Friday night, June 29, I was home alone with Daisy while Mike was working Friday Night Live and went out afterward with some of the guys. I was watching a recorded TV show (probably Real Housewives of NJ or something equally trashy) when I heard the wind outside. I peeked out the living room curtains to see the color of the sky and the wind blowing sideways. Now, I've been in a couple tornados in my life while growing up in Southern MD, and I knew better. I grabbed Daisy dog and went downstairs into the only windowless room in the house: the bathroom. The rain literally sounded like it was knocking on the door and Daisy was not happy. Then the electric went out... and stayed out. I texted Mike asking him to come home as soon as it was safe. We waited to see if the electric was going to come back on and decided to go to bed around 11:30pm. I stayed on the couch downstairs and Mike slept in our bed upstairs. Did I mention it was about 90* outside? The next morning, still no electricity, and we had no cell or data service either. We had no way of connecting with civilization! Now my father was supposed to be coming that morning to add some base molding to the room we just had carpet installed and I knew he'd be coming early. I woke up at 4am and couldn't sleep thinking that he'd drive all the way out here for nothing. Finally at 7am, I walked down to a neighbor's house and used their landline phone to call my dad and caught him walking out the door! Whew... guilty conscious (and angry father) averted. I went out to get us breakfast and that's when I realized how bad it was. Our whole side of town was closed. No one had electricity. Saturday, the temps started rising to about 100*. Mike and I set up the spare bed in the new room downstairs so that we could both sleep in the basement that night if need be. The downstairs was about 75* while upstairs was about 85*+.
My good friend Jessica was planning on visiting that evening and staying the night, but I delayed on contacting her because I still had no cell phone and I was sure the electricity would come back on. Mike couldn't remember a time he had lost electricity in this house. At about 3pm, I went out to my car to charge my phone (and sit in the A/C) so that I could call her and tell her not to come, but within 5 minutes, she was knocking on my car window wondering what I was doing in my car. CRAP, she had totally driven all the way here and we didn't even have a cold house for her to relax in. She was such a good spirit about it though and said she'd stay regardless. We were all bored and hot so we drove to Mike's Aunt and Uncle's house to dip in their pool. We then continued with our original plans to go to the movies and see Magic Mike... in the A/C. Driving through town was crazy. Every place that had electricity was packed. No one in town was prepared for this storm and they all needed to eat so the restaurants that were open had lines out the door.
Sunday, the fridges and freezers in the house started to leak. Jess helped me through my anxiety attack of throwing out all the stuff in my fridge and half the stuff in my freezer. I packed up two coolers and Mike took them to his cousin's house to store in their deep freezer. I was so thankful we were able to save the expensive meats. I had just just spent over $200 at the grocery store the week before so it was all pretty depressing... dumping out full cartons of milk, tubs of margarine, salad dressings, cheeses. We took some hot dogs and buns down to Michelle and Dennis's and had a picnic of food that had to be eaten at their house. Michelle was about 37 weeks at this point, but she was a trooper. I think I would have been in a hotel after the first night. Jess left our house and I'm sure she was glad to get back to her house with electricity in MD. Mike and I got in the car with Daisy and drove to my Dad's house that afternoon. I needed a shower badly and had to get some clothes washed for work and our trip to Florida later that week. My dad was trying to convince us to stay the night, but I had my first day at a new job Monday and didn't want to risk the traffic in the morning from MD to VA. Mike and I headed back to the hot-house and slept for the third night Sunday with no electricity.
At about 12:30am, the hallway light downstairs came on and I woke up immediately. I got Mike to get up and close all the windows upstairs (we had opened them that night because the upstairs got up to 90*) and turn the A/C on. The sweet humming of A/C was a lullaby to my ears. I woke up again at 6am before my alarm went off and didn't hear the humming. I was immediately awake thinking the A/C broke. There was no way the upstairs was cool, but as I ran upstairs, I realized our A/C rocked and it was already 74* upstairs. This Thanksgiving, I will be sure to give thanks for not only my newborn son, but electricity too (Thomas Edison, right?)
Monday, July 16, 2012
Weeks 22-23
Sunday, June 17 was Father's Day and we also through Dennis & Michelle a co-ed baby shower at our house with the help of some of the girls bringing different dishes. Luckily, it was a beautiful day out so the porch got a lot of use as well as the hammock, and cornhole was played in the back yard too. It was a Sunday, so I didn't think it'd get too rowdy, but I forgot who I was dealing with, and the the guys were in good form. What I realized after the party died down (and the boys went to the local pub) was that while the girls were upstairs watching Michelle open gifts, the boys were downstairs at the bar taking tequila shots. The rest of the afternoon made so much more sense after I found the empty shot glasses and sucked limes on the bar, haha. Needless to say, Mike was struggling at the Herndon Golf Tournament the following day.
