The last two days have been SO nice, and you guys have been a big part of that 🙂
I don’t know why I felt so weird about talking about my mole removal publicly, but I did. You guys seemed to understand why I was nervous, even though I didn’t need to be, and were SO encouraging! I felt less dorky and petty, and rather I felt supported and normal. So thank you for that! Felicia (my mole, if you missed her name) is long gone, and the little hole where she used to reside is healing nicely. Just a little dry and crusty. It doesn’t miss her at all, nor do I. I’ll update a bit more on the subject once I’ve had a bit more healing time and something to actually talk about. It doesn’t look at that different yet.
Yesterday was also a day that left me feeling loved and supported. All the messages and comments were warm and thoughtful and filled with Princess Bride references, as they should be 😉 Brady and I are SO fortunate to have so many people invested in our family, caring about us. We spent our day yesterday home with the kids, not working on the basement or any other job. We wore sweats, sipped coffee, and just rested together. The evening held suuuper yummy snacks and being lazy. Tonight is date night, but honestly, its too cold out for any of our fun plans. Luckily, we have a few fun things/dates in the coming weeks, so hopefully the weather is more cooperative for those. Either way, TEN YEARS! We made it! And guys, it feels the same 😉 In the best way.
Thanks for all your well wishes and care these last couple of days. Its so wonderful to know we have such a solid circle of people around us.
Brady and I chose and committed to each other for life ten years ago!
We live in a broken world where that sounds like a super long time. In some ways, I suppose it is. A LOT can happen in ten years! But on other hand, its only ten years. I hope we have many decades of togetherness left!
I could recap our last ten years together, but really, the last 6.5 years are all right here, at your disposal. If you wanted a refresh on how we got together, that post is HERE. The obvious things/people I’d talk about in that kind of post, you already know about. Plus, our children, our friends, our business, and our house aren’t US. They’re very important parts of us, but this post is about Hailey and Brady.
I know no one is immune to issues and struggles and even breaking up. I’m in no way trying to make some big ballsy stance on marriage or divorce or whatever else, BUT a while back, I learned something super valuable about our marriage.
A couple years ago, we hit a bit of a snag in our relationship. Yes, I’m going to keep it that vague. But it was an ugly one. One that triggered all kinds of difficult things. There was a stretch of feeling “stuck” in our marriage.
Except that, in the midst of all of our tears and arguments and fatigue, there wasn’t even a MOMENT where it crossed my mind that it was over. It hurt SO badly, but I think the reason it hurt so badly was because of how invested we both are in our marriage, and how deeply we love each other. We knew it was going to be ugly to get through, and it was going to be such hard work. A brutal inconvenience in the midst of our happy life. If we were wishy washy on each other at all, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as bad. It could’ve been an escape. But we didn’t want an escape. I remember saying to Brady that I was SO MAD that we had to fight, haha!
So obviously, we made it through. It took a while, but we never stopped loving each other. We didn’t even stop liking each other! God truly covered us in that time. We are still here!
When we lost Jamin, we kept hearing how baby loss ripped loving families apart, and how we needed to work to stay open to each other. Great advice, absolutely. But I admit, I remember being a bit perplexed once some of the shock of our loss had worn off. Torn us apart? Not even a little bit! We had never held each other tighter than we did those days/weeks/months. The depth of our relationship grew exponentially during that time. I have never seen such a clear display of God’s care for us. ALL the glory is His!
They’ve certainly not been perfect years, but they’re part of what makes us us!
Our wedding, 2009Our first anniversary – 2010Our second anniversary – 2011 (couldn’t find one around the actual day!)Our third anniversary – 2012 (couldn’t find one without our kid, lol!)Our fourth anniversary – 2013Our fifth anniversary – 2014Our sixth anniversary – 2015Our seventh anniversary – 2016 (stinking Ikea, lol)Our eighth anniversary – 2017Our ninth anniversary – 2018Today – our tenth anniversary – 2019 There will be MUCH better pictures coming later this month! Just you wait!
This, my friends, is a love for the history books!
I felt weird writing about my dermatologist appointment earlier this week. I don’t want to gross anyone out! But I had some nice support from a good handful of you guys, and I do want to record it! So, here’s your warning! Mole removal details below! Click out now if you don’t want to hear about it! No love lost on my part!
*****
My appointment was today at 8:30am. If you’re from around here at all, you know its BRUTALLY cold out today. -41C, feels like -50C with wind. SO. COLD. My mom had graciously offered to drive me to my appointment, for me to have some support and company, and to leave the van with Brady so he could take the kids to school. Who knew how necessary that would be?? She showed up, true to her word, at 7:45am. I ran out to meet her and we shivered together for a few seconds before driving to the city.
