Nickname Tournament

In our family, it's important that infants have a nickname that's good enough to make even the crying during the day's 14th diaper change seem endearing. Kirsten is usually the designated nicknamer, and she does pretty well (Soren was Snuffles a.k.a. Mr. Snuffleton, based on the sounds he made during his first cold). However, Kirsten's absence during Sigrid's first week home allowed competitors to arise, and some of them will not die.

While Kirsten was gone, I dubbed the small, squirmy thing Gridder Critter, which rolled into The Griddler (with associated fussing sounds characterized as "griddling"). Since Kirsten's returned, and Sigrid's picked up a cold, Kirsten's added Schkernky [it's pronounced just the way it's spelled. -Kirsten] to the mix, echoing some of Sigrid's lovely snorty breathing sounds.

Kirsten uses Schkernky almost exclusively, and I mix Schkernky and Gridder Critter. Soren, however, is a firm advocate of The Griddler. Enough so that if he hears Kirsten refer to Sigrid as Schkernky, he says, "No Mama. Don't say that. Say 'Griddler'." Perhaps he remembers the indignity of being referred to as a sound you make when you have a cold, or perhaps he just prefers his sister's nickname allude to one of the better Batman villains.

Conversations with Soren

It seems like Soren has become a Really Big Boy all of a sudden, at least conversationally. He's been talking really well for a long time now, but I find myself wondering at the complexity, or at least the eloquence, of his statements lately.

We're enjoying a snowy day at home, so I lit a fire and turned on the Christmas music. I was puttering around a little, and Soren said, "Mommy, can you come in the living room?" So I poked my head in, and he was lying on the couch, looking pretty content. "Will you sleep on the couch with me, Mommy? There's room over there to be comfortable for you. You can put your head on that pillow and I will put my head on this pillow. And then we can look at the fire. It's nice to sit and look at the fire to make it warm and comfortable for us."

Well, then. Hard to say not to that.

So we lay on the couch together for a little while, and although he'd mentioned sleeping and asked me to close my eyes, we seem to have moved on from that plan to a different plan wherein he takes balls of yarn out of my knitting bag and pulls them all over the house to make an enormous tangle. Hey, at least it isn't the yarn I'm using at the moment. Maybe untangling everything can be our family activity for the evening.

Helping...as Much as Possible

Shortly after I got home yesterday, Sigrid woke and began crying for dinner #1. Soren was playing nearby. I looked toward Sigrid and said, "Mama will be out soon to feed you."

Soren jumped up and ran toward Sigrid and pulled up his shirt. I asked him if he was showing Sigrid his belly. He said yes, because that's what Mama does to help Sigrid stop crying.

Walking in on My Wife

Kirsten assures me that there's some sort of demand out that for my version of the birth story. So, I'll temporarily suspend my governing principle that whatever the father does during labor and delivery doesn't matter (e.g., boiling water) and give you a little window into my mind.

First, I have to reveal that Kirsten is off on certain elements of the timeline. I can't fault her for this, as she wasn't so much near clocks or paying close attention to them, but as I was teaching at the time, I was keeping very careful track of each minute. In the event of later litigation, I have eight students who can testify as to when I walked out of class.

1:40 (Kirsten pegs at 1:20) My cell vibrates with an immediate second call from Kirsten, which we'd previously agreed was to be reserved for an I-should-walk-out-of-class (one I'm teaching) baby-related scenario. I interrupt trying to figure out how to get through Halton draws before class ends at 1:45 to answer the phone in the hall. Kirsten tells me her water has broken, but since she's not contracting, I don't need to head home immediately.

1:41 I apologize to my class that the "leave immediately" alert was triggered for a non-leave immediately scenario. Go on to explain how Halton draws can expedite numerical integration in the likelihood function of random coefficients logit models.

1:48 Get back to my office after class. Call Kirsten back to see how she's doing, and see if it's perhaps time to let my parents know they need to get on the next plane from Ohio (they're on call to take care of Soren while we're in the hospital). Kirsten suggests that perhaps it's best if I come home now.

1:50 Fire an email to my 2:00 meeting with a publisher rep that I would have to cancel because my wife's water just broke. In retrospect, this is at least as effective as the dead grandmother excuse.

1:52 Call my mother and tell her to get on a plane. She sets off to find my father.

1:53 Shave legs. Why...oh.

1:55 Pack my stuff and walk out of my office for the 30 minute commute home. On the way, I think about what I'm going to do with the inevitable time in labor before we go up to the hospital: the last place you want to be before it's time to be at the hospital is at the hospital, because they just leave you in a poorly-designed waiting room. For Soren's birth, I'd planned a bunch a distraction activities for Kirsten; I was a little behind in that respect for Sigrid.

2:29 Pull into the driveway. Collect myriad empty coffee cups from my car. Throw the recyclable ones into the bin on the way into the house.

2:30 Open the door and slip the non-recyclable cups in the garbage (I recall this specifically...it was important these be properly thrown away).

Pause, as I hear incongruent crying. It isn't Kirsten, and it isn't Soren (who should still be at school). I turn the corner when Kirsten calls, "Chris...", and she's standing in the dining room holding...the crying thing. "What is crying, and why is Kirsten holding that really realistic doll?" ran though my mind (really...that stuck me as more sensible than she'd just had the baby in the dining room and was holding it). Then I saw the umbilical cord and what happened became a little more clear. Kirsten reassured me "She's OK, she's OK," as I'm sure she saw a bazillion thoughts run across my face.

Now, I'm a planner and a strategizer, and I deal with these situations by doing things...what needs to be done. But this was a situation in which I never expected to find myself, and hence I had no idea what to do (though I did remind myself that, in fact, there was no need for boiled water). Fortunately, Kirsten intervened and told me to go upstairs and get a towel...that seemed sensible.

On the way back down, I was true to my academic nature and grabbed the pregnancy book to see what it suggested I do in this situation. It reassured me that sudden, unexpected at-home births were wonderful plot devices, but didn't happen enough in real life to worry about.

Failing to find satisfaction there, I called the OB's office, where are recorded voice informed me I was second in line.

I had hesitated to call 911 because it wasn't a life-or-death emergency, but as I sat on hold with the OB, I realized I was going to have to transport this tiny, tiny baby in my car if it wasn't in a rescue, and somehow getting her into a carseat seemed challenging and inappropriate. Also, if she was going to be more than 28" from Kirsten in transit, the cord was going to have to be cut and a placenta delivered. I wasn't trained in this, and the book clearly wasn't going to be much help. So, I hung up on the OB and called 911.

In the very few minutes while we waited for the ambulance, I did take a minute to hug Kirsten and look at the baby, and even to snap a few pictures. When rescue arrived, there were no fewer than seven paramedics and supervisors in the delivery room, so it was a bit crazy.

I did get to cut Sigrid's cord, and hold her briefly while they wrapped up Kirsten. When they drove off--lights and sirens--with my girls, I rolled up the rug, set about making after-school arrangements for Soren and took off for the hospital.

Fattening Up Nicely

Sigrid, that is. I'm not sure about the other members of the family. She weighs 8 pounds! She's only in the 20th (I think) percentile for weight, which is weird after having a 90th percentile baby the first time around.

Soren is a great big brother -- he's actually actively nice to Sigrid, which is more than I dared hope for. When she cries, he says "It's okay, Sigrid! There's nothing to cry about." If she cries a lot, he starts saying "NO, Sigrid," which isn't as sweet, but we can only expect so much from him. He's also really into helping -- when I ask him if he'll do me a big favor by throwing a diaper away, he says, "Oh! Yes, yes!" and hops right to it. That's just the kind of attitude I like in my child laborers.

Chris is happy to report that he's getting over the cold from hell. I am sad to report that the cold has been passed on to me. Sigrid has it too, but she doesn't have sinuses, so she gets no sympathy from me. She's mainly just more snorty than usual... and her baseline snortiness is pretty high, so there's some major snorting going on around here. Schnerk.

Cute Baby/Big Brother/Daddy/Friends Alert

Some can't-miss pictures!

Back Home Again, Hopefully For a Long Time

We're back from the hospital after an incident-free (if fussy) night.

I'd have to rate Hasbro a 9 for hallway artwork, a 3 for computer access (couldn't get wireless in my room, but the Ronald McDonald House parents' lounge had a couple computers), a 1 for room comfort and privacy (shared a room with an appendectomy patient), and an 8 for food quality and access (there were free snacks in the parents' lounge and a 24-hour Au Bon Pain on campus). Oh, and a 7 for clown availability.

Continuing My Hospital Tour of Rhode Island: a PTSD Story

It's not me this time! It's Sigrid. She's fine, everything's fine, but she had to have a frenulectomy (very minor surgery to correct tongue-tiedness) and is being monitored for 24 hours. At the hospital. And so I'm here with her. At the hospital. It's Hasbro Children's Hospital this time, so at least I get to check another facility off my life list. Very exciting.

