Happy New Year to all!

Happy New Year to all! May 2010 bring you the things I wish for myself: health, happiness & peace. My love to you.

Bleargh. Feel crummy today.

Bleargh. Feel crummy today. Baby puked all over me this morning. Great...Looks like we both have the plague.

the Great Glass Elevator of Doom Incident of December 2006

On December 10, 2006, Mr. Fantastic and I had dinner at the Tabor Center. We finished and headed to the elevator to go down to the parking garage. They’re these cool glass elevators, in like an atrium sort of thing. And all four walls are glass so you can see not only into the atrium, but also to the street outside and everything. Mr. F presses the DOWN button.
Great Glass Elevator of Doom: *opens invitingly*
Me: *strolls innocently inside*
Mr. F: *starts to enter but is forced to stop when…*
GGEoD: *whooshes shut alarmingly, catching Mr. F's arm in the process*
Mr. F: D’oh! *hastily yoinks arm free*
GGEoD: *doors close with decisive clang*
Me: *turns around* What are you doing?
Mr. F: (shouting through the glass) THE DOOR SHUT ON ME! IT BARELY MISSED CLOSING ON YOU!
Me: *presses DOOR OPEN button* The button doesn’t work. *giggles*
Mr. F: TRY THE OTHER BUTTONS.
Me: You don’t have to shout. *presses all the buttons* None of the buttons work!
Mr. F: LET’S TRY TO PRY OPEN THE DOORS.
Mr. F and Me: *futilely struggle to pry open the doors*
Mr. F: *helpless shrug*
Me: *embarrassed giggle*
Mr. F and Me: *share look of ‘seriously, is this really happening?’*
Purple Sweater Lady: *presses DOWN button* What’s going on?
Mr. F: My wife is stuck in there!
PSL’s Teenage Daughter: Ohmigod!
PSL: Did she press the buttons? DID YOU PRESS THE BUTTONS?
Me: *presses all the buttons again* None of the buttons work! *laughs helplessly *
Mr. F: Try the CALL button.
PSL: TRY THE CALL BUTTON.
Me: *presses the CALL button again* It’s not working! *laughs helplessly some more*
GGEoD: *alarm bell rings*
Me: *looks hopeful*
Black Hat Guy: What’s going on?
Mr. F: My wife is stuck in there!
PSL: His wife is stuck in there!
BHG: *peers at me*
Me: *waves feebly*
BHG: Did she press the buttons? DID YOU PRESS THE BUTTONS?
BHG’s Girlfriend: Ohmigod!
PSL’s Teenage Daughter: I know!
Me: *facepalm*
BHG: (to Mr. F) Let’s see if we can pry the doors open. WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO OPEN THE DOOR.
Mr. F and BHG: *futilely struggle to pry open the doors*
GGEoD: *lurches unnervingly, lights flicker*
Family of Five: What’s going on?
Mr. F: My wife is stuck in there!
PSL: His wife is stuck in there!
BHG: His wife is stuck in there!
Me: *waves feebly*
FoF: *peers at me*
Me: *feels like zoo animal*
FoF Dad: Did she try the CALL button? DID YOU TRY THE CALL BUTTON?
Me: *facepalm* None of the buttons work! *laughs helplessly, demonstrates how pressing any of the buttons does nothing*
Family of Five: *takes escalator*
Mr. F: *calls my cell phone* I don’t know what to do! I’m calling 9-1-1.
Me: *laughs helplessly* I can’t believe this is happening.
~ Meanwhile, Mr. F calls 9-1-1. He gave me the recap on the way home.
911: What’s your emergency?
Mr. F: Er, I’m not really sure—my wife—we’re at the Tabor Center, and um, my wife is stuck in the elevator? And um…
911: At the Tabor Center? They’re already on their way. She’s in elevator 2, right?
Mr. F: Er…
911: We were alerted when the alarm bell went off.
Mr. F: Oh! Okay.
~ Back at the Great Glass Elevator of Doom…Mr. F has been forced to the back of the crowd of people while he was calling 9-1-1. They are all looking in at me and helpfully shouting suggestions.
