Author Archives: Cindy

on jet lag & sickness

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I suppose we were lucky that on our way to England, we didn’t experience much in the way of jet lag. We stayed up late, we slept late. We were a little tired, sure, but it was mostly fine. Coming home, though? Totally different story. The jet lag is kicking all of our butts.

In the week since we’ve been home, Catie has been unable to sleep more than two or three hours consistently without crying for either me or Dave. Sometimes she needs to use the bathroom (which, OMG she’s waking up to pee, yay! Only I’m not so enthusiastic about it at 3 a.m.), sometimes she’s thirsty, sometimes she’s just upset because she kicked her covers off and she wants us to tuck her back in. And even though I understand that this whole trip threw off her routine and she just needs reassurance to get back to normal, it’s challenging to maintain empathy after the third or fourth time she wakes me up.

Oh, also? She’s been announcing that she’s tired and ready for bed around 8:30, which is fantastic. I’ve been wanting her to go to bed earlier for ages. But then she decides that she’s awake for the day at 5 a.m. Which, no. Sorry, kid. Mommy needs more sleep than that. I’ll gladly take that 10:30 p.m. bedtime back if it means that I get to sleep until 8:00 again.

sick day fashion

As if Dave and I weren’t tired enough – and we’re both just now finally starting to feel better after that Sinus Infection of Doom – Catie now appears to be sick too. It started on Saturday, she came down with a fever and a nasty cough. These things always make her asthma flare up, so we’re being very careful to stay on top of her meds to keep her comfortable. The poor thing is on Pulmicort, albuterol, Motrin, and Zyrtec. She takes all of them like a champ, which is great, but I hate that she needs it.

Anyway, this virus thing means even less sleep than before. The past 3 nights, she’s woken up every 45 minutes to an hour. If memory serves, this is actually less sleep than I got when she was a newborn.

She seems a lot better today, so hopefully we’re at the end of this phase of all three of us being sick. Which would be nice, because I’ve had quite enough of it already to last me for all of 2010.

surprise!
(Photographic evidence of her improvement. Keep it up, kiddo. Please keep it up. Mommy is exhausted and needs you to get healthy quickly.)

The New Year's Meme

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1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Bought a house. (Technically, our house in Washington, Dave already owned when we met. So this was our first house purchase together.) Flew to the UK.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I try not to make New Year’s Resolutions as a rule.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! My cousin Cat had baby Austin.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My aunt – technically she’s my dad’s first cousin, but she was like an aunt to me. I wouldn’t say we were super-close, but she was a very sweet lady, an all-around good person, and she’ll be greatly missed.

5. What countries did you visit?
England & Scotland.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Financial stability.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 20th – Obama was inaugurated, and we got our first snow day since we moved to North Carolina. That was a great day.
January 27th – my baby girl turned 2 years old.
April 7th – the world lost Maddie Spohr.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I decided to start a freelance writing business, and I actually made a little bit of money doing so.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not losing weight. I tried a few different diets and seemed to go off the rails with each one. Going to be working on that again in 2010.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major. A few bad colds. We’ve been lucky this year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
This house. My Canon Rebel XSi DSLR camera.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
There are seriously no less than 20 names that immediately popped into my head when I read this question. So I’ll just say: you. All of you. And yes, you too.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Sigh. I can think of a couple of people in my real life that I could list here, but I don’t really want to name names.
So how about I remove my personal life from the equation and say Glenn Beck. Does that work?

14. Where did most of your money go?
This house.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
BlogHer! And Type-A Mom Conference! And getting to meet so! many! awesome! people! whose work I’ve read and adored for ages. And of course I was really excited to watch my baby girl grow up this year, and also about buying a house.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Um, this song. (Can’t stand the guy, but I like the song. Can’t help it.) And oddly, “Do Re Mi” from the Sound of Music, because of this video.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? About the same, I think.
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter. Sigh. Working on that.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer (see: house purchase).

