Thanksgiving and Durango Baby Shower

Doug-

Ho, ho, ho!!! It's the week after Christmas (and Chanukah for our Jewish friends), but I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'm going to try and get a little caught up by talking about Thanksgiving. I should get to Christmas sometime in March or so at this rate, so come back then if you want to find out about Scott, Molly and Audrey's visit.

Okay, Thanksgiving. Sandy had determined in October that she wasn't making any more trips to Denver in her pregnant state so we decided instead to have some people come to Durango for Thanksgiving. My Mom's friends John and Diane volunteered to make the trip up here and bring their twin boys and Mom along for the ride; they also said they would take care of most of the work so that Sandy could relax so of course we said yes. Their boys, Josh and Justin are 13 (I think, sorry John and Diane if I'm off a year) so they were happy to spend the bulk of the weekend camped in front of our TV playing with their X-Box.


Diane and Sandy talked a lot about having twins and Mom and John just had fun being in Durango with us. They did bring up a bunch of food, but despite their offer to do everything, the control freak in me came out on Thanksgiving and I pretty much took over anyway and handled most of the actual cooking. The big thing I learned this year about cooking turkeys: Brining. We used an Alton Brown recipe for brining and roasting the turkey and it came out awesome; we are sold. Then on the night before they returned to Denver we opened presents with Mom because we knew she wouldn't be able to make the trip up for Christmas. All in all, it was a great time and we appreciate John and Diane's help in bringing Mom up for a visit.

Then on the second Saturday in December, our friends Brian/Leslie and Ambika/Matt threw a Durango baby shower for us. Unfortunately, we were an hour late to our own baby shower due to some car troubles. To begin with, Rachel, Sandy's friend from Denver, flew in to visit for the weekend that morning and we planned to go straight from the airport to the shower. Now, the night before we went to pick her up Sandy noticed that a few "idiot lights" had lit up on the dashboard of the Landcruiser and asked if we should be concerned. I handled it the way I usually handle such car issues: if the car is still running, just ignore it. I figured we just had a short or something in the dashboard lights because how else would the brake, battery and transmission temp lights all come on at the same time? What are the chances of all of those things actually going out at the same time? However, as we were making the trip to the airport, I noticed that the dashboard lights seemed to be actually getting dimmer. Then I hit the windshield washers and got the most pathetic stream of washer fluid imaginable out of little nozzles and I realized, wow, the battery really is going dead. Well I figured a car can probably still run quite a while on a discharging battery, so we continued on. We made it to the airport, but the car died there. I got a jump from one of the hotel vans, but the car only made it about another mile back to Durango before dying again. Bummer. Okay, call tow truck, call Baby Shower, tell them we are going to be a little late. Sandy and Rachel had a great time laughing about the whole thing as we stood on the side of the road waiting; I was just irked that my vehicle diagnosis skills seemed to have slipped so far.

Anyway, the tow truck finally arrived and took us to the dealership. Now this was actually pretty cool; Sandy got to ride in the guy's truck but Rachel and I got to actually ride in the Landcruiser as it was being towed. I asked the tow truck guy if this was legal; he said not really, but we promised to duck if we saw any cop cars. I have to say, if you ever get the chance to ride in a car or truck being towed by a tow truck, I highly recommend it; it was great fun. Kind of like an amusement park ride, but much faster. The steering wheel even turned on its own when we went around corners. We eventually made it to the shower, although a bit late and had a great time with all of our Durango friends. Too many people to name them all, so I made the little slideshow below. Thanks to everybody for being there and being patient with our late arrival.

Durango Shower

In any event, it turns out that the battery, brake and transmission temp sensor had all gone out at the same time; go figure. The plus side to this was that winter arrived in earnest in Durango right after the shower and we had 5 or so days of snow and ice and locusts and the like to drive through with just our little Ford Escort station wagon (very fuel and space efficient in the summer, but crap in the snow).

Bump Update - Week 32

Doug-

Okay, it's getting serious now. Not only is Sandy well along, we now have snow to deal with. Last week we got about 15 inches of snow over the course of 2 or 3 days and our backyard is on the north side of our house, so the snow goes away very slowly. Nonetheless, Sandy insisted on making the trip out to our usual location for this Bump Update. Now of course I had to lace up her snow boots, but she still made the trip through the drifts.


As for the bump itself, not much I can say.



















Miliya doesn't know what to think.