So Sigrid's doing well, but I'm a slight mess. When we took her in to the otolaryngologist (nice, huh?) last week, we thought the doctor would just snip her frenulum in the office, since no one [on the internet, natch] seemed to think the procedure was a big deal. Heck, when the pediatrician at Kent noticed Sigrid was tongue-tied, she pretty much offered to get a pair of scissors and take care of it right then with no preparation whatsoever. That seemed a little... barbaric, so we held out to talk to our own pediatrician. He referred us to the otolaryngologist, where, as I said, I thought we'd get everything taken care of.

The doctor looked at Sigrid, agreed we should have the frenulectomy done, and then said, "Here's the bad news. We don't do that procedure here." After two hours of waiting, that's a bummer, but um... OK.

She went on, "You'll have to take her over to Hasbro so she can get some anaesthesia."

At this point, I'd been out of the hospital for less than 48 hours. Hasbro. That's a.... hospital.

"And then she'll need to stay under observation for 24 hours."

Which means I will need to stay with her. In. The. Hospital.

I could see Chris giving me little glances. I may or may not have started twitching.

The night I'd gotten home from Women and Infants', I watched Heroes on TV, and one of the characters ended up in the emergency room. They showed her in the bed, hooked up to the IV, with the little table next to her, and that pink ice water pitcher was on the table, and I couldn't deal with it. I could not look at the pink pitcher. And now, here I am, back in a hospital, and there's that pink pitcher again. I have a real problem with that pitcher.

I cried for a little while this morning when they brought us into the room and put her in the metal crib and showed me to my uncomfortable chair which may or may not turn into a bed. I really would like to go home. I at least have enough perspective to see that this is for Sigrid's good, not mine, and so I need to suck it up, but I'm really looking forward to this night being over. Anyway, at least I'm not hooked up to anything, or wearing a johnny, and I can get up and find food whenever I want, and I brought some knitting, so I can make useless baby socks all day long (the plan is: make a sock, put it on Sigrid, she will lose it, then I will make another one).

After this, I am done with hospitals. Let's hope life cooperates.

A Sure Sign of the End Times

...or else the Percocet is affecting my brain. In either case, I actually thought today's Cathy was kind of funny. (Make sure you look at the 11/30/08 strip, because I'm guessing the strips on subsequent dates might not be, you know, funny)

They tell me I'll be able to go home tomorrow! It's a little intimidating, since I haven't been doing anything but sitting and taking pills for so long, but I think I'll be able to ease back into a normal routine pretty soon. It'll be nice to spend an entire consecutive 24-hour period with my daughter (yes, even the middle-of-the-night parts). Also, I'm really missing Soren, and I hear he misses me, too. Chris has been amazing through all this, and we're so thankful to have had help from Erica (who was finally released from duty on Friday), and now my mom, who flew out on Friday night.

Well, I suppose I should rest while I can... it's almost time to start doing all the things mothers of two have to do.

Hanging in There

Hey. I'm doing OK, but will have to stay in the hospital for at least another couple days. Watching TV and sleeping is about all I'm good for these days, but I thought I'd at least post something. I'd update my Facebook status, but the hospital is now blocking FB. So lame. Anyway, wish me luck in the major goal of being able to eat normally again! I'm looking forward to feeling better and getting back home to my family.

Two Steps Forward...

[The following is high on narrative content]

Sigrid: Was discharged from the hospital Monday. Monday night was pretty good, especially once Kirsten figured out that she wanted her arms bound in a swaddle (Soren wanted just legs), since their flailing impaired her going to sleep. At today's first appointment with her pediatrician she was back within an ounce of her birth weight. She has been pronounced in good shape. And very impatient.

Soren: Is still not sure what to make of his sister, so he mostly ignores her. But, he really likes the two trucks she brought him when she came home (thanks for letting us appropriate your present for that purpose, Mom and Dad), so she can't be all bad. His teacher said he smiled while answering questions about her at school yesterday. And yesterday evening, he asked me if Sigrid would like a goldfishy. Perhaps later.

Kirsten: Was relieved to be home with everyone, but she was sent straight from her GI appointment yesterday back to the hospital for her digestive issues. She's quite uncomfortable--since they're making her take antibiotics on an empty stomach, in addition to the discomfort of the underlying problems--and misses being with Sigrid (and the rest of us). We're hoping that now that she's not pregnant, they can actually treat the issues to resolution.

Me: I'm a little tired since I'm managing Soren and Sigrid (including the nighttime feedings; the hospital will let Sigrid stay with Kirsten, but Kirsten's in no shape). I'm relieved Sigrid seems to be holding it together eating from a bottle and sleeping in reasonable stretches at night. I curse the baby monitor for interrupting one of my stretches by beeping loudly for a new battery at 3:30am (and requiring not just a screwdriver, but a nonstandard screwdriver, to access at the battery compartment). And I'm glad Kirsten's sister is here to pitch in a little, and prevent Kirsten from going stir crazy.

I Hope I Don't Jinx Anything With This Post

Thanks for all the comments :^) My self-esteem is at an all-time high. Which is helpful, because I've been, shall we say, riding a bit of a bummer for the past few days. First, the good news: Sigrid comes home today!!!! News previously thought to be bad, but was really just caused by a false alarm: she's still a patient here at the hospital (for another hour or so), which you may have guessed already, unless you thought she was coming home today from her first Caribbean cruise or something.

Because Sigrid really can't get enough drama -- she got addicted to it with that first preterm contraction -- she decided to test positive for a blood infection on the evening of the 21st. It was a lovely scene; I was watching Jeopardy with Chris, holding little Sigrid as she snored and squeaked, and then an RN came in, told us she would have to stay in the NICU for a week due to a positive blood culture, and TOOK HER AWAY. There was more sympathy and explanation than I'm recording here, but that's mainly what I remember. They took a second blood sample to rule out contamination in the original culture, but were going to start her on IV antibiotics and put her on monitors until Friday the 28th. I was, shall we say, a wreck.

The next morning, after some sleep and a few visits to the nursery, I felt more sane and was able to look at the positives. First, Sigrid was not showing any signs of illness, so they clearly caught whatever-it-was early. Second, even though I was being discharged, the hospital was going to allow us to stay in our room as boarders, FOR FREE. Plus, it turned out, they were going to continue to give me meals. They'd move us or kick us out if a patient needed the room, of course, but wow -- what a generous policy. I guarantee that we wouldn't have had that option if we'd ended up at Women & Infants' (as we'd planned before the whole "birth plan" went out the window). Third, there was a chance -- a small chance -- that the second culture would come back negative, and she'd never really had an infection at all. We tried not to get our hopes up too much on that front.

So, in short, I prepared for a week of nursing Sigrid in the NICU and pumping and storing milk so I might be able to come home for a night or two (also as insurance in case they had to kick me out of my free room).

In the end, obviously, the second blood culture still hadn't shown any growth after 48 hours, so she's been given a clean bill of health! And we get to go home! To a different kind of madness, I'm sure (since we'll suddenly have to start taking care of two kids at the same time), but it will be our own sweet family madness, and Sigrid will finally be allowed to wear cute clothes. And isn't that what's truly important?

The Birth Story

Thanks for all the well-wishes! Sigrid, Chris, Soren and I are doing well, and I'm currently awaiting Chris' return to the hospital with the new big brother, who will finally be meeting his sister for the first time. In terms of Soren's level of interest in Sigrid, I'm guessing it will be somewhere between "I want some crackers" and "Can I push this button?" We'll see...

So, let's get down to business. The Birth Story: Timeline Form. If you're squeamish, or male, I assure you that the only slightly gross word in the story will be "placenta," and I won't be describing it or anything, so you should be able to handle this.



Yesterday morning, 8:30: Drop Soren off at daycare, then return home and read the paper. Consider taking nap.

9:00: OB's office calls to reschedule my 3:15 appointment, since the doctor's going home early; can I come in right now? Sure. I suppose the nap can wait.

9:30: Routine appointment; I'm 3-4 centimeters dilated, but still haven't felt any major contractions, so we'll just wait and see what things look like at my next appointment on Tuesday.

11:00: Return home; take nap.

1:15: Awaken from nap; remember that I have to send out a platemaking file for an invitation client.

1:16: Stop to use the bathroom on my way to my office, whereupon my water breaks. Hmmm. Well, apparently I'll be having this baby sometime in the next 24 hours.

1:17: Start putting together the platemaking order.

1:20: Finish order, call Chris. Inform him that my water has broken, but I haven't gone into labor yet, so I'll let him know when he needs to come home.

1:25: Decide it might be a good time to shower, since I won't want to do it while I'm in labor (based on how it went last time).

1:34: Shave legs. Why not?

1:35: Get out of shower. Chris calls. I have a contraction while talking to him, and it's kind of owie, so I tell him maybe it's a good time to come home.

1:50: Having gotten dressed, I decide to head downstairs, since the contractions are getting painful enough that I won't want to use the stairs pretty soon.

1:52: Call my mom; tell her I'm in labor.

1:53: Call my dad; tell him I'm in labor. End call abruptly with "I have to go," since I don't want to scare him by yelling OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAGGHHHHH into the phone.

1:54: Start contracting and making loud noises in earnest.

2:03: Maybe I should start timing these. Move into the dining room to lean against a chair.

2:04: Get back on the floor.

