I’m not at home, so I can’t provide the pictures, but I can provide a few measurements:
Femur length: 3.49cm
Humerus length: 3.42cm
Head circumference: 17.75cm
Weight: 15oz (estimated based on size)
Heart Rate: 141bpm
Like Susan said, I worked a very long day… it actually started around 3:30am with a phone call.
Tonight is also looking a little slim for getting the pictures up because I am taking my lovely wife out for her birthday dinner!
Hey guys, sorry for the delay on the baby pics. Something big broke at Ian’s work over the weekend. He had to go in at 6 AM and didn’t get home til around 8 PM. He was too pooped to do much of anything beyond eat dinner and hit the hay. We’ll try again later tonight.
We have air conditioning! Glorious, glorious air conditioning. It feels wonderful in the house. I slept on our bed last night, complete with box spring and correct room. Fabulous.
Ian and I were down in Chatty for a short visit with our folks to celebrate our birthdays. Saturday was spent with my family. Sunday with his. It was quite lovely except for the weather, which was rainy-muggy. Oh well, it’s summer so I can’t complain too much.
We go for Olivia’s 21st week check up today. They should be taking landmark ultrasounds. That is to say, they’ll be looking for proportional measurements to make sure she’s baking up right. She is just as active as ever though it’s still pretty difficult to feel it from the outside unless you’re lucky (sorry Richell). That should change here in the next couple of weeks. Then everyone else can feel just how strong this little girl is.
Due to the unfortunate lack of air-conditioning in the Kirk household, regular blogger, Susan Kirk, has been unable to update this site at her normal frequency. We apologize for the delay. Normal posting patterns will resume upon return of a climate controlled environment.
Sincerely,
Mgmt.
So we’re still without air conditioning again tonight, but it really isn’t the end of the world. We’ve spent a good bit of time out of the house and together, so its been a positive experience in that aspect. The crew has been working very hard, but it seems that the estimate of 3 days may have been a little optimistic. No worries – Bob had mentioned it may take 4, so that’s really what we’d planned on.
As you can see from the picture on the right, the old ducting was a little on the disgusting side of things. That material carpeting the duct? Yeah – 15ish years of dust, hair, etc built up inside the return ducts. We also found today that a fair amount of that nastiness had also built up on the coils, restricting air flow by a great deal. Simply “cleaning” those coils off (by replacing the whole unit!) will help us out a great deal.
The guys also relocated the furnace/blower unit in the basement, opening up a lot more space down there. At this point, when I get in a mood to be really handy, we could actually build out some storage space or something useful like that.
As for Susan’s post about the music, it was actually Lyle Lovett’s “North Dakota,” a song I really, really like, that put our Olive to sleep. And it makes sense… its a very calm song, with a soothing voice. I did, of course, play her some Hendrix and some Dinosaur Jr. She’ll get more of both of those so she’ll come out with well developed musical tastes.
There isn’t much else to say, except that we’re both hoping everything goes as planned tomorrow and we’ve got a brand new air conditioner! We’re also looking forward to coming down this weekend to do a little bit of early celebrating for Susie’s birthday!
… is rough. My right arm and shoulder are aching and stiff. I miss my AC even if it wasn’t really up to snuff. Bob said he thinks our new unit should be in place and operational today. I can’t wait. Sleeping on our mattress and box spring is suddenly a luxury I can’t seem to do without.
In other news, Olivia can now be felt from the outside. Ian got his first faint kick last night, but we had just subjected her to some womb mood-music and she was pretty quiet. I think it may have shocked her a bit. That’s the first time she’s been completely still for any length of time (including the Harry Potter movie) since I first started feeling her. Maybe she just doesn’t like Hendrix.
That’s what its all about, right?
I got home last night after my hockey game (0 penalties on either side, but the score was 8 to 0. I was on the 0 side.) and found the house really, really quiet. Sure, Susan was in bed asleep, but something wasn’t quite right.
The air conditioner. It wasn’t running.
Sure, the guys had been here yesterday, but the work they were doing had nothing to do with whether the existing unit would run for the next few days. They were just busy with laying out new ducting that will go into use on Wednesday. Its not until then that the compressor should be turned off.
I poked and prodded at the thermostat, but nothing changed, so I headed upstairs. There, of course, it was a fair bit warmer. I could see that Susan was quite uncomfortable with the temperature and knew straight away it was only going to get worse. I woke her from her slumber and moved the mattress into the nursery, where the portable air conditioner is.
We spent last night with the mattress on the floor (yeah – its not much further down considering the height of our bed) right next to the noisy, but cold air producing air conditioner. It worked out well.
Now I kind of wonder if our 15 year old compressor just gave up, meaning that we couldn’t have scheduled the upgrade any better. 
We watched the Harry Potter movie at the Imax…with the battle sequences in 3-D… awesome. I read the final book this weekend, too. More awesome. I have a girl crush on J. K. Rowling right now. She’s awesome. I need sleep because in spite of reading so many wonderfully strung together words, I can only seem to use the word awesome.
