01-Feb-2010 7:50 AM
This is getting ridiculous. We all went to bed at 7:15 last night and at 7:50 this morning we’re still sitting around yawning. Three-thirty a.m. strolls around the parking lot will do that.
01-Feb-2010 3:45 PM
I was talking with the girl who lives two floors above us and on the other side of the building. I asked her if she could hear Ouest crying and she sheepishly said, “Yeah. But only during the day.” This building is built out of solid poured concrete.
01-Feb-2010 4:48 PM
We all went out to do a little running around this morning. First stop was to Walmart to return a swing. She never did take to that thing. We then browsed around the baby department and found a different kind of sling than we’d seen before. We opened it up and Ali slipped it on. I dropped Ouest in and within seconds she was sleeping. There was no price tag, but we would have spent anywhere up to $2,500 on it at that point.
We carried the empty box up to the checkout and the girl pointed out that she had to remove the security tag. The removal tool was bolted to her checkout counter though. We took one more look at Ouest sound asleep and then Ali walked behind the counter, got down on her knees, and let the girl remove the tag. The bagger looked at us like we were the strangest gringos she’d ever seen. But dammit if our little girl didn’t sleep right on through.
Next stop was to get Ouest’s American Birth Certificate. I’d called the embassy on Friday to see if her passport had arrived yet. It hadn’t. However the helpful girl said her birth certificate was in and that it was all we would need to fly her home. I told her it was an emergency and she said if I could make it there in the next forty-five minutes I could pick it up. I told her I couldn’t and she said they were open Monday through Friday. So needless to say when we arrived this morning to find the doors locked up tight and a note on the door saying it was a Mexican holiday and we’d have to come back on Tuesday we were a little upset. Why is it that some people just can’t seem to anticipate these things and tell you over the phone ahead of time? Some workers won’t tell you anything unless you ask them that specific question. Fortunately our flight isn’t first thing Tuesday morning.
Back home now we’re scrambling around trying to get things in order in case we aren’t coming back any time soon. One of those things was to return two five-gallon water jugs to Oxxo. There are roughly a million Oxxos (basically a 7-Eleven) in Mexico, and it turns out they aren’t even remotely related. I couldn’t get my ten bucks back from this store, I’d have to drive across town to return them at the original store. Just another one of those things that seem so simple on the surface but require at least two trips and a couple of hours of your time.
01-Feb-2010 6:06 PM
I think American doctors tend to get a bad rap from some of us. We tend to view our screwed up health care system as a reflection on them personally. Well I’ve been proven wrong.
The past couple days we’ve been on the internet searching through loads of information, reading forums, and scouring medical journals. We’ve been identifying the absolute best in the field of dealing with hemangioma, then tracking down their e-mail addresses on the internet and contacting them directly. Every one of them got back to us personally within a day. These are all doctors with the word “Director of” in their titles from the most prestigious hospitals in the country.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, they’ve all agreed that with Ouest’s nasal tip hemangioma she should seek treatment immediately. They’ve also unanimously agreed without any prompting from us that treatment should begin with the pulsed laser. This is what we’ve already set up with the doctor in Minnesota that we’re meeting with in two days. So at the very least it appears that our research led us down the right track. The part they disagree on is a secondary treatment using a drug called Propranolol. But either way, the first step is the laser.
I shouldn’t talk too much about it since we haven’t sat down with the doctor yet, but the laser does not require anesthesia, which is a very good thing. One of the doctors even called it laser “surgery” implying that it is more a treatment than a surgery. All in all we’re eager to learn more on Wednesday. And we’re very grateful to all the doctors who took time out of their busy schedules to reply so promptly to strangers who aren’t even their patients. It’s helped us out immensely.
01-Feb-2010 7:18 PM
It’s strange to look around our apartment and think that we may not be back here together. What a difference a week can make.
