Holidays and time passing
Well, the holidays are over and not a moment too soon. Do you think I'm a dork for putting the tree decorations away Christmas afternoon? Well, at least the dishes are still out. But not for long. I plan to put those away this weekend.
It's not that it was a bad holiday season. In fact, it was quite pleasant. It just wasn't spectacular. I mean, it's a lot to ask to have the best holiday EVER each time, isn't it? Thanksgiving was here and we had about 10 for dinner. The house was full of babies and toddlers. That was actually a lot of fun. Watching them interact was a blast. They all get on quite well. Christmas was quiet, as usual. Next year, I think G will really be starting to "get it" and it should be getting really fun. The family party was last saturday but the timing didn't work for us as it was in the morning. By the time C got home from work and G. woke from his nap, it was over. Oh well. We might host next year as we'll have the baby and it might be easier than trying to travel. We'll see how it goes.
All's well on the baby front -- last u/s showed him measuring one week ahead which isn't surprising as G measured ahead for his entire gestation. I've started talking to G a little bit about a sibling/new baby but he doesn't much care. I'm not sure how much he can really understand at this point anyway. It's so far away, it probably doesn't much matter.
In G's world things are just fabulous. His vocabulary is finally starting to grow leaps and bounds. I caught myself from cussing last week when someone took a parking space I had my eye on and now when he want's a laugh from me he yells, "AWWWWW FUDGE!". He's starting to get that tape recorder quality in his vocabulary -- we've got to start being careful with the words we're choosing!
And 2 words that sum up my free time lately: Mob Wars
I find myself
I find myself posting again.
I find myself pregnant again.
OK, it wasn't quite like that. Not the proverbial OOPS! pregnancy that people like me dream about. I actually transferred the last 2 of our 5 frozen embryos in September after a failed cycle in July. To my amazement and C's suprise, it actually worked! Interestingly enough, the blogosphere is the first to know with the exception of immediately family. Hell, even G doesn't know yet and he lives with us. Of course, with him being only 20 months, it's easy to keep secrets from him. So according to this due date calculator, I'm 11 weeks today. I think I'll hold off telling people for a few more weeks. It still seems too early for my comfort.
In the meantime, this afternoon we'll head for my brother and sister-in-law's house. They've got a 2 year old and 8 month old twins. It always makes me feel better about how I view the chaos around here. Labels: pregnancy
Back in the Saddle Again
Friday, I went to my aunt Anita's wake. I loved her dearly. Somehow while I was there, I volunteered to create and manage a web site for the family, including messageboard and photo albums. I'm not exactly sure how that happened but I'm just as happy to do it. At least I still feel like I'm kind of in touch with the wired world. I've been working on it for 2 days and still can't manage to get it published. I avoided the DNS issues by publishing to the IP address but replication is taking forever on their live servers and I still can't see the site. That's not bad enough, but I'm using a new web design client called Microsoft Expression Web. It's a Cadillac compared to FrontPage, the client I'm familiar with using. My plan is to get it online and beg the family for help. I'm sure someone knows more about web page design than I do. I hope. No, I really hope. *sigh*
Some people just suck
I think when you sell your house you should advertise it like a car or any other like-valued asset: "free to good home", "300K or BO", etc. Here's why:
We're in the process of looking for a new house now that we've finally sold the seattle house. We found one we could work with. it's not our dream house by any means, but it's got all the right features and is in a great location. The biggest down side is that it needs a lot of work: new kitchen, new roof, new deck, pool work, the garage is actually falling backwards, among other things. So we offer what is a fair price minus some of the biggest repairs it needs right away. We figured that if the sellers are interested in negotiating, they'll counter with someehting close to the middle or maybe a little bit higher. Do they? noooooo. they counter for 5k less than the full price. What I want to know is how in the HELL is this a negotiation? Why didn't they just say, "price firm" or not counter?
I hate this part. I had to try 3 or 4 times to get a house in seattle -- every deal kept falling thru. So we're back at the beginning and really there's not much here to look at. we're probably going to be at this for a while. *sigh*
on blogging
The truth is, I miss it when I don't post. I was thinking about it today and was wondering why I seem so attracted to typing out my random thoughts and then inviting anyone to read it. First off, why should someone care? But okay let's just say that someone does care. Why would I want to share most of this stuff with people anyway? Some of it's personal but really most of it is just plain weird. But I do it because I do. I'm not sure it's strong enough to be a need but I'm really drawn to it. The whole idea of blogging and reading others' blogs fascinates me and I spend hours getting caught up with folks that I grow a great fondness for. The community, by and large, is hugely attractive.
I think being physically isolated is probably a big factor. The transition back to a rural area is proving challenging. I wouldn't change it for a minute but I frequently find myself missing being involved in a fast paced lifestyle. Just things like being connected. Not many people really "on the internet" here in the same way my friends in Seattle are.
My spiffy new computer helps, too. It's so sweet! We've been running Vista Ultimate on our 4 or 5 year old Inspiron 8200 with only 512MB of memory. That just hurts. It does okay but we try not to work it too hard so it doesn't just implode. I think it's got some hardware issues, too. The hard drive sounds like it's going to melt any second.
Spring is here and it's a perfect time to begin again.
You know, I never introduced this blog and people read it. Then, I disappear. So it seems apt that I return without comment.
Life: What a long strange trip
OK, I think I'm back. For real this time.
So much to catch up on but first I should just tell the world that the love of my life arrived on March 5, 2997 at 10:45 PM. He was born at 37 weeks gestation (3 weeks early) and was 7 pounds 9 ounces -- 20 inches. His name is Gregory David.
