Outbreak Monkey

I think we have a pandemic on our hands, and the outbreak monkey appears to be A-Train. She hasn't gotten sick, Thank GOD! Still keeping a close eye on her, but she seems ok.

Her hair is awesome today. The back is ratty looking as usual, even though it's not knotted up. The front has a spike and the top looks like a peacock plume. I didn't have time to take photos but if it still looks like that after daycare, pics are a must. Every time she moved her head, the plume would wave around like dandelion fluff.

I still have a ton of videos to upload and post, but it takes so long to do it that I never seem to have time. Time is a valuable commodity of late and I won't have any after work because I have 2 homework assignments due. What a week.

She's been attempting to sit up lately. She'll do little crunches when she's placed in her carseat or butterfly bouncy chair. She has also been holding her bottle for the most part. She hasn't quite mastered the process, and tends to place her hands on the top which pushes it down and out of her mouth. She also can't seem to tilt it so she needs assistance, but every once in a while she nails it and can hold it through the whole feeding.

Gave her a little rice cereal with a spoon yesterday. Her faces are classic and we'll post video of that hopefully soon. She's learning not to push it back out of her mouth, and she managed to eat more cereal than she ended up wearing which is a plus.

She seems to be everyone's favorite at the daycare. One of the teachers from the 4 year old class says she loves relieving the infant teachers for lunch because she gets to play with AJ. Her little smile is infectious, even to those who work with babies all day long. The new girl at daycare is funny and so far I like her. Every time I've picked AJ up from daycare since the new girl started, she was holding her, playing with her or rocking her.

A-Train can't help it that she's the most awesome!

-t

ER

I feel like the boy in The Velveteen Rabbit except I don't have to get rid of my favorite toys, I just can't play with them yet. I went to the ER this morning around 8:30 to get a $250 IV and some anti-nausea meds. $250 co-pay. Yuck.

S dropped me off and I stumbled into the ER after being checked for metals and what not. Gotta love metal detectors in a hospital. I was actually thankful for this later, but I'll get to that. He drove AJ down to my girl friend's house (our regular babysitter) and then he came back to sit with me.

Before he returned, I was put in a small check up room and my vitals were taken. While waiting to be placed into a triage room, a woman came in claiming her doctor was wrong, and he had said she was psychotic. She intended to sue him and needed someone to go to court with her. Here is where I was thankful for the metal detectors. I wanted to scream at her that 1) it's SUNDAY, wth is anyone going to be able to do TODAY and 2) could you please not be a psycho... go away and let people with real emergencies get seen. A couple with two small children were waiting for their children to be seen and it broke my heart to hear the little girl crying when they took her blood.

After all the IVs and meds and drive home, I made my way back upstairs to the guest room at home to sleep it off. I had been up since about 3 am and had no energy. I slept decent thanks to the meds and exhaustion. I was ready to be awake at about 3 pm and came downstairs, careful not to touch or breathe on anything. My head was pounding though so I took some Excedrin Tension and went back upstairs.

I read my book for a while and it made me want to cuddle with A-Train. It's about a missing girl and a tragedy in her little life. Sad! I called (lol yes called on the phone) S-Factor and said I wanted to hang out but was afraid I would get them sick. He convinced me to come down and quarantine myself on one end of the couch. So that's where I've been for the last couple of hours.

Despite all of the hours I slept today, i'm still worn out and ready for bed. If I feel like this in the morning, I'm staying home. Blah!

Here's hoping this bug skips AJ and S-Factor.

-t

GEAUX SAINTS!

Woohoo!! 45-14 WHO DAT!

Anyway, I haven't updated in a few days again. This time I have reasons. Work has been bonkers lately. Recompeting for contracts and "reducing forces." After Wednesday, we'll see if I still work on this contract. If not, I know of a small company that is eager to hire me within a few months.

So, I've promised pictures. I'll post the latest couple of pics here.

Here she is sleeping soundly during the Saints game.



Next up, sleeping soundly in her carseat, clinging to her binky.



Lastly, hanging out with Mom, watchin' some tube.

Ok Ok Ok!

Since I have gotten numerous requests from multiple people, I will take some more photos of the little one and upload those I've taken. I also have a few videos I intend to upload. Feel free to FedEx me some extra hours in my day LOL! Just kidding.

I am pretty swamped, but it's all good. School started again yesterday, and this semester is Drawing and Anatomies with a segment on Drawing for Animation. I get to use my new art desk that S-Factor got me for Christmas! YAY! He assembled it and set it up under the big bay window in the den. I'm excited.

I'm also working on a freelance project for a guy that does puns. It's a lot of fun. He mentioned he may work on a children's book and I would love to illustrate a children's book!