2:10: OH MY GOD CHRIS WILL YOU PLEASE GET HOME NOWWWWWWWWWWWW

2:12: I might call 911 if I could get up and get the phone. Alas.

2:15: Okay... there's no way I'm having the urge to push. It's way too soon for that.

2:16: This is insane. It's not time to push.

2:17: Perhaps I should think about removing my pants.

2:18: Yell like an extra in a slasher film.

2:19: Perhaps I should prepare to catch the baby.

2:19:30: That seems to be a head.

2:20: Hey, there's the rest.

2:20:01: HOLY CRAP I JUST HAD THE BABY BY MYSELF ON THE DINING ROOM FLOOR.

--

Whereupon I took a few minutes to reflect on the fact that the baby was a girl, pink, crying a little, apparently had all her parts, and would probably pass the Apgar test. Then I had some time to think about how the baby was probably kind of cold, but all the clean towels were upstairs, and I really didn't think I should start wandering around when I still hadn't delivered the placenta. So I held her close and started wondering what exactly Chris would think when he got home. When he walked in at 2:30, he was a little.... surprised.

We called 911 and the rescue truck came immediately (helps that the fire dept is right down the street), and they helped deliver the placenta, covered us in blankets and various wires and sensors, and took us to the hospital, where a curious group of nurses was waiting to ogle us and say "AWWWWWW" as we came in. After some warming up, Sigrid was pronounced Just Fine, and now we're just hanging out and waiting to be discharged tomorrow (we could have left today, but we wanted to make sure her temp was stable overnight).

Makes me tired just thinking about it all. I'm going to take a nap. Go look at pictures, why don't you?

Intro-Deuce

We are pleased to introduce Sigrid Isabel, the newest member of our family. She was born at 2:20 this afternoon. She is 6.6lbs, 19 3/4 inches long and wispy, curly hair. Mom and baby are resting happily.

There is a birth story that is Kirsten's to tell. Suffice it to say that I am awed to silence by my wife.

The Changing Tables Turned

While Soren is usually very good about going to bed, he does often resist donning his PJs. Sometimes, this necessitates the counting to three routine, as in "Daddy's going to count to three, and if you're not standing on the P [on the police station of his play mat] so I can put on your PJs, then [undesirable consequence that results in wearing pajamas and losing dignity]." Tonight, I got as far as, "Daddy's going to count to three..." when I received the reply:

"One, two, three, four. I'm going to put you on the changing table."

Yeah, I'd like to see him try. 3T PJs won't fit over my forearm.

Two Good Reasons Not to Pick Up a Quarter in the Grocery Store Parking Lot

1. You are nine months pregnant, and the ground is inaccessible to you.

2. Even if you did manage to pick it up, you would feel like a jerk for not giving it to the Salvation Army person you'd just passed, since you'd made eye contact and given her that we live in a plastic society and I don't carry any change look, and it was kind of far to walk back there with your heavy cart, because you are nine months pregnant.

OH $@!% IT'S THE FUZZ

Hey, I do my best to be a responsible parent. But it's never enough, is it? Someone ALWAYS has to go and call the cops.

I somehow found the stamina to go on a walk with Soren the other day, so we went a few blocks to the town athletic fields, which feature a gigantor hill that Soren enjoys running up and down a million times. He invited me to come run with him, which I politely declined, so I sat on the bleachers while he did his thing. Incidentally, just think how much healthier we would all be if we never lost that urge to run at top speed up and down hills just for the hell of it.

Anyway, he was running, I was sitting, and all was well. I did notice a policeman talking to some people outside the church down the block, and wondered what kind of mischief was afoot. Soren spent some time exploring the middle and perimeter of the baseball field, then brought me a dandelion (awwww), which I suggested we bring back home to Grammy (AWWWWWW) as a subtle ploy to get him moving willingly toward home (genius!), and we set off. Just as we'd crossed the street alongside the field, someone called out behind us... how did you guess? It was the police officer.

"Did you just come from the field?" he asked.

"Yes." Did Soren vandalize something while I wasn't looking? Did I somehow accidentally leave my pants on the bleachers?

"Oh, okay. I got a call from some folks who saw your little one running around, but they didn't see anyone with him."

"Oh no! Sorry! I was sitting on the bleachers watching him! I can't keep up with him the way I used to! Ha ha! [etc]" Please don't arrest me omg omg omg

"Tell that to the boys down at the station."

OK, not really.

There's actually no satisfying denouement to the story, which ends rather abruptly with me not getting arrested and Soren enjoying saying hello to the policeman. Heck, I didn't even get a stern reminder to make sure I'm always in a position to catch my son before he runs out into traffic. Must have been my lucky day!

Finally diffcharged!

How many awesome C. diff puns can there possibly be?!?!?! Okay, the answer may be none, but I'm trying my best.

Anyway, I'm back home as of Wednesday afternoon! So nice. I managed to talk my doctors into letting me take charge of my own pill-taking and hydration (i.e. drinking stuff instead of getting IV fluids, since I'd had no trouble staying hydrated before they admitted me), so they let me out. Besides the obvious perks, such as getting to wear clothes, see my family, and not be awakened five times a night by nurses (I can take care of that last one all by myself, TYVM), my push to be discharged was mainly guided by the need to stop eating their food, because -- get this -- it wasn't boring or bland enough. I know! This is hospital food we're talking about, right? And yet, even when they put me on their most boring diet, I still pretty much only had options like baked turkey and cooked carrots and mashed potatoes with lots of milk and butter. Tasty, but not even close to what I needed, and the diet made me feel worse every day I was there. At home, I've been eating noodle soup, white toast, white rice, and plain yogurt with honey, and have felt a major improvement. While the infection has yet to clear up completely, I haven't been experiencing anything close to 5 on the pain scale, which was the point I'd gotten to by the time they discharged me. The final straw was when I asked for the plainest yogurt they had and they sent up vanilla yogurt with aspartame AND high-fructose corn syrup. Sorry, friends, that is not food.

While I eat my white food and take four pills a day and wait for the whole thing to clear up, Chris's mom is here being very helpful in the areas of playing with toddlers and keeping the place way cleaner than I ever do. However, she does not have Chris's gin and tonics ready when he comes home, so I don't know how he feels about having her here.

On a completely unrelated note, the only two decent radio stations we get inside the house have switched over to 24-hour CHRISTMAS MUSIC and I want to KILL THEM. Yes, yes, there's the iPod and the internet radio and all those newfangled things, but I can't control them with a remote while sitting around on the couch. Also, it is a crime against humanity to play Christmas music for six weeks straight, because there are only ten Christmas songs total, and doesn't that make everyone go insane? Is it just me?

I've Been Diffenfranchised

Good news: The Deuce and I are still doing OK (The Deuce, I daresay, is doing better).

Bad news: we're stuck here in the hospital at least until Thursday, maybe longer. Ugh.

Other bad news, but which turned out OK in the end anyway: They wouldn't let me out to vote. Luckily, RI is so blue that it really wasn't likely to matter, but If I lived in a swing state, I think I would have had to bust out of here and do my civic duty. I might get dressed first, though.

So, yeah, I'm still here. Whatever. Chris' mom finally gets her chance to shine, and will be flying out tomorrow afternoon to help out with Soren, which is certainly a huge help to all of us. Thanks, Grammy!

I'll write more tomorrow... Sitting with the laptop isn't all that comfortable after a while, especially with four Facebook Scrabble games to deal with.

Great to be Back...

...in the hospital! SO GREAT. Don't worry, nothing really exciting or baby-related this time (except for the fact that they're interested in The Deuce's welfare in general); they just felt the need to admit me to give me some IV antibiotics for the persistent and aptly-named C. difficile. So here I am again, watching HGTV and wearing lots of plastic bracelets. Plus I have internet, so I guess that's a bonus.

The six hours in triage (or whatever they call the crappy rooms on the ground floor where they make you sit in a gown for six hours before you get admitted) were longer and crappier than usual, however. The "bed" (blue foam thing) is a lot less comfortable at 36 weeks pregnant than it was at 29 weeks, oddly enough. And the TV was apparently permanently tuned to Discovery Health, which is normally a questionable choice in a hospital anyway, but on this particular afternoon, they seemed to be running a marathon of "Dr. G: Medical Examiner," which is a really crappy show about dead people. How uplifting. It doesn't help that Dr. G's voice is more annoying than Sarah Palin's. So there was six hours of that.

Then there was the thing with the crackers. When I came in at 11, I hadn't eaten in a couple hours, but wasn't feeling great (obviously), so I sat around for a little while not really caring. After about an hour, though, I started to feel a mite peckish, so I asked if I could get some crackers. The nurse said she wasn't sure, so I waited until after the doctor came by. She gave me the go-ahead, so I asked for crackers again. Crackers were promised, but not delivered. The next time the nurse came in, I asked again. I was getting fairly hungry by this time, after four hours of not eating anything. Basically, every time the nurse came in, I asked for crackers, and got hungrier and hungrier, and received no crackers. After four hours of being in triage or whatever, they finally told me I was going to be admitted, which did not please me, but I dealt with it and called Chris to let him know what was going on. Then time passed. Continued to pass. I suppose I could have rung the call button and asked for food, but that seemed stupid, since I'm sure nurses are busy and stuff. After one million years, the nurse poked her head in again and asked if I needed anything... and through the sobbing, she somehow made out the word "crackers". "I know," she said, "it's hard to leave a little one at home. But they're resilient. He'll be fine, and you'll be home soon." I nodded at that, because she was right, it IS hard to be in the hospital and hope Soren will be OK, however: I was crying because I hadn't eaten in eight hours and wanted some damn crackers. Anyway, my obvious concern for my family must have moved her, because I finally got my wish. And then they moved me out of the room with the blue foam bed and the marathon of shows about dead people, up to my own room with a real bed and a channel changer.

