Always growing

well, that is a weekend I’m happy to see the end of.

If you don’t follow me on facebook, a quick update: Steve was doing bridge inspections on the West Coast Trail a couple of weeks ago and suffered a blister and possibly acute achilles tendonitis.  He hobbled around for a bit, and life went on.  Two weeks later he was back on the trail on two separate trips finishing up the inspections, and again his boots caused him a great deal of grief, and the heel/blister situation worsened.

After a few days of moaning and carrying-on, all the while the apparent blister and heel getting worse, I began to lose my patience and Steve finally took himself to the clinic (although, honestly, not because I was being a bitch about it, but because his co-workers looked at his foot and said “dude, go see a doctor”).  The clinic doctor on that particular trip poked and prodded and diagnosed acute achilles tendonitis and basically said it would get better on its own.   By this point Steve could barely walk and inquired about crutches.  The doctor said that wasn’t necessary – which would be true if it were tendonitis.   He hobbled into work the next day, and by the end of the day one of the guys at the office went to the pharmacy and got him some crutches because CLEARLY he needed them. 

He didn’t get out of bed the following day (much to my dismay), or the next day.  A nasty, NASTY looking blister started to form, and his foot was swelling rather grossly.  He decided to drain the blister (against my advice - in fact, I refused to have anything to do with that decision and made my opinion known that he needed to see our family doctor ASAP – he ignored me).   Of course then the thing oozed for two days, Steve completely lost his appetite, and basically just slept.  By Friday night he finally agreed to go back to the clinic.

Serious infection going on, and this clinic doctor wanted to send us to the ER for an antibiotic drip and to have the ankle drained but she took pity on me, being 39 weeks pregnant and all, and instead started Steve on oral antibiotics through the night with strict instructions that if he developed a fever or started to feel sick we had to head to the ER.  We went back to the clinic first thing in the morning to have her re-assess, and sadly, she immediately sent us to the ER.  So that  is where we spent Saturday morning.

The end result is that he is now an out-patient and is required to go back to the hospital every morning to receive antibiotics through an IV.  That is how we spent Sunday morning. The good news is that after two treatments it looks like things are on the mend and we’re hoping he only has two more treatments to go and he’ll be walking again (he still isn’t able to put weight on his foot).   He’s even taking himself to the out-patient care tomorrow, meaning one less trip to Nanaimo for me.  Yay!

What we’re really hoping is that Anna doesn’t make her appearance before Steve is fully recovered because while that wouldn’t be the end of the world, it would suck.  A LOT.  I sort of like my birth support person to be able to, you know, support me.  It would have been ideal to have my support person not suffer some serious medical emergency in the final weeks of my pregnancy but alas, that has never been in the stars for us.  

It would have been nice to have one pregnancy that was all about me, you know?  Just one. 

And let this be a lesson to you all – husbands should listen to their wives, even if they do think said wife is just bitchy and mean.

The other thing this little experience has taught me is just when you think you’ve got everything under control and things are moving along swimmingly, the universe always brings you down a notch.  I was having a really hard time letting go of all the things I had planned to get done this weeknend.  At every turn, all my well-laid plans were being crapped on.  And it was annoying the beejesus out of me.  I like to have control!

When Steve was checking into the ER I was answering all the questions like the man was a baby, and he was just letting me act like this crazy, control-freak wife.  Later that day I was thinking how ridiculous that was, making a mental note to apologize.  Thankfully that evening Steve made a joke about it but said that there was no way he was going to say anything because when your wife is 39 weeks pregnant, people tend to be on her side, even if your entire foot is swelled up like a balloon with an infection.  I couldn’t control my weekend going off the rails, but GOD-DAMMIT I KNOW THE MAN’S BIRTHDAY AND I WILL ANSWER THE QUESTION.

~ahem~

So, here’s hoping I can get everything in place for Anna’s birth and arrival and still keep my sanity.  And hopefully not drive my family up the wall. 

And a shout-out to my mother who is a total superstar.  I can’t even imagine the hell this weekend would have been without her.  You should buy a house with her, she rocks.

tired

I haven’t given birth or anything (of course!  That would be crazy to actually deliver a baby anywhere near the due date!) just ridiculously tired.  Steve has tendinitis in his achilles heel, so he’s out of commission and that means it basically sucks to be me.  A lot.  I could gripe for days.

I’ve done a little bit of crafting and that is basically the only thing keeping me sane, other than that I’m running around like a mad woman prepping for Anna’s arrival and trying to get a lot done in the next couple of weeks without killing myself.  There is absolutely no way it will all get done, but I’d like to at least try.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to install the new change table in the bathroom – a task that has turned into a fiasco as it’s an Ikea change table that needs to be mounted on the wall – clean out the trailer, return the bottles, drop off baking for our preshool fundraisor, see the midwife, and you know, maybe sit down at some point and parent the children.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to clean the cat box tomorrow too.  This is single handedly THE most annoying thing about being pregnant.  Why Steve can’t handle this, I have no idea.  But he cleans it about every 2-2.5 weeks and now he has this tendinitis thing going on so he can’t (won’t?) clean it and man, this can’t go on much longer.  It isn’t fair to the cats.  I’m thinking that at this late date, is it really dangerous to clean it?  Couldn’t I just wear a mask or something?

oh, man, I could gripe.