That Tuesday, I had a normal check up with the OBGYN and Mike supervised the carpet installation in the spare room downstairs.
On Wednesday, I took off work and Mike and I visited three possible day cares for the baby. The first was a Kindercare Center which is a national company. It was a center that took kids from 6 weeks to 12 years old so there were A LOT of kids there. I can only describe it as a child/baby factory, lol. The Director and baby caregivers were very nice, but one of the baby caregivers was also the main cook for the whole center, so at 10am we were taking her away from the stove. The second place we visited was an in-home daycare on the same street we live on. She is an Asian lady with one full-time assistant. They're house is the exact same layout as ours except they have a garage too. She had only one baby under a year and the other 7 were about 2-4 years old. They kids were very cute and sweet and obedient. She was very sweet and I loved her demeanor. She also cooks and provides the food for the kids after they turn one (you provide milk/baby food up until then). The third place we looked at was called The Children's Place and is an independent child care center that takes kids up to 5 years old and has been in business as long as I've been alive. The place is in what looks to be an old house located right next to the high school were Mike teaches. The lady who showed us around was a larger foreign lady (we couldn't quite place from where) who seemed nice, but wasn't very eager to show us anything other than the baby's room. They have lunch and snacks delivered by a caterer daily. The babies that were there (about 4) seemed very content, but the decor, the toys, the supplies, and the furniture was all just very used. For the amount of money they charge, you think they'd replace them more frequently. Mike and I decided to go with the in-home daycare down the street from us. We loved that we could walk to get baby Hudson and he would get so much attention as the only baby there (or one of very few come January). As he gets older and more active, we can reassess if he needs to be around more kids in a center-like environment.
The following week, Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary by going to get crabs at Capt. Pell's in Fairfax. He also surprised me with flowers when I got home from work. Our upcoming vacation to Florida was also in celebration of our anniversary.
On Friday (in preparation for this trip to Florida), I decided to get a bikini wax. Please stop reading here if you think you've already read too much.... So with my ever-growing belly, I could not easily groom my bikini area and I thought a brazilian would be a good idea and last a few weeks of bathing suit season. HOLY. MOLY. I was in that back spa room with this Asian lady for like 45 minutes! She started with regular hot wax and then moved to the hard wax. I'm not sure if she was new or what, but I got nervous when she said she had only had this same thing done to her once. Umm, I want my waxing lady to be a wax connoisseur and get it done herself on the regular! My lady parts swelled up and I still had to go home and take a mirror to get all the residual hard wax off with a warm wash cloth. I was in pain for at least 36 hours. Men have no idea what we put ourselves through!
That Tuesday, I had a normal check up with the OBGYN and Mike supervised the carpet installation in the spare room downstairs.
On Wednesday, I took off work and Mike and I visited three possible day cares for the baby. The first was a Kindercare Center which is a national company. It was a center that took kids from 6 weeks to 12 years old so there were A LOT of kids there. I can only describe it as a child/baby factory, lol. The Director and baby caregivers were very nice, but one of the baby caregivers was also the main cook for the whole center, so at 10am we were taking her away from the stove. The second place we visited was an in-home daycare on the same street we live on. She is an Asian lady with one full-time assistant. They're house is the exact same layout as ours except they have a garage too. She had only one baby under a year and the other 7 were about 2-4 years old. They kids were very cute and sweet and obedient. She was very sweet and I loved her demeanor. She also cooks and provides the food for the kids after they turn one (you provide milk/baby food up until then). The third place we looked at was called The Children's Place and is an independent child care center that takes kids up to 5 years old and has been in business as long as I've been alive. The place is in what looks to be an old house located right next to the high school were Mike teaches. The lady who showed us around was a larger foreign lady (we couldn't quite place from where) who seemed nice, but wasn't very eager to show us anything other than the baby's room. They have lunch and snacks delivered by a caterer daily. The babies that were there (about 4) seemed very content, but the decor, the toys, the supplies, and the furniture was all just very used. For the amount of money they charge, you think they'd replace them more frequently. Mike and I decided to go with the in-home daycare down the street from us. We loved that we could walk to get baby Hudson and he would get so much attention as the only baby there (or one of very few come January). As he gets older and more active, we can reassess if he needs to be around more kids in a center-like environment.
The following week, Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary by going to get crabs at Capt. Pell's in Fairfax. He also surprised me with flowers when I got home from work. Our upcoming vacation to Florida was also in celebration of our anniversary.
