it’s not about you

So, for some reason, I can no longer post photos to the main page from my Flickr. I have no idea why, since I’m about as tech-savvy as… someone who’s not tech-savvy. Anyway.

I’ve posted a couple of new photos since the one that appears on the site. Just click through to see them. As soon as I find my card reader and upload photos from the Nikon, I’ll have post-haircut pictures and pictures from our camping trip this past weekend with some friends.

It’s still nice and warm here. I woke up sticky this morning in my sheets and for a minute, thought I was in Texas. I went downstairs to get some things out of the car, and when I stepped on the brick right outside our front door in the hallway, I cringed, waiting for my bare foot to touch cold brick, since the stairwell is always cool. When it didn’t happen, and the brick stayed warm under my foot, I cackled a little bit.

There’s always a chill in the air here - everyone carries a bag so they have a sweater and a scarf available at all times. A comment on the weather article on the Chronicle’s web site that said “I don’t even know how to dress for anything over 65 degrees” made me laugh out loud. Everyone has been practically basking in this heat - it’s been a welcome respite. I’ve never seen so many people wearing black at a beach.

A woman visiting from Florida who was quoted in last night’s article was recounting her cab ride where the driver refused to turn on the air-conditioning even though it was in the 90’s outside. She was baffled.

At one point in my life, I would have been, too. Now I understand. Everyone here is trying to soak it up and store it, just like Vitamin D.

Polaroid is getting out of the Polaroid business.

O

M

G

!!!!

via the nytimes.

The boy kept me up almost all night last night. He nursed constantly and leaked through his diapers three times - enough to change his clothes, THREE TIMES. By this morning, the wet spot on the bed had me pushed over (to) The Edge.

He apparently wants to sleep curled up somewhere in my chest cavity, if his burrowing into my body in his sleep is any indication.

The next person who asks me “is he sleeping through the night yet?” might be on the receiving end of one of the phrases I said I was going to stop saying around Judah. What do you care? For crying out loud - even his pediatrician doesn’t ask me that! Stop trying to make yourself feel superior by comparing our children to each other. He’ll sleep through the night when he’s developmentally ready according to his needs and on his timetable. He’s not your child-rearing-book monkey. *&^%$#@!@#$%^&!!! (this really has nothing to do with anyone I know - I just feel the need to grumble about something - so, sorry - but it does annoy the crap out of me when people ask me that, FYI).

I have a blog post I’ve been working on for three days, and can’t find the time to finish. Does it tell you how crazy it is around here if I can’t even REMEMBER what happened on Monday?

Yesterday, I took Killian to his four month visit at the pedi’s office, and then we went from there to the Civic Center to pick up his birth certificate (finally) and we went from there, with the birth certificate, to the Medi-Cal office to update his information, which to me seemed kind of pointless, because I also needed to submit Joshua’s pay stubs, which means we’ll be losing the Medi-Cal, and I don’t see why I should shell out between 50 and 100 bucks for someone to poke around on my kid and declare him “looking great.” That’s just really pointless, if you ask me.

Every time I leave the pediatrician’s office, I feel like I’m an idiot. I told this to my dad on the phone afterwards and he just laughed. Why is that so funny? Don’t get me wrong - I really like our kids’ doctor. He’s nice, he’s amiable, he really gets kids, he’s very good at what he does, and he believes in being the doctor and letting the parents be the parents, and I respect that. And he’s got some GREAT chops. But when I told him that I didn’t see the need to continue bringing my kid in for all these visits if he wasn’t getting shots and he asked when I would like to bring him in and I said if he’s sick or when he’s a year old, he had to stop himself from laughing at me.

We’re compromising. I don’t have to bring him in for six, nine and twelve months. I can bring him in at eight and twelve months and then I’m hoping to skip the 15-monther, too. I think I’m just going to stop opening my mouth when I go in. It’s usually what gets me in trouble. I have a long history of running my mouth (that’s probably why I like blogging so much - I get to run my mouth off at whatever I want).

And someone in our house has been sick since we were in Texas. And now Judah’s is getting worse again and Joshua had a sore throat all night. I told him to stay away from me, since I just got over being sick since before Thanksgiving (he kept trying to hug me goodbye this morning and I kept leaning WAY off to the side). When I told the doctor that we’ve been passing something around since we were in Texas, and joked that I think we’re allergic to Texas, he laughed. At least THAT was funny. Well, you know. In a good way.

