Mann, oh Mann

Scarlett & Holly

2010-08-11T23:06:00.029-04:00

Holly was Scarlett's nanny from when she was three months old until she was 18 months old, when Scarlett started daycare. That's a long time in the life of a baby.

Here's what Scarlett looked like on Holly's first day.

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And here's what she looked like on Holly's last day. From baby to toddler.

The last time Holly came over to babysit, she brought a CD filled with all of the pictures and videos she'd taken of Scarlett ... and there were a LOT. I was so happy that she'd captured a lot of day-to-day life that I'm always too busy to remember to pull out a camera for. Sure, most of them are so mundane that Jason and I are probably the only ones who'd really get much out of them. But I just wanted to share some of my favorites.

Those last two were helpfully labeled St. Patrick's Day, which means it was Scarlett's one-year anniversary of being home from the hospital.

And a bonus video from Scarlett's growling phase:

Growl to Smile from Shelley Mann on Vimeo.

Scarlett: The Lost Months

2010-07-30T21:19:00.034-04:00

How can it have been five months since I've posted pictures of Scarlett on here? I apologize to my devoted blog followers, most of whom aren't on Facebook, where I have been a little better with keeping up with photos.

And since it seems way too daunting to try to recount everything that's happened in the last five months (quick highlights: she started walking! She started going to daycare! Her first daycare was a monumental failure! But she adores her second daycare! She had a very pretty Easter dress! We went to the beach!), I'm just going to put captions on a bunch of photos. Some highlights of March-August:

Scarlett's first time sitting at a bar! At the Red Onion Cafe in Monroe for Brian's birthday. (OK, so I guess this would've been January. Whoops. But I still wanted to share it.)

Showing off her new spring clothes.

Digging into the stuffed animal bin.

A pre-Easter photo shoot with a bunny. (March 2010)

I seem to have taken a lot of pictures of Scarlett in her pajamas recently. Here she is sitting at her highchair in her PJs.

Around April, Scarlett finally figured out the whole walking thing. We were all very excited, but her most of all. This next bunch is all pictures of her getting her balance during the first few weeks of walking.

For a while, she would just walk back and forth between the couch and this purple chair. Here, you can see her doing it in her purple pajamas.

No more walking for now!

These are my favorite early walking pictures, though. The look on her face really captures her intense concentration while taking steps and not falling.

All done! Time to crawl back inside.

Next up will be a big batch of pictures from Holly, who watched Scarlett during the day from when she was 3 months old till she was almost 18 months old.

Scarlett's photo shoot

2010-03-01T22:40:00.010-05:00

While we were in Atlanta last month, my talented friend Nikki did a photo shoot with Scarlett! (You can check out more of her photography on her website, nicolepuckettphotography.com.) Here are some of the shots she got. My favorite is the one where she shows her belly.

December is for parties

2010-01-16T16:35:00.039-05:00

December's always busy, but with Scarlett's birthday on December 12, this year's was even more hectic than usual. To make up for that last wordy post, here's a picture-y one. First up, birthday outfit!

Finished napping, ready for the party:

Scarlett wasn't really a huge cake fan. She doesn't like getting sticky hands.

Tons of presents! And this was only round one for December!
Pictures for the Christmas cards:

Christmas Eve:
My grandpa made me this toy box when I was a baby. My parents gave it to Scarlett this year:

Christmas at our house:

Christmas at my parents' house:

Holiday lunch with the Hickeys, the Baileys and Mr. Mellor:

Christmas at Jason's mom's:
Christmas weekend No 2: Mergy Mania! Several unsuccessful attempts at a decent picture of Scarlett's Christmas dress:

Scarlett's No Good, Very Bad Year (with happy ending)

2010-01-01T14:42:00.032-05:00

I meant to do this post around Scarlett's birthday, but the new year is just as good.

I wanted to explain everything that went on with Scarlett this year, both for people who were wondering but never asked, or who did ask and didn't get a great explanation (partly because I didn't want to explain everything back then, partly because I'm just now getting a grasp on what exactly is going on). Also, I want to get it all down before I start forgetting the details.

When Scarlett was born, everything seemed fairly normal. The doctors noticed a few small things that were abnormal, including a hemangioma, or malformed blood vessel, on her neck. Here's a picture where you can see it pretty well, right under her ear. It looks like a big bruise, and it's something that should go away in a few years.

But otherwise, everything looked fine and they sent us home. Then it was Christmas and then it was New Year's and then she was about a month old, she started having some difficulty breathing. She'd have a hard time catching her breath after a big cry, and she had to stop a lot to take deep breaths as she was eating. After several pediatrician's visits and two hospital stays where they ran tons of tests and found nothing wrong (diagnosis: bronchiolitis), the doctors finally started to take us seriously on her third hospital admission at 5 weeks old.

During that third visit, which began at 2 a.m. with the emergency room doctors putting her on a breathing tube and ended up lasting two and a half months, much of it in intensive care, we learned lots of things about Scarlett.
- She has tracheomalacia, which means the muscles in her airway didn't develop all the way and weren't strong enough to keep her airway open all the time. Sometimes when she was crying or coughing, her airway would close completely. Thankfully, as her muscles grow stronger, this problem should be completely resolved.
- She has several brain abnormalities, the biggest two being an abnormal cerebellum (controls motor skills and movement) and gray-matter heterotopia, meaning there's gray matter where white matter should be.
- In her heart, there was an open duct that should have closed when she was born but didn't, which was causing pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure near the lungs. She also has an atrial septal defect, or a hole in her heart.
- She has severe acid reflux.
- She also had strabismus, or crossed eyes, caused by weak eye muscles. That was corrected this September through eye muscle surgery.

Because she had abnormalities in several different areas (brain, heart, airway), the doctors wondered if she had a genetic disorder. (The one they threw around was Aicardi syndrome. One nurse warned me not to Google it, but of course I did and immediately regretted it.) Several months later, all her genetics tests came back normal.

In the meantime, though, we lived in the pediatric intensive care unit at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Scarlett was not doing well. She came off the respirator but couldn't come off the C-PAP (a machine that continually pushed air into her airway to keep it open), which meant we were stuck in ICU. She had pneumonia or something like it, and would mostly cough and cry all day long. Some of her coughing fits would last for nearly an hour, and end in her turning blue and several nurses and doctors running in to get her oxygen levels back up. Other times, she would cry and cry and cry until they gave her an extra dose of sedatives to make her fall asleep.

Because I was still on maternity leave, I usually stayed at the hospital from about 8 or 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. or midnight. My mom took a lot of the night shifts, and Jason's mom or Jason did the rest.

Because she still struggled with breathing while eating, Scarlett stayed on the feeding tube. It was an NJ (nasojejunal) tube, which moved food continually through her nose directly into her small intestines. She had several EEGs during the hospital stay, monitoring her brainwaves to look for seizure activity. The first showed seizure activity, so she went on anti-seizure medication. However, after several subsequent EEGs came back clear, we found out that the first test had been interpreted differently by two doctors. The doctor with more experience saw no evidence of seizures. So she came off the anti-seizure medication.

And that's basically how it went. We would think we were starting to understand what was going on, and then we find out we still knew basically nothing.

