Sunday, August 5, 2012


Whole bunches of baby pictures. Some have been posted already, I think, but this way you can get the “whole story.” We really haven't been all that good about taking pictures.

And can someone possibly tell me how on earth it has already been 4 weeks since Elisabeth was born?! She's going to be a month old on Thursday!







 





A little blurry, but a lot adorable.

 
"Seriously, what have I gotten myself into?"




"Her skin is so soft.  She's like a puppy."


She's sweet and snuggly and adorable. She is not fond of the heat (sleeps most of the time if it's hot), loves to eat (all the time), and has developed a talent for squirting bright yellow poo out of her diaper and all over my bed... right after Nathan leaves in the morning. (Seriously. 3 times last week!  Thank goodness for OxyClean.) I get a little jumpy every time I hear the obvious “filled the diaper” herald.

But we like her. We'll keep her.

(Birth story at the end of the post, if you're interested.)

Okay, so now on to other news...

Guinea pigs are gone. We had them for a month and they have now been gone for 2 weeks. Crazy. Third trimester insanity. Why didn't someone just say, “Umm, Lisa... You realize that very soon you'll have something small and cuddly? You don't need guinea pigs.” Really, it would have saved a lot of trouble, time, and money.

We enjoyed them for almost a month... and then the curly one began to pick fights with the other 2 and Charlie realized he could reach over the cage wall and grab anything (ear, leg, hair, whatever) and pull himself up a pig! Two big problems, both of which seemed to get worse by the day. (A top on the cage helped with the Charlie problem, but didn't wholly solve it.) Sooo... an ad on Craigslist brought a nice young lady and her boyfried to our house and away went the piggies and all their stuff (dude, they had a lot of stuff!). The kids' sadness was soothed by knowing the pigs had a good home... and getting their money back.

(I'll spare you the details of my conversation with the nice young lady's mother 4 days later. Ask if you want to know, but the important thing is this:  they haven't been dumped on my doorstep in the middle of the night. I keep checking every morning, though.)

I am cured. Totally cured. Fish are good. We'll stick with fish.

The money the kids were refunded from the guinea pigs they immediately spent on entering a triathlon. Yup, my kids. (Go figure.) They race on Aug 11, this coming Saturday and we have to leave by 6:15am to be there on time. Swimming (Joseph 25 yds—which he can walk if he wants, but he wants to swim it, Mary 45 yds, and Nathan 65 yds—they both have to swim it), biking (Joseph ½ mi, Mary 2 mi, and Nathan 4 mi) and running (Joseph ¼ mi, Mary 2/3 mi, and Nathan 1 ¼ mi). Turning 11 put Lil'Nathan in the oldest category. None are great swimmers, but all are very excited. (Don't worry, they won't drown, there will be lots of lifeguards in the water with them.)

I'll let you know how it goes. And hopefully will remember to take the camera out of the car (where it sat during the practice session, oops) and will have some pictures to share.

Nathan (Daddy) continues to love his job.  I love his hours.

And we continue to rent our lovely duplex 35 mins (and 15 mi) away from his work.  No real plans to change that right now.  It's working pretty well.

We missed the ward campout this weekend.  We had signed up and wanted to go, but stayed home for 2 reasons.  1-I was unsure I wanted to set up camp (4 tents!) in the dark, and 2- my midwife told me to take it easy (and then laughed!) b/c my bleeding picked up again.  Oh, phooey.  But, it turns out it was probably good we stayed home.  It was hot here.  It was hotter there.   And many of the ward who went said they had fun, but it was too hot.  I wonder if it'll be back in Sept for next year.  (We had frost last year.)

Wishing to camp, however, and desperate to get back up to the Upper Valley, we have reserved a spot at our usual campground for Labor Day weekend.  The pool will be closed, but the pond will still be open.  Lil'Nathan will get the chance to test out his brand new, bigger, better tent.  Joseph will get his annual fill of s'mores.  And we'll get the chance to visit with our friends up there at church.  It will be good and we are excited already.

