A Hairy Situation

Dylan is devouring books lately. It makes it hard to read to her. She cries unless the book is actually in her mouth. Then she cries again because she can't get MORE of the book into her mouth. Stupid baby. Chill out kid, have a beer.














I got my hair cut yesterday. Usually when I need a haircut, plan A is to badger Annie into doing it. She thoughtlessly fled the country, so that's out. Plan B is to wander into the mall and get someone there to do it, but I haven't done that since we moved to Rochester so I don't even know of such a place here. So I had to go with plan C, which is to go to an actual freestanding salon. Well, freestanding except that it shares a building with Abbott's Custard (closed for the season, but ask at the salon if you want to buy a pint!). I wasn't thrilled about that because when I go to the mall they usually laugh at me because when was the last time I got a haircut? And why is it so uneven? But the nice man at the salon, let's call him Mabel, didn't laugh at me at all and did a great job when I wasn't really sure what I wanted him to do. So I says to Mabel, my sister is in the Peace Corps in Morocco, and he's like, oh I have a Moroccan friend here. He's a Jew and he left when they started killing Jews. How about that hair, I said.

When I was in the waiting area I was leafing through a Marie Claire and I saw a blurb that said "get the cover look -- $250." I turned to the cover and...the woman wasn't wearing any clothes.

I think "layers" = "glorified mullet" but I still like it. Some of you may recall the incident my freshman year of college where I got my hair cut really short and looked like a 10-year-old boy, according to some. I think now I've progressed to 14-year-old boy, but you can judge for yourselves:

Daycare: the Prequel

We took Dylan to meet everyone in her daycare room this morning. They were excited because they only have one other girl right now. Dylan wowed them with her blank stare the entire time. It is just as nice as I remembered it -- all the babies were happy and the girls taking care of them seem great. One reason I have been so worried about the bottle was that at the other daycare we were using as a backup, they pretty much threatened me that if she wouldn't take a bottle by the time she started, well, they couldn't make any promises. When I asked about that this morning they were like, well, you work right here don't you? We'll just call if we have any trouble. One of them said how petite Dylan was. I said no, she's actually really big and the girl said, oh, it must just be her small head then (insert pinhead jokes here).

Aaron had a dream last night, the upshot of which was that he could have gotten a Wii if only he had decided to get one right away from that table over there. By the time he got back, they were gone.

Snuffy went to the vet this morning to get his lyme disease test. He is much less skittish than he used to be, but at the vet he continues to be terrified. Especially of the scale, which is just a big mat he has to walk onto. He must have some body image issues.

Happy Birthday Josh

Oops, I mean Unkie Herb. Sorry to blow your cover.

Nearing another breakthrough?

Since Dylan's favorite thing to do is now grabbing things, putting them in her mouth, and sucking, we're having a little more luck with the bottle. She drank about an ounce from it today, which isn't much, but it's better than zero ounces. I'm hoping over the weekend she gets it down better.

Yesterday day she was in such a happy mood all day. She hardly cried at all and smiled at everything I did. Which was nice since the day before she cried at everything I did.

wii wii wii all the way home

Aaron wants the new Nintendo game system, the Wii. Of course, he doesn't say that to people. He says, "I want a Wii." Which has led to many conversations like this:

Aaron: I want a Wii.
Innocent Bystander: What?
Aaron: I want a Wii.
IB: What?
Kate: For the love of god, he wants the new Nintendo game system.

And the Wii is the ONLY thing he wants as a gift. And they all sold out the first day they came out in like one second.

Dylan is really grabbing for things now.

It is cool, but also a little creepy, like if an amoeba suddenly reached out and started grabbing things. It has also led to immediate frustration with not really being able to bend her hands to her will beyond the first grab. As far as I can tell, her will is to stuff large objects into her mouth. It has made playing with toys more fun, though. And by "playing with" I mean "eating." The second I decided toys would be fun, the house was instantly coated in a thin layer of them:
Snuffy also likes the toys. And by "likes" I mean "eats." Actually, he is pretty good about knowing which toys are the baby's and not destroying them. He seems to just want to snuggle them.

Let's hear you roar now, lion.

Tired and Grumpy

Last night, not as good. When the baby is hungry I feel I have to feed her, even if it makes her go to bed later. I am a sucker.

Here's one more story from Thanksgiving. My mom and Tommy were standing excitedly over the meat thermometer. When the temperature reached 160 they let out a happy cheer. Suddenly, a third voice joined in the cheer. It was Dylan. Crying. Because they had woken her up. Jerks.

