Monday, January 29, 2007

Quick like a bunny updates

We had swimming today and it was great even though we were late. Poop blow-out coupled with the fact that I didn't discover until I was trying to pack up the car to go that Mistah C had my diaper bag, sling, and stroller in his car. At work. Oy. That meant I had to turn down an invitation for lunch with the other swimming mommies, which makes me a little sad but I am so tired today that it's not a bad thing to come home, feed the baby, and relax.

Yesterday we celebrated the darling Miss Julie's b-day by going to Sea World. It was fabulous and surprisingly wonderful. I got to try out my new wrap on a serious walk-around day and my back isn't killing me even a little, which is good news on the wrap front. Also, Sea World is chock-full of diaper changing and nursing stations throughout the park which makes it baby-friendly, even though I just nursed A through the "Pets Rule!" show. (I have great respect for anyone who can train a cat to do anything, let alone on cue in front of an audience.) But now I'm tired. Sea World is a lot of fun! I don't think I've been to one since I was four or so and could ride in the dolphin strollers. We need to do more fun things on the weekends instead of just, you know, go to Target for diapers and Trader Joe's to do the grocery shopping.

We also got to see our local Navy pilot this weekend, so that was good. He lives in town and we just get into our Target-Trader Joe's rut and don't think to call him, so I'm glad he called us. We ate in a restaurant and young Master A was as good as always; the waitress told us we were getting compliments on our good baby.

New item received today: Inflatable portable baby crib. We're going to test it out for Italy.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Six month checkup

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

He's in super shape, in the 75-85th percentile ranges for height (27 inches) and weight (19 and a half) . He's pre-crawling, so that doctor says, and should be crawling soon. No teeth immediately on the horizon but they could appear any time now, just like at our four month visit.

He got four shots that I was too sad to hold him down for and made C do it so I could hold A afterwards. He recovered quickly but he was bright red and crying.

We're supposed to start solids now, but neither C or me is very excited about the prospect of stinky poop, being spoiled by the relatively non-stinky breastfed poops (C maintains that it smells like turkey and I think it smells like buttermilk). But A stares at me with laser-beam intensity every time I eat, so we'll probably be out and about today getting baby food.

First up: rice cereal mixed with breast milk. I'm going to have to pump.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Squirmy boys are hard to type over

I got my new wrap and we gave it a fairly successful run at the mall today. A wants to be forward-facing, not side facing, so I'll need to figure out one of the front carries. He is, of course, the cutest baby in the universe and got fussed over by many people. I would like to go out with someone to have them check the security of the wrap.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

No swimming, sigh

No swimming this week. A boiler valve broke over the weekend. The pool was only up to 80°F at one hour before class, so they canceled our class to prevent cold babies. All that's officially on the agenda for the week now is our six-month check-up on Friday.

One of the other babies from birth class (a month older than A) is crawling. We're going to need to babyproof pronto.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sunday night and boy's asleep

It's amazing but I've had two nights of actual rest. After a bad stretch of not-sleeping, I ordered two more books about sleep. One of them suggested that an extra-thick coating of diaper cream would do the trick; lordy, if that author was here I would kiss her with serious intentions. A's been sleeping for longer stretches ever since we've been greasing him up like a pole. Cross your fingers that I didn't just jinx it.

This is not to overlook the efforts of my darling husband, who has been whisking the boy away yesterday and today when A loses interest in the toys in his crib and wants attention so that I can get a couple more hours of sleep. This makes me profoundly grateful. It also allows me to quote charming notes found at my bedside, like this morning's: "Boyzilla and I are running some errands. Back with breakfast." Sleeping alone (well, with a small black cat curled up beside me) feels like an incredible luxury right now. The decadent hedonism I used to associate with a day at The Spa is now associated with the two extra hours of sleep when someone I love is taking care of the boy.

