The Story

(Feel free to skip this and get right to the baby pictures.)

My last pregnant picture: 38 1/2 weeks

On Friday, December 9th, I woke up around 1:00am with what turned out to be my first contraction. Between 2:00 and 3:00 am I was up a few more times with strong cramps in my belly. By 3:30 I decided to just get up and go watch TV. I had felt pains like these in the last few days, but they were never regular. I expected to get up and wait for them to go away, but this time they didn't! I started to get excited. I really didn't want to be induced, and I was 2 days over my due date, with an appointment for Monday, the 12th to see the doctor again and decide what to do if the baby hadn't come yet. Between 4:00 and 5:00 am I had about 4 or 5 more contractions. At about 5:30 Chad got up to see what I was up to. By now my contractions were about every 3 minutes as I paced back and forth in the kitchen. We downloaded a contraction tracker app (I know, cool, right?!) on Chad's phone. You press start and stop to time your contractions, and it would keep a running log of length of contractions and breaks in between - which was actually EXTREMELY helpful. I didn't have to worry about writing anything down or staring at the clock or anything. I highly recommend it if you're planning on having a baby anytime soon.

Anyways. We called the doctor's office to find out when they opened. We decided to wait until they opened at 8:00am, and be there first thing. Meanwhile, I paced a track through the house, walking the circle between the living room, tv room, bedroom, and kitchen. We were supposed to wait until my contractions were 2-5 minutes apart for 2 hours. Around 7:45 we started gathering up our stuff and making our way to the car. By now my contractions were about a minute and a half long at about a minute and a half apart.

We got to the doctor at 8:00 where I checked in and said I thought I was having a baby. They nicely checked me in and sat me in the waiting room for about 10 minutes. No hurry. Somebody finally came and got me, a midwife checked me, where it was determined that yes, I was in active labor at this point. Thank goodness because I was afraid they were going to tell me to go home and wait a few hours and come back. I was admitted to the hospital around 8:45 am, shown my lovely delivery room, and gave up all privacy for the next 2 days. (By the way - whose brilliant idea is it to ask you a billion health history questions while you're having contractions less than 2 minutes apart? It seems like they should have you fill that all out at one of your later doctor appointments so it's ready to go when you need it.) They ordered my epidural, but the anesthesiologist was busy with another mother, monitoring her for possible C-Section. So we waited. By the time he came in at 10:15 my contractions were almost back to back, and I admitted a 10 on the infamous pain chart. They put in my IV and finally put in the epidural. And, I know people say this all the time, but seriously - whoever invented the epidural has my eternal gratitude. It. Was. AWESOME. Within minutes, I was totally numb. Just like when they numb you up at the dentist, it felt like my legs were twice their normal size, and I had to keep looking to make sure they weren't. They insisted I would still be able to feel "pressure" and some temperature sensation, but I felt absolutely nothing. Apparently I'm pretty sensitive to pain medications. The weird part was when I tried to move my legs and they would flop randomly. It was pretty creepy. For about an hour and a half after that, Chad and I just sat around. We updated family, watched an episode of West Wing (Chad did - I fell asleep) and enjoyed drugged up delusion.

At 11:55 the doctor came in a broke my water, and we waited some more. Chad went home to check on the puppy, got called back because they were talking about having me start pushing, got back just in time for them to change their minds, and went back to check on the dog again. He got back around 2:00 and at 2:10 or 2:15 I started pushing. Baby was born at 3:01pm.

They handed me the baby right after he was born, and had Chad cut the umbilical cord. Then they took him away to weigh him, measure him, and clean him up. At which point it was determined he was 9 lbs. 7 oz. Thanks a lot Chad. After he was delivered, the nurses told me they kept thinking "Jeese! How big is this kid's head?!" because they kept telling me he was "almost here!" when apparently he wasn't.

With his daddy right after he was born:

My doctor took really good care of me, and came in just to deliver my baby. He was supposed to be out Christmas shopping with his family. Anyways. I was so surprised by how quickly everything went. I was really surprised to find my contractions close enough together to go to the doctor's office after only 5 hours. Well... it sounds a lot longer now, but it went by really fast.

Everything went well - baby was healthy and there were no complications for him or me. At some point after that, Chad went down to the nursery with the baby to videotape his first bath. They brought the baby back with a cute little hat.


At about 8:00pm we moved to a recovery room (apparently they were completely full Friday afternoon - so we had to wait longer than normal). I have to say - it is amazing that you can go through all of that and be walking only a few hours later.

They took my IV out at some point in the night. I was woken up at 6:40am for a blood draw. Chad went home for the night, and came back around 6:30 or 7:00 that morning. I took a bath in my jacuzzi tub (yay!) and got dressed in my regular clothes and felt 100 billion times better. We spent the day hanging out in the room, walking around the hospital, and trying to get used to our new baby. He spent most of his time in the nursery when he wasn't hungry. We went in to check on him and he was peacefully sleeping in a swing. So Chad went out and bought a swing. He does seem to enjoy it. At some point it was determined that the baby's blood sugar needed to be monitored, so they pricked his heel every time before they brought him to me to be fed. Poor little guy. That afternoon, our friends Nate and Kate came down from Rexburg to visit us. We had fun hanging around with them in our cramped little hospital room. The YW President I work with also came to visit.

Chad went home again Saturday night and came back around 8:00 Sunday morning. We watched the obligatory informational Infant CPR and Choking videos and the don't-shake-your-baby video. We spent the day trying to get ready to go home. I took another bath/shower and got dressed, did our checkout information, Chad took multiple trips to the car, and we were FINALLY ready to leave. By this time, I was ready to not be stuck in a little hospital room, on a hospital bed. I made a comment as we waited for Chad to pull up the car that the hospital was awfully quiet (although it was a Sunday afternoon). The CNA waiting with me said everyone was going home that day. They were full on Friday when I came in, and by the end of the day Sunday they were going to have 2 patients. Weird how that works out.


We got home at about 3:00 Sunday afternoon. Some people in our ward brought us a delicious dinner at 5:00 or 5:30. The hospital food was pretty good - and apparently Chad was getting jealous. He was happy for something a little more "home cooked" than a ham sandwich.

