Makin' Cuppycakes for Mah Sweet Potato Girlie

Today's my furlough day for the month of March - - and it's the day before my daughter's FIRST BIRTHDAY!?!? - - I just cannot believe she's gunna be a year old tomorrow!? Holy Hannah!!! - - how the heck did that happen so freakin' fast, someone please tell me??!?

My honey-man has said this to me several times before, but this past year, it's really taken on greater meaning for me: One's concept of time completely changes once you have children.

Before I had my lil' sweet potato, a single day could drag on and on - - a week could feel like an eternity. I have been able to distinguish how time is, indeed, altered whenever we have the angel boy-O with us, here in Vegas and before, when I'd see him in California - - Here and gone is always how it feels, even during the summers when we have him for a few solid weeks. The time just flies by. And now? It's every day! Every week! Every month! Here and gone! It's just absolutely unbelievable to me that an entire year has flown by since our girlie came out and into the world!

And man, can I say I had NO IDEA how absolutely freakin' fantastic she'd be? - - She totally rocks my world, my baby girl, oh yes, she does!!! She is the coolest lil' thing ~ And the last couple of weeks have been phenomenal! She's just flying past developmental milestones, and each and every day, she does something new, and she's always showing us what a smart lil' cookie she is. And she's a total stinker too! Boy, she sure likes to test things out, particularly mommie's patience! I love it though - - I totally love the gleam in her eye as she watches my growing frown as she chooses which food item she will next hold over the edge of her highchair tray, to release it and let it fall to the floor... she doesn't even watch any of it fall --she watches ME and my face to see how I'll respond! I love bein' her mommie and although it's been kicking mah butt, man, my life is forever changed. I knew this would be the case, intellectually I knew, but wow, boy did I underestimate the transformation.

I'm making cupcakes right now to bring to her classmates and teachers tomorrow. Honestly, I don't think I could possibly be any happier right now in this very moment (unless I were 10 lbs lighter) - - yeah, I'm home on a furlough day, no less, and the economy really sucks, and there's LOADS of uncertainty ahead for all of us, and yeah, there are horrendous things happening this very minute all over the world; there's a gazillion valid complaints worth mentioning as part of this world and the reality that is life, but I'm way, way, waaaay too delighted with the 'cherry chip' cupcakes I'm baking to simply honor my baby's arrival into this world 364 days ago, to celebrate her and her first birthday. I'm all vehclempted.

Maybe Bein' a Mommie Makes the Difference

My mum has been gone now for 23 years, today, but this day doesn't feel the same, like it typically has before... There's no enormous sense of loss, no longing for things that never were, nor any 'hole in my heart' feel to it. I don't feel sad - - I feel only gratitude.

I am soooo thankful I didn't wind up a total mess; that my father and step-mum and my extended families, they all hung in there throughout all my tween and adolescent bull-oney (and then some), and I made it through my undergrad with all the long hours and all the hard work for a double BA, at times working 3 part-time jobs. And don't forget a failed first marriage while enrolled as an undergrad and working all those extra hours, followed by seven years of awkward dating circumstances and various painful relationships, to finally find my oh-so wonderful honey-man and his fantastic son, the angel boy-O (and to earn a Masters degree tah boot), and now, to be the mommie of our most darling sweet potato girlie.

I am so grateful I didn't grow up using my mother's death as an excuse to play the role of a victim; that I never truly fell prey to that attitude. I always knew I was fortunate. It could have been so easy to have gone the other way...this day has always been one of those potential pity-party dates, but my mum taught me to give to others whatever I have to give, and to count my blessings, and to see the other side of the coin, and to put myself in the shoes of others, and not to wallow in one's challenges, but to stand up to the challenge and do so proudly; to be grateful for what I DO have.

I loved my mum, and I still do. I miss her very much, all the time, but I am so grateful for all that I have. I really can't complain.

I love you, mum - - and thank you.

I am Sooo a Mom

I just found a green, crusty baby boogie on my shoulder ~ Ahhh, motherhood.

She Stands Alone

Three notable times yesterday, once in the morning, once at daycare, and in the evening, our lil' sweet potato stood up, all alone, all by herself! A tiny beacon of growing self-confidence! It's soooo awesome to see the look on her darling face as she sets her focus and recognizes that she is, indeed, standing all on her own, unassisted. She just beams with satisfaction and delight! And when we clap our hands and root and cheer for her accomplishment, the radiant smile that spreads even wider across on her teeny chubby-cheeky lil' face is absolutely breathtaking!

Just awesome - - totally awesome!

Blowing on Her Eggs

I zapped a little bit of scrambled eggs in the microwave this morning and when my baby sweet potato girl saw what her mommie was eating for breakfast, she let out a loud shriek while waving her arms, and then she clasped and wrung her tiny hands together as she bounced in her highchair with excitement, all to let me know she wanted some too - - that's her new thing by the way: She wants to eat whatever mommy and daddy are eating.

So the eggs were a bit too hot, so I told her to wait a sec and I blew on a piece before giving her any. Now for a baby who usually screams and squawks until her food is placed right before her --she's soooo impatient at mealtimes-- she instead sat quietly, not moving an inch, watching me closely as I blew upon what she knew would soon be her own bite of scrambled egg. She didn't make a peep, she just watched me -and I stared right back at her as I silently blew on her bit of egg. Once it was cool enough, I smiled and offered it to her, and she took it and she blew on it as well, her little mouth in the shape of a perfect little 'O' as she blew, and then she popped it in her mouth with a huge smile of satisfaction!

Look Who's Talking

It's official: Our baby sweet potato is talking, using real words! Of course, many are almost totally unintelligible to whomever doesn't deal with our wee babe on a regular basis, but yesterday afternoon when I picked her up from her classroom, two of the ladies there confirmed our suspicions --which means we're not just imaging things-- they're certain she's using identifiable words!

Her first clearly identifiable words were 1) 'daddy', 2) 'book', and 3) 'doggy' - - um, no clearly 'mommie' or 'mama' yet, or at least we're not exactly certain. She does say 'moma' and 'moe-mee' all the time, particularly when she's alone in her crib in her bedroom and she wants someone to come get her, but I'll pick her up and she'll keep saying it, while twisting 'round in my arms, away from me while gesturing or reaching toward other things, so again, we're not sure if she's addressing me as mama or not.

Anyhow, here's a list of all the semi-identifiable words/sounds we've discovered she's using thus far, using the following list format: the actual word = and what it sounds like when she says it.

Daddy = dah-dee or da-da
Book = buh (like 'duh' and without much of a hard 'K' sound)
Doggy = doh-dah (no hard 'G' sound)
Kitty = kuh-twah (usually in a shout)
Nursing = neh-neh (in a pained and whiny voice)
Read = reeeed (at the top of her baby lungs)
Drink = dwah (one syllable, without much of a hard 'K' sound)

There are other distinguishably repetitive sounds she'll make, but we haven't yet made out their meaning... She's gunna have to be patient with us.

BTW, the two daycare ladies confirmed the two words she used were 'book' and 'read.'

Monday, Monday

Every Sunday night, whenever I'm getting ready for bed and prepping the things I'll need for the beginning of a another new work week, Mondays are easily my most hated day of the week... And come Monday morning, I feel no different, but every Monday, as the day nears four in the afternoon, and the day has invariably flown by faster than any other day of the week, I kinda like Mondays juhhst fine.

It's Finally Happened: Projectile Baby Vomit

I knew it would happen someday - - it was inevitable - - just a matter of time -- and the wait officially ended 4 hours ago... and I just spent the last two hours cleaning carpet.

BACKGROUND INFO: Our lil' sweet potato girl has been sick for a week now and the last 24 hours have been the very worst ever. She'd had a low grade fever off and on all weekend long, but we were told to let it work itself through, that her body was doing its job to fight an infection, yada, yada, yada. She was a little snotty, but nothing crazy. Not until late this past Sunday and early Monday morning, did she develop a cough (her first real cough ever), and by the end of the day, yesterday, she'd developed a little wheeze with semi-labored breathing, but she still had only a low grade fever of 100.4 degrees. Last night, one o'clock in the morning or so, she'd woken up and was crying for attention and we found her drenched with cold sweat, which means she'd had a high fever at some point unbeknownst to us and it had already broken. And this morning, she woke around six, initially had no fever at all, but within the hour, her breathing had worsened and the wheeze had become more 'snap-crackle-pop' like with a hittin' up there 103.3 fever tah boot. We had already made plans to take her to her pediatrician, but by this morning, we were fearful she had pneumonia.

I had stayed home with her on Monday and Tuesday, sick as well, myself (you should hear my weird scratchy voice right now - - luckily, I sound far worse than I feel). Her daddy had her this morning and took her to her peds office appointment, and later brought her and two new prescriptions to me while at work around noontime. While I tried to comb through some work email (I hadn't looked at my work email since last Friday and a few people were freaking out), I wore my sweet, sicky lil' baby girl in a sling, and she generally just laid on my chest for nearly two hours, happily babbling a bit, here and there, gumming a stress ball for a lil' while, occasionally patting at my face, and for the last hour, her wheezing resumed, she dozed off until we left around 2pm for the home and the drugstore.

Sooo, now we've got a nebulizer to administer Albuterol in order to help open up her lungs, plus an antibiotic we have to give her for the next 7 days while she fights some nondescript virus. She does NOT have pneumonia --thank goodness-- but we need to watch her closely.

