Arrived at the new house for day one of get stuff done. And… no power. The earliest the electric company would let me switch over (when I called on Thursday) was next Monday. They neglected to mention they were turning the power off prior. Whoops!

So, we are officially home owners!  Crazy right?

Closing went smoothly, we dropped off some things at the house then headed back into the city.  Our lease isn’t up until March so we will go back and forth for a while.  I want to get pre-school as worked out as possible in Stamford before we make the move.  In the meantime, we have lots of projects we need to tackle.

First, we need to change all the lock in the house.  Better to be safe then sorry right?  One back door is locked but apparently nobody has the key.  My suggestion was to call a locksmith but Josh plans on tackling by removing the door from its hinges.  In my mind it could either be A) super easy or B) A giant disaster. I’ll let you know how that works out. 

Here is our beginning list of things to do that I’m sure will continue to grow:

1. Change locks

2. Hang chandelier in dining room

3. Remove chair rail in former dining room (soon to become playroom) so we can anchor toy storage to the wall

4. Touch up wall left naked by chair rail

5. Hang new entry light

6. Change master bathroom hardware in tub (temperature control & faucet)

7.  Paint upstairs bedrooms (need to pick out paint color first!)

8. Figure out closet systems for upstairs bedrooms

9. Replace mailbox

We also are bringing in contractors to start to work on our larger projects which include transforming the finished basement into an in-law apartment for my dad.  This poses a challenge as we need to create a kitchen and bathroom in the space.  There also is no natural separate entrance except for coming through the garage.  I’m hoping to solve this somehow. In creating the in-law, we will also be creating a mud room from the garage entry.  We plan on relocating out laundry area to the mudroom (it is currently in a closet in the kitchen) so that my father can easily use it as well.  We also will need a new roof but that will most likely have to wait until spring as we are starting to hit colder weather here.

I’m both excited for and dreading the whole contractor experience but have been trying to psych myself up by watching TONS of HGTV.

Ben was scheduled for his eye surgery yesterday after a week delay.  Josh had wanted to speak with the doctor to clarify a few points prior to us moving forward.  He did that early this week and that set us up for a go yesterday.  We had to be at NYU hospital at 915a for a 1015a surgery.  Ben couldn’t eat anything in preparation and while he is now old enough to have this concept explained, he still asked for breakfast oh…15 times. 

We arrived at the hospital after two subways and one taxi ride.  The Upper West Side to Midtown East in the middle of rush hour is always a fun commute. We checked in on the day patient floor and were promptly moved to the playroom to wait.  We were the only patients in there at the time so we had full attention from the Child Life specialist. She talked us through everything that would happen that day, step by step, then played and colored with Ben.  Ben thought this was fantastic.

Our doctor came in and explained a change of plans.  While it is Ben’s right eye that is affected by Duane’s, the doctor wanted to operate on the left eye because it would help align the eyes better based on Ben’s unique issue.  We had to modify the consent form but we agreed with the logic and felt confident in his decision.

Next up was a weight check (almost 27lbs!) and then we went into another room. Here Ben changed into his gown and also took medicine to “relax him”.  Relax is apparently code word for making him act high.  They explain it to you by saying he will seem a little drunk, but it was definitely more high than drunk.  Example:  he kept pitching his head forward to stare at his belly button and then proceeded to laugh hysterically. 10 times in a row.  Josh and I were in tears watching him.

At about 1130a (yes, an hour and 15 minutes behind) I walked with Ben into surgery, watched as he was put under and then retreated to the waiting room.  About a half hour after that the doctor was out and said surgery was successful!  We then moved back into recovery and waited for Ben to wake up which he did thirty minutes or so later.  Little kids tend to come out of anesthesia somewhat violently and we knew to expect this from when he had tubes put in his ear.  Nevertheless, it’s still hard to watch your child cry and flail.  He really wasn’t adjusting or snapping out of it so after a few minutes they gave him Fentanyl which is similar to Morphine and back to sleep he went.  On my lap.  For three hours.  Yup!  You see, the nurses moved the bed right out of the recovery area after he first woke and put him in my lap.  They didn’t expect him to sleep another three hours but it isn’t uncommon.  So there I was with a sleeping toddler -who I most certainly was not going to do anything to wake-trapped.  Josh offered to trade at one point but I didn’t even want to move Ben that much.  Regardless, I survived and the next time Ben woke up he was a much happier monkey. 

Ben’s eye is super blood shot now but he doesn’t have anything special on it.  We are putting ointment on every night after he falls asleep and that is really it.  We follow up with the doctor in two weeks but hopefully this is the close of another chapter in our ongoing quest to have a procedure done at, or a specialist from every hospital in the Boston AND NYC metro areas!