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. Working out. Being a more actively engaged mother/wife. The usual.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying. Moping. Goofing off. Eating junk food.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At my mother-in-law’s house in Carlisle, England. It was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
With a house, yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
LOST. Big Love. Project Runway. Um… trying to think if I watch anything else. The Daily Show?

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I try not to waste my energy on hating people. There are people I cared about who I no longer care about, we could put it that way. But overall, I’m ending the year with far more friends than I started with, so I think we can call that a win.

24. What was the best book you read?
I haven’t finished it yet, I’m in the last few chapters, but I’m going to say “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don’t think I really discovered anything this year. I’ve developed a little bit of an obsession with both Keane and Muse. Neither of those are exactly “new,” though.

26. What did you want and get by year’s end?
A home.

27. What did you want and not get by year’s end?
Well, I’m not pregnant yet, but I’m also not entirely sure that I want to be. (I keep wavering on that one, it kind of depends on the day of the week.) Hmm. You know what would’ve been nice that I didn’t get? If this house had a hidden secret passageway that was filled with unmarked $100 bills. That would be awesome. Sigh. Oh well.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Since I rarely get to see any movies that aren’t animated, I’ll go for the best of that bunch and say “Up.”

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 33. It was pretty low-key. My brother & his then-girlfriend drove over from Charlotte for the weekend. And Dave bought me a Wii, which was awesome.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Huh. Oddly, I can’t really think of anything.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Jeans and sneakers. Lazy suburban mom chic.

32. What kept you sane?
My family. And Diet Coke.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
George Clooney, always. Josh Holloway on “Lost.”

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Probably healthcare reform.

35. Who did you miss?
It’s odd, I found myself missing my grandmother a few times this year, even though she passed away in 1996. There were several occasions that I found myself thinking of her, wishing she was there. She was such a baby nut, I know she would’ve adored Catie. I’m sad that they’ll never get a chance to meet.

I also miss a lot of my friends back in Seattle. I miss Patsy, our previous baby-sitter.

And of course, I miss all of the fantastic ladies that I had a chance to spend time with at BlogHer and Type-A Mom. I wish I lived closer to them so I could see them all the time.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
I cannot possibly pick one.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
The same rules you use for online dating also apply to Twitter and blogs: don’t invite people from the Internet to your house. Meet them in public first to decide if they’re crazy. THEN, you can decide whether or not you want to invite them over to spend the night.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“There is no home like the one you’ve got,
Cuz that home belongs to you.”
— Jenny Lewis, “Barking at the Moon”

Yes, that song is from “Bolt.” I’m sorry. It’s all I’ve got.

not how I envisioned ending 2009

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Warning: This post is long, and full of whining. I’m sick, and this is what I’m like when I don’t feel good.

I know I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Dave and I were both sick while we were in England. It’s been pretty awful. For most of our time in the UK, we were both downing cold medications every four hours like clockwork, just to try to manage our symptoms.

We left Dave’s mom’s house on Sunday and drove down to London. We stayed in a hotel near Heathrow so we could be there bright and early for our 7:40 a.m. flight on Monday. I noticed that I was getting worse. My cough was so bad that it was making me dry heave. Because of my gastric bypass surgery, it’s impossible for me to vomit, but I could feel the lower part of my stomach – you know, the part that’s been surgically separated so it’s no longer attached to my esophagus – seizing up, and I knew that if it had a choice, I would be puking my guts out. That was unsettling.

Monday at the airport was a nightmare. We left our hotel at 5 a.m., trying to allow extra time because we knew there would be heightened security after that whole terrorist incident. We ended up standing in line for over an hour to get through the second security screening. And we were lucky, an airline employee came and pulled us over to the “exclusive” line reserved for first-class passengers because we had a stroller, and they needed to get all of the strollers on the plane.

Btw, while we were standing in line, every time I coughed, the old lady standing in front of me would look over her shoulder and glare at me. I started talking to Dave really loudly about WOW THIS COUGH SURE IS ANNOYING BUT IT’S A GOOD THING I’M NOT CONTAGIOUS, HUH? Translation: chill out, hag, I don’t have H1N1.

