Daddy at the Post Office

Closure isn't officially the end for Marienthal post office, but ... | The Hutchinson News:

Off to School

Lily started school today. She's in a 3-year-old preschool program, and she really seemed to enjoy her first day. She's been very excited about going to school, and she was a very happy and very excited little girl this morning. When we got to school she was a little scared, but she was a big girl and made it through the day with no tears. (And, just to let you know, Mommy made it through the day with no tears too.) When Lily returned from school, she was glad to fill me in with the details of the day....

These Boots Were Made for Walkin'

(Alternate blog title: "Who has big boots?")

Anyway, Lily decided to try on Daddy's boots today, and I had to snap a picture. Isn't this cute!!

"I Love Her Tiny Hands!"

Lily's been a wonderful big sister. She loves "our baby" and is very proud to tell everyone that she's the big sister. She's fascinated with how tiny Lauren and she often grabs her little fingers and exclaims, "I love her tiny hands!" Lily knows that her job is to listen for baby and tell Mommy when she hears baby crying. She's a good helper, and she loves her little sister.

The Moon

Lily's been fascinated with the moon and the things of the sky for quite some time now. She talks a lot about the shape of the moon, and sometimes she talks about going to the moon. Last night as we were driving home, Lily told me of her plans for visiting the moon. She explained, "I'm going to put on my butterfly wings and fly to the moon and bring the moon back and put it on the kitchen table for Mama." While there are clearly some problems with her 3-year-old logic, isn't this sweet!!

My Beautiful Girls

Vaccines

Like a good mommy, I've made sure my little ones have had the recommended immunizations so as to protect them from disease. Like a good mommy, my mommy made sure I had the recommended immunizations so as to protect me from disease.... Therefore, I was a bit taken aback when the hospital gave me the results from some of my blood tests: they found that I was rubella non-immune and pertussis non-immune. So, despite being vaccinated according to the CDC guidelines when I was a child, I have apparently been at risk for German Measles and whooping cough for who knows how long now. They gave me new MMR and DTP vaccines, but that doesn't do much for restoring confidence in the system....

Going Home

It's time to go home!! After 2 days in the hospital, I'm glad to be headed home. Lily has had a blast staying with Grammy and Grammy S. over the past few days and visiting Mommy in the hospital, but I think even she is ready to go home as well. While I generally don't let people take pictures of me in the hospital, I think I'm glad I made an exception this time....

It's a Girl!!

Surprise, it's a girl!! (To anyone who know we were expecting, this is no surprise. To anyone who didn't know, surprise, it's a girl!!) Baby was due yesterday, scheduled for tomorrow, and arrived today. Lauren Ivy was born at 5:27 pm, weighing exactly 8 lbs and measuring 19 3/4 inches.

Here's a shortish version of a relatively short 'coming into this world' story: I felt a little off when I went to bed last night, but I really didn't think anything of it. (Hey, when you're pregnant, when don't you feel 'a little off.') When I woke up this morning, I felt weird. (I don't know how else to describe it; I just felt weird.) Lily forced me to eat some breakfast, and I spent the morning working on my to-do list for the day (some cleaning, packing for the hospital, getting the house in order, etc). Contractions started about mid-morning, but they weren't too bad and they were fairly infrequent. Jimmy came home from work just before noon, and we decided that we should probably pack the car and head toward the hospital. (The hospital is about an hour away.) When we got in the car, contractions were about 8 minutes apart. The doctor, taking into account travel time, had told us to head to the hospital when contractions were 5-7 minutes apart, so we thought we had plenty of time. We called Grammy S and made arrangements to drop Lily off at her house en route to the hospital. By the time we were fairly close to Grammy S's house, contractions were about 4 minutes apart, so we called Grammy S, changed the plans to have her meet us at the hospital to pick up Lily, and rerouted, taking the most direct route to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 1:30 and then spent about 30 minutes in the waiting room before being escorted to the last available labor and delivery room. From my perspective, nothing good happened during the next hour or so. Contractions continued, my nurse disappeared, and I filled out paperwork, some of which I had filled out and submitted weeks ago. At the end of that hour, they finally got my IV started, the nurse told me I was too far along in labor for an epidural or pain medication (which really made me mad since we'd essentially wasted the last hour plus in the waiting room and on paperwork), and she called in the doctor. When the doctor arrived, she disagreed with the nurse, called in the anesthesiologist (much to my relief), and said things were going along just fine. From that point on (or from the time the epidural took effect), things went just fine. I called my mom around 5pm, just before I went into hard labor, to let her know that baby was on her way. Half an hour later, baby arrived. (And half an hour after that I was still filling out the paperwork that gave the doctor permission to actually deliver the baby.)

