Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be...

Three-year-olds. Because three-year-olds have a tendency to inflict questionable fashion choices on their newborn siblings.

First Family Pictures!

Photos from our first weekend as a family of four:
(I have more, but I'm going with what's here since Blogger is throwing hissy fits today.)

The proud Big Brother...

Who baked a birthday cake...

"Lookit, Mommy! Kieran brought me a train! He knows I like trains!"

Kieran at ten minutes old...

Mommy and the boys...

Kevin and Kieran...

Big and Little Brothers...

and

Kieran, at the end of his first day....

Leonard Is A Big Brother!

Introducing:

Kieran Andrew
Born at 8:46 AM, March 23, 2007
8.0 lbs
20 inches

A picture perfect homebirth!

More details and pictures to follow in future posts!

Gee, Do I Feel Popular!

I have never had so many hits on this blog as I've had in the past 24 hours. I never thought so many people would be popping by looking for baby news!

At any rate, thanks for all the support, everyone. The problem is that there still is no baby news. I have been reassured by both my midwife and my doula that there is in fact a baby due any minute now, but I gotta tell ya, this whole thing is beginning to feel a bit unreal...

So - as soon as there is anything to report, I'll report it. Hopefully soon! Hang in there, guys.

Who'd Have Thunked?

I am prone to overthinking every little and big thing that comes along in life. (To the various assorted family members who read this blog and are now falling off their chairs in laughter as I once again state the obvious - knock it off. I'm going somewhere with this.)

Not so long ago I saw Liam "feeding" one of his dolls with a toy bottle. I freaked out at such obvious evidence of my negligent parenting skills. "Oh, no!" thought I. "I have marred my child for life by even allowing a toy bottle in the house. Now he will never appreciate the vast importance of mother's milk, and not only that but, oh my stars and garters, he might even believe he was raised on bottles, and oh no the end of the world is surely looming any moment now....But wait! Perhaps this could help him understand that different people do things differently, and that's OK, too. That would not be the end of the world, would it?"

I told Kevin this story, and his response was, "You're way overthinking this. He's just playing. Tomorrow, why don't you ask him about the bottle?" (Yes, my overanalysis of the situation was keeping me, and as a result, Kevin, awake.)

What was Liam's answer when asked why he was using a bottle? "I was pretending to be a Daddy, and Daddies are boys . They don't generally have milk in their nipples."

Oh, right.

Today at the grocery store I spent several minutes in the produce section debating whether I should buy a platter of cut-up fruit or buy the whole fruit and cut it up at home. "Hhhhmmm," thought I. "Buying the cut-up fruit exposes us to a potential food poisoning risk, and the fruit comes in plastic trays which might not be recyclable, and Liam likes to help me cut things up. But! I'm way pregnant. Too pregnant. I'm tired. It would be so easy to just buy the cut-up fruit, and then after the baby comes and I have some more energy*, I can resume buying the whole fruit. But then I will be exposing my son to the evils of convenient consumerism and not teaching him about the environmental treachery of overpackaged products. But I'm tired, but, but..."

The problem was solved for me when, as I stood in silent reverie considering my various options, a less neurotic less analytical shopper scooped the last package of fruit out from under me.

I could tell Kevin about the fruit problem tonight, but I probably won't. For some reason he is prone to telling me, "You know what? You need to turn your brain off and go to sleep." Which is not only true, but impossible for me to actually accomplish.

Now, see, those who know me only through my blog might not suspect that I am such an overthinker, since in recent months pregnancy and a certain Great Big Doggie have drained me of much energy, and I've been posting cute kid/cute ferret stories out the wazoo. Also, in all honesty, I don't blog much about the worries I have since I originally envisioned this blog not only as a repository of day-to-day minutia that might otherwise never reach my long-term memory, but also as an mental escape from overthinking things.

But I guess my non-intellectual cover was too thin, as the very thoughtful Dana has awarded me the very cool Thinking Blogger Award, and it turns out that with this award I'm joining some fine bloggers who are well-known for thinking and thunking. I'm surprised but hugely flattered to receive this award - it honestly has made my whole weekend. Thank you for the honor, Dana!

(And also? Thank you for distracting me from my overdueness. Yes, for those who are here only for baby news and have been forced to read this far, we have no new baby here. In theory, he should arrive soon. Maybe tomorrow. Time will tell. I hope.)

And now, without further delay, I get the fun duty of awarding these cool, shiny Thinking Blogger Awards to some folks who routinely challenge my neurons:

Amy and Kevin at BlogSchmog
Amy at Musings of a Crunchy Domestic Goddess
Phantom at Phantom Scribbler
Opal at Raw Vegan Momma
CCW at Destined to be the Crazy Cat Woman

Come pick up your buttons, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks to all of my fellow bloggers who make me think, and laugh, and cry, on a regular basis.

