Eleanor vs bunny - you guess who won

So one of the jokes between myself and Lance is that whenever he goes out of town, there is a critter episode in the backyard. Seriously, every single time he's been gone there has been: opossum, groundhog, rabbit, beaver, you name it - it has come into the yard and Eleanor has either chased it into a corner or it has gotten her so riled up she just won't come back inside. This weekend, Lance was planning on going to his Dad's, he was going to leave Friday right after work.

Friday, I decide to come home for lunch, get a little dog love and break up my work day. I let the dogs out for potty and am watching them because usually Franklin does a quick pee and wants right back inside for some hugs and kisses. I'm watching and I see Eleanor lift her legs up off the grass real quick like something bit her. I look closer and she looks closer and I hear a squeak. Oh man, I realize she's stepped on a baby bunny. Faint of heart? Stop reading now.

She started to play with the bunny and put it in her mouth, I freaked out, ran inside so I couldn't hear it anymore and called Lance and am like, you are not going to believe this. There is a critter in the yard and you haven't even left town yet!!!! I got off the phone and realized I should try and man up at least a little and see if I couldn't save the bunny. So, I went out to the porch to find a pair of gloves and headed into the yard. When I got out there though I didn't hear anymore squeaking and saw Eleanor set it down and paw at it like, come on. Well, at least the poor thing was dead and wasn't being tortured. I thought maybe she'd let me take it from her so I can at least dispose of it, so I head towards her, hand out, telling her to drop it. In the house, she drops whatever we tell her to - but a bunny is entirely different. Rather than drop it, she started to chew it. The more I asked for it, the quicker she chewed until she gave a big swallow and uh, bunny was all gone. 

Eleanor's done this before, so it wasn't entirely new to me - but its still pretty disgusting. I love bunnies and used to have them as pets when I was a kid. So the first couple times she caught a bunny it was really hard for me, but I just have to remind myself she is a dog and dogs will eat things like that. Its nature. Its kind of like her own version of the RAW diet that others feed their dogs.

The entire time this was going on, Franklin was oblivious. He was watching her a little bit kind of like, what's going on? But he mostly just puttered around the yard doing his own thing. Poor little simple Franklin....

I did get the dogs out of the yard and do a full search for more bunnies and their nest. I didn't find anymore bunnies, but I found their nest so I dismantled it so they have to go live somewhere else now. Before I did any of that though, I did a quick internet lookup to see what would be the best thing to do. Turns out because of the size of the bunny, he was supposedly kicked out of the nest anyway and told to live on his own. I guess he wasn't quite ready. Poor little bunny.

Contented sigh...

We know what our baby is :) We had the OB appointment yesterday morning and they were able to tell with 99% certainty what little Baby Koch is going to be. The ultrasound part lasted for like maybe 30-45 minutes, it seemed to go on forever. She was taking all sorts of measurements and stuff and it was taking her longer because we have a wiggly baby. And along with be wiggly, the baby was also sucking - how cool. It is just amazing to me to be able to see all that going on inside my belly. Trippy man.

I'm purposely continuing to refer to baby as baby rather than by a pronoun because there are still a few people we want to tell yet. I told my mom and we told Lance's mom yesterday, both were beyond happy for us. Knowing what baby is, is weird, I was very sure I wanted to not know and be surprised, but now I'm glad I know. I'm so excited :) 

This afternoon I am heading to Wisconsin for a little mini bonding session, today through Sunday. My mom and sisters came out to see me in June and I had such a good visit with them, I had to arrange and find time to go back home to visit some more. My Boston sister is also back in Wisconsin for a couple weeks visiting her mom. She and Wayne are going to come to mom's house on Saturday for a bbq and mini family reunion of sorts. I'm not sure what all they're doing while they're in town, but at least I have an opportunity to see them on Saturday. It will be nice to be able to spend some time talking with them, hopefully much less sad than our last visit at Dad's funeral in April. I'm anxious and nervous at the same time. 

But I am very much looking forward to spending some time with mom. Its going to be weird to be home and not have Dad in the house, but its what mom has dealt with every day. Okay, I can't type about that anymore, I'm already starting to cry. If it weren't for these hormones, I'd be able to hold my shit together better.

Lance is staying home with the dogs, given the cost of gas, and the cost of boarding the babies at the spa its more economical for just one of us to travel. I get it, but its still too bad that he won't be able to spend some time getting to know Boston sister. But, at least he's finally met her, lol.

The crackers, my god the crackers!

I've heard about pregnancy hormones, but its one of those things that you hear and are like, uh-huh whatever. Meaning, I didn't really believe in them. I just thought it was an excuse for women to be really bitchy and just blame it on hormones. K, I believe in them now.

