Recap and precap

Look, I've been busy! We've got a lot to catch up on, you and I. Such a lengthy list of things I need to recap. I will first provide a recapitulation of the end of 2012 and then I will give you a "precap" (a made-up word for overview) of 2013. Ready, set....

Christmas was SICK
Like, literally. We ventured up to Woodhull, IL on 12/22 to celebrate Christmas with Jason's family. The night before I went to a coworker's farewell happy hour and laid on the spirit. Maybe a little too much spirit. I had a baby dinosaur cracking out of my skull Saturday morning, just in time to go on a four hour road trip with an 8-month old baby and a chatty husband. I assumed I had a hangy. But as the day progressed it got worse instead of better and I started to develop a major queasiness, and I realized it was not a simple case of the brown bottle flu. I was for real sick. For real real sick. We pulled off the road at a Hampton Inn somewhere around Litchfield where we changed Hannah in the bathroom and then I introduced the toilet to my breakfast. Gross. I still wrote it off as just a bad hanger until I started to feel like Santa's elves and eight tiny reindeer were doing Jersey Shore fist bumps all up in my belly. Jason, Hannah and I left the holiday party at 5:00 p.m. and set up camp at a hotel in Galesburg. I went to bed immediately, but I woke up probably within an hour because I had to show the bathroom a thing or two (or six or seven) about the inside of my stomach. Which brings us to...

A toilet named "church"
I never like to admit I'm sick so I still thought perhaps this was the world's worst hangover and I should be punished because I'm a mom now and I'm not supposed to drink in excess on occasion because that's just not mom-like. My theory was strengthened when I was bowing down to the porcelain god and there, right in front of my face on the back of the toilet lid, was the inscription of the toilet brand: CHURCH. A toilet named church? Seriously? I get it, God. I get it. Lighten up on the wine (me, not you - although you can turn water into it which must have gotten you invited to a lot of parties). Or at least take better care of myself so I don't get sick so easily. I am, after all, a lemon. Which brings us to...

Hannah's shiny new ear holes
Because she's my little bit of lemonade, Hannah has spent 98% of her life out of the womb sick. She gets a cold and the cold becomes an ear infection because her ear holes are too narrow to let the fluid out so bacteria just hangs out. The ear infection requires antibiotics, and the antibiotics give her diarrhea. The diarrhea gives her a diaper rash, and the diaper rash becomes a yeast infection. The yeast infection requires a cream, and the cream is cold on her butt. A cold butt gives her a cold. And the cycle would continue and continue if we didn't do something different. Enter tubes. Our pediatrician recommended that we talk to an ENT specialist after her 5th or so ear infection in 8 months, so we did just that and on 12/28 Hannah got some shiny new tubes put in her ears. She handled it fine. I did not. I was kind of a nervous wreck for the anesthesia portion of the event. I'm sorry but knocking out a <19 lb. human doesn't strike me as safe. But they did it and she has recovered alright so far. Other parents who have had children get tubes comforted me before the surgery by telling me it is an incredibly breezy ordeal. I guess it was. She recovered very quickly and the whole thing turned out to be harmless, which was good because my family postponed our morning Christmas gift exchange to 12/29 because I can't seem to be healthy. Which brings us to...

There's no present like presence (except when you receive the golden bag - that's a damn good present)
My immediate family has a lot of neat holiday traditions. We chop a tree together. We used to take a December trip to Union Station until it became a little desolate and creepy and the only merchants left include the Fudgery, a food court, and a handful of St. Louis souvenir shops. My siblings and I draw names for a gift exchange and whoever Jeremy has is the recipient of several really terrible Dollar Store "gifts." The best of all traditions is the golden bag tradition. You see, my mother is a frugal gal, and each Christmas she would save the salvageable gift wrap and bags and reuse them the next year(s). My siblings and I began to notice that one bag in particular - a hologram gold bag - was always given to the child that we could only assume was mom's favorite for that year. After years of knowing this without telling my mom, the knowledge leaked and now my mom knows that we know of her golden bag "prize." Well, guess who got the golden bag this year? YEP! This girl. Honestly, we all thought it was going to be Jeremy's year. But, we've hypothesized that because I'm always mom's favorite this doesn't mean I did anything right this year; it means that everyone else did something wrong. Thanks, guys! I'll take it. All the present-y stuff aside, I have to say that there was truly no better gift than just being there with everyone. Don't get me wrong: I like giving and getting presents. But I can totally do without all that if it just means I get to spend time with people I love. Which brings us to...

