WE HAD A DATE!!!

I never thought I would be so excited about this during my married life! We had our first successful post-baby date today!

Attempt #1: Tim got called in and I got a traffic ticket getting him to the hospital.
Attempt #2: Can't find the concert tickets.
Attempt #3: Abandoned in favor of me making a very last minute flight to FL.

Today was totally spontaneous and a total success!!It was beautiful, sunny, crisp day! The nanny was with us today to watch Ada. Tim was done with his clinical and lab obligations by noon. I picked him up and we went to Hog Island Oyster Company in the Ferry Building. We sat looking out over the water, sampling oysters, and sipping champagne. There we were in the middle of a weekday having a purely indulgent time together! It felt like we were skipping school! After lunch we walked around the building holding hands. So romantic! I feel like a new woman!!

One week of maternity leave left

One week from October 4th  will be exactly one year from our positive pregnancy test. It will also be the day I return to work.

Essentially my maternity leave is over as my mind has already started to make the transition. A few weeks back I went in to work to meet a friend for lunch. I went into our software to look in on how a patient was doing and I was so slow and clumsy with it. The other day I realized that I have forgotten all the doses for my favorite sedation protocols and drugs! It comes back quickly but apparently I need to study!

I feel so sad and depressed at the thought of leaving Ada to go back to work. I love my job and my career. At the same time the long, sometimes stressful days and all-consuming nature of my job can be exhausting. Even without a baby it was mentally and physically tiring to juggle my job and a life - mostly because I want to be able to give more to my job, to find solutions for my patients, to research cases, to learn from the people I work with. I will have to work extra hard to find a balance.
I tell you this much: the only thing I regret about having a baby is not doing it much sooner. I would have a dozen more if I could! I would also stay at home to raise them if I could. Why did we wait so long? How did I ever live before my daughter (who is sound asleep in her swing and humming along to some sweet dream)??

Basket Full of Birdies

I mentioned working on crafting projects. This is the final result of one of them. It's a basket full of stuffed birds for Ada to play with! The tails are just the right size for tiny hands to grasp. I got the pattern from Spool.

Spontaneous Fun Night

We had a night of great fun with the Taylors! Andrew came by after work yesterday to find me eviscerating a cloth bird I was making (I'll post pictures of my latest crafting when it's done). Tim came home about 20 minutes to a nice "Welcome Home" that included a bottle of his favorite Cremant. We hung around chatting, catching up, and making some plans. Jen got done with work around 8:00, an early night as she was expecting to be in the OR until midnight or so. It was on her way home so she stopped by Burma Superstar and got some takeout - love the Burmese style curry with beef! We opened a bottle of Lionheart 2007 Pinot Noir, which only got 86 points but deserves so much more - it is a great wine.

All the while Ada was a perfect angel. She checked out her new Bumbo - I scored it off of Craigs List earlier that day for $15 (never used, they didn't like the color). She found it a bit perplexing at first, but it's catching on. Then she hung out in the Moby. Then is was time for her bath, a bottle, and sweet dreams. I guess our little lovebug knew that mommy and daddy needed a some adult time :)

A Celebration of Life

We got back from FL (again) yesterday. Ada did well on the flights - I am so proud of her!! She has been sleeping a lot since we got home so I think that she was really worn out.  Not surprising! The whole family was in bed by 8:30 last night. I am glad that we don't have to travel again for a while.

Tim's parents came down to Naples for my mom's memorial. It is so sweet that they came. I am very, very lucky to be part of their family. I was able to pack up a little bit of my mom's stuff and send it to Tampa with them. Apparently smoke has been absorbed into everything and they had to drive with the windows open for a while. They repacked everything when they got it home and washed all the china. Superstars. Tim's dad bought a pack-n-play for Ada and the future grandkids to use. It was a very sweet idea and he picked out a really nice one. The only problem was keeping Poochie the cat out of the Pack-n-Play!

