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It's being called the "American Tsunami". The devastation I see on the news is just still too unimaginable. Your home, your place of work, your whole town just *poof* gone. A whole city unlivable. I feel so sad for these people.
In a way, it feels like it did after 9/11: our whole country is holding its breath and saying prayers, not yet knowing how bad the damage really is or how many missing people are dead. The whole country will be feeling the pain too. I had no idea how vital the gulf was to our oil supply...we ALL do now.
Please do what you can to help:
Donate to the Red Cross They are leading the way in helping the human victims.
Donate to The Humane Society of the United States They are rescuing the pets left behind in this disaster, they need all the help they can get!
Send positive mojo. Pray, meditate, commune with the universe, dod what you do to send some love to these people. So aside from killing fish (see below) I now have an inner ear infection. Basically lack of sleep has left me prone to every nasty bug around so I got a viral infection that affects my inner ear. You know that feeling when you are really drunk (think back to high school) and you finally lay down on your bed but the world is spinning. Yea, well that is me but with no cool drinking story.
Jason had to come home early from work to take me to the Family Practice Clinic. That was embarrassing, seeing everyone he works with and I have to be in a wheelchair because I am too dizzy to walk. Frack! So they can't give me anything for it because I am breastfeeding, and this may last a few weeks. I killed a little girl's fish (see below) and now I am going to be off balance and dizzy for potentially weeks.
What else could go wrong? Well then MY FAMILY comes over to take care of me. Enough said.
So it the midst of all this Alanna is waking up every hour on the hour at night. Hence the sleep deprivation. So yesterday after reading the baby sleep habits book for the millionth time I decided to let her cry it out...at only 6 weeks of age. It worked so well. She cried for 20 minutes and then slept for FOUR HOURS! Weeeee! I feel as happy as a little girl again! I got four hours of continuous sleep! Then after her 2 AM feeding I got THREE MORE HOURS! Holy fuck nuggets Batman! We'll see if it works again today. Cross your fingers. So everyone knows I am an animal lover. No secret there. So when my next door neighbor wants us to watch their goldfish I think it's no problem, afterall we took care of it for a few days last month and Connor loved it.
All was going well until 2:30 AM a few days ago. I am in the living room feeding Alanna when I hear a *splash, thump thump*. I turn on the light to find that the fish has jumped out of it's bowl...that's over 6 feet high off of the entertainment center! The fish was looking very dead on the carpet, but I rushed it to the kitchen and put it in some water where it quickly revived. I see that the fish bowl is cloudy, so I refill it with clean water and think all is well. Till it floated to the top later that afternoon.
This is the pet of Connor's best friend, who named it Dorothy after Elmo's fish. I killed a toddler's fish! I am literally dizzy with exhaustion but I rush over to Pestmart with a dead fish in a ziplock bag to replace the little girl's pet. The man there said "See that empty tank over there? That's where those goldfish usually are, we're out of them." Fricking great. I get a fish somewhat smaller that the original and two-toned instead of just orange. Then he tells me that I killed the fish with my tap water, and that I needed to neutralize the water first with a special product (which I then had to buy).
The parents laugh about it fortunately, but I still feel pretty bad. The father even said he'd had a goldfish commit suicide too.
Have you ever had a fish commit suicide? Please remind me of this story every time I say that we want to get Connor a goldfish for Christmas ok. NO GOLDFISH!
Alanna is one month old now! Yea!!!!
Tonight brother and sister took a bath together (with Daddy's help). Tonight was also Connor's first nosebleed. He thought it was fun and wanted to paint with it, so we dumped him in the bath. Alanna smelled like old milk and had lots of elbow and leg cheese so Daddy brought her in as well. Hopefully the nosebleed is not a reoccurring event, but the group bath may turn out to be. Fun was had by all. Connor gave his sister lots of kisses and loved the extra attention. Alanna just kicked back and enjoyed the bath with a happy, mellow look on her face. Thought you might want to see some pictures. You know that phase when you have a newborn? You go through what seems to be an endless cycle of cry, feed, change diaper, soothe, sleep. I can tell "feed" is next on the cycle because my boobs hurt...precursor to "cry" on the cycle. I am in a timewarp, time is either too fast or too slow, either way I am way out of touch with reality. All I know is nap or no nap. I am in a rare double child nap stage. I have no idea what to do with my free time. Can you tell?
Leaving the house seems so hard! Getting both children dressed, fed, clothed, diapers changed, baby bag packed and putting on my own clothes is a process that takes about 2 hours if I am fast. Just breastfeeding Alanna takes an hour at this point between latching her on, burping her, re-latching, re-latching, re-latching, re-latching. Man pumping was easier.
My days are very busy, but not very interesting. Jason comes home from work and asks me about my day, concentrating on talking with another adult AND thinking of something interesting to say is beyond me many times. UM. "Well Connor and I watched the 'Blue's Clues' movie about the transition between Joe and Steve today. I like Steve better than Joe, even though Joe is good too. Must be hard to act against a blue screen all the time. Too bad Steve had to go to 'college', wonder what he is doing now." Yea, that is my life.
Alanna turns 4 weeks old tomorrow! Wow! It is hard to believe that she is only 4 weeks, yet the ouchy feeling I still have when I sit down tells me that I gave birth only 4 weeks ago.
Ugh. Whoever likes this newborn phase is crazy. Sure she is cute, but I bet she will look ten times cuter to me when I can look at her after a full night of sleep!
Here are the latest pictures. The newborn honeymoon is over, she is starting to not sleep through the night as well as she did in the first week. I have been reading through my baby sleep habits book for the remedy but I know that babies have no sleep patterns to work with at this age other than "I am a newborn and I do what I want".
