Great expectations

The problem with great expectations, and I don't mean the book here, which I really liked, is that when life doesn't work out how you want it to, there are great disappointments.

Take today, for instance. We were so pumped to get to Turks and Caicos and start our vacation. Pumped enough where we didn't even mind getting up at 3:40 this morning to make our flight. Then the snow set in around 6 am ... and here we still sit in NY, with a flight tomorrow. Now, obviously way worse things happen in life than missing a day of vacation, but I would be lying to say that I'm not disappointed. Tomorrow, there will be sun, friends, and warmth!! Or there better be ... :-)

Peace out snow ... bring on the sun!

The one bad thing about all of the traveling Piper and I have done together is that she's now a total and complete mama's girl. I call her my Velcro baby. She is literally stuck to me at almost all times ... and this is a problem. She'd gotten to be a great daycare kid. I could drop her off, she'd wave goodbye, and then have a happy, fun-filled day. The last few times she's gone now, though, she wavers back and forth between having fun (when she's focused on an activity, such as an art project) and crying for mama. Every time I've picked her up, I can here her crying when I walk into the building. Ugh. When we get back from vacation, we need to figure out how to fix this ... any suggestions? Maybe having her go more than once a week for a while?

And now, let vacation begin! We will be out of here super early tomorrow morning, on our way to see friends in Turks and Caicos. Erica, Pierre, and Sylvie - can't wait to see you :-)

Be prepared for super cute pics of Sylvie and Piper's all day play dates. Let's just hope Piper's not a huge bully ...

Happy 100th to me!

100th post that is. It may have taken me a while to get here, but that nice round number makes me smile nonetheless.

So back to Florida.

We left for Florida on a freezing cold morning and were greeted by a smiling Charlotte and the warm sunshine. Ah ... heaven. During this trip, Piper experienced many firsts. Her first trip to the beach; her first time to a zoo; her first safari (mine too); her first time feeding a giraffe (mine too); and her first experience with flip flops. The last left her with a tiny blister between her toes, but she loved all the rest and the smiles on her face throughout the trip made it one of my favorites also.

One of our first stops on the trip with Aunt Char was to buy a much needed pair of sunglasses for the peanut, and if I had known how big a hit these sunglasses were going to be, I definitely would have bought more than one pair because they're bound to break at any moment. In general, Piper LOVES accessories: hats, anything for her hair, shoes, and now sunglasses. She sports them day or night, inside or out. Basically she's a movie star in the making. They're huge, pink, sparkly, and absolutely rock.


From CVS, we went to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center where Piper was introduced to turtles. Her reaction was actually less than I thought it would be, but I blame that on her exhaustion, which is very obvious in this pic with Char ...


We did so many fun things that it would take me all night to list them out, but by far the highlight for Piper was going to Lion Country Safari, and we 100 percent owe that excursion to a snow storm in the northeast. We were supposed to fly back on a Tuesday, and when Stanton dropped us off at the airport that morning, our flight was on time and everything looked good. Then, one by one, every flight into the northeast was canceled, and all of a sudden, we had two extra days to spend in Florida. Besides lugging all of our gear out to the rental car while sweating profusely and cursing under my breath so Piper couldn't hear me, and obviously us both missing Reid, I was psyched for the extra time. We drove ourselves back to Char's, did a load of laundry and hit the pool. The following day, we headed to Lion Country Safari, and I will fully admit that I was super excited about this trip. I know I can be pretty cheesy, but I've always wanted to do a drive through safari and was finally getting to do it, and in a rental car no less! Let the fun begin.

After a stern lecture from the attendant about keeping our windows closed and doors locked, we headed into the park. First stop, ostriches. The birds were huge, and literally right outside the window. Piper took one look and started signing and saying "more" over and over again.
By the time we hit the zebras and rhinos, she was trying to open the door ...

