Sprrrrrrrrrring-a-ling!!

Happy April! We sure did that late winter frontwards and backwards all over again. And, then... some stuff happened and now it's spring!!! Break out the Bambi twitterpation, dust yourself with pollen, and let's get dancin to some Stravinsky!

 It's kind of awesome, being both allowed back onto the playgrounds and having a mutual desire to be outside. Allan is getting out, relearning her bravery for mildly perilous playground apparati, and interacting with other kids again. Ok, sure a lot of the time her version of interaction is following the child around yelling "stay away, stay away, there's a virus. Did you know about the virus?" but we all have some crustiness to shed on the fine rules of making friends and influencing people. 

And just as often, she politely stalks some little child or group of children until they relent and treat her like one of their own for an afternoon. A few weeks ago, she crashed a father-daughter soccer game and got in some good passes with the other little girl. She's joined roving gangs of children to pet dogs and dominate park areas. I've even started to learn some kids' names and parental faces. It's pretty incredibly sweet to see how she lights up to find a playmate for the day. 

At any rate, I had a wee little accident about 3 weeks ago in which I implausibly sliced a giant nasty cut in my finger with a dinner knife while cutting open an avocado. Millennials, beware! Avocado toast may be the death of you!!! That combined with excitment and - dun dun dun - starting my new job... 

Well I haven't caught this up in a while. But rest assured, the pace of the world is accelerating pretty rapidly again. I'm naturally nervous about going back to the post-covid world. I'm not the same as when it started, and navigating the new allergies (recently dried paint, cleaning solution, disinfectant, soap, air freshners, and everything other people wear to feel nice and/or clean) is going to be a pain and a half. Even just Andrew and Allan being out and about in the world brings the itches home, so... but it'll be good as well. 

As we wait in our little limbo, life continues to be fun and furious. 

After a year in lockdown, vaccines are coming around! This is enabling some non-zoom activities all of a sudden! First Andrew's brother, then Andrew's mom! Allan is in heaven!

 We got to show Gramma Lisa our whole new West Seattle world. Allan got to warm up to her to be an utter snot by the end of her visit (NO! YOU WILL PLAY TAG IN THE HOUSE WITH ME NOW!!!!!!WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH). That's when you know you're in the inner group. Or you're a teacher on zoom and she's had a little too many classes already that day. But in person, I feel like the spontaneous tantrum is a little more selective... guess we'll see this upcoming outdoor summer day camps we signed her up for (gulp!)

This visit coincided with Passover, which we suggested. I admit that last year's zoom version had the advantage of being able to mute Allan as she started getting frisky (screaming "MORE WINE" and throwing a glass of grapejuice against our dining room wall). But she's a little older. She had fun! She also was away from the dining room table about 15 minutes, running around and talking to herself, trying to get into any of the mysterious other rooms in the Air B&B. But when Afikomen finding time came... she was ON IT. 

Having heard tell of our combustible kitchen (in the span of a week, our microwave started lighting things on fire, the oven was full of melted plastic and the garbage disposal broke... all of which is now fixed, but it was an interesting little period of time) Gramma Lisa opted to cook and host our meal out of a grand BnB rental she was staying in. We still worked in some zoom with the family back in California. Zoom is not dead yet folks. 

Of course, Passover always comes right up nice and cozy to possibly Allan's favorite darned holiday ever: BUNNY DAY! Everyone kind of knows she's a bunny, so Allan got plenty of Easter gifts leading into the holiday. 

And, of course, Frosty the Bunny enjoyed the half eaten oreo and candy that we left out for her. She brought back plenty of thanks. 

Second lockdown Easter and yeah, I'm still determined to make every lock-down holiday the bestest ever! I imagine once the world opens up, I'll just shrug and say "I dunno, honey, why don't you go look for the Easter Bunny at your friends' house?" Ok, maybe not. But every holiday I get a little more extravagent, so we'll see how that dials back. 

For everyone!

Allan did pretty well finding the Easter Eggs this year. She might be ready for an outdoor hunt by next year. Though it definitely took some doing to find the final 10 or so. All of us were in on that. 

Let's just say it was a thorough kind of Young Child Holiday Success: Mommy got up really early and went nuts lavishing her child with semi-anonymous gifts of candy and trinkers, then spent the rest of the morning fretting over the insane amount of sugar the happy child was eating while picking up endless bits of holiday detritus. Child ate insane amounts of chocolate, was giddy for a good couple of hours, then crashed super hard and spent the rest of the day alternately tantrumming and whining that she was BORRRRRRRRRRED. This is how you know the holiday was good!

She got some sweet swag and has spent the last week or so showing it off to anyone she can. 

