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Saturday, January 31, 2004

A Final Diagnosis

Well, we've finally been told what's been making Emma & I so miserable the past few days. Aside from the weather, that is. We both went to the doctor's yesterday & were both told that we have acute bronchitis. Yay. So we're on a regiment of nose sprays, inhalers & antibiotics for the next 2 weeks to a month. Poor Emma has had the unfortunate extra symptoms of a fever & intermittent throwing up. But she seems to be taking this all in stride & has more energy than I can fathom.
Both our doctors said we should go home & rest, and I was more than happy to do just that. But the child decided, I'm not all that sick, and I can jump & run & play just as hard as I did before without worry. But after about 5 minutes of that, she's coughing up a lung & can't breath all that well. I then remind her that she needs to take it easy and we snuggle up on the couch for about 10 minutes. She then seems to forget her previous experience & wants to jump up & play again. I don't know if it's because she just forgets or if she really doesn't care and all she wants to do is play. Maybe it's a combination of both, but either way, it's exhausting for me.
We were unable to get our meriad of drugs until around 5pm, after we picked Jeff up from work. But poor Emma decided that would be the perfect time to throw up all over daddy. While we were in the store, waiting in line to buy what we needed. Maybe she just wanted to make him feel like one of us, one of the ones who felt terrible. She's always thinking of others.
By the way, I just wanted to say that paying a percentage of what your prescriptions cost instead of just a co-pay, is NOT fun. I don't even know what percentage we pay, but it's expensive, if you ask me. I'm hoping the spacer for Emma's inhaler is going to be covered, because that alone was $32. I am once again reminded how spoiled we were in the Navy.
I was very proud of Emma yesterday. Most of you know that she's had numerous ear infections, her Bell's Palsy last year & many other times where she's had to go to the doctors and get poked & prodded. All of this unwanted attention by people she doesn't know had made her very skittish around anyone from the medical profession. But I'm happy to say that yesterday was the most uneventful time she's ever had at a doctor's office. She didn't cry, whine or even protest when he was checking her out. I think that's a big accomplishment for someone who was once poked with a needle by an amateur med student for 5 minutes straight while they searched around under her skin for a vein. And all she requested after this momentous occasion was a balloon made from a latex glove with a face written in Sharpie marker on it. I suppose I can't complain that she's too demanding.
She was even gracious in the middle of the night when she came into our room & wanted to sleep in our bed at 3am. She had brought her cup of milk that was almost empty and just wanted to snuggle. I noticed, however, that she was burning up, so we got her some more milk & a dose of Children's Tylenol and put her back in her own bed. She seemed happy with that.
It amazes me how much it takes to get this kid down. Getting sick doesn't faze her very much. Even when she had Bell's palsy, and half of her face wasn't moving, she still was happy & cheerful. Where does this endless joy come from? And where can I get some?