Tonight is Jason's 1st 24-hour shift since Alanna was born. Eeek! The Baby Whisperer has left me for the evening. Hope the baby goes easy on me.
In a way, it feels like it did after 9/11: our whole country is holding its breath and saying prayers, not yet knowing how bad the damage really is or how many missing people are dead. The whole country will be feeling the pain too. I had no idea how vital the gulf was to our oil supply...we ALL do now.
Please do what you can to help:
Donate to the Red Cross They are leading the way in helping the human victims.
Donate to The Humane Society of the United States They are rescuing the pets left behind in this disaster, they need all the help they can get!
Send positive mojo. Pray, meditate, commune with the universe, dod what you do to send some love to these people. So aside from killing fish (see below) I now have an inner ear infection. Basically lack of sleep has left me prone to every nasty bug around so I got a viral infection that affects my inner ear. You know that feeling when you are really drunk (think back to high school) and you finally lay down on your bed but the world is spinning. Yea, well that is me but with no cool drinking story.
Jason had to come home early from work to take me to the Family Practice Clinic. That was embarrassing, seeing everyone he works with and I have to be in a wheelchair because I am too dizzy to walk. Frack! So they can't give me anything for it because I am breastfeeding, and this may last a few weeks. I killed a little girl's fish (see below) and now I am going to be off balance and dizzy for potentially weeks.
What else could go wrong? Well then MY FAMILY comes over to take care of me. Enough said.
So it the midst of all this Alanna is waking up every hour on the hour at night. Hence the sleep deprivation. So yesterday after reading the baby sleep habits book for the millionth time I decided to let her cry it out...at only 6 weeks of age. It worked so well. She cried for 20 minutes and then slept for FOUR HOURS! Weeeee! I feel as happy as a little girl again! I got four hours of continuous sleep! Then after her 2 AM feeding I got THREE MORE HOURS! Holy fuck nuggets Batman! We'll see if it works again today. Cross your fingers. So everyone knows I am an animal lover. No secret there. So when my next door neighbor wants us to watch their goldfish I think it's no problem, afterall we took care of it for a few days last month and Connor loved it.
All was going well until 2:30 AM a few days ago. I am in the living room feeding Alanna when I hear a *splash, thump thump*. I turn on the light to find that the fish has jumped out of it's bowl...that's over 6 feet high off of the entertainment center! The fish was looking very dead on the carpet, but I rushed it to the kitchen and put it in some water where it quickly revived. I see that the fish bowl is cloudy, so I refill it with clean water and think all is well. Till it floated to the top later that afternoon.
This is the pet of Connor's best friend, who named it Dorothy after Elmo's fish. I killed a toddler's fish! I am literally dizzy with exhaustion but I rush over to Pestmart with a dead fish in a ziplock bag to replace the little girl's pet. The man there said "See that empty tank over there? That's where those goldfish usually are, we're out of them." Fricking great. I get a fish somewhat smaller that the original and two-toned instead of just orange. Then he tells me that I killed the fish with my tap water, and that I needed to neutralize the water first with a special product (which I then had to buy).
The parents laugh about it fortunately, but I still feel pretty bad. The father even said he'd had a goldfish commit suicide too.
Have you ever had a fish commit suicide? Please remind me of this story every time I say that we want to get Connor a goldfish for Christmas ok. NO GOLDFISH!
Alanna is one month old now! Yea!!!!
Tonight brother and sister took a bath together (with Daddy's help). Tonight was also Connor's first nosebleed. He thought it was fun and wanted to paint with it, so we dumped him in the bath. Alanna smelled like old milk and had lots of elbow and leg cheese so Daddy brought her in as well. Hopefully the nosebleed is not a reoccurring event, but the group bath may turn out to be. Fun was had by all. Connor gave his sister lots of kisses and loved the extra attention. Alanna just kicked back and enjoyed the bath with a happy, mellow look on her face. Thought you might want to see some pictures. You know that phase when you have a newborn? You go through what seems to be an endless cycle of cry, feed, change diaper, soothe, sleep. I can tell "feed" is next on the cycle because my boobs hurt...precursor to "cry" on the cycle. I am in a timewarp, time is either too fast or too slow, either way I am way out of touch with reality. All I know is nap or no nap. I am in a rare double child nap stage. I have no idea what to do with my free time. Can you tell?
Leaving the house seems so hard! Getting both children dressed, fed, clothed, diapers changed, baby bag packed and putting on my own clothes is a process that takes about 2 hours if I am fast. Just breastfeeding Alanna takes an hour at this point between latching her on, burping her, re-latching, re-latching, re-latching, re-latching. Man pumping was easier.
My days are very busy, but not very interesting. Jason comes home from work and asks me about my day, concentrating on talking with another adult AND thinking of something interesting to say is beyond me many times. UM. "Well Connor and I watched the 'Blue's Clues' movie about the transition between Joe and Steve today. I like Steve better than Joe, even though Joe is good too. Must be hard to act against a blue screen all the time. Too bad Steve had to go to 'college', wonder what he is doing now." Yea, that is my life.
Alanna turns 4 weeks old tomorrow! Wow! It is hard to believe that she is only 4 weeks, yet the ouchy feeling I still have when I sit down tells me that I gave birth only 4 weeks ago.
Ugh. Whoever likes this newborn phase is crazy. Sure she is cute, but I bet she will look ten times cuter to me when I can look at her after a full night of sleep!
Here are the latest pictures. The newborn honeymoon is over, she is starting to not sleep through the night as well as she did in the first week. I have been reading through my baby sleep habits book for the remedy but I know that babies have no sleep patterns to work with at this age other than "I am a newborn and I do what I want".
Tonight is Jason's 1st 24-hour shift since Alanna was born. Eeek! The Baby Whisperer has left me for the evening. Hope the baby goes easy on me.