Baby Myles

I won't be able to post a picture, but our nephew arrived safely yesterday at 10:38 am. He weighed in at 7 lbs/14 oz and is 20.5 inches long. Almost exactly the same size as his big cousin, Nathan (he was 8 lbs/1 oz, but 7-9 days overdue!).

We haven't gotten to talk to the new mom and dad yet, nor have we seen pictures. We're just grateful for a safe delivery!

Baby Nephew

Joe's brother's wife is in labor! Our little nephew will be here soon!!!

Both of our families are so boy-heavy. Joe's one of two boys. I have three older brothers. Of the grandkids on my side of the family, including my two boys, there are five boys and one girl. The girl is the oldest and she's 29. Now, Joe's family will have three boys! I'm loving it, but it would be nice to buy something pink at some point. ;-)

Easter

Holidays are strange for us. There's no marrying of them between our families. My family is a little estranged right now, and so we rarely do any sort of holiday festivities with them. Joe's family is tiny, so the holiday functions are always very low key and just nice. So nice.

We had Easter at Joe's cousin's house. Our kids are the only little ones in the family, so for the two years, the Easter egg hunts have been centered around Nathan. He certainly didn't mind.


This was the first time that anyone in Joe's family, aside from his parents, met Daniel. Between SNOMAGEDDON and the RSV adventure, no one had seen him yet. So, it was a nice way to introduce him.

Below is a picture of Joe's mom with Daniel. Doesn't she look great? She's done with chemo and on to radiation. She's wearing a wig, but her hair is coming back. She said she's hoping for curls like the little monkey has.

It's a new week of being a SAHM and it's definitely getting better. Thank you all for the encouragement.

Blessings Abound

We were excited to hear last night that the Targo's younger brother and his wife are expecting a baby. The baby is due sometime late May/early June.

I think it's so great, for a family that's had quite a bit go wrong in the last year, to have two blessings coming in such short order. I'll keep you posted.

For Reals, Facebook

I have a pretty diverse group of friends. They run the gamut in education, political beliefs, religion, and economic class. When you throw my family in there, a whole other demographic (trailer people) is represented.

I'm really okay with this because you don't have to see the world the same as I do for me to love you. I also feel like I have enough middle-of-the-road views to keep me grounded in the knowledge that a) I'm not always right, b) I don't always know what's best, and c) most other arguments have validity. (Except when it comes to crimes against children, but that's a whole other rant.)

So anyway, over the past few months, I've posted three completely innocuous posts that have received crazy, over the top responses.

The first: "Happy birthday, Mr. President. Happy birthday to youuuuuuuu." Okay... I was channeling my inner Marilyn Monroe on that one. But my word, did it result in some fighting, name-calling, and just crazy on my wall.

The second: "Although I don't have a horse in this baseball postseason, I'm excited about some of the match ups." Seriously... could this be more vanilla? It's not rooting for anyone in particular, and it's not shooting anyone down. A friend of mine, a good friend, went off on my team, saying that "anyone who goes to a Glenn Beck rally deserves what happens to them. They're representing all that's wrong with America." I was so confused... what did that have to do with my post? Yup, I deleted this one.

The last, just a few days ago: "Hey Chicago mamas --- Where did you do your childbirth classes? Were they crazy-expensive? I'm looking for a weekend-intensive course, not a long one. Also, if you want to watch my child, that would be cool. ;-) " Oh-my-God. So, here's what happened. My best friend from high school said "I thought you were having another c-section." I said "well, I hope not to. My doctor said I have a 50/50 chance of a regular birth, because there was really nothing wrong during my pregnancy with Nathan or his birth." Then she posted "50/50 doesn't sound good, a bit of a risk. but it's your body." A guy friend of mine whose wife had a c-section posted something about how he thought that was kind of harsh, and how the 50/50 wasn't a risk assessment, just a chance of a c-section. My HS friend said "I think after 20 years of friendship I can say whatever I want."

