The Great Outdoors

I'm barely able to report that we spent nearly the entire day outside today! I'm barely conscious right now, but so thankful for the nice weather that allowed us all day work and play outside. We headed out around 10am when it was a mere 38 degrees but it was above freezing, and that's all I was looking for! I brought a soccer ball and a rake out, bundled Evan up and hoped for the best. The soccer ball hardly got used, but we spent the whole morning outside until 11:30 when we came in to get cleaned up for lunch. I raked about 1/3 of the front lawn and Evan did his best to help. He grabbed handfuls of pine needles, pinecones, and acorn shells and tossed them in the bag. He tried to rake. I even got him a little paper bag to collect pinecones, which only lasted about 30 seconds! He explored so many things about the front yard: the pine tree bark, tapping acorn shells on the bark, pulling pine needles apart. It's so cute to watch him learn!

I headed back out to tackle more of the lawn during Evan's nap while the air continued to warm up to a balmy 51 degrees! I was out there in a short sleeved shirt.... FINALLY! I took a leisurely walk to the park down the street to see if the snow was melted enough to enjoy it and the snow was all gone except on the baseball field... perfect! When Evan got up we headed to the park. I have been anticipating taking him to the park so much now that he's mobile enough to enjoy it. He LOVED it. After a few lessons, he was able to climb up and go down the slide by himself (video below). He also loved the firetruck and swing.

The sponge

I'm going to take a few minutes to brag about my kid, if that's alright with you all reading. He is just amazing me with how much he learns each and every day. His vocabulary is growing, and while everyone might not be able to understand what he's saying, I can decipher more and more, and he's beginning to attempt repeating things we say. I think this has a lot to do with weaning him from the pacifier down to just naptime and bedtime. He learned how to say "hi" and "bye" today. He can say ball, bath, cat, dog, juice, sock, shirt, shoe, eye, water and waffle (which both come out "wah"), book and my favorite - poop, and attempts to say a lot more! When asked where it is, he can point out his eye, nose, ear, hair, mouth, hand, belly, bum, and toes! He knows the sign language for "more", "all done" and "eat" and uses them all properly without being prompted.

He is becoming much more agile too. He's becoming a climber, climbing all over our couch downstairs. We played at our neighbor's house this afternoon and he learned how to climb up and then go down the slide by himself. He learned how to go down the stairs (safely going backwards) this evening. He helped me clean up his toys tonight. He told us when he pooped and got out the changing mat, laid it out and laid himself down on it. Some might see this as a sign that he's ready to potty train, but I don't think any of us are quite ready for that!

He's quite the eater these days. The last time I made fish tacos, he had a fillet and a half of tilapia! That's about 6oz of fish! He grabbed a whole peach out of the fridge without me noticing, while I was getting something out yesterday and helped himself. He ended up eating about half of it without having to cut any of it up!



He's been making mental connections a lot now too. He sees a bear on his Baby Einstein DVD and he'll go get a book and open it to the bear page.

This kid is amazing, and I feel like he's grown up so much just in the last week. I can't wait to see what's coming up this next week!

Parlay!

As I'm writing this, I see a few scattered flurries outside. We're not expected to get any accumulation, but I'm still frustrated at the sight. We've had well over 7 feet of snow this season so far and we honestly can't handle any more. Jack has thrown his back out a few times from shoveling and mine is sore. Our snowbanks have gotten so high that we can't see oncoming traffic when we're backing out. Our mailbox is barely accessible. If we do have to do any more shoveling we'll have to get a ladder and climb about 7 feet up to toss each shovel load. This is what causes me to yell "Parlay!", "Mercy!", "Uncle!", "Enough!" every time I see a flurry.

