Burst!

I just had lunch and now I feel like I'm bursting!

It hurts!

A Day About Baby

This week we attended our first baby-prep class. It was called "Knowing Your Childcare Options." The instructor had every nanny & childcare certification available. She had years of experience as a nanny, baby-sitter, mom and childcare consultant. She helps people find daycare and knows every childcare provider in a 100 mile radius. We sat in the class for two hours while she imparted her vast knowledge on us. We came away with a good idea about nanny care, au pairs, grandmas and college students. The only bad part of the class was the lady sitting next to me who smelled like ass.

Yesterday I had coffee with, Terri a "soccer mom." She is the mother of one of the girls on the soccer team of 6th graders I coached in the fall. She is a pediatric nurse and works at the hospital where I'm delivering. Terri is awesome and wonderful and knows everything. She told me about the best pediatricians in the area; we discussed doulas, pregnancy massage and some top secret stuff that will save me from lots of pain. I love (love) Terri.

Today we spent another 5 hours at the hospital in a class called "A Day About Baby." It seems like a lot of time, but the instructors are good about packing a lot of information into a short amount of time. The ladies who instruct are experts and certainly know their stuff. It's almost a prerequisite that they have more than two kids.

The instructors have degrees, are up on the latest research concerning their designated topic and they have experience. They were clearly into their jobs and took an interest in us as their students. Many of them gave out their phone numbers saying to call them with ANY questions, which I was impressed by.

The topics today were
"How do newborns look?"
"Bathing Your Baby"
"Diapering and Swaddling"
"Childcare Options" (which we skipped since we already had that class)
"Carriers and Slings"
"Calming Your Crying Baby"

I know it all seems pretty obvious, but if you've never been around a fresh baby, you don't know what a newly chopped umbilical cord looks like, or how to care for it. For years, doctors have recommended cleaning the umbilical cord with rubbing alcohol, but now, suddenly, they have revised their suggestion to cleaning with just water.

In the newborn baby class, they cover all the crazy skin problems and rashes that babies have. The trick is to just let the rash run its course and not to lotion the kid up. Their skin is adapting to the new climate/ environment and needs to remedy itself. Using lotion can actually cause problems.

Bathing baby was pretty basic. One must always have a hand on the kid since they can drown in 2 inches of water. This means that bathing is done with one hand. Soap isn't even recommended until Jr. is a few months old.

Step Up and Wash a Baby!

In the class, each couple was provided a baby doll and gave the baby a bath. Instructions: remove the swaddling, remove the diaper, check the water temperature with an elbow, lay a washcloth at the bottom of the tub, put the kid in the tub, cover the baby with another washcloth to help her retain her body heat, then use a cloth to wash from the cleanest to dirtiest place on the baby. Starting with the eyes, wash gently, then the face... scrub-a-dub the head, neck etc down to the booty. Then back into the dry towel snuggle time, clean diaper and nap!

B did such a great job washing our baby, she smiled the whole time!

Bath Notes
- Keep baby naked for the shortest amount of time possible
- Keep everything within reach and prep bath area (soap, towels etc.) before baby goes into the water
- Put a towel in the dryer to warm it before wrapping baby. (For me this means I would have to wash her in the utility sink in the laundry room.)

My happiest discovery today was that of new alternatives to disposable and cloth diapers. A baby uses 8,700 diapers in its infancy and disposable diapers (depending on your source) don’t biodegrade in landfills from 30 years to ever. This makes it environmentally irresponsible of me to have a baby and it was truly bothering me. The alternatives offered were just too insanely expensive to consider... until today.

Allow me to plug "Fuzzi Bunz" a fleece and plastic, reusable diaper! Sure it costs $18 for each diaper and we have to buy 24 of them and I have to wash them twice (once on cold, once on hot) but they come in pretty colors and the earth will be better off and my kid's ass will be graced only by soft fleece! I love it!

The other diaper advancement I heard about today was that even when old skool cloth diapers are used, they don't put ginormous pins in the sides to secure them like they used to. Instead, they are Velcro’d and then plastic underwear is put over the crap-holder. This seems much safer to me. Less blood. Duh.

And according to my mom who never used pre-treated, commercial wipes (and not just because she was a recovering hippie), if a baby's butt is rinsed in the sink, it's highly unlikely it will get diaper rashes. Go mom!

