Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Blah Blah Blah My Kid is a Genius Blah Blah Blah

  1. Shoppy: For those wondering, the cute bath towel came from Lands End, I think. It was a gift so I am not sure and I am way too lazy to stand up, go up the stairs and find out for sure. Either way, if you click the link to Lands End you will see cute towels.
  2. The murder at a day care is one of the worst things that I can imagine. You know, I have been trying not to judge. I have tried. It was my thing for Lent and my thing for New Year's but sometimes you just want some people to rot.
  3. This Tuesday is Super Duper Tuesday. If you live in a primary state, go out and vote. I don't really care who your candidate of choice is. Reasonable people can disagree, but make your voice heard.
  4. No news on the fertility front. I insert bullets and I hope. Beyond that, there is not much I can do. I think about it. That's about it. I did ask someone today who is a NFP (natural family planning) instructor who uses couple-based fertility awareness methods (symptothermal) what he thought. He just shook his head and said "that can't happen". Pretty funny. My CD25 ovulation with a menses on CD33 boggles his mind. He knows his stuff though. He suggested I fix the underlying problem. Crazy, I know. Wish I knew what the true root cause was.
  5. So, I got a new job. Same company. Very mixed feelings. I've only been on my job 5 months and I am finally starting to make some headway. There is no one to replace me so any good work I have done will be lost. It's the job I wanted when I signed on with this company, so that's great. I may actually receive some training in my new job which will be super-fab. There will be someone to take over parts of my job, so that's cool. Most people think it's a promotion and congratulate me. My co-worker, whom I like, has been trying to get out of our department for a year. I haven't told him I got out yet. That will be awkward. I went to find him tonight but he was gone already. There are many other people I have not told yet. Very awkward.
  6. Julia's baby duaghter (of b/g twins) is in the hospital. Wish some luck.
  7. Chuckles has started word recognition. It's not reading, yet. But we're getting close. He can spell and recognize several words and we're adding new ones all the time.
  8. Today Chuckles told me that he took a bus twice yesterday (meaning some time in the indeterminate past) and then he told me the specific times and he was correct in all the non-time related details. Smart kid.
  9. Chuckles had pizza for dinner, kept his pants dry all day, sang me a song, and went to bed without fuss (in his Big Boy Bed). Can you tell he had a nap?

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Why everything is OK

  1. My washing machine went on 20% off sale at Sears Appliance, so I headed over there and they credited my Discover card with the difference (plus the tax on the difference). Woo Hoo.
  2. I painted the downstairs bathroom ceiling (the ceiling I had plastered a couple of weeks back), so of course I will fall pregnant and then wonder whether the paint has harmed the fetus.
  3. After the bizarre incident, I discovered that I only have one set of sheets and one waterproof mattress cover for Chuckles's Big Boy Bed (which is the default bed of choice most of the time now), so we headed out to Lo*Mart this morning to get some sheets. He wanted "khaki" sheets which are just boring beige 200-threat count 100% cotton sheets. No cars, no stripes, no Spiderman, nothing. Beige.

Friday, January 25, 2008

For those of you keeping score at home

My fertility sticks arrived from amazon (the day after or two days after they shipped on free super saver shipping).

Behold my powers of PhotoShop



These two pictures are actually the same picture. The dark one is how it turned out. It was set on "running man" for fast action but the area wasn't well-lit enough for that, but I could tell the picture turned out well, so I wanted to salvage it. 30 seconds with PhotoShop and it's something recognizable (gamma incresed, brightness drastically increased and contrast increased a bit). It's not perfect, so it actually fits well with our ethos.

What's a little nudity?


Do you like the dog towel? And yes, it does have a tail.

My New Best Friend

Here we are posing with the newest family member. That's all free & clear h/e detergent on top there and OxiClean in the foreground. This is basically my "laundry dungeon" as Mr. Long-Suffering calls it. Note that even the cat is interested (did I tell you that to avoid mold, you should leave the door open until the washer is dry? Well, you should and I found Lisa inside the washer one day.)


