We're Moving!

We've been getting a lot of comments lately on how impossible it is to comment on this blog. So, we're moving to: http://kandjhougland.blogspot.com/

And, of course, we're physically moving, too! Our free time (haha) of late has been spent packing boxes and slowly moving them over to the condo. Visit our new blog for more on that move!

Woohoo!
We're homeowners! After signing our lives away for about 2 hours, we got the key in our hot little hands. Yay! Everyone's invited to our new place once we move.

New photos
New photos are on Flickr!

Endgame
Now Playing: One Step Closer, Linkin Park

We now have a tentative closing date scheduled this upcoming wednesday. As a favor, do any of you out there have suggestions / advice for things to check, common mistakes, etc.  associated with closings? Must admit that I'm getting a bit antsy about this whole buying a house/condo thing - I think I am at the point that I just want to have everything settled and move forward.

In other news, well, there's not much news as life has settled back into a near-normal rhythm. Our big piece of news is that Kaitlin's first teeth broke through this past weekend. She has the tips of her two bottom center teeth above the gums now, and she's dealing with it all pretty well - lots of sleeping, drooling, and chewing on things. She's also learned how to make a sound (chirp? scream? not sure what to call it) that's loud enough to startle you. Nothing amuses the baby like startling daddy enough to make him jump a foot in the air off the couch ;)

House-hunting is done (we hope)
Mood:  happy

Condo

I guess it's "buying a house" time! On the heels of Andy's photos of their new place, we're ready to share photos of our soon-to-be-purchased condo. Click on the link above to launch a photo album.

The condo is in SE A2, and the location is great - less than a mile from shopping and the on-ramp to I-94, but far enough away that there's no noise. There's a pond on the grounds, and our unit looks onto the woods. We're on the 2nd (top) floor, so there are high ceilings throughout and cathedral ceilings in the kitchen/living room/dining room. The bedrooms are in the front of the unit, so that's the window of Kaitlin's room you can see in the photo.

We just had our home inspection Saturday, and all went well, so we should be closing sometime around the end of the month. Yay!

Also, photos from Kaitlin's baptism are on Flickr.

Health update

Things that suck about having a kidney stone:
Two days of horrific pain, so bad that I was on morphine & Vicodin and still puking blood (because I couldn't keep anything down). And you know the pain is bad when someone who went through 17 hours of labor with hardly any drugs is complaining about it :)

Things that rock about having a kidney stone:
I had been stuck at 15 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight for a couple months (not that I was doing anything to lose weight, but still aggravating because I didn't want to have to buy a new wardrobe). Thanks to not eating for 2 days, I'm now down eight pounds, and can fit into my pre-pregnancy pants! Woo! Don't worry, I'm now back to eating like normal (here's hoping the weight will stay off).

And finally - yes, I'm fine. Since I got sick in my office, my co-workers keep asking me if I'm ok (in a tone that seems to imply they thought I was dying when I left Chicago). But luckily, a kidney stone is one of those things, that although painful & potentially diet-changing, that once they are gone, are gone (until the next one rears its ugly head).

The week that was

Now that life has returned to some sense of normalcy, we wanted to share with you all the fun and excitement of the last week or so…

Saturday, 3/24

We’re leaving Ann Arbor for Evanston, IL, for Kaitlin’s baptism on Sunday. Turns out that Kaitlin is an exceptional traveler, sleeping most of the time in the car. We’re driving out along with three members of my lab at Michigan (Andrea, Marcy, and Becky) who decided to roadtrip out to the baptism. Of course, we had to time Kaitlin’s dining so that we could stop at the tasting room for our favorite vineyard, Round Barn Winery. We get to Skokie and our hotel around 5 PM or so, and start meeting up with family as everyone trickles in. It’s the first time anyone on my side of the family has met Kaitlin in person, and she is deemed “adorable beyond words” by general accord. After gathering everyone together, we go to dinner at the B a g e l over at Old Orchard and then turn in for the night.

Sunday, 3/25

The baptism at Sheil was wonderful, with all our family and friends together to welcome Kaitlin into the church. Following the reception, most of my family headed back to the Quad Cities. We took advantage of the nice day to walk around Evanston for a while with Kathleen’s mom, brother Dom and his fiancée Melissa and then headed downtown Chicago to our hotel for the next two days. Kathleen’s mom then went down to Midway for her flight out early Monday morning.

Monday 3/26

Kathleen went to work at her office, and Kaitlin and I spend a good portion of the day hanging out with Lauren at her and Jason’s house. Dom and Melissa met up with us and we headed to lunch up at Solomon’s Cookies. That evening, I handed Kaitlin off to Kathleen and headed down to McCormick place to meet up with my old graduate advisor to discuss my remaining paper we have yet to submit on my graduate research. After heading back north, we went to dinner at Lou Malnati’s and then retired to the hotel for the evening.

