Happy Birth-day --- literally!

Yep, that title means that Tipsy had her pups on my birthday today!! Of course, the story isn’t as simple as that, so let me recap my lovely day :)

I was woken up to my beautiful son carrying me a rose and wonderful husband bringing me breakfast in bed (cereal…but that’s my fault for not grocery shopping I guess)  :)  He did that last year too…I’m liking this tradition Brad!

I got my subscription to Travel and Leisure magazine like I wanted, a couple other travel mags and my photo scanner I’ve been wanting for so long! It should be here next week. That was pretty great. It feels good to be remembered and loved.

So after Brad left for work Elijah and I are going about our morning waiting for Becky to drop off the girls since she has class at 10. In the mean time (about 8:30ish) Tipsy is acting SUPER funky…panting, shaking, acting really lost around her own house. I knew this was first stage of labor and contractions had begun. So first things first, I close our bedroom door, because she has been nesting like crazy under our bed (I even wonder if our carpeting is intact anymore).

I set her up in our laundry room with her food/water and whelping box I made. By 9:00 Becky is there with the girls and of course chaos is unleashed and Tipsy is freaking out. Periodically I go and check on her because she is crying out loud…all I could do was sympathize and think “Welcome to the labor-sucks club". By 11:00 I have to get lunch ready because the kids are way out of control, but Tipsy has also started pushing at this time! Take a look at her….these were taken yesterday. She was ready to birth some puppies!

I’m kinda freaked out because she manages to push out part of a sac…but it’s just hanging from her bits like a balloon. – I was present when my old dog, Aliki, gave birth effortlessly, and what I was witnessesing wasn’t like what happened with Aliki. So I called the vet and they told me if she stays in that state and doesn’t push out the puppy within 1.5 hours to bring her in. 11:45 comes around and THANK GOODNESS Becky came back from school because all the kids are not napping, not eating and just wanting to be pains. I also called Brad and told him to come home since he was debating on have a half day for my birthday.

When Brad gets home around 12ish we decided that by 12:30 we are going to take her to the vet. She isn’t making any progress and is SO uncomfortable. You can tell all she wants is to be held and cuddled. By 1:00 we are at the vet and Tipsy’s AWESOME doctor at Elm Point Animal Hospital assess that she should have an x-ray taken to see what the status was. He wasn’t too worried at that time because first time dog moms can  take longer (3-4 hours) to get the first pup out. When they got us from the waiting room to show us the x-ray, it was like their jaws had dropped. He couldn’t believe how BIG the puppies were, including their heads and how TINY her birth canal was. Take a look! I had to get pics of this x-ray!

Now it may be hard for you to see but to the right is the birthing canal and that big head is trying to get out of it. Also, take a look at how LONG that puppy is. Must be the Dachshund genes in Tipsy!

So the verdict was an emergency c-section. GOOD GREIF!!! Poor Tipsy! She has been laboring so long and now has to go through major surgery. Not to mention the cost….go ahead, guess….$1112.00. That’s right, more than a $1000. Of course there is no hesitation, Ikea shopping will have to wait.

After the news, we left her (screaming and crying for us – bringing me to tears) to get prepped.  Look at her sad face!   :(I had to go to class and prepare for a presentation, so all wecould do was wait. By the time I was done with school around 6:00 I called and they said she did great, and the 3 puppies were healthy. The offices were closed but they still allowed me to come up and see her.  I’m telling you, AWESOME place.

Unfortunately they wanted to keep her over night which wasn’t anticipated initially. She is so drowsy and out of sorts, and the puppies are not nursing well. Tipsy actually doesn’t want to have any thing to do with them. So a vet tech will stay with her over night and try to get them to start nursing. I hope they are okay right now, poor things. My poor Tooptsty Tooptst! She really is a great little dog.

Here are some crap pics from my phone of her after the surgery. They kept them all in the incubator for warmth.

Look how huge those pups are compared to her!!

They are like little bears!

Dr. Little trying to get Tipsy comfortable with the nursing puppies (my grandpuppies  :)

So there you have it! The Tipsy saga continues tomorrow when I bring them home. I am really nervous. She has staples in her belly, meds to take, puppies to care for…all of this will probably be normal right when my baby decides to make her appearance!