Everyone likes to push buttons. There are so many buttons. I used lots of them last night when I stripped Chuckles's bed after a rather bizarre incident that left everything soaked. (Do you see my 500 ounces of laundry detergent in the background...I did find out that Kirkland brand free/clear detergent is h/e compatible so 300 of those ounces are good...should I just give my soap to my mom?)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Random Fertility Stuff as well as Random Thoughts

I surged, I bedded my man, I started progesterone supplementation and I just bet I get pregnant this month because I did every thing wrong. I went on roller coasters, carnival rides, water slides, I drank liquor, I used artifical lubricants not recommended for ttc couples, I ate unpasteurized cheese, I've had cold cuts and bacon, and today I had an enormous mug of regular coffee. I cannot live like "what if I get pregnant this month?" for a another year so I am going to live like I always do - relatively clean with my own private vices.

And my fertility monitor came from the ebay seller (maybe I'll need it, maybe I won't). I ordered the sticks from amazon who says they are back-ordered but today they said they've shipped so I don't know what's up there. Either way, I am fine. They sell those sticks at every drug store, albeit for slightly more moolah.

It's snowing and plows are loud. My baby has occassionally started sleeping in his big boy bed (no rush...he picks where he sleeps), but last night I caught him wandering around our house at 4 am (the Man of the House returned child to his bed without fuss). Oh, and I love my washer. You want my washer, don't you?

Hope you are well. It's way too late, so I'm off to bed alone (Man of the House is working very late).

Someone Really Smart Invented the Indoor Waterpark

I have a million little stories I want to tell you about how great it was at the waterpark. We went Sunday to Monday.

The stories range from Chuckles waking up Monday morning and asking if he could go to a waterpark and me getting to say "yes" to Mr. Long-Suffering playing with the thermostat and finding the water softener and flicking every switch in the whole place (and eventually finding one that turned on the fireplace...hey I was surging) to me taking a nice long soak in the tub and sleeping until the sinfully late hour of 7:45 on Monday. And Chuckles yelling "NO thank you" in a Utica diner and every old man in the place trying to hold back uproarious laughter because he was both so defiant and so polite.

Chuckles really got the hang of it. It took him about an hour both days to warm up to the idea of swimming and water slides but once he did he was like a streak from the slide to the wave pool to the "warm pool" (aka kiddie pool) to the other slide to the lazy river to the climbing water dump thing. He even stopped to tell me potty and hungry. I don't think he'd ever mentioned hungry before. When we left on Monday afternoon, he was asleep in the car before we were out of the parking lot, slept the whole way home, let us take him out and put him to bed and slept another couple of hours. He woke up at 6 pm, had dinner and was back in bed by 8. I guess we tired him out a bit. Then on Tuesday, he regaled his teacher with stories of water slides.

And did I mention that they have a liquor bar right there in the water park so mommies and daddies can have a frozen drink while supervising their spawn? Well, they do and the Hurricane was good, if a little strong. The Strawberry something was good too. And a big smooch to the guy at the arcade ticket counter who warned me that the camouflage thing was a whistle and really high-pitched. So, we got a yellow plastic 2-cent dinosaur that the boy adores.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

I came, I saw, I surged

I guess I had my LH surge yesterday. It already looks like it is fading tonight. There's something so normal about that, I don't even know what to think. Of course, the surge precedes ovulation by 24-48 hours, so that means, I will most likely ovulate on CD25. Now there's something so abnormal about that, it almost makes sense.

I'd like to point out that if I do get pregnant this cycle, I will almost immediately be considered 6 weeks pregnant because they date from your last menstrual period no matter what you say (this happened last time I was pregnant and I ended up having the baby right around when I predicted...even though they knew what day I got the trigger shot...they are so ingrained using the LMP date).

