The Family Sideways

Long time no post, sucker.

2009-05-04T09:32:00.002-06:00

*images not from my trip, but stolen from google search results. I did ride the trail pictured here, Joe's Ridge, which scared the living hell out of me.

Well, winter's finally coming to an end in the mountains, and though we had snow as recently as last week (and, um, maybe again tonight), I am in "Spring Mode". That means that rather than pushing projects and duties aside for snow-related things, I'm instead pushing them aside for springy/summery things.

For example: last week I swapped the snow tires off our cars. I de-thatched and aerated our lawn. I spent a good amount of time in the yard pulling up all the work I had done with a little landscaped section around a tree and some bushes (woodchips and landscape fabric), killed the grass that had grown through it all, then put down new (GOOD) landscape fabric and some new woodchips. This past weekend we all went camping (which I'll get into more below), Caroline's first trip (she was a CHAMP). Have a (very) sore rear end from mountain bike rides this weekend... Yes, it's finally spring. My next huge tasks are to clean up the deck (whose peeling paint makes our house look like a hovel), hang our ski-lift-chair swing, and SERIOUSLY clean out the garage and workshop. Then get a new boiler, and start saving to replace the rotting windows in Caroline's room (well, that has to happen before next winter, anyway). And GET ON THE BIKE.

I'll say it here so I can be held to it, though it's ambitious: my goal for the summer is to summit Rabbit Ears Pass on the bike. Which means, I need to actually RIDE my bike this year. More bike commuting, more rides at lunch, etc. And after this weekend, I'm ready to get going. Well, all of me except my butt, at this point. I think I mentioned above that it is SORE.

So Friday I skipped out of work at one to pick up a bike I had rented, pack our camping stuff (the Audi was REALLY packed down) and head out to Fruita for our camping/MTB trip.

I have just spent the last 20 minutes or so looking for videos or pictures of the trails I went on (D and I only rode together once, on Sunday - on Rustler's Loop). I didn't take a single picture while riding (too busy, umm, riding), but we do have some from camping and a little extracurricular activity in the Audi. Our friend Scott has some pictures of me on the trails which we'll get posted shortly.

Saturday morning, the girls went out for a ride (about an hour and a half or so) while the guys watched the kids, then we swapped and the guys and I rode for a couple hours. Then it rained and rained and rained (of course - we were camping, after all).

But had a GREAT time and we're both really glad we made the trip out there. A different kind of valley than we're used to here in Steamboat, Fruita (and Grand Junction to the East) was, I assume, carved out by the Colorado River (which was just a short 150-foot drop below us on the Rustler's Loop trail). We live in a pretty awesome state.

Anyway, on Saturday I hit the Kessel Run (TOTALLY did it in less than 12 parsecs), Prime Cut and Joe's Ridge.
Looking at the stats it doesn't seem that impressive, but for my first ride of the year (and really only second MTB adventure), it was just at (or above) my limit.

Overall a great, great weekend.

After we get some of our pictures posted, I'll have Dana post as well.

Lincoln Park Zoo!!!

2009-04-27T22:08:00.003-06:00

Here's a little photo of C and Daddy at the Lincoln Park Zoo during our recent trek to Chicago. I think Caroline liked it-there were a couple good "ooooh!"s in the monkey building, and anything that looked vaguely like a dog got a loud "DOGGIE!!!". Everything else got a "N Dis?"

Life is a goin'. I'm a little scared to go to work tomorrow with this whole swiney-flu thing going on. Oh well. At least I get to be at the new Hayden office, which is so, so nice.

We booked our tickets today for Mark's cousin Kelly's wedding in San Fran in mid-June. I'm pretty proud of ourselves, because we even bought them their wedding present today, too. We got so many wedding invites last year, there was a lot of, "Did we send the reply back?" or "Did we send them a gift yet?". I even wrote on the invite "gift sent 4/27". How's that for organization?

I'm pretty excited about this wedding for a few reasons. First, it'll be nice to get out of town for a few days (Thursday-Sunday) because my partner Ron leaves for Italy tomorrow, gone for the next two months, which means I'm on call 1:2 for the next long times. By June, I'll need a little break. Second, I'll have finished running the Steamboat Marathon on June 7th, so I don't have to worry about trying to find time to get my long run in that weekend. Third, looks like we'll be able to meet up with my bro and his family while we're there, so they can finally meet Caroline, which is pretty awesome. Fourth, hopefully we'll also have a chance to meet up at some point with our friends Bittoo and Ursula, who we haven't seen since our wedding, and fifth, any Fitz wedding is a GUARANTEED good time. So I'm pumped.

Things to look forward to until then: We're going camping in Fruita this weekend with some friends, and Mark even rented a pretty sweet Moots so that we can each take our turns on the trails. I finally got my Xmas bonus (hooray!) and got a pretty nice Santa Cruz Blur XC, so I'm sure we'll have some good times. Then my mom is coming at the beginning of June--we had given her a plane ticket out to Steamboat as an Xmas present, and it'll be fun to have her out here for a week to spend time with C and cheer me on in the marathon!

I have a feeling this will probably be my last marathon for a while. I haven't done one since the Fargo Marathon in 2006 (moving, starting a new job, and having a baby will do that to a gal) but started to get the marathon itch again last fall. I'm excited to do the Steamboat Marathon, just because I live here, I know it's beautiful, and it'll be a fun day, but man, it's been brutal trying to train for this thing over the past month or so. I was doing great until I got sick after my 12 mile long run weekend, and for the next 3 weeks, maybe got a few runs in total. It's been a little rough trying to get back into the program, and with Ron leaving for Italy, finding time to get those runs in during the week, plus being a mom and a wife, is just a really tough thing. I would never have been able to do this without Mark's support, but after this marathon, I think I'm moving to half marathons until we're done having kids and they are in elementary school. It's just been hard. And I'm very thankful for our treadmill.

Been so busy/sick, I can't even give you an update on my latest reads. I tried to read Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman, but I was totally lost in the depth of his hair metal knowledge by page 100 that I got bored and stopped reading. I've started Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf by Bill Murray (mostly) and it's pretty good, as well as an intro book on mountain biking and bike maintenance. Man, our library here is so awesome.

OK, I need to get to bed. I have a 7 AM meeting at the hopspital before driving to Hayden. Hope all is well with everyone....

What, me post?

2009-04-20T19:37:00.002-06:00

Here's a picture of Mark and me on Opening Day at Wrigley, me wearing sunglasses in a vain hope for some sunshine. I didn't get any. The game was delayed an hour or two, and had sheets of mist the whole time. I couldn't believe they played the whole 9 innings--Mark and I kept expecting them to call it after the 5th. We were completely drenched by the 4th inning, but thanks to a number of beers and seats THREE rows behind the Cubs dugout (thanks Jim!), the rain didn't seem to matter much. We had an absolute blast.

So yeah, our trip back to Chicago/Cincinnati was way good times, despite me having a nasty cold to start the week, and some nasty GI issues to finish it up. But Caroline got to meet both of her great-grandmothers, we had some good times with family and friends, and I even pounded out a 15 miler along the Ohio river. That's right. I'm so hard core.

So now we're still trying to get back into the swing of things at home--Mark's back to work for the first time in 2 weeks, and I'm getting slammed with one of my partners and our PA out on vacation this week. But we finally hired an office manager (with an MBA and everything!) who is going to start next week, which will make my life considerably easier. Woo-hoo!

Caroline is getting so big so fast--17 months old today! New words now almost daily, and way into defiance mode. Good thing she's so darn cute.

OK, my husband is requesting my presence for an after after now that the baby is put to bed. I'll blog more later. Can't say how much later.

BOOKS!

2009-02-26T21:54:00.004-07:00

Seriously, how cute is this?

So Mark told me I had to blog more, especially since I ended my two week dalliance with Facebook, and don't regret that decision in the least. Still working on the blog more part.

So I figured I'd talk about what books I've been reading, so that you all will get bored and forget that I don't blog very often. Let me know how it works.

I have been a huge Barnes and Noble freak since college, since that was the best place to go to get away from my apartment and spend a whole day studying and reading and not needing to talk to anyone. Mark and I would still make occasional bookstore trips together, although admittedly they became less frequent once we moved to Colorado. Then after C was born, I was way too tired to think about reading.

So then C got big enough, and a new library was built, so we figured we'd check out the kids library section--which is AWESOME. She loves going there--stares at the fishies, pulls all the books off the shelves (but since they are mostly cardboard books in baskets she can grab, no big deal), jumps on the beanbags, and runs around the storytime room. It's fantastic. So then Mark and I actually started using the library card we got over 2 years ago.

Libraries are so fantastic. I realized it is even more fantastic that we are using it once Mark told me how much we are paying for it through our property taxes. Considering how much money we used to spend on books, we'll see how much it pays off.

The good news is that in the past 3 months, I have read 7 library books, plus two extra PostSecret books (I don't feel bad about checking these out from the library since I gave one as a gift). From my calculations, I have to read at least another 5 books to make sure I am getting my money back from my taxes. As I already have another 2 checked out, I'm pretty certain I'll be able to reach this goal. If you count in the books Mark has checked out and read, we break even, and from here on out, the library is ALL OURS.

Here's my list of books I have read since the beginning of December:

Complications by Atul Gawande
Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
What I Think About When I Think About Running by Haruki Murakami
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
College Girl by Patricia Weitz
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

PLUS the two PostSecret books
PLUS The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty (but that one was borrowed from Ann).

I rule.

I'm trying to think which ones I liked the most. I liked Complications because he's pretty straight on about some of the crap that goes through a doctor's brain sometimes. I liked Downtown Owl, but only because the author busts out some wicked 80's Fargo, ND references that only a local would get, and I appreciate that. The running book-meh. Flowers for Algernon was good, better than the last time I read it, in 8th grade HONORS ENGLISH (hi Mr. Kolstad), College Girl and Beat the Reaper I read about in The Week, and neither one was as good as advertised. Mark was the one who checked out Childhood's End, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and makes me want to read more Arthur C. Clarke. The PostSecret books, of course, were fantastic, and Memory of Running, I think I read it in just a few days because it was just such a great story.

So there you go. Tubby D's Book Club.

The two books I have checked out are Better, Atul Gawande's follow-up to Complications, and The Survivor's Club, by Ben Sherwood, which I plan to read on the plane out to my medical conference in Napa in a few weeks so people will think I'm levelheaded. Suckers.

OK. Still reading? Sweet. I'm going to do some dishes and go to bed. Oh. And maybe read a little.

Pics!

2009-02-22T16:57:00.002-07:00

I know it's been a long time since we've updated. Nothing huge going on, just life keeping us busy! I promise we'll try to update soon.

BUT, here's a bunch of recent pictures!

New Caroline video

2009-01-31T21:10:00.001-07:00

Nothing new to report, just a new video. YouTube nailed it AS IT WAS UPLOADED as containing copywritten material (the background song), so now I'm using Vimeo!

Caroline the showoff from Mark Fitz on Vimeo.

Updates, etc.

2009-01-15T12:15:00.002-07:00

So after not having to snowblow for the LAST TWO DAYS, I'm feeling well rested and finally a little relaxed (sorry for the woe-is-me stress post last time around).

Yesterday, went to the dentist and got a thumbs up (yay), and they removed a kind of permanent retainer that has been glued to my lower teeth for probably about 15 years, that some old dentist had clearly forgotten about and my dentists since didn't want to mess with.

After the dentist, I took a drive out to Hayden to check out the property that we bought (with Dana's business partners) to see how the remodel is going (they're opening a satellite clinic to better serve the surrounding areas). It's looking really good.

The space is a building from 1914 that had been a deli, so needless to say, a lot of work had to be done to get it turned into a medical office. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, maybe I'll try to get out there again soon. Anyway, they're due to open in March(?), which is pretty exciting. Right now Dana drives out to neighboring Craig, CO (also known as CRAIG, AMERICA) where they rent space, so having their own space about 20 minutes closer to Steamboat will be a welcome change for everyone. Except, well, the patients in Craig, I suppose. But it's better than their having to drive to Steamboat!

Anyway, not much else to report on. The treadmill is still getting used(!!), but I need to work out a schedule so I get on more often during the week.

Oh, and Caroline is walking. I took a short, crappy video because my parents NEEDED to see it - I'll try to get better stuff up soon. I don't have a video of her saying "NO" yet. But that should be easy enough to make happen, unfortunately.

That's it!

Yowza

2009-01-07T13:32:00.002-07:00

Whoa.

It's been a little rough the last couple days. Without even mentioning the feet of snow we've received, Dana's been on call a lot and Caroline has been a little sick. Late nights (D on call) and early mornings (snowblowing, taking the kid to daycare, rounding on patients in the hospital) have made for some ragged parents.

We are working hard at putting together a pretty strict budget, we're both trying to work out more and cook at home more, all while trying to recover from the holidays. Today I learned that the post office intentionally destroyed a package for us (because we don't have local delivery, and it was sent to our physical address via a method with no return-to-sender).

Last night I accidentally wiped out a couple months of pictures and music (and almost ALL of our pictures and music), while trying to be responsible and back it all up! Though no fault of my own (a pretty major software defect), I still beat myself up for it, and am looking for a way to fix things.

Not to mention our house is kind of a mess, with us in a 'half-cleaned-up-from-Christmas' mode, and the office in disarray due to the addition of a treadmill in there.

Then there's work! But don't get me started. :)

Anyway, just a little ragged, trying to do too many things at once, etc etc. (and no vacation coming until April!)

OK, complaint session over. Back to our regularly scheduled blog.

New Year's mischief

2009-01-02T18:48:00.002-07:00

From the Steamboat Pilot:

Steamboat Springs — An unidentified Oak Creek man who spent 18 hours in the snow overnight through the New Year’s holiday survived, suffering only severe hypothermia, fire officials said Thursday.

The 44-year-old man apparently left his house in the 100 block of Virginia Street at about 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve to feed horses, Oak Creek Fire Protection District Chief Chuck Wisecup said Thursday. The man’s horses are on adjacent land just outside town limits, Wisecup said.

The man was intoxicated and never made it back to the house Wednesday night and was found frozen but alert and conscious in the snow on his property at about noon Thursday, Wisecup said.

The man was transported via ambulance to Yampa Valley Medical Center and did not appear to have any other injuries.

“All we could tell is, he had severe hypothermia,” Wisecup said. “He didn’t have any indications of frostbite, but sometimes you can’t tell until they get warmed up.”

In Steamboat Springs, New Year’s Eve was “pretty uneventful,” Steamboat Springs Police Sgt. Gerard Geis said Thursday. No bar fights or serious problems among revelers were reported.

“There was obviously a whole lot of people in the bars, but everyone behaved, and we didn’t have any of the mischief we might have expected,” Geis said. “Having it fall midweek, I think, helped.”

“We chased some guy dressed up like a bumblebee around and took him home to his mom. That was about it,” Geis said. “Really, people were well behaved last night.”

Well, beats Aspen.

Game On.

2009-01-01T19:32:00.003-07:00

So.

The makin' babies thing is currently on hiatus for the next 6 months or so for a number of very boring, adult responsibility reasons. The good thing about this is that it frees up my year to do some other notable things in my life.

Here's a picture of me one of the times I ran the Chicago Marathon and trounced Hutch with my mediocre times. I haven't done a marathon since spring of 2006, when Hutch and I ran the renowned Fargo Marathon. Which, by the way, was actually really well organized and was a super-fun time. Regardless, in the midst of moving to Colorado, havin' a kid, and various shin-digs, I have, shall we say, let myself go.

So my New Year's Resolution (or one of them) is to run the Steamboat Marathon, which I've wanted to do for the last couple years, but always had an excuse not to. And I just officially signed up. This was the main reason for buying the treadmill--since I'm on call and glued to a cell phone for 1/3 of my life, trying to get runs in is pretty difficult, since, well, running with a cell phone outside really sucks. The rec center in town has a strict no cell-phone policy, so working out on the treadmills there was not an option either, and let's not forget that often my free time to run is when C is asleep for naps or for the night, which does not allow for getting outside for a run. Hence the treadmill--couldn't do this without it. And to be honest, even with a treadmill, couldn't do this without Mark agreeing to help, since some of those weekend long runs can take 3 hours or so, which will give him some good Daddy time with C.

The other thing is just that running has always been my biggest and best stress reliever, and not being able to do it when on call has been frustrating. No more excuses, and Lord knows I could use a major stress reliever with all the craziness of my job.

So there you go--if anyone wants to come and cheer me on, the run is June 7th, and Mark may even run the 10K. We'll see about that.

Wish me luck! Training is no easy thing--I still need to build up my base more (I'll do anything from 0-12 miles in a week lately), and the official training schedule starts the first week in February. At least my cross-training can be on skate-skis, or hey, maybe even snowboarding on the mountain, right?

Uppers

2008-12-30T22:42:00.006-07:00

Last post was too much of a bummer. So I deleted it. My point: I'm burned out with work.

So here's a cutie pic of me and C waiting in line for Santa. She can always cheer me up. (Mark's not too shabby at that, either).

Merry Christmas to Dana!

2008-12-22T10:25:00.002-07:00

Santa visited our family on Friday night so we had our Steamboat Christmas this year on the 20th (Caroline's 13-month bday, as it happens).

Though Dana was on call and spent the morning in the hospital, it was a great day. Caroline loves the toys she got from Santa and Granimal and pop-pop (especially the train), and my and D's shoulders hurt from her destroying me in Wii Boxing (friend code 8106 4239 6461 8358).

Dana has been talking about a treadmill for a while (and wants to train for the Steamboat Marathon this year), so we dug into savings and made it a Christmas miracle. Since I went to all that effort to build us a nice office in the house and it's been unused since I started work here a year ago, we've decided to turn it into our home gym (the trainer is already set up in there) - the treadmill is the latest (and last large) piece of that puzzle. It'll be crowded, but how much room do you really need to run in place? :)

We leave for Fargo Tuesday afternoon, and we're due for about a foot of snow between now and then, so we'll see what happens.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Have a great holiday and enjoy some downtime with your families. See you on the flipside!

