Time Flys and Robert Jordan is Dead

So I haven't blogged for a bit. It's been busy. This last weekend we were at the Ren Fest all morning helping run the Greyhound Pets of America booth. I was nervous about having Ruby and Keegan with just me and Lyle at the booth for 5 hrs straight. Everything went splendid though. Ruby wooed the crowd with her soft fur and beautiful eyes. Keegan, in his renaissance gear with his joker's hat and wings, also drew in some of the crowd. Keegan spent a good portion of the time sitting in the grass next to me playing with the grass. I cringed a bit when he first grabbed a handful of grass because I can't think of a place with dirtier grass. But he didn't eat the grass and really seemed to be enjoying himself so, no harm done. A number of people stopped to look at Keegan and coo over how cute he was; Keegan granted everyone who stopped a big toothless grin. Keegan rested for a while in his Stroller with the seat reclined and even took a short nap. As I walked around with the stroller trying to lull Keegan to sleep I noticed a number of screaming, crying distraught babies in the crowd. I figured at some point that would be Keegan, but he was content the whole time and very fascinated by all of the people and by the trees. Keegan seems to love watching the leaves on the trees.

On Sunday we went to the apple orchard. Keegan was a little crabby because I think he was pretty tired from Saturday. The apple orchard wasn't actually open for people to pick apples yet. Keegan was in his backpack and we (mom, dad, Lyle, and me) walked down the main trail. There were a lot of signs that said not to pick the apples. I wanted Keegan to see an apple though. So Lyle sidled up to a tree and I held out a branch of the tree with apples on it. Keegan thought the apples were really neat and as I stretched out the apple for him to hold, the apple came off of the branch. I felt a bit guilty about that, but the harm was already done so I let Keegan hold the apple and inspect it. When he was bored with it I quickly threw it under the apple tree with the other apples that had fallen down...see no harm done :-) We also ended up at the Maple Grove art fair. Mainly this was because I wanted to go to Best Buy to get a new iPod and then mom and I both wanted to go to Ulta. It was a beautiful day so we went over to Arbor Lakes to walk around and, low and behold, there was an art fair going on. All in all it was a wonderful weekend; although very busy.

So that kind of brings me to Tuesday. Tuesday was crazy. It started at 3am when Keegan woke up screaming; we don't know why. We think maybe the lightening and thunder scared him. It took a good hour or so to calm Keegan down and get him back into bed. Usually we get up at 5:30am...we all slept in until 6am because we were all tired from being up in the middle of the night. Switching to present tense here... Seeing that it is 6am I swear a bit, I have a lot to do at work today and I want to get in early. After the morning routine of getting everyone ready and fed; cats, dog, and baby. I leave to go to work while Lyle is finishing up feeding Keegan. It is pouring outside. My normally 35 minute drive to work takes over an hour, both because of the rain and because I am leaving late. I get to work and rush to try and get some work started. My technical lead has scheduled a team meeting for Monday and I will be out of town. I write a note to let him know this. He is confused; originally I was only planning on taking Wed - Fri off. But being that we are camping this weekend and then going out of town on Wed. I need the extra two days to unpack, wash clothes, repack etc. So he reschedules the meeting. I am very tired. During lunch I had planned to go to Best Buy and use the coupon I got with my iPod for 10% off of any iPod accessories. It is raining and looks crummy out. I decide to go out anyway, because I forgot to pack a lunch and need something to eat.

I stop by Milo's sandwiches (exactly like Jimmy John's) and grab a sandwich. I go into Best Buy with a list in mind; I need a charger, a case, and headphones. I find the charger and case quickly and begin searching for headphones. Headphones are so difficult to buy; I want ones that are really comfortable and sound really good. I decide to spend up to $40 on a pair because I want nice ones and find a pair of Skullcandy Lowriders that look like they meet my needs. Up at the cash register I am informed that my coupon works on all iPod accessories except for the ones that are made by Apple; okay I think that makes absolutely no sense. Since everything is rung up I pay for it all and then realize the charger I bought is made by apple so I don't get money off of it; I realize I can get it way cheaper online.

Exiting Best Buy I drive back to work and rush upstairs excited to try my new headphones. I am sorely disappointed, the headphones suck. They are uncomfortable and have some static noise in the background...I am bummed. I work some more and then realize it is approaching 3:30pm and it is time to go home. I had started listening to the audio book "The Time Traveler's Wife" while I was coating. So I continue listening to the book on the way home. About 10 minutes from Keegan's daycare I get a call. It's my mom. She is wondering if anyone has left work yet to come pick up Keegan. I am embarrassed and confused, for some reason I have been thinking that it is Wednesday all day. Maybe that's because I did enough at work to encompass two days. I let her know that I am on my way there and will be there in about 5 minutes. I am grateful that she called because otherwise I would be at daycare looking for Keegan.

We all play for a while at gma's house and then Keegan and I go home. I get dinner ready for Keegan and he eats that. Keegan plays some but I can tell he is tired. Lyle gets home around 5:30pm. We immediately leave to grab a bite to eat and then go to Home Depot to pick up the last two pieces of wood we need to finish the bedroom window jamb downstairs. They don't have the wood we need. We run over to Best Buy and I return the headphones and charger that I bought earlier in the day; I get different headphones. We run to another Home Depot and they don't have the wood there either. Lyle inquires about when the wood will be back in stock and we are informed that it has been discontinued. We get the closet door for the bedroom closet and then, defeated in our quest for wood for window jambs, pay for the closet door and leave the store.

It is now an hour past Keegan's bedtime and he is getting very crabby. I strap him into his carseat and help Lyle hoist the closet door into the back of the car. It is too big to fit in the car. so we leave the back of it hanging out. Luckily it is only lightly sprinkling outside. We get in the car and pull out onto the road to go home. It starts pouring, Keegan starts wailing. We get home and I get Keegan out of the car and run him in to feed him and put him to bed. Lyle pulls the closet door out of the car and removes it from the, now soaking, box to dry it off so that it isn't ruined. Walking in the door I realize that we still need to pick up the house before the cleaners come tomorrow, that Keegan needs his stuff prepared for daycare, the cats and dogs haven't eaten dinner yet, and Keegan still needs to eat and be put to bed. I also need to take a shower and I had a list of other things I want to accomplish tonight.

I start to make Keegan's bottle and feed him. Lyle walks in and says "Oh, it's after 8pm." I kind of stare at him not grasping why this is significant. He stares at me, "I have to leave for hockey in 10 minutes." I just glare at him. He says "Why don't you let me feed Keegan while you go take a quick shower." I am not happy. I take a quick shower and Lyle leaves for hockey. The house still needs to be picked up, Keegan is still not asleep, and I was exhausted sometime around 4pm. So I clean up the house, Keegan is very cooperative and goes right to sleep, and I actually get some additional things done that I wanted to do. I am not as seething at Lyle as I was when he left. Although some part of me wishes that I could say "oh, I have to go play video games for 2 hours, right now, see you later" and leave him with all the work. Although that's not really fair of me because he has been left to pick up the house before when I am not there.

Well, anyway, things are going better than when Lyle left. I am downloading audio books to my computer when a headline pops up on Audible.com. Robert Jordan has died of a rare blood disorder. There are those of you who might not realize the significance of this. Robert Jordan wrote the Wheel of Time Series. This series is, so far, 11 books long, with each book numbering close to, or over, 1000 pages in length. For me and one of my girlfriends in high school this series became our religion (figuratively speaking). We read and re-read the books and had secret identities that coincided with the figures in the books. We wrote each other notes coded in language only a fellow Wheel of Time reader would know. After high school I continued reading the series still enthralled with it; the book's character's lives were entwined with my own. After college I continued to buy the books but vowed not to read another one until they series was complete. Upon his death, Robert Jordan was half way though completion of the final book in the series. Now we will never know how this series ends. I have invested huge portions of my life with these characters and story and it will be incomplete. I am sure someone will finish the book and sell it, but how will we ever know how the series was meant to end? On that rather depressing note Lyle came home to see me sitting by the computer crying. It was rather silly but it was such a shock to realize that all the characters I have followed for so long were just going to be gone. Lyle thought I was upset with him since when he left I was pretty grouchy at him and then I said "Robert Jordan died." I started laughing because really it's silly to be upset about this, Lyle gave me a hug and was like "Okay well that's not what I expected to come home to."

So as a finale to this long blog entry. Let's all tip our hats to Robert Jordan, a masterful writer who, with his books, got me through much of my pre-teen and teenage years. I guess at long last the epic series of The Wheel of Time is finally at an end.

Keegan's First State Fair

Last Saturday we took Keegan to the state fair. Saturday afternoon we didn't have anything going on so we called up Julie and Tony to see if they would like to go to the fair with us. We knew it would be crowded but since it was so nice out we were just looking for a nice way to spend the day outside.

We all decided to meet at the fair rather than at the park and ride. So I guess that was the first adventure. I had packed Keegan up some solids for dinner and enough formula and bottles for a couple feedings. We also had Keegan's hat, some toys, a couple blankets, sunscreen, etc. in the diaper bag. I also packed my Hotsling because I was worried about having enough hands on the bus. When we got to the park and ride I put on the sling, put Keegan in it, and then put on the diaper bag backpack. Lyle had the fun job of carrying the 20 lb stroller folded up.

When the bus arrived it was empty so it was easy to find a seat and there was room for the stroller (which is something that I had been worried about). We sat on the bus for another 15 minutes or so waiting for it to fill up. This was a little irritating because I felt like we were wasting precious "Keegan is being good" time. Keegan had a fascination with metal pole we were sitting next to and spent the first 15 minutes caressing the pole. Then as the bus started getting crowded he started trying to pull on people's shirts. This one poor guy was standing right within reach with his shirt hanging at the perfect level for Keegan to grab. Everytime I looked away Keegan would try and grab the guy's shirt. Luckily the guy thought Keegan was cute so he didn't ming too much :-)

As the bus started moving Keegan was in awe of the view out the window. He kept staring out the window and getting really excited. The sling worked great because Keegan could sit or stand on my lap as he wanted and I didn't need to hold on to him. Of course most of the ride Keegan decided he wanted to stand on my lap and bounce up and down. Let me tell you this was just great. The bus was jostling me and Keegan was bouncing up and down on my lap...very comfortable...

We exited the bus without any incident, got Keegan into his stroller, bought tickets, and went into the fair. It was very busy. Keegan just sat there holding onto the edges of his stroller with eyes as big as saucers. That is pretty much what he did for the next hour. He just thought everything was so neat; he hadn't ever seen this many people in his life before. He had his first taste of cotton candy. At first he thought it was weird and made a funny face; then he decided he liked it!