Well, we knew a lot, but none of it really explained what was going on or what was going to happen with Scarlett.

Possibilities the doctors warned us to prepare for:
- She might have a genetic disorder.
- She might have a neurological disorder.
- She might be mentally retarded.
- She might have cystic fibrosis. (Reassuring thought from a nurse on that possibility -- "The life expectancy for CF used to be in the teens, but now a lot of people live into their 20s!")
- She might never speak.
- She might struggle with crawling, walking and other motor skills.
- She will probably experience seizures.
- She might need a tracheotomy.
- She might need a permanent feeding tube.

(Doctors aren't the most optimistic people you'll ever meet.)

Horrible things Scarlett endured that I wouldn't wish on another baby:
- Being poked and poked and poked again with a needle by an intern who apparently had no idea how to put in an IV.
- Having three different nurses unsuccessfully try to catheterize her in one night.
- Going through several days of withdrawal after becoming addicted to painkillers and sedatives.
- Having a feeding tube shoved down her nose, down the back of her throat, into her stomach, then yanked in and out for about ten minutes until it was threaded through to her intestines. Repeat at least a dozen times, every time she pulled the feeding tube out.
- There's more, but I'll stop.

Eventually, we were able to leave the hospital. This was after a surgery to close the open duct in her heart that was causing the pulmonary hypertension, and after putting her back on the respirator for a week to give her body a chance to get over whatever was making her cough so much. Luckily, she was able to come off the C-PAP quickly afterward, because if she hadn't the next step would've been a tracheotomy.

On St. Patrick's Day, we brought Scarlett home, with her feeding tube still in place and a bunch of equipment to give her oxygen while she slept at night and during naps. I was already back at work by the time she came home, so our first challenge was lining up childcare. We had found a daycare before she was born, but for a lot of reasons (like, for example, they couldn't have dealt with all her medical equipment) we decided not to send her there. Luckily, I ended up finding a nanny online who was available at short notice and has ended up working out better than I ever could've imagined.

When we first got home, Scarlett didn't really want to be held by anyone, not even me or Jason. She was very apprehensive of people she didn't know (so most everyone). She mostly wanted to sit in her bouncy seat all day long.

For bureaucratic reasons (we had to wait until she could be scheduled for a test to see if she still needed it), she stayed on the feeding tube for two more months. After the feeding tube did come out, the struggle became getting her used to eating normally again. She refused bottle after bottle, because after being fed continuously for so long, she didn't remember what being hungry felt like. The medications she was on caused her to throw up almost daily. At one point, she was eating so little we almost ended up back in the hospital. But slowly, slowly she got better.

Here's where we are now: Scarlett is no longer using oxygen at all. She sees physical, occupational and speech therapists who say she's very bright, and doing fine cognitively. She has not yet had a seizure. She's about three months behind developmentally, which makes sense when you take into account the near three-month hospital stay.

We have been working hard with a physical therapist every week. Scarlett has made a lot of progress, she's now crawling and pulling herself up and walking along furniture. She moves slowly and deliberately, and she struggles a bit more than the average kid to figure out how to do things. But when people ask if Scarlett's OK now, I can honestly tell them yes.

We're lucky that many of the awful things we were warned about didn't come to be. But through this experience, I've met other families whose endings aren't so happy. The genetics tests didn't come back normal. The surgeries didn't go well. The feeding tubes didn't come out. And I wonder why we got so lucky and they didn't. That's the hard part. The good part is getting to know them has helped me see that no matter what comes to be, I'll be able to deal with it.

So that's the story. Now for the pictures. I haven't shared most of these pictures before because they made me sad, but I'm ready to now. This first picture was taken on a good contender for the worst day of my life. Shortly after her MRI results came back as abnormal, Scarlett was hooked up for her first EEG test. She hadn't opened her eyes in days, and I hadn't been able to hold her since we arrived at the hospital. The nurse on duty asked me if I'd taken a picture. I told her I didn't want to remember this day. She told me that one day I'd be glad I had the pictures, so I could remember how far we'd come from then. She was right.

A look at all the equipment she was hooked up to:

Scarlett's first day off the respirator. She seemed to be doing really well at first, but she started struggling to breathe again quickly and went on the C-PAP machine.
C-PAP:

And these were on our final days in the ICU, when Scarlett finally came off of all her breathing equipment:

And that's Scarlett's year in a (very long) nutshell. I hope it makes sense ... it's a lot of stuff to condense! If you have any other questions, please don't be afraid to ask.

First fall

2009-11-05T22:10:00.018-05:00

I think this is my favorite picture of Scarlett ever. I kind of wish she wasn't wearing such a Halloween outfit, because otherwise I'd frame it and put it on the wall. Holly took it. Turns out she's not just an excellent babysitter but also an awesome photographer. Who knew?

Time to wear coats already!

Luckily, we have some cute coats.

I already posted a bunch of Halloween pictures on Facebook and emailed them to non-Facebookers, but you'll have to indulge me. Here are a bunch more of her green-stinger-tailed, straight-from-China-via-eBay bee costume.

Scarlett's finally starting to get some of her top teeth. That means she's drooling like crazy and chewing on everything she can get her hands on. Here's her favorite trick at the moment. No hands!

"Sorry, mom, I'm teething. What do you want me to do? Also, do you have anything else for me to gnaw on?"

And finally, here's my tall girl getting ready for bed tonight. I bought these new pajamas in the 18-month size, and holding them up in the store I swore they'd be way, way too long for her. But they fit just fine!

Nanny cam

2009-10-21T20:29:00.019-04:00

Our nanny, Holly, gave me a disk with a bunch of pictures she'd taken of Scarlett recently. She had some good ones, so I thought I'd share!

We're all amused by how transfixed Scarlett is by the TV. I'm sure it won't be as amusing when she's a couch potato who wants to watch TV all day rather than playing outside, but for now, it's still amusing. She has her favorite shows (Ni Hao Kai-Lan and Wonder Pets) and she'll watch the whole episode if you let her.

And here's a video Holly took of Scarlett babbling. It's from the beginning of September. She's saying a whole bunch more sounds now, but for a while there, mama and baba were her go-to favorites all day long.

Scarlett talking from Shelley Mann on Vimeo.

Eye surgery and other adventures

2009-10-06T22:01:00.028-04:00

I think we've pretty much established that Scarlett is one brave little girl. So it was no surprise that she did just great during her eye surgery last month, but I was proud nonetheless.

Even though we had to get up way earlier than usual, and she wasn't allowed to eat anything after midnight the night before, and she had to wear a scratchy gown that made her eczema flare up, and she had to be poked and prodded by a bunch of nurses and doctors pre-op, in spite of all that she stayed calm and happy for most of the morning before heading into surgery.

Here she is hanging out in the pre-op room. These are the last couple funny-face-from-crossed-eyes picture we got before here eyes were straightened:

Just relaxing minutes before the surgery. Her casually crossed legs kill me.

The actual surgery took a bit more than an hour, and everything went according to plan. Basically, the doctor weakened the muscles in her inner eye so the outer eye muscles can get stronger and her eyes will stop being pulled inward.