Thursday, January 29, 2004

The sick house

First of all, I want to apologize for my ranting & raving the other day about ultrasounds. I was in the beginnings of a really bad cold & I felt terrible. Now, to top it all off, Emma's sick as well. We're both home sick today. She wasn't able to go to gymnastics last night because of a puking incident in the car on the way home from picking up Jeff, and she was already getting my cold, to make things worse. Plus, school's been canceled again today, so Jeff just took the car to work & we're stuck at home. Which is fine by me, cause I don't feel much like going outside in this weather.
Poor Jeff, he always takes such good care of us when we're sick. While it doesn't happen very often, I'm usually down for the count when I do get sick. And for Emma to be feeling icky as well just makes everything a little harder. Although she's always resilient when it comes to getting better. She doesn't stay sick for long. I hope that's the case this time around. It's a good thing I cleaned up the house yesterday for a showing otherwise it might not get cleaned for a week. The last time I had a cold, I had it for 2 weeks straight. But my doctor said that I can take Sudafed, the lowest dose possible, so I'm taking that route.
This is not how I imagined feeling going into my birthday. I look horrible, I'm starting to get a cold sore, my nose is raw, and I'm generally a snotty, mucousy, drooling mess. If someone came upon me on the street, they might consider institutionalizing me. Or putting me in a leper colony.
As for the weather, yes it has been snowing quite a lot, and at least I'm not the only one to think it's getting a little extreme. Central Michigan University has a newspaper that comes out once a week. Yesterday's edition had an article about the weather on Tuesday & how horrible it was. There was a quote that I thought summed it up quite well. A student said,"I saw one car go into the ditch and I was like,'Hey, remember that one time when they should have canceled classes?' Oh yeah, that's today." Driving conditions were terrible. The campus is only 1 mile away from our house & in the round trip from leaving to go pick up Jeff & coming home, I probably slid on patches of ice about 8 times. A couple times, it was divine intervention that I didn't have any cars in front of me when I started to slide, because I know I would have hit them. I almost slid into the middle of an intersection and many times had to slide around until I could get traction to move forward. Then, once we got on our street, the snow was piled up so high that we almost got stuck, and then poor Jeff had to get out of the car & push it up the driveway. Oh yeah, and then had to go back outside & shovel the drive. He was a popsicle by the time he came back in. Can you tell we're getting a little frustrated with the weather? I'm sure all the people back in CA are laughing their butts off at us, thinking, HAHA, glad it's you & not me. I would be laughing too if the cold hadn't frozen my sense of humor.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Snowed in

Well, another day in Michigan, another day of snow. We're expected to get about 3-5 inches of snow today alone. That's not counting the inch or so we've gotten in the past few days & not including what's bound to be coming later on this week. Now, I like snow as much as anybody, but even Emma's not happy with these latest developments. Her preschool has been cancelled 2 days in a row (last Thursday & today). She doesn't quite understand that even though the snow isn't bad enough to keep us at home, that doesn't guarantee that there will be school. So she's pretty bummed.
I was able to go to my doctor's appointment early today because of the cancellation. So, I was able to take my glucose test, in order to see if I have gestational diabetes. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I didn't have to drink as much of the sugary sweet liquid as I had thought. When I was pregnant with Emma, I had to drink about 10 ounces of this warm, non-carbonated orange drink, and then sit there for an hour, waiting for them to draw my blood. This time, I only had to drink about 5-7 ounces & it was chilled, making it go down a lot easier. As with most pre-natel tests, no news is good news. So if I don't hear anything from the doctor within a couple days, I'm most likely in the clear. Plus, my blood pressure is continuing to stay normal, which is a good sign, since I had high blood pressure during the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Emma. The only grrr portion of my doctor's appointment was that he decided that I can't get my ultrasound (for insurance reasons) for at least another 2 weeks. That's when my next appointment is, and only then will he schedule the ultrasound. Grrrr! I've been promising family members & friends for 2 months that it was going to happen next week. And now he decides to switch it up on me. This is beginning to be ridiculous. All these other people that are pregnant & either due right around the same time as I am or even past me have already found out. Why do I have the stubborn doctors & insurance companies? I'm afraid by the time they actually do it, the baby will be too big to find out, it'll be all wedged up & in the way. Grrr, argh. So much for having plenty of time to get things together & organized. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to find out before my baby shower, or if that's going to have to be postponed. Oh well, such is life.

Monday, January 26, 2004

Can I blame it on "pregnancy brain"?