Aaaand shortly after that, we celebrated our Anniversary! Andrew and I have been married for eight years! Surreal. We have been "an item" for almost 12, so 2/3 of our acquaintance have now been married. We weren't particularly set on celebrating but... things happen. 

Allan has taken possessions of the mugs, of course. She tried the chocolate croissants and - surprise to us both - hated it because of the chocolate. When I picked out the chocolate, she completely enjoyed the unadulterated croissant. Lesson learned. Beignets, though, she does not like. We learned that last night after date night. 

And I have a new wedding ring that (mostly) fits and (probably) won't give me an allergic reaction. It's rpetty. I'm not used to wearing rings anymore, so I'm still adjusting back. 

Me? Wicked Easter, tasty and fun Passover, Friggin' Anniversary. New Job!

I'm pretty good. The new job is definitely a stretch for my brain getting back to detail oriented planning, but it's a pleasant kind of stretch. I'm bobbing between feeling pretty awesome and pretty idiotic within the span of a few seconds. And I now know how to put a > in an .xml document without confusing it as coding! I'm a friggin' genius. I'll be a programmer in no time. 

Right now I test questionnaires to be used by medical offices to track and diagnose patients. Some of that is "front end" stuff that's just answering every possible answer as a patient would and making sure it all works. Some of that is "back end" which involves creating .xml sample patients to make sure everything is logically consistent in this other testing tool I run them through. And sometimes i have zoom calls with my coworkers and accidentally turn on my video and then feel very awkward but shy about just turning it back off... 

Yeah, I still go to a ton of doctors. My hobby! But honestly, most of them are fairly useless and it's annoying and a waste of time and money. I feel like you have to be wealthy to ever find medical help because you have to go through SO MANY dismissive clueless doctors to ever find one who will both listen and know what to look for. 

Well sometimes I cut a chunk ouf of my finger cutting an avocado and urgent care cleans it up after it wno't stop bleeding but somehow it still gets gnarly and maybe infected so I have to dose myself with tons of "fun" pills my body isn't a huge fan of. Then it just heals like "what? I was just kidding. I'm fine." It was an interesting experience though, watching it heal. I'll spare you my detailed photo album, but I have one...

Here's what it looks like today...

 Yeah, like damn, if you'd seen the earlier photos that would mean something!

Anyways. Medical stuff. 

But the day to day chronic stuff, it's like some kind of inane puzzle game. You have symptoms that could be related to almost any bodily system so you have to make an appointment with every specialist and wait that out. They are minimally helpful so on to the next. Or maybe you think that specialist was missing something so you have to go to yet another of that kind of specialist. And pretty soon you've spent thousands of dollars and days of your life sitting in waiting rooms and getting shrugs and advice you could have just read off WebMD, then realizing so and so totally failed to follow the differential diagnosis for ____ xyz so who knows if *anything* was actually ruled out. I am pretty sure you have to be crazy wealthy and patient to ever see enough doctors (at $300 a visit not to mention whatever tests they throw at you) to get anything helpful. 

That said, I recently connected with an immunologist who seems to know some shit and who expressed a desire to look at the full body picture in addition to dosing me up with triple antihistamines and putting me through two more days of prick testing next month. So far I've filled out requests for records from 13 providers and I know I missing some important stuff. I get the sense I could well end up full circleish back at a rheumatologist as she noted some markers of autoimmune issues, though an endocrinologist is definitely not out of the running as "professional I'm surprised I've not seen yet and probably should". We'll see. I'm ... tired. 

BUT back to the family. 

Cuteness explodes!

Andrew's still working from home, but going in from time to time. Still making rockets. Still biking. Planning to start skiing more... mostly next year, but there's a tiny bit of the season left.

Allan's still remarkably vivid in all directions. She's starting to get more of a grasp on letters and sounds, largely by personifying the letters and drawing them as momma and baby letters playing and singing and dancing. 

She's still drawing up a storm. Still demanding her kindle time. Getting more expert on the playground by the second. Stalking kids left and right in all kinds of complex and fascinating ways. Demanding CRAFTS and ACTIVITIES constantly in between elaborate bouts of self-enteratinment with her stuffed animals or a few pieces of paper and some glue.  

Next week she starts a soccer class! She's not the most coordinated girl in the world and the way she throws is not exactly athletic, but she can kick ok (has been practicing ever since she was in my belly!). It'll be a little strange, with kids socially distanced and limited to their own balls. But it'll be fun if we can make it out of the house on time for the morning run. 

And in summer, she'll be doing a few weeks of summer camps on Mercer Island with her the head of her current (Zoom preschool experience). In the meantime, she is in love with her Teacher, Abby, and loves her online classes. And she hones her child stalking skills every day