She's My Cherry Pie

I don't know who "She" is, but I do know I need serious cherry pie help. No, not that kind, you dirty internet. Real cherry pie. I've never made it before and I am under the gun (my own gun at that, I chose to make cherry pie, my oh my!) to make it for Easter at my mother-in-law's house. You will join me in this venture tomorrow, with pictures, rest assured. I wouldn't leave you out. But, before all that fun and hilarity can ensue, I really need help. Here are some of my very pressing questions:

1.) Which is better: canned cherries or fresh or frozen?
2.) Which is easier: canned cherries or fresh or frozen?
3.) How the hell do you make a lattice top pie crust without it looking like tangled spaghetti?

Kristina, I'm lookin' at you! And anyone else who knows a cherry from a...peach?


This is the cherry pie of my dreams. Will you help me reach my dreams?

Back In The (Chemical) Saddle Again

Anyone else out there have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)? Let me tell you, it's fun times. Periods are anybodies guess as to when or where or IF they will show up. Pregnancy...it's dicey, maybe yes, maybe no, depending on if your body feels like ovulating. Extra weight, extra acne, extra hair...all part of the package. Really, if you are looking for more ways to be neurotic about yourself, this syndrome has something for everyone.

I've had very active (by that I mean, symptomatic) PCOS since I hit puberty. I went years (I'm not kidding) without a period. Now, I know that sounds like heaven to some, and I wasn't exactly complaining about missing Auntie Flo, but...not real healthy, ya know? So, anyway, when I was approaching 30 and began thinking about (ok, freaking out about) wanting kids and realizing that my time was limited if I wanted to have more than one kid prior to turning 35 (the big "advanced maternal age" limit when all the scary shit happens or at least that's what they tell you) I decided that, obviously, to be able to get pregnant, I would probably need to do something about the lack of period/ovulation stuff.

So, I entered the fun, fun land of Infertility Treatments. Luckily for me, I found a doctor who didn't tell me to "try for a year on your own and then come back and we'll do some testing" (I would have kicked him so it hurt, I swear). He was very compassionate and started me on treatments right away. "Treatments" meaning, mostly, medications. Turns out, long story short, that on top of having PCOS, which messed up all my lady hormones, I had a orange-sized tumor attached to my left ovary, which was crowding everything and I never would have gotten pregnant without having it removed. So that year would have just been for the benefit of my heartache and stress. So, thanks, Dr. Shaw, for being awesome.

Now, if you have ever even looked at my blog, then you know this story has a happy ending. I did get pregnant, had a mostly uneventful pregnancy, with the exception of having to take progesterone supplements for the first trimester (vag. suppositories...ewww.) and wound up with the coolest, cutest, sweetest girl around, my G. I stopped taking medication during and after my pregnancy. The primary medication is Glucophage, or metformin, which is an insulin sensitizer, and please, God, don't make me go into all the details of why I have to take a diabetes medication for cystic ovaries or I will have to stab myself in the eye so I have an excuse to run away. Google it if you want the whole shebang. Suffice it to say, it works. And, it helps me lose weight...B-O-N-U-S!

Lately, though I have been having my cycles regularly, (yay? shit?...it's complicated) I have noticed that the time span in between them is getting, gradually, longer and longer. 30 days, 33 days, 37 days, 45 days...not a good sign. And the weight, oh the weight. It all settles right around my waist, which is oh so attractive. So, back to the OB/Gyn I went on Monday. I mentioned the ever expanding cycle, and he put me right back on metformin. And, to boot, I mentioned (for good measure, I really wanted that medication) that we are thinking about thinking about trying for another kid in 6 months or so. So he put me on folic acid, too.

I'm happy to be taking the meds again. It will help with my cycles, my weight, my exhaustion level. I wish I didn't have to be medicated for the rest of my life, with the threat of developing Type II Diabetes in the future, too. But I am so glad that I have a doctor who listens and cares. I wish my daughter didn't have to worry about dealing with these same issues in her future, but it looks like she probably will. But I am glad that her doctor caught her symptoms so early so we can monitor them and help her. And I wish both of our ovaries would just work right, not that it's that simple, but still...But I am so glad that we live in an age where there is help, and that I was able to conceive and have my daughter. And that I might get to do it again (though I am still ambivilant about that...we'll see.) Oh, and I promise, when the time comes, I will not turn this into a TTC blog all obsessed with my lady parts and such...I've done that, not doing it again (I hope, you'll keep me to it, right? Thanks.)

Weekend Highlights

Look at those PINK cheeks! Don't you just want to gnaw them right off her little cherub face? Err...I mean, she's cute, right? I don't condone baby-chomping, just for the record.

This was at the Broome Community College Children's Fair on Saturday. It was pouring rain and cold, so it turned out to be a perfect day to go have playtime in the gym. G was, once again, fascinated by pouring and piling: sand, dirt, macaroni...didn't matter the material. That is how we spent the entire 2 hours we were there, with a quick lunch break. We thought the charge was $3 per kid and adults free, but it turned out that kids under 3 yrs were free, too, so we spent 2 free hours enjoying BCCs creative ideas and got a free kids' book to boot! SCORE! And, we got to spend time with G's Aunt Kate, who works for the BCCenter as a preschool teacher. Awesome.

