October 29, 2011

Damn! I can’t believe we got snow today. And a lot of snow at that. Teagan loved it though. She and Stu were out when the snow started falling. Stu said that Teagan was in awe, fully amazed at it. She tried catching the big fluffy flakes as they fell, pick them off her arms, tried to eat them. She’s been out in snow before, and really enjoyed it, but this is really her first conscious time seeing snow fall. She really doesn’t remember the 100plus inches that fell before her sister was born.

So, after lunch, we went outside and played. I bundled up both kids – thank goodness for hand-me-downs! Teagan got some snow pants and mittens, Ashlin was put in a bunting and placed out of the snowfall in a bouncy chair where she could see everything.

I pulled out the plastic sled we were given, and showed Teagan how to use it, starting the run from the hill on the neighbors yard. She wasn’t convinced that the sled was fun, but she did try it once or twice.

She had more fun helping brush snow off the cars. This will so be her job when she gets older. LOL! Eventually, we made a small snowman, with branches for arms and muddy rocks for eyes. She was so proud of it.

Once Teagan got cold, we came inside and I made hot cocoa – with milk and real chocolate – and though Teagan said she liked it, she didn’t want more than the half cup. I did save the rest former, but she just wanted regular milk.

It was a fun day. I do love snow, especially when you don’t need to shovel!

Thank you, Stu!

PS. I want the power back on now, please.

March 2, 2011

So it’s been a while since I’ve written about the weather, the yard, the house.  Well, with all the lovely warm weather we’ve been having, most of the snow has slowly melted away.  This is a very good thing.  We’ve only had a little water in the basement, mostly down the wall where the chimney is. 

All the snow is off the roof of the front of the house, and I’m sure it’s mostly gone from the back too.  There’s still some snow on the deck, but it doesn’t get that much sun.  We’ve only had a bit more water come through the kitchen ceiling, although the front corner now looks like it has some water damage.  Not bad though.  But something to look at this summer.  Not too much more seems to have come in through Teagan’s ceiling/ceiling fan.  A very good thing.

You can see most of the front lawn, except where the snow mounds from clearing the driveway, the sidewalk, are.  You can actually see over the tops of the snowbanks on the street.  It’s funny to drive down the road and see the toppled over mailboxes and the garbage that people had put out, but was buried with the two HUGE snowfalls that happened to be on garbage day.

Grass.  There’s grass out there!  And it’s greening up!

I actually saw the fish (that survived,) swimming in the pond today.  I counted four or five.  The white one and the dark spotted one were there.  At least two orange ones.  So nice to see them!

The yard  has been covered with robins for about a week.

I’m ready for it to be spring.

February 10, 2011

Image by Dave-F via Flickr

The week’s almost over.  Just one more day.  It’s been a rough week.  Stressful.  Busy. 

I don’t have to turn the alarm on tonight.  No need.  I get to work from home tomorrow.  Even if Teagan (or I) oversleep, it’ll still be ok for my shot.  Neither of us sleep that late. 

Hope that being at the house will make the day a bit less stressful, even though it will still be very busy.  Less stress would be nice.  It would be nice to not have BH contractions, a place that’s not too hot (like the office has been all week).  Unfortunately, it’s also going to be a bit more distracting.  I need to be focused.  Sometimes it’s hard to figure out the issue with a formula or query if there’s dirty dishes in the sink or laundry to reboot.

Tomorrow, I also have to go meet with Teagan’s possible new pediatrician.  We’ve finally gotten my act together enough to set up a “meet and greet” with a local pediatrician.  I suppose I should be happy that we haven’t needed to make an emergency decision, thanks to an ear infection or some other creepy crud or oozy thing.  It would be nice to like the practice, the doctor.  I hope they also have a Lactation Consultant that I can have a few minutes with as well.

Good news!  We can use the front door again!  The snow melted/softened enough these past few days that Stu was able to get the path shoveled.  It had been about 2 feet deep of near-solid ice.  Today the ice melt worked enough to get the last bit of ice off, and make it so it’s not taking your life (or neck!) in your hands to walk on it.  So nice!

February 9, 2011 ~ Mmmm… Leftovers

Image by GoodNCrazy via Flickr

These two links have been sitting in drafts for a few days now…  So, let’s just move them along :)

1.  The first is from one of the sites I enjoy.  They usually have something crafty and interesting up before holidays.  I can’t wait to do stuff like this with Teagan.  I need to learn to sew a bit, but I can do a blanket binding stitch.  And who knew that plastic bags could be so useful?  Almost makes you want to pay for the bags at Ikea.

2.  The second shows the current snowcover.  Not total accumulated snowfall, but current cover.  We’re showing about 25-30  inches as of today.  There has been some sublimation as well as compression.  Remember, we had one snowfall that was 30 inches all on it’s own.  Stu started a graph that shows how often and how much snow we have had…

February 3, 2011

It was a beautiful drive this morning.  The sun shining through the ice on the trees.  Mountains of shimmery trees.  Breathtaking.

