Sleepyhead

Did you know that every time I take my kid out in public, someone inevitably says, "Ooh, is somebody tired?" in that little baby voice that so annoys me? I always want to answer, "Well I would think so, since I've kept her up for the last three day in revenge for the first few weeks after she was born!" Instead I say that actually she just woke up from her nap (that's why I am browsing at the bookstore instead of taking her home and putting her to bed) and that she just has a sleepy look about her. She must, anyway, because seriously, every single goddamn time I am out they say something. I know it isn't a big deal, really, it isn't like anyone is being insulting or insensitive or anything like that (except for the couple of times somebody added "she should be home in bed" afterwards), it is just EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I am channeling all my fear and rage into the previous little rant because we took the tour of the children's hospital today and watched the little video about going in with your child to anesthesia. You know, NICUs are quiet places. The babies in them are so sick that when they cry it is this little mewling sound that is further muffled by the incubators, most of the time. All you hear are the beeps of the monitors, and the low voices of the nurses and visitors. It's kind of creepy when you think about what sounds are missing. But on the pediatric surgery floor? Just these strange, strangled baby cries that made me want to claw my skin off and run away. And those giant metal hospital cribs give me the heebie-jeebies. I remember them from when my brother had eye surgery as a preschooler, and they must have scared me then or something because I get this unformed fear in my chest when I see them. And best of all, it turns out there is a higher risk of complications of anesthesia for my daughter because of her condition. They are aware of the issues and they thought she handled things all right during her outpatient surgery, but they will have to keep an extra eye out.

The video kept stressing that if it was hard for you, you didn't have to take your child back to the OR, they could go back with a nurse. I kept thinking, hard for ME? If I can't suck it up for the ten minutes it will take to comfort my child while they are sedated, I don't know what kind of parent I am.

The doctor doing Peanut's surgery is also doing the surgery of another baby with arthrogryposis, a little boy just about her age from this area. The last time I was in there, I asked him to tell her I would like to talk with her if she wanted to talk with me. She did, and I have her phone number. I am very nervous about doing so, though I don't know why. I am looking forward to it, but it will take me some time to gather courage. Maybe I'm afraid of seeing her child? That he'll be doing better than Peanut, and I'll feel worse? Or that she'll be the one in better shape, and then I'll feel like a giant whiny loser for complaining? Who am I kidding, I am a giant whiny loser anyway, but I don't always need to be reminded of this. Anyway, wish me luck.

A Tip

When you spend way too much money at Target, if you leave the bags in the trunk of your car for a couple of days until you can bring them in and put the stuff away while your significant other is not home, it will feel just like you got a bunch of birthday presents that are just what you wanted.

It's Miller Time

She came, she destroyed, she slept. And the cat slept with her. A good day.

I Don't Approve Of Her Lifestyle Choice

Freshly-minted Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings (her first day of work was Monday) charged into her most pressing duty this week: Writing a letter to the head of PBS about a cartoon whose purpose is to foster cultural awareness and sensitivity. The lead character of the series, "Buster", visits people all over the world to learn about their lives. He recently visited a couple of families of sugar maple growers in Vermont, which happen to both be headed by female couples.

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

Did I miss something? Did the women demonstrate proper cunnilingus technique? Did they extol the virtues of Sapphic love? I may note that this show also made an episode featuring a fundementalist Christian family, but apparently that is a "lifestyle" I am expected to approve of and be happy to explain to my child. I might note that I go to church, but that doesn't mean I approve of what some people do in the name of being Christian. Families headed by gay parents are a fact of life, people. They aren't going away, nor should they. If you are waiting until your child is old enough to enjoy this show to teach them that some families have two mommies or two daddies, I think you might end up a bit behind the curve.

The Boston affiliate that produced the show has changed its mind and decided not to distribute it. They say that it had nothing to do with the letter from Spellings, that it was because they wanted to be sensitive to parents that aren't ready to bring the topic up to their children yet. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the rest of the letter:

She asked that her department's seal or any statement linking the department to the show be removed. She asked PBS to notify its member stations of the nature of show so they could review it before airing it. And she asked for the refund "in the interest of avoiding embroiling the Ready-To-Learn program in a controversy that will only hurt" it.

In closing, she warned: "You can be assured that in the future the department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds."

