New Arrival

McLaren on her way home, 2 days old.

Claire is here. She made her entrance on Friday night at 8:23pm, weighing 8lbs 5oz, and she was 20" long. We are all doing well, and Kate is enjoying being a big sister. Here are a couple of photos for you to enjoy until I have more time and energy to share stories. What a doll!

Claire and Jen, 1 day old.



Tim and Claire, 2 days old.

Still on for Tomorrow

Thank you to everyone who has called and emailed wishing us luck tomorrow! I hope I don't need it, but you never know, and I will take all the luck I can get. Tim's mom is here, and Kate's glad to have her grandma back. Tonight we'll be having dinner, watching CSI: and then I'll be taking a Tylenol PM to ensure I get one more good night of sleep. Tim will either send out an email with photos or post to the blog in the next couple of days. Until then, ciao!

I'm Amazed

It worked. If you spill candle wax on your carpet, try this:

How to Remove Candle Wax

I have to admit that I was skeptical as I scraped excess wax from the carpet, Kate's crib, and her sheets. But after ironing the hell out of the fabric and rug, the wax disappeared. The color was still there, so I tried my version of denatured alcohol - rubbing alcohol. Not sure if that's what they meant, but it seemed to do the trick. It worked better on the carpet than on the fabric - the wax came out of the sheets, but the color seems to have lingered a little. I'm going to try washing them and hopefully they'll be as good as new. As for the walls, I'm going to try a Magic Eraser this afternoon, but if that doesn't work I'll have to repaint. I refuse to iron the walls, mostly because I don't think it will work and will be more of a pain than actually painting.

On another note, has this been the longest week EVER? Maybe it's just me. And the fact that I'm to be induced on Friday and it can't come soon enough. It's a good thing we've got this birth scheduled, because I don't think this kid has any intention of coming out on her own any time soon.

Some good news, though: Kate has her appetite back. Poor kid is trying to make up for lost time, I think. She's shoving fruit puffs and dried apples into her mouth as fast as she can. I wonder if she'd even eat some meat sticks....nah. She does, however, like chocolate chip cookies. Go figure.

Jen's Fun for Today

Mommy, are you going to clean up this mess?

Tim does bedtime with Kate most nights. He's come up with his own bedtime rituals for Kate, which include a bath, putting jammies on, brushing her teeth, taking her to her room and putting her in her crib for her story, lighting a candle, reading the story, saying their prayers with Lamb, tossing Bunny in and out of the crib at one another (while Kate laughs hysterically), and finally blowing out the candle. I used to think this last part was really cute; a unique thing that Tim did with Kate after she learned how to blow on things. Last night, however, there was an accident, and I think I may ban the candle-blowing ritual. According to Tim, Kate 'lunged' for the candle, he dropped it, and candle wax went everywhere. All over her nicely painted walls, all over her new butterfly sheet, all over her new butterfly dust ruffle and all over the carpet. And, as you can see, the wax was navy blue. Not white, not yellow, not lilac like her walls. Navy blue. Anyone have any suggestions for getting wax out of carpet, fabric and off a crib?

Snow Day!

Snowy tree.

Tim had to be up early this morning to fly. I could hear him getting cereal out this morning, putting coffee on, rummaging in the pantry for lunch. Kate woke up a little after 6am, so I got up too. I peeked out the window and saw that the snow was still covering the ground; the thermometer that is a little off read 20*, so it was probably about 25*. That was going to make for some fun driving! The guys on base said the same thing when they called Tim at 6:30 to tell him it was a snow day and to stay home until 10am!

Into the bedroom to find Kate's snowsuit and boots. Time to play outside!

Putting on the snowsuit.

Outside with Daddy.

Powdery snow.

Global Warming Comes to Tucson

The beginning - a little snow this afternoon.

Palm tree covered in snow!

Our backyard.

Tim and Kate enjoy the snow.

Snow! It's snowing in Tucson. It's been snowing for several hours now, and it's sticking. I'd say we have at least an inch, and the weather reports are calling for up to 3". Woohoo!! Yes, Andrea, I can hear you screaming from your house, which is also covered in snow. Thank you for bringing this weather with you from Alaska!

A Substitute for Stories: Photos

Not feeling quite right from her meds.

Tantrum.

38 1/2 weeks. Still waiting.

Awesome Christmas gift from Niki.

We haven't been doing much lately. I am gigantic and lethargic and it's hard to do much besides the necessary. Kate is understandably bored, but has been a little off from her medication, so I think she's taking it in stride. I'm probably just fooling myself on this; she lights up like crazy when Tim gets home and rough-houses with her. Poor kid. I'm trying to convince her sister to make her entrance, but she still seems happy in her cozy bed. Me, not so much. The highlights of the week have been Kate's trip to her playgroup yesterday, our trip to see my OB, and her playtime with Daddy. Tim's mom arrives on Thursday and Kate will be so excited to have her Grandma here to play with her. Luckily Kate is finally done with her medication and hopefully this will enable her to start feeling more normal soon. She hasn't eaten much in the past 2 weeks, and her stomach is bothering her. We're hoping she'll be back to normal by the end of the weekend.

