Micah's blog

Micah published his first blog post! :) You can find it here:

http://blog.micahbellphotography.com/

What I've been hearing lately...

...is that I look great! It's really wonderful, because I feel pretty great. And I had the realization that my house church (many of whom I met last April/March) haven't ever seen me doing well. I started going shortly before Micah and I got married, which equates wedding stress. Then we had the period of adjusting to being married...then I miscarried...and then I got pregnant and it "stuck." So it's been a while since anyone has seen me be outwardly joyful and playful. I look forward to that sticking for a little while...even if I do feel like a bit of a whale.

Now, I am not someone who has particularly enjoyed being pregnant. Even when Miss Bell is doing gymnastics, I think to myself, "This feels interesting." Not that I love to feel her move...and she moves A LOT. But there is one thing that I do love about being pregnant.

It is an open forum for discussing weight gain. And, for most, it is completely acceptable to start a conversation, "When I was pregnant I gained 47 pounds!"

Well, I was doing so well on the weight gain deal. For about a month I actually lost a few pounds, which is no danger for my healthy and padded body. But one day I got hungry...and I ate a box of Velveeta shells and cheese for lunch and followed it up with a half pan of brownies. Then I ate some toast...and followed it up with a box of TJ's Pad Thai and a bag of edamame. And that's how three days went...no matter how much I ate, I had gnawing hunger. And I gained 4 pounds in 3 days.

So I went from gaining 12 pounds at 19 weeks to gaining 19 pounds at 25 weeks. And all I want to eat is chocolate. And luckily I have a husband who loves our child (and me) enough to know that I cannot live off of chocolate alone.

peace.

Heartburn, amongst other happenings

At 3 AM last night, I awoke with this feeling like acid was eating my brain. Micah and I were having a relatively snuggly moment in sleeping, so I woke him up by saying, "Honey, I hate to say this, but your squeezing me and it's giving me heartburn." When he let go of me, the heartburn didn't get any better. So at 3 AM my narcoleptic husband went out to find TUMS.

Praise God for a wonderful and caring husband.

At 20 weeks, I was stoked because all of the sudden the cloud lifted...I felt pretty decent! At 23 weeks, I started having trouble getting comfortable while sleeping...and now at 24 weeks I have heartburn. TUMS, other than Jesus and Micah, you sustain me.

The blessing in all of this is that March SUCKED. Micah's biggest client at work is the NCAA and their big project is the Final Four. Micah has lovingly referred to March as March Sadness. It was a rough month between his work and my super huge school program (which went off without a memorable hitch).

So, I'm exhausted and Micah is too...though he has another week of craziness to endure while I am on spring break and am FINALLY going to finish thank you cards.

In the midst of all of this, I am thankful that my three-four weeks of being on the up and up were during March-the least forgiving month of the year in the Bell household.

And I am super thankful for spring break!

peace.

Update on El-man

We heard back from the ER vet last night. All of his tests came back completely normal. Her guess is that he has a bacterial infection in his gastrointestinal tract. He didn't respond as if he was in any pain when she checked...but she also said he has a terrible ear infection in his left ear and exposed roots in his gums and he doesn't act like any of those things hurt either. Other than fluids coming from orifices, he doesn't act like there is anything abnormal. Maybe he has that nervous system disorder that means he doesn't feel pain...now only if he could fly.

On the plus side, his doggy immodium kicks tail.

So, we'll take him to the vet over my spring break and get some of these bacterial bad boys busted.

On a side note, I think Inu has finally reached her limit of Elmer attention and now barks any time she sees me looking at something other than her.

peace.

Elmer

Inu gets lots of nods on our blog. Which makes total sense. She has the looks and personality. She is young, vivacious, and bad. Micah and I got her together and have had her since she was a puppy. Inu is our quintessential first dog. We plan on having her forever and comparing every other animal we have to her. When we lost her for 15 hours, we cried for at least 6 of those hours. Micah sobbed harder than I had ever seen him do so in our relationship.

But we do have another dog. Elmer. Elmer is ours by default. Though, we did change his last name from Shepherd to Bell, so it is not in location only that he can be called "ours."

