baby updates, health, Monkey, New Jersey, Otter

100 and counting…

February 16, 2007 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

100th post!!

Today is my 100th post on this blog! I wish I had something very interesting and important to say for this momentous occasion, but I don’t!! I do however have pictures of the frozen foliage in my front yard, news about the health of my little girl, and pregnancy jabber.

Monkey has recovered nicely from her role in “The Exorcist: Satan takes New Jersey!” and slept through the night, waking this morning with a voracious appetite and good spirits. My spirits have improved as well, since I was not up all night alternately holding her hair back and washing vomit covered bed-clothes. Yay!! No more vomit! (Thus far, Lee is not feeling very well, so we shall see if the saga continues.)

Today I am studying for the bar, Monkey is playing around the house, and we are enjoying the rising temperatures and melting ice. Things are beginning to move in the wind again, instead of just cracking in half and falling into the back yard.

Here are some pictures of the perfectly iced over tree and bush in the front of our house, these were taken this morning, so there has been some melting, but they still show how eerily the ice covered everything. It looked like a set for some mythical movie, every single thing had a fine coating of ice on it. All the fences, trees, bushes, flower stems, etc. Even the house has a shiny thin coating of ice on it. And the snow on the ground was so hard and frozen no footprints were left in it when you passed by.

The pictures don’t show the detail very well, as my camera is limited to the abilities of a point and shoot, but the tops and sides of each branch and leaf is coated in a thin sheen of ice. It still feels like a winter wonderland, as long as you don’t have to go anywhere.

However, the neighborhood and surrounding town is recovering, the downed power line outside our house was taken care of yesterday evening and the plows have been through so it is easier to get around the town. We may even venture out today! I think we are both a little stir crazy, having been stuck in the house for a few days in a row with no school or guests. Of course, nothing beat the day with no power for sheer stir craziness, but I have to say I am grateful that did not coincide with the 24 hours in which she forcefully expelled everything in her stomach. I am so glad that is over!

Otter has moved into position in this 33rd week of pregnancy and has begun to move around low in my womb. He moves around a lot still, and now has the size and strength to move my stomach with him. Last night he was rythmically kicking me while Lee and I were watching my tummy jump in time to the baby. His nickname is Leviathan Baby, as he rolls my stomach from side to side and causes parts of it to stick out oddly.

I suffer from this odd belief that I am going to give birth early, even though I logically know that chances of it are slim to none, and that he will likely be born closer to the 15th of April than his due date, the 1st. However, I am taking the bar exam at the end of this month, and am positive this is the cause of my concern. The thought of going into labor while taking the bar with complete strangers an hour’s drive from my husband and house is horrible. I remind myself that the worst case scenario has Lee and Ellen driving to a hospital in Somorset, but I still worry. It is par for the course for bar exam takers, we all become obsessive about one thing or another while we prepare for licensure. (Okay, more obsessive.)

I will post more updated baby belly photos sometime this week. I have gotten a lot bigger and now have an outie instead of an innie. (Or as Lee so poetically puts it “Look honey! You’ve popped!)

Well, it is back to studying for the bar exam for me. Thanks for spending your valuable time reading the various things I have said here, I appreciate the connection. It is hard not to feel homesick, but connecting with everyone from time to time in the comments section really helps. Blessed be to all of you!

P.S. This is an awesome shirt! I have to have it!

Monkey, New Jersey

I take it back…

February 15, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 4 Comments

Okay, so the snow/ice/slush storm was no joke.

Let’s see, we were out of power all day yesterday until 9 pm at night, a power line fell outside our house, and the entire city was shut down for most of the day.

Apparently the few inches of wet slush was more debilitating than it looked. It froze and got cruchy almost immediately, and every branch, leaf and bud on every tree and bush was covered completely with a sheen of ice. It was unbelievable. Monkey and I took a walk and were enchanted by the icy splendor even while we dodged falling tree branches.

Then we spent the whole night with Monkey waking up every half hour to an hour throwing up. So thank god we had power and heat. The poor girl is still having a hard time keeping food and water down, and is lying in bed with Devon’s little dog Fitz curling up beside her.

Ugh. It was a hard night.

holidays

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

February 14, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 3 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

What are we doing this lovey day of love? Well, we are sitting at home with about 4 inches of wet ice/snow accumulating on our streets and sidewalks. Monkey’s school is closed today, which I think is silly as the roads seem to be just wet and gloppy.

Of course, I come from a land where the school didn’t close unless there were multiple feet of snow on the ground, so that may be the difference. (There was a pole in the courtyard of our school, if it was covered, they would close, otherwise, wear boots.)

Here they are closed today, when the worst thing I can say about the “snowfall” is that it is really wet and yucky. It actually looks more like slushy or icee fall, than snowfall.

Lee went to work, sadly, so Monkey and I are here, with our pile of healthy fruit kabob mixins and our holiday cheer. We are both wearing red or pink, and are ready to celebrate the day. Which we will do later but eating heart shaped peanut butter and honey sandwhiches and playing a reading game or two.

A Happy VDAY to all of you, if anyone wants to have some political fun this day, visit the Vagina Monologues, or see if anyone is doing a performance of them today, they are an amazing production, and are often performed around this time of year.