Makes my heart beat a little faster June 22, 2009
Posted by Karen Joy in Marriage, The Dear Hubby.4 comments
One day, when I’m grown up, I’d like to marry a man who looks exactly like that. Brooding brow, almost-black hair, guitar, and everything.
Oh, wait. I am grown up, and I am married to him!
Lucky me. 
Father’s Day, My Birthday, etc. June 22, 2009
Posted by Karen Joy in Allergies, Arizona, Babies, Celiac Disease, Dairy-free, Dogs, Family, Friendships, Holidays, Life in the Desert, Loving Nature!, Marriage, Medical Stuff, Motherhood, Movies, Parenting, The Dear Hubby, The Kids, Vineyard Phoenix, gluten-free.13 comments
We had a really good Father’s Day celebration at my father-in-law’s. We had a cookout, watched baseball, then watched Bad Day at Black Rock, which is sort of like a Western film noir. Very cool. My kind of movie, for certain. Well, pretty much everyone got to watch all that stuff. I was off, attempting to get Fiala to go to sleep. She woke up at 7:00 a.m. (after being up at 4:00), slept about 10 minutes in the car on the way home from church and DID NOT SLEEP at all until she was home in her bed at about 8:00 p.m. 
She was one exhausted baby. Still, it was a great day. I have to be so careful not to be envious of my in-laws. I mean, where they live. They’re in Desert Hills, which is just west of Cave Creek. They’re on several acres, and their house backs up to the “landscape” of the Sonoran Desert. They have horses. I’m not really into horses, now that I’m a grown-up and know how much work it requires to take care of horses. However, I spent a lot of the day looking into the back, and seeing Wesley climb on the bales of hay, and watching him train one of my father-in-law’s dogs, a big yellow lab, to climb on top the bales, and to climb into a huge wood-sided wagon and let him pull her about. Kids just need to be outdoors and do that sort of thing. I love our home, I love our neighborhood. But, I would dearly love to have room to spread out, and to be in a more natural setting. I don’t need a bigger house, but it sure would be nice to have more property. *sigh*- I have a few disposables left, but I brought all our cloth stuff to the nursery at church for the first time yesterday. One lady in the nursery, who I do love so, said a few gentle but pointed comments like, “I cloth diapered my kids, but I made sure to bring disposables along when we went out.” I changed Fiala right when I brought her in, and told them that, unless she pooped, they wouldn’t need to change her again. But they did change her, because that’s their SOP. I may eventually change my mind about bringing disposables along for trips outside the house, but… I don’t think so.
- My Dad and I have had a rocky past, but it’s been steadily improving over the last… four years or so. I had a great conversation with my him on Father’s Day, at night, after we were back from my in-laws. Many thanks to my husband, who wrangled our four older kids, fed them, and got them into bed so I could chat with my Dad. He gave me an update on his life… He really does have an interesting life. And he’s dating, which shouldn’t be such a weird concept to me, but it just is. Then he asked, “How are my granddaughters?” which made me all warm and fuzzy for a couple of reasons. The first is that, for years, he was in denial that he was an actual grandparent, so even for him just to say “granddaughter” is a huge growth step for him. The second is that, even though I adore my boys, I found it especially sweet that he inquired about the girls. He thinks Audrey is a hoot. To him, she’s the classic “sanguine” which he finds amusing and intriguing, especially since there are no true sanguines in our family, like for generations, at least on his side. Since Audrey fits nicely in the sanguine box, he could easily relate to both our joys and our struggles in raising her, because he classifies pretty much everyone with those four personality types (sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic). Martin and I need her to obey (not be a robot girl, but, nonetheless, obey) but we don’t want to squash the sparkle of her personality. And, he listened with concern about Fiala’s skin, and prayed for her, over the phone.
- Speaking of Fiala’s skin — coconut oil makes it worse, though I sincerely appreciate the suggestion from everyone who mentioned it. Her little body broke out in a whole-body rash after I applied it. And I used it for a good week, just to make sure that the reaction wasn’t coincidental to something odd I had eaten. I Googled it, and while it appears to be rare, allergy to coconut does exist. I’m not 100% certain she’s allergic to coconut, but I’m not going to use the oil again. I’m back to my homemade salve, which really does help, better than any topical lotion, salve, prescription, over-the-counter, etc., I have used. However, if it helped having me completely egg- and nut-free these last two weeks, the benefit was minimal. I had a g.f. cake with eggs and butter in it yesterday, but I still think I’ll stay off of eggs and dairy, just in case. On Sunday morning, my pastor suggested rubbing pure vitamin E oil on Fiala. Duh! I slathered myself in E oil my whole pregnancy. Why didn’t I think of that? I will try that starting today.
- My birthday was Saturday. My hubby and I had a date night — only the THIRD since Fiala was born, eight months ago today. I had no problem leaving my other kids with a babysitter, even when they were tiny. But, it’s so hard with Fiala. Martin says that she is my security blanket.
Maybe so. Part of the reason it is so difficult to leave her with a babysitter is, I’m leaving her with them during her fussy time of day, and as her mom, many times that’s extremely difficult for ME to manage — fussy baby plus four other children — and I’m her mother! But, I love our babysitter, Mackenzie, when we can get her! She is lovely, intelligent, extremely competent, artistic, lots of fun, and my children adore her. She’s now 22, and has been watching my kids since she was 13 and we only had two children. There is a guy at my church that I so want her to marry. Mackenzie works at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and he comes in there from time to time. She knows who he is, but he has no idea who he is. She used to have responsibilities at her church, but she recently stepped down, so on Saturday, I was like, “Cooooommmmeee to my chuuuurrrrrrrrrrch,” so that she could spend time with that guy. Anyways. On our date, Martin and I went to P.F. Chang’s, then saw Star Trek, which rocked. And, he gave me a case of wine for my birthday! That seems like a weird gift… but four years ago, we went to the historic La Posada for our 11th anniversary, and we had the BEST WINE EVER, and now, every glass we have had since is, “It’s just not as good as that wine.” A couple of months ago, I finally found it online. It was difficult to track down, because it turns out it was a custom crush with a private label. So, I had to find the vineyard that produced it. They did have a few cases left, but we’ve never purchased a whole case (12 bottles!) of wine before. Martin raided my e-mail, found the info, had a case — which turned out to be the last in existence — shipped to his work, and then stored it at a friend’s house for a week. So, it still seems weird to get wine for my birthday, but it’s such good wine, and it has such lovely memories attached. It’s a 2004 Fairfield Pinot Noir, from the Willamette Valley in Oregon, made by LaVelle Vineyards. Maybe next year I can get a Stan Fellows painting.
