Poor Chuck

Poor Chuck. He is having a rough time right now. He's laid off. He has a cold. He spilled water on his keyboard so now he can't type J, K, L or use the backspace.

He found out a little bit ago that he has mild sleep apnea, so he has to wear a CPAP at night. It's this little machine that sits next to your bed and has a plastic tube that comes out of it and goes to your nose. It has plastic straps that keep it attached to your head at night. That sucks enough.

As a follow-up, they needed to check the oxygen level in his blood throughout the night. So they sent another machine. This one has a cord that attaches to a little finger-brace for your index finger.

Chuck set to work that night to set up the new contraption. It was beeping and Chuck wasn't meeting it's needs so it started electronically screaming at him. It was the most awful noise. He finally got it to shut up and the Universe decided to give me more noise to deal with, because I LOVE noises I can't control, so it let our neighbor take off in his Diesel truck, come back 2 minutes later, idle in the driveway, do a lap around the block, idle in the driveway for another 2 minutes and finally turn off.

So now Chuck lays down with the finger-brace on his left index finger, cord traipsed across his body and off the bed. He straps his nose-hose on. He puts in his mouth-guard. (He loves that I'm writing this.) He tries to fall asleep but his cold is bad. And when he opens his mouth to cough, the reverse air-pressure makes a Darth Vader noise come out of his mouth. He's like a dragon breathing fire, only there is only the noise and no flames.

At some point I giggled myself to sleep. I awoke at 4:45am to the sound of the beeping finger-sensor. It thought Chuck was dead but he wasn't. He had detached briefly to go retrieve more cold medicine. He came jogging back around the bed, lunged at the sensor and threw it on his finger again. The beeping ceased. He sat on the edge of the bed fumbling with the gel-packs. You know those things - the ones that you cannot open with a chainsaw even though they are "perforated."

I helped him open it. He fell asleep again.

Scoreboard:

Oxygen level: fine
Teeth: un-grinded
Breathing: regulated
Cold: almost gone
Keyboard: fried
Us: laughing

Stickler

Jack and I were reading The Listening Walk the other night. If you haven't read it, it's a book about walking quietly and listening to the sounds outside. It's a fun book to read because you get to make all the noises - they spell them out for you really well so it's easy to do them right.

Anyway, the last page tells you to close the book and listen to the noises around you. So we did that. We sat quietly. Finally I whispered "I hear the air-conditioning." Jack goes "do you remember the part of the book where it says not to talk?"

Yikes. So I was quiet again.

Then he started giggling so I said "what did you hear?" and he goes "I heard you talking."

Doesn't Quite Get It

Jackson frequently just doesn't quite get it. He's close to getting it, whatever "it" might be, but just isn't quite there.

Tonight we were reading about how pandas are endangered. We talked about how people are cutting down their trees so they don't have anywhere to live. Then we got talking about how pollution from cars is hurting our earth in general. Trying to circle back to the book, I asked what he thought we could do to save the pandas. He got very excited and started talking all fast with his eyebrows up at his hairline.

"We could make ten hundred thousand posters and put them up on every single house. We could drive them all around all over. The poster would say 'Stop....Killing....the Pandas.'"

Close, I guess. He's got part of it right.

Our Anniversary

I realized that I have written Birth Stories for each of the kids, but haven't ever written about Chuck and me. I'll keep it short so you don't all die from the ooeygooeyness.

We both went to Carleton. Many of you reading know the exact story of how we met. I plead the fifth. So does Chuck. Anyway, we started dating my sophomore year, his senior year. We were never apart after that.

On a misty Thursday night in October of my senior year he picked me up after a basketball open gym. He told me that we should go for a walk, which I thought was odd. It was not a nice night. We decided to sit in a gazebo right by the Cannon River. I was CRANKY. I had had a bad day, and it was midterms. I sat in the gazebo just ranting to Chuck, who sat patiently sweating bullets. Finally I said "oh my God, I'm such an awful girlfriend! I haven't asked how you are. How are you?" and he said "well if you are such a bad girlfriend, how about you just be my wife instead?" Awww. And he pulled out the box with a ring in it but didn't get it out. He just held it up and showed it to me. I waited a sec but then just dove in and took it out myself. I asked why he didn't put it on my finger and he explained that he got the ring a few weeks ago and had held on to it (without me knowing) but in the meantime a ring-sizing kit had come in the mail and I tried it and it said that I was a different size than the ring he got. He was nervous it wouldn't fit me! It did though, have no fear.

To celebrate, we went to Taco Bell. What else do you do in Northfield?

Anyway, each year on our anniversary Chuck gets me something following the traditional gift guide. I might be making that name up. You know, paper is for the 1st anniversary, etc. etc. I never look it up because I want to be surprised. This year was bronze. He got me a bronze-cast Buddha Amitabha. That particular Buddha reached enlightenment through persistence, which reminded him of my journey to get over panic disorder. How sweet is that? I was amazed.


