Candace W.'s Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 12/26/02 -------------------- 10/27/02 9/29/02 9/10/02 9/1/02 8/18/02 8/12/02 6/29/02 4/14/02 3/18/02 3/3/02 1/11/02 12/21/01 12/4/01 11/20/01 11/13/01 10/21/01 9/12/01 9/5/01 8/29/01 8/22/01 8/6/01 7/24/01 7/16/01 7/3/01 6/26/01 6/11/01 6/3/01 5/1/01 4/22/01 4/9/01 3/6/01 3/1/01 2/19/01 2/15/01 2/6/01 2/4/01 1/24/01 1/15/01 1/9/01 1/1/01 12/26/00 -------------------- Candace W.'s Introduction

January 11, 2002

Alexandria is lying in our bed right now, hopefully going to sleep. With the weird hours she’s been keeping, which are actually identical to mine, it’s left precious little time for me or Al. We will be getting back to a routine shortly, since school starts for me on Monday. In a way, I am looking forward to it, but in other ways, I am not. Isn’t everything like that?


I am one of those people that really needs a routine, or I will piss away my entire day. While it’s nice to have a long break, to spend time with Alexandria, and read to her, not shower until 1:00 p.m. and all that, I think in the long term, it is also better for Alexandria to have something more in the way of routine, also. For now she sleeps till 10:00 or 9:00, which is great for now (and for me, I love to sleep late), but not great for the real world.


We finally got our family Christmas pictures back from Sears, and I will scan some of them in and then post a link to them. I think they turned out really well. I don’t look goofy in any of them, and I actually look good in two poses. Alexandria looks beautiful. It was difficult, though. She really wasn’t into getting her picture taken. She had to have all of us (except for two poses) in the shots with her. We got a really good shot of her on the phony pony. She was actually smiling. Al hated her dress. Okay, he didn’t say he hated it, he said, “She looks like a flamenco dancer.” This was not a compliment. “I don’t like the dress, and I don’t like how her hair is done.” Well, next Christmas he can buy the dress, and he can fix her hair. I thought I did okay fixing her hair. I have no hair styling genes in my body, it’s hard enough to figure out how to comb my own, let alone blow-dry it. And Alexandria’s hair is so fine, and prone to static, that there’s really not much that I can figure out in terms of fixing it. Bows, barrettes, pigtails, or ponytails…that’s as good as it gets. With practice, perhaps there’s hope.


Alexandria really seemed to enjoy her birthday, as well Christmas. She took almost a week to open all her presents, because she would open about one a day. She got some neat toys from my parents and my sister, Denise. I also slaved and baked her a Pooh cake. It is something that I don’t think I’ll be repeating, LOL. It was so hard, and it took so long. It did look really good when I was finished (I’ll have to post more pictures), but I think it took around 4 hours to decorate. And I bought the Pooh colors for coloring the frosting, but they weren’t right! The color for Pooh’s body was too brown. When I spend like $4 for that stuff, I expect it to be perfect, and give me the perfect shade! I had to drop almost an entire yellow dye tube in it to get it right. It was actually pretty funny. Here I am, with about 2 cups of frosting (way too much, but that’s what the package said!) dropping more dye, while Alexandria can’t take her eyes off the Pooh paper that came in the cake pan. She really didn’t seem to care about what I was doing. The same could be said for her party decorations last year. She will never know the difference, but it seems that parents (me included) feel it necessary to make a big to-do with birthdays. Last year, I went all out decorating the house and what-not. This year I went all out doing the cake. She’d have been happier with chocolate cupcakes, which I think is going to be the plan for next year. I’m learning! The older I get (I’m a whole 23 now) the more I figure out. I think by the time I’m 60, I’ll have this parenting gig all figured out. Youth is wasted on the young, as Al says.


Speaking of Al, he is going for surgery on the 25th. He is going to get the polyps removed in his nasal passages. He’s had the same surgery performed many, many years ago, but I am still concerned. He will be going under general anesthesia. Please keep us in your thoughts. I hope this fixes all the problems he’s been having. I tend to gloss over problems, because I am rather happy-go-lucky. I always think people will get better, and be okay. Sometimes I get shocked, as I did a few years ago when a dear friend I met over the internet passed away. I was aware on some plane he was ill, but I never realized how seriously ill he was. Don was a good man, and I will forever feel regret about two things: I didn’t email him more often, and I never sent him a real thank you note for the Cherished Teddies knickknack he sent me when Alexandria was born. Anyway, what I’ve been trying to say, is that Al has been terribly sick for a long time, and I was him to get better. He was saying he didn’t know how much longer he could go on without being able to breathe out of his nose. He wasn’t able to sleep at night, because his nose would plug. So, he would sleep with his mouth open, which caused his airway to swell (as well as give him painful sores in his mouth). It was driving him mad. He was on Prednisone, and that seemed to help, for a bit. I told him he just has to make it to the 25th, and then it should be fixed, I pray!

And the day after his surgery marks our 5th anniversary. We will have been married 5 years! It doesn’t feel like that long, I can’t imagine what my life would be like without Al. We have been together so long (not long in some cases!) and that’s just how my life is, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Al does a lot of things for me, for Alexandria, that make him sweet. He will rub my shoulders and neck at the drop of a hat. He does all the dishes, all the house cleaning, and he prefers to drive me around, rather than make me drive. He tells me he loves me, and in the “normalness” of everdday life, it’s easy to forget that. He plays so well with Alexandria, he can make her laugh, and she always says “More!” To see them playing together, it’s one those moments I need to lock in my mind. She’s just been growing up too quickly.


However, things certainly go more slowly in a toddler’s life than in a pregnancy or in a baby’s life. I am afraid if I were to post weekly entries, there really wouldn’t be much to say. So, I will try to check in twice a month, and see how that works.


Candace and Alexandria