Silverfish!

Lucia's Spring Break this week, and we had kicked around a few ideas over the weekend about what we could go do. Naturally, we made a list, with Lucia dictating and me writing. Some of the items were more ambitious than others (I'm looking at you, massively huge and hilly Oakland Zoo), and some items couldn't happen because of logistics, but we tried to get in the others.

One thing we decided to focus on this week was swimming: we had a mere 16 makeup credits, as you know the cold/flu season hit us hard. Three makeup credits = a private lesson so I booked private lessons every day this week.

Monday was her first lesson. She did OK. Swimming in general has been a challenge in recent months; there was one week where the pool was a few degrees colder and she just bawled and bawled and they motioned for me to come down from the viewing gallery to get her. Since then, she has regressed and wanted to jack around and give her teacher a hard time. Ugh. We figured a week's worth of private lessons would help. And they did! Tuesday her teacher pushed her a bit, and voila, she took off like a rocket in the water. Afterwards I complimented him and he said he saw her jacking around on Monday and knew she was the kind of kid who needed a bit more of a push. That's our girl! Wednesday we had to cancel our lesson because we went to the doctor to check on baby brudder, but Thursday she was back in the water with the same teacher as Tuesday. And she ROCKED IT. It was unbelievable. He'd stand about 10 feet from the edge of the side, and just basically pick her up, put her face down, and let her take off, face fully in the water, kicking up a storm, arms pointed straight like an arrow. Over and over again. He had her stand on the side of the pool and she jumped in at least five times, something we've never seen her do. It was impressive. Afterwards I told her how proud of her I was, and told her how proud she should be of herself.

Yesterday we arrived, ready to rock it, but we had a substitute teacher who just thought Lucia was simply adorable, and basically let her walk all over her. From the viewing gallery I watched Lucia repeatedly splash her in the face, despite this teacher telling her to stop, and jack around and try to jump off the platform and swim like she had done the days prior. I asked another mom up there if she thought I should say anything, she said yes. I went downstairs and yelled across the pool for Lucia to stop splashing her teacher (she was still doing it! and the teacher was letting her!). I talked to them aside and said, look, she's acting up because you're not pushing her, and she should be evaluated today to see if she can move from Seahorse to Silverfish today. They said no probs, they didn't see that on her chart but would be happy to do so.

And they did! and here's video of her rocking it again! She's the blue blur at the top of the video, sorry for crappy quality. In that video she does monkey walks around the side of the pool, gets herself out, then "dives" from a sitting position. After class they said yes, she was ready to move up. Hooray! I had her apologize to the teacher for not stopping splashing when she asked and we talked about how that wasn't OK.

It was really important to me that she get in a win this week, and feel a sense of pride for her accomplishments before all hell breaks loose with the arrival of baby brudder next week. I've heard that she'll likely regress in some areas and will have a hard time adjusting in others. Let's hope the pride of this week can help her in some way.

That's a Wrap

Yesterday was my last day of work for a few months! It was unbelievably stressful this week, more so than I imagined, handing my work off to a new person who just started Monday. She's more than capable and really, actually amazing, but I didn't realize how busy I've been until I had the time to slow down and talk about the six projects I've been working on. I handed off two last week, so the remaining four, which I lead, were more challenging to identify next steps and here's everything you could ever want to know about not only the project, but the internal politics and personalities. 

I had coffee and lunch with my closest ally at work, Kevin. We refer to each other as work-husband and work-wife; he has a wife who is great and three kids. We sit next to each other and talk all day. He's the first person I'll let know when Baby Boy has arrived. Tons of people stopped by to give hugs and tell me good luck; it was really wonderful to know that I'll be missed and thought of while I'm gone. 

As I shuffled out to the parking garage, laptop strapped on my back in case anyone needs to reach me before April 4, and a very heavy purse, a man I passed on the sidewalk said, "Boy." I turned and he said, "You're having a boy." I grinned and said yes. He said he could tell by the way I'm carrying; all baby in the front, not much anywhere else. He wished me well. It was sweet. 

I was in bed by 8 p.m. last night, and was practically delirious with exhaustion. Pete suggested that the weight of the week was finally off me and I was coming down from it. He's probably right. If you need to reach me, I'll be sleeping. Except for at 5 a.m., apparently. :) 

Not Yet

So yesterday I texted Pete and said, lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions this afternoon. Weird. I drank tons of water and went about my day. After work, I got stuck in traffic so went to pick up Lucia instead of dropping the car at home, and noticed the contractions were getting more painful. Ow. After dinner, I laid on my left side and drank more water. They weren't letting up, in fact they were getting more painful. I waited a half hour and downloaded some contraction timer apps. I called Lauren. I called Labor & Delivery. They said call back in another half hour with the frequency and duration count. I called them back. They said to come in. Sigh. I was exhausted from work and really just wanted to go to bed.