I’ll post something more interesting soon.  Hopefully.

Bear’s Birthday

so… I have no idea what to get Claire for her birthday (besides, you know, a baby sister which I’m sure is just what she wants).  I’m taking ideas. 

I was considering a wooden doll stroller.  Now, I know you can buy doll umbrella strollers for pennies, and that’s cool.  But I live in a small house, and if I have to look at this stupid-ass stroller, and trip over this stupid-ass stroller, I’d like it to be pretty.  I’d also like it to be durable, so it doesn’t break when I am forced to walk Stella around our block (and I will be forced to walk Stella around the block.  I am already forced to put Stella into her pajamas, and into the baby carrier, and feed her.  Did I mention Stella is A DOLL?).  I live in a rural-like setting, there are no sidewalks and the roads are paved, I guess, but not in a smooth city-like way.  So, yes, while I can buy an inexpensive doll umbrella stroller, I don’t want to.

Thing is, I can’t find a reasonably priced stroller close to home.  Found a gorgeous one in Arizona, but that doesn’t much help me.

Now I’m back to square one.  I thought about a plasma car, but then I’d have one plasma car and two toddlers.

yeah, that’s just stupid.

Any ideas?  A few caveats – nothing plasticy as it makes me irritable.  If it is large it needs to be able to fold up and store under a small bed or behind a couch (like I said, I live in a very crowded, small house).  She already has a tricycle and a dollhouse (god my children are spoiled.  Hell, they have a flippin’ toddler grand piano!  And a rocking horse!  Is there anything left?!).  Up to about $100 is fine, but we really can’t go any more expensive.  We don’t watch a lot of TV so movies are out, too.

I’m considering putting $100 in her savings account but it seems so unfun to do that when she’s at such a super fun age and would love a present.

I do have a couple of inexpensive, crafty items I was hoping to make for her, including her own Super Claire! costume, but we have always given the kids a fairly ‘big’ present and then a couple of ‘little’ presents.  It’s the ‘big’ present I can’t seem to sort out.

the nesting phase

I am slightly more prepared for the imminent arrival of Miss Anna today than I was yesterday.  I did a bunch of cooking yesterday afternoon and now have a freezer almost full of casseroles.  Then today Mom and I went out and purchased the neccessities* for the home birth.  I even pulled out the baby clothes.  Mostly to see if I had newborn diapers stashed away (I didn’t) but you know, now that I dragged the bin down it might as well stay in the house.  It’s currently residing in the hall, along with the crib and another bin of little cloth diapers.  So if she decides to arrive TODAY, the clothes might not be in a dresser, but they ARE accessible! 

I mean, do they really need to be washed?  How different things are when it’s the third…

This random bout of nesting has been brought to you by my mid-wife, who seemed slightly shocked that I wasn’t even a little bit prepared and gently encouraged me to get out the pool from the shop this weekend.  The pool that has a slow leak that needs to be fixed before it could even be considered for the birth.  We’re hopeful that this time around we’ll put water in it.  Assuming, of course, we fix the leak.

She also encouraged me to find some diapers and receiving blankets at a bare minimum.  Unfortunately I gave away all the newborn diapers and I turned all my receiving blankets into rags for the kitchen so I had to buy some of those, too.

Expensive, this reproducing.

I also managed to score 3m of fabric for the mural I have planned for the kid’s new room for cheap.  Wash baby clothes?  Not that high on my list of things to do, but design and prepare a completely useless mural from fabric?  ON IT. 

Now all I need to do is, oh nevermind, the list is pretty flippin’ long.

*although, judging by my last experience I’m debating how neccessary they are considering I used none of it.  Then gave it all away.  And now I’m buying it all again.

unintentional break

I know I just sort of dropped off the face of the blog-earth there.  Steve spent last week on the West Coast Trail doing bridge inspections, so I was on my own with the kidlets.  My hat is off to single parents. 

I’ve also been mad busy.  MAD.  Meeting after meeting, on top of the whole about to have a baby any day now thing.  I’m worn out.  I have bouts of nesting, but mostly I’m just tired.  Everything is overwhelming and it seems like there is a million things to do.  This is typical for me in the last weeks of a pregnancy, judging by the archives, but it doesn’t get my kitchen floor clean or that trip to the grocery store taken of.

At any rate, tired or not I did manage to scratch off a few items on the old “To Do” list, including painting Callum’s room and begining the rearranging process for when Claire moves in there.    I’m taking suggestions on how to cram two single beds, two dressers, the toyboxes and some place to store books.   Bunk beds are out, the kids are too small, not that that has stopped me from considering the bunk bed route.  The reality is that everything isn’t going to fit in there but maybe you’ve seen some sort of cool storage device for small spaces I need to know about?!

The weather out in these parts has been spectacular, so we are trying to get outside to play, or to the beach for a make-shift picnic.  And we took a day-trip to Victoria to visit the Royal BC Museum and the Victoria Bug Museum.  The bug museum was amazing, mostly because our guide in that tiny little room was amazing.  The kids loved it, Callum said the cockroaches were his favorite part.  That kid even pet a tarantula!  Definite must do again although I’ve heard it is hit-or-miss and really boils down to getting a great guide.

Ramble, ramble.  Hopefully I’ll get my energy up this week and do some more regular posting.