Midtown Ranch

No Elizabeth Katherine today. Gallbladder flared back up and I was struggling to get the pain under control. By late afternoon I was worn out but pain was manageable. Grandmother Joanne went to Elizabeth Katherine’s noon feeding in lieu of mama, and fed her from a bottle! How wonderful and exciting. I wish there were a photo to share. You’ll have to settle for a photo of the device they use to manage her tube feedings (called gavage feeding, don’t know why).

Received news that Kate’s sister, Lucy, delivered nine (NINE!) pups by c-section today. Regrettably a small male wasn’t strong enough and sadly died shortly after delivery despite Dr. W’s best efforts. The other eight are healthy and have a good prognosis. Mama Lucy is recovering and doing a fine job of nursing her babies. Kat has nearly a full rainbow of colors between the two litters, sable, black and white, a TRICOLOR!, and brindles. Mama Kate continues to be good to her babies. She’s more comfortable leaving them briefly so she can take care of her own needs and continues to be aware and careful where her feet go.

Mel picked me up this evening and we spent about an hour over at True Value picking up paint and painting supplies. We had a good time. I’m glad Mel took me – the Dilaudid really affects my cognitive and decision making abilities, I would have made some poor choices un-chaperoned. Which could have been entertaining… I believe we’ll have ten bodies here on Sunday for our paint-a-rama. Feel free to come join the fun, 10-5 ish. Joseph is making a delicious selection of tasty sandwiches, we’ll probably have carrot-ginger soup, Jenn’s killer home made pound cake (I wish the hens were laying we could have provided eggs). There will be no shortage of food.

Pauline arrives tomorrow bearing goodies from IKEA. We should be able to get a fair bit done on the house during her week here even with my surgery Monday (because lets face it, I’m about as useful at house remodeling as tits on a bull at the moment).

Scott and Tom have been working on a sump pump reconfiguration puzzle. We’ve also been looking for a storm door (not white, include a screen, 2/3 to full glass, not cheaply made) and considering replacing the front door (we almost did it last year but ran out of steam). I ‘fixed’ the microwave door. The handle broke off a long time ago and we’ve been using a blunt knife to pop the door open. Kind of a ridiculous way to open your microwave door particularly when you consider how frequently that appliance is used. I removed one of the handle screws, fed through some kitchen twine, made a loop, then replaced the screw. Yeah, I know, cheesy. But it works and is certainly no cheesier than using a blunt knife to open your microwave door for several years.

Break up has been going extremely well. The driveway is about clear, the rose bush mound and the back corner birch have got a fair bit of snow free space. Patches of lawn are showing in the front yard. The dog poo is making itself known. Neither of us did much poo patrol this last winter so it is significantly worse than previous winters. Know a kid that wants to earn some money?

Guilty pleasures. I had ponies and rode through high school – it was a great delight and helped me survive the teen years. I used to participate in the Society for Creative Anachronism in my twenties. I wasn’t particularly good at it, but for several years I was a heavy fighter and delighted in trying to kill some of my best friends with a rattan sword while dressed up in armor (mix of 16 gauge steel, aircraft aluminum, and aluminum street signs). It was a heck of a lot of fun and left a lot of bruises. Did I mention I sucked? One of the most satisfying events I ever participated in was a horse event. No armor. There were rental horses. We tilted at rings and the quintain. With my horsey background I did very well at all of the events – I struck the quintain so hard it snapped. Whoops!

Anyway, guilty pleasures. There’s a program on the History channel called ‘Full Metal Jousting’. The program is serious bread and circuses. I was prepared to despise it. I knew it would be cheesy with awful dialog. Contrived. Surely the suckitude would be immeasurable. I watched it tonight. Told Scott ‘just 5 minutes to satisfy my curiousity’. Huh – I liked it. The armor looked like it was light gauge and there was a great deal of unnecessary foolish flapping of gums. The horses were keen and certainly my next to favorite bit – they were just regular riding horses, only one looked like he had the heavier bone structure of a cold blood. The jousters were about what you’d expect – lots of testosterone and beating of chests (except the show jumper dude – he was delicious fun to watch). Its redeeming feature and probably why I liked it – they walloped the hell out of each other with great smashings of sticks and even crashing to the ground. This will become my guilty pleasure. I’ll watch it again once I am off the drugs – I may change my mind while no longer under the influence. In which case it will be beer, pizza (after gallbladder out) and jousting.

Scott and I do not possess interior design skills nor any real sense of style or color. When we were married folks asked us what our wedding theme was. ‘Wedding theme? What wedding theme?’ We didn’t have a theme but folks didn’t want to hear that. We took to responding ‘labs and quilts’ then making our escape while they puzzled that out.

So we don’t have a theme for Elizabeth’s room. I’d like it to be cheerful (duh – who wants a cheerless childs room?) but really don’t know how to accomplish that. We’d like a change for our room too. It’s been 8 years since the last paint job, and who knows when we’ll have time, energy, and opportunity to do it again. I’m guessing another 8 years. So its good to paint now.

Enter our dear friend Mel, who possesses a keen sense of style and color and IS good at this stuff. She brought over many paint chips and several child bedroom designs. She helped us figure out what we liked and a color scheme thats pretty darn nifty and will grow with Elizabeth. The pink confection bedrooms are sweet while the child is an infant, but less charming as the babe ages.