Earlier today, after she'd woken up at 5pm from a late afternoon, two-hour long nap, she had a little coughing fit, gagged and she spit up some, but nothing spectacular, although she did totally nail my shirt. By 6pm, she had a 103.8 fever and was wheezing heavily again. We'd nursed when she'd woken from her nap, so with something in her tummy already, I'd given her some ibuprofen right away. Thereafter, she took her antibiotic okay, but our first go at the nebulizer was pitiful... When I'd removed the nebulizer box from the pediatrician's bag, I hadn't seen the child's mask that was also stashed inside the bag, so I had first tried the mouth piece that came included in the box along with the nebulizer. She was surprisingly amiable about the whole thing, too listless to fight me much, but I could tell the mouthpiece couldn't be right and I could also tell she wasn't getting much out of it.

Then I tried to give her something to eat - - emphasizing the word "tried." She really hasn't been eating much the last couple days, so although she drank a lot of water, most of the food I'd given her for her dinner, she had either mashed it and spread it around her highchair tray or flung it to the floor. We then headed upstairs for a warm bath, by which time, her fever had dropped to normal and her mood was rising up and up, although I still couldn't coax her to eat anything more. After she was all clean and lotioned like a greased piglet, all cozy in her jammies, we went back downstairs to grab her silky white blankie, and it was then I found the nebulizer mask.

So I did a more thorough read of the Albuterol prescription info and determined we could try at it again. She was such a good little trooper, sticking her tongue out to try to lick the inside of the mask, making little short 'ha' sounds and trying to watch Otis and Owen, only struggling near the very end, which was remarkable. Trying to hold a mask to any baby's nose and mouth for any length of time is a challenge, and it takes nearly 15 minutes for the whole nebulizer process to run its course from start to finish. Anyhow, once we were done with our first successful nebulizer treatment, she was definitely more like herself, animated and peppy and a bit sassy.
But then it went all wrong: I stood from the couch and she immediately began a HUGE coughing fit --can you see it coming? She gagged a couple times and then it happened: With my right forearm wrapped about her, I could feel her diaphragm and her tummy muscles clenching and she gagged so hard that she threw up and I mean she really threw up! Projectile baby vomit!!! Most of it just shot out and away from us both, getting nothing but a nice 5 x 6 foot area of carpeting where we stood. She began to sadly cry and continued to cough as I carried her into the kitchen and set her on the counter beside the sink so we could clean up her little mouth, but the gagging continued and her little body went rigid with muscle tension and she threw up again, this time all over me and all over herself and, of course, the counter. As I began the effort to calm her while stripping her down to her diapey at the same time, I could hear that the cats had decided to volunteer for the carpet clean-up crew <--- I will not spell out what exactly that means cuz it's GROSS! As I peeked over the counter bar to confirm my suspicions, my poor girl kept coughing and gagging and threw up again.

It was all over, and you know what I mean by "it." I had to bathe her all over again and she wouldn't nurse or drink anything before putting her down for bed, so she hasn't really had anything to eat since 2pm. Oh, and she threw up her antibiotic and wouldn't take it at all when I tried to give her a 1/2 dose. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Fra-fra-fra-Frustration

How best to use my time?!? AKK!

Wake Up Already!

On the weekends, my honey-man and I, we each take a morning to sleep in until about 9am. This morning was my turn, and mah honey-man let me sleep in as long as I would on my own... I slept in until 10:50!?! And when I got up, I found out our baby sweet potato had just gone down for her morning nap at 10:45am. It's now 12:30pm and she hasn't woken up yet!?!

I'm happy to have gotten some extra sleep, you betcha, and I'm glad my lil' wee one is taking a long nap, getting in some extra z's as well, but come on, wake up already my lil' girlie! Mommie wants to play!

Testing Things Out, Mastering Her World

I wrote this post on January 27th, late at night, and I simply neglected/forgot to post it:

My baby sweet potato girlie is TEN MONTHS OLD already!?! How did this happen?!? *sigh* She's growing up soooo quickly. Almost each and every day, something new happens. I love watching her as she discovers the world around her:

She has a miniature rubber duckie that somehow, months ago, made its way from her bathtub to her diaper changing table. Well, over a month ago, possibly back in late November or early December, she'd been kinda whining about whatever it is babies whine about while getting their diapers changed, and she'd been turning the rubber duckie over and over in her hands. At some point I'd bent over her and taken the duckie by its head into my mouth between my teeth - - and she LOVED it! Ever since then, whenever she sees this little rubber duckie, she'll grab it and offer it up to me for me to take it from her between my teeth. The other night she was offering it up to me again for the umpteenth millionth time, and I wasn't taking the duckie from her right away because I was honestly trying to focus upon getting her changed and dressed for bed before the window of opportunity would pass and I'd have an overtired baby on my hands. With my ignoring her, she opened her eyes as wide as she could, little eyebrows raised as well, and she shrieked as loud as she could while thrusting the duckie upward at my face. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her behavior, and when I did so, she immediately frowned and began to cry, bottom lip out, still holding the duckie upward, arm outstretched as far and as long as she could stretch it, waving it slightly back and forth for it to be taken. As I bent over slooowly and took the duckie between my teeth, she stopped her crying short and released the most giggly-gut baby laugh I've ever heard from her, and with such a huge smile upon her face, her little eyes disappeared into a familiar squint, and the tiny tears from her short-lived outburst rolled down her cheeks, and I couldn't have adored her more in that moment.

When I'm dressing her, she offers each arm and hand to me as I bring her tops down over her head, and when it's time for her socks and shoes, she'll offer each of her lil' footsies to me, one at a time.

She loves to enthusiastically pull off her socks whenever she's sitting in her highchair. And about any other time she's shoeless, she generally loves to pull her socks off.

She LOVES shoes and will squeal with pure delight when she successfully nabs one without our having preemptively told her to please leave the shoe(s) alone. Furthermore, if she gets the chance to grab a shoe, she will invariably lick the shoe's sole: I DO NOT KNOW WHY SHE DOES THIS, but she loves it! If she gets a hold of a shoe and I catch her before she's stuck it into her mouth, right as I'm telling her shoes are icky-dirty and she shouldn't play with shoes and she cannot put shoes in her mouth, she'll get this serious look on her face, very wide-eyed, chin tucked down toward her chest, and she'll watch me closely as she twists and turns the captured shoe between her tiny hands, waiting to see how far she can push it before I'll make my move to take the shoe from her. Sometimes when she sees me coming to take her prize away, she'll release a short, particularly high-pitched squeal and jam the thing in her mouth, and then she'll quickly tossing it aside as she turns around to flee, crawling away from me as quickly as she can. I do find this to be particularly amusing and quite cute, for now. Yeah, fun times ahead.

For Christmas, we gave her a LeapFrog drum that plays through ABCs as it's hit and it sings and plays music along with drumbeats. And what would she rather play with? An empty, clear plastic cookie bucket that her daddy threw some dry beans into and then taped the lid shut.

She knows how to climb all the way up and down the stairs, thanks to Owen, but we can't yet trust her to handle the 'on the way down' without one of us right there. Although we've taught her to slide down the stairs, backwards on her tummy-tum, feet first, she sometimes tries to turn around to face downward, and that approach just doesn't work yet for her, considering she doesn't yet know how to walk without holding on to something or someone.

She's a very happy, very smiley baby, but still not much of a laugher, hardly ever. She really likes to be chased though, and if done right, she will giggle like mad when she's about to be 'caught.'

For months now -since she was 4 months old actually- I've been making a concerted effort to point out any bird we see and all airplanes visible whenever we're outside. She's not yet pointing with her index finger, however she'll now lift a teeny hand into the air when she sees a plane or a birdie, and she makes an excited little expression, eyebrows lifted, all wide-eyed and with her mouth in a perfect little "ooooh!" shape. Whenever she does this, I feel like there's nothing better in this world than that very moment with my little babe.

At the end of the day on our way home in the car, my baby sweet potato is eager to get home, both tired and hungry. We've developed a little routine of sorts, part of which often involves my reaching back behind me, offering to pop 2 to 3 toddler puffs or goldfish crackers directly into her mouth. I have one of those infant mirror-thingies strapped, clipped and corded [yes, it's very secure -oh my gosh- it sure is, lemme' tell ya!] to the backseat head rest which she faces while sitting in her own carseat, so that I can see her in my own rear view mirror. Every time I reach back to pop a puff in her mouth, I get a real kick out of watching her turn her head ever so slightly, just enough, and she'll lift her little face upward in order for her mouth to meet my hand and her timing is impeccable every time.

More often than not when I first offer her some food, it could be something she's never had, it could be the very first morsel presented once a meal has begun, or whatever, she'll fully accept whatever it is into her mouth straight away, and thereafter, she'll pull it right out of her mouth, look at whatever it is, and pop it back into her mouth.

She's learning how to be defiant... she knows she's to set her sippy cup back on her highchair tray when she's done drinking, but she will instead hold it out over the floor, stare me down, and drop it.