After the drive through tour, we had lunch, where I asked Piper if she wanted to go feed the giraffes, one of the activities at the little theme park they had. She started giggling like mad and signing for eating (tapping her finger to her mouth). So off we went to find the giraffe feeding station. We did it once, and then before we left, we had to do it again. And when we left the park, Piper cried her eyes out. She had the BEST time and still starts giggling and tapping her finger to her mouth every once in a while. When she does, I say "did you feed the giraffes?" and she dissolves into giggles. Freaking hilarious and adorable, rolled into one. We had the attendant take our pic with Manofwari, the giraffe we fed the most and Piper's eyes are closed, but we do have a decent one of her actually feeding him. This was the second time around and she had absolutely no fear, just pure delight!
Just like seeing Heidi, it was great to see Char and to be wrapped in friendship. It's not as if we don't have friends where we live now, but sometimes seeing someone you've known for more than a decade makes all the difference.

I feel like I have so many memories of this trip that I'll have forever, and for that reason, I so wish Reid had been there to share in them with us. The good news, though, is that in a very short amount of time, all three of us will be making new memories on vacation in Turks and Caicos!

One more blog and I'll have made my 10 in 14 goal. I've actually really enjoyed the exercise, and while I can't promise a ton of posts from vacation, I definitely want to keep up the pace when we return. No more months of one post. That's just crap! I'm here to say that the next 100 posts will come a lot more quickly than the first.

Good lab results!

And I forgot to add this to the previous post, but lab results came back today from last Friday and we're still headed in the right direction. HCG levels are down. YAY!!!!

Oh the places we go ...

Traveling with a toddler is an interesting experience due to their temperament. Toddlers are on emotional roller coasters all day long as they try to figure out how to feel in certain situations, and more importantly, what's an appropriate reaction to those situations. But the fact is, I love to travel. I love seeing people whom we don't get to see often enough. I love exploring new places, and now, showing Piper new places and having her go through new experiences. And this time of year, I will admit that I love having a little warm sunshine on my face when it is COLD up here. So when life went to crap in December, we booked three trips - two of which have already happened (Cincinnati and Jupiter, Florida), and one that's coming up in just a few short days (Turks and Caicos). I will admit that I wanted to escape a bit, and whether it's been the escaping, the fun times with Piper, or the reminder of how great it is to see great friends, our trips have been just what the doctor ordered.

First stop, Cincinnati.

We went to Cincinnati to visit one of my best friends from college, Heidi, her husband, Tommy, their daughter, Anna (3 months older than Piper), and baby Trimarco, who hasn't made her appearance yet, but should be doing so any day. The trip was GREAT. I think part of it was that I hadn't seen any of my good college friends since I had miscarried and I just needed that wrap of friendship that I could feel in a hug from Heidi. I needed an 8 School fix. But the other part was that Piper and Anna had an absolute blast. They played with their babies/dollies (same doll that they call different names) for hours - mostly taking them for "walks" in baby strollers and putting them to bed in a toy pack and play. They played and played and only had a few minor skirmishes, which I was honestly surprised about because they hadn't seen each other in well over a year so had no real history. But instead of acting like strangers, they acted like Heidi and I do and that thought honestly brings a tear of happiness to my eye. We went to the aquarium (above), the children's museum (below), went out to dinner at a great Mexican place, and had so much fun just hanging out at Heidi and Tommy's house. It was a trip that I will remember forever, and I left with the vow that we will never go nearly as long as we did this time before we get these girls together again. Ever.

And right before we left for a trip home, which took WAY longer than intended due to poor weather, we tried to get a picture of us four ladies. Tommy took a ton, but with two toddlers and two adults who hadn't showered yet, a good picture of all four of us was nearly impossible. This was the best we could do :-)


A week later, we were off to southern Florida to see another great college friend, Charlotte, and her boyfriend, Stanton. That post will have to wait until tomorrow, but it was another fantastic trip that I relive pretty much every day as Piper tells me she "fed the giraffes". More details to come ... :-)

So instead, I'm going to end this post with a couple more pics from Cinci and a sincere heartfelt thank you as I noticed that Jennie Sheridan's fundraising page is even closer to her goal. Thank you!!

