Computer Troubles

Well... the biggest reason I've not posted much on here in the last month or so is that my computer is having troubles. This means that all the pictures I have on my camera haven't been transferred to my computer, and that I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and write a 'newsy' post either (not that I can think of any news anyway)! Every time I try to do anything with my computer it either shuts down completely, or restarts without being told to. Justin says it isn't an issue with the CPU overheating, and it isn't an issue with a half dozen other things, so he's pretty sure the motherboard is cracked... and we're not sure how that happened exactly, but it's not worth the time and money to attempt to repair the machine. Soooo... this means I need a new computer so that Justin can keep his 'toys' for his own purposes... which means I get to use one of his until we can afford a new one. I think this is going to mean I'm adopting the desktop computer in the FROG which we rescued from the trash pile. We priced laptops and netbooks yesterday (found one netbook I would be *okay* with, the rest I do not want), and we've got a lot of savings ahead of us to replace the computer... maybe Christmas... or my birthday next year(?), I suppose!

Anyway, something we have been saving and watching for is an inexpensive propane grill/BBQ, which I happened to find... yesterday! It was posted on Craigslist, just a few years old, everything on it works, and so now I'm looking forward to a grilled hamburger for supper this evening! Justin happened to have a 3/4 full propane tank, while it is a little rusted on the exterior, it holds the gas just fine, so I guess it just needs sanding and a new paint job. :) However, we do have a new tank in case they refuse to refill that one, as we're not sure anyone will be okay filling it.

Rebecca is now talking a steady stream to us, though we only understand about half of what she says. She seems quite certain she is communicating a message though, lol! Pretty well every sign she knows is accompanied by it's verbal word now, and we're working to teach her even more signs, so we'll be able to more clearly understand what she thinks she's communicating to us!

We had a week of sickies this past week, which started out with me not feeling too great, and then Rebecca started running a fairly high fever early Wednesday morning, continued through the full day, was fine Thursday until late afternoon at which point her temperature spiked up again, and then she's been fine ever since. I guess it's just going to remain a mystery as to what caused it, as the only other 'symptom' she has is an incredibly runny nose. Perhaps it was the flu.

Rebecca's current all time favourite thing to do is get her hands on any crayons or markers she can, and any paper she can find, and just COVER the paper with colour. She'll sit for 15 minutes or more at a time just colouring on a sheet of paper, and the thing literally has colour on it from one edge to the other when she's done. The results make me rather thankful that I purchase washable crayons for her! She actually is always fascinated by anything that is 'art' orriented any time we are in the stores-- she is always attracted to the Crayola kits on the shelves, and all the colouring/painting supplies they have, and it seems we essentially have to drag her away from them. And... speaking of colouring and such, we discovered something in the last couple of weeks we never thought we would need to know-- they use soy based inks print on many commercial cards (particularly ones made with recycled materials or other 'green' companies), and they use soy to make some brands of crayons! I never thought I was going to have to be careful what sorts of inks or crayons I got for my child!!

And, with that I should be off, we've got church this morning, and then hopefully a prenatal appointment this afternoon-- with all the sickies at our house, and then my midwife having 4 births this past week, we haven't had the opportunity to do the appointment that was supposed to happen this past week yet!

1 year check-up

Rebecca had her one-year appointment with the doctor today, and it seems he was quite impressed with her development! While she didn't say any words while we were there, we were able to list more words that we've heard her use than he was expecting for her age. He informed us that speech develops at different rates in all children, and by the sounds of it she's at least on target, perhaps slightly ahead.

He watched her walking around and investigating and such, and informed us that not only was she walking exceptionally well for her age (which he was surprised to learn she started doing at 9.5 months!), but all of her motor skills seemed to be well beyond the norm... apparently she comes closer to a 2 year old's motor skills than 1 year old's!

He also informed us that she was extremely alert and bright for a baby her age... which I take to mean that probably her mental functioning level is beyond "normal" too... which we have known for a long time, lol. :-)

As for stats... it turns out that our scale is a little off, she weighed in at 18.5 lbs exactly this morning. She's 27 inches long as of this morning as well. These measurements place her between the 5th and 10th percentiles for weight, and below 5th for height, which is pretty consistent with her birth percentiles, and definitely explains why her current clothing size is only 6-9month when she is 12.5 months old.

