Bitter, Bitter, Bitter

So, Caetlin's runny nose, etc., that I posted about a couple of days ago? The one where I was saying it was either a cold or a ragweed allergy? Yeah, I know which one it is now. Want to know how I know?

I can't catch a fargin' allergy!

Also, she's getting better. Which is good. I mean, yay for her. Really.

All kidding aside, I am happy that she's getting better, but it's hard not to feel a teensy bit annoyed that I have caught it again. I was trying to be so careful, but she sneezed in the immediate vicinity of my face a couple of times, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I am glad it's not an allergy.

But, I mean, really, can't it not be contagious? Just this once?

Are You Kidding Me??

So, I love my husband really more than just about anything- he and Caetlin are 1 and 1(a) in my list. So, it is with all love and affection that I state that he hates me tonight. I can think of no other explanation why, when I am tossing and turning in the throes of a terrible bout of insomnia, he would snore like a bleeding lawnmower, and the very minute I throw in the towel and decide to get up and work already, he rolls over and falls utterly silent.

This is not a man who snores very often, and usually I can poke him and he'll roll over and that will be the end of it. Not this night. Not during these last 2 hours that I've been awake and trying to sleep. My pokes, and his subsequent rolls, did nothing but change the pitch and tenor of the nasal symphony.

He must hate me. It's payback for me asking him to turn off Family Guy when I was trying to fall asleep since the TV was bothering me (an unusual occurrence- normally I drop off and stay asleep with no problem).

Let me say, sweetie, that I do not appreciate this. Not one bit. I mean, the uncharacteristic snoring, fine, whatever, but to immediately fall silent when I get up to at least be productive with my waking hours?? That's just mean. That's just salt in the wound.

Can someone help me pull that sharp thing out from between my shoulder blades? I can't quite reach it. Whatever it is.

Movie Review: Good Luck Chuck

Bruce and I went to see Good Luck Chuck last night. Okay, the linked review is from the NY Times, and I have to say, wow, that critic is seriously snooty. Were the ad hominem attacks on Dane Cook and Jessica Alba really that necessary? (Never thought I would actually defend Jessica Alba, but really.) I will absolutely agree that the movie wasn't fantastic, but I enjoyed it anyway, in a brainless sort of way. I guess the reviewer might think that one should never go to see movies for mindless entertainment, that there should be something deeper to appreciate in every movie. I disagree, since all I wanted was to turn my brain off for an hour and a half and maybe laugh a little bit.

Which I did. Some of the humor is very tasteless, and I found the fat jokes to be really uncomfortably humiliating for the actress, but the movie also is charming in a way I didn't expect. Dane Cook is adorable in his worship of Jessica Alba, and she's cute as can be. And there are some genuinely funny bits.

This is not High Cinema, understand. I wouldn't even call it a good movie. But it was worth my 95 minutes and my $20, and I laughed some and actually laughed really hard at some pieces. It's pretty raunchy, which surprised me a little- I think I was expecting a PG-13 movie, and got an R movie (nothing wrong with that, though). But it's also very sweet in places. As good as Knocked Up? Nope. Superbad? Nuh-uh. Entertaining? Yep. Sometimes that's all you really want out of a night out.

Besides, since The Kingdom and Into the Wild didn't open this week, there wasn't much else to go see.

Weekend Roundup

So, I haven't posted at all this week, because seriously, nothing happened. Nothing. At least, nothing interesting enough to write about.

The weekend hasn't been terribly exciting either, though certainly more interesting than the week. Yesterday I went here and had the Four Seasons Signature Treatment, which was absolutely fabulous (it was a birthday present to myself). Then I went and had my hair cut, and went shopping for Caetlin. Children's Place is having a great sale, and since Bruce and I are working on saving money and being more frugal, sales are what it is all about around here. I stocked up her fall wardrobe relatively cheaply.

Bruce and I went out to the movies last night; more on that later. Caetlin is sick again (or possibly has a bad ragweed allergy, since the ragweed is awful right now; I'm hoping for cold instead of allergy), and she was kind of cranky, so it was nice to leave her with the babysitter. She's been much happier today, though.

