Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thankful!

I hope that everyone is having a great Thanksgiving. My husband's cousin and her family are over for a visit, so we are going to be busy all weekend.

I thought I would share something that I am super thankful for.

On Tuesday we went to see Evan's pacemaker doc for a followup to check on his battery life. Apparently she was already planning on him having it replaced very soon and had already presented his case to the surgery folks. I was quite taken aback as last time we talked I did not get that there was any sense of urgency when it came to the need for a new battery and possible lead change. Maybe I just had my head in the sand or something.

Leaving the office we thought that it was going to happen December 16th which was already a very full week for me and a bad week for my husband to have to take off of work. I was feeling rather grumpy mostly because of all the rescheduling of appointments that I would have to do to free up enough just in case he has to stay a few days in the hospital time.

The next morning I got a call from the surgery office to schedule his surgery. The lady on the phone presented me with a number of days in January and gave no explanation as to why the later dates were suddenly opened up. I did not probe further into it because I was thrilled that a better time was offered to me when it had seemed so firm earlier.

So, January 20th Evan will be getting a new pacemaker generator and hopefully a new lead. Putting in the new lead will be a much more invasive procedure, but this lead has been giving us headaches for a while now. This is the same one that was acting up after his surgery and drained that battery. Really he should not be needing new batteries so soon, they are supposed to last 3-5 years instead the paltry 2 that this one has lasted.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Three!

It is hard for me to believe, but Harry is now three years old. Time sure flies! It is amazing the things he can do now and how much comprehension he has gained. On Friday I bought him an Elmo balloon for his birthday. It rather rapidly deflated much to his dismay so I promised that as soon as daddy got home and we had dinner I would go to the store and get him a new one (I returned the old one as it was obviously defective). He was so very calm an mature about the whole ordeal. He was thrilled with his new balloon and calmly accepted that he could not take it to bed with him until he realized that I meant what I had said and then he sobbed like the two year old he still was. That sure beats the almost instant temper tantrum of a toddler, that is for sure.

Harry's birthday cake made by yours truly. It is based on one that I had when I was about his age. Harry had been strongly campaigning for some Elmo cupcakes that they have at Sam's Club, but I did not see the need for 24 icky cupcakes with gross frosting since it was only going to be family. I thought that this would be a fun and much tastier alternative.

My husband had to help with the candle, Harry is still not a very good candle blower outer.

Cookie seems a bit worried about something, I am not sure what though.

Mmmmm.... eyes.

Evan chowing down. He is quite excited for his birthday to come even though it is still months away. He wants an Elmo balloon too.


This is how I often feel, poor momma bear.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Wow!

Picture # 1 was pretty easy to guess. Those are the wee little feet. Picture #2 is the femur. Teh technician tried to get hands and arms but the baby was keeping them tightly crossed and they were hard to get pictures of. Picture #3 is supposedly the baby's face. The technician seemed pretty confident of that, but to me it looks like there is an alien inside me.

I just read this article and all I can say is wow!!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Baby pictures

Today was rather a crappy day and it was topped off by my destroying dinner thanks to my addled pregnant brain. I forgot to make sure we had the right cheese for the lasagna, I totally forgot to get ricotta cheese and it was too late to ask my husband to pick some up at the store as he was already at the store getting me the mozzarella cheese that I needed (we only have one cell phone and he never remembers to bring it with him) and finally I barely avoided burning the top of the dinner thanks to me forgetting to put the aluminum foil over it. The odd thing is that my lasagna hating kids actually ate it and my husband loved it. I didn't, but I guess I will just be happy that others did.

A part of my grumpiness was that my ultrasound showed that I was actually not as far along as my last menstrual period would suggest. My new due date is May 11th. Sigh! I guess that midwife must have been imagining things when she thought I was measuring bigger. At least the dream that I had that I was having twins was debunked as only one baby showed up in the ultrasound. And before you ask, it was waaay to early to tell what sex the baby is. It was hard enough to even get a very good peek at the baby thanks to the earliness of my pregnancy.

I now present to you the amazing gray blob pictures. See if you can guess what each picture is a picture of. The people that get them all right will get an imaginary prize which will be determined later.


Sunday, November 16, 2008

Stop repeating me!

Back in the day a great way to drive your sibling insane was to repeat everything that they said. It was delicious fun that was only ruined when the sibling finally stopped talking altogether. Now I am not laughing. Evan is in one of his phases and this phase is him repeating me. Sometimes it is just the last word I say and sometimes it is the entire sentence.