I wonder if they’ll even need to freeze my face. It might already be frozen…
My previous consultation had been at 10:10, and the streets were FULL! But this early, around 8:10 in the morning, it was dead quiet. We parked on the street, directly beside the building. Paid parking wasn’t even in effect until 9:00! Mom and I ran into the building and tried the door to the office. Locked. They weren’t even open yet! We sat on a little bench in the lobby for ten minutes before I tried the door again, and sure enough, it was open!
I checked in, and we chatted a bit with the receptionist about the cold. Mom said she would wait for me to go in, and then after a while, she figured she’d go wait in the car so it would be warmed up. (Yes, it is that cold.) I was called back within a couple of minutes. I was settled in the procedure room for less time than it took to take a selfie, so this “before” picture will have to do.
Yes, its filtered and fussed with. Its my blog insta pic. Don’t judge. The mole itself shows. Part of it is brown, and the part of it that is the color of my skin is the part thats grown with scar tissue from breaking open time and time again.
The doctor came in and reminded me of what we were doing, and I signed a consent form. We had a very brief chat about the weather, and then she invited me to come sit up in the big chair.
So here’s the thing. I knew the whole thing was going to be quick and simple and suuuper standard. But I was nervous! My mole was in kind of a tricky area on my face, and she had noted that it had a lot of vessels so it had the potential to bleed a lot. Hence the plan to cauterize it. I think my biggest worry was actually that it would get super bloody and I’d feel it run past the freezing and across my face, down my neck, or something like that. I wasn’t scared there would be a problem, but I was nervous for something super gross to happen. I don’t know. But I had worked myself up a bit. I was reassuring myself that there would likely be a second person, an assistant of some kind, helping catch the mess, hold my nose wherever it needed to be held, etc. But there wasn’t, and that made me more nervous. Was I going to bleed out from a hole in my face??
The first part was the worst. That freezing needle in such a tender area just sucked. But she was apologetic and calm, and in an obvious method of distraction, started asking me about my kids. She herself is pregnant with her second, and asked about how many I had, number of boys and girls, etc. Seconds after the needle was out, she wiped it off again and said “Alright…”
“Oh wow, just getting right to it, huh?” I asked. “Ha! Ya, the freezing kicks in pretty quick!” she said, and off she went.
Sooooo there was some gentle sawing (anyone barfing yet?) and she simply blotted it with a folded piece of gauze a couple of times. I didn’t feel any pain!
The cauterizing was pretty gross, I won’t lie. She warned me that it would wreak, and she was right. Burning flesh directly under your nose. Its obvious it would smell. One little burn blast either got away from her or got right on the edge of where my freezing stopped, and I jumped!! She apologized profusely, and I apologized right back for moving so much. We had a little laugh about our Canadianness and excessive apologizing before I settled back down and she zapped the spot a few more times. And it was done!
She warned me that it might look like she put a cigarette out on me 😆 She’s not wrong. Up close, it looks pretty black and crunchy. But from a bit of a distance, it doesn’t look all that different!
I used to have a little brown spot there, and now I have a little black spot. And soon, the little black spot will fall off and the spot will heal and it’ll just be skin! I’m SO happy to have it over and done with!
I left the procedure room, and my mom hadn’t even had a chance to go back out to the car! I was in there for maybe ten minutes.
This was all about four hours ago now. All the freezing is gone, and I feel maybe a teeny bit of soreness. It was sore as the freezing wore off, but it feels better now. We’ll see how it progresses but I don’t anticipate a problem.
I’m SO relieved! Such a simple fix for something that’s bothered me for a nice long while.
There is no way around it. When we run out of milk, we know its time for a grocery shop. Its been SO cold recently, and we’ve been doing a good job at stretching the food we have, so we have put off a good solid grocery shop for maybe two weeks or so. Costco, anyway. I ducked to Coop recently to buy a bit of milk to hold us over, but its not just milk. We have our staples that we burn through, and we were getting lower and lower on the items that we eat every single day.
One day I should do a grocery post and actually show you what we buy to really stock up, but that’s just not happening today! Lol!
First, before we even went for groceries, we hit Home Depot. We returned a few things we had purchased and ended up not needing. We bought a couple of breakers that we were missing. We looked for a laundry sink and had no success. It was dead quiet in there! Anyway, we were in and out of there pretty quickly, as Brady very recently did a bit of a Home Depot haul and got most of what we need to do our part in our basement this week.
We stopped by Safeway on our way to Costco to grab our creamer. We are NO brand name snobs or super picky eaters, but we will not sacrifice our creamer, and Costco doesn’t have it, and we weren’t hitting Superstore today. But then off to Costco.
