The iPad 2

I'm sure every household has one of these - a jar for collecting loose change.

Prior to my marriage, I never really put much thought into my loose change, and would try and pay for things when my coin purse got too full. I had a piggy bank that I decided my loonies and twoonies would be saved there, and a Tupperware container in the kitchen for quarters (thanks to my apartment-dwellers laundry requirements).

So when I got married, it was a bit of a surprise to me to see this massive jar of coin in what was to be my new bedroom. Mark eventually spent several nights rolling it, and then proceeded to instruct me of the benefits of saving loose coin.

We were given a beautiful vase as a wedding gift from one of the little old ladies at church that was made by another lady in our church who does gorgeous pottery work. This vase was not water-proof, and my new husband, who had previously lived in the a-typical bachelor mansion, had a hard time understanding why things like this would be pretty decorations - until he started chucking his coin into it.

So there it sits on our dresser, I love the colour of it as well as the style of the piece. It reminds me of this lovely lady who has passed on, as well as the friendships we've developed with the lady that made the vase. And it works as a perfect coin collector! When it gets full, Mark carries it to the basement to empty it into his original massive jug and then returns it to its place of honor on our dresser. We have a similar piece of pottery (made by the same lady) in our kitchen, so I am now a regular contributor to the coin collection.

Preparing for our second baby's arrival that was expected for March 6, 2011 (he arrived 2 weeks early), gave push for the both of us to go through the house again and do antoher "purge" of our precious junk as we made room for another resident. And so for the second time in my marriage, the Coin Jug made it's appearance and my husband spent several nights sorting, stacking and rolling coin. The grand total was quite a shocking figure and I asked Mark what we were going to blow it on ("found" money like this always buys something off our list of things we need to replace or purchase).

And then he told me he was thinking of getting an iPad - I had my opinions about the purchase, really not going one way or another. My biggest hesitation was that our 2.5 yr-old daughter is addicted to our iPod Touches and her Grandmother's iPad, which I don't particularly like for whatever reason. (though it is amusing that she can play "Angry Birds" and get better scores than Mark).

I then proceeded to go into labour and give birth, never really giving it another thought. Fast forward several weeks, the money is in the bank just waiting for that perfect purchase, and Mark says the new iPad's are getting released and he's thinking of hanging out at the mall to get one. I originally thought "yeah my husband, who thought I was crazy for getting up at 5 a.m. for Boxing Day door crasher sales, is going to stand in line for HOURS for the chance to get an iPad 2..." I was a little doubtful.

So the morning of the release arrives, he does all his research for wait times and then decides he's going to do it. Baby Will and I drop him off at the mall with his backpack full of reading material, water and snacks. We kept in touch for the afternoon via text messages and the occaisional phone call - he felt his odds were "pretty good" that he was going to be successful.

He later explained the process to me - the Apple stores received their shipment of iPad's but weren't allowed to open them until 3 p.m. so they had no idea how many they had or the specs of what was shipped to them. He said the store closed at 4 p.m. to get everything ready, and then at one point, a staff person came through the line and started handing out tickets to people - if you got a ticket that meant that you got an iPad. The last time we spoke, the ticket distributors were about 40 people ahead of Mark. As I was driving to pick up Ellie, my phone chirped with a text message "I GOT A TICKET!!"

The kids and I got to the mall and made our way to the Apple store. It was neat to see Mark near the front of the line and then when we arrived, he WAS the front of the line. Ellie did her little cheer "Hi Daddy!" which made her a favourite among the Apple staff who were pumping up the line to keep everyone revved up. We all kissed Mark and waved him off into the store to get his iPad - it was very exciting.

The following morning, this is the sight that graced my living room. At least it was paid for with our loose change!

Family Moments

Mom & Dad Ratzlaff brought Ellie to the hospital Wednesday afternoon when Will was about 36 hours old. I am not sure if she totally understood that Baby Will was here to stay, but she enjoyed meeting him and touching his face and hands.

The feelings and emotions that swirled around me are completely indescribable as I watched Ellie hold Will for the first time. It was a wonderful moment for our family.

And a Boy makes two

Willem Bruce (Will) was born on Tuesday February 22 at 1:25 in the morning. Weighing in at 8lb 4oz and 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great.

A new era - new bed and new room!

