He came out screaming

and he barely stopped for the first hour.

He was my most difficult pregnancy and delivery. And he’s possibly been the most challenging to rear so far. 

But the effort has been worth it. These last four years with Simon have been so full of joy.

Simon has proven himself to be creative, intelligent, energetic, violent (for a bit of balance and humility), and loves his family.

He's already great at building Lego's, playing with play-doh, coloring, and cutting paper, among other things.

We’ve celebrated a birth in Virginia, two birthdays in Costa Rica and another two in the Philippines.

He’s held a steady favorite color of green for quite a while.

As well as a love for airplanes. Luckily John made this years cake, and it turned out much better.

We’re so happy that Simon is in our lives and we look forward to many, many more birthdays to come.

No more wrist brace

I stopped wearing it. I’m not having any more pains and I figured it was time to try going without. So far, so good.

We found out that Malachi’s school in Jamaica starts the last week of August. This is great news!

It gives us more time to get there than we originally thought. Now I just have to send them all the information that they require for admissions. I recently heard someone lament that getting their kindergarten into an International School was like enrolling for college.

I can’t say from experience what enrolling in public school is like. Enrolling in AISK is very similar to enrolling in ISM. Here’s the list of Pre-School – Grade 3 application process (Step 2) taken from their website:

Completed Application part 1 and fee (US$50)

Copy of Birth Certificate/photo page in passport

2 passport photographs

Vaccination records

Last 3 end-of-year reports

Elementary Confidential Reference

Any professional educational evaluations done by outside source

External Standardized Test Results (if available)

Personal Interview/Assessment and Campus Tour

This is all after an enquiry which is an email sent to the school to make your intentions of applying known. It’s an opportunity for us to introduce our child and family and give them an idea of what’s in store. Step 3 is admission decision (which is a given for us, and we’ve already been told he has a spot, even though we haven’t completed step 2).

This is what many families go through every two to four years to enroll their children in school. Some families have more to do, some less, I would think. It’s crazy! Right now I’m doing this for one child, but when we’re enrolling in a new school after Jamaica I will be doing it for three (3!) children. That’s a lot of paperwork to do for school.

Our departure date hasn’t been approved yet, but if we get the one we want, we’ll be departing in fewer than four months! That’s not very long from now. I’m excited to have some time in the States. I’m very ready for that.

Right now, though, I think I should work on that application…

Down to nights…

with my wrist brace.

My wrist gets a little sore by the end of the day. I don’t know if it’s a nerve thing or if maybe I’m treating it weird through the day because of the nerve thing, and it therefore gets sore.

I got through the last half of January without feeling too sorry for myself. Though I did get a bit depressed. The pinched nerve wasn’t the only issue that we discussed at that fateful appointment. I’ve had joint pain in my hands, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, finger, toes, etc…for a long while. I’ve tried ignoring it because I don’t want anything to be wrong with me. It’s becoming too hard to ignore though. Jars are pretty difficult these days, and if I hold a pot or pan for any amount of time, my fingers are in the shape of the handle until I painfully straighten them out (this has been happening for a long time, think…at least a year and a half), being in one position for too long causes stiffness, pain, and/or popping of joints. Too long can be as short as 30 seconds.

The med unit gave me a number for a Rheumatologist. The one they recommend most is open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10-2. The three times I’ve tried calling I haven’t gotten through to make an appointment. I’m going to ask the MED unit to make the appointment. They offered, but I decided to do it since I know my schedule. I’ve recently decided to forget about it, and whenever they can get me in, I’ll reschedule things around it.

So…I’ll have blood tests, and who knows what else to see if I have arthritis. If I do, I’ll just have to…

I figure it’s better to find out now, then let it get worse. Or to find out I don’t have it, and figure out why I have so much joint pain. I don’t look forward to this, but I’m happy it’s happening.

