Child Labor

Children! Whistle while you work!

Gender Day

I know, I know, social construct, blah blah blah, but I couldn't really title a post Sex Day, now could I?

The ultrasonographer was having trouble seeing the baby's whole spine (it has Aaron's spine, we think), so I asked Aaron to institute some discipline. I guess I deserved it, but he told the baby to go to its womb.

Anyway, here's Dylan with your news.

More tibdits

I had an interesting evening explaining to Dylan what "Wow, Michael Jackson died!" means.

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She is currently in bed, having an elaborate conversation in which she plays the parts of herself and two friends. They seem to argue a lot.

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Contrary to her, ahem, less than fearless nature, she thought the Maid of the Mist was the coolest! thing! ever! She maid me draw a re-creation with sidewalk chalk.

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We innocently wandered into Wegmans yesterday only to come across an 18-hole minigolf course scattered throughout the store and parking lot, with free goodies at every hole. That certainly sounds like my kind of thing, but to wait in all those lines would have been a 2-hour investment, and having 18 lines snaking throughout the store was not conducive to our goal of acquiring foodstuffs and going on with our lives. Ooh, we should have unleashed the lobsters on them.

Pile on

Tidbits

Dylan has figured out which button opens the truck to the taurus. It is disconcerting to walk outside and find the trunk open, but I guess it's better than having her fixate on the panic button next to it.

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Sorry I haven't linked to that great new blog mentioned in the comments a few days ago. We knew from the tone that it was someone in my family, and it didn't quite sound like my mom or annie, the most frequent commenters, but we were out of town and didn't quite put it together. So, check it out for yourself. My in-house reviewer/husband bills it as Lunch Cassidy and the Sunday Brunch Kid.

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We won big at a casino in Niagara Falls! That is, we left with 50% more money than we came in with. Which was only $20. Canadian. And the ATM fee was $2.75. But! Whatever. We got a flush with the hearts and the touchscreen and the video poker and that was fun. And Aaron was very patient with me as I ran from bright shiny game to bright shiny game trying to find one that wasn't just a slot machine. But now I know! They are all slot machines. Except the video poker, which was good to us.

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I somehow found myself next to an inflatable obstacle course, which I like to think of as a gladiator course. I was unable to resist challenging Aaron to a race through it. Then I was unable to fit through the inflatable bars.

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We walked into Wegmans the other day and there was this huge display advertising **Live Lobsters**. It was a big bin full of ice, which appeared to be melting all over the floor. And the lobsters were not there. We managed to escape unscathed, but who knows what happened after we left.

"It's raining water play!"

Daddy

I don't know how this happened, but as I've mentioned, Aaron's birthday has somehow oozed into taking up a good six months of the year. So the thing about Father's Day is that is gives him one more day to go around muttering about My Special Day. Nonetheless, he was very kind and even went in on the vegetarian plate-sharing when we went out to dinner with friends this evening rather than using the opportunity to get a big pile of meat as per usual.

We smuggled his presents (a very manly diaper bag and a terabyte of storage)(he was also going to get me that last one for my birthday)(which is coming up, take notice) to Niagara falls, right under the noses of border security. They only started getting suspicious on our way home, when they realized that although we looked like we were all could be related, 4 out of 5 people in the car had different last names. Luckily David (pics of the trip here) was kind enough to admit to knowing the rest of us, and Dylan was kind enough to pipe down, despite her strongly expresses wish to chat with the policeman.

The view from our hotel room was amazing, and we could see, although not photograph very impressively, both sides of the falls.




Luckily the view in the room worked a little better. Dylan gives the daddying several thumbs up.





Happy Father's Day

Maid of the Mist

We are headed to Niagara Falls this morning. I'm pretty sure we don't need to leave town to get that "misted on" experience, but as long as we made plans... Dylan asked if the waterfall would be coming down on our heads. I think the answer is: only if something goes fairly wrong.

Sorry for the lack of posting this past week. This time my excuse is not an intense week at school or a non-sleeping child or having taken to my bed in some kind of malaise. I was...watching the entire first season of Gossip Girl. Trashy, yes, but I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Season 2 isn't out on DVD yet, so I'm cut off for the moment.

I've been blogging enough lately that I am back to walking around thinking of stuff to post all the time, but I think the pregnancy brain has kicked in sufficiently that I can't remember any of it long enough to get to the computer. Other evidence: I went to feed Snuffy the other morning and I filled his bowl up with water instead; I carefully made an appointment for my mandatory school physical during a light day and totally forgot to go; see above re: Gossip Girl.

I may have made up a game called Fetus Feud when I had to give a presentation on postpartum hemorrhage (I like a little irony in my presentation topics). And the team names may have been, um, those of human gametes. Side note: med students, they like their games with lots of rules, strictly enforced.

Speaking of Fetuses, this one is having the big reveal a week from yesterday. Feel free to speculate wildly in the comments. I'll do an official pool with birth day etc later.

Saturday

This was our first and likely last weekend to tool around at home in months. My goal was just to relax and do some house projects, but now that I'm going through everything I don't know if relaxing is actually the right word.

Saturday
A trip to the public market: always entertaining to watch Dylan eat a breakfast sandwich as big as her head. We also pressed our noses up against a future satellite site of the Little Bakery that's supposed to open in a couple weeks.

We think sort of linearly, so then we went to the actual Little Bakery: treats for everyone. And an invitation to visit the fire house to see a fire truck.

Then to the coffee shop. Aaron requires this one kind of coffee beans from this one place in town to make his fancy cold brew coffee. One could accuse him of putting on airs.

Nap time: for me, not Dylan. Who knows what madness went on during this time. I know there was skyping involved and I vaguely wondered why there were so many people downstairs.

