Kiiiiiiiiitchen!

Well, the kitchen's halfway there!  All the cabinets are in, so now we have to have the countertops people round to take the final measurements (why they couldn't just take the specs from the cabinet order, I don't know.  It's not as though anything's bleedin' changed) and get those ordered.  That should take another couple of weeks, but Mike cunningly kept hold of the old wooden tops so we can balance them for something to chop our veggies on.  We are still without a sink in the meantime, but at least it's something.

The cabinets are SO PRETTY!  I love them, I do.  I think I might have chosen to sleep in the kitchen tonight if it weren't for the state of the half ripped-up floor with its dangerous spiky nails everywhere.  Seriously, I love the design that much.

The nurse came over today to give Owen his RSV shot and to take his vitals.  The boy, at six and a half months, is 27" long and weighs 18lb 11oz!  He weighed 5lb 14oz at birth, so it's quite remarkable.  In fact, since his last weigh-in less than a month ago, he's put on nearly two whole pounds.  What a superstar!  He has also learnt the "L" sound and is currently rolling happily around on my floor under the Christmas tree practising it.  It truly makes my heart sing to see him so happy, because for so much of the rest of his life he's so damned uncomfortable.

I took him to the neurologist today but he couldn't tell me much as we're waiting for the CT scan to happen tomorrow.  He seemed surprised that Owen's myoclonic jerks were under control, given that he has optical nerve pressure and restricted head growth.  Apparently seizures and seizure-like activity should actually increase with inter-cranial pressure, not the other way around.  He had no idea if my theory about pressure = migraines = extra vomiting could be accurate, as there are lots of ways pressure can manifest and until we see the results of the scan we won't know whether the brain's control site for vomiting is affected.  So we'll sleep on it and find out what's happening tomorrow.

OH!  And I feel very good about Owen's growth because a few times since his last weigh-in we took him down to four feeds a day (when we were travelling, for example), and I was very concerned that he wouldn't be getting enough nutrition if we did it too often.  But he did, and that makes me feel good.  I think the extra solids are really helping in that respect.

Mama KNOWS BEST!

Tina.

Snow, kitchen and nails

It's snowing.  Again.  It looks pretty, but it's a bastard to drive in.  And this is the first year we've had to shovel our own driveway clear of it, which is only slightly less extruciating than digging your car out of the two feet of drift the snow plough just pushed up against it in the apartment building car park.  While pregnant.  And it's -30F.  And there's been an ice storm, which has stuck said ice to your windscreen an inch thick.  And no-one sells de-icer, so you have to scrape it off in two minute bursts, broken up only by warming yourself up in your car for another ten.

Ah yes.  The famous Wisconsin winters.  At least this year I don't have to wake up two hours early to get the car prepared to leave for work on time, and thanks to my insistence on purchasing a house with an attached double garage, I never have to scrape my car again.  I do, however, have to think about Owen and whether valet parking at Children's Hospital is truly a lazy girl's game or a stroke of genius.

Speaking of CHOW (I love that acronym), I took the babba up there today for his CT exam.  He was a perfect angel and slept all the waaaaaay... until they switched on the machine and strapped his head and arms down.  Apparently that's not very comfortable compared to my left shoulder, and he let us all know about it.  He screamed so much they've had to postpone the test until Friday, when he can be sedated.  So, what should have been a half hour scan has now turned into a full day in the surgery clinic.  Naughty baby, but I can't blame him for being scared.

In other news: our kitchen is being installed tomorrow!  Yaaaaay!!  Cannot.  Bleedin'.  Wait.  I HATE our old kitchen and I said when we moved in that other than Owen's nursery, the kitchen was the first room I was going to work on.  It's just such an eyesore, which its orange (ORANGE!!) cabinets, ivy print wallpaper and fake wood laminate countertops.  Eugh.  At least from tomorrow we'll have beautiful cupboards, even if we have to wait a bit longer for the sink and countertops to arrive.  In the meantime I consider ourselves very lucky to have a downstairs bathroom to wash Owen's stuff in.

And finally:  I must be getting a bit stressed at the moment because I've had to resort to painting my nails with Stop 'n' Grow for the first time since I was sixteen.  I'm so ashamed. 

Tina.