6.28.2006

PT

Today has been a long day so far and it's only lunchtime. This morning we had to take Charlie to physical therapy for his Torticollis. Torticollis is a condition that occurs when the muscle on one side of a baby's neck becomes tighter than the other, pulling the head and neck to that side. His is getting so bad that his shoulder is now also being affected - he's holding it up by his ear. Apparently he was born with this and it occured because of how he was positioned in the womb. We've known that he has this condition since he was about 10 weeks old when our pediatrician confirmed Ryan's suspicions that he indeed did have this condition and made this PT appointment for us. His "favoring" his right side has gotten worse in the past 2 weeks so we had started doing some stretches and exercises on our own thanks to our friend the occupational therapist, Megan Gordon. And I'm glad we did. She gave us alot of advice including:
- 4 or 5 stretches to do 3 times a day
- buying a side sleep positioner to get him to sleep on his side
- a way to carry him that's comforting and stretches the tight muscle
- weekly, and if improvements don't come soon, bi-weekly appointments at the clinic

So basically I'm happy he's getting help but I'm worried too. The therapist also pointed out that part of his head is starting to flatten. I know this is common in kids but it's worse for him since he has this additional problem. So she said it's really important for us to fix the issues now because if we don't, we may have to see a PLASTIC SURGEON when he's 9 months or so. That would be awful. :(

Here's a picture of him with his head cocked to the right (you can see his shoulder is pulled up too):


Poor little guy. Pray for him if you think about it (and for me - I think I might hate the exercises more than he does!).

6.26.2006

Bumbo

I would just like to take a minute to pay tribute to Charlie's newest gadget, the Bumbo Baby Seat. This seat is really cool - it can be used a seat and as a portable high chair...and babies cannot climb (or fall!) out of them. They are held down by their own weight. It's safe to use as soon as babies can hold their heads up, which Charlie can sort of do. :) As you can see, he loves it (although I'm not sure how he feels about the camera - check out the interesting position of his fingers on his left hand! :)).

Tyke and Scooby like it as well, as it provides them full access to the newest member of the Moody household. Charlie, however, is not too crazy about all the attention from his furry friends. :)

6.23.2006

History

Today I figured out how to upload pictures from our digital camera to our computer. Now I realize that is not a hard task but finding a) the time and b) the energy to even exert myself this much has proved to be a challenge in past few months so I am quite proud of my accomplishment.

I downloaded 133 pictures from our camera, dating all the way to December 2004 when the camera joined our family, a Christmas gift from me to Ryan. So in honor of this momentous occasion, I decided to post a few random pictures from our lives in the past 2 years. Enjoy! :)

First, a dark one. My sister, her husband David, Ryan and myself bright and early on Christmas morning '04 (our last Christmas in the home I grew up in, btw - my parents moved last summer). Obviously it was too early for us to operate our camera correctly. :) Since my sibs are still little, we still wake up at the crack of dawn on Christmas. A lot has changed since then, we'll have 2 little ones in this year's Christmas pics!




And the 3 sisters on the same day,
a few hours and cups of coffee later
(the matching PJs were a Christmas gift from me - I'm starting a new tradition). :)












And below is our precious first child, Tyke, also on Christmas sporting his Christmas bandana. The other dog in the picture is O'Dell, an English bulldog purchased for $1500 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) by Anna and David and several months later resold for $1200 (!!!) because David was allergic to him. They were really sad to see him go so they...got pregnant with Tyson!


And Hunter - the baby of the Boatright clan. He's sleepily cheesing it up for the camera along with one of the Boatright Shelties, Mac.



Ahhh, don't miss those Charlottesville winters. Here's Tyke playing in the snow.

One cool thing we got to do quite often while in VA was go to D.C. On this particular (cold!) occasion, we went to attend the inauguration! We drove up with our friends Josh and Jill (now Mr. and Mrs. Hummer), attended the inauguration, ate at the Cheesecake Factory and drove home. Very fun day!
















Fast-forward to April '05 - me in our new house shortly after we made the offer to buy. I'm scoping out my new office and telling them where I want the cable hook-up and the phone jack. And our living room (and half of the dining room)!















In early July, about a month or so before we found out Charlie was on the way, we added another canine to our family, Scooby.


