On the Mend

Yes, we are still sick here in the Pohl household. Just when I thought I was feeling better, I felt completely wiped out and stuffy yesterday. Patrick seems to be managing to develop a second ear infection while still on antibiotics, but finally slept through the night after a consult with our "on-call" pediatrician who informed us the E.R. had prescribed P too low a dose. I on the other hand had to get up THREE times last night to use the restroom. Is there no other place to sit, Baby Pohl, than on my bladder?

So what does a primarily housebound mom in her 36th week do? Scrapbook! I started my task of putting all my photos I printed from Jan 2010 to present into albums. I am not a true scrapbooker. Occasionally I'll throw something here or there, but I mostly like to write a quick note about the date/event. I have now completed Jan-March and will try to tackle some of April later today.

Did I mention I'll be getting my new camera soon? A REAL camera! I can hardly wait.

Two Spoonfuls of Sugar

Yep, now I have the dreaded cold. As if being 36 weeks pregnant wasn't uncomfortable enough, I can't breath and Baby Pohl is not very happy about all the coughing. I confined myself to the guest room last night so both Tom and I could get the most out of a night's sleep, but I can't say I feel any better. The men are off to Lowes to pick up the ceiling fan for the nursery while I wait for the morning grogginess to wear off.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

With the help of of a visiting friend (post to come later due to the fact that she took all the photos during the trip!) I finally was able to get some pictures hung on the living room walls-it is almost as of we live here now. The living room furniture is in place, and our grown up room is nearly complete. Now I just need to hang art/pictures in the nursery, P's room, the family room, the upstairs hallway, our bedroom, and the bathroom. Sigh. I suspect all that will have to wait until after baby arrives.

A Spoonful of Sugar

This morning at 6AM, this family headed off to our friendly neighborhood emergency room for a suspected ear infection with P. It was a LONG night of crying and the first time since P's birth that we actually brought him into our bed (which still resulted in no sleep). Although our pediatrician's office opens at 9AM, I had hit my point of exhaustion

We headed home with this assortment of helpful meds...

...but our neighbor provided the real feel-good stuff-a whole box of popsicles.

Happy to report that as of 6:00 tonight, P is acting much more like his usual self. Please pray for a good night sleep for all of us!

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

We had our hospital tour tonight (since we delivered Baby 1 in Mississippi), and here is the breakdown:

The good: Best Neo-Natal unit around. Lots of quality doctors and one of the highest VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-section) rates you can find (a positive since I want to avoid another c-section if at all possible).
Mississippi as a state has one of the highest c-section rates in the whole country.

The bad: In Mississippi, we were STRONGLY encouraged to leave the baby in the nursery during the night with the staff bringing the baby in for feedings so that we could get some good sleep and recover more quickly. At this hospital, that is frowned upon and it sounds like they want the baby with us 24-7. As a first time mom, I thought I would want the baby in our room at night, but after realizing how exhausted we were from the laboring and c-section, we ended up loving the nursery babysitting at night. Also, in Mississippi, a lactation consultant automatically made rounds to all the new patients to offer assistance. Our new hospital is so big and has so many patients that the consultants only come if requested, and even then you are placed on their "schedule", which means I am unclear how soon one would show up if you needed them.

The ugly: The postpartum room we will be staying in for 2 or 3 days is literally half the size of the room we had in Mississippi and nowhere near being updated anytime in the last 15 years. Tom and I couldn't even imagine having more than 1 or two visitors in there without being overwhelmed.

In the end, the good definitely outweighs the bad, so we'll have to see how this experience stacks up against P's birth. Laughed internally at two "new" dads on our tour who were frantically scribbling notes the ENTIRE time.

With a Little Help From Your Friends (and Husband)

So close to finishing up the nursery! The crib will be assembled this weekend, and that leaves just artwork/decorations. One project completed that I I've had my heart set on were narrow book ledges to fill this dead space: there is a mini hallway actually in the nursery.

My inspiration came from these cute ledges on Land Of Nod's website. Two problems-they are only about 20" long and I wanted 3, 4-foot ledges, and I couldn't tell from the online photo whether the light wood color offered would match the room which is more of a pecan/orange.

So I decided Tom could make them. Then I decided I could make them-right? So off to Home Depot where I purchased red oak, pre-cut 4' boards and stain. Now what? Cue the ever helpful DIY neighbors, Debby and Rich who just happen to have an entire woodworking shop in their garage. I mean, they have every wood tool imaginable and basically built these guys for me (I helped glue on the front of the ledge). They even copied the decorative work at the top. I stained them in my garage wearing my pink Darth Vader respirator mask and voila-here they are:

And now enters my handy husband who isn't just a piece of eye candy-he stayed up past 11pm last night installing them so I could show off the progress to my playgroup who were congregating here this afternoon (I love you for meeting my artificial deadline). Needless to say, they are exactly what I was hoping for...

(I would like to clarify that all of the ledges are perfectly, equally spaced (which you would not doubt if you know Tom well), but my camera angle has somehow made the top ledge look like it was spaced too high. )

No More Hibernating

After two days of sunshine and 40 something degree temps, this family crawled out of our den for a quick zoo trip. It turns out that we had the run of the entire zoo (my sister and nephew also came with) except for another couple we passed at the first exhibit-it was awesome! The animals were all active and actually seemed excited to see some humans. I didn't get any video or photos, but in the monkey house, one of the long armed monkeys was going, well, apes and swinging all over the cage-twice he jumped onto the window we leaning on which made for good entertainment.
My favorite moment though: walking into the elephant house and seeing P wrinkle up his nose and make the most offended face. A little payback I suppose.