a new era - tess goes to daycare!

well, here i sit in caribou coffee, in the middle of the morning, with no child running around my feet, tugging at my legs, or fussing because she's sick of being here. i have been looking forward to this, and to having time to blog, and to tess getting enrichment with friends of her own age and other adults who know how to teach her things for so long, and i won't have many days that i can do this, since she'll just be a tuesday/thursday daycare kid, and i'll be working those days, but i just wanna run back to bright horizons and pick her up! i know it's a great place, and i know she'll do great, and i know i should just enjoy it! but... my baby girl is growing up! ::sniff::

last night i ran out to walmart in the middle of the night to pick up supplies for her "school" like diaper rash cream and sunscreen (both of which we have, but i needed to get more to keep there), and i realized this is the beginning of a new era. following rules of a school, having two sets of supplies, writing her name on everything, having to drop off and pick up on someone else's schedule, eat on their schedule, sleep on their schedule, "no toys on the climber", take turns, "mine" and "his" and "hers", oh so many changes for my sweet girl. i hope she's not overwhelmed. i hope her sharing, caring, giving attitude doesn't change from these kids pushing her around, and i hope she loves spending time with her teachers... but not more than she loves spending time with me! but i hope she doesn't have separation anxiety! oh the concerns that run through the head of a mother.

i honestly have peace, though, that everything will go just great. these thoughts that flit through my mind are covered by the belief that God has a hand in all of this, and i trust Him with my girl - she is His, after all, and though i can't comprehend it, his love for her is greater than mine could ever be. i know His hand has been in all of this because of how it just fell into place. i interviewed, was offered a job, found out about an opening at daycare, got the hours i wanted at work, got the first month's tuition together, and got her all enrolled just as smoothly as it could have been. and last year, we were looking at waiting up to 8 months just to get her in any spot, let alone a part-time one!

well, i guess i should be somewhat productive during this time off that i have before starting near full-time work next month, so i'm off to catch up on my reading for the mission trip i'm going on to cherokee in two days! until next time :-)

play-dough!

as usual, life is crazy! but here's a quick recipe for play-dough that tess and i made this morning:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Affordable-Play-Dough/
we had a lot of fun, and i liked the fact that i knew exactly what was in there in case she tried to eat it. she actually did lick her fingers once but promptly stopped and made a face to tell me how gross it was - i think due to all the salt. hah! it was really funny.

i did get pictures, but they're on my phone cause i couldn't find the camera, and the bluetooth is broken on our computer, so it may be awhile before i get them on here!

in unrelated news, tess will be starting tues/thurs at bright horizons, and i'll be working those days (in addition to my regular schedule) at oberlin. hopefully it'll all go well! my cherokee mission trip is next weekend, and the 4h camp is at the end of the month, so i'm going to be a busy girl!

aaaanyway, try the play-dough and let me know if you like it or have another recipe you like better!

so, i'm a little behind in the updates...

holy moly, what a whirlwind these few weeks have been! let's see... where to begin...

ok well 8 weeks of puppies turned into lots of visits to the vet, an emergency visit that had us weaning the puppies at 3 weeks, puppies living with me without their mama for 1 week, then puppies moving on to another foster and mama coming back to me until she is adopted! oyoyoyoyoy! meanwhile, andrew, tess and i took our first family vacation all together alone (without grandmas involved) and had a great time, tess has turned 13 months (why do moms count in months?! why am i succumbing to the trend?!), my work schedule is changing, i'm interviewing for another part-time job, we're looking into part-time daycares, there were tornadoes tearing through the state, i fell down concrete stairs and nearly broke my ankle, tess got her first cold (and passed it on to us), we went to several museums and even joined one, OH! and my house looks like laundry, dishes, trash, and baby toys EXPLODED in and around it! sheesh! mayhaps this is why i haven't blogged? on the other hand, sure would have made some fantastic material to read about... oh well.

would you like some details about our many events? here goes!

ok so the adorable puppies:

continued growing and doing well, being adorable and sweet, and growing like CRAZY! poor iris was taking such good care of her 10 little ones and trying to heal up her sad body. our friend liz was generous enough to watch the whole gang (including our two crazies) while we went out of town for a long weekend to boone!

