a little update

hi all. it's been awhile, so thought i'd just post a little hello and update on all (or rather, not much) that's going on in our lives. jack continues to dazzle us with how much he can change in a day, and how often we need to be on our toes to deal with that. i just got him a new "babylicious" bib, which i'm convinced was made especially for him, since he is quite the messy eater. here he is modeling it at dinner last night:



baby#2 seems to be growing just fine judging by my expanding waistline. it's true that they say the second time around you just POP right out. i just moved into maternity clothes and i'm still a bit under 13 weeks. i'm actually not big enough to fit into them well, yet, but my regular jeans were in bad shape and i refused to go shopping for new ones at this point. our next appt. is on halloween, so hopefully that will go well.

the monstrosity that is our new television (and all its bells and whistles) is finally up on the wall.



this whole process took nearly 2 months, and is *still* not completely finished yet. we still have to exchange some HDMI cables for those that go outside the wall instead of through the wall (after we were told we'd need to remove ALL the drywall above the fireplace to do the wiring for the t.v., we decided to just deal with cables outside the wall), and apparently mike is also going to get a cable cover for all the cables on the wall that he can paint the wall color so they'll be seen less. sounds like more work than it's worth to me, but it's his thing. we ended up switching cable providers for the HD channels of DirectTV, and because DISH has the most lousy customer service of any company I've ever dealt with. and we learned a valuable lesson through this whole process (low-techno-saavy people, like me, take note): buying a $2,000 television does not assure you a clearer picture than your old boxed set. the clearer picture comes with HD ACCESS, which you must PAY EXTRA FOR. how i didn't know this, i have no idea. but once they hook you with the t.v., then you HAVE to get the HD receiver, HD channels, HD blah blah blah blah, which means Mo Money. my conclusion is that this is a bad time to invest in these types of products. until ALL t.v. shows and ALL cable providers provide everything in HD access as standard, which is surely coming in the not so far future, it isn't worth it to get a good t.v. since you still have to buy all the extra crap to appreciate it. but what's done is done, so it's all good. mike is happy.

in other things, our new work schedule is working really well. mike watches jack in the mornings while i work on my diss. stuff (still going through interviews at this point), then i take over at noon and he goes to work at 1pm. the days fly by, and i really do get stuff done in the mornings when i have time devoted to work (and a husband gently ordering me to do it). as i get into my interviews more, i rediscover some of that excitement i had doing the research, when i realize i learned things no one else knows (collectively) and will actually have something to say in this paper. i'm still not seeing myself heading down the academic road of wanting to be a professor and live the life of a struggling academic, but i at least have remembered that i can certainly finish this degree. hopefully by december 2008.

right now we are throwing around the idea of a vacation before baby#2 arrives. i really, really wanted to go to CA to see many of our friends out there before having another baby, though now time is limited. mike's on the side of "no vacations," since he wants to use all his 2week vacation time for the first 2 weeks the new baby is home. i think that would be wonderful since it will be hard for us to learn how to juggle 2 kids under 2. but at the same time, i also realize it will be a LONG time before we'd be able to make a trip like that after the next baby's arrival, considering things like breastfeeding and traveling with 2 young kids, etc. if we put it off now, i have a feeling it won't happen for another 2 or 3 years. and CA is calling! so i'm trying to get him to consider it, and maybe attempt to dig up some days off that won't be considered vacation. Hy-Vee is stingy on that, though, so it may not happen. sarah, bridget and betty--if there is a way, we'll be there!

and then there were 4

i may be about to find out how many people actually read this blog....
mike and i are very happy to announce that coming in april or may we'll add a 4th family member to our posse. it took us awhile to feel comfortable enough with this pregnancy to accept it, and start sharing the news, but we've reached that point now and want to happily start teling people. we've already had a whopping 3 ultrasounds in the first 10 weeks, so once again, we started with a bang. but at this point things look fine and we are excited and hopeful that the rest of the pregnancy, as well as the birth, will be uncomplicated and natural. my midwives have been fantastic and supportive, and i'm hoping their medical director will agree to allow me to continue my care there (apparently i may be "high risk" considering our history, so they need to review it.) unfortunately our scanner is broke so i can't show you the newest ultrasound pic, but (s)he is a nice little oval with arm buds and a head :) jack and new baby will be 21 months apart. the due date is somewhere between april 29- may 1. nobody seems to agree on that. i think we're going with may 1st at this point. yeah!