I had a prenatal visit this morning with my OB, not the High-Risk people.  OB visits I try to make with the mid-wives.  My OB has great mid-wives.  Today’s was the one who almost delivered Teagan.  She stuck with me all day through induction and labor, until she had to leave, due to an emergency with her husband.  So, I ended up pushing with the doctor, who ended up doing the actual delivery.

Anyway.  It was great to see her again.  She’s so wonderfully granola.  It was sort of like going home.  (Back when home was granola too, and not touristy mass-market).  I got yelled at, (nicely enough), for my weight gain – I really haven’t gained that much – though more than they wanted.  More than they want with a 93rd%ile baby, partial placenta previa, and a clotting disorder.   Blood pressure was good, everything else was good.  Baby is still breech – footling breech.  So, she gave me exercises to do to try to turn the baby.  They’re more like relaxing techniques than exercises – lying on a hard surface with hips raised by pillows for 10 minutes, on an empty stomach.  Ok, I can do that.  They suggest before lunch and dinner.  I can do breakfast and dinner…

This exercise should turn about 80% of breech babies.    Breech babies seems to be a bit more common in a second pregnancy, along with a few other factors (fibroids, which so many women have, and placenta previa.  I’ve got three possible causes.  Great.

So, Footling Breech seems to be one of the less common types of breech baby.  If the exercises don’t work, there aren’t too many options.  They don’t reccommend doing an external cephalic version with a placenta previa.  The external version can start labor, which they don’t want if you have a previa, even a marginal one.

Footling breech babies are also more prone, if delivered vaginally, head entrapment, leading to much more serious incisions than I want to have happen to certain areas.  There’s also the issue of cord prolapse being a serious, and all too common complication.  Most hospitals in the US won’t deliver a breech (any type of breech) baby vaginally.

It’s looking more and more like I’m going to end up with no choice.

Fingers crossed that 1.  The baby turns and 2.  The previa resolves.  I have another ultrasound to check in three weeks.

February 2, 2011

So, last night, (or early this morning,) was a lovely moment of motherhood fail.  Teagan woke up around 4:40am crying.  Usually all she needs is to have her blanket put back on and a new security pacifier (to go with the three she already has, but can’t find).  So, I go settle her, give her a quick rub on the back, tell her I love her and to go back to sleep.  Then head back to bed.  With a quick stop in the bathroom. 

Ah…  Bed.  Empty bladder.  No heartburn.  Sleep.  Heaven.

Just before 5:00am, she starts crying again.  As I had been in there a few minutes earlier, I was just going to let her go.  Stu will often sleep through.  Not this morning.  He did hear her, got up and headed to her room.  I called out as he left our room that I had been in to her about 15 minutes earlier, and that she was just fine, probably lost the bubble (pacifier) I gave her and needed another one.  

Stu gets there and yells for help.  I jump out of bed, totally freaked, head towards her room.  She had been fine just a few minutes earlier.  I swear!  He had given her an extra check, as she was saying over and over “wet.”  At first he wasn’t sure if her diaper had leaked, but it turns out she had thrown up in her bed.  Great.  How did I miss that??  How horrible to I feel now?  <sigh>

He dealt with the piglet and I took care of the crib – took the top sheet and protector off her crib.  (Yes, we double sheet/protector the mattress.  It totally came in handy).

She asked for a book, but Stu put her to bed again.  I ended up not being able to fall back to sleep.  She coughed a few times in her sleep.  My ears twitched every time, but she never called out, never cried again.

She ended up sleeping until 9:25am.  Woke up starving.  After a breakfast of toast and a clementine, we bundled her up for day care.  Stu and the piglet headed out, but came back in about 20 minutes later.  Ice.  The car got stuck in the snow bank at the bottom of the driveway.  But that’s another story.

February 1, 2011

Lookie!  The piglet came home today with a pony-tail.  LOL!  She was so excited by it.  Can you tell? 

She was a bit strange tonight – said she was hungry, but didn’t want to eat.  Dun!  The trick where either Stu or I eat a bit of what she has in front of her worked…  So she had a little meatloaf, some grapes, and toast with peanut butter.  She asked for the toast :)  She also asked for milk.  She’s been on a big milk kick lately.

I’m not even going to talk about the weather.  (It’s winter storm Ella!  E!  We’re on storm E!)  Instead, I’ll share a story from yesterday, that I almost forgot.  Going from cube to cube, office to office, taking down the holiday decorations* (christmas ornaments, trees and wreaths) that I had put up, a consultant looked up from the desk she was working on and we said hi.  Later in the day, she was meeting with someone next to my cube and as we passed in the hall , stopped and told me that I was the cutest pregnant person she’d ever seen.  She apologized for being so “forward,” as we don’t really work together and she doesn’t know me.  I thanked her and made some joke.  I was very touched, as I feel HUGE.   (Thank you 93rd%ile baby).  Not fat, but just big and awkward.  Ungainly.