We ran to Babies R Us afterward to pick up some essentials: diapers and Desitin. I wanted to buy G another pair of jeans for playing outside, as she is wont to do A. Lot. lately. But BRU didn't have ANY jeans in stock, anywhere? Not even in the boys clothes. What up, BRU?? You disappoint me. Capris don't cut it in 40-50* weather.

Saturday night, friends came to play! With us, not G, she was asleep. Rose and her husband Jason came over to drink wine and champagne (no occasion, just for fun) and play Playstation 3. I twittered about my trepidation in drinking after last weekends debacle with Kate, but I braved it and had 2 tasty glasses. No hang over! Yippee!

Sunday, I had a rare!, exciting!, baby-free! shopping excursion! Granted, it was grocery shopping, and Easter basket shopping, but still....I'll take it. G had a lovely afternoon with her daddy. And I got to buy me some new underwear. Everybody wins. And let me just say, Easter basket shopping is not so easy. I had a very difficult time coming up with a couple of inexpensive gifts that G would actually play with. I settled on this which is not exactly what I had in mind, but all I could find. I also bought a nightie (because, really, she looks tooooooooo adorable in the ratty, old hand-me-down nightie she already has, so much like a big girl, I can't take it.) and some toys for her water-table that she will be getting from Nana for Easter. Oh, and I found some cute jeans on clearance for $9.08. Take that, BRU. You lose, Target wins. But the highlight was the $10 bucks I spent for a Rubbermaid tub, 5 boxes of macaroni, and one bag of 16-bean soup, to make a macaroni play bin ala that pic up there. She spent hours playing in that thing yesterday. Scooping the macaroni, pouring it, dumping it all over the patio, picking it up, repeat, repeat, repeat. Thank you, BCC Children's Fair, for that wonderful idea! Kate took a break from her mad thesis research and brought Nick with her to play with G (and us) for a little while in the sunny afternoon. Pretty good day.

Oh, and just for the record, we spent Friday night as a family, just being grateful for each other and all that we have. We went to dinner at Friendly's, had ice cream, and just hung out together. John and I really needed it after the horrible events in our community on Friday. Folks here are visibly shaken and sad, it's palpable. But, as the Binghamton mayor reminded us, we are a strong community, who has endured a lot of heartache, and we will pull together and get past this, and hopefully learn from it and be better people for it. Thank you all for your prayers and love.

Thoughts

I know everyone says this after a tragedy, but I just can't believe something like this happened here, in Binghamton, where I live, where I've lived my whole life. Binghamton may be on the decline, population wise, and the economy has sucked here for a lot longer than the past year, but it is, and has been, an essentially safe place. My friends and I have chosen to remain here (or come back here, as the case may be). We have chosen to raise our families here, and in the surrounding communities, because we realize that someone has to rescue it from neglect. We have had other options of places to live, but in the end, Binghamton is home, and will remain home. I'm just rambling because I am still shocked that someone filled with, what? Anger, hate, despair, I don't even want to know, could come in and just shoot up a couple dozen people. I am so sad for the loss of life today. And for all the families who now have to pick up the pieces. And we don't even know who those families are yet? Is is anyone I know? Some one close to a friend? God, how scary to think about that.
I hope Binghamton doesn't become synonymous with "shooting tragedy" as some other towns have: Columbine, Virginia Tech...We are so much more than that. We are stronger than this.
How sad.

Please Pray, or whatever you do

OMG. Disregard my last post. My little bitchy attitude is nothing today. This is my home town. We have no idea what is going on right now, how many people have been killed or injured. Some crazy lunatic is shooting people, blocks away from where I sit right now. Please pray for everyone still inside the ACA.
Thank you.

To expand on my Twitter rant...

Work Today = GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
It's Friday, isn't everyone supposed to be nice and cheery on a Friday, even if it is rainy, AGAIN. Today is not a nice and cheery day. And I am not feeling nice and cheery either. So there. Everything is bugging me about work today. People. Paperwork. Phone calls. Bah.

Parkin'

There are a lot of things about kids that I just never considered before having one. For example, parenting is really just an exercise in figuring out what your kid wants to do, deciding if it is acceptable, and rolling with it...lather, rinse, repeat. Because, really, you don't have much control, or even say, of what they do, eat, play with, etc. It is all a big illusion. But that's another post.

This week's discovery is that kids have to learn how to play. We have been going to the park the last several nice days. We took G to the park last year, but she was too little to really do anything. We just plopped her in the swing and she loved it. This year, though, she is big enough to actually play at the park. And big enough to decide what she wants to play with/on. The first day we took her (last Friday, if you read my Twitter...and if not, why not?) she mostly just wandered around, looking at all the equipment, watching all the bigger kids, trying to figure out what the heck she was supposed to do. She tried some climbing, and we took her down the slide a couple of times, but mostly she just...wandered.

The next day we went to the park closer to home. This one has a sandbox. After some more initial wandering, she sat down in the sand, very timidly, and proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes piling sand, getting a little more into after 20 minutes or so.

Tuesday we went back to the park. This time, she ran right to the playground equipment. She was still a little timid. But after the 30th or so time down the slide, I think it's safe to say she's figured it out. What fun! (And exhaustion, since she's too little to do the slide by herself.)