Recovery

The surgery went well. The gallbladder was apparently quite inflamed, and quite stuck, so the procedure was a bit more complicated than originally expected, but they were still able to do it laparoscopically and Torsten was able to come home last night. Also, we were both reassured by the poor state of the gallbladder because up until they actually went in there, everyone had been telling us that his problem was "probably" the gallbladder; after they saw it they were able to say that it was "definitely" the gallbladder, and it's always comforting to know that you didn't just let someone cut you open for no reason.

Anyway, we spent a total of 4.5 hours at the hospital, from the part where we checked in to the part where the nurse wheeled him down to the exit to get back in the car. Quickest surgery ever. He's already eaten some food with fat in it (though of course nothing downright greasy) without any pain, so that's a huge improvement. And now he's lying in bed expecting to have all his whims addressed promptly all weekend, so overall I'd say he's pretty happy with his surgical experience.

Thanks for all your well wishes. I'd post a photo of the patient in his hospital gown, but for some reason he doesn't want me to do that.

Gah. (Gall?)

So. Looks like May will be another eventful month for us. After a couple weeks of increasingly severe pain after eating (including one doctor's appointment that he canceled the day of because OF COURSE he started feeling better that day, only to feel much worse again two days later), Torsten ended up in the ER on Monday night with agonizing abdominal pain after a small meal (scrambled eggs, if you're curious). Five hours later and he left with a diagnosis of gallstones, a prescription for pain meds, and a mandate to meet with a surgeon the next day.

We met with the surgeon on Tuesday and he confirmed the diagnosis and said the gallbladder has to come out. Surgery is scheduled for this afternoon. It is a very routine procedure that will be done laparoscopically and should take less than an hour, but it involves general anesthesia and Torsten is being his typical anxious self. He's already informed me that if he dies, I should use part of his life insurance to buy a Porsche (his dream car). I informed him that it didn't seem too practical to spend a large chunk of his life insurance on a car I neither need or want when I'm facing the prospect of single motherhood on a single income. For some reason he wasn't impressed with that response.

Anyway, the surgery is routine and it will all be fine, and from what we hear he will feel a whole lot better as soon as the gallbladder is out (though he actually feels fine currently, as long as he doesn't consume a gram of fat, so he's subsisting on bread, fruit, and nonfat yogurt at the moment). Even he knows that this is really not that big a deal. But still, good thoughts would be appreciated!

What happened in April

So, uh. Looks like I accidentally took the month of April off from blogging. My bad. It was totally not intentional, but you know what really gets in the way of blogging? Grad school. Especially when you use your infrequent one-week breaks from school to travel.

Seriously, school is not quite as life consuming as I was expecting, but the thing that it really eats into is my down time. I work, I spend time with my baby, I spend time with my husband... and the time I had left over, the time for blogging and reading and generally futzing around doing what I wanted? That's my school time now. So. That's a little frustrating, but on the whole I still feel happy and balanced. And I check in on Twitter a lot more than I blog, so I don't feel as disconnected as this month-long radio silence might imply.

Anyway, so. What happened in April? Let's see. There was Easter, which was technically not Callum's first Easter since he was about three months old for the last one, but was the first Easter that we "celebrated" with him. And I put "celebrated" in quotes because our celebration involved a small Easter basket and putting toys he already owns in eggs scattered on our front lawn, and that's it. No brunch, no ham, no egg dye. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it and so did we.



Also in April, we went to New York City. That was awesome. Torsten and I couldn't believe it when we realized it, but I'm pretty sure we hadn't been there since this trip in 2007. In 2008 we went to London and Germany, and on our honeymoon, but I don't think we went to New York. And in 2009 we moved to Denver, i.e., out of driving distance from Manhattan, and we hadn't been back since. So, when we got some airline vouchers due to a problem with a previous flight, we decided to head to New York for a week. (Full photo set here.)