On Friday (in preparation for this trip to Florida), I decided to get a bikini wax. Please stop reading here if you think you've already read too much.... So with my ever-growing belly, I could not easily groom my bikini area and I thought a brazilian would be a good idea and last a few weeks of bathing suit season. HOLY. MOLY. I was in that back spa room with this Asian lady for like 45 minutes! She started with regular hot wax and then moved to the hard wax. I'm not sure if she was new or what, but I got nervous when she said she had only had this same thing done to her once. Umm, I want my waxing lady to be a wax connoisseur and get it done herself on the regular! My lady parts swelled up and I still had to go home and take a mirror to get all the residual hard wax off with a warm wash cloth. I was in pain for at least 36 hours. Men have no idea what we put ourselves through!
Weeks 20 - 21
So, I've been slacking and now I have to look back on my handy dandy google calendar to see what happened. Not as exciting as real life thoughts, but it'll help me remember years down the road :)
Sunday, June 3, Mike and I went to a Nationals game with Dennis & Michelle and Rob & Jenni. I got tickets pretty cheap with Carrie from the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) and the boys got free beers, so they were happy. But it was HOT out and I decided that it would probably be my final Nats game of this season eventhough we usually go to one or two a month during the summer.
That Monday, Mike went with me to what I thought would be my final sonogram of baby Hudson. All measured and looked well. I believe he was measuring 6 days ahead of schedule based on head circumference (eek!). The fetal specialist said they usually have someone with an elevated AFP come in every four weeks for an ultrasound, but she compromised with me since I was only "slightly elevated" and we booked a follow up ultra sound for 29 weeks. She said the final reason for the elevated AFP that she could think of that wouldn't show up on an ultrasound is an insufficient placenta. They won't be able to tell if the placenta is not providing sufficient nutrients and oxygen until the baby is further along and using 80-100% of it. At this stage, the baby is only using 30% of the placenta. So, when I go in at 29 weeks they will see if the baby is measuring small or low weight. If so, they'll have me come back a few weeks later to check again and may deliver him early! I'm confident all is well though.
Thursday evening we dropped Daisy off with my Dad and headed to Rehobeth beach for Paul and Katy's wedding. I got some quality beach time in with Silvana while the boys golfed and did groomsmen things. It was a beautiful beach ceremony followed by a reception on the top floor of the hotel with panoramic views. And Jason gave a best man speech comparable to Bill's speech for Mike at our wedding. It was hilarious!
The following week was Mike's last week of school before summer break, and we were trying to get the basement bedroom completed as well. The windows got replaced in the house leaving only 4 windows in the basement left to be replaced (woohoo!). We had a lot of wooden original windows and some were painted shut. Thanks Gonz Sr for the new windows!
Sunday, June 3, Mike and I went to a Nationals game with Dennis & Michelle and Rob & Jenni. I got tickets pretty cheap with Carrie from the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) and the boys got free beers, so they were happy. But it was HOT out and I decided that it would probably be my final Nats game of this season eventhough we usually go to one or two a month during the summer.
That Monday, Mike went with me to what I thought would be my final sonogram of baby Hudson. All measured and looked well. I believe he was measuring 6 days ahead of schedule based on head circumference (eek!). The fetal specialist said they usually have someone with an elevated AFP come in every four weeks for an ultrasound, but she compromised with me since I was only "slightly elevated" and we booked a follow up ultra sound for 29 weeks. She said the final reason for the elevated AFP that she could think of that wouldn't show up on an ultrasound is an insufficient placenta. They won't be able to tell if the placenta is not providing sufficient nutrients and oxygen until the baby is further along and using 80-100% of it. At this stage, the baby is only using 30% of the placenta. So, when I go in at 29 weeks they will see if the baby is measuring small or low weight. If so, they'll have me come back a few weeks later to check again and may deliver him early! I'm confident all is well though.
Thursday evening we dropped Daisy off with my Dad and headed to Rehobeth beach for Paul and Katy's wedding. I got some quality beach time in with Silvana while the boys golfed and did groomsmen things. It was a beautiful beach ceremony followed by a reception on the top floor of the hotel with panoramic views. And Jason gave a best man speech comparable to Bill's speech for Mike at our wedding. It was hilarious!
The following week was Mike's last week of school before summer break, and we were trying to get the basement bedroom completed as well. The windows got replaced in the house leaving only 4 windows in the basement left to be replaced (woohoo!). We had a lot of wooden original windows and some were painted shut. Thanks Gonz Sr for the new windows!
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