Olive has gone past kicking and punching. I think it is slam-dancing or some such thing. She was, however, very still while we watched the movie. I don’t know if she sensed how much I loved it or if the superhuge sound system cowed her into momentary submission. Either way, it was the first period longer than 2 hours that she has been still since she made her presence known.
We played a game on Friday, July 13th against a team that was fairly chippy. There were several minutes played on either side with 2 or 3 people in the penalty box. We ended up losing the game, probably because we let them get in our heads late in the second period.
There aren’t too many pictures from this game because of Susan’s positioning in the bleachers. She was joined by Amy, Garrett and my mother, as well as some of our friends that play on another team. Some of the photos are from the warm up, some are from the actual game.
There are a few more in this set on flickr.
I’ve taken a few minutes to photograph some of the recent gifts we’ve received for our little Olive, so that everyone can see what we’ve been getting from our very excited friends and family!
I’ll be adding to this set on Flickr to keep up with all the stuff I’m sure we’ll be collecting.
The first photo is a Piglet outfit, complete with the ruffled bottoms. Girly, girly, huh?
Next is the “berry cute” outfit with the strawberry on the backside. This is a 3 to 6 month set, if I recall correctly.
One of the two onesies below that says “Daddy’s Little Princess.” Obviously someone was working on my side here, seeing as how its in purple.
The stuffed animals, which we know full well do not go into crib until she considerably older, are from her grandmother.
Here are a couple of photos to go along with my really long story down below.
Its nearly 4am and I’ve only slept for about an hour or so. Before you ask, no, I’m not on call and I’m not up on the computer. Its a bit of a twisty tale…
When I arrived home after skating class and dinner this evening, I noticed a few bits of bark lying in the sidewalk. Now this is a somewhat normal thing for me to see because the tree in the front corner of the yard appears to be dead, and a decent wind will knock bits off of it. Today had been particularly windy since the afternoon, so it didn’t surprise me too much.
I cleaned up the bits and went on about my business of moving the trash cans out and my hockey gear in. Somewhere along the way, I noticed an unusual creaking noise. Now, creaking isn’t too strange either, because one of the younger, living trees in that corner has grow in such a fashion that the two trees rub together harmless at one point. This sound, though, wasn’t that same sound.
As I sought out the source of the noise, I noticed that the large tree was indeed the source… right where it had split, near the base of the tree.
A nice discovery at 10:30p, huh?
I almost immediately moved our cars further back on street after attempting to estimate where this tree might land when the next stiff wind came along. Then I came inside, explained the situation to Susan, and phoned the power company. After a short discussion with the representative, who was quite nice, he told me someone would be out within an hour or so. I headed downstairs and waited on the couch in the front room. I ended up napping fitfully until the power guys arrived about an hour and fifteen minutes later. I greeted them as they stepped out of their truck, and we looked over the situation.
These gentlemen, who were working overtime because of the high winds and were also extremely friendly, pointed out to me that the tree was actually considerably taller than I first noticed. Additionally, it was difficult to tell if this was in the jurisdiction of the power company, public works, or my own. It was determined that with the size of the tree and the age of the pole, it should probably be handled by the power company. It was now up to the duty supervisor to make the call… except he couldn’t be found! The two men from the power company told me I should likely expect someone by morning and if I didn’t, I should call again with a stiff questioning as to why not.
At this point it was around 12:30a and they headed out to their next call. I decided I should also move the cars again – this time to the relative safety of the school parking lot, as I didn’t have much faith in the tree trimmers arriving in a hurry. I also took a few minutes to clear the dining room of things I wouldn’t have wanted to lose if it hit the house or ripped off the power connection.
Finally, around 1a, I headed to bed. Now, just because I was in bed, doesn’t mean I slept. I tossed and turned, jumping at most every sound, thinking it could be the trimmers. I was suffering from heartburn and an active mind, so I didn’t get much rest. Around 2:30a I heard the low rumble of a significant truck, so I dressed myself and headed out the door.
Again, I greeted my visitors and spoke to them about the situation. The trimmer expressed great confidence in being able to remove the tree quickly, easily, and safely. He also agreed to do me a giant favor and trim back the portion of the tree that was hanging over the front yard, something he wouldn’t be required to do. With that, he took to the bucket truck like an extension of his body, and began taking the tree down, little by little.
Now I recall seeing men climbing trees around my parents’ house, taking down large trees in bits, so I had a general idea of what this guy was headed into. What was so amazing about it, was his skill with the bucket, and how quickly he was tearing into this tree. He was well over the house with a lightweight chainsaw and was tossing cut branches into the street. This continued for quite some time until he’d exhausted his current angle. They then moved the truck into the main street, and he attacked again.