Merry Christmas

Doug-

Okay, between the pregnancy, the trial, finals at the College and hosting Thanksgiving, we are very behind when it comes to Christmas plans. So if any of you are hanging out at home and checking your mailbox and thinking, "Hey, I sent Doug and Sandy a really funny/heartfelt/cute/meaningful Holiday Card and I don't think they've sent me one," you're right, we haven't. And to be honest, I think I can say that if I were you I wouldn't spend too much energy going out to the mailbox looking for such a card going forward either. It's just one of those years. We didn't put up outside lights either.









We did go get a tree, although this year we just bought one at the grocery store instead of going up into the mountains to cut one. We have cut our own the last 3 years, so that's a bummer, but one of those things. We'll re-initiate that family tradition next year. As you can see, this year's tree is apartment size.









The other thing we did this weekend was go to Farmington and get the rest of the baby stuff we need. Because she is carrying twins and is at 32 weeks this weekend (but measuring at about 43 weeks for a single), the doctors have told Sandy she needs to limit her activity going forward. However, Target was beckoning, so we came up with the solution you see to the right. Sandy will tell you that those carts actually don't handle very well and she spent the afternoon knocking into displays and running over little kids feet. The best part is that the cart actually did that "beep, beep, beep" thing when she put it in reverse, just like she was driving a fork lift or something, so she was always easy to find.




Oh, and by the way, if you usually get a present from me, it's going to be late this year. Sorry.

What Comes Around

Sandy here:

Since last Sunday, we've been receiving snow here in Durango. Not enough to shut down the town, but certainly enough to make things messy and a bit stressful. On top of that our ginormous Land Cruiser broke down on Saturday (that's another blog post altogether) so it has been in the shop, and we became a one car family. I'm also getting huger and huger. I'm the size of a post 9 month pregnant woman (no wonder it's hard to move around!) and I'm probably carrying somewhere between 7 - 8 pounds of baby already (we'll find out for sure at our ultrasound appointment next week). As a result of all this hugeness, I've been put on "minimum walking, minimum stairs"--not bedrest, but my marathon training has been put on hold.

As some of you may recall, I started out the New Year with a broken femur. The repercussions of which were: I had to be driven everywhere, it was hard for me to move around the house--carrying things and bending down were out of the question, I was on minimum outside walking because there was so much ice and snow outside it wasn't safe, I couldn't help shovel snow. I spent a lot of time on the couch watching movies.

Now that the end of the year is here, I am ending the year by: Having to be driven everywhere (since we're down to one small car, I'm too large to comfortably fit behind the wheel), moving minimally around the house--thinking carefully before I bend down or pick things up, walking minimally outside because of all the ice and snow out there, and letting Doug shovel snow because I can't really exert myself like that right now. I spend a lot of time on the couch watching movies to help my swollen ankles.

Ah, the irony.

Twin Room!!!

Doug:

Okay, after much delay, the update on the Twinkies' Room. I think the most exciting thing to Sandy about having babies (other than the weight gain and the inability to roll over and all) is that it gives her a reason to re-decorate a room. As most of you know, we moved into our house about 18 months ago and it was a bonanza for Sandy; plenty of wallpaper and shag carpet to remove and a blank canvas for all of her artistic vision. Then this summer she had a new garden to put in (complete with retaining wall), but nothing is as fun as a baby's room.

Anyway, the selection of cribs and dressers was a critical part of this operation, but when you live in Durango, it can be hard to find a good selection. And if
you're Sandy decorating a baby's room, you need
a good selection of cribs to choose from. Have I
mentioned that my wife can get very particular about things? Well after much gnashing of teeth, we finally found a very nice store in Farmington, NM and Sandy found the perfect cribs. Not too big, not too small, right color, safe, suitably expensive (oh, did I say that out loud, sorry hon).... The next issue was getting them delivered, a trick when you live at least 4 hours from the nearest Interstate. Its a good thing we ordered well in advance, because it took a good 4 weeks from the time the decision was made until we finally got them. The baby store actually felt bad about this and brought them up to Durango for us, saving us a trip to Farmington.

About Farmington, NM. Farmington is the closest
larger town to Durango, about 1 hour South and 30,000 people. It is where you go if you live in Durango and desperately need to go to a Target, or a Chili's, or a mall or a big box store. However, a cultural paradise it is not. Farmington exists mainly to serve the oil and gas industry's natural gas operations in Northern NM and Southern CO, and also to serve as a trading center for the Navajo and Souther Ute reservations. It's a bit of a dump with a high poverty rate; a land of very big diesel trucks and significant methamphetamine problems. It's about as different from Durango as you can get, so it's always an interesting trip. But you know, they do have a Target, so they have that on us. Anyway, always nice to skip that trip whenever possible and we really appreciate the people at
"Baby and Me" delivering the cribs.

