Sorry it's been so long between updates again. I haven't had much time to be online in the last week. My e-mails are way behind too. Of course, with Justin's trip last week I didn't get time then, and it seems like I've been busier. I think things are picking up for a couple of weeks - with the trip last week and plans most days this week, and Aunt Becky coming to visit next week I feel like I don't have much "free time" for a while. Hopefully the first couple of weeks in July will be calmer so that I can get some down time before Dad, Helene, and Lianna come to visit.
Sam is still doing great. He's been on soy formula for a little over a week now, and it's working out really well. He's not constipated anymore, so he hasn't been very fussy at all. It also seems to make him spit up a little less - of course he still does, but it is not every time he eats, and yesterday he didn't spit up all day long! It's a little bit more expensive since we can't get it at Costco, but of course it's worth it for him to feel better! He's asleep in his swing right now after being up for 3 hours in the middle of the night last night and then again this morning for a couple of hours. Last night he slept for six hours straight, which is somewhat insane. I'm looking forward to the day when that's the norm. But, I really feel like we haven't had it too bad with his sleeping habits. There are better nights and worse nights, but for the most part we usually get in at least a couple of stretches of 3.5 to 5 hours in the night sometime. He's such a good little baby.
Justin left for Phoenix last Wednesday morning and came back on Saturday night. Wednesday I did get out of the house with Sam - we went to Tara's for lunch with Brooke, Kelly and all the kids. Then I went shopping for a little bit and found the cutest little Hawaiian shirt for Sam to wear to Phil's Luau next weekend. I'm really excited to see it on him! Sam slept really well that night, which was great since I was so nervous about being on my own for four days. On Thursday we just hung around the house and cuddled and 'played' together. At this point, playing with Sam basically consists of holding him when he's awake, talking to him, listening to him coo, and maybe shaking a rattle sometimes. It's still lots of fun for me though! Friday we went and saw "Cars" at the mommy movies with Brooke, Dave, Lorelai & Seamus. It was pretty good. Afterwards we all met up with Tara and had lunch at Ruby's in Redmond.
Friday night, Brooke and I had planned to go to the Hall & Oates concert at the Paramount. With Justin out of town, it posed a problem for me since I had to find someone to stay with Sam while I went out. I called my Mom and Kira, but they both weren't really available. Luckily for me, Renee, who I used to work with at Raising More Money, had offered to babysit for us anytime. She is super sweet and also has tons of experience and used to be a nanny. So I e-mailed her, and luckily she was available! I guess this is a milestone - at 5 weeks, Sam had his first babysitter. I didn't feel nervous or have much anxiety about leaving him behind. Maybe because I pretty much spend 24/7 with him, but also because I totally trust Renee, so I wasn't at all worried about leaving him with her. So, Brooke came over at 7:25 to pick me up. The concert started at 8:00 and we figured that would be enough time to get there. Well, we didn't account for there being some kind of horrible, bizarre traffic problem on 520, so we didn't get to Seattle until 9:00. ARGH! Since we didn't have tickets yet, and we would have been 1:15 late by the time we got inside, we decided to ditch the concert. So we decided to drive back to Bellevue and have dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy in Lincoln Square. It was actually very good - we tried the artichoke spinach dip, Ravioli with Pesto Alfredo, and this really yummy apple dessert. We had a good time despite our plans being totally changed, and I decided that I want to go out for fun meals with friends more often and decided to start taking the initiative to arrange 'girls night' meals out with some of my friends from around here every once in a while!
On Saturday Mom came over and Kira came over, we hung out and then took Sam to Kirkland and went for a walk in the sunny weather and then ate at Jalisco's Mexican Restaurant. We had a good time - I always do when I get to spend time with them. Mom and Keith spent the night and I went and picked up Justin from the airport that evening. On Sunday, Mom went to visit Kira in Tacoma, and Justin and I slept in (thanks to Sam sleeping well), and then we headed out to Best Buy to deal with the dishwasher fiasco (more on that in a minute). Sunday night Keith made DELICIOUS spaghetti sauce with italian sausage (love it), then we watched Full Metal Jacket. To be more accurate, Sam, Mom and I watched Full Metal Jacket in the living room while Keith and Justin cooked. Okay, so they were making beef jerky in the kitchen, but it was still a funny thing for them to be in there while my mom and I watched a war movie in the next room. Justin got a food dehydrator for his birthday, and beef jerky has sort of become his new hobby. It's fun and delicious.
