Baby Blog

Hello again! First, let me apologize for the long hiatus between our last posting and this one. It's been an amazing (and amazingly busy) year and I'm sorry I haven't updated the blog sooner. I will sincerely try to make more frequent posts in our blog here, especially as we update the site with more items, and update the brick and mortar store this coming year.

To pick up where we left off, the birth of our daughter. We've contemplated posting the whole, detailed story but figured the blog of our plant store may not be the place. If anyone is genuinely interested e-mail us and we can send it to you.

Friday, November 29, 2013; Jenelle woke up at 5:15 somewhat sure her water had broke. We hung out at home for for a couple hours as there was no contractions and Jenelle was very comfortable. We checked in to Providence Portland Medical Center (where I work as well) at 8:01am. We talked to nurse about our Hypnobirthing plans based on the classes we took and we where happy to find out she was familiar and comfortable with it. At about 9am Jenelle's contractions (or "surges" as they are referred to in Hypnobirthing) became more intense and at 9:45 we went into the jacuzzi tub down the hall. At 10:41am we snuck Kaya out in the tub. I say "snuck" because Providence Portland Medical Center is one of the only Portland area hospitals that still doesn't allow water births. We caused quite the commotion among the nurses in the department but the birth was quick, smooth and easy. I couldn't be more proud of Jenelle. No epidural, not even so much as an IV and she was strong and focused the whole time.

Here we are almost a year later and we could not be happier. Kaya is such a happy, mellow inquisitive little squirt and although it sounds cliche, she is changing every day.

 Kaya is not the only baby in our house right now. Many of the animals that we work with here at home have had a fruitful year as well.

I was surprised to look in on my gecko tank one morning to find this little guy. I had been keeping the pair for about 4 months prior and hadn't seen any eggs so when I saw him it made my day. It's a type of day gecko called Phelsuma nigristriata originally found on the Comoros islands near Madagascar.

Phyllocrania paradoxa, or ghost mantis. A mother above and a baby below. This was my first shot at working with these guys and I just had one of several egg cases hatch. While these tend to do better communally then other mantids I did loose two of the five I started with due to cannabilism during mating efforts.

This summer several of our poison dart frog pairs also reproduced. We currently have tadpoles and froglets from blue and black Dendrobates auratus and several morphs of Dendrobates tinctorius.