how much he's changed

So apparently it took me 2.5 months to recover from blogging daily to want to write again. This week I've had a few ideas that popped up. Nothing got written down, but at least I was thinking again.

Tonight I've been going over all my iphoto and deleting duplicates - specifically 4000 duplicates since I copied my iphoto library over apparently twice when I was reconstructing this laptop. While I did this, I realized that I am not updating as much as I use to about all him. (or really about anything) Going back over the photos (some of which are hard to determine what is the extra because we took _so_many_ photos of tobo as a baby) made me think about what a little guy he use to be.

He's just shy of three feet now, very verbal and apparently a goal-oriented child. This is going to make potty training a synch, the books tell me. He's at least very interested and we're going once or twice a day, depending on how much effort I feel like putting in to it. He's got it in his sites so look out. Stress Free Potty Training has been a godsend, btw.

He gets that there is a concept of friendship, sort of like he understands that something called cooking happens in the kitchen. He is very much into Thomas The Tank Engine and has started humming something that sounds suspiciously like the theme song. I of course am also humming it so, really whose to blame? He sings something that is like his ABC's (who needs E-F-G?!) and something like twinkle twinkle, itsy bitsy spider, and so on. He spends his day between stories, trains, cars, puppies, and legos. He demands to watch tv every day including football, lions (as in mutual of omaha wild kingdom), thomas, most of which we try to limit to no more than an hour a day. He often demands to talk to gram-gram and papa either by phone or computer. He is starting to chill out about the sitter, both monday nights and during the day wed and thur. We put up a chart to track what's happening in the week. As soon as I put up pictures of who and what we were talking about, he's separation anxiety came way down.

He climbs everything. He throws everything in to the trash if you don't watch him. He spends about 2 minutes a day in time out for random infractions. He's been known to put himself in time out but this is becoming less and less. In short, the twos are coming. We're about a month away from his birthday. I'm hoping to take him out to some place fun that is not overly stressful for his birthday but most of the places I'd like to go won't work for a March birthday. I think we'll probably celebrate small for the actual date and then do something bigger in a few months. Like tiny town or the train museum. I also need to get him in for his 2 year check up with our new doctors and finish up all the shots.

I just can get over how much he's changed.

Nov 28:out of ideas

Well, I can't tell you what I've been doing for the last few hours because it's a secret.

I've deleted this post 5 times now. Can't seem to stay on a subject.

I sorted clothing and toys today.

I moved furniture. We put the round table in Tobo's room. now he has a great work table that is round.

I'd take my cold more seriously if I could wind down before 11pm each night.

I am thoroughly enjoying Dr. Horrible and trying to decide if my dad would find it funny or annoying.

I can't come to terms with the touchpad on my macbook Pro. On one hand I like all the funky little drag and drops you can do. On the other I'm tired of random things happening because of my sloppy mousing.

I've started to procrastinate about posting which means that Nov 30 can't get here soon enough.

Though Dec 1st could wait. The year is not suppose to go so fast.

A good friend's kid broke a leg today. It is the worse thing in the world to watch your child suffer.

I talked to my 5th grade viola partner today on fb. It is a crazy small world.

And that's about what happened on Nov 28th. What's up with you?

Nov 5: an update post

So today was very busy so no big earth shattering post tonight I think. Started the day off with an all office meeting, which is kind of like a "how are we doing?" kind of meeting than in the secular world. I thought was good and I feel more in step with the rest of the office -- a challenge for the part time/flex time/what time? person like me.

The big news though was that my new refurbished macbook pro appeared as I was leaving, so I got to open it up and try to set it up over nap time. Squee. This is the first new laptop in 5 years for me.

It is beautiful, but I'm having trouble getting my old machine to play nice and give me my files. A friend suggested taking the pugnacious siblings in to an apple store and let a tech sort it out, and I think that is a great idea. Once I find time... I also realized I could (and still may) take work with me now that I'm on a reasonably fast platform and do some over the weekend. If only I had been brave and upgraded my CS3 indesign program when I ordered the laptop, there would be no question.

This weekend though, my family is away at a senior high retreat for our church. Paul will be a dorm dad, and I'm heating up food and entertaining tobo. So probably not a lot of time doing that.

Quote from small group tonight: "Time travel is probably the ultimate sin. Angels probably will show up and say, '...just give us the machine.' "

So this is my post. I'm off to bed, because I am beat.

make a new plan, stan. set yourself free.

So, we just got back from a weekend away at the cabin in lovely lovely evergreen, co. The weather was just beautiful, and though its not as restful as it use to be, we had a good time being away as a family.

Since tobo's routine was blown anyway, we took the weekend to experiment with his sleeping habits. We found out that he is totally not hungry when he's waking up, though he's up at 7pm, 10pm, 1am, 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am, 8am. He just wakes up too far out of his sleep cycle and can't settle again. With this info, we came up with a new plan...a plan that will eventually lead us to another plan, but for now will hopefully cut down on the number of times up at night.

plan B: Tobo eats as much as he'll take (a big feeding for him is 5 oz) at 7pm, 10pm, 3am, and 7am. If he wakes up any other time, we sooth him back to sleep any way we can. (*exception: if he turns manic(!) than feed him something note the time and we'll figure out why he didn't have enough to eat before that). The nice thing about this plan is that I sooth him between 10p and 3a feeding, then its Paul's turn and I can (in theory) sleep for 4 solid hours together!!! Ok, not really likely, but I can always hope. I've just hit a bit of a wall when it comes to sleep. I just can't keep doing 2 hour intervals after 4am and still get up and work the next morning at 8am.