And as a conclusion to my day, once I got home it was great because my mom stopped by with some really nice ‘pampering’ kind of presents and Becky and Jon came by to give me my present. They (I should say Becky really) got me the Sisters Willow Tree figurine. I love that collection and I love my sister, so it really was the best present. All the while I was visiting with my family Brad was grilling dinner and we eventually sat with his parents to eat a great meal…ended with some yummy turtle cheesecake too…mmmmm.

Phew! It’s 10:00, Elijah is fast asleep so I am going to go enjoy my last night of uninterrupted sleep. That is, until I have to wake up in 3 hours to go pee  :)

It’s almost September!

That means fall weather soon, and that makes me SOO happy! I can’t wait for some cooler temperatures, changing foliage and hot beverages!

It also means that my birthday is right around the corner (Tuesday to be exact)….28….It sounds so old, but truly, I feel 22 or so. That also means Brad’s birthday is right around the corner…on the 3rd. Life is starting to look really crazy from now until the holidays….until SHE is born!

Here is what we’ve got going on!

Next weekend (9/4): birthday party, wedding, baby shower

(9/11): Chicago – we are going to go for fun and get some pics with the gnome and mainly for Ikea. We’ve decided that is our best option to furnish the basement with the money we will have left for that project.

(9/18): Aubrey turns 1! A party to attend, of course!

(9/24 & 10/2) Hopefully we  will be laying down flooring in the basement. From then making a trip to Chicago again to purchase what we like (hopefully). Then it’s Halloween, then November with a bunch of holiday fun, birthdays (Emma, Steph and Natalie) – OH! And somewhere in between fixing the nursery and refinishing my childhood furniture for her room. We just bought the stuff today to start on that project, but I couldn’t open the stain stripper bottle – how lame, right?

Sorry if that was all crazy jumbled to read…I was kind of thinking and typing with no regard to your comprehension -sorry. Well, anyway, that’s my “TO-DO” list before this little girl gets here. I still have to get a crib, clothes, diapers, etc…oh yea, we maybe need to get her a name too. YIKES! And on top of it all Tipsy is going to pop any day now. Not that I was sleeping well before, but it will suck tending to puppies for a while. Poor thing, I’m looking at her now and it’s like she swallowed a football. She went to the vet on Friday, and she is doing well and they estimate between Tuesday to Thursday for the pups to be born.

Well, I was really intending to blog about this weekend. Friday, I was tending to Tipsy at the vet most of the day. Saturday, Allison had her 8th birthday party! It' was a lot of fun. I can’t believe she is 8….I remember holding her as a teeny baby. We are so blessed with kids from every which way. Here are some pics from her party (which was at the American Pizza place)

We were at the mall prior to the party, all three of them loved this ---whatever these things are called---

    Evan with the balloon sword. Isn’t he sweet here??  Believe me, you multiply by 10,000,000 when you have him in person!

sword fighting already?? teeheehee :) With Nana (my mom – she looks so pretty!)

Nana and Elijah kicked butt in the races…after Eli got down that is…

       Talking about kicking butt, Allison got first place with the go-cart races!! (whenever I try to say ‘go-carts’ it always comes out ‘goat-carts’'. Even in my head. – just something random I thought you’d like to know about me.)

Nana, Papou (my dad) and Becky with all of the babies!!

Emma was so excited to ride with George in the ‘goat-carts’

She may have been even more excited to have such an audience!

Stephanie and Evan. They matched!!! I love it!!

The mommas and babies….here is kind of a baby bump pic for you

                                          So squeezable!!

Aubrey…she’ll squeeze you! Literally. She gives the best neck hugs :)

The birthday girl!! (she turned 8 on the 24th)

Brad and Jon couldn’t make it…they were both tied up with sporting activities…surprise, surprise…. :)

That’s a lot of pictures!! It just made my heart all warm and fuzzy though. I love my family.

Lets see….I guess that’s about it. Today we didn’t do much. We just got some chemicals to strip down my furniture .We’re unsure what we will stain it (or paint it)…we don’t know what crib we want yet….I’ll post that progress once I begin.

