I'm Mr. White Christmas
I'm Mr. Snow
I'm Mr. Icicle
I'm Mr. 10 below....

When I was a kid, we used to watch all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials. You know the ones I'm talking about.....Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Burgermeister Meisterburger!), Jack Frost, Nestor the Christmas Donkey, and, probably the most famous, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I liked them all, but my absolute favorite was The Year Without a Santa Claus because I loved Heat Miser and Cold Miser. I don't know why, but I did. I was very disappointed when Christmastime would come and that was no longer one of the special shows that was shown. I was ecstatic when the Family Channel (FoxFamily and now ABCFamily) started showing all those specials again.

That brings us to this year. Alison is at an age now where she will watch some of these things. We made a big deal out of watching Rudolph when it was on (even though we watched it on DVD) and she loved it. And then we got Year Without a Santa Claus on DVD. Alison is now an addict. She wants to watch it all the time because she wants to see Heat Miser and Cold Miser, especially Cold Miser. Like mother, like daughter, I guess. I'm glad to be passing on these "traditions" to her. The show is hokey, but it's fun. And to keep it fun, I'm trying really hard not to let her watch it too much. We've watched it twice, and I think that will be it....until next year. There are a lot of things that I let her watch all the time.....we watch Beauty and the Beast every Thursday night....but I think the Christmas specials need to remain just that...Christmas specials. I only hope I can get Alison to agree with me without too many tantrums. :)

It's Saturday afternoon and I still have a million things I would like to get done today (not really, but you know what I mean), and yet here I sit, not doing any of them. In spite of this, I do feel like I've accomplished quite a bit today. I got to the mall at 9:00, which was later than I had originally intended, but early enough, and finished almost all of my Christmas shopping by 10:30. We still have gifts to buy for Alison, and I need to get something for my future SIL, but other than that, I am done. One of the "million" things I would still like to do today is start wrapping presents. I have also done 3 loads of laundry (all Alison's), and mixed up 3 batches of cookie dough. One batch is baked, but the others are chilling in the fridge right now. And, I have just about finished putting up my Christmas decorations. But right now, I'm tired.

In other news, Alison got her brace yesterday. I should be writing about this in her blog, and I will, soon, but it came to mind while I was typing, so I thought I'd put it here. She's doing well with it, for the most part. We did have to pick her up a new pair of tennis shoes to wear when she doesn't have the brace on because the orthotist ripped the insole out of her other shoe so we could fit the brace in. The other thing we had to find was knee socks, because she needs a sock that goes up over her calf so that the back of the brace doesn't rub on her calf so much. It is very hard to find knee socks in December. There was a Children's Place a the the mall we were at last night and we tried looking there and they only have knee socks in June and July, for back-to-school shoppers whose kids need them for their school uniforms. We tried several other places, and finally found some that are really too big, but will do, at another shoe store. The problem is that she has such small feet. These socks would probably fit the average almost-2 1/2-year old foot, but we've got an extra inch of sock hanging past her toes. But, we've found another upside to not having feeling in that foot....she can't feel that there is a bunch of sock wadded up in the toe of her shoe! I'm going to be on the lookout for toddler sized tube socks (if they even exist.....better check out the boys socks next time I'm in Walmart), though, because I'd like to have something that fits her a little better and we still need a few more socks. The two pair that we bought only gives us 4 days.

Well, it would seem I've dilly-dallied here long enough. Alison should be waking up from her nap anytime now, and it's time for me to get back to my "chores."

So I remembered to go in for my bloodwork and ultrasound this morning. I raced around like a crazy person trying to get myself and Alison ready to go, but we made it. Either there aren't very many women cycling right now, or they were very efficient this morning, because I don't think we waited 10 minutes before it was my turn to go back (I'm voting for not very many women cycling this month). Julie got my blood in one stick with no digging around for a vein. I was very greatful for that. My ultrasound was relatively uneventful. We could see an area where there was some "loose" blood, which makes sense because I've had a little bit of spotting the last two days, but otherwise the lining of my uterus looked fine. My ovaries looked fine, but it was really hard (and rather painful) to get a good look at my left one. I've had problems with that ovary before. Six years ago I had a wedge resection done on it, due to a ruptured cyst, and it was actually behind my uterus and adhered to it. The ovary is really close to my uterus again and I'm wondering if there are not some adhesions from the fetal surgery incisison site that are causing it. (I know I had adhesions from the back of my uterus to my bowel when Alison was born.....which makes sense since the incision from the fetal surgery was in the back of my uterus.)

At any rate, I got the call this after noon that my bloodwork was fine and I am to start my meds. I'm taking estrogen tablets 3 times a day and wearing an estrogen patch that I change every three days. I go back again for another round of bloodwork and another ultrasound next Wednesday. If all goes well, I'm guessing our transfer will be the 28th or 29th. Hopefully we'll know for sure after next Wednesday's appointment.

Alison was very well behaved during my appointment. She sat very nicely in her stroller and nursed the cup of milk that I gave her to drink on our drive to the doctor's office. She talked to the nurses, who all had to make sure they saw her before we left. After all the attention people have been giving her, she's in for a rude awakening if this works and we have another baby!

Two entries from me in one day.....it's rare for me to do one entry a day, this might be some kind of record.

So today after Story Time, Alison and I went upstairs to the grown up's area of the library so I could pick out a couple of books for myself. I'm working through our library's list of classic fiction. Alison let me look around long enough to find one book on the list and then it was time to go. On the way to the check out desk, I passed the Book Express area (Book Express is mostly for newer books, both fiction and non-fiction, and is a 7 day check out with no renewals) and saw that there was finally a copy of The Da Vinci Code available. In fact, there were several copies there today. As probably one of the last people on the planet who has not read this book, I've been waiting for a copy to turn up for months, so I grabbed it.