We went to the pediatrician yesterday, and everything is fine. I have been feeling really good too. I haven't been really sore or uncomfortable as I was promised I would be (especially after how big he was), and I'm attributing a lot of that to my awesome doctor. And the rest of it I am attributing, again, to the fact that my mom let me eat dirt when I was little. My immune system rocks. I am also wearing regular jeans again!!! YAYYYY! I really hated the whole "panel" deal which meant your jeans continued pretty much up to your armpits, which made everything more uncomfortable. At least for me.

And here we are - day 2 on our own of being a little family of 3. Chad went back to work yesterday, and is there now. Lady has been adjusting to having a baby in the house. She is a good dog - and I think that he wears her out more than anything. This is what she was doing last night when he was crying:

Charlie is a very happy baby so far. When he's not eating, he's sleeping. Like I said, he did cry for a little while last night, but eventually calmed right down and slept. He is sleeping now and has been for almost ... 5 hours?!! I guess I should wake him up and feed him. He is currently making little squeaks, but still sleeping. This is what he's doing now:
So, without further ado - here are some more pictures. Chad will have to get the videos ready so I can put them here too.

Still Waiting...

As we wait for the baby, it looks like I will make it to December! Which is a good thing because that's kind of what I told the school to plan on - count me out for the month of December.

However, I have been thinking about ways to have a baby that wouldn't be any more weird than the current method -

1. Lay an egg like a bird: Lay an egg and carry it around for 9 months to incubate it. Wait for it to hatch.

2. Sneeze: Do you have a tissue? I just had a baby.

3. Vomit: Oooh... I don't feel so good...
"My baby was born covered in Spaghettio's - it was gross!"
"Yeah, well mine was covered in popcorn and chocolate pudding - and he was stuck in my throat for 10 hours before I could gag him out."

4. Belly button drawstring: I think it would be awesome if your belly button was just cinched closed with a drawstring. When your belly gets big enough, you just loosen the drawstring, open up the belly and pull the baby out.

5. Athena style: In Greek mythology, Zeus complains about a huge headache. He has Hephaestus take an axe to his head and split it open - revealing a fully grown and armored Athena.

Also - what if you grew a baby in your butt? I mean - it's not any weirder than growing one in your belly. Wouldn't it be weird if people's butts just got bigger and bigger until they had their baby. You really could NEVER ask someone if they were pregnant.

Anyway. I'm sure I'm going to have to settle for the good old-fashioned way. I just think it's weird.

Progress

I have been working on getting everything ready for the baby to come, since that could be any day now. This has included a lot of buying and building home storage furniture (bookcases, drawers, etc.) and also buying a lot of Tupperware-type storage. But it needed to be done and things are looking a lot better - though there is still work to be done. In the meantime, here are some pictures of our nursery/guest room upstairs.

We still want to do some things like put up curtains and pictures, etc. but you should have seen it a week ago! I think it's so cute! And maybe going up and down those stairs will keep me in shape.

Building the crib:

Testing out the crib:

Panoramic:





Thanks for the crib mom and dad! It fits almost perfectly. And grandma's old chair is going to be a lovely place to rock the baby.

Well...

Here I was thinking that I would have all of this free time this week to do things like post on my blog. I guess I didn't realize just how much still had to be done to get ready for this little one. I have been running errands, buying groceries, cleaning and organizing.

We are almost done organizing everything. We still have to find somewhere to put the instruments we have accumulated since we've been married. We have quite the collection - with nowhere to put it. Anyone want to build us a music room?! (Bruce Willis's home in Hailey - about 3 hours away - is on the market - we'll just buy that...) Anyway - I am surprised we have found places for the rest of the junk (Chad insists none of it is "junk") we have accumulated. The upstairs is looking cuter and cuter as a nursery. We got the crib last week, and Chad put it together Sunday afternoon.

After thinking I wasn't going to have a baby shower, I ended up having 4 - 2 planned, 2 surprise! One with Chad's family way back in August, one at work, one at work with my students, and one at church with the Young Women. I am grateful because we got many of the things we needed. With gift cards, I was able to purchase the rest of what I think we'll need, and I still have some money left over. I was telling mom - it's weird that something so small requires so much paraphernalia. It has been nice to have this week off to sleep and relax one last time before the baby comes. We went out to dinner the other night and are heading to a movie tonight (with a gift card to the cheap theaters from work that will expire Dec. 5th).

People keep saying that I must just want this baby out of me because I'm probably feeling so uncomfortable. I think carrying him around in my belly is a whole lot easier than having him not in my belly anymore. Then he will need a car seat, clothes, diapers, food, time, stroller, blankets, toys, etc. Even little things like tag-saling or grocery shopping will be a whole production. I'm not even that uncomfortable. Big, yes, but not really uncomfortable. (Besides the constant heartburn - which I have finally controlled with the discovery of Zantac75. Wahoo!) Plus, having the baby inside of me greatly reduces the chance that I will forget I have a child and leave him somewhere by accident.

Speaking of which - this pregnancy has been pretty easy. If it weren't for rising girth units, I wouldn't even know I was pregnant. I was never sick. I haven't been that tired, my back doesn't hurt and my belly doesn't feel that heavy. My biggest complaints are the heartburn and an itchy belly. And apparently the "stomach pains" that have been waking me up the last few nights are probably partial contractions. Who knew? Chad and I are hoping that an uneventful pregnancy will translate to an uneventful labor and delivery.

It will be interesting to see how the dog handles new competition for our attention. She starts whining/barking when she hears babies crying on TV. She's in for it. Maybe she knows already. She has been super snuggly the last few weeks.

I have a long-term sub lined up for school, but so far no luck with the Children's Choir. A student from BYU-I contacted me, and I got really excited, but I haven't heard from her since. Hopefully she doesn't back out.

As for Thanksgiving, Chad and I are staying home and enjoying a quiet, tiny dinner all to ourselves. We thought about heading to Chuck-A-Rama, and who knows, we might still end up there - but as of now, we're planning on eating at home. It is Chad's only day off (besides Sundays) from now until Christmas, and he wants to stay home and I'm okay with that.

I know I have updates from the last month and a half (Halloween!) - but somehow I don't have any pictures on this computer. So those will have to come later.

...Maybe my next post will be full of baby pictures!

Coming Soon -

A new post to catch you up on all our goings on in the last month.

After this week, I get a full week of lovely vacation and no obligations. I have a lot of things planned to do that week to finish getting ready for this baby's arrival, so he can't come before that!

