Author Archives: cabinfever12

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Happy New Year!

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So, I have a little less than a month before my ultrasound. Still don’t know if it’s a boy or girl. I read that someone did a study to find out the sex by determining certain factors in the ultrasound. I don’t know much about medicine or science, so I don’t know for sure what the study actually encompasses, but it showed that a certain ultrasound technician (they used the same one throughout the study) could predict sex with ninety-something percent accuracy at 12 weeks or less. The difference was in the amniotic sac, or umbilical cord, or something. If whatever was to the left of the baby, it was a girl. If something or other were on the right of the baby, it was a boy. I had an ultrasound at around 12 weeks. My situation is so different than all my other pregnancies, I can’t know anything for sure. I’ve given up trying to figure it out, but when I looked at my ultrasound, I thought it looked like they baby was to the right of the uterine wall. That really tells me nothing, but I’ve had other things that make me hopeful for a girl. There have been no male children born in our family since 2005. When we first became reproductive (myself and 3 siblings), everyone had girls. Then I had the first boy and everyone had a boy for the next 7 children. Six girls have been born since then. Two of them are grandchildren, so I don’t know if that counts, and one of my brothers has a hard time finding faithful partners, so none of his may count at all. Of course, I started the boy trend, so I might be the start of the next wave. Maybe I can eek out the last female before we revert back to males. Of course, our father was the oldest living child of three males in his family (four total, all male) and my mother was the youngest child of four with three half-brothers. All of my children survived infancy, so I statistically resemble my mother’s family. She is also quite a bit younger than her brothers, but she has a different father. My mother had two girls and two boys. My sister had two girls and two boys. My brother may have three daughters, or none. My youngest brother has two boys (one from a previous marriage) and three daughters (one set of twins). Obviously, I resemble none of them. If anything, my family has a slight statistical leaning toward a grouping of three and a single opposite sex child. Unfortunately, only myself, my mother, and my paternal grandmother have the same father for all children. Everyone else has at least two partners in reproduction.

I have 22 days until my ultrasound. Until then I have no way of knowing if I should buy/register for girly stuff or boy stuff. Three more weeks of searching for gender neutral items. If I don’t get a definite answer one way or the other on February 1, I am going to be the most frightening person to live with. Who wants to pick out two names? How can I stock up for a baby when everything is either football and trucks or hearts and bows? Even diapers are assigned by gender. Actually, I am using cloth diapers, so only the covers are patterned. Cloth diapers and breastfeeding. I will have an all-white bassinet. My nursery is a    woodland mountain scene with woodland creatures and the colors are spring green (for the aspen trees in May), a chocolate brown (trees and mountains), and white (again, aspens, and the mountains still have snow caps in May. Everything else must wait.Image

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May Flowers

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I cried at the end of Megamind months before I started getting morning sickness. It’s not my fault, he was always trying to be loved, but he just had the wrong influences. Anyway, it gives me pause to wonder how ridiculous I will be in the coming months with hormones askew. I guess I have another 4 weeks of nausea, then a nice break for 4 weeks before the party begins. I will leave the funny anecdotes of my children’s quickening for the fourth or fifth month.

Now I have to think of a way to let my family in on my little secret. Maybe that’s why I don’t announce like so many (my friend already told everyone and we’re due the same time): I like to enjoy my privacy while I can. When you are expecting, you are public property. Even when you are minutes from having your insides squeezed out of the most ridiculously under-sized opening imaginable, you are not allowed to be modest. My doctor asked me if some students could come in and observe. I figured, “why not?” I’d already had two shifts of nurses and another doctor up there, my body was not my own by a long shot.Having a midwife for the third one made it much more private, at least. I wish I weren’t going to be considered high risk so I could have one again.

I am much older than I was the last time I took this trip. I am not in the best shape I could be. I have not been trying not to get pregnant for awhile, but I was trying to get into shape and hoped I would be further along than I am. That makes it a little scary, but I guess it’s always a little scary. I was kind of hoping for a girl this time, but I don’t think I managed it. I heard that girls make you sicker and give you bigger breasts. I’ve never been one for nausea and bigger than nothing would at least be something. Unfortunately, I don’t see any difference in either realm. I’m now hoping that was all hogwash. I was leaning toward a girl because I don’t have one and I feel a little under-represented in this wilderness. My husband, my three boys, two dogs–all male. It’s just me and the cat. One more girl wouldn’t really even the odds, but it’d be a start. I guess I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl, anyway. I never was much for makeup and gossip. I can’t stand high heels or romance novels. I only see chick flicks when I’m with my sister. Not to say that I would fit in at a rodeo or construction site. I do get a little thrill out of doing something physical that I couldn’t do before, but I hate to sweat. I guess I always thought I was too logical to be girly. Still, if I managed to make it through my childhood without turning into a tomboy or a princess, I guess I can raise a daughter the same way. Of course, with 3 big brothers, she’s going to know how to throw a ball! She will also have no trouble keeping the boys away. Little girl, are you in there? I will have to clear my mind of all this until the ultrasound, but I wish, I wish, I wish…You know this blog will disappear in the event this is a boy, because I would not for a minute want my child to feel unwanted in any way. I love my boys and I’m stronger because of them. I will have no problem loving another boy. Still, the cat does a lousy job of arguing for a Jennifer Garner movie over Clive Owen (like I blame her!) so I’d like one vote on my side.