Anyway, we only put one crib together for now; the Twinkies will share for the first few months until they get too big, and then we will put two cribs next to each other (we've been told twins like to be together). Sandy's parents helped me put it together and Sandy hovered and told us not to scratch anything. In any event, I think the room looks pretty good, and Sandy gets all the credit.

No Tucson Marathon for me

Doug:

Some people have asked about how I did in the Tucson Marathon, which some of you may remember I was hoping to run as a Boston Marathon qualifier. The short answer: I didn't even end up going. About 5 weeks ago, my motivation to train took a severe hit for some reason I am not totally aware of. It could have had something to do with the arrival of cold weather (I am a warm weather runner) or just getting really busy at work or a busy training year with the Ironman, but all of a sudden, I just didn't want to run anymore. Nentheless, I got a few more long runs in and still planned to make the trip. However, I then spent all of last week in a trial that ended up turning out badly (and spent the bulk of the week before that getting ready), so by Friday I was totally demoralized, sleep deprived and thoroughly unmotivated. Add to that the fact that the bad trial result dictated the need for a client meeting today, and I just bagged the whole thing.

Bummer. Maybe next year.

However, it did give us a chance to get some good baby room work done. Pictures to come later this week.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Sandy here:

Let's be clear. I LOVE egg nog. And right now, since I'm not drinking any caffeine or alcohol (or shooting heroin, etc.), I think it's perfectly in my right to drink a little nog now and then. I'm also trying to eat a lot of calcium--not for the babies--those little suckers will just take whatever they want from me--but so I don't get osteoporosis later on because the little girls took all my calcium.

This afternoon I thought--what better way to get some calcium than to drink 8 oz. of egg nog?

Turns out that's not such a good plan after all...

I've Seen the Future

Sandy here:

One of the things that Doug has started doing is reading to the twinkies at bedtime. I've read that by now babies can hear things outside the womb, and it's good for Dad to talk to them. I really think they are recognizing the sound of his voice, because even if they've been quiet once he starts to read such classics to them as "That's Not my Teddy!" or "Maizy Drives" they start moving around and kicking. It's pretty cool.

Well, last night--he picked out 2 winners--Touch and Feel ABCs and Touch and Feel Animals. There was a small amount of movement, but nothing significant. After he finished he started reading Rule 901 of the Colorado Rules of Evidence (Authentication) to them (he has a trial starting tomorrow) and they started moving and kicking!

I'm going to be surrounded by lawyers.

Inside the Uterus

Sandy here:

On Monday, I went back in for an ultrasound. We're at 28 weeks (7 months for those of you who have not done this whole pregnant thing--I used to get annoyed when pregnant people would tell me how many weeks along because I'd have to Gulp! do the math--but now I get it) out of 40 weeks.

Doug and I are so spoiled--we have gotten to see the babies tons--I guess it helps make up for the fact that apparently I'm close to as big as I might get if I was just carrying one baby--and I still have about 10 weeks to go! The girls are getting bigger, so in some ways it makes it harder for the tech to get "good pictures" of them. We go in every month so their growth can be tracked. One is a little smaller, but she's been like that from the beginning--they're watched to make sure they each track along their individual growth curves. I learned a couple interesting things when we went:

1. Baby B (whom we have temporarily named Myrtle) actually has chubby cheeks and a big belly! The first picture is her--it looks like she's laying on her side, and you can see one of her sugar cheeks, her nose, mouth and an eyelid.



2. Baby A (whom we have temporarily named Ethel) is head down--and I mean waaay head down (not like ready to come out or anything) but apparently pretty low which is what is contributing (along with the whole pregnant in general thing) to making me feel somewhat uncomfortable. The second picture is of her--it looks like she's laying on her back, with her head at the bottom of the picture, and yes, those are her legs above her--she might be a future gymnast.



3. The babies now have a combined total weight of over 5 pounds! That's a lot of baby for 28 weeks along (if you read the book "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" apparently a single baby should only weigh around 2.5 pounds).

4. Myrtle apparently thinks she's alone (except when she kicks her sister) because she is currently in the 55th percentile (and that's for singles--they don't have a special twin chart). In layman's terms, it means she's big!

5. Ethel is in the 33rd percentile which is also good--especially for twins.

So, what's the summation of all I learned at the ultrasound?

I am a super gestator.