the hawkeye update

we couldn't do it. we met the couple wanting hawkeye last night (they drove an hour and 15 min. for a visit with him, bless them). they were great, and we know they would provide him with an excellent home and loving environment. but we were so upset when they left just thinking about actually packing up all Hawkeye's stuff and dropping him off at someone else's house and leaving him forever, that we had a long talk and decided that it's not the right time. there have been times in the past when we would've welcomed adopting him out, though we also admit those times tended to be a year ago, when we were in over our heads with two puppies and a newborn. hawkeye has mellowed much since getting a bit older, and i imagine he'll continue to do so. we don't know what the future will hold but we do know this experience was enough to reveal to us how much we care about our dog. we got so far as to come to terms with the things we haven't been doing (not giving him as much petting and affection as he deserves, failing to take him on outings to the dog park/farmer's markets/other dog-friendly places, and re-instituting some training to keep him from jumping up on people). yet we jumped the gun and went straight to "give up" instead of making efforts to address those concerns. we broke the news to the people, who i know will be very disappointed. and we've re-commited to hawkeye as dog owners to see him in a different light. after all, he is a good dog and we have spent the last 2 years together as a family. so we're moving forward with good feelings about making him more a part of the family. after all, who couldn't love this face?

the guilt is eating away

mike and i came to a sad decision yesterday: we posted an advertisment on craigslist for Hawkeye. as an animal shelter volunteer and self-proclaimed animal lover, i never imagined myself to be adopting out one of my own pets. i feel like a failure that i haven't felt confident in providing the affection and companionship Hawkeye deserves. and the guilt is killing me in the thought of giving away a family member. i can't imagine having to give away one of our cats, but hawkeye is just a different story. he gets plenty of exercise, but the attention he gets is more in the form of annoyance because he's so high maintenance. rarely do we go downstairs to just sit with him and pet him or spend time with him. he's missing out on that affection that dogs receive in homes with dog lovers (who don't have babies to tend to 24-7). i think about our family growing in the future and it scares me to imagine juggling more than one kid while still trying to give hawkeye the attention and time he needs. so we posted an ad on craigslist with the warning that we would be very selective in choosing a home. in less than 24 hours i had a response. a young, active couple with another dog. they live in creston, so we're trying to arrange a visit in the coming week. i must admit, from her description of their home and how they view their other pets, they sound perfect. but i burst into tears when i read it. in some ways i was hoping we wouldn't find him another home because it seemed crazy to give away our dog. but if i have to be honest with myself, he could probably be happier with another family who could provide him with more love and companionship than we have been. we've been tolerating and managing him as a responsibility instead of loving him as a pet. so, it's not a done deal, but the possibility is there. i feel terrible. but we're proceeding. cautiously.

beets in the ears

this was dinnertime tonight with jack.




needless to say, this meal was followed by a bath, where i found beets in both ears, nostrils, and other random orfices. i have no hope for the beet-stained clothing he wore at the sight of the crime.

ooh, videos?

so i've seen many of my blogger friends post little videos of their kids, and it's been fun to actually "meet" their little darlings from afar. but i've never ventured there myself. our video camera has gotten little use since we purchased it back in april, and it's never in the right vicinity at the right time. a week or so ago, though, i attempted to use the video function on our digital camera to catch a couple of jack's mealtime antics. i learned 2 important lessons: 1) digital cameras have crappy video quality, and look even crappier when uploaded to a blog, and 2) babies never do what the usually do when in front of a rolling camera. here is a video (if i can get this to work) of jack's silliness in his highchair. we call this his "end of the meal squeals." he gets pretty happy after eating and likes to screech and squeal. because of stage fright he needed some encouragement from me on this, but got going pretty well after that. enjoy! hmmm...update, since posting, the video doesn't come up on the actual post. it shows up in the "preview" just fine, but when posted, gives me a blank box with the little red x. any ideas? i'm going to try something new.... just putting in the link to the youtube page i posted it on: youtube video of jack

brrrr....

it was a cold day here in west des moines, and we spent it cozy inside in our pjs. when i checked the outdoor thermometer at 8am it was 34 degrees. brr. jack got to sport some of his NEW fall/winter clothes. it was the first time i've had to shop for clothing for him--ever. baby gifts got us through the first year! but now he's in 18 month clothing, and needed some cold weather clothes, stat. so he toddled around in his footies, helping me drink my hot chocolate, and also helped me with the laundry. such a good boy. it was even cold enough that our kitties cuddled to stay warm (i still refused to turn on the heat in early september. it was 61 in the house-- not unbearable, but chilly for sure).



morphine and lucy snuggle on our bed

china, here she comes!

when we moved into our house 2 yrs ago, we met the majority of our neighbors in our culdesac, and found them all to be very sweet. the set of neighbors across the street from us had one child; a 13-yr-old girl who was the sweetest and most polite thing. she seemed very mature for her age, and extremely humble. we came to know that she is a gymnist, and a talented one. the more we heard about her, the more we realized she was a rising star. we saw her on local t.v. several times and said to ourselves, "hey, she's really good!" we kept thinking, "wouldn't it be awesome if shawn went to the olympics someday?" well, that dream is now a reality, as shawn johnson just won (WON) the world championships in germany this past week. she is literally #1 in the world for gymnastics, and there's no longer any question that she'll be on her way to china next year at the ripe age of 16. go shawn! our neighborhood made her a welcome-home sign, so i thought i'd take a pic (through our window, so not a great one, but still).