And one more for today - Charlie >1 day old....

6.22.2006

Funny Picture














For those of you who have perused the "What I'm reading now" portion of my blog, you'll now know why I'm reading "Child Proofing Your Dog." I highly recommend it to those of you with canine and human children.

6.15.2006

On doing IT all

On a daily basis, I am a wife, mother, LexisNexis Process Analyst, daughter, sister, friend, dog trainer, cook, maid, and family accountant. And I'm tired. Physically tired, oh yes. But mentally tired is the main thing lately. At the end of every day, I am so mentally exhausted that I can barely function, carry on a conversion or fall asleep at night because of all the many thoughts running through my head: Did Charlie eat enough today and why is he spitting up so much? Did Tyke and Scooby get to go "out"? Is the Indiana product going to release on schedule? Did I remember to pay the water bill? When is Charlie's next doctor appointment? Why is the laudry so piled up? And on and on and on...

At some point during the three years in VA, I read an article in my Shape magazine about woman and careers. I don't really remember much of the article but one portion did stand out (and I'm paraphrazising here): when women are at work, they are feeling guilty about all that they didn't accomplish at home and when they are at home, they feel guilty about everything that didn't get done at work. I am truly struggling under the burden of that guilt right now, in addition to guilty feelings about being a less-than-adequate wife, sister and friend. I know that a certain amount of guilt is par for the course with motherhood so perhaps I'll adjust to these feelings. But for now, I'm struggling.

And to be honest, I'm also fighting a battle with myself over my own needs. Those of you who know me well know that I LOVE going to the gymn. Since I was cleared to exercise at 8 weeks, I've only gone to the gymn about 5 or 6 times. Ideally, I'd like to go 3-4 times a week but now I can't go with any regularity. And this has been hard on me. Going to the gymn is both a hobby and a stress-relief mechanism for me and I'm really missing it. And I must admit that I don't like myself very much when I'm not working out...

So - how do I balance work, marriage, motherhood, friendships and "me" time? I have no idea. I'll guess I'll be pondering this question and working on this balance for the rest of my life.

Quote of the Day
"Do the next thing."
- Elizabeth Elliot

6.11.2006

4 years

Last Thursday (June 8) was our 4-year wedding anniversary. Wow. In some ways it seems like yesterday that I was a single college gal living with Janelle on 5th South at Covenant...and in another sense it seems like forever. Because in a very real way, I do not remember who I was pre-Ryan. Yes, it still does sound weird when I hear myself say "Hi, I'm Emily Moody" instead of "Hi, I'm Emily Boatright" but those of you who know me best and have known me the longest will definitely agree that I became the person I am today when I met Ryan. I can honestly say that I had a Ryan-shaped hole in my heart and life and when I met him, dated him, became his fiance and finally married him, that void was filled. In pre-Ryan days, I was lonely, extremely dramatic (yes, much more dramatic than I am now, if you can believe it!), and somewhat emotionally unstable. :) All of that changed the day I met Ryan, in July of 2000...