The running is going well. It is getting easier really quickly and I am still enjoying it a lot.

Snuffy is still recovering from all the playing last weekend.

Addendum: Snuffy is so tired he didn't even leap to his feet to investigate when the doorbell rang on TV.

Here's the picture

Okay, so it's not her best angle in that it accentuates her four chins, but she is one happy baby.

Breakthroughs

Oh my goodness, so much to talk about. Whoops, that sounded like the Church Lady, didn't it? Dylan has gone to bed before 11 for the past three nights. I think we may be onto something here. The trick seems to be that no matter how tempting it is, I can't let her fall asleep while she's eating because she will wake up in a puddle of vomit within the hour, guaranteed. Tonight we got her down at 9:30. I am so excited. And once she's asleep she's been staying down for 10-11 hours, sometimes 12. Let's hope this keeps up. Now we just have to get her to take a bottle in the next week before daycare starts.

In the car on the way home she batted at her lion toy to make it sing. On purpose. She has been swatting at things for the past week or so, but this seemed more directed. She's not real coordinated, but she was awfully proud of herself.

We had a great day in Tully today. The weather was just perfect and we got to have a nice lunch with Poppy Joe, Josh & Laura, and Melanie & David. Despite my months of effort, David managed to effortlessly take the best picture of Dylan smiling ever, so let's all encourage him to send it to me to post. We also celebrated the start of the week leading up to Josh's birthday with a cake and a singing candle. Since we saw Nana yesterday Dylan has been having lots of great-grandparent time.

A Video

I believe Annie mentioned at one point that she was confused about why the blog isn't all about her. One reason is that she's not here. Another reason is that IT'S ALL ABOUT ME ME ME. And Dylan I suppose. Here's a video I made for her since I'm not sure how well they do Thanksgiving in Morocco:

Happy 35th Anniversary (observed)

Thanks for the cake!

And the eating continues

Snuffy has been running with a herd of wild dogs the past couple of days. All my mom's friends have dogs so now she fits in, at least for a few days. Yesterday it was really gorgeous and we felt like we were walking through a movie.



















Dylan tried to camouflage herself just like Snuffy, but her outfit doesn't match the carpet as well:














Today we're having Thanksgiving the Second because we haven't made all the recipes we wanted to yet. There will be turkey, apple pie, and molten chocolate cake. I have made another couple loaves of bread in the past two days, but both of them were sort of flat. They still tasted good, sniff sniff. A lot of Trivial Pursuit, or TP as I call it, has been played.

12 Week Turkey

Dylan turned twelve weeks old yesterday, just in time to eat her for Thanksgiving. She lucked out though because we decided to cook duck instead.

Quilted suit courtesy of Cousin "You Have to Pee" Jill














We cooked and ate all day yesterday because that's what the pilgrims wanted us to do. Tommy made an elaborate stuffing that involved bacon and sausage (and he managed a yummy vegetarian version). My mom manned the duck and the sweet potatoes, which were emotional rollercoasters but ended up being delicioius. I did mashed regular potatoes, spinach with mushrooms and soy sauce, and a pumpkin pie. And Aaron made a checkerboard cake like his mom always makes:

Three layers of buttery goodness














We even caught a smile on film, or I suppose memory card is more correct:














My mom insisted on putting her hand in every single picture, lord knows why.

Jury Update

Wow, they have a quick turnaround time with the e-mails. And they are having none of this getting out of it altogether stuff. They made me pick the month this time so I couldn't try to wiggle out of it again. I do think it will be an interesting thing to do, it is just an incredibly inconvenient time right now.

Now I know I'm not alone

Thank you all for your support about my little bladder problem (see comments from the last post). It is so wonderful to have such an understanding community. I e-mailed the Monroe County jury guy (nothing but the facts, of course) and I'll give you an update when he gets back to me.

Dylan is still sleeping through the night like a champion but going to bed at times ranging from annoyingly late to ungodly hours I don't like to know exist. Nothing I have done has been able to change this in any way. I think a big part of the problem is that she falls asleep nursing only to wake up again 20-30 minutes later when she needs to spit up.

I made a loaf of bread with this cool recipe introduced to us with a wonderful loaf from Ali and Tom. It came out perfectly:

Snuffy thought so too (this was taken 10 minutes later):

As long as we're being supportive, Aaron has a strange elfin growth on top of his head. Please don't mention it to him, he is very sensitive about it.