The only brief scare came when Scarlett had a little trouble getting her oxygen levels back up as she came out of the anesthesia. At first they kept us in the waiting room, but after they finally let me come back and see her, she stopped crying and her levels slowly went back up. Once they were convinced she was OK, we only had to stick around the hospital another couple hours and then they let us go home!

Here's Scarlett one day after the surgery:

Her eyes were really read, but she didn't seem to be in any pain. She hardly even rubbed at them, and I was convinced she would. The doctor said we would notice a difference right away in terms of alignment, but that it would take about two months for them to completely straighten out as much as they're going to.

These were taken four days post-surgery (at this point, her eyes were just pink):

And this is one week afterwards:

By a week after the surgery, you couldn't even see any redness. We had a follow-up appointment with her doctor about a week and a half afterward, and she was thrilled with the improvement she saw. I'm really glad we did it, even though she's so young. Of course, since we are way way past our out-of-pocket maximums for the year, it was basically a freebie procedure, but I think even the hassle was well worth it.

It's funny, everywhere we go, everyone who looks at Scarlett comments on how pretty her eyes are. So if people are going to be noticing her eyes for the rest of her life, I'm glad they're going to be straight!

Here are a few photo shoots showing off her new and improved eyes:

We've done other things since my last update, too. Like Scarlett got to swing in a real swing for the first time! I took her to the Jeffrey Mansion playground in Bexley. She loved swinging, at least until a three-year-old boy started swinging next to us and then she couldn't take her eyes off him and didn't so much care about swinging anymore.

Scarlett also went to her first wedding! Jason's friend Mike got married in September, and we took Scarlett with us to the wedding part (grandma and grandpa babysat during the reception.)

We didn't get too many pictures, unfortunately, but here are a couple where you can see Scarlett's dress:

And here's Jason and I at the reception:

She's also still doing great at eating solid foods. We've made our way through most of the single-ingredient cereals, fruits and vegetables, so now we're getting started on mixing stuff together. Also she is just starting to be able to eat the little Gerber Puffs things without gagging or spitting them back out. Her favorite foods so far are prunes, pears, sweet potatoes, and apples. Least favorites are green beans and peas, both of which inspired lots of disgusted faces.

Here are some happier mealtime faces:

And finally, here are some of our best family portraits yet! Everyone's looking at the camera and we're even all kind of smiling! If only they were a tiny more in focus ...

(Whew! Promise I won't wait so long between posts next time.)

Road trippin'

2009-08-25T23:36:00.000-04:00

Jason's Grandpa and Grandma Semro and Aunt Elizabeth were in town from Texas for the last few weeks, and we got to see them several times. First they visited us at our house, then we headed up to Toledo to see them again at Tim and Heather's house, and then the next weekend we saw them again in Michigan! We got some good pictures of all the kids while we were at Tim and Heather's.

Here's Nicole. She just started first grade this week! She's wearing a purse on her head.

Here's Mark. He's taking a break from riding bikes to paint with water.

And here's Rachel, our goddaughter! She's about 18 months old now. We hadn't seen her for quite a while, and couldn't believe how big she got!

We also took pictures of Scarlett, of course:

Her new thing is sticking out her tongue. I think part of it is feeling her first tooth, which is getting bigger by the day. And probably feeling her swollen gums, where new teeth should be popping up any time now.

This weekend we drove up to Frankenmuth for some more family gatherings. The main event was Jason's Grandpa Klement's 90th(!) birthday party. The next day, we stopped in Imlay City so Scarlett could meet the other side of the family -- Jason's Grandma Mann, his Auntie Linda and some of his cousins. It's a long trip, so we divided it by stopping in Toledo again on the way up. The drive home was about five hours straight through, and a little tough for Scarlett. But overall, she did great on her first big trip, especially with all of the parties and new people.

Great Grandpa and Grandmpa Klement.

The Semro clan.

Scarlett is always sticking her hands in my mouth these days.

And here's Scarlett snoozing the day after we got home. We were all pretty wiped out! We had a great trip, but I'm definitely looking forward to a couple weekends of relaxation.

Meeting milestones

2009-08-25T22:50:00.009-04:00

We have been working with a physical therapist every Saturday morning since May, and Scarlett's made lots of progress with her gross motor skills.

What we're most excited about is tummy-time. Scarlett has gone from absolutely refusing to be on the floor (she would scream and scream on her tummy or back) to finally, finally being able to not only tolerate tummy time but enjoy it. She can push herself up with her arms now, and hold her head up high, too. We all worked very hard toward this goal, so I'm very proud of Scarlett. Yay!

She's doing great at sitting up, too, and she can sit in the middle of the floor with no help from us for about five minutes or so before falling over now.

We also finally got started with solid foods this month. I tried at first making my own baby foods (mashing bananas, etc.), and she wasn't enjoying it too much. But then the other night I tried a regular old jar of sweet potatoes and she loved them! She ate half the jar no problem.

And we finally got around to fixing our video camera, and this is the first video we made of Scarlett. She's bouncing around in her new seat. Enjoy!

Scarlett's first video from Shelley Mann on Vimeo.

Almost eight months

2009-08-10T22:40:00.015-04:00

Scarlett is nearly eight months old now. Oh my goodness. It's been a good couple of months. She's doing lots better with things, especially with eating, which is such a relief. She hits her daily goal almost every day now, and has been gaining weight quite nicely. Next up, solid foods! Ha. We shall see how that goes.

She's also made good progress during physical therapy. She finally seems to like being out of her bouncy seat more than she likes to be in it. She loves being on her back and rolling around, and she's able to be on her tummy for longer and longer stretches. She can roll from her tummy to back and back to side, and is very close to figuring out how to roll back to tummy. We've also been working on sitting, which is I think her favorite skill so far. Here are some pictures of her showing off her new talent.

Here she's sitting on my lap biting on her thumb. She has one tooth so far (but doesn't like to show it off) and she's working on some new ones. She also still has crossed eyes a lot of the time, but she's scheduled to have surgery to straighten them the first week of September.

Scarlett has also been talking up a storm these days. She can make lots of new noises and sounds. Her favorites are mamamamama (sometimes just mama) and baba.

Mom. Are we done taking pictures yet? I mean, come on.

A guaranteed cheer-baby-up activity is looking at ourselves in mirrors. But you have to be very excited, like I am here. That's the only way it works.

And, all tired out. We've reintroduced the swaddle, and it works wonders in calming her down and helping her fall asleep. Now that she's eating better, our newest daily annoyance is eczema. She gets so, so itchy and scratches like mad. So the swaddle helps to stop scratching fits (we also use no-scratch mittens a lot), and we're trying various creams and soaps and detergents and foods and trying to figure out what makes it better and worse. I just made an appointment with a dermatologist today. Yay, more doctors!

Feet.

Out and about

2009-08-10T21:14:00.009-04:00

Scarlett is getting a lot better about going new places and meeting new people. Which we're very happy about because for a while she was not only refusing to eat when we weren't at home but also refusing to let anyone hold her besides me or Jason, which made life difficult for everyone.

She's been to Cracker Barrel twice now, including this weekend when we had lunch with our old friends Nathan and Sarah DeArman, who were in town from Reno. Jason, Nathan and Sarah all met while working at Cracker Barrel long ago, so we went for the nostalgia. Here's Scarlett waiting patiently while we all eat.

