Todd
The Nestor Progeny
Barefoot
JoshM
Diary of Daniel
Darksidavor
Shivery Knits

Omegix
Huntsville Pictures
In Our World
AntDawg
Geof
Kat and Sean
Jennifer
Yuseka
Fractured
Sarah D's Art
CommiePuddin

all & sundry
The Pioneer Woman
Practically Harmless
Amalah
The Bloggess
Dooce
Zero to Forty
Bounce Back
so the fish said
Her Bad Mother
Miss Zoot
Grimsaburger
Domesticat
Baghdad Burning
String Theory
APOD

Penny Arcade
xkcd
Get Fuzzy
Dilbert
Foamy the Squirrel

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When I went into labor at a little over 33 weeks, I received two doses of a steroid for fetal lung development and several different medications that stopped my labor. I spent three weeks on bed rest, on a variety of drugs. My son was born healthy at almost 37 weeks.

Micah never spent a single day in the NICU, and that is entirely due to the research and the science behind all those medications. Without them, our story would likely be very very different.

The rate of premature births is rising. One in eight babies born in America is premature. As in my case, it's usually not known what causes preterm labor. Research into life-saving treatments is good. Research into causes and prevention is even better. And both of those things take money.

Please, please take a moment to go here and donate to the March of Dimes. Your donation will help fund research into the causes of preterm labor and the treatment of complications from prematurity. Too many stories don't end as well as ours.

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Our house goes on the market on November 20th. We have a pre-con meeting for the new house tomorrow. Suddenly, this whole building/selling/moving thing is seeming just a bit more real. And scary.

(Hold me.)

The house is almost ready. We're down to nothing but painting, so Todd's mother is coming into town tomorrow to wrangle the boy while we work. This past weekend, Todd finished the new floor in our bathroom and yesterday, he installed all the trim and even put the hardware on the vanity we've had for over a year. I almost don't want to move now. I finally LIKE nearly everything in the house - I want to enjoy it, dammit!

The hope is that the house sells quickly, but not so quickly we find ourselves on the street before the new house is finished. Or it sells right away, and the buyer can lease it back to us for a while. Whatever. I hate moving, and I only want to suffer once. We'll see how that works out.

Other than getting ready to sell our house, there's the whole lawsuit thing that's going on. It's slowly ramping up, and...y'all, I don't know what to say. It's pretty uncool to know you did a good job, to have the evidence SHOW you've done a good job, but to have someone say you didn't because they want a new BMW or a trip to Disneyworld. [REST OF INCREASINGLY-BITTER PARAGRAPH REDACTED UPON FURTHER CONSIDERATION]

In other happier news, Micah took his first three steps at daycare yesterday, one day shy of 14 months. Here we go!

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That was long, dark day, but I'm glad we didn't have any takers.

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On days like this, I'm torn between sympathy for daycare teachers everywhere, and a bubbling, maniacal glee that I'm not the one who has to deal with my child melting down over the time change. Can you imagine a more stressful job than managing a bunch of cranky toddlers whose nap and eating schedules have just been blown to hell, all because some dude 90 years ago decided it would be fun to screw with the entire country twice a year? No, I'll gladly sub that experience out, kthxbai.

Halloween was a lot of fun. My sister and her family came over, so we all went out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood together. Micah's still too young to really get it, but he's old enough to wear an adorable costume and ride on his dad's shoulders. The curly monkey tail hanging down Todd's back was the best part. I took a bunch of pictures, but I don't have any of Micah perched six feet up, hanging on to his dad's hair for dear life. He had fun sitting up there, but I'm pretty sure Todd is now several degrees balder.

Saturday afternoon, we took Micah to his second hockey game to watch UAH play Bemidji State. His first one was last year, when he was still a tiny baby. He was completely freaked out by all the noise, so we skipped the rest of the season. Now that he's older, he was fascinated by it all - the pep band, the players on the ice, the cheers - at least at first. Towards the end, he veered into "hungry tired angry velociraptor" territory, and I spent the last few minutes of the game trying to keep him from furiously crawling through 20 years of accumulated spilled cola residue. Still, it was a success! His cousin Daniel had a good time too, dancing along with the pep band, repeating cheers he probably shouldn't have heard at the tender age of 4 years, and running up and down the stands. Too bad so few games are scheduled in the afternoon. A few more like that, and we'll have both kids trained up as properly bloodthirsty hockey fans. What makes the ice melt? Blood blood blood! STAB HIM WITH YOUR SKATE!

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