Goodbye, Vinnie

Posted In: Everyday life — February 14, 2010 @ 1:08 am — Stephanie

It is with infinite sadness and the heaviest of hearts that I update our website with news of the great loss that our family has suffered recently. Last month, on January 16th, our beloved cat Vinnie passed away. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer just a few short days before. The day after the diagnosis, he stopped eating and began declining rapidly. Vinnie started pacing and isolating himself. He cried in pain when he was picked up, and his pain medication was not working. I knew in my heart that it was time to make the difficult choice to end his pain.

His vet, Dr. Grillo, greeted him at her office with her usual, “Hello, Mr. Handsome”. Only this time, she had tears in her eyes. After the first injection, Vinnie snuggled into me. I told him that he was loved and would be forever missed. He died in my arms while we all cried.

Everybody who knew Vinnie always agreed that he was a wonderful cat. He was more than “just a cat” to me. He was my best friend, my confidant, and my baby. I had him for more than half of my life, so the days and weeks following his death have been surreal. I keep expecting him to pop out at any minute, or start mowwwing in the bath tub for the faucet to get turned on in the slow drip he enjoyed so much.

Amelia misses Vinnie terribly. He slept in her bed every night, often snuggling up to next to her while she read him one of her library books. The cats have stopped looking for him, but they look at me sharply when I say his name.

I am so grateful for the nearly 19 years I had with Vinnie–the most amazing, beautiful, special cat I’ve ever known. He came into my life as a little golden-eyed kitten with white hairs on the backs of his ears sometime in early 1991. From the beginning, we were bonded.

He was a princely cat, always steering clear of disagreements with our other cats. He moved with me and Peter from Chicago to Edwardsville, IL all the way to Denver. He was a friendly, affectionate cat who enjoyed his supervised forays into the yard, being brushed with two brushes, and eating his favorite mushy food. My heart is absolutely broken over losing him. I will love him and miss him forever.

Until we meet again, my darling Vinnie.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)–ee cummings

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Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Posted In: Eloise, Amelia — November 5, 2009 @ 4:42 pm — Stephanie

Amelia is gearing up for her 4th birthday and Eloise is nine days away from six months. With motivation, she can pull herself into a sit (from flat on her back) and stay there for quite awhile. Amelia has mastered writing her name and is now able to recognize and read two words when she sees them written down–cat and dog. She’s exhibiting such an avid interest in this, that I think she’ll be reading early. She’s just so motivated and wants to write, constantly asking me what letters spell certain words.

We spent Halloween afternoon at Boo @ the zoo, which was fun and gave Amelia the opportunity to spend nearly the entire day en constume. Later on we joined friends for Trick-or-treating. Here’s a pic of our great day:

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Five months old!

Posted In: Eloise, Amelia, Everyday life — October 14, 2009 @ 12:20 pm — Stephanie

The months have just flown by, and our littlest girl is now five months old. She’s not sleeping well at night, which is hard on all of us, but we’re getting by. Eloise is a bit of a crankster, and isn’t fond of being put down…ever. She does, however, enjoy her toys and her big sister. Nobody can make her laugh like Amelia can, and Amelia seems to have taken it upon herself to ensure that Eloise laughs a great deal in her presence. Absolutely adorable to see.

Eloise is fascinated by the cats and rather enjoys grabbing fistfuls of their hair. The cats are not similarly amused. :/ She’s also really into her exersaucer, playmat, and the taggie blanket Mommy made her. She has the sweetest round cheeks that beg for kisses and the cutest little chub around her knees. Take a look at our 5 month-old baby girl:

For her first Halloween, Eloise will go dressed as our sweet little lamb and Amelia will be a beautiful mermaid. Mia is VERY excited!

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Busy busy busy

Posted In: Eloise, Amelia, Everyday life — July 21, 2009 @ 7:14 pm — Stephanie

Eloise is now a bit over 2 months old and doing very well. Last night, with Mama’s help, she discovered her toes. I was holding her in such a way that she could see them and she attempted interaction. Her eyes grew wide with surprise as her toes wiggled when she moved them. She seemed a bit confused, but eventually smiled at her discovery. So cute!

Amelia is enjoying her new role as big sister, and really loves making the baby smile. She’s had a busy summer with school, playdates, and swimming lessons. Our big girl is 3.5 years old now, which is just so hard to believe. She’s busy planning her 4th birthday party already, and it’s shaping up to be quite the affair. Her swim lessons are going very well. She met a new little friend there and seems to really enjoy going. The only thing she objects to is having to open her eyes underwater…but she does it anyway! That’s my girl!

Peter takes any opportunity he can to go for a bike ride and tries to try hard to avoid flats. He’s also moving quickly towards the big 3-0 next month, and is planning a get-together at a local pub (or two…?).