(oh, and the iPhone is totally sweet, by the way). I have purchased one app - Bloom - and downloaded a ton of other freebies. Brian Eno is the man.

Merry XMas to me

2008-12-12T08:56:00.003-07:00

So a couple weeks ago now, I totally smashed my stupid Motorola phone and the screen shattered into many useless bits. Three days later, my iPod stopped working.

My new iPhone should be here Monday. Yay!

Note: title should read "Merry FMas to me"

[guilty?] pleasure

2008-12-09T20:21:00.003-07:00

I try to get to PostSecret every week, but often forget. It's a guilty pleasure that I'm sure I've mentioned on the blog before, but never dedicated a post to. It fascinates me, baffles me, makes me happy and makes me hurt. It's pretty awesome. Anyway, I'm sure most, if not all, of our readers have seen it, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

My secret is: I've never submitted a secret.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2008-11-27T13:51:00.002-07:00

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! We are celebrating this Thanksgiving by giving thanks for employment--I'm on call and Mark has to work all day (today is the mountain's opening day). In light of what more than one friend is going through (hang in there guys!), we can't complain at all.

Mark's parent's (Granimal and PopPop) left here a couple days ago after a wonderful visit. We celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend, and now that we've finally cleared the leftovers out of the fridge, we'll be going to my partner's for dinner with her family. Should be fun--I'll need to swing by the hospital quick once Mark gets home from work, but hopefully it shouldn't take too long.

This is a picture of us on a short hike with Granimal and PopPop up on Buffalo Pass (Buff Pass to the locals). Caroline really likes her backpack--we've only been taking her on short trips so far so she can get used to it, but she was easily in it for 20-30 minutes on this hike. I'm hoping to do some snowshoeing with her this winter.

Let's see--trying to think what else is going on. C's been sick with a couple colds recently, and was kind enough to share with me. I've been dealing easily with a mild one for the past week or so, and on Tuesday must've caught something new as I was completely blown over--spent most of Tuesday in bed, and as soon as I could, left work so I could get back to bed again yesterday. Feeling a little better today, but pretty happy to be able, for the most part, to lay low.

Mark put some new pictures up on Picasa, and there's pretty fun video of C eating her birthday cake on YouTube. Today she's been standing on her own a lot, and once tried to take a step, but fell right down and started crawling. We'll count it as a half-step.

OK, speaking of bed, I'm going to get a short nap in while C is still sleeping. Happy Turkey Day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2008-11-20T09:34:00.002-07:00

Today, Caroline turns one!

It's hard to believe she's already one.

Latest stats (I'm sure D will comment with added information):
6 teeth (four top, two bottom)
Favorite words: "Books" and "Doggie" (with little 'woof woof' sounds following)
Favorite parent: Dana, without a doubt. But I get some good hugs every now and then.
Signs: "All done" and "bye bye", which end up looking the same.
Loves to dance (which is more like bouncing up and down).
JUST figured out how to make her little leapfrog ("Lily") sing. This will get old quick.
Extra-special note for TK: Her third favorite thing to say is: "Boodgie-boodgie". We don't have her holding her ear and scratching yet, though.
Special note for Lauren and Roy: She now TRIES to say "Buzzy bee", but it ends up sounding like "Boodgie-boodgie". But she's trying! And she's been able to pull the cord and make it buzz for like three months now.
Basically sleeping 12 hours straight every night. Which is AWESOME.

My parents (grandpa/"paw-paw"? and "Granimal") are coming today for her birthday and an early Thanksgiving. We'll get video of her eating cake, which will probably be on Sunday. Our trusty Canon is finally dying, so hopefully Santa brings us a new point-and-shoot for XMas. Maybe next year if I'm good I'll ask for a DSLR finally.

It's going to be a pretty packed weekend with a snowshoe tomorrow, surely grandpa and me working on the house Saturday, birthday gathering/celebration Sunday, and "Thanksgiving" on Monday, but we'll try to get an update in...

MRI (updated, again)

2008-11-14T13:11:00.006-07:00

No update yet! But I have someone on the inside keeping an eye on things for me. When the radiologist has a reading of it, we'll let you know! (I'm not expecting anything earth-shattering).

Also, I asked for a CD on my way out. Here's a little screencap for your enjoyment.

The little dingus on top of my foot in the lower middle frame is a little tracking thing they taped on my foot for reference.

UPDATE: Apparently an "acute stress reaction", I've been told over the phone by my hospital spy. I'll post the text of the tech's diagnosis when I get it over email.

(basically, this means that it's behaving like a stress fracture when there is no actual stress fracture). My body is AMAZING. Maybe my Level 2 mutant power is to feel pain as if I've been injured when there is no actual injury.

UPDATE 2: Here's the complete text. Still haven't spoken to the doc yet, though.

EXAMINATION: MRI OF THE LEFT FOOT, 11/14/2008.

HISTORY: One month forefoot pain.

TECHNIQUE: Multisequence imaging techniques employed in the sagittal, axial and coronal planes.

FINDINGS: A vitamin E capsule is seen on the dorsum of the foot (dorsal to the third metatarsal). There is ill-defined marrow edema and cortical irregularity involving the base of the shaft of
the second and third metatarsals. The clearly defined fracture lines are not identified. There is no subluxation or overt disruption of the Lisfranc ligament. There are no fluid collections or
joint effusions. There is significant edema in the pericortical soft tissues along the proximal shaft of the second and third metatarsals.

No other significant abnormalities detected.

IMPRESSION: Ill-defined marrow edema proximal shaft second and third metatarsals associated with some cortical discontinuity along the lateral aspect of the second and medial aspect of the third
metatarsal. There is significant pericortical edema in the soft tissues around these two bones. The findings are most consistent with a stress reaction with no distinct fracture identified.

Winter is here!

2008-11-12T08:34:00.002-07:00

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM MST FRIDAY

I get weather reports every day in my work email (I work for a ski mountain, remember?), and seeing notices like this, while it means more work for me (shoveling, snowblowing, etc) also means good things for my work. Apparently in hard economic times, mountains aren't really hurt as long as there's good snow. So here's hoping for another 40-foot year. We're off to a better start, for sure! We started snowmaking last week (miles of new lines were installed off season), and though the few inches of snow we've had in the valley is mostly melting off, it's sticking on the mountain. Last year, our first big snow didn't come until the day after C was born, and we put off opening by a week - then had a record-breaking year. People are expecting another good snow year this year - I guess we'll see.

In other news, the laundry room walls are patched and primed - hopefully I'll be able to get at least one coat of paint on before the weekend (though that's not looking terribly likely, since I don't have a color picked out yet). We had a minor scare with the washer (small leak due to excessive shaking during the spin cycle) that I rectified last night, but it forced me to deal with the fact that our machines will need replacing in the next year or so (after last year's dryer failure).

Grandpa and Granimal visit next week for C's one year bday, and her present should arrive today (we got a very nice new hiking backpack, as she doesn't really fit in the bjorn anymore - especially not with winter clothes on). We decided this would really be all we get her for her birthday and Christmas this year, as (A) it's wicked expensive, and (B) we're told that at 1, kids are more interested in ripping the paper than the gifts themselves. We'll wrap up a couple books she hasn't seen yet (she loves her some books!) and I'm sure there will be a deluge of toys from relatives, especially with a trip to Fargo on the books.

Other than that, not much is happening. Oh yeah, except for the fact that I'm getting an MRI sometime in the next week (they're going to call me back when they've set up a time). Long story short, my foot has been bothering me for about three weeks now (to the point where people are used to seeing me limp around). I finally gave in and went to see a local orthopod, and he was as baffled as Dana is with my condition. Apparently it presents like a stress fracture, but I haven't done anything that would give me a stress fracture. Unless I've been living with it forever and I'm just so tough I never noticed until Caroline brought out my softer side.

So he said we could wait and see, or get an MRI. I think it bugged him that he didn't know exactly what was going on (very Type-A, this guy), and he wants to figure out what the heck is up. So into the MRI I go. Luckily, they don't have to irradiate me (*ahem* sorry, they prefer to use the word "contrast"), so that's a bonus.

Last little bit (I realize this is reading like a novel): Dana and I instituted a "no TV night" last night - I think it will be Tuesdays from now on - because we watch way too much TV. A lot was accomplished! I got some grocery shopping done (usually do that on the weekend), fixed the washer, fixed the printer, and taught Dana - a little too late - how to use the wood stove. (It kept going out when she closed the door. Because she didn't open the vent. Thank god there's no flue, she would have smoked us out!) D got some work done for a presentation she's giving to SSWSC today, and we ate fishsticks. I didn't get as much reading done as I had hoped, but it was a more productive evening than I had expected, so that was a bonus. Maybe in the future we'll be able to extend to two-nights as non-TV nights. (it really is sad how much TV we watch).

THAT IS ALL! Feel free to go back about your lives.

Beautiful Day

2008-11-11T10:06:00.003-07:00

Friends of Mark's P's gave Caroline some scrubs embroidered with her name on them--they are super cute, but we usually have to put some girlie pants on her with them, just because people think she's a boy otherwise. But they are pretty cute!!

Gorgeous day in Steamboat today--a light snow is falling, but the temp is probably right around 30, so it's super warm. I just went on a 4 mile run up on one of my favorite trails, which is about a half mile from our house. It's beautiful up there--you'd think you were in the middle of a forest on that trail. But then again, I guess you probably are.

Things are good here--Mark's trying to get a bit more done on the house before his parents come to visit next week. I'm just so ecstatic that we have a babygate now, anything else he does is just super bonus. He's been patching the holes in the wall in the laundry room, and just finished priming it last night. Only problem is that now the laundry machine is leaking water on the floor, so no laundry for me today on my day off!

C is fantastic as always, set to turn one year old next week! She's getting pretty good at giving hugs and kisses now (when she wants to, of course), knows the sign for "all done", and almost has those front two teeth in. She was really off on Sunday--kinda crabby and whiney, so Mark had some quiet time with her while I was rounding at the hospital. Apparently she loved watching an old Muppet Show with Daddy (the one with Candace Bergen, if you were wondering). She's a pretty fun kid.

OK, I need to shower quick and meet Mark for lunch.

Baby's in the Tank for Obama!

2008-11-05T21:26:00.003-07:00

I cried tears of joy last night. Did you?

Amazing. Historic. As one CNN commentator last night said "America's finally grown up". My comment today: "seriously Homes, don't eff this up".

(I don't think he will.)

If you need a good dose of liberal political blogging, and the funnest blog comments EVAR, check out: www.wonkette.com

Let me leave you with this thought, courtesy of my personal political genius, my hubbin':

Can you imagine telling Cubs fans in 1908 that the U.S. would see a black president before the Cubs would win another World Series? They'd think you were completely insane!

Amen.

Tip: How to vote!

2008-11-04T16:44:00.001-07:00

VOTE McCain!

:)

BREAKING election news!

2008-11-04T14:54:00.001-07:00

Aliens in the tank for McCain!

Family Sideways, best Family News Team EVAR

2008-11-04T08:25:00.001-07:00

for all your Colorado election coverage!

Election Schmelection

2008-11-04T06:52:00.001-07:00

From the National Weather Service:

(HOORAY for early voting!!)

WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 3 AM MST THURSDAY...

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 3 AM MST THURSDAY.

A STRONG WINTER STORM WILL BRING 5 TO 10 INCHES OF SNOW... WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE... TO THE UPPER YAMPA RIVER BASIN. EXPECT SOUTHWEST WINDS TO INCREASE TO 10 TO 15 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 25 MPH CREATING WIDESPREAD AREAS OF BELONG AND DRIFTING SNOW. WINDS WILL SHIFT TO THE WEST AND DECREASE LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING WITH STRONG WINDS POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T18:44:00.000-06:00

(it's a trap!)

Why I'm not blogging more often

2008-10-29T16:32:00.002-06:00

Well, becuause I have a kid who requires my attention, you insensitive clod.

Also, because I have lots to do on the house still, and my parents coming for Thanksgiving/C's ONE-YEAR-FREAKING-BIRTHDAY is serving as a fine motivator.

In the last week or so, I have:

finished the latch for the baby gate

purchased and mounted our new TV (we finally upgraded, but no pics since the mount isn't *quite* level yet)

started to finish the flooring in the hallway, which was dependent on the table saw I got on my last trip to Home Despot

replaced switches and outlets all over the house (and fixing the flickering light in the kitcheng problem)

installed some shelves in C's room

re-organized and cleaned the garage

sold shit on Craigslist

et cetera

But it's the work D and I have on our lists in the next several weeks that will really make some noticable improvements:

Hook the monitor we WERE using as a TV back up to the computer

get that monitor working again (it won't, dangnabit)

finish cleaning and re-organizing the office

rake the damn lawn again

finish cleaning out the garage so we can get a car in there before we get another 40' of snow

make homemade deep-dish Chicago-style for election night

finish flooring the hall closets, at which point I will be DONE FOREVER WITH [installing] WOOD FLOORS

patch and paint the laundry room walls/ceiling

patch and re-paint the wall on which our new TV is hanging

teach Caroline algebra

finish with the switches and outlet wiring

install our double-doors in the bedroom and office, finally, for cripes sake

et cetera

And that doesn't even include watching football or election-night coverage!

Anyway, I was browsing through some old posts and once again realized how prolific we used to be. I guess babies just suck all the will out of you... We'll try to update more often.

Here's a funny picture for your troubles:

Awesome

2008-10-28T10:42:00.002-06:00

No post, just this funny picture which makes me happy. (wait for it to load completely)

So did my wife!

2008-10-23T14:29:00.000-06:00

First Snow!

2008-10-22T08:25:00.002-06:00

Forgive the crappy cell phone pic. Caroline was in awe of the white everywhere (at home we got a little less than an inch).

Books!

2008-10-17T09:52:00.001-06:00

Dana had to be at the hospital today super-duper early, so I was on dad duty for most of the morning (a task we generally switch off at in the mornings).

After getting Caroline dressed today, she and I were sitting on her chair so I could button her shirt and put her socks on. Just prior to this, while we were still on the chaning table she kept pointing to the shelves on her wall and saying "Bup! Bup!".

So we get to the chair and she does her twisty squirm-worm wriggling thing and is pointing up at the shelves again, and keeps saying "Bup! Bup!". So I say, "Books... books". She stops for a second, tries to say it and can't (something like "Bups" comes out instead), so I say "books" again. She stops, points up, and says: "BOOKS"!!!!!!!!!!

I totally freaked out and gave her huge hugs and kisses.

I told our daycare girl, Kristen, when I dropped Caroline off. She of course thought it was awesome, and pulled like a dozen books off the shelves. When I was walking out the door, Kristen kept saying "Books! Books!".

SO FREAKING CUTE.

As far as I'm concerned, this is her first 'official' word. While Dana was in Chicago (before Dave and Keri's wedding), before I got there Caroline apparently said - and my dad will vouch for this - "Obama". And while I don't doubt it (we listen to NPR a LOT, and my dad had just said "Obamarama"), I think it was a mimicry thing more than an intention thing. This morning, she was pointing at books saying "Books".

She's a genius!

F.I.N.I.S.H.E.D.

2008-10-11T18:49:00.002-06:00

kind of. Still need to put a latch on the gate (tomorrow) and some finish work around the balusters and stain for the baby gate frame, but no more cliff for Caroline to fall down! Yay!

(and I have to admit, the baby gate is not only sturdy, but turned out looking pretty good, too!)

Absolutely no comment needed

2008-10-06T09:02:00.000-06:00

Randoms

2008-10-01T15:55:00.003-06:00

So this post is cutting into my nap time, so I'm going to make it relatively short. Here are my random musings over the past few weeks.

I CAN'T WAIT for the VP debate tomorrow. SP is scary, and I'm fairly convinced I understand foreign policy more than she does. Not to mention I grew up RIGHT NEXT TO CANADA.

I'm so happy Dave and Keri are married--we had such a blast at their wedding last month. Their kids are going to be hilarious.

Seriously, my kid is adorable. She likes to dance when she hears the 5 second musical interludes between stories on NPR, which is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Ever.

I hate canker sores.

Work is very busy.

A lot of moms out there really need to chill out. Your kid is awesome. Don't sweat the small stuff.

I'm happy wearing sweaters again.

I'm probably going to need a scope on my knee soon. If Mark doesn't knock me up first.

I like being a small business owner.

Financial stuff confuses me.

My dad is doing great, started chemo, already ignoring instructions. God bless him--I love that guy.

At the end of a long work day, I have a very hard time listening.

I've had a nasty cold the past few days, and Mark has really stepped it up so that I can get more rest. Marrying well is the smartest move I have ever made. Bonus points for the fact I love him, too. :)

I am so lucky that Caroline has TWO sets of grandparents who love her so much.

Being a parent is so fantastic. Except when your kid likes to whine at 5:30 in the morning until you get up. Good thing for coffee.

Caroline sits just like Mark does. And for the record, Jim sits that way too.

I find it hilarious that I now consider "sleeping in" to be getting up at 7:30.

I don't mind doing laundry.

We're going to get a ridiculous large tv within the month, and I'm really looking forward to playing the video game Mark gave me for my birthday on it.

Wii Fit is an ingenious idea. And fun.

Plane tickets are really expensive.

We already have our Halloween costumes, and this is the first Halloween I'm actually looking forward to, instead of dreading and wondering what the hell are we going to be?

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition usually makes me teary.

Sarah Silverman says all the things I wish I had the cajones to say.

OK, naptime.

Blast from the past

2008-09-12T15:45:00.003-06:00

In honor of Ike's barreling down on Houston being all over the news, I did a search of this very blog for our updates from when we lived in Houston and Rita was widely believed to represent impending doom.

Other than the first post at this link (they appear chronologically backwards, latest first), many, many are from our experience of Rita. Scroll about halfway down and start reading upwards to relive that exciting part of our lives, pre-C.

It seems that back then I was much more witty. Marriage will do that to a guy - suck the wit right out of him.