I can hear you over the internet. Many of you are saying, "how is this better than what you're doing now?" Really I just wanted to take time this weekend to work out the guidelines about tobo's night with Paul so we understood them, agreed about them so we can be consistent when applying them, which we haven't been doing so far. Or rather, we've been letting him set the schedule. I've also gotten in the bad habit of letting him settle in our bed for what starts out as 15 minutes, but turns into an hour and half because I fall asleep. (see sleep comment above) So now we're trying to sooth him anyway we can and use coming to our bed as a last resort (because it actually works). The manic! exception is also a last resort, after checking his diaper, getting a dumb, etc. What is ironic is the whole settling in our bed started because he would fall asleep in my arms and then freak out as soon as I put him down so I was holding him for _hours_ at night. I think we're beyond that now, he's got a good history of sleeping in his crib now, but...yeah this new plan may change quickly.

Ideally this will get us positioned to take away a feeding in a little while, start getting him to settle in his crib more readily, and eventually start sleeping through the night in his crib.

He's now eating about 2 meals a day with gusto (about 2 tablespoons a meal) so I tried a breakfast meal this morning. Not really enthusiastic about it. We'll try again in a little bit. He eats about 14 to 16oz of milk a day, and nurses in addition about 15 to 20 minutes at night. (break that into 5 minute intervals) He is still fundamentally refusing the breast. The nursing is happening when he's asleep and not paying attention. :/ I think he's getting enough to eat. As a secondary thing, we're trying to consolidate his feeding into meals and snacks, so he will stop nipping 1oz meals every hour all day. This is kind of working, except when he's teething/growth spurt,etc. (see manic!) I just don't like to let him howl for food.

Other news - our disposables have started leaking like nobody's business, causing me to dig out the pocket diapers again. This time I joined a forum and got a few answers. Pockets can be massively stuffed with liners, making them very absorbent. I think the answer is that in hard water, plan on stripping your pockets every 2 to 4 weeks. And that there will be some beading at all times, but it should last longer than 30 seconds before the liquid soaks through. Tobo will do his first night in one tonight, so we'll see how it goes.

Paul weight him tonight and he's around 15.5 lbs. He feel so different than when he was 5 lbs. :)

Well, off to finish folding laundry and such before we go to bed.

home again

We are tired and happy here at the hoemke home. We just got back from our trip to Florida to baptize the boy. The service was perfect -- small and intimate. Tobo learned so much from his godbrothers. He was facinated to watch them playing on the floor, goofing around and generally being boys. It's like the little switch clicked in his brain saying "oh..I get it! I'm suppose to interact with my environment!" This has lead to a couple of major steps:

1. tobo now giggles. Daddy is very excited about this development.
2. tobo is now ticklish. See 1.
3. tobo now can be come bored. (This ceiling is boring. Where is the ceiling fan to watch?)
4. tobo likes to sit either on your lap or in front of your lap as you hold him and look around. He has great head control and very strong little legs.
5. tobo also likes to stand up (with a spotter) and look around. He's even taken a few steps.
6. tobo likes to lean forward when he's sitting in your lap (with a spotter) to "get a better look at something." You have to really watch him that he doesn't go over on his head. He hasn't really figured out that he can use his hands to investigate too.
7. tobo shows no interest in learning to roll over. He'd rather run.
8. tobo is a drooler. Oh my, can this boy drool. We call him mr. bubbly.
9. tobo hates to be put down. Especially on his back. This has made bed time exciting.
10. tobo's bed just moved to a stand alone bassinet at the foot of our bed. [insert sad mommy face]
11. All of this happened in the last week. *phew*

The decision about the bassinet has been in the works for a few weeks, in a fit of hyper exhaustion (super tired) I moved it today (and got a good vacuuming under everything, spiders were back!) and set him up on his own little island by the door. I'm truly sad about the move but this is one of those better for him decisions and he's ready. He's been sleeping on his own in swings for the last few weeks as we've been traveling about. He made something close to 12 hours the second night we were at the cottage because he was so exhausted. We need to figure out if we're going to let him cry it out or not. I was hoping to wait til 6 months just to give him a bit of maturity to handle being alone, but I think still having him in the room transitioning eventually to his own crib in his own room is the way to go.

He's officially 12 lbs 5 oz. His feet were dangling off the office scale today. We took him in because he seemed to be reacting to something I ate. Dr. told us (after running some tests on his stool) that it was probably nothing but he'd check on him at his 4 mth apt in a few weeks. I think we probably over reacted but we are tired.

We also came home to find that our dsl modem was limping along. Hope to be getting a new one in the mail on monday. I think we'll buy it out right because this one lasted 4 years, making it not worth the renting. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me, you know.

I've been looking at the jumper thing Paul has wanted to get Tobo since he was born. I'm seeing a lot of folks using them at 4 months on, so I'll probably see if we can pick one up when we're back from Mich. [ed: or tomorrow. Paul is now bouncing up and down of his own accord in anticipation]

Tobo was a great traveler which makes me thing that this age is the easiest to get them around (that and once they can read for pleasure). He pretty much went into the sling as soon as we boarded the airplane and slept until we exited the airplane for all 4 flights. We took him out and fed/played/changed him in between and came home with an ok baby. Ok, in that he does not sleep the first night, but takes 24 hours to get back into routine. What is our routine, darned if I know, but I'm sure we have one. We're still doing on demand nursing, which means I got better at public nursing through all those airports. We actually got the sling to work with that so now I feel a little more confident about getting out there and feeding him. I still find a quiet nook, mainly to keep mr curious on task.

Anywho, here we are home again. I'm reading harry potter 3 (poa) and watershipdown. What are you up to?

baptized!

I'm still processing this whole weekend, but Tobo is now baptized:



We went down to florida to visit my family and were joined by Tobo's God parents, the J's.



Here is what we did with the rest of our vacation:

From Cute Things M...

It was Tobo's first airplane and he did great.