Furry Friend

Ever since Evan became mobile, he has fallen in love with Bella. Well, any cat. Well, any furry thing that moves. But Bella actually sticks around to socialize with him. Before Evan was born, she was used to a certain level of attention and nothing has met her expectations since he was born so she'll put up with anything at this point! He loves laying down on her like a pillow. He also loves pulling her tail and wailing on her, which we're working on. But she usually doesn't run away so I don't feel too bad for her! There's a sweet video after all the pictures! Pay attention to Bella's face at the end... it's hilarious!

Spring Thaw

We had some very unusual but very welcomed weather last week. 3 days were above 50 and we're still thanking God for it. Our icicles all melted (they were starting to become jail bars as they reached the floor of the back deck).



The 2-inch thick ice melted enough to break up and chip off the driveway. We didn't get enough snow meltage to see the ground, but any amount of meltage was welcomed. Our snowbanks were about 7 feet high (reaching over the top of the mailbox) which you can imagine is pretty tough to shovel additional snowfall up on top of!

Once I cleared a decent amount of space on the driveway, I brought Evan out to play with his soccer ball.




As soon as I put him down he was off and running and I think he couldn't stop himself on the slight decline of the driveway towards the road. Before long he hit the ice but surprisingly didn't fall! He became "stuck" (wouldn't move) and we had to rescue the poor crying kid. He played with the ball a little but left plenty of room between himself and the ice.




A short while later he took a spill that left him wet and dirty and he was done.




The next day we tried again and he was afraid to move. He didn't want to be on the pavement, just held or have you squatting right next to him. That didn't last long.

When he went down for a nap, I went out for a mile and a half run. I've been working out inside for a few months now and have been dying to get out and really stretch my legs! It was so warm that I ran in a short sleeved shirt and shorts! I felt warm breezes and even felt the warmth of the sun on my skin! In February!! When I got back I just short of kicked Jack out of the house so he could enjoy it too. He didn't mind! He went for a 3 mile walk.

We tried bringing Evan out again that afternoon when it got up to 60 degrees! This time I brought a blanket out on the almost clear driveway and some toys and a snack. He was perfectly content to hang out on the blanket but didn't dare venture off! We hung out as long as we could until the cool breezes turned into cold strong wind. Even though it was a tease we were so grateful for it.

V-Day

You're probably expecting a post about some elaborate meal and dessert I cooked up to celebrate Valentines Day. Well, I'm not ashamed to admit this, but Jack and I have somewhat of a boycott against Valentines Day. I don't want to come across as a V-day Scrooge. We just feel that we don't need a specific day determined for us where we become extra lovey dovey, go out to dinner along with the rest of the world, and buy presents to support the CEO of Hallmark's third retirement vacation home. It's more special if it's spontaneous. So ever since we were married we stopped celebrating. Or at least we went out the night before Valentines Day so it wasn't so crowded and we were still allowed to use coupons! I even felt a little guilty because our first married Valentines Day, we were snowed in, both "working from home" and we spent the day watching 8 episodes of 24 in sweats! But neither of us felt gypped (I don't think I've ever written that word before... thank you spell check).

Well I figured Jack would think of a special dessert as spontaneous because we don't ever do anything for Valentines Day, so I set out to make Chocolate Mousse. We're both trying to watch what we eat and exercise more, so I thought mousse would be a nice compromise between a plain rice cake and triple death by chocolate cake. Nice light fluffy chocolately mousse. So I scoured the internet and found a doable recipe. I halved it because I didn't want to end up with 8 servings! I ever so gently heated the heavy cream, egg yolks and sugar into a custard. I melted the bittersweet chocolate and carefully added so as not to scramble the eggs. I whipped the cream to stiff peaks and gently folded it in. I scooped it into two large wine glasses (giving us 2 servings each) and patiently waited while they chilled for the next 6 hours. I was so excited to surprise him with this "special anti-celebratory dessert" after Evan went to bed. I even whipped up some extra whipped cream to top it and sprinkled some cocoa powder on top. We cuddled up on the couch to watch our Monday night shows and my mouth was watering as I was about to dig my spoon into the fluffy goodness. My heart sank as my spoon hit the dense cocoa block. It was more the texture of a light fudge and the chocolate levels were through the roof. I'm not like most other women where there's no such thing as too much chocolate. I'm not even really that into chocolate! So oh what a letdown this was. And it was so much work that I'll probably never attempt it again. So I guess I'll have to just order it for dessert at restaurants instead! Or convince my sister-in-law to make me some... haha.