We met up with Tony and Julie and began our slow progression around the fair. The number one lesson I learned is that when traveling with a stroller you must be patient. You can get places, but it is slow going. Also with Keegan there you don't see things very fast. We had to stop and feed him a bottle, then he had to be changed, then he needed his solids. Luckily Julie and Tony didn't seem to mind the snail-like pace at which we toured the fair. An hour or two after arriving Keegan started getting sleepy. So, we lowered his stroller into the reclined position, put a blankie over him, and gave him his nook. He was asleep in an instant. Keegan proceeded to sleep through the Midway. I have no idea how he could sleep through all that noise. I won him a stuffed dragon while he was sleeping though.

The first highlight for Keegan was the hot tubs. I let him put his hands in the water and he spend a good amount of time trying to catch the bubbles. He also liked that the benches at the end of the hot tubs were just at the right height that he could stand on them and grab the hot tub edge. The Eco building was another high point since he got a shiny button there that he was enamored with. He seemed to think the horses were really big; he just stared at the horses with really big eyes and grabbed onto me really tight. At the DNR building he got to watch some fish.

Good food that Lyle and I tried for the first time were deep fried Snickers bar (too sweet for me), deep fried fruit (this was yummy), deep-fried pickles with cream cheese inside (yummy), strawberries with cream (yummy), and pizza bread (yummy). Tony was on a quest for the new deep-fried spam. He found some and seemed to find it pretty tasty.

We were at the fair for probably 6-7 hrs. We were all getting tired and Keegan was getting crabby so it was time to go. We got Keegan loaded back onto the bus. He was crabby and we had to bounce all the way back to the park and ride to keep him happy. So he stood and bounced in his sling. Then when we got to the car he fell promptly to sleep. Overall it was a great day and we had a lot of fun.

Speaking of which Keegan can now pull himself to a standing position with great gusto. I had set him on the floor to play with some toys and when I came back he had pulled himself up on the cat tower and had proceeded to drag it backwards a couple of feet. He was very proud of himself and I was stunned. I guess he will be mobile before we know it.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

While mommy is away the viruses will play!

So last week I was out at the film plant. This plant is where we coat all of the medical imaging film and is located in Oregon. I won't say much about the run except to say that the days were long (14 hrs or more), the run was somewhat of a failure because of equipment issues, and I hate sleeping in hotel rooms. As if this isn't enough Keegan got sick.

Keegan has had many colds and one eye infection since he started daycare. To date he has been able to elude the dreaded ear infections. Well, I got a call from Lyle late Tuesday night (midnight central time) that Keegan had been screaming for the last hour or so and Lyle couldn't figure out what to do to make it better. We went through everything Lyle could try and he had tried it all. Finally he gave Keegan some Tylenol and let him sit up awake on the bed and play. For some reason Keegan would scream if Lyle laid him down but was fine sitting up. I felt bad that Lyle was having to deal with this because I know no matter how much I love Keegan, when he starts this incessant screaming it is really frustrating. He hasn't done this since he was a couple months old; even with the eye infection he was still a happy boy.

So of course this is happening while I am gone. Well, on Wednesday my mom calls Lyle and Lyle calls me. Apparently Keegan now has a fever of 102.8oF and is very unhappy. Lyle and I discuss and Lyle decides to give Keegan some Tylenol and watch him over the night. Next morning Lyle calls and says that Keegan is doing better; his temp is 100 something. Since Keegan still has a fever he has to stay home from day care; so Lyle is staying home from work. This really sucks because Lyle is a contractor and doesn't get paid for sick time. Keegan's little sickness is costing us literally hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately later in the day Keegan's fever shoots up again to over 102 so Lyle takes him into the doctor.

The doctor says that Keegan doesn't have an ear infection and his lungs are clear. So the doctor tells us to bring Keegan back in on Saturday if the Tylenol can't keep his fever under control. So Lyle has to stay home with Keegan on Friday; more money out the door. And poor Keegan is very unhappy, Keegan is not happy with anything. I get back Friday afternoon. Keegan's fever shoots up again on Friday night.

Back to the doctor's office at 8am on Saturday morning. I think this is an ungodly hour to be somewhere on a Saturday morning. Of course it doesn't matter much because we've been up since 5am dealing with an unhappy Keegan. Keegan doesn't really want to eat his bottle, he doesn't want to nap. Keegan needs someone holding and distracting him at all times or he lapses back into his screaming fits. By now we have figured out that the screaming fits start around the time the Tylenol is wearing off. Obviously something is hurting.

The doctor let's us know that Keegan now has an ear infection in both ears. Keegan gets put on antibiotics. So now Keegan is supposed to be taking either Tylenol or Motrin all day with antibiotics 3x a day. Keegan is still crabby and he still isn't really keen on his bottle (he'll eat his solids though). We figured out it must hurt his ears to suck on the bottle. Either way Sunday was another tough day; full of Keegan needing to be distracted until exhaustion and then put down for a nap. Saturday afternoon we went to the state fair and with all of the distractions there Keegan was pretty good; if not quit his jolly giggly self.

I guess in general it just sucked that poor Keegan had to go through all of that. It really sucked that poor Lyle had to deal with all of the crap alone. Of course it all had to happen while I was out on a business trip. To make matters more complicated all of this was going on while my parents were out of town camping; so Lyle couldn't go to them for help. The other thing that was going on was that Lyle was interviewing for new contracts (his contract is up at the end of the month). He still hasn't gotten his next contract; I am a little stressed about that but we will see what happens.

Hopefully today Keegan will feel better.

Keegan did it!

Just a quick blog about something neat Keegan did! Last night while Keegan was supposed to be going to sleep (I was reading to him). He propped himself up on his knees and then with his little arms quivering in effort got up on his hands. There he was on his hands and knees and he started rocking back and forth. I got all excited and was like "wow, keegan you are awesome" and he looked over and gave me this big grin. Lyle ran over to see and I ran to get the camera. Of course by the time I found the camera, turned it on, turned the flash on, focused on Keegan and then started to take the picture Keegan fell over.

Not sure why I thought this was so exciting. I guess Keegan gets so frustrated that he can't get around by himself that I see this as a huge step in him getting some mobility and independence. I was just *so* proud of him. I had to call my mom and tell her.

My mom working with him on the roller/crawler thingy and Keegan's frustration with the older babies at daycare crawling circles around him is finally paying off :-) I am sure that, while we are all exciting for Keegan to start crawling, we will regret it when we have to chase him around constantly!

Digression on Closets, Books, and Digital Archives

Okay this has nothing really to do with Keegan but it was driving me batty yesterday. In general I tend to be a very organized person; not maybe the neatest person in the world, but I am organized. Everything has its appropriate place. An example of the difference between neatness and organization is my desk at home. I know exactly where everything is on my desk; even though the "in" box is a huge messy stack of papers on one corner of the desk.

There are 3 areas where I have major neatness issues. These three things drive me crazy and are strangely interlaced with things that make me happy. The closet is the first area, the "library" is the second, and our online music catalog is the third.

The closet has always been a perpetual nightmare for me. When Lyle and I lived in Cottage Grove we had all of our stuff in a closet that was smaller than the one I had at my parent's house, it was horrible. When we moved to our new house in Blaine we finally had a huge closet. Lyle uses about 1/16th of the closet; I use the rest. I remember thinking that my closet problems were over when we moved here. I remember Lyle joking "remember you don't *have* to fill all of this space up". Well thanks to a pregnancy and post pregnancy pudge my nightmare has returned. I had two trash bags full of cloths that didn't fit while I was pregnant. Now I have one trash bag full of cloths that still don't fit (mostly they were pretty tight when I got pregnant) and a bag full of maternity cloths. It is a nightmare. A few weeks ago I went and unpacked all of the cloths that I determined will at some point fit again. These are now stacked along the walls of the closet because there isn't enough room to hang them up with all of the other cloths I bought because I didn't have enough cloths because I hadn't unpacked my pre-maternity cloths after I had Keegan. There are cloths and shoes everywhere. You can't move around the closet...all of the mess is mine.

Unfortunately at the root of this closet issue is a pure pleasure of mine. I *love* buying cloths. I probably buy at least one new item of clothing every other week. T-shirts, skirts, dresses, you name it; if I find it on clearance, and I like it, I will buy it. It gives me a high and a warm feeling of happiness. Luckily I have never gone to the extent that my habit is a financial burden (lyle may disagree with this statement), but it is a space problem. I also become emotionally attached to my clothing. I still have the shirt I wore on my first date with Lyle. I can tell emotionally important events or places where I have worn most of my clothing; I can tell you where I bought each item of clothing and how much I paid for it. How much of my mind is occupied by this useless knowledge I shudder to contemplate. I could probably have pi memorized out to a million places instead of knowing the exact details of each piece of clothing I own; the usefulness of either type of knowledge is dubious. When you couple my love for clothing variation with a keen sense of loss when I get rid of clothing it results in lots of trouble and lots of clothing.

Unfortunately the clothing/closet issue really stresses me out. I hate it when the closet is messy and I hate when I don't have enough space for my cloths.

Then there is the book issue. After cloths, books are my next greatest vice. I love books. I love owning books, I love collecting books, I love seeing books, I love the smell of books...I love books. Each book I own is precious. I can tell when I bought the book, and during what time of my life I read the book. I can tell you what other books the author wrote and how many books are in the series. I can give you a brief synopsis of the book. But, I cannot under any circumstance throw away the book. I have started getting better about re-selling books that I didn't like or don't plan to re-read again. If I can re-sell the book I feel like I am still respecting the book and the characters in the book and moving them on to a new life. Unfortunately I read a lot of books. I probably read 4-7 books a month at least. We have a lot of books in the house. When we finished the basement a whole wall of the basement was going to be dedicated to bookshelves. Well, it is done. The book shelves are up....and they are full. There is no room to grow there. Keegan's bedroom now has a bookcase in it full of all the books that I have read that I think he would like in the future. I hope that Keegan likes to read, else I will need to come up with a different excuse to keep all of those books. This is another area that gets disorganized and stressful for me. Not nearly as bad as the closet but still a pain all the same.

Lastly is our online music. This drives me nuts. We have all of our CDs burned onto the computer. This is great because we can listen to them all over the wireless speakers that are hooked up to the computer. We have some 10 gigs of music. My Sansa (mp3 player) has 5 gigs of space. It seems like no matter what music I load onto my Sansa the music I want to listen to isn't on there. It's such a pain. I have 900 songs on my Sansa and sometimes when I am in the lab I feel like there is nothing to listen too. I have all the songs memorized and I am bored with all of them. Hopefully in the future I can upgrade and carry *all* of my music.

Anyway, I feel better now that I have shared all of my material psychosis with whoever reads this. This has nothing to do with Keegan except in the most roundabout of ways. Hopefully this was at least amusing to read if nothing else. I hope that you are all having a great day. Back to work for me.