My beloved Georgia Bulldogs rolled over the Alabama Crimson Tide last night, and I watched it when I got home from the movies, at least as much of it as my TiVo deigned to record. Stupid TiVo! I ended up not getting most of the 4th quarter or the overtime. Still, we won! I was concerned about this game. My friend Beth was planning to be at the game- LUCKY! Anyway, I love how the linked article talked about slightly tarnishing the scary cult-like reputation Nick Saban has gotten in Alabama. He's a great coach, no doubt, but he's NOT the Second Coming of Bear Bryant, not yet, anyway. (Best quote: "With the stadium rocking, Georgia took the opening kickoff and served a 10-play, 70-yard cup of shut-up to the Tide faithful.")

Today, after a lazy morning, we all piled into the car for a trip to the Dekalb Farmer's Market. I was entranced, even though it was a madhouse. Given my quest to eat healthier and cook more, this was a great find, and may end up being cheaper than the grocery, especially for nicer produce. We had been told about it by several folks but had never been. We ate lunch in the restaurant, and Caetlin, who had already had lunch at that time, ate most of Daddy's mac and cheese, plus some of his chicken and some of his broccoli and steak fries. She had a hilariously full belly when we left.

She's down for a nap now (not asleep, though, nearly an hour after she has been put down), and maybe we'll go to the park when she wakes up, or maybe we'll just hang at the house. I have to work this evening. Then, back to work tomorrow. We are officially off business casual tomorrow, which sucks completely. The hope is that a permanent policy change is in the works.

Anyway, that's about it for the week. I told you nothing happened this week worth writing about!

Happy Birthday to Me

So, last Monday was my birthday. Yes, thank you, thank you. I love birthdays, and I love being made a fuss over on my birthday. Which is why last year, my 30th birthday, was one of the worse ever. It was the day after my cousin's wedding in D.C., to which we had brought Caetlin so we could display her to the family, a real "Circle of Life" thing. She was only 3 weeks old, nursing like every couple of hours, we still weren't sleeping much. I was still bleeding, or maybe had just barely stopped. The day of my birthday was the day we drove back, and we spent several hours driving through Bruce's old stomping grounds in southern Maryland, pretending like we were road tripping like we used to pre-child. But we pushed it too long, and Caetlin fussed the last 45 minutes or so of the trip. I hated it for her, I felt so terrible that we made her unhappy.


So, woo, that was my 30th birthday. Completely overshadowed by my cousin's wedding and my own baby girl.

This year was similarly low-key, though without me feeling totally overlooked. I played volleyball with an intramural team from the firm, and Bruce cooked me dinner (which was fantastically tasty, I must say). Bruce also got me a Nintendo DS, since I have totally bogarted his since I bought it for him. Mine is pink and has been christened "Pinky." (Original, I know.)

This weekend I went back up to Charlotte; my friend Beth's birthday is the day after mine and she had a birthday/housewarming party for her new house and I made the quick trip up last evening. It was so good to see her, even if we didn't have a whole lot of time hanging out. I also miss Charlotte so damn bad. I listened to a good chunk of the Panthers game on the radio, and I just miss the team, the place, everything about it.


I drove back sooner than I wished, but still didn't get back until 4:30 this afternoon, and I've hung out with Caetlin and Bruce until now. I need to work- I have several hours of work to do this evening that I should have started already.

BUT: Bruce also got me this rad new camera, which I'm learning how to use. He's so wonderful- he remembered that I wanted a nice camera and how much I loved my photojournalism class in college. You can't judge the quality of the camera by the quality of the pictures here, but here are a couple of Caetlin at dinner time, where she was being a big girl (if a tired big girl, since she failed to take her afternoon nap today) and eating her food. One thing, though- she doesn't chew as well as she should, so she's constantly swallowing pieces that are too big, and making me crazy that she's going to choke. However, she has like three or four teeth coming in, so soon it will be easier than ever to chew better than before. As an aside, the one thing that has driven home to me that she's becoming toddler/little kid as opposed to baby is the visible-when-she-smiles appearance of teeth other than those in the bottom center. It kind of freaks me out, and I have no idea how she will look with a mouthful of teeth.