They have a little collapsible open-ended tunnel they use in her classroom during play times and SHE ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT! The first time I saw her inside it, she'd just entered one end and she hadn't seen me [SIDE NOTE: She almost always sees me through the window before I enter her room.] I ran over to where she'd been and peeked in after her, and I gave a little 'spss-spss' noise she knows well. Her little head whipped around so quickly, she nearly fell over when she saw me and began waving her arms with excitement, all while turning to lunge forward in order to scramble my way as fast as she could. I actually had my camera at the ready and captured the very moment she turned round and recognized me. It's a fabulous picture!

Some nights when we lay our baby sweet potato girlie down for beddy-bye, she falls asleep before her head hits her crib sheets. Other times, for 10-20 minutes after we've said our goodnight, we can hear her repeatedly turn on and off the music-maker aquarium hung on her back crib rail, against the wall, all while she babbles to herself, complete with little "ba-ba-ba"s, "da-da-da"s, "ma-ma-ma"s, and intermittently raspberry blowing. Occasionally she'll let out a short squawk or a squeal without warning to almost immediately resume her quiet babbling. She kills me when she does the latter - - I wanna run upstairs, scoop her up from her crib and play!

Comin' up Roseola

Okay, so we know what the heck's been going on with our baby girl now, finally ~ Last night, very late, I discovered a spotty red rash spread across and around her tummy, back and arms, and it came out of nowhere! From what I could tell, it didn't seem to be itchy, nor was it hot, so still, not until this morning, did she go with her daddy to the peds office = diagnosis of "roseola"

The incubation period is 5-15 days and typically lasts no longer than a week, so we're almost off the hook already, even though we only found out today what's been wrong. Friday this week, it will have been a full week since she first was hit with all the crazy fever spikes. I'm really happy to know now she'll ultimately be just fine and to have a name for what's been going on, but I gotta say one thing: The symptoms sections I've read, written about roseola, the mention of 'irritability' is far too understated, at least in our case! I'm looking forward to my baby girlie feeling more like herself and soon, poor babe.

This is Gunna Sound Awful (and possibly stupid)

Right now, my primary and really my only interest as to why I want my baby sweet potato girl to learn how to walk is so that she can wear darling baby girl dresses! - - She can't now because they get in the way, stuck beneath her knees while she's crawling.

Lovin' the Olympic Winter Games n' Old Spice

...but they're totally messing with my 2010 goal to get to bed at a more reasonable time --aiming for 10pm every night, to be more specific.

Oh, and we just saw an Old Spice commercial I've never seen [mind you, we aren't big TV watchers, so we haven't seen most commercials, honestly], and my honey-man and I, we're now dying from laughter.



And just a moment ago we both realized the time and said aloud, in perfect unison, "oh shit."

P.S. We love watching the snowboarders (Go Shaun White, Go Shaun White!), even if they do ruin the snow for us downhill dopes.

Shhhh Baby, Shhhh

Oh me, oh my - - sumthin's wrong with our wee one, and no one knows for sure what it is. Wait a sec, I just read what I wrote and I should clarify immediately, there's nothing seriously wrong to report here, just a telling of how the holiday weekend went as to how poorly my lil' sweet potato's been feeling the last few days. BTW, I'll need to write about our weekend with the angel boy-O here as well!

Sooo, Friday afternoon, her preschool called me at 2:30pm, telling me she had a 101.6 fever and I needed to come pick her up. Thinking 101.6 is no fun, but basically a low grade, productive fever, I temporarily closed up my office, expecting to return. I thought I'd let a friend who's just a few doors down from my office, who also happens to be an enthusiastic fan of my baby daughter, watch her so I could truly wrap up the work week for just 30-45 minutes before we'd head home.

I was to the school's infirmary by 2:50-ish and in less than 30 minutes' time, her fever had gone up to 103.3 and we were all scared!?! I called her peds office to bring her in and they instructed me to take her to an urgent care pediatric center near our home - - and they gave me the wrong address and 411 was no help in locating the center either!?! So I ran home to get the info, less than 5 minutes away from the area I'd been driving around for nearly 10 minutes without luck. By the time we were home, her fever had broken, already down to 100.7, so I called the peds office again and they told me to give her a mild bath, get her to bed, and watch her temperature for 24-48 hours.

All weekend long, we had several fever spikes up to 103.3 and then they'd go down to 100 degrees in less than 15-20 minutes. Her temperature was alllll over the place, yet no other sicky symptoms - - no swelling, no rash, no sniffles nor sneezing or wheezing or anything. And her gums, suspecting some teething action? Her gums seem perfectly fine and her drooling has been next to nothing, strangely so. One thing notably different compared to previous times she's been sick is this: She isn't happy... She's been sick many, many times in her 10 months of age, and more often than not, she's been in good spirits, regardless. Well, she has NOT been a happy girl; very clingy, very whimpering, very short-fused, very tired and not too enthusiastic at mealtimes, and she LOVES to eat.

Sunday afternoon, she went down for a nap at 2pm and slept until 6:30pm, at which time, I simply gave her a diaper change, dressed her in her jammers, fed her a bottle and laid her back down for bed, and she passed right out, poor baby. And she slept until 6:45am.

And today, although no more fever spikes, nor any low grade fever reported, her teacher told me how sad everyone was feeling for her throughout the day. They're all used to her being such a smiley, happy girl, and she was not her usual self, very subdued, almost sad, and she napped twice for the day (remember, she's a bad napper), and she was often wanting to lay her head on the floor while clutching her blankey instead of playing or interacting with anyone.

If she isn't doing better by morning, I'll be taking her to her pediatrician.

"She Slept ALLL Night Long!" or "Full 8 Hours"

Oh yes, she did! She went to bed at 6:30pm last night [although she really didn't conk out until 7pm - - she was up playing with her music aquarium in her crib], and then she never woke up until 6:10 this morning! Maybe this will be our new routine?

P.S. Last night, I actually went to bed at 10pm and fell asleep almost immediately, so, for the first time in 10 months, I got 8 hours of solid sleep, sans any darling baby's middle-of-the-night or crack-of-dawn interruptions! *sigh* I, I, this feeling, I, I think I feel... rested!?!

First Birthday - Party Ideas, Anyone?

Our baby sweet potato girlie is gunna be a year old in less than 2 months' time and I wanna throw a little (or big) birthday party, more so for our parental benefit than hers, of course, primarily to give us and our friends and family a chance to celebrate our little one having lived a whole year in this world. I have no idea what to do though... well, that's not entirely true: I'm 100% certain that I want to strip her down to her diaper and present her some kind of creamy (aka messy) chocolate creation just for her to attack and consume.

Anyone have any party ideas for a child's first birthday? What did you do for your baby's 1st?

Sleep Baby, Sleep

For the baby record, Recent & Current Sleep Habits (Sorry, this post will NOT get any more interesting after this): I'm happy to report our sweet potato girl is technically sleeping through the night [HALLELUJAH!], which began sometime in early to mid-January. In November and December, her bedtime was 6-6:30pm, and she was generally waking 2-4 times a night; sometimes as early as 9pm, and again around 11pm to midnight, and almost always between 2-4am. She'd wake for her day to begin anytime between 5 and 7am. With her sleeping in her own bedroom, no longer easily accessible beside our bed in a bassinet, it was a living hell, worse than when she was a newborn; the months of chronic fatigue was driving me out of my mind. With the arrival of 2010, I declared to mah honey-man that he and I had to develop a new tag-team approach for her mid-night wakings or else I was gunna go insane, but it was such a short-lived effort, no longer necessary after barely 2 weeks' time, I won't bother to detail the arrangement we had. So now? Now she goes to bed between 6-6:30pm, waking only once, usually around 4am, but it can be anywhere between 2-5am, at which point my honey-man will go get her from her crib and bring her to me for 10-15 minutes of side-lying nursing time, whether she falls asleep there in bed with us or not, and then he'll return her to her crib, where she continues to sleep, and later wakes up for her day by 6am on the dot.

DAYCARE, TO NAP OR NOT TO NAP: On weekdays, when our wee one's at daycare, she'll usually nap twice a day, but each nap will average no more than 20-30 minutes, and everyone in her classroom who cares for her knows that any amount of nap time past 30 minutes is remarkable for her... she just doesn't want to miss out on anything. Although she's had a couple record-long naps as of only recently, as long as an hour and 20 minutes last week due to a crazy growth spurt, for this week thus far, she's had no more than one 30 minute nap each day and she's been falling asleep on the car ride home -- We've only recently realized, officially, as a new rule, that any day she's only had one shorty nap at daycare, she'll be ready for bed that night by 6pm, and no later.

THE FAILED SLEEP EXPERIMENT: The last week or so of January, she began waking at 5am, but she'd wake up and want to stay up! More often than not, we could get her to either go back to sleep on her own for another hour after just 10 minutes of nursing, or she could be left alone, happy to babble away in her crib for as long as 20-45 minutes before she'd let out a squawk for someone to come claim her. That weekend of January 29th though, thru to February 2nd, she was up every morning at 5am and she refused to settle back to sleep or to quietly play in her crib, and was the one who got to get up and take care of her each time. By February 3rd, I was utterly exhausted - - and mind you, this was all going on during my stressful technology nightmare. For the past week and into the last weekend, we tried a later bedtime, 6:45-7pm, but quickly determined it doesn't seem to provide enough sleep for her. Over the past weekend, she slept in on her own until 7:30am or later, and for the past 3 mornings and last Friday, we've had to wake the poor girl up, never letting her sleep in any later than 7am, when we really need her up during the week by 6:30am in order for us to get to work on time. Although she wakes with a smile each time we've had to get her up, and she's no longer waking at 5am and wanting to stay up (which was our goal), this later bedtime experiment isn't working.... I noticed this morning she has dark little circle beneath her eyes. She needs more sleep.

