Goodbye, Oscar

I've been meaning to write a blog post about Oscar all semester.  I wanted to explain how having his health in jeopardy has impacted me, our family, and my work.  But I guess I had been putting it off because I was hoping to be able to report good news about his recovery.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  About two weeks ago, Billy and I had to make the difficult decision to have him euthanized.  I tried to write this post about a week later, but I'm only managing to finalize it now.

As many of you probably know, dachshunds suffer from spinal disc issues because of their long stature.  Oscar's first spinal injury occurred when we were at the hospital for Nora's birth, but a single course of steroid treatment successfully rehabilitated his back.  This past July, he hurt himself again, but this time it was his neck that was pretty seriously injured. Another single course of steroid treatment seemed to heal him, but after a few weeks, it was clear that he was not back to normal.  After another course of steroid treatment, he was in even more pain than when it had started.  We became convinced that he was re-injuring his neck while on the steroid.

We considered surgery, but ultimately decided against it because it would have been very expensive, it would have put Oscar through a lot of additional stress, and even if it had successfully treated this disk injury, it wouldn't have done anything to prevent future injuries.  Billy did a lot of internet research on treatment options for dogs with intervertebral disk disease, and we learned that eight weeks of complete crate rest is recommended for dogs recovering from neck injuries.  We had to switch to a new vet, but we were able to find one who agreed to prescribe Oscar higher doses of anti-inflammatory and pain medications in hopes that we could keep him comfortable in the crate while giving his nerves the time they needed to heal.  In an attempt to speed his tissue recovery, we also had a tech from the vet's office come to the house for laser treatments 2-3 times a week.

This was a really difficult 8 weeks for us.  Oscar tolerated being in the crate, but he disliked it as much as you might expect.  It was stressful for us to be worried about his health, and keeping on top of his medication regiment required our constant attention.  We were able to stick with it, though, because he showed noticeable improvement from week to week.  With about two of the eight weeks remaining, we began to get very optimistic that he was healing enough to enjoy a happy life outside the crate, even if it was going to require serious limits on his mobility.

Unfortunately, Oscar was ultimately unable to tolerate life outside the crate.  Once he we let him out of the crate to move around, the pain began to return.  We spent a few weeks hoping that he would be able to acclimate to life outside the crate if we slowly increased the length of time he was allowed out, but this didn't work out as we'd hoped, either.  He wanted to be out, to play with Nora, and to sit on our laps.  But anytime we would let him out for more than 15 or 20 minutes, his head would slowly begin to drop lower and lower until we'd have to force him back in the crate to rest.  When that rest stopped helping him feel better, and the yelping pain returned at the end of his pain medication cycles, we decided that he had been through enough and we had to let him go.

It was hard to accept that the treatment regimen hadn't worked despite all the time, energy, and optimism we put into it.  It is difficult to feel like Oscar might be running around today if our vet had recommended crate rest when the injury first happened.  I find myself wishing we'd been more successful at limiting his mobility throughout his life.  Maybe he would have lived longer if he hadn't been allowed to go up and down the stairs or jump up on the couch.  But maybe not.  He was a healthy, happy, vivacious little guy up until the injury in July, and we did the best we could to help him recover, so it gives me a little bit of comfort to know that while he was alive, he was living the life he wanted to live.

I don't quite know how to describe how it feels to lose Oscar.  It's devastating. It's heartbreaking.  The house feels so... empty.  And quiet.  Billy and I got him a few months after we moved in together, so in essence, we have always had him.  He was a member of our family.  We both loved him dearly and loved watching our daughter fall in love with him, too.  He was so good to her.  He made us feel like a family when we were just two kids in our early twenties thinking about planning a life together.  He taught us lessons about being caretakers that have made us better parents to Nora.  He made our lives happier just by being in the house. Although we both had dogs growing up, neither of us was living at home when their lives ended.  This is the first time either of us has had to say goodbye to a beloved pet and adjust to life without him around. We're trying to take it one day at a time.  Each day I feel a little bit less pain about his death and I miss him a lot more.  So that sensation, at least, is all too familiar for me.

And while we have been sorting through our own feelings of loss about Oscar's death, we have also had to decide how to answer Nora's questions whenever she brings him up.  I hope to write a separate post at some point about how she is adjusting to his absence, but in the meantime, here's the short version: She is beginning to understand that he is gone for good, and she won't be able to see him again.  I feel like she misses him but is not fully capable of understanding what that feeling is or why she is experiencing it.  So we've been talking about "missing" and trying to help her understand.

We're thankful for all the love and support our family and friends have shown since we had to put Oscar down.  It is a bit reassuring to realize that everyone knew how important he was to us.  In closing, I wanted to share a few of my favorites among our more recent pictures with Oscar.