The End in Sight

It's farther away than I want it to be, but I have an induction date, and therefore the end of my huge belly draws near. Next Friday (I pleaded for tomorrow, this Friday, but to no avail) I am to report to the hospital for the birth of Kate's baby sister. My doctor asked me if I would like to schedule something, or just wait for her to arrive. I whipped my head around to look at Tim. Nothing there in his eyes to tell me he was opposed to it (I suppose he knows me well enough not to even think of it) so I said (emphatically) YES. My doc came back in a minute later to tell me that the earliest the hospital could do was next Friday, and would I be having an epidural? Um, hello, yes-thank-you-very-much. 'Well, you can just go ahead and get it right away if you like, or if you want you could wait through some of the pain.' I think my doctor might have been on meds today, he asked such silly questions. But, I have a date to plan for if she doesn't arrive early, and therefore I am a happier girl today.

Get Out, Please Get Out

I think it was not such a great thing that Kate was born 2 1/2 weeks early. Having that happen on your first pregnancy lulls you into a sense of happiness at the thought of delivering all future babies early. After all, as my doctor said last week, history has a tendency to repeat itself. But, the baby is not here. She is still cozy snug in my gigantic belly, and it's time for her to get out. I have become crabby and irritable (I hope this is just a new thing and hasn't been present all pregnancy) and am tired of lugging her around. At least after she is born, her father can carry her sometimes. I am particularly aggravated right now because it is naptime and Kate is either teething again or won't sleep because she has a cold. Could be both. But because her sister is a large lump on my stomach, I can't rock Kate to sleep and get some zzz's as well. I've tried just about everything I can think of to induce labor, and none of it has worked. If I had the energy I would rent an aerobics video and start doing some step. Unfortunately all I feel like doing is napping, and Kate is ... just now cooperating. Woohoo, naptime for me.

No. No. Wait, I mean yes.

Kate's got a new word: no. She learned it last week when we tried to feed her several types of medicine many times each day. She began by shaking her head, and by the end of the week had added 'no' to the mix. Now it's 'no' to everything. Do you want milk? 'No.' Do you want to play? 'No.' She'll say 'nigh, nigh,' meaning she's tired, and then when you ask if she wants to go to bed, she'll say (everyone all together now) 'No.' I have to give her credit, it's a very cute 'no'. She hasn't yet learned to say it loudly and forcefully, violently shaking her head. I'm sure that will come soon.




Us, we're enjoying the weekend. It's sunny but cold (20* when we woke up this morning). For lunch Tim fed Kate some V8 Picante - she loved it. And he somehow taught her to make a few new sounds while I was napping. She can say 'boom' (thunder from Mr. Brown Can Moo), make a 'smooch' sound, and cluck her tongue like someone knocking on the door. We took her to Buffalo Wild Wings last night for dinner, and she flirted with all the men around the table.



Here's a video of her laughing at me last week:


Click here to watch 'Mommy-is-so-funny'

Oh, and don't forget: tonight is the 2-hour premiere of '24'. Jack is back.

Finally, Photos

Jello smile.

Wearing Mama's vest.

Photos. Finally. I think there must be something weird with my computer; I restarted it and blogger finally let me upload some pictures.

Anyway, top o' the morning to ya. I couldn't sleep, so thought I'd get up and try to post some photos again. Kate finally slept soundly all through the night last night; no waking up at 2am to talk to her dolly and bunny, no crying out for a minute and then going back to sleep. Wonderful.

It's supposed to be a blustery week here. Woohoo! Cold, windy, rainy, even snow in the mountains. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some snow flakes around Tucson, but I won't hold my breath this time. But I will, of course, post photos if it does happen.

Getting Back to Normal

I think we're on the mend. I hope so. Kate's rash is gone, and I think it really was from the fever or a virus, because we put her back on the second medication (the one that we thought made her break out) and she is fine. The ER called me yesterday to tell me that the strain of bacteria she has is immune to ammoxicillin, so we had to go with one of the nastier meds. She's still tired, but went to her playgroup this morning and didn't want to leave when I came to pick her up! I wish I could have let her stay, but I wasn't feeling that great.

I have photos from yesterday, but can't upload them, so will update the blog again later.

In lieu of photos, here is some pilot humor from my Dad:

***
A DC-10 had an exceedingly long roll out after landing with his approach speed just a little too high.

San Jose Tower: "American 751 heavy, turn right at the end, if able. If not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off of Highway 101 and make a right at the light to return to the airport.
***

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7."

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure ...by the way, after we lifted off, we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7; did you copy the report from Eastern?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff roger; and yes, we copied Eastern and we've already notified our caterers."
***

O'Hare Approach Control: "United 329 Heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, 3 miles, eastbound."

United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got that Fokker in sight."
***

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a PanAm 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747 (call
Sign "Speedbird 206") after landing.

Speedbird 206: "Top of the morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active runway."

Ground: "Guten morgen! You will taxi to your gate!"

The big British Airways 747 pulled onto the main taxi way and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by a moment ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with some arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?!?"

Speedbird 206 (cooly): "Yes, I have, in 1944. In another type of Boeing. I didn't stop."

Done

I'm done with the base pediatricians. I'd had good experiences up until this last illness, but after yesterday's appointment we are through. As soon as Kate wakes up from her nap, we're off to the TriCare office to turn in our request for off-base medical for the kids. There has been a ton of turnover in the peds unit over the past several months for some reason, and my old doctors PCSd. We are now left with a few....how shall I say it nicely?....questionable medical professionals (?), and have had no continuity lately. For those who have had good experiences recently, good on you. Us, not so much.