Individual Worth

If you will recall, we were trying to sell our computer desk. We posted it on Craig's List in early July but never got any bites. We were asking $100, then $75. We asked around at church to see if anyone needed/wanted a desk, but again, no takers. So, after getting tired of it sitting in our front room for months, we finally broke down and took it to D.I. on Saturday.

The desk first joined our family shortly after we got married and moved to Rexburg. We bought it with wedding money. We paid about $180 for it. I think it may have been the first piece of furniture (maybe second to the kitchen table/chairs) Chad put together as a husband. It lived in our first little tiny apartment, and then moved across the street with us, and eventually made it down to our house. But with a baby on the way, it was time to retire it. It was a good piece of furniture, and we didn't want to get rid of it, but we just have no room anymore.

So - like I said - we took it to D.I. Then we parked and went in the store to look around, only to find our poor little desk already out on the floor for sale. They couldn't have waited until we left?

For the lowly price of:
Poor desk! You are worth so much more! Don't let anyone tell you different!

But, we did find a JCPenney Home Collection Queen size down comforter and duvet cover for $10.

Random Tidbits

Hello all -
This weekend Erin and Bryce came up to Idaho! It's a sign of the Apocalypse. No - they were visiting Craters of the Moon and came by to see us. We had a "sleepover" with the boys so Erin and Bryce could have a semi-quiet night with Addy. The boys actually did really well and went right to bed. In the morning, they went over to the park with Lady while I made breakfast, then we ate breakfast and then it was time for Conference. In between sessions, the boys helped me pick zucchinis and then we went down to the river and walked the Greenbelt and fed the ducks.

Lady liked having friends to play with, but it wore her out. She slept for about 2 hours straight after they left. We got to see Addy (how did we not take any pictures of her?!) - the first Dickerson granddaughter. She is cute and tiny. It's hard to believe I will have one of my own in a few more weeks.




Playing store - Where I paid with a fake $5 bill and got two handfuls of wood chips. What a deal! (Will was licking a cut on his hand)

Today's zucchini harvest: 26
Zucchini harvest to date: 87

There were some monsters in the bunch.

Memorable quotes from this weekend:

• Sawyer at a restaurant where he ordered broccoli with his kids meal: "I like broccoli because it's yummy and it's healthy for me." (Or something along those lines)

• Will in the car trying to retell the "Golden Screw" story:

"Then he went to the top of the mountain and talked to a camel"
Erin: "A camel?!"
Will: "Yeah that's what you said"
Erin: "No, I said the Dalai Lama - Oh!!"

The boys wanted to play a game with the Wii Balance Board while they were here, but Chad couldn't get it to work. After trying everything we read in online forums, and a call to Nintendo Tech Support, we replaced our brand new out-of-the-package batteries with batteries out of other things that we knew were working, and somehow that fixed it. Anyways, so we got out the Wii Fit and updated our information.

Since September 25 last year, I have gained 34 pounds. I'm sure not all of that is "baby" weight since I'm sure I gained some on my own between September and March. But I have now graduated from "normal" to "overweight", and my Mii is nice and plump. Chad weighed himself and saw that he too had gained weight since last time he used the Wii Fit, albeit not 34 pounds. It inspired him to use the board to exercise. It inspired me to eat a cupcake.

Here are some pictures of random things:
This we found at the Dollar Tree. It made me laugh because I pictured a little cut of meat running around with a harness on - a la raw turkey running through the produce section like on that commercial.
Here is a picture of the little monkey we brought home to be friends with Lady when she was just a puppy. It was her first toy and she was deathly afraid of it for the longest time.
She has since warmed up to him and this is what he looks like today - a little over a year later:

Poor monkey... Since seeing Toy Story 3, whenever we give the dog a toy, all I can think of is the toys screaming at how they will get slobbered on, torn apart, chewed up and eventually destroyed by their new owner.

If you will recall, when we were in California, we went to a giant flea market thing, where we saw this sign:
at a booth run by Asian people. It made me giggle. As you can on the right hand side of the picture, they had slid the signs up under the mat they put down for a floor so that you couldn't see the "crearance" part - but I pulled it out and took a picture.

When we took Stephen back to school a couple of weeks ago, we were wandering around Broulim's where I spotted this sign which still makes me laugh:


And some gratuitous pictures of Lady sleeping - these were during the second session of Conference yesterday:


Tomorrow it's back to work! It's a short week though, because Thursday and Friday are In-Service days. So that's kind of nice. However, I don't know how to tactfully ask if I have to stay for full in-service days when I am only part-time. I know they're not adding in two "full-time" days of pay because I went to two "full-time" days of In-Service. I don't want to "get out" of anything - but I don't want to be working when I'm not getting paid. Well - it wouldn't be so bad if it was just full days of sitting and getting things done in your classroom - but it sounds like we will be in irrelevant workshops all day.

I love fall. I love summer too, but I love fall. Candy corn, caramel apples, pumpkins, corn mazes, hayrides, crisp air, crunchy leaves.... I just wish we were experiencing it in New England where fall is actually a season and not just a few weeks before winter sets in for the next 7 months.

Anyways - that's all from Idaho for now.

Today's zucchini harvest: 22
Zucchini harvest to date: 61

I think we are falling behind for having something like 16 plants out there.
... They'd probably grow more if we actually watered them once in a while...

Update

Hello everyone -
It's time for a quick update. This will mostly be based off of the pictures on my camera, because other than that, I don't have anything terribly exciting to tell you.

If you are wondering how my job is going - it's fine. I will be a lot less stressed when things have settled down. For example, right now we don't have the music we are going to play for our first concert because it is still in the process of being ordered. The children's choir will start next week. This Friday is the big rivalry football game.

All I can say is, I wish I was going to Connecticut tomorrow.

First things first. A few weekends ago Mollie came up to Idaho since we couldn't make it down to Utah to see her while she was there. She got a ride up with Aunt Karen on Saturday, and then rode the shuttle back early Monday morning. So on Sunday, we went to Yellowstone.

We saw painted pots, springs, and finished the afternoon at Old Faithful. I guess pictures of Old Faithful are on Mollie's camera because I don't seem to have any. We ate Subway and lots of snacks but didn't see very many animals. We saw some antelope on the way out, but that was pretty much it. Not even any buffalo.