Okay, well this was supposed to be a short, I’m-still-alive-but-I-need-more-coffee-to-stay-that-way post, but it has somehow ballooned. I’m trying to compose a couple of posts on news items and actually include some real commentary for once in a long while, and it’s taking a bit. Stay tuned for that and for the letter I’m thinking about writing to the President. That should be fun.

After the incident (and the resulting, huge, PR nightmare Delta is currently facing) a couple of weeks ago, I REALLY wanted to write something on here in response, but couldn’t without using a lot of letters, if you get my drift. So I found a self-portrait I took at Tracey’s house while we were in Texas, and found someone who’s funnier than I am.

Some parts of the breasts are okay–the cleavage, for instance–but the utilitarian parts are, objectively speaking, abhorrent. Victoria’s Secret employees understand this. They spend their days supporting and lifting the objects in question, so they know. And when a nursing woman was asked to feed her child in the employee bathroom, that’s what they were trying to teach her—that those circles in the middle of the breasts are the dirty bathroom parts.

Nursing women are killers, and they must be stopped.

What I wish I’d written.

We gave our microwave away today. Adam came by and picked it up. Apparently, theirs was smoking…or something. I’ve been thinking about getting rid of the microwave for a long time, mostly inspired by Kyle and Lacey (who REALLY need to blog!), and Daniel and Lee Ann, who have all lived without a microwave.

I did some research on microwaves (read: I googled) and after reading some of the horrible things it does to your food, I decided I couldn’t use it anymore. The only things we used it for anyway was for heating up leftovers and the few and far between bags of popcorn. We could live without it.

Did you know you can - gasp! - heat up leftovers on the stovetop or in the oven? I had no idea! You know, like in the old days. So for a week, we kept it and quit using it, but still had it in the kitchen, just in case. We didn’t use it. I heated up the leftover bread in the oven. The leftover quesadilla in the oven. The leftover chicken, rice and asparagus in a saucepan on the stove. We unplugged the thing and got it off the counter. Then I ordered a toaster oven (convection, even!). This way, we can still heat up food conventionally, but without all the energy use or the longer waiting time in the main oven. And not only can we get rid of our microwave, but we are getting rid of the toaster, too (anybody, anybody?). One appliance, instead of two. Isn’t that beautiful?

It arrived last week. My new toy:

Judah’s new toy:

I also got a toaster oven cookbook, cause hey, free shipping on orders over $50! And the microwave? I don’t even miss it.

Does the magnetic knife strip look ominous to anyone else?

I’m FINALLY getting to my trip photos. I’ll probably post them to flickr once I get them all on here and edited. Joshua got a new MacBook Pro (wipe that drool off your mouth) so I got his “old” Powerbook G4, which has significantly more space than my iBook (which I am now in the market to sell.. hint, hint). As in, enough space to put Photoshop on it.

I, of course, am slow to adapt. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Killian turned 13 weeks old yesterday. He is officially three months old today. That means he just finished his fourth trimester!

I’ve tried to capture his favorite thing today lately (besides eat, of course), which is smiling. I wrote last week that he had laughed for the first time. Now he only laughs for his daddy. That’s fine by me. We all know who feeds the kid.

I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of routine he has, so I can plan my day accordingly. This kid does not have one. I thought it went something like this: wake up, be happy and up for a bit, go to sleep, wake up to eat, go to sleep, repeat. stay awake for a bit in the afternoon, sleep. cry while mommy eats dinner. pretend to go to sleep for the next four hours til mommy and daddy are both ready to pass out. wait til mommy and daddy are tired enough to go to bed. coo. be happy. go to sleep.

Now it’s something like: wake up. be happy and up for a while. go to sleep long enough for mommy to attempt to reach for the computer. wake up, eat, stay awake. sleep through lunch. wake up to eat, go to sleep, repeat. wake up while mommy cooks and everyone eats dinner. doze, then go to sleep. next day: stay awake all morning, sleep all afternoon and evening and night. next day: wake up, eat go sleep. repeat.

In other words: NO ROUTINE. But he’s making up for his unpredictability by being, quite possibly, the happiest baby EVER. All he wants is a little love. Really, this kid is a gem. And he doesn’t spit up much anymore. I guess he figured out he doesn’t want to waste his food. I said that to Joshua last night while burping him (Killian, not Joshua), and right after I said it, he let out the wettest burp, as if to say, “you ain’t got a handle on me yet, lady.”

