A Memorial Day weekend to remember

This weekend we bonded with our friends Niki and Todd in a way we did not expect. On Friday night, in the middle of the night, Jason and I were both stricken with a sudden bout of stomach pain and vomiting. We alternated trips to the bathroom all night. By 8:00am, we had figured out a plan. We called Niki and Todd and asked if Rory could come play with their daughter, Isabel, while we got food poisoning out of our systems, as we were too weak to take care of her. they were wonderful! They kept Rory until 7:00pm, plus brought us Gatorade, saltines and tylenol. you couldn't ask for more, especially at the last minute on a holiday weekend.

so, how did we repay them? apparently by misdiagnosing what we had, and giving a stomach virus to their whole family that put them out of commission the rest of the weekend! AAAAAHHHHH!!!! we couldn't feel more horrible about this.

Oh yeah, and today is Todd's birthday!

So, does anyone have ideas on how we make this one up to them???? We are open to ideas.

Up Close and Personal with Rory Liv

A few weeks ago Jason and I took a new set of pictures of Rory. We both have always liked these kinds of pictures, close up pictures of chunky baby parts. This is the way you look at babies, you know. Everyone does. One feature at a time. Transfixed by their toes, their eyelashes, the rolls in their legs. Amazed at how beautiful each feature is, especially when the baby is asleep. And somehow they are timeless in black and white.

Yum - rice cereal!

Pack it in!! Little one is eating so much milk and formula right now that it's time to move her to cereal. So, here were her first bites. She did pretty well. Who wouldn't with Daddy making that face at you? She sucked on the spoon a lot. But apparently we need to pack in a bunch more tonight because it did NOTHING in terms of her sleeping longer. She was up exactly 3 hours after she ate, hungry again. We are tired parents.

For the record, Rory weighs about 16 pounds now, at 3 1/2 months. Tons O' Fun!

STARTING NANNY

On May 1, I went back to work and Rory started spending her days with Nanny. Nanny lives a few miles from us and is a dream come true! Have you ever seen someone who looks more like Aunt Bea (from The Andy Griffith Show)?? (That's Rory on the left.) Daddy is having a hard time walking out the door when he drops her off in the morning, resulting in long Jewish goodbyes every morning. Nanny's husband is called Paw Paw by all the kids, and they love him. We're happy Rory has somewhere so great to spend her days until I get to come pick her up!! My piece of advice for every Mom going back to work... if you can, start taking the baby to daycare the week BEFORE you go back to work. Completely worth paying for an extra week of daycare. I was able to take her for a few hours a day to warm up to it, plus I could stop in unannounced and see how she was doing and how things were run at Nanny's. I felt MUCH better coming back to work after that kind of time with Nanny.

Fancy girl

Rory is prepping to be a fancy girl. Jason's Uncle Glenn and Cathy stopped by this weekend while they were in town. Rory will be the hottest pudgy girl at the pool in the swimsuit, coverup and sunglasses they brought her. Plus she has this fancy pink hat that her grandma bought her to deal with the Houston sun. I'm not sure what people will notice first -- the cute smile or the rolls in her chubby thighs!! That's our girl!

Cousins visit

Cousins Kinsey and Kendall came to visit from Iowa last week along with Aunt Theresa and Uncle Jeff! The weather was great for them (about 85 each day) and Rory behaved herself, so we had a great visit altogether. They took off for Iowa on Easter Sunday, thus the bunny picture!

Mama's first emergency

Well, I've had my first Mama panic moment! Rory and I went to the store this morning. When we returned, she was asleep. I brought her into the house and set her (in her car seat) on the kitchen counter. I walked back into the garage to close the car and garage doors and that's when it happened. A habitual move, done a hundred times, but done this time in the wrong circumstance. I locked the door to the house behind me as I shut it. LOCKED OUT! AND RORY IS INSIDE! My keys are in the diaper bag in the house, along with my cell phone! Lap #1 around the house: No doors unlocked. Run to Roxanne and Kenny's house next door. Roxanne answers and I explain what has happened. I try to call Jason, but he is in a training session at work and I can't reach him. Roxanne and I figure we're just going to break something to get in, the door knob, a window, whatever. Lap #2 around the house: No windows unlocked. And a quick check through the back door tells me Rory is still asleep. Roxanne calls Kenny at work, and he is, miraculously, on his way home and is one block away. Apparently Kenny was a burglar in a past life, as he is able to get me into the door within about 30 seconds. I won't give away his strategy, however, because it's almost scary how nothing can be detected from the outside that would show that we broke into the house. I run in the house to check on Rory, and she just looks up at me with a HUGE grin on her face, like she just woke up from her nap. A "Well, Hi Mama!!" face. My heart breaks as I say, "Oh, so you still trust me, huh?"