One day, I was home doing I don't know what, when I thought the dog was being suspiciously quiet. I walked into the other room to find this:


The little puffball that used to be at the end of his hat is one of Lady's favorite toys. She'll carry it around in her mouth and spit it out at you when she wants to play. Dogs are silly.

Then, as I mentioned before, the van died at the high school after unloading all of the band equipment after the first football game a couple of weeks ago. Chad replaced the fuel filter, it worked for about a day and a half, and then quit again. A guy in our ward offered his help, having had replaced the fuel pump in his Suburban twice. He came over and tested some other things before deciding that it was, in fact, the fuel pump. So we went and bought a new one, and he put it in. Er, I mean, he "helped" Chad put it in. In the process, he told Chad that our van was definitely a female because of how stubborn she was with everything. Well - that means "his" name can't be Jermaine anymore. I think it should be LaFawnda. LaFawnda and Leonard - now there's a pair. Anyways - here's the offender.
But, $275 later and the van lives to see another day. We were planning on spending the weekend in Utah for Adelaide's baby blessing. Instead, we spent Friday night and Saturday fixing the van. We took the Subaru up to West Yellowstone to see Christian in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Playmill. The show was awesome and we were really glad we got to see it. As always, Christian set us up with good seats and treats. Thanks Christian! (He's in costume, by the way - this isn't his everyday wear)
We didn't feel confident taking the van down to Provo after it was immobile for about a week, and then we worked on it all evening/morning. Since we were planning on the baby blessing since about May, that was really disappointing. But I guess she got blessed even without us being there. Unfortunately, that means we still haven't seen the first Dickerson granddaughter and probably won't for quite a while. But I don't even know when we'll get to see Kyle and Jess's baby. That's what happens when babies are born hours away and you work full time.

On Monday, we decided to go to the State Fair. This was our sorry attempt to replace our trip to the Big E. No giant eclairs could be found. Nor clam fritters, nor giant cream puffs, nor Maine baked potatoes (or even Idaho baked potatoes, surprisingly), nor nasty maple candies, nor a giant building full of as-seen-on-TV products. We settled for teriyaki chicken bowls for lunch, and a Tiger's Ear (giant fried dough) from the Scouts booth. Chad said we had to be swindled before we could leave, and got talked into a reusable rubber lint roller thingy and a travel size one for $11. It seems to work pretty well, and didn't even seem that expensive. We do go through a lot of lint rollers, so it was even a useful purchase. While we were there, we saw this sign on the ticket booth for the rides:
You'll notice the "No pregnant or intoxicated people". Because we belong in the same group.

They also have a little petting zoo at the fair, where a pet store from Pocatello brings puppies to sell. They are always super cute, and sometimes they're really picky about who they let hold them. You have to look genuinely interested, because they don't want their little puppies being man-handled by a bunch of little kids. They let us see this little guy:

HOW CUTE IS HE?!!! And he's a dachsund/chihuahua mix so he probably won't get too much bigger. Just under $300. Sooooo tempting. Aunt Karen ran into us while we were ogling. In the end, we gave him back to the guy, and walked away.

And with that, we left the fair and came home - without incident, thank goodness. (2 years ago the brake booster went out on the van on our way to the fair)

This last week was more work for both of us. Chad's parents were here from Wednesday night to Saturday morning to bring Stephen back up to school.

Yesterday I was in Porter's just hanging around. When I walked in, there was a girl, about 10 years old, running around playing a harmonica. I found Chad and talked to him for a few minutes. The whole time this girl is playing the harmonica. And then I asked Chad if Porter's sells harmonicas. Why, yes, yes they do. She's going to buy that right? Probably not, he says. The lady at the register finishes checking out (where 10 feet away, her daughters are BOTH playing harmonicas now) and tells the girls to put their things down and come on because she's leaving. So the girls put their harmonicas back in the cases, and ditch them on a shelf in the toys/games and leave. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?!?!?! And Chad isn't allowed to say anything to the customer because "That's rude". Really? It's rude for him to say "Uh, you opened that, slobbered all over it, you are old enough to know better, you're mother was standing around the whole time, and then you shove it back into the case, stuff it on a shelf somewhere and leave - I'm sorry, but you'll have to buy that." What is WITH parents these days? Are parents of this generation like this everywhere? Or is it just in this little Idaho/Utah bubble? It seems like parents take no responsibility for what their children are doing - and often leave them completely unsupervised. But I think it's worse when they ARE "supervising" their children and they might as well not be.

Chad tells me horror stories from work all the time where parents let their kids run around, break things, make a mess, slobber on stuff, and then they just put things back and leave the store. Why should they have to clean up after themselves? Or pay for what they broke/used/destroyed? But when I saw this in action, I was completely appalled. I just don't get it. When Chad made a comment to a lady at work that his kids weren't going to be like that, she said something along the lines of "Yeah, we'll see. Good luck with that." Why has this kind of parenting become socially acceptable? And, as grandma said, what's wrong with a little spanking every now and then? Anyways - sorry, that's my little rant for today. And I know I don't have any kids yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to walk into a store, hand my kid a stuffed animal off of the shelf, let them slobber all over it while I shop, and then put it back and walk out.

*Sigh* It's back to work for us tomorrow. The school is splitting my 35 student guitar class so I will now be teaching 5 classes. I am getting more anxious to have a baby. And more anxious that I can't stay home with him all day. (We are currently watching him rock my belly.)

Just Sayin'

Not related to any specific example, but my experience in the last few months has taught me one thing is for sure.

You cannot teach those who do not want to learn.

When you're in the public school business, this is beyond frustrating.

*Sigh*

Hello all -
I finished the week of teacher workdays, and with a few exceptions, I think I am ready for school to start. This last week was exhausting - meetings and in-services. Full days spent in meetings while stressing over the lack of time to do all of the other million things I needed to do before school starts. But I think I got pretty much everything done. And if there's a glitch or two within the first few days, that's to be expected.

Last night was the Pep Band's first performance at a football game. We weren't going to play this game because school hasn't even started yet, but last Saturday I started making phone calls, by Wednesday we were having rehearsals, and on Friday we had 25-30 kids ready to play the game. (I use the term "ready" quite loosely) We played the national anthem, the school fight song, Seven Nation Army and Louie, Louie. Obviously we will have to have more in our repertoire as the season goes on, but that was enough for the first game. I think it went well. It certainly could have been worse. The athletic director and other staff I have had to talk to to get to this game seem very supportive of the Pep Band, so hopefully we can only go up from here. Our team won, by the way, so that was an exciting start to the season.

