Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that 2008 brings you wonderful things.

It's been one busy month in the life of our family, and it's time to try and do a speedy catch-up!

First things first, we went to the allergist for Sophie to 'try milk' (as she told everyone all week). The night before she was up for 3 hours with a 101 degree fever. ARRGGG. We decided to go anyway (mistake number one) and the allergist was hesitant to do the test with her being sick (still had a 101 fever) But then she said that if she had a reaction we could just retest (what's the harm in that we thought?).

The first step was to do a skin test on her back (no reaction..yay!). Then they put some milk on her tongue (no reaction...yay!). Wait 20 minutes. Then they gave her 1 ml. in a syringe (no reaction..yay!) Wait 20 minutes. Then 2.5 mls (no reaction...yay!). Wait 20 minutes. Then I noticed two pin-head sized hives on her tummy. ARRGGG! They stopped the test. They gave her benedryl and brought in a heart monitor. Tested her blood pressure and heart rate every five minutes (a bit over the top I felt, but hey, I guess they have some really allergic little people in their offices). When we talked about retesting she said we'll have to wait for 6 months!! I couldn't believe it. We had assumed 2 weeks. If we had known that we would definitely have waited until she was healthy. I know that when I'm sick I still get hives sometimes from certain foods (like orange juice). We were impatient and had already had to wait so long. Oh well. Brett had to wait there for another 2 hours to make sure she didn't have another reaction-but she was fine. Thank goodness we brought the portable DVD player. That's the only bummer report from the holidays. On the up side I feel quite positive that the next test will be okay. Patience is a virtue!!!

The next day we headed home to our families for Christmas. We brought our hospital bag and car seat (just in case!) and my sister lined up her old midwife in the event that little junior decided to come. Luckily s/he waited. I was pretty darn exhausted the entire 5 days. I wasn't sleeping all that well, Soph and I now had colds, and I was feeling a tad on the anti-social (read extremely pregnant) side.

We came home on the 27th. We had a home visit from our midwife. It made the birth seem really CLOSE! It was exciting. She said that my blood pressure was a little on the high side, and wanted me to slow down and get rested up. That night I drove to see some camp friends for a nice visit :)

The next day Brett's brother, sis in law and daughter from Winnipeg came to stay with us for four days. The girls had a wonderful time together. Sophie was over the moon with her cousin. She was so incredibly happy the entire time. We had another busy four days, with a special 30th b-day for Brett's sister and a trip to see Sophie's G.G. (great-grandma).

When the gang left on New Year's Eve Brett and I flopped. We realized that we needed to get some serious rest and down time in the next two weeks. Brett and I were both exhausted. We were supposed to go out for New Year's Eve with friends and we cancelled and watched a movie and flopped in bed at 10:30 (didn't even make the ball dropping this year!).

We have spent the last two days around the house. Putting down the tree, getting baby things ready (hospital bags packed, etc.). We got lots done, but we've also been moving slowly, and relaxing lots as well. We have the next two weeks (hopefully!) to just have lots of quiet days of running small errands and napping. It feels SOOOO good. We are already so much more rested.

So, I am now 38 weeks!! Two more weeks until our due date. I feel no rumblings yet, and are hoping that our little munka waits until our due date (on my Mom-Mom's birthday would be the best!!). But whenever the time is right, we will be anxiously awaiting meeting our new little critter.