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Kate's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 6/7/07 -------------------- 4/30/07 4/18/07 4/9/07 4/2/07 3/27/07 3/13/07 1/30/07 1/15/07 12/10/06 11/20/06 11/10/06 10/30/06 10/12/06 10/5/06 9/22/06 9/15/06 9/8/06 8/29/06 8/17/06 8/10/06 8/4/06 7/28/06 7/21/06 7/16/06 7/6/06 6/27/06 6/21/06 6/16/06 6/13/06 6/8/06 -------------------- Kate's Introduction

Holiday Preparations - big things and small

December 10, 2006

Once again it has been too long since I've updated.  I'm not even going to try to pretend like I know why and will just try to quickly move on to catch up on the happenings around our family.

We had a very lovely Thanksgiving with good friends of ours.  It is such a nice tradition that has evolved for us...  My whole entire extended family gets together for Thanksgiving and frankly, its just not that fun.  The food isn't very good.  It is way too crowded.  I end up spending a holiday I love with people I only see once or maybe twice a year.  So a couple of years ago we began the tradition of dining with our good friends Jim and Sandra.  It is so relaxing.  We divide the food up so neither family feels overwhelmed with preparation.  I just can't say enough about how much it has come to mean to me as we grow closer to these friends who are really our family.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  There is no commercial component, unless you count the mandatory groceries. It is all about a nice meal and pausing to give thanks in a purposeful way for the blessings in your life.  Beautiful.  Naturally I ate too much.  I actually ate so much that I was still full the next morning! Urg.  We were lucky to have both Meghan and Lane with us for the meal this year.  In years past we used to keep very careful track of who's turn it was to have the kids on which holiday.  At one point it became so ridiculous (in my opinion) that there was even a discussion about the 4 ^th of July.  As the kids have gotten older we've tried to facilitate their choices so they don't feel torn between two households.  It can be difficult to strike the balance between their burgeoning independence and not wanting to burden them with the 'choice.'  Sometimes it makes sense just to have the adults decide...  but this year schedules were such that there was a clear path for them to spend Thanksgiving with us and for that I am very grateful.

Thanksgiving weekend the weather was spectacularly beautiful, so we decided to get out our Christmas decorations and get our tree.  Normally I am a proponent of waiting until the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I like the idea of allowing full celebration of one holiday (Thanksgiving) before moving on to the next.  But I will say, setting up the tree and decorations with nice weather, with a long weekend was very nice, so I may have to revise my previous rule in the future!  Early this year we had a water heater malfunction in our basement and it flooded our storage space.  Consequently we culled through much of what was down there that was ruined or damaged by the water.  We ended up throwing a lot of stuff away and quite honestly that was nice for Christmas this year. We didn't loose anything that was really important or sentimental, but it did make so our decorations were much more purposeful.  It was pretty easy to set up and will be pretty easy to take down.  We've purchased a few things, so it feels like everything we have, we like and looks nice. 

Holidays with blended families bring about interesting issues.  I have inherited the traditions around decorating the house for Christmas from John and the older kids.  It is very, very important, especially to Meghan, that things are done a certain way on the day we get the tree and decorate.  Right down to the food we eat.  The first year John and I were married I pushed hard to institute OUR OWN traditions and frankly caused Meghan and Lane a great deal of pain.  I was insensitive to their adjustment and how important it was for them to have continuity from year to year as they adapted to a new family.  I backed off the next year and peace was restored.  They have been very good about including Ava in their traditions and so I am trying to view the things we do around the holidays with a positive eye.  But it can be difficult at times, if nothing else for the principle of it.   But I watched the video of Meghan hoisting Ava up to put the angel on top of the tree and decided I need to resolve to be a little less self-absorbed.  

We had our follow up ultrasound from the level II this week and I am pleased to report that our Swabie appears to be the very picture of baby health.  She is a bit big (Ava was 8 lbs 1 oz when she was born) but not alarming.  Since I am eyeing pink toile bedding for her room, and we were there, I had them check between her legs one more time and she is still a girl.  My AFP test came back negative, so I think I can now officially say we are done with the prenatal testing and can turn our attention toward enjoying the latter part of this pregnancy and preparing emotionally and physically for labor and welcoming our new little one.  In the past week or so the activity level of this babe has becoming increasingly noticeable, which is frankly such a miracle.  Wednesday night she was in one spot and moving around a lot so I had John put his hand on my belly.  He was able to feel her for the first time and it was just great...

