Micaela's Birthday

This year's birthday party was a success. I don't think it beats last year's where Kurt, Mike, and Todd (adult neighbors) had to leapfrog because not enough kids showed up, but Micaela had a great time. This year she chose to have it at the YMCA pool after we said no to Water Country USA. Ten kids showed up which was plenty. Going on some advice from mom, we played balloon games (which were a hit), then had cake and opened presents, and then they went swimming. Micaela got a bunch of Littlest Pet Shop animals and a few Webkins, so she was very happy. The only downside was that Micaela couldn't pass the swim test that you needed to do to go down the slide, but neither did one of the other girls, so they just played in the pool. Anyone have info for swimming lessons in Capo? Jon was great and slept through screaming kids, popping balloons, and just general mayhem. I was running the show so I didn't take too many pictures, but you'll get the idea:

P.S. Her real birthday isn't until Monday, so you didn't miss it.

Home Sweet Home

Okay, just so you know, I had planned to spend this afternoon cleaning our garage which is a DISASTER (you can't even walk through it) but since I'm starting to get grief for not having an updated blog, I'm going to write this instead. The trip to PA went well actually. The car didn't shut down on us, it didn't catch fire, the wheels didn't fall off, the baby slept the whole way and so did the dogs, and no one got sick. Pretty amazing, huh? The camera couldn't quite capture how crammed in we were, but those are the dogs in the other seat:

I didn't really bother getting settled in at Kurt's parents house because Kurt was leaving right away for Fort Indiantown Gap (FITG) and had asked if I wanted to go down there with him and stay at the hotel there. I knew he really just wanted to show Jon off to all his friends, so I agreed. On the way there I stopped by Elysburg to see mom and dad and to pick up the Jeep. While I was there, Kurt did a fly-over of the house (his appearance halted the gun-show going on just down the street). This is a picture of farmer dad (he was even chewing on grass) outside waiting for Kurt to show up:

After Kurt's drill ended we went back to State College for a day and just hung out and Sharon stole Jon and took him around to meet all the other relatives. The two boys are cousins Nicolas and Kendall whose clothes Jon has inherited:

Kurt had to leave again for FITG on Tuesday and again asked if I wanted to come with him. I really didn't have anything to do at his parents house, so I asked them if they would watch Micaela and the dogs while Kurt and I had a mini-vacation. This time Kurt booked us a really nice room in what is called the Union Canal House. The downstairs is a restaurant and the upstairs has rooms and the attic had an apartment, which is what we rented. It was a little tricky going up the steep stairs with the car seat and diaper bad, but it was worth it for the full kitchen (which never caught fire) and jacuzzi tub. It was a really nice place to relax while Kurt was at work.

When Kurt wasn't flying, we walked around Hershey, went to eat, and went sightseeing (look at the street lamps). It actually smelt like chocolate at the place where I took these pictures, everywhere else smelt like cows:

Kurt's boss's wife works for Hershey, so anytime we wanted suggestions for what to do or where to eat, she hooked us up. This picture was taken at the Hershey Pantry where I had the best stuffed frenchtoast.

On our last day in Hershey we went to the Hershey Gardens which I've wanted to do for a while. We considered having our wedding there before we decided on having it in CA. It was really pretty but I didn't like the little flying bugs that live around the flowers.

This is a picture of Hershey Park and the Hershey factory taken from the Gardens:

After spending a few days in Hershey we went back to State College and Kurt and I played in a golf tournament with Larry and his twin brother Gary. It was nice to get out and get some exercise and I actually hit the ball really well for not having played in over 9 months. Sharon was nice enough to babysit for me and I did really good not calling to check on Jon every 5 minutes. On Sunday I was feeling ready to leave. Kurt's mom was really nice and gave us her room with the King bed in it and Jon had Micaela's old room, but it just wasn't home. I was always worried about him waking everyone so I just wasn't sleeping all that well. Don't worry mom and dad, I won't worry about him waking you. Because everyone was so good on the way up, I decided that I could handle taking the baby, Micaela, and the dogs on the way home. The trip went well, despite a potty stop in the middle of nowhere and getting stuck in D.C. traffic even though it was 3pm on a Sunday (while I was in traffic I was silently berating Kurt who was driving the Audi to the golf course to play with his dad). The last thing we did before leaving was take the first picture of all 4 of us. It took three tries to get a decent picture. I have to put the bad ones up, because I think they're funny. (the first one was taken from a bad angle, my legs aren't really that huge)