A bike ride to a playground in the park. We can still shove Dylan into the iBert so we can all go biking together. She likes to swing at the playground, and swing, and swing. It's not in fact that much fun for those of use doing the pushing. I also pushed Aaron, who was not on a swing, just for some variety.

Nap time: Dylan edition.

Open house for our friends to show off their chicken coop. Okay, they called it an open coop. We figured if they're opening their house to the public they would have to let us in.

There was a little festival in the one of the suburbs that we thought we would check out for dinner. I remember it from last year and it was...unimpressive, which I mentioned to Aaron as we were walking in, to his delight. We did get some yummy food, but the main thing we all got out of it was the following conversation once we got home:
Dylan: You know that guy? With the red nose? And the scooter? He was talking to me?
Kate: You mean the clown?
D: I no like him!
K: That's okay, he's probably home now.
D: eyes neighborhood suspiciously
K: I don't think he lives there, you should be okay.

The other important part of the festival is that it was right next to a tea house that we first went to a few weeks ago. It has a lot of fancy chocolate treats that I haven't seen anywhere else in town. This time it turned out to be going out of business, with everything 60-80% off. I had a hard time containing myself, and am now the proud owner of many many chocolate items.

Saturday night: I went through a year and a half's worth of papers that were threatening to bury the guest room. Never fear, the deed to the house, title to the car, and our marriage license are now accounted for. As always, I now how to party.

The evidence

I am sorry to report that Dylan and Maya were involved in some unfortunate...business.

Either a terrible crime was committed, or they were turned into gingerbread girls. Mm, gingerbread.

Then Dylan tried to swipe Maya's two-week-old brother, but we got him back. She's only 27 pounds.

Waiting for Daddy

A ploy to get out of having one's nails cut by hiding in the corner studiously reading the phone book

She has been working on perfecting her smile for the camera. I have never, ever told her to smile for the camera. But she's at least progressed a bit from squished up devil face to looking like she should be selling something. Phone book ad space maybe?

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I am enjoying answering 1.5 when people ask how many kids I have, especially since people who don't know me can't tell about the new one yet. Ever since I had Dylan acquaintances at school have acted like they can't possibly keep track of how many children I have and lord knows how many it must be at this point.

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I told Dylan the baby was kicking me and she asked if she should kick me now too.

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I have been minimizing her daycare time this week since my schedule is lighter, and I think spending more time with me is really helping her feel better. But really, I would think the same could be said of anyone who got to spend more time with me, am I right?

would be even jitterier if i drank coffee

One thing about having to get up really early is that it's a little hard to de-program myself. So already this morning I have been running, had breakfast, fed Snuffy, bought some stuff online (side note: do you all go searching for random online coupons before ordering stuff? I would say 80% of the time I get 10-20% off or free shipping from all different places, it's very satisfying), and now I'm wondering why Dylan is sleeping in so late. Something to do with the two hours of exhausted screaming before falling asleep last night, I'm guessing. New strategy for today: give her something to actually cry about. Aaron went up last night to check on her and came down to her yelling even louder, so I did have to ask if he had just gone up and pinched her. He claims not.

Long, and long

Eventually, if I don't post for long enough, I not only lose the ability to string together coherent thoughts, but also the ability to remember all the things I think of to write about. Which pretty much leaves us with stream of consciousness. Should be thrilling, read on.

Dylan has morphed into some kind of actual child, who understands all the words and knows what's going on all the time and gets embarrassed when I tell embarrassing stories about her in front of her. Hm, I wonder if that translates to the internet? I guess we'll have to wait until she can read to figure that one out. Although she actually really wants to read right now, I think she's got a while before that's going to work for her. Her favorite thing to do at the moment is sit at the computer and have me spell words that she types out on the keyboard.

Any new level of functioning has been accompanied by a total loss of ability to GET A GRIP. She cries about everything, she argues extensively whenever I tell her no (quote from today: "Mommy, yes, or yes?"), she tells us she's hungry every evening thirty seconds after she swears she's done with dinner. She just seems unable to calm herself down whenever things happen, or don't happen, or might happen. Trying to help her not be a miserable ball of pathetic is tough, and it's almost like dealing with a whole different person than we're used to. She still yells NO THANK YOU when she's angry because that's what they say at daycare. It's hard to argue with that. But really, I almost can't tell sometimes whether to be stricter or more patient.

Snuffy, in comparison, still seems better trained than ever. The other little human one is behaving itself as well, with only the occasional cessation of all of my gastrointestinal functions. Are you not supposed to compare your children and/or pets? Because that's not going to work out. Relatedly, Dylan has been asking not only about whether she is getting a brother or a sister, but also keeps confirming, "Snuffy my brother?"

This last rotation was hard. I was getting up before 5am a lot of mornings and spending a lot of time cutting sutures in the OR. You really honestly get judged on how attentive you are with the suture scissors. The last case I was in went about three hours longer than anyone thought it would, and required a lot of contortions to retract things appropriately, in addition to the requisite not eating, drinking, or peeing. I think we're all comfortable with my decision not to head into any kind of surgical specialty at this point, am I right? I'm not even going to tell you what the surgery was for because, ew.

We just got back from a very nice family wedding, in which the groom, who I have known for many years, came up and introduced himself to me so sincerely that I was pretty much speechless except to proclaim that hey! you know me! He was in fact kidding, which is lucky if for no other reason than his own mental functioning. The weekend was also marked by Aaron getting to stay out drinking until the wee hours, which I am always happy to facilitate since I don't like staying up very late, so it's like I'm doing a public service. Although Aaron's mental state today has been: absent, so I may reconsider my commitment to such service in the future. I will not even tell you what my brother considers to be service to the community, but perhaps he should consider more dietary fiber.

Enough? That was probably enough. Goal for tomorrow: fewer words, more lucidity.