He’s now a pro at grasping things and bringing them to his mouth, so now all his shirts, blankets and toys are perpetually damp. We sit him up in his car seat a lot so he can see us while we eat and whatnot, and anything you put in his lap, he will play with and roll it over and over in his hands.

He’s also starting to wave his arms around all the time, like he’s trying to take off. I’ve started calling him “propeller boy.”

Mostly, I’m getting to know him more and more, and am loving the way Judah will say, “he needs me” or “I hold my Kiwwyian” or “I love my Kiwwyian.” Makes my little stone-cold heart start to melt. I stare at him while he’s sleeping or when he’s staring back at me and I want to squeeze the juice out of him, except that would probably hurt him. So I satisfy myself with smothering him in kisses and sucking on his cheeks and eating his little ears and fingers and toes and rubbing noses with him. I am absolutely falling in love with this little boy.

Thanks to Kelly Nygren for knitting Judah the uber-cool hat and scarf.

Killian was 12 weeks old yesterday. I had thought I would/could post his ten and eleven week pics while traveling, but without my computer, alas, I could not. I uploaded my trip photos this morning, and alas again, I haven’t enough disk space for them. So those two weeks will have to wait. Amazingly enough, I did manage to get this one loaded. Glad I popped this card in first.

He’s done all kinds of new things the past three weeks, including fly on an airplane for the first time and go camping for the first time and laugh for the first time. That’s right, he laughed. Monday night, when we got back home. He couldn’t have done it sooner for his grandparents, no, he waited until he was back in San Francisco. Maybe he was just happy to be home. And we got it on video. Let’s see how long it takes for me to upload that.

He’s staying awake for longer periods now and is getting more involved in the conversations I’ve been having with him. He’s started eating his fists - he figured out how to grasp things and bring them to his mouth. Now all his blankets and clothes have wet spots from him gnawing on them. It’s reduced his need for a pacifier, which is fine by me, and I’m wondering if he’s ready for a chew toy.

He’s now a pro at holding up his head, and whenever I lay a very droopy-eyed Killian on his tummy for a nap, he decides he is no longer tired and must use his new-found ability to check out his surroundings for 15 minutes instead of going to sleep. Before, the weight of his head made him give in, but no longer. No longer.

I had an appointment at my midwife’s office yesterday, and was asked how he is doing. I said he’s doing great and the midwife said “he seems like a mellow baby.” I assured her that he was. He laid contentedly in a bouncer for the entire visit. A little too contentedly. Apparently he spent the entire time I was there pooping his pants. I had no idea his body cavities could hold that much of anything, much less the amount of poo that I wiped off of his bum and legs and stomach and between his toes and up his whole chest and out of his belly button and off the back of his shoulder blades and well, I hope you get the idea. Unfortunately, I only had four wipees and no change of clothes.

I had to wrap his outfit it one of those large pieces of paper gown they give you to cover yourself during a visit and stick it my non-purse bag. I used a bunch of wet and dry paper towels to clean him off after my four wipees gave out. He, of course, dispelled that mellow baby myth (it was a compliment, Killian!) and screamed bloody murder the whole time. I mean, wouldn’t you, if you were laying on an exam table under fluorescent lights (bad enough), naked (worse), while someone cleaned you off with wet, cold paper towels (over the edge, you know)?

I had planned to go to Ritual afterwards, but we had to go home to give him a bath, continue the bloody murder screaming rampage, and burn his clothes. Okay, I didn’t burn them, but I though about it. A lot. They actually sat in water in the tub all day until I had a chance to get to them. That definitely wasn’t one of yesterday’s “highs.” Nothing like a one-piece outfit covered in baby poo to make you so happy you decided to become a parent.

He then cried for most of the rest of the day. Mellow baby - whatever. Except really, he usually is. I didn’t know what his deal was until about 12:40 this morning when I woke up to the sound of one very congested Killian slinging snot back and forth through his nostrils. He’s taking after his sister, you see, who got sick a couple of days ago. It was then I realized one of the multiple-children-parenthood’s joys - when one of your kids gets sick, she will invariably pass it along to the other.

I think we’re gonna need more tissues.