Now, instead of playing with my daughter, I have to write this stupid woman a letter explaining to her how I, as a taxpayer and a parent, think that her time would be better served on more pressing issues, and that she "can be assured that in the future this taxpayer, parent, and proud American citizen will be more clear as to my expectations for any future programming my government funds".


Nothing like a righteous rant first thing in the morning to wake you up.

Where I'm Still Not At All Funny

So I feel like I bombed on Ed Sullivan.

As I said earlier, I had no idea two measly posts on the behemoth that is Dooce would generate the kind of traffic it did. For about twelve hours, it was like I got to ride along in J.Lo's limo, pretending all the screaming was about me. I got more page hits in one afternoon than I usually do in two weeks. It was my big break. And what did I write about? The saddest day of my life, as well as a typical self-righteous rant (which, I guess, is what my comment post had been, but still). Not even a cute baby picture up to mitigate the woe.

What makes it worse is that I have apparently been offending my loved ones left and right in my actual life, so the idea of me lecturing others on the proper things to say is probably highly amusing to them. My varying attempts at humor apparently don't translate as well when you actually know me. You lucky readers can at least just click the page closed when you get sick of me. I suppose my friends could do that too, metaphorically speaking, but I'm hoping I'm cute enough to forgive. I certainly didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings.

Anyway, I should have posted a new hilarious story of some kind, or at least a greatest hits collection (are there any?). For now, I am posting the cached link to the missing Finslippy post. Somebody said awful stuff about her as a mother because of this post and implied something about molestation on another site, and she went off the deep end. How anybody could have an issue with this story is beyond me (other than her son when he's a teenager, but that's a long time from now)--it makes me wonder about people who dream up those sorts of scenarios as a "warning". I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever read. My funny will never be able to compete. And if anyone decides to write to her and say anything bad about this post, I swear I will hunt you down and make you read every single one of my archived posts over and over and over again.

Making Light has an interesting post on trolls and blogs, which may be of interest to, well, most of the people who read my blog, since we've been talking about that sort of thing.

I have had an entirely unfunny day, so here's hoping that tomorrow is endlessly entertaining. Or at least that I can write about it that way. If not, I'll see if I can find some more cute baby pictures.

A Bad Day, Remembered

Maybe I am a little touchy because it was a year ago today that we first heard the words , "I'm very worried about this baby".

I was in the hospital with T. and my mother to get a detailed ultrasound so we could get the ok for my OB to perform an external version on Peanut to turn her head down and avoid a C-section. We were excited, because we knew there was a chance that the ultrasound would show that the placenta was not working efficiently and so it would be necessary to deliver her right away (we didn't want it to not be working right, but we'd known for a while it was possible and any excuse to see her sooner was a good one at the time). I had pre-eclampsia, but as far as we knew there was nothing wrong with Peanut. She was very still inside during the ultrasound, which wasn't unusual for that time of day. After the scan, the technician asked me to go and see if I could wake her up so they could get a better look at some things when the doctor came in. She never let on that she saw anything unusual.

The doctor arrived, and started scanning. For the next thirty minutes, he didn't say a word, until he turned and said, "I'm very worried about this baby". He then said, "she's got a clubfoot, but that's the least of our worries". Stunned, none of us could say a word, and he gave us a change to collect ourselves and meet him in a moment in a conference room. There, he proceeded to list all of the defects he saw during the scan: clubbed foot, abnormally short umbilical cord, abnormally short arms and legs, cloverleaf skull, no fetal movement for more than an hour, fixed arms, abnormally small ribcage with a heart taking up more than half of the ribcage. He said he couldn't be sure without an amnio, but it appeared we were looking at thanatophoric dysplasia, an almost uniformly fatal chromosomal defect. If it wasn't that, it was something similar, and her defects were 75 to 80% "incompatible with life". Her lungs wouldn't have developed enough for her to be able to breath once she was born, even with a ventilator. If she did live, she would be severely disabled, and unlikely to survive her first year, which would probably be spent in the hospital. He said we need an amnio to be sure what it was. I nodded my head while my husband squeezed my hand and my mother shredded her tissue. Peanut was hiccuping away inside at this point, practicing the breathing she apparently would never get to try. We went back into the exam room, and I cried silently while they stuck the needle into my belly. My OB arrived, and she looked horrified--never a good thing to see in your doctor. She prescribed me some sleeping pills (no need to worry anymore about the baby getting drugs, right?) and we went home. The pills didn't work.