As a total last minute thing, we were invited to an indoor water park for the MLK holiday and despite my dislike of traveling with my child, I think we're going. It's an opportunity we can't pass up. It has an indoor water park and an indoor amusement park. I mean, what's not to love. Plus it's near Starved Rock State Park and this time of year, there is eagle watching and frozen water falls. Cool.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

CD22

I bought the fertility monitor sticks from amazon. They had a good price and the reviews said amazon had the best non-ebay price, so I bought them. They should be here by my next cycle.

The ewcm continues but there was still no surge this morning. Maybe tomorrow. I thought about testing tonight when I got home from work, but I only have one stick left. That's 16 used so far this month. Egad. I have to buy more tomorrow because I have instructions to test until the surge fades and I don't even have a surge yet, so I need at least two more and I only have one. Am I really going to ovulate on CD25 or something totally crazy like that????

Because I am sure there wouldn't be all this smoke without an impending fire, I had marital relations with my husband tonight. Our child fell asleep in the car on the way home from school (no nap, again). So we had some free time. It was nice. I miss him sometimes.

I went to the compounding pharmacy on my way home from work. I hate all compounding pharmacies. They can take their progesterone suppositories and shove them up their you-know-wheres.

That is all.

PS- I am doing laundry right now and I love the washer. Love it.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

CD20

According to my ovulation predictor sticks, I am not yet in an LH surge. However, basing it on the amount of ewcm I have, well, let's say I sm sure something is about to happen. "They" always say you shouldn't use your first morning urine for the OPKs, but really, when else do I have 30 seconds to myself where I haven't been drinking for 2 hours to do this? I guess I could do it at work, but then I run the risk of someone finding out. I think I will go pee on one right now (thus wasting $1.50 but whatevs). Did I ever tell you that prior to Chuckles I charted my BBT and discovered I was anovulatory? Well, I did and I was. Here I sit mostly ovulating some months and whoa! I am incapable of BBT charting this time because I often get out of bed (and I think I have had a cold for two months now and occasional fevers...must call doctor tomorrow about the lesions on my tonsils...those are sexy, right?). And I think the pee on them sticks, while more expensive, are more accurate.

Speaking of ovulation, I WON THE FERTILITY MONITOR. I know I said I wasn't going to pay a lot for this muffler, but I got caught up in winning and I paid a little over $50, but retail is between $200 and $300 so a good deal really. The sticks for it are expensive too so I guess I'll try to ebay those. Or drugstore.com or something. I must see who is cheapest and reliable and whatnot.

What else? I love my new washer. If it wouldn't require moving to Massachusetts, I would marry my new washer. The boy and I just sat there watching the laundry tumble on Sunday. And the clothes were surprisingly wrinkle-free after the dryer considering how twisted and mangled they were coming out of the washer. About the soap....H/E detergent. High Efficiency laundry soap. I bought some to have on hand for the first few loads. But, I think it's just low-sudsing detergent. I have over 500 ounces of regular laundry detergent in the house right now, so no chance I won't use it, but if I remember my chemistry correctly, I think you can add one tablespoon of liquid fabric softener to the soap per load to keep the sudsing down. Now I have to google this. Google fails me. I know you do not want suds in your front washer but I cannot figure out whether fabric softener will do the trick. I have 32 loads until I am out of he soap to decide.

The bathroom ceiling is done. I just need to paint it now to make sure it's smooth as a baby's bottom. High gloss white bathroom paint. Woo Hoo. And the walls, when I actually do them, will be chocolate colored. With white procelain toilet and pedestal sink and chromed accents. Am so excited by my domesticity.

