Nursery Ideas

As many of my friends and family prepare to welcome their new children into their lives I look at Miss Daisy's room and groan. I never was really able to decorate her room/nursery the way I wanted to and now with baby #2 on the way and I see my various friends and family members inspirations/things they have done with their nurseries I groan again because with baby #2 he will be first sharing our room, and then sharing a room with his sister and her VAST collection of toys. So I have no ideas how to decorate my wood panneled "nursery" for a 3 year old girl and a new baby boy!

I wonder though... in all those blogs about how beautiful so and so's nursery is and how perfectly put together it is... how long does it stay that way? I remember that its not entirely impossible with a newborn but add a 3 year old that NEVER stops (her grandmother had her today and she can attest to that) and how long do you think this haven will actually stay spotless?

What a WEEK!

This has been a week of many trials but even more blessings.

Sunday on our way into church I slipped and fell in the parking lot. In a huge puddle soaking my dress and scraping my hands and knees. Boo hoo. I trudged into church and got as cleaned up as I could and had my little one protesting the abrupt wake up call for the rest of the day but he proved that he was fine with all that movement.

Later that night (a week ago today) as my father was heading downstairs to bed he tripped over the "puppy gate"(The gate that is at the top of the stairs to prevent their little Yorkie Lucy from making the bottom of the stairs her own personal potty.) There are claw marks on the wall where he tried to catch himself. He suffered a severe compound fracture of his left wrist and was pretty banged up. {now friends I have considered posting a picture of his wrist prior to being reset but I thought such a graphic image might be disturbing to readers, lets just say it was bad and it literally made my knees shake and I WORK in the ER and see stuff like that on a pretty regular basis!!!}

That however was not the end of the excitement for the night as my mother was rushing my dad to the hospital she hit a huge Buck at the top of the hill in her brand new (to her) car which she had had for less than two weeks at that point. She called the police and explained that my dad was in serious pain from his wrist and that she would like to keep going, they told her they would just meet her at the hospital.

When at the hospital the police told her she really should not be driving her car anywhere. All of my siblings showed up to help "take care" of my parents my big brother even drove the hour and a half down from Pocatello to come make sure all was going to be alright.

My parents spent Monday at the family doctors office to have my Dad's blood pressure checked and to alleviate the pressure that the splint had put on Dad's arm, which was black and blue and swollen to epic proportions. Tuesday was spent with the orthopedic surgeon to check his arm too swollen to cast come back on Thursday. I actually went to the Thursday appointment and they re-splinted his arm which was swollen even more AND black and blue and yellow all the way from his sausage like fingertips to his elbow.

Later Thursday night I just wasn't feeling so great, I had been having contractions on and off all day long but as I went out to book club at my parents house I knew something was up. I tried to ignore it, stupid braxton hicks but my mom could tell that something was up as soon as I walked in the door. As book club ended it was too the point I couldn't catch my breath and there were some other things going on that lead me to believe it would be a good idea to head up to the hospital to at least get checked out.

My brother and sister in law came over and picked up Miss Daisy and Mr. Chase and I headed up to the hospital. After a myriad of test and being monitored and discovering I had dilated to 3 cm and was 70% effaced I was actually in Labor. Which at 34 weeks was not a good thing. So they loaded me up with drugs to stop my labor they opted to keep me overnight to monitor things and continually drug me ever 4 hours.

Friday morning my doctor came in and told me that since Henry is still so young they wanted to give me the rounds of steroid shots to help his lungs develop. HOLY COW talk about a major shot, they sent me home and I could hardly move for the rest of the day, which is good because I'm on pretty strict bed rest. I can get up to go to the bathroom and if I do much more than that my contractions return with a vengeance.

Meanwhile Friday afternoon, my sisters husband had surgery on his shoulder, which thankfully went well. My sister brought me Grace right before her husband went into surgery. Grace was pretty content watching movies and playing with toys for the better part of the afternoon. Which in itself was a small miracle.

Saturday I had to return to L&D for my second steroid shot, to be rechecked and have Henry monitored. My mom took me up and didn't even laugh when I got my shot and held my hand when the nurse tried to touch my brain from the wrong end. Good news, I haven't progressed anymore so the medicine is working and more good news Henry is head down!!! Hurray!