Being a big brother is hard work.  Charlie didn't make it through dinner 3 times last week.



The mouse is gone.

On Sunday 7/8, Nathan proved to me that the little black things I kept finding were, in fact, mouse droppings.  Yikes!  The landlord was notified and she immediately scheduled and exterminator.  Lil'Nathan consulted his Big Book for Boys and built a trap.  (We went to the hospital that night and had Elisabeth.)  His trap succeeded only in feeding the mouse.  Mon night a new version of the trap was crafted and the mouse stayed away.  Tues night the mouse beat the trap again, and scored the PB and cheese.  Wed Elisabeth and I came home from the hospital (and it was Lil'Nathan's birthday) and the exterminator was here.  Traps, poison powder in the walls, bait, and a screen.  Very thorough.  He promised us no more trouble.  But we still found signs of mouse the next morning.  And the next.  Now Nathan (Daddy) was out for blood.  He planned on drowning the mouse in a water trap, but his online researching found a PVC gravity operated trap that would let it live instead.

Try looking at this sideways.  Set, it was lying on the counter-top horizontally.  When the mouse crossed the halfway point in quest of the goodies (PB and cheese) at the other end, it flipped down.
Lil'Nathan smiled for the next picture, but it was too blurry.

A quick trip to Ace Hardware and $8 later and he had a trap.  No dead mouse, no guilt.  He set the trap and we went to bed.  30 mins later--WHAM!  The trap had been triggered.  He ran downstairs and sure enough--mouse.  He returned to bed with glee.  Next morning, no sign of mouse on the counters or in the drawers b/c it was in the PVC trap.  Nathan and the kids took it out to the field to release it, far from any houses, but... it was dead.  It had died in the trap during the night.  Oops.  Guilt.

But no more mouse droppings.  : )

Okay, for anyone interested in Elisabeth's birth story, here's the short version--the one that doesn't have me trying to quietly huff my way through contractions during Ward Council, and tries to forget the hundreds of potholes on the way to the hospital, which was, apparently, while I was in transition!)

To make a long story short, we went in to the hospital just after midnight.  I was fully dilated and fully effaced, but they found the baby to be breech.  The dr was willing to do a vaginal breech delivery, but then they found (via further ultrasound checking) feet coming first.  So, I was prepped for a c-section (epidural and stuff) and taken to OR.  My midwife suggested they try a version in the OR.  The dr agreed. Between the delivery room and the OR the baby went transverse.  (The dr. was shocked.  I was not.)  They did the version and it was successful.  One dr. held the baby in place (they didn't trust her not to flip again) while the other broke my water.  When they could verify there was no cord in the way and the baby was really head-first, the dr's left and the midwife took over.  Elisabeth was born 20 mins later, vaginally.  Yay!   From arrival at the hospital to delivery:  1 1/2 hours.  It was a "whirlwind" (to quote every nurse and midwife who came to see me over the next 2 days.)

Okay, so that really wasn't so short, afterall.

In the recovery room. 

Did I really just post that picture?

2 comments:

Audrey said...

Love all the pictures! I can't believe how relaxed you look in the recovery room.

Becca said...

I'm so glad for you that you didn't have to have a c-section. Thank heaven for midwives and her sensible suggestion of doing a version. If only my water hadn't broken before they figured out Sariah was footling breech! Oh well!

Congratulations. She is adorable. And I enjoyed the stories about the mouse and guinea pigs. I actually DO want to hear about the phone call four days later. Did they want to give the guinea pigs back?

We once had a mouse in our kitchen that was so devious and clever that Vaughn was wondering if I was mistaken in claiming there was a mouse. That was the hardest to catch mouse I've ever known, but I got him eventually and felt vindicated when I showed him to Vaughn. Even I had begun to wonder if I was mistaken!

Any idea why the mouse died in the trap? The fall? Lack of oxygen/ food/ water? I thought it was such a simple and clever trap, and laughed out loud at the fact that it died anyway after all your efforts to avoid that.

Anyway, happy for you and hope things continue to go well.

Love,
Becca