we took tons of pictures, which you can see in my facebook album, and had a blast! we drove up late thursday night in hopes that tess would sleep through the drive. we got a later start than we'd planned, and instead of leaving at 8 or 9, we left at about 10:30, which meant we didn't get in to boone until about 2am. luckily, we'd planned to stay in a hotel room that night, so the late arrival time wasn't a big deal for our accommodations... unluckily, that was where our "planning" ceased to work anymore. tess slept for a good hour into the drive before waking up and deciding she was going to stay awake FOR THE REST OF THE DRIVE. she was so out of it and so exhausted that she just sat there staring in front of her like a zombie and occasionally whimpering pathetically but refusing to sleep. it was so sad! then, about 45 mins from boone, she decided she was no longer ok, and we had to put the elmo movie on for the rest of the ride. also, andrew - not being much of the night owl, was about to fall asleep and run us off the road, so my swollen, bruised, nearly broken ankle and i had to drive almost the entire way.

so we got in around 2 and got to sleep around 3am. here's a picture of tess from the next morning:

such a tired baby!

but the rest of the weekend was wonderful! i hobbled around, we swam in the hotel pool, we ate at great places, we hung out with old friends like the newells (who were generous enough to welcome us into their home for the rest of the weekend) and crystal, sue treated us to a birthday celebration with newer friends like andy, kelley, and lucas, we explored king st, drove around our old haunts, and on the last day, took a trip up grandfather mountain!


when we got back home, we had to settle back into real life - boo! and we hadn't been doing that for long before we went out andrew's theater picnic and returned to find iris looking literally like death. andrew called me out because i was propping my ankle up, and he'd gone to take her for the last walk of the night, and he said, "i think she had diarrhea" - so i got off the couch and went out to check on her, only to find her crashing. she had no eyes because her body had had an inflammatory response and made her 3rd eyelids turn red and puff up to cover her eyes. when i peeled those back, her eyeballs were bloodshot and she couldn't really see. her gums were white and tacky, and there was diarrhea everywhere in her whelping box. i freaked out and called the vet and took her in (in my pj's because it was 10:30 by the time we left) as fast as i could drive. we got her all set up with catheters in and bloodwork running, fluids, plasma, and antibiotics going, x-rays and ultrasounds done, and basically if we had gone to bed earlier that night, she would have been dead by the morning. her overwhelmed body had gone into septic shock possibly from her worm infestation (which we hadn't been able to get rid of due to the puppies also being infested), a mastitis we found developing that night, or possibly other things - we didn't really know what caused it, but we treated it. unfortunately, that meant the puppies had to be weaned - which caused the mastitis to get worse, and eventually lead to 3 of he breasts having to be removed. the puppies stayed with us for a week while waiting on an spca foster who is more used to taking care of orphaned puppies, and iris was returned to us.

the whole experience was a harrowing and exhausting tornado of stress. and on top of that, then raleigh and the surrounding areas were hit by... tornadoes.

i was actually working the whole time the storm was going through, and the crazy people at work kept coming in to while the storm was going on! during the minutes that the worst of the storm was passing right through, past work, and we'd gotten the call to "go to a safe place" this crazy lady came in and insisted we trim her cat's nails - WHILE THE TORNADOES WERE PASSING WORK! what is wrong with people!? i cannot understand people sometimes, but we did it. ridiculous. anyway, work was unscathed, as was our house, and everyone in our family, so we were very blessed to be spared minus a few branches and one of our walkway lights.

and speaking of work - i tried to get more hours recently and was basically told that there were enough people working and they didn't have hours for me (even though the doctors and my coworkers were all in favor of me working full time again), so i gave up for awhile and just figured it wasn't time to work more. however, i browsed the local listings and found that a nearby mobile vet was hiring a surgery tech position for tuesdays and thursdays. i got in touch with them and was set up to meet with them, when they stopped responding. i took that as a sign to pursue other things and let it go. recently, however, they contacted me again to tell me that the person they'd hired was pregnant and they needed to re-hire the position. so, while i'm a bit put off by their flakiness, they are nearby, seem nice, the job is appealing and part time, and i'm going to go in to interview with them tomorrow morning. i'm excited byt going to be very selective to ensure it's a move i want to make. i'd continue working at oberlin as i am, but i'd work there as well.

