Fluffy mail

We have been working working working. A few people have been admiring my insane nesting urges but I would like to clarify their precise origins as I feel that not all of my insane-ness is hormonal:

1) Our house has been "under construction" for close to two and a half years. Now hat the project is finally DONE, it is time to put things away and do a good job cleaning up the dust.

2) The flowers (crocuses?) are blooming in my backyard and it feels like it might be time to participate for the first time ever in the traditional "spring cleaning".

3) I am hormonal. Don't ask for more explanations than that. Just do it.

Two minor projects have been underway this last week. We are putting finishing touches on the nursery:

Stars & letters we painted for the nursery walls. I was dreaming about doing this before William was born, but I didn't have time because I was working full time.

John then drilled holes in each of the 56786168 stars and nailed them up on the walls to create a border. For the record, he did not complain once, try to talk me out of this or even roll his eyes at me during this whole process. He is a wonderful husband. We also hung curtains, curtain boxy things and the letters on the wall. I just didn't take pictures of those things.

The second project we've been working on is finding/acquiring baby gear to help us out with having two. Which, has resulted in a lot of shopping on my part. My life is so hard.

Fluffy mail! We got a whole new set of cloth diapers! After wearing his set for almost two years, William's are worn out! I'm excited we've ordered some new kinds of diapers as well as more diapers overall. These stacks of diapers should last us until potty training!

Our new double stroller! Notice Ernie is going for a ride. At first, William was very interested in climbing through the sun shades to get to the front seat and then climbing back again. This would not fly with a new baby. So, we put Ernie into the seat to help discourage him. It worked a little...

William and Ernie riding around. William is not happy here because Daddy had to stop pushing the stroller for me to take the picture!

36 Weeks=Baby No Name

Today we are 36 weeks pregnant and all of a sudden I'm starting to stress over names. I was really worried about this with William's pregnancy also and we ended up just pulling names out of a hat at the hospital. I was hoping we'd go in a little more prepared this time (and with double the names since this one is a surprise!). So, if you're waiting for me to tell you this name of this baby, you're just going to have to wait. We still don't know the name of this baby....

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well, it has happened. I turned 30 today and survived. It wasn't maybe the thirtieth birthday I was planning on having ten years ago, but it was still a very very nice day.

William slept in this morning a little bit - which is a great gift! I considered trying to teach him the "Happy Birthday" song again, but thought that might be weird. You know, to be singing Happy Birthday all by myself to myself. So, I didn't.

I had an OB appointment this morning (I party hard, you know?) in which I had my strep B culture taken, my first internal exam and then an ultrasound. The good news is that the baby is continuing to move further down and my belly size is getting a tiny bit smaller. Also good news is the baby is head down. Other than that, there is nothing exciting to report.

John came home early today and we spent a few minutes together until William woke up from his nap this afternoon and then we left William with the neighbor while we went out on a date. Together. Alone.

John took me to The Melting Pot for dinner. I've always wanted to try this restaurant, we just never had. It was wonderful and amazing - although it took a little longer than we had anticipated. We had wonderful food and it was great to hang out and chat with each other. However, there is strong evidence that we are getting Old as we spent most of the time discussing what projects we are going to try and tackle at home this weekend. Old and Boring here we come.

The only bad news out of today is that when we got home, I was too full to eat any birthday cake. Which was chocolate cake with chocolate chips, chocolate frosting and strawberry filling. It smells wonderful! But, it will have to wait until tomorrow!

Mama and William
All of us (or the top half of us)
This is the face of a trouble maker
The cheese course with John's Yin &Yang drink.
Our entree course cooking up. Surprising? The broccoli was okay. I ate more than one piece - go me!
The dessert course - chocolate, chocolate. chocolate!

Look! We went out for dinner! Without one of our two kids (for the record, I considered leaving the youngest at home, but decided against it).

Only....

a few more minutes in my 20's....and I can't even think of anything wild and crazy to do. Must be a sign I'm getting old and ready to be 30?