Eventually it came down to the large trunk portion that had split and was being propped up by one of the younger trees. (Thank God someone planted all those other trees, because that’s what kept this monster from dropping tonight.) He and the other two men worked with the rope to secure the trunk via a standard tree man’s pulley system, then out came the big chainsaw. It was a stubborn piece, but eventually it broke free of the remaining trunk and hit the ground standing straight up. Slowly but surely the two men on the rope worked with the trimmer in the bucket to lower the tree to the ground.
So now all of this is stacked up in the front yard until at least Monday, but at least the neighbors will have a reasonable explaination for why they heard a chainsaw for 2 hours in the middle of the night! Actually, I’m not sure that a soul in the area noticed what was going on, as I saw no lights turning on or faces in windows. Susan was able to sleep through the majority of the work, and I even had the office window open!
All in all everything worked out just fine and everyone I dealt with tonight was fantastic. I plan on phoning the power company tomorrow and making note of everyone’s performance, as I was throughly impressed. The first set of guys were still working an hour after they were scheduled and the tree crew was hauled out of bed to spend the wee hours in my front yard, yet everyone was quite friendly.
I have pictures, but only of the detritus laying in our front yard. The rest of the time I was considerably more concerned with the moment, not the capturing of it. I’ll post those tomorrow night when I get home from work. And speaking of work, I’d better get to sleep so I can make it at a reasonable hour.
I haven’t posted since the weekend, so I thought I would do a quick update from my perspective. It was an awesome weekend that completely wiped me out. I slept so hard Sunday night. Work is going really well. I’m already handling referrals, something that usually is done after about 2 weeks of training first. Considering this is my 3rd day in the job, I must be doing something right. There’s three of us: Catherine, Nelleanne, and myself. I did half the referrals yesterday. I am totally patting myself on the back right now. Gotta go get ready. We will be eating with Mark and Laurie this evening… likely sushi but possibly Family Wash. Love you all.
It looks like both Susan and I failed to write a blog post yesterday, but that is likely because there wasn’t much going on yesterday. We both went to work and we both had good days. She is being her natural self, learning quickly and impressing all those around her. It doesn’t seem to be wearing her out too much, which is nice.
We scheduled the air conditioning guy to come out next week, so by the end of next week, we’ll have a nicely cooled house. It’ll be so nice not to run the a/c all day long only to push the temperature down to 78. I dread seeing our power bill for the past month, but there just hasn’t been any choice.
My team won their hockey game last night in what was one of our most fun games of the summer season. We played the team with my co-workers on it, and they are mostly a team of very new players. Spirits were high and friendly on both benches, so that made for a great night. It was especially better than our game on Friday, wherein an awful lot of penalties were called for some very rough play. We’ve now got 3 wins and 1 overtime loss out of 9 games.
When we bought the house, the previous owner told us that the house was great for having people over. We quickly tested his advice by hosting Thanksgiving dinner only 3 weeks after closing on the house!
We’re well past Thanksgiving at this point, and since then we’ve hosted a couple of parties and plenty of visits from our friends and family. This weekend had my sister, her boyfriend, Susan’s brother, his wife and my mother. It was a nice full house, and we spent the majority of it inside. That’s not exactly something to brag about – we were so lazy we never left! – but it was nice to have everyone around. I think it was a positive for our guests, too… a nice, calm weekend away from home.
We did our best to keep everyone well fed – we ended up eating at home for 5 of 6 meals. Matt & Richell made it out to visit he and Susan’s grandfather, and there were several trips to the grocery store through the weekend. All-in-all it was a delightful time from our perspective. Except, I suppose, for our poor air conditioner not quite being up to the task of keeping the house cool. Hopefully we’ll have that sorted out in the very near future.
In addition to the treat of having our friends and family around, we were showered with my birthday gifts and a handful of items for our little Olive. Garrett gave me an awesome digital photography book, mom got Olive a book “reading” teddy bear, plus Matt & Richell got her several cute little outfits. There was even an awesome Snoopy Sno-Cone maker mixed in.
Most amusing, though, was the set of “user manuals” Amy & Garrett got us. It was a three piece set:
These books are full of fantastic tidbits like “By six month, the baby will realize she has a pre-programmed ability to speech in your language,” or “if the baby has an unpleasant odor or begins crying for no apparent reason, his diaper may need to be reinstalled.” The starter kit includes a growth chart in addition to the owner’s manual itself.
On Saturday morning, Amazon delivered our Baby Bargains book, so I’ve done some reading in that as well. This book seems to cover all the bases as far as all the stuff we’ve got to buy for the baby. They’ve got reviews of cribs, mattresses, bedding, high chairs, etc, etc, etc.
So everyone headed home this morning, leaving us to the quiet of our house. We’ll spend the rest of the day resting up and preparing for the week to come. Susan will work a full week, her first in months and we expect it to drain her a good bit. I’ve got two hockey games this week in combination with a skating class. The game tomorrow is against 3 friends from work, so it’ll be an interesting situation.
I suppose I should figure out what we’re going to do about dinner now… I’ll try to post a few photos later this evening.
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