Bear!
Our good friends Vic & Mike recently had their first baby! They named him Bear Teggun. Teggun is nugget spelled backwards. Nugget was Bear's in-utero name. He was 9 lb 4 oz. Vic, crazy and stubborn woman that she is, did it the good old fashioned no epidural way.
Of course, as I do with all kids' names, all I can think of are things like, "Oh! They should have made his middle name Lee!" I'm telling you, if we had a second kid I would so want the middle name to be Black (this is only mildly funny if you know my last name). I still think my brother should have given his kid the middle name Really or something like that (this is only mildly funny if you know my maiden name).
Avery is awesome
/gush
Yesterday was RHG's day to pick up the kids from school. She took them to her house where Avery proceeded to nap the entire time she was there. When I picked Avery up at 3:30, she was in a good mood. We went shopping at The Container Store (be still my beating heart) and Home Depot. We also hit Burgerville for dinner since D was working late. Sitting in Burgerville, I felt like my chest was going to burst from love and pride and gratitude for Avery and all that she is. Clearly, I always love Avery. But sometimes we hit this stride where she is sweet and I'm in a good mood and she's being hilarious and I'm laid back and she's adorable and I'm focused on the moment and she's brilliant and I'm ... It's when we're in this stride that I look at this little human being sitting across from me and marvel at her perfection. I marvel that I am her mom, that we were picked to be her parents. I go through waves of gratitude that we never got pregnant and that I spent so many months/years crying through that agony.
It's rare that a night goes by when D and I don't, individually, peak into Avery's room, watch her sleep for a while, then comment to each other on how awesome and perfect she is. This is one of my favorite parts of parenthood. No matter how awful a day was (did I mention the other day she was screaming so loud in the car that I had to put my Bluetooth earphone in to block out the high pitched squeals because otherwise it hurt?), I forget all the challenges just by watching her sleep, or when she comes into my room at 7:30 am and asks if it's wake up time yet, or by watching her do some new dance moves, or by hearing her talk about what she learned at school that day, or by hearing her ask D when he gets home, "How was your day, Daddy?"
/end gush
Up phase going strong
My happiness / up-phase continues. It is rare that I have an urgent need to nap, though I can nap for an hour or two on any given day. I consider this ability to be my superpower, so that I indulge in a nap isn't the same as the overpowering need to nap.
The lack of gluten in my diet, as well as the anti-depressants, are key to this change - at least, that's what I believe. I've also concluded that if I binge on a lot of sugar at night, then the next day tends to be a sleepy day for me. My theory is that I never put the sugar thing together because even without binging on sugar I was always exhausted from what I now know to be gluten. The gluten, it seems, made me exhausted all the time and stayed in my system for longer (I have no idea if this is a scientific truth, but it is what I have observed and determined in hindsight), so even if I gave up sugar for a week or two, there was no difference in my energy level. Now that gluten is completely out of my system, I notice that when I binge on sugar, the next day is a bit harder to get through energy-wise. Thankfully, this isn't true if I eat just one dessert or a normal-person amount of sugar. But if I indulge in a lot of sugar, aka a Megan-sized amount of sugar, then I feel it the next day. I've also noticed that, unlike gluten, sugar only seems to impact me for a short period of time afterwards (24 hours - ish). Gluten, it seems, built up over time, so I had to be free and clear of it for a period of time to start to feel the difference.
Anyway, all this makes me a very happy camper. Being gluten-free is effortless for me in terms of will power. I never get the urge to eat it given how I know it will make me feel in the immediate future, which is a general feeling of unwellness (that doesn't seem to be a word according to the red squiggly line in my editor, but I don't care enough to find the right word) and potentially a migraine. I'm glad there are immediate effects for me because I'm not sure the will power would be so strong if I only had long-term fatigue to stop me. In fact, I know that's true because that is what I believed when I was in DC and indulged in a few gluten items. I thought I could handle x amount without consequence. Three migraines and a few vomiting sessions later and I fully accepted my gluten-free fate.
Edited to add: I know I've gone through this before, so this isn't new news. I allow it to be repetitive because it reflects the reality of my life which is that being gluten-free and working through the energy deficits I've had for many years continues to be a forefront theme in my life. In case you're wondering why I seem to go back to this issue again and again. If it annoys you, you shall stop reading. :)
Upcoming Travel
I couldn't resist flying to Colorado to meet Vic & Mike's new baby, so I booked a quick trip out for that the first weekend in October. I wasn't planning on flying out until December when we're heading to Colorado for Christmas. This is what we agreed on with Vic & Mike - waiting until December to meet him so we can spend a good chunk of time with me. But, damn it, I must go meet him!
We are in Mexico in mid-October. My best friend from HS is joining us for a weekend there. I'm really looking forward to seeing her.
Once we're back from Mexico, we're in town until the Christmas holiday. We'll be spending that in Colorado and Wyoming. Justin & Caroline & Olly will be flying over from England to join us - awesome! We're planning to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas in Wyoming with my brother and his family. They just bought a cabin in a state park outside of Cheyenne, so we'll be staying there. Following that, we'll be heading up to a Colorado cabin with Justin & Caroline & Olly and Vic & Mike & Bear and my mom and Mike's parents. Should be a lot of fun. I'm planning to relearn how to ski while Avery is learning to ski. I haven't skied in maybe 20 years. I haven't even snowboarded in maybe 7 years. Egads. This could be bad.
My annual girls' weekend in Mexico will probably happen at the end of February. We haven't actually booked our tickets yet, but it's definitely happening. Woohoo!
D and I haven't decided what we're going to do yet, but it's our 10th wedding anniversary next year. Our honeymoon was our best trip ever, and I've always had in my mind that we'd do another big trip like that one on our 10th anniversary. We've been batting around ideas a bit. I'm a big believer that you cannot book trips too early, so I think we should get moving on this by the end of 2011 at least.
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