With her kids, Wonderful Terri made all her own diaper wipes out of paper towels and water with a little baby oil. She pre-made them and kept them in sealed plastic boxes or Ziploc bags. I love this too! The chemicals in wipes are harsh. Pooh-pooh!

So, lots of positive advancements in the world of baby butts!!!

Onto swaddling! I learned that anytime she's not sleeping (on her back always due to SIDS "Face up to Wake up!") she should be upright or on her belly so she doesn't get cradle-cap. Babies have mushy heads until 18-months when their skull finally grows together. They gave us several demonstrations of different ways and products to swaddle chitlens. One was a long piece of stretchy cloth that the mother wraps around her back, over the shoulders and waist to hold the kid in the designated way; in the front- facing in or out, on the hip- at an older age, and on the back. I'm more yuppie than hippie, so I feel more comfortable with the baby backpack which I can wear on the front and of course costs 3 times more than any of the alternatives. (Damn it!)

Allow me to enlighten you. See http://www.aap.org/ for anything health-related for Jr.

Next week we are going to another 5-hour class entitled “All About Birth” which will probably blow our socks off, but it’s all stuff we need to know. I’ve been a Discovery Health channel junkie for months, watching every birth show I can from natural labor, water labor, cesarean to regular birth, including the births where things go wrong. They never show any bad-news babies. I think it would freak the viewers out which isn’t good for ratings.

The countdown is on! My little whipper-snapper weighs almost 5 pounds and is rolling around a lot, which is a bit painful on my back. She’s going to wreak havoc and be so fun! She’s going to be stubborn, like her dad and have a divine sense of humor like her mom.

Gongo!

Gongo was my most favorite stuffed animal when I was little. He is a blue elephant and I don't recall if he was handmade, but I've never seen anything like him.

For the last several years (like 18 years) he's been dressed in a baby outfit mostly to keep his appendages attached to his body. I slept on his chest every night of my life for a long time. He must be riddled with dust mites.

I pulled him out of retirement to test out the baby's changing pad. Gongo got a new outfit (he fits the 3 month old clothing) and posed for this picture. He's a very good sport. He really bonded with Celeste too.

Snow

Last Night

The predictable, yet unexpected ending of the snow blog last night goes like this.

B drove his little race car as far as he could in the snow and then called me to go pick him up. It took me an hour to get from my house to 1 freeway stop away.

Hail-Covered Japanese Garden

We got around 4 inches of snow over the 2 inches of hail and it snowed all night. All the roads are now fit for ice hockey, so only the desperate or prepared are out driving today.

Black Bamboo in Hail

Weather Blog

I swear, I write about the weather 50% of the time.

But we've just had so much crazy weather and since I love nothing more than crazy weather, I HAVE to write!

So, here I was dilligently working away (no nap) and it started hailing. It hailed for 30 minutes and left around 3 inches of ice balls on the ground.

THEN it started snowing like crazy! Now it's a winter wonderland out there, just in time for the commute. Fortunately, I'm cozy at home so I don't have the plesure of sliding around in this junk and I get to enjoy it.

The trees are frosty white and here I am trying to push Valentines day and even St. Patrick's day. Christmas is over which means it's spring, right? The east coast knows what I'm talking about. From what I hear, people are already chillin' at the Coney Island beach.

PSL

Behold the power of the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

I just had one and now I want to hug everybody and everything.

I'm working from home. I want to hug my house!

My dog just had a bath. I want to hug my dog!

My house is clean. I want to hug my pillow!

It might be naptime!

The Holidays et cetera

I have been busy!

I guess that's what the holidays are about. I loved having my brother and sister in town. It's always fun to get to know them as adults, but to always have that sibling (I'm going to tickle you) thing happening. My sister is always going to be my baby sister, even though I know and respect her as an adult; an individual who has made amazing things happen in her own life.

The longer visits are nice because it gives us a chance to relax and do things at our own pace. Thanks to the raging blizzard that hit Denver, we got to keep Em for a few extra days. Brody flies out tonight and of course it's bittersweet because I know he'll be back in March when the baby is born.

