Team Hansen

Konichiwa B*tches!

Guess what I haven’t done in a while? Post something!

How is everyone doing? Me, I’m doing great. You see, Leah spent her first night in her crib in her own room almost 3 months to the day after she was born. Why 3 months? It took us that long to

Clear out the spare bedroom and prep it for a nursery (ongoing task prior to birth);
Find black mold in the corner of the room (week or two before Leah was born);
File a homeowners claim to get it fixed (week before Leah was born);
Have State Farm deny the claim because they are a bunch of shitheads (a full month later);
Get SERVPRO on site to do the mold remdiation (a week after the claim was denied);
Have SERVPRO reschedule on you at the last minute because they are run by a bunch of impotent scheduling defective midgets (add another 4 days);
Watch as SERVPRO ignores my requests to actually fix anything and charge me $3000 to destroy the room (but hey, they got the mold and took 4 lazy ass days to do it);
Bitch loudly to SERVPRO, get them to reimburse me for the carpet and drywall replacement (2 days later);
Find out the carpet in the bedroom that SERVPRO destroyed is no longer made, struggle to find a suitable alternative (another 2 days);
Bitch about the hackjob SERVPRO did to the exterior of the house, arrange for a separate contractor to fix that after the fact (2 days after that);
Replace drywall and paint (2 days after SERVPRO left);
Get shittier alternative carpet installed (4 days after SERVPRO left);
And finally, reassemble the room (did it the day of the carpet install).

All in all, after State Farm dragged their ass for 3 weeks (assholes), the entire remediation and reassembly took a little over a week. During that time Valerie took David and Leah to stay with her parents while I was working from home most of the time as SERVPRO destroyed the room and left me with a mess to clean up. Four days for SERVPRO to destroy an entire bedroom, and another 4 days for me to drywall, paint, find/purchase/install replacement carpet and reassemble the bedroom.

AKA, it was a giant freaking nightmare.

You might think it’s cool to be a bachelor for a week in your own home, but there is only so much macaroni and cheese and ramen you can down before you get freaking bored and miss your family fiercely. That plus the work to be done around the house, yeah it was pretty dismal.

So after allowing the new carpet smell to fade a little bit, it’s finally time to put her in her own crib. She has been sleeping in a little bassinet/sleeper thingy in our bedroom since she’s been born, and thankfully sleeps pretty well, and last night she slept like a baby in her crib! Sweet!

Lest you think this was the extent of our trials and tribulations, while all of this was going on, our A/C unit shit the bed and had to be replaced (the compressor bit the dust and our unit used R22 refrigerant which is banned), so that was another hefty $3000 tag. In addition, during a routine doctor checkup during this time frame the doc recommended that David visit a speech pathologist to get his speech and hearing checked (as he’s a bit difficult to understand when he talks). Yeah, those visits aren’t covered by health insurance (thanks insurance companies, you all fucking suck). Thankfully the followup visits can be done at a local elementary school for free, but the initial assessments will still have to be paid at full price, usually over a grand total.

But hey, on the bright side, in 8 more days I’ll be sitting on a beach for the first time this year! OHMYGODICANTWAIT……

I’ll be sure to post pictures when we are there. Either to Google+, Facebook, Twitter or Myspace. (LOL MYSPACE JUST KIDDING)

9 months ago 7 notes View comments

Full house

Its been a crazy week.

On Tuesday May 24th, the day after Valerie’s birthday, we celebrated the birth of our 2nd child and first daughter Leah Victoria Hansen at 10:22 AM EDT at Northside Hospital Atlanta. She weighed 7lbs 6oz, was 19.5 inches long, and was born with no complications during a scheduled Caesarean section. She was in her 39th week of gestation when she was born, and thankfully she was healthy and everything went well.

The docs did notice a bit of newborn jaundice the next day after birth, which was caused by a case of Hemolytic disease (resulting from a mismatch of Valerie’s O+ blood type and Leah’s A+ blood, which came from me) and had to spend a couple of days under a Bili light (a blue light therapy that breaks down excess bilirubin in the blood for extraction via urine and feces). So we didn’t get to hold her that much those first few days because she had to spend all of her spare time in her little “space boat” bed that washed her in blue light. A little frustrating but she’s bounced back nicely from that and we were able to take her home on Friday.

Since we’ve been home she’s been a complete dream baby to take care of (knock on wood). At first, the jaundice in the hospital caused her to be quite lethargic and she would often fall asleep while feeding, which was a bit of an annoyance for Valerie. Now that she’s mostly kicked the jaundice, she’s still an extremely easygoing and sleepy (and poopy) baby so far. Heck, she’s got us questioning whether or not David was like this when he was an infant. Speaking of the older brother, he’s been doing some adjusting of his own. You’d think that bringing a newborn home would be a huge shift in the household workload, but Leah’s been so docile and calm that she’s making David look like a whirlwind in comparison. No joke, we spend more time dealing with David than Leah, and he’s three! I never considered it before, but there is a lot that goes into raising and teaching and caring for a 3 year old that you just don’t have to worry about with a newborn (repeating swear words is one of them)!