Once we get into the swing of things, I think my schedule will calm down a bit. Luckily, I can do most of my prep work at home (score study, etc.) and I shouldn't have a ton of grading to do, except for midterm and final when they'll have written tests.

In other news, Jermaine is headed for the hospital soon. (or maybe the morgue...) On Wednesday, Chad got him home from work with a little bit of a struggle, and then on Thursday (Chad's day off) he wouldn't start. Chad spent the morning doing what he could to fix him. This included replacing the fuel filter. But alas, he could not be started. Later that day, Chad came to pick me up for lunch, and he was driving Jermaine! He started up just fine, and was doing well ever since. We drove him downtown with no issues, yesterday Chad drove him to work with no issues, and then we drove him (packed with instruments and stands) over to the football stadium (our "home" stadium is at the other high school in our district - about 10 minutes away) where we unloaded him, parked him, loaded him back up again, and drove him back to the school after the game. Chad had him parked up on the sidewalk to be closer to the building, and when everything was out of the car, he started him up again to go home. Except Jermaine wouldn't start. He put it in neutral and rolled down the slanted sidewalk back into the parking lot. We had Leonard there because we originally had to take 2 cars to the stadium because Chad got off work after I had to be there to meet kids. So I got in Leonard, and we pushed Jermaine home. Luckily we live really close to the school and it was 11:00 at night, so there was hardly any traffic. It was a little scary, and bumpy, and Jermaine's back bumper has a few scratches from Leonard's license plate, but we got home okay. So, if we want him fixed, we have to call AAA to have us towed to the garage, and then replacing the fuel pump (which people seem to think is the problem) will cost us $400-500. Who knows what's actually wrong with him. We were hoping the cars would hold out for another year while I worked my new job and saved the money for a car. The Subaru is running just fine after we took it in earlier this summer and had the spark plugs/wiring (or something) replaced - but the check engine light is still on. I'm not too worried about it, since when we took it in, they couldn't find anything life-threatening to fix. He's probably just requesting a breathing tube or oxygen tank or something, but he gets on just fine without one. We're trying to decide where we draw the line between paying $3o0-$500 every few months to keep the cars running, and just buying a new car and putting that money into payments. (I really wanted to pay for a car in cash... )

But what with that, and the baby on the way for which they are calculating we will owe around $4000 (plus who knows how much), we are quickly watching our expected "extra" money disappear. And it looks like we won't be headed to UT next weekend for the baby blessing... We are blessed though, that Jermaine made our trip to California/Utah and back, and to Yellowstone with Mollie - instead of stranding us somewhere along the way. Besides dying in the driveway, it probably couldn't have died closer to home. We do have the extra income, we just didn't want to have it spent as soon as it came in every month. And Chad and Lady and I are in good health and the house isn't falling apart, so things could be much worse.

In less depressing news, the baby is moving a lot now! His little jerks make my whole belly jiggle and that's kind of weird to watch. I had to go buy some new maternity work clothes and got lucky with 3 pairs of pants from Ross for $40. They all look pretty much the same, but at least I will know I'm wearing clean pants, even if no one else does. I packed away all of my non-maternity work clothes to make some space in the closet - I accumulated most of them after Christmas last year with shopping money from mom. It was sad to know they only got worn for a few months and then I had to replace my whole work wardrobe again. Being pregnant and having babies is expensive business!

Lady and I are currently lounging on the couch like the good ol' days. My side has been hurting since I woke up this morning - kind of like when you get a cramp when you're running or something - but it won't go away. I'm hoping laying still for a bit will do the trick.

Next week is the Eastern Idaho State Fair. We will have to see if we can squeeze in a trip to replace my lack of the Big E.

Piano lesson to teach in a few minutes. What I really wanna do is take a nap...

Summer is... Over.

I am in mourning. Today is the first of a week of teacher work days/ in-service days. School starts next week. My summer is over.

I had to leave the puppy to come to work, and I felt so bad. I will miss the days of lazing around the house with her, watching TV, doing laundry, napping, and other such summertime activities. I always just let her in and out of the house on her tie-out leash - she'd mostly sleep on the porch all day. She won't be used to being stuck inside at home by herself for hours at a time... She's a good buddy.

I know, I know - leaving a baby is going to be 100 million times harder - but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Working Woman

Hello all!
Since you last heard from me, we spent a lovely week in California visiting Chad's family. I think I have a total of 1 picture to document our time. We played games, ate good food, went to the mall, visited Wal-Mart and got many baby-related items. On our way home, we stopped in Provo to see Erin and my mom for a few days.

I interviewed for the job at Hillcrest on Friday morning, August 5th, before we got in the car and drove all day to get to California. On Thursday, August 11th, they called to offer me the job! I am officially a part-time band director at Hillcrest High School in Ammon, Idaho. This was bittersweet for us, because we had a trip planned for the second week of September to go back to Connecticut and see my family, visit the Big E and do other fall, New Englandy type things. Now I have to be teaching school. :o( No chocolate eclair for me. I was excited to go to Cape Cod, Lyman Orchards, Friendly's, XPect, the Goodspeed, and in general, enjoying the season of autumn which is nearly non-existent here, but as they say, life gets in the way.

The job at the high school is only part-time, which is good for me with a baby on the way. I will still have time to go to appointments, go shopping, etc during the second half of the day during which I will not be teaching. I will also be doing pep band which earns me an extra stipend. I am excited to be back at the school working with a lot of kids that I already know. I will be teaching Band, Jazz Band, Beginning Guitar and Percussion Ensemble. It is a lot less intimidating than a full-time teaching load. It is gratifying to finally be using my education and doing what I wanted to do since middle school. It's just weird that I'm going to be actually doing it. Being a band director was something I was going to do when I was all grown up. Wait a minute...

My life has become busy almost overnight.