On a (much) less depressing note, Coen is doing fairly well with potty training. He still has accidents, but more often than not, he’s peeing in the potty. He’s still wearing special night time underwear and fully taking advantage of them. I’ve tried Pamper’s pants, Huggies pants, and Pull-Ups. I think Pull-Ups are the best. However, a box of them here costs more than $50, so I might have to buy them online and use the Huggies and Pampers that I still have.

John was paneled by HR for our job in Jamaica meaning that it’s official now. We’re aiming to arrive there in August before school starts. The school we’re enrolling him in started the third week of August for the current year. We’re hoping that it does that again for the next one. We’d like to leave Manila shortly after he finishes second grade to make sure that we can get all the vacation and training that we/he’d like, before arriving in Kingston. If we find a schedule that works for all of us, I’ll be like Liz Lemon when she gets her hands on a great TGS schedule.

Not Feeling Young

Pain in my right shoulder. Spreading from a point in my upper shoulder out to my neck, and down my arm. Pain so bad that Sunday I had someone come massage my shoulder and arm and practically thought that she was taking all last year’s anger out on me. It helped for about 15 minutes. 

Monday when I woke up the tingly, numb-ish, and pain feelings reached my finger tips. I knew it was time to see someone about it. I knew deep down that it was probably a nerve. But I was afraid. In my mom’s side of the family we have had a lot of disc problems. In my Google research, I read that the type of pain I was feeling can be a sign of disc issues.

I was so afraid that I asked John to come with me to the clinic and basically hold my hand (though it didn’t quite go that far). We went into the clinic and after I explained my tingling and pain and numbness, and the very specific path it all followed,  she suspected that it was in fact a pinched nerve. She had me hold my arms straight out with my inner-wrist facing up. She started tapping on my wrists and immediately my right arm starting tingling and numbing, after a little longer my upper-shoulder started hurting.

She explained that there are two places that this nerve gets pinched. The wrist (carpel tunnel) and the elbow (cubital tunnel), the stimulation on my wrist and the reaction I had indicated that it was compression was in my wrist. She said the muscle pain I was experiencing was caused by the pinched nerve.  She prescribed some pain meds to take for a couple of days until the nerve was straight and the muscles stopped hurting. She also gave me a wrist brace to keep my wrist straight and relieve pressure and force the nerve to straighten.

And those words, “wrist brace.” I felt like my spirit was broken. I really, really didn’t want to wear a wrist brace. I felt like, and I know it’s not true, but I felt like only old people wear them. And I’m NOT old. ugh.

ugh. ugh.

But…ok. That’s what she said I needed to do, so I was going to do it. I was one of the first appointments that morning. When I walked out I had a lot of time left in the day. We did some shopping at S&R after the appointment. I ate a churro and took the pain killers. By the time I got home the pain had ebbed. Not long after I got home the pain was gone. Like…gone, gone. I had to give it to her, she gave me good pain killers.

I wore the brace that day and had to admit that even after the pain killers wore off, it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. I went to bed with the brace on. And slept. I slept really, really well. I slept the best I’ve slept in a long time. 

When I woke up at some point that night I realized I had no pain. Absolutely no pain. When I woke up with the alarm in the morning, I still had no pain. I was so happy. I didn’t take my morning pain meds, I didn’t need it. wooooohoooooo!

I went through the day wearing the brace and not doing too much. I did some driving, went to the dentist, took a nap, asked my helper to make the dinner (can I say that at times like these, I’m so, so happy that we can afford a helper here in Manila. Having her make the pork for our tacos last night was so helpful, I tried shredding it after it was done, and couldn’t, it hurt too much). And I slept and it was great.

I emailed her this morning  and told her that the brace truly worked. yay! I thought she’d said to take off the brace during the day after a couple of days if it worked. I also asked if lots of iPhone-ing could cause the problem.

