Happy Christmas

(click image to see large version)

Happy Snowy Sunday!

This is what our day has been like so far! Church was canceled, so
we're just playing in snow and drinking hot chocolate and listening to
Christmas music. Hope you're having fun stuck at home too (if you
are)!

Merry Christmas from Seville

Big Girl Bed

Seville's first night in a toddler bed was last week, and when we went to check on her before turning in ourselves, this is where we found her. We sat there cracking up and taking pictures before putting her back in bed (some great parents we are, eh?).

Which reminded me of the story about my older brother, who slept in the top bunk. My parents one night were awakened by a loud "thump," and ran startled into the bedroom to see what was going on. They found him still asleep on the floor. Kids are weird like that. They seem to be able to sleep through anything.

From the Mouths of Babes

As many of you know, my mother doesn't cook in quantifiable "amounts" like normal people. Rather she cooks in a "dump" of this, a "handful" of that, and "however much looks good" of the other. So many of us, her kids, have attempted over the years to capture something akin to "recipes" from the food she makes. On three separate occasions I've tried to observe and write down what the heck she's doing when she makes her famous sweetbread, and thus I have three sets of notes on the subject.

Today I was attempting to make sweetbread for Thanksgiving, and had Seville helping me, complete with stool and apron and sticky hands delving into all my ingredients. In any case, I set my three sets of notes on the counter, leaned over them and said, half to myself, half to Seville, " ...[sigh]... okay, which of these should we follow?"

To which Seville promptly replied, "Follow the Prophet!" :)

Where, oh Where has my little blog gone

Wondering where we've been? See that picture on the right there? Yes, that is a picture of me re-formatting my hard drive. Yes, I reformatted it because my computer totally and completely and irrevocably crashed. Yes, it means I lose all my data.

Lucky for me, I've been backing up my data pretty regularly (actually, luck had nothing to do with it. It was more brilliance and forethought on my part). I still lost some stuff, but nothing too devastating. I have all my pictures and videos and personal documents, stuff like that.

What I don't have is a fully functioning computer yet. I've got an operating system loaded, my internet running, and a browser. I haven't installed drivers and plugins and applications and stuff yet. Nor have I restored my docs from backups, so I don't have pictures yet either. And I've lost all my customization, which is a pain.

So I'll be busy working on that for several days, I'm sure. So probably no blogging (or checking blogs) for me.

(okay, wait a second, am I becoming one of those "blog apologizers"? Like those people who call or write and say... "oh, geez, I've been meaning to call" but never have anything substantial to say? Or those journal entries where they all start with "boy, it's been so long since I've written anything I'm not sure where to start." sigh.)

Teaching Patriotism

We had a little civic lesson for our Monday Family Home Evening this week. After learning about voting and the flag and stuff, we painted flags. Can you guess which one is Seville's? :)

The Obligatory Halloween '08 Blog Post

Seville was a bee for Halloween.



I was a flower (or rather, a whole plant, and rife with bees, actually, for the benefit of those who might have been slow on the uptake about, y'know, she's a bee, I'm a flower, get it? get it?)

These are terrible pics, I know. Weird flash-less shadows, I look like some sweaty amazonian German housefrau (I swear, I'm not this unattractive in real life). But they're what I got.

Jared was too busy answering the door for trick-or-treaters (our first year doing that. We've always been away partying), to put on his costume, so maybe he'll save it for next year. That being the case, I cannot now divulge his ingenious idea. Until next year....

Should Be Famous

As most of you know, I haven't done a lot of music publicly in the last couple years (between Seville's birth and Jared's health, it's been a bit much to handle). And of course, the question I get asked most often these days - probably other than "how's it goin'?" and "paper or plastic?" - is something along the lines of "when are you gonna start playing again?" Well... the short answer to that is "maybe soon maybe I think." The real answer to that is long and complicated, and better saved for another post.

But in the meantime I have joined a fun little project as a co-host on the new Should Be Famous podcast. You should check it out. It's a little show where we three hosts (my brother Clayton, a guy named Chris, and I), find what we consider to be good music by people who are not professional musicians - basically, people like us. People who are busy doing real-life kinds of things -- like, say, working a real job, raising children, stuff like that -- but they have some talent or some luck or, in any case, some song that is really worth hearing. But because they're not promoting it, it will never get picked up by a label or a radio station and YOU would never get to hear it. Our quest is to find those songs.

