Pumpkin Carving

It's technically 'fall' (even though I don't think we even have that season in Southern California), and we're days away from October, but the expected high of 86 today has me feeling otherwise.  However, I'm getting ready to put out my fall & Halloween decorations, so I'm getting into the spirit as best I can.  Maybe a visit to Starbucks for some pumpkin spice goodness would further the autumn festivities.

I mentioned in my Halloween flashback post that Adam is the pumpkin carving expert in our family, so I gathered a little visual of his handiwork.  This week has been hectic with a flat tire, an ant infestation (2 times) in the kitchen, getting my braces off, and a much needed,but unexpected several hour a/c repair, so my visions of a simple, but cute little collage went out the window.  2006 and 2007 seem to have escaped me, maybe it's backed up somewhere?  I think I mentioned it before too, but 2011 was our 'eek we have a newborn'  time period, so, this cracked pumpkin I spotted at the pumpkin patch is the closest we came to a carved jack-o-lantern that year.  but, it's a cute little review nonetheless, Adam does a great job!

Our 4 year anniversary is next week, maybe I'll put together a cute collage for that.  But maybe first I should attempt to find a babysitter, make sure Adam can get away from work, and figure out some anniversary plans.  :)

BBQ Sauce, Elevators, Fiji & Passports

Awhile back we got Disneyland annual passes but we've yet to take Sebastian for his first visit because Adam's been crazy busy with work.  We haven't done anything too extraordinary lately because of his work schedule, but we do have things planned for October - fun things: a trip to the pumpkin patch, family pictures, and our Halloween party.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share some random facts and things about myself just to keep my fingers exercised.

• I will never make Sebastian ants on a log.  I despise raw celery as well as raisins, and, (shock), I'm not a huge peanut butter fan.

• On that note, I really don't care for BBQ sauce either.  I enjoy a good BBQ meal, but one way to ruin it is to use too much BBQ sauce.  Moderation please!

• I never, ever knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Ever.

• I hate elevators.  Sometimes I make Adam take the stroller in the elevator and I'll take the stairs and meet up with him.

• I may just love snickerdoodles and oatmeal cookies a tad more than chocolate chip cookies, but only a little.  And they taste the best right out of the oven, preferably if my mom has made them.

• Half Baked is my favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's.

• I have never seen The Notebook.

• I can't draw, cut, or sew in a straight line to save my life.

• I love to look at the trips on sale on Groupon and imagine myself going to all the places.  Right now I'm drooling over a week in Fiji.  The same goes when Adam and I watch F1, we play the, would you rather go watch a race here, or here (most recently it was Monaco versus Singapore).

• I feel like I deserve a gold medal when I accomplish chores I hate.  Today I scrubbed the shower and vacuumed the stairs.  I hate those chores, and yes, I want a housekeeping gold medal for getting both done in the same day!

Yup, close to half of these tidbits involved food and I'm not ashamed one bit.  :P One mentioned celery and raisins, so really, there's just the ice cream and cookie mentions, which isn't bad at all.

If we ever do win the lottery and take one of those Groupon trips, or end up in Singapore; children's passports are only good for 5 years while adult passports are good for 10.  I'm positive that bit of knowledge will come in handy some day.

6 Months

As September fades away, I realize the month marked 6 months post-surgery.  Most of the time I'm pretty positive about things, heck, I have good reason to be happy where I am right now, but there are times I get frustrated I can't make my nerves heal faster.  However, as I've reflected on things, I realize I really have come a long way since March.

At the very beginning of March I had no idea what kind of tumor was residing in my spinal cord.  I really only knew my body was not happy with it.  The analysis after surgery gave the evil sucker a name, an ependymoma, and it was benign, thank goodness!

Immediately after surgery the one thing I noticed was the tingling.  My entire body from the neck down was pins & needles and it felt like I had a metal band squeezing around my midsection.  After getting over that shock, I realized more than half my fingers were numb and I couldn't get them to do what I wanted.  The surgical site was tender, but oddly, to me it was a good kind of pain and not the terrible pain from the tumor.  In the hospital I needed help getting around, heck, I needed help to use the bathroom and brush my hair.  About the only things I could do myself were brush my teeth and wash my face (and that was only possible because of those cleansing face wipes)!  I could feed myself, but it was messy and some of the food gave me difficulty (not to mention that hospital food sucks, its so bland, but that's a whole other topic).

I experienced my first ambulance ride from the hospital to the recovery center, they're very bumpy.  It was there where I, at the ripe ole age of 32, learned I would need a shower chair and a walker, and for a time, I even had a wheelchair.  I still needed help with just about everything.  Modesty wasn't an issue, there was no choice, I couldn't do a majority of basic necessities on my own.