Anyway, here's new pictures tonight.

Comments

I hadn't realized that I wasn't allowing anonymous comments until I commented myself recently. So I fixed that- all you folks who don't have a Blogger or Google account can comment if you want to. You'll still have to do the word verification; sorry if that's a hassle, but I don't want to deal with comment spam. If it gets too difficult to get through the verification, we can turn it off and see what happens.

Comment away!

Best Wake Up Ever

I forgot to mention last night that Caetlin has started saying "Hi!" It comes from me- I get her almost every morning, and when I walk in, I give her a great big, "HI!" with a special swoopy intonation that somehow seems to fit her. Sometime in the last couple of weeks, she started saying it. With the exact same swoopy intonation. And she seems to know it's a greeting- she usually says it when she first sees someone, even if she says it multiple times. Always with a huge smile on her face, too.

It's totally the best to be greeted in the morning with "Hi!" right back at me. At the same time, it's a little freaky to hear it coming out of her mouth the exact same way I say it. I think of the things I do and say that sound just like my parents, and I think: it's beginning to be that way for her.

Good gracious, I hope I can mold her into a good and likeable person! I think giving her a big friendly "Hi!" to say might be a good way to start.

Next Up- Dead Kittens!!

Just thought I should lighten the mood after that last post. Here, I know what will make you feel better:

It always makes ME feel better, anyway.

Not to Be a Downer, But...

My husband told me about this story this morning, and it has haunted me all day. He didn't find the WaPo article, which sanitizes the story somewhat, and the other details included in other places just won't leave me. As a parent, especially of a little girl, I just...can't fathom how anyone could do such a thing. Period. And then for other people to enjoy seeing it...sickens me. And makes me so afraid for my baby girl. I have to stop myself picturing those poor children, or it makes me cry. And really, I don't need anything to make my sinuses more inflamed right now. (I kid, but it is really me trying to rinse the horror taste out of my mouth, so to speak. Whistling in the dark.)

Did we make a mistake bringing such a shining light as our daughter in the world? If there are people out there who could do this?

These are things that keep me up at night. I mean, I almost didn't post this, this being a happy-go-lucky family blog type thing, but I couldn't not write about it, it was troubling me so much. It's made me feel better to write about it, and I'm sorry if it disturbs some of you.

Random Roundup

So, to finish the news from the week:


-We have gone entirely off the bottle as of this weekend. Indeed, today was the very first bottle-free day (well, since the days of exclusive breastfeeding, which has been awhile). She's only been having two bottles a day anyway, so it's not like this is really that big a deal, but in so many other ways, it IS a big deal. She's so quickly growing out of being my little baby, the tiny curled up creature who came home from the hospital with Bruce and me a little over a year ago. Indeed, she's walking- sort of- and talking- sort of- and definitely growing into her own personality. Her being off the bottle feels like one more milestone in the inevitable and inexorable progression into toddlerhood. And, I have to say, it's nice just having to deal with sippy cups, and not nipples and bottles and liners anymore. Much easier.


-However, as things get easier, they also get harder. We've moved into a toddler-like tantrum phase lately, where she gets pissy and whiny and fussy at the smallest things. For example, she was bored in the back seat of the car when we went out, so she fussed and pissed and moaned. She didn't like her toys, she didn't want her cup, it all sucked! She calmed down eventually, but this is new for us. She used to be okay just looking out the window. And she had like a 20 minute afternoon nap, so when we got her home and tried to feed her dinner, she pushed it away and just melted down entirely. Too tired to eat, and I knew she was going to be too hungry to stay asleep. So we put her down for a nap- at 6:45, a nap!- and then fed her when she woke up at 7:30. With bath and everything, she didn't go down until after 8. I'm sure she's still not feeling 100% from being sick, and I think she's teething, but also, she's becoming a toddler, with all the moods. Yippee.

