Instead of spending Willa's nap doing something productive, I went through all of my pictures on Flickr, and put together slide shows of each of the last 4 years.
There are certainly a lot of moments and people dear to us who weren't captured. These are not my "best" pictures- some are unflattering, some are blurry, etc., but they are the pictures that most accurately depict that year.

2005 was about me recovering from career ending shoulder surgery, tons of physical therapy, finding out my dad's cancer had metastasized, a major back injury, and my husband's internship.

In 2006 I was pregnant 3 times (!!!), had two miscarriages, landed an ad campaign with Nikon, Turned 30, had my pictures in The New York Times, traveled a bunch, and had the enjoyable part of my pregnancy with Willa.

2007 was perhaps the most important year I've ever had. I had a very rough pregnancy and was bed ridden for months, Willa was born, my husband became chief resident, and my father passed away.

2008 has been interesting. Willa was modeling, my husband turned 30, finished his residency, and started his fellowship. We moved, my pictures were published in a book, I re injured my shoulder, Obama became president elect, and Willa was diagnosed with Urticaria.

Posted by torrie at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

On Christmas day we were trying to kill some time with our kid, because everything is closed on Christmas day, which drives me up the wall. You want to spend time with your loved ones? Well, I need some freaking bananas.
So, we took the kid to a small pier in our town.
During the warmer months we went there often.
There is a staircase that leads down to a small beach area, which disappears during high tide.
Willa loves to collect sea shells on the beach.
As we are getting out of the car I see something on the top of the staircase and I assume it is a large piece of driftwood. As we get closer I realize it is a dead animal. A rather large dead animal. It is on its back with its head hanging over the top step. It had a lot of large teeth, and it didn't appear to have any hair. It was obviously a chupacabra.
I wanted to take a picture of it, but we didn't want Willa to see it.
We drove to the police station in town. We walked in and there were several officers standing there.
I said "I just wanted to let you know that there is a rather large dead animal on the pier."
To which officer numbnuts replied "Oh, you mean the one with no hair? Yeah, that things been washing back and forth for a while now."
So in other words, there is a large, dead, possibly diseased animal on the town pier WHERE CHILDREN PLAY, and the police have known about it for several days. and have done nothing about it.
They are probably some of the highest payed police officers in the country. Heaven forbid they, you know, DO THEIR JOB.

Anyway, on a completely different note-
The next day we went to my cousin's house.
Willa REFUSED to nap that day, so we thought it was going to be a disaster.
My cousin has two kids- a daughter who is ten months older than Willa, and a son who is three months old.
Willa actually played with my cousin's daughter. That was the first time she really played with another kid, and it was AWESOME. They were running around chasing each other, and Willa was having so much fun that she was squealing in delight. It was one of those amazing parenting moments.
I've been having a lot of those lately.

On Saturday my oldest friend and her husband came over with their dog.
Again, Willa refused to take a nap. Again, I thought it was going to be a disaster, but she had so much fun. Let me just say that if my kid stops napping WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BIG PROBLEM.

Yesterday I went to Woodbury Commons with Heather and Metalia. If you really want to be intimidated, go shopping with two of the most stylish people on the internet. Heather took video. If she posts it I'll link to it, but God, I hope she doesn't. Because if there's one thing I hate, it's seeing myself on video.
Of course Willa took a nice long nap while I was gone. (OF COURSE)
Last night an old friend from Boston and his wife came over, and we forced them to watch Mary Poppins, and read Bad News Hughes.

Life is good.

Posted by torrie at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In light of this entry, I realized that I needed to do something to shock my system.
I am convinced that my metabolism is all screwed up. I don't have the most varied diet. I tend to eat the same things over and over again.
So, I decided to go on a cleansing diet. I use the term "diet" lightly because I'm not counting calories.
I cut out sugar, wheat, and dairy.
I've been doing it for about 8 days and I've lost about 3 lbs.
It's been surprisingly easy.
Days 3 & 4 were rough- I was really tired, but that's to be expected whenever you give up something your body is used to.
What most people don't understand when they do a cleanse is that you are going to go through a period where you feel like crap. Just like any other detox. When you quit drugs, or smoking, or drinking you feel like crap because your body is addicted to it. The same holds true for food.
I'm not sure how long I'll stay on this cleanse. I think I might just try to cut back on sugar, wheat, and dairy permanently, but every once in a while I'll cheat.

I'm still having trouble finding time to exercise.
I've tried a few times to leave Willa at the child care center at the Y while I went upstairs to exercise, but they have to come and get me after a few minutes because she gets hysterical. We'll keep trying.
I've been in a lot of pain too. My back has been out twice in the last month, and the cortisone shot has worn off and my shoulder pain has come back.

So, I'm being realistic- I'm realizing that excising on a regular basis is just not going to happen any time soon, so I'm trying to deal with this from a diet angle. We'll see what happens.

