Month: December 2009

According to Google Analytics, there are approximately 30 of you who frequent my blog. One of the hits is of course me. The other 29-ish, I only know for certain a handful of you. You’d think that 30-ish would be the 30-ish that are listed on my blog roll but I’m pretty sure there are several who rarely or even never take a peak at my blabbing.

So, this post requires a comment from everyone. I don’t need much. Just say hi. Unless…I don’t know you. In that case, you better tell me everything about you. Name. Address.  Birthday. Social security number. Just kidding.

And if you are one of “those” who don’t know what a comment is or how to leave one, heaven help you. You shouldn’t be allowed to touch a computer. OK, just kidding, again.

At the end of this post there will be a line dividing it from the post previous. Just under that line and to the right (meaning the right of the column, not the right of the entire page) there is a link that says “comments-“. Click on that.

That will then bring up a section that says “Write a Comment.” Fill in your info (minimal if you like), write a message, then click submit.

Yes, this is required of everyone. I will not post another entry until I get 30 comments on this post.

Seriously.

Why does it seem like I’m always saying, “can I just say…” or “I just have to say…”

Well, here’s another one for you. And let me just say (hmmmm) first off I have a disclaimer.  The disclaimer is that I’m not trying to offend anyone. I’m just trying to make the blogging world a better place.

So let me just say this: it drives me crazy when people put music on their blog. Hey, I’m sure it’s great when you are hanging out on your own blog for an extended amount of time (which sorry, but I can’t relate to because I use Live Writer. Love it btw). But let’s be honest. Unless you are a major binge blogger and post a ga-ton of posts all at once with a ton to look at or read, most people are only going to catch one full song–at the most. Even then, if you have a ton for someone to look at, chances are they will proceed to another page and snap–the same song starts over again or just as you were grooving to the other one, it changes to something strange and off the wall that you haven’t heard before. Besides, sometimes I’m snapping my fingers to my own music and don’t want to be interrupted by yours as I read what you did last weekend. Again, no offense to anyone. Just my thoughts.

Let me also say, (yeah, I couldn’t mention just one thing) you gotta know what your blog looks like on other screens, not just yours. For example, a few themes ago I had Devin change the background color to a different one while keeping all the other colors for the theme the same. I looked at a bunch of color codes and found one I liked.  I thought it looked great. Until I saw it on Devin’s laptop and my screens at work. Totally didn’t match like it did on my screen. I know most of you aren’t creating or tweaking your themes like that, but so goes it for font colors (not blinding and easy to read against the background), column width (don’t have a wide screen? Everyone else does.), etc.

I’m not done yet. A few semesters ago I took an English class called Intro to Literature. Surprisingly, I loved it. The teacher was one of those that taught you to be passionate about the subject when you came to the class hating it. I will always remember what she said about exclamation points. “Be careful how you use them. You can only use three your whole life.” Huh. Interesting idea. You! Mean! I! Can’t! Put! Them! Wherever! I! Want!? When you use them all the time, it takes the exclamation out of it. So goes it with CAPITALIZING EVERYTHING for emphasis. If you emphasize everything, nothing is emphasized.  While we are at it, let’s be careful with all the…………………….stuff.

And we all know how I feel about ha ha ha…he he he…lol. So, I’m not totally going there.

The family picture you see to the right does not have one of those cheesy drop cloth backgrounds like you have the option of choosing at Wal Mart. This “professional” picture (and I use the “” to increase the sarcasm when saying professional) was actually taken on a beautiful fall day when the leaves were nearly perfect.  I wish we had gotten more pictures but so goes a shot day of picture taking.

A few days ago Katelyn started waking us up by doing this:

 

Yep, she has discovered her hands.  Apparently they taste better than a pacifier or a teething ring. Initially, I thought it was a definite indicator that she was hungry. However, after a full feeding today, she was going at it like crazy. So maybe not.

She also has started to coo.  Not much and I don’t think she realizes what she is doing but this gives you a little hint of what we are hearing more and more from her.

 

And here are just some recent pictures of all the smiles we have been capturing.

I’ve been meaning to do this post for….well, two months. But Devin had the picture on his computer and let’s be honest–I don’t do Macs.

This  was my last pregnancy picture.  It was taken at 12:33am which was a little less than 4 hours before Katelyn was born. At this point, I didn’t know I was in labor or at least not for sure.

I must have been inspired to take this picture and I am so glad that I did. That Friday night we had gone out on a date. After watching TV for a few hours and staying up way too late, I told Devin that I wanted to take my weekly picture that night because I was sure that I wouldn’t do my hair or makeup the next day. I generally tried to take my picture on Saturdays which was my weekly mark but often didn’t until Sunday after I put some work into looking good for church. 

Wouldn’t you know it–I wouldn’t even have the chance to take a picture the next day as my regular contractions turned painful as soon as my head hit the pillow no more than 30 minutes later. 

I currently owe the Utah County Health Department $100+ for immunizations.

Let me explain.

Among my other billions of errands to run on Thursday, I decide that was the day that I take Katelyn to get her immunizations at the health department. After several hours of running around, I decide to give Katelyn some tylenol and head to the health department. In my head it made sense. I would arrive about 30 minutes after the tylenol dose, get the registration stuff done and get her shots about an hour after the tylenol–plenty of time to take full effect. After all of that, I would head home where I’d be able to comfort her with a feeding. Perfect.