Yesterday's doctor I could barely understand. Very thick accent. He looked at Kate's rash and said that it was just viral. Um, is that why it started after she began her last medication you guys prescribed? Oh. He paused and said he should probably look at her chart. Which he didn't have. "Let me go get that, I'll be right back." Looks at chart. "We really need to get the results of her urinalysis before I can make a diagnosis." Me: "You should already have it; it was here yesterday. The hospital faxed it to you." Him: "No, I don't have it. Let me fax the hospital. I'll be right back." For the love of God, Tim went through that the day before with Kate's actual pediatrician. Fifteen minutes later, and pushing very close to Kate's naptime, he came back declaring that she did have a UTI. Some typing on the computer. "You can go home if you want. Do you live on base? No? Oh, then maybe you should wait here. I'll prescribe this medicine to her. It does not taste good, so you might want to mix it with food or drink, or get it at Walgreens so they can put flavoring in it." Yeah, like Kate's going to dig that. Finally, after more back and forth, the doctor yet again leaving the room for what I don't know, I wandered down the hall with Kate in search of him. "Is it okay if we leave now? She's exhausted. My husband will pick up the prescription." Sure, he tells me.

Tim brings home the meds and I start reading the sheet of info they give you. Here are my favorites:

• (some) side effects: nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, headache, dizziness
• possible side effects you should notify your doctor about: eye pain, vision changes, mental/mood changes, severe headaches
• seek immediate medical attention if any of the following rare but very serious side effects occur: numbness/tingling of the hands/feet, unusual muscle weakness
• this medication may rarely cause very serious (possibly fatal) lung problems

This is just a small excerpt of the list of craziness that could happen if you take this medication. Ask me how you're supposed to tell if a 15-month old has any of these side effects. Needless to say, we put her back on amoxicillin and will be pressing for an appointment with her new pediatrician asap. I think I would like a 4th opinion.

Other than that, things are great. Kate's getting better (we think), it's been nice and warm, and I've gotten lots of little things done that I wanted to accomplish before the baby is born. Hopefully the next post will be more cheerful! And maybe I'll even break out the camera again so you can see the darling Kate.

Doctors, Doctors, Doctors

We have had enough trips to doctor's offices and hospitals in the past week than I would care to have in a year. Kate is now much better, although they still aren't sure what is wrong with her. Her fever is gone, but she has a 'borderline' UTI. The base doc switched medicines for her after her appointment there yesterday, and she woke up with a rash. Back to the doctor's again today for her.

I had my 37 week OB appointment yesterday and everything seemed fine except the baby wasn't moving much. So he sent me home to do some kick counts and told me to go to the hospital if she didn't move 10 times in 2 hours. She moved 3 times. To the hospital I went. This was the same time as Kate's doctor's appointment on base, so I drove myself to the hospital, and my sister met me there. They hooked me up to the monitors for about 2 hours, finally determining that she seemed fine and that I could go home.

We are all exhausted and tired of flourescent lights. Tim has been so helpful throughout this; I don't know how single moms do it. Kudos, Buji!

Since we've spent so much time visiting with hospital staff lately, there really hasn't been much else going on to report about. I did have a lovely time on Saturday with some friends who got together with me for lunch to celebrate the new baby - thank you all for coming! It is great to be surrounded by such a good group of people.

Trauma

What do you call 4+ hours spent in the ER on Saturday night/early Sunday morning, holding your toddler who has a fever of 104.4, trying to get her to sleep in your arms under the horrendous flourescent lights that only an ER can have, holding her down while they do chest x-rays, stick her with IV needles and draw blood for tests, repeatedly take her temperature (the fun way because they can't find an ear thermometer), tape a piddle pack on her to collect urine but later cathetize her twice because they need to do a urinalysis? I call it trauma, for us and for Kate, and it's how we spent last night. I had to leave the room for most of the procedures because I was too much of a wreck listening to her cry. It's a terrible, heart-wrenching thing to hear your baby scream 'mama' and 'bye-bye' while hospital staff try to 'help' her.

Kate came down with a fever sometime on Friday, but seemed to get better for a bit on Saturday. Then her fever spiked and TriCare sent us to the ER. Kate's getting better, we think, but she still has a fever and isn't quite right. This time she is able to keep food and liquid down, but she's hardly eating anything besides milk. They still don't know what is wrong with her, even with all those stupid tests, but they think it might be a UTI. We'll find out in a couple of days.

Hope y'all had a better weekend.

Turn Around for Just a Moment...

...and look what can happen. We have locks on all of the lower cabinets. We have a gate in the hall to the bedrooms. But Kate just learned how to open the drawer under the oven, and I don't know how to stop her from doing that. So this was my kitchen last night. Seems familiar.