Tuesday 3/27….let the fun begin

While Kathleen headed into her office again, I packed up the hotel room and got ready to head back home that afternoon. After getting our luggage, Kaitlin, Dom, and Melissa into the car, we all headed over to Kathleen’s office to show off Kaitlin a bit. When we got there, we found out that Kathleen was not feeling well at all. I still had to run Dom and Melissa to Midway to catch their flight, so I left Kaitlin with Kathleen and made the best time I could down to Midway and back. By time I returned, Kathleen had gotten sick and was deteriorating. Faced with the choice of staying in Chicago or trying to get home, we decided to try and make it back to Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, as Kathleen took some medicine for her nausea, she couldn’t nurse Kaitlin. Luckily, we always carry an emergency supply of formula which we used to feed Kaitlin at the rest area on the Michigan-Indiana border. We then hit the road again, making it from Chicago to Ann Arbor in about four hours total with the feeding stop and also driving through 30 min of a torrential downpour (talk about God piling it on). Once we got home, Kathleen tried to eat some crackers and then got violently sick. At this point, we decided enough was enough and headed to the ER. Our friend Marcy was nice enough to come over and sit with Kaitlin overnight so we could leave her at home. The ER staff was pretty efficient, and they were nice enough to give us a private family room so Kathleen could pump while she was waiting to be admitted. She got sick again, and they moved us pretty quickly into an exam room and got Kathleen on an IV and morphine for pain in her side. Gotta tell you, I was getting worried…and as many of you probably agree, the worst thing in the world is not being in pain but to see ones you love in pain. Following a CT, the doctor diagnosed a kidney stone. Good news- not dangerous; bad news- painful as hell. After getting prescriptions for painkillers and an anti-nausea medication, we headed home around 8 AM Wed morning. At this point, I had been awake for 27 hours.

Wed, 3/28

Kathleen stayed on the medications all day, which helped make the pain manageable but also made her too loopy to keep up with drinking fluids. As moving liquid is the only non-medical way to pass a stone, this posed a problem. Our nanny Lori came over in the afternoon, and I was able to get about two hours of sleep in the evening. After Lori left around 8 PM, Kathleen started getting sick again while still on Vicodin and anti-nausea meds. We called Lori, who had just reached her house, and she basically turned right around and came back to stay with Kaitlin for the night. Back to the ER we went, and since we already had Kathleen’s diagnosis we got right in to get her on an IV and pain medication around 10 PM. After an hour or so, Kathleen relaxed (for the first time in two days) and rested comfortably – the stone had finally passed. We headed home at 2 AM, and went to bed at 3 AM. At the time I went to bed, I had gone about 48 hours with 3 hours sleep.

Thurs, 3/29 and beyond

Kathleen spent the day resting and recovering. We ran into a few problems with Kaitlin not wanting to nurse as she had gotten used to the bottle – Kathleen wasn’t able to nurse her while on medication, so she had been bottle fed for 2.5 days. Luckily, Kaitlin has re-adjusted to nursing and all seems well.

That’s a nutshell of last week, thank God it’s over. That being said, it was great to see everyone at the baptism, and pictures should be up soon (if not already).

Two months and all's well!
Kaitlin's 2-month-old check-up yesterday went great. She cried a little when she got her shots, but was done by the time the second band-aid was on. And she's growing like crazy (which we knew already by the fact that she'd started to outgrow her 0-3 month clothes, but it's nice to have exact numbers). Kaitlin is now 11.5 lbs and 24 inches long, which puts her in the 55% for weight and 92% for height.

Several unrelated events...

1) My last trip to Chicago went well, apart from my not realizing that the Blue line sucks before I got into town. It took me 45 minutes to fly from Detroit to Chicago and 1.5 hours to take the El from O'Hare to downtown. Ugh.

2) A great moment in parenting - when your child starts to fuss in her crib, and you go over to pick her up, and she stops fussing and gives you a big smile. Yay!

3) There is now a Chipotle open in Ann Arbor! We have gone there three times thus far. The first time, they were giving away free burritos. College town + free food = line that goes around the building, despite sub-freezing temperatures. The second time, it was dinner hour on Saturday night, and the line was out the door (and not moving). The third time, Jimmy went on his own (it's much easier to stand in line sans baby) and successfully got burritos! While good, they were not as good as Chipotle in Chicago, although we think this had more to do with the fact that this location had just opened than anything else.

4) Since it was 50-plus degrees yesterday, Violet, Kaitlin & I went for a walk. The Baby Bjorn we have rocks - I just strapped Kaitlin in and off we went! Much easier than trying to deal with a stroller. Kaitlin fussed a bit when I first put her in, but once we were outside, she calmed right down, and about halfway through the walk, she fell asleep. The only problem was that since it was so muddy out, I had to clean Violet off when we got back to the house, and Kaitlin didn't like when I had to bend over to get the mud off Violet's belly. Oh well. Overall, the whole walk was fantastic, though. It was great to get out and get some fresh air without having to worry about slipping on icy sidewalks.

5) Kaitlin is getting her two-month-old shots tomorrow. Poor kid. Hopefully it will go well.

Trips I'd like to go on...
One of the vintners at our favorite winery is traveling thru France. You have to read the bits of his blog about the wines they are having at meals... I'm totally jealous.