Ugh. I miss him.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

We hope that for all of our friends and family, Christmas day brings the culmination of the best things the season has to offer.  We feel fortunate that we're able to see both sides of Billy's family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and as Nora grows, we look forward to establishing our own family traditions. The happiness and family togetherness we enjoy at Christmastime also makes me even more aware of the sadness I feel about the absence of the family members who are no longer with us.  I miss my dad terribly, I wish I could be with my California family to endure our first Christmas together since losing Papa, and I'd like to be with my Oregon family to enjoy the arrival of baby Everett.  But since I can't, please know that I am thinking of you all, loving you from afar, and counting down the days until I get to see you again.

For our little family, Christmas is about family, tradition, and kindness to others-- but most of all it is about love.  Thank you for making us feel so loved at Christmastime and throughout the year.  I am who I am because of the people who love me, and I carry each of you in my heart and mind all the time.  Thank you for keeping up with me here in this space, for offering me your interest, support, and encouragement, and for wishing our family well in all the ways you do.

 

These two pictures, taken one year apart, help me to see that over the course of one year so much can change and yet so much can stay the same.  At 30 years old, I'm aware that I've lost more than I ever expected to lose by this age... but I've also gained so much more than I ever hoped to gain.  It is so wonderful to be human, especially at Christmastime, when our humanity is on display.

A Day in the Life

A few weeks ago, my high school friend Jo did a couple of posts that documented "a day in the life" of her attempts to balance motherhood and with her career.  I was amazed and intrigued by how different our day-to-day lives seem to be, even though we're both professional moms who share similar values on a lot of parenting questions.  People are always saying things to me like "How do you get it all done?", so maybe they care to read about it on a micro level.  Plus, I've done "day in the life" posts before (see here and here), and I enjoy looking back on them.  So whether or not anyone is interested in this level of specificity, I thought I'd keep track of what I was up to on an average work-from-home Monday so that in the future, when this whole semester is a blur, I can remember what putting one foot in front of the other looked like as I prepared for my exams.

10:08pm Sunday night: Billy turns off the TV and we say goodnight.  I'm surely asleep by 10:11.

11ish pm: I wake up to the sound of Nora's coughing fit.  She does this once every night, and we don't know why, but our pediatrician is unconcerned about it.  I try to figure out why she's doing it at this time, since it normally happens around 4 or 5am, while I listen to see if she needs me.  She doesn't.  If the coughing wakes her up, she goes right back to sleep, so her mom does the same.

5:22-6:00am Monday morning: I wake up.  I get up to pack up the lunch for Nora that I prepared the night before.  I fix her bottles, pull clothes and sheets from the laundry, and prepare her school bag.  I make coffee, eat breakfast, feed Oscar, and let him out.  Once Billy is up and in the shower, I go get dressed.

6:00-7:00am Nora's already awake and waiting patiently, so I get her up.  I change her diaper, get her dressed, nurse her, and we say goodbye to Billy, who is leaving for work.  I finish getting her things together and start to get excited about getting out of the door early when I realize that I can't find her left shoe.  I spend at least 15 minutes searching the house and the car for it.  Luckily, she sits patiently in her pack and play and "reads" a book, laughing at me as I get increasingly frustrated.  (How do you lose baby weight?  Lose everything else first, and you'll make so many trips up and down the stairs that you won't need to exercise.)  When I finally give up and sit down to put a different pair of shoes on her, I see the toe of her left school shoe peeking out from behind the boxes I need to mail today.

7:00-8:00am I get Nora in the car and drive her to school.  In the car, we listen to Alice Walker's narration of The Color Purple.  I spend about two hours commuting every day, so audiobooks on my iPhone have allowed me to make use of this time.  I limit my listening to those novels which I've read  before and otherwise wouldn't have time to re-read.  I wonder what others in my program would think if they knew how many pages I've reviewed in this way, but I don't care.  I drop Nora off at school, get her situated, get her teacher up to speed since she was on vacation last week.  I drive back home.

8:00-8:20am: I shower and get dressed (again).  I realize I am starving so I eat a piece of last night's pizza.

8:20-10:00am: I finish reading Morrison's Beloved, review my notes from when I read it in a grad class, and write up my exam notecard on the novel.  I cross it off my list and triumphantly place it on the top of my "finished" pile even though I still have to figure out 4 lesson plans for it in the near future.

10:00-11:25am: I read Amy Kaplan's intro to Cultures of United States Imperialism and take notes on it.  Somewhere in this block I also took a 12 minute power nap.  I do this almost every day, sometimes twice.  Billy thinks the idea of a 12 minute nap is absurd; I think it's the only thing that keeps my brain functioning.