You'll be happy to know that Kate is now in her new room, in her new crib. Most of her clothing is in her new room, as well. Unfortunately, so are most of our books and pictures that were in there before it became her room, so I still have some work to do. But the futon guest bed is in the den, the baby clothes are washed, the carseat for the baby is in the house waiting for me to put the clean seatcover on it, the new master bath is half-painted, and the only big thing that really needs to be done before the baby arrives is raising her crib back up to newborn level. And that's Tim's job. Woohoo! He also gets to take the Christmas lights down, remove the Christmas tree, rearrange the living room back to pre-Christmas layout, and finish removing all the cardboard that is sitting on our back porch because our recycle bin was overflowing last week. Sheesh, sounds like Tim has a busy weekend ahead of him. I'll try to be supportive. =)

I had my 36 week appointment on Tuesday. All looks good, according to my doctor. Of course, he'll be out of town again for the next 3 days, so no worries for him if I deliver early. We do not have a name yet, for those who are interested. We are down to 2, but are struggling with the middle name. And every time we bring up the subject, something else more important happens and we get nowhere. She'll get named someday.

One other interesting note: if you have an infant carseat, check out this article to see if Consumer Reports gave it a good rating.

Before you go, more from the Kate files:

Hi, Daddy!

Did You See That Game??

I'm not talking about the Rose Bowl. That game was a little slow, in my opinion. My Dad, a proud Wolverine, even spent half the time watching the History Channel instead of his team lose to USC. Craz-y.

But, that game was followed by the Fiesta Bowl. Boise State vs Oklahoma. The announcers had their script in hand, as did the cameramen. Lots of shots of Oklahoma fans in their burgundy sweatshirts, lots of comments about how great the Sooners were, yadda yadda. Us, we're big Boise fans. Would love to live there. Love. So of course we were cheering for the Broncos. They were kicking butt for most of the game, but then seemed to lose hope and/or ambition towards the end, and I nearly turned the game off in disgust when they let Oklahoma score a touchdown and extra point with just a minute to go. GAH! They had blown an 18-point lead and were now down by 7. But then, on fourth-and-18, the BSU quarterback scored a 50-yard touchdown. Bea-u-ti-ful. They went into overtime and Oklahoma scored quickly. I thought the Broncos were done for. Again, they waited until the 4th down to score. And they did! And then they decided to pull a Mike Reilly and go for the win with a 2-point conversion. Wowza. What a game.

As for New Year's, it was pretty lame. We're old. We're parents. We're expecting a baby soon. Jessica came over for dinner and games, stayed till 10pm when we watched the ball drop in NY, and toasted bubbly (apple-grape cider). After she left, Tim and I played another round of 24 the game and after struggling with it for about half and hour, I got online to read some reviews about it. Sure enough, everyone says don't buy this game. Don't do it. And we second those opinions. The game is horrible. Totally useless. We still love 24, just hate the game. We ended up staying up till midnight, but were in bed right afterwards.

Hope y'all had a Happy New Year celebration!

Tim's 'Heidi' Moment

I mentioned earlier that we played a few games over Christmas, one of which was Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit. There was a question in there that brought up a story by my Dad. I don't remember the question, but the story made us laugh and cringe. Before most of us were born (I believe Mike was alive then??), there was a Sunday night football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets, now known as the Heidi Game. To use a ka-ching phrase, basically what happened was that the game went on longer than expected, and when it was due to end at 7pm, NBC cut to its previously scheduled programming instead of allowing viewers to watch the end of the game. People were pissed. NBC got so many calls from angry football fans that the phone exchange crashed. I think the networks learned something that night: don't publish your phone number.

Cut to the Sun Bowl on CBS on Friday afternoon, a game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Missouri Tigers. Tim's a proud Beaver, and was super pleased that his normally 'doormat of the Pac-10' team was 1) ranked, and 2) in a bowl game. He came home from work at a reasonable hour (noon) just so he could watch his Beavers play some football. So we're watching the game, and things are close. The Tigers score, the Beavers score. It goes back and forth for most of the first half. Then, out of nowhere, Katie Couric comes on the screen for some 'breaking news'. CBS had just cut out of a bowl game to cover one of President Ford's funerals. Except that the news team was totally unprepared, and it was fairly obvious that they didn't know what exactly they were supposed to be talking about. There were cars driving up to the site, but that was about it. I assumed that the network would cut back to the game within a minute, after seeing that there was really nothing to see at the funeral. Nope. Katie and some other reporter stammered on for more than 20 minutes, finishing out the first half of the game. Tim was pissed. I don't remember the last time I've seen him that mad. He tried in vain to find CBS's phone number so he could help the rest of the Beaver and Tiger fans crash their exchange, but to no avail. He ended up calling our network provider, which gladly gave him their number, happy that he wasn't calling to complain to them. There were some colorful words that Kate did not learn that day, because she was napping. He never was able to reach CBS, but apparently some people did, because not long into halftime, they switched back to the game. And the Beavers won with less than a minute to go, 39-38. What a game.

On the Verge

Snow, I'm talking about snow. Not babies. Yet.




It's been hovering around freezing all day and has been raining like crazy. We lost power for just a few seconds just a few times last night, and our yard looks like Dorothy's must have after the cyclone. The radio says it's snowing at Tanque Verde and Catalina Highway. That's like 7 miles from here. If all goes well, Jess and I are going to take Kate to Sabino Canyon this afternoon and see if we can get some playtime in the snow.

On a totally different note, it seems blogger has done away with the Beta version and has a new version out. I don't know if I can switch to the new version since I'm already on Beta, but this quote on their website made me laugh:

I am overjoyed to announce that today we have o’ficially graduated the new version of Blogger from “in beta” to “.” Why is this significant? Allow me to explain via analogy:
Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene : Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos :: Old Blogger : New Blogger

Ha! I'm not the only geek out there addicted to the show. Of course, that was written by a website egghead...

