The Life Well Lived

Momma said there’d be days like this:

I guess that in order to really appreciate when all goes well, we all need those times where nothing works out as we would hope. Personally I just wish for as few of these days as possible, and when I’m in a week I would for the most part just assume forget, I try to think of the little things I really enjoy. This week, that’s just not coming as easily for me as I might wish.

There is something about a small persistent pain in the back that wakes one up at night that just seems to taint the way I view the rest of the day. It’s a little weird because it’s not the waking up that taints, it’s definitely the method. By way of proof, being woken up in the middle of the night by a wife willing to brave some fiercely terrible morning breath in order to give me a kiss before she heads to bed is one of those things that puts me in a great mood (often for days). Ah well, hopefully the meds from the doc will do as good a job alleviating the pain long term as they are doing putting me to sleep at night.

2 Things I really haven’t enjoyed this week:

Waking up with a back that feels like a Kimba (my dog) chew toy after I’ve spun her around for 5 min in the same direction. It’s not broken. It’s just really tight, to the point where my stomach hurts and I can’t tell exactly where in my back it hurts. Now that I’ve taken muscle relaxers for 2 nights it feels like the toy unwound but with a few teeth marks 🙂

Trying to fix a problem at work with a publication I spent months on. It’s rough because the problem with it existed due to a choice made by the person in my job before me, and now I find myself spending days I don’t have fixing a problem for a previous publication that we should be done with (to say nothing of the joy of telling others they have to spend time they don’t have). In fairness to the previous person in my job, I’m not sure how she would have known there would be a problem except now people are saying “now, why did you use that…” I’d be annoyed at her for making the choice if I could come up with some logic as to why I wouldn’t have made a similar mistake. Grrrr. It’s just disappointingly frustrating.

My 2 favorite parts of this week:

A. talking back to Barney (granted I always wish it was Sesame Street if I’m near but at least it’s not teletubbies), but getting her to smile and babble while I dance and snap to the beat was a great feeling. I posted a picture of the smile on her face at the time. Her babble and smile is one of those things I’ve thought about frequently this week, as I get frustrated. Yeah, I know. I was smiling and snapping to Barney, and that should probably never be admitted. However, children are a great excuse to be silly, and being off the wall cookoo is just about the best stress relief I’ve ever found.

As small a thing as it is, I still haven’t found a physical sensation better than the moment cold water covers my head in the shower after working out outside, getting piping hot and covered and sweat. I don’t know why, but for some odd reason, I take tremendous satisfaction from being hot enough that the cold water that hits my head runs off my nose feeling warm. There is just something about having worked that hard. Who knows, maybe the Shakers were on to something: “Hands to work hearts to God.” I’m not religious, but there is something to feeling better for having worked hard at something.

Two months into the whole child raising gig

It’s hard to belive it’s been two months already. Another week passed, and this one was pretty good. It’s kind of odd how we track time. I mark the passage of time in my memory by big events passing, and as I get older the things I use to mark the passage of time get bigger but further apart. Things like being old enough to drink, graduating college, getting a promotion, getting married all count now. These are how my memory records the passing of time, and it’s a far cry from being “six and a half.” Maybe that’s just my mind’s way of pretending not to grow old.

I mention this because as I watch my daughter, I’m brought back to recording the small things. Now I’m back to remembering little things like when she could first tripod for 30 seconds a few weeks ago. Now a week seems like a long time again when looked at and remembered in terms of progress made. Heck this week’s fun was me being able to take care of her for an entire day while my wife got to escape to Six Flags for day with a friend. I know that’s small potatoes, but being able to do little things like pack her in the car and head to the mall by myself was a fun little adventure. I laugh a little because she seems to love the mall…a sign of things to come? Like I said, I only laugh a little. In any event, I take it as a good sign for when J heads to Seattle for a week that we had a good time.

Last night ws awesome. We got her to eat food for the first time (with the doc’s permission to try). She ate some rice cereal with her formula in it. Now it was no where near enough to count as sustinance for a meal, but it was a great start. Given that when we first went to meet her in the hospital it was thought that she was a few years away from being able to take any food by mouth, this is great. It puts her years ahead of where she was predicted to be only 3 months ago. Now I just have to see if I can post any of the pictures of her eating (think I put one up of J feeding her). She spits out about a third of every spoonful, but if one spoons it right back to her, she eats it. Since it wasn’t all over her, and it wasn’t in the bowl…woohoo. We’re pretty confident in how she will do on her swallow test.

Things we work on now:
Laying on her tummy without crying
Looking up when laying on her tummy
Rolling over on her own
Building leg strength (I’m the dork lifting her like a jump when she finally puts pressure on her legs while I hold from the armpits…she loves it and it works well to put her in a good mood after tummy time).

I’m just happy with how much more energy she has. After the list above, I should probably note the hardest part for me will probably be me not responding to every cry. My wife was correct last night when she chided me for going to pick her up when she cries while playing the playstation. She said I should just give her a toy at least until she stops crying. Of course it worked…but it’s hard to not go for the immediate fix that I know is what she wants. But J is correct when she point out that spoiling her isn’t going to make anyone happy. Ah well, I just have to break the habit of trying to do what she wants just because she wants it all the time…now I just need a replacement strategy to get her to say “daddy” first 🙂

After almost two years, we’ll finally head onto the base. Time to see if there is anything good at the flea market.

Catch you later.