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Rory insisted on writing this one herself:

So, I eat. Big deal. Lots of people do. So I'm only six weeks old and have to wear clothing for 3-6 month olds. Big deal. And my boobs are bigger than my mom's. That's normal at my age, right? I think people find cheeks that resemble a bloodhound cute, don't you? Dad keeps making jokes about Deputy Dog, but I don't get it. Anyway, pass the milk, will ya?!

Chunky and Loud

This little one is wearing us out! Ends up Rory is not a fussy baby, she is a sick baby. She has gastroesophogeal reflux disorder, which means that her little tummy is filled with acid all the time and it hurts, which results in her needing to be held upright all the time and screaming! It's been an exhausting week or so, trying to figure out what might be going on. She saw the doctor today and got some new medicine.

While there, we found out that she is a CHUNK! She is one month old and is already 10 POUNDS 8 OUNCES! Hopefully the medicine is working, as she has now been asleep for almost 3 hours, which is the longest she's slept in the daytime in about 2 weeks.

Here's a couple of cute pictures, plus a picture from last night of Jason and Rory. He took her into our room to try to calm her down and we were looking up possible causes and medicines in a book. This is what I found about 30 mnutes after he went in there. :)

FIRST DOCTOR'S VISIT

Rory had her two-week check-up today. The doctor said that at the two-week appt he expects babies to be 5 oz. over their birth weight, so would expect Rory to be 7 lbs 15 ounces. Well, our overachiever weighed 8 lbs 15 ounces and had grown 2 inches already! Doc says she's doing really well, though. We also learned that she dislikes having her diaper changed more than she dislikes getting shots, as she handled the shots very well.

The picture on the left is what we call "milk drunk". It is truly hysterical to see, as she is practically comatose after eating.

Mimi, Pops and Auntie L

The Lustberg side was here to visit, and here are a few pics from their time with Rory. Note our creative use of breast pads.

PROJECTILE POOP

While my parents were here, we had our first experience with projectile poop. Jason and I went into the bedroom to change Rory's diaper. We put her on a blanket on our bed for some crazy reason, rather than her changing table. The rest of the story is probably best told from the perspective of what I think my parents heard from the living room.My parents would have heard Rory crying (she hates to have her diaper changed). Then an exclamation from Jason of "Oh no - she's peeing!", followed quickly by "Oh god! She's pooping! OH! IT'S EVERYWHERE! AHHH! WHAT DO WE DO??!!" All that could be heard in the background is me laughing hard, saying "Stop or I'll pee!" And of course, this al took place on the bed - specifically, Jason's side of the bed. Collateral damage - yellow poop stains on the blanket, about 2 feet of the carpet, two magazines (which have since been thrown away), a book Jason was reading, and a book Jason had borrowed from someone (none of you, don't worry)!

Grandparents In and Out

My dad was here from Iowa before Rory was born and my mom made the two-day drive to come down as soon as she heard Rory was here. They stayed until this past Monday. I thought I might have to physically wrestle my mom to keep her from running away with Rory. No better incentive for them to get their webcam hooked up, though! :)

Jason's parents (Mimi and Pops) are coming into town tonight, and Lindsay is coming tomorrow. Lindsay will be here a few days, and Mimi and Pops will be here until next weekend.

We're doing pretty well, the three of us. Rory is not what you would call a subtle girl. She doesn't hint at anything, just starts screaming when she has something to say, and we have to figure it out. She is sleeping fairly well most nights thus far, though. And of course, when she is quiet, she is just so darn cute that you forget about the power of her lungs!

Life Has Officially Changed - She's HERE!

Just a quick moment to post the basics. Rory Liv Lustberg was born on Tuesday Feb 7 (Yes, on her due date) at 3:20am. She's beautiful and everyone is exhausted but doing well. We're home now and Jill's parents are both here now from Iowa. Here are a couple pics. We'll have more out soon, I promise. She's two days old and we already have about 70 pictures. Thanks for all the calls and emails!

