moody bitch count = 2

As predicted, the household moody bitch count has increased. Piper has followed Penguin's lead. I need to locate the rest of our supply of pants tonight. As a result of Penguin's recent thyroid deficiency, we're trying the "squatty body" size pants. She doesn't look that big to me, but the regular pants don't fit the way they once did, much like most of my pants. Alas, a pill twice a day isn't going to solve my problem.

moody bitches

How many is too many? We have one in the house. Do I hear two? How 'bout three moody bitches?

Penguin is in season. Piper will surely follow in a few days. The last time this happened I was so pregnant I could barely bend over to get their snazzy pants off before sending them outside. There were a few accidents. They were not pretty. New pants have been procured.

As for me, Aunt Flo hasn't visited since June 28, 2004, a date that will live in infamy...or at least my permanent medical record. For nine or so months, I was asked for that date, the magical LMP, by a medical professional every few weeks. Now that Oliver has started ingesting nourishment other than breastmilk, it probably won't be long before she makes a return visit. He's still breastfeeding as much as ever though, so it's possible I'll have a few more months off. It's a tough call to say which part of pregnancy I enjoyed more, AF's absence or not having to clean the litter box.

Oliver tried sweet potatoes last night along with his oatmeal. So far, he's digging anything that is delivered on a spoon. This morning I decided to see if he would object to cold sweet potatoes. Nope. It's all good. I don't even warm the breastmilk I mix in with the oatmeal. I am hoping to find barley cereal today. Alternating the rice and oatmeal leads to fairly explosive results. I had two bags of messy clothes to bring home on Friday. And one of the educators at Oliver's school ended up with poopy footprints on her shirt. At the rate he's going, between his hurling and pooping, the Infant Wing educators are going to clean out the school's supply of spare t-shirts before the first month is over. I think Oliver is going to forego the rice for a while.

Here's a pic for Kate, taken yesterday. It fits!

scissors and glue

One of the interesting requirements of parents at Oliver's school is that we make a gift for his room. This year's gift making activity for the Infant Wing is an "All About Me" book. Really just a small photo album but I am told as the children get older these books are used to comfort them, remind them of home, etc. I was concerned at first since we were told to bring photos of relatives and Oliver has a whole side of his family tree, with one exception, that he hasn't met yet. Leaving things to the last minute, we spent most of the evening before the activity printing photos.

The activity part of this was to decorate the cover of the book. It was an interesting collaborative effort for Oliver's parents, who have very different ideas, both practically and aesthetically. Entertaining, no doubt, for any flies who happened to be on the walls. We selected paper, glued pictures, used rubber stamps and markers....not things we do every day. Kind of therapeutic, in an odd way.

We have a few things left to do, like take a photo of Oliver's back for the back cover of the book (one of the things we agreed upon) and a few more photos that need labels, but it was in good enough shape to leave at school on Friday. I hope Oliver enjoys it. I'm sure his teachers will find it entertaining.

This is how we spent the afternoon of CD's 40th birthday, Wednesday. The remainder of the day was fairly quiet. Weekday evenings usually find us too exhausted to do much more than feed dogs, Oliver, and ourselves and this evening was no exception. We will have to find a better way to mark this milestone birthday later on.

Songs from the Big Chair

(Apologies to Tears for Fears. I'm really dating myself....)

I didn't include CD on the choice of high chair so I thought it only fair to leave it for him to put together when he returned from San Francisco. Oliver seems to like the view, but I'm finding my aim with the spoon is suffering (see second photo). I think need to get a stool.

You can see anticipatory drool if you look closely at the first photo. Oliver really loves cereal.

In other "big chair" news, Oliver's new carseat finally arrived and was installed. We will see how he likes it in the morning. It's a fairly complicated contraption, at least until it can be switched to forward facing. If he doesn't like it I may climb in as it looks more comfortable than anything we have for adults. It is a bit of a cliché to say it looks like a Barcalounger but that's the most accurate description I can come up with.

To make it a hat trick of progress, Oliver went into his bathtub last night without being wrapped in a receiving blanket (and without screaming in protest). He's growing up and it's going by much too fast.

"Aunts don't let nephews be Yankee fans"

While I may never forgive my family for not taking me to the seventh game of the '75 series, I'm still a Red Sox fan. During our week in New England last month I was reminded of how many summer evenings I spent watching my beloved Sox on TV. Oliver sees very little TV but he did watch a bit of baseball with me in Maine.

Today we learned Oliver's Aunt Suzy made him a member of Red Sox Kid Nation. It's a neat little package...a cap, a small squishy ball, stickers, baseball cards, team photo, lots o' great Sox stuff. Given the dismal state of the Pirates these days, I'm glad to share an alternative alliance with my son. May he never experience an autumn of decline in the Red Sox fortunes. At the very least, may he always loathe the Yankees. While he looks good in blue, he looks even better in red.