02-Feb-2010 8:19 PM
Ali spent the day singing, “Where is Papa/where is Papa/I don’t know/I don’t know.” And why was she singing that? Long story. It started with me going to the embassy at 8:30 to pick up Ouest’s birth certificate.
On Friday I’d called them and told them we had an emergency and had to fly to Minnesota immediately. The lady I was speaking with informed me that her passport wasn’t in yet, but that her birth certificate was and that that would suffice for getting her into the country.
This morning at their offices I discovered it wasn’t. She was adamant that she made it clear that Ouest would be able to cross the border with the birth certificate, not fly across the border. I asked her, “So you really think you made it clear to me that we would have to fly from Vallarta to Mexico City, transfer to a flight to Nuevo Laredo, take a cab to the border, walk across, catch a cab to the Laredo airport, fly to Dallas, and transfer to a Minneapolis bound flight.” Yes. She was sure she had.
When a competent employee arrived we discovered that the passport was in Guadalajara. Flying out today was going to be impossible. However if we wanted to fly out Wednesday I could fly to Guadalajara today, pick up the passport, come back to Vallarta, and we could make that flight instead.
I raced home to give Ali the wonderful news. Let’s just say she was not happy. I then spent the next eight hours frantically racing from one airport to another and somehow managed to make both the only morning flight to Guadalajara and the only afternoon flight back while squeezing in a thirty minute cab ride to the U.S. embassy and being subjected to two near strip searches in order to have Ouest’s passport placed in my hand.
This may be the most expensive passport ever issued (today’s passport pick up cost $342). Fortunately Ouest was a sweetheart for her mama all day and when I came home she was only crying a little bit. Ouest, not Ali.
03-Feb-2010 7:29 AM
At around midnight we were woken by our patio furniture slamming into our windows. We looked outside and it seemed as if we were in the middle of a hurricane. Palm trees were bending in half and the power to the neighborhood was out. The streets were flooded and empty. Ali and I just looked at each other like, “What else could possibly happen?”
04-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Clearly we made a wrong turn somewhere about three thousand miles south of here.
05-Feb-2010 12:18 PM
The past two days have been a blur of activity. It started out with our flight back to Minnesota. Ali and I went in really expecting the worst. We didn’t see how Ouest was going to keep from crying the entire flight. We tried to keep in mind that the only people on a flight from Puerto Vallarta to Minneapolis on a Wednesday evening in the winter were going to be retirees with grandkids. If anybody would understand it would be this group.
Turned out that we had nothing to fear though. Ouest was great the whole way. And that big storm from the night before gave us a huge tailwind that got us in an hour early. Things were looking up.
Yesterday was mayhem from the word go. First thing in the morning we had to go to the family clinic to have Ouest get a pre-op exam. Ouest checked out fine. We then spent a few hours on the phone with the hospital and the doctor getting everything ready for her laser treatment the next day.
Then yesterday evening we had to make a long drive to Albert Lea, Minnesota, to meet with our doctor. The drive reminded us why we left this state to begin with. Three hours of ugly flat landscape and multiple cars flipped upside down on the snow covered highway.
The doctor examined Ouest and was very confident that he’d be able to cure her. He gave us some slightly bad news as well though. Turns out that the V between her eyes isn’t the normal vein type V that you see on most kids but that it is actually some superficial hemangioma. She also has some on her eyelids. It’s all very superficial at the moment and we’re all hopeful that it won’t rise up/grow any more and will just go away on its own. He told us however that if we were to see it begin to grow that he could treat it very easily.
So this morning, just one very long week after discovery, we arrived at the hospital. The three of us were brought into a small waiting room where Ali and I were free to cry our eyes out over the prospect of our teeny tiny baby girl being subjected to lasers and pain.
After a short wait they whisked her away and we sat down to wait. Not ten minutes later the nurse was carrying Ouest back through the door without a tear or a scream. He said, “She did great, but boy she sure didn’t like us holding her arms down.” She’s a fighter.