As for me, I’m busy taking care of the baby, keeping Amelia busy, and spending any free time I manage to steal on crafting. I’ve been making hair clippies for Amelia, tutus, tutu onesies, and editing photos like a madwoman. Expect a huge update in photos in the coming weeks.

Since Eloise’s birth, we’ve had a steady stream of relatives coming in from Chicago to meet our beautiful baby girl and to spend some time reconnecting. All of the grandparents have now met Eloise, except for her great-grandmother, our beloved Busia. We hope to make it out for a visit in the fall or winter. Amelia particularly enjoyed her cousins’ visits and asks me constantly when they’ll be back. She loved bossing David around and sharing her room with Destiny. As much as we love living off on our own here in Colorado, we really enjoyed each visit with family.

Tomorrow we are getting our portraits taken. The plan is to get Eloise’s heirloom baby portraits, a great family shot of all four of us, some of Amelia alone, the girls together, and perhaps one of Mommy and daughters and one of Daddy and girls. We’ll see what we have time for. Priority goes to Eloise’s baby shots, since we treasure Amelia’s. We won’t get the pictures back for a couple of months, but I’m sure they will be worth waiting for.

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Amelia is a big sister!

Posted In: Eloise, Amelia — May 20, 2009 @ 9:47 am — Stephanie

Introducing Eloise Charlotte!

In the wee hours of May 13th, my water broke and our new journey as a family of FOUR began. We waited around the whole day for my labor to intensify, but unfortunately, it did not. My midwives summoned me to the hospital to begin an augmentation of my non-progressing labor, so we left shortly after our friend Linda came to take care of Amelia while we were gone (a debt we can never fully repay).

Since the regular admissions desk was closed, we were diverted to the emergency room for admittance to the hospital. I thought Peter was going to cause a riot or at least an ugly scene when we were seated next to a man being tested (out in the open!) for Swine Flu. I was admitted and a Labor/Delivery nurse came to get me because my waters were uh, flowing freely… After we were settled into our labor/delivery room, I was hooked up to the fetal monitor for what felt like forever. At 11:30pm, they finally started me on Cervidil to try to get things going.

No such luck. The next afternoon, I was still not progressing, so they began the dreaded Pitocin. That worked very, very well. Within two hours, I was making my way through the contractions on a birthing ball with Peter performing splendidly as coach. He really did well! So well, in fact, that we decided we didn’t need to hire a doula this time. When things got super painful, I did end up going with an epidural. The anesthesiologist tried placing the epidural in the usual place, but I screamed as he apparently hit a nerve or something. He seemed confused, like he almost didn’t believe I was feeling the intense pain I was feeling. Suddenly, Peter turned a putrid shade of half yellow/half white and nearly fell on top of me. Peter apparently thought I was going to be paralyzed by the epidural. The nurse was able to catch him and shove him into a chair somehow, his color quickly returned to normal, and the epidural was successfully inserted in a higher place above my spinal curvature. The epidural was only working on the left side, so they had me lie on my right side to get the meds to flow that way. It worked. I was totally numb and felt none of the contractions registering on the monitor.

An hour after the epidural was given, I started feeling strange. No pain, just pressure. I was halfway there at 5cm, and the baby was just about in position. All of my fears of a super long labor were fading now. Things were moving…and quickly! Not even fifteen minutes later I reported the need to push. I was checked, and yep, we were ready to go. The midwife was off delivering another baby, so we had to wait an hour for that. Peter and I laughed and talked excitedly about whether we’d be taking a little boy or a little girl home with us and about how Amelia was going to react to being a big sister.

The midwife came in and everything went so fast it still amazes me to think about, being that Amelia’s birth was so different. As soon as she gave me the all-clear for pushing, I was focused and somehow managed to push productively despite not being able to feel a thing. After twelve minutes of pushing (Amelia was born after five HOURS of pushing), our baby entered the world. They covered the baby up, placed her on my chest, and didn’t utter a word about the sex of the baby. Peter and I were supposed to look at the same time, but Daddy got so excited he blocked my view with his big old head. He turned to me smiling and I finally saw that we had given Amelia a baby sister! We babbled incoherently at each other and at the baby for awhile, and then started vividly imagining our future as a family with two beautiful daughters. Peter imagined baseball bats for the inevitable teenage boys and I imagined Amelia with her new little sidekick. Ah, all the trouble they will get into…

Her stats: 7 lbs, 10.8 oz, 20″ and with a head circumference of 14″:

We named her Eloise Charlotte. Eloise is a form of my middle name, Louise. Charlotte is after a Cure song (Charlotte Sometimes), a favorite book of mine with a lot of meaning to me (Charlotte’s Web), and author Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), who ironically likely died of Hyperemesis, which I had throughout this pregnancy.

Without further ado, here is our sweet Eloise:

And taken yesterday, at five days old:

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