Kate is napping soundly at the moment, so now's my chance to get some painting done.

Someone Stop Me

Christmas Eve dinner.

Bunny goes for a ride.

Little People Nativity set.

These bath toys taste great!

Exhausted. That's me, as I try in vain to get more out of every day. I'm 35 weeks pregnant now, and I swear this kid is coming out any time (I'll take your bet, James). But I'm not ready. I still have to paint the bathroom (I painted most of one wall last week, and have decided that the color is horrid and found a new color today. I know, I have a problem.), paint Kate's bookshelves, wash baby clothes, move Kate's clothes (and Kate) to her new room, put Christmas decorations away, find a futon cover, and the list goes on. Tim thinks I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy, but I can't stop myself. I did not go through this nesting phase when I was pregnant with Kate. Last time, if you stopped by my house, you'd see disaster, with me lying on the sofa watching bad daytime TV or napping. This time I'm frantic. I've probably started 8 projects, none of them are done, and I'm tempted to start more. ACK.

Christmas was great. We had a late breakfast and a late dinner. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, the whole 9 yards. We played Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit and 24, the game (we have yet to figure that one out). We watched movies and played with Kate. Her favorite toys are her shopping cart from her Great-Gramma Donna and her My Little Pony singing book from her Great-Grandma Lorraine. We had a lot of fun with the shopping cart; Kate opened it at Jessica's house on Christmas Eve, and she was content to use just the yellow part as a push-toy before Tim put it together. Hysterical.

She is getting her first molar, and will not nap in the normal fashion. This is putting a serious crimp on how much I can get done each day. It finally cut through today, so I hope we're done with that for awhile.

Hope you all had a great Christmas! Relax, will you?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve at Jessica's house, and Kate got to open her first gift. We'll see how the rest of today goes, but I think it's destined to be her favorite Christmas toy. She pushes it around everywhere, putting things like shoes (she's starting early) and her bunny in it.

Jess and Mike and Dad are on their way over for brunch and dinner later, and gifts. More stories later.

How big is Kate?

This is the best!

So True, So True

I get these weekly emails from Babycenter about Kate's milestones, and what to expect each week of pregnancy. This week, I opened the email about Kate and read the following:

Doing errands around town is harder than ever with a pint-sized explorer in tow. Being strapped down in a car seat or stroller is the last place your toddler wants to be: Expect an earful — usually accompanied by an arched back and flailing arms and legs — when it's time to buckle up.

Ha! So true! That arched back, the 'outside voice' screaming in protest at the horror of being chained into a stroller. The glare I get for putting her in there. Now, just add an 8 1/2 month pregnant belly and the crabbiness that comes with it to the mix, and you get some fun shoppers!

Kate had her 15mo well-baby check this morning, and is doing just fine, despite my concerns that she had lost a lot of weight during last week's illness. Nope. She gained weight over the past month (she's now 24lb 14oz). Must be the Christmas cookies. She had her first lollipop this morning after her shots; I felt bad for the screaming child and let the nurse give her one. Wow, did she love that. I think I'm going to have to wash the stroller seat cover now, it's so covered in sugary goo, but she was sooo happy until I took it away from her.

As for us, the house is a disaster (dis-as-ter, no kidding). Mike is finishing up the bathroom today (I hope), and I'll get to cleaning this place as soon as he's done. Dad's headed our way tomorrow, Christmas Eve dinner is at Jessica's house, and Christmas day festivities are here, including breakfast, gift opening and dinner.

Oh, and the Ducks got spanked last night in their bowl game. Ha! So sorry, Dad. Tim says they were still getting over their loss to OSU in the Civil War. =)

Nope, No Snow

Bummer. I was so hoping to wake up this morning to a light dusting of the white stuff. No such luck. But it was only 20* when I got up at 5:30, and even now it's like 45*. Mt Lemmon has snow, which I can see from my kitchen window - very cool. But Holy Mother of GOD it's still cold out there, with the wind whipping up a bit!

I think I am doomed to early mornings again. Last summer when I was pregnant with Kate, I woke up nearly every morning by about 4:30-5am and couldn't get back to sleep. Tim had to be in early this morning, and I couldn't fall back to sleep after he left, so I got up and puttered around the house. It's kind of nice at that time of day; no toddler pulling ornaments off the tree, no cat walking underfoot trying to kill me; just dark skies and a nice fire. Now it's noon and I need a nap.

I had my 34 week OB appointment today, and my doctor doesn't think I'm in danger of going into labor soon. Or, if he does think so, he's out of town for at least a week, so it's no harm to him if I do. He thinks I was just having trouble breathing yesterday because of the Braxton-Hicks contractions. Okay, I'll go with that. He did say that the baby had dropped, though, and she is head-down. So, my prediction is that I'll have her around 37 weeks, just like happened with Kate. Gawd, that's only 3 weeks from now. But! That means only 3 more weeks of heartburn! That sounds heavenly right about now.

Before I sign off, I must leave a note regarding the number of returned Christmas cards I have received in the past few weeks. People. If you're going to move, send out your new address. It's so much easier for you to receive mail that way.

Snow?