As you can see, I am really preoccupied with my grave medical situation. Hopefully, the fun new antibiotics will work their magic, and I'll be able to get out of here tomorrow and have crackers whenever I want. Oh, and be with my loving family again.

Facebook is Ruining my Blogging Mojo

Hi there. It's been a while, I know. See, ever since I signed up for Facebook, I spend all my internet time-wasting time playing FB Scrabble (and Scramble, and Pathwords...), checking status updates, leaving comments on stuff, and playing more Scrabble. And so my important internet time-wasting, i.e. Anderblog, is languishing.

Meanwhile, I've also been sitting around feeling sorry for myself because I'm sick AGAIN (C. difficile this time -- if you know what it is, pity me, and if you don't, don't look it up). But The Deuce is still well and growing and getting hiccups all the time, and I think I can actually make Soren's entire Halloween costume tomorrow while he's at school, and the invitation business is picking up a little bit (although I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, timing-wise), so things are mostly going well.

Okay, I know I have to make a costume tomorrow, but I will also commit to writing about our fun weekend with the Anderson clan (Great-Grandpa Anderson's 90th birthday party was held in Newport, so most of the family was in the neighborhood). I think I can sneak some blogging in while I wait for the hot glue to dry. I mean, it's not like everyone's sitting around with bated breath waiting for my next post, but I like to have a little blogging discipline! After all, it's probably going to be a big part of the launch of my writing career. Seems to work for other people.

Pumpkin Express

Those of you who've visited us in October have probably been dragged to Schartner Farms' Pumpkin Express event, at the Schartner Farms stand/nursery, which has appealed to us primarily through the opportunity to eat saugies (RI hot dogs) and fresh red potato curly fries where it's a little too cold and windy.  We have never actually taken the Pumpkin Express itself, a hay ride out around the farm to a "pumpkin patch" with entertainment.  However, this year, we thought Soren might enjoy the express, so last Saturday we planned to try it out.

When we suggested to Soren that we would go someplace where we could ride in a trailer behind a tractor, he stopped short, his little toddler horizons infinitely expanded by the possibility.  He turned to us and uttered a breathy, dreamy "Yeah!" indicating he wanted to go.

Soren was thrilled when we got to the farm, and we stood in line, and then a real tractor pulled up, with two hay trailers.  He sat in the middle with Kirsten and I, and played with the hay, a baby truck he'd brought, and looked at the farm as we rode around.

When we got to the pumpkin patch, Soren tried out the toddler version of the corn maze, and had a great time.

Kirsten found a pumpkin and speculated about how much bigger she was going to get.

And Soren sold me some ice cream from a "booth".

Note who's holding Kirsten's pumpkin, and buying Soren's straw flavored ice cream. Sucker.

Oh, and we had lunch of saugies and fresh red potato curly fries.  Yum.  Might need to go back this weekend.

Oktoberfest

Amid the excitement and sloth of the last few weeks, we've delayed telling you about the fine time we had at the Acton, MA Oktoberfest celebration with Adam, Christi, Margot, Brian and Edith. Really, it has everything you want in an Oktoberfest, except beer, oompah bands, lederhosen, and the chicken dance.

Well, then, what did it have? Soren won a traditional Bavarian lollipop...



...and insisted on the highest form of Schwarzwald-region pastry, a frosted cookie shaped like a school bus (that cost $3 due to German wage rates, but was good for 90 minutes, so not a bad value)...


...and we saw the traditional Rhine jaws of life demonstration (which we have managed to miss by less than 10 minutes in each of our previous visits)...


...and Margot showed us some of the card tricks that are popular among babies on the streets of Berlin.

Also, we had some bratwurst, which were really pretty good, and actually something you'd expect at an Oktoberfest.

The day reminded us that we'd just missed Fall last year, since Fall in Alaska is about 20 minutes long; we just love these harvest festivals, so we'll probably go to more this month.

Overdoing the Halloween Decorations

As Kirsten's previous posts mentioned, her mom worked hard to decorate our house for the upcoming fall holiday while she was here when Kirsten was bedresting.  She made a wreath for the door, arranged mums on the stoop, cutout paper ghosts for the light fixture in the dining room, strung black skull garland over the fireplace, and apparently put a very realistic bat in the basement. What do you think?

OK, so Kirsten's mom probably didn't have anything to do with it, but that's a live bat in our basement. Right in the stairwell, at eye level when you open the door from the dining room.

We discovered it last Sunday evening, as I was putting the tools away after moving around our over-the-air HD antenna. I don't have anything against bats, so I gave it a few days to leave. It was there every time we checked, and other than possibly bat-caused thumps against the basement door on Monday and Tuesday evenings, it showed little inclination to leave. So on Tuesday night, we decided to help it. We opened the french doors and the basement door, and sat in the dark for a few hours, hoping it would just fly out on its own. No movement.

Then, I decided to help it. I put on gloves and a jacket, and armed with a tennis racquet and window screen, I swatted the wall near it, hoping it would fly away. No movement. Then I nudged it with the tennis racquet. It moved alright, but dropped straight to the floor and didn't move. Uh-oh. I trapped it in a bucket, without touching it, and carried it outside, vowing to call the health department in the morning.

When I was connected to the infectious disease nurse and explained the situation, she wanted to test the bat right away. So I canceled my meetings and drove home to get the bat and drive it to its demise in the state lab. However, when I got home, the bat had escaped. Good for the bat, I thought, it is not sick after all. However, when I called the infectious disease nurse back to share the good news the bat must have been fine, she had a different interpretation.

Long story medium-length, I'm now receiving treatment for rabies exposure. (It is extremely unlikely I was exposed, but there is no treatment for rabies so symptoms=death, and I'm not really willing to bet my life (literally) I was not sneezed or drooled on by the bat.) This is a series of shots, five on the first day, and then four more over the next few weeks. It's fine, as years of allergy shots and blood donations have desensitized me to needles, but somewhat inconvenient. 

There's also this surreal quality to receiving this treatment...I'm being treated for what?  Sorta like living in Alaska: I live where?

The All-Pervading Election

Either we're watching more election coverage before 7 PM than I think we are, or they're teaching Soren current events at school. I was reading the paper the other day, and he pointed to a picture and said, "There's John McCain!" Wha? He also knows Barack Obama by sight. And I really don't know why. I mean, their names come up in conversation at home, and he's certainly heard them mentioned on TV, but I didn't know he was getting enough election info to be able to put the faces with the names. I wonder if he can also summarize their positions on health care and the war. I'll ask him.

Daughter's Helper

So, it doesn't look like I've told you lately just how great my mom is. Let's remedy that.

When I went into the hospital, I called Mom and let her know what was going on, and she immediately volunteered to come out and help us out at home. I figured I'd be able to go home and pretty much go back to my normal life, so I told her I thought we'd be OK. Then, when I found out I was going to have to be on bed rest -- a few hours before being discharged from the hospital -- I called Mom back and asked, "So.... want to come over?" Turns out her offer was still good, and we got her a ticket for the next night.

And then began the helping. Oh, the helping. I would have been satisfied if she had just made sure Soren didn't starve or scream all day, but Mom went above and beyond. She got him dressed! Entertained him! Took him for walks! Dealt with his new whiny phase! Didn't make fun of me for taking four-hour naps an hour after getting up in the morning! Superwoman stuff. PLUS she put up some cool fall/Halloween decorations around the house, cooked delicious dinners, had Chris's gin & tonics ready when he got home from work.... actually, you know, all that stuff primarily made me look bad, so maybe I'm not so thankful for that. Kidding!

And throughout it all, she was good company. We got to play lots of Scrabble, and she let me win 99% of the time, which was really nice of her. She smuggled me out to Starbucks on my third day of bed rest, which was good for my sanity (don't worry, I sat slumped in a comfy chair the whole time we were out, so it was just like bed rest, only in a Starbucks). She taught me how to crochet, and we sat around making circles of various sizes for a few days (hers turned into cool skater hats; mine turned into... misshapen circles). Sure, lying around all day wasn't a barrel of fun, but getting to hang out with Mom made it much more enjoyable.

Mom, you turned what could have been a really stressful week into a fun visit -- thanks so much. We all love you!

In Which I Jinx Soren's First Night in His New Bed...

...by saying that everything is going perfectly so far. Chris and I got Soren a toddler bed last week, and set it up today! Yes, our huge 2-year-old was still sleeping in a crib as of this afternoon, but he wasn't climbing out, so we were happy with its toddler-imprisoning capabilities. However, we were finally persuaded to get him into a big boy bed due to The Bouncing.