We looked once again for a laundry sink but they didn’t have the one we really wanted to see. Must just be online for now. We’ll keep looking. From there, we stocked up on bakery stuff, and tons of fruit and veggies. (I so often joke about needing to start buying things by the case. Is there anywhere that people can actually do that nearby? Because we’re basically there…) We grabbed our ton of milk, our few frozen things, some cheese and packaged meats, and only a few aisle things. I always feel so good when the bulk of what we buy isn’t from the aisles. I wasn’t embarrassed unloading our cart, haha! Do you even feel embarrassed by your groceries? I TOTALLY do! Especially if we’re catching a deal somewhere so we, for instance, just buy pringles, or margarine, or something crappy like that. Lol! I SWEAR we eat healthy food, too!!
She was so foofy and pink today!
We grabbed some Tim’s on our way home, and I finalized a quote for taping our basement, hopefully to begin shortly! They have a flexible schedule, and we just have to finish up our few last things! Eek! Its finally happening!!!
Time for lunch and a bit of a rest before its time to get the monkeys from school! We have an extra one today so I anticipate an extra rowdy stretch between school and supper, as thats what tends to happen when friends come over 🙂
Aaaaand Bachelor night tonight. I want to say I don’t care, but I really do. Sigh. I’m so embarrassed. But at least it wasn’t the fault of my groceries today.
We’re trying to keep momentum going on the basement, so Brady has been spending time working down there most every weekday afternoon. We made a list of all we can do before the big things like drywall need to start.
Today, he’s been working on central vac stuff. The stretch of time after school and before supper tends to be our “witching hour” so he often takes the kids down with him. That way, they’re occupied and happy, time moves a little quicker, and I can be upstairs and get the blog up!
Except that a certain little Miss woke up early and isn’t feeling especially patient with my this afternoon. So this is how I’m getting stuff done today.
She’s playing with a bag of wipes. Or more realistically, she’s eating a bag of wipes. But hey, she’s happy that it makes sound and she’s getting some good tummy time in, so I’m not complaining! She is a little, but its holding her off for a bit anyway.
So I have the baby, and Brady has the others.
This is usually how stuff goes down around here. I’m so thrilled that our kids are capable of being in a bit of a work zone without getting into much mischief! They love to see the progress and “help” Brady with little jobs all around. Its true that the basement would probably be done faster if I just kept them upstairs with me, but they are enjoying it SO much, they’re learning from it, and its still progressing. So we’re happy 🙂
Wish us luck! If we buckle down, we could be done this next stuff pretty quick if we keep moving! Yet our time seems to fill SO fast. We have at least one commitment every day this week! Lots of them are great, and all of them are necessary, but man its full! I’d for sure like to have all these little things accomplished by the end of February, and its completely doable! We just need to keep disciplined.!
I drove our freshly repaired van through the freezing cold morning to my appointment. I was pretty nervous about breaking down, but I didn’t, thank goodness. Traffic was heavy right downtown, and parking was nuts. I parked in the nearby mall parking lot and ran to my appointment. I was about a half hour early, but I just didn’t know what it would be like. I had never been to this kind of appointment, and I’ve never hung out right downtown first thing in the morning.
Thankfully, the door to the office I needed was the closest door to where I was. I checked in, and spoke to a receptionist who was very polite but super robotic. I spent the next twenty-ish minutes listening to her repeat the exact same things to more patients, down to the exact same emphasis on the exact same syllables. It was entertaining at least.
Patients were coming in and out super quickly, which made me feel relieved, like it would be quick, but also a little bit nervous I would be rushed or that the doctor would be super brief.
Lucky for me, it went so smoothly. I waited in an exam room for about ten minutes before my doctor came in and introduced herself. She read my referral and we discussed why I was there. The mole under my nose has become a pretty solid nuisance. If its dry with winter, and I blow my nose, it bleeds. A LOT. It hurts. And with all the bleeding, there’s scar tissue, so its growing. I don’t think its necessarily a risk of cancer or anything, but she agreed that it was very reasonable of me to want it gone. She surprised me by saying “We’ll book a removal in the next couple of weeks.”
I was outwardly surprised and said I had assumed I’d be waiting more like a year for this, and she laughed and said no, she was heading out on maternity leave soon and wanted to get it done herself. Boom! Done!
We booked it for the first week of February. Not so far away at all! Long enough that I can mentally prepare but not so far ahead that its going to sneak up on me and make me panic. Its early enough in the day, too, that I won’t have time to worry myself sick over it. Just wake up and go!
If you don’t want gory details, now’s the time to skip ahead!!