11:25am-12:05pm: I eat another piece of pizza, I check facebook, I work on this blog post, and I talk to Billy briefly on gchat.  I spend about 20 minutes of this window attached to my pump and yield just over 4 ounces.  (So it goes these days.)  I portion this out to Nora's bottles for tomorrow and rinse my pump parts.

12:05-12:55pm: I read Donald Pease's follow-up intro to the Kaplan one from earlier, take notes on it, and put that book in the finished pile.

12:55-2:10pm: I plan our meals for the week and make my grocery list.  I go to the post office to mail a few packages, but the empty parking lot reminds me that it's closed for Veteran's day.  I go to the grocery store, get our groceries, and stop for our mail on the way home even though I should have remembered that there is no mail today.  Facepalm.  I put the groceries away.

2:10-3:00pm: I begin reviewing Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

3:00-4:05pm: I listen to The Color Purple on the way to and from picking Nora up from school.  I chat briefly with her teacher and learn that Nora said "Wow!" while eating her lunch and she had fun playing outside.  She seems to have gotten over her hesitations about walking on the rubberized, padded playground matting.

4:05-5:00pm: Nora and I meet Billy at home to begin the best part of my day!  We play with her together for about a half an hour.  Today, this means watching her run around the living room and playing peek-a-boo by putting a bucket over her head.  Then I prepare asparagus and stuffing to eat with the rotisserie chicken I got at the grocery store.  While I'm waiting on those things, I watch Nora pull all of the food containers out of "her" cabinet and make her lunch for tomorrow.

5:00-5:30pm: Nora, Billy, and I sit down to eat dinner as a family.  She seems to have fallen out of love with vegetables, but she still takes a few bites of asparagus.  She can't get enough rotisserie chicken and she discovers that she likes stuffing.

5:30-6:10pm: After dinner, we play for a little while longer.  Then Billy cleans up the kitchen and washes the dishes and bottles while I get Nora ready for bed.  Bathtime, jammies, brush her teeth, empty her diaper pail when I remember it's trash night.  While I do that she "reads" herself Go, Dog! Go!.  This apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

6:10-6:30pm: I watch Friday Night Lights on my phone during Nora's bedtime nursing session.  I could be listening to my audiobook, but watching good TV while cuddling my baby is my one singular indulgence every day.  When 20 minutes is up, we say goodnight to Dad, set Nora down in her crib, and she's done for the night.

6:30-6:45pm: Billy has funny things he found on the internet to show me.

6:45-8:10pm: I finish reviewing Didion, read my notes from when we read her in one of my graduate classes, write up my notecard, and put Slouching Toward Bethlehem in the "finished" pile.

8:10-8:30pm: While waiting for tech support on audible.com to help me with my audiobook account, I get caught up on jezebel and gawker for the day.  An Elmo scandal? Why!?!

8:30-9:15pm: I begin reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.  Oscar helps.  I normally try to work until at least 9:30 but I become convinced that my brain itself is "unstuck in time" and quit a few minutes early.

9:15-10:00pm: I bring my laptop up to the bedroom, where Billy is flipping around between Maryland basketball and Monday Night Football.  I work on this blog post and we relax until bedtime.

All in all, it was a pretty standard but rewardingly productive day.  As it turns out, it was a good thing I got so much done yesterday because today was a complete wash in terms of getting my own work done.  (I spent the whole day teaching and grading.)  Tomorrow, I get to work from home again, which means crossing more texts off my ever shortening list!

Through the Eyes of a Child

At some point in the past few weeks, Billy noticed that Nora really likes looking outside.  He opens the front door so she can watch the flag wave from her jumper and holds her in front of the back screen door so she can watch his anemometer spinning in the wind.  In a continued attempt to increase her level of comfort on her belly, I've been putting her next to Oscar on the couch to look out the front window.  At first glance, it's hard to understand why she would find this scene even more mesmerizing than the TV.  Nothing's happening, in my opinion.  But as I've been sitting there watching her, I notice that she sees the wind blowing the branches of the trees, she watches the robin jump from its nest down to the ground and back, she watches people and cars pass by, and she watches Oscar's reaction to all of these same stimuli.

One of the best things motherhood has done for me is force me to slow down.  I'm still not very comfortable living at this different pace because I sometimes start to feel like I'm not "accomplishing" anything from one day to the next.  As Nora approaches her half birthday, however, realizing how much she has learned and developed by watching the world around her and feeling it out-- simply by being, really-- has helped me to see that oftentimes the things we "accomplish" somehow manage to build up invisibly until moments of significant, remarkable breakthrough.  Tracking movements with her eyes, reaching for a toy, and rolling over have all seemed like things she just woke up one day with the ability to do, but clearly she has been spending all the "unremarkable" days between slowly accumulating the necessary information.

