Wow, what a whirlwind the last three weeks have been. After Darby was born we jetted up to our house in the Pocono's where we are going to live until January. We got up here late on a Friday night and had a nice, peaceful weekend with Darby. My mom was with us so she went grocery shopping, cooked us a bunch of meals and was super helpful and great to have around. Come Monday morning, that's when things went downhill...
Monday - 8:30am a couple of contractors show up at our house and start pounding away on our deck to fix some of our screens. We knew they were supposed to come, but didn't know what time and figured they would come to the door first. Well, the dogs got all up in cahoots, started barking like crazy and then turned and started fighting each other. My mom leapt into action and pulled the dogs apart, but not without getting her hand caught in the middle of it. I was upstairs nursing, so didn't run down, I just heard my mom say "OW" and then heard Doug's reaction when he saw all of the blood. Luckily my mom was super calm and was like "Oh, it's just a mere flesh wound that's bleeding badly."We found an urgent care, so Doug rushed my mom there to get a tetanus shot and to have it looked at and then had to rush home to pick me up for our first pediatric appointment for Darbs. So, my mom hung out at urgent care while Doug's mom came to pick her up so we could make our appt. on time...and this was all before 11am.
Luckily, my mom was okay and was such a good sport about it. The dogs have been behaving better (to each other...they both are so gentle with the baby) and Darby had a great appointment.
Tuesday - Business as usual all day just hanging around the house. That night, Doug was getting his stuff ready to leave for a business trip at 3am the next morning and I was upstairs nursing (see a theme here?) when I started to smell a pretty obvious skunk smell. I yelled down to Doug and my mom and they could smell it too, when I looked out the front door, I saw Zoe sitting on the porch surrounded by a bunch of white foam. I knew right away that Zoe had been sprayed, Doug thought that Zoe was foaming at the mouth because she had rabies (which isn't possible because she is up to date with her shots) and was even more worried about my mom's bite. I found a recipe for getting the smell out of dogs and my mom ran out and grabbed all of the ingredients (FYI - baking soda, dawn dish soap and hydrogen peroxide). While my mom was gone, Zoe was freaked out and ran away. It was pitch black outside and she wouldn't come to any calls so Doug got in the car and drove around for a while trying to find her, to no avail. It was about 30 minutes later that she ran up the driveway and we corralled her and Doug did the duties of bathing her. (My mom volunteered of course, but we didn't think it would be good to get that concoction in her flesh wound.)
Wednesday - Doug left at 3am for his work trip and around 9am I had a minor/major freak out and asked my mom to go home a week earlier than planned. I guess I felt like Doug and I needed some alone time just with Darby and I freaked out that before I knew it, my 3 months of maternity leave would be over and we wouldn't have had enough time together. Once again, my mom was such a good sport. I know it hurt her feelings, but she understood. I remember telling myself to remember this day 30 years down the road when Darby kicks me out of her house.
Friday - My mom's flight was scheduled for Friday evening, but we had horrible thunderstorms, so it was cancelled until Saturday morning. We drove down to our apartment in Jersey City and got to hang out for the night with my uncle, who happened to be in town for a wedding and was crashing at our apartment. Since we were back in the city, Doug and I took the opportunity to meet up with some friends for dinner so that they could meet Darby.
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| A couple sips of that wine and I passed it along to Doug - whoa, it's been a while! |
Saturday - My mom flew out early and we spent a good part of the next day cleaning out our apartment and packing up boxes...did I mention that our lease ended October 31st? Good timing with a new baby.
Sunday - A nice quiet day back in the mountains with our little family.
The next week -
Wednesday - Darby's first event in NYC! She got to meet professional skier Chris Davenport! She also "won" a silent auction prize for us...trip for 2 to Aspen! Hopefully we can find a good babysitter there!
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| "Oh, you know, just hanging out with a skiing celebrity at 2 weeks old" |
Thursday - When we got back up to our house I heard rustling in the fireplace and knew we had another squirrel. I waited it out and finally called a pest control person that night and said he would be over in the morning, so we duct taped the fireplace and put a bunch of heavy things in front of it to seal it off.
Friday - "Batman" arrived bright and early and told us that the squirrel was hiding in the liner of the fireplace and he couldn't get it out, so he set a huge trap and told us to call him when it went off. If the trap didn't work, "the squirrel should die within 2-3 days."
Sunday - Threats of a big hurricane-like storm get serious so I call my dad, who is supposed to fly in Tuesday morning, and tell him to change his flight to later in the week.
Squirrel still in fireplace.
Monday - Winds start kicking up by the afternoon and power goes out at 10pm, just as we were heading to bed. I pulled Darbs into bed with us and we all huddled together to stay warm while we listened to the crazy winds and trees hitting the house.
Squirrel still in fireplace. Gnawing on the metal inside because it is hungry.
Tuesday - Assess the damage from the storm and aside from losing power and having 3 big trees come down in our yard, we lucked out with no major damage. Tonight we slept at our house again and it was definitely cold. I guess Darby is ready to go camping!
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| Indoor camping with my Gnarbs |
Wednesday - We are still without power. Squirrel is not affected by the storm...seems to be thriving.
Doug has a board meeting in the city on Thursday and had a hotel room reserved, so back to the city for us for some heat and a shower!
Thursday - My dad flies in and meets us at the hotel and we wander around the city looking at all of the damage. The dangling crane was pretty crazy in person!
Get back to the house, squirrel is waiting around to greet my dad. Dad decides that he is going to get the squirrel out...tomorrow.
Too cold to stay in our house, we get a room at a local lodge...ahh, heat, showers, warm breakfast.
Friday - Darbs and I hang out in the warm lodge, the boys go cut down trees and stuff.
Power finally comes on late Friday night, so we got to go home!
Squirrel still hanging out...tomorrow it's coming out for sure.
Saturday - Dad and Doug get bold and decide to get the squirrel out, with their bare (heavily gloved) hands. Well, Doug held the boxes around the fireplace so the stupid thing didn't jump out while my dad grabbed it with his gloves and a towel and took it outside. Apparently it got up and started limping off...hooray! Unfortunately, while Doug was cleaning out the fireplace after our week long guest, he opened the flue and a dead squirrel fell down and then he heard another live one in the lining of our fireplace - drat!
Monday - Leave for our apartment in Jersey City to finally move out.
Phew, needless to say, the baby has been the easiest part of the last few weeks!
Most of your problems involve an animal. This is why I don't have one.
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