*OK, y'all are now allowed to fall off your chairs with laughter.

Status Quo

Move on, folks. Nothing to see here. Same old, same old. To wit:

Leonard the Great Big Doggie Who Goes WOOF! still lives here. But, thanks to Gran-Gran, he's got himself a proper doghouse. Woo-hoo!


Spring is still here. There is no snowstorm going on as we speak. School was not cancelled today.

(OK, I lied. There's four inches of sleet and snow outside, and this picture was taken on Wednesday. But it will be as nice as the picture shows soon, I hope, and it's a cute picture. )

Also? My mother-in-law is a saint. Not only has she entertained Leonard pretty much single-handedly this entire week and done most of the laundry and dishes, but she also manages not to roll her eyes when I'm lazing around on the couch complaining about being overdue and robbing her photo album of cute kid pictures.

Thanks for saving my sanity, Mom. Hopefully things will liven up here in short order. Preferably after the roads get plowed tomorrow.

Saying "No" To Salespeople, Effectively

I have just discovered how to render a door-to-door salesman speechless. At least if the company he's representing is named "United States Beef Purveyors." When said salesman knocks at your door announcing that he's got "great specials on T-bones, Kansas City strip steaks, filet mignon, and other prime beef cuts," don't just say, "No, thank you." The answer you are looking for is "Sorry, we're vegetarians." He'll give you a really funny expression, his jaw will drop, and he will walk off without another word. Guaranteed.

Y'all can thank me later.

Spring Has Sprung

Yup, Spring has sprung. It's 70^o outside today, bright sunshine, and we have a robin building a nest in our weeping cherry. I'm not so sure about the mental status of the robin as he's building this nest out of what appears to be typewriter ribbon, but he looks happy, so, OK.

We've spent a lot of time outside in the last couple of days, and I've realized that sometime over the winter the great big doggie reached some milestones. He can reach the mailbox and take out the mail without being lifted up first. He can turn the hose nozzle on and off by himself and thereby spray the driveway to his heart's content - the lack of this skill was the source of much frustration last year. And finally, he can pedal his own trike and go all the way around the block without tiring. Don't tell Leonard, but he's looking more and more like a big boy these days despite his certainty that he is a dog.

No baby yet! We're all getting bored and tired of waiting, but it's hard to be too cranky with weather like this. The only fly in the ointment is that supposedly there is a snow/freezing rain/sleet storm "mixed precipitation event" looming on the horizon for Friday night, but I guess that's par for the course for March. I saw some daffodils in bloom today, so now I'm willing to bet that we're due for more and more warm weather in the next few weeks.

I think it's time for nice Spring nap...aaaahhhhhh!

*********************
Bonus Cute Conversation:

Gran-Gran: "Can we put my shirt in the washer?"

Liam: "Yup, we can!"

Gran-Gran: "Can we put your big boy underwear in the washer?"

Liam: "Yup, sure we can!"

Me: "Can we put your dump truck shirt in the washer?"

Liam: "Yup, we can!"

Me (teasing): "Can we put Casey in the washer?"

Liam: "Um, no. He's too big and the lid wouldn't close."

Gran-Gran: "You need to blog this."

Do Marketers Know No Limits?

Kevin and I were doing the grocery shopping this morning, trudging (or in my case, waddling) our way up the health and beauty aisle. I glanced over at the shelf of nutritional supplements and saw a box of chocolate-covered almonds. The contents were clearly labelled as being "a healthy source of valuable Vitamin E and antioxidants," and dosing instructions were included along with the standard disclaimer about the contents not having been shown to prevent or treat any disease, yada, yada, yada.

I realize almonds are pretty nutritious, and there has been a lot of press recently about the health-worthiness of dark chocolate, but dudes, this was clearly a box of candy! So now I'm not sure what galls me more - the brazen attempt to market candy as a nutritional supplement/healthy snack, or the fact that some consumer might be gullible enough to fall for this ploy.

Oh, wait, I know what it was - the cost per dose of this "supplement." At $1.99 per ounce, this candy will cost you about $32.00 per pound.

Ouch.

Placeholder....

Nothing new to report here, yet. Leonard is finally (as of this afternoon) back to his normal good spirits, and it surely is nice to have a Happy Guy in the house again. I really hope we don't see another tummy bug around these parts for years and years. Kevin's Mom is in town, and Leonard is having a great time with her. I was concerned at first as he wasn't really enjoying her visit this week, but I think he was just still a bit ill, as he is now running around the house at light-speed and causing general chaos. And after the last week, chaos is a good thing...