Baby's Best Friend

When I was pregnant, I was concerned about how Oscar would deal with Nora.  Ever since we brought her home, however, he has been sweet and protective toward her even though he has had a hard time adjusting to getting less attention.

Now that she spends a fair amount of time playing on the floor, he is always careful to walk gingerly around her.  He must know she's delicate because he has no qualms about stepping on me, my books, or my laptop, and I am sure he takes pleasure in knocking over stacks of freshly folded laundry.  He also climbs into my lap regularly when I'm nursing her.  I would be afraid this was an attempt to stake his territory except that he is always so careful to maneuver around without bumping her while she's eating.

When she started grabbing everything a few weeks ago, she found out that fur is fun to hold.  I was worried that Oscar might be bothered, but his reaction is to either lick her face or walk away.  When I tried to capture a picture of her petting him to send Billy, I looked at my phone after clicking the button to discover that I'd actually captured her grabbing his ear.  He tried to get away from her when she did it but he didn't react with any anger, so I thought that was a good sign.  In fact, he has never seemed even the least bit annoyed with her.

Now that she is tracking noises, she is mesmerized by practically everything he does.  He likes to play with his toys near her but somehow knows not to get too close.

The only time he has to be scolded is when he tries to lick her face, which he especially likes to do when she's blowing bubbles or drooling.  If they were left alone, they'd probably spend most of their time like this.  His licking doesn't bother her and it gives her easy access to his neck, which is her favorite thing to grab.  Here she is trying to lick him back.

I figured that once Nora starts eating and dropping food on the floor, she and Oscar would become fast friends, but I didn't realize that they would entertain one another at this early age.  He has become fairly desensitized to her cries, but he often waits outside her door after she wakes up, letting me know he thinks its time to go in and get her.  He usually sits on the floor next to the glider when I am soothing her at naptime, as well, and then walks out of the room with me after I put her down in her crib.

When I see them interacting, I often wonder what each one thinks the other is, especially right now when they are almost the exact same size.  In any case, I'm glad Nora seems to be a dog lover and thankful that he has taken so well to having a baby in the house.  Maybe they talk to each other.  How else can you explain this perfect Oscar lip snarl?  : )

Hopefully they are not planning a mutiny.  If they do, I know exactly what they will demand: unlimited access to kibbles, milk, and licking.

Oscar and his Baby Sister

All things considered, Oscar is doing very well at adjusting to having baby Nora in the house.

While we were in the hospital with Nora, Oscar was staying with Billy's Aunt Nancy, as he always does when we are away.  After our two night stay, she let us know that he had been acting like he was in pain, and that day he seemed to be having a particularly bad time.  Billy brought him home, and though he was better at our house, something was clearly wrong with him.  We had to wait until the vet opened the following day for them to see him, and it was hard on us to see him having such a hard time on Nora's first day at home.  The vet visit revealed that he slipped a disc in his back, so he has been on a steroid and muscle relaxer regimen ever since, though he is almost finished with the medications.  He's had a few setbacks, but overall he seems to be feeling better.  He seems older to us, though, and his days of going up and down the stairs might be over.

This has made it hard to tell if he is melancholy because he doesn't feel well or if it is bothering him that he is not getting as much attention as he is used to receiving.  In either case, he has been really great with Nora.  At first, every noise she made piqued his attention and he got very upset anytime she cried.  Now he is pretty used to her noises, but he still comes into the nursery to investigate when she starts to wail while getting her diaper changed.  We've noticed that he is a bit protective of her in other ways, too.  A few times when other family members have been holding her near the door, he seems to be standing guard to make sure they don't take her away.  He likes to come lay near us or on our legs when we are holding Nora, and though he sometimes sniffs her, he hasn't tried to bother her at all.

I keep promising him that when she gets big enough, Nora is going to give him enough attention to make up for the attention she's stealing right now.  I sure hope his back continues to heal and he continues to feel better, though, because it makes me sad to see him sad and I miss my rambunctious, stubborn little buddy.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Flannery O'Connor is right.  A good man is hard to find. Personally, I found it to be impossible.  I had to wait until a good man found me, but I sure am glad I did.

Today, on the heels of his excellent performance appraisal, Billy found out he has been promoted at work!  He has been taking on more managerial responsibilities each year since he started working at the STScI, and now that he has been named a Systems Integration and Test Engineer, his ascension up the ranks is official!  He even let Patti and Chuck meet us for dinner to mark the occasion, so I will not test his patience by going on and on about how proud of him I am.  But I am.  He deserves it.