Bronchialitis is back

When I made Piper's list of maladies, I forgot her two most recent: over Christmas, she had a double ear infection and bronchialitis. I may have tried to block it out because it was a rough time filled with some pretty difficult behavior to deal with, but I blame that on the ear infections, and the fact that her first antibiotic didn't work so she was in pain for an extra 6 days. With a trip to the doctor's yesterday, we discovered that her bronchialitis is back. Luckily, she is great with the nebulizer. She sits for the 10 minutes while she inhales the albuterol, and then we wait for the albuterol to kick in! It makes her a crazed animal, bouncing around uncontrollably like a ball in a pinball machine. It is unreal the impact it has on her, but after 24 hours of being on meds, she is definitely acting more like herself. Too bad Reid and I both woke up sick this morning ... I blame it on one too many direct sneezes to the eye. Thinking back to Christmas and her behaving ridiculously, I love this picture of Piper right after she opened the toy chainsaw Daddy got her. If she hadn't looked so maniacal, I think Reid would have been proud instead of scared. Just that morning she'd been diagnosed as being super sick. Somehow, you'd never know ...


These past two months, I've spent a lot of time thinking about cancer, and if there's one thing I realize, it's that it is incredibly pervasive in all of our lives. All too much so. Just last weekend, we stayed with friends, and while we were out on a cross country ski, my friend told me about one of her good friends, Jennie, who had just lost her third sibling to cancer. Her siblings were 32, 35 and 36. One had three kids. Jennie is one of two remaining kids in her family and is running the Boston Marathon this year in honor of the three siblings she's lost, as well as all the other people fighting this terrible disease. Jennie's running on the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team and 100 percent of the money they raise goes to fund the Claudia Adams Barr Program for Innovative Basic Cancer Research program. Her personal goal is to rase $20K, and she's really close ($19,150).

I've never met Jennie, but I can't imagine the amount of loss she's experienced in her young life. I greatly admire her courage and strength and would love to see her reach her goal. If you want to help, here's her fundraising page: http://www.rundfmc.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=425293&supid=274266000. She also has a a blog, which is pretty amazing. And I promise to never make a habit of asking for money, but cancer sucks and Jennie's doing more than I am to fix the problem so I would love to help her help others. Thanks!

Colds and mud puddles

I remember the first time Piper came down with her first real virus easily, as it was the day of her 1st birthday party. Since then, I feel like she's been sick a ton, especially throughout the fall and this winter. Over the past several months she's had strep, croup, coxsackie virus, scarletina, a stomach bug, and cold after cold after cold. To be honest, it was starting to freak me out. And when the same doctor walked into our room yesterday as we had seen just a short three weeks ago, I was actually relieved because I wanted to ask her how normal this was.

She answered my question for me when she walked in and said, "Well, it's been 3 weeks. You were due!" I asked her if she was kidding, and she explained that once kids start crawling and then until they are 3, it's completely normal to come down with a different illness once every three weeks. So, by the time they get over one thing, you have about a week and a half of good health, typically, and then onto the next. And as she's in the room, Piper is drooling like crazy and chewing on her finger so the doc added that it's usually worse during teething because they transfer all the nasty germs they touch into their mouths. Such a gross thought, but it made me feel so much better because I feel like I always have the sick kid out of my friends. Turns out, she's normal, and it's possible that she puts her hands in her mouth more than others. And I would guess that it takes her teeth way longer than normal to come in than the average kid, leading to longer periods of teething. I can't remember how long she's been working on her eye teeth, but I know it was well before Christmas and she still has the bottom two to go. And her molars took four months to come in. During that time, she had half of the identifiable illnesses listed above. This, to me, just doesn't seem fair. Teething sucks already, being sick on top of it can't help anything. If only I could keep her hands out of her mouth ... yeah, right.

Even though she was sick, Piper discovered how fun a mud puddle can be today. It was one of those glorious late winter days when the sun was out and it reached the mid-40s, which felt heavenly. We put our rain boots on and went out for a walk, which only lasted as far as the street corner because that's where all the puddles were. We played and stomped until Piper slipped and ended up on her butt, totally soaked from the waist down. It was fun while it lasted :-)

Valentine's Day's true target audience

I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. To me, it's a contrived holiday where Hallmark and florists make out like bandits, and if someone really loved you, do they need a day to remind them of this? Over the years, Reid and I have made each other homemade cards for this special day, always out of construction paper. They've been super creative and usually say a lot about what's going on in our lives. There was one year when mine to him included an elaborate representation of his truck towing my car (ah the trip home from Texas), while his the year before was a longhorn with eyes that popped out when I opened it (since we had just moved to Austin). We didn't do dinners out or the over-priced flowers or jewelery (all of which I would gladly accept on any other day of the year!), but we each spent a ton of time cutting out little pieces of construction paper and ended up with way more than just glue stick all over our fingers.