Really? I feel like the point of Facebook is to connect and share good things. Maybe I'm living in too much of a sunshine and puppy dogs kind of world. Have any of you ever had ridiculous like this on Facebook? I guess it wouldn't be so weird if these people weren't actually friends of mine.

Chemo

The Targo's mom begins chemo today. I'm still ridiculously hopeful. It might be the hope of someone who knows nothing, but I'm going to stick to it.

It's Bad

On Sunday, we got a call from The Targo's dad, telling us that his mom's cancer was an aggressive, fast-moving one. *sigh* Fortunately, it seems that my mother-in-law is willing to fight, and fight hard. She's got a lot to fight for.

I wish we knew more, but we do know that she's preparing for chemo. It's a blessing that she's healthy enough to go through it. If you can manage to do so, please keep her in your prayers.

More of These Days

I'm not sure if I ever had it... the ability to hilariously/sweetly/thoughtfully/informatively blog about my life. But, if I did, it's certainly gone now. *sigh* I'm not sure if I'm as busy as I think I am, or if what I'm doing is that much more important than blogging. Maybe both? I dunno.

There's so much good going on right now. First, I'm 19 weeks along in a pregnancy I was convinced wasn't going to happen. Looking back, I realize what a blessing this timing was. Why? Well, another good thing is that I start my second class next week. It will end just weeks before the Jelly Bean is due to arrive. This teaching position is enabling me to quit my full-time job. Can I tell you how grateful I am? It breaks my heart to see my little guy just 1-2 hours per day. Come January, amidst the insanity of going from one to two, I will have him home with me every day. The Targo, while being the stressed one in this marriage, is not only comfortable, but excited about this. We'll see how our families react, but I know this is the best thing for my family.

And the bad... It's so bad. We've had yet another cancer diagnosis in my family, this time it's the Targo's mom. It's breast cancer and she's having outpatient surgery in a couple weeks. And honestly, that's all I know. We've got no details. In fact, we should consider ourselves lucky that we know, because she's not telling anyone. Anyone.

Could you all send up a prayer for this lady? She's got a lot on her side (her age, her general health, living in a large metro area with access to great hospitals), but I know prayer will help.

About Last Week

Man... Life is crazy, a roller coaster of good and bad and all that stuff in between. Last week was the perfect example of that being true.


My family lost my Aunt Pat last week, the same day that I turned 35 years old. Thirty-five? My God. I have no idea where the time has gone, or what I've accomplished in my life. But, I do know that my life was made better by knowing this lady.

This picture was taken in the late-1970s/early-1980s, when Pat was in her late-twenties or early-thirties.

She was the oldest girl, and second oldest child, in the family. She and my mom had their first kids two months and two days apart, and their second children four months and four days apart. It was a freaky coincidence, but it made us four cousins very close. My mom and my cousin (Pat's son) sat with her and held her hand for her final six hours. I'm glad they were there for her, they were there for each other, and she was a part of them.

My mom's uncle (her dad's twin brother), my great-uncle, was diagnosed with lung cancer just days after we found out that Pat's cancer was back. He felt like he was ready to go (he's 85), so chose not to fight it. Yesterday, he went into the hospital for dehydration. He'll be discharged in the next few days to a skilled nursing facility for hospice/palliative care. My mom's family, who's dealt with so much death (I guess that's from having such a large family), has rallied a bit. The fractured family, while not as close as they probably should be, has seen each other a bit over the past few months. They email daily. And now, some of them who haven't spoken in a few years, are actually talking. Sometimes it takes this, this sort of loss, to remind you of what you have in each other.

Now we're preparing for another loss. I hope its effect is similar to the one that happened last week - a catalyst that sparks the reminder of the importance of family.

Almost Time

My aunt is fading. She's unresponsive and her breathing is labored. If you've got a moment or two, I'd appreciate any prayers you can spare. Her name is Pat. She is the mother of two grown children, Dusty and Keith, and the grandmother of four. She's the eldest sister to my mom... I don't know how they're all handling this.