At the beginning of January, we started the process of getting Ellie's new room set up. We started with clearing out the bed Grammie and Papa Butter had used when they visited in September, then put all the Christmas decorations back in the attic. We then assembled the bassinet and Ellie was a HUGE help to Mark - he quickly learned where he can and can't put his bowl of screws!
Ellie was very excited about the "pretty" bassinet and seemed to understand that it was for the baby. When she went over and pulled herself up to peek into the cradle, she seemed quite disturbed that there was no baby actually in it yet. We went and got one of her dolls and put it in the cradle and that was a sound solution to her problem!

The next step was finishing her valance - something I made without a pattern. It was scary becuase I drew out what I wanted from my head and wasn't entirely sure if it would look as good in real life as it did in my mind! I get the feeling that my husband shakes his head when I get nervous with my sewing - until I reminded him how nervous he gets with his wood-working...it seemed to speak his language. Although I was nervous, the valance came together very quickly and I am very proud of how it looks and the little finishing touches I did to make it look professionally made that only I know about (or someone who is a better seamstress than myself).


The fun part came the day we brought Ellie's new bed up and got it all assembled. Again, she was in there like a dirty shirt climbing all over everything and being of great assistance to her Dad.


I found this bed last Spring at the awesome second hand store in our neighborhood and since it came with a mattress that was in really good shape, we snapped it up. Mark was a little unsure of the loudness of it, but I loved it - I especially loved that it was made from wood (versus plastic) and would appear to last. Ellie laughed at all the animals and talked about each one and the sounds they make. As soon as Mark brought the mattress up and put it into the bed, she climbed on and exclaimed "bed!" This was the first time we thought that it would be a fairly easy transition.

That very night, Ellie came down with the stomach flu and graciously passed it along to myself and Mark. We spent the following weekend in Radium recovering (while Ellie played at Grandpa & Grandma's), and then had a weekend at home and then finally last Friday decided it was time for the big move.

Ellie and I started moving all her clothes from one dresser to the next - which took forever because my fashionista daughter needed to try on EVERYTHING. It was fun though, and once Mark got home he started helping too and I think Ellie enjoyed it. I had made her a new quilt for her new bed, so after supper we gave it to her and then we made the bed together - she kept saying "oh wow!" over and over and then jumped and played on the bed.

The hardest part for me was when we moved the bassient into the baby's room and told her this was now the baby's room - she pulled her footstool over to the crib and tried climbing back into the crib crying "bed!" over and over. We weathered that storm fine and while I hid my tears till after she was asleep, she was very excited about her new bed.

As of this morning, she has had three successful nights and two successful naps in the new room and bed. We are very proud of her and hope that the transition is exciting and not overly stressful.

6 weeks and counting!

Today is 6 weeks until our due date, according to what the doctors say (I'm sticking with my on-line calculator thingy that said March 6th (not the 7th) was the official due date). It's hard to believe that we're in the final stretch of Baby Project#2!

So far things in preggie land have been good, aside from the normal malady's that strike a woman when she's building a baby. The big watch lately has been my blood pressure - it was an issue with my first, and likely contributed to Ellie being so small at birth (4lbs 11oz, or 2138 grams).

Since Ellie was so small, she was placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) immediately after birth. They called her a "feeder-grower" in that they just wanted to watch her closely to make sure she gained weight and grew properly. She was short (only 17" tall), so she never looked scrawny like the majority of the NICU babies did, and she soon became the favourite NICU baby to care for. They rated her size as "<<<3rd percentile" - I wondered how many "less than" signs could be put in front of a percentage to make it reduce to the next-smallest number! Though we had excellent care from our nurses and doctors, there was a lot of emotions for us to deal with because we didn't know when we were going to take her home, and thanks to the kindness of my nurses on Post-Partum, I wasn't discharged until Ellie was so we were able to go home as a family the first time.

Very early in this pregnancy, I was on the maternity floor at Rockyview Hospital and walked past the NICU and emotions surfaced from Ellie's birth that really surprised me. Who knew that two years later things would surface that could surprise you! Mark and I started praying that this baby would not be little or need to spend time in the NICU at all - I forget that sometimes when you pray, God answers you quite literally.