On top of joining the body of christ, he has also been making leaps and bounds developmentally. Some of this was having older boys to watch and learn from, but some of it has just been clicking. A few days before we left he started grabbing fabric:



And now he's starting to grab toys, clothing, as well as suck not just his fist but thumb and finger. He's also got much more stable since we got to florida, so he's really interested in looking around and sitting up. He also likes standing up while being held. He even took a few steps today. He's not really rolling over any more (kind of stopped that) but does have pretty good head control:



He's spent most of the trip in the sling. In fact, tonight we had a wonderful time where he was fussy until we put him in the sling for a bit, since he had a mostly wiggly day today.

I'm going to go back to my vacation, just thought I post to let you know we're still alive. More later. Here are a few more photos:

Shot of the 4 generations:




The lady who came across the state to celebrate:

From Cute Things M...

that's for babies

We spent Father's Day weekend up at the OMF cabin this weekend, a much needed holiday from everything. Dad (as we now call him) got a chance to hang out with Tobo and *not* be stressed out, which i think the little boy loved (!) to get that time. After watching them play, I began to realize that I've really been keeping tobo to a newborn/infant routine (sleep/eat/sleep/eat) and he's really read for something more challenging. A few exciting developments:
- tobo is actually pretty good at sitting at the moment. He wants to sit up. He wants to look around. No more of this baby laying around stuff.
- we mentioned the fist
- he actually got kind of interested in a toy this weekend, kinda. (We call it Martian Puppy) He had a great game of knocking him down with his fist.
- He loves having you play with his feet and Paul started having him play a game called "launch" where we hold his feet and he tries to turn over.
- he turned over on his belly a few times but with help. He's really close to doing it himself.
- the rash of d00m(tm) has finally left his bum. Though I doubt we will go anywhere without a yeast cream until he's potty trained, just in case.
- he went on his longest car ride ever (1 hour!) And complained most of the way because the sun was often in his eyes. We've installed sun screen now in the back window which seems to make it much easier
- he was up as high as he has ever been, at 7,220 ft.

He's also getting a lot bigger. I'll try and get a weigh in tonight, but he's officially too long in the torso for 0-3mths clothing as is his head diameter too big to get comfortable in 0-3's anymore. I just spent the last 30 minutes packing up all the footie pj's and getting out and washing the 6-9mth stuff. It's only a matter of time. It's also getting to be warmer here so we need to get away from fleece things and think about oneies for sleeping. My little boy ain't so little anymore. I'm sad to see the little baby stuff go, but the cool little boy stuff is coming up. Mixed feelings on this one.

I also have a confession to make. While we were at the cabin we tried out disposables again...and Tobo slept through the night. So, unless we can find someone who can trouble shoot or pocket diapers, we're going to start doing disposables at night. We're talking the difference of 1 diaper vs usually 3 diaper changes a night. We all need the sleep more than we need to protect the environment. I'm still doing prefolds in the day, and plan to do so as he gets bigger, but yeah. I make a sad face about having to give up on my latest hobby - stripping mineral deposits from diapers. :(

I also had tobo put himself to sleep at the cabin. We were up in the morning playing and at some point he just laid down. I laid down next to him to do a little face time cuddling and at some point he just looked at me and then turned over and went to sleep as if to say, "You relax mother. Get a cup of coffee. I'm going to nap here for a bit, but I'll play with you in a little while." Such a big kid now. We're also talking about changing our sleeping arrangement this week, so tobo gets ready to not be right next to our bed while we're traveling. (same room though) I'm just too aware of him at night, so I'm jumping up to trouble shoot at every little noise. I just don't believe that he's just making noise in his sleep. So, for our sanity, we're thinking of unhooking the bassinet-side car and just use it as a stand alone. He's still fits in it, but we've probably only got a month or two left before he will be too big for it.

Also started digging around to find out what we need to do to travel with tobo in June. Apparently not much, unless the airline decides to get a bee in its bonnet. This trip we are lucky, we got our tickets before the crazy bag-charging thing. Christmas we won't be as lucky. Talked with the priest-in-charge this afternoon and had a lovely conversation about the baptism. I am looking forward to it. Obviously I need to figure out what the boy's going to wear now that he's grown out of all his most likely outfits.

This week is insane. Lots of stuff at work (being candidate course) a meeting with our church to talk about omf more, friends from out of town coming through on Thursday, possible sighting of our bro-in-law as he passes through town to a funeral, planning meeting with our accountability partner for our partnership development, possibly scheduled meeting with carseat expert to explain our car seat to us with out the base and, um spiders. We had a bunch of spiders move in while we were away. They all showed up at the midnight feeding, which was um...shocking. I ended up waking up Paul to deal with them, tobo in arms because as i said we where in the middle of a feeding when these things came running across the carpet. Ack! hopefully we got them all, but it was just not a cool way to end the evening.

I'll try to post pictures soon.

our lives are getting more interesting

Today is a good day. for the first time since I moved to CO, I will be able to recycle where I live. They are starting a beginners racquetball class at the fitness center. I'm a lb away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Tobo slept until 10am this morning, meaning I slept in til 9:45am. Life is good!

Speaking of tobo, here are some photos:

not the comfy chair! He's really not a fan of going in the car seat unless we are moving.


hanging out in the sling. This is my hot-chick sling from before. Tobo actually will sleep in this while we're at the office and I'm working.


helping mom with the camera. Well, he's still not reaching out for things, other than kisses from momma on his hand.


so happy to be playing on the changing table! This is what it's all about.


I'm awake! Hanging out with grand-nana's blanket again. He likes it a lot and it's a great size for traveling. Warm too.

From Cute Things M...

Tobo is somewhere around 11 weeks old now. Highlights these days include:

• My fist is delicious!
• I *hate* waking up and not knowing where I am. I rage RAGE at the world, especially if I'm hungry.
  
