GramBunny isn't doing too well....

My GramBunny was admitted to the ICU a couple of days ago. Day before yesterday, her vitals were returning to normal, especially her white blood cell count, and she seemed to be doing much better. However, yesterday, her white blood cell count started to rise again and they have discovered that there is a portion of her digestive tract that is not working properly. This requires a surgical procedure to repair but GramBunny is just too frail to undergo surgery. She has become more and more frail and forgetful over the last couple of years. But as think about her these days, I am drawn to the memories that I have her. GramBunny is my step-grandmother and entered my family about 15 years ago. She was widowed and has a large family of her own, but when she came into my family, she took us in as her family too. She filled in as grandmother wonderfully, as my grandmother had died a couple years before. She was, and continues to be, one of the sweetest, yet feistiest, women I know. And she has had a wonderful impact on my family through my Grandpa. Before GramBunny, he was gruff, tough, and reserved. But with GramBunny by his side, he has become more open, gentle, loving, and able to laugh and joke! It has been wonderful to see this side of him unlocked by this wonderful woman. Recently, she has also proven herself to be an awesome great-grandmother with Madelyn. Madelyn absolutely adores her! They can play for an hour at a time – reading, singing, cuddling – it is so sweet to watch! GramBunny has brought so much to our family!

This brings me to my sadness…. Being 36 weeks pregnant, there is no way that I can go and be with my family right now. The only thing that I can do from afar is pray earnestly. So, will you pray with me?

Can you pray for:

• GramBunny, that she be as comfortable as possible and for healing
• Grandpa, for it is his birthday today and I know that he could use some supernatural uplifting
• My Mom, for she is helping in GramBunny’s care and in organizing all the details that come with an elderly family member being in the hospital. She is also stressing because she was planning to be in Minnesota with me soon…
• The hospital staff, that they be sharp and act appropriately to the information that is presented to them
• The rest of my and GramBunny’s families, that we all cope well with the uncertainty that this brings and help in bringing comfort to GramBunny at this time

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

I hope Pipsqueak is comfortable!...

because he is making me VERY uncomfortable these days! As Christina put so gently (haha!) in a comment to the last post - I am HUGE! My maternity shirts don't fit over my belly! And my pants.... well, the low-rise maternity ones show my belly (because my shirts don't cover it!), the ones that have the panel that go over my belly bother me because you can see the panel (and that just seems wrong) and the kind that are supposed to fit around your belly just don't work... gravity and the roundness of my belly work against me here. And now I have the additional issue of the weather deciding to turn cold - very cold - and I have no idea what to wear anymore! I think I might just wear my yoga pants and Ben's t-shirts for the next 5 weeks....

Anyway, enough complaining.... I am happy that things are progressing well in this pregnancy. I'm not taking it all for granted. Stopping to thank God for the blessings of another child and a relatively "normal" pregnancy is a pretty common thing. I do ask that He soothe Pipsqueak and calm him some too, though! Pipsqueak is SUCH an active one! He likes to move around A LOT, especially when I'm reading before I go to sleep. Last night, I was begging him to stop punching me in the hip - it hurt so bad! Sometimes I ask Ben to have a talk with him.... but I think Pipsqueak knows that he has the upper hand.

Ben and I have decided on a name strategy for when Pipsqueak is born.... The first name is pretty set but the middle name is still up in the air. We have two that we like and we have decided to playing a simple game of chance to choose between the two names after Pipsqueak is born (like flipping a coin or drawing straws). And JUST IN CASE, we have a girl's name picked too. Don't ask what they are though, we're not telling.

Yesterday Ben reminded me of some of the things that I need to do before the impending delivery, like pre-register at the hospital, check over my birthing plan, pack a bag.... this was all stuff that was done way too early with Madelyn but hadn't even entered my mind this time. What does that say about me? Maybe I'm more comfortable than I think. Or maybe I'm in denial! Five more weeks to go!

Is Madelyn a big girl?

Well, seeing that Madelyn has turned two AND that she has a baby brother that will be taking up residence in the nursery, Madelyn is soon moving into her new bedroom. Hopefully it will be as easy as it sounds (more about that later). However, setting up the room has taken some work and a lot of obsessing by her mother.

So, first, Ben and I had to move out of her room! We had been sleeping in that room ever since we moved in the house a year ago. It was never supposed to be our room even from the beginning but we moved in there to keep the master bedroom free to paint. One year later, the master was still not painted and we were still sleeping in the wrong bedroom....so, after some work (mostly on Ben's part) to paint the ceiling in the master bedroom, we moved in. We still have to paint the walls but that can come later.

Second, we had to paint the walls in Madelyn's new room. We decided to use a spring green on the two outside walls and a beige on the inside walls. I think it looks nice! The beige offsets the green so that it doesn't look too dark and the green gives it some color so it doesn't look too drab. Plus, these are two colors that we already had laying around the house.

Third, I created a diagram to figure out how it should be arranged - okay, so this is where the obsessive mother part comes in! But I did! I created a grid layout of the room and then made grid paper furniture pieces to scale. It helps, really! So once I figured out the room layout, we put the bed and toybox in their places and starting look for area rugs and dressers. The rugs are to cover the not-so-pretty old and torn-up wood floor and to give Madelyn a place to play. We got them cheap at Home Depot. The dresser we picked up at IKEA. It took us almost two hours to assemble, but for the price ($149) it was worth it!

