More of Nick's Childhood Photos

Caesar and Friend

Caesar spent some time hanging out with his good friend, Miss A. They share a love for watching what goes by on the freeway.

(yes, I know the window is really dirty- Caesar rubs his nose and paws on it. I'm out of windex. I'll take care of it soon.)

Who's that baby?

This is a picture of Nick as a baby being held by his mom. Of course I'm curious to know what our baby will look like, and maybe we'll be able to spot the similarities.

I have been too busy having fun to blog the last few days, but I'll get on it in the near future.

It's a statistical tie!

The results from the completely non-scientific and non-binding baby poll are in. Although the prediction of girl received one more vote than boy, it's a statistical dead heat.

In conversations over the last several months, it seemed like more people were predicting a baby boy. The poll shows that at least among blog-readers, it's a much more even race. We'll all find out who was right in about a month.

Caesar's Tight Rope Act

Caesar likes to spend time outside in the alley. When my dad was here on the short trip that brought Caesar to us, he bought an aerial dog run and he and Nick installed it. One side of the wire (which is about 8 feet above ground) is bolted to the tree on the left. The other side is tied to our patio. On that "high wire" is a second cable which sits on the wire with a pulley. That cable attaches to Caesar's collar. The result is sort of like a zip-line. The pulley-cable reaches so Caesar can run up and down the length of the suspended cable and a little bit to each side. He can also run up the porch steps (all four of them) right to the door where I can unhook him and let him in. If the weather's nice he likes to spend quite a bit of time out there. He does bark at people who walk by, only because he wants to play with them.

Any suggestions on how to let him stay outside on his own without him barking at people?

More Orchid Pictures

I ran to the Orchid Show again today, this time with my friend and neighbor Lacie. The Orchid show only runs for another week and I'm really going to miss it. It's been so nice to have such beautiful flowers in the middle of winter, not to mention they're kept in a warm indoor setting. I'm interested in going everyday, though I probably won't make it there that often. If you're interested in going, give me a call.

We found out earlier this week that Debbie, Nick's mom, is flying out to spend the weekend with us. It's going to be fun. We'll go to my baby shower and the orchid show on Saturday. I'm hoping Friday night we'll have time to get our eyebrows threaded. She goes home on Sunday, meaning we'll have to work hard to pack as much fun as possible into this too-short trip.

A Post for Linette

I promised Linette I would post to the blog today, despite the fact that nothing interesting has happened to me. The blog poll asking you to predict the gender of our upcoming baby is open for two more days. So all those getting this through a Reader, come to the actual blog site to vote.

My friend "Tooele" Sara had her baby yesterday. Her due date was supposed to be 2 days before mine, but I guess her little baby had other ideas. He's four weeks early but is reportedly doing great. Keep Sara and her little guy in your prayers.

Nick has started his VA Surgery rotation. The VA hospital is notorious for its dysfunction and bad employees (because they're federal employees and nearly impossible to fire.) Nick has found these stereotypes have a basis. He said he knew he was at the VA when the first patient room they rounded on was an isolation room and had three patients in it. He's also had special challenges, including uncooperative employees, in setting up his computer access.

I hosted the Primary Presidency meeting tonight. I made brownies for the occasion using our very nifty Slice Solutions brownie pan. Unfortunately, the brownies were totally disappointing. I think it was largely the mix I used, but also I baked them just beyond what I think is optimal. They weren't worth the calories. We'll have better luck next time I'm sure.

The Butterfly House

I went to the Butterfly House with Janette and her girls (emphasis on the plural!) I was just about to exit when I realized my camera lens had finally cleared up. It is so hot and humid in there, the lens becomes totally opaque with moisture, and then takes quite a while to acclimate.

All these butterflies pictured are my favorite kind, the blue morpho. The only problem is they are much harder to photograph in flight. When they are resting, the beautiful blue is hidden inside of their folded-together wings. In the top picture I captured one feeding that briefly spread its wings. That picture represents the best of about 15 attempts to get their wing color.

I was very surprised to learn that virtually none of the butterflies in the enclosure are second-generation. The butterfly house discourages any breeding. Butterflies are very particular where they will lay their eggs. To keep them from breeding they don't have any plants that host eggs/caterpillars. They import the butterfly eggs from all over the world.