A Small Crowd: *has gathered*
Me: *still feels like zoo animal*
PSL: DID YOU PRESS THE ALARM BUTTON?
Me: *presses the ALARM button*
GGEoD: *alarm bell rings, then shuts off*
Me: *facepalm*
Crowd Random #1: TRY PRESSING THE DOOR OPEN BUTTON.
Crowd Random #2: DID YOU TRY THE CALL BUTTON?
Crowd Random #3: TRY PRESSING THE 3 BUTTON.
Mr. F: *calls my cellphone* I called 9-1-1. They were already on the way.
Fire Truck Sirens: *wail in the distance*
Me: *facepalm* They’re sending a fire truck?! I cannot believe this is happening to me! *more helpless laughter*
Mr. F: *waves at me over the crowd* You okay in there?
Me: I’m fine. This is just…*laughs helplessly*
Fire Truck Sirens: *wail in proximity*
Mr. F: *laughing* Look! They’re here! *points behind me, outside*
Me: *looks outside* OH MY GOD.
~ There are TWO fire trucks plus that extra non-fire-truck vehicle, roaring down the street, sirens wailing, lights a-blazin’. I am mortified.
Me: They sent TWO fire trucks?
Mr. F: Well, you’re very important.
Twenty Firemen: *storm the atrium*
Me: *waves feebly*
Mr. F: I have to hang up now, they want to talk to me.
PSL’s Teenage Daughter: Ohmigod! This is SO embarrassing!
My Brain: No shit, Sherlock.
A Small Crowd: *disperses somewhat*
~ So the head fireman is very kindly and concerned about me, probably thinking that my continued helpless laughter is bordering on hysteria. He was really nice and kept talking to me through the glass, asking if I was okay and such.
Head Fireman: ARE YOU OKAY?
Me: Yes, I’m fine. *helpless laughter*
Head Fireman: WE HAVE TO TURN OFF THE POWER BEFORE WE CAN OPEN THE DOORS.
Me: Okay, no problem.
Head Fireman: *goes off to do fireman stuff*
Me: *twiddles thumbs*
Twenty Firemen: *do rescue-y things*
Fireman #2: WE HAVE TO TURN OFF THE POWER BEFORE WE CAN OPEN THE DOORS.
Me: I still have no problem with that.
Fireman #2: WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THE ELEVATOR DOESN’T FALL DOWN WHEN WE DO IT.
Me: Okay, no prob—Wait, what?
Fireman #2: WE DON’T WANT THE ELEVATOR TO CRASH.
Me: You think it might crash?!
Head Fireman: *glares at Fireman #2* IT’S NOT GOING TO CRASH. JUST SIT TIGHT.
~ So then I twiddled my thumbs some more, and took pictures of the firemen with my camera phone, and called several people, including my brother and a friend. It was very hot and boring inside the Great Glass Elevator of Doom, despite the fact that it lurched alarmingly a couple of times and there was still somewhat of a crowd milling about. Also, Mr. F entertained me by taking pictures of the firemen and me in the GGEoD and also making faces and flipping me off behind everyone’s back.
~ And then they got the first set of doors open.
A Dwindled Crowd: *claps*
Me: *thumbs up*
Head Fireman: THE INSIDE DOORS WILL NOT BE SO EASY.
GGEoD: *laughs evilly*
Me: *facepalm*
Fireman #2: GET THE JAWS OF LIFE!
~ And it took three of them and some sort of jaws-of-life-y tools to pop the gears and pry the doors and then they finally got them open enough for me to get out.
GGEoD: *doors open reluctantly*
Head Fireman: *gallantly hands me out of the GGEoD* EVERYTHING—er, everything all right, miss?
A Dwindled Crowd: *claps* HOORAY!
Me: *humbly* Yes, yes, I’m just fine. Thank you. Thank you so much. (loudly, to all the firemen) THANK YOU!
Twenty Firemen: *tip caps politely*
GGEoD: *shakes fist* Curses! Foiled again!
~ And then we went home and ate cheesecake and all was well.