A is the cutest little thing in the universe. He's smiley and happy most of the time and giggles like a fiend now when tickled or babbled at. He loves being carried around in the Bjorn and grins at everyone. A woman stopped us in Target to ask, "How old is he?"
"Almost six months."
"He's beautiful. You know, I had six children, all naturally, no painkillers. And now I have eleven grandchildren." And she smiled hugely and went on her merry way. People do that all the time when we're out with him. C pointed out this morning that people driving by are now checking out how cute A is from the sanctity of their cars. I have a lot more sympathy for the paparazzi now just in how much time we spend out and about talking to strangers. (I don't mind talking to strangers about how cute my boychik is. I can't imagine how annoyed I'd be if people wanted to harass me about what I was wearing or how my marriage was. I'd be all Sean Penn.)

And hey, I ordered Italian CDs today, so I guess we'll have to go to Italy.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

RIP, number 8

After a week with no sightings, another mouse met his match in our garage. As soon as it's available, I'll be planting peppermint around our garage to hopefully ward off his friends. But there wasn't any at the Home Depot. No, I have not gone to the nurseries to find some. I'm not even sure where there are nurseries. Nurseries are places that will make me want a house so I can grow all the terribly delicate hothouse plants that I could never grow in Colorado, like angel's trumpet*, plumeria, and French Lace roses. I'll find some eventually because I'd like to have more pots in containers (although I'm doing a pretty crappy job of keeping the ones I have alive).

A seems over his cold now, which is good. We had had a couple nights of really delicious sleep, but last night was awful and I am tired today. A's had one nap so far this morning and more are coming. I'm going to see if we can get a trip to the zoo in this week.

* It's fascinating what you learn when looking for a link. I found a couple warnings not to plant it saying, "My friend made tea out of this and died." Since I'm not Julie, I can honestly say I've never had the compulsion to eat something I grew that wasn't an herb or a veggie (or that I ran across outside somewhere). I would never make any of my ornamentals into tea, for example, even the lavender and roses. Anyway, angel's trumpet is apparently hallucinogenic and some dumb-asses who thought that would be fun have died ingesting angel's trumpet. So when I get some, don't be smoking it, you wild and crazy types.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Swimming lessons!

Master A is going to be a pro swimmer. Bask in the cuteness that is A in a baby wetsuit. My boy will be burning up the lanes at the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, so get your tickets now. I'm not just saying that in the proud mama way; his father also thinks he's a super swimmer.

Mistah C had the day off yesterday, so he accompanied us to the palace of youth culture for lessons. A got in the water and started splashing. The other kids in class weren't quite into kicking and splashing, but he was. He had a jolly old time until we got to the submersion part of the class. Then he looked outright insulted and started to cry (at which point I realized how little he cries since it's very rare to see his absolutely upset pouting crying face), but he calmed down quickly. We've got another six weeks of swim lessons, so we'll see how this goes.

What other news? We got an exersaucer thingie this weekend at the resale shop. It gives me a minute to go to the bathroom, heat up lunch, etc. It bounces up and down which he seems to like.

Oh, and he finally slept last night with the long part of his sleep from 1AM-6AM, which made us so happy to not be awake at 4AM. I can't say how happy we were about that. Maybe it's the exercise?

Thursday, January 11, 2007

More sleep. No more mice.

No more mice have appeared. This is a good thing.

We went to see the X-Files doctor today, and she said his cold was a cold. We'll just have to live with it, with breast milk and a cool mist humidifier. No worries unless he can't breathe (!) or spikes a fever. She gave us a prescription cream for his diaper rash (which gave me an excuse to be at Trader Joe's to buy gingersnaps). He's 18.5 pounds officially, for the weight watchers.

A and I start swim lessons Monday. It'll be seven weeks of excitement. I got A swim diapers (reusable) yesterday, and next I'll have to turn my attentions to my own bathing costume (oy vey--why did I buy a bag of gingersnaps today?).

Does an application of prescription diaper cream count if he pees on it immediately?

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Latest mouse count: 7

But none in the last 24 hours, I think. No sign of them on shelves and whatnot.

My car's back and the cruise control still doesn't work.

A is sick (head cold probably picked up in Colorado) and I'm still waiting for the triage nurse to call back to tell me whether or not they need to see him. Since I'd like to get his swim things outfitted today, I'd really like them to call back soon so I can figure out the rest of my day.