that led us to resume our search for a good, affordable daycare for tess. i still really want her to be at bright horizons, as they've impressed me like no other place has, but they are not only expensive, but also apparently impress everyone else because they ALWAYS have a waiting list. so we bit the bullet and put her on the waiting list there and have looked around at other, closer, cheaper places. the problem with places around here is that they're cheap but... you get what you pay for :-/ meaning they aren't as clean or interactive as i'd like, they know nothing about organic or even homemade food, and the idea of cloth diapers is completely alien to them. however, we may put her in one short-term while we wait for an opening (potentially september) at bright horizons.

soooooo, that's the long of the short of our april whirlwind world, and i hope to be more regular about updating during may!

8 weeks of puppies: week 1

as many of you know, we have taken on the responsibility of fostering ELEVEN dogs! originally, i thought it'd be 9, but what's two more? hah! so the story is that we have a local woman who owns a store in cameron village called cat banjo, and she runs a dog rescue out of the store - how cool?! well, she always brings her dogs in to work, and we've gotten to see these poor creatures come back from literally death row at the shelters all around the state (and sometimes neighboring states), to happy, healthy, well-loved pups with great homes! they don't have any facility, since it's not a shelter or anything, so they rely on foster families to care for the pups once they've left the hospital.

this dog in particular was so sad to me. she was HUGE with puppies - we thought she had 8 in there, and we thought she'd deliver as soon as she arrived at work. however, her contractions stopped, and a week went by with her hanging out in her "birthing turtle" upstairs. on wednesday, we got the word that they were either going to induce or do a c-section... but the doctors changed their minds. then on friday the same thing, and then finally on sunday, we went through with the c-section. somewhere in there, i found out that this dog, iris, and her puppies did not yet have a foster home... and who in their right mind would take on a dog and her 8 puppies?

well, i thought, i'd love to be useful, and i've always wanted our house to be a home for all - a place where people could come to get away and have respite. it just seems right, since we don't have lots of money and can't give thousands of dollars to charities, and we aren't active in a youth group (something i always foresaw for myself) or busy with church things (since we aren't very close to either of the churches we attend and currently have a car-hating 1-year-old), but we do have a lot of land, and it is a great place to just sit and be. so since i've always wanted our house to be that for someone... and i thought, well, it's not a PERSON, but it would still be helping 9 dogs - and that's good! so andrew and i discussed it, and we decided that if they were ok with having the pups grow up (for their first 8 weeks of life) on our porch, then we'd be happy to have them.

so sunday came and the c-section/spay commenced. the uterus was pulled out of the mamadog, and the babies were peeled out of their birth sacs one by one. 8 or 9 volunteers and i stood around the table, peeling out puppies, suctioning their mouths and noses, shaking them, and rubbing to stimulate them to breathe... and live! usually in large litters one or two pups won't make it, and with SUCH a large litter, i was prepared for that, but when it was all said and done, all of the puppies and mama came out of it with flying colors. we went to counting. by this point, we were actually pretty sure there were 9 puppies. ok, i thought, 10 extra dogs, what's one more? but when we counted them all... for a shocked 3rd time... there were actually 10 puppies! poor mamadog! i can barely handle 1 baby!

so that night, andrew, tess, and i went to andrew's work to build the whelping box to take to our house. it took a long time because once it was built, we had to take it back inside because it wouldn't fit in the van! andrew had to cut the top 3 inches off to get it to fit. but, we got it home and all set up. i went in to work on monday, and brought the pups home that night. unfortunately, that's when the weather decided to start sucking, and we began the days of cold COLD rain. mama and puppies had to stay inside the first few days, but after she pooped in my bedroom and kept trying to break out of the dining room, we decided they had to go outside, like we'd agreed. we set up the box with lots of blankets and towels, and 3 comforters (it's a large box), and put a packing blanket over the top to keep the heat in. we even bought a heat lamp, but after feeling the heat under all the covers, we decided they'd be warm enough through the night. and they were! each day, i checked the pups to make sure they were all still alive, i was so sure we'd lose one or two just from the size of the litter, but they continued to thrive!

