Hernia, allergies and prevnar vaccine side effects .. oh, and INS

The interview went well. In a week or two I should get a letter that tells me whether I'll get my citizenship or not. I'm nervous although I don't see why I wouldn't get it.

Baby G. cried for an hour straight after coming home from getting his first shot of prevnar. This is not typical of him. Hubby got so exhausted he actually had to put him in his crib for 5 minutes and take a break. I wish I had been home to switch holding him :( instead I was at work while my baby was crying his head off and my husband was going crazy. His sneezing and coughing are a sign of allergies (inherited from his dad) and we found out he also has umbilical hernia which seemingly is no big deal.

Rainy day - temp post

Stoked

.. or spazzy from the caffeine.

Bubu got a clean bill of health .. hurrah! .. and we are totally broke. Boo! The fact that hubby's car broke and we had to replace the transmission AND the timing belt in the tune for almost $4000 did not help the situation especially since we both took time off from work and hubby doesn't work full time anymore. This should teach us to put extra money in a savings account instead of stuffing it all into the 401k. So the etsy idea is becoming more and more appealing. Maybe I will surface from anonymity and shamelessly plug my goods.

Also, I'm trying to get hubby to tweet baby happenings .. how much food, when, where they are, etc. Might sound lame but it would save a lot of phone time. Plus I ask the same questions every day. I would be able to be with them .. virtually and would maybe make him feel less alone, not that I've heard him complain about that.

Poop is now a topic of conversation

Baby G. is amazing .. every morning around 6:30 he poops. Every morning. Around 6:30. He lets out this very specific scream to let us know he needs to go, we take off his diaper, put another under his butt and he goes. It's amazing. I think he hated sitting on poop so much that he figured out a way to communicate to us that he's going and he doesn't want his diaper on when that happens. I don't know how, but we got the message. So he goes and then we put a new diaper on and he gets the biggest smile in the world .. like a big "thank you!!".

Albuterol and boobies

Boobie doctor says everything seems to be pretty "garden variety". Again, can I get a bit more commitment on these assessments? Like "you've got nothing to worry about". I need to go back in 3 months for another ultrasound. Seemingly now it's too soon after breastfeeding. I think I'll just stop worrying about it.

Baby G. can't breathe because of bronchiolitis and now is on a nebulizer with Albuterol which he hates. That's 10 minutes of fun 3 times a day for both him and us but he can breathe better since he got on it. We can't have him on it for more than 7 days so hopefully by Tuesday he'll do better without it.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

Uhm ..

[wallpaper]

I have a new wallpaper for the same reason I'm watching some random show on TV - Expedition Alaska .. some gorgeous shots - I'm hanging out aka not doing anything, on purpose.


Can I say it's a bit frustrating? Like I'm wasting my time. There's homework, dishes, packing, books I haven't touched in ages but I really just want to sit here in front of the dumb box and do nothing. So that's just what I'm doing .. nothing.

Time is a luxury.

2 months and shots .. and little red dots all over his face and neck and a watery eye with yellow gunk that won't go away and failing classes and ..

Baby G. is seeing the doctor today with daddy. I wish I could go but I'm stuck at work so I made a list of things to talk to the doc about because 1) i tend to forget things and 2) i make lists for everything. With all the sleep deprivation hubby has been pretty touchy about things lately so I gingerly approached the "I won't be there but here's my list" issue because I don't want him to think I don't believe he's capable of asking the right questions, etc. He's never been sensitive about things or egotistic in his actions or anything like that but since about a month ago when sleep became ever more scarce he has been quite unlike himself sometimes. With baby G. being as high maintenance as he is I am sure it is pretty tiring for him to do the "nanny thing" 12 hours a day. I do envy him though. I'd much rather be tired from dealing with baby G than dealing with work.

So .. the shots. We're doing all of them except for the DTaP which we'll wait until 1 year or so. Pertussis season seems to be June to September which is a bit scary because we're going to a big family reunion in May and flying in June. But we're paradoid so we're giving him a shot every 2 weeks instead of all at the same time.

