But surprisingly, none during supper...

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

We just got an actual land line last week. We'd been making do with my cell phone with TC number & Mr. Kluges's work cell phone, but in order to get internet (YAY, INTERNET!) we got a land line.

Today the world of call marketing got our number. We've gotten calls to get magazines, cable & because our "household has been selected to win a trip to Cancun" plus several nobody-there calls. All today.

Thank goodness it's possible to turn off the ringer at naptime.

Not dead...just disconnected

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

No, I did not die as a result of the food poisoning... I just forgot to tell y'all that the new 3 bedroom house we're renting doesn't yet have internet access. However, the wonderful Mr. Kluges signed us up today, so we should be connected to the Collective by next Tuesday. Hooray! Meanwhile, I've abandoned him to Pumpkin's frustration tantrums (oh, how very two-years-old she's been lately!) and taken the nursing one to a Starbuck's. Yay for coffee (decaf, of course), jazz music, a sleeping child (don't jinx it, don't jinx it) and internet access!!!!!

So I'll be keeping this brief because a) I want to get to my bloglines account and catch up with what you all have been doing and b) everything I'd been thinking about blogging about has now fallen out of my head in my excitement of actually being on-line again.

However, I will tell you that I'd NEVER buy the house we're renting for oh, so many reasons (not that we were ever thinking about it, but it's SO just-temporary) including that it's on a service road for a major road, it's surrounded by commercial properties (i.e. a car repair shop, a defunct ebay shipping center, and a digital photo lab), the water pipes do this huge bass grumble about 5 seconds after every time somebody flushes, there's barely room for a card table in the kitchen, our big living room window looks out at the major road and then the parking lot for a big mall, and the upkeep that's been done on the house has been adequate at best. On the amusing side, looking out the living room window reminds me of playing Frogger 'cuz you've got the little service road, then a grass divider, then two lanes of road going to the right, followed by the grassy median and the other two lanes of the major road, then another grass divider, then finally the parking lot. And since there's lots of stop lights, the traffic ebbs and flows a lot, so I can totally imagine hop, hop, hopping a little frog across.

Ok, anyway, I found it amusing. :)

That's all for now - gotta go read what's been up with YOU!

Various and Assorted News Bits

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Bad news
Food poisoning = a very unpleasant Mother's Day afternoon/evening. Blech.

Good news
We're in the process of moving from our noisy-neighbor, small, 2 bedroom apartment into a much larger 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house. Many thanks to G&G Huis for coming out this weekend and helping so much with moving our stuff out from our TC house and watching the girls!

Icky news
We're considering "Rocket" or "Squirter" as nicknames for our new baby as she has consistently demonstrated a tendency to ... well... number two all over when getting her diaper changed.

Somewhat better news
At least breastfed babies have milder smelling poo.

Comfortable news
I'm SO GLAD to have our comfy green couch and chair in our living room and out of storage! I missed them lots in Ireland when sitting on our rental house's nice looking but not cozy white leather couch.

"Fabulous" news
We're received a couple of packages from TNGreatAunt this week (Thank you!), one of which contained a lovely green fuzzy boa for Pumpkin. She decided her neck was cold, so she wore it - along with purple sunglasses - to the IHOP on Saturday. I coached her to tell her Daddy she looked "fabulous!" *grin*

Hopeful news
Here's hoping that Pumpkin handles sleeping in the new house tonight smoothly. She's had more than her share of change over the last month and a half, but has been a trooper for most of it.

End news
Ok, gotta go and either pack some stuff, eat another saltine (slowly, I'm gearing the tummy back up), or take a nap.

Hey! Who ate the sheep port?

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Hee hee!

Cupcakes of Catan!

Quotes from the Big Sis

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Cute things Pumpkin has said since having a baby sister

• Hi, little fuzzy guy!

• (to crying baby) It's ok. I'm here. Your big sister is here.
  

• Yook at her yiddo fingers!! (She's not great with the 'l' sound yet, so super cute!)

• When will it [the umbilical cord] turn into a bee bo?

(Which led to much further discussion about belly buttons, umbilical cords, and "Who were you (or Gramma or Daddy or whoever) 'ttached to?)