The DeArmans: Nathan, Caleb and Sarah. Their daughter is due in October!

The Manns. Who knows what Scarlett's looking at.

This time, she's looking at Caleb!

A couple weekends ago, we took a quick overnight trip to Fairfield to see Grandma and Grandpa. Here's Scarlett playing with great grandma Mill.

And here we are singing her favorite song, The Wheels on the Bus.

Scarlett's six months old!

2009-06-15T20:36:00.036-04:00

And she's very happy about it.

I am too, even though these six months have gone not a thing like I thought they would six months ago. I remember sitting at the table with my mom after Scarlett's first hospital stay for bronchiolitis, and saying that I just couldn't wait until Scarlett was six months old. Then, I figured, she'd be bigger, stronger, not so vulnerable if she got sick, way past her feeding difficulties.

Well, we're not there yet. She's bigger, for sure, and stronger. But things still aren't easy, especially with her feedings. Every day, actually every feeding, is a challenge. I worry about whether she'll start eating, then I worry about how long she'll keep eating. Then I worry about whether she'll keep it down. Will she eat as much as she's supposed to this feeding? Will she eat as much as she's supposed to for the day? I was never so glad as I was to pull that feeding tube out for the last time, but I do now appreciate its benefits -- it put us in charge of her eating, rather than her.

We are working with a physical therapist every week to bring Scarlett's motor skills up to speed, and she tells us that we've been treating her as if she's fragile for too long. She was fragile, before, but now she's not. And we're grateful for that.

Here's a look at Scarlett at six months:

Her newest skills: She laughs pretty often now. She talks all the time and can make some consonant sounds, including B and M. She's quite good at sticking her tongue out and saying thbbbbtttt. She's very good with her hands, and she has started reaching out and feeling everyone's faces. She started playing with her feet, and she's getting better at tolerating being on the floor and out of her chair.

Her nicknames: Miss Scarlett, Scarlett Marlett, Miss Marlett

Things she likes to do: Sit in her bouncy seat. Chew on all her toys (no teeth yet, though). Play peek-a-boo. Play with her feet. Say "thbbtt." Listen to books. Pull my hair. Yank off my glasses. Cuddle with her stuffed animals. Watch TV. Sit in her bouncy seat. Scratch her head. Try to scoot out of her bouncy seat. Even though she does not actually want out of her bouncy seat. Sit in her swing. Take walks in the neighborhood. Go to the grocery store. Go outside.

Her best talent: Sleeping! It's a good talent to have. She goes right to sleep when we put her down for the night, and usually sleeps from about 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Jason feeds her a bottle before he goes to bed around 1 a.m., but she goes right back to sleep and doesn't even wake up crying for her pacifier very often anymore. Hooray for sleep!

Here are some more new six-month pictures:

Her "who, me?" look.

Hey, I have feet!

She's cracking up!

Scarlett is still a huge fan of her bouncy seat. In fact, if she had it her way she'd sit in the darn thing 24 hours a day. But for a lot of reasons, we're trying to wean her off of it. Not least of which is she's about to grow out of it! Soon, she's going to be so heavy it'll topple over backward when she sits in it!

To show you how big she's grown, here's a look at two-weeks-old Scarlett, sitting in the chair.

Look how tiny she is! And since that was so much fun, here's a quick look at Scarlett, month by month.

Zero months

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Tube-free Scarlett

2009-06-03T19:08:00.021-04:00

It was recently brought to my attention that I haven't been updating this blog very often. I tried to deny it at first, but it's true ... it's been a whole month since my last post! I never have time! But I'm going to try to do better. And as a special treat, this post will have lots of pictures, including my above attempt at artsy black-and-white.

So, you may have heard the big news around here -- Scarlett is now feeding-tube-free! We're obviously very excited that she's doing better and able to be off the tube, though it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. She's still struggling a bit with bottle feeding. Even though she's able to suck from the bottle just fine, she's not eating as much per feeding as she should be, and then not getting enough food in for the day. But her doctor is determined to keep her from going back on the tube, so we're trying a higher-calorie formula to see if we can get her back on track.

She's definitely cuter without the tube! Here are some pictures from earlier today:

And here are some more random shots from the last month or so. Sleeping soundly in the car (this was just minutes after throwing a huge screaming fit while were visiting some friends. She loves the car!)

Bathtime! Hooded towels have to be one of the cutest inventions ever.

Hanging out on our bed.

Scarlett is apparently teething. She's definitely chewing on everything she can get her hands on. This bee toy is a favorite.

We don't have many smiling pictures, so here's an old one with the feeding tube that I never posted.

Scarlett with Jason on his 30th birthday (May 25).

I'm jealous. Here are just a few of the not-so-great pictures I have of me with Scarlett. One day we'll get a good one!

In the meantime, there's this one of us taking a Saturday morning nap together. Aww.

Scarlett at play

2009-05-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

Scarlett's awake a lot more these days and so we're constantly having to come up with ways to keep her occupied.

We bought her this flowery play mat because she seemed to be getting bored more often. At first, she didn't really know what to think of it.

But now she really like lying on it and playing with her toys.

Mesmerized by the swimming fishes. Her tropical-vacation-loving Grandma Renee bought her this toy.

Jason bought her this little Atlanta Hawks jersey, which she's been wearing during the NBA playoffs. I have to admit, it's pretty cute.

Watching TV. Is that bad? She loves it!

And here are just a few random shots.

Back in the hospital ... but just for a test!

2009-05-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

We had to take Scarlett back to the hospital last week so she could finally have her impedence testing done. This will determine how bad her acid reflux is and tell us whether she will be able to come off the feeding tube. We should have the results back next week. While we were there, she had to wear these blue arm restraints so she wouldn't pull her tubes out.

They made for some funny photos, but she didn't seem to mind them all that much. She did quickly figure out how to wriggle out of them, though. Also, they worked so well at keeping her from pulling at her tubes that we brought them home to use when she's sleeping at night. Let's just hope she gets to take the tube out soon!

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T21:36:00.013-04:00

Happy Easter!
Well, technically this wasn't taken on Easter, it was coming home from the doctor's office, but I did finally get a smile on camera!

Here's her Easter pose. She couldn't muster up a smile.

Pensive.

Jason took these while I was holding her.

This one cracks me up, because she looks scared silly.

Scarlett can sit up now! For a couple minutes, at least. A few seconds after I took this picture, she slumped over to the side and rolled on her face.

Her first time wearing jeans.

And snoozing on the couch.

Scarlett at home!

2009-03-31T20:19:00.009-04:00

I've been really bad about updating the blog since Scarlett's been home! Sorry about that. But we're so happy the baby's back at home. She left the hospital on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day!) after at 57-day stay. Whew. It was a bit of a rough transition as we figured out all of her new equipment (she's still using her feeding tube for the time being, but hopefully not too much longer, and uses oxygen while she's sleeping), fought with the insurance company over paying for her medication, and got used to life with two working parents and a baby at home. But we're starting to get into a good routine, and really enjoying the times when all three of us are at home.

Here's a picture of my mom and I getting ready to take Scarlett home. I wish you could see the wagon loaded down with all our stuff, but it's behind the nurse who took the picture.