The doctor followed her in and told us the procedure went terrific. He was very happy with the result. Looking at Ouest we could see that the bright red area had been turned black and the blueish area seemed to have shrunk up a bit and lightened in color. It was exactly the result we had all hoped for. We won’t know for a couple of weeks exactly how successful we were in getting rid of it, but for now things appear to have gone very well. Ali and I felt like the weight of the world had been instantly lifted off of our shoulders. We’re both very hopeful that we’ve destroyed the hemangioma and at the same time confident that even if we didn’t get it all this time that we can finish it off next time.
I can’t tell you how grateful we are to Dr. Delfanian. This guy answered our frantic e-mail within hours, had us call him at home, saw us after hours, and squeezed us in for this treatment all in the space of a week. It’s when I meet people like him that I feel like I’ve done nothing with my life. He’s truly making a difference in people’s lives.
So anyway, now we wait and see. Ouest’s nose will scab up a little bit and then heal over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime we’ve also got to go back in to the hospital and have an ultrasound done on her to check her liver. Whenever a child has three or more areas of hemangioma on their bodies there is a higher risk that they may have also developed them internally. But for now we’re just concentrating on the successes of today. The results of one very hectic week.
This has made us realize once again just how fortunate we are to have such a wonderful family to support us when we need it. By the time we got back to Minnesota we had a truck with a baby seat ready for our use, snowsuits, jackets, a bedroom filled with winter clothes for our beach baby, and hot meals on the stove. Thanks to our families, and thanks also to everybody who has been sending us their positive energy these past few days. Good things are happening again.
05-Feb-2010 8:32 PM
Ouest rebounded after her treatment today and had one of her best days ever. Relaxed, smiling, and cooing all day long. In the evening she became the center of the universe.
06-Feb-2010 5:15 PM
Somebody asked us why we didn’t have Ouest’s laser treatment done in Mexico. Truth is we would have been happy to, but because we wanted to move on it so quickly we just didn’t see how we could track down an expert that we felt comfortable with as quickly as we were able to do here. If it were Ali or I that needed treatment for something we would definitely seek it out in Mexico, but with it being Ouest things were just different. Now of course, being insurance free, we’ll pay the price for that decision soon enough.
06-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
07-Feb-2010 9:26 PM
A Who-rrendous Half Time. I feel soooooo vindicated. I caught a lot of grief over my comment about the baby boomers and their ridiculous choice of The Who as the Super Bowl halftime entertainment this year. But when it’s all said and done there can’t be anybody out there who wasn’t embarrassed for those old men up there on stage boring us all to tears with their horribly tired sounding voices, their cringe worthy dance moves, and the bad crime drama theme songs. Nostalgia be damned. Maybe next year we can watch Rihanna and Jay-Z rock that show and actually get the spectators out of the hot dog line.
07-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Aunt Toni came over for a little more baby lovin’ today. Ouest was happy to oblige.
08-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
There is nothing like going to a hospital and looking at others around you to sort of put things in perspective.
08-Feb-2010 2:02 PM
Good day today. We went to the hospital this morning to have an ultrasound done on Ouest. There was some concern that she could possibly have hemangioma on her internal organs as well. We weren’t dwelling on that possibility, however when the ultrasound came up normal we still felt the relief.
On our way home we stopped at Taco Bell. Our little girl slept right through it, showing us that she realizes just how important TB time really is to Mama and Papa. What a good girl.
08-Feb-2010 9:29 PM
Ouest has been doing really good the past few days and bath time has been no exception. We bought this tub that has a sort of hammock attached to it for little babies. She slides into it and just chills while we ladle warm water over her. If I were Bill Gates rich this is how I would bathe.
09-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Ouest finds this bathroom mirror endlessly fascinating, and it’s been one of our favorite places to spend happy time with her. This picture makes me think back to when we actually thought it would be cool to have twins. Now the thought of twins gives me nightmares.