Ok, ok, I know I've been slacking on this web blog thing. I haven't written in almost a week & I'm starting to receive threats. Ok, not literally, but I've been asked, mostly by Jeff, "Have you written in your blog today?" And I have to hang my head, and say no, I forgot. So I blame it on the baby, who seems to be sucking the brain cells right out of my head at this point. But what will my excuse be after the baby's born? Hmmm, gotta think of something good.
Last Wednesday Emma had her first gymnastics class. Right beforehand, we were running around town trying to find a leotard for her. We went to Target, and we found the one she wanted. She had her choice of 3, and surprisingly, she picked the least gawdy, which I think says a lot for her little 4 year old fashion sense. It's very simple, light pink, no sleeves, with a small pink bow on the front. Very classy. And of course, she HAD to have a bag to go with it, so we went with the Dora bag to put all of her "gymnastics class" paraphernalia in. That generally means a water bottle and a magazine for me to read. But we were both so excited about her first class, that the magazine didn't even get taken out of the bag once.
Once we got to the class (after walking ten minutes in the snow from a parking lot far far away), Emma got changed into her leotard and was ready to go. They gathered all the kids (age 4 to grade 3) and then separated them into their age/grade groups. Emma was so excited that she forgot how old she was & didn't get up when the head instructor called out for the 4 year olds. I had to quietly get her attention & let her know that it was her turn to go. She's in a group with about 6 other little girls, one of whom is our neighbor across the street, Morgan. She immediately started getting social & jumpy, rolling around, jumping up & down, basically not being able to sit still if her life depended on it. Then her group joined with the 5 year olds & they started warming up. They were running in a circle, jumping, skipping, running backwards. Then came the stretching, which I can already tell we're going to need to work on. As flexible as my little Gumby is, I guess she's just not used to doing stretches where her legs needs to be straight. I suppose that will come in time. I also kept having to remind her to pay attention to the instructors, every 5 minutes she was looking for me & giving me a thumbs up, like, everything's cool mom, look at me!
Her class then came right in front of where I was sitting (perfect photo opp, if I had brought my camera, D'OH!) to walk on the balance beam. It was only 3 inches off the ground, so no need to worry about Emma falling & hurting herself. Emma did pretty well, considering she's never done any of this before. I'm thinking though, for next time, maybe I should move to another spot, because I felt like a distraction to her. She kept looking at me & not at what she was doing, which caused her to fall off a lot. There were a couple girls in her group that I know must have older sisters who are in gymnastics, because these girls looked like they'd been practicing for awhile.
After the balance beam, they went over to the uneven bars. They had the girls hang on the top bar for a few seconds, swinging, so they could get the idea of what it feels like. Then they had them start at one end of the bar, and holding on by their hands, scoot themselves over to the other end of the bar. The last trick they had them do was to stand up on the lower bar, grabbing the top one & then flipping themselves over the top bar & drop to the ground. Kinda daring stuff for a first class, but all the girls seemed to do well. I was thinking, this is probably the kind of thing that my little Evil Knievel has been looking for. She's a daredevil at heart. Always has been. Ever since her daddy started throwing her up in the air when she was a baby. And catching her, of course.
After the uneven bars, the class went over & started doing somersaults. Well the rest of the class did, Emma unfortunately doesn't have that natural talent. Her somersaults started out looking like she was plowing the mat with her head. She would get the right stance, looking like an upside-down V, but whenever she tried to push off & flip over onto her back, she just kept pushing herself along the mat on her head. I was worried that she was going to wear a bald spot in her hair before the night was over. Then she kept going sideways, ending up on her side, but she kept plugging along and pretty soon, she got the hang of it. The backwards somersaults were a little easier. They used a giant triangle shaped wedge to help them. They started out at the top part of the wedge & then laid back down an incline and flipped over backwards. A few of the girls seemed like they were a little disoriented when they stood up. I guess that kinda stuff messes with your equalibrium.
After that, the class was finished, and Emma wasn't happy about it. She could have gone on all night if they would have let her. But I finally convinced her that we would be coming back, so I think that worked. I only wish Jeff could have been there, but he'd been in Boston all week. But as soon as he came home on Friday, she was telling him all about it.
I guess the weather finally got to us last week. We've been through days of 10 inches of snow & near white-out conditions, but the snow & cold we got on Wednesday caused all school's to be closed on Thursday. I don't know why, it didn't seem that bad, but hey, I don't make the rules. Emma was really bummed though, because when the public schools get closed, so does her preschool.
We got our pictures back from Wal-Mart yesterday. We had them taken when our friend Deanna was in town earlier this month. They turned out really nice, for the most part. But the one picture that has all 4 of us in it is messed up. They set us up too high & the top part of the picture has the background rolls contraption in it. So we're trying to think of creative ways to cover it up.
I want to say "Happy 50th Anniversary" to Jack & Pat Michelmore. They celebrated it this past Saturday by renewing their vows. Jeff & I wish we could have been there, but we send our warmest thoughts & congratulations.
Well Emma is bugging me to go out in the snow, so I better wrap this up. Until next time.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

If it's sunny outside, shouldn't that mean it's warm?

