With the wheezes And the sneezes, And a sinus that's really a pip!

Being sick sucks. 

Being sick sucks on Valentine's Day, especially when your husband hasn't been home the last two. 

Having everyone in the house sick sucks. 

Being sick sucks when you're ovulating and the likliehood of getting pregnant is very low. 

I am mad at the whole situation and frustrated is not even close to the word that applies.

Sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

By throwing back the blanket, hanging down the withered leg(s)

Today was the first day of using the daycare on base. Since Violet is mere weeks from turning 3, they've allowed us to put her in the preschool 3-5 group and the set up looks really fun. During the orientation last week, all Violet wanted to do was rip her hand out of mine and go play. But, alas, not today.

This attitude of separation anxiety is not new. But between today's tantrum and Friday's failed attempted for ballet class (her 2nd class; the first class went so well and she said she enjoyed it a lot), I'm really having a hard time not feeling horrible. But feeling horrible is the whole reason why we decided to endure the 8 month waiting list of getting into the daycare.

There was a scene in "Friends" when Phoebe told Ross that she didn't really believe in gravity because she felt she wasn't being pulled down to earth by an unseen force as much as she felt like she's being pushed. Why do I mention this? Because with my arthritis issues, this is the easiest way I can think of to describe how I feel. I constantly have to trudge through my days. I have good days where I can actually sit up in bed without having to grip the edge of the mattress to get up, but even on the good days I can't seem to will lifting my right leg to climb stairs. My right foot is turned inward most of the time while I walk, and the image of Kevin Spacey walking in "Usual Suspects" is how I can describe my stride. All is to say, I am using daycare not because I work, but because I can't do my job of being a Mommy.

As I wrote this, my eyes are tearing. Because I hate admitting that I can't keep up with my toddler and throughout the day I feel less and less like a lovingly patient mother and more of an angry tyrant always barking at my little girl. I don't want to be a mean mommy.

I want so much to feel ok. I had a doctor's appointment that basically just ended with blood being drawn for lab tests and a follow up that won't happen for another couple weeks. So, still no answers.

And, forgive the TMI, we've been trying to get pregnant and yesterday I was met with another indication that we have to try again next month. But even that is riddled with conflict because, as much as I want Violet to be an older sister, I don't know what my body will do with the severe pain on top of being pregnant.

With all of the physical and mental anguish aside, I do need to figure out my balance of being a Mommy and being a person. I have recently volunteered to help with the OSS welcoming committee and hopefully I will be going through training on becoming a key spouse. There are specific reasons why I've decided to do this, but that will have to be for another blog post.

For now, I think I'll start my first day of Violet's daycare with a cup of coffee, a real breakfast and chill out before getting her in about 2 hours. I sure hope she's doing ok right now.

Just to rant to get this out of my system

I hate my body.

Not in the way where I think I'm too short or fat or unattractive. In the way where I am angry I can't walk normally. My joints in my legs, back, neck, feet won't work properly. At 16, I first experienced the mind blowing pain of not being able to roll out of bed. I would have to grip the edge of something so that I could heave myself out of bed. Then my right hip wouldn't allow me to walk without a limp. Over the last 20 years, the pain would ebb and flow and move. There were a good many years where I wasn't afflicted with anything severe. Luckily, I wasn't completely debilitated during pregnancy. But now, I can't get up out of my chair at will without having to steel my brain for the forthcoming pain that is standing up. Or moving. Or even having a sudden, violent sneeze.

For a year, Scott was gone, so the understanding was to use that year as a nice buffer between children. When he got back to me, we'd start trying for number 2. We always wanted more than one child and Violet is enamored of other people's little children. Yes, I know it's different, but we wanted it. But I just can't seem to have it happen. I know it's not my timing, and there is a strong possibility that having our own again will happen. I'm considering adoption, but that's not the step yet. I just can't let the sadness of not being pregnant go yet. I've always had a 'deadline' of sorts because I know how faulty my body is. There is no way we can keep up with an infant/toddler/young child past a certain age, and sadly, my body had decided to act like an 80 year old with severe osteoporosis.