Well my mind keeps wandering back to that ‘list’ I just put together earlier in the blog…so I need to formalize it a little…It’s so ridiculous how anal and organized I’ve become in my old age :)

99 days to go!

I can’t believe I will be in my third trimester this week! It is so insane how quickly time has gone.. I realize I should probably document a “growing belly pic” but, I just feel fat. And since the wipe out of my hard drive I don’t really have any pregnant pictures of me and Elijah, so maybe I’ll just keep it fair with this pregnancy.---Anyway, I’ll probably be more confident tomorrow :)

This past weekend was nice. We were busy every day! Friday was the American Pizza place. We let Elijah run all around…although all he wanted to do was run down the mini-bowling lane and try to jump on the dance revolution game while people were playing! Believe me, and 12 year old doesn’t care how cute Elijah is when he is disrupting a ‘high score’ attempt :)

 

we couldn’t take our eyes off of him for a second!

here he is down the bowling lane again…. 

he didn’t really know what to think about this thing…

So Saturday we went to the Festival of the Little Hills in the RIDICULOUS heat!  It was so insanely hot and humid, and with all of the walking I felt contractions like crazy! It was kind of exciting because I never had Braxton Hicks with Elijah….it kind of put the 99 day count down into perspective….she is coming soon!

During the festival Elijah just wanted to walk the whole time and stalk out stroller wheels and other people’s balloons….until he found a water hose, then we had to pry him away.

I need to get better at taking photos….ever since I completed his “week by week” flip album (a photo of him every week for one year) I’ve been slacking….

Sunday we went to the pool for probably the last time this season. He had fun, but his nap schedule was off that day and he didn’t play long. Actually he was more interested in throwing rocks from the landscaping. It’s hard to believe that summer is ending. Honestly, I welcome some fall weather. I am looking forward to pumpkin patches, Halloween, apple picking, and to Brad’s dismay- sweater turtlenecks :) He hates when I wear them.

I love those boys.

He got a little tan that day

So now it’s Tuesday. I’ve started school. My last semester! It’s about time. :) I am going to talk to an advisor about teaching certification though. The thought of going to work at a chemical manufacturer again makes me sick…even if I would be responsible for the safe keeping of the employees and environment. I’ll cross that bridge when it comes I suppose. Brad is off again tonight…Maryland this time. At least he is collecting good frequent flier miles for that trip I haven’t forgotten about :)

brrm brrm, OR bauum, bauum

I can’t decide which is his “first” word. Let me translate.

 brrm, brrm is balloon

bauum, bauum is bottle

I’m leaning towards brrm because he will never say it unless he sees or wants a balloon. Even going to the car dealership for an oil change he was back there saying “brrm, brrm, brrm” because he saw the huge balloons they have on their cars (they gave us one to take home he loved it so much).

As far as bauum, bauum goes, it certainly means bottle, but it could also mean hungry. There have been times he says it and he wants a bottle, and other times he will push it away and act fussy until he eats. Either way, it’s super cute and I can’t wait for words to sound like English (or Greek---I’m trying to stay consistent with allowing him to hear a second language).

While we’re on the language thing…I’ve always known my dad has had an accent and says words a little different. More specifically the word “sandwich” always sounds like “sangwhich" when he says it. Until today I thought it was a foreign accent thing. That is until I heard Paula Dean on t.v. making “sangwhiches”….since my dad did come from Greece straight to Alabama maybe it’s a southern thing! ---There is still no excuse for him asking for “ ‘shits’ of paper” though :)

In other news Tipsy is insanely pregnant, and I am a terrible, terrible person. As I was taking her out today she was too fat, pregnant to climb up the stairs and I heard myself say out loud “come on fatso”. I feel awful. If anyone would have said that to me I would have cried for hours.

I had to confess, because I feel so bad.

OH!! and I finally mailed off the contract for a guy to start on the basement the first week of September. I CANNOT WAIT! We will lay down flooring ourselves, so after all this is said and done it looks like around the first of October our basement will be complete. So then the nursery fun can begin!! woohoo!