WEEKEND NAPS: Ever since she began full-time daycare once she was 6 months old, she's spent her weekends catching up on sleep, napping twice a day for an hour at a time, and up to two n' a 1/2 hours. This is still the case and it can make our weekend plans a bit tricky, as we really must accommodate her sleeping needs and set our weekend plans accordingly, otherwise she's a noodle by Monday morning. And invariably, she'll get run down and catch a case of sniffles by Wednesday in the week after a crazy, nap-poor weekend. For her weekend nap times, she's usually nap-ready by 9-10am, and again around 2-3pm. If we miss the 10am window of opportunity, she's too hungry by 11:30am to take a morning nap at all. And if you don't get her down for an afternoon nap by 3pm, an afternoon nap won't happen either.

EVENING PLANS: If we have evening plans at someone's home and she's coming along, we'll bring the Pack n' Play with a baby monitor, and she'll typically sleep in the Pack n' Play wherever it goes, no problem. Such a night can happen no more than once during a work week though, as it's unlikely she'll get the chance (or ever take one) to recover from the sleep interruptions, from us having to wake her to go home, and wake her again after the ride home, to put her back to sleep in her own crib; if this happens more than once in the week, it will ruin the week, as we'll have an overtired baby on our hands, and she'll be susceptible to a cold bug. On the weekends, it's much easier on her to take her to someone's home, as long as she gets her two good, long naps in per weekend day, and we get her to sleep in her Pack n' Play by 6pm. As for late evening plans with the baby girlie in tow, wide awake, without the Pack n' Play, we really can't keep her up past 8pm without week-long consequences for everyone.

THE SHORT OF IT: So anyhow, beginning tonight, we'll return to a 6-6:30pm bedtime and hope that the 5 o'clock in the morning wake-up call doesn't resume.

Toothie Numba Three

Our baby sweet potato girl finally has another tooth coming in! Yes everyone, please welcome baby toothie numba three into the world! Top n' center, to the left (her right)! Discovered the growing lil' nubbin, barely visible, a moment ago while getting her dressed for the day... She'd offered something to me for me to take with my teeth, and then I offered it back to her with my own fingers - - she took the item and a finger of mine with her own mouth and so, I got a little bite in return and it was then I felt the new tooth emerging in her gums.

In retrospect, considering all the teething drama we've endured over the last several months since her first bottom, two front teeth made their arrival, you'd think she'd have a mouthful of toothies by now!?

Back Online

Got me a laptop now, my old one with a new hard drive (Happy Valentine's Day to me!), and my office computer, rebuilt, was returned to me today, finally. Soooo, I'm back online - - but no Christmas 2009 or New Years 2010 pics, nor any January pics still... The scan on my 1TB drive has been running for over 6 days now?!? Soooo, yeah, back online = YAY! We'll see what I can get done now.

P.S. I'll say it again: If you haven't done so already, back everything you have to CDs/DVDs ASAP!

Living in Technological Hell for the Last 2 Weeks

1) After a week of scans and diagnostics, my personal laptop's hard disk was officially declared fried last Friday, and while I knew it was beginning to fail weeks ago, I had begun to frantically try moving everything I had on it to a very new, very large, supposedly very stable 1TB external drive kept in my office at work. There were only 350 picture files remaining on my laptop, all from November and December, all of which refused to move or copy from the laptop due to cyclic redundancy errors. In the end, after several data recovery scans run by IT and a certain saint-like, professional computer guru friend of mine, only 1/2 of them were successfully recovered; so far, it seems I've lost everything since December 20th, which includes our baby girl's first Christmas and our New Years pics.

2) Meanwhile, my office computer, which was purchased December 15 of last year, brand spakin' new, Windows 7, not even two months old, it began to do strange things as well, beginning nearly 2 weeks ago... but until last week, I couldn't say exactly what was wrong, if anything really.

3) And the 1TB external drive I had used to back everything up? Well, on January 27th, I had moved all our original January pictures directly from my digicam's memory card to the drive, plus back up duplicates of our Christmas and New Years taken from a 16GB jump drive I generally use for jpg back ups. Wednesday morning, January 27th, all those picture files and then some, they were all there, entirely intact. The following morning, they weren't to be found, and I have NO IDEA what the freak happened!!! And the 'data recovery back up' feature for the drive? The program files are corrupt. IT has been running scans on the drive since Friday the 29th, and the last scan took 4 full days to run. As of this past Friday, none of my pictures have been recovered yet, not a single jpg file.

4) The same day my 1TB drive went all wacky and all my pictures had disappeared, along with, might I add, 270 GB of additional office and personal data, , my office computer refused to recognize my login profile. I called IT for help that day, but they were short-staffed. After twiddling my thumbs for 2 days, struggling on an old loaner laptop, IT came to my office last Tuesday, ran some tests, deemed my office computer profile corrupt, said they could fix it, tried to fix it, rebooted the thing twice, and then they too were locked out of my computer. Everything else they tried, failed. IT took it away that day and I haven't heard a thing since.

I'm happy we have all our November pics and we have all that we'd taken up until December 20th, which includes Thanksgiving, when we had the angel boy-O here for 4 days and 5 nights. That's great, yes! BUHHT, I'm still super sad about our Christmas, New Years and January pics. [SIDE NOTE: On January the 29th, when I'd discovered the pictures had disappeared, just as I was about to burn them all to DVDs, I bawled and bawled, as if someone had died.] Those pictures included images of our baby girlie beginning to walk along our furniture, and her first trip up the stairs and her first trip down the stairs, her first moments of unmistakable dancing and singing, and the first time we found her standing against her crib rail in the morning, and her receiving her very first dolly, giving it a hug, and her first experience with snow and riding in a sled, and her first experience deliberately singing/making noise into microphone... We also had pictures of the angel boy-O singing and watching Signing Times along with his baby sissy, held on his lap. We had pictures of him kissing her goodnight, and pictures of him bouncing in a bouncy house with his baby sis sliding down the bouncy slide in his lap. And pictures of him trying to feed her while she sat in her high chair. We have theses memories still, but I want the pictures too.

For Valentine's Day this year, my honey-man bought me a replacement hard disk for my laptop. We'll see how the installation goes this week. And if it works, I'll have a lot of pictures posting to catch up on over at our family blog. And some kitty pics to share here. *sigh*

MY RECOMMENDATION: Back up ALL your photo files to DVD immediately if you haven't already done so!

"Please Don't Feed Andre Bauer" or, simply, "Andre Bauer, the A** Hole"

This is a bit old news I guess, but when I finally read last night about the latest from South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, I about hit the roof.

The following commentary from Bauer was offered in regards to free lunch programs provided for school children: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

And he says he wished he'd used a different metaphor and hadn't intended to offend anyone?!? If you ask me, his choice of 'metaphor' makes his feelings about America's poor all too clear. Breaking the cycle of welfare dependency is an extremely valid social issue, but what Bauer said, it doesn't address that issue at all, but an entirely different attitude.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 48

We ate Nutty Bars for dinner...

I'm a Sap...

I love the movie Family Man.

A Real Rainy Week!?!

Constant drizzly, rainy days, one day after another day, they're not something that really happens in Las Vegas - - any rainfall is either insignificant, or it brings on a short-lived flash flood due to our crusty desert conditions, but for the last 4 days, we've had dark and cloudy, wet and rainy days and without much flood drama. I'm sooo LOVING the unusual weather!

I do realize that not everyone is exactly 'loving' the wet weather spread across the U.S. right now, and I'm seriously hoping those hard hits areas will experience some relief and fast! I was listening to NPR on the way home the other night, and heard how many eastern and midwestern states and cities have surpassed their snow removal budgets for the year in less than two months' time!?! Having learned how to drive as a teen in Iowa, knowing what their icy and slushy winter roads can be like, I remember how snow removal is a real safety issue. And don't get me started on California and the flooding they're experiencing, as if that state hasn't got enough challenges to deal with.

Makes me worry - - The U.S. has been struggling for decades to take care of its own. Sure, many of us have our needs met and then some (like me), but there are THOUSANDS - or rather MILLIONS - who don't have their basic needs met for whatever reason, and in today's day, in our modern society, I don't know how or why this is possible. Improper resources management?

In the meantime though, I'll be grateful for the much needed rain we're experiencing here. And I'll enjoy it as well.

Rainy Day

It rained today. No downpour, but a nearly constant drizzle throughout the day, and although it ruined our plans for a hike at Red Rock this morning, I enjoyed our having some weather here. Rain is rare thing in Las Vegas.

The sun went down almost two hours ago, and the house feels cold right now. I'm feeling thankful that I had the idea to bring out our flannel bedsheets from the linen closet this past Saturday night. The boy-O flew home today, late afternoon, so there's a severely subdued mood about our home tonight, as usual the day he leaves us, but our baby sweet potato girl went down for bed without a peep nearly an hour ago, and once I post this lil' post of blather, I'm looking forward to heading upstairs to take a nice, hot bath while I read my latest Brazelton childcare book on discipline. I plan to hop into bed, into those flannel sheets, by 9pm.

