2010 Wrap-up

All in all, a pretty uneventful year. Happy New Year everyone, and we'll see you in 2011.

Phoebe Jane comes home

Phoebe Jane finally sleeps for a good long while, after not sleeping most of the night. About 6am we were at wit's end, but then she had a final feeding and slept for about 4 hours, which to us was like nirvana.

Phoebe and Kate get ready to come home. Kate was happy to finally put on some real clothes for the first time in a couple days. Phoebe was in her first non-hospital outfit, including a snazzy hat knit by great-grandma Tomkinson.

Phoebe stylin' in her car seat. She fell asleep in that thing right away. Noted for future reference.


She's in our house! Who authorized this?
Danger (on the left) and Lucy explore the new addition. Rocky also explored when we first brought her home, but by the time I got the camera out he had already run upstairs and hidden under the bed.


Lucy goes in for a closer look.

At the time of this writing, after being home for about an hour, Rocky is still hiding, Lucy is back to being her usual self, and Danger keeps following Phoebe around everywhere. Pretty much as we'd expected.

On to night two!

Phoebe Jane Gottlieb

Phoebe Jane Gottlieb was born at 3:55am PST. 7 lbs, 12 oz. 20.5 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing great. Everyone is pretty tired, though.

Phoebe being weighed. She was still adjusting to being on the outside. She definitely has a healthy set of lungs.

Phoebe with her mama. This was a little better, as it was kind of cozy. Not as cozy as being on the inside, though.
Phoebe with papa. By now she had seemed to calm down.
Of course, five seconds later.....


Phoebe's first bath. She was not a fan.


Asleep at last!

5 Days Past Due

And still no sign of Bagel.

I also still have a really bad cold.  Jeremy says that if we showed up at the hospital at this point we would be just as likely to get sent to quarantine as to the maternity ward.  He is hilarious.

Actually, Jeremy has been taking very good care of me.  He even went out and got me Pho (Vietnamese chicken noodle soup) for dinner the last few nights.  The biggest excitement around here happened when Danger, thinking he was being sneaky and stealing some of my dinner, accidentally got a big mouthful of the hot sauce that came with my Pho.  Despite the fact that when I saw him headed for the hot sauce I yelled "NO, Danger" he still acted like the whole hot sauce incident was entirely my fault - I got a lot of dirty kitty looks for the rest of the night.  He seems to have recovered just fine and he was back to trolling for handouts at breakfast this morning.

Quick Update

Still no baby.

In other news, I did manage to get a really bad cold for Christmas.  Santa must have misunderstood my list this year.  I asked for a CHILD not a COLD.  Maybe it is time for the old guy to get new glasses.  Anyway, I've been spending my days on the couch alternately drinking OJ, blowing my nose and taking naps.  At least it (partially) takes my mind off the fact that we're still waiting around for Bagel to make her appearance. 

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and that you all got better presents than a cold!

Merry Christmas Eve

In our family, my grandma is the regular church goer.  She doesn't just go to church, she is very involved - my mom jokes that Gram has to pray doubly hard to cover for the rest of us heathens.  In addition to taking care of all of our spiritual needs, Gram volunteers with charities through the church, and is so well known for bringing food to folks who need comfort that chocolate bundt cake is known as "Maxine's funeral cake" throughout the congregation.  I've always admired my Grandma's dedication to volunteer work though her church.  Growing up I also enjoyed going to services when we'd go visit - one of my favorite times to go is Christmas Eve for the candle light service.

This Christmas Eve, Gram is in the hospital and not doing great, so she wasn't able to go to services.  Since we're out in California and can't go visit Gram, Jeremy and I went to Christmas Eve services out here in her honor.  We certainly hope she is feeling better soon, because our souls are surely better off in her hands than ours! 

Due Date

Yes today is our due date.
No we do not have a baby yet.

10 Days left!

Well, only ten days left on the Bagel count-down.  We're, of course, hoping that the little Bagel gets here a bit early, but she's kind of running out of time.  Despite not being born yet, she's already managed to disappoint her Daddy who was really hoping she'd arrive on time to get him out of my school Christmas party.

We've gotten several inquiries on how we're doing with our 30 things in 30 days list.  I have to say we're doing pretty well.  Actually, we owe a lot of that to my mom who sent a huge box full of a lot of the stuff that we still needed to purchase.  She even sent diapers AND the special diaper detergent so I have ZERO excuses for not washing diapers at this point :)  So, while Jeremy and I may not have gotten much done, Grandma sure knocked quite a few things off the list!  We have done some stuff though.  So how about an update to keep us honest?

Original 30 things/30 days list - now with updates!