• I'm cool with the sling, though we'd better be going somewhere in it.
• I like to sleep through the night as long as I feel dry. Otherwise, we're up every couple of hours.
• I am sooo sleepy after a day of hanging out with other people.
• I'm about to go on my first airline trip in a few weeks.
• I'm almost old enough to go in the nursery at church, if momma can let me go. [Apparently the separation anxiety is *much worse* at 6mths than at 3mths]
• I am still howling but now I've added sounds like "il-lee" "go-gaw" and "eh." I especially like it when mom or dad (or both) sing back to me with these sounds.
• My rash is almost gone, though it's trying really hard to branch out to other parts of my bottom.
• My cradle cap is receding thanks to tree tea oil (not allergic to it!) and a bit of selsan blue.

I also wanted to put a diaper update. I know I left you all hanging on the edge of your seats about my diapers. :) Was it the dryer sheets in the dryer on non-diaper loads? Was it hard water? Was it left over diaper rash cream? The answer is...yes. All three were contributing to the problem. I'm happy to say that after doing a stripping in dawn, and then a stripping in calgon (water softener NOT bath salts) the fuzzybunz AND the bumgenius have gotten better. They are still not 100%, but they are at least useable. The down side is that my other fuzzybunz is starting to seize up, which means that it looks like I'm either going to have to strip diapers every 2 weeks for mineral deposits OR find the right amount to add to my laundry loads so that they never seize up to begin with. I'm happy that my mom-in-law wants to do cloth diapers when we're in Mich. We'd talked about doing it for florida too, but my folks have a HE washer, so I'd need advice on what I'd need to do differently. It also means lugging all of our diapers with us (because tobo will use them all in a day) but it might be worth it to avoid more diaper out break.

Our lives are getting more interesting. Paul has volunteered to help with the senior high youth at church, which means he was out sliding down the slip and slide on baby oil Sunday evening. I'm starting that as a movie night for myself and tobo so that I get a bit of relaxing too during the week. We're schedule to join a small group / home group thing on Tuesday this week. I'm hoping it goes well and I'm pretty sure it's what I want to do. Of course, I'm not totally sure what goes on at these protestant small groups. It will be a new experience. I'm debating putting tobo in the nursery for service. At the moment, we're doing sunday school at 9, hang out in between and then service at 10:45a. Or rather Paul is doing this. I'm usually feeding tobo in between and then coming in after the music but for the message. So I guess what I would do is the same, but I'd just leave him in the nursery for the last 30 minutes instead of taking him with me. I'm not quite ready to do this, so we'll see. I need to read up on my development books for his age, cause I have no idea what to expect at the moment.

Work is going alright. This week starts candidate course for June, which is what we went through in October last year. This time around I'll be making business cards and prayer cards for folks, while trying to wrap up a few other projects. I'm hoping to commit to a schedule at work so people know when I'm in the office. Now that Paul and I have been switched to what amounts to "salaried" at OMF (instead of employee and contractor) we can set up flex time for both of us. I'm still working from home, but I just need to be visible there so people don't think they have been abandoned.

I must dig out my kitchen so Tobo can get a bath later. so I'm off to clean up a bit.

excited about life

So tobo woke up this morning excited about life. We finally got him settled around 12midnight last night so I was expecting to hear from him around 4am. Imagine my surprise when it rolled around to 7am! I only woke up because he was having a cooing conversation with the lamp. So we are getting close to being on his feeding schedule and not his diaper schedule. (Hurray!) Can't wait to see what it's like to travel with this little guy in June. He was so bright-eyed and bushy tailed that we played on the floor gym a bit:

(I am sorry if I've spammed you all about the youtube thing. I am still learning how it works)



We had a conversation about the mirror and how fun it was to kick things. He is soo close to finding his fist to suck on. I'm about ready to start pulling out the rattles and grabbing toys, though I'm tempted to buy him one of these: (so cute!)



We've talked about doing somethings today, but nothing really planned. Possibly clean the bathrooms, maybe vacuum, possibly go out to a bookstore. Really getting a nap would be awesome.

bye bye pump

Tobo is doing much better this morning. Just a little sore around the shot sites. I forgot to mention that he was giving the nurse a run for her money, his legs were so strong she was having a hard time holding on to him. (that's my boy!) He also passed all the little developmental road signs that mean he's turning into a little boy. next check up in 2 months.

It feels like its the end of a chapter. Not only did Tobo just do his 2 month check up, but today I packed up the breast pump. It's been nice to have it as a back up, especially in expressing enough milk to have in the freezer as a bit of a bank, but I'm not using it as much as I once did so I guess I'm really saying 'goodbye crutch.' We're going to try going without it and see how it goes. It's possible to rent these for a week at a time if necessary, and if we need to for whatever reason, we'll get it again. Goodbye security blanket. It means we're committed to working out breast feeding outside the house. I've been invited to check out the La Leche League with a friend, which I might do now to get tips and pointers. So here's to winging it!

Paul and I were challenged on Monday to get back to paying attention to our partnership development. (Which is why we set up accountability meetings with a good friend to keep us on track!) So, I'm hoping to turn this blog a bit more towards topics other than tobo in the future. I'll keep updating on him, but I also hope to tell you what I do with the rest of my time. So here's what else is going on:

The big time suck has been emergency projects for ACME. We had the annual report due as well as Global Chinese Missions and now Prayer Powerlines has snuck back on my plate when I wasn't looking. What me and the team in the office are trying to find is the balance between what time I have and what time they need. I was able to work on some of this because I worked last Saturday for a few hours. I'm putting in about 10 hours a week towards design projects, usually in the morning during Tobo's first nap. He's in the swing behind me now as I work at the dining table on my laptop. Ideally, I'd like to have more than a day or two before getting an assignment, because I have to plan for time to work with Paul, but these were delayed by the clients not the comms team, so I worked my hardest to turn them around. I find getting back into the groove a little choppy, but over all the designs weren't bad and will do for the short notice. I don't think I've done any fancy designing since November last year. I sort of went off it as the pregnancy developed. Well no more. What is difficult is while midstep of changing over leadership from the old to the new in comms, we're trying to change the way we serve the fellowship. So I'm trying to get my head around not only what the needs are, but also what the future goals are. Needless to say, we need more designers and writers. (if you know any one who wants to join in missions and raise support, let me know!)