*****
She told me that she didn’t think it looked like a risky mole, and given the area, she said it would be better cosmetically to kind of “shave” it off rather than dig in and cut it out. She said she can see it has lots of vessels, hence why it bleeds so much, so she said she’ll take it off and cauterize the area. I’ll have a red sore spot there for a week or two, she said, but no stitches and no obvious pinching/deformation of my face. She did say there’s a slightly higher risk it could grow back this way, but thats not a scary thing. If it comes back and does the exact same thing over time, we can try it a different way, but she and I agreed that this made the most sense for now. I’m really happy with this decision! Of course, I’m confident she’ll send it away and if it comes back as anything concerning, I’m sure we’ll go back and remove it from deeper in. But I’m not going there in my head.
*****
I’m nervous, but I’m not. I’m so ready to get rid of this thing and not have to worry about scratching it or drying it out, or even something simple yet annoying like having a zit grow all up against it. Its going to feel so much better. Very very soon!!
This week is already filling up like crazy, and I’m both excited and nervous for this to all go down in a few days! Wish me luck!
How is this little miss ALREADY seven months old??? She’s practically a toddler! A toddler with a LOT of personality today!
Seriously though, she’s not actually that much bigger, haha! Wavy has actually lost 2 oz this month, putting her at 18 lbs 11 oz. We can thank the teething pain for her minimal weight gain, I suppose. The fact that she gained over two pounds last month helps a little.
She did manage to move up a size. She mostly wears 9 month stuff now, except pants, because my kids are always behind in pants. (Ha! Behind in pants. Butt joke.) We’re also finishing up the size 2 diapers and are MORE than ready to put her in 3s! We were given a box of size 3 diapers as a baby gift back in summer, so we’ll finally get to crack those out! I’m happy her diapers will catch everything again, but I will miss the little side of her butt cheek sticking out, haha! Hopefully she keeps bulking up. She’s started showing little signs of reflux the way the little boys did, but without the spitting up, so I’m hoping its just an odd stage that she outgrows and that she drinks her milk better soon. She rarely finishes her six ounce bottle anymore. I think I’m going to book her for a doctors appointment in the near future, just to make sure she’s still growing the way she should be. I love my doctors. Their “all clear” goes a long way for my mama heart.
Accomplishments for Waverly! She’s popped her two top teeth!
You can just see them here!
I shouldn’t say “popped.” Those things are plenty out already. But as you’ve heard, there was no relief, because she went straight to working on the ones next to those. No rest for the teething, I suppose! No rest for her parents either, but I’ll get back to that. She’s also done a lot more eating this month. Potatoes, bananas, green beans, broccoli, etc. She’s SUPER grabby for food, and bites me a lot as I try to sneak something into her mouth. A heavy favourite of hers is puffs. Peach puffs. She’s a fan. The most notable thing I’ll record as far as milestones go is that she sometimes says HI!!! I’ve never had a baby even try to talk so young, and at first I thought it was a fluke, but I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s doing at least some of the time! She babbles a lot, but the other day I greeted her in an obnoxious, over the top three syllable version of hiyeeee! And she mimicked it, down to my inflections. Smartie pants. She waves too 🙂 Just sometimes, but its starting.
As for Waverly’s schedule, she usually sleeps in in the morning, and naps after lunch. We try and stretch her day after that and keep her up until nighttime around 7pm, but its not a perfect system with her teething. But its getting there. We had a few nights in the recent past where she’s had us up every two hours like a newborn. SO TIRED.
New section to Wavy’s monthly posts! Wavy’s favourite things. Like Oprah, but better.
Wavy loves to sit in her high chair. She can see everybody from there, and they love to bring her the toys she drops/throws. Wavy loves her little silicone coffee mug chewelry thing. Easily her current favourite toy. She likes to chew the metal snap. (FACE PALM) Wavy loves to be wrestled a bit now.
There’s those teeth!!
That means being hung upside down, being plunked and bounced on the bed, or being ever so lightly tossed in the air. Lastly, Wavy loves being naked. As often as possible. I like to squeeze her little rolls and chubby legs. She likes it too.
I’m sure you’ve seen all over Facebook and everywhere else, the jokes about how long January felt. I saw one today somewhere that suggested January was simply our trial month. I support this idea! I don’t know why, but yes, January felt SO LONG! Bring on a new month!
While I’m not the biggest winter fan, I do have to compliment the season today. The snow is coming down, and it actually looks like winter. Its actually pretty! Sure, its bitterly cold and windy and icy and crappy out, but my goodness, it gets a point or two for being so pretty. 💙❄️
There could be worse things than being snowed in. Brady will have some time to get better. We’ll putter at our basement a little. Maybe a movie day tomorrow. Comfort food. All the good things.
Stay safe and warm, friends. Enjoy the beauty of winter!