Mother nature loves to play tricks on you in the winter time. It was absolutely gorgeous outside today. I think, I even heard birds chirping. Of course when I opened my garage this morning, I was slapped in the face with the reality that, although it's sunny outside, it doesn't mean it's anywhere near what normal people would consider warm. And now that I think about it, it probably wasn't birds chirping that I heard, it was most likely the squirrels in our trees chattering their buck teeth because of the temperature.
Poor Emma, she had been looking forward to this day. She had been looking forward to going sledding with her preschool class. We even made a last minute trip out to Target last night to look for snow pants & boots. I finally found some (I'm convinced they're the last pair of snow pants that aren't attached to a jacket in the whole town) and thankfully, they were her size. We also found some cute snow boots, that hopefully will still fit her next winter, but I doubt it. She seems to be sprouting once spring arrives (last year she went from a shoe size 9 to a 10 1/2 in 3 months). So we were all set for some sledding fun today. But, unfortunately, the school has a policy that they can't allow the students to go outside when the temperature is below 20 degrees (I believe the high today got up to about 15). But, to make up for it, Emma was able to use her brand new gear after being picked up from school, in our front yard, while I vainly tried to scrape the ice off the driveway with a shovel. I gave up after about 30 minutes, after determining that Emma's greatest joy apparently comes out of throwing snow at me & digging in it like a puppy, spraying it onto the nice clean driveway. So we quit after not too long.
Jeff's already had quite an interesting trip to Boston. His flight was fine, except for some extraordinary turbulence during the landing into Boston. They arrived at their hotel after taking a cab & were looking forward to their first day of training today. Instead, it was a cell phone-forgetting, cab driver calling, email tagging day. To make a long story short, Jeff accidently left his cell phone in the cab this morning on his way to training, thought he had forgot it in the hotel & the cabbie apparently decided to call the most random people on his cell phonebook. He called poor Kimberly, who was awakened by this cabbie at 6am Pacific time, and I think he called our home number, but the message was unintelligible. He also called a friend of Jeff's in Winsconsin, of all places, who called me & left a very amused message on my machine,"Uh, dude, some cabbie in Boston says he has your cell phone, I think you better call it & find out what's going on." All of my calls to the cell phone went unanswered, I'm not sure if he knew how to answer it. So the emailing began, and Jeff & I played email tag for a few hours, until he called me to let me know that yes, he knew where the cell phone was, but no, he couldn't get to it until tomorrow. All the while I'm fielding phone calls from people who are wondering what's going on. It's a national crisis, Jeff doesn't have his cell phone, we might not be able to get in touch with him right this very minute. I actually found the whole scenario quite amusing, but that may just be me. So, if the first day is any indication of how this trip will continue, it should be quite interesting.
Emma starts gymnastics tomorrow night. I went this morning & officially signed her up. She seems very excited about it. It's actually taught by the members of the CMU gymnastics team, so it should be fun. I can't wait to go & take pictures of tons of little girls running around & jumping. I'm sure it'll be a bombardment of "Mommy, mommy, look at meeee!" This reminds me of stories that my mom & aunt tell me about when I was Emma's age. "Look mommy I running, look mommy I jumping!" I think they don't have to heart to tell me the next part, "Look mommy I falling down, look mommy I running into furniture!" Shirley Temple, I wasn't. I think, unfortunately, Emma has inherited my lack of grace. But maybe if we get her started early enough, some of it will rub off on her from the other kids. Or maybe they've invented some sport that ENCOURAGES lack of grace. Actually, I think they have a TV show that personifies that, it's on MTV, and it's called "Jackass". Of course, it also encourages stupid, idiotic behavior that a warning label at the beginning of the show doesn't seem to be able to quell. But that's a whole other tangent that I don't want to get into. Just add that to the list of shows that my very smart husband seems to like, that I can't stand.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Winter wonderland?