I got him a painting. I found it on an art adoption website that I stalk. I had previously tried to adopt a work from this particular painter, but she ended up sending it to a gallery for an exhibition. I wrote her again, inquiring about a waterscape. I explained that I wanted an anniversary gift but couldn't spend money really because of our lay-off, and that this particular piece reminded me of being at the ocean and how peaceful that time was. And she picked me! Hooray! So we get this beautiful painting, which I can't post yet, because there are several in the series and I'm not quite sure which we'll end up getting.

I found it ironic that we both got pieces of art that reminded us of peacefulness.

AND my mom gave us an anniversary present. She didn't want us to have to stay in the house all the time because of our financial situation. She gave us a stack of gift cards 2 inches thick to all our favorite places. Blew me away.

Happy Anniversary Sweetie (it was 2 days ago, I'm a bit slow). I love you.

Reasons We Loved This Weekend

Well we've reached the conclusion of Ryker's Birthday Weekend. Following are the reasons each of us LOVED it.

Ryker: Ryker was the birthday boy. He loved the attention, the presents, and the cake he got to shove into his face. He loves his new presents, and is completely smitten with his new HUGE bouncy ball. "Ball - KICK! MY ball! You weddy? I weddy. KICK!" is all we've heard for the last 28 hours. It's gone everywhere with him -- served as a baseball, a soccer ball, a basketball, a chair, and a pillow when he got tired.

Jackson: Jack loved the weekend because he pretty much thought it was HIS party. He actually called it that several times. He got some good Grandpa time, including ice cream at 10 this morning! He also helped Grandpa shop for Ryker, and picked something for himself. Thus, we are now the proud new owners of a big talking Woody doll and Buzz Lightyear. Both kids LOVE them.

Chuck and me: We loved having people here, getting to see old friends again and gathering part of the Chrysalis crew again. I love having a deadline by which to clean our house, and continue to bask in the glory of a house sans tumbling hair and dust balls. We also enjoyed getting to eat something other than brats. (We had eaten them for almost every dinner last week in our efforts to not spend money. The culmination was eating them Thursday night with no buns because we used the last of the buns to make Ryker a PB&J for his lunch, which we had to do because Tugboat had eaten the last of our loaf of bread.) But I'm not gonna lie, my favorite part of the whole weekend might have been the three hour nap I got to take today.

Grandpa: Speaking for him, I think Grandpa loved the weekend because he got to spend good time with all of us, particularly Jackson and Ryker. He got to check off one of the food items he's had listed in his phone since seeing it on TV - the Juicy Lucy - via dinner last night. It didn't disappoint. And despite an unfortunate situation with his own alarm clock at the hotel (which played all night at such a low level that he was convinced it was his neighbor's), I think he got some good rest in.

Grandmommy: Again, speaking for someone else (it's a blog - isn't that part of the definition?), I think my mom had a good time hanging out with all of the family and friends that were over this weekend. We got to eat at QCumbers, which was yummy and fun even though she had to keep Jackson and me from freaking out as we almost got hit by a tornado while IN the restaurant (which happens to be a circular space encased in floor to ceiling windows. I'm just sayin'.). She happened to also have an unfortunate sleeping situation, as she was bombarded by balloons being sucked into the ceiling fan and then shot down at her head at 3am., but I think she had a good time anyway.

Tugboat and Kitty: They did NOT enjoy the weekend. I didn't see the kitty most of the weekend because she was hiding from everyone. Tug was not hiding, but was relegated to the garage during the party. Once she was let indoors, she had to endure Tow Mater flying into her paws and Ryker hitting her on the head with his new ball. She's passed out right now.

Pre-Birthday

It's Ryker's Birthday Eve. If you missed his birth story, or are named Grandmommy and want to reread it, here it is:

http://sheand3hes.blogspot.com/2009/06/happy-birthday-ryker.html

I'm so proud of our little baby.

Ryker has grown into quite a funny, talkative, confident little boy. He tried to read me his book tonight. He can tell you that he's two. He speaks in sentences. He is persistent.

What I really love about him right now is how lovey he is. He flirts, bats his eyelashes, smiles coyly, loves to be held and to hold hands. He gives his baby (or "mah bay bee" if you're Ryk) hugs and kisses. He gives Jack a big hug before bed every night. "Nigh nigh Joshun."

So tonight I'm reflecting on the last two years and how much joy Ryker has brought to our lives. Thanks big guy.

And all at once...

...it came tumbling down. Or so it seems right now.

Chuck got laid off yesterday.

It's weird how you can leave the house in one position and come home in a totally different one. Or get over one major hurdle and think it's relatively clear sailing, just to have another one pop up.

So here we go.

We've done this before. Chuck was with a company that pretty much capsized. We made it through that, with my decently low non-profit salary. And we managed to keep putting money towards retirement through that. Chuck and I KNOW how to batten down the hatches.

Anyway, I'll keep this short. But any of you loyal readers out there who know of marketing or product management jobs, BOY have I got the BEST employee for YOU! And he's CUTE too.