Aside from all of that, I am working like crazy at my day job. It's been madness, but it pays the bills lol.

Back to AJ since that is the reason you all frequent this blog :)

She's doing well. She has slept at least 8-9 hours every night since last Wednesday. We are loving it! We're also anxiously awaiting teething, but maybe we'll get lucky with that and she will be amicable. Fingers crossed.

She has graduated from blowing raspberries to a new fun thing to do: random squealing. It's cute but also a little ear-splitting. Lucky for us so far, she doesn't do the siren squeals that last 30 seconds. She does the quick, loud squeaks. She also does a lot of "AAAHH" and "OOOHHH". Like a tiny monkey.

Her primary source of nutrition has shifted from breastmilk to formula, though, and this makes me very sad. She is weaning herself, and as a result, I am not producing nearly enough to keep up. Even with one of the best electric pumps on the market, production is waning. All the Fenugreek and Mother's Milk tea in the world isn't helping at this stage. I know it's a natural course, and something I can't control, but it still hurts (both physically and emotionally!).

Such is parenthood!

Oh well. Everyone smile, our child is a happy one!

-t

The Weekend

It was a pretty good weekend for the most part. AJ slept well Friday night while we watched Terminator Salvation with our friend, the Matt Attack. (haha) We couldn't really take the movie very seriously though because Christian Bale always sounds like he needs a lozenge or a drink of water or something. But it was fun making goofy comments throughout the movie.

Saturday... what did we do Saturday...? OH! I went with my girl friend to view some potential locations for her wedding while S-Factor hung out with AJ. Apparently, A-Train was awake all but 30 minutes while I was gone. That worked out though because she again slept like a champ while S went out with his other Matt friend, and Matt Attack and I played a shoot 'em up game (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 <3). My favorite part was the level where we had to sneak around and get past the bad guys without being discovered. We were literally whispering while playing. ha!

Sunday was a good day, for sure. S, AJ, and I went to watch sorting practice at the rodeo arena on our street. AJ was looking at all of the cows and horses with a completely enthralled expression. It was pretty funny. We hung out there for about an hour and a half and then headed home to get a few things done before we went to see

AVATAR on IMAX 3D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (My friend babysat A-Train lol)

OMG this movie is so good. SO GOOD! And in 3D, it was mind-blowing. I seriously think it might be my new number two movie. (Nothing can bump The Princess Bride out of first place, sorry)

It's like Fern Gully meets Dances With Wolves, but on crack and acid and ecstasy. The CGI was incredible, the story was good, and even the acting was great. Sigourney Weaver was awesome as always, and I'm liking the new guy who also happened to play the robot-who-doesn't-know-he's-a-robot in Terminator Salvation. (We liked him in Terminator, just not Bale)

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

-t

Mean Mommy!

AJ got her first 2 shots today. We decided to delay them slightly. I just feel that newborns and 1 month olds are too teeny (not that AJ was ever "teeny") for their bodies to handle the vaccines well. So, at 15 lbs 5 ounces, our chunkmonk got her first pokes. She was lying there minding her own business suckin' on her binky when all of a sudden she got stabbed! She couldn't believe it! She looked right at me and wailed! I had a bottle ready (had already fed her once before so didn't have enough breastmilk available), so I scooped her up, sat in the rocker they have available and popped the bottle in her mouth.

All was well in her world again. She's a tough cookie. By the time we got to daycare, she was ready to chill under the cube thing, hand on her knee.

Next month she'll get one more, and then the cocktail at 6 months, rather than at 4 months.

So let's hope the shots she got today doesn't make her sick!

I don't even know where to begin

I wasn't around much this past weekend/week. My grandfather passed this weekend, and I flew out to attend the services on Monday. The upside is that there was much more smiling and laughing than crying at the services. That shows that it was more of a celebration of Emory "Bill"'s life than a mourning of his death. He would appreciate that I believe.

AJ did well at home alone with her Daddy these last few days. I was worried it would be too crazy for S-Factor, but just like everything else, he handled it like a champ. I don't think I could have been so cool and collected feeding 2 horses, 2 dogs who have to be kept separate, a 4 month old, and myself.

I missed her a lot, but I will admit that getting 8 straight hours of sleep was a glorious thing. She slept for 9 1/2 hours last night, though, and since I was so tired and went to bed at 8pm, I got 8 1/2 hours. WOO!

She is such a good baby, and a good sleeper. I am terrified of even thinking about having another child because I just know the next one will be a holy terror. No one gets this lucky twice!

I plan to upload the videos we've taken over the last month or so, and I'll post the link either here or on Facebook. I'll keep you posted!

-t