Eventful Day

The first day of classes!

I had Ancient Greek in translation today. I've been told that it's difficult, but the instructor began the class by telling us that statistics say, and his data from teaching this class previously agrees, that only 30% of us will finish the class at the end of the year. Yay.

Then I sped off to the hospital for Alyssa's last appointment. Brandy, our doula (who also married us), came to go over our birth plan with the doctor, who told us that everything was going great.

Then we headed back to campus for Alyssa's classes and I sat down to study after resolving some red-tape issues with the school administration.

I just finished my homework and I was heading out to get Odin when I decided to write this on the way. He went on a field trip today to get fish for the tank in his classroom and I'm going to ask him how it went.

:)

Ready

We finally collected the last piece today; a dresser. We managed to find one that is build pretty good and was on sale for a helluva good price so we got it. Now we have the dresser, a crib, the stroller, diapers, a moby wrap, etc, etc. and all the stuff we need for Freya except for bottles for me to feed her when Alyssa needs a break and we don't need those yet anyway.

We had a fun day too; Alyssa and I went to see Inglorious Basterds (which was AMAZING) and then got Odin, met up with Paula to hang out and bring the dresser home, then went out to eat.

Robot Arm

Today we got Odin one of those robot grabber arms that have a yellow handle and a red hand. He loves it; he's walking all over the house grabbing stuff.

I also found out that I qualify for one of the distance courses offered at the U of O. I can work from home or whenever I am at a computer with internet, rather than go to a physical class, and I don't need to pay for a textbook because everything is electronic. This means that I can drop my 8am class. Odin doesn't like getting up that early to go to school, so now he'll uniformly go at 9:30 every morning, which is much better for all of us, including Alyssa and Freya.

We spent our afternoon walking around Toys R Us getting stuff for both kids with the gift card we received and we're spending our evening with pop cord and the 2 hour season premier of House!

Surprise!

Today the family from Roseburg came down to see us all here in Eugene and we all hung out for a bit and ran some errands and such. While we were at the mall, Zaideh met us at Fletcher's and bought us the stroller we wanted. (I'm sure we'll put some pictures up of us using it with both kids sooner or later.) We took Odin for a spin in it through the mall and he just loved it. Then we all headed back to Paula's place again and I went over to our clubhouse to set up Alyssa's surprise baby-shower.

It went off pretty good: I managed to keep it a secret from Alyssa all week, and we got all the food and decorations and such taken care of pretty well. Lots of people I contacted never showed up (or even responded) but we still had lots of people. Alyssa was really surprised and really happy. We got tons of cool stuff for Freya like clothes, towels, sleepers, and all kinds of nice stuff. There were books, and toys, and my mother even knit her some stuff! We had a great time.

Thanks to all those who came!

Art

Today we got to bring home one of the pieces of art that Odin did at school. It's a nice bright colored Ice Cube painting. They freeze paint with water in ice-cube trays with q-tips sticking out and then they take those out to paint with. It's going on a wall of collections of what he does at school!

A more exact date!

So we have our c-section scheduled for October 7th at 7:45 am (and we have to be there 2 hours early!). Odin is going to stay at Grandma Paula's house the previous night and she will bring him to see us and Freya once the dust has settled, and he wont go to school that day but he will the next (so that he doesn't get out of routine too much). For those interested in visiting, the protocol we'd like is thus: If you want to hang around the hospital or just be near by, go for it, but don't come looking for us until you get the all-clear. We really want some time for just our family before we let a bunch of people over. Also, don't feel like you have to visit on the first day, because we'll likely have to be there for three days and not only will we want more visitors to pass the time, but everything on the first day can be overwhelming.

In other news, when we picked up Odin from school today there was an "Accident Report" in our mailbox. Apparently Odin had jumped from a very high ledge (which is exactly what we caught him doing, and teaching to the rest of the class, when we picked him up yesterday) and when he landed he bumped into a near-by pole intended for sliding down. According to the report, he didn't cry, and after they comforted him he said "I feel better" and went back to playing. As Alyssa and I were reading this, we couldn't help but laugh out loud because he does this exact same thing all the time for us and we could just see it all happening in our heads.