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It’s Spring!

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I thought there were a lot of animals running around when we moved here in February, but now that it’s spring it’s like Noah’s Ark! We had a herd of mule deer traveling through our yard yesterday morning. There were at least 7 does when I drove up and I was told that was the last of a larger group. They don’t even seem to care that we’re within feet of them. I talked to one and she just looked at me as if she were listening to me, then she just walked away like I was just another tree in the woods.

We had a little bit of snow again last week and when I opened the door to the back deck there were these tiny tracks in the snow all over the deck. They were in the pattern of a rabbit–all four together rather than in a line–but one set was distinct enough to see the tiny digits. It was shaped almost like tiny hands. I know that squirrels and raccoons have similar prints, so I perused the web for images of prints similar to what I had seen to find out who my visitor was. It was all fascinating, but I couldn’t connect the impressions with the patterns. Whoever it was will likely be back, we seem to have plenty of things around that entice curious creatures.

On the subject of squirrels, I am enchanted with the little black ones we have here. I studied the Colorado wildlife website briefly when we first moved here. I enjoy learning and wanted to know whose space we were sharing. There are so many different kinds of squirrels here, I was overwhelmed. I am used to red squirrels, and maybe some gray squirrels. These squirrels are found in trees and most likely will be scolding you with an acorn between their paws. Here there are many varieties of ground squirrel.I didn’t know there were squirrels who preferred the ground. I’m wondering how I will know when I’m looking at a squirrel and when I am looking at a chipmunk. Whoever is playing in view of my front window is not interested in climbing trees, but quite enjoys the fallen kind! They are so frisky, I understand why Walt Disney made so many cartoons featuring a pair of chipmunks. They are quite entertaining.

My Mr. Fox hasn’t been very friendly, lately. The last I saw him, he was marking his scent on a small fir near the top of the southeastern slope. That was weeks ago. The majority of the activity around here includes the little chickadees. I put a feeder out about three weeks ago. These are mostly mountain chickadees, with their slightly more distinctive designs. About mid-morning there are so many of them, you can’t help but compare them to a swarm of bees. They love to chatter and flit about from feeder to tree to ground to feeder. They will share a tree, briefly, but they will not share the feeder. It is almost like a dance, the way they hop from one post to another, looking for their favorite treat. I have a favorite. He (I call him “he” because male birds are often flashier than females) is such a lovely blue/grey. Normally, they are mostly grey, with some white and black on their heads, but his body is a steel grey that is almost blue. It reminds me more of the color of the surrounding mountains (although our particular mountain is mostly red) than the other birds.

Finally, our newest find: steller jays. They are beautiful shades of black and blue. They love to announce themselves when they visit our back deck around 10:00 every morning. I have identified two that I believe are male and a female (which may be why they are so vocal), or another type of smaller  blue jay. Jays have a bad reputation, so I am ambiguous over their arrival, but they are so large and flashy they make an interesting contrast to my little chickadees.

Of course, our favorite guest was the beautiful red-tailed hawk that followed us home. I have heard that we could have eagles nearby, but so far, our hawk is the most distinctive predator to introduce itself–aside from the elusive Mr. Fox. We have heard tales of bear activity on our property and neighboring land. I would love to see a mother and cubs from afar, but my trepidation over a close encounter made me anxious about setting up my hummingbird feeder. It’s a beautiful feeder, and I couldn’t wait to put it out to entice the tiny birds, but two different neighbors’ anecdotes about the bears enjoying their hummingbird feeders made me wary. I am not of a mind to put out bear feeders.

We have heard wild turkeys, but haven’t seen them. There has been evidence of coyotes and bighorn sheep left behind recently, but we have yet to manage to catch them on our property. I can hear the woodpeckers not far from the cabin, but have yet to catch sight of them. Some kind of prairie dog ran out in front of my car (safely) just before I rounded the bend to my home, which surprised me, since I thought they were more fond of prairies. That is the breadth and width of my wildlife experience at home. Since it has only been spring for less than a week, I am sure there will be new visitors to our cabin in the woods.

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Starting Fresh

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This is something new for all of us. I grew up in the country, but I was surrounded by cornfields not mountains. My children have lived in the city all their lives. My husband has mostly lived in the city, with an exception of two years when he lived on a farm in Plattsburgh, Missouri. I remember how much fun it was to explore when I was a kid and felt like I was somehow harming my own children by not allowing them the same benefits I received from the great outdoors. My children are all boys and I was a bookworm, so I felt doubly sure that this was the perfect setting for their own childhood. They live in a time where imagination is something akin to mental illness, not something you use to entertain yourself. I don’t want them to think that entertainment can only come on a disc that you insert into a machine to display on a television set. I have spent two weeks at this cabin with my family so far, and I have only heard “I’m bored” once. We have seen herds of bighorn sheep and mule deer. We have found a red fox relaxing a few feet from our back deck and signs of some kind of burrowing animal. We have followed the tracks of a rabbit and some kind of small dog (maybe the fox?). We have made discoveries together as a family, and that is worth all the inconvenience of living miles from town. We are weeks away from spring, so I can only imagine the discoveries will increase as the days go by.