Introducing Bazooka, our work of art

Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 9:37 am
8 lbs even, 19.5 inches
This is our Esme, (Esmerelda Mona Lisa), our work of art and love.

Everything started really rolling along at 12:30 am Saturday morning. At 3 pm, we headed to the hospital. She came on her due date at 40 weeks even, surprising everyone, including me.

Daddy was there in the room with us and is just so sweet and wonderful to both of us. Watching him hold Esme and interact with her is pure joy and amazement that I am here with both of them at this time and place

She Might make her due date after all

Lots of steady contractions today, plus other signs that this could be happening today or tomorrow. We'll see if she makes the 5-1-1 rule today. (5 minutes apart, lasting one minute each, for at least an hour)

No Big News Yet

Still in 'pre-labor' and resting up. Baby Bazooka is moving a lot, and we're just waiting for things to get close enough together to go to the hospital. Hope to have good news for you sometime over the weekend, otherwise ultrasound on Monday.

Bazooka Sends out a Convincing False Alarm

Last night was quite interesting, although not enough to go to the hospital yet. My Braxton Hicks felt, for the first time, like real contractions hard and painful across my stomach and abdomen. And they repeated, first at 50 minutes apart, then closer and closer until they were about 10 minutes apart. They came when I was walking around, when I was distracted by something else etc... so they had me thinking maybe she was coming! We were keeping the time on a computer screen Mark has that records a time when you hit 'return.'

By the time they were ten minutes apart I had that little card ready to call the hospital. But, I was really tired, and they weren't increasing in strength, just frequency. Even the hardest one didn't make me hold my breath through it. So I laid down to see if I could sleep at all - and after about a half-hour they stopped coming and I slept through the night.

So, very convincing little girl -- but you'll have to do better to get this mom to take you to see the birthing center again ;)

On a side note - she was active throughout those feelings and I've felt her move around since I've been up this morning, which makes me feel really relieved and certain it was just a false alarm.

39 weeks and counting

Still no baby, but the doctor says it should be soon! Well... that is, within the next two weeks still.

Lynn said she wanted to see another picture to see if the baby has dropped any more since 37 weeks.




Baby Bazooka is SO active lately and yet I'm not sure what a contraction is, so we're not sure if I'm having any. I'm feeling a lot of pressure that comes and goes, but it's concentrated on one side and not very regular... hopefully it isn't too long now!

I'm making zebras for Jeanne and another custom order (maybe) for the shop. It was too cold yesterday for the flea market and we still have 8 puppies!

A Big Move - to Where?

Asking for advice!

Mark and I are looking to open a brick and mortar type retail shop. We've been discussing this since last year (well, January of this year actually), but there have been several things, besides Baby Bazooka, that have kept us from making any decisions.

If we had been able to tie those things up before, we wouldn't have waited so long. Now, we're waiting for Bazooka to arrive, and trying to make plans on what information we can get through the Internet and friends. We're not even sure exactly what region of the country we would like to be in yet, but we do have some criteria. One of the hardest things is I can't travel very far to check anything out, and probably won't be physically able for a month or so after the baby is born. However, we would really like to know where we are going before December rolls around.

We would like to be have our store near a population center but live a little further out of town in a 'farmland' type area, on an acre or more. If we could have the store and house on the same property (say off a highway exit or intersection) that would be ideal.

Our store would be a mixture of computers, electronics, coffee shop and workshop facilities. It would be a unique kind of place, with both parts and materials to buy, coffee and snacks to hang out in the lounge area with, and maybe classes and projects going on by local artists. Think about sitting in a coffee shop while people next to you build a Rube Goldberg machine in one corner and other geeks take turns between LAN gaming and fixing their machines with shop tools. There might be a 'yarn bar' and an assortment of basic art materials for sale, as well as promotion of local artisans and in-house reference materials on a variety of crafty and technical subjects.

Of course, this would be our ultimate goal. We'll have to start small. Our Ebay store is already getting to the point where we can rely on it for a little bit while we get settled. Where we go will definitely direct how much we can do how soon.

But where to go? Neither of us have real strong feelings about location. We've been looking at a few different regions of the country but would like suggestions!

So, here are the criteria we are working with:
Near high population but still some rural land nearby.
A welcoming environment, we're both eccentric geeks and we're hoping to attract other like-minded people. Maybe near a university or technological center, people who want to learn and tinker with things. Moderate temperatures, not too hot or cold. I grew up in Minnesota and can't take really high heat, while Mark grew up here and places more Southern, so he avoids the colder weather as well.

Suggestions please!
Invite your friends to give us some ideas too!
We'd like to hear your opinions about different areas!