My parents and sister drove up to meet us there for part of the time, and though the weather wasn't awesome (rainy for the first part of the trip, extremely windy for the second part, and pretty chilly throughout), we had a great time and did a lot of playing the tourist: open-top bus tours (brrr), a boat around the island (brrr), and lots and lots of walking. On one day we walked over eight miles. Luckily Callum was a total trooper, sleeping through the night despite sharing a hotel room with us (and it was too small to put his crib in the bathroom or the closet, which is our usual trick), napping in the stroller on the go, and generally in a good mood most of the time.



Also we met Alena (and Luke and Mike!) and Molly (though sadly not Owen or Michael). They were both just so lovely, so totally my people, and I'm already trying to figure out when and how I can get back to New York to see them again. (And you guys, it's really too bad that Alena has a policy against posting photos of Luke's face online, because OMG THAT CHILD. He makes the BEST faces.) Also, Alena and I, along with our babies' pre-naptime fussing, got caught on an Anderson Cooper hidden camera special (Alena describes it here, and you can see the clip here, third video down). All just a typical day in New York, right?




Oh and we went up the Empire State Building at night, speaking of touristy. It was lovely, as it always is, but can I just tell you something? I've never been afraid of heights and I've also never been one of those moms who has horrifying visions of all the irrational harms that could possibly befall her baby. But when we were out on the observation deck of the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and Callum was in my arms near the fencing around the edge? I was terrified. I could clearly picture him squirming out of my arms and thrashing through one of the gaps in the fence and falling. Even just writing about it now is making me feel all nervous and breathless again, just remembering. I KNEW it wasn't going to happen, and yet it feasibly COULD HAVE. See the diamonds in the fence in the picture? He REALLY COULD have fit through that gap if he'd wanted to and OMG, I had to step away from the edge with him, seriously.



Altogether it was a great trip, and so good to see my family, and I really am hoping we'll be able to get back there again in a couple years. But we'll see. In the meantime we have a bunch of other travel planned for this year: I'm going to DC for work in a couple weeks, which will be by far the longest I've ever been away from Callum, but I'll just consider it good prep for the trip Torsten and I are taking to Maine during my summer break, during which my parents will be staying at our house with Callum. I am really, really not excited about the prospect of leaving him, but I am really, really excited about the prospect of a relaxing vacation with my husband.

Callum is a GREAT traveler and honestly, we both feel that traveling with him isn't nearly as stressful as we might have expected, and that he fits really nicely into our trips just as he fits into the rest of our life, but traveling with a baby is just a totally different experience. I'm looking forward to a flight where we can actually take a drink from the beverage cart, for example, since there will not be a baby within grabbing distance. Presuming that we do proceed with that second baby thing at some point, and given schools and work schedules and whatnot, this may be our last opportunity to take a just-us vacation for while. So we will cry when we say goodbye, and Skype with him every day, and be horrified at how much older he is when we get back, but we are also going to enjoy a vacation that is designed purely for relaxation and lobster consumption and spending time with each other, no baby wrangling included.

After Maine, the trips-with-baby resume with a few days in San Francisco at the end of the summer (Torsten has a work conference and Callum and I will be tagging along), a week in North Carolina in the fall, and then the big shebang, the real deal, a 2.5-week international trip with stops in Germany, France, and England in December. So. I always said we wanted to have a well-traveled baby, and it looks like we are sticking to the goal. I have to write a post about flying with a toddler, but this one is already getting massive so I will save that for another day. Hopefully before another month goes by.

Is everyone here? No, not yet.

(Note: I'm not pregnant. Remember that whole grad school thing? So settle down; for the moment this is a purely theoretical discussion.)

Torsten and I have always sort of vaguely planned to have two kids, knowing that we wanted somewhere from one to three kids total. We definitely knew we wanted kids in general, so deciding to have Callum wasn't a big deal for us--it was just a question of when, and not if.

But a second kid. Oh man. It's so much harder. Specifically because Torsten doesn't really want a second kid, and I really, really do.