It was a Sunday night and I had just returned home from vacation in Orlando, FL with the Boatright clan (it was the summer between my junior and senior year of college). 8 days of Disney World, Sea World and all the other "Worlds" that put Orlando on the map had exhausted me beyond belief and needless to say, I was in the mood for some quality time with non-family members. :) So when my high school pal Melanie Consos called me that night asking if I'd like to join her and some friends from church at a coffee house downtown, I agreed. I was tired, sunburned and not ready to return to work the next day but I decided to go anyway, in need of some college-age friend time/activities. So I arrived at the coffee shop and to my surprise, there were 2 strange guys there with Melanie and her church friends: Ryan Moody and his friend Jeb Beckum. Ryan and Jeb were invited to the coffee shop by Melanie's friend (can't for the life of me remember her name!) because this chick had a crush on Ryan (Ryan and Jeb had just arrived in Savannah the week before from Macon and were about to start their 3rd year of medical school). I remember the first time I laid eyes on Ryan...I thought to myself "That guy is kind of cute but he has a big mouth." And then when he stood up, I thought "Oh, too bad. He's WAY too short for me" :) (turns out I was WRONG about that!). Anyway, as the night progressed, I realized that Ryan was "into" me and not so much the girl that had invited him that evening. And I, thinking he was too short and just coming out of a not-so-great relationship with a guy from Covenant, was not too thrilled about the idea. So I tried to maintain maximum neutrality and not give him any encouragement whatsoever when Melanie and I left Ryan and Jeb that night. However, Ryan was not to be deterred. :) He looked up the number to the YMCA where I was working as a lifeguard and called me the NEXT DAY, a mere 12 hours after we said good-bye the night before. I thought, "this guy is such a stalker. NO WAY am I going out with him." So when he asked to me attend his White Coat Ceremony (some fancy party for 3rd year med students) I said "no way." I also said "no way" when he asked me to attend a birthday party for one of his friends (he was posing as a stripper for that party, jumping out of a cake wearing only scrub pants but that's another story), a movie with just him and some other dinner party. One time I even told him "I don't go out on dates alone with just me and a guy" (what a crock). So needless to say, Ryan was not too happy with me. But then, after rejecting him so many times, I felt bad and decided to invite him to an RUF pool party we were having one night (there was one "date" in the middle here when I made Ryan go out with both Melanie and I but I'm skipping some things for the sake of shortening this already-too-long story). I mean, he was new to Savannah and I should at least be nice to him, right? (My mom actually lectured me for not giving him a chance and coerced me into inviting him to this party) :) So anyway, Ryan attended this party with me and we had a blast. All my friends liked him immediately and I had to admit that he was fun. So when he asked me out AGAIN that night, as we were leaving the party, I said yes. We went to a nice Italian restaurant in Savannah and out to the beach to talk and it was the BEST first date I had ever been on. We hit it off and talked the entire time. Incidentally, it was this night that I found out Ryan's last name. We were in his car, driving out to the beach and I happened to look down at his console and saw his hospital ID badge...Ryan Moody. And I said, "I just realized that I didn't even know your last name until just now" and I remember thinking "Moody...That's an interesting name." And as it turns out, one day it would be my last name as well!

So we had a great first date and continued seeing each other almost daily for the next few weeks until I went back to college . After I had been back in Chattanooga for 2 weeks, I realized that I missed Ryan terribly and didn't want to be apart from him. I told Janelle sometime in that first month of our senior year, "You know, I think he's THE ONE." We survived my stressful senior year in which I was the senior class president, trying to keep my grades up to graduate with honors, work full-time and buy a car and Ryan's stressful/crazy 3rd year of med school, working himself to death in his first year actually in a hospital, all the while studying for boards. We saw each other about once a month, talked on the phone constantly, exchanged many letters and fell totally in love. It was the night of the senior class banquet, the day before my graduation from college, when Ryan told me he loved me and though I'd known this fact for some time, I realized that one day I would become his wife. So skip ahead a few months to October 13, 2001 - we got engaged on a pretty fall day on Cumberland Island (nature reserve beach/island a ferry ride from St. Mary's, town in near Savannah). We had a relaxing engagement with me working part time at Veritas Academy teaching first grade and Ryan enjoying the easy life as a 4th year med student. But that would all come to an end soon. We found out Ryan matched at UVa on March 31 and went to Charlottesville 2 weeks later to find an apartment. We found the apartment and moved our stuff to VA on Memorial Day week-end, Ryan graduated from med school the next week-end on June 1, we got married the next week-end after that on June 8, went on our honeymoon the next week and on June 18, packed up the rest of our stuff and our wedding presents in the Rodeo and the Corolla and drove away from Savannah as husband and wife, residents of the state of VA. Ryan began his intern year 4 days later and so began the hardest year (years, really) of both of our lives: Ryan as a 1st year resident and me as a lonely new wife. But God was so faithful and our love was so strong that we made it...and are here 4 years later stronger and closer than we ever could have imagined as a result of those 3 years in Virginia. And now we are back home in GA and have a son! Life just keeps getting better for us. :)

I do have to say that it has been the best 4 years of my life. Ryan is my best friend and I couldn't ask for more from our marriage or our life together. Thank you, honey, for a wonderful 4 years. I can't wait for the next 40! :)


Quote(s) of the Day
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave. Martin Luther

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.
Martin Luther