Human Pincushion Award

About a week and a half ago, I had to have a colonoscopy, which involved me having general anesthesia. Whenever I have an IV put in, it seems that there are comments made about the size of my very small veins which like to roll away from the needle. One doctor said it was like trying to put an IV in a pencil lead. I'm not a fan of being poked with needles in the first place, and that feeling is heightened by the fact that it often takes multiple pokes to get things taken care of.

So as I lay freezing in the hospital bed in my little corner partitioned off by thin curtains, I began preparing myself for the IV placement. As the nurse opened the various supplies, I gripped the rod on the side of the bed. I like to have something to hold onto when I'm poked so I don't flinch. I guess it must have looked like I was really uptight about it, because the nurse gave a slight chuckle and said, "Don't worry, I'm not messin' with you yet!" A few seconds later, she poked the needle into the top of my hand. As often happens, my vein rolled, and she then proceeded to dig around in my hand for a minute or two with the needle, proclaiming as she did so, "This vein is just playing hide and seek with me!"

Finally she removed the needle and decided to try up on my forearm since the vein on my hand was not cooperating. She poked in the needle, and after a few moments removed it declaring, "I have never seen that before...the needle had a hole in it!" Apparently the needle was defective and blood was leaking out of it. Lovely! She then told me that since she was having such trouble, she was just going to have the anesthesiologist place the IV.

A few minutes later, the anesthesiologist walked in and started searching for the vein on my hand. She placed the needle, attached the IV, and promptly ripped out the needle stating that my vein had just "blown up." I was slightly alarmed as she started in on my other hand, which had been wrapped in a hot blanket to try to get the veins to swell up a bit. She placed the needle in that hand, attached the IV, and once again let out an exasperated sigh, explaining that the vein on this hand had also exploded. "I don't know what the problem is," she said. "Usually if a vein blows up it is because we poke the needle all the way through it or the skin is thick and tough so the vein kinks. Neither of these are your problem--the veins keep blowing up after we attach the IV."

She and the nurse decided to "give me a break" and walked out, leaving me to ponder on the fate of my exploded veins and the needle that was still dangling out of my left hand, which they had left in to help it stop bleeding. About 20 minutes later the anesthesiologist walked back in, determined to make things work this time around. She placed the IV needle in the crook of my right elbow, let out another frustrated puff of air, yanked the needle out, and began flicking my forearm (which had already been poked with the defective needle) to try there.

I waited with bated breath as she placed the needle, connected the IV, and finally pulled out the tape to secure it, indicating that this attempt had at last been successful. "I had to use a pediatric needle," she told me. Frankly, I was just relieved that I could stop being poked with needles. They wheeled me into the examination room, both of my arms throbbing and bruised. As they positioned the bed, the anesthesiologist said that I could take home the "human pincushion award" for the day. Hey, it makes for a good story, right?

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure

A few weeks ago, we got to be part of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. It is a 5K that raises money for breast cancer research. It is a huge organization, and Sam's lab actually has a 7 million dollar grant from them right now. So it makes perfect sense that his lab gets together to race! Since we had Talmage, and strollers aren't allowed in the 5K, we decided we would do the family walk/run, which was about half a mile. We didn't receive our packets in the mail and due to some other circumstances we ended up having to get up at 4:45 am in order to go.

While we waited for the race to start, Sam and Talmage kept Sam's lab members entertained.

He always seems to have at least one bruise or scrape on his face!

Sam's lab members-his professor/mentor is the one just to the right of the center with the blue and black bag.

The funny thing was that we actually ended up not doing the race at all! We pushed against crowds like this:

in our efforts to get to the starting line. By the time we got there, the family walk had long since started and other groups of people were lined up and ready to go. We just decided that we had walked much more than half a mile between everything we had done that morning and called it good! Trying to organize over 30,000 people in one park is CHAOS! We stood at a standstill for probably 20 minutes because of the human traffic jam we encountered. Adding the stroller into the mix didn't help, either. Talmage, however, was so exhausted that he fell asleep and slept peacefully through the most chaotic part of the morning.

