some things, so if you come by during the next few days and things are a bit wonky, that's why. (Don't you just love the word "wonky"? Maybe I should resolve to say "wonky" more often.)


***Thanks to André for informing me that the comment form wasn't working - I think it's back up now. Also, I seem to have lost some of my blog roll in the left sidebar, so if you don't see your blog there (and you'd like it to be there) please let me know.

More Sawyerisms

Sawyer weighs 34 lbs now, just over the 30 lbs required to sit in a booster seat in the car. Although our car seat can handle up to 65 lbs, we've recently had several incidents where Eric took the car seat to work by accident, or the car seat cover was being washed of pee and Chick-Fil-A milkshake spills and I needed to go somewhere, so we finally went and bought a booster seat. I asked Sawyer if he was ready to ride in a booster seat like a big boy. He looked at me excitedly. "A monster seat?!" From "monster seat" we got to "mooster seat" and finally to "booster seat." But once in a while he still only hears the "-ster" part and calls it a monster seat. I like it.

Last night I heard Sawyer talking in his sleep. Just one loud exclamation: "I like pizza!" I do too son. I do too.

Merry Christmas!

We've had a wonderful Christmas in our new home. I was neglectful today and didn't take enough pictures as we opened gifts and visited with family - a sign that I was really enjoying myself. If I remember to get the camera out, it usually means I'm bored. But I did take a lot of pictures of our decorations a few days ago, aren't you excited? Here's our tree in the day...


....and at night.
and closer up.

And the tree in our front room. We bought this artificial tree a few years back, but every year I can't resist buying a real one, so we end up with two trees.

Stockings hung by the chimney, and a sleepy dog in the corner.

The entry.


Sawyer was so excited this morning to find a basketball hoop from Grandma and Grandpa Watts.
He shoots...
and he scores!

We opened gifts (Eric: Battlestar Gallactica Blu-ray box set, Wii console; Me: food processor, Wii Fit; Sawyer: board games, V-Tech laptop, fort building set from Grandma Toone, books from SueSue and Granddad) and around 11:30 Erin, Robbie, Megan, Ryan, Caroline and Mary Grace came over. We had brunch together (egg casserole, cheese grits and monkey muffins) and then exchanged MORE presents. We were sad my grandfather couldn't make it - he had planned on coming but wasn't feeling well. After all the gift giving and visiting we were all tired so we put on a movie for Sawyer and Caroline upstairs and the grownups watched Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. I say "watched", but really everyone but Eric and me fell asleep within the first 20 minutes. I got a cute shot of Ryan and MG:
Even Penny joined in on the napping. Once I took off her Christmas pajamas, that is. She was too humiliated to sleep while she had them on.

Pretty soon it was time for dinner.


We had standing rib roast with port gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, haricots verts, homemade rolls with creamed honey, and cranberry apple Jello salad. Dessert was my dad's famous ice cream pie (Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream smooshed into premade Oreo cookie crusts.) I meant to get a picture of all of us eating, but of course I forgot. But I think everyone enjoyed it, and we had a great time chatting and being together. I'm so glad we had family members close this year and we could spend time with them, especially Robbie who came all the way from Miami. We missed my parents and Tori and Tanne a lot, and Eric's family too - it's always hard that we can't see everyone every year.

The past year has brought lots of changes for our little family, and many new opportunities. Tonight I'm feeling very grateful for all I have - especially the people I love the most. Merry Christmas everyone!

Snow! Snow! and even more snow!

Last Saturday we had kind of a big snow storm. Kind of big as in the biggest storm in decades. The report for our area said we got 19", but because it was so windy we had drifts much deeper than that. Church was canceled, and the last two days of school before Christmas break were called off. They even shut down the federal government on Monday, although to be fair they have shut down the government for much less. I sure hope terrorists never figure out how to control the weather, because all it takes is a few inches of snow to bring us to our knees.

Here's our front yard as the snow was still falling. That dark figure in the background is Eric, shoveling our driveway for the third time that day.



This is what I found when I opened the front door. Our hiding front stoop (around 2.5 feet high) had just about disappeared.



This is what our deck looked like the next morning.



And here's a little boy who was very happy to get out of the house by Monday morning.




And a dog who hates the snow so much that she refused to go outside even to relieve herself. That was not fun. Thankfully, once we dug a path for her onto the deck she relented.

Favorites and Not-So-Favorites

It's that time of the year again, when everywhere you go stores are playing Christmas music. Or holiday music, if you're more inclined to celebrate Hannukah or Kwanzaa or Festivus (anyone know any Festivus carols?) I love most Christmas music, but if I really want to get in the mood (the Christmas mood, get your mind out of the gutter!) I'll listen to traditional hymns and carols. This one might be my all-time favorite.



Or this:


Lest you think I am a fuddy-duddy (did I really just type "fuddy-duddy"?) I do like some of the more modern offerings, like this:



And this:



And even this:




Now for the question I was thinking of as I started this post: If you could eliminate any Christmas song, completely get rid of it and never hear it again, which one would you choose?

I don't need to think about this one for very long; it would definitely be "The Little Drummer Boy." It is ridiculously repetitive and contains far too much onomatopoeia (although if I'm being honest, the only good onomatopoeia is NO onomatopoeia.) The only rendition that does it justice is Dwight Schrute's.

Christmas Confession

I am almost 32 years old, and part of me still wants an American Girl doll for Christmas. When I was a kid they only had the historical dolls representing various periods of American history, and I wanted a Kirsten doll something crazy. My friend Ashley had the Samantha doll with all the accessories and I practically boiled with jealousy every time we played with it. My parents never had the budget to get me a Kirsten - actually, I suspect that they could afford one Kirsten doll, but not five, and since I had four sisters it wouldn't really be fair for only me to get one. American Girl retired the Kirsten doll this year, so it's officially too late for my wish to come true.

Don't cry, I'll be OK. I'm getting a Wii.

But if I had a daughter, I would TOTALLY get her an American Girl doll, probably this one, even if she didn't want one, just so I could play with it too.

Let the Renovations Continue!

After taking a break from fixing-upping, I'm back in the saddle. On Saturday Eric installed our new kitchen faucet. We had been planning to wait until we could buy a new cast iron sink, but decided to go ahead with the faucet when the old one started dripping incessantly. Here's the old one (forgive the dirty dishes, I had just made rolls):



The pull-out sprayer was nice, but I've heard from a couple of different sources that they are well known for not being very durable. Here's the new one.



All of the hardware in the kitchen now matches! Yay!

Next up: Figuring out how to get a huge felt board off the wall in Sawyer's room, priming and painting the walls (I still haven't picked out a color, I'm going to Home Depot to pick up samples right now), and installing new baseboards. When that's done, we can move his furniture and toys in and we will finally have our master bedroom back! It's starting to feel ridiculous having our whole family sleep in one room with three empty bedrooms just sitting there. I have an iron wall hanging that will go above the pantry in the kitchen, and one that goes over the back door. I also have more curtains and rods coming for the family room - I decided we needed them on the windows next to the fireplace too. More befores and afters to come!

Firelight

I'm one of the few that still thinks SNL is really, really funny, mostly because of Andy Samberg's digital shorts. I had to share this one.



Very topical as I just bought my tickets to see Twilight and New Moon next week the night of the premier. I can't wait!