Just kidding, hon. You only gave me gray hair.

I admit it...

2008-09-01T20:18:00.003-06:00

...I'm not ready to wake up *that much earlier* to start snowblowing. Or warming up the car before I leave for work, or shoveling, or bundling up. But it was rainy, windy and cloudy today, and I have spent a good portion of the evening hunting down the best snowboarding videos on YouTube. I'm getting ready for winter.

THIS year I'll get in shape and really kick butt up there... Really!

For your consideration:

..I have to do something here while D and C were able to enjoy a Cubs game today (in 85 degrees, while it was MAYBE 60 here), and are busy playing in Chicago with my family.

And I'll let Dana blog about Caroline's first word. You literally won't believe it. I didn't. But apparently she said it clear as day. (Enough of a teaser for you?)

In other news, the 'weight loss challenge' is over on Wednesday. I have a *feeling* I've won but only because Dave was handicapped with wedding stuff (and thus too much drinking) and Steve mentioned to Dave the other day that he's actually GAINED weight (though to his credit he has apparently been working out, and everyone knows that muscle weighs more than fat). I've done pretty well but have stayed at the same weight for over a week now. I plan on dehydrating myself with some wine tomorrow night (I was practicing for that particular effort this evening) before the 'official' weigh-in first thing Wednesday morning. And while I won't tell any of you what I weigh (a girl needs some secrets), I will announce my percentage loss - which is what the challenge is based on - after sharing the results with Dave and Steve Wednesday after my arrival.

August

2008-08-24T19:23:00.002-06:00

Well, here we are closing in on the end of August, so here I am with my monthly update.

Not much to say, really. The banister is ALMOST complete. I did a bunch of electrical work this weekend (including, but not limited to, installing our bedside wall lamps, which somehow make our bedroom look BIGGER).

Thursday, Dana and Caroline leave for Chicago, leaving me home to listen to loud movies (I installed those surround speakers I was going to sneak-install while Dana was out of town), play videogames, and drink myself to sleep every night (much like she will be doing, minus the movies and videogames, to be sure).

Right now, waiting for dinner to finish - chicken breasts in wine with mushrooms, thyme and garlic. Smells delish. Thanks, naked chef cookbook.

That's really all I got for ya.

Enjoying Braid on the 360 at the moment. I'm holding off on getting into Metal Gear Solid until the day sometime off in the future when we finally get an HDTV. But DirecTV is coming Friday to install our HD DVR and new dish (free!), so the day I HEAR our bonuses are coming in, that TV is getting ordered. I may not have the willpower to wait for a new receiver/amp - as I discovered late last night after digging behind the ceiling for surround sound cables I hid before we finished construction down there, the left surround channel on my old Yamaha (purchased used in 1995 or '96) doesn't work. I'm sure you care.

Caroline is awesome. Pulling herself up on furniture, cruising (a little) on the same, and generally being an adorable little pain in the butt. I want to go to the zoo with her and Dana when we're in Chicago.

And may I note, I can't believe Dave and Keri are about to get married (and am THRILLED about it), and feel terrible that I missed his bachelor party this weekend. Thank god Pablo is a twit. Or, is it.. has been tweeting? I'm not sure of the terminology.

Dinner is ready. Time to go!

Futbol, baby.

2008-08-21T22:25:00.003-06:00

OK, so I don't know how many of you guys know out there about my love for soccer. Started playing when I was 6, 4 years of varsity in high school, 3 state championships, yaddayaddayadda. After I blew out my knee at 16, my dreams of scholarships turned from sports to academics. I think things worked out fairly well, and God bless adult league soccer in a small town. Anyway....

I still like following the US Women's Team. Because a) did you know Mia Hamm and I are great buds? and b) you know you're getting old when your dreams turn into dreams for your children. But I digress.

We've been TiVo'ing the women's soccer games throughout the Olympics, and for almost all of the games, I couldn't help but notice on SI.com or CNN.com the result before I actually watched the game. But once the US Women got into the gold medal match, I spent all of today physically restraining myself from going to any website that might reveal the outcome, and staying away from any radio or TV broadcasts. Seriously--this morning when I went in to round on my patients at the hospital, the game was on in the breastfeeding room at the hospital. I think that's awesome, but I REALLY didn't want to know the score.

So I'm sure you've all heard about the US Women winning the gold. After the disappointment of the World Cup last year, redemption is pretty effing sweet. But I have to say, watching the medal ceremony chokes me up a bit and brings a little tear to my eye. I wish I could've been there. And the best part, the players singing the anthem. I've always wanted to be in the Olympics, since I was 9 years old watching them in LA in 84 (minus women's soccer then!). I know my time is past, but there still is that little hope that one of my kids one day might be able to stand on a podium and sing their national anthem at the top of their lungs. And even if they don't, they can watch the gold medal matches with me and hope for future. Congrats Team USA--it's been a fun Olympics watching you...

Summertime

2008-08-19T13:34:00.003-06:00

Here's a pic of my little baby girl playing in her froggy pool last month. We need to get her out in that a bit more--it's already starting to get pretty cold here at night, and the summer is definitely winding down.

Took Big C in for her 9 month check up today. She weighed 18 pounds, 4 ounces (41st percentile), was a little over 28 inches long (80th percentile) and I forget what her head was, but it was in the 80th percentile as well. She's pointing, clapping, waving, picking up food with a pincer grasp, crawling EVERYWHERE, pulling herself to stand, and just starting to cruise on furniture. Saying mama and dada, and sometimes I think she gets dada right. Sleeps 12 hours at night, takes a good 1-2 hour nap in the morning and usually a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. She loves Good Night Moon (especially pointing at the red balloon), her sock monkey Louis, and her First Laptop. Apparently we've been a bit too liberal with the carrots and sweet potatoes as my partner mentioned how she has a very slight orangy glow. Mark just told her we've been using spray tan. She's doing great with her sippy cups, and we're just starting to do more table food--she was all about an avocado last weekend, will take bits of bread from us, and is starting to eat puff and crackers and such. She's also in this big screeching phase, and we're trying to get her to babble instead, which sometimes works, and sometimes she'll just screech at the top of her lungs anyway. She gets very bored with her exersaucer very quickly these days, so it's tough to get a quick shower in since she'll just start screaming until you take her out of there. She loves being at daycare and around the other kids, which is fun to see.

I think that's about it for the Caroline update. The two of us leave next Thursday for Chicago, staying until the 7th. Mark isn't coming until about a week later because of work, so hopefully the flight will go smoothly with just the two of us. It's always nice having another set of hands around when traveling with a baby, so we'll see how this goes.

OK, today is my only day off until next Thursday when my vacation starts, so now that Big C is down for her nap, I believe it's time for mine!

New video of Caroline.

2008-08-02T18:08:00.003-06:00

FYI, this video comes with one of those warnings you see on TV before violent stuff happens. The following may not be suitable for all viewers. Discretion is advised.

(PS, it's OK to laugh).

Stairs and Tamales and Mark's posting, oh my!

2008-07-31T13:47:00.001-06:00

Finally! An entry!

The stairs are finished (except for a plank at the top landing that needs replacing and one more row at the very top which is waiting for that replacement. Maybe tonight?).

Dad arrives tonight for the week, and on our agenda is to install the banister and paint and tile the laundry room. I've been playing with different design ideas for adding cabinets in the laundry room as well, but we'll need to save a little more coin before we can kickstart that little project. Otherwise, there are little odd jobs around the house where dad can be put to work (now that I have a table saw I can finally put the final half row of flooring down the hallway, allowing me to floor the two closets finally as well). Mom's only condition is that dad is not allowed to work with electricity because 'it makes her nervous'. We'll see about that.

Also, the Steamboat Wine Festival is this weekend and we'll be attending an event tomorrow afternoon.

Last night was the third in our series of "Top Chef Steamboat" or "Iron Chef Steamboat". It was the pulled pork tamale challenge, and was I think our best effort yet. Both versions were in my very humble opinion VERY GOOD, but Gina ended up taking the crown this time around (which leaves the standings at two to one in my favor). I already sent out an email trying to plan the next challenge. Though I haven't decided what it will be yet (loser chooses), I'm leaning towards gourmet cheeseburgers.

Oh, and I made so much pulled pork (source: 6-lb pork shoulder) that I plan on making another two dozen tamales (tomorrow night?) and freezing them in two-packs as individual meals for later consumption. Oh, crud. I just realized I have to do it tonight, becuase I promised coworkers I'd bring some to work for them.. I guess that's better than having the pulled pork sit around for a while.. And I'll never be able to duplicate the recipe as I did it completely off-the-cuff and didn't keep good track of what I used.

I THINK it was something like the following:

6lb pork shoulder for 6 hours on low in slow cooker with: 2x Negra Modelo, about 1/2 cup tequila, and (real) Coca-cola to cover 4/5ths of the shoulder. One large rough-cut onion and three large garlic cloves chopped into chunks. Seasoned with cayenne pepper, cinnamon and ground cloves.

Drain the pork shoulder, reserving the juices and vegetables. Pull the pork and place back in slow cooker with vegetables and about 1/2 Cup of retained cooking juices. This is where I started to wing it...

Stir in:

about 1/3-1/2 molasses,
8oz can of diced green chiles,
16(ish?)oz can of tomatillos (diced),
dice half an 8oz can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce,
add entire contents of Pace Tequila Lime salsa,
one chopped tomato,
8oz can of tomato sauce
salt to taste.

I also added some (1/4 Cup, we'll say) of a very mild green salsa. Mix together well in your slow cooker and turn back on low to continue cooking for about two hours.

There are a number of different recipes I looked at to find out how to make the masa (corn-flour) and assemble the tamales, but this is what you reserved the cooking liquid for. Put the liquid in the fridge and let the fat separate, then skim before adding to your masa mixture. (Though I'm not sure why that is technically necessary, since the masa is made with LARD, of all things).

I really thought I would have Gina as I was convinced she wouldn't use lard to make her masa (which is how she failed the corn dog challenge - she baked her dogs instead of frying them up), but she suprised me and *did* use it. She put more effort into this one so I'm glad she won (and she needed the ego boost as well).

Next time, though, the challenge will be MINE! (again)

All Kinds of Stuff

2008-07-29T18:43:00.008-06:00

So Caroline loves mirrors and loves her Daddy, hence, the ultimate picture.

She has been absolutely adorable lately. It was a bit interesting--for a while there last week, she was pretty crabby--we couldn't really figure it out. Then one day, Mark noticed that she had a couple hairs wrapped really tightly around a couple of her toes. (No, it wasn't her own toe-hair, we'll see later if she inherited that from her mother). After remediating that situation, she's been back to her usual happy self.

Newest things--she now waves at everyone, which makes everyone smile at her, she just figured out clapping in the past few days, and tonight in the bathtub she started laughing hysterically when she realized she could splash water everywhere. It was awesome. I would have gotten the videocamera, but it would need the waterproof case as she was getting water all over the bathroom. She's just so interactive now, it's so much fun. She'll try to talk to you when you talk to her, she always will crawl right to you, and once she starts laughing, if you're laughing too, she'll just keep going. It's awesome.

OK, that's about it. Quick run down of recent events: Jim gets here Thursday (yea!). Iron Chef Challenge featuring Gina Wither and Mark Fitzgerald tomorrow, menu: pulled pork tamales. My soccer team has now won two games in a row. Record: 2-5. Signed our lives away at the bank, more in debt than I ever thought imaginable, but am officially a full owner in 2 separate businesses that will hopefully now allow me enough return on investment to go to part-time (read: no call) doctorin' when I'm 60. Uff-da. Miss Grey's Anatomy horribly. Craving tapas. Julie and Andrea are moving to Oklahoma. Next week. Signed up for Pediatric medical conference in Chicago last weekend in August, staying the following week, planning to not attend Dave and Keri's wedding hungover. My dad has surgery August 5th to remove (hopefully all) of his colon cancer. I think cancer sucks. Mark is working on the last 3 steps in our entryway as we speak, will hopefully have a bannister and baby gate up within the week. Bought a ton of supplies to paint and tile the laundry room while Jim is here. Lost 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks exercising more and drinking less (who knew?) No, not pregnant, but maybe soon????????

I'll leave you on that note. :)

ADDENDUM:
OK, maybe I won't leave you on that note. So here's the thing. I was looking for a run to do while I'm in Chicago because 1. I need something to train for 2. I miss running on the lakefront path and 3. I can always use another excuse to trash talk Hutch. I found this. I know a lot of you who read this blog knew Tim Butler, who passed away from lung cancer recently. Can't say I knew him well, but always enjoyed his company when we'd run into each other at parties, and he was an asset to our POS softball team back in the day (honestly, I don't remember ever winning a game). If anyone is interested in running with me, I think it's a nice way to remember him. If you didn't know him, then FYI--September 6th is my birthday, so it's a fun way to celebrate a bit with me before we rock it out at Dave and Keri's wedding. Either way, it will be a good day to celebrate life--however much we are given.

Just Chillin'

2008-07-21T12:34:00.004-06:00

So when my father-in-law (Hi Jim!) even mentions that the blog has been a big rusty lately, then I know it's finally time to post. So here goes.

I can hardly believe it's already mid-July. The summer is just flying by. We had a great time in NYC, here's a pic of Caroline relaxing in the hotel and figuring out what we should go see next.

Congrats, of course, to Jos and TK. It was a beautiful wedding.

So the big new thing in the Fitz household is the Weight Loss Challenge. Mark and I finally had the realization that post wedding and post baby, we've really let ourselves go. And that's putting it loosely (or tightly, if you're talking about pants these days). So we're on to lose weight, challenging Dave and Keri to see who can lose the most before their wedding. I don't think I'm officially in on this challenge, but screw it, I'm becoming a write-in. I think Steve is also in on this, but, well, you know how he is. I'm kind of excited about it--I finally got on a scale for the first time since being pregnant, and my goal is to lose the 8 pounds to get back to my prepregnancy weight (so Mark can knock me up again). Following baby #2, my goal is to get back to my wedding weight, which means losing 15 pounds. Both Mark and I really got out of the habit of regular exercise once Big C came along, so we're each making a concerted effort to be more active. And we're trying to drink less--that goal is a bit tougher than the exercise one, but I think once we get the beer we have in the fridge out of there, for me, it becomes a lot easier. Mark is really good about tracking his caloric intake each day online. I'm winging it, just trying to drink more water and make better food choices. We'll see how it goes.

What else? Big C is crawling EVERYWHERE now. We can hardly keep her contained these days. Mark's trying to figure out some time to finish the stairs and bannister, so that we can get a proper baby gate up. If we don't keep a close eye on her now, that kid can take quite a tumble. She's talking a ton, making more consonant sounds, too. Still working on mama and dada, although if we give an "ah", she'll usually say "ah" back. This then can go on for quite a while. She also loves her pink sippy cup, even though the amount of water she gets out of it is pretty minimal. And for some reason her sippy cup makes her want to talk more. Not sure why.

I borrowed my partner Sheila's mountain bike for the past month or so, and have been going on more and more rides. It's the best interval training ever, because when you're on a steep slope, if you don't pedal yer arse off, you lose momentum and then just fall over, usually onto some sharp rocks. On one of the trails here, falling over means going down a pretty steep cliff, at least 20 feet or so, into a creek. I went again this morning, and had a great time, despite being pretty worn out. I've been trying to throw some runs in there as well, and started playing soccer again, too. Mark's been riding his bike to work a lot more, which for the most part, has been quite successful. Except for that day when he grabbed some bike shorts off the drying rack when he was running late. He kept thinking, man, I must REALLY have gained a lot of weight--these shorts are so tight. Kudos to him for not busting out the seams on my WOMEN'S MEDIUM bike shorts he rode all the way to work. I'm sure the other commuters also appreciated this.

Looking forward to Jim coming out for a visit in a couple weeks--he and Mark are going to do some work on the house, which is always appreciated. And I'm planning on being back in Chicago for a week and a half at the end of August--through the first weekend in Sept. There's a medical conference downtown the last weekend in August, then I figured I'd just stick around until Dave and Keri's wedding. It'd be a good idea to take a little time off before the craziness of winter sets in. And Mark knocks me up again.

OK, off to shower and nap--

The best baby apparel EVER!

2008-07-07T21:48:00.003-06:00

If you have a baby, or know someone who has a baby, or want to have a baby someday, order something from Hound Dog Designs!

Disclosure - they don't sponsor this blog, but I did just place an order for the robot pattern, of course (with the "pink circles" pattern).

Oh, and I know who's behind it. But I would have made an order anyway. :)

DADDY POST!

2008-07-04T12:12:00.002-06:00

Yes, I finally got out from that huge rock that had been trapping me and am actually blogging! Wonder of wonders!

We just got back from the fourth of July parade and I decided I would put together a little video for my post. But it's still being pulled off the camera, so it's gonna take a while.

Later today we have a party to attend, but we'll be skipping out early since the baby goes to sleep so early (well, relatively).

We should have a great view of the fireworks from our deck this year, since our neighbor lost his enormous lodgepole pines to the pine beetle epidemic. A shame, kind of, because they provided great shade but now we have a great view of the mountain where the fireworks will be. Now that I think about it, I might wait for that footage to put this 4th video together.

Tomorrow morning as soon as D gets back from the hospital I'm driving to Home Despot, then we have ANOTHER party at 3ish. (Happy Birthday, Gina!).

Later folks!

Oh, also: we rode bikes to the parade today, and I got a new bracket to get Caroline's new trailer on my fixie. Which is very difficult. Keep pulling her (I picked her up from daycare in the trailer yesterday) and I'll get back in shape in no time flat!

Happy Fourth, everyone!!!

So BIG!

2008-06-30T18:58:00.003-06:00

I can hardly believe how big Caroline is getting. She's crawling now! Granted, not your full on hands and knees crawl, more army style using her arms and sorta kicking with her legs. But man, is it ever cute! She's also really starting to develop some badass separation anxiety--just flips out if I leave the room, where before she really didn't pay attention. So things, all in all, are much more challenging now then they were even a week ago. And Daddy has REALLY got to finish the stairs so we have a bannister and baby gate.