And, finally, he answered our question about her current stuffy nose (which has been there for nearly 2 months) VERY thoroughly, and advised us about how to treat it. Did you know that vitamin C has a natural antihistamine effect? He recommended that so long as she doesn't have a cold which would need some drying up, to simply treat every day with 250-300mg of vitamin C. Apparently using Benadryl actually causes fluids to dry up from the nose area, yes, but it also can cause those fluids to recede back into the sinuses and ears, which is when you start having major infections in those places, and can end up with things like chronic sinusitis and such. Interesting fact I never knew before. :-)

So... there's the "one year" update.

First Half or so of August

So, as I mentioned, I have a couple of dozen pictures to get up here. These ones feature some of the many adventures (or misadventures?!) of Rebecca.

Rebecca has taken a real interest in our bathroom. She follows us into it, watches us use the toilet (if applicable), and then she likes to try to flush the toilet after we've done so... thankfully our toilet takes a little more effort than some!

She also has a particular interest in the toilet paper. Now that is one major cleanup job when we don't realize where she is and what she's doing! She pulls pieces off, shreds them, and keeps going. Sometimes she just pulls lengths off, and leaves them on the floor, and it just a lot of work picking it all up and figuring out what is and isn't salvageable!

Rebecca's had a lot of new foods, including watermelon, as seen in these two pictures, and broccoli, which is in a picture below. She's now had Cheerios, so she's been introduced to wheat successfully as well, but she had a pretty bad reaction to cantaloupe of all things! She got a funny purplish red rash under her skin that was little lines of some sort, and she didn't nurse well for the next 24 or so hours, which Mum suggested may have been because there were potentially sores in her mouth or throat. Further research indicated that there are often cross reactions between mango and cantaloupe (they're both part of a pollen family), and seeing as we know she spits up everything for about 24 hours after eating mango, it could explain the cantaloupe thing!


Rebecca is becoming more of a copycat every day. She likes to "help" sort laundry for me... unfortunately, that currently means that it's normally clean (or already sorted) laundry that she "sorts" for me, but I figure if she's starting now, she'll eventually do it right.

When she sorts her diapers, she actually (generally) puts diapers on one side, and the wash cloths on the other side of her! So she really is sorting, just not the way I need them to be!



Rebecca watches as Daddy leaves every morning, normally standing at the door like the above picture shows.

When she sees his truck is gone, she says a string of words that ends with "dadada!" and then she leaves the door! I'm interested in knowing exactly what she thinks she's saying about Daddy!

I got a copy of The Toddler's Busy Book from the library, because I'm running out of ideas about how to keep Rebecca busy, even for five or ten minutes. She's beyond every "age appropriate" activity suggested in Dr. Sears The Baby Book, and every suggestion I've found online as well. So, I thought if she's beyond those, perhaps she's functioning more in the range of that book, and lo and behold, it worked! Now, admittedly, a lot of the ideas are just things you could come up with if you looked at what you had and what your child was potentially able to do with things, but for a quick "what do I do with her now?!" thing, it's great, because you don't have to think! So, anyway, one of the ideas was to give the child a dish of water, and some utensils to play with. I think it actually suggested that it happen at the table, but Rebecca isn't sturdy enough to play with this stuff at the table yet, so I sat her on the floor, and she had a great time! Even better... she stopped playing in the dog's dish! LOL!



When Daddy is on his way home, Rebecca likes to spend the time talking to him. I'm not actually sure if she's talking to him or just having fun with my phone though!


She just loves the fact my phone lights up, which is why I'm not sure she's actually talking to Justin!

We were given a pair of guinea pigs, as I mentioned in my last post. They were given with the promise of "food for life"... they're kind of timid, but their babies are a lot easier to hold on to! Maybe the babies will be more personable when they're older as well. In the mean time, we're thinking we need to figure out where to get a bigger cage, because that thing is only 4sq. ft, and they need at least double that! I did find plans for how to build one, so I think that's what we'll end up doing.

And, Rebecca discovered this little white box that is in her hand... it has a level in it! She just LOVES to play with the thing. Not sure why, seeing as there's not much to see, but I guess if she enjoys it, I won't argue! :-)

What you never *really* want to hear when the phone rings at 1:30 am...