My patience has been getting quite the workout. I find it quite ironic that part of our job as a parent is to teach our children patience and to do that we have to develop an even greater amount of patience than we had previously. If you had an adult at work following you around repeating everything that you said you would go insane and might even have murderous thoughts. You would have the option of talking to someone with higher authority or even quitting your job if the annoyance was great enough. With your kids a higher level of behavior is needed. You can't just quit on your kids or shut them in the room so that you don't have to hear them. It is a good thing that Evan is so cute and lovable.

Friday, November 14, 2008

My mom hates me

Harry got an early birthday package from my parents today. Of course it had to be ripped open right away. Inside were two Sesame Street DVDs and a musical card. Harry was immediately taken by the card, he laughed so hard that I was worried that he would collapse. At first I was amused and thought the card was kind of cute. After a long afternoon of Harry playing that song over and over again I was convinced that my mother was out to get me. My husband became the mean parent and took the card away after being home only an hour. Apparently he does not have the noise tolerance that I have developed.

This card is not the only noisy thing that has been gifted to my kids by my parents. There have been numerous toys that have earned battery removals. I think the most notable was the Tickle Me Elmo that they gave Harry last Christmas. Elmo is quiet most of the time now, but every so often he gets rediscovered and my day is shot. I think that next time we visit I am going to give each of the boys a musical card to play with at grandma's house. I wonder how long they would last.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Oops

In my flutter over our new computer I forgot to post about my oh so delightful (I am being sarcastic here) OB appointment. It same on top of an already crappy day so I kind of wanted to just avoid the whole thing but went any as I had already blown of the previous appointment thanks to my pregnancy brain.

One of the Midwives in the practice did my exam. It was horribly uncomfortable and the Pap smear part was actually quite painful, which has never happened to me before. Yeah it has been very uncomfortable but never painful. Oddly enough before this one I had only had male doctors doing them on me. You would think that a woman would be more aware of discomfort issues.

The best part of the visit was when I got to hear the heartbeat of the baby. Until the baby is big enough to really make it's presence known it really is hard to internalize that there is a living being existing inside of you. It was nice to be able to hear the proof. I will be getting an ultrasound next week to confirm my dates (my cycles are super wonky and I was feeling big for gestational age) so I may have some blurry gray baby pictures to post. Hopefully it will cooperate and be photogenic. Most of Evan's are of his spine and Harry's are not much better.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Nerd girl

One of the things that both my husband and I have in common is our love for computer games. It is probably the only hobby that we both share which is why my husband wants to set up our old computer so that we have two that are working. Any way the point I am trying to make that is we have both been playing with out new toy and it has been wonderful.

Part of the reason he was so motivated to get the new computer built is so that he could play World of Warcraft like the guys at work are doing (a lot of his hobbies seem to be things that guys in his shop are doing). We have both played and beaten the original Warcraft games and were aware of the existence of WoW, but had not wanted to get sucked in. We recently decided to cave in, after all the monthly subscription cost was probably less than what I have spent on yarn and he did just get a raise.

I must say that it is an amazing game and everything that everyone said it would be. Blizzard is one of the top computer game companies out there and they keep on making winners. The user interface it very intuitive so that you can pick up a lot as you go along playing the games. They do a great job of making the games challenging but not so hard that you give up in frustration.

Don't worry I have not forgotten that I have kids, but it hard to remember that I do have a blog. I think that the fact that the game will only run well on the new computer will be a saving grace. I will be forced to share now and then.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Speedy


We got the computer case yesterday and my husband assembled the whole thing in a few hours. I was surprised at how quickly it went together. He just has to download a few updates and we will have a speedy new computer to blog from.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Yipee!

Today did not start out well. The kids thought it would be fun to wake us up at 5 in the morning. My husband shooed them back into their rooms, but I am pretty sure that no more sleeping was done. I was mean and made them stay contained until 7:30 which is their normal waking time.

The day did get better when my husband unexpectedly got some time off work. We went out to lunch to celebrate his promotion which was made official today. When we got back we found a large package on our doorstep. Evan thought that it had cars in it, he seems to expect cars in every package that we get. What it contained was this:



This is our new computer, neat huh? My husband being the super cool computer guy that he is will be building out new computer himself. We are going to get a much nicer and faster computer than we could hav afforded to buy premade. I can't wait to see what it can do.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Sigh

Well the first cold of the cold and flu season is upon us. My husband seems to be hit the hardest with it but no one has escaped entirely. Evan is especially sensitive to snot dripping down the back of his throat and ended up throwing up this afternoon. My morning sickness (that is really evening sickness for me) is getting better, but the smell was almost more than I could handle and it was all I could do to keep it together. Luckily I only had to deal with Evan and his gross clothing. The bulk of it was on the couch which my husband cleaned up. I am really hoping that this kind of thing does not happen when I am home alone, it might end up being more than my poor stomach can handle.