Bump Update

Doug:

28 weeks!!! Wow!!!! Not much I can add to this:

Okay, I can add this. The other night Sandy woke up and had to go use the bathroom. She went to get up and about halfway between the laying down position and the sitting up position ..... she got stuck. Really. She had to ask me to give her a little push to get up. Oh, the things to come.




She's awfully cute, isn't she?

House Update

Doug-

Quick update on the house. First, we finished painting the Twinkies' room (with low VOC paint, it's supposed to be healthier) and also got a lot of stuff handed down from one of my bosses, Lindsey. Lindsey's kids are now 4 and 6, so she's done with baby stuff and gave us a pack-and-play, a baby bjorn, a bouncy chair and a ton of other stuff.



As I mentioned before, we need two of pretty much everything, so these kind souls like Lindsey, Scott and Molly, Todd and Brenda and everybody else that has handed stuff down have been a real lifesaver. Now we're just waiting for the cribs and dresser to arrive.





And finally, Sandy filled the yawning hole in our life that was a missing kitchen curtain; her handmade handiwork is to the right. As you can see she is very talented. If I can talk her into it, she'll do a blog post about all of the baby things she has been knitting.

Fame and Fortune

Sandy here--

I'm not sure how my life is going to change, but I'm sure dramatically, now that my husband is a famous attorney dealing with far-reaching issues:

http://www.durangoherald.com/sections/News/2008/11/13/Bearproof_trash_rules_introduced/

If you come over to our house, hopefully I'll see you behind all the paparazzi.

Birthing Classes

Doug-

Tonight Sandy and I went to our second birthing class. The class we are taking is one night a week for four weeks and they do it at the hospital in the conference rooms. There were 3 other couples tonight as well as last week, but one of the couples was different tonight. One of the couples looks to be about our age, another couple is probably late 20's-early 30's, and the third couple .... well let's just say that we have dubbed her "Juno" and she is accompanied by her boyfriend "Jeff Spicoli." Seriously, its a bit amusing. I was wondering how she gets her homework done if she has birthing class on a school night.

The first night they had us do a relaxation exercise where we closed our eyes and imagined being in a quiet place. The instructor gave us a little narrative to follow, and during the narrative she had us imagining ourselves approaching a peaceful lake in the mountains and then climbing into a boat that was under a tree and slowly drifting out onto the lake in the boat. Sooooo peaceful and relaxing.

When we were driving home, Sandy started laughing and said, "you know, when she had us get in the boat I actually got a little nervous because I was thinking of a canoe and I was worried it was going to tip over." I started laughing too because all I could think of when I was in the boat was how cold the water probably was and what it would be like to swim back to shore if the boat leaked.

So we made a decision about relaxation techniques during the birth; during the visualization stage, we're going to skip the part about the boats.

First Snow

Doug-


Exciting morning here in Durango; Miliya and I woke up to our first snow of the season. Well actually, we got a little snow the night of the election, but it barely covered the cars so it didn't really count.




Now living in Durango, snow is a very big deal!!! Most people that live here like to ski or do other snow type activities (we are in the mountains after all), so the first snow is exciting. Pictures to the right. It snowed pretty hard for about an hour or so and then stopped; by mid-afternoon the sun was out and about half of the snow melted off.



Last year we had crazy snow in Durango, and it quit being fun after the third storm of 15+ inches in 5 weeks. This was at the same time that Sandy was laid up with a broken femur, so it was particularly not-fun for me. We are hoping to avoid a repeat this year because the only thing I can imagine that is worse than having big snows and a wife with a broken femur is having big snows and a couple of newborn twins.


Our lowlight of the weekend was Sandy suffering through a bad cold. Colds and pregnancy kind of suck, but she soldiered through with a lot of hot water with honey and lemon and some quality naps. On Saturday night we went to see Loudon Wainwright III at the college. Loudon is a pretty obscure folk singer that does some very funny songs; I originally stumbled across him working at the college radio station in Gunnison, CO in the late 80's. You may know him from some cameo acting appearances he has done; originally as the singing surgeon in the comedy MASH and lately in a number of Judd Apatow movies and TV shows (he was the doctor in "Knocked Up"). It was very fun, but my only disappointment was that he didn't play the following song, which has taken on some special meaning for me:

Bein' a dad isn't so bad
Except that you gotta feed 'em
You gotta shoe 'em and clothe 'em
And try not to loathe 'em
Bug 'em and hug 'em and heed 'em