Poor Mark--he's been working his arse off lately, finishing up a big project for work before his deadline today. He was in the office pretty much all weekend, with the exception of Saturday night, was there until 1 in the morning yesterday, and still isn't home today. Gross. But at least this means he'll get to spend the 4th of July with us. Sounds like we'll take Caroline to the big parade downtown (in the bike trailer, of course) and then maybe do a family bike ride, and we're invited out to a friends for a small party. Should be fun. Except for the fact that I'm on call, which blows. Here's hoping other families are out having fun and not stressing over diaper rashes.

So I've been out mountain biking a couple times now, and man, am I BEAT UP! I borrowed my partner Sheila's bike for a while, and I'm having a good time with it, although a bit of a painful time at that. Just trying things out to see if I'll actually get use out of a new bike. I think we'll go for it, maybe at the end of the season when all the sales get revved up.

Hmmmm, what else? Getting excited for NYC, and Jos and TK's wedding. We leave next week, should be a fun trip, if a quick one. I think Mark keeps getting all pumped for doing this or that while we're in the city, but then realizes we're doing all of this with a 7 month old. She's pretty great toting around in the Baby Bjorn, but the kid does still need her two naps a day. It'll be interesting.

I'm going on a girls shopping trip to the outlet malls about 90 minutes from here tomorrow. I usually end up buying new clothes about twice a year, and since I can't wear my maternity stuff anymore and I'm still not quite fitting into my old stuff, I could use some new duds. But good lord, I do hate shopping.

Wow. The Kid must've been really tired--I put her down and she hasn't made a peep! There's usually at least a good 15-20 minutes of crying, and if I'm around, I'm usually in there at least one more time. Rock on.

OK, going to play some Jeopardy and then maybe finish off the rest of my thank you's from Princess Caroline's Tea Party. That was 6 weeks ago. I'm too busy.

Baptism

2008-06-17T21:16:00.003-06:00

So we had an absolute blast this past weekend with both sets of grandparents, Lauren, and even Mark's uncle and aunt from Denver. Caroline was fantastic for her baptism--never crying, even gave the priest a big ol' smile at one point when he stuck his face in hers. But most of the time she just yawned through the ceremony like the good Catholic she is. We officially got the debil out of her. Whew.

Mark's parents left today to head back to Chicago, and Lauren is on her way to New Zealand as we speak. Man, we're going to miss that kid. My parents drove back to Denver yesterday afternoon to catch their flight back to Fargo. It was just such a great weekend.

There are a few new pictures up on Picasaweb--I thought I had taken more with our camera, but I guess not. I know there are some awesome ones on our video camera, especially of Caroline and my dad, hopefully we'll get those up soon. I must have been taking a lot of pictures with other peoples' cameras I guess. Feel free to share!

I had such a crazy day today. Started with a 7 am meeting, full day, and had to lifeflight a kid to Denver. I was supposed to have a soccer game tonight, but I was just so drained I couldn't do it. Bidness meeting tomorrow night, super busy Thursday, back on call on Friday. I need to go to bed so bad. Maybe Mark can fill in a few more details. Mama's gots to gets to bed.

Single Mom

2008-06-06T21:53:00.006-06:00

Mark makes this same face when he wants more to eat.

So yeah, I'm Single Mom again this weekend, and it totally blows. Mark went back to Chicago for TK's bachelor party, which, although I know is important, had some spectacularly bad timing. I'm on call this weekend, meaning that if I get called in to work in the middle of the night, I have to get Caroline out of her crib, pack her up, take her to a friend's, leave her for however long, wake her back up to take her home, etc. And we had to find people to watch her for a couple hours each morning so I can round on my patients at the hospital. Thankfully, some friends pitched in and I think we're taken care of. If everyone can say a little prayer that I don't get called in to work tonight or tomorrow night, I'd greatly appreciate it (and I'm sure, so would Caroline).

And special thanks to Dave for allowing Mark to count TK's bachelor party as his as well. Seriously, you're helping us out a lot.

I also am trying to get some studying done for this recertification class I'm taking in Fort Collins (about a 3-4 hour drive west) on Monday. It's for PALS, or Pediatric Advanced Life Support, which I need to recert every two years. It's all the protocols for running a pediatric code, or when a kid's heart stops and you need to shock them, give meds, etc. Think ER. It's pretty morbid stuff, to be honest. If a kid goes into cardiac arrest and they are not either in the hospital or happen to do it in an ambulance, even if you give CPR, the outcome is extraordinarily poor. Hence the movement to get defibrillators placed at venues where lotsa people gather. These AED's are so easy to use and really are lifesavers.

Regardless, I still have to memorize a lot of crap in the next couple days. And they usually change things just enough from year to year to make it unable to just breeze through. Oh well.

MMMM. What else? I had fish and peas for dinner. It was fantastic.

We had our second and final baptism class this week. Again, a monumental waste of time; I believe even more so than the first class. I can understand the church wanting people to understand more about the symbolism and history behind baptizing, but seriously, can't I just read a pamphlet or something? The 30 year old video they made us watch was boring at best, creepy at worst. Word to the Catholic Church--you're not helping yourself any.

BUT--what I think the best part of the whole baptism--a great excuse to have family come in to Steamboat. My dad hasn't been to where I live in over 3 years, and he has never been to Steamboat, even though we are coming up on finishing our second year here. I'm super excited to have my parents and Mark's parents, as well as Mark's sister (Caroline's godmother) here on Thursday. Gonna be way good times. My dad told me tonight that the hotel they are staying at threw in a couple free passes up the gondola with their reservation. My dad thought that sounded great, even though he had NO IDEA what the gondola is. I think we've found our activity for Friday.

Did I mention I miss Mark?

If you haven't seen it yet, check out Karen's post from this week. Long, but one of the best ever. Effing Jamie Lee.

Caroline just let out a bloodcurdling yell from her room. And then fell right back to sleep. She must have been dreaming about having to watch that lame baptism video again.

Caroline is doing awesome, as always. Seriously, she is just the best little baby. I feel really spoiled, and am alternating between being super pumped that maybe our other kids will be this good, and dreading that our next is going to be quite the challenge. She's still not crawling, but we have moved on to the baby food meats, and she's way into chicken and turkey. She makes the most fantastic gagging/choking faces with beef, though. But to be honest, the baby food beef in a jar really doesn't taste that good. Bring on the apples and chicken!

Don't give me crap about not making my own baby food. I'm busy, people.

Big changes at the office these days, although since a lot of it is still in prelim stages, I can't really share too much. Business is booming, though, so all is well. I was reading a friend's blog the other day, and she is just finishing up her residency back in Chicago. For those of you who don't know, residency is the training period after medical school where you spend many, many nights working and maybe even getting a couple hours of sleep at the hospital, getting paid less per hour than minimum wage, and often doing 24-30 hours (or more) of working straight. Every fourth night. Sometimes without any sleep. Seriously, would you want a doctor who hasn't slept in 24 hours caring for your seriously sick/injured kid? This system is effed up.

Anyway, reading this blog brought back some fabulous crappy memories of my days at Rush, when I made less per hour than I did busing tables at Chi Chi's Mexican Restaurant in high school. Residency is like this horribly bad dream that I kinda still remember, but details are getting fuzzy now, as they rightly should. I don't know if I would ever want Caroline to be a doctor. You have to put up with so much crap when all you want to do is help people. And don't even get me started on the people who don't "want" or "need" help. (Or my personal favorites, the ones who ask for my scientific, well-researched advice, and then choose to ignore it completely, based on some crap they read on the Internets).

I'd almost rather have her get her MBA and find a nice creative way to help people, making more money, with less debt, and much less BS. I don't know. Then again, if she was way passionate about going to med school, I can't discourage that. But the med school/residency/fellowship process beats damn near all of the idealism and pretty much most of the humanism out of a person, so you really need to want it bad to do it. I'd have to make sure she did. It's pretty hard to be human when you haven't slept for 30 hours (or more--I once did a 36 hour stretch of work on no sleep and could barely talk by the end). Mark picked up the pieces more than once during that stretch.

OK, enough of the soapbox, so I should probably go to bed.

Did I mention I miss my husband? Take care of him, Boys....at the last bachelor party he just wanted to have a pleasant chat with the nice stripper lady, whose day job was working in porn movies. And he even had this chat while not partaking in her proffered services as a lap dancer (or so I'm told). I married a good one!

New Pics!

2008-06-04T10:54:00.004-06:00

Seriously. That girl can rock a dress.

So I just wanted to let everyone know we have new pics of Caroline up on Picasa. Enjoy.

I'm just procrastinating a little bit more before getting back to work. I have today off, but with Mark leaving for Chicago tomorrow, and then as soon as he gets back Sunday I have to drive to Fort Collins for a work thing Monday, it's all craziness. We're so excited for family coming in next week, but I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get the house ready. At least I did get the chance to call some guys to take away all the random debris/crap in our driveway from Mark's projects around the house. As soon as everyone leaves, we'll just start up the new pile!

We're also meeting with a guy from the bank about a loan so we can go more into debt (but for a no-brainer investment opportunity, so I guess that's OK, right?) this afternoon, followed by our second and final baptism class for Caroline. I hope we get to watch more of the AWESOME video we watched last week. Now if they would only have this class at a bar, it might actually be worth my time.

I did take Caroline to church last week in that pretty white dress from the pictures. She, of course, made friends with everyone around us in no time, and then fell completely asleep on me at the start of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. And then stayed completely out of it as I walked up for communion and everything. Even when she's asleep she's the most popular kid around.

OK, I need to get some studying done for this class in Fort Collins next week.

For JK

2008-05-25T18:56:00.001-06:00

Here's my favorite of our recent pictures. I'll get a new April/May album up on picasaweb soon.

Finally!

2008-05-23T18:59:00.004-06:00

So here's the long awaited post after way too long of an absence. Um, how cute is my kid?

Oh, so many things to say, so little time before dinner is ready. First off, congrats to the Gongola's--your wedding was spectacular and we had such a blast seeing everyone again. Hope your Arubaboner honeymoon was as great as it sounds.

We've been super busy--me at work since my partner is on maternity leave, and Mark with the house. He promised me he'd get the stairs and banister finished before the next round of company comes for Caroline's baptism on Father's Day. Mark also did some pretty sweet landscaping in the backyard, so it looks, well, much more polished. We're also pretty stoked because our neighbor is cutting down this huge evergreen tree this weekend in his yard that blocks our view of one of the mountains. The tree is dying, and we're looking forward to some sweet views from our dining room table.

Caroline is awesome as ever. She is SO CLOSE to crawling now. She'll grab with her arms, and rock her hips back and forth, but hasn't quite got the propulsion aspect yet. Give her a week. God help us. Damn. We need to buy a babygate.

She's eating a bunch more stuff these days, and we've got her on solids at lunch and dinner now. The big new thing is getting her to sleep through the night--about 6:30pm to 6 am. We've started to get more hard core about letting her cry it out when she wakes up at night, and I've stopped breastfeeding. She's doing really well with all of it. And she did GREAT on the plane again when we were in Chicago last weekend. Some of Granimal's friends threw a tea party for Princess Caroline at the country club. I have no pictures of this event, but Granimal sure does, and, well, I had a crown too. Caroline was so good for the whole party--almost 3 hours right during naptime. But she must have known she was going to have a lot of ladies around wanting to hold her because she took a whopper 3 hour nap that morning. And also spit up a ton of carrots all over her pretty dress. That's my girl.

OK, dinner time. I'll try and post more this weekend--

New Movie (real food)

2008-04-28T18:45:00.002-06:00

New movie up on YouTube now!

I tried and tried and tried to find a totally inappropriate song to put in the background (seriously, for like a week and a half easy), but ended up going with the cutsey Ella Fitzgerald song.

FOOD!

2008-04-20T10:10:00.003-06:00

So Caroline's just been a champ with her new eating skillz. We've done rice cereal and carrots so far, might just try some peas today. It is quite the exciting day in the Fitz house--Caroline turns 5 months old today! Among the goodies in her new repertoire--rolling from her back to her front. This has so far only been witnessed by Granimal, so independent verification is pending.

Holy crap--literally--do her diapers stink now that she's on solids....wow. She must get that from Daddy.

Yesterday was a beautiful one here, and we got out for a little bit on a walk to enjoy the sunshine. Caroline's pretty into her jogging stroller, and was checking everything out yesterday. The snow is finally starting to melt some here, and Mark did some work in the backyard in the afternoon. He's on a mission to dig a firepit since we have a ridiculous amount of wood left over from the winter. Evenings can get chilly here, even in the summer, so I think it's a great idea.

We're having a great time hosting Granimal, the best nanny ever, this week. And throwing down mad amounts of wine to boot. MMMM. Wine.

That's about all here. Have a good week!

We're back!

2008-04-14T16:30:00.002-06:00

So, we're back from a prolonged absence and Caroline's first trip to Denver, first trip on a plane, and first trip out of the country!

She was a total champ on the plane (both ways). The week before we left was a total whirlwind of work and preparations, and not the relaxing week off I had been planning for. Oh well. Go figure. The wedding was great (no pics from the ceremony itself. I suck, maybe Lauren will get her act together and put some pics online?), the reception was great, it was awesome to see everybody and run up other people's bar tabs.

We kept Caroline for a half day today and then enjoyed a nice lunch together before coming home and taking a two-hour nap. We're going to start C on solids this week (tonight?) so look for more pictures soon, but if you'd like to see some select ones from Cabo go ahead and click on my beautiful baby girl picture above.

I was gonna paint and work on the house but a day "off" of doing next to nothing has been pretty nice. I'm going to get some painting done tomorrow, though. Probably some sanding and prep tonight. Wednesday, Granimal gets here so this weekend I should be able to get some work done as well. Oh, and I think we brought the Cabo weather with us. It was nearly 50 degrees out today and a total bluebird day (as we often have).

Oh, and on our way home last night (we got in about 10:30) we stopped at Target in Silverthorne to buy a highchair. Yay!

Sunday Update.

2008-03-30T09:52:00.005-06:00

So, first of all, I added a bunch more pictures to the "Caroline March 08" picasa folder, so feel free to check those out (click that link).

Otherwise... Caroline has been stuffed up most of the week, and I had her alone on Wednesday evening (Dana was on call Wednesday and Thursday with about 10 kids in the hospital, so she was really all mine the whole time). She was on her playmat playing with the monkey or elephant or something and I decided to perform the age-old parent "wet diaper test" (aka, sniffing her diaper). All clear! So as I raised my head to look at her, she sneezed a big ol goober right in my face. Like she had been saving it up, there was so much.

About 20 hours later I started a sneezing fit at work, and proceeded to stay home Friday and lie around miserable all day Saturday. To be perfectly honest, I can't wait to finish this post so I can take a shower.

Otherwise, not much else going on. We paid our taxes, which weren't quite as bad as we were expecting (thank the gods) and are totally stoked for BSG to start up again next Friday. Realizing that even pushed us to watch Razor finally, which has been sitting on our Tivo since four days after Caroline was born (and right now, I'm transcoding a program that's been on Tivo since OCTOBER for Dana's brother's birthday (since I'm confident he doesn't check this too often, I'll tell you - it's an episode of NOVA that made us think of him as soon as we heard the title.

Yes, we Tivo NOVA and sniff baby diapers.

We are old.

This coming week will be crazy busy for me, as the following week is my first week of "Spring Break" (basically, two weeks off we're required to take at half pay - all in all, not bad). I'm going to use it to crank out some progress on the house (finally).

OK, gonna add a picture up top and run. Talk to you all later!

Hoppy Easter!!

2008-03-23T22:24:00.003-06:00

So yeah, my kid's in a green frilly dress. With white tights and black shiny shoes. And she was the cutest, most adorable kid at mass this morning. So there. And look--even I'm wearing pink. What's happening to me?

Caroline did great during her first foray into the Catholic Church. I've been a little sketch about taking her just because of all the cooties out there, but, well, it is Easter. We were able to score a seat in the "mother's chapel" off to the side, and like any good Catholic, Caroline fell asleep during the homily. Like any smart Catholic, she stayed asleep until Communion. :)

But yeah, she slept on Daddy during most of the mass, and when she wasn't sleeping, she was so excited about looking around and seeing all the people that she was plenty enthralled and distracted enough not to start screaming. I was really hoping she'd do some hard core grunting with a huge squirt in the diaper when it was really quiet, but I guess she had gotten it all out before we left. Shame. She is just so good at what she does.

We went out to lunch after church, stopped to get a little Easter candy, and then we all had a nice long family nap this afternoon. Fantastic--I've been needing a good nap for a few days now. And then just relaxing for the rest of the evening, of course having some ham, potatoes, and peas for dinner. It was a great family Easter. Hope everyone else's was as good!

Little Sweetie

2008-03-20T22:00:00.003-06:00

Oh, my little Sweetie. Isn't she cute?

I think this picture is hilarious.

So we had Caroline's 4 month check-up yesterday. She now weighs 12 pounds 13 ounces, and is at the 33rd percentile for weight, 50th percentile for height, and her big ol' Fitz noggin is at the 80th percentile. We're going to need to start calling her "HEED!" very soon.

So she's doing all the stuff she's supposed to be doing, although we really need to be giving her some more tummy time. Note above face--this happens quite frequently with tummy time. This picture has her sitting in her Bumbo, which she's still not quite sure if she likes or not. But I guess by the looks of this picture, we're leaning towards "not like" right now.

She did really well with her shots and her oral vaccine, only screamed her head off for a good hour or so, and slept great last night, waking up today all smiles. After her first round of shots two months ago, she stopped smiling for a couple of days, so it was nice to wake up to her ear-to-ear grin this morning. Good Lord that kid is cute.