Our flight left over an hour late. The flight was pretty miserable for me. At one point, the lady sitting across the aisle from Dave passed a roll of cough drops over for me. I thanked her, took one, and passed it back. She said, “Oh no, you keep it.” Wow. I guess I was coughing a lot more than I thought I was.

The plane had a pretty bumpy descent and landing. Catie started to cry in her seat, and I leaned over to hug her and try to calm her down. Then, she puked all over both of us. And a little bit on Dave too, for good measure. Fabulous. This is why I always keep a change of clothes in our carry-on. We had to make a quick stop in the restroom for a wardrobe change before going through customs and immigration, I found a plastic bag to shove the stinky/pukey clothes in, and we were on our way.

[Side note to the person who had to clean row 29 of United flight 923: I’m so, so sorry. Really.]

Since our flight had been delayed, we missed our connection in D.C. Of course. I stood in line at United customer service for about an hour and a half, only to be told that sorry, the remaining flights from Dulles to Raleigh were all booked, but they could get us out the next day. Um, no. It’s less than 300 miles from D.C. to Raleigh, so we said screw it, we’ll rent a car and drive home. All three of us just desperately wanted to goooo hoooome. I had been fantasizing all day about sleeping in my own bed again. We found a rental car that had a compact car with a toddler car seat available, and off we went.

Three hours later, we were still stuck in D.C.-area traffic. Holy cow. It was sometime during that – when I was driving (or more accurately, sitting there with my foot on the brakes) while Dave and Catie were both sleeping in the backseat – that I realized that I had been awake since 3:45 that morning England time, which meant essentially 10:45 p.m. the night before on the east coast. And did I mention that I can’t sleep on airplanes? I kind of dozed for about 20 minutes, but that was it for the entire 8-hour flight. That’s a long time to stay awake, y’all.

We finally got home around 10 p.m. Catie was all refreshed from her car nap and SO! EXCITED! to see all of her toys that she hadn’t seen for the past 2 1/2 weeks, it took quite a while to settle her down. I finally got her to bed just before midnight and then crashed myself about 5 minutes later. I set a new record for myself – awake for 25 hours & 15 minutes straight. I don’t recommend it. And I have no desire to set that kind of record ever again.

Since we’ve been home, I’ve been really, really sick. I went to the doctor on Tuesday, he heard crackling in my right lung and sent me for a chest x-ray because he suspected that I had pneumonia. The office called me back yesterday afternoon to inform me that I don’t have pneumonia, just really severe bronchitis. Oh, and I have pink eye too. Because you know, I didn’t feel horrible enough already.

I woke up yesterday with a migraine so intense that I was involuntarily crying from the pain, and Dave almost called 911. That sucked too.

And you know, it’s not like we had big plans to party it up on New Year’s Eve or anything, but this is not exactly how I envisioned the big evening, either. Both of us in our jammies and coughing and miserable.

The good news is that Catie is continuing to do really well during all of this. She hasn’t shown any signs of being sick yet (although I’m scared to say that for fear of jinxing it), and her sleep schedule is all screwy from the jet lag, but we’re dealing with that. For the most part, she’s being totally sweet and lovely and well-behaved, and she doesn’t seem to mind at all that Mommy is phoning it in and just letting her watch cartoons all day long so I can lie around feeling pitiful.

Catie says, "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!"

She’s also taking this opportunity to explore her own sense of personal style, with hilarious results.

I hope all of y’all have a wonderful and happy New Year. And I hope to be less whiny (and healthier) by my next post. See you in 2010!

Christmas Recap

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Since I never followed up on this: we had fun with Dave’s dad and stepmom. This was the first time Catie’s gotten to meet this set of grandparents, and she had a great time getting acquainted with her Granddad and Grandma Sue.

Grandma Sue, Granddad, & Catie

For that matter, so did I, since this was my first time meeting them as well.

Oh, and I now have a pretty good idea of what Dave is going to look like in about 25 years.

3 generations, 1 face

It was a little creepy, to be honest. My father-in-law looks uncannily like Dave, but his mannerisms and the way he speaks are exactly like Steve, Dave’s brother. It was cool to witness it, but also totally bizarre.