Fast forward to lunch today. Kevin says to me, "You don't think your mom would get you The Da Vinci Code for Christmas do you?" "Well, I don't think so, but I hope not because I just checked it out of the library today," I said. He tells me to take it back. "You've got to be kidding," I say. "I've been waiting for months to get a copy of this book and I finally get one and you're telling me to take it back?!?" "Take it back," he said.

So now I know what one of my Christmas gifts is going to be. Oh well, at least I won't have the pressure of having to finish it in a week hanging over my head when I finally get a chance to read it.

I sat down here to write something and I have no idea what to write. I just have jumbles of thoughts swimming around in my brain.

Saturday, Alison had an unfortunate encounter with brick wall. Kevin and I are middle school UMYF counselors. Saturday our kids were doing one of their church service projects by babysitting for parents who wanted to drop their kids off for a few hours to do some Christmas shopping or whatever. Alison was with us because it seemed a little silly to pay for a babysitter so that we could go and babysit other kids. Anyway, after lunch, the kids got out the little scooters and of course Alison was all interested in that. I sat there watching and thinking this was not going to be a good thing and she was going to end up getting hurt....that she was going to get run over/knocked down or was going to have her fingers or a foot run over. These scooters could be hooked together in a sort of scooter "train." At one point, Alison got on the scooter train, the second scooter from the front, and another, older, boy started pushing it. He was going really fast and had veered towards the wall, eventually heading straight towards it. Kevin tried to get him to slow down just before he rammed the scooter train into the wall, causing Alison to fly into it head first. Fortunately she has a very tough skull, because, after we got her calmed down, she was just fine....didn't even want us to put ice on her bump (which was enourmous, and I don't know how we missed seeing it right away, but we did). She was running around again in no time. The scooters were put away right after it happened.

My FIL is dying. We've known he was dying since earlier this year, but now it's down to a matter of weeks, most likely. His doctors have given three months at most, but his cardiologist will be turning off his defibrulator after Christmas. I don't think any of us realistically expect it to be much longer once that's done.

As long as I remember to go to my appointment tomorrow morning, we're scheduled to have our embryo transfer the week after Christmas. I was supposed to go in for bloodwork and ultrasound yesterday but, for whatever reason, completely forgot. Fortunately it doesn't mess us up, since I'm not scheduled to start meds until tomorrow anyway, but it's really not like me to forget things like that. I was supposed to be there between 8:00 and 8:45, and didn't remember until 9:45 when I was calling to reschedule Alison's appointment with her orthopedic surgeon. Her brace was supposed to be in last week, but it's not here yet, so we've rescheduled for the appointment for after the first of the year because there's so much going on for us between now and then.

This morning I tried a potty training experiment with Alison. When we were out shopping yesterday, I picked up a package of waterproof training pants for Alison (underwear with a vinyl cover all in one). She was really excited about her new underwear. So much so that she went tinkle on the potty before her nap, stayed dry during it, went tinkle again as soon as she got up, stayed dry until dinnertime, went again, and then ended up going in her diaper while she was playing after dinner. I decided to try the training pants this morning to see if she would ask to go to the potty if she felt when she started going in her pants. Well....she didn't. Her diaper was dry when I put the training pants on her and an hour later when we went to the bathroom so she could go potty before we went to Story Time, she was completely soaked....training pants, shirt, pants, even the tops of her socks were wet, and she never said a word about it. This raises the question of does she even have the ability to feel that she is wet? I hope so.

To all those (able bodied) people on my regular walking route who didn't shovel their sidewalks because "oh it's just going to melt anyway," I've got news for you. IT DIDN'T!!! And now, because it got I-don't-know-how-cold last night (it was 23 when we left for our walk this afternoon), the sidewalks are are covered in ice. Thanks a lot! Just be glad I didn't slip and fall and break one of my (or my daughter's) bones.

I know nobody along my route is going to read this, or even know it is directed towards them even if they did, but I feel better now.

Once again, a situation has cropped up that parents of "normal" children don't even have to think twice about. We received information in the mail today about Epworth Co-operative Preschool, the preschool sponsored by our church. Registration for next year is now open for members of area United Methodist churches (registration for the general public will begin in February). Alison will be 3 next fall, so she can go to preschool. The only catch is that she has to be potty trained. While we have every reason to think that she will be able to potty train, eventually, we don't know that we'll be able to accomplish it by the time she's 3. At the top of the registration form it says they admit students of any race, color, and national or ethnic origin, but it says nothing about children with disabilities. What are the chances they would make an exception on the potty training rule for Alison? I guess I won't know until I ask. I don't play the special needs card all that often, because I don't like to do it, but the fact remains that she is a special needs child. Of course, I'm not even sure I want to send her to preschool next year anyway, so it's probably not even something worth worrying about. But what if I want to send her when she's 4 and she's not potty trained by then? I guess these kinds of issues are going to start cropping up more often now.

In totally unrelated news, we're a step further in our FET cycle. I got my lupron injection today. Hot flashes and night sweats here I come!! I had an appointment to get the darn shot at 10:00 this morning and didn't get out of there until 10:45.....and there was no one else there!!! I'm beginning to think there is a minimum amount of time you must wait before anyone will see you in that office. Betsy said if she were to guess when the transfer will take place, she thinks it will be sometime during the week after Christmas. That's fine with me. :) It would have been a little to weird if it was around Dec. 20, because that's when Alison's transfer was.

And the final piece of news, Isaiah is home from the hospital and recovering pretty well. He came home 4 days after surgery. His mom said that although he doesn't want to even try to sit up, he is smiling and laughing again, so that's good news. Hopefully his recovery will continue to go smoothly.