Plastic Surgery

Nick is half-way through his second of two weeks of a plastic surgery rotation. It's not what you think. It doesn't even remotely resemble any plastic surgery practice you've seen on TV. In a teaching hospital, plastic surgery is all grossness, nothing cosmetic. Most of what he's done has been skin grafts and wound debridement. Much of it is so gross I have to ask him to stop telling me about it. They see a lot of facial trauma which I've decided is included in my ban of "mangled extremities." That's why I went into internal medicine nursing, not emergency.

Plastic surgery overlaps with Nick's primary area of interest, occuloplasty. That means if anyone needs an eye socket rebuilt this week, they're on it.

Nick is at the VA today, still on the plastics service. He'll start a two week general surgery rotation at the VA on Monday. The surgery rotation has been enjoyable for Nick, but the hours are killer. It's still hard to believe that his next school break is at the end of June. That seems forever away.

Our Christmas Card

Yes, Christmas was a couple of months ago. We sent out Christmas cards this year for the first time. Some of them were actually on time. But eventually I ran out of stamps, cards, and eventually steam. Working on moving simultaneously probably didn't help.

So just in case you didn't get a Christmas card and were feeling left out, here's the electronic version. This picture was taken exactly two months ago, and there's definitely a difference in the baby belly, but otherwise we are unchanged.

If you need a "hard copy" of the next card we send out, mention that in your comment. At this rate, it will be another 5 years before our next one.

Caesar's New Perch

We knew he was looking out the blinds when we weren't home because the blinds were always askew. Now that I've raised the blinds, he hangs out here all day, occasionally barking (which we're working on.)

2009 Missouri Botanical Garden Orchid Show

Click on photo for better view.

The 2009 orchid show started last week. I've been twice, and plan to go several more times before it's over.

What I Came Home To

I was gone from the apartment this afternoon. When I pulled onto our street, I saw that my blinds were moving. Here's the culprit. Notice the flurry of motion in his tail. He was very excited I had returned.

Congratulations Douglas Family!

I just returned from visiting Janette in the hospital, where I met the newest member of the Douglas family, Miss M. She was born at 11:00 PM February 3 after a long labor. Miss M is an unusually cute new baby. I often think that newborns look a little troll-like, but she looks like a doll. She has lots of dark hair, stopping just shy of a Marv Albert wig. I think her face looks a lot like her older sister, Miss A's, which of course means that they are both adorable.

Miss M. weighed in just under 9 pounds and was 21 inches long.

So Cute!

Caesar decided to sleep with Miss A to keep her company. As of press time, we had not heard that Janette had delivered, but an hour ago we were told it was very close. Good luck to the newest member of the Douglas family. You've got a wonderful big sister waiting for you.

Hurray for Janette!

I get to spend the day with Miss A because Janette is in labor at the hospital right now. We're all very excited. Miss A gets excited about "baby sister" but shows confusion as to whether baby sister is the actual baby, or the doll on the shelf in the bedroom. It could go either way, and perhaps she's excited about both.

Yesterday Janette was pretty miserable, having sporadic contractions and not feeling well in general. But we decided to go get pedicures at the nail place right by her house. Of course, the personnel there barely spoke English, but they gave great foot rubs. While we were out, there was a couple of things Janette needed from the store, so we went straight there from our pedicures.

Which means, we went to the store in the disposable flip flops you leave pedicures wearing. That was pretty humorous in and of itself, seeing it's winter and all. However, in the store my left flip flop broke. I tried to hold it on with my toes, which was also fairly hysterical. The real laughter came when I was limping back to the car. The wind caught my flip flop and took it away. There was nothing we could do. It skidded across the parking lot as we watched powerless to do anything. I was laughing too hard to chase after it, not to mention, I had no left shoe. Janette was also wearing ridiculous footwear and was in the early stages of labor, so I became a litterer.

To make up for sending a piece of foam litter into the world, I'll have to clean up some litter (and there's plenty around.) For my first piece of absolution litter, I'm counting the Gin bottle I threw away that someone left in front of our apartment a few days ago.