Poor Babies!

It has been a weekend of lots of feeling sorry for my little ones

On Sunday, we attended our new ward, the Billerica ward. After Sunday School, set Natalie in her carseat carrier and picked it up. The handle was not clicked into place; usually it clicks as you pick it up. The weight must have been balanced very perticularly because it is sooo strange how this happened- when I lifted it by the handle, the seat slid vertical and Natalie fell out face first on the floor.

She was very quiet for a second before she started SCREAMING. I just swept her up and walked out of the chapel and went straight out the front doors. As I started to bounce and shush her and figure out what had happened, I realized that she was bleeding from her mouth. It seemed like she bled soooo much! Micah soon followed me out. I was just trying to calm her and kept saying, "she'll be fine". Her screaming got a little quieter, though she was still crying pretty hard, and the bleeding slowed within a few minutes and I took her into the mothers' room to try and nurse her for comfort. She would eat for a second and be calm and then suddenly start sobbing again. Finally she calmed down enough to fall asleep (though she kept sniffing) and I totally lost it. I was shaking and crying and just felt so horrible and was hoping like anything that she would be okay. She's fine, of course. It was just unbelievably shocking to see her fall and scream bleed, I felt so terrible. I just felt like the most careless and irresponsible person ever! I'm still getting over it a bit, though Natalie seems happy and healthy and not as traumatized by the incident as I was.

So, that is what Natalie endured. Sammy also had a little incident this weekend.

On Saturday night, I noticed that Sammy seemed to have a sore on his foot. When I tried to look at it, he got really mean on me and I couldn't see anything without really touching it because his hair was so overgrown over his paws. We'd been meaning to get him a thorough shave for a while, so we went ahead and scheduled him an appointment with a professional groomer. I hate spending so much money just to have someone shave him when I could handle the haircut itself, but he is just so badly behaved when he's being groomed. They have lots of tricks and equiptment to make it work at the groomers. We just stressed the importance of thoroughness, and the groomer did a good job at that. But his face looks very silly. She left the hair by his jaws so long! I think that she couldn't get very close on the cheeks because she muzzled him to prevent him from biting.

When she cut the hair, it revealed that both of his back feet were in pretty bad shape. Both of his dewclaw (thumb) nails had gotten overgrown and curled around and started growing into the pad. I took him to a vet to have them quicked (cut back to the base and having the bleeding stopped). When she got the nails off- a traumatic, painful experience for him- he had holes in his pads where the nails had been growing that were infected. She anesthetised the openings and expressed his anal gland secretions (because he hadn't been torured enough!) and had us on our way. Now he's on some antibiotics and pain medicine, but at least the nails aren't continuing to hurt. That must have been so painful! I feel bad that we let it get that bad. I wish that he was not so aggressive about being groomed, regular maintenance would make it a lot less dramatic when we do have to get him taken care of.

So, other than that, we had a nice weekend. It was nice to have Micah home with us. He grilled dinner for us Sunday and Monday. Saturday we ate with a coworker of Micah's and his family. I made the best macaroons I have made yet. We went on walks, learned that the park right by us has a little wading pool that will open soon. Also has swings!

Mmm. Lobster and Tangy Grilled Chicked with Artichocke Spinach Dip on Memorial Day. Natalie was so cute in her patriotic outfit!

Natalie loves to snuggle while she sleeps. We have lately started "ferberizing" her at night and she has done well. Unless she hasn't eaten in a long time, we just leave her in her bed and talk to her and pat her then leave her for longer and longer periods to cry before going back. She stops crying pretty quickly when she realizes we aren't going to hold her. Swaddling continues to help a lot and I am waiting on a larger swaddler to come in the mail, as hers can barely close around her!
Friday we went shopping for some new clothes and didn't buy anything in the end. My weighed is about where it was before Natalie, but my shape is pretty different. It's awkward figuring out how to dress now, but I NEED more clothes- Micah asks me to change every time we leave the house :/ Tonight I wanted to drop by the mall on our walk (we have ahuge mall right down the road), and Micah asked if I felt comfortable walking through the mall in my baggy sweats (part of a pajama set my mom got as a gift and passed along because they didn't fit well) and a t-shirt. I was like "Yeah, what's wrong with this shirt?" As we continued to discuss it, I remembered that it was Darlene's shirt once- I was never on the GHS stage crew. When was it from? Her Sophmore year? Eh, that only puts it at... 9 years old? Hey, it doesn't have any holes or stains. Hehe. Yeah. I need clothes. I just hate paying too much and never like anything I try on :(  Just found a Marshals down the road, will try there next.

Okay, finally some time to recap the details of our journey to get here! I've cleaned enough surfaces of this place to unpack most of our stuff and Natalie is sleeping. Phew!

Micah admitted that it was satisfying to give our condo a deep clean before turning it over to the subletter. The pride of ownership is a glorious thing!

