Finally after five nights of sleeping in the guest room so as not to keep the others awake with my coughing and night sweats, I return to the marital/family bed to find BOTH my husband AND child SNORING THEIR GUTS OUT.

Oh well. I probably won’t be getting much sleep anyway thanks to my third blocked duct in five days. At least it’s a different side tonight for a change but it’s proving to be a hard one to shift. Oliver and I worked together all day and I worked on it alone for two solid hours before turning in for the night but to no avail. Sigh. I’m now hoping that the sleep fairies will vanish it away by morning. But I suppose that can only happen IF THE BOYS IN THIS HOUSE WILL STOP SNORING. GAH!

I know, I know, long-time-no-see, yes? Well let me explain. I shall attempt to be brief with each point for brevity’s sake as there is a lot to cover, and for reasons that will become apparent at the end. Ok, here we go…

1) After we introduced the kittens to Chester, Chester lost his voice, started to gag. Rushed him to vet thinking something stuck in his throat. No sign of irritation. Was told it was likely furballs. Seemed reasonable as ever since the kittens moved in he’s spent every waking hour licking them. Bought furball food and kitty grass, found grass-filled cat vomit in hallway next day (nice) but no sign of fur.

2) The next day Chester gets diarrhea, OH NO, made even more OH NO by the fact that he likes to wake me in the morning by sticking his anus in my face. If a cat-anus-alarm-call isn’t bad enough as it is… yes, you get the picture. I spend a whole day chasing him round with toilet paper after I’d heard him scratching in the litter dish. Nice.

3) By evening Chester is completely mute. And tired. Relaxing for me as he normally likes to give me a running commentary of his day (OHMYGOD), but pitiful at the same time. And comical. And sorrowful.

4) Google informed me that it was likely an upper respiratory infection, or worse, WORMS. And we all know that google is always right, ahem. Now, the vet had done a fecal screening in the kittens and it came back negative, but then google informed me that there is such thing as a false negative, and it’s pretty common. And that almost *all* kittens are born with worms (I did find it rather odd that he didn’t worm them as a precaution given that I already have a healthy cat PLUS A SMALL BABY IN THE HOUSE).

5) Marched back to vet, asked for worming treatment, battled with the vet as he said that the screening was negative, so then played the Small Baby Card, and left the vet considerably poorer but with three doses of worming medicine in my hand. Returned home, dosed the cats.

6) Cats a bit grumpy that night, but the next day all three cats are completely hyperactive (and have been that way ever since; makes me think I was right). Spend next three days shovelling and replacing cat litter like a woman with OCD so that they wouldn’t get them all over again. Then read on google that they would also purge the worms, so delegated the task to DrMrNin.

7) Chester’s voice starts to return. My quiet time starts to leave.

9) Where are we up to? Oh, ok. Over the past few weeks my back has been progressively stiffening up from all the baby lifting and the ever increasing boobage etc. Monday night I roll over awkwardly in bed and pull/strain some muscle around my right shoulder blade. OMG the pain, I was WRITHING. Now I have a pretty high pain threshold (17 hours of back labour, natural childbirth, no drugs) but this I could not take. Was like back labour all over again, but like one big continuous contraction with no respite, spasm after spasm after spasm. I classed it as #2 on my overall top moments of pain, of which CHILDBIRTH IS #3. You get the picture. FYI #1 was post-childbirth when the swelling aggravated an old coccyx injury and they had to shoot me up with morphine, but I digress. Yes, the upper right back pain was so bad I had to resort to double strength Vicodine which I was told to take during my post-birth recovery. Yes, narcotics are bad whilst breastfeeding, but it was the same decision I had to take during those moments writhing in hospital following birth: take some so I could breastfeed, or not be able to breastfeed at all. Decision made. Besides, still not as many narcotics as an epidural so hopefully Oliver’s exposure wouldn’t be too great after just one pill. Punkin needed to eat, after all.