Lance and I had gone out for our now traditional Saturday lunch time bucket 'o shrimp at the Waterfront. You can get a whole big bucket of shrimp there for half price on Saturdays! Awesome deal. There is no better lunch than shrimp and a salad on the side, AND it is very good/healthy for baby. But anyway, Lance had ordered a cup of soup and with the soup they brought this basket of crackers. As we're eating and talking and almost at the end of our meal I start fiddling with the basket of crackers. I had a memory flash of going out to eat with my grandparents and them always either eating the crackers or putting them in their purse to take home. I was telling Lance this and was like, isn't it weird that they used to eat crackers at a restaurant? All of a sudden, with no warning, I burst into tears. The crackers had pushed me over the edge. To be fair, it was the memories of my grandparents, the crackers just triggered it all. I could not get the sobbing under control, it was the kind where you are crying into hiccups and the tears are just streaming down your face. I feel bad for the diners around us, they were probably wondering what on earth had happened to me.

Lance kept talking to me in soothing tones, telling me its okay, its okay. I'm like, you gotta get me out of here. He paid and ushered me outside where I continued to sob and sob. In the car a-ways down the road, I was finally able to pull it together. Holy cow, no more thinking about crackers OR grandparents during this pregnancy. 

A Henry Story

Its been awhile, so its time for another little baby Henry story. Actually, we're going to have to stop calling him that, because I think he may be a 20 pounder now...he's neither little, nor a baby anymore.

So, working on the house, all the screens have been taken off to be scraped, repaired, painted, and re-screened. I did my part - I painted them all! But because we're screen-less, I went and got a few of those temporary expandable screens to put in the windows. This story is from maybe a month or so ago, because if was fairly comfortable outside and I wanted the windows open - now its just hot and I want the air on :)

Anyway, I'm in the kitchen ready to put in my first temporary screen and Henry jumps up onto the counter to see what I'm doing. He pays very close attention to my every move. At the time, I thought weird, its almost like he is studying me -but whatever. So I open the window, insert the screen, expand it out to the right width and then pull the window down on top of the screen. Turns out the window is a just a titch wider than the screen, so it didn't fit super tight, but certainly well enough.

I then move away from the window and am doing something else in the kitchen when I see Henry out of the corner of my eye. I stop what I'm doing to watch him. He went up to the screen, sat down, put a paw out to the screen and tapped. I see him go, tap, tap, tap, slide. Just to reiterate, he tap tapped a couple times on the screen and then slid it open! He WAS studying me!! Freaking cat opened the window. This cat never ceases to amaze me. Even though he has a tendency to be very naughty, he also seems to be brilliant at times.

The Woz

I was out in Vegas last week for a work conference. Whew, it was freaking HOT out there!! For whatever reason I felt compelled to walk from my hotel (The Palazzo) to The Bellagio. Preggers, and 107 degrees don't go well together. When I finally made it to the Bellagio, I had to sit in their lobby for awhile taking in the A/C. Lance told me out of all hotels to see there, I should try and see the fountains at the Bellagio because they're so pretty. So I got most of the sweat wiped away and I started wandering around the hotel looking for these pretty fountains. I saw a pretty ceiling, a pretty inside garden, but no pretty fountains. huh?

I wasn't about to ask anybody, because it seemed like something I should probably just know. After wandering around for awhile, I decided I needed to conserve my energy for the hike back rather than continuing to hunt down these elusive fountains. I got back outside and realized, hey, there is like this really big lake here...looking closer, I saw there were these strips running all over the bottom of it. Putting 2 and 2 together, I realized THAT was where these pretty fountains were supposed to be - but they weren't even freaking turned on! $@&%*@!

About an hour later, I made it back to my room to lay down and put my feet up - they had gotten all swollen after that little adventure.

BUT, later that day, my conference started and the keynote was given by Mr. Steve Wozniak - woohoo! Having been to see Mr. Steve Jobs numerous times, I expected to have to wait in line to get in the room, at least a little bit. But this conference was more of an application specific type deal rather than a full fledged geek-fest. When I got to the keynote room an hour and a half before it was supposed to start, the hallway was empty. EMPTY! Do these people not know who the Woz is?? So on the floor I sat, waiting for the crowds to come, but they never did. When the doors opened about 30 minutes prior to speech time, I was in the door and at the front of the room before I could even blink. Front and center! As it got closer to start time, the room actually filled all the way up. The Woz came in on a Segway and zoomed around the room for awhile before taking the stage. After his speech, I stood in a surprisingly short line to meet him and get him to sign his book for me. That was pretty fucking cool :) I told him years ago on a trip to California, I drove by THE garage and he laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about.

The peeing, the yelling, the crying... (in that order)

It took me a few days to get over my euphoria of having seen Tom Waits to be able to write about it. Settle in...its a long one :)

So, we picked up our friend diddly do at 7:30am, dropped both the dogs off at the spa and were on the road around 8ish. Given all the rains and flooding, we weren't entirely sure what to expect on our way down but turns out the Avenue of the Saints was just far enough away from the Mississippi that we were safe. Many pee breaks later (see pregnancy post below) we got to St. Louis!!