And a very bad thing happened at work. I work in heavy industrial manufacturing. I see flames shooting out of stuff on a daily basis. We have big equipment with scary tires and clanky noises and booming and vibrations and sirens and blinking lights. Someone was killed. A kid really. Only 22. And his dad works there too and saw him and talked to him right before the accident and the dad heard the call for paramedics and everything come over the radio and was on the scene in a flash. Hug your family a little tighter tonight and have a kind thought for the family. And for the man who accidentally killed him. According to the preliminary investigation, no one did anything really wrong. It was a tragic accident. Tragic.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Fertility Stuff

No peak on the sticks yet. I'm the high bidder on two fertility monitors (I promise to find a good home for the secon one if I win both). I'm noticing some ewcm, so I guess something will happen in a day or two. Wouldn't that be crazy if I ovulated again, for like the 4th month in a row? Crazy.

Did you know that if this doesn't work, there is a fertility clinic 4 blocks from my house? And if that doesn't work, I will never have another child because my husband vehemently opposes adoption for us. I think if we hadn't had CHuckles I would be a lot more insistent about adoption, but since we already have a child, I am way more laid back. We have a lot of relatives who have adopted (domestic open and international) and a few who decided to live child-free after years of trying, so we've seen it go all ways. At least he knows his limits. The man cannot adopt and cannot do finish carpentry.

My Husband Loves Me Because....

I am really good at finish carpentry. Our downstairs bathroom has been in various states of "torn apart" for the last few months. Today I got the go ahead to do the plaster work. I am between coats right now waiting for it to dry. And I'm wearing safety glasses. I rock.

I found some flexible, paintable caulk to do some repair work where there were some cracks caused 40 years ago by water damage. I am so excited. If this stuff works, I am using it on all sorts of things. I have a lot of settling cracks and as the house heaves and expands and contracts again, every crack repair cracks again. If I can use a flexible product, maybe it can hold up to the cycles. I am so excited. And a big dork.

So Excited

I got a new washing machine. And it's being delivered tomorrow! Sunday. For Free. Squeeee!

I got a Kenmore front-loading washer (which I stealthily figured out is made by Frigidaire and is the model that was a Consumer Reports Best Buy). The Kenmore has plastic handles instead of chromed stainless, but really, it's going to live in the basement, so I don't mind at all (especially when those chromed handles would add $200 to the price). The inner drum is stainless steel, and it has a bunch of wash cycles from hand washed by nymph fairies to beaten with stones in the river. It is energy efficient in so many ways. It uses less water so there is less water to heat, it tumbles instead of agitates, and it extracts a lot of water when it spins so it takes less gas to heat my dryer because the clothes dry faster. And it promises to clean your clothes until they sparkle. However, one wash cycle is between 60 and 100 minutes. That's a lot. But if they're clean, I don't mind.

I do 6 loads of wash per week, usually. And this will probably cut that to 4 because it's 3.5 cubic feet of wash space. I think I will even be able to do our queen comforter. Am considering sending out email to my whole address book announcing its arrival into our family. That's cool, right?

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

CD14

Today is Cycle Day 14 and if I were a textbook, I would be ovulating. But, I am not a textbook, so I am sitting here blogging instead of upstairs having procreative relations.

When I last googled "long follicular phase", one of the questions that kept coming up on message boards was somthing like 'does this mean I'll have a harder time getting pregnant'. The answer was 'no, but it might take you longer just because you have fewer chances because your overall cycle is bound to be longer'. So, now you know. A woman with a 28 day cycle, ovulates about 13 times per year. A woman with a 35-day cycle ovulates about 10x/yr. So, in a year, she has three fewer chances. And if you happen to be a woman with a 23-day cycle, you have 15-16 chances per year (and a lot less standing around twiddling your tumbs...of course twiddling your thumbs is not how you get pregnant so are you sure you're doing it right?).

I recently read that there are a lot of reasons for a long follicular phase including: delayed emergence of a dominant follicle, demise and replacement of a dominant follicle, delayed follicular recruitment, a prolonged initial drop in oestrogen and an extended oestrogen peak. If I had to guess, I would say I am either delayed recruitment or demise and replacement. Very interesting and if I ever win a fertility monitor, I will know more and be all powerful and take over the world.

