I went to work yesterday and saw a friend (who's in the military) back on her second day from maternity leave. I asked how she was, holy cow. She spent 4 weeks in the ICU and then she still had to come back after 6 weeks, she tried to extend or to use her leave time, but the military wouldn't let her. Hello? What? No one knew about this either, I asked and they're all like no way. If we'd known we would have at least visited, I mean we work in the same hospital. Yeah so the US is ranked 40th for maternal morbidity and mortality, Sweden is number 1. Women in Sweden also get maternity leave for up to a year there and 6 months of it is fully paid. I keep telling Steven we're moving there.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427256/?GT1=10252 Read More...

Well, it has happened; I did not ask for it but it sucks nonetheless...

I went to see a sport's medicine doctor for a pain that I have been having and found that I chipped a bone in my left foot. The x-ray was interesting in that the bone chip was sticking in the Achilles' tendon and causing my a lot of discomfort when I walked, jogged, or ran. It is also difficult to drive a standard transmission when you cannot move your ankle.

Oh well, the remedy is to keep my foot in a boot-type cast for four weeks to see if it heals on its own. If not, I guess I will be looking at some minor surgery to remove the chip.

Of course, all of this is playing havoc with my desire to go out and run. And, I just signed up for a 1/2 marathon on Sept 29th. Maybe I will run it anyway...after all, that is six weeks away.

Love to you all, Grandpa Russ Read More...

Both these elevator rides actually happened on Monday. I work on the 7th floor, I'm really pregnant, I need to go to the 2nd floor, the 1st floor and the 4th floor usually about 8 times in a 12 hour shift. There is no way I am walking that many stairs.



So I was 27 and a half weeks on Monday and riding in an elevator with an anxious man who's getting off on the 5th floor. I said "oh did you just have a baby?" Because the 5th floor is the mother baby floor. His response was "No, my wife's 27 weeks and the baby's trying to come early." You have to understand I don't really look pregnant in scrubs, they hide a lot and even if I did, this man was far to anxious and self-involved at that moment to realize I was. But all I could think was his wife and I were both 27 weeks and I sure wasn't ready for a baby to come. I mean I am, I'm sick of being pregnant and waiting but I really don't want a premie baby, I want a healthy 9 1/2 pound girl. It kinda made me apprehensive and grateful and scared all at once.


The other ride was with a man and a woman employee. The man said "I haven't seen you in a while, how are you doing?" Woman: "It's my first day back." Man: "Oh did you go on leave." Woman: "No I just got back from maternity leave." Ah-ha, another woman I was glad I wasn't. Yeah, the first day back from maternity leave sucks. Remember going back after summer break and you're a little rusty, you're excited to see everyone again but you'd prefer to play in the sunshine. It's like that except you're the only one who's rusty, you're still sleep deprived and you'd rather play with your little sunshine baby. Read More...

So I'm at work a couple of weeks ago discussing about a baby with failure to thrive with some co-workers (failure to thrive means VERY small baby who's lacking developmentally). One co-worker says something to the effect that formula feeding is better than breastfeeding and another co-worker says don't say that in front of Märia, she's entirely pro-breastfeeding. I went on to state the benefits of breastfeeding and why it was significantly better. It seemed kind of strange to me though, before I had Seporah I knew breast was best and I even knew quite a few reasons why, but that's about as much as I knew about it, I don't think I ever would have been known as a lactivist (lactation or breastfeeding activist). I don't think I ever would have discussed it, it wasn't the most interesting subject in my opinion. I've now read just about every website known to man about it (and boy are there a LOT), read 10 or so books on the matter (with at least 300 others in circulation and waiting to be read) and discussed boobie juice (I think that's the best term, makes me laugh) with literally hundreds of women (most of them helping moms get latched on and such in the pediatric ward). I could tell you just about anything you ever wanted to know about breastfeeding. Seporah and I only breastfed for 4 1/2 months, I thought I knew about breastfeeding before hand, but I never had a clue. Read More...

From Erica:

Jacob Burton Smith is finally here!! He was born Saturday, August 11th at 7:28 pm at St. Luke's. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 inches long. We came home last night from the hosptial and are very glad to be home with big sister Hailey!! We are all doing very well, but tired. Here are some photos.
  
love-Andrew, Erica and Hailey Read More...