10) The next day get marched to doctor’s office by concerned husband to get referred to physical therapy. I described to the doctor the physical pain and how it was #2 on my list of all-time pain, and he shot me a look as if to say OMG YOU ARE SO WEAK and I could see flashing through his mind the likes of here’s someone who demanded a needle in her back two minutes into labour when she was only one centimetre dilated (I’m just trying to make the point that I have quite a high pain threshold). Here’s another thing: I’d only seen him a couple of weeks earlier too as I kept getting hypoglycaemic. So in addition he must have thought I was a hypochondriac. Whatever. All I wanted from him was to find out what drugs I could take to manage the pain to prevent it getting to that AWFUL stage (800 mg ibuprofen), and he referred me to PT three times a week for the next month. Apparently it’s very common for mothers around this four-to-six month stage to start experiencing back pain. And it’s also common for new mothers to experience big drops in blood sugar. All that breastfeeding….which makes sense.

11) Anyway, whilst there DrMrNin enquires if they have the H1N1 vaccine and yes, it was delivered yesterday. The nurse walks off, comes back, can’t find it after all so maybe she was wrong as she only glanced quickly. Leaves room again saying that she was sure she’d seen it so goes off to look again, and it turned out someone had moved the box (to a safe place). Not many vaccines delivered apparently. Small box. So one minute they want me to have it, the next minute I’m not, then they want to give it to me again. Now I AM NERVOUS ABOUT VACCINES as almost every time I’ve had one I’ve had a pretty big reaction to it. I’m sensitive to chemicals in general- whenever there are ‘potential side effects’ listed on the box of anything, sure enough when I feel in any way not right after taking something, I read the box and right there in plain type my ailment is listed. It is for this reason that I have to be really REALLY suffering in order to take something. Here’s another example: I had teeth removed once with nitrous oxide and I was throwing up for an entire week afterwards. No, anaesthetics aren’t that great for me either. So anyway, despite my reservations and protests (I don’t exactly mix with the general public right now as it’s sniffle season so I’m deliberately being antisocial, so my only exposure would be my husband, and on the whole I’m rather fit and healthy and besides, I NEVER GET SICK) I get guilt-tripped into it, take it for the baby and all that. But I might react, I plead and then finally acquiesce to them. Take it for the baby and all that.

12) Next day, back still stiff. Can barely move. Picking up a baby isn’t an option. DrMrNin stays home from work in the morning to be my hands. He goes into work in the afternoon only to receive a phonecall from me whining that in the process of doing a diaper change whilst attempting not to strain my upper right back, I manage to have now strained my upper left back too. He comes home.

13) Morning comes again, whole upper back now completely stiff. Spasms have stopped but only because it’s so stiff that I can’t perform any movement to bring them on. Stiffness and pain now extending down my upper arms. Did I mention also that ever since I put my right side out of action it hurt to breathe? I can’t believe I missed that part. So basically it hurt to be alive, and was spending days dosed up to the eyeballs with ibuprofen, and the shallow breathing was making me all spaced out and light headed. Fun. The physical therapy I hear you ask? Scheduled for Monday, they were one member down as she’d just had a baby so there was a bit of a wait. And yes, once again my nice husband arranged to work from home to be my arms as I was not in any state to do any lifting. And he also had to take the kittens to the vet for their follow up boosters. (Me, heavy Oliver in one hand, heavy cat carrier in the other, I don’t think so).

14) Kittens go to vet. Chester goes into a grump and whinges.

15) Kittens return from vet, a little quiet, but Chester happier (and peace and quiet for me). They are promptly licked all over by The Large White One to cleanse them of all things veterinary.

16) Start getting really tired and headachey.

17) Wake up next morning (Saturday, Halloween), don’t feel like I’ve benefited from sleep at all, keep taking the ibuprofen. Spend whole day feeling cold. Notice that by afternoon I’m starting to get headachey again and out of interest take my temperature. ONLY A 101˚F FEVER! What on earth??? Brave it out during the evening, watch husband get all excited when trick or treaters come to the door (they were out in full force, I’m telling you!). Go to bed.

18) Wake up at 2am, completely burning up. Have managed to sweat through my pyjamas so get up, change, and settle down for the night in the guest bedroom as I didn’t want to wake the others up and I could have more control over the bed coverings. Settle down to sleep. Woke up again with a start. This time I’m FREEZING. Spent rest of night with a poorly tummy with very restless sleep, fluctuating between boiling hot and shivering cold. Sweated through second pair of pyjamas.