6 month checkup - All is well

So Keegan had his 6 month checkup this afternoon. He weighed 18 lbs 11 ounces and was 27 inches long. That puts him in the 75th percentile for weight and the 65th percentile for height. Basically similar to what he's been at. Like usual he was delightful at the doctors, really he was! He tried to help do everything. He grabbed the ear scope to help Dr. Kuku put it into his ear and grabbed the light to help her look in his mouth; I am not sure how much actual help it was but he tried. Lyle was along this time too so that was nice :-)

Dr. Kuku once again told us we are in big trouble as Keegan showed her that he would grab and pull himself up if you hold out your fingers. She is convinced he is going to be an early walker and made sure to give us lots of information on baby proofing the house :-) Keegan did not like the shots but only cried for a couple seconds. Once I picked him up he settled down and just glared at us for awhile. He did have a quick smile for the nurse though as she left.

It was pajama day at daycare so Keegan spent all day in his strippy PJs. I should really get a picture of him in those; he is so adorable. Jenny, Lyle's sister-in-law got them for us. He is starting to outgrow them though and that makes me sad!

He is in napping now. We started to read the Belly Button book and when he tried to eat it I pulled the book away saying "no, let's just read it". His lip started to tremble and then he broke into an absolute screaming fit. So, it was easily determined that he was tired (those shots will do that to you) and down for a "nap" we went. It's kind of late for a nap since he goes to bed at 7pm; maybe he will just sleep until tomorrow morning we will see.

Quick funny story. Last night Lyle was at hockey and I was trying to get Keegan to go to sleep. Well he didn't want to. So I left him lay in his crib while I made up his bottles for daycare. I hear all this noise in the crib and go in there in time to see him sit back down. He had pulled himself up on the mobile controller and turned the power on to the mobile. Then he laid back down and proceeded to kick the different buttons on the mobile to change the music and the lights. I didn't have the heart to turn it off again after all the hard work he had put in. So, I let him play with it for 15 minutes or so and then it was time to go back to sleep.

This weekend was great! We didn't have anything planned and we spent a lot of time just hanging around the house playing. It was fun to not have to rush to one place or another. During one of Keegan's naps Lyle and I tried to finish up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of course Keegan woke up 15 minutes before the end of the book (we were listening on audio book) so Keegan joined us for the remainder of the book. You can read about what I thought about the book on my book blog here: http://karissabooks.blogspot.com/

It's good to be done with that book; it was pretty good and now I can continue with some other books I wanted to read.

We got some pictures of Keegan and Jubei "playing"; they are getting along great. The pictures are up on Picasa; see picture link at the side of this blog.

Other than that I am thrilled to be done with school. Not so thrilled that I have to spend all of next week out at the manufacturing plant in Oregon. I always feel bad for leaving Lyle with everything while I am gone. He says he feels worse for me because I have to work such long hours out there and I don't get to see Keegan at all. I am not sure which is worse; I just know that I am always thrilled to come home! I am getting out there early afternoon on Sunday so I am thinking about taking a quick road trip out to Crater Lake National Park. It's an 1.5 hr drive out of Medford (where the plant is). So I am not sure how adventurous I'll feel out there; we'll see maybe I'll have some great pictures when I get back!

Anyway, I have other things I should really be doing. So, back to those things! Hope that you are all doing well.

Baby food and other food for thought....

So Keegan has tried almost every available fruit and vegetable that they sell in the pre-made baby food. Let me tell you there aren't that many of them. I think a kid can only eat so much sweet potato, peas, and bananas. Although Keegan really loves his bananas so maybe he can't get enough of that. So as I desperately search the store shelfs for other fruits and veggies I begin to wonder why baby food is so Americanized. I mean where are the avocado, kiwi, quinoa, buckwheat, broccoli, legumes, papaya, mango, any many other baby foods? Are our babies stuck living in a world where there only exists a very limited number of fruits and vegetables? Then we wonder why our 2-3 year olds balk at trying something new...

So in frustration I decided to embark on the latest of many past and yet to come baby crusades...I am going to make Keegan some yummy baby food. How hard can it be? So I take the first step in any well thought out and well planned research. I Google how to make baby food. I get numerous hits (a number of them rather dubious) one website was really helpful though ( http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/). We'll get back to that information though. Anyway, let's just say I was less than thrilled with the majority of results. Okay step 2 of research visit babycenter.com and search there. They actually had a very nice overview of baby food; but no specifics. It just now came to me; I probably should have searched with wikihowtos also, but I didn't. So anyway I go back to wholesomebabyfood.com.

I figure how complicated can it be. You grind it up and freeze it. In interest of wanting Keegan to continue his life (not die of food poisoning); I begin reading wholesomebabyfood.com. Apparently things like carrots and broccoli are a no-no until the baby is over 6 months old. These contain nitrates that can turn into posionous nitrites in young babies causing blue baby syndorme; apparently it has something to do with the baby's stomach chemicals being right...I am not going to go into it all. The carrots from the store are treated to removed the nitrates.

Okay so...no broccoli for a month or so. Next food strawberries.

After more reading I find there is a general rule to not feed your babies berries until they are over 12 months old. Something about their digestive system not being able to handle it. Blueberries and cranberries are exempt because they are not real berries.

Okay so no feeding Keegan strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or boysenberries.

I had heard that citrus is bad to give babies before 12 months. This fact is reiterated on the site.
Apparently eating citrus before 12 months greatly raises the chance your child will have a citrus allergy later in life.

Okay...no citrus.

What about the kiwi, mango, papaya, starfruit etc. Well, exotic fruits are more likely to cause allergic reaction in young infants. So you should hold off on those until he's 9 months or older. Sorry, Keegan I already fed you some kiwi...looks like you are fine though so we can knock that one off the list.

So...no exotic fruits.

Well we love tomatoes at our house, so what about those? Well tomatoes, corn, and cranberries are some of the many fruits and vegetables deemed to acidic for infants under 9 months. They are known to upset tummies.

So, no acidic foods.

With my list of exciting things I want Keegan to try drastically limited. I decide that we'll try eating some avocados. Now to find a way to puree these...something easy to clean. The site recommends using a hand grinder. Low and behold Babies R' Us has a hand grinder *with* carrying case for the low price of $9.99. I buy it and am excited to try my hand at baby food making.

I turn in my final project for school (no more school, yes!). Then set about steaming plums in the microwave. I quarter them and plop them into my hand dandy easy to clean hand grinder. And I grind....and I grind...okay still grinding over here. Now plum juice is leaking down the sides of the grinder. My hands are red, the counter is red. But, by golly in about 15 minutes I have ground 4 plums into a pulp that would make someone proud I am sure. The fruits of my labor (ha) fill up a whole 4 spots in the ice cube tray. Each cube in an icecube tray is supposed to be ~1 ounce. How many ounces does Keegan normally eat I wonder. Looking at the gerber food jar I see that it contains 3.5 ounces. Oh... Oh, goody I just made Keegan one meals worth of food. I look at the plum juice running down the side of the counter and sigh; then for good measure swear a little bit. Then tell Lyle we're going to get a $60 personal hand blender, like the Magic Bullet because my arm hurts and I am never hand grinding again. Keegan is especially unappreciative as Lyle puts him to bed; we didn't get to go on a walk because mom was making baby food..so no swing ride for him. Wow, this making baby food thing was just a great idea....

Oh No Baby Has Another Cold...

So just as Keegan is beginning to get over the cough he had last week...yesterday he started snotting all over the place again and his cough worsened. I feel like the poor kid is just getting one cold after another. I try to remember he has only been going to daycare for a month. That eventually he will get over his illnesses.

The above begs the questions what can you do when baby has a cold? We have the moist cool humidifier in Keegan's room to help him breath. Keegan gets Tylenol when he has a fever or if he seem especially uncomfortable and nothing seems to help. Keegan gets his nose suctioned out whenever he sounds painfully stuffy (which he just loves, yeah right). Unfortunately none of this really seems to help him at night. The last couple nights Keegan has awoken coughing and extremely stuffed up. Then he cries and is uncomfortable and can't get back to sleep; the effect of this is that we get no sleep either. So in desperation last night we were trying to find a way to make him more comfortable. We figured out that Keegan can breathe easier sitting up and he doesn't cough much when sitting up either. So...how can he sleep sitting up?

Well the answer harks back to Keegan's earliest days of existence when rocking in a swing was the only way to keep him sleeping and happy. So last night in comes the swing into the bedroom. In comes Keegan into the bedroom. We have to strap him into the swing now as, when awake, he tries to throw himself out of it. I was worried that despite being strapped in he would still throw himself out of it so I insisted we pile pillows below the swing. Lyle thinks I am loony...but it made me feel better. So Keegan is placed in the swing. Surprisingly he sits in the swing very placidly sucking on his nook and quickly falls to sleep. Once I figured out that he did not like the swing swinging and turned the swing so I could reach him from the bed the night passed with small incident. There were a few times a night where I had to reach over and reinsert his nook; other than that all was well.

I think Lyle liked it too because he didn't have to get up to reinsert nook in the other room. Hopefully this will not become habit. Hopefully Keegan's cold will pass. For last night though the wonderful Fisher Price swing was a solution to an otherwise sleepless night for the three of us (maybe the six of us if you include Ruby and the cats).

Oh Happy Day

So on Wednesday afternoon I was driving home from work. It had been "one of those days". Keegan didn't sleep much the night before, because of his cold. I was tired. I was doing my first set of experiments (coatings) at work for the week. I prepped for this experiment on Tuesday then was informed by my tech lead that we were having a two hour meeting to plan a coating run at the plant on Wednesday morning. So much for getting my experiment done early Wednesday.

I decided that if I got in at 6am I could most likely get the coating part of the experiment done by the 9am meeting and still get all of the experimental samples tested in the afternoon. Then I realized that oh crap I left my mp3 player at home; so I will be working in the lab in dead silence. Oh, joy. The meeting was pretty much a drag. It started with 22 coatings on the list which we needed to par down to 18 coatings in order to get the experiment at the plant done within 24 hrs. We left the meeting 2 hours later with 26 coatings on the list...very productive. There were a number of disagreements of which I enthusiastically took part in. Oh and management wanted the run to be on August 21st; which means that if the plant needs formulations a month before coating to get in raw materials in time then they needed the formulations last week. So now we are scrambling and I find out I'll be out at the plant probably a week in August and a week in October.

Oh, and did I mention I am trying to get my final project done for school? Oh yeah and the trim *still* isn't up in the basement. Keegan doesn't have any clean bibs, Ruby needs her nails cut, and the house needs to be cleaned up, etc. etc.

