Monday, August 13, 2012

Hell, I Still Love You, New York

Summer is over, and for the first time it's bittersweet.

Griffin and Darwin returned to school today (fifth and third grade, someone please explain to me how that happened), and my summer travel is over.

Aaron? Well, let's just say that poor boy has put in a lot of hours and flew out on an emergency trip Saturday afternoon. Sigh.

I've been home just over a week, and New York was... pretty much what I expected.

Big.

Loud.

Busy.

I didn't expend it to zap all my youthfulness and age me quickly, but when there's a song about a New York Minute, heh - they weren't kidding.

The BlogHer Conference was held at 6th and 53rd...



... and although the majority of my time was spent in the hotel at the conference, I did manage to sneak away to see Times Square at night...


... take a subway down to Ground Zero (but didn't realize we needed tickets into the memorial)...



 ... so we visited St. Paul's Chapel ....




... and took a cab to babycakes in Chinatown...



But yes, I was gluten'd by the hotel we were at, it was not awesome. Luckily I figured it out rather quickly and took necessary steps to avoid going to the ER.

It's a special type of talent to gluten someone with a bowl of fresh fruit.

My "find me gluten free" app worked fantastically, and I was kept alive by Naked Pizza...



and  Lili's 57...


New York is a bit of a dirty mistress for me: lights, glamour, excitement, but there's no way I can keep up with that crazy bitch.  

Monday, August 06, 2012

So Bless My Heart, and Bless Yours Too

I feel that parenting is a bit like gardening.

You go into with the best of intentions. You think you know what you are getting yourself into, and you dive in.

Then, after a bit, you look around and wondering what the hell you got  yourself into. Are you doing it right? Are you giving too much, too little? Surprises come up, you ask the best experts you know, you change what you are doing and hope for the very best.


Last week, while attending the BlogHer'12 Conference in NYC (more on that trip on another day), I got a call from the local children's hospital - we've been expecting Emerson's recent scope results for his eosinophilic esophagitis.

I took the call, ducking out of the iphonography session, to speak to the nurse.

His eosinophilic cells more than quintupled.

There's simply no other way to put it: I feel fucked.

He's already avoiding all the foods he's allergic to, still taking his god-awfully-expensive special formula. And the numbers took a massive jump, what the hell?

After going through all his records (in the hallway, where I barely had reception) and discussing his behaviors (still wakes up at least three times a night, screaming bloody murder plus a whole gamut of other stuff, like refusing to talk even tho he can, punk), the nurse let me go so she could talk to the doctor.

Later that evening, she called back letting me know that the doctor didn't want Emery to have any food for the next three-or-so weeks (just special formula), until we came in for an office appointment.

Hahahaha, yeah, right.

This after nearly a year of hissy fights and fights and stop chipmunking your food in your cheek and swallow and here, try this and mmmmmm, doesn't that taste good she wants us to cold-turkey him off food?

Again. Fucked.

Tomorrow I need to call them back, because this whole don't feed the child anything business simply isn't working - his face is breaking out, he's screaming, miserable, and constantly signing for "more chocolate chips."


This whole parenting thing isn't easy. Neither is gardening, really.

But sometimes you get to step back, take a look and realize: you're doing best job you can - and look! Everything is blooming.