When I got home, in addition to the tingling and numbness, I realized how much we use the little muscles in our neck.  The first time I bent down to put a fork in the dishwasher, I thought my head was going to explode and fall off.  When I tried to lean over the bathroom sink to wash my face...I couldn't bend real well or hold my head up at that angle for too long, and made a huge mess of soapy water.  My occupational therapist suggested only buying small cartons of milk as a gallon would be too heavy to lift.  Since my fingers weren't working too well I pulled my socks up with my thumbs and index fingers, with the remaining fingers sticking straight out.  We went out and bought several pairs of yoga pants because I couldn't do buttons on pants.  I had to take the stairs up and down, one slow step at a time.  I couldn't put my own hair in a pony tail, turning my head and getting my fingers to manipulate the hair band were too difficult.  I cut 4 or 5 inches off my hair just to make life easier.  I had a TON of help with Sebastian because I couldn't hold him as I had no idea how tightly I would be squeezing him, and I couldn't pick him up, or lean down to play with him.  Bathing him?  Forget it.  Impossible.  The simple act of holding a fork was a challenge.  My fingers just did not want to cooperate.  My mom had to write checks for me to pay the bills, I couldn't even hold a pen.  And driving?  Well, I couldn't feel my feet, so that was out of the question.

That was in March.

Shall we take a look at the recovery process now?

I'm driving.  I bought, not one, but TWO gallons of milk yesterday.  I'm back in the gym, I've been cleared to lift light weights and do the stationary bike and elliptical machine.  I want to run, but my left leg/foot are still numb, so I pose a risk to myself on the treadmill.  I can do my hair on my own, as well as putting on makeup again.  Hello liquid eyeliner!  I'm able to give a 20 pound squirming toddler a bath on my own.  I don't feel my head will separate itself from my body when I load the dishwasher.  I've begun keeping a journal to work on my writing.  Oh, and I went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and rode Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain!

Basically, to look at me, I really don't think you'd notice anything different.  The remaining healing is all nerves.  Of course there's a wicked scar where the neurosurgeon went in, but it's on the back of my neck and I have long hair.  My fingers are still numb, but I have much better control over them, pretty much the only uncooperative finger is my left pinky.  I'm able to tell temperature in my left hand so I'm not at risk of burning myself with too hot shower water.  My left leg still tingles and my foot is still numb, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was.  Sometimes, and I think it may, in part, be related to hormones, my symptoms increase a bit, but they almost always decrease again within a week or two.  My doctor said they could get worse before they get better so I'm always hopeful that's a good sign.

In general, I feel like I'm making good progress, but this has been a crazy lesson in patience and I am so not a patient person.  If I'm honest, I do wonder if one can become depressed from lack of sensation.  It's one of our major senses.  But, when I start to feel like that, I remind myself that a tumor the size of a shelled peanut was removed from inside my spinal cord.  If the healing process feels like it's taking forever, well, my body probably didn't like a brain surgeon operating for five hours in such an important and delicate area.  That's a lot of progress in a six month time span.  Of course, me and my impatience would have been just fine if all this healing and mending could have taken place in the span of, say, six weeks, instead, but, so far, so good.  Let's just hope the remaining healing can speed the heck up, because, yeah...still not patient and I want to shake the numbness, regain the missing sensation, and totally, 100% feel like ME again.  Are you listening nerves???  I'm talking to you.  I don't miss that tumor and neither should you.  :)

Eat, Sleep, Play, Repeat

Last week I wanted to do post with a side by side comparison of Sebastian over his first year to see how much he'd grown and changed, but life got in the way.  He got sick, and taking care of a sick kiddo is a ton of work.  On Wednesday he woke up and was cranky all morning, but I was hopeful it was teething.  When I picked him up from daycare they said he was clingy and needy all day.  By 8PM he had a high fever.  The fever lingered all day on Thursday and I pretty much had to hold him the entire day.  He wanted nothing but Mommy.  He finally broke the fever on Friday morning, but then had a rash for two days.  I took him to the doctor on Saturday to make sure the rash wasn't anything too serious, and finally, that night he slept for 12 hours straight after two long nights of restless, sicky sleep.

Adam does a great job documenting Sebastian with his iPhone.  Sometimes it's a hassle to dig out my big camera for a few spontaneous shots and grabbing your phone is quicker and easier - which is often good when taking pictures of a baby since they don't sit still for more than a split second unless they're asleep.  All the pictures in the collage are unedited camera phone pictures (not that I do much editing to my pictures to begin with, other than adjust some brightness levels), so this is a 'real deal' glimpse into 'everyday' life, haha!