We haven't started solid food just yet with her--we're waiting until we get back from Mexico (we leave in 3 weeks!) just for convenience sake. Then we'll be all about the awesome pictures of her with food everywhere. Can't wait! She's sure one happy kid most of the time--except at bedtime. A few weeks ago she started screaming like a banshee at bedtime when I'd try and feed her. We finally figured out that she just doesn't like the wait for my milk to let down when I'm breastfeeding. So we give her a couple ounces from a bottle at night, and that usually calms her down enough so then I can nurse her. That was quite the painful lesson to learn, though--lots of screaming involved. With strong cocktails for mommy and daddy afterwards.

We had Granimal (Mark's mom) out for a visit last weekend, and she had a blast playing with Caroline and giving us a bit of a break. I was on call, and to be honest, the weekend wasn't too terrible. I did have to go in Friday night to assist on a c-section, and then again at 3 AM early Monday morning for a premie. Morning rounds were never horrible, and all in all, not so bad. We had a great St. Paddy's Day with a fun group of friends, dining on homemade shepard's pie and corned beef and cabbage. Someday we'll have it together enough to throw a big party.

OK, I need to get to bed. Enough with the chit-chat.

Back to our regularly scheduled...

2008-03-08T20:10:00.002-07:00

...Caroline footage and pictures.

Dana took this movie a little over a month ago, while I was in Denver for training.

Here are the most recent pictures (from this morning! What a turnaround! What a happy baby!!)

I also even got work done on the house this weekend!

NOT Caroline

2008-03-05T20:32:00.002-07:00

So, this past weekend I was in sunny Las Vegas, NV for the bachelor party of one Stephen J. Gongola, Jr, and it was everything my bachelor party was not (note: my bachelor party happened to have been perfect.. for me. Steve's couldn't have been more appropriate for HIM).

As part of the festivites, we decided it would be a great idea to go to a shooting range and try our luck with automatic weapons and a .50 caliber handgun (the Desert Eagle). Below find some YouTube videos of that experience. The first one is all slow-mo footage from our camera, the second all full-speed. And yes, that's Hutch with an automatic weapon.

Totally sick.

Yet more Caroline pictures!

2008-02-24T18:34:00.002-07:00

And a slideshow, even!

I uploaded a handful of new pics to the same February album today, so you'll get some of both...

3 months!

2008-02-17T20:37:00.003-07:00

Where did the weekend go? Granted, I spent a good share of it napping, but still. I'm not ready for this week. One of my partners has a buddy in from Italy, and he asked me to cover a day at work and a call night, both of which fell on my one day off this week. Which makes me pretty much on call all week, except for one day, plus working next weekend. It's going to be a long, long week. I swear everyone in town is sick.

But thankfully, Miss Caroline has fully recovered from her bout with RSV, and is back to being our cute happy baby, minus the wicked cough. She turns 3 months old on Wednesday, and I just don't know where the time has gone. The mornings are by far the best time with her, as she always seems to be smiling and happy, which is good, since I'm usually far from being smiling at happy at 7 am. Then she usually wants to have her morning nap around 9, and snuggling with her is the absolute best.

Mark and I had a wonderful dinner the day before Valentine's Day, but as I was on call the 14th, I ended up not getting home until about 8, with Wendy's in hand. How romantic is that? We ate, I crashed, and then was up at 4 am to head back in to the hospital. I think I'm just recovering from that stretch of work. Mark put in Lawrence of Arabia this afternoon, and I was only able to stay awake for maybe 10 minutes, and awoke a good 2 hours later. Caroline slept even longer. Oh man, I'm not ready for this week.

Speaking of Wendy's, Mark and I are on the verge of a boycott because they have the worst fries known to man there. ALWAYS cold and undercooked. We were talking today about the need for a strongly worded letter to them, because it really is just ridiculous.

On the home front, Mark got a bunch of pictures up on our walls this weekend, which is great because our house looks much more, well, homey that way. And it's nice getting those things off the floor anyway. Mark also did a ton of work cleaning up all the random papers around our desk and computer. We're trying to get things in order--just is taking a little time. We went to the accountant this week to find out we're going to get screwed this year. A lot of it has to do with how I'm buying into my company as a partner, but basically, it's just going to suck until I'm fully bought in, hopefully by summer of 2009. Stupid Gov'ment.

OK, I just wanted to get a little post up because there was no way one was going to happen this week. I'll just have to leave the rest to Mark. But the new pictures of Caroline are up--check out Picasa!

Holy carp

2008-02-13T14:05:00.002-07:00

(yes, carp).

So, I'm looking at the digital picture frame I got for XMas here at my desk (and realizing how I REALLY need to update pictures on the memory card that feeds it), and realized that Caroline is HUGE compared to how big she used to be. Like, two little baby Carolines could fit in currently-nearly-three-month-old Caroline.

So I'll have to see if we have any pictures from then that have some sort of scale so I can put some comparison pictures up.

AND

I know we suck at blogging lately, but what can I say, little babies take up a whole lot of free time (like, ALL of it). And the new storage we got for the pictures and stuff had to be sent back, so we're waiting on a replacement before we can do any more videos, and knowing that has I think kept us from importing any pictures as well... but we'll get to it.

Maybe this weekend??

-M

Single Mom

2008-02-06T10:24:00.001-07:00

Sorry, no new pictures as of late, I need to get some uploaded etc etc. Life has been pretty crazy around the Fitz house these past couple of weeks. But first--Caroline:

Her new favorite game is "Bet you can't stick your whole fist in your mouth". Although yesterday, she was all about "Bet you can't stick BOTH fists in your mouth". Although this is great as a soothing thing when her pacifier falls out, it makes her hands STINK. But everytime I try to get the the pacifier back in her mouth, she just spits it out and goes for her hand. Defiant already! After getting over her first little cold a couple weeks ago, I came down with a second cold in a month and of course, shared it with Caroline. She's a little sicker with this cold--congestion is back, and she has more of a cough this time, but she's still sleeping pretty well at night considering she's waking her self up by coughing every now and then. One of my tasks today is to get her humidifer going in her bedroom.

She's outgrowing her newborn clothes on a regular basis now, and I'm starting to pull her 3-6 month clothes off the top rail in the closet where we've been storing them for now. It's fun getting her into some new stuff, and Grandma Carol just sent a cute Valentine's Day outfit. Mark also picked up a St. Patty's Day outfit for her. Yea!

Speaking of, Daddy is in Denver this week, which totally sucks. He has a week-long work gig to learn some new computer language, so I'm Single Mom for now. I had a crazy day at work on Monday, but had yesterday off, and was going to go out snowboarding (we've been getting dumped on lately) but Caroline was just so cute and sweet yesterday morning that I couldn't bring myself to take her to daycare. So the two of us hung out all day and got to cuddle a ton, which was great. Not to mention it was nice for me to decompress after a super busy work week last week, and a busy weekend on call. Parents just kept calling and calling! This is part of the reason why I'm loathe to answer the phone once I come off of call--I've been answering it for days on end and just need a break!

So yeah, the house is pretty quiet with Mark gone, but it's nice to have Caroline with me--I always hated when Mark would have to go back to Chicago one week a month when we were living in Houston. It's nice to have another person in the house now. I have today off as well, and reluctantly put Caroline in daycare just because I have so much stuff that needs to get done--errands to run and stuff around the house. She was so cute again this morning--just ear-to-ear grins and she's so talkative now--making all kinds of new noises and making sure I know she's still there when I'm out of her eyesight.

OK, I need to get back to my list of stuff. And as a side note, YEA for Obama! He even won in North Dakota! I wanted to caucus last night, but I'm registered as an Independent, and only registered party members could participate. Boo.

16" of snow...

2008-02-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

...and a broken flipping snowblower, so I had the pleasure of shoveling it all this morning (it only took an hour and fifteen minutes, too!).

Not happy. I think that the previous owner really screwed up the snowblower and I'm paying the price. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for.

The weather service issued a storm warning. Sounds like I'll be heading home at lunch to shovel also. Time to find a plow service, I guess! A new (decent) snowblower would cost about $700... Sigh.

(Everyone in the company gets these storm warnings - and weather reports - in our work email every day)

WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT MST TONIGHT

REST OF TODAY...SNOW AND AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW. SNOW ACCUMULATION8 FROM 8 TO 14 INCHES. HIGHS 15 TO 25. SOUTHWEST WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 40 MPH. LOWEST WIND CHILL READINGS 11 BELOW TO 21 BELOW ZERO EARLY IN THE MORNING.

This should easily put us over 26' of snow for the year. So far.

SEVEN MINUTES...

2008-01-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

...of the most boring video ever! ;) Per Pablo's request. The first third is Dana talking to Caroline, getting her to smile. Second third is just after I got her to giggle last week. We ran to get the camera but of course, she would not duplicate the results (instead, sneezed in my face and spit up). The final third is me tickling her, much to her annoyance. Again, she spits up.

She does make lots of cute noises throughout, however.

TEN POUNDER!

2008-01-26T11:02:00.001-07:00

So we're still trying to catch the ear to ear smile. Caroline is back to being her happy self in the mornings again. She's been a bit cranky for the past couple days following her shots. But I think we've got our kid back, finally!

So yeah, Caroline did GREAT at her two month check up on Wednesday, biggest news being that she now TEN POUNDS! That's still only around the 35th percentile or so, but considering she used to be at the 3rd percentile, my baby is proving she sure loves the breastmilk. She actually did really well with her three shots plus an oral vaccine, cried for a little bit, but was fine by the time we got her back in her carseat to leave. It was later that night that was insane. So I ended up running some errands after her appointment because she was sleeping so well, and then when I got home we ate, and she fell asleep on my chest that afternoon. Every now and then, she would wake up and start to cry, but I'd just shush her and she'd fall right back to sleep--we had some great cuddle time. But then around 4:30, holy crap, did she ever wake up and start SCREAMING. I mean, top of her lungs, blood curdling cries. So I gave her some more Tylenol, but by the time it really kicked in she had herself so worked up that the inertia of her freak out was already out of control. Mark got home and took over at 5:30, and finally by 6:30, after a solid two hours of this, she calmed down enough to eat and then we had her asleep in her crib by 7. Mark and I were so worn out by the end of this--good thing one beer gets me all warm and fuzzy and relaxed, since I can't really drink much more than that these days. She was OK that night, but just hasn't been her happy smiling self until today. It's nice having that back!

Speaking of happy smiling baby, the night before her appointment, Mark got home and took over for a bit, and had Caroline on the changing table in the nursery. I was in the bathroom when all of a sudden I hear him yelling at the top of his lungs for me to get in there. I was TERRIFIED that Caroline had fallen off the changing table or something like that, but was relieved to get in there, and see Mark blow a huge raspberry on her belly, and she was laughing! Baby laughs are adorable! And every time he would blow another raspberry, she'd just start laughing and laughing. It was awesome. We've been unable to replicate this, probably because she's WAY young to be laughing that much, but was that ever a blast.

OK, Caroline is starting to fuss and should eat before we meet Daddy for lunch. More updates to come--

Why am I still awake?

2008-01-21T21:52:00.001-07:00

So this is my attempt to capture one of Caroline's smiles--not bad, although she has been busting out some great ear-to-ear ones lately. Guess she's a little camera shy. I went into her room this morning to wake her up to nurse her before I went to work, and there she was, all swaddled up but completely awake, and I said "Good morning, Sweetheart!" and she gave me this huge smile. It was awesome. Being a parent is cool.

So I don't know why I'm still awake. Maybe guilt about not blogging for a while? Regardless, I'm still exhausted, but here's quick run down.

Cleaning lady came for the first time last week (Christmas present from the Best Husband Ever) and it was FANTASTIC!! Seriously, I can't tell you just how wonderful it was to come home to a spotless house. And it just felt so great to have a day off and not feel like I should be cleaning toilets or sweeping up floors. Worth absolutely every penny. I'm hooked.

Caroline is getting bigger every day, and now is starting to finally outgrow some newborn clothes after barely fitting into them for so long. Like I said, she's smiling a lot more now, and we've even been able to start getting a bedtime routine down--we're usually able to put her in her crib after a feeding, even if she's wide awake, and as long as she's swaddled, she usually will fall asleep around 8-ish or so. We tried a little earlier today, but it still ended up being about 8. She'll do a nice 6-8 hour stretch, which gives me a nice chunk of sleep, but then after she gets up around 2-3 AM or so, it's every 2-3 hours for feeds after that, and she's usually up for good around 7 or 8 AM. But it's so nice being able to get her to sleep in the evening to have a little time to unwind. The hard part for me is just trying to get myself out of the office by 6 or 6:30 so that I can get home to feed her--she's usually pretty hungry by then, and Mark's been dealing with a fussy baby for a while. But holy crap is she adorable!

We've all been sick this past week at the Fitz house, which has also contributed to the lack of posts. Mark got it the worst, and missed work last Thursday and Friday. I was lucky enough to have Wednesday and Thursday off last week, so I got some good rest, but I still have some nasal stuff sticking around. Caroline's been doing well--just some congestion, but nothing too out of control, and she's still able to sleep and eat well. But it will be nice when we're all back to 100%.

Mark got the snowblower working again after having to order a part online. Good thing, too, because more snow just seems to keep coming. The mountain has already at 175 inches, which is just crazy. We've been getting up a little here and there. Mark had an epic powder day a couple weeks ago. I have tomorrow off of work, but I have a meeting at noon, so I think I might head over to the mountain afterwards for the Cowboy Downhill, and then take a few runs before picking Caroline up from daycare. I also have Wednesday off, so I think I'll keep Caroline then, and besides, she has her 2 month check-up and will get her first round of shots, so it'll be nice to stay home with her. I can't wait to find out how much she weighs these days--it's got to be over 8 pounds now!

Mark and I have both been summoned to jury duty in the past month, although he got lucky and had his case canceled. I'm due for February 4th, so we'll see. I've never done jury duty before, so I'm a bit curious, but I also was scheduled to see patients that day, so we're just not having me see any well child checks, and if the case gets canceled, we'll just have me see acute patients that day. I was on call this past weekend and got me arse kicked. Only 2 hours of sleep Friday night, and was so busy Saturday I didn't get to finally take a nap until about 4 pm. Gross. At least the hospital has yummy greasy breakfasts--got me through bad nights in residency, and sure helped this weekend.

OK, off to bed for me. Hope everyone is doing well and congrats to Karen and Erik on the new house!

Weekly update

2008-01-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

So, OK. We suck at updating the blog. But give us a break - it was Dana's first week back at work and Caroline's first week at daycare. We're still getting stuff sorted out.
C was a CHAMP at night this week. I think on Monday she went EIGHT hours between her last feed of the evening and her first in the middle of the night, and she repeated that unlikely feat again on Wednesday (or maybe it was Sunday and Tuesday - it's tough to pay attention to little details like what day it is anymore).

The rest of the week, in digest form:
-I had jury duty scheduled for Thursday - but the trial was canceled. Booya.
Umm.
-EPIC snowboarding for me on Saturday. First tracks in a foot and a half of powder. I now can say definitively that when people say when you get face shots and can't breathe, that it's the truth. It was absolutely sick out there, and I'm not nearly as sore as I thought I would be.
-The snowblower broke on Saturday (had to do my chores immediately upon return from the mountain). Today (Sunday) I found the offending part and ordered a replacement ($8 part, 7$ shipping and handling. Highway robbers).
Hopefully it doesn't snow (until we get the part we need). We literally have an 8 or 9 foot pile on either side of our driveway, and the deck is covered up to the rail (as well as the fence in our backyard). I'll take some pics later.
-We have a new "first" tomorrow: a cleaning lady is coming. As a Christmas present for Dana (and, let's face it, me too), I talked to a friend to get their cleaning lady's info. She'll be coming every other week for three hours.

And that being said, we have to pick up this dump so she can clean it for us. D is feeding the baby and I wanted to get the (ADORABLE) pictures of Caroline in her sweater up before I forgot. Oh, and I took down our tree today and we have to finish packing up our Christmas stuff as well. And it's an hour and a half from my bedtime. So, time for me to get to work.

LATER! I think D has two days off this week, so maybe we can convince her to blog.

Oh, and big ups to the Chargers (Indiana bugs me) and the Giants (yes, BJ, I'm happy for your Gigantes, because my hatred for the Cowboys knows no bounds). Additionally, I'm hoping they steal Favre's walker and toss him up and down the field, but my gut tells me it's going to be tough to keep Green Bay at.... bay. But maybe a final trip to the big game will convince Favre to pack up and go (if being humiliated by the Bears twice this year didn't quite make that happen).

OK, now I'm gone. BYE!

(Oh, and since I probably won't blog again before then, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUGS!)

ALONE!

2008-01-06T15:22:00.001-07:00

Not that we don't love our family and friends (we do, we do!) but we have the house to ourselves for the first time right now since December 20th! It's a great relief. We do love having company, but being home alone afterwards is so much easier to appreciate after everyone leaves!

So I took a little time today to play around with some footage from yesterday of Caroline playing with her friend Owen Wither (YouTube butcher job below). I'll post a better quicktime version after I have a chance to create it and put it somewhere you can download for the higher-res experience I know you're all begging for.

Anyway, I'm behind on putting together a DVD for Dana's dad (of Caroline and Christmas and stuff) so I'm going to learn how to use Final Cut Express now to make that happen.

See Caroline's newest video below.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T12:31:00.001-07:00

So Caroline had quite the adventuresome week with the Fitzs, and after "opening" about half the gifts under the tree, this girl has one full closet of clothes and toys. Baby's First Christmas was a good one.

It was fun having my mom here as well, she left on New Year's Eve and we even had chance to go make some mugs with Caroline's footprint on them before she left. Mark's parents and brother just left a couple of hours ago, and Lauren and Roy are heading to the airport soon as well. Good thing Fas is still around to appreciate Caroline's GINORMOUS poos. I am continually amazed at the amount of poo that such a little body can generate. I'm so proud of my daughter. She's very good at what she, um, does. The best is when she'll fuss and fuss and fuss, have a HUGE squirt, and then give a contented little sigh and fall asleep. Just like Mommy.