Patchwork

So, I've been meaning to update all week. But really, life (LIFE) is so crazy and hectic that it's almost impossible to sit down and think, let alone write about what's going on.

My family visited my parents and my ailing aunt this weekend. It was a really special visit for a couple of reasons. I got to see my aunt, who is so sadly, failing. But I got to see her. I got to tell her that I loved her and and cheering for her. My aunt is very very thin and had recently shaved her head, rather than tolerate the clumps of hair falling out. Nathan was afraid of her at first, but when we left, this kind, gentle and tactile little boy went up and hugged her like she had long held a spot in his heart.

Alexi is beautiful. He's a tiny peanut of a baby, but just perfect. I found out last night that he's suffering from thrush. So, they're working through that.

My parents are doing well, despite all of the stress that comes with having sick loved ones. My mom is holding this sadness to herself. I've been trying to encourage her, but again, have realized that my solutions may not work for her. She did commit to spend a weekend with my aunt while my cousin and her family visit her husband's family. I think this is positive. I hope too that my mom will carry this visit with her after my aunt passes away, whether it's 2 months from now, or 20 years.

Rumination

Our whole family (you know, all three of us) will be visiting my aunt and meeting baby Alexi. I'm pretty psyched. Maybe that's the wrong word. I'm glad to spend time with my family, even the ones who have put me on their "Do No Like" list. That's okay. I'll just love them that much more.

I'm not sure how my aunt is doing. No one really seems to talk about it. But, I know her spirits are good and that she's a fighter. I know that she's surrounded by people who love her with every breath. I know that my cousin's husband is a very kind man, who has taken to first-time fatherhood and newly acquired sandwich generation responsibilities, like he was born for them.

I am also excited to share this person, this amazing little person, who steals hearts with his hearty smile and big blue eyes, with my family. Some of them have never met him, despite our only living 4 hours away. Others haven't seen him for about a year and a half, and he's changed just a bit since then.

He's no longer a squishy, bald baby, but this little boy with opinions and words, who never stops moving. EVER.

On another of things we're pondering, Nathan is potty training and it's going great! He asks to go to the potty every day when we get home from work. He's successfully peed in the potty four times (a great ratio for the short amount of time he's been trying). I'm ridiculously optimistic. Feel free to bring me down to earth.

The Time I ...

Let me tell you how I'm making everyone mad at me.

The Time I ... started a family feud on Facebook. So, this relative of mine and I have completely different world views. He would consider me extremely conservative, but I totally disagree. I think I'm personally conservative, but most of my opinions are pretty moderate, and many lean to the left (on the political spectrum). Having said that, there are definitely things that I believe are wrong and things that I believe are right.

Back to the story...

In the interest of full disclosure, I've already spoken to the parties involved, and have expressed (and will continue to express) my opinions to them openly. I don't pretend to have all the answers (probably less than 6%), but this is just something I don't understand.

I was leaving a message on a relative's profile and I noticed that she had "Married" as her relationship status, but had interesting things in her "Looking for" category. Most people have "networking" or "friendship." But my married relative had that she was looking for a relationship, dating, random play, or "whatever I can get." I was really disturbed. Really. This person is a lovely young woman. She was previously married at a very young age. That marriage ended when she cheated on her spouse. At that point, her father said to me "she should have had that conversation with her husband before they were married, telling him how things would be." I was aghast! They got married in a church. They had a covenant! If it wasn't to God, it was still to each other. But, that's how things would be?

This relative of mine, her father, has been married and divorced twice. He's been engaged an additional time. Both of those marriages produced a child. All of these relationships have ended as a result of his view of marital fidelity. It has been, and will forever be, okay for him to sleep with whomever he wants to ... and if he wants a relationship, or two, on the side, that's fine too. So what if it affects his children? In fact, this relative is currently in an open relationship with a young woman who is two years younger than his daughter. I am concerned that he'll marry this young girl and have another child with her, only to find out that this "open relationship plan" doesn't really work over time.