So with that being said, here’s a link to the online photo album I’ve posted of her. In it you can see her space boat thingy, and I’ll be posting up a video as well. She doesn’t do much, but she sure is cute. Heck she’s got us wondering when we’ll go for number 3!

1 year ago View comments

Finally?

This early fall-like weather (can you say 73 degrees outside!) surely cannot last (high today of 88), but it is pleasant to think that it might. It’s so nice I feel like doing stuff outside, and that is a weird feeling to have. Should I finish the gate I’ve been putting off? Reorganize the shed? Take David to the playground? So many choices…

1 year ago View comments

Where It’s At

David is awesome, but it’s not like I needed to tell you that. There was a lot of discussion from friends and family and coworkers, not to mention all the books, websites, and anecdotal assumptions that once your child hits 2, that’s when it gets bad. The “Terrible Twos.” I remember books describing how the child would grow frustrated at trying to communicate and failing, resorting to wild tantrums and wailing, flailing and gnashing of teeth.

David is 3 months past 2 years and has been nothing but awesome so far. In fact, as Valerie and I discussed it yesterday, it feels like he’s making leaps and bounds in his cognitive abilities and his penchant for remembering things and communicating with us. He’s very expressive and will tell us what he wants, or if he sees something he recognizes. He spells out words and strings of numbers, he can count through 10 easily (he stumbles getting to twenty though), and it feels like every week he finds something new to impress us with. Some favorites of his:

“Daddy/Mommy gotta go work.”
“I got go work and make more money.”
“How about this Daddy/Mommy?”
“Daddy/Mommy get up.”
“Daddy/Mommy lets go outside.”
“I put on my sandals.”
and his favorite: “That IS big truck.”

He can pretty much point out everything in a supermarket, from raisins to macaroni and cheese to pizza to yogurt to pineapple. He knows his colors, shapes, and most establishments that run commercials. Heck, yesterday he mimicked paying a bill by reaching his hand down the back of his diaper and pulling out a “wallet” and paying us.

I try not to drown everyone in information on my child, but the kid is too awesome not to spend some time sharing what he’s accomplished with everyone. Ok, enough doting father pride, you can continue with your regularly scheduled internet browsing everyone.

2 years ago View comments

i hate being sick

I feel terrible, and it’s not just because of the cold I caught, but because David has already come down with it and I fear Valerie is next in line. The last few days have been all congestion & snot & runny noses and it’s even worse with David, because he doesn’t quite know how to handle it and he winds up getting frustrated with his inability to breathe. He was a sad mess last night as the congestion kept waking him from his slumber and he’d start crying because he couldn’t breathe properly. It’s not like there was any medicine other than Children’s Tylenol that we could give him to help clear it up, he’s been such a remarkably healthy child that our stores of common cold remedies appears to be woefully inadequate something as simple as the common cold. I would also mention it doubly sucks as this is the first time all winter that I’ve come down with something. I’ve been remarkably germ-resistant the entire fall/winter/spring season and now, innocuously I have come down with my first cold in I-can’t-remember when. Frustrating.

2 years ago View comments

Konichiwa B*tches!

Guess what I haven’t done in a while? Post something!

How is everyone doing? Me, I’m doing great. You see, Leah spent her first night in her crib in her own room almost 3 months to the day after she was born. Why 3 months? It took us that long to

Clear out the spare bedroom and prep it for a nursery (ongoing task prior to birth);
Find black mold in the corner of the room (week or two before Leah was born);
File a homeowners claim to get it fixed (week before Leah was born);
Have State Farm deny the claim because they are a bunch of shitheads (a full month later);
Get SERVPRO on site to do the mold remdiation (a week after the claim was denied);
Have SERVPRO reschedule on you at the last minute because they are run by a bunch of impotent scheduling defective midgets (add another 4 days);
Watch as SERVPRO ignores my requests to actually fix anything and charge me $3000 to destroy the room (but hey, they got the mold and took 4 lazy ass days to do it);
Bitch loudly to SERVPRO, get them to reimburse me for the carpet and drywall replacement (2 days later);
Find out the carpet in the bedroom that SERVPRO destroyed is no longer made, struggle to find a suitable alternative (another 2 days);
Bitch about the hackjob SERVPRO did to the exterior of the house, arrange for a separate contractor to fix that after the fact (2 days after that);
Replace drywall and paint (2 days after SERVPRO left);
Get shittier alternative carpet installed (4 days after SERVPRO left);
And finally, reassemble the room (did it the day of the carpet install).