"Wendy's was robbed about an hour ago, and the thieves took my wallet, phone, and keys, so keep an ear out for the door just in case, and I'll try to be home as soon as possible."

Yeah... that was yesterday at 1:30 am... which was following about a cumulative total of 1.5 hours of sleep. I didn't sleep much after that until last night when Justin and I crashed at 9:30 pm. Instead of sleeping, I picked Rebecca up and sat in the bathroom, which is the only room with a locking door in the house at the moment (soon to change), for the next three or so hours. Oh, and I had my phone, and a knife with me... mostly because Justin failed to mention that the thieves had a gun. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the knife.

Justin finally got home at 4:15am to pick up keys to his truck so he could bring it home, and then he was home to "stay" at 4:30am. He was fine, aside from a *very* fat lip. We worked on making a list of everything that had been in his wallet, and then reporting credit cards stolen and placing a hold on his phone number until we could get a new phone for him. We went to bed just to rest at about 6:00, because we had to go to the allergist for 9:00, and I absolutely had to go now, because he didn't have a license! So, we went to the allergist and found out he's allergic to carrots, potatoes, garlic, beef, shrimp, and peanuts (I never even knew you could be allergic to potatoes!!). After the allergist, we went to the DMV to get him a replacement license and voter's registration card. Thankfully the license was only $10. After the license we went home to have lunch... then went back out to get a phone, which actually ended up being mine, and Justin took my old one. Then dropped by Lowe's to see what the cost of rekeying the locks would be. Went home for a bit where Justin called various places to let them know card numbers had changed, while I fed Rebecca, and then after he got all the door knobs and locks off the doors, we headed out to Lowe's again to get them all rekeyed. It took about 1.5 hours at Lowe's to have the locks all rekeyed, and then we went home, got the rekeyed knobs on the house doors, made supper, and got ready for bed.

Poor Rebecca was awake for the most part from about 1:45 am until 5:30am, and then I woke her up again at 7:15 so we could get her all ready to go and be on time for the allergists appointment. Then we were in and out so much all day that she didn't really get her naps... she wasn't too happy yesterday evening! She crashed for the night at about 7:30, and the first time she woke up after that was 2:30 am! then she woke up at 5, and then her typical 7:30 wake up time. She's stopped waking up at 7:30 because she's hungry, she just wants to get up to play/talk now (which is a little annoying when you're missing a night's sleep in there!).

Oh, and a funny thing yesterday... we walked into the allergists office, and they panicked when they saw Justin's lip, thinking it was a reaction to the testing the day before! But, after assuring them that it wasn't, and that he was fine for testing, they did the tests, and then when it was all done, the head allergist came in, panicked over the lip again (hehe), and then gave Justin some sort of antihistamine liquid and nasal spray to help his allergy symptoms, and prednisone to help the swelling from the testing... and said it should also help the lip. :) Oh, and repeated my statement that Justin should be putting ice on his lip for the first 24 hours, and backed me up when I said he should eat lots of freezies.

Anyway... today, Justin's back to work at Canon, and will be working at Wendy's this evening. I'm assuming that since there was a robbery two nights ago, there won't be one tonight... but I've told him that if there ever is another robbery there, he's quitting! :-P

Allergies Galore

I've been asking Justin to get allergy testing done for probably close to two years now... basically, ever since he got decent health insurance. So... finally, yesterday, he started his three day series of testing. They test moulds, hay fever, and animal triggers on one day, the next day is trees and grasses, and then the third day is foods. So, we now know that Justin reacts to pretty much literally every tree and grass out there except for pine (who knew, LOL), the worst being Walnut (tree), Hickory (tree), Birch (tree), Johnson (grass), Bermuda (grass), Timothy (grass), Ragweed, dust, dust mites, and cats. NOT dogs, even though he and his parents were insisting that he was allergic to dogs. He came home this morning having been informed by the allergist that he is the worst case she has had in a LONG time. Now I'm afraid of tomorrow! I'm not sure I really want to know what foods he reacts to considering the long list already! I can just imagine trying to cook around my allergies combined with whatever may be his. *sigh* Oh well... I guess I'll just have to deal with it, considering I asked for it. At least this means that he should end up with a prescription strength medication to help with the constant runny nose/back drainage issues.