NOW- for the genius part-

My husband finished a box of shredded wheat, and there was a ton of, well, broken shredded wheat left at the bottom of the bag. He asked me if there was anything I could do with it, and I came up with this.
If you are the type of person who needs exact recipes this is not for you.

I melted some semi-sweet chocolate (any type of chocolate will do) and stirred in some chunky peanut butter (smooth is fine too). I added some honey, and then I stirred in the shredded wheat.
I formed the mixture in to balls and placed them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. I put them in to the fridge until they firmed up.
You would not believe how awesome they were.
You can also add coconut, cinnamon, and whatever kind of nuts you like. Dried cranberries might also be nice.

Enjoy!

Posted by torrie at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

How much anxiety is too much?

Is it normal to worry EVERY TIME your husband gets in a car that he will die in a horrific accident?
Because you just can't imagine life without him.

Is it normal to worry EVERY DAY that your child will get some horrible disease?
That's she's just too awesome and you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Is it normal to worry that someone will steal your child when you drop them off at the Y childcare center?
Or, that if anyone else watches your kid, they might get injured (even though the worst injury she's ever sustained was on your watch)?
Because no one can watch her as carefully as you can.

Is it normal when every time you take the train in to the city, the same city you lived in until 6 months ago, that terrorists will blow up the train station?

Is it normal to worry every time your husband is at work that someone will break in to your house? And to have a plan for how you will protect your child?
Even though you live in one of the safest towns in the country.

Is it normal to occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere, to think about your father's death, 16 months later, and feel like someone is sitting on your chest?

And I haven't even mentioned some of the really demented things I worry about.

What amount of worrying is normal?

Posted by torrie at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

She's turning in to a little girl. Time is flying by. Wasn't this just yesterday?

And now she is so smart. And has so may opinions. And I feel like it's all going by so fast.

I'm trying to savor every moment.

New article up at Alpha Mom.

New review up on my review blog.

Posted by torrie at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Let's recap, shall we?

My kid is just getting over the stomach flu she's had since Sunday night/Monday morning.
My husband came home from work early yesterday with fever, chills, and a splitting headache. It was so bad- he was writhing around in pain- that I thought his head was going to split open and scorpions were going to crawl out.
My husband's work holiday party was last night. We, of course, did not go.
I woke up this morning with Willa's stomach flu.
My back is still out.
I had to cancel my first personal training session at the Y today, for obvious reasons.
My garage door broke yesterday.
My mother is here helping out.
Except that Willa is in the midst of a mommy phase. I must be in her sight at all times, otherwise there is much whining and screaming. So, even though my mom is here, while I'm laying in bed trying to keep the contents of my stomach inside of me, there is a toddler slamming on my bedroom door.
Also, Willa is going stir crazy because she hasn't been out much since Sunday, but my mom can't drive, and Willa can't be outside for that long because she hasn't taken her medication because of her stomach flu.

Would anyone like to slash my tires, or punch me in the face while we're at it?

Posted by torrie at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

So, this morning I went to get Willa out of her crib, and the minute I opened her door I knew something was off. There was something weird in her crib. From afar it looked like maybe the stuffing from one of her toys had come out. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was vomit. Willa and all of her crib toys were covered in vomit. And, it was not fresh, which means that she vomited sometime in the middle of the night, went back to sleep and then rolled around in it.

Last night, I took a muscle relaxant because I threw my back out. I regret that decision now, because it obviously kept me from hearing my daughter vomiting in the middle of the night.

So there I was- in so much pain I couldn't stand upright, coughing up green mucus from a lingering sinus infection, with a sick child covered in vomit. I had no idea how I was going to lift the crib mattress to change the sheet.
So, I grabbed the phone and called my husband who had left for work about 15 minutes before. Amazingly, he turned around and came home.
He took care of all of the vomit stuff and threw everything in the laundry.
Then he realized that standing upright is probably important when taking care of a toddler, especially one who is vomiting, so he called work and told them he wasn't coming in.

A little while latter Willa walked over to the bathroom and started pointing to the cabinet where we keep the medicine, as if she was asking for some medicine- and then she projectile vomited.

She ate nothing but a bite of a pretzel all day. She drank some milk, but then she vomited it up on my living room carpet. She also had some rather unsettling poops, which I'd rather not talk about.

I spent the day wincing in pain and laying around while my husband did everything, including steam clean the carpet.

I am PRAYING that this is just a 24 hour stomach virus, and that Willa will wake up tomorrow NOT covered in vomit.

I honestly don't know what I would have done if my husband hadn't been home. My guess is, I would have been laying on the floor in the fetal position while my kid repeatedly hit me in the head with a book, and occasionally paused to vomit on me.*

How do single parents do it???

*Wow. I use the word VOMIT a lot in this post.

Posted by torrie at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)