What's funny is that I totally, TOTALLY get where Torsten is coming from. I see all of his points. I AGREE with all of his points, even. But I want another baby ANYWAY. My emotion is overriding my logic (to a point--I actually think there are a lot of logical reasons to have another baby, too). I walk through the exact same thought process as Torsten about the downsides--but then at the end I take the extra step of dismissing them all as not nearly as important. Torsten doesn't take that step.

He does, however, acknowledge that he's not rabidly opposed to having another kid. He agrees that it would probably be better for our family in a lot of ways. He understands that once said second child is actually here, he will be GLAD, he will love it as much as he loves Callum, he will not be able to imagine life without it. He acknowledges that my desire for a second child is much, much stronger than his preference not to have a second child, and as a result he agrees that we should have a second child at some point.

But he doesn't WANT a second child, and if it were up to him and him alone, we wouldn't have one. We would be done.

And I so, SO see why. Another newborn stage. Another tiny helpless baby who wakes up a lot and is very needy. Another few years of diapers. Another car seat in the car. While neither of us minded those things and in fact even enjoyed having a newborn, parenthood is just getting better as Callum gets older--and he doesn't see a reason to revert, to go back to that stage that wasn't nearly as fun. Plus, Torsten is a worrier. He worries about Callum, a lot, and I don't think he's too excited about the prospect of another kid to worry about.

Then there's the cost--not the little things but the childcare. The college savings. The possible private school tuition. The dent those costs will make in our retirement fund. The things we could do with that money.

And then there's the fact that he just feels like our life is perfect, exactly as it is. Callum is wonderful. Having one baby, and in particular such a laid back baby, is pretty easy and convenient. We can travel. We can go out to eat. One of us can handle the kid while the other one takes a break. Basically it boils down to: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Things are great. Why rock the boat? Why put ourselves through all this again when things are so lovely just as they are?

The problem is that I agree with these things. When Torsten says he wouldn't choose to have another kid and I try to envision our lives without one, in a lot of ways it feels like my world is opening up. The simplicity. The savings. The freedom. The choices. The stuff about the newborn stage not being as fun doesn't bother me, because that's temporary and I enjoyed it the first time anyway. But all the other points? I concur on every single one.

But... I want a second kid. I don't care about saving money to retire early if we only have one kid when we retire. And all these sacrifices? We made them for Callum and we both immediately, readily agree that they were completely worth it. And I know we'll feel the same way about the next kid too.

I want to be a family of four. I don't believe the BS a lot of people spout about only children being selfish brats with no social skills, but I do think there's nothing quite like growing up with a sibling, someone who knows you and knows your parents and just GETS it without you having to explain. Torsten is an only child, so he doesn't fully grasp that. He's started to understand it, as I've explained and as he's observed my relationship with my sister, but he doesn't know it naturally, instinctively the way I do.

I also think it would be good for all of us to have another child. I see Torsten's family dynamic with his parents, the way they focus only on him, the way their rigid expectations were never challenged because they never saw that two kids, with the same parents and the same upbringing, can be very different. They had the opportunity to worry about everything, to focus and dwell on all the little details of their child's life, because there wasn't another child to think about. I want to have two kids, two distinct little people with personalities all their own, children that require different parenting, children that don't allow us to focus so singularly on just one of them or the other.

I want to watch our kids interacting. I want them to play and learn from each other and yes, even fight (though hopefully not too often). I want them to grow up together, to know each other, to understand each other's lives and backgrounds, even if they don't turn out to be best friends.

And I want this parenting experience again. Callum is SO amazing. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that another baby will be equally amazing, that we'll love it equally much, but I know that's the case. TWO babies, two distinct people to love and be amazed by, two people to play together and love and learn from each other. I want that. I just do, even if logically there are a million other things we could do with our time and money that would be way easier and more relaxing. I don't care. I just want it.

And Torsten gets that, he really does. And that's why he's willing to have a second kid despite his doubts. But I feel bad about it. I want him to want another kid as much as I do. I hate that there's no compromising when you and your partner disagree about how many kids you want--that one of us has to "win" and the other has to "lose" this battle. Even though it's not a battle, not really. It's weird because I feel like we're on the same side, with the same opinions, but the same thought process leads us to different conclusions.