So I posted on Facebook the following:

Is anyone else horrified by the married people on Facebook who put "dating"
in their "Looking for" category?

This relative posted a comment saying, "I know you won't understand but it can be a choice."

I really don't understand. My thinking is if you feel this way, why would you get married? Am I totally off base on this? Should I have more of a "live and let live" attitude? Maybe so. All I can think of is how this relative has messed up the lives of the women he's been married to, and how his children will grow up without an understanding of what a healthy relationship is.

Oh, hey. A blog!

Howdy! My family and I were on vacation last week. It was fabulous! Well, once we got there. A 600 mile drive is not super fun with a 2 year old. Not super fun at all!

My mom and dad joined the three of us in Tennessee. We rented a house in the Smokey Mountains, and you guys, it was so much more amazing than I thought it could have been. (If we're Facebook friends, you can see more of the photos there.)

The house was on top of a mountain, and had panoramic views of God's splendor. Forgive the florid ridiculousness, but I've always felt like I'm going to live in the mountains. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I want a mountain dog? Hah! But really, it was heavenly.

The best part of the trip was being able to chill with my mom and dad and giving them this quality time with Nathan.

(If you blow this picture up, you can see the DROOL of this perpetually teething child... my GAH, the drool!)

Alexi

My cousin, whose mom is very sick, had her baby on Monday. Meet Alexi.

He's a handsome little man with a head full of black hair. And I can't wait to meet him in person.

I'm so grateful that my aunt has rallied. She should be holding her newest grandchild in her arms today.

New Passion

Nathan spends every Tuesday with the Targo's parents. This is a day that all three of them look forward to. The Targo's dad takes Nathan to a gym class at their local park district. I'm pretty sure that his favorite thing about it is getting fawned over by all the young women. Anyway, Nathan loves it. Recently, they started playing basketball and it's Nathan's new absolutely favorite thing in the world. He never mentions Ti-dah and Nana (the Targo's parents) without also mentioning basketball. A MONSTER!

My mom and dad (Grandma and Baca) were in town a few weeks ago and as always, enjoyed their time with Nathan. Someone, and I'm not naming names (but I think it was my mom!), taught Nathan to shoot baskets behind the TV. We have a new TV that we saved up for months for. Nathan's already colored on it, and hit it with toy hammers, but the basketball shooting seemed to be the last straw for us. I'm not sure why.

We've officially banned balls of any kind in our house for time being. I hope you can understand the direness of this to a kid whose second word was "ball."

But We Didn't Watch The Daytona 500

My parents came to town this past weekend. We had a really good time. You know you're an old married couple when your Valentine's Day is spent with your parents (or in-laws) and you really enjoy it.

This was a really good weekend for us, because both The Targo's and my family have been marred in sadness for the past couple of months. Couple that with the normal seasonal affect disorder-like sadness that hits many Midwesterners this time of year, and a good weekend is the exact prescription. We had a nice dinner out on Saturday at one of my favorite family-friendly restaurants. On Sunday, my mom, The Targo and I took Nathan to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park. It's a pretty reasonably priced venue, for Chicago. And hey! The two-year-old was free! The best things included the butterfly room and the hands-on-habitat. I really recommend this place to parents with small children. And also, it's right next to the Lincoln Park Zoo (I don't like zoos), so you can make a day of it.

The Targo and Nathan in the butterfly habitat

The Targo had Monday off for Presidents' Day, so he took Nathan to the Family Grounds Cafe, a wonderful play area for toddlers and preschoolers that has an attached coffee shop. The best part? It's close to our house, so we can pretty much decide to go, oh, right now.

