Day 11

I'm here and I am surviving! So far the hardest part is being apart from Owen. He is handling it better than I thought he would, but it's still hard, and I still cry every time we have to say goodbye. His poor little mind is probably so confused with what's going on. Thank goodness kids are resilient and he won't remember this time of seeming abandonment.

Dan's family brought Sunday dinner last week and we all ate and had a grand time (but I forgot to take a picture!) And my family brought Thanksgiving dinner and the ever-important PIES and we all ate and had a grand time. (Don't tell anyone that we used some conference rooms on the first floor for both of these "grand times." Pretty sure we weren't supposed to be in there, but it's not my fault if a door happens to be left unlocked. And what are they going to do - kick me out?)

What are my days like? Well, I take long showers every day because, why not? It's not like I have something I need to get to, and I'm pretty sure the book I'm reading can wait an extra few minutes. So during my long shower on Day Two, I decided to shave my legs. Somehow I managed to cut myself with my dull razor, and I must have done a good job of it because I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. It wasn't anything crazy, but I didn't want to get blood on my pants. And while I know my nurse would have been more than happy to bring me a band-aid, I didn't want to be known for the rest of my stay as the girl who can't shave her legs without cutting herself (yes, I'm weird). So I looked around and Macgyver-ed a make-shift band-aid out of a paper towel and some medical tape. It was perfect! And I thought I was so smart for figuring it out without needing any help and ruining my ever-important reputation. Of course by the time I found the stuff and got it on, the bleeding had pretty much stopped. Go figure. And now I have nasty medical tape residue on my leg that won't come off. Gross. BUT, I achieved my goal of not getting blood on my pants and not bothering my nurse. So I count it as a win!

In other news, I've made it through the first 2 Gilmore's (the new ones, obviously). I'm keeping myself to one per day so I can truly appreciate them. The picture below is my giddy face when the "la la's" started at the beginning of the first episode. Bless whoever thought of a Gilmore revival!

My Incarceration: Day 7

This is a picture of the meal I earned after enduring the 3-hour glucose test this morning. I failed the 1-hour test last week. 😩  I blame it on the giant bag of Reese's that husband lovingly gave me. I have no self-control, especially when I'm stuck in a hospital.

Get in my belly!

They make you fast for the 3 hour test. Remember how you're not supposed to fast when you're pregnant? And then while you're not eating, you have to drink this nasty stuff that's basically one thousand percent sugar. Gross. I'm not sure how this test is legal, but whatever.

I figured a perk of living in the hospital would mean that I could start the test at 6am to minimize my fasting time. The doc okayed it. My nurse was on board. Too bad the phlebotomists who administer the test refuse to start until 7. Too bad I didn't know that until AFTER I woke myself up at 6. So I had to wait until after 10 this morning to eat anything. TEN!! (insert dramatic gasp here). Remember how I'm pregnant? When I told husband I wasn't going to be able to eat til 10 he responded with, "Whoa! You're going to be so grouchy!" (Bless him.)

So help me if I don't pass. How is a woman in the family way supposed to survive 5ish weeks in the hospital without chocolate?! I'm so nervous that I grabbed a pie as part of my breakfast, just in case the news is bad.

And if you were wondering if our life has settled down yet, it hasn't. Husband got in a fender bender on his way to work yesterday. 🚗  Thankfully he was driving his old ghetto car, but still. We have so many trials! 😉

To end on a happy note, I live for visits from my Owen. He's already learning the finer points of how to have fun in a hospital.

And So It Begins...

My "incarceration" began yesterday, and in true Ditto fashion it began with a bang! Being a crazy high-risk pregnant patient means I get to spend the rest of my pregnancy in the hospital. Yes, I said IN THE HOSPITAL. When is my due date? Oh, just February 4th. Yes, I said FEBRUARY 4th. But since the docs won't let me stay pregnant for too long (we don't want to have another explosion), baby girl will be here sometime before Christmas. (Best Christmas present ever!!) That means 4-6 weeks of living in the hospital. Lucky me.

Remember how we moved 3.5 weeks ago? Well, we did. I had all sorts of plans about getting everything perfectly setup and organized so that when I get out of the hospital with a new baby in tow I'll just be able to enjoy my new home and snuggle my perfect children (wink wink). Well, I'll still be able to enjoy my new home, but life happened and all that organizing just didn't get done. 