I'm also thinking about joining a new walking club that's started at our complex. We do have a full exercise room at the complex office, but I really need the commitment to keep me active during the week. I'm also struggling with my weight. Breast feeding is not taking the pounds off anymore, and though I'm watching what I eat, I'm seem to be at a plateau. It's an annoying plateau because its 5 lbs heavier than I need to be to get out of my pregnancy pants. :/ So they are huge, but my pre-pregnancy pants are just a bit too tight to wear comfortably. Maybe when Tobo is eating more this will be easier, but in the mean time, foo. I hate the idea of joining weight watchers again. I'm just not motivated with their meals. I guess I could always do curves. (more south beach diet like) hrmm.

Paul and I are also trying to get more involved with our church. He's decide to try helping out with the high school youth. I'm debating about trying out one of the women's small group. Bethany has a women's bible study on Mondays and a womens' small group on tuesdays. I'm not totally sure what the difference is, but I assume there is a good chance that the bible study will *actually* be a bible study and not a cry fest. [<-- the reason I don't normally do girl groups. Too much sharing, not enough doing.] I am tempted to start a craft ministry, but might try something called White Cross, which meets once a month to do sewing projects (They sew, prepare hospital bandages and make crafts for Lydia Home Association in Chicago as well as fellowship and have a short devotional. ) Not quite what I do, but at least it's something to do with my hands. Also, I should get my pysanky stuff together. :D

So that's the news from here. What are you all up to now?

more doc visits and pics

Today I'm tired. But tobo has been doing all sorts of things, so I thought I'd update. The big thing was he slept straight through from 11p to 4:30a last night. I know this because I woke up ready at 2:30a... then again a 3a. Eventually I broke down and woke him up at 4:30 just to make sure he was ok. He also didn't eat as much last night as he has before, so we might finally be seeing his day/night side to something more normal. Other firsts, today he calmly hung out in the swing for minutes at a time. He hasn't been too hot on the swing before now.


We were back to the doctor on Monday to drop off paperwork for ACME and to check up on the rash of d00m. It is better, but the doc had hoped it would be further healed after 9 days of treatment. We got one more sample of vusion and a script for the current market standard for yeast infection/diaper rashes for when the sample runs out. This is how cool our doc is. He went digging around for one last sample for us because he was worried that it would not be covered by insurance and would run around $100 for a 5g tube. Apparently patients of his have had problems because it is new on the market. We'll check back next week hopefully with a clean bottom. If not, we start doing topical/oral antibiotics. hurrah.

We also went to my postpartum dr apt monday and I'm officially cleared for take off. Everything looks good and I'm basically back to where I started when I visited them in September. I'll miss being looked after by these people each month. They were excellent. I could only hope that my general practitioner was this good.

Speaking of which, both paul and I will be going in to him/her tomorrow. We're going through some last minutes hoops with ACME. In many ways there were not unseen, but we could use some prayers that our paper work, specifically our medical clearance, will be quickly presented and returned approved. This includes paperwork on Tobo as well. We weren't able to send it before this because of the pregnancy. We need to have all the pieces in to Singapore before the end of May. Anyway, please keep it mind.

In the middle of that, we went to see folks at my old place of work which was cool. I could get some freelance work there if I ask for it. I might take them up on it now that I can work from home. Tobo was a great traveler. This might be why he slept so good last night too. hmm...

He got a bath this morning finally, and has basically slept the day away in the sling. He actually kind of cried when I took him out of the moby, he was so comfortable. Hopefully tonight will go as smoothly.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures:
Snugglesaurus before church Sunday.


bopping in the carrier with dad. (he was happier when dad kept moving)

work is work and play is work

First off here are some cute photos of my baby in his awesome onesie from chesh:



Here he is attacking his dad:


Roar!

Secondly, if you've ever thought about using cloth diapers, wander over to wmw's site to see her apt blog about why its important, and how easy it is. I expect another installment soon talk about what she's using, if you all are very good. Our journey into cloth diaper land is going well, even with Tobo's nasty rash. He looks much better, but we're still waiting for it to go away completely. I got my fun toys in the mail this week, so we have new covers and a new pocket diaper to try out as soon as he's done using the cod oil based cream OR I figure out where I can get bioliners on the cheap. The closest retailer is in Boulder and I'm trying to decide if it's worth the gas or just have some internet store ship it to my door. I'm also thinking about switching to cloth wipes as well since we go through so many. We've given up on regular baby wipes since he's skin is so sensitive. We're now just using water and cotton squares. (like for make up) Oh and baths to keep little boy from becoming disgusting. He's still not really interested in toys at all, really likes being held, will tolerate being put down if it's only for a short time, hates(!) the floor, also hates(!) being naked. He managed to stay awake in the sling a whole 5 minutes a few days ago. Usually it just turns him into butter.

Today I've handed Tobo over to Paul and hope to have a work day. I am not going to waste all my time journalling nor will I interrupt Paul as he parents our baby. No matter what coo or gurgle I hear. :) Paul has managed to get the infantino carrier from Grandma and Grandpa to work and they are bopping around the house.

I also was given InDesign Creative Suite 3 for my birthday from my folks (thanks! ) which arrived this week. I can just build whatever I need quickly, easily. And the projects are lining up. I have our next prayer letter to write, birth announcement, book to edit for OMF, and secret project X. Secret project X is...ah! You'll just have to wait to find out.