-I should have said is definitely teething, because we can see at least one more tooth on the bottom, and I'm pretty sure I saw a second new one coming in up top. We have teeth pooping out all over! That would make 6 whole teeth.


-The bridesmaid dress I'm to wear in my brother's wedding will now cost approximately triple the amount it cost to buy it, with the major alterations it is taking to make it fit. It's far more than the tailor originally quoted, but I think when he started pinning, it just got more and more complicated. And even if I had ordered the size up, it would still have been a mess, since strapless dresses just don't fit me and always need alterations (they don't look good on me either, but that's a different story), plus a bigger size would have needed the length taken up, which, because of the hemline, would have been an involved process as well. So, basically, there is no incarnation of that dress that would have even approximated fitting me without major alterations. Sigh.


-OH! We sold our evil old house in Charlotte this week!! YAY! As Bruce said, "Goodbye, house. Go crush someone else's dreams." Seriously, we had bad juju with that house, which extended to the sale itself- the buyers totally took advantage of us, which our horrible realtor allowed and even, in some cases, facilitated. She was awful- she never copied me on any emails, even after Bruce specifically requested her to multiple times. Even sometimes she would respond to Bruce after I emailed her, and wouldn't copy me. Bitch. I gave her what-for in a couple of emails near the end, and when she responded, she made sure to copy Bruce on those. So she does know what that little "cc:" box means! But still- YAY for selling the house! It makes our financial outlook much more flexible not to have to worry about carrying that house.


-That said, we gave our nanny a raise this week, and extra $50 per week. She deserves it.


I will leave you with this picture of Caetlin "walking" with Daddy at the park this afternoon. She's not great in the shoes (heck, she's not great at walking, period), but she walked holding his hand. The T-shirt, a gift from her grandfather who works at NASA, says, "Houston, we have an emergency...check diaper system!" It makes me laugh every time I pull it out of her dresser. Sorry about the date on the picture- every time the batteries wind down in the camera, the date re-sets itself, and I didn't notice it this time.

She's getting SO BIG!

The Stuffy Nose of Death. Or, How I Learned to Love Snot.

So, Tuesday morning, Caetlin woke up with a cold. She had been cranky the night before, and as I mentioned previously, my brother-in-law's niece was sick. (We went over to their house without knowing there was a sick child. Must remember to ask sister Every Time we plan to go over there whether someone is sick, since this is the second time Caetlin has gotten sick from that household.) Not much fever, but drippy nose and poor snorty sounds when she tried to suck on her paci at night.

I lifted her out of her crib on Tuesday morning- she's her cheery self as usual, but I see the tell-tale crust on her top lip. Then, without warning, she sneezes. In my face. I give up my health for lost.

We've gotten really good at applying all the smelly stuff, plus saline- they sell a can with a long thin nozzle that points up, so it's a little like applying W-D-40 to your kid. We have the nightlight that emits smelly stuff, the baby Vicks, the smelly bathwash that is hard on her skin. I've read so much about how the cold medicine for babies is really easy to OD on and doesn't do much for them anyway, so I haven't gone that route. We have one end of her crib propped up on books- she persists in sleeping at the other end, but the night we took the books out as a bad job, she slept worse and kept waking up, so back they went, even though she seems to sleep in basically the worst possible position for sinus drainage.

She has remained pretty happy during the day, with some meltdowns in the evenings, as she is not getting the extra sleep I'm sure she needs. It breaks my heart when she's so inconsolable, even though I know she just needs sleep.

So, late Wednesday, I notice a scratchiness in my throat, a swampiness in my sinuses. Yes, I too have the Stuffy Nose of Death. And is it ever- either tonight or tomorrow will be the worst night, the one where I just can't breathe, even though I'll be propped up on a sofa cushion to keep me as close to upright as possible, because let's face it, upright isn't even really doing all that much for me right now.