Thanks to new germs from a new place, Owen has either been sick or teething (or both) 97% of the time we've been in the new house. Needless to say the transition was tough on the poor kid. And 10 days after the big move he decided to share his germs with me. Worst cold I've had in years. And remember how when you're pregnant you can't take any medicine that actually helps? I felt like a pioneer. So instead of all the organizing/unpacking that I wanted to get done, Owen and I watched a LOT of Baby Einstein (if that stuff works on adults I must be a genius now!) ;)

And then. Then! We were T-minus 3 days to check-in and I had every minute planned out for what I wanted to get done, which involved a lot of help from Dan because I'm not allowed to lift anything. Then Dan's back decided to go out on him. It started Sunday and slowly got worse. By Tuesday morning I had to help him get dressed for work. Wednesday morning (the BIG day!) he woke up and couldn't move. (Not exaggerating here.) I spoon-fed him his breakfast and took care of Owen and packed bags for both Owen and I. Bless my angel mother-in-law for coming to the rescue when I realized I couldn't get it all done in time!

I left for the hospital with Dan flat on his back next to a load of painkillers and some food to keep him going. There is nothing worse than not being able to take care of your family! 

I won't elaborate on the separation from my Owen except to say that the goodbye was more than heartbreaking. And being pregnant and extra emotional sure doesn't help. He came for a visit today and it was balm to my soul.

Getting to the hospital was uneventful (nothing like driving yourself to the hospital because your husband can't move). They saved my lunch tray for me (hooray!) and I figured it was a good sign that my first meal had a package of peanut butter included.

The peanut butter. And my "I just bawled my eyes out because I had to say goodbye
to my family" face

This has nothing to do with my hospital stay, but my new ward managed to throw me a baby shower in the few weeks between the move and the incarceration. (Bless them!)  Can you believe how gorgeous this quilt is? I'm in love. And seeing it is a good reminder of why I am here. She will be worth it! (I keep telling her she better be the perfect baby after all this!)

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was just the way I like it: low-key with minimal attention on me. :) it started with a free day at a fun dinosaur museum-gotta love it when your birthday is on Columbus Day! Owen was fascinated with this snake. And thankfully he doesn't speak parsel tongue so it stayed in its cage. :)

Thanks to an awesome mother-in-law for watching Owen, Dan and I snuck away for a quick and delicious Indian lunch. Mmmmm. Thinking about it makes my mouth water. And to top it off they had Bollywood music videos playing so the entertainment was hilarious.

Husband came home from work early and then my dad and Kathy came to take us all to cafe rio. (Remember how calories don't count when it's your birthday?)

Speaking of calories, husband has perfected the art of the banana split. It might look messy, but holy AMAZING!

And we rounded out my birthday month by buying our first house!! We're so grown-up now. We've been looking for a while and fell in love with this guy. I already have a love-hate relationship with the giant walnut trees out front. However Toby was quick to point out that the trees provide additional food storage-I'll take it!

We moved in on Saturday (shout out to our amazing movers-FAMILY!) and I already have a love-love relationship with not living in a basement anymore. Hoorah for windows and knowing what the weather is without needing to walk outside. And did I mention it puts us 5 MINUTES from family? We're in heaven. Well, at least I am. Owen is still figuring out what just happened to his stable life, and husband now has a 30 minute commute. I just remind him, Happy wife, happy life! ;)

Cruising

And here is the rest of the cruise. Enjoy the photo dump.

Our first stop was Juneau, which marked my first time to Alaska. (And now that I've been to Alaska & Hawaii, I definitely need to get to the rest of the continental states.) For being a state capitol, it was SUPER small. But every place we saw in Alaska was GORGEOUS.

We made a stop at the fish hatchery. I love Owen's face
in this picture.

Apparently he likes to touch cool sea animals!

My boys!

My adrenaline junky.

The Ditto Totem Pole

At the Mendenhall Glacier - glacier's are COOL! (pun intended)

When you play hard, you sleep hard!

Now that's a lot of sober people waiting to make fools of
themselves on the karoake stage. 

