**Edited for incredibly foul language. What can I say? The flu makes one cranky.**

Everyone here has the flu, so I’m going to make this short, as I only get small breaks from the bathroom. Some advice:

1) Anyone who has children farther than driving distance away from their family, as I did, is a dumbbooty. Repent now, lest ye call all your young baby-less friends and beg them to come over and wind up wrist deep in the foulest baby doodoo they have ever smelled. Not surprisingly, only people who REALLY love you will even consider this.

2) There should bobloving well be a product out there that you can put in the diaper to detect the most trace amounts of urine. Those diapers are so furlking fast-acting that I don’t know if he’s peeing, and basically if I need to rush him to the hospital for IVs. I’m a goooood mother.

On a final note, my kid is brilliant, because when faced with a bottle full of pedialyte he let it hit his tongue and looked at me, horrified, as if to say, “It’s not bad enough I’m ill, you have to force-feed me dog business, too?”

Good boy.

Off to engage in a private bathroom activity. Have a good night!

Fudgesickles.

Permalink Comments (2)

Is there sleep? NO! There is NO sleep! No sleep at all!

Last night poor Wallace had his first serious runnells-of snot cold. In the past we’ve had colds but they were minor blockages. I see that now. Oh, the folly that is childrearing.

He doesn’t have a fever or anything, he’s fairly cranky and tired, and he couldn’t sleep because he was so stuffy. I read my Pediatric book to make sure he wasn’t about to drop dead and it reassured me.

So I attacked him with the snot bulb of death and managed to pull out a pint and a half of stuff that looked kind of like clear honey. His poor baby nose even bled. Then I gave him a little medicine.

I’m a severe athsmatic, so I’m mental about breathing, and couldn’t accept that he just had a stuffy nose and wasn’t suffocating. I was listening to him go “Snnnnblrblbrblrblrrblrblffff” and watching his chest rise and fall like he was having to pull in air like you’d land a deep-sea fish. So I held him in the reclining glider until 1am. When we woke up (He woke us up farting, which is funny when it isn’t 1am) he wasn’t snurfing nearly as much so I decided to put him down in his swing in his room and hope that he didn’t stop breathing and die.

I remember crawling into bed at 1:30am actually thinking “Please don’t stop breathing and die, baby. Mama is just so tired.”

The baby did not stop breathing and die, I’m glad to report. Yet another successful parenting day.

Permalink Comments (1)

Nana visited!

Wallace is now off the charts for both height and weight. He is eating his feet and digging his exersaucer.

Nanas are cool!

Jr. Scientist

Happy Exersaucer baby

A little snack

I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Permalink Comments

Julie wrote an amazing blog entry that will move you. It’s so well written and composed brilliantly.

Please go read it at A Little Pregnant as soon as you can. It’s not long, but very worth it.

Permalink Comments

Two days ago life sucked ass and yesterday wasn’t much better. Hence the no-postage.

Today is a whole different ball of wax. Here are the amazing things that have happened in the past 24 hours:

1. Our house appraised for 25K more than we expected. 25K! So the remortgage is going to go well.

2. The friend who I thought was mad at me, is not in fact mad at me, and is coming to visit this Saturday. Wahay!

3. I got photos of my Grandpa Joe’s 83rd birthday, and he and my great uncle have been working out and both look ten years younger. My dad and uncle and aunt also look amazing, as does their little girl. It looks like it was a great party.

4. I got a 99% on my first test in seven years and my professor forgot her Power Point slides. The class was the most interesting we’ve had so far.

5. It’s time to plan my best friend’s wedding, engagement party, bridal shower and batchelorette party. If you had any idea how much I love planning stuff, you’d know how delirious with geeky joy this makes me.

6. My little sister sent me an email that was so sweet it made me cry. She’s one of the best people I’ve ever known.

So just when life gets so irritating that you could give it the old fork in the eye, it shapes up. It must have heard me making plans in the girls bathroom to totally corner its ass after school.

Permalink Comments (1)

I fully admit that at the moment I’m a sappy mess. Mess, sappy, pathetic. That’s me.

Unforunately when reading this article I felt just terrible.

Health - Reuters

Baby Improving After Extra Head Removed

Tue Feb 22, 9:50 AM ET Health - Reuters

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian baby who underwent a 13-hour operation to remove an extra head will soon be able to breathe on her own, a doctor treating her said Tuesday.

Ten-month-old Manar Maged was suffering from one of the rarest birth defects — craniopagus parasiticus — a problem related to that of conjoined twins linked at the skull.

The head that was removed from Manar in the operation which ended early Saturday had developed no body, and was capable of smiling and blinking, but not independent life.

Doctors have already said that Manar could move all her limbs and showed no signs of paralysis after the operation in a children’s hospital in Benha, near Cairo.

“At the moment only about 15 percent of her breathing is through the ventilator and in about 48 hours we will switch the ventilator off,” Abla el-Alfy, a consultant in pediatric intensive care, told Reuters.

Alfy, part of the team of 13 Egyptian doctors who carried out the operation, said it was too early to say whether Manar could have suffered brain damage.

“In four days or less we will do a … scan of her brain to see what the situation is,” Alfy said.

Craniopagus parasiticus occurs when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but fails to complete the process. One of the conjoined twins fails to develop fully in the womb.

Professor Lewis Spitz, a leading expert on conjoined twins at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London said the vital question for Manar was whether brain tissue and blood vessels were shared between the two heads.

He said it was critical that the blood flow away from the surviving twin was not interfered with during separation.

Spitz did not know how many cases of craniopagus parasiticus have occurred or the number of attempted separations. He said the fact Manar survived is a big achievement in itself.