09-Feb-2010 5:10 PM
A week ago we were walking the beach, today I was shoveling snow and hammering ice flows off my in-laws roof. We also threw about two hundred pounds of salt up there. Good times.
10-Feb-2010 10:27 AM
Even I have to grudgingly admit that it is beautiful here after a big snowfall. Until the dogs get out in the back yard and destroy the perfectness of it all.
10-Feb-2010 10:50 AM
Ali and I had dared to think we were on our way out of colic hell. Then Ouest slammed us with twenty-four hours of crying interspersed with a couple dozen five minute naps. On the plus side, her nose is looking really good and when she isn’t crying she is still about eleven pounds of the sweetest loving imaginable.
10-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Seventy pages of a good book and a couple miles worth of pacing for Papa; two hours of blissful much needed sleep for one little girl. I love watching Ouest sleep. The best part is when she’s “dreaming” and her little chin starts to quiver. Then she gets a huge smile on her face followed by the deepest frown imaginable. Makes me wonder what could possibly be going on in her mind.
11-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
People will do lots of strange things for entertainment here in Minnesota. We drive our daughter around the neighborhood in the hopes that she’ll fall asleep at some point. Others build a shack on a frozen lake and fish through a hole cut in the bottom. And somehow for the first time in my life locking myself in an icy shack sounds like a great idea.
12-Feb-2010 4:30 PM
It’s the middle of February in St. Paul, Minnesota, and we wanted to take our girl for a walk. Where could we go? The mall. We went and became mall walkers today. It’s the only warm place that you can walk in a straight line for more than fifty feet. Seeing as it was a Friday afternoon I guess I was a little surprised by the amount of people that seemed to be just loafing around the mall with us. Ten plus percent unemployment will have that effect I suppose. Barnes & Noble is going to have to move even more sofa chairs into their magazine section soon. I wonder if anybody ever buys a magazine there.
12-Feb-2010 7:29 PM
It’s been a week now since Ouest’s laser procedure. Initially we were really thrilled with the results, but the past couple of days it’s looked slightly more swollen to us again. It’s clear that she’s going to need another treatment in early March. After that one if we still aren’t seeing significant improvement we’ll need to explore additional treatment options. Our fingers are still crossed though. The doctor would say it is still healing and we need to be patient before judging the results. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Besides, it’s easy to forget her nose problem with eyes like that.
12-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
I was looking in our (the guest bedroom) closet today and noticed this long row of white plastic hangers. I realized that these were originally ours from our condo way back in Chicago. The thing that really caught my eye though was the miniscule rack of clothing that Ali and I now have hanging there. It amazes me to think that we once filled these hangers and more with clothes and now we are content with an entire two person hanging wardrobe that consists of thirteen shirts. And even that feels a little excessive. Just please, nobody invite us to a wedding.
13-Feb-2010 4:16 PM
Today Ouest met grandpa Schulte for the first time. And also scored her first set of new kicks. Pink Nikes. Whoever said grandparents needed to be practical. That part appears to be left up to the parents themselves. She did also land a bit of cash, but since she’s too young to splurge at the mall I instead placed an order in her account for a few shares of McDonald’s stock. I remember growing up I had an aunt who gave me a fifty dollar savings bond every Christmas. I suffered with those slow growth bonds for years before I finally cashed in and went on a drinking binge with my college buddies. Now here’s Ouest, already with a portfolio that’d be the envy of any seven-year-old. I figure this is prudent since by the time she hits college there probably won’t be any more bars serving twenty-five cent tap beers on Wednesday nights. She’ll need a little more cash in her pocket.
13-Feb-2010 ouest lill. two months.
Two months. Is that all it’s been? Ahhh Ouest, it’s been a long, trying month for the three of us. A lot has happened and we’ve covered a lot of ground.