And here are some pictures of Scarlett since we've been at home. She seems to have figured out what the camera is, so she'll be all smiley and then stop as soon as I pull out the camera and refuse to smile anymore. Here's the closest I could get to a smiling picture:

I like this one because it makes her look like she has Angelina Jolie-esque lips:

She has taken a liking to eating her hand, especially when she can't find her pacifier.

She's also cross-eyed a lot these days (usually more than this) as she starts to focus in on a lot more stuff around her.

Here's a typical pose: kicking back with her little bear security blanket.

And here she is hiding from the camera. Hopefully she grows out of that soon!

New room, new baby

2009-03-05T16:37:00.011-05:00

Great news: we finally got out of the ICU on Sunday, and Scarlett has continued to do great since we moved to our new room. She's just been so content and happy. There are still a few tests we need to do and equipment and medicines we need to wean her from, but hopefully we're on our way toward getting home.

Just look at this grin! We had some new visitors last night and today, Great Aunt Donna and Great Grandma Millie, and Scarlett was very excited.

She just loved Donna! I think it was her high voice.

Here's a picture with Dad from before we left ICU.

Pretty blue eyes.

She's been sitting up some in this chair from the occupational therapists. You can see her little hands going.

And earlier today, she had her first visit from a musical therapist! She was serenaded with lullabies.

Scarlett was quite enthralled, and loved all the attention.

Happier days

2009-02-27T20:53:00.008-05:00

I feel like I might have depressed some people with my last blog post, so to make up for it, here are some new happy pictures of Scarlett from today! She's had a great day. They took her off the CPAP at 9:30 a.m., and then off the oxygen at around 1 p.m., and she's done great all day. And she's been such a happy baby today, just smiling away.

Hospital day 30

2009-02-17T16:12:00.021-05:00

Well, Scarlett's been in the hospital this time now for a full month, and we'll probably be in here a few more weeks. So I decided I might as well start documenting our stay better.

First, a look at all her various breathing apparatuses.

Here, she's on the regular oxygen cannula. This is the only thing she was on during our first two visits.

Getting ready to put the CPAP back on ... she looks naked to me with none of it on! And also sad. The tube going into her nose is her feeding tube.

Here's the infamous CPAP. Or, as we sometimes call it, her snorkeling gear.

Most of the time, she hates it, but sometimes she likes it! See, she's smiling! (OK, she's actually just dreaming here. She never likes it.)

Now, this week, she's back on the respirator to give her body a rest and hopefully get over her cough. The breathing tube goes down her throat.

She's heavily sedated and that's why having a tube down her throat doesn't seem to bother her too much here.

Here's a look at the entire respirator machine.

One of the nurses brought Scarlett a new mobile, which she seems to like.

Stuffed animal friends. The nurses in the ER gave her the elephant, and the zebra is a Valentine's present from Jason.

Here's Scarlett working with her physical therapist. She seems to enjoy getting stretched out.

More physical therapy. In this picture, you can see the PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) in her leg. It's basically like a long-term, extra-long IV line where they can draw blood and give her medications. She has a separate IV on her arm.

Here's one shot of the PICU room where we've been staying.

Little baby in a big bed.

And here's the hated love seat. It's the only thing you can sleep on, and it doesn't fold out!

First stab at modeling

2009-01-26T01:15:00.009-05:00

In between hospital stays, Scarlett and I had some photo shoots in her bouncy seat. That seems to be the best place for her to stay calm and happy enough for taking pictures at this point ... she's a pretty big fan of being held most of the time.

These were taken right after her first hospital stay:

And these are after her second stay. She had lots of different expressions to show off this time. I think she's growing up right before my eyes!

Scarlett in the hospital

2009-01-14T22:48:00.015-05:00

I'm sure everybody knows by now that Children's Hospital has been our second home for the past few weeks, unfortunately. We are still just trying to get Scarlett breathing comfortably again so we can go back home! In the meantime, here are some pictures for those of you lucky enough not to be here.

My poor baby in the emergency room on our first visit. This was right after they rushed us to Children's Hospital by ambulance, and they immediately hooked her up to all sorts of things. She was under a heat lamp, which made her nice and warm, luckily.

Later, when we moved to her regular room, we got to hold her.

Meeting Great Grandma Semro for the first time! It was not the meeting we'd planned for.

For some reason, I didn't take any photos during our second hospital stay. But after we were released, we drove home in this!

I'm not going to post any photos of Scarlett's early days in the ICU, because they make me sad. But here's one of after she came off the respirator.

This is when I first got to see her off the respirator. I could finally get close!

Mommy and baby reunion.

Scarlett has enjoyed hanging out with her new friend, Mr. BunnyBear.

But here's where we would rather her be -- snuggled up at home. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it will be soon!

Random cuteness

2008-12-26T12:54:00.008-05:00

Chilling with dad.

Touchdown!

Cute outfit. I think she looks like of like Brian as a baby here, but nobody else agrees with me.

Scarlett loves her bouncy seat ...

And her new pacifier. Which is almost as big as her face!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-26T12:41:00.009-05:00

Well, we made it back safely from our first road trip, to grandma and grandpa's house in Cincinnati. Scarlett did great, she slept most of the way there and back in the car, and she loved being held by all her relatives. And her relatives seemed to love her, as most of the day was spent staring at her sleeping!

Merry Christmas! We're still working on getting Scarlett to look at the camera.

Fancy first Christmas dress, a gift from Grandma Becky.

She got a Winnie the Pooh from my parents, which is the same thing they bought me for my first Christmas.

Snuggling with Grandma Renee.

Great Aunt Connie was very, very excited to meet Scarlett. Well, all the great aunts were, but I think the Yeagers won the prize for overall excitement.

Happy Christmas Eve!

2008-12-24T11:59:00.005-05:00

I promised Christmas decoration pictures a while back, so before Christmas is over, here goes ...

The tree is maybe a tiny bit big for the room, but I love it. Although we thought the living room seemed small when we put this up, so it seems really tiny now that we've also added a Pack N Play and a baby swing!

Three stockings!

My kissing angels. I'm not really sure why angels are supposed to be kissing, but I think they're pretty.

Scarlett's birth day

2008-12-24T11:32:00.016-05:00

Here are some of the photos from the hospital. Becky was taking these, so that's why she's not in any of them. Hopefully I'll add more from my parents' camera later.

Scarlett is the first grandchild on both sides, so as you can see, everyone was very, very excited to meet her. Especially after spending the entire day in the hospital waiting room!

Scarlett gets bundled up right after being born.

Meeting mom for the first time. Baby's not too thrilled at first.

Grandma and Grandpa get their first look.

Me and my mom.

Grandma Renee holds Scarlett for the first time.

She's calming down a little bit.

Grandpa Alan and Scarlett. Grandpa Mike is in the background.

Her first close-up! It was apparently very difficult to get a good picture of her in the delivery room.

Uncle Ben, holding a baby for the first time ever!

Dad and Scarlett.

I think they like each other.

Finally, the happy family!

Scarlett Mae Mann is here!

2008-12-18T13:59:00.008-05:00

I'm sure everyone knows by now, but Scarlett Mae was born on Friday!