New Year's Eve was spent at the Grand with the Fitzs, and Caroline and I both fell asleep about 10, but were awoken in time for midnight. I'd be OK with celebrating East Coast New Year's for the next decade or so, as I think I'm still recovering from being up until 1:30. Mark was starting to come down with a cold on the first, so we were looking forward to chilling out at home and watching the movie Parenthood (which Caroline gave Daddy for Christmas). Chilling was exactly what we did too--as we sat down on the couch to start the movie, we both realized it was kinda cold downstairs, which lead to the identification of our boiler (i.e. our heat) was not working. It was about 8 pm, and right around -10 outside. Awesome. Upshot is, no heat, no movie, Caroline and I spent the night with the Fitzs at the Grand, and Mark and Fas cuddled up in the living room all night, keeping the fire going so the house didn't freeze. We were really worried we'd have to buy a new boiler, but the problem ended up being a bad relay that was easily fixed the next day. Happy New Year, indeed.

So I'm going back to work on the 8th, which I'm still in a little bit of denial about. I'm ready to go back to work, but Caroline is just starting to get fun at home! I feed her, she poos, then she gets all happy for a while, is content in her bouncy chair, poos again, and falls asleep.

Anyway, just wanted to give a little update--and wish everyone happy new year!

Breaking my 'blogging from work rule'

2007-12-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

To share this humorous tidbit I just read on wonkette (which I barely ever read, a fact that has made this little find that much more special):

And so it was that yesterday Mike Huckabee decided to let his redneck flag fly by announcing that he doesn’t only kill small animals for fun all the time unlike that poseur Romney, he eats them, too. Yes, in order to pander to the varmint-eaters vote, Huckabee bragged “I figured out you could put grease in a popcorn popper and heat that thing up, and you could cook anything,. So we fried squirrel.” OMG, people, is this what we’re coming to? Who is the biggest redneck Macgyver? And with 10 more months to go? I’m cracking the booze now.

Babies Are Us

2007-12-27T12:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Keri and Dave for all the awesome baby Cubs gear! She loves this little blanket, and in a couple months the clothes will fit just right.

So I have been much more rested in the past week as my mom came in to help out around the house. Which means I get to sleep in until 9 or 10 after a 6 or 7 am feeding, and sometimes get a nap in the afternoon as well, which is fantastic. I'm still pretty wiped out as I haven't had a night in a long time where I actually slept through it, but things are just so much better! My mom leaves on Sunday, but Mark's family gets here Saturday, so help will still be plentiful.

Caroline is getting so big! This picture was taken about 2 weeks ago, and I swear her head alone is tons bigger. And she's getting so long now--I can hardly believe how much bigger she's gotten in just 5 weeks. She's sleeping much better at night--usually 4 hours during the first stretch and 3 for the second. But once daylight hits, she's not big into going back to sleep. We've moved her from the bassinet in our bedroom to the crib in her room (with a little sleep positioner) because she was making so many squawks and squeaks that it was just getting too hard to sleep. She does have some reflux, which sucks because she'll be sleeping soundly after a feeding, I'll put her down, and then she'll wake up spitting up and coughing. Gross. Hopefully that won't last too long.

My mom gave us a great Christmas present and watched Caroline that afternoon so Mark and I could go out on the mountain for a few runs. It was very strange being away from Caroline that long-guess I have to get used to it, but still. My new snowboard boots and bindings that Mark got me for Christmas are fantastic, so much better than my old ones, with much better control. I think Mark is next for new bindings, though--his are getting pretty old too. Last night we left Caroline with my mom again for a Christmas dinner/annual business meeting with my partners. Looks like my first day back to work is January 8th, when Caroline is 7 weeks old. It's a little daunting putting her in daycare that early, but it is a small daycare and that makes me feel a little better about it. We're still playing the lottery in the hopes that Mark can quit his job. the perks for working for the mountain are nice, but it would be even nicer if he could stay home with Caroline. Hopefully in the next couple years.

OK, I need to feed the baby and then we're taking a little field trip to go get me new glasses. I have some left over health savings account money that needs to be used up before January 1st. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!

Long time no update! [Updated]

2007-12-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I updated. I wrote another at work on Monday but then took Tuesday off to help out around the house. This morning (Wednesday), I updated the Monday post, but then work called me away from my desk and instead of returning to it I just came home instead.

So, I've put Caroline down twice now and she woke up again, so I'm typing this all one-handed. Which really sucks, but oh well.

I'll update this from work tomorrow with a cut and paste below.

Oh! I fixed Billy Kidd's computer today. And met him. And snowboarded at lunch today. booya.

Work update
--Weekend report--
(Originally written Monday)
So I didn't get any work on the house done this weekend (with the exception of finally getting the tree trimmed, finishing wrapping most of the presents, and cleaning up the crap that's been living in the living room). And the good and bad news is, there is virtually no way for me to get done what I wanted to before our company gets here. The good news is: Dana's mom is coming early to share Christmas with us and help out around the house. The bad news is, I now have ZERO weekends left to finish the house. So hopefully Carol can tolerate me working on the house a little while she's around. Certainly it should be much easier to GET work done with an extra pair of hands to watch the baby. Also, Dana and I asked for a 'date night' as a gift from Carol, since we haven't been out alone since before little Caroline joined us. So: early visitor also = instant babysitter. :)

Speaking of bittersweet, I have another daycare check to drop off this week. Merry Christmas to our provider.

Also also, as if I haven't missed enough work lately, I have been summoned (summonsed?) for Jury Duty in the middle of January. And: "In colorado there are no occupational, economic or age-related exemptions from jury service," but that's OK because I kind of relish the idea of participating. Most likely, though, it'll be some lame case, but that's OK too. I've never had to do jury duty before - it should be interesting.

-second day's posting-
And, speaking of missing work, I took yesterday (Tuesday) off just to help out around home a little. Stress levels are high and there's so much to do that it all got a little overwhelming. But all is good. And extra-special bonus, it's snowing today (Wednesday), so come hell or high water (please, no high water) I'll be going out again for lunch today. Things are sure to get a lot more crowded after this weekend (our busiest time of the year is XMas-NYE), so getting some quality time out now is a big priority. Also, when Carol is here Dana and I will probably be sneaking away from teh baby for a little bit for a few quick runs.

Oh, and our baby should be dubbed: destroyer of diapers. The blowouts she's had in the last couple days have been simply astounding. Sorry, no pictures.

Work update (from two days ago)

2007-12-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not as good about updating via the USB drive. But you get it eventually.. Here goes..

First on mountain day of the season

...and certainly not the last.

It wasn't bad out. I left my office at a little before 11:30 and was back by 12:45, so I could have squeezed in a couple more runs if I had known better (and had lunch waiting for me back at the office, instead of having to go get it). Things to remember for next time.

Anyway, I also had to navigate (for the first time) my way through the locker room. Since I'm a big shot employee now, I have my own locker in the gondola building to store my crap, but since I hadn't been on the mountain yet I still had to lug all my crap with me. Now my board, boots, helmet and goggles are living in the locker, so the only thing I'll have to bring with me next time is my pass and my booty. Let me tell you, that's going to be very convenient.

So after getting dressed I took a trip up the gondy and down Vagabond through the maze of trails that then lead you down to the base, and then hopped on the new Christie Peak lift (which replaced Christie 1-3 lifts this offseason) to the top of its length, then down from there.

In retrospect, I should have either gone up the gondy twice, or gondy to storm peak, and then downloaded. I think I'll time myself to see if it's quicker to download or to ride down. I suspect it will be pretty similar, actually.

Mitchell Report

2007-12-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Breaking my self-imposed 'no blogging from work' policy to bring you this breaking news:

Everyone's least favorite team is reportedly going to get thrown under the bus today. Along with "superstar" a-hole pitcher Roger Clemens.

Good riddance!

Mark update post..

2007-12-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Since we haven't been posting much lately, I decided to compile notes at work and bring them home (I have a little USB drive that I bring back and forth) to post later. So here goes.

Things have been subtly crazy lately. I say 'subtly crazy' as things don't seem outright crazy, but I realize that I'm really tired and have no energy to do anything after a day at work. Dad and I went out to cut down a Christmas tree this past weekend and after getting home didn't have energy to do anything (but drink lots and lots of wine, natch). And Sunday was a complete bust. I was going to trim the tree and get some other stuff done, but the only productive thing I was able to manage was fixing this thing in our garage that had been leaking water and snowblowing our driveway. The problem is, when I have energy (and desire) to do something, it's my turn to watch Caroline. And after I'm done, the desire to be productive has left me. This doesn't bode well for my plans to get working on the steps this weekend... I'd also love to surprise our parents and get the doors re-hung, but I really do think the bannister isn't going to happen until after the holidays, unfortunately. Which will drive my mom nuts, of course. But oh well. As long as nobody falls off our second-floor landing, it will all be OK.

Add to this the fact that I work for a ski resort and haven't been up on the ski mountain yet.. I feel like I'm being a bad employee. So I think I'm going to head up for a couple runs tomorrow at lunch just so I can say I've been up. It would be a shame to not take advantage of the flexibility they give me precisely for this purpose. But at the same time, with Caroline just arriving, there's a lot to do and only so much energy that a guy can draw from in one day. I suppose I'll have to suffer and go snowboarding AND work and care for the baby.... the sacrifices I make.. Anyway, it would be embarassing if Dana gets more skier days than me again this year, so I'm determined to not let that happen.

Some other good news to come out as of late is that I get a locker at the Gondola building - which means, I don't have to cart my board and boots back and forth every time I go to the mountain - I can lock them up there and only have to worry about my coat, gloves etc. I could also leave those, but then the accumulated snow would melt in the locker and make it like a sauna, which would be no good (clearly). I'm stoked about having a locker, it should make things nice and convenient for running to and fro quickly (like on a lunchbreak).

[note] the image was chosen (with one hand) as I'm posting this while holding a fussy Caroline. We can't decipher why she's fussy, but my best guess is that it's my fishy beer breath (sushi for dinner).

Getting Better--

2007-12-09T17:01:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts--this past week has been a big recovery one for me. After the disappointment of having to go back into the hospital last weekend, I've been slowly on the mend since being discharged Monday. Unfortunately, I was on 2 different antibiotics, one of which gave Caroline some wicked diarrhea and gas, so her little butt is all torn up. But I finished the antibiotics yesterday, and we're both doing much better.

So my tired and achiness of infection has now been replaced by the tiredness of new parenthood and getting up multiple times per night. But the past few nights have been pretty good, with Caroline sleeping 3-4 hours in between feeds, which helps a lot. Although I'm such a heavy sleeper, she's usually really crying by the time I actually hear her.

Let's see--fun Caroline stuff. She loves being sung to, especially with a certain Neil Diamond song. She's making a bunch of new noises and sounds, which is always fun. And of course, loves her daddy, who always seems to be able to quiet her down. Except when she has the hiccups, which is at least 3-4 times per day. Her look of consternation with the hiccups is hilarious.

Mark's dad Jim stopped by for a couple days on his way back from being in Seattle at the end of last week. Yesterday the boys went out and cut down a great Christmas tree for us off of Rabbit Ears Pass, and it looks fantastic in the living room. We haven't had a chance yet to decorate as Mark needed to go and buy more lights for the tree, which he picked up today. It was great to visit with Jim a bit, and it'll be fun when all the Fitz's are back in Steamboat around New Year's. I'm also really looking forward to my mom visiting at Christmas. Good thing we'll have a chance to actually clean up our place a little bit before everyone gets here. Mark is planning on working on putting the wood floors on the stairs next weekend, and my office Christmas party is next weekend as well. Good thing I'm starting to feel so much better.

Sorry if I haven't had the chance to return any phone calls yet--whenever Caroline is sleeping during the day, I try really hard to sleep as well, but I promise to start calling people this week--thanks again to everyone for their good wishes!

Update

2007-12-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but on top of getting no sleep during the day, D had doctors' appointments pretty much every day last week, and we've been back in the hospital since Friday (it's Sunday as I write this, and hopefully we'll get out tomorrow).

Baby Caroline is fine (as fine as she can be living in a hospital, but I'm sure it makes little difference to her), but D spiked a bit of a fever last Thursday night, and her doctors wanted to nip any possible infection in the bud before it got bad. So to sum up: we're all OK (if tired). D is fighting an infection with IV antibiotics, so the three of us have been staying in the hospital all weekend. I came home to snowblow and nap, but found that our neighbor had already cleared off the drive for us (thanks, Jim!).

So I thought I'd send an update. I had planned to actually get some work on the house done this weekend (stairs!) and call a bunch of people back, but this has set those plans aside for now.

Luckily my mom has been able to extend her trip with us, which has helped out tremendously. At two in the morning when I can't stop the baby from crying, it drowns out everything else in the world, so I'm sure coming home to a sink full of dirty dishes would quite possibly push me over the edge.

Oh, and in the good news department, the dryer alert was a false alarm - everything is working as it should, so we don't need to blow money on THAT, thank the gods.

Parenthood--It's a gas.

2007-11-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's about 4 am, and I can't for the life of me remember how to transfer pictures to this page, so Mark will just have to do that later. With all the narcotics I'm on for pain control, my GI system has gone on strike, except for the worst gas pains in the world, which are now keeping me up. How's that for too much information? :)

All in all, though, things are going well. Caroline is still on the bilibed, which sucks because we can only take her out of it to feed, burp, or change her diaper. I think not being able to spend a lot of time cuddling her is driving Mark nuts, so hopefully we won't have too much longer of this. Even worse, because we can't play with Caroline during the day, she is really getting her days and nights mixed up, sleeping most of the day and being much more awake and active at night. Mark set up the bilibed in the Pack N Play downstairs by the TV so at least whoever is up with her can watch that, and the background noise does tend to make Caroline a little quieter. For the past few nights, I've been going to bed upstairs in our bedroom, and Mark and his mom have been taking shifts staying downstairs with Caroline, snoozing on the couch down there when possible, and bringing her up to the bedroom when needed so I can feed her. We're trying to stick to an every 3 hours feeding schedule as opposed to just letting her go whenever she demands, just because the more she eats, the more she poops, and the more she poops, the faster she gets rid of the bilirubin.

We have an appointment with my partner Ron at noon today, and getting her bilirubin blood test prior to that, so hopefully we'll be down enough to stop the bed tomorrow, but I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up in case it is another couple of days. If there's anything this experience has taught me, it's WORLDS of empathy for new parents who, instead of being able to cuddle and get to know their newborn right away, have to keep them in this bed all the time. I'll have Mark post some pictures of our set up downstairs.

As far as my recovery goes, each day gets a little better in terms of pain control, although having a big ol' gas bubble in me belly really pushes against my surgical site and that pain can really be intolerable. But at least it goes away within a few hours. I noticed yesterday that my hands aren't nearly as swollen as they were a few days ago, and although I still have big swollen sausage feet, I think my legs are starting to get back to normal as well. Things are moving slow, but at least they are moving. I spend most of my days with my feet up trying to keep swelling down, and waiting for the next feeding time so I get a little time to hold my sweet little baby. Mark took her to get her blood test today and put her little Bears socks on her feet, since the Bears were playing the Broncos. Since the Bears somehow (seriously, somehow) pulled off a win today, we'll have to wear those Bears socks again to our doctor visit today. (Caroline only wears a diaper when zipped up in the bilibed, as the light makes a chemical conversion in the skin to break down the bilirubin until her liver starts producing an enzyme--usually at 3-5 days of life--that does that chemical conversion for her). So going to get blood tests has also been a big deal, as we get to actually pick out an outfit for her to wear, which is still a novelty.

Oh, and on top of everything, our dryer is on the fritz again. As you recall, a couple weeks ago, our dryer decided to stop heating up, and Mark was able to locate the problem and order the necessary part. Dryer was working great for a week or two, but now only heats when on the highest setting. Therefore, Mark also spent a good part of yesterday researching washers and dryers online. At least it's the holiday season, so hopefully we'll be able find something on sale.

Ann has been great helping out around the house, making meals and doing cleaning. She also made the Walmart run of a lifetime, battling the after Thanksgiving crowds to pick up baby essentials for us that somehow got overlooked. She also took a bunch of pictures for us yesterday as Mark and I gave Caroline her first bath. Just a sponge bath in the sink as her cord stump hasn't fallen off yet, but it was fun to be able to interact with her a little-she wasn't a huge fan of the bath in general, and after it, ate like a mad woman and crashed asleep as soon as we put her back in the bilibed. Still was a bunch of fun. My mom was in Minneapolis this past weekend and kept calling from Babies R Us and the outlet stores asking what else we needed and buying up a storm. Since we really didn't have much pink stuff, I think my mom went a little crazy with that, but what can you do? It's her second grandchild, but first granddaughter, and it's just so fun to see my mom so excited about everything. I can't wait until she gets out here at Christmas.

I think that's about it---all in all, things are going well and I'm still struck by how surreal it is to think I'm a parent now. Granted, I am in my early thirties and this was bound to happen eventually, but it still just seems strange. I love it though! Hopefully we can put up a picture or two from her first doctor's appointment today as well! Thanks again to everyone for dropping us a line by email, phone, or even just blog comments--it's fun to hear from all of you!

SO TIRED

2007-11-23T20:22:00.001-07:00

But SO very happy to be home.

What do I say? The actual story of the whole labor and hospitalization is pretty crazy and would take too long. To sum up--went into labor 1 am Monday morning, 36 hours of labor, 2 1/2 hours of pushing, Caroline's heart rate starting to drop with contractions, which is no bueno, so off to c-section. Followed up with a uterine infection, fever maxed out at 103.6, pain out of control for a little while, but all was well by Thursday night (thank you IV antibiotics and pain meds!), feeling great this morning, able to go home this afternoon with the promise of taking my temp every 4 hours (thankfully NOT rectally) and coming back in if I spike again (which, by the way, is not going to happen). It just feels so fantastic to be home.