It's 4:30pm, 40* and apparently snowing in Vail and Saurita, which are very close to here. Jessica is over here, helping me bake peppermint chocolate chip cookies and is building a gingerbread house at the same time. Kate is playing with her Little People bus, as usual. And I'm taking deep breaths, glad that I have an OB appointment tomorrow. I'm only 34 weeks, and am hoping I have at least 3 more weeks before the baby girl arrives, but this breathing thing is making me wonder. The shower is all tiled, and Mike will be back tomorrow to grout it, tile the floor, and work on all the plumbing. I think the new bath may be ready for use by Christmas day. What a great gift!

Progress

We now have new wallboard up in our shower, and a new vanity.

Mike is starting to tile, and I think he still plans to be done by Friday. Sweet.


We had a busy weekend of parties and shopping at Lowe's. The squadron Christmas party was on Saturday night and we had a pretty good time, although we left early. No dancing for me this year, thank you very much. That's the last thing anyone wants - a pregnant woman shaking her booty on the dancefloor.








Kate had fun this weekend, too:

My Daddy is cooler than Britney, Mom!

Red jello. After which she needed a bath.

We also watched the last episode of Battlestar of the season, and Tim found this video on the web that had me laughing outloud. It's funnier if you've been watching the new BSG, but check it out.

When You're Tired

When you're tired, I guess you can sleep through just about anything. I am surprised that Kate is not crying in her crib right now. Her bedroom wall, and her crib, are pretty much right next to our bathroom. Mike the contractor is in the process of chipping tiles off our shower wall as I type, and is making a horrible racket. Yet, the babe sleeps. Yahoo!

Our bathroom when we moved in. Vintage 1971.

Our bathroom today.

Stay tuned for updates on the beautiful master bath that will be, all before Christmas.

Pavlov Visits the Hanoi Hilton, and a Casualty of War

Tim's war-fighting ammo.

We're done. At least, I hope we're done. Tim hasn't come down with this nasty bug yet, which means he probably will in say ... about 24 hours, right after he's done flying on Friday, right in time for the Squadron Christmas party on Saturday night, and right in time for us to start our latest project: Operation Remodel Master Bathroom.

But first. I did end up getting The Bug, but it wasn't nearly as bad for me as it was for Kate. I spent most of Tuesday night on the sofa so I wouldn't wake Tim up (little did I know he had no idea that I was even gone, he was so tired) every time I moved. I was in a sorry state until 4am when I finally got sick (sorry for the graphic timeline) and was able to sleep after that. I woke up at 7am, wondering if that was truly the time. Not a sound from Kate's room. Not a peep from Tim's room. I tried in vain to go back to sleep, and instead grabbed the remote and turned on the Today Show. Kate didn't wake up until around 8am (this from a 6:30am riser), and even then only wanted to lay on Tim. Luckily, he had the day off from flying, cancelled his 9am meeting and told me he could hang out at home for a few hours until I was better. Ha. He ended up home all day taking care of us.

We tried feeding Kate some breakfast, but she got sick. I called the on-call nurse and got in line for a call-back. Kate hadn't been able to keep much of anything down for more than 24 hours and we were a little worried. More napping on Tim's chest, and then she seemed a little better. Tim decided to feed her lunch, and I was down the hall getting dressed. I heard crying and knew what had happened. This time she got super sick, though, and Tim was overwhelmed by the amount of food that had been in her stomach. "Call the doctor back now." No messin' around with Daddy. I called. And someone actually talked to me, right then on the phone. I couldn't believe it. She told me that we weren't to give Kate anything for 2 hours, then start her on a teaspoon of clear liquid every 10-15 minutes. Then, if she could hold that down for 8 hours -are you kidding?- that we could start giving her small amounts of bland solids. Good God. That meant no solids until dinner time (later, really) and she already hadn't had anything to eat in like 2 days. Sounded like baby torture to me, but we decided that it was the only hope of getting Kate any better. And since there was only one pediatrician on base the whole day, we didn't have many options.

We put her down for a nap, and when she woke up, we started with the teaspoon every 15 minutes. She was pissed. I would have been too! She was starving, I was sure. Then, at about 4pm, I finally got a little hungry and made a piece of toast. I have never felt so much guilt in my life. I still feel bad, just thinking about how I was eating in front of her, and she had 3 hours to wait for a morsel of food. Mama Ho Chi Minh, here. When we finally got to the point where we could feed her food, it was a Kix every 2 minutes. Tim set his watch for 10 minutes, and everytime it went off, she'd get a teaspoon of Pedialyte and a Kix. I'm afraid she's going to hear alarms and think it's time to eat. Tim did such a good job with her, though, keeping her entertained while she waited for the next piece of cereal.

16 minutes worth of food.

The morning she got sick in her bed, she had all kinds of stuffed animals in there with her, including 'bu-eee' (bunny, duh). This is her favorite stuffed animal ever. My grandma got it for her when she was born, and it's super soft and plays a lullaby when you pull her string. I had to wash her the other day, though, and now I can't get the lullaby to work. Tim dissected her the other night, but to no avail. I stitched her back up last night and Kate hugged her and grabbed for her pull-string. Poor kid. But the bunny is as soft and clean as ever.