While Billy is hard at work each day, Oscar and I are working on holding down the fort at home.  My gym routine was starting to leave me pretty exhausted, so I have scaled back to walking around the neighborhood, and nobody is happier about this development than Oscar.  Evidently it wears him out because he has been spending even more time than usual cuddled up in our bed.  I never cease to be entertained by how he tucks himself into the covers, props his head on pillows as if he were a human, and persists at nudging your legs into just the right position so he can maximize his comfort.

So it goes around our house.  We're ready for you whenever you're ready, Baby D!

Visual and Other Pleasures

Hi all!  We're back from a fantastic vacation in Austin, and I'm working on a post about our trip.  In the meantime, though, Aunt Carrie requested photos of the new baby-related developments here in Millersville, so I thought I'd share a few with everyone.

Every time I think people are done telling me "You don't even look pregnant," someone says it again.  In the past week or so, though, I must've crossed some kind of imaginary threshold of pregnancy, because strangers have begun taking my pregnancy for granted.  They ask me when I'm due, if it's our first baby, and the like.  A Southwest employee told me I could have preboarded and the usher at the tennis match asked me if I have "a little Roddick in there."  I suspect that the difference in peoples' reactions relates to the angle from which they see me and what I'm wearing.  I think I tend to look more visibly pregnant in tighter tops with ruching on the sides, like this one, though they give me a bit of a lumpy profile from the front.

The baby's crib shipped a few weeks early and arrived while we were gone, so Patti and Chuck were nice enough to stop by the house and bring it inside for us.  We put it together yesterday and the mattress arrived today, so the baby's room is really coming together!  The recently painted walls look completely different in these photos, but hopefully they give you an idea of what the room looks like.  The crib is supposed to have a "walnut" finish, but the best way to describe it is to say it's almost the exact same color as Oscar. : )

As of this evening, we are also the proud new owners of a 2008 Honda CR-V!  I spent about a month narrowing my search down to the CR-V and the Ford Edge before we test drove both.  After we decided that the CR-V was the most practical fit for our growing family, we were able to find a used one that met our specifications.  I have never gotten to pick out a car for myself, and each car I've had has been between 5 and 13 years old, so I was pretty nervous pulling our new ride out of the lot.  My past two cars have been an Acura Integra and a Honda Civic, though, so being in a Honda helps me feel more comfortable with making the transition from compact car to compact SUV.  Billy pointed out that my preference for navy blue will fit right in at the Navy tailgate, and we could tell from the original title that the only previous owner lived in Salem, Oregon, so we feel pretty confident that this was the right car for us. : )

Billy thinks I have begun the "nesting" stage of pregnancy.  I don't know if this is accurate, because though I am trying to get everything ready, I certainly haven't been doing any additional cleaning around the house. : )  But I suppose it is nicer for him to say I'm nesting than for him to call it "spending money while under employed," so I'll take it!  Speaking of pregnancy itself, we had our most recent doctor's visit yesterday, and Baby D and I are both growing and progressing healthily.  She weighs about two pounds now, and I can feel her moving around all the time!  The main reason for yesterday's visit, besides the periodic check-up, was to give blood to be tested for gestational diabetes.  Aside from the discomfort of getting bigger, I've been feeling better all the time, so I feel like I have no reason to be worried about those results.

And so he doesn't feel left out, here are some gratuitous shots of Oscar celebrating our return from vacation with some nesting of his own.  It always takes him a week or so to rest up and recover from all the excitement and attention he gets at Camp Nancy while we are away!

I can't wait to share details and photos from our vacation, but as you can see, we've been plenty busy in the two days since we returned!  I have a feeling this baby is going to be here before we know it.  26 weeks down, 14 weeks to go!

While you're waiting for that Austin post, please pop over to Vickie's blog to read her very eloquent thoughts about facing the six month mark since Dad passed away.  You can view that here.  I also wanted say a quick thank-you to Catherine, Sarah D, and Kelsey for reading the blog and commenting recently.  I write the blog mostly as a way of sorting out my own thoughts and because it helps me keep my family members posted on what I'm doing.  To know that any of what I'm working through here resonates with other thoughtful women is an unexpected but delightful fringe benefit of blogging. : )

(Visual and Other Pleasures is a collection of Laura Mulvey's essays, including the one that completely changed the way I view and think about cinema.)

It's the Little Things

I realized it's been a while since I last wrote, and I thought I'd give a brief update on daily life in the Liz/Billy/Vickie/Oscar house.  It's been a crazy busy couple of weeks for me in terms of schoolwork, but I've been trying to stop and savor the nice little moments along the way.