Ok, I think Winter finally decided it was time to initiate the Wilsons. All this minor snow & cold has been a preliminary to yesterday. All told, the city of Mount Pleasant received 10 inches of snow. Now I know there are places that get a lot more at once, but we don't live there. We live here, and right now, here sucks. On our street, the snow was piled so high that when I was driving from our driveway to the main street, snow was hitting our front bumper & flying up into my windshield, like we were the snow plow. The snow would melt as it hit our windshield & then freeze to our wipers, making having complete vision out of the windshield impossible. Every time I stopped the car, whether it was to pick up Jeff, go to physical therapy or go home, I had to scrape the ice off the wiper blades. I know before I said I didn't mind the snow, I only minded the freezing temps. I am now revising that statement. I don't mind snow, as long as it doesn't interfere with what I need to do, and I don't mind the cold temps, but I DO mind when they are together, cause that's just not fair.
Even people at Jeff's job are getting in on the fun. Jeff's boss, Shaun, called him yesterday, and politely asked him the loaded question, So, how are you liking the weather? Jeff politely replied, This was NOT in the job description. But our neighbors & Jeff's co-workers are genuinely concerned about how we're taking this kind of weather. Another guy at work, Tony, even offered to come & snow-blow our driveway. But Jeff had already beaten him to it, shoveling his heart out after work. So now I can drive in & out of our garage without slipping & sliding all over the place.
But I guess we can't complain too much about the weather. I mean, we ARE in Michigan, what did we expect? But Emma's loving the snow, she plows through it every chance she gets. Her preschool is having a sled day next Tuesday, so we're going to have to go out & get her a sled and some snow pants, so she doesn't freeze her little butt off. And maybe some boots, too. And thicker gloves. Can't send my kid out sledding looking like I'm neglecting her, can I? I can see the reactions from her teachers now, You sent your kid out sledding in nothing but jeans & tennis shoes? I guess I can't let my only excuse be, Sorry, never done the whole "living in snow" thing before. I don't think that would fly.

Monday, January 12, 2004

A new friend for Emma

Well I finally took myself out of my shell & introduced myself to our neighbor across the street today. I saw her shoveling her driveway & decided I needed to stop being so shy & just do it. I knew she had a little girl right around Emma's age, but I also found out she has a son who is 6 years old. She's a professor at the college & is very nice. She said that her daughter, Morgan, goes to preschool at the college & also to day care, so they're not home most of the day, but she was sure that Morgan would love to get to know Emma. Finally Emma's going to have a friend! I've been feeling so bad for her, leaving all her friends in San Diego and me not having the courage to strike up conversations with any of her preschool friends' parents. I guess it's the strain of moving cross country & having the thoughts in my head that everyone's going to be completely booked with friends & won't have room for Emma. I get too scared to even try. It doesn't help that I feel like Jeff & I are so much younger than most of the couples around here who have kids, that I'm afraid we have nothing in common with anyone except the college students. I mean, who else around here, besides the students, got all excited when "The Return of the King" came out? And I doubt any of the married people that Jeff works with play video games with their wives. I guess we're just weird.
But one good thing I found out talking to my neighbor, they have a lot of classes for young kids at the college. Her daughter's about to start gymnastics, and we're thinking about having Emma start as well, for the same class, so they can be together. They also have 2 sessions on swim lessons during the summer, as well as soccer. So maybe we can help Emma expel some of her excess energy that seems to make this very large house very small at times.
We finally found a company that is building new homes in this area. I've emailed them and hopefully they'll get back to me quickly about the prices. The floor plans look really nice and hopefully if we have a brand new home, it'll sell quickly, if we decide to sell it. That's one thing I'm worried about here. It's not exactly a booming housing market. There's a big revolving population, but it's all the college students, and they probably don't want to buy a house in this area. They'll want to go back to where they're from. It's only one of the big differences between here & California.