Oh my

In the past week, I have bid on 7, yes 7, Clear Plan Fertility Monitors on e*bay.

Lo*Mart apparently stopped carrying my peeonthem dip strips, which were super-cheap (or maybe I just need to go to ghetto Lo*Mart like I have been doing instead of going to hillbilly Lo*Mart like I did over the weekend).

I ended up buying 2 boxes (14 tests in total) for $24, which works out to a price of $1.71 each. My other ones were 20 for $17 or a unit price of 85 cents. Now, I'm no genius, but it looks like I am paying twice as much and the packaging is harder to open. And I'm not even sure 14 are enough (although I had 3 left from last month that I used first). Seventeen ought to be enough.

Put that on a Sampler and Sew It

I worry
because
I care.

Anything she can do, I can do

Sunday, I put Chuckles down for a nap without a car ride. Am a rock star.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Whoops!

I just accidentally flushed a washcloth down the toilet (that'll teach me to clean the kitchen floor on hands and knees with rags and dump the water bucket in teh toilet without securing the rags in another room prior to dumping).

And now, a list of things I have accidentally flushed down the toilet and one thing I haven't.
  1. This rag today (and it was one of my good rags too).
  2. brand-new maxi-pad (not that I flush my used ones, just that this one was unused)
  3. a pot of soup (I didn't have a garbage disposal, and it was several weeks old and homemade so had a lot of chunks....how should you dispose of that?)
  4. a pair of glasses
  5. And the thing I have not flushed: a disposal diaper (our water bill keeps coming with notices about how someone in the south end of town is doing this and if they find out who it is, that person will be liable for all the expense and mess that it has caused)

So, what have you flushed down the toilet? Hopes, dreams, a beer?

Thursday, January 03, 2008

In which I admit that I was wrong

First: Boy's fever is gone. Woo Hoo. Mine is not, but that's OK.

Next: By delaying nap one hour and being tough as nails, Grandma got Boy to nap without a car ride. There was have been some threatening and some bribery, but all-in-all, I am fine with that. Something about consistency and follow up (and having 2 hours to work on the nap).

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Some Stuff

I know I mentioned Julia had her babies. But it bears repeating: Julia had her babies.

I don't want to tell you how great our sleep was last night because I don't want to jinx it.

But tonight, we have fever. Wee one is a nice 101.1 deg-F but he took the grape-flavored children's advil chewables like a champ. I'm sporting something in the 98-range, which for me is a veritable fire of burning up (I'm a 96-97 girl so high 98s is like 100 for regular people). The husband is coughing and snotting and swearing up and down he's 102 if he's a degree, but the thermometer tells me he is 98.7 deg-F. So, men. They're not good when they're sick.

We have already scheduled Grandma and Grandpa for Chuckles tomorrow. This was pre-arranged but works out nicely since with 100+, he's banned from day care (and they know since they were taking his temperature when I got there). I had suspected illness coming on, so no big surprise.

Chuckles is marginal at napping at day care these days and I think everyone on the internets knows how I put Chuckles down for a nap, so it will be interesting to see what happens with Grandma and Grandpa. I will stress the importance of nap since he is ill. Do you think they will take him for a little ride, get him to sleep without a ride, or let him skip nap? Post your thought in the comments and I will report back tomorrow. My hunch is he will be sick enough to lay down with Grandpa and they will both fall asleep in the chair (not that this has ever happened, but it will make for a nice "I-told-you-so" when they tell me I just do it wrong).

Did I mention that I played Guitar Hero on New Year's Eve? Well, I did. I played Mississippi Queen and I was notgood.

Further to that, did I mention that I highlighted my hair? I put little sexy streaks in my roots because with winter full-on, the hair was a little reverse skunk. I spent all glorious summer outside and then the last 4 months with no windows. The hair was not good. But now it's not bad. This blended the roots away. I did not color all over and I think it will grow out without showing.

