Milk Saga

Don't know if we updated you all on our milk saga...turns out, HEB sells "regular" milk that is hormone-free for $3.49 a gallon. This means we have a compromise on the milk buying. I get hormone-free and Brian doesn't have to pay $5.00 a gallon. All is well on Longstone Rd. :)

Light My Fire

WE HAVE ELECTRICITY!!!!!!! I still haven't slept in my own bed and won't until Sunday night, but I am happy regardless. Thank you Centerpoint!! I can't wait to see what our electricity bill is like this month, with almost 2 weeks of inactivity. First Choice Power better not hose us.

We're off to Frankston this weekend for our first baby shower! I've decided that Kaylynn has rotated in me - to sideways. She's been kicking/punching/rolling around in areas that haven't felt her before (my far right and left sides). It's actually been a bit painful. I guess at this point, pain is all relative. :)

Here's what's happening in Kaylynn's world this week:

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

It's too bad that Brian can't give her the calcium, because he drinks enough milk for a family of 8. I, however, don't drink enough for me, let alone her. I guess I need to get on the ball in that area. I have a student this semester who has put himself on a strict diet for cross country. I go to him with all my dietary questions, especially with this whole gestational diabetes scare. He suggested I try eating eggs for breakfast (which won't make for a good school day!), but that cheese is good to eat! Perhaps I should try getting my calcium from string cheese. Yes, I realize that an 8th grader isn't a nutritionist, but it makes for interesting conversation, especially when the others are grossed out by his raw egg eatings each morning.

Perspective

http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/

While we've been busy complaining about how bad it sucks to not have electricty and being unable to live in your own house, many other people are going through much, much worse. I am glad to find sites like these, as it serves as a slap in the face, a wake-up call, reminding me how lucky and blessed we really are.

Reminds me of that country song that has that line in it that says "And I thought I was tough..." I admire these people. I really do.

28 Week Update

Good news!! I'm not diabetic. That being said, they still find it necessary to do another 3 hr blood test next month. I do not find that necessary and the 4 holes in my left arm agree with me. Yes, that's right, they have to stick you 4 different times for this thing, while making you sit in the waiting room of the dr's office for 3 hours - while you are starving because you haven't had anything to eat since the night before. Hence, why I don't find it necessary.

Well, I've about decided that whatever poundage these things say Kaylynn should be about now are off for us. There is no way she's big enough to weight 2.25 lbs right now, I'm not big enough for that - which is good news for me! This is what babycenter.com has to say about her this week:


By this week, By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can open and close her eyes, which now sport lashes. This movement is more of a reflexive blink than a deliberate opening and closing, but it won't be long before she's batting those beauties at you.

Some venting - Brian spoke with the insurance adjuster earlier this week and he said he'd be by on Friday and would give us a call for a more definite time. So I went over to the house today to wait on him and a couple of roofing guys to give quotes. 5:00 hits and we haven't heard anything, so Brian gives him a call. Do you know what that man told us?! To make an appointment. HELLO, was saying you'd come by on Friday afternoon NOT an appointment!! Now he tells us the earliest he can come to us is NEXT Friday. All the while, my garage continues to mold and mildew...

And with that, I'll leave you with some sad photos of Ike's wrath on Longstone Road. I meant to bring my camera with me to the house today to take pictures of Kuykendahl Road, it's awful looking.

Our roof

Close up of the roof

Roof above the kitchen

Mold/Mildew in our garage...it's a larger area now

Rock me like a hurricane...

First, let me start off by stating that this is Brian (again). I don't know that I'll continue warning you when I have graced this blog with my presence or not, but for now, consider this your advanced warning. From now on, if the blog posting is an important matter, it is probably me. Otherwise, it's Hayley.



You should all know that I'm just kidding. Updates on the kid and what not are way more important than my shenanigans.



Anyway, several people have been asking about our status since the hurricane hit so I figured I'd post something to let everyone know what was going on (since that is the point of a blog, I think).



We made it through the storm without much to report. Actually, I issued a mandatory evacuation order for all residents of 25807 Longstone Rd - which consisted of me, Hayley and baby Frink. We decided to head up to Frankston to hang out with her parents (and, evidently, wait on the storm to hit). There were simply too many people heading to Dallas so we thought we'd take our chances on a Cat. 1/tropical storm by the time it got up through East Texas.