When I was pregnant with Seporah I learned that the number one consumed vegetable by children was french fries (as well as adults). I was shocked to say the least. First off potatoes aren't a vegetable, they're a starch. And second off, hello? How many french fries does anyone need, let alone children who's taste buds are unadulterated. Plus they really aren't that good. I said I would never, ever give my daughter french fries, at least until she was in kindergarden or something. I've seen quite a few 9 month olds who chow down on the soft salty french fries that come from McDonald's. Seporah made it to about 14 months, when I was heaving up chunks everyday in the toilet due to the very, very small Felicity. Steven would come home and I'd tell her to take her, take her anywhere, I don't care, just let me be. I wasn't feeding Seporah as much because I couldn't handle the smell of anything, so Steven took her to get french fries, well she loves them, a lot. It's mildly annoying how much she loves them, we drive past a fast food joint and she smells them and she starts whining for french fries. I always tell her no (and Dad tells her yes when I'm not around). Read More...

Seporah is a crazy monkey, really. We have always been excited to have a kid that really enjoys helping around the house and cleaning up. When we do clothes she brings them to us, and she understands (and has for a long time) where dirty clothes go and where trash goes. She helps take out the "Seporah sized trash" when I take out the big kitchen trash and she puts it in the garbage chute all by herself. But here is where the OCD kicks in. She pushes on the garbage chute until it closes, even though it is spring loaded to close.

Once when we were eating out we got this little wooden cow with holes in it's back to hold crayons. She pulled the crayons out one at a time, and when she wanted another, she would put the first one back in the hole. We were of course used to this behavior, but Märia's uncle Bob said that this was very peculiar for a 16 month old. And since then, we have noticed all the other little things. Her drawers have a "seat belt" that keep her from strewing the contents everywhere. If we open them to get something for her, she isn't interested in ANYTHING until the "seat belt" is closed again and she can't access it! Trash most definitely goes in the trash can. Doors, drawers and cabinets must be shut. And here is the one that convinced me it was far beyond normal.

She pulled out the milk carton asking for milk. I got her some and put it back. And she wasn't happy. I didn't know what was wrong, but she noticed something that was just wrong. So I let her into the fridge to tell me what she wanted. She kept trying to close the milk carton! You know, those half gallon milk cartons? Well, after they have been opened, they never close to where they look brand new. And that was driving her crazy! She kept trying to close it over and over again. And it never could close closer than say an 8th of an inch. Just not good enough for my little OCD girl. =)

I hope I never have to put my little girl in the monkey house, but Märia tells me to look at the silver lining. We probably won't have a hard time getting her to keep her room clean! Read More...

I haven't updated in too long, which is normally when I update! Um, Jason posted a great post on our marathon experience in California, but he left out that small part about how he motivated and pushed me, and seriously laid back so as to finish with me. As proof, he just ran the San Francisco Marathon in 4:40 (we ran ours in 5:38). Congratulations to Jason!

I have spent quite a bit of time recently fighting scammers online. I really hate scammers, who prey on trusting (or ignorant) web shoppers and steal their money. One of the scammers was sending out email that looked like it was from ebay and sent you to a webpage that looked like it was from ebay. It was hosted on a yahoo hosted domain and I contacted Yahoo and got them yanked. I actually tracked them to the middle of Russia and got a call from an FBI rep. It was actually pretty cool.

The second was a CraigsList scam, where people were attempting to have people Western Union them money for computers that they would never get. It was quite a complex setup actually. I tracked them to a guy in Virginia and when I called him up to yell at him and such he played stupid. Well, he was stupid, or computer stupid at least. Just an older guy who had scammers pull his name out of a phone book and register domains under his name and address. I really felt bad for him. So then I contacted his hoster (who happened to be Microsoft Live) and instructed them about the scam, and about how I had talked to the person the domains were registered to and that his identity had been stolen and he wanted them out of his name immediately. So they got shut down by Microsoft and the guy seemed to be grateful.

So that is pretty much been my last couple of weeks. =) Stay tuned for cool stuff from Jason and me. =)