I'm so grateful for our home and our good health and our good fortune, and for all our friends and family. I'm grateful for our life together and all that we have and enjoy. I wish we had more time to enjoy it all.

I don't feel psychologically ready for this week to begin. I don't even want to think about tomorrow. The weekends always fly by way too quickly, especially the ones during which we have the angel boy-O. I miss him already.

For Eleven Hours Straight

Our baby sweet potato girl slept from 6pm last night until 5:15am, and 30 minutes from the time she'd woken up, she was asleep again and didn't wake until 7am. She has never slept that much, for that long without interruption, not ever.

We Should Be in Bed...

...but instead, I'm dinking around with my blogroll for the first time in a couple months (I have over 35 posts to read from dooce.com), and my honey-man is standing with his guitar in front of his laptop which is placed on a kitchen counter, and he's playing along with Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" while it plays from his iTunes.

And now he's begun to happily strum and pick ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky"...

Did I mention already that we should both be in bed? I think we're both a little wired tonight, excited for the boy-O's arrival tomorrow.

Busy Weekend Planned with the Boy-O

The angel boy-O flies in tomorrow around 5:30pm, and we've got a fully packed weekend - - nothing super major, but it's gunna be non-stop.

As soon as he walks in the door tomorrow night, we'll have dinner on the couch with a dvd - - one of his favorite things to do... always involves lots of microwave popcorn too! Saturday, after what will be a big breakfast at home, we have plans from 10:30am until 4pm. We'll then be home for dinner, and thereafter, the boy-O and his dad will be spending some father-and-son time together at a 7pm UNLV basketball game. I could be wrong, but I think it may the be the boy-O's first college arena basketball game ever. Sunday morning, we have a brunch date with friends, followed by a mid-day movie matinee. And my sister will be joining us for dinner around 5pm that Sunday night. And Monday morning, we'll be meeting friends at Red Rock for a morning hike followed by a picnic lunch together. We'll then have to get the boy-O to the airport by no later than 1:00pm in order for him to fly out on time around 3pm, headed back to Utah.

This weekend is going to fly by, I know it. Always happens, but it always goes too fast when the angel boy-O is here.

"Hey There, Mr. Blue!"

I think our baby sweet potato girl has a favorite song - - and of course, her ELO-lovin' father is thrilled!

Happy Birthday to Moi!

I'm 35 years old today - - when am I gunna feel like I'm an adult?

Oh, Wait, That Was an Inadvertent Lie

CORRECTION: There are a couple major unfinished projects yet to deal with. I have about, oh, a hundred or so holiday cards that haven't made it to the mail yet because I still haven't finished addressing 'em. Yeah, but I figure if they make it in the mail before this year's end, that's WAY better than last year: We never sent any last year. Annnd, well, so there's the cards thing, and well --this one makes me feel bad, but I know I gotta cut myself a break or I'll melt into a whiny puddle-- I failed to finish our presents for the grandparents and siblings. See, due to a restricted budget this year, we'd opted to take advantage of the cuteness we have on hand and to make Christmas gifts for our friends and family. Excellent idea, right? No really, it IS an excellent idea, but like I said, I'm operating a week behind schedule.

SOME BACKGROUND INFO: The angel boy-O used to 'collect' pine cones galore, but his collection had to been restricted to a very tall, very large glass canister-like jar kept at the bottom of our stairs. Mind you, although restricted in size, what he'd collected could have easily filled a couple paper grocery sacks, and that's a fact... Well, he has a rock collection too, which is also restricted in terms of its size, also stored in large, lidded glass jar. Over this past summer, he wanted to add more rocks to his already full jar, and I'd told him he'd have to pick and choose which ones he wanted to keep in order to make room for the new ones. [SIDE NOTE: If this 'pick-n-choose-which-can-stay-and-which-will-go' approach sounds mean, please believe me: If we didn't restrict his collections somehow, they would take over every nook n' cranny of our home! The boy would keep every rock and every bottle cap he sees!] So, rather than have to go through his rocks at all, he decided to sacrifice his entire pine cone collection, a collection I'd grown fond of, I gotta say. So yeah, he bagged up all his pine cones and headed for the trash, and then, after he'd gone to bed that night, I removed them from the garbage before the trash would be set out for garbage day -he never knew this, by the way.

So anyhow, I was trying to figure out how we could make something meaningful to give to our friends and family, and I wanted it to represent not just our baby girlie, but our angel boy-O as well despite his absence from our home. And I could not think of anything, at least not until our baby sweet potato girlie was sent home from preschool one day with a baby-hand-painted pine cone Christmas ornament, including a photo of her attached to it, taken when she was in the midst of her paint-covered creative efforts. And voila! I instantly knew what we'd do for everyone! Baby-painted pine cone ornaments, and soooo, our baby girlie has been helping mommie paint her big brother's discarded pine cones over the last couple weeks now, which we will give as lovely lil' holiday ornaments! Brilliant, yes!? --except she can only manage painting 5 pine cones at any one time, and we've learned the most it can happen is once a day, only every other day at most. We've had FOUR "painting of zee pine cones" sessions so far (more like three n' a half), and the last session, she was like, "What? More of these pokey things? Again? Are you kidding me?" and she didn't last more than 5 minutes.

Yeah, so it's taking a while....

The Eve of Christmas

Wow. So we've determined our household has been operating about a week behind the calendar. Yup, a solid week behind schedule; it should be Christmas a week from now, not tomorrow!?! Don't get me wrong, it's not that we have a ton of stuff left to cross off our to-do lists. We're actually in okay shape compared to previous years come the holiday time; the house is all decorated and all clean; mopped and vacuumed, dusted, etc., and the laundry all caught up and put away. Every holiday candle holder in he house is loaded n' ready to burn a candle, and we'd located the 20-odd Christmas albums we own several weeks ago, so there's been a steady rotation going for the last couple weeks. All the presents are wrapped and under the tree --something that's so not our norm by Christmas Eve night. And all the shopping that could be done is done, including our grocery shopping, but man, it can't be Christmas already!?! I haven't done any baking yet, but that's because I'm only taking stuff to Utah, and that's not until next week. Otherwise, we don't need the sweets this year, so yeah, no bakin' or candy makin' this week. Even still, we're just not ready. I don't know how to explain it, but, we're just not ready. [A related 'corrective' post included HERE]

My honey-man normally creates a grand French Canadian inspired meal for Christmas that has him in the kitchen for a day, cooking away, but this year's holiday really snuck up on him -or us rather- real super fast. I knew yesterday morning when we got up that he had NO IDEA what the following day was, and when I told him, he looked like he'd been struck dumb, utterly confounded. This morning we decided to hold off on the Montreal feasting tradition and wait until the angel boy-O joins us on Sunday the 27th.

I think this year is just so new and different for us. For instance, this will be our first Christmas spent in Vegas, which isn't a shocking piece of trivia for my honey-man, but for me, well, I've lived here for TEN years now, and I've never spent Christmas here, nor in my own home, not ever! And of course, this will be our baby girlie's first Christmas, and that's very exciting, even though we know she won't ever remember a bit of it. It feels a bit odd though to celebrate the holiday season with our new darling babe now, but without our other darling babe included.

Sugar Time for KiKi

The past two nights in a row, my sweet lil' Otis has tried to take a chunk outta my right wrist with his kitty teeth! Now, before this week, I could have counted on one hand how many times Otis has ever tried to bite me and only once ever had he broken the skin, which was more my fault than his, but I won't go into that - - point is, it has only ever happened when he's feeling incredibly SUPER neglected... It's his way of saying, "Hello! Love me now OR ELSE!"

See, the last two nights, I guess I was focusing more upon tapping my fingertips against the colorful glowing thing I often have set in my lap --a place he's believed to be rightfully his since he came to live with me 6 years ago-- than upon his fuzzy backside. And while in the years before now, he could totally, patiently handle sharing some lap-space with the glowing whirring thing, only occasionally perturbed by the finger clicking and the 'mouse pad' taps beneath his chin resting upon either wrist of mine, he now has to be doubly patient and it seems he can no longer handle it.

It began 18 months ago...
First it was 9 months of sharing lap-time with the glowing thing AND a "baby bump" that gradually, steadily grew, and then altogether took over my lap near the initial 9 months' end, and the baby bump even kicked at him repeatedly when he's tried to reclaim some lap-time. And now, for the last 9 months? Well, Oatie's lap-time has been severely cut, doled out between the glowing thing, and a now ever present, relatively new, and very noisy, wriggling, squirmy thing that actually moved in with us 9 months ago! Yes, sadly for Otis, the squirmy thing seems to be here to stay.

Like his first days sharing lap-space with the glowing thing, Otis has done very well, too, with the noisy, squirmy thing, but its obvious to us he longs for the days when he reigned king-supreme over my lap, when he collectively spent a couple hours in my lap each day, even if those hours were spread throughout a days' time, over breakfast and dinner and the evenings and bedtimes. He just doesn't get much concentrated lap-time anymore, and well, to make matters worse, the tapping on the glowing thing has reached an all time high, so he's noticed, with all my working from home.