Eat, Pray, Love

I love this book so far! I don’t think I want to see the movie until the glory of the book has faded. I relate to this woman so much, it’s scary. ---Maybe not the whole divorce and no-kids thing. But in my earlier days I could have written the same book, only instead of Italy, Indonesia and India it would have been Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

It’s funny that I started reading it the last few days (I wanted some anti-technology time) because I have been yearning for a change of sorts. Not much I can do with a 13 month old and being 6 months pregnant. But I’m planning. I NEED to go somewhere. Mexico was nice, but that was touristy. Not my ideal traveling. I want to get into the culture – live like a local would.

We are planning to go to Greece next summer. My dad will be moving there permanently in June, and George and Becky will also be going. The last time we were all there together was in 1998. So this trip is pretty important to me. Not to mention I want my kids to grow up with the same privilege I had of visiting my grandparents every summer. Elijah will be 2 and Baby Pea (no names yet) will be 7 months-ish. Perfect time to start a family tradition of visiting.

I want more than that though. I want them to grow up with photos and memories of seeing the world and how small it actually it is. So I am trying to brainstorm what mini-trip we can take aside from Greece. I want to go to Abu Dhabi, but Brad is probably going to side with somewhere like Rome instead (I’m slowly working on him!)

Anyway, the book is great. It’s helped me regain my focus on my ambitions and care less about things that I worry too much about….like that my grass is dying is such heat. Who cares…there’s a world to see, right?

Time to google United Arab Emirates!!  :)

Pain in the neck, or blessing in disguise?

Yesterday Elijah and I were on our way home from visiting my Grandma’s house and we were hit!!!  No one was hurt, maybe just a little shaken up. Elijah is so brave. I don’t know if he started giving me the sad lip because he was a little scared, or because the impact knocked his sippy cup out of his hands:) --- probably a little of both.

The guy was very apologetic. He was driving a Chevy avalanche (one of those ugly hybrid car-truck thingies). As I was yielding to make a right turn, he slammed into the back of us. I called the police and he just came and wrote our exchange of insurance info.  That was about it.

So what a pain. I start school in a week. Not only do I, but Becky does also. Since her and Jon are down to one car now, she is depending on my car to get her to class. So now I’m afraid that both of us are going to get screwed from starting on time.

Icing on the cake is that I woke up with my neck hurting. I know that sounds so cliché and unbelievable, but it’s true. I’m sure it’s nothing, but it just makes me mad that if I am sore the next day, maybe Elijah is…and the thought of him jeopardized or hurting makes me irate.

So here is the “blessing” part. The guy and I were chatting while the officer was doing his thing. I noticed that he was wearing a “Safety Training” shirt. Now apart from the irony that a safety guy hit us, it’s even more ironic that he owns his own Safety Training company and may be in need of a contracted safety trainer. ---This is what I was the last two years of my working days.

  So it would be awesome to  get some work while pregnant and open doors to possible work opportunities when I will be looking for a full time job next summer. We’ll see how that goes, but how cool would it be to get some extra cash ---(I found a REALLY cute pink crib that doesn’t fit into our budget…)---AND stay abreast of the changing regulations. Yessss…I know. It isn’t environmental work like I want to do, but it would create opportunities. Anyway, so my mind is wandering away from diapers and into career mode. How cool would it be to have both. Train a few days a week, and change diapers the rest of the time :) We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted!

Here are some sweet pics of grandma and Elijah

I know he doesn’t look happy here, but it was great that he just sat with her for the 15 minutes that he did!

My belly just did the wave!

I saw it and Brad is my witness. I was in the late-20 weeks when I saw this happen with Elijah. I can’t believe I can see her move on the outside already. I told you she was a strong little thing! She must have just gotten a boost in strength this week because Brad also felt her kick for the first time earlier this week, and now we are seeing it.