Sebastian went from just under 6 pounds at birth, to just over 20 pounds at his one-year check up.  He grew  about 7 inches during those 12 months, and he had 4 hair cuts before his first birthday.  All these pictures make me feel like the first year flew by!

Remembering 9/11

Growing up I remember school assignments, typically history ones, where we were learning about a particular time period and we had to interview someone about what they were doing when a specific event occurred.  I recall interviewing my grandpa about what he was doing when Pearl Harbor was bombed and asking my parents what they were doing when we landed on the moon.  Will Sebastian ever have an assignment to ask me what I was doing when 9/11 happened?

My immediate answer wouldn't be that impressive.  I was sleeping.  It happened on the east coast and it was pretty early in the morning.  I was in my last semester at Cal State Fullerton and my alarm was going off.  I hit snooze several times until I thought I heard something about a plane crash and the pentagon?  OK, that got me out of bed and downstairs where my parents had the TV on and I got up to speed on the morning's tragic events.  To this day I couldn't tell you if I was awake when the second plane hit.  It was too early, I was too tired, I was shocked at what I was seeing on the news, and I had to get to school because I had a midterm.

People were following the news at school.  My first class of the day was History of Rock and the professor didn't bother to show up.  We went to the student center and watched the news on the big screen.  My second class of the day was Stress Management, the class where I had the midterm.  The instructor was a sweet older lady and given the name of the class, postponed our test until a less stressful time.  She mentioned she heard rumors of the campus closing for the day and suggested we get to our cars and go home before the inevitable mass exodus that would soon follow.

I had to work later in the afternoon.  That's pretty much the last thing I remember of the day.  I was working after school day care and we had a little pow-wow before school got out to discuss what to tell the kids if they asked what had happened.  I don't really remember what we came up with, something along the lines of, bad people did something bad, very basic.

A few years ago I was talking to my (much younger) cousins and, while they were alive, they were so young that they don't remember anything about that day.  This past weekend we were at dinner with two of Adam's coworkers who both lived on the east coast in 2001 (Boston and New Jersey) and the day's events hit much closer to home for them.  They're around our age and it was interesting to hear their memories.

It's tragic the reason why this date is so memorable.  It's humbling to recall the events and those who lost their lives, and it never gets old hearing recounts of all of the heroic efforts of the day.  It's part of our American history and we will never forget.

Est. 2008?

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday.  The decorations, the baked goods, and my favorite part, finding the perfect gifts for friends and loved ones.  I love the 'holiday season.'  Michaels not only has their Halloween decorations out, but they've already got a pretty sizable Christmas section going on.  We just flipped the calendar to September!!! 

While I love Christmas, I'm in no hurry to actually host the holiday at my place.  Several years ago my sister held a Cinco de Mayo party and we joked that, since Mom had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, she now had her 'holiday.'  Hmm...what holiday could I lay claim to?  Halloween seemed like the obvious answer since we don't really do much grilling, eliminating the 4th of July and Labor Day, there wasn't much else to choose, it was a no brainer.

So, in 2008, just a couple weeks after getting married, we hosted not just our first party, but our first annual Halloween party.  Since I'm pretty excited about our theme this year, I was in the mood for a little flashback.

In 2009, after basically just hosting the previous year like a dinner party, we got into the fun spirit of Halloween.  Decorations were ordered from Oriental Trading and Melanie came up with a theme for us.  Loved the decorations and our theme made for some fun pictures.

Front entry table

View into the kitchen from the living room

There wasn't really a theme in 2010.  I wanted to be a zombie, but nobody else did, so, as long as you came in costume, it was all good.  Adam had fun giving all the appetizers fun names to go along with the theme.  Each year we add another piece or two to our decorations, I was excited to get some black cake stands at Target and show off my homemade mini pop tarts and pumpkin cupcakes. 

All homemade appetizers, a lot of work, but so good.

Our fun menu, Adam came up with most of the names!

Entry table as dessert buffet

In 2011 we were coming to terms with being new parents so a Halloween party never materialized.  I did manage to get Sebastian to the pumpkin patch and put together a costume for him.  We plan to take him back to the pumpkin patch again this year, maybe his eyes will be open for pictures!