(Ok, I'd add more, but it appears naptime is over, so I gotta run!)

Belated Book Binge

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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Ok, so here it is. I know it's belated, but I figure I get a bit of a break since I was actually GIVING BIRTH on the 1st!

"What I Read" in April

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
2. Shadowmarch by Tad Williams (Actually finished in May)
3. Large sections of girl names in The Mother of All Baby Names by Bruce Lansky
   

This is totally not representative of the number of books I normally read in a month since in April we 1) moved transatlatically, 2) lost any library access we had, 3) lived with grandparents for a week, 4) were really close to having a baby, which meant that trips to the book store with the 2 1/2 year old were a bit of a challenge. The type of book, very typical, but the quantity, not so much.

She's here!

****************
copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

She's here!!!

I know Pusher, Turtle and others have been checking in occasionally and wondering since it's been a while since my last post. Well, your wondering and waiting are over!

The contractions Tuesday early early morning were for real. I went to bed after my last post (about 4:30 am) and started having contractions every 6 minutes. Those lasted for a while, then I got up and we got ready to go. Once they were every 4 minutes, we called in to let them know we were coming, called Gramma Yori and asked her to hit the road, woke up Pumpkin about 7:30 and went in.

Well, to make a short story shorter, we officially checked in at 8:20 am... and our new baby arrived at 9:04 am! Yeah, that's no typo - it was under an hour of hospital time before she was born. I'll probably do a more-details-than-you-wanted labor and delivery post another day, but once they broke my water there, things hit overdrive. (And no, that is not enough time in which to get an epidural!)

So we're all ecstatic that our little girl is now here. Mr. Kluges is paranoid about the internets, so we won't be sharing her name on this site, she was 7 lbs. 10 1/2 oz. and 21 inches long. (That's like a pound & a half more than Pumpkin was!) She arrived bright and early at 9:04 am on Tuesday, May 1st and Pumpkin is thrilled to be a big sister!

A Waiting Game

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

It seems like I've been doing a lot of waiting lately.

Either I'm waiting for Pumpkin to wake up, or I'm waiting for her to be hungry for breakfast, or I'm waiting for it to be lunch time 'cuz that's followed by naptime.

Or I'm waiting for her to fall asleep for her nap or to wake up again or for Mr. Kluges to get home from work or for it to be late enough to start supper.

And that's not counting the regular ol' "waiting in a waiting room" for one of my appointments or one for Pumpkin's finger.

There's been a lot of life-waiting, too, it seems. We're at an in-between place right now with living in a furnished apartment temporarily while finding an unfurnished 3-bedroom to also rent temporarily while we get our house ready and on the market so that we can buy a real house here.

But of course we can't do a whole lot with getting the house ready to get on the market while we're waiting for Baby to come (and while Jaysan and Ang are waiting for THEIR house to be ready so that they can move out - which works fine for us 'cuz we couldn't be there getting the inside ready anyway due to Baby-on-the-way).

And we're still living out of suitcases and some stuff we picked up out of storage at our house because we're waiting for our shipment to come from Ireland. Not that we have anyplace to PUT it all right now, 'cuz we're waiting for the aforementioned 3-bedroom place to be available.

Plus I've been thinking "wait, baby, wait" thoughts because our babysitter-plan for Pumpkin is my MIL, who lives about 6 hours away... and just worked her last day before retirement yesterday. (So at least that waiting's done!)

And last evening was spent waiting to see if the contractions I was having were more along the lines of "I'm tired, it's been a long day, maybe if I just sit down and take it easy they'll ease up or go away" contractions or if they were shaping up to be the real thing.

They have eased up, but still are showing up more than I've had any previous night/evening, so now I'm also waiting for it to be morning because we'll at least be going in to get things checked out.

But right now? Right now I'm waiting for the fire department to turn off the fire alarm that's going off right outside our apartment thanks to the lightning storm we're having so that I can try to fall back asleep.

Good night, all. We'll try to keep you posted...

...but if we do end up in the hospital, you might have to do a little waiting, too. *grin*