Saturday, January 10, 2004

The Weekend

I think between our weather/airline fiasco that had Deanna plane hopping all over the country, our toilet troubles & some serious stress going on at Jeff's job, I am SO glad the weekend's here. I don't even work outside the home & I'm stressed out. I couldn't imagine having to deal with all the extra crap that's out there.
I think my husband sometimes has a death wish. He's taking advantage of the fact that our families live in a time zone that is 3 hours behind us & calls them every Saturday morning, around 8am our time. That's 5 am their time. He thinks this is great fun & apparently plans on doing it the whole time we live here. Most of the time they're pretty good natured about it, but I know, deep down inside, they're cursing his name & plotting revenge. Either that, or they're somehow getting our daughter to do it for them, by physically not being able to sleep past 7am on the weekends. My sleep patterns are pretty much ruined at this stage of my pregnancy, so I'm up every hour, on the hour, with some form of sleep deprivation or another. So I hear the pitter patter of her little feet as she gets up, and immediately comes to our room, with a cheerful & too cute, Good morning! Get up, mommy & daddy! And not that I'm actually going to get anymore sleep out of this, but we somehow con her into thinking that watching TV in her room is much more fun than watching it in our room. And it works for about 30-45 minutes, and then we feel guilty & either get up ourselves or invite her back into our room for some "I'm sorry we banished you back to your room, can you please forgive us" cuddling.
Another personality trait that is coming out is her constant need to be in control of everything. She gets very possessive when we watch TV in the living room & it's not something she'd particularly like to watch at that moment. All of a sudden it's, "My turn, it's my turn!" And no amount of trying to explain that she needs to share will pacify her. I'm about ready to cut her off completely. She actually doesn't watch all that much TV (anymore) but when she does, it's like instant crack, she can't get enough. Definitely need to get her into some other form of extracurricular activity.
Jeff had the dubious honor of finally shoveling the 2 inches of packed snow & ice off our driveway this morning. Now it's not considered the "Slip 'N Slide" of the neighborhood. I'm sure it was great fun for our neighbors to watch me try to bring our trash cans back into the garage the other day. I almost became the human persona of a "beached whale". I could just imagine me trying to get my footing on my frosty driveway after falling on my butt. I think I probably would have just giving up & somehow slid back into the garage where I would be able to get up again without looking like an octopus on ice skates.