 

I should do a separate post of the pumpkins Adam's carved over the years.  I usually clean them out and let him cut them up.  If it were up to me I'd spend about 30 minutes figuring out what I wanted to do before starting, it takes him about five minutes and he always has fun and unique ideas.  We're all set for our party this year and we have a fun theme.  I'm pretty sure I'll do a homemade dessert, but I've already got my eyes on several appetizers at Trader Joe's and I think we'll order pizza for dinner, keep it easy with minimal clean up or kitchen prep.  I can't wait to post pictures from this year's party, our theme should provide for some fun times!

Birthday Party Decor

Part of the fun in planning a theme party is coming up with the decorations.  Race cars is a simple enough theme, but some aspects of the decor were tricky because most 'race car' party stuff out there is all tied into the Disney Cars movie.  I wanted Sebastian to have a special birthday shirt and there were a ton of cute ones available on Etsy, but they were expensive!  My solution was to make him one myself.  :) I think it turned out pretty cute.  It was tricky to find a checkered flag print that was small enough it wouldn't be lost on a tiny onesie.  The hardest part was figuring out the Wonder Under - I must be challenged because it didn't really adhere and we had to stitch around the 1, but I like that better because it makes it stand out more.

My favorite part of the decorations had to be the cupcake toppers.  They are adorable, I could look at the picture of the cupcake tower all day long!  I made a collage of the party set up because it was my first birthday party attempt and I think it turned out pretty well, so I had to document it.  The same seller on Etsy that made the invitations did the water bottle labels and I found checkered flag cupcake papers, flags, napkins/plates, and table cloths at Hobby Lobby.  There weren't any set plans for decorating the table, but I made stoplights out of milk cartons, painted some wooden cars from Oriental Trading, and found some paper mache letters at Target so I painted two S's.  The kids gift baskets had a checkered flag patterned bandanna, a trophy with some chocolate gold coins, a toy car, race car themed bracelets, and a "#1" body sticker.  At the last minute I decided I wanted to have Abba Zabba's for the adults because their packaging worked with the checkered flag pattern, but man, they are hard to track down!  No luck at the two grocery stores I tried, Target, CVS or Walgreens.  Thank goodness there's a Powell's Sweet Shop near by!  There are a TON of adorable handmade birthday hats for sale on Etsy (discovered when I was looking at the shirts), but I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on a birthday hat that Seb probably wouldn't even wear.  I found a cardboard one at Party City and could justify the two bucks that cost and I'm glad I did because I think he wore it for about 40 seconds.

I had leftover fabric from the shirt so I cut out little triangles and taped them around Sebastian's high chair tray, my less time consuming version of a bunting banner.  We even packed his race car bib!  I had picked up a large foam #1 finger with hopes of getting it onto Seb's hand, but had no luck with that.  I tried for weeks to get him to point and hold up one finger, but was unsuccessful.  Now, a couple weeks later, he's constantly walking around doing it.  He didn't care for the foam finger though, so I don't have any pictures of that.  Maybe if we had gone with this theme for his second birthday I might have had better luck.

And of course, I don't think we got a single family picture that day.  :(  I'm going to have to remind myself to get one next time and at future parties.  I'm also looking forward to when he gets older and the parties can be held at fun places.  As I type this I'm having flashbacks to all the Saturday's spent working at Camelot back in high school and dealing with the birthday parties.  We've got our family Halloween party in October and then no more parties until next year!

The Unofficial End of Summer?

Labor Day weekend hasn't really been  the unofficial end of summer for me since I was in high school.  College semesters always started at the end of August, and once I had a desk job, I really just looked forward to a long weekend.  Kids seriously start school so early now, I wonder why we even bother referring to it as the unofficial end of summer.  Over dinner tonight, we joked about the 'rules' of not wearing white pants or shoes anymore, but heck, we live in Southern California, so that doesn't even really apply either.  Other than a long weekend, I've decided Labor Day is two things to me.

1.  A great excuse to have a BBQ. We don't really grill ourselves, so we drive over to my parents and enjoy our free meal, limited clean up, and free babysitting.  Since it's a 'special occassion' it also means another excuse for a family picture.  :)  I decided the front porch was getting a bit stale, so we walked up the street to the park for a refreshing background change.  We need to do a bit of work on the positioning of the greenery in front/tripod placement, but...it's not a family picture with the front door in the background!

2.  The hope that fall is on its way so I don't end up with another  phone book sized electricity bill from Southern California Edison that I am terrified to open.  I'm not exactly a summer person, so I'm always anxious for fall (or what I pretend is fall here in the land of 'I wouldn't know what it's like to live in a place where there are actually four distinct seasons') to arrive.  I'm so ready I even have the date set for our annual Halloween party as well as the theme and costume ideas selected and handed out.

From the beach, to the BBQ, to the back to school, whatever it is - Happy Labor Day!