1. Buy curtain rod for baby's room, sew curtains and hang them up (I already have all the fabric, I just need to get around to putting them together). - Not even started.  Maybe when I finish my grading ...
2. Buy Pack-N-Play mattress pad, sheets, and changing table covers - set up pack-n-play in our room Done!  Although we owe part of this one to my mom who sent some of the needed linens.  Lucy really likes her new bed :)
3. Clean off the top of Jeremy's dresser and make room for a  couple of baskets of baby stuff (see note about not wanting to stumble down the hallway in the middle of the night) - we might as well just keep a change of PJs, sheets etc in our room. Not done
4. Refill mini-shampoo, etc and back toiletries for the hospital Sort of, we cheated and bought new travel size stuff from Target, but I think we can cross it off
5. Do laundry and pack clothes for the hospital Yay!  SOMEONE finally packed his stuff!
6. Make list of last minute things to grab on our way to the hospital (camera, phone charger, etc) We're still adding to it as we think of things, but we have a list
7. Finally decide on a brand of baby shampoo/lotion/etc, purchase and set up baby bath station in bathroom Sort of done.  Although we disagree about the location of baby bathing station.  I think it should be in the master bathroom at first since we have a vanity large enough to accommodate the baby bathtub and the vanity is at a parent-friendly height.  Jeremy thinks it should be in the guest bathroom and we can put the baby bathtub inside the big bathtub.  To make his point he moved the baby bath stuff into the guest bathroom.  I am guessing after I let him hunch over the tub with a crying wet baby a few times he might come around to my way.  We'll see.  
8. Reinstall car seat so that Jeremy can take car to the highway patrol to get it checked out. The car seat has been reinstalled, but it turns out that almost nowhere around here does the inspections anymore.  There is a CHP station that supposedly does inspections on Thursdays, but they won't call us back to set up an appointment.
9. Purchase cloth diapers, wash My mom bought us a bunch of the diapers we want to use, so we're going to wash them soon ...
10. Purchase some more disposable diapers to tide us over while we try out different cloth diapers to see which ones we like (plus, we figure there will be times when disposables are unavoidable)
11. Locate extra camera battery and cable that allows us to download pictures from camera (OOPS!) We found the cable, but not the battery, so this one has to stay on the list
12. Purchase baby first aid kit Thank you Grandma!
13. Purchase stroller that fits our car seat
14. Buy straps and tie large furniture to wall (apparently you need to do this in California in case there is an earthquake) We bought the straps and Jeremy is about half way through installing them
15. Buy baby gates so cats can get used to them before the baby gets here We bought one to try out, so we'll see if it works before we commit to buying more
16. Purchase cabinet locks and other baby proofing stuff and start working on baby proofing the apartment. 
17. Get bottle drying rack and sterilize bottles.  Find a place in the kitchen to store bottles and other baby feeding stuff (apparently you only have to sterilize bottles once - who knew! after that you just wash them like normal).  Finding a spot in the kitchen will be rough - we're already kind of maxed out so this might be quite the chore! Again, my mom bought us a lot of the stuff that we need, but we haven't gotten around to washing things yet.  Too bad Bagel has such lazy parents :)
18. Sterilize breast pump parts and try to figure out ridiculously complex assembly instructions.  Again, might not be need to be done now, but I can't imagine those instructions will get any easier to understand when I haven't slept for weeks.
19. Purchase baby books recommended by other new mom friends - start reading them. Done!  However, the two most recommended books are complete opposites of each other so we still have no idea what to do with the baby
20. Compile email list for birth announcements.  We're "going green" and sending out an e-announcement.  Really, it is for the environment.  It has nothing to do with us being too lazy to compile the actual postal addresses of our friends - really.  Also, we would like people to be aware of our child's birth before her fifth birthday and we don't have a great track record with snail mail.
21. Sew or purchase crib sheets.  I sewed one crib sheet already and have fabric for two more.  Realistically though, given my schedule, we might just want to go ahead and buy a few more sheets at this point.  We'll see. Some of these came in the mail, so no need to sew
22. Write exams - this is technically work related and not Bagel related, but if Bagel decides to come early, I need to have exams written for my colleague to give so technically I think it can go on the baby list Exams written and given, no I just have to grade them all.
23. Buy new coffee maker :)  Just kidding, I've been lobbying for a new one on the premise that it is a baby-necessity, but I think that since I am the only coffee drinker in the house, this is probably a lost battle.  But I should probably at least make sure we have a good supply of coffee because everyone wins when mom is caffeinated. We did buy some coffee ...
24. Purchase diaper pail and laundry hamper for baby's room - there's no denying that gross stuff is going to happen so we might as well have somewhere to contain it.
25. Hang pictures on the wall in baby's room
26. Figure out some kind of toy storage for baby's room - she doesn't have many toys right now, but if she gets many more, the "chuck it on the floor of her closet" method of organization will completely break down.
27. Download contraction timing app for iPhone
28. Download baby tracker app that keeps track of when to feed the baby, etc
29. Attend base-wide garage sale and attempt to find a second used baby bounce seat - the cats have made it pretty clear that they would like their own and I don't think that baby will be big enough to fight them off for at least a couple of months Went to sale, but couldn't find a bouncy seat.  We'll just have to hope that Bagel can hold her own against the cats
30. Return mobile that Jeremy dislikes and try to find a better option - or just decide that baby doesn't really need a mobile to keep her entertained - consider replacing with cat toy - or maybe just a cat
31. Freak out about how much we still have to take care of (although I think we can cross this one off the list - we seem to have it pretty much under control) :)

Hmmm ... maybe we're not doing as well as we thought!  Oh well.  I think we're pretty set for the first week or so of having baby in the house.  The rest of the stuff will get done sooner or later ... we hope :)