Fourth, Ben's mother (Grandmomma) offered to supply/make the bed linens and the window treatments! I was excited to hear this because now I didn't have to find anything! Grandmomma had found some fabric that was perfect and all I had to do was take measurements and give her a timeframe to be done in! How wonderful! The stuff arrived last Saturday and Madelyn helped unpack the box and to her surprise, there was a little (or big) something extra in there! A doll!! She calls it "daw-ie" and LOVES to drag it around the house! She can't carry it very well seeing that it is a good foot taller than her! She would love to sleep with it, but we are keeping it in the new bedroom so that maybe it will become incentive to sleep in the "big girl bed" when the time comes. Back to the bed linens and window treatments...they have the cutest fairies on them!! Madelyn was attracted to the fabric immediately. So the bed linens were put on right away and Madelyn immediately got up on the bed and started to fake sleep on it - good sign! We decided to wait until Madelyn was asleep to put the window treatments up. Grandmomma had made roman shades and sheers. Solid colored purple satin shades with the fairy fabric as sheers over it. It looks so nice!




I still have some more decorating to do - a lamp for on top of the dresser, maybe some hooks to hang stuff on and a bin to throw stuff in....a picture maybe....I still have that to obsess over. But I think we still have another harder challenge in front of us! We have 7 weeks to get Madelyn settled in her new room....can we do it? It would be nice to have her transferred over soon so that I can concentrate on getting Pipsqueak's room ready for him. I'm hoping that she will be one of those kids that once she understands that her new bed is her new place to sleep, she will take to it quickly. I have heard stories of other kids that once they had the freedom of a "big girl/boy bed" they had trouble staying in bed. Please pray that we don't have to fight that battle!!

NOTE: Last night was our first attempt at the new "big girl bed" and it went much better than expected! Madelyn was VERY excited about laying down in the new bed and holding her dollie and reading books there before sleeping. However, when she realized that this was where she was going to sleep for the night, she wasn't sure what to think. She got out of bed once and I put her back telling her it was bedtime and she had to stay in bed. She didn't leave her bed again but she wasn't ahppy about it either.... But in the end I think it was successful! She took about 20 minutes to fall asleep and she slept there all night! We'll see how tonight goes!

It's been awhile....

I would have written sooner but it has been pretty tame around our house. As I look back, there are definitely things-of-note that have occurred - Ben's birthday celebration, Madelyn transition to her next class, and putting the panel up behind the bar in the kitchen. (Note: There is one more major change in progress - moving Madelyn to her new bedroom. But I will leave that to the next post.)

So here we go! For Ben's birthday celebration, we went to a swanky restaurant downtown called Ruth's Chris Steak House. The atmosphere was good and the food was great! There is something about a waitress scraping the crumbs away before placing your next course in front of you that makes you feel....pampered! After Ben ate a salad and I had some very tasty Louisana Seafood Gumbo, Ben had a HUGE ribeye and I had a filet and we shared family-size portions of mashed potatoes and sauted mushrooms. I have to say that I think that the mushrooms stood out the most - they were awesome! Then our waitress mentioned "Since it is your birthday, dessert is on us." It would have been nice for her to mention that earlier...at this point we were full to bustin'! But Ben got the Banana Cream Pie and it came with "Happy Birthday" on the rim of the plate in chocolate! He thought it was very good. After dinner we went over the totally new Guthrie Theatre - not to see a play but to see the new building. They built their new building on the Mississippi River and built an overlook over the river that is open to the public. It was very cool! You can't really see it in the picture, but it is a pretty good picture of Ben and I regardless. Then, because Madelyn was sleeping over at a friend's house, we headed home to a quiet house and we were able to sleep until we woke up the next day! Happy 30th Birthday, Ben!

Madelyn's transition between classes at school (day care) went very well! Today is her first official day in the Transition 2 class. Transition classes are for 2-year-olds and is truly a time of transition - learning how to drink out of a cup, serve your own food, use the potty, stand in line, etc. The teachers she's had for the last year have said that she is definitely ready for the next level of learning and interaction. She spent 4 half days in the new classroom in the past two weeks and is already comfortable with the room, teachers, and other children. She especially loves the new classroom's toys! So it is "see you later!" to Madelyn's toddler friends, especially Frankie, Joseph, and Ruby, and "hello again!" to Talia, Ryan, Jack, and Benjamin in the new classroom!

Well, we FINALLY put up the panel behind the counter-high bar in the kitchen. We still have to trim it out but at least the panel is up! We don't have to look at the back of our cabinets or oven anymore! Recently, we also put up the toekicks and quarter-round under the cabinet fronts too, but there is still quite a bit to do in the kitchen. If you can see the missing trim under the wall cabinets and around the window, these are two things yet to come. We also have crown molding to do on the pantry cabinets and baseboards waiting to be installed too...so much to do, so little time. BUT THE PANEL IS UP!!!