Things started off normal enough. We spent our days walking along the beach and around the neighborhood. A little boy said you looked like a pile of coconuts and thus christened you with a new nickname. Your grandma and grandpa came to see you for the first time too. You cried an awful lot and when we became concerned enough we visited the doctor. He told us you’d gotten a little chunky. Truth is we’d been feeding you a little extra in our desperate attempts to stop the incessant crying. Pretty much nothing mama or I did was going to stop that crying though.
We straightened out the feeding, eased the crying a bit, and went back to the doctor for a checkup. We pointed out a red spot on your nose that we’d originally thought was from a bump on my shoulder. He was concerned about it and sent us to another doctor. And that’s when the rest of the month took the unexpected turn that it did.
The doctor told us that bruise on your nose was actually hemangioma. She told us not to worry and to check back with her in a month. But we did worry, and did a bunch of research. Turns out hemangioma on the tip of the nose isn’t something we should just sit around and keep an eye on. It’s a little more serious, and if we wanted to take care of it we were going to have to hurry.
So within a week you were on an airplane. Your first big trip! You were perfect and were the envy of the parents with the one year-old sitting right behind us. When we landed we were in Minnesota, where your mama and papa grew up, but where we had hoped you would not find a reason to visit in the winter until you were much, much older.
We moved in to your grandparent’s guest room. We set up your crib in the closet, moved a rocking chair in, and settled in to our new home surrounded by family. You met your aunts and your cousins for the first time. Your aunts loved you but your cousins resented you. They never wanted us to have a baby because they wanted to remain our babies forever. But you charmed them and they soon got over it.
And just one week after finding out about your hemangioma we were in the hospital. You were tough but we weren’t. It was excruciating giving you over to the doctor so he could shoot a laser into your nose. We knew it was going to hurt but that it needed to be done. When he brought you back just minutes later you looked at us without a tear in your eyes. Yep, tough.
It’s now a week later. The rest of the family is on vacation. It’s kind of ironic. They’re all in Mexico and we’re here in Minnesota. Your nose is looking better though, and that’s all that’s important to us now. We might need more treatments, but we’ll deal with that as it comes. For now we’re just going to try and enjoy the snow.
So anyway, we’re sorry you’ve had such a rough second month. It wasn’t your fault. You did great and rose to every occasion. Mama and I are doing the best we can and promise that month number three will be your best yet.
Now with that said, let us watch what are sure to be for you an excruciatingly embarrassing few minutes of our lives from the past month.
14-Feb-2010 8:55 PM
A girlfriend of ours told us a few months back that, “kids aren’t hard, they’re just tiring.” And we think she was right. There no longer seems to be enough time in the day to get much of anything done. Ali and I eat standing up while shoveling food in our mouths like neanderthals, we shower and shave in three minutes flat, we’ve more or less given up on the internet and e-mail, forget about television, and this website is hovering very near the chopping block itself. It truly is amazing the amount of time this one tiny little creature consumes.
And did I mention we’ve now got three dogs and three cats for the week too? Cuts are going to have to be made. Food is probably the next thing to go.
15-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again, Ouest is really an eighty year-old man. The proof is in the prune juice. After a couple irregular days the doc suggested it as a natural way to refresh her regularity. I suggested the picante sauce.
16-Feb-2010 1:15 PM
Ouest really does change every single day at this age. Just in the last couple of days she has begun to coo and smile. Nothing could warm a heart like the smile from a baby. And now, because we’re soppy parents, we can even imagine that she has some idea of what we’re always talking about and that she’s responding to our sarcastic sense of humor.
17-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
The dog sitter. We used this picture because in it only one of the dogs was licking himself.
17-Feb-2010 3:03 PM
When Ouest had her laser treatment a couple of weeks back we were called from the waiting room and brought into a small personal waiting room back with the nurses when it was her turn. Five minutes later the doctor came and got Ouest for the treatment and returned her to us ten minutes later. He said, “That’s it. You can go home.”
