My weblogging software has been mucked up recently, but at the moment I can post at least. Things have been busy. Amanda had a meltdown the other week, but she is better now. Nothing like working 80 hours weeks when you are almost full term, I suppose.
Eve and Karl had a baby shower for us over the weekend. It was fun. We had dinner with them at Blackbird Bistro afterwards.
Alas, time for more work. I am working at home right now. Amanda has didactics, a doctor’s appointment, and an interview today. Queen Piglet just woke up from a rough morning of napping. Now she is bathing in front of the fireplace in preparation for another snooze.

01 FEB 2008 – FRIDAY
Amanda and I worked a lot. After I picked her up from the hospital in the evening, we decided to just eat Thai at Jamjuree in Capitol Hill. We ate a lot before returning home and passing out relatively quickly.
02 FEB 2008 – SATURDAY
We went up to Group Health for a couple of classes. The first was a lactation class. The instructor was half-an-hour late because she overslept, so it took a bit for her to get into the groove. I was feeling sluggish due to my irregular sleeping, but managed not to fall asleep. As for the class itself, it was informative, I guess. I did learn stuff after all.
We had a short break, so Amanda and I had a quick lunch at a nearby Subway. Amanda and I used to go to Subway in Ithaca quite a bit for their $2.99 Tuesdays, but, alas, there was none of that here, and lunch was much more expensive. Amanda berated me for getting some chips: “These are so bad for you!” but I ignored her.
The second class was on generic baby care. The instructor talked about such things as the first few days after birth, strategies for calming crying babies, etc.. She had a couple come in with their eight day old baby to give us some advice and to demonstrate baby bathing and whatnot. I noted the couple had the same baby seat that we just bought online. Good choice! The guy looked like he seriously just fell out of bed; he looked very rumpled and his hair was sticking out all over the place. His wife looked great considering she had just given birth recently. His name was one I am considering for the progeny: “Hiro”, but Amanda is not very enthusiastic about it.
The baby/instructor interaction was a little freaky. The kid would cry, the instructor would demonstrate some technique, and the baby would stop crying. Weird. I can only hope to be so skilled.
After the class we went to a baby store in Madison Valley to look at slings and stuff. We tried a bunch on and bought a Moby Wrap. I dunno how useful it will be, but I guess we will see.
After relaxing a home for a while, we headed off to Jeff and Kristine’s for their kid’s first birthday party. It was fun.
Mandy came over that evening after dinner for dessert. Amanda made a bundt cake of some type. Tasty.
03 FEB 2008 : SUNDAY
I slept in. It was great. Amanda went shopping with Mandy, and when she returned we (minus Mandy) went off to buy Stuff. We also went to the library. Amanda felt bad because of her $10.80 late fees, and she blamed me for them all. Unfortunately, while she did check out some books for me, only 15 cents of that fine was my doing.
It was superbowl sunday, but there was no TV for us. We worked and cleaned up the house and whatnot. James called Amanda for help because one of her patients was in labor and did not want a male provider, so she went in for a few hours to check her out.
04 FEB 2008 : MONDAY
Amanda was going to talk with someone about a job, but her patient was seriously going to deliver imminently so she went off. I worked at home until she came back about noon. I then took her to clinic and went off to Bothell. I eventually came back to pick her up. Amanda briefly wanted to go out for Mexican food because it was late and the day had been long, but we just went home. She had chickenless nuggets and I had cheese tortellini. Yum.
One of her coworkers had given us a kids bath and a car seat (for toddlers it looks like). He fully disclosed that it was old and probably on the edge of the manufacturer’s replacement recommendations I am not sure we need either, but I guess we will see.
We also got our baby car seat delivered. Like the above items, we don’t really have anyplace to store it, so I went ahead and installed it in the car. I was surprised with how easy it was. I wonder if I am among the 20% of people who install them correctly.
05 FEB 2008 : TUESDAY
Says Amanda when we leave for work:
“We have a baby seat in our car?!?!!?” Crazy, I know.