This is going to be a quick post, but I just wanted to share a few new photos of Scarlett. I'll add in some of the hospital ones later (lots of different people were taking photos), but she's cuter in these anyway.

We're both doing well so far. Jason headed back to work today, but my mom is here now for a few days to help out. Our biggest hurdle so far has been breastfeeding, but we have an appointment today with a lactation consultant and hopefully we might be able to figure it out. So far she's a good sleeper and easy to console, plus loves to cuddle. So once we figure out this whole eating thing, we should be set!

Nursery's ready

2008-12-10T21:15:00.004-05:00

Hey all! No baby yet, in case anyone's been wondering ... we're still a little more than a week away from the due date. I just wanted to share a couple new photos of the nursery, which is pretty much finished, besides some shelves from Ikea I'd still like to hang. It's tiny (we'll call it cozy), but I like it! We also put up our Christmas tree and stuff, and I'll try to post those pictures tomorrow.

Before & After house tour

2008-11-21T13:44:00.004-05:00

We finally got to show off all the improvements we've made to the new house at our housewarming party last weekend, and I wish all of you could've been there! But I did take a bunch of pictures of the cleaned-up house to share with everyone who's far away. (Sadly, I forgot to get the camera out at the actual party ... ) I'm giving each room its own post, so get ready for tons of photos!

It took long enough to put together all these pictures, so I'm not going to provide commentary this time around. But I will say that while the rest of the house is pretty much finished for now, the nursery is still a work in progress.

Exterior: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:36:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Living Room: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:34:00.012-05:00

Before:

After!

Dining Room: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:32:00.006-05:00

Before:

After!

Kitchen: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:30:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Half Bath: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:29:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Master Bedroom: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:28:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Nursery: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:26:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Guest Room: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:24:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Bathroom: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:22:00.006-05:00

Before:

After!

Basement: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:20:00.001-05:00

Before:

After!

Laundry room/baby equipment storage area :)

Porch: Before and After

2008-11-20T21:18:00.005-05:00

Before:

After!

8 months pregnant

2008-11-17T00:03:00.001-05:00

And, a new belly picture! Well, technically this is the end of the eighth month. We hosted a housewarming party yesterday, so if I look exhausted in this one, that's why. One month and two days to go until my due date ...

New floor in nursery

2008-11-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

After some deliberation, we decided to refinish the hardwood floors in the nursery rather than replacing the carpet, which was really dingy and dirty. When we pulled back the carpet, the hardwood didn't look much better. But they turned out beautifully! And the guy ended up charging us less than his estimate, which never happens.

Here's what the floor looked like before. There was some water damage, and after the refinishing guy was done, he admitted he had his doubts going in that it would refinish as well as it did. He definitely didn't share that with us when he came out to do the estimate, though!

Luckily, the first day of sanding got rid of most of the discoloration and water spots, and he also fixed a couple of warped boards.

He matched the stain to the wood in the rest of the house ...

And here's the finished room! I'm very, very happy with the floors, and glad we went ahead and did it.

Coming in the next few days ... more nursery pictures, with crib and lots more baby stuff!

Surprise! shower

2008-10-23T17:43:00.013-04:00

My awesome coworkers threw me a surprise shower last Saturday. I headed over to Michaela's house for what I thought was just going to be a girls' hangout night, and instead I found this! Tons of pink cupcakes and pink presents. We had lots of fun. Here's a rundown of the night:

We ate cupcakes and other bad-for-us snacky food like cheddar popcorn and Cheez-Its. Yum.

We drank delicious fruity, sherbety punch. Some of us also drank wine.

We played the "guess what baby food this is" game. Surprisingly the green beans, which appeared to be the scariest, weren't as bad as the "carrots." I've never tasted carrots as bitter as these baby food carrots. The bananas were quite good, though.

Then we opened presents. We got lots of fun stuff, like bibs ...

Organic onesies ...

And Boudreaux's Butt Paste. I think my look says it all here. Here's a close-up look at the butt paste:
Then we headed outside to sit around the fire pit, where we drank hot chocolate, made s'mores and had a good old time. Fun stuff. Here's me with Michaela and Brittany toward the end of the night:

So this weekend's an off-weekend, then I have showers the next two Saturdays in a row. Then one more weekend off (that Saturday we're planning to throw a housewarming party) and then my last shower will be the weekend of Thanksgiving. And then I hope to just chill out till the baby comes.

Shower season

2008-10-22T23:26:00.009-04:00

I'm a little less than two months away from my due date now, which means I'm right in the middle of complete baby shower craziness. My female coworkers threw a surprise shower for me over the weekend, which is going to bring my total shower count to FIVE. Which we can all admit is little ridiculous, though I certainly won't complain about people being eager to buy me (well, OK, the baby) presents!

The first shower was a few weekends ago, thrown by my mom's sisters at my Aunt Donna's house. As you can see in the top picture, we had a lovely, fancy brunch (with delicious apple and blueberry French toast) before moving on to the main attraction of opening presents.

Here's a photo of most of the guests, including my cousins Katie and Audrey, who came in from Chicago and Indianapolis, and my Aunt Linda, who came in from Evansville. Grandma Carol seems to have stood this photo out, and grandma-to-be Becky was taking the picture.

Me with my mom and Jason's mom, the two future grandmas.

And now, the presents! We got so much great stuff, including a crib, stroller and car seat. There are multiple photos of me opening every single present, and that's going to get old around shower number two, so I'm just including a few highlights.

Here's the pretty quilt for the nursery (how cute are the little birds?), and I also got sets of pink and green sheets to go with it.

We're all very excited about the stroller.

Hooray! A Boppy.

And last, these were two Christmas dresses I wore as a little girl. So ruffly! I think we've finally settled on the name Scarlett (well, for now, at least), and everyone agreed these dresses are very Gone With the Wind-esque.

All in all, it was a great day, so thanks to everyone who helped out, and to everyone who made the trip into town.

I'll try to add photos from my work shower tomorrow.

New couch!

2008-10-11T19:17:00.008-04:00

Here's our new couch! Anyone who knows me knows that I've been coveting a new couch for years now, so I'm really excited to finally have one. After looking at lots and lots of furniture stores, we found this one at World Market. The fabric is a light brown chenille, and it's very comfortable so far. I'd originally wanted to get a sectional, but all the ones we found were way too big for the room (not to mention way too expensive). So I like that this gives you a little more seating with the chaise but it also doesn't take up too much more room than a regular couch.

EDITED TO ADD: Good news! When I looked the couch up on the World Market website to find out what the fabric was, I noticed it had been marked down by $200. So today I took my receipt in to the store to see if they'd give me a price adjustment, and they did! Even though the receipt said they'd only do adjustments within 10 days, and it has been three weeks since we bought the couch. I think the guy felt sorry for me. But hooray for a $200 refund!

And I made one last furniture purchase to round out the living room, this light purple velvet chair, which I got for $25 on Craig's List. It looks really pretty with the area rug we have in there, which has a couple of light purple stripes in it. And I swear that's really all the furniture I'm going to buy!