And it was bad enough a couple months ago, but now that little noisemaker routinely chases after him on all its fours, squealing loadly at him, and it goes after his tail and pulls on it harder than ever. Oh, and he's had to endure countless naptime interruptions as well... blasted lil' noisy thing.

Anyhow, long story short (too late), Otis apparently needs to tank up on some sugar from his mommie, so tonight, after putting the wriggly thing to bed, I let Otis reclaim his lap-space for a good solid 2 hours, while the glowing thing sat on the coffee table playing through the last two episodes of "Glee" from online. And I swear he was purring for those 2 hours... and now he's content to sleep beside me while I work (and blog), my sweet lil' kitty-cat.

P.S. I nearly wrung his sweet little neck though last Monday night, when he'd bitten me. I was about to send a Christmas email to a number of friends and family (which never happened), and I just had to attach three professional jpeg images of our baby girlie sitting with Santa Claus, taken at Town Square (and that is another story in itself that I will not get into right now). Although I had sensed and known he was irritated with me and all my typing while he was trying so earnestly to get my attention for some cuddles, when Otis bit me, I was so surprised and stunned, I jumped up from the couch. Consequently, I dumped my laptop on the floor and the usb drive with the jpeg files busted off in two pieces. And of course, I hadn't attached the files yet, nor had I made any duplicate file copies. Yeah, dammit. The swearing that ensued thereafter was explosive. Humpht. My sweet blasted kitty!

While Nom Nom Noming on zee Swiss Cheese

Otis has been sleeping in our dirty towels basket on top of the washer in the laundry room since eleven this morning, until just a moment ago, when he joined me, jumping up into my lap to my baby sweet potato's delight, as we're in the midst of her dinner time! Otis is just a foot away from her tiny grasp and she's deliriously happy about the close proximity. Otis is staring cooly at her while she squeaks and squeals, little arms waving and flapping, leaning as far forward as she can while sitting strapped in her high chair. And Otis knows she can't get him...

Otis Meets the New Addition to our Kitty Family

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 47

Because he regularly makes me laugh so hard I cry and I nearly pee my pants!

No-Go to Big Lots

I'd never been to Big Lots before, but decided the other day to finally check 'em out on our way home. I picked up a couple minor things, but nothing really worth writing about, except, um, there's a reason these are selling at Big Lots:

SOME BACKGROUND INFO: Over the past month, I've had a general craving for all things Oreo... Mint Oreos, Peppermint Candy Cane Oreos... and these 'Strawberry Milkshake Oreos" were a part of the latest effort to satisfy my jones'n for Os... What a NO-go!

No Fever, No Worries

Last night was pretty painless; we had no more swelling, no more crying, and zero fever past 10pm. She woke up only twice and went right back to sleep each time after nursing, and she actually slept in until 7:30am. She was an absolute angel at her peds appointment, smiling and flirty with everyone, and we wound up getting her 9 month wellness check taken care of while we were at it, since we were there close enough, just a couple weeks early. She weighs a titch shy of 20 lbs, measuring 27.5" tall --not much of a change since she was to the doc a month ago-- but her head circumference measures 47cm, still placed in the upper 95th percentile for her age = means she still has a mega big noggin, disproportionate to the rest of her lil' bod, as the rest of her measurements are still in the 50th percentile. Ha!

We also took care of her 2nd round of flu shots as well, including the H1N1 vaccine, plus a hemoglobin test-prick taken on her right big toe, which didn't elicit even a peep out of her. The two vaccine shots, one to each baby thigh, on the other hand, produced some intense but short-lived crying and some cute purple band aids, one for each baby thigh, and she was fascinated by those, and the one wrapped around her big toe too.

Throughout the day, she and I would play together quietly, and she was often content to play on her own, sitting at my feet while I tried to get some work done. She napped about every 3 hours for at least 30 minutes at a time. She actually went down around 3:30-ish for what I'd thought would be another 30 minute nap, but she didn't wake until after 8pm! After one diaper change, plus a round of eye drops and one feeding refuel later, she was back to sleep. So clearly, she's not quite herself yet, but she's much improved compared to how she was when I'd brought her home yesterday, yes, much better, thank goodness.

Back to S.Y.T.Y.C.D. for the Sake of My Nerves

So, I'm watching "So You Think You Can Dance" right now - - I missed the last 4 weeks of shows, um, cuz I don't really watch TV. But tonight, well, tonight I'm on alert, trying to remain cool, calm, and collected, and I need some 'veg-out-n-don't-think-about-it-too-much' time: My baby sweet potato girlie is sick, sick, sick, again, and this time, if she feels how she looks right now, oh my goodness, my poor baby is so sick.

As I was leaving work to go pick her up, all excited about carrying her out to the car due to her new carseat, her preschool called me to ask if I was on my way over, because she'd been taken to the infirmary. She'd woken up from a loooong nap --an hour and 15 minutes, which NEVER happens at daycare-- and they said her little face was puffy and her right eye was red and nearly swollen shut, and she was just crying, crying, crying, and with or without the puffiness and swollen eye, she's not known to cry much there.

When I arrived to her school, I went first to her group's room to collect her things and to sign out this and that, and I talked with some of the ladies who watch her to hear what they had to share about my baby girl's day. They all expressed their concern that she had had such a hard time, that she looked so sick, and that it had happened so quickly, and then? Then the real worry began to sink into my gut as I read the worry on their faces.

As I walked from one building to the other, I tried to keep my nerves and my heart in check and to not let my growing worry run out of control. As I entered the building where the infirmary is, I could immediately see my lil' sicky babe through its windows before I even had to ask where she was, and my baby girlie saw me as well, and holy cow, the crying hit a new high the moment she saw me through the glass!! The school's program director actually came out to talk to me and she met me just as I set my things down on a table outside the infirmary, but honestly, I have NO IDEA what she was saying to me, as I passed her by, eyes and ears for my baby only in that moment, and as I made it into the room where the head nurse was trying to hold her, my darling sweet pea, with her lil' right eye swollen 1/2 shut, smiled a pained and crooked smile, and the crying turned off like a switch had flipped as I reached for her, and she reached for me, and then my heart exploded.

The director and head nurse gave me the relevant details I'd need for our pediatrician, but foremost, I was preoccupied, alarmed to see how sick my wee one looked and to see her so exhausted.

Placing her inside my car and into her new carseat, after having carried her out of her school in my arms with her lil' wet, tear streaked cheekies brushing against my own as she whimpered and sighed, she barely kept her little eyes open, yet she realized something was new and different, and as she opened her peepers to see what was up. She recognized she was sitting in something she'd never seen before and she looked around, from side to side, and as her lil' wet and puffy fingertips reached out and gingerly touched the corduroy upholstery and the harness straps, she closed her swollen eyes, fingers still exploring her new backseat throne, and she leaned her little head into a side-impact cushion, opening her eyes again to look at those as well, then closing them again, whimpering some more as I began fastening her in.

Once we were home, she was too sleepy to keep her poor eyes open as she ate, and only half her usual dinner portions at that. A couple times she'd kinda squint at me, her left eye half-closed to match her right, and I realized she just had to go to bed and sooner than I'd originally thought. As I turned from her highchair to grab a bottle from the freezer to be thawed in our bottle warmer (thank you, Christina!), she began to cry a kind of slow-motion cry, too tired to cry, but with big fat tears rolling down her red, chubby cheeks, dripping off her trembling chinny-chopper. As I unbuckled and lifted her from her highchair, up into my arms, she closed her eyes again, and with her bottom lip out in a full pout, she buried her face into my neck, and patiently waited for her bottle to thaw, taking a couple peeks here and there to watch the steam rise.

We then headed upstairs for a modifying bath time. For a first, I simply laid her down in a warm bathtub filled very shallow water, rather than place her sitting up in her usual blow-up baby tubby which sets down inside the bathtub. With her head supported by a hand of mine behind her neck, she laid there in the warm water with her eyes closed, quietly humming, letting her little arms and legs float, all relaxed. And I was in awe with her.

I couldn't believe --and still can't-- how sick she looks. Her whole face appears to be puffy, her cheeks and chin are chapped, and her nose is running like a faucet, and we're certain she has a nasty eye infection. She hadn't had a fever earlier, but the last time we checked around 7pm, she had a low grade temp of 99.1. And so, as I'd said when I first began this rambling post, I'm on the alert tonight. I did talk with her pediatrician's office on our way home, and we do have an 8am appointment set for the morning. Needless to say, we'll be home from work tomorrow and she won't be able to return to daycare until she's been fever free and on antibiotics for 24 hrs' time. For now, let's just hope she doesn't get any worse tonight!

No More Infant Carrier Carseat

Our baby sweet potato is now 8 months old, well, as of 2 weeks ago, and she now weighs enough that it's proving a leg-brusing effort to haul her around in her infant carrier carseat, soooo, last night my honey-man installed our two Britax Boulevard carseats, one in each car so as to avoid daily reinstallation issues, swapping one carseat back and forth between the two cars every single day she has daycare. Anyhow, I can't express how delighted I am to be rid of the infant carrier - - and why am I so thrilled? Because from now on -well, at least until she learns how to walk- I get to carry her out to the car and in from the car every time we go-go somewheres, and I love to get my arms around my lil' bug whenever I can find the excuse to do so without mauling/smothering her [SIDE NOTE: She's a VERY independent baby and mommie (that's me) tends to cramp her style if mommie doesn't watch herself!]. And now I'm off to claim my lil' babe! I'm so ridiculously excited!