I had new teacher orientation this morning, and then I went over to Hillcrest to see if I could get some keys and get into the building. The head custodian knows me from my student teaching (and happens to be the brother of a guy in my ward) so he set me up, and took me down to see the room. Holy cow, is there a lot of work to be done. Not that I'm surprised. So I will be spending most of my free time this week at the school. Next week begins teacher work days/in-service days, and then school starts on the 29th! I am excited to have a job, but I wish I had more time!! So between now and then I have to clean up the room, create syllabuses (syllabi?) for each class, pick music, decide how I'm going to grade each class, and decide classroom procedures. In addition to that, if you'll remember, I'm in the midst of choosing music for the children's choir and attending "open registration" days for that.

So, here I am, having been sitting at home all summer, with little to do and now I will be working 2 jobs. I have to say, I will miss the days of lazing around the house with the puppy. I was getting pretty good at it! And it will be hard to leave a new baby with a babysitter, if even only for 4 hours a day, 3 or 4 times a week. But at least I'm not driving to and from Rexburg to do it all. It will be nice to be able to come home and be somewhere close enough that I can run back over to the school if I need to.

Anyways, I am enjoying my last few moments of freedom where I can get them. And currently Judge Judy is on, so I bid you adieu. And perhaps I will enjoy what may be my last nap of the summer.

You GUYS!!!

We will miss this this year, as we will be on our way home from California.
:o(

Oh, Idaho...

A couple of months ago, I received a letter from our power company stating that they are soon going to raise our rates. Of course, they were inviting public input on this process. However, I am sure that this will go about how our public meeting went before they raised our water rates. Everyone came to this huge town meeting, expressed how we were mad that because the city kept putting off it's payments, now we had to have a $10/mo. increase. The board listened to ideas to pro-rate or otherwise makeup the funding, said they would "take these into consideration" and then, obviously, the next month (and every month since) we all saw a $10/mo. increase on our bills. So - I know that when they say they will "do everything we can" to prevent rate increases, I know they're full of crap. So anyways, I wrote my letter explaining that the increase would not be financially easy for us (it's not huge, and we will be able to pay it, but I think it is beyond annoying to open bill after bill only to find that everyone's increasing their rates and we are not getting paid any more than we were before) and sent it off to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. I got an automated response letter along the lines of "Thank you for your input. We take all comments seriously. We provide you such awesome above-and-beyond service, I'm sure you will understand why we have to raise our rates for providing it." Pretty much what I expected.

Then today I got a more personalized letter from the "Executive Assistant" (uh... secretary?) at the Idaho Public Utilities Commission that tells me "We know what these increases due to families such as yours." DUE you?! If you're going to send me a consolation letter, at least use proper grammar. Now I REALLY don't want to give you my money.

*sigh* It is Idaho, after all.

Somebody's Sleepy...

It is a rainy day here today - perfect day for a nap.

It is humid here today!

The floor feels sticky, the sheets feel damp, the air feels thick.

I love it!!!

Purchases

Now that we know we are having a boy, we can buy cute little boy things! (The pictures are a bit blurry, but you get the idea.) And we got them on super clearance at Sears and paid $12.00 for everything. So far they have the cheapest baby clothes we've found.




I also bought a Minkee blanket kit from Porter's, so now I can make one of those too! So SOFT!

Video Debut

Introducing....

Charles (Charlie) William Busath!!!

Little fingers in the center

Foot
Profile
Creepy baby

Video will be forthcoming - it is taking forever to upload/process.

Megan's Life Lessons

1: Do not EVER wash a shirt or towel that someone has just worn to get their haircut with other laundry (namely your undergarments) because you will be ITCHY ITCHY ITCHY!!! (I hope only until you wash everything again.)

2: Maintaining a constant body weight/build is the easiest way to save money on clothes. I have clothes that I wore in 8th grade currently hanging in my closet. (Although I am slowly weeding them out because I recognize my 8th grade wardrobe needs to be updated, to, oh, I don't know, something a little less 10 years ago) Gaining baby weight is making it very hard for my old clothes to accommodate my growing belly - and I am having to spend money on new clothes. Which would be great - if I could wear them for more than just a couple of months.

3: Thank you mom and dad for making us do our chores or clean our rooms before we could go do anything we wanted to do. (Or at least it seemed that way.) It is a) a motivator to get my self-inflicted chores done now that I am taking care of a whole house and b) way better to come home to a clean home than a dirty one. Even if just cleaning up one mess/project before beginning another, or cleaning up the kitchen after you're done making cookies. Now if only I could teach this principle to Chad.....

4: Pictures/updates from our trip to Utah for Will and Sawyer's birthday are currently being processed by the in-house video editor.

5: Coming soon to a blog near you: Baby Busath makes his/her video debut!

P.S.

In the realm of TMI - my belly button is getting shallower. I am not happy about this. I don't want an out-ie belly button!

Also - isn't it weird how a smell can bring back a memory more vividly than anything else? Remember that time I was sick on Chad's birthday, and spent the day barfing? Well, we had just put a new air freshener gel thingy in the toilet (thanks to BzzAgent). Several times that day it seemed like that "fresh clean scent" was the last little bit it took to push me over the edge and induce vomiting. Well - that was a while ago, so I thought maybe we could try putting another one in the toilet (because we still have several "uses" left, it was FREE, and it did keep the toilet clean and smelling nice - until I started associating that smell with vomit.) But I think I will have to scrape it out and throw it away because every time I walk in there, I can almost taste orange juice or ginger ale on it's way back up.

Finally, I am 99.9% positive we are having a boy. So if that ultrasound shows that we are having a girl, I will be 99.9% shocked.

News

Hello all!
You are hearing from the new director of the East Idaho Children's Choir. There are 3 age groups and they each meet once a week, following the school calendar. (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Parent/Teacher Conferences mean there are no classes that week) We have 2 concerts - one in January and one in May and then have the summers free.

It is only 155 hours for the whole school year, but I am excited. I substituted for one of the classes when the previous director had a baby. It should be pretty fun. Plus, it brings in some extra cash!

No word on the high school part-time band director position.

P.S.

A woman in my ward brought over a high chair and a Pack and Play that she no longer has a use for. This whole baby thing is starting to feel a little more real!

Megan's Book Review

I have finally finished the interminable "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe. Maybe my brain is too unsophisticated or immature to handle the epic writing of this book, but I found myself closing the 522 page beast thinking "What the heck was that?" The author had several favorite words that found their way into the story many times, including "inchoate". Everything was inchoate - spring, happiness, education. And his onomatopoeia for laughter was "Wah Wah". Now, who laughs like that? I'm pretty sure, even in the 1920s people did not laugh like that.

