Waiting For Little Dude

Of course by now you all know how this turned out, so you could say this is the prequel to the arrival of Leo. I guess you have to start somewhere....

On Friday Dec 22nd we get up early, really early, about 2 am to be exact. We have a plane to Minneapolis to catch. We’re going there for Christmas, and to close on the land we are buying, and to interview contractors, and maybe to be there for the birth of our first grandchild, so far known as lil dude. This is pretty uneventful day, and we are in bed very early, as you can imagine. 

The next day we pick up Dan at airport, and do a lot of grocery shopping for Xmas eve. We are doing the cooking, since Sarah and Erik don’t know when they might have to suddenly drop everything and race to the hospital. For that same reason we are staying at a Townplace Suites which is run by Marriott. It’s got two bedrooms and a little kitchen, plenty of room for three people, plus free breakfast, and a place to wrap presents. I ran in the morning at a nearby greenbelt. Its cold but not too bad and I have the right clothes with me so I’m fine. 

The next day, Sunday Dec 24, I go for another run, this time 8 miles. Again its cold but doable. I run on the Cedar Lake Regional Trail. They actually plow the trails here so the footing is fine, even without yaktrax. I’m not the only one out by far, even though the temps are in the single digits. I love running in Minnesota! It reminds me of running in Austin, except instead of extreme heat they have extreme cold. 

For Christmas Eve we make two kinds of soup, ciopino and vegan mulligatawny. We have ham sandwiches, made with ham from our pig that we brought in a suitcase (the ham not the pig!), and fried tofu sandwiches. There’s cookies, eggnog, and little gift bags from one of Santa’s elves this year. We exchange presents between just the 7 of us. We’ve drawn  names and I get some awesome socks from Erik, a book about Minnesota, a gift card to a restaurant called Olives in Minneapolis. Lee and I also get a gift card to a restaurant from Joanne.  

Christmas Day is at Suzanne’s in the afternoon. In the morning Tom, Nicole and Harrison come to the hotel to visit. Harrison is growing so much! He’s a delightful baby. We all take turns holding him.

Suzanne serves a typical Scandinavian Christmas meal, with Swedish meatballs, rice pudding, and even herring which this Jewish girl loves! We did a white elephant gift exchange which was lots of fun. At the end Sarah, Erik and Kris opened their stockings from Santa aka Suzanne. I can’t remember exactly what was in them except toothbrushes which apparently is a tradition.

Tuesday Dec 26 is lil dude's due date, but someone forgot to tell him. I’m on the treadmill for running, since the wind chill is -23F. Lee, Daniel and I drive to Zumbrota and stay at Cathy and JA’s for a few days. All their kids and grandkids are there, including Sam and Danielle, who I haven’t seen for awhile. We spend a fun evening there working jigsaw puzzles, playing games.  They have a family tradition that involves playing Rook. It’s like spades with a few twists. 

On Wednesday Lee and I drive back into town to meet with two contractors, Andrew Nelson in the am, and Peter Reins in afternoon.  We like them both, however price is going to  be a big factor in our decision. Afterwards we stop at a Smashburger for something to eat. It’s an incredibly incompetently run joint, and the burgers were pretty disgusting. I do NOT recommend!

On Thursday I’m on the treadmill again in the Johnmeyer’s basement. The treadmill is positioned so that I can look out a window at the cold wind blowing over their fields. A cat comes down to check out what I’m doing, there’s plenty of entertainment to be had, even if I’d rather be outside. We have to go back into town (bad planning on our part). We are doing a preclosing with the idiot title company, who doesn’t seem to know what the hell they're doing which is a little scary, considering. Afterwards we are treated to lunch at a nearby restaurant by Woody the realtor. His last name is Love, so all his emails are signed Love, Woody. I guess he's used to people making jokes about this by now.

On Friday Sarah goes to see her doctor. She is progressing; 3cm dilated, 90% effaced. She goes to get some Acupuncture too, to try to hurry things a long a bit. We meet with another contractor in the morning, Dan P. There have been pluses and minuses to each of the people we have talked to. We grab some Thai food with Daniel before he goes to catch his plane. Later Sarah and I mall walk; walking should be good for making babies come.  That evening Lee and I go eat tapas at Rincoin, a very good restaurant in Uptown. We will enjoy having lots of good restaurants to choose from that are not very far away.

On Saturday there’s still no baby, so back we go to New Hampshire, in bitterly cold -14F weather. It makes 1F seem positively balmy when we land.

It seems likely that there will be a baby soon. I’m patiently waiting cause what else can you do? Very soon, certainly by the time this post is published I will be a grandmother. I wonder what the little guy will look like? I wonder what he will call me?  Do I want to be Omi? Maybe!  Mom, what do you think?

And of course now we all know how this turned out, but that is for another blog post....