if you haven't heard of her on the sports segments, check her out (http://www.shawnjohnson.net/index2.html ,http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2007-08-20-gymnastics-johnson_N.htm . and definitely tune into the olympics next summer and help us cheer her on! she's really a sweet, incredible girl.

gala

this past friday, mike and i went OUT (as in, to a place with adults, eating and drinking adult foods and beverages, while corresponding with other adults doing the very same thing). we attended the ADA gala, dressed up and all. it was a nice evening, with 2 hrs. of open bar, a very nice meal, and some great entertainment. tom arnold hosted the action and was, well, entertaining most of the night. jack actually went to sleep early-ish, and with little trouble for my mother-in-law. that 6 hrs. was the longest stint of time i've been away from my nursing boy, and he seemed to have no problem with it. he's growing up! here's a few pics of us dressed up for the "ball," and at the grand piano bistro after the gala:

long weekend

our old drake friend, swarup, came to visit us from chicago this weekend. it was the first time he had ever met jack, and we had a good time catching up. mike and doops checked out a lot of new bars that have popped up in des moines in the past few years that we haven't been to (what? a bar? what's that?) while i stayed home with jack. not quite the same type of visit like we used to have, but such is the life with kids. unfortunately we didn't pull out the camera much while doopey was here, but we did capture a few shots of jack after going out to a local restaurant. the waitress was in love with this mohawk, and brought out her personal styling gel to vamp it up. it was very punk rocker.





it was a nice weekend of drinking wine on the patio and listening to npr, and eating out meal after meal after meal. doops, we love you but we could never keep up with your lifestyle on a regular basis. thanks for your gaydar assistance, though--you were a great help at outing some of our suspicions.

after doops left, we had a couple hours for jack to nap before heading off to the birthday party of his little friend, symone. symone was born 6 days after jack, and was 6 weeks premature. so she was his neighbor in the NICU. her parents, sandy and john, are friends of ours from drake and sandy was our realtor. here they are enjoying the party, and "playing" together (well, playing simultaneously):



we are looking forward to one more day off tomorrow, as a chance to relax a bit from our weekend of partying and to get some things done around here. i need to sort through jack's clothes and dig out all the 12 month outfits in order to see where we stand for 18-month clothing. i have a feeling we have come to the end of the gift horse in terms of baby clothing, and may actually (gasp) have to buy him some things as ne moves into the bigger size.

in crabby news, mike has decided to change his work schedule and begin working nights (1-9pm) so that i can have a consistent work schedule for my dissertation, 8-noon every morning. i knew the time would finally come when we'd have to make it work and i'd have to commit to it, but i'm still dragging my feet. this will be a guilt like no other though, with him working a shift he hates and with us never having dinner together just so i can get it done. that's motivation if nothing else. my funding just started, so the clock is really ticking. time to finish this damn thing!

in happy news, mike has FINALLY purchased his plasma screen t.v.. he's been coveting a flat screen for years, but it never made sense to spend the money. he finally hit the right Moment, and bought one (well, it's in the mail). this, of course, is never as easy as bringing it home and plugging it in, but rather requires a near doubling of the price to get it all set up: hiring an electrician to install an outlet on the wall above the fire place, having dish network come out and switch around our cables so we can wire the new t.v. to the new location, getting a bundle of HD cords to make it all work, buying mounting hardware for wall installation, and hiring an installation crew to hang this 99lb thing on the wall. sigh. i'll be happy when it's over. it will be nice, though, to get rid of our bulky entertainment stand upon which the old 27-inch sits, which is currently sitting in the middle of the room, in front of the fireplace. not convenient. we also took this opportunity to buy a new couch (with recliners on both ends), and are getting a couple rolling cube ottomans (with tops that can turn over and make end tables--wheee!) so the room will be coming together soon. the new t.v. is 50inches. i don't know what to do with that. really, people, last comic standing looks just fine to me on our 27inch sony triniton, but i guess i'm not a gadget person. and i don't REALLY need to feel like the hawkeyes are literally passing the ball in our living room during a game. but that's just me. he's giddy, so it's nice.

if we have any money left at all, i'm in need of a little black dress for a function we are going to next saturday. the American Diabetes Association, in conjunction with Camp Hertko Hollow (diabetes camp for kids), on both of which Mike is a board member, are holding a gala for fundraising purposes and it's a black tie event. all the local philanthropists will be there, as well as (gag me) tom arnold and some other "from iowa" celebs. tickets are $200 a piece, but hy-vee bought a table and then gave the tickets to mike to use. so we are going with his coworkers, but alas, i have nothing to wear. my first trip to the mall came up with dresses in one of 2 categories: 1) hideously ugly and utterly expensive, or 2) hideously expensive yet drab and boring. neither category was one i was willing to invest in. i was completely turned off by the store "white house, black market" that the largest size i found in most dresses on the rack was 6. grr. so hopefully i find something to wear, and figure out how to do my hair, and wear makeup again, but this next weekend. i'll take any tips you all are willing to give.