Paging Dr Stork

This story was too good not to pass on. My sister works as a respiratory therapist at a hospital with no maternity unit (Ellis). A couple showed up to the ER in full on labor not able to get to the sister hospital with a maternity unit that was so close (Bellevue), but too far. Here is the story in her words:

Yup, you heard it right--a baby in the ER. It was a Bellevue patient in labor on her way to the hospital in the family car, 4 previous children--this is #5, and she suddenly started pushing in the car so they bailed and stopped at our ER even though so close to Bellevue. It ended up taking an hour to get the baby out but there was no way to know that any next contraction could have that little baby #5 shooting out like a rocket so there was no transferring her at that point. They called the emergency code "paging Dr Stork to the ER stat!..." (subtle--I'm sure no one figured out what that meant!) Ellis hasn't had a baby born there in years so everyone was scrambling to find things long unused or never used while keeping family reassured that all was well and that they were in good hands (who had never done this before...oh, didn't tell them that part...) All us resp folk were together at the time they called the overhead emergency and we suddenly realized that nobody in the ER is certified to handle the newborns--that is one of our certifications--YIKES! I look at the night crew--two guys, a 23 yr old girl who has never seen a birth, and me. (guess who drew the team leader straw on this one!) So we scrambled to get prepared--the guys ran to other buildings and other floors to gather things we needed and Nichole and I prepared to receive the baby. At the last minute, we had two labor nurses who had been summoned from Bellevue arrive to help with the big moment, one of our residents got to deliver his first baby, and he then turned and handed her to us!! We didn't have a scale to weigh her on but I will guess her at about 5 lbs--she was a teeny little thing although 38 weeks. It was then up to us (me and wide-eyed awestruck Nichole) to make sure baby was breathing, stimulated, responsive, suctioned, heart rate, oxygen, APGAR scored, cleaned, dried, wrapped like a tiny burrito and given to Mom. All went as if it were perfectly orchestrated for which I was very grateful. My neonatal certification also includes rescusitation and intubation for a birth with complications or a baby who is nonresponsive, and I was calmly (full panic) reviewing all the procedures in my head while waiting just in case I needed that knowledge fresh. I was very tempted to grab Nicholes I-phone and google the intubation procedures but didn't want the family to catch me boning up in the delivery room corner (pay no attention to the person behind the curtain frantically studying intubation and newborn procedures...move along...nothing to see here....!) Meanwhile in the other corner of the room, Dad is hovering 3 inches inside the door with a faint green tinge to his complexion. He quickly declined an invitation to the front row with Gramma and cousin, and subsequently had a tech assigned to him to watch for "Man Down Syndrome" as nobody else in the room would have noticed if he fainted! So Baby Anna made her way into this world at 4:35am to a loud round of cheers and applause, followed by the ER staff singing Happy Birthday! Everyone was then packed up and shipped to Bellevue for nursery and OB followup. We were all kind of giddy after that, racing around the hospital trying to catch up on normal responsibilities whih had been allowed to lapse for two hours. I had one of the intensive care units that night and for two straight hours not one person had needed me, no pages, no emergencies, no medications due--a situation which is unheard of but I was so grateful for no conflicts on my time.

This is the reason I love my job--the spontaneity, the unexpectedness which keeps it always new and interesting and never boring, and the opportunity to truly make a difference in people's lives. So hence, my story of Baby Anna and how she brought joy, excitement and life into a place which so often experiences exactly the opposite.