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Plumbing problems

Let me tell you something about renting. It sucks. I constantly have this feeling of walking on eggshells, trying not to mess anything up or break anything. But when you've got kids, it's inevitable. I can only hope my landlord can remember back to when HIS kids were young & can have a sense of humor about it.
My landlord was here yesterday with his plumber nephew for 3 hours trying to fix our upstairs & half bath toilets. Apparently, there were a few toys stuck down there & that's what was causing all the problems. Who knew such a tiny thing could wreak that much havoc on the pipes? My landlord comes out from underneath the house with something in his hand, going "Do you recognize this?" All I could do was just smile & say, "Kids". Oh well, it's fixed now & thank goodness, cause I was tired of having to go down into the basement at 3am to use the facilities. That's no easy feat on my part at this stage of the pregnancy game. Oh, and the kitchen sink started acting up. I was trying to figure out how on earth the problems could be connected, thinking it was impossible, and I was right. They weren't related. Good thing. With all the things going wrong with this house, it makes me long for the days when all I had to do was call Navy housing & have THEM come & fix it. If I could only get the housing without all the military hangups that go along with it.
I had a baby check-up yesterday. Everything's going well. Still going to have my ultrasound in about a month, when I'm around 30 weeks. I get to do the ever-so-fun glucose test in 3 weeks. For those of you not in the know, that when they make a pregnant woman drink 8 ounces of sugary sweet liquid, then make her wait an hour to take her blood, to make sure she doesn't have Gestational Diabetes. Imagine soda, but without the carbonated water. I think I preferred the orange flavored one when I was pregnant with Emma. I wonder if they'll have more choices this time around. Maybe grape would be nice.
I'm still continuing my physical therapy 3 times a week. I took Emma with me this morning. They had some toys for her to play with. She seemed genuinely concerned that the physical therapist was hurting me. It was really sweet. I think this is a standard, first child personality trait. To be a worry-wart. I know that Jeff & I tend to have that problem a lot. We're constantly worried about something. Maybe him a little more than me, but just look at my phone bill & how many times a month I call my mother & then maybe it's a little more even.
I have officially renamed the state of Michigan to "Frozen Tundra". The weather the past 2 days has been horrific. Not because we've gotten a lot of snow, but because of the temperatures. I believe the high yesterday was around 8 degrees, with the wind chill (that was there constantly) making it feel like it was 10 BELOW ZERO. It's only slightly warmer today. Oh it's great fun trying to thaw your face out after walking the short 200 feet from the grocery store door to your car. You constantly feel like you're being slapped with a frozen fish.
I finally bought a baby book & a baby name book the other day. I was all excited about it. I immediately wanted to start putting information into the baby book, only to find out that I really don't know much. I haven't been keeping track of my weight each week (and that information shouldn't even be IN a baby book), I don't know the sex, I bought the name book to figure out names, so I don't have anything to write in there, and I haven't had a baby shower yet. All I could do was write our family tree. So, that will have to wait a few more weeks until I have some more information. And speaking of names, I love my husband, but I'm kinda glad he wasn't here when I had this internal debate when I was pregnant with Emma. He teases me about this all the time, but in truth, he had no say over what I was going to name her. I really didn't even give him a chance. He was out to sea, I was here, I figured, it was my decision. So now, he's taking a much more active role in it, although he's rejecting practically every name a throw at him. He doesn't like simple names, and he doesn't want anything that the poor kid will keep having to spell to people, and we've already decided that we're not having any ex's names. Couple all that with how many people we know & all their kids & trying not to duplicate any names so there's no confusion & we're left with about 4. For each sex. All that, and we still have to make sure it sounds good with our last name. It's a tall order. But that's why I bought the book, to figure all this out. So hopefully we won't be naming our kid after the street sign by the hospital as a last resort.

Monday, January 05, 2004

My first post

Hello all! I decided that since there were a lot of people who want to know how things are going out here in Michigan, with my pregnancy & just life in general, I figured that it would be easier for everyone to find out the scoop by just going to a website to read about it. That way, people can read it at their leisure. Hopefully, you'll enjoy reading this & it will help our friends & families who are all the way out in CA feel a little closer.
Just to catch you up, I'm 25 weeks pregnant now & I'm due April 19th. So far, things are going pretty well, just the usual aches & pains. I am seeing a physical therapist 3 times a week now, which is really helping with my back problems.
We had a great holiday season. Jeff was able to have 2 weeks off from work, completely paid for. We visited our friends Robert & Tiana, and their 2 boys, Ryan & Austin, in Tennessee. The drive is NOT fun, and I don't envy the fact that they've driven it twice to come up & see us. Then on New Years Day, our friend from Sacramento, Deanna Goss, came to visit. I'm sure it'll be a trip she won't soon forget. Freezing temperatures, 6 inches of snow that caused her flight back home to be cancelled & crazy Michigan ticket agents that apparently can't do their jobs. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be visiting again anytime soon.
So now things are starting to get back to normal. Jeff's back at work, Emma starts preschool back up tomorrow & it's still cold...really really cold.
As for everyone who is asking when we're going to find out what we're having, it's not going to be until at least the beginning of February, unfortunately. But it's ok, that will still give us 2 1/2 months to get everything we need before the baby comes, provided it doesn't come early.
Ok, that's it for now, but I will try to update this daily, if I can, and if something interesting happens.