All in all, we were glad we went, and we were able to get home about an hour before General Conference started. After watching both sessions at home on the Internet, Sam went to the Priesthood session and then went straight to his lab, arriving home after midnight. Ah, the life of a graduate student! He works so hard and yet still somehow finds time to plan sweet dates, write me incredible poems, and fabricate creative surprises for me. What a guy! I certainly got the better end of the deal in our marriage!

Talmage's First Birthday

Here are some more details from Talmage's birthday! We celebrated it the day before his actual birthday so that Sam could be part of it.

Excited to open his presents!

A ball! He loves balls, so several from the dollar store made great gifts that fit our graduate school budget. :)

Following the tradition of giving a new "big boy" towel for the first birthday. It's the only birthday you can get away with giving something so boring as a gift...look at his excitement!

He kept spreading it out on the floor and diving down into it to cuddle it. So sweet!

The birthday boy with most of his gifts...just missing a couple we received in the mail. Thanks, everyone!

I made monkey cakes for our little monkey. :) A bigger one for us:

...and a little one all for Talmage.

When I put it in front of him, I'm not sure he quite realized what he was supposed to do with it. He slowly, slowly leaned forward, his mouth partly open, until he stuck his nose right in the frosting! I guess at that point he realized it was food, because he dug in. See the little frosting mark on his nose?

Very smug about things

He started getting really into it...

Smiling at Daddy

He kept "sharing" with us. He likes to grab a piece and holds it high in the air for us to come eat! So cute! He also likes teasing us and will hold it up for us until we are about to eat it, at which point he will quickly shove it in his own mouth and give us a huge grin! We filmed the whole thing, so we caught some of both on camera.

Clapping

All done!

A Year in Pictures

Our little munchkin is one! It's hard to believe, but his birthday was on Monday. Here are a few treasures from the past year.

Random Fun

I know it has been a while since I have posted. I'll try to get caught up! Here are a few scattered pictures from the last month or so.

Talmage loves canned peas! He will even eat them cold from the refrigerator. Odd, in my opinion, but I am certainly not complaining!

Cheeser

It is so cute to see a little person squatting, bending, balancing their head on the floor, or plopping down on their stomach to play with a toy. As Sam said this morning, it seems that everything is cuter when it is on a little person!

Oh boy. He loves cell phones. Maybe one of these days I'll post a video that demonstrates his love of them. Anyway, I got him this toy phone (it was free at a garage sale), not sure whether giving it to him would teach him that playing with cell phones was acceptable or whether it would teach him that he can't play with others' cell phones, but his own is fine. Turns out I didn't need to be concerned, because he quickly discovered it was fake and wants nothing to do with it. These two pictures were on the first day he had it...he was still figuring it out.

Again, this has a video to go along with it, but he loves helping me unload the dishwasher! He hands me pieces of silverware one at a time for me to put in the drawer. Every time I open the dishwasher he gets so excited and runs over to help unload it. Too bad most of the time I'm putting dishes into it, rather than taking them out.

Baisically, he just loves anything "grown-up," I guess. He loves trying to help me clean, too!

Carrying around the {empty} Febreze bottle. (Don't worry, I made sure he didn't chew on it.)

He is obsessed with plugs! We're finally getting through to him that he must not play with plugs, but it is still a challenge. Plug covers are great, it's true, but sometimes I need to use something (the sewing machine, in this picture), that needs to be plugged into an exposed plug.

He thinks it's funny, too, to see how close he can get before I stop him. See his little smile??

Taunting me. He has gotten into arguing, too! If he starts reaching for it, I sometimes say, "Talmage...no..." He looks at me with a smile and says, "Yeah." He will go back and forth like this for a long time if I play his little game, whether it is about pinching, pulling hair, playing with plugs, or any other thing. Lately before I even start to stop him he will look at me and say, "Yeah!" What a silly boy. It should be interesting trying to discipline him as he grows. Nothing seems to faze him!

Picture of innocence...just playing with a pan.

Strep throat has been going around our family this week. This was two days ago, when Talmage was still in the midst of his bout with it. See his poor tired eyes? He was such a trooper though, and still enjoyed playing in the cupboards.

Why do we ever even get him toys? We should just get him a set of bread or cake pans for his birthday!

Anyway, I can't believe how big our little man is getting. Life is so busy with him around, but in such a beautiful way.