We left Yorkshire and drove back to Carlisle on Christmas Eve. It was not anywhere close to being on par with our other marathon drives, it only took about two hours. Catie fell asleep a few minutes after we started driving, and she woke up as we pulled into the driveway. We told her that we were back at Grandma & Grandpa Roger’s house, and she applauded and yelled “YAAAYYY!!!” Ah, if only all road trips were that easy.

That night, we left our treats by the fireplace.

treats by the fireplace

Mince pies and milk for Santa, carrots for his reindeer. Naturally.

The next day, we opened presents.

opening presents is fun!
(Confession: I cut Catie’s bangs myself. I know they’re uneven and awful. I usually do a good job on her bangs, but I didn’t have the right scissors and she kept jerking her head away from me. The good news is that her hair grows insanely fast, so it won’t look bad for long.)

The only thing Catie asked Santa for was a stuffed reindeer that she saw at the grocery store. When she opened her presents and saw her reindeer, she exclaimed, “Hey, it’s the reindeer from Food Lion!” Yes, sweetie, I guess Santa knows where to shop.

Santa also brought her a metric crap-ton of other stuff that she didn’t ask for, which Mommy and Daddy are going to be frantically trying to cram into our suitcases for the trip home. I’m currently thanking my lucky stars that I decided to bring along an extra empty duffel bag in my suitcase. I suspected that it was going to come in handy.

Then we had our huuuuuuge Christmas dinner, courtesy of my mother-in-law, who is such an amazing chef that she should really have her own restaurant or something. That was fantastic.

Steve & Mags at Christmas dinner

me & Dave

me & Catie at Christmas dinner

And you know, no proper British Christmas would be complete without a flaming Christmas pudding.

Flaming Christmas pudding!

(And no, I don’t know why they call things pudding that are decidedly NOT pudding. Like, Yorkshire pudding is essentially a bread roll, and Christmas pudding is a type of fruitcake. I don’t get that at all.)

So, yes, it was a really great Christmas. Even though Dave and I are both still sick as dogs with this sinus infection/flu/tuberculosis/coughing-sickness-of-DOOM, we managed to rally for most of the day, and have a good time in between all the coughing fits and nose blowings. Getting to watch Catie enjoy the whole Santa Claus experience and open all of her presents was really the best part of the whole day. Although the fantastic meal didn’t hurt either.

Tomorrow we’ll be driving down to London (300 miles, not looking forward to that), where we’ll spend the night in a hotel, and catch an early flight out on Monday morning. Of course, because of that jackass terrorist, we’ve been warned that we should allow extra time for going through security, and that everyone should expect to be fully searched before getting on the plane, so “keep carry-on items to a minimum” (which, guess what? That’s pretty much impossible when traveling with a toddler!). So, yeah. Thanks a lot, a-hole.

Oh, and when I told Catie that we’d be driving down to London tomorrow, and flying back home the next day? She started to cry, and said, “No, I stay here wit’ my doggies!”

Grandpa Roger & Catie petting Zack the puppy

Sorry, kiddo, you’re not getting a dog. If there’s one thing your Mommy doesn’t need in her life, it’s another thing whose poop she has to clean up. If we bring one more pooping creature into our house, it’s going to be because I gave birth to it.

(And no, that wasn’t a hint that I might be pregnant. Not even a little. Being in a thin-walled house with one’s parents across the hall does not inspire The Romance. Neither does the feeling that both you and your spouse might hack up a lung at any given moment. So, no. No announcements here. But who knows what lies ahead in 2010?)

Christmas 2009

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There’s a lot that I want to write about, but I haven’t really had a chance with all of our traveling, me being sick, iffy wifi connections, and getting all caught up in Christmas celebrations.

So, merry Christmas to all of you from the Butchee-Wilkinson gang. Dave, Catie and I did a little choreographed dance just for you. No, really. It’s all for you.