This is all in practice to start gearing up to work in May. After monday and my next doc's visit, I'll be officially done with postpartum which means I need to start getting in to the office a couple times a week and / or working from home. How that is going to work out is a good question. The biggest hurdle is feedings. I still have the electronic pump until the 15th, but I'd hoped not to depend on it since it is kind of an expense. I have a hand pump, which is slow and inefficient and oh yeah, slow. This is why I'm hoping to work from home as much as possible or have him in the office with me. Hope to work out a basic schedule with Paul today. At the moment, we're not planning on day care.

In the next few months we'll have another visit from Nana in May, Tobo's baptism in June (we'll be down in florida if you want to come!), and a all hands hoemke visit in July in Michigan. Some time in fall we hope to be getting out to Pittsburgh. Seattle is an excellent idea, but I don't know if we'll get there before you all will see us in Colorado. Lots of travel for a little guy!

Ok, off to work for me!

diaper rash of d00m

So, after exchanging emails with wmw last night, I took her advice and called in Sam's lingering diaper rash from many weeks ago. I'm embarrassed how long it took us to call the doctor about it. But to be honest, it did seem to get better before it got worse. So talked with the nurse who quickly heard "sores" and told us to bring him in. Which I managed as my first solo fight with the carseat et al. We were just starting to get the 5 to 6 inches of snow coming in at the time, so I decide I really couldn't drag my potential sick baby (had he caught our head cold? was it allergies making him coughy...or just the humidifier?) into the snow. Paul met us there and we had another good visit with the doc. I again forgot something important from the diaper bag (um butt cream) so I've now sworn never to take anything out of the diaper bag ever. We're home now with 2 new creams and a reminder to contact the doc if it hasn't shown improvement by Saturday. I'm so glad I talked to my sister-in-law.

Tobo has been sleeping most of today,which means this is a good day in my guilty mommy estimation. I got to sit with him on the couch and read. I managed to get the diapers in the wash but bearably anything else. I assume this means tonight will be another long night, which seems to be par for the course. Tobo sleeps about 2.5 hours and then is up hungry and with a wet diaper. Because we are fighting the rash of doom, we appreciate him telling us when he's wet. It does mean we burn through a lot of diapers in a one night stint. We get through 7 prefolds and 2 pockets a night on average.

On the subject of cloth diapers, I'm now trying to figure out what to buy, when I realized I don't really have a budget set for diapers. I'm pretty much happy as long as we're not throwing money into the landfill. I've been really pleased with the thirsties covers + prefold diaper (though these might not work for night time because the don't breath very well - also I think I've figured this out, but it looks like you can't reuse the covers right afterwards but need to rinse them out between usages, right? ) and Tobo loves to desecrate his fuzzibunz. We've had some leak problems with the bumgenius, which is too bad since it is really the only adjustable option in our group. My top favorite things above are both size specific so Tobo may grow out of them sooner than we expect, causing us to repurchase everything a size bigger. So now I must do math and hand waving to figure out the most economic/ease of use choices we have. I'm also thinking about picking up either fleece or wool for the evenings.

Our pastor's wife brought by dinner tonight (shepherd's pie) which was much appreciated. Again, I'm not doing a great job at getting meals either together or in me, mainly because Tobo is a really in-arms little guy right now. Guru and I are talking through ways to make that happen better (other than depending on others to feed us) i've requested needing one hand meals, which I can grab and eat while I've got Tobo in tow.

I did get a chance to watch 3:10 to Yuma, and really enjoyed it. Apparently a remake, it was my kind of situational character drama. Oh and like all good tragedies, almost everyone dies in the end. I was not as impressed with The Prestige the novel. The movie was so good -- I had expected better things from the book. The two really were different animals -- though they share similar characters and "plot hook". The movie succeeds because it presents it a much more approachable manner. That and the novel had a non-ending. It just sort of ends with no real resolution, just a reveal of something you can guess by the 2nd to last chapter.

My guilty mommy confession is I got a shower in today by plopping Tobo down in his crib with his floor gym and hoped he didn't cry too much. He was just starting fuss as I grabbed my towel, so this bodes well. I will continue to bathe. I also re-dummed him this morning to try to get one more hour of needed sleep. I plan to sleep when I put him down during the day...but tobo never goes down. He only wants to be in arms because his butt is sore. I can not wait for this rash to clear up and we can figure out what his real routine is.

plague

So Paul came down with something on Tuesday, I picked it up by Thursday evening. We went to the doctor yesterday and found out that I have a viral cold and he has a viral cold++ (includes ear infection). The fix for these are sleep and liquids. (with added antibiotics for Paul) Ended up staying home and sleeping for Friday. The good news is that none of this effects Tobo, who is currently the healthiest and most active member of the family. :) Anyway, we are scheduled for sleeping and drinking OJ for the next couple of days, so if we miss your call or email, we will try to catch up with you later.

answer:wiggly

question: What is our baby?

So thank you for all the phone calls and hellos. I tried to get back to everyone but I missed a few because of the time zone difference.

Here's the update you were waiting for: We're having a boy!
A very _not_ shy wiggly boy (that he is a boy was very obvious), who yawned for the ultrasound before getting up and trying to wrap his foot behind his head. Silly baby. We had some trouble getting him to let go of the cord and stop moving his left foot. We nicknamed him appropriately.

Only one person voted right. Collect a zillion brownie points at the desk. :)

I can't believe the things they can see with ultrasounds these days. Like kidneys. The two hemispheres of his brain. Crazy. Pictures will be posted after we sort out our apartment some more. We are in the end-days count down at kva. A few more trips and we should be ready for clean up Thursday/Friday.