Ever since he was about a year old, when we read that toddlers will often bang their heads against things to soothe themselves and then congratulated ourselves for not having a weird kid like that, Soren has banged his head against things to soothe himself. More accurately, he sits on the couch and repeatedly bounces his head against the back cushions. In his crib, he doesn't bang his head against the railing (he has that much sense), but sits against the rails and bounces his back against them, producing a headache-inducing banging sound. And gradually working the crib's screws loose. Anyway, if he's having a restless night, the banging can go on for an hour at a time, in several sessions. When you're trying to sleep, or if you happen to be sitting in the room directly under his, it's really annoying, as soothing as it must be for our little weirdo.

In order to build positive toddler bed spin among our constituency, we took Soren to pick out some sheets the other night; you will be surprised to learn that he chose Cars sheets. He was really into it -- he carried the sheet set all through the store, out to the car, and into the house. He protested a little when it came time to dismantle the crib and put the new bed in, but once it was all done, he was pretty excited (not necessarily about sleeping, but definitely about carrying his new pillow around and jumping on it). Once bedtime rolled around, we tried to tuck him in (he declined, preferring to sleep on top of the blankets), said good night, and closed the door... and he stayed in bed. And, judging from the fact that it's been quiet up there for three hours, he is sleeping. In the bed. Yay!!!! No drama!!!! So far, anyway. We'll see what happens when he decides it's time to get up -- he's usually happy to sleep until a decent hour, but he hasn't, until now, been able to choose to get out of bed and play at 5 AM. We'll see!

Paroled

I am free! Freeeeeeeeeeeeee! Actually, I've been off bed rest since talking to the doctor on Friday, so I guess I've just been enjoying my liberation too much to update the blog until now. And before that, I was too sleepy, or something. Amazing how sloth begets sloth. Anyway, since I haven't had any out-of-the-ordinary contractions since I left the hospital, I can go back to doing stuff!

So that's just a quick update to let you know I'm still alive... more soon!

Home From the Hostabul

Alternate title: A Possibly Inappropriately Flippant Post about a Serious Topic, But This is How I Cope

Hello, Loyal Fans! It's Kirsten, coming to you from the couch, here at the end of my first day of what many Americans call "Staycation," but which my doctor prefers to call "bed rest". I just got back from a couple days in the hospital with preterm contractions. That's the bad news. Lots of good news, though: the scary part is over, and The Deuce and I are both doing OK, and I'm glad to be out of the hospital, and my mom is flying in tonight to help out for a little while (let it be said, however, that Chris' parents were also quick to enlist, and may yet be called to active duty). But, yeah. I have to basically do nothing for at least the next five days, and I have no idea what the doctor will recommend once my Friday appointment rolls around.

So, how did this all happen? On Thursday, I was happily working at the computer all day, occasionally getting up to eat and pee and other fun things pregnant people do, and I noticed that my abdomen was hurting whenever I walked around. I went to pick Soren up from school, and took a walk with him, and was definitely feeling bad by the time we got home again, so I did some good old-fashioned lying down on the couch. If I'd known how much time I was going to be spending doing that very thing in the near future, I probably would have chosen a more exotic spot to lie down. Like the mall. Or the French Riviera. Anyway, once the vague pain started resolving into contractions, and I started timing them and thinking I must be wrong about how close together they were, it was time to go to the ER. Our wonderful neighbors, the Moons, were nice enough to come over at 9:00 PM and stay with Soren until Chris came home.

Once I was hooked up to the monitors, it turned out that the contractions were two to three minutes apart, and although they weren't as painful as I remembered labor being last time, they were still painful enough that I had to breathe through them, and that was freaking me out. Plus it took two nurses and four tries to get a decent blood draw from my arm, which wasn't helping. Luckily, I was only about 1.5 cm dilated, which isn't out of line for this stage of pregnancy, and the contractions weren't lasting long enough to do much further dilation, so while there was some talk of the excellent chances a baby has after being delivered at 29 weeks, it looked like we could avoid that scenario with IV fluids, a dose of Nifedipine, and 24 hours of observation.

Once we had that course of treatment settled, I felt much less scared, and sent Chris home so he could get some sleep. I daresay he slept better than I did, since the secondary mission of the hospital, next to "Serving the women and infants of Rhode Island" or whatever, is "Making sure no patient gets more than five hours of uninterrupted sleep". They're always coming in to ask you stuff, or give you a pill, or readjust the monitor because your troublemaker fetus keeps running away from it so it can't pick up his/her heartbeat. I mean, yes, OK, the main point of being there was to be treated, not to sleep, plus I got plenty of chances to sleep all throughout the next day, so I guess I can live with the interruptions. But it makes for a long night.

For a time, I was lying there thinking how much The Deuce, via the monitor, sounded like a mustang in a thunderstorm, what with the racing heartbeat and the really loud rumbling produced by his/her rolling around all over the place. GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH GALUMPH KKKKKKCCCGFFFFKKKKKPPPKKK GALUMPH GALUMPH KKCCFGGGGGGGCCCKKKKHHH GALUMPH GALUMPH. It was like visiting the high plains in the Old West. I will grant you that I was very tired when I made this observation.

The next day, my doctor told me that she wasn't sure what brought on the preterm contractions, but that I seemed to be experiencing a classic case of Irritable Uterus. Well, sure! The rest of me is irritable enough, so why not my uterus, too? If I were slightly more inspired and were allowed to, like, move, I would set up a little photo shoot at this point wherein I'd have some phrases like "Turn that racket down!" and "Get off my property, you hooligan kids!" written across my belly, and then I'd post them here on the blog by way of witty illustration. Hopefully the written description is as funny as the pictures would have been. Anyway. Every time I got up to use the loo, or someone adjusted the monitors on my belly, or the sun would shine at a particular angle through the window, my uterus would be all like QUIT DOING THAT OR I SWEAR I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND, and the contractions would start up again. So until all my lady business was in a better mood, I was going to stay in the hospital -- at least one more night. Ugh. A lot of people have it worse, certainly, and I won't say I had it really rough or anything, but still. Ugh.

I was ready to go on Saturday afternoon, so it wasn't too bad. But I had no idea I'd be on bed rest until I asked the nurse on Saturday morning, "So, are there any restrictions on what I can do when I get home?" You know, thinking that I probably shouldn't walk more than half a mile for the first couple days or lift any 32-pound toddlers. But the answer was, "You really shouldn't do any more than you've been doing here." Which, it turns out, isn't a lot.

Of course, it's great to be home again with my men. It was lonely in the hospital. Chris and Soren did get to come visit me Friday evening, and it was so nice! Soren wasn't really fazed, so I got to read him a few stories, and he ate lots of saltines from the Patient Nourishment Unit (there is a tiny room with a juice dispenser and a box of crackers in it, and that's seriously what it's called) and helped the nurse by turning off the monitor when she invited him to. The next afternoon, when they came to pick me up, I asked what they had done that morning, and Soren exclaimed, "We went to the hostabul to pick up Mama!" So I guess he was happy to see me.

He was less happy to find out that I can't get up to play with him or take walks or anything, but he's mostly dealing with it all pretty well. I think he'll be excited enough about Gramma being here tomorrow that he'll forget about me altogether.

So, there's my saga. Again, I have no idea what the doctor will say on Friday -- maybe I'll be able to ease back into a lighter, but mostly normal, routine, or maybe I'll have to lie here until November. I'd really like to be able to get up and take walks and not be a total leech for the next two months, but I suppose extreme sloth is better than going into labor before The Deuce is fully cooked. I'll keep you all updated. Hey, I have nothing better to do.

This post seems unfinished without my expressing my thankfulness for how wonderful, caring, supportive, and hard-working Chris is. I think this may at times be harder and scarier for him than it is for me now that the worst part has passed. In a way, I have to work on _not_ thinking about it too much, since stress is counterproductive, but Chris has taken on a lot this weekend in terms of worry, chores, child care, not to mention thinking about that job he has to go back to tomorrow. So even though my account of the whole ordeal focuses on the lighter side, I'm quite serious about how glad I am to have Chris's support -- not to mention the support of the rest of our family, near and far, and our friends. Thank you. We're going to be all right.

Eating and Drinking with Daddy

Kirsten decided that I've been out of town plenty this summer, so now it's her turn. She's off in Denver with her adult sisters, leaving Soren and me to a guys' long weekend at home. I understand that today she enjoyed a "Day of Beauty," which, you know, is about time because, since my spa treatments in Vietnam, I've frankly been feeling a bit out of her league.

As you might expect, the absence of Mama has led to the erosion of the sobriety, morality and nutrition of her men. To wit, last night we went to the food court at the mall to have dinner. The remnants of Hanna were blowing through and we were trapped in the house all day, so it was nice to go to the mall to stretch. We got dinner from India Gourmet, which, it turns out, is really quite tasty, and convenient since no one cares what your toddler is doing at the mall food court.