I have written here about Ava's struggles with the bowel movement aspects of potty training.  She makes a little progress and then the wheels come completely off.  That was the case this week.  A week or so ago she had a very large, very hard bowel movement (in the potty!) and then went on strike saying she couldn't poop because her bottom hurt too much.  Wednesday night she was really very uncomfortable.  Since it had been EIGHT DAYS since she'd moved her bowels we were encouraging her to go in her pull up, anything, to get things moving again.  And yes, all during that time we had been encouraging her.  I have become the fiber police, reducing her milk consumption, stirring Benefiber into every beverage, pushing apples and wheat bread....Wednesday night she woke up several times in the night sobbing because her bottom hurt so much, but couldn't produce.  John was talking about driving her to the emergency room, but it was literally 14 below zero, 1:30am and we live half an hour from the hospital.  What's the bigger risk?? 

We took her to the pediatrician first thing Thursday morning and she is now on a prescription laxative.  The pediatrician said her behavior is very, very common and we are doing all the right things.  (Being hyper responsible, I was glad to hear this!) She said to keep the laxative going for awhile, that it is safe and we can adjust the dosage in a manner that works for her.  We started right away and even though it says it can take up to two days to work there was a very large bowel movement that night (in the potty!) and everyone is relieved.  The pediatrician also said to back off any discussion of where she is pooping, keep a pull up on her, but let her go to the potty if she asks, for a couple of weeks until she is having regular, soft movements.  Poor thing.  This has been so frustrating for us – not knowing how to parent her well through this...  Like so many things in life I am just trying to let it go and hope she won't be wearing disposable undergarments when she graduates from high school.

Despite the bathroom challenges, Ava is becoming ever more delightful each day.  She is so clever and I just enjoy getting to know her more and more all the time.  Her language and comprehension continues to astound us.  Last weekend we were having lunch together and I realized I was having an actual conversation with my daughter.  While I am sure that has happened many times before, she suddenly seemed so grown up to me.  Christmas is at the fore of nearly every conversation, but so far Ava doesn't seem to have really been swept up the commercial aspects of the holiday.  Now don't get me wrong, she knows there are presents coming.  But her 'asks' have stayed consistent for the past few weeks.... A Dora playhouse and an art easel.  Two things I am happy to buy for her.  No batteries and they facilitate active, imaginative play.  All good to me! 

The only new television show I have really stuck with this year is 'Studio 60.'  I am an Aaron Sorkin fan – loved 'An Officer and a Gentleman,' loved 'Sports Night,' loved 'The West Wing,' so it didn't take much to get me started and keep me interested. The show this week was their Christmas episode and there is a storyline that has stayed with me since I watched it....  Band members for the show had called in sick and found replacements and it emerged that band members from shows around town had done the same – their replacements were displaced musicians from New Orleans .  The musician community had rallied to try to get them a paycheck, a union card, some work...  Once the writers/producers on the show discovered this they inserted a segment where musicians from New Orleans played "O Holy Night" while scenes from their city were shown behind them.  I cried so hard I had a difficult time catching my breath and even sitting here typing this I have a lump in my throat thinking about it. There is a repeat performance of this episode on the 18 ^th and I would encourage you to watch, even if you haven't seen the show.

Somewhere (online? In a magazine? In a book?) I read that pregnancy and motherhood makes women more tuned into the sadness in the world.  I know that is the case for me where I am touched more deeply, feel more community responsibility and experience sadness and tragedy much more deeply than I did before I became a mother.  Much of my professional work has been done around advocating for the poor and disadvantaged.  Watching that tribute I was left with so much sadness and disappointment for how much we failed people displaced by Hurricane Katrina and how much we continue to fail today.  As a community (I use that word broadly) we had the opportunity to talk about the affects of poverty in the wake of what we all saw in the days after Katrina.  More than a year later, with that opportunity squandered, people are still trying to patch their lives together.  I am as guilty as most for having written a check to the Red Cross a year ago and moved on.  Every year John and I make financial contributions to charitable organizations and last year we adopted a family for Christmas.  This year we have again made charitable contributions and have adopted a family for Christmas.  But this year Ava is coming with me when we shop, and I hope she will begin to understand the importance and value of reaching out to those less fortunate all the time.  And I will try to be more mindful of doing these things not just at Christmas, not just in times of crisis and frankly, for me, not just at work.   

OK, I know that was a little preachy, so I will close with photos we are using on this year's Christmas card.  My family squawked so much about last year's photo that this year I enlisted my brother (who is a professional photographer) to do informal shots of us.  I am pleased with the results, but more importantly, so is the rest of my family.  Always being anxious to show off my good looking group I will thank you for reading...

--Kate