So check out the podcast. The webpage is here: www.shouldbefamous.com or you can subscribe at iTunes directly by clicking HERE.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. If you know of a great song by a non-professional musician, please let us know. We are finding them almost entirely by word of mouth.

Grumpy Old Pirate Cat

Okay. I'm not usually a big poster of other people's YouTube videos, but my brother-in-law showed me this in Sunriver, and it made me laugh so hard I had tears streaming down my face, I had to sit on the floor to keep from falling over, and I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants (a disaster narrowly averted). Granted, this was very late at night when family can get silly, and we proceeded to do other stupid things we found funny at the time that probably weren't so much, so I don't want to hype it up tooooo much and ruin it for you. But still. I can't stop laughing.

Introduction: you know how cats make those weird devilish noises when they're mad or "growling" or whatever it is? Here somebody has listened closely to what his cat is saying, and translated for us all.



There is a possible happy byproduct of this video for me: Almost nothing scares me more than waking in the night to the sounds of neighborhood cats "caterwauling" at each other. Next time I wake to Richard Parker engaging in some neighborhood turf battle, I'll probably start cracking up instead of falling into fitful nightmarish sleep, like usual.

Sunriver

We just got back from a week in Sunriver with my folks (well... Seviulle and I spent a week there, anyway. Jared joined us just for the weekend.) It's funny how vacations are never long enough. I brought books, journals, an easel, paints, my guitar, the stroller, etc, all planning on having lots of free down time to do whatever. As it happened, the week flew by, despite the fact that we did not much withour spare time other than play fetch with my parents' dog.

This is my parents (new-ish) dog, Molly. Seville seems to figure that since they're about the same height, they are friends.

Seville spent many hours throwing this ball into the water, and Molly dutifully fetched it, despite the fact that it was about 2 feet away. It was almost as if Molly was teaching Seville how to play "fetch" and not the other way around.

Daddy comes to join the fun.

Seville dons her swimsuit playing on the little paddle boat.

Returning from Seville's first canoe ride. She kept wanting to touch the water, and we kept trying to explain to her that the boat would tip over if she leaned over the side. No matter, she kept trying. Eventually I went ahead and held her over the side while Jared carefully counterbalanced the other direction.

(I posted a ton of pictures for my family to see, so if the above 5 aren't enough for you, they are at http://picasaweb.google.com/skye.engstrom/Sunriver2008# )

What We've Been Up To

Obviously I can't seem to find the time to post regularly lately. Here's a photo album of the past 6 weeks or so. Events it captures:

1. Random Summertime crafty stuff
   
2. Trip to the zoo for Jared's company picnic
3. Trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Seattle
4. Trip to Jared's family mining claim in Montana, via Grandpa Pixton's airplane
5. Skye's Portland to Coast relay

enjoy...

Reflections on our time in the E.R.

Seville is doing fine now, thanks. This is a long post, but I've wanted to write some about our adventures in the Emergency Room, for those who might be interested. Here are my (many) thoughts:

1. Emergency rooms are no fun. We went to Emmanuel, which is supposed to be about the best children's hospital in town. They have an emergency room just for children, which is nice. But no matter how many little fishy stickers you put on your walls, you're still cramming a small child into a little room with a hospital gurney, a chair, a big intimidating light thing hanging from the ceiling, and not much to do for HOURS while you wait, wait, wait for everybody to get around to looking at your case. The endless waiting between each and every doctor or test or procedure was probably the second worst thing about it.
The winner of the worst award goes to the sounds of the other children in there. Seriously. The number one thing emergency rooms could do to make themselves more humane would be to soundproof the walls. Seville tried to nap on that hard hospital gurney, and I spent the whole time (about an hour) holding her with one arm, and holding her ear with my other so she wouldn't hear the screaming of the other children as they got their blood drawn, or their stitches, or whatever it was. While she was awake I would distract her like mad when the baby next door cried. It was excruciating to listen to them. My heart went out to them so much, and it made our situation seem ever more dire and scary. And I wanted to do everything in my power to keep Seville from hearing the house-of-horrors noises and feel at ease and comfortable.