Soren and I sat at a table across the aisle from another Dad and his 6 year old. They were squabbling loudly over the conditions under which the son would eat his dinner, fried chicken fingers and white rice. Soren was seated across from me, eating happily, without whining or fidgeting, his dinner, nan mounded with saag paneer, which is basically pureed spinach. While I'm constantly aware that Soren's food policies could change at any moment (witness chocolate cake), I couldn't resist a little smugness at the contrast of Soren politely eating spinach with the older kid having difficulty with fried food with little nutritional value.

Of course, not eating fried food doesn't count for much if you're drinking the wrong stuff. Especially if the wrong stuff is canola oil. Before dinner tonight (not at the mall food court, thank you very much), Soren felt I was a little slow at getting his apple juice, so perhaps I needed some help. He went to the baking cupboard and got out a bottle and put it on the table for me to pour into his cup. However, we keep the apple juice in the refrigerator, not the baking cupboard. In fact, he had given me a bottle that was remarkably like the apple juice: a Stop & Shop brand goldenish liquid in a bottle with a narrow "waist" about 2/3s of the way up, a trimmed rectangle below, and some more ornamentation above. He had found our vegetable oil, and was insisting that I pour some into his cup for him to drink with dinner.

Fortunately, he lost track of which bottle was "his" while I was taking pictures of him with this two bottles of "apple juice", so I was able to perform the switcheroo before he sat down to dinner.  (What, you think I'm up to actually posting that picture?)

Mom's Questions about Vienna Answered

Since I seem to have blogger's block, I'll use Mom's comment on the last post as a framework. Clever me.

Don't they have any small ANYTHING in Vienna?

Yes: extremely small stitches in the insane petit point works you can get in some of the stores we passed. Other than that, everything is pretty much huge. And covered in gold. Chris and I decided that Vienna (and much of western Europe) shows that Americans don't know crap about old money, big houses, or insanely ostentatious people. I suppose Donald Trump does like to gild his possessions, but he really couldn't pull off wearing a jeweled crown and ermine stole. I'm sure the US will gain more opulence cred as time goes by, though, so fear not; in a few hundred years, McMansions will come to be seen as attractive and tasteful, and we will pay large amounts of money to pass through their rooms, which will be only sparsely furnished because the family will have had to sell everything before going into exile. I'll stop now.

What's with the Sistine Chapel for Spanish Horses?

That's LIPIZZANER STALLIONS to you, and they have an awesome riding arena because they are the best horses in the world and SO SO PRETTY. I'm pretty sure I'm serious when I say I suggested Vienna for our vacation because it was home to the Spanish Riding School, and I wanted to go see the Lipizzaners. Sadly, there aren't any shows in summer, so we didn't get to see such fancy maneuvers as the courbette or capriole, but we showed up for the morning practice and got to watch the horses trot around the ring for an hour or so. Chris claims not to have been too bored, which is nice of him. The light wasn't great for our non-professional-grade photo equipment, but we managed to get a couple nice (or artistic, at least) shots:





I've seen the Lipizzaners perform a couple times in New England; the most recent performance was at URI, by an American group, and it seemed pretty dinky compared to my memories of the show I'd seen in Worcester in 1988. Well, it turns out that the Worcester show was performed by the actual Spanish Riding School! So that explains why it had seemed about a million times better. We'd even gotten front-row tickets for free, because I'd posed for a newspaper photo with one of the horses in some Kmart parking lot a couple weeks prior. I should get my mom to scan that photo for me. Sadly, I didn't come away with any good photos of the event, because I was a dumb eleven-year-old trying to take flash pictures through a glass divider.

Why is there a dog in the bushes?

Aha! That's not a dog. It's a statue of a dog's butt. It was oddly fascinating, and I couldn't stop staring at it all through dinner.

Whose dog is it anyway?

Well, it was a pretty close likeness of the butt of what seemed to be the restaurant owners' dog. So there you go.

My guess is the folks who partake of the ever present torten only need to walk around a bit...it looks like canvasing the terrain burns a few calories.

Yes, especially if you are carrying a huge mutant baby like I am. Which you aren't so SHUT UP! YOU DON'T KNOW MY PAIN! Sorry. Hormones. Anyway, Vienna itself was flat, but Baden, Melk and Durnstein (our side trips) featured plenty of lung-popping hills and stairs. Funny, Chris didn't seem to be nearly as out of breath as I was after climbing all those inclines. Perhaps it had something to do with the huge mutant baby. Or all the eiskaffee.

Enough about you all...how was Soren's visit with Grammy & Grampy?


Oh, HIM! Right! He, of course, had a fabulous time in Ohio with Grammy and Grampy (plus some bonus time with Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dude). There were piles of toy cars to be parked in the living room, stylish new duds, visits to the children's museum and aquarium, and car trips with views of cornfields and LP tanks (which Soren apparently finds very interesting). Sadly, Chris and I didn't get to talk to him while we were in Austria, since our phones don't use GSM technology and Chris' emails to his parents about setting up time to Skype went undelivered (as were all his emails to .edu addresses, for some reason). He came back with a lovely photo album of his week in Ohio, though, so we have proof that he had a fun time. Come on -- what's better than a week with grandparents?

You know, besides a week without a toddler?

Of course, absence does make the heart grow fonder... so I'm very glad to be home with my little boy again.

Would You Like Schlagobers With Your Eiskaffee?

Grüß Gott! Sorry about the lack of recent posts, but Chris and I decided that Grammy and Grampy have been very good this year, so they deserved a week with Soren, completely free of parental anti-spoiling maneuvers. And then we figured that we've been pretty good, too, so we decided to take a trip to Vienna!

There are many things to say about our trip, and I could probably sit down and try to compose a post with narrative structure and stuff, but I would never get around to finishing. In short, we had a great time, and Vienna was, as my good friend Hannah put it, "tortenly chamberful".

Ah, the torten. I'm not sure how Austrians maintain their figures, because as far as we could tell, they subsist mainly on torten and coffee. It was hard, but we made do. Chris stuck with espresso, but since I'm eating for two and require extra calcium, I was forced to order Eiskaffee, which is a lot like iced coffee, but with ice cream instead of ice cubes. Perfectly reasonable substitute, if you ask me.


Hey! Look how pregnant I am!

Oh, and since the US dollar is getting sand kicked in its face by the Euro, Chris economized by drinking wine and beer instead of water. We cut corners wherever we can.

OK, while we're on the subject of food, I would like to pose a question to everyone who has not been to Austria or Germany, because I want to see if you're dumb like me. Quiz: which of these is a Wiener Schnitzel?

A.


B.


C.


Correct answer: B. Am I the only one who thought the answer was A? I really, really thought I was asking for a sausage when I ordered Wiener Schnitzel the other night, but then they brought out this gigantor fried cutlet, and I was like, Huh? And then I was like, Duh, wurst is sausage. My American concept of schnitzel had been warped by long-ago visits to this fine franchise, and I had no idea that schnitzel was a cutlet. In any case, it was quite tasty, and if I'm the only person who didn't know what schnitzel was, shut up because I don't want to hear about it.

There's lots more, but I'm jetlagged and don't feel like writing any more. More soon! Until then, a beauty shot of a little shack on the Danube. As always, our photos are here.

Happily Ever After

You will be thrilled to know that I did, in fact, get satisfactory results from the ice cream maker last night. No one's happier about that than I am. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Unforgivable

I'm pretty sure any woman who is now or has ever been pregnant will tell you: don't get between a pregnant woman and her food. Sadly, a member of our household broke that rule yesterday, and was almost thrown out the window.

Don't worry -- it wasn't Soren. It was our ice cream maker. We always had such a good relationship, Ice Cream Maker! Why did you betray me?????? WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!?

I'd made custard for chocolate ice cream on Tuesday (the end product has been described as "like a punch in the mouth with a chocolate bar," which is definitely a good thing), but I forgot to put the stupid ice-creamifying bowl in the freezer in time, so I froze the bowl and chilled the custard overnight, and was all ready to roll yesterday after Soren went to bed.

With anticipation in my heart, hunger in my belly, and a stretchy waistband on my pants, I turned on the ice cream maker, set the timer for 30 minutes and waited. At last, the timer summoned me to whip the towel (extra insulation) off the ice cream maker and behold...........

Custard.

Chilly custard, to be sure, but not fluffy, frozen, edible ICE CREAM which I WANTED RIGHT THAT SECOND and I COULDN'T EVEN GO TO THE STORE TO GET CRAPPY SUBSTITUTE ICE CREAM BECAUSE THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST LEAVING YOUR TODDLER ALONE IN THE HOUSE.

But I did not defenestrate the traitorous appliance. I decided to put both bowls in the freezer overnight again and give it a second chance. And yes, OKAY, I did eat some of the custard before I put it back in the fridge, but only enough to convince myself it wasn't really the same and I should hold out for the real thing.

Wish me luck tonight. I'd hate to have to do anything rash.

Taking a Break from not Blogging

I have all kinds of good excuses for not blogging lately. My life isn't that interesting -- that's a major one. Also, everyone in the house has been sick, and Chris was in Vietnam in two weeks and is now in Anchorage for a week, and blah blah blah.

