Spring Break!

Hello Spring! How I've missed you! Granted, in Minnesota you are here in name only as there is a fresh 6 inches of snow on the ground, but in Texas, you were glorious!

I'm kind of failing on my "3 blog entries a month" resolution. As long as I get 36 over the course of the year...be prepared for lots of December entries.

So updates! First, my eye is good to go. In case anyone was worried. I'm still not wearing contacts, but at my last appointment on March 10, my doc said everything was 100% healed over, which is not the same as 100% healed, but it means all of the wounds, if you will, were no longer at risk for any kind of infection, and then it would just take another week or two for them to finish healing completely. So, good news. Yay.

One thing I don't blog about very often is work. The reason, as you might assume, is that it seems to be a bad idea to talk about my job in a forum that anyone interested could have access to. But every now and then, there is something about my job that is just too awesome not to share. So this is a picture of Anika, my awesome co-worker who I teach and perform with on a regular basis. She sits about a foot away from me in our office space, and also knitted the adorable blue sweater that Cori is modeling in the photo above. While waiting for a performance of our play "Shocking News About Your Heart" to begin, Anika had the brilliant idea to dress up these two puppets in the costumes we wear to portray various scientists. The scientist on the left is a combination of Charles Kite (the wig) and Claude Beck (the mustache), and the scientist on the right is none other than Earl Bakken.

Science!

(Sometimes my job is just so cool.)

But as cool as my job can be, everyone loves a vacation, and we were lucky enough to head to Houston for a cool 9 days! Longest vacation I've taken since I used to have summer break. Unless you count maternity leave, but if you think maternity leave is a vacation, you are wrong, my friend. We spent our first few days relaxing and Nanny and Papa's house (I know that as a grown-up, I should refer to them as Steve and Angel, but Nanny and Papa is so much fun to say!).

On Saturday, friends and family came to Richmond to say hello, eat some delicious fajitas, and meet baby Cori. Romelie had a great time playing with all of the kids, and I managed to get a couple of awesome pictures of the cousins that I feel like I should submit to one of those "weird family photos" websites.

Oh, I should mention that I have a new "ap" obsession: Words With Friends. It's basically Scrabble. I had been playing it on my ipod against random opponents, but now I play regularly against Martha, her husband Steve, Crystal, folks from work...so if you have Words With Friends and would like to challenge me, my username is dannidancer. I should warn you, though...I'm awesome.

Anyway, back to Texas.

On Monday, Steve and Angel took the four of us camping along with James, Bronwyn, Shane, Torin, Greta, and Crystal. It was AWESOME. I've only ever camped in a camper one other time, and it was really small and awkward (camping with a friend's family in middle school), and I couldn't figure out why you wouldn't just sleep in a tent. Now I know...campers are SWEET! Seriously, this thing was huge and comfortable and awesome and comfortably slept 7 people. I highly recommend.

We spent two nights at a place called Jellystone, a Yogi Bear-themed campsite with a water park, mini golf course, activities for kids, and other fun stuff to do. It was Romelie's first camping experience, and overall she did pretty well and seemed to have fun, though she's regressed a little on her willingness to swim. To be fair, the water was freezing...Cori wasn't having any of it, either.

In the evenings, we hung out at Bronwyn and co.'s campsite and sat around the campfire with s'mores. Everyone has their own techniques for roasting marshmallows, but I think Greta's style - burn, blow out the fire, burn some more - was by far the most entertaining.

Wednesday we spent the evening with Trisha, her boyfriend, and her daughter. Thursday was spent at Bronwyn's home with her family as well as Grandmommy Diane who was in town for a few days. I hung out with Crystal and her boyfriend that evening, and then Friday we headed back to Richmond once again for one last night with Nanny and Papa before heading back to Minnesota on one of the most turbulent flights I've been on. Like, moments of anti-gravity turbulent. Ah, well, we arrived safe and sound.

Did I mention how much I love vacations? I felt very relaxed on our return to Minnesota. Thanks, Steve and Angel for hosting us, and thank you to our family and friends for visiting with us. We miss you already and can't wait to see you again as soon as possible!

Would you rather...?

Did you every play this game? I had a book and used to play it in high school and college. It offers choices such as...


Would you rather wake up to discover your neck had grown five inches longer or that your butt had doubled in size?

Would you rather be stranded on an island alone or with someone you hate?

Would you rather always have to say everything on your mind or never speak again?

Stuff like that. Here's my recent real life (overly dramatic) dilemna: Would you rather take care of yourself or take care of your baby? More specifically, would you rather take a medicine that will fix a major health problem but not be able to breastfeed for up to a week, or continue to breastfeed and hope that the problem clears up on its own?

So last weekend, I started to have some pain in my left eye. At first I thought it was just my contact lens bothering me, but by Sunday night, it was clear that something was wrong. My eye hurt pretty badly, there was some weird pressure from the top and back, and I could hardly open my eye because it was so light-senstive. Chason ended up driving my to the doctor on Monday morning where I learned I have a couple of eye ulcers and iritis. Basically, open sores and an infection. My doctor labeled this an emergency medical situation (for my eye) and put me on aggressive medical treatment for 24 hours - basically, three different drops/ointments going into my eye every hour. The big problem is, these are all medicines that we don't know anything about when it comes to pregnancy/breastfeeding safety, so breastfeeding is out.

Luckily, I had quite a bit of milk stored in the freezer, so I have been able to use/ration that rather than go exclusively to formula. And I continued to pump so my supply stayed up, but I had to dump it. After my supply issues with Romelie, pumping and dumping is very hard for me to do. But, I didn't have much choice.

The good news is, I went back to the doctor on Tuesday (and Wednesday, and today...) and my eye is on the road to recovery. Not 100% yet, but getting better and not worse is the most important thing. And as of today, I am down to one eye drop 4 times/day, so my doctor approved me to breastfeed again.

And the moral of the story is, don't sleep with your contacts in. Ever.

In other news...Cori had her 4-month well baby check up yesterday. She is 14 pounds and 26" long. As we're not planning to have another baby, each milestone she reaches or pound she gains or inch she grows gives me a tiny feeling of sadness - aww, my baby's getting bigger, someday soon she'll be sitting up, eating solids, talking, walking, she'll stop breastfeeding, she'll tell me no...and I have to remind myself to slow down and just enjoy this time. Which is a cliche, but a good self-reminder.

Have I mentioned yet that we're going to Texas next week? March 10. The weather here is back to sucky, and I can't wait to see our family, our friends, and green grass. Here we come!

I'd love to share more, but I'll have to save it for the next post. I'll be sure to add pictures next time, too.