How Can it be December?

Where the heck does all the time go? AKKK!

To be continued...

Bring on the Cranberry Fluff!

Baby Purees O'Plenty!

I've been meaning to write about our adventures in homemade baby purees!! Yes, very, very exciting stuff here. For the baby's record though, I gotta write about this, plus, I'm a lil' proud of my efforts, gotta say. Offering nothing but fresh foods has been great for her health and my sense of accomplishment as a mommie.

So yeah, armed with nothing but Annabel Karmel's "Top 100 Baby Purees," I've spent the last 2 months dedicated to making our baby sweet potato's food from scratch, and I gotta say, it's wonderful! The only time she's eaten any store bought baby food is when we've been traveling out of town. Soon though, as her palate expands to include meats and cheese and more mixed food purees, we plan to be toting a baby grinder wherever we go-go.

Here's a list of her first baby food purees, starting with the first and so forth from there on:

1) Apple - the elementary baby food staple, of course
2) Sweet Potato - tastes like dessert, I swear - she loves it, of course.
3) Carrots and Sweet Potato - likes it fine, no big deal.
4) Petite Peas - her first favorite! No, really! Eat it right up, eager for each bite.
5) Pear - another staple mixed with cereal, likes it fine.
6) Broccoli and Peas - surprisingly, she eats it right up! - but results in BAD tummy bubbles, of course!
7) Banana - absolutely HATED it the first time, I mean really, really hated it = She cried!
8) Mango - can't eat it up fast enough, another favorite...
9) soooo we tried Mango with Banana - - but she wasn't a big fan of the mix, no fooling her.
10) Butternut squash - her very favorite to date! Have to admit it tastes really nummy.
11) Apple and Pear with Cinnamon - very tasty as well, like dessert.
12) Tried not-quite-so-ripe banana mashed with a fork = Success! However, it causes a lot of 'red-faced-n'-grunting' constipation, so we've given up on bananas for now...
13) Papaya, now eaten in tandem with the broccoli mix to help her digestion - she loves it!
14) Avocado - likes it fine, but the clothing stains are awful to treat, so it appears only once a week or less.
15) White corn - loves it, but only if warm... absolutely hates it if served cold.
16) Hodgepodge veggies - immediately HATED this mix = produced angry tears! Haven't tried it again since its introduction. [broccoli, carrots, corn, red pepper]
17) Foursome veggies - a total hit, warm or cold [peas, green beans, carrots, and limas]
18) Mango, Blueberries and Raspberries - may be her new favorite! And this may be TMI, but it's easily identifiable in her diaper the following day.
19) And today, while we're stuck at home together, sick, we're about to try the "Easy Pot Chicken" - - her first meat puree! Includes leek, carrots and sweet potato and some chicken broth...

She's gunna be eating better than we do!

About once every two weeks, I have a baby puree making extravaganza during which I might mix up 3-5 different purees while I'm doing some other kind of cleaning or cooking in the kitchen as well. Some food items requiring steaming while others just get thrown in the blender as is. I use silicone muffin pan forms for easy pop-out removal once frozen, and we just store the muffin cup 'disks' in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. The muffin pan also allows more portion size variance than when using an ice cube tray. One batch typically fills a 12-cup muffin pan, and we fill the muffin cups 1/2 way for some foods, like broccoli and berries, and to the top for larger portions.

When our lil' girlie was at six months of age, we began with one 1/2-disk usually mixed with a little baby cereal given around her dinnertime which is 5pm. After two weeks of that, she moved to a dinner of two 1/2-disks with some baby cereal, amounting to no more than a half-cup of food each night. At nearly seven months of age, she began having a 1/2-disk of fruit puree for 'brunch' around 10am while at daycare, which lasted for only a week. From there on until last week, she'd been given a 1/2-disk of some fruit puree mixed with some baby cereal for her brunch and a 1/2-disk of some veggie for an afternoon snack around 2:30pm. Her portions for brunch and her afternoon snack have both now increased to full-size disks. And for the past two weeks, her dinner has consisted of three 1/2-discs...

This next week, she will be EIGHT MONTHS OLD already?!? Holy schmoly, Batman!

We Can't Help It: We Miss the Boy-O Horribly

Man, I can't wait for Thanksgiving week to get here, dammit! We miss our angel boy-O sooo badly - - Tonight, after dinner, cleaning up around the kitchen, as my honey-man washed the cooking pans and dishes, it just hit me so hard that I yelled out loud at the ceiling that I miss him so much.

Late last month, I'd written over at our family blog that I wasn't going to write anymore about how much we miss him:

"...At the beginning of the October month, [the boy-O] had a 'fall break' from school, which allowed him to fly into Vegas on a Wednesday night and stay through to Sunday afternoon. IT WAS SOOOO WONDERFUL to have him for more than just a couple nights!!! We REALLY, REALLY loved having him for 4 nights and THREE WHOLE DAYS plus half of Sunday - - And of course, we were totally heartbroken when he had to leave us, as usual...

I'm not sure we're ever going to get used to the pain we feel when [the boy-O] leaves. We basically miss him all the time, and for the few days following his return home to [his mom n' step-dad], we actually feel a bit under the weather. It's emotionally and psychologically challenging, gotta say. I think that from now on, it should go without saying that it's ALWAYS hard to let him go EACH AND EVERY TIME, but that's the way it is, and I'm just not going to write about it or mention it anymore."

After the summer's over, we go month to month with one chance per month to see him, and each time we see him, it's just sooo freakin' bittersweet - - long enough to serve as a refresher as to what we're missing out on each and every day, yet never long enough to build upon any kind of family routine or to influence his daily habits. It's hard to find a good balance and the right attitude to take when it comes to our ability, or rather, our inability to parent him and be a family. And for me, it's hard to find my role in it at all, especially now, as he sees how involved I am with his baby sister and makes his own comparisons, although we've tried repeatedly to explain she's a dependent, needy little baby, and she does live with us everyday, so her life is about living with us, etc. etc. Hard stuff.

Man, this is such a loaded subject, I don't know where to go with it really, especially here, blogging, so I'll stop and leave it at this: I'm very happy the angel boy-O will be here for Thanksgiving. Although we saw him in UT for Halloween, he hasn't been to our home since that first weekend of October. It will be wonderful to have him here, sleeping in his bedroom, singing in the shower, getting popcorn all over the couch, hanging on the open refrigerator door, playing with the kids in our development, riding his bike with his dad... and to spend more than a flash-in-the-pan weekend together.

Oh and BTW, She's also Crawling!!!

Eureka! We've Got Two Teensy Toothies!

This crazy week of sleepless nights now makes total sense: Our baby sweet potato girl is cutting her first pair of baby teeth, bottom, front and center, of course!

Yesterday morning, last night and this morning, I noticed sumthin' was a little off while we were nursing... I'd felt her gums, but nothing was there, but tonight, I was absolutely certain something was significantly different tonight, and so I stuck a finger inside her mouth again, against her lower gums, and viola, two teeny, tiny teeth have surfaced!

So yeah, tonight, finally --more like, duh!-- we've got baby ibuprofen working its blessed magic! And now? I'm going to bed, and hopefully, get me some sleep! Ga'nighty-night and sweet dreams!

Surrounded

This morning, around 4am, our lil' baby sweet potato girlie woke up absolutely starving, or so one would have thought with all her squawking, until you turn on the light and see it can't possibly be the case, since she's a total butterball. So yeah, I was feeding her at 4am, lying in our bed with her -- I realize this is sooo not a good habit to get back into - I know, I know, - but she's been waking every 2-4 hours for the past FOUR NIGHTS IN A ROW and I just can't get up and stay in her room every time anymore, I'm so severely sleep deprived. The other night, staggering back to our bedroom from hers, I ran my side into our bedroom doorway with such force, I bruised my right upper arm and shoulder! But I digress...

The point of this post: At 4:30am this morning, my honey-man woke me to point something out -- I honestly suspect I must have been snoring, and loudly, for him to have been awake. Again, I digress...

He told me I was surrounded: He was at my back, spooning me, the two kitties were lying together behing my knees, between us, and I was spooning our darling lil' baby girl, who was lying on her back, sound sleep; I was surrounded from all sides, and despite how tired I was, it was a perfect moment, and I am so grateful for my life.

Poor Cat Deely

Tonight's S.Y.T.Y.C.D., oh my: How can they dress that darling cutie-pie Brit, Cat Deely, like that? Poor girl.

Increase Insurance Co. Profits, Hell yeah!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

What Day Is It?