Now, for fun, a brief history of my couches:

Jason and I used this couch as our main couch in our first apartment, and then we had it in the living room in our house in Georgia, where we didn't really sit on it all that much. It doesn't look too bad in this photo, but it was old and the cushions were really beat up. Plus, I inherited it from my ex-boyfriend, so I think it's for the best that I didn't keep it forever. Here it is in its new home, Ben's apartment at Ohio State:

And then we had this lovely set, which Jason got from a friend of a friend and used in his first apartment in Lorain. We used it in our TV room in Georgia. Besides the fact that it's, let's admit, pretty ugly, each sofa had two recliners built in, so it's some of the heaviest furniture you can imagine. I swore we would never move it again after we moved into that house, and thankfully, we didn't! I sold the entire set on Craig's List before we moved for $300.

7 months pregnant

2008-09-26T00:16:00.002-04:00

New belly picture! I'm now in the third trimester, and I'm definitely feeling more pregnant these days. Still have a ways to go, though. Plus, you can see a little of the new couch we bought last weekend. I'll take better pictures of that another day.

Power-outage party

2008-09-17T17:12:00.009-04:00

We hosted my parents, grandmas and Aunt Stephanie for dinner on Sunday (Ben was there, too, but he was actually staying with us for the week), just in time for the remnants of Hurricane Ike to sweep through in the form of a huge windstorm and knock out our power for the night! So my first dinner party at the new house didn't go exactly as planned, but we made the best of it. And really, I can't complain, because our power was only out until Monday afternoon, while my parents didn't get power back until Wednesday and Jason's mom is still in the dark.

Luckily, I had decided to make a roasted pork loin and apples dish in the crock pot so I could get all the work out of the way in the morning, so even though the power went out at about 4, the pot stayed hot and continued cooking and the meat was finished by dinner time. The side dishes hadn't gone in the oven yet, so they were all casualties, but we did have a salad and a loaf of bread to round out the meal, plus pie and lots of ice cream -- we had to eat it all before it melted!

After dinner, we lit some candles and sat around in the dark and talked. As you can see from the book on the table, we discussed our family's favorite subject of the last several months -- baby names. Jason and I are still at an impasse, even after another very thorough discussion.

Jason and Grandma Carol

After everyone packed up and headed back to Fairfield to assess the damage there, Jason and Ben and I played a nice long game of Monopoly by candlelight. Jason beat us terribly. Darn those orange properties!!

Anyway, like I said, we were very lucky to come through the storm with little damage. Entire trees and huge limbs were knocked down in the yards all around us, but we didn't lose anything. We didn't have enough ice to keep the food in our fridge cold until the power came back, but luckily it was kind of empty to begin with, so we didn't end up having to throw away all that much.

And now it's pretty much guaranteed that our next party will go much more smoothly!

More makeovers: China cabinets

2008-09-02T00:28:00.000-04:00

Here are my two other Craig's List projects, the china cabinets. We didn't have china cabinets at all in the old house, mostly because we didn't actually have china. But with the limited cabinet space in the new house, I really needed more places to put things, and they needed to be cheap. And these cabinets certainly were. The taller white one was $25 (!), and the yellow one was $45.

The yellow cabinet was definitely the bigger challenge. As you can see in the before picture, the cabinet had been abused and neglected. It was in rough shape. But it had such pretty curved glass windows that I couldn't pass it up.

The original wood color was gorgeous, and I would have loved to have somehow refinished it, but big chunks of veneer were missing, especially on the sides, which you can't see here. First I tried filling in the missing chunks with wood filler, but after some trial and error and a lot of sanding, I ended up ripping the veneer off most of the cabinet and taking it back down to the bare wood. Then I cleaned (and cleaned and cleaned) it, sanded it and painted it the same color as the living room walls are. (Thanks to Ben for helping with the painting!)

Here's the finished product, and I love how it came out. I put all my pretty glasses and stuff up top, and then the roomy area down below is home to my stand mixer, crock pot and some other big kitchen stuff.

The second cabinet really just needed a fresh coat of paint, so I'm not going to bother posting before pictures. I now wish that I'd painted the inside walls and shelves some other color to give it a little more contrast with the china that's in there (a pretty Depression-era set that Jason's grandma recently gave me), but that can always be done quickly down the road.

So here's the very nearly completed dining room. The only things I'd still like to do are replace the chandelier (I conveniently cut it out of this shot because I don't like it, ha) and find a bigger and more neutral-colored rug for under the table.

And then I just have one Craig's List purchase left to fix up, another $25 white cabinet from the woman I bought the other one from. This one desperately needs a new coat of paint, and could also use some new hinges and a new handle. It's sitting in the garage for now, but eventually I'm hoping to put it in the basement and use it to store the rest of the kitchen stuff that STILL doesn't fit upstairs, even with all the new cabinetry.

So those are all my projects. Hopefully I've inspired some of you to check out Craig's List if you haven't already. And don't worry, there are a lot of things on there that DON'T require hours of work to fix up -- I just like to make things way more difficult than they should be!

Five and a half months

2008-08-18T00:44:00.005-04:00

Nikki requested pictures of me, so I'm assuming she wanted to see pictures of my belly. People keep telling me I barely look like I'm pregnant, which drives me crazy because I feel like my belly is huge. Although in the pictures it really doesn't look that big. Weird. I'm 22 weeks along, or 5 and a half months. (I probably shouldn't have been wearing a white shirt, but you get the idea. I'll take new ones next month.)

Here's one I tried taking myself:

Then I got Jason to take one:

Extreme furniture makeover

2008-08-15T13:16:00.000-04:00

So during the time between when we found the new house and when we moved in, I took on a ridiculous number of furniture projects, mostly from trying to save money on new furniture by buying cheap stuff off the online classified site Craig's List. I was truly addicted there for a while, checking the furniture listings multiple times a day, because the key to Craig's List success is snapping up the good stuff before anybody else sees it.

I bought a dresser for our bedroom, a table and chairs set, a very neglected china cabinet and two more antique freestanding kitchen cabinets. All of them needed various levels of work, and my plan was to finish all that before we started in on all the painting and stuff at the new house. Well, no surprise, that didn't end up happening. But I have been slowly finishing some of the projects, so I thought I'd share a few with everyone.

First up is the table and chairs set. I don't have before pictures, but it was in pretty good condition when I bought it. The only thing I did was recovering the seats with new fabric. The old fabric was a dingy grayish-looking white and smelled like bad BO. The actual process of removing the old fabric and foam and putting on the new stuff wasn't all that hard, but getting the seat cushions out of the chairs and back in was a bit more difficult. They didn't screw in, like all the websites said they would, instead they were somehow stapled in. Luckily Jason's mom's boyfriend helped me out with that part. I really like how they turned out! I bought the table and set of six chairs for $120, and the new fabric was $30.

Next up is a bedroom armoire I turned into a pantry for the kitchen. Like I mentioned, we have a LOT less cabinet space in the new house than the old one, so I ended up needing something bigger than the antique cabinet I'd bought (which is now going in the dining room). I didn't actually find on Craig's List, but at a Wal-Mart-type general store here called The Anderson's.

It was originally this brown color, but I painted it the same color white as the rest of the cabinets hoping it looks like it belongs in there a little better. I actually kind of like the darker-colored handles on it, and now I'm thinking of trading out my kitchen cabinet knobs to match ... more projects!

