billandcorrie.com

Today I am thankful for all the menial crap that keeps me awake at night.  The bill that needs to be paid, the thank-you note yet to be written, the blog I’ve ignored for too long.  I am thankful that these are the things crowding my consciousness, rather than something much more significant.  Today I attended the memorial service for my friend’s mother, who died only months after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.  At Christmas, my friend and I swapped stories and sympathies on common ground, our mothers’ fights against cancer.  Weeks later, as I visited with my friend at the hospital, I felt we were in different worlds.  In my world, my mom was coming over to babysit so Bill and I could go to dinner.  In her world, she would spend another night at the hospital, sitting with her mom, who had been given only days to live.

This is not to say that I don’t do a good deal of worrying about my own family’s circumstances.  But I am so grateful that, for whatever reason, I have been able to go about the mundane tasks of daily life, rather than be consumed by worry.  Actually, I think I do know the reason: I have done a good deal of praying.  Prayer is something I am learning to do.  That seems a little odd, considering I have been attending church regularly pretty much my whole life.  But I think I have always felt like prayer just seemed a little too much like asking Santa for new toys.  But I have come to realize that, to me, asnwered prayers do not take the form of miracles, cures, or material things, but rather guidance, emotional fortitude, and solace.  And if you seek these things, they will come to you.  I pray for these for my friend and her family.  And I give thanks for each beautiful day filled with whining and giggles, errands and laundry, coloring and singing, bill paying and bickering, and daily phone calls to my mom for some silly question, like how to get the giblets out of a chicken.

And now Bill is sick.  Lil is feeling much better, and we can’t get out of this house fast enough.  Sunny and 63 today?  Great outdoors, here we come.

A plague has settled on our house.  A virulent virus.  A melancholy malaise.

Lily started throwing up late Thursday night.  It was the first non-respiratory illness she has had and, novice parents that we are, we quickly changed her into fresh jammies, fresh sleep sack, new crib sheet and blanket and put her back to bed, only to be called in moments later for round two.  A complete wardrobe change later — take three, within minutes.  After that, we knew to hold off to see what else might spew forth from our sad, sicky little girl.  Although we’ve had periods of calm over the last five days, suffice it to say that there are places in our home that still reek of vomit, and we have disinfected to within an inch of our lives.  After 48 hours of frequent tossing of cookies, her stomach could produce nothing more, so she just settled into a whiny, listless funk for a couple of days.  Then suddenly she was starving, and if you know Lily, you know this is completely uncharacteristic.  We tried to give her bland foods (I was introduced to the pediatrician-recommended BRAT diet — bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), but Lily had special requests, which she whined at us non-stop until they were fulfilled.  We knew better, but gave in because of her pleading, “Num num!  Num num!”  These were not foods that you want to see come back up — as I can now attest.

So, after five days of keeping very little down, our tiny little peanut is even tinier.  When I changed her diaper last night, I was shocked and fearful to see that her tummy is concave.  We kept her home from Parents’ Day Out today, and I stayed home from work, since I’m sure there’s some rule about your child not having barfed within 24 hours of attendance.  We have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, and I am very concerned about how much weight she may have lost.

Lily doesn’t know how to sit still.  During bedtime rocking and lullabies, she often flails around, fighting sleep and the immobility it will bring.  So to have her lie against me on the couch, not sleeping, just lying there, eyes staring blankly at hour after hour of the Noggin channel — I found myself slipping into my own funk.  Is there anything sadder than a sick child who doesn’t understand why she feels this way?  Who is frightened and left trembling after the strange and awful new experience of throwing up?  My heart breaks for her.

I think she’s on the mend.  She has started to be upright for periods of the day, and she has begun to muster the energy to boss us around (”Uppy!  Walk.”  “Mommy, sit.  No,” — shoving me away — “Bye bye!”).  How Bill and I have so far managed to avoid becoming afflicted ourselves is little short of a miracle.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, and we’re hoping to get outdoors — maybe the zoo.  I feel like we have come through a long, dark, winding tunnel, but I see a faint light…

I finally did it.  I joined Facebook.  I held off for a long time, trying to avoid another time drain in my life, but I was lured in after Christmas card season, when several friends asked me why in the world I hadn’t joined in.  And guess what?  Facebook has been draining my time with amazing success (as evidenced by my recent lack of blogging).  My big downfall are all the stupid word games — I call them stupid because that is how they make me feel when my list of three- and four-letter words on Scramble does not include “heliotrope,” which was one of the possible words revealed after the time limit.  This use of my time is somewhat embarrassing, since it doesn’t even have the benefit of helping me reconnect with old friends — which could actually be considered mildly productive.  I’m still a hermit, even on FB.

I also find the process of befriending people to be all too reminiscent of middle school, and I have so far been hesitant to really put myself out there for fear of rejection or, almost worse — being ignored.  Likewise, I have been unable to ignore any friend requests, even when one or two have sent me to my high school yearbook to try to track down the mysterious requester.

So that’s where I’ve been.  I guess I could blog about my Facebook experiences, but I doubt most people are too interested in my new personal best score on PathWords or which long-lost sorority sister contacted me.  Today I am vowing to put the virtual world aside for the rest of the day and try to venture out into the real one.  If you don’t hear back from me soon, Facebook me!

Today is the one year anniversary of the C-log!  You might think that in the span of a year, I could have come up with a good name for the blog, but I have been quite apathetic on that front.  Frankly, I’m pretty surprised that I have kept it up this long!  Throughout the tumultuous pre-teen years through early adulthood, I probably started journaling no fewer than a half a dozen times, and no attempt lasted longer than three or four entries.  So, while I had a few two- to three-week dry spells this year, I feel good that I stuck with it.

Of course, when my primary subject is so charming and precocious, it’s easy to find things to say!  Here are some photos from a family outing yesterday to Penguin Park.  It was a rare 63 degree day, so we — along with every other family north of the river — decided to get outside and enjoy it.  (Oh, and yesterday also happened to be the day Lily turned 20 months.  What?!  Only four months until another birthday?  Unbelievable.)