He's the happiest, cutest baby ever. Of course. He's also napping upstairs as I type. What a good boy to let his momma tell the world about him. Until I catch up, here's a picture to keep you busy:
More later as I hear him stirring from his nap upstairs. I just wanted to get started. Life tends to happen in 15 minute increments these days.
"Everything's Fine!"
Well, December was a whale of a month for me. I'll try not to bore you any more than necessary.
During the 2nd week (12th & 13th) we went on a "babymoon" to Salish Lodge and had a fabulous time. It was only 2 nights and 25 miles away but it seemed like a month at a far away resort. The accommodations were luxurious, the food devine and the spa treatments were heavenly. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very cooperative. The last night of our stay, western Washington was hit with a huge wind storm and over 1.5 million homes/businesses, etc. lost power. The lodge wasn't immune. We checked out in the dark, came home to a dark house and went to get our dogs from the trainers where they'd been in the dark. It was a long day. Our power was restored late that night, which was faster than most. We're lucky to be on the same substation as the local hospital. We always have better power service than others nearby.
Mom & Dad were here over the holidays and were quite generous with the shopping. Bought us 3 pieces of beautiful furniture for the nursery at USA Baby. In this picture, the crib and the dresser on the left in the main picture and then the hutch that fits over that dresser (hutch not pictured anywhere). They also payed the balance of the glider that we ordered in November and bought a bunch of nursery accessories from BabiesRUs for us. I'm excited to finally pull the nursery together. C. finished painting it tonight so tomorrow I can at least start hanging clothes in the closet and stuff. My mom and I have a serious jigsaw puzzle addiction and worked on a Springbok 1500 piece puzzle while they were here. I finished it days after they left and have purchased a new one. I'm thinking I might start that today but it seems something always gets in the way of my leisure plans.
New Year's eve was fun, as usual. Every year for the last several years we head for K's house to have some fabulous "white trash" food and watch the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi channel. Recently it's been even more fun because we can TiVo our favorite episodes and pick and choose what we watch. The menu consisted of white trash weenies (Pillsbury crescent rolls around lil' smokies), beef tips in demi-glaze, chips & dip, bleu cheese salad dipped stuffed french rolls, deviled eggs, and my favorite... Whoopie Pies! Knowing that I had a Dr's appointment on Wednesday, I held back to 2 whoopie pies and then that biatch K sent THREE home with us. I didn't eat any of them before my appt though. I'm such a good girl, doncha think? We made it home and were in bed in time to ring in the New Year. Which, by the way, is an improvement over recent years. Generally, we're asleep by 11. Yeah, I know we're boring.
Wednesday after New Year's I had another big OB appointment and level II ultrasound. Here's the highlights:
Ultrasound: normal fetus, normal amniotic fluid level, normal organs, baby breech and facing backwards and measuring 30.5 weeks. Estimated weight 3.5 pounds. Some concern from the radiologist that the baby is measuring so big for his age and told me that the IUGR we were initially worried about can be completely dismissed at this point. heh.
GD screening: Drank the glucola at the end of the ultrasound. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either drinking it or dealing with all the sugar in my system for the next couple of hours. Made me more confident that I was doing ok with the glucose levels but still worried 'cause (1) you never know and (2) BIG baby
Weight: Lost 3 pounds. Dr. seemed happy with that (well, as happy as she ever seems) but did ask me a few times if I was eating any carbs at all. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA she doesn't know me very well. I DREAM carbs.
Fundal height: I'm measuring at exactly 28 weeks. She said I'm really hiding him in there since he's so big already. She also expressed concern about his being big for his age and we both just presumed it's GD, the blood work would confirm it, and we moved on to another subject.
Blood pressure: 122/70 -- still great
Urine: normal
Blood draw: 2 vials -- blood sugar and iron levels.
She asked if we were having him circumsized and if I'd chosen a pediatrician yet.
The last 2 weeks, I've been feeling REALLY tired all the time. I think worse than the first few weeks. I just presumed that it was my iron levels finally crashing. It's so normal to have iron deficiency in pregnancy anyway and since I started with such a disadvantage with my hematocrit levels, it seems an easy presumption to make.
So the nurse called yesterday and left a message on my cell phone that I got when I left the office for home: Blood sugar -- normal; Iron levels -- normal; final ultrasound result -- normal. "So, everything's normal! Call if you have any questions and see you at your next appointment!"
Our childbirth classes start tuesday. Eight weeks worth! The first 6 weeks are childbirth prep and then one week of breastfeeding and then a week of newborn care.
We got the car seat today -- the recent news from consumer reports was so apropos. I was at BabiesRUs when they opened yesterday and bought the snugride "emerson" or whatever that ugly plaid color is. I wasn't totally in love with it but I wanted to have SOMEthing. I went later in the day to another local baby store in the midst of a 15% off everything sale (MAN that place was humming!) and saw the snugride metropolitan. I really liked that so I ordered one and it'll be in on Wednesday. I also liked that they can show us what strollers are compatible so C. and I are going to go up at some point before the sale ends so he can test drive some for height. He tends to kick the wheels of the shorter ones. So I returned the first one at the end of the day. Before they could finish the refund, It was at the register in someone else's hands. Those Graco's are literally flying out of the store.
K and I got the paper for the shower invites yesterday so we can get those sent out. They're in the shape of a hippo -- SO CUTE.
Next up: finalizing the stroller purchase decision. I'll try to be better now about keeping up to date.