She emailed back, happy that we’d pin-pointed the problem and happy that the pain was gone. She told me to decrease day time wearing, but to make sure that I wear it during repetitive wrist motion - computer time (*cough* blogging *cough*), and iPhone-ing (which can exacerbate the problem, yes) being some of those times.

So I put the brace on, and began to blog. And you know what? My shoulder and arm and wrist hurt a bit.

So I’m done.

Don’t make decisions on day 1

One shouldn’t make decisions on day 1 of potty training.

It’s such an emotional day, that one should refrain from any important thoughts. I think that yesterday I made and un-made and re-made many decisions.

Day 1 of potty training is similar to having an infant as far as stress-levels go. You’re all…

You also doubt everything you’re doing. It’s one of those days where you need to remind yourself that you’re not a total fail as a parent.

At the end of the day (with my potty-training style) the pull ups (a.k.a. “special nighttime underwear”) go on and you can breath a sigh of relief knowing you have about 11 hours of peace…and dryness.

Our day 2 was much easier than day 1. I felt comfortable making decisions yesterday. Day 3 (today) has been another hard one. We filled his little bladder to the limits and he couldn’t hold it in! Tomorrow – less water!

This morning, he woke up at 3:30 a.m. His nighttime underwear was full when he woke up, and I think he’s reached the point where he wakes up and realizes that he’s peeing. I remember Simon going through this thing during potty training. I hope he doesn’t continue a crazy-early wake up like Simon did. Otherwise, I’m gonna be all…

Though I don’t drink coffee, so I’ll be all, “I need green tea in an IV.” Good thing I have lots.

No More Babies

It’s official.

There are no more baby boys in this house.

Coen started his potty training today. He was very proud of his underwear and showed it to his daddy after putting it on.

I don’t know how ready I am for this. I love the baby phase. It’s the only phase when they can’t get away and they have to cuddle with you!

However, the fact that they’re getting older is a good thing. It means more independence for them, and more freedom for other people (*cough* parents *cough*). It will be great to travel without the worry of diapers, wipes, changing pad, etc. Granted we’ll still travel with change of clothing, but that’s nothing new. That, we’ve been doing for years.

No more babies.

This is a good thing…right?

Yes, it is. It really, really is.

Happy New Year

We tried.

We tried very hard.

We tried so hard, that I’m quite surprised we didn’t succeed.

However, we didn’t. We didn’t get child care. Therefore, we stayed home.

And we really enjoyed it.

We took no photos, unfortunately. So I can’t prove how fun a night it was, but it was really fun.

John went to the store at about 5:00 p.m. to get appetizers. He brought up a tradition from growing up. They always had appetizers for dinner on New Year’s Eve (in case you hadn’t caught that already).

I was pleasantly surprised that the store was open, especially since we were down to 1 diaper, and we weren’t quite ready for potty training to start. I’m postponing it until Monday.

I digress.

He came home and the whole family enjoyed this tradition quite a lot. Due to the last minute-ness of it all we didn’t have the really good appetizers. Next year, in Jamaica, we’ll do a bit more planning and make sure we have the meatballs, and tiny pigs in blankets, and the rye toasts. Mickey, we might need you to send rye toasts.

We put the kids to bed at a fairly regular time, and put in Octopussy. We’re going through all the Bond movies in order, due to having purchased the whole set (before Skyfall was out, however, it has now been added to the collection thanks to my Dad and Step-Mom’s great gift to me).  After that, we started the current season of Castle. We were quite behind, so we had fun starting it.

At about 11:55 we grabbed our champagne flutes, our Proseco (sparkling wine, because we have never bought champagne for the house. like…ever), and waited for the clock on his phone to change to 12. We didn’t count down, or watch fireworks, or anything grand.

But in the quiet of our living room, all by ourselves, it was really sweet. We watched more Castle, drank the bottle of wine, and eventually went to bed. It was quiet, and small, and really nice.

I thought it was going to be lame, and I tried to convince him to go to a party we’d been invited to, but he stayed.

And I’m glad.