I Blame Heredity

I inherited chronic back pain from both of my parents. What? You didn't know that you could inherit that? Just ask them! They both suffer from it just as I do. My dad gets weekly massages to combat his pain. If only I could do that.

I mention this because the pain has been pretty significant for me for the last 6 weeks or so. On Friday, I went to the chiropractor and on Saturday, the massage therapist. Yesterday, I woke up in pain, but nothing debilitating. That is, until I took a shower. After my shower, my muscles started spasming and seizing up from the bottom of my shoulder blades up through my neck. I couldn't even change Malcolm's diaper without screaming and crying in pain. And folks, let me tell you, it's got to be pretty painful to get that kind of reaction out of me. When you deal with chronic pain, you tend to build up your pain tolerance. I was pretty f*cked yesterday so I called Tony and he came home to take care of Mal. I could barely move. It scared Malcolm quite a bit. It broke my heart to see him crying and I couldn't do anything to comfort him. Once Tony got home, I laid in bed and took the serious pain killers that were prescribed to me after labor.

I'm still in quite a bit of pain today but at least I can change Malcolm's diaper and carry him down the stairs.

This most recent bought has proven that I really need to start taking care of myself. The only thing that has prevented the serious pain is regular weight-bearing exercise. I walk all the time, but that's just not cutting it. Now I'm on the hunt for a gym that provides daycare and isn't too far from home.

Sherry's arriving tomorrow and I can't clean the house. Lame. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I feel well enough to at least vacuum tomorrow.

Constant Mess

I spend a lot of my day picking up after Malcolm. Above is just a sample of the mess on the floor after a typical meal. It's a good thing that I don't mind cleaning so much. If I were working outside of the home, I'd likely hire someone to come in and clean every couple of weeks. It's seriously a full-time job taking care of the kid and the house and the house is rarely in the condition I would like it to be.

How I Have Missed Thee!

The issue with renewing my Flickr Pro account: trying to do it with Safari browser. Stupid incompatibility. Anyhoo, I finally did it using Firefox and I am very happy to see that all of the pictures I have uploaded over the past 3 years are still there. Sweet!

Family Times = Good Times

Make that great times! Our trip to Utah was fun as always. Malcolm loved playing with his cousins. Brenda came over every day and brought Jordan and Collin. When Hannah and Casey were over, Hannah did such a good job of watching/playing with Malcolm and made sure he didn't get into any trouble.

Utah gets pretty hot in the summer. Here's a little video of Jordan and Malcolm playing outside. To keep the porch cool, Jordan was spraying it with water while doing his best not to get Malcolm wet. Mal had other ideas.


Malcolm was constantly amused by Jordan. Here he is laughing his little butt off at Jordan playing with markers:


Here's a picture of half of the cousins (there are 12 total). Tony's step siblings' kids aren't in the picture.


Check out my Flickr page to see the rest of the pictures from our trip.

A week and a half after our return, Jenn, Piet and Cameron came up to Seattle for a long weekend. The boys had a lot of fun playing together (of course!) and we enjoyed hanging out with Jenn & Piet. Their trip was too short as always. I haven't put up the pictures to Flickr because I ran out of room :( I tried signing up for a paid account but it just wouldn't work for me. I'll give it a try again soon. Promise!

As Local As It Gets

I am seriously enjoying our little urban garden. We were a little late in planting things so pretty much the only things we've harvested are peas, lettuce, chard and collards. Our tomatoes have started to turn red which is so exciting to us. I had to thin out the chard and kale because it was too crowded. We also lost our pea plants for some reason.

Today, I thought to myself, "I need to eat some veggies for lunch" (we have minimal produce since I missed the Farmer's Market last week). So, I went out and cut enough collard greens for my meal. I didn't have to figure out what to do with a whole bunch; I could just get what I needed. Love it!