Baby news!

2008-08-06T20:42:00.001-04:00

Well, we had an ultrasound this morning, and ... it's a girl! You can see the side of her head (she might be sucking her thumb?) in the top picture.

Some of you know that we actually had another ultrasound on Friday where they couldn't tell the gender for sure. So we were lucky in a way to find out for sure less than a week later, though we had a couple days of worrying in between the first scan and today's more detailed ultrasound.

Basically, the doctor thought they might have seen something called choroid plexus cysts, which can be a marker for a very serious chromosomal disorder, Trisomy 18. She scheduled us for a level 2 ultrasound at the hospital to rule out any problems, and today they couldn't find any sign of the cysts and confirmed that everything else is perfectly normal. Apparently they could have misread the ultrasound results last time around, or it's possible the cysts could have been there and already gone away on their own (which does happen, but it's not all that likely since it was just a matter of days.)

Anyway, they assured us there's absolutely nothing to worry about ... except for that we might have a stubborn child in our future. She was very uncooperative during both ultrasounds, moving around and not letting them see what they needed to see. The first time, the tech called the baby "squirrelly," and today's woman said she "had a mind of her own." To which I say, is that a bad thing?

A few more pictures:
The baby waving hello.

Hopefully Jason won't mind me posting the "proof" that it's a girl. The little arrow is pointing to her, you know, private parts.

All moved in

2008-07-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was moving weekend! And I haven't had a free minute to blog about it since then. Part of the problem is our internet isn't set up yet, but hopefully that'll be resolved by this weekend.

So yeah, we're all moved in, and overall it wasn't too painful, despite the 90-degree temperatures. And now we're slowly but surely settling in. It's really, really nice to be back in our own place again.

I'm not going to include too many photos this time because everything's still sort of a mess, but at the top you can see our basement full of boxes yet to be opened. And you can also check out our living room, which will hopefully look a lot different once we finally buy the new couch we've been talking about buying, and move the TV to a location that doesn't require stretching the ugly black cable straight across the middle of the floor.

My project for this weekend is going to be working on the kitchen and dining room. Moving always reminds you of just how much stuff you have, and even though we really did get rid of a LOT of stuff before packing up in Georgia, we still need to pare down quite a bit. (For example, maybe two boxes full of SweetWater pint glasses might be a bit excessive. Whoops!)

New house: Work weekend 2

2008-07-14T23:38:00.000-04:00

It was another productive weekend, and now there's less than a week before the big moving day! Still a lot to get done, but we've already finished a ton of the stuff on my really long to-do list, so I'm very happy.

This weekend my helpers were my old college roommate Danielle and my mother-in-law. Jason wasn't able to spend much time at the house because he was helping his dad move -- so it's definitely a busy few weeks for us!

Here's what we got done:

- Painted the half bathroom and upstairs bathroom. The half bathroom, which is right off the kitchen and dining room is painted the same dark green color as the bottom half of the dining room. The upstairs bathroom is an aqua color called Jadeite Bowl.

- We also painted the bathroom cabinet doors and windowsill, which were dark brown, white. I took down the cute little half-shutters, also painted dark brown, and will eventually paint them white and put them back up, but that's going to have to be a project for another time. The doors still need to be put back up.

- Finished painting the living room.

- Reassembled the kitchen cabinets. After a failed attempt to drill new holes for the new cabinet hardware (the first couple worked out OK, then on the second two, despite using the same measurements, the drilled holes didn't match up to the handles. Argh!), I decided to compromise on my original idea and just get the stupid things put back together. So I just put the old hinges back up, filled in one of the two holes from the handles, repainted the doors, and used knobs instead of handles. They look fine from far away, I think. Maybe one day a long time from now I'll re-attempt changing the hinges.

New house: Work weekend 1

2008-07-09T23:10:00.000-04:00

So we closed on our house on July 3, conveniently right before the three-day holiay weekend. (Maybe not so conveniently for my amazing family, who gave up two days' worth of Fourth of July partying to come help us start transforming our house into a place I'll actually be proud to say I live in.) Jason's dad and my friend Michaela from work also stopped by to help out, so a huge thanks to everyone involved.

We got a ton done during the first weekend. Here are the big highlights:
- Scraped down two walls' worth of wallpaper in the living room, a border in the bathroom and three evil layers of border in the kitchen.
- Pried huge, ugly mirror down from over fireplace mantle.
- Replaced the toilet in the upstairs bathroom.
- Took down ugly screen door so you can see the front door.
- Pressure-washed siding, and pruned back bushes and trees in the yard.

Here's the rest of what we accomplished, with pictures! Please ignore the huge mess, we were all too exhausted on Sunday evening to do anything more than clean up the painting supplies.

We finished painting 3/4 of the living room, minus the damaged wall area over the fireplace and some of the edging. Color: Pale Gold. Honestly, I thought it would be a little darker than it turned out, but it's growing on me. I kind of like it better in pictures than in person. Hmm. (Bonus: On the floor, you can check out all our painted cabinet doors!)

We completed painting in the dining room. Almost everyone who came through the house on Saturday said they really liked the old paint colors in the room (cream up top, chocolate brown on the bottom.) Personally, I think they were fooled into thinking it looked good because the rest of the house looked so bad. No, I actually didn't mind the chocolate brown, it just didn't fit into my design ideas. Colors: Spring Lily (top), Punk Rock (bottom)

Finally, the kitchen. This and the upstairs bathrooms are the rooms I'm hoping will look the most different post-fixup. We painted the walls in the same light green used in the dining room. We painted the hideous faux-wood-paneling cabinets in Martha Stewart's White Picket Fence. I still have to reattach the cabinet doors and replace the hardware. Unfortunately, I'm having a bit more trouble than I thought I would because both the hinges and the cabinet and drawer pulls don't match up to the standard pulls and hinges you can buy these days at Lowe's. I might have to drill new holes ... not the end of the world, but not as easy-peasy as I'd hoped for.

The new old house

2008-07-09T22:10:00.000-04:00

A little background on the new house. It's in Bexley, a little suburb 10 minutes outside downtown Columbus. It has its own cute little downtown with a neat old movie theater, restaurants, coffee shops and stores, all within walking distance of the house.

The house was built in 1942, and its best features are gorgeous hardwood floors, a beautiful yard and a cute little sunroom. Its worst features are a kitchen with a severe lack of cabinets and a half-bathroom with the ugliest cubicle-style drop ceiling you've ever seen.

Here are some before pictures.

Front of the house

Living room

Dining room, looking through to sun room

Kitchen

One of three bedrooms

Bathroom

Back of house

And we're off

2008-07-08T22:42:00.000-04:00

These are exciting times in the Mann household. We recently moved back to Ohio after spending four years in Georgia, which meant new jobs for me and Jason. After seven months of living with in-laws, we've finally found ourselves a new house, so we're about to actually have a household again. And finally, we're going to have a baby!

My friend Nikki has been trying to convince me to start a blog to chronicle all these changes, and I'm finally getting around to actually doing it. My plan is for this blog to be a place where our family and friends can keep up with what's going on in our lives, with our new house and, eventually, with the baby -- no matter how far away they live.