As I told Stu the story, he of course, reminded me that this little one is measuring big (93rd%ile!) and as the doctors said, could be of by 15%.  That she could be in the 108th percentile.  Thanks.  That’s a thought I needed to have. <thwap>

~~~~~~

* I’ve made a bunch of decorations (flowers, leaves, and various christmas) to hang from the ceilings above the desks, to go along with the snowflakes, hearts and shamrocks that I’ve somehow inherited.

January 31, 2011

Ok.  I’m tired, so it’s just going to be a bulleted list tonight :)

• I made a meatloaf (to go with the mac & cheese) for the freezer.  Slowly filling the freezer up!  One of the things I remember that cooking/food prep was near impossible to get done with a newborn.  This way there’ll be some stuff to reheat.  Just need to pull it out early enough to defrost and/or bake.
• Stu was crazy and got on the roof and shoveled.  Look!  There’s proof!!  He had to wade through waist-deep snow to try to get some of it off.  It was so slippery, he couldn’t get it all off.  But some is better than nothing.  He had cleared the lower roof in front of the rooms yesterday.  Today was the garage and kitchen roof.  I watched while he was over the driveway. 
• There’s no way for us to get to the ice dams and snow on the higher roof.   It is what it is.
• We’re expecting more snow tomorrow.  Again.  More.  Maybe 6-12 inches.  To be followed by freezing rain/sleet the following day.  I am so sure that the upper roof is going to cave in.
• The weather person – a lady! – today said that we have more than five feet of snow cover on the ground right now.  That’s just crazy!
• I can’t believe January is all over.  I’m still not used to typing in 11 for the year.  How can it be a new month already?
• I have most of our tax paperwork ready.  Yay!  Just need to find someone more “local” than the lady we used last year.
• Teagan should have a local doctor by the end of next week.  Yay! 
• I hate heart burn.  Tums are my friend.

Night night!

January 28, 2011

So, today, it didn’t snow.  Yay.  We should have flurries later tonight and tomorrow.  I didn’t have the heart to take a picture today of the street signs that are almost buried with the snow piles.  It’s just crazy.  We have record snowcover here.  Insane.  I was looking for a nice picture of the snow cover, but didn’t find one.  Then again, it’s just too crazy.

Today, Stu and I shoveled a bit of the back deck.  I was worried about the snow that was over the window sills melting and dripping inside.  We found out that there are ice dams on the back of the second floor.  I thought the front of the second was ok, but it was all hiding in the back.  Although we couldn’t see any buckling plywood panels in the attic, we may still need to get someone here to do something about it. 

There’s ice melting down the side of the fireplace into the basement.  You can see the track down the basement wall.  So far, it’s not a big puddle, but it definately is something to keep an eye on. 

Stu may go out the bedroom window with his super-tread boots and a shovel to take care of the lower roof – the garrison roof.  The snow pack there is a bit worrisome.  I wish there was a way to check the attic space over the kitchen, but we haven’t found a way in yet :|

January 27, 2011

Too much snow

Yeah, there’s just too much snow now.  We got another 18.5 inches since last night.  It did look lovely at 5:30am, what I could see out the window over the snowline.  I think our second floor windows are half buried with the snow.  We need to shovel the roof.

Anyway, I cut the picture off, so you can’t see the swing buried in the snow.  There’s just too much of it.

Way too much snow

Oh, you can see it in this one.  Teagan can’t even play in it, not really.  There’s just too much.  She can’t walk.  You barely see the walk. <sigh>

So, we officially have had the snowiest month on record.  Since they started keeping records. On top of the largest snowfall in 24 hours, snowiest January on record.  We’re not done yet.  I’m not sure if I want to break any more records.  Other than warmest February…

Stu ended up shoveling about half of the driveway before the plow could come and plow us out.  They showed up at 4pm.  (They also didn’t charge this time).  One hour after the town plowed our street.  It seems that the town plow – a big huge monster truck – got stuck just around the corner from our house.  For three hours.

Snow-covered Picnic table

Because I can’t think what more to say, today…  I’ll leave you with a great list of movies that deal with snow…  Gotta love Mamapop.com for compiling this.

• 6. Storm of the Century
• 5. Ravenous
• 4. The Thing
• 3. Die Hard 2
• 2. Groundhog Day
• 1. The Shining

I think I need to watch Ravenous.

PS.  The electric is working properly, as is the kitchen sink.  The dishwasher, however, has decided it doesn’t want to work any more.  <sigh>