Diana and Gilberto brought Laura over from the east coast! It was soooooo nice to see them. I wish we had more time to spend together. Still, it was so touching that they came - a monumental effort with a tiny baby! Laura is just beautiful and D & G are naturals as parents. It's so beautiful to see this friend who I've spent so much transformative time with as a mother. I'm glad we are doing it at the same time! Ada is only 8 weeks older than Laura (and almost 3# heavier at birth) but she looks like a giant compared to Laura! So funny!

My mom's memorial was really nice. Lynn put a lot of effort into making it a thoughtful reflection of my mom and it turned out well. Charlie put together a slide show of pictures and music - a task that really took a lot of time and effort. It's obvious that he put much thought into the music. As I hugged him goodbye he told me to listen carefully - that there was a message there for me. I told him that I had been waiting for one. Many people got up to speak about her. I didn't. It's just not my way. I was talking to Tim's mom about it later...it's just so funny how the sides of a person can so selectively be shown.


I don't know why God didn't see fit to give my mom a dozen and a half kids. One (me) wasn't enough! My mom was a rescuer. Since I was a kid there were wayward, young women in and out of our house and our lives all the time. Some of them she could help - learn how to manage money, leave an abusive relationship, take care of themselves, get clean... these women clung to her for it. They all called her mom.
That's one side of my mom, I suppose, but one that I saw from a very different perspective:  since I was raised up that way I am already hyper-responsible, goal-oriented, practical, perfectionist - not that there aren't things about me that are begging for improvement but there was nothing for her to fix! I wasn't enough of a train wreck to keep my mom busy. At the same time that she was proud of me and loved me I think I bored her!

I have come to the conclusion that no relationship is as intimate and intense as a mother/daughter relationship. Especially if you spend enormous amounts of time with only each other for company. We were so close that sometimes it was hard to know where one of us ended and the other began. Sounds romantic, but it is no way to live. When she got married to Jeff and I was immersed in school we started to distance ourselves from each other. It was hard (harder for her, I think) but it was good. I think I would be unable to function if I hadn't slowly started to make a life of my own years ago.

My mom died

Nancy Carol  (August 26, 1947 - September 4, 2009)

I went back to FL to be with her in the final 18 hours of her life. I truly didn't think that I would want to go but when the time came I really felt like I needed to go - for her and for myself. I'm glad that I went. Being with her in those final hours was the most powerful experience of my life. Even more so than giving birth. It has sent me into a tailspin of sorts.

My mom and I had been so close when I was growing up. We have had problems communicating and finding common ground for several years now. There are so many things that contribute to that. Maybe I'll find the strength to write about them objectively here at some point, but not now. Interestingly, when I went to her the day before she died all of that just vaporized and it was like I was 5 years old again and running to my mommy. Her eyes were pleading...for what I don't know. She wasn't ready to die. She told me that she still had so much to do. I told her I loved her and that she was a good mom. She replied, "sometimes I wondered". Sigh.

Now I find myself in foreign territory. I feel so much guilt for every wicked, senseless, stupid thing I ever said or did. Here is the catch: my mom was hurt that I grew up and made a life of my own. That was unavoidable so I don't know what I could have done to prevent it. So you can maybe see the rock and the hard place...The best I can hope for is that I will be much more measured about how I interact with people from now on, especially when I feel frustrated.

Heaven and spiritual matters also loom large in my mind now. Never before have I felt such a driving need to know that heaven is real. I am devouring recollections of near-death experiences to try to reassure myself that she went somewhere better, her anxiety and pain is gone, and that in her newly found divinity she has forgiven me everything. A few hours before she died she spoke the last words I was able to understand, "I am so scared." God couldn't spare an angel or my grandfather to come down and give her comfort? That makes me so angry and disappointed.

The timing couldn't be worse. She has been looking forward to having a grandchild for years and was so excited. They got to meet when Ada was just 3 weeks old. Being so very pregnant and then having a newborn to care for meant that I couldn't come to take care of her or to advocate for her. I had hoped that she might do some of that for herself or that the people around her would be a bit smarter about their decisions for her. In the week that we were there with her I could see the ways that she struggled to not complain when Jeff did things that were so obviously not to her liking. I guess that I just feel like I could have done it better.

Bye, mom. I'll see you again soon. Until then, please watch over my family. XO, M