Namaste.

Happy New Years!

A good friend our ours, Sarah, gave us a "New Years Eve Party Pack!", which included a bottle of Sparkling grape juice, some poppers, and these moustaches and hats.  The girls were underwhelmed with the poppers, but loved the moustaches and hats.  LOVED!

We FaceTimed with the hats and moustaches to my parents in Florida that night.  

Did I mention that we celebrated the New Years on Paris, France time?  We did.  6pm on New Years eve is midnight in Paris.  Woo!

So a lot of people make New Years resolutions.  Massively world changing resolutions.

They're going to lose 50 lbs.

They're going to quit smoking.

They're going to change careers.

Us?   Naah.

We're setting our sights a bit lower.  We both agreed that we need to make the same resolution.

1.  Survive this.

2.  Stay married.

Both of the above might sound a bit grandiose/minimalist, but stay with me for a few.

Firstly, from what Shelley and I have read/heard, there's absolutely nothing more destructive to a marriage than a child's chronic illness.  Nothing.  She quoted me the number of 70% tonight.  70% of couples that have a kid get chronically ill get divorced/split up at some point due to the stress, carnage, erosion of the basic principles of the relationship.  

I totally understand that too.  We are so completely, overwhelmingly full of stress many days.  You can't take it out at work, you'll lose your job.  You can't take it out on the friends that are still around, you need them too much. You can't take it out on the kids, you're evil.  So...you take it out on each other.

HOW DARE YOU NOT EMPTY THE DISHWASHER!

It's silly, but we've gotten into fights like that in the last year.  It's like enamel getting worn away, the littlest things can drive a person crazy, and prompt totally inappropriate responses.

A nurse at Mott which we recently saw again for the first time in 9 months, who is my nighttime conversationalist, said much the same.  Her comment was that over and over she sees parents come in supportive of each other at the start of the illness, and by the end, they're split up and pulling separate (if any) shifts.  Totally understandable in how overwhelming it is, but sad as crap.

So, we're going to stay married.  

Also, we're going to personally survive this madness.  Not in the physical sense, really....just in the holistic sense.  I'm much, much better at this one than Shelley.  I am GREAT at advocating for my needs, but then again I'm the much more extroverted and assertive one in the relationship.  I'm great at letting her know when I need to roll some dice (D&D, not craps), shuffle a deck (Magic: The Gathering, not poker) or see a movie.

It's a lot harder for the introvert to do that.  

What does the introvert need?  This comic does MUCH better than I could to explain:

Got it?  She needs quiet, order, and home.

What does she get at home?  2 kids, cancer, me, my extrovertedness, and life.

She asked me today what she can do to be less frustrated with things (she used a different term, but I can't remember the exact word she used, and I'm sure as heck not going to wake her up to ask) and I responded with a few things. 

1. Go to Yoga every single Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
2. Tell me when she needs alone time, and I'll arrange it.
3. Stop trying to make everything so darned perfect, if possible. <not banking on this one, IMHO>

I can make 1 and 2 happen.  I'm useless for 3.  So I'll concentrate on 1 and 2.

I'm losing steam on this post, and it's been a hella long day, so I'll recap a few Amie things.

When I last posted on the blog, Amie was puking and pooping all over the place.  That continued and we ended up going to Mott on the 26th to get hydrated.  She was a sack of jelly when we arrived, and they had her hooked up to IVs for the majority of the day, with us cuddling at the hospital.  At the end of the day, with no pukes all day, but lots of diarrhea, they admitted us overnight for hydration and observation.

We stayed overnight, almost got caught up in the c diff cycle of hell, got release on good behavior, and battled the dehydration and diarrhea for the next 5 days.  She stopped the pooping on New Years Eve.  Woo!

We painted the girls' bedroom for a new refresh now that we got rid of Amie's crib and she's graduated into her new bed (next blog post) and some new IKEA hardware to manage their stuff (when Uncle Chad comes to help install it),

As a final note to things...I've received a lot of inquiries as to how anyone can help us.  I'm totally good.  If anyone wants to buy anything for us, get Shelley some yoga classes at her studio.

She loves the crap out of Spirit Rising Yoga.  It's the one thing that she loves doing right now more than anything.  Really and truly.

She goes to yoga, goes to Aldi's afterwards to get fruit, goes to Target afterwards to browse....whatever the heck she does, and comes home absolutely refreshed.  It's good stuff to fill the soul for her.

I've rambled enough for tonight.  Night all.