My brother Chris and my sister Tracy even made a special guest appearance, which is no small feat since they’re currently in Mississippi and we’re in England.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdm9f8Xz08g

(A big thank you to my sister for creating this. It is the greatest thing I have seen in a LONG time.)

Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Hope you all get exactly what your heart desires.

my experience with socialized medicine

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One thing from last week that I forgot to mention: I brought Catie’s nebulizer with us to the UK because she’s supposed to take Pulmicort twice a day during the winter months for her asthma. The asthma specialist she saw at the hospital last year recommended it, and we’ve found that it helps, so this is what we do. I have a spacer and an albuterol inhaler in case she has an asthma attack while we’re out & about (or, say, on an airplane with no electrical outlets), but she hates the spacer and freaks out every time we use it, so I try to avoid it. Since we only do the Pulmicort first thing in the morning and before bedtime, it didn’t seem like a big deal that I only had it in nebulizer form. (cue foreshadowing)

The hotel we stayed in near Heathrow had one U.S.-style outlet, so the nebulizer worked fine while we were there. Once we got to my mother-in-law’s house, though, not so much. I don’t know what’s up with the nebulizer’s voltage, but it shorted out no less than THREE different power adapters. I was starting to panic because Catie had gone a few days with no Pulmicort, and December is never a good month for her asthma, so I really didn’t want to let it go for too long. I figured that the next best option would be to get a Pulmicort inhaler; I already have the spacer, so it would just bypass the need for electricity altogether. She’d hate it, but you know, desperate times, desperate measures.

So last Tuesday, before we left for Scotland, I called a pharmacist and explained what was going on. I asked her what would be the fastest way to get an inhaler for my daughter. She said that if my mother-in-law had her own doctor, getting Catie an appointment as a temporary patient would probably be a lot quicker than going to the ER. Mags called her doctor, and got us an appointment time less than 2 hours later.

We checked in, and they didn’t take my U.S. insurance card or ask for any money. We overheard someone say that there was only one doctor working that day, so there might be a long wait. I suppressed my internal groan, thinking that we were about to experience one of these nightmarishly long waits that I had heard about the UK healthcare system.

About 20 minutes later, the doctor himself came out and called us back. I thought it was odd that it wasn’t a nurse who came to retrieve us, but it was nice. We went straight into his office, even though I had to carry Catie because she was already starting to cry (my poor girl sees way too many doctors, she’s now scared to death of them). The doctor had a fish tank in his office with a couple of clownfish in them, so that immediately diffused Catie’s fear as she started getting excited about “Nemo! Mommy, it’s TWO NEMOS!!”

I explained to the doctor about Catie’s asthma, the blown-out nebulizer, and the medication I needed in inhaler form. He wrote me a prescription on the spot. The end.

The whole appointment took less than 5 minutes, and cost NOTHING.

We wanted to hit the road for Scotland after Catie’s appointment, so we ended up getting her prescription filled in Inverness. That took another 5 minutes. And here’s the kicker: in the US, Catie’s inhaler would cost us $40 *after* our health insurance coverage kicked in. In the UK? Because Catie is under 16, all prescriptions for her are FREE. The pharmacist actually looked confused when I tried to give her my credit card. It’s funny, I expect a fair amount of culture shock when visiting a new country for the first time, but that was the first thing here that honestly made my jaw drop.

I learned that prescriptions are also free for pregnant women and senior citizens. Huh. I can think of more than a few people who might find that helpful, if not life-saving.

So, based on my experience, I have to say that if that is what one should expect from this evil “socialized medicine”? Then, hell, go ahead and sign me up as a socialist. Because that was freaking awesome.

Note: I wrote this post a few days ago, thinking that’d be the end of it. Now it looks like I’ll actually have a two-parter on socialized medicine, because Dave and I have both come down with some sort of Evil Sinus Infection of Doom That Won’t Die, and we’re both going to see my father-in-law’s doctor this afternoon. I guess we’ll see if I’m still as impressed with the UK medical system after this.