Oh no, cough-cough-cry from upstairs again. yikes. Gotta go. Post your nap guess.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Where was I?

Oh yes, I was googling "long follicular phase" and "short luteal phase" when I heard teh distinct sound of cough-cough-barf cough-cough-cry coming from upstairs. I checked it out. There is no puke but I suspect fever. If we get another awakening, the thermometer is at the ready.

Never forget:
Sleep begets sleep.

So, if we messed him up bad with the party, we will pay for the next several nights until we get things straightened out.

That's what I thought

Last cycle, I had only talked to the medical assistant who phoned in the script for my progesterone. Although, I did call back twice because the instructions made no sense to me. But, I mostly followed them, although my 4-day surge had me confused and then I was still surging but CD20 came and I was to start the progesterone, so I stopped having sex and well, here I sit not pregnant.

As her last act of 2007, my very excellent nurse practitioner (who handled all my infertility stuff with Chuckles) called me personally Monday night and I told her not pregnant, plan for this month and she said keep it same, and I said that it made no sense and we went over it and she was all like "oh, that's not right" and "no, not like that". So once it was clear to all parties that I do not ovulate on CD14 like a textbook, she left it up to me to decide when I ovulated and to start progesterone 7 days later. And with a four-day surge, it's the last day that counts, but you don't know it's the last day until the next day so you have to treat every surge day like it's the last and just have a lot of romantic encounters. So, there's that too. And I felt better. Like I was getting medical care tailored to my actual body. But then, after I got off the phone, I remembered that there is a very real possibility that I will start my period before the 7 days to progesterone are up. So, I am going to start progesterone 4 days after the end of my surge at the suggestion of a friend and just figure it out on my own. I've always said that I am every bit as smart as a doctor. I just need someone to write the scripts and order the blood draws. So, that is this month's plan. It feels good to have a plan.

2008

Happy happy. Glad to see you made it to the other side.

I went to a party. I watched Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve even though I did not know a single artist on stage (I just watched to see whether they brought Dick Clark out of suspended animation for the night). Chuckles and Mr. L-S went too. I was reluctant. Resistant. I did not want to go. Chuckles is such a marginal sleeper, and this was going to involve us staying away for the night. And my mom volunteered to babysit Chuckles in our own home with his own bed and so on. But the mr would have none of that, so the boy went with us. It was almost an "I-told-you-so" night, but it worked out ok. We muddled through. Some sleep was had and I had two bottles of champagne (and no hangover).

My mother-in-law volunteered to put Chuckles down for bed (at about 9 o'clock). We didn't see her for 2.5 hours. That boy is stubborn, but MIL is persistent. When she came back to the party, she was begging for a mixed drink and some time on the Wii (and Guitar Hero). She got both. Chuckles was awake and sitting upright in the hallway (!) when I went upstairs at 2:30. I have no idea how long he was there, so I took him to the potty with me while I brushed my teeth and got marginally ready and then brought him to bed with me. He was up at 6 am to go potty and have some milk and went back down until almost 10. Not too bad.

But then! Then, some ugly things were said that made me question whether my mothering is poor, which I have decided it is not. I just play the cards I have been dealt. Chuckles is not a poor sleeper away from home because we rarely stay away from home. We rarely stay away from home because he is a poor sleeper away from home. B is the root cause of A not the other way around. When he was an infant, we tried just toting him with us wherever we went and we were all the worse or it. Once I realized (lightbulbs exploding over my head with the force I realized this) that he needed routine, sameness, consistency, and his own bed (and a lovey), we stayed home more and slept more. A lot more. I was happier. I pray that BoBo (theoretical future baby) does a better job away from home, but if not, I vow not to beat myself up. Play the cards you are dealt. And if you have to get a sitter to stay home with the baby so you can go out, then do it. Especially if MiMi is standing there saying, "Leave him with me. Go. Have fun. We'll be fine."