And it's really hard to buy infant international airline tickets online.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Julie, you don't want to read this

Right now the mouse count stands at three, two in the house, one in the garage. We need to go out for more traps now. Bait of choice: cream cheese.

C got to bed past 1 and A woke us up every hour until 7, so he's home today with us on the logic that sleep deprivation equals bad code and definitely bad driving.

The cable guy came out and offered two horrible solutions, neither of which will meet HOA standards. It's a dickens of a day here.

Wonder of wonders

I woke up not half an hour ago (still fully dressed), changed the yelling little baby with the wet pants and laid him down in the crib, then went in search of my husband. He was still cleaning post-mouse-calypto. Shelves were bleached, items on shelves were bleached, and he'd taken out three bags of trash of expired/questionable foods. But he said with a wicked, sleep-deprived and slap-happy grin, "I caught one of the f*ckers."

Happily, not with his bare foot. He set a trap in the garage behind the freezer and there went Mr. Mouse. Cats were fascinated. Like I said before, they're lovers, not fighters.

This is not the most amazing part of our evening. C says to me, "Where's the boy?"
"In his crib."
"Is he sleeping?" We listen. Silence.
"Must be."
"Did you swaddle him?"
"No." Beat. "Let me go see if he's alive." Yup, sure enough, A's rolled over on his tummy and gone to sleep his sweet self. Makes you want to sing some Fiddler.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

There are weekends that are super and there are weekends that seem to take a death spiral. This one seems to be the death spiral variety. But I have good reasons!
  • My car's cruise control didn't work after the mechanic replaced the turn signal/hazard lights button assembly, and it's still not working. So that has to go back Tuesday for a replacement piece. The mechanic tried to tell me that it was just an old car, and I said, "Well, it was an old car with a cruise control that worked before you replaced the turn signal assembly, so..."
  • We went to the Baby Hellhole twice to look at high chairs, eating equipment, Earth's Best baby food, and convertible car seats. We ended up getting a high chair eventually. Target didn't carry the high chair we wanted, fine. I don't think we're looking forward to A having solid food. Actually, we're not looking forward to stinky poop. He's not starting solids until he's at least six months due to allergies, but we thought he would enjoy sitting in a high chair at mealtime with us.
  • Yesterday I got myself two treats at Bread and Cie, but discovered the woman had given me not an almond croissant but a bear claw. The bear claws have coconut, which I'm not fond of. The something else I got was okay but not fabulous.
  • I've got a new book on making your own baby food which is scaring me more than anything else. The woman has gory examples for everything bad you could consider happening to a baby, from eating drain cleaner to scalding a kid with hot beverages. It's not the uplifting read I expected it to be. I finished it and am trying to decide if I want to use her recipes as my main source or if I want another book instead.
  • This morning we had to be up and at 'em by 8AM for the cable guy who is going to re-wire our dish to make the HOA happy. I'd been up since 5:30, unable to sleep after A's last feeding. Cable guy looked at what we wanted him to do and said he'd have to get his supervisor out to look at it. That can't happen until tomorrow morning, of course.
  • Mistah C then went to Bread and Cie again after the cable guy was here this morning to get me an almond croissant, then had to return once he was there and realized he didn't have his wallet. So that was a long time on the weekend with just me and A alone. It was an awfully good croissant, though.
  • Mistah C spent dinner prep time on the phone, which put me into dinner-prep mode. The kitchen was covered in dirty dishes (it doesn't take much with our kitchen) but all of that needed to be cleaned up before I started prepping raw chicken so everything wasn't covered in chicken bits. So dinner was pushed out until late (even for us).
  • Then I discovered mouse droppings all over the pantry shelves and that was it for my patience for this weekend. We are going to get the landlord to call in an exterminator now, although that should be fun with cats and baby and me around.
C's cleaning up the mouse droppings. A is sleeping. I am reading Under the Tuscan Sun until I feel better. Oh, and this week, we may be setting up swim lessons for A.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Baby push-ups

Master A is doing push-ups now, with all his weight on his toes and palms. He's not quite got enough strength for forward momentum yet, so he gets frustrated and yells. At some point, he'll figure out he has knees, right? I'm not sure how to show him that he has knees, but I'm sure he'll figure it out. He's figured out how to creep around pulling his weight with his arms, and I certainly didn't show him that.