Okay, hormone lady is tired and off to bed.

turkey thoughtful

We got the first real 'sticking to the ground' snow Tuesday night. We had a bunch of help show up Monday night, so we got a lot of things moved before we all got dumped on. We're about 70% moved right now. We still have a lot of clean up at the other place, empty bookcases, a table, lamps, etc. But we are fundamentally at the new place now. Not a moment too soon. Things are getting stranger and stranger over there. Apparently they will be boarding up our windows so the roofers can finish the job they started in summer. Or whatever. I guess the new management company was able to come to terms with the contractors. (there was a contract dispute.) So glad we are out of there.

We had enough kitchenware to be able to cook a turkey yesterday, which Guru did a fab job on. Lucky him, he also got stuck with most of the clean up since I'm trying to stay away from potential salmonella-carrying items. The fish is looking a bit down, but I think this has more to do with winter setting in, than him actually being sick. It's not easy to be a tropical fish in a the wintery north.

The new mattress is fabulous. I am constantly waking up in the morning with most of the aches and pains I felt the night before gone. Not always the case with the last mattress. The frame is still en-route from the east coast. I am hoping it will be here before the beginning of advent. I really like our new place as well. We're on the shade part of the building, so I think I'll be hanging curtains soon so we have light as well as privacy. Guru has been busy unpacking the books.

A few thoughts I've had over the last few days in no particular order:

- god puts us pregnant ladies through the indignities of pregnancy in order that we are able to feel for what our babies are going through during the first few months of life. Not to go into details, but yeah, I've smelled that. :)

- I think this is going to be a month of culling. My view point is changing. I'd much rather have a beat-up love seat that I can hang out on with my kid than have access to my vhs collection. We have less space for storage here (if we don't count the garage) then at the last place, mainly because we lived there surround by boxes. Here we want to be surrounded by family. Likely candidates for culling include: books (obvious), vhs and dvds, glass wear, clothing, pantry supplies, and surprisingly kitchen items. I have 6 boxes of kitchen 'stuff' left that just don't have a home yet. It doesn't help that my reach is a bit shorter than it was 5 months ago.

- the gender ultrasound is coming up on 11/27. I get nervous when I think about it. It's such a definite factor in the next stage of our lives. We'll either be into ponies or soldiers, have a talker or the silent child, depending on this little person's taste. I don't really have a problem with my daughter playing with toy soldiers or my son explaining to me in great detail about ever little piece of life that is happening to him right now, but usually those things are reversed. It's a broad brush, but you get the idea. It's the decision part that has me squirrelly. It will be different going forward from this point on. _so_ definite_ That's about as close as I can get to what I'm feeling.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. On to Advent! :)

Where in the world is tobo?

I've had a request or two for a Tobo update, so the good news is that there is no new news. Baby is fluttering a bit, but not really in a way that anyone else can verify, so you'll just have to take my word. Usually after meals, but only day meals. At night i think he/she is a sleep. Next ob/gyn is in about 3 weeks. Then we have the big gender-finding-out apt after Thanksgiving. (can't! wait!) But for now, not much news. My favorite new past times seem to be hitching up my maternity pants and fiddling with my maternity bra. I am every woman.

Tobo (and mom-to-be) just got back into town after a visit to the family in Florida. (this includes not only grandparents-to-be, but also grand-nana-to-be to boot) It was a good trip but too short. (as always) Found some of my baby dresses which are actually still in pretty good condition. This would be advantageous if we have a girl...or future black mail material if we have a boy. We also found this sleeper which is white with royal blue accents -- very much like a little dutch baby.

After arriving late Tuesday, Guru whisked me away to candidate course with ACME, which starts with a 4 day retreat at a very nice retreat center with wireless. We figured we'd prefer to drive last night than this morning. I will only get to see 2 days of seminars, Guru was able to be here for the whole 4 days. This is very exciting because a lot of the threads of our lives are dependent on this week's decisions. By the end of next week we will know if we are accepted as official appointees to ACME. Once we know, we will send out a more specific communication about our new status. If you'd like to be a part of that, please let me know. It also means that hoemke.com will become an active site again after a 3 year hiatus. [NOTE: that website is very much in beta right now. Do not be fooled that it is in working order. ] We can also be in touch the old fashion "phone" or "snail-mail" way as well, just let me know you are interested. A lot of the mission-oriented items will shift over there from this blog. More on that later.

Needless to say, if you pray, please keep the ACME board, the other potential candidates and of course ourselves in mind over the next 8 days.

Well, 1am is really starting to catch up with me, so I will sign off now.

tobo report: situation normal

On top of all the other meetings we've had this week, we also had our 2nd prenatal visit today. All is as it should be. Paul got to hear Tobo's heart beat, his first experience of Tobo. It took a while to find it because he/she was, well, wiggling. But all is well, nothing out of the average. Heart beat was 161, which is perfectly normal.

Weird thing of the day: my due date has been moved back to April 1st, for some reason. The doctor doesn't like to move the date unless the machine is different for more than 7 days, so she's going back to the original projection. Since it was different by 6 days, she's putting me in April. My mom will be thrilled because that's her birthday. In late november we'll be doing another ultrasound, so that will hopefully be the tie breaker. That will be the all important, know thy gender pictures. Can't! Wait! I'm going to leave my website tickers alone until we get that next ultrasound. But it would make sense. Listening to Uwee's experiences, I'm usually about a week behind her or so. Too bad. I thought it was really cool to almost share a due date.

A few other highlights: I'm not anemic, which means I will probably risk a small amount of chocolate since we're in the second trimester now. Halloween will not be so drab after all. :) I'm also planning on getting my first flu shot ever.

