Category Archives: The Family

Healthy Eating Needs Planning

12 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in The Family, The Travels

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and planning I ain’t got.

This is what my refrigerator usually has inside…

Green Drink Bags

Do you see how nicely organized everything is? All I have to do is grab a bag of pre-washed veggies and fruit and toss it in my juicer.

Sadly, this is not what my refrigerator looks like right now. We got back from vacation and I opened the fridge and heard crickets. Okay, so that’s a little dramatic. But really, we’ve been travelling and haven’t had any time to go to the grocery store and we’ve been relying on processed foods to get us through the week. We have two more short trips to go. I’m looking forward to them, but it will be nice for our tummies when we get home and I can get our refrigerator in order again.

 

 

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Little T Doesn’t Know Why…

11 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by in The Family, vegan

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…he’s getting all of these good things to eat this week, but he’s most definitely not complaining.

The T's enjoying some birthday cake.

Yesterday was Little T’s birthday. I had a lot of mixed feelings as I thought about Little T’s birth mom and his first day of life. It’s hard to know there wasn’t anyone there to hold him when he was born. I wish I could have been there to hold him and tell him I was happy he’d arrived in the world. Of course, Little T didn’t think about any of those things. He just smiled and plotted ways to get to the dog food.

We started the day by driving to Irvine to see a neurologist becase Little T has hypertonia (super baby muscles that can kick some major baby booty). We’d made the appointment as a precaution a few months ago, and his birthday was the soonest we could get him in. Not the best way to spend a birthday, but I promised we’d try to make it fun. We woke up at six and made our way to Irvine. For the record, Irvine is ridiculous. I lived there for a year and I still don’t know how to get anywhere. We drove around for 45 minutes before we found the doctor’s office, because my iphone was more confused as I was. It was like being in San Francisco or New York, only it was just Irvine.

Once we got in the exam room, I desperately tried to entertain Little T and distract him from his favorite toy, the doctor’s scale (definitely not my favorite toy-thank you very much. The doctor eventually came in to let me know she’d had three patients who’d been rushed to the hospital. She’d cancelled her other appointments and wanted to know if I could wait, since we’d already waited so long.

Two hours later…..

The doctor said Little T is doing great. He does have a lot of muscles, but thinks he’ll grow out of this. We’re going to do some testing just to be on the safe side.

Afterwards, we drove to Mother’s Market, a vegan cafe/grocery store that I hadn’t visited since my college days. I ordered a few things for Little T and myself. Our meal went like this:

 Little T: “OMG, this soy bacon is my favorite!”

Little T: “Wait, I mean this quinoa is my favorite!”

Little T: “Holy guacamole, these mashed potatoes are my favorite!”

Little T: “THIS WATERMELON JUICE IS MY FAVORITE!”

Momma J: I’m guessing we have a lifetime of big grocery bills ahead of us.

Next, we had physical therapy for Little T. The physical therapist was excited about how well he was doing and said he was right where he was supposed to be. This is great news, but frustrating because it probably means he wont qualify for physical therapy for much longer. All in all though, a good day for Little T. Both doctors predict he’ll be walking more on his own (right now he can do a step or two). When that happens, the cats will be in serious trouble. Heh heh.

After PT, we went to pick up Big T from work and drove to our favorite vegan restaurant, “One World Vegetarian Cuisine”. Little T was a restaurant pro, and couldn’t decide if he liked mom’s spicy food or dad’s pineapple rice. I can’t believe how much Little T eats. He ended the day with a big slice of chocolate birthday cake. He decided he liked this thing we call “cake”. He wanted to know why we don’t eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Oh, Little T. If he had his way, our house would be filled with chocolate cake and doctor’s scales. I’m not sure what to make of that.

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The Light at the End of the Tunnel

06 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by in The Family, The Travels

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One year ago, Big T and I were hiking up to Rainbow Falls in the Eastern Sierra’s. Our trip was intended to help us get through the depression from our failed adoption. We were really struggling and our brains were swirling with unanswered questions. Would we ever be parents? How could we have been so taken advantage of with our first adoption? What was going to happen next? Our agency said we’d been the brunt of the worst adoption experience they’d ever seen, and it was taking it’s toll on us.

We were in need of some healing time, so we went up to the mountains. We’d planned a hike to Devil’s Postpile and Rainbow Falls. I’d never been there before, but I heard it was beautiful. The night before our hike, our social worker called. She said there was a little baby boy who was about to enter foster care, and would we be interested in being his parents? The only thing was that his birth mother wasn’t signed up for Medicaide, and we’d have to pay for her hospital bills. As much as we wanted to say yes, we simply couldn’t afford to do this. It was hard to tell them no, but there wasn’t any way for us to make that happen. Especially after we’d spent most of our savings on our failed adoption.