That's what I get for voting

I am going to be on a Grand Jury. Loyal readers may recall that I was first scheduled to do this during my ninth month of pregnancy. I declined, so they decided to punish me by having me do it during the month Aaron has off between classes and during my final few weeks before going back to work so that there is no way we can leave town except for short trips. The dates I have to appear are December 13th, 14th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 29th, January 2nd, 5th, and 8th. Nice. And they don't even reimburse for parking. I suspect they will not have a nice quiet nook aside from the bathroom where I can pump. I think I'll call and try to get out of it.

Where's Snuffy

See, like Where's Waldo, only with Snuffy? He runs and snuggles up to any baby-related item within his reach. He keeps curling up on this little blanket when we put it on the floor for Dylan to flop around on.

She keeps trying to suck her thumb but ends up sucking in half her fist most of the time. I'll try to get a good picture of it. Since she can see farther and farther it is even getting harder to get a good picture of her face because she spots the camera across the room.

Dylan plots her next move

The five stages of inching along on the floor

Denial















Anger















Bargaining















Depression














Acceptance

Look someone took a picture of me

I assume you've been wanting to know how the insurance situation is going. It's my new hobby, actually. I have all the paperwork next to my model trains and stamps. The meeting went well as far as I could tell, although there was some confusion about whether student loans are income. If it is, if I take a cash advance on my credit card is that income? Awesome. So hypothetically everything should be all set and we'll get the card in December and I won't have to deal with this for, oh, a few weeks until I go back to work and my income changes and I'll have to figure that out then. Plus we got the bill for the fancy insurance, which was lots and lots of money, but at least we all had insurance the whole time and that was was I was going for. Bleeech, enough already. I'll even stop posting about this unless something interesting happens.

I'm ready to trade Dylan in for a new one because she won't go to sleep for me anymore. I hand her over to Aaron, he walks her around the house for 30 seconds, sings the wrong words to Baby Beluga, and she's out. Every single time. Her night sleep has been pretty consistent for the past month -- she goes to bed later than I want to, but consistently sleeps for many many hours. Her naps are getting more regular some days, although others she just can't seem to stay asleep.

The squirrelling hour

When I took Snuffy jogging yesterday there were one million squirrels that needed chasing. They each stood by a tree up and down the whole block so that when he chased one to the base of one tree, the next squirrel would take off toward the next tree. He is really good on a leash in general, but no amount of training has been able to quash the enthusiastic squirrel chasing. So I got dragged around for several blocks, which was embarrassing and made me run faster than I wanted to.

A little more about the daycare. I didn't think there was any way we would get a spot at this place before I went back to work so we would have to start at another place first. The other place is much farther from our house and the route gets bad traffic in rush hour (well, for Rochester) and we would have to switch after a couple of months and I wouldn't have been able to visit during the day and we didn't like it as much anyway. So I am happy happy happy about this. I think we'll probably just bring her there half days in December since I'm still off and Aaron finishes the 18th, so I'll be able to get work done and have some baby free time but still also have plenty of baby time.

Yay!!!!!

I just got a call that Dylan got a spot at the daycare place next to my building! This is so great. We have to take the spot in December even though I'm not going back until January, but I think that might be good so we can ease into it. The woman called just as my head was about to explode from trying to work and watch the baby at the same time, so I feel a lot better. I'll be able to go nurse and visit any time I want, so it should be a relatively painless transition.

my new habit

If you have seen me in real life lately, you probably know that I have taken to jogging. It's not something I have ever been able to do before because I get bored. I can't stand to be bored for any amount of time, so it never seemed like an option for exercise. Instead I trick myself into running around by doing team sports. Suddenly, though, I'm able to jog, and I am really enjoying it. I think it's a nice break from being in the house a lot of the day, and I also finally learned that you're supposed to start off slow enough that you can actually keep going the whole time. The first time I went I could barely lift up my legs, but now it's looking more like a jog than a shuffle. I should be able to go three miles (s l o w l y) by next week. I think I'll sign up for a 5k to get myself to keep doing it. It's also a great way to wear out dogface.

Dylan seems like she's using her arms more on purpose lately. She has been clingy and fussy again the past couple of days, as predicted by this book I've been reading. Today she seemed to snap out of it again. She is really alert and pretty happy most of the time she is awake now. I was chewing gum yesterday and she started chomping around too.

