So tomorrow begins Steve's 4 weeks of Parental Leave. It was supposed to start last week, but he was able to take that as bereavement leave. Now, he's off work til after Labour Day. Can I get a big WOO HOO!!!?!?!

Our first task tomorrow? Lauren's Swimming Lessons! Hoo boy is she excited about them. I took her to the pool to sign up on Friday and she howled when we left. This will be her first Lessons of any kind. I hope it goes over well.

Tomorrow is a holiday (New Brunswick Day) so there's stuff going on all over the place. I hear there's a petting zoo and free hotdogs somewhere in Oromocto. We may have to track that down.

Check this out. You won't be sorry.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVGLTfgUBtk

(posted by husband Steve)

Our day was supposed to start at 5 AM when our alarm would go off. It actually started at 5:25 when Chrissie woke me up. Apparently I was stupid and set the alarm to go off at 5 PM. Good thing she was on the ball.

We showered in a big rush and got out the door at 6 AM to head for the hospital. Chrissie was admitted into a semi-private room before being sent to Labour & Delivery. We waited there for a while, and then they prepped Chrissie for her C-section and I got into scrubs. They took her into the O.R. to put the spinal block in while I waited impatiently in the hall. They finally let me in at 8:45. Keep in mind that the surgery was scheduled to start at 8:30... I was worried they had forgotten about me.



Chrissie was spread out on the table and they were swabbing her belly with that yellow-brown antiseptic gunk. I settled in by her left arm and things got under way. They put the curtain up so I couldn't see anything (thank you) and we had a good chat with the anesthesiologist. It turns out Chrissie knew him from her store and his wife is a teacher at Nick's school. Small world.

Finally it was time to get the baby out. I looked over the curtain and saw the baby's head - a glimpse of dark hair. Then they hoisted it out and I saw we had a baby boy! (at 9:06) He was fairly purple then and covered in white gunk, of course. The nurses held him up for us to see, then whisked him over to the side to clean him off a bit and wrap him up.


Then I got to hold him! He seemed pretty hefty for a newborn, especially one eight days before his due date.


My boy and I were taken out of the room while Mommy was stitched back up. We went down to the nursery for him to get weighed. He stretched out on the scale and weighed in at 9 lbs 9 ounces! No wonder he felt so heavy.


The nurse was concerned about his breathing. He seemed to be struggling a bit and she decided it would be better to send him to the neo-natal unit for observation. I went with him and they put him in an "isolette", one of those little incubator-dealies. They fed a bit of oxygen in and soon he started to look better. I decided I really should tell our parents that they had a grandson.


I found my parents and told them the story, crying a bit while I talked about the need for oxygen. Chrissie's parents Wayne and Sandra showed up with Lauren and we brought them up to date as well. I went to talk to Chrissie in the recovery room and let her know what was going on. Apparently the nurses had told her some of this already. We called a few people to let them know about the new baby and I did a bit of shuttling between the parents, Chrissie and my new son.

Once Chrissie was done in the recovery room, we went to our room. Chrissie was a little ill, unfortunately. After staying with her for a bit, I went to the neo-natal unit to visit our son. He was doing pretty well and they expected to transfer him to the regular nursery by noon or so. Our parents decided to come back in a while, and I went to have a quick snack while Chrissie slept. Our son came to visit us a few times in our room, in between shots and checkups.


We had a few visitors... my parents and Chrissie's parents. Chrissie's parents brought Nick after he was done school.






We still hadn't given him his name yet. We were torn between two names and flip-flopped between them a few times. By 3 PM or so he told us which he preferred. World, meet James Russell Boyko (Jamie), age 7 hours.

I love my daughter.

Guess what time she woke me up today?

10:00am

TEN O'CLOCK!

We spent the rest of the morning snuggling on the couch and watching the CBC Kids lineup. Dragon Tales. Tractor Tom. The Save-ums. Nanalan. Her all time favourite, The Doodlebops. Mr Dressup. Zoboomafoo. Sounds like a lot of TV but some of these shows are only 10m long.

We were going to go back to the paddling pool but it was cold and rainy, so we ditched that idea. We had lunch at 1pm. I showered at 2pm. I got her dressed at 3pm.

We had supper, then went for groceries.

Now, when we go out, we often have random strangers telling us how beautiful our Lauren is. It's the hair that catches their attention. Tonight? It was her tiger costume. I don't have any pictures from in the grocery store, but I do have one from in the van.



Tomorrow, I'm back to work for a weiner 12-5 shift. Then it's packing Nick up for a month (!) with his mother. Steve is leaving for work tomorrow at "sometime between 4:30 and 5am" to drive 4 hours to fix some stupid computer system.

Since I got up late and had a large coffee both during and after groceries, i think I might be up for a while.

So, my big plan was to start For Real after we got back from Montreal.

On Tuesday, we went to Walmart and bought a seat to go on the big toilet (in addition to the potty we already have - one for upstairs, one for down), those Feel N Learn Pampers dealies, and about 15 more pairs of panties, so I don't have to do laundry every damn day.