Soon, I will completely have to reconcile this possible loss. I'm on my last little bit of hope of becoming pregnant, but optimism is fading fast. So, I spend a little bit of my day to day spontaneously crying for my stupid body and how much I hate things being beyond my control.

I am not worried, I am not overly concerned

This time of year always makes me a little blue. Not just the grey skies, but the fall air has a way of making me remember and I feel compelled to listen to music that does nothing but make those memories stronger. We've all moved on and we all turned out ok. Strange byproducts of the intensity, like being able to correctly hear cries of help from others, reaffirms my belief that our paths crossed for a reason. Scars were created for a reason. But so was healing. Like all deep cuts, they may never bother us after the healing is complete, but what remains will always have us remember. I don't regret it, so I don't mind still carrying it with me. I don't mind the tears or the sadness, because we all are fine. By Thanksgiving, I'll be fine again.

Doctor, Doctor, Gimmie the news....

Life in the last 48 hours:

Friday afternoon around 2pm - Violet woke up from her nap and was her normal, rambunctious self and was trying to see what I was doing in the kitchen, but I put my hand up to shoo her away because I was making ramen on the stove. She took this as a major affront and started stamping her feet and threw a massive fit. I finally get a chance to pick her up and I can feel that she is warmer than usual. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out a way to calm her down and take her temperature. When I finally did, it read 102.-something. I call Scott to get his advice on if I should go to Urgent Care, but he suggested just a bath first and then see how things are when he gets home. We do this and the temp still reads 102-something. The funny thing is, other than the tantrum, she's fine. Eating, drinking, playing and was probably more of a cuddle-monkey, but fine. We give her food, Tylenol, Curious George watching, a story and set her down for bedtime. She woke up twice, but finally settled at around 10pm and slept the night.

Saturday morning: she woke up chipper, completely fine, and no trace of a fever. The trick I finally learned to get her to let me take her temperature was to have her hum with me while the numbers went up. Temperature was back to normal, and her appetite never really changed. She wanted to have pancakes, so we had pancakes: purple ones with white chocolate chips. Morning play followed by normal nap.

Saturday afternoon: after her nap, I cooked up some pasta and gave her a little bit of tomato sauce, which is rare. She ate fine, played and had one very messy diaper. It wasn't until about 4:30 when we were getting ready to head out that I noticed a rash around her mouth. She had a rash on her chin, but I had figured that it was from the taggie blanket she constantly sucks on while she sleeps. While we were at the block party, we saw the rash on her arms, legs, back and shoulders and one bump on her lip and a (mosquito?) bite on her leg. With the trip coming so soon, we didn't want to mess around, so we went to Urgent Care. They took her vitals, checked out her mouth and said, yeah, it could be an allergic reaction to the tomato (she's had that before, but only around her mouth, probably because of the acid just settling on her face and us not wiping it off quickly) and not Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD), which has been going around on base. We go home, have dinner, read, watch more George and off to bed, this time with no fussiness.

Sunday: rash is still there, no fever since Friday, still energetic, playful and hungry. We go about our day just fine until around 4pm after eating watermelon. I noticed more bumps on her lips and now, a white bump on her tongue. Back to UC, same caregiver, and now a confirmation that it is HFMD. Nothing too bad, nothing alarming since she was hamming it up for him and displayed she was fine and playful, but still, that's what Violet has.

I don't blame the dude on changing his mind since Violet looked like she was just having a mild reaction. But now, I'm a little scared about how this will play out while we are away. I do, however, have the comfort in knowing that since we're going to be at Tripler Army Hospital anyway, we won't be far from doctors that can take a look at her.

MOMMY NOTE: So, apparently you are not supposed to give the child anything acidic while she has HFMD, like tomato or orange juice. I did both within the same day. Whoops.

I'm a traveling man, Made a lot of stops all over the world

This is the first moment I've been able to sit and take stock of what has happened in the last week. Actually, what has happened in the last year, because that's how far I'm taking this flashback.

End of September 2012, I arrived in New York City to hang out with some friends for a few days, go to another friend's wedding, travel from Northern NJ down to Baltimore and catch a flight to Greenland so that I could visit with Scott for a week. But, instead of all of that, I found out on the day that I landed in NYC that Scott had broken his ankle and was going to be transported to an army hospital in Virginia. He and I spent the majority of October in a hotel in Fort Belvoir, having him go through two separate surgeries. We were still able to have fun and I was even lucky enough to catch a post season MLB game at the Washington Nationals stadium, thus crossing that off my "list of stadiums to go to." Not too shabby.