Oh my drive home the 694/35E split once again proved to be the bane of my existence; making me once again late to pick up Keegan. Getting off of 35W I inevitably got stuck behind a huge truck hauling dirt that kept shower rocks at my windshield. Anyway, you get the picture. It was a day of no major catastrophes but lots of stupid things that seemed to be piling up and weighing me down. So on the way home; stuck in traffic I decided to think about all the things in my life that I am happy about. I thought maybe I would blog about them in case I am ever having a bad day again and I can come and read it.

So here we go! I have a loving husband who has a great sense of humor and helps with tons of stuff around the house. My husband has a great well paying flexible job that he loves. I have a wonderful well paying job that is flexible where people treat me with respect and value my opinion. We have a great house on a beautiful lake that is laid out exactly like we want. We have three hilarious cats and a wonderful dog. They are generally well behaved and bring a lot of fun to the house. They are also healthy; which has often not been the case in the past.

We have a wonderful little boy. Keegan is healthy, happy, and curious about everything. Keegan seems to actually like me and Lyle :-) We have great family including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Our parents are wonderful people who always go out of their way to help us and will always be there to support us both emotionally and financially. Our parents all love Keegan to bits! We have the most wonderful friends. Our friends are fun to spend time with, caring, and very supportive. Speaking of people; the people we work with are nice, respecting, intelligent people that are fun to spend 1/3 of your life with. And in general everyone I know is in good health right now; except for continuous daycare colds.

We are able to put money away both for retirement and for Keegan. It makes me feel good that we are already on the route to helping Keegan pay for college. We can afford to do fun stuff and don't have to worry every second about money (an improvement over 3 years ago). Our cars are working and in generally good condition(I hope I don't jinx the Mazda by saying this). Keegan has great daycare providers (both in my mom) and at Tutor Time. The Tutor Time teachers really seem to enjoy having him there. I have a great doctor (both OB and internist), that keeps me feeling great; Keegan has a great doctor that keeps him healthy. We have great cleaners that come to help keep the house clean and they play with Jubei with the laser pointer and he loves that. We have a great financial adviser and lawyer that we trust. Oh and I did I mention we have a Wii and a PS3 that I will have time to play again some time in the future. I am almost done with school and the basement is almost done. We are able to spend a couple hours each night focusing on and playing with Keegan and Keegan seems to love that.

Anyway, the list gets a bit particular and strange toward the end but those are all the things I was thinking of on the way home. So I guess I am most grateful for our family, friends, and jobs. Personally I don't know what I would do without Lyle, Seras, Loki, Jubei, Ruby, Keegan, and my mom and dad. This family is the core of my life and makes my world a happy place to be!

So next time I am complaining to someone about what a rough day I had; make sure to tell me I really don't have it that bad. People have it much worse. The only thing I always worry about the precariousness of the people and things in our lives. Hopefully everything stays like it is now for quit a while.

Another day..... Another Dollar

Well you know how things go when you get busy, things don't get done like you would like, but such is the way of things. For the last couple of nights Keegan has been having coughing fits at 12pm. Last night it lasted about an hour or so, and it was about the same on Tuesday night as well. So needless to say tiredness has started to creep into my mind when trying to work from time to time. Today I realized I had been staring at the same piece of code for 15 minutes or so. Just tells me I should have gone to bed sooner :). Anyway the funny thing was this morning Keegan woke up at 5:30 like he normally does, and Karissa went out to turn on his mobile so he will stare at that while we get ready. Well we got ready and I went out to scoop him up and change him, feed him, etc. But I look in and he has his butt up in the air and is sleeping soundly. I give him this look of "bum" and go to feed the cats instead. It was nice that he waited till 7:15 to wake up for the day, and I fed him them, and took him to Grandma's house. Karissa of course had left at 5:30 so we had a little guy time this morning.

Other things that are happening... well there is the whole bridge thing here in the twin cities, and I still can't believe that a major portion of I35W is toast. Speaking of cars, the Mazda hasn't been sounding too good, so tomorrow I will have to take it in to see if it is something major or not. Hopefully it is just something minor, but we will have to see. Lastly, I was reading online about some stuff and came across the picasaweb stuff that mentioned that you can make an album into a flash, and embed it. So I thought I would try it out..... so here goes.

Of coughs and cats...

So Keegan has another cold which sucks. Mainly it sucks because he wakes up at night coughing and then starts crying. Basically he is awake a good portion of the night. On Sunday night I finally brought him into our bed because if Keegan coughs and you pat his back right away, then he goes back to sleep and doesn't cry. So he finally slept for an hour or so. Then at 5am Jubei (our brainless wonder of a cat) hops across the bed hitting Lyle in the stomach, Keegan on the back, and me in the stomach. Jubei takes off out of the room. Lyle and I go "oofff" from the impact on our stomach. Keegan starts going making these "uh, uh" noises like he can't catch his breath. So I pick Keegan up quickly and he is making noises like he got the wind knocked out of him. He can't cry he is just gasping. A couple seconds later Keegan's caught his breath and is screaming. Meanwhile when I picked Keegan up I saw blood running down his face by his eye.

So now I am freaking out. Thinking "oh my god what's happened to our baby". Lyle and I run Keegan into the bathroom and find that apparently Jubei's back foot caught Keegan by the eye when Jubei bounded off of him. Keegan's got a scratch on his eyelid, a scratch right below his eye, a puncture wound by his eye; the remaining claws left scratches on his forehead. We wipe his face off with a hot washcloth. I am not sure why the bedroom door wasn't shut. It's always shut when Keegan is in the bedroom so that the cats aren't in there. I guess Lyle and I were just too tired to remember to shut it.

So Keegan has a bad cough, a fever, possibly an ear infection (he had been tugging at his ears), a black eye, and scratches on his face. Great, just great. I can't take Keegan to daycare with a fever so I call into work to say I'll be staying home with him. Then I call in to daycare to let them know he's sick. Then I call the doctor to let them know I need to bring Keegan in.

We get to the doctor's at 9:00am. Keegan is throughly inspected and listened too. Keegan does his best to assist the doctor as she tries to look into his ears and mouth by grabbing Dr. Kuku's hands and trying to guide them into his mouth. He is fine; he just had *another* bad cold. We need to put Neosporin on his scratches twice a day and watch for infection. Boy, the excitement of it all. The rest of the day went pretty well. It was nice to be home with Keegan and take care of him. When he is sick he makes me feel so needed. He just wants mommy to hold him and make him feel better; I can do the holding part. Not much I can do about the cough though.

Today Keegan is at my moms and hopefully he is being good for her.

Relaxing night out??

So, last night mom and dad were kind enough to watch Keegan for the night so Lyle and I could go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Lyle and I were super excited to have a night out. I tried to talk Lyle into seeing the movie over in Maple Grove so that we could eat at Biaggi's afterwards. I love that restaurant and haven't been there in nearly a year!

In the interest of time we ended up going to the Wyndsong Theater in Mounds View instead. It's closer. We found out the movie was playing on their big screen at 3:30pm so we rushed over there with intentions of having a nice dinner out afterwards. I had left work at 2:30pm and arrived home at 3:10pm so we barely made it.

On the way over there we both realized that we needed cat food and we needed food for camping. Not only that but we hadn't packed anything for camping yet (we are leaving this afternoon when I get home from work). Oh yeah and I got a note from my teacher that I had submitted my assignment wrong so I needed to redo that.

Anyway, so we got to the movie theater ran in to watch the movie. I was really hungry so I got a bag of Twizzlers; reading the package I found there were 6 servings in the bag at 100 calories each. After 30 minutes of previews (the Stardust preview looked really neat and so did the Bourne Ultimatum) the movie finally started. The movie was okay; wasn't nearly as good as the book of course. Some of the casting decisions they made were weird. Like Luna Lovegood was way geekier and not as cute in the book. Also Professor Umbrige is described as looking like a toad in the book and she was really cute in the movie. As we are leaving the movie I realize that there are two twizzlers left in the package; no wonder I started feeling nauseous.

Anyway, we get out of the movie around 6:30pm. Decide to forgo a nice dinner so that we have time to get cat food and go to Target to get camping food. We get Wendy's instead, breezing through the drive thru and eating on the way to PetCo.

Finally get over to pick Keegan up from my parents around 7:30pm. Keegan is kind of crabby because it's past his bedtime. We get him home and to bed. Then the frantic packing begins; we need a lot more stuff since Keegan has arrived. Then time to get his stuff ready for daycare. Around 9pm I sit down to re-submitt my homework wondering what has happened to our nice relaxing night without Keegan.

I finally collapsed into bed around 9:30pm; read for 1/2 an hour and then turn out the lights. I wake up at 5am this morning still worn out and tired and wondering if we are ever going to have a couple days where we are not scrambling to get stuff done. School is getting really old as is the fact that we just have a little bit to finish down in the basement but can never seem to get the time to get down there and finish it. I am tired.

The joys of water

Last week we moved Keegan to the big bath tub. He has grown too long to fit in his Fisher Price baby bath tub. So we used the new bathtub in the basement. I got him a little foam pad to sit on so he doesn't tip over and some little floating duckies that have toys on them for him to play with. For the first bath Lyle was out mowing the lawn. Keegan loved the duckies and kept trying to lunge for them and tipping over. They are kind of slipperly so when he finally grabebd a duckie and held it to his chest it would pop out of his grasp and back into the tub.

Keegan has also discovered the joy of splashing. If he is lying on his back he'll get this funny grin on his face and then start splashing his feet up and down to beat the band. This is very cute and funny but mommy ends up very wet and so does the rest of the bathroom. Last week during his bath I had forgotten a towel. So I laid him on his back with his head up on the foam thing and turned around to grab a towel from the cabinet. As I turned around I heard a big flop, splash noise. Keegan had flipped himself over in the tub in the blink of an eye and was sputtering as he struggled to keep his face out of the water. I swooped down and grabbed him plopping his on his butt. He looked at me and coughed a little with water running down his face and then gave me a huge smile and started splashing again. Apparently his close encounter with water inhalation didn't phase him in the least; my heart was beating pretty rapidly though :-)

Lyle and I were bathing Keegan last night and Keegan flopped himself over again. He does it so fast! One second he's on his back giggling and splashing and then the next second he's flipped over trying to drown himself. Well at least he has fun... He also loves the shower curtain and is determined to pull it down on top of himself one of these days. I am glad he loves his baths so much. Hopefully he will still love taking a bath when he is older.

Tonight Keegan is staying with my parents while Lyle and I go out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That should be fun; we've been dying to see this movie but didn't really want to drag Keegan along with us. Anyway, okay back to work for me!

Harry Potter abounds

I thought I would expound a bit on the Harry Potter book release party that we went to last Friday night.

