Where to begin....

So, it seems that I was wrong about being able to write more often once school was over. What with it being August now and this being the first post. I suppose that it's because we've been very busy monkeys around here this summer. Where shall I begin?

I'll start with the fun news. Step-monkey lost her first tooth on June 15th and it was awesome! She was really nervous about it hurting when it came out, but of course, when her dad actually coaxed it out of her gums she didn't even notice. I was glad that the first one fell out at our place and not her mother's. Selfish, I know, but as luck would have it, there were two loose teeth and the second one fell out the next weekend at her mom's.

It's just such a rite of passage in my mind, the losing of baby teeth. And of course, she looks hilarious with a big gap in the middle of her mouth. I suspect that subsequent growing up changes won't be nearly as cute.

On a much less pleasant note, I learned via some standard pregnancy type tests that I had an infection for which I had to take antibiotics. They were mild and short in duration, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to be doing during my pregnancy. All the while I was fighting off the longest cold in human history. I caught a cold during the last month of my first trimester and I managed to hang on to it for more than five weeks!!!

Now I don't know about the rest of the world, but I've never had a cold last much longer than two weeks or so. I think I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, since I was just getting over the morning sickness/nausea. However, there was an upside to the illness. While it's true that I could not breathe, smell or taste anything, a happy side-effect was that I could go into not just my kitchen, but the refrigerator without gagging! Oh happy days! It was nice to be able to cook and eat again, although it was with a little less joy than usual. You just don't realize how closely connected the ability to smell is to the ability to taste until you lose it.

Sadly, I was not the only one suffering during this time. My poor hubby got bitten by some cruel insect and the bite got infected. Instead of picking strawberries at the farm with his wife and daughter, he spent the better part of 3 hours in the emergency at North York General with an I.V. dripping antibiotics into his arm. Worse yet, he had to keep it there for a week. Did you know that nurses will come to your house everyday to change your I.V. bag? Well they did, and then he had to finish out a round of oral antibiotics which ended the day before he went in to have all four of his wisdom teeth removed. Talk about a rough couple of weeks. In all honesty, I felt so bad for him that my difficulties didn't really register on the radar. Poor guy.

Touch wood, all of that seems to be over with now and we were able to spend a great weeks vacation with step-monkey this past week. It's funny how easy it is to get used to having her here every day. We were able to take her with us to the 18 week ultrasound appointment where she could see the baby, hear it's heartbeat and learn that it is going to be her little sister. She was very excited and pleased to learn that it would be a girl as she had hoped.

Now, if we can just get the house ready for this new little monkey, that will really be something to get excited about!