Teeth and Feet

Gavin's teeth, my feet.

Gavin has not one, not two but three teeth coming in! His two bottom teeth and one of his upper front teeth. This is naturally making for a grumpy baby with copious amounts of drool. I thought he drooled a lot before but now it is non-stop. There is a drool spigot that is left on - you could probably wring out his bib.

Despite teething and being grumpy for large parts of the day and waking up every 3 or so hours at night he still manages to give some pretty cute smiles and near laughs throughout the day. We've only heard him give a really good belly laugh a few times. We try to get him on video laughing but the second the camera comes out he quits his cute behavior and stares intently at the camera.

Well, I'll have to continue this later. I hear him waking up. He's going to be a hungry boy...

I'm back.

I had bible study tonight with my girls and we actually did our study, too. This week we were discussing reconciliation from chapter 8 from the study, Revival: ... I don't remember the rest of the title. We talked and talked and talked some more; it is what we do best. I don't know what I would do without my girlfriends to talk to every week. I would explode from the build up of words trying to escape my mouth.

So, to make this post even choppier I'm going to dive right into the foot topic.

I think I posted earlier about my feet. It all started because a friend wanted me and another friend to run a half marathon in September. I pushed the decision on to my friend who hates exercise even more than me. When she actually sounded interested I realized I had to do something, anything and fast.

In all seriousness my feet have bothered me for years. I didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with them other than maybe they had a touch of arthritis or something.

The or something turned out to be bunions. I used to think a bunion was a gross old lady growth like a wart or something. Wrong. It is when your foot changes shape because of a loose joint. The big toe drifts out of place and causes pain at various points on the foot.

Mr. Podiatrist x-rayed my foot and said the bunion is moderate to significant and there are a couple ways of fixing it. Orthotics - think old lady/grandma shoes, steroids for inflammation and injections in the toe of cortisone - something like that, or surgery for a permanent fix.

I'm 31 years old. I will NOT wear orthotics. As is I can't wear heels without great, great pain. If I have surgery I will be able to wear heels out to dinner.
Oh, happy day! And I will be able to walk up a hill without pain.

So I've opted to have the bunion fixed surgically. They take out a joint in the foot and fuse the bone and other joint together and the fix is 95% effective. While they are monkeying around in my foot they are going to repair a torn tendon in my ankle, too.

Here's the catch: the recovery time is 6 weeks. Maybe 8 with the additional repair of the ankle.

Here's the added wrinkle: I have a baby who depends on me.

Another dilemma: I will not be able to put any more weight on the affected side than just to tap the floor with my toes.

'Nother problemo: Stairs. I will not be able to leave the house because I would not be able to carry Gavin in his car seat (or not in his car seat for that matter) down the stairs on crutches.

Solution? Mother-in-law. Maybe. I hope. She doesn't know about any of this yet. I am hoping I can go stay with her for the first 2 weeks after surgery because I will be pretty much bed bound for the first two weeks.

The second two weeks I will be able to get around the house but will still be confined to staying inside as I will be unable to get Gavin in and out of the house.

Silver lining on the cloud: help. I can justify hiring someone to help with household chores for 2 solid months. Woo-hoo!!!

Speaking of hiring help, I am so tempted to hire a professional organizer. I know one person who does it and she would be a dream. It would be so nice to just give everything a place and set up systems so those things would stay in their place. Ryan and I are pretty good about sticking with a system but are not so good at implementing the systems.

This organizing feels like something we need to do before Gavin gets any older and acquires more stuff.

And about stuff, how do we teach him to not value 'stuff' when we ourselves have so much of it? His nanas and grandpas, aunts and uncles and our friends are all going to want to buy him stuff. We don't want more stuff, we don't need more stuff. I was thinking about birthday parties and holidays. Is it too extreme to do no gift birthday parties? Or request that if people insist of a gift that it be a book or clothes or a donation to his college fund or a donation to charity? Grandparents are going to shower him with toys that it will be overkill for everyone else to do the same.

Argh. We will be so unpopular. Oh, well.