The Big 3-0.

(well, it does seem my last attempt at uploading video did not work, yet again. anyone using blogger with experience on this who can help me, please speak up. i've been hitting the "video upload button," browsing on my computer for the file, then uploading. it takes 15 min. or so. but when done, doesn't show. huh?)

SO! we had a very busy week, and i'm just now getting time to blog about it. wednesday was my mom's birthday, so i took her out to lunch at Granite City Brewery. thursday was mike's 30th, and we went out to dinner at a new place downtown, Dos Rios. i've never paid that much for mexican food in my life, but it was an experience worth doing, i suppose. i wanted to be more impressed than i was; the tableside guacamole was good, and the homemade spiced tortilla chips were incredible. but the main plates were waning, and the service disorganized at best. but at least des moines is adding some big city into its small town reputation. mike got a special cake from Carefree Patisserie, a chocolate peanut butter mousse cake. i got the smallest cake, and we still have half of it left. so rich! here's the photo:


friday we saw fireworks and a tree lighting at jordan creek mall--jack LOVED the fireworks. great time. and finally, saturday was the big day. i had been planning a surprise party for mike's 30th for many months, and i wanted it to take the form of a miniature drake reunion, with all of his bestfriends from the college days. while not everyone could make it, we had a party of 14 people, which turned out to be the perfect size. the party started at Court Avenue Brewing Company downtown, where I reserved their executive dining room and bought a selection of appetizers and paid for the open bar tab from 4-6pm. it was a great time, and corresponded with their saturday martini night, so everyone had plenty of good drink to choose from. i of course was stuck with the root beer and virgin margaritas, but it was all good. mike was surprised and had a great time, which is what i was hoping for. after the "formal" part of the party, the group went to some other bars downtown before ending the night at big tomato pizza, our old favorite for getting $2.50 slices of the best pizza in town between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM. i turned my tired butt in at midnight, but mike was out till 3am. we happily ended the weekend with a farewell brunch for the out of town guests at La Mie Bakery and Restuarant the next morning.
Here are some photos from the fun night. Happy 30th hubby!












With friends coming from Texas, Chicago, Minneapolis, and other areas in Iowa, it was a really special time to spend together. And thanks to Swarup for remembering that no visit is complete without a big tub of his mom's special Indian chex mix. Yummmmm.

trying this video thing again...

jack started walking independently (more than a few steps) last friday; 2 days before he turned 15 months. i caught a few steps on video (once again, bad lighting and i'm NOT adept at editing), so thought i'd share them if i can figure out the video upload tool this time. he's getting more confident and more balanced each day, but still uses crawling as his primary mode of transportation.

http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=97c63fcf94831aa4&type=video%2Fmp4

a shout out to my little bro

my brother and i have had a complicated relationship over the years, usually characterized by a lack of communication and closeness. i'm not really sure why, though i blamed it on our being 4 yrs apart and different genders. i'm not convinced that's really the cause of our historical lack of friendliness, however. i remember (not so fondly) back when he was a first-yr undergraduate at UI, living on the honor's student floor in his dorm, that he told me how he and "all the other students" on that floor were conservative, and that i shouldn't be so surprised, since "smart people tend to be conservative since they are easily able to earn their keep rather than have someone hand it to them" (as, i guess, liberals advocate). it was at this point that i recognized him as a tiny incarnate of my father, and that we would most likely have little in common in the years to come. fast forward to november 9th, 2007, and adam is currently romping around rural towns outside of moscow, russia, dressed as a clown, providing free medical care to orphans with the real-life patch adams. huh? yes, change is a beautiful thing. while he followed his dream to enter into the MD/PhD program at UI, he is using his education and privilege to do good for kids, both in Iowa and now abroad. he has volunteered a lot of his time at camps for kids with cancer, working at the free clinic between med school committments, and also volunteering at the hospital to hang out with kids with cancer, cheering them up and helping them through tough tests. i see new life in him that was hidden before, and we've become closer in the past year. i shouldn't be so surprised, i guess, since most people make radical changes in those undergraduate years. but i couldn't be more pleased to see my own brother make the changes he has. i commend his humanity and goals, so here's a shout out to you, little bro.
p.s. anyone interested in the work he's doing with patch adams, through his Gesundheit institute, can check out this: http://www.patchadams.org/campaign/hospital-paper
the part that says..."For 18 years I've taken thirty clowns from all over the world to Russia for two weeks of clowning in hospitals, orphanages, prisons and nursing homes, as well as airports, subways, streets and hotels. Ten years ago this led to our getting involved in the care of orphans in Russia in work that is now recognized all over." Um, yeah, that's what he's doing. the whole column on this page is interesting in terms of healthcare visions. shocking at times, but interesting--probably especially to those of you in the healthcare field.

Baby Steps

Jack officially took his first steps yesterday. Well, I'm calling it official. He still has to be coerced into it. We have to hold onto one side of a blanket or toy while he holds the other side in order to get him to walk. He still needs that security "thing" to have in hand in case he loses his balance. But I discovered yesterday that if I let go of my end, he'll take a few more steps before noticing I let go and sitting down. So with 3 steps on his own, I'm calling it "first steps" for baby book purposes. Once he faces the fear of falling and just goes for it, he'll be fine with walking--he can do it, he just needs a little more confidence. I can see so much of myself in him when it comes to change--he's very cautious and slow to adjust. Not like his father, who always jumps right in. His physical therapist and verbal developmental specialist came yesterday for an appointment, and while his physical therapy is almost completed, now the verbal lady is wanting to put some time into him. Ugh. Apparently, "we want to see between 4-10 words right now." Jack has da da and ma ma, and understands millions of others, but doesn't show an interest in imitating the sounds to make words. No interest in baby signs, either, although he recognizes some that I do. She tells us they look for 50 words by 18 months. I'm having a hard time imagining him speaking 50 words 3 months from now. SO, guess we'll wait and see. I suspect this may be another caveat of having the "extra attention" that goes along with premie follow-ups. I am not worried about his development; and I imagine without this outside guidance, he'd be considered in the normal (albeit slower) range for development. But we do appreciate the guidance.

Happy Halloween!

Jack was a punkrocker last night for beggar's night (we want to take advantage of that mohawk while it's still around). Here's a snippet into his little world of rock.

Fall Fun

We visited the Iowa Orchards today to get some apples for pie-making. It was a nice little outing, but being right in the city (well, suburb), it was kind of strange. Here we are sitting among pumpkins and there are SUVs driving by. It was fine for picking up apples, but we're going to save our real orchard/pumpkin patch experience for either Howell's farm in Cummings, IA or Timber Pine in Earlham, IA. You gotta have hayrack rides to a REAL pumpkin patch, and marshamallow roasting! Anyway, we got some good fall photos of Jackster regardless and thought we'd share.

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.