Wordless Wednesday - Shawshank Edition

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Shawshank Edition

 

I am sure you have seen Shawshank Redemption, right?  If not, you should.  Great movie...

Well, we are beginning to think that Carder is like Andy Dufresne, but instead of trying to break out of jail, it is apparently the day care.

His favorite hobby is totin' sand out of the exercise yard a handful at a time.  Only he seems to end up with it in his shoes.  

And brings it home.

And dumps it out all over the couch or the floor...

Here is photographic evidence:

My God at the sand!  Seriously, do they have any left at the play ground?

One of these days the warden will call is and tell us he vanished like a fart in the wind and that they found a big hole in the wall behind a Sesame Street poster...

Wordless Wednesday - Sleeping With Daddy Edition

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Sleeping with Daddy Edition

 

Since I get up before the boys, I often get to marvel at the two of them sleeping.  I find it really interesting that they are often in similar positions...here are just a couple of recent examples...

 

 

(Also, you may or may not have noticed that I posted quite a few backdated posts yesterday...I am trying my hardest to get this space caught up!)

 

 

 

 

Decisions, Decisions...Comments Appreciated

I have a decision to make.  I just got a reminder from my phone that it is time to call and schedule my annual exam with my OBGYN.  And the same day that happened, AF arrived.

Even though I used to absolutely flood this space with TMI about my monthly cycles and our procreation attempts, I have been pretty quiet about it since Carder's arrival.

I know I have mentioned this before, but just in case anyone missed the posting:  Derek and I have decided not to pursue further fertility treatments.  Our disposable income drastically decreased when we moved to Michigan and we would rather use the money to spoil the one child we have.  We aren't "close" to a fertility treatment center.  Since it would be a new clinic, we may be required to do a fresh cycle before we would qualify for embryo adoption.  We are both over 35 and having the energy to chase after a little one (who still doesn't sleep all the way through the night in his own bed) is hard enough without adding a second child (or even more with ART in the mix).  Any resulting pregnancy would probably land me on bed rest due to a premature birth with our first child.  Anyway, you get the picture.

Although I would LOVE another child and I often get very sad when thinking that I will never get to experience all of the joy another child would bring, we won't be going down the path that would be the most likely to result in another child.  Instead, I have been crossing my fingers for a "miracle" pregnancy and hoping to become "that woman" that everyone keeps telling all of the other Infertiles about.

Yeah, I know...not very likely.  I would have better chances of winning mega millions in the lottery.

So this leads me to my decision that needs to be made.

To Birth Control or Not to Birth Control, that is the Question.

Last year, Dr. M and I decided that since we wouldn't be disappointed with a miracle pregnancy, we would be better off leaving BC out of the mix.

This year, I am not so sure.  AF has gotten to be a total bitch.  Before Carder, I had heavy flow and what I considered to be major cramping with the occasional migraine and IBS flare up thrown in the mix.  Now, I still get the heavy flow.  And I get severe cramping (that almost feels like back labor).  And in 7 out of the last 8 cycles I have gotten a severe migraine.  And most months I get an IBS flare up as well.  And now I sometimes get some random heavy spotting a few days before AF arrives.  (This, of course, leads the hopeful infertile to always wonder if it could possibly be implantation bleeding.)  Joy, joy.  Multiple curse words strung together.  Oh, and I have short cycles so this happens every 25ish days.  More multiple curse words strung together.

So first of all - am I the only one who has suffered a drastic change in menstrual cycles after childbirth?  Does anyone have any similar personal experience to share?

I don't know if there could be something related to having a Cesarean delivery that would cause a change in my cycles (scar tissue?  adhesions?  endometriosis?) or if it is changes in my hormone levels as I age that just signal my body is getting older?

Regardless, I think it is time to have the conversation with Dr. Marvelous about what the next step is.  And it may be time for me to throw the last bit of optimism and hope (regardless of how small that % of likelihood) that we will ever have another child out of the window.  And to be honest, that thought makes me very sad.

But as I sat in the floor of Carder's room last night doing our bedtime routine trying to decide if I was about to puke from the migraine or pass out from the back pain, I realized that spending a couple of days each cycle dealing with this crap just so I could UNSUCCESSFULLY ATTEMPT to defy the odds and get that miracle baby just might not be worth it anymore...

Any comments that you might have would be appreciated.

Also, I know I am WAY behind on posting and I have multiple draft posts that I will be flooding the internets with soon.