ONE WEEK TO GO (maybe)

We saw the doctor this morning. For those of you who really dig prenatal lingo, I'm 80% effaced, at a negative 2 station, and 4 cm dialated. For those of you who don't speak Prenatal, I'm 4 cm dialated, which means that things are moving along well, but the baby hasn't dropped much (which doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot - it can happen very quickly). Pregnancies vary, but it's not uncommon for some women to be at the hospital and getting an epidural at 4 cm. I'm at work still. I'm feeling pretty good, but we think I had my first few Braxton-Hicks contractions (translation: fake contractions that mean nothing) yesterday. So, this baby is ready to go whenever it feels it's time! We're keeping our fingers crossed that it holds out until my dad gets to town on Friday night. And Friday is scheduled to be my last day at work. We'll be sure to keep you all posted!!! EEEEKK!

Big Belly

Here's a belly pic from this morning. Already this morning I've already had four people comment independently about how much I've dropped in the last couple days. I can't see it from my top-down view, but I'll take their word for it. :)

PLACE YOUR BETS!

It's time for the guesses to begin officially! So, what's your bet? Please click on "comments" below and post your guesses for:

• Date (I'm due Feb 7)
  
• Weight (Jason weighed 7 lbs 4 oz, I weighed 6 lbs 2 oz)
• Gender (I am a girl, Jason is a boy)
• Name (just for fun!)

The winner gets to change the first diaper!!

When you post your answer, if you post under Anonymous, be sure to sign your name to what you type so we know who wrote it. Note for my mom - i don't know if I was born early or late, so you might want to write that in your guess so everyone can know, in case that's useful. Thanks!

Surprise Shower at UH

Today at lunch the great staff and faculty at the College of Technology threw us a surprise shower. Catered lunch, games, gifts, cake and even Jason showed up! Surprisingly, and to the credit of the gender, every game except one was won by a man! There were folks there from both the college and from development, which was great. Oh, and by the way, we hope you all like the name Sturgis Lustberg.

Our Amazing Friends

We have amazing friends. They are kind, generous, thoughtful, brave, and possibly even slightly daredevilish. We have received tons of wonderful gifts (thank you notes are slowly being done, but they ARE coming, i promise). My friend, Elisa Adams, threw us an "Un-baby shower" on Friday night, where we had fajitas -n - 'ritas with about 12 good friends. It was a great time to hang out and talk with everyone while we still can. Bobby Shah is coming to visit from Missouri this weekend, which we believe is the daredevil feat of all. He's a gutsy guy to risk being the assigned driver to the hospital if baby should come early. Luckily, he's finishing med school, so we feel we would be in good hands. (Actually, he's coming for a residency interview here in Houston, so keep your fingers crossed for him.) And Mike & Melissa Eggleston are bravely coming to visit in March from STL, to see us and the baby. Hopefully we'll have figured out how to shower daily while maintaining some sanity by then! We just want to publicly tell our friends how thankful we are for everyone's calls, gifts, funny stories, emails, and blog comments. Though many of you live far away, we know we are surrounded by your love and support every day!

The Un-Shower

Tonight my friend Elisa Adams from UH threw an "un-shower" for us at a Mexican restaurant. We had 12 or 14 of us there and it was very relaxing! Here are a couple of pics! The pic in the middle is us with Elisa, our fabulous hostess. And the pic on the right is the three pregnant ladies at the party, Nancy Wiilson, Susan Hlavac, and me. Thanks for such a great un-shower, E!

PAY THE MONEY!

HAVE YOU EVER PUT ONE OF THESE THINGS TOGETHER?? Oh my god! For those of you who haven't, take the advice my dad gave us (which we didn't follow), and pay the people whatever price they want to put a crib together for you. The parts don't match up (we still have several pieces we hope we didn't really need), the instructions aren't clear, and it takes MUCH longer than they tell you it will. The furniture people told us that the model we had wasn't too hard to put together so we could probably do it ourselves easily. I think they tell you that just because they are sick people who get joy out of the moment the phone rings and you call them saying "I'll pay whatever you want if you'll get over here and put this @$%* thing together."

It's done, seems secure, and we didn't have to make that phone call, luckily. But now that it's done, Jason has earned at least an hour of Xbox to unwind (and yes, that's where he is right now, with his new NFL game).

And a public Thank You to my Mom and Dad, who bought the crib for their new little grandchild!