Soren had hand-foot-mouth disease (it's more fun to call it Coxsackie virus, frankly) over the weekend. The poor guy was covered in spots, had a fever, and was very sad because his mouth hurt. On Monday, Renee and Ian came over (Soren got Coxsackie from Ian in the first place, so it was OK for them to play together) (sorry to out you as a disease-spreader, Renee), and we had a nice time -- walked to the park, started making muffins, put Soren down for a nap when he started flipping out because the muffins weren't done yet, finished making muffins, ate muffins. I think all the excitement used up Soren's energy for the rest of the day, though, because all he wanted to do after his nap was watch Cars. We watched it three times. And I was not allowed to leave his side, or else much whining and screaming and "Mama, are you coming RIGHT NOW?!?!?" would commence. So Soren and I watched Cars three times on Monday. Unnnhhhhhnhnhnh.

The story has a happy ending: he feels better, and is back to his usual silly self.

I went to the OB for a checkup yesterday, and she said The Deuce was measuring a little large. Uh-oh. I mean, Soren was almost nine pounds, and he never measured large. Hmmm. Perhaps my special diet of Carnation Instant Breakfast, celery with hummus, and ravioli (not all at the same time) is some kind of fetus-embiggening regimen. If only I could choose to eat other things.

Soren had to come with me to the doctor's office, which he wasn't too thrilled about, but I psyched him up by telling him a) the doctor wouldn't be examining him; and b) he would get to hear the baby's heartbeat, and it sounds like "WWSHEEWWW WWSHEEWWW WWSHEWWW". In his words, "That's pretty silly!" When the doctor got the Doppler out and started moving it around to find The Deuce's heartbeat, it made its usual crackly noises, and Soren said, "It's a thunderstorm!" Then we got to hear the heartbeat, and he thought it was quite funny. I think the only major disappointment for him was the fact that they didn't have any lollipops, which are an important part of any doctor visit.

My Google Search of the Day

Things you have to worry about when it's been too long since you vacuumed the far corner of the bedroom

Hey, I had to make sure it wasn't going to crawl out with its 100000000000 tiny babies and smother me in my sleep.

I'm Not in Vietnam

Just to clarify, Chris is the one in Vietnam. Not me. I'm having far too much fun enjoying the steamy jungles of East Greenwich to get on a plane for 16 hours. Actually, we had some sweeeet thunderstorms yesterday, which lowered the temperature nicely, so I think our weather might be nicer than Vietnam's now.

Mom and Kelly Ann left on Tuesday -- Soren and I miss them! We had a great time just hanging out and playing lots of Scrabble and Wii bowling. Mom did start feeling slightly insane really productive at a couple points during her stay -- she built some shelves for our kitchen cabinets and cut down a couple ugly bushes in our front yard. Thanks, Mom! And thanks, Kelly Ann, for making a really freaky-looking Mii that now shows up in crowd scenes and other random parts of our Wii games! He gives me nightmares! OK, not really.

Anyway, there's not much going on now... Soren and I are just going through our usual day-to-day routine and looking forward to Monday, when Chris comes back!

Four Days in Diplomatic Limbo

It seems I had a "professor moment" (like a senior moment or a blonde moment, but I was unable to carry out basic tasks in your world because I was distracted thinking about deep truths of the universe) when I was filling out my visa application to Vietnam. (Vietnam is a send-your-passport-to-the-embassy-in-DC visa process.) You see, my travels brought me to Hong Kong on the 15th, Ho Chi Minh City on on the 17th, and Nha Trang on the 21st. I simply must have read the wrong line from my itinerary, and my visa was for 30 days, starting the 21st.

I learned this at the ticket counter as I was checking in for my flight to Vietnam, on the 17th.

The ticket agent was understanding, but said she couldn't let me on the flight. (If Vietnam didn't let me, United would be responsible for my overnight quarantine and flying me back to someplace else; their liable for my presence.) I asked her what could be done, and she picked up the phone for me to talk to the Vietnamese consulate in Hong Kong (I was early, so there was no line). The conversation went something like this (I actually was feeling too stupid to be at all indignant or argumentative here):

Me: "Hi. I think I made a stupid mistake on my visa application, and put down the date for the wrong flight. Could you please let me know how I can amend it?"
...
Consulate official: "Since it was your own mistake, it would be very difficult for me to let you into Vietnam before the 21st, the date on your visa..."
Me: "Yes, I think it must have been my mistake, seeing the date. I don't want to blame anyone else for my mistake, but my scheduled flight is in a few hours, and I'd very much like to get to Hi Chi Minh City. Could you please help me with that?"

And then, somehow, he changed his mind. I think it was important that I just asked nicely for a favor. The United agent faxed my passport to him, he filled out some paperwork, and half an hour later I had a faxed letter that assured United (and me) that Vietnam immigration had been notified of my problem and that I would be allowed to amend my visa upon arrival, for a fee. (There actually is a procedure to get a visa on arrival, but....)

With my letter in hand, I got on the plane and flew to Ho Chi Minh City. On arrival, I went to the foreign visitor passport control line, where they told me to go to the arrival visa window. I went up to the glass window with one guy working, and four other guys in the back not doing much. People were coming up around me throwing their passports and visa applications through the hole in the window (there is no queuing norm in much of Asia). There was a posted amendment price of 10USD. They guy looked at my letter and my visa, and said I was OK; no fee, no editing the visa. I went back to passport control (a different officer), showed my passport and letter again, and was told to go back to the arrival visa window. I explained I'd been there and they said it was OK. The passport control officer rolled her eyes, shrugged, and stamped me through.

I'm thrilled...I made it through this ordeal, and just as my luggage is arriving on the belt. Then it hits me: all I have is a visa for four days hence, and a letter saying I would be allowed to amend it. No amendment.

Well, I avoided run-ins with the authorities for four days, and the hotel desks that needed to collect that information dutifully wrote down my visa expiration date more than 30 days out. But it was conceptually interesting to be an illegal immigrant for a few days.

Why Kirsten's going to Kill Me...

Since I was flying all the way to Vietnam anyhow, I figured I might as well take an interesting side trip to see what I could see; a friend and I took a two day trip out of Ho Chi Minh City to Cat Tien National Park. This morning, we hiked two and a half miles in (and out) to visit the Crocodile Swamp (alas, no large reptiles).

If you were to flip through the pages of a bird field guide, you'd notice a few standouts, a few you thought would be great to see. Like the black and red broadbill...


And Kirsten might even like to see a Lesser Adjutant




I think she's probably most envious of this, the Greater Flameback Woodpecker...


However, as jealous as she may be, she may not want to be here. As my friend said yesterday, "I haven't been this hot in a long time." The air is hot. And it is humid. And it is dead still. You need to walk at a good pace to generate enough breeze to dry the sweat off your shirt faster than you generate it; standing still just makes you wetter.

And, there was a big, hair five-inch spider in our bathroom at the park yesterday afternoon.

Everyone Enjoys our Yard

What's cooler than an owl in the backyard?

THREE owls in the backyard. All sitting on a branch fifteen feet away, glaring at me.

This sighting was followed (the same night and over the next few days) by glimpses of a skunk, a baby bunny, and this fine fellow:





We've decided that the owls aren't hunting mice in the grass -- they're hunting voles. For some reason, this makes me feel better. Maybe because voles won't try to come into my house and eat my cereal.

Until our yard is declared a wildlife refuge and becomes off-limits to recreational activities, we're having as much fun out there as we can. Gramma and Kelly Ann are here for a visit, and we've all been having a blast together! Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Gramma teaching Soren how to do somersaults, but here are some other nice shots:






Finally, a moment of triumph: my BEST SCRABBLE WORD EVER.



The glory is tarnished very slightly by the fact that I had to tell Mom to pick another play when she wrecked my spot. But when "QUIXOTI" shows up on your tray, and there's a shining C sitting out there, waiting to be used, you do what you have to do.

Whoooo Likes Bagpipes?

(Post title by Chris)

I was sitting on the back patio last night, reading Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City (thanks for the recommendation, Sam!) when I noticed some movement on the lawn. It looked like a squirrel or some other small mammal, but when it suddenly flew into a tree, I realized it was an owl! In my yard! An red-phase eastern screech owl, to be exact. Much like this one (image lifted from jpmatth on Flickr):



I called Chris out, and we spent a good half-hour watching the owl swoop around the yard to the haunting strains of the bagpipes, until the fireflies started blinking and it got too dark for even our Totally Sweet Mack Daddy Binoculars to follow the owl's progress.

Also, when I went out this morning to check on the garden, there was fox poo by the tomatoes.

Cool: wildlife in the yard.
Not as cool: realizing that the owl caught at least five mice in the lawn in half an hour, and there were still enough left over for a fox. On the other hand, the mice attract some pretty cool predators, and I can live with that.

Innocent

Once again, breakfast conversation is my inspiration. Another morning, another newspaper, this one with a picture of fighting, bloodied men on the front page. I try to skip it, but Soren catches sight of it and says, "What are those people doing?"

It's way too early in the morning, and in life, to tell him what's really going on, so I tell him they're talking.

"That man saying hi. How you doing, mans? They saying, 'I'm pretty good.' Right, Mama?"