No signs of a baby yet, for those who are wondering...

And not much else to talk about right now. I never thought I'd say this this, but boring can be a good thing!

On The Mend

Just a brief post because we're all pretty exhausted around here...

Liam's doing better today. We've still got a fair amount of malaise and general crankiness since he's tired and his tummy still hurts. But he's gained 1.5 pounds since Friday, and his fever is much lower. At his pediatrician's appointment we reached the general consensus that we don't need to get aggressive and do more labwork immediately. Instead, we'll wait until next week and check his liver function again on the theory that this is all related to stomach flu, and should subside as he improves. The viral studies are still pending so we can't completely rule out hepatitis yet, but it's looking less and less likely given his rate of improvement. Hopefully all's well that ends well, and if in the end all this turns out to be is a scary ER trip and some diagnostic ghost-chasing, then I guess it's a good lesson for me in learning to appreciate the healthy kid I have. Thanks to all of you for your moral support, good wishes, and offers of help - it's all muchly appreciated!

Bonus Leonard conversation:


Doctor: "Does your tummy hurt?"

Liam: "I can't tell you because I'm a doggie and doggies don't talk."

Doctor: "Hhhmm, well, could you point to where your tummy hurts, Liam?"

Liam: "NO! I'm not Liam! I'm Leonard. And doggies don't have hands, so they can't point."

Doctor: "Oh. Maybe you could point with your tail?"

Liam: "My tail is for wagging only."

Doctor (to me): "He certainly is attached to this identity, isn't he?"

Liam: "Woof! WOOF!"

I'm envisioning a psych referral if this keeps up...

It's Not So Easy Being A Real Doggie - Updated!

Thanks to all of you for all your well-wishes over the last couple of days. We've certainly needed them, and hopefully now we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Kevin is over his illness, there's no sign of a new baby appearing in the next few days, and maybe, possibly, Leonard is on the mend. But not without some added drama.

As of yesterday morning, the Great Big Doggie had stopped vomiting, but still was not eating or drinking, preferring instead to refuse all food and drink with the logic that "I'm a doggie and I don't have hands to lift a drink." By last night, the poor guy was so wobbly we took him to the ER for fluids. After a five hour wait we were finally seen, bloodwork was drawn and an IV started. It just was so hard watching Leonard cry, and hear him saying about the nurses, "Those guys came and hurt the doggie, and the doggie does not like to be hurt!" But he did perk up after about 300 mL of fluids, and at least began speaking in complete sentences again and informed us in no uncertain terms that "The doggie wants to head home. Please can we go home? I really don't want to be in this place..."

We did get to come home after the fluids were run, but it turns out that his bloodwork revealed some elevated liver enzymes. It may be nothing, or it may be he has Hepatitis A. So yeah, after eight hours in the ER, and arriving home at 4:30 AM, we got to visit our pediatrician this morning. This visit was followed by another hospital trip to draw more blood, during which Leonard kept yelling, "This is not the doggie's favorite thing!" Clearly Leonard is developing a knack for understatement, as he also informed us on the trip home that, "Bloodwork is not so much fun."

Our pediatrician should call us with the results sometime this afternoon, and hopefully this will all turn out to be nothing. I'll keep everyone posted. At the moment the doggie looks better than he has in several days (despite having been up virtually all night), is drinking well, and has won himself all the Sesame Street on Demand he can handle. Actually, we're all pretty tired. I got three hours of sleep last night, but Kevin has been up since 6:00 yesterday morning and is attempting to work from home today in the midst of the chaos. After two sick days, he's got stuff from work that can't wait, particularly with paternity leave coming up at any moment.

Sorry about the sorry construction of this post - I just need some sleep. I'm off to see if I can convince the guys to take a nap, but I will keep everyone posted.

Thanks again for all the good wishes, everyone!

Updated 8:45 P.M. - So the bloodwork came back. It's not normal, but it's not alarming, either. Leonard's transaminases are still elevated, but aren't climbing higher, so whatever it is isn't getting worse. It might be some variety of hepatitis, or it might be something related to the flu. The plan is to keep him hydrated and try to convince him to eat something over the weekend, and while we're doing that, his pediatrician is going to call one of the pediatric GI guys and run this problem past him. We'll go back to her office on Monday to check the great big doggie's weight and assess his liver status if necessary. Hopefully we will not need to repeat the bloodwork, because no one's nerves are up to that at the moment. Thanks for the encouragement, guys, and I will again keep everyone posted!