Kristel's Blog

Allow me to appologize in advance – it was 3am when I recieved the phone call.

After pushing for three hours, Lola was born at one-fifty-something on Sunday morning, weighing 7 pounds, some ounces.  I’m pretty sure Mom never told me her middle name, though I assume she has one!

We’re going to visit after church for a little bit. Speaking of church, I better get moving!

Update: We’ve been to visit Angela, Devon & Lola. (it was a *very* brief visit – don’t worry.  Just long enough for Mom and I to cuddle Lola, take exactly 3 pictures, and get out of there.)  Full name is Lola Sophia, she is 7lbs 13oz, is absolutely adorable, and suprisingly content to be passed from one person to the next; according to Angela all she’s done is sleep so far though, so that could change!  Lola has had a big first day, afterall.  Mom and baby are both doing fine, though both are exhausted.  (And I think Angela looks a little pale, but she says she’s fine.)  They came home from the hospital just after lunch, so the visit was at home.  (And if you’re counting, yes, that means Angela was longer in the hospital having the baby than she was after the baby was born.)

Nothing yet!

Here’s what I know so far:

• Water broke around 9pm Friday night
• At 3am Sat morning Angela was only 2cm dialated and they sent her home.
• They went back sometime around lunch as far as I know
• Angela recieved an epidural around 4:30, and the plan was: sleep, push, baby.
• At 6:30pm, the last we herd of any news, Angela was still sleeping, and  little annoyed with the nurse for turning her over every 1/2 hour.

And that’s all I know.  No news since then, but it’s been 3 hours, so hopefully there’s something soon.  When I have a baby, remind me not to be in labour for 24 hours.

I’ve been at the Ecco-Spirit Hike at Blue Springs Scout Reserve all day.  Was fun, even with a sprained ankle.  (I fell in a pot hole crossing Surrey St.  Yes, I was watching where I was going.  And yes, I still managed the trip/twist combo which causes the sprain.  And no, it’s not funny – depsite what my other leader today thought.  It’s funny only if it’s not sore the next day.  Can you tell I’m a little p-o’d at him?  Perhaps it’s all the “You’re old” jokes I was recieving from him, in front of youth no less, about my needing the walking stick all day.  Very sore.)

Tracey, this is for your benefit!

I have to go to bed soon, plus pack for tomorrow, so no time for a full post but…

It’s 9pm on Oct 21st, and Angela’s water has broken, they’ve called the midwife, and are on their way to the hospital!

So today I’m sitting at my desk, listening to the chirp-chirp-chirping of the birds.  Pepper begs to get out, so I let her out.  She barks like crazy from the back gate at the back door.  I think “Weird” and go check it out.  There’s this baby bird stuck in the concrete door-well.  (We have a back split, so the back of the house is sunken in – so the windows, which look like normal height from inside, are actually about 2 feet off the ground and the door, therefore, is actually sunken into the ground with concrete stairs leading down.)  So anyways, Dad and I debate what to do about this bird for a good couple hours.  It looks like he has a bad wing, so he’s probably going to die anyways, but decide that it’s too cruel to let him just starve to death in the well – maybe he would get better if we let  him out.  So I get a towel, pass it to Dad, who eventually traps it and manages to toss it up into the garden.  Momma bird swoops down, the two are reunited.  All seems well.  We wait half an hour – birdy is gone, though we still hear momma bird, and we give in to Pepper’s whines and let her in the backyard.  Pepper, of course, runs straight to where her last source of entertainment was – the back gate by the back door.  We didn’t see the birdy, didn’t think anything of it.  Pepper, however, did see the birdy.  Guess he jumped his way under the fence, just in time for Pepper’s lunch.  Of course, when I notice, I call Pepper back in – thinking not of the now-dead birdy, but of how birdy’s bones could get stuck/splinter in my puppy’s neck.  It takes some coaxing, but I get Pepper to drop the birdy and come inside.  Dad goes out with a shovel.  Digs birdy a grave (we decided that neither of us wants to touch the bird long enough to get it into our garbage bags) puts birdy in, fills the hole.  He leaves, I put Pepper back in the backyard to catch up on some missed barking.  She runs straight to where she left her most tasty treat (aka birdy).  Can’t find birdy.  Goes to the fence -maybe birdy will respawn like in video games?  Turns out birdy doesn’t respawn.  So she goes back to the spot where birdy was.  Thoroughly checks for birdy, settles for just peeing on the spot.  Goes back to gate.  Barks hoping that is the equivalent to pushing X repeatedly.  Hasn’t worked yet.  She continues to try though.