The next few days were a blur. We saw the geneticist, who told us he thought her survival odds were a little better than the first doctor said, but not by much, to not have false hope. He said her best case scenario was that she would be a dwarf of some kind, which to us was not a problem as long as she was alive. He said this type of problem was his specialty, and that he would come in for her birth if possible so he could help the pediatricians, because this was such a rare disorder--and most babies with it are miscarried. We needed to decide what we wanted them to do--how many invasive medical procedures we wanted them to try, what "comfort measures"--i.e. morphine--we wanted them to provide her. Though we had planned an early delivery because of the pre-e, he wanted us to try and delay the birth because every day inside was one more day her lungs had to develop.

We had to call our families and friends. I talked to my father about burial options. My husband put every item related to baby in the nursery and shut the door so we couldn't see it. I heard him in there, sobbing. That's pretty much what we did for the next week. The amnio results came back. It wasn't thanatophoric dysplasia, but that didn't mean it wasn't another kind of lethal skeletal dysplasia. Then, eight days after the ultrasound, my newest labs came back--my pre-e was escalating, and the OB couldn't in good conscience allow me to continue to be pregnant. She wouldn't sacrifice me for the small amount of help another two weeks would be to Peanut. I waited for T. to drive back from work in Chicago, and we went to the hospital. Peanut was born by C-section the next day.

And the rest is a story for another day. As you can see by her pictures and the rest of this blog, it turned out to be the happiest day of our lives. She is currently lying on the bed, studiously shredding a catalog, and humming away. I know how truly blessed I am.

For Those Coming From Dooce

I made one comment (well, now two) on dooce.com, and my traffic here tripled in about fifteen minutes. I had no idea that would happen. I used to wish I had more traffic on my site, but after seeing the kind of abuse dooce and karen and finslippy get, I think I'm kind of happy with my regular dozen or so readers, who are lovely and kind and supportive and also incredibly intelligent, talented, and gorgeous to look at.

Anyway, those of you trying to understand my comment would be served, I think, by going here, and then maybe here. There are links regarding her medical diagnosis on the sidebar. Something has been bothering me, though, that I want to make clear. I realize that some stuff I've written lately may have a "poor me" subtext going on, and that is the last thing I wanted. None of this is about me, it is about Peanut. She is the one with the tough road ahead, she is the one whom ultimately has to live her life with the decisions I make for her. My child is beautiful and perfect and I wouldn't trade her for a child that could push up or crawl for anything in the world. That doesn't mean, though, that I can't be sad or grieve for her, and it doesn't mean that my life isn't affected and that I can't be sad about that. Tertia put it beautifully, in this post, and better than I could ever say it. You can be happy and sad about the same thing at the same time. Maybe other people handle it better than I do, I don't know. I don't really care. This is me, this is my family, and I am entitled to all the feelings I have.

I am very lucky to have had many people be very kind and supportive to me. Every one of you that has taken the time, in person or online, to show empathy and give comfort, mean the world to me. Sometimes people, while trying to say something comforting, inadvertently say something that isn't. I know I have done this, probably a lot, and that is why I posted to dooce. I don't want others to make the mistakes that I have made. That's why I posted my comment, and that is why I write some of the things that I write here. Before I had my daughter, I wouldn't have understood either. Some people do, without having to try, but I wasn't one of them.

And I have said it before, and I will say it again: Just because someone puts up a public blog with comments doesn't make it ok for someone else to say rotten stuff or be critical of their decisions. If you met this person at a party and wouldn't say something to her/his face, perhaps you shouldn't post it to their blog. Rude is rude, whether you are on the internet or not.

The Horror

The Spanish Inquisition didn't need the rack, oh no. All the torturers needed was to put a daub of food on the prisoners' noses, let dry, and then WIPE IT OFF WITH A WARM WASHCLOTH. For really heinous torture, WIPE OFF THE HANDS TOO. How would anyone have survived it?

At least, according to Peanut.

Winter Weather Advisory

Because we own a monster penis truck, I was able to get out of the driveway this morning without shovelling it first.