I'll cut to the end here: no baby yet. The contractions eased up once we got to the hospital, of course.

But two pretty awesome things came out of this:

One, Lucia RALLIED like you wouldn't believe. I've been pretty worried about how she'll handle the actual events leading up to the birth, and if yesterday is any indication, she'll be just fine. Pete was putting her to bed when I told him we had to go and she sprang up, and put on a layer of wool and found a hat to cover her still-damp hair, and was very serious but very excited at the same time. Since we've done this before, she knew she'd get to ride in Lauren's car and have a sleepover with Eddie. Several times on the 40-minute car ride over there she said she was worried about baby brother, and I told her that the doctors and nurses would take great care of him, me and Daddy, and most importantly, Lauren and Justin would take great care of HER. She was pretty amazing.

Second, the Redwood City hospital IS SO MUCH NICER THAN OAKLAND. I cannot stress this enough. The hospital facility where I've typically been is not nearly as fancy as where we had Lucia, but people, labor and delivery was amazing. The nurses were SO NICE and warm and welcoming. Seriously, so wonderful. Within 15 minutes of us coming in, a midwife came in and said, well it doesn't look like you're contracting now. And contractions like this are typical as you reach the last few weeks here. We went over what/when to come in again. She was so nice. We were in an out of there in an hour. It was so great. I mean, so great. There is absolutely no question we'll be going there; our nurse herself said she used to live in Oakland and drove to Redwood City to have her baby. She didn't like the Oakland facility. (Mind you, the Oakland facility is great for our regular doc and our pediatrician, just not where I want to have Baby Boy).

Guess we're better safe than sorry with these fire drills...

Another Head lice outbreak

Thankfully she doesn't have it but 5 kids at her school do. Argh. Today I put her hair up, telling her I was making it funny antennas, and put tea tree oil around the bottom of her scalp line. Crossed fingers.

Also in this pic she told me to stop taking pictures so she could eat her clementines.

Bummah and Silliness

These are unrelated, but here's our night: Pete lifted our favorite clock off the wall tonight to change the time and ka-blam it shattered. :( it's not available at IKEA anymore or on eBay or on Craigslist. Bummer.

Lucia had a serious case of the sillies in the tub tonight. Can you believe she still wears that bowl as a hat? Best toy ever!

Fenton's

Topping Lucia's bucket list of things to do before baby brudder arrives is going to Fenton's for ice cream. Yesterday it happened, albeit a speedy trip as it was jam-packed and we had to get to swimming. But one petite scoop of strawberry sorbet made her day.

First Ever Chocolate Party

I can't remember what I was doing, or where I was, but I texted Pete one day and said, how about we have a chocolate party before baby brudder comes? He enthusiastically answered yes. We set a date and decided to have an adults only chocolate party for some close Scandinavian friends. Huge surprise, I agonized over the menu. I wanted sweet and savory, so while the chocolate was a given, the other stuff was not. I also didn't want to serve a whole dinner, just savory snacks. We Ok, fine I, also set the date as a deadline for having things set up in the apartment, meaning clean and decluttered. The past few weeks we've been working like crazy to get everything done.

And last night was the night! The apartment looked really, really great. Our hard work paid off. I created the final menu Friday and after three trips to the grocery store, we had everything, including at least 15-20 different varieties of chocolate. Here's what we had:

Salad with roasted red peppers, kalamata olives and lemon vinaigrette
Spinach artichoke dip with leeks and parmesan
Baked brie with apricot jam
Mushroom flatbread (Trader Joe's, of course)
Ciabatta, garlic ciabatta and olive bread
Rosemary raisin rounds
Herbed goat cheese

and for desserts:
Dried cherry, almond and dark chocolate bark
Dark chocolate bark with hazelnuts and ginger
Pear tart with salted caramel sauce
Coffee and vanilla ice cream
Aforementioned different types of chocolate.

We had this idea because back in 2006 we went to a tasting at a chocolate cafe, and it was just like a wine tasting. It was really fun. But I admit last night we didn't really do a tasting because we had too many people, and well I think everyone was full and just enjoying each other's company. We had a good laugh about how my Type A tendency was to arrange the chocolate from dark to light, down to the percentage, but in the end, we just noshed. And enjoyed each other. It was so awesome.