Henry was a little stinker though and wouldn't perk up enough to pass the make sure his heart rate accelerates enough over a period of time so they ordered a biophysical ultrasound to be done, but low and behold there was a trauma one down in the ER and there was a 6 hour wait to get an ultrasound so rather than keep me all day, Henry decided that the sound of the monitor was really starting to bug him so he did the appropriate accelerations and they finally sent me home. No having to wait for the ultrasound. And good news my mom was able to go get the majority of her errands ran while I watched the better part of Dances With Wolves- the music in that movie alone makes it worth watching.

So now I'm home heavily medicated feeling pretty miserable BUT STILL PREGNANT and lounging about in bed, ha ha ha, is that possible when there is an almost three year old about?

The Imagination

When was the last time you went swimming in the sink?

Hard Knocks Life

Growing up, many a Friday nights, the better part of Saturdays and anytime family was coming to visit from out of town we spent our time scrubbing the house from top to bottom, "Make it SHINE like the top of the Chrystler building." One or both of my parents would tell us.

"Why do you think we had children? To do the house work of course!" (insert evil laughter here)

Growing up I always thought this was true! My parents didn't love me they just wanted me (and my siblings) to be their slave! My father would turn on the music of Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and we would clean the entire house and it had to be up to my parents standards of clean not just the quick once over. It was pure torture!

Well, now that I am a parent I have realized that this exercise in abuse may not have been ENTIRELY horrible, it takes a LOT of WORK... not just work HARD WORK to raise children, and children make messes... CONSTANTLY. So in an effort to make up for the countless hours I have already spent picking up after this little girl I have decided its time to put her to work.

The best part is she ENJOYS this! In fact if she notices me picking up the front room she runs to the hall closet and pulls out the vacuum. She knows how to plug it in and get it going. She's not the greatest maid in the world but her Mother has been taught by the greatest housekeeper, who was also taught by a master housekeeper, she is destined to be GREAT.

Holiday Movies

Ask any member of my family and they will tell you, I am a Scrooge. I am not a huge supporter of the Holidays, I haven't been for YEARS now but I do my motherly duty of decorating and putting up a tree and doing the things that one does around the holidays. ie. Baking cookies, making candy, and crafting cute little holiday items. Don't get me wrong, the TRUE meaning of the season is not lost on me and don't think that I am some horrible person for not enjoying the Holidays I just despise the over commercialization and the pettiness that they seem to bring.

When I was living with my grandparents as soon as the HORRIBLY cheesy and mushy Christmas/Holiday movies started their rotation on the television that's what we would watch. My Grandpa Ben whom I adoringly call Grumpy, would insist that I watch the movies with him, his running commentary made the movies worth suffering through, "Oh Ommilie do you think ____ will make it?" He would laugh and laugh. Ugh, I loathed the predictable plots and overly sappiness and sentimentallity of it all, BAH HUMBUG! He would constantly tell me that when I moved away I would watch as many Christmas movies as I could.

Well, now that I have moved away and have some control over what is watched in my home I think I have done quite well at preventing heart warming holiday shows from creeping into my home. HOWEVER being the good, loving, caring mother that I am, I have allowed the Classic Christmas cartoons and claymation sneak into my home, in fact I even sat and watched the classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with Daisy last night. I realized that like with many Dr. Seuss books I could quote nearly the whole thing.

As I set forth to face the remainder of December and the Holiday movies that are yet to come I have to remeber the wise words of The Grinch-"What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."- Dr. Seuss.

What Does December 1st Mean To You?

For the average person living in Northern Utah the first of the December this year was just that the FIRST day of December, nothing incredibly special or fantastic. However for this goofy girl the first of December brought her FAVORITE holiday well technically Sundown on the first of December brought my favorite holiday. That's right, HANNAKAH is here.

How did this gentile celebrate? Actually I put up my Christmas tree believe it or not (embarrassed smirk) My mennorah is still safely tucked away in its storage place -next to all my Wizard of Oz ornaments - that sadly stay packed away due to my two year old that thinks anything Wizard of Oz is HERS- wonder where she got that from? That's besides the point though, I am looking forward to making latkes and doughnuts and pretty much frying everything I possibly can, yes this very pregnant blogger is into fried and sweet. Poor Henry has a sweet tooth. I really don't know where he got it from, I am not typically into overly sweet things however the things I crave right now are generally sweet treats.

Here is my Hannakah themed Christmas tree. Since its stuffed into the corner, I only decorated 3/4 of the tree. My little girl woke up from her nap just as I was finishing and she insisted in helping me decorate the so we pulled out the silver snowflakes you see floating around and she threw them at the tree. Nice arm huh? And here she is hamming it up for my horrible cell phone's camera, and do no fear, the black splotches are from the camera Daisy does not have a horrible gash on her chin.