This is happening so fast. Third trimester is just around the corner. I don’t feel prepared at all. She has nothing for yet! (except the clearance pants I paid $1 for at Target). No room, no crib, no diapers, no clothes!! I just keep remembering from my birthing class that the instructor said the baby really wont need any of those things. She is right. All she will need is me, Brad and a few clothes/diapers.  I sure would love for her to have a room here though…

So Brad is gone this week. He had to go to LA and Chicago and will be home on Thursday. I wish we could have gone with him, but it didn’t make sense to pay for a ticket to stay in either city for a few days time. It sucks he’s not here though :(

In good news though, my grandma has been released from the nursing home! She lives in Benton, Arkansas and came for just a visit over the 4th of July weekend and became ill. So her visit turned into a nearly 5 week stay at hospitals.  So now we feel like the “real” visit begins. Luckily she is staying with my mom at Becky’s house (which is about 5 minutes away) so I can go often to see her.

Actually, that is what I’m getting ready to do, head over there and visit :)

Good news from the doc, and another pregnancy!

So far so good with this little baby. Her heartbeat sounds great, she is growing well (by the feel of my uterus) and all of the crazy symptoms that have me insane are completely normal. I really like my doctor, he is so supportive!

The only “negative” is that I should be gaining more weight by now. I’ve only gained 1.5 pounds in 2 months. I’m not worried about it (actually, kind of happy) because I realize that I am much more active with Elijah and don’t eat as much as I did with the first pregnancy. Either way, I guess as a precaution we will be closely monitoring my weight gain very closely.

So I have been interviewing people to come and finish our basement. It is pretty creepy to just call someone from craigslist and invite them into your home, but I have this urgency to get more space around here! So far there have been no great contenders, but I am being patient. –Oh, Brad and his friends got fired because after all this time only 4 frames have been placed and there are more beer cans down stairs than in a liquor store :)

So in other news, guess who else is pregnant!?

Tipsy!!

I just figured it out this morning. She is such a teensy dog I can’t believe I didn’t notice, but this morning I was going to give her a bath and as I was paying closer attention, it became 100% obvious she is pregnant! How sweet. I think she was in heat right before we left for Cancun, and that  little Yorkie dog came around the 4th of July. So that means she may be due around the first of Sept. Crazy…I am going to call the vet, but take a look for yourself!

So because I know how it feels, I am going to go on a shopping spree for her! Awe!!! – FYI, it’s not like we planned for this to happen to her, It’s a long story and not a good history with the rescue place we got her from about getting her fixed….

Can I please STOP…

being SO emotional, and hungry. I am seriously so annoyed with myself. Why are iphone commercials making me cry? – I was never so emotional with Elijah. Some other differences I would like to document are the following:

1) my hair is falling out like crazy! Never happened with #1

2) The moment I step out of the shower, I need to shave my legs again. What the hell?!?! Pregnant with Elijah I needed to shave once a week

3) My hunger swings are out of control. Maybe it’s catching up from the first 20-something weeks of food aversion, but I’ll eat something and still feel hungry while I’m full.  How does that happen?

4) I feel invaded, like my body isn’t shared with my little girl, but completely taken over! It wasn’t until the last few weeks of pregnancy# 1 that I felt limited with my abilities. My back hurts, my bump has finally popped out (just this weekend I think), I am waking to pee every 4-5 hours.

Maybe my body just doesn’t quite remember how it functioned before I became a human factory. It needs to get a grip though…I am not quite ready to give up all of my independence to my growing baby.  She’s a little stinker already – good grief, I   love her so much for her greedy mischief!

On another note (while she kicks the crap out of me --  Elijah never kicked so hard at this point in pregnancy) here is my little walking guy! How sweet is he!

This weekend we also went to Grant’s Farm. I haven’t been there since I was 4 or so, and all I remembered were the goats. I must say I was impressed. The animals seemed to be treated very well (maybe minus the elephants – I don’t think they should be captive here). I loved how it was like a little Bavaria. It reminded me of my travels there.

Elijah kept wanting out to get closer to the animals. These deer in particular, looked us straight in the eye while it crapped 15 pounds (oddly enough that was facing us too).

 

He kept walking around  inspecting everyone’s stroller wheels – he got bored with his own.

This was one of his favorite parts of the day – running through the sprinklers.

This was my favorite picture of the day. It sucked though because they picked that lion to sit on, and it was the ONLY one that wouldn’t move up and down! – I got dizzy just watching the darn carousel. --  add that to the list I made to the beginning of the blog.

I was like a sweaty pig that day, so there will be no pictures of me posted :)

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