Tuesday I had my 6 week postpartum doctor visit, which went well, then I went and got my hair cut. When I got home, Justin and I took my car to the car wash to clean and vaccum it. It was desperately in need of cleaning since I haven't been driving it much lately and somehow it was very dirty from sitting inside the car port here at the apartments. I would think that would keep it from getting dirty, but if I thought that then I'd be wrong. Tara stopped by that morning to lend us an extra car seat base, so now I have one in my car too so I can drive my own car when I go out with Sam. She had Nate with her, and he seemed fascinated by the cats. He's really a cutie and so smiley every time I see him!
Yesterday Sam and I went down to Olympia so that he could meet Brie and I could visit with her. She's been on bed rest recently because of a blood clot in her leg, and Kyle is working during the days now so it worked out well and hopefully made her day less boring! She is doing all right - she is not working right now but is looking for another job. She's about 10 weeks along in her pregnancy now, and she has much worse morning sickness than I did. She has anti-nausea medication from her doctor, but still seems to be getting sick several times most days. Yuck. That is no fun. I am keeping my fingers crossed for her that it will let up once she hits the second trimester. I am looking forward to what's to come - her baby shower etc! It's really kind of fun to watch one of my good friends go through the whole process now that I've been through it myself. On our way back we stopped at Babies R Us and got some more of the pacifiers that Sam likes since we only had 2, and some MORE burp cloths and a couple of other things.
I think today is going to be another lazy day - we don't have plans to do anything. Which means I have time to write about the great dishwasher fiasco that's going on right now. The bottom line is that we have been WITHOUT A DISHWASHER for a week now. Well, that's not completely true, we have a dishwasher, but it's not hooked up. I'm really glad that I went and bought those extra bottles when I did, because I've been washing them by hand and Sam goes through them pretty fast! So, you may be wondering what happened to make our dishwasher not be hooked up? Well, it's a long story, so buckle down...
Friday, 6/2:
Went to Best Buy and bought a new dishwasher. We scheduled to have it delivered and installed the following Wednesday. It was a little bit of a bummer we had to wait, but we were really excited about getting it to our house and having a new one since our old one has been a little bit on it's last legs and has been making funny scary noises every time we ran it lately. Now that we're using it to wash and sterilize the bottles, we've been running it a lot more often. They told us that someone would call us on Tuesday to set up the exact time for the delivery.
Tuesday 6/6:
By 6:00 no one had called us to schedule anything, so Justin calls Best Buy to find out why and what is happening. He is subsequently put on hold for an hour, and finally hangs up and calls back. At some point after 7:30 we talk to the installer and switch the delivery to Thursday instead of Wednesday. We are told that someone will call us the next day to schedule the exact time.
Wednesday 6/7:
At 7:00 no one has called us to schedule anything. I call Justin, who is now in Phoenix, and he tells me to wait a few minutes. At 7:30, they finally call him to schedule it and they tell him that they will be here to install the dishwasher between 2 and 4 PM on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday 6/8:
At 10:00 AM the front gate calls my phone. I let the person in because I figure it's the diaper guy since that's his usually delivery time. About 10 seconds later Justin calls me and tells me that the dishwasher people just called him and they are ON THEIR WAY. As in, they were on the highway when they called him. I quickly get off the phone. I still have a load of clean dishes to be unloaded from the old dishwasher, and have not cleaned out under the kitchen sink so they can access things, since I THOUGHT I had until 2 PM to do it. I jump out of bed and the phone rings again. It's the front gate. I actually talk to the person this time, and it's the diaper guy. I quickly plunk Sam down in his swing, manage to unload the dishwasher and partly clean out under the sink, then there's a knock on the door. I open it, and the 2 installers and the diaper guy are all out there. I put the diapers aside and let the dishwasher guys in. I apologize for not being ready, and explain that we were told they'd be here later in the afternoon, to which they act oblivious and don't really respond. They take out the old dishwasher and take it away down to their truck. They take the new one in the kitchen and start to install it. Then they open the door and notice that it's BENT. That's right, it is damaged. It came out of the box that way. So, we call Best Buy. They said they'll just have to get another one from the warehouse and have the installers come and put that one in. They say that it won't be able to happen today, but possibly Friday or Saturday or Monday at the latest. I am frustrated, but it's not TOO big a deal at this point. They leave the new dishwasher at my house, and I'm left with no dishwasher. They tell me they'll call me about the next delivery. Later that day someone contacts Justin and says there is another one at the warehouse and they're going to hold it.