In other news I've been courting etsy.com because I have some mad skillz of my own and with hubby having dropped work down a little extra $$ sounds great. Plus it's a reason to do something I love: bake and cook. We'll see.

Basking in the sun

Where did I leave off?

I'm so tired I don't even know if that's the right expression for what I'm trying to say. Point is .. I'm taking a little break from working. On tuesday I had the dreaded breast ultrasound which wasn't as bad as the last one which hurt like a *&#$!@ ... the results? The tumors are probably not malignant. One has increased in volume so I'll probably have a biopsy after talking to my booby doctor next week. Because I took time off work to do that however I've had a couple 12 hour days in the aforementioned gray/tan cubicle. Problem is the sleeping is so bad I finally get my booty in at work late enough that I work until 8 or 9 which means seeing very little of the little and generally doing much less than cooking, watching 30 mins of the stupid tube and going to bed.

The limitations I've noticed in my vocabulary are due to the fact that I am not reading anything not related to baby eating, baby sleeping or baby crying. And let me tell you .. those articles aren't very lexically complex. Which leaves me searching for words when I try to express myself most of the time .. resulting in a very frustrated an already cranky and tired Chris. I also used to read about photography and take a lot of pictures. No more. I also used to read about the biochemistry of food and cooking. Not happening. I also used to try my (already carpal) hand at knitting. I used to paint, tend to a dozen or so herbs I used in my cooking (they have all met a horrible parched death), play pool quite well thank you very much and watch Fareed Zacharia every Sunday (which I have to qualify with "I don't agree with some of his positions"). The point is I miss all those things so much .. and as much as I was starved for creativity before, now it's painfully .. PAINFULLY more so. Did I mention I usually read about 3 nonfiction and one fiction book? I miss that so much. So much. Not more than I love baby G. though so .. there it is. Trade-offs. I wish I could work part time or something like that but that is not happening so until then hubby takes videos of bubu and when I get home although he is usually crying and tired and fussy I get to look at the videos of him smiling and playing at 11 or 12 in the morning. Makes me wanna cry.

It's official: spring has come to the midwest

After yesterday's post I have decided today's requires a bit of color. Any suggestions on colorful plants that don't require a lot of natural light? I haven't been able to find any.

Tomorrow is an exciting day because I am only working 2 hours. Hurrah! I also have a lot of homework to do which blows. I'd much rather hang out with baby G.

Talking about baby G. .. he's grown quite a bit lately and today he is 8 weeks. He's about 24 inches and (we think) about 11 lb. He now has adorable squishable kissable fatty folds on his legs.

Drab

The cubicle walls are a dirty tan, the desk is a cheery combination of tan and gray, the phone, computer and monitors are all gray and the speakers are tan. I've been trying to figure out if the fake ceiling is a light gray or a light tan but the florescent lighting doesn't afford too much depth to colors so I can't really tell.

I have a few days a year when all this gets to me and today is one of those days.

How can I not miss you so much that my heart hurts?

Crazy month

So I finally took the plunge .. yessir .. at the end of this month I have my citizenship interview. After 12 years of being here and a good dose of American cynicism - because the very qualities that make me as American as I can be are the very same which prevented me from becoming an American on paper - I'm finally committing. What can I say .. I guess I got a good dose of HOPE. So now I will have to swear that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States among other things.

Other things this month: baby G's vaccines, getting my tumors checked out and a visit to the boobies specialist. I can't wait for May.

A little bit of sanity

Now that mom is gone we've settled into a sort of routine. It still involves a bit of unexplained crying but I can't complain now that we know what to expect and know how to handle it (rocking for 15-20 minutes calms him down as long as he continues to be held).

He gets bored very easily though and since now he spends so many hours awake but cannot play or hold his head it's pretty tiring to always entertain him. I'd guess he's awake for about 5-6 hours and out of those only one (in small 15-20 min bits) he spends in his chair looking at hubby or outside. Do they usually require this much entertaining this early on? The little dude is not even 2 months.