Being a mom is so wild. I'm really trying hard to be just a mom and not a pediatrician, which so far is going well--I never listened to her heart or lungs in the hospital, have refrained from doing a newborn physical exam on her, and have done as I'm told with the bilirubin issues--which, by the way, are not all that serious at all--would be VERY serious if we didn't have her on the lights, but her levels are stabilizing and we're rechecking the bili tomorrow morning back at the lab, and there's a good chance we'll be off the lights by tomorrow, definitely by Sunday, so no worries.

I'm moving around, albeit is super slowly because my surgical site is still quite tender and my abdominal muscles are useless right now. It drives me a little crazy to have to move so slowly and need help out of chairs and things, but as long as I make a little improvement every day, I can't complain. Since Caroline was kind enough to come 2 weeks early, mommy gets an extra 2 weeks of maternity leave, bumping me up to 8 weeks off, and not going back to work until mid-January--yea!! Lots of time with my beautiful baby daughter!

Anyway, I was pumped full of IV fluids (something like 5-6 liters during the stay) mostly while the epidural was in because my blood pressure was dropping a little, and the med they started to get contractions going more made me retain a ton of fluid, which I'm still trying to get rid of, and therefore, I really need to go get my feet up. It's about time for Caroline to eat again anyway, but as Mark and Ann clean up our fabulous belated Thanksgiving dinner, we figured I should say hi and let everyone know I'm doing just fine. And have the prettiest baby girl in Steamboat! Thanks to everyone for their well wishes, and we'll be bringing her back to Chicago for those summer weddings, so many of you will get to meet her before you know it! Go Team Fitz!

New blog name (good call, whomever)

2007-11-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to whomever for suggesting that we needed a new blog name.

Of course, Caroline has had her own blog for a while now.

Also: new pics! We're home! Yay!

Thanks(giving) for Caroline!

2007-11-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

More pictures here of our beautiful baby. Thanks Pablo for the link yesterday.

Things have been pretty crazy lately (full stories after we get home with Caroline) but everyone is doing great. I'm home to shower and upload the latest pictures (and a movie!) Hopefully we'll be home tomorrow. D had a slight infection so they want to monitor her until they're sure it's gone (she's been getting IV antibiotics and lots of other good meds, and hasn't shown any signs of infection for over a day, so we're looking good - fingers crossed).

Caroline is totally awesome. Thanks everyone for the well wishes and all that jazz.

Whoa momma!

2007-11-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

Baby Caroline Monet Fitzgerald, born 5:52pm Tuesday, Nov 20th. 5lbs, 12oz (a little peanut!). Mom and baby are doing great.

After laboring for about 40 hours (yes, 40), D went in for a (non-emergency) C-section a little after 5pm Tuesday.

I am only home because I had to pick up extra stuff (staying at the hospital until Friday as D had a very slight fever this morning and they want to monitor it), and I'm on the way to pick up my mom from the airport. She wastes no time!

She's the sweetest little thing ever. Thank god she looks like her mom.

More pics here, and more (and more and more) certainly to come. Thanks to all for the well wishes. We have our cell if you want to try to reach us, but the ringer is off so we're not at all likely to answer.

Long time no blog!

2007-11-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

If you can't guess by the picture, I'm blogging this using our new computer (it took me a couple minutes to figure out how to configure the image upload utility I use, but I think I got it now).

Yes, in addition to figuring out how to work a newborn baby any day now, I am also going to have to figure out how to use a fancy new computer. We got the "small" one, and it's still ginormous. Holy cow, this thing is huge. And pretty.

It will take a while for me to get used to - among other things - using a new OS, but it's not so bad so far. And I've already video-chatted with my brother (in France) after about 10 minutes on the machine. Easy-peasy.

I am still getting used to the keyboard, though.

Anyway, D was bugging me earlier about not having blogged in a long time (I told her I'm working now, which should serve as explanation enough), so here I am.

D is more than ready to pop the kid, I think, but I could use another week. Just a week from Friday and I'll be good. Still, a very strange thing to comprehend. Thank God we've been spending time with Scott and Gina over the last six months, as I've been able to see him adjust from day one (not knowing what the F to do) to now (I think he changes diapers from time to time). And, they're leaving for Mexico on Saturday, which gives me hope for our planned trip around the same time in Short Round's life when we head to Cabo for a wedding.

But I need to get more sleep first. And install our stairs (the special glue I ordered hasn't even SHIPPED yet). Lord only knows when the bannister will actually get installed..

Anyway, I was up late cutting up veggies to throw in the crockpot first thing tomorrow morning to make about 12 cups of bolognese (1/4 of which will be used to make lasagna on Friday, the rest of which will probably be frozen). Also on the docket tomorrow is an OB appointment at noon (what began as the strangest thing in the world - me going to the OB's office - has now become routine), followed by a trip to visit the daycare provider. And tomorrow night we're having Wes and Sheila over (I think I'm going to grill and have some fancy sauce and twice-baked potatoes). D has tomorrow and Friday off (not me!) so I'm sure she'll jump on a trampoline or drink castor oil or something to induce labor while I'm away.

Anyway, I know this post was boring but my life is focused on work and cooking shit to throw in the freezer right now, so sad to say but you guys have fallen on the backburner for a little while.

(Oh, swell. Now it seems the image wasn't uploaded after all. Poppycock. Now I have to stay up and fix it) Fixed!

So

2007-11-13T16:19:00.001-07:00

I just heard back from the home daycare provider we've been in touch with about securing a spot for Short Round. The good news is, she has a spot open for next week. The bad news is, if we want this spot, we need to start paying for it as of, well, next week.

There is a huge daycare shortage in Steamboat, and I know we're lucky to even have a spot, especially at less than half the cost of a nanny, but it's still just kinda annoying. There's this part of me that is SO RELIEVED to have a daycare option, but it really sucks to have to pay two months worth to keep the spot. And since it is a small, private daycare, the chances of another spot opening up before I need to go back to work (mid-January) is slim. But I'm also so excited to not have to look for a nanny, conduct interviews, and go through all of that. Mark and I are going to meet with this daycare provider Thursday or Friday, so we'll see how things go. We got her name from friends of friends who have been really happy with the care she's given their kid, so we should be fine.

In other news, I went to the eye doctor today for the first time in about 3 years, and finally made the switch from hard contacts (which I've been wearing for about 20 years) to soft ones. SO MUCH BETTER!! It's pretty ridiculous, actually, and makes me just kick myself for not having done this sooner. My hard lenses really give me a lot of problems in the dry air at this altitude, and the comfort factor can't be overstated. I have been told by more than one optometrist in the past that since I am so used to the sharper image of hard lenses, I'd have a hard time adjusting to/liking soft contacts, so I've always been wary about making the leap. But a surplus in my HSA account for the year in combo with today's optometrist saying, well, there are better soft lenses out these days, made me go for it. The only downside is that since I've been wearing hard lenses for so long, my eyeball has been a bit flattened out, and therefore as I adjust to soft contacts, my prescription is probably going to change over the next 1-2 months, so I have to go back to the eye doctor every 1-2 weeks for a while until everything pans out. Fine by me. SO MUCH BETTER!

OK, I'm exhausted---at 37 weeks, carrying around this kiddo is just wearing me out. I just can't seem to get my hospital bag packed, though, because I just can't stand the thought of it sitting there for possibly another 3 weeks when I'm ready for this kid to come right now. Therefore, I will procrastinate longer. At least the car seat is installed and the bassinet is ready, though, so we're all set for baby to come HOME at least!

Naptime.

Crack for my mouth.

2007-11-12T20:34:00.001-07:00

So I pretty much gave up sugary sodas when I was getting ready for my wedding in an effort to keep my weight under control. But since I've been pregnant (and the weight under control thing is not a top priority), especially in the last month or so, I've had the worst cravings for sugary sodas. Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, and good old fashioned Coke. It's been so awesome. Maybe since I can't really drink I feel like I need something that's sorta forbidden. And oh, it just tastes so good....

I'm drinking some Coke now. And I am just so happy....

Oh--and I'm officially term (37 weeks) although Mark said I can't have the baby yet because he wants to "enjoy" Thanksgiving. I think he just doomed us.

Back to my Coke. MMMMMMM.

Best Teacher Ever

2007-11-09T17:24:00.001-07:00

So I just found out that my paperwork went through and I am officially a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics, on faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

I find this pretty frickin' cool, as I really like teaching and we get a lot of med students coming through the office. I was filling out all these evaluations on them, and they on me, although I was never officially faculty, which sorta made me feel like I was doing a lot of extra work without any credit for it. I feel better now.

I also feel like I should have access to a faculty lounge, because that would be cool. Although that also makes me feel kinda old.

Anyway, with my new-found position of authority in the shaping of young minds, I'll try to stay mature and professional. I'll let you know how that goes. So much for posting drunken pictures on the Internets. :)

Things are looking a bit more promising in the daycare department, and Mark and I will probably be able to meet with this home daycare lady, Kristen, next week. Which is good--the formal daycare, Grandkids, that we are "on the list" for, still has us near the bottom. I just found out that my partner, Sheila, put her 3 1/2 year old on the list before he was born. She just found out that he is actually STILL on the list. And this is the one that gives preference to hospital employees, although not docs, even though Sheila has been the Director of Pediatrics at the hospital for the past 3 years. Awesome.

I'm still feeling well at 36 weeks and 4 days, although my legs get REALLY swollen by the end of the day. It's officially gotten so bad that I'm wearing compression stockings throughout the day, which do help, but make me feel like an old lady. Or a lunch lady. Maybe I should wear a hair net, too.

I'm getting pretty excited for my maternity leave, especially when I see newborns coming in for visits and realize the kid in my belly isn't that much smaller. He's been super active again today--when I was checking out a newborn today and the baby starting crying, my kid started moving LIKE CRAZY. I think he could hear the crying and wanted to extend a little sympathy. Although I am still trying to get used to the idea of not working for 6 weeks. That just seems so foreign to me. I know I'll be busy with baby and sleep deprived, etc, but being away from my job is just strange. Being a pediatrician is too much a part of who I am to comprehend being away from it for a period of time. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but still strange nonetheless.

Speaking of, I was waiting to hear about a patient, just did, so now I can run over to the hospital, check on another kid, and go home for the day. Mark is making dinner tonight, which is also awesome. And baby loves etouffee.

Halloweenie and More.

2007-11-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

So since Mark already provided a link to our Halloween pictures, you can see for yourself my camouflaged belly. Pretty nice job, Mark! Halloween was way good times. In Steamboat, people don't really trick or treat with their kids--Main Street downtown shuts down to traffic, and everyone dressed up and brings their kids, and then the different businesses hand out candy and goodies. Mark and I didn't go last year because both of us had nasty colds, but this year we met up with a group of friends and just had a blast. It was so much fun to see everyone dressed up downtown--a lot of adults without kids or whose kids are older still were out walking around as well. Just a great social, small town atmosphere. I loved it. And naturally, we all met up at a bar afterwards, and I was having such a great time I didn't even mind being sober. How about that.

Congrats to Julie and Andrea, who are proud new parents to a little baby girl, Sutton! She's beautiful!

What else? Our kiddo is due in 4 short weeks, and it's strange to think I'm 8 months pregnant. Mark and I have decided that I really don't look very big at all from the front or back, but in profile you can truly appreciate the 30+ pounds of lovin' that has accumulated. Baby is moving like crazy all of the time, and we actually have the nursery somewhat ready for him (November is back to a "he" month). I still don't have the crib sheets or bassinet sheets washed up as our dryer broke last week, but the replacement part should be here in a couple days, so soon enough. A baby is official term at 37 weeks, so really, just one more week to go to really not worry about anything. Although honestly, most kids born at 36 weeks go home within a couple of days anyway. I'm getting excited, but as work has been so busy lately (our community hospital set a new record for births in October) that I feel like I need to hold off on having this kid until my schedule actually goes to maternity leave (starts Dec. 1st). Not much we can do if I go early, but whatever. It's all good. And I'm looking forward to some spiked egg nog around Christmas as well as some good wine with the Fitzgerald clan. Yea!

What else? It's very strange for me to have a day off here and there now and not have Mark around the house. He's new job certainly has some sweet perks (as in, season ski passes) but I have a feeling my maternity leave will be a quiet one. At least until his family gets here! The new furniture is awesome, but Mark was smart enough to actually check to see if our sofa was a pull-out sleeper, like we thought, and wouldn't you know, no bed underneath the cushions. They'll be swapping out the sofas when they make another delivery in a couple weeks to bring us our side table that matches the dining room table.

Other than that, I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving, as that's my last big hurrah for work, with me only working half days after the holiday. That and I like turkey.

OK, need to get some sleep. Good sleep has definitely been hard to come by in the third trimester, but I have another prenatal massage set up for Wednesday. Those appointments are godsends!

Halloween, work, and mrfixit (-Halloween)

2007-11-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to talk about Halloween because D wants to post (with a picture of her belly, even!), so we'll skip the big H for now and let D get back to it later. (pictures here)

So: the new job is going well. I was given my first assignment on Wednesday and finished it up on Thursday, but I made things too complicated and had to scale it back a little (basically pulling a report with different variables - exciting stuff). Otherwise, I've been reading up on the new language I'm to learn (C#, BJ) and messing around with the central reservation system and database (If you've ever called Steamboat to make a reservation - ahem, mom - I can retrieve your info). It's nice to be back in an office (never thought I'd hear myself say that) and I think things will be interesting. Certainly there will be no lack of work, and I'll stay busy once I get ramped up.

D and I both got free season passes (mine doubles as my employee ID), and while I was filling out paperwork at HR I realized that I graduated high school with the HR girl (Maggie Litgen, for the Ramblers who are reading along). I have new employee orientation tomorrow (Monday) for at least half a day, and then it's back to work for me. The team also has high development standards, which is refreshing (it's nice to come into an environment that has standards already spelled out, as opposed to the bank where I tried to institute them and it never happened).

So of course it was this week, now that I'm out of the house, that the dryer and disposal break. As of now, I have identified the problem with the dryer and ordered a replacement (and become intimately familiar with its innards), and woke up early this morning (thanks, DST) and replaced the disposal (which was much easier than I would have expected).

Oh, and we had our first dinner party at the new table last night, and the family "secret" recipe flank steak was a huge hit (and delicious). The nice thing about dinners like last night's is that I only worry about the main dish, which consisted of marinating the steaks all day and throwing them on the grill 15 minutes before we were ready to eat. Other people brought the salad and potatoes. I provided the asparagus but someone else prepared it. Fun times.

That's all I got for now. D will check in later with the Halloween update.

New furniture! (and other fun things)

2007-10-30T08:51:00.000-06:00

So our furniture shopping trip was successful this weekend - we went to American Furniture Warehouse (not realizing everything was on sale - bonus) and found an entire living room set (sofa, loveseat, chair) and a dining room (table, chairs, and buffet/side-table). Best of all, they delivered Monday, just two days after we picked everything out. Double bonus.

The only problem was, we had a ton of stuff that belonged elsewhere (the nursery, for example) in our living room, waiting for the carpet installers to come (they are here as I'm typing this on Tuesday). So we had to move everything out of the living and dining rooms (much of it into the nursery), and today, had to clear out the nursery and the guest room for the carpet guys (good thing I got up early and got it done, they showed up by 8:00am). I have no idea how long it will take them to do this (it can't take that long, can it?), as there are a lot of other things on my list to get done today. However, instead of doing those things (raking leaves before it snows again, early voting, making my halloween costume), what I really want to do is get in the nursery and build the crib and install our closet organizer (which has been taking up space in our garage since our last trip to Home Depot).

I will take pictures of the nursery after we get the carpet and furniture in there, so it might be this weekend at some point. Above, you can see a picture of our new dining room table (set with six chairs, but we got eight for those big dinners). Click on it for some more views and pics of our living room as well.

Next on the agenda will be to hang pictures and do some decorative painting in the nursery. Oh yeah, and finish flooring the stairs and install that bannister. What a PITA. Lord knows when I'll have time to install trim (or money to pay for it)...

End of an Era

2007-10-25T23:39:00.001-06:00

So I'm up late finishing up work I have to get done for IBM before packing up my computers and sending them away tomorrow, and I just sent what will probably be my second-last email to my team.

It's weird. I've really disliked working for the bank for some time now (things really just stagnated, and I haven't really felt challenged - in good ways - for a while now), but I've been with them for 5 years. That's longer than I spent in college! (barely)

A week before I started the job, Dana and I went on our first date.

And I feel like I've grown up a lot (a real lot) in these five years. Sure, marriage can do that to a guy (and buying a house, and having a kid will certainly change even more), as well as moving across the country TWICE! But through it all, my team has been there.

We've never really been close, but five years is a long time!

But I'm very much looking forward to my new job. The Steamboat website has just been given a (needed) facelift, and it sounds like I'll be involved in updating the look and feel (sorely needed) of the online reservation system. And the last time I built a website (for my job) intended for external viewers was back BEFORE I went back to school, with Connell. I miss the creativity involved there (not that there wasn't any with the bank, but functionality trumped usability every time). I'm looking forward to learning a new (programming) language. Working with - and meeting - new people. A clean slate. It's scary and exciting. But mostly just exciting.

And the ski pass - and a boss that understands why flexible schedules are needed - are great benefits to which it would be tough to assign a dollar value.

It's kind of sad to say goodbye to the people at the bank, but honestly, I haven't been a part of their lives for more than two years now, and that's a very strange disconnect to say the least, considering I work "with" them every day.

Getting out of the house will be good. A commute (five minutes in a car though it may be) will be nice. Working at home was a fun experiment, but on a full-time basis, it's just tough to maintain momentum; and I've always been exceptional at procrastinating (as here I am at nearly midnight, like I'm cramming for an exam), which has presented challenges.

As good a company as it is, IBM just wasn't the one for me. At least, not working for the bank as a client - and we really weren't given any other option.

Anyway, enough sappy shit - I have a ton to do. In addition to documenting one final application (one I didn't even write! that wasn't documented when I started!), we got our crib today, along with about six other packages (Garretts, you rule). I built the bassinet yesterday, we get our changing table tomorrow.. I need to hunker down and build them!