Snow My God

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Our plan for Saturday was supposed to go like this:

  • Leave the cottages in Scotland on Saturday morning.
  • Follow Mags and Roger (my mother-in-law and her partner) from the cottages down to a city called Perth, which is right smack in the middle of Scotland.
  • From there, we’d split up – they’d head back to Carlisle, and we’d drive on to Dave’s dad’s house in Yorkshire.

    • Sounds easy, right?

    Here’s how it went down: Saturday morning rolled around and we got ready to leave. Dave came in from loading the car and he was covered with snow. I started to freak because I had no idea it was snowing outside. (It had only been raining the last time I checked.)

    We all agreed that we’d better set off immediately before the snow piled up. We set off, and made it less than 10 miles before the roads got too bad. Winding mountain roads + unplowed snow + a car with no four-wheel drive and no snow tires = BADNESS.

    We turned around and headed back in the direction of the cottages. I was on the verge of crying, because while I honestly liked the cottages, I was really looking forward to being somewhere with Internet access, and where we wouldn’t all have ash stains on the soles of our socks from the stove fireplace (which is the only source of heat in the cottages). It sounds stupid, I know, but I am just not a “roughing it” kind of girl. I was really excited about getting back to civilization. I did not want to spend the weekend snowed in at a cottage in a remote location. Too many horror movies have plotlines that start off exactly like that.

    Roger suggested we try driving the other way out, which is a road that added a good 30 miles onto our trip, but it followed the coastline, which we figured would be less snowy than further inland. We tried it, and it was pretty scary in a few places, but we made it. Since Dave was driving the whole way, I just sat there and gripped the “oh god” handlebar until my knuckles turned white. And I prayed. A lot.

    At one point, when we were skidding along a mountain road at 20 miles an hour, Dave looked over at me.

    Dave: It’s kind of exciting, though, don’t you think?
    Me: *glare*
    Dave: No? You don’t think this is all kind of a fun little adventure?
    Me: The idea that we could die in the snow? No, I don’t think that’s fun at all. Sorry.

    I think it’s safe to say that I’m not an ideal traveling companion when it comes to extreme weather circumstances. I tend to get a little panicky, and it’s no fun for anyone.

    Catie did pretty well for the first part of the morning, but then she decided she’d had quite enough of the car and had a major meltdown. I tried to soothe her as best I could, but it didn’t help very much. We stopped for lunch, and I decided to ride in the backseat with her from that point on, to try to keep her calmed down. It worked, for the most part. I think she just gets bored and fidgety back there, but if she has someone to keep her company, it makes the trip a lot easier.

    Eight hours into this little road trip “adventure” (to use Dave’s term), we had made it to Inverness, Scotland. For those of you keeping track, that’s 120 miles in 8 hours – an average of 15 miles an hour. Fabulous.

    We found a hotel in Inverness and crashed for the night. Sunday, we woke up only to find that it had snowed even more overnight, so we were still screwed. We set off anyway. It was slightly better than the previous day – we managed to drive 150 miles to Edinburgh, and it only took us 6 hours. So we averaged a whopping 25 mph. Woot! Speed demons, watch out!

    We spent Sunday night in Edinburgh (which, btw, is a really beautiful city), and then spent Monday driving the rest of the way to Yorkshire. We were lucky because by Monday, all the roads had been plowed and salted, so it was totally clear and we were able to drive the speed limit.

    It’s insane to me that back in the States, driving 500 miles is something you could do in a day. A long day, sure, but still. Meanwhile, here, it took us THREE WHOLE DAYS to drive the same distance.

    Anyway, we’re now here with Dave’s dad and stepmom, which is cool because this is the first time that Catie and I have gotten to meet them. It’s so weird to me that Dave and I have been married almost 5 years and this is the first time I’ve met my father-in-law. But they’ve never been to the States, and this is our first trip here, so that’s just how it goes, I guess.

    It’s funny, though, watching Keith (Dave’s dad) and seeing how much he looks like Dave, but his mannerisms are exactly like Steve, Dave’s brother (even though Steve looks more like their mom). I can’t really explain it, it’s just cool to get to see all of these family dynamics in person for the first time.