So today when we got the hospital bill there were three charges on it. Fifty bucks for a tube of lotion. A tube of lotion big enough to lube Ouest’s nose for the next ninety-seven years. Eighteen-hundred bucks for the ten minute laser treatment. Fair enough. I suppose that machine doesn’t come cheap. And lastly, eight-hundred dollars for the “Recovery Room.” Never mind that this room was ten feet from the lobby waiting room or that our daughter’s treatment didn’t draw blood and required essentially zero minutes worth of recovery time. And never mind that they knew we had no insurance and that nobody bothered to mention that sitting down in this tiny room would cost us eight-hundred dollars. No, never mind any of that, because that’s just how the system works.
Well actually we do mind and were on the phone within minutes. The issue has now been sent to the nurses for review.
On the plus side, the cost of the laser treatment itself was actually a full four times cheaper than the estimate given to us by some paper pusher over the phone a couple of weeks back. And another plus? As uninsured Minnesotans we are entitled to a 48% discount on those rates. Apparently those ridiculously obscene prices are only meant for insurance companies. Honestly, is it any wonder why health care is such a mess?
18-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
“Quit taking my freaking picture.”
18-Feb-2010 7:48 AM
We got together with good friends and their ten-month-old daughter last night. Ali and I have now decided that life with a ten-month-old looks absolutely glorious. Set them on the floor with a few toys and some dry cereal and watch them go nuts. Sure she banged her head against the coffee table three times, but the control she had over that neck was stupendous. Crying. What crying? And best of all, she ate pizza for the first time. It was an honor to share in that. If we had a baby book I would replace the heading SAID DA-DA FOR THE FIRST TIME with ATE PIZZA FOR THE FIRST TIME. Some moments are just more special than others.
But then again she was so big. Our little baby can still curl up in my one hand. I guess I will miss that. She’s so tiny and perfect right now that the thought of her doubling in size in just the next few months is a little unnerving. I guess this is why every parent, without fail, says, “Enjoy your time with them, they grow up so fast.”
18-Feb-2010 9:54 AM
So we’ve got a follow-up doctor’s appointment set for next week. And the chances seem pretty good to us that we’ll need to have another laser treatment which will be the first week in March. So for now those are about our only plans. After that next treatment we will however need to get back down to Mexico and drive our car out of the country. So there is at least one road trip in the near future. Where exactly that road trip will take us is what we’ve got to figure out next.
19-Feb-2010 9:09 AM
I’ve become obsessed with Olympic Curling. I grew up on hockey rinks and yet have never seen the sport before the other day. Now there’s a sport that was just made to be played with beer and pizza. Makes me wonder why bocce ball isn’t in the Summer Olympics.
19-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
It’s been two weeks and the results are a little discouraging. It looks like the laser treatment got rid of the surface hemangioma but the deeper stuff appears unchanged to us. We see the doctor in a few days so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what he has to say.
20-Feb-2010 7:08 PM
Ali has been having the weirdest dreams lately. She wakes up at least once a night in a sort of panic. She always starts feeling around the bed in the dark looking for Ouest, despite the fact that Ouest has never slept in our bed. This wakes me up and in my sleep state I can’t adequately explain where she is either, so soon we are both fumbling around in the dark trying not to squish our baby. Eventually one of us snaps out of it and remembers that she is in her crib. It takes a while to convince the other person, but after a few moments we both end up standing over Ouest’s crib, staring down at the lumpy shape making the tiny snoring noises.
21-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
22-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
We went down and visited great-grandma today. She’s ninety years old and amazes me more every time we see her. She knows every grandchild and great-grandchild’s name, birthday, and pets names. She was excited to meet Ouest. So excited that when Ouest fell asleep in Ali’s arms grandma gave her a pinch on the cheeks to get her to wake up again so she could see those big eyes. My parent’s moms were gone before I was even born so all I ever had was grandpas. Fortunately Ali’s grandma has taken me in and always makes me feel like just one of the kids.