Jess and Carlos kindly invited Lyle and Keegan and I over to dinner and to discuss the upcoming events in the soon to be released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book. Some other friends were supposed to be there later but Lyle and I were the only ones who made it for dinner. Jess and Carlos have three children; two girls and a baby boy. I am always amazed at the noise level with that many children and how despite the chaos how everything is pretty well organized.

The girls thought Keegan was just delightful and amused themselves by giving him kisses and tickling him. Keegan smiled most of the time except for occasionally giving Lyle or me a look that seemed to say "Mom, Dad, exactly what is going on here?" In general Keegan seemed to enjoy watching the girls and enjoy the attention they gave him.

While Lyle watched Keegan, Carlos grilled, and Jess made the remainder of dinner I feed their little baby boy Leo his dinner. It was weird feeding a baby with teeth and he ate everything so fast! Keegan eats well, but he still spits a lot of his food out. The girls were great while we ate dinner, Leo was a little fussy so he went down for a nap. Keegan sat in his bumbo on the table and watched us eat. Jess made a very tasty salad with some yummy hummus. Keegan ended up getting his fingers in the hummus at one point and spent a lot of time trying to grab people's water glasses. Keegan's reach just seems to be getting longer and longer. Dinner went well and then towards its conclusion Katy showed up. It was nice to see her as we hadn't seen her for a while. Leo had woken up from his nap and Keegan was tired. Jess and Carlos were nice enough to let me put Keegan in Leo's crib for a nap and they even found a monitor to set up so I could hear if he started to cry. Keegan in his typical way, went right to sleep.

Shortly after all this it was time for the girls and Leo to go to bed. Keegan was relocated to a pack n play (which he didn't seem to mind that much). I think about 1/2 an hour later everyone under the age of 20 something was asleep. The bedtime for the girls and Leo was a whirl of activity I honestly couldn't follow. I am impressed everyone got to bed so promptly and stayed there :-)

Then all of the adults spent some time talking about the Harry Potter book. Main items of debate were: is Snape good or evil?, who's going to die?, Is Malfoy going to end up good or evil?, Will Valdemort be defeated?, Is Syrius Black really dead?, Is Dumbledore really dead? I won't go over all the discussion because the points were made this and that way. We were split about 50/50 over the Snape issue. The general consensus seemed to be that Malfoy was good. We were split on whether or not Dumbledore and Black are dead. Everyone agreed Valdemort would be defeated. In general most people thought Harry would die or possibly Neville; there was some speculation that Snape would die defeating the dark lord etc, etc.

The other activity was trying to make up naughty words on the alphabet pal. This is a catepillar where you push the legs and it makes the sound of the letter. So you would press 'S', 'H', 'I' and then on the last letter the alphabet pal would giggle and say "oh, that tickles". Interesting that they have software built in to prevent kids (or adults) from doing bad words. They were pretty thorough as we tried quit a while to come up with a bad word that it would let us do. Anyway, wow what an activity :-) Around 11pm Keegan woke up and he played with the alphabet pal for a while . Then we bundled him up in his stroller and walked home with him. Keegan was so cute sitting in his stroller all bundled up; it made his look *so* small. Keegan went back to sleep okay when we got home and we were all tired.

Anyway, we all had lots of fun and it was neat to see Keegan interact with the girls and Leo.

BTW, I started a new blog where I am going to review all of the books that I read. The address for this is www.karissabooks.blogspot.com

6 month portraits

So yesterday we did Keegan's 6 month portraits. I was pretty nervous about everything turning out okay; but everything went great!

It was a bit stressful because we had to be at JC Penny Portrait Studio by 4pm. I left work around 2:30pm thinking I would pick up Keegan by 3pm and be home shortly after that. Alas it was not to be. The construction on 694/35E had prompted yet a new arrangement of these two major freeways (they change the configuration of the roads almost weekly it seems). 694 was backed up quit a ways. When I finally got through that mess I trucked on over to the daycare; getting there by 3:15pm. In a panic I called Lyle and instructed him to put some socks, a couple more toys, and Keegan's dragon shoes into the diaper bag just in case we needed them for pictures. I hopped on 242 east of hwy 65 to go home (usually a 3 minute drive) only to find out that 242 was down to one lane for construction with multiple stop signs added. It was pretty backed up; but what sucked is that it was majorly backed up the other direction which was the direction we were going to drive for pictures. Finally got home around 3:30pm. Keegan got a quick change of cloths while I ran to the bathroom and then off we went. Luckily Keegan was an angel about the whole cloths changing thing. Lyle had asked daycare to put Keegan down for a nap at 2pm so that he was well rested when I picked him up at 3. Daycare did exactly as we asked and Keegan obliged them by quickly falling to sleep and taking a nap. We were supposed to get to JC Penny by 3:45pm.

So we took back roads and ended up getting there by 3:55pm. We waited a couple minutes and then went in for pictures. There really isn't much to say about the pictures. Keegan was awesome. We plopped him down on his little bottom and he smiled like a champ for the camera. Then Keegan laid on his back and grabbed his little toes for the camera and smiled (he had a bit of help with this one). Usually Keegan only grabs his toes when he is bored and he was way too curious about everything so Lyle and I handed him his toes to grab. Then the photographer flipped him onto his stomach (which he usually hates) and he held him self way up and gave her a huge smile. Last pose was to have him stand with Lyle holding one hand and me holding the other. Again, little Kee smiled big at the camera, then looked up towards me and smiled, and then looked at Lyle and smiled. Keegan did perfect; there was absolutely no reason for me to be worried about him.

The hardest part was having to pick the pictures out right there. All of them were so cute and it was so hard to decide which ones to get. We got a large package so I think we may have way too many pictures! I am sure we'll find something to do with them though. I found out after the fact that we won't be able to get a CD of all the pictures :-( That's something that Sears does but JC Penny doesn't do. JC Penny will send me a link to all the pictures online which I can in turn forward to everyone. I will probably also post the link up here for people to see.

So all went well with pictures and I can breathe a sigh of relief until the next set.

Keegan had a cold on Saturday but it must have been a little one because he seemed much better yesterday. Unfortunately now Lyle has the evil cold; so he was under the weather yesterday. We've been super busy so that hasn't helped with the cold. On Friday night we had a Harry Potter release party that went from 5-11pm. Saturday morning was Dnd and then we went to Rosedale Mall with my parents that afternoon to hunt down a cute outfit for Keegan's pictures. Saturday night we played card games etc. over at my parents house until 11pm. Then Sunday morning we got up early and dropped off Keegan at my parents house around 9pm. We headed up to Hinkley and spent a few hours at the casino. Then we drove to Sandstone, MN for a tour of the Wild Cat Sanctuary. We sponsered a black jaguar there named Diablo Guapo and as his sponsers we got a 1.5-2 hr tour of the area. It's not normally open to the public so it was a privledge to be able to go see all of the cats; Keegan wasn't allowed to attend because the cats have a tendency to stalk babies and are upset by the loud crying. It was very awesome. Unfortunately we didn't get back until 6pm, we took a nap, and then picked up Keegan around 7pm. Then Lyle had hockey and didn't get home until 11pm or so. Then to bed and up at 5am the next morning for work. I needed to go back to work for a break :-) Things don't promise to slow down any time soon...

Toys, Portraits, and an IUD

How are the above three related? Well probably not all that much except for the fact that I was thinking about them at the same time.

Quick mini-update...I did end up getting the Mirena IUD put in. Maybe TMI for you all but my doctor encouraged me to spread the work about how simple and painless the procedure was. It literally took 5 minutes and no pain. Best part was I got to throw away all the birth control pills when I got home; don't have to worry about any of that for the next 5 years. Unless Lyle and I decide we want to have another kid; then I can have the IUD removed.

Okay now about the other headline topics. In the baby book I have it wants to know what Keegan's favorite toys are.... Up to this point he has pretty much grappled all toys will equal enthusiasm. Over the last week or so he has begun to show very strong preferences for a couple of toys. One of his favorites is this plastic Fisher Price Driving Gym. It can be positioned up in the air so that he can play with it laying down or it can be placed down so that he can face it while sitting. Well, he has started playing with it in the sitting position and he loves it. He loves it so much that when comes home from daycare the first thing he does is look into the Sunroom. If you walk him into the Sunroom he immediately starts trying to reach for it from your arms and makes a lot of noise. When you sit him in front of it he gets this big grin on his face and giggles while he plays with it. When you hit the gym or turn the knobs it plays music, lights flash, and a reel with pictures spins around. He has found out that if he pushes on the reel with his hand he can stop it from spinning and make the gears grind. No doubt he will eventually break it; but the noise of the gears grinding (and the fact that *he* has the power to stop it) gives him and unequaled joy!
Taking him away from this toy any sooner than a good 20 minutes results in much upset on his part. It's just weird.

He has a couple other favorites too. There's a manhatten toy that is a wood toy with balls and sticks joined with elastic into a polyhedron type of shape (looks like a complex chemical model). He loves this toy; he spends hours trying to pull it apart and stick it in his mouth. Then there is the "Buzz 'n Bites" a bee with four wings of different hard rubbery textures. One of the wings buzzes when you pull it back; he loves chewing on this and spends hours trying to figure out how it buzzes. Lastly would probably have to be his bug. It's a big Lamaze brand bug with black and white polka dots on its tummy, crinkly wings and a multitude of toys hanging off of its many legs. Keegan picked out bug himself. I chose four toys at Babies R Us and let Keegan pick his favorite; he immediately chose the bug.

As mentioned with the Fisher Price gym he has started showing preference for toys and anger/disappointment when they are taken away. We used to just be able to take the toy away from him plop him in his carseat and then give the toy back. No longer is that the case. He occasionally gets quit upset and fussy when you take his toy....poor little boyo. He has also been learning "no". He started grabbing and pulling hair. This was cute for about a week; then Lyle and I feared we would begin to have bald spots on our heads. So now when he grabs our hair we say "No, Keegan" and he usually loosens his grip some.

Okay last topic is portraits. Lyle and I decided we would do his first portrait sitting at 6 months. A lot of our friends have been doing every 3 months. We just decided that with all of the pictures we take of him at home it wasn't necessary to do them that often. I have absolutely no experience with taking a baby in for portraits. I called up JC Pennys and told them we would like to make an appointment for portriats for our 6 month old. It was an interesting conversation; which has been loosely dictated below. JC represents the JC pennys lady.

