Taking the Baby Home

Driving home from the hospital last night I passed a church marquee, covered in snow, that was (quite literally) a sign from God. The blogging nut that I am, I whipped over to the side of the road and grabbed my camera. This just has to be shared. If Josh doesn't have another desat by December 2nd, he's headed home. It's one helluva coincidence!

The snow did indeed come to Utah on Tuesday. Hoping it would be gone in the morning, I was crestfallen to wake up to the following scene:

Lovely as the frosted trees may be, this lovely image was accompanied by this other (less lovely) image:

Ah, winter in Salt Lake City. I hate winter.

My mentor/landlord is a faithful devotee of several entertaining blogs. Feeling inspired, I took a trip back through my earliest posts, and found that I had some really good anecdotes at one time. It's funny how enlightening it can be to reread something I'd written over a year ago. It's like I'm reading it for the first time. I remember these things happening (the tragic loss of my prized guppy, my song of praise to Middle Eastern food, Heidi's fabulous birthday party with the pinata violence incident...), but I don't remember sitting down and writing about them. I'm quite impressed with myself and my prose. So, dear reader, I invite you to schmooze my first few entries when you have some quiet time at your computer.

Joshua is officially a chubby little baby. He weighed in at 5 pounds 9 ounces last night, and I"m sure he's gaining another good ounce or two today. He's famous around here for the "open air bowel movement", where he feels the need to pass excrement whenever his tiny hiney feels cool air. Such a treat for the nurse changing his diaper.

A new challenge has arisen-- as if we didn't need any more on our plate right now. The logistics of bringing Josh to Tennessee are turning out to be more complicated than anticipated. Originally, we'd planned to drive the van back together once Ron flew out to Utah. Not only would this be horrible for a premature baby (freezing temperatures, frequent & filthy rest stops and germy hotels), but there's no way we can leave our four kids in Tennessee for that long, or afford to bring them all here on a plane and drive back with them. Plan B was for me to leave the van here and fly to Tennessee with Josh. Ron would pick me up in Nashville, and we'd wait until I was settled in and used to the routine before Ron would fly back to Utah and drive the van home (sleeping in the car when he was tired and making really good time). The issue with this plan, is that the whole medical team here has recommended that we purchase two first class seats for the flight and make sure it's a non-stop one. They will write a letter to the airline, assuring that Josh is OK to travel, but that he is still extremely fragile and needs to be away from other people as much as possible. They will request that the airline make some special allowances when boarding and deplaning, to keep him out of crowds. He will need to sit by the window, with me on the aisle between him and any other passengers. This is all well and good, but extremely expensive. We have five children to shop for this Christmas, and Ron's paychecks stop on December 1st or 15th. All of this premature baby, separate households, and moving cross country stuff has been very expensive and has eaten through our savings and paychecks quickly. I don't know how any of this is going to work. What a nightmare! I finally have an end in sight and now it's looking like it's farther away again. Can we please get a little break here?!

On the bright side, dinner last night was wonderful. The polenta was a little disappointing, a little thicker than I would have liked and was starting to set up by the time I served it, but had decent flavor. Also, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of meat on the short ribs so it was good that I'd made so many. Didn't get to dessert last night, but we were pretty full afterward and might not have been up for more. I'll have to do something fabulous and chocolate again soon. The cream pie is gone, and I've depleted my chocolate supply downstairs. I keep thinking about the chocolate dipped figs I got for my Anniversary last year. The confections are the size of bing cherries, with deep dark chocolate ganache (spiked with brandy) inside delectably moist golden figs which lend a subtle crunch to the experience. I wonder if I can concoct some type of rich chocolate torte with the heady scent of brandy and the texture and sweetness that can only be found in figs and their bazillion tiny seeds. I can relive the Rabitos figs experience without having to pay through the nose for a couple of bite sized morsels. Mmm, cacao.

Ten things I've learned during this adventure:

1. Wolf spiders (although hideously huge, hairy and fast) are harmless, Unlike their counterparts, hobo spiders, which use an evil necrotic venom that causes flesh to die and rot around the bite.

2. Hobo spiders can scuttle across the tops of some sticky glue traps, and will sometimes pretend to be caught in the goo, but will have vanished when the trap is checked again later.

3. Spiders have a sick sense of humor.

4. I have a major problem with the word stupid. Looking back over past blog entries, I've found the word stupid at least once in almost every post.

5. A three year old can hear the word stupid from three rooms away and over the movie "The Lion King", even when the word is spoken at a normal volume in a casual conversation.

6. A person can consume three times the amount of spumoni ice cream when they have taken half an Ambien-- although they will have no recollection of eating said ice cream.

7. Espresso from a $675 Italian espresso maker really does taste better than espresso from a $125 espresso machine.

8. I am deathly afraid to attempt to make espresso in a $675 Italian espresso maker, for fear that I will somehow destroy said espresso maker with my lack of coordination.

9. A five pound infant can turn 46 ml of fortified breastmilk into a quart of spitup and a pound of poo.

10. The sound of the security alarm at Wal-Mart is the exact pitch and frequency as the oxygen saturation monitors in the NICU.