In other news, I finally managed to dig out our dining room table yesterday after a few weeks of chaos. Now, that doesn't say much for the living room at the moment, but seeing as that room is much better than the dining room was, I don't think it will take long to take care of the living room. I think it's mostly just going to be a matter of getting rid of a few flyers and rearranging the furniture to where I like the arrangement again... which at the moment, I have no clue where I want the furniture.

Rebecca seems to finally be getting onto a bit of a schedule. My non-sleeping baby has started taking fairly consistent naps!! I'm excited about this! She's been fairly consistently going down between 9 and 9:30 am for an hour, and then normally between 1 and 1:30 for two to three hours for nearly a week. We failed at the 1-1:30 thing today, hitting 2:00 instead, and I think she's waking up again... but then, it's 3:30, so I guess 1 1/2 hours when she went down late isn't too bad. If only I could get her to sleep right through the night we would be doing *really* well, but she's also getting into a bit of a schedule on that one as well. She'll go to sleep around 8, eat around 11:30, eat around 4, and sleep until 7 or 7:30. I can deal with this a lot better than her whole cluster feeding from 3 till 7:30 am thing she had going a few weeks ago. This napping schedule is also making it much easier for me to get things done around the house, even when she is awake, because she is content (and awake) enough to spend time sitting in her rocking chair or lying on the floor. She's also enjoying going for walks a lot more, and it's really fun to watch her eyes as she notices birds or squirrels or whatever overhead. Oh, and she is just full of smiles now. If she is awake (and happy, obviously), she is almost constantly smiling for one reason or another! It's really funny, because sometimes she'll be fussing, or even outright crying, and as soon as you walk over, she'll get a great big grin on her face.

So, in with my digging out the dining room table yesterday, I also got a dress cut out for Amelia for her birthday, a load of diapers washed and dried, two loads of darks dried and/or folded, and a load of baby things run... and I made a menu plan for the month. Now I just have to get the opportunity to bake and cook in relative bulk, and I will have everything we need for the full menu aside from a few fresh things, and probably some meat for the whole month. I haven't had quite as productive a day today as I had yesterday, but that's okay.

Justin's started working a part time job, as we need the extra money at the moment. I'm not sure that I like the hours he'll have to keep, but I'm glad he won't be working every night. He worked last night, will work tonight, and Thursday night, and he starts at 10, and last night didn't get home until after three in the morning, only to have to be up by 7:30 so he could leave at 8:45 for his appointment at 9. He's got to do the same again tonight, and then Thursday shouldn't be quite so bad, as he will need to leave at 10:30 instead, but even so... I think he's going to be completely exhausted, plus the fact that today he is running on about 4 hours of sleep concerns me... and tomorrow will probably be a combined total of 8 hours of sleep in two nights, which really concerns me.

Anyway, that's a bit of an update on things around here... and Rebecca is now awake, so I've got to go! :)

Evening with a friend, among other things

On Saturday, Justin and I went to a park (not sure if it is a city, state, or national) called Dismal Swamp. We found some pretty cool stuff! We think we found a hornet's or wasp's nest, hanging in a tree! There was a flock of geese in the water, which were gorgeous! I particularly enjoyed seeing the wild(?) daffodils growing all over the place! But, the one problem with the place was... these funny little red seed things. There were a number of trees that were giving off red seed cases or something. Turns out they are called American Elm, and we think I may be allergic to them! I managed to have hives all over the place within half an hour of arriving there. And, of course, the red things were the only thing I haven't ever encountered before (to our knowledge). So... there you go. A new thing for me to have issues with. Now I'm just hoping that there aren't many (if any) American Elms right around here!!

Sunday, we went to our church really early, and then to Justin's parents' church for a pot-luck type lunch. It was kind of nice, though I'm always nervous eating out where you don't know what is in anything! Anyway, our niece developed a sudden fever, high enough that it was decided she needed to go see the doctor, so we took our nephew to a petting farm/park while they took her to an emergency clinic thing. Turned out she had two ear infections, and possibly a virus, but who knows. She's feeling better though, so I guess it didn't do too much damage. Our nephew woke up with a super high fever on Tuesday, and her mom wasn't feeling too great on Tuesday either. So, hopefully that 24-48 hour "I don't feel good" thing isn't going to come here! So far we have no sign of it at all (they all had runny noses before the fever, and there are no runny noses out of the ordinary here).