Everybody else needs to stop driving them, because they are bad for the earth.

Look At All The Pretty Colors

Last night before falling asleep, Peanut spent ten minutes waving her fingers in front of her face and investigating them closely, and the last ten minutes staring off into space while blowing raspberries.

It's Benadryl, kid, not L.S.D.

She Looks Like A Hillbilly

Two down, four to go.

Peanut currently has her first case of conjunctivitis, and her right eye is so swollen she looks like a prize-fighter. As Carlos says, an adorable one, like Oscar de la Hoya. So she is teething, sick, and we are in the middle of having the house painted (inside). And it is freakin' cold outside, and not much fun to leave the house. So that's why I'm not posting much, anyway.

If you think you are anal-retentive or analytical, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. This blog frightens me and fascinates me at the same time. Trust me when I tell you to click on the charts--they are waaaay more in-depth than they first appear.

Update

Peanut's surgeries are February 21st and April 11th. Stay tuned...

You Know, Like The Exorcist?

The reason I am not posting is that Peanut is teething. What's the big deal, you may ask. A little crying and fussing, but certainly not that exhausting. Well, let me tell you what the big deal is. Peanut is not cutting just one or two teeth. Oh no. Not even just three or four, or even five. She is cutting SIX TEETH AT ONCE, PEOPLE. Any minute now I expect her head to start spinning around on her neck.

My Mom Found My Blog

This isn't a Dooce situation, though. She's forgiven me for this post. Which is fair, since I've forgiven her.

A friend of my husband's also found my blog (hi Tim!). He was Googling his band, The Treats, and found me that way. On, like, the 100th page. Tim apparently has a cake job, if he has that kind of time. The show really was cool, and I'm not just saying that because you might be reading. Sorry I don't have more readers for this plug to be worth something.

And a clarification:

I was not disparaging the socks. There was no sock disparagement going on. I was disparaging the belief of mine that I would really be far more beautiful than Eva Longoria, and even more glamorous, if I just dieted for a week or two and really would be expected to be wearing red silk teddies and maribou slippers, not fuzzy blue socks. I truly love the socks. I am sorry for any misunderstanding my poor writing may have caused.

Please Don't Key My Car

I swear to GOD that I got in this lane before they put the "Express Lane" sign up. I am not an total asshole. At least not about that.

There's Always A Silver Lining, Right?

The Setting:

Hospital emergency room, waiting for nurse to take grandfather up to a room for observation after he takes a non-alcohol-fueled fall.

The Players:

R., a woman formerly in my Mother/Baby group, a radiology tech, with a lovely and precocious daughter two months older than Peanut.

Me, mother of child with serious developmental delays due to birth defects that will need extensive surgery


Scene:

Me: (Noticing R. behind the desk in scrubs, smiles) Hi, how are you? I didn't know you worked here.

R: Yes, I just started nights six months ago. How are you?

Me: I've had better nights, but my grandpa is ok, just cracked a rib. How is B. (her baby girl)?

R: Oh, she's great, she just turned one last month. How's Peanut (she used Peanut's real name, which is Cashew)? Is she sitting yet? Has she had her surgery?

Me: She's doing well. She's gotten really big, and she's having her surgery next month. She can't sit on her own yet, but she can sit in my lap ok. She won't be sitting by herself until after her surgery stuff is over, later this summer.

R: (With a big smile) Oh, you should be happy. B. was walking at ten and a half months, and she's always getting into everything.

Me: (Incredulous silence)

Uncredited nurse walkes in

Nurse: R., you have a phone call from the doctor

R: Well, I guess I'd better get back to work! Take care!

Me: (Waves feebly, hoping that head will not completely explode) Um, bye.

But Oh So Chic

Faux-fur and infant car seats don't mix.

Gearing Up

So this is the deal: Two surgeries, six weeks apart. A third a year from now. God willing, none beyond that. They'll call us this week to set the schedule, but it will probably be the week after Valentine's Day.