Everything but the furniture and a few pieces of artwork is now in this pile in Natalie's room. Not too disorganized, I'm proud to say. Even though we left a lot of things, it was pretty packed in our car. Micah and I didn't even bring much personal stuff. Most of the space was occupied by baby stuff. Babies need so much stuff, from her pack n play to her bouncy chair to her play mat to her tub, just a whole bunch of stuff.

After a few days at Micah's parents (while Micah finished a proposal for a conference in the fall), we went to Charlotte and visited Micah's sister's family.

Even though this picture is a poor illustrations, Hudson was pretty fascinated with his little cousin. 

Our nephew Tyler, who did great on the schools tennis team this year, introduced Micah to it. Here, Chere and Micheal kick their butts at doubles.

From Charlotte, we headed to Wilmington and stayed with my Dad's family for a bit. Natalie got her first visit to the beach. The water was still pretty cold- Micah dipped her toes in the water and she did NOT like it.

While there, went to Harris Teeter with my Dad to swing some sweet couponing (it was triples week) and between the two of us got this haul with a shelf price of $120.85 for $6.10. Could have done even better if they weren't out of a few items and if I had split the items more carefully!

We got to enjoy Mother's Day while we were there. Micah took care of Natalie in the living room that night so I could sleep. It was much needed as I had come down with a bad cold that has continued to hang on ever since. Gaurgh! Hate sickness. Worse yet- Natalie got it after a few days and oh boy- we thought she was sensitive and needy normally, but wow, we had no idea she could get so much worse! The first 2 days we were here in Boston, she would scream at the top of her lungs any time I put her down. By the evening, I was so tired of carrying her around all day, I just left her in her room to cry. She fell asleep after 30 mins. Another great benefit to being in a house right now- we can let her cry without worrying about bothering the neighbors. Now that she is approaching the age of becoming manipulative if we respond to every whine, we are going to have to let her cry it out a lot more.

Natalie did okay in the car ride. There were moments when she was screeching and we just wanted to die, it was so annoying. Then there were a lot of moments like this:

On Friday morning we left Wilmington, NC and headed to Wilmington, DE. The drive was estimated at 8.5 hours. Between stops and traffic, we took about 12. We planned carefully to leave early enough that we wouldn't hit Washington D.C. at rush hour. We arrived there at 2 in the afternoon, and it still took us an hour to go 10 miles on the beltway. Crazy! I can't imagine what it must be like during peak hours!

In Wilmington, DE we stayed with our friends from BYU who moved there in the past couple months for work. It was fun to see them and visit and play Dominion (very fun card game that I think Paco and Blake and Kimber and Tyler would enjoy. Part strategy, part luck and each game is different, a lot like settlers). 

From there we headed to New York where we visited Darlene, Brooklynn and Aaron. Aaron is sooooo cute. He's already smiley and is very gentle-mannered. They are less than 3 months apart, but the difference between Natalie and Aaron is amazing! Since we see Natalie every day, we forget how fast she's growing!

Here are a few shots of the place we are staying in Boston. The town is called Burlington and it's not too far from the interstate an exit from where Micah works. It is definitely one of the grittier places on the street, which is great. I would rather be in a crappy house in a nice area than in a nice house in a crappy area! It was a little scary at first because the yard had not been well cared for, but today landscapers came and mowed and cleaned up some of the junk around the yard. There is still a lot to be done- trees and bushes are way overgrown and there are still some piles of garbage in the back yard- old rusty paint cans, pallets with graffiti, etc. It just adds a little to the creepiness factor. But so far, we haven't found any dead bodies, so it's okay. 

We have the bottom floor, which has 3 bedrooms. They left furniture, which is great, but they also left a whole bunch of other crap, which is kind of not so great. It makes it hard to clean because I don't know what belongs to the people who live here normally and what was left by the previous subletters who were here for 2 months. Also, they have kind of an ugly aesthetic sense.

The place is OLD, no questions about it, and could really use some upgrades, but once we get it cleaned up better, it will be perfectly fine for our needs. There are tons of enormous ants here. Everywhere you go outside, there are black ants the size of a dime scurrying in all directions. Still, I'll take ants over cockroaches any day.

Some other cool things: Burlington has curbside recycling of almost everything- even #5 plastics! A few grocery stores are in walking distance (even one that doubles coupons! Score!) and a HUGE mall is right behind us. There's even a fenced back yard for Sammy! I guess the folks at Lincoln Labs are pretty friendly. Someone from Micah's work even invited us to lunch this Saturday! Neato!

Let the Summer Begin

The last few weeks have been very transitional and we are happy to have finally arrived at our place for the summer! The previous tenants didn't have all their stuff out until 4 hours after we had agreed to move in and they left the place filthy, but we're here at last. Micah began yesterday at Lincoln Labs and I think that he is going to enjoy it.

Major thanks to Micah's parents, Chere's family, My Dad's family, our friends the Larsens and my sister, who each hosted us for some time.

Details to come, working on getting the place clean right now.

HaHaHa

No fair. She laughs for Daddy but not for me!