Cherry Picking Is So Much Fun

Among his other ventures, my boss owns quite a bit of farmland and he has a few cherry orchards.  Since he is a super nice guy, he sets a date each year there is a cherry crop and allows us to come pick cherries with our families.

There weren't any cherries last year, so we were pretty excited to get to pick cherries this year.

Carder was quite excited to get to pick cherries, too.  He was a very good cherry picker.  He loved climbing the ladder to get the ones that were very high up and he really didn't want to stop picking even when we had more than enough!

The farm manager even drove his tractor up so that Carder could ride on it.  I think he prefers the John Deere tractors with the cabs (like his Grandpa's) because he refused to ride on the tractor.  He did sit on our laps and pretend to drive, though.

Eatin' Watermelon

It's Watermelon Season!!!  OK, so it is too early for local watermelons, but the grocery store melons are starting to look pretty good.

We bought one today and I sliced it up while Carder napped.  We went outside after naptime and I let him have his very first slice of melon.

He wasn't quite sure what he thought of it at first, but it didn't take him too long to get the hang of it and to be burying his face up to his ears in sweet, sticky, juicy goodness.

A Trip to The Zoo

After battling the crowds of the festival for days, we had finally had enough.  On Saturday morning, we decided that we were going to head out of town and go to the zoo in Grand Rapids.  It was a very last minute decision, but in retrospect it was the best decision we could have made.

We called Derek's parents to see if they minded if we crashed at their house that night and invited them to go to the zoo with us.  And then we invited Derek' sister (who currently has a foster child) to drive up from Indiana to join us.  Amazingly, it worked out great.

We swung by to pick up Derek's parents and drop off the dogs.  Although we thought Carder would nap in the car, he slept all of 20 minutes.  Oh well.

We got to the zoo late in the afternoon but it was well worth the trip.  Carder was much more animated watching the animals this year.  I am not sure what his favorite animal was - but the penguins, monkeys, birds, and bears were all very interesting. 

The heat did make some of the animals lethargic and sleepy.  There were several times that Carder would call out to one of the animals to request that they wake up.

After the zoo we all went out to dinner together and the boys enjoyed jumping around in the backseat of my van while they waited for the adults to finish dinner.

Watching the Bears swimming in the pool and wishing we had a place to swim, too!




Family Photo on the Bear Statue

"Monkey. Come Down Monkey!"



 

4th of July

As I mentioned before, we live in a town where there is a huge festival around the 4th of July.  This makes getting around our town challenging to say the least.

We spent the morning of the 4th checking out a new beach close to our house and just hanging around.  After lunch and nap, we drove out to a local lighthouse.  Our intention was to hike through the woods, but we ended up playing on the shore in the rocks and the muck.  Carder even took off his shoes and waded in with us.

 

 

We had thought we would head downtown to have a beer at a local open air restaurant and then to watch a parade.  We fought the crowds on our bicycles to get to the restaurant and when we got there Carder wanted NOTHING to do with any of our plans.  He refused to eat dinner and didn't want to sit still for us to have dinner or our (much deserved after battling the crowds to get there) beer.  With about 30 minutes to go before the parade was scheduled to start, we decided that perhaps and event which required Carder sitting still was not going to happen.  We asked if he wanted to stay and see fire trucks and police cars and floats or if he wanted to go home and he decided he wanted to go home.

 

So, back through the parade crowd we went.

 

Once home, Carder played with the our next door neighbor's friends child (A) for a long time.  And then he ate his dinner, took a bath, and went to bed.

 

We listened to the booms of firecrackers being set off by our neighbors and patted Carder back to sleep a couple of times when he woke up from the noise.  Once it was dark, Derek and I settled in at the front window to watch the real fireworks that are shot off over the bay downtown (which we can see most of from our house).  As we listened to the child next door ooh and aah over the first few explosions, I looked at Derek and said "Does hearing A next door make you want to wake Carder up?"

 

So, we went in and gently woke Carder up.  We brought him out and he sat in my lap at the front window covered in a blanket and watched his first fireworks show.  We did try to walk next door to watch the show with our neighbors, but A had fallen and hit his head and was crying and I think it upset Carder a little bit.  A was fine, though, and kept coming over during the show to say Hi to Carder through our window.

 

Carder loved the fireworks and has talked about how loud they were and the shape of them for days.  There are more fireworks on the closing day of the festival, so we may have to wake him up for those, as well!