Bedrest at the hospital is not so restful. Well-meaning nurses come in to give me my pills (so many I’ve lost count, but the first is at 6AM), take blood/put in an IV/give a shot (11 needle pricks so far and still counting), put me on a monitor that tracks fetal heartbeat & uterine contractions (minimum time: 40 minutes, worst time: 2.5 hours from 9:30-midnight, 3 times a day), clear the IV…I think I’ll call it “bed prison.”
Craziest week ever. This concludes the single craziest week we’ve ever gone through. Angela spent the week in the hospital being endlessly poked, examined, monitored, and apprised of a wide range of terrifying medical scenarios. Jan spent the week driving (or organizing driving for) the girls between home, school, piano, dance class, and so on. Beyond the usual chaos that entails, there seemed to be a bunch of other things going on that made everything extra difficult.
For example, in retrospect it appears that last week was an inopportune time to have builders rip apart our kitchen for a remodel. Angela’s car is in the shop for repairs from a collision last month, so we’re down a car. Angela obviously doesn’t need it, but Angela’s parents, who are in town helping out, do need a car. It didn’t help that A. and L. had their preschool end-of-year program on Wednesday, which kept them up long past their bedtime for the privilege of eating cold pizza. And speaking of bedtime, last week turns out to have been a bad time to take delivery of a bunk bed. The girls began sleeping in the same room for the first time, which compounded the challenge of trying to get them to bed each night.
When A. complained on Thursday morning that her head hurt, Jan told her that being sick was completely out of the question. :)
Jan’s science project for the kids in May was making homemade ginger ale. In our house, ginger ale is a treat reserved for ill children, so the mere prospect of being able to drink all the ginger ale they wanted was sufficient to guarantee plenty of active participation.
The ginger ale recipe he found was easy enough to follow. After 24 hours at room temperature, the yeast had done its work. The bottle (above) was so distended it could not longer lie flat on the counter. The bottle went into the fridge to cool overnight.
We tasted the result this morning. The ginger ale tasted really, really sweet. It didn’t really taste anything like store-bought ginger ale. It was more gingery, and had a slightly sour note. In the chaos that is our house these days, we weren’t able to finish the whole recipe in one go, which may have affected the outcome. Maybe next time we need to add less sugar. For now, we’ve cut it with sparkling water.
In any event, the girls drank up cupfuls.
Angela came home from the hospital! Today Angela’s doctor let her go home, though she’s still to take it very easy—she’s supposed to stay at home and off her feet. She says she’s glad to be back home in our chaos. Now we’re counting down to what we hope will be a scheduled C-section in six weeks or so if everything goes perfectly (as opposed to an unscheduled emergency C-section that could happen at any time).
Jan had a board meeting today, and wrote this post during the meeting to demonstrate the new family journal feature in Cozi Central.
Since she has to spend a lot of time off her feet, Angela’s been learning to knit. Our friend Kerstin Harding dropped off a skein of yarn, a set of needles, and a book on knitting basics. Angela’s managed to produce an 8” x 8” square of material.
It turns out that Jan’s cofounder, Robbie Cape, knits as well. Robbie’s promised to come over during Angela’s bed rest and give her some pointers.
Angela’s seminary gave her a cool award! From the email announcement by Kim Anderson, the director at Fuller Seminary Northwest in Seattle:
“For several years we have honored those who have given their time and effort unselfishly to make the community of Fuller Northwest a better place to study and enjoy the rewards of academic discipline. I am honored to present the 2007 Goddard Community Service awards.
Our two recipients exemplify high achievement in unselfish community building. Our first recipient is Angela Miksovsky. Angela is a 2003 graduate of our M. Div. cohort degree program and has served our school and its students and alumni in amazing ways during the past two years as the Chair of our Fuller Northwest Advisory Council. She has been instrumental in helping to revise the process for determining financial aid for our students and then with others on the Council, has spent literally days interviewing prospective scholarship winners. Angela is on track to be ordained upon receiving a call by the Presbyterian Church (USA), is married to Jan, and is currently active at Mercer Island Presbyterian Church. Angela couldn’t be with us today. Her doctor has placed her on bedrest pending the delivery of Miksovsky baby #3. We pray God’s blessing upon Angela and her baby. Her award will be delivered to her bedside sometime later this next month.”
Anya branches out beyond cheese pizza! After 4 years of cheese pizza, Angela ordered 1/2 cheese, 1/2 sausage/feta/roasted red pepper (one of her faves). Anya decided to try Angela’s combo, and declared that she liked it! Can we rejoice that the days of cheese-only pizza are over?