Um, pretty sure they really need to start a Ditto Boy Band.

Not sure if any of my videos will work, but here is the boys audition tape. 

The karaoke party turned into a dance party. But only the
Dittos stayed for the dancing. Oh yeah, and the crazy drag
queen. Too bad I didn't get a picture of THAT.
But THIS is a picture of us seeing the NORTHERN LIGHTS!!

Some guy on the boat took this picture, so Dan took a picture
of his picture. Hopefully you get the idea that the northern
lights are AMAZING.

Our boat wasn't super kid friendly. But Owen could have played
with this all day. Made me think of the Harry Potter chess set.
Thankfully these ones didn't come to life to pulverize my son.

On the bus to Sitka, Alaska. He didn't fall out.

The crazy lady in the background of this next picture totally made my day. She had NO issues with cutting to the front of a long line of people waiting to be bused into the city. She cut right in front of a pregnant lady who had a baby in her arms (me). I'm pretty sure her son was yelling at her, but since it wasn't English I can only assume. I'm also pretty sure she shrugged her shoulders and said, "who cares? I'm older and I can get away with anything I want." And she did. Because of her we had to wait for the next bus, which of course took FOREVER. Good thing we were on a cruise so we weren't in a hurry. But seriously. I can't wait to be old.

Tired, sleepy boy.

Totem park. We saw a TON of wild life here.

Hiking through Totem park.

Sitka is such a quaint little town!

Look closely and you'll see HUNDREDS of salmon in the water.

Selfie in Sitka!

There was no getting bored on this boat. We learned how to
make creme brulee!

The in-laws!

We are so embarrassing. We found out 15 minutes before this
picture was taken that it was formal night. Woof.

Cute cousins!!

My handsome guy.

Let's pause for a moment and talk about Owen's love of music. Each night on the cruise there was lots of live music to enjoy. A piano bar entertainer. A Russian violinist accompanied by a Russian pianist (they were AMAZING and I could have listened all night), and a jazz band who could perform almost any requested song. They were also amazing.

The cool part about the live music is Owen was ENTHRALLED and could have spent all night listening/dancing. We started out each night with the violinist. He and Owen became good buds and in the musician's broken English he told us we definitely need to get him into music.

One of the only times my busy boy held still on the cruise:
while listening to classical music.

This is Owen and his cousin stealing the show. Too cute!

Love this picture. The violinist played a little tune just for
Owen.

Then we would move to the Jazz band. They called Owen the Toys R Us dancer.

Dancing with Dad.

Pondering the meaning of life.

Us in Ketchikan!

Kayaking in Ketchikan!

The marrieds took a little break from the kids & went to go
on a kayaking adventure. It was SO great! We had a seal swim
next to us for a while, and Dan's head was almost taken off by
a giant bald eagle.

Thanks to our early-riser Owen, we got to see this gorgeous
sunrise.

All set for an adventure!

Team DITTO! We won the Trivia game. All our Trivia Nights
in St. Louis prepared us for that very moment.

Owen's very own concoction of fruit water.
He was happy, which meant I was happy.

Did I mention that we had the BEST weather! Seriously - I
got sunburned. In Alaska. Who gets sunburned in Alaska?

Waiting for the giant Hubbard Glacier.

This thing is bigger than the state of Rhode Island!

Remember how when you're on a cruise you don't do ANY work? Your room gets cleaned twice a day. You don't cook. You don't clear your dishes. You don't even pour your own water. It's a good thing I still had a kid to look after to keep me grounded. We loved that in all of the elevators was a mat that told us what day it was. Because seriously, it was easy to forget.

A pregnant belly and the Wednesday mat.

Rachel and Mandy were called up to help in the magic
show. Now they're practically famous!

This might be my favorite picture of the entire trip. There were
several photographers on the boat and they had advertisements
like these up everywhere so people could get their pictures taken.
Oh the fun we had mocking them!

Enjoying Canada with uncle Sam

Thank goodness for lots of helping hands to entertain Owen.

One of these boys isn't enjoying himself.

Representing the Cougars.

The Parliament building.

And this is what post-cruise hangover looks like. Yes, Owen
is sleeping with his eyes open.