Calling in the Troops!

Ian and I both have families that get involved.   Some people would find that overwhelming, but in our case, it's been a saving grace for getting things pulled together for Buttons.  Over Thanksgiving Ian's mom, sister and brother-in-law to be came into town.  Maybe they thought we would just feed them turkey (or to-furkey since they are vegetarians), but they soon found out they had to earn their keep to get fed. 

The price of admission was building the two major pieces of furniture that every nursery requires: a crib and a changing table.  Luckily, John is an expert carpenter and the changing table/dresser was built in about an hour, with only one piece put on backwards.

This earned them Thanksgiving Dinner.  To earn dinner the next two nights they had to make the piece de resistance, the crib. Taking a break from the amazing football weekend that it was, John and Ian made the apparatus that can allegedly sleep our Buttons for the next 10 years. (It is one of those that converts to a toddler bed and then to a daybed). As I recall it they had only had a few football beers at this point in time - so totally safe. 

 Next up on the list was decorating the room (beyond the battle of getting the proper grey paint on the walls).  Thank goodness the next weekend brought in reinforcements - my mom, three sisters and college roommate. These lovely ladies not only helped throw me a fantastic shower, but they also helped put up eight decal trees, which came disassembled in about 60 pieces.  

I didn't know this before nursery shopping, but I guess decals are a big deal in decorating now.  They are just big sticker-type things that you put on the wall so that you don't have to mural paint.  Of course, the one decal set I fell in love with had to be shipped in from China and contained five steps to put up each of the 60 pieces: 1) cut out the print from the 20 foot roll of paper; 2) cut out a corresponding piece of 'transfer paper' to stick the print on to; 3) stick print to transfer paper; 4) transfer print from transfer paper to wall; 5) smooth out bubbles in print with a plastic tool [we used a credit card].  Not that the instructions told you to do that.  As I said, this came in direct from China, so the instructions lost some of their clarity in translation.  It took us about 20 minutes to figure out what they were referring to when discussing the 'viscosity' of the transfer paper.  

We split up the jobs to try and get it done quickly before everyone had to fly back on Sunday.  Carina took on 1 & 2, I took on 3, and Shelley took on 4 & 5:

Carina cutting out the tree parts and related transfer paper

Shelley getting the tree parts up on the wall

 Unfortunately, everyone had planes to catch before we could get up all eight trees, so Ian and I tackled the last few that night.  Ian got steps 4 & 5 since he is still allowed on stepladders:

Inspired by the progress of the past two weekends, I conned Blair into taking me to the Target nearby to buy our last piece of furniture that needed to be built: the bookshelf.  The next day, I decided to tackle the project myself and completed it in under an hour (while cooking meatloaf - I think I won the barefoot and pregnant award that night).

Maybe I should have changed out of my dress

Compared to the epic fail that was trying to paint the room, I was blown away at how fast the furniture and decorations were completed when our families came together to help out.  In under 3 weeks we went from bare walls and boxes to this:

As Shelley said, its a 'pintrest-worthy' room that is just about ready for Buttons.  And its a good thing - less than 8 weeks left to go!

Buttons is a Bit Large.

Ian was born 9 pounds 11 ounces.  His sister was just slightly less than that. He swears that he told me this before we got married, but I am not so sure. Either way, it is a Oliver family fact that I am now well aware of, as is our doctor.  Therefore, it surprised no one that I measured a little big on week 28.  The problem was that I was measuring just past week 30, which put me into the 'we have to take an extra look' category.  So, we scheduled an extra ultrasound and I left the office feeling fine, if not a little excited to get to see Buttons one more time.

Of course I then panicked thinking that big could only be a bad thing.  I consulted my family doctor connections and learned that this is one of the 'normal-weirds' for pregnancy.  I've found there are many 'normal-weirds' in pregnancy that you don't find out about until they happen to you.  Everyone knows about the morning sickness, better sense of smell and getting tired in the third trimester.  Not everyone knows that some animals can sense the hormonal changes and start acting differently around you or that low blood sugar and/or blood pressure can cause a minority of women to have fainting spells (the latter was less fun to find out about than the former!).

So, Button's increased size was one of these 'normal-weirds' that didn't worry the doctor(s), but caused me pause.  Ian and I went back to the doc the next week, and they confirmed what we had guessed - Buttons is a bit large.  He is weighing in about a pound heavier than my pregnancy books tell me he should be and is pushing the 80th percentile in size.  If he grows at the average pace of 1/2 a pound until his due date, then we may be in the 9+ pound range.  Yikes! Nonetheless, the doc assured me that everything looks great and we just are one of those lucky few to be growing a big healthy boy.