The first surgery, a five hour procedure, to make it so she can put her right foot flat and have a ninety degree bend in her knees (a quadricepsplasty, and talipes equinovarus surgery without osteotomy, but I don't know what type, if you want to Google it). Hip-to-toe casts for six weeks. The second surgery, about three hours, to put her right hip back in place (osteotomy and open hip reduction), using a metal plate in her pelvis (won't that be fun, trying to explain to airport security that my toddler has a metal plate in her hip--I can see their looks of disbelief now). Six weeks in a body cast, meaning up to her waist and down her right leg. Possibly another few weeks in a short cast for the foot. A year from now, surgery to remove the plate once she has more bone in her hip. She'll be in the hospital two or three days each time. Any other surgeries would be because something went wrong.

The expected outcome? We hope that she'll be able to put her right foot flat, and not need a brace on it in adulthood (meaning she'll probably need one throughout childhood). We hope that she'll be able to bend her knees at least ninety degrees, so she can climb steps and sit in a chair. People with arthrogryposis tend to have less function afterwards than others because their joints are stiffer to begin with. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to know what the worse outcomes might be, as she might end up worse off than if we did nothing. But those risks are very small, and her doctor thinks she will have a good outcome. Well, good in a relative sense. Not being able to wear high heels to your prom isn't a good thing, or go rock climbing, or take ballet, or anything else you need bent knees for, isn't good in my opinion. And if anyone else tells me I should just be grateful that she's alive, I'm going to bend their knees in ways they won't like. Or perhaps I'll say, "No, I'm really not. I should have just aborted her, because I wanted to raise a ballerina. What am I spending all this money on doctors for, anyway?"

I had a tough time as a teenager. I missed out on a lot and didn't graduate from high school because I had severe migraine headaches starting when I was fourteen. I felt like a misfit, "There's that girl with the headaches. Do you think she's faking? I think she just wants attention". I wanted my daughter to have the chance to be normal, which I didn't have. If she wanted to be the freaky girl with the weird hair, then fine, that's her choice, but I wanted her to have the choice. I know that some people with disabilities breeze through life on the sheer force of their personalities so that no one notices anything different about them. I was not one of those people. And I know things could be worse, far far worse, but as much as I would like that thought to be comforting, it isn't. It isn't really that comforting to know that you can just adopt when you find out that you will never ever be able to get pregnant. It isn't especially comforting to know you can have another baby if you have a miscarriage. It isn't comforting to know that my child could be dependent on a wheelchair or ventilator all her life, because no child should have to go through that. Maybe she wouldn't want to be a ballerina, or a fighter pilot, or a competitive runner. Maybe the idea of physical activity will be appalling because it would take her away from her science experiments or her painting, and the only boys (or girls) she ever wants to date would never consider not dating her because she has a limp. I just want her making those decisions on her own, instead of having them made for her by her tendons.

I asked the questions that I wrote down. I talked to T., who will go with her into the OR while they put her under. Thank you to those who pointed out this was difficult, because I didn't know that. When she was put under the last time, they didn't let us go in because she was so little, and the docs thought it would be unnecessarily distracting. I think I have done enough of the hard stuff for a while, so it is T.'s turn. We get pagers during her surgery and they are supposed to page us to go back when she is brought into recovery and set up in there, so in theory we'll be there when she wakes up, though we didn't quite make it last time. The rooms are all private and have space for one parent to sleep there, and luckily we live in the same town so there isn't a question of paying for the other parent to stay in a hotel. They have dogs come in a couple times a week to see the kids, so she'll won't even miss having her doggie around. I just want to get this over with, so we can move on with our lives.

Today Is Delurking Day

...according to PaperNapkin. As I have finally given in and taken some Ambien (just a little--and it is the first time I've taken it when I'm alone with the baby--I'm really freaking tired of not sleeping), there will be no post until tomorrow, with the surgery update.

So to be fair, you all know a lot about me. Far more about my husband than he probably wants. So what about you? Really, darlings, I would SO love to know who you are, what makes you tick, what lottery you won that gives you all the free time in the world to peruse blogs like mine that are the equivalent of UPN sitcoms in quality entertainment. I have hits on here from all over the world, including those places hit by the tsunami. I've had multiple hits from Israel, Mexico, Slovenia, Singapore, Greece, and Portugal. I have had single hits from Iceland and Syria and the UAE and Slovakia and Hong Kong. From the US, I have Rutherford and Reston, but no states. So in honor of Delurking Day, I say to you:




Tell me all about YOU! I promise I won't stalk you all over the 'net, unless you want me to...