Friday 6/9:
Someone contacts us again and tells us that the one at the warehouse is no longer available and that we will not be able to get a new dishwasher until the NEXT Friday. We are unhappy. The installer calls Justin and tells him that they are going to bring our old dishwasher back and hook it up so that we will have a working dishwasher until the new one can be installed. They tell him this will probably be on Saturday and that they will call us. We never hear from them again.
Sunday 6/11:
Justin and I head over to the Best Buy in Bellevue and visit Customer Service. We explain the situation. No working dishwasher, lots of being told people will call us and not calling us, our old dishwasher taken away, having to wait forever. We go back to appliances and it turns out that they have one of the model we bought in their backstock in the store. We go back to customer service and decide they will exchange the one we bought for the one in the store and the installers can bring it. They tell us we won't be able to have it delivered until Wednesday. Then their computers are down. They tell us they can't do the exchange until Monday when they're back up, which will push the delivery back until at least Thursday. We ask to have the delivery fee we paid ($50) refunded since the delivery hasn't actually been completed. The guy says there is nothing he can do. We ask to speak to a manager. A manager comes. We explain the situation again. Finally it hits him that the installers TOOK our original dishwasher, leaving the damaged one at our house for some reason. He suddenly realizes that this is messed up and actually tells us that they should not have done that, they should have left ours and took the new one back. They refund us the $50 for the delivery. They tell us that they'll process the exchange on Monday and call us about the delivery. This is a much abridged version of what happened. We were in the store for over an hour.
Monday 6/12:
No one calls us.
Tuesday 6/13:
I call the store. I talk to someone there named Josh in appliances. He tells me that they processed the exchange and the delivery and installation is scheduled for Friday. I tell him that this doesn't work for us unless they can do it early in the morning because we're not going to be around. He says that they call the night before and we won't know until Thursday. I ask if he can please see if they can do it on Thursday since it's been over a week and I just want to get it taken care of. He says he will call the installers and see what he can do and call me back.
Wednesday 6/14:
At 5 PM I still have not heard anything. I call Best Buy again. The girl at the customer service desk knows my name without me telling her. It's like all I have to do is mention the word dishwasher and they know. I talk to a manager. He finds Josh. He has not been able to reach the installers, but it's pretty obvious to me they will not be coming at Thursday. Josh calls Justin a couple of hours later, and still has not been able to reach the installers.
Today 6/15:
As of right now, we have not talked to anyone else. Supposedly the installers will call tonight to set up a time for tomorrow. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work for us unless they can come in the morning between 8 and 10. Since they have not been flexible up to now, I doubt that. I am thinking it's going to get pushed back to next Monday, which is really annoying.
I have to say that this is not one of the more impressive customer service experiences that I've ever had. There is not much that is more annoying to me than people saying they're going to do things then not doing them. Like telling us they'll call us, then not doing it, which has happened multiple times. It's also ridiculous and annoying the amount of effort it takes for the people in the store to communicate with the installers. It shouldn't be that hard to get in touch with them. Beyond any of that, I don't feel like I should have to be the one to keep calling them. They should keep me updated on what's going on, even if they don't have the information that I want. The whole things is pretty irritating, and it makes me think twice about buying any more appliances from them in the future. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens next to find out how this is going to resolve...
Okay, since this is now officially about the length of a novel, I'm going to go now. Sam is hungry anyway, so I better go and feed him! I will update again soon.
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