thursday, mamadog had been particularly frustrating. though we'd taken her out to go to the bathroom literally 7 or 8 times by mid-morning, she kept trying to (and did successfully once or twice) jump out of the box. not a good idea for a dog that was just split open and sutured up! she also began vomiting. so, i packed her and the puppies and tess into the car, and off to the vet we went. when we got there, it turned out that she was just SO FULL of poop (despite the fact that she'd been pooping like crazy all week) that she just didn't have any room for food and needed to empty out. we deduced that she must have been over-eating. usually an undernourished dog nursing 10 puppies should be allowed to eat as much puppy food as she wants, but it appeared that this mamadog was just so used to being deprived that she thought she had to gorge herself lest the food disappear. so she stayed overnight at the vet for some fluids and no food. and we modified her diet to a limited number of cups per day, and she kept pooping like a champ, stopped vomiting, and we brought them all home the next day.

since then she's been pretty regular, pooping twice a day and eating two cups each meal. she did get stapled up to fix the stitches she'd popped jumping out of the box, and andrew extended the top of the box over a foot higher so that she cannot jump out anymore. so far, so good! mama and babies are doing great after week 1 [click to see each pup on their fb page]. their eyes and ears are still closed, and they mostly sleep and eat all day, but that's what babies are supposed to do!

[some photos blatantly downloaded from cat banjo - credit to debbi cochran.]

tess the turtle turns 1!

holy moly. today, my tiny baby that was born yesterday (or so it feels) turns ONE YEAR OLD!!! hallelujah, we're all still alive.

and in honor of this momentus change from baby to toddler, i've changed the blog's title from andrew, emily & baby tess, to just plain tess. crazy. it's all so unbelievable.
a- i can't believe i actually procreated (if you knew me back in high school or college, you understand the irony of that statement), and
b- i can't believe that it's been A WHOLE YEAR since she was born!
i literally remember it like it was yesterday - being told that i was going to be induced, sitting in the rocking chair on the porch and trying to compose myself, knowing that our life here, as a family of two, would never be the same. and i was right.

being tess's mother this past year has been the most crazy, wonderful, stressful, enlightening, trying, amazing, wild ride of anything in my life. we have dealt with an early arrival, jaundice, the bili light, and seemingly thousands of heel sticks, acid reflux - and 3 different medicines, diet changes, etc to try and ameliorate that, a child who HATES the car with a fiery passion, co-sleeping, no sleeping, nap strikes, and more. but we've been blessed with the sweetest, smartest, super observant, loving, funny, sensitive, silly, most amazing child in the world. and i would not trade it for anything.

yesterday, we had tess's first birthday party, and i think it was a real hit! several of her baby friends were there, including madeline mhoon, graham cutchin evans, elena mccombs, emily rodrigues,

and our cousins nathan and randi ogan!

(their respective parents were also there) we had a blast playing with crayons, chalk,

bubbles, sand in the sandbox, stickers, eating cake and cupcakes,

and having a cookout picnic in the yard! i wish i had more pictures, but once again, i was too busy living the party to photograph it. andrew got some good ones of tess and her cake, and i know my parents got some of the baby interactions, so once i collect more photos, i'll post them to our flickr group.

we had lots of friends and family help us set up and decorate. then, we handed out gift packages for our attendees, which included fun things to play with at the party. we wore our sunglasses, colored in our books, blew bubbles, pretended to play ring toss and other party games

(but mostly just held on to them and threw them around).

we went out to the new sandbox - a temporary one while we're waiting on our new swingset.

we watched tess destroy her smash cake (and i think she would have eaten the whole thing if we hadn't cut her off!) - she is truly her mother's child.

then we had a cookout picnic in the yard, complete with sausage dogs, hot dogs of all varieties, barbecued chicken (made by chef rick welch!), fruit salad, chips, animal crackers, goldfish, cookies, and much more!

last, tess opened her presents from her generous friends. she got lots of contributions to the swingset fund, a car and furreal kitty from nana and grandpa (the hit of the day!), a turtle bouncer from emily r, some dolls and books, and a walker/roller toy from mom and dad! everyone headed home, and family helped us clean up, though there are still chips, cookies, and sundry other junk food options taking over my kitchen!

we are so appreciative of all of our loving friends and family who blessed us by coming out to celebrate and helped to put a great exclamation point on tess's first year!

thank you! we love you!