John's Doctor Appointment

Time for another guest poster!

I had my follow-up doctor's appointment today. I went in and he had me make a fist, and he was very surprised. I guess people usually don't regain the range of motion in their injured finger as quickly as I have.

While there I asked him about the fingernail on my left ring finger as it has fallen off and now is kind of....odd appearing. He said that he wasn't surprised that it fell off, and that only time will tell how things will come back. He said he wouldn't be surprised if it came back. I asked him whether the bump on the nail bed would pose a problem (deformed fingernail), he said we'll have to wait (by waiting he means the 6 months it'll take for the fingernail to regrow. )

What is there right now? It's not a bare nail bed (thankfully!). It's stiffer than skin but softer than a normal nail. The doctor said that although the shiny part of the fingernail grows from back near the joint, the nail bed reinforces and adds to the nail. That's the stuff I have for a fingernail right now.

I also asked him about a bump I've had on the inside of my finger, at the joint near the pinky finger. It's hard and I think it can move, but he couldn't get it to move at the appointment. He figures it's either part of the bone, the bone callus (thing that forms to repair the bone) or perhaps a tendon sheath fluid bubble (although he was most skeptical of that possibility.) If it turns out to be bone and it's annoying, I may be back to get it taken care of. Again more waiting required.

He was exceptionally pleased with my healing and said that I'm free from any restrictions in use of the finger. Furthermore, no more checkups!

After that was a physical therapy appointment. The first thing the therapist did was check my range of motion. Like before I basically made a fist and she measured the angles my joints made. At my last appointment three weeks ago, the sum of all the angles my joints made was 205 degrees. After heat was applied for about 10 minutes, that sum was increased to about 218 degrees. Today, without any heat I was able to get to 255 degrees. Normal range is 260-265 degrees. So, that was good.

The next step, is to work on strengthening. I can really tell my grip is not what it used to be. The therapist measured my right hand grip strength to be about 125 lbs. My left hand came in around 50 lbs. So, she sent me home with some exercises and some stuff that reminds me of Silly Putty. Basically, I'll use the putty in different ways to improve the strength of my hand. More good news is I don't need to come back! She said I'm doing better than 99% of the people she's seen with this type of injury.

Overall, my left ring finger is much better. When I wake up it's pretty stiff and I need to work it a bit to get it to loosen up. It also gets pretty stiff in the cold, and it doesn't take much, a cold room will stiffen it up. The doctor and therapist said this should go away over time.

The fist. I think the middle joint of my ring finger is sort of over bending to compensate for the few degrees that my end joint is missing. Maybe with the strengthening those last couple degrees will free up.

Side view. Compare this with the day after pin removal and a week after pin removal.
Click here

Shot of the top of my fingers. You can see the scar on the middle finger. The ring finger is missing the nail - but the big scar on the middle finger really takes people's attention away. At trivia night, people were thinking my middle finger was the one that was partially severed one.

Another shot of the top of my hand. The bump on the ring finger I was talking about earlier is on the pinky finger side of the joint outermost joint. This is also where the scar is on this finger. The scar runs along the joint and then forward (toward the end of the finger) and runs into where the nail should be.

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Can I tell you how proud I am of my husband? I couldn't be more happy with his results from today's appointment! No more therapy and no more doctor appointments (for the hand anyway!). All of his hard work and dedication have really paid off - which is just in time for all of our hands to be on deck (pun intended!) for our new baby to arrive!