On Monday, I got really brave, and went and visited a friend and her 3 month old baby boy... without Justin going with me! Yes, that's right. I drove into the city, instead of out of it, and actually made it all the way there, and back again, without getting lost, or creamed by any of the nutty drivers there were on the roads! Of course, I stayed way too late, and hopefully didn't wearher out too much... I know *I* still haven't recovered from it, at least, lol! Maybe a nap every day for a month will cure me. I got to use her camera (a Nikon), which was kind of exciting, cause it has a speed light flashy thingy on it, and of course, the subjects of my photography were great! Who can beat pictures of a mommy and (sleeping) baby?? I probably should have dug out my camera as well, but oh well! :-) It was really nice to be able to get out for an evening, and hopefully we'll be able to do it again!

Let's see... other than that... I'm working on a new little baby blanket... it's so super soft! I just needed a break from knitting the purple sweater for my niece. I think this blanket might take me a long time to finish though, because I've been working on it for a few days now, and it is only like two inches long... and the finished product is like 40 inches... YIKES! At this rate it's going to take me to the end of March or April just to have it a foot long!! LOL! The purple sweater is more than half finished-- the front is done, the back is almost done. So, I'll have to put the two sides together, knit the neckband, and knit the sleeves, and then it will be finished. The only thing is, it is going to be quite large for her!

Anyway, I suppose I'll put pictures up sometime later!

Quite a bit happening!

Well, the biggest news is... I am allowed to remain in the USA!

We met with the immigration lawyer on Friday, and he gave us a whole pile of information, and basically said "don't you dare leave the country, because it will be harder to get you back in once you're out of the country." So... basically, I'm now trapped in the USA instead of Canada, lol. We haven't submitted all the paperwork yet, because we need statements of accounts for a number of different things (internet, electrical, medical insurance, lease...), and we need the medical to be completed. They are being a little sticky with the lease though, so please pray they will get things figured out. We even told them a letter stating that they have known I was here since December would be fine (which they did know, because we registered my plate with them in December), but they aren't even necessarily willing to give us THAT! ARGH!!

When we submit the papers, we'll be submitting an application for travel papers, and for work papers, both of which will last until I have my official green card. I should be able to have those by mid-May (we hope!) at which point I need to head up to Nova Scotia to renew a few things to do with my car, lol. Maybe we'll be able to do a trip over the Memorial Day weekend, seeing as Justin gets that day off so it would be one less day he used up of his vacation time.

The medical has gone perfectly so far, as there were no problems with the physical (as by law the doctor is required to counsel for any problems he finds), and the TB test is clean (we're past 48 hours, before 72 hours, and there's no reaction at all... you can hardly even tell where it was to start with). I need blood work, and probably a tetanus shot, and that should be it... and then I have my "perfect" medical. I have to go back to the doctor on Wednesday for the completion of the medical.

On Friday, after we'd been to see the doctor, we stopped off to see a bit of Yorktown (I think that's how you spell it). We took a few pictures outdoors, though it was getting dark by the time we were getting there (it was about 5:30, so close to sunset).

A part of the old fashioned herb garden in Yorktown

The Episcopal church in Yorktown

Gazebo on the waterfront at Yorktown

We found a little restaurant that smelled sooooooo good we just had to stop. Considering it was supper time, it wasn't exactly unreasonable to be stopping anyway. So, we notified of allergies, and ordered our food. The food tasted GREAT! The only thing is, within fifteen minutes of finishing, I was having an allergic reaction to something. So, notifying of the allergy, and even the waitress guaranteeing that there wasn't any of the allergen in the food, did not prevent the allergen from being in the food. How ANNOYING! I don't think we'll be going back there, as they apparently don't know how to deal with allergies.

Justin pouring over the menu at the restaurant

The array of salt, pepper, sweeteners, and sauces at the restaurant

We are still enjoying the church we found, though I don't know about the Sunday school class. I think we might try out the "old people's" class, because the "young adults" class isn't really something we find particularly great. If we don't like that one either, we'll just go with attending church. Too bad the church doesn't have evening services as well... it would be nice to have a Sunday evening service to attend... We have been impressed by the number of children and youth this little church has (well, the building is large-- the congregation is rather average in size though). I think this past Sunday there were about twenty children, and another twelve or so youth (18 and under) in attendance, and they all love to be there! It's so nice to see people enjoying the fact they are in church, especially the young people.

