Thinking Day 2010

Happy Thinking Day, everyone! Last year you got to see a bit of what students in Grenada do. This year here's a little of life in New York.

Since this year's global theme is ending poverty and hunger, we'll start with Penny's eating adventures. She is eating table food - she prefers to eat what I am regardless of what I've put in front of her. This picture shows her enjoying some of Grandma's chili marinating in the orange juice I gave her to battle her cold. I'm still not brave enough to give her plates (she has demolished the few that strayed within reach), but she is beginning to master the cup and spoon. The orange juice on the tray doesn't indicate problems using the cup; it demonstrates her preference for painting over drinking. Penny can get yogurt on the spoon and get it into her mouth. However, she has discovered that it is easier to drink the yogurt out of the cup (note the ring of yogurt on her face). Fingers are obviously still the easiest eating implement to use, though.



One of the sad side effects of moving back to northern climes is the dry air of winter. Penny has long had a little scratch-covered area at the back of her neck, but she was starting to get dry itchy patches more generally on her shoulders, legs and other places. So...her pediatrician (yes, we're stationary enough now to get a regular pediatrician!) recommended fewer baths and two daily slatherings of lotion. I was sad because Penny really seemed to enjoy a daily bath and weekly trip to the pool and now we're cutting back exposure to water pretty dramatically. On the plus side, though, with a mere week of the new regimen, that scratchy patch is finally scar-free and she's looking pretty comfy. Of course, if we're not using the bath for baths, it can be used for fun play time! I believe I recall someone else in the Flats having the same bathtub as Penny does.



I plan to celebrate Thinking Day itself by working on taxes and making calls to banks and whatnot. I'm trying to save up my energy for perhaps venturing into the city (aka Manhattan) on Tuesday evening. The jury's still out on whether I'll feel up to a rush hour adventure on the express bus or perhaps the ferry, but I figure I shouldn't stay in the house all the time. Wish me luck!

Still Growing

Quick update for all those Penny-philes out there. Penny is demonstrating her adventurousness at every turn. Daddy was very impressed the first time he saw her eating an apple like a big girl over Skype. She really enjoys taking big bites of Mommy's apple as she eats it. Since this photo was taken a couple of months ago, she has learned to peel her bites of apple so she doesn't have to battle with tough skin. Over the holidays, she wowed relatives with her ability to feed herself all kinds of fun things from fish cakes to shepherd's pie to carrot salad. These days she is working on learning to use silverware - that's still a very messy venture, but she's trying.

I've been settling into New York by beginning to file all the crazy estate, medical, and other paperwork that I seem to have accumulated over the past few months. We broke down and finally invested in an actual file cabinet instead of the usual file storage boxes. My big requirement was that it locks so Penny would be least likely to help me sort my paperwork. But Penny was watching me file and already figured out that the file cabinet uses keys to open. I'm not sure how long I have until she figures out WHICH key opens the cabinet.

Today I drove over the bridge to New Jersey to take Dan to the airport to return to Atlanta. The traffic was pretty bad - we were going about 20mph because there was an accident on the Goethals Bridge (easily doubled the length of the trip). I was actually really glad to be going so slow; the bridge is narrow - feels like 6in to the Jersey wall in the center and another 6in between me and the whirling tires of the semis to my right. I hate going over the bridge at full speed (45mph). I was actually really proud of myself in general because I made it to and from the airport without any major stress or getting lost. I think the route I took was odd and perhaps illogical, but managed to get me back to the Goethals Bridge ok. On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store to stock up before the snow hits. We're awaiting another foot or so. Sadly, we no longer have Dan here to do the heavy shoveling. Most of the snow is supposed to hit over the course of the day tomorrow, though, so Mom plans to do a few rounds of lighter shoveling. People around here are very serious about their walk-shoveling because they're afraid of being sued for personal injury. We'll see how things go tomorrow; perhaps the snow won't be as bad as they're predicting.

Sad Day

At long last, we are totally moved in here in New York. Most of our stuff made it, but it appears we lost a passenger along the way. At some point while we were in Ohio, our littlest passenger passed away. I didn't discover that, though, until I went to the doctor here in New York to check why my feet had been swollen and varicose for about a week. When the midwife did the customary appointment closer of checking for a heartbeat, it just wasn't there. She double-checked with a sonogram and found evidence that the passenger had died several days prior.

After several days of questions, descriptions of unsavory options for helping get the passenger's body out, etc. we came to a decision about what to do. Of course, as soon as we did that, I started to have a slight fever, so we had to go with the potentially riskier and less pleasant option. Dan and my dad were with me when we started inducing labor on Saturday morning. Luckily, I responded pretty well to the drugs and by Sunday morning was holding our precious little Augustine. The hospital staff were really nice through the whole process - willing to give me whatever I wanted pain-killer-wise (they just didn't get why I didn't want an epidural). They made up this nice little certificate with Augustine's footprints, gave us a crocheted hat and blankie, and arranged to have the baby baptized before her autopsy. I stayed in the hospital overnight to recover my strength, Dad headed home and Dan got working on Augustine's funeral arrangements.

Today Dan, Penny, my mother-in-law and cousins buried the tiniest casket I ever hope to see. There is a nice memorial in the local Catholic cemetery for miscarried and stillborn children and we chose to lay Augustine's body to rest there. We could have buried her with my father-in-law, but that seemed like too much sadness for one place to hold. It was sad enough to bury our daughter on mom and dad's wedding anniversary.

Physically, I'm doing ok. Antibiotics aren't too bad. The biggest problem at this point is figuring out what to do with the milk. It's kinda painful - on all levels really. I've gotten a few pointers to help out, though, so hopefully I'll find some physical relief soon. The rest will come eventually. The hospital had info on some support groups and I'm sure there are more I can find online if those don't work for me.

Just wanted to share a little about her name...
Augustine is Latin for "Great" or "Magnificent"
Anjali is Sanskrit for "Gift" or "offering" literally in Bengali "to give with a closed hand, ie: a flower or drinking cup"

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and kind wishes. All this is obviously really ugly to go through and it's nice to know we have all of you out there supporting us. We appreciate everything you've said, not said, and done to help us get through this.