Then we had Piper.

Last year's cards were talked about and never started. This year, no cards again.

The fact is they take a lot of time, and extra time isn't something either of us have a lot of and it all seems to be used up (while I type this, Reid is in the basement doing P90X). And thinking about this today, as I read through sappy update after sappy update on Facebook, made me realize who needs this grossly cheesy holiday the most: parents. There's no doubt that our free time has drastically diminished and changed since we had Piper. We now struggle to sneak in a workout, do the dishes, or just do nothing on the couch when that's all we have the energy for. Our house isn't as tidy as I would like it most of the time and Christmas thank yous take a month and a half to be delivered. Piper takes up all of the time that she's awake, which leaves very little time dedicated to romance and just to each other. I realized today that if anyone should be celebrating this holiday, it's us, even if it is contrived. Thinking more, we didn't even celebrate our last two anniversaries ... basically there are two days in the year when culture says to remember to just enjoy the two of you and they are your anniversary and Feb. 14. We totally need to make time and do this.

And just to clarify, I'm not a bitter Valentine's Day person. I never was dumped or had plans totally ruined or anything like that. I think my real issue with the holiday is that I'm a hopeless romantic, which to me means that I want to be told on any/every other day of the year how great I am and how much I mean to Reid. I just don't want him to tell me today because Hallmark says so.

So I'm not bitter, but I am thinking more rationally now and realizing how poor of a job we've done of keeping things romantic and special. Time to pencil it in, as romantic as that sounds!

Oh, and my labs came back today and my HCG dropped a good amount over the last week so my health continues to move in the right direction. If that's not a reason to celebrate, then I don't know what is.

Short and sweet

More words that Piper can say: orange, onion and backpack. What she says clearly is such a random fun collection - I love it.

There are some days that the words just flow out of my fingers when I sit down to blog and others where each word feels forced. Tonight is a forced night, so while I'm going to count this as blog number 3 out of 10, I'm not going to torture anyone, including myself, with terrible writing and jumbled thoughts. I was hoping to sit down and feel motivated to write about all of the amazing travels we've had between our recent trips to Cincinnati and Florida, but those tales are simply going to have to wait for another night.

18 month stats

While Piper may now be 19 months, she did have an 18 month well-baby visit last month so here are her latest stats:

Height: 34 inches - 95 percentile

Weight: 27 pounds, 14 ounces - 91 percentile

Head circumference: 19 inches - 82 percentile

Her percentiles were pretty much unchanged, except for her growing melon - she bumped up a good 7 percentage points, making herself a pretty well-proportioned, albeit huge, child.

I remember the doc at her 15 month well-baby visit telling us there would be a word explosion coming up. Well, he didn't lie. While much of what she still says is incoherent babble, she can now say a ton of words including: mama, dada, dog, big truck, duck, cheers, cheese, eye, vroom, moo, up, down, hot, hat, more, please, pee, poop, nana, papa, NO, uh huh, uh oh, gas (in reference to gas stations...), boat, and I'm sure there are a bunch of others that I'm blanking on right now. And if you think she's not listening, think again. She's proven time and time again that she's always listening and understands every word we say. She answers almost every question with "no" right now and she loves to listen to us count and sing along with the alphabet song, although she only says "i, i, i."

Her favorite show is Dinosaur Train on PBS, although she won't sit and watch it for more than a couple of minutes, and her favorite time to read books is right before bed. We read the same books almost every night - Olivia; Everywhere Babies; Goodnight Moon; The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear; Hand Hand Fingers Thumb; and I Love You Stinky Face.

She LOVES accessories - hats, sunglasses, purses. And big trucks. She's a ridiculously fun combination of girly girl and tom boy and we hope that continues. Basically, we're completely in love and she gets more and more fun every day - as long as it's not a 'terrible two' day ... she has those too.

