'discovered' forest fire

In Alaska, there are forest fires. This makes sense, Alaska has a lot of forest. What is harder to understand, is that sometimes the forest fire is very large (by the standards established in my mind from other states) before it is found.

Don't believe me? Read it for yourself in our local paper.


This is what we saw from our campsite looking up at just after midnight o'clock. Blue sky. 22 days AFTER the summer solstice. This is 10 minutes after the official sunset of 12:01. Oh, Alaska, how I love you (so far).

Camping was mostly good, though the mosquitoes REALLY like my preggo blood. Mirus was standing behind me trying to wipe them all off my back and butt even after we used copious amounts of bug spray. I wasn't thrilled about using the bug spray to begin with because I've been trying to avoid weird chemicals while I'm building the baby. We ended up leaving a night early. We tried camping, we tried hiking, the bugs were just way too bad, so we threw in the towel, ran up the white flag, and came home to play video games and sleep.

Another prenatal appt. today. Still measuring just where she should be, and everything still looks perfect. Walking is not a recommended exercise right now because the wildfires have decreased the air quality so much (apparently the smoke has no where else to go) so I'm going to keep on the hunt for a giant swimsuit. I suppose that sentance make it sound like I've really been looking, when I've really only been looking while it's convenient. Anyway. Nanook had a great sleeping heart rate of about 130ish, then it climbed up to the 140's when we started papating and measuring and doing all that stuff. She generally prefers to be left alone, but we generally prefer to check on her. Today, we won.

Still loving the midwives and birth center so, so much. I'm so glad to be there and not with an OB. I love their approach, and I love feeling like I'm participating in this instead of receiving care. They know me, they know my husband, they know our baby. They know our norms, they check in on us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Having a baby is not simply a high-risk medical endevour, it's a normal, huge, life changing event that lasts (seemingly) forever. Pregnancy is just so different from any other health-related issue I've ever experienced, so it's nice to get a different kind of care. And to be welcomed as important in the process and not secondary to the OB. Our birthing class is this Saturday, and we're pretty psyched. Gotta learn how to evict this squatter! The womb-gnome has got to go! Well, not just yet, but soon.

I have discovered that I have a HUGE list of books I want to buy for Nanook. Now I am trying to figure out a way to get other people to buy them for her (us, me, whatever). We've already had our shower, now I'm just being greedy. But my dear husband might 'shit a brick' (to use the parlance of our times) if I buy all the books I want. There are, um, several. dozen. What do you expect? I grow up with an amazing woman who read to me ALL THE TIME, and then I worked as a literacy tutor in an elementary school. I have a LOT of favorite children's books. And the one piece of furniture I felt compelled to buy for Nanook was a bookshelf. I really wasn't sure that a crib was as necessary as a bookshelf.

I found the bookshelf that I want too. Once we move in to the new place and get set up I'm definitely buying it. It isn't exactly 'high end' so I'll just buy it new and pay the grand total of $40. I have a few cubes to use for it, but I might buy a couple more if we need them. I can't wait to surround her with books. She's probably going to be a kid that hates to sit still and read, but I guess she'll have to learn to deal at least once in a while. I'll play outside and get rowdy if she reads with me, we'll trade minute for minute if we have to.

On that note, I think I'll go to the thrift store and check for books!

This is it people.

There's always something strange at Pioneer Park:


Today's the day it all becomes real. We are buying a car seat.

I'm not really sure why that's what seals the deal, but when I bring home the car seat, I'll be officially doing this. Having a baby. Scary. I have the crib, I have some clothes, I have a swing and a little chair for her, and bath stuff, and blankets. Today I'll buy the car seat and a stroller. Then, all we have to get are diapers and we're ready. Really ready. We still have lots of stuff that we'd like, but nothing important. Nothing necessary.

It's all so crazy. She moves hard and fast and strong all the time now, and actually keeps me awake quite often with it. I'm growing big and fast and starting to worry that I'm gaining too much weight, but she just doesn't seem to have anywhere else to grow. I have a short torso so with every bit of growth she pushes outward. Maybe I'll stop weighing myself. I don't think I want to know anymore. And if the midwives don't care, I don't care.

I still can't believe how easy it was for us to decide on this church, but we love it. We're going to try and sit down with the pastor this week to talk about baptism and communion, just to be sure we're on the same pages in our theology. I really don't want to get all hooked into a church, fall in love with the people, and then find out there's some crazy belief we didn't know about or something weird like that. So we'll sit down and cover the bases where we have opinions, make sure that everything's on the up and up, then we can jump in.

I really love sitting quietly in the apartment by myself, just thinking. Just working on stuff, just enjoying life.

Our Crib!

So my in-laws bought us a crib and mattress for our baby shower. The plan was to wait until we got settled in Fairbanks, then buy the crib and have it shipped to the store up here, which Wal-Mart supposedly does for free. Except that they're mean, and don't offer that service to Alaska, which we only found out once we got up here. Shipping the crib that my family had picked would cost $180.

So my family offered to just send the money, and we would pick something up locally. Wal-Mart had three models in stock, all made of particle board. I was a little nervous that once Nanook got bigger and started pulling herself up, she would shake the rails (as babies do) and shake the screws right out of that cheap particle board.

By chance Mirus and I noticed a baby store that was small, and was only open a few hours per day. When I stopped in, they had the most BEAUTIFUL cribs! And only one was under $450 dollars (including shipping). It seemed a little silly to spend nearly twice the amount of money on a crib as we had spent furnishing our entire apartment in Denver.

Since we'd been up here I have been checking Craigslist everyday, just looking at all the baby stuff, and hadn't seen any furniture for any sort of reasonable price. Then yesterday, I saw this! It's perfect! It's the right color to match the silly little shelves we'd gotten in Denver for the baby's room/space, it's a style I like, and it converts to a toddler bed, day bed, then twin bed. The changer/dresser even turns into a night stand when you don't need the changer anymore.



This is our beautiful crib. Sorry it's backlit, once we move to our new place I'll take better pictures with all the sheets and blankets and pretty things. We weren't going to keep the mattress, but then we realized that all baby mattresses are plastic. We could just wipe it down with a good disinfectant or cleanser and it would be as a good as new.


The changer has a little pad that came with it, but it's pretty flimsy. I'll just get some foam at the craft store and make a slipcover to go over it. I'm pretty sure I can stitch a plastic cover to go right over the foam and have something with a little more substance that's still easy to wipe down.


I could put shelves in here, but I think I'll use the space for a hamper instead. There's gonna be a lot of dirty diapers to go into the wash!

There's even a full drawer that goes under the crib. I haven't put it together yet, but I think it'll be a nice place to store all the beautiful blankets Nanook has accumulated. The only downside is that we can't sidecar the crib like we had hoped. Well, we could, but we couldn't use the drawer and the changer as well. I suppose we could sidecar it without using those things for a while, and when she's sleeping through the night we could set it up on against the wall opposite our bed.

We hadn't really come up with a plan for co-sleeping. We know we want to for a while, but we aren't interested in co-sleeping for years, but we want to make sure Nanook gets what she needs as well. We had planned on sort of just playing it by ear. I'm not sure that only co-sleeping until she sleeps through the night would be long enough. Even if she's still in the room, she's not with us. But this crib is too beautiful to go unused for long!

It feels so, so good to have the crib and changer. Like this is really happening!