New carpet is coming for the nursery on Tuesday, and I start work on Wednesday. The final major things I have to get done to the house before this baby comes - floor the stairs and build a bannister - will hopefully get finished in the next couple weeks. And if I can recruit Wes to come help me (re-)install the doors we've bought/removed, then it's just trim and other details.

Well, and then the 1/2 bath and the laundry room. But after those, I think that's it.

Crap, there are so many projects I can't even count them. Ah, well. Brought it on myself.

D and I are going furniture shopping this weekend (Saturday) in Denver. Hopefully we can find something, because 7 hours in the car to go shopping is hardly my idea of a weekend well-spent. But we need furniture for the living room. What's a guy to do?

Later! Sorry for the long, boring post! Just wanted to let it out.

Hell Yeah.

2007-10-23T09:16:00.001-06:00

So I've understandably been doing a lot of reading lately about birth and pregnancy and babies, and the best piece of information I've come across so far was quite welcome in my uber sober state. Guinness helps increase milk production in breastfeeding women.

Boo-yah.

So now I know which beverage I will be toasting with whence this child is born. Finally--some good news for a pregnant beer drinker.

Let's see--what else has been going on....I was on call last weekend and work was super busy, but nothing too crazy, no flying kids to Denver or anything. I actually was supposed to have today off, but we need a little office coverage for a couple hours this afternoon, which I have no problem doing. Business is good.

We have City Council and School Board elections going on right now, and early voting started this week. I'm working a full day on November 6th, the date of the general election, so I ran over to the courthouse and voted after dragging me arse out of bed for a 7 am meeting at the hospital. Early voting is sweet. No lines, took me about 5 minutes total to cast my ballot. Can't beat that. Here's hoping the voting machines aren't rigged.

Mark tried to get Rockies World Series tickets yesterday, but with the Rockies' system crashing, no luck. We'll try again today, although to be honest, chances are if he does get tickets, he'll just resell them on EBay. Baby needs new carpet in the nursery.

The kid in my belly is doing just fine--I only have about 4-6 weeks left of this pregnancy gig, and we have another OB appointment on Friday. Kid should probably be around 5 pounds by now. Overall, I'm still feeling well, and really can't complain too much about how things are going. Mark's been awesome about everything, from helping my swollen legs to tying my boots (since I can no longer see my feet) to not getting pissed when I wake up a jazillion (OK, 3-4) times a night to pee. I have to say, though, I am excited to have my normal body back. Soon enough.

OK, I didn't sleep so hot last night, and was up early for a meeting, so I'm going to head back to bed for a little while. MMMM. Bed.

Too good to be an ignored 'featured video'

2007-10-18T10:25:00.001-06:00

Caught a shorter version of this on Wired Science on PBS. Gotta love it.

(Also, how our kids will learn math)

Day Off

2007-10-17T10:19:00.000-06:00

So blogger is crapping out on me right now, and won't let me upload any pictures. But here's what I was going to post. Guess you'll have to wait until next time.

I have today off, which is a godsend as work was really busy the past couple days. There's currently a baby boom in town, which is great for business, but not great for getting home before 7 or 8 at night. Most days it's no big deal, but yesterday I was just completely worn down and it was a struggle to get through the day. Good thing babies are so cute.

33 weeks and 2 days pregnant, about 7 1/2 months for those of you counting at home. We had our baby shower this weekend, which was an absolute blast. Mark's mom and sister came in from Chicago, and my mom came in from Fargo, and it was awesome to be able to show off all the work Mark has done on the house. There's still a lot to do, but actually being able to show people and talk about it made me realize just how dingy this house was before we started the remodel. It's really shaping up.

The baby shower was exactly what I was hoping for--we had it a restaurant in town because we are friends with the owner and our friend Gina used to be a waitress there. It was all decked out in baseball and Cubs decorations, and more than one person commented on how we must be having a boy, but were surprised when I said, no, still don't know, but the kid will certainly be raised a Cubs fan. Although with our location and the current success of the Rockies, I would be OK with he or she cheering for them when the Cubs aren't playing.

So yeah, shower was perfect--lotsa people hanging out drinking and eating, no games were played (I personally hate that about the baby showers I go to--especially if there isn't any beer there), and I think everyone had a good time. We certainly got a bunch of stuff, and Mark and I are now working on filling in the gaps, ordering the final baby gadgets we need (bassinette, baby monitor, diaper bag, etc) because a baby is considered "term" at 37 weeks, which is only 3 1/2 weeks away! Craziness. Kid is moving around all the time, and it's so wild to see my stomach rolling around from the outside. Much to the dismay of Mark's mom, we're still not divulging names, but I got a kick out of Mark telling her if baby's a boy, he will be Al, if a girl, Hillary. Heehee.

So yeah, life is good, work is good, baby is good. It's really turned into baby central around here with all the stuff from the shower and Mark assembling the baby jogger and the little play chair and that sort of thing. It's starting to hit home a lot more, and not surprisingly, making the last few weeks of this pregnancy really tough with all the waiting and preparing. Kid's about 4 1/2 pounds now, I've put on almost 30 pounds, and it's all right in front. Next OB visit is a week from Friday, and I think we start going every two weeks after that. Sweet.

OK, I need to get some errands done today before I can sit on me arse by the fire and read. It's a grey, sleet/snow kinda day today, which is great for doing nothing--

And with Halloween coming up, does anyone have any suggestions on what kind of costume I can make my belly into?

BIG NEWS™

2007-10-09T09:56:00.000-06:00

So, it's time for my big news.

I am leaving IBM.

There have been a lot of changes lately in the account I work for (ABN AMRO, it's no secret), including but not limited to the fact that the part of ABN for which I work - LaSalle Bank - has been sold to Bank of America (also public knowledge). At the root of this is the fact that IBM doesn't have a contract with BofA, who purchases other banks and integrates them into its own on a regular basis, and I felt my job might be in jeopardy. Also, it's time for me to get out of the house and back into the world.

Several months ago, I noticed a job posting in our local newspaper for a position with the ski mountain. No, not as a lift operator; they needed a programmer for help maintaining and upgrading their central reservations system (and disparate systems which tie into the central database). After months of putting it off (the position was posted for probably 6 months before I applied), I called HR to find out more about the position, and they encouraged me to apply so I could discuss it with the team. I did, and one phone interview and two real interviews later, they made the offer. Last Wednesday(ish) I accepted, and today I gave my notice to IBM. I spoke with my manager around 10am (MST) and my team immediately after. My last day with Big Blue will be towards the end of the month, and I'll be starting with Steamboat on Halloween (I should plan a grand costume to set expectations from the beginning).

It will be an adjustment, for sure. My primary job will involve using a programming language with which I'm only peripherally familiar, so I've got that hurdle facing me (though I'm confident I can pick it up fairly quickly). Also, the new job comes with a significant pay cut, so Dana and I are having to make budgetary adjustments as well. And with a kid on the way too (and the related expenses), there are a lot of changes coming down the pike at one time. But we're both really excited.

I never made it a big secret that I didn't love working for the bank, but it's been a good, stable job for some time now. But I think it's past time to move on. I'm excited about the changes that working for the mountain will bring (among the benefits: free season pass and flexible working hours on powder days), excited to be working with a new group of people (though I do feel some guilt leaving my team of 5 years behind).

And yes, I know that the photochop at the top of this post is kind of backwards (Steve McQueen should really be riding away from IBM and towards the mountain), but cut me some slack already. It looks good.

Long weekend plans.

2007-10-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

So I'm blogging because I took today off, and my current task is to fix the garage door opener (which, I discovered at 4am the other morning, likes to reverse itself for no good reason). Well, in adjusting and repeatedly testing the opener, I have succeeded in overheating it (no big deal, it says so right in the manual), so I have to wait 15 minutes before trying again. I think I've got it this time, though. We'll just have to keep an eye on it. Apparently it will need adjustment "as the weather changes" "throughout the first year". I look forward to that.

Also accomplished this morning - I have framed out (finally) where all the wires are running through one of our closets, and added some crossbeams (there was really no ceiling in the closet) so I can slap some drywall up there and finish the closet. It will be nice to not have insulation falling on us and the smell of coal dust (if you recall, through this closet used to run the flue for the coal furnace, which we removed some time ago). Fixing it up and being able to use it for storage (as a closet!) will be awesome.

I'm also on my fourth (and final!) day of covering the ceiling texture in the nursery. I have to get the dang nursery done before next Friday, when my mom and mother in law come to visit for our baby shower. The first day took about three hours, then the second day I sanded it and skimmed over it again (which took about 4 hours), and yesterday I skimmed over it again thinly to smooth things out (about 2.5 hours). Today it's just sanding smooth, then primer and paint! (Crap, I just realized we don't have the paint for the nursery yet - but we do have it picked out).

Additionally, I have to skim over all the holes in the newly fixed closet and close up the joints between the new wallboard I'm putting up today. Then I'm going to remove the shelves from our other hall closet and get that ready for finishing as well.

The rest of the weekend, I'll be sanding/re-patching/re-sanding the newly fixed closet (it's a slow process), finishing up the nursery (except for carpet - we need to schedule that installation), prime and paint our double closet doors and my office doors, run a switch to the closet door (right now our master closet light just has a pull-cord - I am going to replace it with a switch that turns on the light when you open the door - fancy stuff!), insulate the newly finished closet, hang all the other doors we've removed over the last 6 months, finish painting upstairs, cap our 1/2 wall (and prime and paint the wood for that), install a new light in the nursery, and get all the garbage out of our yard (yes; we are those neighbors).

Good thing I have Monday off too.

Also: Tuesday, look for a big announcement.

31 Weeks

2007-10-02T16:06:00.001-06:00

So we had another of our prenatal classes last night, and decided that one guy in our class looks like Chainsaw from the movie Summer School. Since Mark was the one who really was adamant about this, and I really only remembered Mark Harmon and Kristie Alley from that movie, here is a picture for your enjoyment.

Last night's class was a little weird. They gave us a handout on a bunch of different "laboring positions" and had us practice some of them, which basically came down to the move which looks like a junior high slow dance, and me sitting on chair while Mark rubbed my back. Throw in a little hair band rock ballad and the mood would be set. I brought up Poison, Mark suggested Nine Inch Nails. Our poor child.

Then we proceed to watch a very scary movie that showed a bunch of different women freaking out while in labor. My main impressions from watching this video:
1. More sure than EVER that I want an epidural
2. Why someone would ever want to be filmed while in labor is beyond me.
3. I don't think I will be a noisy person during this process.
4. Many women make sounds like farm animals during contractions.

We also got a nice short book about breast feeding which I've been reading a bit today, and also took a tour of the OB floor, which I found as amusing as the nurses who were working and saw me come through there. It's very interesting to be on the other side of everything.

The prenatal classes have been very good at giving me a better idea about what to expect from labor--all the practical stuff that wasn't taught during my OB rotation in med school. We only have two classes left, which is kinda nice because a 2 hour class does get long towards the end of it.

Looks like things have set up well for my baby shower in a couple weeks. I'm excited because both my mom and Mark's mom and sister are flying in for it. It's also going to be at one of our favorite restaurants in town, made easier because we know the owner and our friend Gina used to work there. Registering for stuff has been a bit crazy though--who knew there were a bazillion different kid things out there? I think we're finally set on that though, which is nice. When Mark and I registered for wedding stuff, to be honest, he picked out most of it while I just sort of agreed. It's been reversed this time around as Mark's been busy with Other Things to Be Described Later. However, Lauren found the best website ever, and I promised Mark that if we do end up having a boy, we'll buy these. So classy.

Mark and I walked a TON today--going to get the mail (which is usually a 30 minute walk from our house to the post office and back) then looking at some furniture downtown, and then back home. I crashed afterwards, and am just trying to wake myself back up again. I'm going to try a different place in town tonight that has prenatal yoga. I was taking a class at the hospital, but it was canceled due to low enrollment. I've heard good things about this other class, so we'll see how it goes. My low back is starting to loudly protest my protuberant belly (with a 3 1/2 pound baby inside) so hopefully yoga will help. Later kids.

Snowy Steamboat September [Updated]

2007-09-30T10:15:00.000-06:00

First snow of the year (not on the mountain)! Last day of September. We have a fire going and I just put some cider on the stove. Yum!

Yesterday (Saturday) I installed a new garage door opener. It was one of those jobs that, the first time you do it, it takes all day (I literally started at about 9:30 and finished at about 5:30 yesterday), but the second time would probably take half as long. Ah, well.

D and I went to Home Depot in Avon (Vail) Friday night and spent a fortune (it's virtually impossible not to when you live so far from there).

Purchased:

closet organizer for the baby,
new hardware for the kitchen cabinets (gone are the ceramic ugly drawer pulls, here are some cheap brushed nickel ones),
new garage door opener (see paragraph 2),
various stuff to get rid of the horrible ceiling texture in the nursery,
new bathroom hardware for the master bath (and bathroom cabinet thingy),
Coke Zero (it was really cheap there),
a grate for our wood stove (there wasn't one in there),
a handful of more ceiling lights to replace the ones in the nursery, guest room, and laundry, and
some random other stuff.

Overall, a good trip, but like I said: we spent way too much. Thanks to my p's for my birthday Home Depot gift card, which took care of a good portion of the purchases (let's say they bought the garage door opener and the baby closet).

Anyway, I also decided I want to write "Steamboat Springs" on here because Google doesn't associate our blog at all with Steamboat. Or with "Mark Fitzgerald". So hopefully this paragraph will help with that.

Later!

[UPDATE]:

Looks like that last paragraph worked!

Babies with Chest Hair

2007-09-25T10:19:00.001-06:00

So Mark and I had our third prenatal class last night. This one was a bit on the boring side for me, as it was all about the newborn, but I know Mark got a lot out of it, which is good. That was kinda my idea about the classes--give me a refresher on OB stuff (which I did 2 months of in med school about 8 years ago) and give Mark an idea about what to expect. Mark even got a chance to practice swaddling a baby last night. He made it look like a Buddhist monk, with just enough of the chest exposed to allow for baby's chest hair to be shown off. Because you know if any baby is going to be born with chest hair, it will be my baby.

I've got today off, which is nice because the weekend was a busy one on call. Not too many crazy phone calls from parents, but I did have a series of calls from the ER starting at 1 in the morning Sunday, then 3, then 4, and I finally went in to see the patient, who has some serious psych issues going on. Did a bunch of stuff in terms of her workup before finding out she has regularly seen another provider in town, and so, thanks to professional courtesy, I was able to hand care off to him about 11 am or so, finish up with my other kids in the hospital, and go home to sleep. Just felt gross all Sunday, and watching Rex and Bears suck it up didn't help any either. At least I slept great Sunday night, and was quite productive at work Monday.

But now I have today off, and will be getting a prenatal massage this afternoon (thanks Jim and Ann!). I need it--my body is way jacked up. Then tonight we're going over to Scott and Gina's for a Corn Dog Challenge. Mark has never attempted the cooking of corn dogs before, so this should be interesting.

What else? Looks like we've got the baby shower date set, and my mom has been looking into flights as well as Mark's mom. Mark and I set up a registry at Babies R Us, which was a new experience. Man, there's sure a lot of baby crap out there. And I find it somewhat amusing that I'm researching breast pumps and being somewhat excited about that. It's not something that I've ever really pictured myself getting excited about, but with hopefully more of our Irish Brood on the way in the next few years, I'm all concerned about durability, easy of cleaning, etc. So strange, and makes me want to kick back with a cold one. A cold one with an O'Douls label, unfortunately, is all I'm going to get. Good times. I feel so old. :)

So I'm 30 weeks and one day today. I've seen some 35 weekers, and most 36 weekers, do really well and go home a couple days after being born, so it seems strange that we could be bringing a baby home in a little over a month. Our nursery is still a laundry/ironing room with unprimed new drywall and crappy carpet, so I guess we need to start working on that. Mark and I did go look at carpet this weekend, but the installation was ridiculously expensive, so I think we're going to check out another place in town to compare prices.

Been watching a lot of Women's World Cup Soccer. The US is kicking some butt now after a pretty tepid first round game against North Korea. They play in the semifinals on Thursday, but since the tournament is in China, I've been having to TiVo the games in the early morning, desparately attempt not to peek at si.com during the day, and then watch in the evenings. Working well so far. Mark and I also started watching Ken Burns' lastest film, The War, on PBS. All about WWII, and really good so far. Considering the thing is something like 17 hours long, I'm sure that will keep us entertained for a while.

And speaking of entertainment, new Sluts in a Hospital starts this week! I've been missing my brain candy.

OK, should probably try and be somewhat productive today. If I have to.

Updates, snow(!), etc

2007-09-24T14:29:00.000-06:00

Disclosure: I grabbed the above image from the blog of a local Realtor.

I was sitting in my office, looking outside at the rain today and thinking that at altitude it probably meant snow - sure enough, there you have it. So: it truly is fall.

I've been meaning to get out and get some pictures of the mountains for a new header pic for the blog - the aspens are starting to turn and everything is starting to look like fall.

Lots of other stuff going on. October baseball is nearly here, and the Cubs magic number is down to 4. The house has been making slow but steady progress, though I've been taking a break from work on it (and we have some company coming in several weeks) so I have a feeling a big push is about to commence again. Plus, it's time to get the nursery ready.

The Bears stink and really need to get rid of Grossman. But at least we have the Cubbies (for now). Dana and I were surprised (and excited) to see pre-game coverage of another Miami OH football game this weekend - they were in Boulder playing the Buffs - but when we got home we realized the game wasn't on. Not a big deal, really - they got their asses handed to them something like 44-0. Oh well.

There is potential other news coming up but I'm holding off on it for now. In the meantime, enjoy thinking of how nice a fall it's going to be. Time for me to buy some wood and fire up our wood stove for the first time!

(I love Autumn)

Newspaper quote of the day...

2007-09-18T08:13:00.000-06:00

The electric outage experienced by Yampa Valley Electric Association was due to a marmot that got past a chain-link fence and climbed onto a transformer.

*(how perfect is it that I found a picture of a marmot in front of a fence?)