And the picture at the top is from New Year's Eve. Piper was super sick - double ear infection, bronchialitis - so our plans to head to Boston to see friends were canceled. To make the best of it, I made a nice dinner, complete with chocolate cream pie. Piper discovered how much she loved homemade whip cream, particularly when she could eat it off the whisk. And notice the hat - again, always accessorizing. Love it.

Hello, 2011, 1.5 months late

When I was working in PR and monitoring blogs, there were blogs that mattered and blogs that didn't. Based on the fact that I haven't blogged in more than 6 weeks, I would have put myself into the 'didn't matter' category. BUT, the simple fact is that we aren't doing a baby book and this is the only way (besides the thousands of pictures) we have of cementing our memories of Piper as she grows and changes so this blog does matter. To me, anyway. My excusefor not blogging is simple: life happened.

But now I'm making a mid-February resolution: I will blog 10 times in the next 2 weeks. And here's number 1.

There's no doubt in my mind that my blogging hiatus was due to the miscarriage. After I blogged last time, the outpouring of support and kind words was incredible, but it was also overwhelming, and I realized that I needed to spend some time processing what had happened instead of writing about it. Especially after the pathology of the fetus came back and we had a rare and annoying diagnosis to deal with. In short, I had a partial molar pregnancy, which means that the egg was fertilized by two sperm. Obviously, this is NOT supposed to happen so the fetus had way too many chromosomes and grew funky cells as a result. So two days before Christmas, I got a call from my doctor with this news, accompanied by the prognosis: if my body absorbed the funky cells from the baby, then it's possible they would be matasticized in my body into a quick spreading nasty cancer, albeit one that responds well to chemo. As a result, I went in for a chest x-ray and blood work on Christmas Eve (great day for hospital stuff as it turns out, totally empty and no lines) to get a base line and then would have to do weekly blood work until my pregnancy hormone (HCG) returned to normal and then for a while after that. Basically, they would watch me very closely to ensure I didn't get cancer, and we couldn't start trying for another 3-6 months (until I was in the clear).

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the plan then changed to 6 months of monthly labs after my labs returned to normal levels. So looking 7-8 months out probably. The planner in me was crushed by this, but obviously my health has to come first.

Fast forward another couple weeks to my post-op doctor's appointment where we discussed the fact that my HCG levels were dropping way more slowly than what was considered "normal", and they seemed to be stuck. My doctor, whom I trust completely, consulted additional specialists and explained that I'm now no longer in the normal category for this type of pregnancy (which is extremely abnormal, by the way), so we should now wait at least a year to start trying again. And, if my hormones didn't come down over the next few weeks, he recommended chemo.

The thought of chemo paralyzed me. I know there are various types of chemos, but I've seen the side effects in multiple people and going through them with a toddler sounded terrifying. So while the year of waiting bummed me out, my whole emotional state was overwhelmed by the possibility of going through multiple months of weekly chemo treatments. Luckily, Piper and I left for Florida the next day for some warm weather, great friendship and a break from reality. A dedicated Florida post will be coming over the next 2 weeks.

Luckily, my last two weeks of labs have showed a reducing HCG number so chemo is not looking so likely now. Of course, that could change again, but I'm choosing to stay positive and focus my energy on a number of goals for the next year:

• Getting back into great shape - this may have to wait a bit until Cadbury Creme Egg season is over
• Making a better effort at communicating with people, including this blog
• Finally starting and finishing home improvement projects that I can take on by myself/with help, such as painting projects, a somewhat redo of our master bedroom suite, and massive gardening/landscaping in the spring

If we're not going to be pregnant for a while, we might as well make the most of it. And if I can get through the next year without chemo or any other terrible issues, then I certainly plan to take advantage of my time.

The weird/scary part for me is that I feel like I haven't grieved over this lost child at all. Part of it is that I feel like I don't have time for the grieving process, and it is so different already having Piper, but I do dread falling apart at some point, which I know is totally possible. Again, I might as well make the most of not falling apart. 2011 started off about as crappy as it could, but I plan to make the best of it moving forward. Here's to health and happiness!