We've got a full day of errands planned so I can avoid cleaning the office. Cleaning will have to happen tomorrow when my car goes back to the shop, because there are papers everywhere and A likes eating paper. C missed A eating some stickers (all were found, none ingested) and I missed A eating my credit report (nothing strange appearing in the dipes, lost years 2003-2004).

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Traveling, Christmas, and New Years


ETA: This is a really funky picture I inadvertently took of the reflection of my IL's living room while trying to take a picture of the snow. It's surprisingly interesting, at least to me.

Howdy folks. I have been sick with a head cold ever since we got back from CO. The night we got back, we went to bed at 8; the next night, I was groggy all day and went to bed at 5PM and didn't get up until 5AM the next day. I'm still not at my finest, but I can blog. We made all our flights with no problems other than ordinary, moderate (half-hour or so) delays, so we have no horror stories of DIA.

A is a good traveler, or so we think without any means of comparison. The people in our shuttle van to the airport wanted to cry when they saw us coming with our gazillion bags of stuff and a baby. A was fine in the airport (even when some of the TSA people in SD were unfriendly and rude), getting his usual amount of admiring glances from those seeing baby strapped onto C with the Bjorn. I would personally like to thank the woman who put her baby through the X-ray machine for now making it a requirement that all car seats are turned over with cushion face-down on the disgusting conveyor belt, even when you can brandish the baby at the TSA authorities and say, "There's no baby in the seat. See?"

A was fine on the plane. We had a moment of panic when we had to strap him in before the plane started moving and he began screaming. But once the plane started moving--a minute later, although it felt like an hour to us--he settled down and was asleep for take-off. I had to wake him up to feed him half an hour before descent, then he laughed the whole way down.

Our rental car was there as promised. The Hertz Gold Club #1 service where they let you off the bus first and you walk to your car, bypassing the counter and the line inside, is fabulous. When you come back, they scan your license plate, send you to the front of the line, and greet you by name. Lovely, especially with the boy and his stuff in fresh snow and slush.

It feels like we didn't get to spend enough time visiting (I'm looking at you, Mr. and Mrs. Bump) and that we need another week off to recover from traveling. But many people who hadn't met A got to meet A, which is good, and he got lots of quality time with his grandparents, which is great. Fun fact: if the grandparents are keeping the same hours as the baby, you can hand the baby off to the grandparents for early-morning quality time while you go back to sleep until your internal body clock says the kid needs fed or until you actually get enough sleep. I haven't seen C that well-rested in months. Five months, to be exact.

We also finally got to meet our niece, who is absolutely adorable. Our nephew was expecting A to be almost-three, but they did seem to hit it off.

A is now demanding attention, but I'll just note the one baby-worthy thing on animals, since we've had a lot of animal contact. Niles the fluffy white cat was so glad to see us back that he tolerated A grabbing a handful of fur. He's now allowing me to move A's hand over his head and back. Even cautious Jake has succumbed to being petted by A (while guided by me). They seem okay with him, even when A wriggled quick and grabbed Jake's ear tightly in his little fist. Those ears are pretty tempting. Yesterday at Trader Joe's, we met a Bernese Mountain Dog who loves babies. This dog immediately turned his attention from all the other people and sniffed at A, licked my hand, sat directly in front of A and stared peacefully at him. Sweet puppy!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Stupid Internet Explorer

Stupid upgrade. Stupid making everything puke and fail. The internet is my tie to the outside world during the freaking day.

Now I've installed Firefox and can blog. But I've burned through a lot of my baby-free time today dealing with stupid Firefox-wannabe-IE so you get no updates, just the no news message that Microsoft does indeed suck the big wee-wee.