And I worry about that too. I worry that I'm just following some weird biological or societal impulse to have another kid, that it's not really the best thing for our family. I feel like I'm making some sort of unilateral decision even though Torsten isn't setting it up like that. Even though he agrees that we're really discussing together what would be best for our family and reaching the conclusion that makes the most sense for all involved parties. It's still me swaying him to make a different decision than he would on his own. And I know that's part of being a family. But we're usually so in tune, so very much on the same page, that it's weird and a little scary to disagree on something so fundamental.

I'm not worried that we won't be able to love another baby as much as we love this one. I'm not worried that we'll ever regret having a second baby, or that Torsten will resent me for making it happen. I know that once the next baby is here, someday down the line, we will wonder how we ever could have thought that maybe it wasn't the right thing.

But the next baby isn't here yet. We don't know when it will be here, or even if we will encounter problems trying to conceive it, when we get to that point. It's all still theoretical, a vague and blurry concept, where these concerns are still valid, where they still merit attention and discussion. That's where we are right now. And it's kind of a scary, open-ended place to be.

Politi-baby

Today is my birthday... and it also happens to be the birthday of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act!

This particular piece of legislation is very near and dear to my heart. So, in honor of the occasion, I present to you:

Vegas, low-key style

Phew. So, it's only mid-March and Callum has already been on five planes this year. And, if I'm counting correctly, he will go on another eight planes before the year is over. Oh MY. Well, we always said we wanted to raise a little traveler--and given how far both of our families live from us, it was sort of inevitable. Also, we totally have the airport routine DOWN. (Though I was thrown for a loop this last trip, our first post-bottle weaning, when the TSA agent made me open the sippy cups--they don't do that with bottles--because apparently sippy cups are too likely to leak inside their little machine so they use a handheld sensor instead, though it doesn't actually touch the milk.) Callum has also already been to eight states (plus DC), and will add a ninth next month. So yes, turns out we are raising one of those little traveler babies like we envisioned way back when.


Anyway! The most recent two flights are the subject of this post. Torsten had a work conference in Vegas, and the host put him up in a lovely hotel. The conference fell during the one-week break I had between grad classes. It was over a weekend and then on two weekdays, and it just so happens that I have two floating holidays at work each year. So, I was able to go without falling behind on schoolwork and without dipping into vacation days at work. All we had to pay for was my plane ticket (from Denver, pretty cheap) and we had our very own mini-vacation.

Well, it was a mini-vacation for Callum and me, anyway. Not so much for Torsten, who was at the conference from daybreak til well after sundown, though we did arrive early the first day so that we could spend some time together, and we did manage to squeeze in a nice dinner on our last day (though we were both quite disappointed in the restaurant, and wouldn't go back).

I had never been to Vegas before, or the state of Nevada, for that matter. I mean, I knew it would be glitzy, over-the-top, indulgent... but I wasn't prepared for QUITE the level of glitter and tackiness. There's a reason it's called Sin City--it seems that everyone goes there to indulge their vices and basically eat, drink, smoke, and gamble as much as they want. We took the monorail a few times, and it is cleverly designed to force you to walk through a giant casino at each stop, so we got a good look at a few of them, and they were depressing. Dim, smoky, low ceilings, no way of telling whether it was daylight outside or not, and people sitting there, playing the same games over and over with the same results. And it was crowded... and that's before we get to the guy who made a crude catcall regarding my "booty" while I was dealing with my toddler in the middle of the sidewalk. Just really not my style. For an over-the-top vacation with lots to see and decadent restaurants, I would a million times prefer New York. And for a quick weekend getaway not too far away, I would choose Santa Fe every time.