On Monday, I nearly dozed off while driving to work... my left eye twitched throughout the day (and it's still twitching today, this very moment). After picking up my baby girlie from her preschool/daycare, I fed her a lil' bit of pureed apples while she sat in my lap, the two of us sitting together in the passenger seat of my car, hoping to help her last until we'd get home from grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Once we were home from our grocery shopping excursion, I began steaming some white corn to introduce a new baby food puree for her to try, and I put away the groceries while my lil' wee flower happily played at my feet, plopped on the kitchen tile. Otis swiped her with the side of his body at least twice and she was utterly delighted with the furry kitty contact. Then I fed her some more din-din (she loved the white corn!), while steaming 2 more batches of food for baby purees; another new one, 'hodgepodge' veggies, and one of her faves, green petite peas. She bathed her in the kitchen sink, and I sang several songs to her while dressing her for bed and rocking her in the glider chair she has in her bedroom. She was out like a light and in her crib by 7pm. To be honest, she was asleep by 6:40pm, but I just continued to hold her and rock her and sing to her. After she was down, I then cleaned all our bathrooms (2.5) from head to toe... the baseboards, tile floors, cabinet doors, drawers, toilets, sinks, counters, mirrors, glass, and light fixtures, and I changed out all the towels and shook all the rugs. I saved the trash for my honey-man, who handles the trash (and diaper pails) on Tuesday and Friday nights. And then I loaded and ran the dishwasher, and I prepped two 5-oz bottles and two baby food containers for the following day. [SEMI-RELATED TANGENT: Yup, for a little more than a week now, our baby girlie's been enjoying a cereal-fruit mix for 'brunch', and now, as of this Tuesday, she began having a veggies-mix for lunch, ready and rearing for more solids. END OF TANGENT.] And then I took a shower and threw myself into our bed around 1/4 to midnight. (Yes, I do need my head examined.) Our sweet potato girl only woke up once that night, to be fed around 2am.

And on Tuesday, um, Tuesday was loaded with stuff and I can't remember what right now... except that I'd initially eaten microwave popcorn as my dinner until my honey-man came home around 7:30pm, and said "oh no ya don't" and made us a real dinner. Oh yeah, I did the usual "pick-up-and-claim-my-darling-baby" thing after work, and once she n' I were home, we did the usual "feed-and-bathe-the-baby" thing, except she had a teething biscuit for the first time, which was a real hit, and then she and I, we had a bath together. She was soooo tired -and so cute- she actually began to nod off while in the tub! I tried to keep her up so my honey-man could see her when he got home, but by 6:30pm, she was totally limp-limbed and soundly asleep before I could even place her in her crib. After giving her up to her crib, I went downstairs to unload the dishwasher and to hand wash all her bottles n' food containers. I also swept the kitchen and downstairs tile, wiped down all the kitchen counters, and prepped her bottles and baby foods for preschool the next day, and took an early shower. As I've already mentioned, my honey-man came home and made us dinner, and then I tried to watch "So You Think You Can Dance," but I missed most of it while talking on the phone for nearly 2 hours. I think I was in bed by 11pm, and our sweet potato girl woke up only once that night, to be fed around 3am.

And yesterday, we did the whole "pick up, go home, feed baby, and bathe baby" thing, and then I tried, tried, tried to keep my baby sweet potato girlie up. And this time, she was totally up for it, happy to quietly play, waiting with me for her daddy to come home, even though she was seriously tired... here and there, she would lean forward to rest her head on my leg, or on my arm or in my lap or on my shoulder. My honey-man came home early though, 'round 6:30pm, and so we all had about 30 minutes together, playing and cuddling on her bedroom floor together. And she went to bed at 7pm without a single baby utterance of protest. Thereafter, mah honey-man and I, we had our dinner together, after which, we ate cookies, too many cookies. And soooo, I vacuumed the entire house, including the stairs. And I washed 3 loads of laundry. And some other things.

We were both in bed by 10pm last night - - a true rarity for either of us! Our sweet potato girl woke up twice, at midnight and 4am... arrhhhgg! The 2nd time she woke, you would have thought it was a bright sunny day underway, as she seemed ready for action, talking and squirming around and all smiling and all perky, but I knew too well what she was really doing... See, she doesn't like to miss out. My honey-man, he had brought her into our bedroom, and after I'd fed her, I had hoped she'd fall asleep right there where she laid beside me, but she knew she was there with the both of us, so she wanted to play with her mommie and daddy, patting our faces, trying to twist and turn herself so she could climb onto our sides. And then I caught her yawn not once, but twice in a row, confirming my suspicion, so I scooped her up to take her back to her bedroom. She was sooo darling! Once in my arms, on the way to her bedroom, she shut her lil' chattery yap and simply cuddled into my chest, ready for it and willing. I laid her back down in her crib and she smiled at me as she took her binky into her own hand and placed it in her mouth as she turned her head to right, away from me, and closed her little sleepy eyes and she was gone.

And tonight? It hasn't been quite so busy. I had planned to run to Smith's for some of our non-Trader Joe's items we like, but after picking up my lil' babe, holding her in my arms as we entered the lobby of her preschool, I just wanted to take her home and do nothing but be with her. Not until after she had eaten and bathed did I touch anything else. She was in her crib, fast sleep by 6:30pm; almost every part of her little being was begging to go to bed as early as 6pm. At one point, mid-bath, she actually began to whine and then cry, wanting to be on closer on her way towards bedtime.

My honey-man came home 'round 9pm, and because I was already upstairs, I didn't yell down to him, but waited for him to come up. Can I tell ya, he looks exhausted, as do I, too, apparently... I think last night's baby wakings really tapped us, but I think they may have really done one over him a bit more so because he said this to me as he flopped beside me on our bed, me with my laptop: "Two words... Go to bed early!"

It's now 10:27pm, and I can hear my baby girl's breathing is stuffed up, and for the last half hour, she keeps letting out a pained lil' moan every 10 minutes or so. Hmmm... I'm going to hop in the shower, after which, I hope to finally go to bed. I imagine she'll be up a couple times tonight.

P.S. Yesterday morning, my honey-man called me on our way to work to ask me if I'd remember to take my coffee with me to work... I hadn't... nor had he. We'd left behind a brand new, fresh, full pot of coffee.

Off to Ootah for Halloween with the Angel Boy-O!

We're leavin' in the morning, EARLY (hopefully...)! Our aim is to hit the round once the wee one rouses... depending upon when she has her midnight wake-up, that could be anytime between 5:30 and 8am... On second thought, we'll wake her up at 6am, and she can sleep in the car. Sorry, thinking via type here.

Everyone have a Happy Halloween!!! boo!

Let the Chaos Resume!

By noontime yesterday, as we were leaving Trader Joe's, my baby sweet potato girlie's nosey was drip, drip, dripping... yup, she's sick AGAIN!

We had a non-sicky-baby break for ONE WHOLE FREAKIN' WEEK, that's all, and now she's sick again... moaning, stuffy and snotty, dripping, coughing, teary eyed and uber clingy (so far,all in a cute way)... Mah poor baby girlie. Oh yeah, and she also seems to be TEETHING! The next couple weeks are gunna be fun, fun, fun.

Excuse me, but I have a super cute, super sick baby beginning to wail beside me, slapping away at my keyboard. Gotta go!

Positively Exhausted

I don't know what the heck is goin' on with our baby sweet potato girl, but man, she was up FOUR TIMES last night...?!? And the night before, it was three times... and the night before that, also three times. She wasn't this bad as a constantly hungry newborn! She wasn't particularly cranky last night whenever she woke, but she wouldn't go back to sleep on her own, not once.

Now that she's been feeling better, no longer sick n' snotty, we're trying to get her back to sleeping flat in her crib, without being propped in her vibe chair... We NEVER used the vibration setting, but if she'd wake or kick or move, it'd bounce and I think she got hooked. Hence, she doesn't know how to "self-sooth" herself back to sleep anymore = that's my theory for now.

I feel like I'm operating with my head in a vice (headache), in a cloud (can't think), and everyone's talking into paper cups (can't focus on what anyone says to me), BUHHT I'm in a pretty dang good mood, nonetheless, hence the use of "positively" for this post's title. Yeah, I'm feelin' uber happy right now, cuz, #1) Friday makes for slow foot traffic throughout the work day, so I actually get a lot done, and #2) because it's Friday, that means the weekend is here! And #3) I finally get to spend more than 2 freakin' hours with my daughter due to the weekend's blessed arrival!!! I have 45 minutes until I can leave n' go claim my lil' pumpkin!

I'm gunna eat chubby babyfat rolls all weekend long! WOO-HOO!

Five Times on Tuesday - Yes, FIVE Times

I'm referring to the number of times I burst into tears yesterday... Felt like the universe was conspiring against me, throwing as many menial and inconsequential mess ups and minor frustrations at me as possible in a 12 hour period... Felt like I just couldn't do a damn thing right! Later that night, around 7:30-ish (my 5th cry of the day), I grabbed a blanket and nearly threw myself on the couch like a pouting child, and I sobbed until I passed out, asleep.

P.S. Plus, I'm almost certain I'm PMSing. Yeah, that and major sleep deprivation; I'm sure neither condition helps me much.

Proof Positive, Maybe

My kitties have not disowned me for having a wriggling, squealing n' squawking baby, who demands and receives most of my attention... either that or they just like the heat my laptop gives off.

(And no, I don't know why my top is doing what its doing here - - looks twisted? Nothing quite fits right still...Um, my cup size went up from a C to an E! Yeah, that might explain it.)

Note to Self

What characterizes most immature people is that they sit around complaining that life doesn't meet their demands.

We Love Las Vegas in October

I used to abhor fabric ruffles on baby bums - - I now love 'em!

Can you say "baby fat?" Ahh, lemme' tell ya, it's dah best!
I love all her lil' chubby-chub rolls and apple cheekies! I eat 'er up, I do, each day!
I love this hat of hers...Thanks again, Brenda!