Before I went to sleep that night, I told Big T that I had a feeling it was all going to work out, and that Little T was meant to be our son. It was the same feeling I’d had when I met Big T, and I knew we were meant to be together. I didn’t know why I felt this way, especially since we’d already closed the book on this adoption and said no to our social worker.

The next day we hiked to Rainbow Falls and amazingly, our cell phone reception came through. When I saw the number of our social worker, I quickly answered the phone. She said the mother had signed up for Medicaide, and everything was taken care of and she just wanted to make sure that Little T was going to be in a good home. She asked if we were still interested in parenting, and with tears in our eyes we said yes! Yes, yes, yes!

During our experience, we often wondered, why us? Why couldn’t we get pregnant? Why did we have such a bad experience with our first adoption? Why did these things happen to us? The answer is simple, if we hadn’t gone through all of those things, we wouldn’t have Little T. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us. It’s hard when you’re going through a bad run to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but now we have the honor of seeing it every day. Every time Little T smiles at us, laughs with us, cuddles with us, plays with us. I’d go through everything ten times over, if it meant we’d have Little T by our side.

To celebrate our hike to Rainbow Falls, we did the hike again for Little T’s first birthday. This time we brought more family and birthday cake, and we had Little T with us.

And yes, we all cried.

Little T's Birthday Hike

At least we had some good car games….

28 Thursday Jul 2011

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Our car was so packed, we could barely fit the baby...

Big T and I used to wonder why people needed big family cars. Okay, so now we get it. Our car was so packed, it’s amazing we were able to make it safely down the street. Next time, we’ll probably leave the wagon.

What made the trip hard was the L.A. traffic. We left at noon, but our five hour trip turned into a seven hour turtle race. Meaning, Little T could have crawled next to the car and gotten there faster than us.

Little T slept for most of the way. Big T and I entertained ourselves by playing categories. You pick a category and take turns coming up with a word for each letter of the alphabet. Every time you can’t think of something, you get a point. The person with the least amount of points by the time you get to Z, wins. What do they win? Respect. Hardy har har.

Here were the categories we used:

1. Harry Potter (surprise, this was my favorite category)

2. Beverages

3. Foods

4. Movie titles

5. Musicians

6. Animals

We’ll have to remember this little game for the next time we tag an extra two+ hours onto our drive.

10 Things~

27 Wednesday Jul 2011

Posted by in The Family, The Travels, vegan

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1. Making sacrifices to the ocean gods.

2. Losing track of time.

3. Having lots of extra playmates.

4. Seashell shops.

5.  Date nights with fancy schmancy vegan meals.

6. Impromtu puppet shows…

7. Spying with spyglasses

8. Group wagon rides.

9. Baby Snuggles

10. Staying up past bedtime for bonfires.

 

11. And a perfect view of everyone enjoying a perfect view.

Okay, okay, so I have 11. :p

Back to the real world…

19 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by in The Family

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My mom went home after spending 2 weeks together, and today is my first day on my own again with Little T. I’m sure you all can understand when I say it’s a heck of a lot easier having an extra person around to help take care of a baby. Especially when that person adores Little T as much as I do.

My droopy and baggy eyes are proof that it’s been a difficult morning. Being on my own has reminded me that it’s way harder getting out the door, getting bottles ready, changing diapers (on a squirmy baby that HATES having his diaper changed), and providing entertainment. I’m rushing to get it all done and fix T’s breakfast, so I can sneak in a moment to eat myself. This morning was challenging because T had a hard night and I was exhausted from a lack of sleep. The day started with us taking a walk, and then turning around because I was too tired to walk. Then I spilled Little T’s breakfast on the floor and had to do it all over again. When Little T took his nap after breakfast, instead of eating and cleaning the house, I fell asleep. Little T woke me up because he was crying and I felt like a bad mom for not being there right when he woke up. It took a while to calm T down and get him taken care. After finally getting a chance to make breakfast (I’d already been awake for 4 hours), Little T spilled it on the ground. I was upset and Little T could tell, so he threw his arms and head to the floor and started sobbing. I had to chuckle a bit at the dramatics of it all, but felt bad for my sensitive little baby. I had so many projects planned but that all went out the door, as it often does with the unpredictable life of a parent.

It was just one of those days, where I’m reminded that parenting can be hard and staying at home is tough work. I feel guilty that I ever thought it would be easy. I know we’ll get back into the routine of things. In the meantime, I’ll be over here having an extra cup of coffee.

Grandma G and Baby T