That said... I had a great time, and so did Callum. We saw what we wanted to see, did what we wanted to do, and basically approached the city our own style. I can't imagine there are too many people who go to Vegas to have the kind of vacation that we did, but it worked for us. We spent a lot of time in the hotel's amazing pool complex (and saw a real, honest-to-god lifeguard rescue of a small child, though it was less dramatic than it sounded). We were staying in a hotel that was originally designed to be luxury condos, so we had a gorgeous kitchen at our disposal and ate a lot of meals in. Callum napped for several hours each day (traveling seems to take it out of him) and I did a lot of reading and enjoyed the amazing whirlpool tub.

We did some of the typical touristy stuff, too. We ate at Burger Bar, which was fantastic. We went to Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden, where Callum could not have cared less about the lions and tigers (I'm pretty sure he has no idea that they are any different than dogs, and he certainly doesn't know that they are special or exotic in any way) but was completely captivated by the dolphins, and even started saying "dolphin" ("DA-da"). We enjoyed the Bellagio fountain show. We wandered around a fancy shopping mall. We walked the Strip. I considered doing the gondolas at the Venetian, but it just felt like too much for such a short trip, so we skipped it.


It was lovely, all told. The weather was perfect, mid-70s and breezy. Callum certainly enjoyed himself and spent a lot of time just looking around, taking it all in. The next time Torsten has a conference there (and he definitely will... the high hotel availability makes Vegas a very popular conference spot), I will go with him again if the scheduling works out. I think next time maybe we'd like to rent a car; then we could get out and explore some of the natural beauty outside of Vegas, check out the Hoover Dam, etc. (We loved the view from the plane... and realized during the flight that we have never actually flown west from Denver before... and would love to see some of that stuff from the ground.) Renting a car would also let us escape the Strip a bit, and maybe check out the children's museum, which is supposed to be excellent.


So, something to consider for next time. But there will definitely be a next time.

The walking wounded

Callum has been walking for about a month now, and he's gotten pretty good at it. He's still a little staggery, and he still holds his arms out for balance, but he walks everywhere instead of crawling by now, and he actually bends his knees when he moves, and he's much more stable.

What this means is that when he's walking, he's much less likely to randomly lose his balance and land on his butt. However, as he gains confidence he moves faster and tries to do more, and that means that he's much MORE likely to trip or stumble and land on his face. The early walking phase is a constant test of a parent's blood pressure and also their ability to say, "It's OK! You're fine!" even when the child is gushing blood.

Here is a visual exhibit of what has happened to him just in the past week or so.


1. Yesterday he tried to lunge forward to grab the dog but she nimbly jumped out of his way and as a result, he fell forward and scraped his cheek on the corner of the wall in our kitchen. That sucked. It was so sad too because he was so happy and chortling over the dog and then two seconds later he was lying on the floor screaming. He actually only scraped the top layer or two of skin off his cheek, so it's maybe not quite as bad as it looks.

2. A couple days ago he was walking around our hotel room in Vegas (separate post on that coming soon) and he tripped and fell forward and whacked his forehead on the knob of a nightstand drawer. It bruised and swelled up immediately, and there's also a little cut. Baby's first goose egg! I tried to apply ice, but you can imagine how kindly he took to that.

3. Also in our hotel room in Vegas, he stumbled and landed chin-first on the coffee table. His chin was fine but he bit his tongue and was spitting blood. Torsten was convinced that he'd damaged a tooth or something, but once he stopped bleeding we were able to clearly see the little cut on his tongue.

4. I don't think you can see this one in the picture, but the other day he tripped in our living room and fell face-first onto the coffee table. He was holding a toy in each hand at the time and so he didn't put his hands out to catch himself, and his chin took the worst of it. He bled a fair amount (all over one of my favorite of his t-shirts! But luckily I managed to wash the stains out before they set and now it's pristine again) but the cut was actually pretty shallow so we didn't have to debate about whether he needed stitches or anything like that.

5. That's just oatmeal, because I took this photo while he was eating breakfast.

You can see that the poor kid has had a rough week! Luckily you can also see that he is still as cheerful as ever, despite his banged-up face. Still, I'm looking forward to the phase where his walking confidence matches up with his skills and he is actually likely to stay on his feet even while attempting complicated maneuvers such as lunging or running. When will that be?