Day 66 part 2 - I am too tired to drive home.

Well, I drove over to Mom's to let the cable guy in. By the time we went out to the new house and got back to her apartment, I was way too tired to drive home. Thus Elizabeth and I are crashing at Mom's tonight. We adjusted the stroller into the full reclining position and put some blankets down. She's asleep right now. It is the funniest thing though, Jake is "protecting" her. He is keeping constant vigil by the stroller. She made a noise earlier and Jake jumped up from laying down and gently raised up and peered over the side of the stroller to make sure "his" baby was okay. I told him that she was sleeping and not to disturb her. He's now laying on Mom's bed as close as he can to the stroller. When she fidgets, he raises his head in concern. It is so cute the way he worries over her. I knew he would be okay with the new addition to the family, but never did I imagine the love he has for her. I think I mentioned before that he'll be moving into the new house with us. I bet I know who's room he'll be sleeping in!

Day 66 - We have a house!

We closed on a house on Tuesday and we get the keys today! I'm so excited. I'm taking Mom to the house tonight to show her - and so I can remember the exact layout. We looked at so many houses a lot of them started running together in my mind. I've got to go to Mom's apartment today to wait for the cable guy. Her internet has been out all week and her cable boxes are acting weird. I was over there earlier this week and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I'm going to start going through things while I'm over there. I need to get my stuff sorted out. There's a lot of stuff I need to find. I bought a lot of stuff on sale back in 2007 when I thought I would have my own apartment. Mom and I thought we'd be moving two different places - she thought she would be in Houston and I thought I would be in College Station. Things happen for a reason though.

Day 62 - She's 2 months old!

Well, today was Elizabeth's two-month birthday. Yesterday, she and Mom went to see Grandma in Palestine. They had a good time and I was able to get things done around the apartment. Looks like we'll be closing on the new house next week. I'm so excited about that. We're trying to set our moving date for the weekend of June 18. I'm trying to round up help. I can't wait to be in our new home.

I've got a lot of measuring to do. I can't wait to decorate. Three years ago, I bought things for "my apartment" that I never got. Finally, I have a place to decorate!

Am watching the Lost series finally. I had TiVo'ed it, so I'm a bit behind.

Day 58 - I am sick.

So, Mom and I took Elizabeth to the mall to go walking this evening. We had a nice time out. Right when Mom left at 9:30 pm, I felt extremely nauseous. I asked Richard to come home and thankfully he was able to. Elizabeth was fussy - I think she knew I didn't feel good. She settled down after Richard got home. I don't feel terrible, but something's definitely not right. I'm not running fever, so maybe this will pass soon.

Richard got a call from either our Realtor or mortgage broker the other day. The seller of the house wants to bump up the closing date. We are probably going to close by the end of the month. I hope we do - I want to get moved. Last night, I thought Richard was knocking on the door because I had accidentally locked the deadbolt to where he couldn't get in. I got out of bed and went to the door, but there was no one there. I think someone was knocking on the door upstairs because I heard a woman shouting something about, "He has my phone and purse and information." Lord knows what that was all about. Richard got home about 10 minutes after that. I was glad. Ever since the door was kicked in by some idiot kid, I've been a bit jumpy. This happened over a year ago; I wasn't yet living here, but I still am jumpy just knowing it happened.

Elizabeth goes to the doctor on Tuesday for her two-month check. She gets some vaccinations and I am not looking forward to it. I know that it will bother me more than it will her. I'm going to try to keep my cool and not cry...

Day 46 - I smoke up the apartment.

Okay, so Richard told me the way to clean a cast iron skillet is to char anything stuck to it and then scrub that out - it's what his grandmother apparently used to do. Well, I tried this method and wound up retreating to the bedroom with Elizabeth because of all of the smoke! There was no fire, just a ton of smoke. I had to take the smoke detector down until all of it cleared out. Because of the neighborhood we currently live in, I couldn't leave the patio door open to let the smoke out, I had to settle for the one living room window that has a screen on it, so it took quite a while for it to clear out. I really can't wait to move. Hopefully we'll find out soon whether or not the house we have a contract on qualifies for FHA funding. (It should, we had an inspection done and he didn't see anything that should disqualify it.)

It's about time we found a house. We've been looking since before I was pregnant. We've been close to getting a house several times. The first time was last year. We spent months and quite a bit of money only to find out that the foundation was just bad enough that it didn't qualify for FHA. Word to the wise, if you are looking for a mortgage, do not go with Bank of America. We were almost out $3000 because of their incompetence. The rep we were working with said that we didn't have to have an engineering survey even though the appraisal said we did. We kept filing contract extensions because of BoA which was $350 an extension. Fortunately, after a lot of run around, we were reimbursed. What topped it all off - BoA was so out of it, they sent us TWO reimbursement checks! Way to be on top of things! They caught their error fairly quickly, but damn...

On a lighter note, I had the Mirena IUD placed yesterday. I was scared going in because of the reviews I had read online. I thought it was going to hurt and I'd be in pain afterwards. I'm a wuss and have a very low pain tolerance. I had only mild discomfort while my doctor was placing it. What "hurt" the worst (and I say "hurt" because it wasn't that bad) was having the speculum in and pulling a little at my tears (they're still a little tender.) I also had read that after it was put in, women experienced pain like bad menstrual cramps. Maybe because my regular period cramps were/are horrible, it didn't seem bad. I've always had problems with my period. Bad cramps, heavy bleeding... Hopefully the Mirena will really help that...

So Mother's Day is Sunday. Mom, Elizabeth, and I are going home to visit my grandmother. She's excited. This is the second time she's getting to see Elizabeth in person. I send photos to her, but it's not the same. Grandma found out today that my father knows about Elizabeth. I don't speak with my father and his family, that's another story for another day. Thanks to social networking sites, he found out. I don't care that he found out, I just wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

Day 41 - I feel like a horrible mom.

Okay, so the second day we went out walking, it was sunny so I decided to put on sunscreen. I read that the same needed to be done for babies, so I put some on Elizabeth. The next day, I had bumps on my hands. I didn't really think about it - it didn't hurt or itch. So when I went for a walk that day, I didn't think about sunscreen - most of my route is in the shade. When I got to the sunny part, my arms started burning. It felt rash-y. When I got back to the apartment, I took a shower to get whatever was on my skin, off. It felt marginally better after a shower. The next day, I noticed my arms were lumpy and red-ish. It seemed that being in the sun made it burn - the heat made it itchy and stingy. I noticed later that day that Elizabeth had the same sort of bumps on her face that were on my hands. It dawned on me that it almost had to be the sunscreen we used. There wasn't much else it could be. I felt horrible. It didn't seem to bother Elizabeth - her bumps weren't red, just lumpy.

So today when I gave her a bath, I discovered that she has horrible cradle cap on her scalp. At first I thought that I hadn't rinsed off all of the baby wash, but then I realized that it was dry skin that was clumping up. I finally managed to get the dry skin on her legs and feet cleared up, but now she's got baby flakes.