19) Spent most of today in a similar state, in the guest bed, except my tummy has calmed down. I’ve also ditched the ibuprofen for tylenol as I think it works better for me. Back spasms a bit better at least which is either from not having lifted anything for the past few days, or because muscle aches have gone, but my temperature is fluctuating between 100˚F and 104˚F. What on earth??? Did I mention that I never get sick?

20) Google this afternoon informed me that the H1N1 vaccine has side effects and what do you know….

The following are common whole-body side effects occurring in response to either [of the four different brands of] H1N1 vaccination[s].

• Headache
• Malaise (feeling out-of-sorts)
• Muscle pain
• Chills
• Nausea
• Fever
• Vomiting

Read more here

Even the US Government’s Center for Disease Control state these side effects too. Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? But is that not what I’ve been having?? Plus I found out today that a friend of mine and her son are also a bit poorly after having had their vaccines too. Of course I can’t be sure that I am having a vaccine reaction as I have no laboratory proof and I could have some completely unrelated bug, but I can’t help but wonder. Anyway, at least Oliver will be safer after all of this and that’s what matters (I am in fact pro-vaccine, but support a person’s right to choose).

So yes, quite a lot has been going on. The upside of all of this is that Oliver’s got to spend some rather quality time with his daddy and it’s really been incredible to see. He enjoys himself so differently when he’s around his father- I’m there to nurture and soothe, DrMrNin is FUN DADDY. It’s the cutest, most heartwarming thing to see. I never imagined that parenthood could be this awesome. Plus all the rest and relaxation has given me a bit of a break from all the baby chores and I’ve been able to sit back, recharge and clear out some mental cobwebs. At long-last I feel like I’ve stepped off the fatiguing treadmill that is new motherhood and in my mind I’m a lot more chipper and beginning to feel like my old self again. See, I even had time to get a new theme up and running on here- the old one although pretty with the big pictures was a bit hard on the eyes, especially when there was lots to read. Again, all part of the mental cobwebs that got cleared up as it’s been on my To Do List for yonks.

And that brings us to now, Sunday night, me sitting on the couch bundled up in layers of knitwear trying to keep warm whilst DrMrNin sits there in a t-shirt commenting about how mild the night is. But I have made progress- earlier I was in a long-sleeve t-shirt, my old faithful cashmere cardigan and dressing gown under two blankets and two feather duvets YET I WAS STILL SHIVERING. I even had blue lips at one point. How cool is that? Not. Obviously. But I’m feeling a bit better now and my fever seems to be stabilising at around 101˚F. Unfortunately I have to postpone tomorrow’s physical therapy that I have been waiting patiently all week for, but best be safe than sorry- if I have got some nasty bug, I don’t want to go spreading it around. If I’m still feverish tomorrow it’s back to the doctor for me to get tested for H1N1 itself just in case that’s what I have as I may have contracted it before the vaccine kicked in as if that’s the case, DrMr has to be quarantined at home for the duration of the incubation period as that’s what the rules are where he works.

So there we have it! I did warn you it was going to be long, but at least things are pretty much now up to date on here, hee hee! And now I’m heading back to bed. Where I should be. To sweat it out and hope that I will feel better tomorrow as DrMrNin has to return to work (exhibiting ’social distancing’ as his work rules like to call it) so I’ll be back on baby duty tomorrow.

At least Chester is now fully better xx

Yesterday morning began like this (well, after getting up, getting done in the bathroom, pulling on clothes, feeding Mr. Chesterfield and jumping in the car of course): sitting outside Starbucks with a latte, oatmeal, my bag of knitting and Hello! Magazine.

Perfect. I had a couple of hours to kill whilst DrMrNin was in a meeting before we would set off driving all over the Bay Area to attend our respective Dr appointments- me with my OB-GYN, he with his surgeon. Buying my coffee, I had happy visions of all the progress that I would make with my latest knitting project except I discovered that pregnant people who knit in public tend to attract rather a lot of attention. Every other passer by wanted to ask questions and chat, and consequently about a third of my progress became casualty to polite conversation so I spent about as much time unpicking as I did knitting. Lesson learned: next time I knit outside I will wear large headphones, and next time I shall choose to take a more simple project that doesn’t require so much concentration.