JC: "When would you like to come in?"
Karissa: "Maybe this weekend?"
JC: silence...struggles not to laugh.."Umm...we are booked all this weekend and next weekend. What about a week day?"
Karissa: "Okay what about Monday afternoon around 3 or 4pm?"
JC: "Well do you want 3 or 4pm?"
Karissa: "What's open?"
JC: "Both"
Karissa: "Okay, uh, 4pm" (As I struggle to figure out when we will get our 3-5pm nap in so Keegan isn't a crab butt)
JC: "Will it just be Keegan in the pictures"
Karissa:"Yes"
JC: "Okay, well you had better dress for the pictures too. Sometimes the parents end up in them."
Karissa: "OK"
JC: "What exactly will Keegan be wearing?"
Karissa: "Cloths? Maybe a couple outfits?"
JC: "We recommend only solid colors. Only bring multiple outfits if you think he will tolerate changing. So what will he be wearing?"
Karissa: "A solid button down shirt and jeans. And another outfit." (Thinking how the $%^*$ do I know what the kid will be wearing. It depends if he pukes on himself on the way over there.)
JC: "Okay then how do you want him posed?"
Karissa: "Okay I haven't done this before so whatever poses the photographer recommends."
JC: "Well you should think about that. What props are you planning on using?"
Karissa: "I don't know. Maybe a stuffed animal or toy of something."
JC: "Well try and figure that out. Remember to bring along a number of comfort items."
Karissa: "Okay we will."
JC: "The comfort items should be preferably in decent shape in case they end up in the picture."
Karissa: "OK"
JC: "Plan on the the session taking an hour and a half. You will be buying all the pictures immediately after the sitting. Are there any other questions?"
Karissa: "No, okay we will be there on Monday at 4pm with comfort items, some props, and a couple outifts."
JC: "Correct."

I hang up baffled. I feel a bit like a bad mom here. Was I supposed to have every pose, outfit, and prop planned before the call for the appointment? I mean I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. If we don't like the pictures we'll learn from that and get them redone later. Now I am struggling with what he should wear. I was planning on this cute little plaid button down shirt and his oversized jean shorts. That's not solid though; I feel an emergency solid button down baby shirt shopping trip coming up. In fact I am not sure he owns anything that *is* solid. Maybe a t-shirt or two. Ah, who realized there is a whole other realm of stress to be had in taking the baby for pictures. Now I am struggling to figure how we will make sure he is happy, well-rested and fed for a 2-3 hr period on Monday. This will be after playing at daycare all day and right after we get off of work, when, he is generally exhausted and crabby. Since he goes to bed at 7pm we couldn't do it a whole lot later. Then I guess there are comfort items and props to decide on. Do they have to match his clothes??? Will they clash with the backgrounds?? Ahh, it baffles the mind to consider it. My head hurts...on that note I will close this entry.

Happy Birthday to Me :-)

Well today I am 29. I am not 30 yet but I am getting very close and that makes me feel a bit old. Keegan gave me a wonderful birthday present this morning; he slept in. In fact he was still sleeping when I left. I wanted to give him a hug or kiss or something before I left but didn't want to wake him.

I brought in an assortment of donuts and juice for people at work today. People seem to appreciate it and there have been lots of Happy Birthday wishes coming my way.

I am not sure what to talk about in this blog. Basically I have about 20 minutes to kill before I need to take off for my doctor's appt.

I guess I could talk briefly about that. I have a doctor's appt today with my gyno. I haven't been very happy with the new birth control that she put me on. It's a new pill called Yaz and it doesn't agree with me. I am going in to discuss a couple alternates. I am looking at either an IUD or this new device that they put in your arm that delivers hormones for 3 yrs. I am most interested in the second but it is pretty new so there aren't many doctors that know how to implant it. The IUD is iffy because people either seem to love them or have a lot of issues with them. The newest IUD Mirena; eliminates your period in 80% of people. That would be nice.

Anyway, I will have to see how it goes. It should be interesting. Then after that time to celebrate my birthday with a nice dinner out and presents and cake!

Hope everyone is having a good day!

Icky Sicky and a Typical Day

Okay, so Keegan finally got over his cold last week. This is a good thing because we finally have our happy baby back. Unfortunately I still have the cold (going on 2 weeks now), my dad had the cold which turned into a sinus infection and my mom got the cold which turned into pneumonia. Lyle is all clear for now :-) We are all hoping to be healthy and well before Keegan can bring something else home from daycare.

All that being said I thought I would give a quick synopsis of a typical day at our house right now.

5:00 am (If Keegan wakes up at 5am I feed him while Lyle gets ready)
5:30 am - Lyle and I get up for work assuming Keegan hasn't woken us up earlier. We both get ready and Lyle goes and feeds the cats and dog while I finish getting ready. Then I come out and change Keegan and pass him off to Lyle to feed. If Keegan wakes up right at 5:30am then Lyle feeds him while I take care of the cats and the dog.
6:00 am - I leave for work, Lyle starts working from home.
6:30 am - I get to work
7:00 am - Lyle drops Keegan off at daycare and then goes back home to work a couple more hours
8:30-9am - Lyle leaves for work
3:00 pm - I leave work; usually Lyle leaves work about the same time
3:30 pm - I pick Keegan up from daycare
4:00 pm - Keegan goes down for a 1 hr nap; Lyle and I quickly make and eat dinner
5:00 pm - Keegan wakes up. We do Keegan stuff for the next two hours. We go on a walk, play with toys, read some books. Keegan gets fed his second set of solids and sometimes gets a bath.
7:00 pm - Keegan gets ready for bed. Either Lyle or I read to him while the other person gets Keegan's stuff ready for daycare and feeds the animals.
7:30 pm - If all has gone well Keegan is asleep, the bottles are washed, the bottles have been refilled, an outfit is out for Keegan to wear tomorrow and all of Keegan's needed daycare supplies are set next to his car seat.
8:00 pm - Lately Lyle and I have been going down and working on the basement until 10pm or so. Last night was different. I worked on homework for an hour or so while Lyle read in the bedroom.
9:30 pm - Ruby goes outside and goes to bed. Lyle and I get into bed and read until around 10pm
10:00pm - Usually lights out. Hopefully Keegan doesn't wake us up too much in the night!

Anyway, that's a typical day. There are variations thrown in of course. On Tues. we go bowling from 6:30 - 9pm and on Thursday I have class from 6-7pm. Just thought I would record it for prosperities sake.

Mystery at Daycare

So there's been something mysterious going on at daycare lately. When you walk through the daycare with Keegan *everyone* knows who he is. As I leave with him, all the employees there are like "bye Keegan", "see you tomorrow Keegan", etc. He smiles at them all and we leave. He only has three teachers that teach in his classroom so Lyle and I have been trying to figure out how everyone, even people Lyle and I don't know, know Keegan.

The mystery was solved this morning. Keegan gets dropped off by Lyle some time between 6:30 and 7:00am. Then I pick him up between 3-3:30pm. As such, Keegan is usually the first baby in the infant room and the first baby to leave in the afternoon. This morning when Lyle dropped Keegan off, Keegan was, once again the first baby there. So Lyle gave him to the lead teacher, Alexa, and then went to put Keegan's car seat back with the other car seats. On his way out Lyle noticed that neither Keegan nor Alexa were in the infant room. Instead Alexa and Keegan were walking around the daycare saying good morning to everyone. Keegan is a very easy smiler.

So he and his teacher go around in the morning and say "Hi" to everyone and he smiles at them. Mystery solved: that's how everyone at the daycare knows who Keegan is. He greets them every morning with his big toothless grin. Lyle and I both thought it was funny. I am happy he is getting all that personal attention and that he is such a well liked baby :-) It's great that he is so willing to interact with all those different people there! Hopefully he'll grow into being a well-like kid too!!!

Anyway, thought I would dictate the story while it was fresh in my mind. Now back to work!

Missing my lab buddy

So this is my third day back at work full-time. Everything is going great with daycare (besides Keegan bringing home colds) and with my mom watching Keegan. Being back to work full-time is actually strangely relaxing; at least while I am at work. It's quit here, we don't have any really stressful projects going on right now, and I have a lot of time to myself :-) Unfortunately once I get home there is always a ton that needs to be done. Lyle and I have been trying to set aside the from the time we get home (4pm) until Keegan goes to bed (7pm) as Keegan time. Except for making dinner; it's all about Keegan. We take him on walks and go swinging and read books and play. So far it is working out okay but my homework is starting to pile up so I am going to have to take maybe tonight or tomorrow night and finish all that up.

The only strange thing about being back to work is that when I went into my darkroom something seemed wrong. I felt a little bit sad. I wasn't sure why I would feel sad in my darkroom since I love working in the lab. I stood there and tried to figure out why I was sad and realized I was actually kind of lonely. This was strange because I always work by myself in the darkroom. Then I realized that the last few months before I had Keegan I wasn't working in my darkroom by myself. I was working in there very pregnant and had Keegan for company. I guess I was missing the running dialog I used to have with him while I worked in my darkroom. I would explain to him what I was doing and why we had to wait to eat lunch because I just needed to finish up this one experiment and could he please stop kicking me in the ribs just for a minute so I could actually reach the top shelf in the darkroom. Other than that being back in the lab is great. And...after doing the work 8 months pregnant everything seems so easy to do. Dropping a cup on the ground isn't a big deal and reaching the top shelf in the darkroom isn't an oddessy. It's also nice not to have the organic vapor respirator on every second I am in the lab. Man that respirator makes you hot and sweaty. I also like not having to worry quit as much about the chemical exposure in general. When I was pregnant I was always a bit worried about what even a little whiff of solvent would do to Keegan.

Anyway, I just had a quick break during some lab work while I was waiting for stuff to stir...so I should get back to it.

Keegan's 5 months old

So last Thursday Keegan was 5 months old! He continues to change daily keeping our lives very exciting.

He's been eating some veggies and fruits for a couple weeks now. He really dislikes peaches but carrots and sweet potatoes seem to be okay. He loves eating his solids. When you put the spoon of food in front of him he dives right for it! We have to be careful he doesn't choke himself on the spoon :-) He has also started to (kind of) hold his bottle. He grabs for the bottle and can usually get it into his mouth; although he hasn't figured out that he needs to tilt it up to get anything out of it! He has tried to feed himself solids too. He always grabs for his spoon so I let him try feeding himself. He took the spoon and shoved it right at his eye...he missed his eye with the spoon but got rice cereal in it and then started to cry. We decided to wait a bit before we let him try feeding himself again.

As far as for physical stuff, he can rollover like a champ. Generally he rolls from his stomach to his back. Last week he also started sitting up by himself. He can stay sitting up for a couple minutes at a time without support. One of his favorite things to do is to hold onto stuff and stand up. I guess standing makes him taller and makes him feel good about himself :-) He smiles and giggles and still "talks" up a storm. He is a hazard around a dinner table because he grabs for everything. He is absolutely fascinated with glasses. If we go out to dinner he always wants the water glass. If you let him touch it he will grab on and stick his mouth over the rim of it.