I'm not quite out of regular clothes, but I'm oh so close. Probably in the next two weeks or so I will give up and become mommy-to-be. I've got some kind of stigma about where the big blouses and the paneled pants. I know I'm pregnant. Most of my friends and family know I'm pregnant. (unless they live under a rock) I'm not exactly sure who I'm trying to kid, but I just don't want to put them on yet if I don't need them yet. It feels like cheating. :)

I forgot to mention that we had a fabulous trip to pgh, and loved seeing everyone, including our newest godson. We didn't really go and eat like we had been planning, mainly because I was afraid my favorite dishes would fail me. Anyway, piper's is just not a lot of fun when you can't have a pint. So, while we were there, we got a couple of things from our dear friends. The most coolest thing is an awesome steelers onesie. It will be so sad when Tobo grows out of that! We also got a kind of carrier thing from Korea, I believe called a podaegi. I am looking forward to trying it out. We got an original print of Dumbo from cheshie for the nursery which actually survived the trip. (so there United Airlines!)

We also got Goodnight Moon from my folks with a cutie little rabbit. I also got a surprise from my Nana - she knitted me a shawl from the knitting ministry at her church. Obviously she had been working on it prior to knowing about Tobo, but it was such a nice gift.

And we are seriously considering cloth diapers. Assuming we can solve the laundry problem.

Anyway, that's the news here. How are things with you?

update project muddle and other hillarity

First the hilarity I think. Work has gotten silly. My plan had been to ease myself into the background over the next few months, slowly replacing me with someone else as the go to person at the company. I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends if I'm not watched, and I really didn't want to be more stressed then necessary while I'm transporting another being. I've had neighbors with thin walls and I hate it when they play their rock music all night. I assume Tobo feels the same. :)

So, I got to work after traveling to the Old Country (pgh) ready to pick up a few left over tasks and generally putter around. I find that I am going to a meeting with WOT Realtors(R) AND that we don't know why we are meeting. I find out that I am now going to be their very own personal pet designer and actually be stationed in their office. "Um, what?" I don't get more money, I do get out of there as soon as we can hire someone in. I was pretty close to throwing a tantrum, but cooled down after some time to think. TL and I spinned it that I'm going in to "work out the bugs" in the system and then we will bring in a new designer. I will wear my maternity gear if necessary to explain why I will be leaving asap. The really irking point about all this is the stress of meeting 80 new people and being pulled back into a corporate setting just as I was about to leave the work force. I haven't been in a corporate office since 2001(?). I left it for a reason.

In truth, the work will not be any harder than what I'm doing now. I also doubt we will have anyone ready to step into this until late nov, early december. And don't ask me what will happen to all the other projects I would normally be working on. Tough luck I guess.

On to the muddle project:

After that meeting, I went to a second meeting with ACME and Paul to try and hammer out what our plans are for the future. It was a really good meeting.

We have been struggling with how to stay with ACME and not live out of our car. Now we opened up that struggle to the ACME leadership team, to see what their take was on all of this was. Beyond the numbers, we wanted to see if there was a need for us to stay, a way which I could help (since I would be new to the team) and how to work out the logistics and timing. With Tobo on the way, we were very emphatic that we need to have a plan in place and a few benchmarks which will be go/no go lines both for us and for ACME. We can't be dead wood, but we also can't hang out on a wing and a prayer. Well, not on a wing at least.

After a loooong talk (we got out just before six), we had a plan in place, with benchmarks, dollar amounts and action items. It still needs to be finalized and approved by the whole leadership team. The plan as it stands is we would become full time members in the next year or two. Full membership is defined as having enough prayer and financial support to meet an agreed upon monetary amount that ACME needs to support us. Our current support is minimal, so we will need to do a lot of work. (called deportation, uh I mean deputation)

In faith that the plan will be approved by the rest of the leadership team, Paul and I will be going through a number of psych, medical, and financial batteries, as well as theological questions in the next few weeks. We will be attending the candidate course which is the last 2 weeks of October. In November, we will hear back from the leadership team about whether the plan is still viable on their end. Which means we would move forward and go before the board, hopefully to become appointees.

Paul and I are willing to try it. This is our last shot to try to keep Paul in a position where he is called vocationally to be. If it doesn't work (see: go/no go lines) than Paul will be leaving ACME and finding an IT job that will cover our expenses. That probably will not be in Denver, since one of the struggles we are having right now is the cost of living out here. We're planning on staying for the birth, but after that we will be on the move as soon as Tobo is portable again. (what is that, 18?)

Obviously this is a lot to consider. As always, we would appreciate any prayers you can send up about this, for us, the leadership team, the board, and Tobo. Little does he/she know how crazy his/her parents will be.

two burning bushes and a mircophone

I woke up this morning to the sound of canadian geese, which is the official harbinger of fall/winter here. It's probably going to be nice for another month and then get cold and possibly snowy from there on out.

Time is running away from us.

We are in our current place through December. After that we go month to month (with additional fees) until we move. I guess we could always re-sign a lease, but obviously we'd rather not do that. Our moving window pre-baby is closing quickly (probably mid November is the last "not too snowy days"), but we are still in the decision process with ACME, so we'd prefer not to rush into buying a house until we've made that decision.

The other option is to rent a new place for a year (or 6 months, or 9 months) which we really could do before the november cut off date, but that means we are moving now, and probably again next summer/fall when we actually do get a house. Why move twice when you can just move once?

The problem is space. If we stay here to have the baby, then we will need to rent a storage locker for the winter/spring so we have enough space to set up a crib, changing table, additional clothing, etc. basically turn the back bedrooms into bedrooms instead of a bedroom and a large, shared office. The other down side of this place is that we have a shared laundry room in the club house, but for a month or two with the baby, I think we could get by. I'd prefer not to 'get by' for another year though. The laundry is the only reason a new place looks so desirable to me right now instead of just staying put. :) It goes without saying that renting will be more expensive for the space we need than buying.

A lot of this hangs on our decision about ACME. They have come back with a great offer, but it would be long term (10 years probably) and would likely make one or both of us full members. We'd be supported folks, so we would be expected to raise our own funds to stay members over time.

I adore make life changing decisions in the midst of another life change. :)

So, I guess that is our prayer request for the next few weeks. We now have two burning bushes, we just need to discern what they mean.