Yesterday, to commemorate three months since we lost Dad, I thought I was finally ready to listen to the CD of "Wedding Ideas" songs he made me before Billy and I got married.  I remembered a few of the songs he'd put on there, but most of them I'd forgotten.  I cried softly most of my way into work, but every couple of tracks he had inserted something goofy, including "The Chicken Dance," which made me laugh.  On my way home after a long day, "Miss You Like Crazy" came on at the end of the CD, and I started to cry so hard I had to pull over.  I realize it's a love song, not a father/daughter song, but I know why my Dad put it on there.  The way the tides have turned since his death hit me really hard, and then I realized it was Natalie Cole singing.  Since she sang the daughter half of "Unforgettable" (an earlier track on the CD, which Dad and I danced to at the wedding), it was all just too much for me.

Most of yesterday was better.  I told Billy that someone must have sent out a memo saying it was designated Pat-Liz-on-the-Back Day.  When I went in to the coffee room, one of our notoriously curmudgeonly professors made a point of telling me what a good job he thought I (and my group) had done presenting questions and leading discussion during our Theory Colloquium on Friday.  Since he is a nice guy but so hard to impress, and since Theory Colloquium is generally such a brain busting experience for me, I appreciated the sentiment.  Later, one of my current professors stopped by the business office to ask a question, after which she reminded me that I had to be ready to lead discussion for 10 minutes during class.  I said I would go first if no one else volunteered, which prompted a complimentary conversation about how I am always prepared.  She told me how much she appreciates that I do the reading each week and come to class ready to talk.  During the break in that class, I was chatting with a classmate from the Women's Studies program in the bathroom when she randomly said "I just wanted to tell you that I love listening to you in class.  Every time you talk I just think, 'yes!'"  I also found some great material for my research projects in the Katherine Anne Porter archives, so all in all it was a rare day of complete gratification.

A few other equally comforting and fun things have happened in the past few weeks, so I thought I'd share them, too, especially since they're the things I would have loved to talk to Dad about if he was still around.

A few weekends ago, before I met Danielle to catch up over breakfast, I stopped by the Annapolis Striders 10 mile race I wasn't running to pick up my award from last season.

I'm disappointed that I haven't felt up to competing in any of the races this year, but it was nice to get my first "trophy" since middle school and to be reminded that during a time when I had more control over my circumstances, I accomplished the goal I set for myself through sheer strength of will.  Breakfast with Danielle was refreshing, too, and left me feeling ready to head home to tackle another long day of homework.

Vickie invited me to look at an apartment complex in Baltimore with her.  I tried to keep my opinion to myself until she shared hers, but she liked it as much as I did, and she moves in at the end of the month.  The two bedroom apartment seems HUGE for a first apartment, the location is great, and she already has her first roommate lined up.  It has been fun to hear how much she likes her job at Hopkins, and I am looking forward to seeing how life unfolds for her.  If I was a 24 year old, young, professional female working in the city, I would love to live where she's living, so I can't wait to hear about all the fun she's going to have.  (And I don't think I'll mind visiting her at her pool, which is right on the harbor.)

We celebrated Billy's birthday in a low-key fashion, but the weather was nice, our moods were good, and for a few more months he and I are technically the same age, which means he can't call me old!  He also agreed to spend our anniversary weekend attending the US vs. Spain Davis Cup tie in Austin, Texas, which I am really excited about.  I've always wanted to watch Davis Cup tennis, I've always wanted to go to Austin, and it's been a while since Billy and I got to go away alone together, so I am really looking forward to the trip.

Baseball season opened and the Orioles are off to a promising start.  They've already won a bunch of games, and more importantly for me, they look like they are having fun out there.  They have been like a different team since Buck Showalter took over as their manager, and it makes being a fan much more fun.  It also makes me realize that one person really can make a big difference.

Each year the English department puts together an online-published journal of the best papers from English 101, which is the "intro to writing" course I taught in the fall.  When I realized that one of my students was among the 15 or so students whose papers were chosen to be included, I sent him an email to congratulate him on his accomplishment.  He wrote me back to thank me for all of my help with his papers, to tell me how much he got out of the class, and to say that I'm the first one who ever made English "exciting."  Maybe he caught me at a particularly fragile moment, but it made me cry.  So often students want to blame the teacher when they do poorly, but this was the first time a student wanted to give me part of the credit for his personal accomplishment.  Teachers are so rarely thanked for how much work they do, and students are much quicker to complain than to praise, so to hear all of that in one simple, kind email really touched my heart.  And reminded me why I keep wanting to teach... which was a good reminder to be given.