Dylan wears the Cute Little Girl snowsuit
in only the most hip and ironic manner














At least I got Aaron to smile for the camera

The dogs, they are big and scary and numerous

I am still impressed with how much Dylan likes music, which has been true since she was born. Which is too bad since I can't sing to save my life and Aaron, while much more pleasant to listen to, sings the wrong lyrics to most songs. Current favorites are Janis Joplin and the former Cat Stevens.

I am still frustrated with taking pictures of Dylan's face. Often they don't really look like her or they're too dark or she puts on her blank camera stare if she sees me before I take the picture. This one isn't too bad though and is how she spends a lot of the day, just looking around with her huge eyes.

She's watching you

We had an indoor doggie playdate yesterday because it's so muddy out. I'm a little worried they're plotting to kill me in my sleep. They're just sitting to make me think I'm in charge.

Dogs From Hell

Snuffs

Check it out, Snuffy found mini-him:














And mini-mini-him:














And our little cocktail napkin fell asleep:














We had a nice day yesterday cooking and eating lots of yummy food. Oh yeah except for the million hours Aaron had to work because his professor announced last Thursday that a big research paper is due this Thursday. Grumble grumble grumble again.

Also, it turned out Blogger Beta was lying to me and did publish my posts (it's said Unable to Complete Request every time I've hit Publish) but just told me it didn't. We're really not starting out on a foundation of trust here. No means yes, Blogger?

grumble grumble grumble

So Blogger made me jump through some hoops this morning to switch to their new Beta version.

New Features! Less Annoying! More reliable!

I wrote my nice little post and went to publish it and...Unable to Complete Request

I hit the back button and my post was gone gone gone. I'll more reliable you, Blogger.

a few stories from today

Remember how we had such success with getting Dylan to take a bottle? Like, a month ago? And now it's like a month later? Well, now she DOES NOT want to take a bottle. And she will be starting daycare in January. So I guess we had better get on that. I got her to do it yesterday by switching between nursing and a bottle before she could figure out what hit her.

I had to go to a training session for a new electronic medical record system at the hospital today. They keep finding me for mandatory things like that even though I am on leave and not getting paid and not officially a student. But it is easier to just attend than to deal with getting out of it. Anyway, they had technical difficulties (is that ironic? when the technical training session doesn't work? or is that just par for the course?) and it started a half hour late and Aaron was at home with little Timb Bomb who could want to eat any time.

The hospital has a lot of construction going on. On the way up the path to the door there are signs and arrows everywhere saying to use the pedestrian walkway. But as far as I can tell you have to walk in the street because there is no pedestrian walkway.

We got a $500 bill in the mail today from the pediatrician. I fixed it with a couple of phone calls, but this is getting intimidating. I am hunting and gathering materials for our insurance meeting next week.

Aaron Speaks Too

And in Motherese, no less.

We tried to video Dylan copying Aaron saying hello but of course it didn't work. She does smile in this video quite a bit though, especially in the first few seconds. Her tongue sort of gets in the way of things.



Aaron says: Notice how my big schnozz keeps on sneaking into the frame.

Whining

Our Adventures in Insurance continue.

1) Last week we got a $1500 bill from the hospital, despite having called and given them our insurance information the week before. After an hour on the phone they worked it out and said they would bill the insurance company again. So they'll probably bill us for it again next week.

2) On Thursday (11/2) we got a phone message from Dylan's new insurance saying she has (finally) been approved, but we need to meet with a representative and since it took so long (we still don't know why) we need to do it by November 1st or they will cancel it. I am not so good with the time travel, but she actually meant December 1st and it turns out the real deadline is November 15th. We got the actual insurance card Saturday though, so we're going to go run up a lot of medical bills right now just for fun.

3) The student insurance advisor at school has been spectacularly unhelpful through most of this. When I went to change mine and Aaron's insurances on the computer once Dylan's came through, as I had been instructed by her, she required several e-mails to understand why I was doing it that way.

4) The real cliffhanger is how much we'll end up paying for the fancy insurance that we needed for September and October. Who knows when we'll find that out.

Here's a sleeping baby picture to make me feel better:

She speaks

The other day Aaron told me he had gotten Dylan to copy him when he said hello. I didn't really believe him because of the compulsive lying, but then I actually saw him do it a couple of times. You will not believe him either. But it is actually pretty cool. He says Hello in a sing songy kind of voice and then Dylan tries to say it also and it doesn't work very well, but she is clearly trying to copy what he is doing. We have also noticed that she sometimes copies our hand movements or facial expressions. But not on command of course, she's not our circus monkey you know.