I thought I had blogged about this before, but in looking back at old posts, realized I didn’t.  Ben was diagnosed with Duanes Syndrome a while back.  Duanes Syndrome is different for different people but for Ben, it means his right eye cannot turn inward past a certain point.  It doesn’t affect his vision at all, but just makes it harder for him to center his eyes together on a focal point.  To compensate for this, he turns his head slightly.  Check out old pictures, you will notice he never looks at the camera head on.

Duanes Syndrome (according to Wikipedia, my go to source for everything) is a rare congenital eye movement disorder.  It is the first thing in Ben’s world that has nothing to do with prematurity.  Nope, this one is a birth defect!  A missing sixth cranial nerve. As birth defects go, I guess is isn’t so bad.

To truncate a very long story involving multiple doctors and second opinions, it looks like after watching this for six months, it is time to do surgery.  I have it tentatively scheduled for next Thursday but I think I am going to push it back a week to allow Josh time to talk to the doctor and get some more clarification on the end results of surgery. 

I did want to see if else had any experience with this syndrome?  There isn’t a ton of information online which is why we are struggling with making a final surgery decision.

Over the weekend I finished my final race to qualify for guaranteed entry into the 2012 NYC Marathon!  To say I am excited would be an understatement.  As I’ve talked about before, any New York Road Runner member who runs 9 qualifying races in the course of a year and volunteers once gets entry into the following year’s marathon.

I ran 53.7 miles in total to secure this entry.  My pace ranged from 9:56 to 11:03 per mile.  Here is the breakdown of the races that got me here:

1.       Fred Lebow Classic -5 miles (January 8^th)

This is false actually.  Because of an impending storm, the race was moved from a Saturday to a Sunday and unfortunately, Christina  (my fellow 9+1’er) and I drank too much the night prior to actually run the race.  No worries though because since the race was moved, it still counts as a qualifier.  In my book though, that is lame so I will run an extra race (or 2!) this year so I qualify in my own book as well.

2.       NYC Half Marathon- 13.1 miles (March 20^th)

Whoa.  My first half marathon.  I was severely undertrained yet ran because I there was such uproar over entry into this half.  There was a lottery held as too many local runner wanted to run and I believe only 12% of local runners were accepted in the lottery.  I was one of them and felt compelled to run.  I am so happy I did as this race was awesome and really made me see how much I can accomplish when I put my mind to it.

3.       Scotland Run-6.2 miles (April 10^th)

Kilts!  Um.  And Kilts!  This race was hard for me.  The 10k distance challenged me and I actually started walking towards the finish line until I dug deep and forced myself to run it in.  This time of year should have provided me with a good finishing time but it was awful.

4.       NYRR 4 Miler- 4 miles (April 23^rd)

No sponsor, nothing fancy, just 4 miles.  This 4 miler reminded me how tough mile 3 is in the NYRR 4 mile course as I made my way through the rolling hills. 

5.       UAE Healthy Kidney 10k -6.2 miles (May 14^th)

This wins as my worst race of the year.  Why can’t I run a decent 10k?  I run the same loop of the park every time I run 6 miles so it’s not  like there are any surprises.  Seriously frustrating.

6.       Celebrate Israel- 4 miles (June 5^th)

We celebrated that this was the fastest race finish of my season.  This does not say much.  It was run in a 9:56 pace.  Um.  Yeah.  It actually says a lot.

7.       NY Mini 10K -6.2 miles (June 11^th)

My favorite race of the season!  All women and the first mile is run on Central Park West so finally get some time out of the park and amazing support from the running clubs for the entire race. Not that this made me run faster.  It didn’t. 

8.       Gay Pride Run – 5 miles (June 25^th)

My second favorite race of the season although the switched up the course this year and added counter clockwise Harlem Hills.  Sooooo, that was interesting for mile 1 & 2. Again, the argument could be made that THIS IS MY HOME COURSE.  But, apparently I don’t run it enough to dominate it.  Need to get on that.

9.       Central Park Run for Conservatory – 4 Miles (July 16^th)

Finally, the last one.  I ran it on a sprained ankle. It was glorious for the first two miles where I was on pace to blow my PR away my practically 2 minutes.  But then the hills hit, my ankle reminded me it was injured, and I limped into a sad 10:05 pace finish for my second fastest race of the season.  On a sprained ankle. 

+1 Portugal Day Race (June 19^th)

Volunteering was awesome.  I would recommend anybody do it just for the reminder of why you run.