And, finally, when I plugged in my camera to get that photo of my trophy, I realized that because the camera has been sitting on the dresser for the past few weeks, I have several goofy shots of Oscar burrowed in the bed to share.  I don't know if anyone else finds these as amusing as I do, but he always helps me remember to stop and smile at the little things.  So happy Wednesday, everybody, from our house to yours.  I hope you're enjoying the little things along the way.

(I don't know anything about this book, It's the Little Things: An Appreciation of Life's Simple Pleasures, but I liked the title.)

Max and Tab

A few years back, after I found out how much Dad liked the photo albums I could make on my Mac, we scanned a bunch of old photos from when we were kids.  The new streamlined album was much easier to carry than the old bulky albums, and it even made the trip to Chile.  I powered up the old Mac the other day to get those pictures off of it, and I came across this one, which I hadn't remembered seeing in the book.

A few things cross my mind here.  Dad seems tired, but it still looks like he pushed aside whatever he was reading to help me with Max and Tab.  He still had that belt in his closet when I went through it a few weeks ago.  And those glasses.  That couch was as hideous when it was new as it was when it was old.  I'm thankful to Mom for taking photos like these because after their divorce, the pictures of us with Dad are few and far between.  (Dad liked to be behind the camera, not in front of it.)

Mostly, though, since he's teaching me to read, I can't help thinking:
This looks like a man who has no idea what he is starting.

These books, plus a few thousand pages of criticism, are what I'll be covering this semester:

A few of the books are missing, but you get the idea.  This is a lot of reading-- all to be accomplished in 15 weeks.  I believe people must think I'm a fast reader, but I'm not.  At all.  With most of these books, I average about 30-40 pages per hour.  I read much, much too carefully to read fast.  One of my professors used to give me a hard time about it, actually.  She said that if what everyone else was doing could be called "close reading," what I'm doing should be called "microscopic reading."

I can tell I'm not reading as well this semester as I have in the past-- when it comes to class discussion, I have a hard time remembering exactly what happened or what was explained in the text.  I'm still plugging along, though, hoping that it will come back.  I believe it will.  I know I had a good teacher.

In the meantime, though, it's Monday, which is a read-from-home day.  So back to reading with my little one I go.

The Night Before Christmas

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Last night, Vickie picked up Billy and me from the airport after an eventful trip back to Oregon for the holidays.  While we were home, I submitted my final paper of the semester, which felt like a huge weight off my shoulders.  It was a very rigorous term, so it feels great to have most of the work behind me.  I began working on my winter break project, which I'll need to submit before the semester is officially finished, but I am looking forward to undertaking that reading list over the next few weeks.  I also checked my grades for the two classes I've completed, and overall I was quite pleased with how they turned out.  I may have finally learned that perfection on my transcript is unimportant as long as I feel like I gave the classes my best effort.  I know I could have done better in one of the classes if I hadn't also been taking two other ones and teaching, but as a whole, I feel very satisfied with what I was able to accomplish this term.  I also feel relieved to have it behind me and to know there'll never be another one like it.

It was really nice to be in Oregon.  I finally got to introduce Billy to Jordan, Krista's husband and my old friend, and we both got to meet their girls for the first time.  I was so glad to have time to catch up with Krista and Jordan, and Clara and Evie were even more adorable in person, which I didn't think was possible.  When we were saying our final goodbye and Clara waved and said "Bye Liz!" my heart grew three sizes that day.  We also hosted a get together of old high school friends, and my friend Tina arrived early so we could meet her new baby, Sophia.  Sophia was happy and smiley, and it was fun for me to see Tina as a new mom and talk to her about how she has begun to figure things out.  (It was NOT fun to hear that she'd been in labor for over 24 hours.  Yikes!)  It was also great to see my friend Kelsey and several other girls we grew up with.  We are all doing such different things, and we're in different phases in our personal and professional lives, but everyone is doing so well.  It made me thankful that I grew up in a time and place where it was cool for girls to be smart and kind.

I was also glad to have a chance to spend time with family.  I'm spoiled now that Vickie lives with us, but especially after such a difficult semester, I was really looking forward to going home to see my mom and dad.  Mom continues to work really hard in her job downtown, and she told us that she recently realized she has worked 22 Saturdays this year.  She has had to put in a lot of overtime, and her job sounds like a lot of work, so I was really thankful that she was able to take some time off to spend with us.  My dad's parents, Mimi and Papa, finally got to town after several flight delays, and it was great to be able to see them for the holidays again this year.  I was also glad to see my dad, and we finally got to hear more details about his trip to Chile.  He also shared his photos of the trip with us, and it was nice to hear how much he enjoyed seeing the country with Nate and Judy and how nice his visit was with his exchange student host family.