Next stop lunch, then the OB-GYN. It was the usual routine- pee-ed in a cup, got weighed, had blood-pressure taken, exchanged a few pleasantries and questions and then listened to the wisha-wisha-wisha of the foetal heartbeat before being told to come back in another two weeks. All is fine. Turns out I managed to gain SIX WHOLE POUNDS IN THREE AND A HALF WEEKS which is rather impressive, but hopefully it means that Little Peach is plumping out as all the weight gain has been on my tummy.

Then it was back to see the surgeon as it’s now been one whole month since DrMrNin’s achilles tendon was repaired. Much to my immense delight it was time for the cast to come off which means NO MORE CRUTCHES as he can officially weight-bear on that foot now. That should make things a lot easier around the house, whooop!

Aside from the saw being INCREDIBLY LOUD, the stench emanating from his month-long-unwashed foot was ABSOLUTELY WRANK making the whole process not quite so exciting after all. Seriously, even that time we spilled a load of milk in the car (which was the worst smell EVER at the time) smelled like ROSES in comparison to this. Dear God it was foul. I asked the tech if she had sneaked topical smell blockers under her mask and she grinned which said it all. I had to resort to improvisation with a paper towel and was rather liberal with a can of hospital air freshener that I found on the counter. It was either sit in a room gagging from industrial strength lemon or sit there gagging from unbelievable stench. Obvious choice. And eeeuw his foot looked like a shrivelled prune too. Bleurgh. But at least it’s better. Hopefully he can start physical therapy in another three weeks.

By everyday standards it wasn’t an entirely strenuous day, but when we got home I was completely exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as I sat down on the couch. And it probably also explains the complete dead-end day that I’ve just had too for I couldn’t muster the energy for anything. We were supposed to go out with friends tonight, but instead I stayed in and barely just managed to drag myself into the kitchen to create something vaguely edible to put in my big, fat, tummy.

Apparently it seems that I now have limitations. A couple of weeks ago this schedule wouldn’t have challenged me at all, but it’s coming to the time where everything is such an effort that it’s just down right exhausting. I think I’m going to start taking it easy from now on, kick my feet up every now and again and make the most of having a bit of free time while it lasts. And take a moment to enjoy saying ‘my free time’ as I know for certain that I’m probably not going to have that for very much longer, so everyone at Starbucks kept telling me..

1) Because we finally have the internet working (woot!)

and 2) Because last week is all over and I can finally relax…a bit

Warning: a  long post as there’s a lot to catch up on, so you might want to grab a nice cup of tea and a sit down for this one.

Next time I claim to be busy, I shall certainly think twice as to whether that trully is the case as I think the past seven days might have amounted to one of the busiest times that I have ever experienced. Yes, it even ranks up there with the final throes of grad school and THOSE times were BUSY. Last Thursday in particular proved to be especially emotionally draining. In the morning, we said goodbye to Toby Kitten, in the afternoon DrMrNin had surgery for his ruptured achilles tendon, and in the evening we closed escrow on the house. Whew. But they say things happen in threes.

At least the surgery gave us something else to think about aside from Toby Kitten

It was all very straightforward- a nice clean break in the tendon which was easy to fix. DrMr had his first ever general anaesthetic, plus a nerve block below the knee which made him nice and numb for a good 30 hours, so by the time he came round after the operation he wasn’t really in any discomfort. Just a bit groggy really.

Not only did he get given crutches which made me a little envious as it’s always been a secret little ambition of mine to have them myself (but I’m not at all interested in the injury that comes with them), but he also got to be pushed out of hospital in a wheelchair which made me even greener. Yes, I’m a little bit odd.

Moreover, he even got to ride in the electric cart at Safeway which was just taking the biscuit.

Muh! But then again I’d *much* rather be healthy and in good physical form, so I shouldn’t whimper at all really.

So anyway, yes, the deal that we had with the Title Company was that we had set up a getout clause so as to avoid closing escrow and lumbering me with a great old mortgage in the unlikley event that something should have gone wrong with the surgery. So as soon as DrMr was out of the OR, I had to make some calls to give authorisation to close the deal. I had until 4.55pm that afternoon to make the call, and he didn’t get out of surgery until 4.40pm so I was cutting it rather fine….