Fletch vs. The Roomba

Christmas dinner

Christmas mas dinner w/ my family tonite, then laid in bed w/ hubby & son watching It's a Wonderful Life...and it truly is. ♥

Happy Birthday, Steve

I miss you big brother. It's just not the same without you, T.B. Cott.

The Blue Bayou and Buckets

On our recent trip to Disneyland, we ate at the Blue Bayou restaurant, some place I have wanted to eat since I was a little girl. This restaurant really isn't that great - mostly just another overpriced, marginal food, theme park restaurant. But the thing about it is, it's located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I know! Coolest thing in the WHOLE WORLD to a little girl on her first trip to the Happiest Place on Earth.

When you get on the ride, before you get to the Pirate part, you first go through this sort of Louisiana swamp area at "night", and it's all dark and there's crickets chirping and fireflies and such. (This is because the ride is located in the New Orleans Square area of Disneyland. You know, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland...and New Orleans Square. Yeah, I don't get it either.)

So in this first part of the Pirates ride, you go through the swamp, and in the swamp, there's the restaurant. And you go by in your little boat and can see all the people on the "terrace" "outside" at their tables eating by lantern-light. And when I was a little girl, I wanted DESPERATELY to eat at that restaurant. A restaurant! Inside the ride! Clearly, you had to be somebody special in order to eat there. Of course, on that trip, we didn't eat at the Blue Bayou, probably because it was too expensive, but all I really remember is how much I wanted to go there and we didn't.

Since that first visit to Disneyland, I have been back several times. And each time, I still wanted to eat at the Blue Bayou and for whatever reasons, circumstances have always prevented it. So finally, this time, neither time nor money nor ANYTHING else was going to stop me. I told Mr. Fantastic that no matter what, we were eating there, come hell or high water, whether he wanted to or not. I called two weeks early to make a reservation.

Come the big day, it all went off without a hitch, and suddenly, there we were, sitting in the dark of a Louisiana swamp, listening to the frogs and crickets, watching the people go by in their little boats and eating our marginal food. And I could not have been happier. I sat there the whole time enjoying the heck out of myself, remembering how it felt to be the little girl in the boat going by, wanting so badly to be on that terrace eating my lunch. I was inordinately pleased - so happy I was almost in tears and could not wipe the giant grin off my face.

As our meal came to a close, I had a realization. I had just done something I had longed to do almost my entire life. I looked at my companions, Mr. Fantastic and Mummy Fantastic and little Fletcher, and I said with swelling heart, "I think I just crossed something off my bucket list."

And the thing is - I don't even have a bucket list. Or, I didn't. But I do now. The feeling of happiness and accomplishment over achieving something so trivial yet so important coupled with the recent loss of my brother made me remember that yes, life IS too short. Too short to put off doing the things you want to do and too short not to have a list of crazy things you've always wanted to try.

So, here it is, the start of my bucket list - most definitely a work in progress that I will be adding to as I think of things that time or money or distance or sheer seeming-impossibility have always kept me from doing.

1. Eat at the Blue Bayou in Disneyland
2. Go on a hot air balloon ride
3. Visit Australia
4. Visit Ireland
5. Ride/drive a Ferrari
6. Wear a sexy red dress someplace fancy
7. Partake of a croquembouche
8. …

Thank you.

I know I still owe a lot of people thank yous for everything everyone did after Steve passed away. Writing the necessary thank you notes and emails has been incredibly difficult for me.

The physical acknowledgment of all the help and support we received makes it all the more real. Almost as if, if I keep putting it off then I can pretend a little bit like it didn't happen. I know it's not good for me to push it away like that and it's actually been weighing on me - I've lost sleep over these thank you notes even though I know nobody is checking their watch waiting for them.

Even so, I want everyone to know how much my family has appreciated everyone's support over these past few months. So many people have done so much - cards, emails, calls, flowers, visits, food and just providing general support and shoulders to cry on. I can't begin to tell you all how much it means to me.

Thank you all so very, very much for everything.

It's getting harder

Things have been really hard lately. I am missing Steve more and more as it starts to sink in. Driving through his parking garage the other day, I just burst into tears out of nowhere. Just being there brought me back to that day in August when he called me for help when he suddenly couldn't use his arm or speak and then everything that came after.

I keep thinking about the unfairness of it. I had these same thoughts when my mom died 12 years ago. Why do we have to lose good people? Why do I have to lose the most important people in my life? After a long time, I was finally able to learn and grow from my mom's death. I have often said that losing her changed me in many ways, mostly for the better. Of course, I couldn't see it then, and as such, I have difficulty seeing it now. I can only hope that losing Steve too will make me a better person.

I am also feeling a lot of stress in dealing with the estate. I knew it would be difficult but there have been some things happening that I didn't expect that make it that much harder. I have had a couple of sleepless nights with everything going through my head.

As always, my son is my bright spot. He's recently learned to stand by pulling himself up. It's so amazing to see him growing and getting stronger and learning new things every day. He makes me so happy but I'm also so sad that his Uncle Steve isn't here to see it.