Google research has also told me that bigger babies tend to sleep better and be more developed when born.  Who knows if that will actually pan out, but the best upside for me is when people stop and say, 'wow you are getting big!' I can agree, and have the knowledge that I (or Buttons - we?) am bigger than average.  It's our new 'normal-weird.'

Dr. Dula, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Epidural

++FAIR WARNING this post is a little explicit.  Those with weak stomachs should not read on.

We took a labor and delivery class in mid-November.  I thought the space of 2 weeks would give me enough time to distance myself so that I could write funny little anecdotes about the class - we shall see.  First, some background.  We are going to deliver at Rose Medical Center, known for giant luxury 'birthing suites,' insane security measures, and fantastic parenting classes.  Isn't it pretty:

One would think that such renown classes would take place in a beautiful room, possibly with a view of the rose garden pictured above.  One would be wrong.  We showed up with our pillows and blankets (because everyone innately brings pillows and blankets to parenting classes, though no one knows why) and were directed to the back elevators that took us to the basement. After a ten minute walk through a windowless labyrinth we found the 'auditorium.'  Unlike the name implies, there was no stadium seating in the auditorium, just a semi-circle of chairs in front of a miniature stage with what looked like a perky fitness instructor sitting cross-legged. Strike one for the class - do not take 11 women who have never been this large in their entire lives and have them stare at Miss. Small-Town USA, 1996, for a weekend, especially if she can still sit cross-legged.

It did not take me long to figure out why we were sent into the bowels of the medical center: birthing videos.  With full audio.  We watched 6 of them over the 2-day, 10-hour class, most of which were au natural and did not pull ANY punches. I will not go into detail, but if there was a question about whether a video camera could be in the room, it has been conclusively answered in the negative.

After the first two snippets of educational programming,  Miss. STUSA (96') went into her ordeal on the Pain.  IT will be painful.  IT will be long.  But, IT is something that has been done for centuries without drugs.  Cue the proverbial record scratch.  Despite her detailed description of the Pain (with full color video evidence), this woman did not believe in the Drugs.  With the guidance of Miss. STUSA (96'), all we would need is positive thinking and the chutzpah to let the nursing staff know that we would be bringing Buttons into the world without any toxins in my system.  Strike two.  Luckily, the Friday night class ended shortly after this revelation and we were all able to go home and think about what we had learned.  I think the lesson was don't get pregnant, but I am not sure.

By some miracle all 11 couples returned the next morning, pillows and blankets in hand, ready for more birth canal carnage, follow by some (very light) light lunch.  This time the videos were complemented with ancient art depicting how labor has been done for centuries without medical intervention:

She looks comfy, no?

Next, we got to try different positions to make the natural experience more comfortable. Turns out it does not so much involve pillows and blankets, but a stability ball, a Jack Johnson CD and a husband willing to give you nonstop back massages. Reebok must have made a killing in ancient times.

It was all fun and games until finally a fellow student mustered up the courage to ask about the Drugs. Can the Drugs be helpful? Are they really that bad for baby? Am I dooming my child to non-honors classes by easing my way through one of the most painful things ever depicted on tv? Apparently this was the segue Miss. STUSA (96') was looking for.  We all held our breath as she flipped the projector to a section of slides on the dreaded Drugs.  As it turned out the answers are: Yes, No and Please Leave My Classroom You Are Already Going to Screw Up Your Child With Those Kind Of Expectations (the latter answer was a No, but her eyes spoke volumes more).

She spent a good hour and a half discussing the tradeoffs of using the various pain medications and the studies backing up these perceived risks and rewards. It was incredibly helpful.  As I expected, there are some benefits and drawbacks to using - and not using - the Drugs, but neither are as monumental as either proponent would have you believe. Really, its up to you what you want to do,  just make an informed decision.

There was another 2 hours or so of class, but I don't really recall what we discussed in them.  I had gotten what I needed from the class without getting to my third strike - the assurance that this was my decision and that I had the knowledge to make it.  I even think that 8 hour lead-in of ancient Jack Johnsonian techniques of birthing was helpful.  Just don't make me watch another birthing video.

We Painted the Nursery...Twice.

So I have a lot of checklists.  It is a habit I picked up from my mom and has stuck with me for better or for worse.  There is the daily checklist, the weekly checklist, the work checklist, the house checklist and, most recently, the Buttons checklist. October was the big month to start knocking off the Buttons checklist items.  October did not pan out.  We literally checked off one major item - buy baby books. Not read baby books, just buy them. (We now have six, I have read 1/4 of one).

The long debated color palate - thank goodness I
have creative friends. 