Trivia & OB

We had a busy weekend. Our (okay, my) to do list of Very Important Things is growing by the minute. I won't bore you with the details, but it is safe to assume that our house is cleaner now than it was before this weekend. However, it still isn't Clean Enough. More work needs to be done. Again, I won't bore you with the details - but it is safe to say that I/we have a lot of work to do. The general updates are these:

1. The OB visit on Friday was uneventful. I am proud to announce that I managed to not gain any weight in the last two weeks. The only other piece of interested news is that my belly measurement was smaller this week. My OB believes this is probably due to baby moving lower down into my pelvis. Based on the feeling of a large weight sitting on my hip bones and tailbones, I would have to agree. The doctor is confident in predicting that this baby is not going to wait for its due date. I say wait and see - I'm not buying it this time around (she said the same thing last time, but I went almost to the due date). Everything else was normal and unexciting. I go back on Thursday for my 36 week appointment which is also my birthday. In celebration of my 30th birthday, I will have an ultrasound to determine if the baby's head is facing down, an internal exam, and a strep B culture taken. Woo hoo!

2. We played on trivia teams twice this weekend with some friends. It was a lot of fun - although expensive once we paid the sitter, the table fees and bought ourselves some raffle tickets. But, it was a great way to spend one of our last weekends without a newborn in the house!

3. John sees the hand doctor again tomorrow. He promises an exciting update complete with pictures.

35 Weeks

Tomorrow we will reach the 35 week mark of this pregnancy. I'd like to offer you some sort of dialog to demonstrate how gracefully I am taking this late stage in the pregnancy, but I don't really have anything to say. I'm feeling huge. I caught a full length view of the belly while exiting the shower earlier in the week and was completely startled by the....the massiveness that is my stomach region. I'm up several times a night to go to the bathroom. I cannot roll over without assistance. My feet are unreachable (as well as a few other body parts I'll leave to your imagination). Bathing William, changing William, and finding room on my lap for William are all becoming very difficult.

However, I don't have time to dwell on all these things because I have a list as big as my belly that needs to be accomplished. I am unable to complete simple tasks anymore. Emptying two garbage cans today took over 45 minutes to complete because once emptied required bleaching, then scrubbing. The oven and refrigerator are clean. Under the oven is clean and our pantry is now sparkling and organized. The decorative items on top of the kitchen cabinets are calling to be cleaned. The tubs and showers have been scoured. The car seat cover is washed as is the bouncy seat cover and swing. The basement windows are clean (inside anyways). The baby quilt is finished as are almost all of my baby related projects. Several still loom, but will be tackled this weekend. Today alone I made 12 different lists of things that need to be accomplished. Soon.

It is safe to say that I am nesting, and full force.

One of the items on the list was to post here with a few details that need to be tied up.

1. Big Boy Bed: Sleeping is going well. We have been successfully sleeping in the big boy bed for all naps and overnights with very few problems for almost a month now. I confess I feared we would not ever reach this point, but after a very rough first few nights, we have had smooth sailing ever since.

2. Baby Arrival: Nothing is happening that would make me think this baby is going to arrive anytime soon. Although I'm uncomfortable, I'm more than happy to keep this one inside for awhile longer to enjoy sleeping, showering, and eating. I'm also working very hard to try and enjoy these last few weeks of this pregnancy. The kicks, the wiggles, the hiccups. Soon, enough those will be gone along with my ability to sleep through the night.

3. Announcing baby Arrival: We plan (please note plans sometimes do not work out) to take our laptop with us to the hospital with us again. There is a list of family members that will receive a phone call when the baby arrives. After those family members have been reached, we will post here on the website all the important information from the hospital.

I will keep you updated as things progress up to the due date, but probably will not be able to tell you when we leave for the hospital. My OB has made it clear that when labor starts I am to get myself to the hospital as quickly as possible. From start to finish, labor with William was 4 hours. Seeing as we prefer to deliver at the hospital, not enroute, I probably will not take the time to update you once things start.

4. Medical Updates: John sees the hand doctor again next Tuesday. He continues to progress with with physical therapy and we are seeing huge improvements. Over the weekend, the fingernail fell off, which has left some question about whether or not he will be able to regrow a fingernail again. Good thing I wasn't in our relationship for the fingernails. I see my OB tomorrow. William had a recheck for ear infection on Tuesday and the ear infection has cleared up. However, we found he now has a virus - which of course needs to just work itself out.


The end