Last week he brought us home something wonderful from daycare....a horrible cold. I ended up having to take him into the doctor because his eyes were leaking green stuff (lovely). He's now on ointment for his eyes. Since we went to the doctor we got a 5 month weight and length for him. He was 17 lbs 8 oz and 25 inches long. He is back at daycare today and I can't wait to find out what other lovely things he will bring home....

I am also back at work full time this week. More on that later. For now I have to get back to work.

First Business Trip AK (after keegan)

So right now I am sitting in the plant. Seems like I do a lot of that when I come out to the plant. That's just kind of the way it goes. The operators run the material and the QC techs test it and I sit here and make sure that people do the stuff right :-) Anyway we have been working 14 hour shifts. So yesterday I started at 6:30am and worked until 8:30pm. Right now they accidentally got a coating stuck in their 2 story oven; so they are trying to figure out how that happened.

It kind of sucks to be away for this long. Although I will only be here (White City, Oregon) from Mon to Fri. I guess I don't miss Keegan any more or less than I miss Lyle, the cats, Ruby, and my bed :-)

I've been getting updates from my mom and Lyle on how Keegan is doing. Keegan has finally started sleeping through the night in his crib, which is awesome. We were getting a bit worried that he would be sleeping in his carseat forever. Keegan also tried to grab the cell phone from Lyle while I was talking to Lyle last night. So Lyle let him hold the cell phone which Keegan then promptly dropped on the floor.

Anyway, hopefully everyone at home keeps doing well. And hopefully we will finish this run at some point. We are just over halfway done now; so I hope things keep going okay. I *really* don't want to stay out here any longer than Friday.

I guess I haven't had a lot of time to miss the little guy. I am at the plant, then I eat dinner, and go to bed. 7 hrs later I get up and come into the plant again. Anyway, I should probably go and see if any progress is being made on their oven problem.

First vaccinations for Keegan

Well this morning Keegan had his 2 month appointment; he's actually 8 weeks so he's a bit behind schedule. When I called to make his two month the pediatrician was booked out for 1.5 months and our GP was booked out 2 weeks. So he had his 2 month a bit late.

Anyway, all appears to be in order with the big Kee. And he is the BIG Kee. His length was 23.75 inches which is 75th percentile. His weight was 14 lbs 8 ounces which is 95th percentile. I guess that's why we call him our little porker :-)

Our doctor checked him all out and everything looks good. Keegan had a great time and giggled and smiled at the doctor through most of the appointment. Then came the event Keegan and I had dreaded (okay, I don't think Keegan knew it was coming). Keegan had to get his shots. Two nurses came in and first they administered the oral vaccine. Keegan did really well with this. He made some funny faces at the nurses and then was all smiles again. They held his little calves down to prep his big thunder thighs for the shots. He was going to get to shots in each thigh. Too bad nobody informed him of this; I mean I did tell him what was going on but there wasn't much comprehension there...

So, up to this point Keegan is still thinking the doctor's office is awesome; there are so many people to smile at :-) Then BAM, the nurses give him two shots in each leg very quickly. Poor Keegan had a momentary look of shock on his face and then the smiles were gone. He screamed and screamed. He stopped to look at me with his bottom lip quivering as if to say "mom, why did you let them do that??!!" and then he screamed some more.

Let me tell you I felt like a real heel about the whole thing. As I left the doctor's office with my still whimpering/crying baby everyone there seemed to know what had gone on. Keegan got a lot of "ahhs", "oh, poor baby", and even some little chuckles as we hightailed it into the car. Once we got into the car he subsided but I kept hearing little sniffles coming from the backseat. Man did I ruin his day. He was having such a great time too. Finally he fell asleep. He is still sleeping as I type. Hopefully he can sleep off most of the vaccinations.

Anyway, other than that things have been going really well. Keegan's a great baby and he is starting to really take notice of his toys. He really likes to kick at things that play music or light up when he kicks them. He seems to understand that when the music stops if he kicks it again the music will start again. It's been fun to see him figure stuff out; I imagine it will only get more fun as his increases his interaction with the world.

Well I have to get in some hours for work. Yep I am back at work half time and that is a whole other story. Thank goodness for my mom who has been watching Keegan when I am at work. I am so happy that he can stay with her; it makes me feel good to know that someone is taking care of him that loves him so much!

Talk to ya'll later.

Keegan is 2 months

Okay, so I never got around to posting about the second day of the hospital experience. I probably never will. I figured I mine as well try and stay recent with things.

I guess to sum up...I struggled with breastfeeding for about 4 weeks and then gave up. Keegan didn't latch on right and neither one of us liked breastfeeding very much; he also was spitting up a ton. So we switched to Similac organic formula and he likes it a lot. Not nearly as much spitting up and neither of us it totally stressed out at feeding times :-) I felt really guilty about giving up on breastfeeding but I think that it's been worth it. I enjoy having him around a lot more and he is much happier.

Keegan has changed a lot in the last 2 months. Since about 5-6 weeks he has been smiling and giggling. He has a lot to say about everything. For the most part he is a very happy baby! If he is crying it is because he is hungry, has a dirty diaper, or is too tired. We are still working on the too tired part because he doesn't like to sleep during the day. We've tried to force the issue by putting him somewhere quiet and dark; but no go. Finally during the last week he has started to fall asleep on his own during the day. This makes him a much happier baby when he is awake. He sleeps very well at night though. Usually he sleeps for 5-6 hours and then wakes up to eat. Then it's back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. I am really glad he has that figured out!

The first few weeks we had Keegan home I think Lyle and I were wondering why in the world did we decide to have a kid. It was tough and we were tired. There also wasn't a whole lot of give from Keegan if you know what I mean; no feedback and minimal interaction. But as time has gone on and we have all learned how to get along it's been a lot of fun having him around. Especially since he learned how to smile. Lyle and I both make fools out of ourselves trying to get him to crack a grin.

Last night we gave him a bath and he decided to christen Lyle....as we were bathing him he peed right out of the tub onto Lyle's jeans. Keegan and I thought it was funny; Lyle had to go and change his pants.

Easter was good. Lots of running around both to Lyle's parent's house and to my parents. It was fun to be at both places. It was the first time a lot of Lyle's family had met Keegan.

We go camping in two weeks; we will have to see how that goes.

In general though I have to say I like having him around. He changes so fast it makes every week a new experience.

Okay so it's been a long while - labor and delivery.

So we had Keegan almost exactly 5 weeks ago. I'll do a quick description of the labor/delivery process. My water broke at 4am on Feb 6th. Needless to say it broke all over the bed and was quit a surprise. Supposedly, only 15% of women have their water break before labor and I guess I got to be in that minority.

We went into the hospital right away and they asked me if I wanted to go onto Pitocin (sp) or wait to see if I went into labor. I wanted to wait a couple hours. So we walked around the labor and delivery floor (me, Lyle, and mom). And walked some more and some more. They checked me at 9am and I was around 3cm dilated so if looked like I was starting to get somewhere. So we waited a couple more hours and the contractions got a lot worse.

They checked me again and I was around 5cm dilated but starting to have some trouble with the pain. The nurse recommended that now would be a good time for an epidural if I wanted one. I wanted one! The contractions were almost on top of each other and, having breathed through them okay up to this point, I was started to have trouble. So the anesthesiologist came in to do the epidural around noonish. He wanted to know if I had any concerns about the epidural. I told him I was worried that it was going to hurt to get it. He laughed saying that I was in a lot more pain now than the epidural would give me. So I got the epidural. All was good a few minutes later; I thanked the anesthesiologist and the nurse and was all around happy and sleepy. I slept for something like 3 hrs and then the nurse (3rd nurse we'd had) told me I was dilated to 10cm and they were going to let me "labor down" for a few hours before we started pushing. So a few hours later we started pushing. By we I mean Lyle had one leg and mom had the other leg. Pushing was hard work for everyone, but two hours later Keegan finally popped out at 8:35pm.

I remember initially just being relieved that he had come out and then being concerned when I didn't hear him cry. They took him over to suction mucus out of his mouth and weight him, etc. He was a very healthy 8lbs 5.6 oz and 21.25" long. I would like to start singing praises here about what a miracle the birth was, etc, etc. But that wouldn't be very honest. All I remember thinking after he was born is that I was exhausted and hungry. It seemed like it took an awfully long time for them to stitch me up. They had not performed an episiotomy and I had a 2nd degree tear. The next morning I found out that my uterus hadn't been contracting like it should and I was bleeding a lot more than I should have. All I knew at the time was that the doctor seemed kind of concerned and had the nurse up my Pitocin dosage. Oh yeah and I wanted to hold my baby *now*.

After the stitches were done they started something that I hadn't heard about. They "massaged" my abdomen to help my uterus contract. Basically they pushed on my stomach really d*** hard to get fluid out; and it hurt like a...well it really really hurt. I remember actually yelling at the nurse at one point. Then they finally let me hold Keegan. I don't really remember much after that. I know that we sat in labor/delivery for an hour or so and that Lyle's dad, Rick, came to visit. After that it was time to transfer to our postpartum room. I actually had to get up and walk to a wheel chair. Then they let me hold Keegan again as they wheeled me to postpartum. Once again this is all a bit foggy for me so Lyle could probably give a better account of all that happened. I do remember the first thing I asked for was something to eat. I was really really hungry; not having eaten since 4am. They brought me a sandwich with cheese and some juice. It was the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. Then they wanted me to breastfeed Keegan; well Keegan didn't want to breastfeed and I was darn tired. So eventually we had them send Keegan to the nursery. At this point it was 2am; he was in the nursery for about 4 hours and then they brought him back in to nurse again. Keegan did not want to latch on. Then about 7am the procession of nurses and doctors began. We had my doctor, Keegan's doctor, my nurse, Keegan's nurse, and the nurse that made rounds checking blood pressure. As if this wasn't enough they came to deliver breakfast, then someone to came to take my order for lunch, we had to go to discharge class at 9am and then the lady came by wanting to take Keegan newborn pictures. It was just totally exhausting. And throughout the whole ordeal Keegan would still not breastfeed.

Lyle's parents visited that night and the nurses made me start to pump out my colostrum to ensure that I would start to produce milk; this was bottle fed to Keegan. We had to start supplementing with formula because Keegan still hadn't latched on to breastfeed. And this ended day one.

Well Keegan is calling to me; so I will talk about postpartum day 2 and bringing Keegan home in the next blog.

39 weeks today!

So today I am officially 39 weeks along. As Lyle said in his post nothing exciting really happened at my 38 week appt on Tuesday. Basically I was about the same amount effaced and the same amount dilated. Overall it's a little depressing to go in and have the doctor say; "well, looks the same, which is fine. You could have him tomorrow but you probably won't have him until some time during your 39th week." My blood pressure was up a little bit but still within acceptable ranges.