Liya’s tap dancing class gave their end-of-year show today. Jan brought Liya to tap class so he could see the performance, and Grandma Lyn came from across town as well. Since the class has something like eight three year-old girls in it, the teacher kept the “show” to a single dance: a jazzy number set to the words of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham”. When the time for the show came, all the parents filed into the studio. Liya became shy and wanted to sit with Jan. Jan tried to coax her up to the line where the rest of the girls were standing, and eventually just picked her up and carried her up to a point at one end of the line. To keep her there, he sat down near Liya, so she wouldn’t be too far away. The music started. Lyn and Jan laughed as Liya stood still for the entire piece, watching the teacher. A very memorable performance. :)
Anya had her end-of-year ballet recital today. This felt like the first significant quasi-public performance she’s given (setting aside the preschool play). The recital was at the MOHAI, and was sold out. Her Pre-Ballet class from Spectrum Dance Studio was one of 14 classes presenting dances. Grandma Lyn made it to the performance too. (Angela snuck away from home bed rest yesterday to watch the rehearsal. Shhh!) Anya’s class did a cute dance to Jack Johnson’s “Upside Down”. All in all, she did great.
Hooray! Our new nanny, Jessi Slatt, started today! We’re so happy to have found Jessi. She has a natural way with children, and the girls liked her right off the bat. We met with Jessi for the first time while Angela was still in the hospital. When we were finished and Jessi left, Anya asked us, “Can Jessi be our nanny?”
Yesterday morning Jan went to put a kettle of water on the stove—and realized that, right now, we don’t actually have a stove.
Last night at bedtime Anya expressed interest in the book of Go board game problems that Jan is reading. She insisted on having Jan explain one of the Go problems to her as she was getting ready for bed, even though the problem came from a book of “intermediate” (read: hard) problems. Tonight Anya asked for the Go problem book again. Jan dug up a book of introductory problems, and Anya can solve the first set handily. When given the choice of working on more Go problems or having a bedtime story read to her, Anya opted for more Go problems. As Lyn points out, Anya’s definitely figured out that Daddy is interested in Go, and that sharing this interest is a good way to get him to spend time with her. :)
For his part, Jan’s looking forward to having a worthy Go opponent under his roof many years earlier than he’d expected.
Our friends John and Teresa Tippett cooked dinner for us tonight. (Thanks!) After dinner, John baked cookies for desert with the girls. Anya got right up on the countertop to help.
“My Best Dad”
by Liya Miksovsky, age 3
(with some help from Mrs. Cathy at preschool)
My Daddy is 7 years old.
He is bigger than the table.
His hair is black and his eyes are hazel.
My Dad loves to relax by sitting where he works.
He likes to wear short pants and short sleeves when he relaxes.
He loves to cook macaroni and cheese.
His favorite household chore is to help Mommy do what she does when she’s at the hospital.
He likes to watch Mulan.
Daddy always tells me to use the potty.
It makes him so happy when I flush the toilet.
When my Dad goes shopping he likes to buy strawberry applesauce.
If he could go on a trip, he would go to California and take the family.
I really love it when my Dad sings, sings, sings!
He is the best! I love you Dad!
Happy Father’s Day!
Anya and Liya are at camp today. It’s Cowboys and Cowgirls week.
Baby coming even earlier! Today Angela went to her weekly OB appointment. The doctor wanted to schedule the amnio (to check on lung maturity) and C-section on the same day, which was fine with Jan & Angela until the OB mentioned the day she wanted to schedule it for: right after the 4th of July! We managed to negotiate for early the following week, but Aaaaaaaccck! Angela is not ready.
Yay! Our kitchen remodel progresses. Yesterday all our new appliances arrived. We now have a working sink, complete with its new, pull-out and spray water all over the place faucet (the hose is long enough to spray outside the sink, which is concerning considering the small children factor). Our dishwasher works again. Our newer, bigger fridge is hooked up. And our cooking range came too! We can’t wait for it to be hooked up today!
Anyone want our old frig?
This afternoon Anya tried Scotch-taping Matchbox cars to the bottoms of her feet to see if she could skate around on them.
Our friend Vicki Pettiross came over this afternoon to give Angela a pedicure (since she can’t reach her toes!) Anya and Liya wanted their nails done too, so Jan helped out with the pedicures. Many thanks to Vicki for her help!
The big light well between the 1st and 2nd floors of our house ends up as the focus for many impromptu projects. Today the girls were at the park just as an event was ending, and they scored a couple of giant balloons. We added a little basket to one balloon to create a “Balloon Elevator” that could ferry things through the light well. Here Anya gives Liya’s black cat Jiji a ride.
On a trip to the nearby Japanese Garden this afternoon, the girls had great fun leaping back and forth over a small stream.
Cozi’s offices are just down the street from Safeco Field. Today the company took the afternoon off to watch the Seattle Mariners play the Boston Red Sox. Jan had to leave in the 4th inning to go with Angela to her OB appointment, but he did see Seattle get their first run. Seattle eventually won, 2-1.
We went to Snoqualmie Falls. It had been far too long since a trip to Cascades, so Jan and Lyn took Anya and Liya on the short drive up to Snoqualmie. Anya cried the whole way there because Mommy couldn’t come, but snapped out of it when she saw the falls. (It’s been several years since she was last there.) The girls did a great job hiking down to the observation deck near the base of the falls. We stopped along the way to look for two different letterboxes, but came up empty handed both times. (Any clue that refers to something like a “rotting log” or a “stump” in a forest is pretty darn hard to interpret.) We had a nice lunch at the Salish Lodge before heading back.