Anyway – here’s what we’re leaning towards for Elizabeth Katherine. I think we’ll do the leaves on the tree as peoples hands. We’ll also do chalkboard paint below the window. Fun, huh?
These particular colors are Dunn & Edwards, but we’ll select a low fume paint and ask the shop to tint appropriately.
The dark green will be the leaves and accent color, DEA170 Sea Turtle
Pale green for walls, DE5561 Lazy Caterpillar
Brown accent color and tree trunk, DEA160 Hope Chest
Rose accent color, DE5094 Berry Riche (not a typo).

We are less decisive with our own room. We are going to pull the bi-fold closet doors and replace them with a yellow curtain.
Here are two combos we are leaning towards:
Yellow for 3 walls, DE5331 Pasta
Brown accent, DEA160 Hope Chest
Purple on the curtain wall, DEA145 Wine Stain

Or possibly swap Purple for Aqua
Aqua on the curtain wall, DEA132 Ocean Oasis

At least, I think that’s what we talked about. Looking at them again, I can’t remember. Certainly yellow curtain with yellow on other three walls.

And Elizabeth was fine today. Better at nursing today – I folded the blanket to block her view outside of the circle of my arms. Previously she seemed to get distracted by the doings at the next cribside. Today she remained more focused. Every time she slowed down I jiggled things a bit and she resumed her work. Good baby girl.

Tonight we crossed a big hurdle for preparing the house for Elizabeth Katherine. With the help of friends, we (and by we I mean Scott) moved heavy stuff from the marmalade room to the living room.

The couch was tricky. When we bought it from Scanhome some 8 years ago we failed to realize it was too big to fit through doorways and did not disassemble (it has futon like qualities so it wasn’t an unreasonable expectation). Back then the couch remained in the living room for several months while we scratched our heads and Abby dog (gracing the top of the page) thanked us for our thoughtfulness in providing her such a superb dog bed. Placing the cranberry couch into the marmalade room required removing not only the door, but also the framing and door jamb. Back then I accomplished the task under Abby’s supervision while Scott was enjoying a Saturday at Northern Security. That was kind of out of the question this time.

I pulled the framing off the door while waiting for Scott to come home. I might have maybe removed the door too (I slid it so it doesn’t count as lifting over 5 lbs). Scott removed the jamb (I’d started but he thoughtfully relieved me of the screwdriver and finished).

With the aid of friends the monster tube tv, its stand and components and the cranberry couch were all moved to the living room.

And there was MUCH rejoicing.

There are nasty things visible in the marmalade room. A mouse spent some time under the tv stand. There is enough dog hair gathered in the crevices behind the tv and couch to make a 3rd and perhaps 4th dog. There _were_ crunchy things but Bing took care of those. I don’t want to know. I hope that he doesn’t tell us about it later. Sometimes he does.

The living room is a bit awkward right now. We moved the love seat in front of the fireplace, the cranberry couch where the love seat was beneath the windows, and the tv into the awkward alcove near the front door. The living room which had seemed roomy now appears kind of small.

I think it would be nifty to cut away the hearth in the middle so there is enough room to slide the love seat flush to the fireplace brick. The remaining hearth on either side of the love seat could then be end tables. We’d get to use the sawzall, wouldn’t have to build a funky tv stand on the hearth, more square footage in the living room would be available, and it would be an entertaining conversation starter. It would probably also be a train wreck and Scott nixed the idea. I still think it would be cool. I’ll consider it again when I am no longer on pain killers.

Sunday we paint.

We also had a good consultation with our gallbladder surgeon today. She and her nursing assistant declined to do the surgery in the consultation room (hey, Scott’s got a jackknife, you got a table right here, I just took my pain killers and heck, we trust you doc, lets just get this done…). Darn. We almost had the surgery scheduled for tomorrow (glee!) but the doc recounted the number of weeks since the c-section and said no at last minute. Apparently the worst time for scarring is between the 3rd and 4th weeks (where I am right now). However we are scheduled for surgery next Monday. Hurray! I can’t begin to describe how relieved I am knowing this unpredictably excruciating bit of flesh will soon be excised from my body.

A good visit with Elizabeth today. More breastfeeding. She didn’t take as much as yesterday which was a bit surprising because she appeared to be more successful at it. More consistent longer latches, lots of sucking, so I don’t know what th scoop was. More practice needed. She’s suffering from a bit of diaper rash, we’d been treating with Desitin but after a couple days it hasn’t improved so the nurses pulled out the big guns. I don’t recall the product but they have a procedure where they basically rhino-line her rear. Her hemacrat was also a bit low so they’ve started her on iron and some other stuff to improve that. They’re not particularly concerned but will be testing her hematocrit daily for a while until it improves. We are to watch for behavioral changes and breathing changes (lethargy and low oxygen saturation levels).

Elizabeth Katherine was tuned in to her environment today. She kept craning her head back in an apparent attempt to see past our screen to the activity at the next crib. She also exhibited an awareness of other babies crying. She’d be steadily nursing, a baby would cry, and she would stop mid-suck and her eyebrows would furrow and eyes would squint, then she’d resume sucking. She also held my left pinky with her right hand (tight squeezing, good strength) during nursing. Made it awkward to hold her but made my heart pound with the N Rockwellness of it. With Joanne’s assistance I stood up and put back in her crib on my own. Previously I’d had to pass her to a nurse as my abdominals weren’t strong enough to stand with her in my arms. I was in a glider rocker today instead of a recliner which helped.

I should get to NICU for twice daily breastfeeding (day shift and night shift). Not sure how we are going to pull that off as I’m back on Dilaudid and may not drive. Night shift feedings are 9 PM to 6 AM. We’ll talk some more with nurses and lactation consultants. Maybe we could do 9 AM and 6 PM or something like that. Once the gallbladder is removed/healed and I’m driving again it won’t be as difficult.