We made a trip up to the beach yesterday after church, but it was so windy that I didn't want to get sand in my camera by taking pictures! It's supposed to be rainy and cool for the next few days, so I suppose I'll be staying away from the beach for a little while. Maybe I can make another trip up there next week. I'm so glad there's a nice beach only ten minutes or so away from us!

And... other than all that... I've got courses finishing at the beginning of next week, so I suppose I'll be working like crazy trying to get this course work all done! I'm almost done everything, but it is always stressful not being completely finished this close to the deadline.

Birthdays and the Beach

Justin and I have been busily getting the house "perfectly" organized. I guess you could say that we have mostly succeeded at this point, though we're probably still not done. We've still got a little left to do in our bedroom. But, we have a shoe rack (THANK GOODNESS!!) which is keeping our shoes and things in order by the door. We have a second book shelf, which is also almost full, so we're likely to be needing another one sometime, but for now this one will do just fine. :-) Perhaps we should actually have gotten a second shelf like the first. We have the computers mostly organized (like that will ever *really* happen). Justin still has to figure out a better method for dealing with the cords, but I guess that will come sometime down the road. :-)

I've spent the last few days not feeling too great. I spent Monday curled up on the couch in a blanket, half asleep. We're not really sure what caused it, though it may have been a cross contamination from a wooden spoon used in something I can't eat at some meal previously made at Justin's parents' house. We're not sure that that is what caused it, but at least it offers somewhat of an explanation. I guess we'll just have to be more vigilant about what is used on and in food that gets cooked over there. But, I'm starting to get back to feeling good again, which is wonderful! Justin prefers when I'm feeling good because I tend to be in a good mood when I'm feeling good, hehe. He's been good about dealing with me not feeling good though, and with my lack of ambition in cooking lately! At least his favourites are easy to cook-- anything pasta is "perfect" in his opinion, lol.

Tonight on the menu will be pancakes, which he thinks is rather odd. He apparently grew up in a family where pancakes are only for breakfast or brunch. Strange, in MY family, we ate them for breakfast, lunch, or supper... whatever meal for which the mood struck! I guess he'll have to adjust to that one, because my family did pretty well anything for any meal, though I have to say I don't think we ever had pasta or baked chicken or anything for breakfast unless it was leftovers! We did have second day spaghetti a few times for breakfast though (if I recall correctly), so really, I don't suppose I've ever been conditioned to ONLY having certain meals at certain times of day! Of course, the tendency was, is, and will be in the future, to have cereal or something for breakfast (ie, normal breakfast food), but I don't see what is wrong with having "breakfast" for supper. Anyway, all that to say, we are having pancakes with fruit on top.

We've had a lot of birthdays this past month! First my mother (who lives too far away for us to go there for her birthday). Then Justin's mother, for whom we had a cake at their house. Then, on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of the month we had Justin's Dad, our nephew, and Justin! We had a cake for the three of them at their house (his parents) on the 20th, and then we invited them over for a celebration of Justin's birthday at OUR house this past Sunday.

Sorry for the quality, but this is the best picture I got. If you look closely, you'll see that the candles are all burning different colours! VERY cool! They must be treated with chemicals of some sort to cause the coloured flames or something. Anyway, all but the white one burned the colour of the wax. The white one burned pale blueish purple.

Justin and I went to test out my camera after getting the dust off the various areas we could see that had issues. We're hoping that it's taken care of the problem now, but here is a pretty cool picture that resulted in our testing!

This was also a part of those test shots. I think it actually turned out pretty good! It's probably one of my favourite pictures of Justin at the moment. Of course, they only seem to improve. Perhaps that is my skill improving, or perhaps it is Justin learning to smile more often when a camera is pointed his direction.

And, after the couple of test shots by the marsh, we went over to the beach. Of course, we probably would have stayed at the marsh if we had more area to explore, but there was a gate and barbed wire fence around the areas we were thinking we would explore, so we decided to go to the beach again. So, here's to a walk on the beach at sunset!
And, this shell just looked beautiful with the sunlight hitting it at the angle it was! It really seemed to bring out the colour in it.