We had a recruiting dinner last night with a really fabulous couple- she is the candidate, and I hope she gets an offer. Bruce and I will try to get in touch with them at some point and see if they can become couple friends. We need some of those, and these guys were painfully fantastic. But I had a tough time enjoying my food, since my tastebuds were somewhat off (not as off as they are now). The glass of wine and rich food plus post-nasal drip also made for a yucky tummy all night long. I also had to get up early and work, since I've been more or less behind the eight-ball with one project at work all week (I should have worked on it over the weekend, but hello! Cleaning!), and my procrastination had put me way behind on another project as well. So I stumbled out to the living room this morning, got a bunch of stuff done, came back to bed, determined I would work at home this morning so I didn't have to shower...and was promptly awakened by the yard guys. At 7-frickin'-30 a.m. They also woke Caetlin, who I thought might get some good sleep this morning, as the congestion seems to be breaking.

7:30 is too early for lawn guys running various impossible-to-sleep-through motors immediately outside one's window. It sucked, and the service isn't even ours, so we can't exactly tell them to come back later.

So I'm ending the day more or less where I started it- in bed, in front of the computer. Same roll of toilet paper I'm abusing my nose with. Same Blackberry by my side in case someone needs me (less likely tonight, I think, than this morning). Same congestion, same snot. Same awesome, in other words.

I have a bunch more stuff to write about this week, but I'm starting to do that thing where I type from behind closed eyelids, which is never good for anyone. Wish me luck that I can get some rest.

Labor Day! Filled With...Labor!

So, over the long weekend, I cleaned the house. WOO-HOO! No seriously, you have no idea. I spent three days ridding the house (okay, paring down a lot in the areas we live in) of clutter. Yep, the accumulated mail, the random books and knick-knacks and stuff that seemed to have no place, the stuff that could be thrown away, which was so much more than I would have guessed- it all went away. We bought a couple of clutter-cleaning devices (stackable containers for the dog and cat food, baskets for Caetlin's small toys that tend to fall to the bottom of her toy chest), and generally cleaned the hell out of the house. Lots of laundry, too. Then the actual cleaners came on Wednesday to take care of the dirt- not my strong suit- and voila! Clean house, if not entirely clutter and cat-scent free (that last is the result of a serious cat box issue in the basement. I'm working on getting to it). But so much better than it was. And I think I can more or less keep it that way, too, which is a great feeling.

Over the weekend we also visited my sister, because my brother-in-law's sister and mom and niece were in town (oh she of the contagious infectious miserable germs- more on that later) and because it was my nephew's 18th birthday. We also grocery shopped and moved Caetlin to an entirely new level of food- almost no baby food, only a few stage 3s. She has 4 teeth now; it's high time she learn to chew like a proper adult! Kidding, of course, but it's a big deal to me that she is almost all the way off baby food. We've moved into the Gerber Graduates, which I hate but can't find an organic alternative. And it is sort of sized right for the kid to eat.

(I pause to note that I don't care much about organic stuff for myself, but I guess I want to keep Caetlin's body as unsullied by artificial whatever as possible. Not that I think it's horrible, but I figure she has an entire lifetime to eat crappy food, so I'd like to not start that on my watch. Not that the Graduates stuff is terribly unhealthy, though it- as is typical with pre-packaged food- is loaded with salt. I wish I cooked more. It's something I want to work on.)

We also moved entirely to whole milk at some point in the last two weeks, which means no more formula!

Over the weekend, we also took Caetlin to the playground and watched her enjoy it when Daddy would grab the swing and stop it just before she swung forward, leaving her hanging more or less in midair looking at the ground. She thought that was awesome.

That was pretty much it. Then back to work-ugh-on Tuesday. Tuesday morning also brought...the Stuffy Nose of Death.

Your Call Is Important to Us. Please Hold On. Someone Will Be With You Shortly.

I promise I will post this weekend. It's been a busy week, and I'm sick (cough wheeze), and we had a recruiting dinner to go to, and I actually have work this week, and blah blah excuses-cakes. (sneeze) I'll post soon, maybe tonight. Hey, I think about posting all the time- that counts, right?

Anyway, more later about the aforementioned busy week. Plus probably some pictures of the kid. Because it's been awhile. Because she's cute. Just because.

(hack)