Dad says he felt well during his trip, but unfortunately the tumors in his liver seem to have spread since his return.  Shortly after we arrived in town, his doctors determined that he has some kind of blockage in his liver, so he underwent a procedure to try to alleviate the obstruction.  The procedure was not as successful as the doctor had hoped it might be, so they are continuing to try to figure out what the next step will be.  My dad has kept such a positive attitude and a determined spirit throughout his battle with cancer that it just feels so fundamentally unfair that the cancer does not recognize how badly he wants it out of his body.  My dad and I are both such do-ers that I know it's hard for both of us when there doesn't seem to be anything that we can do.  I was really thankful that we were home to try to help out and keep him company since he wasn't feeling well.  Given Dad's health, we've decided to forgo the trip to Australia we had planned for January and will instead return to Oregon to spend some more time as a family.  I had been looking forward to this winter break all semester, and now I am more appreciative than ever that I don't have to "report for duty" at school until late January.  Billy has never been to Seattle, so I am also hoping we will be able to get up there with Mom during this next trip out.  It will also be fun to have the chance to see Jordan, Krista, Tina, and their girls again.  We're all hoping that Dad will be feeling better then, but if he is not, I am glad that I will be able to be home to help out with whatever he needs me to do.  Plus, now that he has a DVR, we can catch as much Australian Open tennis as my heart desires!  : )

It was hard for me to leave Portland, but it is always nice to come home to our own house, and Oscar is definitely happy we're back.  After sleeping in this morning, we went up to Patti and Chuck's to exchange gifts before heading to Nana and Mr. Dick's to spend Christmas Eve with Chuck's side of the family.  Billy's cousin Gina is newly engaged, and his cousin Chuckie recently finished his nursing program, so there was plenty of Christmas cheer with that side of the family this year.  It was fun for me to have Vickie there, too.  Billy's family has made me feel like one of their own for several years now, but having them adopt Vickie into the swing of things makes me realize anew how kind and welcoming they are.  Now she's off to work at her church's Christmas Eve service before we all head up to Billy's Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary's house to celebrate with Patti's side of the family tomorrow.

I'm sorry that I won't get to see Nate or my Gramma Kingston this holiday season, but I feel more thankful than ever that I've gotten to spend the holidays with all of the other people who are most important to me.  I hope all of you out there are enjoying plenty of good food, fun, and laughter with your loved ones this holiday season.  My tendency to get caught up in my academics makes me appreciative that I have so many people in my life who remind me that the most important things in life are not printed between the covers of a book.  I feel like I must have overused the words "thankful," "glad," and "appreciative" in this post, but I can't help feeling like my heart is full this Christmas.  Cancer infuriates me, but it also reminds me that life doesn't promise us anything, and in just one day everything can change.  I feel so fortunate that I got to hug and laugh with so many people I love this month, and I hope you'll all take a few extra minutes this season to do the same.

Growing up, my dad read us The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore every Christmas Eve before bed.  In the spirit of that book, I'll close with:

Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

(I almost like this picture better than the proper one at top.  The camera has fallen over, Oscar has jumped out of his spot, and Vickie and I are laughing, but Billy is still trying to play it straight to get the shot.  Such is life in our house these days.)

The History of Pompey the Little; or, the Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog

Today is Oscar's 6th Birthday!  So it seems fitting that this week's reading assignments included a book that purports to be about a lap dog.  The History of Pompey the Little offers a pretty scathing criticism of the different types of people who trade him around as a commodity, so I informed Oscar that he should be happy to be living a fairly stable life with one devoted family.  To show his appreciation, he sat with me while I read the book.

For his birthday gift this year, I am hoping to give him plenty of sunshine, since it is the only thing that can coax him out of his lap dog ways into sprawling out all by himself.

If a little more Oscar is what your day needs, check out the photo retrospective I put together last year when he turned 5.

Oscar Wild(e)

Normally, we take pictures of Oscar when he is doing something funny or cute.  Like this day, when he was laying on Vickie's bed a few days after she left, feeling sorry for himself.

But yesterday, he must have been in an especially bad mood, because instead of laying nicely on the bed with Vickie's stuffed panther, Sara, like he's doing above, we found him doing this:

And this happened only a few short hours after he tried to force me to stop studying for my German test.  I happened to have my camera sitting on the end table next to me.

Both of these still pale in comparison, however, to the time we once came upstairs and discovered he had done this:

Luckily, my friend Kelsey arrives tomorrow for a 10 day visit, during which he will surely be spoiled with all the attention he has been missing since Vickie headed West.

(Oscar Wilde is a biography of... you guessed it!  I'm a bigger fan of Oscar Wilde than I am of Wild Oscar.)