Catching up

We’ve had a lot going on over here. I say that a lot, don’t I?

I have a back log of photos to share, of our first canoe trip with both kids, pool days and smiley Lina. Between the normal errands, summer outings and medical and therapy appointments, we’re on the go a lot. Our weekends have been full, as well, which has made for a couple of tired kiddos. We’ve been having fun, but I also find myself really valuing our increasingly-rare quiet days at home.

Corin started a Mother’s Day Out program last week. He goes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays to the little Baptist church five minutes up the road, and he loves it. I get an impressive amount done in that time. Thus this blog post.

We got a new-to-us couch this week. This bears mention, because the cheap Rooms to Go couches we’ve been abusing for 10 years had become such a bane to our existence. Between the dog and the kids (but mostly the dog), we cannot in good conscience even donate them to Goodwill. They will be going out on the curb as soon as I can arrange trash pick-up. Jon suggested a bonfire. Amazingly, Tennyson (the dog) seems mostly content with staying off the new couch. Perhaps it was the lecture Jon gave him in which he threatened, with little need for exaggeration, that if Tennyson in any way damaged the new couch, I was likely to send him out the front door with no hope of return admittance.

We’ve had some challenges, as well. The a/c at the house is not working properly, and by the end of the day, it hits at least 80 degrees in here. The repairman has not returned our call. The insomnia I experienced for quiet a while after Corin’s birth has returned, and I am running on too little sleep most of the time. And Lina is on day 10 of a hunger strike, which has me pretty concerned. She only finishes bottles if she’s asleep, and sometimes not then. She takes little to nothing at her waking feedings. We’re used to ebbs and flows in her feedings, but this is bad, even by Lina standards. I have a suspicion it may be thyroid-related. She was due for thyroid blood work this week, anyway. I wanted to get it done at Vanderbilt, but given my growing concern, I ran her up to the pediatrician yesterday to get it done sooner. This was a mistake. It took three nurses, three separate sticks and a nightmarish amount of digging before they found a vein on my pitiful, screaming baby. We were all traumatized. I have a whole new respect for the lab tech at Vandy who a few months ago drew blood with one simple stick and minimal screaming.

Speaking of the baby, it’s time to cajole her into downing her new standard of three ounces. Wish me luck.

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Kiddie Pool with Claire and Cousin Benjamin