Who wants to hold the baby??

http://www.thehumorarchives.com/humor/0001140.html

Photo Upon Request

Alright, you asked for it! Here is the most recent belly picture. It was taken Dec 28, 2005, at about 34 weeks along. Soon I'll actually post a picture where you can see the shape of my belly AND i'm wearing clothes.

34 DAYS TO GO (roughly)

We were SO excited when the crib arrived last week, but alas, there was a huge flaw with one of the pieces (a 3-foot deep scratch/groove, right on the front rail where baby will grab and gnaw), so we are waiting for a new piece, which should come this week. We'll be sure to post pictures when it's together.

We saw the doctor last week - all is well. I've put on 23 pounds and probably won't put on much more, since we have just under 5 weeks left. This Monday (Jan 9) is when they will check to see if the baby has gotten into the right position. I wouldn't be surprised if the baby is turning itself around right now as I type this, because I am getting kicked hard in the ribs! Starting Monday, we see the doctor every week and she starts talking about scary terms like dialation and effacement (eek!!)! I'll post more soon.

New Year's Eve

I don't think I've ever been outside on New Year's Eve at midnight BAREFOOT, but it happened this year. Our friends, Kelly and Eric Herrera came over and we all gorged on food and played games until midnight, which I shockingly made it to. At midnight we went out to the driveway where neighbors were shooting off highligh-illegal fireworks and cheered in the new year.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakuh!

The two of us both have the week off from work, so have enjoyed getting to have some time together and get some things done that are on "do before the baby gets here" list. As you can see, napping was high on my priority list, along with my plethora of pillows supporting every possible body part. (Jason liked that Sydney follows me everywhere - see her below the bookshelves?)

We would have loved to be with family this holiday, but since I'm technically grounded now, we hung out down here. BTW - Christmas in Houston SUCKS when you are from the midwest. On Christmas Day, we were in t-shirts eating at outdoor cafes! I know those of you in the midwest are saying "oh that's so sad - it was only 4 DEGREES HERE" but when you're used to snow and cold on Christmas, it's a hard habit to break. We made the best of it, though. :)

Today we ordered a new dining room table and a coffee table for the living room, so we are slowly but surely pulling the house together. Tomorrow is a big day... CRIB DELIVERY!

Xbox insanity and hiccups

The true poison that is the Xbox has kicked in at our house. The last two nights, I have no idea what time Jason has come to bed. A few days ago he found the NBA game for $5 somewhere, so it's ON! Today Jas starts vacation until January 3, and I know he was calling his friend Eric, who is also home today, to come over and play with him. :)

On my side of the world, I felt the baby's first case of hiccups a few days ago. We were at home, so Jason was able to feel it, too. He/she had them this morning again, too. Very cute! Subtle little movement, but cute. Last night was not so cute - baby was kicking like an alien who wanted out NOW! My stomach was making sharp moves from left to right - nothing subtle about that, but very funny to watch! Hopefully the baby was turning around so it will be head-down for delivery. Today is the start of Week 34.

Buying baby stuff!

We made the big trip to Babies R Us on Friday. We picked up the stroller, the car seat, the extra car seat base, the Diaper Champ (Jason's personal favorite), and ordered the crib and mattress. Then Jason spent the weekend putting it all together. As you can see, we left with quite a cart full! (Yes, that's Jason waving from behind the cart.)

How many KIDS?

For those who haven't heard me tell this on the phone yet, recently my Mom decided that she's so sure I will be a good parent, that she found a way for me to be able to do it all by myself! Yes, she sent Jason his Hanukkah gift early. JASON GOT AN XBOX. Of course, the night it came, I had a meeting, so when I got home, this picture shows what I saw. :) Jason's been figuring out how he can play with the baby strapped to his chest in the Baby Bjorn. Actually, we've been playing the racing game and it's pretty fun. Very different than the Atari I grew up on!! The control vibrates when you go off the road and all. Very cool!

Painting baby's room

Even though Jason was sick this weekend, he wanted to make sure that one of our "to do" list items got done -- painting the baby's room. I taped and he painted. This picture was taken right afterward, so we haven't cleaned up, done anything else to decorate, or put the furniture in, but I wanted to share the color. We love it! We took one of the polka dot sheets for the crib to the store and matched it. The rest of the bedding are shades of this color and blues, with stripes and polka dots. Also, we bought a glider for the baby's room this weekend!