Montage time: Scott finishes his time in Greenland, we pack up our home in Colorado, have a loooong awaited reception for our wedding, move to Japan, live in Yokota for 4 months.

In all that time, Scott was still limping. He finally gets a doctor here at Yokota to look at it and then flew down to Hawaii for a further assessment, came back and told me he needed to get another surgery because a) the bones never healed properly and they are fusing incorrectly and b) a screw that was placed in his ankle has broken. Keep in mind: Scott had previously broken THE SAME ANKLE back in August 2009.

Conclusion: his surgery must take place in Hawaii again, he is required to have a chaperone to travel and stay with him. Sounds fantastic, right? We'll get back to this, because in the meanwhile....

One of our mutual and close friends gets engaged and was to be married 6 months after the engagement. Scott and I made the decision to send me to represent the Fourres and have Scott and Violet stay behind. I went, I cried, I partied, I laughed. I was also a walking zombie because of the jet lag and time difference, but I was able to cowboy up for a good time.

I then flew back and only after one good night's sleep, I tried to tackle the possibility of Scott having to leave for Hawaii a day before Violet and me. Looking down the barrel of an 8 hour flight and being the only one to wrangle a very active 2 year old was a little bit too much for me to wrap my head around. Especially considering we had less than a week to nail down the details and were coming up against a 4 day weekend (stupid Labor Day....)

In order to nail down said details, we needed Scott to receive his orders. In order to do that, I had to fill out some paperwork, though it took me three trips to the hospital offices to do this. Time check? Wednesday the 28th and Scott is (semi-)scheduled to leave on Monday the 2nd for a surgery on Wednesday the 4th. On Thursday, it took some major wandering (and LOTS of patience), only to have to wait a bit more for Scott to finally leave work early to sort out Violet's plane ticket.

The final outcome to this story is that we finally got our flights, our hotel and Scott's surgery all arranged by 3pm Thursday, cutting this really close to the 3:30pm end of office hours and a Friday and Monday closure of these offices.

Yes, it turned out alright in the end. But I am not an adrenaline junkie who needs the rush of success at the last minute. I'd much rather not go greyer than I have to and have a few more years on my life.

Grand Marnier French Toast

Last recipe-related post for the evening: MORE FRENCH TOAST!

Again, I was at a loss for what to do for dinner, so my fallback is always brinner. I had retrieved a free bottle of Grand Marnier from a family who is PCS'ing (Permanent Change of Station - basically, people/families who are moving onto their next base) and I figured I should make use of the windfall by making something yummy.


Grand Marnier French Toast

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 1/4 cup Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur or frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 3/4-inch-thick French bread slices

• 4 tablespoons(1/2 stick) butter

Preparation

Whisk first 6 ingredients to blend in medium bowl. Dip each bread slice into egg mixture and arrange in 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Pour remaining egg mixture evenly over bread. Let stand until egg mixture is absorbed, at least 20 minutes. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 350&F. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add 4 bread slices to skillet and saut&until cooked through and brown, about 3 minutes per side. Place on baking sheet in oven to keep warm. Repeat cooking with remaining 2 tablespoons butter and 4 bread slices. Transfer French toast to 4 plates. Sift powdered sugar over. Serve with maple syrup.

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In an unusual move, I strayed from the path right from the start. Judging from my last try at French toast and the fact that I ran out of batter and butter from the get go, I adjusted. Also, I had no half and half, so I made do. Here are the adjustments:

5 eggs
1 1/2 TBsp water
1 1/2 TBsp  milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp banana extract
7 TBsp butter
1/8 c Grand Marnier

That last tweak was because I was a little worried that the alcohol wouldn't burn off completely and I was serving it to Violet. Yay, responsibility!

The recipe turned out pretty well and I had batter to spare, so I just fried it up like it was regular scrambled eggs. The eggs tasted a tad greasy, but pretty good other than that. Definitely warranting a bit of variation, but good overall.