Oliver now weighs 17 pounds. We had to get him bigger diapers today, which also involves changing type and/or brand. We're trying out two different kinds to see which fit better. It reminds me of bra shopping, going through the trauma of trying on lots of different models, finally settling on one that mostly works, only to discover the manufacturer has discontinued it. To the good people who make Pampers I say, "BIGGER SWADDLERS, please."

He tried oatmeal tonight and liked it just as much as the rice he started eating earlier this week. He will take his new high chair for a spin tomorrow. It's got wheels so it could actually spin, though too much of that would probably result in walls, or dogs, coated in cereal. Not pretty.

adventures in cereal, the second

More cereal tonight, mixed a little thicker. Initially Oliver wasn't interested at all. The Peanut Gallery, the white and furry Peanut Gallery, must have been too distracting.

Eventually Oliver got with the program. He started grabbing for the spoon and opening his mouth as it approached.

I let him have the spoon to hold when he finished eating, mostly so I could get the camera.

adventures in cereal

While I fully intended to hold off on solids until Oliver was six months old, there have been a few indications of readiness I couldn't ignore. He wants to hold my spoon when I am having breakfast. He's interested in watching food. He holds his head up perfectly. He still doesn't sleep. (Yes, the doc says feeding him solids won't make any difference, but I need PROOF.) And the lack of sleep gives me little resistance. I had discussed the whole solid food thing briefly with one of the educators at Oliver's new school and she was encouraging. Then I noticed a box of rice cereal in the "help yourself" basket in Oliver's classroom. This was followed by a sample of organic baby rice cereal arriving in yesterday's mail. It seemed like a sign.

The doc said now or later, it's all good with him. So last night, in spite of CD's absence, I mixed a tiny bit of rice cereal with what was probably too much breastmilk and let Oliver have a taste. I was expecting the tongue thrust reflex to send the concoction all over the kitchen but I was wrong. There was no tongue thrust at all, just a slightly puzzled expression and an open mouth looking for more.

I may try a bit more tonight, mixed a little less thinly. Check back for a picture should I be feeling brave. I didn't want CD's camera anywhere near the cereal last night, in case it did end up sprayed all over.

Now we need a high chair. There's a wonderful Eric Carle model on eBay....

just a few quick updates

Rolling over -- It's a regular thing now. Sometimes it wakes Oliver up, other times he's not bothered.

Union Jack Robeez -- Thanks to my niece Jacie, and no thanks to eBay's "saved search" feature, these are located and on the way.

Colds -- Oliver and I still have colds. The doc says since what's coming out of our noses isn't green, there's nothing to do but wait it out.

Dogs -- It's Piper's fourth birthday today! The little girl who refuses to grow up advances another year by the calendar but certainly not in attitude. She remains as goofy and silly as ever. In other dog news, Penguin "returned" the sock of Oliver's she stole from the laundry basket a few weeks ago. Yuck.

on a roll

Oliver is still getting up every 2-3 hours at night. My reward at his 4am feeding today was to find him on his tummy. Thus far, he's displayed very limited interest in rolling over. He rolled from tummy to back once a few weeks ago, but not again since then. To my knowledge, until very early this morning he had never rolled completely from back to tummy. Then he did it again this afternoon during a nap, landing at an end of the crib he doesn't usually visit. I can't tell if it's waking him up or not, since he's often awake at 4am. Maybe I'll find out tonight. I have a feeling I'll be up.

Stuff we love, volume 3

This post somehow got lost and never published. ROBEEZ!!! We love Robeez. Oliver's Aunt Suzy, whose birthday happens to be today, sent him a pair with, you guessed it, PUPPIES on them. Really adorable. And for the most part, Oliver cannot remove them by himself. If he really works hard, he can get one of them off, but nothing like what he can do with most socks.

Our quest at the moment is to find a pair of Robeez with the Union Jack pattern in size 6-12 months. They seem to be available only in Australia these days. We may just have to enlist the help of our good friend Jan.

don't try this at home

At the risk of talking about poop again, and almost as often as Dooce, Oliver had some spectacular gastro-intestinal distress yesterday, so bad that we were asked to get him out of daycare. Not that I minded....if it were someone else's kid exposing mine to who-knows-what, I'd want the parents to fetch the kid too.

The worst part is it appears this was entirely my fault. I've had a bit of a cold and since I can't take sudafed or anything else that would be helpful, I went for the Vitamin C. I give the dogs a 1000mg timed-release hit of C daily so we always have it around. I took one when I was feeding them Tuesday night. About 20 minutes later, I couldn't remember if I had taken it or not (see all previous posts related to sleep deprivation) and took another. At this point I should have remembered what happens when the dogs get too much C. When I started giving it to them we began with a small dose. "To bowel tolerance" was the magic phrase. Indeed.

Fortunately, it was all over (no pun intended) as fast as it began. Oliver has forgiven me. Even the little bit of pink on his bum is gone this morning. (Thank you A&D. That stuff is pure MAGIC.) No more C for me until after he's weaned. This is one theory I don't feel the need to test.