Supposedly the book is highly autobiographical, for which I pity the author. It sounds like a pretty dismal life - abusive and alcoholic father, loveless and penny-pinching mother, sickness, death, inescapable failure. The book follows the character Eugene Gant from birth to 19 years, at which point he seems to go crazy. And then his brother dies, and the book ends. Like I said - "What?"

If this were in a public school library, it would probably be censored or removed from the shelves thanks to the use of the terms "niggers" and "darkies" and to their little neighborhood as "Niggertown".

Anyway, there were, however, two passages that I actually found amusing.
One was his description of his father who used to tell them "When I was your age, I had milked four cows, done all the chores, and walked eight miles through the snow by this time." To which the author adds "Indeed, when he described his early schooling, he furnished a landscape that was constantly three feet deep in snow, and frozen hard. He seemed never to have attended school save under polar conditions." ... Dad, I'm looking your way...

The second was his description of a teacher at the university telling him that if he just quit cheating (he was not cheating, he was just better than everyone else at translating/reading in Latin) he wouldn't sound so pretentious, and he could actually take some pride in his work:

"But I think it's a pity, Mr. Gant," said the professor, gravely, "that you're willing to slide along this way. See here, my boy, you're capable of doing first-rate work. I can see that. Why don't you make an effort? Why don't you buckle down and really study, after this?"

Eugene stared at the man, with tears of anger in his eyes. He sputtered but could not speak. But suddenly, as he looked down into the knowing leer, the perfect and preposterous injustice of the thing -- like a caricature -- overcame him: he burst into an explosive laugh of rage and amusement which the teacher, no doubt, accepted as confession.

"Well, what do you say?" he asked. "Will you try?"
"All right! Yes!" the boy yelled. "I'll try it."

He bought at once a copy of the translation used by the class. Thereafter, when he read, faltering prettily here and there over a phrase, until his instructor should come to his aid, the satanic professor listened gravely and attentively, nodding his head in approval from time to time, and saying, with great satisfaction, when he had finished: "Good, Mr. Gant. Very Good. That shows what a little real work will do."

And privately, he would say: "You see the difference, don't you? I knew at once when you stopped using that pony. Your translation is not so smooth, but it's your own now. You're doing good work my boy, and you're getting something out of it. It's worth it, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Eugene gratefully, "it certainly is --"

... I'm looking at you, BYU-Idaho... or at least some of your professors.

Now, if those two excerpts make you think, oh, that doesn't seem that bad, trust me, it's like the trailer of a really bad movie - the only 2 good scenes are on the trailer and the rest is boring/trash. There are pages of "stream of consciousness" writing that make no sense at all.

I'd skip this one if I were you.

Freaky Friday

So last night Chad and I went to the cannery to reinforce our emergency food supply. We got back around 7:45, had pizza and watched a movie. We went to bed around 10:45 with the dog asleep at the end of the bed. At about 3:00 she woke up and decided she didn't want to be in our room anymore. She might have been cold because we had the fan on blowing in cool air from outside and it got pretty chilly. Anyways, so she woke us both up, we put her in her cage in the kitchen, and then neither one of us could get back to sleep.

Sidenote: I have been feeling the baby move for about a week and a half now. At first, I thought it was just stomach gurgling but it persisted until I realized that must be the baby moving.

So I laid there feeling the baby squirm around for about an hour, with no luck falling asleep. Then I finally felt like I might be dozing off when we were both jolted back awake by one of the most awful sounds there is - a cat snarling in a fight with something (if it was 2 cats, one of them didn't cry at all) right outside our window. It scared us both half to death. You could hear it squeal as its body was thrown up against the house by who knows what. Now, I've heard cat fights before. The roaming cats in our neighborhood at home used to duke it out under the streetlight in the middle of the night. But if it hadn't been for the wall, we would have been 4 or 5 feet away from the whole thing. It was a pretty nasty sound and it took me another 30 minutes to fall back asleep after that. I half expected to find a dead cat in our flower bed when I got up this morning.

That's all. Pretty exciting, I know.

Bored

Hello fellow bored internet surfers...
Chad is at work, Lady is laying out in the yard (her favorite pastime) and I am doing this.

As some of you may know, the final Harry Potter film comes out tonight. Some of the young women in my ward are going to the midnight showing. Chad and I thought about it except that he has to work tomorrow at 8:00am. But - this is kind of the end of an era! I feel like I grew up with Harry Potter. I read the books when I was little, and bought the later ones at midnight and stayed up all night reading them. We bought and brought one to Erin when she was in the hospital after having Will. Mollie and I drove to KMart at midnight only to find that we were pretty much the only ones there when they were obviously expecting a much bigger crowd, and it was... well, awkward. And Mollie freaked out because there was an employee dressed as a witch outside the store and she had just watched The Grudge with some friends.

The first book came out in 1998 when I was 10 and Harry was 11, finding out he was a wizard and getting his first invitation to Hogwarts. I think I even did a book report on one of the first books before they were huge.

Then the movies came out. The first movie came out the summer after 7th grade and had to have been one of my first boy-girl outings. I remember the 3 girls whispering about how we were going to sit so we didn't have to sit next to the boy we didn't want to sit next to. I have journal entries about the occasion! Several of the movies came out while I was in high school, 2 came out in college, and 2 have come out since then.

We grew up with Harry Potter! While I was going to high school, he was fighting evil things at Hogwarts. So when I see all these 15 year olds raving about the last Harry Potter, I get this odd sense of ownership - like they don't have any idea who Harry Potter is because they were 2 when the first book came out.

Anyways - I know that's dumb, but I was just thinking about how I could chronicle my life by who I saw the Harry Potter movies with.

That's my random thought of the day.

Also - I think it's stupid that people are holding their breath to find out who lives and who dies in the last movie. Uh... you could've read the book about 4 years ago - the cat's kind of out of the bag at this point. Was anyone wondering if Frodo completed his mission in The Lord of the Rings or if Alice ever made it out of Wonderland?

But Chad is among the movie-watchers who haven't read the books, and so he doesn't know what happens in the end. He has an idea, but doesn't know any of the specifics. So no spoilers in this household, please!

