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Click here for Feb. blog entries March 25, 2005 12:12 p.m. I'm sitting here in my pajamas, in front of H's computer, gently bouncing on a large ball, typing with one hand while I hold our daughter with my other arm. This is what it's all about...well, right now it's all about keeping her asleep for the next hour-and-a-half so that she stops waking up every hour to eat an ounce and go right back to sleep. Here are some pics from the past few days:
...and from right now...
DOH!!!! Gotta go... March 20, 2005 2:25 p.m. My wife is getting excited about sucking the boogers out of our daughter's nose... E-DANCE
March 20, 2005 11:28 p.m. GOT MILK???
E-party Several people at the party, and in previous conversation have told us that our baby looks like an elf or a pixie, and H and I both agree, so I managed to take a few pictures of her that seem to capture that.
E-mazing technology
Disposable diapers - absolutely amazing, what more can I say. The amount of liquid these things can absorb is staggering. It makes me want to keep a pile of them in the kitchen for the rare occasion when you accidental drop the entire gallon of milk and it explodes. I'll bet two or three of those diapers could take care of it. And, I haven't even mentioned the fact that these cute little pieces of apparrel come with a picture of Elmo on them! How can you beat that?!
Diaper genie - genie indeed! I don't want to hear about the miracles of converting lead to gold, or water to wine, someone invented this device which turns toxic waste filled diapers into odor-free sausages. Hats off to the inventor of this handy tool.
Wipes warmer - I didn't realize the complete value of this invention until the first time I had to change our beautiful baby from the diaper bag and had the wipes, but not the warm ones. The pitch of a baby's scream when an ice-cold moist towlette hits her delicate, previously very warm (and dirty) nether regions is really quite startling. I can't imagine having to deal with that every time we change her. If the wipe is warm, she's happy and doesn't even notice she's being cleaned. Taking care of a baby in today's modern age of technological conveniences really makes you wonder how they did it 30 years ago, much less 50, or 100 years ago. I mean, c'mon, cotton diapers?! with safety pins!?! Don't make me laugh...At those middle of the night changings, I sometimes have trouble with the little sticky tabs. Our baby would look like swiss cheese if I had to use pins. And what did they do with those piles of cotton diapers?? I mean, I know they had diaper services that would come by and pick them up (you couldn't just wash a big load of dirty diapers in your washing machine, could you? Still, what did they do about the smell? I don't think there was non-permeable plastic back then. And I'm sure they didn't have moist towlettes, espeically in pop-up warmers...I guess we've got it pretty easy. March 11, 2005 E-status She's sleeping right now...shhhh...Although we can run the vacuum cleaner, Skye can toss his LOUD rawhide bones around and she doesn't seem to mind once she's in slumberland, we'll take whatever steps we think will help keep her sleeping and not screaming. She's been getting better...I suppose. She screams less, but she still screams. It would be nice to think there was a reason for it. We always blame it on gas since she constantly squirms around and spends lot of time burping and farting. She's very musical. We've tried Gripe Water, Mylicon drops and are now trying lactose-free formula, since some of H's family were/are lactose intolerant. She doesn't care, she keeps screaming and squirming. I was feeding her this morning and she had just finished off her third ounce of formula, when I stood up to get another less encrusted burp cloth and she spewed at least two of the three ounces out across the new pajamas H had just put her in this morning, my sweatshirt sleeve (no great loss, it was on its third day anyway, so it was probably ready for a washing), nice splatters on the coffee table and finally, on the dog and cat hair covered living room rug. It was pretty impressive coverage. I'm still trying to do at least one or two night feedings a week so that H can get some sleep. So, it's all been about baby, sleep and PowerPoint, PowerPoint, PowerPoint. That's what my current freelancing opportunity has me focusing on. At least it keeps me motivated to look for other work. E-neighbors
Most people we know either don’t know their neighbors or can’t stand their neighbors, or they have maybe one neighbor they like, but that’s it. We, on the other hand, must have done something right in a previous life, because we like ALL of our neighbors and they’re all the most incredible, helpful, knowledgeable people we know. Here are a few examples.
Grass – Last summer we hadn’t invested in a riding mower yet, so I was mowing our entire lawn with a push mower. It took me about 4 hours to do and wiped me out each time. We’d end up going two weeks between mowing just because it was such a chore. One day in the middle of the summer I was mowing down the brush in the very back of our property and I burned out the power assist on the push mower (H will elaborate about how I kept mowing as smoke was pouring from the little engine, but I was caught up in the moment and was sure it would clear itself). Anyway, the mower went to the shop. About two weeks later, we had gone out and we came home to find our neighbors finishing mowing for us. About two weeks later (still waiting for our mower to get out of the shop) we heard the tell-tale sounds of mowers in our yard and looked out to find three of our neighbors out there with their mowers cleaning up our mess. We just shook our heads in amazement and smiled and decided that we HAD to get a riding mower because we didn’t want to keep making these wonderful people do our work for us. Snow – It’s New York, we get LOTS of snow. The first year we were here, we did some shopping around, talked to a friend of a friend of ours who does snowplowing, and figured out that it was going to cost us either $250/season or $25/plowing to get our driveway plowed. Now, our driveway is pretty short and it’s gravel, but I knew I wasn’t going to spend my time shoveling it out, so we were prepared to pay for it. The first time it snowed, one of our neighbors from across the street came over with his new snowblower and cleared our driveway for us. We were very grateful, and made them cookies or brownies and figured it was a one-time thing. It certainly wasn’t. This winter we’ve got all three of our neighbors that come over and plow our driveway. They sometimes take turns, or whoever is out first comes down and does everyone else’s driveway. One of our neighbors actually called us the other morning to APOLOGIZE for not finishing our driveway because they blew a piston in their snowblower before they were done. We told them not to worry about it, because our other neighbor came down later and finished it…And I didn’t even get to the part about our other neighbor whose son came over last week and shoveled the snow out from around our car which I hadn’t driven in two weeks. Completely unnecessary, but so appreciated.
Sewage – Ah, the coup de grace. Thanksgiving weekend of last year, I heard our sump pump kick on in the basement. I went down and saw moisture leaking into the basement through the foundation. Not really knowing what that all meant, but knowing that it was probably something horrible that was going to cost us thousands of dollars, I went outside and noticed a strange grey puddle oozing up out of the ground next to our house. I had H flush the toilet and watched in absolute horror as raw sewage spurted up from the ground. Fear set in initially. H was about four or five months pregnant and had been put on bed rest a week or two before, so I didn’t want her to worry too much so I tried to not make too big a deal of it, but I was pretty panicked. I didn’t know what it might be or who to call, so, first I called our neighbor at the end of the road. I knew he had put in the water line to our house years ago, and thought he might know where our septic tank was and what this might be. He wasn’t there so I left a message. I then called our other neighbor across the street and he said “Oh, sounds like your septic line might have burst, you can start digging down to the pipe where it’s leaking, and I’ll be over shortly.” I started digging at about 8 am. By 10 o’clock all of our neighbors were over with shovels, digging out our septic tank. By noon, they had knocked out a beach ball sized hole in our foundation (of course the old pipe had broken all the way into the foundation), cut out the old pipe, replaced it with a new PVC pipe and by 2 pm everything was fixed, the foundation was re-mortared, the tank was covered back up and we were, once again, very grateful that we have such wonderful neighbors.
That doesn’t even go into the dog sitting, house
watching, babysitting offers, wonderful stories and other amazing talents
spread up and down the street. Just absolutely unbelievable.
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