As it turns out, the person that made the mandatory evacuation order made a good decision. The storm did cause some damage and destruction in the East Texas area, but Eddie and Linda's faired pretty well. We lost power a couple of times, but it generally came back on in a couple of minutes. The winds were gusting though and ended up blowing water into their house through vents in the walls/ceiling. The water trickled down the inside of the walls and then deposited itself in the carpet of the bedrooms and Eddie's office. In short, no bueno. They had to call some carpet people the next day who proceeded to fill the house with loud, noisy, hot blowers to try to dry out the carpet (after they ripped it up along with the carpet padding, of course). Additionally, and more tragically, the wind blew the satellite dish slightly off kilter which dashed any hope we had of continuing to watch the hurricane coverage ("hurricane coverage" is now the code word for "college football"). There was a bit of hope though. The wind and rain (which was coming from the east) suddenly stopped after a few hours. We thought we were out of the worst of it so I hopped on a ladder and began fiddling with the dish on the roof. Unfortunately, we must have been in the eye or something because the wind and rain then slammed us again from the west. Tropical storm force wind + rain + on the roof + off kilter satellite = boring hurricane evacuation. Such is life.



Our place in Houston appeared to do better than most places in the neighborhood. We had a large portion of the roof exposed above the garage which allowed water to get in. Fortunately, it was contained to the garage area and we only suffered water damage there (that we can see). What sucks is that we are starting to get mold. As soon as someone can get out to the house, we can get it taken care of but as you can imagine, insurance inspectors and roof repairmen are in short supply. We also had a small section of the roof shingles get displaced above our kitchen. I can't see whether any water leaked in or not, but we have covered it up just in case.

(I had to go to class so I'm picking this up again, but I have kind of lost my train of thought. I'll do my best to continue)

We got water back earlier this week (so I'm told) but we still don't have electricity. Our area got hit pretty hard (ok, very hard) and there are down trees, power lines and poles everywhere around us. The power is not supposed to come back on until early to mid October. Fingers crossed it's before that! We were under a tornado warning for quite some time and the theory (someone else's, not mine) is that there were some twisters in the area. There are twisted trees, poles and street signs so maybe that's right. I just don't know because I wasn't there! We were just lucky not to have any trees fall on our place (yet). I say yet because there is a lone pine tree in our back yard that is now leaning. It's kind of in between our property and our neighbor's property. We're gonna chop that sucka down when we get the chance (I'm a lumberjack and that's ok...). Unfortunately, there were houses that had trees on (or through) them. There are two houses on the other side of our neighborhood that were quite literally split in half by trees. Pretty scary stuff.

As for our location now, I (Brian) came back to H-Tizzle on Tuesday night because school started again yesterday. Hayley continued to live large in Frankston since there was still the electricity/water issue at our house and my parents house. However, my parents got power and water yesterday so we are going to be staying there for a while. Hayley is actually back in town today to re-take her diabetes test. I think she'll be the first to tell you that she's never been very good at tests and that she picked the wrong time to fail one (reminds me of the song: "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille"...now that'll be stuck in my head). Just kidding. We are told that they catch a lot of false positives so we hope to pass this one with flying colors.

Ok, one last funny thing before I leave for my next grusome class. You better laugh at this. I'll know if you don't...

We have a neighbor (as do many of you) that has used his huge pine tree as a flag pole since we moved into the neighborhood. He is, how do you say, a little redneck-ish (we are seriously going to email Jeff Foxworthy and say "You might be a redneck if you use the 100 ft pine tree in your front yard as a flag pole"). Anyway, the American flag is flying no more. His flag pole went limp (for lack of better words) during the storm and was bending towards his house. I suppose the threat of Old Glory coming crashing through his bedroom was too much to bear so he got his pick 'em up truck and pull the tree down. Again, did I mention he was a little redneck-ish?

That's it for now. But in summary, we are fine, our house is relatively fine, Hayley is still pregnant with (presumably) my daughter and we are living at my parents's house. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Peath out.

Heading Back

Well, at an early 6am, Dad and I are driving back to Houston tomorrow morning. I have to have my blood test done for gestational diabetes (fingers crossed I don't have that, especially since I've been chowing down on chocolate in case I can't have anymore for 3 months...) first thing, then we're off to see what Longstone has in store for us. We're going on 1 week without electricity (and maybe water, I'm not sure...). I sure do miss my little house. :(

On a positive note, though everyone keeps complaining that it's been this long without power, I have to give the electric companies a hand, because as of right now, 42% of Centerpoint's customers have had their electricity restored. Now, I know that's not even half, but they have a total of 2.26 million customers, and when you think that 939,000 have it now - that's a lot people. It's especially a lot if you've seen/heard what it's like. Brian says there are snapped power poles and lines everywhere (thanks to tornados). It's not as simple as just flipping a switch, we're talking actually having to reinstall electric poles and wires.

Keep up the hard work, Centerpoint. We'll do our best to be patient as we know you're working as hard and fast as you can. Thanks!!

A New Roof?