I've tried to change my attitude about it a bit and assume that I am going to have Keegan at 41 weeks; then I can be excited if he shows up early! We are still just hanging out. I filled out the baby book as much as I could before Keegan's actually here. Had to get some pictures of the baby room and me and Lyle to put in there. That gave me a chance play around with the new install of Photoshop CS2 that I put on my computer earlier this week. I needed to get a version of photoshop for one of my classes this semester. So the other thing I've been working on is getting a couple weeks ahead on my homework so that when Keegan does show up I don't have to try and get a whole bunch of homework done at the same time!

Only new thing health wise that's been going on is that my stomach has been itching horribly. I think I've come out with just about everything I can think of lathered my belly to make the itching subside. Out of oil, lotion, aloe, the thing that seems to work is some of that Band-Aid anti-itch gel. Of course that stuff smells awful, a bit like cough-drops, and Lyle was like "what is all over your stomach!"

I also finished putting together the baby announcements and addressing most of the envelops for those. Not really much left to do before Keegan arrives; I think we need to put together a CD case with some good CDs for the hospital. Just installed the baby bundle into the car seat this morning. So Keegan can be nice and warm when he comes home from the hospital! Lyle was watching me do that and said "wow, that's going to be one toasty baby"

Other than all the above I've been reading some books, meeting friends for lunch, and playing a little bit of video games. Everytime I meet a group of people for lunch; I am like maybe next time I will have a baby with me! We have cleaning people coming over to clean the house now so I don't really need to do that :-) I think that when I am done posting this I will go and play some video games; I actually haven't had a ton of time to do that in the last week. I am slowly getting used to being home from work. I am not used to being able to take things like getting up, eating breakfast, etc at such a leisurely pace. I suppose that will change once Keegee's here.

Hope everyone is doing well. Also thanks to all my friends who called last week to make sure I am still doing okay! It's nice to have the time to spend talking to you all. Hopefully we can call back soon and let you know that there's a baby here!

BTW, Lyle's little quote at the end of his post is from the Dr. Seuss book "There's a wocket in my pocket". Keegan's been getting read to every night. Usually Lyle reads him "There's a wocket in my pocket", "Dr. Seuss' ABCs", and "where the wild things are". Not sure if Keegen gets a whole lot out of it but it can't hurt :-)

Another week older

Not just for Keegan either ;). Things are still chugging along with the old Keegers. He still seems to think that the best place to be is the womb. So since we are still waiting, Karissa went ahead and started filling out the Baby book so that we would remember all that is happening around his birth. Of course at this point we just want the whole labor thing to be over. Other than that going on, another appointment at the OB clinic went fine for Karissa, though it didn't sound like much was going on. Karissa was nice enough to also put some more pictures up online, some of them are of the room that Keegan will be staying in when he does finally arrive. So if you have not been over lately to see the house since we started the decorating of the baby room, you can go see the pictures online. You can find a link on the right that says "Our Pictures" just follow that, and you should be able to find them.

Ok well sadly there isn't much going on for us right now, because we haven't really been making plans because we are never sure what times we will have free :). Also Keegan has started getting use to this.

Did you ever think there was a Zamp in the Lamp
Or a Nink in the sink
Or a Woset in the Closet
Sometimes I am quite certain there is a Jertain in the Curtain......

37 weeks, 5 days and still going

So I had my 37 week appointment yesterday. Lyle came with me which is always nice. Nothing too exciting. I am dilated to about 2cm and Keegan is at a position of approximately -1 (he needs to be at zero for delivery so -1 means he is still up a bit). She said he is sitting back a bit still; not exactly sure what that means. Blood pressure, etc is still fine. We had to wait forever yesterday; our appt was about an hour late because of some emergencies that came in. I try to understand that emergencies happen but it frustrating to be at the clinic for over 2 hrs just for a 15 minute check-up! Oh and the doctor mentioned for size that she thinks he will be around 8lbs; she said she definitely thinks he won't be a light weight ;-)

Anyway, so I am where I am supposed to be. I've decided I'm not really all that thrilled with cervical exams. They leave me very crampy and uncomfortable feeling. Keegan gets very still after the exams; he's like "what in the heck just poked me in the head, that was wierd..." Still having very sore hips and crampy belly a lot; again supposidly normal. We are just still waiting for this little guy to arrive. I've been telling Keegan that it's really nice out here and everyone wants to meet him so he should think about coming out to visit. Little does he know the visit would be permanent ;-)

It's been getting busy again. School started on Tuesday so I have a lot of reading and some homework to do for that. My last day of work is tomorrow; I am excited about that. I don't think I've ever been off of work for more than 2 weeks in a row since I started working back when I was 16. Lyle has been reading "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" (Dr. Seuss book) to Keegan every night in hopes that Keegan will learn to like a book before coming out of the womb. Babies are supposed to recognize stories that they heard a lot in womb and find them comforting after they are born. Guess it's worth a shot!

We are just hanging out waiting for Keegan to grace us with his prescence out of womb!

Another ticker...I thought this one was funny

Here's another ticker from the site that Lyle pulled the last one from. This one is more appropriate for how I've been feeling about the pregnancy thing lately!

Quick 36 week appt update

Okay so yesterday was my 36 week appt. Everything health wise is fine. Good news is that I am 1.5cm dilated and Keegan is definitely head down and has dropped some (but not all the way yet). So I could stay like this for a while or he could decide to visit us soon! Bad news is the ankle swelling etc is probably going to get worse as time progresses; and there's not a darn thing I can do about it.

Anyway, I was excited to know that at least my body is thinking about having this baby and that Keegan may actually consider coming out of his not-so-roomy residence.
So thought I would post an update...hopefully this doesn't get to be "too much info" for anybody. But part of the point of the blog was to write all the nitty gritty down so that we could remember it for later.
Hope all who read this are doing well.

A little over 36 weeks...

Not that I am counting or anything :-) We finished getting the last few items unpacked in the baby room. So now the diaper genie is out, the CD player is plugged in, and the wipe warmer is set up to go. I did another large load of baby laundrey. There's really no reason to do this now except that I am trying to decide what Keegan will wear in his first baby picture :-)

Last week was a bit exciting. I was leaking fluid and the doctor's office told me I needed to come in right away to make sure it wasn't amniotic fluid. So I ended up rushing to the doctor's office on Thurs. Ends up I am just leaking and a bit incontinent from the weight of Keegan on my bladder. This is a bit embarrassing but they were relieved that that's all is was. The same day my breasts started leaking colostrum (pre-milk). So it was quit a day. The nurse says I should be thrilled that my breasts are all ready to breast feed when the baby arrives. I think she's crazy. So additional fun stuff I found out at the doctor's is that I have *not* dilated but am starting to efface a little bit. Which the nurse practitioner said is "great".

Besides all of that excitement things are slowly crawling along. I have been having trouble sleeping so have been rotating between the recliner couch in the bedroom and the bed. I think it wakes Lyle up every time I switch places; but haven't heard any complaints yet. He is a smart man :-)

I suppose I could put in a note about Christmas. Christmas went well; it was busy as usual. Mom and dad got Keegan a whole bunch of presents. I can't believe the kid is already getting spoiled and he is not even out of the womb yet! Only bad part about Christmas was all the goodies to eat. My next doctor's appt after Christmas the doctor mentioned that she wasn't surprised my swelling was worse because I had put on a lot of water weight. I though hmmm....water weight...it's either that or cookie and fudge weight. I am hoping that she is right though because water weight will be easy to drop after I am done being pregnant.

Anyway, my 36 week appt is today. We will see how that goes. Gotta' get back to work.

Keegan Tracker

Robin sent us this little tracker, so I thought I would add it on to the page :). Things are still just chugging along. We don't really have that much to do left for Keegan before he comes along, so we are kind of in waiting mode. As Karissa mentioned, the car seat was inspected last week, and that went ok. Didn't quite have it installed correctly, it was just a little lose. So after fixing that we are all ready to go. You can tell that the cats and Ruby are starting to get a little more nervous about things that are changing in our house, as Loki has been a lot more clingy, and the other cats seem more jumpy. Ruby seems the best adjusted in my opinion, but she hasn't quite figured out that all the plush toys that are new around the house are not for her. I assume she will figure that out after we take them away from her about.... 1 million or so times. Anyway I got to split and go into the office, so that is it for today.

Only 10 days until Keegan won't be considered premature!

So I guess the headline says it all! At least as far as I am concerned. In 10 days if I go into labor Keegan can come into the world and be treated like a full term baby. So that is great news for us.

Lyle and I are really looking forward to meeting him. I am also looking forward to not being pregnant. I guess there has always been a countdown to my due date; but lately I swear I am counting down minutes. I have begun to understand that there must be a purpose to you being pregnant for 9 months; it makes you look forward to labor.

Things have just been uncomfortable. I am sick of not being able to move well, I am sick of all the "cute" maternity clothes, and I am sick of being hot all the time (usually I am sick of being cold so maybe this is a pleasant change). All the bitching aside things are still going well healthwise. I has another doctor's appt yesterday and blood pressure is doing well, Keegan seems to be doing well. I have been having some trouble with edema; which translates to more weight gain, water retention, a poofier face, and stupid swollen ankles. Thankfully it doesn't really cause any "real" health problems. I also had the pleasure I having my first Braxton Hicks contractions on Tuesday night. That was obnoxious because it woke me up and woke Keegan up. Apparently Keegan found the whole experience as discomforting as I did because he vigorously squirmed around for a good 2 hrs after the contractions.

Lyle went and got the carseat installation inspected at the fire station yesterday; it's installed correctly now and we are good to go. We put together the baby bouncer Tues night; so the cats have a fun new toy to play with until Keegan gets here! I also finally got around to putting together the hospital bags for both me and Keegan. We got some cute outfits in there for him. I still need to add some stuff in the bag for me. For some reason I am just reluctant to finish that up. All in all I think we are as ready for his arrival as we can be given what we know about being parents; which is nothing :-)

So now we are just waiting. I am out of school now so there is more free time. I've been able to fill some of that with video games, reading, getting baby announcements ready, fun stuff like that. I think the house is as clean as it can be and all the closets/kitchen have been reorganized to allow for baby items. Now, we wait until Keegan decides to arrive! I am not very good at waiting. I told Keegan that he needs to stay put another couple weeks and then he can feel free to join us any time he's ready :-)

All the paperwork for my work is in order, and we went through the birthing plan with the doctor yesterday. She thinks everything looks reasonable. We definitely aren't asking a lot in the birthing plan. Mainly the big issues were that I want the baby with us and breastfeeding right away. We've decided not to circumcise and Lyle wants to help cut the umbilical cord. Apparently all of these choices are standard now. As far as all the details of pain management and ambiance; I figure that we'll figure that out when we get there because I don't really know how things are going to go ahead of time.

Okay well that's enough babbling from me.