It's weekends like this one, where we can just do things spur of the moment, that remind me how happy I am to live in Chicago. I don't know if this is where we'll spend the rest of our lives, or even the rest of our parenting years, but I know that it fits us this season of life.

~~~~

I feel like I need to talk about my lack of blogging for the past, um, I don't know, 6 months. Why? It's not that I think you care, exactly, but I feel the need to talk, whine, disclose... something. While The Targo was in India, I was so steeped in my single-parentness that I didn't know what to do, what to write about. Every day was about making life as normal for Nathan as possible. And also, to hold things together for The Targo, who felt immeasurable guilt about being gone. Also, I feel so ridiculously normal. Who would want to read about the everyday challenges when people who are really crazy interesting write so much more eloquently? I mean, I can talk about deaths in our family and the cancer curse, but does anyone really care or want to read about that? Nahhhhhhhh. And also, I don't write about poop. I just don't. So, my mama issues are just not cool/fun enough to read about, so I haven't written about them. And lastly, The Targo's computer died, so he had to take my laptop to finish his dissertation. So, yes, I have the interwebs at home (we don't live in a cave!), but I don't really have access. This is what I've been up to.

Welcome Baby Ellie!

Just a quick note - that's almost a week old - my BFF, Amy, had a baby girl on January 29th. Ellie Jo arrived safely via c-section at 12:14 p.m. If it's okay with Amy, I will post a picture later.

Love her!

Hope

I had a whirlwind visit to my parents' house this weekend. I feel so blessed that they live close enough that I can just jump on a train and get there 2 1/2-3 hours later. My dad picked me up at the station, we drove to their house and I hopped in my mom's car. After a 45-minute drive, we arrived at the hospital where my aunt is being treated.

I don't know how she's doing. According to my disgruntled, snarly, old relatives, she's on death's door. According to my cousin, her daughter, she's making progress, but there's no guarantee. What I do know is that she survived a terrible bout of cancer about 10 years ago. And now, the cancer is much strong, much wider-reaching, and much worse. She's lost a significant amount of weight, you can see it in the drawn expression on her once very pretty face; yet, her strong legs are twice their normal size, filled with cancerous fluid. She progressed in just two weeks from being on oxygen and having a feeding tube, to eating real food on her own and not needing the oxygen. She's sitting up, walking down the halls, and expressing her hopes of going home, physical therapy, and rehab. She's a fighter.

My mom and I took my cousin out to eat later that day. She's 7 1/2 months pregnant and trying to hold everything together. She's really doing a great job. I don't know how she's doing it, but she's managing to care for her family (two children) and also spend about 8 hours a day at the hospital. We were glad to let her take time, even if it was just two hours, for herself. Time where she didn't have to care for anyone else.

I've been periodically sending my cousin information about cancer centers, including universities that have clinical trials going on. She's accepted them graciously. But today, I realized I needed to quit. My level of "hope" isn't hers. Hers is much more grounded in the day-to-day reality of caring for a very sick relative. Mine is 200 miles away.

I know if this can be beaten, my aunt can beat it. She can. If she doesn't, it won't be because she's not strong, or because her family didn't do everything they could to get her well; it's because it's her time to go. I feel very grateful to have had her love, friendship, and those of my two cousins for all these years. That says a lot about a person - that sort of legacy. She'll know when she dies, whether it's soon, or several years down the road, that she lived well.

And the Suck

I feel like I have seriously been Debbie Downer over here... but man... there's just so much sadness and suckiness going on in our family right now.

My cousin called me today and it looks like my aunt's cancer is terminal. They're trying chemotherapy on Friday or Saturday, but if she doesn't respond, they don't think she'll be able to handle another bout.

So, I've spent my lunch hour, and a few minutes after my workday, trying to find some cancer centers. Some hope. Northwestern University and the University of Chicago both have amazing medical schools, which have cancer centers. Maybe they can offer her some time? Maybe they can help her live long enough to see her grandchild be born in March? Maybe?

All this rambling is to say, I feel bad that I even share this stuff. I feel like I'm blogging just to blog. Then I realize it does make me feel better to just say it (in type) ... and to be able to think through and process the sadness. It makes me remember that I have hope.