State of the union, plus Peanut - 7 & 8 months

It's been almost two months since Steve passed away. I guess it's about time to end radio silence.

Things are going okay. We all miss him every day in so many big and little ways. In many ways, I don't think I've even begun to really process it. I feel all the small things, every time I want to pick up the phone and call him or when I think of something that would have made him laugh or ask him a question about something as I so often did since he knew so much about everything.

But on the larger scale, the void where he was, just hasn't hit me. It's still too awful for me to really think about. I catch myself twenty times a day starting to think about it and pushing the thoughts away because it's still too much. I find it hard to watch football now because it was such a part of him. But how I do wish he was here to see the Broncos off to such a good start! Then we could debate whether last year was Cutler's fault, Shananan's or both.

In the mean time, we are doing the things that need to be done. Steve made me the executor of his estate, so it's been hard, but with Mr. Fantastic's help, I've been getting started on getting his affairs settled. It is so sad to wrap up what's left of a life. It's awful, to see all the things he left behind. It's awful to see things he started but will never finish. I picked up a book with a bookmark in it, realizing that he would never know the ending and it made me so sad. To look at his DVR and see all the things he'll never get to watch. To know he'll never find out who won the World Series of Poker this year - we were all so excited to know Phil Ivey made it to the final table, and now he'll never know how it goes. All these little things just break my heart.

I don't know when it will stop being the little things and start being the big things. Probably I'm shielding myself until I get the estate taken care of so I'll just be able to handle it. When it's all done, I imagine that's when it's all going to really sink in. One day at a time, right now.

*~*

In happier news, my little boy has helped to make this bearable. He is my absolute joy, my reason for getting up every day and going on and smiling and laughing. Peanut just turned eight months at the end of October and is flourishing. He's been threatening to crawl for a while now. Right now he's doing sort of an army-crawl type thing. I call it the "wounded soldier" because it's mostly using his arms and one leg while he drags the other behind him. But on occasion, he'll get up on all fours and take a "step" or two, then sort of flop over to his butt. Won't be long now until we won't be able to keep up with him.

I didn't know it was possible, but Peanut has become even more vocal than before. Lots of ba-ba-da-da-la-la stuff, plus some yowling and little noises that I call chirps. It is a delight to hear him babbling away to himself or to us. And he's still laughing all the time. However, he does get this charming little disgruntled look on his face when he's not laughing or squealing or chattering away. I can't wait to hear what his first word is. Knowing him, it won't be mama or dada, it will be yumyum.

Speaking of yumyums, he is still nursing but has finally decided that he likes people food. Hooray! He still hates formula and I don't know that we'll ever get him to take it, but I was despairing that he'd ever start eating food and using all those teeth of his. He's got seven teeth now! Four across the top, plus the bottom two in the middle and he just cut the next bottom one on the right side.

I gave up on trying to get him to eat baby food - I think he didn't like the puree texture. But he is happy to eat what we're eating. So far he basically seems to like any "grown up" food that we give him - mashed potatoes, chicken, sweet potatoes, whole grain pasta, grapes, pears, etc. Plus I've been mixing baby oatmeal into fruit puree and making it thick and lumpy and he loves that. As long as it's not the thin, runny consistency of baby food, he seems to be okay. We tried some pea puree the other day that he wasn't too sure about but otherwise, he's chomping at the spoon for whatever we give him. Also he does well picking up the bits and feeding himself. Since the puree thing was a no-go, we are generally practicing a sort ofbaby-led weaning, which basically means we let him do the eating himself, with the exception of the oatmeal/fruit stuff. But we also let him handle the spoon and stuff to help him get used to it, and we let him reach for it as opposed to just sticking it in his mouth indiscriminately. I put a variety of foods on his tray and he decides what he wants to eat and how much. I'm going to try him with yogurt this week and see how that goes.

Peanut finally had his very first diaper rash last week. Amazing that we made it eight months without one! Don't know if that's the breastmilk or just being fanatic about changing him all the time, but we're thankful he's had a healthy butt for the majority of the time.

Halloween was a success - at least, there was no crying, so I'll count that a win. Peanut had two costumes, a monkey and a pumpkin. Both were adorable. Check out the awesome pictures at the link below.

New pictures here, plus new videos here (and more to come!)