Maybe it's just the hormones, but this makes me want to cry.

I don't want him to know about violence and meanness. I even have trouble with that song about the baby bumblebee, you know, the one that goes "I'm picking up the baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me.... ouch, he stung me!"? Well, the second verse goes, "I'm smushing up the baby bumblebee..." and I'm too wimpy to sing to my little boy about smushing baby insects. So I change the words to things like, "I'm dressing up the baby bumblebee.... he likes to wear sweaters!" Or "I'm cooking for the baby bumblebee... he likes mashed potatoes!" Pathetic. And yet... the thought of putting that idea into his head, where one can go around smushing baby bumblebees... it's so sad.

It's just a song, and it's not like I don't go around smushing disgusting creepy spiders, infant and adult, that defile my home, and eventually Soren will learn that people smush bugs, and hurt other people on purpose, and the men on the front page aren't asking each other how they're doing. It'll just be so hard to watch my little boy learn these things. In the end, though, there's no avoiding it, and I can only hope that knowledge and awareness will make him a better person, one who will take action to help mankind and generally be more philanthropic than I am, or at least one who will be able to keep it together enough to pick the spiders up and put them outside.

Quotable

Soren has developed a slight fondness for Cars (the Pixar movie), maybe because it's the only movie we own, but also probably because it has cars in it. He asks to see it more than once a day, generally, but I'm trying to oblige him only every other day. Or else I will go insane.

At this point, he's seen the movie enough to be able to quote parts of it, which scares me a little. The thing I love, though, is that he picks the most mundane lines to quote, at completely random times during the day. At the breakfast table last week, he busted out with, "The Jeep says, 'WHAT travelers?!?!'" Well... yes, the Jeep does say that. I never thought of it as particularly memorable, but the Jeep does say it pretty loudly, so maybe toddlers are like parrots and mostly like to repeat things that have been said emphatically. This explains both toddlers' and parrots' fondness for dropping f-bombs. Which Soren has never done, thank you very much, in case you were wondering.

Yesterday, in the car, Soren started repeating, "The red car says, 'IS IT GETTING DARK OUT?'" Another accurate quote. Actually, he'd been talking about the weather right before he said that, and he'd asked me if it was sunny outside, so I guess he jumped from that thought to the movie quote. Kind of like when a bunch of our friends get together, and one of us happens to say, "That's bad," and then we have to jump into the whole Cursed Squishy routine from the Simpsons. Yep. That's my boy.

Where's my Mac and Cheese?

Alternate title: Get Back in the Kitchen Where You Belong, Mama

The other night, Soren was hungry and I was lazy (Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc were out clubbing), so I told him I'd make him some macaroni and cheese. The Annie's kind, not the neon orange (and super tasty) kind. Don't judge me. Anyway, I apparently haven't learned my lesson yet, said lesson being: don't tell Soren you're going to give him something until it's on a plate and being carried toward him. Or else he will spend the next fifteen minutes repeating some variation of "Where's my mac and cheese? I want my mac and cheese. Where's my mac and cheese, Mama? Can I have mac and cheese?" Etc.

He asked mac-and-cheese-related questions for a few minutes while I was waiting for the water to boil, and then went off to play. After I put the noodles in, I went out to see how he was doing. As soon as he noticed me watching him, he got up and started saying "Go away, Mama! Go away!" And then he started PUSHING me. Which made me laugh, actually, because whatever. I'm huge. Anyway, I asked him where he wanted me to go, exactly, and he pointed toward the stove. "Go over there, Mama! Make my mac and cheese!"

OhohoHO.

I tried to explain that there was cooking going on without me, but he was pretty sure I was shirking, so I eventually gave up and stirred the pot a couple times to get His Highness off my back. We'll have a heart to heart about bossiness some other time. When I'm feeling less lazy, perhaps.

The Deuce's Internet Premiere

I had my 18-week ultrasound today, so Chris and I got our first good look at The Deuce! It's funny -- two days ago, I still hadn't felt any kicks and was starting (well, continuing, if you want the truth) to feel anxious, but I started feeling little thumps yesterday, and the scan today looked great, so now I feel much better. So, to celebrate, here's one of those slightly incomprehensible ultrasound pics! Hint: that grey baby-shaped blob is the baby.



High five!



Come on -- don't leave the Deuce hangin'!

Soren Knows Just What to Say...

...to butter Mama up.

We were, once again, reading the newspaper at the breakfast table this morning, and Soren saw a full-page color ad for a Turner exhibit at the Met. He pointed to the painting and said, "What's that?" So I told him it was a painting. Then he asked, "Mama painted that? Did Mama do that one?" Aw, shucks, well... no. But it's really nice of him to think I'm capable of such things. Not that he's ever seen me draw anything except hearts (at his request) and trucks (yeah, you guessed it).

Soren Reads the Times

Chris is usually reading the newspaper at the dining room table when Soren and I come down for breakfast in the morning, and we occasionally get some good toddler comments on the latest world happenings. Or at least the pictures of said happenings.

This morning, Soren was looking at the front page of the arts section and saying, "That's a brown bee. That's a brown bee, Daddy." Chris was like, Whuh? But then he looked more closely and saw that Soren was pointing to a photo of a ring-tailed lemur. Brown bee, indeed.

When I got my turn with the paper, Soren pointed to a photo on the front page and asked, "Who's that? Who's that man?" I said, "It's Matthew Tannin."

"That's Mafu Taddin." Then he asked, "What's he doing?"

"He's... riding in a car." He was actually being placed into a police cruiser by an officer, but, you know, details.

"He's driving a car! He's happy!"

Sweet, innocent little boy.

E.G.'s Happenin' Music Scene

It's Wednesday night, or, as we call it here at Ichabod House: Bagpipe Nite! Almost every Wednesday, a small group of bagpipers, occasionally accompanied by a drummer, practices in the empty parking lot across the street. It's pretty cool, although I wish: 1) they would write more than two songs for the bagpipes; and 2) they would stop playing at 7:30. But besides that, it's amusing, and toddlers like to dance to it (just ask Soren and Ian).

Last Wednesday, after Chris got home from work, we all took a little walk around the neighborhood and stopped at a playground for a little while. We could still hear the bagpipes pretty clearly through the neighborhood from a quarter-mile away, so I guess Ichabod House isn't the only one that gets to appreciate Bagpipe Nite. Anyway, after a little while, we started hearing a drummer playing not too far away, so we went to check it out... and there was a fife and drum corps playing at the Kentish Guards armory! They, too, were being appreciated by toddlers, as several families sat across the street listening. The fife and drum corps practice is apparently another regular Wednesday thing in summer, so I guess we'll have our choice of old-skool flava. It's kind of awesome.

Bii My Friend

OK, all you people with Wiis, I need more Wii buddies! I don't think there's any reason I shouldn't just post my Wii info online, so here goes... if you want to use these to stalk me somehow, I'd be interested to see how you manage to pull that off.

Console ID: 4653 1210 0847 5760

Dr. Mario Online friend code: 1895 0608 1184

Mario Kart Mii numbers:
Kirsten: 0817 4948 5014
Chris: 5327 2105 1280

That's a lot of numbers. Now send your IDs to me!

If You Live in Alaska, Go Ahead and Laugh

Okay, I admit it.... I'm full-on crazy jealous of my friends in Anchorage right now, because it is freaking gross hot here, and will continue to be so for a few days. Yesterday, on the first day of the heat wave, when it hadn't gotten hot in the house yet, I was feeling all green (ecologically-minded, not nauseated) and was like, "Oh, let's not put in the air conditioners this year. It's not that bad! The house is shaded!" But today, I'm feeling more like punishing the environment, because it started being mean to me first, so the ACs are in. Plus Soren is running a little fever, so we should probably be nice to him.

My poor little guy -- all he wants to do is sit on the couch and watch me play Mario Kart. Chris will get extra Father's Day props this year, because he's been doing things like washing the deck and fixing the bulkhead out in this heat, and I'm somehow taking care of Soren by playing video games. I'm sure it will all even out somehow as I get progressively larger this summer and suffer terribly as I carry his unborn child, but for now, Chris is the hero. Go Chris! You rock!

Someone... Doesn't Get It

A bumper sticker I saw recently:

"Don't Blame Me - I Voted for Nader"

I'm kind of surprised the sticker was still intact.

Happy Birthday to Soren!!!!!

Our big boy turned two today! We've had a couple parties for him, and there's been a steady flow of presents coming in for the past couple weeks, so I think the end of the birthday season might be a little tough on the poor guy, but he's had a great time. Grammy and Grampy Anderson visited over Memorial Day weekend, and the Pressers (Chris' aunt + uncle + cousins) joined us for party number one, and then a bunch of our friends came over yesterday for party number two. There was cake both times, and lots of Cornhole.



And babies with fake mustaches.



For the actual big day, we went to a lovely garden with the local moms' Meetup group this morning and enjoyed the fine weather, and then got some ice cream with our friends Renee and Ian. Soren and Ian are pretty cute together.



Soren thought is was a perfect day to show off his birthday belly.



Happy birthday, Soren! We love you!