And, you'll be glad to know, after reading all this long-ness about Kate, that she is now eating many Kix at a time, and sucking down Pedialyte as fast as she can. And she's keeping it down. Whew.

Make It Stop

Many loads of laundry.

Warning: put down your muffin before reading this post. There will be a discussion of vomit, and it won't be pleasant.


Kate woke up yesterday in a pretty good mood. She sat down for breakfast and after drinking most of her milk, let out a horrendous burp and then threw up all that she had ingested. I thanked God that she was still in her high chair and that the tray caught most of the action. I'm still amazed at how big her stomach is. I calmly walked to the bathroom and started the tub, came back and undressed her in her chair, and took her to the tub and placed her into the water.


Last night she was having some trouble sleeping, and after she woke up for about the 3rd time, we gave her some Motrin, thinking she was teething. Tim rocked her for a long time, and then she fully woke up, good mood and all, wanting to play. We finally got her back to bed, thinking it was going to be a long night. She slept fine.


Tim's back on days now, and had to be to work at 5am. I heard Kate wake up briefly when he left, and hoped that she would go back to sleep. She did, and so did I. Then at about 6:40, she woke up and started talking. I usually can let her talk until about 7am before guilt sets in, so I pulled the covers over my shoulders and prepared to sleep for another 20 minutes. Then I heard crying, followed immediately by retching. Uh-oh.


Poor kid. She doesn't know what is going on. I ran into her room, saw the mess and went to the tub to start the water. She hadn't even had breakfast yet. Normally she loves baths, but I think she's starting to dislike them. She had a nice warm bath, finally cheering up towards the end. I got her dressed and fed her some breakfast. She didn't eat much, but seemed in a good mood. I thought I'd take advantage of this and head to the commissary because we were almost out of milk, and I was starting to think along the lines of 'saltines, 7-up and chicken soup', none of which we had. We got home, I fed her lunch and then it started all over again. This time with me in tears, dialing the squadron ops desk to tell Tim that he needed to not hang out after work (just in case he was planning on that) and needed to come home as soon as he was done. Line busy. Maybe that's when the tears started. Or maybe it was when Kate wouldn't stop screaming. Or when I walked down the hall to the tub yet again to start the water. Or perhaps when I realized that her crib wasn't made yet and I couldn't just bathe her and put her down for a nap. Luckily I'd had the wherewithall to put the sheets in the dryer before we went out. I gave Kate another bath, did a half-assed job of making the bed (do you know how hard it is to make a crib when you're 8+ months pregnant??), and got her down for her nap. I hope she gets better soon. Especially if Tim and I are both going to get it, too, like Katie's family did.

Weekend Update

We had a busy weekend. We spent Saturday getting ready to have a few people over for games, cocktails and dessert, and since it was a Christmas party I wanted to have Christmas decorations up. We strapped Kate in the car and drove to a tree place that was advertising trees from Oregon. I think most of the trees here in Tucson come from Oregon, so we probably could have gone to Home Depot and saved $20, but the people at this one place were nice and they gave us a military discount. Kate loved wandering through the forest of trees and exploring the lot. She found a string of lights attached to a pole on the tent and stared at it for a long time. She loves Christmas lights! We drove home, put Kate down for a nap, and began decorating. We opted to leave all nice/antique/glass decorations above Kate-level, and so far we haven't had any problems. We'll see how long this lasts.

When Kate woke up, she wanted to help us clean up the house, so she grabbed the duster and started on the tree.

Right before people began showing up, Kate played a round of hide and seek with Tim under the table.

Where's Kate?

There she is!

On Sunday we went to base to see Santa taxi in on an A-10. Kate watched, fascinated, as the plane rolled up and came to a stop. She thought Santa was great, until she had to sit on his lap.

Mommy, I don't like this Santa man!

Last night I had Tim take a photo of me (just for you, Carrie!) and my 'basketball'. He thinks it looks like there really is a basketball under my shirt. I told him it feels more like an oversized beach ball.

33 weeks.

Oh, and Jess found out that they are having a girl! She also had her due date revised to 2 weeks later - early May. She seems fine with this. Me, I would not be pleased to hear that!

So That's How it Happens

Kate and I went to the BX this morning to get a few things and pick up a refill on her Tylenol. We ran into Dana and Eric, and decided to have lunch together. Dana's been busy moving, and we've been busy...doing stuff, so we haven't seen them much lately. We were supposed to have the mother's morning out group today, but about half the kids were sick so we cancelled it. Eric has had a fever off and on this week, and Kate's had some bug that's caused all kinds of fun. We sat them in highchairs next to each other, and set food out in front of them on the table. Kate picked up one of her Cheerios and fed it to Eric. Cute. Later in the meal, Eric decided he didn't like the quesedilla he was eating, took it out of his mouth, and handed it to Kate. Now I know how kids pass illnesses on to one another. Gross.

We put the kids down to wander about the eating area for a few minutes before we left, and they headed to the giant gumball machine. An older gentleman walked up and put a quarter in and turned the handle, releasing an orange ball of gum down the chute. Round and round and round it went, mesmerizing the kids. Another quarter, another gumball. "One for each of them!" We smiled...and looked at each other, wondering if we should say anything about how the kids were only 14 months and really weren't ready for gumballs. The man walked away, and we removed the gum and ate them ourselves. The kids shrieked. I don't think they wanted the gum, they just wanted to see the gumballs make their journey down the chute again.