So at my ultrasound two weeks ago, when the doctor met with me after to review the results, I burst out laughing when he told me that this baby was rating in the 95th percentile for size. Uh, wow!! Of course I had to explain myself to this kind doctor, so since he found out that our fist baby was a miniature one, he wanted to see me again just to keep an eye on Baby's growth.

I am very thankful that we appear to be having a baby that will not need to spend time in the NICU, and am humbled again by God's sense of humor to our prayers. I guess I'll be tucking away all my preemie-sized baby clothes that I was going to have ready "just in case" we had another miniature baby!!

Christmas Spirit

The last few weeks have been difficult ones for me, as I have been navigating the often tumultuous waters called Christmas Family Drama (CFD). I’m sure many people experience this, but this year it feels like my CFD has reached new and epic levels. As I’ve stepped back and evaluated my response and past/future involvement, I have come to the conclusion that some of this is probably heightened by the fact that I’m 2 years pregnant with my second child (okay, 7 months) and the raging hormones and exhaustion do not seem to have been given a wide berth and extra care.

This drama has brought on a period of discouragement, sadness and frustration and it has been very difficult to get excited about Christmas or even wanting to participate in it. When I told my husband that I didn’t have any Christmas Spirit and he asked “what is that supposed to look like?” I guess for me, it’s the Joy of what Christ did for us – celebrating the birth of Jesus so that we could all be saved.

Then to top it all off, my husband and I had a fight – something that is rather rare at our house. As we were sat in frigid silence on separate floors, I took my Pity Party, Kit-Kat, and Pepsi to the basement bathroom for some quiet and mentally reviewed the year. I had to find out if 2010 just totally stank or if good things happened.

I started my mental review with the month of January – our daughter spent a week on the Children’s Hospital with pneumonia, taped up to oxygen tubes and monitors because she didn’t have enough oxygen in her blood stream to keep her body going at safe and healthy levels. My first reaction was “this year has been a total write-off” after just assessing the first month. However, I kept going and realized that we have been showered with many blessings. An excellent day-home for Ellie just across the back alley; finishing my Bachelor of Management degree; successfully getting pregnant with our second baby; having a wonderful first camping trip as a family; meeting new people and developing wonderful friendships as a result.....I could keep going.

My Pity Party came to an end and my husband and I had a good conversation and resolved the issues that needed to be resolved at that time. Still, I knew that I just wanted 2010 to be over and I really could care less about Christmas, even though I knew 2010 was a good year.

And then today I did something I’ve never done before. My younger sister and I delivered a bunch of Christmas presents to a family we know who’s had a rough couple of months. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life, and I’ve had this inner warmth and glow in my heart for the rest of the day. It was incredible to see the smiles and excitement on their faces as we showed up at their door with two wagons filled with thoughtful gifts from family, friends and our churches – I think Ellie even got into it as she was in one of the wagons stuffed between baking and bags of presents. I realized that THIS is what Christmas is about – sharing Christ’s love to others, not waiting for some internal feeling. I had so desired this family feel blessed and loved, and I was the one to came away feeling blessed and loved.

I am now looking forward to Christmas 2010 and pray that I will be able to continue to share Christ’s love to those around me.

Events, big and small

A week or two ago, one of my oldest girlfriends inspired me to write a blog post again. She has a blog as well and as I read it, it challenged me to get back at my blogging - if anything to get the thoughts out as they come. Inevitably, stuff happened in my week and both words and time were lacking.

Last week was not an easy week in my grown-up world. Relationships were tested and communication abilities completely dissolved, all making me ask my husband if we could sell everything and live like kings in some developing country just to get away from it all. Yes, it could be seen as the easy way out, but I was ready for anything.

I learned a few things last week though, support comes even when you don't ask for it or explain the situation to anyone. While experiencing the low-points of the week, I had opportunities to sit across the tables from amazing Christian friends and just be. None of these ladies knew what was going on, how close the tears were to the surface, or the emotional turmoil I was tamping down to just try and get through my participation in the event. It made me so thankful that I have a support network of friends that just let you "BE".

As I watched my daughter this week, I was challenged yet again to learn how to enjoy the little things. The most distressing part of her day is getting her face washed after a meal, but then when all the fuss is done and she bounds down from her high chair, something grabs her eye and she's off, laughing and giggling and running around - no hurt feelings from the infraction we just made her sit through. How I wish that a simple face washing would remain to be the thing that distresses her most in life.