And after I hear about you I'll let you know what is going to be happening to Peanut over the next few months, with the end result being her walking and running.

All In All, A Good Day

My birthday was lovely. I woke up about 8:30, and T. was already cleaning up the kitchen from last night's black-eyed peas and greens dinner. I played with the baby a bit, and went upstairs to go online until breakfast, which he made for me. I then took a three-hour nap. I woke from my nap to play with the baby while watching the Packers beat the pants off the Bears (thanks, boys!). I then went online until T. was ready to go with me shopping for an entertainment center for the new stereo system he is buying me for my present. We didn't find what we wanted, but that's ok. I came home first, and went online while Peanut napped. She woke up when T. came home, and then my mother arrived to babysit while we went to the bookstore to wander around and spend all my birthday money. An unbelievable luxury, to have a babysitter while I look at books. Came home, put Peanut to bed, and spent the next few hours reading about wine and practicing reflexology on my own feet (T. would have done it, but he was so enthralled with the book I got him for Christmas, that I didn't want to distract him). A wonderful way to spend the day. I have to wonder, though, when I became the kind of person my oldest friend would think of when she saw soft, fuzzy, blue socks for sale (thanks Nic!).

I can't sleep right now, though, because I started thinking about Peanut's surgeries coming up. It is one of those things that you wish would never ever happen but if it has to you wish it would happen right away so you can get it over with. I feel bad because we never got a second opinion like you are always supposed to, and I feel like I don't know nearly enough about what is going to happen and why this is the way it is going to happen. I didn't do the second opinion because it would have been such a big deal to work out with the insurance and everything, and with T. gone all week every week it was just too much, just too much for me to do with everything else. I'm just hoping I haven't shortchanged her, that another doctor wouldn't have done this sooner so she'd be done with everything by now, or had some other better way of handling this. I was feeling ok until I met another mom whose daughter had the hip surgery, at 7 weeks old. I had been told Peanut would have to wait until she was at least a year old, but this woman's doctor told her that he didn't want to wait very long because it would be better for her to have it functioning early. Neither of us can figure out what the difference was in the situations--they have essentially the same defect in their hip. So now I'm wondering if we did the right thing by waiting, and I am stressing myself out even more.

The final appointment before the surgeries is this Thursday morning (7:45 am! What was I thinking?), and I will try to get most of my questions answered then. I am writing the list down as they come to me, and I'll be studying the anatomy of the foot and leg this week so that he can tell me specifics (many of you don't know this, but I am kind of a freak about anatomy and the human body and love nothing more than to pore over pictures of the muscles of the hand or lower leg--I would totally have a poster of the bones and muscles of the body up on my wall like at my massage therapists if T. wasn't completely freaked out by it. My favorite part of EMT class was cadaver lab, and I have a book about forensic skull reconstruction. Peanut will have an interesting education in our bookshelves).

I am asking a favor of my (few) readers. The only surgery--in fact the only stitches-- I have ever had (other than opening my blocked tear duct when I was an infant and my wisdom teeth removal and they don't really count) was the C-section I had to get Peanut. She had an outpatient surgical procedure in May, where they put her under, but she was out and home 6 hours after we brought her in. I don't have any experience with surgery other than that, much less surgery on babies. Anyone have any suggestions for me about what I should ask about? I mean, at this point I still have to ask what the names of the surgeries are and how long she'll be in the hospital each time, so that's how basic I am talking about. Any other time I think I could do this reasonably, but I can't think clearly right now. At the bookstore, I picked up a book for parents of disabled children, and opened it to a comment by a parent whose child was in a vegetative state after being given the wrong anesthetic during a routine surgery at the age of 1, so that is where my mind is when I think about this whole thing. I'll be given some basic information about the children's hospital, and I know I can call them with questions, but I don't know what to ask, other than can I sleep there. I know that Anna has some experience with this, and Jen's daughter was in the hospital for a while (though not for surgery). Any thoughts from you two, or from anyone else? Please?

Sorry to be such a bummer but I think I am PMS'ing and that's why this is causing so much anxiety right now this minute and that's why I can't sleep...

Happy Birthday To Me

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me-ee, Happy Birthday to Me!

29! Again!