Bein' a dad can sure make you mad
Man it even can drive you crazy
It's as hard as it looks
You gotta read them dumb books
And you end up despising Walt Disney

Bein' a dad starts to get radical
When they turn into teenagers
You gotta tighten the screws
Enforce the curfews
Confiscate weapons and pagers

But a daughter and son
Can be sort of fun
Just as long as they don't defy you
They'll treat you like a king
They'll believe anything
They're easy to frighten and lie to

Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad can make you feel glad
When you get paperweights and aftershave lotions
Yeah it feels pretty great when they graduate
That's when you're choked with emotions

But bein' a dad takes more than a tad of
Good luck and divine intervention
You need air-tight alibis
Fool proof disguises
Desperation's the father of invention

So sometimes you take off
For a few rounds of golf
And you stay away for half of their lifetimes
The result of it all is
You're captured and hauled up
Before a tribunal for dad crimes

Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad can make you feel sad
Like you're the insignificant other
Yeah right from the start
They break your heart
In the end every kid wants his mother.

Okay, its not as funny to read it, so go to Itunes and listen. Besides, this is a family blog, so I couldn't put up the lyrics to "Rufus is a tit-man."

Denver Baby Shower and Marathon

Doug-

Okay, we're trying to get caught up here, so bear with us. Two weeks ago we made the drive to Denver (6.5 hours) for a baby shower for Sandy and I and also so I could run the Denver Half-Marathon with Scott. Because we know so many people in Denver, in the past we have usually made this drive every 2 months or so on average. During one particular wedding heavy period in 2005 I actually did 3 trips in 5 weeks, but that's not this story. However, we expect that once the Twinkies get here, our trip frequency will decrease significantly. At least that's what Scott tells us having done this trip a few times with Audrey in the last year or so.

On Saturday morning we had a very nice shower that was hosted by Scott and Molly. Sandy's parents, Doug and Kathy drove out from Missouri to be there, and we were also joined by my Mom, her friend (and ours) Diane, our friends (and Scott and Molly's neighbors) Adam and Elisa and our friends Derek and Jen. It wasn't a big crowd, but that's okay as we were excited to see everybody that was there and it kept the house from getting too crowded.

Saturday afternoon Scott, Adam and I went to the Marathon Expo and talked to our buddy Johnny who was working the Clif Bar booth. Johnny is a guy Scott and I each know from our Chili's days some 15 years ago; he's actually 3 years older than me, but you wouldn't know it most days (except for the gray beard). He tends bar, plays saxophone in a touring band and works for his girlfriend Corey at the Clif Bar booth at these kinds of events (she is a promotions rep for Clif and even though she is about 15 years younger than he, she is the mature and responsible one in the relationship). I told Scott that it's funny that in 15 years our lives have sure changed a lot; Johnny's has not. Anyway, Johnny is actually one of the greatest persons I know in the entire world and he's one of my best friends, so it was good to see him and walk the expo with him. If you know anything about Johnny, it will not surprise you to know that he knew just about everybody in every booth (Johnny is also a twin, so he is very excited about our twins).

Sunday morning Scott and Adam and I ran the Half-Marathon. I did the full marathon last year on an absolutely abysmal day; 40 degrees and rain. It was awful, I couldn't feel my hands for days afterwards. This year was much nicer, in the 40's to start but clear and sunny. Scott had never run a Half-Marathon before and we were hoping to get him across the line in 2 hours or so. We started off a little slow, but between miles 3 and 9, Scott turned the jets on and by mile 9 we were pretty close to where we needed to be for a 2 hour finish. Unfortunately, the finish was still 4 miles away and right around that time it became clear Scott did not have the miles he needed in his legs that day to hit the goal. Our time faded a bit, but we still finished without walking in right around 2:05. In any event, it was a lot of fun and Scott has every reason to be proud considering the fact that he used to declare very adamantly that he is not a runner. Well he is now. Anybody that does a Half-Marathon without walking is a runner.

The best part of the day, however, was packing the car for the drive home. We were taking home all of the stuff from the shower, a lot of hand-me-downs from Scott and Molly, our bags, a dog and, best of all, a TON of stuff Sandy bought at her regular run to Costco (this is a Denver trip tradition). Sandy's dad had the best line of the day when we were loading the Costco stuff:

"I know Sandy likes Costco, but I didn't know she was planning on opening a branch in Durango."

Suffice it to say there was considerable skepticism about whether I could get everything in the Landcruiser. Suffice it to also say that I am a packing wizard.

Here's a slide show of the trip:

Denver Shower and Marathon