The new year's eve with the new little people
Outside of the farewell happy hour overindulgence, I can't say I'm much on the party scene these days, what with a baby on my hip most of the time and all. That's not a good look in bars. Mama still likes to have fun, though, and I am lucky in that many, many of my friends have small kids and babies. Jason and I hosted a gathering of people + offspring this year. The Minders, Klasings, and Bristols came over, and we ate food, drank adult beverages, and let our kids take over the floor while we sat back, observed, and discussed how awesome we all were for making it through the year. Which brings us to...

Hannah hits the 9-month mark
Girlfriend is getting down with her bad self. She dances (bops, really) to music, which is basically awesome. She pulls herself to standing and prefers to be that way. She says "mama" and "dada" and makes a ton of other bizarre noises. She flaps her arms wildly in the bathtub and flings water all over me and the walls and I laugh hysterically and encourage the whole thing. She crawls on her hands and knees and is getting really fast. She waves hello and goodbye. She makes smooch noises but hasn't quite figured out how to kiss a face. She is eating all kinds of food - pureed fruits and vegetables, chunks of peaches, yogurt, puffs, pieces of meat or whatever we are eating, and naturally she tries to eat non-food items as well. Anything she can find. Books. Bugs. Benson's toes. She had her 9-month pediatrician appointment and has been referred to a pediatric eye doctor for her tear duct that has been clogged up since birth (another surgery coming - wheeeee!) and she has to go to an orthopedic specialist because her right foot likes to point out all the time. Neat! She'll be fine. She'll be fiiiiine. Stop panicking! Oh - that's me. Anyway, she is now around the 55th percentile for weight and over 90th percentile for height. She's getting so old. Which brings us to...

Baby Julia turns ONE
OK, wait, what? Our babies are becoming.......not babies! Julia Klasing, one of Hannah's very best buddies, just celebrated her first birthday this past weekend. Holy moly, I can't believe she's a whole year old already! That's nuts. We had such a great time at Julia's first birthday party at the Klasings' phenomenal new U City home. Neal & Emily invited their buds and their buds brought their babies so there were literally buds and babies from wall to wall. At one point I lost Hannah in the sea of babies. It was such a great time! I can't believe Hannah's friends are turning one already. You know what that means? That means Hannah is going to turn one soon. Oh dear God. Which brings us to...

The 2013 PRECAP!
Well as we just discussed Hannah will be celebrating her one-year life anniversary and I will be celebrating the fact that I survived a fiery case of postpartum depression/anxiety and Hannah survived Jason and me doing this parenting thing for the first time!

I am also going to be starting a new job in February. Yes, I love my current employer. I have nothing but compliments for InteliSpend. If you've been a Mutherford reader for awhile you will recall a few times during my pregnancy where I praised my company for being so accommodating when I chose to go part-time and when I was struggling with postpartum issues. They were so good to me, and it is very hard to leave. I have made some lifelong friends there and I have grown professionally and personally in the past five years. However, I have been given the opportunity to work for a company located less than three minutes from my house, and that will give me a minimum of 1.5 hours back every day in commute time. I have also been given the chance to write professionally again, which is something I've been really, really wanting to do for as long as I've been alive. I still get to work part-time and my boss is the former VP of marketing at InteliSpend - someone I really admire and enjoy. This new gig is a gift, and I feel very much at peace with this decision although I'm really going to miss the absolutely brilliant and genuine friends I've made at InteliSpend. It's going to be an emotional January.

February is also bringing me a brand new niece or nephew! Jesse and Monica are going to be blessed with the arrival of "Pickle" somewhere around February 13th. I can't wait. I seriously can't wait. Jesse and Monica are incredible parents. They have shown such courage since losing the twin boys last February, and I am so proud of them and eager to both honor the lives of Anthony and Wesley in February and welcome our sweet little Pickle baby. Hannah is going to have so much fun with Pickle just as she does with her cousin Mykenna. We are so blessed.

Finally, my personal focus in 2013 is going to be on my health. I'm still struggling with back issues and since the decompression therapy I was investigating isn't covered by my medical insurance (and has a price tag of $5,000) I am now attending physical therapy to aid my recovery. It's going to be a slow process, and I feel almost silly that I am this young and this out of whack, but I don't think I was prepared for the toll pregnancy and childbirth would take on my body. My core needs some serious strengthening, and I still have a ways to go before I feel comfortable with my weight again. But for me it's not as much about pounds on the scale as it is how I feel. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I need to treat myself better. I was actually watching an episode of Intervention (a favorite!) the other night and I loved the way one of the rehab doctors put it: "When you realize your self-worth, you will do everything in your power to protect that." I think that not only applies to sobriety, but it applies to how you treat yourself in general. I am a good person and I deserve good health. It's up to me to follow through with that.

And that's a wrap for now. Until next time, friends...