Also, when we told him we wanted to take him home, he ran to a table and drew us each a picture and brought it over to us one at a time. It was very sweet.

Pcitures from my Phone

My phone told me it was running out of space so I transferred all the pictures I wanted to keep to the computer and added them to an album. They're from all over the place in the last year.

Phone Pics as of 9:14

A date!

We went to see Dr. QB today who scheduled us for a c-section on the 7th or 8th of October. Not long now until we get to meet Freya!

"I wanna get going!"

Today Odin got up and couldn't wait to get to school. He was still a little hesitant when we got there, but once he warmed up again and saw Suzanne playing with Thomas trains and tracks, he got right to it and never looked back at us.

School!

Odin put up just as much of a fight to be taken home as he put up to be taken there. The first thing the teacher told us when we got there was that he did a great job and had a really good time. He was crying when we put him in the car because he wanted to stay but he calmed down when we promised he'd get to go back tomorrow. Also, he really pathetically but politely asked for a "steamer" so we just had to get him one. Did I mention that yet? We've been going to Dutch Bro's a lot and he likes to get a raspberry soy-milk steamer so we've got a huge collection of the DB Kids' cups.

Odin's first day of School!

Getting Odin up was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. We brought him in our bed so he could wake up gradually and he fell back asleep with Alyssa while I got up to get his stuff ready. When we tried to get him up together, he cried about how he wanted to stay in Mommy's bed and sleep. He was in the car on the way to school recognizing the neighborhood before he stopped crying. Getting his clothes on took both of us working together against his efforts, and I tell you I've had more success in jujitsu matches against guys two feet taller than me.

When we got him there, it took him a minute to warm up, but Suzanne (the woman in charge of his group, the "Panda" class) was really helpful and we taught him her name and that he can ask her for food or to go to the bathroom. She's been working that class for 14 years and she's really nice and helped him out a lot. Alyssa and I have been walking around the apartment all day so far talking about how weird it is to not have him here and wondering what he's up to and how he's doing. We even check the print-out of his schedule so we know what he's doing right at this moment. We really love the free time but we also miss him a lot!

Good news today!

We took Odin to his new school in the morning and he really loved it. He was shy at first but he warmed up to the staff after a bit and didn't want to leave. He'll be getting meals and snacks there which are vegetarian and sugar-free (they use honey), and he gets a back-rub before nap-time and they teach him about gardening and how to put his own shoes on and get dressed and all sorts of awesome stuff! He really liked it and we went to bed tonight talking about how much he wanted to go back.

After that, we went back to MFM for the pictures and got great news! Dr. Katz no longer thinks there is an accreta so he says the most he thinks we need to do is have him scrub-in on the c-section in case it looks bad. But that means that we can have a c-section where Alyssa can be awake and I can be there! We still need the scheduled c-section at 39 weeks because she still has a low-lying placenta, but at least its not nearly as bad as we thought! We go to Dr. QB on Friday to get his final word and figure out when everything will work out.

Eager to find the news

On Friday we went to see our OB who said that there is a good chance that we can go for a normal c-section (which means Alyssa can be awake and I can be there) and if it looks serious then they'll put her out and take care of it. But that means that she'll be able to nurse Freya and wouldn't be put out for too long, so we left that appointment with some good news for the first time in a while. We see the doctor at Maternal Fetal Medicine tomorrow to get more detailed pictures and double check everything. It's basically the appointment where we get the final decision about what our options are.

For the time being, we're just enjoying our vacation (which will be much better when we finish with our Dex route -- did I forget to mention that?) and Odin is going to school starting Wednesday so we're excited for him about that.

I'll be sure to upload something after our appointment tomorrow. And I'll start adding photo's and video's again as soon as I either find my camera cord or come up with money for another one.