So, as we move into mid-November, we are finally getting to our Buttons October Checklist.  Item number one is to paint the nursery.  Item number two is to buy a crib and dresser to put in said painted nursery.  I fully intended to check off both items this past weekend.  Friday afternoon, we were already off to a pretty good start - I had previously tapped my decorating muse, Shelley, and she helped me figure out what we want the nursery to look like.  It's going to have grey walls with white furniture and accents in turquoise, orange-yellow and maybe some brown tones. The Aspen picture in the previous post will hopefully be one of the yellow accents we use. So, filled with the power of knowing that I like the color grey, Ian and I went to the mecca that is Home Depo Saturday morning and bought a beautiful light steel color using the conventional wisdom that you should buy lighter colors since the paint will dry darker.

We moved out the furniture and that afternoon Blair came over and helped up tape up all the walls and get down to actually painting. She and Ian came up with a brilliant plan where she would place strips of tape on the wall and Ian would follow behind and tape up the ceiling.  It was the best combo of short and tall cooperation I have seen in a while. 

Blair putting up the tape

And Ian following behind.

Don't worry, I got two OB-GYN approvals to paint. 

We worked for a grand total of around 8 hours if you include the Home Depo trip and the numerous time-outs I took to sit down and watch while Blair got me water and Ian kept painting.  After a long day of list-completing, we heartily congratulated ourselves for finally getting something done and went to watch the Longhorns game at the Texas-Exs bar nearby.  Little did we know that while we were watching Texas almost loose to West Virginia, contrary to all popular wisdom, the pretty steel-grey paint was drying lighter. 

Transition from blue grey to brown grey.

We came back and saw that the once cool grey, was now was heading toward baby blue.  I did not like it.  My pregnancy hormones did not like it.  Even Ian, who loves everything, did not like it. We pretended that a second coat would darken everything up and magically make our now blue room, not blue, but by the morning we knew that we would have to scrap our plans for buying a crib, drive back to Home Depot and reconsider our grey options.  Silly us for thinking that this would be the one home improvement project that only required one trip to the black-hole of weekend renovations. 

Sunday morning Ian had to stay home to work, so I ventured out myself and contemplated colors (by that I mean one color - grey) for the next 45 minutes.  I finally decided that 'going more brown' would help and switched from our cooly named 'Silver Screen' grey to the 'Granite Boulder' grey. How Colorado. Since the room was already taped up, the second coat went on much faster, cutting our painting time down to 3ish hours. 

As we wandered out of the nursery bleary eyed and spattered in two different shades of the same color on Sunday night, I realized we had spent spent the majority of our weekend completing only 50% of what we had set out to do.  In fact, we still had to do touch ups once everything dried, so really we were not even hitting the halfway mark. The college professor and the finance attorney were defeated by a color wheel.

But, I think there is a lesson in here somewhere.  We are just not going to get everything done. Pre-Buttons, Post-Buttons and (according to my mom) for the next 18 years, we will just need to be happy with what we can do.  And, on Tuesday night, we touched up the walls and completed the paint job:

We love it. We have a start on creating our nursery and can move on to our checklist for this weekend: the delivery and parenting class and buying that darn crib!

Mile High Life Re-Boot!

Well, working as an attorney is not as conducive to cooking and blogging as I originally thought.  But, Ian and I have the BEST reason to start blogging again - Baby Buttons!

Buttons at 20 Weeks

Buttons is due to come live the Mile High Life with us on February 10, 2014 - a little over three months away! Ian and I are super excited (and nervous of course). We did have one other new addition to our household last year that has not been featured on the blog, Huckleberry, the Vizsla-Lab-?? mix we adopted last summer.

Huck and Ian camping in May of 2013.

He is a 45-lb lap dog who loves the outdoors. He was rescued from the Ft. Collins fires last summer, and we think that he was living in the mountains out there for a few months before the fires chased him out and he was rescued.  It's left him with a few quirks, like being terrified of thunderstorms, but also some pretty cool traits - like actually knowing how to hunt and drink running water while on hikes.  He's the first animal that Ian or I have ever had who could actually live off the land!

1/2 way up the trail

Huck requires a run every morning, which can get tough in the winter, but has kept me running late into the second trimester when most preggo ladies call it quits. Luckily for me, the pregnancy has gone pretty smoothly, so I can keep up with my old routines fairly well.  Ian and I (and Huck and Milo, his doggie BFF) even were able to hike to about 12,000 ft. a few weeks ago to see the Aspens change.

It was a great hike through Kenosha Pass and we think the gorgeous Aspens are going to be the inspiration for our nursery. Hopefully Buttons also will like the outdoors!

From what I hear, it's going to be a crazy last few 3.5 months, but I figure it is better to try and get back into the swing of blogging before Buttons comes, as it will be next to impossible to pick up a new hobby when he arrives.  Also, this will hopefully keep the facebook belly selfies and (later on) baby pics to a somewhat reasonable number.  Feel free to ignore until the main event occurs if you are only in it for the new addition.  Who knows what I might say while on these pregnancy hormones!