time change, teeth, toddling, and two days till a year!

well hello friends! it's been awhile, and yes, i MISSED the 11 month update! ugh, how do you make it almost a whole year and miss month 11?? you have a crazy 11 month old, i guess! [as a sidenote, i started this blog yesterday, obviously, so you'll have to excuse the fact that it's getting posted one day before her actual birthday.]

in a month's time, SO much has happened in the development of tess. she's gone from 0 teeth to 4, with several more right under the gums! she's gone from crawling and "cruising" with an occasional attempt at walking, to preferring walking as her mode of transportation - which leads to lots of falling, and subsequent scrapes and bumps, but luckily she's a tough girl. she loves playing with ALL her toys... at once. but especially the ones that make music so she can dance to it - and yes, she knows what "dance" means! she will dance when the music comes on, dance while in the stroller, dance while eating, and light up when you ask her if she's going to dance - sooo cute!

if you know her, you know that she knows what she wants. for example, this morning she wanted a clementine - NOW! she has this very annoying (you can say that about something your kid does, right?) sound that she makes when she wants something, and it gets louder and more persistent until she gets it, like a fire alarm. it's sort of like, "uh uh uuuh", or "ah ah ahhh" but very short and sharp. and then when she sees someone she wants to go to (or a bottle or food) she makes this very small round mouth and goes "ooooooo" "oooooooo" - but the oooo-ing is not annoying. anyway, once i translated the persistent ah ah into "i want a clementine", it was so adorable to watch her holding her baby orange in her two baby hands and trying to peel it open herself!

she's doing lots of things herself these days, or trying to at least. the other day, i found her trying to put on her own socks. she already finger feeds herself whenever possible, and just this morning, i found her trying to undo the child lock on the cabinets. this is extra-impressive considering that the way it works is to hold the "key" (really a specific magnet) up to the location on the cabinet that you've attached the child lock (not visible from the outside) and holding it there while you pull open the door. i had left the key within her reach, and she was holding it to the cabinet and pulling as hard as she could on the handle! she's just so bright and observant, i have to be careful what i do in front of her already!

i have lots more to tell you about, blogworld, but it will have to wait till our next entry, because i believe the FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! deserves its own blog ;-) stay tuned!

chomp, chomp, chomp!

we have teeth!

one day last week, i'm trying to remember which day, i looked into tess's mouth and saw more than just bumps beneath the gumline, i was pretty sure i saw teeth! but, i put my finger in there and didn't feel them, so i was a little confused. i know the gums become rather transparent when babies are close to getting their teeth, but i was sure this was more than just transparent. it wasn't until later that day, when tess had begged to drink from my glass, that i heard the "tink tink tink" of her little baby tooth on my glass - i was right! there was a tooth in there!

it was really hard to see until today though. this afternoon, as we were having our lunch of spaghetti noodles with alfredo sauce, when i got a really clear view of one tooth clearly above the surface (lower right incisor) and its pair (lower left incisor) just barely under the surface! dr. mann said that when she started getting teeth she'd get them all at once, and i guess he's right! we've started a new song when she's eating - i go "chomp, chomp, CHOOOOMP!" while i make my fingers look like a chewing mouth that chomps its way to her and tickles her neck. she LOVES it!

tess is learning what these new teeth thingamajiggers can do, and today, as she was gnawing away at her teething cookie, she began scraping it across her teeth, looking quizzically at me as if to ask what was going on and why the cookie was scraping off into her mouth instead of just gliding over her gums as it had before. then, the most interesting thing happened when she bit down, and the cookie broke! she was excited for sure! teeth are quite remarkable to one who's gone almost a year without them!

as i type this, she is enthralled with her one and only tv show, the dvd of "baby's first noises" by the baby einstein company. you have no idea how thankful i am for them! it is really the only thing on tv that interests her (which i take as a positive thing, so she's not glued to it any time it's on), but she enjoys watching it each afternoon with her teething cookie and apple juice, and it gives mommy some much needed mental break time (since my sweet angel DOES NOT SLEEP during the day, and so i rarely get a break then)!

i would post an adorable picture of her chomping away at that cookie or sucking down her noodles or even of the inside of her sweet little mouth - but i can't find my camera!!! i am so bummed! all these milestones and nothing to show for it :-(