Well, leave it to incompetent people to screw up my plan. But really, I should have known better.  These people have two things stacked against them. 1.) They are medical workers and 2.) they work for the government. How can you go wrong? Oh, so many ways.

Surprisingly, things went pretty well until the end. I got registered, accepted the up-sell pitch that the consultation nurse gave me to get a combo Hep A and B shot for myself, and proceeded to the waiting area to be called in for the shots.  Katelyn got the three shots (since she didn’t get the Hep B at birth) plus some anti-diarrhea sickness liquid goodness. Yes, she screamed. Yes, it was torture for me. And since when does a mother have to deal with that stuff on her own? Oh, but it gets better.

After the shots, I am directed to the waiting area for paying. (Why you have to wait a total of three separate times is beyond me). I take a seat as the lone person in that area, waiting to be called. Another woman enters.  She is then called up. Another couple enters. They are then called up. Another family enters. They are then called up.  Get the picture?  Finally some woman not in charge of checking people out points out the fact that I had been waiting before anyone else even arrived to wait. The genius checker-outer-lady was retrieving the files from the folder-holder-thingy backwards. Wonderful. So the smarter of the two ladies pulls my file and tells the dumber of the two ladies that I am next. Now with a full waiting room, another woman is called to check out. Then another family.  Then another couple. After 20 minutes of waiting, this is when I chimed in saying loud and annoyed, “excuse me but is there some kind of order you’re going by? I was here when no one else was and have been waiting for 20 minutes!” 

The dumber lady replies, “I don’t know what’s going on.  I just got here. I don’t know what happened to your file. It’s gone.”

Fabulous.

I think to myself, “you couldn’t have told me that 10 minutes ago when you realized this?” I exercised some control while saying, “ok who can I talk to so I can get this taken care of?” This is all of course while Katelyn has been crying, screaming, or fussing for the last 20 minutes and my arm is about to fall of from swinging or bouncing her in her car seat.

Dumb lady then tells me I need to go find my nurse and ask her what she did with the file. What?! C’mon. Like I was actually paying attention to who stabbed my arm and made my daughter cry. Clearly I was trying to control the reaction from both of those and not asking my nurse what her name was or even checking out her hair color.

Extremely annoyed, I walked over to the shot administering room that I had come from to find it empty. Not at all attracted to the idea of wondering around the clinic with a crying, hungry baby asking, “are you my nurse?” I decided it was dumb lady’s problem and since she clearly wasn’t going to do anything about it, I walked out.

In my defense, I did call the department as soon as I got home. Unfortunately, they are one of those awesome organizations who shut off their phone system an hour before they actually close. The crappy thing is I could just pay for it over the phone but I never received a copy of the records so either way, I have to visit that wonderful place sometime this week.

Yay.

Today was Katelyn’s two month checkup. So, like usual, here are her stats.

Age: 8 weeks, 2 days

Weight: 8 pounds, 15.5 ounces (10th percentile)

Height: 20.75 inches (10th percentile)

Head circumference: 37.5 cm (also 10th percentile)

In reality I know that she is small especially after seeing her percentile numbers.  However, I feel like she’s getting huge! I can’t imagine giving birth to an 8 pound baby.

The doctor had a concern about her head growing slower than it should which could mean that the bone plates are fusing sooner than expected. However, the doctor realized that she wasn’t the one who measured her last time and thinks that it was just an error in measuring. I’m shocked that the medical assistant that measured her at the last appointment screwed up. I mean, she does get a generous BYU minimum wage, which is more than Utah minimum wage.  So she has to be competent, right? Oh, I love the Health Center. But I guess that’s beside the point. I am supposed to take Katelyn in after a month to have her check her head growth again.  Hopefully, this is all due to an underpaid medical assistant not knowing how to properly use a measuring tape.

Besides all that, the best is yet to come. The Health Center doesn’t do the routine baby immunizations so we have to go to the county health department.  I was going to go today but it snowed Saturday night, and again last night….and it’s been snowing all day.  As usual, there is not a snow plow in sight. (But HOA was kind enough to get our stairs shoveled by noon today….how useful.) So I will be going hopefully later this week where both Katelyn and I will be getting shots.

Yay.

In addition, I was given some instruction from the doctor.  In a nutshell–let her cry. I told the doctor how she loves to wake up around 4pm from a nap and stay awake until about midnight. Ideally, I’d like her sleeping schedule to shift backwards by a good 3-4 hours. So I was told to a) start a few bedtime routine activities, b) don’t let her nap or cat nap after about 1:30, c) put her down completely awake, and d) let her cry. Fun.  I also asked her about tummy time. The doctor at her last visit told me to do it at least 5 minutes every day.  I quickly realized that she’s not a fan. Then I read up on a blog where it talked about doing it different ways besides just putting them on the floor (ie like on a bed where you can sit on the floor so they can see your face and interact or on your stomach/chest and gradually decrease the angle that you are sitting).  I tried that. It worked for a while but not anymore. So the doctor told me to do it anyway and let her exercise her lungs too for 10 minutes. Great.

Somewhat unrelated, I’m totally excited because we got Katelyn one of these.

I haven’t gotten the chance to see how she likes it yet but I’m hoping we can find some happy time today where she might enjoy it.  And maybe she’ll enjoy tummy time on it a little, too. Hopefully.