8am the next morning, the Title of ownership (or whatever it’s called) got transferred over, and we legally came into posession of the house. From start to finish (putting the offer in, to close) the whole process took just 21 days which was all rather fast as normally it takes 45-60 days. Snaps to our realtor and mortgage person, they really did stirling work.

As you can imagine, the rest of the week was spent pretty much like this:

Boxes, boxes, everywhere…

…As we tore apart our apartment and got everything packed.

Considering DrMr was on crutches and not able/allowed to bear any weight on his right leg (and was supposed to be resting for 3 days post-op), coupled with the fact that I’m currently six and a half months pregnant and waddling around looking like a beached whale and not able to lift anything, we did an incredible job of getting everything packed up. We did it ALL BY OURSELVES, WITHOUT ANY HELP WHATSOEVER. Granted we had a lot of it done before his surgery, but even after his surgery we still managed to get world’s heaviest mattress off the bed, and our giant Cal-King sized bed dismantled. And everything else left that still had to be packed up into boxes.

Poor Chester Kitten was extremely confused. What a hard week for our little furry boy But hed enjoy the new places that could be explored.

Removal day was arranged for Monday and we really had no choice but to spend more money and pay people to do it. In hindsight it was probably a blessing in disguise as to have moved it all ourselves in a rental truck even without feet in splints or pregnancies would have been horrendous.

The day proved to be so distracting and action packed that it didn’t occur to me at all to get my camera out, but I can show you some of the things that we had delivered the other week (the seller allowed us to get some things delivered at the same time as the oven)…. including our yummy outdoor furniture set which I CANNOT WAIT to  use, and a nice big armoir for our wine fun, squee!

And of course the much talked about appliances…

Believe it or not, getting an oven installed was actually part of the requirement to close escrow on the house which was why there was that big rush to choose one. Despite the very difficult decision and the change of heart at the very last minute, I remain extremely delighted with the range/refrigerator combo that I chose. Here’s the fridge coming through the door…

EEPS! I love it, it’s big inside, and makes its own ice. And is my very, very own xo

So which range did I pick??

Any ideas yet?

Why, it was the AGA Legacy 36 of course

And it’s BEEEEYOOOOOOOTIFUL!

Thanks everyone for helping me choose xo

I think the photos speak for themselves…

(He chose ‘Great White’ – never heard of them myself, but he told me that I probably wouldn’t have liked them.)

It is indeed ruptured all the way through – the arrow on the photo on the left points to a squiggle in the tendon that shouldn’t be there indicating a breach, and the arrow on the right points to the rupture with the surrounding fluid.

To quote the surgeon we visited “I can’t believe you are able to walk on that!”. His surgery is scheduled for Thursday next week, and then he’ll be on crutches for about six weeks after that, and will then go back into the aircast for a couple of months, depending on how long it takes to heal.

The timing isn’t perfect, what with us moving house in about 10 days time, but at least I’ll have him around the place for the next few days to help with the packing, even if he has to do it whilst sitting down!

I think it must be well before Christmas since DrMrNin got a haircut. Actually coming to think of it, I think the last one that he got was for my big sister’s wedding back in September of last year. Wow, six months ago. Doesn’t time fly? Since then he’s been keen to let it grow and grow, and over the last couple of weeks has been increasingly teasing me that he intends are to let it get long enough to put it in a ponytail. Over. My. Dead. Body. Now I like men who are hairy (clean-shaven has never really done it for me), but I don’t like them that hairy. Besides, there’s nothing like an overgrown haircut to add extra pounds and years to to a person.

Finally this past Sunday we had a bit of time to spare so I got my scissors out and trapped him on the patio. And here’s the result: instantly 10 lb lighter, and 10 years younger compared to the day before!

Much better in my opinion. I hope this is a routine that we can keep up- I’ve always enjoyed cutting hair. And I like being married to a young man *girly giggles*.

Incidentally, not 30 minutes after these pictures were taken, he tripped playing basketball and messed up his achilles tendon. Ouch!