Introductus

Look at me. I started a blog. I made one once before, but then I quickly abandoned it. I also started a facebook page once. It is currently collecting cyber dust. I created a dummy email address to go with it so that I could 'lose' it if I wanted to. I guess I lost it. I also participated on that 'Good Reads' thing for a while. I'm not sure I even remember how to get back into my account. I make no promises that this blog has a greater life expectancy than any of those other endeavors, but--here goes, anyway. Perhaps this will at least take the place of those email update things we were sending to family less and less frequently. We shall see. Currently, I've only filled out the boxes that were required to start the thing. Maybe I'll fill in more eventually...maybe not. What fun surprises you are all in for.

Most people, when blogging, create code names for their family members. To protect against identity theft and such, I believe. I will use code names here...but more just because it is fun to have code names. I've never been a big nick-name sort of person. My name does not lend itself to shortening and I think too much about whether I should call a person by his/her real name or by the nick-name--how much acquaintance is required for nick-name usage? What does it imply? Does it even fit in the first place? It's all very stressful. Fortunately, I can just write in the first person and obviate the need to call myself something. My husband I will just call Husband. He has plenty of nick-names (when we were dating, I needed a flow chart to keep all of his friends and their nick-names straight. They all had more than one.) but I will stick with simple. Some friends we have are in the habit of referring to each other as "Husband" and "Wife." The first time I heard it, he said something like "Wife..." and then asked her to get him something or do something. It sounded rather as though "Woman, bring me food!" could have done equally well. I expressed my indignation that one should refer to a wife in such a way (I've never been good at holding my tongue) and they explained that they used the names Husband and Wife in a different way. They had worked hard to earn those titles and they treasured them. I get it. (Nod in your direction. I hope I haven't embarrassed you). So, I use it like that.

The first born will be referred to as Goose. (As in 'silly...'--not a Top Gun reference, although that would be good too). The second will be Little Mister, because he has always been. The third is Sweet Sir. Because he is. We have no pets. I have stipulated that I can manage cleaning up only one kind of poop at a time.

The name of my blog is from Ernest Hemingway. Many people can't stand to read his work (Probably because they were forced to read The Old Man and the Sea in high school and didn't get it--understandable. Try A Farewell to Arms. It's the most accessible one.) but he was doing (as most writers do) some profound thinking about the difficulties and restrictions involved in expressing pure things in an impure system. Using this for my title gives outlet to some of my reservations about this whole blog business--and to writing in general. I suppose, though, that expression is not really like a peach. A perfect, fresh peach is one of the most wonderful sensory experiences in the world (in my opinion). A slightly imperfect peach is pretty awful (again, in my opinion. Fruit and I have a tenuous relationship. My husband jokes that I have a 5-minute window in which I am able to eat bananas. It's more like 12.). Expression cannot be perfect, fresh, or true because the thing itself has to go through too many filters before it gets anywhere. Just ask Plato and Nietzsche. But--as with most things in life--we have to do the best we can, I suppose (don't ask Nietzsche about that. He wouldn't agree. Plato might.).

If you don't know where the blog's address came from, you should listen to more Raffi.

I am not going to go into our back history in depth--though I'm sure bits of it will crop up along the way--I'm just going to pick up with now and go on. I'm not sure where it will go or what I will do with it all, but here is what I have today:

We had our second post-discharge follow-up appointment with the surgeon (second in total, first one since the most recent discharge) and we were able to come back home again (a distinct improvement from the first one). They will be tweaking Sweet Sir's feeding regimen a little. Kids who have had this Nissen Fundoplication thing will often retch. Sweet Sir does. Quite vigorously at times. It is quite sad. Fiddling with how much food he gets how quickly can help. We're going to try that. He is also growing fatter than he is tall, so they are trying to allow him to grow more slowly--at his own rate but in proportion all around. He is looking a bit chubby. It's better than his previous 5 months of being too skinny. I was looking through some photos the other day, and came upon one where he was feeling particularly unwell. It affected me rather strongly. It's funny, too, because I wasn't thinking the day I took that picture, 'boy, my baby looks awful.' But he did. He really did. I am so grateful for how far he has come. I was going to stop by the NICU in order to drop off some more milk for donation today on our way out from the surgeon's office, but I panicked a little and fled. (Sorry, babies who won't get that milk now...) I couldn't go back there. Not yet. It's a little bit like being in a car accident. It's hard to drive or ride again afterward. Slowly, slowly. We can't just put the lid on and move forward, all that stuff has to come with us and get sorted along the way. There is a lot of it that is good and useful. Regardless, it all needs to be processed. It will take time.

Other hard things, aside from our hospital adventures, have also been going on. I'm not going to tell you about them because that's not how I roll (writing these blog things has been a considerable breech of my usual hermit-like habits, but I can pretend when I am writing that no one is reading it. If I seem weird when you say nice things about my writing or whatever I say, it's just because it's all a little horrifying for me and I'm not sure what to do, it's not that I don't appreciate your kindnesses. Thank you for that kindness. Please pardon my awkwardness. [Look at me, being all open and stuff!]) Did you like that? A parenthetical INSIDE a parenthetical. It's grammatically acceptable if you vary your bracket type. But anyway, in the midst of hard things, I have begun singing to myself--much to my children's chagrin (see our previous blog thing for their opinion of my singing). It is more socially acceptable than sucking my thumb, but it affects the same sort of result. From my non-denominational-Christian-church days, I retain a fondness for Christian pop music. Some of it sounds nice--at least sometimes-- (though my taste in music has never been stellar) and it has the added bonus of illuminating and encouraging lyrics (again, sometimes). At any rate, these two songs have been helping lately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knuHDPbE5es

(one guy in that one has a sweet mustache. the message is good too.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8

(an important message applicable at any time.)