Being pregnant is funny. Sometimes I freak out because everything isn't "ready" but other times I just feel happy and lucky and excited. I'm getting to the stage where I can't wait until she's in my arms. I want to hold her and see what she looks like. B is reading his daddy book and it's just crazy that we're going to be responsible for a helpless baby.

I feel oddly confident that everything will fall into place and will work out fine once she is born. I know 5 months of maternity leave is going to fly by and I'm going to have a hell of a time going back to work and leaving my baby, even if it is with a friend.

So, what blog writing have I been slacking on?

Let's start with the storm. Everybody has a storm story. It's like, "Where were you when... we had the earth quake hit/ princess Diana died/ 9/11 happened."

We only lost power for a little over 2 days, but since it was frosty outside, it was frosty inside and we don't have a fireplace. We had no hot water. We lived with it for 24 hours. We pulled our Omaha steaks from the freezer, had Lauren and Cameron over and B fired up the BBQ (outside of course- more on that later.) Dinner was great. We ate by candle light at 6 pm.

That night, we went to bed at 8 and woke up at midnight... too much sleep! Weighing our options, escape routes and worst case scenarios, we got up and drove around at 1 am to find groceries and gas. All the grocery stores were closed, but we managed to buy a full tank of gas.

That night we put Maverick, our popsicled parrot into his travel carrier and buried him under the blankets in bed.

Even Muppet was cold!

We decided we had to get out of there the next morning, at least for the tropical bird!

I called my parents. Mom didn’t have power, but dad did. We drove north a bit and crashed my dad’s house, dog and bird in tow. We had no idea how long it would take for our power to return. Last time (during Clinton’s inauguration) we had a big storm and lost power for 5 days.

We spent the day in Stanwood visiting the antique shops and we had a nice lunch. Meanwhile, people back home were bringing their barbeques and generators inside their homes and dying. People were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning all over the place. Entire families died. DEAD.

Around 10 pm on Saturday night B called home to find that our answering machine was on. Excellent news! The power was on!! We returned the next morning to discover that while we had power, the neighborhood across the street did not. I’ve never been so happy and relieved to do the dishes and wash the laundry! I also felt guilty because we had power and were warm, and others were not.

Next story; Brody arrived in Seattle!

Thanks to a little mix-up on my part, I managed to leave Brody at SeaTac airport upon his arrival. Not only that, but my phone was on silent so he had to get on a bus and hike to a local hostel. Sorry Brody!

Chillin' Before Christmas

B's parents also came by since they were in town that night. We went out to dinner.

The next day Emmy arrived from Houston. After a few snafu’s and freak-outs (family style), we managed to chill out and do fun stuff. We had great coffee, shopped downtown, ate good food and of course, made ornithopters.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve with the extended family and saw all the little cousin’s kids which always makes me feel old.

The anticipation was palpable.

The kids are cute and smart and very fun to watch. I was round as Santa himself, so I did more watching of than romping with the kids.

Christmas morning was quiet and lazy. B and I couldn’t get over the fact that next year this time we would have a 9-month old.

Christmas Morning

I've always wanted them to have shirts like this and I finally had the chance to make them!

Christmas night we went over to see B’s extended family so they could see my belly.

Grandma Fern Marjorie (note Christmas Sweater and original, retro home decor)

The day after Christmas we all went to my dad’s house and once we opened our traditional Frango mint boxes, the holiday was official. It’s not Christmas until dad unveils the Frangos.

On Thursday my bro and sis went with me to my pre-natal doctor check-up and I’m not sure if it freaked them out, or was no big deal. I wanted to include them in their niece’s life in my belly since they both live across the country and have missed everything up to this point.

Last Friday my soccer team threw a baby shower for us and I was very excited to include my brother in this as well. Contrary to tradition, men were invited. They “oo’d” and “aww’d” (if not facetiously) along with the women.

Something not pink!

I’m working from home a bit more often since I have less energy all the time and it’s becoming more difficult to move around.

Tonight we’re eating Thai and sending Brody off to New York where he will excel in his academics and brilliantly astonish all who know him.

Refreshed Wonderland

Right now I'm in my office trying to eat the ripe half of a rotton banana.

Last night Brody managed to give my blog a face lift and hopefully we can do even more to improve the appeaance and functionality.

That's all I have to say for now. I would post holiday pictures, but they're on my home computer. All in good time.