Since Lily was induced, I wasn't quite prepared for the whole 'spontaneous labor' thing. However, I did learn a few things in the process.... Labors apparently get shorter with subsequent children. Next time, start toward the hospital at the first sign of contractions in order to allow sufficient time for paperwork and hospital snafus to be handled in an orderly (or not-so-orderly) fashion.

Potato Chips

At approximately 6:18am, a half-asleep child wandered into my bedroom. She was mildly upset, and she was mumbling something I was unable to understand. After having her repeat herself several times, I finally managed to piece together her phrase: "I need potato chips!" (I confirmed that this was, in fact, what she was saying....) Although I did not attempt to deduce why she needed potato chips at 6:18am, I did offer to let her climb up in bed with me. That seemed to make everything okay...sans potato chips!!

"Garbage Plants"

While I had hoped to put in a full garden this year, that didn't exactly happen. I did, however, plant a pair or cabbage plants and a few little planters of herbs. Lily helps me to take care of the plants, and she is very good about reminding me to water them. She likes the herbs, but she is especially fond of her "garbage plants." I've reminded her numerous times that they're called "cabbage," but she just can't quite seem to remember that yet....

House Renovations

We've been doing some work on our house lately. (Well, we've been doing some work on our house for what seems like most of the past year, it's just been recently that we've been able to see a few projects through to completion -- or near completion!)

Our first major project was a re-doing of the garage. We put up a wall to add in an office and a library. Both rooms are nice sized, and it's wonderful to have a place for all of our books (which had been stored in about a dozen plastic totes since we moved) and a quiet place to work that is attached to the house, yet still separated enough from the house to be quiet and allow for some real work and productivity.

Given that the remaining portion of the garage wasn't quite large enough to still accommodate the cars, we decided to turn that into a usable living space as well. It's essentially a den/game room at this point, which is nice....

We also recently did a major overhaul on some of the floors in the house. When we bought the house, we knew that there were hardwoods underneath the carpets and we had the general intention of pulling up the carpets and refinishing the wood floors. A couple of weeks ago, we actually began to tackle that project. We pulled up the carpet in two of the bedrooms and the hallway, sanded, and refinished the floors. We're quite pleased with the results, and we're very happy to be one step closer to being an allergen-free house! Only one more bedroom, a living room, and a dining room to go....

Potty Training

Well, at least somebody has a use for the potty!!

After months of having the pretty pink potty in the bathroom and prompting occasional attempts at using it, we've started diligently working on the whole potty training thing. (It's about time!!) However, Lily's not particularly interested, and our successes so far have been limited. At this point, Max seems more interested in the pretty pink potty than Lily does....

Lily's Big Girl Room

We've been re-doing Lily's "big girl" room for quite some time now.... We converted part of the garage into an office and library, and we re-did the former office into a new room for Lily. We decided to go with the pink princess theme: we painted the lower half of the room pink and then put up a princess border around the center of the room, leaving the top part of the room a cream/off-white color. It created a nice balance in the room -- pink, but not too pink. Grammy got her a pink princess bedspread for her birthday, and that goes wonderfully with everything else in her room. Lily loves playing with all of the toys in her room, and bedtime battles have ended totally and completely since we moved her to her big bed in her big girl room. (Lily moved into her room about a month ago, and I think we've only had one ot two nights when she fought us on going to bed. Otherwise she just runs to her room when we tell her it's time for bed. I hope it stays this easy!!)

"Mommy, Look!"

Lily pulled me into her room today, proud of what she had made. She told me what her picture was, but I had to ask her at least half a dozen times to figure out what she was saying. So, my question for you: what is this? "Mommy, look at my ______________!" Try filling in the blanks....