“It must be quite rare. In about 2 percent of conjoined twins the heads are fused,” he said, adding that an incomplete conjoined twin joined at the head is even rarer.

He said the incidence of live born conjoined twins is about one in 200,000.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in London)

I’m glad Manar is going to hopefully recover, but as a parent I think I’d have to mourn that second head. Blinking and smiling may not make a life, but it makes enough humanity that I’d be miserable at the thought of what could have been. It is wierd and it’s kind of gross, but it’s also the part of the baby that is the sweetest, the smiling. I can only imagine how hard it must have been as parents to know that the smiling part of the baby-that-might-have-been was killed.

Poor almost-baby.

Permalink Comments (2)

I have some bad news. George had a relapse into peeing this weekend and went all over the bedroom. I called the vet, fairly hysterical, and asked if there were any silver bullets we hadn’t tried. The vet said no, and that a no-kill shelter would probably be the best thing for everyone.

We talked about it and agreed that George couldn’t live with us anymore. If there were the slightest hope of acclimating him to the rest of the house, absolutely, but he’s been living in our bedroom for two months and is still peeing on everything.

So last night we basically forced him on the local no-kill shelter. We were warned that they’d do anything to convince people not to leave their animals, but I wasn’t prepared for the guy telling us that they’d take him for the night but would call animal control in the morning and he’d be put down.

It was only after I burst into tears and showed them the letter I wrote outlining George’s history that he patted me on the back and said that they’d take good care of him.

I don’t think they’re turning him over to animal control, but I don’t know for sure. I want to call and ask today, but I don’t know if I can do that without losing it and I’m at work. Keep your fingers crossed that they keep him and he goes to a nice home where he can be a single cat.

I feel very much like someone who has turned a family member over to die. I feel awful. So please don’t bother telling me that it was a shitty thing to do. It was the less totally shitty of two totally and completely shitty choices.

He was so sweet to the baby, and so sweet to us. He’s a kitty who got handed a crappy deal in life and is going to pay because his first owners didn’t care enough to neuter him early enough, and then they didn’t deal with the consequences and turned him out to die. He’s more adoptable now than he was two months ago when we found him, but he’s still not in great shape.

I feel awful. I feel lower than low. I hope he’s okay. I so hope he’s okay.

Poor George.

Permalink Comments

Two weeks ago we had a rough Sunday sleep-wise. Mr. Man was cranky and howling all day and wouldn’t nap. I even tried some cry-it-out, I was so desperate for him to go down, which was stupid since he’s far too young to have any idea what the hell that is. And I folded quickly anyhow, because I am a wuss.

So, in lieu of one Terrible Sunday, mama instituted a sleep routine. Read everything on baby and toddler sleep and they tout the sleep routine to the heavens. Get your kid into a sleep routine or he’ll grow up to bounce checks at the local supermarket and embarrass you forever!! So, being a good little dooby, I instituted a sleep routine.

7:30/7:45pm – Bath
7:45/8:00pm – Lotion, clean diaper, PJs
8:00/8:15pm – Bottle top-up with low lights, soft lullaby music (Wallace’s song)
8:15/8:30pm – Binkey and Bed

This routine worked perfectly well. He is now enjoying his baths and is generally asleep before we put him in the crib. We wake him up a little bit when we’re putting him down so that he knows he’s in his crib. He has a binkey and his bear and it’s lights out.

Perfectly charming. Pat on the back, mum.

Except that this past Wednesday I got home early from class and his Uncle Fingers had changed him and just put him down in the crib. That’s right. Clean nappy, clean jimmies, into the crib with the lights on.

Not only was the little guy smiley and happy when I got home, but as UF and I talked, 8:15 rolled around and he went to sleep. Yes, that’s right. In a lit room without a binkey or a bath or a lullaby, he put himself to sleep. I was thinking that it was the bath that put him down, or the comforting hugs from mama, but it turns out the relevant ingredient was apparently that it was 8:15.

He did it again last night.

I’m going to micro-manage this kid into therapy, I swear.

Also: Yesterday he wouldn’t nap, so I gave him a (very) loose-weave crocheted blanket (one more holes than blanket) like the one he has at day care. He stuck it over his head and slept for three hours. Yes, I said THREE HOURS. As his usual nap generally runs 20 minutes, mama was thrilled.

Last night I decided to let him fuss and he put himself back to sleep three individual times and didn’t get up for good until 6:45am.

He’s a sleeping champ, that kid. Now, if only mama would get the hell out of his way.

Permalink Comments (2)

Being married to you is like a birthday present every day.

I’ve been bragging about you all night. The general consensus is that you’re cute. T would like to borrow you for a week.

Hello, Angel.

Hello, Sexy.

I miss you. I love you so much. Sleep well.

I miss you too, Babe. Come home soon.

Permalink Comments

I apologize for the relative incoherence of the post below. I had something relatively articulate, or at least not that chain-of-consciousness planned out. All I can say in my defense is that if you slog through it, it actually says something in there… I think.

I also had my first college exam in seven years this evening. I think it went well. The baby is down for the night and his father is getting him in the morning, so I’m having port.

Take THAT, tightasses!

I may try the subject below again at some point when I’m less strapped for time and generally stupid enough to write every damned thought that ever entered my head.

This has been a public service announcment. I have to go, the port is calling.

Heard tonight while walking through the campus:

Friggin
Gosh

???

What the fuck is wrong with fucking college students these days? Wholesome bastards! You leave for seven years and they get all virginal. *shouts all manner of drunken unprintables*

Permalink Comments