Hilarious

I have gotten a couple of funny referrals from Google this week:

• mistletoad
• nighttime stuffy nose
• egg nog being pregnant

I'm not really sure how Google does its searches, but that people are being directed to my website for these subjects amuses me. But that's what it's all about: my amusement. Woohoo!

Upside

December flowers in bloom.

Give me a June day when it's 108* and there's no chance for rain, and I'll tell you that living in Tucson is not my favorite thing ever. But this week has been gorgeous. Really, how can you complain about 75* and sun in December? Well, me, when I am hoping for snow. But the warmth has been great, and everyone seems to be enjoying it. Kate loves that we can go outside and play, Starbuck loves that the birds are ripe for the stalking, and my flowers think it's time to bloom.

All innocence.

Somehow, even with the warmth, Kate picked up a cold, and has been slightly miserable this week. Poor kid. I keep thinking that it's winding down because she acts so good for being sick, but then the next morning we get up and she's still got a runny nose. She's not eating much, which is hard for me - I just want to feed her and hope she'll get better, but food is not working. Juice seems to be a good thing, so we're doing a lot of that.

I got all my Christmas packages mailed out (sans sugar cookies, sorry everyone), which has been a great stress-relief, but found out that the place I ordered my crib from doesn't have it in stock either, and won't until February. Looks like we'll be hitting the baby stores this weekend in hopes of finding a crib that doesn't cost a small fortune that is actually in stock somewhere.

When Nights are a Good Thing

I used to appreciate Tim being on nights, when Kate was really little. I was tired all the time anyway, and when he was on nights that meant he could help out with her in the mornings before he left for work at noon.

Then we hit the latest round of nights at the end of October. At that time I was about 7 months pregnant and nights were no longer fun. Nights meant that I was the dinner-server and bath-giver. Dinner, fine. Bath, not so much. It's hard to lean over a tub with a toddler when your belly is huge. Now I'm 8 months pregnant and the squadron is still on nights. What the hell? Yes, that is 6 weeks of nights. A little excessive, if you ask a pregnant girl.

But last night was tough for Kate, and having Tim on nights was a blessing. Finally. Kate is sick with a cold, and she woke up every few hours until about 1am, I think. Since Tim was going to be sleeping in this morning, he took over helping her get back to sleep and I got to stay in bed. Heaven. With a little bit of guilt, but mostly just heaven. After all, it's after 9am and he's still sleeping. Bye-bye guilt. Thank you night week/month/season.

Cookies, Gifts and Snot, Oh My

How did I do all the stuff I did for Christmas last year? Decorate the house, get a tree, bake cookies, entertain Kate, send gifts and not fall asleep at the dinner table? Oh, right: I had a baby, not a toddler. Kate is into everything, and it's putting a crimp in my desire to be Martha Stewart this Christmas.

I started out by signing up to bake cookies for the base Cookie Crunch, a cookie drive that collects homemade cookies to give to the airmen living on base over the holidays. Since I was already making a batch of cookies, I might as well just go balls out and make a double batch of Peppermint Chocolate Chip cookies, then whip up some dough for the candy cane cookies, find a recipe for yummy mint brownies, and make plans for oodles of sugar cookies. Right? Right. To add to this recipe for success, I thought, 'You know, we should have a little holiday gathering, play games, eat, drink and be merry.' Got to get the decorations all up before then, clean the house, make some food, buy some alcohol, rearrange the living room to accomodate people, blah blah blah. Am I stressed? No. Just waking up at 4am, wondering when I'm going to get all this stuff done.

And then there's the crib fiasco. Target. I love Target, but they are a Gigantic Corporation and thus have their problems. The one I learned about over the weekend: they don't have the crib I want in stock, none of the Tucson stores do, and no, they can't order one for me. What?! We went to Tar-jay yesterday to look at cribs, and to order one because I figured they wouldn't have one in stock. That's why I waited till now to get one. Because I thought they would ORDER one in for me. Something about central warehouse/delivery issues and no they cannot order one in, but I can surely call them every week to see if they got one in recently, right? OR, I could go online and order the damn thing on my own, which is what I did. So sorry, Target. Hopefully we'll get the crib delivered by the new year...

Saturday was football day; the last day of regular season play for college ball. We (really, I mean Tim - I ran around the house like a madwoman trying to make cookie dough, clean, etc) sat on the sofa and watched USC lose !, West Virginia beat Rutgers (I thought it odd that Tim wanted to watch this game, but apparently there was a chance his team would play the winner in a bowl game), and then stayed up to watch the OSU Beavers play Hawaii. Okay, Tim stayed up to watch, I went to bed. The game didn't even start until 10pm! I watched part of the first quarter and then decided it would be better to sleep. Then at 1:30am he came into the bedroom and gleefully claimed victory over Hawaii. I cheered groggily.

We decided to go to the late church service on Sunday, but then thought better of it when Kate appeared to be coming down with a cold. We put her down for a nap instead of going to church, and were so glad we did. She didn't sleep, but she did vomit all over her crib and we were happy that she didn't do this in the nursery at church. Poor kid. Poor parents! Gross, cleaning that mess up. Thank you Kate for doing it when your daddy was home!

Now it's naptime and I need to get baking. Damn, there's a lot of cookies to make.