I also bought M&M's and balloons for bribes.

Somewhere along the way, Lauren became irrationally afraid of the potty. Won't sit on it. AT ALL. So yesterday, we put her in panties for a bit, then took her into the bathroom trying to convince her to just SIT on the potty. Sit on the potty and you can have a balloon. PEE on the potty and you can have chocolates.

Fifteen minutes of this and we get about 1.2 seconds of sitting on the potty.

Fine, she gets a balloon. We put her panties back on and blow up her balloon. Steve is BBQing supper, so Lauren takes her balloon outside.

and as she goes to pick it up the thing
POPS

in her face, scaring the bejeezus out of her.

So now she's irrationally afraid of the potty AND balloons.

Today, after our outing to the paddling pool, we tried again. I put her in panties and tried to get her to sit on the potty. No way. Eventually she ended up peeing on the floor, which really upset her. I took her upstairs and tried to put her on the seat over the big toilet. I have never seen someone arch their back so much to avoid sitting.

As I was putting her diaper on she's crying and says, "I no like panties. I no like balloons"

So I'm thinking that it's going to be an exercise in frustration at this point. She's obviously not ready.

But in other news, she got her night-time milk in a sippy cup tonight with no squawking. By tomorrow all the bottles will be GONE and if she wants her milk, it will be in a sippy cup.

Baby steps, right? :)

And in still other news, excepting about 3 pages from towards the beginning, Lauren's First Year scrapbook is done. And she's thisclose to being 2 1/2. :)

Some pictures from our most recent trip to see Crazy Cat Lady's flock of kitties...

See, here's why I don't like working til midnight. 2:49 and I'm still awake.

I didn't even get home til after 1am because we're having some sort of Planned Power Outage over night to fix the main breaker to the mall, so we had to shut everything REALLY down, and apparently there were issues that took nearly an hour.

~*~

Somebody needs to tell my boss that 18 year old girls do not make very good Supervisors. I mean like, they totally don't, or whatever, blah blah blah. No, I don't want a ride home at like 12:30am, I'm like, 18 and everything, i mean, like, what do you think would happen to me? Whatever. No, i'm NOT getting in your car, i'm WALKING!

~*~

We went to visit my M-I-L's 11 baby kitties today. Lauren is getting very good about picking them up. She says over and over "pick up with two hands round the tummy!" She brings me one, then goes to get one for Grammie, and by that time, mine has gone, so she goes and gets me another one, and by that time, Grammie's is gone... :) It's cute to watch.

~*~

When we were in Montreal we went to Ikea. For 4 hours. And $200. Imagine the damage I could do if it wasn't 9 hours away!

~*~

We also found a Krispy Kreme. I pledge allegiance to my Tim Horton's coffee (couldn't bring myself to try the KK!) but I could be persuaded to eat one of those hot doughnuts every day for the rest of my life. Might be a good thing it's 9 hours away... :)

~*~

Note to Customers: If you get a prescription from your doctor on June 30, why not bring it to the drug store on that day? Why wait until the night before your appointment? That way we can do something about the fact that we can't get the particular vaccine your doctor wrote for. Instead, now your doctor is on vacation for a week, so we can't talk to her about why she wrote for NeisVac C meningitis vaccine instead of Menjugate. Maybe she doesn't care which one you get, maybe she does. I'm not about to guess, so you're just going to have to wait til we can talk to her.

~*~

Note to drunk/high guy who was in the store at 11:45pm: NO we WILL NOT carry you out to your van.

(yes, he asked the cosmetician)

~*~

Mmmm... Zesty Cheese Doritos...

~*~

From ginsu's quiz, I am Adam R. So you know.

Of course, in looking for the quiz, I see that it's gone from Wes' journal. Believe me, it was damn funny

~*~

Okay, that's enough. The child will be up in no less than 6 hours. (yes, she does sleep past 9 most days - jealous?)
I must try to sleep.

we've been in quebec. i really wish i knew more french.

~*~

we saw an aquarium, a zoo, a biodome, an insectarium, a science center, and the biggest mall in quebec. and steve saw a train museum.

~*~

i've never spent this much time in such close quarters with my whole family. 9 days. i love 'em and all, but i cannot WAIT til we can get away from each other for half an hour when we need to.

~*~

i wish nick would realize that 4 people + 1 bathroom does NOT equal unlimited shower/toilet time.

~*~

sweet baby's constipation is back with a vengeance. SO not fun.

~*~

although we brought the laptop, we were not able to dial into any numbers in quebec. SUCKED. we're almost home now - edmunston, NB

~*~

i still suck at typing on laptops so i'm going to resume my catching up

Yeah, i did it.

I now spend far to much time screwing around with my colour scheme. Icons are my next task.

Then - Polls. :)

I can predict weather even better than weatherguy2000

How did I know it was going to rain tonight?

We spent the first half of the evening watering our newly seeded lawn. That's how.

:P