2. I should trust my instincts. Throughout the course of the whole thing I can cite decision after decision where my instincts told me something. With every single one, if I trusted my instincts I was right and/or glad. If I went with what someone else said or recommended, against my inner pull, I was universally regretful later.
For example, they needed a blood test early on. The doctor recommended that we go ahead and put in an i.v. line at the same time because it would save a step later if we needed it (which was likely). Something in me felt that I shouldn't do it, but the various people there convinced me otherwise. As it turned out, the nurse was unable to get the i.v. in the first time, so she had to try again (first strike against the decision. Now we've no longer saved her a step. And how hard was it to hold Seville while they were attempting this!). The second, successful attempt was in the bend of her arm, so they had to strap her whole arm to a board to keep her from bending it and messing it up. She HATED it! She spent more time crying and whining about her arm all day than anything else, including her hip, which is what we were there for (second strike, because it's just making her more miserable than ever). Many hours later I asked for some Motrin or something, but because she hadn't eaten (another story there!) they couldn't give it to her orally. They went to give her some pain killer in her i.v. only to discover - after MUCH horrible fiddling, prodding, tugging, etc - that the i.v. line had closed up and was useless (strike 3, it was a waste). They took it out and freed her arm from the board, at which point she was immediately in better spirits. They said they could give her the i.v. she needed for surgery after she was under anesthesia (WHAT?!! Then why did we torture her all day with this thing to begin with?!! a BIG strike 4!). Obviously, I regret not following my gut on that one.
Here's one I followed: We went to the E.R. in the morning, but had actually been told by my doctor to go the night before. It was after midnight and Jared and I were ready to head out the door. I walked into my bedroom to get my wallet and Seville immediately calmed down until I walked out again. Something in me felt I should try lying down with her in my bed before we left. I told Jared, "what if half of her crying and upset is because she is tired and exhausted and frustrated and just wants to sleep?" Jared looked at me a little incredulously. His hand was on the doorknob. We were dressed and packed and ready to go, but he trusted me and agreed to try it (so grateful for him!). We lay down in bed in our clothes. Seville calmed down and went to sleep for the rest of the night, between us in bed. I was so glad. It didn't save us a trip to the E.R., but it did give us all some rest before we went, which I think was critical. And Seville was in better spirits the next day, and much easier to work with.

3. No matter how bad you think you have it, someone else has it worse. The next morning Seville and I went to the play room in the infant/toddler wing. Seville's havin' a good ol' time with the hospital's toys when a couple other moms come in. We exchanged stories, and it turns out both these moms' tiny babies have been living in the hospital for months now. One of them has never been home. They both have serious heart conditions and have had several surgeries and stuff. I felt almost guilty telling them we'd only been there 24 hours, and that we'd be sent home today. They only talked about how blessed they were that their babies were still alive.

4. The doctors and hospital staff can and will tell you what to do, but healthcare decisions are ultimately your own. I repeated this mantra to myself when I felt I needed to advocate for Seville -- like when I fed her, against their advice, because I wasn't about to starve her in addition to everything else she was going through, "just in case" she needed surgery later. I decided if she needed surgery, and it was that critical that her stomach was empty, they could postpone the surgery a couple hours. Everybody there had a different number of hours she's not supposed to eat before anesthesia anyway (ranging from 2-6). I understand and respect that they make recommendations based on what they're trying to do for her healthcare. But I'm responsible for more than just her healthcare, and the big picture was that she needed to eat. And she needed to go outside and get out of the room for a while too - another thing I insisted on against their policies, that did her a world of good.

Tunnel-love

26 1/2 Hours

Last Saturday we took Seville to the doctor for a limp. He thought it was something called Toxic Synovitis, but when she got suddenly way worse Wednesday night, we all grew suspicious. So Thursday morning, having been up most of the night with her, we took Seville to the doctor again. He sent us straight to the emergency room at Emanuel, and after various tests, poking, prodding, ultrasounds, X-rays, etc, they sent us to the O.R. to have a surgeon take a look. He did a needle aspiration to check her out and by the time all was said and done it was around midnight. We stayed overnight in the infant's and toddler's ward, and around noon today, over 24 hours later, we were released, various medical professionals having determined that Seville is clear of the most scary and urgent possible problems, and it probably is, in fact, Toxic Synovitis (which is benign, and should resolve on its own). We have to watch and observe for several days. More on this later, for now I plan to get some sleep for the first time in... let's see....