We went ahead and checked into our hotel and then napped and just vegged for a little bit before heading out to dinner and the show. Lance had never been to St. Louis before, but both diddly and I have. But my trips were so long ago I can't remember much other than the Arch and the Clydesdales. She said there was a pretty cool restaurant across the street from the Fox theatre, so we headed down there. She was right, there was a very cool restaurant right there! But it was about an hour wait and that wasn't going to work, it was a bit past 6, the show was at 8, and already there was a huge line for getting in the theatre.

Next door to this cool restaurant was another one called "Best Steak House" - hmm, really? We gave it a try anyway, I was hungry! (and had to pee) So we walk in and see this snaking line going through what looks like a pseudo cafeteria line. How strange, yet ponderosa like. But within seconds of being in line there is all sorts of shouting. It seems like the shouting is coming from the grill cooks. But then, it also seems like the shouting is coming from the line of customers. Whatever, it was weird, I stopped trying to figure it out - must just be big city-ness. So then Sarah (diddly) says she doesn't want to be first in line, will somebody switch with her? Uh, sure - I can go first, no problem! About 5 minutes later I figure out why she doesn't want to be first...the grill cooks are yelling "NEXT" at each person in line, who in turn needs to "YELL" back their order. Uhhhhh. The scary guy starts yelling NEXT at me and I freeze. The guys in front of me turn around and are chuckling and say, its your turn - I'm like I don't want to! After the scary guy yelled at me again, I made Lance yell back my order. So the yelling continues on down the line, and we inch our way to the front to get our food. I thought the worst was over, but when we got to the way front to pick up our food, the yelling was RIGHT THERE. Even though they weren't yelling at us, they were most certainly yelling through us! It is worth noting that the food was actually more than decent. I can't speak for the steak, but it looked like a lot of people ordered steak...

On to Tom :)  We cross the street and get in line around 7pm. Because we had the up close fancy seats, our tickets were at the will call window so we had to be in line. It moved pretty fast though, so within minutes we were in our seats and patiently waiting. Like I said, it was supposed to have started at 8, but because people were still streaming in and being seated, it didn't actually start until 8:45. Apparently the line outside had gotten much longer and slower. He came on stage full of energy and started stomping and epileptic-ing like good ole Tom. I think for at least the first 5 songs I was sitting, literally, on the edge of my seat with my mouth open. After awhile, I settled back in my seat to be more comfortable. He made me laugh, giggle, hoot and holler, and cry all within the first 10 minutes. We had great seats, row L, so pretty close - I could see his face!!

The show itself lasted about 2 hours, which considering he is 58, is pretty good! And rather than play all the songs from his latest Orphans, he was all over the place, playing songs from all his records. What a treat!! I got to hear so many of my favorites, it was just unbelievable to me. I can't think of enough adjectives to describe how utterly fabulous this show was. He came back for a 3 song encore, the last song being Innocent When You Dream - probably my 2nd favorite Tom song...the tears were just streaming down my face uncontrollably. It was so beautiful. I'm not sure if I would have been as emotional being not pg, or if it was the hormones, or if it was just that I love Tom so much...hard to say. But after the show, Sarah said she cried too.  :)

We hit the road right away in the morning and got back home the next afternoon. Our little mini-vacation was over way too fast. But it was so worth it.

A bun? In the oven? Us?

That's right - we got ourselves a bun in the oven, just a cooking away! We're totally pregnant!! :)

I'm 14 weeks along now so we're out of the woods so to speak and are able to tell everyone our good news. I actually found out back on April 21st. I'd been feeling really crummy and finally went to the doctor, my diagnosis was bronchitis and a baby. LOL

So far, the friends and family we've told have been a little more than surprised. We'd been so anti-baby for so long. But actually we were secretly on the baby wagon talking stages for about a year now. Started trying for a baby the 1st of this year, so we did pretty good, didn't take us long at all. Guess you'd call us fertile! Old, but fertile.

We've seen the little critter in there, have heard it's heartbeat and so far all is well. The first ultrasound we had was really wild. As soon as the lady got the image up on the screen we could see arms and legs flailing like crazy, it was totally dancing in there. The second ultrasound it was pretty still except for the hiccups. Who knew fetuses could get the hiccups? How funny... And, other than being completely exhausted and unable to keep my eyes open at times, I'm doing really well. I haven't had any morning sickness at all!! I think people are almost disappointed when they hear me tell them that. But then they seem to feel better when I add, oh I do sometimes feel a little nauseous. Usually it passes though within minutes, and I'm hungry again. In fact, I would like some mashed potatoes right now.