So, we need a new roof. Anyone got any idea how much that's gonna cost us?

27 Week Update

This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.

Let me tell you - this child has not stopped moving for the past two days. Perhaps they have been the hiccups, I don't know. Regardless, it's been entertaining.

We're in Frankston for the weekend. That means I'm an evacuee! Brian thought it'd be best that I wasn't in Houston when we lost power and water. Apparently that's not good when you're pregnant. :) Fingers cross that it's not as bad as they predict.

Appointment Update

Well today was the day that I got to drink the over-sugary sweet orange beverage so they could test me for gestational diabetes. I was dreading this whole ordeal, but it wasn't so bad. You have to drink the drink, which is pure sugar, then they wait an hour before drawing your blood. I brought lots of stuff to read thinking it would take forever, but because the doctor herself was behind, I waited 30 minutes for her to come in; she spent about 15 minutes talking to me about when to tell if I need to go into the hospital; then they drew my blood 15 minutes later. Not so bad.

Kaylynn's heartbeat is strong - at 148 bpm and she's moving around a lot. OH, and the best part - I only gained the requisite 4 lbs, the doctor didn't comment about it or anything! I knew I liked my doctor. I go back in 4 weeks (at 30 weeks), then it's every two weeks after that. Time is going to start going very, very quickly - which is a good thing!

That is all. :)

Hormonal

I have come to the conclusion (and have nearly accepted) that there is a purpose behind everything my wife does and says these days at the grocery store. That purpose is to trick me. First it was the peanut butter. It was a simple "Do you want me to get you some peanut butter?" and we all know what happened (hippie goo!). This time it was another food staple that I absolutely love and can't do without. Yes, the hippie has gotten to my milk.

Again, it started with an innocent question: "Do we need more milk?". Notice that she phrased the question with a "we" instead of directly asking whether "I" wanted more milk. She was crafty enough to imply that I did in fact need more milk because we were almost out. I should have been more weary but I answered exactly how she hoped; Iresponded with an emphatic "Sure!". We then proceeded to the area where one can find the milk (some might call it the "milk aisle") where I grabbed the usual low fat (1%) milk (note that my wife has been changing me on a slow and steady basis: I grew up on 2% milk and now drink watered down 1% milk...keep this in mind). Right after I grabbed the $3.49 gallon of milk she said "Oh wait, we need to get hormone free milk". I sighed and said, "Ok". My eyes then ventured over to the organic hormone free gallons of milk and were drawn like magnets to the $4.99 price tag. Aha! They're at it again! Tell us how bad the hormones are and then charge us 30% more. 30% more! No wonder people can't buy groceries these days. The hippies are taking over the world.

Now I don't know much about the milk industry, but here is my theory. Normal non-hippie milk (that is, non-organic "hormonal" milk) costs $3.49 per gallon. Included in this price of milk is the cost of the non-organic materials (I assume feed and whatever other things they give to the cows) and the hormones. If the hippie milk doesn't include these items (i.e. no non-organic materials or hormones), shouldn't the price be lower? I mean, fewer inputs should yield lower costs. Stick the cows out in a field, let them eat some grass (which grows on its own) and milk them. Pretty simple really. My only conclusion is that the hippies are trying to take over the world by making all of us poor and bending our will to their hippie ways (they've already got my wife!). Rest assured that I will continue to fight the good fight.

On a side note, I just don't know what we are going to do when little Kaylynn gets here. We aren't going to be able to breastfeed because the milk will contain hormones (lots and lots of hormones...). I appears that we have a bit of a conundrum here.

Belly & 26 Week Update

Since tonight was Open House, I had to dress nicer and fix my hair, so I figured it was a decent day to take an updated belly shot. Looking back at my previous ones, I can totally tell a big difference in the size. My face even looks large and in charge. I maintain it's the angle. Seriously, it's not that big in person - trust me, I'm overly critical of myself.

Notice that we're watching football. Ugh. NFL. Ugh.

Here's Kaylynn's update this week. 12 weeks away from being full-term. Something to think about...12 weeks was when we had our first appointment.

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. She may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. She's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of her lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when she's born and takes that first gulp of air. And she's continuing to put on baby fat. She now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days. - Don't have to worry about this!

Sidebar - I *heart* these English cucumbers. They wrap them individually in plastic (which I never figured out, seemed like a waste to me...) and they were like 79p a cuc. Memories...

Stolen Photos

I stole these photos from Ashley.

Baby Will is saying "hi!" to his future girlfriend. Kaylynn decided that he's ok and didn't give his hand a swift kick (no, we didn't put his hand there, he just decided to himself).

This is what pregnancy happiness looks like - homemade banana pudding. YUM-O!