I think I should go mark this occasion with some butter beer (which, apparently, you can get at Harry Potter World at Universal Studios). Maybe I can wave my conducting baton around shouting "wingardium leviosa!" at things until something finally levitates. It could be awhile...

Update

Hello all. I am trying to kill time for a few minutes. BYU-Idaho is hosting an alumni concert for anyone who ever played with the Symphony Orchestra, which happened to include me. We had a rehearsal this morning, this is our break for lunch, and we'll have one more rehearsal and then a concert this afternoon. It won't be anything stellar, but it's fun to play again.

Let's see - what's new? We decided to stay in town for the Fourth of July parade this year. (Last year we drove up to Rexburg's parade) The Idaho Falls parade was bigger, but kind of lame. Except for the fact that we got there about 1/2 an hour before the parade began, and with only two adults, were able to find a tiny spot in front of a local church. The church was offering free hot dogs, popcorn, cookies and punch!! FREE! and THEN as we got toward the end of the parade, they walked around with trays handing it out. And then we didn't even have to get up to get our free food! That was pretty awesome. I felt a little guilty that I had no intention of joining their church/congregation, but they didn't seem to care. But I'm not sure we'll be so lucky to get that spot next year. If we are in a parade-going mood next year, we will probably go back to Rexburg's. But anyway. After that we came home and took a nap, went to a neighbor's barbecue (where everything was delicious!) and then headed downtown. We walked around the greenbelt for a few minutes before realizing there wasn't much of anything there besides food - and since we bought tickets for dinner/fireworks later that night, we weren't in an eating mood. We went over to the Shilo and stuffed ourselves full of salad, cole slaw, veggies, fruit, rolls, hot dogs, brisket sandwiches, baked potatoes, soda, water, brownies, pie, and all the ice cream you could want. Plus we had a nice place to sit while we waited for the fireworks to start. We went last year after spending the previous year camped out along the greenbelt (just ask Mollie) only to find that we couldn't actually see anything from where we were. It has been totally worth our money. It's supposed to include a live orchestra concert before/after dinner, but you can't see anything from our table. After the fireworks show, we thought we might be sneaky and wait out the traffic. We walked over to Denny's (along with the rest of the crowd) and waited about 1/2 hour for some chips and water. P.S. - the chips and dip was gross... We got back to the car, and traffic had not died down at all - in fact, it might have been worse. Next year we will definitely skip the Denny's trip. We're better off just getting in the traffic and heading home as soon as they're over (what we did the year before). We finally got home around 12:00 or 12:30 and then spent an hour looking for my cell phone (which included searching the local park in our bathrobes with flashlights) until we eventually found it behind the couch on vibrate. It was a late night, but still fun.

Since then, not much has happened.

Random thoughts:
1. I wish I looked definitively pregnant. I am just fat enough that acquaintances wouldn't know if I was pregnant or had just put on some weight. I am glad I am not a whale, but the in-between stage is kind of awkward all the way around.

2. Pumping gas on a hot, dry summer day reminds me of being on vacation with my family. I felt like I needed to give myself some snack money. Which made me remember the time Evan ate the honey bun with wrapper attached, thinking it was frosting. "Honeybun, coming back!"

3. I remember when "Maverik" was the weird only-in-Utah gas station down the street from grandma's house. Now I get gas at the one by my house. Weird. Whatever happened to Citgo?

4. When people ask me what I'm "up to" these days, it is weird to say "nothing" and really mean nothing! Uh... just sitting at home growing a baby. What are you up to these days?

5. Apparently the church is more "strict" (as far as following the handbook/rules) in Connecticut than it is here. You would think it would be the other way around. Maybe just because local wards (ours, in particular) have been around for so long that they just kind of do things however they do them. When new wards are formed, they're probably more careful about following the rules.

6. I am counting down the days to my 3-foot long giant eclair from the Big E.

7. On Wednesday, Chad commemorated 10 years since he got back from his mission. He pointed out that he has a wife, house, full-time job, dog, baby on the way, and a current temple recommend - so that's doin' pretty good. I guess it is.

8. We built a shed, and it's almost done. We hung the doors on Wednesday and now Chad just has to shingle the roof. Once that is done, he will move a lot of his stuff out of the basement and into the man-shed, and then I can put kitchen stuff/non-baby stuff in the basement. We also dug up most of the yard that was weeds and have tried to plant grass. We planted our garden a couple of weeks ago (last week!?) and have little zucchini plants popping through the soil!!! It's pretty exciting to go out and see your seeds growing up into little plants that will eventually overtake us with zucchinis.

9. Rexburg has changed a lot even since we moved just a year ago. There is new housing going up everywhere, they're demolishing a bunch of stuff and changing names on things. Even campus is different with the new Manwaring Center and BYU-Idaho Center.

10. Time to go back to rehearsal.

Caution:

silly post about my dog to follow. My mom has informed me that people don't care about your dog's birthday - people don't even really care about your kids' birthdays unless they're directly related (and even then...) BUT - with no kids yet and a cute little dog, we had to mark her 1st birthday somehow. So - if you are one of those who couldn't care less about our dog - skip this post. :o)

June 30th was Lady's first birthday! Does that mean she's no longer a "puppy"? She's just so small, you can hardly call her a dog. Anyway - we lazed around the house doing nothing much of anything until Chad got home.

Chad and I ran to the store to pick up a few things, got home, ate dinner, and went to the park. Lady loves to run - and she loves to play fetch. Chad is so happy to have a dog that will play fetch with him. We didn't even have to teach it to her! She just did it. Here are some pictures:

We played for about an hour, then went for a 1/2 hour walk around the park, then played for another 30 minutes-ish.

When we got home we had "cake". (Well, Lady had cake.) I made some dog-safe "ice cream" from a recipe I found online that consisted of yogurt, a banana, some peanut butter and some honey. I froze some in a mini cake tin and scooped it out for a birthday treat. (I can't believe she let me put that bow on her head for a few seconds to take the picture!!!)
Awwwwwww.........
Anyways - that was about the extent of Lady's birthday. And in case you are wondering, dogs can, apparently, get brain freeze. (P.S. Chad is currently tormenting the dog with a marionnette which she is deathly afraid of) The next day we gave her a big chunk of "ice cream" that was more frozen, and she licked away for a few minutes until she kind of staggered away and then broke out into uncontrollable shivering. It was pretty amusing. I have some extra but I give it to her in little pieces.