There are three things I love about this picture. One: Ouest’s funky crooked face. Two: those hot pictures of Ali as a teen with big hair. And three: the fact that grandma still proudly displays them.
22-Feb-2010 7:19 PM
Ouest wasn’t supposed to get her next laser treatment for two more weeks, but Ali and I haven’t been feeling all that good about the way her nose has been looking the past few days. It seems to be growing a bit and getting more red. We contacted the doctor again and he agreed to move it up. So Wednesday she goes in again. Fingers crossed that we see some better results this time through.
23-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
It’s a lot of work getting this baby all legit. Today’s outing took us to the Social Security Administration to get Ouest her Social Security Number. On our way in the guy in front of us took off his belt to go through security. The guard scrutinized his big belt buckle for a second before sliding a hidden four inch knife out of the intricate brass carving. He looked exasperatedly at the guy and said, “Come on, you can’t bring this in here.” He must have seen that belt buckle a dozen times before.
24-Feb-2010 11:19 AM
Very early this morning we were at the hospital once again. Ali and I were in better spirits this time through, knowing what to expect, and not having to worry quite so much about how hard the laser procedure would be on Ouest. Of course, after they took her to the O.R. we both felt awful and apprehensive all over again.
The procedure went well, though it was clear that Ouest had a pretty tough time of it. Her face was beet red when they brought her back in to us. She was sleeping too; the screaming had completely wiped her out.
The doctor sat down with us and told us that he feels really good about the way things went and the steps we are taking. The hemangioma is in its growth stage and we all feel that we have to stay on top of it if we are going to keep it from growing any larger. Basically if we can just sort of keep at it for a while, which could be a week or six months, we can get past this growth stage and finish it off. For those of us who have become so accustomed to immediate gratification, this is the hardest part of the whole process. Zap, wait, and hope.
I can’t tell you how happy I am that at her age she simply has no memory for these sort of things. Hopefully the only memories she will have of this episode in her life will come from reading this website.
24-Feb-2010 12:31 PM
When we got home we broke out the calendar and tried to make our plans for the next three weeks. With a check-up and possibly another laser treatment in the pipeline there isn’t much we can do but fly to Mexico, load up the Porsche, and make our way back north again. If only it were July.
The plan is to drive all the way back to Minnesota, however we really have no idea at the moment just how well Ouest will handle a week of driving. Either way though we’ve got to get the car out of Mexico before getting nailed for import duties. Beyond that, if she’s not taking to the road trip, we’re thinking of leaving the car in Arizona for a few weeks while we continue to focus on her.
So with that said, we are asking our friends here for a favor. We’re looking for a garage in the Tucson area to leave the car for maybe up to eight weeks. We just want to have this lined up as sort of a fall back plan in case the trip to Minnesota looks like it will be a little too much for her. We don’t anticipate that it will be necessary, but we won’t really know until we get going. So anyway, let us know if you or somebody you know can help us out. We’d really appreciate it.
24-Feb-2010 8:44 PM
After the rough morning Ouest spent the rest of the day in a fantastic mood. She was talking and smiling bigger than ever. She didn’t even care that we had socks over her hands all day. Man she can be adorable sometimes.
26-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Ouest and Aunt Katy. She has a knack for grabbing Ouest when she is about to cry so this was a nice respite.
27-Feb-2010 9:31 PM
We woke up this morning to a non-functioning computer. It was as blown up as I’ve ever seen it. I was pretty sure it was toast and it was sad just how impotent I felt without it. Ali was upset at losing a month worth of pics and videos. It actually might have been better for Ouest had I not eventually got it running again. Then that video of her pooping in the bathtub might never have been viewed again.
27-Feb-2010 our life. daily.
Our niece, Lea, was selling Girl Scout Cookies outside the neighborhood gas station today. Our thin mints were nearly frozen. Just the way we like ’em. I asked Lea what she did at her GS meetings and she answered, “Boring stuff.” She will not be getting a badge for that answer.