On a side note, I seriously cut my thumb open yesterday.  In my complex, we hire a group of students to pick up our garbage from in front of our homes and carry it to the curb.  So I put my garbage out on Monday night, think all is well.  I get up, they didn’t take one of my bags.  I sigh, then put it in my backseat to put out at the curb at work.  I go to take it out of the backseat, and realize that the bag is split.  All of a sudden, it makes sense why he didn’t carry it out – the students have a general “F this, it’s not my problem” approach to our garbage issues: incorrectly sorted, broken bags, etc.  So I put Pepper in the backyard, carry my stuff into the house, get a new bag and proceed to putting the bad bag into the good one.  In the process, I slice open my thumb.  It hurt, but I didn’t think it was too bad… at first.  I ran inside, cleaned off my thumb and packed some paper towels around it.  <gross alert!> When the blood had seeped through 3 paper towels all folded together, and we all realized my cut was a good 5cm long, Dad drove me to the ER.  I was admitted straight away, a first for me when I wasn’t having breathing issues, and within an hour, I was on my way home with 3 stitches and a lecture about how to keep my hand clean and dry at camp OR ELSE.  I’d post a picture about it, or go into detail regarding how much fun (or not, as the case may be) getting those stitches were and how I was suprised at how very nauseus I was as that was being done, or worse, the needle to numb it before, but you don’t need to read that.   I am expecting, however, that my cubs are all going to want to know and see this weekend.  Oh well.  Turns out I can talk about it just fine, but actually getting it done…

ANYWAYS, the good news is I can still knit.  Didn’t think I’d be able too, but it turns out I don’t really need my right thumb to knit – all the work is done in my fingers and left thumb.  The really good news is, my minions, erm, cubs, get to do my dishes at camp.  The bad news is that I now have 3 stitches in my thumb and I have to get them removed around next Friday.  The really bad news, of course, is that my dreams of becoming an international hand model are no longer accessible due to the unavoidable scar.  LOL

I’d better get back to pretending to work.  Ok, I really am working, but mostly I’m just cleaning up machines this week, so it’s not like I can do anything while the antivirus is running.  I can’t believe how bad the two I’m working on now were.  Seriously, I’m thinking of running a how-to-take-care-of-your-computer-seminar.  Topics covered:

• How 6 antivirus programs on one machine doesn’t always equal extra protected especially when 2 are viruses, 1 is hijacked, 2 are cancelling each other out and the last hasn’t been updated in 5 years;
• Why you should blow out the dust in your machine and how to avoid dust bunny ziplines (seriously, I needed my inhaler it was so bad – we’ve had computers come from nurseries that have been placed directly onto dirt floors and have stayed there for 3 years that have come back cleaner);
• Purchasing your porn and why not to download it illegally/go onto free sites;
• The popup on your screen that says “You’ve been infected by a virus” is actually a virus, and you were safe before you clicked it;
• How the internet can’t really scan your computer and clean it up in ten minutes and yes, your antivirus does take longer; yes, patience is a virtue, and seriously, how can you think that anything that scans your computer in so little time actually cleaned up your machine?!
• Warning signs that you’ve been infected and when to know you’re too late; and the related:
• If you’re being asked whether you want to open your antivirus, My Computer, solitare, or any other shortcut/exe in Internet Explorer, Firefox, or one of the other 5 browsers you’ve installed, you’re infected.  (Seriously, on both machines they are running: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Netscape, Google Chrome, Opera, and whatever Comodo Dragon is.  Apparently every person who uses that computer doesn’t like to have their favourites shared (see: porn above) so instead of setting up Vista to use different users, they installed a different browser for each.)
• How not to be pushy/phrasing “Are you done yet?!” in a way such that your computer tech who just got home from the ER will be willing to help you, AKA “It took you hours upon hours to get your computer so thoroughlly hammered that it will only boot in safe mode, it’s going to take just as long to clean it up.”

Must.  Be.  Done.  By.  June 25th.  When.  I.  Go.  To.  See.  Alice.  At.  The.  Ballet.

But I think those purl rounds are going to kill me…

It is a little big around though.  Note to self: Next time use wool not the nice, soft, but non-stretchy bamboo.