I was up most of the night working again. Well, trying to work anyway. This morning I went into Group Health for a couple of appointments back-to-back. First I got an echocardiogram. It was interesting, or would have been had I not been so tired. My appointment was so early most of the employees weren’t there yet. Mysterious. Afterwards I got hooked up with a heart monitor that I will wear for a while so that they can see if my heart is malfunctioning unbeknownst to me… mainly when I am sleeping, I suppose, but tonight at least I probably won’t sleep much again. I have five leads attached to me now so I feel very cyborgish.
They did not charge me the usual copay for the appointments. I probably will get a bill later. I have been paying much closer attention to such things as I will probably be paying for my health insurance out-of-pocket once Amanda finishes residency and I am considering whether to just get some type of catastrophic coverage.
I almost got out fast enough to take Amanda to work, but she decided to just bus in. I went home anyways to space out a bit and to avoid rush hour traffic. Piglet was pleased because the house was cold and she took full advantage of my prone position on the couch. A bit later I made it back to work. The president of the company thought Amanda had gone into labor or somesuch since I had worked at home yesterday and was not around in the morning.
Amanda had a couple of interviews yesterday. One is a short meeting with a place, and one was with a Group Health satellite location. She got to see the “dark side” as one of her attendings put it (i.e. not a community health center type place). I did not look too much into their info, but the pay and benefits of the CHCs were completely not in the same league. Alas, they had already offered the job to someone else (just that day?) as they would have offered it to her. So she would not be tempted. They might have another position open up, though.
Time to wrestle with work more. Things are not cooperating.

The weekend was kinda blah. I caught up on my sleep on Saturday and later worked. Amanda had clinic in the morning and then went off knitting all afternoon. She also got a “cute cut for the winter”.

Sunday we went off to Tukwila to pick up the cosleeper because the progeny could appear at any moment really. We also ordered a car seat. What more does one need, eh? We also picked up a exercise ball for Amanda for stretching purposes.

We had lunch at Red Robin. I had a lot of greasy fish and chips. Aside: I really need to start going to the gym again. Since there are bottomless fries there, a waitperson came by and offered two(!) more baskets of fries, but Amanda denied me by only accepting one. Grr.

We were going to do more errands, but Mandy called. She was back from her skiiing adventure, so we headed back home so she and Amanda could go grocery shopping. I cleaned up the house and worked. Which I did for most of the evening and early morning.

It snowed in the area on Monday, so I was wary about going to work. Amanda’s morning stuff was canceled, so I took a nap while Amanda did… something. I was going to just work at home because I did not want to deal with weird weather traffic, but when I looked at the traffic reports online, no one was on the roads. So I went in anyway. The evening was more work. I also watched select scenes from the Matrix movies. Amanda watched a bit before falling asleep on the couch.
So life was not exciting last week. We worked a lot. But take a look at this:

Piglet makes everything more exciting!

We had the third and last intensive birthing class last Saturday. It was good… much better than I thought it would be, especially when, in my words, “we stopped talking about our f***ing feelings it was actually interesting and useful”. But, a lot of people liked talking about their feelings so everyone left happy.
Amanda was on call on Sunday, but since there was an intern there, she was able to come home. She still had to stay overnight as there was a laboring patient.
I am still abnormally tired due to either medications or my lack of caffeine. I tried to work most of Sunday and cranked out some billable hours. I have to make up for my sick days in the previous weeks as alas no work = no pay.
Monday Amanda was post call, and I worked at home. During the day we did not do much because we were both low enegy. Boring, I know. I did most of my work by staying up all night, but I did get almost two hours of sleep.
Today, I am not as tired as one might expect. It is quite gorgeous outside… sunny and very clear. Of course, that means it is also unseasonably cold.
My recaps are getting shorter. I do want to write in more detail about the past two weekends. Maybe later. Alas much needs to be done before the progeny arrives.