I think she is having another growth spurt because she has been eating and eating nonstop for the past couple of days. She has also been waking up earlier in the morning and is really hungry. Just what we need, for her to get even bigger.

Hello

Weekend Update

We did lots of fun stuff this weekend and I don't think I've fully recovered yet.

Friday night Aaron escaped the nagging drudgery of the house to go see the Borat movie while Dylan and I had girls' night in, which is not too different than girls' nights in plus Aaron. And Snuffy, but he's pretty girly what with those devastatingly long legs and all.

Saturday Sarah and Gillian came up from the tri-state area for a sleepover/eating extravaganza. They are the kind of houseguests that do all the dishes, wash their own sheets, escort us grocery shopping, cook their own food, and care for the child. Come back anytime, guys! Even when they weren't waiting on us, we all had a great time. The only disappointment was that the fancy cheese store closed before we got our little mitts on all that cheese.

Sunday Tommy had a regatta here so Gran And Gramps E were in town. They are the kind of houseguests that take us to brunch, pause, then order in dinner. They also came bearing Dylan's new snowsuits, purchased for $5 each. Pictures to come, but today it was 65 degrees and sunny out so not now.

I kicked Snuffy out into the yard for the moment because he whined to go out, I walked him, he didn't poop, then he started whining to go out again right away. Little twit. He HATES being in the yard alone so I'll take pity on him soon.

More diapers

Here is Green Eggs and Ham:














And farm animals:


















Snuffy has been training her to use her puppy eyes on me:














If they ever figure out to gang up on me I'll have to spend my whole day taking care of their every need. Oh wait.

Diapers

Before Dylan was born I ordered a bunch of different kinds of cloth diapers to see which ones work best. We've been using a mix of cloth and disposables since then because I didn't get enough cloth ones to last more than a day. She has outgrown most of the cloth ones in the past couple of weeks so I ordered the next size up and we have switched entirely to those. I also got cloth wipes and made up some wipe solution. So far it seems to be working pretty well. Here she is modeling a jungle print:















I'll post pictures of some of the others in the next few days.

In the dark times between the arrival of Gilmore Girls DVDs from Netflix I have been watching the first season of Lost because Tommy got it for Christmas last year, and as Aaron pointed out I like to take people's presents. That means I have been alternating between enjoying an irreverent take on life in a small town and all-consuming fear and anxiety when I am up with the baby at midnight and it's dark and the house is creaky and why would I keep doing that to myself?

If being a first child means having no one else around to push in front of you on the video camera then Dylan is not our first child

2 Month Visit

I have been making an effort to get out of the house with Dylan because I get antsy if I don't get out enough. In general once we get in the car and get going things have been fine and I've taken her all sorts of places with no trouble. So it is irritating to me that going to the pediatrician today has been one of our hardest outings. I had to fill out a ton of paperwork while holding her and wait for a long time in the exam room with her mostly naked and it was just generally stressful.

The visit went fine. I don't have anything I'm worried about now that I've worked through my elimination diet issues, and she's doing all the things they say two month olds should be doing (hint: not much). She impressed everyone with her delightful night sleeping marathons. Actually her naps have been getting better too. She doesn't wake up as much with gas. Today she slept for four hours in a row as her only nap, so I got to do some work and go jogging.

I let her be enrolled in a clinical trial to test a new vaccine against bacterial meningitis, which is one reason we were there for so long -- an hour and 45 minutes total. They gave me all the information and I agreed to do the study and then they said, oh, by the way, there's a half hour observation period before you can go home. That was a hard decision because on the one hand I am skeptical of the medical establishment and new drugs and vaccines and want no part of it and on the other hand I want to work in public health and do research that will rely entirely on people being willing to enroll in studies and it's a disease that kills babies and all. The three shots she got weren't fun and I've never seen her scream like that, but she was fine again within five minutes.

Snuffy had two of his (local) lady friends over today. Aaron and I both independently tried to photograph the three of them together, but it ended up looking mostly like this:














Also, I think miss Emma is really a muppet:

BabyFatReport 11.1.06

I was wrong. Her head is relatively small.

Head: 75th percentile
Weight: 11lbs15oz 90th percentile
Height: Didn't get the number, but >95th percentile

Full report on the visit later.