I decided to get a dog one afternoon while sitting at the hospital waiting for my brother to get out of brain surgery (true story, he had a tennis ball sized tumor in his brain). Looking at dogs online from the Humane Society of Indianapolis was both therapeutic and entertaining. There were several dogs I was interested in being that I was looking very specifically for a dog that was not a puppy and not huge given my apartment living status.

Elmer was not one of those dogs. I don't even remember seeing his profile on the HSI website.

A few days after the surgery (which went very well and gave my brother a titanium skull), I meandered into the humane society and started to look at the small dogs (any dog under 35 pounds). I didn't feel any particular connection to a specific dog, but while walking by the first kennel the volunteer said, "If I had room for another dog, I would take Elmer home." She then proceeded to tell me that he had been at the shelter for over 3 months and that he was going to be euthenized to make room for all the animals coming in from Hurricane Katrina.

This made me feel terrible. I desperately wanted a dog, thought this dog was ugly and smelled kinda bad, but didn't want him to be put to sleep. So after a few visits outside with him, I said I'd take him.

I should have known there was more to the story when the check out girl told me in adopting Elmer I was never, ever allowed to bring him back. Never.




Elmer was deathly afraid of storms, the oven, and cameras. Afraid to the point that he ripped up 500 square feet of carpet in the apartment, chewed through a garbage disposal cable, burrowed under the sink and dug a hole in the back of the cabinet, and dug a hole in my roommate's (Heidi) mattress. After these incidents, he was put on Xanax-the same medicine I was taking for anxiety at the time.

When we Heidi and I tried to crate train him, he destroyed 2 metal and 1 iron crate. He ripped out all of his toenails digging out of the crate.

He also has the most annoying bark in the world.

He would run away and scare the neighbors-seriously, we would hear them scream whenever he got out of the house.

He never got on furniture-unless we weren't home. Then he would sleep on the back cushion of the couch. The cushions never returned to their original shape.



Last night I came home to a disaster. Elmer had vomited and had diarrhea all over the living room and kitchen. Plus there was a huge puddle of blood in the kitchen.

Ever since Micah and I got married, Elmer would get sick every 6 weeks or so. He would refuse to eat or drink for 4 or 5 days and throw up/have diarrhea every couple hours. Usually by the time we would decide to take him in to the vet, his illness would magically lift.

But this bought has been different. And Micah and I have had several conversations about how far do we go to save him...how much do we spend...ethically, what would God desire us to do to care for His creation as a whole...we committed to caring for Elmer, what does this look like with children?

Last night I was certain that it was going to be our last night with Elmer. I cried and cried and cried. Micah came home, cleaned up the mess, and we went to the pet hospital. On the way, we agreed to cap our spending.

The initial estimate to just see what is wrong with Elmer was almost $800. Way above our cap. The second estimate was right under the cap, so we took it and brought him home.

I stayed home from work today (2 weeks before the big school program) to monitor Elmer. I just fed him homemade rice and chicken-he loved it. He will be getting a bath this afternoon. We should find out the test results today or tomorrow.

I never really thought I liked Elmer all that much. To put it bluntly, he is kind of a pain in the ass most of the time.

Last night, when we went back to pick him up from the hospital after running to the store, he trotted right into our waiting room, looked at Micah and smiled.




Soon to come: Elmer's greatest hits

Crazy

So the craziness has only gotten stronger. The other night Micah and I were acting silly and he took the sheets from me...and in the midst of tears I started sobbing. sigh. I know that it's funny and even want to laugh, but all that happens is crying. It's a bit mind boggling.

Well, it's March. Which means March Madness and the All School Program! The nice part of everything is that after March comes spring break-for me at least. The bummer is the craziness that ensues. Though it does help that we realized Inu just desperately needs a routine. I've always had dogs that free feed and let you know when they want to go out. Inu just needs to be told when to eat and poo. I just hope her routine, Elmer's free spirit, and the baby kind of mesh.

But seriously, we're tired. And miss each other. If working so often to create a certain kind of lifestyle is the American dream, I'll take something else, please.

peace.