And finally, pictures of Jonathan:

First Car Trip

Wish us luck - tomorrow we are going to take our first long car trip up to PA. Kurt has drill this weekend, then he's flying all next week and then there is a golf tournament the following weekend, so I'm going to go up with him so that I'll have his parents around to help with Jon and Micaela. It will be an interesting drive trying to fit all our luggage, Jon's stuff, the stroller, the dog stuff and golf clubs into the trunk of the Audi. And once we have the trunk packed, we get to fit the baby, Micaela, and two dogs into the back seat. I have a feeling that it won't go well and I'll end up being the one in the backseat cleaning up after the carsick dogs and the kid. I'll post from PA if I can, if not, check back after the 23rd. Here's to hoping that I have better luck than Mari!

Little Bob

Kurt and I think that Jon looks like Bob, poor kid, it's probably because of the hairline -

One more baby

I guess Micaela was feeling left out since Aunt Weezy had Anabelle to take care of, Georgia had Willie, and I had Jonathan, so we went to Target today (our first outing without Kurt or Mari, yeah!) and she spent her allowance on a Baby Born. The doll takes a bottle, pees, burps and you have to change the diaper. I told her that Jon does all that and he's free (so-to-speak) but she wanted her own baby. She's still playing with the dolls that Grandpa Dennis got her for her birthday - twins Jonathan and Sofia (thank God that didn't really happen) - and has added a bigger doll named Caroline to the mix. It's pretty cute. Here are some more pictures that we took today. I think the white Michael Jordan onesie is funny because he couldn't be more caucasian with his light skin, blond hair and blue eyes.

The Craziest Week (and a half) Ever

Mari is right, I am completely incapable of multitasking. It's been a week and a half since Jonathan was born and I'm just now starting to feel like we have things under control. Mari did a pretty good job of summarizing everything, but here it is from my point of view.

Jonathan's Birthday:

I went in to the hospital on Tuesday night and found out that the baby had an irregular heartbeat. That in itself wasn't bad, but it meant that they couldn't accurately monitor him and if he were to go into distress they wouldn't know about it, so a few hours after they gave me medicine for the induction they decided to do a c-section. Kurt had previously told me that if that were to happen he really didn't care to be in the room, and I didn't mind, but when he asked that night the nurses told him "you DEFINITELY need to be there" so he got stuck being in the operating room with me. The initial dose of anesthesia didn't completely work, so the doc gave me some other good stuff that knocked me out. I guess the surgery was a little more complicated than expected (with the baby being so big and having the cord around his neck) and at some point the doc said "oh shit - put that back!" which Kurt didn't really take well to since he couldn't see what was going on. All in all, the baby was fine and I recovered really quickly. Because of his heartbeat, they kept Jonathan in the neonatal nursery for the first day and I just went over there to visit him. The nurses at Langley were great and the doctor and pediatrician also stopped by each day to check on us. After being discharged on Friday (I was definitely ready) we went down to Portsmouth Naval Hospital to have Jon's heart looked at to make sure there wasn't a bigger problem. The hospital down there is really nice and the specialist we saw spent a half hour doing a sonogram of his heart and said that everything looked perfectly normal and that the strange beat would probably go away on it's own and even if it didn't it really wouldn't have to much of an effect on him, just something we need to watch. Finally we went home and I took a shower and went to bed.

In the NICU

Waiting for me in my hospital room

The first few days at home and the Fire:

The first night at home sucked. Jonathan didn't sleep at all (he was probably hungry the whole night), we forgot to get the diapers and wipes out of the guest room that Kurt's mom was staying in, and just didn't really have a plan at all. The next day I woke up in the morning at a normal time and somehow managed to function for the rest of the day - adreniline I imagine. Mom and dad were great and took Micaela which make the day a lot more relaxing, but I didn't get to see too much of them. The one time we had everyone together for dinner, I fell asleep upstairs on the couch and didn't socialize. The next day was pretty much the same with people coming to visit and lots of naps. My memories are kind of blurry since I was so tired. That night was memorable though, since that's the night the kitchen caught fire. Kurt and I were both exhausted from Jon not sleeping and at midnight Kurt went downstairs for something and saw that there were some bottles on the stove that needed sterilizing. He turned to pot on and came back upstairs to see how I was doing with the baby. I had finally got Jon to sleep and was in bed falling asleep myself so Kurt laid down with me. After sleeping for about 45 minutes the fire alarms started going off. The water had boiled off and the plastic bottles melted and then caught fire and produced about a 2ft flame. I woke up and Kurt was already gone (he realized what had happened and was putting out the fire). I opened the bedroom door and saw a bunch of smoke so I closed the door and grabbed the baby who was sound asleep for the first time. Then I just stood there kind of dazed until I heard Larry (Kurt's dad) yell, "everybody out". That got me out of my daze and I realized that the next step was to get out of the house. We all went downstairs (which was REALLY smokey) and out the front door. I told Kurt that I left the dogs in our bedroom and he went back inside to get them. He had already put the fire out and decided that the next thing to do was to start opening up the windows to get some of the smoke out of the house. I didn't really like him spending so much time in the house with all that smoke, but he wanted to mitigate the amount of damage. We contemplated calling the fire department, but since there was no fire, decided against it and I called Dad instead. He brought Mom and Mari over with a diaper bag, some shoes and a new t-shirt for me. Larry, Sharon, and Micaela went and found a hotel and Kurt, Jon, and I went to the hospital to get checked out. Because of some nasty car accidents that night, we were in the emergency room for the next 6 hours for pretty much no reason. They did one test on me, none on the baby (his arteries were too small) and a couple on Kurt and decided that we were all fine. With all the chaos, there was no way I was breastfeeding so I gave Jon some formula and he was a superstar and slept the entire time we were in the hospital. Total sleep that night for us - 45 minutes. After we left the hospital we went back to the house to check out the damage. Except for the nasty plastic smell (which was better than before), the only damage was some melting of the knobs on the stove and a little charring of one of the cabinets. Because we had guests and the new baby, instead of waiting to call a company to come clean the house and get the smell out, Kurt, his parents, and some really nice neighbors, spent the rest of the day cleaning the house top to bottom. I mean they moved all the furniture out of the rooms, washed EVERYTHING that was out in the open, washed all the dishes in all the cupboards, vacuumed and scrubbed all the floors, etc. I can't even imagine how exhausting it must have been, especially for Kurt and his parents who hadn't gotten any sleep. I took the baby and went to Mom and Dad's hotel and slept for a few hours and then went to the outlets with Mari. I felt a little bad since everyone else was cleaning, but we couldn't be in the house because of the smell, so I had to do something. Going out with the baby wasn't too bad, but it was nice having Mari there, I would have been nervous by myself. That night, we all went home and were able to sleep in the house, which still had a burning plastic smell, but was getting better.


Last Week:

Last Wednesday was the first day that we were home by ourselves without any visitors. I'm so glad everyone came out, but it was nice to have a quiet house again. After seeing the success that the formula feeding had the night of the fire, I decided that breastfeeding wasn't worth it. With formula you can tell how much the baby is eating and Jon eats WAY more than the nurse at the hospital said he would. No wonder he wasn't sleeping those first few nights. He'll eat 5oz and then sleep for 5 hours, which is really nice. We had one lucky night where he slept for over 6 hours - our first full night sleep (FFNS). We now have a system down where we put him to bed in the nursery and take turns getting up to feed him. It's working well, and except for one night that I got a fever and chills, we've been getting a decent amount of sleep. Micaela has been great with him, she likes feeding him and playing with him, but gets bored after a few minutes (which is expected). Now that the house is back in order - it took until last night to finally get everything cleaned up from the fire - I can start doing some of the other things that need to be done (i.e. get his birth certificate, pay our bills, check the mail, etc). I've been horrible about picture taking and don't even have a picture of the four of us yet. I'll make sure I carry my camera around next week.

Weezer here again.

Seeing as Liz clearly is not as skilled at multi-tasking as I am (holding a baby and typing, for example) I am doing her a favor and keeping Doug happy by telling the soon to be infamous burning-boiling-baby-stuff story over on my blog.